Transversal Politics and West African Security
By Moya Collett
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of Doctor of Philosophy
School of Social Sciences and International Studies University of New South Wales, 2008
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‘I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’
Signed Moya Collett……………......
Date 08/08/08………………………......
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Abstract
This thesis analyses conflict dynamics in West Africa and assesses the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) as a security organisation in its response to armed conflict. In so doing, it argues that conventional approaches misinterpret key feature of the civil wars in the “Greater Mano River Area” which includes Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire. It demonstrates that the progression and spread of conflict is engendered primarily by transversal political structures. The thesis utilises a critical international society approach to consider patterns of security and insecurity across the sub-region of West Africa. However, rather than accepting that West African politics operates within a single, comprehensive international society, it argues instead that it should be understood at two levels. One level is state-centric international society, where West African inter- state relations can largely be explained according to existing constructivist paradigms. At the second level is “transversal” society that cuts across state borders, generating a regional, normative structure that prescribes and constrains behaviour within and between communities outside of the international society framework. The thesis proceeds in two parts. In the first section it works towards an understanding of the transversal politics of regional conflict in the Greater Mano River Area. Conflict is nominally internal, and centralised state authority is the object of both attack and transformation. However, a close examination of civil violence in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire reveals that it cannot be completely understood without recognising the non-state structures of authority and domination that disrupt the traditional domestic/international divide. The transversal communities generated by conflict create a regional cycle of violence that is resistant to efforts made to resolve it. The second section of the thesis is concerned with the ability of ECOWAS to foster durable peace. As West Africa’s key regional organisation, ECOWAS would seem well-placed to respond to regional conflict. It is well- integrated, has significant normative legitimacy and has developed sophisticated security mechanisms. Critically however, as it was created within inter-state international society, ECOWAS is limited by its assumption that states are and should remain unitary actors. Its failure ultimately lies in its inability to respond to the alternative political contours of transversal communities.
In memory of
Dominique Jacquin-Berdal
an inspiration
Acknowledgements
My most heartfelt thanks go to my supervisor, Professor Marc Williams, a brilliant and exciting teacher with an uncanny ability to read my mind. Marc, I’m finding it hard to think of an occasion when your advice about thesis-writing and life wasn’t spot-on, even if I have sometimes tried to deny it! Your support has been invaluable, and I look forward to a life-long friendship with you.
Thank you also to Associate Professor Tony Burke for your suggestions and direction, but more particularly for your continuing interest in my ideas, which is endlessly gratifying.
Thank you to Associate Professor Anne Collett for reading yet more of my work on international relations. I love that thesis-supervision fits so comfortably under the heading of “motherly duties”! Thanks also to the rest of my family for your various amusing methods of support. I finally finished it.
Thanks must also go to the University of New South Wales, particularly for providing the finances that made my fieldwork in West Africa possible. Thank you to the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre for hosting me in Ghana and for providing me with the means to carry out fieldwork in Sierra Leone safely. Dr Kwesi Aning, thank you for all your help.
Finally, thank you so much to the FASSerians who truly made this journey possible and who reminded me constantly that submission was a future, not a fiction. Von, Gen, Dan and Jared (all recent or imminent Drs), I could never imagine a more faithful friendship than yours. Thank you for helping me through the crises and for filling my world with laughter.
