Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa [1st ed.] 9783030253530, 9783030253547

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xxvii
Introduction: Preventive Diplomacy in Theory and Practice (Okon Akiba)....Pages 1-43
ECOWAS and Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa (Babatunde Afolabi)....Pages 45-75
Youth Bulge and West Africa: Understanding Dispute Triggers and Conflict Prevention (Augustine Ikelegbe)....Pages 77-105
Militant Psyche and Separatism: A Note on the Casamance Conflict and Necessity of Preventive Intervention (Okon Akiba)....Pages 107-151
Women’s Wartime Struggle for Peace and Security in the Mano River Union (Oumar Ndongo)....Pages 153-174
Making and Enforcing Peace Through Mediation and Fire Power: A Retrospective on the Liberia Experience (Okon Akiba)....Pages 175-214
About God and Violence in West Africa! Can Religious Organizations Foster Peace? (Charles Abiodun Alao, Ronke Ako Nai)....Pages 215-253
Rwanda and North Macedonia: Considering the Nature of Conflict and UN Peacemaking (Abdul Mumin Sa’ad)....Pages 255-291
Epilogue: Arbitrariness and Conflict—The Context of Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa (Okon Akiba)....Pages 293-335
Back Matter ....Pages 337-357

Citation preview

Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa Edited by Okon Akiba

Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa

Okon Akiba Editor

Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa

Editor Okon Akiba International and Comparative Politics Professor York University Toronto, Canada

ISBN 978-3-030-25353-0 ISBN 978-3-030-25354-7  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25354-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface and Acknowledgements

This book is conceived as an addition to ongoing discourses and global dialogues on the management of security risks and resolution of violent conflict. It draws its conceptual orientation and analytical power from the Economic Community of West African States Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF). Under the auspices of the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), Abuja, Nigeria, I worked with colleagues to develop the main research questions concerning regional peace and stability. These were successfully brought together in a book proposal that was presented to the Consortium for Development Partnership (CDP) for research support consideration. Preparations to develop a manuscript and write a book on Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa accelerated once support was granted: Researchers, scholars, and independent consultants participated in preliminary meetings to explore lines of inquiry for the book and to construct research modalities. Three conferences were hosted in Abuja, Accra, and Dakar in 2009 through 2011, during which periods the research themes were defined and editorial policy refined. Thereafter, the main contributors were selected. Depth of analytical thought and evidence of current research work in preventive diplomacy were the overarching criteria guiding choice of essays for publication, and familiarity with reconceptualization of security around the human security norm was another. Works that struck the appropriate balance between Comparative Methodological Approach and Case Study Analyses received the decisive nod of approval. v

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Our contributors have each carefully analyzed the main issues and presented outstanding research findings that enrich this volume, and I seize this chance to express special appreciation for time spent on their work. Many thanks to CDP for financial support, without which the research and editorial preparations invested in the development and completion of the work would not have been possible. Toronto, Canada

Okon Akiba

Contents

1 Introduction: Preventive Diplomacy in Theory and Practice 1 Okon Akiba 2 ECOWAS and Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa 45 Babatunde Afolabi 3 Youth Bulge and West Africa: Understanding Dispute Triggers and Conflict Prevention 77 Augustine Ikelegbe 4 Militant Psyche and Separatism: A Note on the Casamance Conflict and Necessity of Preventive Intervention 107 Okon Akiba 5 Women’s Wartime Struggle for Peace and Security in the Mano River Union 153 Oumar Ndongo 6 Making and Enforcing Peace Through Mediation and Fire Power: A Retrospective on the Liberia Experience 175 Okon Akiba vii

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7 About God and Violence in West Africa! Can Religious Organizations Foster Peace? 215 Charles Abiodun Alao and Ronke Ako Nai 8 Rwanda and North Macedonia: Considering the Nature of Conflict and UN Peacemaking 255 Abdul Mumin Sa’ad 9 Epilogue: Arbitrariness and Conflict—The Context of Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa 293 Okon Akiba Index 337

Notes

on

Contributors

Babatunde Afolabi  holds a Doctorate Degree in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, the UK. He has been Senior Political Affairs Officer at the Economic Community of West African States Commission (ECOWAS). He has also lectured at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC), Kings College, London, and the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. Afolabi has published several advanced works in academic journals on peacebuilding, post-conflict rehabilitation, and the role of international organizations in helping to advance good governance in transitional countries. His most recent book on peacemaking is receiving positive reviews worldwide: “Politics of Peacemaking in Africa: Non-State Actors” Role in the Liberian Civil War (London, UK: James Curry Oxford Publishers, 2018). Okon Akiba is Comparative and International Politics Professor at York University, Toronto, Canada. And he has taught and researched at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. His books on Nigerian Foreign Policy Toward Africa, and Constitutionalism and Society in Africa are well received. He has also written several articles in professional journals such as Futures, Natural Resources Journal, Environmental Conservation, and The Journal of Modern African Studies. Akiba consults for the World Bank (Transparency and Asset Declaration relating to the Government

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of Tanzania), Rockefeller Foundation (West Africa Horizon Scanning Project), and the Carter Center (Electoral Processes in Africa). He has been a British Overseas Commonwealth Scholar. Charles Abiodun Alao  is Professor of African Studies at the Leadership Center in the School of Global Studies, King’s College, in London. He has written widely on socioeconomic development, human security, and peacebuilding. A few of his many works include: Conflict, Security and Development (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Africa: An Encyclopedia of Culture and Society (Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2015); Goodluck Jonathan Administration and the Management of National Security in Nigeria and the Jonathan Presidency (Lanham: University Press of America, 2014). Augustine Ikelegbe is Research Professor at the Department of Political Science in the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, and he has written widely on civil society, civil conflict, and conflict transformation and underground trafficking in light and small arms. His works in professional international journals include: Ethnic Conflict and Its Manifestations in the Politics of Recognition in Multi-Ethnic Niger Delta Region, Cogent Social Sciences Journal (July 2017); The Economy of Conflict in the Oil Rich Niger Delta of Nigeria, Journal of African and Asian Studies (January 2008); Civil Society, Oil and Conflict in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, Journal of African Studies (September 2001); the perverse manifestation of civil society, Journal of Modern African Studies (March 2001). Ronke Ako Nai  is Professor at the Department of International Relations in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Ronke has written vastly successful scholarly works including two books: Gender and Power Relations in Nigeria (London: Lexington Books, 2013) and Women, Governance and Democratization in Nigeria and Ghana (Saarbrucken, Germany, 2012). Ako Nai also has written seminal journal articles in African Studies Quarterly and several e-booklets. Oumar Ndongo  is Professor of American Studies at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal. He has extensive civil society organizational experience and serves as Director of SYSTOSENEGAL; Executive Secretary of PANAFSTRAG Senegal, and President of the Senegalese Section of the Federation for Universal Peace. Ndongo has written journal articles, book chapters, and policy papers on conflict resolution, preventive diplomacy, and regional integration.

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Abdul Mumin Sa’ad is Professor at the Department of Sociology & Anthropology in the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. He is active in several national and grassroots bodies devoted to promoting civil rights, economic empowerment, and access to education for rural and marginalized urban populations. He has written critical reports for the government on these subjects.

List of Maps

Map 4.1 Map of Senegal 108 Map 8.1 Map of North Macedonia 256 Map 8.2 Map of Rwanda 257

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Prologue Okon Akiba

Peace is not an absence of war; it is virtue, state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. (Baruch Spinoza)

A Preference for Peace Preventive diplomacy is driven by peace-induced activities ranging from the use of good offices, mediation, arbitration, truth telling, and conciliation to mitigate tension and to resolve conflicts that have already become deadly. This study proceeds on the reasoning that West Africa is a tested laboratory for these practices, and that the wars1 in Liberia and Sierra Leone did not embody spontaneous societal predispositions for genocide or express an inevitable historical pressure forcing ­collapse of the state. Far from the naïve, simplistic notions of primordial causes, both wars2 had complicated structural roots with complex outward political manifestations such as sectional fears that were directly and deliberately manipulated and employed by ruthless demagogues, warmongers for their own selfish ends. Questing after control of material resources and supreme political power,3 merchants of war successfully used citizens4 as malleable instruments to unleash the most gory, ­self-perpetrating chain of violence.5 International Criminal Tribunal Hearings6 have provided empirical basis to surmise that at the volatile transitional stage in question, large portions of an indoctrinated public were sucked into a vortex of inverted morality that transformed otherwise criminal behavior into acceptable way xv

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of life.7 Clearer appreciation of the determinate causes of large-scale violence (and its main dynamics) pointed peacemakers and interveners toward the urgent need to domesticate international rights norms, stigmatize criminal behavior, and prepare appropriate legal and political mechanisms for post-conflict rehabilitation and peacebuilding. Faced with the true nature of things, and anxious also to stop profound atrocities associated with seemingly ceaseless destruction, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) suspended traditional peacekeeping operations, and multinational fighting troops were mobilized instead to target, dismantle, and demolish the network of concentrated carnage in the region. Force ended blood lust and anarchy that spread through West Africa in the immediate post-Cold War period, ceasing roughly in 2003;8 and force was unleashed with desired effects in Mali9 (January 2012), in this specific case to retake occupied northern cities and protect citizens and territorial integrity against al-Qaeda inspired aggression.10 Once again, the use of force was justified on the grounds of necessity—necessity to dislodge the sources of flagrant abuse of rights and to set the stage for healing along with rehabilitation. Ultimately, to restore and secure the stable domestic space in which Malians can find repose. This experience in practical cooperative security is invested with tremendous policy significance for peace. Determined to contain and neutralize existent and potential security risks in the region, justification for martial action also derives its ethos from International Humanitarian Law.11 Provisions of the law rate the necessity, responsibility to protect (R2P) and enhance human security well above conservative, superficial interpretations on sovereignty and territorial integrity that had hitherto been used by most African despots to shield themselves against international scrutiny, even as they trampled rights and unleashed mayhem upon citizens. Theoretically, arguments in favor of intervention by force of arms,12 on behalf of peace, are elaborated appropriately in Just War Doctrine.13 Fresh considerations about the imperatives of political stability as condition essential for economic development also place enormous emphasis on human rights and citizenship; so also, in the contemporary idiom of global humanitarian obligations and responsibilities, regional institutional mechanisms are refurbished to promote and protect human dignity; protection of human rights trumps all other injunctions in the emerging international order of things. Apropos, the United Nations advances the consciously held objectives in preventive action and urges normative organizations

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across the globe to robustly stand against human perversity. Major transformations in ECOWAS’ peacekeeping mechanism correspond with the determined quest to eliminate wars that smash up human life and destroy communities’ natural endowments and preference for order and concord. So far then, we all can accept that a cardinal determinant of future peace and progress in transitional societies is the eventual implantation of the rule of law and democratic ways of living. And the end product of each and every democratic experiment is the actualization of a humane society that is also characterized by harmony and defined by civility. In truth, the essence and long-term goal of democratic education is achievement of thoroughgoing social change: Citizens must be made aware of their rights. A crucial responsibility of all normative organizations is to work tirelessly with ordinary persons helping them recognize and exercise their inherent and inviolable rights and privileges as free citizens. On their part, grassroots organizations should see it as their privileged civic duty to empower the marginalized and support their legitimate struggles against despotism in all its forms. Around the contours, army usurpation of political power is outlawed in national constitutions and the responsibility rests firmly on the shoulders of social movements to confront the nuisance fearlessly, wherever the impulses of capriciousness are refreshed. The volume is arranged in accordance with an order to ensure a seamless flow of ideas and continuities in argumentations. After this prologue, the introductory discourse (Chapter 1) extends and sustains ongoing intellectual conversations on the history, theory, and practice of preventive diplomacy. The roots of conflict that most discerning thinkers14 have long associated with the genesis of state decay are elaborated in the literature review. From these grounds, Babatunde Afolabi (Chapter 2) looks at the origins and growth of the ECOWAS: He offers a creative critique of domestic conditions often considered to be most essential for enlarging the material and sacred returns on peacemaking and then, marshals evidence in support of Track II diplomacy. A strong advocate of informal diplomacy, the author argues persuasively that third-party approaches can relax tensions and sway dialogue among disputants in ways distinct and different from the practice of mainstream state-based diplomacy. As well, Afolabi believes that adjustments in present formal school curriculums to include courses in peace education15 will profoundly help in the cultivation and domestication of amity and concord as social culture. I

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am persuaded about this; also that many valuable life lessons concerning tolerance, mutual accommodation, and compromise can be taught; and the troubled youth can be rehabilitated and couched to jettison acquired hate syndrome from the inner moral code. The well-adjusted community is peopled by individuals capable of resolving their disputes with one another constructively, creatively, and nonviolently. Few would disagree that collaboration is the best method of solving problems.16 With equal verve in Chapter 3, Augustine Ikelegbe speaks to the condition of youths in ways that concur and advance the ­above-referenced entreaties and petition by Afolabi on behalf of youth education. Ikelegbe identifies demographic shifts and youth bulge as both the triggers and causes of domestic unrest and insurgency in frangible states. In these places, negligent official socioeconomic policies are entrenching poverty, forcing young people to revolt against the legitimate authority of the state. And in their rebelliousness or rage, obviously so misplaced, physical institutions of governance are often attacked, vandalized, and destroyed. In effect, youth bulge is a crisis to be resolved and prevented through appropriate official policies. It is not a transient problem expected to fizzle and disappear on its own in the long-run. Constructive interventionist programs are required to deal with the challenge. Such programs genuinely must be caring and firmly articulated to transform both the socioeconomic environment in which the youths exist and their behavior. Many of these social problems are common also in most transitional African publics. As elaborated in Chapter 4, they are embodied in the Casamance separatist movement of Southern Senegal. Okon Akiba argues that conflict in this circumstance is dominated and fueled largely by the Jola minority people of the Casamance region, and that the conflict dramatically turned radical and acquired exceptional, definitive militant bent once Senegalese soldiers opened gunfire on otherwise peaceful protesters in 1982. Many more citizens made up of a majority of young people are massacred during the memorial march a year following. And in this way, police brutality put a match to combustible social discontent that had originated from the Senegalese government’s discriminatory socioeconomic policies toward the Casamancais. The impacts of political and social tensions on Senegalese society and Dakar’s alleged complicity in the failure of ceasefires are explored. Questions of citizenship, equality, and the state’s responsibility to protect the vulnerable and minority are brought forth and interrogated.

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Like most normative conceptions of social justice, democratic equality consists of complex ideas that are often not easy to properly explain and operationalize. Oumar Ndongo nevertheless boldly explores quite a few of those structurally gendered burdens in the Mano River Union and iterates in his work that no one can gain a just and balanced estimate of the import of equality without a detached examination of women’s experiences in society. He sees and presents women (Chapter 5) especially during the period of regional hostilities as organized citizens trying to rebuild and maintain their dignity consciously in the specific commune. In a region that had become profane and de-sacralized by war, it was important for women to consolidate their resources and approach problems always as an identifiable visible collective. Women were the carriers of community virtue as well as the occasional drivers of diplomatic initiatives, to restore elements of order in their envisioned good society. Ndongo assesses success in part from the point of view of organizational skills acquired by women during war. Those skills, the author avers together with other expertise, are handy and essential for women’s survival with self-reliance enhanced, as they embark on the tedious journey from war to peace. Women’s activism in my thinking draws substantially from modes of African indigenous associational life and community practices. It recognizes strongly these days that resistance has meaning only when people pull together, and that incorporating men into women’s struggle for their rights eventually erodes ignorance that is inherent in gendered prejudices. Overall, women are today successfully navigating the complexities of activism, adjusting to new systemic contingencies and negotiating their lives through cultural oppositional materials that have endured. Women are learning how best to route their numerical strengths into collective action. And these are positive developments in the main. The overall purpose for women and society at large is to achieve and multiply the bonuses of human security and to prevent erosion of peace. Peace ofttimes can represent freedom—freedom from embedded fear of bad government and from manifold insecurities due to want, misfortune, and violence. It denotes both the possibilities and actual escape from disorder and from the extremes of social torments known to recurrently shatter the state of lawfulness. Okon Akiba examines (Chapter 6) and attempts to explain the systematic wearing of social justice in Liberia leading to the thirteen-year conflict. Certain laws were articulated and used to reinforce tyrannical rule, as have occurred in abusive states

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through the ages. The author explains the dynamics of repression and bewails the absence of the opposite political scenario—that is, the official use of law positively to give effect to basic democratic freedoms in ways to confer maximum security upon citizens and protect property. Akiba contends that the power of human reason is the most potent incentive for social action to purge impunity;17 and that intervention by third parties to protect defenseless citizens against oppression is ethical, moral, and pragmatic human obligation. Deadly turmoil in his view yields certain truth or revelation from which are drawn lessons about conditions justifying the use of force for humanitarian purposes. Wartime Liberia forms the background against which the singularity of violent conflict is dissected and analyzed in its narrower cultural, local, and national settings.18 From shorter narratives and conversation with a number of Liberian citizens, it has become plain to observers that unresolved tensions still exit in that postwar society.19 They revolve around the burning question of criminal prosecution versus redemptive justice— between conceptions of legal punishment versus leniency. Those holding firm to the existence of a higher law by which man-made jurisprudence can be judged—and often nullified—are rejecting reprieve for citizens known to have violated the sanctity of life, no matter the “mitigating circumstances.”20 Chiefs of judicial authority in the country however currently hew closer to leniency and rehabilitation, but must come to terms with the aggrieved; particularly, the restive youths among whom the Christian vernacular of redemption find uneven resonance. The youths are advocating vengeance. And I fear that without some measure of retributive justice internal friction might sufficiently heat social angst and force resort to jungle justice. This and the possibilities of vengeful responses against existing system of justice are avoidable because sanguine alternatives are available and should be considered. A m ­ iddle-ground must be found between forgiveness and punishment. In my thinking, courts of the land together with the governors must not fail to steadily engage the public on the main normative questions and explain clearly to the citizenry that a republic based on the rule of law actually can extend its political legitimacy and accumulate spiritual surplus from official grants of clemency. War is an abnormality with nearly infinite capacities to induce collective psychosis.21 Without a doubt also, war is one of the central institutions effectively mirroring the violent component in our natural constitution as humans. And quite a few great minds have commonly referenced these points (either obliquely or directly) in their synthesis

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of historical truths about cultural anxiety and the causes of violence. In his famous 1844 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Rights, Karl Marx says that religion is the sigh of the oppressed; it is opium of the people.22 And from more ancient times, Aristotle23 warns us that man is by nature a political animal endowed with reason; its direct opposite is lawless man, an outcast prone to violence or war. Putting the two philosophical minds together it is clear, unsurprising in our generation; man has politicized religion and inflamed the social fabric. Consistent with the proclivities of the lawless outcast, man also has entombed the triple heritage of systemic violence habitually and regularly reproduced in a determined sequence: religious bigotry—ethnic hatred—atrocities of war. Society nevertheless possesses natural capacities to absorb animus; eventually and definitively, community regains its chutzpah and begins to repair and burnish the foundational moral constitution. Prominent pieces and formation of the said human coping mechanism emerge gently and certainly in the essay by Charles Abiodun Alao and Ronke Ako Nai (Chapter 7). The authors set out carefully to explore and assess the complex entwining of religion, politics, and conflict. We can see in their articulation a large number of leaders in religious organizations are remarkably committed to the promotion of peaceful social relations and to the mediated settlement of domestic and interstate violence. They are holding up the collective guard against zealotry. Intolerant clerics on the contrary are adept at generating upheavals by propagating their sardonic thoughts and advancing what they regard to be dysmorphic defects in temporal authority. They are forcing ideological and physical roadblocks against real and momentous peace efforts. I agree with our authors Alao and Nai that religion is Janus-Faced.24 Almost all religions contain theological norms that simultaneously support peace as well as the flip side of peace—conflict.25 Scholars call it “ambivalence of the sacred.”26 We feel succor because the quest for political accord and freedom from strife is continuing a-pace and dauntlessly. In postwar Sierra Leone, restitution is encouraged as the means to assuage war-afflicted pain and promote restorative justice. Retributive justice is, however, reserved only for perpetrators of the most heinous war crimes. Scholars nonetheless doubt that truth telling can foster reconciliation unambiguously and its paramount healing effect on core trauma comes under question and close scrutiny. Not everyone is persuaded that forgiveness eases the burden of memory and even severe punishment may not deter human propensity to unleash

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atrocity.27 Memory suffers profound fracture; at best, it bears overload of fury in unstable places where jihadists, blood-thirsty terrorists, and armed gangs use murder, abduction, extortion plus rape deliberately to demean communities and mock the values of societies—in the name of religion. I have often wondered personally what a world without religion would look like—in particular, a world without organized religion. But that train of thought belongs to the vivid imaginary and we must not travel away from the set courses of present pursuits. At the moment, I will reshuffle the narrative footprints to bring up Abdul Mumin Sa’ad. He is busily transporting (Chapter 8) into our ongoing discourse a keen comparison of conflict prevention in North Macedonia and Rwanda. We must receive and reflect upon his explanations for the Upshot of Conflagration (Genocide in Rwanda) and the Seeding of Law (Political Order in North Macedonia) as cautionary tales about the deadly consequences of divisive power struggles and manipulated, socially constructed identity crises. I should pause for a moment to reflect a little on the matter. The crisis that plagued political life in Rwanda presents teachable moments and lessons that apply to West Africa as follows: The idea of “national unity” must not be allowed to float only at the level of rhetoric; it must be transmitted through appropriate national institutions that target ethnic, political, youth, and women groups and individual citizens who must learn and appreciate the enormous benefits of peaceful “living in diversity.” Citizens in West African countries will then come to terms with the fact that communities collectively suffer when ethnicity and religion (all particularistic identities for that matter) are used by decadent political leaders to generate violent conflict. The soul of a nation is greatly enriched only when and where the variety of ethnicities, religion, and gender difference are celebrated and integrated to advance development and human security, rather than weaponized for assault and promotion of internal conflict. Normative leaders in civic-minded organizations can amplify cultural values and work toward consolidating the “national project,” which in large degree commonly revolves around the uplifting of people from poverty, provision of jobs particularly for the youths, and respect for gender equality. Grassroots organizations in rural spheres also must be funded and expanded to ensure their rational evolution into healthy and morally balanced assemblies designed purposely to advance the quality of everyday life in the larger society. The genocidal slaying that occurred in Rwanda was avoidable. And till date, that poignant human experience continues to pose enduring exhibit concerning

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the worst consequences of failures to contain and expunge manufactured hatred from the African body politic and purge elite domination. Rwanda underscores the necessity to entrench tolerance and preventive peacemaking as customary mores. The Epilogue (9) speaks to present problems, revisits past political quagmires, and mourns the frequent degeneration of discordance in governance into a curse. The relationships among arbitrariness, anarchy, and violence are unambiguous and stark. Thoughts and informed judgment are set out clearly though with slight differences of emphasis on principal questions—particularly on West Africa’s three most transcendent questions concerning political destiny, the meanings of community, and social progress. Each researcher exposes the raw consequences of conflict and analyzes the moral, philosophical, and sociocultural factors dictating human preference for peace. Domestic socioeconomic triggers of crisis and protracted conflict are identified and explained. Equality of opportunity and relaxed access to public goods are shown to mitigate conflict, and we see how war experiences have prepared new roles for women in the life of the region. There are similarities also in the appreciation of publicly expressed aspirations for security of life and on relations of state and society. Foremost, that people are more important than their state. Indeed, the whole learned dispute on this matter is primly based on enlightened views about the sanctity of rights and citizenship—about which our authors accept that the state exists in large measure to serve the people, and not the other way round. No government can claim just authority to rule unless such an authority is rightly, firmly, and legitimately rooted in a social base, in the collective will of all the people. Of course, the people will master through self-discipline the exercise of public duty, civic responsibility, and tolerance in social relations. Progressive governments appreciate good citizenship as an evolutionary value with which to pursue and achieve the high possibilities that the future holds for societies in transition. By this way, governments will reach and sustain higher levels of cooperation among citizens across national boundaries and strive to ensure balanced human development through enrichment of individual life. Arbitrariness is excised from the much-desired future society (community of citizens), not only because it contaminates the moral fabric and compromises the quality of ­day-to-day experiences, but also because it chokes free communication of ideas and tends to impede social integration. These are the manifest schemes, I

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believe, by which the outcomes of present governance and multilateral initiatives will be judged. Rule of law is cornerstone of the scheme. Each and every one of our citizens can hope to enjoy the exceptional state of peace only in the community sealed and protected by law. One quality that defines and richens our work is accessibility. Complex sociopolitical and economic concerns are unwrapped delicately and with analytical grace, to capture and retain the interest of even the most tentative reader. The other is cross disciplinary approach that has been adopted by all to treat most of the dominant research questions and so the chapters come nicely together in a kaleidoscope of knowledge deriving from scholarly investigative traditions in anthropology, economics, law, political science, and sociology. Drawn from professions across the region, our cohort comprises scholars, leaders in civil society, independent peace consultants, and social science researchers serving as policy experts and advisors in major regional organizations. The book certainly will satisfy analysts seeking fresh sources of reference on the changing character of war and conflict systems, and for teaching of graduate courses in human rights, transnational law, and international public policy. It should also lend itself to use by researchers in international organizations wanting to understand or assess the performance, scope, and limits of institutions primarily designed to resolve and prevent conflict. Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa is a balanced study that supports critical efforts to re-energize investigative research into the diverse and interrelated dimensions of the human condition. It presupposes the definitive truth that the cooperative spirit is a unique social capital that is also ingrained in most ordinary citizens on the continent. Citizens’ extraordinary resilience in the face of hardship merits recompenses which can be edified only by the conscious implantation of good government in society. We are confident that ongoing collective campaigns by regional entities for change will eventually yield African polities profoundly transformed for the better. Power in the envisioned society will be controlled and directed by indigenous governors possessed of natural ­ people-centered zeal to deliver the masses from seemingly infinite distress. A preliminary step to achieving the humane object consists in a sustained determination to crack and dismantle the main causes of spectacular civil wars. Elimination of existential threats to human security in the region will facilitate uninterrupted economic development to raise mass living standards.

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Notes









1. Peter Arthur, “Promoting Security in Africa through Regional Economic Communities and the African Union’s African Peace and Security Architecture,” Insight on Africa 9, no. 1 (2017), 1–21; Kjetil Bjorvatn and Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, “Resources, Rent, Balance of Power and Political Stability,” Journal of Peace Research 52, no. 6 (2015), 758–773. 2. Clionadh Raleigh and Kars De Bruijne, “Where Rebels Dare to Tread: A Study of Conflict Geography and Co-option of Local Power in Sierra Leone,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 6 (July 2017), 1230– 1260; Danny Hoffman, “The City as Barracks: Freetown, Monrovia and the Organization of Violence in Post-colonial African Cities,” Cultural Anthropology 22, no. 3 (August 2007), 400–428. 3. Jennifer Hazen, What Rebels Want: Resources and Supply Networks in Wartime (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), Chapters 1–4. 4. Leone Stein, Child Soldiers as Agents of War and Peace: Restorative Transitional Justice Approach to Accountability for Crime under International Law (The Hague: T.M.C. Asser Press, 2017). 5. See Philip G. Roessler and Harry Verhoeven, Why Comrades Go to War: Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa’s Deadliest Conflict (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017). 6. Tyrone Kirchengast, Victimology and Victim Rights: International Comparative Perspectives (New York, NY: Routledge, 2017), Chapters 1–3. 7.  Valerie Oosterveld, “Special Court for Sierra Leone: International Criminal Law, Attacking Personnel Involved in Peacekeeping Mission, Recruit and Use of Child Soldiers, Sexual Slavery and Forced Marriage,” American Journal of International Law 104, no. 1 (January 2010), 73–82. 8. David J. Francis, Peace and Conflict in Africa (London: Zed Press, 2008), Introduction; Chapter 2. 9. On the character of Malian Conflict and the cluster of policies and interveners, see F. Edu-Afful and K. Aning, “African Agency in R2P: Interventions by African Union and ECOWAS in Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and Libya,” International Studies Review 18, no. 1 (2016), 120–133; Human Rights Watch, Mali: Events of 2015 (Washington, DC: World Report, 2016). 10.  Jose Luengo-Cabrera, “Symptoms of Enduring Crisis: Prospects for Addressing Mali’s Conflict Catalysts,” African Policy Journal 8 (2013), 9–19. 11. Humanitarian intervention is controversial because it opposes the sacred rule of sovereignty; some say it is a veil for foreign domination. But questions remain: Is there a right of humanitarian intervention? Is the world

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community obligated to protect the vulnerable? Kathleen ­Malley-Morrison et al., eds., International Handbook of War, Torture and Terrorism (New York: Springer, 2012). 12. Nicholas Tsagourias, “Necessity and the Use of Force: A Special Regime,” Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 41 (2010), 11–44. 13. Kathleen Malley-Morrison et al., eds., International Handbook of Peace and Reconciliation (New York: Springer, Peace Psychology Book Series, 2013); Laura Herta, “Jus in Bello and the Solidarist Case for Humanitarian Intervention: From Theory to Practice,” Studia Univertatis Babes-Bolyai. Studia Europaea 58, no. 1 (2013), 5–47. The potential outcomes of Just War such as world peace, trends toward reconciliation are evaluated by quite a few, see Michael Neu, “Why There Is No Such Thing as Just War Pacifism and Why Just War Theorists and Pacifists Can Talk Nonetheless,” Social Theory and Practice 37, no. 3 (July 2011), 413–433. 14.  Eileen Babbitt, “The Evolution of International Conflict Resolution: From Cold War to Peacebuilding,” Negotiation Journal 25, no. 4 (October 2009), 539–549. 15. On the purposes of peace education in diverse circumstances, see Raymond Izarali et al., Security, Education and Development in Contemporary Africa (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2017); Muhammad Ahsan, “Post NATO Drawdown in Afghanistan and Regional Security: Post-Conflict Social Reconstruction through Peace Education,” Peace Research 48, nos. 1–2 (2016), 91–112. 16.  Larry Fisk, “Deficiencies and Promise in Peace Education,” Peace Research 29, no. 4 (November 1997), 80–92. 17. John Stuart Mill argues that access to education and the treatment of women as equal citizens should be fundamental to human progress. He argues that tyranny is the antithesis of democratic, representative government. See Mill, On Liberty (London: Penguin Books, 1977). 18.  Paul Richard, “Systematic Approach to Cultural Explanation of War: Tracing Cultural Processes in Two West African Insurgencies,” World Development 39, no. 2 (2013), 212–220. 19. Can one have peace without justice? One public image seems to encapsulate the real temper of the times and it may provide an answer to this question. Consider it: A wheel-chair bound (amputee) sits daily at Monrovia’s main market square. He carries a placard that reads: “You have to face justice so I can get peace!” See Lucinda Rouse, “Calls for War Court in Liberia,” African Arguments (February 14, 2019), 1. 20.  Michael G. Wessells et al. eds., “Transformative Spaces in the Social Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers, Young Mothers in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Northern Uganda,” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 23, no. 1 (2017), 58–66.

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21. Toshiyuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2018). 22. Offering interpretation of main issues, the work also raises theoretical problematique. Jay Geller, “Table Dancing in an Opium Den: Marx’s Conjuration of Criticism out of ‘Criticism of Religion’ in 1844,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 26, no. 1 (2014), 3–21. 23. See James Lindley Wilson, “Deliberation, Democracy and the Rule of Reason in Aristotle’s Politics,” American Political Science Review 105, no. 2 (2011), 259–274. A thoughtful revisionist historian, the author seeks a reinterpretation of aspects of Aristotle’s motives, ideas, and reasoning on the subject. 24. Heinrich Shafer, “The Janus Face of Religion: On the Religious Factor in New Wars,” Numen 51, no. 4 (2004), 407–431. 25.  Michael Hoffman reminisces about the mixed relationship of religion and government; that religion in its various forms can serve to promote regimes of virtually any type—democratic or otherwise. See Hoffman, “Government Legitimacy and Religion,” Oxford Research Encyclopedias (September 2018). 26. The author ponders the idea of ambivalence and speaks to the dramatic and contradictory responses to human suffering by religious actors. Scott R. Appleby, Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and Reconciliation (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012). 27.  David Wilkins, “Memory, Truth Telling and the Legacies of Slavery in South Africa,” South African Historical Journal 69, no. 1 (January 2017), 12–31.

CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Preventive Diplomacy in Theory and Practice Okon Akiba

An ounce of peace is worth a pound of cure. (Benjamin Franklin)

Beginning effectively from the early 1990s, pronounced transformations in the global system of states offered normative institutions of international governance sublime opportunities to redefine global security, re-tool diplomatic machineries for effective management of violent conflict, and work collaboratively with national governments toward constructing fresh norms of conflict resolution for a new world order. With a great sense of the moment, and propelled by a new spirit of commonality at the January 1992 United Nations (UN) Summit,1 world leaders also came to recommit their countries to the original Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter, reiterating that it is incumbent on all Member States to help the organization achieve its cardinal goals of maintaining international peace and security, and of securing social justice, to wit, of promoting “social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”2 Consistent with the times, special United Nations World Conferences are now convened on a regular basis to raise issues of security and to deliberate upon questions of fundamental importance to sustainable development

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and peace such as the environment, human rights, women and population, regional security, sources of contemporary conflict and conflict prevention. The UN, the African Union (AU), and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) are in search of improved strategies for ensuring sustainable socioeconomic development—and containment of the growing dangers embedded in the use of massively destructive weapons of war is placed on the front burner of diplomatic concerns. In large measure, the rapid rise of conflict prevention to prominence in the agenda of governments and international organizations in the post-Cold War period has been propelled by a growing commitment to resolve the multiple political instabilities that inhere organically in forging new states and collapse of fragile political entities. Deeply traumatized by the experience and consequences of failures on the part of the international community3 to prevent genocide in the Balkans and Rwanda, and the inability to effectively manage the aftermaths of bedlam, international law in the new security environment has manufactured strong consensus on collective responsibility to protect (RP2) vulnerable communities against atrocity and the cluster acts constituting aggression and war crime. None would raise any objections to the reasoning that new approaches and inventive instruments for easing the distress accompanying violence among rival nationalities must be well calibrated and put into careful use by professionals endowed or skilled in handling conflict at all its multifaceted levels. New beats to the life and momentum of conflict resolution currently are guided by the moral imperative to speedily preempt and prevent crises—rather than investing in plans for post-conflict reconstruction, plans and strategies that have proven in practice to be emotionally exhausting, definitely debilitating and financially costly.4 This chapter is primarily an investigation, interrogation, and treatment of the norms, traditions, and principles undergirding preventive diplomacy. To deepen thoughts on the subject, I examine and assess the extents to which human rights principles are guiding the articulation and practice of preventive diplomacy. For similar purposes, the intellectual underpinnings of “just war doctrine;” and questions about the practical implications of laws permitting or legitimizing the use of force—the idea in international law about “permissible use of force”—are posed and addressed. Then, the main lines of argumentation are drawn, to show how they apply to the theory of preventive diplomacy. The overall template of the book is set

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in a way to guide and ensure that the contributors’ commanding trend of thoughts is in sync, well-integrated, into the tightly knotted provisions of the ECOWAS Conflict Preventive Framework (ECPF, hereinafter, the Framework). And the Sequence of Thought in the Chapter Appears in Five Main Frames, as follows: (I) Research Problem in the Context of a Literature Review, (II) Criminal Impunity, the Use of Force, and Accountability for Atrocity, (III) Human Rights as Path-Defining Instruments of Conflict Prevention, (IV) Conflict Research and the Future of Peace, and (V) Essays in a Nutshell.

I. The Problem and Issues in the Context of a Literature Review Preventive diplomacy5 is anchored principally in fresh thinking about the causes of domestic conflict and interstate war. And it provides for mechanisms considered to be appropriate and sufficient for stopping conflicts before they deepen and assume intractable, bloody dimensions.6 It is an approach to peacebuilding that aims to prevent violence from starting by addressing key long-term factors driving tensions toward explosion.7 Prevention consists of two main strands of activities: Operational prevention focuses on short-term responses that are embodied in principles and practice of traditional preventive diplomacy as defined in the UN Charter.8 Structural prevention is composed of long-term strategies targeting root causes of conflict such as economic marginalization and political exclusion. About this, Kevin Cahill9 observes that diplomacy, like health care, is focusing increasingly on prevention, rather than treatment, and that prevention in this case requires tools including greater reliance on empirical studies of risk assessment and early warning systems. He argues that the causes of conflict are diverse and require the intervention of many academic disciplines including medicine. Most would agree with the reasoning in Cahill’s cross-disciplinary discourse on global politics, that stopping wars before they start is easier than ending wars that are already underway. More so, military interventions and economic sanctions tend to inflict more harm than good on the target community.10 Instead of anxieties that come parts in parcel with alternative proposition that war is a congenital affliction,11 preventive diplomacy offers hope that wars can be mitigated and eliminated from society.

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Forward looking about the prospects of successful peacebuilding through policy initiatives and collaboration, preventive diplomacy is in itself also essentially revolutionary in character.12 It is revolutionary because it poses a fundamental challenge to biological determinism13 and psycho-analytical14 approaches to explaining conflict—that human nature is innately selfish15 or war-prone. And those wars are inevitable in society, given human qualities that are frequently aggravated, deeply, during interstate and intragroup competitive struggles for power and material resources. Preventive diplomacy in theory presupposes that the causes of war are embedded in material and sociopolitical vectors, which can be isolated, neutralized, and eliminated through the deliberate action of good statesmen, working together with leaders in international organizations. Peace advocates16 are customarily and commonly motivated and driven into action by personal predisposition and by the moral force of international law. Associated with this are pacifists and non-violent protagonists17 of peace such as Mahatma Gandhi,18 the Dalai Lama, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who have sermonized and moralized tolerance showing also that war is socially constructed phenomenon.19 The sources of war are found not in wicked proclivities said to inhere in human nature, but in arbitrary policies used by public officials to bend the meanings of identity and manipulate cultural difference. Quite a number of leaderships are adroit at marginalizing minorities and reawakening or reinterpreting histories and traditions in ways that create enemy images of the other. Edward Azar’s “Protracted Social Conflict”20 theory complements these perspectives, showing how the causes of domestic conflict can emerge from the suppression of opposition and minority forces. Violence is also seen as arising from mass reactions to human right abuses or defense against violent attacks by agents of the abusive state. In such circumstances, political stakeholders and international peace organizations in multiethnic societies are enjoined to preempt conflict and foster social progress by promoting inclusiveness in governmental affairs. It is necessary to ensure that group rights are respected and constitutionally protected, with an eye to eliminating impulses for secession among minorities and toward promoting national unity. Parallel to this conception of conflict and conflict prevention is the treatment of all non-democratic regimes as at root dysfunctional, while implantation of multi-party competitive electoral systems of governance is promoted as antidote to violence.21

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Thus conceived, quite a few theorists are placing the emphasis somewhat differently: Seeing conflict as an essential naturally occurring element in fledgling democracies,22 they say that conflict is not something to be avoided at all cost in all circumstances. Indeed, they are arguing that conflict may well be the stimulus for change toward a more humane society and that conflict can spur normative leaders to craft, define, and re-position alternative development priorities for the common good. As a matter of fact, the ECOWAS Framework calls it conflict transformation.23 Still, others posit24 that African wars have been exploded many times by rebels seeking to control natural resources. And they are able to recruit followers who are disenfranchised and antipathetic toward government. Emergent leaderships can eliminate those negative forces that grossly undermine their official abilities to expand employment and meet public expectations on improved living standards, such as bureaucratic corruption.25 The range of arguments percolating from all this may be summarized as follows: Conflict is not always anathema. For instance, the popular liberation movements of the 1970s used the force of arms to liberate subjugated people from want and from the fear of tyranny, and certain wars are unavoidable and must be allowed to ripen26 before intervention to resolve them. The appeal of competitive political system of governance may be exaggerated, since quite a few of the ongoing democratic experiments are failing consistently to promote both economic rights and civil/political rights (CPR) concurrently. More so, neoliberal constitutionalism27 should not be considered the exclusive path to enthroning progressive and predictable democratic peace.28 Citizens in a number of transitional societies29 are not gaining anticipated peace dividends from externally induced intervention or negotiated settlements, given the prevalence of sociopolitical and economic insecurities.30 These are some of the caveats currently forcing serious reflections upon the cascading justifications and institutional support for conflict prevention. On the whole, we can see that the idea of conflict and conflict prevention is norm-laden. And needless-to-say, the inherent destructiveness of war always generates moral and ethical questions. While the gruesome outcomes of war are never contested in civilized society, it is the policies, strategies, recommendations, and priority prescriptions to prevent war—such as the pursuit of human rights, promotion, and consolidation of democratic values and the peace potentials of free-market mechanisms—that frequently ignite the hottest conceptual disputes on the subjects.

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ECPF: Relevant Concepts Principles, Terminologies Applied to West Africa, at the risk of grossly oversimplifying the detailed submissions each elaborated in separate sections of the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework, the core objectives identified in its preamble proclaim those peace bonuses likely to accrue from regional political stability, justifying thereto, the adoption of a “preventive framework encompassing all initiatives for enhancing safety of life and property, as well as the security of Member States and institutions in the region.”31 By way of definition, ECPF says (Section IV 19, a–b) that conflict prevention comprises two elements: “Operational prevention includes early warning, mediation, conciliation, preventive disarmament, and preventive deployment, using interactive means such as good offices and ECOWAS Standby Force.” “Structural prevention, often elaborated under peacebuilding initiatives, comprises political, institutional (governance), and developmental reforms, capacity enhancement, and advocacy on the culture of peace.”32 In Section II, paragraphs 1–7, we are reminded that national leaders have a responsibility to promote good governance and to protect human rights. They must also seek to enhance environmental and food security. Governments that are rooted in the rule of law will be able to solidly outlaw military coups. A proper discharge of constitutional obligations and responsibilities to uplift citizens will prevent the outbreak of avoidable emergencies. For the same purpose, civil society and normative global organizations can help preserve the peace by working collaboratively to redefine, strengthen, and articulate regional treaties that bring nations closer together on economic and sociocultural activities. Strikingly, the ECPF has adopted a definition of conflict that departs from conventional notions and toward instrumentalist ideas of the phenomenon: (Section III, 8) notes that “conflict is the motor of transformation. Conflict can be creatively transformed to ensure equity, progress and harmony, or destructively transformed to engender acute insecurity.”33 We can sift out the items thus far woven together to find their roots in immediate diplomatic history: Half a century ago, the UN SecretaryGeneral Dag Hammarskjöld34 articulated the idea that preventive diplomacy should be anchored in concrete defensive military structures capable of being deployed35 by Member States to head off international conflicts and disasters. He thought that preventive diplomacy needed to include solid forms of anticipatory action36 designed to achieve international stability. Those actions had ultimately to be executed by a swift-moving United

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Nations Emergency Force (UNEF).37 Subsequently also in his Agenda for Peace,38 Boutros Boutros-Ghali regarded preventive diplomacy as the most desirable and efficient means of using diplomacy to “ease tensions before they result in conflict, or if conflict breaks out, to act swiftly to contain it and resolve its underlying causes.” Kofi Annan’s first defining intervention was a conceptual one by renaming it “preventive action,”39 in recognition of the fact that there are related actions that can have paramount impacts on tension areas such as preventive deployment, preventive disarmament, preventive humanitarian intervention, and preventive peacebuilding. He prioritized enforcement action (under Chapter VII of the Instrument) as the legitimate means (of last resort) to guarantee the protection of ordinary people during emergencies, safeguarding also their fundamental human rights. Preventive diplomacy as a concept has captured the imagination of scholars40 and scores of professional diplomats. And definitions of the concept vary according to differences in the perceived peaceful methods of resolving conflict, the range of actions to be taken, the timing of intervention and anticipated goals or outcomes of actions. For example, Mongolia’s attempt to pool China and Russian into a “regional security arrangement”41 can be classified as preventive diplomacy in so far as the ultimate aim has been to create an environment capable of minimizing and deflecting conflict. And practical environmental policies that approach “climate change”42 as a risk multiplier, influencer, or cofactor of conflict qualify as preventive measure. For purposes of our study, we will adopt the definition offered in the Framework to the effect that conflict prevention refers to the “non-violent (or creative) conflict transformation and encompasses activities designed to defuse tensions and prevent the outbreak, escalation, spread, or reoccurrence of violence.”43 This definition is useful and adequate because it also comprehends actions acknowledged by UN Secretaries-General Annan and earlier by Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his Agenda for Peace, which pay attention to the urgency of protecting and promoting human rights as the fundamental means of conflict prevention.

II. Criminal Impunity, the Use of Force and Accountability for Atrocity One legitimate question that needs to be more fully posed and unambiguously addressed in the ECPF relates to the use of force in preventive diplomacy. Should the emerging culture of prevention also include clearer

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statements and commitment about an option of “preventive war,”44 the actual use of military force, to protect vulnerable populations in Africa’s theaters of war? This question can be addressed from both the legal and theoretic points of view. International law legitimizes and permits the use of force in specific circumstances spelled out in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. Entitled “Action with respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression,”45 it permits non-military actions such as economic sanctions (Article 41) and more military-oriented measures such as “actions by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace or security”46 (Article 42). It seems incontrovertible, therefore, that imminent “threats to the peace” constitute legitimate basis for the permissible use of force. Chapter VII (Article 40) also elaborates additional conditions legitimizing the use of force as preventive action; for instance, it authorizes the Security Council to call or instruct a state that is threatening the peace to cease doing so, and military action is authorized to compel compliance in the event of a recalcitrant response. Instructively, Chapter VII recognizes that prior to action by the Security Council, states have individual rights of self-defense if an armed attack occurs; also, there is the right of “hot pursuit,”47 which permits a state in self-defense to unleash retaliatory military force sufficient to deter future attack upon its sovereignty by the aggressor. From the theoretical point, justification for the use of force must satisfy criteria such as legitimate authority, just cause, last recourse or resort, and proportionality. To satisfy the legitimate authority principle or criterion, a war can be declared only by a legitimate government or persons designated in the national constitution to do so. Meanwhile invasion of one’s territorial integrity is a primary just cause permitting the use of force, the moral necessity contents of the just cause principle has been advanced to support the use of force in collapsed states of Africa such as Somalia, among others. The interventions of the ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Liberia (1990) in Sierra Leone (1997) and in Côte d’Ivoire (ECOMICI) in 2002 were typical military operations in which warmongers were identified as the enemies of peace and the intervention itself was based on the morality 48 argument and on the reasoning that forceful intervention was necessary to prevent the further spread of conflict (the contagion thesis). Martial action had to be taken to stem deteriorations in the appalling state of the human condition. The last resort principle suggests that all non-military alternatives must be exhausted before considerations can be given to military means, and the proportionality principle requires that the probable

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good outcomes of war must clearly outweigh all probable, harmful consequences that the use of force entails. Effectively then, these theoretical and legal precepts speak primarily to the questions of interstate wars. Nonetheless, they have been relevant criteria also to guide the restoration of order in an African universe periodically overwhelmed by internal violence. They came under careful scrutiny before ECOWAS Forces joined French Troops in multilateral action (2012) against Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and the coalition of Islamist fundamentalists led by Ansar Dine.49 The latter preferred Islamic rule in the country, while the Tuareg Movement spoke of secular self-rule; both used ruthless force to make the point. Amnesty International documented instances of extra-judicial executions and the use of children as soldiers by both the Tuareg and Islamist fundamentalists. In Timbuktu, the Islamist Ansar Dine set ablaze the Ahmed Babu Institute and thus razed many priceless ancient African manuscripts. Reacting swiftly to the consequences of militant pressures and abuses, the International Criminal Court (ICC) pointed to the doctrine of accountability and vowed it will apply with equal measure in the prosecution of war criminals for destroying Malian lives, smashing historical monuments, and rigging cities with mines. Development on the matter confirms the Court’s consistency with its undertakings to do justice. The ICC did prosecute and sentenced the Islamist fundamentalist Ahmad Al Faqi Mahdi (September 27, 2016) to nine years in prison. And the Court subsequently demanded that he pay (August 17, 2017) US$3.2 million dollars to the victims as compensation.50 Ahmed Faqi was apprehended in Mali by ordinary citizens in 2015 and handed over by Malian national security forces to the ICC for judgment on the destruction of cultural monument. It was the first time that a country was making such a request and the first time that such an act was precisely categorized as war crime. Meanwhile, within the same time period, former Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo was being arraigned by the ICC for instigating the 2010–2011 post-election conflicts in Abidjan that claimed the lives of over 3000 civilians. After five years of prosecution, Gbagbo would be acquitted (January 2019) of the four counts of crimes against humanity that were leveled against him.51 Ivoirien communities will likely remain sharply split for generations over ICC’s judgment of the political stalwart. To protect Côte d’Ivoire against further turmoil, Gbagbo was released on condition of exile from his country. Looking into the future, most are persuaded that punishing criminals for international crimes and crimes against humanity will impart positive

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contents to post-conflict peacebuilding and discourage the use of violence as legitimate political tool in rulership.52 About the Effectiveness of Global Justice: Restitution and Recompense This brings up questions about the impacts of global justice on restitution or recompense.53 A few have dismissed the pursuit of international criminal justice54 as futile exercise in the restoration of equilibrium, especially in societies characterized and defined by widespread, pernicious violence. It is shown that criminal behavior is frequently elevated to the highest expression of group loyalty55 once mass violence has erupted, which drastically reduces or nullifies the capacity of punishment to deter crime or displace cataclysm. Others say the quest for accountability is an elusive undertaking for international criminal justice, particularly in countries and regions where wartime leaders possess personal social capital and enjoy support among ethnic partisans. As it happens, a number of African leaders often appear reticent when required to endorse outside intervention driven by moral suasion. If truth be told, they tend to stand in quiet or overt solidarity even alongside dictators with proven records of heinous crimes. Stephen Haines among many observers cites former Sudanese leader, Omar AlBashir56 for alleged war crimes in Darfur and Robert Mugabe (deposed and now deceased), for atrocities in Matabeleland linked to his government. Despite being a signatory to the Rome Statute Establishing the ICC, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni invited Omar Al-Bashir to Kampala to celebrate his swearing-in ceremony on May 20, 2016. The political renegade Al-Bashir was officially invited to Kampala again for business purposes in the following year (November 14–15, 2017).57 Evidently, pledges by many African leaders to the preservation of human rights and declarations by them to uphold international humanitarian law do not always converge in practice.58 But the African future is pregnant with positives about law and partiality toward order. Indeed, evidence at the moment shows to the contrary59 that the international criminal justice system in Africa is effective, salient, and relevant for the immediate purposes. Still in the early stages of their institutional life, the ICC60 and Tribunals on the continent (including the folded Special Court for Sierra Leone) are well regarded by victim groups for their legal assets and moral authority. What is required is for governments and communities to maximize the outcomes of justice by playing essential supporting roles. One way is to stigmatize or ostracize delinquent

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leaders by publicizing their crimes and seeking to enforce their exclusion from regional bodies and from the comity of morally bound global entities. The political authority and credibility of stigmatized leaders would be eroded further, systematically when it is shown that they are fugitives from the law to be apprehended and tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Countries in which criminal or discredited leaders still exercise authority should be marked for various measured sanctions, with the valid expectation that sanctions can in the long term generate domestic public discontents to shrink and delegitimize the discredited leaders’ local exercise of power. The cost of a pariah status for any leader certainly goes well beyond occasional humiliation, and it includes the real possibilities of paralysis in the government’s foreign policy outreach. Overall, public international pressure against criminalized behavior will raise the international profile of international tribunals, enhance their capacity to prosecute, and thereby contain the forces of destabilization. Evidence from directly affected countries suggests that successful prosecution of war criminals or alleged violators of international human rights laws renders the divisive gravitation toward personalized vengeance less tempting. It is encouraging the growth of a culture of justice with tolerance and lends credibility to peacebuilding. Consistent with law-based developments and the rising consciousness among domestic publics about the imperatives of human rights, the ICC is committed to investigating allegations by the citizens of Burundi that President Pierre Nkurunziza and top officials of his government have serially committed crime against humanity.61 And noteworthily, Nkurunziza’s withdrawal of Burundi from the ICC does not affect the jurisdiction of the Court with respect to indicting the president and his criminal cohort, and for seeking restitution for citizens whose rights may have been violated. Elsewhere in Kampala, the civil group Foundation for Justice and Development Initiative tried fervently and enthusiastically but failed to secure a warrant from the Ugandan High Court to enforce the arrest of now fallen Omar Al-Bashir during his mid-1997 visit to Kampala.62 Along this line, one or two more events speak volumes these days about the escalating public support and recognition for the ICC and international law in Africa.63 After initial hesitation, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta demonstrated deference and due reverence to the Court by appearing before the Judges at The Hague64 to defend himself against charges relating in part to post-election violence in which roughly 1000 Kenyans were killed. Additional charges against the leader included crimes against

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humanity and political persecution of citizens in Kenya. Importantly, in attending the court, President Kenyatta became the first sitting head of state to face legal prosecution for international crimes. The charges against the president were nevertheless withdrawn for insufficient evidence on December 5, 2014.65 His Deputy President William Ruto was also cleared of similar alleged crimes by the Court roughly two years later.66 President Adama Barrow of the Gambia came to power in early 2017, and one of his first official declarations was to leave his country in the organization, contrary to the decision by his predecessor, the now exiled ex-president Yahya Jammeh. And the South African Supreme Court on February 22, 2017 did firmly declare that the then President Jacob Zuma’s petition to withdraw South Africa from the ICC was “unconstitutional and invalid.” The proposed action had not been processed and properly passed through the country’s parliament in accordance with the law. Meanwhile, 93% of citizens polled by Zambia’s Ministry of Justice have opted for their country to retain its membership in the Court. The Zambian Justice Minister, Given Lubinda, went on to confirm this in his Official Report to the Zambian House of Representatives (June 2017). An addendum to the report iterates that many informed Zambians believe in the court’s legitimacy and capacity to advance justice for victims of atrocities. The anti-ICC chorus and the allegation that the court unfairly targets Africans today are greatly softened. A large majority of countries and citizens on the African continent say the court is an exceptional, irreplaceable legal institution in the international criminal justice system. And happily too, the volume of Africans in support of global justice together with transnational constitutionalism is on the rise. ICC is the first legal body possessing permanent international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crime against humanity and war crime. Needless-to-say, the most important purpose and function of the international justice system is to ensure that those who violate international humanitarian law or commit crimes against humanity are held accountable. Adjudication in this instance includes the upholding of international justice and enhancement of the rule of law.67 The ICC and tribunals in Africa are steadily cultivating enormous credibility among the common folk because the institutions’ commitment to open adjudication and justice is transparent. Both the judges and prosecutors in the Courts seem unsurpassed in the preparedness to promote and protect those sacrosanct values that underwrite the integrity of publics in African societies. The functions

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of law and the importance of accountability are emphasized below by B. V. A. Roling: The foremost, essential function of criminal prosecution [is] to restore confidence in the rule of law. The legal order is the positive inner relation of the people to the recognized values of the community, which relation is disturbed by the commission of crimes. If crimes are not punished, the confidence in the validity of the values of the community is undermined and shaken.68

III. Human Rights as Path-Defining Instrument of Conflict Prevention The perceived utility and preeminence of human rights as a vital instrument for the pursuit of peace comes through boldly in several conflict studies.69 Essentially, the KOSIMO70 Project understands conflict as consisting of characteristic sociopolitical and cultural dynamics including the following factors: clashes of overlapping interests (oppositional differences) around national values and issues (independence, self-determination, borders, territory, access to or distribution of domestic or international power). The conflict has to be of some duration and magnitude of at least two parties (states, groups of states, organizations, or organized groups) that are determined to pursue their interests and win their case. At least one of the parties in the conflict would be the organized state. Core values of the ECOWAS Framework draw legitimacy and general understandings about the inextricable links between the security of peoples in Member States and regional peace from the said universal standard of freedom. On this matter, the Framework (Section VII, 40) goes on to reassure the world community that a “firm legal basis underpins the relationship between ECOWAS, the AU, and the UN on the cardinal issues of peace and security.”71 Realistically also, the experience of genocidal conflict in Rwanda and failures on the part of the world community to protect ordinary citizens in that country obviously dictate ECOWAS’ declaratory moral commitment,72 henceforth, to prevent re-occurrence of deadly domestic violence and dehumanization in the region. Thus, upholding the human rights corpus forms the most important prescription in the regional organization’s prevention framework, whose aim is to strengthen the human security architecture in West Africa, push peacebuilding up the political

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agenda of Member States in ways most likely to ensure “timely and multidimensional action aimed at defusing and eliminating potential and real threats to human security in a predictable and institutional manner (Section VI, 27–28).” Specific rights to be protected collaboratively between Member States and international organizations in the region are spelled out in sub-sections 52—Democracy and Political Governance—and 56—Human Rights. These speak to matters closely related to relationships of good governance and peace and, alternatively, relationships of bad governance and conflict. The Quality of Economic and Social Rights As it stands, the contents of the revised ECOWAS Framework are a product of many years of work at re-imagining the various functions of a regional organization with an accent on ensuring and facilitating social progress and peace. It takes into account many constructive criticisms that had been leveled at the preceding ECOWAS Conflict Management Mechanism. The Mechanism came under strong criticism for its jaundiced viewpoints and “inadequate conceptualization”73 of the links between (I) government policies that officially deny specific set of rights to minorities, namely Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR) and (II) culmination of denial of rights in explosive upheavals including many protracted conflicts on the continent.74 The denial and abuse of Civil/Political Rights CPR in the earlier version of the Framework were packaged and presented in policy circles as the main causes of uniquely ferocious and intractable conflicts. And these were labeled as insipid, anodyne political products far more dangerous to the health of society than the outcomes consequent upon the violation of ESCR.75 Advocates of the World Bank’s structural adjustment policies did more than promote the skewed emphasis on CPR. They came under criticism for being too dismissive of economic rights and for routinely and actively excluding access to material well-being from the community of enforceable positive rights. In truth, the positive perspective identifies economic marginalization and constrictions of access to economic goods by delinquent rulerships as the primary causative factors of conflict in Africa. Concrete evidence points to the prominence of structural forces as the triggers and drivers of conflict. The Niger Delta76 crisis in Nigeria and similar resource-induced conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone have confirmed the pronounced relevance of economic factors. The facts show indisputably

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that negligent socioeconomic policies and denial of access to material goods—especially in societies where political rights are already stiffly repressed—are critical factors fueling domestic terrorism such as the Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria.77 Negligent official economic policies are stimulating divisive ethnic tensions and these forces are currently driving disenfranchised groups to embrace rebellion as the rational means of selfpreservation. These processes are stated both implicitly and explicitly in many contemporary conflict studies that emphasize the paramount impacts of socioeconomic factors. We can also see in those studies the deliberate attempts by politically conscious researchers to shift analytical energies away from viewing African conflicts solely through the narrow optics of identity crisis, away from the oft-pejorative and ideologically laden notion of tribal conflict. The main causes of conflict in the Framework are traced to structural factors such as poverty, exclusion, gendered repression, and political/economic inequalities (Section III, sub-section 10). Designers of the current ECOWAS Framework have considered the option of significantly re-articulating the organization’s strategies by further explicating and underscoring this all-too-often understated importance of economic and social rights in conflict prevention. The Framework admits that focusing on the real structural causes of conflict, together with the enforcement of economic rights, is qualitatively and profoundly pertinent to conflict prevention and peacebuilding.78 Such a revised focus is most likely also to solidify a legal platform for civic-minded individuals and groups to channel social discontents through constitutionally binding procedures of mediation, negotiation, and arbitration. Provision of genuine channels for the orderly communication of social grievance will discourage the resort to rough extralegal means of seeking and dispensing (jungle) justice. Correspondingly, in their fecund judgment and imagination, many peace researchers are attempting to help articulate and construct specific mechanisms and strategies required to properly decipher state-oriented violations of economic rights.79 The aim is to minimize social alienation and ultimately to eliminate the consequences of militancy and insurgency.80 Factors such as poor salary, high illiteracy rates, bad socioeconomic policies, youth unemployment, and misallocation of national resources are the main economic forces frequently implicated for igniting and exacerbating social uprisings.81 Additional myriad factors that have worsened structural problems include erosion and eventual collapse of educational systems,

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repressive security apparatus, curtailment of freedoms, bureaucratic corruption, ethnic and religious discrimination, and so on.82 Economic and social rights in reality are equal in status to political rights. The latter sets of rights (political rights) have long been constitutionally protected and firmly adjudged to be enforceable and justiciable.83 Media Component and Refugee Asylum as Structures of Freedom A few words must be said about the structures of additional rights that are recognized in the Framework. To give flavor to the range of propositions, Section VIII-60 speaks to the objective of the media component of the ECPF, which is to “forge an enabling landscape for the flourishing of democratic values such as freedom, accountability, and transparency in government. The electronic and print media are envisioned to become the veritable watchdog in multiple democratizing African polities gravitating purposely toward the rule of law, common citizenship and social cohesion.”84 All this is well thought out and publicly welcome,85 though in both the short and long terms the anticipated benefits of an open society as proposed and envisaged in the Framework may remain elusive for a few strong reasons: The media in Africa is controlled by self-regarding governments that have also firmly established proprietary interest over mass communications and outreach infrastructures such as the Internet.86 Instructively, even Botswana that is consistently ranked high on global democracy indices is no model when it comes to permitting the growth of a free, diverse, plural, and independent media. In the name of national security, paranoid government intelligence agencies in the country today commonly target journalists as “the enemy of government.” And open government critics are often harassed by the secret service officials tapping their phones and using covert communication surveillance to detect, preempt, and punish activities deemed to be anti-establishment. Botswana and South Africa (under President Zuma) are among countries known to have requested user data from the global technology magnet, Facebook.87 While state-owned news outlets dominate local broadcast, private media’s access to populations in many African countries is restricted. At another level, most of the citizens on the continent are poor and illiteracy automatically limits their ability to draw information from modern mediums such as television, but to a lesser extent, the radio.88 For similar reasons, access to national newspapers is constricted. It is wrongly

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presumed in the media component that unaccountable governments will likely invest resources in education. Denial of access to education does more than disempowering the human agency and communities; it also renders the campaign for human rights hollow and deepens tensions in state-society relations.89 Happily, longer-run views of developments portend many affirmatives. Structural impediments to human security in much of contemporary society in Africa are eroding, thanks to the persistence and resilience of international and domestic non-governmental organizations.90 They are investing in private educational institutions and refurbishing knowledge infrastructures to lift society from ignorance. Similarly, sub-section 93 is profound by virtue of the message it embodies. It iterates that humanitarian intervention at all times is meant to expand access to available international assistance; the aim primarily is to “mitigate the negative impacts of humanitarian disasters that could result in further political upheavals.” More so, “effective crisis prevention and preparedness activities” are concrete provisions in international law that have been designed specifically to protect sustainable development as well as the livelihoods of citizens. Normative in essence, but much more is required beyond declarations and positive intents to build and bolter ECOWAS’ overall policy on the human rights of refugees.91 A new and fully fledged ECOWAS refugee policy will have to possess an easily operable implementation template with well-integrated strategies designed to augment AU’s conventions governing the safeguarding of the rights of forcibly displaced persons. For the said purposes and as a reminder, the refugee is any person who due to conflict and other such disturbances to the peace is “compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality.”92 A strong and well-articulated ECOWAS policy on refugees will support and advance both the principle and practice of non-refoulement , which obligates burden-sharing among African states.93 It enjoins African leaders, citizen groups, and normative individuals to appeal to our better inner angels and not to return displaced persons to a place where they might face mistreatment and persecution. Although the provision guaranteeing the rights of asylum exists in different forms in African regional integration regimes, sometimes also in domestic laws, its enjoyment is limited or almost nonexistent. And this is largely because individual countries in the region do not possess adequate legislation and the requisite administrative capacity to efficiently process asylum claims. In addition, material resources and infrastructure required to diagnose and properly address the psychological,

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material, and emotional needs of displaced persons are rudimentary or may be lacking. The implications of all this for human rights protection and conflict prevention are obvious.94

IV. Concerning Conflict Research and the Future of Peace The beginning of wars, the prolonging of wars, the ending of wars and the prolonging or shortening of the periods of peace all share the same causal framework. The same explanatory framework and the same factors are vital in understanding each stage in the sequel of war and peace.95 Those who make foreign and international policy seek more than explanation: they want better “early warning” of impending conflicts so that preventive diplomacy and other conflict management tools can be brought into play.96

One way to inject the tradition of scientific inquiry into the study of preventive diplomacy is to demonstrate that factors believed to explain violent conflict can also be applied toward predicting—with great scientific precision—not only the levels of intensity of conflicts and country instabilities, but also the non-occurrence of conflict in certain countries. Many conflict analysts are currently involved in such projects across the globe;97 most are focused on developing and sharpening their capabilities in forecasting not only that verifiable types of instability (ethno-religious, military, or environmental related) will occur in a given set of countries in a specified year, but that such conflicts will gain and maintain a certain range of intensity over a predictable time period. They are relying on a methodology98 incorporating conceptual elements from statistics and possibility theory (of engineering and computer sciences) to study patterns of performance among different sets of country macrostructural99 variables. The aim is to predict the likelihood of conflict, its intensity, and prolongation. Proposed outcomes of the projects include the development of database to be used by policy makers and conflict managers to conduct security threat assessments and to allocate resources to diffuse, prevent and deter conflict.100 Towing a similar line on scientific inquiry in “fact finding,” ECOWAS has set up an Observation and Monitoring System (OMS) at its Secretariat in Abuja, Nigeria, with four zonal bureaux in Cotonou, Banjul, Monrovia, and Ouagadougou. These are set up to work collaboratively with the West

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African Network for Peace (WANP), an Independent Contracting Firm located in Accra, Ghana, to gather and analyze information on the status of security in the region. The main consultants contracted to collect and analyze data are statisticians and researchers from subfields of anthropology and economics. These professionals are interested in scientific inquiry into conflict and conflict prevention. Following the 2010 ECOWAS Conference, the warning systems were vastly upgraded to include Early Warning and Response Network (ECOWARN).101 And a new Mediation Facilitation Directorate (MFD)102 was formally established (2015) to streamline and formalize mediation processes. Policy statements by the organization’s Executive Secretary, at the time, Mohamed Ibn Chambas, appear to strongly support emerging new preference for scientific approaches to the collection of data with predictive value on the occurrence and non-occurrence of conflict. Chambas was asking and encouraging researchers to “capitalize on the global momentum in order to also transform the region into a heaven of peace.”103 He said the researchers need to intensify efforts at data collection and to strengthen the organs of preventive diplomacy. His immediate successor, Victor James Gbeho, did vow to buttress and sustain all funding projects aimed at scientific explorations into the roots of war and the augmentation of preventive measures. Continuity in policy favorable to prevention seems guaranteed: Kadre Desire Ouedraogo remained consistent and steadfast in his policy and practical support for all clinical research likely to consolidate a “West African region of peace.”104 The leader of the ECOWAS Commission, Marcel A. De Souza says that conflict prevention remains a declared priority program under his administration. Researchers outside the ECOWAS system that are interested in this line of scientific inquiry can further the organization’s efforts by conducting comparative investigations into the macrostructures of relatively peaceful countries such as Botswana, Cape Verde, and Mauritius—these are said to form an “oasis of stability” in an otherwise turbulent African continent. Questions relevant to such a study may include the following: How are issues of conflict and conflict prevention conceived and made into law by the legislatures? What kinds of official policies are in use to preempt conflict and promote law and order? Are the laws and policies derived and reflective of traditional African conflict resolution methods? If so, to what extents have these been adapted for use in the modern market economy? How effective and coordinated are the security service sectors in these countries?

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What are the most noticeable features of public interaction between law enforcement and citizens in the countries in question? Information emerging from answers to these questions could then be used for comparative analyses regarding the causes and prolongation of conflicts in places such as the Casamance region of southern Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Niger among others. Raw data coming from various field research networks should feed ECOWAS databank, sufficiently also to nourish and boost its ability to explore new and strategic approaches to conflict management. ECOWAS needs to develop the capacity to take real preemptive and preventive action rather than constantly reacting to a scenario of worsening security conditions in the region. Available early warning systems must be consistently upgraded and modernized.

V. The Essays in a Nutshell I have identified and explained in the foregoing (this chapter) the concepts, norms, traditions, and theoretical viewpoints considered relevant for understanding conflict management and prevention. The scope and limits of the analytical framework (preventive diplomacy) guiding the main lines of argumentations in this book have been also clearly mapped, and the utility of alternative approaches to explaining conflict is elaborated. Contributors were advised to consider the set of interrelated questions as follows: As a framework of analysis, what are the defining qualities of preventive diplomacy? To what extent does this concept inform the overall activities of the ECOWAS in regional conflict prevention? What are the main conceptual and practical challenges and opportunities in the path of preventive diplomacy? In what ways can ECOWAS further strengthen or improve its conflict management personnel? Are conflict-prone countries yielding or resistant to preventive measures? With differences in emphases, all have attempted to address the issues by identifying and examining the key factors associated with critical state crises. Each of the essays is also a unique contribution to preventive diplomacy. Although they draw from different cases and apply their own methodology, all the contributors are united in the thinking that crisis early warning, an integral dimension of conflict prevention, is a powerful tool of conflict resolution. Considering the enormity in human and material costs of war, there is also general agreement among the contributors about the necessity of containing and defusing tensions before they explode civil wars. Most of the regional wars are internal, and quite a few have remained intractable. More so, the culture

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of impunity has persisted in a number of countries where the executives appear steeped in authoritarian mores and given to the exercise of sadistic power. Forwarding main questions, Babatunde Afolabi (Chapter 2) traces the evolution of ECOWAS from 1973 to the present and explains how incessant regional conflicts forced a major shift in the organization’s focus. From the original plan to promote economic integration, the regional organization today is known more for its massive financial investments and practical commitments of time and administrative energies in conflict management and prevention. This, however, must not be judged as a derogation of primary responsibilities or duties, because economic development is possible only in an environment purged of deadly violence. Complex themes are treated by the author for clarity, and recommendations offered by him are at once major, sensible, and compelling for future policy making. Afolabi painstakingly journeys us through the bricks and panels of ECOWAS’ new security architecture, marking the scope and scale of diplomatic responsibilities shouldered by ECOWAS’ specialized mediation bodies such as the Council of the Wise, Special Representatives of the ECOWAS President and the Envoys. Acknowledging the former Burkinabe President, Blaise Compaore, as one of ECOWAS’ most distinguished peacemakers, the author constructs and brings the personality profile of an African leader to focus perhaps in order to sensitize thought on the paradox of leadership and power. A quintessential diplomatic cause celebre no doubt, but Compaore had installed an authoritarian regime at home over which he presided with iron fist for 27 years before his ouster from power in 2014. And till date, Compaore is the object of the deepest revulsion and collective odium among those Burkinabes who are convinced he murdered his political opponents and assassinated the iconic ex-Burkinabe President Thomas Sankara. Afolabi moves our attention competently and smoothly among these scenarios; from historical narrative, through the category of the “person-individual” as the unit of analysis, and then to a theoretical treatment of Tracks I and II Diplomacy. He points to the functions and differences of strength and emphasis between Track-I and Track-II Diplomacy. The latter often consists of mediators more skilled and inclined to focus on the root cause of conflict and proficient in devising appropriate measures for its transformation.105 Track-II mediators are better practiced in the art of building and concretizing relationships, trust, and mutual respect among conflicting parties during peace processes—and with an

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eye at preparing and consolidating the ground for post-conflict rehabilitation and conciliation.106 Against this backdrop, Afolabi laments that mainstream diplomats are yet to fully appreciate the actual and potential power of informal diplomacy. We agree with him that bridging the gap between the two constituencies, of formal and informal diplomacy, will magnify the role of non-state actors and possibly quadruple the value of their material contributions to preventive diplomacy. He proposes the elimination of obsolesce in early warning systems and favors deeper AU-ECOWAS collaboration to enhance burden-sharing in the discharge of regional security.107 Augustine Ikelegbe (Chapter 3) speaks to the nature of latent centrifugal forces in society, showing how social tensions are consciously channeled by corrupt political elites to feed and domesticate violent behavior. Government policies in many West African countries are among the multiple factors marginalizing the youths, many of who are frequently denied access to basic needs and amenities such as education, housing, and health care. Large numbers of young persons in conflict-prone countries are regularly conscripted by arms dealers and drug traffickers to commit crime by facilitating the illicit trade. Politicians are known to recruit and use youths to rig elections, thus undermining democratic processes. And the stigmatization of youth groups by public officials as rebellious and restless serves forcefully to alienate them from the state and society. Unsurprising, the youth have tended to see the state and its institutions as illegitimate structures to be confronted even with extralegal means of protest. Anchored in the concept of youth bulge,108 Ikelegbe argues that the youth is not inherently defiant and seditious. Far from it, history tells us that youths have been the vanguard of political change and social justice. A humane approach to the problem requires radical transformation of negligent official development policies. Governments can create enabling social environments to tap and optimize substantive positive energies, which the youth can bring to the development of their societies. We concur with Ikelegbe that youths are not predisposed to disruptive anti-state behavior. Such mind-set or thinking is at best unimaginative. It inflicts severe injustice on the majority of young people who are law-abiding and peace-loving citizens. Most of the youth groups already tangled in the suffocating stranglehold of criminality need relief, which governments can provide via restorative social programs and inclusive compulsory education. All educational programs must be curative in essence. Chapter 4 presents a captivating narrative about the determination of a tiny but politically conscious minority Jola (Diola, French transliteration)

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to defy the reigning Senegalese political order dominated by the Wolof to the north of the country. The combination of geography, politics, and contingent sociological forces serves to bolster the Casamancais’ robust sense of independence and isolation from the power center in Dakar. In large measure, the Jola majority in Ziguinchor region of Casamance has a distinct colonial history and the people find themselves inhabiting the southern-most geographic limb of Senegalese territory that is sharply separated from the rest of the country by Gambia. Porous borders are attenuating Senegal’s security risks with neighboring Guinea-Bissau; and Gambian immigration officials are implicated in the facilitation of transborder flows of cannabis and the myriad contraband. Bissauan troops through time have covertly supported the Casamancais separatists by supplying arms and logistical refuge for the revolution. Local livelihoods are vastly compromised because land mines laid by government troops render roughly 80% of agricultural land in Casamance unusable. Okon Akiba fuses these existential forces together to explain how the forty-year-long Jola resistance is sustained. Oumar Ndongo addresses war experiences and related humanitarian109 crisis (Chapter 5). In particular, he explores the multiple dimensions of the struggle waged by women in the Mano River Union (MRU). The work represents a richly woven tapestry of the human condition under siege. It is at once sad, reflective, and uplifting. From the parables drawn about women’s moral courage amidst war, the author captures the essence of determination, of women self-consciously embarking on intricate expeditions not only to survive hostilities but also to search for a mediated settlement of the conflict. Women steadfastly and resolutely lobbied neighboring governments to accelerate preventive actions and many of them boldly and fearlessly challenged the major “war-lords” to put down arms. The post-conflict era, however, presents differing challenges: Rivalries and competition for prominence between and among separate specialized women’s groups are real threats most likely to douse women’s activism. And quite a few women are leaving their voluntary and advocacy institutions to accept ministerial jobs in government. Others have been recruited to serve sometimes in sinecure private sector positions. The apprehension is therefore warranted, that departures could shrink and, perhaps, weaken the capacities of women’s organizations. Nonetheless, we are reassured by the author that several new and dynamic groups have sprung to sustain the struggle in ways consistent with the region’s postwar ethos of reconstruction and peacebuilding. Therefore it is doubtful that the skills and

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experiences acquired by women during the war will be squandered in the contemporary times, as speculated by a few skeptical observers. Ndongo successfully illuminates women’s wartime activism; he says that women efficaciously pursued their central tasks simultaneously from self-preservation through the restoration of peace and toward reconstruction of gender relations. The telltale signs of conflict later to deepen and engulf Liberia in a thirteen-year-long war were quite visible right from President Tolbert’s Administration: His policies created a class structure of disadvantaged indigenes with Americo-Liberian advantaged elite at the pinnacle of society, said to justify a “corrective” sergeant coup d’état. Background to the conflict and the slew of diplomatic offensives are treated by Okon Akiba in Chapter 6. The rest is now familiar: Under Nigerian leadership, the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) intervened in Liberia. And the peacekeeping troops were authorized the use of force beyond self-defense; they were mandated to seek out networks of criminal warmongers and destroy them. Justification for the use of force was based on considerations that the Liberian war risked enormous humanitarian disaster and threatened regional peace. Meanwhile, envoys sought breakthrough opportunities for diplomatic resolution of the conflict in vain. Several attempted peace-talks and accords crumbled in quick succession. Peace would eventually be won on the battlefield, with substantial help coming from external sources coupled with Liberian dissident forces bent on putting an end to the Charles Taylor phenomenon. The continent, however, is far from being purged of persisting conflicts of differing intensities. Seemingly ceaseless ethno-religious strife, political nervousness among citizens and violent clashes are common and recurrent experiences. In Nigeria for example, the complex network of politicized identities coupled with poverty and negligent official social welfare policies is aggravating conflict. And indigenes are plagued by unabating uncertainties. Terrorism is complicating both the matrix and the surrounding substance of violence. According to the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), Nigeria is currently among the “gravely terrorized”110 places on the planet, ranking third out of 163 countries surveyed and with Iraq and Afghanistan placing first and second, respectively. The Islamist Boko Haram is the main channel of indiscriminate onslaught of sadism and carnage particularly in the northeastern territories of Nigeria. The Jihadist group has killed thousands of defenseless citizens and continues to butcher Christians and Muslims without abatement.

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The question is whether or not moderate Muslims can pool resources in collaboration with Christian religious organizations to confront and mitigate the threats to society posed by Islamist fanaticism? Can normative leaders mobilize their superior spiritual and material capacities to defend religious freedom and promote tolerance? For that matter, can religion help contain conflict, foster peace among beleaguered communities, and persuade convergence on divisive questions of identity and citizenship across the region? These are interrelated questions to which Charles Abiodun Alao and Ronke Ako Nai (Chapter 7) have given a constructive and positive answer. They are advancing critical evidence to support their confident position. Especially in the political terrains of West Africa’s fragile society, religious leaders and organizations are not mere umpires but active peace sponsors. Many of them are received by their ever-widening congregations as custodians of morality, the raison d’être for sustainable peace. Contrary to those radicalized and fundamentalist sects bent on rekindling and accentuating identity crisis, the majority of religious organizations (both of the Christian and Islamic faith) are differently disposed. They are crusading for concord and social harmony; they are elaborating the mnemonic encodings of secularity. But conflict persists, as shown. Organized religious fanaticism and bigotry no doubt are stubbornly resilient. Peace advocates equally are unrelenting activists armed for the fight with certain powerful constitutive truths, along this reasoning: Most of those democratizing societies in Africa are secular, which means the ideological, symbolic, and constitutional injunctions on religious freedom and tolerance must be judiciously held and allowed to flourish among the citizens uninhibitedly. Though the struggle is stiff, the foot soldiers draw strength from the experience of history and struggle for liberty—unequivocal, the most effective check on the excesses of religion is the separation of church and state. The enlightened are better guided by this and by other settled, educated, and accepted traditions of times past. Biblical dictum instructs citizens of the state to render unto Caesar the things that are Caeser’s (Matthew 22: 21). Chapter 8 was commissioned specifically to add a comparative dimension to the book and to draw lessons that apply to ongoing experiments on conflict and conflict resolution in West Africa. To achieve these, Abdul Mumin Sa’ad uses two cases to elaborate the epic successes (Macedonia) and monumental failures (Rwanda) of preventive diplomacy. Diplomatic intervention efforts in the two cases were led largely by the AU and the UN. The study focuses mainly and primarily on conditions of instability

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faced by leaderships in the immediate post-Cold War period. It does not explore the political discord and dissension currently crowding the long pathways to nation-building in the two countries. One lesson permeating this shrewd and well-argued study is this; the quality of leadership especially during national emergencies can trigger state collapse or pull a nation away from the precipice. Taken as a whole, human agency matters in deciphering and charting the political future. President Kiro Gligorov’s policy priorities and preferences were critical to securing internal peace and stability during the immediate post-independence period of dire political uncertainties. First, he acted preemptively to quench the ambers of conflict by soliciting and securing UN troops, on preventive deployment , to patrol national borders and provide the much-needed shield of security against potentially dangerous regional intrusions. And then, he embarked on maximizing the gains of peace via the construction of governance structures and policies prioritizing inclusion. Rather than enkindle ethnic passions and marginalization of political minorities, Gligorov developed and applied low-key development strategies at the grassroots, which served paramount purposes well beyond the enhancement of the legitimacy of the state. The government’s steady and strategic investments in the economic and political realms of society helped to build bridges across ethnic groups. They raised social consciousness about the necessity of tolerance, negotiation, and the giveand-take upon which all successful democratic experimentations must ultimately hinge. Rwanda was the opposite: Antipathies between the two main groups (Hutus and Tutsis) were deepened via hate campaigns carried by independent media; all the signs pointing to preparations for genocide were ignored by the sitting government. The staggered deployment of UN troops was disconcerting to many and nerve-wracking. And its spotty presence was established only after the catastrophic experience. In the end, intervention did address the aftershocks of war. Additional set of lessons running clearly through Sa’ad’s narrative are worthy of note: The causes and intensity of conflicts differ from place to place and so the mechanisms for containing conflicts must be designed in anticipation of distinctive challenges that conflict managers are bound to face in diverse national and cultural settings. And, because conflicts differ in the levels of intensity and triggers, analysts must desist from offering all-encompassing (one-size-fits-all) prescriptions or solutions that assume commonality in the causes, direction, and outcomes of conflicts. For the purposes, the argument that interventions are effective only when a conflict

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is allowed to ripen, risks dangerous escalation leading possibly to genocide. All told, across cultures and regions, prevention is better than cure. The Epilogue (Chapter 9) depicts a West African environment, nay, an African political culture cultivated by successive despots in the last six decades to inflict or visit the worst outcomes of domination and suppression upon the people. The patent consequences of malignant politics are enlarged in all their psychological, economic, sociological, and cultural deficits. Rhythm of violence and disorder sound loud and clear throughout those case-by-case narratives that Okon Akiba elucidates about the causes and trajectories of arbitrary rule. We hear in them also echoes of past misdeeds and political atrocities. The progenitors of contemporary bedlam have among their ranks many of our founding politicians or leaders who took power following self-rule in the 1960s. Gratefully, a few countries on the continent including Senegal have either escaped the experience of army intervention in politics or, like Ghana and Benin among a few others, are gently recovering from the multiple traumas of serial coups d’état. Along with new developments, indigenous radicalized movements for change and popular forces in civil society are gradually re-emerging to claim some modicum of victory over dictatorships. Civil society and the alliance of international normative organizations are poised to help transform the negative order of things. They are indeed already contributing toward the building and consolidation of a new regional order in which governments are expected to be cognizant of their responsibilities to the people. All those in positions of authority must be willing and able to create and sustain a democratic environment that is suitable for each and every person to live in peace and actualize the cardinal fruits of citizenship. Precisely, then, politics should be about advancing and serving the overall interests of the community. Politics is a way of ruling without violence and of emphasizing tolerance and conciliation without prejudice. It should eschew relations of bitterness, anarchy, and blood-filled vengeance. I personally believe that civil culture in time will cut fresh paths to embedment of the good, considerate government. Politics in West Africa ought to be of sterner, sterling stuff. We are reminded that the concentration of power in one party or in one hand consists of an absolutist agenda that can neither foster progress nor produce social harmony. And as the African experience vividly and repeatedly confirms, arbitrariness ultimately begets turbulence and the recalcitrant autocrat is consumed in the end. It is the expectation of all common citizens in the region that ongoing popular activism and struggles will continue to gather stormy thrusts and impetus that soon

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will drown and bury irresponsibility, guaranteeing effectively thereto that democratic transitions stay the course and are not reversed by remnants of conservatism that have survived transition. Bountiful human energies and resources already exist and indeed are proliferous in West Africa. These must be harnessed and employed by conflict managers and mediators to curb, control, and prevent regional conflict.

Notes 1. The UN Secretary General (Antonio Guterres) iterated new values and priorities undergirding international politics. See his “First Address to the UN Security Council: Preventing Crises as United Nations Priority,” UN Press Release/sc 12673, 10 January 2017. Needless-to-say, the January 1992 Security Council Meeting (3046th) was an epochal experience: It was the first time the SC met at the level of Heads of State and Government, and the agenda spoke to a new global commitment: “Responsibility of the Security Council in the Maintenance of International Peace and Security,” SC/23500, 31 January 1992. 2. For judicious, astute rendition on the objectives and principles of preventive action drawing vision and inspiration from the United Nations Charter, see Kofi Annan, In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All (New York: United Nations, 2005). Focus on the emerging role of regional organizations in extending preventive action can be refreshing, see Alan Kuperman, “Constitutional Reform to Manage Ethnic Conflict,” Ethnopolitics 15, no. 5 (2016), 520–532; Joram Mukama Biswaro, The Role of Regional Integration in Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution in Africa: Case of the African Union (Brasilia, Brazil: Center for Diplomatic History and Documentation, 2013). Equally perceptive and intuitive are studies drawing on the strengths and weaknesses of personality factors to analyze the scope and prospects of preventive action in specific cultural and political settings, see Iver Newman, “To Be a Diplomat,” International Studies Perspectives 6, no. 1 (2005); C. Ross, Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite (London: C. Hurst & Co., 2007). Charter of the UN is located at: http://www.un. org/aboutun/charter. 3. On the character and nature of our traumatized contemporary international security system, see Funmi Olonisakin, James Gow, and Ernest Dijxhoom, “Deep History and International Security: Social Conditions and Competition, Militancy and Violence in West Africa,” Conflict, Security and Development 13, no. 2 (2013), 231–258. By way of general definition, international community includes “all the states, international organizations and other actors that participate in the complex life of the post Cold

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War world.” See Ortega, “Military Intervention and the European Union,” Chaillot Paper no. 45, Institute for Security Studies, Paris, 2001. A few researchers insist on studying the causes of peace as separate and distinct problem from the causes of conflict. On this, see Rebecca AdlerNissen, “Just Greasing the Wheel? Mediating Differences or the Evasion of Power and Responsibility in Diplomacy,” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy 10, no. 1 (2015); Robert Muggah and Natasha White, “Is There a Preventive Action Renaissance? The Policy and Practice of Preventive Diplomacy and Conflict Prevention,” Report by the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center, February 2013; Kahinde Bolaji, “Adapting Traditional Peacemaking Principles to Contemporary Conflict: The ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework,” African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review 1 no. 2 (2011), 183–204. See John Braithwaite, “Open Source Preventive Diplomacy and Complexity,” Global Change, Peace and Security 31, no. 1 (January 2019), 95– 111; also Review Index, Perspective on Politics 16, no. 1 (March 2018), 304–306. For a concise treatments of the subject, see Costa Constantinou, “Between State-Craft and Humanism: Diplomacy and Its Forms of Knowledge,” International Studies Review 15, no. 2 (2013), 141–162; Steven Zyck and Robert Muggah, “Preventive Diplomacy and Conflict Prevention: Obstacles and Opportunities,” International Journal of Security and Development 1, no. 1 (September 2012), 66–75; Alice Ackerman, “The Idea and Practice of Conflict Prevention,” Journal of Peace Research, 40, no. 3 (2003), 339–347. For a concise treatment of the subject, see Costa Constantinou, “Between State-Craft and Humanism: Diplomacy and Its Forms of Knowledge,” International Studies Review 15, no. 2 (2013), 141–162; Steven Zyck and Robert Muggah, “Preventive Diplomacy and Conflict Prevention: Obstacles and Opportunities,” International Journal of Security and Development 1, no. 1 (September 2012), 66–75. This speaks to the big influence of small power. Rok Zupancic and Bostjan Udovic, “Lilliputian in Goliath World: Preventive Diplomacy of Slovenia in Solving the Question of Kosovo’s Independence,” Romanian Journal of Political Science 11, no. 2 (Winter 2011), 39–80. For an insightful case study that applies to Africa, see Amanda Huan and Emmers, “What Explains the Success of Preventive Diplomacy in South East Asia?” Global Change, Peace and Security 29, no. 1 (January 2017), 77–93. Paragraph 1, Article 1 of the UN Charter refers to preventive diplomacy as consisting of “effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace and for the suppression of all acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace.” The Article does not elaborate on the specifics of norms, principles, and actions deemed essential to promote prevention,

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9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17.

though contemporary conflict research presents us with an abundance of competing varieties of standards, strategies, and practical measures to fit into the idea of prevention. Kevin M. Cahill, ed., Preventive Diplomacy: Stopping Wars Before They Start (New York, NY: Routledge, 2006); also see a candid review of Cahill’s works on prevention by Andy Hines, “Preventive War and Disorder: Preventive Diplomacy Emulates Public Health Strategies,” The Futurist, September 1997. It is said that innovations in diplomacy most likely will lead to the eradication of violent conflict, in the same way that research in public health (medicine) has eradicated erstwhile dangerous diseases such as smallpox and polio, among others. For similar exciting viewpoints on the nexus between diplomacy and the scientific method, see Tom Woodhouse, “Preventive Medicine: Can Conflict Be Prevented?” BMJ: British Medical Journal 319 (1999), 257–264; Douglas Holdstock, “When Will We Ever Learn?” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 24, no. 2 (2006), 257– 261; also Holdstock, et al., “Conflict: From Causes to Prevention,” BMJ: British Medical Journal 324 (2002), 345–356. Richard Kozul-Wright and Piergiuseppe Fortunato, Securing Peace: State Building and Economic Development in Post Conflict Countries (London: Bloomsbury, 2011); Didzis Klavins, “Understanding the Essence of Modern Diplomacy,” ICD Annual Academic Conference on Cultural Diplomacy and International Relations, Berlin, December 2011; also David Carmen, Stewart Presto, and Yiagadeesen Samy, Security, Development and the Fragile State: Bridging the Gap Between Theory and Policy (New York, NY: Routledge, 2012). Kenneth Payne, Psychology of Modern Conflict: Evolutionary Theory, Human Nature and a Liberal Approach to War (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Chapters 1 and 2–4. Kahinde Bolaji, “Adapting Traditional Peacemaking Principles to Contemporary Conflict: The ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework,” African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review 1 no. 2 (2011), 183–204. Joseph L. Graves, “Great Is Their Sin: Biological Determinism in the Age of Genomics,” Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science 661 (2015), 24–50. Elizabeth Kaluaratchige, “Freud Versus Jung: Analysis Versus Synthesis: Eastern Religion and Conflict in the History of the Psychoanalytical Movement,” Recherches en Psychanalysis 11, no. 1 (2011), 99–106. James Franklin Harris, Ascent of Man: A Philosophy of Human Nature (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2011), Introduction; 1 and 2. Jake Hodder, “Conferencing the International at the World Pacifist Meeting, 1949,” Political Geography 49 (November 2015), 40–50. Domenico Losurdo, Non-violence: A History Beyond Myth (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015).

