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741. "Leave No One to Tell the Tales": The Role of Pain and Recollection in Post-Conflict Reconciliation in Africa

Author:
Bukola Adeyemi Oyeniyi
Publication Date:
03-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
Using testimonies of child soldiers and amputees from Sierra Leone, accounts from survivors of the Rwandan genocide, and recollections of survivors of rape and sexual violence from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this essay explores the intersection between pain, its recollection, and post-conflict recovery in Africa. Between 1991 and 2002, unprecedented violence gripped Sierra Leone, leading to the death of an estimated 50,000 people. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) set up after the civil war reported that a rebel group, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), orchestrated “indiscriminate amputations, abduction of women and children, recruitment of children as combatants, rape and sexual slavery, cannibalism, gratuitous killings, and wanton destruction of villages and towns” against ethnic groups believed to be loyal to President Joseph Saidu Momoh and the All People’s Congress (APC), the party that had ruled Sierra Leone since 1968
Topic:
Children, Gender Based Violence, Conflict, and Sexual Violence
Political Geography:
Africa, Sierra Leone, and Democratic Republic of Congo

742. Women and the African Peace and Security Architecture

Author:
Hussaina J. Abdullah
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The African Union (AU) has adopted the issues of peace and security and gender equality as part of its social transformation agenda on the continent. Specifically, the organization aims to promote peace, security, and stability on the continent; protect human and peoples’ rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other relevant human rights instruments; and promote sustainable development as well as the integration of African economies.1 The objective of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of how women’s rights in situations of armed conflict and post-conflict contexts have been mainstreamed into various mechanisms, structures, and instruments of the AU’s African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). As part of this exercise, this study conducts a critical examination of the links between APSA’s goal of promoting peace and security and the AU’s Gender Equality Architecture’s (GEA) goal of promoting and protecting the rights of women on the continent.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, Human Rights, Regional Cooperation, and African Union
Political Geography:
Africa

743. In Pursuit of Pragmatism: The Peace and Security Council of the African Union and Regional Peace Support Operations

Author:
Jide Martyns Okeke
Publication Date:
06-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (PSC) should prioritize pragmatic realism over idealist ambition in mandating and enhancing the operational effectiveness of future peace support operations (PSOs). By pragmatism, the PSC should realistically and routinely match resources with objectives, and understand the limits of PSOs as tools for conflict management. Acting on behalf of the AU, the PSC has become an important regional actor in mandating PSOs, especially high-intensity offensive operations where the United Nations (UN) is unable or unwilling to deploy. The deployment and operation of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) since 2007 is the most vivid example of a PSC-mandated mission that has clearly transcended the boundaries of a conventional peacekeeping mission. Various assessments of PSC-mandated missions have exposed critical challenges linked to funding gaps, difficulties in assembling and mobilizing peace intervention forces, issues relating to operational command and control, and the fact that the asymmetric nature of new security threats makes extended missions almost inevitable.1 There is urgent imperative that the conduct of protracted peace enforcement operations be based on one of two models. First, that in which the AU takes the lead with a predefined and dedicated source of flexible and predictable resourcing based on shared responsibility on the part of its member states and the international community (for example, Operation Democracy in Comoros). Alternatively, the AU could authorize a mission—without necessarily leading it—with the goal of providing legitimacy for an effective regional coalition to address the security threat at hand. Examples of this latter arrangement include the Regional Cooperation Initiative for the elimination of the Lord’s Resistance Army (RCI-LRA) and the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) against the Boko Haram insurgency in northeastern Nigeria and neighboring countries
Topic:
Security, Regional Cooperation, Peace, and African Union
Political Geography:
Africa

744. State Responses to the Relapse into Insurgent Violence in Nigeria's Oil Region

Author:
Charles Ukeje
Publication Date:
01-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
With its roots in decades of crude oil production and the attendant crises of mismanagement of oil revenues, the reemergence of armed groups1 in the Niger Delta region in early 2016 marked a return to the ‘business-as-usual’ insurgency that dominated the oil region since the 1990s. In February 2016, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) claimed responsibility for attacking oil facilities owned by major international oil companies (IOCs). During the same period, the state-owned Nigeria National Petroleum Com- pany (NNPC) reportedly spent N4.023 billion to repair 293 pipeline breaks. These attacks disrupted oil production and forced the IOCs to declare a force majeure, reducing daily oil production from 2.2 million to between 1.6 and 1.7 per million barrels per day. These developments coincided with a na- tional fiscal crisis linked to dwindling global oil prices; from over $100/barrel to around $50/barrel. Without steady gas supplies, the already dire electricity situation nationwide was further compounded by a 2,500 megawatts drop in power generation.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Oil, Non State Actors, and Violence
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

