Strategically, the LRA used government interests in proxy wars and unclear control mechanisms across borderlands to seek shelter or move their troops and goods. Access to this content in this format requires a current subscription or a prior purchase. 8 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), A Decade of African Governance, 20062015, Mo Ibrahim Foundation, 2016. Most of these protests have not developed directly into civil wars or stimulated the formation of insurgencies, but nor are they always completely disconnected from such processes, as the cases of Libya and to a lesser extent Burundi demonstrate. Through a combination of violence and intimidation, ISGS provided an alternative mode of governance that the state could not match, due to a lack of institutional strength and sovereign power. [67] Moghadam,A. and B.Fishman (eds.) Boko Haram and/or ISWAP (Nigeria, 2009-21). OECDandSahel and West Africa Club. The work also adopts a more spatial perspective on transnational violence in the region. [60] Silberfein,M. and A.Conteh (2016), Boundaries and conflict in the Mano River region of West Africa, Conflict Management and Peace Science, Vol. A spike in violence committed in Uganda in the late 1990s and early 2000s was intertwined with Operations North and Ironfist, two Ugandan military campaigns against the LRA. Rather, Shekau was trying to recreate a precolonial political entity founded by Usman Dan Fodio in 1804 and known as the Sokoto Caliphate. 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. Source: Authors based on ACLED (2021[58]) data. The nature of violent conflicts in Africa has changed since before independence when they were mostly ideologically-driven guerilla warfare. The Nature of Conflict - Gordon Training International Further, it is important to note that despite providing the common function of delimiting state sovereignty, not all borders are the same all the time. The author shows how 9 Freedom in the World 2017, Populists and Autocrats: The Dual Threat to Global Democracy (Washington DC: Freedom House, 2017), available at . The emergence of a parasitical economy almost entirely built on smuggling in the second half of the 20th century not only made cross-border co-operation and the harmonisation of economic policies difficult in the region (Bach, 2016[3]). 18 World Peace Foundation, Report for the African Union on African Politics, African Peace, July 2016, para.37ff. WebWhile the approaches to conflict resolution available within Africas indigenous communities are not monolithic, underlying the approaches is the principle that peace is not only about the ending of hostilities or settling of a conflict; it is more about restoring relationships (Malan, 1997; Komuhangi, 2006). 1032-1054, https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2019.1598388. Therefore, it is critical to understand the factors contributing to conflict contagion. Rather, they will be felt unevenly and most intensely in particular local settings. 38/2, pp. (2019), Re-describing transnational conflict in Africa, The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. The second approach argues that violent organisations defeated in their home country have no other choice but to relocate across borders (DAmato, 2018[16]). Some of them also lack or fail to articulate clear and coherent political agendas. Changing Patterns of Political Violence in sub-Saharan Africa, African Affairs, 111:443 (2012): 179201; David T. Burbach and Christopher J. Fettweis, The Coming Stability? 33/5, pp. 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). 30 Williams, War and Conflict in Africa, chapter 7. 1/3, pp. 85-112, https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2014.977605. This is why the most internationalist of them, such as Osama Bin Laden, wish to unite Muslims on the basis of their religion rather than on the basis of their local or national allegiances. In the last two decades, for example, nearly 95% of the fatalities and violent events related to Al Shabaab between 2006 and 2021 were in Somalia, even if the armed group was capable of conducting spectacular operations in neighbouring Kenya (Table2.2). 42/3, pp. 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. All of these circumstances would necessarily involve some form of cross-border interaction, as does the classic interstate war example of two states at war with each other. African conflicts to watch in 2022 - ISS Africa Introducing AfroGrid, a unified framework for environmental [56] Dowd,C. (2018), Nigerias Boko Haram : local, national and transnational dynamics, in Walther,O. and W.Miles (eds. Since then, the regions average scores have gone backwards. (2020), A Research Agenda for Border Studies, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham. It focuses on issues related to incomplete and contested data collection on this topic; the important distinction between state-based and nonstate armed conflicts; the complex array of often incoherent belligerents involved in armed conflicts in Africa; trends in governance, notably backsliding on democratic reforms; as well as more assertive peace operations deployed by the UN and regional organizations within Africa. Yet, co-ordination has remained poor due to rivalries between Nigeria and its neighbours and Nigerias military weakness faced with a highly motivated enemy (Thurston, 2018[53]). Many of these groups are incoherent inasmuch as they lack a single, unified chain of command but operate instead as relatively decentralized entities with their constituent parts retaining significant autonomy. This shows that annual scores across the 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa reached a peak of freedom in these areas in 2006 and 2008. It focuses on the recent increase in state-based armed conflicts; rising levels of popular protests; the growing significance of religious (especially Islamist) factors in Africas state-based armed conflicts; the likelihood of more intense livelihood struggles exacerbated by environmental change, especially among some nonstate actors; and the growing use of remote forms of violence, especially IEDs and suicide bombings. 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. [22] Campana,A. and B.Ducol (2011), Rethinking terrorist safe havens: Beyond a state-centric approach, Civil Wars, Vol. In the early 2010s, for example, the leadership of AQIM was aware of such strategic costs. (2018), African Border Disorders: Addressing Transnational Extremist Organizations, Routledge, New York. In June 2020, for example, French and American forces learned that AQIM leader Abdelmalek Droukdel was on his way to meet Iyad Ag Ghaly, the leader of the Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims (JNIM), in northern Mali. 2. The increasingly transnational nature of conflict in North and The work is based on a new spatial indicator of political violence designed to assess the long-term evolution of conflicts and provide policy options. For underresourced and unprepared peacekeepers the results can be disastrous. 