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91. Why Integrate National Peace Structures? Building Community Platforms for Resilience, Early Warning and Dialogue

Author:
ACCORD
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
In the last two decades, West Africa has become an incubator for violent conflict whose origins are mostly believed to be rooted outside the region. The current climate of poverty, unemployment, under-development, poor governance, human rights abuses, repression, unprecedented delays and denial of access to justice, and ongoing conflicts have made West Africa a breeding ground for terrorism. The spread of terrorism across the region has intensified exponentially over the past 20 years more than any other time in the history of the region. Terrorism is a major security challenge for Africa as a whole, considering the rising number of attacks, the multiplicity of active terror networks, and the growing links between and among terror groups. Boko Haram, al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) are some of the deadliest terrorist organisations that are still highly active in Africa. They constantly mutate into incognito networks, and their actions are also labelled as banditry or cattle rustling, among others, in Nigeria. Terrorism is violence without borders, and its dynamics are highly unpredictable, especially with the skill and ingenuity with which terrorist organisations conceal their real identities.
Topic:
Civil Society, Peace, Resilience, Dialogue, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Africa and West Africa

92. From Cattle Raids to Violence: A Processual Analysis of the Baragoi Massacre in Northern Kenya

Author:
Willis Okumu
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
In pre-colonial times, young men from pastoralist communities in Northern Kenya conducted cattle raids to enable their households or clans to replenish decimated herds after droughts or to acquire livestock for the payment of bridewealth.[1]Today, such raids are carried out mainly to solidify ethnic-based group identity for political competition or as resource scrambles.[2] Mobilisation for large cattle raids is carried out with ethno-nationalistic orientations that seek to entrench ‘us’ versus ‘them’ narratives as a prerequisite for the raids.[3] Although cattle raids are carried out by warriors (circumcised young men between the age of 15 and 30), the violence that accompanies the raids is significantly fuelled by ethnic identity politics and ethno-nationalistic mobilisation involving politicians and the educated elite.[4] In the town of Baragoi in Kenya, major raids and massacres have occurred after periods of mobilisation based on ethnic identities. In this article, a massacre is described as the intentional, indiscriminate murder of a group of people due to their socio-political orientations, such as ethnic identity or political allegiance. Unlike cattle raids of the pre-colonial era in which the aim of violence was to acquire cattle forcefully, recent massacres among pastoralists in Northern Kenya are intended to convey a message of incompatibility between two or more communities within a common geographical area (often in-land and in boundary zones). Disputes between communities may be aimed at forcefully evicting political opponents and their supporters from a common area in the run-up to a competitive political period, thus denying them a chance to cast their ballots. Massacres may arise out of such disputes and may be perpetrated to ensure a win for the organisers of the massacre. This article, therefore, examines the processes of violence escalation based on the assumption that the escalation of conflict into violence elucidates the contested relationships between two warring groups.[5]
Topic:
Violence, Pastoralism, Massacre, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Kenya and Africa

93. Towards Multi-Level Partnerships in Building Sustainable Peace in West Africa

Author:
Osei Baffour Frimpong
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Despite the solid progress made in democratic consolidation, regional cooperation, and economic growth in recent years, West Africa has been in the global spotlight due to persistent insecurity and accompanying humanitarian crises. Indeed, the current peace and security climate in West Africa is replete with existing and emerging threats that are national, regional, and global in character. The threats are occasioned by incidents of terrorism, violent extremism, election violence, intercommunal violence, ethnic violence, farmer-herder conflicts, transnational organised crime, and climate change, among others. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has also induced adverse effects on human security. Efforts to assuage the varied threats to security in the region have prompted the development and activation of an array of frameworks and interventions by actors including the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), France, the United States (US), and civil society organisations (CSOs). Notwithstanding these interventions, the threats continue to be exacerbated and evolve, invoking critical questions about the effectiveness of existing responses.[1] The volatile security climate coupled with escalating violence has sparked unprecedented humanitarian crises across the region. In 2019 alone, more than 4 000 deaths were recorded (compared to 770 in 2016) due to the resurgence of violence in certain countries, especially Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali.[2] Between 2019 and 2020, the fatality rate increased from 4 385 to 5 606, an annual increase of more than 1 200 fatalities.[3]
Topic:
Peacekeeping, Partnerships, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Africa and West Africa

