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21. "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

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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

29. The African Union’s Gender, Peace, and Security Mechanisms: Policy Options for Protecting Women in Conflict

Author:
Hussaina J. Abdullah
Publication Date:
01-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
This brief addresses the mechanisms of the African Union (AU) for protecting and promoting women’s rights during conflict and their participation in post- conflict peacebuilding processes. These mechanisms can be found in the policy frameworks and structures of the Protocol Relating to the Establish- ment of the Peace and Security Council of the African Union (the PSC Pro- tocol) of 2002, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol), adopted in 2003, and the Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality in Africa (SDGEA) of 2004. Other mechanisms include the AU Action Plans on Gender Main- streaming in peace and security, as well as a special rapporteur on women’s rights, appointed in 1999, a special envoy on women, peace, and security, appointed in 2014, and the AU’s Five-Year (2015–2020) Gender, Peace, and Security Programme. While the AU scores high on de jure instruments designed to improve the legal framework for women’s rights and gender equality, the evidence sug- gests less progress in terms of the de facto practices directed toward their implementation. For example, the Maputo Protocol—the African Women’s Bill of Rights—whose full ratification and enforcement were envisaged by 2015 and its domestication by 2020—has not been ratified by fourteen member states,2 and two countries, Botswana and Egypt, have not even signed the in- strument. Even some of the countries that ratified it did so with reservations. Furthermore, while member states are also expected to send biennial reports on the implementation processes in their respective countries, only Malawi had complied with this provision as of December 2015. And although the protocol demands the protection of women against violence in war and in peace times, reports indicate the continued perpetration with impunity of sexual- and gender-based violence (SGBV) against women in conflict-affected settings. The PSC protocol, the normative framework on which the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA)4 is based, recognizes the need to protect women from violence in conflict-affected areas, but in doing so it makes them appear as mostly passive victims of war. An approach is needed that recognizes women can be perpetrators of violence as well as agents of change pro- moting peace and reconciliation. The integration of an all-encompassing organizational gender strategy to guide the AU’s work in conflict and post-conflict situations will strengthen effectiveness in conflict-affected societies with regard to the women, peace, and security (WPS) goals of participation in post-conflict governance; protec- tion from SGBV and acts of impunity; prevention of the abuse of women, girls, and children; and the promotion of gender equality. The mandate of the AU’s special envoy on WPS to “ensure that the voices of women and the vulnerable are heard much more in peacebuilding and in conflict resolu- tion” is both timely and relevant. Priority should be given to coordinating mechanisms for an Africa-centered gen- der, peace, and security framework and to promoting synergies among women’s organizations, national gov- ernments, and peace support operations to ensure the implementation of actions that make a difference in the lives of women in conflict-affected countries. The spe- cial envoy should also engage closely with stakeholders to ensure full domestication of the Maputo Protocol is achieved by 2020. In sum, although the AU has made some progress in establishing a gender, peace, and security framework to ensure the protection of women’s rights and promote gen- der equality in conflict and post-conflict settings, some gaps and coordination challenges continue to limit its ef- fectiveness. Gender mainstreaming mechanisms across the peace and security sector, including capacity building initiatives, need to be addressed critically to prevent the continued violation of women’s physical and bodily integ- rity in conflict-affected and post-conflict countries.
Topic:
Security, Gender Issues, Peace, and African Union
Political Geography:
Africa

30. Blaise Compaoré in the Resolution of the Ivorian Conflict: From Belligerent to Mediator-in-Chief

Author:
Amy Niang
Publication Date:
03-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Social Science Research Council
Abstract:
In the often troubled politics of West Africa, Blaise Compaoré, the former president of Burkina Faso, is a quaint figure, almost of another era. Yet with all he has experienced over a quarter century of the region’s upheavals, he is also very much a man of his time, politically astute, and a fine strategist when it comes to preserving his friendships with powerful countries and leaders whose backing has provided immunity of sorts for his alleged crimes. Compaoré has always been equally keen on keeping a clean image as a peacemaker, given the intolerable association of his name and career with a bloody 1983 coup that cost the life of Thomas Sankara, the revolutionary pan-African figure. This paper is not, however, focused on Compaoré’s political career, and it is not a diatribe meant to support or amplify common critiques of his political activism or his perceived destructive practices. The popular insurgency of October 2014 that resulted in the resignation of the long-serving president gives a good measure of popular sentiment on Compaoré’s model of governance and moral ethics more emphatically than any speculative account on political rule in Burkina Faso. The aim here, rather, is to examine how, as a mediator, Compaoré builds and deploys a particular kind of “sovereignty,” informed by his capacity to tap into different registers of legitimacy, while reinterpreting the terms of mediation mandates as part of his strategies. This paper is concerned with his role in facilitating dialogue and brokering peace in the Ivorian conflict, and it specifically examines the “Compaoré system” at work in one of West Africa’s most protracted political crises. The question is whether there are ways in which a mediator can and does appropriate the mediation process by giving it a direction it might otherwise not have taken. In our case of interest—the 2002–10 military and political crisis—a consideration of Compaoré’s personal touch with regard to political and legal processes, the nature of agreements, actors’ conduct, and mediation outcomes points to different possibilities of understanding conflict management and resolution patterns in different African contexts. More important for the mediation literature, the ways of an unlikely mediator provide useful methodological and empirical resources for thinking differently about mediation as an applied science. In fact, Compaoré’s mediation career poses an analytical puzzle to perspectives commonly developed in the literature; this puzzle has to do with his counterintuitive and unconventional methods, which deserve proper engagement.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Sovereignty, and Political Crisis
Political Geography:
Africa and West Africa