745. Revisiting the Dismissal of the UNMISS Force Commander in South Sudan

Author:
Charles Ukeje and Kizito Sabala
Publication Date:
04-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
This policy briefing note examines the implications of the altercation between the United Nations (UN) and Kenya following the dismissal of the Force Commander of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Lieutenant General Johnson Ondieki, a Kenyan citizen. An Independent Special Investigation established by the UN blamed poor leadership and judgment for the attacks on Terrain camp—a UN facility in Juba, the capital of South Sudan—in July 2016, which led to several deaths. Although the UN promptly requested that Kenya appoint a replacement, the country considered the dismissal of its citizen unnecessarily punitive and refused.
Topic:
United Nations, Leadership, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa, Sudan, and South Sudan

746. Teaching Peacebuilding in African Universities: Bridging the Gap between the Field and the Classroom

Author:
Isaac Olawale Albert
Publication Date:
09-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
While conflict is a normal, healthy part of all communities, teaching people how to deal with conflict without resorting to violence by helping them to use new approaches to overcome barriers can be effective in bringing about progressive change.1 Educating for peace is crucial due to the normalization of violence and its influence on well-being. As a human right, students must learn about a healthy life, for everyone can be sustained without violence as a response to conflict. In peace education lessons about the sources of and responses to conflict, students analyze current problems and how they can be avoided, as well as responsibly managed. They need a vision of a peaceful future as a foundation for peacemaking and skills for constructing it.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Human Rights, Peacekeeping, and Academia
Political Geography:
Africa

747. The Resurgence of Petro-Conflict in Post-Amnesty Niger Delta, Nigeria: Rethinking Conflict Trajectories and Reforms

Author:
Elias Courson
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
Since the late 1990s, the oil-endowed Niger Delta region has become an almost ungovernable space. From 1999, there has been a turn to militancy, which escalated with the emergence of the Movement for 1 the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) in 2005/6. Although the government was initially slow to react to the unfolding trajectory of violent conflict in the region, there was a period of relative peace in the wake of the 2009 amnesty deal, which was somewhat disrupted in February 2016 by the emergence of a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA).2 Apart from the NDA, a plethora of little-known militant groups emerged in the Niger Delta between February and November 2016. Their attacks brought the oil industry and by extension, the nation’s economy to a state of near collapse. The government lost about $7 billion (N2.1 trillion) due to the activities of insurgent groups and oil pipeline vandals in the Niger Delta. Some estimates suggest that these disturbances brought down oil production from 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd), to barely 1 million bpd. The NDA’s strategic return to the oil creeks to mount sting operations on Nigeria’s petro-economy when global oil prices had fallen drastically (from a peak of $115 per barrel in mid-2014 to less than $40 per barrel in early 2016), exacerbated the country’s financial woes and contributed towards the national economic recession.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Oil, Global Recession, and Militias
Political Geography:
Africa and Nigeria

748. The African Union's Peace and Security Partnership with China

Author:
Asebe Regassa Debelo
Publication Date:
07-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
The China-African Union (AU) peace and security partnership can be positively harnessed in support of peacebuilding processes on the continent. This policy brief urges African policymakers to look beyond the familiar narratives of Sino- African relations as “resource diplomacy.” It notes some of the challenges facing China’s engagement with peace and security issues in Africa, and considers several options for addressing them. The brief also offers recommendations to the AU and African sub-regional organizations on how to optimize the opportunities presented by China’s engagement with Africa to consolidate sustainable peace on the continent.
Topic:
Security, International Cooperation, Peace, and African Union
Political Geography:
Africa, China, and Asia

749. The Significance of Erdoğan's Visit to East Africa

Author:
Michael Asiedu
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center
Abstract:
On the 22nd of January, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan embarked on another tour of three East African countries, Tanzania, Mozambique and Madagascar. These visits bring his total trips to 10 in Sub Saharan Africa, the most by any Turkish president. Earlier in 2016, he visited Ghana, Guinea, Cote d’ivoire, Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Somalia. These trips to a much larger extent signify the increasing policy attention Turkey is giving Africa.
Topic:
Development, Diplomacy, Bilateral Relations, Geopolitics, and Trade
Political Geography:
Africa, Turkey, Middle East, Mozambique, Tanzania, Madagascar, and East Africa

750. Turkey-Africa Relations: Spotlight on Somalia

Author:
Michael Asiedu
Publication Date:
11-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Global Political Trends Center
Abstract:
On 30 September, 2017, the Turkish government opened its largest military base abroad in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu. The ceremony was attended by the Turkish Military Chief of Staff, Hulusi Akar. This policy update gives an overview of the significance of the military base and Turkey’s continuous engagements in Africa.
Topic:
Government, Humanitarian Aid, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Africa, Turkey, and Somalia