9, 55, 58. Source: Adapted by the authors from Skillicorn et al. 14-27, https://doi.org/10.1093/ISQ/SQW042. Their enemies relocate to other countries when defeated by state forces, to create safe havens, and to exploit the grievances of border communities. Prominent policymakers focus their attention elsewhere, on the popular conflicts of the day. In the regions experiencing the highest levels of political insecurity, it identifies whether and how conflicts tend to cluster or spread, potentially across national borders. They have stimulated the development of a transnational turn in the conflict literature that gradually discussed the significance and involvement of non-state actors in international affairs, including non-governmental organisations, multinational corporations, terrorist organisations, and civil society groups (Iriye, 2007[28]). Most of the state-based armed conflicts on the continent involve a multitude of stakeholders and armed groups, including government forces, paramilitary fighters, militias, as well as opportunistic criminal gangs. [66] Thurston,A. ), Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa, Rdiger Kppe Verlag, Cologne. Conflicts ), African Borders, Conflict, Regional and Continental Integration, Routledge, London, https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429057014-6. 355-367, https://doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2016.1209982. First, it is important to recall that most of Africas recent state-based armed conflicts are repeat civil wars. This phrase was used by renowned political scientist Barbara Walter to describe old wars restarted by the same rebels after a period of peace.14 This repetitive trend is not confined to Africa but is clearly apparent on the continent. [24] Iocchi,A. Yet, these numbers fail to capture the LRAs strategic and opportunistic use of mobility across borders and in borderlands. 34/1, pp. 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). During the past decade or so, governance indicators across Africa were mixed, with some areas showing improvement and others backsliding. This study maps the evolution of violence across North and West Africa, with a particular focus on Mali, Lake Chad and Libya. We go wherever you arent and you cant be everywhere (Aydinli, 2010[61]). Author(s) [19] Twagiramungu,N. etal. 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. 35/1, pp. Tensions regionalise across state borders when armed groups, defeated by counter-insurgency efforts, relocate to other countries. 20 See Williams, War and Conflict in Africa, chapter 2. East of Sokoto was another precolonial empire, the Kanem-Borno, which is the traditional homeland of the Kanuri. State forces may also cross boundaries to destabilise neighbouring regimes. The geographic spread and opportunistic relocation of such conflicts is amplified by the porosity of some borders that facilitate the circulation of fighters, hostages and weapons. A third area of significant continuity is that it remains misleading to view most of Africas state-based armed conflicts as internal. Despite often being classified as intrastate or internal armed conflicts, they are rarely confined to the territory of just one state and they are all influenced, to a greater or lesser degree, by dynamics and processes at the local, national, regional, and global levels.20 Moreover, these levels interrelate in fluid ways. [44] Walther,O. Warfare and wildlife declines in Africas protected areas | Nature (2015), Niger-Benin: The Niger-Mekrou Rivers and the Lt Island, in Brunet-Jailly,E. Costs associated with mobility for transnational groups in general and transnational movement specifically can be summarised as either physical, social, or strategic in nature (DAmato, 2018[16]). 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. In the Sahara-Sahel, particularly, very few Jihadist organisations have succeeded in developing a religious and political project that would transcend ethnic and national boundaries, as the examples of Ansar Dine, Katibat Macina and Boko Haram clearly show. Conflicts that now have an ethnic colouration actually have their roots within the struggle between ethnic groups to control the source of raw materials. [70] OECD/SWAC (2017), Cross-border Co-operation and Policy Networks in West Africa, West African Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264265875-en. 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). When Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau declared the jihad against his enemies in 2010, he announced that areas under his control were now part of an Islamic State that has nothing to do with Nigeria anymore (Pieri and Zenn, 2016[68]). (2009), Rebels without Borders: Transnational Insurgencies in World Politics, Cornell University Press, Ithaca. Africa: Conflicts, Violence Threaten Rights - Human [1] Howard,A. and Shain (eds.) [50] Albert,I. States cross borders to help restore order, destabilise neighbours, or co-ordinate regional offensives. Traditionally, the development of violent organisations in border regions is understood as a result of either state failure or state policy. Not only were these some of the most deadly wars of the 21st century, most of them reflected the repetitive tendencies discussed above. [43] Zeller,W. (2009), Danger and opportunity in Katima Mulilo: A Namibian border boomtown at transnational crossroads, Journal of Southern African Studies, Vol. (2011). WebTo answer this question, Adda Bozeman examines conflict in Africa south of the Sahara in its many social, political, and cultural aspects, past and present. 7 The UCDP defines nonstate armed conflict as the use of armed force between two organized armed groups, neither of which is the government of a state, which results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in a year. 38 For example, Severine Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). On Christmas Eve 1989, Charles Taylors National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) entered Liberia to overthrow the Doe regime in Monrovia. It is thus likely that environmental issues will be most relevant to understanding some of Africas nonstate armed conflicts rather than interstate contestation and state-based armed conflicts. [63] France 24 (2020), French forces kill al Qaedas North Africa chief in Mali, defence minister says. Non-state actors have also contributed to the regionalisation of conflict by relocating to other countries when pressured by counter-insurgency initiatives.
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