Governance and Crisis in the State in Africa : The Context and Dynamics of the Conflicts in West Africa 9781906704100

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Governance and Crisis of the State in Africa The Context and Dynamics of the Conflicts in West Africa

JOHN EMEKA AKUDE

Published by Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd P.O. Box 43418 London SE11 4XZ http://www.adonis-abbey.com Email: [email protected]

First Edition, January 2009 Copyright 2009 © John Emeka Akude British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9781906704094(HB)/9781906704100(PB) The moral right of the author has been asserted All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted at any time or by any means without the prior permission of the Author/Editor. Printed and bound in Great Britain

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Governance and Crisis of the State in Africa The Context and Dynamics of the Conflicts in West Africa

Inaugural Dissertation for a Doctorate Degree of the Faculty of Economic Management and Social Sciences of the University of Cologne, Germany

presented by

JOHN EMEKA AKUDE

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Table of Contents Acknowledgements.............................................................................................vii Chapter 1 Introduction

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Chapter 2 Contending Explanations of State Weakness and Collapse in Africa

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Chapter 3 The Context of Governance, Development and State Formation in Precolonial Africa

113

Chapter 4 Non-developmental Governance and State Collapse in Africa

135

Chapter 5 The Context and Dynamics of the Conflicts in West Africa

187

Chapter 6 State Collapse and Civil War in Liberia

209

Chapter 7 State Collapse and Civil War in Sierra Leone

231

Chapter 8 State Failure and Civil War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde

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Chapter 9 State Collapse and Civil War in Ivory Coast

263

Chapter 10 Guinea: A failing State

283

Chapter 11 Conclusion

309

Bibliography.................................................................................................. 316 Index ............................................................................................................... 345

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List of Tables Table 1: Evaluation of Democracy in Selected African Countries.......... 131 Table 2: Export of Selected African Countries between 1938 and 1954.................................................................................................................. 139 Table 3: Selected Semi-diversified African Economies; NIGERIA: Main Exports 1956-58.................................................................................... 140 Table 4: Selected Semi-diversified African Economies; LIBERIA: Principal Exports 1938, 1950-57 ................................................................... 140 Table 5: Selected Semi-diversified African Economies; SIERRA LEONE: Principal Exports 1938, 1950-57 ................................................... 141 Table 6: Exports of Anglophone African Colonies 1950-1955................. 142 Table 7: Exports of Francophone African Countries 1950-55.................. 142 Table 8: Ten Highest and Lowest Economic Growth Rates 19802002.................................................................................................................. 152 Table 9: Chief Executives of Selected African Countries at the Point of Independence and their Professions ............................................ 159 Table 10: Long term official, multilateral and private debt of Africa, 1970-1990............................................................................................ 163 Table 11: Structural Adjustment Loans, Growth, and Inflation in poor Countries with most structural Adjustment Loans received ......... 175 Table 12: Favourable Conditions for State Collapse in West Africa............................................................................................................... 191 Table 13: Remote and Trigger Factors of State Collapse and Civil Wars in West Africa 1989-2004 .................................................................... 193 Table 14: Value of Warlord Trade in Liberia, 1990- 1994 ........................ 223 Table 15: Guinea’s main mineral deposits................................................. 284

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List of Figures Figure 1: Number of Countries Receiving Net Aid at Levels above 10 % of GNP.......................................................................................... 46 Figure 2: Breakdown of ODA by Regions ................................................. 146 Figure 3: Development Aid and Economic Growth in Africa (1970-2000)...................................................................................................... 148 Figure 4: Total ODA to Sub-Saharan Africa 1970-2003 ............................ 148 Figure 5: The fluctuation of Primary Commodities Prices in the International Market (1960-2002) ................................................................ 165 Figure 6: Analytical Model of State Collapse Process and its Regionalisation in West Africa .................................................................... 182 Figure 7: Real GDP Growth and Per Capita GDP Africa/Ivory Coast................................................................................................................ 271

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am grateful to all the people who assisted me in one way or the other to get this work done, especially my supervisor, Prof. Jaeger, my co-supervisor, Prof. Trutz von Trotha and my colleagues at the Chair of International Relations, University of Cologne. My thanks also go to the members of the Working Group on the Transformation of Political Order, University of Cologne, especially Daniel Lambach, who read portions of this work at several stages of its development and offered useful and critical remarks. Our discussions and arguments were very helpful in sharpening my thoughts on some of the concepts discussed in this book. My gratitude goes to Andrea Szukala and Ulrich Glassman for their critical comments on certain sections of this book at different stages of its development. I also wish to express my appreciation to my father, Chief Anthony Amechi Akude, my mother Catherine, and my brothers Anthony and Stephen for being very helpful. My parents-in-law, my wife, Michelle, and my daughters Aaliyah and Beyoncé offered the much needed emotional support. To all of you, a very big thank you.

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Dedicated to my wife Michelle

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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Africa’s postcolonial independent statehood took off on a very weak pedestal and its unfoldment was constantly accompanied by political instability. Barely thirty years later, political instability deteriorated into a series of state collapse with concomittant civil wars engulfing some of her sub-regions. Investigations into the causes of state weakness and collapse in Africa have intensively occupied political scientists ever since. Their findings have been varied and sundry; sometimes complementary and sometimes contradictory. 1 A critical review of these theoretical explanations reveals that most of them are afflicted with flaws of oversight or of uncritical assumptions. Some focus too much on the international factors, treating local factors as inconsequential while others focus only on the local factors to the complete negligence of the international. Some of them evolved out of case studies with relatively few observable implications which then reduce their scope of applicability. Most of these explanations wrongly assume that African leaders are genuinely striving for the best for their citizens. Some generally believe that the weakness of the African state is adequately explained by the relative novelty of the states coupled with the lack of experience on part of the rulers. But these theories fail to explain two fundamental and blatant observations: most stable states feature developed economies while most failling and collapsing states have poor and underdeveloped economies. The regularity of this occurrence leads one to suspect an interplay of the two phenomena. Secondly, state collapse in Africa was preceded by economic collapse. Consequently, I am persuaded to investigate the effects of economic policies while checking for correlations between the economic and the political changes. Using the African rulers’ neglect of the pursuit of economic development (an instance of bad governance), abjuring of state institutions in the process of governance (which promotes state weakness) and tacit resistance to the international promotion of democracy and good governance as points of departure, this investigation would be guided by questions relating to the fundamental reasons for economic underdevelopment and state weakness and collapse in Africa. Simply put: what 9

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went wrong with African economic and political development to the effect that the hopes raised by the modernisation paradigm could not be realised? Does the bad governance perspective ultimately explain these phenomena? Or is there an alternative theoretical explanation for the relationship between bad governance and state weakness/collapse? Why should African leaders afford to resist the promotion of development and what chances does the international promotion of democracy have in view of this resistance?2 Majority of studies of the state collapse problematic came to the conclusion that bad governance (sometimes referred to as bad performance) is fundamental in explaining this phenomenon (World Bank 1989, 1992). Following the Bank’s analysis, several scholars have echoed similar reasoning: (Brown 1996, Kaplan 1994, Zartman 1995, Clapham 2000, Tetzlaff 2000, Rotberg 2004, Krasner 2004, Grant and Taylor 2004, SEF 2005 etc). This book is not averse to such views, but takes a critical stance to the policies that ‘logically’ flow from such analysis and wishes however, to offer a critical analysis of the background to the development and trajectory of the phenomenon of bad governance with a view to analysing how and why the recommended policies might not function as expected. This is necessary because the lack of such an analysis has led to a situation whereby the local and international agents and beneficiaries of bad governance are being entrusted with the duty and hope of promoting good governance. Furthermore, such an analysis is necessary if we are to overcome the frustrations of expecting the good governance that may never come under prevailing circumstances. Part of the aim of this work is to ameliorate such oversight and expectations by developing an analytical framework, which explains the phenomena (strong statehood and economic development) as well as their negatives through integrating national and international factors in historical perspective. This historically based approach, which does not seek to negate the factors emphasised in other explanatory paradigms, has the advantage of giving those relevant factors their due places in the historical unfoldment of the African state. My basic assumption is that the differences in the development trajectory of the African states in comparison with their European models are ultimately responsible for state weakness and economic underdevelopment in Africa.3 Africa’s trajectory of modern state development deviated from the path that logically mandates rulers to promote economic development while strengthening social cohesion for reasons of state survival.

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Introduction

The proper point of departure for an analysis of state collapse should be an analyis of state weakness for two basic reasons: first, state collapse is an extension of state weakness. Second, weakness predates collapse and all collapsed states were and still are weak states. The terminnology of state weakness or collapse has to do with the ability of states to regularly deliver a certain level of political goods to citizens in line with the expectations of the international state system. Some states fare better than others in this regard. Historically speaking, certain states had to undergo relatively riskier processes of development and in the course, developed robust economic systems and functional bureaucratic and security apparata, which increase their ability to deliver political goods. Some other states, especially the postcolonial African states, did not have to go through such processes and consequently did not develop such abilities. This paradigm further maintains that the low development of productive forces in Africa which could not be improved by the peripheral integration of Africa in the international economy and the pursuit of unsuitable economic policies driven by the myopic economic interests of the ruling class which failed to transform the economic structures of African states after independence are equally fundamental in the weakening of state institutions and precipitation of state collapse in Africa. State collapse is therefore a logical consequence of underdevelopment and institutional enfeeblement driven by personalisation of state power for purposes of accumulation. I will use the unfoldment of the West African conflict, which commenced in Liberia in 1989 and involved Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast to illustrate this theoretical contribution. Guinea Bissau would serve as my control case. 1.2 Organisation of the Book This book consists of eleven chapters and is divided into two parts: part one is the theoretical section while part two constitutes the empirical study. Chapter one opens with a detailed introduction to the book, identifying the aim, statement of problem, definition of significant terms, the hypotheses and the method of approach. It brings the concepts of governance, development and state into context and argues that governance is intertwined with the political economy of power and could therefore not be sequestered from the politics of the day. It further argues that the trajectory of the emergence of the African state precludes the emergence of the imperatives of good governance (defined as developmental governance) and is therefore a major explanation for economic underdevelopment and state weakness in Africa. It develops a paradigm of the logic 11

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of good governance and argues that states that find themselves in this logic end up as developed states with strong political institutions and vice versa. States don’t just find themselves following this logic; rather the imperatives of good governance and strong statehood propel them into this logic. This logic, once there, compels state makers to ally with the strongest economic group in society – resource bearers – and this alliance gives further impetus to the institutionalisation of the state. The chapter concludes with the statement that African states do not find themselves within this logic and are therefore condemned to underdevelopment and weakness. Irrespective of the vigour with which democracy is internationally promoted, its chances of success in Africa is minimal. This is evidenced by several cases of anti-democratic developments in Africa; some of them cited in footnote 2 of this book and the growing literature on the topic (cf. Diamond 2008). Chapter two is a detailed discssion of some of the major theoretical explanations of state weakness and failure/collapse in Africa. These explanations are broadly divided into two: state weakness and state collapse. The reason is that state weakness is often the prelude to state failure/collapse. Most of the theoretical explanations of state weakness could be placed under the category of bad governance while the bad governance and the greed perspectives struggle for prominence of place in the explanation of state failure/collapse. After a detailed analysis, the chapter concludes that the requirement for a robust and comprehensive analysis is not grievance versus greed; rather grievance plus greed. Part of my research findings is that bad governance (in my understanding) is essentially a postcolonial phenomenon in Africa. To prove this, chapter three analyses deeply the history of centralisation of political power (call it state making if you wish) in precolonial West Africa and subsequently underlines the thesis that there is a logic of survival that mandates states and such political entities to erect military and bureaucratic structures (institution building) and to pursue economic development often through alignment with the resource-bearing groups in society; similar to the European experience. This analysis was guided by five established hypotheses on the influence of the economy on the processes of power centralisation (or state making). The ultimate precondition for this logic is sovereign independence de facto and this is a precondition that European states shared with precolonial African states. This precondition explains the similarities in actions undertaken by state makers in these two different continents at those times. This was the process in Africa till imperialism and colonialism deflected the inward orientation of 12

Introduction

this development to outward orientation and thereby sowed the seeds of economic underdevelopment and state weakness. The essence of this chapter is also to prepare the grounds for demonstrating the changes introduced by imperialism and colonialism, including how these changes then led to the emergence of bad (non-developmental) governance which entrenched underdevelopment and poverty and then culminated in state collapse. This I addressed in Chapter four. Chapter four therefore concludes the theoretical and historical part by buttressing my own theoretical explanation of state collapse in Africa while simultaneously demonstrating the inadequacies of development policies hitherto. It identifies the search for raw materials as inducement for the colonialists to institute highly statist enclave-based monocultural economies which led to economic disarticulation (lack of forward and backward linkages). Data were drawn from selected African countries just prior to independence to show the linkages and importance of African economies to European and Western states. The chapter further sees the deliberate colonial emasculation of African entrepreneurial drive, cession of power to a class that was born and bred under colonialism and subsequently shared colonial interests, and the pursuit of inappropriate policies by this class as the facilitators of economic underdevelopment and state weakness in Africa. The complementarity of this class’ interests and those of the departing colonialists precluded the possibilities of altering the marginal status of African states in international political economy. This fact, coupled with the non-productive background of their members and the Western domination of African economies prompted their members on accession to state power, to use same to compensate their weak economic background. Using state power to amass personal wealth produced a political atmosphere that is violent and unsuitable to the pursuit of economic development. The making of economic development policies was left to exogenous forces that produced inappropriate policies. Those inappropriate policies deepened underdevelopment and poverty, and made the indebtedness of African states to international financial institutions inevitable. An international political atmosphere dominated by superpower politics left no room for concern with the quality of governance in Africa. This state of affairs led to an accumulation of revolutionary pressures amongst Africans. As the international financial institutions demanded economic and political reforms in order to increase the chances of debt redemption, African rulers implemented the reforms in a manner that transformed the widespread economic collapse to state collapse in some cases. 13

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The empirical part of this work opens with an introduction that demonstrates the regional context of the West African conflicts and the influence of foreign agencies in the development of the dynamic in chapter five. It equally identifies other propitious factors for the regionalisation of an essentially Liberian conflict while simultaneously demonstrating their regionalisation mechanisms. I also undertake typological theorizing, i.e. the development of contingent generalisations about combinations or configurations of variables that constitute theoretical types (George and Bennett 2005), and cross-case methods in order to provide for variations on the dependent variable. This is necessary for a research design that should not only allow generalisations but accomplishes it in such a way that the particular is not lost. Thus, the problem of equifinality and variations on the dependent variable are solved. This chapter thus charts the configurations under which states that were involved in the West African conflict may collapse or not. It does this by integrating historical anaylsis with case study method. Due to the geographical focus and the specificity of the historical event under study, there was no problem of case selection. Case studies then opened with chapter six that treats the first of the West African conflict – Liberia. Based on the observation that the gestation of state collapse in Africa took some time, chapters six to ten were treated uniformly. They severally commence with a brief history of the political economy of the state in question which is then related to the immediate and remote causes of collapse or failure and the ensuing violence. Each of these chapters was treated under these sub-topics: remote causes, immediate causes, civil war process, war economy and conflict management. Guinea deviates slightly ffom this approach for the fact that she never collapsed. Chapter seven handles state collapse in Sierra Leone, while chapter eight does the same for Gunea Bissau and represents a variation on the independent variable - dynamics of the West African conflicts. It also serves to demonstrate the primacy of bad governance in the precipitation of state collapse. In chapter nine, I treat state collapse and civil war in Ivory Coast. Chapter ten treats Guinea and uses her as an illustration for the variation on the dependent variable because she was affected by the West African conflict but withstood the challenge. Chapter eleven concludes the analysis with thoughts on the prognosis for social action that might witness the strengthening of African states. 1.3 The Logic of State Survival and the Concept of Resource-Bearers It is astonishing to observe analyses explaining problems associated with the state in Africa without taking a cue from the processes of state 14

Introduction

building in Western Europe although the modern African state is modelled after the European state. No where is the neglect of lessons of European state-making more glaring than in issues relating to the nexus of taxation and statehood. Even at the inception of African independent statehood (a point at which the weakness of the African state has not become common knowledge), a renowned economist alerted the new states on the logical implication of taxation for statehood by stating that: “…no underdeveloped country has the manpower resources or the money to create a high-grade civil service overnight. But it is not sufficiently recognized that the revenue service is the ‘point of entry’; if they concentrated on this, they would secure the means for the rest” (Kaldor 1963: 410).

Taxation is so central to the state that Joseph Schumpeter, the German sociologist, called the modern state a ‘tax state’. Understanding the relationship between taxation and the state goes a long way in explaining statehood. It is illustrative that data collected from 39 sub-Saharan African countries between 1985-1996 show that the ratio of the average total tax revenue to GDP was a paltry 17% during this period; nine countries even had ratios below 10% (Ghura 1998: 5). Contrarily, in the 30-nation OECD area as a whole, the tax-to-GDP ratio fell marginally in 2003 - the latest year for which complete figures are available — to 36.3 per cent, from 36.4 per cent in 2002 and from a peak of 37.1 per cent in 2000 (Srinavasan 2005). Deborah Bräutigam (2008: 1) has appropriately remarked that “the political economy of taxation offers important lessons for the developing world”. My research findings and considerations on the state and its collapse in Africa have encouraged me to adumbrate an analytical paradigm that logically explains statehood relying on the necessity of the state to independently guarantee its existence. I therefore postulate that there is a logic of survival that, once followed, most likely leads to strong statehood; and if not, weak statehood could become inevitable. The logic could be explained thus: the imperative of state survival in an insecure political environment in Europe and precolonial Africa mandated warriors (state makes) to erect security as well as bureaucratic apparata in order to administer conquered lands and people and thereby secure not only the state which disappears in case of defeat but also the ruling group that risk losing not only their positions of privilege but their lives as well. Maintaining bureaucratic and security apparata involves continuously increasing financial expenses which invariably imposes the necessity for tax collection on the state. And in order to maximise the 15

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collection of taxes, it became necessary for the states to promote economic development. Notes Mearsheimer (2001: 46), “great economic prosperity invariably means greater wealth, which has significant implications for security, because wealth is the foundation of military power”.

For reasons of agency, promoting economic development meant a strengthening and professionalisation of the bureaucracy. It also led state makers to cooperate with the economically most powerful group in society – the resource bearers – whose money the state needed in order to secure itself. The economic activities of resource-bearers have always varied, depending on the state of international economy and the level of technology. What has remained constant is the symbiotic relationship between state makers and the group with the highest opportunity for wealth accumulation – resource bearers. For example, medieval English kings cooperated with large agriculturists and livestock owners. In the era of mercantilism, European states cooperated with mercantilists by laying the paraphernalia of state power at the disposal of mercantilists in search of bullions that were supposed to represent national wealth. This they did even up to the point of going to war. This cooperation continued in the capitalist epoch and was the reason behind imperialism and colonialism. The current triumph of neoliberalism could be explained against this background (albeit with a qualitative difference): to give states the opportunity of increasing earnings through cooperation with global capitalism. New studies of the role of the state in promoting economic development of late and late-late developers have also stressed this cooperation and its implication for increasing bureaucratic capacity of states (cf. Johnson 1982, Evans 1995, Kohli 2004). One of the significant implications of promoting economic development is the promotion of national sentiments. This is necessary to mobilise the labour force which has to accept less than adequate wages in order to enable the conquest of international markets by national firms. Nationalism therefore justifies the sacrifice of workers in the process of increasing national revenues. It is therefore not surprising that late developers (Germany for example) and late-late developers (India, China) are highly nationalistic.4 Using nationalist sentiments to motivate students of business administration and economics is meanwhile normal in India, to cite a current example. We thus have the ingrediensts of economic and political strength of states that are missing in Africa: self-survival necessity, dependence on tax earnings and a feel16

Introduction

ing of national belongingness. I would develop this point later in this chapter. But suffice it to say that the lack of these ingredients due to the processes through which the modern African state emerged is one of the key explanations for economic underdevelopment, social schisms and state collapse in Africa This book is as well a treatise on the inadequacies of the bad governance and war economy perspectives as explanations for state collapse in Africa. The bad governance perspective considers the misuse and abuse of state power coupled with the pursuit of non-developmental policies in a political regime of dictatorship and anti-democracy as the backdrop to state collapse in Africa. Appropriate as this scheme of analysis may be, it fails to theoretically account for the abuse and misuse of power in Africa. It offers the concept of good governance as an apolitical and technical antidote that could be curricularly developed and imparted on bureaucrats, government officials and politicians. It insinuates that Africans are badly governed because their rulers could not perform better. I postulate rather that good or bad governance is intrinsically tied to the political economy of state power and could therefore not be sequestered from the politics of the day which may promote or hamper development. It has little to do with the intelligence or the capability of actors, but rather with their interests. And once these interests institutionally ossify, they determine the direction of political choice made by states, a kind of path dependence. Notwithstanding the fact that this direction could be unprogressive and anti-development, there are hardly chances of institutional change for the fact that institutional change is an intercourse of interests and the balance of social forces. In this case, the balance of social forces tilts in favour of the powerful who is naturally resistant to change. Before proceeding further, some clarifications may be necessary at this point: what is governance? What is the relationship, if any, between governance, the state and politics? What does the “bad governance” analysis portend for development and the prospects for building and strengthening state institutions? I intend to answer these questions preparatory to presenting my thesis which relates to the observable fact that the trajectory of statehood determines to a large extent the quality of statehood and that since the trajectory of modern statehood in Africa blocks, in my view, the emergence of the imperatives of good governance, bad governance and its deleterious consequences become hardly escapable.

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1.4 Defining Governance Despite the controversy surrounding the definition of governance,5 I will lean on the original definition proffered by the World Bank which sees as the “manner in which power is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development” (World Bank 1992: 3). The reason for adopting this definition is that it is unbiased, operationalisable and historical. Defined in this form, governance encompasses three distinguishable elements viz; the form of political regime (parliamentary or presidential, military or civilian and authoritarian or democratic), the process by which authority is exercised in the management of a country’s economic and social resources for development and finally, the capacity of governments to design, formulate and implement policies and discharge functions. After reviewing the contrasting sociocultural bases of political rules and institutions among different societies, the bank accepted that the superimposition of western political norms on the African states may have contributed to hampering the functioning of the modern African states. Furthermore, she identified the following symptoms of poor governance: failure to make a clear separation between what is public and what is private, hence a tendency to divert public resources for private gain; failure to establish a predictable framework of law and government behaviour conducive to development or arbitrariness in the application of rules and laws; excessive rules, regulations, licensing requirements, and so forth, which impede the functioning of markets and encourage rent-seeking; priorities inconsistent with development, resulting in a misallocation of resources; excessively narrowly based or non-transparent decision making (ibid: 9).

The perseverance of these symptoms “creates an environment that is hostile to development” (ibid.). Other symptoms of poor governance include corruption, lack of public accountability, capture of public service by powerful elements, nepotism, ineffective bureaucracy, high concentration of political power and colonial inheritance. The bank maintains that these problems are particularly damaging to the “corrective intervention” role of government (ibid. 10). Consequently, the authority of the governments over their peoples progressively erodes: the ruled increasingly disobey the rulers who, in turn, feeling insecure, resort to coercion.6 18

Introduction

There are glaring semblances between these symptoms and those of state failure/collapse on one hand, and the relationship between these symptoms, lack of democracy and perseverance of underdevelopment, on the other. The lesson from the World Bank (perhaps unintended by the Bank) is that poor governance exacerbated underdevelopment and thereby led to state collapse. A reverse argument then is that good governance correlates positively with development and strengthens the state. The bank indicated the necessity for the citizens to demand good governance but realises that lack of enhanced literacy, education and employment militates against the capability for such a demand. In order to bring about good governance, the Bank advises the governments to be responsive to those demands (ibid. 11). However, critical to my analysis here is the fact that the Bank equates good governance with development and democracy, a point to which I later turn. Admittedly however, designing the appropriate development plans and pursuing them sincerely and wholeheartedly is expectedly no guarantee for success, but it is a sine qua non for successful development and is most likely to enjoy public approval; thus democratic. Ever since its incursion in the terminologies of modern political science, the concept of governance has been differentially defined, leading two scholars to note that it is a concept that is notoriously slippery, frequently used by social scientists and practitioners, without a concise definition (Pierrre and Peters 2000: 79). Two approaches to the definition of the concept have emerged: one is technical or “technicist” (Leftwich 2000: 106) and stresses the efficient management of state institutions, featuring issues of accountability, rule of law, public sector management and transparency (for example, the World Bank’s); and the other is more holistic, transcending the state and its institutions and including statesociety relations (Adejumobi 2002: 6-7). The World Bank’s approach reflects that of other international multilateral organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the African Development Bank (ADB) and the African Union (AU). It has thus become the official conception of governance. This technicist approach regards governance as the implementation of a set of neo-liberal policies with universal results irrespective of the politics and character of the state that implements those policies. I will deal with the consequences of this approach later in this chapter. On the holistic side (albeit with variations), governance is considered a process of social engineering involving the state and society towards 19

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the realisation of collective goals and makes reference to the problematic but dynamic and often contradictory relationship between state and society (Balogun 1998:33; Hyden 1999). The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 1997: 9) for example, defines governance as “the totality of the exercise of authority in the management of a country’s affairs, comprising the complex mechanisms, processes, and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, and mediate their differences. It encompasses the political, economic, legal, judicial, social and administrative authority and therefore includes government, the private sector and the civil society”.

This is holistic but with a stark technicist bent as it emphasises administration to the detriment of politics. It is also a postmodernistic articulation because it features elements of democracy and broad participative governance which, though recommended by the donor community commencing from the end of the Cold War, is less than realistic. Correcting the criticisms which the extreme technicist bent of the initial definition has attracted, the World Bank (1994) defines good governance thus: "good governance is epitomized by predictable, open and enlightened policy-making, a bureaucracy imbued with professional ethos acting in furtherance of the public good, the rule of law, transparent processes, and a strong civil society participating in public affairs. Poor governance (on the other hand) is characterized by arbitrary policy making, unaccountable bureaucracies, unenforced or unjust legal systems, the abuse of executive power, a civil society unengaged in public life, and widespread corruption."

The World Bank thus disengages itself from the original realpolitik definition, which I personally consider more appropriate. Anyway, the idea of development is still embedded in the definition as she considers good governance as “sound development management” (1992: 1). We are thus confronted with two basic understandings of good governance: a timeless, historically guided and realistic understanding versus a postmodern conception that is being propagated by international development institutions. Desirable as this postmodern conception may be; if the aphorism that social science is concerned with what is and not necessarily with what ought to be is correct, then it would appear that the timeless and realpolitik concept is the more appropriate concept because

20

Introduction

it is informed by what states have done overtime and not what they ought to do. The increasingly dominant postmodern concept of good governance therefore aims at mobilising human and material resources in the pursuit of economic and social development within the framework of democratic and participatory politics; intrinsically the domain of government. The question then arises as to the differences between governance and government and the role of the character of the state in it. Before delving into this question, it is pertinent to pursue the concept of good governance further by taking a look at a concept that is supposed to midwife good governance: democracy; and another that is supposed to be the goal of good governance: development; in order to bring their relationships into perspective. 1.5 The Context of Good Governance, Development and Democracy The relationships between development and democracy have been of concern to scholars of political science and development studies since the emancipation of former colonial territories. The orthodox view, represented mainly by the modernisation scholars, was that these new independent states were not ready for democracy as they lacked the economic and social advancements that are necessary for the emergence of democracy and therefore require political guardianship on the institutionalisation of democracy from the developed countries (Lee 1967: 171-173; Larrain 1989: 22-27). Development was equated with modernisation and with the development processes of the western world in mind, the newly “undeveloped” and later “underdeveloped” states were said to be at the traditional stage of economic development and have to traverse five stages to arrive at modernity (Rostow 1960: chapter 2); a point at which democracy is said to become feasible. Part of the argument was that democracy required a set of societal qualities which these new states could not boast of. These include an established and secure middle class, low levels of material and social inequality, a vibrant civil society to check the excesses of the government, a secular ideology, a high level of education and communication (Cf. Dahl 1971: 103). The zeitgeist of the 1960s and beyond was that development, (mis)understood as modernisation, was a precondition for the emergence of democracy (Lipset 1960, Cutright 1963, Needler 1968, Huntington 1968). Huntington (1968) even made the point that what the post colonial states needed was “the accumulation and concentration of power, not its dispersion”. This conception of democracy and development appears 21

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appropriate to the experiences of western societies as evidenced by the fact that economic development based on industrialisation and urbanisation was proceeded by institutions of liberal democracy, a vibrant civil society, a secular public ideology, intensified bureaucratisation of public life, etc. In fact, the majority of modern industrialised states laid the foundations of their economic development under political conditions that are less than democratic, sometimes outright autocratic. The argument was even stretched to indicate that the introduction of democracy at a stage where the pursuit of development has not ossified may be counterproductive to the goals of development (Cf. Bwaghati 1966: 204). In the light of these conflations and illogical inferences, how have development and democracy been contemplated and conceived? 1.5.1 Changing Meanings of Development If the inaugural address of US President Truman on the 29th of January 1949 is to be regarded as the inception of development as an official policy of the great powers, the international organisations and international financial institutions - the United nations, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it might be correct to say that the concept and meaning of development has traversed several stages. However, economic growth, modernisation and structural change remained the primary concerns of development scholars and policies at that time and coincided with the concern for the reconstruction and development of war-ravaged European economies; a purpose for which the Bank was originally set up. Leftwich (2000: 40ff) identified six stages of the meaning and focus of development with shifts and alternating foci as reactions to failure of development policy, influence of the representatives of the post colonial states in United Nations’ debates and in accordance with the interests of the western development community. These are development as economic growth, development as growth plus social and cultural change, as social development, as the satisfaction of basic human needs, as social and economic equality, as sustainable development, as good governance and democracy and finally as freedom and expansion of choice. With the introduction of the concept of governance in development discourses, the old orthodoxy was changed. Democracy became a condition for development. But the World Bank did not go that far in recommending democracy because its Charter forbade it from intervening in the internal affairs of member states. Shihata (1991: 72) notes that in laying the foundation of the Bank in Bretton Woods in 1944, it was decided 22

Introduction

that “the bank should not be influenced by the political character of the country requesting for credits”. It is clear that this restriction in the Bank’s charter is a reflection of the concept of international sovereignty: the ‘theoretical’ equality of all states. However, this application of international sovereignty appears to be a contradiction between the Bank’s assignment and the legal framework for its performance.7 It constrains the Bank’s ability to interfere in the internal affairs of states (an ability that is perhaps necessary if the recommendations of the Bank are to be effective) as it leaves rulers with the opportunity of enjoying the Bank’s credits without resolutely pursuing the bank’s recommendations for development; assuming those recommendations were to have been appropriate. This assignment of ‘interference’ was then taken up by the leading industrial donor nations which made democracy and respect for human rights a condition for giving development aid. The new orthodoxy was aptly represented by subsequent British Ministers for Overseas Development. Douglas Hurd (1990: 4) saw it as a moral responsibility for the donor nations to promote democracy with development aid when he stated: “the moral imperative is clearly understood. In practical terms, it means that we should state explicitly that we would reward democratic governments and any political reform which leads to greater accountability and democracy. The corollary is that we should penalise particularly bad cases of repression and abuse of human rights. Those principles should increasingly inform our aid programme”.

Happening at a time of neo-liberal counter revolution which stressed less government, democracy was interpreted as liberal democracy, of course accompanied with neo-liberal economic policies. Hurd (ibid: 4) maintained that “free markets, open trade and private property are the best ways known to mankind for improving its standard of living”. His successor, Baroness Lynda Chalker, went further,

“we will use all levers at our disposal to encourage respect for human rights, free markets, sensible economic policies, and efficient public administration” (1991 in Leftwich 2000: 107).

In this sense, the democracy and good governance discourse represents the emergence of a new international political and economic order that expresses the triumph of capitalism over socialism and the dominance of the West over the rest. Reflecting the tenets of modernisation theorem, building the capacity of Western institutions that were grafted 23

John Emeka Akude

to non-Western societies in the course of colonialism became a priority of international development policy. Due to the domination of the international financial institutions by the great powers (Payer 1982, Strange 1996), this new approach became dominant in their policies. Thus, the concept of development is considered in certain quarters as a discourse of domination. 1.5.2 Democracy Democracy is considered a representative system of government that empowers the majority of the governed to influence the activities of the government through socially agreed and legally determined ways. According to Robert Dahl, it embodies two critical dimensions – participation and contestation – in an open, free and fair electoral process. Thus, it assumes that all social strata have the opportunity of expressing their choices and controlling the excesses of government and power-seekers. Where this is not the case, democracy should be creative: it should fashion out a system in which all social strata and economic groupings are adequately represented. This is a challenge to ideas that uncritically support the importation of Western European liberal democracy to African societies irrespective of the differences in economic and social stratification. As one distinguished scholar remarks, “…that the structures through which political power is exercised must ultimately achieve some kind of congruence with the structures of economic production is not mere Marxist dogma, but and enduring fact about political life, internationally as well as within individual states” (Clapham 1996: 25).

In a democratic system, the political class finds itself in a state of constant negotiation with the society over the acquisition, consolidation and use of state power. This is the essence of elections and referenda. The type of democracy promoted by the new orthodoxy (liberal democracy) falls short of these basic elements of democracy and produced “choiceless democracies” (Mkandawire 1999) and “exclutionary democracies” (Abrahamsen 2000: 132ff).8 The World Bank still preferred to speak of governance and not government as a result of the aforementioned legal restriction. As a concept, postmodern governance concept is broader than government. It refers to the implementation of policies that reduce the scope of the state while simultaneously increasing the powers of the civil society and market forces.9 It reflects international development policy that seeks to promote 24

Introduction

democracy. Thus, sharing power between government agents and the civil society is an essential feature of the governance concept. But governance as an English word is not new. Previoulsy, it was simply used to refer to what governments do. In the current zeitgeist of neoliberalism, it has become not only what governments do, but additionally, what the government does in concert with the market and the civil society. It has thus become broadened. This ideologisation and broadening of the concept deprives it of an objective basis for measurement and operationalisation.10 Throughout the 1990s and up to the present, the Bank has been concentrating its development efforts on the building and strengthening of institutional capacity of developing states and in so doing, has consistently tried to refrain from politics (for e.g. World Bank 1991). Leftwich (2000) maintains, and I share his views, that development and politics are so intertwined that one could not be detached from the other. It is therefore pertinent to question the chances of success of such an approach to development that tries to detach it from politics and the state. 1.6 Politics, the State and Development The conception of development is controversial. This controversy notwithstanding, it has always involved ideas of progress; and possibly sophistication in human affairs. The foundation is economic, but it soon spreads and influences other aspects of human endeavour. “Development means a capacity for self-sustaining growth. The fountain is economic, but it soon ramifies other sectors of society. Development means that the economy must register advances which in turn will promote further progress” (Rodney 1982: 105).

It has an immanent endogenous character and this raises questions as to the efficacity of lectured or even dictated development. It is not a checklist of programmes that just needs to be implemented and growth will be recorded; rather, it is so political that even the implementation of the very well deliberated policies could be brought to nought if the political is not determined to follow it through. Development is always a purposive attempt at solving the immediate problems of a society. For the underdeveloped states therefore, development should seek to eliminate poverty, unemployment and inequality by promoting education on a very wide scale (Seers 1969). I consider it therefore as the mobilisation of human energies in combination with the biological and physical environment (both immediate and distant) in solving problems associated 25

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with social existence and thereby making social progress. Implicit in this definition are the issues of production, distribution, allocation and reallocation of both material and non-material resources. Allocation and reallocation of resources always favour some groups to the disadvantage of others either in the short or long run. Conflict arises as groups strive to protect their interests; thus requiring negotiations and cooperation in looking for solutions. And this is what politics is all about. I will therefore define politics as the ordering and reordering of societies to produce and distribute resources according to some set goals or in the interests of the ruling group(s). These goals have always had to do with development unless in situations of political tutelage of all sorts. Development is therefore inherently political and the manner of its pursuit depends on the character of the state. It is neither administrative nor is it managerial (Leftwich 2000: 5-6). Whether conflicts are resolved through negotiations and cooperation depends on the balance of social forces and the interests of the dominant force(s). And this is where the state comes in. It is the supreme institutional arena for the pursuit of societal goals. Depending on the interests of the leading social forces on the one hand, and on the capability of the state on the other (which is invariably dependent on the interests of the leading social forces because a state is what leaders make of it), conflicts may be peacefully or violently resolved. State capability and development capacity are therefore dependent on the interests of the leading social forces and have extremely little to do with democracy or dictatorship. This explains the continuing lack of success in the promotion of good governance and democracy by international development agencies. North (1991: 14) clarifies that the relationship between development and democracy is ambivalent; emphasising the state as the only critical factor: “historically, the growth of economies has occurred within the institutional framework of well-developed coercive polities. (…) On the other hand, the coercive power of the state has been employed throughout most history in ways that have been inimicable to economic growth”.

Thus, the variables for the explanation of institutional weakness and decay should be searched for outside the purviews of democracy and dictatorship. Before presenting the above adumbrated theoretical framework of analysis for state collapse in Africa, it is customary for works of this nature to define state collapse.

26

Introduction

1.7 The State and the Economy To understand state failure/collapse, it is appropriate to first understand the state because as Clapham (2000: 1) pointed out, “the failed state …is named after what it isn’t, rather than what it is”. Due to the significance of the state’s pursuit of economic development in determining the quality of statehood, I would have to discuss the relationship between the state and the economy. Political science is home to two fundamental traditions of state theory: Karl Marx and Max Weber. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels did not provide political science with any concise theory of the state as they were more interested in the substructure rather than in the superstructure. Their first theoretical ideas on the state were to be seen in the Communist Manifesto (1859) where they saw the state as a committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie. This reflects the historical development of the modern European state as it developed in cooperation with the European bourgeoisie. Secondly, this concept emphasises the functions of the state in protecting the interests of the bourgeoisie as against other classes in society. The import of this analysis, i.e. the cooperation between the bourgeoisie and the state is critical for my analysis because a string of my theoretical explanation for state weakness in Africa is lack of an indigenous bourgeois (call it resource-bearing) class that the state could cooperate with. This vacuum has been filled by the international financial institutions, international development organisations and the donor community with the consequences of externalising the sources of authority, weakening the state-society relations and even promoting irresponsive governance. The second Marxist conception of the state is to be found in the “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” in which the state is said to be a bureaucratic apparatus that has emancipated itself from narrow bourgeois interests and therefore is autonomous, even as it still promotes capitalist interests which however, constitute a constraint on the autonomy of the state. This again is instructive on the roles of the state in economic development because it has been contended by scholars that the lack of autonomy of the post colonial states hampers its developmental and modernising capacity (Alavi 1977). Migdal (1988) for example, argues that the colonial and post colonial states trade(d) monopoly of the political space with primordial agents for a modicum of legitimacy which invariably constrains the state. Furthermore, the history of African politics is inundated with the patrimonialism, politicisation of ethnicity and relig-

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ion which draws the state into societal struggles with the consequence that the state lacks autonomy as it is often captured by a group and used to promote parochial group interests. Max Weber argues that the state should not be distinguished from other organisations in society primarily by its functions but rather by the means at its disposal. He therefore sees the state as a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. After a copious study of different forms of state hood in Europe and Asia, he identified three ideal forms of legitimate authority: traditional, charismatic and rational-legal. Of the essence to my analysis here are two ideal types because they relate directly either to the empirical findings in Africa or to the states after which African states were modelled: Patrimonialism (traditional) and the Modern European State (rational-legal). In a patrimonial state, political offices are treated “purely as a personal affair of the ruler and political power is considered part of his personal property” (Weber 1968: 1028-9); and qualification for the office is based on personal loyalty to the chief, not on merit. For him, the distinctive feature of the modern European state is its rational-legal character, featuring a bureaucracy that has been institutionalised; i.e. official conducts are regulated by law, the office holder is separated from the office and loyalty belongs to the office and not to a person. Weber (1964: 333-4; 1965: 196-244) identify further features. The significance of these characteristics is that dominance through institutions distinguishes the modern state from the previous forms. It can only realise its claim as the superior organisation in society with a monopoly over taxation and instruments of violence if it could autonomise itself from social classes/groups by dint of institutionalisationin order to mediate contradictory group interests. Because the state represents the interests of dominant group(s) in society, state autonomy vis-a-vis social classes could only be relative. That is, a developmental state has to partially ally more with the most productive class in society than with others, even while mediating inter-class interests. This is the import of Peter Evans’ (1995) concept of “embedded autonomy” and Atul Kohli’s concept of “state directed development” (2004). This cooperation then impels the state to strenghten its institutions as they are the instruments that operate and regulate this cooperation. So, we see institutional strength being tied to developmental interests of state administrators. Thus, relative autonomy of the state is development driven. Lack of developmental interests does not only impede the drive to autonomy but could also enmesh the state in social struggles through the personalisa28

Introduction

tion of power by abjuring state institutions (shadow statehood is an extreme form of this tendency) and “capture of the state” in which case state institutions become enfeebled. Institutional failure weakens the state and could lead to its collapse. 1.8 State Failure and Collapse The end of the Cold War heralded the second series of institutional breakdown of some African states. In their seminal article on this phenomenon, Helman and Ratner (1993) christened it “state failure”. With the publication of Zartman (ed.) (1995) “Collapsed States”, a new terminology was added to the labelling of the phenomenon. Subsequent publications and discussions on the issue used the terminologies interchangeably, leading to conceptual ambiguity and semantic imprecision as some scholars argued that the two terminologies are not necessarily the same. This position was aptly represented by Rainer Tetzlaff (1999) and Robert Rotberg (2003, 2004) among others. Additionally, the issue of what constitutes state weakness remains unresolved. Tetzlaff distinguished between state failure and collapse: state failure is a long-term and multidimensional process whereby state collapse is the distinctive endpoint of this process. He identified two dimensions to state failure: the loss of legitimacy – the gradual attenuation of the authority of the state due to refusal of the dissatisfied citizens to obey the state on the grounds of their perception that the state is incapable or repressive or both; and loss of efficiency – the increasing malfunctioning of the institutions of the state (may be due to lack of resources or debt burden) which makes the government irrelevant to the citizens (1999: 36). Rotberg’s observation is similar to that of Tetzlaff and sees state collapse as the endpoint of a process of state’s institutional and functional decay which commences with state weakness and progresses through stages of vulnerability and failure. This progression is not automatic as it could be terminated at any stage through political engineering (good governance).11 Rotberg’s point of departure is that states exist to provide a decentralised method of delivering political goods to the inhabitants of their territories. “ But it is according to their performances – according to levels of their effective delivery of the most crucial political goods – that strong states may be distinguished form weak ones, and weak states from failed or collapsed ones” (2004: 2).

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He constructed a hierarchy of political goods with security, especially human security at the apex proceeded by provision of law and order, free and open political participation, medical care, educational facilities, physical and social infrastructures etc. in that order. Strong states generally perform well (albeit with variations) across this spectrum but weak states do not. “The more poorly weak states perform, criterion by criterion, the weaker they become and the more that weakness tends to edge toward failure, hence the subcategory of weakness that is termed “failing”” (ibid. 4).

Failing states become failed states if this deterioration is not arrested. Failed states are, for him, typified by violence, “but it is not the absolute intensity that identifies a failed state. Rather, it is the enduring character of that violence” (ibid. 5); as a result of its persistent emasculation of the state. Thus, “a failed state is a polity that is no longer able or willing to perform the fundamental tasks of a nation-state in the modern world” (ibid. 6). Failed states are further typified by deteriorating and destroyed infrastructures, flourishing corruption, low Gross Domestic Product, indebtedness to the international financial institutions (IFIs), disrespect for the local currency, loss of legitimacy etc. Again, if not checked, this state of affairs could gravitate to collapse, a very seldom situation that is typified by quasi-disappearance of the state. For him, “a… collapsed state is a rare and extreme version of a failed state. Political goods are obtained through private or ad hoc means. (…) A collapsed state exhibits a vacuum of authority. It is a mere geographical expression, a black hole into which a failed polity is fallen” (ibid. 9).

Similarly, Zartman (1995: 5) considers state collapse from the point of view of the inability to fulfil the functions of a state which he summarises as the sovereign authority, institution, and security guarantor for a populated territory. Although he did not present a stage by stage deterioration of state capacity, he came to a similar conception to Rotberg’s in which state collapse is “a situation whereby the structure, authority (legitimate power), laws and political order have fallen apart and must be reconstructed in some form, new or old” (ibid.1).

Decisive for him in the categorisation of collapse is the necessity of reconstruction, often by external agents.

30

Introduction

Trutz von Trotha (2006) advances the argument that the state’s claim to monopoly over violence includes a centralised exercise of authority coupled with at least a partial enforcement capability in three classical areas of normative order: norm setting by means of legislation, sanctioning in cases of deviation from the norm and the execution of sanctions. State authority is therefore distinguished from other forms of authority by what he called “the dominance of law” to which belongs a bureaucracy through which administration a state exercises its authority. We therefore have, apart from territory, population and centralised authority, four further attributes of modern statehood viz: monopoly of violence, monopoly of taxation, dominance of law making and exercise of authority through a bureaucratic administrative apparatus. To these, I dare add the issue of social cohesion. Social cohesion is extremely important because it emotionally binds citizens to the state project. It gives citizens a feeling of belonging together and thus militates against centrifugal tendencies. Thus, the state would rely less on coercion to mobilise society. Barry Buzan (1991: 96-107) went that far to say that the concept of weak and strong states rests on the degree of socio-political cohesion within the states, maintaining that cohesion is the very essence of what makes them states (p.97). These attributes could be adapted for the analysis of state failure and collapse in Africa. Measured against the African experience, institutional weakness is a constant. A state finds itself in the process of failing the more institutional weakness deepens and becomes a failed state if it additionally loses the capability to execute the rule of law. With the loss of this capability, violence creeps into the society and recalcitrant groups become bolder in their challenges to the state. In this case, if the challenge relates to deviant access to sources of state’s revenues, the failure of the state becomes accomplished. This could deteriorate further to collapse if the state in this process gradually disappears; a condition that could arise if the state security apparatus is too weak to defeat the rebels and the rebels additionally control mineral resources depots, a situation that compels international businessmen to negotiate with the group in control of the depot. Disappearance refers to loss of capacity to command allegiance and compulsion by the central authority of state in which case an automatic, unconstitutional, often chaotic and ad hoc devolution of authority occurs whereby several groups violently usurp the power of the state in several parts of the territory which sometimes result into what Andreas Mehler (2004) termed “oligopolies of violence” as they also share the provision of “security” among themselves. 31

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Measuring statehood therefore could be a matter of conceptual stretching if one includes parameters like welfare and legitimacy; and even the rule of law because the scientific measurement of these factors is simply difficult. I have therefore decided to underplay these factors in my definition of a collapsed state. However, states are distinguished from other organisations because they claim to monopolise instruments of violence, taxation (or resource extraction) and law making. And this is where I want to restrict my categorisation. A state is collapsed if in the midst of increasing difficulty with the provision of political goods, failure to implement its laws (execution of sanctions inclusive), institutional debility and legitimacy problems, it fails to monopolise instruments of violence, taxation (including resource extraction) and law making. This does not refer to criminal or mafia groups that may secretly wield arms or extort citizens, rather it refers to open and blatant challenge to the state in these three areas. The provision of welfare, legitimacy and rule of law do play roles in the ascertainment of state collapse but only in so far as they are regarded as given on a general scale. That is, additional to the comparative insufficiency with which those states were born, there was a general deterioration in these areas in Africa from independence onwards. Problems of mismanagement, debts and implementation of the Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) contributed considerably to loss of state’s ability in the provision of these services and therefore to further weakening of state’s legitimacy and of statehood, at least the way citizens were used to. The effects of SAP should be embedded in the global epoch of capitalist expansion (neoliberalism) which not only weakened the states but equally offered the challengers to the state the needed access to international market which then facilitated the sale of mineral resources as well as the purchase of weapons. It is therefore correct to talk of collapse if the state loses the monopolies over taxation and instruments of violence within this constellation. It is observable that collapse or failure of states is always accompanied by internal or civil wars.12 It could therefore be argued that a state in civil war does not monopolise the instruments of violence and thus, states undergoing civil wars are failed or collapsed states. And because civil war has been a phenomenon of the African political development since independence, it does not make sense to date the collapse or failure of the African states to the late 1980s, rather earlier. Plausible as this argument may sound, it misses an important point: that it requires a functioning statehood to wage a war. Moreover, a state that reasonably provides welfare services may be involved in a civil war. In this case, the 32

Introduction

incidence of civil warfare is not a proof of failure or collapse. Conversely, a state could totally fail or collapse without an immediate accompaniment by a civil war. Zaire under Mobutu is a case in point here, in so far as there was a disappearance of statehood, at least in the opinions of observers, protagonists and a wide spectrum of the citizenry. The leader of the movement that ousted Mobutu, Laurent Kabila once said, “we are fighting for a vast movement to put an end to this useless state that no longer exists” (New York Times, Nov. 3rd, 1996 quoted in Villalón and Huxtable 1998: vi). The relationship between state collapse and the outbreak of civil war is therefore ambivalent. It is conceptually possible to have a situation of collapse without civil war. But violence, which I analytically separate from civil war, always accompanies state failure. Another factor that should be considered in the determination of state collapse is the loss of the strategic position of African states as a result of the end of the Cold War. The point is that African states continued to receive military aid as a result of their strategic importance to the super powers and this assistance helped in defeating secessionists that were not hard to find in Africa. The considerable reduction of this form of assistance weakened African states so much that it became very difficult for them to defeat the rebels. And this was the development that bestowed the state-failing character on civil wars and thus distinguished them from the civil wars of the 1960s to the middle of the 1980s because from a strictly military - technical point of view, state collapse may be viewed as a civil war which none of the protagonists is well-equipped to win. The resultant longevity of the war then contributes to a disruption and destruction of state’s service apparata. Because of this ambivalent relationship of civil wars to state collapse, it is considered reasonable here to exclude civil wars in the definition of state collapse or failure. My position is therefore a careful concatenation of the issues raised by these authors, leaning heavily on Rotberg but suffused with my own observations in Africa on a longue duree. So I would differ from Rotberg on the positioning of vulnerability and weakness. Weakness to me is a precondition for vulnerability to failure. Weakness is fundamental because African states started on a weak pedestal and the manner of governance (underdevelopmental and neopatrimonial) makes the state vulnerable to failure. Weak states are former colonies that are still economically underdeveloped with a low Gross Domestic Product per Capita, the commanding heights of their economies are foreign dominated which disposes the rulers to use state power to amass wealth (corruption) and 33

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their levels of social cohesion is very low. Their main sources of foreign exchange are primary products and development aid which influences the emergence of rentier state mentality. This engenders the type of governance that sidetracks state institutions while enervating them (vulnerability to failure). Continued enervation triggers off a state of failure akin to Rotberg’s “failing” state in which the ability of the state to provide political goods (including the rule of law and execution of sanctions) diminishes further and with it, the legitimacy of the state, underlined by constant violent demonstrations against the state. The current state of affairs in the Republic of Guinea (2006-2008) makes her an example in this category. The next stage is that of “failed state” in which the lack of security increases, additional to the above condition. State authority is still exercised in some areas while rebels, warlords or street gangs molest citizens in some other areas as a result of lack of state authority. The situation in Nigeria at the moment (2006-2007 and possibly beyond) fits this description. Policemen, soldiers and oil workers are being kidnapped in the Niger-Delta area, huge ransoms demanded and security agents some times killed. In fact, soldiers and policemen dread being posted to the creeks presently. In Anambra State, hoodlums have taken over some of the towns. They ransack Onitsha and Nnewi towns and state security agents could not stop them. The street gangs have often stormed Onitsha Prison Yard and freed detainees and prisoners, sometimes killing the prison guards. A state is collapsed when the situation progresses up to the point that the central governmental authority disappears in almost all of the country. Somalia in 1993 and throughout most of the 1990s, Zaire in the last years of Mobutu and Liberia in the last months of Doe up to the “election” of Charles Taylor in 1997 are cogent examples. The onus of this piece is the explanation of state failure and collapse in Africa via the phenomenon of bad governance (underdevelopmental governance).13 At the inception of state collapse is state weakness. Robert Jackson (1990) extensively explains why it was possible for such weak states to join the comity of states. This abysmal weakness notwithstanding, the leaders of the new states and their international supporters pledged to lead the new states into economic development and strong statehood. The orthodoxy in the international political economy in the 1950s up to the 1970s was that states should function as the engine of development in the underdeveloped societies. International economic cooperation for such purposes was (and is still mainly) interstate cooperation. Instead of successfully piloting the states towards economic devel34

Introduction

opment, most of the newly-independent states, especially those in Africa, not only remained abjectly poor, but plummeted from abject poverty to questionable existence as state institutional structures began to fall apart. How to explain this phenomenon has kept political and social scientists busy for about two decades now. Unquestionable is the fact that those new rulers and their successors contributed enough to this decadent state of political and economic affairs in Africa. And this I now attempt to theoretically explain. 1.9 An Institutional Theory of State Collapse The fundamental demarcation between the modern European state and other forms of statehood is its institutionalisation. Thus, an explanation of the qualities of a modern state should start with the modalities of successful institutionalisation. Economic growth in Western Europe has been reflected in institutions by invariably leading to institutional change and institutions promote economic growth (North and Thomas 1970). If this is true of economics, then it is even truer of modern states. The Weberian and Marxian theories of the European states offer instructive lessons which could be extrapolated to explain the institutional weakness of the African state and its collapse. Modern European states cooperated with the bourgeoisie to achieve a high level of economic growth and changed their institutions to reflect this growth and regulate cooperation. Fundamental to the strength, success and longevity of the modern European state is its institutionalisation and the interests of powerful forces (state makers and capitalists) therein. The essence of rational-legal institutionalisation was to give the capitalists, on whose earnings the state depends, security, reliability and predictability in planning. It has been argued that the rationality of the modern state is a quality of capitalism which the state necessarily imbibed in order to regulate its extensive cooperation with capitalism, needless to add that this rationality-based institutionalisation is the backbone of states’ strength. What is an institution? How are institutions strengthened or weakened? And why wasn’t it possible to strengthen postcolonial political institutions in Africa? Institutions could be defined as “any constraints humans devise to shape their interactions, and organisations, created to take advantage of the opportunities presented by institutions in shaping the development of economies” (North 1990: vi).14

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In normal situations of human interaction, conflicts of interests do often arise and institutions offer the actors a behavioural framework for regulating their interaction while realising the optimal possible within that constellation. They not only constrain but also discipline actors. North notes further that, “in consequence they structure incentives in a human exchange, whether political, social, or economic. Institutional change shapes the way societies evolve through time and hence is the key to understanding historical change” (ibid. 3).

Institutions offer actors the framework for their interactions and could arise as a result of deliberate creation by powerful actors in a society or out of evolution, i.e., out of the interactions between actors. They are therefore organisations and behaviour patterns that gradually arose with the passage of time and reflect established experiences, practices, values, beliefs, interests and power. There are formal and informal institutions. Formal institutions refer to the rules devised by humans while informal institutions consist of conventions and codes of behaviour that arise as humans interact. He distinguishes between institutions and organisations, maintaining that organisations provide a structure to human interaction (ibid. 4). Rules of interaction in modern organisations are fixed and formulated in law with punishment for violators. “Therefore, an essential part of the functioning of institutions is the costliness of ascertaining violations and the severity of punishment” (ibid: 4).

Correspondingly, where the severity of punishment exceeds the expected gain of institutional violation, institutions will not be violated; and vice versa. Adherence (or not) to institutional rules is thus a rational action geared towards satisfying the interests of the actor(s). Thus, it is not only institutions that matter, but actor preferences which invariably condition the strength and weakness of institutions. He thus remarks, “Institutions are a creation of human beings. They evolve and are altered by human beings; hence our theory must begin with the individual. At the same time, the constraints that institutions impose on individual choices are pervasive. Integrating individual choices with the constraints institutions impose on choice sets is a major step towards unifying social science research” (ibid. 5).

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Introduction

It is observable that institutions (distinct from organisations) that evolve over a long time are often resistant to fundamental changes. Traditional systems of social control in the “third world” are among such institutions and present obstacles to the institutionalisation of the modern state (Migdal 1988). There must, as a matter of necessity, be congruence between social norms or systems of social control (institutions) and organisations that structure relationships before the organisations could have a meaningful impact in society and therefore last long and the neglect of this truism by modernisation theory is a fundamental bane of the African state. Alternatively, state actors could use incentives coupled with coercive power to institutionalise organisational structures. In this case, the lock-in that results from the symbiotic relationship between institutions and organisations that have arisen as a result of the incentive (or punishment) structure of institutions and the feedback process by which human beings perceive and react to the opportunity-set determine the resultant path of institutional change. Thus, there emerges a kind of path-dependence for institutional change along which line changes in the political and legal frameworks occur. Conversely, there will be no lock-in if the demands of institutional organisations run counter to the institutionalised behaviour patterns of powerful groups or to their interests. Or the lock-in could be created in such a manner that undermines the goal of institutional organisations while satisfying the interests of powerful actors. In such cases, institutional debility occurs. The institutions and their path of change become increasingly more efficient as economic and political organisations emerge to take advantage of the opportunities they offer. The political and economic transaction costs15 coupled with the subjective perception of actors (determined by their interests) lead to choices that neither always optimise productivity nor do they promote social welfare. Some actions could even be counterproductive. “In consequence institutions were (and are) always a mixed bag of those that induce productivity-increase and those that reduce productivity. Institutional change, likewise, almost always creates opportunities for both types of activities” (North 1991: 9).

And this is where the actors’ preferences become paramount; for the direction of political and economic engineering (increased or decreased productivity) depends on the interests of the decisive actors. It is the interest of actors (as determined by their class background) that predis-

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poses them to respect the institutions or otherwise. Thus, in the Third World, writes North, “the opportunities for political and economic entrepreneurs are still a mixed bag, but they overwhelmingly favour activities that promote redistributive rather than productive activity, that create monopolies rather than competitive conditions, and that restrict opportunities rather than expand them. They seldom induce investment in education that increases productivity. The organisations that develop in this institutional framework will become more efficient – but more efficient at making the society even more unproductive and the basic institutional structures even less conducive to productive activity. Such a path can persist because the transaction costs of the political and economic markets of those economies together with the subjective models of the actors do not lead them to move incrementally toward more efficient outcomes” (ibid. 9).

The analysis up till now has been concerned with showing how institutions develop and their effects on economic and political progress or otherwise. However, it is not only institutions that matter, actors matter too as must have become evident; and their interests even more. Thus, explaining institutions and institutional change must take cognisance of actors’ interests that determine their policy preferences by uniting structure and agency for the mere fact that institutions are created and strengthened or weakened by man. This structure-agent analysis is based on the premise that “prior interactions of structure and agency create the institutional legacy that constraints choice down the road” (Karl 1997: 10). This structure-agency framework considers decisions of policy makers as “embedded in (and therefore shaped by) institutions that have been formed through constant interaction with organised groups, and domestic and international markets, and that are characterised by interlocking histories and shared meanings” (ibid: 10)

It includes the nature of available choices, the identities of actors making those choices and the way their preferences are formed within specific structures of incentives, a process that Karl (1990) described as “structured contingency”. Structured contingency “claims that historically created structures, while not determining which one of a limited set of alternatives decision-makers may choose, do in fact demarcate the types of problems that arise and do not define alternative solutions, thereby restricting or enhancing the choices available. Furthermore, institutional structures may combine to produce a situation in which one path of action becomes far more attractive or far less 38

Introduction

costly than another, and thus they can define preferences by creating overwhelming incentives for decision makers to choose (or avoid) a specific set of preferences” (ibid: 10-11).

Historically therefore, the bottom-line of actors approach to institutions has been their interests. Actors’ preferences are very important at the inception of institutions because they determine the parameters of those institutions and these parameters, once determined, assume a pathdependence. Institutions, on their part, “are social patterns that gel only over time; and once gelled; they often endure beyond the forces that brought them into being” (Kohli 2004: 16).

The evolution of institutions over time “subsequently define the preferences of political actors rather than serving as mere constraints” (Karl 1997: 10). Thus, there is a constant interaction between actors and institutions in which one shapes and is in turn, shaped by the other. With specific reference to statecraft, the direction of institutional evolution (developmental or non-developmental) depends on actors’ interests which are conditioned by their positions in the national political economy; which on its part, is invariably conditioned by the position of the state in international political economy. The direction of institutional evolution is therefore an expression of power relations within the polity. It could therefore be argued that the dominance of political actors representing (or cooperating with) the productive stratum of the economy is most likely to lead to a developmental path that strengthens institutions because economic actors need reliability and predictability (incentives) that are offered by institutions and the rule of law for microeconomic planning. Conversely, the dominance of actors from non-productive sector(s) of the economy could lead to a non-developmental path as such political actors tend to use political power to accumulate wealth (incentives) through neopatrimonialism and thus weaken the state. This tendency is even stronger in an international political and economic atmosphere that reduces the imperatives of state survival (to be discussed later) and marginalises the economies of these states. Institutions are conceptually to be separated from organisations and their structures; and the point has already been adumbrated that there should be a congruence between institutions (behaviour patterns) and organisations (structural patterns) for the organisations to be effective and long-lasting. Where this congruence is absent, it becomes very difficult for behavioural patterns and organisations to gel. For example,

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“the autonomisation of their domination of the lower classes through the strategies of extraversion”, of which the state is one, is an institution of the precolonial and postcolonial African state political class (Bayart 1993).16

This institution utilizes patron-client relationships (personalisation of state power) which runs counter to the rational-legal character (impersonal power) of the modern European State bureaucracy that was grafted in Africa in the process of colonialism. The lack of congruence between this institution of the African ruling class and the organisational structures of the modern state induced these rulers to abjure those organisational structures and instead, rule through patron-client networks of the “shadow state” (Reno 2000) and thereby weaken state organisational structures, hedge uncertainties and instrumentalise “disorder” for the ‘incentive’ of capital accumulation (Chabal and Daloz 1999). Historically, the imperatives of state survival, economic development and democracy (see Akude 2006 for details) provided the impetus to institutionalisation in modern states and constitute the link between actors’ preferences and state-bureaucratic institutionalisation. These have hitherto been blocked by the post-World War II doctrine of state sovereignty, colonial policies and postcolonial politics in Africa. What are these imperatives and how do they relate to the emergence of economic development and democracy? 1.10 The Imperatives of Development, Democracy and Strong Statehood Recalling the advice of the World Bank and donor nations that African states should develop their economies by promoting free enterprise and democratic governance, one feels bound to question the utility of such an advice by looking at modern nation-states that have achieved economic growth and democracy and identifying the material conditions coupled with the historical processes that propelled the rulers to toe the paths of developmental growth and democracy with a view to ascertaining the availability or otherwise of these processes and conditions in Africa. Historically, states have not been known to have pursued policies of good governance (economic development and democracy) simply because of its normative qualities. Experiences of history instruct that states have been known to “govern well” if the material conditions make bad governance unfavourable. One could therefore posit the following hypothesis: the institution of democracy and good governance has been 40

Introduction

undertaken by governments under conditions of compulsion; if there is no compulsion, there will be no good governance. For reasons of agency, the sincere pursuit of such policies makes the institutionalisation of administration inevitable as we will soon see. Compulsion could be broken down into five components which may not be sufficient but are absolutely necessary. I am not arguing that all these factors must be present to compel a state to pursue economic development and strong statehood. An arbitrary combination of any them would be sufficient. The imperatives are: The necessity of the state to sustain itself through taxation The exigency of the state to maintain internal stability in order to ward off external aggressors The ability of the state to derive revenue from elastic bases The separation of economic from political power. With reference to the late-developers (Kohli 2004), ‘the desire to catch-up with the West’.

1.10.1 The necessity of the state to sustain itself through taxation Charles Tilly notes that war and its preparation played a significant role in the emergence of robust administrative and durable state structures in modern Europe. Preparation for war and deployment of coercive means in war saddled warriors with two dilemmas which could best be resolved by regular administration of lands, goods and people in order to maintain the subjugation of conquered people, on the one hand, and the erection of an infrastructure of taxation, supply and administration in order to ensure continuity, on the other (Tilly 1992: 20). War involved warriors in extraction, a situation for which they have to provide internal peace and stability. Extraction of financial resources (taxation) induced cooperation between the warriors (state makers) and capitalists (resource bearers). The two groups thus become stakeholders in the state making project. In the mercantilist epoch, for example, this necessity led states to assist capitalists in the securing of markets for the accumulation of bullions. Thus, a cooperation between the warriors (state makers) and resource-bearing group in the European society (bourgeoisie) created the modern European state as wielders of coercion “drew for their own purposes on manipulators of capital” (ibid. 16). Hannah Arendt was equally referring to this development when she wrote that “the bourgeoisie has 41

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developed within, and together with the nation-state” (1951: 123). This development is behind Marx’s initial definition of the state as an executive committee for managing the affairs of the bourgeoisie; a definition that he later corrected, again due to further developments in statecapitalism relations. The point has already been made in this piece that capitalists need a state that they could rely on for secured operations. Such relationships promote the tendency to institutionalisation and a symbiotic interest in the functioning of those organisations that arise to structure the interactions (modern bureaucracy). Leftwich (2000: 78) was therefore right to state that “for Max Weber, (…) the modern state and its bureaucratic character was as much the consequence as it was the condition of capitalist development”.

Apart from raising questions regarding the possibilities of the sustenance of European-type states in non-capitalistic socio-economic formations, I merely emphasize that the necessity for survival created and sustained the institutions of the European state and thus strengthened the state. 1.10.2 The exigency of the state to maintain internal stability in order to ward off external aggressors At the infantile stage of modern state formation in Europe, instability invited external invasion and states that could not successfully resist such invasions simply perish (Jackson 1990). So, the necessity of survival compelled modern European states to maintain internal stability through responsive governance. Institutions and their organisational structures were the means of this response. Attempts were also made to forge a feeling of nationalism, for this purpose. 1.10.3 The ability of the state to derive revenue from elastic bases This imperative of state survival was equally significant for the emergence of democracy in modern Europe. In this case also, the role of the economy was critical. Monarchs were first compelled to share power with parliaments because they needed to derive revenue from bases that are elastic, i.e. revenue bases that grow if positively motivated and vice versa. Accordingly,

42

Introduction

“the more elastic the revenue base, the greater the degree to which the sovereign had to give control over public policy to those whose money he sought to appropriate for public purposes”

(Bates 1999: 85). It has been noted in this context that parliaments first appeared in England as the Monarch was compelled to bargain with citizens because he sought to tax “movable property” (Mitchell 1951: 6). Devolution of power to relatively subordinate groups in society (democratic process) contributes enormously to state strength for the simple fact that the monarch (or governments of sovereign states in today’s parlance) does not necessarily have to invoke coercive methods in the use of state power due to the support the government enjoys among critical groups in society. The level of integration between governments and societies in such situations are relatively much higher. Here again, institutions and their organisations (parliament and bureaucracy) were the instruments of political order. Thus, “in Europe, taxes not only helped create the state, they also helped make it democratic. The origins of representative government are intimately bound up with the evolution of taxation (Bräutigam 2008: 1).

This factor is of utmost importance in the modern political economy of good governance because modern economies depend on functioning infrastructure – good roads, markets, electric power, transport and communication facilities, rule of law and a legal system that protects property rights, educational and health systems etc. - in order to function effectively and contribute to growth and development. The provision of these facilities has been the responsibility of the state (at least up till the triumph of neo-liberalism) and has thus contributed to exercise of state authority through state institutions with the consequence that developmental governance and institutionalisation go hand in hand. 1.10.4 The separation of economic and political power Another factor that influenced the emergence of democracy in the Western world was the separation of political power from private wealth. In Western Europe for example, the democratic revolutions of the 19th century divested the monarchies of their political power while leaving them with considerable economic power. Prior to that, the commercial and industrial revolutions have influenced the emergence of an economically powerful group that did not directly control state power but had to cooperate with princes who established the modern state. The experience 43

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of the USA in this regard was also similar. Bates notes that the AngloAmericans were previously in control of economic and political power but as time went on, the wealthy moved from the White House to the boardroom, leaving political power to the leaders of the immigrant communities (1999: 84). The separation of political and economic power is necessary because it elicits a symbiotic relationship between these two most powerful groups in society that make for good governance: the wielders of political power depend on the wielders of economic power in order to finance war and public administration while the wielders of economic power depend on the wielders of political power for peace and stability and functioning infrastructure – best preconditions for accumulation. This relationship is organised around state institutions. Analysing the success of the newly industrialised Asian societies, Kohli introduces a metaphor that is very illustrative in this case: “if one thinks of the process of industrialisation as a chariot, one can imagine states and entrepreneurs as two horses that may pull it” (2004: 21).

Critical in this relationship is that these groups are endogenous. There are no external sources that prop up the state governments when they are incapable of sourcing their revenue bases internally. Thus, considered from a historical theoretical perspective, the same political and economic process contributed enormously to the emergence of developmental governance as well as strong statehood and democracy in Western and similar states. The common denominator of such process is the determination of the political class for such successes in which the institutions of state do play fundamental roles. It is therefore illogical to detach the emergence of development and democracy from the character of the state. The import of this analytical scheme is that a state system that is based on self-preservation and self sustenance is necessarily a favourable precondition for strong statehood (institutionalisation) which is primarily predicated on economic well-being (development). The European and American experiences are equally analogous to the Asian situation. The economic successes of the East Asian Tigers could not be adequately explained outside the purview of the strength and imperial ambitions of China and Japan which considerably shape the East Asian state system. Being situated between two regional super powers with imperial ambitions, these states could not neglect the necessity of state strength; and state strength being predicated on economic power means that these 44

Introduction

states must strengthen themselves economically in order to maintain their sovereignty. The sovereignty of Taiwan and Hong Kong remains a thorny issue in international affairs. And just about sixty years ago, Korea was a Japanese colony. The developmental process of these states has been piloted by the state institutions (bureaucracy). In the case of Japan, for example, Johnson maintains that a determined and insulated bureaucracy has been the driving force behind the nation’s economic success. He thus states that in Japan, “the politicians reign and the state bureaucrats rule” (1981: 12). The background to this determination has been the hostility of the world and the desire to guarantee own survival in it as Johnson (1982: 25) maintains. I dare add that it is insignificant if this hostility is real or imagined. Thus, a fifth imperative, with reference to the late-developers, could be the desire to catch up with the West. 1.10.5 The desire to catch up with the West Modern states outside of Europe (East Asia, some former Communist states, Botswana) that have seriously pursued and achieved a modicum of development has been propelled in this direction not only by the desire to survive in a hostile world but also by the desire to catch up with the West and subsequently be in a position to resist Western imperialism.17 Even some former socialist states that did achieve development during the Cold War were partially propelled by this desire. The competition between the two ideologies and the will not to lose did play a role too. And in all these cases, state institutions have been pivotal; of course encouraged by the political class. Scholars have noted that the “distinguishing character of developmental states is that their political purposes and institutional structures (especially their bureaucracies) have been developmentally driven, while their developmental objectives have been politically driven. For at the heart of these states, fundamentally political factors have shaped the urgency, thrust and pace of their developmental strategies through the structures of the state” (Leftwich 2000: 154; Cf. Castells 1992, Pempel 1999).

