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Work in progress for Africas remaining conflict hotspots LRA violence in Uganda effectively ended with the Juba Peace Talks initiated in 2006. Dr. Paul D. Williams is an Associate Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Security Policy Studies graduate studies program. [38] Parker,N. and N.Vaughan-Williams (2009), Lines in the Sand? The recent history of AQIM provides the best illustration of this principle in North and West Africa. In the following years, the RPF and its allies invaded Zaire to replace President Mobutu Ss Sko who provided support to Hutu extremists in Eastern Zaire, setting in motion the First Congo War. African governments are increasingly confronted with new forms of political violence. Thirty-five out of seventy-two Physical costs. The assumption that violent transnational actors frequently move across borders or retreat to cross-border safe havens implies they can do so easily. [25] Forsberg,E. (2016), Transnational dimensions of civil war : Clustering, contagion, and connectedness, in Mason,D. and S.Mitchell (eds.). [45] Justin,P. and L.De Vries (2017), Governing unclear lines: Local boundaries as a (re)source of conflict in South Sudan. 27/3, pp. (2019), African Borders, Conflict, Regional and Continental Integration, African Borders, Conflict, Regional and Continental Integration, Routledge, London. [52] Alusala,N. (2019), Border fragility and the causes of war and conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Moyo,I. and C.Nshimbo (eds.). ), African Borders, Conflict, Regional and Continental Integration, Routledge, London, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429057014-5. Even in regions where the central state is weakly present, other forms of power based on customary or civil law can be quite resilient, as in the Sahara today (Strazzari, 2015[34]). As noted above, the changing character of armed conflict on the continent has stimulated the deployment of heavily militarized forms of peace operations and military intervention by both the United Nations and African Union that involve elements of warfighting, counterinsurgency, stabilization, and even counterterrorism. [7] Laremont,R. (2005), Borders, Nationalism, and the African State, Lynne Rienner, London. WebThe author compares three such cases, in Sudan, Ethiopia, and Kenya, arguing that they are best understood as political conflicts, driven by corrupt, undemocratic political Extremists in Africa have proven particularly resilient against state and military pressure, partially because of transnational strategies, safe havens, and other strategies to evade capture and opposition. Traditionally, the development of violent organisations in border regions is understood as a result of either state failure or state policy. This is evident in the internal and external factors and actors They also vary according to the institution measuring them. [59] Ellis,S. (1998), Liberias Warlord Insurgency, James Currey, Oxford. State forces may also cross boundaries to destabilise neighbouring regimes. Since much of the colonial revenue depended on import taxes, the sustainability of colonies relied on securing borders, fighting against smuggling, and redirecting regional flows toward the ports and railways built by the French or the British (Howard and Shain, 2005[1]). This has made international boundaries an important legal topic as these lines serve to delimit the geographic extent within which states can conduct their affairs independently under the concept of sovereignty. In the Great Lakes region, for example, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) formed in Uganda invaded Rwanda and put an end to the genocide against Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994. Evidence for the state power theory consists of cases like the Sahel, Central Africa and the Great Lakes Region, in which rebels, warlords, and extremist groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Boko Haram or the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) have crossed boundaries to find safe havens when confronted with counterinsurgency initiatives. Taken together, analysts and policymakers alike should start from the assumption that our knowledge of this topic is incomplete and contested. Africa: Conflicts, Violence Threaten Rights - Human [4] Carmignani,F. and P.Kler (2016), The geographical spillover of armed conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa, Economic Systems, Vol. Safe havens are typically considered to be specific geographical areas existing in states such as Afghanistan, Iraq or Yemen that groups can use to minimise external pressure while conducting necessary strategic activities like planning, recruitment, attacks, organising, and raising resources and revenue (Phillips and Kamen, 2014[21]). [21] Phillips,M. and E.Kamen (2014), Entering the black hole: The Taliban, terrorism, and organised crime, Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations, Vol. This degrading security situation has prompted African countries and their partners to intervene militarily to stabilise the region and to prevent the spread of extremism and violence against civilians. [31] Arieli,T. (2016), Borders, conflict and security. In recent years, state-centred approaches to transnational conflicts have gradually been challenged by alternative approaches that focus on the autonomy, resilience and shifting allegiances