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TRANSVERAL POLITICS AND WEST AFRICAN SECURITY
TABLE OF CONTENTS
MAP OF WEST AFRICA...... III ACRONYMS ...... IV INTRODUCTION ...... 1 BACKGROUND AND FOCUS ...... 3 The Greater Mano River Area conflict network...... 7 METHODOLOGY AND SOURCES...... 10 An international society framework...... 11 A critical analysis of security...... 14 Fieldwork...... 15 KEY CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE THESIS ...... 17 Theoretical contribution: IR theory and African studies ...... 17 Empirical contribution: Transversal structure of regional conflict...... 21 Policy-oriented contribution: The limits of ECOWAS peacekeeping...... 23 STRUCTURE AND ORGANISATION OF THE STUDY ...... 25 PART I - INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY, TRANSVERSAL SOCIETY AND CONFLICT IN WEST AFRICA CHAPTER 1 – INTERNATIONAL AND TRANSVERSAL SOCIETY: A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ...... 34 NORMS IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY...... 34 Constructivism and international society...... 34 Solidarist international society ...... 37 TRANSVERSAL SOCIETY AND TRANSVERSAL COMMUNITIES...... 40 Society and community...... 41 Transnationalism and transversalism...... 43 Structure in transversal society...... 44 A CRITICAL FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING SECURITY ...... 47 Critical challenges to international society ...... 48 The inadequacies of the CSS paradigm ...... 50 CHAPTER 2 – WEST AFRICAN STATEHOOD AND INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY ...... 53 THE CONSTRUCTION OF CENTRALISED STATEHOOD ...... 54 COLONIALISM...... 58 POST-INDEPENDENCE NEO-PATRIMONIALISM ...... 62 DEMOCRATISATION ...... 66 CHAPTER 3 – WARLORD CONFLICT AND ITS REGIONAL DYNAMICS...... 74 WEST AFRICAN SECURITY AND CONFLICT ...... 75 The source of insecurity in West Africa ...... 77 Human security ...... 80 Individual agency and emancipation ...... 85 Exclusive political community ...... 88 A WARLORD STRUCTURE OF POLITICAL ORGANISATION ...... 93 Economic warlordism ...... 95 Political warlordism ...... 99 The constraints of transversal and international society ...... 105 CHAPTER 4 – TRANSVERSAL COMMUNITIES IN WEST AFRICA...... 110 ELITE-LEVEL TRANSVERSAL COMMUNITY...... 111 The construction of elite community in West Africa...... 112 Conflict alliances ...... 120 NON-ELITE TRANSVERSAL COMMUNITIES ...... 125 ii
Ethnic identity ...... 127 Socio-economic communities...... 130 Combatant communities...... 134 Refugee communities...... 138 PART II - ECOWAS AND REGIONAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION CHAPTER 5 – REGIONAL INTEGRATION IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY...... 148 REGIONALISM IN INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY ...... 148 SOLIDARIST REGIONALISM ...... 151 Civil society...... 152 Regional security ...... 153 TRANSVERSAL SOCIETY ...... 156 CHAPTER 6 – REGIONAL ORGANISATION IN WEST AFRICA ...... 159 CREATION OF ECOWAS ...... 159 European colonial inheritance...... 160 Economic regionalisation ...... 163 Economic progress...... 166 POLITICAL INTEGRATION IN ECOWAS...... 169 Ideas and goals: Beyond a rationalist analysis ...... 170 Deepening integration and democratisation...... 178 ECOWAS AND CIVIL SOCIETY ...... 183 Civil society and political society ...... 183 NGOs and peace-building in West Africa...... 186 NGOs in African international society...... 189 CHAPTER 7 – ECOWAS: RESPONSES TO CONFLICT...... 195 EMERGENCE OF ECOWAS AS A REGIONAL SECURITY INSTITUTION...... 196 New approaches to regional security: Towards a security community...... 197 Failure to recognise the individual as the security referent...... 202 ECOWAS PEACEKEEPING OF THE 1990S: TRANSVERSAL COMPLICATIONS ...... 205 ECOWAS peacekeeping and state-based tensions...... 210 Peacekeeping run by authoritarian regimes ...... 212 ECOMOG in operation...... 217 21ST CENTURY PEACEKEEPING...... 226 ECOWAS Mechanism 1999 ...... 227 Post-Mechanism responses to conflict...... 231 CONCLUSION...... 242 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 247 APPENDIX A – TIMELINE OF CONFLICT IN THE GREATER MANO RIVER AREA...... 269 APPENDIX B – LIST OF KEY PERSONALITIES IN THE GREAT MANO RIVER AREA..276 APPENDIX C – FIELDWORK IN WEST AFRICA ...... 277
Tables: Table 1.1: Types of ‘International’ Society...... 47 Table 4.1: Personal Elite Alliances across the Greater Mano River Area...... 118
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Acronyms
AFL Armed Forces of Liberia AFRC Armed Forces Revolutionary Council ANAD Accord de non-agression et de cooperation en matière de défense (Agreement on Non-Agression and Cooperation in the Field of Defence) APC All People’s Congress ASEAN Association of South-East Asian Nations ASF African Standby Force AU African Union CDF Civilian Defence Force CEAO Communauté économique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (Economic Community of West Africa) CIP Cross-Border Initiatives Programme CSS Critical Security Studies DDRR Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration ECA Economic Commission for Africa ECOFORCE ECOWAS Force in Côte d’Ivoire ECOMICI ECOWAS Mission in Côte d’Ivoire ECOMIL ECOWAS Mission to Liberia ECOMOG ECOWAS Monitoring Group ECOWAS Economic Community of West African States ECOSOCC Economic, Social and Cultural Council EEC European Economic Community ESF ECOWAS Standby Force EU European Union FN Forces nouvelles (New Forces) FPI Front populaire ivoirien (Ivoirian Popular Front) ICG International Crisis Group IDP Internally displaced person IFI International financial institution IGNU Interim Government of National Unity IGO Inter-governmental organisation IMATT International Military Advisory and Training Team IR International Relations (academic discipline) KAIPTC Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre LURD Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy MAP Mass Awareness and Participation MARWOPNET MRU Women’s Network for Peace MINUCI UN Mission in Côte d’Ivoire MJP Mouvement pour la justice et la paix (Movement for Justice and Peace) MOJA Movement for Justice in Africa MODEL Movement for Democracy in Liberia MPCI Movement patriotique de Côte d’Ivoire (Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire) MPIGO Mouvement populaire ivoirien du Grand Ouest v
(Popular Movement of the Great West) MRU Mano River Union MSC Mediation and Security Council NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NEPAD New Partnership for African Development NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NPFL National Patriotic Front of Liberia OAU Organisation of African Unity ONUC UN Operation in the Congo PAL Progressive Alliance of Liberia PANAFU Pan-African Union R2P Responsibility to Protect RDA Rassemblement démocratique africain (African Democratic Assembly) RUF Revolutionary United Front SLPP Sierra Leone People’s Party SMC Standing Mediation Committee SOP Standard Operating Procedure UEMOA Union économique et monétaire oust africaine (West African Economic and Monetary Union) ULIMO United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia UN United Nations UNAMSIL UN Mission to Sierra Leone UNHCR UN High Commissioner for Refugees UNOCI UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire UNMIL UN Mission in Liberia UNOMIL UN Observer Mission in Liberia US United States WACSOF West Africa Civil Society Forum WANEP West Africa Network for Peacebuilding WARN West African Early Warning and Response Network Introduction 1
Introduction
The pursuit of security is a central feature of West African politics. It is central to any understanding of continuity and change in the identities, interests and behaviour of the region’s political actors. Since the commencement, development and spread of violent conflict from the early 1990s, intense insecurity has become a particularly prominent feature of the political landscape in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire. “Civil war” is the conventional way of understanding the violence taking place in all three countries, but the implication that the rebel insurgencies simply constitute matters of domestic concern is only partly accurate, for conflict in West Africa is profoundly regional. The links between the conflicts and the tendency for violence to “spill over” state borders and spread across the region have been well documented.1 What is lacking is a comprehensive understanding of the international political structure that facilitates and frames the development of regional conflict, ultimately constraining the achievement of security. The key objective of this thesis is to develop a conceptual analysis of this international political structure. It uncovers a region-wide “transversal sphere of politics” that is neither purely international nor purely domestic. Nor does it simply involve an overlapping of these two realms of political activity. The transversal sphere emerges as a third arena for the development of political community, identity, interrelations and violent conflict. More structured than “transnationalism,” it is intimately linked to both international and domestic politics, but needs to be understood as a political arena in its own right if the international community is to respond effectively to conflict in West Africa. In exploring West Africa’s transversal sphere of politics, the empirical focus of this thesis is a sub-region that incorporates Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, to be referred to as the “Greater Mano River Area”. It makes three central propositions. First, the transversal sphere is of major importance for individuals and non-state communities across the sub-region. It has generated norms of identity and behaviour that are linked to patrimonial forms of authority and are unbounded by the
1 See for example Amos Sawyer, "Violent Conflicts and Governance Challenges in West Africa: The Case of the Mano River Basin Area," Journal of Modern African Studies 42, no. 3 (2004): 437- 63. Robert Latham et al., "Introduction: Transboundary Formations, Intervention, Order, and Authority," in Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa, ed. Thomas M Callaghy, Ronald Kassimir, and Robert Latham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 1-22. Adekeye Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2002). Lansana Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa: The RUF and the Destruction of Sierra Leone (London: Hurst & Co, 2005). Introduction 2 limits of the state. This creates a powerful normative structure that heightens the significance of transversal conflict dynamics at the same time as the object of conflict remains control over the centralised state. The second proposition is that the form of inter-state regional politics typified by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is inadequate for dealing with conflict in the sub-region. ECOWAS has been innovative in the peacekeeping arena, but is ultimately unable to respond to the transversal aspects of the region’s political violence. Finally, the thesis proposes that the concept of “international society” helps to explain the development of norms, communities and identity in regional politics. “Transversal society” is a modified form of international society that takes account of the non-state structures and norms of the transversal sphere of politics. The relationship between the two societies generates a conceptual framework that ties together the first two propositions. In the words of Robert Cox, “theory is always for someone and for some purpose.”2 In terms of normative purpose, this thesis seeks an alternative understanding of the structure of international security in West Africa, in the expectation that such an understanding might facilitate the resolution of conflict and the germination of durable peace. Conceptually, it is developed from a “critical constructivist” standpoint, and suggests that failures to resolve violent conflict in West Africa stem from a refusal to consider alternatives to the conventional understandings of how political behaviour and identities are produced and transformed. This introduction sets out the objectives of the thesis. With this intention, it is first necessary to explain the background to and motivations for the study, as well as its methodological scope. It will then be possible to highlight the original contributions of the thesis, which fall into three categories: empirical, theoretical and policy-oriented. The final component of the introduction is an outline of how the study is organised. The thesis has a two-part structure that reflects the tensions between the regional (transversal) organisation of conflict and the regional (state-based) responses to conflict in the Greater Mano River Area.
2 Robert Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Order: Beyond International Relations Theory," Millennium 10, no. 2 (1981): 128. Introduction 3
Background and Focus In a broad sense, this study seeks to contribute to a “critical” understanding of International Relations (IR) by exploring the challenges to the field presented by the dynamics of conflict in West Africa. It is motivated by an interest in international political interactions, and yet it contests the way in which the influence of the Westphalian system has generated a stark conceptual distinction between domestic and inter-state politics. Perhaps the most pertinent example of this kind of rationalist thinking is the assumption that inter-state warfare poses the greatest threat to state survival and security. Prior to the end of the Cold War, the privileged position of sovereignty in the Westphalian system ensured that the occurrence of civil war was rarely seen as a matter of international concern, unless it affected the position of one of the superpowers. It still remains the case that internal conflict need not directly jeopardise the existence of a state as a territorial entity.3 However, what has begun to change is the perception that civil war should be the responsibility of the international community. Since the end of the Cold War, the assumption that state sovereignty is inviolable has begun to recede in favour of an expectation that international action should be taken to prevent serious loss of life and liberty in any state.4 To a certain extent, a growing acceptance of universal human rights and the increasing prominence of human security have altered the Westphalian system to ensure that individual people have become a legitimate object of study in IR. In line with this development, more “critical” analyses have gained credence as a counter-weight to traditionally dominant IR theories from neo-realism to Wendtian constructivism. This altered view of IR has increased the amount of attention paid to regions of the world previously marginalised from the study of great power politics. Thus, crises taking place in Sub- Saharan Africa now register as a matter of international responsibility even when little action is taken. Widespread civil war violates internationally accepted notions of human rights, and as a result it provokes international responses intended to foster peace and security, such as the deployment of peacekeepers. Importantly however, a major reason for international concern in these cases is that civil war undermines state stability. Responsibility to the individual is expressed
3 Robert H Jackson and Carl G Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood," World Politics 35, no. 1 (1982): 1-24. 4 Alex Bellamy, "Whither the Responsibility to Protect?: Humanitarian Intervention and the 2005 World Summit," Ethics and International Affairs 20, no. 2 (2006): 143-69. Introduction 4 mainly in attempts to empower African governments that are seen as legitimate, so that they can operate effectively in the international as well as the domestic arena. While the international is in such cases clearly involved in domestic politics, official distance between the two spheres is maintained as the objective is to restore stability and withdraw to a position from which states can once again interact with their sovereignty intact.5 Individuals have become an object of IR, but only to the extent that their survival is recognised as an ethical reason for maintaining state security and international stability. As such, the influence of “critical” IR has been rather limited. Since the early 1990s West Africa has been the site of a number of civil wars and, as a result, host to several peacekeeping operations. In each case, peacekeeping forces have had difficulty bringing violent conflict to an end. In addition, there is a growing sense of frustration as it seems that each time peacekeepers manage to achieve resolution and stability in one state, they must simply redeploy in response to conflict in a neighbouring state. The proliferation of warfare across West Africa throws up two important questions. First, why is violent conflict such a prominent feature of politics in so many of the region’s states? Second, why does such conflict appear to be so intractable, so resistant to international attempts at resolution? These are questions that have been extensively researched, and various studies have pointed to a number of cross-regional similarities including the nature of domestic political systems, emotive and divisive social issues, and economic and resource necessities.6 However, studying West African conflict in any depth reveals not just regional similarities but deep connections between the civil wars, as issues, combatants, warlords, weaponry and resources are recycled across borders. Peacekeeping forces have a tendency to address conflict in one country at a time, and failure to adequately address the regional aspects of conflict is a central reason for the difficulties experienced in attempting to resolve West African warfare. From an IR perspective, the problem is with the way in which politics is conceived as either domestic or international. West African conflict demonstrates the importance of an additional, regional layer of politics that cuts across both the
5 Roland Paris, "Peacekeeping and the Constraints of Global Culture," European Journal of International Relations 9, no. 3 (2003): 441-73. 6 See for example William Reno, "Liberia: The LURDs of the New Church," in African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine, ed. Morten Bøås and Kevin Dunn (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007), 69-80. Moya Collett, "Ivoirian Identity Constructions: Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Prelude to Civil War," Nations and Nationalism 12, no. 4 (2006): 613-29. 'Funmi Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone: The Story of UNAMSIL (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2008). Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa. Introduction 5 domestic and the international. The relevance of cross-border activity and the role of non-state actors can partly be accounted for by the concept of “transnationalism,”7 which seeks to expose the apparently diminishing relevance of state borders in the international system. Within “critical” and postmodern perspectives of IR, transnationalism is evidence of political identity and interests unbounded by the constraints of statehood.8 Accounting for transnational movements within neo- realism, Kenneth Waltz points out that the activity can be described as “process” and does not necessarily disrupt the state-based system.9 This is an important argument that must be addressed directly by critical theorists and postmodernists if they are to undermine the hegemony of state-based theories of IR. In this thesis, I suggest that the concept of “transnationalism” is not deep enough to disrupt the