1.11 The Deviation in the African Situation None of the above adumbrated imperatives of state survival was available in Africa.18 It was not imperative for African rulers to secure their existence and police all borders. They rather created a postcolonial state system that is characterised by cooperation and not confrontation (Herbst 2000). African leaders accepted the colonial boundaries and en45

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shrined the inviolability of the boundaries in the first Charter of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), a deed that earned the OAU the appellation of Trade Union for African Heads of State by the then Tanzanian President, Julius Nyerere.19 Thus, there was no need to spread effective administrative structures all over their territories in order to ward off external aggression. The appearance of states remains restricted to cities, often only in capital cities and disappears as one travels inland. They equally did not feel the urgency to encourage development because the international state system into which they emerged bankrolled their administrations through development aid, international trade on articles controlled by the state and foreign investment in extractive industry, thereby obliterating the importance of internal sources of revenue. For example, the level of net aid for 13 African countries in 1980 was above 10% of GNP (World Bank 2006). The share of development aid to sub-Saharan Africa has continuously increased; in the 1990s it was five times as high as in the 1960s and three times as high as in the 1970s (Azam et al 2002). For resource-poor countries, the share is even higher. Figure 1: Number of Countries Receiving Net Aid at Levels above 10 % of GNP

Source: World Bank, World Development Indicators 2006 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2006).

Figure 1 shows the number of sub-Saharan African countries out of a total of 47 with net aid levels above 10% of GDP.

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In 2003, the percentage of oil revenues to Nigerian and Angolan governments’ total revenue earnings were above 75% respectively (ADB 2008: 6).20 This is similar to the statistics of other African countries endowed with other mineral resources.The implication of these developments was that African rulers were not forced to bargain with indigenous producers over taxes, institute financial accountability and build robust bureaucracies capable of directing resources to productive groups. With ‘unearned revenue’ accruing to the states, the rulers never felt the urge to penetrate their societies for productive purposes.21 Excessive focus on the economic gains that accrued from relations to exogenous forces (with special reference to raw material extraction) has devastating consequences for the emergence of the most important imperative of good governance in a modern economy: the derivation of revenue from elastic bases. Elastic bases could be positively motivated through the provision of infrastructure, security, investment in qualitative education, economic policies that favour the accumulation of capital by indigenous productive forces, transparency in government’s management of state revenues which facilitates the confidence of society’s resource bearing groups in government, forward and backward linkages of production sectors, etc. The motivation of elastic bases correlates positively with the taxation of productive activities and vice versa. Thus, an IMF study judged the tax efforts of 71% of the African countries that received more than 10% of GDP from aid in 1995 as less-than-expected (Stotsky and Agedech 2007). The concentration on drawing revenues from natural resources, which are inelastic, does not promote the development of the imperatives of good governance and thus hampers institution building. In fact, it could have the opposite effect whereby the state cordons off the area rich in mineral deposits with state security apparatus and uses the extracted resources to enrich top officials while simultaneously neglecting the whole society (Reno 2000). The point here is that the quality of governance does not have much impact on the amount of extractable revenue. And because the rulers and their cronies control these natural resources, which constitute the lion shares of overall state revenues, there is no separation between the wielders of economic and political power. As a corollary, there is no impetus to formal rational-legal institutionalisationof state administration in Africa. It is therefore no wonder that the states remain weak and some even collapsed with the alteration in international politics at the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, the class character of the new African rulers (nonproductive) coupled with the illegitimacy of the states they inherited 47

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from the colonialists led to a political situation in which the determination to pursue economic development was (and still is) infinitesimal. There was equally no urge to institutionalise the state as it could slip off their hands. They rather tried to bribe their way to legitimacy by reducing the pangs of life for the city inhabitants (at the expense of the village dwellers) through subsidised importation of consumables and the placement of high exchange rates on their national currencies, which eased superfluous imports. What is this character of the African postcolonial ruling class and how could it be accounted for? For this, a review of the historical development of African states becomes necessary because it was in that process that the states veered outside the logic of development and strong statehood and laid the foundations for underdevelopment and state weakness. This I would undertake in Chapter 3.

Notes 1

See details of these theoretical discussions in chapter 2 of this book.

Decades of undemocratic governance coupled with the violence that greeted the “election” of Faure Eyadema in Togo (2005), violence in the wake of election rigging in Kenya (Dec. 2007), Nigeria’s President Obasanjo’s failed attempt at prolonging his tenure (2006), President Chilluba of Zambia’s failed attempt at tenure extension (2005-6), President Biya’s failed attempt at tenure elongation (2008); and the successful tenure extensions through parliamentary manipulations of Presidents Deby of Chad, Bongo of Gabon, Conte of Guinea, Museveni of Uganda and Eyadema of Togo are all proofs of African rulers’ lack of interest in democratisation. 2

The essence of the comparison relates to the fact that states exist in an international system in which European states present the established models and analyses of regional discrepancies in states’ capabilities might have to commence with an analysis of processual differentials in the emergence of states in different regions especially as these processes imbued states with their capabilities or lack of them. To understand what weak states lack, it is necessary to study strong states and the lessons of such studies should substantially inform international development policies.

3

I have to note here that even though nationalism has its negative tendencies; it is not inherently evil as often portrayed. It has its good sides too. Many Africans would prefer a state that promotes national sentiments that bind the nation than ethnic and religious divisionisms prevalent today. New research evidence demonstrates that nationalism could favourably influence the creation of wealth, 4

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Introduction

the fight against corruption and the lowering of crime (Cf. de las Casas, Gustavo 2008). For example, that it is too normative (Adejumobi and Bujra 2002); or that it is an expression of Western dominance which reproduces undemocratic global order (Abrahamsen 2000). 5

6 The context under which this action-reaction spiral leads to state failure is elaborately discussed in Holsti, Kalevi (1995), War, the State and the State of War, Cambridge Univ. Press; and Job, Brian L. (ed.) (1992), The Insecurity Dilemma: national security of the Third World States, Lynne Rienner, London and Boulder, Colorado.

By the way, the arbitrary and interest-laden application of the concept of sovereignty in international politics has led Steven Krasner (1999) to characterize it as “organised hypocrisy”. 7

This type of democracy has been described as “electoralism” by Richard Joseph as it stresses the mere holding of elections irrespective of malpractices that influence results. See Joseph, Richard 1999 for details. 8

9 See Rhodes R (1995), the new Governance: Governing without Government, (Economic and Research Council, Swindon) for further details on the meanings and usages of Governance. 10

I have suggested how to avoid this problem in Chapter 3.

The conception of good governance referred to here is mine and not the orthodox World Bank’s. It refers to a creative application of state power in looking for solutions that lessen the burden of existence for citizens. 11

12

See cases treated in this book. This was also the case with Somalia.

By this I mean a system of government that promotes socio-economic underdevelopment; a modification of Letwich’s (2000) ‘developmental governance’. 13

This economistic definition should be understood here in a much broader sense which encompasses non-economic institutions. 14

15 Transaction costs are costs of economic exchange. They are threefold: search costs – cost of locating information about opportunities for exchange; negotiation costs - cost of negotiating the exchange; and enforcement costs – costs of enforcing the contract. See North and Thomas (1973: 93ff) for more details.

16

“Strategies of extraversion” refers to “mobilising resources derived from Africa’s unequal relationship with the external environment” (1993: 21-22). Development assistance is one form of such resources.

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Botswana is an exception in sub-saharan Africa and I believe that this exception relates directly to the fact that the precolonial ruling family in Botswana is as well the postcolonial ruling family. Thus, there was no need to ‘buy’ legitimacy through misuse of state power which then diverts attention from the pursuit of economic development.

17

The Republic of South Africa presents an exception on two points – separation of political from economic power and the derivation of revenue through elastic bases. The whites still control economic power and the blacks’ political power. She is the only African country that exports machinery and equipment.

18

The acceptance of European drawn boundaries by African politicians was not automatic. There were arguments regarding the best state model for Africa at the inception of independence. African politicians and their European overlords opted for a change of guards and retention of the European model for obvious reasons.

19

20

ADB stands for African Development Bank.

21

This is reminiscent of the resource curse thesis which should be treated in the next chapter.

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Chapter 2

CONTENDING EXPLANATIONS OF STATE WEAKNESS AND COLLAPSE IN AFRICA The research endeavours towards the production of this book is not conceived in a way that makes field research necessary. The reason is not far-fetched: the causes of state collapse have been variously studied, theoretically as well as empirically; and documented. From the information so far, it does not appear that a field work will be necessary. On the other hand, this means that the review of literature will be as exhaustive as possible and attempts will be made to reproduce the analyses reviewed as originally as possible in order to enable the reader follow the logics of their arguments and not confuse them with mine due to the slightness of their distinctions. It is almost impossible to cover the whole literature in any particular phenomenon, but attempts will be undertaken to cover as many strands of different arguments as is possible. An Analysis of the causes of state collapse in Africa has to necessarily start with an analysis of the causes of state weakness for two basic reasons: first, state collapse is an extension of state weakness. Secondly, weakness predates collapse and all collapsed states were and still are weak states. For analytical concision therefore, these two theoretical analyses will be separated. The weakness of the African state is so pervasive and so far-reaching that it doesn’t need further clarification.. Through a perusal of the literature, it becomes conspicuous that there was no analytical distinction between the concepts of state collapse and state failure. This has to do with the fact that most of the books and articles where written in the 1980s and 1990s; and at that time, the conceptual distinction was not considered an issue worthy of academic endeavour. However, this situation changed later with the publications of Rotberg and Tetzlaff. So, how has the intrinsic and deep-seated weakness of African states been explained and how is it demonstrated in daily politics and administration? 2.1 Theoretical Explanations of State Weakness in Africa 2.1.1 Post World War II Changes in the Doctrine of Statehood The abysmal weakness of African states necessitates an explanation of its existence because the membership of such states in the international 51

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state system was a relative novelty. It was the fundamental change in the doctrine of sovereign statehood after the Second World War that accounts for the existence of the African state (Jackson 1990). Thus, African states did not go through the European experience. It has almost become customary to make allusions to European experience of state building when analysing African states. Several reasons account for this, prominent among which is the fact African states exist in an international state system that primarily started in Europe and was known originally as ‘the concert of Europe’; a system to which they were forcibly incorporated in the process of colonialism and in which they had to operate as sovereign states since independence. A corollary of this fact is that the expectations of the African state were often undertaken with the capability of the European states as a model. And this makes the allusion to the European experience even more essential because it helps to identify the differences in the development trajectories of these two types of states and shows how these trajectories influenced the strengths or weaknesses of states. For Jackson therefore, this difference in development trajectory whereby these states do not initially have to prove their ability to control territories is a fundamental flaw that should have disqualifies them from full-fledged sovereignty ab initio; a reason for which he called them ‘quasi states’. ‘Quasi states’ are those formerly colonial states that became sovereign states through a substantial change in the doctrines of international relations which led to their decolonisation and subsequent recognition as equal and full-fledged states by other states in the international system and not through a proof of their capabilities of statehood. Capabilities of sovereign statehood have to do with the power and competence “to declare, implement and enforce public policy” (1990: 29). He differentiated between empirical and juridical statehood. Empirical statehood refers to a situation where the state in question has the capability to protect itself from internal and external aggressions through functional administrative structures and could protect and project its interests in international affairs; i.e., the state could act as against being acted upon. Juridical statehood depicts a situation where the state does not have this capability although it is legally and internationally recognised as a state. Leaning on Isaiah Berlin’s four freedoms, he came up with the concept of “positive” and “negative” sovereignty, stating that positive sovereignty is freedom to – the ability to actively use one’s own freedom; and negative sovereignty is freedom from – security and freedom from the intervention of others in the context of international relations. States with positive sovereignty take decisive actions in national affairs and in the international 52

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system while states with negative sovereignty are mostly passive. Therefore, “these states are primarily juridical. They are still far from complete, so to speak, and empirical statehood in large measure still remains to be built. I therefore refer to them as ‘quasi-states’ “(ibid: 21). Prior to the end of the Second World War, only the states that could guarantee their own existence in a highly anarchical international system could exist. The weak states whet the appetites of the strong ones which attack and annex them. But the end of the Second World War changed all that. The international system now took it upon itself to maintain the existence of the very weak (Jackson 1990, Helman and Ratner 1993, Holsti 1996). The rule of the game forbade the death of states. Jackson goes further, “they are not allowed to disappear juridically – even if for all intents and purposes, they have already fallen or been pulled down in fact. (…) The juridical cart is now before the empirical horse” (ibid: 23-24). Holsti (1996: 120) almost repeated these words with regards to state collapse when he wrote that “most failed states do not disappear physically, but they are largely hollow shells in which the requirements of sovereignty cannot be met. Legal personality and political fact are divorced”. The main thrust of Jackson’s analysis is akin to Charles Tilly’s remarks on how wars influenced the erection and development of strong administrative state structures in Europe. He maintains that “preparation for war, especially on a large scale involves rulers ineluctably in extraction. It builds up an infrastructure of taxation, supply and administration that requires maintenance of itself and often grows faster than the armies and navies that it serves…” (1992: 20). The necessities of self preservation and military victory against internal and external foes mandated states to develop empirical statehood and most importantly, monopolise the instruments of violence in their territories. He thus stressed the fact that war made states and states make war (chapter 3). Echoing the weakening consequences of initially not having to prove effective statehood before international recognition which goes back to the change in the international norms of sovereignty, Ayoob remarks that some newly crystallised norms of the international system have not been helpful to these states. Prominent among them is the inalienability of juridical sovereignty of statehood. This norm preserves the existence of the third world states without solving their internal problem of lack of social cohesion. Thus, their existential dilemma becomes a perpetual security predicament. According to Ayoob, states are deliberately made. Leaning on Cohen, Brown and Organski, who saw state making as

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‘primitive central state power accumulation’, he identified three processes of this phenomenon: (1) War – expansion and consolidation of the territorial and domestic domain and under a political authority including the imposition of order on contested territorial and demographic space. (2) Policing – the maintenance of order in the territory where, and over the population on whom, such order has already been imposed. (3) Taxation – the extraction of resources from the territory and the population under the control of the state essential to support not only war-making and policing activities undertaken by the state but also for the maintenance of state appliances necessary to carry on routine administration, deepen the state’s penetration of society and serve symbolic purposes (Ayoob 1996: 69). Apparently, the moral lesson of war in Europe was to impel European leaders to discredit war. Thus, attempts at the pacification of the European inter-state system with special reference to imperialism predated the Second World War. The Berlin Conference of October 1884-85 presented the mechanism for dividing Africa peacefully amongst European powers. This pacification had far reaching consequences for the empirical sovereignty of African states. It has been noted at the beginning of this millennium that “cooperation rather than continual conflict characterised Africa during the last century of state making” (Herbst 2000: 26). Counterfactually, it is therefore appropriate to hypothesise that had Europeans fought against one another for the possession of African territories; or had Africans had to fight themselves to secure their territories and control internal recalcitrant forces, state makers in Africa (colonial as well as postcolonial) would have been compelled to strengthen administrative structures and institutionalise the state. Rather, African leaders accepted the European drawn boundaries for purposes of wealth accumulation that it conferred on them. Julius Nyerere, the first president of independent Tanzania was therefore right to describe the Organisation of African Unity (O.A.U) as a labour union for African presidents; more so as Article 1 of the OAU had to deal with the inviolability of the territorial integrity of all states. African states were thus, born with congenital abnormality. 2.1.2 Dominance of the Ideology of Statehood in International Relations Similarly, the preponderance of the ideology of statehood in the international system – that the state is the ideal building block for international order – has been identified as having a fundamental influence in 54

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the weakness of African states (Clapham 2000) as it bestows on the rulers the advantages of international political and economic relations without recourse to empirical statehood, effective and responsible leadership and legitimacy (Clapham 1996: 21-23). This predominance of the idea of statehood as the basis of international order led to the export of statehood to all African societies during decolonisation irrespective of their special situations. This special situation relates to the fact that there is no basis for statehood in the political culture of most of these societies. “Some of these societies have the social values required to sustain states, whereas others do not” (ibid: 7). He also saw the coerced and foreign nature of the imposition of these states as problematic, making it difficult for the society to identify with the state. This issue has equally been raised by other scholars (Holsti 1996, Ayoob, 1996, Bayart 1993). Large parts of Africa never experienced statehood before colonialism and because the 60 or so years of colonialism is too short to imbue the people with a culture of statehood (what Clapham called ‘external governmentalities’, borrowing from Bayart), the alienated African resorted to extended family system and forms of spiritual authority and control (‘witchcraft’) in order to maintain a level of social cohesion. “These localised and particularistic means of maintaining social order were difficult to incorporate into Westernised state structures” (Clapham op.cit: 5). 2.1.3 The Brutality of Colonial Imposition Furthermore, the brutal nature of the imposition of the modern state by the colonialists has often been mentioned as a contributory factor to the weakness of the African state by alienating the citizens from the state project (Ekeh 1992, Ake 1996, Holsti op.cit). The colonial state was autocratic (not based on participatory democracy), its bureaucracy was topdown (not responsive to local expectations and interests and therefore favoured ethnic domination) and the security apparatus was deliberately separated from society and emphasised domination (no social contract). The state is therefore fundamentally deficient in one of the most important requirements of statehood - a feeling of community or what Holsti (op.cit) called horizontal legitimacy. The belief that the transposition of the modern statehood modelled after those of the colonial powers in ‘third world’ (especially Africa) will succeed was shattered immediately after independence as political problems emerged almost everywhere. According to Holsti, the reason for this wrong estimate is the nonrecognition of other forms of pre-colonial statehood by the colonialists. A corollary of this fact is the second fundamental deficiency of statehood in 55

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the third world: lack of vertical legitimacy in that “substantial segments of their population do not accord the state or its rulers’ loyalty” (p. 104). Such states are thus weak, depicting such characteristics as personalisation of the state by the power wielder, the existence of several cleavages which could be exploited to capture the state in the interest of one but for the domination of the other(s), lack of security for the citizens, lack of the capacity to provide essential services to the citizens, lack of justice in the allocation of resources, lack of social consensus of the political “rule of the game”, the practice of the politics of passion (politics of ultimate ends which doesn’t lend itself to negotiations) and finally, the preponderance of corruption in the affairs of such states. Usually, such states try to extend their coercive power in order to penetrate the society and thus display a paradox – they are strong in despotic power but weak in infrastructural power, to paraphrase Michael Mann (1984). 2.1.4 Undermining African Pre-Colonial Statehood Non-recognition of pre-colonial forms of statehood as a possible basis of the modern African state has been bemoaned by Basil Davidson as being the most fundamental reason for the weakness of the African state. He blamed the European colonisers and the African nationalists for not caring to look deep into the political history of Africa in designing the African State during independence. He rejects the claim that there were no indigenous States in Africa before colonialism on which one could base the new African States, asserting that the Asante Kingdom (for example) was from all intents and purposes a state. The basis of this state was the spiritual belief that the Golden Stool (which he compared favourably with the symbolic English crown), which descended directly from the ancestors has commanding powers over life, death and fortunes of the citizens and the Asantehene - the ruler. This belief held the state together. This significance of rituals in keeping states together have been emphasised by other scholars - Durkheim (1965: 257-58) and Poggi (1971). The Asante, he maintains, was a state because ”it had a given territory, known territorial limits, a central government with police and army, a national language and law, and beyond these a constitutional embodiment in form of council called the Asanteman” (Davidson 1992: 59). The mystical symbol of the Asantehene’s authrority was the Golden Stool. To entrench this mystically descended Golden Stool a practical basis of authority, Asantehene Anokye produced a mandatory charter expressed in the seventy-seven laws which functioned as the constitutional basis of the state. One of the foremost authorities in African sociology says of this 56

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charter, “these laws set out the structure of government (and) the division of labour, and the main elements of early Asante political culture” (Chazan 1988: 60). This political culture was that of popular participatory democracy. But the colonisers did not see this as a state, believing rather that there are no models of African States and instead introduced the European nation-state model. “So these, being alien models, failed to achieve legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of African citizens, and soon proved unable to protect and promote the interests of those citizens, save for a privileged few” (Davidson, op cit: 12).

The spiritual component provided by the Golden Stool presented a rallying basis of identification. The lack of quality by the modern neocolonial African state made its institutionalisation a burden for the black man. But the colonialists were not alone in the disregard of African precolonial political forms; they were supported by African politicians (Herbst 2000: 99), in order to seize control of the colonial state as an operating system (Cornwell 1999: 63). Davidson notes with specific reference to West Africa: “the educated elites in West Africa …saw African own history as irrelevant and useless…when it came down to brass tacks, to the question of who should take over from the British when the British withdrew, they demanded a more or less complete flattening of the ethnic landscape” (p.102-103).

Decades later, with the salience of a plethora of problems confronting the African state, those politicians would blame the colonialists for the artificiality of African boundaries. It was furthermore, burdensome for the African statesmen to combine state making with the process of erecting a nation-state, two processes that developed separately in Europe. State making in Europe antedated the emergence of nations and nationstates by a couple of centuries (Ayoob op.cit: 70). States or national states as distinguished from nation-states refer to “states governing multiple contiguous regions and their cities by means of centralized, differentiated, and autonomous structures” and nation-states are states “whose people share a strong linguistic, religious, and symbolic identity” (Tilly op.cit: 2-3). As states performed well over a few centuries, it became possible for the states to wield the people together with historical memories, legal codes, common languages etc., a pre-condition for the emergence of na57

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tionalism and consequently, nation-statism. It was only towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the twentieth centuries that nation-states developed in Europe. So “the Western model is essentially a “state system” rather than a “nation system”; and this has been its fateful legacy to Africa and Asia” (Smith 1983: 11). 2.1.5 The State-Making Thesis State making has been identified as an enterprise that involves costs and benefits (Ayoob 1996, Clapham 2000). Clapham believes that state making is imbued with costs and benefits, and that during and after decolonisation, the emphasis has been only on the benefits and not the costs, making people forget that costs are involved in that enterprise. These costs (which could be broadly divided in to political, social and economic) include among others, the demand that these post colonial states meet a peculiar form of modernity which took the European states very long to achieve, for e.g., democratic structures as against European system of personal rule (at that time), management of professional armies and bureaucracies, economic and welfarist responsibilities and the expectation of measuring up to Weberian standards of rational-legal basis of authority and most especially, financial accountability. Chief among the social costs include the sacrifice of identities and social structures which are inimical to the hierarchies of control that states seek to impose. He maintained that neither constitutional forms for e.g. federalism nor domination of the state by one ethnic group has been able to solve the problem. Economic costs involve the provision of healthcare and education. The state was seen as the basis of development and had to shoulder the financial responsibility of providing services including of course, its administration’s costs. Independence increased these demands on the state, forcing the weak state to buy political allegiance through a great variety of clientelist or neo-patrimonial mechanisms which became increasingly difficult to sustain - activities that weaken and undermine the state. The imposition of structural adjustment programme (SAP) by the Bretton Woods Institutions helped to pull the carpet of support off the feet of the African State. And political costs include the suffering that the people have to go through in this process of state making, involving sometimes war, anarchy and disorder. Sadly enough for him, these costs have been unproductive because of bad governance. Thus, the expectation of meeting international standards of democracy and good government within a

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short period of time puts the African postcolonial states under pressure to perform without the time to do so. Ayoob makes similar remarks by stating that the fundamental problem of state making for the third world is that they lack the time which state-making needs to come to maturity and that the rush to achieve this mature standard plunges the already weak state into a crisis of legitimacy. A standard that took the matured European states hundreds of years to achieve is being expected of the third world after only a few decades after independence. “The problem for the latter”, (the third world states), “has been compounded by the fact that they are under pressure to demonstrate adequate stateness quickly, as well as to perform the task of state-making in a humane, civilized and consensual fashion, and to do all this in an era of mass politics” (1996: 73).

Coupled with this is the demand of competition with the established stronger and better organised states in the international system which makes it obligatory for the third world countries to achieve their goals in the shortest possible time or risk being ridiculed and cajoled. The only way out for these weak states is to telescope and collapse some of these time-consuming processes together to save time. This placed the third world states in a security predicament. The problem is further compounded by the demand of the international system that these states treat their citizens humanely during these early stages of state-making. The Europeans states never experienced this pressure, Ayoob maintains. They had the opportunity of state-making, unencumbered by demands of respect for human rights and democracy. These demands came later when the states has already solved the problem of internal cohesion and marks a significant difference to the international context that European states had to contend. “The western democracies emerged into a world in which they have to contend with a fairly limited number of government functions and the management of fairly simple economic and systems in a relatively spacious global system… The new African states, on the other hand, emerged into a wholly new environment. They were asked to establish full scale social welfare states with complicated mechanisms, at the same time as undertaking a complex drive for social and economic development, and this in a world of population explosion widening technological and economic gaps, superpower competition and global tension and conflict” (Cornwell 1999: 65).

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He states that the Third World states neither have the time nor the opportunity to solve these problems of state making one after the other. The pressure to solve all these problems at the same time overburdens the political system and leads to its breakdown. “Given the short time at the disposal of state-makers, and the consequent acceleration in state-making efforts necessary to demonstrate that they are moving speedily towards effective statehood, crises erupt simultaneously, become unmanageable as the load they put on the political system outruns the political and military capabilities of the state, and lead to a cumulation of crises which further erode the legitimacy of the already fragile post-colonial state” (ibid).

2.1.6 Geography, Topography and State-Making Geographicall conditions influence the nature of state and the reach of power in societies. This influence has been negative in Africa due to the inclement nature of African geography and topography which constitute insurmountable hindrances in the attempt to broadcast power from the centres to the peripheries of states (Herbst 2000). There is therefore nothing new about the weakness of the post-colonial state lacking an anchor on society judging by the fact that the geographical, topographical and demographical conditions at the background of these problems have been there since time immemorial. “The fundamental problem facing state-builders in Africa – be they precolonial kings, colonial governors, or presidents in the independent era – has been to project authority over inhospitable territories that contain relatively low densities of people” (p. 11).

He postulates that “leaders confront three sets of issues when building their states: the cost of expanding the domestic power infrastructure; the nature of national boundaries; and the design of states systems” (p.13). Approaches to these problems involve trade offs which inevitably affect the success or otherwise of the attempt to consolidate authority. He maintains therefore, that the consolidation of authority in Africa could be understood by examining three basic dynamics: “the assessment of the costs of expansion by individual leaders, the nature of the buffer mechanisms established by the state; and the nature of the regional state system” (p.23). Topographical and geographical factors coupled with the limited technologies of coercion make the cost of expansion of state’s authority uneconomic with the result that states tend to concentrate on the core. 60

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Furthermore, it was difficult to achieve formal control because of the “primacy of exit” and the “unbundling of sovereignty and control”: due to the availability of large arrays of arable land, groups simply move further inwards into stateless areas instead of fighting or confronting the state over land. This favours the separation of sovereignty from control as groups that settle down in an area under the control of a certain ruler may still harbour allegiance to another ruler. Thus, in Africa, sovereignty is about control of minds and not necessarily territories. This is also understandable judging by the fact that there are relatively more territories than minds. African borders were therefore soft and the states neither considered it imperative to control the movement of people and resources. This led to a kind of diffusion of sovereignty at the boundaries which were practically porous; a situation that reminds one of similar conditions in earlier Europe as Holsti remarks that “there were vast ‘grey’ areas of overlapping jurisdictions (and thus frequent quarrels) of uncertain domains” (1996: 4). The only difference being that this state of affairs never led to wars in Africa, making buffer mechanisms unnecessary. And this lack of buffer mechanisms at the boundaries meant that there were different levels of authority over different areas: state authority tends to dissipate as one moves further from the core. 2.1.7 Regional Political System The quality of statehood is often affected by the regional political system. Precolonial Africa featured a mixture of political systems in which centralised and non-centralised political entities co-existed, and the modalities of the system did not promote strong statehood, at least in the modern sense. Writes Herbst, “the state system that precolonial Africans developed also heightened the cost African leaders faced when extending power” (ibid: 56). It was a state system in which boundaries mattered less, a situation that enables a state to disregard its outskirts or even relinquish its control (i.e. control of this outskirts) to another state that strives for it. And if this other state should lose interest in maintaining power over the area in question, the state system tolerates a vacuum “and decentralised villages are allowed to govern themselves”. Further, “if a state’s hold over an outlying area became more tenuous, it was perfectly legitimate for the hinterland to break away” (ibid). As a result, the whole of Africa was not partitioned into states as state structures existed simultaneously with non-state structures. Thus, the reactions to the problems posed by a combination of three factors - cost, boundaries and state system - made the 61

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extension of state authority in Africa extremely difficult und forced the states to concentrate on the core. The colonial and post colonial state rulers of Africa have equally toed the line of pre-colonial rulers: indirect rule and patron/client politics; with the consequence that states remain weak and authority remains concentrated in the core. The peaceful partition of Africa among European powers in Berlin in 1885 and the cooperation that marked the relationship among post independent Africa leaders maintained and still maintain this state of affairs. But while pre-colonial and colonial Africa made no pretences to extending power and authority over the whole territories that they claimed were theirs, the post-colonial Africa states sought and still seek to. Thus, destructive policies, civil wars and dysfunctional governments have been the results of attempts by post-colonial African rulers to extend authority over vast and inhospitable territories of low population density and varied environmental and geographical zones. The lesson of Herbst’s analysis is that even though scholars have argued that analyses of modern African politics should start from the colonial period because it forms the historical background from which Africans advanced to modernity and as such have determined the characteristics of modernity in Africa (Ekeh 1975: 93). Those characteristics of modernity may not be very different from the characteristic of antiquity if viewed from the point of view of the reactions of modern politicians to material conditions that existed from antiquity. In this way, the apparently modern is merely a continuation of the old remodelled in modern structures. Such natural conditions and the reactions to them as has been identified by Herbst are not the only state-weakening factors that could be traced back to the colonial period (and beyond). The way the modern state tries to replace old systems of social control and introduce its own in most Third World societies (not limited to Africa) has been said to constitute a state-weakening factor (Migdal 1988). The modern state is not only one out a series of human organisations, it is also the most modern and purports to be superior to the others. In the third world, the attempt of states makers to superimpose the state’s system of social control over the others could have some weakening effects on the state if it remains or becomes fragmented. 2.1.8 Contending Systems of Social Control Third World societies in the course of their histories develop systems of social control to which individuals within the societies must adapt in order to survive. This adaptation forms the basis of emergence of rules, 62

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regulations, customs, myths, economy, culture, rights and privileges etc. The institutionalisation of these aspects of human behaviour corresponds to the emergence of several organisations which enforce them. In this sense, the society is to be considered a mélange of social organisations rather than a dichotomous structure. The implication of this model that sees the society as a mélange is twofold: firstly, the groups that exercise social control in a society may be heterogeneous both in their forms and in the rules they apply and secondly, social control may be distributed among several fairly autonomous groups in the society. In this mélange of organisations, be they social classes, ethnic groups, clans, states, castes, etc. the rules of societal organisation is exercised either singly (by one of the groups) or jointly (between two or more groups). The exercise of social control is therefore fragmented; apposite to the conception of such societies as “web-like”, i.e. consisting of several layers of authority, ranging from the family, through the clan or ethnic group (or similar groupings). The state is therefore just one among many instances of authority. But it strives to be the superior organisation by making binding rules on other organisations, thereby getting into conflicts with them. “The very purpose for which leaders employ the state in seeking predominance through binding rules automatically thrust it into conflict with the other organisations over who has the right and ability to make those rules” (p. 31).

Continued Migdal, social control is the currency over which the state battles the society. Increasing or decreasing levels of social control is to be measured on three indicators viz; compliance, participation and legitimation. Of all these, legitimation is the most important because the state wishes to be obeyed based on the genuine acceptance it finds among the citizens, and not due to threat or use of force. The strength of the state in this environment of conflict and competition has come to depend to a considerable level on its ability to exercise social control. Furthermore, the capacity of states, especially the capability to implement social policies and mobilise the society depends to a large extent on the structure of the society. He characterised most third world societies as being web-like; consisting of several corners whereby each corner can exist alone. One layer of authority is therefore not necessarily dependent on another. “Weblike societies host a mélange of fairly autonomous social organisations” (p.37) in which numerous systems of justice (social control) exist simultaneously.

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The main interest of the state lies in penetrating the society and superimposing itself over and above all these other organisations using the system of social control as an instrument. Herein lies the crux of Migdal’s research endeavour: to find out how the structure of societies affect the capability of states. This capability includes “the capacity to penetrate society, regulate social relationships, extract resources and appropriate or use resources in determined ways” (1988: 4).To do this, the state has to alter the existing system of social control in its favour and the strength of the state then depends on its ability (or inability) to affect this change. That is, whether “states end up on the strong or weak end of the scale depends on the distribution of social control in society” (p. 275). But because of the longevity of the existence of these organisations (which normally antedate the state), they develop a robust resistance to the attempts of the state to superimpose itself over them. The state is therefore forced to enter into all sorts of deals of accommodation, not only with the strongmen (the leaders of these organisations) but also with the bureaucrats, by attaching them to state’s resources and personnel. So emerges the triangle of accommodation between the state (politicians), the implementers (bureaucrats) and strongmen. By so doing, the state weakens itself in the sense that the interests of these strongmen run counter to the interests of the state. “Strongmen have been wedded to state resources and personnel to maintain their local control and to gain new resources to enhance that control. Yet, their most basic purposes have been antithetical to modern norms of what a state should do. These norms have depicted the state as a mechanism to create a single jurisdiction – a rule of law in which the rules are the same from border to border; this is the desideratum of the modern state. These strongmen have worked for precisely the opposite effect. They have sought to maintain their own rules and their own criteria for who gets what within much more limited bounds; their rules have been parochial and discriminatory rather than universal” (p. 255).

Thus, state-society relation in Africa hangs on a “precarious balance” (Rothchild and Chazan 1988). 2.1.9 A Thesis of Two Publics Peter Ekeh (1975) was referring to an issue similar to the above when he wrote that “the most outstanding characteristic of African politics is that the same political actors simultaneously operate in the primordial 64

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and the civic publics” (p. 93) which he sees as a problem because the two public realms operate on separate moral foundations. He premised his thesis on the existence of two publics in Africa which is contrary to the Western experience that features just one and sees politics as all individual activities that impinge on the public realm made up of the collective interests of citizens. Thus, the distinction between the private and the public realms delimits the scope of politics; and unfortunately, the conception of these terms is informed by Western experience, a situation that stultifies all attempts at applying them to Africa. “The distinction between the public and the private realms as used over the centuries has acquired a peculiar Western connotation, which may be identified as follows: the private realm and the public realm have a common moral foundation. Generalized morality in society informs both the private and the public realm. That is, what is considered morally wrong in the private realm is also considered morally wrong in the public realm. Similarly, what is considered morally right in the private realm is also considered morally right in the public realm” (p. 92).

He maintains that this assumption does not reflect the African reality because “the private realm in Africa is differentially associated with the public realm in terms of morality” (ibid). He identified two public realms in post colonial Africa which have different linkages to the private realm: the primordial public and the civic public. “The primordial public is moral and operates on the same moral imperatives as the private realm” and consists of primordial groupings, ties and sentiments which determine the individual’s public behaviour. The civic public in Africa on the other hand, “is amoral and lacks generalized moral imperatives operative in the private realm and in the primordial public” (p. 92)

The primordial public is historically associated with colonial administration. It is based on civil structures: the military, the civil service and the police etc. and is characterised by its lack of moral linkages to the private realm. The dialectical relationship between these two constitutes the unique political issues that characterise African politics. Such issues as tribalism, corruption and the preponderance of voluntary associations in public life are attempts at realising (moral) primordial public interests within the (amoral) civic public arena and constitute the dialectical tensions and confrontations between these two publics. How could the existence of two publics have a weakening effect on the state? To answer this question, Ekeh takes recourse to the concepts of 65

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“independence strategies” and “promise of independence” with which he tried to capture the basis of the African bourgeoisie’s claim to replace the colonisers. Independence strategies entail the necessary but destructive strategy of the African bourgeoisie encouraging the African commoners to disobey the colonisers and sabotage their administrative efforts. For example “the African who evaded his tax was a hero; the African labourer who beat up his white employer was given extensive coverage in newspapers” (p. 102). This took an ironic turn after independence as the African masses took these issues seriously and transferred the disobedience of the colonial state to the disobedience of the post colonial state. After all, there was no difference between these two states. The change of personnel was not enough to command the obedience or respect of the masses because the African bourgeois class is a creation of colonialism. Similarly, the promise of independence not only raised the hopes of the ordinary citizen in the direction of increased benefits that were characterised with extravagance but also those of lowering the ‘colonial burden’ – taxation and dehumanisation. This exposed the inexperience of the bourgeoisie in state making and administrative matters. Thus, the emphasis was on rights and not on duties and the relationship between the citizen and the state was governed by the desire to take and give nothing in return. The colonialists fought back by restoring the emasculated African traditional rulers (whose authority is moral) and making them the symbol of state authority (which is amoral) in order to weaken the new bourgeoisie. Although the traditional rulers were too weak to compete with the new bourgeoisie over issues of authority, their re-introduction into politics had the consequence of making ethnicity the basis of political support as politicians had to seek their support which is naturally regionally/ethnically limited. This policy led to further preclusion of what Holsti (1996) called “horizontal legitimacy”: the constituting parts of the polity never saw themselves as belonging together. The bourgeoisie from every ethnic group tried to mobilize their groups in the fight for the centre, thereby dividing the people and illegitimising the centre. This has debilitating effects on the strength of the central state authority. “While the individual seeks to gain from the civic public, there is no moral urge on him to give back to the civic public in return for his benefits. Duties, that is, are de-emphasised while rights are squeezed out of civic public with the amorality of an artful dodger” (Ekeh op.cit: 107).

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Thus, the consort between the state and the society could only empty the state of its resources (finance, institutionalisation and legitimacy), leaving it permanently weak. In some areas of Africa, some of the revived traditional rulers received enough support from the colonialists that they were able to burrow themselves into the post colonial state politics and force the new bourgeoisie in power to accommodate them as a link to the society. This constitutes a part of the strongman phenomenon that Migdal theorised; and Bayart (elite accommodation), Reno and others allude to with all its implications for state strength and legitimacy. One serious implication is that citizens do not accept the state on the basis of its merit, but rather on the basis of the acceptance of the state by these strongmen (who have to be bought with state resources). This approach weakens the state considerably because the state trades off its basis of legitimacy in these negotiations. Impliedly, the withdrawal of the support of these strongmen from the state obliterates any contact the state might purport to have with the society and could influence its failure. He exemplified this theoretical postulation with the British colonial policy in Sierra Leone where the accommodation of the strongmen led to the postcolonial politics of clientilism which considerably weakened the state. 2.1.10 Corruption Theses Another phenomenon of post colonial Africa that has been theorised (with its ramifications) as having weakening consequences for the African state is corruption. It has been defined as “the misuse of power for personal gain” (World Bank 1992: 16), or more specifically as “the misuse of public offices and resources for private gains” (Gardiner 1992: 111). It has been credited with diverting attention of the rulers from the pursuit of development projects (Ake 1996) which has grievous consequences for the perpetuation of underdevelopment, dictatorship and state weakness. Corruption is not limited to embezzlement or diversion of public funds into private pockets. It extends to nepotism which has been the bane of African state building because of the enormity of unqualified civil servants in the bureaucracy. Nepotism destroys the capacity of the bureaucracy to play its historical role in strengthening the state by divorcing the office holder from the office he/she holds. It further underlines the disinterestedness of the ruling class in seriously pursuing development. When qualification and capability increasingly play less roles in the employment of civil servants, it shouldn’t surprise anybody if the quality of the bureaucracy increasingly depreciates. In states that are governed by corruption, institutional incapacity, administrative debility, low level of in67

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tegration of different groups and attenuation of state’s legitimacy with their abilities to weaken the nation-state fabric would most likely count among the recurrent themes of political discourses. Corruption, notes Cord Jakobeit, is not limited to Africa or the developing world. It is pervasive in all human societies including the highly industrialised well-governed states. Some have analysed that it could be the necessary grease that oils the economy at an initial stage of economic development (Huntington 1968, Rotberg 2003). However, it could have destructive consequences if it becomes endemic or systemic (Jakobeit 1998: 173). The preponderance of corruption in politics and administration, economy and overall society leads to very high economic burdens which make rational calculations of investment decisions almost impossible. It could assume crisis dimensions and in a situation where resources continuously become scarce through unlimited capital flight and destruction of the production potentials, corruption could permanently block the chances of development. To concretise the degree of corruption in African politics, a study of 30 Sub-Saharan African countries remarks that the elites of those countries had private overseas assets equivalent to 145% of the public debts owed by their countries and further, that about 80% of every dollar borrowed flows back to the West in form of capital flight (World Bank 2004: 25; Werlin 2005: 518). “Robert Guest, the editor of the Economist, estimates that this amount to about 40% of Africa’s privately held wealth” (ibid: 518). Needless to add that the corrupt practices of Mobutu Sese Seko, Ibrahim Babangida and Sanni Abacha and the wealth that these rulers accumulated have become legendary in international political discourses, so much so that ‘Kleptocracy’ has become a normal political science jargon, at least in discourses pertaining to African states (See Jakobeit 1998:174, Rotberg 2004: 26, Bayart et al. 1999: Chap 1). 2.1.10.1 The Paradigm of the politics of the belly One of the most thoroughly explained theories of the preponderance and pervasiveness of corruption and its role in undermining the African state was presented by Jean-Francois Bayart (1993). His aim was to come up with a paradigm that explains the politics of sub-Saharan Africa which he found in “the politics of the belly”. This term, he insists, should not be understood pejoratively. Rather, he explains it as “a Cameroonian expression which has numerous equivalents throughout sub-Saharan Africa. It denotes at the same time the accumulation of wealth through tenure of political power (implied in the proverb ‘the goat grazes wher68

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ever it is tied’), the symbolic reference to family lineage and to witchcraft, and the physical corpulence which is felt to be appropriate to ‘big men’ or powerful women. A total social fact, the politics of the belly is a complex mode of government” (Bayart et al. 1999: 8). It is used to refer to practices of corruption and wealth accumulation which is the utmost aim of the average politician south of the Sahara. This phenomenon has become so commonplace that in almost all countries south of the Sahara, there is a local slang similar to the one being referred to by Bayart with which citizens try to grasp corruption in a catchy manner. In Nigeria, it is referred to as sharing the national cake. In Ivory Coast, the popular saying “on ne regarde pas dans la bouche de ceux qui grillent les arachides” is the common parlance for referring to corruption.1 Corruption in African societies, for him, should therefore be explained in terms of the historicity of the state, not just the colonial or postcolonial state. After arguing that Africa has had a long history with the state, and that its centuries-long participation in international trade has always affected the nature of social organisation and group domination, he maintains that to understand the African state, one has to firstly dissect the historical sociology of the state and identify the dynamics of state genealogy. The states in Africa (pre-colonial) has been essentially ‘frontier states’, where political control is more or less limited to the core of the state without too much concern for the periphery - one of the symptoms of what we call state weakness today. The pre-colonial elites have always tried to enrich themselves and the majority of the states they controlled were despotic. This has to do with the integration of Africa in international commerce (starting from the slave trade through imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism and upto globalisation) which has permanently been to its detriment. The weakness of productive forces coupled with the bitterness of internal struggles has been decisive in the recurring weakness of Africa in world trade. The African elite have therefore always cooperated with their foreign counterparts to exploit Africa in order to enjoy a higher level of living comparative to the rest of their societies. The African elite have always tried to solve the problem of “autonomisation of their power and intensifying the exploitation of their dependants through a deliberate recourse to ‘strategies of extraversion’- mobilising resources derived from their (possibly unequal) relationship with the external environment” (1993: 21-22)2. Thus, the control of external resources has always been important because it has been understood as the basis of ‘development’.

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“The relationship with the external environment became a major resource in the process of political centralisation and economic accumulation” (ibid: 23).

Africans therefore have persistently been active agents in their ‘dependency’ history through co-operation with international agents; the colonialists for example. And dependence includes productions in culture, the schemes of governmentality being one of them.3 The specialty of colonisation is that it perpetuated the political strategies of extraversion as a system of ‘symmetric articulation’ sensitive to indigenous social contradictions by providing through the monetary economy, unheard of possibilities of domestic accumulation of wealth by the dominant classes. The state, being a product of this trajectory of extraversion, is also understood as an instrument of this strategy. It just has to be subjected to the African reality which results in practically replacing state institutions with private relationships in the exercise of power. So he argues, that the state acts like “a rhizome of personal networks and assures centralisation of power through the agencies of family, alliance and friendship, in a manner of ancient kingdoms (1993: 261-262). This was why corruption is pervasive in African politics. It also explains why, at independence, almost all African states pounced on the peasantry (the most productive though not homogenous class), expropriating their surpluses through state mechanisms like marketing boards in order to accumulate private wealth. These boards bought the peasants products at very cheap prices and sold them at relatively very high prices in the international market with the gains disappearing into private pockets. Thus, positions of power give priority, even monopolistic asset to resources of extraversion. They also ease the access to other local means of accumulation like state-sponsored bank loans, political credit, houses, cars, and shares in state owned companies, etc. Power facilitates predation. Issuance of business papers like import licences (which have been sometimes issued for contrabands) become very lucrative for politicians and civil servants. Capital accumulated through these means is often invested, sometimes in illegal businesses. Politicians and top civil servants thus become ‘straddlers’, a term borrowed from Cowen’s study of Kenya, denoting the spreading of one’s feet over the private and public sectors. The implication is to exploit official position to cover and promote private deals - both legal and illegal. State makers thus become state destroyers due to historical misconception of the state.

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“It would be a grave error to see all these dealings simply as the corruption of the state. They are, conversely, the state’s fabric, and the struggle for power is chiefly a struggle for wealth” (p.89). “The apparatuses of the state are in itself a slice of the ‘national cake’ (to use the Nigerian expression) so that any actor worthy of the name tries to get a good mouthful. This explains the apparently excessive value attached south of the Sahara to the creation of new administrative structures: offices and public works, prèfectures and sous-prèfectures, Federal states and local government councils. These institutions are in themselves providers of riches and wealth, and the struggle to control them is only one of the aspects which we call, in the West, ‘class struggle’” (p.90).

He therefore remarked that what is called corruption in the western sense is only just one of the schemes of governmentality which arises as Africa adapts itself to the foreign domination of its economy. Bayart thus sees corruption as being interwoven with the process of governance in modern Africa; in fact the very essence of governance. 2.1.10.2 Shadow State Theory and the Instrumentalisation of Disorder Reno’s theory of the shadow state alludes to a deliberate weakening of the state through retracting from the use of state institutions in the process of governance to facilitate corruption. “Shadow state is a concept that explains the relationship between corruption and politics. The shadow state is a product of personal rule, usually constructed behind the façade of de jure sovereignty” (2000: 45).

This process has also been described as the instrumentalisation of political disorder for economic gains (Chabal and Daloz 1999). Shadow states have judicial, but seriously lack empirical sovereignty and even legitimacy. External recognition is the basis of authority as well as the source of revenues. Such external patronage for weak states rulers relieves them of the necessity to strengthen state institutions, protect productive groups and institute democracy by bargaining with such groups. In fact, there are often than not, no indigenous productive groups, apart from the unorganised peasants of course. It is logically not in the interest of such rulers to condone indigenous groups that have considerably acquired capital without their help as they might threaten his authority basis which is the control over resources. African rulers therefore interfere regularly in private businesses in order to maintain political control. Referring to this phenomenon recently, Kouwenhofen, a Dutch businessman standing trial at The Hague for war crimes committed in 71

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Liberia between 1999 and 2003 said, “if you do business in Africa, you have no choice but to be on good terms with those in power” (IRIN 2006: 2).4 Instead of a legal-rational and objective distribution of resources in society through the provision of needed services, such rulers prefer to devote such resources to key strong men (clients) as remuneration for obedience. Such remunerations are often in form of material enrichment or discretionary exercise of power. In such states therefore, the rule of law is undermined. It is necessary to note that respect for the rule of law and the institutions of state will significantly diminish the illegitimate authority of the ruler in his chosen way (private) of exercising that authority. The use of such private networks creates a framework for exercising authority outside those of the state institutions. The non-separation of official and private sphere makes the state, in the Weberian sense, patrimonial. No wonder, many experts on the characteristics of the African state have described it as neo-patrimonial. And they remain perennially weak. It couldn’t be otherwise because when people who are entrusted (or rather who entrust themselves) with strengthening the state engage in practices that weaken it, especially in the climate of international sovereignty, perpetual weakness becomes inevitable. Thus, the paradigm instrumentalisation of disorder - is “the profit to be found in the weak institutionalisation of political practices” (Chabal and Daloz 1999: 13). Some features of African socio-economic formations nevertheless make the shadow state possible. Critical among these are the institutional feebleness of the bureaucracy which precludes the institutionalisation of the state, lack of the development of a mass society, the vertical nature of the system of political representation (patron / client) and above all, modernisation without development (Chabal and Daloz 1999). The state in Africa is therefore vacuous and demonstrates disorderliness, a term that is better understood neutrally. “To speak of disorder is not, of course, to speak of irrationality. It is merely to make explicit the observation that political action operates rationally, but largely in the realm of the informal, uncodified and unpoliced – that is, in a world that is not ordered in the way we know it in the West to be” (p. xix).

Disorder, they allege, is to be understood neutrally as a different form of “order” (p. 155). It is a functional order that reveals its own rationality. Their main thesis is similar to Reno’s; and even at the risk of being repetitive, it should be presented here. In Africa, they maintain, politics takes 72

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place mainly outside the parameters of the state. Insrumentalisation of this disorder thus refers to “the process by which political actors in Africa seek to maximize their returns on the state of confusion, uncertainty, and sometimes even chaos, which characterise most African polities” (p. xviii). This offers opportunities to those who know how to play the game as they strive to join the patron/client structured neopatrimonial system. Disorder incorporates within it a notion of uncertainty; and this is both a cost as well as an opportunity. Cost in the sense of deepening state weakness and an opportunity for personal aggrandisement. In such a polity, the ability to hedge uncertainty is a valuable resource. Control of knowledge becomes critical because they impinge on the management of uncertainty. This is why ‘witchcraft’ (occultist activities and explanations) become very important in Africa. For example, it might not be uncommon to hear governments’ spokespersons blaming economic recessions on the opposition forces bewitching the government’s economic plans. That is, the government of the day tries to dull and stultify the minds of the people, using unfounded and superstitious explications from traditional discourses that defy enlightenment. The less the masses know, the better for the elite in government because they wouldn’t have the problem of intellectually explaining their actions, or the sources of their stupendous wealth. These kinds of analysis may sound absurd to the Europeans, but they maintain that since African politics operates differently from its European counterpart, it has to be explained differently; provided that all conditions of unbiased scientific inquiry are met. And this is why they, though slightly, took issues with Bayart’s “politics of the belly” as being ahistorical and Eurocentric.5 Africa is in a process of transition, an explanation of which necessarily implies the understanding of continuities in their historicity. A historical approach must inevitably connect the present to the past. With this, they come to two related propositions: (1) the present day crisis in Africa is a crisis of modernity, and (2) this crisis is rooted in the deep history of societies in which it is taking place. According to Daloz and Chabal, the major problem in Africa is that of modernisation. Africa is modernising, but not in the direction expected by the West. It is modernising without developing. The modern state was forced on Africa, although the African culture is not attuned to the maintenance of an impersonal and formal institution such as the state. This led to a crisis of modernity, a crisis in which the instrumentalisation of disorder is just one of the intricate ways through which the African tries to live

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his non-state culture in a modern state system. Walter Rodney (1982) and Basil Davidson (1992) also made similar remarks. Similar to Bayart’s metaphor of the belly, they maintain that economic failure is productive for the political elite in Africa because they need to show off their wealth in order to be legitimated as real patrons.6 This “legitimacy” is then translated into a political capital en route state power. This explains their penchant for personal aggrandisement through plundering the state’s coffers because, according to the understanding of the masses, a politician must be rich. The relationship between the patron and the client is vertical and corruption becomes the norm because it is used to maintain this relationship. “Provided the beneficiaries of graft do not hoard too much of what they accumulate by means of the exploitation of the resources made available to them through their position, and provided they redistribute along lines that are judged to be socially desirable, their behaviour is deemed acceptable. (Corruption) is a habitual part of everyday life, and expected element of every social transaction” (p.99).7

Economic dependence on the international system is a substantial resource because it qualifies one for aid from the international system, be it for democratisation or establishment of civil society associations, which finds its way into private pockets. And crime thrives - all because these phenomena demand informality which the African elite provides using the apparatuses of state (or avoiding it) as instrument for personal aggrandisement. The state is used to launder illegally gotten money, to privately prospect for minerals and gems; and state security is ‘outsourced’ to private companies such as Executive Outcome of South Africa. 2.1.10.3 Prebendal Politics Paradigm The concept of “Prebendal Politics” developed by Richard Joseph (1987) in his analysis of the fall of the Nigerian Second Republic 19791983 is another theoretical contribution to the explanation of politics of personal enrichment in Africa.8 According to him, prebendalism and clientilism (also known as patronage systems or patron-client relationships) are two fundamental elements that determine politics – the allocation of public goods – in Nigeria. Clientilism, the common thread that underlines ethnic, regional and religious identities, is a channel for joining the dominant class and for upward mobility within this class (Joseph 1987: 55).

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“Clientilism is a special case of dyadic (two person) ties involving a largely instrumental friendship in which an individual of higher socioeconomic status (patron) uses his own influence and resources to provide protection or benefits or both, for a person of lower status (client) who, for his part, reciprocates by offering general support and assistance, including personal services to the patron” (Scott 1972: 92).

This system goes down the line till the last stratum of society whereby the clients become patrons to lesser placed individuals, and has become established as the dominant system of political representation (vertical) in Nigeria and most of Africa. So that apart from the President (and possibly the “Kingmakers”), every other patron is someone else’s client and conversely, apart from the masses at the lowest stratum of society, every other client is someone else’s patron. A prebend, he states, is an office of state procured by an individual either through examinations or as a reward for loyal service to a lord or ruler, characteristic of feudal Europe and China (p.56). Prebends and a prebendal organisation of office thus refers to a situation “wherever the lord assigns to the official rent payments for life, payments which are somehow fixed to objects or which are essentially economic usufruct from lands or other sources. They must be compensations for the fulfilment of actual or fictitious office duties; they are goods permanently set aside for the economic assurance of the office” (Max Weber in Geerth and Mills 1948: 207). It is therefore a system of rewards for the maintenance and perpetuation of clientilism in which office holders privately accumulate wealth using their official positions. This could take the forms of material and social goods such as loans for business (which never get repaid), scholarships, licences for all sorts of businesses, plots of urban land, employment and or promotion which the patron makes available to the client. Over several decades, this has become the raison d’être for political participation in Nigeria and similar socio-economic formations. Increasing pervasiveness of this phenomenon and its permeation into all facets of public life extended the practice to the embezzlement of budgets. Joseph identified two grounds that account for this system of using political power to amass capital. One is the domination of the economies of Nigeria and other African States by foreign firms, and the other is the marginalisation of African countries in the international political economy.

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“Continued foreign penetration and domination of the economy after political independence, together with the constraints to peripheral capitalist industrialisation in the world economy, meant that access to the state remained disproportionately important in the struggle for resources for upward mobility” (p. 55).

A very low level of industrialisation (which is increasingly becoming lower) and the pursuit of primary agricultural production by a larger percentage of the population accounts for the low level of capital generation outside the ambit of state power. The state thus becomes the surest source of wealth in the society because it controls proceeds from the sale of mineral resources and monopolises the allocation of such. This economic state induces the politicians to use state power to amass wealth. State dirigisme of the economy which was introduced under colonialism was expanded to create room for capital accumulation for the political class. Corruption therefore reigns and politics is not about the search for better ideas, but rather to acquire and maintain power at all costs. Political struggles become very bitter. Opposition is hardly tolerated. Rather, members of the opposition are to be bought over using state’s resources, or they are repressed, imprisoned and in extreme cases, killed. Ethnicity was politicised for the sake of winning political power, thereby denying the state the basis of a national solidarity. The oil boom of the 1970s (which has continued till date) with petroleum products accounting for up to 90% of national revenues in years of high output has immensely increased the dirigistic capacity of the Nigerian state and “heightens the state as the locus of the struggle for resources for personal advancement and group security” (Joseph 1987: 56). The relationship between prebendalism and clientilism is reciprocal. One needs clients in order to gain prebendal office and needs prebends in order to maintain clients. Hence the introduction of electoral politics gives impetus to these mutually reinforcing phenomena. This is one of the major reasons why democratisation attempts could have a weakening effect on the state as it leads to fanning of ethnic ambers in the hunt for clients. Ambitious people champion such causes as those of the Niger Delta because through such, they mobilise support (clients) for themselves which makes them interesting candidates for cooptation by the political parties. It is therefore a selective and exclusive system (the youths are the most excluded), and in situations of advanced state weakness, the excluded could react with violence or question their membership of a body politic that excludes them from resource allocation. This explains the youth-led Niger Delta Crisis in Nigeria; and also the collapse 76

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of the Sierra Leonian state in the wake of the crisis of neopatrimonialism (Richards 1996) 2.1.11 The Critical Juncture Analysis The weakness and vulnerability of the African states have further been blamed on the characteristics of the modern Africa state which brought Africa to a ‘critical juncture’ in the 1990s (Villalón 1998: 8). Critical juncture as an analytical framework was borrowed from the US party politics and has been defined as “a period of significant change, which typically occurs in distinct ways in different countries, and which is hypothesized to produce distinct legacies” (Collier and Collier 1991: 29). It has three main components viz: it refers to a period when elites feel the obligation of making significant choices and taking critical actions as a reaction to the crisis resulting from pressure on the regimes for change; secondly, these reactions and choices arise from and are embedded in antecedent conditions; thirdly, these choices and actions will to a considerable extent determine the future trajectories of the societies in question. Consequently, it is the characteristics which the African states have developed since independence that have brought them to this critical juncture. Chief among these characteristics is the high degree of the personalisation of the African state. Without attempting to theorise this personalisation, Villalón went on to dwell on its implications for state weakness. This personalisation of the state in Africa has led scholars to label African states “personally appropriated states” (Jackson and Rosberg 1994: 300304). One of the implications of this phenomenon is the generational tension that engulfs such African states at the demise of the personality cult figures, often labelled the “founding fathers” because of their dominant roles in the struggle for independence. The critical juncture of the 1990s is therefore normal for the occurrence of generational tensions thirty years after independence. These states lack, in Jackson and Rosberg’s words “empirical sovereignty” and were maintained through contacts with international actors as they became clients to one or other super power. The resources that accrued from this client status were then used as sources of authority at home. A further state weakening implication of state personalisation is the explosion of the bureaucracy as more and more people were absorbed into the state apparatus. This is a strategy of political support for personalised rulership. The states therefore became ‘overdeveloped’ (Alavi 1975) in relation to the society (especially to the economy) and were equally over-centralised. African states demonstrate a wide variety of 77

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institutional infrastructures replicated from the colonising states but supported only through revenue from development aid or mineral resources extraction. And because the authority is based on the control and allocation of extracted resources, power became necessarily centralised and local governments denied of power and responsibility. Such resources are allocated to a chosen group that would then broadcast support for the rulers in their primordial areas. Over-centralisation then results in the state being a massive consumer of resources, becoming highly inefficient, and failing to promote any meaningful degree of economic development, thus leading to its weakness and failure (Wunsch and Olowu 1990). Thus far, I have tried to present different theoretical explanations of state weakness in Africa because of my observation that state failure or collapse is an advanced stage of state weakness and that an adequate analysis of state collapse must, as a matter of course, start with explaining state weakness. It is normal in academic discussions of this nature to offer a critique of the reviewed literature and adopt a standpoint that will guide the ensuing analysis. I have decided to skip this usual approach here due to the study plan of this work: the ‘explanandum’ of this research endeavour is state failure and collapse, not state weakness. This is why I will reserve the position of this study until I deal with theories of state failure/collapse. 2.2 Theories of State Failure / Collapse in Africa This demarcates between state failure and collapse. However, I will treat the two concepts in this section as one and the same. The reason for this approach is that the authors whose work would be reviewed in this section treated them as such which was apposite to the zeitgeist of the period in which those works were published. In fact, the attempt at conceptual clarity and definitional distinctions between failure and collapse are relatively novel.9 Up to the beginning of the new millennium, such attempts were hardly present. (See the section on definition of terms in this book). In their seminal article on failed states, Helman and Ratner (1993) alluded the roots of state collapse to “the vast proliferation of nation states, especially in Africa and Asia, since the end of World War II” (p. 3) when the principle of “self-determination of peoples” (p. 4) became a primary goal of the United Nations system due to the following fundamental notion of decolonisation: “peoples could best govern themselves when free from the shackles, or even the influences, of foreigners” (ibid :4.). This fundamental change in the principle of sovereign statehood was not 78

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enough to imbue the states with the capabilities of self-governance. The United Nations and other strong and rich states recognised this anomaly and tried to ameliorate the situation by offering military and development aid to the new weak states, a situation that played into the hands of the then Cold War protagonists. “While it lasted, the Cold War prolonged the viability of some of the newly independent and other Third World states. Countries with seriously underdeveloped economies and governments received hefty infusions of aid from their former colonial masters as well as from the two superpowers” (ibid: 4).

As a result of the Cold War, the international political system failed to take notice of the existential inadequacies of such states. These inadequacies became overwhelming in the course of time and as the superpowers and the big powers considerably cut down their financial and military supports at the end of the Cold War, the whole burden of weakness was brought to bear on those states und turned overwhelming for some of them. In the ensuing civil strife, governments and states collapsed. This appropriate analysis misses a very important point: the fact that African rulers never saw anything wrong in their weakness and tried to exploit the situation for their own financial advantages. This human agency factor was then emphasised by several researchers that followed the footsteps of Helman and Ratner. Owing to this, issues of governance became paramount in the explication of state failure and collapse in the “Third World”, especially Africa. 2.2.1 The Bad Governance Perspective Analyses of state collapse in Africa have, more often than not, stressed the influence of bad governance, often expressed in terms of lack of good governance. William Zartman, for example, chose the term poor performance of the states as the main ground for states collapse in Africa. “It can be said that the poor performances of their functions – representation, interest articulation, output efficiency – are broad causes of state collapse, whether performed by the “proper” institutions (in Western terms) or by a surrogate most suited to African conditions” (1995: 6).

State collapse is “an extreme case of governance problems or excessive burdens on governance capacity” (p. 8) and a long term phenomenon that is engendered when the generation of rulers that acquired 79

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power during independence depreciates in quality through corruption, tyranny and institutional debility as a result of over staying in power.After discussing the broad causes and their implications, he narrowed his analysis down to particulars by demonstrating the causal mechanism between collapse and bad governance. This starts with the state’s loss of ability to satisfy various groups in society. Dwindling resources occasioned possibly by corruption is part of the reasons why a regime increasingly loses the ability to satisfy the various groups in the society. He went on, “resources dry up, either for exogenous reasons or through internal waste and corruption (selective misallocation)” (p. 8). This leads to a situation where some ethnic groups feeling neglected, alienated and dissatisfied, start opposing the government. The government increases its repression through police and the military brutality; and gives additional impulse to the fragmentation of the society through politicisation of ethnicity. The army moves in to take power sensing that the legitimacy of the political authority has attenuated. The new military regime, not being better than its predecessor at resource generation, stabilising allocations and productively channelling the opposition groups, resorts to more control and coercion. When the inability of the new regime becomes apparent, in the short or long run, it falls, bringing down with it all the powers it has concentrated on its hands. “The regime falls into a vacuum it has created by repressing the demand-bearing groups of civil society” (ibid.). Local groups and strongmen take over the duty of providing a modicum of law and order. Because these groups and strongmen are bound to their local areas, national re-integration is made more difficult. Robert Rotberg states that the pathological deficiencies of Jackson’s quasi states which, almost over night, became independent African states with an international jurisprudential fiat, are bedrocks of state collapse in Africa. The attempt to compensate the weak social basis of the state through neopatrimonial politics and antidemocratic decisions ultimately led to state failure and collapse. Corruption played a pivotal role in this development and bad governance becomes indispensable. “Bad governance is an inescapable corollary, and it has often preceded insurgencies within states” (2004: 27). Insurgency is the primary issue that merits analysis, judging by Clapham’s focus. This could be understandable because insurgent warfare is a constant corollary of state failure and collapse. The relationship between state collapse and insurgency is still unsettled in the studies of state collapse in Africa. However, the common appearance of the two 80

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phenomena is an incontrovertible historical fact. There have been cases where states collapsed in the midst of warfare like in Sierra Leone or Somalia. In the other cases, for example, Democratic Republic of Congo or in Liberia, the states have already collapsed before insurgent warfare arose and merely acted as a seal on the state of collapse. The background to these and a myriad of such other cases is traceable to bad governance. “Some insurgencies, finally, can be ascribed to an experience of postindependence government so bad as to lead to a resistance born of desperation, and to the consequences of prolonged immiseration, exploitation and state decay” (Clapham 1998: 3).

In discussions of insurgencies, one has to distinguish between the earlier cases (pre 1989) which were not necessarily accompanied by state collapse and the later cases (post 1989) in which state collapse was a regular feature. From my observations, the decisive factor is military weakness. Rebellions arose in a lot of African states following selfish, irresponsive and autocratic governments that took over power from the colonialists: Katanga Province against the state of Congo, Biafra against the state of Nigeria, Casamance against the state of Senegal etc. These rebellions never led to the collapse of the attacked states. This was due to the fact that the military establishments of those states still enjoyed superpower and great power support und were thus able to defeat the rebels. At the demise of the Cold War, African states lost their strategic importance in Cold War international politics and consequently, the military assistance receded substantially. The result was military weakness which made it extensively difficult for the soldiers to defeat the rebels. This had the effect of prolonging the internal wars, leading to a total breakdown of state’s functions in some cases. In a technical military sense, state collapse could be interpreted as an internal war that none of the protagonists is in a position to win. International opprobrium that often accompanies reports of human rights violations in such wars then prompts the international community to move in and undertake conflict management. Several other factors have been said to account for the collapse of the African state, for example, pre-colonial experience of statehood (Clapham 2000). He maintains that “a plausible case can be made, indeed, that state collapse has been hastened and intensified by over-ambitious attempts to impose on societies a level of state control that they were unable to bear” (p. 4). Decisive for the success or otherwise of the state in Africa, is for him, the fact of the pre-imperial existence of a state in the society/societies in question. 81

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“In so far as is it is possible to hypothesize about cases in which state collapse occurs and ones in which it does not, however, by far the plausible guide is provided by the pre-colonial experience of statehood” (Clapham 2000: 8).

Societies with experience of pre-imperial state formation can live better in modern states than societies without. And since these regions are relatively numerically small, opportunities for state failure are widespread. The case is however not rested with the impact of historical experience. Rather, the quality of governance is assigned a weighty role in the development of state collapse and the violence that is often associated with it: “sheer bad governance has been at the root of many of Africa’s insurgencies” (p. 7). The point that the nature of social aggregation (states or not) in which societies have existed in the pre-colonial times do influence their strengths and weaknesses, and with that, the chances of success of the post-colonial state, is to be regarded critically. This is because judging by the fundamental changes occasioned by imperialism and colonialism in these societies; one can argue that the connections between the two societies are too tenuous to be consequential. Imperialism and colonialism introduced new economic activities, new economic actors (classes), new group identification and corresponding social identities, new type of education and therefore a new African personality, new expectations from the state that altered the previous state-society relations, etc. All these created differences between the pre-colonial and the post colonial states in Africa. Direct colonialism may have lasted averagely sixty years, but one shouldn’t forget that prior to that, a few European companies were already having political sway over different portions of Africa for several decades. The concept and practise of governance of these European firms were exactly the same with those of the governments of their countries that later on took over direct administration of the colonies. It is the manner of governance that is socially critical and possibly deterministic and not on whose behalf it was done. And this manner of governance has not been considerably altered even as African states have become independent. This is what, in my opinion, the concept of bad governance is all about.10 Furthermore, this position cannot be said to be justified by historical fact. The existence of several pre-colonial states in West Africa – Old Ghana Empire, Mali Empire, Kanem-Bornu Empire and the Songhai Empire – could not preclude the collapse of modern states that currently occupied the geographical spaces of these pre-colonial states – Ghana

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(1979-1981), Chad (1981-1982), Mali (1990-1995) and Ivory Coast (200206). Kalevi Holsti, on his part, identifies the lack of resources for the broadcast of power throughout the state’s territory and the state’s attempt at subjugating other organisations in society as the backdrop to state failure. He went further to say that weak states may be authoritarian, but that the reach of the state’s power is severely limited by local centres of resistance (reminiscent of Migdal 1988), by bureaucratic inertia, corruption and social fragmentation along religious, ethnic, tribal, factional and cultural lines. But the state has to galvanise society around itself through provision of services, construction of national identities and the establishment of more unity within the society. And to do all these, it needs resources which are not immediately available. In order to procure these resources, the state resorts to predatory and unlawful practices which merely exacerbates social tensions and erode loyalties. Generally, such resources are often extracted from the peasantry or other unfavoured groups and are often expended in the maintenance of the overblown bureaucracy. Thus, inter-group animosity arises, leading to civil strife because the state (which invariably is the cause of this strife) is too weak to mediate inter-group conflict. Institutional weakness denies the state any chance of introducing changes and or reforms. So the state resorts to more despotic means. The state is thus, caught in “a vicious circle”: lack of resources to create legitimacy leads to adoption of predatory and kleptocratic practices which exacerbates tension in society, leading to further attenuation of legitimacy and perpetuation of weakness. This is what he called “state-strength dilemma”. “States seek to gain the strength that would give their external sovereignty domestic content. Attempts to increase state strength generate resistance that weakens the state. In attempts to overcome resistance, governments rely on coercive measures against local power centres of various types, as well as against communal/religious/ethnic groups…. Their right to rule is undermined by their actions, which are frequently discriminatory, short-range and self-serving. The exclusion of important groups by denial of access to power or to resources helps destroy horizontal legitimacy and exacerbates social tension” (1996: 117).