of non-state actors (Salehyan, 2009[23]; Iocchi, 2020[24]). The limitations of peacemaking through power-sharing have also had important consequences for the record numbers of peacekeepers deployed to Africa in recent years. When the distortion is increased to 100 kilometres, attack locations in different countries begin to separate on the map, indicating that they have become less similar, especially along the Gulf of Guinea, where countries appear as separated clusters. Towards an agenda for critical border studies, Geopolitics, Vol. (2007), The transnational turn. (2021), The diffusion and permeability of political violence in North and West Africa, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. Peacemaking has changed in Africa, with increased militarisation and multipolar approaches to peacekeeping. Understanding the Nature and Origins of Violent 54/1, pp. 4 For an overview and comparison of how different organizations collect such data, see Williams, War and Conflict in Africa, chapter 1. (ed. 24/1, pp. See Williams, War and Conflict in Africa, 10912. The groups violent activity has declined sharply in all countries since the early 2010s, with only 46 violent events recorded in 2020, more than 10 times less than in 2002 (Figure2.1). [60] Silberfein,M. and A.Conteh (2016), Boundaries and conflict in the Mano River region of West Africa, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Vol. WebNATURE OF CONFLICT MANAGEMENT Conict management is an ongoing, connuous and never ending exercise to cope with, and rein in conict. Conflicts in North and West Africa are increasingly transnational, making borders, borderlands, and border communities ever more important for the stability of the state. This report addresses this question by adopting a regional approach that focusses on the combined impact of state and non-state actors on transnational conflicts. 31/3, pp. But the developments analyzed in this article should illustrate why this goal and deadline will not be met. However, as shown by Nugent (2019[2]), colonial powers struggled to establish a productive social contract with borderlanders that would promote economic development across the region. In 2010, for example, Mauritania conducted a series of raids against AQIM in northern Mali without the support of Malian forces (Harmon, 2014[51]). Smart Peace and Security in Africa 20 See Williams, War and Conflict in Africa, chapter 2. Violent Conflicts in Africa Strategically, the LRA used government interests in proxy wars and unclear control mechanisms across borderlands to seek shelter or move their troops and goods. The LRAs need for shelter, particularly during Operation Ironfist, increased with the LRA at times leading a fairly peaceful co-existence with Sudanese civilians. [51] Harmon,S. (2014), Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region : Corruption, Contraband, Jihad and the Mali War of 2012-2013, Routledge, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315612096. The Protests, the Drivers, the Outcomes, Interfaces Between Peace Operations and Organized Crime, http://ccaps.strausscenter.org/scad/pages/sp-using, http://www.pcr.uu.se/research/ucdp/definitions/, http://globalpolicy.gmu.edu/consolidated-state-failure-events/, http://www.pcr.uu.se/digitalAssets/66/66314_1non-state-conflicts-by-region-1989-2014jpg.jpg, http://www.acleddata.com/trend-1-rates-of-violence-in-2016/, http://www.acleddata.com/trend-1-rates-of-violence-in-2016, http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_33_Africa_uprising.pdf, http://www.crisis.acleddata.com/political-militias-and-remote-violence-in-2014/, http://cpostdata.uchicago.edu/search_new.php, http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/UNEP_DRCongo_MONUSCO_OSESG_final_report.pdf, Hosted by Defense Media Activity - WEB.mil. Conflict management in Traditional African Society (2018), African Border Disorders: Addressing Transnational Extremist Organizations, Routledge, New York. Towards an agenda for critical border studies. [32] Lamarque,H. (2014), Fuelling the borderland: Power and petrol in Goma and Gisenyi, Articulo - Journal of Urban Research, Vol. African conflicts to watch in 2022 - ISS Africa Most of the recruits who joined Katibat Macina came from Kouffas Fulani ethnic group. First, the report acknowledges that the role of state and non-state actors in provoking and preventing transnational violence requires further scrutiny. is the online library of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) featuring its books, papers, podcasts and statistics and is the knowledge base of OECD's analysis and data. Of course, popular protests in Africa are not new per se but their number has increased significantly since the mid-2000s and especially after 2011 following the Arab Uprising.24 These protests have emerged from various forms of grievances and frustration driven by unmet popular aspirations for change and the inability or unwillingness of many African governments to respond effectively. 