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1. Unsettled Memory: Genocide Memorial Sites In Rwanda

Author:
Amanda F. Grzyb
Publication Date:
03-2019
Content Type:
Research Paper
Institution:
Brown Journal of World Affairs
Abstract:
In March 2012, the errant roots of a nearby tree broke through one of the mass graves at the top of the Bisesero memorial, a remote site in the western province where Rwandans have laid to rest approximately 50,000 victims of the 1994 genocide. With material support from district leaders, genocide survivors from the Twumba sector labored for weeks to remove approximately 10,000 bodies from the water-damaged tomb. They put the remains in large wooden coffins on the floor beneath thousands of skulls and bones stacked on the shelves of a corrugated metal shed where they had been awaiting incorporation into the unfinished memorial exhibit for more than a decade. Attempts to repair the tomb caused additional structural damage and eventually the remaining bodies also had to be removed, again by local survivors.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Conflict Prevention, Ethnic Conflict, Genocide, Sectarian violence, Humanitarian Intervention, and Violence
Political Geography:
Africa and Rwanda

2. Keeping Ethiopia’s Transition on the Rails

Author:
International Crisis Group
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Ethiopia’s political opening under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has won well-deserved accolades but also uncorked dangerous centrifugal forces, among them ethnic strife. With international partners’ diplomatic and financial support, the government should proceed more cautiously – and consultatively – with reforms that could exacerbate tensions. What’s new? Clashes in October 2019 in Oromia, Ethiopia’s most populous region, left scores of people dead. They mark the latest explosion of ethnic strife that has killed hundreds and displaced millions across the country over the past year and half. Why did it happen? Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has taken important steps to move the country toward more open politics. But his efforts to dismantle the old order have weakened the Ethiopian state and given new energy to ethno-nationalism. Hostility among the leaders of Ethiopia’s most powerful regions has soared. Why does it matter? Such tensions could derail Ethiopia’s transition. Meanwhile, reforms Abiy is making to the country’s powerful but factious ruling coalition anger opponents, who believe that they aim to undo Ethiopia’s ethnic federalist system, and could push the political temperature still higher. Elections in May 2020 could be divisive and violent. What should be done? Abiy should step up efforts to mend divisions within and among Ethiopia’s regions and push all parties to avoid stoking tensions around the elections. International partners should press Ethiopian leaders to curb incendiary rhetoric and offer increased aid to protect the country from economic shocks that could aggravate political problems.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, and Transition
Political Geography:
Africa and Ethiopia

3. The Rwandan Genocide Revisited

Author:
Robert E. Gribbin
Publication Date:
05-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Twenty-five years ago, in April 1994, the havoc of genocide visited Rwanda. In a three-month-long paroxysm of violence, almost a million souls died. The country was devastated, the remaining population cowed, government non-existent, and the economy in shambles. Twenty-five years ago, in April 1994, the havoc of genocide visited Rwanda. In a three-month-long paroxysm of violence, almost a million souls died. The country was devastated, the remaining population cowed, government non-existent, and the economy in shambles.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Ethnic Conflict, Genocide, Politics, History, Peacekeeping, Refugees, and Memory
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Tanzania, North America, Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic, United States of America, and Zaire

4. Remembering the Massacre of Civilians in Aniomaland During the Nigerian Civil War

Author:
Odigwe A. Nwaokocha
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Institution:
Brazilian Journal of African Studies
Abstract:
Civil War war fought between July 6, 1967, and January 12, 1970. The war was a result of the Nigerian federal government’s attempt to militarily force the Eastern Region, which had seceded as Biafra, back to Nigeria. The secession was followed by three waves of targeted killings of the Igbo group, mostly from the East in the Northern Region, in May/June, July/August and September/October 1966. The Igbo group was the primary target of the attacks (First 1970, 311-334). The Igbo-speaking Anioma people were not part of Biafra but the old Midwest Region on the Nigerian side. They are generally considered as Igbo (Talbot 1969; Isichei 1976, 16). They were classified as pro-Biafra by federal forces and encountered some unique challenges in the war. The conflict got to them on August 9 1967, when Biafran forces crossed the Niger Bridge, invaded the Midwest and opened a new phase in the war. The armed conflict in Aniomaland was mean, involving the killing of unarmed civilians in many places. This forms the focus of this work. The work shows that Biafran forces kick-started this terrible episode by invading the Midwest. Historical facts show that their atrocities were lower compared to those of federal forces. There were three waves of civilian killings in Aniomaland during the war. The first involved Biafran killing people of Northern descent and non-Nigerians. The second was the Agbor episode where Ika micro-nationalism, bred by fear of being slaughtered for being Anioma, led some Ika into attacking the Igbo, including the Anioma. The third was the killing of the Anioma people by Nigerian troops in Utagba-Unor, Isheagu, Ogwashi-Uku, Ibusa and Asaba when they overran the area.
Topic:
Civil War, Ethnic Conflict, History, Violence, and Civilians
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