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18. The impacts of Gandhian thought on Johan Galtung’s “structural violence” thesis are interrogated. Shina Parul, et al., “Structural Violence on Women: An Impediment on Women Empowerment,” Indian Journal of Community Medicine 42, no. 3 (January 2017), 134–137; Hilary Cremin and Alexandre Guilherme, “Violence in Schools: Perspectives (and Hope) from Galtung and Buber,” Educational Philosophy and Theory 48, no. 11 (2016), 1123–1137; Thomas Weber, “Gandhian Philosophy, Conflict Resolution Theory and Practical Approaches to Negotiation,” Journal of Peace Research 38, no. 4 (2001), 493–513. 19. Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham, and Tom Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution: The Prevention, Management, and Transformation of Deadly Conflict (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2013), Ch. 4; Robert Bert, The Liberatory Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr.: Critical Essays on the Philosopher King (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012). 20. See Edward Azar, Protracted Social Conflict: Analysis of Domestic Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); Oliver Ramsbotham, “Analysis of Protracted Social Conflict: A Tribute to Edward Azar,” Review of International Studies 31, no. 1 (2005), 109–126. 21. Matthijs Boogards, Democracy and Social Peace in Divided Societies: Exploring Consociational Parties (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); also Stephen Hooks, Democratic Peace in Theory and Practice (Kent, OH: Kent University Press), Introduction; 2–3. 22. Lynne Davies, “The Inescapable Persistence of Conflict,” Peace and Conflict 22, no. 1 (2016), 94–101. Adrian Little, Enduring Conflict: Challenging the Signature of Peace and Democracy (New York, NY: Bloomsbury, 2014), Chapters 2–4. 23. Chinedu Thomas Ekwealor, “The Art of Conflict Transformation in Africa,” Peace Review 29, no. 3 (July 2017), 341–349. 24. Ole Magnus Theisen, “Blood and Soil? Resource Scarcity and Internal Armed Conflict Revisited,” Journal of Peace Research 45, no. 6 (2008), 801–818. 25. Desha Girod, Explaining Post Conflict Reconstruction (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2014). 26. For this engaging conception of conflict, see William I. Zartman, ed., Preventive Negotiation: Avoiding Conflict Escalation (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000), Ch. 2; also Eva Gross, Preventing Conflict, Managing Crisis: European and American Perspectives (Washington, DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2011). 27. Alan Kuperman, ed., Constitutionalism and Conflict Management in Africa: Preventing Civil War Through Institutional Design (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015); Oliver P. Richmond and Audra Mitchell, Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-liberalism (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

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28. Bert Preiss and Claudia Brunner, eds., Democracy in Crisis: The Dynamics of Civil Protest and Civil Resistance (Zurich: Lit Verlag, 2013). 29. Nwachukwu Orji, “Preventive Action and Conflict Mitigation in Nigeria’s 2015 Elections,” Democratization 24, no. 4 (June 4, 2017), 707–723. 30. Daren Kew, Civil Society, Conflict Resolution and Democracy in Nigeria (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2016), Chapters 2–4. 31. See ECOWAS, Preamble: ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (Abuja, Nigeria: ECOWAS Commission, 2008). 32. See The Framework, Section IV, 18. 33. See Framework, Section III, 8. 34. Hammarskjöld’s Diplomatic Initiatives are elaborated in Joel Djibom, Analysis of Hammarskjöld: Theory of Preventive Diplomacy: Research for Certification in UN Peace Support Operation (New York, NY: UN Documentation and Publishing Unit, 2015); Bertrand G. Ramcharan, Preventive Diplomacy at the United Nations (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2009). Hammarskjöld wanted a United Nations that was flexible and therefore capable of containing the competition between ideological blocs. His Emergency Force was considered to be timely and innovative. Some say it was a bold stare into the eyes of nuclear giants—the USA and USSR. He consistently stated the position that ideological contentions threaten to compromise and undermine the peace. 35. Sten Ask, The Adventure of Peace: Dag Hammarskjold and the Future of the UN (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). 36. Carsten Stahn, Peace Diplomacy, Global Justice and International Agency: Rethinking Human Security and Ethics in the Spirit of Dag Hammarskjold (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 37. More concretely, Hammarskjöld believed and said: “I believe we have only begun to explore the full potentialities of the United Nations as an instrument for multilateral diplomacy, especially the most useful combinations of public discussion on the one hand and private negotiations and mediation on the other.” This is an extract from the UN Secretary-General’s Address to the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, September 11, 1954. The extract is also reproduced in: UN Security Council Dedication to the Memory of former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld as we mark this year (2011) the Fiftieth Anniversary of his death in 1961, August 26, 2011. 38. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Agenda for Peace (New York: United Nations Press, 1992). The author informs that since the creation of the United Nations in 1945 over 100 conflicts have left 20 million dead. Another study focusing on selected countries estimates a total of 15 million warrelated deaths from 1955 to 2000, see Milton Leitenberg, “Deaths in War and Conflict in the 20th Century,” Occasional Paper no. 20, Cornell University Peace Program, August 2006, 1–83.

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39. This direction of change in definition from preventive diplomacy to preventive action was influenced by the nature of war at the time. Annan thought urgent action was needed to resolve prevailing conflicts. The Rwanda genocidal war prompted his commitment to the effect that such carnage will never occur again. See Kofi Annan, Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, General Assembly Official Records, Forty-fourth Session, Supplement no. 1 (A/54/1). 40. The assumption is fundamental to preventive diplomacy that intractable conflicts are easier to avoid before they happen. But a number of conflicts are likely to be unavoidable, see James Llewelyn, “Preventive Diplomacy and the Role of Civil Maritime Security Cooperation in Southeast Asia,” Strategic Analysis 41 no. 1 (2017), 49–60; Constantine Ruhe, “Anticipating Negotiated Talks,” Journal of Peace Research 52, no. 2 (2015), 243–257; J. Ododa Opiyo, “Challenges of Preventive Diplomacy: United Nations’ Post Cold War Experience in Africa,” ACCORD: African Center for Constructive Conflict Resolution of Dispute, April, 2012. Earlier works are foundational as well as intellectually engaging, and they have proffered divergent thoughts on the idea that conflict can be forecast with mathematical precision: John Stedman, “Alchemy for a New World Order: Over Selling Preventive Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs 12, no. 3 (February 1996), 32–41. 41. See Li Narangoa, “Mongolia and Preventive Diplomacy: Haunted by History and Becoming Cosmopolitan,” Asian Survey 49, no. 2 (March/April 2009), 358–379. 42. For a collation of ideas and arrangements not centrally placed in the literature on preventive diplomacy but qualify as such, see Correspondence, “Climate and Conflict: Risk Multipliers,” Nature 555 (March 29, 2018), 587. 43. See Framework, Section IV, 18. It would be fair to say that conflict prevention includes a vast range of policies and initiatives with the common goal of avoiding the violent escalation of a dispute. The spiral of conflict can be described as being in a dynamic motion oscillating from escalation to de-escalation. Other analysts place preventive action just at the tail end of the phase of de-escalation. 44. Debates on the legality of preventive war reflect the range of opinions expressed by diverse scholars of international law including eminent scholars Ian Brownlie, Christine Chinkin, Christopher Greenwood, and Vaughan Lowe. Brownlie’s position is mainly in line with the positivist conception of war, that intervention is prohibited at all times, except when it is consistent with Chapter IV of the UN Charter. Chinkin argues in the opposite direction that intervention is justifiable when the human condition is compromised—when human rights are deliberately abused by irresponsible authorities, in which situation sovereignty takes a secondary status

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45. 46. 47. 48.

49.

50.

51. 52.

to the human security. Greenwood and Lowe take the mid-road, noting that intervention can be justified and necessary, given specific occurrences, time, situation, and circumstance—here good judgment is key and of the essence. See Fourth Report of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee 2, June 2, 2000. A summary of viewpoints is available, see Stephen Haines, “The Influence of Operation Allied Force on the Development of the Jus ad Bellum,” International Affairs 85, no. 3 (2000). One influential work is resurrecting the above-referenced functions of international law as they connect with human rights and apply to domestic conflict and war, see Liisi Keedus, “Nothing and Nothing but Human: How Schmittian Is Hannah Arendt’s Critique of Human Rights and International Law,” History of European Ideas 37, no. 2 (2011), 190–196. See UN Charter, viii. See UN Charter, Article 42. See UN Charter, Article 2 (7). For this, see Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust War: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations (New York: Basic Books, 1977). I think Walzer was largely concerned with arguments justifying “pre-emptive first strike” in which he argued that preemptive first strike is potently dangerous proposition, given the possibilities of misjudgment of an opponent’s manifest intent to injure, or an exaggeration of the aggressor’s level of preparedness that makes a presumed intent a positive danger. These are all intellectually stimulating thoughts. On this, see Gregory Chauzal and Thibault van Damme, The Roots of Mali’s Conflict: Moving Beyond the 2012 Crisis (The Hague, The Netherlands: Conflict Resolution Unit, Clingendael Institute, 2015); also USIP (Staff), Political Transitions and Extremist Challenge in the Sahel, March 3, 2016; Suzanne Wing, Mali’s Precarious Democracy and Causes of War, April 19, 2013. On this, see Editorial Report, “Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi: I Plead Guilty,” The UNESCO Courier, December 12, 2017; also Frederic Folka Taffo, “Al Madhi’s Case Before the International Criminal Court: A Landmark Decision in the Protection of Cultural and Religious Sites,” ACCORD, February 16, 2017. See Commentary, “ICC Prosecutors Urge Judges to Continue Ivory Coast Trials,” VOA Transcript, April 2, 2019. The destruction of cultural heritage is heinous because its aim or goal is the obliteration of a people’s history. Overall war experience and implications for stability and human development are treated, see Sergei Boeke, Transitioning from Military Intervention to Long Term Counter-Terrorism Policy: Case of Mali—2013 to 2015 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Leiden University, Institute of Global Security Affairs, 2016).

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53. For legal arguments, see Rebecca Zaman, “Playing the Ace? Jus Cogens Crimes and Functional Immunity in National Courts,” Australian International Law Journal 17 (2010), 53–69. 54. See Christopher Stephen, “International Criminal Law: Wielding the Sword of Universal Criminal Justice,” International and Comparative Law Quarterly 6, no. 1 (2012), 55–89. 55. Amartya Sen sees and describes it as the condition whereby “proficient artisans of terror;” and their leaders ensconce atrocity as civic duty and thereby become conflict entrepreneurs. Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (New York: Norton, 2006). Hannah Arendt calls it the “banality of evil” and wonders about society and the “normalization of violence” by leaders who order the killings and in whose names the killings are undertaken. For thoughtful reviews, see Stefano Passini, “From the Banality of Evil to the Complicity of Indifference: The Effects of Intergroup Relationships,” New Ideas in Psychology 47 (2017), 33–40; Ann Kerwin, “Beyond the Banality of Evil: Conscience, Imagination and Responsibility,” Journal of Management Development 31, no. 5 (May 18, 2012). Other works address violence in the wider global context. Mark A. Drumbi, Atrocity, Punishment and International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), Ch. 1–4; Payam Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity: Can International Criminal Justice Prevent Future Atrocities?” American Journal of International Law 96, no. 1 (January 2001), 7–31. 56. See Stephen Haines, “The Influence of Operation Allied Force on the Development of the Jus ad Bellum,” International Affairs 85, no. 3 (2009), 477–490. The constant clash between state sovereignty and international law presents overarching obstacles to enforcement of international law. Nevertheless, international criminal courts are enjoying significant rises in their legitimacy and power; global justice is biting deep through national borders to target and indict sitting heads of state or presidents accused of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity—counting Liberia’s Charles Taylor and former Chadian death butcher Goukouni Weddeye. Both men have been successfully prosecuted and incarcerated for crimes against humanity. In this new disposition, the African Union has to abandon completely the faded doctrine of non-intervention or unquestioned immunity for sitting heads of state. 57. ICC faces many challenges, see Louise Parrot, “The Role of the International Criminal Court in Uganda: Ensuring That the Pursuit of Justice Does Not Come at the Price of Peace,” American Journal of Peace Studies 1 (2006), 8–26. 58. About the pursuit of justice and international public perceptions about the significance of international law, see Philip Reichel and Jay S. Albanese, Handbook of Transnational Crime and Justice (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,

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59.

60.

61.

62.

63.

64.

2014); Kathryn Sikkink, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions Are Changing World Politics (New York: W. W. Norton, 2011); Antonio Cassese, “On Current Trends Toward Criminal Prosecution of Breaches of International Humanitarian Law,” European Journal of International Law 9 (1998), 2–17. Analysts accept that International Criminal Tribunals in Africa have made great advances and contributed much to the development of international criminal justice. But the Hybrid Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) operated on a deeply pared-down budget. Analysts want better consideration in the treatment of courts; a few say that the lofty goals of ending impunity and providing justice demand more than a court on the cheap! See Harry Hobbs, “Towards a Principled Justification for the Mixed Composition of Hybrid International Criminal Tribunals,” Leiden Journal of International Law 30, no. 1 (2017), 177–197; Beth K. Dougherty, “RightSizing International Criminal Justice: Hybrid Experiment at the Special Court for Sierra Leone,” International Affairs 80, no. 2 (2004), 311– 328. For similar views relating to the Court in South Africa, see Antonio [Justice] Cassese, “Reflections on the International Criminal Justice,” The Modern Law Review 61, no. 1 (2003), 1–10. Set up in 2002, the ICC is based at The Hague and has 123 Member States that have all ratified the 1998 Rome Statute together with the legal guidelines imparting authority to the global mandate of the Court. Roughly 2000 lives have been lost to violence, and more than 400,000 Burundians have fled the country. Violent political crisis erupted when President Pierre Nkurunziza eliminated the two-term constitutional limit on presidential tenure. He proceeded to run for a third term in office, winning the July 2015 election that was boycotted by the opposition. Reports following credible investigations confirm that there were episodes of killings, arbitrary imprisonment, torture, and disappearances by national government forces. Roughly 1000 lives were lost during the 2007 postelection riots. Museveni as stated in the preceding narrative had failed to enforce the international obligation of arrest. On the limits of legal provisions to arrest sitting-heads-of State, see Jadranka Petrovic, “To Arrest or Not to Arrest the Incumbent Head of State: The Al-Bashir Case and the Interplay Between Law and Politics,” Monash University Law Review 42, no. 3 (2006), 740–811. See Catherine Gegout, “The International Criminal Court: Limits, Potentials and Conditions for the Promotion of Justice and Peace,” Third World Quarterly 34, no. 5 (2013), 800–818. For analysis of the legal status of immunity, see Michael A. Tunks, “Diplomat or Defendants: Defining the Future of Head-of-State Immunity,” Duke Law Journal 52, no. 3 (December 2002), 561–722.

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65. Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda complained about the lack of cooperation by the Kenyan Government to produce documentary evidence potentially useful to link the allegations against President Uhuru Kenyatta. She withdrew the case with prejudice, should additional evidence become available. 66. See Thomas Escritt, “International Criminal Court Throws Out Charges Against Kenyan Deputy President,” Reuter World News, April 5, 2011. 67. See Charles Jalloh and Ilias Bantekas, eds., The International Criminal Court and Africa (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017), Introduction; Chapters 1–4. 68. See B. V. A Roling, “Criminal Responsibility for Violations of the Laws of War” Project Directed by Professor Antonio Cassese on Respect for Human Rights in Armed Conflict (National Council For Research, 1976), 22. For additional theorizing on the laws of war, see Brian Orend, War and International Justice: Kantian Perspective (Waterloo, Canada: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2014). Others focus on the idea of responsibility, accountability for criminal acts against the community, see Bjom Ahl, “The Rise of China and International Human Rights Law,” Human Rights Quarterly 37, no. 3 (2015), 637–661; Jenny Martinez, Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 69. See Annan, op. cit., note 1; also see Ilias Bantekas and Luis Oetie, International Human Rights Law and Practice (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016); Erol Mendes, Global Governance, Human Rights and International Law: Combating the Tragic Flaw (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014). 70. The Conflict Simulation Model (KOSIMO or COSIMO) is located at the Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research. Under its first lead researcher, Professor Frank Pfetsch, the program has built a database of conflicts from 1914–1999, and subsequent research efforts have produced updates of the data. Many works draw information from the KOSIMO Databank, see Myra Williamson, Terrorism, War and International Law: Legality of the Use of Force (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016); Frank Pfetsch and Christopher Rohloff, “KOSIMO: Databank on Political Conflict,” Journal on Peace Research 37, no. 3 (May 2000), 379–389; Nicholas Charron, “Déjà Vu All Over Again: Post Cold War Analysis of Samuel Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilizations’ Theory,” Cooperation and Conflict 45, no. 1 (2010), 107–127. 71. See Framework, Section VIII, 40. Interestingly, security is defined broadly and includes threats to human security due to limitations of access to food, shelter, and environmental health. Even denial of the so-called secondgeneration rights is thought of as belonging to the same level of enforceable negative-political/civil rights that are constitutionally guaranteed. Some

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72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

77.

78.

79.

of these issues are competently treated in, Keo Feyter, Local Relevance of Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). Durability of the ECOWAS Framework has been researched and favorably reviewed, see Terwase Sampson, “Responsibility to Protect and ECOWAS Mechanism on Peace and Security: Assessing their Convergence and Divergence on Intervention,” Journal of Conflict and Security Law 16, no. 3 (2011), 507–450; Editorial Opinion: “ECOWAS Satisfied with Conflict Prevention Framework,” Ghana News Agency, June 13, 2016; also “ECOWAS Pushes Implementation of Conflict Prevention Framework,” Ghana News Agency, April 13, 2016; Mena Report, “ECOWAS Calls for Integrated Approach to Conflict Prevention, Management in Africa,” September 12, 2013. Christian Fernandez and David Puyana, “Building Human Rights Peace and Development within the United Nations,” Russian Law Journal 3, no. 1 (March 2015), 58–99; Raffaele Marchetti and Nathalie Tucc, eds., Civil Society, Conflict and the Politicization of Human Rights (Tokyo and New York, NY: United Nations University Press, 2011); O. N. Ogbu, Human Rights Practice in Nigeria: An Introduction (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). The status of human rights in Africa is referenced and discussed. Daniel Moeckli, et al. eds., International Human Rights Law (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018). Phillip C. Aka, Human Rights in Nigeria’s External Relations: Building the Record of a Moral Super Power (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017), Chapters 2–3. John Campbell and Matthew T. Page, What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018); also Nenibarini Zabbey, et al., “Remediation of Contaminated Land in the Niger Delta, Nigeria: Prospects and Challenges,” Science of the Total Environment 586 (May 2017), 952–965. Shola Olabode, Digital Activism and Cyber-Conflict in Nigeria: Occupy Nigeria, Boko Haram and Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND (Bingley, UK: Emerald, 2018); Isaac Terwase Sampson, “Between Boko Haram and the Joint Task Force: Assessing the Dilemma of Counter Terrorism and Human Rights in Northern Nigeria,” Journal of African Law 59, no. 1 (2015), 25–63. On related discussions, see Catherine Boone, Property and Political Order in Africa: Land Rights and the Structure of Politics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014), Introduction; 1–2. Additionally, those sociopolitical and economic obstacles to the promotion of human rights and efforts to eliminate or neutralize them are examined.

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80.

81.

82.

83. 84.

85.

86.

87.

88.

89.

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See Gyan Prakash Pandey, ed., Problems and Perspectives on the Relationship Between the Media and Human Rights (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017). David Bilchitz, “Are Socio-Economic Rights a Form of Political Rights,” South African Journal on Human Rights 31, no. 1 (January 2015), 86– 111. Gills Carbonnier and Natascha Wagner, “Resource Dependence and Armed Conflict: Impacts of Sustainability in Developing Countries,” Defense and Peace Economics 26, no. 1 (January 2015), 115–132. Paul J. Dunne, et al., “Military Spending, Conflict and External Debt in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Defence and Peace Economics (December 2018), 1– 12. Marc J. Bossuyt, International Human Rights Protection: Balanced, Critical, Realistic (Cambridge, UK: Intersentia Limited, 2016). This places the media somewhere at the same level as regional normative institutions of human rights. On this, see arguments in depositions concerning: Rotrofit vs. P&T Corporation (1995). The High Court of Zimbabwe held that state monopoly of the telecommunications sector violated the guarantee of freedom of expression. Josiah Marineau, “Elections and the Media in Post Conflict Africa: Votes and Voices for Peace,” Canadian Journal of African Studies/La Revue Canadienne des etudes africaines 46, no. 3 (December 1, 2012), 475–477. The benefits and practical limitations on the enjoyment of press freedom are discussed. See Christiena Maria van Der Bank, “Media Freedom the Cornerstone of Human Rights in South Africa,” Journal of Social Sciences 41, no. 2 (November 2014), 265–277. Ibrahim Seaga Shaw, Human Rights Journalism: Advances in Reporting Distant Humanitarian Interventions (New York, NY: Palgrave, 2012), Introduction; Chapters 1–2. In Botswana, the government’s Directorate of Intelligence and Security is said to use vast networks of security operatives to intimidate journalists, as well as citizens; the infiltration of newsrooms by government agents promotes tension, suspicion, and fear in spaces that were supposed to serve as bastions of free expression. See, Freedom House, Botswana: Freedom of the Press, 2017; also African Media Barometer, Botswana, 2014. For analysis of main issues, see Lena von Naso, The Media and Aid in Sub-Saharan Africa: Whose News? (New York, NY: Routledge, Macmillan, 2018). Worldwide ignorance of human rights and jurisprudence presents enormous obstacles to effective implementation of human rights. Successful campaign to protect rights cannot be expected to be smooth-sailing and productive in environments where people lack rudimentary knowledge about their rights, are oblivious of existing human rights legislations, and

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90.

91. 92.

93.

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95.

do not know they are entitled to protection against abuse of their fundamental Human Rights. On this, see Tristan Anne Borer, Media, Mobilization and Human Rights Mediating Suffering (London: Zed Press, 2012); Susan Shepler and Sharyn Routh, “The Effect in Post Conflict West Africa of Teacher Training for Refugee Women,” Gender and Education 24, no. 4 (2012), 429–441; Diana Papademas, Human Rights and Media (Bingley, UK: Emerald, 2011). Campaigns for formal education and the promotion of elementary form of mass communication via electronic and the print media are penetrating more and more rural and poorer urban spaces. See Mathew Powers, “Opening the News Gates? Humanitarian and Human Rights NGOs in the US News Media, 1990–2010,” Media, Culture and Society 38, no. 3 (2016), 315–331; Rob Clark, “Bringing the Media In: Newspaper Readership and Human Rights,” Sociological Inquiry 82, no. 4 (2012), 532–556. Marina Sharp, Regional Law of Refugee Protection in Africa (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018). See UNHRC, Conventions Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951. The Convention is anchored or grounded in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), which recognizes the rights of persons to seek asylum. Similarly, the African Union Convention on Refugees encourages Member States to “use their best endeavors to receive refugees and to secure the settlement of those refugees who, for all well founded reasons, are unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin or nationality— Article II, Asylum.” For details of responsibility to accommodate refugees, see Organization of African Unity (OAU) 1969 Convention Governing Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, Article 1 (A) (2). Available literature has elaborated on both the plight and rights of refugees, See Tero Auvinen, “On the Human Rights of Refugees and Immigrants, Homification and Immigration Policy 1,” Journal of Identity and Migration Studies 11, no. 1 (2017), 159–181. Gary Uzonyi, “Refugee Flows and State Contributions to Post Cold War UN Peacekeeping Missions,” Journal of Peace Research 52, no. 6 (November 2015), 743–757. Daniel Maul, Human Rights, Development and Decolonization: The International Labor Organization, 1940–1970 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). The causes of war and peace have been investigated from psychology, sociology, economics, and anthropology perspectives, see Gat Azar, The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace: But Will War Rebound? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017); Richard K. Betts, Conflict After the Cold War: Arguments on the Causes of War and Peace (New York: Routledge, 2017); Charles Call, Why Peace Fails: The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012); also

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97.

98.

99.

100.

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Andrea Vogt, Toward a Comprehensive Self-Sufficient African Peace Operation Capacity: Fact or Fiction? (Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 2010) Among earlier discourses on the subject of war and peace, see Quincy Wright, Causes of War and Conditions for Peace, 1890–1970 (London: Longmans, 1979). Peace is fragile commodity, particularly among those countries making the transition from war to peace. The recurring thought is this; autocratic tendencies, suppression of group rights, and bureaucratic corruption are at the foundation of civil wars. See Seth J. Schwartz, Keon Luycjx, and Vivian Vignoles, Handbook of Identity Theory and Research (New York: Springer, 2012); Arash Abizadeh, “Hobbes on the Causes of War: A Disagreement Theory,” American Political Science Review 105, no. 2 (2011), 298–315; Lindemann Thomas, The Causes of War: The Struggle for Recognition (Colchester, UK: European Consortium for Political Research— ECPR, 2010). For location of the main quote and further comparative analysis, see Ted Robert Gurr and Will H. Moore, “Ethno-Political Rebellion: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the 1980s with Risk Assessments for the 1990s,” American Journal of Political Science 41 (1997), 1079. L. A. Gueye, et al., “Development of a Cartographic Strategy and Geospatial Services for Disaster Early Warning and Mitigation in the ECOWAS Region,” International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences XL, no. 3 (2015), 203–209; Nina Serafino, Global Peace Operations Initiatives: Background and Issues for Congress (New York: Diane Publishing, 2010); Sean P. O’Brien, “Anticipating the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: An Early Warning Approach to Conflict and Instability Analysis,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, 46, no. 6 (2002), 971–811. For assessments of this particular methodology, see Yuan Yan Chen, “Statistical Inference based on the Possibility and Belief Measures,” Transactions of the American Mathematical Society 347 (1995), 1855–1863. Macrostructural factors in use to assess conflict possibilities include: population growth (incorporating also youth bulge), Gross Domestic Product per capita (would also indicate both the level of country material endowment and performance of government in allocating scarce resource), measurements of a country’s level of democracy—including legislative effectiveness and infant mortality rates. Trade openness is said to indicate country’s acceptance of global rules of business, which supposedly also suggests capacity, willingness to promote civil liberties and to support regional and global efforts at peace promotion. For related arguments, see Juan Francisco Saldarriaga, et al., “Visualizing Conflict: Possibilities for Urban Research,” Urban Planning 2, no. 1 (2017), 100–108.

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101. See Amanda Lucy and Moyosore Arewa, “Sustainable Peace: Driving the African Peace and Security Architecture Through ECOWAS,” Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Paper 301, November 2016, 1–20. 102. Habibu Yaya Bappah, “ECOWAS Protagonists for Peace: An Internal Perspective on Policy and Community Actors in Peacemaking Intervention,” South African Journal of International Affairs 25, no. 1 (2018), 83–98. 103. See ECOWAS Executive Secretary, Mohammed Ibn Chambas, Controlling Conflict, S/2009; Chambas’ successor, Victor James Gbeho also supports core research necessary to advance the course of peace in the region. 104. Kadre Desire Ouedraogo had been Burkina Faso’s Prime Minister, and he also served as Deputy Executive Secretary of the ECOWAS between 1985 and 1993. His successor, Marcel A. De Souza, is Beninois diplomat appointed at the 48th Ordinary Session of the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government in Abuja (December 2015) to lead the ECOWAS Commission until 2018. He pledges three main things: tighter control on expenditures and administrative costs, promotion of cooperation among Member States on conflict resolution, and the advancement of research in conflict prevention—under the rubric of early warning systems. 105. Track-II Diplomacy is also referred to as “Quiet Diplomacy.” Tobias Bohmelt, “The Effectiveness of Tracts of Diplomacy Strategies in Third Party Interventions,” Journal of Peace Research 47, no. 2 (2010), 167– 178. 106. The author speaks of diverse peace-induced projects bringing JewishChristian-Muslim relations together in the Middle East. And those initiatives can “…contribute to healing historic wounds in the Abrahamic relationship.” Joseph V. Montville, “Track Two Diplomacy: The Work of Healing History,” The Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations (Summer/Fall 2006), 15–25. 107. We come also in the end to appreciate the point of view that it is always good scholarly practice to recognize and separate the things that are achievable from projects that are mainly aspirational (designed to inspire). While some projects require and can respond well to institutional reform and capacity building, others may not. 108. Originally coined by German social scientist Gunnar Heisohn in the 1990s, Youth Bulge as a concept notes that developing countries with high birth rates and weak political institutions (poverty, youth unemployment, and bureaucratic corruption) are especially vulnerable to youth-based violent conflict. Rahel Schomaker, “Youth Bulge, Poor Institutional Quality and Missing Migration Opportunities: Triggers of and Potential CounterMeasures for Terrorism,” Topics in Middle Eastern and African Economies 15, no. 1 (May 2013), 116–129.

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109. See also Michael Barnett and Thomas A. Weiss, Humanitarianism Contested: Where Angels Fear to Tread (New York, NY: Routledge, 2011). 110. See 2018 Global Terrorism Index, Institute for Global Economic Peace, Sydney, Australia, January 2019.

CHAPTER 2

ECOWAS and Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa Babatunde Afolabi

Since the human race’s natural end is to make steady cultural progress, its moral end is to be conceived as progressing toward the better. (Immanuel Kant)

Introduction West Africa’s political experience in the three decades following the end of the Cold War was defined by violent conflict, coups d’état and war-induced humanitarian crises. These have had devastating effects on economic planning and human development. Unsurprising, therefore, governments in the region resolutely proceeded in concert to adopt preventive diplomacy as the centerpiece of their foreign policies. The need to control and eliminate the causes of conflict that profoundly stymies human security explains also the commitment of Africa’s two most prominent regional organizations, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU), to the promotion of pro-peace programs. The two organizations strongly support preventive diplomacy,1 which encompasses principal initiatives, tools, and mechanisms designed to preempt violent conflict2 and eliminate likely conflict triggers.3 Hinged as it were © The Author(s) 2020 O. Akiba (ed.), Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25354-7_2

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on its regional moorings, preventive diplomacy in essence represents the new regime of social justice. It orders instant reprieve and shelter for the ordinary African folk from the burden of man-made hardships plus unnecessary ethno-religious turmoil.4 Speaking conceptually and practically, preventive diplomacy is composed of two strategic limbs: One is possessed of resources to prevent conflicts before they become violent,5 and the main instruments in the arsenal for the purpose are embodied in the early warning system.6 The professional managers overseeing field offices are required, in the occasion that conflict begins to brew, to contact eminent members consisting in the council of the wise. And they are required to immediately alert the President of the ECOWAS Commission that condition likely to degenerate into violence has been triggered, and thereafter to assume the roles of mediation and conciliation. The ECOWAS Protocol on good governance enjoins thoroughness in the dispatch of duties and obligations for peace. The highest standards of professionalism are demanded from those trusted and deployed to the scenes of conflict. In part, members of the council are expected to include in their mediation package the diplomatic tools needed to assess the extents to which political leaders in conflict-prone countries are truly committed to peace. In other words, these diplomats are expected to determine and report to the President of the ECOWAS Commission whether or not national leaders are establishing and obeying the rule of law and supporting the building of democratic institutions of governance serving as antidotes to conflict. Preventive diplomacy’s other limb is endowed with mechanisms to embed sustainable peace. It is designed to contain, and in the long run, eliminate those conditions known to regularly caused conflict such as bad government, poverty, economic and politic inequities including gender exploitation and exclusion. Foreign governments and their partners in international development agencies currently are helping with resources and programs to promote economic development and to ensure sustainable peace especially in those countries already devastated by war, are emerging from war and whose leaders have signed peace agreements to cease hostilities. Rebuilding war-torn infrastructures, investments to jump-start economic activities and employment promotion are the main initiatives under the rubric of peacebuilding to preempt and ultimately to eliminate the causes of violence. Every government in fragile states is expected, within its mean, to build confidence in transition arrangements and boost the legitimacy of state institutions. Principal public officials must be retrained to respect human rights, the rule of law and the discharge of their duties in

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accordance with democratic principles of transparency and accountability. The end product of intervention is to prevent conflict and ensure overall human security. My work presents, explains and analyses ECOWAS’ peace and security structures. Its achievements and overall impacts on regional security are brought into bolder relief. The section immediately following below gives account of the evolution of norms, values, and main principles undergirding the organization’s conflict management and resolution framework; while the second section focuses on the purposes and policy implications of the 2010 Monrovia Conference. The ECOWAS Mediation Guideline (EMG) is introduced as an outcome of the exercise of oversights during the Conference. The function and roles of ECOWAS’ mediation councils are treated in the third section; followed by a compact analysis of TrackII Diplomacy in the fourth. And then, the legitimacy of the organization’s mediation mandate is discussed and tested in the context of case study analyses in the fifth section. My conclusion is that West Africa stands to benefit greatly as ECOWAS institutionalizes its mediation and conflict prevention mechanisms. The recommendations I offer speak to the importance of timely maintenance of early warning mechanisms in ways to sharpen the region’s conflict prevention capabilities.

I. ECOWAS: Evolution, Purposes and the Instruments of Conflict Prevention The ECOWAS is properly speaking a Regional Economic Community (REC) of fifteen West African countries. It was established in May 28, 1975. The original objectives of the organization as contained in Article 1 of the ECOWAS Treaty include: promotion of cooperation and integration with an eye to establishing an economic union in West Africa and raising standards of living among citizens in Member countries.7 Events, however, in the last forty-plus years have forced the Community to pile new objectives and active functions upon the original concerns to foster and yield higher economic welfare returns regionally. An equally important and urgent task today revolves around prevention, management, and resolution of conflict.8 The reason for this shift comes from the realization that wars and internal-domestic conflict collectively constitute colossal force undermining development; oppositely, peace is a main factor for social progress. Thus, Article 58 of the revised 1993 ECOWAS Treaty provides for regional security with the undertaking by Member States to work collaboratively toward the maintenance of peace, stability, and security. To

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this end also, the constituent members agree to cooperate with the Community in establishing and strengthening appropriate mechanisms for the timely prevention and resolution of intra-state and inter-state conflicts. Once again, Article 58 establishes the legal foundations for conflict prevention, management, and resolutions, including peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Baby steps taken previously on security include the 1978 Protocol on NonAggression, which stressed the sanctity of sovereignty, condemned interstate conflict and enjoined Member States collectively to pursue peaceful solution to disputes. The 1981 Protocol on Mutual Defense Assistance (signed by Member States in Freetown, Sierra Leone) was the first agreement on collaborative security; specifically, Member States agreed to pool resources together in a military pact to prevent and possibly deter external aggression. A much more advanced form of mutual collaboration would come much later in the form of the Economic Community of West African State Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). It was an impromptu arrangement; an ad hoc product delivered by the 5-Member ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee (1990) in response to the gruesome experience of the Liberian conflict. And it stands today as the military wing of the ECOWAS; it is still a work in progress (like other institutions) within the overarching ECOWAS Security Architecture. The ECOWAS Mechanism Since that time, the region has witnessed the gradual evolution and development of regional security institutions that are progressively sturdier, comprehensive and more modern in their policy priorities and objectives. The 1999 Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security was adopted in 1999 in Lomé, Togo.9 Known as the Mechanism, it spells out the conditions allowing Member States to intervene in each other’s countries. According to Article 25, the Mechanism shall apply commonly in the following cases: (a) aggression in any Member State or threat thereof; (b) conflict between two or several Member States; (c) where internal conflict threatens to trigger humanitarian disaster; and/or (d) poses a serious threat to peace and security in the region. Equally innovative, the region’s security objectives are set out (Article 3) in greater detail, as adumbrated to: (I) prevent, manage and resolve internal and interstate conflicts; and (II) strengthen cooperation in the areas of conflict prevention, early warning, peacekeeping operation, the control of cross-border crime, international terrorism and proliferation of

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small arms and anti-personnel mines. (III) Establish institutions and formulate policies that would allow for the organization and coordination of humanitarian relief missions; and (IV) promote close cooperation among Member States in the areas of preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping. (V) Constitute and deploy a civilian and military force to maintain or restore peace within the region, whenever the need arises. (VI) Set up an appropriate framework for the rational and equitable management of natural resources shared by neighboring Member States and which resources may be causes of frequent interstate conflict; (VII) protect the environment and take steps to restore the degraded environment to its natural state. The safeguarding of cultural heritage of Member States and formulation of polices to eliminate bureaucratic corruption are recognized as necessary components of preemptive conflict prevention.10 The main institutions designated and authorized to operate the Mechanism toward realizing the above-stated goals are identified in Article 4, as such: (I) The Authority of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government is the Mechanism’s main political organ consisting of Heads of States and Governments of Member States. Article 6 stipulates that the Authority “shall be the Mechanism’s highest decision-making body…it shall have the powers to act on all matters concerning peacekeeping, security, humanitarian support…as well as all matters covered by the provisions of the mechanism.” (II) The Mediation and Security Council is composed of ten specialists recommended by the Member States and appointed by the Authority. It is the technical and implementation body most qualified and therefore authorized to implement key security decisions and plans. (III) ECOWAS Commission, formerly the Secretariat, is now modeled after the European Union. It is headed by the president whose responsibility in part is to anchor the four main Directorates of the organization.11 He/she recommends the appointment of Special Representative and Force Commander for approval by the Mediation and Security Council and directly appoints the Council of the Wise. It falls on the office of the President to deploy fact-finding and mediation missions and to implement all decisions of the Mediation and Security Council. The above-referenced institutions, in carrying out their missions, are assisted by specialized organs specified in Article 17, as follows: (I) Defense and Security Commission (II) Council of the Wise, formerly Council of Elders (III) ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group-ECOMOG. Article 21 establishes the mandate of the ECOMOG, which is composed of several standby multi-purpose units (both civilian and military). These are located

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in their countries of origin and are fortified for rapid deployment at short notice.12 Supporting, Strengthening, and Advancing the Mechanism The Mechanism is the foundational instrument for security in the ECOWAS.13 And additional instruments and protocols over time have been added to strengthen its roots and refresh the overarching peace architecture. Among them, the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance was adopted in 2001 to underscore ECOWAS’ priority for rule-based government.14 Member States are obligated to build democratic institutions, ensure respect for human rights and enshrine the rule of law in their constitutions. And as stipulated in Article 54 of the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework—ECPF (adopted in 2008), the Commission15 is enjoined to take steps to evaluate the level of contribution of successful elections to democratic growth in Member States, because elections are essential components of a well-functioning democracy.16 ECPF consistently propagates progressive postures on issues of critical importance to the promotion of peace; it acknowledges that the root causes of conflict are found in internal conditions including poverty and bad government; access to better living conditions for the ordinary African citizen is basic human right; and protection of those vulnerable citizens in dire conditions of war and under dictatorships is an obligation.17 Preventive Diplomacy must aim to “defuse tensions and ensure the peaceful resolution of disputes within and between Member States by means of good offices, mediation and conciliation.”18 Most are agreed that peace initiatives require openness and a willingness to accept a few basic democratic principles such as dialogue, negotiation, and compromise. The 2005 Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons was another critical addition to the Mechanism. It recognizes the dangers posed by underground trade in illicit arms. Among conflicting parties, easy access to weapons of war erodes the chances of timelier commitment to a negotiate settlement of conflict. Vision 2020 19 was adopted in June 2007. It expresses and reinforces ECOWAS’ resolute commitment to the promotion of good governance and equal justice under the rule of law. The Vision also contains a cardinal proposal to rebrand the West African region from an “ECOWAS of States to an ECOWAS of People.”20 The idea is progressive and forward-looking.21 It embodies well-thought-out plans to develop and establish a West African space or zone of free movement.22 Citizens of such an economic zone

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will be privileged and tied further together via a common ECOWAS currency.23 Member States want to end persistent threats to peace and stability in West Africa in part through increased people-to-people understandings that come from greater interaction.24 Most of the leaders are also unequivocal in their support for fundamental socioeconomic and cultural transformation of the region25 via deeper cooperation in the exploiting of natural resources such as energy,26 proper coordination in education policies for manpower development, and freer movement of people. Article 23 of the Mechanism provides for an Observation and Monitoring Center (OMC) that “shall be responsible for data collection and analyses and preparation of reports for the use of the [ECOWAS Commission].” It was designed to collaborate extensively with other international organizations involved in the promotion of similar preemptive task at the United Nations and the AU. And it became operational in 2003. Today, ECOWAS Early Warning Response Network (ECOWARN), which is located in Abuja, functions as an expansive logistical support system with two operational structures. The Abuja OMC27 serves as the nucleus or orbit of the ECOWAS early warning system. The second operational arm consists of four regional zones across the region: (Zone 1) Cape Verde, the Gambia, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau; (Zone 2) Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, and Niger; (Zone 3) Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Ghana; (Zone 4) Benin, Togo, and Nigeria.

II. The 2010 ECOWAS International Conference: Looking Inward to Improve Performance Self-assessment regarding performance on the above-referenced issue areas in the ECOWAS Security Architecture has become a tradition. And it was extended and embellished during the ECOWAS International Conference that opened in Monrovia, Liberia28 in 2010. Christened Two Decades of Peace Processes in West Africa: Achievements, Failures, and Lessons, the Conference forms a critical landmark in African diplomatic history and laid the foundation for what would become common custom in selfevaluation, against the backdrop of the ECOWAS’ set-objectives. I am strongly convinced that the idea will serve long-run purposes by sustaining good practices in regional diplomacy.29 It should continue to contribute to the creation and expansion of professional mechanisms of collective security in the region. In this way, West African governments today believe that it is a good thing periodically to meet and to reflect upon ECOWAS’

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performance on issues of human security broadly defined. Member States also are in agreement about the necessity of regular conferences set aside specifically for the purposes of assessing and appraising the organization’s accomplishments and challenges in regard to conflict prevention, management, resolution, and peacebuilding. Most importantly, all functionaries are united in the thinking that it is essential to draw lessons from challenges and build on achievements in ways to extend, consolidate, and strengthen the emergent ECOWAS Regional Peace and Security Architecture.30 The 5-day (March 22–26) Conference was sponsored by the Liberian Government; and it was supported financially by the AU, the United Nations and the Danish Government. Most of the conferees were in the mode of instant gratification and self-fulfillment,31 and they concurred that the West African Region “has been transformed from a zone of crippling wars in the 1990s into a space where no active war is raging today…” The members noted also that democratic consolidation has been progressing according to plan and gradually. The representatives took stock of additional achievements, such as: (I) Restoration of peace in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea-Bissau and Côte d’Ivoire. (II) Adoption of a normative, institutional, and legal frameworks for conflict prevention, management, resolution, peacekeeping, and peacebuilding in the ECOWAS. (III) Adoption and effective application of constitutional convergence principles with an accompanying sanctions regime. Short-falls in performance and failures in the plans for rapid socioeconomic progress were nevertheless also acknowledged: James Victor Gbeho, the then President of the ECOWAS lamented the persistence of structural weaknesses in the ECOWAS’ peace and security paraphernalia.32 The structure is said to be weak and inadequate at the moment in terms of its regional capacity to address natural disasters and war-induced humanitarian crises; threats to democratic consolidation; re-emergence of the culture of impunity and institutionalized bureaucratic corruption. He said that political will among government leaders was required to move the region forward;33 in particular, that Member States had to work collaboratively to prevent and resolve the security threats posed by transnational criminal networks together with the myriad forms of illegal trade in drugs and the trafficking in human beings.34 Former Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings spoke of the range of structural causes of regional instabilities such as “poverty, injustice and bad governance.”35 ECOWAS Commission, in his view, needed to be fortified and

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fully armed to fight and eliminate the causes of post-election crises, democratic reversals and corruption in the national security sector. The elder statesman emphasized the need for security sector reform as an organic part of good government and democratization. Drawing from practical African experiences nearly everywhere on the continent, Rawlings iterated that poverty and destitution are among the most flammable materials that have commonly fused together to deepen intra-group animosity, extend already prolonged conflicts and explode deadly wars. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf buttressed the above-referenced negative forces in her keynote address to the forum. Entitled “Bad Governance Causes Civil Conflict,”36 Sirleaf stressed that “the root causes of civil conflict in Africa are bad governance, lack of respect for human rights, socioeconomic and political equality and grinding poverty.” Her speech was replete with hope and despair that characterized emotions during the Liberian war. And her recounting of dire experiences of the war was poetic. About the ebb and flow of national emotions during the arrival of ECOMOG, she spoke: (I) “Fortunately, up the Atlantic Ocean came a ship laden with peacekeepers from neighboring countries to end the era of violence in Liberia.” (II) The peacekeepers, she said, “raised a white flag to signify peace, friendship and neutrality but their friendship gesture was greeted with hostility…on Liberian soil they were greeted by a firestorm of mortar shelling.” (III) “Although they [peacekeepers]sustained casualty, they were brave and courageous and determined to execute their mission of separating the warring factions, ensuring a ceasefire, eventually holding a democratic election.” (IV) At the height of the war, there was a popular slogan, which many Liberians still passionately believe and acclaim till date. “Thank God for ECOMOG.” Sirleaf went on to salute “the men and women of valor…the compatriots of spine and courage who made daring sacrifice for peace to proliferate in Liberia.” Importantly, the Monrovia Conference did produce a number of critical recommendations toward improving the overall performance of the ECOWAS peace and security architecture. And quite a few speak directly of the need for institution strengthening; particularly, about the urgent requirement to fortify the ECOWAS Peace and Security Architecture. Note 5 of the Post-Conference Recommendation reads thus: “ECOWAS should streamline its mediation effort by setting up the Mediation Facilitation Division (MFD) in the Political Affairs Directorate, drawing on relevant experiences including those of the United Nations. The Division should facilitate preventive diplomacy activities undertaken by the Commission.”

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Along similar vein, Note 6 instructs the ECOWAS Commission to further “enhance the capacity and effectiveness of the ECOWAS Council of the Wise by expanding its range of expertise and making it more proactive…” Parallel to this, and responding to recommendations, the MFD was established in June 2015 and then upgraded to the status of Directorate in January 2016. Its mandate as elaborated in the Needs Report is to “support the coordination and monitoring of mediation efforts by ECOWAS institutions and organs and by member states and non-state actors.”37 Prior to the creation of the MFD, all decisions to facilitate mediation were undertaken by the president of the Commission. He could independently pick negotiators from among already designated Special Envoys, usually consisting of retired or sitting Heads of State and Government. It fell on him to also dispatch the Council of the Wise on the assortment of peace missions such as fact-finding, negotiation, reconciliation, peacebuilding, or mediation. Practical decisions taken by the Commission pre-MFD were characteristically ad hoc or rushed, thereby forcing disconnections between diplomatic missions on the field and the professionals at the Commission Headquarters. MFD Develops ECOWAS Mediation Guideline (EMG)38 The Mediation and Facilitation Division obviously took its mandate seriously, and it went to work immediately to develop what today is being celebrated as the EMG. Others call it the ECOWAS Guiding Principles for Mediation, which consists of the following main principles, thus: (1) Early and timely interventions: Prioritizing Preventive Action (2) Comprehensive and Integrated Interventions: An ECOWAS Preventive Diplomacy and Mediation System (3) The Profile of the Mediator: Professionalism and Skills (4) Preparedness at all stages of the Mediation: Professional Mediation Support, Expertise and Capacity (5) Consent (6) Impartiality and Neutrality (7) Gender Sensitivity and Engendered Mediation (8) Inclusivity and Participation (9) Coherence with ECOWAS and International Norms (10) Subsidiarity, Collaboration, Complementarily, and Comparative Advantage. According to the President of the Commission, the EMG will “…provide appointed Mediators, Special Envoys and Facilitators including members of the Council of the Wise and Special Representatives a comprehensive and an informative tool on effective mediation processes…EMG outlines

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the preventive diplomacy and mediation approach in the context of the ECOWA.”39

III. ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Mechanism: Components of State-Based Mediation Scholars have continued to push for more innovation toward enhancing ECOWAS’ mediation capacity even in the face of the newly introduced EMG. They want to ensure that all possible gaps between mandate and actual practice are closed. Specifically, many want the organization to expand the field from which to pick designated ECOWAS mediators. They are concerned that at the present, mediators are drawn mainly from among sitting heads of state or recently vacated presidents or heads of government. A better and balanced mix is required so to include “president mediators” and professional mediators chosen among grassroots activists and civil society. Others want the ECOWAS to strengthen its capacity to enforce compliance on decisions reached via mediated settlement. All proponents for institution strengthening strongly are encouraging the ECOWAS to explore traditional modes of conflict resolution to supplement modern state-based mediation. A review of the main components of ECOWAS’ modern diplomacy follows. Council of the Wise As stipulated in the 1999 Mechanism, one of ECOWAS’ principal peacemaking organs is the Council of the Wise (formerly known as the Council of Elders).40 Empowered by Article 20 of the Mechanism, the Council of the Wise consists of eminent personalities drawn from various segments of society who can use their good offices and experience to advance mediation and conciliation. The ECOWAS President (sometimes acting jointly with the Mediation and Security Council) empowers the Council of the Wise to intervene in regional conflicts and to generate conditions necessary to facilitate peace.41 The idea behind actively engaging elders in conflict resolution is in line with traditional African belief that age and experience are interlocking values most likely to positively impact conflict resolution. But so far the Council has not been put to optimum use42 ; especially in active war theaters and so its capacity to mediate violent conflict is yet to be fully tested and exploited to promote good government.43 At the moment, ECOWAS deploys the Council on fact-finding missions in democratizing

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countries during elections and post-election activities.44 The mandate of the ECOWAS Council of the Wise has been deeply revised in line with the EMG.45 Special Representatives of the ECOWAS President According to Article 32 of the Mechanism, the “Mediation and Security Council shall appoint a Special Representatives of the ECOWAS President on the recommendation of the [ECOWAS Commission].” And as the title implies, the Special Representative is the sole officer representing the President of the ECOWAS in the field of action where peacekeepers are deployed. He/she is generally known as “Chief of the Mission” usually responsible for writing regular field reports to the ECOWAS President46 on the political condition of the troops and the overall stability, orientation and performance of the mission. The contact with the president must be regular and communication is expected to be precise and informative. The Special Representative is authorized to initiate political and diplomatic negotiations among the representatives of the parties-in-conflict and coordinate inputs from neighboring states that can facilitate the proper execution of the peacekeeping mandate. The Representative is also responsible for briefing troop-contributing states on the status of peacekeeping operations; he/she coordinates international humanitarian relief operations where applicable. The Special Representative also oversees non-military peacekeeping activities such as ensuring the overall welfare of the troops. Records confirm that the duties of the Special Representative were professionally and satisfactorily discharged with regard to mediating the conflicts in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea-Conakry, Liberia, and Togo. The Representative received special praise from the Commission for working collaboratively with the AU and the United Nations to oversee the transition from military to democratic rule in Guinea-Conakry. As a result of the successes achieved, ECOWAS is considering establishing a permanent Office of the Special Representative of the ECOWAS President in all Member States. Such a move should be entirely and diplomatically appropriate especially since ECOWAS plans to transform or develop from a “Community of West African States…into a Community of West African People.” The issue is also tangentially addressed in the 2017 ECOWAS Banjul Plan of Action on the Eradication of Statelessness.47

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The Special Envoys ECOWAS Special Envoys (referenced interchangeably as mediators, facilitators) have also been used in sudden martial emergencies to intervene and sue for peace. And the contemporary record of diplomatic breakthroughs associated with Special Envoys would normally point to the resolution of conflicts and production of innovative peace agreements in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, and Niger. Envoys are usually sitting heads of government known to possess intimate experience in the politics and causes of a particular local conflict. Envoys as a cohort are also known to possess good personality and unmistakable political clout in the region. One name that recurs is the ex-President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso. Coming into power through a coup d’état in 1987 and known for being an autocratic ruler, President Compaore48 never exactly fit the customary profile of a diplomat with sterling personality usually associated with ECOWAS Envoys. More so, he allegedly funded Charles Taylor’s rebel forces and backed the northern rebels in Côte d’Ivoire’s civil war. But he excelled in his diplomatic assignments, notably as the Special Mediator-Facilitator in the Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, and Togo peace processes. Compaore was ECOWAS Chief Negotiator during the Mali conflict that was brought to an end with a peace agreement in 2012. Public opinion on the continent is sharply divided among those who seem to focus almost wholly on Compaore’s successes and visibility and those who resent his politics and, as Head of Burkinabe Government, proclivities for repression. Campaore was overthrown in October 2014 and remains in exile till date in Côte d’Ivoire. Another notable envoy is Nigeria’s former President, General Abdusalami Abubakar. He has acquired enormous international recognition for voluntarily giving up military power and proceeding to supervise his country’s successful transition to civilian rule in 1999. General Abubakar has since retirement been involved in peacemaking. He was ECOWAS’ Chief envoy in Liberia, continuing also to participate in peace processes in the Sudan.

IV. The Necessity of Track-II (Informal) Diplomacy In the years following the Liberia—Sierra Leone—Côte d’Ivoire debacle, plus ECOMOG Intervention and the tortuous courses to eventual peace, much has been written about “what went wrong,” and how sustainable peace can be achieved and maintained among Member States of

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the ECOWAS. Analysts have continued to probe this question by looking at official state-based peacemaking processes to locate weaknesses. And much hope is placed in the ECOWAS and AU Conflict Prevention and Mediation Mechanisms. But not enough work or analysis is focused on Track-II Diplomacy,49 which consists of the set of interactions and dialogues (both formal and informal) for peace, driven by civil society, special women’s groups, intellectuals, faith-based groups and the myriad grassroots community organizations. Collectively, these are acknowledged as potent peace actors (interveners) bringing fresh ideas and approaches to official processes of diplomacy. Nevertheless, it would seem that quite a number of professionals involved and serving in traditional diplomacy roles either lack understanding or clearer appreciation of the complex and more nuanced roles that actors in Track II can and have been capable of playing.50 There has been the tendency to assess, place much emphasis and attribute most of the successes and achievements in peacemaking in West Africa to the intergovernmental organizations and regional organizations such as the ECOWAS, the UN and their agencies and the AU.51 Scholars nevertheless are beginning to forcefully appraise and acknowledge Track-II initiatives as particularly appropriate and successful in dealing with intractable identity-based conflicts—and such conflicts are known to stiffly resist traditional mediation approaches. Practitioners now slowly are recommending it as a remarkable complement to state-based diplomacy. Track-II mediation is commonly anchored by influential representatives drawn by an unofficial third party from the very communities experiencing active conflict. According to a study presented by Esra Cuhadar and Bruce Dayton, Track-II diplomacy is strikingly unlike official diplomacy in many ways but principally because “… [Track-II mediation] begins with an assumption that protracted social conflicts cannot be resolved without paying attention to the inter-societal dimensions and social identity needs of the conflicting parties.”52 In an earlier work, Cuhadar had stated what he considers to be the two main denominators of Track-II initiatives, thus: The first [main denominator of Track-II initiative] is the underlying belief that contact and interactions between the members of adversarial groups in an unofficial and friendly setting, often with the help of a third party, can help improve relations and generate a joint understanding of the conflict. The second assumption is that the improved relations and jointly formulated ideas are transferred and incorporated into the society and/or the official policymaking processes, thus, having an impact on a larger scale.53

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Track-II diplomacy was quietly pursued and remained well and alive among the mix of diplomatic efforts during the protracted West African wars.54 For instance, the Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET),55 a women’s group, helped to induce occasional ceasefires in Liberia and Sierra Leone by organizing forums for dialogue among leaders of insurgent groups.56 And their efforts would assume even greater significance when we come to realize that interventions were carried out when the wars were still raging—the peacemakers risked their lives on behalf of peace.57 Their peacemaking method was based in part on persuading the warring parties to cease thinking of the war in zero-sum or winner-take-all terms; and rather to think of the conflict as mutually debilitating-shared calamity, which is definitely amenable to mutually acceptable resolution, if the parties agreed to work together for a solution. Documentation on achievements and challenges encountered by Track-I diplomacy abound; though assessors hardly ever elaborate the active behind-the-scene roles and achievements of Track-II diplomacy. The positive outcomes of Track-II efforts are mentioned occasionally per-chance by state actors, mostly also as afterthought; and many times the informal efforts are wholly ignored. Track-II mediation nonetheless is loaded with valuable characteristics that will not be long or permanently denied. It lends itself to interactive conflict resolution (ICR); another is that it provides pathways for off-the-record exchanges and allows for intense old-fashioned backroom negotiation, based on trust and presuppositions of interpersonal transparency. Confident in their art, early practitioners of interactive mediation had thought, but in vain, that positive breakthroughs gained in Track-II meetings, including methods used to achieve changes in the attitudes of erstwhile disputants and conflicting parties, would later be transferred to official diplomacy.58 The nature of peacemaking, especially as it is evolving in recent times, requires multi-track efforts and initiatives. The high-level peacemaking space, which used to be an exclusive preserve of governments and intergovernmental agencies, now requires and in fact invites the active and concerted efforts of Track-II actors whose roles range from citizen diplomacy, pre-negotiation initiatives, and interactive problem-solving to behind-thescene negotiations, conducted by informal facilitators such as university intellectuals, NGOs and private citizens.59 While it is worthy to acknowledge and praise the role that Track-I actors are playing in helping to prevent and resolve conflicts, especially given their mandates and leverage, but to ignore altogether the often crucial role of Track-II actors could prove detrimental to civil society and its future involvements in diplomatic efforts

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and peacemaking.60 Engaging civil society participation in peacemaking processes should boost confidence among the grassroots peace activists, create and expand the multiple channels required for solving low-intensity conflicts. In more than one sense, opening the space of diplomacy to civil society and normative groups would impart a sense of local ownership in the mediation and peace process. It can possibly also grant opportunities to inject elements of traditional61 forms of peacemaking into modern conflict resolution methods.

V. ECOWAS Mediation in Niger and Guinea: From Mandate to Practice The conflict in Niger and Guinea exemplified low-key emergencies. And ECOWAS’ mediation was aimed typically at limiting the spread and escalation of the crisis, prevent regional contagion and promote a peaceful environment required for the conflicting parties to forge better mutual relations. The two cases examined below appear to share similar features in that the political tensions were based on power struggle among the military elite. And ECOWAS used mediation together with the threat of military intervention in attempts to resolve the problem in both countries. Yet, in the two cases and in comparative terms, the intervention yielded different outcomes. Resolving the Conflict in Niger The Special Envoy appointed to look into the situation in Niger62 was General Abdusalami of Nigeria. He was mandated by the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State in October 17, 2009 to mediate in the matter immediately following the suspension of Niger from participation in the ECOWAS. The suspension was designed to put further pressure on President Mamadou Tandja to desist from amending the Nigerien constitution for selfish reasons; Tandja had conducted a referendum that would allow for constitutional change to extend his tenure of office for a third term. He had already served the two-terms allowed by the constitution and his term in office was due to expire in December 2009. Article 45 of the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance empowers ECOWAS to impose sanctions on Member States that bring democracy to an end or

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perpetrate human rights abuse. President Tandja had also flouted Article 2 of the Supplementary Protocol, which states expressly that “no substantial modification shall be made to the electoral laws in the last six months before the elections, except with the consent of a majority of political parties.” In spite of the warnings from the international community which included ECOWAS, the AU, the EU, and the UN, President Tandja dissolved Niger’s Constitutional Court and Supreme Court, as well as the Parliament and went ahead to conduct an illegal referendum which he won with an overwhelming 92.5% approval margin. This illegally empowered him to remain in power beyond December 22, 2009. Thereafter, he sought unlimited mandates to concentrate power and perpetuate “person rule.”63 The peace process achieved little before army intervention on February 10, 2010, mainly because President Tandja was recalcitrant and impervious to diplomatic negotiations. He was also unbending to demands for concessions tabled by the opposition in Niger, until his ouster from office via military coup d’état.64 And arrangements for presidential elections were scheduled immediately for early January 2011, and then moved to March. Contrary to the severe condemnations that usually trailed coup d’états in Africa, the international community remained mute in this case in part because the military action was seen as a relief from impunity, a respite from Tandja’s stubborn proclivities and blatant disregard for the rule of law.65 More so, the army was reassuring of its good intensions, on behalf of constitutional government. It responded positively to domestic and international public demands for a speedy transition to democratic rule.66 Niger concluded its first steps toward establishing a multiparty democracy in March 12, 2011, when veteran opposition leader Mahamadou Issoufou67 was elected president of the country in a second-round poll that eliminated opponent candidate, and close ally of Tandja, Seini Oumarou, from the presidential race. A new constitution passed in a national referendum (October 2010) gave the army up to April 2011 to return the country to civilian rule. Military Junta leader, Salou Djibo, following the elections, reiterated commitment to the constitution, regretting also the long history of coup d’états that has trailed the country since gaining self-rule in 1960. Issoufou and his Party for Democracy and Socialism (PNDS) was reelected (February 21, 2016) in a second-round election that was boycotted by the opposition.

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Mediating the Conflict in Guinea Guinea gained independence in October 1958 and was ruled by the charismatic and Pan-Africanist President, Ahmad Sekou Toure until his death in 1984; another long term of rule followed the succession of power by Lansana Conte, who was president from 1984 to December 2008. Immediately after the death of President Lansana Conte, a military coup d’état was staged, thus leading to the takeover of power by Captain Dadis Camara. Unlike the international “conspiracy of silence” that followed Tandja’s removal from power in Niger, military intervention in the case of Guinea was loudly condemned by the international community68 ; and Guinea was suspended simultaneously by the AU and ECOWAS in 2009 from participation in the activities of the two regional organizations. An arrangement was however in place to bring Conakry back into the comity of states: Guinea would be re-admitted on condition that adequate arrangements are made toward returning the country to constitutional civilian rule. A limited diplomatic engagement with the country would be maintained during the transition period.69 For that reason, an International Contact Group on Guinea (ICGG) was immediately established with membership consisting of the AU, ECOWAS, the EU, the Mano River Union, The Community of SahelSaharan States (CEN-SAD), Libya (at the time a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council), Nigeria, the Organization of Islamic Conference, Germany, Spain, Japan, and four of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (France, United States, UK, Russia). The main goal of the ICG-G was to prevent the descent of the Guinean state into anarchy and to ensure a smooth transition to civilian rule. A sequence of dramatic political developments is worth noting: Even as the international community was busily trying to ensure peace, Guinean soldiers used firearms to disperse a peaceful rally in Conakry on September 28, 2009, killing about 157 unarmed citizens. Reports say that the soldiers also sexually assaulted several women. The civil rally had been scheduled to protest the participation of army officials in the coming election. The news media was suggesting that Captain Dadis Camara was set to contest presidential elections, despite the ban on political activities that had been placed on all sitting members of the junta. A second related dramatic episode also ensued, following the “September Massacre”70 : Captain Camara was on December 3, 2009 shot in the head by Lt. Toumba Diakite, his aide-decamp. When interrogated by the international press, Diakite admitted to

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committing the offense and said he did it out of frustration that Captain Camara was putting pressure on him to assume responsibility for engineering the September Massacre. Diakite insisted he had nothing to do with the blood-staining incident. Functioning as key interlocutor and peace facilitator on the ICG-G, Burkinabe’s President Blaise Compaore’s mandate for Guinea was clear and simply stated: to ensure a short and peaceful transition to constitutional order through credible, free and fair elections; and, to ensure that the Chairman and members of the Guinean National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), the prime minister, and those who held high offices in the new transitional authority were excluded from contesting as candidates in the presidential election. Judging from the events that would occur and steadily begin to grow in the country, most citizens and political observers had much to celebrate and to cheer that ECOWAS initiatives, at least in the Guinea electoral domains, were yielding desired peace dividends: Although the first round in the Guinean presidential election (June 27, 2010) produced no clear winner, Alhassane Conde would eventually emerge the favorite candidate in the second round held in November. There was no ugly incidence in both political exercises at the polls; members of the ruling junta and transitional government that had been banned from running for office knew well not to contest in the presidential polls. And the army had voluntarily accepted far-reaching reforms to professionalize its structure and to embark on thoroughgoing security sector reform. Conde’s new cabinet demonstrated even-handedness, good sense of inclusiveness and political flexibility by appointing a few top members of the opposition party to prominent positions in the government. President Compaore had provided asylum in Burkina Faso for Captain Camara, thus taking him out of the political scene in Guinea and paving the way for a smooth political process. The 2015 Presidential elections saw the incumbent Alpha Conde returned to power with a 58% of the popular votes cast on October 11 for him and his Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG).

Concluding Thoughts The ECOWAS responded boldly and creatively to the flow of unanticipated lethal and toxic products from the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall and Cold War’s ending. Those epochal shifts caused enormous reverberations in the form of rapid rises and spread of internal wars in West Africa.

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They ignited sociopolitical crises that threatened seriously to overwhelm the region. Thus, a regional military force (ECOMOG) was built and consolidated in 1990; and from then onward ECOWAS applied the combination of forceful intervention and high-profile mediation (with mixed results) to deal with Liberia, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau among others. Observers71 say that West Africa covered the learning curve rather impressively and in quick order: While the 1978 and 1981 Protocols spoke of security narrowly in military defense terms and sought strongly to protect sovereignty, by 1999 the ECOWAS Mechanism had been installed. It was suffused with normative values of peace, and Member States were ready and eager to redefine security. They acknowledged collectively that poor governance, repressive rule, flagrant human rights violation and coercive state apparatuses constituted the roots of conflict. A new security order simultaneous was ordained by law, permitting the Mechanism to take effect and intervene in third Member countries in the event of “…serious and massive violation of human rights and the rule of law…an overthrow or attempted overthrow of a democratically elected government.” Evidently then, a radical change of mind about the human condition had caused change of fundamental nature in the courses and contents of West African diplomacy. Political focus had radically shifted away from absolute and inflexible prohibition of interference in the domestic affairs of another member state—based on notions of non-intervention— and now toward responsibility to protect and prevent conflict—for the collective good. But human affairs and performance oftentimes are affected by the gaps between principles and practice; in which case important tasks are not implemented in timely manner and community expectations may be frustrated.72 Slow and impeded implementation of agreements in the instance of the ECOWAS has been in part caused by both the lack of political will among a number of Member States and/or limited organizational capacity. It may explain the continuing slow pace and uneven growth in the institutionalization of mediation support structures in the ECOWAS: (I) The Mediation Facilities Directorate that was established to support and coordinate ECOWAS mediation efforts has done exceedingly well in promoting preventive diplomacy.73 In the last three years since its inception in 2015, it has organized several intense workshops, teaching competence, and skills enhancement in mediation including information sharing and logistical support to mid-career staff drawn from all institutions of the ECOWAS.74 The MFD could deepen its impact by drawing both the Council of the

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Wise and civil society in Track-II diplomacy together in regular specialized mutual learning forums to exchange knowledge on mediation.75 (II) The ECOWAS Early Warning and Response Network (ECOWARN) today stands as a unique institution of pro-peace intelligence, and other RECs on the continent are making plans to adopt it as a model. Four zonal offices that had been established to manage information gathering are now functional. But host countries have set boundaries to protect their national security. They are apprehensive that ECOWARN data gathering is likely to invade what they term as their “national intelligence and counter-intelligence” territory. Host governments insist on vetting intelligence reports before they are dispatched to the ECOWAS Monitoring hub at Abuja. This renders the task of data collection and observation for the purposes of conflict preemption slow and tedious. In addition, ECOWARN has developed a highly sophisticated technical indicator grid to analyze conflict risks and detect security trends in the region. Originally in English, the French and Portuguese versions of the program that were expected to be available last year are still in production till date. (III) On another level, plans to increase ECOWAS’ collaboration with the AU are being pursued with vigor to extend areas of burden-sharing in conflict management, mediation, and early warning system management. In fact, liaison officers have been deployed from the ECOWAS Commission to the AU Secretariat, and vice versa, and so there is some element of interorganizational technical and operational collaboration. More important however is the need for harmony in the implementation of field projects. For example, is it particularly necessary for the AU to operate its own separate Continental Early Warning System (CEWS)76 in West Africa when the ECOWARN already exists and is healthy? Instead of running parallel operations, a combined CEWS-ECOWARM system should produce a better and streamlined information-sharing platform to benefit both the ECOWAS and the AU simultaneously. Adequate attention must be invested, in the overall, to eliminate duplication of institutional roles and functions.77 And conflict management tools that have proven to be ineffective for conflict management due to obsolesce have to be expunged from the system and discarded. Lastly, many scholars presently support adjustment of primary and secondary school level curriculums to include courses in peace education,78 with a focus also on the teaching of basic elements of human rights. The purpose would be to inculcate in the younger generation the value of good government, responsible citizenship, and cooperative living in diversity; and to emphasize that such a living is good in so far as it fosters peace

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rather than roughness. In my consideration, teaching certain positive patterns of human behavior to early school pupils will doubtlessly help them to better understand quality human interaction and to reject behavioral precedents that cause tensions and aggravate conflict.79 Teachers and educators in this circumstance will be required to design courses that can infuse youth-groups with the fundamental importance of compromise as a most critical means to mitigate conflict. School syllabi should buttress the ugliest consequences of conflict, while also elaborating the universal benefits of peace.80 Core curriculums need to be studded with appropriate courses that show young people why society approves lawfulness and discredits intemperance.81

Notes 1. On conceptualization of conflict prevention and resolution, see Shah Tarzi, “The Folly of Grand Strategy of Coercive Global Primacy: A Fresh Perspective on the Post-9/11 Bush Doctrine,” International Journal of World Peace 31, no. 3 (September 2014), 27–52. 2. Miall Ramsbotham and T. Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1999). 3. The term preventive statecraft is sometimes used in place of preventive diplomacy in part to underscore the role that governments will have to play in the facilitation of peace and promotion of National Interest. On this, see Douglas Winston, “Economic Statecraft: China and Africa,” Parameters 43, no. 4 (Winter 2013/2014), 99–110; Dennis Ross, Statecraft and How to Restore American Standing in the World (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007). 4. Chester Crocker, Olsen Hampson, and Pamela Aall, Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006). 5. H. Galadima, Kenneth Omege, and Jamila Abubakar, Conflict Security: Reflections on State and Human Security (London: Adonis & Abbey Publishing, 2010). 6. B. Jentleson, Preventive Statecraft: A Realist Strategy for the Post-Cold War Era, Turbulent Peace (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2008). 7. On trade see, Mthuli Ncube, Regional Integration and Trade in Africa (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 8. The outbreak of civil wars in West Africa, starting with Liberia in December 1989, dictated the necessity for a shift of focus. RECs would have to redefine their role to include or prioritize restoring peace and stability on the African continent. For the first time in Africa, a regional economic community actively deployed a peacekeeping force to intervene in a way that only

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10.

11.

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had earlier been done by the United Nations and similar supranational organizations. Following the invasion of Liberia from neighboring Côte d’Ivoire by the Charles Taylor-led National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) in December 1989, and the attendant human suffering and instability that followed, ECOWAS created an emergency peacekeeping force known as the ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). Initially given a peacekeeping and ceasefire-monitoring mandate, its role was later upgraded to include peace enforcement. Not long after the Liberian civil war, a similar situation of hostilities and violence broke out in Sierra Leone in 1991, with ECOMOG deployed once again as the bonafide regional peacekeeping body. ECOWAS also intervened in Guinea Bissau (1998) and Côte d’Ivoire (2002) when conflicts threatened seriously to escalate into full-blown civil wars in those countries. In subsequent years, ECOMOG would intervene in Mali, when religious Islamists ravaging from the northern territories of the country unleashed violence throughout the country. The insurgents sought to seize government at Bamako. And in the Gambia, President Yahya Jammeh was forced into exile in part for threatening to throw his country into political turmoil by holding on to power, despite losing presidential election. Periodic (annual) assessments of ECOWAS’ performance give insights into the health of the region and status of conflict prevention activities. Regarding process, it is the Internal Steering Committee (ISC) of the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework that meets at the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja to review, validate, and adopt term reports (Comprehensive Evaluation of the Operationalization of the ECPF) presented by an independent consultant. The ISC was established in 2010. On this, see ECOWAS: Internal Steering Committee, Progress Report Regarding Performance of Its Conflict Prevention Framework, ECOWAS Commission, Abuja, June 2016; also ECOWAS: Internal Steering Committee, Assessment of the ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework, ECOWAS Commission, February 16, 2017. On this, see A. Adebajo, “Building Peace in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea,” Occasional Paper no. 14, International Peace Academy, New York, 2000. For additional analysis of the organs, see Samuel O. Odobo, et al., “Assessing the ECOWAS Conflict Mechanism and Democracy Protocol in the Light of the Electoral Crisis in Cote d’Ivoire,” International Journal of Arts and Humanities 4, no. 4 (September 2016), 170–176. More regional organizations worldwide are inventing and sharpening new conflict prevention instruments appropriate for the management of conflicts and African institutions are no exceptions, see Akin Iwilade and Johnson Agbo, “ECOWAS and the Regulation of Regional Peace and Security in West Africa,” Democracy and Security 8, no. 4 (October 2012), 358–373; C. Peck, Role of Regional Organizations in Prevention and Resolution of Conflicts, Turbulent Peace (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2001).

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13. Benson Osadolor, “Evolution of Policy on Security and Defence in ECOWAS, 1978–2008,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 20 (January 2011), 87–103. 14. Diana Amneus, “Responsibility to Protect: Emerging Rules on Humanitarian Intervention?” Global Security 26, no. 2 (2012), 241–276; Benson Osadolor, “Evolution of Policy on Security and Defence in ECOWAS, 1978– 2008,” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 20 (January 2011), 87– 103. 15. On the overview of objectives and goals of the ECOWAS with analyses, see The ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF), Regulations MSC/REG.1/01/08, 24; also Akeem Akinwale, “ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peacebuilding,” Journal of Third World Studies 30, no. 1 (Spring 2013), 241–245. 16. See ECOWAS: Department of Political Affairs, ECOWAS Data Bank, 2013. The ECOWAS Commission enjoined by Article 54 of the ECPF is to evaluate and publicize the contribution of successful elections to democratic growth in West African countries. 17. Diana Amneus, “Responsibility to Protect: Emerging Rules on Humanitarian Intervention?” Global Security 26, no. 2 (2012), 241–276. 18. ECPF, op. cit. Also Eileen Babbit, “Preventive Diplomacy by Intergovernmental Organizations: Learning from Practice,” International Negotiation 17, no. 3 (2012), 349–357. 19. For assessment, see Michael Okom, “Economic Integration in ECOWAS: 40 Years After,” European Scientific Journal 12, no. 19 (July 1, 2016), 75–81. 20. Ernest Amoabeng Ortsin, “Emerging ECOWAS of People: An Overview of the Roles of Non-state Actors Participation in West African Regional and International Processes,” Paper Presented at 2nd Annual Conference of Regional Organizations in Africa, Abuja, July 7–8, 2011; also see Ben Asante, “Moving Toward an ECOWAS of People,” New Africa Magazine, no. 507, July 2011, 55–59. 21. For closely related analysis of trade regimes in Africa, see Landry Signe and David Rubenstein, Innovating Development Strategies in Africa: The Role of International, Regional and National Actors (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 22. See Adebusuji Adeniran, Migration and Regional Integration in West Africa: A Borderless ECOWAS (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014); S. K. B. Asante, “The Travails of Integration,” in A. Adebajo and I. Rashid, eds., West Africa’s Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region (London: Lynn Rienner, 2004), 54. 23. The ECOWAS Commission was transformed from a Secretariat to Commission in 2002, thereby adopting the European Commission model. The focus at the time was largely on the opportunities for enlarged trade and commerce among member states. Quite a few analysts currently seem to suggest that

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24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29. 30.

31.

32.

33.

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the recently launched Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA) that was signed by 44 African countries in Kigali on March 21, 2018 is likely to face challenges and obstacles from regional organizations such as the ECOWAS among others in the Southern African region. On this, see Landry Signe, “Africa’s Big New Free Trade Agreement, Explained,” Washington Post, March 29, 2018. Threats to human security come in different forms. See Wilhemina Quaye, et al., “Climate Change and Food Security: The Role of Biotechnology,” African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development 12, no. 5 (August 2012), 6354–6364. Along this line, agricultural development is aimed to stabilize and advance the quality of life in rural societies. See Lassana Cissokho, et al., “Why Is Agricultural Trade Within ECOWAS so High?” Journal of African Economics 22, no. 1 (2013), 22–51. Moses Kwameh Aglina, et al., “Policy Framework on Energy Access and Key Development Indicators: ECOWAS Interventions and the Case of Ghana,” Energy Policy 97 (October 2016), 332–342. The Observation and Monitoring Center is equipped with a Situation Room and managed by appropriately trained personnel. The entire facility is customarily headed by a Military Officer of higher rank. On this, see ECOWAS, “Report of the ECOWAS International Conference on Two Decades of Peace in West Africa: Achievements, Failures, and Lessons,” Monrovia, Liberia, March 22–26, 2010. The Report points to the obligation of Member States to strengthen the ECOWAS Mechanism on Good Governance and to ensure the enforcement of the Supplementary Protocol on Democracy in ways that enhance democratic culture in the region. See Dominik Zaum, Legitimating International Organizations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Rodrigo Tavores, Regional Security and the Capacity of International Organizations (New York, NY: Routledge, 2010). Lolowou Hetcheli and Kokou Folly, Integration and Prevention of Conflict in the West African Area: ECOWAS and the Social Political Crisis in Togo (Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Serie—Studia Europaea, September 2012). On a narrative of the issues, see Samuel Osagie, et al., “Analysis of Ecowas Institutional Framework for Conflict Management,” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 86 (November 2017), 143–153. Abdulqawi Yusufu and Fatsah Ouguergouz, African Union: Legal and Institutional Framework. A Manual on Pan African Organization (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2012). Structural obstacles and opportunities in the path of regional integration in West Africa have been identified and carefully studied from several economic, social and security perspectives. Quite a few of the works focus on specific

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34.

35.

36.

37.

38. 39. 40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

economic factors of development such as trade and access to energy, see Pressley Wesseh and Boqiang Lin, “Output and Substitution Elasticity of Energy and Implication for Renewable Energy Expansion in the ECOWAS Region,” Energy Policy 89 (February 2016), 125–137. Challenges to security are adumbrated. See Peter Arthur, “ECOWAS and Regional Peacekeeping Integration in West Africa: Lessons for the Future,” Africa Today 57, no. 2 (2010), 2–27. Researchers are optimistic about the future of regional integration in Africa, see Emmanuel Fanta, Tim Shaw, and Venema Tang, Comparative Regionalism for Development in the 21st Century: Insights from the South (Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2013). The policy statements on structural instabilities as presented by the ECOWAS official were reprised by sections of the international media, see British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Africa News: Transcript, March 2, 2012. Eileen Sirleaf, “Africa: Bad Governance Causes Civil Conflict,” PeaceWomen: Women International League for Peace and Freedom, Tuesday, March 23, 2010. Report of the Needs Assessment Workshop for the Establishment of the ECOWAS Mediation Facilitation Division (Lagos, Federal Republic of Nigeria, October 30–November 1, 2012. See ECOWAS Commission, ECOWAS Mediation Guidelines (Abuja, Nigeria: ECOWAS Commission, February 2018). Ibid., Foreword, p. 4. Paul Nantulya, African Union’s Panel of the Wise and Conflict Prevention (Washington, DC: African Center for Strategic Studies, June 2016). The scope and scale of policy change is analyzed, see Ulf Engel, ed., Africa’s New Peace and Security Architecture: Promoting Norms, Institutionalizing Solutions (Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2010). ECOWAS, Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping, and Security, Abuja, 1999. For comparisons with the African Union’s Panel of the Wise, see Joao Gomes Porto and Kapinga Yvette Ngandu, “African Union Preventive Diplomacy Mediation and the Panel of the Wise: Review and Reflection on the Panel’s First Six Years,” African Security 7, no. 3 (July 2014), 181–206. See “ECOWAS Calls Meeting to Reposition Council of the Wise,” West Africa Wire Report, May 26, 2016. Preceding this; see “Third Retreat of the Pan African Network of the Wise,” M2 Press Wire, November 13, 2015. See Tanja Borzel, V. van Hullen, and Vera van Hullen, Governance and Limited Statehood: Governance Transfer by Regional Organizations —Patching Together a Global Script (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). The Council writes reports on the performance of political parties, see Ulf Engel and Joao Gomes Porto, “Imagining, Implementing and Integrating

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46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

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the African Peace and Security Architecture: African Union’s Challenge,” African Security 7, no. 3 (July 2014), 135–146. For general constraints on mediation in African conflict theaters, see Nina Wilen, Justifying Intervention in Africa: (De)Stabilizing Sovereignty in Liberia, Burundi and the Congo (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). The roles and expectations of ECOWAS third-party interveners (Council of the Wise) are not very different from those of the African Union. The AU’s new security architecture includes the Peace and Security Council; African Standby Force; Continental Early Warning System; and the Panel of the Wise. Many conflict analysts are convinced that the tools are necessary and well-thought-out, but operationally they are patchy. On evaluation of tools, see Paul D. Williams, “Reflections on the Evolving African Peace and Security Architecture,” African Security Review 7, no. 3 (July 2014), 147– 162. In addition to expectations about economic benefits, the plan also is informed by the need to ensure that “hundreds of thousands in West Africa …considered stateless …[are not limited in]their enjoyment of the full range of human rights…” See the Banjul Plan of Action of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the Eradication of Statelessness—2017–2024, Banjul, May 9, 2017. The Banjul plan makes West Africa the first region in the world to seek eradication of statelessness. And in actual fact, roughly one million people are considered stateless in West Africa. Blaise Compaore is not regarded favorably as a leader by many who allege and implicate him in the assassination of Burkinabe’s much-beloved former military leader, Thomas Sankara. But others have treated him more kindly; they explore and credit his raw talent and personal acumen in regard to consensus building and networking, see Amy Niang, “Blaise Compaore in the Resolution of Ivorian Conflict: From Belligerent to Mediator-in-Chief,” Africa Peacebuilding Network, APN Working Paper no. 6, March 2016. Anthoni van Nieuwkerk, “Regional Roots of African Peace and Security Architecture: Exploring Center-Periphery Relations,” South African Journal of International Affairs 18, no. 2 (August 2011), 169–189. Many new works on preventive action tend to explore the priorities, differences, and similarities between Tracks I and II constituencies. The overall aim has been to strengthen the mechanisms of diplomacy and enlarge the benefits of third-party interventions in conflicts. See Peter Jones, Two Track Diplomacy in Theory and Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015). Mashud Salawu and Solomon Akinboye, “Two Track Diplomacy and Early Warning: An Overview of Governance Style in West Africa,” International Journal of Scientific Research and Innovative Technology 1, no. 4 (November 2014), 1–11.

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52. Esra Cuhadar and Bruce W. Dayton, “Oslo and Its Aftermath: Lessons Learned from Track Two Diplomacy,” Negotiation Journal (April 2012), 156. 53. Esra Cuhadar, “Assessing Transfer from Track Two Diplomacy: The Cases of Water and Jerusalem,” Journal of Peace Research 46, no. 5 (2009), 641. 54. Leymah Gbowee and Carol Mithers, Mighty Be Our Power: How Sisterhood, Prayer and Sex Changed a Nation at War: A Memoir (New York, NY: The Beast, 2011). 55. Mano River Union is an intergovernmental organization consisting of four countries situated in West Africa and members include Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. It derives its name from the Mano River that rises from the highlands of Guinea and flows along the borders of Liberia and Sierra Leone. The Union was initially established between Liberia and Sierra Leone (October 3, 1971); and later (October 25, 1980) incorporated the Republic of Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. Women’s activism and contribution to politics in transitional societies in West Africa are striking and illuminating, see Zipporah Musau, “Women, Peace and Security,” Africa Renewal (December 2015), 2–7. 56. On this, see Oliafa Temitope, “Ethnic Conflict and African Women’s Capacity for Preventive Diplomacy,” Global Journal of Human Social Science: Sociology and Culture 14, no. 2 (2014), 34–47. 57. Women in Africa are receiving much more encouragement, recognition, and credit from diverse global sources these days for the role they have played and continue to play in mitigating and resolving conflict, see Deputy Foreign Minister Yerzhan Ashikbayez of Kazakhstan, Contribution to the UN Security Council Open Debate on the Role of Women in Resolution of Conflict in Africa, UN HQ, New York, March 28, 2016. 58. Elodie Convergne, “UN Mediators’ Collaboration with Scholars and Expert NGOs: Explaining the Need for Knowledge-Based Communities in Today’s Conflicts,” International Negotiation 21, no. 1 (2016), 135–147. 59. Andrea Strimling, “Stepping Out of the Tracks: Cooperation Between Official Diplomats and Private Facilitators,” International Negotiation 1, no. 1 (2006), 91–127. 60. Most analysts agree that wars are better prevented than resolved or transformed. On this and related discourses, see Peter Wallensteen, Understanding Conflict Resolution (London: Sage, 4th Edition, 2015); also Christer Johnson and Karin Aggestam, “Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution,” in Jacob Bercovitch, Jacob Kremenyuk, and I William Zartman, eds., Handbook of Conflict Resolution (New York: Sage, 2009). 61. Antonia Witt, “Studying African Interventions ‘from Below’: Exploring Practices, Knowledges and Perceptions,” South African Journal of International Affairs 25, no. 1 (2018), 1–19.

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62. Insights about the nature, patterns, and development of political relations in Niger can be gleaned from a few case studies, see Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, Rivalries of Proximity Beyond the Household in Niger, January 27, 2017, http://www.internationalafricaninstitute.org; also Abdoulaye Mohamadou, Decentralization and Local Power in Niger (London: International Institute for Environment and Development, 2009). 63. Like most African dictators, Tandja’s justification for doing violence to the rule of law had been that he needed more time to implement a range of political and economic programs initiated under his watch during the two terms; and that he had little or no confidence in any of the alternative candidates; specifically, that none of those who were vying to replace him possessed requisite knowledge to manage the country’s reform programs. 64. Executive Supplement, “Niger: Military Coup,” Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series 47, no. 2 (March 2010), 18279A– 18281C. 65. The international community was nonplussed, because the intervention was supposed to be the prototype “good coup d’état.” For critical examination and illuminating critique of the concept, see Andrew Miller, “Debunking the Myth of the ‘Good Coup d’état’ in Africa,” Africa Studies Quarterly 12, no. 2 (Winter 2011), 45–70. 66. Hannah Armstrong, “Niger Coup: Can Africa Use Military Power for Good?” The Christian Science Monitor (March 25, 2010), 7. Evidently, Armstrong was writing from the point of view of the “good coup d’état.” 67. As President-elect, Issoufou won the first round with 36% of the votes polled; his political fortunes were significantly bolstered once a couple of his rivals decided to drop out from the race and to endorse his candidacy. He won the second round with a comfortable 58% of the votes cast. 68. See Alexis Arieff and Nicolas Cook, “Guinea’s 2008 Military Coup and Relations with the United States,” Current Politics and Economics in Africa 4, no. 2 (2011), 203–264. 69. The African Union and ECOWAS have “zero tolerance” policy on army intervention in civilian politics, which has been constitutionally outlawed. Thus, Guinea was suspended from the two institutions, but with the caveat that partial diplomatic engagement would be maintained to help Guinea prepare for transition to civilian rule in a timely manner. 70. The bloody incidence involving army shooting of civilians at a rally had been christened “September Massacre,” the memory of which remains a dark spot on the character of army rule in Guinea. 71. Camilla Elowson and Justin MacDermott, “ECOWAS Capabilities in Peace and Stability: A Scoping Study of Progress and Challenges,” FOI: Swedish Defence Research Agency, Stockholm, 2010.

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72. On this, see Government of Canada, Political Stability and Security in West Africa and North Africa (Ottawa, Canada: Canadian Security Intelligence Services, 2014). 73. It is generally accepted that the ECOWAS Preventive Framework is innovative and well-built mechanism for containing and resolving structural conflicts. Emmanuel Aniag and Sarjoh Bah, ECOWAS and Conflict Prevention: Confronting the Triple Threat (New York, NY: New York University Center for International Cooperation, 2009). The “triple threats” spoken about in the immediate preceding work consist of illegal trafficking in Drugs, underground trade in small arms/light weapons, and bad governance. 74. Proponents of Regional Integration are confident that new conflict resolution mechanisms will help reduce violence significantly in fragile countries. Thomas Jaye Dauda Garuba and Stella Amadi, ECOWAS and the Dynamics of Conflict and Peacebuilding (Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA, 2011); also John Kabia, Humanitarian Intervention and Conflict Resolution in West Africa: From ECOMOG to ECOMIL (Surrey, UK: Ashgate, 2009). 75. Catherine Barnes, “Weaving the Web: Civil Society Roles in Working with Conflict and Building Peace,” in Paul van Tongeren, Malin Brent, Marte Hellena, and Juliette Verhoeven, eds., People Building Peace: Successful Stories of Civil Society (London: Lynn Rienner, 2008), 7. 76. Both the AU and ECOWAS have similar structures serving close to comparable functions. Like ECOWARN, AU’s Continental Early Warning System (CEWS) was established in accordance with Article 12 (2) of the AU Peace and Security Council Protocol (PSC) to anticipate and prevent conflict; and to provide timely information on evolving violent conflicts—based on specifically developed indicators. I think that collaboration between the two entities particularly in West Africa will eliminate redundancy and replication of efforts. 77. Raheemat Momudu, “New AU-RECs Relationship Needed for Integration,” European Center for Development Policy Management (ECDPM), July 2016. http://ecdpm.org/greatiinsights/regional-integration. 78. For a reflective and thoughtful work on the subject of peacebuilding in general, see Neil Ferguson, Post Conflict Reconstruction (Oxon, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), Introduction; Chapters 1 and 3. 79. Mashud Salawu and Solomon Akinboye, “Two Track Diplomacy and Early Warning: An Overview of Governance Style in West Africa,” International Journal of Scientific Research and Innovative Technology 1, no. 4 (November 2014), 1–11. 80. The United Nations Education for Peace and Development was launched with much enthusiasm by the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) in Dakar in 2016. The project essentially aims to promote the culture of human rights, citizenship, democracy, and regional integration as the means to instill the values of peace among young West

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Africans. On this, see UNESCO, Peace Education Project in West Africa: Reaching out to 15 ECOWAS Countries, UNESCO, Dakar, December 23, 2016. ECOWAS, Promotion of Education and the Culture of Peace Through Inter/Intra Religious Dialogue in the ECOWAS Region, Newsletter, November 24, 2016. 81. An equally perceptive work incorporates psychology and sociological considerations to elaborate the prospects of peacebuilding, see Stephanie Burns, Evanthia Lyons and Ulrike Niens, “The World Would Fall Apart If There’s No Respect at All: Children’s Understanding of Respect for Diversity in a Post Conflict Society,” Journal of Peace Education, 14, no. 1 (2017), 15–31.

