Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts The Search for Sustainable Peace and Good Governance

by Adedeji, Adebayo

• ISBN13: 9781856497626
• ISBN10: 1856497623
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-09-04
• Publisher: Zed Books

Summary

More and more African countries are falling prey to civil war and the disintegration of government authority and social order. Here, for the first time, teams of African scholars actually based in the countries principally affected examine what is happening. Their first aim has been to understand the complex and diverse roots of these conflicts. To this end, they analyse the conflicts in Angola, Burundi and Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Somalia and Somaliland. They also reflect on the general obstacles to comprehending conflict in Africa. Possible ways of anticipating, containing and indeed preventing new conflicts are discussed, as are the experiences of successful transitions to peace in Northern Mali and post-civil war Nigeria. Proposals for mastering conflict in future range over a wide diversity of ideas like a moratorium on the importation of arms, trans-frontier development projects, political reform creating real space for participation by different social groups, and governmental decentralisation. This timely volume is a significant contribution by African intellectuals to resolving the most intractable problems confronting Sub-Saharan Africa.

Author Biography

Adebayo Adedeji is a renowned economist and Director of the African Center for Development and Strategic Studies (ACDESS), Nigeria.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures	vii	(1)
Contributors	viii	(1)
Abbreviations	ix	(4)
Foreword	xiii	(2)
Preface and Acknowledgements	xv	(7)
Map of Sub-Sahara Africa in Conflict, 1999	xxii
PART I: Issues at Stake	1	(52)
1. Comprehending African Conflicts	3	(19)
ADEBAYO ADEDEJI
2. Mastering African Conflicts	22	(9)
AMADOU TOUMANI TOURE
3. Obstacles to Comprehension and Barriers to the Mastery of Conflicts	31	(10)
REGINALD HERBOLD GREEN
4. Achieving Good Governance in Post-Conflict Situations: The Dialectic between Conflict and Good Governance	41	(12)
SEGUN ODUNUGA
PART II: Countries in Conflict: A Critical Stocktaking by Country Research Teams	53	(136)
5. Angola	55	(25)
AUGUSTO EDUARDO KAMBWA
DANIEL MINGAS CASIMIRO
NGONGO JOAO PEDRO
LUCAS BHENGUI NGONDA
6. Burundi	80	(24)
JOSEPH GAHAMA
S. MAKOROKA
C. NDITIJE
P. NTAHOMBAYE
O. SINDAYIZERUKA
7. Liberia	104	(37)
AL-HASSAN CONTEH
JOSEPH S. GUANNU
HALL BADIO
KLANEH W. BRUCE
8. Rwanda	141	(33)
EMMANUEL GASSANA
BUTERA JEAN-BOSCO
BYANAFASHE DEO
ALICE KAREIKEZI
9. Sierra Leone	174	(15)
JOHN BOBOR LAGGAH
JOE A. D. ALLIE
ROLAND S. V. WRIGHT
PART III: Transitions from Conflict to Peace and Good Governance: Lessons of Experience	189	(128)
10. Angola: Seeking to Remedy the Limitations and Bias in Media and Scholarly Coverage	191	(16)
REGINALD HERBOLD GREEN
11. The Experience of Northern Mali	207	(14)
A: History of the Armed Conflict	215	(1)
BINTOU SANAN KOUCA
SICAVE AG. ECAWELL
B: Democracy and the Peace Process	215	(6)
AGHATAM ALHASSANE
12. Nigeria: A Victim of its Own Success	221	(15)
SEGUN ODUNUGA
13. Understanding Conflict in Somalia and Somaliland	236	(21)
ISMAIL AHMED
14. Towards a Macro-Economic Framework for Somaliland's Post-War Rehabilitation and Reconstruction	257	(25)
REGINALD HERBOLD GREEN
15. The Role of Non-African NGOs in African Conflicts: The Case of Rwanda	282	(15)
IAN LINDEN
16. Consolidating Peace through Governance and Regional Cooperation: The Liberian Experience	297	(20)
ANTHONY BARCLAY
PART IV: Strategizing the Way Forward	317	(22)
17. Which Way Forward? A Panel Discussion	319	(20)
A: Panel Discussions	330	(1)
ADEBAYO ADEDEJI (ACDESS)(CHAIRMAN)
EMMANUEL GASANA (RWANDA)
AL-HASSAN CONTEH (LIBERIA)
JOSEPH GAHAMA (BURUNDI)
TREVOR GORDON-SOMERS (UNDP)
B: Conclusions and Recommendations on Managing African Conflicts in their Political, Economic and Social Dimensions	330	(3)
WORKING GROUP I
C: An Ongoing Research Programme Directed at Comprehending and Mastering Conflict	333	(6)
WORKING GROUP II
Appendixes	339	(28)
1. ACDESS Guidelines for the Preparation of the National Baseline Papers	341	(21)
2. The Final Communique of the Regional Consultative Workshop on Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts	362	(5)
Index	367
TABLES
1.1 Categorization of SSA countries by the prevailing political condition as of the last quarter of 1998	5
1.2 Growth in real per capita GDP 1960-94 in conflict countries	13
1.3 Indicators of human poverty	16
6.1 Fundamental differences in perception and the interpretation of facts	96
7.1 Income distribution by urban and rural class locations and class shares in national income, 1980	126
7.2 Land holdings of concessions by date, tenure, acreage and nationality	128
FIGURES
1.1 Violent changes of government in Africa since 1960	6
1.2 Major conflicts in the world during the 1990s	11
16.1 Transition from crisis to peace and recovery through effective governance	310