{UAH} THE FUNDAMENTAL CAUSES OF CONFLICTS IN AFRICA

The Fundamental Causes of Conflicts in Africa

The Fundamental Causes of Conflicts in Africa

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”When we kill a Rwandan, we fry up his penis and eat it. It makes your fearless. Would you like to try it?”

— An advisor to Rubaru Zabuloni, leader of a 7,000 militia in Congo’s war (cited in The Economist, May 24, 2003; p.23).

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Since the 1960s, more than 45 wars have raged in post colonial Africa. The vast majority of these wars have been intra-state. The few cases of inter-state war were:

The Tanzanian invasion of Uganda to topple the murderous imbecile, General Idi Amin in October 1978,

• Libyan incursions into Chad in May 1980,
• The Ethiopian-Eritrean war over worthless piece of real estate (1998-2000), and
• The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which has drawn armies from six African nations: Angola, Namibia, Chad, Uganda, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.

Africa’s brutal and endless civil wars or intra-state wars have little to do with colonial legacies, Western imperialism, artificial colonial borders, mineral wealth (mineral curse), nor tribalism but more to do with the struggle over POWER.. Somalia is ethnically homogenous, yet it imploded. None of Africa’s rebel leaders have sought or seek a redrawing of artificial colonial boundaries. Rebel leaders most often head straight to the city because that’s where POWER lies. Only two secessionist attempts succeeded: Eritrea from Ethiopia in 1993 and the creation of South Sudan in 2010. Other secessionist bids in Katanga (Congo in 1961), in Nigeria (Biafran War of 1967), in Cabinda in 1997, Madagascar in 2001, Casamance in Senegal and the Tuaregs in Mali (2012) all failed.

The civil wars are simply struggles for political power. The wars invariably pit a corrupt, incompetent and autocratic “government” on one side against a rebel/opposition group on the other seeking to dislodge that government from power. Matters get complicated when the rebel group splinters (as was the case in Liberia, Somalia and Sudan) or, worse, the factions seek foreign patrons — as in the Congo and Ivorian conflicts. But the basic integrity of the struggle remains the same: The quest for power. It has been the fundamental cause of conflicts in post colonial Africa.

The chief culprit has been the unitary state system, which centralizes power and the decision-making process. That defective system is a relic of the colonial model or the European system of governance. Politically, a large polity can be organized along three main lines:

• A unitary system of government, where decision-making is centralized in the capital city. This is the European model, where decisions are taken London, Paris, Brussels, Madrid, etc.
• A federal system of government, where the constituent states retain some powers but the center is more powerful – as in the American and Canadian models.
• A confederate system of government, where the center is weak and the constituent states can break away if they choose to. This was the characteristic feature of ancient “empires” and Switzerland today — a confederation of 26 cantons.

The unitary state system may be more suitable for Europeans because their nations consisted of citizens of single or homogenous ethnic stock but it is woefully unsuitable for a multi-ethnic African nation. Even in Europe, the unitary form of government is beginning to rupture. The Scots now have their own parliament. In the Netherlands the Walloons seek independence and the Basque in Spain are battling for separation. In Belgium, there are three linguistic groups – Dutch, Flemish and French-speaking Walloons – who seldom agree. They failed to form a government after parliamentary elections in June, 2010. Catalonia, Spain’s northeastern region, is set to be led by a government demanding greater fiscal autonomy from Madrid. There are many sub-cultures in Europe that are clamoring for autonomy. The European Union (EU) itself, built on a unitary concept and centralization of power in Brussels, appears to be floundering. Britain remains outside the EU; France wants EU powers to be more centralized, while Germany favors more decentralization. And the crisis in Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain is threatening break the EU apart.

Early settlers in America rejected the European model as they saw the concentration of power as a source of tyranny and, as such, the state as necessarily tyrannous. They sought to write a constitution that protects the people from the state. Not finding such a constitution in Europe, they looked elsewhere. “Immigrants arrived in colonial America seeking freedom and found it in the confederacies of the Iroquois and other Native nations” (Johansen, 2009). As Heath (2001) affirmed: “The United States was originally organized under a set of articles of confederation that included many of the principles that work so well in the Emirates and Switzerland. Where these principles survive, people prosper,”

The U.S. transitioned to a federal form of government after the American Civil War (1861–1865), also known as the Confederacy Wars. Eleven Southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America, also known as “the Confederacy.” Led by Jefferson Davis, the Confederacy fought against the United States (the Union), which was supported by all the free states (where slavery had been abolished) and by five slave states that became known as the border states. The war was over the expansion of slavery beyond the states in which it already existed and the issue of taxation. The Union forces won that war.

In ancient and medieval times, confederation was the most common form of political organization among different ethnic groups or nationalities. Two or more nations or ethnic groups may voluntarily come together and form a loose political organization to achieve a common goal – most often, mutual defense or blocking a rival group from gaining access to a particular trade route or the sea. The number of assenting nations can vary widely – from six in the Ga Kingdom to 54 in the Mayan Empire in Mesoamerica.