CHAPTER 3

Youth Bulge and West Africa: Understanding Dispute Triggers and Conflict Prevention Augustine Ikelegbe

Youth should be a savings bank. (Sophie Swetchine)

Introduction West Africa has had a history of violent conflicts with devastating implications for human security. Though prolonged civil wars in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire have now been brought to an end, internal tensions everywhere are persistent and they continue to characterize daily life among the region’s communities. Indicators of human security risks are rapidly flashing red in Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Niger, Nigeria, and Mali. Low-key communal conflicts, inter-group tensions, and high crime rates collectively are coming together to form what is known today as the new normal configuration of abnormalities. Economic infrastructure and opportunities for employment in much of the region have been largely

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undermined by internecine emergencies; as government-run social services remain characteristically scarce, frequently disrupted or nonexistent in many places across the region. The war-victimized and economically displaced citizenry today are vulnerably dependent often upon the goodwill of foreigners represented in their countries by the customary stream of ad hoc overseas agencies and foreign aid operations. Ordinary folk live very precarious lives. For much too long society has seen mostly nothing but systematic erosion of general well being, bootlaced with episodic humanitarian disasters.1 Associated with this, and more relevant for this study, is the evolution of “Youth Bulge.”2 As elsewhere in the developing world, this phenomenon is born of global forces combined with distressing failures in the capacity of national governments to provide employment for the rising number of young, mostly educated and capable citizens. They embody alienation, deepening sense of disenfranchisement, and social anger. The upshot of course has been political instabilities, internal violence, and rises in the population of locally displaced persons (LDPs).3 Estimates by the Nigerian National Commission for Refugees say that no less than 1.6 million citizens were internally displaced in 2015 alone, due in part to violent internal upheavals, and many remain to date in refugee camps scattered over the country.4 Interestingly, roughly 7500 more refugees in the country are foreigners5 fleeing catastrophes in the contiguous countries. Existing side-by-side with this are the networks of migrant youth fighters and mercenaries—the legacies of several years of war in the region. They are crisscrossing smaller communities bordering Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire and looking to be recruited for incendiary tasks by gunrunners and big drug bosses from South American countries. It is speculated that young migrants and hired fighters in the politically inflammable Niger Delta of Nigeria also cross national borders into the Cameroons, Central Africa, and Equatorial Guinea in search of work in the underground trade in contrabands. An assortment of illegal, illicit, and criminal interactions is associated with these developments. According to Aning and Mclntyre, there is a large and “experienced war economy labor force resulting from decades of conflict”6 in the region. Cross border underground trade in stolen natural resources (diamond, oil, and timber) is thriving, as well as the proliferation of illegal trade in small arms and ammunition. Roughly, 8–10 million weapons were circulating in West Africa as of 2016. The implication of all this for human

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security and socioeconomic development seem self-evident.7 In addition to exacerbating structural causes of conflict, conditions of domestic conflict are accelerated by an enlarged pool of young citizens rendered idle and marginalized because of the lack of jobs. Economically dislocated youths are available for recruitment into criminality.8 Nigeria’s national task force on Combating Illegal Importation of Goods, Arms, Ammunitions and Light Weapons (NATFORCE) is attempting but with little effect to deal with the contagion (the myriad after-effects or after-shocks) of violence and human insecurity caused largely by the history of seemingly intractable regional wars.9 For similar security reasons, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is broadening its policy spectrum, sharpening its conflict prevention mechanisms and recruiting additional-specialized personnel to record and report all conditions likely to explode conflict.10 The organization’s newer security policies are reiterating, retelling, and emphasizing the fact that bad governance, poverty and the specter of underground trade in contraband are the main triggers, purveyors, and dangerous drivers of regional conflict. It is recognized that the future health of society in the region can be secured only through forceful preemptive interventions to eliminate those structural conditions that are dislodging and channeling youths into violence; principal among them are unemployment, negligent-bad government, and the growth of underground trade in contraband. The global trade in illegal arms is worth more than $1billion dollars annually, which bestows incredible power upon drug lords.11 It deepens the social and political menace inherent in global organized criminal networks. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime valued the annual global arms trade at about $170–$320 million for the year 2010. The Council on Foreign Relations (Washington, DC) attaches a much higher value to the illegal trade, placing it at $1billion per annum since 2014.12 ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF) recognizes the nature of the problem as it goes on to recommend preliminary steps to mitigating a few of the sociopolitical consequences as stated below: Member States shall promote, with the cooperation of civil society organizations and the full participation of the youth, campaigns around ‘Youth and Violence’ with special focus on irregular migration and dissuading the youth from creating or joining non-state armed groups. (ECPF: Article 86-h)

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The Problem This work focuses, analyzes, and explains the negative relationship between youth bulge and economic development. A cursory glance at the large and growing segments of young people in the West African region exposes the links among negligent official policies, youth alienation, and sharp rises in youth-related violence. The central arguments in the thesis are as follows: Young persons are among the major casualties of conflicts in the region; they are denied the opportunity to discharge those constructive duties and responsibilities customarily ascribed to them as younger stakeholders, given prevalent socioeconomic and political instabilities. Quite a number of them serve instead in the burgeoning underground enterprises as newly recruited criminals; many are unwilling foot soldiers in communal conflicts, breakers of social norms, and perpetrators of atrocious violence.13 Drawing examples largely from Sierra Leone and Nigeria, the study identifies and explains the forces of agency. More so, the disenfranchised youth, as a distinct group in itself, is self-consciously mobilizing to strengthen its ranks and to ensure the survival of its members. In other words, the younger population naturally is trying to expand and to consolidate the bases of its livelihood. Oppositely, the study also tries to explain how the youths might be induced and mobilized for positive purposes, to cooperate more in official efforts to foster regional peace. It references the dynamics of youth-oriented violence in the Niger Delta and reviews current efforts by the Nigerian government together with foreign governments and their institutions to manage youth restiveness and the resort to militancy by investing in socioeconomic projects. Analysts say that the Niger Delta turmoil represents the typical resourceinduced conflict . The study interrogates this as well as the role of nonstate actors from the perspective of the scope and limits of their ability to initiate and transport some stability into the conflictual Delta space. “Youth Bulge”14 is treated in this study as the outward manifestation of failures in public policy to manage and tap those natural resources that are known to be inherent among young people. It proceeds from the understanding that youths are not congenitally predisposed to violence; and that socioeconomic troubles associated with youth bulge must be analyzed in their proper cultural, local, and national contexts. In addition, the study raises and seeks answers to several interrelated questions relevant to

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understanding the interconnections of youth bulge and society as follows: Are the main causes of “youth bulge” universal? Are youths in all settings strongly or weakly inclined to participate in activities revolving around conflict prevention? What are the conditions and processes (social, cultural, and political) most likely to inform, determine, or dictate how youths respond to different conflict situations and stimuli? What are the motivations, methods, and strategies adopted by youths to define their social spaces and forge engagements toward enhancement of their livelihoods and overall survival? Can restive youths be trained for legitimate leadership roles in their communities? What kinds of programs can serve most effectively to mobilize and impart professional skills to displaced adolescents? What lessons can be drawn from experiences of youth bulge from, say Asia? Do the experiences of youth bulge in Latin America apply to the Africa constellation? Without pretending to have full answers to all the questions, I believe that presenting and posing them can sensitize thought on the vast and diverse problems commonly associated with youth bulge in West Africa. The problem and a number of the questions posed in the preceding introductory section are taken up and elaborated in subsequent sections of the essay. As well, the essence of ‘Youth Bulge’ together with the contradictions in Africa’s demographical structure is interrogated. Although Africa’s population is among the youngest in the world, the potential cumulative advantages of this human quality are yet to be harvested, given bad government, and the myriad devastating consequences of persistent conflict (Section I). The youths are at once priceless inter-generational capital as they are at the same time among the principal victims of war; a disproportionately large percent of young people are killed during violent engagements. This reality is stark. Unsurprising, an increasing number of non-state actors are positively motivated to look into this problem. Their investment to develop diverse pro-youth programs in education, small-scale business, and basic skill development is meant simultaneously to mitigate violence, secure the future by protecting the youths, and ensure human security and sustainable development (Section II). This idea or sentiment about the material and moral responsibility to protect and advance the youths is reiterated in ECOWAS’ pro-youth employment programs and policies on self-reliance (Section III) The connections among negligent public policies and youth bulge are brought forward and treated to underscore the imperative of order (Section IV).

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I. Structure, Character, and Essence of Youth Bulge: A Conceptual Note Needless to say, all is not well for Africa and its people: Roughly 53 African countries suffer from food insecurity, there is pervasive deficit in socioeconomic well-being, health care is in shambles, and overall development is at best slow. Citizens in the ECOWAS are among the poorest in the world largely because they are unemployed.15 About 25% of the youths of working age are not in the labor force, 10% are in formal employment while the rest are engaged in low-paying jobs that are also very insecure. Summing up all this in relation to Nigeria, an editorial opinion in one of the country’s national daily newspapers grieved that the Nigerian youths belong to a “new generation of unemployed, inexperienced and ill prepared people.”16 Hard social conditions tend to incline young people toward desperate actions that frequently fall outside accepted norms of their societies.17 Existential problems have forced many youths into criminal gangs as recruits. Although not all displaced youths are comfortable in the enterprise of violence that sometimes targets civilians, it is shown that many among the young beginners find it exhilarating to engage in violent activities.18 They have in some circumstances come to see and to reject institutions of governance as illegitimate structures that are also alien to their existence. In the contemporary times of global uncertainties and insecurity19 wherein the Internet is making recruitment into the ideology of terrorism easy if not trendy, it is no wonder that domestic tension points and internal violence have been on the rise in Africa. Large populations of the youth in warring zones have been transformed into combatants, and most of them are being recruited into the culture of organized violence through conscription, manipulation, and indoctrination by criminal organizations operating at multiple levels, among Africa’s marginalized communities. In fact, adolescents have been a major component of African rebel and militia organizations. The rebel and militia movements in Uganda, Liberia, Mozambique, Angola, and Sierra Leone had large adolescent or even children participants. In Sierra Leone, it is estimated that nearly half of all combatants in the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and significant numbers of the militia and the irregular units in the army were under18 years old. They were child soldiers.20 Youth involvements in violent conflicts and the horrendous costs of their preoccupation with criminal entrepreneurship constitute the emerging “crisis of youth.”21 While it is true that many children and young people were

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abducted and coerced into professional gangs or insurgency during the wars, as already said, many others did join voluntarily22 because membership in the rebellion offered them temporary escape from gross alienation and social neglect.23 Youth Bulge: Variances of Definition and Behavior The properties that go into contemporary definitions of the youth differ from one cultural setting to another. Role perception, social recruitment, and peer pressure have been used to explicate and further illuminate the social category. The United Nations defines youth by biological age to include those between 15 and 24 years of age. According to the United Nations Education and Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), youth is “best understood as a period of transition from dependence of childhood to adulthood awareness of our interdependence as members of community.”24 But definitions of the African youth are quite elastic and frequently have little or nothing to do with biological age. Indeed, the African youth is located within a social hierarchy that is sometimes defined by levels and access to material well-being and by marital status.25 More clearly, Insa Nolte identifies youth as those who do not (yet) have the material means and the recognition to establish themselves as providers for others. The cutoff age for the classified youth in certain Kenyan rural communities is 35.26 Competing definitions should present enormous challenges to those involved in designing inclusive programs for rehabilitation and integration of youths, particularly in societies making the difficult transitions from war to peace.27 Beyond differences in defining and conceptualizing the ascribed role and functions of the youth in society, population structure is important. It has been used to speculate about the prospects of stability in the given community. Countless youth-related features of the population are available also for diverse and insightful analyses and for economic development planning. They tell interesting stories: Africa is demographically the youngest continent in the world, with about 50% of its population under the age of 18 years. In fact, over half of the estimated 500 million people in subSaharan Africa are under 15 years of age, while only 5% is over 60 years of age. According to UNICEF Report,28 the percentage of national population aged less than 18 years in different West African countries is as follows: Liberia and Sierra Leone (50%); Ghana and Senegal (51%); Nigeria and Togo (52%); Burkina Faso and Mali (54%) and Niger (55%). About

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51.6% of Nigeria’s 190.9 million people were estimated to be less than 25 years old in 2006.29 Of the huge numbers of children and youths in Nigeria, about 10 million children are reported to be outside the conventional school system.30 Also striking, Africa’s population growth rate of 3% is one of the highest in the world. A relatively recent report of the UNICEF31 addresses and reiterates these findings. It goes on to speak to the plight of uprooted and displaced children.32 Population dynamics and composition no doubt should provide considerable development opportunities for the African continent, but for the purposes of our study the social and economic dividend of a young population can be realized only if governments are able to simultaneously stimulate growth in sectors of the economy such as agriculture, manufacturing, and services in ways to expand employment and absorb youth labor. But youth labor is abundant and currently grossly underemployed or unemployed, causing the youth bulge. And here lies the problem. The understanding in mainstream conflict studies is that transitional countries with large population of young people are most likely to be less stable and more susceptible to armed conflicts. Empirical research indicates that over 80% of civil conflicts between 1970 and 1999 in Africa were in countries where about 60% of the population was under the age of 30. It is also suggested that in the 67 countries possessing the said population structure worldwide, 60 had experienced social unrests and violence. Henrico Ural’s research findings on the subject cover several countries from 1950 to 2000. He says that youth bulges33 tend to increase the risk of internal-domestic armed conflict; that the effects of youth bulge are profoundly magnified under conditions of economic stagnation or national economic decline, and that youth discontent is accentuated by bad governance.34 Conceptually and in practical terms, the youth is well endowed and capable of contributing to the growth and development of the countries in which she/he resides. In traditional African societies, youths were the physically and emotionally healthiest segment of society, and they performed critical roles in the military and in the economy. They worked in various social services to advance and expand the common good. It was the youths during the nationalist struggle in Africa who emerged as activists and performed front line, precursor roles in the liberation struggle. In the first few years of independence, the youths featured most prominently in positive political and economic roles, and as activists, they populated and added life to existing progressive protests and social movements for political change.

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Quite a few studies nevertheless tend to present the youth in Africa as largely unruly population given to delinquent, deviant, and criminal behavior. But main ideas about youths undoubtedly are socially constructed. On the one hand, youths are seen as rebellious groups to be derided and ostracized, and on the other hand, they are presented as positively potent group of young people to be celebrated for their inherent heroism and patriotism. In my view, youths are not a monolithic group, but diverse in composition and most of them possess capacities that incline and inspire them to pursue different political and socio-cultural interests and goals. Youths in many transitional societies tend to bear the fullest brunt of the consequences of exclusion; as many of them lack employment and are shut out from access to basic social services such as health care, housing, and education.35 Marc Sommers observes that although youths are a demographic majority, in Africa they nevertheless are an outcast minority. Conceptually speaking the youths are angered by official neglect and belong really to the socially constructed “silent emergency”36 waiting to explode if pressured sufficiently by the suffocating stranglehold of government. Relations among youth groups most times in many contemporary West African countries are defined by internal rivalry and factionalism, and the culture of violence is often reproduced when circumstances demand face-to-face meetings between youth groups and the holders of state power.37 The youths versus the powerful custodians of state institutions have one thing in common—a history of mutual distrust.38 Radicalized youths more or less believe in the use of combative behavior to express, vent, and communicate their frustration and anger against government and society in general.39 About Youth Marginality, Politics, and Violence The impacts of social alienation and frustrated hopes were evident among Sierra Leonean youths throughout the 11-year war that ended in 2002, during which period even the educated youths were found leading violent protests against rapacious government leaders and public officials. The political system had failed to provide the appropriate political, cultural, and social environment for citizens’ social advancement. A number of soldiers serving in the Sierra Leone Army (SLA) petitioned the government in vain over shrinking military rations and the lack of salaries. And many of them joined militia groups operating in the rural areas of the country,

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while quite a few entered neighboring Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire to serve as mercenaries. Attempts by the state to subdue and intimidate the youths by means of coercive force ineluctably, and as had been in most conditions, backfired because repression builds resentment and deepens mass alienation. It thickens distrust for authority and creates the sense of fear among ordinary citizens, even as intra-group relations become increasingly tense and weaponized. State violence and repression generated and strengthened the insurgents in Sierra Leone. And particularly during the government of Siaka Stevens, special pro-government security units were built and regularly unleashed with fury against official opposition, workers, students, and youth groups. Similarly, as the experience in Nigeria’s Niger Delta abundantly confirms, repression and subjugation of a people logically produces organized rage with multiple and moribund social problems. Police high handedness often and commonly escalates rather than defuses rebelliousness among youth groups already sworn to the cult of insurgency and to the use of arms as the alternative tool of civil communication. Most times government’s militarized approach to enforcing law and order is rejected with counter-posed force by youths who see government as the enemy. The experience of social trauma sometimes finds expression in popular culture, in music and in theatrical displays. The popular youth musician of the Niger Delta, Timaya put it well in the local vernacular, Pidgin English: They don kill dem mama, kill dem papa. They enter our village, rape our sisters, and kill our brothers. I don die o. Wetin we go do e!!” ( Translation: They kill our mothers, kill our fathers. They wipe out our village, rape our sisters, kill our brothers. When audacity wipes out one’s parents, sister, brother and the family, entire material means of subsistence are also destroyed; then we are better dead than alive!!) This is the texture of a cry, lamentation or poetic protest coming from a people suffering the deepest vulnerabilities; and worse of all, lacking any iota of moral or legal recourse.

Most scholarly works40 have confirmed the interrelationships among abusive-aggressive policing, community outrage, and escalations of youth violence.41 In addition, the roots of social violence are traced to social conditions that are characteristically stifling of human creativity.42 Alienation and violence are found among those displaced populations also suffering erosion of access to basic living. Deep grievances43 and social discontent

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commonly tend to generate dense social networks and mobilization structures that become ignitable during popular struggle and anti-government encounters.44 Repression and official violent interventions against youth protests usually tend to stimulate oppositional sociopolitical forces in the form of violent youth resistance. From the Niger Delta experience,45 it is clear that major militias and insurgents consist of disgruntled youths operating on broad politicized platforms linked to radicalized civil society rooted in campaigns for civil rights and environmental activism. The use of brutal, excessive force by the Nigerian security officials has had the effect of transforming otherwise constructive, benign youth movements into countervailing militarized structures bent on fighting the government on all fronts for improved living standards.46 Agitation now comprises demands for the just society.47

II. Violent Conflict: The Youth as Victim, Agent, and Stakeholder Emergent views in youth bulge literature see youth participants in conflicts in terms of both agency and victim.48 As elsewhere in transitional societies, over 90% of war casualties are civilians and most are youths. In truth, youths are vulnerable and easy to manipulate and mobilize by war entrepreneurs during armed combats.49 In conflict as well as in the periods of relative peace, youths are victims of coercive control by rebel leaders; they are vastly deployed to commit atrocious violence, and they could find themselves exploited as sex objects at the front lines of war.50 In peace times, the elite at communal and public realms have tended to harness youth agency for diverse self-interested purposes sometimes to incite political unrest.51 And young people suffer disproportionate adversities brought about by economic declines, failed educational systems and during dictatorship. Beyond victimhood, an important factor that is often downplayed or ignored in the analysis of youth roles in violent conflicts is youth role perception: In reality, youths possess organic ideological proclivities that can dictate the timing, style, and scale of their involvement in conflict. Youth role perception may determine whether or not youths as self-conscious groups are likely to engage in conflict at all. Youths are inevitably the carriers of specific social norms together with a sense of moral responsibility, and most of them have been known to act independently as distinct, self-defined voluntary actors. In many instances, youth groups have assumed vanguard roles independently in the struggles against oppression, exclusion, and injustice.

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Several researches on the subject confirm that youth groups respond to conflict situations differently and depending on how and when their livelihoods52 are severely threatened. Sometimes their actions are significantly influenced by peer pressure. Surely then, the motivation for youth participation in conflict are diverse and may include the conscious and determined choice by the individual youth to attempt to escape material poverty and shield against the overarching threats of human and environmental insecurity by joining criminal gangs. She/he might also choose to withdraw into the lonely solitude of self ,53 emotionally and temporarily blocking out society through the use of addictive substances such as alcohol and illegal drugs.54 In addition, the phenomenon of living dangerously or preference for a lifestyle defined by the possession of the gun might become overly attractive among youths who may come to see martial arms or the weapon of destruction as constituting the ultimate insignia of manhood, underlining also the most outward expression of individual empowerment. By way of summarizing utility and motivations, it is said that arms and weapons training bring food, money, and respect among militarized cultures. To that extent also, participation in conflict or violence may be driven or buoyed on by the temptation for revenge or mental drive for power. In these circumstances, the youth is not always a victim; she/he is both actor and perpetrator of violence. The youth without doubt can exercise agency in ways that are at once productive, rewarding and constructive; or she/he may prefer to lend support to organized actions aimed at undermining law and order in society.55 Pro-Youth Programs in West Africa Daylight is surely breaking in much of the postwar areas of the region and citizens these days are understandably more inclined to see and speak of human resilience than dwell on dark experiences of a civil war that ended quite a while ago. In Sierra Leone, youth empowerment via employmentpromotion strategies is a priority area of national public policy. New strategies are introduced and are supported by the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) in collaboration with the government.56 Current positive momentum is however new and refreshing, because historically many of the country’s youth policies that were geared toward balanced development had been largely ineffective. Indeed, the persistence of improper and ineffective implementation caused many observers to question or doubt

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that the successive governments were really interested in materializing mass socioeconomic advancement and youth empowerment.57 For example, although the Government of Sierra Leone consistently articulated several policies since 2003 to accommodate and advance the interest of youth groups—to mobilize citizens into a culture of dialogue and promote responsible citizenship—not much was done until recently in terms of actual implementation. In addition, substantive youth-based projects for employment, income generation, and poverty eradication remained hanging. Youth programs in post-war Sierra Leone presently are designed in part to expand youth access to formal education through the rebuilding and expansion of educational infrastructures. And efforts seem genuine regarding the promotion of adult education and diverse literacy programs. All stakeholders now agree that education is a fundamental right, and that instruction in schools including enrollment and retention rates have to be qualitatively enhanced in ways that discourage and reduce school dropout rates.58 In addition, the rehabilitation of ex-combatants via Demobilization–Disarmament–Reintegration (DDR) is progressing but slowly. And many international organizations are working on multiple peacebuilding projects to boost the postwar economy; also quite a number of communities and independent citizens are receiving substantial financial, professional training, and non-material inputs to expand employment. Innovative skills-building for the youths are transiting from the experimental into operational stages, and these are designed to ensure that adolescents that had suffered war-related delays of personal growth now can reenter society as independent entrepreneurs, artisans, or farmers. On the whole, a strong terse message, based on the truth, seems to be pervasive: that at the center of youth grievances, frustrations, and rebelliousness is the structural weakness which consists in failures of government policies leading to youth violence. And as long as weaknesses persist, the culture of youth conflict and restiveness will continue to deepen human insecurity.59 Okwri Rabwoni captures the connections between social neglect and criminality; so to speak, the relationship between socioeconomic constrains and conflicts in transitional societies, thus: “if there are good reasons for young people to volunteer to fight, they will do so, and no number of special laws [against youth rebelliousness] can prevent them from taking up arms.”60 The connections have long been accepted in Nigeria as exemplified in the country’s Niger Delta, where the chief agents or purveyors of pro-peace and development programs have been the Nigerian government working

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with international organizations, foreign development agencies, and international civil society organizations.61 The overarching objective has been to prevent conflicts through implantation of structures to stimulate socioeconomic growth and development.62 Noticeably, civil society has blossomed in the Niger Delta along with a significant growth in the networks of specialized organizations working with the government to advance peacebuilding.63 Three areas are identified for concrete and rapid intervention: (I) development of technical and vocational skills for youth groups to ensure they acquire professional training, (II) enlargement of financial schemes such as micro-credit provides access to small loans to build and sustain young entrepreneurs; and (III) educational programs comprise innovative curriculum and pedagogy, tailored specifically to satisfy the needs of waraffected children and adolescents.64 Joint government and private sector programs are gaining traction. The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) sponsors peace education with emphasis on youth empowerment. An important component of the program is the facilitation of face-to-face engagements between youth groups and public officials. And the aim is to minimize misunderstandings that have frequently led to strained state-society relations. Business credit programs target potential youth entrepreneurs to reduce the rate of their dependency on public sector jobs. Civil service jobs in truth are fast shrinking or are non-existent these days. Particularly worthy of note are those collaborative programs between the NDDC’s Technical Aid Corps (NTAP) and youth groups in the Niger Delta. They focus on poverty reduction and improvements in food security. Roughly, 2000 youths were recruited into the program in 2010 alone, and they received short-term training in agricultural economics, business management, and soil conservation. And since that time successive recruits have been regularly posted every year to NTAP for professional training in maritime-related occupations and highseas operations. Training for professional jobs in road construction, building, and maintenance of infrastructures of transportation are also available in the program for those with basic education in science and technology. The Bayelsa State government’s Capacity Acquisition Program (CAP) and Mandatory Acquisition Program (MAP) are being upgraded to promote an assortment of vocational training and professional skills enhancement in machine and tools maintenance. All capacity building programs aspire to expand youth employment because economic hardship due to unemployment is at the root of youth restiveness, militancy, and crime.

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For similar purposes, the Niger Delta Job Creation Program and Conflict Prevention Initiative were jointly launched (June 2008) by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Delta State Government. The training aims to produce high-level man power in technology and public administration. The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has been running successful training programs for youth development since 2008 (Table 3.1). It is plain from the above that the initiators and facilitators of existing programs are conscious of the urgent need to nurture community stability through targeted socioeconomic programs. Such initiatives should Table 3.1 Delta

Non state actors and program of preventive diplomacy in the Niger

S/N

Conflict intervention activity areas

International organizations involved

Local CSO/NGO

Programs

1

Economic empowerment and poverty alleviation

EU; UN Development Fund for Women UNIFEM; United Nations Development Fund (UNDEV); Oxfam-Novib

Micro credit

2

Technical, vocational, skills development and capacity building

3

Humanitarian and relief assistance

UNIFEM; United Nations Office for Project Services Offices (UNOPS); United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITR) Global Fund

Community Partnership for Development (CPD); Community Development Partners (CODEP); Kebetkache; Niger Delta Professionals for Development (NIPRODEV) CDP; CODEP; NIPRODEV

CODEP

Relief support for displaced persons

Source: Ikelegbe and Opukri (2017)

Skills acquisition centers

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ultimately nudge and support peacebuilding in communities that are also reasonably self-reliant.65

III. Youth Capacity Building in the Context of ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework As a critical human segment in society, youths constitute the living force whose collective agency should be made available for use in extending conflict prevention and peacebuilding.66 Youths also are stakeholders, with immediate and long-term interests to share in the benefits that peace consolidation offers to members of the community. ECPF67 refers directly to the necessity of mobilizing and utilizing the youth for conflict prevention purposes. Particularly, Article 85 speaks to the importance of “Youth Empowerment:” Youth Empowerment…which objective is to develop self reliant, responsible and socially accountable role players and to discourage behavior, actions and ventures that engender violence and insecurity in communities and within the region by adding value and building the capacities of young people. (Age bracket 15–35)

It seems clear from the above that much remains to be done in terms of proper and effective mobilization to optimize African youths’ contributions to the collective good of society or the public will. It raises one of the main questions that this study is attempting to address: By what means can the government in transitional societies successfully mobilize the vulnerable and marginalized demographic majority and channel its energies into the promotion of peace and security? Is the disgruntled youth amenable to mobilization and can she/he serve as constructive member of society? Can the disillusioned youth morph into an actor possessed of the strongest human commission to extend good governance and advance the objects of preventive diplomacy? ECPF has a strong and clear stand on the youths’ capacity to contribute to the growth of national economic activities economy and of peace. The youth can be mobilized as an enlarged commune or cooperative to promote good governance and to mitigate conflict. For this purpose, the regional organization encourages national governments in West Africa to develop, adopt, and implement policies to ensure social justice, inclusion, rights, and equity. More so, it enjoins “Member States, in collaboration with UN

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Regional Office for West Africa (UNOWA), to adopt and facilitate targeted interventions in the region in favor of the youth, drawing from UNOWA Report on Youth Unemployment and Insecurity and related resources (ECPF: Article 86-a,b).” Effectively, institution strengthening must also include programs to create and widen spaces for individuals and groups to engage in productive social, economic, and culture-based activities that are manifestly self-fulfilling. Resources must be made available, in accordance with the capacity of each government, to mitigate poverty, unemployment, exclusion, and marginalization. Thus, “ECOWAS and Member States shall promote investment in labor-intensive and medium to long term agricultural and infrastructure programs as a sustainable avenue for skills development and employment for young people (ECPF: Article 86-c).” Pursuant to this: Member States shall strengthen the mandate, capacity and resource base of youth ministries for the design and implementation of youth empowerment policies and for effective cooperation and coordination with other ministries of youth issues. (ECPF: Article 86-j)

ECOWAS recognizes the importance of not just establishing, but also reinforcing the institutional foundations for youth empowerment as a legitimate and practical path to regional stability. It was precisely for this purposes that state institutions and civil society organizations are critical drivers of preventive diplomacy. To expand the arsenal of legitimate instruments of conflict prevention, the ECOWAS Youth Council (EYC) and later, the ECOWAS Youth Entrepreneurs and Empowerment Program (EYEP) were established in 2014 and 2017, respectively. The expectation is that funding from governments and from foreign sources will be forthcoming to sustain young entrepreneurs in self-employment, reduce the high rate of youth unemployment and mitigate conflict in the region.68 Youth peace education, skill acquisition, and empowerment training workshops plus the development of Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SME) are key initiatives by which to achieve EYEP goals.69 Among additional objectives, the EYC will serve as the platform to defend the rights of young people, while also working to improve youth access to education at all levels and promote democratic culture. Several friendly organizations worldwide have already pledged their support for the projected programs, and subventions for the purposes have already arrived from several Member States of the ECOWAS. Fund-raising by the youths is an additional means to

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sustain those planned activities. The overarching objective is the prevention of conflict via the strengthening of public sector programs. These are expected to expand youth employment and simultaneously build youth’s confidence in government. According to many empirical studies,70 the youth in post-conflict countries, as elsewhere, want to be included and to have voice in the official formulation of policies aimed at addressing specific problems either boosting or eroding the quality of life in communities where they reside. Put another way, most youths are conscious of their fate as the marginalized and want to be taken seriously as reasonable partners in decision making. They possess the capability derived from life experiences to make a difference, to affect significant policy change, and contribute additional insights into how youth employment opportunities might be expanded through capacity building initiatives including enhancement of basic technological skills through specialized training.71 In domestic settings where the youths are excluded, and most of them tend to be frustrated and angry in such circumstances, early warning systems must be turned-up to receive and measure the temper of discontents among young people. In normal circumstances, provisions of social services and expansion of access to education and employment would moderate grievances and mitigate restiveness along with social unrests. At the base, governments and civil society have the ultimate role to expand programs in peacebuilding and enrich community life by eliminating rough youth encounters likely to induce intergroup conflict. Non-state actors can work with educational institutions and build programs to enhance youth awareness of civil and human rights as well as focus their attention on the responsibility of the individual to the community.72 At the risk of diverting attention, perhaps I can briefly mention at this point a rather drastic option for dealing with youth bulge. Against the backdrop of contemporary mass movements of people away from economically depressed countries, a number of international studies strongly suggest that migration opportunities might serve as important exit option for young people. What does this mean? Specifically, it means this;73 many communities, for example, in the Middle East and in North African (MENA) are already politically tense due to the lack of youth employment. Countries in the region will definitely benefit from the exit of their younger populations, once they can grab the opportunity and are ultimately successful in landing lucrative employment in Europe and elsewhere, in the industrialized Western World. Studies in this area confirm that such exits74 have led to sharp

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reductions in social tensions locally, generally mitigating violence and conflict in large areas of the transitional world including West Africa. More so, access to work abroad is shown to improve the material and spiritual wellbeing of immigrants. And most of them have proceeded to magnify the difference in their living conditions also by sending remittances home to their families. And migration in this instance is considered a win-win situation. Western countries as receivers of migrant labor stand to gain multiple socioeconomic benefits from higher work productivity customarily contributed by young immigrants. They are mostly resourceful, resilient, and adaptable additions to the industrialized society.75

IV. Quite Frankly! Youth Empowerment Is Preventive Necessity ECOWAS and Member States shall mainstream youth involvement in conflict mediation, resolution and peace building strategies and shall actively target the youth as facilitators and subject to sustainable DDR initiatives in post conflict strategy. (ECPF: Article-i)

Many youth groups across the West African region are politically conscious, and quite a few seem to see themselves as the deliberate target of official oppression by their governments. In my view, governments in West Africa must therefore take note of this reality (of the youth’s negative dispositions to government) and make genuine efforts to attract their confidence by encouraging youth participation in policy making as well as in management processes at the grassroots. This speaks to the constructive idea of mainstreaming youth and their involvements in the development of society and taking their concerns into serious consideration during the formulation and implementation of public policies directly impacting their livelihoods. Arrangements that effectively and successfully extend youth engagements in policy and expand youth representation in national leadership institutions—including their direct involvements in electoral processes—should build ownership and foster healthier commitment on their part to support government institutions. The African Youth Charter (Conflict and Peace: Article 17) speaks directly to this point, iterating the duty of governments on the continent to strengthening the capacity of young people and youth organizations in peacebuilding, conflict prevention, and reconciliation through dialogue and civic education.76

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The typical youth is not only politically cognizant of oppression; she/he is available to support diverse mobilization programs that have been designed to minimize socioeconomic neglect of the majority including the youths.77 To undercut the insidious proclivities of malicious merchants in society, political elites and those duly elected leaders must begin to look beyond their own narrow material interests.78 Governors are required to function as custodians of community values with a base responsibility to promote the overall well being of the citizenry. And this should definitely include a need to pay attention to the youth in society and to promote education for all. In conflict-prone places, the youth can and ought to be mobilized for conflict prevention and peacebuilding. Current efforts have focused on the demilitarization, demobilization, and rehabilitation of youth militants and child soldiers. Much more is however required. Most local governmental organizations need to act preemptively to defuse conflicts by engaging restive and militant youths by expanding and widening communications channels (between state and society) and boosting economic empowerment and employment.79 This study acknowledges that youths are collectively the embodiment of social capital, the ultimate asset, and principal resource for sustainable development. And it recognizes that the health of society is linked organically to the well being of its young citizens. Put another way, youths are fertile vessels into which society must invest in order to harvest a future that is healthy and capable of multiplying peace dividends. Social policies should therefore include rather than exclude the participation of youths in national development. It is the responsibility of West African governments to build alliances with inter-governmental, regional, and international actors toward facilitating capacity building for the younger citizens in the region. Bureaucrats in advisory capacities can deepen and accelerate the processes of inclusion80 by prioritizing the creation of spaces to facilitate constructive engagement among youth groups—on the realization that such intra-group projects are foundational to building a morally balanced future for all the citizens. Faith-based, cultural, and educational institutions can help. They can usher innovative programs to tap the creative potentials of youth groups and promote social conditions to grow youth’s confidence in government. It is consoling in the end, that many sovereign states and multilateral organizations are available and currently are acting independently and collaboratively to ease intrastate tensions and moderate intractable disputes.81 And many conflict managers are retraining and upgrading their professional

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skills to better monitor early warning systems. Importantly also, national governments are receiving foreign assistance to grow socioeconomic programs necessary to prevent the relapse of post-conflict societies into war.82 Additional economic development programs nonetheless are required to bolster economic growth and undercut those incendiary conditions known to frequently generate conflict.83 Mediation, economic reform, and capacity building are essential and fundamental forces to engineer sustainable peace through prevention diplomacy.84

Notes 1. Of course, analyses and reviews of performance are mixed, see Annika Bjorkdahl, et al., eds., Peacebuilding and Friction: Global and Local Encounters in Post Conflict Societies (New York: Routledge, 2016). 2. On definition and theoretical exploration, see Hannes Weber, “Age Structure and Political Violence: A Reassessment of the ‘Youth Bulge’ Hypothesis,” International Interactions 45, no. 1 (January 2019), 80–112. 3. See Anna Kamilkova, “Do They Actually Matter? The Impacts of NGOs on European Instruments for Democracy and Human Rights,” Perspectives 20, no. 1 (2012), 83–109. 4. Omer Yair and Dan Miodownik, “Youth Bulge and Civil War: Why a Country’s Share of Young Adults Explains Only Non-ethnic Wars,” Conflict Management and Peace Sciences 33, no. 1 (2016), 25–44. 5. On this and threats to human security caused by the combination of environmental and national policy weaknesses, see Special Commentary: “African Union Commission and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa: Memorandum of Understanding to Strengthen Research Cooperation,” Africa Press Organization: Database of Press Releases Related to West Africa (November 15, 2015); Editorial Opinion, “Violent Clashes: 1.6 million Nigerians Now Refugees,” Nigeria: Vanguard, July 10, 2010, 7. 6. Like elsewhere in the world, West Africa is seeing mass movements and displacement happening simultaneously with rising episodes of conflict in places such as Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, and the Casamance area of Senegal. See Aning Kwesi and Angela McIntyre, “From Youth Rebellion to Child Abduction: Anatomy of Recruitment in Sierra Leone,” in M. Angela, ed., Invisible Stakeholders: Children and War in Africa (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2005). 7. Richard Paul Cincotta, et al., The Security Demographic: Population and Civic Conflict After the Cold War (Washington, DC: Population Action International, 2003). 8. Amanda Hammar, et al., eds., Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradox of Crisis and Creativity (London, UK: Zed Press, 2014).

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9. This problem is pervasive in most of Africa’s post-conflict countries; see United Nations Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa (UNREC), Report of the UN Secretary-General on Illicit Proliferation and Trafficking in Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW), August 29, 2017. 10. Abiodun Joseph Oluwadare, “The Impact of the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons on West African States: An Analysis of Sierra Leone Civil War,” Journal of Studies in Social Sciences 7, no. 2 (2014), 189–209. 11. Seth Ohene-Asare, Aklavon, Moussou, and Ikelegbe, Trafficking of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW) in West Africa: Routes and Illegal Arms Caches Between Ghana, Togo, Benin and Nigeria (Washington, DC: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation, 2014). 12. Mimi Yagoub, “Special Edition: Crime, Conflict, Illegal Mining Fuels Ecuador Arms Trafficking,” Insight Crime: Investigations and Analysis of Organized Crime (May 2014); also UN General Assembly, “Criminal Groups Trafficking in Drugs and Weapons Can Destabilize Countries and Regions: Combating Them Requires Cooperation, Resources,” General Assembly Third Committee Press Release (October 2011). 13. Francis Fortune, Ismail Olawale, and Monica Stephens, “Rethinking Youth, Livelihoods and Fragility in West Africa: One Size Does Not Fit All,” World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015. 14. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan and Stefan Witthuhn, “Corruption and Political Stability: Does the Youth Bulge Matter?” European Journal of Political Economy 49 (September 2017), 47–70. 15. Tunji Akande, “Youth Unemployment in Nigeria: A Situation Analysis,” Brookings Institute, Africa in Focus, 2014. 16. Editorial Opinion, “Federal Government to Create Employment,” Vanguard Newspapers, Lagos, Nigeria, July 20, 2010. 17. Myriam Denov, Child Soldiers: Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 18. Victoria Flavia Namuggal, Childhood, Youth Identity and Violence in Formally Displaced Communities in Uganda (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), Chapters 1, 2 and 4. 19. Sarah Harper, How Population Change Will Change Our World (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016). 20. The word “soldier” ordinarily should bring forth the archetypal image of a uniformed and trained adult personnel in the armed forces of a nation or legitimate organization. These qualifications definitely do not apply when we speak of the phenomenon of “child soldier.” For analysis of the catastrophic circumstances from which we must address this, see Susan Shepler, Childhood Deployed: Remaking Child Soldiers in Sierra Leone (New York: New York University Press, 2014). 21. See Aning and McIntyre, “From Youth Rebellion to Child Abduction,” op. cit., note 6; also, Nabil Kronfol, Youth Bulge and the Changing Demography

3

22.

23.

24.

25.

26. 27.

28. 29.

30.

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in MENA Region: Challenge and Opportunity? Discussion Paper no. 8, University of Switzerland, 2011. For brief and insightful commentary that provides comparative value, see Transgang, “Transnational Gangs as Agents of Mediation: Experiences of Conflict Resolution in Street Youth Organizations in Southern Europe, North Africa and Americas,” Report, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, January 22, 2018. Stephen Smith, “Youth in Africa: Rebels Without a Cause But Not Without Effect,” SAIS Review of International Affairs 31, no. 2 (July 2011), 97– 110. 10th UNESCO Youth Forum, Paris, October 25, 2017. UN definition of Youth accepts that there are distinct stages in human psycho-social development that correspond with levels of maturity. But there is no global standard age measurement for youth, as it varies among countries and organizations. For Nigerian development policy, youth is anyone between the ages of 18– 35; the African Youth Charter, 15 and 35; the Commonwealth 15–29. Still, societies in Africa and some in the global south insist that youth is not a range of numbers; that age must be defined by competing and varying culturally stipulated processes marking the transition from child to adult. In truth, all this should pose problems for those wanting to design standardized youth programs. Insa Nolte, “Identity and Violence: The Politics of Youth in Ijebu-Remo, Nigeria,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 42, no. 1 (2004), 34. Lael Brainard and Derek H. Chollet, Too Poor for Peace? Global Poverty, Conflict and Security in the 21st Century (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 2007). UNICEF: The State of the World’s Children Report (1999). Based on UN data of January 2019, Nigeria’s 190.9 million estimated total population represents 2.6% of the world’s population. See Worldometer.info/world-population. Also, Oluwasola Omoju and Terfa Abraham, “Youth Bulge and Demographic Dividend in Nigeria,” Etude de la Population Africain 27, no. 2 (2014). Editorial Opinion, “Ten Million Nigerian Children Are Outside Nigerian School System,” Supplementary Feature, Guardian Newspapers, Lagos, March 4, 2010. For additional comments on the implications of population structures for security, see Marc Sommers, “Governance, Security and Culture: Assessing Africa’s Youth Bulge,” International Journal of Culture and Violence 5, no. 2 (2011), 292–303. UNICEF’s 2016 publication does not suggest significant changes in the structures of population in Africa; but the focus is on the crisis associated with uprooted war-affected children: Nearly 50 million children have migrated or been forcibly displaced; 28 million flee because of insecurities linked to

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34.

35.

36.

37.

38. 39.

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breakdowns in government institutions. International humanitarian organizations have been steadfast in advocacy and action on behalf of the world’s 2.2 billion children. See UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children: 2016 (New York, NY, 2016). On this, see also J. Smith, “Sub-Saharan Africa Youth Bulge: A Demographic Dividend or Disaster,” Africa Growth Initiative (2012). Omer Yair and Dan Miodownik, “Youth Bulge and Civil War: Why a Country’s Share of Young Adults Explains Only Non-ethnic Wars,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 3, no. 1 (February 2016), 25–44. Economic causality implicates marginalized youth in violence and as carriers of trouble especially during hard times. See Henrik Urdal, “The Devil in Demographies: Effect of Youth Bulges on Domestic Armed Conflict— 1950–2000,” World Bank, Working Paper no. 32, Washington, DC, 2009. Others find no grounds empirically for the claim about strong, automatic causal link from unemployment or economic hardship to violence. On debates and counter arguments, see Omer Yair, “Youth Bulge and Civil War: Why a Country’s Share of Young Adults Explains Only Non-ethnic Wars,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 33, no. 1 (2016), 25–44. As has been noted in many studies, deprivation of the masses frequently bubbles violence. For comparative understandings drawing from Asia, see Narottam Gaan, “Youth Bulge,” India Quarterly 71, no. 1 (2015), 16–36; and drawing from outside West Africa, see Elzarov Zurab, “Community Stabilization and Violence Reduction: Lessons from Darfur,” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 4, no. 1 (February 2015), Article 7. But there is more to this; repression in society contributes to the militarization of youth segments. Conflicts are deepened when youths begin to see themselves as neglected segment needing to assume distinct self-defensive roles against government officials. Crime is attractive enterprise for many alienated youths, see Ediyne Anugwom, “Something Mightier: Marginalization, Occult Imagination and the Youth Conflict in the Oil-Rich Niger,” Africa Spectrum 46, no. 3 (January 2011), 3–26. Jack Goldstone, et al., Political Demography: How Population Change Is Reshaping International Society and National Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2012). Marc Sommers, “Fearing Africa’s Young Men: The Case of Rwanda,” World Bank, Working Paper no. 14, 2006. Sarah Harper, How Population Change Will Transform Our World (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2015).

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40. Theoretical discourses that explore emergent conflict dynamics exist, see Uwomano Okpevra, “Some Theories and Concepts of Intergroup and Conflict Relations in Western Niger Delta of Nigeria,” Fudan Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences 10, no. 3 (2017), 381–394. Interestingly, assessments regarding the outcomes of government’s interventions to prevent conflict and promote peacebuilding in the Niger Delta are at best mixed; see Austin Ekeinde, “How Amnesty Efforts in the Niger Delta Triggers New Violence,” The Conversion, March 8, 2017; Iyabobola Ajibola, “Nigeria’s Amnesty Program: The Role of Empowerment in Achieving Peace and Development in Post Conflict Niger Delta,” Sage Open Access 5, no. 3 (2015), 1–11. 41. South Africa provides a good comparative value. See Janine Natalya Clark, “Youth Violence in South Africa: Case of a Restorative Justice Response,” Contemporary Justice Review 15, no. 1 (March 2012), 77–95. 42. Ediyne Anugwom, “Beyond Oil: Environmental Rights, Travel, Local Knowledge and Conflict in the Oil-Rich Niger Delta of Nigeria,” Africa Today 61, no. 2 (Winter 2014), 20–39. 43. Toyin Falola and Wanjala S. Nagong’o, eds., Contentious Politics in Africa: Identity, Conflict and Social Change (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2016), Chapters 1 and 2. 44. Iro Aghedo, “Sowing Peace, Reaping Violence: Understanding the Resurgence of Kidnapping in Post Amnesty Niger Delta of Nigeria,” Insight on Africa 7, no. 2 (2015), 137–153. 45. See Akin Iwilade, “Slipping Through the Net: Everyday Agency of Youth Militancy in Nigeria’s Niger Delta (2009–2015),” Journal of Contemporary African Studies (June 19, 2017), 1–18. 46. Osaghae Eghosa, et al., “Youth Militias, Resource Control and Self Determination Struggles in the Niger Delta Region,” Report Presented to Consortium for Development Partnership on the Dynamics of Local Conflicts in West Africa; A Module 5, 2007. 47. For theoretical reasoning on the subject, see Eve Darian-Smith, Law and Society in Global Context: Contemporary Approaches (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), Introduction; Chapters 1 and 2. 48. James Gow, Funmi Olonisakin, and Ernst Dijxhoom, “Deep History and International Security: Social Conditions and Competition, Militancy and Violence in West Africa,” Conflict, Security and Development 13, no. 2 (May 2013), 321–258. 49. Ragnhild Norda and Christian Davenport, “Fight the Youth: Youth Bulges and State Repression,” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 4 (October 2013), 926–940.

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50. On political consequences of exploitative relations, see Christian Madubuko, “Environmental Pollution: The Rise of Militarism and Terrorism in the Niger Delta of Nigeria,” International Journal of Rural Law and Policy, no. 1 (September 1, 2014), 1–11. 51. Nonetheless, empirical evidence shows that youths have been successfully mobilized for positive, constructive ends, see Alpaslan Ozerdem and Sukanya Podder, Youth in Conflict and Peace Building: Mobilizing, Reintegrating and Reconciliation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Chapter 3. 52. This speaks perhaps to economic theory of conflict in which violence is best understood or explained through economic calculus. But a useful theory or thinking on criminal behavior cannot totally dispense with non-tangible factors including self-definition; it cannot also discount psychological inadequacies, anomie and inherited traits by simply insisting on economic analysis of choice. On this, see Christopher Cramer, “Unemployment and Participation in Violence,” World Development Report 2011, November 16, 2010. 53. Clinical studies have identified the varying impacts of poverty and alienation on young people across cultures. Kevin Corcoran and Albert R. Roberts, eds., Social Workers’ Desk Reference (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). Gary L. Fisher and Nancy L. Roget, Encyclopedia of Substance Abuse and Prevention, Treatment and Recovery (Los Angeles: Sage, 2009). 54. George F. R. Ellis and Dan J. Stein, eds., Substance Use and Abuse in South Africa: Insights from Brain and Behavioral Sciences (Cape Town: UCT Press, 2012). 55. Daniel Ewon Choe, et al., “Youth Violence in South Africa: Exposure, Attitudes and Resilience in Zulu Adolescents,” Violence and Victims 22, no. 2 (2012), 166–181. 56. Yvette Efevbere, et al., eds. “Youth Do All Such Things To Survive Here: A Qualitative Study of Challenges Facing War-Affected Youth in Sierra Leone,” Journal of Peace Psychology 22, no. 3 (2016), 254–261; Tom Cargill, “Sierra Leone: A Year After Elections: Still in the Balance,” Chatham House Briefing Paper, September 24, 2008. 57. Peters Krijn, War and the Crisis of Youth in Sierra Leone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). 58. On this, see Andrew Wilson and Michi Ebata, eds., Youth and Violent Conflict: Society and Development in Crisis? A Strategic Review with Special Focus on West Africa (New York: UNDP, Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, 2005), Chapter 4. 59. On the general thesis, see Editorial Supplement, “Does A Growing Youth Population Fuel Political Unrest,” The Guardian, March 19, 2014; “The Youth Bulge Theory: Assessing Its Implication for South Africa,” TransConflict, December 2, 2014. 60. Okwir Rabwoni, “Reflections of Youth and Militarism in Contemporary Africa,” in A. De Waal and N. Argenti, eds., Young Africa: Realizing the

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64. 65.

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68. 69.

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Right of Children and the Youth (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2002), 56. On this, see Sabella Ogbobode Abidde, Nigeria’s Niger Delta: Militancy, Amnesty and Post Amnesty Environment (London: Lexington Books, 2017), Chapters 3 and 4. Many scholars have attempted to explore and evaluate corporate social responsibility in relation to conflict and youth-related violence in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. On this, see Beloveth Odochi Nwankwo, “Politics of Conflict Over Oil in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: Review of the Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy of the Oil Companies,” American Journal of Educational Research 3, no. 4 (2015), 383–392. Johnson Osagie, Funmilayo Adegoke, and Samuel Ezeani, “Causes of Conflict in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria as Expressed by the Youth in Delta State,” Procedia: Social and Behavioral Sciences 5 (2010), 82–89. Jeremiah Dibua, Modernization and the Crisis of Development in Africa: The Nigerian Experience (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006). Dodeye Uduak Williams, “The Role of Conflict Resolution and CounterTerrorism in Nigeria: Case Analysis of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta and Boko Haram,” Peace Research 4, nos. 1–2 (2016), 130–170. Experiences and challenges of peacebuilding elsewhere can be drawn for comparative evaluations, see Paul van Tongeren, et al., Seeking for Peace in Europe and Eurasia: Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2009). For definitions of categories such as security, conflict, triggers and so on, see ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework, Section III (Abuja, Nigeria: ECOWAS, 2008). Deborah Fahy Bryceson, How Africa Works: Occupational Change, Identity and Morality (Warwickshire, UK: Practical Action Publication, 2010). The ECOWAS Youth Council President said the EYC will serve as “the Commanding height for all West African youth organizations,” see Seun Olugun William, Inauguration of the EYC, Abuja, Nigeria, 2014. On the other level, The ECOWAS Youth Entrepreneurship and Empowerment Program (EYEP) is designed to encourage youth mobilization and engagement in positive human capital development activities; along this line to prevent conflict and promote active youth involvement in peacebuilding and prevention of violence. See Isabel Ortiz and Mathew Cummings, “When Global Crisis Collide: Double the Jobs for Youths,” UNICEF: Social and Economic Policy, Working Paper, February 2012; Justin Yifu Lin, “Youth Bulge: A Demographic Dividend or Demographic Bomb in Developing Countries?” Policy Brief to World Bank Chief Economist, May 2012. Aly Rahim and Peter Hollard,

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74. 75.

76.

77. 78.

79. 80.

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“Facilitating Transitions for Children and Youth: Lessons from Four Postconflict Fund Projects,” World Bank, Working Paper no. 23, 2006. On the teaching and imparting of various live skills, see Fatima Ipeleng Mmusi and Adrian D. van Breda, “Male Care-Leavers’ Transfer of Social Skills from Care into Independent Living in South Africa,” Children and Youth Services Review 81 (2017), 35–357. Regarding additional recommendations for change in West Africa, see Said Adejumobi, National Democratic Reform in Africa: Change and Challenges (New York, NY: Palgrave, 2015); Wyk van Jo-Ausie, Promoting Human Security: Ethical, Normative, and Educational Framework in Africa (Paris: United Nations Education, Social and Cultural Organization, 2007); also Said Adejumobi, “Conflict and Peace Building in West Africa: The Role of Civil Society and the African Union,” Africa Development, 22, no. 4 (2007), 59–77. This speaks to youth bulge, unemployment and gender problems. Michael Fehling, et al., “Youth in Crisis in the Middle East and North Africa: A Systematic Literature Review and Focused Landscape Analysis,” Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal 21, no. 12 (2015), 916–930. Global Migration Group (GMG), Interpreting Migration in the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda, Position Paper, September 2013. The cost-benefit analyses presented in many influential studies largely conclude that receiving countries would benefit from the inputs of the potential immigrant. On this, see George Kararach, Migration, Youth Bulge and Population Dynamics: Mastering the Future? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Dhaka Declaration on Global Population Dynamics, January 2013; Danzhen You and David Anthony, Generation 2025 and Beyond (New York: UNICEF, 2012); ILO, The Youth Employment Crisis: Time for Action, Report no. 5, June 2012. See African Union Commission, African Youth Charter, Banjul, the Gambia July 2, 2006; also ECA Executive Secretary Abdalla Hamdok, Harnessing the Demographic Dividend Through Investments in Youth, Address at the 30th Ordinary Session of the African Union Executive Council, Addis Ababa, January 2017. See George Kararach, Development Policy in Africa: Mastering the Future? (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). Debasaki Mac-Ikemanjima, “Violence and Youth Voter Turnout in SubSaharan Africa,” Contemporary Social Sciences 12, nos. 3–4 (October 2017), 215–226. Bala Musa, et al., Communication, Culture and Human Rights in Africa (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2011), Chapters 2 and 3. Maria Petmesidou, et al., eds., Child Poverty, Youth Unemployment and Social Inclusion (Stuttgart, Germany: Ibidem Press, 2016), Chapters 3 and 4.

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81. Akin Iwilade and Johnson Agbo, “ECOWAS and the Regulation of Regional Peace and Security in West Africa,” Democracy and Security 8, no. 4 (October 2012). 82. Many studies speak to the peculiar security problems posed by radicalize youths. Collete Daiunte, International Perspectives on Youth Conflict and Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006). 83. Prevention may focus on implementation of well calibrated economic investment to rebuild war-torn infra-structures. Kukou Hetcheli and Folly Lolowou, “Integration and Prevention of Conflict in the Western African Area: ECOWAS and the Social Political Crisis in Togo,” Studia Europaea 57, no. 3 (2012). For comparative reasoning relevant to Africa, see Eva Gross, Preventing Conflict, and Managing Crisis: European and American Perspectives (Washington, DC: Center for Transatlantic Relations, 2011). 84. Charles House, International Conflict Prevention (New York, NY: Continuum, 2012); Patricia Friedrich, Language, Negotiation, and Peace: The Use of English in Conflict Resolution (New York, NY: Continuum, 2007).

CHAPTER 4

Militant Psyche and Separatism: A Note on the Casamance Conflict and Necessity of Preventive Intervention Okon Akiba

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find sorrow and suffering enough in each, to disarm all hostility. (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Introduction See Map 4.1. More than a few of the known factors that have repeatedly generated violence in fragile polities in the developing world were reproduced and represented at the onset of conflict in the Casamance region of Southern Senegal. Among them has been (I) colonial rule that gained ascendancy in Africa from the early nineteenth century onward. Domination historically generates the deepest emotions of political estrangement and hostility alongside impulses of rebellion.1 (II) Popular resistance, first, against the succession of abusive European powers, and next, the Senegalese postcolonial state itself, underscored the determination among the enduring

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Map 4.1

Map of Senegal

indigenous Casamancais to wrest democratic rights and freedom through sustained struggle for self-rule.2 Rough policing with surgical precision to subjugate and crush dissent often sinks gorges of distrust between citizens and their state. It stiffened and thickened clandestine activities in the Casamance and spanned new recruits for the maquis in the bushes. Crowning it, (III) numberless exploitative economic policies of the government buttressed and fortified social anger among the already marginalized Casamancais.3

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The Casamance Question This study is an attempt to chart and define the scope and implications of the Casamance conflict. And those forces most likely to facilitate negotiated settlements are identified and analyzed. I hope to encourage through my discourse a re-imagining of the Casamance: What would the Casamance look like without prevalent violence stemming originally from officially organized canalization of cultures and the people? Are the conflict motives justifiable?4 The work is divided into eight main parts in accordance with the variety of principal themes and issues. (I) The meaning of low-intensity as a conflict terminology is explained. In addition, we scrutinize the intangible impacts of war on the individual and society. (II) Mouvement des Forces Democratique de la Casamance (MFDC) currently serves as the administrative locus of the struggle for Casamance autonomy. The narrative and elaborations on the organization’s evolution and functions are meant to reveal the purpose, strengths, and weaknesses in the organized struggle for self-definition and self-determination. And the objects of the conflict as defined by the secessionists are assessed for justification. (III) The externalities of conflict are examined and treated from the point of view of cross-border problems. (IV) The outcomes from street clashes between activist Casamancais youths and the national police are delineated, interrogated, and placed among the category of causative factors commonly known as conflict triggers. In theory and practice, triggers are distinct and differentiable from embedded causes. (V) Embedded or root causes of the Casamance conflict consist of discriminatory policies that reinforce mass poverty, inflame the crevices of ethnic relations, and energize separatist emotions. Those detestable policies are intensifying mass resentment on the part of the victimized for the Senegalese Government. (VI) The opening of communication channels in recent times certainly is meant to facilitate fluid and steadier transfers of information between the resistance and government administration, though peace dividends have been insubstantial and sleety. Increased interactions among the leaderships are yet to yield great bonuses. Most injurious to ongoing peace efforts has been the predisposition of doctrinaire factions among the maquis guerrilla forces. Characteristically, they are fixated on the spoils of war, tend to insist on independence for the Casamance, and they use internecine attacks on federal troops to scuttle cardinal negotiated settlements. And beyond official declarations of public policy, differences in the worldview of successive Senegalese leaders also have impacted the pace and direction of the peace

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processes: Diouf was convinced that material largesse can incentivize and accelerate the peace processes. He distributed a lot of money to different factions of the maquis in the vain, ineffective effort to buy their support.5 And Wade was lukewarm on the utility of mediation. He believed that the Casamance conflict inevitably will burn itself out and die a natural death, a view supposedly harbored also by the government under Sall. (VII) Researchers interested in the advancement of peacebuilding in liberated zones of the Casamance may want to look at endeavors at the complete de-mining of shackled areas of the Casamance region. Elimination of land mines is a prerequisite for human development in postwar Casamance. In this connection also, there is need to support, extend, and focus research innovatively on women activism in the area of conflict resolution.6 (VIII) The excursus is an attempt to attenuate and refresh thoughts on the extraordinary history of the case at hand. The Casamance has witnessed dramatic human revolutions through the centuries, about which the region’s conquest by the Sundiata Keita’s Mali Empire and its role as a prime mover of the Atlantic trade have been most prominent. Exceptionalism is a qualitative idea that I have applied to capture a few of the manifold sociocultural and economic endowments of the Casamance. Needless-tosay, stagnation of the once-vibrant local economy merits special attention: Informed communities in the region say the destruction of the Casamance economy constitutes an avoidable blunder. Appropriately too, protesters and normative allies for global peace call it a historic devastation bordering on criminality. Most scholars insist it is an unforgiven hurt. I treat it as human tragedy of monumental dimension. The condition ultimately and happily is amenable to change. The present state of looming regional decay can be reversed through careful planning and investment programs that are humane and protective of environmental quality.

I. Casamance Conflict: Its Basic Characteristics, Nature and Features The Casamance conflict has through the decades retained a remarkably characteristic low-intensity7 profile. And in the terminology8 of conflict research, low intensity means that the human cost of disarray is in the order of roughly 1000 deaths per year. A word must be entered here about the measurement and mismeasurement of intensity. Because the so-called low-intensity conflict has been known to carry velocity and to deliver heavy impacts on society.

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Low Intensity Violence in the Casamance no doubt has never escalated to genocidal levels reached and maintained in many African theaters of war, which in part might explain why the international community until recently tended to treat it as a minor local stirring to be left solely in the hands of the Senegalese Government for resolution.9 But what we are currently beholding in the south of Senegal is a dangerous, abrasive war that is producing destructive and debilitating outcomes.10 Those effects ought to be calculated not just narrowly in the order of thousands of human lives lost through armed attacks (5000) and land mines (1000). A comprehensive cost-assessment should take stock of human displacement including the cluster of warinduced traumas: Roughly 40,000 Casamancais are refugees in neighboring countries and more women,11 children, and the elderly have to bear the ordeal of dislocation almost on daily basis.12 The loss of community symbols of identity and corrosion of cultural uniqueness are incalculable costs that the Casamancais are continuing to endure, and most of them suffer from multiple physiological and emotional dilemmas that come complete in parcel with the life of insecurity and uncertainties plus the constancy of fear and want.13 Warfare always and inevitably constitutes extraordinary human phenomenon, no matter how low the numerical value of citizens lost in battles. Externalities associated with the conflict have also been substantive: Refugee flows pose various sociocultural and economic challenges for neighboring Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia. Uniformly, entrepreneurs of unlawful trade in drugs and small arms throughout West Africa have successfully integrated their illicit wares into the flow of legitimate cross-border trade. These forces are complicating relations among the contiguous countries. They are also dangerously intensifying and extending security risks and liabilities in the Casamance.14 Prolongation of the War and Its Drivers Several geo-strategic factors,15 in addition to the above-mentioned defense deficits and collaterals, are helping to confuse and prolong the Casamance conflict. And a number of them are prominent. In this circumstance, (I) neighboring states with vested political, economic, and ethnically related cross-border interests serve enormously to extend the conflict by providing operational rear-military bases for dissident soldiers. (II) Needless-to-say,

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the physical terrain of thick mangrove forests and rough topography tend to favor insurgents while posing real logistical problems for regular national armies that are largely untrained in clandestine, guerrilla warfare. Geography and natural features tend to weaken governments’ ability to engage and contain the Casamance resistance. (III) And the dispersal of guerrilla fighters thinly across the borders of three countries (Guinea-Bissau, the Gambia, and Senegal) presents additional communication nightmares and ordinance crisis for national troops. Hundreds of government troops have been ambushed or blown up by land mines since the 2009 military surges against the rebellion. Though possessing superior firepower and numerical strength, government troops have been unable to subdue and defeat the oft-poorly armed maquisards, because the latter holds the advantage of fighting on familiar home turf (of swamps and thickets) and have the support of border-communities. The Casamance is the archetypical, classic unconventional-guerrilla war. It parades at once the burdens and heritage of geography and politics.16 Organizational discrepancies inside the guerilla movement are shown in the worst of times to constitute extra impediments in the paths of peace. Though much of the maquis have been professional, factionalism among competing entities undercuts their ability to mobilize and present common front needed to facilitate productive negotiations with the government. And commanders in a number of the maquis often betray a lack of preparedness when faced with surprise attacks by government (enemy) forces. Weaknesses at the core of the Command structure largely explain the noticeable and occasional absence of camaraderie (esprit de corps ) among the rank and file. Tragically then, civilian populations that are supposed to be courted and protected (sometimes against government troops) instead are victimized by renegade guerrillas, footloose in vulnerable communities. Impervious soldiers of the revolution are proliferating agony among defenseless civilians by their looting, brigandage, and banditry.17 In the face of those intervening factors cited in this work, it would seem superfluous to wonder why the conflict is prolonged or has remained intractable.18 To my mind, the question should be flipped on its back to search for answers why the war of attrition has not expanded in scale to explode momentous violence. More noteworthy and striking are the atypical features of the conflict, which raise questions: Why has the international community been reticent and tentative about war-induced human

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suffering in the Casamance? Who are the main players driving the conflict? The rest of a society at war is normally expected to feel and to re-act one way or the other to the human and material costs of national emergencies. Is the ordinary Senegalese citizen to the north of the country conscious of the predicaments of the Casamance experience? How are the non-combatant Jola Casamancais affected by the seemingly ceaseless tumult? What has been done to resolve the conflict? What more can be done? The Reverend Father Augustin Abbe Diamacoune Senghor and the leadership of the Casamance resistance tried hard but failed to attract support even from the traditional exporters of revolution during the Cold War—Cuba and the then Soviet Union. They fell short where Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau had been wildly successful. Why? What have been the obstacles to internationalizing the Casamance conflict? Why are things the way they are? Appropriate or correct responses to these queries can enrich new approaches to the management and resolution of the conflict, though not all the concerns can be fully and satisfactorily addressed in one single study. Observers say that the Casamance conflict is mixed with roots in diverse elements of history, economics, culture, and politics. This begs additional questions: Is a principal or specific cause of the conflict identifiable? Do particular kinds of conflict impart uncharacteristic challenges to resolution? As a comparativist political scientist, I believe that good-quality questions can compel deeper interrogation into the human condition. Superior inquiries should encourage explorations into deeper conflict motivations to yield insights into definitive themes that have long dominated our imagination about the future of war and peace. Granted methodological discrepancies, there is also a growing body of hard evidence that due to their subjective and sensitive nature, internal conflicts that are centered on questions of identity are distinctly and inherently difficult to resolve.19 Same applies and with even more powerful force with the Casamance separatist movements, because it is embedded in extraordinary grievances requiring the delicate handling and balancing of complex, sharply divergent interests, and community expectations. More so, the conflict is predicated on a historic, fairly well-structured system of administration that advances the staying power of the fighters. Though under stress, the conflict and the fighters have continued to draw strength and power from the MFDC. It is an enabling superstructure.

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II. MFDC*: Fracture, Splinters and House Divided The Mouvement des Forces Democratique de la Casamance* (MFDC) was born during contentious times in Senegal. It represents today the collective rejection of official repression and discrimination against minority Casamancais. And like most large organizations, it embodies and seeks to amplify the experiences, fears, creed, and aspirations of the members. Reading the case and without squint, it is clear that the MFDC20 today serves as the core administrative and political organ for the advancement of the Casamance independence. It was established (1945) originally as a cultural organization by the Jola intellectual, Emile Badiane. Members of the organization were active supporters of President Senghor’s struggle for Senegalese self-rule in the 1960s. And they subsequently went into the trenches with him during his bid for president. In the years following, under the leadership of the celebrated Abbe Diamacoune, the MFDC21 turned decisively toward the promotion of Casamance independence.22 Structurally, the movement consists of two main parts: (I) The MFDC anchors the movement and serves as its political and administrative center and (II) the maquis is the military wing of the organization. Observers have added the Casamance Diaspora as the third wing of the struggle, on account of the members’ fundraising to financially support the maquisards. The fighters are addressed interchangeably in this study as marquis guerrillas, Atika (warrior, in Jola), or maquisards. The veteran soldier and leader Sidy Badji was father and builder of the maquis when the MFDC leader Abbe Diamacoune was incarcerated for purportedly causing the range of political unrests in the country. Jean-Marie Francois Biagui began serving as Secretary-General of MFDC in the late 1980s. The MFDC over time has suffered various shocks to its bodily and foundational structures. It has also witnessed reversals in its central goal and functions. Most noticeable or dramatic has been the split of the maquis into two principal factions corresponding to their location north or south of the Casamance River in the Ziguinchor region, namely Front Nord (Northern Front) and Front Sud (Southern Front). The split arose from sharp disagreements between Sidy Badji and Abbe Diamacoune over the contents of the ceasefire accord that had been concluded between the MFDC and the government of Senegal at the Bissauan town of Cacheu in May 1991. Badji was the chief negotiator on behalf of the MFDC in the meeting and he went on, one year after, in April 1992, to present the document as the

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movement’s acceptance of a mediated settlement of the conflict. He was suggesting that the war was over and that the revolutionaries were officially in agreement to work collaboratively with the government for peace. But Diamacoune had strongly denounced the ceasefire as sham. And a large segment of the maquisards concurred with him that the peace document was a façade or charade insofar as it was silent on independence for the Casamance. Badji evidently thought differently that he had the power and authority to accept an interim peace measure falling short of a clear-cut stand on independence. Perhaps also he thought it was time to bury the hatchets or beat them into plowshares, and if so he was ten years ahead of Diamacoune and the maquis hawks. But did Badji really believe by executive fiat to compel followership and force the MFDC to accept a controversial peace settlement of the Casamance question? Perhaps he thought in strategic terms to split the movement in order to force further reflections on the future of the struggle? Those interested in psychological components of bargaining theory and its practical processes23 would look for spark-up moments that are thought to soften even the hardest disputants and induce agreements on yet the most divisive points of contention among disputants. Did Badji succumb to psychological pressures at the Cacheu negotiation? Did he undergo transformation during the negotiation process? Or, had Badji grown weary of inflexibility on the question of independence.24 These are pertinent questions worth some contemplation because answers can reveal something about how and why an organization is able to hold together despite internal stress or disintegrate. Structures and Attributes of the Conflict: Front Nord; Front Sud Badji took exception to the criticism that he had failed to do due diligence to the Casamance cause. Particularly offensive for him was the biting accusation that he had betrayed the separatist movement by failing to stand firm on the question of Casamance autonomy. Many among the maquisards had derisively referred to him as “toxic liability.” But Badji had been the reliable and top dog who, as earlier said, carefully built the military wing of the MFDC, the maquis, by training the maquisards. And he was highly regarded and revered throughout the Command until the political fallout following the Cacheu peace accord. With characteristic finality, the grizzled soldier responded immediately to the criticisms by corralling

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his own trusted soldiers and regrouping them as Front Nord. He then issued a blunt and terse communiqué announcing his retirement from active combat. He also renounced and surrendered further participation in all anti-government campaigns. Badji subsequently secured a separate and personalized peace agreement with the government. And his newly minted, self-declared ex-combatants or followers were publicly embraced by Dakar. They were rewarded by the government with a de facto control of a large swath of the land lying northwest of the Bignona department. Senegalese forces were precluded from interfering or disturbing the dayto-day business of the new Badji-led Front Nord. The group continues to partake and enjoy all the good things that patrimony25 offers to prodigal ex-revolutionary soldiers, well after Badji’s death of natural causes in May 2003. Front Nord came under the nominal command of Kamougue Diatta, following the passing of Badji. Meanwhile, Abbe Diamacoune was determined to sustain and advance the revolutionary ideology of Front Sud. And this involved the adoption of pragmatic strategies: He aligned himself with Leopold Sagna, a maquis chief whom he trusted and he proceeded to appoint him to the position of MFDC Chief of Staff, with control over the then militant Front Sud. But a pronounced internal division soon tore Front Sud into two rival factions— Front Sud, moderate, and Front Sud, hardliner. Sagna had assumed a moderate diplomatic stance vis-à-vis Dakar and his many contacts with President Diouf were criticized by the hardliners that were predisposed to decry any contacts whatsoever with the government. They thought that a softening of relations with Dakar was bound to dangerously weaken MFCD’s resolve for independence. Failing to reach satisfactory agreements on the question, the hardliners broke-away and eventually regrouped around a younger officer named Salif Sadio. Diamacoune continued to support Sagna. He reasoned that the maquisards in the two factions were in principle united on a common regionalist ideology, and that the leaders were most likely to stay the course and fight together, no matter the present quarrel on how best to relate and deal with Dakar. But developments in neighboring GuineaBissau soon would prove Diamacoune wrong. Civil war in that country pulled the Casamance guerrillas into the fray as proxies or mercenaries. Developments in the course of the foreign civil war latter sank an abyss of difference and caused blood-letting between the two maquis factions of Front Sud.

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III. Externalities and the Casamance Conflict The problem started from a seemingly benign source. Guinea-Bissau’s Army Chief of Staff, General Ansumane Mane had been good friends with the Casamancais guerrillas since the 1960s when Amilcar Cabral’s guerrillas were locked in the deadly struggle against Portugal for Bissauan independence. Though a Bissauan, Ansumane Mane grew up in the Gambia and was said to possess a share of some Jola heritage from his maternal side. He had been accused and disciplined by the then sitting President of Guinea-Bissau, Joao Bernardo (Nino) Vieira for supplying arms to the MFDC maquisards. Mane found an opportunity in June 1998 to launch an abortive coup that nevertheless exploded an eleven-month civil war in Guinea-Bissau. Cross-Border Dynamics: Casamance Maquisards Are Proxies in Bissauan Civil War The two factions of Front Sud fought on the side of the rebellious General Mane against the sitting government at Bissau. They confronted Senegalese forces that had been shipped into Guinea-Bissau to protect and prop-up the government under President Vieira. The civil war eventually resulted in the ouster of President Vieira from power. General Mane together with his Front Sud alliance re-launched fresh attacks (2000) at the newly installed Bissauan Government now under President Kumba Yala. General Mane’s second attack in another attempt to usurp power in Guinea-Bissau failed and the General was killed by Yala loyalists. More political drama began to unfold after the incident. After the death of General Mane, Senegal and the new Bissauan Government under President Kumba Yala aligned their military initiatives firmly and made the move to purge foreign maquisards from the country, in Operation Gabou.26 One flank of the military operation led by Senegalese forces targeted hardliner Front Sud troops. The combatants had been located inside the border towns of Guinea-Bissau. Worse still, Sadio faced a twopronged attack: A more ferocious contingent of the Guinea-Bissau army under the command of Colonel Tagme Na Wai (December 2000) had also aligned forces with the Sagna faction of moderate Front Sud. In collaboration, the joint operation routed Sadio and his men from the border towns. The martial encounters in the end drew major victims: Sadio was fatally

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wounded in battle and was rendered a near physical invalid, and Sagna disappeared and since then he has been presumed dead.27 At the wake of things, the moderate Front Sud regrouped and members began successfully to heal their war wounds under the command of Cesar Atoute Badiate.28 The new leader had earned distinctions and acclaim for valor during the conflict, and he was credited with dealing most of the deadly blows that brought down Salif Sadio and his hardliner Front Sud. The moderate faction remained unshaken in its loyalty to Abbe Diamacoune and to his pragmatism. Despite the label of moderate, a large number in the faction till date is uncompromised and undiluted in the commitment to achieve independence for the Casamance.29 Similarly, hundreds of Front Nord maquisards still are carriers of the regionalist ideology. They are still burdened by historical memory deriving from the often tragic nature of their encounters with the government. The experience of marginalization has been debilitating and remains fresh in them. Memory or historical recollection is a palpable impediment on the paths to peace. To continue the story on cross-border dynamics, it seems massively evident that domestic interests of the Casamance leaderships are intricately tied to the politics of its immediate neighbors and vice versa. Taken together as a distinct conflict system, political developments in Guinea-Bissau seem bound to continue affecting the direction and scale of conflict and collaboration in the Casamance, Senegal, and the Gambia. As a matter of fact, cross-border military collaboration between the Casamance and GuineaBissau dates back to the war of liberation against Portuguese colonial rule in the 1960s. At that time, the Partido Africano da Independencia da Guine e Cabo Verde (PAIGC) was invited by the MFDC to establish rear-bases in the Casamance. And Jola maquisards fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Amilcar Cabral’s guerrilla forces for independence of Guinea-Bissau. The maquis inherited the arms caches that Bissauan guerrillas had abandoned in the Casamance at the end of their struggle. The tacit understanding was thereby also established that the emergent revolutionary government of Guinea-Bissau would provide both logistical support and personnel to help materialize in latter days the independence of Casamance. But successive governments of Guinea-Bissau have failed to achieve political stability,30 and even the Bissauan military has been largely abandoned by the government to the vicissitudes of penury and pennilessness. The impacts and outcomes of official neglect on the Bissauan military have been widely essayed, showing that the officer corps is deeply immersed for their personal economic survival in international drug trafficking.31 And many rank-and-file

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soldiers trade small arms to the Casamance maquisards for cash. Sometimes the black-market trade invites the barter of arms for cannabis, stolen cattle, or cars. Trans-Border Dynamics: Casamancais in the Gambia with Their Jola “Cousin” Yahya Jammeh Elsewhere, north of the Casamance River, Jola maquisards have for long been principals in a bourgeoning trans-border trade with the Gambia featuring largely the exchange of cannabis for arms.32 And the then president of the Gambia (Yahya Jammeh), himself a Jola, regularly faced harsh criticisms by Senegal for allegedly supplying weapons, cash, and home bases for the Casamance maquis. Unlike the situation in Guinea-Bissau, there are no maquis rear-military bases in the Gambia. However, cross-border kin and ethnic ties exist and movements along well-established political channels and historically established land routes have remained fluid and dynamic among the Jola communities on both sides of the international border. Relations between Banjul and Dakar went cold and frozen for a long period in early 2011, when the Nigerian Ports Authority intercepted a huge shipment of arms originated from Iran and was labeled as building materials for re-export to the Gambia. Casamance was clearly the final destination of the arms33 that consisted of machine guns, rocket launchers, and grenades. And the story has been told many times about involvements of foreign Jola neighbors in the Gambia’s elections. In particular, a large number of Jola Casamancais living in the towns bordering the Gambia was encouraged by Gambian government officials to register as citizens34 and to vote in presidential elections for Yahya Jammeh. And they voted in the 2001 Gambian presidential election. Since that time, and until his demise in early 2017, the Jola foreigners from the Casamance regularly participated in elections in the Gambia to secure the presidency for their Jola cousin. President Yahya Jammeh had built his own personal praetorian guard that was studded with his trusted and reliable Jola maquisards from the Casamance. Faithfully and valiantly, but eventually losing the battle, the guards provided the main line of military resistance against the ECOMOG, the military wing of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The Gambian top militaries had abandoned Yahya Jammeh during the heated disputations following the presidential election of 2016. ECOWAS troops entered the Gambia through Senegalese villages

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bordering the two countries to oust Jammeh from power in early January of 2017. He was unseated and driven into exile in Equatorial Guinea, to the ovation of many West African publics. Casamance populations living in small towns at the Gambian borders were denied the opportunity to celebrate, given heightened security risks caused by returnee Casamance maquisards from the Gambia. Having lost the financial backing and sanctuary that Jammeh offered during his tenure as president, most of the rebels filtered back to resettle with the beleaguered home people, whom they began instantly to harass and terrorize for food, shelter, and cash. This notwithstanding, the fall of an African despot represents a valid watershed moment in the Casamance conflict. President Adama Barrow was inaugurated as Gambia’s new president while in exile in Senegal, and he promises to cultivate better relations with Dakar than his fallen predecessor. And President Sall did visit Banjul on a goodwill mission shortly following Barrows’ return to his country. Stability in Guinea-Bissau and in the Gambia is an important prerequisite for achieving the modicum of stability in the Casamance. Higher expectations35 are rife that the leaderships in the two countries will in the near future muster political will and work with Senegal collaboratively to broker sustainable peace in the Casamance.36

IV. Conflict Triggers and Consolidation of Political Consciousness For narrative clarity, we may recall the history-making encounter between citizens and security forces in the Casamance that resulted in mass bloodshed. The incident is known today as the Red Sunday of December 18, 1983. The sequence of overt and immediate events that culminated in the disastrous experience is now familiar: A peaceful march by students at their Ziguinchor College Campus (Lycee Djignabo) turned violent when they clashed with armed policemen, leaving two dead in 1980. The students were demanding material improvements in their living conditions. A more politically charged protest march (December 26, 1982) was organized and channeled by a freshly revamped MFDC, during which hundreds of participants circulated pamphlets denouncing the government and demanding independence for the Casamance. Police officers grew impatient and then furious, when the Senegalese tricolor flags on public buildings were removed and replaced by protesters with the white flag of the Casamance

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independence movement. The equally irate crowds of demonstrators were eventually dispersed with severe injuries inflicted on many of them via brutal beating by the police. Many were held temporarily in police custody and subjected to additional physical abuse. The heavy-handed response by the Gendarmerie Royale of Senegal was perhaps meant to send a message that the government would not tolerate dissent. Far from cowing the people, police action drove substantial numbers of young protagonists underground. There was calm until December 18, 1983, when another protest march to commemorate incidents of the previous year degenerated into riots at separate districts of the lower Ziguinchor areas. Roughly 200 pro-independence demonstrators were shot and killed by the police. By and large, suppression has yielded a culture of near permanent resistance37 in the Casamance: (I) Leaders of the December protest were tried in court and later released after serving roughly five years of incarceration for ostensibly threatening Senegal’s political integrity. (II) Elsewhere, young Casamancais fleeing the police joined the guerillas and received specialized military training in espionage, subterfuge, and surveillance. (III) Most of the young men have continued to serve as soldiers (though with dwindling martial strength) and to sustain a prolonged unconventional war of independence. (IV) The Catholic Priest and leader of the MFDC, Father Augustin Abbe Diamacoune, was among those imprisoned. His passing (2007) has left a jarring leadership gap along with a weakening of the organization’s policy making and management capacities.38 An important lesson drawing from the campus riots is this: Isolated actions and events in a community can generate social consciousness with far-reaching political implications for the growth and development of the individual and group. The marginalized citizenry can become sufficiently emboldened to embark on larger political expeditions for political change, including rebellion against the state.39 As demonstrated in the contemporary experience, the number of Casamancais regionalists began to rise sharply in the period immediately following the 1982/1983 mass shootings. Mass protests and expressions of dissent are rooted in collective grievance. Police suppression is today still cited by younger generations of the Casamancais and translated by them as representing official persecution based on deep-seated disregard of Jola and minority identity. These sentiments are etched in the psyche of the maquisards and serve immensely to validate, crystallize, and extend secessionist emotions and revolutionary temper.

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V. Foundations of Alienation, Marginalization and Separatism The first official stirrings—at the policy-making level—between the Jola Casamancais and their government began in the immediate postindependence era, when President Leopold Senghor introduced his national unity policy for initial public hearing and consideration. It sought to define Senegalese common identity partly through the promotion of French as the national language. A larger program spoke of national integration, and it included plans to co-opt main Jola organizations into President Senghor’s National Socialist Party. Prominent minorities were to be targeted also for appointment to sinecure positions in the Senegalese bureaucracy. But the ambitious programs to promote common identity seemed overly naïve and apparently never anticipated the powerful and quality opposition that the Casamance elite would unleash on Dakar. Senghor received polite intellectual rebuke. President Senghor’s groomed successor, Abdou Diouf, also was rebuffed when he tried to foist Wolof tradition nationally. Collective opposition this time was led by the Cadre Casamancais , an indigenous group consisting of Casamancais professionals and intellectuals. Members wrote fiery rebuttals in daily newspapers and issued communiqués that protested the official attempt to promote Wolof language (“wolofisation”) as lingua franca.40 Wolofization was stridently condemned as a program lacking respect for the multi-cultural and multiethnic character of Senegal. Debates among informed circles held that wolofisation constituted the opposite of nationbuilding, and that the idea in itself was derogatory and insulting to the other nationally recognized languages such as Pulaar, Serer, Mandinka, Soninke, and Jola. Although separatism was not mentioned in those minority responses, the exchanges stimulated regionalist sentiments. Successful intellectual push-backs against government’s propositions were effective in cultivating political consciousness in addition to the direct experience derived by the people from police suppression of dissent. The articulation, codification, and communication of social discontent logically morphed into social habit that deepened and legitimated Jola activism for autonomy or self-rule. Attributes that have been acquired in the course of the struggle for rights now are serving as important crutches to navigate a fast-changing political landscape suffused with existential threats to the traditions and customs of the Jola Casamancais.

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Land, Economics, and Marginalization Economic development in principle and practice represents one way in which a society responds to the needs and requirements of the people. An inversion of the rule consists in policies and plans that alienate and marginalize rather than liberate and uplift society. The upshots have frequently been underdevelopment and all the challenges it entails. The Senegalese Government’s 1964 land reform policy (Loi sur le domaine)41 was the prototype inversion of the purposes and reality of human development largely because it was discriminatory and predatory at core. Actual implementation of the land policy that began in 1972 revealed the unseemly underbelly of dysfunctional public policy. The moneyed elite among the Wolof had been actively encouraged and indeed subsidized with soft-loans to acquire real estate in the most fertile and strategically favorable portions of the Casamance region. The land reform policy also included a muchadvertized plan in the early 1970s to upgrade and modernize tourism by building hotels and golf courses in the Casamance. This gave birth to a new breed of city development brokers. It also ignited a wild chase for land and speculation that led to artificial sky-rocketing of real estate appraisal and valuation, to the detriment of the ordinary folk. In practice, real estate prices were hiked over and beyond the material means of the indigenous populations. The Jola and Mancagne witnessed their families and communities squeezed and many were displaced from their land inheritance. Similar catastrophic experience followed the decision by the government to relocate groundnut production from the north to the Casamance.42 Sahelian drought of the 1970s had crippled the economy of the Senegalese central peanut basin. Reacting to the emergency, national development planners compulsorily seized land in the Casamance and allocated large portions of the appropriated indigenous land property to commercial peanut cultivators that had relocated from the north. In addition to alienating the indigenous owners of the land, groundnut farming encouraged deforestation and peanut agriculture led to salination of the soil. Aggravated antagonism exploded riotous marches and fiery confrontations with government troops were common. In this way also, the Senegalese Government’s Residential Housing Development Program during the mid-1970s was conceived without adequate consultation with the indigenes of the Casamance and requests by them for inputs were denied. Amid disputes and acrimonious town hall meetings, enormous portions of land in the Casamance were again snatched

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and taken for the construction of low income housing. Large conurbations were built to accommodate and settle the Wolof “new comers.” Real estate development was not guided by the logic of urban carrying capacity. Essential supporting plans to mitigate sociocultural impacts of population density and over-capacity were nonexistent.43 According to interim assessments, modernization is shown to have been poorly conceived, and specifically, that urbanization has had hazardous impacts on human health due to overt congestion of physical space and the shrinking of many intangible human variables such as inadequate breathing room for recreational services. Among the indigenous population, their reactions against the burden of urbanization range from expressions of supreme aggravation to hatefilled graffiti aimed at indicting the economically privileged new entrants from the north of Senegal. Like most indigenous cultures worldwide, the Jola tradition in part is built on recognition and respect for nature.44 This derives also from basic sociological principles45 and commonsense understandings that the land— including forest, soil, and bodies of natural water—are sacred, inviolable resources. The Jola Casamancais prefer development policies that are protective of the land and against the vicissitudes of over-investment, capital intensity, and the extremes of commercial exploitation for profit.46 And disaffection for the government is continuing to grow.47 With a preliminary statement on tradition and custom in hand, I will add something on the primacy or relevance of culture in human society. I believe that culture consists of a set of comparatively significant social requirements that a people have internalized in the courses of their socialization. Among the more important requirements or obligations is the protection of community symbols of identity.48 In this regard, the widespread destruction of the sacred forest by the government to make way for urban development in the Casamance represents the very zenith of official contempt for the Jola tradition. It stands as a most overt affront to Casamancais belief systems.49 Beyond material discomfort, therefore, official development policies that are directly threatening indigenous ways of live are drivers of high emotional distress among the indigenous people.50 From a slightly tilted perspective on the matter, an important cultural value that qualifies also as a requirement or obligation in society is work.51 In a few Muslim-majority polities, the state is obligated to provide work for all capable and able-bodied citizens, and without discrimination against women. As a social factor, work is fundamental to the development of civil and peaceful social relations and stability, broadly defined.52 The opposite

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set of social conditions apply to unemployment: homelessness, violence in the family, incarceration, economic inequities including unequal opportunities for justice53 are some of the social problems oozing from marginalization and displacement. Be this as it may, work is not plentiful in the Casamance and employment opportunities are limited or lacking. Affirmative action54 is one of the correctives used in multiethnic societies elsewhere to try and mitigate inequities and preempt the provocative outcomes of systemic discrimination. Inapplicable in Senegal and even worse, majority of those refused entry into high-level administrative positions in the civil service are largely the Jola Casamancais, most of whom have been uniquely qualified candidates by virtue of their education, acquired skill-set and professional experience. Critics hold that minorities are frequently by-passed for promotion to executive seats in the bureaucracy. The opposite argument stresses that it is the educated Casamancais that have customarily rejected offers to serve in the government administration. Counter responses on behalf of the government have been grossly lacking in evidence. The Wolof has been customarily and repeatedly favored for promotion and for career advancement. Discrimination no doubt heightens interethnic tension, and this reality sometimes is couched in joking statements,55 which in actuality are bullhorn complaints against discriminatory policies designed to embed inequities and deepen disenchantment among minorities. For that reason, we must receive it as strident denunciation and condemnation of the government when the Jola Casamancais makes reference to a “second colonization of the Casamance by the government of the Wolof .”56 The Jola may refer to the Wolof in the Casamance as nordistes . And the Casamancais are regarded by the nordistes as Nyak, meaning a stranger or settler in Senegal. Expressions of grievance in ethnic-regionalist terms have come to symbolize helplessness and resignation among large segments of the Jola Casamancais. Moreover, rage and resentment for the local “oppressors” have neither tempered nor moderated the advancement and the foisting of objectionable official policies upon minorities. For people of conscience, it has been at best captivating to behold the ferocity (not necessarily unthinking) with which successive governments of Senegal have been willing to promote the chain of morally and economically bankrupt regional policies. African governments are uniquely positioned and qualified to empower their citizens with equalizing policies and promote social harmony in diversity. Most have been unsuccessful in the task. And sociologists are yet to fully explain why many leaders seem to consciously fail the

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test of humane governance by deliberately choosing economic policies and development strategies that profoundly entrench social disintegration.57 To wit, the policy and practice of relocating nordistes to the Casamance are not new to the Casamancais. It was French official policy throughout the nineteenth century to draw and redraw district boundaries arbitrarily58 and in ways to break-up ethnic groups and scatter Jola families. The object in part was to preempt anti-government moves and to undermine the highly suspected political power that comes from the “tightly-knit cabal” of the restless “Casacais.”59 Official harassment and abuse were the norms. Large-scale riots followed the expropriation and displacement of Casamance rice farmers from their land. The farmers also bore the brunt of colonial anger. The gendarmerie corps was instructed regularly to enforce law and order and nib all resistance in the bud. Agents of the state regularly shot live bullets into the crowd of protesting peasants. Many indigenes were killed in successive riots. In addition, it was French policy to appoint and superimpose the Wolof or other ethnicities from the north as district heads in the Casamance. Colonial policy of discrimination, control, and intimidation was adopted wholly, hook and sinker, and reprised during the administration of President Diouf. The vibrancy of pro-MFDC Casamancais movement and growth in the impetus for independence constituted threats (both imagined and real) to the sitting government. Torture was approved in sequence and put in force as the means of legitimate interrogation.60 Change in the end is the permanent and recurring decimal in all human society. Most scholars undoubtedly are of the same mind that, ideally and normally, redemption and growth must travel together in every maturing society. Harsh instruments of governance have been modified amid visible steps currently taken presently in the Casamance to encourage peace talks and to improve relations of state and society.