Leaning on Albert Hirschman (1974), he stressed that the excluded citizens have the options of endurance, exit (from the state or from its economy), voicing out their displeasure or mobilising a rebellion. The option of resistance is often accompanied by violence that paves the descent into anarchy or failure; i.e., the inability of the state to resolve the 83

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state-strength dilemma leads to state failure. A failed state, he states, exhibits the following salient features: increased predation which begets increased resistance, isolation of the leaders from the led, non-functioning of state institutions (except may be in the capital city), the taking over of the tasks of government by the war lords, and the disintegration of the national army which could lead to its being hired out. Failed states are hollow shells in which the requirements of sovereignty cannot be achieved. Even though Holsti may not have mentioned bad governance explicitly as the cause of state collapse in Africa and most of other third world states, the process he describes is exactly one of bad governance. His attempt at theorising bad governance by locating it between the asymmetrical interplay of state-society relations is successful. The “critical juncture” school sees the withering of the state and the proliferation of warfare and regional rebellion as a distinctive component of the critical juncture of the African state. Emphasising the inward focus of the state as against directing its actions towards society, Forrest (1998) suggested that the phenomenon of state collapse in Africa could best be seen as a case of multicausal process of “state inversion” involving long lasting and manifold stages of state’s institutional decadence. State inversion is a process whereby “government institutions become increasingly dysfunctional and end up turning inward toward themselves rather than toward society. The state grows increasingly irrelevant for society, with the process of state inversion culminating at its most severe levels in the disintegration of the central government” (p. 46). Inverted states demonstrate the following characteristics: the inability of the bureaucracy to perform even the most basic policy making and policy-implementing functions outside a severely restricted urban core, the inability of state leaders to convince or coerce society to follow their instructions, disappearance of the institutional sources that provide the state with authoritative character. The state as a collective set of national authoritative institutions with a monopoly over military power and a nationally based exercise of power is hardly recognisable. Due to this lack of institutional capacity, the state “retreats or inverts because it can not extend itself outward” (ibid.). Inversion denotes a recession of the state back to a shrinking nexus of decision making units that lack the ability to impose their will on social forces, especially rural social forces. This institutional paralysis reduces the presence of the state to mere existence of state symbols which increasingly lack authoritative value. Though the energies of state institutions and those of the leaders are turned and concentrated inward, the state may still retain links with the society. But 84

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these links are so thin that they are “largely restricted to illicit trade networks that generally have little impact on the national trading patterns (much less on economic development)” (ibid.). Needless to add, that the knowledge of such illicit deals by state managers contribute to increasing the level of illegitimacy of state in society. Further characteristics include the provision of international agents with pretend-administrative structure and pretend-bureaucracy, extreme state weakness to the point that state survival hangs precariously on the strength and presence of the military and finally, the emergence of regional rebellions against the political centre. Four principal factors account for state inversion in Africa. They are; the transformation of the international state system (changes associated with the demise of the Cold War), the ultraprivatisation of African states, the declining integrity of African armed forces and the rising tide of subnational antistate challenges. These characteristics could be comfortably subsumed under the lack of good governance discourse and I intend to offer a general critique of them later. The accumulation of cases of state collapse at the beginning of the 1990s which always needed the intervention of international organisations and strong states prompted the United States government to set up a study group mandated “to develop”, for the CIA, “a methodology to identify key factors and critical thresholds signalling a high risk of political crisis in countries some two years in advance” (Esty et al 1995: 1). Following their study, they presented a very long data list on which basis they tried to isolate the key variables of state collapse. They found out that “state failure and state collapse are new labels for a type of severe political crisis exemplified by events of the early 1990s in Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Liberia and Afghanistan. In these instances, the institutions of the central state were so weakened that they could no longer maintain authority or political order beyond the capital city, and sometimes not even there. Such state failures usually occur in circumstances of widespread and violent civil conflict, and are often accompanied by severe humanitarian crises” (Esty et al 1995: 1).Instead of offering a definition of state collapse and or identifying the mechanisms of collapse, they went on to categorise serious political conflicts and crises that have been identified in specialised studies and data collection. They identified 4 categories of such conflict, scaling the events within each category by the magnitude to the analysis of the conditions associated with the extent of state failure. They include: 1. Revolutionary Wars, 2. 85

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Ethnic Wars, 3. Genocides and Politicides and 4. Adverse or disruptive regime transitions. Under every category, the numbers of crises or wars are listed alongside the numbers of casualties and the duration of the wars. The next step was to identify the causal variables and measure them. A large number of independent variables were considered for inclusion, and the spectrum covered by these variables was more or less boundless, ranging from indicators of democracy, ethnic cleavages up to the size of youth age bulge and income inequality. A team from the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) assembled an initial matrix of 617observations for each country for each year of study. Expert analyses were conducted on these, and 75 high risk cases were identified. Statistic methods were then used to differentiate the states that had a regime crisis and the control cases that did not. This univariate analysis produced 31 variables that discriminated on statistically significant level between the problem and control set. Employing two types of multivariate analysis - logistic regression analysis and neural network clustering, they reached 70% accuracy in predicting which states with more than half a million population are likely to fall between 1955 and 1994, after several combinations of these variables. According to these analyses, the model that included these variables - openness to international trade, infant mortality and democracy were identified as being the single best in forecasting state collapse. This means that state collapse is more imminent in states that favoured a closed economic system (non-existent or low level of openness to international trade), have a high rate of infant mortality above the international median and is undemocratic. The state failure project noted also that this study is not without limitations, some of which are the largely inductive nature of the study, the possible inaccuracy of the models in predicting future state failures because they are based on historical facts which may not reproduce itself in exactly the same fashion at other times and places, lack of models for types and degrees of state failure, non-inclusion of variables of theoretical and policy interests, etc. Rotberg (2004: 21-22) offers further cogent criticism of these findings. However, it must be remarked that openness to international trade which was facilitated by the triumph of neoliberal economics at the end of the 1980s, globalisation and the end of the Cold War produced the exact opposite of the findings of this task force (Reno 2000, Cilliers and Mason eds. 1999, Duffield 2000). These developments eased illegal trans-border trade, integrated war economies to global mar-

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kets and facilitated the purchase of weapons with which states were attacked. The whole analyses of the development policy approach to studies of state collapse in Africa have a basic flaw: they present a checklist of parameters as causes. This checklist of parameters and activities is then couched under the term “bad governance” as the explanation for state collapse. In this form, bad governance is separated from state collapse. The only link between them is that bad governance is the independent variable and state collapse the dependent variable. To check the incidences of state collapse, one only has to institute good governance and all will be happy ever after. I beg to disagree with this because I find it fundamentally ahistorical. A critical historical understanding of the phenomena of bad governance and state capability coupled with a disaggregation of the processes that led to the phenomena will reveal that the relationship between them is not causative. Rather, they are both dependent variables in a process in which one has to necessarily antedate the other, leading to conflation of historical antecedence with causation. State collapse and bad governance in Africa are products of the reaction of the African ruling class to the foreign domination of their economies by using state power to compensate the lack of wealth. Reality, they say, is the acid test of theories. That is why theories have to be as near to reality as possible. A theoretical explanation that leans heavily on the historical development of the phenomena will, I think, have less problems of combining them duly. Thus, bad governance and state collapse are secreted in the interstices of international political-economic constraints, accumulation ambitions of the bourgeoisie and ignorance of the masses. What I refer to as corruption theories here come closer to the point by dealing with the accumulation tendencies of the ruling class. And to these paradigms I now turn. 2.2.2 The Corruption Perspective Corruption has a paramount position in the analysis of state collapse in Africa. It weakens the state by weakening its institutions and denying the state of much needed revenue. The economic bases (rents) and system of political representation (vertical) of African states not only favour corruption; they are not conducive to economic development. Most African states derive their revenue either through exploitation of natural resources or through development aid. These are therefore rents as they did not emanate from productive endeavours. Earlier political economists have warned about the deleterious effects of incomes from such rents on 87

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development. For example, Adam Smith warned about “the incomes of men who love to reap where they never sowed” for the fact these incomes “foster rent seeking behaviour and a bias toward unproductive activities leading to poor development outcomes” (Karl 1997: 7). Economic underdevelopment affects state – society relations to the detriment of the state. The vertical system of political representation (patron / client) fits this rent seeking economic system as it facilitates the recruitment of clients into lucrative positions and the possibility of self enrichment offered by such positions preserves this relationship. As a result of lack of merit in most of these appointments, majority of the bureaucrats are mainly unqualified and undisciplined. The bureaucracy is therefore extremely weak. I have already dealt with theories that explain the cause(s) of corruption in Africa, the concern here is just to show that it directly impinges on the collapse of the state. This view has been expressed by several scholars. Cord Jakobeit, for example, sees corruption as the main cause of state collapse in Africa. Corruption kills the trust the people have on government. The people turn away from the state and give their loyalties to cultural and religious organisations. For Locke, corruption, lack of rule of law and the spread of violence are inseparable. When the citizens lose confidence in the judiciary due to corrupt practices, they resort to self justice through violence. Violence than regulates accumulation and other private enterprise activities. “Am Anfang steht immer Korruption. (...)Die Lähmung von Rechtsnormen durch Korruption öffnet den Weg für Gewalt als Marktregulativ“ (Locke 1998: 21)11. State security and military agents including other state institutions have been used for private accumulation in Africa, especially in the period following the end of the Cold War. The increasing intensification of this practice has spawned the concept of “criminalisation of the state” (Bayart et al 1999). They argued that corruption, the marginalised position of Africa in the international political economy, the mismanagement of this economy coupled with the vagaries of Structural Adjustment Programme and the demand for democratisation have led to “a noxious cocktail of commerce and violence” in Africa (p. xiv). They defined the criminalisation of the state thus: “The routinization, at the very heart of political and governmental institutions and circuits, of practices whose criminal nature is patent, whether as defined by the law of the country in question, or as defined by the norms of international law and international organisations or as

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so viewed by the international community, and most particularly that constituted by aid donors” (p. 16).

These include such activities as the involvement of government officials in narcotics trade in Zambia, the implication of paramilitary organisations in the looting of whole cities, the printing and circulation of fake currencies linked to government ministers in Zaire and in Kenya, traffic in human beings –mostly involving prostitutes - facilitated by the ownership of night-clubs, wars that involved states collapse (in West and Central Africa etc). “Several conflicts south of the Sahara can better be understood as stemming from the economic logic of predation rather than of any political, ethnic or regional calculus” (p. 16).

After reviewing the social meanings of crime, he came to the conclusion that in Africa; most statutory crimes are socially considered otherwise. Drug dealing, money laundering, business scams and other organised crimes are seen as legitimate by a wide spectrum of the society depending on if ‘their people’ (members of their ethnic group) profit from these or not. The marginalisation of Africa has led the elite to exploit criminal means of attachment to the world economy. Africa is today linked to the world by a complex web of informal political, commercial and financial relations which generally has a strong ethnic, corporatist or communal element” (p. 23). He identified six indicators to prove the hypothesis, that politics in Africa is becoming markedly interconnected with crime. They are: the use for private purposes of legitimate organs of state violence by those in authority, and the function of such violence as an instrument in the service of their strategies of accumulation the existence of a hidden, collective structure of power which surrounds and even controls the official occupant of the most senior political office, and which benefits from the privatisation of the legitimate means of coercion, or is able with impunity to have recourse to a private and illegitimate apparatus of violence, notably in form of organised gangs. The participation in this collective and semi-clandestine power structure in economic activities considered to be criminal in international law, or which are so classified by international organisations or in terms of moral codes which enjoy wide international currency. The insertion of such economic activities in international networks of crime. 89

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An osmosis between a historically constituted culture which is specific to the conduct of such activities in any given society and the trans-national cultural repertoires which serve as vehicles of processes of globalisation. The macroeconomic and macropolitical importance as distinct from the occasional or marginal role, of such practices on the part of powerholders and of these activities of accumulation in the overall architecture of given society.12

The political implication here is that allegiance to the state (where it existed) becomes increasingly supplanted with allegiance to a patron. The state in Africa is locked in a permanent battle with the strongmen for the people’s allegiance, and the state is loosing this battle because nobody is promoting it. The people who are entrusted with the responsibility of promoting the state are busy stealing the state hollow - of it resources and sovereign rights - forcing the state to fail and sometimes collapse. Another theoretical approach sees state collapse and its attendant internal warfare as products of degenerated “spoils politics” under the impact of internal dynamics accentuated by economic decline of the 1980s and the post-Cold War international politics (Allen 1999). Accordingly therefore, the roots of such phenomena have to be “sought in internal dynamics of ‘spoils politics’” (p.376). There is an element of bad governance here in so far as the background to ‘spoils political systems’ could be traced to the continuation and intensification of state destabilisation as a result of lack of centralised-bureaucratic systems which cushions off the destabilising effects of patronage politics. This occurs “when the primary goal of those competing for political office or power is self-enrichment” (p. 377). In such systems thus, politics is inherently unstable due to fact that such regimes hardly vacate the seats of power. This makes their ousting often through military coups inevitable. Allen identified three possible outcomes of this system: the spoils system survives, but not the individual regimes; the spoils system gets confronted with a popular revolt that replaces it and tries to stress democracy and accountability but often do not last and finally; the state collapses. A long lasting system of spoils politics demonstrates the following characteristics: massive and endemic corruption concentrated on a small coterie around the head of state, withdrawal of the state from the provision of political goods and social infrastructure which may also be accompanied by exit of the citizens from the state, rampancy of ethnic conflict (sometimes) with state participation, organisation of chaos and profiting therefrom, individual monopolisation of power and finally, erosion 90

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of control of coercion which might occur as a result of failure to pay and equip the security units. Looting carried out by security operatives and the growth of divisions within the forces are additional features. In the course of time, this system leads to state collapse at the point of ‘terminal spoils’. This is a point where the system loses the ability of self maintenance. This point was ushered in Africa through the enormous economic problems in the 1980s and accelerated by the end of the Cold War in which African states lost their strategic position in the super power international politics, leading to severe reductions in military and development aids. State collapse that emanates from this process is twofold: implosion and explosion. A combination of the first two characteristics – corruption and withdrawal – leads to implosion, i.e. the undermining of political structures and an extreme loss of legitimacy. The state fades away by ceasing to exercise legal and political authority outside the capital city. This is a process of steady erosion that may or may not be accompanied by violence. The other three characteristics lead to state explosion – the state becomes extremely repressive or is replaced by a collection of warring factions. From the point of view of William Reno’s (2000) shadow states theory, the deliberate prevalent use of informal connections which invariably entails bypassing and weakening state institutions in the process of private accumulation is the cause of state collapse. There is therefore a distinction between state collapse and violence/civil wars in failed or collapsed states. Violence in such states in Africa may necessarily postdate the end of the Cold War, but state collapse antedates it. “It is thus proper to conceive of “state collapse” as predating the end of the Cold War in so far as one identifies the destruction of formal state bureaucratic institutions at the hands of the shadow state ruler and his associates as the indicator of collapse” (Reno 2000: 47).

For the analysis of warfare and violence in such polities, he came up with two key propositions: “1. A shadow state ruler who fails to control free-riding risks losing the loyalty of followers who comply in return for payouts. This is a common starting point for civil wars” (p. 48).

The mechanism for such developments concerns the shadow state rulers’ tactics of arming private commercial consultants (may be for the purpose of extracting revenue for the ruler) which then develop their own interests and dynamics which they often advance by visiting vio91

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lence on the state or parts thereof, often after the demise of the shadow state ruler that established them. Furthermore, the shadow state rulers’ tactics of fostering violent conflict within local communities and even arming one or some of them in order to boost personal power by acting as the arbitrator could equally lead to civil war. These divisions which invariably uphold the shadow state ruler become the faultlines of civil war at the point of shadow state failure. Such state rulers and their foreign industrial groups destroy the institutions of state because they don’t need these institutions and local markets to run a state’s government that is based on the extraction of natural resources. It is only necessary for them to manage their immediate commercial environment, a purpose for which the local population could be fenced off or chased off. ”2. In shadow states, where no authority exists that is willing or capable of providing a public good; entrepreneurs manage their own economic environment through means of violence” (p. 54-55).

Due to corruption and institutional debility of the state, organised crime flourishes and criminal groups strive to secure their interests with privatised violence. Institutions of state (especially the security apparatus) that are nominally existent but no longer functional could be instrumentalised for the purpose of private accumulation in illegal businesses. That is, criminalisation of the state partly constitutes the political economy of violence in a collapsing shadow state. William Reno presents his theory of shadow state as if the abjuring of state institutions in the process of governance by African rulers was deliberate. It might be necessary to take issues with this proposition. The point is that the economic interests of these rulers drive them to seek short term economic gains for private enrichment from national and international political and economic circumstances. The pursuit of these goals in a situation of feeble statehood often invariably entails the abjuring of state institutions as a matter of necessity. My position therefore comes closer to that of van de Walle (2004) without intending to demean the insights of Reno’s analysis that I very much cherish. My position, however, differs from van de Walls due to his insistence that the primary motivating factor for irrational economic policies by African rulers is not greed but rather, the penchant of those rulers to focus on expedient actions to maintain themselves in power despite cascading economic crises. This appears a bit shallow to me because a more serious ontological analysis will try to find out why this is so. What do these rulers do with the power they try to maintain even at the expense of economic and po92

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litical stability of their states? A judicious answer to this question, in my humble estimation, would most likely stress economic interests pursued with state power with all attendant consequences: suppression of opposition, sit-tight mentality, politicisation of ethnicity, state capture for purposes of enriching selected cronies etc. Furthermore, van de Walle’s conclusion that SAP did not accelerate the speed of state collapse in Africa misses the point in a sense. He is correct with reference to levels of aid, honouring conditionalities only in the breach etc. But a lot of states were forced to shrink and retrench their workers. Furthermore, state subsidies were removed from services (and even goods), currency devaluation made imported goods exorbitantly expensive etc. And the reaction of the affected masses was to trust the state less, reduce their allegiances from less caring states and give then to groups challenging state authorities while promising to be better than the states. And these, among others, are what state failure is all about. Theories of corruption stress the structural factors that led to corruption and try to demean the human element (agency factor) or what Rotberg (2004) called “the hand of man”. The impression that one gets is as if African rulers have no other choice than to be corrupt. Again, I distance myself from such analyses. Corruption is a conscious effort at wealth accumulation. The deleterious tendency that it portends for the state is also obvious and known to all. But blinded by the greed to aggrandise, African rulers cared less about the consequences of the actions, as long as it helped them remain in or gain power. They also swore oaths of office which mandates them to do exactly otherwise. These nuances should be considered in analyses. A good theoretical analysis should therefore integrate agency and structure; i.e. demonstrate how the interaction between agency and structure produced the historical trajectory that inevitably led to further state weakness and collapse in some cases. Most of the theories that treated corruption did not stress state collapse as a concept. The impression one gets reading most of them is that the point of collapse is represented by the outbreak of civil wars.13 That is why the causal mechanism between corruption and civil wars (Bayart et al. 1999) or spoils politics and state collapse, especially state explosion (Allen 1999) is not demonstrated. Allen, for example, claims that spoils politics occurs when the primary goal of those competing for political power is selfenrichment. But he fails to tell us why this should be so and why African societies may be in a very weak position to fight this. I intend to present an analysis that will try to correct these anomalies by tracing the historical developments of these variables. 93

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2.2.3 Theories of the End of Bipolar International Political System The long-lasting bipolar balance of international relations has been said to have contributed considerably to the collapse of states in Africa (Clapham 2000, Ayoob 1996). The export of arms and ammunitions to these volatile states by the super powers during the ‘proxy wars’ helped to endanger the lives of these fragile states. At the end of the Cold War, some of these arms found their ways into the hands of non-state elements that used them to attack the states. At the end of the Cold War, the African State lost its strategic importance to the super powers. The financial and military support for the African state was either drastically reduced, or cancelled outright. This changed the situation in a lot of African States, denying them the advantages they used to enjoy in comparison with nonstate actors. “Not only were stateless competitors, and especially insurgent movements, able to improve their relative access to international resources, but even those who controlled states found it advantageous, on occasion, to operate outside the structures of formal statehood, and to undermine the very state which they governed” (Clapham 1996:23-24).

The end of the Cold War therefore adversely affected the collapse of states in Africa by denying the African state the all important international support and easing the integration of smuggling networks into the international market which denied the states revenues from customs and excise duties. The end of the Cold War further affected the collapse of states in Africa by spawning the mercenary phenomenon in which warfare became a booming and lucrative business for former apartheid South African security operatives and superpower secret agents. These elements have lost their jobs following the demise of Apartheid and the Cold War (AbdelFatau and Fayemi 2000, Cilliers and Mason eds. 1999). The proliferation of small weapons that was facilitated by the plunder of Soviet military arsenals by Soviet military and security operatives played a great role too. The size of the weapons made their smuggling relatively easy and their abundance facilitated the emergence of several insurgencies in Africa. Further effects of the end of the Cold War in the process of state collapse in Africa include severe reduction in development aid, debt crisis, worsening prices of raw materials in the world market, demand for democratisation and the increasing intervention of the Bretton Woods Institutions in the political and economic management of Africa. Herbst (1996:

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123) noted that these developments were responsible for the “profound erosion of many governments’ revenue bases”. Another consequence of the end bipolarity with adverse effects for the African state is the overwhelming emphasis on norms that should be observed by the third world states. Some of these norms impinge on the security of the third world state, for example, the respect for human rights and democratic principles (Ayoob op. cit.). This emphasis on political dimension of human rights, especially since the 1990s, has been used by minorities to set the state under pressure. Ayoob sees a contradiction here; while the norm of inalienability of the territories of these post-colonial states upholds their fundamental legality, the norm of respect for human rights undermines the political legitimacy of these states by prescribing standards that the system cannot simply uphold and process. His clarification for this is that states sometimes require not only sanctions but also violent means against recalcitrant domestic groups. Norms that, on one hand, force the inhabitants of a state to stay so, and on the other hand, encourage the disgruntled elements in these states to make political economic and administrative demands that the state may not be able to process could only lead to internal disorder and possibly collapse. It is appropriate at this juncture to mention the state deformation theories as summarily presented by Desch (1996). They postulate mainly that the changed international security environment casts enormous doubts on the continued broad scope, and in a few cases, the viability of some states. The reason behind this argument is that “threats are critical for bringing groups of individuals together and keeping them together” (p. 239). This argument is, of course, predicated on the conflict – cohesion thesis which maintains that threats increase group cohesiveness under specific conditions as was developed and articulated by Simmel (1955: 13123) and Coser (1956). Based on two fundamental assumptions that (a) war primarily justifies the expansion of state scope, and (b), that due to deep internal divisions, some states depend on external threats in order to avoid collapse; they maintain that the changed security environment at the end of the Cold War will dramatically affect the cohesion of a variety of states. The reason is that the structures of the states are strengthened through response to external threats. The state strengthens its scope by taking on more assignments and equally becomes more cohesive. If this external threat dissipates, the state will lose a very important element that holds it together. “Logically”, he wrote, “the state deformation theory predicts that the end of the cold war will produce a general crisis for the 95

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state” (p. 243). It further postulates that states with weak internal cohesion and dominant cleavages will most likely disintegrate in new environment of no external threat. 2.2.4 The War Economy Analysis / the Greed Perspective Some analyses of state collapse in Africa stress the salience of economic advantages of the protagonists as constituting the sole/main motive of warfare. My analysis of corruption is based on economic motives in the acquisition of political power. The realisation of such motives does not make warfare inevitable. But such political practices in combination with some other factors could precipitate warfare. And this is where the corruption analysis differs from the “greed” analysis. In the corruption analysis, war is neither absolutely necessary nor is it deliberate. But in the war economy (greed) analysis, it is deliberate. The war economy analysis stipulates that economic considerations primarily determine the calculations of parties to a conflict and equally influence the type of war economy that arises. It maintains that this occurrence is not new. The history of modern Europe is inundated with cases of war serving as a private and profit-making enterprise (cf. Tilly 1985). They stress that to get the complete picture of warfare, the economic dimension, though often controversial, must be incorporated. With the end of the Cold War and the avalanche of civil wars (involving state collapse) that greeted that end, this type of analysis became increasingly paramount. But the terminology of “war economy” is not entirely post-Cold War. Prior to the end of the Cold War, it was used as a description of post-World War II Western economies that have been built on massive and thriving defence industries justified by the Cold War. In the post Cold War period, war economies have been used to “refer to the exploitative reliance of warring factions on the economic production of territories they control” (Atkinson 1997: 6). Schlichte (2002: 11) wants it to be understood as a social space in which the process of appropriation and redistribution of resources are directed by violence. Violence and coercion or the threats of those are the means employed by actors of civil war economies in order to accumulate power, control and influence over resources. I consider this definition somewhat limited as it is confined to the activities of major actors to the exclusion of those of helpless citizens who are invariably an integral part of the war economies. The terminology of war economies evokes not only the economic interests of belligerents but also the predatory activities of state administrators (where they still count), the enterprises of foreign firms and the sur96

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vival strategies of helpless civilians. It therefore includes all forms of economic and administrative activities that primarily thrive as a result of loss of the monopoly over the instruments of violence and taxation by the state and through connections to global economy contribute considerably to sustaining accumulation or survival through or in the midst of warfare. The mention of administrative activities is considered noteworthy but should not be understood as being limited to state administrative machinery which in most cases is quasi non-existent. The granting of fake documents that facilitate smuggling and grey-area cross-border trade by sub-state agents, for example, is administrative but not state based. Economic activities of non-belligerent elements are worthy of inclusion in the definition because they constitute a part of war economies that does not easily lend itself to separation from those of the belligerent elements. The basic assumption of the war economy perspective is that the Clausewitzian logic of advancing a set of political issues and trying to realise them through war has been replaced by economic interests that are best realised by warfare, leading to an attempt to institutionalise war at a level of intensity that is clearly profitable for some actors (Berdal and Malone 2000: 2). War therefore becomes economics by other means (Keen 1998: 11), out of which a prolongation of warfare results as the motivation for war may be “to make money while it lasts, and to try to make it last long enough to make some real money” (Keen 1995 in Atkinson 1997: 14). Keen notes further: “Conflict can create war economies; often in regions controlled by rebels or warlords and linked to international trading networks; members of armed gangs can benefit from looting; and regimes can use violence to deflect opposition, reward supporters or maintain access to resources. Under these circumstances, ending civil wars becomes difficult. Winning may not be desirable: the point of war may be precisely the legitimacy which it confers on actions that in peacetime would be punishable as crimes. (…) it is important to consider the opposite possibility: that the end is to engage in abuse or crimes that bring immediate rewards, while the means is war and its perpetuation” (1998: 11-12).

They maintain that the apparent dominance of military and political issues during wars does not preclude the existence of economic motives, at least at the local level. Analysts only have to look beyond the political justifications to get at the economic backgrounds: Collier (2000: 92) suggests the conventional social science method of inferring motivation from patterns of observed behaviour. The appropriateness of this assumption is however casuistically variable. Therefore there have been other analyti97

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cal paradigms that see such wars as temporary interruptions to the normal business of state politics (development); i.e. they represent a development malaise. Still other analyses stress misperceptions and failure in communication as the explanations for such conflicts while some others stress ancient hatreds among divergent groups (for example ethnic groups) (Duffield 2000). Such analyses thus consider such internal wars as irrational or dysfunctional. The (classical) development policy approach to the study of civil wars, for example, emphasises such issues as the lack of democratic norms as leading to such structural factors as social inequality between groups, bad governance, lack of peaceful solutions to group interests and identity issues and lack of an active civil society. That is, civil wars represent a derailment from the pursuit of development occasioned by structural constraints. Recently, there is a new body of literature which I, for wont of a better term, will classify as the redistribution of income and political power approach. Such analysts de-emphasise the causality of economic factors (greed), while agreeing that they play a role; albeit a subordinate role (Jean and Rufin 1999, Ehrke 2002). Their major assumption is that the redistribution of political power is the crux of most civil wars. This redistribution however, may have material consequences. Rufin and Jean maintain that economic factors do not determine civil wars even though they may lend civil wars their own dynamic. War economy analysts distance themselves from such postulations and see a logic of accumulation based on cost/benefit analysis as precipitating such large scale violence: the microeconomic approach. The war economy analysis is based most fundamentally on the microeconomic approach which develops variables that determine the likely emergence and durability of civil wars. Such variables are per capita income, high GDP dependence on primary commodities export, the size of the country and ethnic fragmentation (Collier and Hoeffler 1999). A combination of reduction in per capita income, high dependence of the Gross Domestic Product on primary commodities, vast territory and ethnic fragmentation increases the likelihood of violent and durable conflict. Later on, this analysis was refined by the inclusion of such other variables as the proportion of young men in society and income-earning opportunity (proxied by the level of education) (Collier 2000). He maintains that some political actors seek accumulation through warfare, a purpose for which they need combatants. Supply of combatants is dependent on economic factors such as underdevelopment, poverty, unemployment etc. which dispose citizens to take up arms. A society with a great proportion 98

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of young men (between the ages of 15 and 24) is likely to be embroiled in a rebellion because the recruitment of rebels under such circumstance is much easier. However, the willingness of such young men to join a rebellion depends on their income-earning opportunities. This is dependent to a large extent on the level of education. Therefore, a society with a low level of education is more likely to be involved in a violent conflict. Collier finds out that grievance-based analyses suffer from collective action problems - free-riding, coordination and time-consistency - which accompany struggles associated with the supply of public goods. Rebel leaders might seek to solve these problems by relying on the greed of would-be combatants. Questions have been raised as to whether the so called civil wars are really civil (internal) in nature; particularly as it has been postulated that the integration of such economies to the global market is a necessary precondition for their existence (Duffield 2000, Reno 1998, Le Billon 2005). War economies thus derive their modus operandi out of this integration as mineral resources from war zones are smuggled into the global market and the proceeds used to purchase weapons of war. This is understandable judging by the deep and intensive interconnectedness in this era of globalisation. For example, Ellis demonstrates with reference to Liberia: “from the beginning to the end of the war, each Liberian warlord of substance had alliances with foreign businessmen and at least one foreign government” (1999: 164).

Cortright &Lopez (2000: 187-193) further report that France, supported by other nations that sought to protect their economic interests, vetoed attempts of the Security Council of United Nations at placing embargoes on the commodities of Liberian war economy due to the interests of French firms that dominated the trade in timber and other goods. For example, almost 2 million tonnes of iron ore worth $18 million US was exported in 1992 to the French steel firm Usinor (de Montclos, 1996). De Beer and Gamba (2000) and Cornwell (2000) report how the linkage of Angolan war economy to the global economy not only prolonged the conflict by ensuring the survival of UNITA (Uniao Nacional para a Independencia Total de Angola) which was threatened as a result of the considerable reduction in US support but also strengthened UNITA financially and militarily by channelling their trade in diamonds through syndicates in South Africa, Belgium and Israel. Such syndicates helped UNITA to establish substantial investment portfolios abroad which supplemented earnings from diamond trade. 99

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2.2.4.1 Favourable Factors for War Economies For the above reason, the interests of foreign powers become a favourable factor for the flourishing of war economies in the underdeveloped world. Neoliberalism, which is a facilitating factor in the process of globalisation, also contributes to the flourishing of war economies by recommending the opening of national markets and free access of goods across borders. This promoted illegal cross-border trades in which goods of war economies are regular features (Duffield op. cit.).14 The ends of the Cold War and of Apartheid regime in South Africa are further propitious factors. Severe reductions in Cold War military support for the Angolan warring groups forced them to innovatively experiment with war economy. The release of former Apartheid security operatives from their official positions at the end of that system coupled with the post-Soviet military downsizing induced some of these security operatives to ally with Angolan warring groups by laying their connections and expertise at the disposal of these groups (Cilliers and Mason 1999, Reno 1998, AbdelFatau and Fayemi 2000). In this context, the easy accessibility of small arms that littered the global black market as a result of the demise of the Soviet Union and the concomitant plundering of Soviet military arsenal is noteworthy. It became thus easy for men with the means and the motives to attack and destabilise states. These developments also underpinned the privatisation of security in Africa. Another important development that coincided with the end of the Cold War, buttressed the globalisation process and favoured the emergence of war economies in Africa is the enormous advancement in telecommunications technology, especially internet banking. It became thus possible for warlords to monitor financial transactions from war fronts with the aid of a laptop. Further factors advantageous to the flourishing of war economies include the availability of raw materials. De Soysa (2000), states that there is a positive and significant correlation between the abundance of mineral wealth and greed-motivated armed rebellions. Abundance of mineral resources spawns violent conflicts by acting as incentives to rebel groups who then coalesce on the possibility of looting which invariably sustains the rebellion. She associates herself with the viewpoint of those who maintain that, “resources are seen as honey pot that provides incentives for profit-seeking groups to engage in violent actions” (De Soysa 2000: 115). This thesis has received further refinements that stress, not just the abundance of mineral resources, but the nature of these resources. In West Africa, for example, the portability of mineral resources (alluvial

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diamonds, gold, timber) considerably influenced the outbreak of violence (Reno 1998). This has to do with the fact that such resources are small, low weight, easily concealable, anonymous, internationally tradable and not easily amenable to governmental or international controls (Le Billon 2005: 32). The nature of available mineral resources in weak states influences the type of political conflicts that arise in such polities. Portable and easily accessible mineral resources could influence state collapse because globalisation has obliterated the necessity of sovereignty in marketing such resources. Heavy mineral resources that require strong machinery for extraction (for example crude oil) heightens the intensity of power struggle for the acquisition and preservation of state power which is necessary for negotiations with multinational corporations which demand state sovereignty for the protection of heavy investments. In such situations, crisis simmers, institutional debility and economic underdevelopment persist. But none of the groups involved in the conflict goes so far as to bring the state to collapse because they all need the state for negotiations on the international market. Economic underdevelopment and institutional debility have been traced to the abundance of mineral resources by encouraging rentseeking (Le Billon 2005, Karl 1997), through the “Dutch Disease” (Karl 1997, De Soysa 2000) and through blocking the development of institutional arrangements that facilitate economic and political development (Karl 1997). International emergency aid is a further favourable factor for the development and persistence of war economies through resource transfers and providing combatants with loot: monetary aid and relief materials that are supposed to ease the pangs of the civilians become attractive commodities for plunder and profit (Duffield 1994, Anderson 1999). Even the demand for political and economic reforms made on the African rulers by the international financial institutions at the end of the Cold War has been mentioned as one of the factors that led to war economies in so far as it encouraged rebellious elements to attack some states and affect their collapse. 2.2.4.2 Actors in War Economies From the foregoing, it must have become obvious that a variety of actors are involved in war economies: these could be classified as internal and external actors. Internal actors could be governmental or nongovernmental. Governmental actors include soldiers, civil servants (or what remains of them) and politicians. Non-governmental actors could 101

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be rebels, warlords, criminals, terrorists (Mair 2002: 9) and mere survivors. External actors comprise governmental, supranational and sub-state elements. Governmental actors include officials of neighbouring states, regional states former colonial powers and others. Neighbouring states are often involved in the war economies as a result of plundering, crossborder military activities, and the streaming of refugees, or as transit land for emergency aid and other economic activities and as bases for peacekeeping troops. This often leads to a regionalisation of the conflict (Cooper and Pugh 2004). Some neighbouring states profit from conflicts through taking part in the extraction or transit of mineral resources. Zaire under Mobutu profited from the Angolan conflict (Reno 1998), Uganda profited from the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Liberia’s Charles Taylor extended his rebellion to neighbouring Sierra Leone for similar purposes. Ivorian leaders profited from the civil war in Liberia by supplying Charles Taylor with transport routes for his weapons supply. State security is sometimes advanced as the reason for intervention in neighbouring war economy; for example, Uganda and Rwanda in the DRC conflict. The fear of or actual regionalisation of the war economic conflict induces regional organisations to intervene, in which process their agents partake in war economies; for example, Nigerian soldiers as members of ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group) in Liberia and Sierra Leone and South African soldiers as agents of SADC (South African Development Cooperation) in Rwanda. Due to strong economic and political attachments built up in the process of colonialism, former colonial powers are always involved in war economies in the erstwhile colonies. De Beers, with headquarters in London, was deeply involved in diamond trade in Sierra Leone, same goes for Branch Energy (Adebajo 2000: 93). Other external nation-state actors could be involved for reasons ranging from protection of national interests to humanitarian aid. Supranational actors include international governmental organisations such as United Nations, international financial institutions ( Leading banks in the global economy, International Monetary Fund - IMF and the World Bank), trade organisations (World Trade Organisation – WTO) etc. These are actors in so far as their transactions, conventions or regimes influence war economies one way or another. 15 Sub-state actors are interest groups that operate within and between states, and their expertise and areas of operation have really increased 102

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since the end of the Cold War as a result of increasing influence and power of civil society organisations in international politics (Rosenau and Czempiel 1992). These include transnational corporations, mafia and criminal networks, non-governmental organisations, private security companies and the Diaspora of the affected state. 2.2.4.3 Basic Features of War Economies I have already mentioned that the aetiology of state collapse and that of war economies should analytically be sequestered because even though the two phenomena often accompany one another, they still remain two different phenomena with no guarantee of simultaneous occurrence. Empirically however, their close relationship should not be overlooked. War economies arise at the intersection of the state’s loss of monopoly over instruments of violence and free market economic structures. The economic interests of free enterprise enlarge the areas lacking state monopoly over violence and these interests are then realised in increasing measures in such areas (Elwert 1997: 88). The state’s loss of monopoly over violence provokes its instrumentalisation by private agents for profit purposes which then supplants peaceful productive activities. Intrinsically, war economies are characterised by markets of violence. This refers to areas of economic activity that are predominantly designated for purposes of accumulation in which robbery as well as exchange of goods in various forms and combinations - ransom, protection fees, street tolls etc. occur. Two other characteristics according to Elwert include state’s loss of monopoly over instruments of violence and a decentralisation of economic activities. The nation state ceases to act as an economic unit. Decentralisation of economic activities could involve the attachment of part of the economy to that of a neighbouring state, or the territorial division of control over economic activities by several warring groups; a process that is akin to an oligopoly. Schlichte (2002: 11) identified four features of war economies. These include: Internal expansion involving goods and space External expansion often leading to regionalisation Informalisation of economic activities epitomised by smuggling Obliteration of limits and international norms of warfare; including those of fronts, combatants, war and peace, soldiers and criminals, armies and rebels.

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There is a tendency for war economies, especially the durable ones, to expand beyond the initial precious goods and include more and more goods as articles of trade. This kind of expansion is often accompanied by geographical expansion because the war becomes an article of trade in itself and enables actors to accumulate profit. External expansion refers to regionalisation of war economies in which smuggle routes, refugee movements, and other destabilising tendencies interact. Informalisation of economic activities refers to a mix of legal, illegal and grey exchanges which makes it possible for plundered goods to reach the end users or find their ways into global markets. Obliteration of limits and norms refers to serious novelties in war economies in comparison to classical warfare. These changes include the disappearance of fronts; wars take place sporadically anywhere and at any time. Oftentimes, mineral resource deposits or routes to the coast become points of siege. There is equally little distinction between combatants and non-combatants. The temporal distinction between war times and peace times withers away. This applies to the distinction between war and criminal activities, and between regular state armies and rebels. This was epitomised by the sobel phenomenon in Sierra Leone where soldiers at daytime become rebels at night in order to plunder without the chances of being identified. 2.2.4.4 Financial Sources of War Economies Mary Kaldor (2000: 162-165) identified four major sources of revenue for war economies. These include: Revenues from plundering, robbery, hostage taking and the control of markets and market routes. Revenues from tax, protection tax and illegal transborder trade. Diversion of humanitarian aid which are then sold for profit. External support such as direct money transfers to relatives, finances from the Diaspora or from friendly states.

By far, the greatest financial sources for war economies come from deals involving the sale of plundered mineral resources in the global market. At a time, mineral resources from war zones contributed enormously to the supply of such goods in the international market. For example, diamonds from war zones contribute between 4-15% of annual world trade in diamonds, and 4% is worth about USD270 million (Jung 104

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2002: 80). In 1995, gold and diamonds worth between USD300 million and USD500 million, USD53 million worth of timber and rubber in value of USD27 million were exported to European and Southeast Asian markets by Liberian warlords (Atkinson 1997: 9). The Expert Panel of United Nations reports that despite the UNO embargo of 1998 (resolution 1173) on Angolan “blood” diamonds, UNITA rebels earned between USD350420 million annually from diamond sales (UN 2001a: Paragraph 141). Most of these funds were then used to purchase arms and ammunitions for further prosecution of the war. The MPLA (bonafide) government of Angola which controlled the oil mining areas of Angola even traded oil for weapons in the course of the war. The first Angolan/Russian oil versus weapons deal which took place in 1993 involved about USD47 million and increased in 1994 to the delivery of weapons to the tune of about USD633 million (Global Witness 2002: 12). In 1996 alone, UNITA earned between USD600 and USD700 million. In the West African conflict involving Liberia and Sierra Leone, mineral resources provided warlords with means of personal enrichment and finances for their military campaigns. Charles Taylor was reported to have earned about USD75 million annually through the sale of diamonds, timber, rubber, gold and iron ore. His mining concessions to a consortium of Japanese, European and North American firms was reported to have fetched him USD10 million monthly; plus an estimated monthly earning of USD300,000 from timber exports (Reno 1995: 115; Africa Confidential 1992: 3). 2.2.4.5 Types of War Economies Some scholars have made efforts at typologising war economies. Developing typologies of war economies could have the advantage of bringing clarity and a modicum of analytical order to an otherwise complex and intransparent mechanism. The taxonomy varies widely depending on the research interests of the authors. I will just mention the two I consider interesting here. Depending on their financial sources and contact with other markets, one could identify open and closed war economies. Majority of the today’s war economies could be classified as open due to the fact that they are all connected to global markets and are facilitated by progress in telecommunication technology. Thus, open war economies could therefore be defined as war economies that are deeply tied to the regional and global markets. Contrarily, closed war economies, in their extreme forms, are isolated from regional and global markets (Rufin 1999: 16ff) and are rare nowadays. 105

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Atkinson (1997: 7-9) typologised war economies according to scale of activity and legality or otherwise of resource flows. On the scale of activity, she differentiated between macro, meso and micro war economies which she, on the dimension of legality or illegality, crossed with legal, grey, illegal and human rights violations. “Macro, meso and micro level classification relates to the scale of the activity, to distinguish them from activities organised by civilians or fighters in the informal economy, and those controlled at higher levels of factions or governments” (Atkinson 1997: 7).

Legality or otherwise of activities is necessary to differentiate survival strategies of helpless individuals (which is an integral part of war economies) from the criminal activities and human rights violations of warlords and rebels. Macro level activities include“all large-scale extraction and export of resources …where government taxation and regulatory functions should apply, and where the Liberian economy is linked to the international economy” (ibid). At the meso level, various foreign companies and individuals deal directly with local commandoes for extraction and purchase of products whereby exports involve higher negotiation. The micro level activities include the survival strategies of local populations and fighters. On the basis of a detailed study of the Liberian war economy, she identified three basic elements of war economies: illegal extraction of mineral resources; often with forced labour, taxation and export of mineral resources – timber, diamond, gold and rubber. Main economic activities were twofold: natural resource extraction which involved the use of ethnic based networks (Moslems, Lebanese and Mandingoes); government collection of revenues which involved sharing of government posts among the rebel leaders and the use made of such posts, and corruption which integrated the formal economy to the illegal economy up country. She made a distinction between the formal and informal economy. A modicum of the formal economy remains and is concentrated in the capital city of Monrovia. It included wage labour for various aid organisations and employment in the private sector. Relatively, lots of import and export firms still thrive and are owned by Lebanese, Indians and Western nationals. These firms equally operate illegally through links to rebels and government officials. The informal economy, on the other hand, mainly sustained the civilian population and could be both legal and illegal. Prominent activities include the production and trade in agricultural products such as cassava, yam, palm oil, rice, vegetables, fruits, 106

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coffee and cocoa; and extraction of and trade in mineral resources and rubber. Other economic activities included cross-border trade especially smuggling, harvesting of crops for absentee landlords, clearing of villages for loot, trade in imported manufactured and looted goods. There was a specific case in Monrovia christened (BYOTB – Buy Your Own Thing Back) in which owners could buy back their belongings that were lost to looters. To facilitate the informal war economy, new patronage networks were developed between commanders and individual fighters as well as new joint ventures between fighters and civilians. There was a multiplication of middlemen as all traded goods must pass through them and profit made at every point. She notes that in such situations, the national economy shrinks, becomes more informal and more illegal as informal/illegal activities expand. 2.3 Critique of the Theories The major problem with the reviewed bad governance analyses is their piecemeal nature: most of the researchers merely aimed at explaining why a state failed. The application of the theoretical lessons derived from such analyses could only be undertaken with considerable difficulty for the mere fact that such theoretical explanations are based on pretty specific facts that may not reoccur over time and space. It is observable that state failure and collapse are phenomena that befall economically weak states. It is equally observable that economically strong states are generally stable and not threatened from collapse. A theory that could stand the test of time will be in a position, at least rudimentarily, to offer explanations for these observations that occur regularly. The bad governance analyses have not been able to accomplish this fact due to a lack of attempt at theorising bad governance. Rather, at the back of the bad governance analysis is the idea that the rulers that rule badly do not know how to do it better. That is, it is taken for granted that they want to do it, only that they couldn’t. This is why development assistance is full of programmes aimed at ‘teaching’ the underdeveloped states governance. I humbly disagree with this approach. I view the analyses very critically because the idea behind them is very similar to the idea behind the discredited modernisation theories – the masters of good governance should teach the practitioners of bad governance how to do it better. This is why I prefer a depoliticised approach that delves into histories to show the development of governance qualities (good or bad) and their raison d’etre. The war economy perspective throws a lot of light into the processes of exchange and reproduction of social order in situations of state col107

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lapse, but it has its shortcomings. Prominent among the shortcomings is the fact that it is ahistorical: analyses are focused on war activities without recourse to the political and economic antecedents of civil wars. It has merely been mentioned that it is a phenomenon that takes place within predominantly weak states (Berdal and Malone 2000: 2), or in “politically fragmented and economically weak states” (ibid: 4). The tendency is to give the impression that political fragmentation, state weakness and economic underdevelopment are taken for granted. Reports of state collapse and concomitant events (war economies for example) try to decouple those wars from underdevelopment and other political-economic antecedents. My approach seeks to bring history back in and demonstrate that state collapse and war economies are phenomena that are closely tied to political economies of global marginalisation in which the ruling groups pursue the accumulation of private wealth through capture and use of state power. The preservation of underdevelopment, state weakness, bad governance, civil wars and their economies are therefore products of a system of accumulation for which the direct instrumentalisation of state power is necessary. Using state power to accumulate personal riches over a long time produces a tendency that partly legitimises such practices and partly illegitimises the state in the hearts and minds of its citizens as the state increasingly loses its ability and readiness to provide public goods.16 After several decades, this process assumes a kind of path-dependence. Another consequence is the encouragement of ambitious actors to join the bandwagon as there are hardly other chances of successful wealth accumulation due to the monoculture of the economy and the dearth of resources. These increase the pressure that such elements with means put on the state. The pressure on politics increases further through the explosion in the number of the political elite as more and more ambitious people join the fray. This group of people promotes national fragmentation as they try to get a hand on the political power armed with tickets of group (often ethnic) championship. A serious problem of elite accommodation and management arises. Depending on the balance of social forces, this could lead to military coups, secession attempts and civil wars as disgruntled section of the elite try to exploit the general grievance of the citizens to attack the rulers. Whether the rulers succeed in retaining power depends, in turn, on other factors which may be considered extraneous. Such factors may include the state of international politics (bipolar, unipolar, multipolar), the level of integration of the local to the global market, availability and type of mineral resources, the strategic impor108

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tance of the state to the leading states in international politics, etc. In this sense therefore, civil wars and their economies may be seen as representing a revelation and diffusion of a system gone awry; a system of accumulation that is based on exclusion, emasculation and negligence of the majority in the process of governance. If such wars are continuations of economics by other means, then one has to classify the whole national political process (at least from the point of view of dominant bourgeois activities) as such: a continuation of economics by other means. And this is the approach represented here. However, it has to be remarked, contrary to the assumptions of the war economy perspective, that most of the rebel leaders in West African conflict were previous ideologues that were unsatisfied with the system (grievance) and risked their lives in the attempt to effect a change. In the process however, they become challenged with daunting problems of national consciousness and mobilisation, illiteracy, poverty and above all, the overwhelming power, vagaries and vicissitudes of the international political and economic systems. They then start to manoeuvre and play survival games and in the process, lose sight of the ideals that propelled them into radical politics in the first place. They often become worse (greedier) than the people they tried to remove . The point is that after several years of underdevelopment governance, the system assumes a kind of path-dependence and idealists who join politics with an intention of changing the system end up being changed by the system. The statement by Charles Taylor that politics in Africa is a survival of fittest that hardly leaves room for democratic practices should, I think, be taken seriously. Thus, a comprehensive analysis of state collapse in Africa should seek to incorporate both elements of greed and grievance. It is the use of power for purposes other than socio-economic development and state capacity building that lead to grievance and the yearning for change in such societies. Recent research evidence increasingly puts the central postulation of the war economy approach to question. For example, Snyder and Bhavnani (2005) dispute the central thesis that lootable materials supply the means to civil wars, while acceding to the fact that they do prolong civil wars.17 To get a better picture of the motives of civil war protagonists, they proposed a revenue-centred framework in order to explain the differing political consequences of lootable resources by emphasising institutional and economic constraints faced by rulers. Thus, they argue that in mineral rich countries, the ability of rulers to garner the necessary revenues that enables the maintenance of political order de109

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pends on three factors: 1) the overall resource profile of the economy by which they mean whether nonlootable resources are available to rulers as a source of revenue, 2) economic institutions which they referred to as mode of extraction, i.e., whether lootable resources are extracted by difficult-to-tax artisans (like in alluvial diamonds) or alternatively by large, taxable companies and 3) how rulers spend public revenue, i.e. whether they spend it prudently in provision of infrastructure, social welfare services, the military and improving their capacity to further revenue in future or spend it frivolously (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005: 565-566). As they maintain, their analysis distinguishes itself from the previous research on resources and civil wars by shifting the focus from rebels to rulers and states, analysing the institutional and economic constraints that determine the ability of ruler to get the income with which to govern and combining this focus on revenue with a focus on spending. They thus, come quite close to my analytical focus – a long history of economic mismanagement and frivolous spending coupled with corruption and institutional repudiation. As a matter of course, frivolous spending of public funds leads to widespread social grievance. But whether disgruntled elements take up arms to attack the state and the extent of the damage they could wreck on the state (collapse or not) depends then on the dominant mode of extraction. The dominant mode of extraction could be artisanal or industrial. They thus concluded that “the risk of state collapse and civil war is highest when lootable resources are the main source of wealth, and the dominant mode of extraction is artisanal” (p. 569). To get at the motives of actors that instigate state collapse and civil wars, the analysis has to go beyond the resource availability. 2.4 Conclusion The intensity and longevity of crisis of the state and violent conflicts in Africa have spawned a body of literature that identifes various factors as being responsible for the state of the state in Africa. The differences in the analysed factors probably have to do with the professional orientations and academic interests of the researchers. These factors have broadly been divided into the bad governance or grievance and the war economy or greed perspectives. Despite the seeming differences in these perspectives to state collapse and civil wars in Africa, one could carefully join them in an analysis. This is because they focus on two different stages of the development of state collapse in Africa: the grievance perspective focuses on the ill-feeling generated by decades of negligent governance while the greed perspective focuses on some political and eco110

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nomic consequences of that governance. A long history of bad governance deepens underdevelopment with all its unpleasant attendant consequences. Life becomes increasingly harsh for the average citizens while the rulers live in pomp and pageantry. Grievance against the rulers therefore accumulates in the society. The translation of grievance into political action depends, to a large extent, on the possibility of financing such rebellions. At this point, resource availability, their typology and dominant mode of extraction become critical. A comprehensive explanation of state collapse has to combine the two apparently divergent modes of analysis. Before attempting my own explanation of the state collapse problematic, it is necessary to look at governance and statehood in precolonial Africa in order to understand the historical origins of bad governance on which grievance and greed predicate. This is necessary in order to highlight the changes occasioned by colonialism which then laid the foundations for bad governance in postcolonial Africa.18 Notes 1

This adage “one doesn’t have to watch the mouth of the people that roast the groundnuts” means that it should not be surprising to notice that the same people eat the groundnuts.

2

This quotation originated from F. Cooper, Africa and the world economy.

3

This terminology was borrowed from Michel Foucault and has the advantage of reference to Foucault’s definition of power as “a set of actions upon other actions”. For details, see Burchell, Graham/Gordon, Colin/Miller, Peter (eds.) (1991), The Foucault Effects: Studies in Governmentality, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hertfordshire.

4

This is taken from the internet: www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=53145 &SelectRegi. ( 01.06.2006). 5

This accusation is a little bit incomprehensible to me because Bayart’s work drew it’s material from African history and is very similar to theirs.

6

No confusion is intended here. In most of Africa, economic decline is suffered only by the poor masses and the more the decline, the greater the discrepancy between the standard of living of the elite compared with those of the masses and therefore the greater the level of legitimacy those patrons enjoy in the eyes of the very poor masses.

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7

Such concepts as corruption, development, civil society, even the state are to them Eurocentric paradigms that do not show analytic empathy to the specificity of the African situation. 8

This tern (prebend) goes back to Weber’s categorisation of states and this notion is associated with the concept of patrimonialism. See Max Weber 1965: 207 for details. 9 To the best of my knowledge, Rainer Tetzlaff (in German speaking areas) and Robert Rotberg (in English speaking areas) are pioneers in this attempt; the former towards the end of tne 1990s and the latter at the beginning of the new millenium. See the section on definition of terms in this work for more detailed presentation. 10

I will delve deeper in to this issue when I discuss the historical development of bad governance in Africa.

11

English translation: Corruption is always the beginning….The paralysis of legal norms through corruption opens the way for violence to act as market regulator. 12

Ibid, p.25-26

13

I don’t toe this line of thinking and have already made my point clearer when I defined the terms in the first chapter. 14

My understanding of globalisation leans heavily on the World Bank’s view which sees globalisation as worldwide economic and political convergence around liberal market principles and the increasing real-time integration of business, technological and financial systems (World Bank 1997, in Duffield 2000: 70). 15

See the sections dealing with war economies in every chapter of the empirical studies of civil wars in West Africa in this book for more details. 16

This legitimacy should better be understood as an expression of fatalism: the masses are sad and powerless at their weakness in changing the situation. Thus, they react with a mentality of “if you can’t beat them, join them”. 17

They defined lootable resources as “high-value goods with low economic low economic barriers to entry” (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005: 565). 18

It is necessary to stress that my objective is not to apportion blames regarding the colonisation of Africa. It was relatively normal at the time that strong nations colonise weaker ones. Africa would probably have colonised Europe if she had the capability. That international public opinion and law forbids colonialism is a late development in human history.

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Chapter 3

THE CONTEXT OF GOVERNANCE, DEVELOPMENT AND STATE FORMATION IN PRECOLONIAL AFRICA Socio-economic development is the process whereby a human society mobilises resources from its immediate and distant physical and biological environments to solve its most-pressing problems of existence, using experiences gained from the solutions successfully applied to one branch of life in attempting to solve problems encountered in other branches of human endeavour. This process facilitates social and productive progress which inevitably contributes to the complexification of and improvement in social life. The driving force has almost always been imperative of survival and the progress that results therefrom has not always been lineal. There are oftentimes setbacks, but cognitions drawn from the setbacks inform a better approach next time around. And this is why the setbacks are in themselves developmental because they identify what should be altered or maintained in order to achieve success next time around. There is no blueprint for development as material conditions differ in time and space dimensions. It has never been undertaken in order to please anybody or to just appear nice or democratic or obedient. It is therefore doubtful that any group of states should serve as a model for another, given the differences in material conditions. One could only look at the driving forces and institutional arrangements of the successful states in order to draw lessons from them which could then be adapted to some other less successful ones. Development involves the ability of and courage to trial and error, drawing lessons from the errors and applying them to subsequent endeavours and thereby improving the quality of life of human beings. There is thus a strong connection between education and development in the sense that development is the result of self-education through trial and error. It is an indigenous process. Although ideas and technologies could be borrowed from outside, the society decides which ideas and technologies to borrow, when and how to apply them. Because the society solves its problem, it has the empowerment and self-confidence that result from self- reliance. States that arise from such societies are thus sovereign in the true sense of the word. Giving the tag of sovereignty to states that could not guarantee their development is a trivialisation of that concept.

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The foundation of social development is the economy which has to record some growth, but it doesn’t stop there. Material and immaterial gains of economic development have to be applied to other areas of life and vice versa. The synergy of this interaction is a critical factor in the process of development. It is an endless process. Thus, it appears inappropriate to talk of developed and underdeveloped states for a variety of reasons. Firstly, one creates the impression that the “developed states” have concluded the process of development. This is definitely wrong. Whoever compares the Western societies of today with what they were fifty or hundred years ago will find out that they have undergone a tremendous development since then, even though they were already “developed” at that time. Secondly, the wrong impression is created that since the “developed” societies have succeeded in achieving development, they have become masters of the trade. The “underdeveloped” societies just have to let these masters tell them how to do it. This is the idea behind the Western “promotion” of development in the so called third world. Consequently, the study of development is blatantly neglected in the West, except with regards to the so called developing societies; apparently according to the slogan: “we are already developed and do not need to learn more about it”.1 In Western Universities, development studies are sequestered from social sciences as if the two are different. The historical truth is that “in a manner of speaking, development studies is social science and social science is development studies” (Leftwich 2000: 12). The central concerns of the founding fathers of modern social sciences (Alexis de Tocqueville, August Comte, Adam Smith, Friedrich List, Herbert Spencer, Maine de Biran, Emile Durkheim, Ferdinand Tönnies, Max Weber, Joseph Schumpeter and John-Maynard Keynes) are the central concerns of today’s development studies and they relate to how societies develop and how this process may be facilitated or promoted. Thus and thirdly, we have only developing and non-developing societies. All human societies were developing societies (albeit at different paces) until imperialism and colonialism integrated non-Western societies into the process of Western development. The loss of the independence to develop according to one’s pace and needs that resulted from this integration was the basis of the so called “underdevelopment” since their development from that point onwards became attached to and dictated by the West. The final reason why it is not appropriate to talk of development and underdevelopment is that it characterises a set of societies based on a comparison with a set of others. This is wrong. Societies 114

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should be judged and characterised on the basis of their ability to solve their problems and make social progress. This is not to demean the historical fact that different societies find themselves at different levels of socio-economic development. Development process involves allocation and reallocation of resources as well as constant redefinition of what society’s goals are. Reallocation of resources and redefinition of society’s goals impinge differentially on the diverse interests of groups as society gets complex and divisions of labour develop and ossify, oftentimes leading to social stratification. Because it promotes the interests of some groups while demeaning the interests of others, development is a conflict-laden process as groups use resources at their disposal to protect, promote or counter the undermining of their interests. Increasing social stratification and the consciousness thereof therefore increases the propensity of development becoming conflict-laden. In simpler and hardly stratified societies, the level of social cohesion is generally relatively higher due to less divergence in group interests, if economically divergent groups exist at all. In complex and highly stratified societies, the opposite is the case; more so as stronger groups strive to undermine weaker groups by using political power to express their group interests as the interests of the overall society. Defining the goals of a society (deliberately or fortuitously) and steering society towards the achievement of these goals is what I refer to as good governance. Political power for the pursuit of such aims could be centralised or decentralised and the sources of authority could as well be centralised, diffuse or alternating. Centralisation of power is often conditioned on social stratification in which case the most influential group acquires power, allies with resource-bearers in society and declares its interests which are compatible with those of resource-bearers as the interest of the overall society. In this sense, governance is ‘naturally’ good because the interests of the governing groups coalesce with the interests of resource-bearing groups and the satisfaction of these interests makes for social progress. Admittedly though, the interests of resource-bearers and those of the governing group are often better satisfied as interests of others. However, the others gain (on a lesser scale) through social progress made. Thus, economic development is the intersection of divergent interests of different social groups. The normative appellation (good) does not really have anything to do with the modalities of ascension to power or the degree and broadness of consultations preceding decision making.2 The most critical factor is that the interests of resource bearers and those of political 115

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power wielders are coalescent and that these groups are indigenous in which case governance is inward-looking. This timeless view of governance as the act of governing is most appropriate for unmasking the political purposes behind the introduction of the new discourse. The claim that governance is tendentially good is underlined by the fact that the life of governments is drawn from the societies they govern. Governments are therefore interested in social progress and strive to achieve this. They sometimes make mistakes, take the wrong decisions, trample on democracy and human rights, go to wars, etc. It is always clear that they are marching societies forward based on their own understanding which might be judged right or wrong especially with hindsight. They are neither reminded, advised, encouraged, cajoled nor are they threatened to govern their societies right simply because their existence as a government is dependent on their ability to steer societies aright in the short or long run. Thus, governing with a total disregard of society’s well-being (bad governance) could only be possible in cases of external domination (imperialism, colonialism, vassalage) or in cases of complementarity of interests between independent governments and external powers (neocolonialism).3 And this brings us closer to the sources of bad governance in Africa, the demonstration of which a synopsis of governance and development in pre-colonial Africa is indispensable. 3.1 Governance and Development in Pre-Colonial Africa I posit that precolonial African societies were making steady (perhaps slow) progress till colonialism put a cog in the wheel of that progress.4 That is, Africans were really progressing from simple to complex societies, as increasing economic diversification led to social stratification and the political system had to rearrange itself to effectively reap optimal gains from economic development. In precolonial Africa, “social stratification (…) went hand in hand with the rise of the state” (Rodney 1982: 46). This is in part, without bias, what good governance is all about. Fundamentally, I assume that segmentary organisation of human societies was the earliest form of political organisation which could then develop into centralised power systems (Cf. Bates 1983).5 The transition from one stage to another signifies development as it involves improvement in the ability to satisfy human needs accompanied sometimes by increases in the quantity of goods produced which then enables diversification of which political administration is a part. This is so because as Goody (1971: 12) notes, “any degree of political centralisation entails specialised

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roles and hence some withdrawal of manpower from primary production into administrative activity”. Segmentary societies are often relatively small self-governing groups consisting mostly of agriculturalists. Every village is an autochthonous political unit and decisions are made ad hoc through direct democratic praactices and consensus. Villages and Clans constitute the segments of a larger whole – the ethnic group. Voluntarism is the guiding principle of social action. Families constitute the units of production and social stratification hardly exists. The institution of feud is personally arranged but socially guaranteed: individual families reserve the right of use of violence but according to social norms. In a centralised political system voluntarism disappears as institutions are maintained and political actions undertaken by professionals who live by performing such functions. “Under a centralized system, individual members of society are no longer decisive, they cannot veto collective decisions and unanimity is not required. Instead, socially binding actions are taken by a sub-set of society’s members, and individuals can be compelled to comply with decisions taken by these agents. As empirical marks of centralized systems, we can note the existence of a bureaucracy, an army which is recruited and commanded by a central military figure, and a central political figure, such as a chief or monarch” (Bates 1983: 25) 6.

Historical evidence abound that African societies were marching towards social progress and transformations till imperialism and colonialism aborted that. The result of this abortion was a long period of stagnation followed by decline that culminated in the collapse of modern African states. Scholars of the genealogy of states regularly posit that segmentation of political power precedes its centralisation and that the reason for the change has often been economic. If economics is understood as the production and distribution of goods and services, the works of Marx and Weber regarding the modern state in Europe could be located within this framework. “Among the most frequently posited motives for the formation of states is the desire to achieve economic objectives – ones that presumably could not be achieved under decentralised systems” (Bates 1983: 21).

Let’s consider just one issue: feuds. The institution of feud which regulates order in decentralised systems is economically inefficient as it has to be personally negotiated, albeit with lineage guarantee. Moreover, feuds last relatively long as there are no formal means of ending hostili117

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ties. This analysis could be extended to other aspects of social organisation. In his statistically guided inquiry into the process of centralisation of political power in Africa, Robert Bates identified five prevalent hypotheses of centralisation of political power and maintained that these processes being described in the hypotheses, though largely drawn from the European experience, are found in precolonial Africa. The hypotheses are: the Ricardian model, the demography model, land and crowding model, the rent seeking model, the state as a means of production model and the state as a means of distribution model. I will lean heavily on these models to demonstrate the processes in precolonial Africa. 3.1.1 The Ricardian Model An essential tenet of the Ricardian model indicates that the rationale behind political centralisation is the desire to optimise the benefits of economic welfare provided by the promotion of markets. Immanuel Wallerstein (1974) advances similar arguments in his explanation of the rise of the modern European states, so do North and Thomas (1973) and Cohen (1978); albeit a Marxist variant. Working within the Ricardian paradigm, one scholar posits a specific African variant of this model based on the extraction of gains from commerce (Coquery-Vidrovitch 1976). Still going a step deeper, some scholars have tried to demonstrate the superiority and desirability of centralised political systems to decentralised ones by contrasting them. For example, Colson (1962) shows how the decentralised lineage system of the Tongas (in Zambia) failed to optimise the benefits of long-distance trade by basing the fortification of property rights and the security of exchanges on interpersonal arrangements guaranteed by the lineage. Every trading individual within the lineage had to personally provide these rights and securities leading to a costly multiplication of efforts, costs that could be minimised by centralisation. This lack of efficient utilisation therefore led to lack of economic specialisation including the resultant trade optimisation. Other scholars, for example Lewis (1962) demonstrates on the example of Somalia, that even if the lineage relations system were able to generate considerable benefits, the costs of obtaining them appeared to be high because each trading party had to invest in the means of production and demonstrate his willingness and ability to inflict retribution in cases of non-compliance (feud). The order thus produced is costly as traders could reduce the cost by centralising the system.

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The idea behind these analyses is that markets do not exist in isolation; they rather require political (institutional) arrangements to streamline and efficiently optimise transactions. “Institutional reform – such as the development of the capacity to maintain peace in the market – makes higher levels of well-being possible – in this case, by facilitating trade. As everyone could be better off under the new institution, the argument contends, there are strong incentives for people to organise it. One way or the other it is argued, people will secure an institution under which they all stand to gain” (Bates 1983: 27).

The free-riding problem that might arise out of such a development is taken care of “by conferring an over-riding private interest in the provision of new institutional arrangements” (ibid). There arises thusly, an advantage for traders, especially long-distance traders as the case may be, in the new institutional arrangement. This explains the cooperation between rulers and traders in precolonial African states. Decentralised political systems that share borders with centralised ones have not only let themselves be influenced by such systems but even went as far as hiring personnel from centralised systems to help them in the adjudication of trade disputes. Dike (1956), Northrup (1958) und Ottenberg (1958) severally demonstrate how trade and the execution of feuds affected the organisation of coercion in south-eastern Nigeria. The Aros (Arochukwu in Eastern Nigeria) were the first to centralise political order and coercion and could thus reap the benefits of trade on the Niger Delta by instrumentalising the Long Juju.7 The Ibibio and other neighbouring ethnic groups then started inviting the Aros to live with them and dispense justice for them. Although these ethnic groups realised that the Aro Long Juju justice system was open to abuse and was often abused by greedy and tricky Aros, they still considered the advantages of centralisation superior to the disadvantages of decentralisation. This collective village decision led to trade expansion and drove other neighbouring villages to call in the Aros. “The growth of the market”, therefore, “led to the emergence of centralised forms” (Bates 1983: 23). Scholars of the formation of precolonial states in West Africa have always emphasised the importance of trade, not only to the emergence of states or other forms of centralised political power but more importantly, to the maintenance of those states. Although the pervasive economic activity of the west sudanic states was agriculture, those states have frequently been referred to as “trading states” due to the domination of trade interests in state affairs (Rodney 1982: 56). Bates (1983: 27) found 119

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out that not just trade, but long-distance trade was a paramount factor for the emergence of centralised political systems in Africa, thus echoing the findings of Vansina (1962) and Coquéry-Vidrovitch (1976). The demands of long-distance trade and those of state-making, maintain Vansina and Coquery-Vidrovitch separately, are mutually enforcing: long-distance trade requires secured trade routes that could be guaranteed by regular military forces provided (more efficiently) by centralised political systems; and centralised political systems need the finance provided by taxes and tributes on long-distance trade for remunerating and maintaining the forces and the bureaucracy.8 The importance of financial proceeds from long-distance trade led precolonial West African states to war on several occasions as the successive states strove to dominate the trans-Saharan trade routes. For example, the desire to effectively control trade on salt and gold (the two most important articles of trade) led the Old Ghana Empire to war against the Berbers and Morocco in order to control not only the trade routes but also the salt and gold mines. “Neither the salt supplies nor the gold supplies were originally within the domains of Ghana, but it took steps to integrate them either by trade or by territorial expansion. Ghana struck north into the Sahara, and towards the very end of the tenth century it captured the town of Awdaghast from the Berbers – a town useful for the control of the incoming salt mined in the middle of the desert. Similarly, Mali and Songhai sought to secure control of Teghaza, which was the largest single centre of salt mining. Songhai took the prize of Taghaza from the desert Berbers and held it for many years in the face of opposition from Morocco” (Rodney 1982: 57).

Thus, Robin Law (1978) was right to argue that although West African societies were based on agriculture, the bulk of the revenues for the polities were derived from trade. Of course, warfare involves (military) institution building, which in the course of time could doveltail into other areas of life. The relative costly nature of long-distance trade meant that only expensive goods would be transported, and therefore, richer traders could participate.9 Thus, there was not only economic diversification but also social stratification. And state makers had to, as a matter of necessity; cooperate with the economically most viable group (the resource bearers) in society – the wealthy traders in this case - whose interests were placed above the interests of the rest of society. This reflects the theory of “embedded autonomy” (Evans 1995) or “state-directed development” (Kohli 120

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2004) whereby modern states have to cooperate with the most viable economic group (the industrialists in modern times) in order to effectuate economic development. Karl Marx and Max Weber advanced such arguments with regards to the relationship between capitalism and the modern European states. Although the gains of such economic development are reaped more by the state makers and the resource-bearers, the gains also trickle down to lesser classes and individuals. Thus, we see political power being arranged and rearranged to favour economic progress. This is what good governance is all about and no independent political unit can afford to neglect it because the power of the dominant classes is dependent on it. Using political power in this developmental form could only be neglected if the ruling class is financially not dependent from the proceeds garnered from such endogenous economic activities. There is another variant of the Ricardian argument that, through the mechanisms of taxation, links the existence of markets to the expansion of states: In so far as states derive their revenues through taxes on markets, it is politically sub-optimal for several markets to exist near one another. This is because traders could easily switch to markets that demand less tax, forcing states to lower taxes in order to attract traders. To avoid lowering taxes, states are therefore impelled to consolidate their jurisdiction through negotiation or conquest (often the latter) and impose a single relatively higher level of taxes. The “port politics” of West African states is explained by this argument (Bates 1983: 31), and this accounts for the rise of the Dahomey Kingdom that was founded in the seventeenth and survived untill it was subdued by colonialism in the nineteenth century (Akinjobgin 1967). The analysis of the Ricardian model of power concentration is not restricted to exchange; rather the model offers important arguments that relate production to political organisation. Scholars that advocate this line of argument maintain that production and capital formation are central in the determination of political relations. Specifically, they argue that capital formation is always accompanied by political centralisation. The rationale behind the argument is that since the returns on present high cost of investments require some passage of time, investors would prefer political systems that could guarantee peace and stability over a relatively long period. Thus, those forming capital would promote centralisation in order to guarantee returns on their investments (Bates 1983: 31). Karl Marx made such arguments with reference to the development of the modern European states and Kolko (1970) equally advanced such arguments to explain the development of central regulatory agencies in the 121

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United States during the Progressive Era which lasted from the 1890s to the 1920s. This production logic of centralisation of political power was also evident in precolonial Africa. According to historical evidence, productive and trade interests always took a specific position on public policy debates and sometimes form pressure groups that press for peace against war. In the old Asante Kingdom of what now is known as Ghana, similar forces formed a ‘political party’ that advocated ‘peace, trade and open roads’ and opposed the continuation of war because it threatened such objectives (Ivor Wilks 1975). Atanda (1970) also notes that similar pressure groups existed in the Oyo Empire and ostensibly contributed to the schism between the Alaafin of Oyo (the King) and the Oyo Mesi (his cabinet) that dominated the politics of the Oyo Empire. In what later came to be known as Senegal, the rise of Islamic sectarian movements among the Wolofs and other savannah societies was caused by the conflicts that existed between commercial interests and a war-based aristocracy. “Economic interests thus appear to have favoured peaceful, stable and predictable relations – ones that would allow them better to reap the rewards of their outlays. In so far as politically centralised states could provide a more stable economic environment, then these interests allied with the forces of centralisation. But in so far as centralised agencies – such as military forcers – threatened their prosperity, then these interests withdrew their support form that element of the centralised polity” (Bates 1983: 32).

