DPMN Bulletin: Volume IX, Number 3, June 2002

From Angola to Algeria, from Cameroon to the Congo, and from Zimbabwe and Zambia to Zanzibar, conflict has come to be the bane of Africa. Consider the following: according to the Stockholm Institute for Peace Research (SIPRI) there were 27 major armed conflicts in the world in 1999. Of these, the majority were to be found in Africa. Unsurprisingly Africa was the one region that displayed the steepest rise in defense expenditure. Military expenditure increased by over one third (37 percent) in real terms between 1998 and 2000. Also unsurprisingly, according to the United States’ Committee for Refugees (USCR), there were 1.5 million Africans uprooted from ten countries in the first eight months of 2000 as a result of war, violence or political repression. This is the equivalent of 50,000 refugees and internally displaced people per week! The social costs of such conflicts are horrific. In Angola, for instance:

· There are three million internally displaced people since 1998.

· Angola is the most heavily mined country in the world, with an estimated eight to ten million landmines.

· Nearly half of the Angolan population is under-nourished.

· Infant mortality is the second highest in the world, with one in three children dead before the age of five.

· Only 30 percent of the population has access to safe water

· Four-fifths of the population do not have access to essential drugs.

· Life expectancy is a paltry 44 years.1 

Clearly this is an untenable state of affairs. In addition to the human suffering, such conflicts scare off foreign investment, destroy structures of governance and further contributes to the marginalisation of Africa in the world. It is equally clear that any attempt to deal with these conflicts have to be approached collectively. Whilst the majority of these conflicts are intrastate, it is equally true that the various internal players received substantial overt or covert support from external role players. The ongoing war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo underlines the point. At the same time, it is also abundantly clear that Africa has come to the realisation that it cannot rely on sustained constructive engagement on the part of the developed world in dealing with these problems. Ever since Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in 1992, there has been less willingness on the part of Western countries to get involved in Africa’s "intractable conflicts." As a result Africa has increasingly had to turn to itself in order to realise the vision of an African Renaissance. In 1993, this self-reliance saw the establishment of the OAU Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution. It is also seen in the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the establishment of the African Union (AU).

It is also self-evident through a perusal of the Constitutive Act of the African Union that the general thrust towards conflict prevention and management on the continent is to make use of the existing sub-regional groupings as part of the building blocks to realise a peaceful and stable Africa. The immediate question that springs to mind then is how prepared are sub-regional groupings on the African continent in dealing with the myriad sources of insecurity? It is this crucial question that this publication aims to answer. In the process, several new questions are brought to the fore.

In the first article, Dr. Bjorn Moeller raises the question of what lessons Africa can learn from sub-regional organisations in Europe in the area of conflict management. Whilst noting that there is no "one size fits all" instrument of conflict management, he also stresses that given Europe’s longer history of security arrangements there may be useful comparative insights we could gain from posing the question. Given the increasing passion in Africa of late for mutual defence pacts, it is noteworthy that one of the observations he makes in this regard is that there is no need for an African counterpart to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). As he explains, most of Africa’s conflicts are intrastate as opposed to interstate, hence there is no need for security guarantees that presuppose significant external threats to Africa.

Dr. Theo Neethling meanwhile examines the arguments around sub-regional peacekeeping arrangements in Africa. According to Neethling, one of the most significant challenges that African policy-makers have in achieving viable sub-regional peacekeeping capacity relates to the lack of coherence at the levels of doctrine, command and equipment. This is further aggravated by the vast differences in the level of skills, training and education between the armed forces of different African countries. This is clearly something that African militaries need to correct.

In the following article, Senzo Ngubane discusses the Maghreb Union in North Africa. Crucially, he identified how political differences between the members resulted first in the non-implementation of various protocols and conventions and finally in the Union to cease to exist for all practical purposes. Ngubane’s article raises a deeper question however: To what extent do member states need to subscribe to a common political value system in order to realise a viable sub-regional entity?

In her discussion of the Southern African Development Community, Professor Maxi Schoeman also echoes Ngubane by concluding that a regional security structure that is deeply divided cannot be effective. Schoeman also notes that one of the disquieting trends in the southern African region has been the intervention of neighbouring states and other external agents in internal conflicts that often exacerbate these conflicts.

Finally, Professor Amadu Sesay discusses the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in promoting peace and security for the West African region. Given the instrastate nature of conflicts, Sesay argues that ECOWAS has stressed the central role of democratisation and good governance in effective conflict management and resolution. This reinforces the point made by Moeller that an external security orientation is unnecessary in circumstances where internal sources of insecurity predominate. This stance of ECOWAS is all the more commendable given the fact that the history of Africa has been the history of state security being purchased at the expense of human security. The ECOWAS position underlines the notion that democratisation coupled with responsive and responsible governance are the most effective conflict management tools.

Note

1 Quoted in Hussein Solomon, "South African Foreign Policy and Preventive Diplomacy." Paper presented to a Public Seminar in the Department of Political Sciences, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa.