Genocide Or Terrorism?
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Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal Volume 13 Issue 2 Rethinking Genocide, Mass Atrocities, and Political Violence in Africa: New Directions, Article 2 New Inquiries, and Global Perspectives 6-2019 Full Issue 13.2 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp Recommended Citation (2019) "Full Issue 13.2," Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 13: Iss. 2: 1-173. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.13.2 Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/vol13/iss2/2 This Front Matter is brought to you for free and open access by the Open Access Journals at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ISSN 1911-0359 eISSN 1911-9933 Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal Volume 13.2 - 2019 ii ©2019 Genocide Studies and Prevention 13, no. 2 iii Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/gsp/ Volume 13.2 - 2019 Editorials Christian Gudehus, Susan Braden, Douglas Irvin-Erickson, JoAnn DiGeorgio-Lutz, Lior Zylberman, Fiza Lee, and Brian Kritz Editors’ Introduction ................................................................................................................1 Laura Collins Guest Editorial: Rethinking Genocide, Mass Atrocities, and Political Violence in Africa .......2 State of the Field Terrence Lyons Transnational Advocacy: Genocide or Terrorism? .................................................................14 Articles Andrea Purdeková #StopThisMovie and the Pitfalls of Mass Atrocity Prevention: Framing ofViolence and Anticipation of Escalation in Burundi’s Crisis (2015-2017) .................................................22 Alan Kuperman Did the R2P Foster Violence in Libya? ..................................................................... 38 Nicholas Idris Erameh The Practice, Pitfalls, and Prospects of the Responsibility to Protect in Africa ......... 58 Michael Loadenthal Othering Terrorism: A Rhetorical Strategy of Strategic Labeling .........................................74 Chinonye Alma Otuonye The Fight for Language: An Exploration of the Nigerian State’s Responseto Protest Groups in Southeastern Nigeria ...........................................................................................106 Owonikoko Babajide Saheed and Nathaniel D. Danjibo Buying Peace or Building Peace: Rethinking Non-Coercive Approach to the Management of Non-State Armed Groups involved in Mass Atrocity ................................116 ©2019 Genocide Studies and Prevention 13, no. 2 iv Jonathan Beloff and Samantha Lakin Peace and Compromise, Idealism and Constraint: The Case of the Arusha Peace Accords in Rwanda and Burundi .......................................................................................................129 Book Reviews Making Ubumwe: Power, State and Camps in Rwanda’s Unity-Building Project by Andrea Purdeková, reviewed by Claudine Kuradusenge-McLeod .....................148 Ethnic Politics and State Power in Africa: The Logic of the Coup-Civil War Trap by Philip Roessler, reviewed by Sandra Tombe ...........................................................150 The Justice Façade: The Trials of Transition in Cambodia by Alexander Laban Hinton, reviewed by Timothy Williams ...................................152 The Justice Façade: The Trials of Transition in Cambodia by Alexander Laban Hinton, reviewed by Sabah Carrim ...........................................155 Making Ubumwe: Power, State and Camps in Rwanda’s Unity-Building Project by Andrea Purdeková, reviewed by Simon Turner .....................................................159 Death, Image, Memory: The Genocide in Rwanda and its Aftermath in Photography and Documentation by Piotr Cieplak, reviewed by Scott Ahearn .................................................................162 Film Review Nick Louvel and Michele Mitchell, The Uncondemned reviewed by Jessica M. Adach .........................................................................................165 Michael Lessac, A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake reviewed by Juan Pablo Artinian ....................................................................................168 ©2019 Genocide Studies and Prevention 13, no. 2 Editors’ Introduction This special issue, titled Rethinking Genocide, Mass Atrocities and Political Violence in Africa, presents new approaches and perspectives on the study of genocide in Africa. The issue was made possible by the hard work and contributions of our guest editors, Laura Collins, Terrence Lyons, and Wale Adeboye. The guest editors worked diligently over the last year and a half to put together a diverse and compelling group of authors, ensuring the issue includes authors based in African universities, and that each article was peer reviewed by an African scholar. This issue of GSP is intended to deepen the scholarly conversation in Genocide Studies with new voices and perspectives, and one theme that ties together every article is that each author is critical of the way “genocide” is deployed in analyzing violence and conflicts in Africa. A great deal of scholarship on violent conflict in Africa is often conceptualized through the lens of terms such as “genocide,” “civil war,” “mass atrocities,” “religious violence,” “ethnic violence,” or “terrorism.” While these concepts are important, they often conceal more about conflict than they reveal. These concepts focus our analytical gaze on society-wide or country-wide sociological and political events and processes, but they often lead us to overlook the finer-grain local dynamics of conflicts as well as the role of global economic systems and regional competitions. Within this context, the issue as a whole forces us to ask whether the traditional paradigms of understanding violence and peace are still relevant to understanding conflict in African contexts? As several authors imply, it might be that the word genocide is an entirely unhelpful analytical framework. Christian Gudehus Susan Braden Douglas Irvin-Erickson JoAnn DiGeorgio-Lutz Lior Zylberman Fiza Lee Brian Kritz Christian Gudehus, Susan Braden, Douglas Irvin-Erickson, JoAnn DiGeorgio-Lutz, Lior Zylberman, Fiza Lee, and Brian Kritz. “Editors’ Introduction” Genocide Studies and Prevention 13, 2 (2019): 1. ©2019 Genocide Studies and Prevention. https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.13.2.1698 Guest Editorial: Rethinking Genocide, Mass Atrocities, and Political Violence in Africa Are conflicts dynamic processes? Though seemingly answered with a simple yes, the tendency at times to analyze and thereafter market complex conflict processes based on discrete categories of violence exposes a shortcoming in current analyses of conflict throughout the African continent. This not only suggests the need to problematize the very analytical frames employed to understand conflicts and how we respond to violence, but also interrogate why certain frames are applied selectively despite cross case similarities or why particular violence metanarratives are superimposed on conflict dynamics with little regard for how subnational processes may “map onto” or undermine macro conflict dynamics over time.1 While conflict framing is critical for building and developing theory as well as informing conflict prevention and resolution strategies, it has the potential to narrow our vision, obscuring the evolving nature of conflicts, and impeding peacebuilding efforts. Concealing pertinent factors driving conflict may not be the only unintended consequence of conflict framing. Perhaps more pressingly, the way in which conflict and violence are framed, and the approaches taken, thereafter, may function to facilitate violence escalation rather than mitigation. This poses a critical challenge to scholars and practitioners studying political violence. In spite of an initial downward trend in political violence in the form of internal armed conflict to capture control of the state and replace incumbent governments, and an increase in varying levels of democratic governance on the continent throughout the beginning of the new millennium,2 notable challenges persist as others have increased in significance. Of note is not only the shift over the past ten years of this downward trend in violent armed conflict in the opposite direction, but how this shift has been coupled with a revival and evolution of violence in African states from Central African Republic to Mali to Libya, and elsewhere with links to past occurrences of instability and insurgency.3 Manifestations of political violence in the form of electoral violence, riots, repression, and various forms of lethal economic predation remain. What cannot be overlooked when discussing the dynamics of violence in each of these cases however, as in many others, is the matter of varying external and militarized forms of intervention in each of their histories (on Libya, see Kuperman, this issue). Nor can we overlook the ambiguity that can exist between peace and wartime contexts within the same country case. As such, it is not only important to consider the socio-economic and political processes fostering a resurgence and evolution of violence, but to do this in a way that is neither blind to nor blinded by history.4 (See Purdeková, this issue). Relatedly, the continued presence, yet increasingly diverse conglomeration of violent nonstate