VI. Peace Process? Perhaps Illusion of Peace Ten years since the first and failed peace process was launched in 1991, Abbe Diamacoune and much of the MFDC membership were at the time recalcitrant warriors for Casamance independence. Time being a strong factor of change, the contents of the resistance’s new peace proposal now have changed remarkably into a softer and conciliatory quality. And there seems to be an overarching understanding that a military solution to the Casamance question is no more possible.61

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Mediation: Diamacoune MFDC and President Diouf In approaching the new dawn, Diamacoune found it necessary to eliminate MFDC’s traditional demands for Casamance Independence and, in its place, made concrete stipulations for economic development of the Casamance region, with emphasis on higher living standards for the Casamancais. This theme dominated the first meeting that was held in January 1999 at Ziguinchor between President Diouf and MFDC delegates. And regional economic development was reiterated and underlined in a subsequent meeting in Banjul (Banjul I, June 1999). The latter meeting was scheduled collectively by the three main maquis chiefs representing Front Nord, Front Sud ( moderate), and Front Sud (hardliner), during which the maquis leaders agreed to resolve all political and ideological differences among them that had impeded the previous attempt at peace. They agreed to form a unified front and to adopt a common bargaining strategy vis-à-vis the government. The June meeting marked the beginning of what would come to be known as the Banjul Process , consisting of several rounds of mediation and negotiations between the MFDC and President Diouf, in this order: Banjul II, September 1999 and Banjul III, November 1999. Peace efforts62 yielded mainly symbolic declarations on the desirability of peace. Importantly, however, the preliminary peace initiatives opened and widened valid channels for future communication among all the disputants on both sides of the Casamance problem. The Banjul meetings have been marked also as memorable diplomatic landmarks in part because the main parties to the conflict and advocates of peace were candid about the limitations on their abilities to command the maquis leaders and force their commitment to peace agreements. Diamacoune admitted that he had no firm control over a large population of the maquisards in rival factions, and that the accords and tentative commitments to peace were on shaky and slippery ground. President Diouf also voiced his concerns. He had depended on achieving peace by mobilizing and channeling the participation of civil society and religious groups. These specialized and faith-based entities formed his main means to keep the search for peace alive. Diouf spoke generally about the need to eradicate land mines and to include youth groups in all future peace talks. Overall, however, Diouf regretted that sporadic attacks on government forces by refractory and headstrong maquisards served severely to dampen public enthusiasm for reconciliation. He complained that unabated violence had rendered ceasefires and

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accords meaningless. The president had earlier on traveled to the Ziguinchor (March 1999) for a special meeting with the Casamancais, during which visit he spoke of the necessity for change and the imperatives of forgiveness. Recognizing the persisting emotions and scars of war, he specifically appealed for exculpation and amnesty for wrongdoings that must have been committed during the war. President Abdou Diouf lost the presidential election to Abdoulaye Wade in 2000. And the peace process has been sustained thereafter but certainly with significant changes and modifications in the approaches and modalities to peace. Mediation: Diamacoune MFDC and President Wade President Wade had officially and confidently pronounced at the assumption of office in April (2000) to bring the conflict to an end in 100 days,63 though it would take him another four years to produce anything remotely resembling substantive breakthrough in the form of a ceasefire. He met with the MFDC cadres (September 2001) in the presidential palace at Dakar to reaffirm his government’s commitment to economic development of the Casamance region. Along this line, the Social and Economic Reconstruction of Casamance (SERC) was established and tasked with designing and driving programs of development such as youth training in artisan trade and promotion of small-scale agriculture. Changes in the style and method of deliberation and in negotiation strategies were particularly striking, and principal among them was the elimination of civil society from the peace processes. Thenceforward, the entire responsibility for securing peace in the Casamance was assigned almost exclusively to a hand-picked team of bureaucrats in Senegalese government ministries. President Wade was indeed averse and disinclined to using third-party mediators or non-state actors in intermediation. He was particularly sensitive to the criticism of him and his policies by normative groups including civil society. The Wade Administration nevertheless scored quite a few victories in diplomacy. Notably, the Ziguinchor Peace Talks (December 2004) did produce a Peace Agreement that was signed and adopted collectively by representatives of the Senegalese Ministry of the Interior and by Diamacoune with his MFDC alliance. Ziguinchor went far beyond the customary declaration of a ceasefire. It stipulated potentially path-breaking initiatives, plus declarations to: (I) end all use of violence including prohibition on kidnapping; (II) grant amnesty to all active maquisards. Agreement was reached to integrate all resistance forces into Senegal’s National Armed

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Forces, on voluntary basis; (III) provide a start-up date for de-mining of the liberated war zones in the Casamance and with plans to return thousands that had been displaced into neighboring countries as refugees; and (IV) honor and publicize the Joint Communiqué signed by Diamacoune and the Secretary-General of MFDC, Jean-Marie Francois Biagui, which repudiated a military approach to the resolution of the Casamance problem. Additional round of diplomatic meetings in 2005 in the town of Foundiougne resulted in two Accords (Foundiougne I, February 2005; Foundiougne II, December 2005). These were essentially re-confirmations of the Ziguinchor arrangements, though the invitation of women‘s participation as observers was a new and welcome recognition of women’s commitment to peace. The administration was also successful in developing specialized institutions that were designed to re-invigorate the tradition of political discourse on matters of national unity. Ad hoc debates on the future of peace were strongly encouraged. The MFDC delegates and government officials were nominated to work collaboratively as members on the Peace Consultative Committee charged with building the intellectual and policy foundations upon which lasting and sustainable peace was to be based. In later years, beginning roughly from 2010, a National Conference was also established to serve as the forum for political debates on pressing national concerns on conflict and peace. And engagements proved lively with the participation of political parties. Jean-Marie Biagui also used the platform to announce that he had plans to convert the MFDC into a political party. He also hinted on his personal preference on a federal system of government for Senegal. Bangui’s announcements were significant in that they finally and firmly jettisoned all MFDC’s claims on independence. President Wade also used the forum to announce for the first time (January 2011) that his government was seriously considering the appointment of the Community of Sant’Egidio64 to intermediate in the Casamance conflict. But there was a twist to the idea. He wanted Sant’Egidio to establish exclusive relations with the radical Salif Sadio faction of the maquis.65 President Wade had said that ending the conflict in Casamance would be his government’s “priority of priorities.”66 To be fair, and compared to the preceding government of President Diouf, security conditions in Senegal vis-à-vis the Casamance region did improve considerably during his presidency. But the Wade Administration did not achieve any definitive peace, beyond meetings, declarations on peace, and token ceasefires. Hostilities

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in Senegal’s southern region continued unceasingly, until his defeat in the elections of 2012 by Macky Sall. Mediation: MFDC and President Macky Sall The peace process lumbers and plods uneventfully under the government of President Macky Sall.67 Following public statements that Casamance would be a priority concern, the Sall administration revived the idea of external intervention. He incorporated the intermediation of Community of Sant’Egidio68 in the Casamance. In addition, the local body, Reflection Group for Peace in the Casamance (RGPC) was established and placed under the leadership of veteran politician and the Ziguinchor-born, Robert Sagna. The notable citizen Sagna is expected to use the body as an umbrella to engage community leaders and draw their support and participation in national debates for peace. Significantly, President Sall reversed and nullified his predecessor’s policy that had excluded civil society from participating in peace processes. Normative organizations are today among the principals that are entrusted with the responsibility to remove obstacles to peace. Many of the organizations are currently working with students, professional bodies, and women’s organizations to directly engage the Jola Casamancais in debates on the future of the Casamance. They are seeking to attract recalcitrant maquis to the negotiation table. The Community of Sant’Egidio did organize one major peace conference in Rome from October 13–14, 2013.69 The invited participants included Senegalese government delegates as well as the three maquis chiefs. The general agreement to foster peace was reaffirmed and endorsed by all the main participants. The meeting was also significant in that it provided a side forum for the MFDC leadership to air its grievance and raise objections on an internal MFDC matter concerning procedure, which the government was said to have violated. The government had directly contacted the maquis chief Salif Sadio of the Front Sud, hardliner faction. And he was furnished with cash and diplomatic resources to select and carry his own personal entourage to the Rome Conference. His invitation ought to have come indirectly from the MFDC. In principle and practice, the authority to organize and mobilize resources and prepare for international events is reserved for the Secretary-General of the MFDC. Those in support of order and wanting to promote respect for hierarchy in the administration of public affairs strongly insisted on the importance of unambiguously recognizing the supremacy of the MFDC. They said that the organization’s leadership is and must

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remain the pre-eminent political wing of the resistance to which all the maquis chiefs must stoop on matters of diplomacy and international relations. These issues and concerns were presented to the government. And President Sall responded quickly and with innovation. A governmental body called the Unity of Existing Factions was appointed to intermediate and promote unity of purpose, and help narrow political differences among the maquis chieftains. The directorate of the body was mandated specifically to preserve the integrity of future negotiations and preempt any potential widening of schisms among the maquis factions during negotiations, especially at international forums. Equally significant, the maquis chiefs were split on the injection of Sant’Egidio70 into the Casamance question. The MFDC raised many questions about why the government of Senegal found it necessary to hire the services of Sant’Egidio, since existing regional organizations on the continent were available to serve and they possess superior mechanisms of conflict management. In truth, both the ECOWAS and the African Union (AU) have specialized mediators most of whom are richly endowed with practical field experience in conflict management. And they possess provable track records of success in mediation and post-conflict peacebuilding. Some say that Sant’Egidio serves to deflect international criticism and skepticism that the Senegalese government is not doing enough to end the Casamance conflict. Others believe that Sant’Egidio is being used to shield the Casamance conflict from internal African scrutiny. Distraction notwithstanding or rather considering a win-win situation, all parties to the conflict can mobilize genuine determination to end the 40-year-old tragedy. The Casamance conflict undoubtedly is ripe for resolution. It has reached the historic inflection point at which a mediated settlement based on a comprehensive peace plan must be firmly established. Such a settlement will recognize and go on urgently to resolve the roots of collective grievance as well build durable mechanism to check recurrent violence.

VII. Future Research: Advancing the Peace The Casamance conflict heaves and puffs as it tugs close to forty years of fighting. More so, the resistance now seems enfeebled partly because many of the original and experienced maquis military generals have either retired from active soldiering or passed. War weariness among the maquisards presently offers opportunity for a reinvigorated mediation to end the

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conflict and propagate premium peace.71 Challenges to peace that are amenable to immediate resolution naturally have to be addressed first and with verve. Among them, elimination of land mines will ensure the orderly resettlement of refugees permitting also the implementation of postwar economic development. And women in the Casamance have earned the respect of their male counterparts by virtue of their steadfast roles as resourceful mediators in peace processes. Collectively women now constitute potent fields of force for constructive change.72 No society is considered democratic and socioculturally vibrant that fails to cultivate and mainstream women’s agency and collective action. The quality of a democratic government in the overall is defined by the extent to which its citizenry is diverse and possesses the rights to participate in governance and to represent the miscellany of interests. Elimination of Land Mines: A Critical Component of the Peace Process In principle, President Macky Sall’s government is committed to eradication of land mines and the country’s international public policy on peacebuilding accommodates international de-mining bodies such as Geneva Call.73 In practice, and despite financial inputs from international sources,74 both the government and the guerrilla fighters have been less than enthusiastic to volunteer information required by foreign de-mining engineers to locate and disable the weapons. The disputants fear that information leading to rapid de-mining would also threaten or erode any strategic military advantage one might hold over the other. Foot-dragging is therefore the norm. Meanwhile, foreign de-miners75 are forced to depend on dicey, chancy sources among the local populations and on clandestine leaks by the military to locate the weapon sites and achieve a modicum of their goal. Thousands of land mines are scattered throughout Southern Senegal, placed by both government forces and the MFDC fighters. The Senegalese Government has laid more mines than the maquis. And agricultural, fishing, and tourism industries have been crippled as a result of the scourge.76 The fact that Senegal is a signatory to the 1997 Ottawa Convention77 on Land mines had raised expectations that Dakar would heed its obligations under the Mine Ban Treaty. Contrary to expectations, rational cost-benefit calculations78 have regrettably failed to tilt the Senegalese Government’s interest toward the promotion of peace and over the fleeting and ephemeral rewards of battlefield victory.

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A fertile field of research in de-mining is expanding along with the need for innovative public policy and initiatives to shore up reconstruction programs in postwar countries. An important question revolves around how best to support the (I) disarming of land mines,79 destruction of all “Explosive Remnants of War” (ERW), and elimination of stockpiles of all banned weapons. (II) The logical spin-off from research in de-mining should consist of practical initiatives to rehabilitate landmine victims. Building on this, (III) access to learning and education must be designed and developed to run parallel with physical and emotional rehabilitation of war victims. (IV) Specialized curriculums will be required with core courses tailored to satisfy the needs of children and youths born and raised as refugees in those distressingly anomalous conditions of the camp. Women’s Agency and Activism: Critical Component of the Peace Process The responsibilities that women are assuming for peace in the region are mounting in scale and increasing qualitatively in importance.80 And this is the case globally for women. In the Casamance, women’s roles have been historic and pre-eminent particularly among Jola Casamancais that are primarily matrilineal.81 Much has already been written on traditional belief systems largely among the Jola group about which women located in the forest or the sacred groves performed the rituals of the mystical bath consecrated to protect the maquisards against evil spirits82 and the extremes of bad luck during battles. Contemporary challenges thrown up by the protracted conflict have compelled and redirected women and their creative energies into paramount roles of mediation and toward promotion of dialogue among the maquis factions. The priestesses that had previously supported the war now are warriors for peace. They are contributing in the most practical ways to end the tumult by invoking mystical powers to liberate the maquisards from their oath of allegiance to the struggle. These women mediators are also tapping into their reservoirs of spiritual powers to neutralize the fetishes that were conjured to protect, expand, and sustain the rebellion. The women members of the Sacred Forest Association 83 today are collaborating with grassroots women’s movements to advance peace processes in the Casamance.84 Likewise, women’s activism was moved one score higher with the creation (1999) of the Association Régionale des Femmes pour la Paix (ARFP). Internal conflicts inside the ARFP led to splits that produced two additional groups one year later, in 2000: Comite Regional de Solidarite des Femmes

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pour la Paix en Casamance (USOFORAL-meaning hand-in-hand in Jola) and Kabonketoor, meaning “to reconcile with each other”85 in Jola. The former works principally to increase the participation of women in public policy making. It is also working with international organizations to extend women’s exposure to international donors for technical and financial assistance to promote conflict mediation techniques and post-conflict reconciliation. The latter is orientated toward the grassroots. It is focused principally on teaching women how best to maximize modern negotiation and mediation by blending traditional and modern methods of conflict resolution. Each of the two groups is supporting a vast network of rural and urban women organizations consisting of more than 1000 members across the Casamance.86 The UN Security Council Resolution 132587 on Women, Conflict Prevention, Peace and Security (October 31, 2000) seeks to encourage woman’s participation in conflict resolution. Women of the Casamance region came together as a group in 2010 to observe the 10th anniversary of the adoption of that resolution. They also used the opportunity of celebration to assess their contribution and performance as campaigners for positive change in the Casamance. Researchers can advance the ongoing effort among women’s groups by helping to: (I) explore, document, and archive the work that women are doing in the specific area of conflict prevention. Information gathered can then be used for training and for general educational purposes. (II) Investigate how effectively and sufficiently women are projecting their voices into existing formal political arenas. This will tell us something about the extents to which the Senegalese Government is committed in principle and in actual practice to the promotion of gender equality. To be sure, many among women’s groups feel that governmentled peace processes sometimes are humbug; more so, that women’s representation is regularly misused or appropriated as cultural ornamentation by public officials. (III) Raise the question of means and method. What are the gendered constraints on women’s peacebuilding initiatives in the Casamance? What kinds of societal constructs are likely to disallow, hinder, or accommodate the collective action of women? (IV) Examine and evaluate how pro-peace priestesses of the forest grove are attempting to fuse religion-based and traditional mediation practices88 with modern methods of conflict resolution. The innovative endeavor in principle is aimed at freeing communities from violent strife. It ranks among the compendium of practices being encouraged even by Western-based conflict resolution experts to nudge peace processes in the Casamance.

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VIII. Casamance Through the Centuries: An Excursus The Casamance region of Senegal is steeped in the history of human encounters and movement. Communications and interaction between the region’s principal players and non-Africans date back to 1445, when Portuguese merchants and explorers began to establish trading posts in the general area to facilitate the then highly lucrative trade in gold, salt, and human captives. The name Casamance is Portuguese corruption of Mansa (Conqueror) Sama Coli, said to be the first imperial ruler of the Kaabu Kingdom and the grandson of Malian Army General Tiramakhan Traore. The empire-building General had founded and established Kaabu in the Casamance (1537–1867) when serving the legendary Sundiata Keita of the Great Mali Empire.89 This was a period of seismic change in West Africa. And as a conquered polity, Casamance endured foreign rule and subjugation with aplomb.90 Kaabu is known in the African historical literature variously also as Kabu, Quebu, and N’gabo, and it covered the territories of present-day Casamance, Guinea-Bissau, and the Gambia. Kaabu remained in a semiautonomous tributary status in relation to the Mali Empire for a prolonged period of time.91 And it continued to flourish through the centuries, more so thanks to the revivalist ethos of the renaissance ruler, Mansa Musa92 who ascended the throne and ruled Mali together with its tributary kingdoms with mercurial favor from 1307 to 1337.93 His reign is associated with great advances in mathematics and astronomy and with the establishment of one of the grandest centers of learning in the Islamic World of the times, the Sankara Madrassa of Timbuktu.94 Individuals and groups in the Casamance gained access to the libraries, teachers, and knowledge resources of Timbuktu, which positively also helped to advance the quality of intellectual life of Kaabu in general. The period after the death of Mansa Musa was defined by trouble and instabilities.95 Internal competition for power and bad rulers ultimately led to the erosion of authority and collapse of the Mali Empire (1230–1600). It would eventually disintegrate into minor Malinke-held chiefdoms many of which were ejected from the territory or assimilated by the succeeding Songhay Empire. Similar fate soon befell the Kaabu Kingdom that had earlier drawn its independence from the Mali Empire before the latter’s collapse. Internal squabbles among the Wolof and Tekrur ethnic groups coupled with Fulani-led uprisings caused its eventual disintegration.

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Thenceforward, and after centuries of indigenous rule by African emperors, a succession of mostly grotesque European impositions96 took turns to vandalize and smash up the existential quality of the economic and cultural life of the continent, until the Berlin Conference (1884) was able to regulate and formalized the “Scramble for Africa”97 (1881–1914). Modern European powers became dominant, and the Casamance region came to absorb Portuguese Creole during colonial rule. Creole language in addition to its many cultural artifacts persists and today is prominent among the many imprimaturs of foreign rule in the area, particularly in the Casamance and Guinea-Bissau. Portuguese culture continued to hold sway long after the territory encompassing the Casamance was transferred to French control in 1908 and was thereon administered as part of the now defunct Federation of Mali, until the achievement of self-rule by Senegal in 1960.98 Casamance today is a narrowly defined geographical enclave of roughly 300 square kilometer land mass. It is sandwiched between Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean eastward along the Casamance River to form the southwesternmost region of Senegal. This enclave characteristic is said to reinforce in the Jola Casamancais a hard sense of isolation from the rest of the country. Geography in this instance is implicated as one of many structural factors upon which the argument for Casamance independence or autonomy is predicated and justified. Oppositely, it explains the strong cultural affinity between the Jola inhabitants of Casamance and their kin in the contiguous states of the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau.99 The region is divided into three inter-linked administrative sections: the upper, middle, and lower Casamance. The lower section is the most popular largely because it hosts the capital city of Ziguinchor and forms the epicenter of the Casamancais revolution, and it is abundantly endowed with natural resources including fertile soil for agriculture and magnificent bodies of water. Casamance Exceptionalism The Jola, Diola in French transliteration, contribute 61% of the roughly 3.5 million inhabitants of the Casamance region and only 4% of the total Senegalese population of nearly 15 million. The Jola are also the largest Muslim concentration in the region (60%); the others are Christian of the Catholic faith (17%) and minority animists or practitioners of traditional African religions (8%). Senegal is 95% Muslim, and this has led quite

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a few inattentive researchers to the misleading supposition that the conflict is pitted between a dominant Muslim north versus Christian-animist south. Far from religion, the Casamance conflict is built around strong economic concerns that have become integrated with regional uniqueness, expressed in terms of Casamancais Exceptionalism. The separatist ethos or militant psyche together with its discourse is saturated and drippingwet with the consciousness of collective difference.100 Other population groups in the Casamance include those with trans-regional affinities such as the Mandingo and Peul (Fulani). The Wolof ethnic group that forms the majority in Senegal (43%) is a minority in the Casamance (5%). The rest are Bissauan Casamancais, the Balanta, Bainouk, Manjak, and Mancagne. The flourishing natural environment of the Casamance region no doubt is vastly enhanced and complemented by its ethnic mix and cultural artifacts. The extents to which the European explorers of the times were captivated by the vast bequests of the region can be found in writings and memoirs that imagined and visualized the terrains in idyllic terms. Close to the hyperbolic, European geographical literature also cultivated and grew the curiosity of its readership by presenting the Casamance in mythical terms and as a region free of drought, hunger, or slums.101 Certainly not all is legend or fable about the Casamance. The region through the centuries has been the breadbasket serving the entire area with the abundance of food. Its alluvial valleys have favored rice fields while the plateaux have supported the large selection and assortment of cereals and fruit orchards. Varieties of palms and vegetable crops have been the common accompaniments in a burgeoned terrain. And large forest areas today provide hardwood for furniture. It feeds the construction industry. Agricultural land use also thrives, and it embodies silviculture—the system of silviculture today represents modern forestry that is designed with soil conservation in mind and is in keeping with ecosystem balance with emphasis on the tending, harvesting, and regeneration of the forest. Much of the rubber products that are manufactured in French West Africa and processed into goods for export are tapped from species of the Casamance vine known as landophia. Elsewhere, tributaries of the Casamance River permit modest but well-organized community and individual fishing and oyster breeding. Communal farming is enhancing the quality of livelihoods among the local population, even in the context of the ongoing civil war. A steady and near predictable rotation of dry and wet seasons means that the Casamance is a natural tourist attraction and home to more subtropical than jungle-type forest. Historically, regional wealth and access to resources

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have served to bolster the mentality of self-sustenance and economic independence among the Casamancais. Much of the region’s verdancy—its lush and flourishing vegetation—is supported and nourished by yearly wet season lasting more than four months and by the complex network of tributaries and backwaters of the tidal Casamance River. These natural qualities stand in stark contrast to the geographical qualities of the northern half of Senegal, which is Sahelian by nature, and definitely un-green. The ongoing conflict for sure minimizes land use and undercuts the vivacity of a once-sparkling tourism industry. And the operators of illicit trade are the only ones with a death wish to braze the hazards of direct participation in the war economy 102 ; they seem convinced that the real and potential benefits accruable from participation in dangerous trade outweigh all the hazards that dictate caution against it.103 The local entrepreneurs in such an economy are themselves criminals and most are tied in synergic links to underground international traders wanting to buy stolen Casamance timber for export and to facilitate the underground market in small arms, illegal drugs, and the assortment of contraband goods. Economic incentive should prompt the Senegalese Government more forcefully to re-double effort for peace. Freedom from civil strife is a cardinal factor to help rejuvenate the region’s capacities to create jobs for the thousands of unemployed youths. Restoration of human dignity through the provision of work can only multiply positive social dividends and prevent the descent of younger Casamancais into criminality. Senegal: A Model Democracy? Against this backdrop, the supposition that Senegal has attained higher standards in governance and is enveloped in the graces of political stability requires reflection and evaluation. The supposition in essence demeans and denigrates the severe human and material consequences of the long-lasting war in the Casamance. Peaceful political alternation and the absence of a history of military coup d’état in Senegal are the measures by which political solidity has been measured rather narrowly by neglectful observers. The measurement also grossly fails to comprehend the growing economic hardship in the country as a whole. With a persistently high poverty rate of 46.7% and a per capita income of $500 per annum, the Senegalese undoubtedly are among the poorest in the world. The country is ranked 164 out of 189 countries on the UN Human Development Index. The façade of a rock-solid Senegal is beginning appreciatively to fray in the

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midst of intense and rapidly re-occurring protest marches by students and civil servants demanding improvements in their overall well-being. And many apprehensive international bodies are dishing harshly worded criticisms that hold Dakar responsible for the prolonged conflict in its backyard. Public opprobrium and censure are exposing the fallacy that Senegal is the model African democracy.104 In truth, the Senegalese leadership cadre currently risks falling victim to the deep despair and demagoguery that have imploded many African countries time and again. In bringing this exploration to a close, it is appropriate I believe to say a word or two about the everyday life of the common Jola Casamancais in Senegal. Undoubted, not all Jola indigenes are separatists, though overwhelming majority of the separatists is Jola. Many Casamancais and quite a sizeable number of the Jola among them own businesses and reside permanently outside the Casamance area, in Dakar and in the towns north of the Casamance River. More than a few of the Jola are civil servants and quite a number also are mainstream politicians. Several are high ranking officers in the National Armed Forces of Senegal, serve as cadets in the Senegalese Police Force and hold distinguished careers in diverse national law enforcement agencies. Hundreds of Jola youths attend institutions of higher education in the north. Many are awarded federal scholarships to attend several of the best national colleges and universities in Senegal. And questions of bigotry and inequity here again resound distinctly and reverberate among college-educated Casamancais youths. Despite acquiring excellent qualifications and professional training in diverse areas of the arts and sciences, many young citizens of Jola origins are unemployed and seem permanently out of work. Investigations into their complaints about discrimination have largely confirmed that favoritism exists in Senegalese society and is manifested regularly in ethnically prejudicial career appointments, which tend overwhelmingly to favor the majority Wolof. Beyond all the tribulation, shouldered presently by the Casamancais as fleeting challenge to the human spirit, a remarkable and electrifying optimism prevails among the youth, most of them prefer to keep their eyes on a horizon that is inviting and is affirmative of infinite human possibilities. The Casamancais youths exude and embody vigor. They represent collective self-confidence that can be instantly and easily mobilized and channeled into programs for preventive action. Youths are the veritable engine for the cultivation of peace in the present. Most of them speak of a future Casamance that is ethnically integrated and fuelled by positive energy to advance equality and balanced human development.

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Notes 1. Evasion of recruitment into the colonial army or colonial labor force and spontaneous community uprisings were common manifestations of the struggle against colonial rule on the continent. See Michelle Moyd, International Encyclopedia of the First World War (1914–1918), June 2017. Hostility to foreign penetration of Senegal in the late eighteenth century was partly inspired by warrior/preacher prophets of Islam. On this, see Christian Coulon, Prophets of God or of History? Muslim Messianic Movements and Anti-colonialism in Senegal (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2011). 2. Political secession expresses two things: grievance among disenfranchised people and aspiration to break-away from a current state in order to found a new sovereign polity that hews closest to a people’s political and sociocultural preferences and priorities. Secession may not yield independence; though it can lead ultimately to concessions and improved association based on equality and access to rights within the same state. In Africa, the outcomes of secessions have been at best mixed. See the collection of diverse essays by Lotje de Vries, Pierre Englebert, and Mareike Schomerus, eds., Secessionism in African Politics: Aspiration, Grievance, Performance, and Disenchantment (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 3. Is there a right of self-determination? And if so, does the disenfranchised and seceding entity possess a right of self-determination? When is it justifiable to question the legitimacy of the state and to resist its authority? For work on this, see Morten Boas and Kevin C. Dunn, eds., Africa Insurgents: Navigating an Evolving Landscape (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2017). 4. Lawrence S. Woocher, “The Casamance Question: An Examination of the Legitimacy of Self Determination in Southern Senegal,” International Journal of Minority and Group Rights 7, no. 4 (2000), 341–379. 5. A more insidious motif is attributed to his approach, that he wanted ultimately to weaken and undermine the revolution by supporting one guerrilla faction and not the other. On this, see Sherif Bojang, “Hero Abroad, Criticism at Home,” New Africa, no. 501 (December 2010), 32–33. 6. Post-conflict reconstruction must also speak to women’s participation in matters both in the private and public spheres. See, International Monitoring Center (IDMC), New Displacement and Challenge to Durable Solutions in the Casamance, June 10, 2010. 7. Project Ploughshares, Ontario, Canada, 2016; Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfer (NISAT), December 23, 2016; Clionadh Raleigh, et al., “Africa Baselines and Trends,” Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset, Department of Geography, UK Aid, March 2013, 1–35. 8. Levels of domestic conflict and intensity are often measured in accordance with the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and the Oslo Peace

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10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

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Research Institute. Other sources speak to military expenditures of different national governments. See International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Military Balance, London, 2017; Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers Data Base, Stockholm, Sweden, April 2017. The current Stockholm Annual Report says total military expenditure rose to $1686 billion in 2016, an increase of 0.4% in real terms from 2018. The genocidal wars that raged in Liberia and Sierra Leone are said to have diverted attention away from the gnawing war in Southern Senegal. But the government of Senegal was successful in lobbying in international circles to keep the conflict quiet and out of the major newspaper headlines. See IRIN, “Senegal has a Proud Musical Heritage, but in the Southern Region of Casamance, they too Often Sing of Pain, Suffering and Conflict without End,” International Regional Information Network, August 3, 2015. On this and other security problematique, see Martin Evans, “Small but Dangerous,” The World Today 60, nos. 8/9 (2004), 42–43. Gail Hopkins, “Casamance Refugees, Women’s Engagement and Development in the Gambia,” Diversities 15, no. 1 (2013), 79–93. Ryan Griffiths, “Secession and the Invisible Hands of the International System,” Review of International Studies 40, no. 3 (July 2014), 559–581. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed, and thousands of hectares of arable land are rendered unsuitable for the customary cultivation of rice, vegetables, and fruits. See Editorial Supplement, “Casamance Conflict: Hope for an End to Senegal’s Forgotten War,” The Week (World News), August 12, 2015; Martin Evans, “Casamance Conflict: Out of Sight, Out of Mind?” Humanitarian Practice Network, April 2002. Nadine Ansorg, “Wars Without Borders: Conditions for the Development of Regional Conflict Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa,” International Area Studies Review 17, no. 3 (2014), 295–312. Levels-of-analysis approach is used by a few to explain the causative factors and outcomes of conflict in the Casamance. On this, see I. William Zartman, ed., Casamance: Conflict Management and African Studies Programs Student Field Trip to Senegal (Washington, DC: John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, 2016). The region is no stranger to the impacts of characteristic traumas of the post-Cold War era. See Charles Butcher and Ryan Griffith, “Alternative International Systems? System Structure and Violent Conflict in 19th Century West Africa, South East Asia and South Asia,” Review of International Studies 4, no. 4 (2015), 715–737. A most nefarious campaign for “hearts and minds,” government forces as well as the rebels have used terror deliberately to coerce support from the civilians or dissuade them from supporting the other side. See Amat Jeng,

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18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

“From Independence to Banditry: The Casamance Conflict,” Occasional Paper, Nordic Shades Of Africa, May 22, 2018. Weak state capacity has been used to explain why insurgent wars are prolonged. A few analysts argue that Son-of-the-Soil type conflicts that pose little or no real threats to the state are likely to be ignored and allowed to fester. On this, see Shivaji Mukherjee, “Why Are the Longest Insurgencies Low Violence? Politician Motivations, Sons of the Soil and Civil War Duration,” Civil Wars 16, no. 2 (2014), 172–207. Toyin Falola and Wanjala Nasong’o, eds., Contentious Politics in Africa: Identity, Conflict and Social Change (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2016). See Cristiano D’Orsi, “An Outlook on the Conflict in the Casamance with a Focus on the Legal Situation of the Mouvement des Forces Democratique (MFDC) and Its Members,” Willamette Journal of International Law and Dispute Resolution 23 (2015), 1–59. Mamadou Diouf, “Between Ethnic Memories and Colonial History: MFDC and the Struggle for Independence in the Casamance,” in Bruce Berman, Dickson Eyoh, and Will Kymlicka, eds., Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa (Suffolk: James Currey, 2004). The MFDC is analyzed with emphasis on its evolution. See Martin Evans, Senegal: Mouvement des Forces Democratique de la Casamance—MFDC (London: Chatham House, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2003). On this and related issues, see Thomas Matyok, et al. Critical Issues in Peace and Conflict Studies: Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011). It would take roughly ten years to schedule another dialogue between the resistance and government representatives in 1999. But why did the first ceasefire fail? Why did it divide the MFDC? The leadership was sharply divided on the question of compromise. Perhaps the conflict was not yet ripe for resolution. Front Nord received from the government a pacification package that included several development enterprises such as bakeries and fish processing. But the soldiers were never demobilized or disarmed. A number of the combatants did turn to illegal activities including looting and smallscale drug trafficking. See Ann Theobald, “Successful or Failed Rebellion? The Casamance Conflict from a Framed Perspective,” Civil Wars 17, no. 2 (April 2015), 181–200. Operation Gabou is seen by Senegalese scholars and public officials as one of the country’s most decisive foreign military policy initiatives. It involved the deployment of roughly 2000 troops on a fast-moving 8month incursion from June 1998 to March 1999. See Vincent Foucher, “Wade’s Senegal and Its Relations with Guinea Bissau: Brother, Patron or

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27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

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Regional Hegemon,” Occasional Paper, South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), January 2013. The maquis is divided into three main factions. And it was led by three chiefs at that moment: Salif Sadio (Baraka Mandioka Group); Cesar Atoute Badiate (Cassolol Group); Kamougue Diatta (Diakaye Group). For the dynamics of conflict and cooperation among the maquis, see Genevieve Gasser, “Contested Casamance: Introduction,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 39, no. 2 (2005), 213–229. For expanded discourse on internal splits among the maquis and further conflict, see Lotta Themner and Peter Wallensteen, “Armed Conflict, 1946–2012,” Journal of Peace Research 50, no. 4 (2013), 509–521. The wrong impression must not be created however that the maquis comes together neatly under three leaders. In truth, cracks and crevices even within existing groups have continued to reproduce fissionable out-groups. It is worrisome that quite a number of them are attracted to dubious enterprises in the war economy; see United States, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing, Congressional Documents and Publications, April 26, 2017. President Kumba Yala was personally a taciturn and indecisive leader. After three years of instability, his administration was toppled without bloodshed by the military, not only because he was unforthcoming in policy making but also because he had become dictatorial. See Massey Simon, “Multifaceted Mediation in Guinea Bissau Civil War,” Scientia Militaria 32, no. 1 (February 2012), 12–23. The point has been made that “necessity” frequently has pushed individuals into criminality. Under what circumstance is an aberrant behavior justifiable? See Vigh Henrik, “Caring Through Crime: Ethical Ambivalence and the Cocaine Trade in Bissau,” Journal of International African Institute 87, no. 3 (August 2017), 479–495. See Nadine Ansong, “Wars Without Borders: Conditions for the Development of Regional Conflict Systems in Sub-Saharan Africa,” International Area Studies Review 17, no. 3 (2014), 295–312. Senegal publicly discredited Tiran’s denial of complicity in the cargo; it then recalled its ambassador to Iran and co-signed a Nigerian Communiqué to the UN Security Council in which Yahya Jammeh was accused of collusion in breach of the UN sanctions on Iran. The latter had stubbornly refused to terminate its nuclear program and was for that reason banned from selling, supplying, or transferring arms to any third countries. On this, see News Supplement, “UN Investigates Nigerian Weapons Shipment from Iran,” BBC News, January 18, 2011; also Louise Hunt and T. Y. McCormick, “The Fall of Africa’s Loneliest Despot,” Foreign Policy, January 23, 2017. With a long look into history, critical political interactions among the Casamance, the Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau are carefully analyzed. See

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35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

Paul Nugent “Cyclical History in the Gambia and Casamance Borderlands: Refuge, Settlement and Islam from 1880 to the Present,” The Journal of African History 48, no. 2 (2007), 221–243. Positive outcomes are expected from security and geopolitical interactions among the Jola communities along the Gambian borderlands. See Steven Thomson, “Revisiting Mandingization in Coastal Gambia and Casamance (Senegal): Four Approaches to Ethnic Change,” African Studies Review 54, no. 2 (2011), 95–121. On this, see Vincent Foucher, “Wade’s Senegal and Its Relations with Guinea-Bissau: Brother, Patron or Regional Hegemon?” South African Foreign Policy and African Drivers Program, Occasional Paper no. 132, January 2013. For a study that explores theoretically the character of rebellions with a focus also on the dynamics of leadership institutions, see Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Greed, Grievance and Civil War,” World Bank Group, Working Paper no. 2355, 2000. See Pyt S. Douma, “Origins of Contemporary Conflict: A Comparison of Violence in Three World Regions,” Clingendael Study no. 18, The Netherlands Institute of International Relations, The Hague, September 1, 2013. On this, see Sabine Carey, “Rebellion in Africa: Disaggregating the Effects of Political Regimes,” Journal of Peace Research 44, no. 1 (January 2007), 46–64. Wolofization denotes the attempts and actual spread of the Wolof language as a lingua franca in Senegal. As shown, the language was used among diverse ethnic groups in Northern Senegal as far back as the sixteenth century. And it was rejected by the Jola Casamancais during the Administration of President Diouf. See Fiona McLaughlin, “Haalpulaar Identity as a Response to Wolofization,” African Languages and Cultures 8, no. 3 (1995), 153–168. On this, see E. C. Wood, et al., “Understanding the Drivers of Agricultural Land Use Change in Southern-Central Senegal,” Journal of Arid Environment 59, no. 3 (2004), 565–582. Mark Pires, “A Historical Political Ecology of Land Use in the Southern Peanut Basin of Senegal,” African Geographical Review (January 1, 2012), 1–16. On assessments, see Government of Canada, Canadian Development Assistance in Senegal: Modified Report, 2017. Canada is an established development partner of Senegal with investment in human-oriented development assistance of more than $1.3 billion in the past roughly forty years. See Mark Deets, “Bitter Roots: Obstacles to Peace in the Casamance Conflict,” in Helen Purkit, ed., African Environmental and Human Security in the 21st Century (Amherst, NY: Cambria Press, 2009).

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45. The hierarchical character of modern bureaucracy is theoretically and practically antithetical to egalitarian principles upon which Jola understandings about effective social and political organization are predicated. See Stefan Gehrold and Inga Neu, “Caught Between Two Fronts—In Search of Lasting Peace in the Casamance,” KAS International Report, October 2010. 46. The rich and intricate social structures of the Casamance region are examined carefully to illumine the ways and means by which indigenous people have lived their lives. The Jola farming communities through time have reproduced and seek to protect and enhance environmental quality. See Joane Davidson, “We Work Hard: Customary Imperatives of the Diola Work Regime in the Context of Environmental and Economic Change,” African Studies Review 52, no. 2 (September 2009), 119–141. 47. Ted Robert Gurr, “Assessment of the Diola of Casamance in Senegal,” Minorities at Risk Project, University of Maryland, December 2006. 48. On culture and Leisure in society, see Joffre Dumazedier, “Leisure,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 9 (1968), 248–253. I have borrowed Dumazedier’s perspective on the subject. Dennison Nash and Valene L. Smith, “Anthropology and Tourism,” Annals of Tourism Research 18 (1991), 12–25. 49. Emily Harwell, “Forests in Fragile and Conflict-Affected States,” PROFOR (Program of Forests), World Bank Group, Washington, DC, October 2010. 50. “Son of the Soil” concept or terminology has been used to describe and analyze a number of Africa’s long-enduring conflicts that arise from competition between indigenous landholders and in-migrants. Drawing examples from Eastern DRC, Uganda, and the Casamance, researchers demonstrate the entwining of land competition and ethnic conflict. About which, see Catherine Boone, “Son of the Soil Conflict in Africa: Institutional Determinants of Ethnic Conflict over Land,” World Development 96 (2017), 276–293; Pauline Peters, “Inequality and Social Conflict over Land in Africa,” Journal of Agrarian Change 4, no. 3 (July 2004), 269–314. 51. Government and corporate entities are required as social responsibility to advance the well-being of their workers. Motivated workers are then supposed to contribute to society via higher quality output. These nevertheless are ideal constructs. See Constantine Imafidon Tongo, “Social Responsibility, Quality of Work and Motivation to Contribute in the Nigerian Society,” Journal of Business Ethics 126 (2015), 219–233. 52. Theoretical and conceptual treatments of work are equally illuminating, see Paul Michael Garrett, “Confronting the Work Society: New Conceptual Tools for Social Work,” British Journal of Social Work 44, no. 7 (2014), 1682–1699. 53. For analysis of these social challenges and how they might be addressed to foster social progress, see Rowena Fong, James Lubben, and Richard Barth,

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54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.

62.

Grand Challenges for Social Work and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). Lee Hwok-Aun, “Affirmative Action in Plural Societies: International Experience,” European Journal of International Research 25, no. 5 (2013), 844–846. Mark Davidheiser, “Joking for Peace: Social Organization, Tradition and Change in Gambian Conflict Management,” Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines 184, no. 4 (December 2006), 835–859. Inter-group tensions are unabating in the Casamance. And among the Jola, the pain of disenfranchisement finds expressions both in actual guerrilla activities against the state and in graffiti. See, Ferdinand De Jong, “A Joking Nation: Conflict Resolution in Senegal,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 39, no. 2 (January 2005), 391–415. Steven Thomson, “Revisiting ‘Mandingization’ in Coastal Gambia and Casamance (Senegal): Four Approaches to Ethnic Change,” African Studies Review 54, no. 2 (2011), 95–121. See Tyler J. Dickovick, “The Measure and Mis-measure of Decentralization: Subnational Autonomy in Senegal and South Africa,” The Journal of Modern African Studies 43, no. 2 (2005), 183–210. “Casacais” is another expression for Casamancais. In the local idiom, the name Casamance is imbued with radicalized motives to rally collective public actions against those oppressive entities of the state. Aissatou Fall, “Understanding the Casamance Conflict: A Background,” KAIPTC Monograph no. 7, December 2010. The speculation was rife that President Diouf would use extreme measures to erode the Jola Casamancais identity, culture, and political resolve. An oft-quoted example is the actual division of the Casamance into two administrative provinces—the Kolda and Ziguinchor. Casamance has historically been the bastion of activism and in the local vernacular it represents resistance or “people’s power.” Political temperament of the Casamance remains in large measure a source of constant irritation for many among the Senegalese elite. See, Suzanne Retzinger and Thomas Scheff, “Emotion, Alienation and Narratives: Resolving Intractable Conflict,” Mediation Quarterly 18, no. 1 (2007), 71–85. This study traces the ebb and flow of passions in peace and war. It should provide, I think, a base to reflect on why Abbe Diamacoune was impelled eventually to soften the demand for Casamance independence. Roger Mac Ginty, et al. eds., “Top-Down and Bottom-Up Narrative of Peace and Conflict,” Politics 36, no. 3 (August 2016), 308–323; also Bram Posthumus, “An End in Sight to the Casamance Violence? Searching for Peace in Africa,” European Platform for Conflict Prevention and Transformation in Cooperation, Utrecht, 1999, 365–371.

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63. Renewed diplomacy in pursuit of peace did significantly raised hope among observers. But impediments that had traditionally stalled or undercut dialogue and mediation soon re-emerged, see David Quinn, et al., “Crisis Managers but Not Conflict Resolvers: Mediating Ethnic Intrastate Conflict in Africa,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 30, no. 4 (2013), 387–406. 64. The Community of Sant’Egidio was first introduced into the Casamance peace process by the Wade Administration. President Sall later endorsed it. He was apparently impressed by the organization’s successes in Mozambique. A lay Catholic organization founded in 1968 by Andrea Riccardi, Sant’Egidio uses dialogue as the principal means of mediation. But there have been problems. See Robbie Corey-Boulet, “After Jammeh’s Exit: Peace in Senegal’s Casamance Region Hits Familiar Road Blocks,” World Politics Review, July 12, 2017. 65. Secretary-General Jean-Marie Biagui had reasons to frown on the idea, in part because such a focus would have bolstered the international profile of Salif Sadio at the expense of the leadership of the parent political body, MFDC. The military wing of the resistance (Marquis) is supposed in rule to depend on the political wing for guidance. The opposite has been the case even throughout Abbe Diamacoune’s period as Chairperson of the MFDC. 66. For brief but comprehensive interrogations on peace agreements, see Research Team on Peace Accord Matrix, Cease Fire: General Peace Agreement Between the Government of the Republic of Senegal and MFDC (Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, 2016). 67. Marco Pinfari, “Time to Agree,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 55, no. 5 (2011), 683–709. 68. The role of Sant’Egidio in peace processes is interrogated from diverse analytical perspectives, see Emmanuelle Bouilly and Marie Brossier, “Senegal,” in Sebastian Elischer, Rolf Hofmeier, Andreas Mehler, and Henning Melber, eds., Africa Yearbook, Vol. II: Politics, Economy and Society South of the Sahara in 2014 (Leiden: Brill, 2015). 69. US Department of State “Efforts to End 30 Years Conflict in Senegal,” Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, November 25, 2016. 70. Mario Giro, “Non-institutional Organizations and Conflict Resolution: Some Reflections on the Experiences of the Community of Sant’Egidio,” in Susan Allen Nan, Zachariah Cherian Mampilly, and Andrea Bartoli, eds., Peacemaking: From Practice to Theory (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2011). 71. The US Government is seeking to deepen and expand the peace process by promoting people-to-people (P2P) approach to conflict resolution. See USAID, Strengthening Democratic Governance in Senegal, November 2016; also Vincent Foucher, “War by Other Means? Civil Society in the

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72.

73.

74.

75.

76.

77.

78.

Casamance Peace Process,” Raisons Politiques 35 (August 2009), 143– 166. Medina Haeri and Nadine Puechguir, “From Helplessness to Agency: Examining the Plurality of Women’s Experiences in armed Conflict,” International Review of the Red Cross 92, no. 877 (2010), 102–122. And the government is committed to working collaboratively with the International Governmental Organization, Geneva Call, to advance landmine clearing projects as well as commit the maquisards leaders to signing a deed of commitment to ban all use of anti-personnel land mine. See IRIN, Demining Speeds Up in Senegal’s Casamance Region, Africa English Service, April 24, 2013. International support for de-mining has been fairly generous as shown in the following: Norway ($1.1 million, 2017), Germany ($330,000, 2018), and the European Union ($330,000, 2017). One of the suggestions by researchers to encourage compliance has been to make foreign development assistance conditional on transparent commitment via actual implementation of de-mining programs. Foreign volunteers and organizations are working to help de-mine the Casamance. But they are presented with many administrative and procedural problems. For example, the government’s anti-mine body CNAMS sets boundaries to limit the scope of de-mining and access to local deminers. The organization does not freely provide information or data on work already done and works so far pending on de-mining. Both the South African company, Mechem and the Nobel Peace Winner organization, Handicap International, are yet to be given the go-ahead to help in the de-mining of conflict-free areas in the Casamance. Aida Grovestins and Andrew Oberstadt, “Why Land Mines Keep on Killing in Senegal: Forgotten Conflict,” Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), August 3, 2015. International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), Geneva, 2003. Main text of the treaty reads in part: “Members Consider the 1997 Convention on the Prohibition, Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of AntiPersonnel Mines and their Destruction [Mine Ban Treaty] the Only Viable and Comprehensive Framework for Achieving a Mine Free World.” Africa is the most heavily mined continent in the world. The Convention consists of 100 countries committed in principle and in practice to eradicate land mines. Chris Natale, “…de-mining in the Casamance region could be done in six months…we are positioned to offer an extremely efficient de-mining capacity the likes of which had never been present in Senegal.” Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), August 2012.

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79. Noel Stott, “Armed Non-state Actors in Africa and the Ban on Antipersonnel Land Mine,” African Security Review 13, no. 3 (2004), 4–11; also Monitor Report, Toward a Mine Free World, Geneva, 2003. 80. Valerie Stam, “Women’s Agency and Collective Action: Peace Politics in the Casamance,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 43, no. 2 (January 1, 2009), 337–366. 81. The functions as female priests are elaborated to show how the devastations of war are transforming female roles in mediation in the Casamance. See Irene Osemeka, “The Public Sphere, Women and the Casamance Peace Process,” Historica Actual (June 2011), 57–65. 82. Robert M. Baum, West African Women of God: Alinesitoue and the Diola Prophetic Tradition (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2016); also Baum, Shrines of the Slave Trade: Diola Religion and Society in Precolonial Senegambia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), Introduction; Chapters 1–3. 83. Both government and the rebels have used tradition and religion to advance their immediate and long-term objectives in the Casamance conflict. The material benefits accruing from this culture-specific approach to peace is yet to be fully evaluated. See Linda J. Beck and Vincent Foucher, “(Re)Creating the Community: The Use of Customary Authority to Resolve the Casamance Conflict in Senegal,” Revista CIDOB d’Afers Internacionals 87 (October 2009), 95–121. 84. Michelle Maiese, “Engaging the Emotions in Conflict Intervention,” Conflict Resolution Quarterly 24, no. 2 (2006), 187–195. 85. USOFORAL and KADONKETOOR are the two main women groups that are acknowledged in an order of importance for their contributions to regional peace. For analyses of their activism, see Mena Report, Project Awareness and Social Dialogue in the Casamance, May 15, 2015. 86. About this, see Special Report, “Rural Women’s Associations and Sustainable Agriculture in Casamance,” New Field Foundation, March 2010, Casamance, Senegal. 87. An Interagency Network on Women and Gender Equality was established by the UN Security Council to implement the resolution. See OSAGI: Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, Report by the Secretary-General on Women Peace and Security, 2016. 88. Akamu Gafari Adebayo, et al. eds., Indigenous Conflict Management Strategies in West Africa: Beyond Right and Wrong (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015), Introduction; 2 and 4. 89. The history of Mali Empire and its founding patriarch, Sundiata Keita has been analyzed. Most engaging are the details on the career drives of his

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90. 91. 92.

93.

94.

95. 96.

97.

generals together with their encounters and triumphs over enemy kingdoms. See David C. Conrad, Empires of Medieval West Africa (New York, NY: Chelsea House Publishers, 2012). Gordon Innes, Sunjata: Three Mandinka Versions (Philadelphia, PA: Taylor and Francis, 1974). Michael Gomez, A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018). Laura Anastasia, “The Bling King: How Mansa Musa, an Early African Emperor, Turned His Stash of Gold into One of the World’s Biggest Empires,” Junior Scholastic/Current Events 121, no. 2 (September 12, 2018), 18–26. The conquest and subjugation of Casamance by the Great Mali Empire in the last millennium should stand as a most profound and distinct political legacy. Principally, (I) The culture and style of government of the Mandinka were brought to the largely indigenous Mandingo-dominated Southern Senegal; (II) And the Malian Mansa Sama Coli became the first imperial leader of Kaabu. He was the grandson of Army General Tiramakhan Traore, who actually founded Kaabu and established it to serves as a tributary kingdom of Sundiata Keita’s Mali Empire. Sama Coli excelled in many things including the shrewd administration of Kaabu. Strategic towns in the area were converted into thriving international seaports or commercial magnets for the trans-Saharan trade; and subsequently; (III) Sama Coli developed and facilitated international trade whereby African gold, slaves, and spices were exchanged for European textile, beads, and the miasma of finished foreign goods. (IV) And partly for purposes of stability, indigenous Mandingos were appointed directly by the king to serve as administrators in the region’s then three main provinces of Pachana, Jimara, and Sama. Much of the information on the Mali Empire during the reign of Mansa Musa is drawn from notes by Arab scholars during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Mansa Musa by the time of his death had built the Great Mosque of Timbuktu in 1327 and the Sankara Madrassa that he also built and funded was estimated to have held no less than 700,000 manuscripts, making it the largest library in Africa at the time. Mansa Musa is said to have been a man of immeasurable wealth. On this, see Conrad, op. cit., note 89. Rasmussen R. Kent, Mansa Musa (New York, NY: Encyclopedia of World Biography, Edition I, 1998). Stephen C. Bruner, “At Least so Long as We Are Talking About Marching, the Inferior Is Not the Black, It’s the White: Italian Debate over the Use of Indigenous Troops in the Scramble for Africa,” European History Quarterly 44, no. 1 (January 2014), 33–54. The “Scramble for Africa” is officially dated from 1881 to 1914. And while 10% of African territory was taken in 1884, roughly 90% had been grabbed

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101. 102.

103.

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by 1914. Only Liberia and Ethiopia arguably were able to escape colonial rule. The Berlin Conference (1884) formalized and regulated the scramble, and it served perhaps to avert the use of force by Europeans to claim African territory. Missionary zeal and prestige are among the incentives cited for colonization. But the chief motive for the partition of Africa was economic. The struggle to displace Europeans and to achieve self-rule began to yield fruit after nearly 60 years of foreign domination. These historical interactions and developments are elaborated with illuminating geographical illustrations. Francois G. Richard, “Re-charting Atlantic Encounters: Object Trajectories and Histories of Value in the Siin (Senegal) and Senegambia,” Archeological Dialogues 17, no. 1 (2010), 1– 27. The psychological and physical isolation of the Jola Casamancais are reinforced in part by the lack of modern transportation infrastructure linking Casamance to Dakar and to northern parts of the country. Access into Casamance from the north is currently available through the Gambia. And proposals by the government of Senegal to extend the Trans-Gambia Highway and build bridges at strategic river locations (Bamba, Tenda, and Yella) were repeatedly rejected by the Gambian administration then under Yahya Jammeh. Official and organized threats to cultural identity frequently generate rebelliousness and defiance. See Paul Nugent, “Putting the History Back into Ethnicity: Enslavement, Religion, and Cultural Brokerage in the Construction of Mandinka/Jola and Ewe/Agotime Identities in West Africa— 1650–1930,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50, no. 4 (2008), 920–948. See Jean-Claude Marut, Le Conflict de Casamance: Ce que dissent les armes (Paris: Edition Karthala, 2010). See Martin Evans, “Ni Paix Ni Guerre: The Political Economy of LowLevel Conflict in the Casamance,” Background Research for HPG Report, no. 13, February 2003. Michael L. Ross, “How Do Natural Resources Influence Civil War? Evidence from Thirteen Cases,” International Organization 58, no. 1 (2004), 35–67. For thoughts on the Casamance conflict and the future of peace, see David Lewis, “Casamance Conflict Is Unhealed Soar for Senegal,” Reuters World News, February 25, 2012, 7; also Peter Schraeder, “Senegal’s Foreign Policy: Challenges of Democracy and Marginalization,” African Affairs 96, no. 385 (1997), 485–508.

CHAPTER 5

Women’s Wartime Struggle for Peace and Security in the Mano River Union Oumar Ndongo

The greatest evil that can oppress civilized peoples derives from wars. (Immanuel Kant)

Introduction The Mano River Union (MRU) was established in October 1973 through official declaration originally endorsed by Liberia’s President William Tolbert and Sierra Leone’s President Siaka Stevens.1 Guinea’s Sékou Touré would join in 1977, followed much later by Côte d’Ivoire in 2008.2 Acceleration of economic growth and enhancement of cultural interrelations were among the principal purposes of the Union.3 The overall aim had been to build an economic and customs alliance leading to a common market precipitating the freer movement of goods, services, and people.4 But internal wars that began to rage (early 1990s) in the two founding countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone would temporarily freeze the integration plans until mid-2004, when warmer thoughts on Union began to flow once more among the three principal contracting partners—Presidents Lansana Conte (Guinea), Ahmad Tejan Kabbah (Sierra Leone), and Chairman Gyude Bryant of Liberia. Transportation is an important object of © The Author(s) 2020 O. Akiba (ed.), Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25354-7_5

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regional integration and it formed one of the Union’s more ambitious prewar projects. As was expected, the intra-regional airline services, Air Mano, that had been proposed earlier have been brought forward and tabled for consideration.5 To be upfront on the matter under consideration, I come to this study with a healthy dose of bias in support of the thinking that women’s capacities to play major and remarkable roles in society have for too long been downplayed, under-researched, or totally ignored in much of mainstream international relations and peace studies.6 Given outstanding successes and traction7 gained by women during wartime negotiations and post-conflict activities, many scholars now are beginning to take a long look and to reflect on women’s natural peacemaking talents.8 Most scholars agree that women possess proven innate along with acquired endowments in the management of material resources.9 A growing academic literature also recognizes women’s contributions to the promotion of order during war as well as in peacebuilding.10 Largely an empirical study,11 evidence that I proffer hopefully will support my presuppositions and preliminary judgment about the progressive character and problem-solving nature of women’s activism. Solidarity among women is a major factor that helped them build and cement partnerships for survival during the war.12 And this quality is currently helping them mobilize and create new skills for leadership and productive participation in different private and public sectors as professionals. And I am convinced that women’s social networks will expand and consolidate social progress in the foreseeable future.13 It is in this context that we must appreciate and endeavor to understand the significance of the United Nations’ summoning of global support for gender-inclusiveness and promotion of the human rights of women.14 Pursuant to this, the UN Security Council on October 18, 2013, issued a communiqué inviting the international community to ensure that women are included in mediation processes and are allowed to play unfettered and prominent roles in conflict prevention, resolution, and peacebuilding. Members of the Council also unanimously adopted a new resolution reaffirming that sustainable peace hinges on an approach that integrates security, development, and human rights including gender equality.15 In addition, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000)16 reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflict, peace negotiation, and peacebuilding; it encourages inclusion of women among UN peacekeeping. Meanwhile, UN Resolution 1820 (2008)17 persuades the construction of comprehensive strategies toward ending gender-based violence in war-torn areas.

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This study traces and explains the evolution of women’s peace movement that grew and escalated out of the civil war in the MRU. It begins with a historical overview of the prolonged MRU wars18 (I), and the differential impacts of war on women are highlighted, with comments on the condition of women as victim and agent during the struggle19 (II). Women’s collective peace efforts and achievements are brought into the purview in a narrative underlining the revivalist human spirit and positive reflexes for survival among women in the throes of war.20 Women formed extensive networks that they put to use not just to end the war but also to protect their dignity (III). The structure and functions of the Mano River Women’s Peace Network are examined and critiqued because it represents an umbrella organization for the advancement of women’s rights (IV). And then, my concluding thoughts encompass questions about the future of women’s activism and opportunities for peacebuilding (V). The work covers the period when war and peace efforts were most intense (1989–2003). It does not provide much exposure to women activism in Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea in part because our choice of focus is the rapacious regional war which epicenter was the Liberia-Sierra Leone axis.21

I. War in the Mano River Union: Overview Once the civil war erupted in Liberia (1989), its wild currents spread rapidly to engulf large swaths of the West African region including Sierra Leone and Guinea.22 Sprawling masses of refugees also were displaced, causing countless environment-related challenges across urban and rural communities in the Union and beyond. The humanitarian costs of war came to be measured in the order of hundreds of thousands of lives lost and numerous economic infrastructure destroyed.23 The lingering effects and legacies of war could be assessed as well from the point of view of violence in unstable families,24 children conceived amidst the horrors of war and the lack of economic growth and development in the immediate aftermath.25 Scholars agree that the phenomenon of child soldiers and abduction of girl-children constitute a separate and distinct category of agony that ensued from mindbending regional violence.26 War experiences in the MRU are replete with narratives of the most horrendous human cruelty such as limb-cutting and the variants of physical mutilation. Women served as combatants during the terror and played diverse mitigating roles, but they also bore the brunt of the war. In the emergent environment of lawlessness and disorder, women were the vulnerable targets of physical abuse and most were victimized

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with rape.27 Indeed, the Liberian conflict was unique in the sense that various kinds of sexual abuse—most especially rape—had become the veritable weapon of war.28 Details of the war are now familiar and it will suffice to present the main outlines of its momentum as follows: Charles Taylor began invading Liberia through the border county of Nimba on December 24, 1989.29 Backed by mercenary troops from Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) advanced rapidly and took territories rich in minerals, while the government of Samuel Doe remained holed up in the capital city of Monrovia. After seizing main infrastructure and consolidating his hold on illegal diamond trade, Taylor began a cross-border military campaign of terror that spread into Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Guinea. Effectively, he developed, extended, and consolidated a vast international criminal network focused on the illegal exploitation of mineral resources particularly diamond and timber. Charles Taylor embodied all the devilish and most odious characteristics of the death butcher; he fostered, sustained, and deepened the resource war in West Africa. Thus, political leaders in the region collectively saw an urgent need for an organized military intervention, under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) was established and deployed to Monrovia in 1990. The act was uniquely born of emergency, and historians say it was the first time in the developing world that a region would build its own military paraphernalia, endowing it with martial mandate to effectively intervene and resolve regional wars. But peace was not to be realized unambiguously and automatically. The war not only continued unabated in Liberia but began to spread throughout the region like bush fire. By March 1991, much of the rural territories of Sierra Leone had fallen to a Taylor-backed armed rebellion, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) led by Foday Sankoh. While RUF took control of the diamond-rich areas of Sierra Leone, a similar armed insurgency also backed by Charles Taylor began to surge in neighboring Guinea. To further complicate matters, the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO) had also sprung into action. Formed (May 1991) in Guinea-Conakry by Liberian refugees drawn from the late President Samuel Doe’s army, ULIMO proved a tough armed opponent to Charles Taylor for the rest of the duration of the 13-year war. And several negotiated settlements proved unsuccessful in bringing the Liberian calamity to an end.

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The period between 1997 and 2000 was brief in terms of the time matrix, but it was steeped in traumatic and dramatic political developments in the MRU. Governance was tremendously disfigured because ex-combatants now controlled large sheathes of Liberian and Sierra Leonean territories and held governmental authority intermittently also during the period of time in question. On May 25, 1997, the RUF in alliance with the Sierra Leone military had toppled President Ahmed Kabbah and taken power, and Charles Taylor was installed as president (July 1997) following a highly controversial and unusual election in Liberia. Although RUF rebels were ousted shortly by ECOMOG forces, their attempt to retake power by attacking Freetown culminated in the historic January 1999 massacre that left indelible marks of inexplicable brutality with deep marks of genocide on the Sierra Leonean body politic. The historical experience helped to destroy and erase the citizens’ confidence in government. It was anarchy, par excellence! The international community feverishly summoned the July 1999 Lomé Accord, following which Foday Sankoh was admitted into the mainstream of Sierra Leonean politics. He was given the office of vice president in a proposed transitional national government, and RUF fighters were granted full political amnesty. But the peace proved shaky and would not hold.30 A second phase of the Sierra Leonean war that began to explode from May 2000 onward was defined by the targeting and indiscriminate killing of civilians. Hostage-taking for ransom was another distinctive feature of the renewed pandemonium. Quite a few of the captives were killed; others were eventually released either through prolonged negotiation or through the application of raw power: 500 captured UN peacekeepers were released after prolonged conciliation.31 This phase of gross human insecurities was also characterized, positively so, by a heightened determination32 by the combined forces of the ECOMOG, the UN, and a number of Western countries to end the MRU wars. While the United States sent envoys clandestinely to negotiate with individual factions, British paratroopers arrived in Freetown to rescue Commonwealth citizens trapped in different parts of the country immediately outside the Freetown war zone. The troops would eventually join the action by fighting against the rebel forces. With a redefined mandate, the original British paratroops were re-booted with additional seaborne battalions and air force to engage the RUF in combats. The foreign troops actively supported and sustained counterattacks to protect civilian targets.33 The RUF would be defeated in January 2002 by the combined forces of the UN peacekeeping troops and the vastly revamped Sierra Leonean forces

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trained and now heavily equipped by Britain.34 Elsewhere in Liberia, successive military and diplomatic pressures forced Charles Taylor to relinquish power and go into exile in the Calabar city of Nigeria. The fall of the RUF in Sierra Leone and the voluntary exit of Charles Taylor from Liberia (2003) ushered in a period of reconciliation and post-conflict reconstruction.

II. The Essence of Violence and Collaboration for War: Women as Victim and Agent The scale, nature, and scope of gendered war violence in West Africa in general have been elaborated in several studies.35 For example, a World Health Organization (WHO) survey carried out in 2005 reveals that 90% of Liberian women suffered physical violence and that 3 out of 4 had been raped.36 Along this line, the 2004 Report37 of the UN Secretary-General on Women, Peace and Security concludes that women and children account for the vast majority of those adversely affected by armed conflict and that no less than 50,000–64,000 women were victims of sexual abuse in the Sierra Leonean war alone.38 An Amnesty International report on the war in Côte d’Ivoire says that thousands of indigenes from the north of the country and people of Burkinabe origin were targeted for sexual exploitation, and most of them were young girls. Just like in the Balkans, rape and varied forms of sexual violence were used in the MRU as weapon of war to demean women, instill fear in the population, and humiliate communities.39 Patriarchal hierarchies in the MRU never restrained the rambunctious rebel groups who would not be governed by the strict code of ethics established by international laws of war to guide the conduct of conventional national armies40 and ensure the protection of citizens. This said, however, violence against women during those conflicts was not perpetrated solely by men.41 Women tortured pregnant women, and as shown, those infamous forced sex rinks of women were organized by fellow women for their male counterparts to exploit.42 Clinical and psychological studies of wartime behavior strongly suggest that, like men, a number of women will prey on the weak if given the opportunity.43 And the weak in these wars customarily have been non-combatant women, the elderly, and children.44 Charles Taylor’s war effort benefitted immensely from the support rendered by women and quite a few played varied roles in the early stages of the war by paving the way for the rebel leader to meet with influential moneyed individuals and to solicit their support in the execution of war

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plans. For that purpose, Charles Taylor’s liberation front also received considerable amounts of financial support from financially well endowed and influential women. Prominent among the women who supported Charles Taylor during his critical push against the Samuel Doe regime was the then Burkinabe Ambassador to Ghana, Madam Moumouna Ouattara. She introduced Charles Taylor to President Blaise Compaore, and Compaore would later present Taylor to the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. From thenceforward, Gaddafi offered a wide range of material and logistical support to further Charles Taylor’s toxic military escapades. In addition to providing support and creating connections for Taylor’s war, women also rose to key positions of decision making in Charles Taylor’s NPFL. For instance, Reffel Victoria and Grace Minor are two leading women who were favored and therefore were able to ascend to top leadership positions in the NPFL. Grace Minor would be famously remembered for devising back-stabbing tactics and maneuvers to selectively eliminate her rivals in typical palace coup fashion. Those Liberian leaders in the NPFL on the wrong side of Minor were systematically estranged, alienated from the corridors of influence, and eventually eliminated from the rebel movement. Women’s roles in Sierra Leone were significantly bolstered by the entry of influential females into the RUF ranks; in particular, the women’s wing of the RUF was established and empowered to cater to logistical matters including the training of women in military intelligence, surveillance, and spy activities. Women’s contribution was most prominent in the area of small arms acquisition from underground arms traders. Strategically placed in the scheme of things, those women in the NPFL undertook the responsibilities of gunrunning and they were in charge of circulating ammunition to the troops. Agnes Jalloh, President of the NPFL women wing, with her equally famed associate, Isatu Kallon, was the most prominent arms smuggling duo. They were also known among the circles of powerful international merchants who operated the underground arms trade during the height of the regional war. All this notwithstanding, the critical truth remains that only a handful of dare-devil women were inclined to voluntarily register and acquire membership in the rebel movements. The greater majority wearing the uniform were captured and forced against their will to serve in the rebellion, to fight, and to risk their lives alongside rebel group members they deeply detested. The complicated realities of war have been revealed and let bare for ordinary scrutiny in the Liberian imbroglio, during which a number of women facilitated the victimization and abuse of other women.45 Perpetrators of

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violence in those psychotic moments included women,46 and similar evidence was reprised in Côte d’Ivoire, as well as in Sierra Leone. Evidence also shows that only a few women are recruited into the ranks of regular armies (often for non-combatant roles) in West Africa. Meanwhile, the number of female combatant recruits has been steadily on the rise in many of the irregular armies and rebel groups across the continent. I think that this dynamic requires some further investigative research.

III. Women Activism in the MRU: Anatomy and Dimensions of War Effort Necessity often yields inventiveness, and pervasive fear of wickedness that had become embedded reality or culture during the MRU wars forced women into permanent defensive postures. They felt neither safe at home nor at war theaters, and so it became imperative for all potential victims (and recovering victims for that matter) to device and implant their own indigenous and private means of security.47 Necessity gave birth to women’s peace activism in the MRU.48 And the means and measures whereby women struggled to make peace and protect their integrity varied widely from the discharge of relief to combatants to direct participation in mediation processes. Moral probity was the mantra for self-defense. (A) Food insecurity was one of the biggest challenges during the war. Women facilitated the successful channeling of food aid to civilian populations through women’s organizations, one of which was known as the Women in Liberian Liberty (WILL). The organization was led by Myrtle Gibson and Mona Wureh. WILL gained significant visibility in Liberia and beyond as it was also engaged in specific programs aimed at improving living conditions among refugees residing in neighboring countries of Sierra Leone and Guinea-Conakry. Moreover, women’s role in postconflict peacebuilding during the first phase of the civil war was also championed by the Women’s Peace Initiative (WPI) in partnership with ECOMOG. WPI was actively involved in helping ECOMOG administer and deliver sanitary supplies among other necessities in all the 10 demobilization centers established in Liberia. Ruth Perry, the transitional President of WPI at the time imparted additional prominence to volunteerism because she created an open channel of communication with ECOMOG and visited the various demobilization centers for ex-combatants to boost morale and gain feedback on performance of the women groups. Women leadership

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groups between 1997 and 2003 concentrated on overt anti-war demonstrations. For example, the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET) consistently mobilized large groups of women from various backgrounds and organized peace marches and sit-ins at different strategic locations in Monrovia to draw the attention of all stakeholders to the plight of women in the prolonged war. (B) The courses of human events are frequently bathed in narratives about the individual who makes significant difference, and quite a number of women activists were able to transport into the war movement their own peculiar skills, life experiences, and individualized principles including understandings about personal integrity along with duty to country and community. Among them, perhaps the narrative of Leymah Gbowee seems most striking, relevant, and compelling. She was 17 years old when the first civil war occurred. As the war raged into the second phase, it became clear to her that there was need for the involvement of women in order to bring an end to the prevailing vicious cycle of violence. To achieve this, she joined the WIPNET in Liberia and easily climbed to the top of the organization based on her leadership skills. Determined to create mass women activism and to exert the maximum impact against the war-lords, Gbowee mobilized and brought together the women of Christian Churches in Liberia to form a unified group called the Christian Women’s Initiative. The group soon gained popular approval in societies thanks to the various statements it issued calling on all stakeholders to restore Liberia and place it onto the path of peace. While promoting interfaith solidarity, she initiated a coalition between the Christian Women’s Initiative and Muslim women organizations to promote the Monrovia Mass Action for Peace. The success of this coalition of women peacebuilders eventually led to the implantation of the Liberian Mass Action for Peace. Leymah Gbowee is the recipient of scores of international awards, among the most prominent are: Nobel Peace Prize (2011); John F. Kennedy Profile of Courage Award (2009); the Blue Ribbon for Peace by Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government (2007). Gbowee shares the Nobel Peace Prize along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakkul Karman, and the citation recognizes her unflinching non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s right to full participation in peacebuilding work. (C) Activism in the MRU countries involved mobilization of civic energies at grassroots and across national borders, and it included sustained efforts by women to visit, persuade, and ultimately induce and nudge leading heads of state to meet with rebel king-pins in low-key peace talks. It

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also involved the continuous and persistent lobbying of sitting governors and political stakeholders to advance democratic values and principles. During the first phase of the Liberian civil war (1989–1997), and as early as 1993, when the war was still emitting severe violence across the country, Mary Brownell, a Liberian activist, broached the idea of forming a women’s pressure group to speak out against the war and the horrors associated with it, and particularly to underline how the hostilities were impacting women physically and psychologically. Following several meetings with an enlarged focus group, the Liberian Women Initiative (LWI) was launched in 1994 and placed under the leadership of Etweda Cooper, alias Sugars. The group opted for a strategy that utilized a combination of soft diplomatic pressure and moral suasion to engage the major players in the war that had evolved into an entrepreneurship. For example, when engaging with rebel leaders, they would promise them material or political inducements; women often tried to reassure such leaders that amnesty can be arranged in return for ending the war including sinecure political asylum or leadership in a postwar dispensation. And when discussing war with gun dealers, women would strike a moral tune; they would moralize about the links between proliferation of arms and present scale of killings, humanitarian crises, and destitution in hopes that the ones with conscience might rethink their involvements in the trade in small arms and light weapons (SALW). The principal activity of LWI included regular attendance at regional peace talks during which they articulated and circulated proposals developed by grassroots organizations seeking to end hostilities. It is reported that most of the street protests, rallies, and demonstrations during these periods were organized and coordinated by the LWI. In a few cases, the women were able to dissuade the combatants from carrying out violence, and quite a few agreed to stop the bloodshed and surrendered their guns in return for gainful employment. Though the LWI was cold-shouldered by a number of rebel organizations that thought them to be an elitist group, LWI continued to service and help modernize the administrative structures of affiliated women’s groups and to provide consultancy and various support services in the broad areas of business, economic planning, and accounting. They were also steadfast in the monitoring of peace talks; as self-appointed watchdogs, the LWI women exercised oversight functions to ensure there was good faith in agreements reached among rival groups, and that promises made on negotiations by parties were kept. (D) West African women who already had achieved prominence successfully used their social and professional status to boost activism, and this

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applied to Sierra Leonean notables such as Zainab Bangura, Amy Smythe, Elizabeth Lavalie, and Kadi Sesay. Through established training and outreach programs, these personalities attracted international public attention to the multifaceted plight of war-related violence in the MRU. They were able to shine light on the need for far-reaching social reform, the institutionalization of a culture of peace, and promotion of democracy in the postwar societies. These were done to protect society against the relapse or re-occurrence of violence. Others corralled their professional status and visibility into political capital. For example, Kadi Sesay used her office as the Chairperson for the National Commission for Democracy and Human Rights (NCDHR) to promote civic education and youth responsibility to society with emphasis on the sanctity of the vote and participation in elections. The result was an unprecedented turnout of the electorate to participate in the 1996 general elections in Sierra Leone. Kadi Sesay continues to convene workshops and give lectures on the importance of implanting democratic values in the region, promotion of electoral reform, and protection of the integrity of democratic processes. (E) Relatedly, most transitional democracies in Africa are fragile, and on occasion, women have been in the forefront of battles against democratic reversals. Thus, when military forces overthrew (May 25, 1997) the legitimate government of Sierra Leone under President Tejan Ahmed Kabbah, women activists went on the popular offensive. They were among the first to dispatch strident criticisms of the coup to the African Union (AU), ECOWAS, and foreign international organizations. And their discontents were also addressed directly to the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) that had seized power. The women called the military action an illicit usurpation of power. Women mounted continuous pressure on the junta through mass rallies and civil disobedience that brought the economy periodically to a standstill. The effect was measured in terms of reactions on the part of the AFRC; the junta unleashed its own campaign to silence the women through arrests and detention without trial, which forced most of the prominent women leaders to flee Sierra Leone into neighboring countries from where they continued putting pressure through the media on the military to vacate power in Sierra Leone. Zainab Bangura together with many other women who had fled to the Republic of Guinea was unremitting in the campaign to delegitimize the military and to give hope to citizens trapped within the walls of dictatorial rule. Radio Democracy of Freetown was one of the more accessible outlets used by angry and disillusioned dissidents to channel visceral messages to anti-democratic elements in the

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region. Modern media were also used to voice popular frustration in the postwar society about youth unemployment. They criticized the exclusion of large populations of ex-female combatants from Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration programs (DDR). (F) Processes revolving around truth and reconciliation have attracted the attention and participation of women in the MRU more than elsewhere in the West African region.49 And the activists were directly involved in aiding the processes. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sierra Leone created a special unit that drew inputs from a cross section of women, and through interviews and workshops, populations were educated about the significance of reconciliation.50 Equally rigorous in its conception of the problem, the TRC of Liberia that started sitting in 2005 identified the range of secondary effects of violence against women including sexually transmitted diseases and prostitution.51 Skills training programs and microcredit lending for investment in approved business ventures for women are among the interventions by the Government of Liberia to reintegrate and assist the recovery of women victims of war.52 The Liberia TRC is credited with being one of the best organized: A Women Task Force was created to ensure representation of women from all social categories. To achieve this, members were drawn from women’s associations, UN agencies, the police force, the media, and the legal professions. And the impacts of war on women received minute and comprehensive treatment from a gender perspective. Indeed, the Liberia Report is said to be probably the only one that devotes a whole section to treating and elaborating on the experiences of women in conflict-prone zones. The wartime abuses suffered by women such as rape, sexual slavery, trafficking, enslavement, mutilations, forced pregnancies, amputations, and torture are carefully identified, documented, and analyzed.53

IV. Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET): Origins, Structure and Functions Mano River Union Women’s Peacebuilding Network (MARWOPNET)54 was officially inaugurated in May 2000 at Abuja, Nigeria, under the auspices of ECOWAS, and has its headquarters in Freetown, Sierra Leone. The organization remains a pioneer women-led peace negotiating group in West Africa. Records confirm the following: The first general meeting of MARWOPNET was sponsored co-jointly by Femmes Africa Solidarite and the African Women’s Committee for Peace and Development in Monrovia

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on June 8, 2001, and Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone were the highcontracting attendees. The invited guests to the inauguration included representatives from Nigeria, the AU, ECOWAS, and the United Nations Development Program. Although the main discussion was centered largely on the impacts of civil war on women, the participants assumed the role of regional ambassadors for peace and many said they were available to mediate in peace process and foster reconciliation where necessary in the region and beyond.55 For this purpose, the organization took the practical step and decision to open its membership to other networks consisting of religious leaders, politicians, labor unions, educators, businesswomen, and homemakers. Founding officials of the new organization were Kaba Hadji Saran Daraba (President), Theresa Leigh Sherman (First Vice President), and Agnes Taylor Lewis (Second Vice President). The overarching objectives of the organization are to corral the network of women’s organizations within the MRU and boost their capacities to contribute to ongoing postwar reconstruction programs. In addition, members pledged their dedication to preventing and managing conflict and restoring peace in West Africa. MARWOPNET has numerous subcommittees in the MRU each composed of women from diverse professional and occupational backgrounds; many are parliamentarians, human rights activists, and specialists in rural development with a focus on education for women. The organization is overseen by an executive council that reports to an executive board of twelve representative directors: three from Sierra Leone, four from Liberia, and five from Guinea. Presidency of the organization rotates with two other member countries providing the vice presidents at each period. Longevity and continuity in the promotion of women-specific issues and interests seem guaranteed in the region given emergent generation of younger activists in vibrant transnational organizations linked to MARWOPNET by virtue of their common interests. The WIPNET and the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) are two of the most prominent in this category. As affiliates, they promote specialized training in peacebuilding tailored specifically for women through programs such as peace research, mediation, paralegal studies, fund-raising, and general advocacy. Various outreach programs at the grassroots serve to amplify the voices of women on matters of peace and human security.56 Women’s peace activism particularly in Sierra Leone has been characteristically replete with professionalized cadres well trained in different aspects of activism and

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peacebuilding. Many of these human resources are drawn from a founding women’s group, the Women’s Forum, which was established in 1991. Isha Dyfan, one of the pioneer members of the Forum, says that many of her colleagues gained enormous leadership experience from working in the Forum, which experience they have carried over to the umbrella MARWOPNET.57 Activism is taking root in the MRU with rises in more diversified women’s groups such as the Women in Action, Women in Need, and Women Accord 97 . New organizations are continuing to deepen the role of women in the new democratic processes in the region. Zainab Bangura’s Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) is one of the new and key civil society organizations championing the restoration of ethical standards in the management of state resources by public institutions.58 MARWOPNET was awarded the prestigious United Nations Prize for Human Rights in 2003 and has received citations of excellence for its peace initiatives from various international organizations among which is the AU.

V. Sustaining Women’s Activism in the MRU: Some Concluding Thoughts A noticeable development inside MARWOPNET since the end of the regional wars tells us something about the inevitability of change with continuities in human relations and in organizational behavior. Rivalries for control of leadership roles inside the organization are said to be on the rise, and speculations are rife that the dynamic cannot be good both for the overall health of the organization and that it dampens incentives among the personnel. And there have been career moves too that appear likely on the surface of things to threaten the overall administrative strength of MARWOPNET: Quite a number among the top women leadership cadres who provided marquee service during the war have had difficulties resisting offers of appointments to high-profile ministerial positions in their countries’ governments and juicy directorships. And quite a few of them want to establish and run their own independent civil society organizations, away from the umbrella structures that had served the Union so well all through the war years. Observers have been apprehensive that the departure could weaken the organization and dilute the quality of MRU’s sociocultural and political service to society. In my view, however, such fears are exaggerations based on the gross misconception of actual realities. Contrary to mainstream worries and unease about departures, I believe that the lateral movements and exit of professionalized cadres into alternative spheres

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and occupations most likely will open doors within MARWOPNET for upward rises of fresh talents from below. Younger talents burning to serve in the organization are fully incentivized. It will give opportunities for organizational and personnel revitalization and renewal. And by the way, internal competition for job roles need not be seen as a bad thing; healthy rivalry and contestations after-all are representative hallmarks of positive democratic practice. Shifts, departures egress; these will foster growth and encourage group transformation in MARWOPNET, rather than brewing bad blood or eroding the culture of delivering licensed quality service. A most refreshing contemporary development in this consideration relates to the proliferation of newer pro-women organizations inside the MRU and within the Member States. Many of those organizations are firmly anchored in agendas most appropriate for advancing opportunities for women in diverse areas of education, health, recreation, environmental protection, and career development. Importantly, quite a few are speaking clearly to the necessity of eliminating violence in the family. The 50/50 Group in Sierra Leone has established chapters in many neighboring Mano River countries. The organization is aggressively campaigning for increased political participation of women in politics: It envisages 50% representation of women in all parliaments and seeks to establish a critical mass of overachieving women to serve as resource for other women wanting to play high-profile roles in government and political affairs. The organization is poised to promote long-term goals of gender equality and social justice for women. The Network of Women Parliamentarians and Ministers (NWPM) shares similar objectives and has been cutting pathways for women to enter positions of leadership in politics, government bureaucracy, private and voluntary organizations. Needless-to-say, women’s activism in the MRU is relatively young. Nonetheless, and as shown to be evident, the collective thirst for change is unquenchable. The campaign for women’s equality is destined to grow in strength in part because it is ethical, right, and just cause.59 And support for actualizing liberation is available everywhere. The newer organizations are eager for collaboration and to push aggressively toward the socially defined goal of women’s deliverance from second-class citizenship. And women’s rate of learning is rapid as most of them are predisposed to absorb and put to use those varied, cumulative, and veritable social facts about the challenges and opportunities ahead. They know about the resilience and density of patriarchy and the overall rootedness and strength of male-dominant structures of power in society. The proclivities of such a society to reproduce

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gendered inequalities have been unsurpassed and unabated, and particularly so in those transitional societies seeking democratic consolidation. Happily, the persistence and exercise of exclusionary male power do not foreclose or inhibit the simultaneous rises in women consciousness together with the determination by an increasing number of organized women to continue the unleashing of positive campaigns against female marginalization, and for inclusion instead of exclusion of half of humanity from participation in decision making in their countries. More so, women have learned that working collaboratively with men and enlisting their support can soften male-bias, mitigate gender-oriented resistance, and positively lower gendered barriers to women’s self-emancipation.60 Rather than dampening present collective zeal, prevailing gender inequities61 should motivate women to work even harder for change in the order of things. Indeed, current campaigns for gender equality are overt expressions hewing on moral probity.62 Demands for improved treatment of women as equal members of the human society should resonate among men of integrity and godliness. The plea for justice by the day is becoming harder to resist and ignore, even for the traditional guardians of the status quo. And this is in part also because many more men today are conscious of the eminent contribution that women can make to their societies.63 Women’s skills set together with their advanced training in diverse professions will have to be urgently mobilized and mainstreamed in ways to enlarge the overall value and qualitative attributes of life in the proposed fully open and progressive society.

Notes 1. For motivation, origins, and evolution of the MRU, see Peter Robson, “The Mano River Union,” Journal of Modern African Studies 20, no. 4 (1982), 613–628; also Chermoh Conteh, “The Mano River Union Approach,” Intereconomics 10, no. 4 (1975), 102–106. 2. Executive Supplement, “Mano River Union: Cote d’Ivoire Joins,” Africa Research Bulletin: Economic, Financial and Technical Series 45, no. 5 (July 2008), 17837B (1). 3. Report, “Africa Development Bank and the Mano River Union Meet to Discuss Development of the Region,” States News Services, February 9, 2016. 4. Executive Supplement, “Mano River Union: Funding for Roads,” Africa Research Bulletin: Economic, Financial and Technical Series 52, no. 2 (April 2015), 20750.

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5. See Report, “With Return of Peace, Time Had Come for Mano River Union Countries to Accelerate Development; UN Secretary General Tells Conakry Summit,” M2 Presswire, May 21, 2004, 1. 6. Gender-based values, customs, traditions, and relations are studied and compared across national cultures, see Ryan Caitlin and Helen Basini, “UNSC Resolution 1325 National Action Plan in Liberia and Sierra Leone: Analysis of Gendered Power Relations in Hybrid Peacebuilding,” Journal of Intervention and Peacebuilding 11, no. 2 (June 2017), 186–206. 7. Miriam J. Anderson, Windows of Opportunity: How Women Seize Peace Negotiations for Policy Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Editorial, “UN Conference Focuses on Women’s Role in Ensuring Peace and Security in West Africa,” States News Service, November 8, 2012; Editorial, “Women Sharpen Skills as Peace Negotiators in West Africa,” States News Service, October 18, 2011. 8. Erin Tunney, “Women in Peace Process,” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 38, no. 1 (2014), 127–152. 9. Researchers understand that women are possessed of agency; women are not potted plants simply sitting and responding to negative environmental stimuli and only as dormant victims of war. In this way, the focus of analyses is on the differential impacts of civil war on both women combatants and non-combatants alike. See Aili Mari Tripp, Women and Power in Post-conflict Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). 10. On this, see Jennifer Anne Boittin, “Adventurers and Agents Provocateurs: A German Woman Travelling Through French West Africa in the Shadow of War,” Historical Reflections 40, no. 1 (2014), 111–121. 11. Theoretical and conceptual values and dimensions to the problem are also studied, see Shani D’Cruze and Anupama Rao, Violence, Vulnerability and Embodiment: Gender and History (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2005). 12. Wangui Kimari, et al., “Women’s Rights and Gender Equality in Africa,” Institute of African Studies (IAS) Journal: NOKOKO 4 (2014), 1–10. 13. Amina Mama and Margo Okazawa-Rey, “Militarism, Conflict and Women’s Activism: Challenges and Prospects for Women in Three West African Contexts,” Feminist Review, no. 101 (2012), 97–123. 14. Stephanie Ann Johnson, “Women, Shared Leadership and Policy: Mano Women’s Peace Network,” Journal of Pan African Studies 4, no. 9 (December 2011), 59–68. 15. It is said that women must be involved not only in campaigns for peace, but also at every stage of efforts to reassert the rule of law and rebuild societies through transitional justice. See Marie O’Reilly, “Why Women? Inclusive Security and Peaceful Society,” Inclusive Security, October 2015; also Robert Holmes and Barry L. Gan, eds., Nonviolence in Theory and Practice (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, 2012).

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16. See UN Security Council Adopted Resolution (S/RES/1325) on Women, Peace and Security on October 31, 2000. 17. See UN Resolution 1820 Adopted by the Security Council at its 5916th Meeting, June 19, 2008. 18. Munyaradzi Mawere and Ngonidzashe Marongwe, eds., Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa: Envisioning Transformation, Peace and Unity in the Twenty-First Century (Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa Research and Publishing, 2016). 19. Much of the earlier literature on developments in the Mano River Basin had perhaps understandably focused on political instabilities. Analytical focus is now shifting but gradually toward various postwar reconstruction efforts as well as the role of women in peacebuilding, see Fred Strasser, “Women and Peace: A Special Role in Violent Conflict, US Institute of Peace,” Special Report, March 18, 2016. 20. Marion Pape, Gender Palaver: Nigerian Women Writing War—Civil War in Literature (Trier, Germany: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier; WVT, 2011). 21. Those interested in comparative analysis of women’s struggles for selfpreservation that is relevant to the study at hand might want to also look elsewhere in the world, in Turkey. See Ayse Betul Celik, “Gendered Aspects of Conflict, Displacement and Peace Process in Turkey,” International Migration 55, no. 5 (2017), 136–149. 22. Nancy Annan, “Violent Conflict and Civil Strife in West Africa: Causes, Challenges and Prospects,” Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 3, no. 1 (2014), 1–16. 23. Osita Agbu, West Africa’s Troubled Spots and the Imperatives for Peacebuilding (Dakar, Senegal: Council for Development and Social Science Research in Africa, 2006). 24. Gudrun Ostby, “Violence Begets Violence: Armed Conflict and Domestic Sexual Violence in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Households in Conflict Network, 2016. 25. The gripping details of war and war-related suffering have been presented with a focus on children, women, and the family, see UNICEF, The Situation of Children and Women in Liberia: From Conflict to Peace (New York: United Nations Children and Education Fund, 2012); Editorial Supplement, “Mano River War,” Global Security, November 7, 2011; Marilyn Silberfein and Al-Hassan Conteh, “Boundaries and Conflict in the Mano River Region of West Africa,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 23, no. 4 (2006), 343–361. 26. Heiko Nitzschke and Kaysie Studdard, “The Legacies of War Economies: Challenges and Options for Peacemaking and Peacebuilding,” International Peacekeeping 12, no. 2 (June 1, 2005), 222–239.

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27. Kim Rubenstein and Katherine G. Young, eds., Public Law of Gender: From Local to Global (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2016), Introduction; Chapters 1–4. 28. The material and human costs of war in the Mano River Basin are discussed in comparative perspectives: Meredith Turshen, Gender and the Political Economy of Conflict in Africa: The Persistence of Violence (New York: Routledge, 2016); Jeremy Allouche, Matthew Benson, and Freida M’Cormack, “Beyond Borders: The End of the Mano River War(s)?” Evidence Report, no. 188, Institute of Development Studies, April 2016; Jonathan Pickering, “Policy Coherence in International Responses to State Failure: Role of the United Kingdom in Sierra Leone,” Working Paper Series no. 06-76, London, London School of Economics, July 2009. 29. Charles Chemor Jalloh, “The Law and Politics of the Charles Taylor Case,” Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 43, no. 3 (2015), 229–248. 30. Jane Perlez, “A Doomed Peace: Missteps and a Weak Plan Marred Efforts for Sierra Leone,” New York Times, May 10, 2000, A14. 31. Editorial, “British Troops Free Hostages in Sierra Leone: One Paratroop and 25 Rebels Killed in Raid on Gang’s Stronghold,” Toronto Star, September 11, 2000, A9. 32. Editorial, “Turning Tables: Sierra Leone and the UN,” The Economist, 402, 8772, February 18, 2012, 52. 33. See Andrew Parker, “British Troops to Stay in Sierra Leone,” Financial Times, August 30, 2000, 12. 34. John Foray, “British Troops Train New Army in Sierra Leone as Rebels Strike,” London Times, June 11, 2000, 2. 35. Quite a number of women emerged from war with acquired leadership skills; toughened by the experiences, they came to play vanguard roles during the transition from war to peace. Others till date suffer multiple war-induced traumas such as anomie and alienation, manifesting thereof in their seemingly permanent mistrust of society. S. Okpaku, “The Challenges of Postconflict Reintegration in Africa,” European Psychiatry 33 (2016). 36. Albrecht Schnabel and Anara Tabyshlieva, Defying Victimhood: Women and Post-conflict Peacebuilding (New York: United Nations University Press, 2012); Leymah Gbowee, “Effecting Change Through Women’s Activism in Liberia,” IDS Bulletin 40, no. 2 (2009). 37. See Report of the UN Secretary General Regarding the Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies, August 23 2004. 38. Richard Reeve, “Human Security in Mano River Union: Empowering Women to Counter Gender-Based Violence in Border Countries,” International Alert (May 2010); Filomina Steady, Women and Collective Action in Africa (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 55. 39. See Akin Iwilade, “Women and Peace Talks in Africa,” Journal of International Women’s Studies 12, no. 1 (January/February 2011), 22–16.

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40. Rebecca Horn, et al., “Women’s Perception of the Effects of War on Intimate Partner Violence and Gender Roles in Two Post-conflict West African Countries: Consequences and Unexpected Opportunities,” Conflict and Health 8, no. 1 (August 2014), 1–14; also Adebowale Adeyemi-Suenu, “Women Combatants in West Africa: Recruitments, and Dimensions: Theoretical Analysis,” International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences 25 (2014), 1–6. 41. Meredith Turshen, “The Impact of Civil War on Women and Children in Africa,” in Muna Ndulo, ed., Security, Reconstruction and Reconciliation: When the Wars End (London: University College of London Press, 2006), 85–96. 42. Thelma Ekiyor, “Female Combatants in West Africa: Progress or Regress,” West African Network for Peacebuilding—WANEP, From the Field, 5th Edition (Undated). Available online: www.wanep.org/publications/Female_ Combatants. 43. Saba F. Safdar and Natasza Kosakowska-Berezecka, eds., Psychology of Gender Through the Lens of Culture: Theories and Applications (New York: Springer, 2015). 44. Laura Sjoberg, Gender, War and Militarism: Feminist Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2010); Chris Coulter, Mariam Persson, and Mats Utas, “Young Female Fighters in African Wars: Conflict and Its Consequences,” Occasional Study Paper, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala, 2008. 45. Estelle Zinsstag, Restorative Responses to Sexual Violence: Legal, Social and Therapeutic Dimensions (New York: Routledge, 2017); Meredith Turshen and Clotilde Twagiramariya, What Women Do in War-Time (London: Zed Books, 1998); Marcia T. Segal and Visilikie P. Demos, Gendered Perspectives on Conflict and Violence (Bingley, UK: Emerald Books, 2013). 46. Isiaka Alani Badmus, “Explaining Women’s Roles in the West African Tragic Triplet: Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d’Ivoire in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Sciences 1, no. 3 (2009), 808–839. For conceptual work on women and security, see Cheryl Hendricks, “Women, Peace and Security in Africa: Conceptual, Implementation Challenges and Shifts,” Africa Security Review 24, no. 4 (2015), 364–375. 47. Meredith Turshen, “Women, War and Peace in Africa: A Reflection on the Past 20 Years,” United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRIDS), March 2015. Also see Escola de Cultura de Pau (ECP), Enhancing Women’s Participation in Peace Processes, School for Cultural Peace, Barcelona, May 2014. 48. See UN Security Council, “Women’s Participation and Leadership Crucial to Peace Processes,” UN News, New York, October 18, 2013. 49. Lesley Connolly, Justice and Peacebuilding in Post-conflict Situations: Argument for Including Gender Analysis in a New Post-conflict Model (Umhlanga

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Rocks, South Africa: African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes, ACCORD, Durban, 2012). Akamu G. Adebayo, Indigenous Conflict Management Strategies in West Africa: Beyond Right and Wrong (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015); also Zulfiya Tursunova, “The Role of Rituals in Healing Trauma and Reconciliation in Post Accord Peacebuilding,” Journal of Human Security 4, no. 3 (December 2008), 54–71. See United States Institute for Peace (USIP), Truth Commission of Liberia, Vols. I&II, December 2009; Charles Call, Constructing Justice and Security After War (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2007). National healing, reconciliation, truth, and justice are crucial and significant strategies for building the desired qualitative future among countries making the transition from war to peace. For brief analysis of the scope and limits of post-conflict reconciliation initiatives, see Kwesi Aning and Thomas Jaye, “Liberia: A Briefing on the TRC Report,” KAIPTLC Occasional Study, no. 33, April 2011. People tend to experience, construe, and express their life encounters more freely (especially pain and suffering) within familiar local environments, see James G. Peoples and Garrick Allan Bailey, Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Stamford, CT: Engage Learning, 2015). MARWOPNET organizes far-reaching and in-depth workshops that encourage women’s participation in programs designed to shape and transform communities: Megan Bastick and Tobie Whitman, A Woman’s Guide to Security Sector Reform (Geneva: Center for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces—DCAF, 2013). For conceptualizations of the problem of war and practical initiatives to promote peace, see Alexander Marc, Neelam Verjee, and Stephen Mogaka, The Challenge of Stability and Security in West Africa (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2015). Appropriately treated with expositions and illustrations, see Sylvester Bongani Maphosa, et al., Building Peace from Within (Pretoria, South Africa: African Institute of South Africa, 2014); Amrita Kapur, “‘Catch 22’: The Role of Development Institutions in Promoting Gender Equality in Land Law—Lessons Learned in Post-conflict Pluralist Africa,” Buffalo Human Rights Law Review 17 (Annual 2011), 75–116. Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Women, War and Peace: The Independent Experts’ Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women’s Role in Peacebuilding (New York: United Nations Development Fund for Women—UNIFEM, 2002). About advances, see Filomina Chioma Steady, Women and Leadership in West Africa: Mothering the Nation and Humanizing the State (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

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59. Supporting similar viewpoint, see Patrick Burnet, et al., Grace, Tenacity and Elegance in the Struggle for Women’s Rights in Africa (Oxford, UK: Fahamu Books, 2007), Introduction; Chapters 1–3. 60. Stephanie Seguino and Maureen Were, “Gender, Development and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Journal of African Economies 3 (January 2014), 118–126. 61. At the moment, however, women are continuing to experience inequalities in the form of inadequate representation in decision-making institutions and limited access to higher education. The girl child in many circumstances is still denied the wider range of opportunities that are available to her male counterparts: Male children enjoy exposures including more ready access to formal and informal education, and each male child is keenly socialized deliberately to think of himself as destined to play leading roles in society. For that matter, the male child learns early that he must prepare to be future ‘king,’ ‘family head,’ ‘chief of professional organization.’ He is a community leader as well as the astute citizen—in waiting. 62. Funmi Olonisakin, Karen Barnes, and Eka Ikpe, eds., Women, Peace and Security: Translating Policy into Practice (New York: Routledge, 2011). 63. The socioeconomic implications inherent in exclusion of women’s voices from policy deliberations in post-conflict peacebuilding are highlighted, see Amina Mama and Margo Okazawa-Rey, op. cit., note 13. “Militarism, Conflict and Women’s Activism in the Global Era: Challenges and Prospects for Women Three West African Contexts,” Feminist Review 101 (July 2012), 97–123.

