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1.1. Background and Objectives of the Study

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1.1. Background and Objectives of the Study CHAPTER I Introduction 1.1. Background and Objectives of the Study Since the end of direct European colonial rule, the post-colonial state has been beset by various crises, including civil wars, authoritarianism, brutal human rights violations and pervasive socio-economic malaise.1 At no other time, however, have these crises reached more devastating proportions than during the post-Cold War period. As Makau Wa Mutua succinctly states: ‘[i]t is as though the African state has gone from the frying pan and into the fire.’ 2 Africa has been engulfed from north to south and from west to east by violent upheavals of severe intensity, with consequences that include genocide and the disintegration of states. As inequalities more often than not followed ethno-cultural or regional lines, most of these strifes involve ethnic-based claims for political inclusion, socio-economic justice and autonomy.3 Even a cursory look at many of these conflicts would attest to this fact. In Algeria, while political violence erupted following the cancellation of the 1992 elections, the Berbers continued their agitation and protest against the non-recognition of their distinct identity and the policy of assimilation into the dominant Arab culture that was aggressively pursued by successive post-colonial governments.4 In Mauritania, the largely black communities were brutally mas- sacred and forcibly removed from their land, dispossessed of their property and expelled from their country while being stripped of their citizenship.5 While fighting involving ethnic-based rebel groups led to the implosion of Liberia6 and Sierra Leone, Senegal continues to contend with an intermittent violence 1 See Basil Davidson The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State (1992) 8. 2 MW Mutua ‘Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together: The Dilemmas of the Post-colonial African State’ (1995) 21 Brooklyn J of Int L 505, 506. 3 For an analysis of the relationship between ethnic based exclusion or inequality in access to state power and resources and conflicts see Andreas Wimmer, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Brian Min ‘Ethnic Diversity, Political Exclusion and Armed Conflict: A Quantitative Analysis of a Global Dataset’ in Marc Weller and Katherine Nobbs (eds.) Political Participation of Minorities: A Commentary on International Standards and Practice (2010) 3. 4 See M Meredith The State of Africa: A History of Fifty Years of Independence (2005, 2006) 447–461; J McDougal History and the culture of nationalism in Algeria (2006) 184–216. 5 See Human Rights Watch/Africa Mauritania’s Campaign of Terror: State-Sponsored Repression of Black Africans (1994). 6 See M Soolisa ‘Standing on Sinking Sand: ECOMOGC and the Liberian Internal Conflict’ in PA Nyong’o (ed.) Arms and Daggers in the Heart of Africa: Studies on Internal Conflicts (1993) 285; B Berkeley Liberia: A Promise Betrayed (1986). 2 chapter i by groups agitating for the independence of Casamance.7 In Nigeria, despite the apparent return to democratic governance, agitation by and the intermittently violent protests of national minority groups such as the Ogoni, the Atyab, and the Bajju have been on the rise.8 While the struggle of South Sudan against religious bigotry and ethno-cultural discrimination as well as political and socio-economic marginalisation went on intermittently since 1956 until the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, another violent civil war erupted in the Darfur region following a rebellion against political and socio-economic marginalisation by Khartoum.9 Its neighbour Chad endured civil strife that pitted ethno-regional groups of the south against those of the north,10 and the country continues to experience ethno-regional and political insurgencies. Hostilities between armed clan militias rendered Somalia a state without government, the prototype of a failed state in the world.11 After years of authoritarian rule under Mobutu, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, descended into one of Africa’s brutal civil wars.12 The historical rivalry between Hutus and Tutsis for domination and control of the state degenerated into a genocidal civil war in Rwanda13 and has until recently left Burundi in a vicious circle of genocidal strife.14 Despite the conclusion of the long civil war in Angola between the government and UNITA 7 See JB Forrest Subnationalism in Africa: Ethnicity, Alliance, and Politics (2004) 88–97; B Sonko ‘The Casamance Conflict: A Forgotten Civil War? 3 & 4 CODESERA Bulletin (2004) 30. 8 See OC Okwa-Okafor ‘Self-determination and the struggle for ethno-cultural autonomy in Nigeria: The Zangon-Kafaf and Ogoni problems’ (1994) 6 ASIL Proceedings 52; A Raufu Mustapha ‘Ethnicity and the Politics of Democratization in Nigeria’ in Bruce Berman et al. (eds.) Ethnicity and Democracy in Africa (2004) 257. 9 See FM Deng ‘Sudan’s Turbulent Road to Nationhood’ in RR Larémont (ed.) Borders, Nationalism and the African State (2005) 33–86; Jack Kalpakian ‘War over Identity: The Case of Sudan’ in Christopher Clapham et al. (eds.) Big African States (2001) 39; Report of the AU High Level Panel on Darfur, Darfur: The Quest for Peace, Justice and Reconciliation, AU Doc. PSC/ AHG/2(CCVII), 29 October 2009. 10 See S Decalo ‘Chad: The roots of centre periphery strife’ (1980) 79 African Affairs 317. 11 D Compagnon ‘Somali Armed Movements: The Interplay of Political Entrepreneurship and Clan-Based Factions’ in C Clapham (ed.) African Guerrillas (1998) 73–90. According to Ali A. Mazrui in Somalia, the conflict is often subethnic. Ali A Mazrui ‘Black Berlin and the Curse of Fragmentation: From Bismark to Barack’, Preface to Adekeye Adebajo’s The Curse of Berlin: Africa after the Cold War (2010) xiv. 12 See HF Weiss & T Carayannis ‘The Enduring Idea of the Congo’ in Larémont (ed.) (note 9 above) 135–178. 13 See The International Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and the Surrounding Events Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide (1994) <http://www. africa-union.org/Official_documents/Reports/OUA-Rapport%20sur%20le%20genocide%20 au%20Rwanda.pdf> ; G Prunier The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (1995); Meredith (note 4 above) Chapter 27. 14 See M Dravis ‘Burundi in the 1990s – from democratization to communal war’ in TR Gurr Peoples versus states: Minorities at risk in the new century (2000) 188–194; R Lemarchand Burundi: Ethnic conflict and Genocide (1996). .
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