After independence, Africa’s nationalist leaders did not reject the unitary state system. With the possible exception of Nigeria, most African nations retained it. Matters were made much worse when Africa’s nationalist leaders stripped the system of checks and balances. Thus, the centralization of unchecked power and decision making process greatly enhanced the threat of dictatorship and tyranny.

The primary effect of centralizing power and decision-making was to transform the state into a “pot of gold, for which all sorts of groups competed to capture – competition which often degenerated into civil war. Once captured, power is then used to:

• Allocate resources to oneself, one’s cronies, ethnic/racial group, etc. – all others were excluded (the politics of exclusion in an apartheid-like fashion);
• Perpetuate oneself in office; and
• Squelch all dissent or opposition

As U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, noted in his April 16, 1998 Report to the Security Council:

“The nature of political power in many African States, together with real or perceived consequences of capturing and maintaining power, is a key source of conflicts across the African continent. It is frequently the case that political victory assumes a “winner-takes-all” form with respect to wealth and resources, patronage, and the prestige and prerogatives of office. A communal sense of advantage or disadvantage is often closely linked to this phenomenon, which is heightened in many cases by reliance on centralized and highly personalized forms of governance. Where there is insufficient accountability of leaders, lack of transparency in regimes, inadequate checks and balances, non-adherence to the rule of law, absence of peaceful means to change or replace leadership, or lack of respect for human rights, political control becomes excessively important, and the states become dangerously high. This situation is exacerbated when, as if often the case in Africa, the State is the major provider of employment and political parties are either regionally or ethnically based. In such circumstances, the multi-ethnic character of most African States makes conflict even more likely, leading to an often violent politicization of ethnicity.”(UN Report, April 16, 1998; page 3).

In the post colonial period, power was monopolized in:

• South Africa by whites (apartheid).
• In Rwanda under Juvenal Habryimana by Hutus and by Tutsis under Paul Kagame (tribal apartheid). in Burundi by the Tutsi; in pre-1999 Nigeria by the Hausa; in Cameroon by the Beti; in Togo by the Kabye;in Ethiopia by the Tigrayans. Etc
• In Sudan and Mauritania, by Arabs 9Arab apartheid),
• In Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, and Zimbabwe by one political party,
• In Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, CAR by the military.

Note that nearly all of the intra-state wars were started by politically excluded or marginalized groups. Those excluded from the gravy train or spoils of power have three options:

• Rise up in a rebel insurgency to wrestle power from the ruling bandits;
• Secede, as the Biafrans attempted to from Nigeria in 1967, resulting in a civil war that claimed more than 1 million lives. Talk of secession is occasionally heard in Yorubaland and the Delta states in Nigeria, as well as in Cabinda, an oil-rich enclave of Angola.
• Vote with their feet to become refugees elsewhere.

The Solution

It is clear that the fundamental causes of conflict within states are the unitary state systems that centralize power and decision-making process. Then the monopolization and use of that power to benefit oneself, relatives, cronies and tribesmen – to the total exclusion of all others. Back in 1988, the late President Felix Houphouet-Boigny declared: “There is no number 1, 2, 3 or 4. In Cote d’Ivoire there is only a number one: that’s me and I don’t share my decisions.”

Accordingly, he monopolized power for more than 30 years, advanced the economic interests of his Baule tribe people and excluded the northern Muslims. Eventually, thye Moslem North rose up in rebellion the country descended into civil war in 2005 and 2010.

The solution obviously is not to replace one form of apartheid with another: Muslim over Christians in Cote d’Ivoire, Tutsi over Hutu in Rwanda, etc. Nor break up each African country into its tribal components. Taken to the limit, Africa could well have over 1,500 Little Djiboutis – each with its own flag, currency, one-plane fleet airline and perhaps a Swiss bank account for the president. Neither does it require rotating the presidency between the North and the South –as in Nigeria. The real solution entails,

Dismantling the unitary stare system and adopting a federal or confederal forms of political configurations; and

• Practicing the politics of inclusion.

Dismantling the unitary state system essentially means decentralizing power and giving local authorities more autonomy. Kenya moved in this direction with a new Constitution in 2010/ In many other African countries, a new Constitution that purports to decentralize power may not be enough. A whole new type of political dispensation would have to be crafted and the vehicle for this is the Sovereign national conference. It is a modernization of a indigenous African institution – the village assembly – and was used to craft a new democratic order for Benin in 1990, Cape Verde Islands in 1991, Sao Tome and Principe in 1992, South Africa in 1993 and Zambia in 1992.

Sadly, some African leaders adamantly refuse to relinquish or share power, which makes more conflicts in Africa inevitable.

 

 

           Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
           Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"