CHAPTER 6

Making and Enforcing Peace Through Mediation and Fire Power: A Retrospective on the Liberia Experience Okon Akiba

There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare. (Sun Tzu, Art of War)

Introduction Across space and time, nations have used either war or diplomacy to settle rooted differences between them. The two forces form opposite faces of the same coin. While war represents the settlement of conflicting interests through force or violence, diplomacy prioritizes peaceful measures revolving around mediation. Settlement by force or violence entrenches deep human alienation, magnifies hostilities and offers inherently disturbing justifications for the destruction of physical property and human life. As Thomas Hobbes tells us in Leviathan,1 people have historically embarked on war to achieve security, material return or prestige. Conceptually speaking war is the easier option of dispute settlement because all that the aggressor needs to start one are the availability of resources and then the resolve or temper to embark on it. On the other hand, settlement by peaceful means © The Author(s) 2020 O. Akiba (ed.), Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25354-7_6

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is saturated with agonies that commonly ensue from deeper considerations about the human costs of war.2 It requires an ability on the part of the peace sponsor to draw from special human values that transcend raw emotions and with an eye to preempting conflict and decreasing the risks of escalation.3 Viewed through this prism, war is synonymous with the rupture of peace, and diplomacy is the handy tool to upgrade and maintain productive human relations among and within nations. Diplomacy can bring war to an end, and vice versa, war begins where diplomacy fails or ends.4 The Liberian civil war5 is doubtlessly among the stunning experiences of contemporary African history and it offers abundant opportunities to reflect on the tendencies and consequences of domination by cruel force. The cessation of hostilities in Liberia marked the triumph of diplomacy over war, of good over malevolence, and superiority of the law over organized violence. The instruments of diplomacy or mediation are presented in this study to buttress their gentle, civilized attributes. Though inherently challenging, the commitment to a mediated settlement of the Liberia civil war was informed by nausea and revulsion for war. Multifaceted instruments of diplomatic intervention were put to use steadily and enthusiastically by third parties.6 Among the principal peacemakers were (Track II) mediators linked to the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Heads of State from neighboring countries, the International Contact Group for Liberia, faith-based establishments,7 civil society, and women organizations played demonstrably altruistic roles, counting also the Liberian Diaspora.8 This work is an attempt to irrigate memory, keep fresh the lessons of the brutal human occurrence, and advance essential knowledge regarding the necessity of prevention. (I) Basic paraphernalia of diplomacy, principally mediation, and negotiation are interrogated with emphasis on the eminence of third party or mediator roles. A conflictual milieu soon and surely decomposes into anarchism, without humanly intercession. (II) Greed for material gains triggered the war.9 As shown, but bad indigenous governors along with their ravenous allies planted the fissionable elements that generated seismic shifts, ultimately causing the collapse of Liberia’s official institutions of administration. (III) ECOWAS’ initiative was epical because the West African organization—for the very first time in the history of conflict in Africa—successfully and innovatively combined mediation with muscular peacekeeping to moderate conflict. (IV) And a spotlight on the peace processes illuminates impediments10 that almost dashed all hope for

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a mediated settlement. It brings to light the surge of macabre events. It mirrors, enlarges, and seeks to escalate insights into how and why a succession of well-balanced mediated settlements could not hold. The core provision on security—to restructure and retrain the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) following the disarming of all ex-combatants—was rigidly resisted by all disputants in the conflict.11 This underscored a lack of commitment to mediated peace. And as the history of recalcitrance and obduracy on the matter continued to unfold, the head rebel Charles Taylor gained the presidency of Liberia without yielding a single concession on security sector reform. He never disarmed. (V) The Learning Curve reprises the main themes which have been elaborated in the discourses on the character of rebellion, the limits of mediation in the typical opportunistic resource war, and the scope of post-Cold War international collaborations to deal with additional new threats to human security embodied presently in Islamist extremism.

I. Third-Party Intervention and Mediation: Theoretical and Conceptual Questions David Keen’s pithy distinction between peace and conflict is easy to digest. According to him, “war is violence and peace is, well, peaceful.”12 War can occur when two opposing sides collide over seemingly irreconcilable interests; and the goal traditionally in interstate war is to advance the interest of one state over the other. The stronger disputant in domestic or civil war may seek to dislodge a sitting authority, transform the nature of the state and monopolize access to material and psychological surpluses accruable to those in control of power. This portrayal of transition from peace to war and from war to peace reproduces the Clausewitzean conventional understandings of war as the continuation of politics by other means.13 Mediation in Contemporary Conflict Literature The question then is how to achieve peace in the zero-sum condition? How to make peace in the face of a belligerent disputant hell-bent on securing outright victory? What to do if the contesting party must use violence to resolve conflictual interest? The answer is encapsulated in two simple words, diplomatic leverage! According to Lindsay Reid, leverage represents “any means available to the mediator to influence the mediation process

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and to alter belligerents’ incentives so they may reach an agreement [less than war].”14 Theoretically and in practical terms, capability and credibility are the “means” or resources in “leverage.” And once the two resources are separated for conceptual purposes,15 we are able to see and appraise each of them as properties or assets that can enable and propel mediation. A durable peace is secured when the mediator successfully leverages the above-referenced two diplomatic assets. And since war results from a failure of diplomacy, the expectation is that the third party will do all that is necessary to over-leap main obstacles to peace and to protect the mediation process from what Barbara F. Walter calls bargaining failures .16 To be sure, capability is the equivalent of Joseph Nye’s hard power.17 It is suffused with material muscle and connotes coercion—the ability to make or force others to do something that they would otherwise not want to do. Material or economic wealth permits the capability mediator to absorb the expenses of mediation, for example, by underwriting the financial costs of convening and maintaining the peace process. In addition, the strong mediator is fully armed with carrot and stick to reward compliance and punish deviation. He/she can enlarge the costs of non-cooperation or continued fighting by deploying and enforcing economic-political sanctions (stick) or offer the myriad rewards for compliance (carrot). Financial aid and grants for national economic development and support for security sector reform are among the conventional incentives or rewards for compliance, conformity, or acquiesces. Credibility leverage, on the other hand, speaks to the utility and advantages of soft power. Credibility presupposes that the mediator possesses two inter-linked resources that are equally invaluable: context-specific knowledge of the conflict and deeper comprehension of the disputants’ culture (deriving perhaps from colonial ties). Possession of soft-power and its use undoubtedly elevates the mediator in the eyes of the disputants and enhances their confidence in the peace process. It is an important element that also reassures the conflicting parties that the mediator is a genuine interlocutor who will go beyond peace settlement to support post-conflict peacebuilding. An important point in favor of credibility leverage is worth additional iteration: The mediator with credibility leverage often possesses historical knowledge about the root causes of a conflict; needless-to-say, ability to communicate the problem in the local vernacular can ease mediation processes. Deeper knowledge about the cultural, political preferences,

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and priorities of the conflictual parties is also an invaluable asset when the time comes to design the peace proposal that is expected to endure and to absorb unanticipated long-run challenges to the peace. The peace broker with knowledge or credibility resources is less likely to construct a settlement permeated with “time inconsistency problems,”18 in the idiom of mediation. Although the lack of coercive power may delay timelier compliance, the superiority of such an agreement in the end lies in its guaranteed long-term durability. Time inconsistency problems are associated with phase-induced erosion of commitment. Revert or relapse to violence may be caused by the passage of time and changes in the situational priorities of the parties. The absence or erosion of mediator influence is an additional factor likely to issue time inconsistency problems. Furthering the argument, Kyle Beardsley19 suggests that conflicting parties are less likely to go back or to renege on a trust-based settlement, especially among culture-based communities where pledge and contract are sacrosanct undertakings. He proceeds to simplify complex elements successfully by dissecting “leverage” into tangible and intangible filaments. The former is composed of material power (hard resources) as distinct from intangible leverage often represented in the mediator’s ability to produce peace through trust and prestige cumulated through time and respect for the culture, values, and traditions prevalent in the particular setting. Joseph Nye points to soft power in these close terms: “A country’s soft power comes primarily from three sources: its culture (when it is attractive to others), its political values such as democracy and human rights (when it lives up to them) and its policies (when they are seen as legitimate because they are framed with some humility and awareness of others’ interests).”20 Not all studies, however, are inclined to decipher and translate the concept of leverage into distinct resources (of capability and credibility). Peter Carnevale and Kadayifci-Orellana21 look at leverage largely from a perspective that enlarges the importance of material asset in this order: Power, Timing, and Impartiality (legitimacy).22 They hypothesize about the opportunities for success in mediation as follows: (I) The amount of leverage a mediator holds over disputants will determine the extents of success in mediation; (II) the more impartial a mediator proves to be, the more likely his or her legitimacy will be enhanced and the prospects of successful outcomes are enlarged; and (III) mediation is more likely to succeed when the conflict is ripe for resolution or reaches mutually hurting stalemate.23

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Context Is the OverArching Determinant of Successful Mediation Sigmund Gartner and Jacob Bercovitch24 remind us that mediation is context-dependent. Their work explicates the theory and practice of mediation and delineates the contexts in which wars are brought to an end or stay prolonged. Thus, (I) the nature of a dispute matters. Identity (ethereal) issues such as religion and ethnicity pose serious challenges to resolution much more than the resource-laden problem. The latter can be addressed through fiscal adjustment or by adoption of mutually satisfying and improved methods of resource allocation. Donald Rothchild25 observes that favorable “in-group” biases in ethnic-culturally divided societies and derogatory postures against “out-groups” not only have historically served to undermine mediation, but frequently leads parties down the slippery road to a prolonged violence. Identity problems are elaborated elsewhere, by Ray Block and David Siegel.26 (II) High casualty rates make resolution difficult, especially if the impulses and temptation for revenge are high.27 Key events held to honor those killed in past conflicts counting even the lowest remembrances have frequently triggered more violence, thus narrowing the paths to peace. (III) Wide differentials in power equation among disputants can constrict the space for a mediated settlement, especially if the self-assured disputant possesses no will for a compromise. (IV) The possession of leverage does not guarantee success in mediation. It does not yield or lend itself unambiguously to predictable outcomes under all circumstances. For example, the mediated product of Britain’s intervention in the weaker country such as Sierra Leone will be starkly different when compared to its capability leverage on Northern Ireland or in the complicated conflict terrain of Afghanistan. (V) Meanwhile, terrorism and diverse jihadist groups sworn to the use of violence are outside the remit of enlightened mediation.28 The defense policies of many countries strongly disavow any civilized engagements including negotiation with violent non-state actors.29 (VI) Advanced regions possessing well-functioning international law regimes are equipped and therefore are expected to achieve mediated settlements in much timelier manner than the less developed polities saddled with human security problems. Put differently, violent confrontations are unlikely to proliferate in the region tied tightly together by trade and commerce. Free movement of citizens and the rule of law would be the norm in the advanced cooperative commonwealth. And the regional court

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system will be mandated to adjudicate the law, dispense criminal justice, arbitrate and rule on routine disputes before they explode violence. Personality, Process, and Outcome Oriented Perspectives on Mediation Quite a few conflict analysts are concerned more with linking certain types of personality traits to a collection of anticipated positive outcomes from mediation. The ability to bring about an atmosphere favorable for communication among disputants would be a great asset. And good personal appeal or outlook can help the disputants build confidence in one another and in the peace process. And a mediator is expected to have learned and perfected the art and science of patience.30 He/she must be neutral. In this way, disputants may go on to accept even a less satisfying settlement on pragmatic grounds. Among the broad spectrum of critical personal attributes that can directly tip the scale in mediation, Saaida Touval31 says the successful mediator must embody an abundance of aptitude and credibility. Wallensteen and Svensson look at process and see mediation as “activity geared toward resolving an ongoing dispute.”32 In their view, the mediator must lean heavily on persuasion and use it to harvest a solution that is mutually acceptable to the disputants.33 Mediation in this sense entails conflict management whereby a third-party intervenes to resolve disputants’ problems using negotiation and does so in a non-binding manner. Time34 is of the essence in process perspective. Mediation also can epitomize intermediary activity 35 pursued by a third party principally to mitigate or end behavior that is all together disruptive of the peace process. The combination of process-led elements and functional attributes of mediation can accelerate a peace process.36 According to Christopher Moore, mediation is the “extension of the negotiation process that involves the intervention of an acceptable third party who has limited or no authoritative decision making power”37 In this portrayal, mediation represents: (I) attempts at a peaceful conflict settlement; (II) intervention for peaceful purposes by an outsider being an individual, group, or organization; (III) mediation is essentially a non-coercive and non-binding method of conflict resolution; (IV) it is also a voluntary form of conflict management in which disputants are able to retain control over both the process and the outcomes of the mediation; and (V) the parties have freedom to accept or reject the mediator’s proposals. Ideas borne by advocates of rational choice are closely related to Moore’s perception. Many of them look at function

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but place more emphasis on regularities by which to judge the success or failure of mediation. The following are considered to be reliable indicators of successful intervention: ceasefire, peace treaty, the opening of dialogue or peace-talk among disputants and a marked reduction in the levels of hostility.38 Conceptually and in actual practice, neutrality can stand for function or condition. Thomas Princen advances the argument on function and stresses neutrality. He argues credibly that mediators are “third parties who intercede for the [primary] purpose of influencing or facilitating the settlement of a dispute, but who do not impose a solution. They are actors wanting to be involved in a mediated settlement, but having neither direct interests in the disputed issues nor in the outcomes.”39 Unlike arbitration where all sides to a dispute are required to agree in advance that the rulings or judgment of the arbitrator is binding, the opposite prevails in mediation.40 The final rulings in a mediated settlement are non-binding. Thus, a disputant’s adherence to suggestions offered for that purpose by a mediator is primarily and strictly voluntary, even as the principal aim of a peace process is to resolve conflict. The mediator can serve as the “go-between” and sometimes offer good offices , which may involve the provision of a meeting place or rendezvous for disputants to establish physical contacts with one another and to air their differences in less formal settings. It is acceptable for the mediator occasionally to twist arms in the effort to bridge the gap in communication and produce preliminary compromises. The mediator that pressurizes the disputant too hard for results and compliance however risks scuttling the entire peace process. Disputes emanating from “misunderstandings”41 must be resolved, before they deepen and pose complications. And it is incumbent on the mediator in this circumstance to widen and diversify channels of contact and facilitate steadier communication. The overarching logic is that it is better that disputants fight one another with words rather than with gun and bullet. The effectiveness of mediation and its value has been assessed from the point of view of the degree to which the durability and sustainability of a peace settlement are guaranteed. It is not unusual for critics of mediation to appear as seemingly incurable skeptics of the entire idea of mediated peace settlement. They often pore over settlements with derisive and distrustful eyes and wonder whether an alternative or a better option was outright impossible. Most have a reservation or two on the notion of impartiality or neutrality. They doubt that a third party can afford the extreme fortitude

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or strength of character to stay unbiased, especially in conflicts that are imbued with ideology. Contently too, many analysts support the idea of mediation as possessing boundless internal purity. Such contrarian voices are convincing largely because their perspective frequently capture those contingencies and context-based determinants of mediation outcomes. Mediation is shrouded in time-honored values and guided by commonly accepted principles: Parties to a dispute understand that agreement to participate in a peace process is voluntary and that mediated outcomes are non-binding. The temperamental and cantankerous disputant can go offbeam, bringing avoidable stress to the peace process. Palliatives are recommended but the mediator may possess neither the power to reprimand nor the where-with-all (and at all times) to expressly calm emotions gone awry. Similarly, he/she may fall short in assuaging the immediate fears or distrust among warring parties. Mediated settlements have been rebuffed for the myriad reasons that may seem trivial on the surface. And quite often the disputant that decides to walk away from the peace process is free also to discard even provisions that have already been accepted and agreed upon. In this way, mediation is deprived of traction, which is an essential element to ensure continuity. These are a few contextual problems commonly raising monumental obstacles to the peace processes. Against this background, I believe that the third party ought to be judged by the efficacy of actions taken to prevent and resolve conflict and not singularly by the fact of negotiation failures. The chief mediator that is proven beyond doubt to be transparent many times has failed to produce compromise. On its own, genuine commitment of the mediator to the process cannot unambiguously guarantee positive and reciprocal result,42 given the nature of obstacles encountered in the processes. One or the other among the disputing parties may harbor ulterior motives to dash the peace offer.43 The Liberia case is an exemplar, par excellence. The conflict was tightly held in a gridlock that defied strong decade-long mediation efforts. Negotiation failures together with ceaseless fighting and bloodshed necessitated the use of military force to mitigate disorder. Time and again and inbetween short truces the main disputants had to be brought back (virtually dragged) to the table, until a fragile peace settlement came to pass. The present peace or stability was achieved through the complex interplay of force and mediation, carrot and stick. Chance also was a contributor in the complex interplay of secondary forces driving mediation.

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II. Violent Conflict: Its Character, Scope, and Limits It all started on the Christmas-eve of 1989, when Charles Taylor’s rebellious National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) began from neighboring towns in Côte d’Ivoire to attack villages in the Nimba County of northeastern Liberia.44 But not many political observers (least of all the incumbent Liberian Government at the time under President Samuel Doe), thought that Taylor’s move was going to result in a long-drawn civil war.45 Charles Taylor nevertheless quickly made his intentions clear using brutal force. He was able to capture more than 90% of the country within six months in a lightening incursion that was served and sustained by three interrelated developments: (I) Maumar Ghadafi’s Libya provided the rebellion with tremendous financial resources including massive supplies of arms. And the two Francophone countries of Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire offered rear-bases and logistical support46 to the rebellion. For various family reasons,47 the political leaders in the two Francophone governments simply were anti-Doe, not really pro-Taylor; (II) many Liberians had decided to join the rebellion. They thought in strategic terms to fuel and fire the emergency, bring down Doe’s tyrannical government and thereafter gain the peace. Doe was an extra-ordinary dictator. The scorched-earth tactic was applied customarily by his henchmen to punish and purge real or imagined “enemies of the state.”48 (III) Taylor’s romp militia in a moment of peculiar rage had captured and killed government officials including as many as 200 unarmed civilians in a single-day military sluice. President Doe responded with a particularly brutal campaign that targeted many people of Gio and Mano ethnic origins. The two groups formed the core of Charles Taylor’s militia. And many more Gio–Mano people joined Taylor’s antiDoe rebellion following Doe’s attack, which also created over 300,000 refugees. The rebellion at this point (July 1990) suddenly took a dramatic turn toward unanticipated political complexities. Prince Yormie Johnson, one of the most prominent field commanders, made the decision precipitately to detach from Taylor and to form a rival Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), which was composed largely of his Gio and Mano kinsmen. Taylor cried foul and accused Johnson of betrayal of trust, punishable by death at the firing squad. Johnson seized the bullhorn and he apprised the troops about what he described as corrosive partnership between two irrational and confused ideologues. He was referring to the

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synergic military ties between Taylor and Maoumar Ghadafi of Libya— indeed Johnson was questioning Ghadafi’s brand of African nationalism together with his real motives for supporting the Taylor revolution. And then, the ex-compatriot vowed to liquate NPFL by force of arms. Amid growing regional and international apprehensions about the political future of Liberia, Johnson announced his plan to topple the Samuel Doe administration and to capture the seat of power in Monrovia, ahead of the ambitious Taylor. Public expectations at this juncture about the prospects of a swift military solution to dictatorship in Liberia were lost amid the deadly contestation for power proceeding in a three-pronged martial formation: Doe’s AFL; Johnson’s INPFL; and Taylor’s NPFL. Fighting among the three principals was brutal because the bunch of undisciplined forces used heavy equipments including mortar and rocket launched grenade to kill civilians and soldiers alike. The international media were replete with pictures of bloodbath so gruesome they defy narrative grace: Corpses mangled by machine gun fire littered the streets, crumbled houses with thousand bullet holes now served as battleground shields for the fighters, and sounds of extreme distress filled the air. The faces of displaced populations carried signature lines and scares depicting the extremes of war-related agony. Former OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim thought the fighters were deathbutchers on a mission to deliver a most unspeakable carnage in Liberia. He described the development also as the complete state of anarchy potentially posing threats to regional peace and security.49 About State Failure: Its Origins and Contemporary Outlook Although the Liberian civil war started with the invasion by Charles Taylor from Côte d’Ivoire, the pre-condition for state collapse had been set long before the trigger in 1989. The real history of the war consists truly in the steady decay of government institutions under President Tolbert’s regime (1971–1980).50 This government was adept at the masterful manipulation of state power to reinforce and augment a well-oiled patronage network51 ; many call it the concession system, upon which the economic interests of the tiny Americo-Liberian elite were precariously predicated. The national economy was built almost entirely on the export of primary products such as rubber and iron ore. Sharp declines in the global market value of primary products (beginning in the late 1970s) served to deepen poverty and sharpen antipathies and antagonism against government. And the sequence

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of bad events paved the way for the Sergeant Doe military coup (1980) followed by a badly rigged election putting Doe in power (1985). Sharp declines in mass living standards triggered the shorter civil war led by Army Chief Quiwonkpa (1985). Unlike Quiwonkpa, Taylor was better organized and more determined to topple Doe. He was able to hold an entire country hostage through civil war (1989–1996). Although Samuel Doe had come to power as a revolutionary soldier promising to liberate the people from poverty and from political bondage, his government was as corrupt as the previous ones. And so the ordinary citizens knew no peace. Society remained economically unbalanced. It was grossly skewed against the disenchanted majority in terms of social justice. Resources accruing from state-owned corporations and appointment to sinecure positions in public service were used officially to buy off potential adversaries. Oppositely, the opposition, public media, and the marginalized were physically coerced and repressed by over-zealous state agents. About 3000 Liberians of the Mano and Gio ethnic origins were killed following the 1985 coup attempt by the Army Chief Quiwonkpa. And Doe’s reactions to the 1989 incursion included vindictive attacks on individuals and groups suspected or seen to harbor sympathy for Charles Taylor and his NPFL. Doe belonged to the Krahn minority and within a short span of time he was able to raise a new Krahn ruling class. He also established a Krahn Presidential Guard to bolster his personal security. And the AFL was gradually disarmed and replaced with paramilitary units also drawn selectively from Doe’s Krahn group. The pampered, highly privileged guards were also notorious for wickedness including the penchant for extra-judicial killings. The reproduction of exclusionary politics based on identity plus incremental uses and abuses of political power ultimately eroded whatever little legitimacy the Doe regime had garnered from over-throwing the dominant and entrenched aristocracy of the “True Wig Party.”52 Ethnicization of Liberian political life lowered almost all normative barriers against random violence. Those armed gangs were particularly brutal because they were unhinged from official control mechanisms customarily used in the civilized and orderly polity to preempt the exercise of raw power. Worse still, paramilitary groups that had been originally created and financed by the Doe administration via clientelistic patronage networks, did survive the calamitous collapse of the Doe regime. They were then co-opted by the main war-chiefs, not for vanguard roles to protect Liberian citizens from anarchy, but to serve as praetorian guards with the mandate to defend the

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predatory regimes that had re-emerged. Charles Taylor together with his NPFL was the main pillar in an amoral power structure now drenched in the philosophy of gratuitous cruelty and superfluous vengeance.53 NPFL was estimated to hold roughly 13,000 troops in 1997 and this meant that Taylor’s military capability was far more superior compared to those of his rivals. And Taylor had a plan for domination that was “rational” only in the context of our knowledge through history about the proclivities of the world’s worst fiends and maniacs. His overarching operational program was anchored in the paramilitary culture of irresponsibility and ruthlessness. And the ultimate aim of abusive use of force in this regard was to shock and disorient the Liberian society.54 Taylor wanted to force Liberian citizens to accept lawlessness as a new normal, and he might have succeeded in the venture, but for a combination of fortuitous circumstances: the weakening of the NPFL (due to splits among its military ranks) and the intervention by the ECOWAS. Although he was prevented from seizing Monrovia, NPFL eventually controlled swaths of resource-rich land from which mineral resources were exploited and sold to colluding foreign firms. Income from the illicit trade serviced the insurgency. Meanwhile, rank-andfile militias routinely ransacked financial institutions and plundered private and public property. The immediate short-term consequences of the NPFL rebellion can be gauged further via tangible and intangible developments. (I) At the height of the civil war in the mid-1990s, roughly seven rebel groups controlled entire national material resources in different regions of Liberia. (II) And massive human rights violations by all the factions including government forces led to the death and disappearances of no less than 200,000 civilians. (III) Needless-to-say, the Liberia experience was a total war in the terminal and mortal sense of the term. Cities and towns served as the battleground for indiscriminate gunfights among militia groups. In many cases, the line between militia forces and civilian populations was blurred or nonexistent. (IV) The civil war was infectious. It spread region-wide contagion. And Charles Taylor together with his men was the cross-border and remote captain of the civil war in Sierra Leone,55 counting additional raids by NPFL-supported paramilitary groups in southern Guinea and western Côte d’Ivoire. Instability and violence in the 1990s were beginning to spread slowly into the rest of the Mano River Union. (V) The illicit exploitation of national resource emptied the Liberian society of its patrimony. The Liberian war was undoubtedly peculiar in many ways and as depicted above. It was one of the continent’s most astonishing crises largely

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because the principal disputants had been transformed indubitably into war entrepreneurs. They had developed into the main beneficiaries of the grisly human experience, of blood and guts. Inflexibility and incessant posturing during negotiations were recognizable household tactics used deliberately by the rebel leaders to prolong the war, simultaneously extending opportunities for themselves to maximally exploit national resources. Time and its prolongation were invaluable capital to reap and extend personal returns from the illicit war economy. The subtle motives of war will perhaps turn or become apparent as we navigate the intricate veins of those failed mediated settlements.

III. The Accords: Why They Could not End the Liberia Conflict The Liberian Inter-Faith Mediation Committee (IFMC)56 was already neck-deep in preliminary mediation long before Charles Taylor arrived on the scene with fuel to fire up more trouble. The sponsors of peace worldwide took notice when Taylor eventfully carried his rebellion from Côte D’Ivoire’s border hamlets toward Monrovia. In pursuing peace in Liberia, faith-based institutions were reenacting familiar responsibilities bequeathed them by their predecessors such as the religiously inspired Moral ReArmament and the World Council of Churches. These and other religionbased organizations world-wide possess professionalized skills, which they have regularly volunteered successfully to intervene, manage and resolve complex national and interstate conflicts.57 Early Mediation: Liberian Inter-Faith Mediation Committee Between May and June (1990), the IFMC was able to convene two separate one-week-long peace talks to which important representatives of Samuel Doe’s Government and members of the NPFL were invited to attend at the US Embassy in Freetown, Sierra Leone. But the early peace efforts yielded little in terms of expected peace dividends, due to political sparring between the two main disputants. Taylor had successfully reduced the operational orbit of the government narrowly to the capital city and its immediate surroundings. He had superior military power (with heightened nuisance value) and felt advantaged and qualified to dictate a seminal pre-condition for the resolution of the conflict. He demanded that Doe resigns from office

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as president and without condition. The president was nonplussed. He thought his former Minister of State (Taylor) was a political kid and a tease. Having already survived many coup plots, Doe felt fortified to weather yet another political tsunami, rather than take a chance on mediation. Followup peace-talks that had been anticipated were canceled due to the stand-off. ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee The Interim Government of Professor Amos Sawyer Is a Group without Legitimacy.58 (Laveli Supuwood, on behalf of Charles Taylor and NPFL)

Two months later (August 1990), the 5-Member ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee (consisting of Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Mali, and the Gambia) was established to initiate a peace plan for Liberia. Following a number of meetings held at Banjul, Gambia (August 5–7, 1990) the main details of agreements reached by the Committee to end the war were summarized and posted in the Banjul Communiqué59 of August 7, 1990, like this: (I) Warring parties to observe an immediate ceasefire. (II) ECOMOG is established to serve as the military wing of ECOWAS. The institution thenceforth will be regularly deployed region-wide to help end conflicts. And for present purposes, ECOMOG will do all that is necessary to end the Liberia conflict. Expressly, ECOMOG is authorized to keep the peace, restore order, and ensure that the proposed ceasefire is respected. (III) A Special Emergency Fund for ECOWAS Operations in Liberia is to be established immediately. (IV) An All-Liberia National Conference will be established. It will serve as a platform for political discussion, especially relating to national unity. (V) An Interim Government will be established with members drawn from among Liberian politicians, civil groups, and the warring factions. The said government will develop and design modalities for elections to take place within twelve months from the Banjul meeting. (VI) None of the leaders among the warring factions would be eligible to head the interim government. (VII) And the elected president of the interim government would be ineligible to stand as a candidate in the ensuing presidential election. Charles Taylor outright rejected the ECOWAS Peace Plan, dismissing also the proposed interim government as insidious plan for illegitimate imposition by outsiders. He had refused to attend the Banjul meeting.

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The story however was told that the over-bolting Taylor wanted to be the interim president, but foresaw failure. He could have secured the shortoffice and later converted it possibly into a constitutionally elongated presidency. Happily, such a vantage room for a power grab had been blocked. Thenceforward, the deployment of ECOMOG troops proceeded smoothly (August 24, 1990)60 and without further contacts or consultation with the NPFL. Professor Amos Sawyer was elected and inaugurated as President of the Interim Government during the Bamako Peace Meeting held in Banjul on September 9, 1990. But Liberia still faced deep political division. Beyond Charles Taylor and his shenanigan, many key actors in the conflict seemed unprepared or unwilling to accept the peace. While quite a number of factional leaders wanted extended sinecure positions in government, others thought they deserved better strategically situated ministerial responsibilities. And Charles Taylor was the juggernaut. Pulling obstacles onto the paths of peace, Taylor lived up to his earlier promise to aggravate the crisis. He generated and began to express hostilities by engaging the peacekeepers in gun-battles, on the excuse that they were enemies or occupation forces. Details about the gory encounters to secure Monrovia may be recounted, thus61 : ECOMOG actively collaborated with the AFL and Johnson’s INPFL forces to resist NPFL advances. Charles Taylor’s defiance was not limited to denigrating the proposed Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU), he set about briskly to establish his own alternative National Patriotic Reconstruction Assembly Government (NPRAG). The government was headquartered at Gbarnga. Plans for disarmament and for future elections foundered toward collapse, as mutual distrust, personality clashes, and hatred hardened the differences among the disputants. And then, a break in the fresher impasse came from an unanticipated political source. Samuel Doe had been captured by Johnson’s INPFL forces (September 1990). The impetuous ex-head of the Liberian State was afterward tortured and slowly mutilated in real-time televised moment that will remain engraved in the annals of African conflict. The death of Doe did catalyze new attempts at peace. The Interim Government was able to move to Monrovia. And both Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso that had supported Taylor as an anti-Doe strategy now had no further excuse to push divisiveness. The two countries joined the ECOWAS strongly to push for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Indeed, in the move to fully secure

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Francophone confidence and partnership in the peace process, Nigeria insisted that Côte D’Ivoire’s President Houphouet-Boigny lead the subsequent Yamoussoukro peace initiative. Also, Doe’s death62 eliminated the rumors, or actual fears among Francophone circles, that Nigeria was in Liberia to prop up Doe. ECOWAS went on to sponsor several peace initiatives that may be grouped into three phases: (I) those signed before the 1993 Cotonou Accord, then (II) the Cotonou Accord itself, and (III) the post-Cotonou Agreements. The 1993 Cotonou Accord was a water-shed because its contents were most elaborate. All the mediation efforts were led by ECOWAS appointees commonly they were Heads of West African governments. The Accords: From Bamako Ceasefire to the Lomé Agreement Did the Murder of Samuel Doe Advance the Peace Process? Seven ECOWAS-driven mediation initiatives did produce agreements and among them were the Bamako Ceasefire (November 1990), Banjul Joint Statement (December 1990), Lomé Agreement (February 1991), and the Yamoussoukro I–IV Accords (June–October 1991). The primary mediator for the first three initiatives was the then President of the Gambia, Sir Dauda Jawara, at the time he was also the Chairperson of the ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee. Jawara successfully brought the three most active factions (AFL, NPFL, and the IPFL) to Bamako. Observers say that the passing of Samuel Doe had the effect of easing tensions in the competition for power among the parties. All three parties also endorsed the ECOWAS peace plan, of which the most important component was immediate implementation of the ceasefire. At Banjul, Sir Jawara persuaded a pledge from the disputants to convene an All Liberia Conference as the platform for dialogue among political aspirants. And the proposal to deploy ECOMOG forces throughout Liberia was never ratified for implementation in subsequent meeting. The All-Liberia National Conference nonetheless was convened within 60 days, though Taylor’s NPFL did not attend. The Lomé Agreement attempted to build on the preceding accords by specifying modalities for the implementation of the ceasefire, principally: ECOWAS was authorized to disarm the three factions and to identify the movements and local addresses of senior ex-combatants, for national security purposes.

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Yamoussoukro I–IV A Disaster Code-Named “Operation Octopus”63 The pressure by ECOWAS Secretarial together with principal peace sponsors from the African Union (AU) did yield fruit in terms of a rejuvenated participation of Francophone countries in subsequent peace processes, post-Doe. I have already referenced why a couple of Francophone countries and their allies were less than enthusiastic about protecting the elected government of Liberia against Taylor’s violent attacks. In the spirit of inclusion, Senegalese and Malian troops now joined the ECOMOG. And the 5-Man ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee was selected to advance the mediation process. The Chief Mediator this time was Houphouet-Boigny, the then president of Côte d’Ivoire and he headed the ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee at the time. The esteemed Boigny was joined by the Atlanta-based International Negotiations Network (INN), which was headed by the former US President Jimmy Carter. The Heads of State of Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Togo joined the Gambia and Guinea Bissau as the new principals in the 5-Member ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee. The cumulative outcomes of the Yamoussoukro meetings are summarized under the terminal Yamoussoukro IV Accord (October 1991), as a result: (I) Another ceasefire will be put in place to mitigate conflict. (II) a 5-member elections commission and another 5-member ad hoc supreme court for Liberia will be nominated jointly and established by the NPFL and IGNU. (III) ECOMOG’s mandate is extended to include supervision of the ceasefire and the return and resettlement of Liberian refugees. (IV) ECOMOG has the additional responsibility to supervise DDR. (V) Elections will be held within 6 months. Yamoussoukro failed to secure the peace largely because Charles Taylor had again chosen the path of disorder, not peace. Observers were slightly perplexed about the status of mediation largely because the Chief Mediator, President Boigny had been Taylor’s long-time mentor and supporter against Doe, but political friendship did not douse tempers in the Liberia mediation process. Rather, the conflict spiraled as Taylor began to escalate aggression toward ECOMOG. He would not submit to the DDR program. Instead, the rebel leader put his troops on alert at his de facto “Government”64 headquarters in Gbarnga and ordered military action against the now tousled and ruffled troops under the ECOMOG. Taylor’s plan now

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was resolutely revolving around seizing Monrovia by total force. In actual practice, this proved to be Taylor’s grossest military misadventure.65 Code-named “Operation Octopus,” Taylor’s ill-fated campaign to confiscate Monrovia (October 1992) suffered severe military defeat at the hands of a well-coordinated ECOMOG defenses that included a strongly organized counter-assault on the rebel forces. And this marked a moment, another marker in the intervention: ECOMOG operation at this point passed from defense into the offensive mode. Taylor was targeted as the aggressor and he was marked as the main impediment to peace in Liberia. ECOWAS forces bombarded NPFL positions from air and by land sufficiently to defend and protect Monrovia against the Taylor-led uprising. Another important development was the emergence of a new insurgent group, the United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy, ULIMO led by Alhaji G. V. Kromah. It was a Krahn-based partisan movement. It joined ECOWAS in the fight against NPFL. Its leaders had vowed to rid Liberia of the “Taylor Menace.” (ULIMO-K was the split faction under Kromah.) NPFL came out from the fight a mightily pummeled and weakened military force. It had lost control of a number of its commandeered strategic assets such as the Robertsfield Airstrip, the Harbel Rubber Plantation and the seaport of Buchanan. Feeling the bite of economic and strategic setbacks, Taylor needed only a slight nudge to support and attend a fresh peace initiative brokered by eminent African leaders including the then ECOWAS Executive Secretary (Abbas Bundu), the UN Special Envoy (Trevor Gordon-Somers), and the OAU Special Representative (Rev. Canaan Banana). These were the main mediators who brought the IGNU, the NPFL, and ULIMO together in Switzerland. The mediation produced the Geneva II Agreement (June 17, 1993), which was ratified in the following week by the disputants at the ECOWAS summit in Cotonou. The Cotonou Accord (June 1993) Rebel Leaders Are Appointed to Executive Posts on the Liberian Council of State; Yet Conflict Deepens The Cotonou Accord (June 1993) marked yet another major breaking point in the successive search for peace in Liberia. And it represented an elaborate attempt at the construction of a comprehensive peace document to end the Liberia civil war. All subsequent agreements seemed to merely

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clarify or amend its main articles that spoke to a slew of fundamental democratic principles as follows: ceasefire, disarmament and demobilization, new design for a durable transitional government, planning for general election, repatriation of refugees, and the granting of general amnesty to excombatants. These categories were later decoded into policies and propositions for actual action as follows: (I) ceasefire to take effect from August 1, 1993. (II) Make plans to elect the Liberia National Transitional Government (LNTG) to replace IGNU. The LNTG would be led by a cabinet and a 5-person council of state. (III) Leaders of the main warring parties receive free passage by appointment to executive roles in the newly minted Council of State, as follows: Charles Taylor, NPFL; Alhaji G. V. Kromah, ULIMO; and George Boley, the Liberia Peace Council, LPC. (IV) Joint ceasefire monitoring unit will consist of United Nations Observer Mission (UNOMIL), ECOMOG, and representatives of the main disputants. The representatives were also signatories to the accord (Amos Sawyer, IGNU; Enoch Doglea, NPFL; and Alhaji G. V. Kromah, ULIMO). The Accord was established under the auspices of the ECOWAS in Cotonou. President Nicephore Soglo of Benin was at that time the ECOWAS Chairperson. He served as the principal witness and chief signatory to the agreement. The Cotonou Accord evidently was crafted specifically to accommodate the main disputants and to promote their future political aspirations in post-conflict Liberia. But this did not foster any fresh impetus for real peace, as new contentious issues suddenly burst out. Although the accord stressed power-sharing, a clear formula for sharing political office was not articulated during the meeting; and the factional leaders did not seem to be in a hurry to craft any formula either. Security was the other key element in the peace plan, yet the three power contestant thought that the provision should be put at the back burner of national policy proposals. Good ideas to end the war simply drifted into oblivion.66 Then, multiple new groups emerged to contest power. There were close to a dozen splinter groups by mid-September by the time Ghana came into the scene to lead the peace process. And each of the multiplied factions was attempting to secure a chip for future negotiations in the post-Cotonou mediation processes.

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The Post Cotonou Accords Security Is Core Condition for Peace; But None of the Disputants Agrees to Disarm There were three more accords signed on Liberia following the collapse of the Cotonou agreements: the Akosombo Accord (September 1994), Accra Clarification (December 1994), and the Abuja Accord of August 1995 together with the Supplement to the Abuja Accord (August 1996). All three agreements were driven by a new mediator, Ghana’s President Jerry Rawlings who had also assumed the Chairmanship of the ECOWAS. At Akosombo, the disputants agreed to: (I) implement security sector reform, (II) expand the AFL to include NPFL and ULIMO forces, (III) extend the Transitional Legislative Assembly by adding one civilian member from each of the then 13 counties of Liberia, and (IV) plan to establish the LNTG. The LNTG would have a life-span of 16 months. In Accra, the main outlines of agreements reached at Akosombo were discussed and reconfirmed as acceptable to all parties. These conditions were brought forward for affirmation and clarifications in the Abuja Meeting. And a few more items were added on to the Supplement to the Abuja Accord, primarily, it was the agreement on disarmament and demobilization. A number of issues were confirmed in the Abuja Accord: (I) Membership of the Council of State will be extended to include 6 additional persons—this provision did not receive further consideration. (II) Officeholders in the LNTG are eligible to contest future elections. (III) Ceasefire remains in force from August 26 until stability and order are seen to have taken hold in all national political arenas. (IV) Significantly, members of the Council of State were eligible to run for office in the general elections originally scheduled for August 1996. Each potential or aspiring candidate was required to resign from the Council of State three months prior to the multi-party electoral process. Ruth Sandro Perry was picked to serve as the Chairperson of the new National Transitional Government that had already been inaugurated on September 2, 1995. The Chairperson’s responsibilities included overseeing DDR programs and arranging for the supervision of general elections that had been scheduled to take place on May 30, 1997. However, the new political disposition did not bring peace to Liberia, as recrimination within groups continued apace. Factional leaders who believed they were sidelined67 in the settlements occasionally embarked on seemingly meaningless spates of armed conflict that targeted civilians with much destruction of public property. Tensions intensified in the LNTG

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also because elements of the NPFL and the ULIMO-K were relentless and unceasing in their efforts to consolidate and extend their power inside the LNTG. Abuja II—August 1996 (Supplement to Abuja Accord) If intransigence and failure to adhere to agreements are strategies that helped to make Charles Taylor the President of Liberia, then what incentive is there for him to change?68 (How Charles Taylor Became President of Liberia)

The Abuja II Accord came into effect in 1997. Like previous agreements, it demanded encampment, disarmament, and demobilization of all combatants, but this time the responsibilities for disarmament were placed squarely on the shoulders of the different factional leaders. And the reward for failures to implement the post-war programs as stipulated included in part suspension of participation in the peace process and temporary withdrawal of stipend from the defaulting party. Although it was done in a half-heartedly manner, the main factional leaders did make some effort to disarm their fighters. Significantly also, the Accord provided for a “Special Election” toward establishment of a new government; and the ECOMOG was mandated to restructure and train the AFL. The proposal for reorganization of the armed forces in this instance stressed the need to ensure a balanced representation of ethno-linguistic groups in the military establishment. The general elections of July 1997 were supervised by the ECOWAS and international observer teams were in attendance throughout the duration of the general election. As it were, Charles Taylor was the declared winner of the presidential elections and he was duly sworn-in (August 4, 1997) to head the new government. Rebel leaders Alhaji Kromah and George Boley contested and lost the bid for president. Much has already been written, about the strange and stressed conditions under which the elections were held; that the standards were far below those stipulated to guide and ensure the exercise of free and fair elections. Reportedly, Charles Taylor’s armed militias—posing in some places as local government functionaries—kept watchful eyes on fearful and intimidated voters. Taylor had overwhelming material advantage. He was the only presidential candidate possessing close to unlimited access to funds, transportation, and the media. Taylor won the election overwhelmingly not only “by hook or by crook,” but because Liberians had surrendered to a political

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sad fate. The people of Liberia feared that a loss for Taylor would mean a continuation of the horrid war. But alas! Once in power, the incorrigible Taylor promptly reneged on all the central components of the peace agreements reached during mediation to promote post-war stability. He unilaterally suspended ECOWAS’ mandate to implement the DDR. And then he embarked on a large-scale witch-hunt, ceaselessly using his paramilitary forces to target and harass those who had opposed his candidacy or fought against his rebel forces during the insurgency. In this way, he re-aggravated old political wounds and forced sleeping dogs to rise up, growl and begin to bark. Resistance groups such as Liberians United for the Reconstruction and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) were composed mostly of Liberian refugees from Samuel Doe’s Krahn ethnic group. And most of them until now were stationed in Guinea-Conakry. The coalition of Doe alliances was ready and spoiling for vengeful showdown. Many say that Taylor had stirred the hornets’ nest probably because he was possessed of a death wish. He would self-destruct. The intense and tempestuous competition for power boiled to the rim and began to spill over once the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone unsealed its list of indictments on June 2003. Charles Taylor topped the list of those alleged to have committed egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity. The revelation exploded instant pandemonium with all antiTaylor groups rising almost in unison, demanding that Taylor vacate the seat of power at Monrovia. Anti-Taylor placards yelled: Taylor! Murderer! Satan! Still in control of vast territory in Northern Liberia, LURD led the rebellion. The group launched a triumphant but vicious military operation to “conquer” Monrovia. The offensive intensified after the first attack (June 6, 2003) on the southern seafront of the capital city and with Taylor’s declaration of a state of emergency. The rebellious mob had a plan: to mete out punishment sufficient to dismantle and bury Taylor’s NPFL military forces. They thought and planned to confine Taylor or force his exit from the country permanently. The rest is history. The unfolding events included miscarriages of justice, like in all war: (I) Roughly 600,000 civilians are displaced and another 1000 killed between June 17, 2003, and August 18, 2003. (II) US President Bush’s Administration offers financial assistance to ECOWAS, insisting also that the bulk of the peacekeeping force must be African. ECOWAS Joint Council of Military Chiefs confirms the declaration of emergency in Monrovia and sets off urgently to mobilize and to dispatch 3000-strong peacekeeping troops to Liberia. (III) Abuja cancels previous

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plans to scale down military activities in Liberia and instead mobilizes and dispatches additional contingents of fighting forces for peacekeeping in Liberia. Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo offers the hapless Charles Taylor political refuge (August 2003) in the Nigerian port city of Calabar. Taylor had been reluctant but was persuaded by Abuja to leave Monrovia, once the international peacekeeping forces began to arrive in the country. (IV) ECOWAS was again enmeshed in the arrangement to bring about peace via war. The regional peace effort this time was also supported by foreign countries including the International Contact Group on Liberia, the UK, the United States, Morocco, Senegal, and Ghana. (V) The new peace team worked intensely to broker the 2003 Accra Agreement that culminated in the selection of an interim civilian government (October 14, 2003) headed by the prominent businessman, Gyude Bryant. This was the final peace agreement and it proposed many reforms covering human rights inquiry through truth-telling commission. The former Nigerian Head-ofState General Abdulsalami Abubakar was the main mediator that produced the settlement.69 Analysis of Liberian politics in the period after Charles Taylor is important, but the issues are located somewhere beyond the immediate purvey of the study. It will suffice perhaps to say that post-war reconstruction and peacebuilding presently occupy priority place in the government’s agenda. DDR have been continuing processes. Revamping a national economy that had lain in ruins during a decade-long civil war, implementing genuine national reconciliation programs and addressing the underlying causes of conflict have also been ongoing. These programs are integral to the building of a viable and democratic Liberian polity.70 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, an economist, won the presidential run-off election with 59.4% of the votes cast and took office in January 2006. She became the first elected women president on the continent, winning again in the run-off election of October 25, 2011, and served until the ex-Senator George Weah came into office. Weah weathered a hotly contested presidential election (2017)71 and was inaugurated as president on January 22, 2018. Charles Taylor was convicted of crimes against humanity on October 25, 2012, by the Special Criminal Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). He currently serves a 50-year prison term at the Frankland Prison in England.

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IV. In Pursuit of Mediated Settlement: A Learning Curve I have treated and portrayed mediation in this study as a most valuable instrument in the diplomat’s arsenal or “tool box.”72 The study raises and addresses questions such as why and how the mediator is able to achieve lasting peace (or fails to do so). It touches on the instrumentalist, rational choice, and context-based interpretations of mediation. Human agency is a principal force of history. It continues to also direct and drive peace processes everywhere, in the world’s troubled terrains. But without taking account of context, the utility of a number of explanatory categories is limited; often-times their impacts when applied to the case under interrogation are imprecise. Context is the over-riding determinant of diplomatic and mediation outcomes. The Liberian conflict persisted, sometimes even deepened, despite the soliciting and commitment of high-profile personalities to actualize legitimate peace. Presidents Jawara, Houphouet-Boigny, Nicephore Soglo, Jerry Rawlings, and Reverend Canaan Banana were commissioned to help pave the road to possible compromise and to nudge the peace. But their efforts yielded zilch. They failed to win the peace, despite the trust reposed in them even by most of the conflictual parties. Former US President Jimmy Carter’s involvement as mediator in the conflict did not impart a significant momentum to the peace process either, regardless of his pristine international goodwill. Evidently too, the production of multiple accords is not a reliable index to measure mediation success, given the ease with which the disputants in Liberia discarded them, one after the other. And seasonal reductions in tension are not steadfast indicators of gravitation to calmer bars, as rational choice advocates would want us to believe. Rational choice may have stretched credulity on this. Oscillations between high and low points along the spectrum of deadly violence are among the commonest features in a prolonged civil conflict. More so, disingenuous rebels many times have been known to “cool it” temporarily and for instrumental objectives. Liberia’s Charles Taylor and the Sierra Leonean Fonday Sankoh at critical low points in their careers as international criminals did pledge to participate in peace processes, only to turn around and discard the mediated settlements. Their occasional participation in peace processes was tactical stratagem to buy time (break points) enough to refurbish their armories.

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Character of War and Peace The concept of “resource war”73 aptly captures the essence of the Liberian imbroglio. Illegal exploitation of natural resources was among the major motivating forces behind the Liberia war; and peace was unattractive insofar as the rebel leaders had access to the sources of personal enrichment.74 The most prominent among the war entrepreneurs was Charles Taylor.75 Official envoys from a few Western countries visited Taylor’s business enclaves and many comfortably cut viable deals to export Liberian timber and to reexport “blood diamond” from NPFL affiliates in Sierra Leone and GuineaConakry. His style, daringness, and innovation imparted a definite instrumental edge to the way the war was planned and executed. It is in this context—of war entrepreneurship—that one can then begin to look at the Liberian rebellious Charles Taylor as an organized war chieftain. Taylor was a rational rebel and a sophisticated strategist.76 And far from it, he was not an irrational delinquent or common criminal to be intimidated, threatened with international sanctions, and directly “ordered” to stop fighting and disarm, in the name of international law and moral probity. The money-spinning, though dangerous war-economy, helps to explain also the prolongation of war. The spoils of war rendered mediated peace pacts insufficiently attractive for the insurgents to abandon the gun. For participants in the war economy life on the sharp edge of disaster was worth its value in stolen natural resources. The benefits of continuing to do war outweighed the prize of peace. Charles Taylor also affected the direction of the Liberian war through indoctrination. His fighters had been made to believe that to be captured or to surrender to a rival faction meant definite death. They accepted it as incontestable truth that such a move would amount to self-destruction or suicide. And because the combatants believed that the outcome of military defeat was certain death, the only logic then for the troops finding themselves in the hard and dangerous place was to fight to the bitter finish. Beyond theory, the zero-sum rule applied with merciless tenacity in the bush. International laws of war were alien ideas to the rebel combatants who had been trained to accept war in predetermined and finite terms. The realities of the Liberian-type war should raise question about the analytical usefulness and prescriptions said to be necessary and adequate conditions to bring wars to an end, such as timing, ripeness, and mutually hurting stalemate.

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Against the backdrop of seemingly inflexible and irresolvable conflict in Africa, regional organizations, led by the ECOWAS, were impelled to reconstruct and put to use comprehensive approaches to conflict management and prevention. The ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework recognizes that African conflicts in the post-Cold War era tend to be internal, prolonged, and complicated by the phenomenon of state collapse. Thus, it provides for a Standby Force (Section VIII-89) whose objective is to guarantee peace and security through effective monitoring, observation, and preventive deployment of forces. It seeks to train and equip multi-purpose standby combat units. The organization will be supported administratively speaking by civilian experts drawn from Member States. The proliferation of small arms in the region constitutes more than a mere nuisance to mediation and diplomatic initiatives, and this point is iterated and magnified in present peace proposals. Easy availability of arms serves magnificently to prolong wars. It emboldens combatants to seek resolution of conflicts through force. Sub-section 77 emphasizes the need to “drain the region of illegal small arms and light weapons.” Mediation and Its Discontents Concomitant with the emergent and multifaceted challenges to human security, the move today has been to broaden the field of diplomacy and to absorb to optimal capacity the talents and negotiation capabilities possessed by non-state actors. Indeed, Section VIII (paragraphs 49, a–e) of the Framework reserves a special role for members of the “Council of the Wise” to alert the regional body “about any looming crisis in their states of origin and propose measures for containing such threats.” The Early Warning component binds Member States to furnish ECOWAS policy makers with “trend reports on peace and security, as well as real-time prevention options…to ensure predictability and facilitate interventions to avert, defuse, or creatively transform acute situations of conflict, instability, disruptions, and disasters.” Along with the express recognition of women’s anti-war activism and efficacious peacemaking, the Framework proposes special constitutional mechanisms in the Framework to enhance women’s participation in peace processes and in humanitarian initiatives.77 Peacebuilding offers substantial reprieve for the people of Liberia,78 as elsewhere on the continent. And new international humanitarian laws of war have been endorsed, for example, those that out-law the use of children as soldier have been adopted by a majority of countries across the globe.

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But problems persist, stemming from the very arrangements that have been constructed to ensure that mediated settlements are durable and sustainable. Rather than exclude and isolate those rebel leaders, foreign peacemakers have been encouraging their embrace in peace processes. International norms currently encourage the participation of rebel leaders in governance and quite a few ex-combatants currently share power or are in charge of new African governments.79 The insistence on inclusion derives from the perception that accommodation and immunity, even for those alleged to have committed war crimes, are necessary to forge comprehensive peace settlement and to build democratic constitutional order. Successive US Governments from the early 1990s onward have consistently betrayed positive bias in favor of negotiated settlement even in instances where such a solution meant the inclusion of anti-Washington operatives in government. Liberia’s Charles Taylor comes to mind. And the British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s International Contact Group on Sierra Leone insisted on the inclusion of rebel leader Fonday Sankoh in the proposed transitional government of Sierra Leone. The experiments failed to end civil war that raged in both countries. To be appropriate, the arrangements were consumed befittingly in the bonfire of wishful thinking about the possibilities of redemption for murderous rebels, particularly those without remorse for their crimes.80 Civil groups on the continent have long taken a stand against trouble. They have been the most vehement opponents to the idea of unconditional deliverance and salvation for perverse ex-leaders of ghastly dictatorial regimes. A coalition of civil society hotly protested the participation of armed factional leaders in the LNTG, which was based on the Abuja Accord of August 1995. The normative groups argued persuasively that to accommodate and include active rebels in the affairs of government represented a dangerous capitulation to violence. Many observers agree today that such an action legitimates and rewards lawlessness. More so, the rebel leaders in question truly lacked confirmable interest to foster peace. They would not disarm and none of them possessed verifiable control over their own dastardly armies, openly peopled and dominated by raucous looters and assassins. Similar protests re-materialized when strong Somali war chiefs having seized territory proceeded falsely to claim that they were the only reasonable and lawful representatives of the people with whom foreign normative groups must deal to foster peace.81 Perhaps we can take a cue from emerging issues plus surrounding realities and draw lessons about the saliency and spatial reach of Western

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norms.82 Along the curve, we may learn something about the nature of power (both soft and hard power) and how foreign preferred standards, models, and principles of government are both insinuating and dictating behavior and understandings in international relations.83 Against opposite views on the matter, international interveners and their governments seem convinced (most are sold) on the democratic imperatives and value of inclusive arrangements. They say that it offers the best opportunity for post-war peacebuilding. But to what extents are foreign values adaptable to local conditions? Pragmatic power-sharing regiments could not have been expected to satisfy in equal parts the moral majority in the countries briefly mentioned in the foregoing. Of course mediation is a highly complex occupation. How to pencil a mediated settlement that broadly and practically assuages apprehensions among distrusting warring factions while at the same time fulfilling the plaintiff cries and demands by the war-traumatized communities to the effect that alleged war criminals be brought to justice? Like elsewhere in transitional publics, grim experiences with convoluted settlements buttress the problems inherent in the attempts to implement in peacetime those mediated arrangements that were adopted with no-nonsense agility, specifically to bring domestic conflict to an end. Relatedly, many new governors that had sworn fealty to their citizenry are failing to enlarge and deliver public goods. They are not creating the political environment to reassure their citizens that national unity is a realizable quality and not an empty political buzz. Religion-related identity crises are on the rise in many secular constitutional states, human security is scarcely guaranteed and many imprudent strong men are bending the constitution to prolong their presidential tenure. And particularly in post-war societies the conduct of hasty general elections—which have been randomly rigged by incumbent politicians—perhaps ought to be pushed back, until reintegration programs to disarm and demobilize ex-combatants are seen to have achieved incontestable toehold.84 Although all the peace settlements in Liberia emphasized the importance of creating an enabling environment for holding free and fair elections, officials in the transitional governments and factional leaders failed to implement the provision on DDR. The election that brought Charles Taylor to power in 2003 was conducted in a grossly compromised security environment that could have been expected to guarantee neither an acceptable elections outcomes nor post-electoral stability in Liberia. Beyond elections, far-reaching security sector reform is necessary to maintain law and order and to neutralize and

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deflect the negative impacts of political spoilers.85 Indeed, national electoral processes should start with the holding of local government elections and with an eye to securing livelihoods in the rural environment where the bulk of the population resides.86 Partnership for Stability and Order War is blight.87 And it kneecaps social progress. Across the African continent the consequences of war are manifested tragically in mass poverty and underdevelopment. And new region-wide security crises are mightily aggravating the problem. They are sapping national resources and hindering endeavors by already fragile cash-strapped African states to implement national development plans. Poorer countries across the Sahel (the G5; Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, and Chad) now must re-allocate their meager resources to tackle religious fundamentalism as Boko Haram continues to reproduce new-fangled threats in Nigeria and in much of the Central African Region. Foreign military support to mitigate the quandary mercifully has been ongoing including French combat forces engaged in counter-terrorism operations in the Sahel along with the UN peacekeeping missions spread throughout the continent. Indeed, half of UN’s peace operations are located in Africa and three of them are among the largest missions ever implanted by the world organization to de-escalate domestic conflict. Meanwhile diverse capacity building programs come to Africa in the form of the UK’s Peace Support Program and the US-Africa Command Partnership.88 In addition to helping many African governments plow the field of diplomacy and gain traction at different international forums, major foreign governments and their allies in multilateral institutions are funding various peacebuilding efforts in transitional societies across the continent. These notwithstanding the focus hopefully will move expressly in the nearest future toward greater foreign investments to extend present comprehensive local capacity building programs. Such an approach should bolster both technological know-how and capacity such that Africans themselves can begin to robustly address both international terrorism and indigenously induced security predicaments.89 Broad parameters of international intervention efforts in Africa are detailed in professional publications such as the SIPRI Yearbook90 and Military Balance.91 ECOWAS’ decision to intervene in Liberia92 was historic. It was the very first time in the records of peacekeeping that a regionally based force would successfully embark on a mission in a country within the same region

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to oversee and ensure the peaceful resolution of conflict. After the launch of the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) to serve as the military wing of the West African organization, a Nigeria-led Five-person Mediation Committee began to unleash international campaigns to cultivate support for a mediated settlement of the civil conflict. By intervening at that juncture, ECOWAS was agreeing to assume a new and an untested role in peacekeeping. Observers thought that the venture was strange, unusual, but necessary to curb impunity. All discussions about peace processes in the region were placed in context; primarily, to remind the international community about the obligation of nations in the post-Cold War era to assume humanitarian roles and to mitigate human suffering in Liberia. Although the United States and Britain were initially lukewarm, their current intervention efforts in capacity building and in post-conflict rehabilitation have been highly principled and invaluable. The ECOWAS intervention did morph from traditional peacekeeping 93 into peace enforcement .94 As it were, a dynamic regional peacekeeping operation involving the simultaneous use of diplomacy and raw firepower was critical to bringing the civil war to an eventful end.

Notes 1. Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956). There is no consensus among scholars whether or not the human proclivity for violence is genetically encoded. Johan Galtung’s work on “cultural violence” shows how people’s belief systems are continuing to be racialized and reproduced to promote and legitimate violence. Galtung, “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace 27, no. 3 (1990), 291–305. 2. Along a similar vein, see Pamela Aall and Chester Crocker, eds., Minding the Gap: African Conflict Management in Time of Change (Waterloo: Center for International Governance Innovation, 2016). 3. Max Haller and Anja Eder, Ethnic Stratification and Economic Inequality Around the World: The End of Exploitation and Exclusion? (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2015). 4. Marko Lehti, The Era of Private Peacemakers: A New Dialogic Approach to Mediation (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). 5. Philippe Le Billion, Wars of Plunder: Conflict, Profits and the Political Resources (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014). 6. For overviews, see Ian Taylor, “Review Essay: From Atrocity to Elections in West Africa,” International Peacekeeping 24, no. 2 (April 2017), 355–357; Jacob Bercovitch and S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, “Religion and Mediation:

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7.

8.

9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

The Role of Faith-Based Actors in International Conflict Resolution,” International Negotiation 14 (2009), 175–204. Dena Freeman, “From ‘Christians Doing Development’ to Doing ‘Christian Development’: The Changing Role of Religion in the International Work of Tearfund,” Development in Practice 28, no. 2 (February 17, 2018), 280– 291. Osman Antwi-Boateng, “The Transformation of the US-Based Liberian Diaspora from Hard Power to Soft Power Agents,” African Studies Quarterly 13, nos. 1–2 (Spring 2012), 55–74. ECOWAS, “Main Documents of the Liberian Crisis: Special Supplement of the Official Journal,” Official Journal-Special Edition 22 (1997). Equally comprehensive in narrative and analysis, see David Quinn, et al., eds., “Crisis Managers but Not Conflict Solvers: Mediating Ethnic IntraState Conflict in Africa,” Conflict Management and Peace Science 30, no. 4 (2013). Malte Brosig and Norman Sempijja, “Human Development and Security Sector Reform: The Examples of Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo,” African Security 11, no. 1 (January 2, 2018), 59–83. David Keen, “War or Peace: What’s the Difference?” Journal of International Peacekeeping 7, no. 4 (2007), 1–22. Isabella Duyvesteyn attempts to reject the economic claim that greed is at the heart of the wars in Liberia and Somalia. The author draws on case studies to show that broader strategic interests were at the heart of those African conflicts, consistent with Carl von Clausewitze’s portrayal of war. See Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Clausewitz and African War: Politics and Strategy in Liberia and Somalia (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2012). Lindsay Reid, “Finding a Peace that Lasts: Mediator Leverage and the Durable Resolution of Civil Wars,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 6, no. 7 (2017), 1401–1431. In real life, most mediators are bestowed with capability as well as credibility resources in equal parts. See Charles Call, Why Peace Fails: The Causes and Prevention of Civil War Recurrence (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2012), Chapter 3. Barbara F. Walter, “Bargaining Failures and Civil War,” Annual Review of Political Science 12 (2009), 243–261. Joseph Nye’s ideas on power have through the decades dominated international relations and studies in international politics. A few of his contemporary representations and renditions on the subject include: Joseph Nye, “Soft Power, Hard Lessons,” The Globe and Mail, May 12, 2017, p. A13; “My Soft Power,” Foreign Policy 188 (September–October, 2011), 13–11; “Power and Foreign Policy,” Journal of Political Power 4, no. 1 (April 1, 2011), 9–24.

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18. Although the mediator is able to identify and construct a peace settlement that yields mutually satisfying outcomes in the short-run, time can change future realities and create fresh or additional incentives for a clash in the long rule. Kyle Beardsley, “Agreement Without Peace? International Mediation and Time Inconsistency Problems,” American Journal of Political Science 52, no. 4 (October 2008), 723–740. 19. See Beardsley, ibid. 20. Joseph Nye’s proposition is that a combination of both hard and soft power will maximize positive outcomes of foreign policy. Soft power rests on attraction rather than coercion or payment. It coopts people rather than coerce them. At the personal level wise parents know that their power will be greater and last longer if they model sound ethical values for their children rather relying only on spanking…similarly political leaders have long understood the power that comes from being able to set the agenda and determine the framework of a debate. If I can get you to do what I want, then I do not have to force you to do what you do not want. If the US represents values that others want to follow, it can economize on sticks and carrots. Added to hard power, attraction can be a force multiplier. (See Joseph Nye, “Donald Trump and the Decline of US Soft Power,” Project Syndicate [February 6, 2018], 1–2) 21. Peter Carnevale, “Strategic Choice in Mediation,” Negotiation Journal 2, no. 1 (1986); S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, “Religion and Peacebuilding,” in Jacob Bercovitch, Victor Kremenyuk, and I. William Zartman, eds., Handbook on Conflict Resolution (London: Sage, 2005). 22. Asaf Siniver, “Power, Impartiality, and Timing: Three Hypotheses on Third Party Mediation in the Middle East,” Political Studies 2 (2006), 806–826. 23. The successful mediator must be patient, alert, flexible, and tenacious, see Franzisca Zanker, Legitimacy in Peacebuilding: Rethinking Civil Society Involvement in Peace Negotiations (New York, NY: Routledge, 2018). For elaborations on ripeness and timing, see Adrian Gray, “Conflict Management and African Politics. Ripeness, Bargaining and Mediation,” Political Studies Review 9, no. 3 (2011), 444–455. 24. See Scott Sigmund Gartner and Jacob Bercovitch, “Overcoming Obstacles to Peace: The Contribution of Mediation to Short-Lived Conflict Settlements,” International Studies Quarterly 50, no. 8 (2006), 818–840. 25. Donald Rothchild, “Ethnic Bargaining and the Management of Intense Conflict,” International Negotiation 2 (1997). Supporting Rothchild, many scholars argue that democratic values and principles are essential to stability in transitional societies: Eric Mvukiyehe, “Promoting Participation in War-Torn Countries: Microlevel Evidence from Postwar Liberia,” Journal of Conflict Resolution (April 24, 2017), 1–41.

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26. See Ray Block and David A. Siegal, “Identity, Bargaining and Third-Party Mediation,” International Theory 3, no. 3 (2011), 416–449. 27. Tim Glawion, “Conflict, Mediation and the African State: How Foreign Support and Democracy Lead to Strong Political Order,” African Security 6, no. 1 (2013), 38–66. 28. The United States Government and its allies in the contemporary uni-polar world order prefer mediated settlement of civil wars rather than complete defeat of the political opponent or adversary, even where settlement suggests the inclusion of rebel groups opposed to Washington, DC. See Lise Morje Howard and Alexandra Stark, “How Civil Wars End: The International System, Norms and the Role of External Actors,” International Security 42, no. 3 (2017/2018), 127–171. 29. See Hussein Solomon, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism in Africa: Fighting Insurgency from Al Shabaab, Ansar Dine and Boko Haram (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 2–4. 30. Robert Lovan, et al., Participatory Governance: Planning, Conflict Mediation and Public Decision Making (London: Ashgate, 2010). 31. Saaida Touval, The Peace Brokers: Mediators in the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948–1979 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982). 32. See Peter Wallensteen and Isaak Svensson, “Talking Peace,” Journal of Peace Research 51, no. 2 (2014), 315–327; Jacob Bercovitch and Jeffrey Rubin, Mediation in International Relations: Multiple Approaches to Conflict Management (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1992). 33. Harry Besada, Crafting an African Security Architecture: Addressing Regional Peace and Conflict in the 21st Century (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010). 34. Missed opportunities frequently have led to regrettable outcomes, see I. Zartman, et al., Slippery Slope to Genocide: Reducing Identity Conflicts and Preventing Mass Murder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012); M. Kleiboer, “Understanding Success and Failure in International Mediation,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 40, no. 2 (1996), 360–389. 35. Mediation has been seen also as a process of restoring broken relationships between communities, ethnic groups, or nations. Conflict erupts when relationships break down. Ertugrul Apakan, “Mediation: The Best Way Forward in Conflict Prevention and Resolution,” Al Azimuth: A Journal of Foreign Policy and Peace 2, no. 1 (January 2013), 39–42; Vilem Rehak, “Mediation as a Tool for Conflict Resolution: A Case Study of the Civil War in Liberia,” Mezinarodni Vztahy 46, no. 3 (2011), 30–54. 36. Jay Rothman, ed., From Identity-Based Conflict to Identity-Based Cooperation (New York: Peace Psychology Books, 2012). 37. Christopher Moore, Mediation Process: Practical Strategies for Resolving Conflict (San Francisco: Jossey Brass, 1986), 8. In later works, applied interpretations are equally perceptive as they extend Moore’s original arguments,

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39.

40. 41.

42.

43. 44.

45. 46. 47.

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see Molly Inman, et al., “Cultural Influences on Mediation in International Crisis,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, no. 4 (2014), 685–712. See Dawn Brancati and Jack Snyder, “Time to Kill,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 57, no. 5 (2013), 822–853; Jessica Piombo, “Peacemaking in Burundi: Conflict Resolution Versus Conflict Management Strategies,” Africa Security 3, no. 4 (October 2010), 239–272. Others speak to strategies of successful interventions. Roy Licklider, “The Consequences of Negotiated Settlements in Civil Wars, 1945–1993,” American Political Science Review 89, no. 3 (1995), 681–690. A pioneering work in this field includes, Christopher Mitchell, The Structure of International Conflict (London: Macmillan, 1981). For enunciations on these functions and characteristic, see Princen, Intermediaries in International Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992). Exploring similar issues and argumentations, see Michael J. Greig, “Nipping Them in the Bud,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 2 (2015), 336–361. Etain Tannam, “International Intervention in Ethnic Conflict: Competing Approaches,” Ethnopolitics 11, no. 4 (2012), 341–353. Ibrahim Diallo, “The Interface Between Islamic and Western Pedagogies and Epistemologies: Features and Divergences,” International Journal of Pedagogies and Learning 7, no. 3 (2013), 175–179. Fieke Harinck and Daniel Druckman, “Do Negotiation Interventions Matter? Resolving Conflicting Interests and Values,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 1 (2017), 29–55; Mona Fixal, Ways Out of War: Peacemakers in the Middle East and Balkans (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Erica Chenoweth, Rethinking Violence, States and Non-State Actors in Conflict (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010). The Charles Taylor-led rebellion was the second attempt to oust Samuel Doe from power. The Army Chief, General Thomas Quiwonkpa had earlier invaded Liberia from neighboring Sierra Leone on November 12, 1985. The move was repelled by Doe’s Krahn-dominated Armed Forces of Liberia and Quiwonkpa was executed. Mary Moran, Liberia: The Violence of Democracy (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania, 2008). George Klay Kieh, “Peace, Aggression and Liberia,” ACCORD (August 19, 2011), 10–31. Personal grudges against Doe issued from the following sources: President Houphouet-Boigny’s adopted daughter had married Adolphus Tolbert, the son of President Tolbert of Liberia—both of whom were murdered when Doe took power. Blaise Compaoré inherited the family animosity toward Doe when he married Adolphus Tolbert’s widow, Tolbert was assassinated in his mansion during the coup d’état by Doe’s soldiers. For some of these details, see British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), “Compaoré Explains

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49.

50.

51.

52.

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His Reasons for Supporting Liberian Rebels,” World Service, Transcript (August 1990), 23–25. Samuel Doe’s regime was particularly brutal. It was marked by the summary execution of those he had implicated in the many coup plots against his government. The execution in 1980 of fifteen former civilian politicians at a Monrovia beach was televised nationally. This government was widely believed to have introduced a “new tribalism” into Liberian politics. Ethnic manipulations contributed vastly to eruptions and violence leading to the 1989 Christmas Eve invasion of Liberia by Charles Taylor. For detailed accounts of unimaginable cruelty, see Morten Boas, “Hunting Ghosts of a Difficult Past: the International Crisis Group and the Production of ‘Crisis Knowledge’ in the Mano River Basin Wars,” Third World Quarterly 34, no. 4 (2014), 652–668. Founded as a safe haven for “free people of color” from the United States, Liberia acquired its independence in 1847. Liberia had the highest rate of economic growth in the world, after Japan during the mid-twentieth century. R.W. Dalton Crowder, et al., Growth Without Development: An Economic Survey of Liberia (Evanston, IL: Northwest University Press, 1966). The army was used to serve President Tolbert’s strategy of extending his patronage machine into the “country side;” as well, it was used as an instrument of internal repression in the rural areas. For this, see Stephen Ellis, “Liberia 1989–1994: A Study of Ethnic and Spiritual Violence,” African Affairs 94, no. 3 (April 1995), 165–197. The Liberian Republic at inception (1847) was sharply bifurcated between the economically advantaged Americo-Liberian elite (forming only 2% of society) and the mass of indigenous people such as the Bassa, Dei, Gbandi, Gio, Glebo, Gola, Kissi, Kpelle, Krahn, Kru, Kuwaa, Loma, Mano, Mandingo, Mende, and Via. For analysis of class structure, see Amos Sawyer, The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia: Tragedy and Challenge (San Francisco, CA: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1992); M.B. Akpan, “Black Imperialism: Americo-Liberian Rule over the African People of Liberia, 1841–1964,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 7, no. 2 (1973); and Stephen Hlophe, Class, Ethnicity and Politics in Liberia (Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1979). The phenomenon of state collapse has been discussed in many studies, see Clionadh Raleigh and Kars De Bruijne, “Where Rebels Dare to Tread: A Study of Conflict Geography and Co-option of Local Power in Sierra Leone,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 6 (July 2017), 1230–1260; Oblayon Nyemah and Donnel Scott, “Revitalizing a Post Conflict Government in Liberia,” Public Manager 41, no. 2 (Summer 2012), 27–31; S. Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (New York: New York University Press, 1999); and Ted Gurr, “Peoples Against States: Ethno-Political Violence and the

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55.

56.

57.

58. 59.

60.

61.

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Changing World System,” International Studies Quarterly 38, no. 3 (1999), 347–377. How the Liberian war was fought has been discussed in many studies. Amy L. Freedman, ed., Internationalization of Internal Conflicts: Threatening the State (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014); William Reno, War Lord Politics and the African State (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), Ch. 2; David Dunn, “The Civil War in Liberia,” in Taiser Ali and Robert O. Matthews, eds., Civil Wars in Africa: Roots and Resolution (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999). The Charles Taylor war did spread instability throughout the region: Taylor was simultaneously fighting in Liberia as well as giving critical support to Fonday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone. He supported insurgencies also in Guinea and in Côte d’ Ivoire. On this, see David McDonough, “From Guerrillas to Government: Post-conflict Stability in Liberia, Uganda and Rwanda,” Third World Quarterly 2, no. 4 (2008), 357–374. The IFMC famously opposed all peace proposals that appointed rebel leaders to political office. Debates on this reverberated also in academic circles, see Jeremy Levitt, Illegal Peace in Africa: An Inquiry into the Legality of Power Sharing with African War Lords, Rebels and Junta (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Monica Serrano and Thomas Weiss, The International Politics of Human Rights: Rallying to the R2P Cause? (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2014). Specific references seek to clarify the viewpoint, see Jacob Bercovitch and S. Ayse Kadayifci-Orellana, “Religion and Mediation: The Role of FaithBased Actors in International Conflict Resolution,” International Negotiation 14 (2009), 175–204; also Bethuel Kipagat, Is Mediation Alien to Africa? (Washington, DC: Project Ploughshares, 2009). See Kieh, op. cit., note 46, p. 11. The communiqué was endorsed by the Heads of State of The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, and representatives of the Heads of State of Mali and Togo. Later to be formally acceded to by Wilmot Diggs (AFL), Charles Taylor (NPFL), and Noah Bordolo (INPFL) in Bamako on November 28, 1990. Witnesses to the agreement were Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU, now AU) and representatives of the Liberian Inter-Faith Mediation Committee (IFMC). The first batch of 4000 ECOMOG peacekeeping troops was led by Nigeria and Ghana and comprised of soldiers from Guinea, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. Danny Hoffman, The War Machines: Violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011); Kenneth L. Cain, “The Rape of Dinah: Civil War in Liberia and Evil Triumphant,” Human Rights Quarterly 21, no. 2 (May 1999), 265–307.

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62. The gory, blood-splattered minutiae of his public torture, and eventual murder are captured in print and electronic media. See Lynda Schuster, “The Final Days of Dr. Doe,” Grant 48 (Autumn 1994). Johnson soon retired from fighting and his faction INPFL disintegrated with a number of his men re-joining Taylor. 63. Peter Jenkins, “The Economic Community of West African States and the Regional Use of Force,” Denver Journal of Internal Law and Policy 32, no. 7 (Spring 2007), 333–341. 64. Rebel leader Charles Taylor did create a prototype “sovereign” government that had minted its own money-currency. Taylor also appropriated territory and built an administrative head quarters where he received foreign representives and business persons from France, Germany, and a few Asian countries. Rogue merchants visited Taylor’s enclave to purchase contraband goods. See Michael Beeven, “Governing Natural Resources for Peace: Lessons from Liberia and Sierra Leone,” Global Governance 21, no. 2 (2015), 227–231. 65. Rustad Aas, Camilla Siri, and Paivi Lajala, High Value Natural Resources and Post Conflict Peacebuilding (New York, NY: Earthscan, 2012). 66. The split among groups was sometimes along ethnic lines, for example, ULIMO-J was the Krahn Group led by Roosevelt Johnson and ULIMO-K was the Mandingo group led by Alhaji Kromah. Following the collective concern on their part that Charles Taylor was blocking the peace process in order to advance his presidential ambitions, Tom Woewiyu, Levi Supuwood, and Samuel Dokie defected from NPFL. Dr. George Boley did encourage a large number of the Krahn dissidents to vacate their membership in the AFL. There was also the Lofa Defense Force and the Liberia New Horizon, whose followers consistently clashed for undefined ethnically based reasons. The National Conference of Unarmed Citizens was made up of civic-minded individuals and groups. Its leadership did stake a claim on national leadership in postwar Liberia. 67. For example, ULIMO-J thought that the appointment of Johnson as Minister of Rural Development was grossly inadequate—and that the faction deserved to control many more public corporations and state enterprises. Disagreements over allocation of government responsibilities or “office,” indirectly meaning access to resources, contributed considerably to violations of the Abuja Accord. 68. Tiawan S. Gongloe, “A Look at the Implications of the Abuja Accord on Elections 2003,” The Perspective (March 5, 2003), 1–9. 69. For related details, George Kieh, “Civilians and Civil Wars in Africa: The Cases of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte D’Ivoire,” Peace Research 48, nos. 1 and 2 (2016), 203–228. 70. Walt Kilroy, Reintegration of Ex-Combatants After Conflict: Participatory Approaches in Sierra Leone and Liberia (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Chapters 1, 2 and 4.

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71. George Weah won the first round election with 38% of the vote followed by the sitting vice president Joseph Boakai with 29% of the vote. The Supreme Court withheld the run-off election following allegations of electoral fraud leveled against Weah by the Liberty Party third-placed candidate Charles Brumskine. The case was dismissed by the Supreme Court and Weah won clear-cut victory with 60% of the vote in the second round held on December 26, 2017. See BBC World News, December 29, 2017. 72. Allan Edward Barsky, Conflict Resolution for the Helping Professional: Negotiation, Mediation, Advocacy, Facilitation and Restorative Justice (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017). 73. Massimo Morelli, Resource Concentration and Civil Wars (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Resources, 2014). 74. To be sure, personality factors and ethnicity also contributed to accentuate the conflict. The flames of anger and revenge were pushed by secondary forces in diverse directions. Zeynep Taydas, ed., “Why Do Civil Wars Occur? Another Look at the Theoretical Dichotomy of Opportunity and Grievance,” Review of International Studies 37, no. 5 (2011), 2627– 2650. 75. Victor Tedros, “Resource Wars,” Law and Philosophy 33, no. 3 (2014), 361–389. 76. Rob Buijtenhuijs, “The Rational Rebel: How Rebellious? Some African Examples,” Afrika Focus 12, nos. 1–3 (1996), 15–23. 77. Gender-specific impacts of violence are discussed and furthered in this edited work in ways that cover different cultural settings. See Sara E. Davies and Jacqui True, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018). 78. Raymond Azarali, Oliver Masakure, and Edward Sizha, eds., Security, Education and Development in Contemporary Africa (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2017), Ch. 1, 2. For overview of theoretical approaches to peace, see Seth J. Schwartz, Handbook of Identity Theory and Research (New York: Springer, 2012). 79. On this, see David McDonough, “From Guerrillas to Government: Postconflict Stability in Liberia, Uganda and Rwanda,” Third World Quarterly 2, no. 4 (2008), 357–374. 80. A total rehabilitation and recovery of unrepentant executioners is a doubly burnable idea. See Ofira Silikta and Lee E. Dutter, “Assessing the Rationality of Autocrats: The Case of Sadam Hussein,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 22, no. 2 (March 10, 2009), 275–297. 81. Anders Themner, ed., Warlord Democrats in Africa: Ex-Military Leaders and Electoral Politics (London: Zed Books, 2017), Chapters 3, 4. 82. Beth Elise Whitaker, et al., Africa’s International Relations: Balancing Domestic and Global Interests (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2018), Chapters 1–3.

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83. Laurence Whitehead, “International Democracy Promotion as Political Ideology: Upsurge and Retreat,” Journal of Political Ideologies 2, no. 1 (June 2, 2015), 10–26. 84. Safal Ghimire, “Making Security Sector Reform Organic: Infrastructure as an Entry Point?” Peacebuilding 4, no. 3 (2016), 262–281. 85. Walt Kilroy, Reintegration of Ex-Combatants After Conflict: Participatory Approaches in Sierra Leone and Liberia (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 86. Ato Onoma, “Transitional Regimes and Security Sector Reform in Sierra Leone and Liberia,” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 656, no. 1 (2014), 136–153. 87. Joseph Grahama, ed., Peace, Security and Post Conflict Reconstruction in the Great Lakes Region of Africa (Baltimore, MD: Project Muse, 2018), Chapter 2. 88. Nadine Ansorg, “Security Sector Reform in Africa: Donor Approaches Versus Local Needs,” Contemporary Security Policy 38, no. 1 (January 2, 2017), 129–144. 89. Edmond Keller, “Meeting the Challenges of Strategic and Human Security Interests of US-Africa Relations, or the Orphaning of Soft Power,” Africa Review 4, no. 1 (2012), 1–16. 90. SIPRI Yearbook 2018 (London, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018). 91. Military Balance 2018 (London, UK: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2018). 92. On ECOMOG deployment and challenges encountered, see Omo Ogbebor and Ahmed Sanusi, “Asymmetry of ECOWAS Integration Processes: Contribution of Regional Hegemon and Small Country,” Vestnik RUDN International Relations 17, no. 1 (December 1, 2017), 59–73; Simon Akam, “The Vagabond King,” New Statesman, no. 141 (2012), 29–33. 93. Emmanuel Weken Kotia, Ghana Peacekeeping in Lebanon and the Liberia Peace Operations (Lanham and Boulder: Lexington Books, 2015), Chapter 1. Traditional Peacekeeping involves “the prevention, containment, moderation and termination of hostilities between or within states through the medium of third party intervention organized and directed internationally, using multinational military, police, and civilian personnel to restore and maintain order.” See International Peace Academy, Peacekeeper’s Handbook (New York: United Nations Press, 1984), 2. 94. Analytical work on R2P draws on a literary icon. See David G. Leitch, “Red Fleck on a White Suit: Mark Twain on Military Intervention: The Responsibility to Protect (R2P),” A Journal of Peace Studies 42, no. 4 (2017), 521–532.

CHAPTER 7

About God and Violence in West Africa! Can Religious Organizations Foster Peace? Charles Abiodun Alao and Ronke Ako Nai

There is only one good, knowledge; and only one evil, ignorance. (Socrates)

Introduction Religion is a profoundly prominent identity marker in Africa.1 And the heads of religious organizations presently rank among the most venerated in societies across the continent.2 This upwardly mobile, rapidly ascendant social status for religious leaders is shaped, directed, and influenced by several factors. Principally, religious leaders are in command of enormous population of adherents who unquestioningly most times accept them collectively as the oasis of integrity. Others call them the voices of reason.3 Many of these leaders no doubt possess distinctive charisma combined with outstanding management and headship skills. And in the midst of poverty and misgovernment, they preach about hope and speak consistently of a celestial reward for those who keep faith. Marginalized populations are drawn to that kind of message. But they seek not just divine deliverance; they want also some relief from material hardship here and now.4 Religious organizations in response have diversified their activities. Most are moving

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sure-footedly from delivering purely spiritual solace and into the prefecture of social services; rendering life-enriching amenities that have become critical, even life-saving, for the ordinary folk suffering from gross neglect; and carrying the full burden of state failures. The state in Africa long since had abandoned its constitutional obligation to shelter citizens from the extremes of privation and the gravest human insecurity.5 An enormous body of the conflict literature6 says there are links among poverty, social despair, and the breakdown of order among many transitional societies.7 Key religious leaders as a result find themselves constantly on their toes and on the ready, to douse smoldering disputes, and to contain already raging conflicts. Most are currently working collaboratively alongside professional diplomats, special envoys and Track II mediators on peacebuilding programs in post-conflict societies. Observers suggest that faith-based establishments may be the best equipped to mediate and resolved religion-based conflicts, because they can bring spiritual resources into peacemaking. And compared to regular diplomacy that might be constrained by issues of sovereignty, religion-based mediation is driven frequently by leaders who assume a higher sense of calling to mitigate human suffering, and most are spiritually inspired and endowed with inner strengths to persevere in the face of debilitating challenges.8 This perhaps explains why governments have oftentimes depended on the clergy, Imam, and prelates to speak to social problems and help de-escalate tensions during communal conflicts. Church, Mosque, and Religious Leadership Religion and politics in Africa9 have always been intertwined such that quite a few African political leaders now are actively insinuating themselves into churches and frequently attending new wave Christian Charismatic and Pentecostal rallies in part for strategic purposes, to cozy up with religious leaders and tap support from the vast pool of numerically concentrated Christian followers, most of whom are politically active and likely to vote. They can bolster any politician’s career.10 Others are said to employ and depend on the services of Muslim marabouts for similar purposes; though many may do so genuinely to buoy up their spiritual strength and ensure some balance in personal emotional health. In extreme cases of the aforementioned fixation to excel, many among the worldly leaders

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have succumbed to the temptation of engaging in fetishes of modern day witchcraft.11 Politicians jostle one another behind doors, singularly to outmanoeuvre and out-compete their opponents and to perpetuate their hold on the seats of power.12 Overall, religious leaders have increasingly enlarged the opportunities to facilitate intimate contacts between Church/Mosque and the adherents. As the circumference of physical interaction shrinks, religious leaders are able to exercise enormous influence over the worldview of their devotees and to directly sway their everyday thinking upon life in general.13 Exploring and relating this matter to the conflict-prone Northern Nigerian city of Kano, David Ehrhardt shows through case study analysis that “…over 90 percent of the survey respondents profess to have considerable trust in their religious leaders…in contrast to the police and politicians in the city, who can count on, at most, the trust of only one third of the population…”14 The Pew Research Centre addresses the same issue from a slightly more nuanced perspective, showing in its latest survey that the “levels of religious salience are particularly high in sub-Saharan Africa: 75% in every country surveyed in the region say religion is very important for them.” And this information can be broken down for better clarity as follows: Ethiopia (98%), Ghana (89%), Nigeria (82%), and South Africa (79%). The opposite holds in a large number of Western countries: Denmark (9%), UK (11%), France and Germany (12%), Italy (23%), and Canada (39%). The United States (68%)15 has the highest committed Christians in the Western world. Interesting developments also come to light when we look at the structure of religious institutions and the similarities and differences in the nature of their leaderships.16 Christian organizations may be identified via churches which are commonly differentiable from one another by membership size, doctrine, and ritual.17 But the main distinction lies between the “orthodox” versus the Charismatic churches.18 The former collectively share traditional links with long-established founding Christian movements abroad, and each church possesses a written constitution by which the executive councils derive their authority to lead. The latter, Charismatic churches are less structured. They are largely religious movements revolving around the charismatic leaders who exercise their authority close in style and form to biblical prophets or enigmatic seers.19 According to Robert Dowd, the Charismatic movements particularly the Pentecostal Christians “seek to make Nigeria a Christian country… [and] these efforts to evangelize do not sit well with Muslims…”20 Noticeably over time, quite a

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few among the orthodox and charismatic churches have become linked via inter-church borrowing of traditions, social positions, rites, and sacrament.21 As living organizations, churches consistently must obey the logic of intergenerational shifts. In the interest of survival, they must respond positively to change and continuities in the spiritual desires, yearnings, and aspirations of the congregation.22 On the other side is the community of Muslims, which can be divided broadly into: the Sunni “Mainstream-Establishment” Muslims and the diverse members of the Sufi Brotherhood (Qadiriyya, and the Tijaniyya). Following these are the reformist Islamist movements: Shi’ite Muslims and the diverse group of Salafi and Wahhabi Islamists. The reformist Islamists are loosely united on some defined objectives such as: (I) Purging Islam of “errors” or religious “impurities” associated with moderate Islamists’ accommodation of secularity; (II) greater role for Islam in contemporary politics; (III) making the religious laws of Shari’a the law of the land; and (IV) integrating religious and state authority. The reformists say they have lost confidence in the capacity of the secular state to eliminate corruption and promote good governance as stipulated in Shari’a law.23 The Sunni “Establishment” Muslim group is frequently accused by the reformists of “betraying the principles of Islam” by supporting the idea of secular democratic government. At the extreme end of the reformist movement in many democratizing places have been the succession of fundamentalist groups such as the Maitatsine Islamist and Boko Haram terrorist movements in Nigeria. Perhaps at this point it might be useful to present and review the religious composition of the region under investigation. Among West Africa’s 15 countries, 7 are Muslim-majority, in this order: Senegal (94%), Mali (90%), the Gambia (90%), Guinea (85%), Niger (80%), Burkina Faso (61%), and Sierra Leone (60%).24 And majority of the Muslims in the region are followers of Sunni limb of Islam. The rest are Shia Muslims and other fragments of the Islamic faith already listed. Although Nigeria is a nonMuslim-majority country, it hosts the largest population of Muslims in the region by virtue of its sheer population size of about 189 million people, half of which are said to be Muslims. This work imparts to the reader the breadth and span of positive contributions that religious organizations can make and have continued to bestow upon their societies. They are helping to advance ongoing efforts at peacemaking, rather than brew conflict. To ensure a balanced account,

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we have also elaborated on the preferences of religious organizations on the opposite side of the spectrum; leaderships in those movements are evidently guided by different priorities and most seem bent on dislodging their communities by exploding and sustaining conflict. Issues are arranged thematically into five broad sections, as follows: (I) the main causes of conflict together with the scope and limits of preventive diplomacy are treated in the context of a literature review, and then (II) the contributions of religious organizations to peacemaking are examined and analyzed through case studies drawn from Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte d’Ivoire. (III) The third section unveils the two faces of religion. The conflict-prone face of religion tells a story about religious organizations with their leaders fueling communal conflict and enlarging the problems that inhere in human insecurity. And the (IV) more rational face depicts religious leaders as footsoldiers quenching fires and building institutions to teach tolerance and promote the virtues of harmonious living. Much of the illustrations in the two sections immediately preceding draw heavily and substantively from the Nigerian experience. (IV) The main trends in conflict management and prevention are highlighted in the last section (V). And religion is encapsulated as Janus-faced. Our overall view is that the field of religious peacemaking in Africa is growing positively and maturing.