3.1.2 Demography, Land and Crowding: the Property Rights Argument This argument tries to relate state formation or centralisation of power from the perspective of exploiting natural endowments while equally stressing property rights. Citing example with one issue of natural endowment – soil, Robert Bates summarises the argument thus: “when societies were located in areas of soils of uniform quality, (...) states did not form. When they were located in particularly fertile soils, however, states may have formed (1983: 33).

Colson expatiates this thesis in his explanation of state formation in the interlacustrine regions of Africa as against other neighbouring parts by relying his analysis on the disparities in soil quality. Low-quality soil makes shifting cultivation inevitable and precludes the formation of 122

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states by promoting the dispersal of population. High-quality soil has exactly the opposite effect. “The soils elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa favoured shifting cultivation with …a dispersal of population. Exceptions were found in the interlacustrine region bordering on Lake Victoria with its rich volcanic soils … and in flood plains of Upper Zambezi, where soil fertility was renewed by the annual flood” (Colson 1969: 41).

This reflects the analysis of Jeffrey Herbst (2000) in which he highlighted the topography and exit option as hindrances to the centralisation and broadcast of power in precolonial Africa. Furthermore, the failure of states to form in most of precolonial Africa south of the Sahara has been blamed on the relative uniform productivity of the soil coupled with its non-abundance. The argument maintains that rising population density puts pressure on an ethnic group’s land utilisation which was always compensated by migrating to other territories with fertile land and to independence (Gluckman 1965: .161) He states that the relative scarcity of good lands initiated the process of state formation, exemplified on the rise of the Zulu Nation. This thesis that links political centralisation to the availability of fertile soils was confirmed by the tests carried out by Bates (1983: 33). 3.1.3 Rent Seeking Perspective The rent seeking argument relates the centralisation of political power to the availability of natural resources from which rents could be accrued. Rents are payments made for the utilisation or extraction and processing of natural resources. Areas with such natural resources offer special advantages to few people that happen to be in control of such areas. The lucrative nature of such areas makes them competitive and consequently embroils them now and again in conflicts as social forces struggle to monopolise economic advantages offered by such sites. The existence of rents, thus, motivates the organisation and employment of force for economic purposes due to tensions and conflicts. Failure to develop and centralise coercion could make such areas targets of external aggression. Thus, the logic of survival mandates the leading social forces in such areas to favour centralisation of power. Such natural resources could be fertile soils, favourable geographical location or an area with mineral deposit. For example, we have already seen how the gold mine in Awdaghast and the salt mine in Teghaza made these cities interesting for

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the west sudanic empires of Ghana, Mali and Songhai who then brought these cities under their control through military conquests. 3.1.4 The State as Means of Production Paradigm States, ancient and modern, have been involved in production; and their production has not been restricted to public goods. They also produce for economic gains and this is why seekers of economic gains may desire to form states or take over the control when it is already formed. States have an advantage in economic affairs in which organised violence could be used as a profitable activity (Bates 1983: 36; cf. Tilly 1975). This explains the involvement of precolonial African states in slavery. Africa has abundant land assets and a scarcity of population. Labour therefore was scarce with a high marginal returns. The scarcity and relative costliness of labour induce the men with the means to employ coercion in securing a work force below the normal market price and thus appropriate much of the returns on labour. This was the idea behind slave raiding in most of precolonial Africa. And with the advent of the transatlantic slave trade, this phenomenon became more pronounced. Thus, centralisation of power became paramount in several parts of Africa at the time of slave trade due to the necessity to organise violence to secure slaves. Writes Vansina in his Kingdoms of the Savannah (1968: 150), “the real reason … that Angola needed wars was because they bred slaves”. Roberts (1973: 182) made similar points with particular reference to the Bemba by insisting that “in the old days, at least, they took a pride in cultivating with the spear”. Slave raiding was the mainstay of the Yoruba state of Oyo in the latter days and also of Dahomey Empire. In his hypothesis tests, Bates (1983: 37) shows that slave trade correlated with measures of economic prosperity. This implies a justification for centralised coercion. 3.1.5 The State as Means of Distribution Paradigm The argument here stresses using the state as a means of income redistribution among different classes in society. And of course, this is preconditioned on the existence of economic diversification and social stratification, a standard measure of development. Instrumentalising the state in this form is not restricted to precolonial Africa, but more or less a timeless global phenomenon. The argument posits that a segment of the economic actors use the state to dominate other segments. Despite the controversies surrounding these arguments, it has been stated that the mastery of the technique of warfare, magical powers that they are supposed 124

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to possess and their valuable herds enable pastoralist settlements to centralise power and then use the state to dominate agriculturalists (Cf. Oliver 1977).10 Mercer (1971) used this hypothesis to successfully analyse the centralisation of political power in the region of the great seas by the Shilluk in what is now known as Southern Sudan. Mudenge (1974) did same for the Rozvi State of East Central Africa and Gluckman (1970) for the Zulu of Southern Africa. These studies demonstrate the centralisation of power by social forces for economic purposes and the use of same to dominate other forces in society. 3.1.6 Other developments Today, lack of good governance and democracy is being blamed for socio-economic underdevelopment and political instability in Africa. A copious body of literature has arisen as to how to introduce (or rather force) good governance on Africa without regards to the fact that the logic of good governance and development has been broken and held down partly by the same forces whose agents propose good governance and democracy for Africa. Cognisance is no longer taken of the fact that Africa was making progress on all fronts before the incursion of imperialism and colonialism. I have to stress here that the essence of my analysis is not to apportion blames but to draw inferences from historical facts in the explanation of the present. Today, we are witnesses to the abuse of human rights and of political power in Africa. In precolonial Africa (as the logic of governance and development held sway) the situation was markedly different. Most of the centralised political systems have in-built mechanisms of control against the abuse of power. For instance, the Asanteman Council of the old Asante State in modern day Ghana checked and balanced the Asantehene (King) to avoid the abuse of power, with powers to force him to abdicate his throne on proven cases of abuse of office. In the old Yoruba kingdom of modern day Nigeria, this duty was fulfilled by the Oyomesi (Council of Ministers) which was empowered to force the Monarch – the Ooni of Ife - to commit suicide if he misuses his powers. In the segmentary political systems, political decision making was mainly ad hoc and decentralised; and every able-bodied male adult took part in it. This ensures the representation of divergent interests while curbing arbitrary use of power. Thus, in Africa, village democracy and control over executive power ensured a modicum of good governance (in modern parlance) which varied among several societies. It is instructive that in these societies, the rulers and the ruled share the same beliefs regarding the repercussions of abuse of power. These beliefs could 125

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be unenlightened, but they held societies together. Western enlightenment introduced in the process of imperialism and colonialism shook these foundations by questioning the scientific validity of these beliefs and thus contributed to laying the foundation of negligent governance. Africa was also making progress even in the area of constitutionally guaranteed civil rights and liberties. In the Ashanti Empire for example, the charter consisting of seventy-seven laws presented by Asantehene (King) Anokye, which Naomi Chazan (1988) maintains is comparable to modern constitutions, was to serve as the constitutional basis of the state. The charter identified the structure and division of labour in government; and sought to regulate the relationship between the state and the citizen. In several other parts of Africa, the emergent indigenous African political culture made provisions against dictatorship by allowing criticism of rulers by the ruled. Minstrels and traditional historians had the rights to criticise the Kings without fear of reprisals (Rodney 1982: 44). Even the currently much-taunted gender inequality was not so emphasised in preclolonial African political culture. The position of the woman was not as dehumanising as some modern scientists would want us to believe. It is true that women do not posses as much political rights as men,11 but they were not without rights and privileges. In decentralised political systems such as the Igbos, certain cultural rites were exclusively performed by women and some of them achieved social recognition through excellence. In centralised political systems, the phenomenon of the “Queen Mother” (which in many cases was neither the mother nor the wife of the King) was a symbolic representation of the recognised dignity of womanhood. In Dahomey Empire, the king’s wife was quasi the finance minister as she controlled all taxes submitted to the king’s court. It is hard to trace the roots of these developments. But critical to my analysis is the fact that African societies were rearranging and adapting themselves to changes that guaranteed the satisfaction of their immediate needs or relieved the pangs of that guarantee. All these developments – centralisation of political power, constitutional arrangements that reduced or checked excessive executive power, the development of civil liberties, the rights and duties of citizenship, respect for womanhood, etc. – must have arisen as reactions of the society to the necessities of survival and development; and not extraneously engineered. Bad governance, that is, governance which does not care about economic development of the society could only flourish in situations where the financial bases of maintaining the government in power are extraneous. Three prominent features of bad governance in today’s Africa – social 126

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schism through politicisation of ethnicity and religion, governing by abjuring the state institutions and an almost total neglect of the welfare of the citizenry – were hardly present in the precolonial African states due to the logical imperative of governance, development and state survival. The great states of West Africa ranging from the Old Ghana Empire to the Dahomey Empire were not ethnically monolithic and therefore had problems of political unity which they tried to deal with. The state makers fought against divisive social and political tendencies “sometimes on a conscious level and more often as an unconscious by-product of survival” (Rodney 1982: 60). In order to pre-empt the chances of an external aggressor exploiting internal disharmony to attack the state, state makers had to work against the development of internal disharmony of all sorts. This conscious and unconscious process of social integration in order to guarantee survival of the state as a result of hostile neighbourhood is a central theme in Charles Tilly’s analysis of the origin of the modern European state. Reports of the old African states point to the fact that successive states were developing and strengthening the bureaucracy for purposes of state survival, which ipso facto necessitated taxation. One recounts once again the role played by taxation in the development of modern European states. In Dahomey Empire (one of the last of the great Empires in Africa) for example, the necessity of taxation led the minister of agriculture to organise and subsequently institutionalise census. This was to enable him calculate the tax (payable in goods) to be expected from certain sections of the population (Cf. Labouret 1962: 30-31). It was a simple counting process for which the designation of bureaucracy may sound exaggerating.12 Instructive here is the fact that the need to increase revenue stimulated institution-building in Europe. My argument is that the King and his ministers could not afford to abjure such processes because it was necessary for state survival. In order to enable the taxation on livestock, the census was extended to livestock. Keepers of livestock and butchers were questioned as to how many animals they slaughtered; and the market overseers were mandated to bring the heads of all animals slaughtered in their presence to the King’s court. Even superstitious believes were instrumentalised in order to garner taxes. Labouret (1962: 31) recounts further,”to obtain an exact count of all the animals, every two or three years the priests would announce that a pestilence was about to decimate the livestock of the country. In order to escape this, collective sacrifices were held, financed by contributions from the livestock owners who had to bring one cowrie for every animal to be protected. This indi127

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rect census produced the desired total”. The revenues were used to maintain the King’s court, his army and lavish entertainment with pomp and pageantry for his visitors. A careful study of those West African empires – Old Ghana (9th to 11th century), Old Mali (11th to 13th century), Songhai (15th to 17th century), Kanem Bornu (13th to 20th century) and Dahomey (16th to 20th century) – reveals an incremental bureaucratisation of state’s administration. Dahomey was so bureaucratised that historians believe the empire collapsed under the weight of its bureaucracy. This revelation points to a process of learning by doing in which states (empires) do the necessary to guarantee their survival and modify their approaches in the light of lessons learned. This is development and there were no international organisations or donor communities to guide them. The organisation of taxation played a significant role in the development of the traditional Dahomean calendar that had thirteen months. Accordingly, hunters were grouped into thirteen companies with each company supplying the King with meat each month. This taxing system was extended to fishermen, salt miners, iron and bronze miners, cloth dyers, etc. The porters’ guild was subjected to an annual census on which the tax was then based. However, state institutions have not become sequestered from the personal affairs of the King. Therefore state’s revenues were King’s revenues and administered as a part of his household. Thus, “this complicated revenue system was under the control of the king’s wives” (ibid: 32). There were also accounts proving that those states did not neglect the welfare of citizens. In his report on the rule of Sheikh Ahmadu of Massina (a precolonial African state) between 1810 and 1844, a prolific scholar of precolonial Africa recounts that part of the responsibilities discharged with the collected tax was assistance to the poor (Monteil 1924 in Labouret 1962: 29).13 Furthermore, the celebrations marking the end of fasting period were taxed so that every family paid according to the number of adults of fasting age (sixteen). 80% of such proceeds were used for cult maintenance and distribution to the poor (Labouret 1962: 29). Islam was the official religion of Massina and must therefore have played a role in informing the ruler that the poor had to be cared for. But this should not weaken my argument here. After all, lots of Western European governance ideas (the welfare state inclusive) could not be completely explained outside the purview of Judaeo-Christian religion. It might be necessary at this juncture to state as well that Sheikh Ahmadu had a well developed system of taxation stipulating who should be taxed what, when, how many times and on what occasions. There were different taxes being de128

The Context of Governance, Development and State Formation in Precolonial Africa

manded from serfs, cattle rearers, pastoralists, etc. and taxes were not only used for military upkeep and maintenance of the king’s courts but also to indemnify bank creditors and to ransom prisoners (ibid). The taxation system was also similar to the modern P.A.Y.E. (pay as you earn) system being implemented by almost all modern states. Taxes were demanded regularly and in times of war, “new appropriations were made especially for the upkeep of the army” (ibid). So here we see the state intervening in the economy for security and economic welfare purposes, a vindication of my argument that there is a logic that ties states survival imperatives to good (developmental) governance, economic development and strong statehood and that Africans were on the path of this logic till colonialism came and disrupted that. 3.2 Conclusion Thus far, I have been arguing that development is immanent to human societies and that steering societies in that direction is good governance; that societies start as simple human entities and become more complex in the passage of time. Complexity starts with economic diversification and progresses through the accumulation of economic prosperity. The logic of economic prosperity then leads to concentration and centralisation of political power of which statehood is just one form. The pursuit of economic prosperity foists a symbiotic relationship between resource bearers and state makers and mandates state makers to strengthen the bureaucracy as the organisational instrument of this pursuit. And somewhere along the line, checking executive excesses, devolution of power or granting of civic liberty become necessary.14 That this process was taking place in Africa till imperialism and colonialism penetrated Africa and put an end to this process, leading to decline in Africa because Africa was thence, denied the chance of independent development as a result of being tied to the demands of Western European development. This state of affairs was maintained after political independence by the enthronement of a class that was nurtured by colonialism and therefore has an interest in the maintenance of dependent development with its underdevelopmental consequences. Development aid and other forms of assistance were then embarked upon by the former colonial masters and their fellow travellers in order to maintain this class in power. I maintain that steering a society towards economic development (good governance) is inevitable for any ruling class that wants to survive because doing the contrary will mean defeat and subordination for that class. This infers that there is a logic that binds the interests of the ruling class in any 129

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society to the promotion of economic development, peace, stability and social cohesion. The distinguishing quality of this logic is political independence (possibly in a hostile political environment). Only in cases of dependence (where the ruling class is propped up and held onto power by foreign forces) or in cases of ‘peaceful’ international political environment (no expansive drives by powerful neighbours) could a ruling class neglect development and still survive. This logic binds the interests of ruling classes to those of the masses because they (the masses) also stand to gain from the economic prosperity ushered in through governance and from the provision of peace and security by the state for purposes of economic prosperity. This is a historically guided apolitical conception of governance which could be reduced to the following: state makers or rulers of centralised political systems have similar problems (insecurity and dominance) irrespective of time and space and have tried in similar ways to solve such problems (centralisation of administration) provided that they have the final responsibility of guaranteeing their own existence. Centralised administration requires financing which drives state makers to levy taxes. Taxation again involves them in the promotion of economic development, cementing of peaceful relations between several sections of society (“horizontal legitimacy” ) and even the introduction of democracy; and this is good governance. Current understanding of the concept of governance is loaded with ideologies and self interests precluding any objective assessment and measurement of the concept. This is partly why questions are raised about the possibility of an unbiased and objective evaluation of the concept. Western leaders and international organisations create the impression of having a monopoly of the knowledge of good governance and exploit the asymmetries of structural power in the international political economy to “donate” this knowledge to the rulers of third world states. Such leaders, who may not be interested in pursuing good governance, hide under the cloak of state sovereignty to weaken the pressures from the West, while on the other hand, cooperating with the West: Western leaders under the pressure of their society’s industrial leaders hardpressed for raw materials, markets and investment opportunities disregard bad governance in the less-developed world in order to have access to raw materials, maintain markets for their products and increase returns on investment. International organisations also profess to be promoting good governance. But a critical look at their policies and the manner of their implementation demonstrate some inconsistencies. For example, Egypt, Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa are prominent strategic part130

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ners to Western countries that profess the promotion of good governance and democracy in Africa. Informed observers of political developments in Africa will readily realise that these states are not really democratic. Notwithstanding the skepsis associated with the calculations of Freedom House Index (for example, Freedom House conflates democracy with electoralism), Table 1 shows that only South Africa may be regarded as democratic, but only partially. Table 1: Evaluation of Democracy in Selected African Countries Egypt Kenya Nigeria South Africa Political Rights 6 3 4 1 Civil liberties 5 3 4 2 Source: Freedom House Country Report (Stand: 05.03.2007)15

The grading of Nigeria and Kenya leaves much to be desired. These are corrupt countries and whoever understands the logic of pervasive official corruption would not expect democracy and good governance from such states. In 2005, the Transparency International rated Kenya number 144 out of 159 states.16 That Nigeria always gets the top spot in the category of official corruption is meanwhile common knowledge that deserves no further commentary. All these contribute to a politicisation of the concept which strips it of its sincerity and genuineness. To avoid this politicisation and take a genuine stance on the issue of governance as applied today in social science discourses, I considered it necessary to take a historical look at the development of states and the role of leadership in guiding societies. What I found out so far is that the imperative of state survival is pregnant with a logic of economic development and socio-political stability and that political independence (state sovereignty) coupled with hostility of the external political environment have been catalysts in the unfoldment of that logic, midwived by good governance. For the promotion of good governance to be effective, it might be necessary to create an imperative that contains the aforementioned logic. Leaders of states that find themselves under such imperative conditions don’t need any advice or admonition to act correctly: survival instinct is natural to humans. In the next chapter, we will take a look at the historical developments that made such advices and admonitions necessary for African leaders.

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1

An overwhelming majority of students in the Western World study development in order to work in development agencies, a lot of which are active in the “Third World”. 2

Modern discourses on governance stress liberal democratic principles. My view of governance is basically semantic. It sees governance as the act of exercising political authority over a society. It has less to do with democracy and the granting of popular liberties. By the way, has anybody noticed that the checklist of good governance indicators has been constantly on the increase?

3

This will be developed further in the next chapter.

4 Appropriate to the method of analysis adopted here, it is definitely wrong to judge the pace of development of a society based on the speed or progress of another. It also worthy of mention at this point, that the influence of colonialism on Africa is not just negative. Although imperialism and colonialism may have arrested the indigenous development of Africa, there is no gainsaying the fact that the two processes definitely sped up the modernisation of Africa and that modernisation if well managed, could facilitate development. We would see in the next chapter why this was not to be.

This should not be misconstrued to insinuate a natural tendency for segmentary societies to “advance” to centralised forms. Some segmentary societies have been known to resist all pressures and tendencies of becoming centralised, for example, the Igbos of Nigeria. 5

6 Between centralisation and decentralisation is a system of “segmentary decentralisation”: small political units centralised under chiefs – the chief system.

7

The Long Juju is an Oracle that was reputed with the capability of identifying culprits by the mere presence of the accused in the shrine. Depending on the gravity of the offence, it could immediately “kill” such culprits and broadcast the information by letting his blood run through the stream on the bank of which it is located.

8 Compare this with my imperative (number 4) on page 43 regarding the separation of the economic from the political class.

Long-distance trades are often more expensive because of the relatively higher value of traded goods, the greater investment in security, transport and wages and finally, the larger amount of capital in investments.

9

It is important to point out that the dominance of pastoralists is not uniform in precolonial Africa south of the Sahara. It is rather appropriate to the East, Interlacustrine and Southern African experiences. In West Africa, the reverse was the case as the Mandinga and the Hausas (agriculturists) became lords over the Fulanis (pastoralists). Cf. Rodney 1982: 45) And in segmentary societies like the 10

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Igbos, the hunters and witch doctors were becoming slightly dominant due to their alleged possession of magical powers. Imperialism put an end to this process. The situation of women in Europe at that time (11 th to the 18 th century) was not definitely better.

11

During annual celebrations in honour of the ancestors, Chiefs present as much pebbles as there are people in their villages to the King. The King thus knows the number of people inhabiting his domain.

12

13

Current development policy advises African leaders to alleviate poverty!

This process may not be generally applicable to all cases of centralisation of political power all over the world. However, in Europe and Africa, this was the case. It would be an interesting research endeavour to test these hypotheses across a breiter spectrum of traditional societies.

14

Freedom House points range from 1 (best) to 7 (worst). See http://www.free domhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2006&country=6956. 15

Riots occassioning a temporary state failure that shook Kenya in December 2007 drives this point home.

16

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Chapter 4

NON-DEVELOPMENTAL GOVERNANCE AND STATE COLLAPSE IN AFRICA I consider it necessary to start a discussion of current governance and crisis of the state in Africa from the inception of colonialism because colonialism marked a break with the past and laid the foundation for the present. Imperialism and colonialism altered the production pattern of African societies by introducing a dependent variant of capitalism; altered social relations by introducing new forms of social stratification and altered political relations through a subordination of precolonial political structures. Those processes of independent state formation/centralisation of political power as we observed in the previous chapter were terminated. African states thus lost their inward-lookingness as sources of state revenue and authority became externalised laying the foundation stone for negligence and emasculation of the society in the process of governance. This resulted in a degradation of Africans to the position of observers and not participants in the course of their own development, entrenched underdevelopment and instituted a collosally weak colonial state. 4.1 The Colonial State The modern African state was established by European conquerors in the course of imperialism and colonialism and by the same token, they laid the foundation for economic underdevelopment and weak statehood. This was necessary in order to transform African economies in a way to suit the aims of Imperialism which mainly had to do with the resolution of the capitalist contradictions of raw material scarcity, over-production and under-consumption in Europe (Hobson 1902, Ake 1981). So, European firms needed new sources of raw materials and new markets. Whichever way one looks at it, imperialism signifies the overt and covert dominating influence of one state over another which is not necessarily in the interest of the dominated. John Hobson was the first to give imperialism a concise economictheoretic explanation, maintaining that it was a product of the nature of capitalism practised by Britain (which he saw as reflecting the plutocratic nature of British society) because it denies the lower classes their rightful

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share of the national product; thus leading to oversaving and underconsumption. He maintained that it is not immanent to capitalism as the British government at the time tried to convince its citizens. Lenin’s theory of imperialism reflects that of Hobson in that it saw a relationship between capitalist expansion, oversaving and imperialism. For him, it was the highest stage of capitalism which was marked by the concentration of capital and production in a few hands and thereby creating monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life, the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities, the formation of international monopolist capitalist associations which share the world among themselves and finally the territorial division of the world among biggest capitalist powers (Lenin 1964: 266). Still getting closer to my position, Rodney sees modern imperialism as “a phase of capitalist development in which Western European capitalist countries, the U.S.A., and Japan established political, economic, military and cultural hegemony over other parts of the world which were initially at a lower level and therefore could not resist domination” (Rodney 1982: 12). Despite this slight controversy, the fact that it is an off-shoot of Europena capitalist development and that it dominates other lands and peoples is beyond controversy. In this regard, Mamdani (1996: 37) argues that the overwhelming motivation for European imperialism in Africa was economic. There were definitely other motives but it appears that economic interest was paramount. This domination has a lot of effects on the dominated and laid the foundation for very weak states. 4.1.1 Economic Disarticulation and State Absolutism Imperialism and colonialism disarticulated sections of African economies from one another and tied them directly to European production processes where they were urgently needed.1 For these purposes, the nature and direction of African economies was radically and fundamentally altered by an absolute state. In order to solve the afore-mentioned contradictions of overproduction and scarcity of raw materials which arose within the development and advancement of capitalism in Europe, an enclave economy was created (Ake 1980: 44, with specific reference to Nigeria; Onimode 1981: 82). This enclave economy was separated from the local economies and attached to the metropolitan economies of the imperial European nations, supplying Europe with needed raw material and market and deepening the outwardness of African political economies. 136

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A series of political and economic policies became necessary in order to initiate this enclave economy: agricultural production and nutritional habits of the societies were transformed; modern system of transportation was introduced; forced labour, taxation and imprisonment were imposed. Added to the above are colonial legislations deliberately aimed at killing burgeoning African manufacturing activities, thus leaving the economic turf for European monopoly (Rodney 1982, Ake 1981). “In British East Africa”, for example, “credit to Africans was specifically discouraged by the Credit to Natives (Restriction) Ordinance of 1931” (Rodney 1982: 210).

In Nigeria and Ghana, the British banned the further production of local gin (hard liquor) thereby leaving the market to the monopoly of imported Scotch whisky. This state of economic affairs precluded the building up of endogenous capitalism and by extension, the genesis of the imperatives of good governance. This led to the lack of a critical mass of African entrepreneurs, a state of affairs that had consequences for the imperatives of good governance. These legislations exposed the specific, albeit contradictory character of the capitalism that was exported to Africa: it was based on monopoly not competition. European firms received concessions of monopoly from colonial administrators. For example, three European firms – the United African Company (UAC), the Compagnie Francaise de l’Afrique Occidentale (CFAO) and Société Commerciale de l’Ouest Africain (SCOA) handled as much as 70% of West Africa’s commerce. “The United Africa Company alone controlled about 50% of West Africa’s foreign trade in the 1930s” (Ake 1981: 50). Shipping was monopolised by Elder Dempster Company and in banking; it was Banque de l’Afrique Occidentale (for French West Africa) and Bank of West Africa which received a competitor for the first time in 1926 with the formation of Barclays Bank (for British West Africa). Monopoly capitalism has implications for economic development in Africa. Capitalism has been reputed as the system with the highest tendency to develop productive forces and increase the pace of economic growth due to its competitive character. However, monopoly capitalism (a relatively higher stage of capitalism) is counter-competition and thus, counter-development. This led Ake (1981: 50) to remark that colonial capitalism short-circuited history by moving straight into the monopoly stage. This colonial capitalist tradition accounts for the absence of competitive capitalism and its concomitant development of productive forces in independent Africa.

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The production of agricultural goods that were needed by European firms and the consumption of finished goods produced in Europe were promoted. Railways, wharfs and roads were constructed in order to facilitate the export of raw materials and the import of industrial goods, not necessarily to develop Africa. “Where exports were not available, roads and railways had no place” (Rodney 1982: 209). The manner of railway construction under colonialism in Africa is instructive. Railways were constructed from centres of agricultural production to the coasts for onward delivery of agricultural goods to Europe. This led to regional variations in the provision of infrastructure, a fact that was to be politicised later and used as vindications for political discrimination after independence. Regions that produced different products were not integrated in such a way as to benefit from one another. No attempts were made at backward and forward linkages in the production process. These linkages and reciprocity took place rather in Europe. The economies of African states became disarticulated as different sectors of the economy did not complement one another. This confirms the claim made in Chapter 3 of this book that colonial imperialism subordinated African development to that of Western Europe which it feeds with raw materials and market. Infrastructural development had no place in colonial policies of exploitation. There were no attempts at industrialisation: all the colonialists promoted in Africa were agricultural production which vindicates Hobson’s argument on the raison d’ étre of imperialism. And this is the background to how individual African states became monocultures of agricultural production, thus laying the background for economic underdevelopment, state weakness and collapse. I have deliberately chosen data generated just prior to independence to underline these claims. What has become more critical in this analysis is the fact that the attachment of African econimies to foreign economies with its non-developmental consequences has assumed a kind of path-dependence and prevails till date. Thus, opportunities offered by changes in international political economy could not be exploited by African rulers to develop Africa and achieve a modicum of economic independence.

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Table 2: Export of Selected African Countries between 1938 and 1954 Monocultural Economies of Selected African Countries between 1938 and 1954 (completely or mainly dependent on a single commodity) just prior to independence. Table 2 shows millions of national currency and percentage of export commodities. Country and Item 1938 Egypt (UAR) Total exports 28.6 21.2 Export of raw cotton Export of raw cotton as 74.1 percentage of total exports Ethiopia Total exports --Export of Coffee --Export of Coffee as --percentage of total exports Gambia Total exports --Export of groundnuts --Export of groundnuts --as percentage of total exports Ghana Total exports 11.2 Exports of Cocoa 4.5 Export of Cocoa as a 40.2 percentage of total exports Sudan Total exports 5.4 Exports of Raw Cotton 3.4 Export of Raw Cotton 63.7 as a percentage of total exports Source: United Nations (1959), York, page 167.

1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

173.0 149.8 86.6

200.6 164.1 81.1

142.8 126.4 88.5

135.9 116.4 85.6

136.7 113.1 82.7

-------

109.7 56.6 51.5

112.1 58.8 52.4

147.8 83.1 56.2

172.2 112.4 65.2

2.2 2.1 97.2

3.0 2.7 88.7

3.7 3.6 96.2

2.6 2.5 95.0

2.9 2.2 76.5

76.2 54.6 71.7

90.0 60.3 67.0

84.3 52.5 62.3

88.0 56.1 63.8

113.3 84.6 74.7

32.1 22.9 71.3

61.0 46.5 76.2

41.2 29.0 70.4

43.0 26.8 62.3

38.9 21.7 55.7

Economic Survey of Africa Since 1950, New

Economic diversification in colonial Africa was only a matter of coincidence: if the Europeans discovered non-agricultural raw materials 139

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needed by European industries or consumers. This was why semidiversified economies emerged in countries such as Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone as depicted by tables 3, 4 and 5. Table 3: Selected Semi-diversified African Economies; NIGERIA: Main Exports 1956-58

Commodity

Tonnage

Palm Kernel Palm-Oil Groundnuts Cocoa Cotton lint Cotton seed Rubber Bananas

433,000 174,000 507,000 113,000 29,000 42,000 40,000 78,000

Value (Pounds Sterling) 19, 616, 000 13, 700, 000 30, 267, 000 25, 605, 000 7, 098, 000 925, 000 7, 024, 000 2, 822, 000

These products represent the most important exports with the average annual f.o.b. value and tonnage covering three years 1956-58. They constitute 96% of Nigeria’s agricultural products and 82% of her domestic exports. Source: Lagos Government Printer (1959), Economic Survey of Nigeria 1959, page 27.

Table 4: Selected Semi-diversified African Economies; LIBERIA: Principal Exports 1938, 1950-57 (percentage of total exports) Exports Rubber Iron Ore Palm Kernels Total for listed items

1938 50% --23.3% 41.1%

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1950-57 (Average) 76.3% 13.2% 4.3 93.9%

Non-developmental Governance and State Collapse in Africa

Table 5: Selected Semi-diversified African Economies; SIERRA LEONE: Principal Exports 1938, 1950-57 (percentage of total exports) Exports

1938

1950-57 (Average)

21.4%

34.5%

Iron Ore

30.2%

27.8%

Diamonds, uncut/unprocessed

40.2%

14.4%

91%

16.7%

Palm Kernels

.

Total of listed items

Source: United Nations (1959), Economic Survey of Africa since 1950, p. 168

An overwhelming majority of these exports went to the Western and colonising economies; mainly France, Great Britain and the US as shown below (Tables 6 and 7). This was how trade dependence of the colonies on the metropoles was established. There was hardly inter-African trade as the economies of African colonies were directed towards satisfying the demands of European (and other Western) industries.

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Table 6: Exports of Anglophone African Colonies 1950-1955 (Millions of dollars) To United Kingdom Other Sterling areas Total, Sterling

1950 513.6 129.1 642.7

1951 674.0 178.3 852.3

1952 767.2 180.6 947.8

1953 749.2 145.4 894.6

1954 804.5 164.8 969.3

1955 770.4 168.4 938.8

To United States Other dollar areas Total dollar areas

1950 160.2 17.6 177.8

1951 183.8 15.9 199.7

1952 172.8 12.1 184.9

1953 198.1 20.5 218.6

1954 171.6 17.8 189.4

1955 182.5 15.7 198.2

To Non-Sterling OEEC states Others

1950

1951

1952

1953

1954

1955

119.0

192.4

208.1

192.9

315.6

327.0

30.5

38.6

51.9

39.1

49.2

43.1

Total

970.0

1,283.0

1,392.8

1,345.3

1,523.5

1,507.1

Source: United Nations (1959), Economic Survey of Africa since 1950, p. 178.

Table 7: Exports of Francophone African Countries 1950-55 (Millions of dollars) To 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 France 234.3 294.5 302.7 318.6 380.4 333.0 Other French franc 24.5 42.7 43.2 52.5 52.4 49.1 countries Total, French franc 258.8 337.2 345.9 371.1 432.8 382.1 countries Source: United Nations (1959), Economic Survey for Africa since 1950, p. 177

The colonial state thus decided what was produced and for what purposes. Forced labour, taxation and imprisonment were introduced and the economy monetised.2 Africans were thus forced to abandon their villages (the bases of their existence) either to discharge the labour imposed on them or to seek jobs in the European enclaves in order to be able to pay taxes, mandatory for all adult male (acceptable only in European currencies). Failure to pay tax is punishable with hard labour and imprisonment. A security apparatus (army and police) was established to control the societies in a very brutal manner.3 Again, we notice a difference here: while European states emerged out of the exigencies of self142

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survival, the states in Africa were established to facilitate European exploitation and this characteristic made the state draconian in its relationship with society, a phenomenon that has continued up till today. The colonial system of social control was therefore based on coercion as against social acceptance. Notes Ake, “two features of state power, its absolutism and its arbitrariness, framed colonial politics” (1996: 5). In support of the above assertion, it has been remarked that “domination – pervasive, systematic, comprehensive characterised all aspects of the ‘colonial situation’” (Young and Turner 1985: 24); and that “indeed, the central feature of colonial rule was violence” (Herbst 2000: 90). With these structures in place, the establishment of the colonial state was completed. Problem solving or good governance was not part of the intentions of the state. Neither was the provision of infrastructure which was restricted to European Reserved Areas. The increasingly absolutist character of the state coupled with its alien imposition contributed to alienating the majority of Africans from the state project. They avoided the state and tried to reduce their contacts with it to the barest minimum: thus strengthening the phenomenon of “exit from the state”; a phenomenon which Jeffrey Herbst (2000: 90) maintains, existed since precolonial times (also with its state weakening effects). The colonial state was illegitimate and weak. Urban cities, by far the only places where the state was visible, developed in and around the economic enclaves in the course of migrations occasioned by forced labour and taxations. This restriction of the visibility of the state only to urban areas was carried over to post-colonial statehood and counts today as one of the parameters of state weakness. The process of establishing the colonial state led to the destabilisation of the family structures in so far as it forced able bodied young men to leave their families and seek jobs in the cities and so deepened the nonidentification of the masses with the state. Because the colonial powers were less concerned with the welfare of the people, they willingly tolerated the emergence of artificial scarcity in the provision of meaningful jobs, public goods and infrastructural amenities in these cities4, a situation that favoured the emergence of ethnic associations which had to take care of the new arrivals from their ethnic homelands (Nnoli 1978).5 Ethnic affiliations became the bases of the competitions for integration in the new colonial economy and determined the chances of an unemployed or a new arrival to find employment or to gain ground in the new cities. Ethnic affiliations therefore gained added economic significance, a prelude to its politicisation. In this nascent colonial economy, Africans were 143

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displaced as Europeans controlled all sectors. All these contributed to creating the lack of imperatives for good governance by blocking the emergence of an indigenous private sector; and induced the masses of African societies to develop an attitude to the modern African state that could as best be described as askant. 4.1.2 Colonialism and the Creation of an Indigenous Bourgeoisie At this time of its creation, the colonial state lacked manpower, especially in administration and education. African weather was inclement to colonial administrators and until the invention of penicillin in 1928; colonial administrators dreaded being deployed to Africa. Kingsley (1901: 250, 283) calculated the death rate of British colonial civil servants towards the end of the nineteenth century at about 35%. Manpower was therefore in short supply for colonial administration. Schools and institutions of higher learning were established to ameliorate this problem. However, these educational opportunities were sparsely distributed and relatively very expensive. Thus, not many in the society could avail themselves of it. Availability of western education led to the emergence of an educated priviledged class which imbibed and internalised colonial ideologies of domination (Ekeh 1975).6 Also, basic changes in the economy led to further occupational stratification especially in trade and in the service industry. There emerged a group of retail traders that distributed imported products. Teachers, lawyers, doctors and graduates of social sciences and humanities etc. emerged gradually. The origin and advancement of these groups in the colonial system made their interests in the maintenance of the system almost inevitable. At this stage, the peripheral integration of African states to international capital has been completed with all sectors of the economy facilitating in one way or the other, the provision of European firms with raw materials and market for their finished goods. Outward economic orientation was consolidated. Thus far, the resolution of the contradiction in the field of education created an educated class that shared colonial interests. The preservation of these interests meant further blockade of the formation of a national productive (capitalist) class. The fact that this class was not engaged in productive activities had consequences for the entrenchment of corruption, underdevelopment and shadow statehood after independence. Driven by the aspirations of taking over the privileged positions of the Europeans, this new class became the avant-garde of the decolonisation struggles. The concept of nationalism was copied from Europe without reflections and became the battle cry of mobilising people against 144

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colonialism. At the same time, this concept merely played an ideological role of justifying the struggle because beyond this façade hid the actual denominator of political mobilisation: ethnicity. Be that as it may, struggle for independence was not decisive in the granting of political independence. Rather, developments in the international political system at the middle of the 20th century with special reference to changes in the doctrine of state sovereignty made the maintenance of the colonies impossible for the colonial powers and forced them to relinquish political dominance over these states (Jackson 1990). Political power was given up while economic dominance was preserved. The transfer of power to the new bourgeoisie made this possible. A mutuality of interests between the new bourgeois class and the departing European occupiers in the preservation of the colonial system enabled this smooth hand over.7 In order to further reinforce this common interest, some members of the new bourgeoisie were granted shares in European companies at the eve of independence (with specific reference to Nigeria). The basis of neocolonialism was thus laid and the chances of the formation of endogenous capitalism further blocked. With that, the possibility of post colonial good governance drifted further away and consequently, the possibility of a strong state. 4.2 The neo-colonial state The new political class has raised the hopes of the masses during the struggle for independence to the effect that all that was needed to achieve economic development and the enjoyment of a better life was political independence.8 So the achievement of independence was a kind of compulsion on them to pursue the goals of socio-economic development. But this they could not do even if they wished. Their survival as state leaders depended not on the pursuit of this all important project but on factors extraneous to the societies they ruled. Additionally, this new political class needed an ideology around which they could firstly, justify their grip on power; and secondly, mobilise the masses after independence. As a result of these necessities, the rhetorics of economic development received a position of priority in the objectives of state administration. 4.2.1 The fallacy of development concept One of the major reasons for underdevelopment and weak statehood in Africa is that at the inception of their independent statehood, development policy was already on the floor, promising to help those states 145

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short-circuit the European way to development through developement assistance. Today, we know better; namely, that development aid has not succeeded in lifting Africa out of underdevelopment. 34 out of the 42 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa appear under the category of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) (UNCTAD 2005).9 After half a century of development aid, Africa is deeply indebted and economically weaker as ever (Shikwati 2006). The average life expectancy is 46 years (2003 calculations) and half of the population live in absolute poverty (less than 1 dollar per day (Sachs 2005); despite the steady growth in sub-Saharan Africa’s share of ODA from about 20% in the 1960s to about 40% currently (DAC Online). Figure 2 shows that development aid to Africa has been on a permanent increase since independence. But this could not be matched by the level of economic development and growth. Figure 2: Breakdown of ODA by Regions (%)

Source: DAC Online

Additional to the delivery of development aid is the preferential treatment given to African states in the area of trade (EU-ACP Lomé Convention for example). This has equally not been effective. The share of sub-Saharan Africa in world trade sank from 3.1% in 1955 to about 1.2% in 2006 (Shikwati 2006: 7). One of the most serious consequences is

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that Africa south of the Sahara has come to depend more on development aid to the detriment of self-reliant development. According to the World Bank, the share of development aid in the Gross domestic product (GDP) of sub-Saharan Africa rose from 3.4% in 1980 to 16.3% in 1995 (Shikwati 2006: 7). Furthermore, 32% of worldwide development aid goes to Africa. In 2004, this amounted to USD 25.5 billion. Thus, Official Development Assistance (ODA) contributes about 55% of total financial flows to Africa (Klingebiel 2006). Figure 3 shows that development aid as a percentage of GDP in Africa rises as growth per capita decreases. Thus, the “big push” (Sachs 2006) is not supported by researcg evidence.10 The effect is logically rather countercyclical. Figure 4 shows absolute increment in the amount of ODA to African states. Despite this increment, poverty, disease, illiteracy, economic monoculture, underdevelopment etc. still abound in Africa. This has even strengthened suspicions that the aim of development aid is not to help Africa develop. Rather, it gives the strong economies the possibility of dictating the pace of African development which necessarily has to be slower than the Western. It is instructive that the growing economies of today are those that have disregarded Western dictation – China particularly. The figure further demonstrates that the increment in ODA was highest at the point where the crisis of the state in Africa was manifest – between 1988 and 1995 – before reaching a new high as from 2003. The “big push” argument is therefore not credible as an antidote to political conflicts in Africa. It could even entrench political conflicts by increasing the propensity for economic gains from the use of state power.

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Figure 3: Development Aid and Economic Growth in Africa (1970-2000)

Source: Easterly 2002: 46

Figure 4: Total ODA to Sub-Saharan Africa 1970-2003 (in millions of dollars)

Source: UNCTAD, Handbook of Statistics, 2005

It seem that at the background of failure of development aid lies in the wrong conception of development which accounts for its lack of success. What is this wrong conception of development and why has it failed?

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At the inception of political independence in Africa, development was considered by the donor community and their African fellowtravellers to be wholly economic and was understood to embody an emulation of the Western path to development. W.W. Rostow’s Stages of Growth - in which societies have to traverse five stages of growth on their way to development - provided the intellectual backbone of such ideas. Africans were at the lowest –“traditional” - stage and in order to get to the “take-off” phase, it needs to rapidly develop a set of economic, political and social institutional frameworks which is a conditio sine qua non for progressive growth (Rostow 1960: 57). This conception implies an international division of labour whereby African countries had the assignment of providing the system with raw materials and the West that of capital and technology. An important implication of this conception was that if African countries were to ever need technology, they just had to transfer it from the West. International trade (necessarily with the West) was advocated as the surest way to access capital. For obvious reasons that had to do with the protection of Western interests, especially the strategic imperatives of the Cold War, the West supported this conception of development (mostly) with development aid. For this purposes, the maintenance of the marginal position of African countries in the international political economy was recommended as means of attracting foreign capital and technology. Later events have proven that this argument was wrong and that development was conflated with modernisation; and economic development with growth. It appears to me that a conception of development that seeks to lay a solid economic base by exploiting the immediate biological and physical environment to satisfy the most immediate needs of the majority could have set Africa on the path to development. This idea of development that seeks to eliminate poverty, unemployment and inequality by promoting education on a very wide scale (Seers 1969) would have possibly sought the formation of a local market, emphasised industrial processing of food items and raw materials immediately needed by the people and possibly led to an improvement in the relatively weak level of development of instruments of production, a precondition for the emergence of endogenous technology. In this manner, there would most likely have been an overall improvement in the way of doing things, with special reference to material production as inventions in one area of production will diffuse to other areas, ensuring mass participation and giving development a social character. The duty of the state would have been reduced to providing functioning infrastructure for economic diversification 149

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which receives an impetus from the improvement in technology; not the control over lucrative raw materials. Leaving the control over raw materials in the hands of their natural owners, providing conditions for lucrative extraction and depending mainly on revenues drawn through taxation from productive activities would probably have had the consequence of strengthening the bureaucracy, diversifying the economy and reducing pressure on politics as the most viable means of capital accumulation. This weary but more promising process, it seems to me, could have led to the emergence of a broad middle class of producers and entrepreneurs which could have marked the emergence of endogenous capitalism. Endogenous producers would have possibly pressurised the state to sustain the maintenance of functioning infrastructure on which they depend for their productive and distributive activities; and through the fulfilment of this demand, the institutionalisation of the state would have been strengthened and the process of decay contained. Not only that this path was abandoned, development policies recommended by foreign forces were half-heartedly pursued with the consequence that the marginalisation of Africa in international trade and with it, underdevelopment was deepened. Although it is true that one always knows it better with hindsight, African and non- African economists and political scientists did criticise the outward direction of African economies and how it contributed to the deepening of underdevelopment. But because such analyses almost always recommended de-linking Africa from western economies (Gunder Frank 1978, Rodney 1982, Ake 1981), they were berated as socialist apologetics and the insights in their analyses lost at the battle grounds of the Cold War. Furthermore, because of the complementarities of interests that existed between the new political class and the departing European overlords, no attempts were made after independence to alter this economically debilitating position of Africa in the international economic system. “With a few exceptions, the gaining of independence was not a matter of the nationalists’ marshalling forces to defeat colonial regimes. More often than not, it was a matter of the colonizers’ accepting the inevitable and orchestrating a handover of government to their chosen African successors, successors who could be trusted to share their values and be attentive to their interests” (Ake 1996: 3).

In an overwhelming majority of African countries, the new political class, although separated by membership of different political parties, were ideological bedfellows that understood the goals of decolonisation 150

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as the replacement of the European masters with themselves at all costs. This lack of ideological difference in the fight against colonialism was compensated with the politicisation of ethnic belongingness and religious affilitiations. In this form, political parties with ethnic bases emerged, a system that was favoured by the vertical (patron/client) system of political representation. In general terms, the political class became the patrons and the masses the clients. It was common in this practice for politicians to recruit their clients mainly from their ethnic groups. This politicisation of ethnicity became a stumbling block to the emergence of a national self consciousness. Political contentions received ethnic colorations and politicians mutated to representatives of ethnic interests. It became almost impossible for majority of the populace to judge politics and policies based on their intrinsic qualities, rather the ethnic origins of the advocates or critics became the major determinant of political judgements. The consequence was a further weakening of the state. The patron/client system is a product of pre-capitalist social relations as well as the colonial policy of indirect rule coupled with the scarcity of education opportunities in the colonies. Kinship has been the basis of human relations. Historically, capitalism (free market economy) is the first system that has succeeded in annihilating kinship relations and replacing them with capitalist rationality. Prior to colonising imperialism, capitalism was alien to African societies. The basis of social relations was kinship and all sorts of consanguinity. Colonialism, especially the British system of indirect rule, allowed precolonial rulers to continue ruling their subjects while being subordinated to the colonialists. In order to have access to a modicum of legitimacy, the state at the point of independence made similar concessions to these strongmen/rulers. In some cases, they were allowed access to sources of national revenue. It was a necessary trade-off judging by the level of illegitimacy that confronted the postcolonial state at the point of its inception. So we have a system that allows strong elements to personally appropriate state revenue and a system of social relations that is based on kinship. Since the colonialists did not introduce Africa to capitalism proper, it was not possible for the new system to destroy the old. The result of the coexistence of the two systems was neopatrimonialism on the one side and patron/client system on the other. The extremely narrow spread of education meant that a critical mass that could fight the system was missing. It was easier for the very few educated to join the bandwagon by becoming clients to political or bureaucratic bosses (patrons) and gradually climb the ladder. Clientilism is thus a system of recruitment into the politico-bureaucratic class and 151

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neopatrimonialism is its system of remuneration which was made possible for two reasons: the class in power does not have economic base and secondly, there is no indigenous class above the politico-bureaucratic. And for a majority of African states, development aid has been the source of public revenue which this class generally embezzles. In the process, development is forgotten and states weakness facilitated. Thus, Table 8 shows that the states with the lowest percentage growth per capita have the highest ODA as a percentage of GDP and the poorest five of the states have suffered collapse. Table 8: Ten Highest and Lowest Economic Growth Rates 1980-2002

South Korea China Taiwan Singapore Thailand India Japan Hong Kong Mauritius

Per Capitga Growth (%) 5.9 5.6 4.5 4.5 3.9 3.7 3.6 3.5 3.2

ODA/GDP (%) 0.03 0.38 0.00 0.07 0.81 0.66 0.00 0.02 2.17

Malaysia

3.1

0.40

Country

Country Nigeria Niger Togo Zambia Madagascar Ivory Coast Haiti Liberia Congo (DRC) Sierra Leone

Per Capitga Growth (%) -1.6 -1.7 -1.8 -1.8 -1.9 -1.9 -2.6 -3.9 -5.0

ODA/GD P (%) 0.59 13.15 11.18 19.98 10.78 5.60 9.41 11.94 4.69

-5.8

15.37

4.2.2 Background to Corruption A way out of the problem of lack of material base for the political class was the use of the only means at their disposal – political power – for purposes of private wealth accumulation. Invariably, they felt obliged “to explore the one leverage they had: control of state power to strengthen their material base” (Ake 1996: 6). Max Weber makes the point that politicians (as distinct from noblemen) in young democracies are wont to using political posts for private accumulation. He recounts that in England, as notables lost control over party operations as a result of the democratisation of party leadership around the middle of the 19th century, the number of people whose primary interest in politics was mainly material increased. The newly emergent “party functionaries and entrepreneurs naturally expect to derive personal rewards from the victory scored by their leader: positions or advantages” (Weber in Draghici 1989: 33).

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This phenomenon took a more pronounced and advanced form in the U.S.A. where it led to the “spoils system”; a system that “led in the long run to great difficulties, a corruption and a matchless waste that only a country with unlimited economic opportunities could tolerate” (ibid: 3940). The point is that under similar circumstance to the one being described by Weber (and the African situation is similar), the devolution of political power to non-aristocratic elements provides often an impetus for personal aggrandisement, using political power as an instrument. The major difference was that the processes of state making in Europe coupled with the powers of the royal classes forced modern state makers to discipline and control politicians and civil servants through institutional bureaucratic rules and regulations. This is, sadly enough, not the case in Africa where this impetus was strengthened by the new political class’ self-conception of independence which stressed the taking over of privileged positions that were hitherto occupied by the Europeans. This selfconception had neither room for good governance nor for diversifying the economic base. State power thus became the most assured, shortest and simplest way to capital accumulation. Thence, corruption became preponderant in the politics and administration of majority of African countries. Political posts were distributed to the clients of political patrons for purposes of private accumulation irrespective of their qualifications. In reciprocity, these clients had to campaign for the good reputation of the power wielder, principally among their primordial publics. This practice led to the inefficient and irrational explosion of the number of political posts and bureaucratic postitons (with principally unqualified hands) and the concomitant explosion in funds needed to service the bureaucracy. In this way, African states became neo-patrimonial / prebendal states.11 In a lot of African countries, this system led to a continual disappearance of the separation between national and personal affairs as politics increasingly became informalised and the establishment of personal power took precedence over the institutionalisation of the state. At this stage (1960s till middle of the 1970s), the process of state failure was triggered off. Using state power for private accumulation also led to poor economic management. “The need for more secure material base drove the indigenous elite to increase the statism of the economy” (Ake 1996: 6). The state became itself a capitalist by bringing a very wide range of profitable economic activities under its control. But these were not managed with a sense of capitalist rationalism and discipline. Rather, it was meant to increase the leverage of the state in doling out largesse to its chosen clien153

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tele. Corruption, “the misuse of power for personal gain” (World Bank 1992: 16) considerably increased the premium on political power and made political struggles a matter of life and death. The attentions of politicians were absolutely focused on the struggle for power and the uses to which it could be put (capital accumulation and victimisation of the opposition for example) that there was no room for articulating the practice of good governance. The fight for and the maintenance of state power at all costs became pervasive and produced an atmosphere that was detrimental to the purposes of good governance. “The struggle for political power was so absorbing that everything else, including development, was marginalised” (Ake 1996: 7). Because of the highly statist nature of the polity, out of power politicians rarely had the option of channelling their ambition into private entrepreneurial activities because economic success was primarily a matter of state patronage.

“To become wealthy without the patronage of the state was likely to invite the unpleasant attention of those in control of state power. Political power was everything; it was not only the access to wealth but also the means to security and the only guarantor of general well-being. For anyone outside the hegemonic faction of the bourgeoisie, it was generally futile to harbour any illusions of becoming wealthy by entrepreneurial activity or to even take personal safety for granted. For anyone who was part of the ruling faction, entrepreneurial activity was unnecessary, for one could appropriate surplus with less risk and less trouble by means of state power” (ibid. 7).

Under such a situation, it is no wonder that an entrepreneurial class that could have effectively demanded good governance did not emerge. All ambitious and creative energy was dissipated in the maintenance of or the fight for acquisition of state power. Two scholars present a most apposite conclusion on this issue: “What the church was for ambitious men in medieval Europe or the business corporation in nineteenth and twentieth century America, the state is today for ambitious Africans with skill and fortune. The political system in African states is more like a game or market than planning organisation…State power in African States has been the major arena of privilege…accessible to ambitious men of humble origin” (Jackson and Rosberg 1982: 14).

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4.2.3 Historical Progression of Corruption in African Politics Even though corruption has been pervasive in African politics since Africans started partaking in their government (prior to independence), it was neither an issue in international developmental discourses nor did it merit academic attention. This situation, which had to do with super power conflict and perhaps with the behavioural revolution in political science, was altered with the end of that conflict – the Cold War. It is therefore not surprising to note that corruption and measures against it have become topical in international development discourses since then, epitomised by the establishment of Transparency International in Berlin in 1993 and the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative in 2005. It was equally not surprising to observe that the fight against corruption was and still continues to be the major battle cry in the democratisation process and international development discourses since 1989. Even military coups and dictatorial tendencies that have rocked the political landscape of Africa since independence have always been justified with the desire to abolish corruption. But as we all know, the military has not been better than their civilian counterparts in this regard. Nevertheless, Jakobeit (1998: 174-175) generally observes that the few states with stronger tradition of democracy in Africa have demonstrated a higher measure of the capability of resisting corruption than their authoritarian neighbours. Historically, the phenomenon of corruption has increasingly become bolder and intrepid. It was originally restricted to the greasing of palms and embezzlement of public funds by very highly placed civil servants and politicians. But as time went on, it traversed the rungs of the bureaucracy and incrementally became the dominant reason for seeking political posts and civil service jobs. Still further with the passage of time, it proceeded to cover areas like the granting of contracts in which case the contract costs were exorbitantly inflated to leave enough funds in the pockets of the clients and the contractors after the job must have been accomplished. It then progressed to a point where the job was no longer done after money must have changed hands. At a later stage, apparently because of dwindling revenues, budgets were fingered; for example, salaries of civil servants were left in private bank accounts for a while to accumulate interests before being paid out to the bonafide owners. This was just a prelude to the plundering of budgets, partly and then wholly in some instances. In the long process of this development, lowly-placed civil servants become gradually but steadily bolder: demanding bribes from citizens for services that they were paid for. And as time went on,

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one did not get the services after having given the bribes. Fraud, faking of documents and deception started creeping in, often in reaction to nonpayment of civil and public servants. The provision of infrastructural facilities was initially neglected and later almost abandoned and thus, facilitated economic decline. “In such situations, corrupt ruling elites mostly invest their gains overseas, not at home, making the economic failure of their states that much more acute. Or they dip directly into the coffers of the shrinking state to pay for external aggressions, lavish residences and palaces, extensive overseas travel, and privileges and perquisites that feed their greed” (Rotberg 2004: 8).

The general reaction of the society to the ostentatious consumption engendered by corruption wealth was to encourage their wards to seek employment in the civil service and political posts for purposes of self aggrandisement.12 Issues of development and good governance receded further. Thus, corruption has become entrenched as the quintessential political culture of many African states and in the process; the state institutions were incrementally emasculated. Corruption exacerbates state weakness even to the point of failure by seriously reducing the legitimacy of the state. “Once the capacity of the state to secure itself or to perform in an expected manner recedes, and once what little capacity remains is devoted almost exclusively to the fortunes of a few or to a favoured ethnicity or community, then there is every reason to expect less and less loyalty to the state on the part of the excluded and disenfranchised” (Rotberg 2004: 9).

The breach of the social contract on which state – society relations is anchored (or supposed to be anchored) alienates a wide section of the citizenry from the state project and induces them to seek sectional and community loyalties. Allegiances are then transferred to the leaders of these groups including warlords, who claim to provide security by sometimes, exploiting the endemic weakness and creeping failure of the state to firstly, promote insecurity; and then offer themselves as providers of security. Xenophobia strengthens. In fact, the whole story of the gradual progression of state weakness in Africa to the point of collapse could be told by the means of the absorption and diffusion of corruption in the body politic of African societies.

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“Without doubt, the temptation to self enrichment by public and elected officers at the expense of the citizens and public funds has increased parallel to economic decline in many African countries” (ibid: 9).

4.2.4 Suppression of Opposition and Military Dictatorship Exercising political power for the purposes of wealth accumulation with impunity over several years, nay decades, gave birth to a mentality that seeks to accept personal enrichment as the goal of acquiring state power. Corruption was thus, quasi-legitimised and correspondingly spread to several nooks and corners of public life that was hitherto unaffected. This induced ambitious people to strive for political power with all means, including violence. Violence and coercion therefore became increasingly “legitimised” as a means of acquiring or maintaining state power. Calculations showed in 1991 that 485 postcolonial African rulers were threatened with about 60% chance of being killed, imprisoned or exiled as consequence of holding office (Wiseman 1993: 657-660). In the struggle, good governance and development efforts were relegated to the background. Ethnicity, clientilism and widespread electoral manipulations were used to undermine the role of the citizens in determining political issues or influencing them in a way that protects and projects their interests. There was no respect for human rights and democratic principles in governance as well as in politics. Oppositional political forces enjoyed no tolerance from the politicians in power, they were rather suppressed with physical assault and incarceration and their leading members were sometimes eliminated. In a couple of countries, the suppression of opposition was institutionalised through the establishment of one-party systems. Certain African leaders tried to justify this system with the arguments of “African socialism” or “the non-reconciliation of African political culture with opposition” as this statement from Tanzania’s first independent president Julius Nyerere shows: “The new nations of the African continent are emerging today as the result of their struggle for independence. This struggle for freedom from foreign domination is a patriotic one which necessarily leaves no room for difference” (Herbst 2000: 97).13

Efforts were made to spread these ideas in the whole of black Africa and therefore reinforced the impetus to bad governance. Unbridled corruption coupled with victimisation of the opposition made the rulers incur the wrath of the masses and the animosity of the opposition. This 157

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induced them to develop a sit-tight mentality in power: out of fear of the envisaged retaliation of the opposition to which they will be helplessly exposed without control of state power, they continue to stay in power even in the midst of glaring evidence of loss of legitimacy. Under such conditions, the attempts to remove them through military coups or even civil wars become inevitable. Charles Taylor of Liberia, once rebel leader, warlord and now ex-President explained it like this: “once you are in, because of the chaos created from outside, you become undemocratic in the preservation of power. It is almost like the survival of the fittest” (West Africa: 2000: 11).

Politics in Africa became cumulatively violent. “Political competition now assumed the character of warfare and paved the way for the ascendancy of the specialists of violence, - the military” (Ake 1996: 6). The military did not prove to be better in the management of national affairs. Consequently, many African countries were successively embroiled in civil wars. Corruption and bad governance aggravated under the military. Military domination of politics meant that the politicisation of the military had to be intensified. As a corollary, the cherished image of the military as a national organisation based on discipline, stratified structure and formal rules was severely undermined. Continuous military domination of politics and the politicisation of the military enervated the professionalism and discipline of the armed and thus weakened it considerably. Weakening the capabilities and morale of the military practicall meant weakening the state because, in the absence of social integration, the military was the last bastion of state preservation. The military increasingly imbibed the goals of a political party with military coups usurping the role of elections. Politicisation and weakening of the military had three direct consequences for the collapse of the African state: the rulers continuously lost confidence in the several sections of the military and tried to create private armies (national guards) to protect them and thereby further dividing and neglecting the military; and secondly, security was privatised as the military proved too weak to defend the state against the rebels that attacked several African states in the 1990s. Finally, the states collapsed as a result of military weakness in combating the rebels. Afterall, from a technical military point of view, states collapse if the military is not in a position to defeat the rebels.

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4.2.5 Neo-colonialism and Economic Development Policies The members of the new political class were not involved in the production of goods. They consisted mainly of professionals in the service industry such as lawyers, doctors, teachers, bureaucrats, journalists, political scientists, labour leaders etc. and coupled with their constraints on capital (a consequence of colonial policies); they proceeded to appropriate the products of the most productive class in the society – the peasants – and exploited them through the marketing boards. Table 9: Chief Executives of Selected African Countries at the Point of Independence and their Professions Country Nigeria Liberia Sierra Leone Ivory Coast

Chief Executive Alhaji Tafawa Balewa William Tubman Milton Margai Felix Houphouet-Boigny

Ghana Tanzania Kenya Congo (DRC) Guinea

Kwame Nkrumah Julius Nyerere Jomo Kenyatta Joseph-Desire Mobutu Sekou Toure

Uganda

Milton Obote

Profession Teacher Soldier / Lawyer Medical Doctor Medical Doctor, later cocoa dealer Social Scientist Teacher Clerk Soldier Post / Telecommunication Engineer Construction Worker

This table is representative not only of African chief executives (Presidents / Prime Ministers) but also the whole political class in Africa. As the table demonstrates, the African productive stratum (small scale agricultural producers (call them peasants) is not represented. The petitbourgeois elements whose special qualifications are literacy, proficiency in the languages of colonising powers and a mutuality of interest with the colonising powers became the uppermost class in society, answerable to no other. Very few Africans were active in the colonial economy but only as small distributors and retailers of European products. Not only was the rate of their capital formation low, they equally shared common interests with the colonialists in the maintenance of economic dependency. Politicians representing productive classes cannot afford to forego the pursuit of development which then strengthens state institutions since state institutions are the means of precipitating economic development as experiences in Europe, South-east Asia and precolonial Africa have 159

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proven. Furthermore, the professional life of Houphouét-Boigny could serve as a cogent control case here. Despite studying medicine, he went early enough into cocoa production from which he waded into politics, but only as a vocation. As a cocoa producer, he was interested in providing the economy with a functioning infrastructure which cocoa production self-evidently needs to blossom: a ministry that regulates trade, effective legal system, property rights, security, transport system for bringing the products to the coast, telecommunications facilities, functional banking and financial systems etc. Coincidentally, the economy gains generally from the provision of infrastructure. This advantage distinguished Ivory Coast from other West African states and offered the basis for its “economic miracle”. Houphouét-Boigny was given the credit of being visionary and having established a functional economy. I would want to maintain that he was only protecting his economic interests. It appears to me that African leaders who had no interest in production do not have the impetus to provide their societies with infrastructure that functions. They are rather impelled to exploit agricultural producers through the marketing boards. However, the case of Ivory Coast demonstrates that one can combine the two, albeit with less than optimal results. Thus, the development policies of their administrations featuring marketing boards, food importation, maintenance of monocultural economies, import substitution and indigenisation policy merely functioned to strengthen their economic base while contributing to Africa’s underdevelopment. 4.2.5.1 Marketing Boards The marketing board system which originated in colonial Ghana in 1937 and later on spread to a host of other African states was one of exploitation. Because of the overwhelming interest of the post-colonial bourgeoisie in accumulation, this system was retained and even intensified. Exploitation of village-based peasant producers in favour of relatively non-productive cities made agricultural activities uninteresting Distribution of social amenities was thus skewed to the advantage of the cities as Robert Bates noted that African politicians traditionally equated their political survival with appeasing their urban populations via subsidies even if the much larger, and poorer, rural population had to be taxed (Bates 1981: 33). As long as the political class could accumulate wealth, they were even content to abandon the designing of economic policies and development plans to foreign forces. These policies and plans (which emphasised the state as the engine of development including promotion 160

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of cash as against food crops) did not adequately take cognisance of the structure of African societies and could only contribute to deepening underdevelopment through furthering the disarticulation of African economies. The populace became increasingly estranged from the state project. The marketing boards bought off the products of the peasants at very cheap prices and sold them at higher prices in the international market. The revenues from such transactions formed the initial objects of corruption as a great part of them were embezzled at several political and administrative rungs. Over several years, this practice of using state power for capital accumulation worsened the failing capabilities of the state at providing political goods and gradually ushered in the phase of failure. “Corruption undermines every aspect of policy implementation, so much so that political power cannot be exercised for purposes of development or improving the quality of life” (Jackson and Rosberg 1982: 18).

The state increasingly lacked the fund for the provision of public goods and many peasants lost interest in the further pursuit of their unprofitable profession and migrated to the cities. There, they swelled the number of the unemployed and even unemployables. Many other peasants reacted with smuggling their products out of the countries, further reducing the revenues at the disposal of the state. The governments of several African states tried to promote agriculture but became discouraged by the fall in the prices of agricultural products in the international market in the 1970s which seriously reduced their revenue earnings. Explosive increase in the price of oil at this time also contributed to worsening the liquidity problems of African states. In some other countries, (Nigeria, Zaire) for example, the discovery of mineral resources in commercial quantities contributed to diverting the attention of the ruling classes from agricultural promotion to collection of rents and royalties with which they enriched themselves. Countries without mineral resources became increasingly dependent on foreign development aid which also aided personal aggrandisement and strengthened the tendency to neglect agriculture. As a consequence of this policy, many African countries experienced the problem of food scarcity for the first time in the modern era. Devereux (2001) was thus correct in his analysis when he states that foodstuffs production per capita in Africa has been depreciating since 1962.

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4.2.5.2 Food Import, Capital flight and Accretion of Debts The preferred solution to this problem in many African countries was the importation of food stuffs mostly from the West. Through the state’s control of this importation and distribution of food stuffs, its economic dirigisme which the colonialists initiated was reinforced and further avenues for capital accumulation opened. This is a further justification of the claim being made in this piece to the effect that personal aggrandisement, und neither national development nor good governance, was and remains the paramount purpose of major political actors in Africa. The funds garnered through such processes regularly get transferred into secret accounts in Western banks. A relatively recent study of about 30 sub-Saharan countries states that those countries’ ruling elite had private overseas assets equivalent to 145 percent of the public debts that their countries owed, and about 80 cents on every dollar borrowed flowed back to the West as capital flight (World Bank 2004: 25). This fact, coupled with the repatriation of a very large part of the profits made by the foreign firms that dominate African economies and the aggravating trade deficit led to a continuous flight of capital from Africa. This had abysmal consequences with regards to enhancing the imperatives of good governance on the one hand, and in terms of the state’s capability for further investment and for provision of public goods, on the other. Life was getting more miserable for the common citizens and state capability was cascading. African states tried to ameliorate this problem by raising credits, mostly from Western banks and international financial institutions. In addition, the importation of foodstuffs in the midst of receding national revenues necessitated the raising of further credits. The banks granted these credits freely, ostensibly believing that African economies will bounce back someday. They granted the credits because they failed to critically consider some very crucial facts of African political life. Neopatrimonial politics is averse to rational and serious management. This system with its attendant consequences (politicisation of ethnicity, suppression of opposition, sit-tight mentality, military coups, civil wars etc.) precluded the focusing of attention on the pursuit of socioeconomic development and state building and with that, the chances of the credits ever getting repaid. So the uncritical readiness of the banks to grant the credits merely played into the hands of African leaders who pounced on these credits and either stashed parts of them in foreign banks or used parts of them to oil their clientelistic relations. Consequently, the per cap-

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ita income of sub-Saharan African states fell from USD 400 in 1978 to USD 330 in 1988 (Nuscheler 2005: 80) and has been falling since. Neo-patrimonial politics led African leaders to intervene in the economy even at the detriment of long-term economic development. Values of African currencies were not determined by their purchasing power in international trade, rather governments merely decided the value of their currencies. Throughout this time (the 1970s till middle of the 1980s), many African leaders hardly admitted to their citizens that their economies were gradually collapsing. They chose to further ride in the euphoria of independence that was to herald the good life. As a result of all these, an irrational and intense borrowing of funds continued unabated. Within a short period, the debt of African countries accumulated and more credit was needed in order to service the debts. This went on till the international banks and financial institutions refused to grant further credits and instead, demanded a voice in the making of African financial policies and development plans. As the debts grew higher, this voice became stronger. Table 10: Long term official, multilateral and private debt of Africa, 1970-1990 (Millions of dollars) 1970 6967 1010 2490

1975 17446 3176 10014

1980 47349 11664 37806

1985 90070 23937 50623

1990 158082 50608 70877

Official long term debt Multilateral debt stocks Private public guaranteed debt Source: UNCTAD secretariat computations based on World Bank, Global Development Finance, Online data (Stand: 14.09.2005).

Table 10 shows a progressive increment in the debt being owed by African countries to the international financial system up to landmark date of state collapse (1990). Some even argued that this debt system represents a squeeze on the poor nations by the industrial states by means of international financial institutions. “Between 1970 and 2002, Africa received some $540 billion in loans; but despite paying back close to $550 billion in principal and interest, it still had a debt stock of $295 billion as at the end of 2002. And the figures are even more disconcerting for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), which received $294 billion in disbursements, paid out $268 billion in debt service and yet remained straddled with a debt stock of some $210 billion “ (UNCTAD 2004: 1).

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As a result, African states increasingly lost their credit worthiness in the international financial system. In several African countries where revenues still flowed from mineral resources (Nigeria, Zaire, Sierra Leone, etc.) or from a few lucrative cash crops (Ivory Coast), they were either squandered in unproductive prestigious projects, in the superfluous concentration of infrastructures in the cities or simply embezzled and hidden in foreign banks.14 Whatever the case, the results were the same: entrenchment of underdevelopment and precluding the emergence of the imperatives of good governance. The provision of the rural areas with modern infrastructure would have relieved the inhabitants of the hardships of life and would have equally increased their productivity. This would have solved the problem of food scarcity, overpopulation of the cities and its attendant unemployment and the dependence of the economy on revenues from mineral resources and primary products; and could therefore have contributed to the emergence of an indigenous entrepreneurial class that would have pushed the power bourgeois to improve on the quality of governance. Rather, the economies remained monocultural and the phenomenon of rentier state was entrenched. 4.2.5.3 Monocultural Economies and Development Aid The economies of majority of African states were and are still monocultural: dependent on revenues from mineral resources or from sale of agricultural products to industrial and industrialising economies. In 2000, 71.3% of African exports went to the industrialised countries, although the imports of the industrialised economies from Africa are a paltry 2.1% of their total imports (UNCTAD 2002). For states that have no mineral resources demanded by international capital, the fall in the prices of agricultural products in the international market in the 1970s and 80s had devastating consequences as they experienced serious balance of payment deficits. Figure 5 shows how the prices of coffee and cocoa deeply fell from the middle of the 1970s and plunged a host of African countries in economic crisis.