94. South Sudan’s Civil War: Violence, Insurgency and Failed Peacemaking

Author:
Stephen Arrno
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
This scholarly contribution by John Young offers an insightful critique and evaluation of liberal peacemaking and internationalism that has shaped post-cold war approaches to Africa. Examining South Sudan’s peacemaking process, the book refutes modernist and liberal peace epistemologies that deficiency in governance, underdevelopment, and failed peace are caused by internal factors. The main argument is that failed peacemaking in South Sudan, and previously in Sudan, has been induced by external forces. Organised into eight chapters, South Sudan’s Civil War: Violence, Insurgency and Failed Peacemaking outlines missed opportunities to resolving the Sudan conflict. The author takes the Turco-Egyptian empire that exposed South Sudan to a global economy of slavery as the starting point. The British who came to the Sudan to avenge the death of Gordon Pasha established an administration of ‘benign neglect’ that ended in the integration of South Sudan into an asymmetrical economy and polity. After two civil wars, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) enabled the birth of an independent South Sudan, with the Agreement providing a trade-off between self-determination and democratic transformation (p. 10). The ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A), manufactured shallow political unity to promote the referendum for independence. All promises for an elaborate transformative agenda and successful post-independence transitional period were abandoned and neglected. The book criticises the liberation movement (SPLM) and the United States (US) administration for causing conflict. The central thesis of the book considers the independence of South Sudan as the root cause of conflict by endorsing the SPLM’s tyranny (p. 65).
Topic:
Civil War, Insurgency, Violence, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Africa and South Sudan

95. Ignoring the Roots of Mozambique’s War in a Push for Military Victory

Author:
ACCORD
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Conflict Trends
Institution:
The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD)
Abstract:
Nearly 2 900 people were killed[1] and most of the population displaced[2] by early June 2021 in a civil war that began in October 2017 in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique’s north-eastern province. From a single initial attack involving 30 men, insurgents now control most of four districts and parts of three others in a block roughly 70 km wide and 200 km from north to south. The second-largest natural gas field in Africa is being developed in the far north-east of Mozambique, with more than US$20 billion in investment predicted. The French company Total is developing the project, but insurgents reached the gates of the development zone in December 2020, and Total pulled out its staff and halted work on 1 January 2021. The Total Chief Executive Officer (CEO) told President Filipe Nyusi personally that Total would only return if Mozambique could guarantee security in a 25 km cordon around the gas project on the Afungi Peninsula. On 22 March 2021, Nyusi staked his personal reputation and that of the nation on a promise of security. Total agreed to resume construction. Two days later, insurgents occupied Palma, which is within the security cordon. Total withdrew its staff again and, on 26 April 2021, declared ‘force majeure’[3] on its Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project. The company stated that it would only return if Mozambique ended the war.
Topic:
Security, Conflict, Peace, Peacebuilding, and Military
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

96. When armies enforce the law: Why the Ghana armed forces play a role in domestic security

Author:
Peter Albrecht, Fiifi Edu-Afful, and Festus Aubyn
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
The Ghana Armed Forces play a significant role in domestic security. To fully comprehend how and why requires a deeper understanding of the way that individual, local, national and regional factors interact. A blurring of the duties of the police and armed forces speaks to a never fully realized separation of who oversees internal and external security. The division of labour between a police force that deals with domestic security concerns and armed forces that defend the borders of a country against external threats has become a generally accepted ideal during the past 150 years. In practice, this separation has been historically tenuous, which was emphasized when the Cold War came to an end, and new security threats such as civil wars and international terrorism emerged. The terrorist attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 strongly reinforced pressures towards the development of expeditionary security capabilities, which was done partially by expanding the roles and responsibilities of the armed forces in internal security. In Ghana, these international transformations in the role of the armed forces together with the country’s particular history of civil-military relations have led to an expansive set of functions for the Ghana Armed Forces domestically. Today, the armed forces play a consistent role in internal security operations, sometimes referred to in public debates as ‘internal peacekeeping’. Military personnel are deployed to deal with a wide range of law enforcement matters across the country, such as illegal mining, illegal logging, armed robberies (patrolling), and chieftaincy disputes.
Topic:
Security, Law Enforcement, Armed Forces, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Africa and Ghana