I. About Conflict and Preventive Diplomacy: Some Discourses Africa’s contemporary history is in large measure a narrative of conflict, collaboration, and struggles for recovery plus survival. Raw data25 on the scale of conflict indicate that roughly 20 out of the 54 countries on the continent have experienced at least one severe civil war in the last fifty years, and that close to twenty percent of Africa’s 1.4 billion people currently live in countries that are at war or slowly recovering from war. Low-intensity conflict is becoming the new normal experience of regular existence for the majority of Africans living in different transitional countries on the continent. And the outcomes of war are austere when we speak of human displacement.26 According to a most recent report by the Pew Research Centre: …the total number of people who were forced to leave their homes due to conflict reached a new high of 18.4 million in 2017, up sharply from 14.1 million in 2016…the Democratic Republic of the Congo has the largest

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internally displaced population within sub-Saharan Africa…which reached 4.4 million in 2017, almost double the 2.2 million reported the year before.27

Of course, these are realities giving rapid rise to the nettlesome stereotyping of Africa as an unmitigated human tragedy. Quite a few observers of political events are suggesting the continent is doomed, given its persistent conflicts arising from seemingly irredeemable ethno-religious cleavages, identity crisis, and bad government. Thus regarded, we see things differently. Africa no doubt poses problems that are at once steep as well as they are surmountable. A World Bank study and report on the African condition by Francisco Ferreira supports this stand, that “it’s not too late to turn things around [for Africa].”28 To think otherwise is to be defeatist, if not a-historical.29 The rise and prolongation of conflict in part are reflections of weaknesses and failures in available conflict prevention mechanisms. Simultaneously however, many African governments, together with regional organizations are working collaboratively with specialized foreign institutions to forge new and appropriate tools of conflict resolution. Fresh cadres of conflict personnel are being trained to help in the administration of early warning systems.30 Commitment to dealing with the hydra-headed challenges of human insecurity is unrelenting. Staying in this mind-set and taking ongoing transformational experimentations and conflict research into account allows us to see more clearly the light in the immediate horizon for Africa. Current sociopolitical ailments are not congenital and positive change in the human condition is altogether immanent. Of course, good government is the critical factor in the conflict-elimination equation; and Africa’s regional organizations understand that preventive diplomacy must effectively address questions of human rights, equality and access to material resources. In particular, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS)31 and the larger African Union (AU)32 are preoccupied with the engineering of comprehensive regional security architecture that prioritizes human development and seeks the promotion of economic growth and social progress in all its ramifications.33 Yet, critical questions remain and continue to recur in the short run, requiring answers: How do we explain variations in the intensity of conflict from one setting to another over time and space? How might we contain and prevent normal contestations between ethnic and religious groups and within ethno-religious groups from becoming violent? Do religion and ethnic factors possess properties or resources that can be tapped and applied to enhance prevention and transformation of conflict? We think

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that some of these questions and answers to them could serve as fodder for further research. The Nature of Conflicts As shown in much of the scholarly inventory on the subject,34 the main causes of conflict include mass unemployment, ethno-religious fears, private motives, or incentives for war and (mis)perception. Standing on their own, however, these forces are not potent enough to explode conflict, but each one of them, vigorously and concurrently robbing against one another, can raise chaos and lay the foundation for prolonged turmoil.35 For example, economic scarcity can deepen competition, enlarge the sense of insecurity among marginalized groups and accelerate disaffection in the community. And (mis)perceptions about the range of possible outcomes of war have been known to encourage or dissuade a group from embarking on hostile actions. And there are immediate causes or triggers of conflict such as intense labor protests and heady student activism. Police intervention with brute force to disperse marches has customarily inflamed passions. More insidious among triggers is mobilization 36 ; by this we mean the ability of elites to manipulate and channel social anger into violent conflict, for their own private material gains. Scholars in the tradition of conflict management also speak of the fundamental characteristics of religion-based conflict37 ; that such a conflict would tend to be prolonged and much more intense than non-religious ones,38 and this is because religion consists of delicate belief systems that a person inherently tends to protect, even at all costs. More so among radicalized Islamist groups; violence may portend divine duty to be discharged as dictated by some set pieces of theological understandings or imperatives. The ultimate sacrifice of death, in défense of the faith, comes in quite a few cases with high expectations of transtemporal reward. Here then, lies the problem for mediation and preventive diplomacy. Extreme attachment to religious ideology—which is common trait in religious fanaticism—frequently rules out the possibility for compromise or a negotiated settlement of the conflict. Put another way, the conventional “give and take” that is ordinarily required in political relations to iron out differences among groups is banished once absolutism intrudes to overwhelm and negate the idea of prevention or mutually satisfying settlement through negotiation. Mediation tools are useless in the universe of conflicts that are induced and

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enlarged by Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Unlike the secular combatant, the Islamist religious terrorist would tend to internalize violence as sacrament or atonement and proceed to fight with every means possible and to the bitterest end. Indeed, those Muslims who disagree with the extreme interpretations and application of Islamic laws are rudely censured. Reformers and moderate Muslims frequently are seen by the extremists as enemies of Islam, to be appropriately reproached and hauled over the coal. Conflict may arise purely from doctrinal and philosophical (mis)understandings about the political state and the sources of political authority, and on the other hand, conflict may appear to be born and driven by religion, though the structural causes remain indisputably and purely economic. For example, the Nigerian civil war was wrongly presented wholly as a North (Muslim) versus South (Christian) conflict. But the Nigerian head of state who executed the war, General Yakubu Gowon, was a Christian from the North; the son of a Baptist Catechist. And the major cause of the Nigerian civil war had been a sharp, seemingly irresolvable inter-regional disagreement over an acceptable formula for equitable revenue allocation. Similar trend is reproduced and is evident in the Ivoirien conflict: Guillaume Soro, an Ivoirien Catholic Christian from the Muslim-dominant north, commanded and led the region’s forces against the Christian-dominant southern half of the country. Though it had a religious overtone, the Ivoirien conflict was largely about economic equity. None of the Northern Muslim combatants wanted separation or secession from the south. They were not representatives of some collective Muslim interests; nor were they religious crusaders seeking the introduction of Shari’a as state religion. All the rebellious north wanted was to supplant the inscrutable President Laurent Gbagbo, simultaneously to bury his Ivoirite—the system of ethnicized discrimination that sought to make the average Ivoirien comfortable with social injustice. In societies or regions where both religion and ethnic identities run congruent or are intricately inter-linked with one another, scholarly discussions tend to revolve around which one of the two identity forces is more amenable to politicization and mobilization. Also, one or the other may be a stronger binding force in group identity. Touching on this in their research, Haldun Canci and Opeyemi Odukoye are convinced that “ethnic differences in Nigeria would not have been such a prominent cause

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of conflict if they had not been overlapped with religious identities, and vice versa…” They say that in many cases “religion provides a mobilization frame for conflict and [that] this effect is amplified when religious and ethnic cleavages run parallel.”39 Peter Lewis and Michael Bratten argue the opposite that religion is the most salient of all cleavages, presumably also the least troublesome to leverage for conflict.40 The literature on conflict dynamics also provides literal frameworks within which to interpret what actions and episodes of conflictual behavior qualify as religion-based41 : To qualify as religious conflict, the conflicting parties must belong to opposite religious affiliations and religious issues at least conceptually will have to be the prominent cause of the conflict. The torching of a church or mosque and desecration of material edifices such as religious texts (Bible or Quran) qualify as outward manifestations of religious intolerance and conflict. Prison abuse that manifests in the shaving-off or removal of the incarcerated Muslim’s beard undoubtedly represents an act of religious violence by the perpetrator. Preventive diplomacy speaks of the imperative of human rights, the necessity to respect the dignity even of the criminally charged war prisoner.42 Preventive Diplomacy Properly speaking, preventive diplomacy is not meant to address the extremes of religious fanaticism that are presently embodied in the ideology of dominant global terrorism. Its main instruments are spelled out in much of the conflict literature as well as in the ECOWAS Framework of conflict resolution.43 They include: (I) Early warning systems and response mechanisms, (II) fact-finding missions led by designated mediators with the mandate to monitor peace arrangements and report on the possibilities for risk reduction, (III) preventive deployment of military forces involves the insertion of military forces to police national borders and to ensure some modicum of stability in the politically charged zone. This strategy might include the demarcation of a demilitarized zone to separate disputants from one another, and (IV) Peacebuilding including truth telling and the myriad forms of reconciliation are preventive, insofar as they aim to institutionalize peace and security and cast out factors likely to cause a return to conflict.44

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II. Mitigating Conflict in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Côte D’Ivoire: The Role of Religious Organizations Religious organizations have traditionally sought embedment of peace and regional stability through the combination of strategies such as: (I) mediation to end active wars and (II) provision of social amenities to support post-conflict reconstruction together with peacebuilding. Although the use of force is shown to be attractive, even legitimate in certain circumstances, religious leaders prefer non-coercive measures of reconciliation such as truth telling and prayer meetings to facilitate peace. Reconciliation is a dominant value in Christianity and Islam, and it explains why clergymen depend heavily on it for mediation processes. Peacebuilding works best where the warring sides happen to share common faith in the idea and practice of restorative justice via truth telling, forgiveness and rehabilitation; rather than retributive reckoning via the court system. The good (and most likely to succeed) mediator must possess the essential skills to earn the trust of the warring parties, and above all, she/he must be seen by all the disputing parties to be transparently and overwhelmingly neutral at all times. Religious leaders brought these qualities to bear on regional conflicts, but with varying results. The Challenge of Liberia When the Liberian war broke out in 1989, many Christian communities together with their leaders thought it was a minor border skirmish soon to fizzle and die. But the human condition began to decline and worsened in quick time as the conflict gained oxygen. Populations were scattered in all directions as marauding forces began to loot and kill civilians indiscriminately. Although the war officially ended in 1997 with the inauguration of ex-rebel leader Charles Taylor as President of Liberia, fresh warfare broke out yet again in 1999.45 This time fighting revolved and intensified around government troops (largely Charles Taylor’s Hench-men) and the rival rebel force by the name Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD). Two more groups would also emerge to complicate the field, such as the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) and the Grebo Defence Force (GDF). Once again, Liberia stood at the brink of self-inflicted catastrophe, and international intervention was urgently needed to prevent the emergency

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from further escalation.46 As was to be expected, all hope came to be hinged on the International Contact Group for Liberia (ICGL). The body was established for the purposes more than a decade after the onset of the war, in September 2002, to find ways of ending the conflict via negotiated settlement.47 Membership of the ICGL consisted of three Permanent Members of the UN Security Council (the United States, UK, and France), the AU, ECOWAS, Wold Bank, Ghana, Nigeria, Germany, Spain, and Sweden. The ICGL was in part the outcome of persistent diplomacy with intense lobbying by the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia (IRCL), which comprises the Liberian Council of Churches, and the National Muslim Council of Liberia. The organization tried to eliminate all possible impediments to the peace process. One of the many moves to ensure success included the convening of a major meeting (May 25–26) in Freetown, Sierra Leone to which LURD, MODEL and the designated Chief Mediator of the Liberian Peace Process, former Nigerian President General Abdulsalami Abubakar, were invited attendees. All parties to the meeting agreed to stay the course and to achieve a mediated solution to the conflict. IRCL sponsored five Liberian church leaders to the peace talks.48 With the Peace Talks scheduled for June 4, 2002, at Akosombo in Ghana, Liberian religious leaders and organizations embarked on additional diplomatic offensives; this time principally to ensure that the mediators fully were apprised of the extents of human suffering. The provision of truthful quantitative information was thought to be essential and likely to steel the mediators’ nerves and resolve for peace. In this way, religious leaders took up specified and rearguard responsibilities on prevention, thus: (I) Benjamin D. Lartey, General Secretary of the Liberian Council of Churches, dispatched a series of urgent (SOS-type) situation reports (from May 23rd) steadily to all stakeholders, informing them that “the World Food Program had stopped distributing food to an estimated 200, 000 displaced Liberians in camps around the country.” And that the problem was due in part to sabotage or desperation; “…because the rations were being seized systematically by armed raiders as soon as they were handed out…[as a result] people are dying from starvation and disease.” The reports carried additional details concerning the proliferation of armed groups, forced recruitment of children, uprooting of hundreds and thousands of people from their homes and into fragile, crowded camps. The said camps were inadequate to protect them against rain and the elements. All the dispatches carried a tagged proviso, thus: “…fighting had rendered 80 percent of Liberian national territory inaccessible for relief agencies…!”

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(II) Peter Kamei, at the time serving as the General Secretary of YMCA Liberia, worked collaboratively with the global humanitarian agency, Church World Service (CWS) to enlist the support of US churches and political leaders “on behalf of Liberia’s beleaguered people who feel forgotten by the United States, Liberia’s long-time ally.” CWA was successful in securing food, blankets, and personal hygiene supplies from US private donors. (III) Shipment and distribution of the donated supplies were handled voluntarily by the Liberian faith-based humanitarian service called the Concerned Christian Community of Liberia (CCCL). The Pentecostal Reverend Kortu Brown was the Managing Director of CCCL. He reported that pregnant and nursing mothers including children and the elderly were among the nearly 3600 internally displaced persons (IDP) who received and benefitted from the donated supplies. In addition to the coordination and delivery of goods and services, the IRCL’s contribution to peacemaking was buttressed by its landmark recommendations for post-conflict reconstruction. The organization’s recommendations covered the broad areas of conflict management and prevention, and these were transmitted to the ICGL for careful consideration during the Akosombo Peace Meeting. The IRCL identified the dangers of regional contagion and offered counsel on how to contain its multiple security impacts, as such: (I) International sanctions and other containment policies must be tightened on Charles Taylor to discourage or at least minimize his ability or proclivity to support rebellion beyond Liberian borders, in places like Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire. (II) In addition, Taylor must step down once his term as president elapses, followed by the establishment of an interim government to serve until favorable conditions are established that permit open democratic campaigns for office “unhindered by violence and intimidation:” (III) Impose stiffer sanctions on GuineaConakry, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire, and Burkina Faso, because these countries have failed to disarm their forces and to ensure the full implementation of disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR).49 The said forces are crossing international borders to serve as mercenaries thus muddying the waters for ECOWAS’ attempts at maintaining regional security. (IV) The professional profile of the UN Panel of the Experts must be acknowledged and raised for recognition in the region and elsewhere in the international community. Their budget together with the number of researchers and mid-level administrative staff attached to their office must be increased to enable them monitor security trends and report more

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regularly and efficiently to the UN Security Council. (IV) Establish a new war tribunal to adjudicate war crimes relating to Liberia.50 Confronting Sierra Leone Elsewhere across the border, from March 1991, Sierra Leoneans were struggling to escape from the rapidly expanding national political inferno. The international media showed rebel Fonday Sankoh and his battalions of desperados plundering border towns and villages and scattering innocent citizens in all directions.51 Like in Liberia, the merchants of war and their miscreants were able to create a briskly expanding and highly lucrative underground market for illegal drugs, light arms, and several contraband goods. Indeed, Sankoh was supported by Taylor as he started his incursion from Liberia into Sierra Leone in early 1991. And by the mid-1990s, he had consolidated power by seizing resource-rich territories for his personal enrichment. The Economic Community of West Africa States’ military wing, the ECOMOG, was actively engaging the rebels in internecine gunfights and battles in attempts to protect the legitimate government at the time under President Kabbah and to prevent the total collapse of law and order in the country. It was into this environment of severely eroded human security that the Inter-Religious Council of Sierra Leone (IRCSL) was born (April 1997). And the organization grew into an overarching umbrella for the range of Muslim and Christian organizations, including the Supreme Islamic Council, the Muslim Congress, the Federation of Muslim Women Associations of Sierra Leone, the Council of Imams, and the Sierra Leone Islamic Missionary Union. Exploring and analyzing the tempestuous times, Lyn S. Graybill tells us something about the role of religion, in her words: The civil war was a turning point in the life of the faith community in Sierra Leone, which previously had been politically complacent. With the establishment of the Inter-Religious Council (IRC), Christian and Muslim leaders joined together with a unified voice based on shared values to first, mediate the conflict and second, promote reconciliation through the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission—TRC. (Lyn Graybill, “Peacebuilding in Sierra Leone and Religious Mediation,” Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Politics, March 8, 2019)52

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United as they were for peace, the IRCSL boldly approached mediation even as the hostilities had become full-blown and seemingly uncontrollable. And its efforts yielded significant successes along with challenges and failures, as such: (I) IRCL leadership was able to establish informal contact with all the disputing parties, which led to periodic cessation of hostilities. But the displacement of the legitimate Sierra Leonean government under President Kabbah via coup d’état by Army Colonel Koroma (May 25, 1997) was a huge but temporary obstacle to peace.53 After the ECOMOG had successfully chased the coup-makers from office, permitting the return of civilian rule, IRCSL continued to maintain contact with the rebels and to condemn the use of force as the means of conflict resolution. But additional problems emerged. Even as the rebel groups were full of praise for the informal religious mediators, the RUF went on to unleash the December Massacre (January 6, 1996) that claimed thousands of lives in Freetown. (II) The trust supposedly invested by the rebels in IRCSL was not selfevident, it was evidently only skin-deep; it did not translate automatically into a durable mutual partnership for peace. Interim-Reports nevertheless confirmed that the rebel leader Sankoh conferred at length with the religious leaders before accepting the invitation to attend the (July 7, 1999) Lome Peace Accord. The rebel leader needed to be convinced that the peace talk setting was not an international devise to ensnare the RUF and detain its leadership for trial on war crimes. IRCSL was instrumental in conveying the assurance. (III) IRCSL had an observer status during the Lome Peace Talks,54 and it functioned as an unofficial legal adviser and counsel for the main rebel representatives until the signing of the treaty. (IV) Again, the conditions that forced the failure of the treaty seemed wildly beyond the capacity of IRCSL to anticipate, let alone control. As it were, peace would finally come through barrels of the gun. And British commandos were part of the much-vaunted military solution. Facing up to Côte D’Ivoire Like elsewhere in the region, religion is an integral part of state and society in Côte d’Ivoire. Indeed, the church determinedly and traditionally stands in this country at the forefront of advocacy for transparency and accountability in government. It did so resolutely even at the height of the country’s economic prosperity55 that peaked during the Ivoirien First Republic under the leadership of the esteemed founding statesman and politician, President Houphouet-Boigny. The Catholic Church remained

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also steadfastly vocal in its treatise on socioeconomic equality as an antidote to conflict in the Ivoirien society. The Bishopric consistently issued anticorruption bulletins, also frequently warning the government-led ruling Parti Democratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) not to muzzle, but to give free reign to Laurent Gbagbo’s official opposition party Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) to discharge its constitutional function as watchdog. Debates on the interlinkage of religion and politics oft-times occurred through the media and organized nation-wide conferences. And so it was not surprising that the scheduled visit (1990) of Pope Johannes Paul II, a third papal visit to the country since the first one in 1980, presented an opportunity for debates among the ranks of the Catholic Church and between the prelates and domestic political luminaries. The focus was on the financial implications of the August visit. While President HouphouetBoigny and his caucus supported and planned to embellish the opportunity of hosting the pontiff, a significant flank of the Catholic Bishopric in the country was reticent and mildly and constructively opposed to the visit. This was striking in itself. Boldly, the Catholic Bishops cited the secular character of the Ivoirien state, and then, circulated a Pastoral Communiqué that publicly unveiled the prohibitive financial cost of the event. The prelates had earlier in the mid-1980s challenged the government’s decision to build the US$600 million Basilica of Our Lady of Peace at Yamoussoukro for dedication to the Catholic Church. They said the expenditure was unreasonable, in a country of majority poor peasants. And since the first-ever multi-party election had been scheduled only a few months following the papal visit in question, the Bishops feared the possible leveraging of the Pope’s visit by opportunistic Christian politicians and called for a postponement of one of the events—either the Pope’s visit or the elections. By openly taking a stand on an important national question, those concerned and worried Catholic Bishops effectively distanced themselves from the president’s “politics of religion,” because it looked grotesque against the backdrop of sociocultural problems including poverty that were gnawing at the social fabric at the time. The bishops foresaw violent conflict and their collective dissenting voice was indeed prescient. With hindsight, they were justifiably flashing early warning signals about Ivoirien crisis soon to become flesh.56 Ivoirite! A Split in the Muslim Community…And All That… President Boigny passed in April 1993. And the post-Boigny contest for power inside the ruling PDCI between Bedie and Prime Minister Quattara was won by the former, upon which happening and turn of events Quattara

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and his supporters broke from PDCI and formed the rival party Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR) in 1994. Bedie would then go on to win the October 1995 presidential election, which was tainted by the lack of transparency. It was boycotted by the RDR and FPI. More ominous for the future of stability, Quattara had been officially prohibited from contesting for the presidential election due to the institutionalization of Ivoirite—a decisively discriminatory citizenship concept that had become policy under President Bedie. Quattara was denied common and constitutional citizenship rights of full political participation because one of his parents (mother) reportedly was born on foreign soil. According to Ivoirite, only persons with both parents born in Côte d’Ivoire were allowed the right to vote in elections and to stand for political office. The politicization of identity in Côte d’Ivoire gave rise to the value-loaded differentiation of Southerners (Christians, possessing full rights as citizens) and Northerners (Muslims; undistinguished from foreign residents and marked as persons with questionable identities and doubtful loyalty to the state). The political heat already generated inside the Ivoirien body politic at this period of time by the implementation of Ivoirite would soon get even hotter. Additional fuel to the fire of discrimination was the dramatic, acrimonious split in the Islamic Community. A large majority of Muslims were vexed by the tight and cozy relationships that had long existed between the government and their original central Muslim organization, Conseil Superieur Islamique de Côte d’Ivoire (CSI). The government of Houphouet-Boigny was over-ingratiating. His government donated ultramodern Mosques plus generous subsidies for travels on pilgrimage to favored Muslims; of course, the purpose was to attract and retain political support for the ruling party. Reformers in the Muslim community feared, most importantly and justifiably so, that the tight relationship with government could erode and hamper the religious organization’s freedom and ability to effectively check the powerful state’s tendency to stifle legitimate democratic dissent.57 The new, break-away Conseil of National Islamique de Côte d’Ivoire was eventually founded in January 1993, to the great relief of the massive majority of reformist Muslims and their allied social, grassroots movements in the country. They proceeded to launch social programs designed to insulate Muslim Affairs from politics. While normative organizations including moderate flanks of the evangelical churches applauded the creation of CNI and its moves, the long-standing CSI let loose vicious propaganda that sought to link the CNI with invidious global Islamist fundamentalism.58

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CSI representatives spread rumors that the rival CNI was receiving donations from radicalized groups in Arab countries. Imam Koudous Kone of CNI issued more than two communiqués59 in June 2001, warning the CSI not to inflame intra-Muslim relations, and that CNI’s opposition to existing law—that Madrassa institutions had to teach in French in order to be recognized—did not constitute mobilization of religious identity nor did it make the CNI a radicalized Islamic movement.60 Ivoirite together with the split in the Muslim community did combine together to generate spasms of conflict among ethnic and religious groups. Politicization of identity in this instance also caused violent excesses against “foreigners,” until 1995 when the Catholic Cardinal Yago and Imam Tidiane Ba along with civil society organizations, gathered other religious leaders in Abidjan for a peace summit. The summit was financially underwritten and supported spiritedly by the local non-profit organization, the Research Group in Democracy and Social and Economic Development of Côte d’Ivoire (GERDDES-CI). The initial Abidjan Meeting gave birth (1998) to the Inter-religious organization Forum des Confessions Religieuses Côte d’Ivoire (hereinafter, Forum). The Forum went into action almost instantly, condemning the concept of Ivoirite as a dangerous product that encouraged xenophobic public discourses and vandalism. Founding members of the Forum consisted of Christian groups, moderate evangelical churches, the Association of Traditional Priests, the Bossonists—an association of indigenous Akan Religious Priest and the Islamic CNI. Unsurprising and reiterating the propaganda that CNI was a fundamentalist organization, CSI refused to join the Forum. Nonetheless, the Forum elected the Head of the Celestial Christian Church as its leader and began taking big strides for peace. It continues today to closely cooperate with the Ministry of Interior and to develop programs aimed at intensifying dialogue and improving relationships among religious leaders and groups. The organization had enormous calming effects on ordinary Ivoirien folks and among grassroots rural organizations, though it could not prevent the steady degeneration of political relations among the decadent, debauched Ivoirien political elite. As it were, the Forum served only as a temporary wedge against national political decline. The organization was drenched in moral probity, but lacked the political muscle to stop or prevent: (I) the “Christmas Coup” staged by young army officers and led by General Robert Guei in December 1999. A rather sharp economic down-turn had provided a justification for military usurpation of power, which was applauded by the majority of

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Ivoirien youths—most of them at the time were economically displaced, unemployed and angry. (II) Robert Guei also firmly placed the idea of Ivoirite in the new Ivoirien Constitution, and (III) the Forum could only yell and bellow its disapproval helplessly, as the Supreme Court announced its decision to uphold Ivoirite, thus constitutionalizing the elimination of many northern minorities along with Quattara from future participation in national politics. Even so, religious leaders stood firm as warriors for peace. Led by the Cardinal (late) Bernard Agre, the Catholic Church summoned (June 14, 2000) all the political parties to an urgent meeting meant to develop fresh methods of preventing a possible precipitate collapse of political authority in Côte d’Ivoire. The meeting sued for peace, but fruitlessly. On its own part, the Forum also publicly criticized the Supreme Court for endorsing Ivoirite. Along with other religious and normative leaders, Ivoirien Catholic Bishops dismissed the new constitution as a sham. Collectively, they opened their own independent investigation into the allegation that national security forces, under the control of President Laurent Gbagbo, had killed and buried 57 of Quattara’s RDR stalwarts in a mass grave that was discovered (October 27, 2000) in the Abidjan district of Yopougon. Imam Koudous Kone (CNI) cried foul, and he threateningly warned the nation that “Gbagbo has blood on his hands.”61 The Ivoirien war that broke out in 2002 seemed inevitable, given a collapse of moral leadership and public despondency. The war raged for close to one year and was finally brought to an end through the preventive intervention of the international community, led in part by the ECOWAS, in this sequence: (I) After the storm, in January 2003, the major parties to the conflict including principal religious leaders signed the Linas-Marcoussis Accord (LMA), which charted the ground for peace by facilitating national reconciliation. (II) And then, the 2007 Ouagadougou Agreement formally ended the war by installing a power-sharing government. (III) The widely publicized power struggle between Gbagbo and Quattara came to an end in April 11, 2011, with Quattara winning the presidency. Côte d’Ivoire has been slowly recovering from the multiple traumas of war, and the national economy is reportedly recovering well, thanks to the injection of generous international finance and massive foreign aid.62 Several international, regional, and local organizations are intervening and nudging post-war economic upturn and political resurgence; as well, conferences are frequently convened to galvanize anti-war awareness and to build a united front among religious groups. For example, the Forum

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together with the Interfaith Council of West Africa (CIRAO) met in Abidjan in May 2006 at the behest of the World Conference of Religions for Peace. The international workshop exhaustively discussed how best to promote reconciliation and to prevent the re-occurrence of war not only in Côte d’Ivoire, but throughout the region as a whole. Participants were drawn mainly from Ghana, Liberia, Guinea-Conakry, and Sierra Leone, with the United States’ coalition of churches welcomed as a participating guest and active observer. The theme of the meeting was “Peaceful Coexistence.”63 Another large conference on peace and reconciliation was organized jointly by the Islamic International Foundation and the Ivoirien Catholic Church in May 2007. For similar purposes, a year later, the Association of Traditional Priests along with the Council of Indigenous Akan Religious Priests met in Yamoussoukro in a peace conference that also included a large number of government public policymakers and legislators. Representatives of the Forum also are continuing to promote dialogue toward improved relations among religious leaders and civil society. The Ministry of Interior’s Department of Faith-based Organizations is a post-war innovative idea; its official responsibility revolves around ensuring that the ordinary Ivoirien enjoys religious freedom and that the constitutional status of Côte d’Ivoire as a secular state is recognized, accepted and maintained by the citizens, in accordance with the 1960 law governing religious associations. Each religious organization wanting to operate in the country is required to present its credentials to the Ministry of Interior for vetting. Although the government does not prohibit links with foreign coreligionists, it restricts and strives to prevent the possible penetration of radicalized Islamist ideology into the Ivoirien body politic through local religious organizations. The Collective of Religious Confessions for National Reconciliation and Peace is another new organization that came into being almost by fluke, without any previous planning. It was established by the assembly of Ivoirien religious groups on December 1, 2004, during an invitation meeting hosted by the US Ambassador in Abidjan. The Collective since that time has continued to serve principally as an additional religion-based national institution, driving peacebuilding efforts. More so, it functions as a part of the Ivoirien society’s preemptive early warning security system.64 The US Embassy and the local UN Development Program have also established an Annual Round Table entitled “My Share of the Sacrifice for Peace and Reconciliation in Côte d’Ivoire.” Its first meeting was held on February

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21, 2005, to which more than 100 organizations in the country attended including journalists, civil society, and government representatives. A sense of the value of the Round Table and its Agenda for Peace can be drawn from a small part of the Ambassador’s 2005 Annual Reports, to this effect: “The Ambassador serves as the moderator, and speakers [frequently] include Imams, pastors, professors of theology…the Round Table provides a forum for interfaith dialogue and constructive debates on the specific contribution that religious leaders could make to solve the political crisis in the country.”65 Lastly, as we may recall, CSI had originally refused to join the Forum because it saw CNI as a religious fundamentalist organization. But these are new times in Côte d’Ivoire and all religious factions now are joining hands under the umbrella of the Forum with a singular motive; to advance peacebuilding and reconstruction in post-war Côte d’Ivoire.

III. Nigeria: Intolerance, Conflict and Killings… ‘In the Name of God?’ A few interrelated factors that are likely to impact our fuller appreciation of religious violence in Nigeria and the future of peacemaking in that country are perhaps worthy of note from the onset of our conversations in this section: (I) Looking back from independence in the 1960s to the present, it is plain that most deadly episodes of religious violence have taken place in Northern Nigerian cities and across the Middle Belt. (II) Both Islamic and Christian religious leaders have prominently sought to promote religious freedom in the North and the Middle Belt. (III) But, instead of gaining uninterrupted progress in the direction of religious freedom, partisan Pentecostal-type evangelizing and the voices of intolerance and harshness, embodied in the action of radicalized Islamic Imams, have predominated. Indeed, records suggest that intolerant religious leaders have freely been preoccupied with preaching the word in ways to determinedly, purposely incite raw emotions and violence.66 (IV) Revivalism within Islam and Christianity has been on the rise, with intolerant fundamentalism in one group firing-up or provoking fundamentalism in the other rival association. (V) Conflicts are manifested in the familiar patterns, thus: Muslims vs. Christians; Fundamentalist Muslims vs. Moderate Muslims; Radicalized Islamists (Religious Terrorists) vs Christians and Moderate Muslims. In between are individual zealots of the Muslim faith, most of them commonly trample rights, commit capital crimes, and publicly show deep contempt for

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secularity plus resentment for all the legal undergirdings of constitutional democratic government.67 (VI) Episodes of lethal conflict in Nigeria are most frequent and common in places where religious differences overlap with “settler,” “native” or “indigene” distinctions. More precisely, we are here speaking of the entwining of religion and ethnicity. This is most represented in the Middle Belt areas of Jos (Dominant Christian); Kaduna (Dominant Muslim); Kano (Dominant Muslim; with a large concentration of non-Muslim traders from the southern parts of the country). Jonah Isawa Eliagwu has provided a detailed account of the main conflicts that have occurred in Northern Nigeria from 1980 to 2012.68 The heightened sense of insecurity, fear, and mutual suspicion between Islamic and Christian communities and among Muslims is severely threatening the integrity of the Nigerian state.69 Close to 38,000 lives have been lost since Boko Haram began its more deadly onslaughts on Nigerian populations in 2011.70 And the Nigerian government is investing enormous material resources to combat the phenomenon: Analysts have recommended adjustments in Nigeria’s counter-insurgency strategy from “military centric”71 to a “people centric”72 approach. The latter would seek to undercut terrorism’s bush sanctuaries and logistical heavens via incorporation of local civilian support for government war effort by investing in the rural economy and providing improved basic amenities including transport infrastructure “to win hearts and minds.” In the overall, the blow of conflict on communities and differences in the composition of conflict triggers through time and place has varied widely from the mundane73 to the genuinely provocative.74 Variations in the scope and dynamics of conflict are evident in the cases treated below. Intolerance, Fighting, and Killing 1. Christian–Muslim Violent Encounters Let us consider the 2002 Miss World Pageant and how it triggered a lowkey controversy into a three-day cross-country upheaval during which riot policemen killed more than 100 people in the Northern Nigerian city of Kaduna and at the capital city, Abuja. The blood-letting experience occupied international headlines to the consternation of audiences abroad.75 In a nutshell, the Nigerian lady Agbani Darego won the Miss World Crown (2001) in South Africa, and the Miss World Silver Bird Production was in Abuja to host the 2002 Pageant. The majority of Nigerians were in support of the event because it seemed to cast positive light on Nigeria

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as a progressive society capable of sponsoring an event with huge international connections. Nigeria at the time was planning to tender a bid to host the 2010 Soccer World Cup Finals. But fundamentalist Muslim groups thought differently.76 Terming the pageant “a parade of nudity”77 the religious purists used extreme violence to make their point, essentially that the event was morally offensive to the Islamic faith and doctrine.78 The organizers eventually bowed to Muslim anger, moving the pageant from Abuja to London. The Nigerian Red Cross and the international press said more than 3000 citizens had been displaced across many Northern cities as security forces tried to mitigate Muslim–Christian clashes following cancellation of the event. Nigerian television stations showed scorched bodies in the street, burnt houses, and overturned cars. Shops were closed in the commercial sections of Kaduna. The triggers of conflicts between Muslims and Christians sometimes have been mysterious, often spontaneous and mostly deadly in no uncertain terms. One striking episode of violence that has become legend revolves around the small Nigerian Middle Belt town of Yelwa in Plateau State. On May 2, 2004, roughly 100 heavily armed Christian men, seething with ethnically motivated anger, vengefully descended on their Muslim neighbors and killed no less than seven hundred. The region possesses a thickly layered history of grievances between “son-of-the soil” Christians versus Muslim “new comer-Hausa settlers.” Unsurprising, the dominant MuslimHausa commercial city of Kano swiftly responded in kind, randomly killing roughly 250 Christians on May 11, when a peaceful demonstration in protest of the Yelwa killings turned wild and spun out of control. And Christian–Muslim clashes were particularly rampant in the early years of 2000, which coincided with sharp down-turns in the national economy, and competition for economic space in part was responsible for generating tremors of unrest culminating in religion-tainted violence. Roughly 3000 died in Kaduna following two days of rioting (February 21– 22, 2000), and 300 more were killed in the same city from May 22 to 23. The Tafawa Balewa local government area of Bauchi state also witnessed a month-long Christian–Muslim bloodbath beginning from June 19 to July 4, producing about 160 deaths. A number of the incidents were directly related to the arbitrary decision on the part of governments in Muslimdominant administrative states in the north to constitutionalize Islamic Shari’a Law first, in Zamfara state (1998), and by 2003, Shari’a had been introduced in twelve of the country’s northern states, in blatant violation

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of Article 10 of the 1999 Constitution of the Nigerian Fourth Republic,79 which underlines the secularity of the Nigerian Republic. Wide-spread official enforcement of the Shari’a law in many northern states exploded violence, as a number of Christians forcefully contested the legality and constitutionality of the religious imposition. While many southerners fled the north, quite a few who remained were exposed to insecurities and various religion-driven biases. A number of non-Muslims from the south were criminally charged on trumped-up religious offenses and meted punishment based on the extremists’ interpretation of Islamic law. Retaliatory actions deepened general instability in the country. Many Muslims residents in the South-eastern Nigerian Christian-dominant city of Aba suffered reprisal attacks, with roughly 420 mostly ethnic Hausas massacred in the last two days of February 2000. 2. Intra-Muslim Violent Encounters Conflicts between and among different Muslim sects have also been profound in terms of their bloodiness and overall impacts on national security. And in this regard, the chain of sectarian imbroglios that started (February 4, 2007) in the northwest Nigerian city of Sokoto is worth noting not just because it involved the killing of an influential Sunni Cleric, Sheik Umaru Hamza Dan’Maishiyya, but also because it generated confrontations between the Shi’ite sects and national law enforcement units. The Cleric was killed during prayers at the city’s Central Shehu Juma’at Mosque, allegedly by members of the Shi’ite sect because he was seen to be too liberal and soft on contested issues revolving around accommodation of nonMuslims and religious freedom. The reaction was sharp and dramatic once the state government blamed the murder on Shi’ite Muslims, calling the act barbaric and threatening punishment for the alleged crime. The fundamentalist segments of the group stormed through civilian neighborhoods, torching scores of houses, and killing innocent citizens, mostly Christians and moderate Muslims. The attempt by riot policemen to arrest a prominent Shi’ite allegedly associated with leading the riots, Mallam Kasimu Rimin Tawaye, culminated in the shooting dead of two policemen by the armed religious faithfuls.80 Also in April 2007, Muslim radicals in the city of Kano killed 13 policemen ostensibly to avenge what they said was a targeted assassination by the police of the hard-line cleric and Saudi-educated Sheikh, Jafar Adam, at the Dorayi Central Mosque in Kano. The mob went on to torch a police station in the Panshekara district, fatally wounding two police officers. Another flank of the rioter ambushes and kills no less than

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22 among the troop of policemen who had arrived in the city to investigate the causes of disturbances. Competing interpretations of Shari’a family law also have led to low-key conflicts here and there. Fatwa was pronounced by the Jama’tu Nasril Islam (JNI), the highest Muslim body in Northern Nigeria, on Muhammadu Bello Masaba of Bida, a private-prominent citizen of the Niger State. He had married 80 wives, which is said to contravene the Islamic marriage and family code. The Committee of Jurists insisted that Masaba must select only four women for “proper” Muslim marriage, or face the full wrath of Allah. Supported by many civil society organizations in the country, Bello Masaba said in a public defense of his independent actions that those who pronounced fatwa on him were ignorant of the Quran. He said that the Holy Document does not stipulate restrictions on the number of wives one can take for marriage.81 More serious are cases whereby individual Muslim zealots have tended to take the law into their hands and to summarily harm or trample the fundamental rights of other Muslims, for “desecrating the Quran.” Consider for example the action of six Muslims in Randalli Village in Kebbi State who took it upon themselves, and felt duly empowered, to kill (July 1997) another Muslim, Alhaji Abdullah Umaru, by cutting his throat. The culprits claimed that Umaru’s personal behavior constituted fundamental insult to the Prophet Mohammed. (Reports suggest the victim had been drinking and appeared intoxicated in public). In their Court Defence, the six men pleaded not guilty, even though they admitted to the killing. They contended fervently in court that as adherents to the teachings of the Holy Quran, they had the duty and responsibility to kill Umaru, given the enormity of his alleged offenses against Allah. The arraigned men argued the point spiritedly, but to no avail. They were condemned by the Judge to death by hanging for murder.82 3. Islamic Fundamentalism vs the Nigerian State: El-Zakzaky, Boko Haram and Maitatsine Confrontations between the government and organized Islamist extremists have been periodic and frequently also debilitating to society. Well documented has been the sparring between the Nigerian security forces and ElZakzaky’s Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN)—a Shi’ite dominant organization with a history of intolerance and violence. Beginning from a 1991 clash with the Sokoto government, the most gruesome episode between the

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IMN and the Nigerian government forces occurred in Kaduna in December 2015. The IMN refers to that incident as the “December Massacre.” While the IMN claimed roughly 1000 of its followers were killed, the government admitted burying 347 in a mass grave. El-Zakzaky lost all three of his sons during a subsequent police raid on his residence, which also led to his arrest (together with his wife) and prolonged detention till date. Against a court order to release the man and his wife, a government spokesperson proclaimed El-Zakzaky to be a national security risk,83 which in the government’s consideration trumps any court injunctions for his release.84 The main point about all this is ideologically self-evident; Shi’ite (Shi’ism) doctrine or ideology as practiced by IMN and other fundamentalists so far in Nigeria seeks an overthrow and replacement of the secular state with an Islamic system of government fashioned after the Iranian model. And the adherents have many times pronounced their plan to achieve the goal by force of arms or revolution. Threats of revolution laced with rough rhetoric are the reasons in part why the national security forces have frequently used brute force to subdue Shi’ites. Anti-secularist movements that have betrayed deep distaste for multiparty democratic system of government are not new to Nigeria.85 Founded in the northeastern territory of Maiduguri in 2002 by Muhammad Yusuf, Boko Haram is formally identified by its Hausa fundamentalist adherents as “Jama’at ahlis Sunnah lid Da’wat wal Jihad”; meaning “people committed to the propagation of the Prophet’s teachings and Jihad.” Followers reject Western culture, saying also that “Western Education is sinful.”86 Unsurprising, they strongly advocate for a Shari’a-based government, and they are opposed to democratic forms of governance. Chroniclers87 of the rise and spread of religious movements, however, say that Boko Haram never turned radical and militant until its leader was captured and killed in detention by the Nigerian security forces in 2009. Since that time, and having come under the leadership of the more radicalized Abubakar Shekau, the movement has confronted and engaged the Nigerian society with clenched fists, with retaliatory violence including arson, suicide bombing, and gun battles. Boko Haram confirmed its status at the world stage as a bona fide terrorist organization when it abducted 276 students from the Government Girls School at Chibok, the ‘Chibok Girls.’88 The nefarious organization then went on to seize and settle its troops at the far eastern flank of Bornu State, until ousted from the space by the Nigerian Military in 2015. Analysts89 generally accept that Boko Haram is a product of socioeconomic peripheralization of the country’s northeastern populations, but

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differ on the supposition that the fundamentalist movement is an organ used clandestinely by the Northern elites90 to express their grievances over official negligent policies and economic inequities. Boko Haram first announced its forbidding presence in the country in 2009 by igniting a string of riots across small towns in Bornu and Yobe States. While claiming to be combatants for social justice, the members of the organization notoriously use fiendish tactics to deliver maximum pain on innocent members of the Nigerian society. Followers seem sworn to destroying public spaces, particularly by bombing market squares, churches, and public events. They spare neither Muslim nor Christian. The group is a self-declared associate of the Islamic State (IS) and this explains why many see it as an off-shoot of the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Also representing fundamentalism and fanaticism, the emergence and consolidation of the Maitatsine movement in Nigeria marked the evolution and stubborn growth of religion-based violence in Nigeria. Random resurgence and militancy are negative forces currently obstructing the steadier growth of democratic governance in Nigeria. Religion-based communal riots associated with the Maitatsine campaigns started in Kano and spread like harmattan fire across the Northern region of Nigeria, claiming more than 10,000 deaths from 1979 to 1983. The 1980 Kano riot alone resulted in the death of roughly 6000 lives. And it took the combined effort of the Nigerian Armed Forces (the Army and Air force) working in tandem for 11 days to end the riot.91 Maitatsine in Hausa means “the one who damns and curses.” The movement together with the founder of the organization, Muhammad Marwa, came to be known as Maitatsine because his fiery public speeches against the government were characteristically curse-laden. Like El-Zakzaky,92 Maitatsine and his followers were also famous for their defiance and vitriolic attacks on traditional authority. The history and records of religion-based conflagration in Nigeria will confirm it also, that the two leaders enjoyed public demonstration of defiance and theatrics aimed at insulting the government. The practice of publicly setting fire to the Nigerian flag and destroying copies of the country’s constitution expressed their symbolic opposition to the idea of a secular state. And they would put up buildings on public land without official permit or regulatory oversight, to underscore their resentment for secular law. Adeleye Ojo’s premier exploration reveals the essence of religious extremism as was embodied in Maitatsine’s hypnotic personality and wrong-side-up logic of godliness, thus:

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Because of the undue recognition and respect accorded him [Maitatsine] as a learned Mallam and a great Islamic Scholar, he attracted many followers who not only trusted in, and believed his teachings, but also trusted and believed in him as a true prophet, as a result his words were sacred command to his followers…who have as their aim the cleansing and purification of Islam. They are against compulsory prayer hours and the practice of facing Mecca while praying…his followers are prohibited from mentioning the name of the prophet Mohammed…93

In addition to challenging and trying to undercut the fundamental doctrines of Islam, Muhammad Marwa and his followers used the extremes of violence against rival Muslims (the moderate Muslims) and non-members of the Maitatsine sect, all of whom were dismissed as “infidels.” And his preferred method of punishment by gross mutilation94 gave rise to the speculation among many curious Nigerian publics that perhaps Marwa was a sorcerer. Many said his movement was rooted in paganism or that he was strongly aligned with some form of resurgent occultism whereby innocent people were killed and their organs used for ritual occult appeasement. Coexistence, cooperation in the promotion of human rights and mutual respect for coreligionists were absolutely alien thoughts to the authoritarian and fanatical culture of Maitatsine. Nigeria: An Imam and A Pastor Collaborate to Promote Tolerance and Accommodation…In the Name of Sustainable Peace Alongside the rough and tumble of radicalized Islamic relations and movements, there are many markedly opposite contemporary histories of redemption, about which the story of collaboration between an Imam and a pastor is one. Imam Muhammed Movel Ashafa and Pastor James Nurayn Wuye are two Nigerian religious leaders who had been sworn enemies for several years, and as the story tells us, each had attempted a dozen times and more to have the other killed. Ashafa and Wuye fought on opposite sides of many religion-based conflicts including one that exploded (1992) in a little known northern Nigerian local government area of Zangon Kataf in Kaduna State. Wuye lost an arm and Ashafa lost his spiritual mentor and two cousins in the said conflict. It is said that the traumatic experience of deep personal loss served as the duo’s symbolic spiritual Journey to Damascus; like Saul in the biblical story, the tragedy changed, or better still,

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transformed the clergies’ arrogant religious militancy into revolutionary humbleness. The fortuitous circumstance that brought them together has not been clearly narrated; only that perhaps the meeting may have been godly ordained, because the acquaintance evolved holily, charting multiple pathways in the facilitation of reconciliation in Nigeria and throughout West Africa. They revisited their respective scriptures and discovered in them reservoirs of forgiveness along with the necessity for reconciliation. After this, it seemed only natural that the two religions leaders would go on to share the experience by building bridges that link rather than divide religion into enemy camps. For both men, the concept of “us versus them” had to be purged because it constitutes an anathema to civility, community development, and nation-building. At the time of their initial meeting, Wuye was an active Pentecostal Pastor and a leader in the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). Ashafa was a leader in the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA). The two religious leaders achieved significant progress in quick succession: They established an Interfaith Mediation Center (located in Lagos), also known as the “Pastor and Imam Project”,95 which presently provides physical and emotional shelter for many followers especially for those otherwise restless youths with records of previous involvements in criminality and gang violence. The center is said to be a self-endowed religious edifice with enormous ideological resources to support religious freedom and prevent conflict through the promotion of tolerance.96 And many speak of it as true embodiment of the thinking among sociologists and scholars of religion that with the possible exception of the family systems, particularly the kinship system in traditional African settings,97 religious institutions are inimitably capable of reproducing tolerance and forbearance as community culture. Far from an academic treatise, Wuye and Ashafa have co-authored a book98 that is widely considered to be a seminal resource material for practical peacemaking. It is supposed to inspire and push into positive religious activism all those who are appalled by the indignities of religion-based conflict and want to join the campaign toward restoring order in the Nigerian human environment already sullied by intolerance and greed for power. Most of the cardinal issues in the book have been reviewed positively by parishioners and scholars alike, among them David Smock and99 Abigail

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Skeans’100 Audiences agree that the model of reconciliation developed in the book is a product of strongly held conceptions of religion as positive reality, as such: (I) Peace can and will be achieved through education and dialogue. (II) and despite profound doctrinal differences, Islam and Christianity share common ethical and theological standards on human relations; indeed, all three of the Abrahamic religions—Christianity, Islam plus Judaism—possess a similar mandate for peacemaking. (III) Much of the Christian–Muslim conflict oozes from gross misperceptions and stereotypes by which each of the religious communities wrongly beholds and judges the other. (IV) Those socially constructed enemy-images of distrust, fear, and hate for one another can be dispelled. In practical terms, the sacred texts (Quran and the Bible) provide parallel injunctions on peacemaking that can be used to underline ethical commonality in the two religions, thus: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God” (Matthew 5:9); and then this: “Believers are a single brotherhood, so make peace and effect reconciliation…” (Quran 49:10). Ashafa and Wuye want to transform Nigeria into an ecosystem uniquely enriched with the democratic and religious values of freedom and tolerance, and where religious leaders are kind, understanding, and compassionate. Such religious leaders also will be positively predisposed to peace and can be trusted to apply religious precepts collectively toward nation-building. There is growing evidence that the Iman-Pastor project is having significant effects. Responses by two former Nigerian Heads of State suggest the clergies are already delivering more than modest impacts in the Nigerian society. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo cited the two religious leaders Ashafa–Wuye for having had strong influence on his initiative to establish the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), which was launched in 2000.101 And General Yakubu Gowon’s ecumenical “Nigeria Prays Mission,” also supports scriptural-based reconciliation method of achieving social justice through religion. Against this backdrop, enormous space and opportunities are most likely to open and widen for further collaborative effort among civil society, religious institutions, and government. Normative institutions and leaders can work together to nudge socioeconomic equality, blunting discriminatory programs known to deepen cleavages and trigger avoidable violence in multiethnic societies.

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IV. Of “Janus-Face!” Waging Religious War; Pursuing Peace In this work, we have answered the question whether or not religious organizations can foster peace? Our response is affirmative. We draw our perspectives from historical events and try to assess the daunting scale of challenges confronting religious organizations and normative leaders as they intervene fearlessly in conflict and pursue post-conflict peacebuilding. We come to the understanding principally, that human agency is a critical determinant of major outcomes from social interactions. And more decisively so during emergencies and in times of uncertainties; followers tend strongly to lean on their religious leaders for inspiration and direction. Leaders in this way have enormous influence, possess choice, and they can mobilize their flock for action toward peace and away from conflict. Alternatively too, religious leaders can choose to undermine the public good and order by perpetrating conflict, if it fulfills certain deeply held sacred, faith-based belief system or satisfies ulterior temporal interests, no matter how ignoble. This way of treating the question avoids the analytical pitfalls of over-generalization.102 For instance, that religion is either inherently atomistic, perpetually at war with itself; or functions exclusively and permanently as the force for eternal good. Far from endorsing the utility of a false and frozen dichotomous model, in our view religion in truth is “Janus-faced.”103 Those interested in researching the causes of religionbased hostilities or intolerance of religious freedom (and the conflicts that issue and flow from it) would do well to search for systemic conditions commonly or possibly impacting religious leaders across time and place and over various spiritual and material complexities. On our part, we have good reason to think that ego and greed for power or thirst of sociopolitical relevance are constantly and variously impacting the behavior of radicalized religious leaders and zealots. More so, (mis)perception, failure of historical memory together with selective reinterpretation of past incisive events all serve in many circumstances to reawaken ‘ancient hatred’ leading to hostilities and communal conflict.104

Notes 1. John David Yeadon Peel, Christianity, Islam and Orisa-Religion: Three Traditions in Comparison and Interaction (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2015), Introduction; Chapters 2 and 4.

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2. Gbola Aderibigbe, et al., eds., Contemporary Perspectives on Religion in Africa and the Diaspora (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 3. Special Supplement “A Beacon of Faith: Islam, Christianity and Africa,” The Economist, 395 (April 2010), 52. 4. Leo Igwe, “Why Africans Are so Religious,” International Humanist and Ethical Union (Special Contribution), March 2017. 5. Chris M.A. Kwaja, “Strategies for (Re) Building State Capacity to Manage Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Nigeria,” Journal of Pan African Studies 3, no. 3 (September 9, 2009), 105–111. 6. James Gow, Militancy and Violence in West Africa: Religion, Politics and Radicalization (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2013), Chapter 2. 7. Donald Cruise O’Brien, “Satan Steps Out from the Shadows: Religion and Politics in Africa,” Africa 7, no. 3 (August 2000), 520–525. 8. Geoffrey Cameron and Benjamin Schewel, eds., Religion and Discourse in an Age of Transition: Reflections on Baha’i Practice and Thought (Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2017), Introduction; 2–4. 9. Nuzhat Fatima, “Religious Conflicts in Nigeria and Their Impacts on Social Life,” Global Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences 2, no. 4 (2014), 15–19; Heather Deegan, Africa Today: Culture, Economy, Religion and Security (New York, NY: Routledge, 2009). 10. Nicolette Manglos and Alexander Wienreb, “Religion and Interest in Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Social Forces 92, no. 1 (2013), 195–219. 11. Dirk Kohnert, “Magic and Witchcraft: Implication for Democratization and Poverty-Alleviating Aid in Africa,” World Development 24, no. 8 (1996), 1347–1355. 12. For example, while he was the Zambian President, Kenneth Kaunda engaged an Indian guru, Dr. Ranganathan, and brought his David Universal Temple into the State House. President Kerekou of Benin hired Mohamed Amadou Cisse, a Malian marabout whom he later appointed to a ministerial position in government; also President Didier Ratsikara of Madagascar had a temple dedicated to the Rosicrucian order to which he had membership. Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique was a follower of Transcendental Meditation; while Sanni Abacha of Nigeria engaged Senegalese marabouts to serve as his personal spiritual mentors. Former President Frederick Chiluba of Zambia was a devotee of the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos, Nigeria, and Ghana’s President John Atta Mills also travelled to Nigeria shortly after his election victory for a specially scheduled prayer meeting at the Synagogue Church of All Nations. For more on the link between religion and politics in Sub-Saharan Africa, see Stephen Ellis and Gerrie Haar, “Religion and Politics in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies 36, no. 2 (1998).

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13. Thomas Resane Kelebogile, “And They Shall Make You Eat Grass Like Oxen (Daniel 4:24). Reflection on Recent Practices in Some New Charismatic Churches,” Pharos Journal of Theology 98, no. 1 (January 1, 2017), 1–17. 14. David Ehrhadt, “Janus’ Voice: Religious Leaders, Framing and Riots in Kano,” Contemporary Islam 10 (2016), 340. 15. For more statistical details covering the world, see Pew Research Center Survey, Percentage of Christians Who Say Religion Is Very Important in Their Lives (2008–2017) (Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2018). 16. For doctrinal and other comparisons, see Johnson Kwabena AsemoahGyadu, et al., eds., Babel Everywhere: Migrant Readings from Africa, Europe and Asia (New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2013). 17. Kalu Ogbu, African Christianity: An African Story (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007). 18. Birgit Meyer, “Christianity in Africa: From African Independence to Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches,” Annual Review of Anthropology 33 (2004), 447–474. 19. Afeosamime Adogame, Christianity in Africa and the African Diaspora: The Appropriation of a Scattered Heritage (London, UK: Continuum Publishing, 2008), Introduction; Chapters 2, 3. 20. Robert A. Dowd, “Religious Diversity and Religious Tolerance: Lessons from Nigeria,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 60, no. 4 (2016), 623. 21. John D.Y. Peel, “Similarity and Differences, Context and Tradition in Contemporary Religious Movements in West Africa” Africa 86, no. 4 (2016), 620–627. 22. Marloes Janson, “Unity Through Diversity: Case Study of ChrisLam in Lagos,” Africa 86, no. 4 (2016), 646–672. 23. James Howard Smith and Rosalind Hackett, eds., Displacing the State: Religion and Conflict in Neo-Liberal Africa (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012), Introduction; 1, 2 and 6. 24. Islam is the religion of the majority in 19 African countries. WorldAtlas.com. On related discussions, see Abdulai Iddrisu, Contesting Islam in Africa: Homegrown Wahhabism and Muslim Identity in Northern Ghana, 1920–2010 (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2013), Introduction; Chapters 2, 3. 25. Leila Demarest and Arnim Langer, “The Study of Violence and Social Unrest in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Three Conflict Event Datasets,” African Affairs 117, no. 467 (2018), 310–325. 26. Marina Sharpe, “The Global Compact on Refugees and Conflict Prevention in Africa: ‘Root Causes’ and Yet Another Divide,” International Journal of Refugee Law XX, no. XX (December 7, 2018). 27. Pew Research Center, “Record Number of Forcibly Displaced People Lived in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2017,” Pew Center Report, August 9, 2018.

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28. Francisco Ferreira, “World Bank: Poverty Rates Remain High in Africa,” Africa Report, October 17, 2018. 29. Ndubuisi Christian Ani, “Three Schools of Thought on ‘African Solutions to African Problems,’” Journal of Black Studies 50, no. 2 (March 2019), 135–155. 30. Mammo Muchie, et al., eds., “The African Union Ten Years After: Solving African Problems with Pan-Africanism and the African Renaissance,” African Institute of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa, 2013. 31. Habibu Yaya Bappah, “ECOWAS Protagonists for Peace: An Internal Perspective on Policy and Community Actors in Peacemaking Interventions,” South African Journal of International Affairs 25, no. 1 (January 2, 2018), 83–98. 32. Toni Haastrup, Charting Transformation Through Security: Contemporary EU-Africa Relations (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 33. Peter Arthur, “Promoting Security in Africa through Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and the African Union’s African Peace and Security Architecture,” Insight on Africa 9, no. 1 (2017), 1–21. 34. Kate Meager, “Informality, Religious Conflict and Government in Northern Nigeria: Economic Inclusion in Divided Societies,” African Studies Review 56, no. 3 (2013), 209–234. 35. See Yacob Tesfai, Holy Warriors, Infidels and Peacemakers in Africa (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), Chapters 1–3. 36. See Nigel Young, “Concepts of Peace: From 1913 to the Present,” Ethics & International Affairs 27, no. 2 (Summer 2013), 157–173. 37. Jon Ibbink, “Religion and Politics: The Future of ‘the Secular’ Religion,” African Spectrum 49, no. 3 (2014), 83–96. 38. For comparative purposes, see Avi Spiegel, Young Islam: The New Politics of Religion in Morocco and the Arab World (Princeton, NY: Princeton University Press, 2017), Chapter 1. 39. See Haldun Canci and Opeyemi Odukoya, “Ethnic and Religious Crisis in Nigeria: A Specific Analysis Upon Identities (1999–2013),” African Center for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), August 2016, 87–110. 40. Peter Lewis and Michael Bratten, “Attitudes Toward Democracy and Markets in Nigeria: Report of a National Opinion Survey,” International Foundation for Election Systems, Washington, DC, January–Febraury 2000. 41. Laura Vinson Thaut, “Disaggregating Ethnicity and Conflict Patterns: Evidence from Religious and Tribal Violence in Nigeria,” Ethnopolitics (October 2018), 1–26. 42. Kahinde Bolaji, “Adapting Traditional Peacemaking Principles to Contemporary Conflicts: The ECOWAS Conflict Preventive Framework,” African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review 1, no. 2 (October 2011), 183–204.

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43. Brown Odigie, “Institutionalization of Mediation Support Within the ECOWAS Commission,” ACCORD, June 29, 2016, 1–13. 44. Krzysztof Ilalka, “Between High Hopes and Moderate Results: A Decade of the Africa Peace and Security Architecture,” Politeja 13, no. 42 (2016); Funmi Olonisakin, “Windows of Opportunity for Conflict Prevention: Responding to Regional Conflict in West Africa,” Conflict, Security and Development 4, no. 2 (2004), 185–198. 45. For a detailed narrative of the history of conflict in modern Liberia, see E. Gbotoe and S. T. Kgatia, The Role of Christianity in Mending Societal Fragility and Quelling Violence in Liberia,” Verbum et Ecclesia 38, no. 1 (2017), 1–10. http://doi.org/10.4102. 46. M.A. Tijjani, “United Nations Observer Mission and ECOMOG Intervention in Liberia’s Peace Process,” Vestnik RUDN. International Relations 18, no. 4 (2018), 872–887. 47. Oliver Furley, Ending Africa’s Wars; Progressing to Peace (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006). 48. See Editorial Supplement, “IRCL Remains Pacesetter in Liberia’s Peace Process,” Agence de Presse Africaine (APAnews), May 3, 2016, 9–11. 49. See Walt Kilroy, Reintegration of Ex-Combatants After Conflict: Participatory Approaches in Sierra Leone and Liberia (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 50. AFRICA ACTION, “Liberia; Churches Call for Peace Support,” University of Pennsylvania-African Studies Centre, June 2003; also http://www. churchworldservice.org. 51. Peter Penfold, “Faith in Resolving Sierra Leone’s Bloody Conflict,” Round Table: Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs 94, no. 382 (2005), 549–557. 52. Much like the earlier South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SATRC), which was led by the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Sierra Leonean Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was headed by Bishop Joseph Humper, the then president of the Inter-Religious Council. For electronic access, see http://oxfordre.com/politics.view/10.1093. 53. Hilary Anne Hurd, “The Inter-Religious Council of Sierra Leone as Peace Facilitator in Post-1991 Sierra Leone,” Peace and Change 41, no. 4 (2016), 425–451. 54. Joyce Dubensky, ed., Peacemakers in Action: Profiles in Religious Peacebuilding, Vol. II (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2016). 55. Houphouet-Boigny’s import-substitution economy was a flourishing experiment, and his paternalistic authoritarian democracy placed emphasis on ethnic and religious tolerance. His ruling Parti Democratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) had been swept into power by the 1990 Third Wave of democratization. Opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo together with his

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Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) political party stalwarts had uneventful relationship with the Government. See Jeremy Allouche, “Dynamics of Restraint in Côte d’Ivoire,” IDS Bulletin 44, no. 1 (2013), 72–86. Among the vast body of literature on conflict and mediation processes in Côte d’Ivoire, see Lasisi Ademola Araoye, Côte d’Ivoire: The Conundrum of Still a Wretched of the Earth (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2012). The Imams in CNI were young, never shy in their public pronouncements and quite a few demanded changes in certain aspects of the state’s public policy, such as demanding an option to choose Arabic instead of French as foreign language in secondary school education. On this, see Jeremy Allouche and Paul Jackson, “Zones of Peace and Local Peace Processes in Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone,” Peacebuilding 7, no. 1 (January 2, 2019), 71–87. Relatedly, see Line Kuppens, et al., “Divided We Teach? Teachers’ Perceptions of Conflict and Peace in Côte d’Ivoire,” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 22, no. 4 (2016), 329–333. Johannes Vullers, “Fighting for a Kingdom of God? The Role of Religion in the Ivorian Crisis,” GIGA Research Program: Violence and Security, no. 178, October 2011, 16. World Bank Country Report, Côte d’Ivoire. Updated January 11, 2019. The country’s growth rate is stabilizing at 7.6% and this is attributed to the rebound in Agricultural production. And the poverty rate is down to 46%. For relevant discourses, see Phillip Broadhead and Damien Keown, Can Faiths Make Peace? Holy Wars and the Resolution of Religious Conflicts (New York, NY: I.B. Tauris, 2007). See US Department of State: Diplomacy in Action, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, International Religious Freedom Report 2010, November 17, 2010. The US Embassy also established a speaking forum entitled “US Society and Political Process: A Project for Emerging Muslim Leaders.” On these developments, see US Department of State: Diplomacy in Action, “Côte d’Ivoire” International Religious Freedom Report, 2005. Sheik Abubakar Mahmoud Gumi once declared to a reporter, thus: “…once you are a Muslim, you cannot accept a non-Muslim to be your leader…” Quoted in Jude C. Aguwa, “Religious Conflict in Nigeria: Impact on Nation Building,” Dialectic Anthropology 2 (1997), 338. And the Anglican Bishop of Kaduna, the Right Reverend Ogboyemi reported told his congregation that Christians had no checks left to turn. He was encouraging Christians to fight back in self-defence against any attacks by Muslim mobs. Quoted in Robert A. Dowd, “Religious Diversity…” op. cit., 624, note 20.

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67. On this, see Nicolas Kazarian, “Religious Extremism in Africa: A Conversation Between Rehman Kasule and Nurudeen Lemu,” Institut De Relations Internacionales et Strategiques (IRIS), April 2017. 68. Jonah Isawa Eliagwu counts no less than forty incidents of religious conflict from 1980 to 2010; and more than 60 separate incidents of mayhem wrought by Boko Haram from July 2011 to July 2012. As reported, see Sunday Awoniyi, “A Discourse on Religious Conflict and Tolerance in Multi-Faith Nigeria,” European Scientific Journal 9, no. 20 (July 2013), 124–143. 69. Hakeem Onapajo, “State Repression and Religious Conflict: Perils of the State Clampdown on the Shi’a Minority in Nigeria,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 37, no. 1 (2017), 80–93. 70. See John Campbell and Ash Harwood, “Boko Haram’s Deadly Impact,” Council on Foreign Relations, August 2018. 71. Eugene Eji, “Rethinking Nigeria’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy,” International Journal of Intelligence, Security and Public Affairs 18, no. 3 (2016), 198–220. 72. Such an approach would also invest in security sector reform and in the retraining of law enforcement agents with focused programs on human rights and respect for human dignity. National security officers must interact with local populations non-threateningly, also and in ways to attract their support rather than intimidate and alienate them. See John Campbell, Nigeria: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018), Introduction; 2 and 3. 73. Violence broke out on June 8, 2004, between the native Bachama Christians and the local Muslim community in the town of Numan in Adamawa State. The Muslims had located their new Mosque close to the Bachama paramount ruler’s palace. The Mosque was attacked and destroyed by the Christians largely because the Mosque’s minaret made it a higher structure than the traditional ruler’s palace. Close to 20 were killed in the fighting that ensued. See A.S. Alanamu, “Reflections on Religious Violence in Nigeria,” in A.S. Alanamu, ed., Issues in Political Violence in Nigeria (Ilorin, Nigeria: Hamson Printing Communication, 2005). 74. See, Jude C. Aguwa, “Religious Conflict in Nigeria: Impact on Nation Building,” op. cit., 339, note 66. The Bauchi riot of 1991 was triggered by an order from the Mayor (Christian) of the capital city, Bauchi that Christians be allowed to slaughter pig and dog at the local abattoir. The Mayor was perhaps baiting trouble, as it were. “…In two days of carnage, hundreds of Christians were killed…almost all churches were burned down, including hotels that sold alcohol…and Christians …many of them Ibos from South-eastern Nigeria took flight in thousands…Radical Muslims armed with bows and arrows took over the town.”

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75. The Economist, “Miss World War, Face Value (A Global Brand in Trouble),” December 7, 2002, Vol. 365, p. 8302; New York Times, “Hundreds Flee Nigerian City Swept by Riots (Religious Rioting in Kaduna over Miss World Pageant),” November 25, 2002, Vol. 152, p. A9; and Tom Masland, “A Pageant Turns Ugly: The Miss World Contest Sparks Deadly Riots in Nigeria,” Newsweek, December 2, 2002, p. 37. 76. A number of reflections on the issue go well beyond the headlines. For one, see Farooq Kperogi, “Clash of Civilization or Clash of Newspaper Ideologies? An Analysis of the Ideological Split in British Newspaper Commentaries on the 2002 Miss World Riots in Nigeria,” Asia Pacific Educator 23, no. 1 (2013), 121–143. 77. For analysis exploring several factors including gender, see Alice Henry, “The Truth Behind the Miss World Riots in Nigeria: Sexism, Fundamentalism, Globalization and Oil,” Off Our Backs 33, nos. 3–4 (March/April 2003), 20–24. 78. Ross Oakland, “Roots of Miss World Beauty Go Deep: Tensions Seethe in Muslim North and Christian South. Fanatics Abound on Both Sides of the Sectarian Divide,” Toronto Star, December 1, 2002, B05. 79. Article 10 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic reads thus: “…the Government of the Federation or of a state shall not adopt any religion as a state religion…” Put simply, Nigeria is a secular state! 80. Nigerian Tribune, 20 June 2007. 81. Daily Champion, August 23, 2008. 82. The Punch, October 8, 2007. 83. For a general consideration about the intersection of law, person freedom and religion, see Russell Sandberg, “Law and Religion in the 21st Century: Relations Between States and Religious Communities,” Politics, Religion and Ideology 12, no. 2 (June 2011), 228–230. 84. See Jonathan Nda-Isaiah, “Why El-Zakzaky Is Still in Detention,” Leadership, January 19, 2017. 85. Hussein Solomon, Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: Fighting Insurgency from Al Shabaab, Ansar Dine and Boko Haram (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015). 86. Kamal-deen Olawale Sulaiman, “Religious Violence in Contemporary Nigeria: Implications and Options for Peace and Stability,” Journal for the Study of Religion 29, no. 1 (2016), 1–13. 87. Brandon Kendhammer and Carmen McCain, Boko Haram (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2018). 88. For extended narratives and analysis, see Scot MacEachem, Searching for Boko Haram: A History of Violence in Central Africa (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018), Introduction; 1–4. 89. Wisdom Iyekekpolo, “Boko Haram: Understanding the Context,” Third World Quarterly 37, no. 12 (December 1, 2016), 2211–2228.

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90. See Wisdom Eghosa Iyekekpolo, “Political Elites and the Rise of Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria,” Terrorism and Political Violence (January 8, 2018), 1–19. 91. Michael Shodipo, “Mitigating Radicalism in Northern Nigeria,” African Security Briefs 26 (August 2013), 1–8. 92. El-Zakzaky derogatorily referred to the Sultan of Sokoto as Sarkin Gargajiyan Sokoto, the pre-Islamic title given to the Sokoto Chieftain before the advent of Usman Dan Fodio. See Roman Loimeier, “The Quest for a Viable Religious Option,” in William F.S. Miles, ed., Political Islam in West Africa: State-Society Relations Transformed (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishing, 2007), 57. 93. M. Adeleye Ojo, “The Maitatsine Revolution in Nigeria,” American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 2, no. 2 (December 1, 1985), 298–299. 94. Gory tales of violence, about mutilated bodies recovered from Maitatsine hide-outs in Kano proliferated in news reports: eyes, noses, tongues, ears among other human parts had been cut-off from corpses. See West Africa, January 12, 1981, 53. 95. See Abigail Skeans, “An Imam and a Pastor Make Peace,” The Review of Faith and International Affairs (Summer 2009), 79–82. 96. For relevant views on collaboration for peace, see Hajiya Bikisu Yusuf, “Managing Muslim-Christian Conflict in Northern Nigeria: A Case Study of Kaduna State,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 18, no. 2 (April 2007). 97. The escalation of ethno-religious conflict is blamed by many on the collapse of familial kinship structures that had been the mainstay of traditional societies. Failures in government policies have accentuated human misery such that a reservoir of youths are surplus and available to take up arms either in anger or out of desperation for economic support from rebels or Islamist terrorists. 98. James Wuye and Mohammad Ashafa, The Pastor and the Imam: Responding to Conflict (Lagos, Nigeria: Ibrash Publishing, 1999). 99. David R. Smock, ed., Religious Contributions to Peacemaking: When Religion Brings Peace, Not War (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006), Introduction; Chapters 4 and 5. 100. See Abigail Skeans, op. cit., 80, note 95. Peace in their ideology represents goodness and virtue; both partners are resolved to continue pooling their common resources together to magnify religion as the principal tool of conflict prevention. 101. The “Council” comprises 25 eminent Nigerians drawn from the three main religions groups in the country (Christianity, Islam and representatives of Traditional Religion). It is charged with promoting peaceful coexistence and accommodation via civic activities including national debates on religion and society.

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102. On this, see Segun Oshewolo, “Religion in Democratic Nigeria: A JanusFaced Phenomenon,” in F. Omotosho and M. Kahinde, eds., Democratic Governance and Political Participation in Nigeria: 1992–2014 (Lagos, Nigeria: Spear Media Press, 2016), Chapter 11. 103. This is an insightful study boosting comparative understandings about the multiple impacts of religion on human security. Murat Somer, “Janus-Faced Relations of Religious Actors and Human Security: Islam and Secular Values in Turkey,” in James K. William and Clark Lombardi, eds., Religion and Human Security: A Global Perspective (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2012), Introduction; Chapters 11 and 16. 104. For elaborations on the variables, see Tanya B. Schwarz, “Teaching Religion, Conflict and Peace,” Peace Review 30, no. 1 (January 2018), 39–44; Toyin Falola, Violence in Nigeria: Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1998), Introduction; 1–3.

CHAPTER 8

Rwanda and North Macedonia: Considering the Nature of Conflict and UN Peacemaking Abdul Mumin Sa’ad

There was never a good war or a bad peace. (Benjamin Franklin)

Introduction See Maps 8.1 and 8.2. David Hamburg’s “No More Killing Fields ”1 is a powerful retrospective on the necessary conditions for peace and the avoidance of war. Democratic institutions, balanced socioeconomic development, and equity in the distribution of resources are held both as potential and real facilitators of order and social progress in the transitional society. The work forces us further to reflect on previous discourses in which Hamburg soliloquizes about why and how the international community could have missed vital opportunities to forge peace before the descent of communities into genocide, purges, and ethnic cleansing of the early 1990s. And we all wonder like

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Map 8.1

Map of North Macedonia

he does, what could have been done at the preliminary stages of internal conflicts to avert mass violence and achieve just outcomes in Rwanda and the Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR).2 The scholar speaks of political will as a principal factor in the equation of preventive action; as well, early warning systems are required to anticipate, mitigate and prevent conflicts. Hamburg says the prudent leader needs appropriate warning signal welltuned to effectively trigger timely preventive action and not simply warning that a bad situation might be getting worse.3 Fact-finding or information gathering is critical and integral to successful preventive diplomacy. In the contemporary interdependent world, first steps taken toward preventing conflict must be guided by accurate global as well as local trends, and all are of the same mind regarding judicious intervention, that international, regional and sub-regional organizations of peace will doubtlessly undercut the main causes of stoppable human disasters.

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Map 8.2

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Map of Rwanda

Preventive Diplomacy: Concepts, Theoretical Perspectives, and Role Players In the context of present reasoning and understandings about the imperatives of timing and political will, most diplomats and researchers in conflict management are continuing to theorize about the ways and means to improve the mechanisms of preventive diplomacy.4 Equally, comparative analyses of human security are proliferating.5 More pertinent and germane to the cases under consideration is the escalation of enthusiasm to study and let bare the conditions necessary to multiply and sustain peace among communities and between state and society. What are the causes of conflict and failure of intervention? Alternatively, how might we improve and sharpen the mechanisms of conflict management and resolution? Can society be purged permanently of conflict? What lessons are learned or drawn from failures to stop wars and mitigate human suffering? Along this line, scholars agree that the intervention in Rwanda was a colossal failure; and that the

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said negative outcome in the instance was not due to a lack of early warning or a glitch in the flow of information about a coming anarchy. Human fiasco in that tiny country in central Africa is said to have been wholly predicated on a lack of political will among the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Kofi Annan, the UN Under-Secretary-General at the time, underscores the viewpoint as follows: “If there was a problem, it was not one of information or intelligence. The problem was lack of political will.”6 Along a similar vein, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali is quoted as saying that “member states were opposed to intervention in Rwanda, with early warning or without early warning. So the real problem is this: if there is no political will among the major actors in the Security Council, any system which we try to improve will be useless.”7 And the then UN Forces Commander in Rwanda, Lt. General Romeo Dallaire formulated the problem more directly and distinctively in this way: Rwanda story is the story of the failure of humanity to heed a call for help from an endangered people. The international community, of which the UN is only a symbol, failed to move beyond self-interest for the sake of Rwanda. While most nations agreed that something should be done they all had an excuse why they should not be the ones to do it. As a result the UN was denied the political will and material resources to prevent the tragedy.8

There are undoubtedly additional contingent forces to have been found to grossly either impede or facilitate peacekeeping. Beginning from the Congo Crisis, quite a number of interventions in conflict by the UN, the AU or joint missions have met with critical operational and logistical problems largely due sometimes to the lack of clarity in the rules of engagement at the theaters of conflagration. It would seem many times those missions were confronted with unanticipated challenges that render peacekeeping completely impractical. And poor performance by a succession of peace missions has frequently prompted familiar questions posed to improve future performance. What determines the mandate of peacekeeping forces? By how much should decision makers extend or attempt to stretch such a mandate? How should peacekeepers engage from the word go? When is a peace mission rightly considered successful or a failure? What lessons are drawn for future operations? As earlier stated, the classic example of embattlement and functional collapse in peacekeeping has been the 1994 UN Mission to Rwanda. On the other side of things, a near-unanimous

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view is that the 1995 UN Preventive Deployment Force in North Macedonia (UNPREDEP) did meet its entire targeted goals; indeed, that the Mission succeeded beyond the world’s wildest dreams or expectations. Peacekeeping, Preventive Peacekeeping, and Peacebuilding Fresher ideas about new and better approaches to peacemaking9 and peacekeeping are fast percolating;10 clearer articulation of innovative mechanisms of peace are found in part within the former UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali’s definition and articulation of preventive diplomacy: “The use of diplomatic techniques to prevent disputes from arising, prevent them from escalating into armed conflict if they do arise, and if that fails, to prevent the armed conflict from spreading.”11 This in short is what is meant today as preventive peacekeeping; that is, the use of peacekeeping as the prime instrument of preemptive intervention—to defuse and control internal tensions before they explode unmanageable conflict. The idea of fusing preventive diplomacy together with preventive peacekeeping is rife among scholarly circles and this logic guided the conception and the eventual deployment of UNPREDEP in North Macedonia. In this respect, and with a view to drawing general conclusions about the utility of the deployment in North Macedonia, and how future similar deployments may be adopted and applied elsewhere, I must now highlight some of the basic and enabling human conditions that must be present in order to foster success in preventive intervention. UNPREDEP’s much-valued success firmly was hinged upon the genuine and unabated acceptance of its presence, intensions by the North Macedonian Government and the citizens in general. For that matter, an important lesson drawing from the North Macedonian experience is that the scope of success and the very limits of preventive deployment are defined by the extents to which the state and those central leadership institutions in a particular setting as well as the people are willing or predisposed to cooperate with peacekeepers, rather than seek to undermine their mission. This brings up additional questions for consideration about the prerequisites for successful peacekeeping. But we must first address this related question; what constitutes successful peacekeeping? For purposes of this study, successful peacekeeping occurs when armed conflict is completely terminated followed by clear commitments on the part of disputants to accept conditions on ceasefire and the outcomes of negotiated settlement of the conflict. A reverse of the preceding conditions will denote peacekeeping

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failure, even if peacekeepers are successful in mitigating gross human suffering by delivering humanitarian relief in the context of war. The mitigation of human anguish and agony by peacekeepers through relief distribution is defined as successful humanitarian intervention; it does not qualify as successful peacekeeping.12 The necessary conditions or the prerequisites for successful peacekeeping13 are spelled out in much of the works on the United Nations peacekeeping.14 Among them: (I) Consent is a principal. While international law insists on the consent of the host government, all the major parties to the conflict are required to also give their formal consent in order to legitimize the peace operation. (II) Appropriate Mandate is a strong condition for success insofar as it underscores the nature of the conflict together with the scope and limits of peacekeeping in the particular conflict. Customarily, the role of the peacekeeper as a neutral or impartial actor is clearly stated and underscored.15 Such an actor will be capable and is expected to cultivate trust among disputants toward the restoration of the status quo—stability; and in ways that discourage the continuation of violence. (III) Strong Motivation from the international community to act decisively in support of the peace effort is invaluable to successful peacekeeping largely because the big partners for peace possess the material resources and political wherewithal to underwrite peacekeeping in the first place. The world has commonly looked upon Washington to pick up large chunks of the tap on peacekeeping. (IV) Actual and Practical Cooperation on the part of disputants with the peacekeepers is the highest premium for success. In addition to principled and legal commitment, parties to the dispute must be seen, in authentic and concrete terms, to be unforced collaborators for peace. In other words, peacekeeping is most likely to succeed when all key parties to the conflict genuinely and unequivocally want and prefer to “keep the peace” rather than inflame cleavages to continue fighting. Relatedly, unless the peacekeeping includes peace-enforcement measures, the traditional peacekeeping troops possess neither the mandate nor the military capability to stop a renegade party who withdraws its consent and returns to fighting. A peacekeeping mission lacking the mandate but proceeds to apply force or threatens the use of force against a belligerent party soon loses its neutrality—a vital legitimizing quality of peacekeeping. The entire operation may lose its credibility on that account alone because it amounts to the violation of trust in peacekeeping. And rightly so because peacekeeping represents in its most essential and simplified sense the non-violent use of third-party armed forces to maintain peace among belligerents.

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UN Preventive Deployment16 certainly carries many of the features associated with a traditional peacekeeping operation; only that troops on preventive deployment are armed with appropriate weapons and part of their mandate is to monitor the actions of the potential aggressor among the disputing parties. The troops are militarized substantively in the said instance; and reasonably so designed to deter the potential belligerent faction and discourage even the contemplation of an act of military violence against the protected entity. In this way, a breather is provided, while mediators consisting of envoys and civilian representatives of the UN Secretary-General attempt to work out a mediated settlement of the conflict. We find in the UN Charter (Chapters VI–VII) the finer legal roots of preventive diplomacy and peacemaking; those speak of preventive deployment as the means to neutralize belligerence and prevent armed conflict.17 The record confirms that preventive deployment was used by the United Nations for the very first time during the emergency in North Macedonia.18 Peacekeeping operations—traditional peacekeeping to be more precise—are frequently sent into a conflict zone to intercede between disputants inside or between countries. The major aim mostly has been to protect ceasefire arrangements and to induce observance of the conditions protective of the temporary peace during mediation. Peacekeeping forces in addition are commonly sent when fighting already has occurred and subsided; such forces would act to cool tempers and buy time so to speak whence forward an appointed mediator intervenes to narrow differences among the parties with plans to materialize a negotiated settlement of the dispute. The operation morphs significantly into preventive peacekeeping (i.e., preventive deployment) once troops are sent ahead of the outbreak of violent conflict. This perhaps bears repeating. Peacekeeping by the United Nations in areas of crisis has generally been established after conflict has occurred. In preventive deployment, however, security deployment takes place before a conflict deepens, and subsequent actions are aimed at the creation of atmosphere conducive for peacebuilding. This could take place in a variety of instances and ways including the following three major scenarios espoused in the Report of the UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali (1992): In conditions of national crisis there could be preventive deployment at the request of the Government or all parties concerned, or with their consent. In inter-State disputes such deployment could take place when two countries

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feel that a United Nations presence on both sides of their border can discourage hostilities. Furthermore, preventive deployment could take place when a country feels threatened and requests the deployment of an appropriate United Nations presence along its side of the border alone.19

Peacebuilding20 derives its essence from the knowledge that socioeconomic causes of typical conflicts in transitional societies worldwide tend to persist after violence has been formally brought to an end either through negotiated settlement or the overwhelming military decimation of the forces of one party by the other. And without immediate and sustained postconflict reconstruction—anchored in peacebuilding—those importunate structural conditions have served to reignite conflict.21 Regularly consisting of the myriad of invested economic and political programs, peacebuilding is a critical component of preventive diplomacy.22 It is designed to ensure the smoothest, uninterrupted transition of the fledgling society from war to peace. Peacebuilding regularly has within its remit the important program to demobilize, disarm and reintegrate (DDR) ex-combatants into the normal life of society. Another equally critical post-conflict program revolves around Security Sector Reform, which must be accomplished to protect domestic law and order and preserve constitutional integrity of the state. And then, the range of practical initiatives (Truth Telling, Forgiveness, Accommodation and Conciliation) is aggressively promoted as the foundations upon which the postwar society must build new political institutions of democracy. For many reformers in the liberal democratic tradition, those principles and theoretical constructs are presented as remarkable, indispensable antidotes to conflict as well as the facilitators of peace. They are considered to possess the capacities necessary to dictate the momentum of positive political change, guarantee sustainable peace and purge from the body politic those conditions likely to cause war reoccurrence or a relapse into conflict. Peacebuilding in its more elaborate post-Cold War form, as preventive instrument of diplomacy,23 was introduced and established by the United Nations in North Macedonia (1995–1999). Along with preventive peacekeeping (deployment), preventive peacebuilding is said to have been introduced by the UN also for the first time in North Macedonia. Various and multiple pro-peace initiatives under the rubric of peacebuilding are proceeding apace and with varying degrees of success in postwar Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda as well as in Europe’s many post-Communist countries.

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This work looks at the extents to which the principles, values, and conditions thus enunciated are dictating the direction of political change and continuities of human relations in North Macedonia and Rwanda. It provides a peek into the nature of new internal conflicts in the two nations, pointing also to differences of national capacity to resolve internal problems and maximize human security and development. In Rwanda, (I) expression of the most violent inter-ethnic animosity reached boiling point between April and July 1994, when Tutsi-led militants or insurgents surged determinedly from Uganda’s border communities to capture territories inside Rwanda, causing additional consternation, exodus of refugees, and the collapse of state authority in Rwanda. Ethnically dictated differences had been customarily manipulated by the governing elite to deepen mutual animosities across communities; and the dynamics of hate and distrust formed the combustible elements setting Hutus-Tutsi relations constantly alight inside Rwanda. Regretfully, the token UN presence in the country was too feeble to prevent the rapid rise of organized violence culminating in the sweeping campaign of genocide by Hutu extremists against the Tutsi and moderate Hutu. Meanwhile, (II) timelier application of preemptive measures served largely to defuse and mitigate inter-group tensions in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYRM). One good reason for studying UN peace operations is to accumulate knowledge about the scope and limits of conflict management, resolution of conflict, and preventive diplomacy. (III) The conclusion draws lessons about the differential impacts of peace interventions in Rwanda and North Macedonia. It indicates as well, how the human experiences in the two cases apply to West Africa.