5. Centrafrique : les racines de la violence

Publication Date:
09-2015
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR) is longterm and characterised by sporadic surges of violence against a backdrop of state disintegration, a survival economy and deep inter-ethnic cleavages. Armed groups (including the anti-balaka and the ex-Seleka) are fragmenting and becoming increasingly criminalised; intercommunal tensions have hampered efforts to promote CAR’s national unity and mend its social fabric. Unfortunately, the roadmap to end the crisis, which includes elections before the end of 2015, presents a short-term answer. To avoid pursuing a strategy that would merely postpone addressing critical challenges until after the polls, CAR’s transitional authorities and international partners should address them now by implementing a comprehensive disarmament policy, and reaffirming that Muslims belong within the nation. If this does not happen, the elections risk becoming a zero-sum game.
Topic:
Political Violence, Arms Control and Proliferation, Democratization, Ethnic Conflict, Political Economy, and Fragile/Failed State
Political Geography:
Africa

6. Does Violence Pay? The Effect of Ethnic Rebellion on Overcoming Political Deprivation

Author:
Carlo Koos
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Abstract:
Studies have found that politically deprived groups are more likely to rebel. However, does rebellion increase the likelihood of achieving political rights? This article proposes that rebellion helps ethnic groups to overcome deprivation. I illustrate this by using a "typical" case (the Ijaw's struggle against the Nigerian government) to demonstrate how ethnic rebellion increases the costs for the government to a point where granting political rights becomes preferable to war. Further, I exploit time-series-cross-sectional data on deprived ethnic groups to show that rebellion is significantly associated with overcoming deprivation. The statistical analysis shows that democratic change is an alternative mechanism.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Political Violence, Ethnic Conflict, Poverty, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Africa and Dhaka

7. Boundaries of Toleration

Author:
Charles Taylor and Alfred Stepan
Publication Date:
02-2014
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
Columbia University Press
Abstract:
How can people of diverse religious, ethnic, and linguistic allegiances and identities live together without committing violence, inflicting suffering, or oppressing each other? In this volume, contributors explore the limits of toleration and suggest we think beyond them to mutual respect. Salman Rushdie reflects on the once tolerant Sufi-Hindu culture of Kashmir. Ira Katznelson follows with an intellectual history of toleration as a layered institution in the West. Charles Taylor advances a new approach to secularism in our multicultural world, and Akeel Bilgrami responds by offering context and caution to that approach. Nadia Urbinati explores why Cicero's humanist ideal of Concord was not used in response to religious discord. The volume concludes with a refutation of the claim that toleration was invented in the West. Rajeev Bhargava writes on Asoka's India, and Karen Barkey explores toleration within the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. Sudipta Kaviraj examines accommodations and conflicts in India, and Alfred Stepan highlights contributions to toleration and multiple democratic secularisms in such Muslim-majority countries as Indonesia and Senegal.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Political Violence, Ethnic Conflict, International Cooperation, and Sectarianism
Political Geography:
Africa and South Asia
Publication Identifier:
9780231165679
Publication Identifier Type:
ISBN

8. Guinea's Other Emergency: Organising Elections

Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
In the midst of the Ebola crisis, Guinea is preparing for the presidential election due in 2015. The exact election date is just one of many points being contested by the government and opposition. The political debate is increasingly held along ethnic lines, rallying the vast majority of the Malinké behind President Alpha Condé's coalition and the Peul behind former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo's alliance. Violent protests around elections in 2012 and 2013, with highly contested results, brought both sides to the negotiating table, but the July 2014 talks about a future electoral framework quickly failed, marking the parties' deep suspicion and unwillingness to compromise. A highly flawed judiciary adds to the climate of uncertainty and the government is reluctant to listen to calls for a new round of dialogue and international mediation. In its latest briefing, Guinea's Other Emergency: Organising Elections, the International Crisis Group outlines the steps that should be taken to ensure peaceful elections.
Topic:
Ethnic Conflict, Ethnic Government, Political Power Sharing, and Self Determination
Political Geography:
Africa and Guinea

9. "We are one, but we are different": Murle identity and local peacebuilding in Jonglei State, South Sudan

Author:
Diana Felix da Costa
Publication Date:
06-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution
Abstract:
Despite the Murle group being politically and economically marginalised, local and national political and popular discourses portray this group as the main aggressor in South Sudan's Jonglei State. This widely asserted narrative ignores the fact that responsibility for the cycle of violence in Jonglei rests with all those perpetrating violence and certainly not solely with one group. While sharing an overarching ethnic identity, when it comes to issues of peacebuilding, the Murle can be neither seen nor treated as a consolidated group. Rather, there are cattlekeeping Murle living in the lowlands of Pibor county and agrarian Murle living in the Boma Plateau; there are also age-sets, clans and many other differentiating factors. Accusing all Murle of responsibility for violence only serves to magnify the sense of marginalisation and isolation felt by the Murle as a whole. This policy brief seeks to address some of the differences between the cattlekeeping lowlands Murle and the cultivating highlands Murle from the Boma Plateau. By doing so, it highlights the importance of understanding cultural specificities and the local political economy and, when it comes to peacebuilding, of differentiating who is responsible for a specific conflict and who has influence over those responsible.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Economics, Ethnic Conflict, and Peacekeeping
Political Geography:
Africa and Sudan

10. The Great Power Struggle for Africa The Crisis in Mali

Author:
Fouad Farhaoui
Publication Date:
11-2013
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Strategic Research Organization (USAK)
Abstract:
Though the French intervention against extremists in northern Mali thrust the crisis in Mali onto the international stage, the conflict itself is the result of long-stewing factors left over from the French colonial period.
Topic:
Economics, Education, Ethnic Conflict, Migration, and Post Colonialism
Political Geography:
Africa