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2. Rhetoric and Reality: The Failure to Resolve the Darfur Conflict
- Author:
- Julie Flint
- Publication Date:
- 01-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Small Arms Survey
- Abstract:
- Seven years after large-scale militia attacks signalled a change in the long- running but generally low-level conflict in Darfur, an unprecedented array of international instruments has been deployed, often chaotically, to address the conflict, including peacekeepers, peacemakers, special envoys, mediators, sanctions, embargoes, and criminal prosecution. Yet peace remains as elusive as ever. In the three and a half years since the Darfur Peace Agreement was precipitously concluded in Abuja and, rejected by most Darfurians, left to wither, the paradigm of government–rebel talks has persisted, despite stalemate. Time is not on Darfur's side: the longer the conflict continues, the more actors become involved and the harder it is to resolve. With national elections scheduled for April 2010 and a referendum on self-determination for Southern Sudan in 2011, the focus has moved away from Darfur. This Working Paper examines mediation efforts since Abuja and suggests why they have failed.
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Civil War, Ethnic Conflict, Treaties and Agreements, and Armed Struggle
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Sudan
3. Symptoms and causes: Insecurity and underdevelopment in Eastern Equatoria
- Author:
- Emile LeBrun
- Publication Date:
- 04-2010
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- Small Arms Survey
- Abstract:
- Eastern Equatoria state (EES) is one of the most volatile and conflict-prone states in Southern Sudan. An epicentre of the civil war ( 1983 – 2005 ), EES saw intense fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), as well numerous armed groups supported by both sides, leaving behind a legacy of landmines and unexploded ordnance, high numbers of weapons in civilian hands, and shattered social and community relations.
- Topic:
- Security, Development, Ethnic Conflict, and Governance
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Sudan
4. Trading Life, Trading Death: The Flow of Small Arms from Mozambique to Malawi
- Author:
- Gregory Mthembu-Salter
- Publication Date:
- 01-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Small Arms Survey
- Abstract:
- In a region apparently awash with weapons and plagued with rising levels of armed crime, Malawi is a welcome exception to these characteristics. In early 2007 there were only 9,320 legally registered firearms in Malawi excluding those used by the security forces, compared to just under 87,000 in Zambia (Mtonga and Mthembu-Salter, 2004, p. 286) and nearly 4 million in South Africa (Gould et al., 2004, p. 133). Though a country of an estimated 13 million people, in the 5 years between 1996 and 2000 Malawi suffered just 2,161 reported cases of armed robbery (Mwakasungula and Nungu, 2004, p. 89). For 2005 the figure was 316 and for 2004 it was 263, according to figures provided by the Malawi Police Service (MPS). Even leaving aside South Africa, where there were 119,726 recorded cases of aggravated robbery in 2006 (SAPS, 2006), Malawi's armed crime statistics still compare favourably with the rest of the region. In neighbouring Zambia, for example, where there is a population of only 10 million people, there were 3,168 reported cases of armed robbery in the 5 years between 1998 and 2002 (Mtonga and Mthembu-Salter, 2004, p. 294).
- Topic:
- Conflict Resolution, Security, Political Violence, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
- Political Geography:
- Africa
5. No Other Life: Gangs, Guns, and Governance in Trinidad and Tobago
- Author:
- Dorn Townsend
- Publication Date:
- 12-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Small Arms Survey
- Abstract:
- In the last decade, gun-related homicides in Trinidad and Tobago (T T) have risen about1,000 per cent. While higher rates of crime have permeated much of the island of Trinidad in particular, overwhelmingly violence is concentrated in relatively small, hilly, and dense urban areas on the east side of Port of Spain's central business district. On a per capita basis, the eastern districts of Port of Spain are among the most dangerous places on the planet and, as a whole, the murder rate for Port of Spain is comparable to that of Baghdad (Kukis, 2009).
- Topic:
- Arms Control and Proliferation, Crime, and Poverty
- Political Geography:
- Africa, Spain, and Island
6. Islands of Safety in a Sea of Guns: Gun-free Zones in South Africa
- Author:
- Adèle Kirsten
- Publication Date:
- 01-2006
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Small Arms Survey
- Abstract:
- On 27 April 1994, millions of South Africans cast their votes in the country's first fully democratic general elections, signalling an end to more than 350 years of political rule by a white minority over the black majority. South Africa's history is one of colonial conquest, dispossession, segregation, and repression; one in which firearms played an important role in maintaining the border between the oppressed and the oppressor, between the colonized and the colonizer. With the state's implementation of apartheid policies after 1948, which further entrenched white rule, the military expanded its influence into all areas of social life, becoming a pervasive element in South African society. In response to the increased repression by the apartheid state, resistance organizations turned to armed violence as one strand in the strategy for national liberation. Many members of the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC) regarded themselves as soldiers fighting in a people's war. Although many held that South Africa was at war, it was generally accepted that the conflict was a low-level civil war, commonly referred to as 'low intensity conflict' (Cock and Nathan, 1989). As a result of several factors, such as internal mass mobilization against apartheid and increasing international pressure for a political solution to the South African conflict, negotiations for a new political dispensation started in 1990, culminating in a democratic constitution and the 1994 elections.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Island
7. The Use and Perception of Weapons Before and After Conflict: Evidence from Rwanda
- Author:
- Philip Verwimp and Cécelle Meijer
- Publication Date:
- 10-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Small Arms Survey
- Abstract:
- The majority of Rwanda's population considers itself Hutu (more than 80 per cent), whereas a smaller group is referred to as Tutsi (about 15 percent). The Twa are the smallest minority. In 1994, after four years of civil war, Rwanda descended into genocide. The Tutsi minority was the main target, but Hutu and Twa who were not willing to participate in the killings were also murdered. In fewer than three months, more than 500,000 people were brutally slaughtered.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Arms Control and Proliferation, and War
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Rwanda
8. Re-Armament in Sierra Leone: One Year After the Lomé Peace Agreement
- Author:
- Eric Berman
- Publication Date:
- 12-2000
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Small Arms Survey
- Abstract:
- On 7 July 1999, the government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) signed the Lomé Peace Agreement in an effort to end over eight years of civil war between the government and the RUF. This confl ict resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than 2 million people – well over one-third of the total population – many of whom are now refugees in neighbouring countries. A central component of this agreement called for the RUF to disarm. But this did not happen. Instead, a year later, the RUF leader, Foday Sankoh, was in the custody of the Sierra Leonean government and the future of the peace accord was in grave doubt.
- Topic:
- Arms Control and Proliferation and War
- Political Geography:
- Africa