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Figure 5: The fluctuation of Primary Commodities Prices in the International Market (1960-2002) / 2000 = 100

Coffee Cocoa Source: UNCTAD (2006)

Crude Oil

Minerals, Ores and Metals

Consequently, they had to increasingly depend on development aid for survival. The pervasiveness of economic problems coupled with the political high-handedness plunged a lot of African leaders into problems of legitimacy. The good life promised during decolonisation struggles could not be realised after more than 15 years of political independence. African leaders reacted with a double pronged strategy. On the one hand, they tried to service their clientilistic relations (the basis of their legitimacy) with the proceeds from development aid and on the other hand, they increased the repression of oppositional forces that were actually increasing at the time. This strategy led to further loss of legitimacy. Development aid was (and is still) not helpful in triggering off development in Africa for several reasons. Principal among which is that it extenuates the drive to self-reliant development, a precursor to the emergence of some of the imperatives of good governance. The phenomenon of tied-aid contributed to capital flight and further underdevelopment because the prices are often exorbitant and Africans are denied the opportunities offered in a free market. According to a World Bank study, tied aid reduces the value of the assistance with 25%.15 It also offers the donor

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states an opportunity of disposing of their excess products. For example, a study group led by Edward Clay of the Overseas Development Institute notes that 80% of the food aid are tied to the agricultural products of the donor states and that some states, especially the USA, use aid purposely for export promotion and disposal of excess production (Elliessen 2005: 1). Thus, food aid is counterproductive for Africa and has plunged Africa deeper in underdevelopment. Per capita income averagely fell by 3.4% in Africa between 1980 and 1986 despite the fact that Africa was the continent that received the most development aid during this period (Shikwati 2006: 6). Development aid also contributes to capital flight from Africa. Caufield notes that despite the aid “donations”, the donor states have been the net recipients of funds from the so called third world. The reason is the blatant decrease in new credits from private banks coupled with the continuous redemption of old credits at continually exorbitant interest rates. Initially the net gains of the donor countries were minimal: in 1983 it was a relatively paltry USD300 millions and dramatically rose to USD12.5 billion in 1984. The net transfer of funds from the poor to the rich countries has been rising at the rate of USD30 millions every year since 1985 (cf. Tupy 2004: 188). Development aid is cataclysmic for Africa because it gives tyrants the financial means of maintaining their tyranny while neglecting their peoples. Without development aid, African leaders would have been forced to locally source the financial bases of their survival and this would have brought them to the point of harnessing the creative energies of their peoples in order to draw badly needed revenues. Consequently, African creative energies are expended in criminal and grey areas.16 Development aid enables African leaders to purchase weapons which they mainly fight their own societies. African leaders spend approximately USD15 billons annually on weapons (Ayittey 2005: 326). Further consequences of development aid are that it intensified the orientation of African economies to those of the metropoles and thereby the consolidation of the position of foreign forces as the sources of legitimacy for African leaders. The gap between the African masses and their rulers expanded further. It is safe to assume that the problem of financial dependence on revenues from mineral resources would have been averted had the African political leaders used these revenues to diversify the economic bases of the states through investment and reinvestment in productive endeavours, most importantly in the promotion of agricultural products that are immediately needed by the people and in industrialisation that initially strives to process the agricultural products. Diversification of the eco166

Non-developmental Governance and State Collapse in Africa

nomic bases of African states would have possibly led to the emergence of a productive class that earns its living outside the ambit of state power. The drive of ambitious people to try to accumulate capital only with direct or indirect control of state power would perhaps have been mitigated. This is one of the contributory factors to state collapse because it increases the incidences of graft, undermines the goal of good governance and leads to violence in politics. Instead of diversification, the rulers and their chosen cohorts preferred to embezzle the revenue in cooperation with Western and Eastern firms and thus increased the economic hardships for Africans. 4.2.5.4 Import Substitution Policy The relatively low-level development of the instruments of production and the lack of capital was to be improved through an industrialisation policy which was supposed to lend the needed impetus to development. But the industrialisation policy emphasised import substitution – local production of imported goods in order to reduce expenditure on imports and subsequently conserve capital – and was not successful for several reasons. Primary among these reasons was the fact that the economies of African states were monopolised by a few European firms. These firms often have financial interests in the home countries from which they regularly imported and promoting import substitution in Africa will be detrimental to those interests at home (Ake 1981: 148). They therefore did not pursue the goals of import substitution wholeheartedly and even subverted the policy in some cases. This industrial policy (which was relatively successful in Latin America and was recommended for Africa by external forces –UNDP) is preconditioned on the fact that an industrial base already exists and has only to be geared towards the production of goods that gulp scarce foreign exchange. But because this precondition is not met in Africa, this policy implied a high demand of foreign input of capital goods. For example, the technology was to be imported from the West and this importation contributed to balance of payment deficits. It also sharpened the contradictions that already existed between the basic needs of the African masses and the policies of the neocolonial states. There were other technical problems. Most of the imported technology was antiquated. Extensive decaying of state structures combined with the alien origin of the technology generated problems of maintenance of such technology. The policy therefore contributed neither to economic development nor to the accumulation of capital. Rather, un-

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derdevelopment and state decay progressed as the institutions of state and social infrastructure became extensively dysfunctional. 4.2.5.5 Indigenisation Policy The need for a more solid material base led some African countries (for example Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal Zaire etc.) to embark on a policy of economic indigenisation between the middle of the 1960s up to the 1970s. The spirit of nationalism with which independence was fought for and dependency theory which postulated a positive correlation between economic dependence and underdevelopment partially influenced the introduction of this policy. However, the official justification was that it should help to ensure the accretion of indigenous capital by buying out foreign capital. This policy made it mandatory for foreign firms to sell a portion of their shares (up to 51% in some cases) to indigenous business people. Some African states even gave loans to prospective buyers in certain countries. This policy failed for several reasons. Neo-patrimonialism ensured that shares were sold to politicians and bureaucrats instead of real business people. The accumulative tendencies of the bourgeoisie in power led them to exploit the resources of the firms exactly the way they exploited the resources of the state. The result of such attitudes in the economy (collapse of some of the firms) came quicker than its result in politics (failure and collapse of some of the states). As a result of this policy, some of the firms folded up. In some other cases, the firms maintained their ownership by selling their shares to African proxies (mainly in Nigeria and Ghana). That is, African names were being presented as shareholders while the firms actually still belonged to their original owners. Anyway, the political class did achieve its aims of primitive accumulation even at the expense of economic development. The non-involvement of the new indigenous “owners” in productive activity contributed immensely to the failure of the policy due to the fact that they possessed neither the capitalist spirit nor its ethos. Capitalism progresses through the purposeful management of investments and the re-investment of the accumulated capital. To do that, one has to possess the capitalist spirit which induces him/her to further invest and develop capital; and the ethos which ensure that the tenets of rational, effective and prudent business management are upheld. The squandering of such riches in ostentatious consumption as the new holders did is inimical to the tenets and principles of capitalism.

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This policy was implemented in respective countries with various approaches which produced less than desired results. In some countries, the programme was doomed to failure because the finances to sponsor the policy were to be provided through external means. In Kenya for instance, the control of agriculture by foreign capital was not tampered with; foreign capital was even to provide 82.39% of Kenya’s Agricultural Development Corporation budget in the development plan’s estimate of 1971/72 (Ake 1985). In a few others, the rulers simply dispossessed foreigners of their firms and gave them to their clients. Some socialist countries (Tanzania for example) even nationalised majority of the foreign firms. In such countries, the preponderance of pre-capitalist forms of production with special reference to the low level of development of the production instruments combined with the lack of capitalist spirit and ethos to render the policy a mere redistribution of poverty in a system of relatively less neo-patrimonialism driven by coercion. 4.3 International Politics of Bad Governance in Africa In the course of all these developments and increasing crisis of the state in Africa as a result of bad governance, good governance - the fight against corruption and against neo-patrimonial politics, the diversification of the economic bases, adequate representation of the interests and needs of the masses in national politics, inward-looking development strategies, respect for human rights and democratic principles, rule of law, etc. - was continuously neglected. In none of the international partnerships for African development was the quality of governance in Africa on the agenda, be it the demand for a New International Economic Order (N.I.E.O.) in the 1970s or the declaration of the 1980s as the Development Decade by the United Nations among others. In some quarters, authoritative regimes were even seen as being favourable to economic development. It was the time of the Cold War which determined the foreign policies of the Super and the Great powers. The world was divided into two blocs and each bloc was primarily concerned with securing the support of respective African leaders which they did with expressive political patronage and the allocation of development aid. It was therefore strategically self-defeatist to criticise the internal policies of an African state unless the state has openly declared for the opposing bloc. In this case, the criticism was never considered on its merit; rather it was subsumed under the politics of the great divide. The interests and needs of the African masses which naturally coalesce with the genuine pursuit of eco-

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nomic development and good governance were never seriously considered. 4.3.1 Cold War and Neglect of Good Governance in Africa Because of the dependence of African states on external sources of revenue (foreign trade, foreign investment and foreign aid), the sources of legitimacy was also foreign. Each bloc did everything possible to maintain their own African leaders in power even in the face of glaring evidence of loss of legitimacy by such leaders. The local populace remained politically emasculated. Locally and internationally, there were no social forces in a credible position to demand good governance in Africa. With the failures of import substitution industrialisation and transfer of technology, underdevelopment in Africa accelerated and the marginalisation of Africa in international political economy deepened. For example, Africa’s share of the world trade was 2.4% in 1970 and by 1990 it was down to 1.4%. Its share of non-oil primary products fell in the same period from 7% to less than 4% (Serageldin 1993: 95). The masses of Africa became more and more agitated. The disappointment with the nonmaterialisation of the very high hopes raised during decolonisation struggles (that political independence will be the harbinger of a better life) brought a lot of criticism on African leaders and their policies. Almost 20 years after independence, the conditions of life for majority of the citizens have deteriorated manifestly. Criticisms were not only directed to African leaders but also to their international partners. This disappointment made the socialist option propagated by some radical African scholars (A.B. Babu, Issa Shivji, Claude Ake, O. Nnoli, B. Onimode etc.) very topical in Africa at the time. Revolutionary pressures were building up in several African countries, (most especially in West Africa). Dissatisfied intellectuals and students were clamouring for a change and strengthening the idea of a socialist option. Radical groupings were cropping up in several corners of West Africa. For example, the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) was formed in Liberia in March 1973 and in 1978, the Progressive Alliance of Liberia was formed. The latter was a radical Marxist group and both aimed at pressurising the government of Tolbert. MOJA went as far as establishing night schools known as Barrack Union with a view to politicising the army and encouraging it to topple Tolbert’s regime (Ellis 1999: 52-53). It also had chapters in Gambia and Ghana. The Gambian chapter supported a 1981coup attempt led by Kukoi Samba Sanyang who later on joined the Liberian rebel group – the National Patriotic Front of 170

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Liberia - NPFL (ibid: xiv). Similar groups emerged in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria, though less pronounced. There was a popular student uprising that shook the government of Siaka Steven in Sierra Leone in 1977 which was closely followed by the “Ali must go” bloody students demonstrations in Nigeria in 1978. The following year (1979) the radical Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings bloodily took over power in Ghana, acting in a radical manner by killing all of his predecessors.17 In the same year (precisely on the 14th of April 1979), there was the rice riots in Monrovia, capital city of Liberia, “which severely damaged an already feeble government” (Ellis 1999: 50) and marked the prelude to Master Sergeant Doe’s coup.18 The latter-day warlords – Charles Taylor of Liberia was leader of the Union of Liberian Association in the Americas (ULAA), a radical student organisation in the USA in the 1970s (ICG 2002: 31), and Foday Sankoh, (RUF leader), was the army corporal that tried to utilise the students riots in Sierra Leone in 1977 to topple Siaka Stevens’ government through an unssuccessful coup (Richards 1996). Radical threats against the governments of West African states were thus clear and present. The devastating material conditions were not alone responsible for the radicalisation of the West African youths. Socialist propaganda from Progress Publishers in Moscow coupled with African and Jamaican music (reggae) suffused with rebel lyrics professing the redemption of the black man contributed immensely to the accretion of revolutionary consciousness by challenging the youths to dismantle the system that holds Africans in bondage (cf. Abdulahi and Muana 1998: 173). Libya was admonishing African youths to rebel against their governments whose closeness to the West was blamed for the suffering of the African masses, pledging all sorts of support for the rebellion.19 The rebels that attacked the state of Chad in 1981 and brought it to collapse were trained in and sponsored by Libya. The warlord and later President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Laurent Desire Kabila, was also trained in Libya. Libya was so active in the training of African rebels in the 1980s that Stephen Ellis (1999: 72) referred to the Libyan World Revolutionary Headquarters as the Harvard and Yale of a whole generation of African revolutionaries. 4.3.2 Revolutionary Pressures and African rulers’ Reaction Towards the end of the 1970s, African rulers were so under pressure that they had to take actions to relieve the revolutionary pressures which could threaten the continued existence of their regimes. Under the auspices of the Organisation for African Unity (O.A.U.), African scholars 171

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were assigned the duty of working out an endogenous development plan for Africa. They came up with the Monrovia Strategy for the Economic Development of Africa (1979). In 1980, the O.A.U. met in Nigeria and adopted the Lagos Plan of Action which was to implement the Monrovia Strategy. It marked the first inward looking African development plan made by Africans for Africans and represented the official acceptance of the non-developmental effects of all hitherto development strategies. It was equally a proof of the pressures under which African rulers found themselves that they, for the first time, tried to reject the development plans made by foreign agencies. Such actions have been accounted for by the concept of “defensive radicalism” which represents superficial attempts by bourgeois rulers to counter revolutionary pressures by identifying with revolutionary ideas (Ake 1978). With specific reference to West Africa, these revolutionary pressures were discharged in the initial popular support enjoyed by coup plotters and rebels that attacked several governments in the 1980s and 1990s which in some cases led to the collapse of the states. Even up till these days, the revolutionary pressures (yearning and aspiring for change) are still existent because the material conditions that produced them have not dissipated. One still hears many Liberians justifying Taylor’s rebellion and an overwhelming majority of Sierra Leoneans saying that if not for the wanton killing of the RUF-rebels, they would have joined them. 4.4 The Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), State Collapse and the Demand for “Good Governance” The Lagos Plan of Action was based on the principles of self-reliance and self-sustaining development by reducing external influences in the development of Africa. It sought to change Africa’s position in the international division of labour as a provider of agricultural and other raw materials to a provider of manufactured goods. It emphasised local inputs, local technology and local management techniques. National and continental self-reliance was to depend on internal demand to boost production and thereby create a national market to absorb produced goods. Development as conceived by this plan of action was democratic as it tended towards participative development; and holistic as it sought to bring agricultural and industrial development together and thereby create the missing link in Africa’s economic planning: forward and backward linkages between economic sectors. For obvoius reasons, the international financial institutions (IFIs) did not support the Plan of Action.

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Contrariwise, the World Bank designed the Accelerated Development Plan for Africa: An Agenda for Action (1981) in which African states were advised to abandon the path of self-reliant industrialisation and concentrate on the production of agricultural goods because it considers Africa’s economic crisis a crisis of agricultural production. It has been argued that the real reason behind the bank’s advice is to avoid jeopardising the security of the sources of raw materials on which Western industries are dependent. For example, Africa produces 70% of the cocoa traded in the world market, 60% of coffee and 50% of palm oil. A great percentage of the global deposit in chrome and diamonds are found in Africa, 64% of manganese deposits, 50% of gold, 90% of cobalt, 50% of phosphates, 40% of platinum, 13% of copper, 7.5% of coal, 8% of discovered oil reserves, 12% of natural gas and 3% of iron ore as well as nickel, bauxite and lead (Shikwati 2006. 13-14). Furthermore, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD 2002) reports that 15.4% of all mineral and fossil resources traded in the world market originate from Africa and crude oil constitutes 65.6% of those. Most of these natural resources are processed in the West; not in Africa. Africa’s share of manufactures in global trade is an infinitesimal 0.4% (UNCTAD 2002). If Africa should industrialize, the delivery of these resources to Western industries will be considerably reduced. Furthermore, Africa could become a competitor to the West in the global market of manufactured goods. African industrialisation is therefore not in the short-term economic interest of the West. Of course, the African leaders did not accept this strategy. A stalemate arose in which African leaders were forced to chicken out in order to not to lose their credit lines with Western and international banks. They had to chicken out because they had so badly managed their economies to the point of heavily deepening their dependence on credits from the IFIs. The above-mentioned document of the World Bank (Accelerated Development Plan for Africa) offered the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP)20 as the solution to Africa’s economic problems. According to the World Bank, this neoliberal economic program was supposed to function as an additional impetus to the reactivation of African economies. This it should do through the opening of African markets to foreign capital. To this end, African economies have to dismantle all forms of economic protection and liberalise trade in order to attract foreign investment. SAP designers were also of the opinion that African currencies were overpriced; a fact that makes African goods in the international market too expensive, less marketable and therefore reduces the availability of for173

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eign currency in their economies. As a solution, they recommended export promotion through a reduction in the exchange rates of national currencies. SAP equally sought to cut back budget deficits through a reduction in public expenditure; for example, through the removal of subsidies on several items, retrenchment of civil servants and employees in public service and the privatisation of national service agencies such as post office services, telecommunications, public transportation, etc. 4.4.1 Effects of SAP and of the End of the Cold War The implementation of this programme led to further debilitation of African economies and sharpened the contradictions between the masses and the ruling class: it led to double and triple digit inflations, increased the level of poverty and hopelessness in Africa, further agitations and violent demonstrations against several governments, massive unemployment etc. Towards the end of the 1980s therefore, 25% of the World Bank’s credits were tied to the implementation of SAP (Mosley and Toye 1988). SAP could not improve the economic situation of Africans. For example, the growth rate of the manufacturing sector which was 8.5% between 1960 and 1965 dropped to 3.6% in 1980 and to 0.4% in 1982-3. Likewise, the growth rate of the agricultural sector fell down from 1.4% in 1960-65 to 0.4% in 1982-3. Food production also suffered in this period with the growth rate plummeting from 1.6% in the 1960-65 to 0.2% in 1982-3 and Africa could provide only 86% of its food needs (OAU 1986). Thus, in 1984, the World Development Report observed that increases in the incidences of infant mortality, under-nourishment and dependence on imported food items are threatening the life of about 100 million people in Africa. Table 11 shows how the implementation of SAP led to a reduction in annual per capita growth rate and a simultaneous double digit inflation.

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Table 11: Structural Adjustment Loans, Growth, and Inflation in poor Countries with most structural Adjustment Loans received

Number of IMF and World Bank adjustment loans 1980 - 1999

Annual per capita growth rate from the date of first structural adjustment loan (%)

Annual inflation rate from first adjustment loan to 1999 (%)

African Countries That Were in the World`s Top Twenty of Structural Adjustment Loans Received 1980 - 1999 Niger

14

-2.30

2

Zambia Madagascar

18

-2.10

58

17

- 1.80

17

Togo

15

- 1.60

5

Cote d`Ivoire

26

- 1.40

6

Malawi

18

- 0.20

23

Mali

15

- 0.10

4

Mauritania

16

0.10

7

Senegal

21

0.10

5

Kenya

19

0.10

14

Ghana

26

1.20

32

Uganda

20

2.30

50

Source: Easterly 2002: 66-67

In fairness to SAP, the selective manner of its implementation which was preferred by the African leaders accounted partially for the inclement effects of SAP on the populace. They forced austere economic measures on the populace without reducing corruption. They continued to lead ostentatious lives in the midst of abject poverty of a large percentage of the population. As the masses became obstreperous, most of those leaders invested heavily in strengthening their coercive apparatus even to the extent of establishing personal armies, disguised as national guards, to protect them from the surging youth protests. These unemployed and angry youths provided the rebels that attacked several states in West Africa towards the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s with initial recruits. While the regular national armies were starved of funds which sometimes includes non-payment of salaries, the morale in the military was low and the reduction in military aid after the end of the

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Cold War dealt lethal such blow to the militaries that many of them were not in positions to defend the regimes as they were attacked. As the Cold War drew to a close at the end of the 1980s, Africa lost its enviable strategic position in super power politics with the consequence that a larger part of the development aid was no longer forthcoming. For example, Official Development Assistance (ODA) for Africa rose steadily since independence, but starting from 1990 it fell down from 37.2% of total ODA to 31.2% in 1999 (World Bank 2002). Through this action, majority of African leaders lost the resources with which they have always bought legitimacy in a patron/client system. Driven by biting economic hardships, the crisis of legitimacy that has continuously accompanied African politics was thence sharpened. Demonstrations against several governments became frequent and they reacted with increased repressions and violence. The citizens were so distressed that they seriously started questioning the sense behind the preservation of the African state project. As before (in colonial times), majority reacted once again with escape from the state in economic and political dimensions: incidences of smuggling, criminal activities, prostitution, cultism (that venerated not only religions but also persons and criminal associations) increased and particularistic tendencies - ethnic associations - became prominent features of the political landscape once again as they strove to fill the gap being vacated by the state. The strength and scope of state functions and activities became cumulatively constricted. The intentions and even attempts at secession by relatively deprived groups became loud and clearly noticeable. The failure of the African state became increasing present. And the era of collapse for some of them was drawing closer. 4.4.2 The Demand for Political Reforms In the midst of this crisis, the West and the IFIs demanded good governance and respect for democratic principles and human rights as a precondition for further development cooperation with African states. The discourse was introduced by the World Bank in its 1989 report titled, “Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth” and later expatiated in another study with the title of “Governance and Development” published by the Bank in 1992. It was the Bank’s manner of reacting to the pile of criticisms against their SAP which did prove to be a colossal failure in jump-starting the African economy. According to the Bank, SAP failed on the grounds of bad governance by African leaders and not because of its conception and intrinsic quality. This argument has been severally faulted by many African scholars who have consistently criticised 176

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SAP for not being a development program but rather, a program for the correction of balance of payment deficits and therefore inappropriate to solve the problem of economic underdevelopment of African states. Indeed, its conception considered neither the interests of African masses nor the structure of African societies and thereby contributed to the promotion of bad governance. The removal of subsidies in the midst of increasing poverty, high rates of inflation, unemployment, and evanescing purchasing power for an overwhelming majority of the population had an inhuman effect: a pauperised populace was forced to pay relatively exorbitant prices for services that were previously almost free without the possibility of a higher income simultaneoulsy. Beyond that, the retrenchment of civil servants and public service employees in countries where the state is the major employer of labour and in a context of extended family structure meant a worsening of living conditions for a large portion of African population. Furthermore, the liberalisation of trade placed African economies in a disadvantaged situation because the reduction in the value of national currencies at an industrial stage that demands a very high level of external inputs led to increases in the unit production costs of such goods which again translated into increases in local market prices. The weak position of African firms in competition with multinationals both in internal and in international markets was thus aggravated. All these contributed to worsening economic conditions which increased the intensity of popular demonstrations against the regimes. They reacted with increased violent repressions. “Predictably, the SAP has shattered the living standards among the wage and salaried groups…and reduc(ed) educational, social and health expenditures so far that universities have collapsed, cholera is widespread (the highest reported globally), and malnutrition, destitution and unemployment are common. In turn, each tightening of the screw has stimulated widespread rioting led by students, unemployed workers, market women and a bourgeoning urban lumpenproletariat” (Watts and Lubeck 1994: 214).

On a more general note, the negative effects of SAP are a global phenomenon that is not restricted to Africa. Scholars have demonstrated that the implementation of SAP compels states to disregard democratic principles and disrespect human rights and civil liberties. After undertaking a global comparative analysis of the human rights consequences of SAP between 1981 and 2000, they concluded:

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“The most important substantive finding of this study is that receiving and implementing a SAA* from the World Bank had the net effect of worsening government respect for all types of physical integrity rights.21 This finding is generally consistent with the previous comparative and case study research on the human rights effects of IMF SAAs. It supports one of the main hypotheses in our research - that there would be a higher probability of physical integrity rights violations during the years a SAA was implemented “ (Abouharb and Cingranelli 2006: 254).

Most substantially, the programme was a dismal failure as it did not succeed in stimulating economic growth (Przeworski and Vreeland 2000; Vreeland 2003).Subsequent to developments resulting from the implementation of SAP, the World Bank (and of course the International Monetary Fund) earned a bad reputation out of which it had to manoeuvre itself. This was the role that the discourse on good governance had to fulfil: to clear the IFIs of all blames on the effects of SAP on African masses. The alteration in the international political atmosphere was admissible of such a discourse as there was no opposing ideological camp to which African leaders could change. Western countries and the donor community orientated themselves to this discourse and declared good governance and respect for democratic principles and human rights a condition for continued development cooperation. It would have been necessary for the Bank to understand why she and other creditors are the only economic actors in a position to force economic reforms on African leaders: in the absence of an indigenous resource-bearing group/class, the duty of prodding the states to prudentially handle public coffers has to be taken up by international capital (the resource-bearers so to say) represented by the IFIs and the donor community. By demanding economic reforms, international capital has assumed the political role of an economic middle class, judging by the European experience. But this role could not be substantively filled by outsiders. It would therefore have been more fruitful for international capital to concern itself initially with creating the economic basis for the imperatives of good governance before demanding it. In the absence of such a basis, the institution of good governance is pretty difficult, the loans will not be paid and underdevelopment will persist. 4.4.3 Internal Reform Pressures and Reversal in Western Reform Demands So far, I have tried to illuminate how the lack of imperatives of good governance as a result of Africa’s trajectory to postcolonial statehood 178

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combined with foreign domination of Africa’s economies to induce a neglect of economic development, corruption, political violence accompanied by instability, military coups and civil wars, inappropriate economic policies that indebted Africa to international capital and how the demand for political and economic reforms in order to recover the debts worsened the economic conditions of majority of Africans and forced them to react violently, threatening the basic fabric of the states. The challenge from the West on African leaders to democratise reinforced the resolve to further demonstrations against several African leaders. Thus, the beginning of the 1990s witnessed an avalanche of political demonstrations throughout the length and breadth of black Africa. At this juncture, we had to recall that revolutionary pressures have been building up against the African ruling class since independence. The demand for good governance was therefore an encouragement to the democratic forces in Africa. So they intensified their opposition in order to produce a synergy effect with the pressure from outside, hoping to make the pressure unbearable for their leaders. Although these violent demonstrations threatened a few states with collapse22, the democratic forces were however very hopeful that, at the long last, democracy will be ushered in and the interests and aspirations of the economic development will take their due positions of priority in the making of national policies. If violence and loss of lives or even the collapse of some states should be the price for it, it could be a worthy price. This hope was shattered by the reversal in Western policy following the pervasive violence that accompanied the demand for democratisation. A fellow at the US Council on Foreign Relations and Time Magazine’s Nairobi Bureau Chief at the time, Margaret Michaels, documented this reversal thus: “U.S. interests and international capital were not all that retreated from Africa this year. Movement toward democracy was rolled back in many African countries” (1995: 96).

One wonders why the West had to reverse its policy just to curtail the violence. After all, the introduction of democracy to western European polities was equally accompanied with a high degree of violence. Furthermore, scholars have demonstrated that the change from a repressive to a democratic (even partial) regime is often afflicted with conflict, but only temporarily. Three quarters of the conflict generated by the transition disappears one year after (Hegre et al 1999). Violence in the process of political transitions in Africa should be inevitable because of the eco179

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nomic interests which political power serves and the consequent economic losses which the loss of power during transition could bring with it. It is apposite to economic logic that they should resist it, even violently. This is symptomatic of class struggles in Europe and they were violent. The reversal in the Western policy may have been undertaken out of shortsighted fears that the crises would jeopardise Western economic interests and their ability of continued political influence in Africa. “France made it clear this year in several West African countries that democracy is relative and that Paris would not promote chaos over stability. The British seemed to prefer stability as well. U.S. Ambassador Smith Hempstone’s relentless three-year drive for multiparty democracy in Kenya had British diplomats irate over its “naivete” and fearful that the election-driven violence would jeopardize millions of pound sterling invested in coffee and tea estates” (ibid: 97-98).

Likewise, the fear of African refugees streaming into the Western World and the financial expenses of conflict management (peacekeeping operations for example) may have been influential here. Reversal in Western policy meant that the ideals of democratisation were not to be pursued to the letters and that Western interest in promoting good governance and democracy is less than sincere. This realisation was a great disappointment to African democratic alliances. Democratisation was therefore reduced to electoralism, - the mere organisation of competitive elections between several political parties. This proved to be one of the inadequacies of understanding African politics from the assumptions of Western political developments. As Joseph puts it, “elections and democracy have become virtually synonymous in Western political thought and analysis” (Joseph 1999: 9). But for reasons that have to do with the social and economic structures of African societies, the class character of African political leaders, lack of democratic political culture, weakness of state institutions, pervasive illiteracy, corruption and electoral manipulations, elections in Africa are often undemocratic. It could even be manipulated to bestow democratic appearances on autocratic regimes. This was the case in Africa of the 1990s. With the change in Western approach to democratisation, many African autocrats organised elections in which they rigged either themselves or their proxies into power. In most of these elections, securing the support of the IFIs by promising to adopt their SAP superseded the interests of the poor African masses in democratisation and good governance.

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Majority of African states were (and are still) so dependent on credit from these institutions as result of their economic weakness that they had to accept the conditionalities of SAP in order to have a chance of even running a government. The result was the production of choiceless democracies (Mkandawire 1999) and exclusionary democracies (Abrahamsen 2000: 134). Choiceless in the sense that the constraints provided by SAP denied the several political parties the opportunity of independently designing their own party programs even if they had actually wished to. Exclusionary in the sense that liberal democracy is not suitable to African societies where the majority of the citizens still make their living in the primordial economy that could not be grasped by the horizontal system of political representation in a liberal democratic system. The implication of the Western reversal policy was to confer a certificate of democratic legitimacy on the products of electoralism, and on other undemocratic regimes that provided a semblance of stability irrespective of the quality of governance. By this policy, the West may have accepted, though unintentionally, to put up with more cases of state collapse in future because as long as the governance is bad, the state will further debilitate, the masses will rebel and collapse is a very likely result. This reversal policy may have merely postponed the day of democratic reckoning in Africa because it is very hard to imagine that the masses of Africa whose interest in democracy has been kindled will continue to condone bad governance indefinitely. Increasing cases of youth violence in West Africa since the 1990s vindicate this assumption. This failure to pursue the ideals of democracy at the beginning of the 1990s contributed immensely to the collapse of some West African states towards the end of the 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium. The idea here is not to create the impression that the rebellions and civil wars which accompanied the collapse of states in Africa were ideological and mass-based. Rather, disgruntled elements and opportunists within the ruling bourgeoisie capitalised on the mass dissatisfaction to militarily attack the power holders. Most of them were members of the ruling class that were about to be rationalised out of the corridors of power in keeping with the recommendations of the international financial institutions that pushed for reforms. Others were mere opportunists that took advantages offered by state weakness, the eased integration in international market offered by globalisation and neoliberalism, availability of unemployed youths and the availability of small arms that found their ways into the international market as a result of the demise of Soviet Un-

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ion to foment violence and use it as a means of capital accumulation; the so called warlord phenomenon. Figure 6: Analytical Model of State Collapse Process and its Regionalisation in West Africa

Blockade of the imperatives of Good Governance, Development and Democracy

Western Domination of African Economies

Poor Governance

Repression of Opposition

Politisation of ethnicity

Corruption

Sit-tight rulers

Inappropiate economic policies & economic crisis

Violence in politics

Debt Crisis

Attenuation of Legitimacy

Military in power

End of the Cold War

SAP

Neoliberal Globalisation and reduction of super-power support plus Trigger Factors

Military weakness

Privatisation of security

State Collapse + Inappropriate conflict management

Regionalisation (Conflicts in West African)

A further explanation of the West for the failure of democracy in most of Africa is that African states lacked civil societies that should, among others, protect the citizen rights from the encroachments of the state.23 Accordingly, development policy was thence geared towards stimulating the emergence of civil society organisations with financial support. Some African out-of-power political class reacted accordingly by establishing Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). This resulted in the emergence of “briefcase” NGOs that although hardly relate to African societies, are intimately bound with the international community, especially the Western and donor nations NGOs.24 The interests of the African 182

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out-of-power bourgeoisie in setting up these NGOs have to, in most cases, do with the financial support that flowed from the West, a major part of which finds its way into private bank accounts. The pursuit of good governance is still not the goal. 4.5 Conclusion This analysis has shown that poor governance in Africa is a political reality because there are no economic bases for an alternative quality of governance. Poor governance in Africa is a colonial and post-colonial phenomenon which was entrenched in Africa due to changes brought about by colonialism. In the absence of an indigenous productive class with the interest and ability to compel the government to perform better; and in the absence of imperatives necessary for such performance, it becomes the duty of the political clas in government to show strength of character by possibly committing “class suicide” in the overall interest of the society.25 But the spirit of individualism engendered by imperialist education militates against this development. Within this context, the African population becomes a political burden to the African rulers which they can dispense with and in spite of that, maintain political power. The economic interests of the bourgeoisie in the pursuit of political power further precludes the chances of the emergence of the imperatives of good governance with the consequence that the economic and political problems continued to escalate till they considerably weakened nation-state structures and capabilities. This analysis also has implications for development policy. The World Bank, the donor community and the international development agencies admonish the African rulers to rule better and ‘support’ them with development aid, but to no avail, at least till now. What I find critical here is that their approach lacks historical inference. Lessons of history teach us that governments have never governed well simply because they decided to heed the admonitions of foreign agents. States only do that when it is in their survival interest to do so. Foreign agents are not in a position to engender good governance because of their wavering interests which make them lack the resilience that such struggles demand. Furthermore, African leaders have demonstrated that they can creatively exploit this lack of resilience to thwart those admonitions. Strengthening the state through good governance and development has always resulted out of necessity. It might therefore be necessary for development policy to consider helping create some of the imperatives outlined in this discourse. Definitely, the granting of development aid and support for 183

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quasi-dictatorships, turning a blind eye to electoral malpractices and interference in the affairs of weak states to protect the interests of the strong states could not be the avenues to such a development. Notes There is only a slight difference between imperialism and colonialism. They both had to do with economic and political domination. The difference lies in the fact that where the firms were the dominators under imperialism, under colonialism it was the state itself. The closeness of the phenomena led Claude Ake to speak of “colonising imperialism”, (Ake 1981: 20). 1

Monetisation of the economy refers to the pervasiveness of money as the sole means of exchange.

2

Flogging in the public for political misdemeanour or lack of understanding for new rules and regulations was normal. It was meant to punish and to dehumanise. 3

Europeans were not affected by these developments because they lived in European Reserved Areas which were furnished with the best of infrastructures.

4

5 The colonial policy of artificial border demarcations led to inclusion of several ethnic groups in one state and the division of one ethnic group into two or more states. This policy laid the basis for the politicisation of ethnicity.

Colonial ideologies of domination refer to all belief systems that try to justify colonialism based on the superiority of the coloniser over the colonised. It includes elements of racism and lack of self confidence in the area of economic development and the belief that development plans and aid should come from the West are traceable to these ideologies. 6

The major reason for upholding the colonial borders on the principles of Uti Possidetis after independence was that the new bourgeois in power was afraid of loosing their privileged positions if the borders should be demarcated anew. 7

8 Kwame Nkrumah’s battle cry of “seek ye first the kingdom of independence and everything should be added unto you” mirrors perfectly the mental state of independence politicians and the governments they led.

See United Nations Conference on Trade and Development: Statistical Profile of Least Developed Countries, New York. 9

10

The big push refers to arguments that stress the doubling of development aid as a solution to underdevelopment in Africa. Jeffrey Sachs is a foremost representative of this paradigm.

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11

For clarification of these terminologies, see Bratton, Michael/Van de Walle, Nicholas (1994), “Neopatrimonial regimes and political transition in Africa” in World Politics, Vol. 46, Nr. 4, (July 1994), pp. 453-489; and Joseph, Richard A. (1987), Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: the rise and fall of the second Republic, Cambridge University Press. 12

Several societies in Africa developed ways of socialising the youth and children into corruption. I remember as a young primary school boy growing up in Onitsha, Nigeria, that I regularly received money at the end of every school term from neighbours and older acquaintances who praised me for having passed with good results after looking at my report sheet; and then proceeded to tell me that the future of Nigeria belongs to us. They told me that one day I would graduate from the University and then acquire a political or bureaucratic position through which I should enrich myself. They always concluded by telling me that if the time comes, I should not forget them. This was experienced by every other school boy or girl in almost all parts of Nigeria. 13

It is necessary to stress here that Nyerere was one of the least corrupt African leaders and also one of the few African leaders that had an economic development plan. The success or failure of his plan is secondary. 14 Nigeria celebrated a Festival of Black Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977 to the tune of hundred of millions of dollars, some say billions. Lagos was at a time second to only Hamburg on the list of cities with the highest number of overhead bridges. Ivory Coast built the World’s second largest Cathedral in Yamoussoukrou. 15

See www.worldbank.org/research/aid/overview.html. (Stand: 21.02.06).

16

Just consider the globalisation of creative criminal activities originating from Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo.

17 See Ake, Claude (1984), Revolutionary Pressures in Africa, Zed Books London, for details of revolutionary pressures facing the African rulers and how some of them reacted to it. 18

If one is looking for a landmark date for state failure (as against state collapse) in Africa, that date could be 1980 because I remember my Professor Okwudiba Nnoli delivering a lecture to us in summer of 1981 and with reference to the successful coups of Master-Sergeant Doe and Flight-Lieutenant Rawlings remarking that African states have become so weak that even junior military officers could forcibly take it over. The introduction of SAP is also a case in point as it represented the urgency in tackling Africa’s economic problems. 19

As a student of a Nigerian university in the 1980s, I received books from Progress Publishers, Moscow, free of charge from bookshops and copies of

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Ghaddafi’s Green Book were being distributed in several Nigerian University campuses free of charge. 20

Later on, this became known as the Washington Consensus because the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are based in Washington.

21

*SAA refers to Structural Adjustment Agreement.

22

Zambia, Zaire, Nigeria, Niger, Benin, Congo are typical examples.

23

See for example, Sartori, Giovanni (1991), “Rethinking Democracy: Bad Polity and bad Politics”, International Social Science Journal, 129, pp. 437-450. Harbeson, Rothchild and Chazan (eds.) (1994: 1-2) made the point that “civil society is a hitherto missing key to sustained political reforms, legitimate states and governments, improved governance, viable state-society and state-economy relationships and the prevention of the kind of political decay that undermined new African governments a generation ago”.

24

By this I refer to NGOs that exist only in the briefcases of their founders.

25

The concept of class suicide is used here for wont of a better analytical concept and is borrowed from Amilcar Cabral. It is based on the realpolitical assumption that the bourgeoisie, like any other class, always protects its own interest. But due to the specificity of the African situation, protection of bourgeois interests merely deepens underdevelopment. To develop Africa economically, this class will have to jettison its class interest and pursue the interests of the productive group in society. See Nzongola-Ntalaja (1984), “Amilcar Cabral and the Theory of National Liberation Struggle”, in Latin America Perspectives, Vol. 11, Nr. 2, Unity and Struggle: Reassessing the Thoughts of Amilcar Cabral (Spring); or Davidson, Basil (1984),”On Revolutionary Nationalism: The legacy of Cabral” in ibid, pp. 15-42 for detailed discussions.

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Chapter 5

THE CONTEXT AND DYNAMICS OF THE CONFLICTS IN WEST AFRICA “But as the situation in Sierra Leone has improved, it has become painfully evident that the war is not its own, but rather part of a larger conflict that began in Liberia, engulfed Guinea, and is now back inside Liberia” International Crisis Group, April 2002

5.1 Introduction The focus of my analysis up till now has been the background to the economic and political weakness of African states and the debilitating effects of structural changes in the international political economy on those states. One might therefore be led to think that the effects of these changes to individual African states are uniform. This is not the case. Differential combination of different factors produced different result across the board. This explains why not all states in Africa collapsed as well as under what conditions which states could collapse and why the states that did not collapse may not get stronger, just hanging somewhere in the middle. I prefer to refer to those states as states in limbo,1 a category of which Nigeria is a typical example. From this point onwards, I will be concentrating on West Africa which is the region of my empirical studies. The point is that detailed empirical studies for the purposes of theory testing and amendment are becoming increasingly accepted in the social sciences. William Reno (1998: Chapter 2) advances the thesis that the demand for neoliberal political and economic reforms induced Africa’s weakest states to creatively devise means of exploiting those changes in the international political economy to consolidate their rulership without the demanded institutional capacity building. One such innovation is the emergence of new partnerships between rulers of weak states and non-state actors, especially international businessmen and even criminals in which those actors take over functions that used to be the exclusive preserve of states. The result was what he described as warlord politics. Warlord politics refers to the instrumentalisation of violence for controlling depots and markets of raw materials. Another distinguishing characteristic of warlord politics is the total abandonment of economic development and bureaucratic strengthening in order to enhance the ruler’s personal 187

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power. The last characteristic of warlord politics is the total disappearance of differences between private and collective interests. Thus, the political reality of African states which has been camouflaged by appearances of statehood is laid bare. The tendency for warlords to privately protect their business interests in a situation of statelessness then leads to violence (Reno 2000: 54-55) of which civil war is only but one. Conceptually, state failure/collapse could be accomplished without violence.2 Empirically (in West Africa), violence has always accompanied outright collapse. The destruction of formal state bureaucratic institutions at the hands of the shadow state ruler and his associates (Reno 2000: 47) is for me an indicator of failure, not collapse, because those institutions lose the capability of discharging their constitutional functions; verbatim, they fail. But this is not collapse because the state could still monopolise instruments of violence and taxation. However, the threshold of collapse is fluid, a basic reason for the lack of unified indicators for delineating failure or collapse.3 Thus, in West Africa, a state collapsed before the outbreak of violence (Liberia); failed states collapsed in the midst of violence (Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast), a failing state withstands violent invasion in the dynamic development of the West African conflict without collapsing (Guinea). Bad governance is decisive in the aetiology of state collapse and could lead to civil wars which could engulf a country irrespective of the dynamics of the West African conflict. To illustrate, state collapse and civil war occurred in Guinea-Bissau unaffected by the dynamics of the conflicts in West Africa although it was managed alongside the Liberian and Sierra Leonian conflicts. This is why a study of the conflict is undertaken in this study to underline the primacy of bad governance in the occurrence of such phenomena and the dominance of international elitist interests in the conflict management process which reproduces the state of affairs that led to violence and collapse in the first place. A specific character of state collapse in Africa which this empirical part is dedicated to is the tendency to regionalisation: the collapse of a state spreads to its neighbours and could threaten the whole sub-region. This has variously been termed “contagion effect” or “spill-over effect”. But these terminologies hide more than they expose because they never delve into discussing the mechanisms of contagion. Furthermore, they make the regional spread seem so natural. My research endeavours show that regionalisation is appropriate to the political economy of post-Cold War violence. Neoliberal globalisation simplifies access to the international market by undermining boundaries and in the attempt to exploit 188

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this simplification, actors disregard national boundaries in search of access to raw materials needed in the international market or in the attempt to control such markets. Reno (1998: 2) was therefore right to note that “warlord rulers and their allies disrupt authority in other states. They ignore the significance of frontiers if they obstruct efforts to control markets, clandestine or visible”. The use of state power for capital accumulation which weakens states also predisposes politicians from neighbouring states to establish contacts with warlords: they help warlords with state sovereignty while warlords pay in cash or with resources. Thus, judging by the role played by some political actors in Ivory Coast, it is not surprising that the Liberian conflict which became the West African conflict by engulfing Sierra Leone and Guinea had to later on spread to Ivory Coast. One researcher notes that the covert support given to the Taylor rebellion by Ivorian officials was based on their intention of using access to tropical woods and mineral resources in Liberia to compensate for the decline in proceeds from the plantation economy that Ivory Coast experienced at the time coupled with the intentions of extending the francophone area of influence (Johnson 2001: 82). The only state whose power wielder took active part in orchestrating the West African conflict without the conflict spreading to the state is Burkina-Faso. This could be traced to the fact that BurkinaFaso does not have mineral resources that could bankroll wars. The case of Guinea could be regarded as further proof of this theoretical position because the Liberian conflict engulfed first Sierra Leone and later Guinea. But due to lack of mineral resources that could sustain the war, it was relatively easy for Guinea to defeat the rebels early enough. In this vein, two scholars demonstrate that it is not the availability of mineral resources per se that determines conflict but more importantly, the dominant manner of extraction (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005). In their revenuecentred framework for explaining conflicts, they demonstrated that the dominant industrial mode of bauxite extraction in Guinea was decisive for saving that country from collapse. 5.2 Favourable Conditions for State Collapse in West Africa Sub-Saharan African states are being held together by elite consensus over the use of state power for capital accumulation by means of controlling proceeds from sale of mineral resources and agricultural products or through the receipt of international development aid and credit facilities. This has been explained with the concept of “elite accommodation” (Bayart 1993); or “shadow state” (Reno 1998) while emphasising the utili189

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sation of structures based on informal personal ties (beyond the officialinstitutional structures); or prebendal politics (Joseph 1987) while referring to the personal appropriation of state’s revenues. The demand for reforms by the IFIs disrupted the elite accommodation in West Africa and in extreme cases led to elite fragmentation. That is, rulers sought to reduce the number of their clientele by weeding-out some strongmen. Those strongmen, of course not wanting to lose their economic bases, reacted ruthlessly; and given favourable conditions, proceeded to attack the rulers. The favourable conditions that influenced such attacks in which some states collapsed include the existence of clandestine commercial networks, the availability of portable natural resources, declining internal resources and most importantly, elite fragmentation (cf. Reno 2000). For reasons that have to do with the colonial policy of nipping African entrepreneurial tendencies in the bud, the post-colonial activities of the marketing boards and differential regional developments as a result of capturing the state by feigned ethnic interests, West Africa is inundated with clandestine commercial routes and networks often with an ethnic bent. Oftentimes, it is the ethnic group that is discriminated against in the distribution of national infrastructural facilities that dominates the clandestine commercial activities. West Africa’s increasing participation in drug business following the economic downturn of the 1980s entrenched these clandestine commercial networks and brought them into contact with international capital. Neoliberal reforms that emphasised weakening of borders played into the hands of such economic actors. When the strongmen that were weeded-out needed international contacts, they were not hard to find. These contacts were used to sell raw materials in the international market and buy weapons with the proceeds and attack the ruler(s) that tried to weed them out. The precondition was of course that neither heavy machinery nor considerable capital was needed to extract such resources. Thus, the West African war economy featuring diamonds, rubber, tropical timber etc. was born. It has to be emphasised however, that grievance gave birth to the rebellions and war economies merely prolonged and sustained them. The extraction of alluvial diamonds and timber does not require heavy machinery. This explains why Liberia and Sierra Leone collapsed as against Guinea (portable raw materials but dominant industrial mode of extraction) and why nation-wide violence and state collapse may not be possible in Nigeria within the current dispensation: the extraction of crude oil (the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy) requires heavy machinery 190

The Context and Dynamics of the Conflicts in West Africa

as well as considerable capital and firms that are ready to invest such sums would want some guarantee which only states (not warlords) could give. Thus, Nigeria may not experience outright civil war or state collapse because the nature of crude oil extraction compels all strands of the political class to preserve the state while fighting to control it. The economy of violence (in Niger Delta) is most likely to remain the way it is without pulling down the state: oil bunkering for onward sale in the international market and weapons purchased to kidnap, terrorise and intimidate the employees of oil companies and state security agents without direct attack on the state. Table 12 depicts why state collapse and civil war may not be possible in Nigeria and Guinea given the circumstances covered in this discussion. It equally shows the primacy of bad governance in precipitating state collapse while qualifying the importance of lootable portable materials. Guinea Bissau has no lootable portable material. Yet she collapsed. Table 12: Favourable Conditions for State Collapse in West Africa

Liberia Sierra Leone Guinea Ivory Coast Nigeria Guinea Bissau

Elite fragmentation X X X X

Clandestine Commercial Networks X X X X X X

Availability of portable/lootable raw materials X X X

Declining internal resources X X X X X X

Once again, we notice here one of the direct consequences of the lack of a bourgeoning private sector. A functional private sector would probably have disposed the weeded-out strongmen to concentrate on capital accumulation through the private sector. But state power being their source of livelihood, they decided to fight it out and in the process brought some weak states to collapse. This argument demonstrates a weakness in the war economy approach to civil wars which stresses the long drawn out wars as being purposive. In the subsequent empirical studies, we will see that the intention of the earlier protagonists was to capture state power and possibly use it to accumulate capital. Protagonists were forced to settle down for proceeds from war economies (which are considerable anyway) due to inability to win state power through warfare. In this regard, my argument is similar to Malone/Nitschke’s

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(2005) that war economies contribute to the extension of the duration of civil wars but not their causes. War economies constitute the nexus of internal and international interests in sustaining African conflicts. This nexus becomes clearer when one looks at the conflict management practices of foreign powers. For purposes of specificity, the processes of state collapse which always involves civil wars will be traced under three headings – immediate and remote causes, war process and conflict management for each specific case. 5.3 Remote Causes and Trigger Factors of the Conflicts in West Africa It has been observed that the conflicts and state collapse in West Africa have the similar remote and trigger factors and are intertwined in their dynamic development in which they are mutually reinforced. Rulers and politicians fan the embers of ethnic sentiments in order to secure a modicum of legitimacy. This leads to ethnic discrimination which, with the passage of time, assumes its own dynamics, militates against social cohesion and combined with other factors, could trigger off conflicts. In Liberia, the remote causes of conflict that underlined state collapse could be traced to the exploitation of the artificial national boundaries drawn by the abolitionists in the discrimination against the natives by the AmericoLiberians as well as the counter-discrimination against the AmericoLiberians and other non-Krahn natives by Master Sergeant Samuel Doe. The blockade of opportunities for upward social mobility for majority of the masses by the dominant True Whigs Party elite provided an additional political cause. These factors which contributed to the strained relations between the two groups accounted for the sociocultural context of the causes. Taken on their face values, these factors could not have been decisive in the collapse of the state and the civil war for the fact that the conflict potentials of this state of affairs could have been emasculated with good governance.

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Table 13: Remote and Trigger Factors of State Collapse and Civil Wars in West Africa 1989-2004 Liberia

Sierra Leone

Bad governance

Bad governance

Corruption Economic crisis Ethnic Discrimination

Corruption Economic crisis Rebellious Youth Culture Relative Deprivation

Counter discrimination Relative Deprivation Artificial state creation Taylor’s NPFL attack against Doe’s Government

Liberian Civil War

GuineaBissau Bad governance

Ivory Coast

Guinea

Bad governance

Bad governance

Corruption Economic crisis Ethnic Diskrimination Counter discrimination Repression of the Opposition Relative Deprivation Mane’s Coup against Vieira

Corruption Economic crisis Ethnic Discrimination

Corruption Economic crisis Repression of the Opposition Relative deprivation

Relative Deprivation Repression of the Opposition

Liberian Civil War

Liberian Civil war

The civil war and state collapse in Sierra Leone was triggered off by the dynamic development of the conflict in neighbouring Liberia. But the basic cause lies in the politics of primitive accumulation accompanied by undemocratic and dictatorial governance since independence. The end of the Cold War and the demand for reforms from international capital led to a fragmentation of elite networks, extension of clandestine commercial channels and new conditions of external patronage. Taylor therefore harnessed these conditions in combination with availability of portable/lootable raw materials (alluvial diamonds, timber, etc.) to launch his rebellion. In order to reduce the pressure from ECOMOG and because his rebellion (and rule) was tied to commerce, he could not restrict his politics to rigid boundaries.

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“The invasion of Sierra Leone in part followed the NPFL’s sharp business practices and efforts to add to Taylor’s profits from regional trade in diamonds, timber, and cash crops beyond Liberia” (Reno 1998: 98).

This also applies to Ivory Coast and Guinea. Taylor thus has two reasons for the formation of Sierra Leonian rebel group – the Revolutionary United Front – partly for two strategic reasons: to weaken ECOMOG and to punish the state of Sierra Leone for providing ECOMOG with military bases from which they tried to stop him (Adebajo 2002). However, this would not have been possible in the absence of the war economy that not only enables the prosecution of such endeavours but more so, makes it lucrative. To realise their aims therefore, they (Taylor and RUF leaders) instrumentalised the band of hopeless youths popularly known as rarray mandem or area boys4. For similar economic reasons coupled with the contribution of troops to ECOMOG, civil wars were also instigated in Ivory Coast and Guinea and the conflicts in West Africa escalated. As a matter of fact, these actors were mainly driven by the need for change expressed by popular uprisings and enabled by the financial gains to be made through revenues from the operational zones of the wars; an extension of using politics to amass wealth. The grounds have been prepared by grievances resulting from long years of bad governance. Thus, analyses of such conflicts have to combine greed and grievance factors. However, the protagonists had to seek justifications for their acts in order to garner public support. Thus, Blaise Campaore, the President of Burkina Faso who has always been Taylor’s accomplice in the conflicts sought to tacitly justify his sponsorship of Ivorian rebels by making it appear as if the discontent of Burkinabes with the post Houphouét-Boigny regime which cooperated with ECOMOG to fight Taylor constituted the ground for his action. He intended to increase his level of popularity at home by claiming to be fighting a government that denies his people a substantial part of their means of livelihood.5 The extreme weakness of the states involved made it possible for the leaders to use war as a means of pursuing their own personal economic interests disguised as state policies. Furthermore, the dynamic context of these civil wars that accompanied the collapse of the involved states is established by the fact that the rebel groups of respective countries consisted partially of citizens of other West African countries that were to be engulfed in the conflict as it geographically escalated or of the nationalities of the war sponsors. To exemplify, the Liberian rebel group (NPFL) comprised Liberians as well as Sierra Leonians, Gambians and Burkinabes. The RUF of Sierra Leone 194

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contained Liberian, Guinean and other West African nations’ citizens including former Guinean General Zoumanigui who led a 1996 coup against Conté (ICG 2002: 4). Likewise, the Ivorian rebels consisted of Liberian and Burkinabe citizens just as the Guinean rebels consisted of Guineans, Liberians and Burkinabes. Similarly, Burkinabes and Guineans have been sighted amongst the Forces Nouvelles in Ivory Coast. The distribution of ethnic groups in West Africa constituted one of the remote causes of the conflicts. Most West African states contained several ethnic groups just as some ethnic groups are split between two or more states. Instead of weakening the centrifugal propensity of ethnic “differences” through a genuine pursuit of the goals of good governance, they proceeded to further divide their peoples by politicising ethnicity and even religion. It was advantageous to the political elite to instigate animosities among the ethnic groups because it diverts the attention of the citizens from the practice of accumulation by the rulers and thus blurs their consciousness of the contradictions between their interests and those of the ruling elite as the masses of respective ethnic group strive to identify with the elite that stem from their ethnic groups as the representatives of their ethnic interests. A neo-patrimonial system that emphasises the private exploitation of national revenues invariably maintains this kind of politics. The weak state became weaker and the difficulty in the provision of political goods increased. Using state power to amass wealth makes politics violent and diverts attention from good governance and development issues. National economies are not diversified with the consequence that the decline in the revenues from natural resources heralded a high level of economic recession. The general weakness of the state (with special reference to the security apparatus) increased with the reduction in military aid as a result of the demise of the Cold War and impelled the privatisation of security and the pervasiveness of violence in political and social matters. This is another point where I take issues with the war economy analysis that sees the economic gains of the war as constituting the primary motive for conflicts. This does not hold water in West Africa. The main problem in West Africa is the personalisation of state power and personal appropriation of state funds. This diverts attention from development and lays too much emphasis on politics and the economic gains of power. Ethnic affiliations are mobilised for support in the midst of discrimination decried by the excluded. This leads often to political highhandedness and instability which sometimes degenerates into military coups and civil war. Any observer of African politics will notice that po195

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litical murders, kidnaps, military coups, counter-coups and civil wars have consistently accompanied developments in that region since independence. War economies therefore could not have presented the motives since there have been civil wars even as there were no war economies (pre-1989). War economies provide the means of war and therefore exacerbated the tendency to war as well as its longevity; but the desire of the protagonists has always been to gain state power or a part of it. A researcher notes on Liberia: “Taylor’s original goal was to capture the executive mansion for himself. Had Taylor done so, he, too, would have tried to assemble his own patronage network with resources from his position as the head of a sovereign state. But in late August 1990, a multilateral 12,000-person intervention force known as the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) prevented Taylor from entering Liberia” (William Reno 1998: 92-93).

The oligarchic and corrupt system of governance in Liberia which favoured the Americo-Liberians against the natives (Congos in local parlance) up to Doe’s coup in 1980 provoked the counter-discrimination mounted by Sergeant Doe with such a brazen brutality that the society was seriously divided. In Sierra Leone, the corrupt and repressive regime of African Peoples Congress (ACP) produced a rebellious youth culture. This relatively uneducated youth became more and more radicalised with the worsening economic situation (a product of bad governance) that they became ready-made recruits to the rebels. This development is not restricted to Sierra Leone but traverses all West African countries. In Ivory Coast, a widely believed economic wonder blossomed as long as the international prices of agricultural products (mostly cocoa and coffee) were favourable. The political system appeared stable as long as President Houphouet-Boigny used the proceeds to oil his clientelistic system. His overbearing father-figure left no room for protests against his governance. His death coincided with the unpleasant consequences of the implementation of political and economic reforms as demanded by international creditors. The politicisation of ethnicity (and religion) which resulted therefrom in concert with the dissatisfaction of the unemployed youths coming back to the villages after having lost their means of livelihood to the SAP divided the society deeply and provoked the attack of the rebels which arose in the dynamic development of the Liberian crisis. To illustrate, Charles Taylor attacked Ivory Coast in order to secure the cocoa belt and very important seaport of San Pedro, revenge the murder

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of his friend General Gueí by Ivorian soldiers, provide the RUF rebels with an opportunity of paying themselves through looting and robbery, revenge President Gbagbo’s support for the LURD and finally to secure an escape route in case LURD-attacks become too dangerous. In Guinea, the post-independence government was initiated with a dictatorial proclamation of socialism. Economic problems coupled with the oppression of political opposition, lack of political freedom and the effects of the SAP prepared the grounds which under the influence of the dynamics of the conflicts in West African (inflow of refuges and the strategic intents of Charles Taylor and Blaise Campaore) led to the conflict. In Guinea-Bissau, the political leaders that came mainly from Cape Verde discriminated against the other ethnic groups. As Kumba Yala, a Balanta (one of the discriminated ethnic groups) came to power after the civil war; he favoured his ethnic group and discriminated against the others. Out of a discrimination and counter-discrimination, a feeling of relative deprivation arose. The socially disadvantaged felt excluded from the distribution of national resources, a situation that deflected their support to the rebels.6 In Liberia for example, Samuel Doe initially enjoyed the support of a wider margin of the citizens until his policy of favouring the Krahn ethnic group (4% of the Liberian population – ICG 2002: 31) became clear. This was also the case with Charles Taylor’s rebellion until his atrocities denied him the popular support. Recalls Abdoulaye Dukule, a renowned troubleshooter for the West African conflict in the late 1980s and early 1990s, “I don’t know of anyone in 1989 who wasn’t happy that someone was coming to overthrow Doe” (Boston Globe 1996: 2). Discrimination against the Northern Moslems by the post-HouphouétBoigny regime played a role in splitting Ivory Coast. Where no roles could be directly ascribed to ethnic discrimination or counterdiscrimination like in Ivory Coast, the rebels profiled themselves as champions of the Northern cause. A remarkable commonality of the cases treated in this book is that they all took place in states where bad governance has been entrenched to the extent of excluding other parties in the political system: one-party states. Guinea and Guinea Bissau took to socialism immediately after independence and correspondingly outlawed all the other political parties. Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast became de facto one-party systems because their leaders (Siaka Stevens and Felix Houphouét-Boigny respectively) were of the opinion that multi party democracy is unsuitable for African societies. Liberia was not declared a one-party state de jure but the domination of the political landscape by the True Whigs Party from 1870 197

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up to Doe’s coup in 1980 made the state de facto a one-party state. It is obvious that the blocking of political opposition opened the way to war as an outlet for the expression of political disagreements. Nigeria could serve as a counterfactual case in which the political class is rather inclusive by proliferating political posts and coopting new members to fill them. A further characteristic that is common to these civil wars under situations of state collapse is lack of a better idea of governance and wanton terrorism on the civil population. Previously, rebel organisations have been known to propagate an alternative ideology or system of governance. This new ideology or system of government is normally applied to new territories won in the course of the war to convince the populace of the superiority of their ideas to those of the incumbent government and thus win their support. Such movements are welded together by the belief in the new ideology or ideas. The conflicts in West Africa introduced a new dimension to this process. There was no proof that Charles Taylor and his NPFL had a better idea than Samuel Doe. They were only united in the intent to replace Doe in power and position of privilege. This claim also applies to the RUF in Sierra Leone, a rebel organisation devoid of ideology and organisation. Later on in their campaign, they published the “Footpaths to Democracy” as a counter to the mounting criticisms that they were only spreading terror and mayhem and did not possess any alternative ideas (Abdulahi 1997: 69). But considered against the background of terror and destruction which they visited on the citizens, it is unlikely that better governance played a role in their considerations. The basis of this assumption is not only the belated publication of Footpaths to Democracy but also the common reasoning that no group kills and maims the population that it intends to save from bad governance. The warfare was so brutal that one is forced to think about the Durkheimian anomie: the long duration of bad governance had led to rejection of the state and undermining of the societal norms and values that the state was supposed to protect. An additional factor to the emergence of the West African conflict is the actions or inactions of external forces (including international organisations). Some of these forces have vested interests in the civil wars which they sought to protect even if it meant supporting corrupt leaders, warlords or extending the wars. There are some others, which although have no direct interest in the conflict, but through their inactions deliberately contributed to the geographical escalation of the conflict due to the nature and arrangement of international and regional environments. A number 198

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of states (African as well as non-African) had economic, political or strategic interests in these violent civil conflicts and the pursuit and protection of such interests not only weakened the conflict management but also contributed to the geographical escalation of the Liberian war by imposing military-strategic tactical behaviour on Charles Taylor. Suffice it to say that Libya enormously contributed to the nascency of the conflicts by training a handful of the rebels (ICG 2002, Ellis 1999, Abdullah 1997), by financially supporting their campaigns and through the free distribution of the Green Book in the whole of West Africa. The acceptance of the Green Book as the ideological guide was made possible by the lack of own ideology (Abdullahi 1997). In such a complex situation, it behoves conflict management to take cognisance of the background causes and the multifarious dimensions and conditions in order to effectively contain the conflict. But a careful analysis of the method of conflict management depicts that certain means were employed (most especially weak military forces) to affect the conflict from outside, focusing only on certain aspects of the conflict (organisation of top echelon of state administration). Prominent parts of this method include the implementation of a ceasefire, the conversion of rebel groups to political parties and the admission of rebels in an interim government. Most of the countries that took part in conflict management utilised the opportunity to pursue their (national or rulers’) interests which produced a weak conflict management mandate. In cases where robust military mandates were authorised (or should I say authorised itself), the soldiers and their commanders merely exposed their weaknesses in the execution of their assignment and the neglect of human rights and democratic principles. This they did by getting involved in the warfare and war economies, thus enriching themselves and defeating the purpose of their operation. The perception of politics as an avenue for personal enrichment considerably influenced this attitude and lends credence to the assumption that a regional organisations comprising of weak states could not rise above the weakness of its constituent members. Under such conditions, the structural basis of the conflict could not be tackled; rather, symptoms were addressed. This led to the re-ignition of the same or further conflicts during or immediately after the negotiations. 5.4 Factors directly influencing the regional dynamic Having discussed the remote causes of the West African conflict, it is appropriate to look at the more immediate causes. A combination of the above mentioned factors exposed the weakness and inappropriateness of 199

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conflict management and constituted the background to the emergence of the dynamic. The following factors could be regarded as the catalysts. 1. The lack of political will on the part of the US and the international community “Liberia’s misfortune was that its civil war coincided with the end of the Cold War; which overnight cost the country its strategic utility” (ICG 2002: 33).

Thus, the US and the donor community were reluctant to help. The US rather tacitly supported the Nigerian organised ECOMOG and on the 5th of August 1990, sent her marine to evacuate US and other Western citizens (ibid). Taylor invaded Liberia with 150 combatants hurriedlytrained in Libya and Burkina-Faso (ICG 2002: 32). These rag-tag soldiers wouldn’t have posed a threat to any well-organised troop of professional soldiers with morale, dedication to duty and determination. But the US, which has cultivated very close ties to Liberia “through long established military, social and cultural links and the fact that Liberia was long governed by descendants from nineteenth-century American slaves” (ICG 2002: 32) didn’t bother; and neither did the UNO nor the donor community. 2. The interests of several West African rulers in the conflict: Several West African rulers have divergent interests in the Liberian conflict and there are unconfirmed reports of Liberian banks being used by these leaders to launder money. There was also family relationsdimension to the whole conflict. For example, Taylor was related to Quinwonkpa by marriage (Ellis 1999: 57).7 President Houphouét-Boigny of Ivory Coast was related to President Tolbert of Liberia as Boigny’s adoptive daughter was married to Tolbert’s son who was murdered by Doe. The division of West Africa into Anglophone and francophone also played a role in the development of the dynamic. “The intervention was controversial from the start because various member states (e.g. Burkina-Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Nigeria and Sierra Leone) used Liberia’s warring factions to advance their particular or regional economic and political aims” (ICG 2002: 33).

Consequentially, ECOMOG “immediately became a party to the war itself” (Ellis 1995: 2) and lost the legitimacy necessary for conflict management. The war was thus prolonged. 200

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3. The method of conflict management whereby rebel groups are accepted as negotiating partners and apportioned political posts in the interim governments contributed to the dynamic especially as the expanse of the area under a rebel’s control was a criterion for invitation to participate in the interim government. The message was clear to the protagonists: spread as much mayhem and terror as possible in order to take control of an area and use the control to obtain participation at conflict management and membership of the governments of national unity which secures participation in the personal appropriation of national income – the main reason for the conflict in the first place. Rebels were therefore not discouraged in any form, they were rather encouraged. Rebel groups were converted to political parties and their leaders appointed ministers in the interim government - the wars were thus, worth their while. 4. Failure of Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration of the combatants (DDR): The disarmament and demobilisation of combatants and their reintegration back to normal life was an essential pillar of the conflict management. The end was not only to cement the end of hostilities but most importantly, to pre-empt their repeat. Subsequently, combatants were requested to give back their arms and ammunitions to the ECOMOG or UNO soldiers, receive a remuneration for that and depending on age, be sent back to non-existent schools or be advised to learn a useless trade. This practice gave birth to a form of “arms race” in West Africa. I received reports that the conflict management missions were giving about USD150 to 200 for an AK-47 which cost about USD22 in the West African black market at the time (2002-2003). Majority of the combatants gave up their old AK-47 and with the money collected from the conflict management missions bought new weapons for USD22 which they gave up for more money. In a well-researched publication, human rights watch (2005: 2-4) reports that majority of the combatants who participated in the 20002003 UN-sponsored Sierra Leonean Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration program received only partial benefits, were kept out of the skills training component of the program or failed to receive any benefits at all. Similar complaints were heard from participants of the UNsponsored 2003-2005 disarmament program where a severe shortage of USD39 million left some 40, 000 combatants at the risk of missing out training on the job and education. Corruption and inadequate grievance201

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treatment procedure within the DDR program were mentioned as serious problems. And a result of their helplessness and hopelessness, they had to continue to risk their lives in order to earn a living by moving to other conflicts. The result was that the same group of rarray-man dem / area boys turned combatants were patrolling the coast of West Africa as an itinerant labour force armed with weapons of war. “Since April 2004, well over two-thirds of the Liberian ex-combatants interviewed, in addition to several of the Sierra Leoneans, had been asked to join fighting “missions” in Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire. Among those approached to fight in Guinea about half had been approached by commanders claiming to represent a fledgling Guinean insurgency, and the other half by those claiming to be supporters of the Guinean President Lansana Conté. Aid Organisations and United Nations officials working in Liberia say that hundreds of recently demobilised combatants, including children, have since at least November 2004 been re-recruited to fight in in Cote d’Ivoire. The majority have, according to the reports, gone to fight alongside militias associated with the Ivorian government” (ibid: 4).

This conclusion confirms the views expressed in an interview with the Commander of the United Nations Forces in Sierra Leone early 2003, General Daniel Opande, who estimated that only between 25,000 and 30,000 out of the 75,000 militiamen that were supposed to be disarmed, demobilised and reintegrated in the Sierra Leonian conflict actually underwent the process. He went on, “if these people could not be kept busy for a relatively long period of time, they will shift into the next troubled area to foment further conflict”. 5. Taylor’s insecurity Closely allied to the above point is the issue of insecurity for Charles Taylor who has built up a war machine (a collection of unemployed youths) that had to be kept busy with war and booty in order to avoid their constituting a security nuisance for him. According to Ibrahim Abdullah, a Sierra Leone born professor of history at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, while referring to the conflict in his motherland: “if you can’t give Taylor what he wants from Sierra Leone, you can give him anything and he wont stop. What he is getting from Sierra Leone is jobs for his boys” (Washington Post 2000: 1).

There is another sense in which insecurity for Charles Taylor has led to geographical escalation of the Liberian conflict to a West African con202

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flict. After becoming President of Liberia in 1997, he created an unwieldy security apparatus that dangerously slipped out of his control. “While continually feeding the ego of his Anti-terrorist Unit and Special Security Service forces with vehicles and money, his inability to pay his militia and army has led to severe competition for looting. With guns plentiful and competition for loot, Taylor’s ability to control the chaos is in doubt” (ICG 2002: 14).

6. End of the Cold War, Apartheid South Africa and Availability of Small Weapons: Soviet military arsenal was plundered following the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Consequently, international black market was awash with cheap small weapons and experienced soldiers and secret agents who were ready to lend their expertise to warlords and stressed rulers for pay. Neoliberal globalisation that eased access to the international market was also influential in this stance. The interplay of these factors meant an escalation of the wars as rebels could easily plunder areas rich in mineral resources and dispose of them in the black markets, buying weapons with the proceeds. The coincidental demise of Apartheid regime in South Africa was also influential in these developments. Thus, there were a lot of ex-spies with wide Cold War contacts marauding as advisers and businessmen and were very influential in the economics of warfare and privatisation of security. Despite the moratorium on importation, exportation and manufacture of small weapons sponsored by ECOWAS and signed by all West African leaders in 1998, rulers of West African states still helped insurgent groups in neighbouring countries with weapons smuggle for financial gains. 7. Finally, the movement of refugees also contributed to the regionalisation of the conflict in West Africa. Rebels have been known to hide among refugees in order to avoid detection and gain access to target areas. This phenomenon was most pronounced in the unsuccessful attack on Guinea. The Guinean government believed that rebels hid themselves amongst refugees and attacked at night. Consequently, as a refugee camp suddenly was found empty by international human rights groups, speculations were rife that the Guinean government has massacred the refugees in order to get at the rebels. There was no evidence to this claim which the Guinean government denied anyway. A more plausible explanation is that Guinean authorities must have disbanded the refugee

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camps in order to demobilise the insurgents. However, shortly after this incident, the internal war was over. The fact that there was money to be made through warfare even up to the integration of rebels in the interim government gave an additional impulse to the dynamic. Thus, the Liberian civil war was deliberately extended to neighbouring Sierra Leone, then to Guinea and finally Ivory Coast partially with the same combatants. Several on the spot reports from the International Crisis Group, Global Witness, the United Nation’s Expert panel, secret service agents of some Western states, Civil Society Organisations (Amnesty International and Medécins sans Frontiers), Africa Confidential and international journalists attest to the common context of the conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast – the West African Conflict. And it is appropriate to talk of its dynamics because a combination of the above factors gave the conflict a motion of its own, enabling it to reproduce itself across formal national boundaries. 5.5 Conclusion To underline the position of this book on the greed vs. grievance debate, a wide spectrum of the West African societies was aggrieved with the effects of bad governance and this prompted a coalition of radicals and opportunists to engage in actions that sought to change the situation. However, the long standing politics of personal aggrandisement coupled with the obstacles presented by conflict management drove the actors to strategically secure their struggles through war economies that then prolonged the wars as it gave the protagonists access to the state’s revenues. It is therefore inappropriate to reduce the motives to the gains of war economies or the greed of single protagonists. A study remarks with reference to the Liberian conflict, “the problems facing Liberia go beyond just one man. Taylor is in many ways a creature of his time and place, and thrives in the violent, patronage-based, and corruption-riddled, big-man focused political culture that afflicts the country” (ICG 2002: 20).