state-based concept. Waltz is able to dismiss it as “process” because it is often deeply invested in state borders, constituting movement and interaction between peoples based solidly in a number of different states. I use the concept of “transversalism” to illuminate the structural depth of this layer of politics in West Africa’s regional network of conflict. “Transversal” is a term used primarily in critical and postmodern IR literature to describe a form of politics that is neither purely domestic nor purely international, but takes place in the space between these two concepts, cutting across sovereign boundaries. Richard Ashley is prominent among those who employ the term, and for him the idea is closely associated with dissent and opposition, as indicated by his influential notion of “transversal struggles.”10 This element of dissent is likewise reflected in the work of Roland Bleiker and Richard Devetak, both of whom see in transversalism at least an indirect exposition of the inadequacies of the Westphalian paradigm, but more often a direct challenge to the constraints imposed by national sovereignty.11 In West Africa, it is during times of conflict that the importance of transversal struggles is revealed, and in this context transversalism can be seen to
7 Mark Duffield, "Globalization, Transborder Trade, and War Economies," in Greed & Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, ed. Mats Berdal and David M Malone (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 69-90. 8 Nevzat Soguk and Geoffrey Whitehall, "Wandering Grounds: Transversality, Identity, Territoriality, and Movement," Millennium 28, no. 3 (1999): 675-98. 9 Kenneth N Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Boston: McGraw Hill, 1979), 95. 10 Richard Ashley, "The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space: Toward a Critical Social Theory of International Politics," Alternatives 12 (1987): 423. 11 Roland Bleiker, Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 3. Richard Devetak, "Postmodernism," in Theories of International Relations, ed. Scott Burchill, et al. (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave, 2001), 189. Introduction 6 directly oppose the state-based nature of international society. Importantly however, transversal struggles during times of conflict reveal a longer term dual-structure of international and transversal relations in West Africa. The transversal organisation of politics does not necessarily negate the significance of state-based politics in the region. Rather, it generates a powerful, parallel structure with its own communities and patterns of behaviour an interaction that has had a significant impact on the security of both individuals and states in the region. It is part of the argument of this thesis that a recognition and engagement with transversal structure can assist in the resolution of conflict. As such, it focuses primarily on the sub-region of the Greater Mano River Area since 1989, where transversal politics has played a clear and important role in the development of a regional conflict network. The concept of the “Greater Mano River Area” adds Côte d’Ivoire to the existing Mano River Union (MRU) that includes Liberia, Sierra Leone, as the conflict in Côte d’Ivoire is intimately connected to the politics of its western neighbours. Importantly, the dual structure is not only present during times of warfare. The transversal layer of politics incorporates actors connected to both peaceful states and states that have been destroyed by violent conflict. The thesis thus has broader implications for understanding West African international politics. Transversal interactions need to be considered to achieve a more nuanced and complex understanding of international political developments spanning a region from Senegal to Nigeria. This contributes more broadly to the “critical” view that state-based IR theory is incomplete, even when it considers the impact of individuals on inter-state relations. The focus on the Greater Mano River Area is similar to a case study, but rather than using international security theory to assess conflict in the region, the thesis seeks to use an understanding of the conflict to develop international security theory. It is my expectation that transversal politics is likely to be found throughout the African continent, but I make no solid claims to that effect. In this thesis, the empirical demonstration of the concepts I develop is confined to West Africa. Likewise, an in-depth consideration of the material networks that link West Africa’s transversal sphere of politics to the wider world provides opportunities for further research, but is largely beyond the scope of this thesis. My concern here is with the structure of politics that has emerged within the region, and my assumption is that Introduction 7 connections to Europe are unnecessary for such a study to merit the label “international relations.”