I. Rwanda: Internal Conflict and the Rise of RPF Resistance Since much has already been written with great scholarly detachment24 about the main sources of the Rwandese debacle—which was driven and dictated by the Hutu supremacist syndrome, I believe that only a brief outline of the critical structural features of the conflict will suffice for the moment. Worth mentioning among the many remarkable features in question is that the two ethnic communities, Tutsi and Hutu, lived harmoniously for lengths of time dating back to the Tutsi feudal monarchy rule about the tenth century. Although governance throughout the precolonial era was dominated by the minority Tutsi, with the overwhelming majority Hutu in relatively secondary or minor positions of authority, there is no

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record to my attention of violent conflict between the two groups. Theirs was an agrarian society in which patron–client networks incorporated quite a few privileged Hutu clients, and those networks including their Hutu alliances confronted other cross-group alliances regularly to negotiate and reach compromises in the distribution of material resources. The networks also collaborated to exchange goods and services. Historians25 say that the impact of inequities in the Rwandan inegalitarian society of days gone by was greatly softened and conflict mitigated via the tradition of compromise and dynamic interplay of give-and-take among Rwandese patrons. At the ordinary level of individual and community interactions, Tutsis and Hutus were not separated into sharply differentiable territories. They lived together in tightly knitted communities, adapted to one another and they explored their environment collaboratively for pleasure and for food. They spoke the same language, Kinyarwanda. Colonial rulers and European travelers in later days were however apt to differentiate between the Rwandese on the basis of their occupation: the food producing-agriculturalist (Hutu) and cattle-owning (Tutsi). The point about the preceding seems apparent. Unlike many other African societies, Rwanda was not an artificial colonial carving; instead, it existed as an integrated society and would for long remain so throughout the periods pre-dating colonization. But change frequently lurks in the near distant future. Change began to emerge and to leave indelible imprints on Rwandese social and political structures as successive governments under the Germans and Belgians sought to bend and channel things for their own advantage. The monarchy was incorporated into the structure of colonial government simultaneously also as the Tutsi ruling groups associated with it were ascribed superior status vis-à-vis their Hutu compatriots. Colonial rulers thought the latter were inferior. Here then, was the making of political crisis26 that eventually would engulf Rwandese society. Whereas the overwhelming population of Rwanda was Hutu, colonial rulers favored the minority Tutsi and reassured them control of government and command of the armed forces during self-rule. With independence by the corner (1960), emergent Hutu politicians proceeded logically to invent and legitimize their own political ideology of Hutuness , which they applied with effect to counter and challenge the new Tutsi elite that had been socially constructed and established by colonialism and presented as genuine future inheritors of power in postcolonial Rwanda. The Tutsi elite began actively to imbibe and embellished the colonial ideology that

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ascribed to them higher sociocultural status. The Tutsi was presented as possessing “inherent superiority.” The push and shove for power came stiffly to a head, as it’s frequently wont to be, in 1959; when a Hutu political revolt drove monarchy from power and chased thousands of Tutsis into exile in neighboring Burundi, Uganda, and the Congo. The exiles and their descendants would become the main carriers of a radicalized Rwandese identity in Diaspora. They formed the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), which seat of operation and power was located in Uganda; and the resistance waxed strong due to unabated repression of the minority Tutsis in Rwanda by successive Hutucontrolled government administrations. Tutsis youths and children were denied access to education; as well, discrimination in job appointments was open and blatant against well-qualified Tutsis. Observers say Habyarimana had installed his own apartheid system in Rwanda. Exiled Tutsis never gained Ugandan citizenship, and their appeals to return home were rejected by Habyarimana. Perhaps dark humor, Habyarimana frequently retorted that Rwanda was full to capacity and had no extra space to accommodate exiled Tutsis. Episodic massacres carried out during the next thirty-five years under the successive Hutu regimes of Presidents Gregoire Kayinbanda (1962–1973) and Juvenal Habyarimana (1973–1994) triggered additional Tutsi exodus into Uganda and Burundi. Roughly 4000 displaced Tutsis fought side-by-side with Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA) that eventually displaced the government of President Milton Obote in 1986. Described variously as “Refugee Warriors” or the “59er Generation” these were descendants of those Tutsis who escaped the Rwanda pogrom of 1959–1961. These younger men not only swelled the ranks of the dissident RPA, they formed the nucleus of the revolutionary forces, which fought strategic border battles against the French-supported Forces Armees Rwandaises (FAR) from 1990 to 1993. They fought for a right to return home and for drastic reform of domestic governance in Rwanda. And they were sworn to achieving the goal either through negotiated settlement or by outright defeat of the government and its foreign-backed national army, FAR. The first RPF military move (October 1, 1990) was in the form of an incursion on northeast Rwanda from Ugandan border communities. But the daring military escapade proved to be a disaster for the dissidents. They were out-gunned by a battle-ready FAR, which also enjoyed both air and ground support by international troops dispatched to protect the Government of Rwanda by France, Belgium, and neighboring Zaire. RPA lost its

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charismatic military commander (Fred Rwigyema) in the battle and faced disintegration, but for the forceful intervention of the RPF Second-inCommand, Paul Kagame. He decided to transform RPF military approach from conventional warfare to guerrilla tactics. Barely 3 months later, in January 1991, RPA attacked Rwanda, this time from the northwestern region and easily seized the prefecture of Ruhegeri inside Rwanda. Thousands of Rwandese were internally displaced and with quite a few escaping into neighboring countries. Both the Government of Rwanda and the international community took notice of the professionalism and determination among the RPF forces under Kagame. And diplomats began scuttling for a mediated settlement of the conflict. Peace Efforts Now Are Cumulative, Enthusiastic, and Abortive Following RPF’s insurgence and penetration of Ruhegeri, the first set of thoughts and reactions among African diplomatic circles were directed at building the foundation for sustained mediation of the conflict. It took several mini-summits to finally launch the idea of an Arusha Peace Process, which formally opened as an international summit on July 12, 1992. It culminated in the Arusha Accord that was signed by the high contracting parties in August 4, 1993. Arusha was a highly internationalized process that attracted several countries and organizations. As the host country, Tanzania served throughout the period as “facilitator” of the peace process, and official delegates came from Burundi, Uganda, and Zaire including observers from Belgium, France, Germany, Senegal, and the United States. Negotiations took slightly more than one year to complete, and according to observers those African leaders involved were absolutely determined to materialize mutually benefitting outcome from their endeavors in the form of a comprehensive mediated settlement of the conflict. Appropriately, the introductory statement of the peace document holds all parties to the conflict accountable for the realization of the peace, as follows: (I) power-sharing government will be created to include all the major disputing factions. (II) Inclusiveness will be the standard guiding principle for the allocation of posts in a broad-based transitional government. In other words, the appointment of individuals to positions in government will have to reflect a balance among the major political factions. (III) Each of the warring parties is allowed to hold unto territory under its control until the final resolution of the conflict. (IV) Repatriation of all refugees must be carried out as urgent responsibility of the transitional government. (V) A

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new national integrated armed forces of Rwanda will be established. Forthwith, the new forces will replace the warring forces under the government and the RPF. One of the many preliminary interventions27 to precede the Arusha process was the good offices initiative (February 17, 1991) by Tanzanian President Ali Hassan Mwinyi. He invited and hosted the main stakeholders, Presidents Museveni and Habyarimana, at the antique port city of Zanzibar. Carefully chosen for the purpose, the setting was conducive for a personalized discussion among disputants; and at issue presently was Rwandese territorial integrity, which purportedly had been violated by the “rebel” incursion led by RPF’s Paul Kagame. Habyarimana framed the problem in terms of national sovereignty and offered a ceasefire in exchange for amnesty for the RPF. Museveni was requested to put pressure on RPF to accept the conditions for peace and withdraw its troops from Rwanda. A critical addition to the Zanzibar rendezvous was Ambassador Salim Ahmed Salim, at the time Secretary-General of the then Organization of African Unity-OAU (now African Union-AU). Salim characteristically participated enthusiastically. He used his international clout to immediately process international humanitarian relief via OAU for Hutu refugees that had been scattered into the neighboring states. The next move was equally critical for successful mediation of conflict as Zaire emerged into the purview in March 1991. President Mobutu hosted the follow-up meeting in which the same cast of invited personalities participated. The Zairian President suggested and offered to arrange a face-to-face diplomatic dialogue between the Government of Rwanda and RPF Representatives. The offer of amnesty was reiterated, and Uganda was requested this time to persuade RPF participation in the projected dialogue. The idea and prospects of dialogue caught positive fire during the OAU Summit in Abuja in June 1991; representatives of the Member States of the organization accelerated the date for the event. A regional mini-summit would be held separately and specifically on Rwanda at the mini-town of Gbadolite in Zaire in September of the same year. Observers say that the meeting was lukewarm, as neither the government of Rwanda nor the dissident faction seemed overly keen on a negotiated peace settlement at the time.28 Nevertheless, a 50-member Neutral Military Observer Group I (NMOG-I) was furnished by the AU in July 22, 1992. NMOG-I was deployed inside Rwanda to protect against RPF border incursion from Uganda. This did not discourage further hostilities, as a more massive RPF offensive erupted in early February 1993, interrupting the ongoing Arusha

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Peace Process. After mutual exchange of sharply worded un-pleasantries between Kigali and Kampala, the former rebuking Uganda for providing a bridgehead for RPF’s offensives into Rwanda, both countries settled on a plan of purposeful diplomatic action—to dispatch a written appeal urgently to the President of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). They requested the deployment of a military observer mission along the Uganda-Rwanda border. The United Nations Observer Mission UgandaRwanda (UNOMUR) was established (June 22, 1993) in accordance with the request and it was installed along the Uganda side of the international border. The mission was placed under the leadership of General Romeo Dallaire of Canada; and simultaneously, the peace talks in Arusha that had been temporarily disrupted by the RPF offensive resumed on March 16, 1993.29 In Rwanda, the days immediately following the birth of the Arusha Accord were neither blissful nor rousing; the days were instead ominously still. Grim-faced political operatives in groups were seen in Kigali coming in and out of private meetings. The radical “Hutu Power” faction that, controlled the Habyarimana government had excluded itself from the peace negotiation, saying it had nothing to gain from the proposed power-sharing administration. And this was telling. The reaction was pregnant with meaning including subdued anger. Having monopolized power for a decade and used the advantage of power to coerce political opponents and illegally accumulate private wealth, this stand on a proposed democratic solution to a festering national question did not come as a complete surprise. The notorious Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) and the paramilitary group, Interahamwe were also under the control of the extremist Hutu Power faction of the Habyarimana government. These insidious groups not only articulated and perpetrated the exclusivist ideology of Hutu identity; they formed the vanguard that eventually carried out genocide. During the peace process, the hardliners had created endless huddles, including assassination of many Hutu supporters of political change in the form of inclusive government. Trouble-makers did everything to impede and undermine the prospects of an Arusha Accord. President Habyarimana was on his way back from a post-Arusha debriefing session in Dar es Salaam when the official aircraft carrying him and his Burundian colleague President Cyprien Ntaryamira30 was shot down near Kigali Airport, almost undoubtedly by the Hutu extremists. But antiTutsi propaganda beamed foul. The Tutsis did it! The airwaves soon would become full with the twisted logic and message of hate, propelling the

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largely illiterate and acquiescent masses to rise in blind revenge. Mass slaughter rapidly spreads through the country and culminates in genocide. No less than one million Tutsis plus moderate Hutus lost their lives within one hundred days of bedlam. Habyarimana had purportedly been sufficiently pressured by the international community during the debriefing to implement the Arusha Accord. The story holds that he was returning home from Tanzania with his mind made up to implement at least parts of the Accord even for symbolic purposes. But the Genocidaires in his government had long been the sworn enemies of political compromise. They wanted neither negotiation nor collaboration to thwart the satanic endgame. At all cost then, they had vowed not just to thrash and bury the Accord, but to destroy all purveyors of mediated settlement. UNAMIR: Diplomatic Failure Fuels RPF’s Pursuit of Military Solution When the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was established on October 5, 1993, by Security Council Resolution 872 (1993), optimists in the international community thought the mission was bound to fulfill its principal mandates without incident. In addition to supervising the Arusha ceasefire, the mandate’s language and details of responsibilities betrayed a strong understanding about the necessities of postwar peacebuilding. UNAMIR would: (I) ensure that Kigali was safe and secure; and (II) monitor the ceasefire majorly by establishing cantonment and assembly zones in ways to preempt clashes among disputants leading possibly to the reignition of conflict. It would (III) support the preparation for national elections and provide domestic security necessary to install a new democratic regime. (IV) Investigate and take note of all actions suggesting non-compliance with the Arusha Accords. (V) And in addition, encourage the repatriation of Rwandese refugees and their resettlement in Rwanda. (VI) Assist in the coordination of humanitarian assistance where and when necessary. (VII) Investigate and report on incidents involving the gendarmerie, police and citizenry. (VIII) Provide professional assistance required to de-mine land areas, in order to set free erstwhile compromised physical space for agriculture, particularly food production. Cameroonian General Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh31 was the UNappointed Head of Mission of UNAMIR, and he was apprised of the importance of achieving the said goals. And the Canadian General Romeo Dallaire was the UN Forces Commander. Regrettably, UNAMIR today is

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remembered and defined more by the dark controversies that bedeviled its mission, than by those sanguine human values and causes it was built to pursue and execute. The range of problems that besieged the mission is now legend: Following the murder of 10 soldiers among its contingents, the Belgian Government precipitately withdrew its troops from the UN mission. And then, the country is said to have embarked on direct campaigns at the UN to shutdown of the mission, UNAMIR. The Security Council was persuaded; as shown via resolution 912 (1994) of April 21, 1994, the SC proceeded to reduce UNAMIR’s military strength from 2548 to 270. And Force Commander General Dallaire was ordered severally to withdraw from Kigali, but he refused to abandon the country to a complete sad fate.32 He insisted that the presence of even an ineffective UN mission was far better than having nothing on ground at all. Not only did he stay back to lead a much-reduced contingent of UN forces, he continued constantly to badger the UN with requests to send troops. In his calculation, he needed approximately 5000 troops to protect civilians, in doing so also to salvage the mission’s image together with UN’s reputation. A critically significant factor that severely retarded international sympathy for the Rwandese experience was the fortuitous conjunction of bad happenings: 18 US troops had been killed in Somalia just two days after the proposal for an increase in UN troops to Rwanda had been tabled at the Security Council for consideration. The Permanent Members of the Security Council empathized with the United States on its loss and concurred with the prevailing Washington concensus at the time that it was reckless policy “to insert UN troops into unmanageable civil wars” all around the world and in places such as Rwanda. But many practitioners of conflict management thought that this line of reasoning about human suffering was askew; it was out of line with the fundamental moral undergirdings of humanitarianism which instructs precisely that we should serve as our ‘brothers keepers.’ A few observers say that information reaching the SC from the Command Office in Kigali was not particularly clear about impending genocide; and that Members of the Council were led to believe the turmoil was just another civil stirring, not genocide. The SC President admitted that much, stressing that the UN would have reacted differently if members had been given access to proper information and knew otherwise. Eventually, intelligence and war reports carried by civilian eye-witnesses and professionals began to spread globally that the explosive condition in Rwanda was not just another civil

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war; rather, it was the targeting of an ethnic group for extermination via mass butchery of men, women, the elderly and children.33 For approximately the next six weeks since the start of the genocide, UNAMIR was mired in solo interventions that barely shielded a few of the endangered populations in the UN compounds against vandalism.34 The UN Security Council eventually did adopt (May 17, 1994) Resolution 918, leading to the delivery and stationing of nearly 5500 more troops along with fresh supplies of personnel carriers plus logistical equipment to UNAMIR in Kigali. But by this time the Paul Kagame-led RPF had lost confidence in the prospects of a third-party mediated resolution of the problem. His forces swept into Kigali in early July 1994 and ended the genocide within three months of martial action. Noteworthily in this regard, three-and-a-half years of international mediation had failed woefully to resolve a problem that the RPF was able to confront and settle in a corresponding number of weeks. And this should be taken into account as we ponder the morally laced thinking that all conflicts in the end are amenable to peaceful resolution. Perhaps certain conflicts require nothing but force to resolve them. Christopher Clapham is known for his preferences for diplomatic means of conflict resolution. But even he has had reservations about the utility of diplomacy in certain circumstances. He has this to say about the particular case in point: Given the ideology of ethnic exclusion promoted by the Hutu Power factions…and the extents to which these were prepared to go in order to uphold it, no pact [negotiated agreement] involving these groups was possible, and any settlement would have had to rest either on their supremacy or on their defeat.35

Following his military victory, Paul Kagame knew well that he needed to cultivate legitimacy for his government and so he immediately affirmed commitment to the letter and spirit of the Arusha Accord and eventually established a broad-based government that included the Hutus, but not members of the Habyarimana government. Details about the peculiar challenges faced by Kagame in post-conflict reconstruction in Rwanda have been deeply researched and written.36 The war experiences no doubt have affected the pace and direction of peacebuilding in post-war Rwanda. More openly also, the war experience has redefined Rwanda’s foreign policy toward France.37 And particularly in regard to regional security, Rwanda today is a leading contributor of troops for UN peacekeeping.38

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On another level, Rwanda was saddled with structural impediments typically expected in the aftermaths of genocidal war.39 Fragile peace40 along with an unstable political environment threatened to stymie political stability and the proper administration of things. And resettlement of displaced persons was urgently required to preempt a reoccurrence of war: Nearly 5.2 million Rwandese citizens found themselves in refugee camps in Zaire, Tanzania, Burundi, and Uganda. Another 1.2 million were internally displaced in rough settlements around Lake Kivu in the north-west region of Rwanda. The condition posed enormous security, health, and ecological risks. UNAMIR logically had also morphed into a bonafide humanitarian institution. Working along with hundreds of international NGOs arriving in the country, the blue helmets distributed relief materials and protected both civilian and government infrastructure against “spoiler” groups. Although UNAMIR was a failure in regard to achieving the main mission of averting war and securing stable peace in Rwanda, it provided humanitarian services during the 1994 genocide which to this day are acknowledged as having saved the lives of tens of thousands of Rwandan Tutsis and moderate Hutus. It is largely for this reason that the UN Forces Commander General Dallaire became the first person ever to be awarded the Aegis Trust Award for acts of bravery. The UN terminated the UNAMIR mandate on March 8, 1996, and the troops were withdrawn from Rwanda two weeks thence.

II. North Macedonia: Preventive Diplomacy on a Tripod North Macedonia could not be more different and culturally distinct from Rwanda. A country of roughly two million people, North Macedonia is located at the southernmost territory of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). It is composed of Slav-Macedonians (64%), Albanians (25%) with the remaining 10% of the population made up of Turks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Romas (Gypsies), and Armenians. At a glance, we can see that North Macedonia, unlike Rwanda, is the prototype multiethnic society, while Rwanda has remained nearly a complete homogeneous entity and its population till date share similar ancestral and familial traditions dating back several centuries. North Macedonia’s political fortunes changed drastically only after the end of World War II, when Josip Tito granted it a semi-autonomous status in the Yugoslav Federation along with Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Prior to this, particularly during the first

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half of the twentieth century, North Macedonia was characteristically subjugated, balkanized, and occupied by the succession of European countries. The beginning of a grandly new political dawn for North Macedonia came in the immediate post-Cold War period through the dissolution of Tito’s Yugoslav Federation in 1991. Along with the other semi-independent FRY entities, North Macedonia’s independence referendum was massively supported by close to 90% of its people. An independent North Macedonian state was created and it adopted all the trappings of parliamentary democracy. In particular, the new constitution was based on the rule of law, guaranteeing also individual rights to citizens based on the understanding of democratic constitutional equality. For the first time, North Macedonia achieved the status of nationhood, and Kiro Gligorov became the first president of the newly minted nation. But with independence and nationhood also came the anticipated challenges of self-rule in two forms: Externally, there was the concern about possible irredentist moves by the historically designated “four wolves”41 ; in addition, the flow of contraband from Kosovo and refugee movements from conflicts in the contiguous states posed possible national security problems. Internally, Albanian nationalism could severely imperil nationbuilding and national unity.42 Those designated “four wolves” consist of Albania, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia. Tripod-I: Preventive Military Deployment to Deter the ‘Four Wolves’ Prioritizing external security, Gligorov in late May 1992 requested from the UN Security Council and received (December 11) the very first purely preventive force to fortify North Macedonian territorial borders. The United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) had already been established (February via UN Resolution—1992)43 in Croatia and BosniaHerzegovina. UNPROFOR-MC became the additional Balkan Command set up in accordance with UN Resolution 795. Its mandate stipulated appropriately, thus: “UNPROFOR-MC [will] be stationed on the inside of the Republic’s borders with Albania and Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) with an essential preventive mandate to monitor any developments which could undermine stability”44 Additional contribution of 300 troops in June came from the United States, and it was hailed by the UN as a most “tangible support deployment …to further strengthen confidence and stability in North Macedonia and underscore the message that the international community will not accept any further widening of the tragic

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conflict in the region.”45 This US military input was however unprecedented, but warmly welcomed as in the preceding via Security Council Resolution S/Res/842, 1993. The UN Force in Macedonia was almost entirely composed of battalions from Nordic countries, until the arrival of US Troops, and thereafter Nordic troops formed half of the UN forces in the said location.46 Four years later, President Gligorov again requested and received from the UN Security Council in March 1995 a separate UN Preventive Deployment (UNPREDEP) mission specifically for North Macedonia with the mandate to accomplish and underscore three main things: (I) “North Macedonia’s status as an Independent and Sovereign State”; (II) greater and direct attention from the United Nations; and (III) increase in the amount of local procurement in North Macedonia in ways to strengthen the nation’s weak local economic base.47 In addition, the mission received a 50man strong Indonesian Heavy Engineering Army Corps to build new roads and maintain essential infrastructure in North Macedonia.48 The UNPREDEP was made possible largely because UN operations in Bosnia and Croatia had come to an end. Importantly, several reviews about UNPREDEP, its utility or performance with regard to fulfilling the set political objectives and military goals have been particularly favorable and positive. Most scholars agree that during its seven-year term UNPREDEP was decisively successful in deterring all possible irredentist designs by North Macedonia’s its neighbors, and that it prevented spillovers of violence from warring parts of the Greater Balkan region. Needless-to-say, the mere presence of international forces in the country constituted a glaring and muchrequired signal to would-be trouble makers that the international community stood behind North Macedonian sovereignty. All stakeholders were united in promoting the young nation’s right to develop its own individualized national identity unfettered by an overarching concern about irredentism in the neighborhood. At the end of it, none would disagree that tripod-I of UN’s three-legged prevention mechanism for North Macedonia was successful; it remained strong and discharged the required functions ably. Effectively too, military battalions, military observers, and civilian police were used to reinforce and accomplish border duties. The same means were applied with equal effect to control smuggling, moderate local police behavior, and bolster confidence among local communities that they were protected and could live their lives with minimum fear of external aggression. UNPREDEP officially pulled out of North Macedonia following the expiration of its mandate on February 28, 1999.49 Indeed, there was drama

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to the happening because China was the only permanent member of the UN Security Council to oppose the application to extend the UNPREDEP mandate. Although China had supported its decision on the excuse that no UN peacekeeping operation must become open-ended commitment, in reality it was clear to many that the Chinese veto against mandate extension was in retaliation against North Macedonia’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. A gravely infuriated Beijing vented its frustration via counter diplomatic measure to deprive North Macedonia the comfort of UN umbrella of protection in the form of UN protective troops. About the performance of UNPREDEP, we are reminded that its success in North Macedonia was largely, if not exclusively, due to the host country’s predisposition to cooperate; more so, there was enormous goodwill from the international community to strengthen the prevention force and to the protect North Macedonia against anticipated external threats. Tripod-II: UN Good Offices Diplomacy (Legitimacy of Peacemaking Collides with Sovereignty) In addition to preventive peacekeeping (UNPREDEP), the second piece in the UN’s three-legged prevention mechanism in North Macedonia was the UN Secretary-General’s Good Offices Diplomacy.50 The UN SecretaryGeneral Boutros-Ghali noted specifically from the beginning that “the internal situation … [in North Macedonia] could prove to be more detrimental to the stability of the country than external aggression.”51 The latter threat, as I have already noted, had been preemptively defused. In contrast to the success in border monitoring however, UN’s attempts to help treat and resolve internal problems were met with much-diluted enthusiasm by the Government of North Macedonia. Veteran Macedonian bureaucrats were heard grumbling at the corridors of power that the said UN good offices mandate soon could evolve into a “colonial overseer government.” Unsurprising, leaders are commonly protective of sovereignty, frequently claim legitimate authority on domestic problems and would grudgingly accept external “meddling” in their internal affairs only when pressed in specific circumstances. This was the case for North Macedonia. Gligorov and his Cabinet decided to tolerate UN good offices diplomacy as an inconvenient exchange for the relief gained on border security. Internal conditions that had been recognized to be even more dangerous than external threats revolve around minority grievances with regard to the

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free exercise of their citizenship rights, fears of ethnic discrimination, and marginalization by the majority. Apprehension on the matter was however mutual and self-reinforcing: The more the government (dominated as it were by Slav-Macedonians) exuberantly spoke of the need to develop and cement a common North Macedonian cultural identity for “all Macedonian citizens,” the more the message collides and jams ferociously against other minorities, inducing them to openly oppose the government and to assert their own identity as separate people. The counter-action52 produces a vicious cycle; something akin to the dynamics of “security dilemma”53 in international politics whereby the attempt by one nation to arm itself and to increase its military strength generates insecurity among the community of nations, leading eventually to the vicious cycle of uncontrollable and dangerous gunrunning and armament that eventually explodes war. The UN Secretary-General’s good offices diplomacy was designed to break this cycle. Thus, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in North Macedonia was authorized “…to use his good offices as appropriate to contribute to the maintenance of peace and stability in the Republic.”54 And given the limitations customarily imposed by sovereignty, the mandate cautioned “that legally and politically North Macedonia’s request for, or at least acquiescence in, United Nations action was a sine qua non.”55 The profile of problems that in fact are continuing to bedevil and plague Slav-Macedonian versus Albanian relations include: (I) Albanian referendum on territorial autonomy: The move for Albanian autonomy was in part a culmination of disagreements over national census figures that placed Albanians at 22% and Slav-North Macedonian population at 66%. Ethnic Albanians say they account for roughly between 30 and 40% of the population. Albanians also accused the government of passing restrictive citizenship laws said to deliberately discriminate against ethnic Albanians. In response, the government pointed to heavy illegal immigration from Kosovo, contending that many Albanians in North Macedonia are not citizens of North Macedonia who are entitled to citizenship rights. Meanwhile, the referendum raised the fear that Albanians really want to separate from North Macedonia; and that they do not want to coexist with other citizens in a common independent state of North Macedonia (II) Question of under-representation: Although the government says it has done everything to ensure balanced ethnic representation everywhere in North Macedonia, ethnic Albanians are demanding wider representation and participation in government, especially in the armed forces, the police, legal professions

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and in political office. They also complained that even Albanian-majority communities are administered entirely by ethnic Macedonian bureaucrats. (III) Language, Culture and Education: Ethnic Albanians want the government to recognize Albanian as a second official language and to recognize the private Albanian Language University of Tetovo as essential institution to develop, teach, and expand Albanian language and associated cultural values. But the Government of North Macedonia expresses concerns that such a university—which was set up arbitrarily and unilaterally by Albanians—would sharpen the ideological divisions in the country. After rounds of riots caused by attempts on the part of the police to shot down the institution, compromise legislation was prepared and presented by the government to extend a quota system for admission of ethnic Albanians into North Macedonian Language Schools. Protagonists had cited the low admission rate of ethnic Albanians into national language schools, and a majority of ethnic Albanians think the legislation does not deal sufficiently with their need for education and educational services including the array of systemic forces that guarantee structural discrimination in North Macedonian society. Albanians complain that the constitution itself contains words and ideas that subliminally alienate ethnic Albanians. On perusal, Article 7 of the Constitution states thus: “The Macedonian language, written in Cyrillic alphabet, is the official language in the Republic of Macedonia.”56 Ethnic Albanians say the statement together with the use of Cyrillic alphabet establishes the Macedonian language as the single and only official language acceptable in North Macedonia. Memory of the history of repression of ethnic Albanians lingers and it incentivizes conflict. Taking the preceding into account—of competing claims and counterclaims between the government and ethnic Albanians about fairness in governance—one can begin to appreciate the reasoning that the good offices diplomacy achieved only modest results. And that the Government of North Macedonia only tolerated, rather than fully cooperate in the efforts by external actors to resolve Northern Macedonia’s ethnically driven internal political problems. Achievements were limited to Track-II instead of Track-I diplomacy.57 Nevertheless, one significant good offices success and contribution to peace was the monitoring of the 1994 General Elections. Another was the successful promotion of dialogue among political leaders and political party representatives across ethnic groups. Observers say, however, that those dialogue sessions were particularly cordial and uncontroversial because the

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facilitators never delved into contentious matters that framed ethnic minority concerns such as constitutional rights of minorities, questions of citizenship, or ethnic Albanian claims on territorial autonomy. The North Macedonian Government on its part insisted that making any significant concessions on substantive Albanian demands would further inflame ethnic divisions and legitimize Albanian claims on the right of autonomy.58 Noteworthy, UN good offices diplomacy was used effectively to influence the Security Council Resolution banning the “sale or supply of arms and related materiel to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia including Kosovo.”59 In practical terms, UNPREDEP’s mandate was extended to include the monitoring of border areas to intercede the flow of illegal arms and “…report such activities prohibited by resolution 1160 to the UN Secretary General.”60 It seems plain; UN’s good offices diplomacy was not particularly successful in addressing and resolving internal problems in North Macedonia. And the limits of the UN peacemaking in this regard can be measured from the point of view of the 2001 outbreak of Albanian-led uprising along the North Macedonia-Kosovo border. According to the leaders, the main cause of the bloodied incident was the consciousness of ethnic marginalization together with the minority’s determination to secure greater rights for all ethnic Albanians. Details of the war dynamics and the way these were eventually contained are beyond our immediate remit, since our focus has been primarily on the UN intervention in North Macedonia. The conflict was resolved by the joint efforts of the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Intense negotiations culminated in the willingness for peace, yielding the Ohrid Framework of Agreement in August 2001. As evident, the Agreement’s opening statement speaks of “…securing the future of North Macedonia’s democracy and permitting the developments of closer and more integrated relations between the Republic of North Macedonia and the Euro-Atlantic Community.”61 The agreement was able to produce much success where the UN good offices diplomacy had fallen short. It directly and boldly stipulates new conditions on ethnic relations taking into serious account those demands that had been repeatedly made by ethnic Albanian minorities since independence struggle in 1991. Unlike the UN good offices mandate, whereby mediation tended to perhaps overly show respect for the principles of sovereignty, foreign EU and NATO envoys apparently adopted the radicalized “responsibility to protect” model—to the effect that dealing productively with

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conflict or complex emergencies requires and should entail trampling on sovereignty—to some extent.62 The EU-NATO envoys were unequivocal that ethnic Albanian demands were legitimate and had to be addressed by the government forthwith, in order to ensure national unity and interethnic harmony. As such, while recognizing Slav-Macedonian language as an official language throughout North Macedonia,63 the framework of agreement strongly recommends that any other language spoken by at least 20% of the population is also an official language. With respect to primary and secondary education, the framework specifies that “instruction will be provided in the students’ native language, while at the same time uniform standards of academic programs will be applied throughout North Macedonia.”64 Ohrid seizes the bull by the horn on nearly all matters concerning ethnic Albanian minority fears of assimilation or exclusion from participation in the mainstreams of national politics. At this point, it is pertinent to recognize those additional, new and emergent conditions that favored EU’s breakthrough in peacemaking at the particular conjunction in North Macedonian evolution as a nation-state: (I) It had become abundantly clear to the government of North Macedonia that a military solution to the Albanian question was impossible, given the exit of UNPREDEP and the country’s paltry military capability. More so, (II) in addition to amassing significant amount or weaponry, the Albanian militants had easy access to arms flowing from Kosovo. And (III) public officials in Macedonia were conscious of the fact that international recognition of North Macedonia as a transitional democracy requires transparency and fairness in the treatment of minorities including demonstration of official predisposition to peaceful resolution of internal dilemmas. (IV) And the international community was petrified that war in North Macedonia would spread into the rest of the Balkans, and they were determined to nib it in the bud. These conditions fused together and forced the Government of Northern Macedonia to now bend and accept the same propositions for mediated settlement that had previously been offered with repeated favor via UN good offices. In short, the ethnic upheaval did help to expose the extent of North Macedonia’s military weakness. The government was thereby forced to face realities, leading to official adjustments and change in the country’s perceptions on national unity and a sharpening of incentives for a negotiated settlement of sensitive issues revolving around accommodation of ethnic difference and economic development in general.

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Tripod-III: Preventive Diplomacy as the Means for Promotion of Human Development Socioeconomic development constitutes the third leg in UN’s conflict prevention diplomacy in North Macedonia; and the UN Special Representative in North Macedonia, Henryk Sokalski, shares and elaborates in publications the nature of his participation in that capacity. He believes the UN was without doubt successful in lifting the quality of life among North Macedonians.65 Some would like to call it post-conflict reconstruction with emphases on peacebuilding66 ; the human dimension to brokering peace in North Macedonia emphasizes the facilitation of social development programs, including the promotion of community health, expansion of employment activities through training in trade for self-employment and education on how to establish, manage, and expand social welfare programs. In other words, security was broadly defined to include and in fact underscore human well-being; and not just military-type security to protect national territorial integrity. More so, the Political and Humanitarian Affairs and the Public Information Units of the UNPREDEP mission were specifically tasked with the responsibility to work with local civil society toward improving infrastructures in transportation in communities. Creating access to food supplies and basic facilities of hygiene were additional duties. Representatives in these public-oriented units took the proactive steps of monitoring developments in potential conflict-prone communities, with an eye to promoting reconciliation among various ethnic groups. Conflict prevention and sustainable development were treated as mutually reinforcing factors, constituting also two different sides of the same coin. Confidence building being of the essence too, the ordinary North Macedonian folk together with kin-groups were consistently reminded about the purposes of the UN intervention as well as the link between peacekeeping, liberation of the human spirit and the emancipating value of peace. In this way, the social distance that existed originally was narrowed and eventually eliminated between peacemakers and the various political operatives and ethnic groups at all levels, the village, local, and national. Peacemakers also targeted and worked with several organized youth groups.67 Youth focus groups were indeed created, and participants were encouraged to raise and discuss current issues revolving around the importance of celebrating particularistic identities and using them as strong blocks for nation-building, rather than treating them as the forces of disorder and division. For similar

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purposes, the usefulness of ethnic and religious tolerance68 was emphasized. On another level, Eli Stamnes adds that UN representatives worked with the “the umbrella organization for women’s NGOs, the Union of Women’s Organization in North Macedonia”69 to alleviate the impacts of marginalization of women in the areas of education, health, and politics. Preventive intercessions for advancement of human security were designed determinedly and pursued energetically to ensure success. Interveners used every piece of equipment in the tool-box, including extra-mandate efforts such as fundraising to supplement wider socioeconomic community activities. As Sokalski puts it: Every time we had an interesting project, we would embark on an active fundraising campaign among interested members, international organisations, or NGOs. In many instances our efforts proved successful: UNPREDEP garnered close to U.S. $8 million in cash and kind…because we could not count on additional staff for these projects. We relied heavily on cooperating institutions and organisations in most cases. Moreover, for most projects, we had the full support and active involvement of North Macedonia’s Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Labor and Social Affairs, and Justice, as well as the Ministry of Internal Affairs.70

Successive Governments of North Macedonia have frequently expressed deep concerns about the destabilizing social consequences of drugtrafficking origination mainly from Kosovo via North Macedonia to the rest of the FRY. Unsurprising then, crime prevention71 formed the second part of the human dimension of the UN intervention in North Macedonian society. Officially stated in the program of action for community peace, crime can exacerbate teething problems among countries making the transition from war to peace; it is shown to vastly distort democratization. And despite national and international interventions via the use of force, organized criminal networks from South America are steadily and significantly broadening the illicit trade and deepening their roots in Africa, Asia and Europe. Recognizing the insidious nature of the trade, UNPREDEP wasted no time in contacting and soliciting the assistance of the UN International Drug Control Program (UNDCP) and the Center for International Crime Prevention (CICP).

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The first team of experts visited North Macedonia in mid-1995 to assess the country’s technical needs in the areas of crime prevention and criminal justice, and those foreign experts strongly pressed the point that North Macedonia must articulate and pass legislation outlawing and criminalizing drug trafficking. Thereafter, the government must also seek ways and means of building security services strong enough to combat not just drug trafficking, but also to battle the associated underground trade in small arms. A national think tank was established with the mandate to identify weaknesses in the country’s anti-crime regime and recommend how best to block policy loopholes and strengthen the country’s counter-intelligence mechanisms. Along with this, a national law review committee was appointed and established to draft laws, which were then submitted to the North Macedonian parliament including a draft law to control bureaucratic corruption. Alas! National Security forces in Macedonia as elsewhere in the democratizing world are implicated as facilitators of international crime. The mission of experts that visited North Macedonia in late September 1996 focused on institution strengthening. Younger and new recruits into law enforcement received intensive training in police investigative techniques, border police control, and customs police procedures. Innovative policies on drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation programs were designed to take care of citizens who had fallen prey to the addictive habit of illegal drug consumption. These had to be treated and rehabilitated. Sections of the security sector received training in forensic science and criminal ballistic investigation.72 UNPREDEP successfully added significant value to domestic crime prevention by boosting the criminal justice methods and administration. The Integrated Criminal Justice Information Data-Base was developed whereby felons today can be identified and tracked. And the Joint Project on Policing and Human Rights stresses the concept of community policing and the role of civil society in helping the police extend peace. It warns against the trampling of human rights and dignity of the individual by law enforcement officers. Lastly, it was agreed that on the termination of UNPREDEP’s mandate, initiatives for crime and drug control in North Macedonia would be managed jointly by the Vienna branch of UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention and the UNDP office in Skopje. The said joint structure is today operational, helping to mitigate law-breaking. They are sturdily designed to protect domestic communities and to ensure continuity in the war against international crime and corruption in Northern Macedonia.73

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III. Concluding Thoughts A few observations about the outcomes of UN peace initiatives in North Macedonia and Rwanda should underscore the differences between success and failures in conflict management. Cooperation with peacekeepers is the critical element of achievement in peacemaking in general. Differences in the ways North Macedonia and Rwandese bureaucracies handled national security and defense issues should also serve as learning opportunities for conflict management in West Africa. In North Macedonia, President Kiro Gligorov realized that his government lacked the capacity to maintain internal security, much less to defend the country against potential or real external attacks. He acted quickly and as a ration actor by requesting and eagerly receiving UN military assistance. As well, although Gligorov was reticent and lukewarm on the offer of UN good offices diplomacy to help address internal ethnic Albanian grievances, his government warmly accepted offers by the UN Special Representative to nudge socioeconomic development as a legitimate component of both preventive diplomacy and national security. Rwandese President Habyarimana relied heavily on French ex-colonial links throughout the emergencies to stave off the Tutsi militants, and he was repressive, authoritarian, and dismissive of minority Tutsi request for government reform on ethnic issues. Hutu extremists’ boycott of the Arusha Peace Talks was a dangerous warning signal that was ignored or downplayed by political stakeholders on the continent and at the Security Council. Unlike the UN mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR), the North Macedonian UNPREDEP mission adopted a comprehensive and bottom-up approach to brokering peace in the host country. None of the detailed measures including programs designed to fight international crime and bureaucratic corruption were proposed or considered in the case of Rwanda, in part because at the nadir of dark politics there seemed to be no government at all at Kigali. The Rwandese official leadership appeared comfortable to abdicate governing authority including decisions about the political future of Rwanda to Hutu extremists in government. These had been overtly steeped in the devious plan to annihilate Tutsis. And the media remained dominant on hostile messaging; unrelentingly a radio station fanned the ambers of ethnic animosity leading to the massacre of Tutsis and genocide.74 In effect then, conflicts that are allowed to fester customarily will throw up herculean conundrum

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that overwhelms both the society as a whole and the peacemaker in particular. It is easier and better to prevent emergence of imbroglio than confront its messy material and human outcomes. Lastly, postwar Rwanda provides a window into the political futures of countries making the transition from war to peace. More urgent for careful study and analysis is the rising involvement of ex-insurgents in the formation of legitimate government. Quite a few former ex-guerrillas in the post-Cold War era have successfully made the transition from “Guerrilla to Governor.” And this should encourage strategic questions for deeper research: What have been the implications of the metamorphosis for the quality and prospects of postwar stability? Also those socioeconomic and cultural conditions which had caused war tend to persist even after the cessation of turmoil. Are ex-guerrilla governors making efforts adequate to mitigate the conditions that ultimately exploded internal violence and collapse of state institutions of governance? Along this line, postwar Rwanda compels careful and concentrated reflection for comparative purposes on the diverse impacts of conflict on different societies (Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Uganda among many others) across time. What does a comparative analyses and assessment of postwar conditions (conflict or collaboration) tell us about the ability of “guerrilla governments” to govern? Can a former guerrilla become a reliable democratic administrator? Scholarly research and studies on the status of human rights in Rwanda and the implications of Paul Kagame’s constitutionally elongated rule (as president since March 2000) are ongoing. And most of the interim conclusions on the issues of leadership and the prospects of consolidating constitutional democracy are compelling, engaging and sometimes concerning.

Notes 1. David Hamburg, No More Killing Fields: Preventing Deadly Conflict (New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). 2. Hamburg says that effective preventive diplomacy rests on three orientations: early responses to signs of trouble; forward-looking approach to counteract the risk factors that trigger violent conflict; and extended effort to resolve underlying causes of violence. See David Hamburg and Elie Wiesel, Preventing Genocide: Practical Steps Toward Early Detection and Effective Action (New York, NY: Routledge, 2016). 3. Alex Bellamy, Peace Operations and Global Order (London: Routledge, 2005).

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4. See Phillip Roessler and Harry Verhoeven, Why Comrades Go to War: Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa’s Deadliest Conflict (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017). 5. See Karin Dyrstad, et al., “Micro-Foundations of Civil Conflict: Ethnicity and Context,” International Interactions 37, no. 4 (2011), 363–387. 6. Transcript, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) World Service, International Question Time, April 27, 1997. 7. Quoted in Touko Piiparinen, “Beyond the Mystery of the Rwanda ‘Black Box:’ Political Will and Early Warning,” International Peacekeeping 13, no. 3 (September 2006), 334–349. Cited originally as: Interview with Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Paris, April 15, 2005. 8. Lt. General Romeo Dallaire (Interview by David Maffe), “21st Century Approaches to Maintaining Peace in Africa,” New Africa, May 2017, 31– 33. 9. See Christian Wise, “African Union’s Right of Humanitarian Intervention as Collective Self-Defense,” Chicago Journal of International Law 19, no. 1 (Summer 2018), 295–332. 10. Theo Neethling and Heidi Hudson, eds., Post Conflict Reconstruction and Development in Africa: Concept, Role Players, Policy and Practice (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2013). 11. This quote is reproduced and attributed to former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. It represents his original thought on preventive diplomacy in 1954. About which official publication, see Conflict Prevention Center of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE, Vienna), 2018. 12. Devon Whittle, “Peacekeeping in Conflict: The Intervention Brigade, MONUSCO, and the Application of International Humanitarian Law to United Nations Forces,” Georgetown Journal of International Law 46, no. 3 (Spring 2015), 837–849. 13. Katharina Coleman, “Innovations in ‘African Solutions to African Problems:’ The Evolving Practice of Regional Peacekeeping in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies 49, no. 4 (2011), 517–545. 14. Alexander Joachim Koops, et al., Oxford Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 15. Daniel Levine, The Morality of Peacekeeping (Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburg University Press, 2014). 16. Ozcelik Sezai, “The Theory and Practice of Conflict Prevention: Case Study of North Macedonia and the United Nations Peace Force (UNPREDEP),” Economic and Administrative Science 1, no. 1 (December 2011), 41–65. 17. On attributes and operational qualities of preventive deployment, see Cvete Koneska, “On Peace Negotiations and Institutional Design in North Macedonia: Social Learning and Lessons Learned from Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Peacebuilding 5, no. 1 (2017), 36–50.

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18. David Ludlow, “Preventive Peacemaking in North Macedonia: An Assessment of UN Good Offices Diplomacy,” Brigham Young University Law Review (2003), 761–800. 19. See UN Secretary-General Report on the Situation in Former Yugoslavia, S/223.93, no. 66, 1993. Regional security organizations are also strengthening their conflict management mechanisms in anticipation of new security threats such as terrorism. For theoretical and conceptual contribution to security risks and human security, see V.P. Gagnon, Post Conflict Studies: An Interdisciplinary Approach (New York: Routledge, 2014). Also see Raffaelle Marchetti and Natalie Tocci, Conflict Society and Peacebuilding: Comparative Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2011). 20. Peacebuilding would encompass processes that facilitate the establishment of durable peace. See Fritz Nanje, “The Rhetoric and Practice of International Responsibility to Prevent Mass Atrocities: Reflections on South Africa’s Peacebuilding Role in South Sudan (2005–2013),” African Security Review 26, no. 3 (September 2017), 271–287. 21. Bonny Ibhawoh, “Peacebuilding in the African Union: Law, Philosophy and Practice,” African Studies Review 56, no. 2 (September 2013), 207–209. 22. Elizabeth King and Robert O. Matthews, “A New Agenda for Peace: 20 Years Later,” International Journal 67, no. 2 (2012), 275–289. 23. Naazneen Barma, Peacebuilding Puzzle: Political Order in Post Conflict States (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 24. James Jay Carney, Rwanda Before the Genocide: Catholic Politics and Ethnic Discourses in the Late Colonia Era (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014). 25. Thompson P. Odom, Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda (College Station, TX: Texas A & M University Press, 2005), Introduction; Chapters 2–4. 26. For related conceptualization, see Jonathan Glover, Moral History of the Twentieth Century (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 2012), Chapters 1, 3 and 4. 27. See Christopher Clapham, “Rwanda: The Perils of Peacemaking,” Journal of Peace Research 35, no. 2 (1998), 193–210. 28. Habyarimana felt secure about his chances of eventually scoring victory over the insurgents because he had been the beneficiary of a steady injection of French logistical and financial support from the outset of RPF’s challenge on national power. Meanwhile, the RPF had grown confident it could drag-out the insurgency. More so, thousands of moderate Hutus finding the Habyarimana regime unbearably repressive, were joining the Kagame revolution in droves per day. 29. Ahmadu Deme, “Setting the Record Straight,” New Africa, no. 452 (June 2006); Ingvar Carlsson, “The UN Inadequacies,” Journal of International Criminal Justice 3, no. 4 (2005), 835–846.

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30. Cyprien Ntaryamira was barely two months old in office as Burundi’s head of state when bad luck struck. He had been elected to the presidency on February 5, 1994. 31. General Booh-Booh was harshly criticized by Romeo Dallaire for not acting on information he had allegedly received about the impending genocide. See Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda (Toronto, ON: Random House, 2003). Booh-Booh vigorously denies the allegations. See Jacques-Roger Booh-Booh, Le Patron de Dallaire Parle (Doboiris, 2005). 32. His requests for additional troops were consistently denied by the UN Head Office in New York. But members of the UNAMIR forces did manage to save the lives of thousands of Tutsis in and around Kigali. 33. Olaifa Temitope, et al., “The 1994 Rwandan Conflict: Genocide or War?” International Journal of World Peace 30, no. 3 (September 2013), 31–54. The authors mirror the distinctions between genocide and war thus: “Genocide in specific terms refers to violent crimes committed against particular groups, with the intent to destroy the existence of such groups.” And then: “War is a form of coercive diplomacy in which what cannot be obtained through dialogue is achieved by force.” 34. Paul J. Magnarella, Justice in Africa: Rwanda’s Genocide, Its Courts and the UN Criminal Tribunal (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2000). 35. Christopher Clapham, “Rwanda…” op. cit., 209, note 27. 36. Timothy Paul Longman, Memory and Justice in Post-genocide Rwanda (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017). 37. Rwandese colonial ties were with Belgium and Germany including strong postcolonial relations with France. Kigali broke off diplomatic relations temporarily with Paris before resumption in November 2009. And at issue was French military and logistical support for the Habyarimana regime during the war. Partly also for that reason, Kagame decided to diversify his country’s foreign relations and today Rwanda is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. 38. Rwanda is currently among the strongest supporters of multilateral diplomacy and ranks fifth among UN’s top peacekeeping contributors, immediately behind Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Ethiopia. Over 6000 Blue Helmets around the world are Rwandese troops. Michael Liegeois and Damien Deltenre, “Astuteness in Commitment: Rwanda and UN Peacekeeping, 1994–2014,” The Round Table 106, no. 4 (2017), 421–435. 39. See Stephen Kelly and Joseph Rurangwa, “Strengthening Institutional Performance in Rwanda,” Performance Improvement 57, no. 5 (2018), 31–37. 40. On this, see Jason Dominguez Meyers, “From Paralysis in Rwanda to Boldness in Libya: Has the International Community Taken ‘Responsibility to Protect’ from Abstract Principle to Concrete Norm Under International

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Law?” Houston Journal of International Law 34, no. 1 (Fall 2011), 87– 121. The heritage of North Macedonia’s military vulnerabilities can be gleaned from each of the neighbor’s sources of contention. Greece had accused Macedonia of “cultural piracy”; specifically, that the name “Macedonia” is an appropriation of Greek heritage, and that Macedonia was created by Tito as a first move in a grand design that Macedonia might yet want to materialize—to attack, dismember, and communize the northern part of Greece. Economic blockade was thereafter imposed on North Macedonia. Though the blockade was later lifted, Athens would not recognize the then Macedonia until recently in February 2019, when the name was officially changed to North Macedonia, in consonance with earlier bilateral agreements. Relations with Albania have been occasionally frosty, since Albania wants to play the role of “patron” for the Albania community in North Macedonia, a role that North Macedonia resents and criticizes as interference in domestic affairs of North Macedonia. Bulgaria is said to be the friendliest among the neighbors, though like the Greeks, Bulgarians have a problem legitimizing Slav-Macedonians as a separate people or nationality—they claim that North Macedonians are simply Bulgarians. This has intensified concerns among North Macedonians about possible irredentist designs on the part of Bulgarians. And Serbian ultra-nationalists say that present-day North Macedonia is the historical heartland of “Medieval Serbia”; and that North Macedonians are simply misguided and confused Serbs whom they would like to reabsorb into a future “Greater Serbian Federation.” Above all this is the overarching fear of a possible war inside Kosovo, either caused by Serbian ethnic cleansing offensive or Albanian uprising. The nightmare scenario envisages an outpouring of Albanian refugees from Kosovo into North Macedonia, provoking a backlash in which North Macedonia sides with the Serbs to stem the Albanian tide of refugees, arms and drugs. On some of this, see Sasho Ripiloski, Conflict in Macedonia: Exploring a Paradox in the Former Yugoslavia (Boulder, CO: FirstForum Press, 2011). Alexander Bellamy, Peace Operation and Global Order (London: Routledge, 2005). Additional insights into the human condition in North Macedonia during the early period of independence are presented in an electronic documentary, see Sanjeev Chatterjee, et al., The Shadow of History: A Documentary on Preventive Diplomacy in the Republic of North Macedonia (Florida: University of Miami, 1997). From 1992 to 1995 the missions to Bosnia, Croatia, and North Macedonia were all under UNPROFOR Central Command. See UN Document SCOR/RES/473 (1992). See Report of the United Nations Secretary-General on the Former Yugoslav Republic of North Macedonia, UN Document S/24923 (1992).

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45. This is quoted in David Ludlow, op. cit., 770, note 18. See also UN Document, S/25954 (1993). 46. Nordic presence is said to have helped stabilize the region. Nordic Internationalism is elaborated: See Clive Archer, “Conflict Prevention in Europe: The Case of the Nordic States and Macedonia,” Cooperation and Conflict 29, no. 4 (1994), 367–386. 47. See Ludlow, op. cit., 771, note 18. 48. See UN Document S/Resolution/1046 (1996). 49. See UN Document S/1999/201. 50. We may draw from the classic work of Sir Humphrey Waldock to the effect that good offices diplomacy embodies efforts by third parties “to induce the conflicting parties to negotiate between themselves.” J.L. Brierly, The Law of Nations: An Introduction to the International Law of Peace (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, Sixth Edition, 1963), 373. 51. See Report of the Secretary General Pursuant to Resolution 871 (1993). 52. The government’s high-spirited message on culture, identity, and national unity came across to minorities as official attempt to project and impose Slav-Macedonian culture. The counteraction was particularly strong among ethnic Albanians who dreaded ulterior motives, and they have been cultural warriors to protect and assert their own judiciously constructed and jealously guarded Albanian identity. 53. Among many applications of the concept to explanation of war, see Marco Nilsson, “Offense-Defense Balance, War Duration and Security Dilemma,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 56, no. 3 (June 2012), 487–489. 54. See UN Document S/Resolution 908. 55. See Ludlow, op. cit., 774, note 18. 56. See Article 7 of the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, December 7, 2005. 57. But issues of equality, political representation, language rights, and citizenship are constitutional issues requiring dialogues at the highest levels of governance. For reasons already noted in the text, the sitting government was reticent. See William Crowther, “Ethnic Condominium and Illiberalism in Macedonia,” East European Politics, Societies and Cultures 31, no. 4 (November 2017), 739–761; Joanne Mcevoy, “Managing Culture in Post Conflict Societies,” Contemporary Social Science 6, no. 1 (February 1, 2011), 55–71. 58. Sokalski was the UN Special Representative in Macedonia from 1995 to 1998, and he elaborates his experience on preventive peacekeeping. Sokalski argues that pursuant to the said mandate, the UN Good Offices Unit carried out many proactive activities such as monthly working luncheons with the political leaders and public office holders during which a host of domestic and international issues that were designed to encourage peaceful coexistence were discussed and emphasized, including the debriefings about what

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the UN was doing in North Macedonia. These working parties, he says, continued until late 1998. Hence inform us further: It fostered the development of a regular interparty dialogue at the highest level, something never before practiced in North Macedonia’s political arena. They helped to establish friendships among people who would otherwise find such relationships hardly conceivable. Between January 1996 and September 1998, UNPREDEP hosted twenty-six such informal meetings. Altogether at different points in time, forty-two party leaders attended them. (Henryk J. Sokaski, An Ounce of Prevention: North Macedonia and the UN Experience in Preventive Diplomacy (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2003), 54. 59. See UN Document S/Resolution/1160 (1998). 60. See UN Document S/Resolution/1186 (1998). 61. See Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Ohrid Framework of Agreement, August 13, 2001. 62. See Luke Glanville, “In Defense of the Responsibility to Protect,” Journal of Religious Ethics 41, no. 1 (2013), 169–182. William I. Zartman also represents a similar view of the necessity to bend sovereignty in order to prevent escalation: I. William Zartman, “Toward the Resolution of International Conflict,” in I. William Zartman and J. Lewis Rasmussen, eds., International Conflict: Methods and Techniques (Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace, 1997). 63. Ibid., Section 6.5. 64. Ibid., Section 6.4. 65. See Sokalski, op. cit., note 58. The author speaks to the values and principles upon which preventive diplomacy in Macedonia was based. He says the United Nations Preventive Deployment (UNPREDEP) was based on three conceptual pillars: “Military Action” “Brokering Peace” and the “Human Dimension.” 66. Ann Kelleher and Kelly Ryan, “Successful Local Peacebuilding in North Macedonia: Sustained Dialogue in Practice,” Peace Research 44, no. 1 (2012), 63–94. 67. Alexandra Balandina, “Music and Conflict Transformation in the PostYugoslavia Era: Empowering Youth to Develop Harmonic Inter-Ethnic Relationships in the Kumanova, North Macedonia,” International Journal of Community Music 3, no. 2 (July 2010), 229–244. 68. Sokalski, op. cit., 143, note 52. See citation of April 1998 “Joint Declaration of Youth Organizations in Support of Tolerance in the Republic of North Macedonia.” Sokalski says that roughly 15 such meetings convened throughout the country were attended by about 46 group leaders including youth

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attendees who were imaginative in their views about their future and the role of the state in the promotion of unity for all citizens. All participants were convinced that tolerance constitutes a critical value upon which the healthy society must be built. See Eli Stamnes, “Critical Security Studies and the United Nations Preventive Deployment in North Macedonia,” International Security 11, no. 1 (2004), 176. A think tank on policy making was created in addition to developing nonviolent conflict resolution education in schools and micro-credit assistance for women. Daniel Duncan, “Language Policy, Ethnic Conflict and Conflict Resolution: Albania in the Former Yugoslavia,” Language Policy 15, no. 4 (2016), 453–473. Beatrice Pouligny, et al., eds, After Mass Crime: Rebuilding States and Communities (New York: United Nations University Press, 2007). Two government institutions were established to support anti-drug and anti-crime initiatives; and the Ministries of Health and the Internal Affairs received technical assistance to bolster their capacities in drug analysis and criminal investigation. See Joseph R. Rudolph, From Mediation to Nation Building: Third Parties and the Management of Communal Conflict (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013). Mark Laity, Preventing War in Macedonia: Pre-emptive Diplomacy for the 21st Century (London, UK: Royal United Services Institute, 2008). Ervin Staub, Overcoming Evil: Genocide, Violence, Conflict and Terrorism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Helen Hintjens, “Conflict and Resources in Post Genocide Rwanda and the Great Lakes Region,” International Journal of Environmental Studies 63, no. 5 (October 1, 2006), 599–615; Vahakn Dadrian, “Patterns of Twentieth Century Genocide: The Armenian, Jewish and Rwandan Cases,” Journal of Genocide Research 6, no. 4 (December 2004), 487–522; and Rene Lemarchand, “Genocide in the Great Lakes: Which Genocide? Whose Genocide? (Hutu-Tutsi Conflict in Burundi, Rwanda and Congo),” African Studies Review 41, no. 1 (April 1998).

CHAPTER 9

Epilogue: Arbitrariness and Conflict—The Context of Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa Okon Akiba

There are assuredly cases in which it is allowable to go to war, without having ourselves been attacked. (John Stuart Mill)

Introduction In the wider flow of events following the end of the Cold War, I can spot mostly positive change in diplomacy and international political relations. Grave worries about terrorism and the threats of weapons of mass destruction notwithstanding, carriers of the strongest ideas about future peace are burgeoning and among them are organizations working in war-traumatized zones across the globe. Each is energized and armed with innovative strategies to mitigate human suffering and war-induced uncertainties. Professional conflict managers in big as well as in smaller international organizations are giving greater and deeper thought than before to humanitarian challenges relating to upheavals inside contemporary nation-states. They

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appear eager and willing to develop and test new ways and means of resolving blood-splattering emergencies globally. Elsewhere, college curriculums on peace studies have come alive with critical graduate course offerings in mediation, post-conflict rehabilitation, reconciliation, and peacebuilding. Although the conflict resolution seminars on achieving peace through violent force is oxymoronically framed, it underscores the moral flavor of contemporary global politics. Peace by all means possible! And debates among the media speak to the imperative of global leadership, indeed of good global governance. They say that powerful nations have a responsibility to impart empathy and to enrich rather than erode those highly valued undergirdings of interstate relations. Said also to be naturally imbued with constructive plus contagious qualities, benevolence along with compassion are among those irreplaceable human resources about which the civilized society of nations are urged to produce in abundance and put to use in the service of humanity. To my mind, the positive outlook of leaders in many norm-reinforcing global institutions helps to explain why popular expectation for future improvements in the human condition persists today, even as bad governments continue to spawn avoidable trepidation and deadly disquiet.1 Cold War and Peace Treaties at the UN: A Glimpse The humanitarian impulse and thinking upon the imperative of order have grown geometrically in the last thirty years, steadily weaving a web of normative concerns about prevention around the decision-making mechanisms of the Security Council. Back to the future, the original methods and themes of preventive diplomacy that had been left dormant for what seems like eternity—they were plait at the end of World War II—are now the dominant themes in the UN’s revamped purposes to pursue and ensure security in the evolving global order. Consequently, the United Nations treaty (Article 99 of the UN Charter) requires the UN Secretary-General to bring to the attention of the Security Council any condition considered to pose threats to international peace and security. The subject again arises this time more expansively in Article 33 of the UN Charter, in which regional institutions are identified and their precise conflict resolution functions are spelled out. Those institutions must serve as important drivers of

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peace processes, accordingly, (I) the party to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice. (II) The Security Council shall, when it deems necessary, call upon the parties to settle their disputes by such means. Article 52 (1-4) encourages “…the development of pacific settlement of local disputes through regional arrangements or such regional agencies either on the initiative of the states concerned or by reference from the Security Council.”2 As is apparent from all the foregoing, prevention is the heart of ongoing efforts to mitigate, manage, and resolve conflict. Preventive diplomacy was introduced and first used in our present times as a concept of peace in the Special Report to the Fifteenth United Nations General Assembly on the Congo Crisis (1961), in which Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld put in plain words to the UN General Assembly his own vision of the character of the emergent Cold War era. He spoke of the dangers that inhered in the mapping of the world into “spheres of bloc differences” by the superpowers, warning that unrestrained competition for power could escalate both interstate and domestic tensions culminating in the enlargement of regional contagion. Against this background of real apprehension and fear about the future health of the world, Hammarskjöld prioritized protection for the newly minted sovereign states of Africa including the smaller, vulnerable countries of Asia and Latin America. The budding states, he said, had to be protected and prevented from becoming puns on the big-power chessboard. The Secretary-General in effect was urging the adoption of preventive diplomacy3 as an antidote to the problem and as a common-sense strategy to conflict management and resolution. The UN, in his view, needed to rush to the scene of local conflict (“fire,” in his words) to mitigate and resolve it before the major Cold War contenders arrived at the scene to complicate matters by arming one side against the other. The symbolism of the UN acting as the world’s fireman originated from Hammarskjöld. And his thought was apt and even prescient, because the local conflicts that latter erupted during the mid-later days of the Cold War were saturated with ideological confusion that enveloped and exhausted UN’s prevention and peacekeeping mechanisms. Hammarskjöld

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had no illusions about the limitations of the UN at the time. The UN possessed no iota of power or authority to disperse the competitive ideological struggle among the big powers, let alone control them. He knew nevertheless what had to be done. He steeled the concept of preventive diplomacy with ethical and moral standards, believing in its utility to preempt conflict. He thought that the UN was created to serve the higher human purpose. Perhaps it is proper for a moment to clarify the purposes of the study. The Epilogue consists of my reflections and reminiscences on the nature of prevention and optimal conditions for peace across the African continent. What I intend to share is my view on what I consider or perceive as the glacial motion of a world wanting to retreat from violence and toward collaboration for the common good. I believe that the capacity of good government can be augmented to achieve peace and multiply its effects. And as it were, the interconnections among bad government and violence are all together palpable. The issues and principal events in the work are arranged thematically. (I) The venerable Dag Hammarskjöld is recognized for anchoring and advancing the idea and practice of preventive diplomacy, even in difficult ideological Cold War times. (II) Neutrality as a concept and its strategic dilemmas are explored and discussed in the context of the 1960 Congo Crisis. The conversation traces how far we have traveled since the end of World War II, questing for peace.4 (III) New patterns of African wars in the contemporary era are interrogated through case study analysis of the Malian and Sierra Leonean conflicts. Most of the new wars are spectacularly brutal, take place in ex-colonies that are now geopolitically insignificant to the West and they commonly tend to resist quick diplomatic fixes. Interstate wars are these days passé. (IV) New wave idealists and protagonists of change worldwide believe in the possibilities of a world without war, that a just world at peace with itself can be actualized. The favor comes through crystal in normative discourses relating to a “responsibility to protect (R2P).” Richening the moment, Secretaries-General Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan, like Dag Hammarskjöld before them, in their works and deeds have endorsed the philosophical dictum of all time, that war is an artificial construct. Worthily also economic development and good government are shown to be vital interconnected forces, ultimately constituting the critical preconditions for peace.

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I. Dag Hammarskjöld: THE DIPLOMAT Hammarskjöld entered his name into diplomatic history books when he succeeded Trygve Lie as the second UN Secretary-General in April 1953. And from thenceforward, most of his innovative policies and practical initiatives seemed sufficiently thoughtful and destined for the encyclopedia of conflict and conflict prevention. I have already averred to the nature or burden of his inheritance on assuming office at the United Nations: Hammarskjöld was bequeathed the Cold War world, and that world was sharply divided. It was also typified by unmediated high-pitched quarrels among the two main principals and their allies, most of whom at the time were disagreeable adherents and upholders of jagged and divergent creeds and dogma. And majority of the citizenry on both sides of the East–West iron curtain seemed poorly educated with regard to the main substance of the cultural tension itself. I have often thought of the Cold War era as one in which ill-digested concepts most of the time took the joy out of life and rendered the prospects of people-to-people association almost inoperable. Our entire civilization was said to be precariously perched on the precipice of nuclear destruction. And fervent preoccupation with traumatic events, in the imaginary, guided the main thrusts of big-power foreign policy. Citizens in the East appeared politically scrubbed and indoctrinated by the amalgam of strongmen enforcing rules in the irrepressible communist-authoritarian state. Common Soviet citizens to my mind were less exposed to existential truths about the commanding heights of their universe than their counterparts in the rest of the averagely transparent and comparatively freer Western world. To say that the divided world at that time was in dire need of dispassionate, calm diplomatic leadership would be an epic understatement. And the new UN Secretary-General saw these things very clearly; indeed, Hammarskjöld saw political dangers with cataclysmic potentials looming large in the global horizon. He focused on the developing world principally to protect it against potential surrogate wars. Boldly also the Secretary-General proceeded with the project of conceiving and seeding institutional structures that he thought were essential to insulate smaller countries from the gravitational pull of the East–West ideological contestations. He planned to mitigate the worst possible effects of proxy wars.5

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Hammarskjöld and Evolution of UN Principles Hammarskjöld was convinced that every productive human endeavor requires a strong leadership with core purposes and goals to fulfill. With this mind-set, he began to tinker with elemental provisions in the UN Charter to enhance the prerogative, authority and the overall ability of the UN Secretary-General to serve the world. Under an expansive interpretation of Article 97-100 of the Charter, Hammarskjöld helped to establish what is today known as the “right of initiative” or independence of the international civil servant doctrine. The doctrine permits and prescribes active role for the UN Secretary-General on matters of world policy, and the coterie of diplomats supported Hammarskjöld’s initiative to implant a global leader that was clear-eyed and unafraid to confront the challenges to world peace. Secretaries-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan manifested and followed their careers with enormous self-confidence and independence; both sought to advance world peace through their intellectual writings and pragmatic actions. And Kofi Annan is said to have come closest to incarnating Hammarskjöld’s understandings about model diplomacy. Peacekeeping operations were not foreseen or directly established either in Chapter VI or VII of the Charter, until the then Canadian Minister of External Affairs, Lester B. Pearson, broached the idea (1956 UN General Assembly) of sending a multi-national contingent to the Middle East, in response to the Suez Crisis.6 Hammarskjöld received it wholly, and he presented an adjusted version of the idea in a proposal to the Security Council. He was granted a mandate and authorization to designate and dispatch the first-ever UN “peacekeeping” mission (UN Emergency Force, UNEF-I) in November 7, 1956. Hammarskjöld is credited with developing the now familiar operational principles or rules of engagement for peacekeeping troops such as consent, impartiality, nonuse of force unless in self-defense. The Office of Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) was created under his watch to ensure continuous UN presence in areas suffering active conflict. Those missions today have the additional responsibility to monitor how well human rights standards are being met by governments in transitional societies. Although he never articulated specific doctrines on Human Rights, Hammarskjöld would later set forth some general themes that are paramount in human security discourses today. His thoughts on war and peace were in part instigated by the Congo Crisis. The Congolese state

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indeed teetered at the brink of decomposition following the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba in the summer of 1960. The massacres of children and unarmed citizens by the Congolese National Army in the Congo province of Kasai in August brought things to a head for Hammarskjöld, who called it a case of “incipient genocide:”7 He transmitted an urgent cable message to his envoy in Leopoldville, warned of imminent regional danger, and ordered peacekeeping troops to be placed on high readiness for armed intervention because, as he said: “prohibition against intervention in internal conflicts cannot be considered to apply to senseless slaughter of civilians or fighting arising from tribal hostilities.”8 By all intents and purposes, this articulation revolving around “responsibility” to “protect” civilian targets was radical for a Cold War world. It foreshadowed the current normative development on the African continent, whereby “non-intervention” is replaced with the African Union’s principle of non-indifference. The Secretary-General’s call for armed intervention to enforce law and order in Kasai was ruled out, however, once the cadence of violence subsided in the province. Evolutionary approach was the guide by which Hammarskjöld nudged significant changes in the rules and procedures of the United Nations and in the organization’s charter. The older rules, he would sometimes inveigh, were binding systems that nevertheless needed supplemental changes to keep them fresh. Numerous autobiographies and reflective writings on the life and times of Hammarskjöld have underscored the point that he had an attraction for meditation and he would take brief moments of quiet and personal seclusion. And community service had been for him a moral family inheritance. He said that the UN represented humanity’s best choice for self-preservation. Hammarskjöld was a deeply thoughtful person and he believed that decision making required calm and measured consideration of the issues. After rethinking “territorial integrity,” he reasoned in his UN General Assembly Report on the Congo that Security Council approval was superfluous in an emergency situation such as the Congo. He said that all forms of administrative delays in the face of degenerative conflict certainly constituted unnecessary human risk. To quote him: “You [must] try to save a drowning man without seeking authorizations.”9 This humanistic mind-set presages contemporary injunctions to protect civilians during peace operations. It is embodied in present understandings about the “Responsibility to Protect, R2P.”10 And the idea together with the practice has been developed and brought into our present millennium through the UN-sponsored Brahimi Report (2000).11

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Hammarskjöld was the key motivating force in many significant developments of contemporary relevance to proactive diplomacy and quiet mediation. This explains why his friends called him the “dove of preventive diplomacy.” Notwithstanding, Hammarskjöld was also a “warrior” for the promotion of innovative international public policy. One of his many priorities was the modernization of peacemaking and negotiation via scientific appreciation of human psychology in war and peace. And he never hesitated to take a firm stand on any matter that seemed to pose challenges to the tenets of open diplomacy. The UN: First Moves on the Congo The big test at the time was the Congo Crisis that exploded roughly two months following the country’s independence from Belgian colonial rule on June 30, 1960. And Hammarskjöld’s legacy would be forever linked tightly to the scope and depths of that human experience. Senior officers of the Congolese Armed Forces mutinied (July 11, 1960) because the Joint Forces Chief of Staff (Belgian) was refusing to implement Africanization of the officers’ corps. And the rank-and-file were preparing to spill disorder12 in the capital city of Leopoldville, in support of the officers. Rumors of additional pandemonium soon became flesh at the heels of the organized defiance at the barracks. Secession of mineral-rich Katanga province was proclaimed by the province’s premier Moise Tshombe on July 12, 1960. And the romp of Belgian paratroopers on the ground confirmed that the renegade regime meant business. Indeed, Belgium had been surreptitiously and adequately briefed on the matter as a covert deal. The ex-colonial country of course was heavily invested in the Katanga mining enclave and so no one was fooled by the claim on the part of the Belgian Government that the troops had arrived solely to protect Belgian citizens who were resident in the province. Foreign Belgian troops in truth were in the Congo chiefly to protect Belgian mining interests by helping to consolidate the separation of Katanga from a Republic of the Congo. The Republic at the time seemed to be spinning out of control. The idea was to secure Katanga as an island of stability away from the apparently imploding Congo Republic. The moment was historic. The development was profound and offered fresh strands of thought for the intellectually curious mind. It forced fresh reflections on the subjects of sovereignty, neutrality, impartiality in peacekeeping, and legitimacy of third-party intervention. It necessitated a rethinking of received assumptions that interveners routinely operated

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as disinterested and objective parties during emergencies. Official actions and rulings on the issues have become indelible landmarks in international conflict management law.

II. Neutrality and Big Palaver in the Cold War Era: Voices from the Congo Crisis The UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld thought that the Congo Crisis was a potentially contagious disorder to be nipped in the bud. And so he acted swiftly. Following a request for assistance from the newly elected Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, Hammarskjöld sought and received adequate internal legal counsel. Under Article 99 of the Charter, he persuaded the Security Council to support a planned, surgical insertion of international troops into the Congo.13 The United Nations Operations in the Congo (ONUC) was thereby duly born. It was activated and deployed on peace mission in the Congo, in accordance with the UN Resolution (143) of July 14, 1960. The Secretary-General then issued a clarification to the Security Council about the mission. He said effectively that the purpose of the ONUC mission was to “force the complete withdrawal of the Belgian troops in order to protect the sovereignty of the Congo…and to guarantee that the democratic process was determined solely by the people of the Congo.”14 But the mission was saddled right from the onset with operational and strategic problems of great significance. There were two sets of problems and the first revolved around reconciliation of means (UN Peacekeeping Mission) and ends (Forcing the withdrawal of foreign troops and restoration of peace). The UN peacekeeping force that had been deployed on duty was given limited mandate; UN troops were not authorized to undertake action of a military nature beyond self-defense. But achieving the end-goals in the Congo required the ONUC to use robust martial force—to restore and enforce domestic law and order and to eliminate foreign troops that had entered the imbroglio to support secessionist forces against the federal state. The Belgian troops were recalcitrant and seemed bent on achieving the wildly conceived idea of preserving Katanga under Belgian tutelage. And the Tshombe authority had declared its intention to “resist by every means…the dispatch of UN forces to Katanga.”15 Could the UN soldiers with limited mandate achieve the end-goals? The answer remains negative. UN neutrality, on behalf of impartiality and respect for territorial integrity,

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was strengthening the resolve among Belgian-supported Katanga secessionists to undermine the legitimate Congolese Government under Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. The tension between ends and means was eventually resolved at the policy level on August 8, 1960, following an additional UN Security Council resolution that explicitly granted the ONUC forces the authority to enter Katanga and to forcibly remove Belgian troops from the province. And then, the UN troops entered Katanga on August 12 and began forcing the withdrawal of Belgian troops. Tellingly, the same resolution also categorically stated that “the United Nations forces in the Congo will not be a party to or in any way intervene in or be used to influence the outcome of any internal conflict, constitutional or otherwise.” At this point, we have arrived at the second set of the Congo problem. And it was heavily political. Hammarskjöld reiterated the principles of international engagement as prescribed in international law on the sanctity of domestic sovereignty and in the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the Congo. He remained unyielding under pressure by the Lumumba government to help the Congolese troops dismantle the Tshombe administration. He told the troops that “respect for Congolese sovereignty” was not negotiable and that he was determined not to violate the canon of diplomatic ethic. Legally and ethically, Hammarskjöld told the international public that he found no persuasive, legitimate ground to “meddle” in the domestic affairs of the Congolese State. He would not use force to flush out mercenaries that had been recruited from Europe by Belgian business combines to reinforce Katanga gendarmerie. In his words: [The dispute between]…the provincial government of Katanga and the central government would be one in which the United Nations would in no sense be a party and on which it could in no sense exert any influence…the United Nations force cannot be used on behalf of the Central Government to subdue or to force the provincial government to a specific line of action (UN SC. Resolution s/4426, August 9, 1960). South Kasai Debacle: And the Making of “Lumumba Pariah” The convergence of local and international events meanwhile had drastically deepened the anxiety and desperation of Prime Minister Lumumba, as follows: (I) the mineral-rich province of South Kasai also seceded in late August 28, 1960, and the province proceeded to align itself with the Katanga regime and against the central government (II) the central government under Lumumba faced the risk of losing its principal regional sources

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of national wealth; moreover, the possible disintegration of the Congo as an integral republic was beginning to look real. (III) These concerns were made repeatedly clear in a series of sharply worded (mostly angry) letters of request from Lumumba to Hammarskjöld for assistance in the form of logistical support from ONUC to suppress the secessions. But those requests were firmly rejected. (IV) And similar pleas to the United States Government to provide military and transportation assistance to the Congolese military for the purpose of subduing the secessionists also fell on deaf ears. (V) In the end, it was the Soviet Union that came to the rescue of the Congolese government in late August. Lumumba had requested and received bomber planes including carrier aircrafts, ammunition, and a large number of military advisors. With an enhanced military capacity, the government felt self-reassured to quell the rebellion in Katanga and South Kasai provinces. The preparations for military action against the secessionist provinces took a few weeks. The federal plan was to take control of South Kasai first, before dismantling the illegal regime under Tshombe in Katanga. Bad political fortune, however, lurked closely behind the war plan. Lumumba’s Congolese National Armed Forces were not only ill-prepared for battle; they were also hurriedly assembled and poorly led by young, inexperienced and battle-shy Congolese field officers. Unsurprising, the offensive against Kasai disintegrated in an instance. Worse still, the troops proved themselves to be ill-disciplined. The soldiers went on a rampage of the countryside, pillaging and committing atrocious war crimes against civilians. Prime Minister Lumumba from thenceforward was tarred in the international community. He would be seen as a dangerous communist by virtue of his Soviet military connection, and he was blamed for the failed military offensive and for war crimes (some say it was ethnic cleansing) committed by his soldiers. The fact is that Lumumba had acquired many political enemies in high places who wanted to isolate and make him an international pariah par excellence. They wanted to permanently terminate his career in politics largely because Lumumba wore his African credentials openly and proudly. His populist appeal was powerful, which made Belgian communities uncomfortable. He had threatened to nationalize the Katanga mineral industry. Another of Lumumba’s actions that caused controversy consisted in his breaking of diplomatic relations with Belgium in the wake of the Katanga secession. As we may recall, Belgian paratroops entered the Congo in violation of the country’s territorial integrity, and the troops would not leave,

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despite a series of urgent official orders from Lumumba directing the foreign troops to go away. And the story has been much told by pro-Lumumba observers of Congolese politics, that: Lumumba’s decision to solicit and accept Soviet military assistance severely augmented the West’s antagonism toward the Congolese government. And the United States seemed to be in the forefront of Western countries apparently seeking to dictate the direction of the peacekeeping effort.16 Many thought that the UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld was perhaps drawn into making decisions inadvertently that were all the same retributive or adversarial. They compromised the interests of the embattled Prime Minister Lumumba. In outline: (I) Secretary-General Hammarskjöld seemed to acquiesce to the decision by key Western Officials at the UN that the only real solution to the Congo Crisis was a change of leadership; in contemporary parlance ‘regime change’ was the preferred solution to the domestic turmoil in the Congo. (II) The dismissal of Lumumba as prime minister and appointment of Senator Joseph Ileo as interim leader of government by President Joseph Kasavubu17 on September 5, 1960, lacked coherence and merit. It was also sudden, clumsy, and unconstitutional.18 The move nonetheless was saluted by British and American officials. The political “showdown” was rumored to be directly orchestrated, anchored, and encouraged by the US government, (III) and then, the UN forces proceeded to close the Leopoldville Airport and, shortly thereafter, the radio station as well. These happened in the immediate aftermath of the controversial dismissal of Lumumba. UN’s American field representative Andrew Cordier argued that the actions were not biased against Lumumba, but taken to protect the national integrity of the Congo and to limit the circulation of inflammatory information by both the Kasavubu and the Lumumba loyalists. But Lumumba was deeply disadvantaged by the actions. He found himself deprived of the most vital means to airlift troops from garrisons in the provinces to the capital, which presumably might have served to strengthen his presence and restore his power. And he was cut off and disconnected from his rural and urban bases of political support. He could not reach them via radio to reaffirm his control of the country and to discredit his political enemies who were at the time spreading rumors to denigrate him and undermine his character. The spurious story in part was that Lumumba suffered mental illness or cognitive incapacity that was being reinforced and aggravated by his heavy drinking and hemp smoking. In addition, (IV) the US government was unsuccessfully urging the ONUC field director Ralph Bunche to disarm Congolese soldiers. This was meant to further weaken the Congolese leader.

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“They Have Tied Me to a Stake…But Bear-like I Must Fight the Course” (Macbeth. Act V) Despite the rough and tumble of Congolese politics, Lumumba remained steeled and resolute. He was the veritable political Teflon, to be sure. He summoned parliament (September 7, 1960), and in front of the deputies, he forcefully defended his actions by debunking interrelated presuppositions that had been floated by many Western countries to discredit and impugn his integrity and sense of qualitative leadership. He said that his acceptance of Soviet military equipment was born of necessity to protect the sovereignty of the Congolese Republic. And he reiterated that his pragmatic connection with Moscow did not make him a dangerous communist. In particular, he emphasized that the UN and the American government had refused to assist the Congolese government, even when it was open secret that Belgium was sending sophisticated military hardware to the secessionist regime of Moise Tshombe in Katanga. The embittered prime minister pointedly questioned and attacked the morality of those who were using the “non-interference in Congolese domestic affair” argument to deny the Congolese government basic military assistance that was badly needed to neutralize the rebellion in Katanga and Southern Kasai. On careful reflection, Lumumba was right because the Katanga affair had already been internationalized even at the onset of Congolese self-rule. Copious evidence revealed that the dominant and foreign-owned business giant, Union Miniere Company, had assumed the mantle of a bonafide state government. The foreign combine was exploiting resources authoritatively and doing business with European partners as if a legitimate Government of the Congo never existed. The company was said to be spending a fortune overseas in campaigns to raise international support for Katanga separatism. And the large European settler community had employed more than two high-profile Belgian law firms to design a new constitution for the anticipated new state of Katanga. And with the collusion of Brussels, Belgian mercenaries and regular soldiers that had been disarmed and withdrawn from the Congo nevertheless found their way quickly back into Katanga to serve as military “volunteers” and advisors for the Tshombe regime. Lumumba also cited the massive and undisguised support that Katanga was receiving from the then Central African Federation (CAF). He said that intrusions by powerful individuals and groups in the region were more than nettlesome. They were destabilizing. CAF’s Prime Minister, Sir Roy Welensky, had announced with enormous rage that he wanted to create a

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“buffer state” in Katanga to protect “White Africans” in southern Africa against what he described as the rising tide of Soviet-sponsored radicalism on the continent. In fact, Welensky was seriously proposing the creation of an enlarged and new political union to include Katanga, South Africa, the CAF, and Southern and Northern Rhodesia. We must be reminded that the proposed political scheme was far from preposterous in the context of the Cold War. Lumumba knew how to fight for survival. He was persuasive and had mobilized all his oratory talents to come across as the ultimate Congolese patriot. He was able to turn the deputies around to his side; most of them accepted that Western countries were steeped in cultural biases; and that they stood against Lumumba for their own selfish economic reasons. The deputies went on and voted overwhelmingly to reaffirm their confidence in Lumumba as their country’s authentic and legitimate prime minister. And the earlier dismissal that had been imposed on Lumumba was unconditionally revoked in parliament. Sacrifice and Recovery But victory for Lumumba and celebration of due process was short-lived.19 Since the mutiny of July 11, the only functioning unit of the Congolese National Army had been under the command of Colonel Joseph-Desire Mobutu. And it was this faction that seized power in a military coup d’état on September 14, 1960. Both Lumumba and Kasavubu were dismissed from office by the military junta. The democratically elected parliament was purged, and the national constitution was also suspended. Mobutu went on to establish the Council of Congolese University Students (College des Commissaire) to advise him on policy. Declassified records of the Congo operation strongly suggest that the coup may have been funded by the American Government, and that Mobutu had been cultivated as an ally of Washington’s Central Intelligence Agency for several years even before Congolese independence. In the political culture and logic of the Cold War, Mobutu was being groomed as a possible future (pro-West) alternative to the much dreaded “ideologically-laden” Congolese government under Lumumba. Lumumba was assassinated in January 1961. His death represented manifest tragedy. It inflamed passions among devotees and generated new cadres of militant aficionada. And those healthy sources of divisiveness and

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deep conflict were purposely and promptly put on public display: A proLumumba group now led by Antoine Gizenga had moved to eastern Congo to establish an alternative government in Stanleyville. And the movement’s Council of Executives loudly issued an ominous and grimly worded declaration of war on Katanga. The emergent “balance of power” was looking real because Gizenga was supported by the Soviets. A large army of pro-Lumumba recruits had already been assembled for hard training in espionage, guerilla tactics, and conventional warfare. The combination of open Soviet support for the Gizenga forces and the real prospect of internal war of attrition finally forced a change in the UN’s stand on the Katanga secession. And the mantra of “non-intervention” was momentarily expunged from the vernacular of preventive intervention. The UN and the Western allies did not want to create “another Korea” in Central Africa. UN Security Council Resolution 161 (February 1961) made the point unambiguously. It specifically iterated that “Katanga would not be allowed to secede from the Republic of Congo…and if necessary the UN would use force in order to avoid a civil war…and to reunite all provinces into the former Congo.” Words were put into action between August and December of 1961. Martial force was applied to desired effects. Katanga’s Moise Tshombe was coerced sufficiently to compel his obedience. He eventually agreed to negotiate and to stand down the gendarmerie. The Katanga and South Kasai secessionist exploits were put finally to rest in January 1963 and December 1962, respectively. One of the key questions is whether or not the UN Congo operation was successful. The answer is positive. Many more lives and property would have been destroyed without the intervention by the UN troops. A civil war was averted and the secessionist provinces were reintegrated into the Congo Republic. The Congo conflict is etched into collective historical memory in part because the two main players lost their lives in the twisted courses of conflict and conflict prevention. And both men have become legends of political history in their own right. Hammarskjöld is consistently memorialized in the UN and beyond since the fateful Ndola (Zambia) air crash of September 1961 that took his life. Many institutions of peace research want to canonize his work and memory. The 50th anniversary of his passing was marked by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in the Commemorative Report of the UN Secretary-General, Diplomacy: Delivering Results (New York: United Nations Press, 2011). African history

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meanwhile remembers Patrice Lumumba as the preeminent leader whose nationalism and patriotism must remain unsoiled and unassailable. He is depicted today in several movies, educational documentaries, and theater as a statesman of the caliber that is hard to find. The Congo Crisis represents a distinct phenomenon of African Cold War history. We see how race, ethnicity, and fear fused with ideology to determine the depth and scope of the local conflict. Intransigence also served as a qualitative and powerful military strategy. A small stubborn region of a country (Katanga) possessing some strategic material resources was able to exacerbate the East–West divide. For a significant length of time, the tiny region valiantly, fearlessly captured the interests of the superpowers and pulled them together with their allies into a prolonged and unified contention for local power and relevance. The crisis also contributed greatly to shaping the political postures, rhetoric and language of nationalists,20 and leaders in the newly independent states of Africa. In the overall and sadly too, present-day Congo has not achieved peace or known stability since the assassination of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. Human security in the entire Great Lakes region today is gravely eroded,21 and one of the UN’s most expansive and ongoing peace missions (MONUC) is in the Congo.22 The mission was fielded long ago in 1999.

III. Patterns of Post-Cold War Conflicts and Cooperative Intervention: Mali and Sierra Leone African conflicts in the immediate past were either in the firmament of colonial struggle for self-rule or revolutionary movements firmly pitched against White minority domination in race-based states. Those were distinct and different from many of the present wars that are largely driven by opportunistic “war-mongers” for material gains. Religion-based conflicts in secular states are also on the rise.23 Force is used more frequently these days to ensure the protection of civilians caught in protracted emergencies, which have now become increasingly ferocious. The two cases below are narratives and analyses aimed to buttress the new features and dynamics of contemporary warfare, confirming also that bullish intervention is not an exception but the norm nowadays.

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Northern Mali Conflict: Tuareg Secular Grievance and Islamist Militancy The Malian Government of Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT) was gravely shaken when the Tuareg-led secessionist revolt burst out on January 17, 2012. It was the 4th Tuareg revolt after a roughly fifty-year hiatus. And it was the latest enactment of Tuareg demands for the Secular Sovereign State, Azawad.24 A combination of tangible and intangible elements came together to dictate the outcome of the uprising momentarily in favor of the minority Tuareg. Time was a critical and decisive force.25 The fall of Gaddafi and collapse of his regime (October 2011) had forced the return of roughly 4000 young Tuareg fighters back to northern Mali. Most had originally fled economic destitution and political repression at the hands of autocrats in Bamako. Their return from Libya drastically altered the balance of power26 in northern Mali largely because the returnees brought home mountains of unaccounted weapons of the highest sophistication from the broken Libyan government arsenal. And the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) was launched (November 2011), and it was headed by battle-tested Tuareg senior military returnees from Libya. One of the MNLA leaders, Ag Mohamed Najem, was himself a high-ranking General in Gaddafi’s Army. He possessed excellent expertise in weaponry, which he imparted during the training of younger Tuareg fighters. Human assets also bolstered the power equation in favor of MNLA. Defectors from the Malian National Army (Ag Mbarek Kay and Ag Bamoussa) brought exclusive military intelligence and security details about the strengths and weaknesses of the Malian Army. Also, Iyad Ag Ghali, an Islamist of Tuareg origin and leader of the infamous fundamentalist Ansar Dine, also joined and pledged his loyalty to the MNLA. More so, the brief “Arab Spring” that brought the promise of radical change from the Middle East to parts of northern Africa served enormously to re-enkindle and deepen collective determination among the Tuareg to fight for self-rule. The revolutionary forces pooled all the human and material gains together. And with the additional advantage of surprise attack, the MNLA insurgents were able to outgun and outmaneuver the Malian national forces, compelling them to beat humiliating retreat and in utter disarray.27 Malian populations in the south and at Bamako grieved, when the international media brought home televised and print images of their federal troops running helter-skelter away from the sweltering north—and with victorious insurgents in hot pursuit. The MNLA forces were roughly 1000strong compared to 7000 federal troops.

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The Guns of January 17, 2012 The guns of January did not only tilt the battlefields against Malian government forces; they transported lethal security hazards far into the inner recesses of Malian political life, consequently: (I) MNLA alliance that had bonded tightly together to expel federal troops from the north quickly unraveled, when Iyad Ag Ghali and his Ansar Dine suddenly broke ranks with the MNLA and joined forces with the hardcore Jihadist groups. These were represented in northern Mali at the time by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)28 and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, MUJAO. Iyad Ag Ghali now chose to reject MNLA’s goal of independence on the argument instead that imposition of Shari’a rule should be the premier goal of the movement,29 and not self-rule. He then successfully manipulated and imposed the numerically superior Jihadists upon the MNLA. The fundamentalists had never been original partners in the Tuareg struggle for independence. (II) The three nevertheless came to represent a powerful synergic-Islamist-tripartite of fundamentalists and each seized one of the three main cities to serve as operational headquarters in Timbuktu (AQIP); Gao (MUJAO); Kidal (Ansar Dine). Tuareg officers in the MNLA were physically and psychologically dismissed from the northern territories and their power and authority ceased. Painfully, MNLA was thenceforward rendered powerless and socioculturally irrelevant on its own very turf. (III) In legitimizing the usurpation, the fundamentalists suppressed all the symbols and identity paraphernalia of the Tuareg secular cause. And the Independent Islamic State of Azawad in the North was pronounced in its place. Curses both loud and deep were heaped on Iyad Ag Ghali by his Tuareg kindred for sabotaging the Tuareg political object,30 and they vowed to ostracize him as a delinquent. (IV) The rest of the minority groups in the north that never harbored Islamist aspirations (Tuareg, Fulani, and Songhai) were subjugated and meted severe punishment for departing from Shari’a Law or questioning its practices. The security environment quickly deteriorated when the moderate line of Songhai militia (Gando Isa) responded to religion-based suppression by unleashing reprisals and blood-spattered counter-attacks on the MUJAO in Gao. Human casualties reached between 500 and 1000 deaths in two weeks of disorder. (V) Tuareg anti-government resistance previously had been narrowly centered and limited to Kidal and the immediate towns. The opposite was the case in 2012. The fundamentalists were

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resolute and bent on taking power not just in the north, but in Mali as a whole and by first seizing Bamako. And they were emboldened by public evidence of high tensions and power struggle at Bamako: Still hurting from the trouncing of their troops by the MNLA, members of the Malian Armed Forces sought respite in mutiny. The troops demanded the resignation of the sitting administration and ordered immediate re-furbishing of their armory. Captain Amadou Sanogo jumped on the bandwagon and funneled the rank-and-file anger into a coup d’état (March 2012), ousting President Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT) on the excuse that his government had failed to provide adequate military support needed by the troops to defeat the northern revolt.31 But the coup d’état was nullified within two months on March 29, 2012. The officers’ requests for amnesty and immunity from the international stakeholders were granted without condition, and the soldiers were sent packing and back to their barracks. The main pressure in favor of constitutional order was exerted by the international community led principally by the West African regional organization, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).32 UN Cooperation for Peace: Jihadists Versus the World We may recall how competing interpretations and disagreements on the proper meaning of neutrality and impartiality caused avoidable delays, preventing timelier resolution of the Congo Crisis. Unlike that experience, all key peacemakers in the Mali imbroglio (the UN, AU, and ECOWAS) were this time well focused on the mandate.33 They were clear-eyed particularly about the expected end product of the mission—the total defeat and elimination of the Jihadists followed by the restoration of democratic constitutional order in Mali. And there was unity of thought about the means to achieving those ends—the UN-supported military mission and its well-armed troops were unambiguously authorized to use force beyond self-defense. They were permitted the use of robust force in the course of action to ensure complete defeat of the insurgents. And precisely for the same purposes, a hortatory battle anthem exhorted the peace soldiers to “secure and re-secularize Mali and the Sahel.”34 The expedition thus was sufficiently inspired and infused with missionary zeal. The United Nations was involved only in rearguard actions revolving around the provision of funds for the mission and coordination of the peacekeeping forces. The Security Council Resolution 2071 (October 3, 2012) advised the African organizations and the UN Secretary-General to

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collaborate and produce a “detailed and actionable recommendation” for a military operation in Mali. The blueprint for an African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) was developed and launched under the aegis of the ECOWAS on September 2013. AFISMA was approved by the UN Security Council Resolution 2085 (December 20, 2012). It was authorized to support, build, and augment the operational capacity of Mali’s security forces and to enable them play major roles in the recovery of the regions in the northern parts of Mali. More clearly, the UN instructed AFISMA to “take all necessary measures …to strengthen Mali’s defense and security forces…support the Malian authorities in their primary responsibilities to protect the population; and assist with humanitarian access to northern Mali.”35 In effect, Part VIII of the UN Charter was activated and accelerated to achieve peace through third-party intervention. Battle plans gathered speed once the Jihadists began to push most aggressively southwards. By September 2012, the southern town of Douentza had fallen to the rebels. In quick succession, the rebels pushed southwestward toward Bamako and they easily captured the central city of Konna on January 10, 2013. It became plain to the international community by these determined moves that the Islamists were well coordinated. They were poised to grab power and posed imminent danger to the secular Republic of Mali. France responded forcefully and efficiently on January 11 with the Military Operation SERVAL36 to wrest control of northern Mali from the audacious insurgency. It was supported by Malian ground troops. The ECOWAS-led African International Mission for Mali (AFISMA) was tardy but eventually joined in the action once the French air power began to decimate the designated targets in the north. The intervention forces included Chadian troops. The Islamists and their splinter MNLA allies were defeated and booted from the main cities of northern Mali including Timbuktu, Gao, and Kilda. Within three weeks, the rebels were dispersed and most took temporary refuge in the mountains. The first batch of French troops began to withdraw from Mali on February 16, 2013.37 Human casualty collectively was estimated at between 1689 and 3713 deaths from 2012 to 2014. Over 220,000 fled into neighboring countries and 90,000 were internally displaced. Over 440,000 had been displaced by the end of 2012.38 Postwar peacebuilding and rehabilitation in Mali today are promoted by diverse international organizations and foreign countries.39 The initiatives had been originally dominated by the United Nations. Security Council

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Resolution 2100 (April 23, 2013) established the UN Multi-dimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). It tasked the AU to enforce the peace in Mali. Thereafter, and following the successful discharge of the assignment, the formal transfer of functions from AFISMA to MINUSMA took place on July 1, 2013. An important component of its function was military; the soldiers attached to MINUSMA were authorized and mandated to enter the key cities in northern Mali, purge remnants of the Islamist forces, and prevent the re-occurrence of violence. The other goal was largely political. The mission was mandated to help the transitional government achieve “full restoration of constitutional order, democratic governance and national unity in Mali.” Once operational, MINUSMA was built and enlarged to serve as one of UN’s largest peace operations in the recent history of peacekeeping. It had roughly 11,400 military personnel, 1450 police regiment, and an approved budget of US$367 million for six months.40 Total cost of the mission reached US$455.53 million. The mandate of MINUSMA was approved for another year (until June 30, 2019) via the UN Security Council Resolution 2423 on June 28, 2018.41 Once again, the mandate was renewed by the Security Council (June 28, 2019) for another year via Resolution 2480 (2019). With an annual budget of US$ 1billion, the mission now comprises roughly 13, 289 military personnel and police component of 1,920. MINUSMA is authorized to continue using all necessary means to carry out its mandate under Chapter VII of the Charterof the United Nations. The Mission’s key strategic focus remains to support the implementation of the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali by the Government, protect civilians, reduce intercommunal violence, re-establish State Authority, State presence and basic social services in Central Mali, and ensure respect for human rights. Human Security Islamist armed groups and their splinter militias still possess capacities to pose severe threats to human security in northern Mali. And lawlessness in the countries across the Maghreb is vastly aggravated currently by three interrelated forces: infiltration of foreign terrorist groups into the northern territories; effective radicalization of large swaths of economically disadvantaged indigenous populations; and participation of a rising number of youths in the thriving underground trade in small arms and drug trafficking. Amid reports of widespread kidnapping of foreigners plus suicide bombing and inter-militia conflicts, extreme vandalism includes the much-publicized

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destruction of mausoleum and ancient artifacts in Timbuktu. In a word, security threats in northern Mali are heightened by the illicit activities of indigenous armed groups linked to the criminally versatile and adaptable AQIM. The Boko Haram militants in Nigeria are trained in the Maghreb system and then moved into the northeastern region of the country, where they have established strongholds, spreading instabilities into much of the neighboring states of the Cameroons and the Central African Republic. In addition to climatic and economic adversities, those seeking comprehensive explanation for the Malian problem can also look at the contribution of unbridled bureaucratic corruption to the recurrent culture of bad governance. A sustained stream of essential and well-targeted international financial assistance is required to stabilize peacebuilding and establish comprehensive regional security cooperation in West Africa. Also required is embedment of the principle and culture of accountability in government administration, without which present collective efforts to improve human security will not yield fruit.