This statement is applicable to almost all West African states. Thus, greed predates the collapse of states and could not possibly be the reason for the violence that coincided with the collapse of states. Bad governance gives rise to cadres of radical progressive movements seeking a change of the status quo. They often become absorbed by new regimes with an intention of instrumentalising the good names of such radicals to legitimise their governments. Why these radicals forget 204

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their ideals and become part of the status quo could be the subject of further research. To expatiate, most leaders of the Liberian rebel groups were critics of previous regimes until they got absorbed by incoming ones. Charles Taylor, initially a left-wing member of the “progressive alliance” featuring MOJA and PAL, was the Director of the General Coastal Services, a government procurement body. The leader of the rebel group – the Liberian Peace Council (LPC) – Dr. George Boley, was a junior Minister for Information under Tolbert and later on Presidential Affairs and Education Minister under Sergeant Doe (Ellis 1995: 173). The leader of ULIMO-K, Alhaji Kromah, was a deputy Minister for Information in William Tolbert’s government and Doe’s Information Minister. Dr. Laveli Supuwood, a senior official of Taylor’s rebel group – NPFL, was later, in company of Tom Woewiyu and Sam Dokie to decamp from the NPFL and establish the Central Revolutionary Council – CRC - and subsequently become a Minister of Justice under Sawyer’s interim government in 1994. Having fallen out with Taylor, he later on led the Union of Democratic Forces of Liberia, a rebel group that fought against Taylor. The leader of the Liberian United Defence Force, General Albert Karpeh, was a functionary in Doe’s government (ICG 2002: 33). Further examples abound. The current President of Liberia Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson was a junior Minister under Tolbert and her background (descendant of Americo-Liberians) played a role in her electoral contest. Stephen Ellis (1999: 139) aptly summarises thus, “all of the factions were run at the top level by members of the same relatively small group of politicians and technocrats who have dominated public life in Liberia since the 1970s”.

This also applies to other West African states. The Guinean rebel leader, Zoumanigui, was an army General that tried to topple the government of Conté in 1996. The Sierra Leonian rebel leader, Foday Sankoh, deviates only partially from the others in that he was a junior army officer but he did try a coup that was not successful though. All these actors did not suddenly dabble into politics because of the financial gains of warfare as the war economy analysts would like to make us believe. Rather, most of them have been at the corridors of power in “peaceful” times through the state. This is the common denominator of politics in West Africa and the root of all cases of state collapse and civil wars. A critical issue in the development of this dynamic is the class and cultural character of the rebels groups’ combatants: they all belong to the urban lumpen-proletariat that is found in almost every West African city; 205

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a group of half- or uneducated young men, without much hope of upward social mobility. Their radical and violent approach to issues is common knowledge. However, they realise very well that they are hopeless products of a very corrupt system and this may have disposed them to aggression and philistinism as Paul Richards (1996) argues. They therefore draw their means of living from criminal or grey activities, take drugs, read radical literature, listen to radical music and philosophise about changing the system. In the course of implementing the SAP, the number of people in this group rose astronomically and as a combination of neoliberal globalisation, inappropriate conflict management and war economies prolonged the Liberian conflict, their days of reckoning came. One scholar summed it thus (rather referring to Sierra Leone), “a lumpen social movement breeds a lumpen revolution” (Abdullah 1997: 69). More accurate would have been this: “warlord politics emerged as the result of a social coalition of enterprising strongmen, small-scale foreign commercial operators, and a small segment of the country’s youth” (Reno 1998: 80).

In the following empirical section, attempts will be made to back up this analytical sketch with facts.

Notes 1

I intend to develop this concept further in future research endeavours. For now, it suffices to describe states in limbo as non-developmental states where the level of elite fragmentation is not high enough to lead to a collapse of the state or even challenges to the central authority. However, underdevelopment persists and deepens. Such states never attract so much international attention because they live in ‘peaceful’ times. They equally lack the opportunity of starting afresh offered by state collapse.

2 The conception of violence here includes civil (internal) wars but is not restricted to them. Scattered portions of violence in Nigeria for example are included – Niger Delta, Sharia, Anambra State, Moslem/Christian etc. 3

See my discussion of these concepts in chapter 1. 7.

4

These youth bands, the equivalent of which is to be found in almost all West African cities consists of uneducated young people or school drop-outs whose hopes could not be realised in the corrupt system of governance as a result of

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which they reject the system and regularly discuss about dismantling it. Criminal activities and drug addiction are some of their basic occupations. 5

A lot of Burkinabe citizens live and work in Ivory Coast and their financial repatriations is an important source of livelihood to people at home. In view of the worsening economic problems in Ivory Coast at the beginning of the 1990s, the government started limiting the number of these immigrant workers and then incurred the wrath of Burkinabes.

6

It should be pointed out here that the effects of discrimination are deeply felt because the state, as the centre of distribution of resources, raised the hopes of the citizens by promising a better life in order to secure their support for independence. Often, once notices a preference for the ethnic groups of the rulers in the provision of infrastructure and appointment to national political positions.

7

Quinwonkpa is a modest and well-respected army officer who attracted a considerable following for refusing to give up his Honda Civic car for a luxury limousine or to move into a lavish mansion when most of his government colleagues have done so (Reno 1998: 85).

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Chapter 6

STATE COLLAPSE AND CIVIL WAR IN LIBERIA 6.1 Introduction The trajectory of Liberia’s emergence into statehood laid the basis for weak statehood by blocking the genesis of an indigenous resource bearing group, instituting an outward orientation of the government, initiating schism amongst the people, and neglecting the pursuit of economic development. The capital city of Monrovia and environs were founded by the United States of America (USA) in 1847 as a settlement ground for the freed slaves. The state of Liberia was established at the beginning of the 20th century by merely extending the jurisdiction of the government set up by the USA in Monrovia into the hinterland in order to ward off the colonial advances of Great Britain and France. This extension meant the loss of independence for these natives and sowed the seeds of the discord that was to develop later. Bad and discriminative governance that was practiced from 1843 onwards sharpened the conflict potentials of the artificial state borders drawn by the colonialists/abolitionists. 6.2 Root Causes Liberia’s path to statehood was critical in provoking the conflict that was to totally destabilise her later. With the economy in the hands of foreign firms, the political leaders, mainly members of leading AmericoLiberian families used their control over state power for personal enrichment and relegated issues relating to economic development to the background. Rubber was traditionally the mainstay of the modern Liberian economy. Later on, Timber, Cocoa, Coffee, Iron and Diamonds became equally paramount. Because Liberia was never a formal colony, the process of the foreign domination of the commanding heights of its economy deviated from the African norm. Taxation of commercial activities was the earliest source of revenue for the Liberian state in the nineteenth century but due to the reluctance of businessmen to pay (partly because the recognition of Liberia as a state was controversial), the government in 1870 had to take a 500,000 pounds sterling credit under extortionate conditions from a London Bank (Ellis 1999: 44). Further loans from London in 1906 and the US in 1912 brought the government in a debt quagmire and worsened the sovereignty problem as citizens of creditor nations 209

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(Britain and the US) were appointed to posts in the army, customs and treasury (Yancy 1934: 85-94); similar to the appointment of World Bank officials as Ministers in a host of African states today for the same reasons. In 1926, the then President of Liberia, Charles King, concluded a series of deals with the Firestone Rubber and Tyre Company of the USA, supported by the US state department, which brought the Liberian government USD 5 million but leased five million acres of land to Firestone for 99 years; again similar to the conclusion of credit deals by hardpressed African rulers with multinational corporations at the end of the Cold War. The Firestone credit strengthened the executive against the judiciary and legislature as the president depended less on the taxes voted by the legislature. Most of the government’s funds up till the collapse of the state in the 1980s came from such sources. For example, by 1970, Firestone and Liberia Iron Mining Company (LIMCO) were still providing about 50% of the state’s revenues and by 1980, these two companies still provided 52% of the government’s revenues (National Bank of Liberia 1989: 14). On this point, we notice a dwindling significance of tax revenue for the government, the preclusion of the chances of an African bourgeois proper and that of the disciplining effects of sourcing one’s own revenue coupled with the externalisation of sources of authority – issues that weakened the state till its collapse. Liberia later on became the world’s largest rubber producer and rubber became the mainstay of Liberia’s economy and the US its international guardian. Ellis (1999: 44-45) reports that the Firestone loan had implications for politics and administration in Liberia because it made political and bureaucratic posts the cynosure of all ambitious and educated people due to the access it gave to wealth. The preclusion of the imperatives of good governance gave room for nepotism as the professionalisation and motivation of the bureaucracy was apparently not considered to be necessary. Thus, ruling families of Americo-Liberian origin started reserving civil service positions for their children and there emerged a real oligarchy of settler families. Within this context, it is remarkable that the freed slaves and their descendants became lords and masters over the natives although they constituted only 5% of the population. This laid the basis of class and ethnic politics that was to develop later because as the Nigerian political scientist Professor Osaghae (1996) rightly pointed out, the Americo-Liberians were not only a social and political class, they were equally an aristocracy as well as an ethnic group. Another implication was that the government preferred giving trade concessions and licences 210

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to foreigners - Europeans, Americans, Lebanese and Mandingos – since these people could not use their commercial positions to build up political constituencies and possibly challenge the rulers as the Liberian nationals would have possibly done. Deliberately, the chance of citizens to build up capital outside the purview of state power was blocked. Capital formation has to take place around the struggle for state power, thereby giving political struggles a do or die character, similar to class struggles in Europe. Furthermore, the Firestone deal contributed to worsening the statesociety relations in Liberia. For example, due to the fact that Firestone could not freely recruit the labour force it needed as a result of the absence of a national labour market, the state introduced a system of forced labour that mandated the local chiefs of the hinterland to draft labourers to the Firestone plantations on a quota basis (Dorjahn and Isaac 1979: 17). Although the government of William Tubman (1944-1971) reduced the harshness of this system, the social disintegrative consequences continued as people had to involuntarily work for salaries. This meant a transfer of labour from the subsistence to the modern sector (Clower et al 1966: 259-335) and the traditional social system whereby the elderly male exercised authority over the youth through their control of the main means of subsistence production – land – was considerably obviated as young people found jobs in the new sector either as plantation workers or as soldiers by migrating to Monrovia for good (Ellis 1999: 49). A draconian tax system – the hut tax – was introduced and as Ellis (1999: 46) pointed out, “the hut tax was intended not only to provide the government with revenue but also to force the rural Liberians to offer their labour for hire, as workers for Firestone or other companies which began to establish themselves in the country”. This was justified by the fact that the hinterland was more severely taxed than the counties. For example, “in 1925, (…) the hut tax on the tribal population stood at $300,000, whereas the property tax (the main on the Americo-Liberians realised only $4,668 for the country as a whole” (Brown 1981: 1021). The institution of the Liberian state through taxation, forced labour and other forms of official high-handedness led to a series of armed rebellions especially in the south-east even as late as the 1930s (Kappel 1980: 169-196). The reaction of the natives to the manner in which the state was established in Liberia was aptly summed up by Edward Wilmot Blyden, a Liberian immigrant from the West Indies:: “The new government of Liberia was not the result of popular feeling. It was not the growth of the soil. It was forced upon the people as a protec211

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tive measure in consequence of the impositions practised upon their revenue by foreign (i.e. European) adventurers, who had no respect for a community which neither was a nation nor a colony of a nation” (in Ellis 1999: 41-42).

For obvious reasons, the relations between the freed slaves (AmericoLiberians) with the natives were tense from the beginning. Common interests with the USA in terms of common language, culture and economic system enabled them to take initial control of state power. US American business concerns controlled the top echelons of the economy (plantation agriculture, mining, and shipping industry) leaving the re-settled Liberians with the control of the political sphere. With state power at their disposal, they tapped into and strengthened their alliances with international businesses and by extending their reach into the hinterland, produced far reaching social changes (Ellis 1998: 167). They dominated and oppressed the natives for about 130 years. A few of the families of the freed slaves constituted an oligarchy which controlled the political and economic power. Here, we notice the lack of an important imperative for good governance: separation of political from economic power. With the capital accumulated through the use of state power, they established a corrupt and undemocratic system that was based on a patron/client relationship in which the ruler distributed favours to his chosen groups. This True Whig Party system of clientislism reached its apogee during the reign of William Tubman (1944-71) who introduced an Open Door Economic Policy – welcoming foreign investors and giving them concessions on favourable terms. This policy and the already mentioned transformation of the labour market in the hinterland were justified by the rhetoric of economic development, a rhetoric that was to become pervasive in Africa after independence in the 1960s. Although an average annual economic growth rate of fifteen percent was recorded between 1952 and 1957, there were serious criticisms of the system emanating from the US where the majority of the Liberian elite were educated. Consequently in 1966, the Northwestern University, in a publication, criticised the system as “growth without development” because the substantial revenue being earned by the state was not invested in infrastructure and education but rather on imported goods which enabled the elite to aspire to an American life-style (Ellis 1999: 49). The Open Door Policy increased the largesse at the disposal of the government, enabled it to centralise the patron/client system and thus weakened the resistance to the state. Instead of resistance, “the key aim of individuals was to acquire a connection with a more powerful person or 212

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family, and then to use this so as to secure an appointment either in the central bureaucracy or as a tribal official” (ibid: 48) in a system in which the President was the distributor. “Tubman’s centralisation of patronage combined with the great increase in revenue which resulted from the commercial alliances with foreign companies inherent in his Open Door Economic Policy to produce a political system in which the leader was seen as a personalisation of the nation” (Ellis 1998: 158).

This marked the beginning of personality cult that later destroyed the institutional fabric of the state. Not only that the natives were not allowed to partake in this system, they were granted few chances of upward social mobility. The ruling class created deep-seated resentments among Liberians and deep feelings of alienation in the psyches of the natives. The natives felt relatively deprived and frustrated; a situation that induces social groups to ultimately seek redress through violence (Gurr 1970). As time went on, some members of the ruling class realised the problems embodied in the system in terms of cementing their control over state power. This was why Presidents Tubman (1944-71) and Tolbert (1971-80) made efforts to improve this situation by implementing a Unification Policy. The policy was aimed at offering opportunities of upward social mobility to the elite from the hinterland (products of the previous system of indirect rule and missionary education) by giving them access to further and higher education in American colleges and universities. Although the system succeeded in producing a few indigenes of the hinterland with elitist potentials “who sought employment in the public administration, the key to wealth and status” (Ellis 1999: 49) - for example the later warlords George Boley and Alhaji Kromah, it did not succeed in healing the natives of their psychic injuries (Osaghae 1993). This policy has been criticised as having contributed to the emergence of the civil war by sharpening the contradictions inherent in the neo-patrimonial system through giving higher education to the natives but without a corresponding chance of upward social mobility. The consciousness of these contradictions was further sharpened by ideologies of radical nationalism that was very popular in Africa at the time, especially among students and graduates of institutions of higher learning. Others without higher education but with ambitions to seek jobs in the mines and plantations could not realise their aims as the crash in the international price of commodities that badly affected many African states towards the end of the 1970s

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considerably reduced employment opportunities in these sectors. The rank and file of opponents to the state swelled. Despite strong pressures from the opposition groups, Tolbert’s government maintained this neopatrimonial system coupled with repression. Not only was the government oblivious of the pressures building up against it, it continued to wallow in its pride as the first independent negro Republic and the beacon of hope for black people all over the world. This led to increased political tension in the nation. Students and radical intellectuals (Professor Amos Sawyer for example) started organising and mobilising for a change of the system. In this atmosphere, MOJA and PAL were born with radical Marxist ideology. Capitalism was blamed for the economic underdevelopment and marginalisation of Africa and logically, socialism became an interesting option. Of course, the radicalisation of West African youths through publications of Progress Press, Moscow, reggae music and Ghaddafi’s Libya that preached an Arabian/Moslem variant of socialism contributed to making the socialist option popular. Tolbert reacted to the radicalising influences in West Africa by increasingly acquiescing to the demands of the radicals and even offering some of them top government posts. For example, George Boley became a junior Minister. The more Tolbert conceded to the radicals the more he lost the support of the True Whig Party conservatives and the US. Under the influence of the radicals, he toned down his pro-American foreign policy stance and drew the ire of the Pentagon and the CIA which has its West African headquarters in Monrovia (Ellis 1999: 50). Tolbert increasingly became a victim of his personality cult as everything (support or opposition) revolved around him. Monrovia, nay West Africa in 1979 was seething with fervour of pan-Africanism and radicalism. This must have contributed to the self-reliant development policy recommendation made to the OAU by the African scholars during the OAU development conference. Economic protectionism for purposes of stimulating indigenous production featured prominently in the recommendations. Within this intellectual atmosphere, Tolbert’s government accordingly raised the price of imported rice as a discouragement for the importation of rice, West Africa’s staple food. This led to a very serious rioting and free-forall looting in which the soldiers even participated. The riots marked the beginning of the end for the Tolbert regime that was becoming increasingly isolated from almost all quarters. Radical movements exploited this state of affairs to increase the pressure on the government. This was happening at a time in Africa in which the military saw itself as the Praetorian Guard that has the responsibility of saving the state 214

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in times of crises.1 Radical scholars took their ideas to the military and Amos Sawyer secretly organised Barrack Schools, provoking the military to rescue the nation by overthrowing the Tolbert’s government. Successive Liberian presidents have pursued a policy of keeping the military out of politics but this was to change in view of economic hardships that the crash in the international market prices of primary commodities in the 1970s plunged African states into. Unemployment rose and in order to curb the radical tendencies of the employed youth, Tolbert started offering military jobs to hitherto excluded youth from the hinterland. The character and composition of the military thus underwent some changes in the sense that not only the ethnic composition was altered; politically unstable elements were employed (Sawyer in Ellis 1995: 52). These developments coupled with the discriminations in terms of promotion for soldiers from the hinterland by the leading Americo-Liberian officers contributed to politicising the military. Gradually, there were rumours of an impending coup against Tolbert who was loosing US support because of his Unification Policy. For a couple of reasons, prominent among which was the alleged leftist bent of Tolbert’s foreign policy, the US thought less of helping him and as he refused granting the US Rapid Deployment Force bunkering facilities at Robert’s Airfield, the US withdrew her support und started looking for Tolbert’s replacement (ibid). 6.3 Immediate Causes In the midst of this tension and apparent confusion in Monrovia, there came a rumour that the government was to execute some political prisoners to commemorate the previous year’s rice riots. As a preemptive move, some junior military officers led by Sergeant Thomas Quinwonkpa and Weh Syen therefore organised a coup on the 12th of April, 1980 and ousted the Tolbert government. Master Sergeant Samuel Doe (from the Grand Gedeh County in the hinterland) utilised the confusion which arose in the course of the coup to declare himself President under the auspices of his Peoples Redemption Council (PRC). President Tolbert and 13 other high government officials were publicly executed. Major Jarbo, possibly the CIA’s candidate for Tolbert’s replacement and who was supposed to be planning his own coup was caught unawares and decided to flee Liberia. Doe’s men fished him out and killed him. A similar fate befell Adolphus, Tolbert’s son. He initially took refuge in the French embassy in Monrovia. His wife, Daisy, an adoptive daughter of the Ivorian President Houphouét-Boigny, cried to her father to help spare her husband’s life. Ellis (1999: 54) reports and Adebajo (2002) confirms 215

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that Houphouét-Boigny was able to get a promise from Doe that the life of Adolphus Tolbert be spared. In June 1980, Adolphus was abducted from the French embassy and killed on Doe’s command. So arose the enmity between Doe and Houphouét-Boigny, an enmity that was to affect the politics of West Africa for more than the next two decades. In order to consolidate his power, Doe tapped into the radical progressives that were very popular at the time and their acceptance is a vindication of the necessity for change in the manner of governance. “Virtually all the leading ‘progressives’ politicians of MOJA and PAL accepted Cabinet posts or other senior jobs under the PRC” (Ellis 1999: 57). Dr. Boley was appointed presidential affairs minister. Having consolidated power, Doe (from the Krahn ethnic group) launched a policy of counter-discrimination. He ethnicised the army and the bureaucracy by favouring mainly people from the Krahn and Mandingo ethnic groups in his appointments to high positions in these institutions. Although Doe sold his coup to the public as an anti-Americo-Liberian coup, he could not successfully consolidate power at the expense of this group that have wielded enormous political, and most importantly, economic power, owed him no loyalty and have their men in key bureaucratic positions. The political logic of patronage system made it almost mandatory for Doe to equally tap into the Americo-Liberians business operations and convert that into political resources. The Americo-Liberians, on the other hand, needed state power to preserve their overseas business contacts, capital and local prestige (Reno 1998: 81). So arose a symbiotic relationship in which Doe played the junior partner without knowing it as events will later prove. The ideals that gave Doe popular support on taking power dissipated immediately he mountend the throne. Without the necessity of pursuing economic development to retain power, nepotism (and not qualification) became the basis of recruitment into government and the civil service with consequences for state weakness. Thomas Quinwonkpa, now an army General, had the right to appoint his own point men in government. This was how Charles Taylor, “a child of intermarriage between a native (his mother, a Gola) and a Congo2, thus making him “all things to all men”” (ICG 2002: 32) and a relative of Quinwonkpa’s (a Gio of the Manor ethnic group) through marriage (Ellis 1999: 57) became the Director of the Government Coastal Services (GSA). The initial plan of the PRC was to return the country to civilian rule in due course. However, the political economy of power in a context that lacks the imperatives of good governance often leads to personalisation and perpetuation of power. By 216

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1983, it was becoming apparent that Doe intended succeeding himself, rather as a civilian president. His draft of a new constitution that was to enable him become civilian president was pushed through by the PRC and elections were to take place in 1985. Part of the plan was to remove General Quinwonkpa, the commanding General of the army and a possible rival from this position to that of secretary general of the PRC, a much weaker position (Ellis 1999: 57, ICG 2002: 32). Quinwonkpa refused the offer and fearing for his life, went into exile accompanied by some of his close associates including Prince Yormie Johnson (that was later to kill and mutilate Doe); and Charles Taylor that later absconded to the US. One report had it that Taylor defrauded the state to the tune of about USD900, 000 and escaped to the USA (Adebajo 2002: 46). Another more credible report states that Doe requested the repatriation of Taylor from the US on the grounds that he embezzled public funds to the said tune as a trumped up charge. Afterall, Doe and Taylor have been associates in crime for years. Doe even upgraded Taylor’s position by allowing him to sit in the Council of Ministers although he has no ministerial position. Taylor was arrested by US officials in Summerville, Massachusetts and incarcerated in the Plymouth house of corrections. US officials had to react this swiftly because Doe had tactically weakened the pro-Libya ‘progressives’ in his government and thus improved his relations with the US which showed appreciation with military assistance. “Doe made Liberia strategically useful by hosting US intelligence and satellite networks, the Omega Navigational System, and a VOA relay station. Hence, Washington provided Doe with USD500 million in military and economic assistance while overlooking his brutal leadership” (ICG 2002: 33).

Meanwhile, several Quinwonkpa associates went to exile in Ivory Coast and gradually began building up an opposition against Doe. Thus, Doe’s elite network disintegrated and its members started building international alliances with his enemies. Doe reacted with increased repression while counting on US support. After the raid in Nimba County by associates of Quinwonkpa (then in exile in the USA) in 1983, Doe’s General, Charles Julu, retaliated with terror on the inhabitants of the County, killing innocent people and burning their houses. The absence of General Quinwonkpa eased the way for Doe to become civilian President in an October 1985 election which he rigged against the rightful candidate, Jackson Doe. The US however welcomed the results for obvious reasons with Chester Crocker, the US assis217

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tant secretary for African affairs, talking of the “positive aspects” of the elections especially in Africa where the standard was one party rule” and George Shultz, Secretary of State praising Doe for “genuine progress towards democracy” (Berkeley in Ellis 1999: 63). The US was supposed to have paid Doe USD400 million for holding the elections (Reno: 1998: 87). This support was to change with the end of the Cold War. On the 12th of November 1985, General Quinwonkpa and his associates (the National Patriotic Front of Liberia – NPFL – later to be led by Charles Taylor) slipped into Monrovia, took over a radio station, and declared himself president. This is symptomatic of an advanced stage of state failure because the incumbent President was alive and in town and did not notice that insurgents have infiltrated his capital city. Further advancement in the stage of his state, that of collapse; was to kill him later. However, based on a tip-off which he got from the US embassy officials (Huband 1998: 39), he was able to remobilise his soldiers and retake control of the capital city amidst popular jubilation of his ousting that was making the rounds through radio broadcast. Quinwonkpa was hunted down and killed and his body dragged through the streets of Monrovia. Subsequent to the murder of Quinwonkpa, he dismissed all ethnic Gio from the army and increasingly promoted army officers of Krahn origin to top military positions. The Krahn and Mandingo dominated army then plundered Gio villages in Nimba County, killing about 3,000 Gios as revenge for the coup. “This single episode, more than any other, set the stage for the exploitation of ethnic rivalries that will eventually culminate in the Liberia’s civil war” (Adebajo 2002: 46).

Doe’s legitimacy sank as his support was restricted to the Krahn ethnic group. Even within the Krahns, his support receded further when he ordered the killing of Weh Syen and Nelson Toe in 1981, ideological rivals of Krahn origin in his PRC. Toe’s father was said to be an influential chief in the Gbarzohn division of Grand Gedeh who then became an enemy of Doe. Consequently, Doe was alleged to have totally neglected the several districts of the Grand Gedeh County, reducing his identification to only Gborbo and Konobo Clans (Ellis 1999: 56). His brutality was also costing him the support of the US resulting in reduction to military and economic assistance. Dwindling revenues from rubber, iron and tin ore reduced his ability to garner support through patronage, a situation which accelerated the disintegration of his elite network. The end of the

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Cold War at this point dealt a death blow to Doe’s regime. The stage was thus set for Taylor’s incursion. 6.4 The Civil War Process On the 24th of December 1989, Taylor infiltrated Liberia through the Nimba County (border with Ivory Coast) with about 150 rebels of his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), trained in revolutionary warfare in Libya, attacking government officials and the national army. The enmity between Doe and Houphouét-Boigny secured Taylor the support of Ivory Coast (and other French-speaking West African states) who offered him a rear base for his operations. Shortly before then, he sojourned in Ghana, Libya and Ivory Coast after escaping from a prison in Massachusetts/USA in 1985. These sojourns enabled him to recruit citizens of other West African countries notably Sierra Leone, Gambia and Burkina Faso into his rebel group. Most of them were the unemployed and unemployable (rarray man-dem / area boys), products of long period of bad governance that were seething with revolutionary zeal. To beef up the number of combatants at his disposal, he armed a handful of Nimba people. Taylor had no ideology which was to guide his campaign for political power or its use although he had ‘ideologues’ in his group, ‘progressives’ like Yormie Johnson, Laveli Supuwood and Sam Dokie. They were united with the intention of removing Doe and taking over power.3 This lack of ideology was the major reason for the group’s splintering later: the professional soldier and ideologue, Prince Yormie Johnson, broke away with about 6000 fighters in 1990 and founded the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) which disbanded three years later as the ECOMOG banished Johnson to Nigeria, the leaders of the Central Revolutionary Committee (CRC) of the NPFL Tom Woewiyu, Sam Dokie and Lavelli Supuwood broke away in 1994 with several soldiers. Further rebel groups emerged, ostensibly to take advantage of the conflict management method that gave rebel leaders seats in the government of national unity. Among those were the Liberal Peace Council (LPC) and the Lofa Defence Force (LDF) in 1993, the United Liberated Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) in 1994 which later split into ULIMO-K and ULIMO-J (named after the initials of the respective leaders Alhaji Kromah and Johnson). Added to the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), there were a total of nine groups fighting for the political dominance of Liberia. Under the pressure of civil war among these groups, the collapse of the state was more than evident. Equipments of states institutions that have since 219

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ceased to function were plundered and the morale of the soldiers was very low. In fact, the state shrunk to a few streets around the presidential palace in Monrovia by the intervention of ECOMOG. Apparently oblivious of this fact, Doe left his presidential palace where he and his closest associates were holed-in to cross a few streets in order to parley with ECOMOG soldiers. In this attempt, he has taken hostage by the Yormie Johnson group, interrogated, tortured, killed and his body dragged through the streets of Monrovia. The Liberian Civil War featured several human rights violations. These include forced labour, robbery, killing and maiming of innocent civilians and rape on women. As the war progressed and rebel groups spawned, there was scarcity of combatants. This situation was ameliorated with conscription of children as soldiers of war, many as young as ten years without military training (Human Rights Watch 1998).4 Several agency reports confirm the widespread use of child soldiers by almost all rebel groups. The children were said to be permanently put on drugs which leads to erratic and incalculable actions and therefore makes them more dangerous. Young girls were kidnapped and converted to “wives” by several commanders of various rebel groups or simply joined their boyfriends in battle. These children were often victims of abuse, having lost their parents and guardians during the war, they were often left at the mercy of the rebel commanders who did all they wished with them, including using them as looters of the civilian population or as porters and labourers (Human Rights Watch 2004) 5. The number of casualties in the war (civilians inclusive) is taxied at about 150,000 people; and about 500,000 internally displaced persons between 1989 and 2004 (CIA 2005)6. Another report has it that direct and indirect casualties vary between 60,000 and 200,000 (Ellis 1999: 316). Nigeria’s President Babangida was so enraged about the death of his friend Doe, that he swore not to let the rebellion succeed. ECOMOG thus became a party to the war, lost the respect of the rebels and was mainly responsible for prolonging the war. A counterfactual analysis could be necessary to prove this point. Taylor, who at that point controlled about 90% of the Liberian territory would have simply won the war and declared himself president, had ECOMOG not intervened. That was why he, perhaps rightly, considered the Nigerian-led intervention as being primarily aimed at blocking the realisation of his ambitions. Additionally, the fact that all West African rulers were not in support of ECOMOG must have boosted his conviction to march on. A combination of these two factors meant an extension of the war. Because the war was lasting 220

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longer than originally planned and international businessmen were complaining that the war was holding business back, he was forced to exploit neoliberal globalisation and the ambitions of businessmen to finance his military campaigns. He then built up alliances with Mandingoes and other international businessmen, supplying them with resources. This was the background to the war economy of Liberia. 6.5 War Economy The control over resources enabled his control over markets and unruly strongmen, including ideologues in his camp. To compensate his denial of sovereign authority through ECOMOG, Taylor declared the areas under his control “Taylorland” with headquarters in Gbarnga. William Reno (1998: 93) notes, “ECOMOG’s intervention and its denial of sovereign authority to Taylor were decisive in shaping political authority in Taylorland”. Other rebel groups, including ECOMOG joined in the fray by attacking the resource base of Doe’s patronage networks and the war took and economic turn that featured robberies, looting and pillage. Looted properties were sometimes resold to their bonafide owners in a process that came to be known as BYOTB – buy your own thing back. The acronym ECOMOG received a new meaning from ordinary citizens – Every Car Or Moving Object Gone – reflecting their looting activites. For example, Nigerian troops dismantled and exported industrial equipment worth USD50 million from the port of Buchanan in 1994 (Ellis 1999: 173). Some of them joined the hunt for diamonds already in practice by other groups. As a result, several rebel groups earned in 1995 alone USD 300 million from diamonds, USD500 million from gold, USD 53 million from timber and USD 23 million from rubber calculates Aktinson (1997: 9). These originated from the areas under their control and contributed to an increasing race to capture lucrative areas. “Taylor derived an estimated U.S.$75 million annually from these exports, including a reported U.S.$10 million a month from a consortium of North American, Japanese and European miners and an estimated U.S.$300,000 a month from foreign timber firms (Adebajo 2002: 47).

In Liberia therefore, war inadvertently became an economic endeavour in itself and no longer the continuation of politics by other means, unless Taylor wins. Although the United Nations Organisation succeeded in placing an embargo on such “bloody” natural resources in 2001, the embargo was not successful because the participants in this business developed systems of bypassing the controls: the natural resources are 221

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laundered through several channels before they finally reach the open international market. In 1999 alone, 20% of the global supply in diamonds came from African rebels.7 Taylor’s financial sources were not restricted to the sale of raw materials. He made tremendous profit giving concessionary rights to firms and collecting levies for use of Taylorland’s facilities. Ivory Coast provided Taylorland with connection to the outside world which facilitated banking and finance. For example, loggers paid their levies to the NPFL through Ivorian and Swiss banks. Levies collected in this manner in Greenville Port or in US dollars amounted to about USD 500,000 in the first half of 1991 (Reno 1998: 96). And in the next year, concessions on about 200,000 cubic meters of log fetched him about USD 20 million (Reeves and Moulard 1993). Proceeds from such timber sales were suspected to be deposited in Burkinabe bank accounts and then used to purchase weapons (West Africa 1991). These deals were done mainly with firms from Japan, USA and the EU. Citing the reports of the Economist Intelligence Unit, Reno (1998: 97) shows that France imported 94.4 million cubic meters of log in 1991, a time when nearly all logging areas in Liberia are in Taylor’s hands and this ranked Taylorland as France’s third largest supplier of logs from Africa. According to IMF estimates, Taylorland earned about USD 557 million in overall exports in 1991 alone. With such tremendous amounts and difficulty in securing international recognition, it is no wonder that Taylor increasingly became a warlord (accumulating wealth through the use or threat of violence). And as such, he became increasingly interested in accumulation which then partially induced him interest Sierra Leonian diamonds. He then exploited the favourable conditions provided by the mass dissatisfaction in that country to moblise a rebellion there. This then gave birth to the idea of a “Greater Liberia” which includes Sierra Leone and to the appointment of Foday Sankoh as the Governor. Taylor’s system was patrimonial as there was no distinction between his private wealth and that of his newly created Taylorland. But he did not relinquish his interest in occupying the presidential seat in Monrovia. Wealth from war economy, among others, enabled him to win the 1997 presidential elections as no other candidate could match his electoral campaign machine. Specifically, two reasons account for Taylor’s spectacular victory: his threat to the electorate that war will definitely continue if he loses the election; and secondly, the fact that he earned about USD 450 million during the war gave him an financial possibilities in the elelction which his rivals could not match. He reached all newspapers 222

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and radios and also to distributed largesse to voters. Table 14 shows a rough estimate of Taylor’s earnings -about USD 200-250 millions - between 1990 and 1994. Table 14: Value of Warlord Trade in Liberia, 1990- 1994 (in millions of US dollars) 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 Diamonds* 100-150 Timber ca. 15 21.3 30.3 ca. 30.0 ca. 25.0 Rubber ca. 27.0 ca. 27.0 ca. 27.0 ----Iron Ore 40.0 30.0 25.0 ----* The sum is representative for the whole period covered in the table Source: Reno, William, Warlord Politics and African States, Lynne Rienner, 1998, p. 99.

6.6 Conflict Management Early in 1990, Sergeant Doe solicited the help of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in quelling the rebellion before he was murdered in September of the same year. This request became a problem for the ECOWAS: the legal foundation for such an intervention was questioned by Charles Taylor and his supporters among the West African heads of State, especially Houphouét-Boigny who mobilised Francophone West Africa against the request. Nigeria’s president Babangida was on the forefront of setting up an ECOWAS conflict management troop to save his associate, Samuel Doe, and was able to get Ghana and Gambia (ex-British colonies as Nigeria) to his side. Suddenly, the historical and perennially latent division of West African countries between French-speaking and English-speaking came to the fore. However, General Khobe, the first commandant of the Economic Commission of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), was of the opinion, that the Protocol on Mutual Defence Assistance which was entered into by the West African states on the 29th of May, 1989, in Freetown, Sierra Leone, offered the legal basis for such interventions. Article 4 (b) of the protocol mandated ECOWAS to intervene in the internal crisis of a state if the crisis was being engineered from outside (Khobe 2000: 4). On May 19, 1990, ECOMOG waded into conflict management in Liberia. The protection of family and business interests of leading heads of state in West Africa (camouflaged as national interests) and often allied to those of the rebel groups handicapped the management of the conflict. These activities preceding the formation of ECOMOG denied it the ap223

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pearance of impartiality that was necessary to command the trust of several groups. Thus, the troops were attacked by the NPFL rebels immediately they landed in Monrovia. Multiplicity of interests in the conflict obliterated the chances of a rigourous analysis with the result that the measures adopted by ECOMOG in the process of the conflict management could not get to the roots of the conflict. In addition, its activities were bogged down by logistic and financial problems addditional to the loothing engagements of their soldiers. They hardly had vehicles for impassable roads, and helicopters were not always available to give protection to foot soldiers from the air. As the negotiations later took off, the guiding principle that could be deciphered from the method of conflict management was the primacy of stopping the war and restoring the state without regards to the fundamental causes of the conflict. Part of the consequences of this shortcoming was not only the failure in containing the conflict but also the inducement to Charles Taylor to geographically extend the war in West Africa as a strategy for victory. War economy and exertion of influence was so preponderant that the possibility of mutual trust among the warring groups (a conditio sine qua non for successful conflict management) was obliterated. Anyway, ECOMOG succeeded in bombing the warring parties to the negotiating table after initial fightings. This war lasted from 1989 to 1997 and broke out again in 2003. Up to the first peaceful settlement in 1997, there were 14 peace agreements, whereby the first 13 were not honoured. The non-reconciliation of the interests of the ECOWAS member states not only encouraged the rebels to continue with the war, but also enabled them to exploit conflict management as a strategy for war victory. The war lost its ideological pretensions early enough as economic gains became the priority. Charles Taylor’s tenure as president of Liberia was proof to this claim. Consequently, he refused to share power with other groups as was arranged by the conflict managers; more so because he already saw himself as the winner. Furthermore, there was money to be made selling mineral resources from war zones and because of this, there was no urgency in ending the war. High stakes led to mutual distrust among the protagonisgts and thus thwarted the implementation of the planned disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration impossible. Reno (1995: 118) notes that “negotiation becomes a zero-sum game as leaders perceive concessions in terms of commercial loss rather than political compromise”. Even the efforts of the UNO to stop this war economy by placing an embargo on natural resources from war zones was vetoed by France, 224

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supported by other nations that sought to protect their economic interests (Cortright &Lopez 2000: 187-193). This made the assignment of ECOMOG additionally difficult. In May 1990, ECOWAS set up a Standing Mediation Committee (SMC) comprising five member states – Nigeria, Ghana, Gambia, Mali and Togo – with a mandate to settle the conflict. The SMC met five times between 1990 and 1996 in Banjul, Bamako, Akosombo, Yamassoukro and Cotonou; and two consecutive times at Abuja. Lack of neutrality among the pariticipating members made negotiatins exceptionally difficult. It was therefore no wonder that the NPFL became recalcitrant in the peaceful negotiations from the on set. In October 1990, an interim government of national unity was formed under the auspices of ECOWAS and headed by a university professor, Dr. Amos Sawyer. Charles Taylor refused to cooperate with this government and fighting went on, leading to a series of further negotiations and agreements. However, the last Abuja agreement of September 1996 succeeded in establishing a Council of State which included the three most prominent warlords –Taylor, Johnson and Kromah. Top government posts were shared among the rebel groups represented by these three with a minimum being allotted the representatives of organised civil society. At this stage, the UNO gave its blessings to the activities of ECOWAS and equally started participating in managing the conflict, initially as an observer. The duty of supervising the ceasefire between 1993 and 1997 was to be shared between the ECOMOG and the UNOMIL – United Nations Observer Mission. But problems arose due to the difference in approach between the two organisations: ECOMOG had a more robust mandate that allowed it to use firepower if necessary, whereas UNOMIL was a pure observer mission. There was also a lack of consultation among the two organisations. Moreover, the relationship between the two conflict management groups was tense: UNOMIL soldiers were better paid and better equipped as ECOMOG soldiers. Secondly, UNOMIL soldiers looked down on ECOMOG soldiers because of the activities of some them which left much to be desired. However, they managed to return Liberia to “peace” at the beginning of 1997. War weariness among the warlords as well the civilians would have been decisive in ending the war. This enabled the conduct of elections which produced the rebel leader Charles Taylor as President. Due to the fact that the root causes were not addressed, the war flared up once again. During the preparation to the 2003 elections, the rebels groups - Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy 225

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(LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) launched an attack against the government of Charles Taylor. According to researches, President Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast was instrumental in the creation of these groups as revenge against Taylor for his involvement in the civil war in Ivory Coast (ICG 2003: 2). By this time, it has almost become normal for some West African heads of state to tacitly support civil wars in neighbouring states This was why the Co-director of the Africa program of the International Crisis Group, Fabienne Hara, warned that “the international community must deal with the growing tendency of West African leaders to sponsor rebellions abroad to protect interests at home.” He continued: “While Taylor’s support for Côte d’Ivoire rebels is well known, there has been reluctance to acknowledge that Côte d’Ivoire itself sponsors Liberian rebels (LURD and MODEL), Burkina Faso supports rebels in Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea provides a base and a transit route for anti-Taylor forces” (ICG 2003:1).

However, this war lasted a few weeks and was ended with a peace agreement signed in Accra, Ghana on the 18th of August 2003. Charles Taylor was deported to Nigeria where the government offered him political asylum. On the 15th of September 2003, the security council of the UNO adopted a resolution which replaced UNOMIL with UNMIL – United Nations Mission in Liberia – and equipped it with a more robust mandate. Due to violence in the course of election campaigns, elections were postponed and an interim National Transitional Government of Liberia led by Gyude Bryant was proclaimed. This government led the country from October 2003 to October 2005. A month later, Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson was sworn in as the first lady president of Liberia (and indeed Africa). Impropriety surrounded her elections and there were claims that the runoff election between her and the ex-professional footballer George Weah was neither free nor fair. There were claims that Sirleaf-Johnson, being a member of the old brigade of dominant Americo-Liberian families, was favoured by dint of her family connections. Tongues have therefore continued to wag against the dominance of these families, deepening the age-long schism between these two groups. These elite families still control much of the country’s wealth, unemployment is 80% and inflation still soars (Fund for Peace 2008).8 Sirleaf-Johnson’s class and ethnic backgrounds appear to be problems that might bog down her government.

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6.7 Conclusion This relatively detailed account of state collapse and civil war in Liberia is meant to demonstrate that greed was not the motive of the war. Rather, the war had genuine grievances at its background which is a natural reaction to a very long period of bad governance. Bad governance in Liberia is traceable to the domination of the commanding height of the Liberian economy by foreign companies and the alliance between these firms and the state which then relegated the interests of development to the background as successive state governments did not rely on the financial input of their citizens to govern. Thus, the dominant role played by wealth accumulation in political and administrative affairs did not start with the war. I have tried to show that wealth accumulation through the use of state power was the factor that necessitated the war and its economy in the first place and therefore, attempts at explaining state collapse and civil war have to go back to the antecedents of the war; in fact, it has to start by explaining the preponderance of bad governance. That is, neither war economy (greed) nor bad governance (grievance) analyses offer comprehensive explanation of the phenomenon. Rather, there was a pre-state collapse greed which then influenced the emergence of bad governance. Judging by the logic of governance, development and statehood which I illuminated in Chapter 2, bad governance often leads to non-development and weak statehood. The above analysis shows that there were enough grievances in society to necessitate the attack on the state. And the grievances go back to the origins of Liberia. That some of the protagonists laid their lives for their beliefs (Sam Dokie and family were murdered on Taylor’s orders) shows that there were elements of ideology (at least amongst some ‘progressives’) in the conflict. The radical movements of the 1970s which Doe and Taylor severally hijacked were concerned with ideas of better governance. Taylor, who was never a real progressive, won the upper hand in the battle to unseat Doe due to his international contacts: his direct contact to Blaise Campaore, President of Burkina-Faso, Felix HouphouétBoigny of Ivory Coast and Muammar Ghaddafi of Libya provided him with money, rear base and training facilities that the others did not have. The major problem with the Liberian rebellion was that it was an alliance of strange bedfellows. It embodied the progressives of MOJA and PAL, the opportunists such as Taylor, international businessmen and crooks and a lot of the urban unemployed youth, each with a separate stake in the struggle.

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Thus, war economy was not decisive in initiating the rebellion. The war has to be financed of course, and depending on Libya for finance will only increase US and Nigeria’s resolve to truncate his plans. Taking a distance from Libya presented him with a financial difficulty which has to be solved using the facilities offered by the international political economy of neoliberal globalisation. Having discovered the enormous financial advantages of the war economy, his interest in ending war was less than total and immediate. But this applies to other actors, ECOMOG inclusive. Thus, war economy contributed to prolongation of the conflict, but was not the cause. The impetus to this prolongation was given in the first place by the conflict management and its methods. Notes 1

This impression of the military was also shared by some academics.

2

Congo is a designation originally reserved for the descendants of slaves that landed in Liberia on interception on the Atlantic by US or British navy ships. Later on, it became applied generally to English-speaking descendants of black settlers. 3

The battle cry in Liberia then was ‘Doe must go’.

4

See http://www.hrw.org/worldreport/Africa-07.htm; (Stand: 02.04.07) for details.

5

Human Rights Watch (2004), “How to Fight, How to Kill: Child Soldiers in Liberia”, Human Rights Watch, February 2004 Vol. 16, No. 2 (A), in Internet: http://hrw.org/reports/2004/liberia0204/; (Stand: 02.04.07).

6

See http://www.umsl.edu/services/govdocs/wofact2005/fields/2194.html; (Stand: 02.04.07).

7

The first embargo on Liberia’s timber was secured through United Nations Security Council Resolution 1343 of 2001. It was later on renewed through Resolution 1478 in 2003 and Resolution 1521 in the same year for one further year. See Global Witness Press Release: “Liberia Sanctions Renewal” 23.12.2004; in www.globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/361/en/global_witness_press_r elease_liberia_santions_ren; (Stand 02.04.07); See also, http://www.globalwit ness.org/media_library_detail.php/332/en/liberia_sanctions_violations_and_lack_ of_reform_hi (Stand 02.04.07) for details on Sanctions Violations in Liberia. On the relationship between natural resources, arms import and war in Liberia, see also Global Witness Press Release (8/12/2004), Dangerous Liaisons, in http://www. globalwitness.org/media_library_detail.php/128/en/dangerous_liaisons (Stand 02.04.07)

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8

Available in internet: http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/index.php?option= com_content&task=view&id=239&Itemid=379 (16.06.2008)

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Chapter 7

STATE COLLAPSE AND CIVIL WAR IN SIERRA LEONE 7.1 Introduction The civil war that raged in Sierra Leone between 1991 and 2002 in which the state collapsed for a while was triggered off by the Liberian conflict although bad governance of a corrupt elite led by Siaka Stevens made it possible. Unemployment, poor education and worsening economic conditions helped to produce a rebellious youth culture which became increasingly violent as the social and economic inequalities deepened. The youths were then harnessed by Charles Taylor to launch a rebellion against the state. 7.2 Root Causes Sierra Leone has similar origins to Liberia: the peninsula was ‘founded’ in 1787 as home to freed slaves from Great Britain who fought in the American War of Independence and wished to go back to Africa afterwards – the black poor - (Fyfe 1962, Richards 1996); and others from Jamaica following the abolition of slave trade. The Sierra Leone Company founded Freetown in 1792 and administered the area on behalf of the English Crown till 1802. In 1808, the British Crown took over the administration of Freetown from the financially-stressed company and thus, Sierra Leone became officially a British colony. Sierra Leone became independent from Great Britain in 1960 under the political leadership of the Margai brothers that lasted till 1967. Coup and counter coup brought Siaka Stevens to power in 1968 after he had won the election the previous year as a candidate of the All Peoples Congress (APC) but could not assume power. Similar to Liberia, Sierra Leone’s trajectory of statehood did not leave room for the imperatives of good governance and with the commanding echelons of the economy (diamond, rutile, cocoa, fish and coffee) under the control of foreign (mostly British) firms, politicians proceeded to use their control over state power to accumulate private wealth. Up to the political conflict of the 1990s, the dominant firm in diamond extraction was De Beers, a multinational firm with international headquarters in London. The exit of De Beers in 1982 saw Rex Diamond, AmCam Minerals and Diamond Works – all registered on the Canadian Stock Exchange 231

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and known as “juniors” due to their relative small size compared to De Beers– dominating (Smilie, Gberie and Hazleton 2000). In Rutile extraction, Sierra Rutile, a US-Australian Firm is dominant. To demonstrate the impoertance of this firm to the economy, in 1993, it alone made a gross earning of USD 61 million which accounted for 57% of the country’s total earnings in export; it was also the country’s largest private employer of labour (Africa Economic Digest 1995: 17). The dominant firm in bauxite extraction is Sierra Leone Ore and Metal Company - SIEROMCO, a Swiss firm. SIEROMCO makes an annual tax payment of USD5 million and Sierra Rutile USD7 million to the Sierra Leonean state (Saccoh 1995). The Economist Intelligence Unit (1995: 26) reports that these two companies alone generated 15% of the country’s Gross National Product in that year. Other dominant firms are Branch Energy (diamonds), Marine Protection Services (port management) and West African Fisheries (fishing) - all British subsidiaries; and Special Services International (port management), a German subsidiary. Most of the middlemen in these sectors are Lebanese businessmen, mostly allies of president Stevens. Capital and heavy investments are thus in foreign hands to the exclusion of Africans. It was therefore difficult to build up an indigenous bourgeois that might push for developmental governance. Stevens did not show any interests in changing this state of affairs. Having inherited an almost illegitimate state, he rather entrenched the foreign domination by building alliances with these foreigners and a few local strongmen in order to finance his legitimation. This practice of course made corruption paramount in his government. He abjured the bureaucracy and practically replaced them with his patron/client networks through which he shared state’s revenues with other strongmen. Appropriate to the politics of neopatrimonialism, nepotism and not merit was the basis of employment in the bureaucracy, remuneration for the bureaucrats was miserable and irregular, occasioning corruption amongst bureaucrats, bureaucracy was poorly funded, economic development neglected. The struggle for power became a zero sum game and made politics violent. Because the dominant mode of diamond extraction is artisanal and not industrial, his cronies employed bands of unemployed young men to dig the fields while being paid pittances barely enough for survival as remuneration. Stevens’ neopatrimonial system allowed his cronies direct access to state revenues by letting them privately appropriate state’s resources as remuneration for political support. It thus became a fact of political life in Sierra Leone that all political leaders must have a stake in the clandestine diamond trade in order to have the financial means of 232

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leading a charismatic and flamboyant lifestyle necessary for maintaining the ‘shadow state’ (Richards 1996: 41). This resulted in considerable emasculation of state institutions till their near total collapse at about the middle of the 1980s. “A medley of politicians, businessmen, soldiers and civil servants have formed networks of patronage or commerce, spread as far as the Middle East, the US and Europe, that have undermined state institutions” and the consequence was that “the habits of accountability between people and rulers are often absent” (ICG 2001: 4).

Stevens coopted and thereby emasculated his political opponents so much that by 1973, the state became de facto a one party state; and de jure in 1978. In line with African politics, the only way to remove him from power would have been through a military coup, but Stevens equally succeeded in weakening the army through corruption and patronage after several failed coup attempts against him. Stevens ensured that all high ranking officers became loyal to him and his APC (Bangura 1997: 132); and pursued a deliberate strategy of weakening the military by restricting the recruitment into the army to 2,000 troops, relying rather on paramilitaries whose loyalty he could guarantee (African Confidential 1985).1 Thus, he set up the Internal Security Unit from which the Special Security Division (SSD) was created in 1972. “This notorious, 500-strong unit was effectively a private army for his APC” (ICG 2001: 5-6). The consequence was state failure as the state became increasingly incapable of providing public political goods. Critics against his government came only from parts of the courageous press outside his control and also from the students union, exemplified by the students’ demonstrations of 1977. In cooperation with the nation’s political elite and Lebanese businessmen, he exploited his country, leaving in its wake poverty, hopelessness and little chances of social mobility for masses, most especially the youth. As a matter of course, corrupt practices reduce the amount of revenues accruing to the state and reduce thereby, the ability of the state to provide infrastructure and social amenities for socio-economic development. For example, “before Stevens’ rule, diamonds had generated about $200 millions in profits for Sierra Leone’s formal economy, or about 30% of national output and has provided 70% of foreign exchange reserves. By 1987, the diamonds that passed through formal taxable channels were valued at only $100,000” (Reno 1998: 116); and customs and fishery royalties that normally should belong to the state was totally lost to corrupt officials (op.cit: 122). As a result, between 1980 and 1987, the 233

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spending on health and education fell by 60% (Fyle 1993). Workers salaries and retirees pensions could no longer be paid. Too much concentration on the politics of personal aggrandisement influenced the neglect of agricultural production, leading to its collapse and concomitant food scarcity. Import of foodstuffs increased and consequently, international indebtedness soared. Combined with the exorbitant increase in oil price in 1973 and again in 1978, the above-mentioned factors had devastating effects on the state’s economy. Furthermore, there was the issue of squandering of national riches for reasons of personal prestige: about the total of a year’s budget was wasted in hosting the Organisation of African Unity’s (OAU) summit in Freetown in 1980; and his personal fortune was estimated at USD500 million (Reno 1998: 116). Indebtedness to the international financial institutions, gradual loss of his legitimacy and increasing loss of confidence in Stevens’ ability to improve the state of the economy increased the pressure on him, forcing him to leave office. In 1985, Stevens relinquished power to his loyal Army Chief General Joseph Momoh. By this time, the weakness of the state has reached an advanced stage (failed state), with virtual collapse of several state institutions. Stevens therefore chose the army chief as his successor because the army was the only state institution that retained any significant organisational identity (ibid: 115-116). Thus, Momoh inherited an economy in crisis, a very weak army and an APC in conflict. Unemployment soared and the increasing band of jobless young men sought patronage and received jobs as alluvial diamond diggers for Steven’s strongmen. The decline of state patronage, its inability to provide basic services and increasing poverty thus directed the allegiance of the youth from the state to the strongmen. The weakness of Momoh’s constituency –the army – weakened his government likewise, leaving him in no position to check the excesses of his predecessor. “Stevens and his associates continued to dominate informal and clandestine commerce in Sierra Leone after 1985 at the expense of Momoh’s efforts to claim resources for himself and his supporters” (ibid . 116).

One of the efforts made by Momoh to reclaim state resource base was to attack the diamond mines, driving out the young diggers, shutting down illicit operations and giving mining concessions to an Israeli firm – LIAT Finance and Construction. He thus stepped on powerful toes and there are credible speculations that this move prompted the attempted coup on his government engineered by Steven’s strongmen (op cit: 119).

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Momoh’s weakness and his inability to rein in Stevens’ strongmen led to a worsening of the economic situation. For example, between 1984 and 1992, the share of diamond in the official national revenues went down from 31% to 21%, and about 50% of the diamonds were thought to be smuggled out of the country (Adebajo 2002: 81). In 1988, the arrears of civil servants could not be paid while the rate of inflation rose to three digits (Reno 1998: 116-118). Even the cost of printing the national currency was paid by a Lebanese crony of Stevens who had to keep a portion of the currency supplied as payment (ibid: 117). His loss of control over state revenues hampered his negotiations with foreign creditors who normally demanded fiscal discipline before disbursement of loans. Critical to running a financially disciplined government is the security of the means of state revenue which is distributed among several Steven’s strongmen. Momoh was therefore compelled to first of all, recover these resource depots and centralise mining in the hands of one firm that could put up the payment requested by the IMF in order to secure more credits. For this purpose, he had to privatise security by hiring LIAT. LIAT was supposed to centralise the mining of diamonds by driving out the illicit miners (aided by the army of course) and forward its tax to the state. This was part of neoliberal policies recommended by international creditors. However, authoritative sources in West Africa and Israel report that LIAT’s boss, Shaptai Kalmanovitch, sabotaged this effort by using his Sierra Leonian connections to facilitate his business of smuggling South African diamonds, disguised as Sierra Leonian diamonds, to Europe and purchasing machinery for the Republic of South Africa, at the time under UN embargo because of its apartheid policy (Africa Confidential 1987, 1987a). His arrest in the US and extradition to Israel dealt a fatal blow to Momoh’s plans. Meanwhile, Momoh was loosing resources to the strongmen diamond miners and this, of course, worsened his financial problems by holding up credit from the IMF that wanted to see his government take over the mines. A government’s mimeo states that in 1988, the export of diamonds officially earned the state a paltry USD22, 000 while the strongmen diamond exports were estimated at USD250 million (Ministry of Mines 1989). The inability to satisfy the demands of IMF meant that no further credit was forthcoming as IMF insisted on the repayment of arrears. In 1989, Momoh concluded another deal with SCIPA, an Israeli firm, which promised a better management of the mines. SCIPA secured the deal by paying the overdue salaries of civil servants; and was said to have rekindled IMF interests in further debt negotiations by paying a part of Sierra Leone’s arrears to the creditors (Africa Confidential 235

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1989). Apparently, SCIPA is not a genuine diamond miner. Its boss, Nir Guaz, bought diamonds from the illicit miners (strongmen that he was supposed to drive out of business) and used them for money laundering through exports, a purpose for which he had to cultivate good relations with Momoh’s enemies. Momoh had him arrested for economic sabotage and the activities of the firm came to an end. This shows how international businessmen and crooks exploit state weakness to further their businesses in a system that, in accordance with neoliberalism, was supposed to promote financial discipline and economic development. It equally demonstrates a lack of understanding of the political economy of power in Africa. The government of Sierra Leone took the matter in its own hand and launched two successive military operations - Operation Clear All and Operation Clean Sweep - aimed at driving the illegal miners out of the diamond depots. About 25,000 illicit miners were driven out. The timing of these operations was unfortunate as it coincided with the mobilisation of youths for the RUF rebellion. The artisanal miners that were driven out became ready made combatants for the RUF rebellion. The strongmen were angered and thus intensified their efforts to get Momoh out of government. Soldiers that have been demoralised as a result of several years of neglect and delayed payment of salaries that were very low and increasingly loosing value due to inflation have since joined the army of miners and were unhappy with the raids on the mines. There was a widespread social dissatisfaction as a result of total breakdown in the provision of services such as radio, television, education, health, electricity coupled with triple-digit inflation. These direct attacks on the mines were the last straw that broke the camel’s back as it demonstrated the weakness of the state, deepened elite disintegration and engineered a coalition of strongmen and the youth against Momoh. “The weakness of the state became apparent when firms, or the government on behalf of firms, actually moved to push the strongmen out of business, since it was then that rivals began to make their final break with the state bureaucracy. In the face of hostility from the capital, state offices and affiliation with a centralized patronage network no longer offered opportunities or protection, which forced strongmen to experiment with the new ways of controlling local resources and people without the benefit of affiliation with a state. Paradoxically, the very actions that had seemed necessary to strengthen the state were decisive in weakening it” (Reno 1998: 121-122).

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For it was at this point that the strongmen utilised the eased access to the international market to build cross-border alliances, including of course, with Charles Taylor and his rebel group. A scholar of the Sierra Leonian crisis was therefore right to consider it (and indeed the whole West African Conflict) a crisis of neopatimonialism brought to the fore by lifting the lid of statehood placed on African states through Cold War support. “This crisis of the patrimonial state (often invisible to outside agencies – since so much distribution is ad hoc) is one of the main consequences of the ending of the Cold War. A dangerous vacuum has been created round the edges of some African states into which some of the wilder elements in civil society are drawn to try their hands at alternative forms of political organisation” (Richards 1996: 36-37).

7.3 Immediate Causes Increasing economic hardships led to social frustrations and feelings of relative deprivation. State legitimacy reduced drastically. There were wide (open as well as secret) discussions of the system being bad and demanding a revolutionary change, especially among the students and the youth – the urban lumpen-proletariat (rarray man dem), who were worst hit by the economic crisis (in form of unemployment) and radically influenced by rebel music that was pouring into the West African coast in form of reggae music from Jamaica and some from domestic sources (Abdullah and Muana 1998: 172-176). Momoh’s attacks on the illicit miners helped swell the number of this group. Critical texts from Marx, Lenin, Nkrumah, Fanon, Che Guevara etc. were freely circulated by the Progress Press (Moscow) among these lumpen-proletariat and students and played a role in radicalising them against the system (Abdullah 1997: 53). And of course, there was the Libyan link: Libyan president Muammar Ghaddafi sponsored the free distribution of the “Green Book” which encouraged the violent removal of decadent African leaders who allegedly were under strong western influence. There were also speculations that revolutionary student leaders were trained in Libya for this purpose (ibid). But the most immediate of all trigger factors was Taylor’s desire to increase his chances of victory in Liberia by increasing ECOMOG’s workload and punishing Sierra Leone for offering ECOMOG military bases for its operations in Liberia (ICG 2001: appendix A; Adebajo 2002).

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7.4 State Collapse and the Civil War Process In March 1991, the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone (RUF/SL) and those of the NPFL launched an attack on the government of Joseph Momoh; an attack which brought an extremely weak state temporarily to collapse. The RUF penetrated Sierra Leone through the border with Liberia at Bomaru in Kailahun District and Manor River Bridge in Pujehun District (Ellis 1998: 178). Charles Taylor, who was secretly pulling the strings, has already notified that “Sierra Leone will taste war” (Adebajo 2002: 82). His reasons for organising the RUF were threefold: “to force the withdrawal of Sierra Leone from ECOMOG, to help install his RUF allies (who were constituting a nuisance to him) in power in Freetown, and to profit from the diamond trade in Sierra Leone” (Ellis 1999, see also Adebajo 2002: 82; ICG 2001: appendix A).

It was therefore not surprising that within a few years of attack, their primary focus has become the occupation and control of diamond areas as a source of funds for weapons (ICG 2002: 5).2 The RUF combatants consisted of a few “revolutionaries” that were trained in Libya, radical students and the urban lumpen-proletariat that welcomed the rebellion as a salvation to their years of plight. The war offered these people the chance to escape their poverty, hopelessness and marginalised existence by participating in the politics of personal aggrandisement. There was neither a seriously formulated ideology for good governance nor the intensions to that. They were welded together by the hopes of a better living. The RUF propaganda document – The Footpaths to Democracy: Toward a new Sierra Leone” – that was supposed to serve as an ideological document was hurriedly put together to counter the criticism that they do not have an ideology (Abdullah 1997: 68-71). The RUF rebellion was nihilistic in a sense as it rejected and attacked social institutions and sources of authority. This could be understandable judging by the fact that they came from the lowest social stratum. Their leader, Foday Sabana Sankoh, was a dismissed army corporal for his participation in the 1977 coup against Stevens. He thence became an itinerant photographer. Majority of their members were drawn from the illicit diamond miners, an occupation that was “probably the oldest form of collective lumpen resistance in Sierra Leone” (Ellis 1998: 179). It is illustrative in this vein that Colonel Sam (Maskita) Bockarie, who later became one RUF’s strongest men, was an illicit diamond miner before mi238

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grating to Liberia where he was recruited by RUF. The RUF-rebellion – like other rebellions in post-Cold War West Africa – is a rebellion of the youth against established authority. Thus, their initial attacks on entering Sierra Leone was directed at local sources of authority –chiefs, big traders and village elders- whom they summarily executed for having cooperated with the APC’s bad governance all these years. Apparently under the influence of drugs, they terrorised the civil population, plundered their properties; kidnapped and drugged children before converting them to soldiers and therefore reaped the hate and anger of the citizens.3 The Sierra Leonian army was too weak to defeat them. Not only was the morale of the soldiers extremely low, there numbers was very few. Momoh’s reaction was to increase the size of the army. There is a controversy as to the actual number of soldiers recruited. One report states that the army was increased from 3,000 to 13, 000 between 1991 and 1992 (ICG 2002: 6); which differed slightly from another report according to which the army was increased from 3,000 to 14,000 (US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1995: 81). Incontrovertible is the fact that these recruitments were drawn from the lumpen class. Thus low morale, late payment of soldiers’ salaries, if at all, the class character of the new recruits (sworn enemies of the establishment), lack of medical supplies and defective equipment coupled with the commanders’ style of leading from the rear culminated in a poor job by the army. The army felt neglected from the government and instead of fighting the rebels, soldiers wanted a share in the exploitation of natural resources. On the 29th of April, 1992, the soldiers marched from the war front to the presidential house to complain about their working conditions and ended up staging a coup. This was how Captain Valentine Strasser, a 26 year old officer, came to power with his National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC). At this point, the collapse of the state was complete as the rebels utilised the confusion to dig deep into state territory. The protection of the state became the duty of Nigerian soldiers under the auspices of ECOMOG. Even up till 2001, RUF still controlled about 50% of Sierra Leone’s territory, including diamond-rich areas (ICG 2002: 3). Strasser ruled till Jan. 16, 1996, and was replaced by Brigadier Julius Maada Bio, his second in command and liaison between the government and Executive Outcomes, through an internal military coup. Through all this time, the war raged on and off; an understandable state of affairs when one considers that the army was more interested in capturing political power for personal aggrandisement instead of fighting the rebels, a pointer to its complete politicisation and unprofessionalism. Both Strasser 239

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and Bio faced the problems that confronted Momoh: creditors demand for financial discipline in order to open up credit lines, a demand that necessitates the security and centralisation of diamond mining. This was one of the major reasons for the Strasser-led government to engage the private military company – Executive Outcomes (EO), at that time (March 1995) based in South Africa. Additionally, the NPRC government armed the local hunters (Kamajors) to fight the RUF and later upgraded them to a Civil Defence Force (CDF). With only about 200 mercenaries and a few Kamajors, EO succeeded in chasing away the RUF from the Freetown area and the diamond mines. They succeeded in stabilising the country between July and August 1995 (Venter 1995). The rationale behind engaging the Kamajors was that fighting regularly took place in the bushes, areas that the hunters knew pretty well, better than the itinerant RUF rebels. This tactic was successful. After the restoration of peace and order, the civil population demanded that the election which Momoh promised them before he was ousted in a coup be held. This demand was in line with the demand for political reforms by creditors. EO was also interested in elections as it would finally prove the success of its operations and improves its image in the field. The engagement of EO was expensive, especially for a cashstrapped government like Sierra Leone’s. EO was said to have been paid by concessions to mine diamond. The British firm, Branch Energy, represented by its Sierra Leonian subsidiary, Branch Mining, entered into an USD80 million deal in which the firm received the right to mine diamonds in the EO pacified areas. There were unconfirmed speculations that EO was involved in the Branch Energy deal. Strasser and Bio tried to build up their own patrimonial networks by allowing foreign firms that could provide security in mining sites to engage in mining. Local strongmen-politicians approached these firms for their own cuts in return for support to the regime. It was again business as usual. Stability and reforms are good for business. Thus, diamond firms De Beers for example - returned to Sierra Leone, fronted by its subsidiary, Diamond Corporations. Other firms that acquired business licences include a Canadian firm – Cassierra Development Fund and Golden Prospects of Great Britain (Reno 1998: 132). In keeping with creditors’ demands of adjustment, Strasser and Bio reduced the government’s work force by a third. State owned firms were privatised in which process the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation bought the state’s oil refinery. Foreign management firms took over the management of the Central Bank; and even the building and management of port services was con240

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tracted to an Iranian firm (Economist Intelligence Unit 1996: 29). This implemenatation of neoliberal policies rekindled the interest of creditors and thus led to debt reduction in 1995. Consequently, General Bio organised an election in February (26-27) of the same year and gave over power to a democratically elected government led by President Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP). Between his assumption of office on the 29th of March, 1996 and May of 1997, Kabbah survived two military coups before loosing power to Johnny Paul Koromah, equally through a coup. The agreement between President Kabbah and Foday Sankoh (meanwhile a minister in charge of mineral resources), in Abidjan on the 30th of November, 1996, to the effect that Executive Outcomes should leave has been blamed for the success of the coup.4 Kabbah escaped to Guinea and sought assistance from Nigeria. Koromah appointed Foday Sankoh, the leader of RUF as his vice president. Nigerian troops succeeded in chasing away the soldiers and restored Kabbah to power in February 1998. In January 1999, Kabbah lost power once again through a military coup and had to flee to Togo from where he requested assistance once again from the Nigerian government. The Nigerian contingent under ECOMOG II (the name given to the conflict management troop to distinguish it from the one active in Liberia) commando brought him back to power in the same month. He ruled till May 2002 and was re-elected. The reasons for these military coups were Kabbah’s adherence to the demands of multilateral creditors and foreign mediators which led to radical reduction in the army size. It is instructive that all these reforms did not lessen the pangs of existence for the average citizen. Neoliberal reforms have forced the government to implement survival cum warlord tactics to the detriment of the state institutions and its citizens. According to one survey: “The majority of people interviewed expressed disappointment about the performance of Kabbah government, citing indicators like the deteriorating economic situation, growing hardships and poverty, galloping inflation, irritating blackouts, mass unemployment, (and) growing insecurity in the country evident in increasing reel ambushes upcountry and armed robbery in the cities. Allegations of corruption in high places, (and) undue exploitation of our mineral resources with little or no benefit to the people, also feature prominently in the various responses” (Gazette Times 1996: 3).

The point is that the lack of an indigenous revenue bearing group with which the government had to cooperate to source its funds forced 241

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the government to look for external alternatives and with that, the interest in economic development and building state capacity recedes to the background. Neoliberal globalisation is thus detrimental to statehood in Africa. Throughout this period, the Sierra Leone army felt that it has become superfluous and was mistrustful of the agreement between the government and the Kamajors, fearing that it will lose its position to the Kamajors. Infact, Koroma justified his coup on those grounds, stating that the Kabbah government was starving the army of funds and criticised the government’s proposal to cut military spending and use it for the Civil Defence Force, indicating that the government was using the Civil Defence Force as a private army. In a letter to ECOWAS, in August 1997, in which he justified his coup, he stated: “the SLPP tribal hunter militia, the Kamajors, received logistics and supplies far beyond their immediate needs. This was enough indication of the preference for the private army over our Armed Forces, foreshadowing the ultimate replacement of the Constitutional Defence Force by Kabbah’s hunters”.5

This is a further proof of the state collapse: contest between national army and private security outfit in which the ruler supports the private security unit and the army cooperates with rebels. To strengthen itself and protect its interests, the army sought a battle-field cooperation with the RUF rebels. So emerged a strange coalition between the state’s army and the rebels in which the soldiers operated by day as soldiers and by night as rebels. This was how the phenomenon of the so called “Sobels” (soldier and rebel) emerged. This fraternity between the army and the rebels (Abdullah & Muana 1998: 84) was broken by the recognition of the RUF as a partner to the government during the Lomé negotiations that led to the peace accord of 18th May 1999. This recognition led to a dispute between the army and the RUF in which the army felt deceived and shows why people seek power in Africa: “Former army head (and former AFRC leader) Johnny Paul Koromah said that the RUF “used us to benefit from Lomé” since the agreement made no offer of government positions to former soldiers” (Reno 2001: 223).