3/1, pp. Finally, a fifth set of relatively novel developments concerns the increasing use of remote violence in some of Africas armed conflicts.31 Especially significant are the more frequent use of IEDs and suicide bombings by a variety of nonstate actors. AU UN IST Photo / Tobin Jones. When these lines run between two national states, they are described as international boundaries and are usually clearly defined in terms of location from point to point through treaties and other political processes. Disputes about the location of boundary lines remains a crucial point of conflict between governments, including in West Africa (Box2.1) and can be a source of violence in extreme cases. The new border location in turn led to the need for an exchange of territory that had been under the de facto control of each state. A Burundi soldier posts security at the Bangui Airport, Central African Republic (CAR) in late 2013. WebENGLISH ABSTRACT: The nature of conflict in Africa has changed from the Cold War to the post-cold War era. Specifically, what renowned political scientist Scott Straus dubbed livelihood struggles, most of which are connected to issues of access to water and land, are likely to increase in number and intensity.26 Their intensity will probably increase as a result of the availability of cheap but deadly small arms and light weapons. 18 World Peace Foundation, Report for the African Union on African Politics, African Peace, July 2016, para.37ff. Source: Authors, based on ACLED (2021[58]) data. [61] Aydinli,E. [62] Bs,M., A.Ciss and L.Mahamane (2020), Explaining violence in Tillabri: Insurgent appropriation of local grievances?. Further, borders that are aligned with certain natural features, like rivers or bodies of water, may serve to limit movement even without formal control in a way that other border contexts may not (Dobler, 2016[8]). Indeed, most African-led operations have utilized states from the immediate regional neighborhood as troop-contributing countries, with all the predictably contradictory effects this entails. The first point is that despite some important recent advances in data collectionmost notably in generating geo-referenced dataour collective knowledge about armed conflicts in Africa still rests upon weak foundations.4 Debate continues among the leading databases over what exactly should be counted as a relevant indicator of armed conflict, including whether to include nonviolent episodes or just events that produce fatalities.5 There is also the difficult problem of how to collect accurate and comprehensive information about organized violence on the continent, much of which takes place in extremely remote locations. Rebuilding social and political relations with local communities is a complicated and long-term process. This study maps the evolution of violence across North and West Africa, with a particular focus on Mali, Lake Chad and Libya. The increasingly transnational nature of conflict in North and West Africa, Border disorders in North and West Africa, https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCMA-08-2015-0050, https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2014.977605, https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2020.1833567, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650040500318449, https://doi.org/10.1080/13698249.2011.629868, https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ECOSYS.2015.08.002, https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2017.1347238, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X15000993, https://www.france24.com/en/20200605-french-forces-kill-al-qaeda-s-north-africa-chief-in-mali-ministry-says, https://doi.org/10.1111/J.1467-7709.2007.00641.X, https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2017.1294497, https://doi.org/10.5305/INTELEGAMATE.52.6.1215, https://doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2016.1209982, https://doi.org/10.1080/19392206.2016.1132906, https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2021.1968926, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2020.1773254, https://doi.org/10.1080/14650045.2012.660584, https://doi.org/10.1080/07388940600972685, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2019.1598388, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022278X19000107, https://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf, https://doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2018.1510333, https://doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2015.1010152, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2013.809340, https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070802685619. About three-quarters of these conflicts have occurred in just seven countriesthe DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and the Sudan. [37] Frowd,P. (2018), Security at the Borders: Transnational Practices and Technologies in West Africa, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108556095. 15 Walters research is reminiscent of why the Political Instability Task Force included the concept of complex events, defined as being made up of two or more temporally linked wars and crises where subsequent flare ups of events are considered continuations. See endnote 2, Consolidated State Failure Events, available at . All the Jihadists were killed except their driver. Specific wars are always the result of the conscious decisions of groups of humans, not the weather. ACLED, Political Militias and Remote Violence in 2014, January 28, 2015, available at < http://www.crisis.acleddata.com/political-militias-and-remote-violence-in-2014/ >. Please select the WEB or READ option instead (if available). ), What Do We Know about Civil Wars?, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham. [13] Gray,D. and K.Latour (2010), Terrorist black holes: Global regions shrouded in lawlessness. Border barriers