“Resource War” Syndrome: Thoughts on the Sierra Leone Experience 1997–1999 saw critical events, decisions, and developments coming together in rough sequences to escalate and later pave pathways to the resolution of the Sierra Leone conflict.42 The conflict began as a skirmish in 1991. Among the main provocateurs was the rebel leader Foday Sankoh and his ragtag army of criminals included hundreds of disgruntled youths. The rebellion was backed by Liberian Charles Taylor’s professionalized fighters in his National Popular Front of Liberia (NPLA). By 1999, Sankoh had grown his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) into an estimated 4000-strong ferocious fighting machine in control of 40% of the country including the diamond-rich eastern district of Kono. Those years were full of delicate break-or-make moments. Britain had been a sponsor of the Lome Peace Accord of May 1999 that imploded a few days after it was adopted by the disputants. British Prime Minister Toni Blair would be persuaded thereafter to intercede in Sierra Leone, and this time he agreed to use military force. The resolution and resolve to enter the fray no doubt was born of extreme necessity.43

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A Progression of Dangerous Events The rebel leader Foday Sankoh had visited Nigeria and was arrested in March 1997 by the country’s authorities on allegation of drug and gun trafficking. On return, he was within a few weeks arrested, tried and sentenced to death for treason by the Sierra Leonean President Ahmad Kabbah. But restless soldiers in the Sierra Leonean Armed Forces (SLA) responded with high drama two months later. Led by Major Jonny Paul Koroma, the army drove President Kabbah from office and into exile in Guinea-Conakry on May 25, 1997. And the succeeding Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) invited the rebel leader’s participation in the new government. The country erupted in utter consternation climaxing in complete chaos, once Foday Sankoh accepted to serve as Chairperson of AFRC-RUF Coalition Government. Most of the judges, attorneys, and high-ranking police officers and professionals fled the country. All feared the worst possible outcomes from a government to be run by murderous rebels. And since the UN sanctions and international pressures were failing to force the junta to cede power, the Nigerian-led regional force (ECOMOG) decided to use force. Supported by the London-based mercenary organization, Sandline Incorporated, it launched a counterinsurgency that ousted the AFRC-RUF pseudo-government in February 1998. And President Kabbah returned from exile in Guinea-Conakry to resume office as president. And there was calm. But it was a tenuous calm. With the government’s power barely reaching beyond the immediate confines of the city of Freetown, the rest of the country was controlled by rebel groups among which the RUF was the principal force. Roughly one year after the restoration, and spoiling for vengeance, the RUF decided it was time to retaliate for the incarceration of Foday Sankoh on charges of treason and murder. The rebels were also offended by ECOWAS’ intervention to dislodge the coalition government of Major Koroma and the return of President Kabbah to power. RUF decided to make live within the municipal boundaries of the capital city of Freetown ungovernable. A most vicious massacre was unleashed (January 6, 1999) with cancerous rapidity and alacrity; an estimated 7000 lives were destroyed in barely three weeks of bedlam.44 And two-thirds of the city of Freetown was leveled,45 rendering roughly 51,000 people homeless. Once again, the ECOMOG was able to intercede and to restore some order in the capital. But the administration teetered on the edge of collapse, due to continuing pressures by the rebel forces from

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all factions and by mutinous soldiers in the Sierra Leone National Army threatening coups d’état. And quite a large number of the United Nations forces that had been sent to maintain peace in the country were harassed, disarmed, and abducted by rebel forces. Seven peacekeepers were killed in isolated incidents in 1999 alone. The peacekeepers collectively had become the proverbial “sitting dock,” because they were not authorized the use of force beyond selfdefense. And they were overwhelmed by the waves of rebel attacks.46 The Security Council responded quickly. A revised mandate authorized the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) the use of force to protect the government of President Kabbah and civilian targets. UN personnel was also increased substantially to 11,100.47 But the security environment for peacekeeping grew worse, and disintegration of the mission loomed large. The troops were forced into their barracks where they remained tightly ensconced most of the time because the rebels’ firepower at the time was unrivaled. The RUF fighters were unleashing unparalleled martial force against the peacemakers and coming menacingly after them with supreme self-confidence to win the war. It was coincidentally also the time for stock-taking on the part of the principal peacekeeping country, Nigeria. After a prolonged tour-of-duty in Liberia (1991–2003), in addition to years of peacekeeping in Freetown, Abuja was draining resource-wise and justifiably “war-fatigued.”48 Nigeria lost no less than 800 of its peacekeepers and was reportedly spending about $1 million dollars per day in the foreign tragedy.49 Now under President Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian President apprised the UN about the intention to cease or finish participation in peacekeeping in Sierra Leone. And a staggered withdrawal of Nigerian troops began in March 1999. British Intervention: From Operation Palliser to Basilica The war was about 10 years old when London finally committed to lending a hand, though it felt like an entire epoch of neglectful suspense.50 General David Richards had been sent in early April 1999 by the British Government to Sierra Leone with an advance Special Forces to survey the local terrain ahead of a planned evacuation of British and Commonwealth citizens from Freetown. He was able to convince Prime Minister Blair on returning to London, that the human condition in the crumbling ex-British polity required urgent external intervention. More so, it was agreed that a defeat of the United Nations Mission by rebel forces was

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imminent, and that such a development had to be preempted via massive force of arms in order to protect UN’s credibility and also save lives. The Blair government took these into account when tabling a proposal on foreign intervention for consideration in the British Parliament. This sparked a nation-wide public debate that was dominated by protagonists of peace. Against opposing voices,51 the emphasis was placed on the necessity to defend democracy and to fulfill UK’s avowed stand for the promotion of “ethical foreign policy.”52 The debates also stoked passions among the public about humanitarian responsibility to protect (R2P) civilians in conditions of anarchy. Along this line also all partisans for peace concurred that Her Majesty’s Government possessed the military means and political will to deliver humanity from the rebellious mobs in Sierra Leone. Britain’s top military cadre was in support of swift intercession. The first phase of Britain’s military intervention began effectively from the 6th of May 2000, when a “spear-head” battalion of 1300 British troops was deployed to Sierra Leone to support Operation Palliser.53 The operation was Commanded by General David Richards. Although the Operation’s initial plan had been to evacuate British and Commonwealth citizens resident in Freetown, its mandate was broadened later to include enforcement action with authorization to engage militarily with rebel forces. The British Amphibious Ready Group and the 1st Mechanized Brigade were deployed to the war scene five months later to support UN forces. These Special Forces consisted of roughly 700 personnel and were sent specifically to strengthen the embattled UN contingent in Sierra Leone. Back in Sierra Leone, a psychological warfare had begun with the purposeful display of British military assets and arsenal on land, sea, and air spaces largely to intimidate the rebels. British troops patrolled strategic posts in the city, and they won hearts and minds via occasional participation in the distribution of much needed relief supplies. British troops by the way were never placed under UN Command. They served largely as the British Support Intervention Forces.54 The height of critical martial encounters between the interveners and rebel troops was attained in May 17. The RUF forces were attempting to seize the Lungi Airport, and they unleashed a surprise attack on the British Platoon located near the facility. The gunfight that ensued lasted less than 10 hours55 and yielded significant outcomes. Rebel leader Foray Sankoh was captured, and his war-weary RUF troops suffered near-total defeat. British troops, supported by the SLA used anti-aircraft guns, rocketpropelled grenade launchers and automatic weapons to flush the rebels out

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of their strongholds and capture territory from RUF: Helicopter gunships pounded rebel forces into submission at Waterloo (33 kilometers southeast of Freetown), and Port Loko, Masiaka and Makeni were re-taken on May 25. And the strategic crossroad at Rogberi (60 kilometers northeast of Freetown) was seized a few days thereafter, on June 5. Amid public ovation in Freetown and in London,56 the withdrawal of British troops from the short-term military duty in Sierra Leone slowly began in mid-June 2000. A number of strategic developments following the end of the short-term assignment are worthy of note: (I) A smooth exit of British troops was almost undermined when eleven British soldiers were captured on (August 25, 2000) by the provocative, local rabble-rousing group called the West Side Boys (WSB). Operation Barras was launched on the 10th of September leading to the successful rescue of the hostages. All non-military options including diplomatic negotiations were exhausted before the decision to liberate by force of arms. The surgical martial operation was executed by British Special “Paratroop” Forces in coordination with UNAMSIL and SLA forces. (II) Operation Basilica 57 was also launched to upgrade the country’s logistical endowments and to refurbish military hardware. In the end, about 8000 new recruits had been trained as soldiers within one year. They served to augment the SLA-UNAMSIL new coalition force. (III) At the urging of UNAMSIL and ECOWAS, the Sierra Leone Government and the RUF eventually signed the Abuja Ceasefire Agreement on November 10, 2000. (IV) An estimated 45,000 troops had been disarmed and demobilized as of January 2002. And President Kabbah confidently pronounced the end to the four-year state of emergency on March 2, 2002. The general election (May 14, 2002) that returned Kabbah to the presidency was arranged, monitored, and certified by UNAMSIL, as free and fair. The country has been relatively peaceful since the landmark election. Britain’s intervention is widely received as a great success. And many conflict analysts say it should stand as a vindication for the use of force to achieve peace.58 Others recommend it as a model for future peace expeditions in fragile terrains. Nevertheless, the Sierra Leone operation brought back some memories of the UN conflict management shambles of the 1960 Congo Crisis, specifically in regard to the use of force and contemplations to do otherwise. British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, the UN Security Council’s Investigating Mission to Sierra Leone admitted in his report that the mandate on the use of force was imprecise and that sharp differences among the contingents over the matter were a major morale killer.59

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Comparing the Scope, Dynamics, and Limits of Conflict in Sierra Leone and Mali The civil war in Sierra Leone and Mali bore the imprints and patterns of African conflicts in the post-Cold War era. Official security assessments of rebel power were wrong, and this led to devastating blows and humiliating defeat of government forces in both countries at the initial stages of fatal armed encounters. Failures in the governments’ counterinsurgency led to three coups d’etats in Sierra Leone—in 1992, 1996, and 1997. Malian soldiers blamed their government for the revolt and seized power only once in 2001, and it was for a brief two month period. In the two countries, civilians were abandoned to a sad fate as rebel troops targeted and unleashed brutal martial action that grossly eroded the humanity of noncombatant populations. In fact, government troops failed to fulfill the very basic responsibility to protect (R2P) civilians and territorial integrity against the insurgents. Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter was of necessity activated in both cases to permit the use of force by third parties to protect vulnerable citizens. Intercession by two ex-colonial countries—France and Britain—helped to end the war in Mali and Sierra Leone, respectively. The motivations for war in the two countries were different, distinct, and therefore worth noting. The Tuareg have used revolt to demand their separation from Mali since the 1960s, though religion became the super-seceding force once the Maghreb Islamists infiltrated the MNLA and moved on to usurp the rebellion from the core Tuareg fighters for the Independent Secular State, Azawad. Sierra Leonean rebellion was peculiar in its lack of particularistic motivations such as religion and ethnicity. Rather, it was a sustained uprising directed by greedy insurrectionary men seeking to control strategic minerals and to grow the war economy. Sierra Leone was the archetypical resource war.60 Islamist Jihadists played significant roles in the 2012 rebellion against Bamako, though not in any way nearly resembling the Sierra Leone experience, whereby competing criminal networks from neighboring countries played principal roles to aggravate the conflict. International businesses colluded with the Sierra Leonean “war chiefs” to establish illicit international trade in stolen diamond and timber from the country: The Israeli LIAT Finance and Construction Company, the US-Australian Sierra Rutile were notable partners in the fleecing of Sierra Leone.61 Mercenary firms such as Gurkha Security Guards and Executive Outcome did help to secure some transient order, but it was at

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a price too steep for a polity at war with itself and in dire need of material resources. For example, the monthly service charge for foreign security establishments plus hefty concession in the mining business demanded by them cost the country about 1.7 million per month.62 A combination of these desperate policies and a prolonged international neglect accelerated Sierra Leone’s demise and final collapse into a failed state. The economic agenda of the warring parties was the most powerful disincentive for a mediated settlement of the conflict. It served to further fuel and prolong the conflict. International intervention in Mali was timelier than was the case in Sierra Leone, with gruesome consequences for Freetown. Out of Sierra Leone’s 7.5 million people, roughly 2.6 million were either internally displaced or driven into exile as refugees in neighboring states. And an estimated 70,000 citizens lost their lives. The Mali emergency was abbreviated and casualties were insignificant when compared to the Sierra Leonean fiasco. Beyond the gutting and burning of Sierra Leonean society to a crisp,63 the war in that country yet revealed and buttressed the prevalence of humanitarian impulses among Africa governments. The ECOWAS represented the climactic continental bent in favor of constitutional order when it began imperatively to assume the political roles of intervention, first by seizing the initiative for a negotiated settlement of the conflict and, then later, by interceding with force largely to mitigate the impacts of war on civilians, particularly to protect children, the elderly and noncombatant women. The peace efforts nevertheless yielded naught. In fact, they were suspended episodic disasters. Until the Lomé Accord (July 17, 1999)64 brought a temporary and ephemeral glimmer of hope, the previous two attempts including the Abidjan Accord (November 30, 1996)65 and Conakry Accord (October 23, 1997)66 were brokered under tense conditions of mutual distrust. Disputants were quick to uproar and they lacked faith sufficient to encourage and achieve collaboration for concord. Bad blood oozed during peace sessions. Algeria has been the unwearied patriarch of peace in the case of Mali. The Tamanrasset Accord (January 6, 1991), Algerian Peace Pact (May 4, 2006) and the Algiers Peace Agreement (February 16, 2015)67 exemplify epical efforts by the concerned good neighbor. Both the Malian government and disputants in each of the peace processes claimed peaceful settlement over the use of force to resolve conflict. Proposals to de-militarize the northern territories and the granting of autonomous status for the Tuareg were accepted as pathfinders to stability. Noteworthily also, the quest for

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an enlarged regional peace has been unfolding. Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger are the newly minted G5 Sahel. Grandly conceived to achieve an old purpose, the Special Regional Cooperation Mechanism was launched (February 16, 2014) by the pragmatic coalition of the five members to coordinate and escalate the fight for human security and development. Success in this circumstance is expected to reduce the cycles of conflict in the Sahel. Significantly, Ansar Dine, AQIM and MUJAO are not welcome by the G-5 to participate in the planning for peace in the Maghreb. They are excluded on account of their transnational record of violence and because they are considered to embody all that are aberrant about religious extremism. Certainly, the exclusion of these groups raises important practical and theoretical questions about the prospects of comprehensive peace.68 Religion-based violence coupled with organized crime is the principal source of violence in the Sahel, with ominous repercussions for peace in northern Mali. Religious extremism on the contrary is not a factor of everyday life in Sierra Leone. Many post-conflict rehabilitation programs in Mali and Sierra Leone presently are supported and funded by various foreign countries and international organizations. And quite a few of them were insistent from the very end of the war in the demand to punish criminality. Moral indignation for war-time atrocities in both countries have been loudly and profoundly expressed worldwide.69 And for reasons already stated above, Sierra Leone has been rebuked many million times more than Mali because the scale of human rights abuse in the former far exceeded the Malian experience. Mali’s fitful revolt was repulsive and it claimed hundreds of lives, but it was much less than the outcome of RUF-led attacks on civilian targets. Economic performance in the two countries presently is abysmally poor and requires massive economic intervention to create jobs especially for the youths and to improve livelihoods in general. Sierra Leone is rich in natural resources, though its citizens are among the poorest in the world. Mali is extremely poor in material resources. And the mismanagement of the consequences of climatic change by bad government renders human condition close to unbearable particularly in the Kidal administrative region inhabited by the Tuareg.70 Development projects consisting of education, healthcare delivery, irrigation, and road building are wholly dependent on foreign assistance.71 Roughly, 90% of Mali’s 18.6 million citizens live in the less arid southern part of the country. Both countries regularly share a space on the lowest rung of the UN Human Development Index (HDI). As shown in a recent survey (HDI, 2018), Mali ranks 182 out of 189

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countries and has life expectancy of 58.5. Sierra Leone is stationed at 184 with life expectancy of 52.2.

IV. Concerning Prevention and “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) The search for policies and institutions to promote sustainable peace and improvements in the human condition globally is continuing briskly and at a rate of knots. From the lessons of the 1990s, the need to respond effectively to humanitarian consequences of devastating wars in our generation is dominating debates in international law, though without clear resolution on the legal status of a “right to respond.” Despite gaining prominence after the grave massacres of the immediate post-Cold War era, R2P has remained more in the realm of morality rather than law. And the UN General Assembly together with the Security Council is continuing to lean on succeeding Secretaries-General for advice on how best to equip and fortify the organization in ways to ensure it can deal properly with the challenges of the twenty-first century.72 Facing the Twenty-First-Century: Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Kofi Annan The 6th UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali responded with verve to the concerns of the UN General Assembly with lectures, proposals, and books on human security. His Agenda for Peace (1992) contains coherent recommendations on ways to strengthen the capacity of the United Nations for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, and peacekeeping. A full chapter of the book expounds the principles of preventive diplomacy and affirms Dag Hammarskjöld’s thinking73 that the local tensions in society must be identified and defused before they escalate into serious conflict. Confidence-building measures are vital to the successful management of postwar reconstruction, and the ideas have proliferated in much of his writings. His Agenda for Development (1994) underscores the integral linkage between development and peace in five main dimensions: peace, economic growth, environmental protection, social justice, and democracy.74 It was written in part to dispel the notion that the UN is narrowly focused only on peacekeeping. Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali has argued successfully in most of his works that strict adherence to sovereignty would impede rather than facilitate prevention.

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This theme resonates in Kofi Annan’s copious intellectual texts, arguments, and reflections on preventive diplomacy. He had been deeply preoccupied also with finding the ways and means to cut innovative pathways for effective humanitarian intervention, but without offending sensitivities of sovereignty. As he put it, the campaign for humanitarian intervention has to proceed quietly and carefully even in places suffering “gross and systematic violations of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity.”75 Scholars and policy makers shared Annan’s frustration on the difficulties involved in attempts to navigate the tight elbow room between sovereignty and the necessity to prevent. The times were different. The Cold War had come to an end. And many leaders in multilateral organizations were beginning to pay greater attention to emergent humanitarian catastrophes produced by rising civil wars across the globe. At the nudging of the UN Security Council, and against the backdrop of spectacular public distress over UN’s stunning failures to prevent genocide, Kofi Annan was compelled to look beyond prevailing international law and practice for fresh scaffoldings to build new structures necessary to ease the constraints on humanitarian intervention. Such a structure had to be flexible enough to simultaneously maintain traditional respect for sovereignty as well as accommodate an elevated humanitarianism defined in terms of international responsibility to prevent the worst outcomes of war.76 In the same spirit, the Canadians had also already established a think tank with the mandate “to build a broader understanding of the problem of reconciling intervention for human protection purposes and sovereignty.”77 R2P has systematically gained78 approval and credence in international humanitarian law and among mainstream international organizations. The UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change 79 endorses R2P enthusiastically, like so: “We endorse the emerging norm that there is a collective international R2P, exercisable by the Security Council authorizing military intervention as a last resort.”80 And the Brahimi Report81 follows suit. So too, the UN Security Council Resolution 1674 (April 28, 2003) says it is imperative to ensure the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict.82 Thus regarded, it is appropriate to look at R2P as a tripod of responsibilities: the responsibility to prevent, responsibility to react, and responsibility to rebuild. It represents a solemn covenant with the world’s vulnerable populations most of who today are persuaded that the international community will protect them, if their existence is threatened by indigenous despots. Proponents acknowledge that the R2P is fraught with physical

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danger and laden with unforeseen operational pitfalls. All agree nevertheless that the intent together with the actual fulfillment of the commitment is essential to preserve a peoples’ human dignity and to extend or reaffirm our common humanity. R2P has a chance to flourish in a moral world that is directed largely by normative leaders. Such leaders must also possess the political will and appropriate skills to mobilize and construct workable consensus against man-made political catastrophes. They, reformers, must be willing and able to mobilize international support to preempt organized crime against humanity such as mass murder, forcible expulsion, deliberate starvation, and negligent exposure of innocent populations to deadly diseases. It is worth repeating that “responsibility to protect” is not a universal law authorizing or conveying an automatic “right of intervention.”83 Sovereignty remains the legitimate organizing principle of the modern state system, and non-intervention is the operational norm. It has retained its structural integrity in the management of interstate relations. The norm of non-intervention draws enormous vitality from Articles 2(4) and 2(7) of the UN Charter, despite the growing consensus among many practitioners of law and scholars on the other side trying to transcend it. Contrarians are leaning heavily toward the protection of defenseless people against tyranny on the grounds of morality and necessity. Apropos, we are reminded that sovereignty is imbued with both authority and responsibility that are inexistent and therefore inoperable in cases of state failure.84 The central question for reflection in this milieu is this: What is humanity supposed to expect of the United Nations when governing systems go bust and murderous militias take control of large swaths of an otherwise sovereign state? The R2P perspective, to reiterate the postures, holds that it is superfluous and invalid to assume that sovereignty exists in the failed state. Timely intervention is of the essence, on behalf of humanity or civilization, in places where institutions of government have collapsed and human rights are wantonly abused. Comparable qualifiers and many more caveats proliferate in regard to new theorizing on prevention and R2P. They find fuller expressions also in impassioned works,85 among them is Kofi Annan, In Larger Freedom: Toward Development, Security and Human Rights for All (2005).86 By and Large: Humanity Can End Genocide; Ethnic Cleansing Preventive diplomacy is inspired by normative and ideational concerns about our present and common future. And like most principal concepts and doctrines of peace, emphasis is placed on the rule of law, consolidation

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of human security, and sustainable development. Much of the literature on the subject speaks powerfully of preeminent peace. A future world order is visualized in which violence is minimized and citizens are protected from mass atrocities. We are encouraged and comforted by constructive undergirdings in fundamental principles and positive reasoning that humanity after-all possesses and can mobilize the material and spiritual where-withall to end genocide as well as eliminate the motivation for large-scale ethnic cleansing. Those conditions that yield wars nevertheless persist and in many places they seem resistant to transformation. Bugs that had triggered older wars continue to simmer below the surface and today threaten seriously to reignite violence. Likewise, early warning systems are flashing unceasingly and aggressively in politically divided societies such as Nigeria, Togo, Guinea Bissau, and Guinea-Conakry among others. The Congo and the Sudan have come to exemplify and mark the zenith of human destitution. Dangerous times are not behind us. And therefore this is not the time for scholars and activists to stop or to grow too weary of seeking new ways and means to prevent erosion of human security and rights. The pre-eminence and necessity of the rules, precepts, and laws that foster peace and stability must be elucidated tirelessly through quality research and teaching.

Notes 1. Scholars holding this view believe also in the rule of law. And the United Nations is received by many as the foundation or nucleus of civilized global interactions. Jason Ralph, “What Should Be Done? Pragmatic Constructivist Ethics and the Responsibility to Protect,” International Organization 72, no. 1 (Winter 2018), 173–203. 2. On this and analysis, see Thomas G. Weiss, The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2018). 3. See 1619 (XV). Report of the Secretary General on the Estimated Cost of the United Nations Operation in the Congo from January 1 to December 31 of 1961; also see Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifteenth Session, Annexes, Agenda Items 49/50, Document A/4703. For an earlier narrative and analysis of the Congo crisis, see Stanley Hoffman, “In Search of a Thread: the UN in the Congo Labyrinth,” International Organization 16, no. 2 (Spring 1962), 331–361. A more contemporary compendium speaks of Dag Hammarskjöld in the context of international social justice. Carsten Stahn and Henning Melber, eds., Peace Diplomacy, Global Justice and International Agency: Rethinking Human Security and Ethics in the Spirit of Dag Hammarskjöld (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).

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4. Some of the analysis here are relevant to the subject at hand. See Ramesh Chandra Tukur, The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2017), Chapters 1–3. 5. The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension that emerged after World War II between the East (Communism) and West (Capitalism) ideological blocs. It was exemplified by the confrontation between Moscow and Washington over Cuba, and by the divisive hot wars of Korea, Vietnam, Guatemala, Bolivia, Angola, and Mozambique to mention a few. For a perspective on Africa, see Elizabeth Schmidt, Foreign Intervention in Africa: From the Cold War to the War on Terror (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 6. Lester Pearson would go on to serve as the 14th Canadian Prime Minister from 1963 to 1968. He won the Noble Peace Prize for his contributions to world peace and particularly for developing the idea of sending a multinational contingent to the Middle East, in response to the Suez Crisis, which evolved into the first designated “peacekeeping” mission, UNEF 1. 7. See Security Council Official Records, 896th Meeting, September 1960, Paragraph 101. 8. See Andrew N. Cordier and Wilder Foote, eds., The Quest for Peace: Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Lecture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), 40. 9. Statement on the Operations in the Congo before the UN General Assembly, October 17, 1960. 10. See UN General Assembly Resolution 60/1; also Executive Summary, World Summit Outcome Document (2005), 138–139. 11. Report of the Panel on the United Nations Peace Operations, Chaired by Ambassador Lakhdar Brahimi (Algeria); Transmitted to the Secretary General on August 17, 2000. 12. The political circumstances of domestic fracas are beyond the immediate scope of this work; however, it involves demands for improved living and work conditions that had been vastly neglected by the Belgian Colonial Government. The mutiny provided the pretext for Belgian intervention, which the newly inaugurated government under Patrice Lumumba had to resist because it threatened to escalate disorder. 13. The United Nations peacekeeping troops were contributed by Tunisia, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, India, Ireland, Morocco, and Sweden. Major General Carl von Horn of Sweden was selected to command the military force. The Congo operation remains one of the largest and sophisticated in the organizations peacekeeping history to date. Soldiers from over thirty diverse countries would eventually participate in the ONUC during the four year duration of the operation. At maximum strength, the peace operation held over 20,000 troops. A separate civilian operation that was attached to the

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19. 20.

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ONUC comprised specialists serving in diverse areas of the Congolese economy such as transportation, health, education, public administration, and so on. On narratives, see Lise K. Namikas, Battleground Africa: Cold War in the Congo, 1961–1965 (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2013). See Esref Aksu, The United Nations, Peacekeeping and Normative Change (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2003), Chapter 5. Can a peace mission achieve complete and total impartiality? Perhaps such a human standard is difficult to attain, especially in ideologically-laden emergencies. The point is that the United States was heavily invested in the Congo operation by virtue of Washington’s material and financial contribution. Far exceeding all other countries, the US Government provided slightly more than 42% of the overall expenses of the ONUC in the four years of the operation. Most administrators would naturally find it difficult not to retain the confidence of such a principal contributor. In addition to financial preponderance, the US influence at the time in the General Assembly and in the Security Council was considerable. Joseph Kasavubu was the leader of the ethnically based ABAKO Political Party of the Bakongo people. He became president in the broadly based coalition government with Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba and his Mouvement National Congolais (MNC). The latter had gained substantial plurality of the votes in the general election of May 1960. The Congolese Constitution in question stipulated that the office of the president is ceremonial. Under that legal context Joseph Kasavubu possessed no legal right to sack the elected prime minister or revoke the mandate of the office. In this case, the president wrought immense political havoc by dismissing the prime minister and without due reference to the parliament. As shown, Lumumba still enjoyed the confidence of the deputies who proceeded to repose their confidence in him by revoking the dismissal. Perhaps Kasavubu was being used and manipulated by inauspicious elements to generate negative pressures within the country against the government. See Nicole Hobbes, “The United Nations and the Congo Crisis of 1960,” EliScholar Digital Platform for Scholarly Publication in Yale (2014), 1–49. United Nations peacekeeping and strategic activities impacted the thoughts of many African leaders throughout the southern African neighborhood and beyond. For example, Joshua Nkomo in the then Rhodesia had gone to the General Assembly to request UN’s intervention in his country. He said that White Minority rule was an abuse worth repealing via the use of force to liberate the oppressed blacks. See Timothy Scarnecchia, “The Congo Crisis, the United Nations and Zimbabwean Nationalism, 1960–1963,” African Journal on Conflict Resolution 11, no. 1 (2011), 63–85. The country now belongs in the archetype conflict system in which myriad networks of indigenous rebel groups are jostling one another in a seemingly

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endless competition for land and raw materials. Moribund insurgents from neighboring Burundi and Rwanda have entered the fray for reasons spanning unresolved cross-border ethnic and political grievances to predatory acquisitive goals. Most groups are drawn into the Congo to exploit diamond and timber. See Ray Murphy, “UN Peacekeeping in the Congo and Protection of Civilians,” Journal of Conflict and Security Law 212 (February 2016), 209–246. Mats Berdal, “The State of UN Peacekeeping: Lessons from the Congo,” Journal of Strategic Studies 41, no. 5 (July 2018), 721–750. New patterns of post-Cold War conflicts in Africa are measure by increases in the rates of violence inside a country and shifts that reflect greater localization of conflict. Interstate wars are rare these days. On this, see Clionadh Raleigh, Caitriona Dowd, and Andrew Linke, “Africa Baselines and Trends,” Armed Conflict Location and Event Dataset, Department of Geography, UK Aid, March 2013, 1–35; and Project Ploughshares, Ontario, Canada, 2016; also Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfer (NISAT), December 23, 2016. The Modibo Keita Administration thought that Tuareg way of live was detrimental to modernization and his determined effort to force nomads to become sedentary farmers (to sedentarize) contributed to the first Tuareg revolt of 1963. See Boubacar Ba and Morten Boas, “Mali: A Political Economy Analysis,” Norwegian Institute of International Affairs Report, Oslo, Norway, 2017. George Klute, “Post-Gaddafi Repercussions in Northern Mali,” Strategic Review of Southern Africa 35, no. 2 (2013), 53–67. On this, see Morten Boas and Liv Elin Torheim, “Corruption, Collusion and Resistance,” Third World Quarterly 34, no. 7 (August 1, 2013), 1279– 1292. See David Francis, “Regional Impact of the Armed Conflict and French Intervention in Mali,” Special Report of the Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center, Oslo, April 2013. The Maghreb Conflict System is located in the Sahel region of northern West Africa. It is home to many of the nefarious manufacturers of crisis for export. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is located in the system. A fundamentalist armed group created from the remnants of the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), AQIM facilitates illicit commercial interactions including local recruitment of young jihadists into terrorist networks worldwide. Mark Tran, “Mali: A Guide to Conflict,” The Guardian, Wednesday 16, 2013; also Binoy Kampmark, “Mali Intervention: France, Islamic Fundamentalism and Africa,” International Policy Digest, January 15, 2013. Johannes G. Hoogeven, et al., “Leaving, Staying or Coming Back? Migration Decisions During the Northern Mali Conflict,” Journal of Development Studies (August 29, 2018), 1–17.

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31. See Bruce Whitehouse, “The Force of Action: Legitimizing the Coup in Bamako, Mali,” Africa Spectrum 47, nos. 2–3 (2012), 93–113. 32. Katharina P.W. Doring and Jen Herpolsheimer, “The Spaces of Intervention for Mali and Guinea Bissau,” South African Journal of International Affairs 25 (2018), 61–82. 33. See John Karlsrud, “The UN at War: Examining the Consequences of PeaceEnforcement Mandates for the UN Peacekeeping Operations in CAR, the DRC and Mali,” Third World Quarterly 36, no. 1 (January 2, 2015), 40–54. 34. An interesting study compares the peace process in Mali with Algerian experiences. It suggests that the Malian security environment is continuing to deteriorate, see Report, “Mali, Algeria and the Uneasy Search for Peace,” European Council on Foreign Relations, October 4, 2018. 35. On the evolving UN-AU cooperation for peace, see Thomas G. Weiss and Martin Welz, “The UN and the African Union in Mali and Beyond: A Shotgun Wedding?” International Affairs 90, no. 4 (2014), 889–905. 36. For reports and analysis of post war conditions in Mali, see Katarina Hoije, “Global Security at Stake in Mali’s Islamist,” Bloomberg Wire Service, September 20, 2018; also Editorial Supplement, “France Faces Revival of Mali Militants,” Dow Jones Institutional News, December 19, 2013. 37. Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), “What’s the Way Forward for Mali,” IRIN, February 12, 2013, 2–4; also Roger Kaplan, “Mischief in Mali: A Model African Country Confronts Subversion—With US Help,” The Weekly Standard 17, no. 25, March 12, 2012, 3–4. 38. On this, see Report, Project Ploughshare, Conrad Grebel University College at University of Waterloo, 2018. 39. Adib Bencherif, From the ‘Tuareg Question’ to Memories of Conflict: In Support of Mali’s Reconciliation: A Stabilizing Mali Project, Center Franco Paix Resolution des Conflict et Missions de paix, March 2018. 40. On this and postwar rehabilitation programs, see Jose Luengo Cabrera, “Symptoms of an Enduring Crisis: Prospects for Addressing Mali’s Conflict Catalyst,” Harvard African Peace Journal (April 2, 2013), 9–18. 41. See Mahamat Saleh Annadif (Report): Special Representative of the UN Secretary General and Head of MINUSMA, August 28, 2018. 42. On the changing nature of warfare in Africa, see Simon Stander, Why War: Capitalism and the Nation State (New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016); also Damon Acemoglu, et al., “Dynamic Theory of Resource War,” Quarterly Journal of Economic 126, no. 1 (February 2012), 283–294. 43. Among scholars and conflict analysts, there seems to be a consensus that intervention marks the failure of prevention. And the use of military force is necessary only as a last resort. On this, see David H. Ucko, “Can limited Intervention Work? Lessons from Britain’s Success Story in Sierra Leone,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 39, nos. 5–6 (2016), 847–877.

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44. See Human Rights Watch, “Shocking War Crimes in Sierra Leone,” Report, January 24, 1999. About 50 thousand were killed in the Sierra Leone war. 45. Apocalyptic images of the war have been vividly portrayed in a famous documented film production. See Sorious Samura, Cry Freedom (London: Inside News Television, Documentary Film, 2000). 46. UN troops were drawn from Bangladesh, Ghana, Guinea-Conakry, India, Jordan, Kenya, Zambia, and a number of battalions from Nigeria. Reactions among the UN Peacekeeping Command to the incidents of rebel abuse varied: the contingents from Bangladesh and Jordan were most vocal. They asked the UN Headquarters for clarifications on a few operational details in peacekeeping and issued a threat of withdrawal from the mission, if denied the authority to use force beyond self-defence. They also demanded significant augmenting and upgrading of the UN’s field armory. The forces were under the command of Indian Major General Vijay Kumar Jetley. 47. For declaratory support, see UN Security Council Resolution 1289 (February 2000). A granular account of battle dynamics, tensions within the UNAMSIL Command and snap decisions by Secretary General Kofi Annan, see Trevor Findlay, The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2002). 48. The bulk of the West African peacekeeping force known by the acronym ECOMOG was Nigerian, and Abuja found itself shouldering more than a lion share of the peacekeeping expenses because not all members of the ECOWAS were forthcoming in their financial commitment to the cause of peace. And roughly 30 Nigerian soldiers returned home in body bags every day. And beyond humanitarianism, the Nigerian leadership was concerned with the demonstration effects of rebellion in the region. See William Wallis, “Nigeria Counts Votes and the Cost of Its involvement in Sierra Leone War,” Financial Times, January 12, 1999. 49. For this and discussion of critical moments in the conflict, see J. Peter Pham, “Making Sense of a Senseless War,” Human Rights and Human Welfare 7 (2007), 35–51. 50. The then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan contributed to the persuasion of British intervention. He had dispatched a letter to Whitehall that was circulated among government and diplomatic circles in the subsequent days. The communication was simultaneously a petition and a reminder to London—on the questions of morality and responsibility—not to abandon but to protect the ex-British colony of Sierra Leone in its time of tremendous trouble. It was ultimately also a worried diplomatic stunt. Kofi Annan clearly foresaw an impending catastrophe. Human condition had descended into an abyss of superlative dysfunction. And the appeal in itself would become one of the many defining moments of the war. Non-intervention had been Britain’s defining policy and Prime Minister Blair previously would commit to nothing beyond the supply of arms and logistical support.

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51. Opposing views preferred benign intervention through equipping the Sierra Leone Army with effective security assets, support for peace processes, and funding to implement the disarmament and demobilization program. 52. Stephen Benedict Dyson, Blaire Identity, Leadership and Foreign Policy (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009), Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2. 53. See Andrew M. Dorman, Blaire’s Successful War. British Military Intervention in Sierra Leone (Burlington, UK: Ashgate, 2011), Chapters 1–3. 54. Like the United States, the reluctance of big powers to place their soldiers under UN umbrella spans many concerns revolving around the need to protect military secrets or national security. Skepticism about the training and quality of UN’s fighting forces—those are traditionally drawn from the developing world—is perhaps the addition reason. See UN Daily Briefing, “Lack of Participation by Developed Countries in UN Peacekeeping Missions Raised in the Fourth Committee,” UN Press Release, GA/SPD/199, November 8, 2000. 55. Paul Williams, “Fighting for Freetown: British Military Intervention in Sierra Leone,” Contemporary Security Policy 22, no. 3 (December 1, 2001), 140–168. 56. Playful exuberance characterized the end of war celebrations: General David Richards boasted that his Palliser had “…created order out of Sierra Leone’s chaos, put the UN back on its feet [and] given the rebels a bloody nose and departed.” Tony Blair thought that Sierra Leone marked a high point in his foreign policy. The prime minister was later honored for bravery by Sierra Leonean Traditional Rulers with the title of Paramount Chief of Sierra Leone. And a graffiti wall at a market square thanked Queen Elizabeth in a declaratory fashion typical of Freetown popular humor: “Queen Elizabeth for King!” On this, see Tristan McConnell, “Blair Gets Hero’s Welcome in Sierra Leone,” Christian Science Monitor (June 1, 2007). 57. Operation Basilica lasted six weeks until July 22, 2000. Commanded by Brigadier-General Gordon Hughes, the operation included a 200-strong team of British Military Advisers (also known as the Short Term Training Team). 58. The use of overwhelming military force in contemporary internal conflicts is said to be the main and essential instrument to end new wars of the postCold War era in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world. According to the vision, obdurate rebels are unlikely to accept negotiated settlements unless and until they suffer and are subjected to complete and total battlefield defeat. David Shearer made the point, thus: “support for one warring side against another is valid response that can hasten the end of the conflict and restrict the loss of life…” See, David Shearer, “Exploring the Limits of Consent: Conflict Resolution in Sierra Leone,” Millennium 26, no. 3 (1997), 858.

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59. United Nations, Report of the Security Council Mission to Sierra Leone, UN document S/2000/992, October 16, 2000. Members of the mission comprised Canada, China, France, Jamaica, Mali, the Netherlands, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. 60. An interesting study speaks of extraction becoming voracious the more the political system is caught in perennial cycles of political conflicts and high intensity of corrupt exploitation is correlated with weak constitutional cohesiveness. The dynamic thus described looks like personal accumulation and kleptocracy in the typical patrimonial system of rule. See Frederick van der Ploeg, “Political Economy of Dynamic Resource Wars,” Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (September 2017), 1–28. For extraction in the patrimonial estate, see Anne Pitcher, et al., “Rethinking Patrimonialism and Neopatrimonialism in Africa,” African Studies Review 52, no. 1 (April 2009), 125–156. 61. About these mining companies and reports on their activities since the end of the Sierra Leone War, see Editorial, “Iluka Enters Trading Halt to Buy Sierra Ltd,” Sierra Leone News, Wednesday, January 2, 2019; also Editorial Report, Australian Miner Iluka Resources Reveals African Recurring Scandal, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project —OCCRP, Wednesday, October 16, 2017. 62. Captain Valentine Strasser came to power in a coup d’état (April 29, 1992). It was his regime that hired Executive Outcome (EO). Although managing to re-capture the mineral-rich district of Kono and ousting the RUF, there were rumblings among the officer corps that the EO deal was padded and bloated. After four years in office, Strasser was deposed (January 16, 1966) in a palace upheaval led by Brigadier Julius Maada Bio and exiled to GuineaConakry. See Jimmy Kandeh, “What Does the Militariat Do When It Rules? Gambia, Sierra Leone, and Liberia,” Review of African Political Economy 23, no. 69 (September 1996), 387–404. 63. The story of Sierra Leone is well told, see Funmi Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishing, 2008). 64. The Lomé Accord was better planned than the preceding meetings in part because participation was enlarged. And ideas and voices from domestic and international groups were solicited and incorporated into the peace design. British-led Contact Group on Sierra Leone held planning sessions in London and New York. The Sierra Leone Inter-Religious Faith met many times with the RUF and splinter groups to soften turf ahead of the peace talks. See Joseph Bangura and Marda Mustapha, Sierra Leone Beyond the Lome Accord (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). 65. The chief negotiator of the accord was the President of Côte d’Ivoire, Henri Konan Bedie. In supporting roles were representatives of the UN, AU, ECOWAS, and the Commonwealth of Nations. Although the disputants accepted duly to cease hostilities, the agreement was not implemented. RUF

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67.

68.

69. 70.

71.

72. 73.

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distrusted the government. And the Kabbah Administration never took the agreement seriously. The government had secured the military services of a foreign mercenary force, Executive Outcome. The government was selfreassured for this reason of winning outright military victory over the RUF rebels. The Conakry Accord was brokered by the ECOWAS. The agreement provided for a ceasefire and restoration of constitutional government under the ousted Ahmed Kabbah. ECOMOG entered Freetown and ousted the military junta by force once its leaders rebuffed the agreement. And constitutional order was restored in March 1998. Other ceasefire agreements were smaller but significant such as the 2013 Preliminary Peace Agreement preparatory to the elections in the immediate aftermath of the war (2013); and the Ceasefire Agreement (May 24, 2014) following the two day uprisings from 17th to 18th of May, 2014 by minority elements opposed to the prime minister’s proposed visit to Kidal. See Report, Mali, “Algeria and the Uneasy Search for Peace,” European Council on Foreign Relations, October 4, 2018. Ongoing efforts for peace seem to be asphyxiated by incessant conflicts between and within communities, revealing a web of dizzying emergencies. See SIPRI Yearbook 2016: Armament, Disarmament and International Security (Solna, Sweden: SIPRI, 2016). See Kenneth C. Omege, Peacebuilding in Contemporary Africa: In Search of Alternative Strategies (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2019). Emily Maiden and Mark Brockway, “Parlez-vous Francais? Language and Agricultural Aid Allocation Strategies in Northern Mali,” World Development 106 (June 2018), 356–371. See Maria Brockhaus, et al., “Envisioning the Future and Learning from the Past: Adapting to a Changing Environment in Northern Mali,” Environmental Science and Policy 25 (January 2013), 94–106. Thomas G. Weiss, United Nations and the Changing World Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2017). The text in part reads as follows: “[The United Nations should actively seek to contain or avert conflict]…By Quiet Diplomacy when circumstances permitted, in the form of good offices if the parties themselves demonstrated an inability to deal with the situation and if necessary by overt United Nations action.” See UN Secretary General’s Report to the National Assembly, October 17, 1959. Boutros-Ghali famously spoke to the subject and held thus: “[Preventive Diplomacy consists of]…any action to prevent disputes from arising between parties, prevent existing disputes from escalating into conflict, and limit the spread of existing disputes when they occur.” For comments and discussion of the issues, see Henning Melber, “In the Footsteps of Dag Hammarskjöld,” Strategic Review for South Africa 34, no. 2 (November 2012), 1–26. Also see Oscar Schachter, “Dag Hammarskjöld and the

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74.

75.

76. 77.

78. 79.

80. 81. 82.

O. AKIBA

Relation of Law to Politics,” American Journal of International Law 56 (1962), 2–5. The interlinkages are more clearly and eloquently stated in the sub-section entitled—Dimensions of Development: “Without peace, human energies cannot be productively employed over time. Without economic growth, there will be a lack of resources to apply to any problem. Without a healthy environment, productivity will devour the basis of human progress. Without social justice, inequalities will consume the best efforts at positive change. Without positive participation in freedom, people will have no voice in shaping their individual and common destiny”. Secretary General Annan made this clear at the United Nations Millennium Summit. And the question in full reads thus: “If humanitarian intervention is, indeed, an unacceptable assault on sovereignty, how should we respond to a Rwanda, to a Srebrenica—to gross and systematic violation of human rights that affect every precept of our common humanity.” See also, Christof Royer, “Framing and Reframing R2P—Responsibility to Protect Humanity from Evil,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (June 9, 2018), 1–24. Kofi Annan, We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century (New York, NY: United Nations Publishing, 2000). The Canadian International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty was established in September 2000 by the Canadian Government. See International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), The Responsibility to Protect, International Development Research Center, Ottawa, 2001. The Commissioners were drawn from diverse disciplines and professions (the military, law, politics, government and business). And they came from Russia, Germany, Canada, South Africa, the United States, Switzerland, and Guatemala. http://www.iciss.ca/pdf/commissionReport. See Alex J. Bellamy and Edward C. Luck, The Responsibility to Protect: From Promise to Practice (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2018). See Report of the High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change: Our Shared Responsibility, UN Document A/59/565 (December 2, 2004). Kofi Annan was the architect of the “Panel,” which was announced to the General Assembly in September 2003. The 16-Member Panel conducted indepth studies on global trends in security threats and made recommendation on effective means to deal with challenges to peace. Ibid. See Security Council Report, Research Report, No. 2, May 2016. For analyses, see Jared Genser, “The United Nations Security Council’s Implementation of the Responsibility to Protect: A Review of Past Interventions and Recommendations for Improvement,” Chicago Journal of International Law 18, no. 2 (Winter 2018), 420–501.

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83. See Christina Lafont, “Sovereignty and the International Protection of Human Rights,” Journal of International Philosophy 24, no. 4 (December 2016), 427–445. 84. An illuminating analysis is provided by See Seng Tan, “Providing for the Other: Rethinking Sovereignty in Southeast Asia,” Critical Studies on Security 5, no. 3 (September 2, 2017); also Stevie Martin, “Sovereignty and the Responsibility to Protect: Mutually Exclusive or Codependent?” Griffith Law Review 20, no. 1 (January 1, 2011), 153–187. 85. See Natalie Zahringer, “Norm Evolving Within and Across African Union and the United Nations: The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) as a Contested Norm,” South African Journal of International Affairs 20, no. 2 (August 1, 2013), 187–205. 86. See UN Document A/59/2005. Material is available at http://www.un. org/largerfreedom.

Index

A Abbe Diamacoune, 114 Abduction of girl-children, 155 Abidjan Accord (November 30, 1996), 320 Abubakar, Abdusalami, 57, 198, 225 Abuja Accord (August 1995), 195, 202 Abuja Accord (August 1996), 195 Abuja II Accord (effect in 1997), 196 Abusive-aggressive policing, 86 Access to education, xxvi, 17, 93, 94, 265 Access to formal education, 89 Accords (Foundiougne I, February 2005; Foundiougne II, December, 2005), 129 2003 Accra Agreement , 198 Accra Clarification (December 1994), 195 Addictive substances, 88 Affirmative action, 125 Afolabi, Babatunde, xvii, xviii, 21, 22 AFRC-RUF Coalition Government, 315

African body politic and purge elite domination, xxiii African indigenous associational life, xix Africa-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA), 312, 313 African organizations, 311 African Union (AU), xxv, 2, 13, 17, 25, 35, 40, 45, 51, 52, 56, 58, 61, 62, 65, 70, 71, 73, 131, 163, 165, 166, 192, 220, 225, 258, 267, 311, 313 African Union’s principle of nonindifference, 299 African Women’s Committee for Peace and Development, the, 164 African youth, 83, 92, 103 African Youth Charter, 95 Ag Bamoussa, 309 Agenda for Development (1994), 322 Agenda for Peace, 7, 234, 322 Ag Mbarek Kay, 309 Ag Mohamed Najem, 309

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 O. Akiba (ed.), Preventive Diplomacy, Security, and Human Rights in West Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25354-7

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338

INDEX

Agre, Bernard, Cardinal (late), 232 Agricultural land-use, 137 Ahmed Al Faqi Mahdi (Islamist fundamentalist), 9 Air Mano, 154 Akiba, Okon, xviii Ako Nai, Ronke, xxi, 25 Akosombo Accord (September 1994), the, 195 Alao, Charles Abiodun, xxi, 25 Albanians, 272, 276–278, 289 Al-Basir, Omar, 10 Alcohol and illegal drugs, 88 Algerian Peace Pact (May 4, 2006), 320 Algiers Peace Agreement (February 16, 2015), the, 320 Alienation, 15, 78, 83, 85, 86, 102, 171, 175 All-Liberia National Conference, 189, 191 Al-Qaeda, xvi Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), 240, 310, 314, 321, 328 Ambivalence of the sacred, xxi Americo-Liberian advantaged elite, 24 Amilcar Cabral of Guinea Bissau, 113 Amnesty International, 9, 158 Anarchism, 176 Animus, xxi Annan, Kofi, 7, 28, 33, 37, 258, 296, 298, 323, 324, 330, 334 Annual Round-Table, 233 An outcast prone, xxi Ansar Dine, 9, 309, 310, 321 Anti-corruption bulletins, 229 Antidotes to conflict, 46, 262 Anti-ICC chorus, 12 Antique port city of Zanzibar, 267 Anti-secularist, 239 Arab Spring, 309 Arbitration, xv, 15, 182, 295

Aristotle, xxi, xxvii Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL), 177, 185, 186, 190, 191, 195, 196, 209 Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), 163, 315 Armenians, 272 Army usurpation, xvii Article 33 of the UN Charter, 294 Article 58 of the revised 1993 ECOWAS Treaty, 47 Articulate and pass legislation outlawing, 282 Arusha Peace Process, 266, 268 Ascendant social status for religious leaders, 215 Association of Traditional Priests, 231, 233 Association Régionale des Femmes pour la Paix (ARFP), 133 Atlantic trade, 110 Atrocities of war, xxi Attributes of mediation, 181 Authority of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government, The, 49 Avoidance of war, 255 Azar, Edward, 4 B Bad governance, 14, 52, 53, 79, 84, 314 Bad government, xix, 46, 50, 79, 220, 294, 296, 321 Badji, Sidy, 114 Bainouk, 137 Balanta, 137 Bamako Ceasefire (November 1990), 191 Banditry, 112 Bangura, Zainab, 163 Banjul II, September 1999, 127 Banjul III, November 1999, 127

INDEX

Banjul Joint Statement (December 1990), 191 Banjul Plan of Action, 56 Banjul Process , 127 Bargaining failures , 178 Bargaining theory, 115 Barrows, Adama, 12, 120 Basilica of Our Lady of Peace at Yamoussoukro, 229 Bayelsa State government’s Capacity Acquisition Program (CAP), 90 Beardsley, Kyle, 179 Belgian colonial rule, 300 Belgian law, 305 Belgian paratroopers, 300 Berchovitch, Jacob, 180 Berlin Conference (1884), 136 Biagui, Jean-Marie Francois, 114, 129, 147 Biological determinism, 4 Bissauan Casamancais, 137 Blair, Tony (British Prime Minister), 202, 314, 316, 317 Blind revenge, 269 Boigny, Houphouet, 191, 192, 199, 229 Boko Haram, 15, 24, 218, 235, 239, 240 Boko Haram militants in Nigeria, The, 314 Boley, George, 196 Booh-Booh, Jacques-Roger (Cameroonian General), 269 Border police control and customs police procedures, 282 Bornu, 239, 240 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 272, 273 Botswana, 16, 19 Boutros-Ghali, Boutros, 7, 32, 258, 259, 261, 275, 285, 296, 298, 322, 333 Brahimi Report, 299, 323

339

Bratten, Michael, 223 Brigandage, 112 British Amphibious Ready Group, The, 317 British commandos, 228 British paratroopers, 157 British Special ‘Paratroop’ Forces, 318 Bryant, Gyude (Chairman of Liberia), 153, 198 Bulgarians, 272 Bunche, Ralph (ONUC field director), 304 Bureaucratic corruption, 5, 16, 49, 52, 282, 283, 314 Burundi, 11, 265, 266, 272, 287, 328 C Cacheu, 114, 115 Cadre Casamancais , 122 Cahill, Kevin, 3, 30 Calabar city of Nigeria, 158 Camara, Dadis (Captain), 62, 63 Camaraderie (esprit de corps ), 112 Campaign for Good Governance (CGG), 166 Canada, 217, 268 Canalization of cultures and the people, 109 Capital city of Ziguinchor, 136 Capital intensity, 124 Carnevale, Peter, 179 Carrot and stick, 178, 183 Casamancais, xviii, 23, 108, 111, 114, 117, 121, 122, 125, 126, 128, 136, 138, 139, 146 Casamancais belief systems, 124 Casamancais Exceptionalism, 137 Casamancais regionalists, 121 Casamancais youths, 109, 139 Casamance, xviii, 108–116, 118–139 Casamance conflict, 109–111, 113, 120, 129, 131, 137, 149, 151

340

INDEX

Casamance region, 20, 107, 110, 123, 127–129, 134–137, 145 Catholic Cardinal Yago, 231 Cattle-owning (Tutsi), 264 Celestial reward, 215 Center for International Crime Prevention (CICP), 281 Central African Republic, 314 Central Mosque in Kano, 237 Cesar Atoute Badiate, 118 Chambas, Mohamed Ibn, 19 Child soldiers, 82, 96, 155 Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), the, 242 Christian Charismatic and Pentecostal rallies, 216 Christian organizations, 217 Christian Women’s Initiative, 161 ‘Christmas Coup’, 231 Church World Service (CWS), 226 Chutzpah, xxi Citizenship, xxiii Civil and human rights, 94 Civil/Political Rights (CPR), 14 Civil service jobs, 90 Civil society, 90 Civil war in Liberia (1989), 155 Clausewitzean conventional understandings of war, 177 Clientelistic patronage networks, 186 Climate change, 7 Cluster of war-induced traumas, 111 Coercive power, 179 Co-factor of conflict, 7 Cold War, the, 293 Collective grievance, 121 Collective of Religious Confessions for National Reconciliation and Peace, The, 233 Collective responsibility to protect (RP2), 2 Colonel Joseph-Desire Mobutu, 306

Colonial anger, 126 Colonial policy of discrimination, 126 Colonial rule, 107 Comite Regional de Solidarite des Femmes pour la Paix en Casamance (USOFORALmeaning hand-in-hand in Jola), 134 Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), 268 Common ECOWAS currency, 51 Common market, 153 Community of Sahel-Saharan States, The (CEN-SAD), 62 Community of Sant’Egidio, 130 Community practices, xix Community virtue, xix Compaore, Blaise, 57, 63, 159 Comparative analyses of human security, 257 Compromise, 180 Compulsory education, 22 Conakry Accord (October 23, 1997), 320 Concerned Christian Community of Liberia (CCCL), 226 Conciliation, xv Conde, Alhassane, 63 Conditions for peace, 255 Confidence building, 280 Conflict and Peace: Article 17, 95 Conflict-elimination equation, 220 Conflict prevention, 280 Conflict-prone face of religion, 219 Conflict-prone Northern Nigerian city of Kano, 217 Conflict risks, 65 Conflict transformation, 5, 7 1960 Congo Crisis, 296, 318 Congo Crisis, the, 258 Congolese National Army, the, 299 Congo province of Kasai, the, 299

INDEX

Congo Republic, 300 Conseil of National Islamique de Côte d’Ivoire, 230 Context-specific knowledge, 178 Continental Early Warning System (CEWS), 65 Controversial and unusual election, 157 2005 Convention on Small Arms and Light Weapons, 50 Cooperative security, xvi Cordier, Andrew (UN’s American field representative), 304 Côte d’Ivoire, 228 Cotonou Accord (June 1993), 193 Council of Congolese University Students (College des Commissaire), the, 306 Council of Indigenous Akan Religious Priests, 233 Council of the Wise, 21, 46, 49 Council on Foreign Relations, 79 Countervailing militarized structures, 87 Covert communication surveillance, 16 Credibility leverage, 178 Creole language, 136 Crime prevention, 281, 282 Criminal entrepreneurship, 82 Criminal gangs, 82 Criminalizing drug-trafficking, 282 Criminal organizations, 82 Crisis of youth, 82 Croatia, 272, 273 Cross-border problems, 109 CSI refused to join the Forum, 231 Cultural ornamentation, 134 Cultural, political preferences, 178 Curative, 22 D Dalai Lama, The, 4

341

Dallaire, Romeo (UN Forces Commander), 258, 268–270, 272, 285, 287 December Massacre, 228, 239 Deep grievances, 86 Defense and Security Commission, 49 Delta State Government, 91 Demagogues, xv Demobilization-DisarmamentReintegration (DDR), 89, 262 Democratic education, xvii Democratic equality, xix Democratic Republic of the Congo, 219 Democratic rights and freedom, 108 Demographic shift, xviii Denmark, 217 Dense social networks, 87 Deputy President William Ruto, 12 De-sacralize, xix De Souza, Marcel A. (ECOWAS Commission leader), 19 Destruction of the sacred forest , 124 Destructive weapons of war, 2 Diamond rich areas of Sierra Leone, 156 Diatta, Kamougue, 116 Diouf, Abdou, 110, 116, 122, 126–129 Diplomacy, 175 Diplomatic leverage, 177 Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR), 164, 226 Disarming of landmines, 133 Discriminatory policies, 109 Disenfranchised youth, 80 Disenfranchisement, 78 Disgruntled youth, 92 Dispensing (jungle) justice, 15 Displaced populations, 86 Disputes emanating from “misunderstandings”, 182

342

INDEX

Divisive ethnic tensions, 15 Djibo, Salou, 61 Doctrinal and philosophical (mis)understandings, 222 Dowd, Robert, 217 Drug abuse treatment, 282 Drug-trafficking origination, 281 Dyfan, Isha, 166 Dynamic inter-play of give-and-take, 264 Dysmorphic defects in temporal authority, xxi E Early warning mechanisms, 47 Early warning system, 46 Economically depressed countries, 94 Economic and social rights, 16 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 2, 45, 79, 131, 176, 187, 220, 225, 320 Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), 24, 49, 156, 227 Economic development, xvi Economic incentive, 138 Economic inequities, 125 Economic marginalization, 14 Economic planning, 45 Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ESCR), 14 Economic union in West Africa, 47 ECOWAS Commission, 49 ECOWAS Conflict Management Mechanism, 14 ECOWAS Conflict Prevention Framework (ECPF), 3, 6, 50, 79, 92, 201 ECOWAS Conflict Preventive Framework (ECPF), 6 ECOWAS Executive Secretary (Abbas Bundu), 193

ECOWAS Forces joined French Troops, 9 ECOWAS International Conference, 51 ECOWAS Mediation Guideline (EMG), 47, 54 ECOWAS of States to an ECOWAS of People, 50 ECOWAS policy on refugees, 17 ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance, 60 ECOWAS Protocol on good governance, 46 ECOWAS refugee policy, 17 ECOWAS Special Envoys, 57 ECOWAS Youth Council, the (EYC), 93 ECOWAS Youth Entrepreneurs and Empowerment Program, the (EYEP), 93 Educational infrastructures, 89 Ehhardt, David, 217 Eliagwu, Jonah Isawa, 235 El-Zakzaky’s Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), 238 Enforceable and justiciable, 16 Enrichment of individual life, xxiii Environmental quality, 110 Envoys, 21 Equality and access to material resources, 220 Erosion of access to basic living, 86 Escalations of youth violence, 86 Ethiopia, 217 Ethnic cleansing of the early 1990s, 255 Ethnic cleavages run parallel, 223 Ethnic-culturally divided societies, 180 Ethnic differences in Nigeria, 222 Ethnic hatred, xxi Ethnicized discrimination, 222 Ethno-religious, 18

INDEX

Ethno-religious fears, 221 Ethno-religious strife, 24 European settler community, 305 European Union, 278 Evolutionary value, xxiii Exceptionalism, 110 Exchange of cannabis for arms, 119 Exclusivist ideology of Hutu identity, 268 Ex-combatants, 89 Exit option for young people, 94 Expansion of employment, 280 ‘Explosive Remnants of War’ (ERW), 133 Externalities of conflict, 109 Extremes of commercial exploitation for profit, 124 Extremes of religious fanaticism, 223 Extremist Hutu Power faction, 268 F Façade of a rock-solid Senegal, 138 Facebook, 16 Facilitator, 266 Factors dictating human preference for peace, xxiii Faith-based, cultural and educational institutions, 96 Favorable ‘in-group’ biases, 180 Fears of ethnic discrimination, 276 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 278 Federation of Muslim Women Associations of Sierra Leone, 227 Femmes Africa Solidarite, 164 First RPF military move (October 1, 1990), 265 Food insecurity, 82 Food producing-agriculturalist (Hutu), 264 Formal employment, 82 Formation of legitimate government, 284

343

Formed (May 1991) in GuineaConakry, 156 Former Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo, 9, 222, 229, 232 Former US President Jimmy Carter, 192, 199 Forum des Confessions Religieuses Côte d’Ivoire, 231 Foundation for Justice and Development Initiative, 11 Founding women’s group, 166 France, 217 Free exercise of their citizenship rights, 276 French-supported Forces Armees Rwandaises (FAR), 265 Front Nord (Northern Front), 114 Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI), 229 Front Sud (Southern Front), 114 Fulani, 310 Fundamental characteristics of religion-based conflict, 221 Fundamentalism as Boko Haram, 204

G Gaddafi, Muammar, 159, 184 Gao (MUJAO), 310 Gartner, Sigmund, 180 “Gbagbo has blood on his hands”, 232 Gbarnga, 190 Gbeho, Victor James, 19, 52 Gbowee, Leymah, 161 Gendarmerie corps, 126 Gendarmerie Royale of Senegal, 121 Gendered prejudice, xix Gender-inclusiveness and promotion of the human rights of women, 154 General Abdusalami of Nigeria, 60 General David Richards, 316 General Robert Guei, 231, 232 General Yakubu Gowon, 222

344

INDEX

‘59er Generation’, 265 Genocidaires, 269 Genocidal conflict in Rwanda, 13 Genocide, xv, 27, 255 Genocide in Rwanda, xxii Genocide in the Balkans and Rwanda, 2 Germany, 217, 225 Ghana, 217, 225 Gibson, Myrtle, 160 Gio and Mano ethnic origins, 184 Gizenga, Antoine, 307 Gligorov, Kiro, 26, 273–275, 283 Global humanitarian agency, the, 226 Global humanitarian obligations, xvi Global justice, 10 Global system of states, 1 Global trade in illegal arms, 79 Good offices , xv, 182, 267 Government of Siaka Stevens, 86 Government of Sierra Leone, 89 Grant amnesty to all active maquisards, 128 Grassroots organizations, xvii Graybill, Lyn S., 227 Grebo Defence Force (GDF), 224 Greenstock, Jeremy (British Ambassador), 318 50/50 Group in Sierra Leone, 167 G5 Sahel (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritius, Niger and Chad), 204 Guaranteed long-term durability, 179 ‘Guerrilla to Governor’, 284 Guinea independence October 1958, 62 Guinean National Council for Democracy and Development (CNDD), 63

H Habyarimana government, 268

Habyarimana, Juvenal, 265, 267–269 Hague, The, 11 Haldun Canci, 222 Hamburg, David, 255 Hard power, 178 Hate-filled graffiti, 124 Heady student activism, 221 Hearts and minds , 317 Henrico Ural, 84 Higher law, xx Hobbes, Thomas, 175 Homelessness, 125 Horrendous human cruelty, 155 Hostage-taking, 157 Houphouet, Boigny, 228 Human development, 110, 220 Human dimension, 280 Humane governance, 126 Human rights, xvi Human rights corpus, 13 Human rights of refugees, 17 Human security, 45 Human security risks, 77 Human society, 124 Hutu compatriots, 264 Hutu supremacist syndrome, 263

I Ideology of Hutuness , 264 Ikelegbe, Augustine, xviii, 22, 98 Illegal diamond trade, 156 Illegal exploitation of mineral resources, 156 Illiterate and acquiescent masses, 269 Imam Koudous Kone (CNI), 232 Imam Muhammed Movel Ashafa, 241 Imam Tidiane Ba, 231 Impartiality, 311 Impose stiffer sanctions on GuineaConakry, Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, 226

INDEX

Improve relations of state and society, 126 Impulses and temptation for revenge, 180 Incarceration, 125 Incentives, 221 Incessant regional conflicts, 21 Independent Islamic State of Azawad in the North, the, 310 Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), 184 Industrialized society, 95 Infinite distress, xxiv Inherent and inviolable rights, xvii Inherent superiority, 265 In Larger Freedom, 324 Insignia of manhood, 88 Institutionalization of Ivoirite, 230 Integrated Criminal Justice Information Data-Base, 282 Intellectual underpinnings of “just war doctrine”, 2 Intense labour protests, 221 Interfaith Council of West Africa (CIRAO), 233 Inter-faith Mediation Center (located in Lagos), 242 Intermediary activity, 181 International Contact Group, 198 International Contact Group for Liberia (ICGL), 176, 225 International Contact Group on Guinea (ICG-G), 62 International Contact Group on Sierra Leone, 202 International crimes and crimes against humanity, 9 International Criminal Court (ICC), 9, 10 International criminal network, 156 International Criminal Tribunal Hearings, xv

345

International Humanitarian Law, xvi International law about “permissible use of force”, 2 International Negotiations Network (INN), 192 International rights norms, xvi International sanctions, 226 International summit, July 12, 1992, 266 Inter-Religious Council of Liberia (IRCL), 225 Inter-Religious Council of Sierra Leone (IRCSL), 227 Intolerant clerics, xxi Inverted morality, xv Islamic International Foundation, 233 Islamic Shari’a Law, 236 Israeli LIAT Finance and Construction Company, 319 Issoufou, Mahamadou, 61 Italy, 217 Ivoirien Catholic Church, 233 Ivoirien Constitution, 232 Iyad Ag Ghali, 309, 310 J Jalloh, Agnes (President of the NPFL women wing), 159 ‘Jama’at ahlis Sunnah lid Da’wat wal Jihad’ (‘people committed to the propagation of the Prophet’s teachings and Jihad’), 239 Jammeh, Yahya, 12, 119 Joao Bernardo (Nino) Vieira, 117 John F. Kennedy Profile of Courage Award, 161 Joint Project on Policing and Human Rights , 282 Joking statements, 125 Jola Casamancais, 113, 119, 122, 124, 125, 130, 133, 136, 139, 144, 151

346

INDEX

Jola (Diola), 22 Jola indigenes, 139 Jola resistance, 23 July 1999 Lomé Accord, 157 Just War Doctrine, xvi K Kaabu/Kaabu Kingdom, 135 Kaba Hadji Saran Daraba (President), 165 Kabbah, Ahmad Tejan (Sierra Leonean President), 153, 157, 227, 228, 315, 316, 318, 333 Kabonketoor, 134 Kabu, Quebu, N’gabo, 135 Kadayifci-Orellana, 179 Kagame, Paul (RPF Second-inCommand), 266, 267 Kaleidoscope of knowledge, xxiv Kallon, Isatu, 159 Kamei, Peter (General Secretary of YMCA Liberia), 226 Kasavubu, Joseph, 304 Katanga’s Moise Tshombe, 307 Keen, David, 177 Keita, Sundiatta, 110 Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, 11 Kidal (Ansar Dine), 310 Kigali Airport, 268 King, Martin Luther, Jnr., 4 Kinyarwanda, 264 Koroma, Jonny Paul, 228, 315 KOSIMO Project, The, 13 Krahn minority, 186 Kromah, Alhaji G.V., 193, 194, 196, 212 L Lake Kivu, 272 Land mines, 110 Land reform policy, 123

1964 land reform policy (Loi sur le domaine), 123 Lansana Conte (Guinea), 153 Lartey, Benjamin D. (General Secretary of the Liberian Council of Churches), 225 Last resort, The, 8 Lavalie, Elizabeth, 163 Lawless, xxi Legitimate interrogation, 126 Leopoldville, 299 Lewis, Agnes Taylor (Second Vice President), 165 Lewis, Peter, 223 Liberia, xv, 153 Liberia National Transitional Government (LNTG), 194 Liberian Council of Churches, 225 Liberian Inter-Faith Mediation Committee (IFMC), 188 Liberian Mass Action for Peace, the, 161 Liberian National Transitional Government, the, 202 Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), 224 Liberians United for Reconstruction and Democracy (LURD), 197 Liberian War, 224 Liberian Women Initiative (LWI), 162 Lifting the quality of life among North Macedonians, 280 Limb-cutting, 155 Linas-Marcoussis Accord (LMA), the, 232 Locally displaced persons (LDPs), 78 Lomé Accord (July 17, 1999), 320 Lomé Agreement (February 1991), 191 Lome Peace Accord of May 1999, 314 Looting, 112 Low-intensity conflict, 219

INDEX

Low intensity profile, 110 Low-key communal conflicts, 77 Lt. Toumba Diakite, 62 Lucrative underground market, 227 Lungi Airport, 317

M Madam Moumouna Ouattara (Burkinabe Ambassador to Ghana), 159 Mahatma Gandhi, 4 Majority Wolof, the, 139 Major peace conference in Rome October 13-14, 2013, 130 Makeni, 318 Malicious merchants in society, 96 Mali Empire, xvi, 110 Mallam Kasimu Rimin Tawaye, 237 Mancagne, 137 Mandatory Acquisition Program (MAP), 90 Mandingo, the, 137 Mandinka, 122 Mane, Ansumane, 117 Manjak, 137 Mano River Union (MRU), 23, 153, 155 Mano River Women’s Peace Network (MARWOPNET), 59 Mansa Musa, 135 50-man strong Indonesian Heavy Engineering Army Corps, 274 Manufactured hatred, xxiii Maquisards, 115 Marc Sommers, 85 Marginalization by the majority, 276 Marginalized Casamancais, 108 Marginalized citizenry, 121 Marginalizing the youths, 22 Marwa, Muhammad, 240, 241 Marx, Karl, xxi

347

Mary Brownell, Liberian activist, 162 Masiaka, 318 Mass living standard, xxiv Mass movements of people, 94 Mass poverty, 109 Mass unemployment, 221 Matabeleland, 10 Meanings of community, xxiii Measurement and mis-measurement of intensity, 110 1999 Mechanism, 55 1st Mechanized Brigade, the, 317 Media component of the ECPF, 16 Mediated settlement, 180 Mediation, xv, 97, 175 Mediation and Security Council, The, 49 Mediation Facilitation Division (MFD), 54 Mediation process, 177 Mediator, 178 5-Member ECOWAS Standing Mediation Committee, 48, 189, 192 50-member Neutral Military Observer Group I (NMOG-I), 267 Membership of the ICGL, 225 Middle East and in North African (MENA), 94 Migrant labor, 95 Militarized approach to enforcing law and order, 86 Military Operation SERVAL (January 11), 312 Ministry of Interior’s Department of Faith-based Organizations, 233 Minor, Grace, 159 Minority grievances, 275 (Mis)perception, 221, 243, 244 Miss World Crown (2001), 235 2002 Miss World Pageant, 235 Miss World Silver Bird Production, 235

348

INDEX

Mitigate human suffering, 216 Mobilization, 221 Moderate Hutu, 263 Mona Wureh, 160 Monrovia Mass Action for Peace, 161 Montenegro, 272 Moral Re-Armament, 188 Moral suasion, 10 Mouvement des Forces Democratique de la Casamance (MFDC), 109 Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), 197, 224 Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), 310 Mugabe, Robert, 10 Muhammadu Bello Masaba of Bida, 238 Multi-national fighting troops, xvi Muscular peacekeeping, 176 Museveni’s National Resistance Army (NRA), 265 Museveni, Yoweri, 10, 267 Muslim Congress, 227 Muslim marabouts, 216 Muslim organization, Conseil Superieur Islamique de Côte d’Ivoire (CSI), 230 Mutually hurting stalemate, 179 “My Share of the Sacrifice for Peace and Reconciliation in Côte d’Ivoire”, 233 N National Armed Forces of Senegal, 139 National Commission for Democracy and Human Rights (NCDHR), 163 National law review committee, 282 National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), 309 National Muslim Council of Liberia, 225

National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), 156, 184, 187 National Patriotic Reconstruction Assembly Government (NPRAG), 190 National unity policy, 122 NDDC’s Technical Aid Corps (NTAP), 90 Ndongo, Oumar, 23 Negligent official policies, 80 Negotiation, 176 Neoliberal constitutionalism, 5 Network of Women Parliamentarians and Ministers (NWPM), 167 Neutrality, 182, 296, 311 Neutrality and big palaver in the cold war era, 301 New normal configuration of abnormalities, 77 Nicephone Soglo, 199 Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), 90 Niger Delta experience, 87 Niger Delta Job Creation Program and Conflict Prevention Initiative, 91 Niger Delta of Nigeria, 78 Niger Delta turmoil, 80 Nigeria, 217, 225 Nigerian civil war, 222 Nigerian lady Agbani Darego, 235 Nigerian National Commission for Refugees, the, 78 Nigerian Red Cross, The, 236 Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), 242 Nigeria’s counter-insurgency strategy from ‘military centric’, 235 Nigeria’s national task force on Combating Illegal Importation of Goods, Arms, Ammunitions and Light Weapons (NATFORCE), 79 Nigeria’s Niger Delta, 86

INDEX

Nolte, Insa, 83 Non-binding manner, 181 Non-cooperation, 178 Non-refoulement, 17 Non-state actors, 94 Nordistes , 125 Normative institutions of international governance, 1 Normative leaders in civic minded organizations, xxii Norms of conflict resolution, 1 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the, 278 Northern Nigerian cities, 234 North Macedonia, 272, 274 North Macedonia-Kosovo border, 278 North Macedonian territorial borders, 273 Ntaryamira, Cyprien (Burundian colleague President), 268 Nyak (stranger or settler in Senegal), 125 Nye, Joseph, 178, 179

O OAU Special Representative (Rev. Canaan Banana), 193 OAU Summit in Abuja (June 1991), 267 Obote, Milton, 265 Observation and Monitoring Center, 51 Observation and Monitoring System (OMS), 18 Odukoye, Opeyemi, 222 Official contempt for the Jola tradition, 124 Ojo, Adeleye, 240 Okwri Rabwoni, 89 “One who damns and curses, the”, 240 Operational prevention, 3, 6

349

Operational rear-military dissident soldiers, 111 Operation Barras , 318 Operation Basilica, 318 Operation Gabou, 117 Operation Palliser, 317 Opium of the people, xxi Ordinary citizens, xxiv Organizational behavior, 166 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 267 Organized criminal networks, 79 2007 Ouagadougou Agreement, 232 Ouedraogo, Kadre Desire, 19 Oumar Ndongo, xix Outcast minority, 85 Over-investment, 124

P Pacifists and non-violent protagonists, 4 2002 Pageant, 235 Panshekara district, 237 “A parade of nudity”, 236 Para-military culture of irresponsibility, 187 Para-military group, Interahamwe, 268 Part VIII of the UN Charter, 312 Pastoral Communiqué, 229 “Pastor and Imam Project”, 242 Pastor James Nurayn Wuye, 241 Peacebuilding, xvi, 4, 110, 223, 262 Peacebuilding initiatives, 6 Peace conference, 233 Peace education, xvii, 65, 90 Peace efforts, 127 Peace enforcement , 205 Peaceful conflict settlement, 181 Peacekeeping, 259 Peacemaking, 259 Peace process, 183

350

INDEX

Peace summit, 231 Peace Talks at Akosombo in Ghana (4th of June, 2002), 225 Pentecostal Christians, 217 Pentecostal Reverend Kortu Brown was the Managing Director of CCCL, 226 People-centered zeal, xxiv ‘People centric’, 235 5-person council of state, 194 Peul (Fulani), 137 Pew Research Centre, 217, 219 Police high handedness, 86 Political amnesty, 157 Political and Humanitarian Affairs, 280 Political destiny, xxiii Political elites, 96 Political rights, 16 Political will, 257 Politicization of identity, 231 Pope Johannes Paul II, 229 Popular resistance, 107 Port Loko, 318 Portuguese corruption of Mansa (Conqueror) Sama Coli, 135 Post-Arusha de-briefing session in Dar-es-Salaam, 268 Post conflict peacebuilding, 178 Post conflict rehabilitation, xvi, 294 Poverty, 79 Power equation, 180 Power-sharing government, 266 Prefecture of Ruhegeri, 266 Prerequisites for successful peacekeeping, 259 President Ahmadou Toumani Toure (ATT), 311 President Jawara, 199 President Mobutu, 267 President Olusegun Obasanjo, 316 President Pierre Nkurunziza, 11 President Samuel Doe, 184

Presidents Gregoire Kayinbanda (1962-1973), 265 Prevention, 176 Preventive action, 7 Preventive deployment, 26 Preventive diplomacy, 3, 4, 45, 92, 257, 295 Preventive peacekeeping, 259 Preventive war, 8 Priestesses of the forest grove, 134 Priestesses, The, 133 Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, 299 Primordial cause, xv Princen, Thomas, 182 Prince Yormie Johnson, 184 Priorities of the conflictual parties, 179 Private material gains, 221 Private motives, 221 Privileged Hutu clients, 264 Profane, xix Professor Amos Sawyer, 190 Progressive governments appreciate good citizenship, xxiii Proliferation of newer pro-women organizations, 167 Prolonged MRU wars, 155 Prolonged violence, 180 Promotion of community health, 280 Promotion of economic growth and social progress, 220 Pronounced transformations, 1 1981 Protocol on Mutual Defense Assistance, 48 Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security, 48 “Protracted Social Conflict” theory, 4 Province’s premier Moise Tshombe, 300 Province of South Kasai, 302 Psyche of the maquisards, 121

INDEX

Psycho-analytical approaches, 4 Public Information Units of the UNPREDEP mission, 280 Pulaar, 122 Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter, 1 Q Qadiriyya, 218 Quattara winning the presidency, 232 Questions of human rights, 220 Quiwonkpa (Army Chief), 186 R Radicalized Islamist groups, 221 Radicalized youths, 85 Radio Democracy of Freetown, 163 Rapacious government leaders, 85 Rassemblement des Republicaines (RDR), 230 Rational choice, 181 Rawlings, Jerry, 52, 195, 199 Ray Block, 180 Rear-guard responsibilities on prevention, 225 ‘Rebel’ incursion, 267 Rebelliousness among youth groups, 86 Rebuilding war-torn infra-structures, 46 Recompense, 10 Reconciliation, xxi, 223, 294 Red Sunday of December 18, 1983, 120 Reffel Victoria, 159 Reflection Group for Peace in the Casamance (RGPC), 130 Reformist Islamist movements, 218 ‘Refugee Warriors’, 265 Regional Economic Community (REC), 47

351

Regional uniqueness, 137 Rehabilitation programs, 282 Reid, Lindsay, 177 Relevance of culture, 124 Religion in truth is “Janus-faced”, 244 Religious bigotry, xxi Religious freedom, 25 Religious organizations, 25 Renders peacekeeping, 258 Repatriation of all refugees, 266 Repression and official violent interventions, 87 Republic of Guinea, the, 163 Research Group in Democracy and Social and Economic Development of Côte d’Ivoire (GERDDES-CI), the, 231 Resolution 1160, 278 Resolution 912 (1994) of 21 April 1994, 270 Resource allocation, 180 Resource-induced conflict , 80 Resource-laden problem, 180 Resource war in West Africa, 156 Responsibility to Protect (R2P), 296, 299, 324 Restitution, 10 Restoration of peace in Liberia, 52 Restorative justice, xxi Restorative social programs, 22 Retaliatory military force, 8 Retributive justice, xxi Reverend Canaan Banana, 199 Reverend Father Augustin Abbe Diamacoune Senghor, 113 Revivalism, 234 Revolutionary United Front (RUF), 156, 314 Right of “hot pursuit”, 8 Ripe for resolution, 179 Rise and prolongation of conflict, 220 Risk multiplier, 7

352

INDEX

Rituals of the mystical bath, 133 Role of civil society, 282 Roling, B.V.A., 13 Romas (Gypsies), 272 Rome Conference, the, 130 Root causes of a conflict, 178 Roots of social violence, 86 Rothchild, Donald, 180 Rule of law, the, xvii Ruthlessness, 187 Ruth Sandro Perry (Chairperson of the new National Transitional Government), 195 Rwanda, 26, 256, 257 Rwandan in-egalitarian society, 264 Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), 265 Rwandese citizens, 272 Rwandese patrons, 264 Rwigyema, Fred (charismatic military commander), 266 S Sacred groves , 133 Sadio, Salif, 116 Sagna, Leopold, 116 Salafi Islamists, 218 Salim, Salim Ahmed, 185, 267 Sall, Macky, 110, 120, 130–132 Sanctity of rights, xxiii Sandline Incorporated, 315 Sankara Madrassa of Timbuktu, 135 Sankoh, Fonday, 156, 157, 199, 202, 227, 314, 315 Sanogo, Ahmadou (Captain), 311 Sardonic thoughts, xxi Saudi-educated Sheikh, Jafar Adam, 237 ‘Scramble for Africa’ (1881-1914), 136 Secessionist emotions and revolutionary temper, 121 Secession of mineral-rich Katanga province, 300

Second colonization of the Casamance by the government of the Wolof , 125 Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld, 295 Secular Sovereign State, Azawad, 309 Security, 175 Security Council Resolution 2071 (October 3rd 2012), The, 311 Security Council Resolution 872 (1993), 269 Security Council Resolution S/Res/842, 1993, 274 Security Council, The, 295 Security dilemma, 276 Security risks and liabilities in the Casamance, 111 Security sector reform, 178, 262 Self-defense, 8 Self-definition and self-determination, 109 Self-inflicted catastrophe, 224 Senator Joseph Ileo, 304 Senegalese Government, 109 Senegalese Government’s Residential Housing Development Program, the, 123 Senegalese tricolor flags, 120 Senghor, Leopold, 122 Senghor’s National Socialist Party, 122 Separatist emotions, 109 Separatist movement of Southern Senegal, xviii September Massacre, 62 Serbia, 272 Serbs, 272 Serer, 122 Sesay, Kadi, 163 Settlement, 175 Sexual abuse in the Sierra Leonean war, 158 Shari’a family law, 238

INDEX

Shekau, Abubakar, 239 Sherman, Theresa Leigh (First Vice President), 165 Shi’ite Muslims, 218 Shia Muslims, 218 Siegel, David, 180 Sierra Leone, xv, 153 Sierra Leonean conflicts, 296 Sierra Leone Army (SLA), 85, 315 Sierra Leone Islamic Missionary Union, 227 Silent emergency, 85 Silviculture, 137 Sirleaf, Ellen Johnson, 53, 198 Skeans, Abigail, 243 Skill acquisition and empowerment training workshops, 93 Slav-Macedonians (64%), 272 Slovenia, 272 Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SME), 93 Small arms and light weapons (SALW), 162 Smock, David, 242 Smythe, Amy, 163 Social and Economic Reconstruction of Casamance (SERC), 128 Social anger, 78, 108 Social discontent, 86 Social environments, 22 Social harmony in diversity, 125 Social justice, xix, 1 Social movements, xvii Social problems, 216 Social progress, xxiii Social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom, 1 Socio-economic development, 280 Socio-economic peripheralization, 239 Soft power, 178 Sokalski, Henryk, 280 Solitude of self, 88

353

Songhai, 310 Songhai militia (Gando Isa), 310 Soninke, 122 Soro, Guillaume, 222 South Africa, 217, 235 South African Supreme Court, 12 Spain, 225 Special Court for Sierra Leone, 10 Special Criminal Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), 198 Special Envoy, 60 Special Report to the Fifteenth United Nations General Assembly on the Congo Crisis (1961), the, 295 Special Representative of the Secretary General in North Macedonia, 276 Special Representatives of the ECOWAS President, 21, 56 Special United Nations World Conferences, 1 Spirit of commonality at the January 1992, 1 Split of the maquis, 114 Stamnes, Eli, 281 Stanleyville, 307 State-collapse, 26 Stifle legitimate democratic dissent, 230 Stigmatization of youth groups, 22 Stockpiles of all banned weapons, 133 Structural prevention, 3, 6 Struggle for self-rule, 108 Successful humanitarian intervention, 260 Sufi-Brotherhood, 218 Sunni ‘Establishment’ Muslim group, the, 218 Sunni ‘Mainstream-Establishment’ Muslims, 218 Supreme Islamic Council, 227 Sustainable development, 280

354

INDEX

Sustainable socio-economic development, 2 Sustained mediation of the conflict, 266 Sweden, 225

T Tamanrasset Accord (January 6, 1991), 320 Tangible and intangible filaments, 179 Tanzania, 272 Tanzanian President Ali Hassan Mwinyi, 267 Taylor-backed armed rebellion, 156 Taylor, Charles, 24, 156–158, 184, 314 Taylor’s NPFL, 185 Technical indicator grid, 65 Territorial integrity, xvi Terrorism of mass destruction, 293 Theological understandings or imperatives, 221 Third parties, 176, 178 Threats of weapons of mass destruction, 293 Three Permanent Members of the UN Security Council (the US, UK and France), 225 Tijaniyya, 218 Timbuktu (AQIP), 310 Time inconsistency problems, 179 Timelier compliance, 179 Timing, 257 Tolbert’s Administration, 24 Tolbert’s regime (1971-80), 185 Tolerance, 25 Torture, 126 Touré, Ahmadou Toumani, 309 Tourism industry, 138 Touval, Saaida, 181 Track I actors, 59

Track-I diplomacy, 21, 59 Track-II Diplomacy, 21, 47, 58 (Track II) mediators, 176, 216 Traditional modes of conflict resolution, 55 Traditional peacekeeping , 205 Tradition of compromise, 264 Tradition of conflict management, 221 Training in forensic science and criminal ballistic investigation, 282 Training in police investigative techniques, 282 Transitional societies, xvii, 5, 255 Transitional world, 95 Transtemporal reward, 221 Traore, Tiramakhan (Army General), 135 Triggers of conflict, 221 ‘True Wig Party’, 186 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sierra Leone, The, 164 Truth telling, xxi, 223 Truth Telling, Forgiveness, Accommodation and Conciliation, 262 Tuareg, 310 Tuareg-led secessionist revolt, 309 Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), 9 4th Tuareg revolt, 309 Turks, 272 Tutsi-led militants, 263 Twisted logic and message of hate, 268 Two Decades of Peace Processes in West Africa: Achievements, Failures, and Lessons, 51 Tyrannical rule, xix

U Uganda, 272 Ugandan High Court, 11

INDEX

UK’s Peace Support Program, 204 Ultra-modern Mosques, 230 Umbrella organization for women’s NGOs, the, 281 UNAMSIL, 318 UN and the Western allies, 307 Unanticipated challenges, 258 UN-appointed Head of Mission of UNIMIR, 269 UN Charter (Chapters VI-VII), 261 UN Charter, the, 298 Underground trade in contraband, 79 UN Development Program, 233 UNDP office, the, 282 UNFROFOR-MC, 273 UN General Assembly, 295 UN General Assembly Report on the Congo, 299 UN good offices diplomacy, 275 UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, 323 UN Human Development Index (HDI), 138, 321 UN International Drug Control Program (UNDCP), 281 UN intervention in North Macedonia, 278 Union Miniere Company, 305 Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), 63 Union of Women’s Organization in North Macedonia,the, 281 Unique social capital, xxiv United Kingdom (UK), 217 United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy (ULIMO), 156, 193 United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), 269, 272 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 91

355

United Nations Education and Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 83 United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), 7 United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR), 268 United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), 91 United Nations Operations in the Congo (ONUC), 301 United Nations Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), 88 United Nations peacekeeping, 260 United Nations Protection Force (UNFROFOR), 273 United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000), 154 United Nations treaty (Article 99 of the UN Charter), 294 United Nations (UN), 270 United Nations (UN) Summit, 1 United States (US), 217 Unleash atrocity, xxi UN mission, 270 1994 UN Mission to Rwanda, the, 258 UN Office on Drugs and Crime valued the annual global arms trade, 79 UN Panel of the Experts, 226 1995 UN Preventive Deployment Force in North Macedonia (UNPREDEP), 259, 261, 274, 275, 278, 281–283, 285, 290 UN Regional Office for West Africa (UNOWA), 93 UN Resolution (143) of July 14, 1960, 301 UN Resolution 1820 (2008), 154 UN Resolution 795, 273 UN’s conflict prevention diplomacy in North Macedonia, 280

356

INDEX

UN Secretary-General’s good offices, 276 UN Secretary-General’s Good Offices Diplomacy, 275 UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, 6 UN Secretary-General on Women, Peace and Security, 158 UN Security Council, 258 UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Conflict Prevention, Peace and Security (October 31, 2000), 134 UN Security Council Resolution 1674 (April 28, 2003), the, 323 UN Security Council Resolution 2085 (December 20th 2012), the, 312 UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, 197 UN Special Envoy (Trevor GordonSomers), 193 UN Special Representative in North Macedonia, 280 Untested role in peacekeeping, 205 Uprooted and displaced children, 84 US-Africa Command Partnership, 204 US-Australian Sierra Rutile, the, 319 US Embassy, 233

V Vienna branch of UN Office for Drug Control, the, 282 Violation of ESCR, 14 Violation of trust in peacekeeping, 260 Violence, xxi Violence in the family, 125 Violence in the Niger Delta, 80 Violent conflict, 221 Violent internal upheavals, 78 Vision 2020, 50

W Wade, 110 Wahhabi Islamists, 218 Wallensteen and Svensson, 181 Walter, Barbara F., 178 War, xxi War against corruption in Northern Macedonia, 282 War against international crime, 282 War entrepreneurs, 87 War-induced humanitarian crises, 45 War-lords, 23 Warmongers, xv War-traumatized communities, 203 War-traumatized zones, 293 Weah, George, 198 Weaknesses and failures in available conflict, 220 Welensky, Sir Roy (CAF’s Prime Minister), 305 West Africa, 95 West African Network for Peace (WANP), 19 West African regional organization, ECOWAS, the, 311 West Side Boys (WSB), 318 White flag of the Casamance independence movement, 121 Wolof ‘new comers’, 124 Wolof ethnic group, 137 Wolof language (‘wolofisation’ ) as lingua franca, 122 Women Accord 97 , 166 Women in Action, 166 Women in Need, 166 Women in Peace Building Network (WIPNET), 161 Women members of the Sacred Forest Association, 133 Women’s activism, xix Women’s activism in the MRU, 167 Women’s Forum, the, 166

INDEX

Women’s Peacebuilding Network (MARWOPNET), 164 Women’s Peace Initiative (WPI), 160 Women’s wing of the RUF, 159 Work, 124 World Bank, 218, 223 World Bank’s structural adjustment policies, The, 14 World Conference of Religions for Peace, the, 233 World Council of Churches, 188 World Food Program, 225 World Health Organization (WHO), 158 World without organized religion, xxii Y Yala, Kumba, 117 Yamoussoukro, 192 Yamoussoukro I-IV Accords (June to October 1991), 191 Yelwa in Plateau State, 236 Yobe, 240 Youth alienation, 80

357

Youth Bulge, xviii, 78, 80 Youth empowerment, 90, 92 Youth in warring zones, 82 Youth participation in policy-making, 95 Youth peace education, 93 Youth protests, 87 Youth-related violence, 80 Youth role perception, 87 Youth Unemployment, 93 Yusuf, Muhammad, 239 Z Zaire, 272 Zangon-Kataf in Kaduna State, 241 Zealotry, xxi Zero-sum condition, 177 Ziguinchor-born, Robert Sagna, 130 Ziguinchor College Campus (Lycee Djignabo), 120 Ziguinchor Peace Talks, the (December, 2004), 128 Ziguinchor region of Casamance, 23 Zuma, Jacob, 12