A fundamental ground that made the cooperation between the RUF and the army possible was that they shared the same social background – rebellious youths of the lumpen-proletariat.6 General Momoh indiscrimi242

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nately recruited thousands of these youths in to the army in order to fight the RUF insurgence. Some soldiers of the Sierra Leonian army reacted to this disappointment by detaching themselves from the RUF and joining the West Side Boys with a base in Okra Hills just outside of Freetown. The kidnap of eleven British soldiers by this group in August 2000 ultimately led to its elimination in a rescue by British Special Forces (ICG 2001: 7). A further explanation for the sudden disappearance of this rebel group was their relative military weakness as a result of their inability to secure military support from external patrons as had the Sierra Leonian government, the CDF and the RUF (Reno 2001: 223). This is thus another proof that war economies prolong civil wars; but are not the primary motives of war. The above mentioned victory of the EO over a combined force of the RUF and the army between October and November 1996 enabled the peace agreement of 30th Nov. in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and would have meant the end of the war were it not for Charles Taylor: he failed to take over Monrovia with his Operation Octopus (in the Liberian Civil War that simultaneously raged) and therefore had to force the RUF to continue the war in order to further weaken ECOMOG (Adebajo 2002). This demonstrates, not only the common context of the two civil wars, but more importantly, the paucity of conflict management troops because if a few hundred Executive Outcomes troops could do the job, why couldn’t thousands of ECOMOG troops? Casualty figures of the war are put at about 75,000 deaths (Smilie, Gberie and Hazleton 2000) and about 600,000 refugees including five million internally displaced peoples – almost a third of the entire population (ICG 2001: 2). 7.5 War Economy in Sierra Leone The financing of Sierra Leone insurgency was similar to that of Liberia in that it involved the sale of natural resources, especially diamonds to purchase weapons. The fact that the rebellion was not independent, rather engineered by Charles Taylor, affected the nature of war economy as Taylor used his international connections, and later, his sovereignty (after being elected the President of Liberia in 1997) to conclude such deals. In 2002, it was estimated that RUF trade in diamonds amounted to between USD25 million and USD125 million per annum (UNO Panel of Experts 2000: paragraph 19). However, there was a novelty here: the AlQaida connection. According to reports, the Al-Qaida-RUF-Taylor connection began after the US freezing of USD240 million Taliban and Al-Qaida assets in the 243

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light of intelligence information that Al-Qaida was involved in the bombing of US embassies in East Africa in 1998 (Washington Post 2002; more detailed in Gberie 2002). "It was at that point that al-Qaida realized where it was vulnerable in its financial structure and began to systematically move its assets to commodities. You see a move into diamonds, tanzanite and other commodities along with a new emphasis on creating charities to handle the finances" (Washington Post 2002).

Since then, it has become increasingly clear that Al-Qaida purchased rebel diamonds to launder terrorist finances. Intensive year-long investigations by European and Belgian intelligence officials found out that two West African governments (Liberia and Burkina Faso) hosted the senior terrorist operatives who oversaw a USD20 million diamond-buying spree that effectively cornered the market on the region's precious stones. Charles Taylor was reported to have received USD1 million for hiding the Al-Qaida operatives that were supposed to have spearheaded the attacks against US establishments on the 11th of September 2001. Although Taylor and Blaise Campaore, the President of Burkina Faso, denied the accusations, an UNO Panel of Experts set up in 2001 to investigate the issue confirmed the accusation and recommended that Taylor, his family and senior government officials be banned from international travels. This recommendation that was accepted by the Security Council (UNO Panel of Experts 2002: paragraph 4). This report demonstrated that Issa Sesay, the interim leader of RUF at the time, flew to Abidjan in late 2001 with 8,000 carats of diamond which he sold to dealers supposed to be fronting for a Lebanese businessman. Investigations fingered three people that were said to be conduits of Al-Qaida diamond operations: Aziz Nassour, a Lebanese diamond merchant; his cousin Samih Osailly; and Ibrahim Bah, a Senegalese soldier of fortune who has trafficked for years in diamonds and guns across Africa. Much evidence was also collected during the interrogations of Osailly on being arrested in the US on the 12th of April, 2002. Further investigations carried out by European, U.S. and Central American officials have recently found evidence that Nassour and Osailly were trying to buy weapons from the Nicaraguan army and a Bulgarian company. Washington Post further quoted documents at its disposal which show that on the 2nd of January 2001, an Israeli arms dealer in Panama named Simon Yelnik sent an e-mail to a Russian arms merchant in Guatemala discussing an order that "our friends in Africa need". This included a list of assault 244

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rifles, ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades as well as 20 SA-8 missiles and 200 rockets for BM-21 multiple rocket launchers to be supplied by the Nicaraguan army. Earlier on, the same Washington Post analyst, Douglas Farah, extensively versed in war and security reports, reported that Al-Qaida operatives visited rebel held diamond mines in Sierra Leone and negotiated deals worth several millions of dollars (Washinton Post 2001). In the same year, RUF opened an office in Brussels, Belgium. Ibrahim Bah, supposedly a Bourkinabe military officer, also known as Ibrahim Baldé or Baldé Ibrahima, who describes himself as a car dealer, was said to be the most important figure in the deal (cf. UN Security Council 2000: 17). Some other reports even claim that he is Senegalese or a Gambian as a result of his involvement in the abortive coup led by Kukoi Samba Sanyang against the Gambian President, Dauda Jawara, in 1981. Also a graduate of the Libyan World Revolutionary Headquarters who fought in Afghanistan and Lebanon in the 1980s, he was believed to be the strings-puller of the whole operation. He received a senior AlQaida operative on the US list of wanted terrorists – Abdallah Ahmed Abdallah – in Monrovia on the 22nd of September, 2001 and introduced him to senior Liberian and RUF officials. The sources of the information contained in the reports are oftentimes as obscure as the deals themselves. However, two reports could be regarded as credible evidences. First, diamond dealers in Antwerp in the period between 2000 and 2001 complained of an astonishing sudden scarcity of gems. The reason was that unidentified new dealers were offering prices lying between15% and 30% above the regular prices. At that rate, complained the regular dealers, no one could make a profit. Worst of all, there were no gems to buy. Second, European and Belgian investigators confirmed that Aziz Nassour’s firm, Asa Diam, suddenly stopped reporting diamonds sales despite increased financial activity in his account at a time that observers expected increased sales due to the end of hostilities in Sierra Leone (summer 2000) which pushed a lot of combatants back into the diamond mines. Furthermore, shortly after the first publication of the Al-Qaidadiamond link, Belgian authorities requested the banks to check their records for suspicious transactions. Artesia Bank forwarded Asa Diam’s bank account to the Belgian authorities, mentioning the withdrawal of USD20 million. This was understood to be the portion of the money linked to Al-Qaida as the destination could not be traced.7

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7.6 Conflict Management Before the outbreak of the civil war in Sierra Leone, ECOMOG I already had its headquarters in the country with about 700 soldiers and two war ships. This was the base from which it managed the Liberian political crisis. The stationing of the Nigerian led ECOMOG there was also facilitated by the defence pact existing between Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Hence, ECOMOG was initially engaged in the management immediately the war broke out. As from August 1997, the ECOMOG in Sierra Leone received the official appellation ECOMOG II in order distinguish it from the group’s other operational arm in Liberia. ECOMOG II fought against the RUF and the “Sobels” and succeeded in securing Freetown, the capital city of Sierra Leone. With weapons supplied by the British firm Sandline, ECOMOG II and EO bombed the RUF rebels to the negotiating table. This led to the initial peace accord, brokered by Ivory Coast and signed in Abidjan on the 30th of November, 1996. ECOMOG soldiers were mainly Nigerians, so as the newly elected Nigerian president announced in April 1999 that he was going to pull Nigerian soldiers out of ECOMOG operations, the conflict management started to stumble. However, in the same month, Nigeria organised peace negotiations in Lomé, Togo, which led to the signing of the Lomé agreement. The Lomé agreement of April 1999 was practically a repetition of the Abidjan agreement, therefore we have to concentrate here on the latter. It recommended the establishment of a Neutral Monitoring Group (NMG) to disarm all the warring groups, the withdrawal of EO and the removal of all foreign troops from Sierra Leone, the transformation of the RUF in to a political party and the granting of a general amnesty for war crimes to all its members (UNO 1997: 2-4). The novelty in the Lomé agreement was the appointment of the RUF leader, Foday Sankoh, to the position of Vice President and as minister responsible for natural resources. He therefore partially chieved the aims for which he has been fighting, not on the battle fields but on the negotiating table. This is a proof to the rebels and warlords that war pays. It blatantly demonstrates a shallow analysis of the conflict as well as the helplessness of the international community in handling African conflicts. Active UNO engagement in managing the conflict commenced in August 1998 with the despatch of a 50 man observer troop –the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) which did not in any way reduce the level and intensity of hostilities. The reluctance of the UNO in getting engaged in African crisis has to do with the fact that the

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cold war was over and thus, the leading nations in UNO do not have further strategic interests in Africa. The critics these nations had to stomach from their citizens for loosing their soldiers in African battle fields (e.g. the killing of US soldiers in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1992) were getting unbearable. UNO sent further 70 soldiers as Nigerian announced in April 1999 that it was pulling its soldiers out. The Nigerian reason for this decision was purely economic.8 This decision was implemented immediately after President Obasanjo was sworn it as Nigerian president in May 1999. In October 1999, the UNO contingent was increased to 6,000 soldiers and in November, 2,000 Nigerian soldiers were added to the contingent. Skirmishes continued, but the UNO soldiers were not allowed to intervene. This was why, on the 29th of November, 1999, the first contingent of United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeeping troops landed, armed with more robust mandate. But because they were hardly allowed to defend themselves, they had to suffer some hardships: the Guinean contingent lost 500 AK-47s to the RUF rebels and the UN Battalion from Zambia were taken prisoners by the RUF as they tried to secure the Kono diamond fields. On account of these, ECOWAS members contributed more 3,000 soldiers to the UNO peacekeeping force. At the beginning of the year 2000, the RUF tried to exploit the vacuum that arose as a result of the transition of peacekeeping mandate from ECOMOG to UNO to attack and take over Freetown. The state collapsed again but Britain sent about 650 soldiers who succeeded in stopping this contravention of the ceasefire contained in the peace accord. Thereupon, the UNO Secretary General Kofi Annan expressed his intensions to increase the UNAMSIL contingent to 20, 5000 soldiers. UNAMSIL had to suffer a lot of limitations: the military doctrines of the contingents were so divergent that the possibility of mutual trust among the several contingents was very minimal. Several national contingents had different understandings of war and of conflict management, a situation that is dependent on the nature of national politics. Contingents from corrupt African countries where politics has widely been accepted as a means to wealth accumulation will definitely behave differently compared with contingents from relatively stable, less corrupt and more democratic societies. For example, the Indian and Jordanian contingents gave notice of their intention to withdraw from the operations because a secret document in which the Indian General accused the Nigerian Chief of Staff of being involved in diamond businesses with the rebels was made public (McGreal 2000: 2). The inability of the UNO contingents to implement the disarmament and demobilisation of the rebels 247

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contributed to the emergence of a ‘migrant labour force with weapons’ and aided the emergence of further warfare in West Africa. Because the class interests of the warlords and those of the conflict managers precluded attempts at getting to the root causes of the conflicts, the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of the combatants were ineffective: some combatants just gave up a part of their weapon possessions to the peacekeepers, collect their monies and join some other rebel groups in another West African country (for example Ivory Coast). On the 10th of November, 2000, a ceasefire brokered by UNAMSIL was accomplished. But the limitations contained in the UNAMSIL mandate continued to be problematic. It was not possible for it to deploy the peacekeepers to all parts of the country because some of them were in rebels’ hands and UNAMSIL was not allowed to get involved in actual fighting. This was the state of affairs up till the middle of 2001. Disarmament was concluded in 2002 and with that, the end of the war was declared. In May 2002, elections were conducted and Kabbah was returned again as president. In December 2006, the last batch of UNAMSIL soldiers pulled out. Before then, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Special Court of Sierra Leone, both set up to ameliorate war-damaged relations and punish war crimes have taken up their assignments. Charles Taylor was forced out of the government house in summer 2003 following fresh conflicts in view of the impending Liberian presidential elections in which Sam Maskita Bockarie mysteriously died. He sought and received political asylum in Nigeria where he sojourned till his sudden arrest in March 2006. He has since been detained in The Hague, Netherlands, where he is being tried by the Special Court on Sierra Leone. Foday Sankoh was arrested just outside his house in May 2000 and died in a Freetown prison on the 29th of July, 2003. Kabbah stayed in power till the elections of September 2007 in which Bai Koromah of the APC emerged president, defeating the SLPP. However, this successful conduct of elections does not necessarily portend a change for the average citizen. The main problem with Kabbah’s government was the accusation that it was being teleguieded by the diaspora and therefore was out of touch with the situation on the ground, especially relating to the interest of the youth. Koroma’s election was judged by many to be free and fair but his government is incapacitated; partly as a result of the problems it inherited and partly due to the changes in the relationships between the youths and the chiefs. The youth is no longer ready to tolerate corrupt chiefs and their autocracy, still less ready to tolerate their (youth’s) extreme poverty. Koroma definitely appealed to 248

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the youth and won the election partly as a result of that. However, problems are culminating for his government. He not only enjoys the support of the diaspora, he is a diaspora himself; having come back from the US to become president. This was problematic for SLPP and is gradually becoming problematic for him. Increase in the international price of crude oil has spawned further increases in the prices of foodstuffs, especially rice. Koromah appears a genuine reformer, observers say, but the party machine and problems he inherited leave him little room for manoeuvre. Recent shocks in rice price could threaten his relationship with the youth in which case he has to reform and reforms would picth him against the party stalwarts and possibly threaten his presidency. 7.7 Conclusion In Africa south of the Sahara, the overwhelming reason for seeking political power is the easy access to capital which state power, in the absence of a vibrant private sector, facilitates. Control over the sources of state’s revenue and not the control over institutions of state becomes the source of authority. Economic development and strengthening the capacity of the state institutions are neglected. Politics becomes a zero-sum game in which the winner takes it all. This of course, makes politics violent; featuring torture, kidnaps, incarcerations, coups, civil wars and state collapse. State collapse does not alter the reasons of seeking political power. It only lays it bare; and war economies become the arenas where these manifestations could be observed, unhindered by the façade of statehood. State collapse in Liberia could be said to be immediate and intensive while in Sierra Leone, it was gradual and extensive. This difference affected the nature of war economy. While Liberian warlords sought international connections to market raw materials and challenge Doe, the marketing of natural resources in Sierra Leone has been in the hands of individuals with international connections long before the collapse and is the reason for the slow nature of collapse. Therefore, war economy (or warlord politics, to use Reno’s description of its sovereignty variant) in Sierra Leone stressed the attempts of power wielders to regain the confidence of creditors while trying to fight local strongmen. Due to the creeping nature of failure, it suddenly dawned on the post-Stevens power wielders that the bureaucracy has since been hijacked or emasculated by Stevens’ associates. They were thus forced to completely disregard all pretences to the bureaucracy and look for international alliances, thus facilitating the collapse of a state they were supposed to foster. Faced 249

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with financial dire straits, they had to swallow the bitter pills of multilateral donors that demanded political and economic reforms as a precondition for credit. However, pursuing the qualification for further credit on the one hand, exposed state weakness to the strongmen, and on the other hand, forced them to contract traditional state functions to international businessmen and criminals. Unfortunately at this point, an insurgency was sponsored from neighbouring Liberia. The strongmen, bands of hopeless and unemployed youths and the insurgents sponsored by Charles Taylor (all enemies of the state) formed dangerous alliances that struck the state at its weakest point, exploiting the artisanal nature of diamond extraction. At this point, collapse was complete and Al-Qaida sought to utilise the collapse to solve its own problem of financing terrorism without detection. Concerted efforts of the international society did facilitate a return to normalcy without addressing the base of the problem: the lack of the logic of good governance, economic development and strong state capacity which goes back to the dependent and artificial nature of statehood in Africa. Today’s newspapers in Sierra Leone are sceptical of Koromah’s ability towards good governance, especially in the absence of its imperatives. The future of economic development and state capacity is, at best, bleak. Notes 1

There is a slight controversy regarding the number of soldiers in the army under Stevens. One report mentioned 3,000 soldiers (Cf. ICG 2001: 5).

2

For further details on the diamond-weapons-conflict nexus, see the United Nations (2000), The Panel of Experts Pursuant to the UN Security Council Resolution 1306 (2000), paragraph 19 for Sierra Leone.

3

Some of the child soldiers were not kidnapped: they joined the rebellion after loosing either their parents or their guardians or both.

4

Executive Outcome left Sierra Leone on the 31st of January, 1997.

5

Available in Internet: www.sierra-leone.org/koroma0897.html; (Stand 04.04.01).

6

For a detailed discussion of the connection between the RUF and the Army, see Adbullah, Ibrahim (1998), „Bushpaths to Destruction: The origin and Character of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF/SL)” in Africa Development, Vol. XXII, Nos. 3/4, pages 45-74.

7

For detailed accounts of the Sierra Leone conflict-diamond-Lebanese-Al-Qaida connection, see Smilie, Gberie and Hazleton (2000), The heart of the matter: Sierra

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Leone, diamonds and Human Security, Partnership Africa Canada; see also Gberie, Lansana (2002), “War and Peace in Sierra Leone: Diamond, Corruption and the Lebanese Connection”, Partnership Africa Canada Occasional Paper Nr.6, International Peace Information Service, in internet: www.action.web.ca/ home/pac/attach/sieraleone2002_e.pdf. (Stand 06.04.2007) 8 For details of the Nigerian reasons for withdrawing its soldiers, see Obasanjo, Olusegun (1999), “Nigeria, Africa and the World in the next Millennium”, an address to the 54th session of the UNO General Assembly, New York, 23rd Sept. 1999. However, Obasanjo needed to consolidate his newly won mandate at home by heeding the demands of Nigerians to that effect because the operations of Nigerian soldiers in Liberia and Sierra Leone offered military dictators (Babangida and Abacha) and their Generals further opportunities for amassing wealth.

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Chapter 8

STATE FAILURE AND CIVIL WAR IN GUINEA-BISSAU AND CAPE VERDE 8.1 Introduction Although state failure and civil war in Guinea-Bissau coincided chronologically with the other conflicts precipitated by the dynamics of the conflicts in West African, it did not occur within that context. Rather, the root causes had to do with bad governance with a high degree of ethnic discrimination which originated from the colonial policy of divide and rule. This led to feelings of political and economic injustice which definitively divided the society. The significance of this case to our empirical studies is that it serves a control case, to prove that bad governance occasioned by the use of state power for capital accumulation lies at the background of states collapse in Africa. This is the only variation on the independent variable allowed by the empirical developments in my region of focus. This case also demonstrates the escalating tendencies of conflict management by former colonial masters in African conflicts. Bad governance neglects economic development and in concert with discrimination, pauperises a broader part of the population. This selective pauperisation (which is always accompanied by selective enrichment) leads to feelings of relative deprivation which divides the society between those who have a stake in government and those who are alienated from it. A very tense political relation which weakens the social fabric of the state arises and this could be exploited by the disgruntled section of the elite to mobilise a part of the society against the government, or should I say, the state. This could then lead to violence and crisis within the state. 8.2 Root Causes This small island off the coast of West Africa is one of the world’s poorest countries. Farming and fishing are the main occupations of her citizens. Cashew nuts contribute about 29% of the foreign exchange earnings while groundnuts contribute about 23%. Guinea Bissau was founded as Portugal’s slave and plantation colony and as such, the commanding heights of the economy are dominated by Portuguese firms. She became independent from Portugal in 1974. The charismatic and radical leader of 253

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the independent struggles, Amilcar Cabral, was shot to death by the African agents of the Portuguese government in January 1973. Consequently, his brother, Luis, took over the leadership of the Patrtido Africano da Inpendendencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC), a proclaimed communist party that came to power as the country became independent. Analogous to the situation in many African countries, the hope of a better living after independence evaporated in the course of corruption and undemocratic governance. Perhaps because of the betrayal suffered by his brother, Luis extremely distanced himself from the people, declared a one-party communist state and surrounded himself permanently with security agents. His government was corrupt, repressive of the opposition and extremely centralistic, a tendency that was to be expected because of the party’s communist ideology. One observer notes that, “the party soon became indispensable from the state. The National Assembly met only once a year to rubber-stamp decisions made by a secretive ten member Council of State” (Adebajo 2002: 113). However, Marxism-Leninism did not stop the government from exploiting the proceeds of the most productive class in the society –the peasantry. With the national marketing boards as the major instrument, the government bought off their agricultural products (cashew-nuts is the main export commodity) at very low prices only to sell them at much higher prices in the international market. The impoverishment of the peasants contributed significantly to weakening the state: as a result of very poor returns from their products, most of them either left agricultural production for the non-existent jobs in the cities or they smuggled their products outside the country. However, the state’s revenue was reduced, and in consequence, its ability to provide political goods. This, in turn, contributed to further reduction in the degree of legitimacy of the state. Reduction in the state’s revenue influenced the policy of discrimination as the resources at the disposal of the leader became rare in the course of time, driving him to reduce the size of his clientele. The consequence of this policy was the disintegration of the party along ethnic/regional lines which encouraged Mallam Sanha, a party member, to try to dethrone President Luis Cabral through a coup in Nov. 1978. The attempt failed and the government reacted with more repression through the Securocrat.1 Luis Cabral intensified the colonial policy of divide and rule which translated into a Capverdenisation of state power in Guinea Bissau through the marginalisation of other ethnic groups such as the Fulas, the Manjocos and the Balantas.2 254

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“By 1980, about 200 Cape Verdeans served in key government and administrative positions in Guinea-Bissau, creating a ground swell of resentment among the indigenous population” ( Galli & Jones 1987: 93).

An overwhelming majority of high ranking military officers are equally of Cape Verdian origin. The domination of the PAIGC by the civilisados made this possible.3 Economic problems occasioned to a large extent by the exploitation of the peasantry and the reduction of the prices of agricultural products relative to manufactures in the international market increased and forced the state to depend more on development aid. By the beginning of the 1980s, Guinea Bissau was one of the world’s most aid-dependent countries (Adebajo 2002: 114). Between 1985 and 1995, the ration of ODA to overall GDP for Cape Verde was about 25% and about 14% for Guinea-Bissau (Djankov et al 2006: 4). Again, similar to many African states where the military has exploited popular displeasure and frustration with the government of the day to rationalise military coups, the army organised a successful coup in November 1980. This saw the former army chief, Joao Bernado Vieira, who has been Prime Minister since 1978, becoming president. His government was as authocratic as that of his predecessor. He was constantly accussed of nepotism and corruption to which he reacted by repressing political opposition and dissolving the parliament. In November 1985, he allegedly uncovered a “coup attempt” and subsequently executed the alleged coup planners. It is noteworthy, that these six are members of the Balanta ethnic group (Ghali & Jones 1987: 108). Further discrimination against the Balantas continued. Most African presidents had problems dealing with the democratic movements that rolled through most of Africa at the beginning of the 1990s and coincided with donors’ demands for political and economic reforms. Vieira solved the problem the way most African presidents did: he organised an election in July 1994 and “won” the election. As a consequence, political restiveness increased, thus demonstrating to Vieira the weakness of his regime’s legitimacy. In order to secure his regime, he changed the national currency from Portuguese Pesos to French Francs and thus brought himself under the sphere of influence and forthwith, the protection of France. Two other factors did play an important role in this decision: Guinea-Bissau is surrounded by former French colonies that still have a defence pact with France and France has proven that nothing not even moral pretence - deters her from the protection of her minions in Africa. In 1998, his re-election as the party’s president was confirmed “by

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acclamation” although several party stalwarts regarded the process as an usurpation of due process (Adebajo 2002: 114). Economic underdevelopment combined with autocratic and undemocratic governance dragged the regime’s legitimacy to a very low level. Measured against the indications of functioning of local and political institutions, health and educational systems and the peoples’ store, Guinea-Bissau was already showing signs of advanced weakness and even decay by 1986. “There has been a centralisation of power and an erosion of party and state at local level, with policies and institutions working to benefit a growing petty-bourgeoisie, at the expense of peasants as producers and as consumers of state services” (Rudebeck 1988).

Socialism that raised so much hope among the masses has become a mirage. Several reasons account for this failure: the failure to create a peasant-based strategy of rural development; to sustain popular participation (people's power); and to ensure that the state represented the interests of workers and peasants (Galli & Jones 1987). Peasants are the natural allies of developmental states within underdeveloped socioeconomic formations. The leadership have failed to recreate after independence the political alliance with the peasantry that successfully supported the anti-colonial liberation struggle and thus, laid the foundation for the extreme weakness and failure of the state. Civil war and state failure were triggered off by the accusation of President Vieira against his army chief, General Mane, early 1998, to the effect that Mane was supporting Senegalese dissidents in Casamance. He immediately suspended Mane and a parliamentary commission of inquiry was set up to investigate the issue. Without awaiting the results of the inquiry, he dismissed Mane from the army. In April, the parliament released its report in which it exonerated Mane and indicted president Vieira (Economist Intelligence Unit 1999: 30). Despite this, the president still gave orders for the arrest and detention of Mane. Mane reacted by organising a coup attempt against the government. 8.3 Civil War Process The coup resulted into an army mutiny and led to a fight between Mane’s and Vieira’s loyalists in which hundreds died. Within a short time, Mane’s loyalists brought about three-quarters of the country under its control. Mane’s numerical superiority aided by the defection of the Vieira’s soldiers to him made this possible. Additional to the longtime 256

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breakdown of state’s institutional and administrative structures which are insufficient to deliver public services and guarantee territorial control, the state lost control over the monopoly of violence and had to fight for its survival. Due to the existence of a defence pact between GuineaBissau, Senegal and Guinea, the two last-mentioned came to Vieira’s rescue with about 3,000 soldiers. Since then, the army has disengaged itself from the state and has assumed dominance over all other state institutions. 8.4 Conflict Management Vieira sought the intervention of ECOWAS and received a positive feedback. This has to do with the fact that Nigeria, whose dominant position has always been feared by a lot of countries in West Africa, has withdrawn from ECOMOG. The French speaking countries thus have an upper hand in ECOMOG affairs at the time. ECOWAS defence ministers thus condemned the rebellion. Curiously enough, ECOWAS was not the sole conflict manager: she was practically forced to share this assignment with the Comunide dos Paises de Lingua Portuguesa (CPLP)4. CPLP was faster than ECOWAS and arranged a peace agreement in Portuguese ship (Korte Real) to the chagrin of ECOWAS members. Portugal had economic and political interest in Guinea-Bissau and had to hurry in order not to totally lose her former colony to France. The agreement recommended the withdrawal of Senegalese and Guinean troops and their replacement with military observers from CPLP. The ceasefire could not hold, leading to further negotiations between ECOWAS and CPLP which was concluded with a peaceful agreement on the 26th of August 1998. Less than two months later, the war broke out anew with Mane’s soldiers gaining more grounds. This repeated outbreak of the war is a proof to the fact that the root causes of the war was not addressed by conflict management. The general opinion however, was that a peace agreement without the regional super power Nigeria could not be accomplished. Nigeria thence stepped into the Guinea-Bissau conflict and invited the conflict parties to Abuja where a peace agreement was reached on the 2nd of November 1998 with the following contents: a ceasefire withdrawal of the Senegalese and Guinea troops and their simultaneous replacement with ECOMOG troops from relatively neutral states by the end of February 1999 formation of an interim government of national unity 257

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deployment of observers on the border between Guinea-Bissau and Senegal demobilisation and disarmament of the estimated 28,000 combatants creation of a buffer zone between the conflict parties till the conclusion of the demilitarisation of the country through a mutual commission led by ECOWAS the guarantee of security by ECOWAS in order to enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the organisation of general and presidential elections to be supervised by the ECOWAS and the CPLP latest by March 1999. ECOMOG members - Togo, Niger, Gambia and Benin Republic - contributed 2,050 soldiers and so ECOMOG III was born. Lack of mutual trust between the protagonists hampered the implementation of the ceasefire agreement. Vieira trusted CPLP and Mane’s confidence was put on ECOWAS and in January 1999, war broke out again.

The government of national unity came to power in February 1999 with Francisco Fadul, a man of Syrian/Lebanese ancestry as the Prime Minister. It is noteworthy that this government included neither members of the opposition (which negates the concept of government of national unity) nor the Fula (one of the most-populated ethnic groups in the country). ECOMOG III secured the seaport, reopened the airport and disarmed about 5,000 soldiers. Through her logistic and financial support, France assisted with the deployment of the troops. At this point, France has set up response outfit for African conflicts with the acronym RECAMP – Reinforcement des Capacités Africaines de Maintien de la Paix – meant to strengthen the capacity of Africans to manage their own conflicts. However, France was accused of partiality in this case. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Prime Minister Fadul, complained that he saw French soldiers shooting at Mane’s soldiers from the French war ship “Sciroco”. Further missionary reports confirm that about 300 French soldiers were seen supporting Vieira’s troops on the 2nd of February 1999 (Economist Intelligence Unit 2000: 32-33). Portugal reacted with a dispatch of several Portuguese ships to Guinea-Bissau without the authorisation of local authorities and a scenario analogous to the “gunboat diplomacy” of old developed (Adebajo 2002: 122-123). The logistic problems of ECOMOG continued to be a hindrance and weakened it further. This led to a break of the ceasefire and a coup by Mane on the 7th of May 1999. Vieira fled to Portugal after demonstrators have burnt down the French embassy in which he was hiding. Mane or-

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ganised an election in November which was won by Kumba Yala. Yala is an ethnic Balanta. He followed the pattern of his predecessors and appointed mainly people from his ethnic group to top government positions including the prime minister, defence minister and 35 from 37 sector directors. Like his predecessors, Yala’s government was corrupt. Several months of non-payment of salaries to civil servants tensed up the political atmosphere and led to strikes. Mane, who has assumed the position of the national guardsman, refused to take up the post of military adviser to the president. As the president promoted mainly Balantas to the position of General in the army on the 15th of November 2001, he organised a coup one week later to remove the president and was killed in the ensuing fight against government’s soldiers. The United Nations participation in the conflict management was initiated with the creation of the United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office in Guinea-Bissau (UNOGBIS) through a UN resolution on the 3rd of March 1999. Its mandate comprises the creation of conditions that will enable the consolidation of peace and the conduct of democratic elections working with the government of Guinea-Bissau, ECOWAS and other parties to implement the Abuja accord seeking the compliance of the protagonists in collecting and destroying the large quantities of arms circulating in the country and harmonising UN’s political, humanitarian and economic activities in Guinea-Bissau (UNO 1999: 4).

The UNO further sought to consolidate peace in Guinea-Bissau through the creation of a UN Trust Funds for Guinea Bissau on the 30th of April 1999 and the organisation of donor conference in Geneva on the 4th and 5th of May under the aegis of its development programmes (UNDP) in which USD200 million were pledged (Adebajo 2002: 125). As a compensation for the international neglect of civil society, UNO intends to strengthen the civil society for the important role it played in negotiating for peace during the conflict. But the political developments following this settlement continue to indicate that peace has not really returned to Guinea-Bissau. Yala’s government was constantly accused of autocracy and corruption. In September 2003, a bloodless coup took place in which the military, headed by Verissimo Correia Seabra, arrested president Kumba Yala on the grounds that he was unable to solve the nation’s problems5. Seabra consequently

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constituted an interim government led by Henrique Pereira Rosa who then organised legislative elections in April 2004. The PAIGC emerged winner. A military mutiny in October 2004 led to the death of General Seabra which in turn, occasioned widespread unrest. The Prime Minister, Carlos Gomez Junior said that the mutineers where ex-UN soldiers who recently returned from peacekeeping in Liberia and were angry for not having received their salaries. However, since 2006, elections have been conducted and peace has returned. 8.5 Conclusion This discussion of state failure and civil war in Guinea Bissau shows the primacy of bad governance in the precipitation of state collapse in Africa. Guinea Bissau was in no way affected by the dynamic unfolding of the West African conflict, but her summarily reviewed history reads like the history of any of the other failed/collapsed states treated in this work. Long lasting problems relating to the sharing of power has remained in Guinea-Bissau since the 2006 and culminated in the appointment of Martinho Ndafa Cabi as the Prime Minister while Vieira remains an embattled President. Latest reports show that state weakness has spawned the proliferation of criminal networks with fears that GuineaBissau could become a narco-state that could attract terrorists from the Maghreb region (cf. ICG 2008). Despite the signing of a Stability Pact by the three most significant political parties in the country, the inclusion of the state in the United Nations Peacebuilding Commision and the resolve of the US and Brazilian governments to increase the support to the government in 2007, the political situation has not become stable. Cooperation amongst the parties is still questionable with suspicions of government, military and party officials being involved in narco trade which has grown tremendously in the last few years. Guinea Bissau has become a significant cocaine transit point between Latin America and the European markets with deleterious consequences to state capability. Notes 1

The Securocrat is the security appartatus of State.

2

Capverdinisation means the domination of high government positions by people from Cap Verde as against the people from Guinea Bissau, a policy that was introduced by the Portuguese colonialists.

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3

Civilisados is used to refer to the educated people. They are often of Cape Verdian origin.

4

CPLP is an association of Portuguese speaking countries (mostly former Portuguese colonies).

5 See http://www.amadoo.com/eng/particle.php?ama_prefix=ENG&aid=37. (08.04.2005).

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Chapter 9

STATE COLLAPSE AND CIVIL WAR IN IVORY COAST 9.1 Introduction Cote d’Ivoire’s slide into political anarchy began with the death of independence President and national patriach Felix Houphouét-Boigny. Her burgeoning economy was exemplary in West Africa till dwindling cocoa prices coupled with economic and political reforms in the 1990s provoked a divisive politics that plunged the nation into a civil war in 2002. Currently, the state is divided into two with the rebels of the Forces Nouvelles controlling the North (a region well endowed with tropical forests) and the government’s FANCI (Forces Armées Nationales du Cote d’Ivoire) controlling the south (main concentration of cocoa production). A combined contingent of the French Army and the United Nations Mission patrol the middle. State collapse and the Civil War were triggered off with the dynamic unfolding of the West African conflict. Although peace has returned to the two pieces of Ivory Coast, elections has been postponed twice since early 2007 and the end is yet not in sight. 9.2 Root Causes Ivory Coast became independent in 1960 under the leadership of Felix Houphouét-Boigny, a medical doctor, who later on became a cocoa dealer and his party - the Parti Democratique de Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI). The fact that Houphouét-Boigny was involved in productive engagement cocoa plantations - made a difference in his approach to governance. He did not have to destroy state institutions to exercise power. Rather, he needed functioning state institutions which, though limited, promoted economic development through the provision of infrastructure. He retained the central role of state institutionalisation through building bureaucratic capacity, if only to convey an impression of statehood to sceptical populations and increasingly demanding foreign backers (Reno 1995: 110). Behind this façade of institutionalisation, he created a patron/client system maintained with the concession of property rights over pieces of land for cocoa production to his clients. Cocoa production became the mainstay of Ivory Coast’s monocultural economy and recorded enormous growth immediately after independence. The economy grew at an exceptional average annual rate of 9% 263

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between 1960 and 1970, followed by a 7% rate from 1970 to 1975 (Gyapong/Karikari 1999). He concluded partnerships with foreign companies, especially French firms, which influenced an inflow of capital to the agricultural sector and at the same time, guaranteed privileged access to European markets. Cocoa and coffee planters thus enjoyed high prices for their exports. The very high level of foreign investment in an atmosphere of functioning bureaucracy boosted production and led to the much talked-about “economic miracle”. Ivory Coast thus became the greatest global cocoa producer, 40% of world total output (ICG 2003: 5, ISS 2006). Uptill today, Ivory Coast is still Africa’s largest producer and exporter of coffee and about 4th in the world, sub-Saharan Africa’s largest producer of cocoa beans, palm oil, timber and rubber; and second largest producer of timber and rubber (ISS Country Files: Ivory Coast). Cocoa and coffee take up about 60% of cultivated land. Agricultural production is so important in Ivory Coast that it employs 68% of the population with cocoa accounting for 90% of foreign exchange earnings (CIA World Factbook: Cote d’Ivoire) or USD2.3billion in 2003. It contributes 32% of the Gross Domestic Product and absorbs 80% of the labour force (ISS Country Profile: Ivory Coast). Despite state collapse and civil war, Ivory Coast still recorded an estimated USD2, 284 billion trade surplus in 2006.1 Houphouét-Boigny so aggressively pursued the production of cocoa that by early 1990s, production has risen to 850 thousand tons from 60 thousand tons in 1960, a fifteen fold increase (Dand 1995: 58). According to the records of the International Organisation of Cocoa Producers (ICCO), Ivory Coast exported one million, thirty six thousand tons in 2002-2003 (ICCO 2003).2 Although it was possible for Houphouét-Boigny and his cohorts to accumulate capital through agricultural production, French companies still dominate the commanding heights of her economy. For example, Bouygues, a French firm is leader in construction and public works. Bolloré, Saga, SDV and Dalmas dominate maritime operations. Bolloré, a French multinational, practically controls the Abidjan port and has leading position in cocoa, tobacco and rubber (in Liberia) productions. The longest-lasting French Company in Africa (1887-present), originally equipped with monopoly rights from the colonising French state in its operations in Africa is the Compagnie Francaise de l’Afriquede l’Ouest de Cote d’Ivoire (CFAO-CI). It has monopolised export and retail trade and is active in almost all sectors including car sales, new technologies, pharmaceuticals etc. French Telekom controls the telecommunication branch in Ivory Coast: she is the main shareholder in Cote d’Ivoire Telekom and in 264

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Société Ivoirienne des Mobiles (mobile phone operator) by holding about 85% of the capital since the privatisation of public enterprises in the course of SAP implementation. The French Oil and Energy Company, Total, holds about 25% of the shares in Société Ivoirienne de Raffinage (SIR), Ivory Coast’s leading Oil Company. Subsidiaries of three French banks – Sociétés Générales des Banques de Cote d’Ivoire, the Credit Lyonnais and PNB-Paribas; and the subsidiary of a French firm – AXA control the banking and insurance branch in Ivory Coast. Technip and Bivac dominate the plants for the oil sector and logistics (Nanga 2005: 56). The granting of concessions to such firms presents the politicians and civil servants with further opportunities of accumulation and maintaining their clientelistic networks. Through proceeds from the sale of agricultural products in the international market coupled with a property rights regime that favoured access to forest rent, he was able to maintain a political system that appeared stable and an economic standard that was praised as exemplary by the West. So the process of state failure which initially came at the end of the 1980s as a result of the economic crisis induced by the world market, declining means of maintaining the clientele by the elite, breakdown of public facilities and state institutions, high level of public insecurity as well as the loss of the monopoly of violence went unnoticed for a long time. The economic recession of the early 1980s and the liberalisation of global markets which brought a sharp drop in primary commodity prices were very critical for the Ivorian economy because they heralded the first economic downturn in its young history. To really appreciate the effects of SAP in Ivory Coast, it is necessary to illustrate the structure of cocoa trade and export in Ivory Coast. Shortly after independence, the Ivorian authorities established a marketing board known as Caisse de Stabilisation, hereinafter referred to as Caisse. But contrary to the experience of many other West African countries, the Caisse did not buy cocoa directly from the producers. It rather fixed prices that cocoa traders have to pay to producers and also issued licenses to local traders without which they wouldn’t be able to purchase cocoa beans. On the export side, the Caisse did the same: issuance of shipment licenses and determination of shipment prices. Because of its system of operation, the Caisse was not subject to abuse as other marketing boards. It sought to maintain price stability by building up financial reserves at times of high international cocoa prices and in times of low prices, it was forced to suffer losses. Atimes, tt had to borrow from the banks to shore up cocoa prices (Crook 1990: 655-656). This system func265

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tioned well till the 1990s. One of the positive effects of the Caisse system was that it influenced the emergence of an indigenous productive class. The problem with the Caisse started with the reduction in the price of agricultural commodities in the late 1970s up till the 1980s. In 1977 for example, the price of cocoa was 3,500 British pounds per ton and by 198990, the price has declined to 670-770 British pounds per ton, a quarter of its 1977 price (ibid: 649). The second round of economic problems for the Caisse (and therefore for Ivorian economy) came around 1990 and the government had to adopt IMF/World Bank policy recommendation of reducing salaries of civil servants and public service employees by 40%, reduction of social spending and stoppage of employment in public service. This was followed by riots and demonstrations in major cities which forced the state to retrace its steps (Crook 1990: 666-669). Before looking at the effects of SAP in precipitating the conflict in Ivory Coast, it is pertinent to look at the mechanism of production expansion and the effects it had on the social fabric of Ivory Coast. One scholar appropriately maintains that the main reason for state collapse in Ivory Coast lies in the country’s property rights regime that encouraged easy access to a forest rent – as long as cheap migrant labour and virgin forested land were available. He maintains that it is a recipe for conflict and that the conflict potential sharpens as this system advances towards its structural limits (Woods 2003: 641). Portions of land are not inexhaustible. Decline in the availability of land and increase in the cost of production of cocoa and coffee led to a cycle of sharpening conflicts that ended in the civil war and collapse of the state. This is because the exploitation of the tropical resources in Ivory Coast is shaped by two factors: forest rent and pioneer front. Forest rent refers to the difference between the cost of producing a kilogram of cocoa after clearing the bush and the cost of producing same quantity of cocoa upon replanting. The cost of production upon replanting is relatively higher because the land increasingly loses nutrients when steadily cultivated and must constantly be re-nourished. In order to avoid the high cost of production, producers seek pioneer fronts – unexploited tropical forest land. After a long while, this system reached its limits in which pioneer fronts are exhausted or the cost of production becomes exorbitant because of additional inputs such as fertilizers and increase in man hours. “At this point, the cost of reclaiming land with violence is less than trying to mobilise the increased labour and capital costs to maintain the forest rent” (Woods 2003: 643).

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This was the point that Ivory Coast reached in the early 1990s and starting with the re-definition of nationalities which invariably determines access to land, a series of developments were triggered off that ended in state collapse and civil war. There is a substantial element of truism in this theoretical postulation. However, the causal mechanism between the scarcity of arable land, redefinition of nationality and violence is glossed over and I think it should be supplemented with a process-tracing of the sequence of events. This is necessary in order to demonstrate the effects of aggressive cocoa production coupled with neopatrimonialism to the destruction of the social fabric expressed in the redefinition of nationality: the Ivorité (Ivorianness or Ivority) concept – around which combatants were mobilised. HouphouétBoigny’s neopatrimonial system featured the domination of the ruling political party – the PDCI – by his ethnic group, the Baoulé. With state power at his disposal, he influenced the emergence of cocoa planters and merchants among the Baoulé, mainly. The labour needed for the production was predominantly supplied by immigrants, often Moslems from Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea. To boost production, property rights were changed in such a way that ownership was derived from land use and not vice versa. Houphouét-Boigny was quoted as often saying that “the land belongs to those who cultivate it” (ICG 2003: 5). This means that even foreign labourers could own land as long they cultivate the land, a phenomenon that was strengthened by a system of remuneration in which the employer could remunerate the labourer with a piece of land after years of service. In the course of the economic success, the number of immigrants increased so dramatically that by the end of the 1980s, 40% of the population were immigrants (Johnson 2001: 78). Expansion in production coupled with the property rights led to a situation whereby the Baoulés and the Moslem immigrants continuously appropriated the land of other ethnic groups, especially in the western part of the country, home to the Bété ethnic group to which the current President, Laurent Gbagbo, belongs. From the point of view of the Bétés, an alliance of foreigners and the national oligarchy was appropriating their land. Grievances were therefore growing amongst a host of ethnic groups against the PDCI government, a situation to which Houphouét-Boigny reacted the usual African way: he tried to head off the grievances by dividing government appointments among them (ICG 2003: 5). However, with the introduction of SAP in 1990-91 and its implementation by Alassane Quattara, tension increased. SAP led to stoppage of employment in the public sector and mass re267

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trenchment. The result was riots as “unemployed urban youth began to return to the rural areas already in the throes of a land shortage crisis, where they found that land they hoped to claim was held by “foreigners”. With no work and no land, xenophobia grew” (ICG 2003: 6). These rebellions were mainly organised by Gbagbo’s FPI. It might be necessary to stress at this point that it is a normal practice in West Africa that city sojourners migrate back to their villages when they lose their means of livelihood in the city – the African safety net. The reason is that in the villages of origin, land is the basis of existence and everybody is entitled to a piece of it. In keeping with the above-mentioned multilateral creditor demands for political and economic reforms, a multi-party system was introduced in 1990. Houphouet-Boigny and his party won the ensuing elections against the Front Populaire de Ivorien led by Laurent Gbagbo. The constitution was amended to create room for the position of a Prime Minister according to the demands of international creditors. Felix HouphouétBoigny appointed Dr. Alassane Quattara, an ethnic Dyula from the north and the then IMF Director in charge of Africa, to this position with the sole responsibility of managing the nation’s economy and especially, the implementation of SAP. Apposite to the demands of SAP relating to reduction in social spending and increasing the state’s income, Quattara decided to introduce a fool-proof national identity card. Such measures were not restricted to Ivory Coast, it rather ramifies all Africa and was propagated by Quattara in his capacity as IMF Director for Africa. “Alassana Quattara, (…) travelled through Sub-Saharan Africa during the 1980s to explain to states that were deep in debt und subject to, or candidates for, Structural Adjustment Programmes, that they had from then on to cut social spending and increase state income. The introduction (or the increase in the cost) of residence permits for African residents was also on the agenda in other countries than Ivory Coast, from Nigeria to post-Apartheid South Africa. It was entirely in harmony with the policies on this question that were being applied by the developed capitalist countries” (Nanga 2005: 7).

Towards the end of the 1990s, the prices of cocoa and coffee in the international market suffered yet another slump of about 30%, increasing the economic and financial problem of Ivory Coast. As usual, the government sought help in form of credit from the IMF which, as usual, insisted the fulfilment of their conditionalities. Therefore in 1999, Ivory Coast dismantled the 37 year old Caisse Stabilisation system. It was priva268

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tised along with other state firms. This is part of a three-year (1998-2001) Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility package backed by USD384 million from the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility (ESAF).3 The conditions for granting this facility was that the government of Ivory Coast would 1) implement a prudent fiscal policy, 2) extend structural reforms to private sector development and investment and, 3) pursue a programme of ambitious social development. But due to corruption (embezzlement of EU funds leading to the expulsion of three ministers and some civil servants) and failure to meet debt repayment, this facility was suspended. However, the privatisation of Caisse meant that private monopoly firms with powerful positions in the international market replaced state monopoly (Amaizo 2003: 20) and thence, cocoa prices were set on a daily basis. Not only did the farmers lose the planning security guaranteed by the Caisse, the new monopolies started imposing their relatively very low prices on the cocoa planters. In just a few years, the income of cocoa planters was cut into half. Planters reacted by smuggling their products out of the country. Since then, between 10-20% of cocoa harvest are lost to smuggling (CIA World Fact Book 2006: Ivory Coast) which corresponds with another statistic that puts the figures at about 200,000 tons or one sixth of Ivory Coast’s cocoa exports (Remy 2005). The implication was further financial dire straits for the state which increases dependence on foreign multilateral creditors. 9.3 Immediate Causes In 1993, Houphouét-Boigny died. It is noteworthy that he did not succeed in institutionalising the state and democracy. Henri Konan Bedie, the Speaker of Parliament and a Christian from the south, succeeded in outmanoeuvring Quattara in an inner-party struggle and became president. This succession was argued to be commensurate with article 11 of the Ivorian constitution which stipulates that the President be replaced by the Speaker of Parliament should the President die in office. Quattara accepted defeat, congratulated Bedie and was later (in September of 1994) to leave politics and become the Deputy Managing Director of IMF. The pangs of SAP implementation throughout the 1990s have already given Quattara a very bad reputation. The suffering was so much that not few people believed that whoever could implement such a programme is not a true national.4 This was the sentiment that Bedie exploited to launch a discriminatory policy of Ivorité, partly to reconsolidate the dominant position of the party that has been threatened by Quattara’s implementation of SAP. Bedie mounted ethnic campaigns against Northerners. Quattara 269

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left the party, resigned from his position as Prime Minister and subsequently split the PDCI by setting up a new political party – the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), a party that gradually but increasingly received the support of the Northerners in preparation of the 1995 elections. The term Ivorité – the purported intrinsic characteristics of an indigenous Ivorian which has since been in existence but with its significance restricted to the sociocultural sphere - entered the political lexicon of the country, further exacerbating ethnic and regional divisions (Dembélé 2002: 123). By implication, the concept of Ivority sees two classes of citizens; the real Ivorians – mostly Christian and from the south and the possible (or mixed) Ivorians – mostly Moslem and from the North. Bedie escalated the north-south and Christian-Moslem discord by relieving several Moslem northern ministers of their posts and forcing many immigrants to leave the country. Politics in Ivory Coast became completely ethnicised. Before the elections, the government of Konan Bedie regulated the nationality question anew to the effect that only candidates whose both parent(s) are Ivorians are allowed to contest (Article 35 of the constitution). Quattara, whose parents were said to have originated from Burkina Faso, was disqualified from contesting elections on the grounds of this provision. The PDCI and RDR therefore boycotted the elections As fresh elections became due in the year 2000, Quattara was repeatedly disqualified. In solidarity with Quattara, the northern population (at least 40% of the total Ivorian population) boycotted the elections once again. Consequently, Bedie intensified his ethnic campaigns. Hate and discriminatory tirades were broadcast regularly on the national electronic news media. The emphasis on the concept of Ivorité assumed violent dimensions, leading to the pogrom against northern indigenes in the south. The economy continued to worsen and state failure in Ivory Coast was reaching an advanced stage. Five years of Bedie’s government has left the economy in ruins, state bureaucracy hardly still functioned, and the national fabric was torn apart while the government slipped gradually into violent authoritarianism. Figure 7 shows a very sharp (approximately 8 points) decline in real GDP from 1997 to 2000. It also demonstrates that while there is slight increase in the average GDP per Capita of African countries in the ten years, 1997 to 2007, the GDP per Capita in Ivory Coast is at best stagnant. This is an area in which Ivory Coast was almost the best in sub-Saharan Africa for a relatively long time. The feeling of relative deprivation among the majority of Ivorians is therefore understandable. Military officers often exploit such situations to carry out coups. 270

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“In a bloodless coup on 24 December 1999, a group of young noncommissioned officers took power, protesting against Bédie’s refusal to pay them overdue wages, severely degraded material conditions in the army, and the corruption and authoritarianism of the government. General Robert Guei was chosen to lead the junta” (ICG 2003: 6-7).

Gueí has been sacked from the army by Bedie for refusing to use the army to crush protesters during the flawed 1995 elections (Gberie and Addo 2004: 2). Figure 7 shows the sharpest decrease in real GDP in 2000, corresponding to the timing of the coup. Figure 75: Real GDP Growth and Per Capita GDP Africa/Ivory Coast ($ PPP at 2005-2006 Value)

Source: IMF and Institute national de la statistique (INS) data; estimates (e) and projections (p) based on authors’ calculations; © AfDB/OECD 2006, African Economic Outlook.

The central political question that faced the new military junta was the new constitution including an electoral code in preparation for the 2000 elections. A constitution was therefore drafted and put to referendum. With too much attention paid to the eligibility of presidential candidates, the FPI campaigned on the basis that “a candidate must be born in the Cote d’Ivoire to mother and father of Ivorian origin” rather than to “mother or father of Ivorian origin”, which the RDR wanted. Following an extensive debate on the issue, an additional clause, “that the candidate must never have claimed another nationality” was added to the “or” clause. However, shortly before the referendum, Gueí unilaterally changed the “or” clause to “and”, thus aligning himself to the position of the radical socialist FPI. This new clause became the official definition for the concept of Ivorité. The allegation that Gueí wanted to succeed himself became stronger. With the announcement of the Supreme Court, regard271

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ing the disqualification of several candidates, including Quattara (because his parents were said to have originated from Burkina-Faso) and Bedie, the northern Moslem population considered this action as illegitimate and a discrimination against them generally. In January 2000, an interim government of national unity in which all parties were represented was inaugurated and political prisoners freed. Most of the freed soldiers (non-commissioned officers) migrated to Burkina-Faso. The draft to the constitutional referendum (in preparation of elections) still contains the controversial nationality clause. The RDR which has become the political representative of the North boycotted the elections scheduled for October of that year because of the aforementioned clause. Only 37 % of the electorate voted. The presidential candidate of the FPI, Laurent Gbagbo, won the election against all expectations. In spite of this victory, Guéi declared himself winner. The citizens became angry, frustrated and resorted to violent demonstrations. The government reacted with brutal force and at the end, between 200 to 500 people died. The conflicts equally affected the army and forced Guéi to leave the country. He retired to his hometown on the Liberian border. Gbagbo became president, but against public expectations, failed to call for new elections in order to give Quattara a fair chance. Violence erupted again and Gbagbo stepped up his victimisation of Northerners, sharpening the issue of nationality the more which led to a change in the land law. The atmosphere of impunity of security officials which was ushered in by the Gueí administration exacerbated. “The issue of national identification became especially heated under Gbagbo. In Houphouét`s time, many Ivorians had seen little need to become citizens formally, but with the enactment of new rural land law in 1998 that made citizenship a condition of owning land, this changed. After the 1990s and particularly after the fall of the military junta in 2000, holders of resident cards and Ivorians with northern names were often the victims of systematic police harassment and humiliation (ICG 2003: 7).

This led to an attempted coup in January 2001. And at this time, state failure was reaching an advanced stage. The failure of the coup was translated into a rebellion. War and disorder continued till end of the year when a Forum de Reconciliation Nationale was called and peace made among the warring parties. In July 2003, the issue of Quattara’s nationality was settled as a court decided that he is Ivorian. This happened after the reconciliatory meetings in Linas Marcoussis, France, in January 2003.

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The further refusal of Gbagbo to implement the reconciliation agreement led to a return to violence. Despite the intransparent nature of events leading up to the rebellion, there is a credible theory that links the rebellion and state collapse in Ivory Coast directly to opportunities of accumulation associated with the implementation of SAP, especially the privatisation of public enterprises. It is meanwhile common knowledge that the privatisation of public enterprises did open further avenues for corruption by public servants, even in the OECD states. In that vein, the earlier phase of privatisation in Ivory Coast, masterminded by Quattara, was said to have angered French capital and its African hardliners because Quattara opened the door to US firms - Archer Daniel Midland (ADM) and Cargill – to buy off public enterprises in a state that is French domain. “For conservative Francafrique, Quattara was the one who had helped US capital penetrate the coffee and cocoa sectors. Houphouét-Boigny, Francophille, didn’t want to do that, having only made an exception for Nestlé. And for good reason; apart from French-speaking solidarity, bank accounts and shares in Switzerland (sic). The multinationals who were interested in Ivorian cocoa - Archer Daniel Midland and Cargill – were the leading players in this sector on a world scale, it was impossible to shut them out in a period of structural adjustment organised by the institutions of Bretton Woods, in which the United States holds a veto. So the door was left ajar for them” (Nanga 2005: 8).

Thus, as Bedié became President, ADM entered into partnership with SIFCOM, one of the leading firms in this sector, in which Bedie owned nearly 12% of the shares (ibid). Quattara and Bedié apparently are USfriendly, having strong ties with US administrations: Quattara was a senior management staff of IMF with headquarters in Washington and Bedié was Ivory Coast’s ambassador to the US. Internally, Quattara was said to have fallen out of favour with ruling PDCI oligarchy (a party of which he is a member), for throwing them out of their rentier fiefs through privatisation from which he alone personally gained. Mention was always made of his orchestrating a shady deal in which Energie Electrique de Cote d’Ivoire was conceded to his friend, Bouygues in 1990 for 15 years at a scandalously undervalued price (Nanga 2005: 7). Bedié and Quattara are therefore liberal allies who shouldn’t have ideological disagreements. In the race for state power for economic purposes, a distinguishing quality has to be found. This is the role that the concept of ivority should play. It becomes even more serious if one considers the fact that privatisation of state enterprises in the course of liber273

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alising markets is a particular phase of primitive accumulation that, once missed, may never be regained as the state increasingly has less power in the affairs of such corporations. This complicated and opaque saga possibly explains why Bedié created favourable business opportunities for US firms while professing ivority that should virtually be French in that sense. It might also explain why Bedié was ousted by mutinous soldiers that served in the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic under the French Army command and their installation of the former Chief General Staff under Houphouét-Boigny (Guei) as the President, and his subsequent display of Francophilia. Thirdly, this possibly explains the enormous role of Blaise Campaoré, the President of Burkina-Faso, in the preparation of the rebellion. Since the death of Houphouét-Boigny, Blaise Campaore has taken up the duty of protecting conservative French interests coupled with those of French capital in West Africa. Gbagbo and his economic adviser, Coulibaly, are economic nationalists. Coulibaly vehemently kicked against the sudden devaluation of the CFA francs by France in 1994, a decision that plunged the whole French West Africa into financial crisis.6 Even before then, Coulibaly demanded that Ivory Coast should leave the CFA Francs zone in order to become fully independent. Shortly after taking over power, Gbagbo and Coulibaly launched a policy of “refoundation” in which they sought to correct the ills of the previous administration’s privatisation policy, accused of selling national corporations at ridiculous prices to French firms. This was said to have angered France. “The Gbagboist neo-liberal refoundation was guilty of having reopened the dossiers of privatisations and concessions that had been suspended during the transition, of putting them out to tender “following the correct procedure” Nanga (2005: 11).

The consequence was the highly probable risk for certain French multinationals of not obtaining the renewal of juicy concessions that ran out under the Gbagbo regime. These firms have been benefiting from the favours of the Houphouét-Boigny, Quattara and Bedie regimes. They thus run the risk of losing the favourable treatment in the acquisition of choice enterprises that were up for privatisation . Additionally, France was angry because Gbagbo granted more oil concessions to US than to French firms. This issue became more serious following further discovery of oil depots as from 2000. To protect its interest, French capital had to contact its new pointman in West Africa, Blaise Campaore, to aid in the removal of Gbabgo. The subversive se274

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quence of coup, then armed rebellion in order to change power batons has been successful in Liberia, Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic. These claims lack scientific validity, but some empirical facts on which they are based tend to lend them a measure of credibility. 9.4 Civil War Process In the night of 19th November 2002, armed soldiers numbering about 700 attacked the military barracks in Abidjan, Bouaké and Korhogo and in the process; the internal affairs minister was killed. “The rebellion had its origin in the extreme frustration of Ivorian soldiers in exile in Burkina-Faso and some members of the army, the Forces Armées Nationales de Cote d’Ivoire (FANCI). Its leaders were many of the same non-commissioned officers who led the coup against the government of Henri Konan Bedié in 1999. Their exile in Ouagadougou as government guests enabled them to launch the revolt and hold out during long months of ceasefire and negotiations” (ICG 2003: 1).

The attempted coup suddenly turned into a rebellion. There have been divergent explanations as to what might have triggered off the attacks. Former president Guéi was suspected to have been the instigator and was subsequently shot dead without trial. The Mouvement Patriotique de Côte d’Ivoire (MPCI), under the leadership of Gillaume Soro, claimed responsibility for the attacks while naming the discrimination against the Moslems as their reason. The government of Ivory Coast blamed the government of Burkina-Faso for the attacks. From researches carried out so far, this appears to be the most plausible (See ICG Report Nr. 72 of Nov. 2003: 8-27 on the regional context of the conflict and Campaoré’s complicity). The preparations to the attacks were undertaken by the MPCI under the supervision of Blaise Campaore, who, at least, partly financed the operations. And as usual, Charles Taylor, who has meanwhile become president of Liberia, was also involved. “MPIGO was from the onset organised by some of Taylor’s most senior commanders, including Kuku Dennis, Adolphus Dolo and the late Jack the Rebel. Ivorians in MPIGO included many of the late General Guei’s men, while the majority were Liberian and Sierra Leonean fighters. (…) The Sierra Leonian warlord Sam Bockarie and his forces actively assisted MPIGO until just after the killing of Felix Doh in late April 2003” (ICG 2003: 18).

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Gbagbo immediately reactivated his long-standing anti-Taylor connections in Ivory Coast and established MODEL to fight Taylor. The question at the mind of any reader that has been following developments up till now would be how come that Taylor, an ally of Ivory Coast, is now waging a war against Ivory Coast? The answer lies in the realignment of forces and divergence of interests in the Ivory Coast question between two allies: Charles Taylor and Camporé. Firstly, Taylor was an ally of General Guei. Their relations go back to the beginning of Taylor’s rebellion in the late 1980s. Guei was the army officer detailed to support Taylor’s rebellion militarily by Houphouét-Boigny. When Guei lost power (after his coup), he retreated to his home base, close to Liberia’s border. Guei is ethnic Yacouba, ethnic cousins to the Gio of Liberia, from whom Taylor mainly drew his combatants. On the other hand, Campaore was increasingly identified in Ivorian politics with Quattara.7 As from this point, their interests in Ivory Coast parted. One has to bear in mind that at this time, Taylor has become the President of a sovereign state. Secondly, the rebellion became a threat to Taylor because of the murder of Guei, his friend. Furthermore, he received information that MPCI was recruiting Liberians whom he suspected to be his enemies as combatants. This group’s plan to take San Pedro would have cost Taylor access to the sea which was very important for his war economy. So, he established MPIGO and MPJ (see below) to protect him from possible MPCI attack and to help him take the cocoa belt and the vital port of San Pedro, significant for timber export. Thirdly, Taylor needed more financial resources to pay his combatants and RUFmen by providing them with Operation Pay Yourself. He further needed to weaken Gbagbo by cutting Gbagbo’s access to resources. Fourthly, he needed to revenge the death of his friend, Guei. Thus, in a long drawnout conflict, stakes and agenda change; and with that, decisions that affect the course of the conflict. The rebels took over the northern region and Bouake and penetrated further south. By the end of November of that year, the above-mentioned rebel groups emerged on the western flank of the country: the Mouvement Populaire Ivorien du Grand de l’Ouest (MPIGO) and the Mouvement pour la Justice et le Paix (MPJ) who claimed to be supporters of Guéi. There were mercenaries from Liberia and Sierra Leone within these rebel groups. French soldiers have been stationed in Ivory Coast since independence as a result of the defence pact between France and her former colonies and it was these soldiers that contained the rebels’ procession in the country’s heartland. 276

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The war has witnessed 14 peace agreements due to the unwillingness of protagonists to honour the provisions of the agreements. Thus, the war went on and reached a new height on the 4th of November 2004 when Gbagbo launched “Operation Dignity” in a land and air offensive against the Forces Nouvelles (an umbrella organisation for all rebel and opposition groups under the leadership of Gillaume Soro, former radical and violent student leader, former member of FPI and the leader of MPCI). In the course of the operation, the French military base in Bouaké was bombed, killing nine French soldiers and a US civilian with thirty people wounded. The French army immediately retaliated by destroying the aircraft that carried out the operation. Later on, on the orders of the French President, Jacques Chirac, the French air force destroyed the whole fleet of the Ivory Coast air force. Early in the war, due to his lack of confidence on the FANCI Gbagbo organised a group of young combatants with the name of “Young Patriots” led by Blé Goudé. The young patriots regularly counter verbal attacks from the North and have on occasions, attacked Northerners in the South. This group and other Gbagbo’s supporters organised an anti-opposition and anti-French violent demonstration that headed to the French base of the 43rd Battalion of the Marine Infantry, the airport and the Hotel d’Ivoire. The French army opened fire and at the end, about 60 demonstrators died and about 1,000 were injured. The African Union promptly summoned an emergency meeting in Abuja, the capital of Nigeria, and condemned FANCI’s break of the ceasefire accord while mandating the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki (despite his absence), to take up negotiations between the protagonists. 9.5 War Economy The usual phenomenon of using proceeds from the sale of raw materials in international market to finance wars was equally present in Ivory Coast. According to a UN report, state income from cocoa is being used to finance the government’s war efforts. It went further to state that taxes have been levied from cocoa farmers in order to finance specific attacks against the rebels in the north. The expert report further mentions that this mechanism also operates on the Northern side. The proceeds from the artisanal production of alluvial diamonds concentrated in areas in the north of Ivory Coast which amounts to millions of US dollars are also invested in the war by the Forces Nouvelles. This appears to be the most important revenue source for the rebels. The same report suggests that about 55% of the total cotton production in Ivory Coast - predominantly 277

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produced in the rebel controlled area (North) - is smuggled to Mali and Burkina Faso (UN Panel of Expert 2005: 16-19). Another report states that a lively trade thrives between the insurgents of the Forces Nouvelles based around Danane and Man and Guinean customs and military forces controlling the Guinean side of the border. This trade has led to a scarcity of rice which then led to price increase, and to small attacks by uncontrolled FN-elements in search of food. The attack on the village of Kokota on the 6th of April, 2005 is one of such. It states further, “a large proportion of the coffee and some of the cocoa grown in FN-controlled territory is brought across the border into Guinea and sold from Conakry” (ICG 2005: 19). The proceeds are then use to purchase weapons in the Southern Guinean town of Sinko, a town that “holds significant arms caches” (ibid: 19) and serves Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali and Liberia. Most of these weapons originate from the ex-LURD combatants and are regularly sold in Sinko and Beyla. This led to an arrest of fourteen FN-combatants loyal to Ibrahim “IB” Coulibaly, leader of one of the FN factions, on the 6th of April, 2005. 9.6 Conflict Management On the 17 h October, 2002, Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, under the auspices of ECOWAS, arranged a ceasefire. The ceasefire line ran from east to west and thus, divided the country into two through a line known as the “confidence zone”. France undertook the supervision of the ceasefire (patrolling the confidence zone) pending the arrival of ECOMOG troops and subsequently reinforced its 700 troops in Abidjan (Operation Unicorn). Operation Unicorn was armed with a United Nations Operations in Ivory Coast (ONUCI) mandate as “an intervention force”. The ceasefire was however broken with the emergence and belligerence of MPIGO and MPJ in November of the same year. ECOMICI (the official appellation of the ECOWAS group) with its 1,400 peacekeepers was supposed to supervise the ceasefire operations. As a result of the incapability of ECOMICI to guarantee the ceasefire, President Jacques Chirac of France invited the conflict parties to Linas Marcoussis, France, for peaceful negotiations between the 15th and the 23rd January, 2003. The agreement that was reached in these negotiations between all parties to the conflict recommended a government of national reconciliation, distributed top government posts between the Forces Nouvelles and the government, recommended executive powers for the Prime Minister while ceding the posts of Internal and Defence Ministers to the Forces Nouvelles. It 278

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further reconfirmed the ceasefire, opened the border with Burkina-Faso, ordered a general amnesty for the rebels, and recommended a resumption of diplomatic relations with Mali as well as fresh elections for 2005. In summer of the same year, the UNO began its direct engagement with the conflict by establishing the Mission de la Unie de Côte d’Ivoire (MINUCI) on the 27th of June with 34 officers. This number was later increased to 76. Although the war was declared ended on the 4th of July, 2003, intermittent skirmishes continued. Part of the reason for this development was that President Gbagbo refused to honour the terms of Linas Marcoussis agreement: he hoped to create an advantage for himself during the 2005 elections by keeping the rebels and opposition out of government.8 His reply to the complaints of the Forces Nouvelles against his stance was to label them “kids with pistols” and “houseboys turned rebels” (ICG 2003: 1). On these grounds, the Ministers of the Forces Nouvelles resigned and there was a return to hostilites shortly after. One of the provoking factors was the alleged ethnic cleansing by the Young Patriots. In summer of 2004, the war flared up again triggered off by government soldiers’ killing of some French soldiers in their attempt to rein in some rebels. The French government reacted by destroying the air power of Ivory Coast while the rebels used the opportunity to re-launch attacks. At the moment of writing, the power centre in Ivory Coast is hard to locate. Warring factions have divided parts of the state among themselves and enjoy a monopoly of instruments of violence in their respective areas, prompting a researcher to term them “oligopolies of violence” (Mehler 2004: 6). Mention has been made of the African Union’s and the United Nations’ mandate to the South African president, Dr. Thabo Mbeki, to mediate on the issue in November 2004. The ceasefire agreement that was reached then (Nov. 2004) was promptly broken by the southern based government air force as they bombed rebel positions in the same month. This has worsened the problem of lack of confidence among the warring groups: "There is a problem of confidence and we do not want to be blinded by the process. In November we were about to embark on DDR, then we got bombarded! “, said Sindou Cisse, a top official of the Forces Nouvelles (IRIN 2005)9.

Article 35 of the Constitution which excludes candidates of nonIvorian parenthood from contesting for the presidency is still a problem that must be resolved and pro-government forces are aggrieved that such an important issue has to be decided by Mbeki, a foreigner. Thus, they 279

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have been reluctant in cooperating with him. This is why observers have expressed concerns about the peaceful conduct of elections planned for October 2005, prompting the Security Council of the UNO (the body responsible for the elections) to extend the mandates of the 6,000 UN- and 4,000 French peacekeepers till the 4th of May 2005 (ibid). Since then, the UNO mandate has continuously been extended and the election date postponed; first, to October 2006 then to June 2008 and again to Nov. 2008. With the latest postponement of elections, the hopes rekindled by the last peace agreement (the fourteenth) between George Soro and President Gbagbo in Burkina Faso on the 4th of March, 2007 is waning gradually. This was supposed to be Ivory Coast’s best chance for peace because compromise was reached on two key issues: disarmament and identification (The Economist 2007). The agreement stipulates the following: Northerners are to get identity papers qualifying them as bonafide citizens A new government to be formed within five weeks probably with Mr. Soro as Prime Minister Rebels and soldiers to be integrated into a joint army A joint command, with rebels and soldiers having an equal number of officers to be set up within two weeks The confidence zone should be dismantled; instead a “green line” of checkpoints manned by international troops is to be introduced 11,000 UN and French peacekeepers are to be withdrawn Joint patrols between rebels and soldiers Lifting of arms embargos three months after elections to enable both sides police their areas Restoration of central authority with civil servants moving up north Presidential elections, already twice postponed, to be held within the next ten months President Gbagbo retains full presidential powers till the elections

It remains to be seen if the agreement would be respected. Analysts are of the opinion that it would be because the main issues concerning the groups have been well deliberated in an atmosphere that was devoid of hurry. A new body, including Alassane Quattara and Henri Konan Bedié (both non-signatories to the accord) has been set up to monitor the accord. The optimism of analysts is based on the fact that this agreement 280

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represents a carve-up between Gbagbo and Soro and may the glue needed to stick things together. This optimism notwithstanding, critical observers have expressed doubts of the agreements being implemented to the letter. They claim that the situation is not stable enough to allow elections and that President Gbagbo would not hold elections as long as he is not sure of victory. The two postponements of general elections since the signing of the agreement appear to be vindications for this position. Speculations are rife that Prime Minister Gillaume Soro would not push for elections because at age 35, he is underaged for the presidency. Where the president and the prime minister have a mutual interest in not holding elections, it would take sometime to get elections off the ground. 9.7

Conclusion

State Collapse and Civil War in Ivory Coast shows not only how states get weakened through the non-pursuit of economic development and diversification; it clearly underlines how adherence to multilateral creditor demands precipitate the collapse of states whose institutional capacity they were supposed to strengthen. It equally blatantly demonstrates the fallacy of political independence in the context of economic dependence. It is incontrovertible that the state collapsed in the context of what has become known as the West African conflict. However, years of decadent and bad governance did contribute tremendously to it. These rebel forces do not represent the responsible democratic forces of society. A university drop-out has just been named Prime Minister because of his mastery over violence. One wonders what kind of government to be expected from such actors. The root causes of the conflict are not addressed in the process of conflict management. Conflict managers merely settled for a reconstitiution of the top echelons of state administration. Such conflict management methods are clear recipes for bad governance and all its attendant consequences. The final solution to conflict and state collapse in Ivory Coast could be to find ways of injecting the imperatives of good governance in the system and building the bases of social cohesion. In this way, the sources of state authority and solidarity would be indigenous. Then no matter how much blame is given to outsiders for the conflict, as one observer rightly pointed out, the soil was fertile for it (Nanga 2005: 9).