and the transnational flow of terrorist violence. Katibat Macina provides another interesting example because its name refers both to a geographical zone within present-day Mali and to an Islamic polity founded by the Fulani jihadist Seku Amadu in the early 19th century. Started in the mid-1980s in northern Uganda as a rebellion against the government of President Yoweri Museveni, the LRAs longevity is tightly linked to the groups opportunistic and strategic use of borders and borderlands (Box2.3). [33] Titeca,K. and T.de Herdt (2010), Regulation, cross-border trade and practical norms in West Nile, north-western Uganda. In coordination with the French military and African Union, the U.S. military provided airlift support to help enable African forces to deploy promptly to prevent further spread of sectarian violence and restore security in CAR. (2009), Rebels without Borders: Transnational Insurgencies in World Politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca. [8] Dobler,G. (2016), The green, the grey and the blue: A typology of cross-border trade in Africa. The first section shows that no single cause can explain the increase in armed conflicts observed in Africa since the end of the Cold War. 2.1 West Africa. People and resources must be transported from one location to another, which takes time and costs money. A border crossing in an urban area or along a major transportation route may be tightly controlled while a border located a few kilometres away may be largely ungoverned. Record numbers of peacekeepers have deployed across the continent in recent years with a range of mandates to use deadly force beyond self-defense, usually to protect civilians, degrade spoiler groups, or extend and consolidate state authority.12 Many of these operations would not have been possible without a range of international partnerships, including unprecedented levels of cooperation, particularly between the UN and AU.13. While numerous single-case studies throughout the region have shown the salience of borderlands for violent groups, the literature continues to lack a region-wide analysis that can provide a baseline against which to situate such individual case-studies. (2020), A Research Agenda for Border Studies, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham. [10] Kill,T. (2013), Frontier Dispute (Burkina Faso/Niger) (I.C.J. Not only were these some of the most deadly wars of the 21st century, most of them reflected the repetitive tendencies discussed above. G.J.I.S.S.,Vol.2(5):5-9 (September-October, 2013) ISSN: 2319-8834 6 Conflict Management, Prevention and Resolution Whenever disagreement arises, we say there Webperspective might at best, provide a narrow theory of conflict. Therefore, Droukdel warned them that a military intervention will occur, whether directly or indirectly, or that a complete economic, political and military blockade will be imposed along with multiple pressures, which in the end will either force us to retreat to our rear bases or will provoke the people against us (AP, 2013[64]). WebTHE NATURE OF CONFLICT IN AFRICA AND ITS IMPACT ON AFRICAN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Africa stated, the strongest likelihood does exist for the The map suggests that the presence of a border has little influence until its potential overhead is at least equivalent to the costs of 100 kilometres of intra-country travel. Conflict and conflict resolution in Africa ACCORD [62] Bs,M., A.Ciss and L.Mahamane (2020), Explaining violence in Tillabri: Insurgent appropriation of local grievances?, The International Spectator, Vol. [24] Iocchi,A. We go wherever you arent and you cant be everywhere (Aydinli, 2010[61]). The French used four helicopters and one drone to track and attack Droukdels white SUV after it crossed the Algerian border (France 24, 2020[63]). Looking ahead in this first episode of The Horns second season, our Africa Program Director Comfort Ero tells host Alan Boswell what she sees as the continents complex drivers of (2005), The Spatial Factor in African History : The Relationship of the Social, Material, and Perceptual, Brill, Leiden. [65] Skillicorn,D. etal. This strategy was not without setbacks. The idea that failed states allow violent organisations to spread in ungoverned areas and create sanctuaries has grown in popularity after the September 11 attacks and remains widely popular in policy circles (Department of State, 2019[14]; UN, 2015[15]). From this perspective, well-defined international borders have been argued as serving to stabilise both internal and external political relations. [40] Makkonen,T. and A.Williams (2016), Border region studies: the structure of an offbeat field of regional studies. In Africa, the creation of modern boundaries in the early 20th century was a long-lasting process that shaped the trajectory of colonial and postcolonial states. Although unlikely to lead directly to regime change, popular protests are important barometers of the likelihood that the country in question will go through a contested government transition, with all the risks those entail (noted above). [11] Walther,O. In the face of a surge of car bombings and improvised explosive device (IED) attacks, the 9,700-strong African Union force continues to conduct security and counter-IED operations in and around the Somali capital. To address these issues the article proceeds in three parts.

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