97. Risk of Mass Atrocities in Mozambique

Author:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Abstract:
Mozambique ranks 24th in the Early Warning Project risk assessment for mass killing for 2020-21. The strongest risk factor is the armed conflict between the government and insurgents, which has killed over 1,300 civilians and displaced nearly 700,000 of the 2.32 million people in Cabo Delgado. To prevent mass atrocities, the government of Mozambique must invest in peacebuilding, provision of basic services, and professionalization of its armed services. All perpetrators of gross human rights violations must be held accountable. The U.S. and other governments should conduct a full mass atrocity risk assessment immediately, and analyze how their military assistance and private sector investments are impacting the conflict.
Topic:
Human Rights, Atrocities, Risk Factors, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Africa, Mozambique, and United States of America

98. Preventing Violent Islamic Radicalization: Experimental Evidence on Anti-Social Behavior

Author:
Pedro C. Vicente and Inês Vilela
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
Violence perpetrated by radicalized Muslims is a major problem around the world. We collaborated with the main Islamic authority in Mozambique, which sponsored two randomized interventions to prevent violence related to youth radicalization: a religious campaign against extremist views of Islam, targeting change in beliefs; and a training module on entrepreneurship and employment, aiming to increase the opportunity cost of conflict. Our measurement focuses on anti-social behavior in a Joy-of-destruction lab game. We find that only the religious treatment decreased the propensity to destroy the payoffs of others. Consistently, surveys show increased trust in the state and decreased support for extremism.
Topic:
Development, Political Economy, Religion, Economic Growth, Youth, Conflict, Violence, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

99. Toxic Conflict: Understanding Venezuela's Economic Collapse

Author:
Juan Carlos Fernández-Rodríguez
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
This paper discusses the causes of Venezuela’s recent economic collapse, the largest in modern Latin American economic history and one of the largest in modern world history outside of wartime. I argue that Venezuela’s economic implosion is a combination of two crises. The first one reflects the standard unraveling of a populist macroeconomic cycle fed by overspending during a resource boom, while the second one reflects the severing of the country’s trade and financial links with the global economy. This severing is the consequence of the decision by political actors to adopt “scorched earth” strategies with large negative aggregate economic spillovers in their fight for power. I argue that the inability of Venezuela’s high-stakes, winner-take-all political system to deal with the large negative 2014–16 trade shock precipitated the change in political strategies and the descent into economically destructive political conflict.
Topic:
Development, Political Economy, Democracy, Economic Growth, Conflict, Institutions, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
South America and Latin America

100. The Impact of Nonviolent Resistance on the Peaceful Transformation of Civil War

Author:
Luke Abbs
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Book
Institution:
International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Abstract:
In recent years, a burgeoning literature has explored the strategic advantages of using nonviolent resistance to achieve positive political outcomes, such as regime change and democratization. Yet, despite one-fifth of largescale nonviolent campaigns occurring during the course of a civil war, we know little about the affect nonviolent resistance might have on the transformation of armed conflict. Bringing together the previously isolated literatures on nonviolent resistance and peacebuilding, this manuscript explores how nonviolent resistance can aid peacebuilding efforts that transform ongoing armed conflict, using data on all civil wars episodes since 1945. The finding show nonviolent resistance does have a positive impact on the resolution of armed conflict, with evidence deriving from a Large-N statistical analysis, out-of-sample prediction and structured-focused case studies.
Topic:
Conflict, Resistance, Nonviolence, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Global Focus