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Notes 1

Own calculation based on the figures of the CIA World Fact book in Internet (Stand: 10.04.2007).

2

Also available in Internet: www.icco.org; under the title, “Information on the effects of Liberalisation on the Ivory Coast’s Cocoa Market”, September 2003. 3

ESAF is the programme that replaced SAP as a result of enormous critics on SAP. ESAF was supposed to alleviate poverty in Africa and to stress ownership, i.e., respective African countries have to indicate where they need help and in what form and send the application to the IMF. However, this is more than meets the eye because IMF gives guidelines for such applications which African countries have to adhere to in order to get the credit which is hardly invested in poverty alleviation programmes anyway.

4

Questioning the nationality of SAP implementers is not restricted to Quattara and Ivory Coast. A similar fate befell Kengo Wa Dongo, Mobutu’s Prime Minister in charge of implementing SAP in Zaire. The reasoning is always that a “true national” wouldn’t have brought so much suffering on his own people.

5

Culled (in original form) from AfDB/OECD (2006), African Economic Outlook 2005-2006; available in internet: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/20/36739479 .pdf 6

The former French colonies in West Africa are still using the French currency known in West Africa as CFA Francs. Despite the introduction of the Euro, the French Exchequer has insisted on the guarantee of the CFA Franc. Through this monetary protection, unlimited convertibility and fixed parity with the Euro especially the freedom to transfer funds is maintained. This ensures the control of the economies of these states by France and guarantees the profit of French capital. The mechanism of this control is that these states centralise their foreign exchange reserves in either of the two big central banks in Africa. In exchange for the convertibility guaranteed by France, the central banks of these African states are obliged to deposit 65% of their foreign exchange reserves with the French Exchequer.

7

Remember that Quattara’s parents were supposed to have originated from Burkina Faso.

8

This behaviour fits the economic logic of state power in Africa. It is winner takes all that leaves no room for negotiations.

9

Available in internet: http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=46529& SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=COTE_D_IVOIRE)

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Chapter 10

GUINEA: A FAILING STATE 10.1 Introduction Bad governance and misguided implementation of socialist doctrines constitute the major reasons for the outburst of conflict in Guinea. However, the trigger factor was the dynamic development of the West African conflict. A theoretical contribution that claims to explain state collapse should equally be in a position to explain state non-collapse. Thus, Guinea serves as a variation on the dependent variable, a crucial case for the fact that she was directly affected by the dynamic development of the West African conflict but did not collapse. This is the justification for including the Republic of Guinea in this empirical section. Based on my distinction between a “failing” and a “failed” state (Chapter 1), I categorise Guinea as failing state. Institutional capacity of the state is weak, underdevelopment is high, there is a great measure of insecurity in several parts of the state including impunity of state security agents and non execution of legal sanctions etc. But all these happen because the central power base allows them to happen. That is, they don’t happen in spite of the state’s intention to prevent them like in Nigeria. Even the erection of roadblocks and their utilisation for extortion is tolerated by the state. The reason for Guinea’s non-collapse despite its involvement in the West African conflict has been alluded to in chapter 4, but the analysis has to be elaborated here. 10.2 Economy “The mining sector in Guinea is the mainstay of the economy” (Guinea’s Mines Minister Souare in Allafrica: 2006: 2).

Guinea has the world’s largest bauxite reserves and ranked second in production in 2001, behind Australia. Mining, as the most dynamic sector of the Guinean economy accounted for 90% of her total exports in 2001, 90% of which were from bauxite (Nations Encyclopaedia)1. Guinea produced 7,835 kilograms of gold in 1998 and in 2001, production rose to 13,000 kilograms. In the same period, diamond production was 370, 000 carats of which 70-80% are of gem quality. The average production quantity between 1998 and 2000 was even higher: namely 381, 000. 550, 000 283

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tons of hydrate alumina and the same quantity of calcinated alumina were produced in the same period (ibid.). Other resources include clay, cement, salt, gravel, water and stone. Table 15 shows some of Guinea’s mineral deposits. “Richly endowed with minerals, Guinea possesses over 25 billion metric tons (MT) of bauxite – and perhaps up to one half of the world’s reserves. In addition, Guinea’s mineral wealth includes more than 4 billion tons of high-grade iron ore, significant diamond and gold deposits, and undetermined quantities of uranium” (US State Department)2.

Table 15: Guinea’s main mineral deposits Reserves Nr. Minerals 1.

Diamonds

Unit of measure mln carats

Recovery

Extraction, year 2000

1,2

0,2 carats/m3

0,45

190

100

primary deposits 2,26 grams/ton; placers - 1,5 grams/m3

16

52%

0,550

Total Known 40

2.

Gold

tons

3.

Bauxites

mln tons

20900

7400

4.

Iron ores

mln tons

4460

2100

57%

-

5.

Chrome ores

mln tons

1,5

-

22%

-

6.

Titanium-zirconium thousand (ores summed) tons

78,9

52,5

-

no info

7.

Carbonate resources mln tons

5,1

4,2

-

no info

8.

Fire clays

mln tons

69,4

-

-

no info

9.

Construction sand

mln m

6,1

0,5

-

no info

-

230

-

no info

10. Shingle and gravel

3

thousand m3

Source: World Markets Research Centre 2003.

The leading companies in the extraction of these mineral resources are foreign, albeit with state participation in keeping with socialist doctrine of state ownership. Bauxite extraction, for example, is dominated by the Bauxite Company of Guinea (Compagnie des Bauxite de Guinée – CBG), the world’s largest producer of bauxite. This company was established in 1966 with the Guinean state owning 49% of its shares while 51% belong to a consortium of US, France, Canada and Australian firms led by Halco Mining. Halco’s major shares (90%) belong to a Canadian Company – Alcan – and a US company – Alcoa, each 45% (Allafrica 2006: 1; US State Department 2006). Between 1986 and 1992, this firm accounted for an 284

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average 62% of Guinea’s total tax revenues (Arulpragasam and Sohn 1997: 145). The Compagnie de Bauxite de Kindia (CBK) a joint Guinean government and Russki Alulmina, (Russian) ownership produces about 2.5 million tons annually, most of which is shipped to Russia. The first bauxite firm in Guinea was the Fria International Company, later on named Figuria, an international consortium of several Western firms in which the Guinean state had 49% shares. It has now been taken over by Alumina Compagnie de Guinée (ACG) and produced about 2.4 million tons of alumina in 2004 (US State Department). In gold production, the leading producer is Société Ashanti de Guinea, owners of the largest mine – the Siguri Mine, a joint venture of Ghana and Guinea. The next is the Société Aurifere de Guinée (SAG) with a 49% state participation and 51% for the Chevaning Mining Company, a multinational corporation. SAG has been in business since 1985. In 2000, a Canadian firm, Semafo Inc. was awarded a ten year concession for mining the Jean Gobele Gold Product. However, Guinea loses enormous revenues through smuggling of gold produced artisanally because the government offers less than the normal market price for it. The leading diamond firm is Aredor Alluvial Diamond Mine, a firm that came into business in 1984 with a 50%:50% share participation by the state of Guinea and Western investors, mainly the Bridge Oil Company of Australia. Due to the activities of artisanal miners, the company had to close some of its mines in 1994. Partly as a result of new mining code introduced in 1995 in keeping with neoliberal opening of markets. This provided attractive incentives for foreign investors by allowing them to own up to 85% of company shares. Industrial extraction of alluvial diamonds thus expanded greatly, leading to an equal great increment in profits and government’s revenue (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005: 584). Therefore, in 1996, Aredor bounced back to life after being bought by Trivalence Mining Corporation of Canada with controlling shares of 85% leaving 15% for the state. In oil, since exploration started in 1974, a US oil company – BRI and Yugoslavian oil company – NEFTEGAS – including a French oil firm – OCF – are in leading positions. The foreign domination of African economies is an understandable situation judging by the fact that African states lack the necessary capital for the exploitation of their richly endowed natural resources. However, it has consequences for further political and economic development of Africa. It predisposes the politicians to accumulate wealth through the control of state power thereby diverting attention of the rulers from development issues and to excessive focus on acquisition and retention of 285

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power. For example, the original plans between the government and the CBG was that the company should build a bauxite refinery in Guinea, a plan that should have had positive economic consequences for Guinea, had it been implemented. For whatever reasons, the company rebuffed this idea for forty years and the state raised no sanctions against the firm. State and foreign domination of the commanding heights of the economy precluded the emergence of a productive indigenous class and the state has remained the arena for class formation. Thus, despite the enormous significance of bauxite to the Guinean economy, almost all of it is exported raw which amounts to about a half of the total US and Canadian imports. This is why the new plan of a seven-year old bauxite company, operating between New York (US) and Conakry (Guinea) by the name of Global Alumina to build a refinery in Guinea is being greeted with enthusiasm by Guineans. The company intends to invest USD2.6 billion in mining, refining, including the erection of infrastructure such as coalfired power plant, a dam to supply water, upgrading of the existing rail lines to transport the processed alumina to the coast and an expansion of infrastructure at the port of Kamsar, 136 kilometres away from the mining site. Despite her rich mineral endowments, Guinea remains an abysmally poor and underdeveloped state. She is ranked among the 10 poorest countries of this world with a life expectancy of about 50 years. Life expectancy, child mortality, literacy rates and per capita income place her 160th out of 177 countries (UNDP 2004). More than 70% of the population is illiterate, only one in five has adequate sanitation, one third of all children under five are stunted from malnutrition, and the government spends ten times as much on defense as it spends on health for its suffering population (Steinberg 2007: 1). School enrolment is about 51%. Its GNP is about USD570 per head of the population and more than 40% of the population have an annual income of less than USD300. Unemployment is so high that some commentators claim that almost everyone is unemployed (Allafrica 2006). Guinea is financially dependent on external sources which provide 85% of investment programmes including the covering of budget deficits. According to official sources, inflation in Guinea rose from 3% in 2002 to 12% in 2003 and then to 31.1% in 2005 (Economist Intelligence Unit Country Report 2006: Guinea). For Guineans however, the yardstick for measuring their level of poverty is the cost of 50 kilogram sack of rice which cost GF24, 000 in the middle of 2003. In March of 2004, it rose to GF35, 000, and then to GF75,000 in June of 2005, further to GF110,000 in June 2006 before rising to between GF130,000 – 286

Guinea: A failing State

GF150,000 in January of 2007. This outrageous and speedy increase in the price of foodstuffs may appear innocuous but to any observer of the political economy of West Africa since the introduction of SAP, this is normal. To best appreciate the effect of this inflation on the society, the best paid senior civil servants in Guinea receive about GF400, 000. To get a better picture of value of the national currency, it has become normal in West Africa to look at the exchange rate of the national currency (in this case the Guinean Francs – GF) to the US dollar. One US dollar was worth GF2,600 in June of 2004, it then rose to GF4,950 in April of 2006 and in January 2007, it rose further to GF6,600 (ICG 2007: 6). One understands the effects of this price rise to the society when one considers that civil servants’ salaries have not risen in Guinea since 1996. Guinea suffers from dearth of infrastructure. Only 2,000 kilometres of roads have hard surface. There is a trans-national road of 662 kilometres running from Conakry to Kankan which was built in the 1920s by the French colonialists and has remained unreconstructed since then. Despite being blessed with one of Africa’s greatest water deposits, the supply of drinking water is still very low and basically inadequate. Guinea is not self-sufficient in agricultural production. Only 30% of the arable land is cultivated. Rather, the state engages in the importation of basic necessities including foodstuffs, making up about 31% of imports. This then leads to trade deficit which amounted to USD158 million in 1998. Trade deficit was recurrent in Guinea forcing the state to borrow from international financial institutions after the repudiation of socialism. Thus, at the end of 1997, the stock of Guinea’s debt was estimated at USD3.1 billion, or about 80% of GDP (IMF 1998: 8). France remains Guinea’s most important foreign trade partner inspite of socialism. 10.3 Politics and Administration Guinea became independent from France the on 2nd October 1958 under the leadership of Sekou Touré and his political party – Parti Démocratique de Guinee (PDG) – a party with avowed socialist doctrine. In a plebiscite to decide Guinea’s membership of the French community one month earlier, the party mobilised Guineans to secure an overwhelming rejection of the French proposal. Because of this rejection coupled with the party’s socialist leaning, France withdrew its assistance to Guinea and consequently sped up Guinea’s rapprochement with Soviet Union. Before becoming President, Sekou Touré was a staff of the Post and Telecommunications, later on a labour leader. Having radicalised the citizens against French colonialism with socialist doctrine, the declaration of so287

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cialism as state guiding principle was almost inevitable in order to maintain political credibility among the electorate. But this brand of socialism did not try to liberate the people from poverty; it only served as a justification for Touré’s dictatorial hold on to power. Guinea became a de facto Touré state. Guinea, as a one-party dictatorial republic with a socialist, closed economy, denied its citizens human rights and freedom of expression. Although he was a trade union leader, Touré banned the trade union in 1961 after a teachers’ strike. Despite his declaration of socialism, Touré did not try to transform the Guinean economy in any way. He rather gave concessions to foreign firms with state participation on a slightly weaker position. And like every other West African patriarch, used the proceeds to oil his clientelistic networks mostly made up of party members and members of his Malinke ethnic group, although he has always advocated cross-ethnic nationalism before coming to power. His government became increasingly isolated from the people which increased the regime’s insecurity. He thus stepped up the repression of opposition. Often engaging in allegations of conspiracy against him both nationally and internationally, he imprisoned real and imagined opponents and ordered the killing of some. In 1971, he organised a national convention which was meant to let the people make an input in to their governance. To the chagrin of observers, the convention was converted into a tribunal for the conviction of the opponents of the socialist regime. Touré’s brutality poisoned relations with foreign and neighbouring countries and thereby increased her isolation. This had devastating consequences for the economy, reducing Guinea’s living standards to one of the lowest in West Africa at the time. Sekou Touré died on the 3rd of April, 1984 and one week later, a military junta, with the name of Military Committee of National Recovery (CMRN), under the leadership of Lt. Col. Lansana Conté (ethnic Soussou), took over power. He dissolved the PDG and suspended the constitution. Ostensibly, in order to win Western states as allies and consistent with the zeitgeist, the new military regime declared a second republic and pledged to implement a neo-liberal policies, respect human rights and democratic principles and introduce structural reforms. The economy was to be liberalised and opened up for foreign investment and private enterprise promoted. Subsequently, Conté’s regime eliminated restrictions on agriculture and foreign trade, changed the exchange rate regime, decentralised the administration, reduced the size of the bureaucracy and reorganised the judiciary. The deleterious effects of these poli288

Guinea: A failing State

cies on Africans must have become common knowledge to the reader by now. As time progressed, Contè’s dictatorial tendencies became increasingly clearer, confirming observers’ suspicion that the reforms were born out of tactical manoeuvres than real democratic convictions. “He understood the need to allow a minimum level of individual freedom and political pluralism and to accept the need for elections in order to protect his government, which has always been military, personal and violent” (ICG 2007: 1).

Lansana Conté started ethnic discrimination immediately after taking office. Following the attempted coup of Colonel Diarra Traoré (an ethnic Maninka like Tourè) in July 1985, Touré not only turned a blind eye to the looting of Maninka shops by members of his Soussou ethnic group, he even greeted them publicly with the word “Wofatara” which means “well done” (ibid: 3). He used state concessions and contracts to enrich his chosen clients whose businesses were said to be joint ventures with Conté. For example, Futurelec Holdings is said to belong to Conté and Vieira, the president of Guinea Bissau, although it is nominally headed by a wealthy business associate of Conté, Mamadou Sylla, who also controls Air Guinée Express and SOGEPAM (ICG 2005: 16). Although he released Tourè’s political prisoners on taking over power in 1984, he later exposed his real intentions with the assassination of some of Sekou Touré’s political associates including eight ex-ministers on the 7th of May, 1987. This act, which was followed by systematic emasculation of possible opponents, increased the level of the citizen’s resentment against the government. From then on till the beginning of the 1990s, the wave of democratisation that blew through Africa caught up with Guinea. The main reason for demanding democracy was that the majority perceived it as a way out of poverty and economic hardships. Under additional donor and diplomatic pressure, he continued his pretentious reform programmes which led to the establishment of a transitional national parliament – the Transitional Council of National Recovery (TCNR). This council introduced a new constitution (Le Loi Fundamental) and a Supreme Court in 1990 with plans for multiparty elections. In the first presidential elections of 1993, Conté declared himself winner amidst rumours of electoral irregularities. In 1995, his party – the Party for Unity and Progress (PUP) – won 76 out 114 sits in the first national parliamentary election, again amidst rumours of electoral malpractices. Corruption and increased emasculation of state bureaucracy led to a mili289

John Emeka Akude

tary mutiny in Conakry in February 1996 in which the presidential offices were destroyed and lives of many citizens lost. Medium-level officers under the leadership of General Zoumanigui attempted to convert the mutiny into a putsch but were unsuccessful. The regime arrested many soldiers and citizens and put 98 of them on trial in 1998. Due to biting economic problems, Guinea intensified her efforts at securing credit lines from the Bretton Woods institutions which demanded a say in his government, at least relating to appointment in sensitive positions. In 1996, he appointed technocrats and many of the Guinean Diaspora into ministries according to the demands of international creditors, rationalised public expenditures and improved revenue collection. Education, health, banking, justice and infrastructures received increased state spending. This led to slight improvements in the economy. Conté’s confidence was thus boosted making him bolder in the expression of dictatorial tendencies. Prior to the 1998 elections, the candidate with the best prospects of victory, Alpha Condé, was arrested and imprisoned for trumped-up charges, paving the way for a renewed Conté “victory”. In December of that year, he was elected for another 5-year term of office in an election marred with irregularities but judged by foreign observers to be an improvement on the previous election. With his confidence boosted, he proceeded to reverse the direction of reforms by replacing the technocrats and the Diaspora in his government with ministers mostly from his Soussou ethnic group as from 1999. This led to increased corruption and reduction in the degree of state legitimacy. By adopting the SAP in January 1997, the Guinean government accepted to promote private investment, reduce the role of the state in the economy and return commercial and productive activities back to the private sector. The implementation of these programmes necessitates the strengthening of the state’s bureaucratic capacity. But parallel networks of clientism, some of which are carry-overs from the socialist epoch through which people have had access to political goods that the state could not provide, have become so dominant that rational-legal principles of the bureaucracy could not operate. It is instructive that Conté did not dismantle the clientelistic relations of his predecessor. Rather, he tapped into such relations to consolidate his power. States bureaucracy was thus emasculated. Corruption, tax evasion, smuggling and counterfeiting have come to dominate the economy. The privatisation of state corporations as demanded by SAP was simply translated into selling these corporations to oligarchs close to the regime who use them for selfenrichment without providing the services to the customers (ICG 2005: 1). 290

Guinea: A failing State

El Hajj Mamadou Sylla and Guido Santullo, an Italian, are among the most prominent of those oligarchs. “Businessman Mamadou Sylla owed his dazzling accumulation of wealth to his collusion with the President, which allowed him to control many public sectors within the economy and gain tax exemptions and favours from the central bank among other unwarranted advantages” (ICG 2007: 5).

This “crony capitalism” led to increasing disappearance of the hardly existent demarcation between private and public affairs and weakened the state further. As a counter to increasing criticisms from the opposition, the regime increased its authoritarian tendencies by muzzling down the press and brutally repressing opponents. Political tension rose. The situation was so tense that the US government felt it pertinent to warn in February 2000 that “socio-economic factors which could contribute to conflict include rising fuel prices, a high student failure rate, poverty and economic stagnation, official corruption and weakness in bauxite and gold prices” (USAID 2000: 2). This critical situation was exploited by rebels, supported by Charles Taylor to attack the government. 10.4 Rebellion in Guinea Despite becoming the President of Liberia in 1997, Charles Taylor continued his warlord activities in West Africa for reasons already advanced (see Chapters 4 and 8 of this book). He had an axe to grind with Guinea because of Guinea’s participation in the West African conflict.3 “Guinea was intimately involved in the war in Sierra Leone, through both the supply of weapons and the participation of its soldiers in the ECOMOG” (ICG 2005: 18).

Apparently supported by military officers from the US and Great Britain as a result of these states’ resolve to solve the Taylor problem, the LURD invaded Liberia from Guinea in July 2000 (ICG 2002: 4). The rationale, among others, was to cut Taylor’s revenue source. The invasion did not succeed in removing Taylor who then prepared his revenge. On the 18th of September 2000, a coalition of the Union des Forces Démocratique Guinée (UFDG) under the leadership of General Zoumanigui, the Liberian army and the Sierra Leonean RUF attacked the Guinean cities of Guéckédou and Magenta, 30 km from the Liberian border. The area is rich in diamond and other natural resources. There were also attacks in

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Massadou, near to the Liberian border as well which claimed 45 to 80 lives. Lacking confidence in his army, President Conté mobilised LURD forces and Sierra Leonian “Donso” (hunter militiamen) in Guinean refugee camps to counter the rebellion while backing them up with air power.4 The war theatres encircled the camps for refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone containing about 400,000 people and therefore attracted the attention of the international community. International opprobrium heightened with the killing of the local Director of the UNO refugees’ relief organisation on the 24th of September, 2000, and the non-delivery of food items to the encircled refugees. As from the 26th of April, 2000, it became possible for food items and other necessities to be delivered to the refugees. The war on the Guinea’s side ended in April of the same year but the Guinean-Donso-LURD coalition did not stop at that. They pushed further with the aim of taking Monrovia and unseating Taylor. The conflicts in West Africa had brought all affected states to relatively short periods of collapse except Guinea. The inability of the TaylorUFDG attacks to destabilise Guinea has been explained by the dominant mode of bauxite extraction (industrial) which makes it possible for the state to continue drawing revenues from the sector with which it pays the army to secure the regime (Snyder and Bhavnani 2005). Appropriate as this explanation may be, my research which included interviews with Guineans raises another strong factor: nationalism. It might be inadequate to reduce the successful resistance of the Guinean state against the rebel attacks to the revenue factor. If this were to be true, the government would have relied on the military to defeat the rebels. However, as has become evident from reports, it was an alliance of LURD and Donso that did the main infantry job with the state’s military supporting them from the air. Even if Conté’s access to revenues must have aided his counter-insurgency measures by securing him victory, research evidence shows that the fact that the rebellion was considered a foreign invasion by majority of Guineans wsa decisive in denying the rebellion nationwide support. Guineans are “fiercely patriotic” (ICG 2005: 8). No indigenous actor of note joined the rebellion. This distinguished this UFDG invasion from the RUF invasion of Sierra Leone. Although the RUF invasion was planned from outside, it found enough support amongst the country’s youth and members of the fragmented elite. It is safe to assume that had indigenous groups joined the rebellion, it might have been long drawn-out enough to collapse the regime. After all, there is enough war economy going on in Guinea to sustain a rebellion. Why

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was the rebellion not internally supported despite Conté’s long history of bad governance? To answer this question, I go back to the concept of elite fragmentation raised by Reno (1998). The reason could be that the most critical factor in the precipitation of state failure and violence –elite fragmentationwas not present in Guinea. Rebel leaders are rational actors and explaining rebellion necessitates explaining the action or inaction of actors. Thanks to socialism, Guinea did not experience the multiplicity of elite relative to other West African states. West African rulers have co-opted elite from several networks – ethnic, bureaucratic, party-political, professionals, students etc. - to consolidate their regimes. This then leads to a multiplication of elite networks. Brutal socialist dictatorship saved Touré from having to broaden his elite base. He was totally free to choose ethnic clients from the army and the party which left him with a lean and easyto-manage elite base. Conté consolidated his regime by tapping into this base. For example, the current President of the Guinean National Assembly, Aboubacar Somparé, was a leading member of the Touré’s PDG. This development made the fragmentation of the elite difficult, more so as Conté had the means of oiling his networks. He could enlarge or contract his elite networks as he wishes. “The Conté system has been able to broaden its circle of beneficiaries by playing a game of lightning quick promotions and demotions. This allowed it to redistribute some of the fruits of the pillage of state, neutralise untimely ambitions and reaffirm the authority of its only leader, President Conté” (ICG 2007: 3).

This factor is extremely important because it is the elite that have the possibility of exploiting the liberalisation of the market, clandestine commercial networks and availability of portable raw materials to launch and sustain a rebellion. In the absence of elite fragmentation, the rebellion remained a foreign invasion. The perception of the invasion amongst Guineans as foreign denied the rebellion the chance of success. This is due to the vestiges of Touré’s nationalism. Touré’s socialist policy of strengthening the national sentiments of Guineans by sequestering Guinea from the rest of the world made Guineans very nationalistic and averse to anything foreign. Guinea was the only African state that voted no to De Gaulle’s plan of maintaining colonial relations after independence through the Francophone.5 Guineans are so nationalistic that although there are ethnic-based political parties, the politicisation of ethnicity is at a lower level in Guinea compared with other West African states. 293

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“Strong tendencies oppose the ethnicisation of politics, largely the result of the sense of national unity forged during the difficult socialist period” (ICG 2005: 1).

One has to recall at this point the several allegations made by Touré that foreign governments are plotting his fall. Thus, as it became clear that the rebellion was sponsored by outsiders, hardly a Guinean was ready to support it, notwithstanding Touré’s and Conté’s long duration of bad governance. Lack of indigenous support for the rebellion denied it an internal base: neither the hopeless youth nor the members of the elite gave the rebellion a base, not to mention an ethnic group. The only base the rebellion found was among the Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinean camps. This made victory for Conté easy as he only needed to dismantle the camps and the rebellion fizzled out. One of the most outstanding legacies of socialism in Guinea is a compact citizenry that is wary of the outside world. Socialism has another effect on rebellion – or the lack of it – in Guinea: “Sekou Touré’s dictatorship profoundly traumatised Guineans and destroyed any temptation they may have had to challenge the established order. It also made mistrust a fundamental feature of Guinean society. Such mistrust, typical of totalitarian regimes, added to the existing mistrust between Guinea’s ethnic groups, making any collective action difficult, whether by opposition political parties, civil society organisation or the armed forces. One of the notable consequences of the distrust between the main ethnic groups has been to prevent the emergence of a strong and united opposition capable of capitalising on the Conté’s regime evident failure” (ICG 2007: 3).

10.5 War Economy in Guinea The issue of elite non-fragmentation is critical in this analysis for the mere fact that had any section of the elite decided to support the rebellion or take up arms against the state independently; the war economy to support such a rebellion was already on the ground. However, the nature of the war economy may be a contributory factor to the non-emergence of rebellion against the state from internal elite as we shall soon see. Researchers in West African war economies have christened Guinea the “regional arms merchant” (ICG 2005: 16, Human Rights Watch 2001). Guinea’s involvement in war economies of West Africa is not the usual practice of selling raw materials to buy arms and ammunitions. Rather, it emphasises giving official seal to the illegal business of arms trafficking.

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Observers of the business of gun running maintain that this is the most important link in the business because for arms deals to be legal, the seller must receive an end-use certificate which only sovereign states are authorised to issue. This is the role that Guinea plays in the West African conflict. Thus, only 10% of the weapons used in the Liberian and Sierra Leonean conflicts are classified as illegal; meaning that they entirely lack documentation. The rest are classified as illicit; meaning that their documents are falsified (ICG 2005: 16-17). Observers of Guinean politics doubt that this is happening without the knowledge of the President due to the involvement of state officials. “Surprising as it may seem, a mid-level functionary in the agriculture ministry, who worked in conjunction with European arms dealers, was responsible for issuing 80% of the documentation for illicit arms fuelling the West African regional war since the 1990s (…) At least one source has pointed to a former senior figure in the ministry of defense” (ICG 2005: 16).

Furthermore, the report mentioned eye witness accounts regarding the organisation and delivery of small arms ammunitions and mortar rounds used by LURD insurgents in the Monrovia attack of July 2003. Several UN Panels of Experts set up to investigate illicit and illegal arms traffic in West African conflicts mentioned Moldova, Ukraine and Kyrgyszstan – all known for lack of serious verification of end-users certificates – as the origins of such weapons.6 Human Rights Watch (2001) and the UN Panel of Expert reports mention one Peter Jusko who was arrested in Slovakia in 2001 as using one of his several firms specialising in illicit arms deals, ”Joy Slovakia” for these operations. The end-user certificates were issued by a Guinean firm – Pecos Company – run by Mohamed Yansané, a Guinean agricultural engineer who met Jusko while studying in Eastern Europe during Touré’s socialism. The two became friend and later went into business. The business involves Alexander Islamov (charged in Slovakia for arms deals) and Viktor Bout, the most notorious illicit arms dealer in Africa (ICG 2005: 17). These three exploited loopholes in Slovakian laws regarding the repair of aircrafts to deliver three helicopters to Guinea “for repairs”, the fact that Guinea does not have the facilities to carry out such repairs notwithstanding. Ostensibly, these aircrafts are destined to other war zones in West Africa. For example, one of the helicopters destroyed by the French air force in September 2004 in Ivory Coast was said to belong to Guinea. 295

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The reports of the UN Panel of Experts pursuant to paragraph 25 of the Security Council Resolution 1478 of October 2003, Human Rights Watch and International Crisis Group traced the mortar shells used by LURD for the final attack on Monrovia in July of 2003 to a firm by the name of Katex Mines, with offices in Kiev, Teheran and Conakry. The reports proved that the supplies were flown by an Ukrainian airline that landed in Conakry. International Crisis Group (2005: 18) quotes a document in which the firm Katex demands USD19 million from the Guinean ministry of defense for munitions and explosives already delivered and USD21.5 million for munitions to be delivered. ICG cites the document further: “We are now experiencing serious problems with our suppliers and as you know, with contracts like this we cannot allow any such delay, otherwise, we will find ourselves before European courts, and these discreet contracts could be revealed to the UN” (2005: 18).

Another critical factor for the survival of war economies is the availability of clandestine commercial networks. Guinea, like any other West African state, has them. The history of clandestine commercial networks in West Africa goes back to the colonial days when West African products were declared illegal in order to enable European firms monopolise the market. This meant that West African producers of such “illicit” goods must find ways of reaching the consumer undetected by state agents: smuggling. Guinea has its own share of smuggling, socialism and dictatorship notwithstanding. Guinea loses a lot of revenue through smuggling of artisanally produced gold. The smuggling of artisanally produced diamonds forced the firm Aredor to close shop in 1994. Smuggling figures are not reliable because they are neither officially nor openly declared. However, proceeds from alluvial diamonds, gold and arms deals could be enough to sustain a rebellion in Guinea. But first of all, there has to be a rebellion and this is not possible given the intact state of the elite. The conflicts in West Africa provide the Guinean elite with sources of private profits which include the following: profits attached to being a major arms dealer, profits to be derived from taking a percentage of the emergency aid funds, profits from cross-border trade in goods looted by rebel groups, money collected by shaking people down at roadblocks whose existence is justified by the prevailing state of insecurity and money from development and emergency aid despite lack of transparency and poor economic performance on the basis of Guinea’s role as a 296

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refugee host and haven of relative peace (ICG 2005: 16). The return of peace to Liberia and Sierra Leone has led to a drastic reduction in the rents accruable to the Guinean elite, especially the military, from these sources. In the midst of inflation, the military is increasingly directing their complaints about reduced income to the presidency and thus increasing the threats to Conté’s regime survival. 10.6 Conflict Management This war was never really managed in the classical sense of the term. The first contingent of ECOMOG soldiers deployed to contain the conflict did not arrive until the 24th of January, 2001, although they were to be detached from the troops already on the Liberian/Sierra Leone border. It wasn’t possible to deploy them due to the fact that a ceasefire agreement could not be reached. Guinea’s government did not accept the request of the international community to resettle the refugees away from the border for fears that rebels among the refugees will utilise the opportunity to penetrate the interiors of the country. Later on, on the 16th of February, it declared its readiness to cooperate with the neighbours on this issue. After about a dozen UNO camps in the south of Guinea for refugees from Sierra Leone (about 140,000) were found empty on the 22nd of March without any explanation as to whereabouts of the refugees, Amnesty International demanded that foreign troops be drafted to protect the refugees. Conté refused on the grounds that his soldiers were equal to the task and the war went on. On the 11th of April 2001 ECOWAS demanded assistance from UNO to enable a deployment of ECOMOG troops on the borders between Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. But before UNO could come up with the assistance, the conflict was over. 10.7 State Failure in Guinea Conté’s resort to warlord politics in the context of implementing SAP did not lead to a collapse of the Guinean state, despite the emergence of violent skirmishes here and there. But it contributed to further weakening of state institutions. Disrespectful of the civil society, he has since the rebellion stepped up state violence and personal security while emasculating the official bureaucracy, the army inclusive. Bizarre as that might sound; he is strongly supported by the US.7 Sequel to his quasidestruction of the state’s army, he set up three special security units: the Batalllion Autonome de la Sécurité Presidentielle (the Presidential Guard) comprising 400 troops, the Berets Rouge (Red Barrettes) and the Rangers 297

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to protect him. The Rangers comprise two groups: a 700 to 800-man group trained by US American Special Forces between 2000 and 2002 and based in N’zerekore (near Conté’s birthplace) and a relatively smaller group trained by the Chinese and based in Kankan. Most members of these groups come from Conté’s Soussou ethnic group and some are even said to belong to his extended family (ICG 2005: 8). Every support for a presidential guard is a source of weakness to the state’s army and thus, symptomatic of state failure. Lack of confidence in the army places Conté in a dilemma because he cannot afford to completely ignore the army. In fact, the army is the only state’s institution which Conté is afraid of: “he always kept a firm grip on power and never entertained the possibility of losing any election organised under his tutelage. Only the army poses a threat” (ICG 2007: 1). This is why he divided the army along ethnic and generational lines, favouring his Soussou ethnic group members while blocking the progress of non-Soussou junior officers, whom he, in turn, is afraid of. This paradoxical relationship to the army may have induced him to tolerate their abuses of offices and of civilians. For example, Conté has allowed the military to erect roadblocks, a primary means for the rank-and-file soldiers to pay themselves. The argument for such roadblocks is that they help to secure live and property of citizens. “The roadblocks typically facilitated, rather than blocked, passage of illegal goods, whether weapons, drugs, or contraband. They invariably ended up putting a price on virtually everything, whether citizens with or without paper, refugees, or traders with wares on the way to market” (ICG 2005: 16).

This roadblock phenomenon emerged in most West African states in the course of deepening economic problems of the 1980s. Conté abolished them due to donor and diplomatic pressures in 2003 but recent reports show that they are on their way back in order to lessen the pressures exerted on the soldiers from the loss of income opportunities. It is part of Conté’s survival strategy to allow, or even encourage, the military’s interest in pillage and other such activities. Allowing the military to become involved in war activities in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast have compensated their low pay, unfair promotions and poor living standards. Typical of warlord politics, Conté shows no respect for national boundaries: he allows his soldiers incursions into Sierra Leone in the pursuit of cross-border trade, a process that has led to the expropriation of Sierra Leonean lands by Guinean soldiers (ibid). The excesses of 298

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Guinean soldiers have been extended to the staff of UNO Peacekeeping contingent in Sierra Leone. On the 26th of March 2005, UNAMSIL reconnaissance party was detained at a disputed village of Yenga, near Kailahun, for about six hours. Guineas soldiers seized the cameras of UN troops that took pictures for UN records and beat up a Sierra Leonean civilian who tried to leave the area (ICG 2005: 18). All the cameras, but one, were returned after the Guinean soldiers made consultations. It is noteworthy that this incident took place not in Guinea, but in Sierra Leone, and is not an isolated incident. Conté has publicly acknowledged that this territory belongs to Sierra Leone but does nothing to stop his soldiers from violating the neighbour’s territory. In the same vein, customs officers were said to have jubilated in anticipation of access to government money when the government announced in December 2004 that the contract of Société Generale du Surveillance for the management of Conakry’s port and collection of custom receipts would not be renewed. All these are characteristic of state failure, but they are deliberate. The state has not done its best to rein in its bureaucrats or the freelancers. There are reports of tropical hardwood in the Guinean Forest Region being cut and sold in the international market without the official participation of the Guinean state which has not done anything to undermine this trade. State failure in Guinea is further documented by widespread pillage of government properties. Guineans report of civil servants taking home office furniture including computers on dismissal. One wonders why the government doesn’t react to this open knowledge. Even when the government reacts, its reaction paints a ridiculous picture of actionism. For example, former Central Bank vice president Fodé Soumah had to lose his job for handing over USD22 million from the state’s coffers to a businessman who is also an associate of President Conté. Weeks later, he was appointed minister of youth, sports and culture, a position higher than that he had at the Bank. The businessman claims to be owed more by the state than what he received and Fodé Soumah’s defense is that he acted according the the instruction of his superiors by handing the money over to the businessman (ICG 2005: 14). His promotion to the position of minister must have been a reward for his loyalty. Conté not only abjures the state’s bureaucracy in the governance process, he deliberately undermines them. Donor and multilateral creditors pressurise him to respect the state’s bureaucracy to which he adheres, but only to a certain extent. Whenever there is a conflict of interests between the official bureaucracy and his “shadow statehood”, the interest 299

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of the latter prevails. Early in December 2006, his business partner and friend, El Hajj Mamadou Sylla and Fodé Soumah, ex-Minister and the Vice Governor of the Central Bank were accused of issuing false cheques, misappropriation of public funds and complicity in fraud involving USD2 million and consequently arrested and detained. On the 16th of December 2006, President Conté personally drove to Conakry’s central prison where the two were being detained and released them (ICG 2007: 4-5). Rotberg (2004) sees the preference of foreign currencies to the national currency by a section of the citizenry as one of the indicators of state failure. In Guinea, the president prefers Dollars and Euros to his national currency and withdraws these currencies personally or through his emissaries who make no attempt to camouflage the deed If there is a shortage of foreign currency in the Central Bank, he appeals to multinationals in the bauxite industry (ICG 2007: 11). The Guinean elite penchant for hard currency also influences the lack of respect for laws governing certain business operations. Selling hard currency without the authorisation of the Central Bank in Guinea is illegal. This is why the government arrests ambulant black-market money changers who sell Dollars and Euros. However, the government runs to them whenever it runs short of hard currency and that is often (ICG 2005: 14). Conté has shuffled his cabinet so often that average Guineans have difficulties knowing who controls which portfolio. The cabinet shuffles have been carried out in ways that confirm the supremacy of the shadow statehood over officialdom. In a cabinet reshuffle on the 22nd of December, 2006, Alpha Ibrahim Keira, the minister for Transport and brother-inlaw of the President’s influential second wife, Kadiatou, was dismissed, only to be reinstated five days later due to family pressures. The misfortunes of Mamadou Sylla, the Presidents business guru and associate, have contributed to national and international embarrassments which are not helpful to the prestige of a state while buttressing its failure. In 2004, Conté appointed Mamadou Sylla to transport Guinean pilgrims to Mecca for the annual Moslem Hajj. The failure of El Hajj Sylla to accomplish this task was a considerable national disgrace. A few months later, the national airline that he bought in the course of privatisation in 2002 stopped functioning because international creditors repossessed one of his planes sent to France for repairs. The consequence was that Guinea had no internal flight for almost one year. The attitude of Guinean officials to negotiations with donors, described as “a mixture of defiant nationalism and lackadaisical disorgani300

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sation” (ICG 2005: 13), is characteristic of a failing and unseriously-led state. In April 2004, the Guinean delegation failed to show up at a meeting scheduled by its government to discuss EU aid package in Brussels. The delegations leader, Francois Lonsény Fall, also the Prime Minister of Guinea at the time, said that President Conté simply called him and said, “I don’t want to negotiate with the EU” (ICG 2005: 13).8 This was not the end of the ridicule. Ten minutes into the rescheduled meeting in July 2004, the Guinean delegation informed the EU representative it would be useless to continue and simply pushed a list of prepared responses to the EU questions across the table and thus ended the meeting. There was another instance of such behaviours in which one is forced to question the sanity of such rulers. In 2005, the Director of the Guinean Central Bank, Mohammed Daffé, was outside the country during a visit by an IMF team, notwithstanding that Guinea is in financial dire straits and needed the IMF. A Guinean explained this as deliberate sabotage of foreign aid which goes back to the socialist days and that the reason behind it is nationalism: just to show that capitalist assistance doesn’t help in a socialist state (ICG 2005: 13). Conté’s unreadiness to alter his clientelistic arrangements in the interest of national economic reforms was again demonstrated by his denial of the approval sought by Prime Minister Fall to dismantle the SOGEPAM which was at the heart of his economic reform project as demanded by multilateral creditors. The Société Guinéenne d’Exportation des Produits Agricoles et Miniers (SOGEPAM) was a marketing board (the equivalent of Caisse in Ivory Coast) which had the monopoly over the export of coffee and cocoa. It is an instrument for wealth accumulation for the president and his associates who were the directors of the corporation. Appropriate to the principles of neoliberal reforms, it has to be dismantled and its services privatised; an act that would have meant a considerable loss of revenue for the president’s associates. This was why Conté refused the dissolution of the SOGEPAM and as a result of that, Fall resigned. Despite the legal dismantling of SOGEPAM on December 29th, 2006, observers report that competitive and open allocation of contracts and the revocation of tax-free operations have not really returned. Conté’s disrespect for the citizens and to the rule of law has heightened the level of his regime’s weakness and may trigger off incidences that could bring his regime to fall. In 2001, he altered the constitutional provisions regarding the president’s term of office and engineered a referendum that removed the restrictions on the number of presidential mandates, changed the age limit for presidents (70 years) and extended 301

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the tenure from five to seven years. He could thus, be president for life. In the preparation to the municipal elections of 2005, the opposition alleged inflation of voter list by about 1.5 million voters (ICG 2005: 11). The Guinean public is restive like never before due to the regime’s excesses. Conté’s regime is getting weaker daily (just like his health) leading observers to speculate what fate might befall Guinea if he should die (Conté is currently 74 years old and is regularly ill). His government has lost legitimacy from the society and is only surviving based on Conté’s control (albeit slippery) of he army and the security apparatus, impunity for private appropriation of public resources by bureaucrats and his associates and the ability to maintain a façade of democracy. Maintaining a façade of democracy is necessary for his survival: that is the condition for his badly needed international credits. The EU for example, blocked the release of aid money for the 2005 municipal elections until April of that year due to its insistence that Guinea honours article 96 of the Cotonoú accords which conditions EU assistance on the respect for human rights and democratic principles. Observers maintain that Conté is not given to compromises but due to biting economic problems, he was obliged to negotiate with the creditors. 1n 2003, the IMF, the World Bank, the African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank suspended all programmes because Guinea was in arrears to credits from all of them. France did the same between 2003 and 2005. ICG (2005: 14) reports that government receipts went from USD438 million in 1996 to USD383 million in 2002; and that the Guinean government earns USD5 million each month but spends USD13 millions every month. The finance ministry’s debt to the Central Bank rose from USD62 million in 1996 to USD500 million in 2004. He was therefore bound to negotiate. The implementation of the agreement with international creditors could be ominous in Guinea as it has been in a host of West African states where it facilitated their collapse. The appointment of the post of Prime Minister as requested by the donor community has triggered a series of events that, if not carefully managed, could lead to a collapse of the Conté regime. The reason for such developments goes back to the apolitical and technical manner of the conception of SAP without taking cognisance of the politics that produced the economic problems in the first place. International Crisis Group (2005: 12) thus notes: “Although the representatives of the international financial institutions treat Guinea’s economic performance as a purely technical matter, its economic problems are in fact profoundly political. The relationsip be-

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tween the two was made pantently clear during the short-lived premiership of Francois Laonseny Fall”.

Despite the fact that Guinea is in dire economic stress, the interests of powerful politicians, military officers, bureaucrats and businessmen enjoying state protection frustrated his economic reform efforts and forced him to resign. He was later replaced by Cellou Dalein Diallo, a technocrat and a product of the Conté system. Meanwhile life was getting harder for Guineans as a result of insistent economic stagnation: inflation bites consistently harder and makes them poorer, the state could not provide necessary public services such as water, electric power, health facilities and education, even people with higher school certificates could not find jobs due to increasing unemployment and poor roads have led to the isolation of some parts of the country, especially the Forest regions. The neglect of the Foresterié led to demonstrations involving 4,000 to 6,000 people in the city of N’Zérékoré, the country’s biggest city in October 2006. In order to convince international donors to resume financial assistance to Guinea, a presidential decree broadcast on the 4th of April, 2006, gave Diallo far-reaching powers to restore sanity to the economy and public finances. But his attacks on the interests of Mamadou Sylla and Fodé Bangoura, the powerful Secretary-General of the Presidency and a long-time close associate of the President led to his dismissal the next day. Because no replacement for Diallo was appointed, Bangoura, on becoming the Minister of State with responsibility for presidential affairs and coordination of the government business, assumed the duties of the Prime Minister. Similar to his predecessors, he attacked the business interests of Mamadou Sylla and others closely allied to the president. This was climaxed by the detention of Sylla in December 2006. Again, similar to the fate of his predecessors, he was removed from office on the 19th of January 2007 and replaced with Eugené Camara, a member of the Conté regime since 1996. Guinea’s two trade union confederations- the Confédération nationale des travailleurs de Guinée (CNTG) and the Union syndicale des travailleurs de Guinée (USTG) had previously (between the 27th of February and the 3rd of March 2006) embarked on a strike. Their reasons, among others, were increasing economic problems for the average citizen, the state’s contempt for the rule of law and the constitutional principle of separation of powers. On the 2nd of January 2007, and in reaction to the president’s release of his detained associates, the trade union confederations called for another indefinite strike starting January 10th, denouncing “the interference in the judiciary by the head of state, head of the executive to se303

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cure illegal release of citizens in conflict with the laws, the proven incapacity of the government to stop the depreciation of the Guinean franc, which fuels inflation, the drastic fall in the people’s purchasing power, and the proven incapacity of the head of state to properly discharge the missions conferred on him by the Guinean people in accordance with the fundamental law” (ICG 2007: 6). The non-violent strike resulted in a complete paralysis of the country. The president of the national assembly, Aboubacar Somparé negotiated on behalf of the government, accepted to implement some of the economic demands while rejecting the political demands. At the request of the president, the trade unions submitted their demands to the government on the 14th of January which included emergency powers to support the purchasing power of workers, full employment opportunities, establishment of a broad-based administration led by the Prime Minister as head of government in order to give Conté the opportunity “to retire and look after his health” (ICG 2007: 6-7). At the refusal of the trade unions to call off the strike, President Conté threatened on the 18th of January, 2007, “I will kill you, however many of you there are. I am a soldier, it won’t be first time I‘ve killed” (ibid: 7). Meanwhile his soldiers have started killing a few days earlier. Thus, between the 15th and 24th of January, about 59 unarmed civilians have been killed. This caught the attention of international observers who then called on the presidents of Nigeria and Senegal to intervene. Emissary of the Nigerian President, former President Babangida, was refused entry into Guinea. But the interest of the international community on the issue induced the Guinean leaders to negotiate and bring sanity back to the streets. However, the appointment of Eugené Camara as Prime Minister on the 9th of February 2007 brought irate demonstrators back to the streets. This appointment provoked a popular demonstration because it was out of tune with the agreements between the government, opposition forces and the trade unions who demanded an entirely new person unpolluted by the Conté system. Two days after this appointment, about 20 demonstrators were killed by security agents, taking the death toll of the January and February riots to more than 100. 10.8 Conclusion These demonstrations represent a milestone in Guinea’s history which displays unwillingness on the part of Guineans to demonstrate due to fears of death at the hands of state security officers. That they braved these odds to challenge the state should be instructive in the 304

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changing faces of Guinean politics. And this wasn’t the first time: security forces killed about eleven young people in the demonstrations of 12-16 June 2006 but this was not enough to intimidate Guineans. Labour leaders were detained at the headquarters of the police force’s Mobile Security and Intervention Brigade (CMIS) and beaten up on the 22nd of January, 2007 by red berets led by the president’s son, Ousmane Conté. All these high-handedness notwithstanding, the people continued to demonstrate and call vehemently for the resignation of the President. We might be approaching a point where state failure in Guinea could be completed and transformed into collapse. The reason is that the president has evoked a very sensitive feeling of insult among Guineans who feel that the president does not take them seriously. The deteriorating health of the president, the self-enrichment practices of the elite in the midst of deepening poverty for majority of the citizens and the apparent resolve of the Guinean civil society to fight the regime are ingredients of a collapsing order. “The characteristics of the Conté system – corruption, nepotism and repression – have made Guinea a unique country. The depth of poverty, the delapidation of the infrastructure and the inability of the state to provide basic social services, makes the country look like it has just emerged from a civil war” (ICG 2007: 5)

I categorise Guinea as a failing and not a failed state, although all necessary paraphernalia of complete failure do substantially exist. As the process-tracing of development in Guinea just showed, undermining of the bureaucracy, impunity of state security officials and disrespect for human rights and democratic principles by state agents are all being allowed by the regime. The unresolved issue is whether the state allows these because it is used to such manners of exercising authority (a kind of path-dependence). Or does the state allow it because it is the only way to survive, a reasoning of which there are signs, and in which case we would be dealing with a “failed” and not a “failing” state. Up till now, I don’t have conclusive evidence on this. Trigger factors that could exploit the quasi state of emergency and confusion in Guinea at the moment to destabilise the regime of Conté include possible military coups that might try to save the status quo which may not receive wide support among the already irate public. Another possibility is that warlords instrumentalising the roaming unemployed youths in the whole of West Africa (including about 7,000 young Guinean volunteers demobilised but not reintegrated after the 2000/2001 305

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conflict in Guinea) and hoping to eke out a living through the appropriation of Guinean resources could attack the extremely weak regime. Another trigger factor could be reprisal attacks by Guineans on Liberian mercenaries who have regularly been mentioned as participating in the brutalities of the Conté regime since the inception of the conflict. These mercenaries are led by Aicha Keita Conné, wife of Sekou Damate Conné, the LURD leader who liaised between the Guinean army and the LURD rebellion in Liberia. She enjoys the wealth and hospitality of Conté having worked herself deep into Guinean state affairs as result of her “visionary” abilities. Conté have arrested and even executed alleged coup plotters following to her visions. But for any of these scenarios to be effective, it has to involve and be led by Guineans. And the chances are no longer very remote. The elite, opposition and labour unions are unanimous on the need to do away with the Conté system. This could precipitate the much critical elite fragmentation which, if it happens, could harness the youth to bring the Conté state to collapse. Notes 1

Available in Internet: ING.html; (Stand: 18.04.07).

2

www.nationsenclopaedia.com/Africa/GuineaMIN

Available in Internet: www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2824htm; (Stand: 18.04.07).

3

Guinea was host to some 300,000 Sierra Leonian including thousands of Liberian refugees (ICG 2005: 18). She contributed soldiers to peace keeping missions in Sierra Leone and Liberia as part of ECOMOG contingents.

4

The mobilisation of private security units while abjuring the official security bureaucracy (the army) is one of the parameters of warlord politics according to Reno (1998).

5

Due to this fact, the jargon of the “Guinean exceptionalism” found its way into books on West African colonial history.

6 See Reports of the Panel of Experts pursuant to these UNSC Resolutions: 1395 (2002), S/2002/470 of 19th April; Pursuant to Paragraph 4 of UNSC Resolution 1458 (2003) 24th April; Pursuant to Paragraph 25 of UNSC Resolution 1478 (2003) 2nd October. 7

Guinea provides more than half of US imports of bauxite, used to make aluminium ore (Steinberg 2007: 1)Donald Steinberg, former Director of African Affairs of the US National Security Council under Clinton, is the vice president of International Crisis Group.

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8

The post of Prime Minister in Guinea was created as result of agreements with the IMF and the World Bank. Like in Ivory Coast, the Prime Minister is to implement economic reforms and liaise between the state and the IFIs.

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Chapter 11

CONCLUSION Analytical paradigms for the collapse of the African state have mainly dovetailed into the bad governance and war economy (or grievance and greed) perspectives. But none of these perspectives is able to explain the observed phenomenon of economic development going hand in hand with strong statehood on the one hand, and economic underdevelopment being a general characteristic of weak statehood, on the other. The possible reason for this shortcoming is that most of those explanatory paradigms originate from case studies. This book’s point of departure is that since state failure and collapse represent advanced stages of state weakness, what really needs to be explained is state weakness. Only after that could the explanation of failure and collapse be reasonably undertaken. Again, in order to understand state weakness, this book considers it necessary to study strong states and identify processes that imbued those states with strength, and from there, extrapolate the missing link to strong statehood among the weak states of Africa. The book therefore adopts a historical approach that tries to trace the quality of statehood from the trajectory of emergence to statehood. This approach allows me to highlight some of the issues raised in the reviewed literature. The objective is not to discredit them, rather, to locate them within the historical developmental process of the crisis of the state in Africa and thereby demonstrate the appropriate roles ascribable to them. By doing so, I demonstrate the strengths and limits of those analyses while making a contribution to the academic debate. I have to stress that, for the mere fact that an appropriate policy which should counteract state collapse in Africa needs a comprehensive analysis that reflects reality as much as possible, I ascribe less importance to theoretic or dogmatic fidelity. My overriding interest is to offer a paradigm that really explains the phenomenon (at least in my view) and for that, I combine different strands of seemingly contradictory theoretical explanatory strands. The result is a theoretical contribution which originality partly lies in its ecleticism as it contains elements of realpolitical analysis, liberal institutionalism and political economy. The guiding factor in the combination was history: how did the phonomena come to be what they are? The greed perspective sees accumulation as the main motive for civil wars which is intertwined with state collapse and identifies a combina309

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tion of factors – economic underdevelopment, availability of mineral resources, unemployment and a high percentage of male youth population. The appropriateness of this postulation is not all-embracing as several studies have proven. It is ahistorical as long as it fails to locate accumulation as the guiding motive of politics which predates the onset of collapse and violence. Using state power to accumulate capital in Africa, it appears to me, is the root cause of collapse and violence, not the motive. It diverts attention from developmental issues which would have necessitated the strengthening of the state’s bureaucratic capacity, makes politics a zero-sum game and therefore violent, brings the masters of violence (the military) in the political arena, thereby weakening it. The result is that they lose the capacity to protect the states when attacked. Furthermore, this book extends the analysi of state collapse in Africa by showing the necessary factors that might engineer it. States with a combination of the emphasised factors have collapsed while others with such combinations have not. Conversely, states with deviations in such factor combinations have equally collapsed while others with similar deviations have not. More research evidence is therefore called for in order to understand under which factor combinations state collapse is likely to occur. This has therefore led to a lot of refinements in the greed perspective in which the availability of mineral resources, for example, has been subdivided into types of mineral resources and their dominant modes of extraction which may influence protagonists’ decision to attack as well as enabling the ruler to garner resources for defense. Subdivisions are likely to continue and could possibly leave us with ideographic studies at the end. Without necessarily pleading for ideographic studies, the problems associated with factor combination could be solved through single case studies which therefore call the relevance of large N statistical studies and their generalisations in such researches to question. Due to the risks of possible omission of actually determinant factors associated with statistical studies, single case qualitative studies have an advantage of demonstrating the commonalities as well as the differences in several cases and are therefore judged to be more suitable. However, commonalities amongst the single cases would have to be identified in order to allow for generalisations which is inescapable in theory building. The grievance perspective emphasisizes the dissatisfaction of a wide spectrum of the society with the manner and results of governance which therefore informs the (popular) motive of effecting a change. In order to call the attention of researchers and policy makers to the dangers associated with this analysis, I considered it wise to trace the history of the un310

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folding of non-developmental use of power (bad governance) in Africa in order to show which actors merit being trusted with the capacity and interests to promote the opposite - good governance. Accurate as the bad governance analysis is, it fails to show conditions under which good governance and economic development might be a preferred option for the decisive actors. That is, a theory of good governance is missing; and ditto, a theory that links governance to economic development and strong statehood. This is one of the factors that motivated me to make a contribution in this direction. A study of the conflict management method deepens the belief in the thesis that the interests of suffering Africans is not paramount in the deliberations of conflict managers. By this, I refer to the interests in the pursuit of economic development and growth, human security and development, and peace that is based on social justice and equality before the law. The fate of millions of Africans has become a playball in the hands and feet of the international elite due to the marginalisation of Africa in the international political economy. This method of conflict management leads one to ponder whether the international society, in its present constitution, is in a position to bring durable peace to West Africa. It is here hypothesised, that underdevelopment as well as state collapse and inappropriate method of conflict management have the same origin and that the conflict managers or their proxies, one way or the other, do participate in the emergence of the conflicts which then weakens the search for positive peace and reduces the conception of peace to the mere absence of war. This negative understanding of peace irrespective of socio-economic justice is worrisome. In all peace agreements, the rebels were not only granted a general amnesty, but were also made a part of the governments. Some rebel groups were even converted to political parties. The psychic injuries to the citizens, that their murderers, plunderers, arsonists, robbers and rapists will henceforth exercise legitimate political authority over them, never crossed the minds of the conflict managers. With this kind of approach, it becomes clear, whose interests are protected in the process. Through such methods of conflict management, the people are robbed of their belief in democracy and the message being sent to them is that their interests do not count. In Liberia, it would appear that the people were so desparate as a result of the indifference of the method of conflict management to their plight that they voted for Charles Taylor as president in order to avoid the continuation of violence.1 It had

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dawned on them that the international society was not in a position to stop Taylor. The interests of the masses of Africa have never been paramount in all the major political stages of modern Africa (be it decolonisation, development planning, democratisation or conflict management). Development efforts in Africa are not likely to succeed until the international society and the African political elite have learned to give this factor its due position of priority. Development is from its very nature democratic in the sense that the motor consists of the energy and creativity of ordinary people, not the elite. Not democratic in the sense that all classes in society will have equal power in determining what is produced and for what purpose. But in the sense that majority of the people will participate in it, either as employees or as employed; and the goods produced will serve the immediate needs of the people. This was one of the intentions of the Lagos Plan of Action that was not allowed to see the light of day by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Development strategies have to address the most pressing needs of the people. In this way, they will be able to give the strategy their support. A development plan that does not fulfil this condition is most likely to fail. Civil wars and state collapse are all results of underdevelopment; and underdevelopment in Africa is entrenched by the accumulative tendencies of Africa’s rulers that preclude them from seriously pursuing development. In short, combined efforts of the international economic and political elite (especially the African) have made Africa the wretched of this earth. To solve the problem of economic underdevelopment and weak statehood in Africa, it might be necessary to go back to the basics of economics by building up national markets and increasing the purchasing power of citizens through investments in education, health and general infrastructure. Granted that we are living in a globalised world, it is still not anachronistic to think in national dimensions. It is a fundamental truism that only strong firms survive in a globalised economy. This is why young firms need to be nurtured in a national economy through a moderated form of protectionism. After all, the US and the EU count among the economic giants in today’s globalised economy but still protect the vulnerable branches of their economy – agricultural and textile production - even while preaching market liberalisation. The fastest growing economies of today – China and to a lesser extent India – initially had to build up national markets before opening them up.2 This could be indispensable if Africa has to grow its own resource-bearers.

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There are several problems associated with development assistance policy and as such, it makes less sense to expect something substantial from it. For example, one way of helping Africans develop a broad middle class of resource-bearers could be to divert all or a portion of the development assistance funds to the recipient’s private sector, helping it grow and become a competitor to those of the donor states in the global market. But how could one justify such a policy to the average tax payer in the West – that his money is being used to prop up international competitors against him? Again, following my argument, such a policy would not be palatable to African rulers who fear losing their positions to the new productive elite and would definitely oppose it with the argument that their domestic sovereignty is being infringed upon. Notwithstanding the fact that they never think about domestic sovereignty when soliciting development aid or implementing reforms with exogenous origins. The ultimate solution to Africa’s problems may have to involve removing this parasitic class from power and enthroning representatives of productive social strata. But due to the alliance between this class and the international and transnational political and economic forces, this is almost impossible. There could be some credence to the allegation that the retention of this class in power is one of the hidden agendas of international conflict management. The only lesson that the chosen method of conflict management must have taught the rebels and their likes is that it pays to use civil wars as a means of acquiring political power. Such perceptions can not contribute to making any part of this world more peaceful. It is remarkable, that the trade in arms, rubber, timber, gold and diamonds went on undisturbed, although places rich in such mineral resources counted among the most contested areas during the wars. Since decolonisation, major developments in the international political and economic systems have always hampered the emergence of good governance in Africa. During the East-West conflict, the main interests of the superpowers was to maintain and possibly increase their spheres of influence. The promotion of good governance was marginalised. The end of the Cold War coupled with the third phase of democratisation (Huntington 1991) witnessed a synergy of impulse from the West as well as from Africa itself to support the introduction of good quality governance in Africa. But as the campaigns for democracy in Africa became violent, the West made a reverse to the old policy of supporting regimes, which could though, guarantee a modicum of “law and order”, but are very far from fulfilling the requirements of good governance and respect for democratic principles. The terrorist attacks of 11th September, 2001, have 313

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strengthened this tendency and have led to the emergence of a kind of “anti-terror dividend”: Western states, especially the USA, support regimes which promise to participate in the “war on terror”, irrespective of how they govern their peoples. In order to bring durable peace to Africa, a rearrangement of the role of African economies in the global economy is inevitable. This is extremely essential in order to facilitate the emergence of a broad middle class which earns its subsistence outside the frames of states’ apparatus and therefore is in a position to activate the strengthening of a new civil society. The new civil society will then pressurise the state towards good governance because it is in their interest. Two bold initiatives might be necessary to uplift Africa: thinking seriously about redrawing African borders and rearranging the existing systems of resource control. First, the artificiality of the borders of modern African states is not the problem per se. Rather, the politicisation of ethnicity has assumed its own dynamic to the point that it beclouds the judgement of political programmes and intentions. What Africa needs is political engineering that is geared towards development. This is the crux of politics as it involves the allocation of resources that, as a matter of fact, favours some groups against others; at least in the short run. The disadvantaged group will readily cry ethnic discrimination in such a situation. In order therefore to give such political engineering a chance (assuming one finds such rulers), it might be necessary to redraw borders in order to present states’ leaders with a legitimate basis on which to mobilise the society for development. High ethnic consciousness militates against national mobilisation. Second, to curb the tendency towards kleptocracy in government, I suggest an alteration in the system of resource allocation. It might be necessary to leave a large chunk of natural resources to the control of land owners who could get into extraction contracts with capable firms, foreign or national. The states would then draw taxes from extraction activities. Additional to curbing corruption by increasing the “watchdog” attitude of tax payers, this could generate the capital for productive undertakings that would give impulse to the emergence of national resource bearer class. Definitely, the West and the donor society has a contribution to make to the realisation of such a development; even if it involves leaving Africa alone to find its own way, but ultimately, the foundations for the realisation of Africa’s development have to be laid by Africans.

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Notes 1

Just consider Taylor’s campaign song: „he killed my father, he killed my mother, I will vote for him“.

2

The emphasis here is on growth which should not be conflated with development because development has a social component that growth lacks. For example, several strands of Indian and Chinese economies complain of the unequal distribution of the gains of economic growth and globalisation. A considerable portion of the citizenry of these states loses their means of livelihood as a result of globalisation occasioned economic growth.

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344

INDEX

A

D

African Development Bank, 19, 50, 302, 340 African Heads of State, 46 African Union, 19, 277, 279 AK-47, 201 Akude, Chief Anthony Amechi, vii, 40, 317 Al-Qaida, 243, 244, 245, 250, 343, 344 Americo-Liberian, 209, 210, 215, 216, 226 Anglo-Americans, 44 Annan, Kofi, 247 Aredor Alluvial Diamond Mine, 285 Artesia Bank, 245 Asante, 56, 122, 125, 320, 339

Dahl, Robert, 24, 322 Dandago, Kabiru Isa, ii Democratic Republic of Congo, 81, 102, 171, 185 Devolution of power, 43 E economic collapse, 9, 13 Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group, 102, 196 Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 27, 331 Engels, Friedrich, 27, 331 Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility, 269, 341 Europe, 15, 28, 35, 41, 42, 43, 45, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 61, 75, 96, 112, 117, 127, 133, 135, 136, 138, 144, 153, 154, 160, 180, 211, 233, 235, 295, 335 European Reserved Areas, 143, 184 Executive Outcome, 74, 250 Executive Outcomes, 239, 241, 243

B BM-21 multiple rocket launchers, 245 bourgeois interests, 27, 186 Bräutigam, Deborah, 15, 43 Bretton Woods, 22, 58, 94, 273, 290 Burkina Faso, 194, 219, 226, 244, 267, 270, 278, 280, 282 C

F

Campaore, Blaise, 194, 197, 227, 244, 274, 275, 276 Canadian Stock Exchange, 231 China, 16, 44, 75, 147, 312, 328 Cold War, 20, 29, 33, 45, 47, 79, 81, 85, 86, 88, 90, 91, 94, 95, 96, 100, 101, 102, 149, 150, 155, 169, 170, 174, 176, 188, 193, 195, 200, 203, 210, 218, 219, 237, 239, 313 Communist Manifesto, 27 Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network, 86

Failed states, 30, 84 G Great Britain, ii, 141, 209, 231, 291, 320 Guinea, 11, 14, 34, 48, 159, 187, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 197, 202, 203, 204, 226, 241, 253, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 278, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 296, 297, 299, 300, 301, 302, 345

240, 188, 200, 254, 267, 288, 295, 303,

John Emeka Akude

304, 305, 306, 307, 316, 317, 325, 341, 343 Guinea Bissau, 11, 188, 191, 197, 253, 254, 255, 259, 260, 289, 325, 341, 343 Gunea Bissau, 14

liberal democracy, 22, 23, 24, 181 M Mali Empire, 82 Marx, Karl, 27, 42, 117, 121, 237, 321, 331 Marxism-Leninism, 254 Mogadishu, 247 Momoh, Joseph, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242 Monrovia, 106, 171, 172, 209, 211, 214, 215, 218, 220, 222, 224, 243, 245, 292, 295, 296, 334, 342

H Herbst, Jeffrey, 45, 54, 57, 60, 61, 62, 94, 123, 143, 157, 327 Holsti, Kalevi, 49, 53, 55, 61, 66, 83, 84, 327 Hurd, Douglas, 23, 328 I

N

India, 16, 312, 337 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 22 International Monetary Fund, 19, 22, 102, 178, 186, 312 Ivory Coast, 11, 14, 69, 83, 159, 160, 164, 185, 188, 189, 191, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 200, 204, 207, 217, 219, 222, 226, 227, 243, 246, 248, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268, 270, 271, 273, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 296, 298, 301, 307, 317, 327, 331, 333, 340

New York Times, 33 Niger-Delta area, 34 Nigeria, 34, 48, 69, 74, 75, 76, 81, 119, 125, 130, 131, 132, 136, 137, 140, 145, 159, 161, 164, 168, 171, 172, 185, 186, 187, 190, 191, 198, 200, 206, 219, 220, 223, 225, 226, 228, 241, 246, 248, 251, 257, 268, 277, 283, 304, 316, 325, 329, 331, 333 Nimba County, 217, 218, 219 Nnewi, 34 Nyerere, Julius, 46, 54, 157, 159, 185 O Obasanjo, Olusegun, 48, 247, 251 Official Development Assistance, 147, 176 Old Ghana Empire, 82, 120, 127 Onitsha, 34, 185 Open Door Economic Policy, 212, 213 Operation Dignity, 277 Organisation of African Unity, 46, 54, 234, 333 Oyo Empire, 122

J Judaeo-Christian religion, 128 K Kabila, Laurent, 33, 171 Kanem-Bornu Empire, 82 Kenya, 48, 70, 89, 130, 131, 133, 159, 168, 169, 175, 180, 331, 338 L Lambach, Daniel, vii Least Developed Countries, 146, 184

P Peoples Redemption Council, 215 346

Index

post colonial states, 21, 22, 27, 58, 82 Praetorian Guard, 215 President Houphouet-Boigny, 196

Third World, 38, 49, 60, 62, 79, 132, 317, 321, 326, 328, 335, 337 Tilly, Charles, 41, 53, 57, 96, 124, 127, 338 Transparency International, 131, 155 tribalism, 65

Q Quattara, Alassane, 267, 268, 270, 273

U

R

United Nations Development Programme, 20, 343 University of Cologne, iii, vii, 339 Upper Zambezi, 123

Ricardian model, 118, 121 Richards, Paul, 77, 171, 206, 231, 233, 237, 335

V

S

von Trotha, Prof Trutz, vii, 31

Shultz, George, 218 Sierra Leone, 11, 14, 67, 81, 102, 104, 105, 140, 159, 164, 171, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 200, 202, 204, 206, 219, 222, 223, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246, 248, 249, 250, 251, 276, 291, 292, 297, 298, 306, 316, 318, 323, 325, 326, 332, 335, 336, 337, 338, 340, 341, 342, 343 Somalia, 34, 49, 81, 85, 118, 247 Songhai Empire, 82 South African Development Cooperation, 102 Structural Adjustment Programmes, 32, 268, 332 Szukala, Andrea, vii

W West Africa, 12, 57, 82, 100, 112, 119, 127, 132, 137, 158, 170, 172, 175, 181, 182, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 195, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203, 205, 214, 216, 222, 223, 235, 239, 248, 253, 257, 263, 268, 274, 275, 282, 287, 288, 291, 292, 294, 295, 296, 305, 311, 316, 319, 329, 330, 344 World Bank, 10, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 40, 46, 49, 67, 68, 102, 112, 147, 154, 162, 163, 165, 173, 174, 175, 176, 178, 183, 186, 210, 266, 302, 307, 312, 316, 321, 334, 337, 344 World War II, 40, 51, 78, 96

T

X

Taylor, Charles, 10, 34, 102, 105, 109, 158, 171, 172, 189, 193, 194, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 203, 204, 205, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 231, 237, 238, 243, 244, 248, 250, 275, 276, 291, 292, 311, 312, 315, 317, 327, 335

Xenophobia, 156 Y Yoruba, 124, 125 Z Zaire, 33, 34, 89, 102, 161, 164, 168, 186, 282, 320 347

John Emeka Akude

Zambia, 48, 89, 118, 175, 186, 247, 335

Zartman, William, 79, 340

348