The Greater Mano River Area conflict network Conflict began in Liberia in December 1989. Professing a sense of anger and injustice at the undemocratic regime of President Samuel Doe, a small rebel insurgency calling itself the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) crossed from Côte d’Ivoire into the north-east of Liberia and began advancing towards the capital, gathering support as it gained control of large swathes of territory.12 The insurgency was led by Charles Taylor who combined political rhetoric with the coercive use of violence and economic manipulation to ensure a rapid rise to prominence as a very powerful warlord. As early as June 1990, Taylor’s NPFL had control over most of the country and came close to taking Monrovia. However, ECOWAS peacekeepers were deployed in August and succeeded in gaining control of Monrovia. While their initial attempts to enforce the peace were very shaky and they were unable to prevent Doe’s murder by a rebel faction, they did set up a flimsy interim government led by Dr Amos Sawyer. A destructive civil war ensued as government forces and numerous warlord factions fought each other and terrorised civilians until 1997, when Taylor won “free and fair” elections on the basis of a campaign dominated by intimidation and fear.13 Taylor’s war effort was mainly financed by the illicit export of natural resources, and his personal fortune is estimated to have reached $450 million during this period. The ambit of his control was expansive. Supported unofficially by Côte d’Ivoire’s President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Taylor also gained control of lucrative diamond-mining areas in Sierra Leone. It was at least partly in order to ensure control of the regional trading networks that he sponsored Foday Sankoh’s Revolutionary United Front (RUF) insurgency in Sierra Leone from 1991. This was also partly a response to the role played by Sierra Leone in hosting the ECOWAS peacekeeping operation that Taylor saw as an enemy force. The RUF became notorious for its disregard for human life and dignity, and the counter-insurgency government forces
12 Quentin Outram, "Recent History," in Africa South of the Sahara 2004, ed. Katherine Murison (London & New York: Europa Publications, 2003), 602-10. 13 Stephen Ellis, "Liberia's Warlord Insurgency," in African Guerrillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Oxford: James Currey, 1998), 155-71. Eric G Berman and Katie E Sams, Peacekeeping in Africa: Capabilities and Culpabilities (Geneva: UNIDIR, 2000). Introduction 8 were little better. Sierra Leone’s civil war quickly became very destructive and confused as military and civilian governments were deposed in successive coups d’état, complicating the war with the RUF. From 1996, ECOWAS peacekeepers attempted to enforce the peace and consolidate the power of the democratically- elected President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, but there was little let-up in the fighting and a coup d’état forced Kabbah to seek refuge in Guinea. The ongoing mêlée was driven partly by efforts to control the trade in illicit diamonds, and the fighting between the divided army and the RUF was further complicated by the involvement of the Kamajor militia which professed loyalty to Kabbah and claimed to protect civilians from the belligerent parties. It was only in 2001 that British, United Nations (UN) and mercenary troops were finally able to impose a lasting ceasefire, and the following year elections were held that reinstated President Kabbah.14 In 2002, violent conflict began in Côte d’Ivoire. After the death of long-term President Houphouët in 1993, political stability had collapsed, leading to a rise of ethnically-charged politics in an effort by southern-based politicians to exclude powerful northern candidates from the presidential race. The depth of the instability was marked by coups d’état, electoral fraud and legal wrangling over candidates, until Robert Gueï’s coup d’état directed against Laurent Gbagbo in 2002. The coup failed and Gueï was killed in the attempt, but the event sparked civil war. Northern rebels loyal to excluded presidential nominee Alassane Ouattara advanced south with the backing of Burkina Faso. In addition, Gueï had been supported by Taylor, and his involvement contributed to the emergence of two rebel groups in the west incorporating combatants from Liberia. French troops already stationed in the country responded quickly to the violence, and prevented the rebels from advancing on the capital. In January 2003, a peace agreement was signed in Paris and the various forces co-operated in operations against violent renegade elements, particularly the Liberian combatants.15 However, it soon became clear that Gbagbo would not implement the peace agreement, as it required him to cede power to a consensus prime minister and implement key citizenship reforms. The rebels refused to disarm until he had done so. Côte d’Ivoire was at a political impasse and remained in deadlock for the following
14 Robert Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II: Intervention in Sierra Leone," in Africa in World Politics: The African State System in Flux, ed. John W Harbeson and Donald Rothchild (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000), 188-207. William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998). 15 “Linas-Marcoussis-Agreement,” (2003). Introduction 9 four years as French, UN and ECOWAS peacekeepers patrolled a ceasefire zone that split the country in two; the rebels controlled the north while the government controlled the south. In 2007 a new peace agreement was forged between Gbagbo and the rebel leader, Guillaume Soro, under the mediation of Burkinabé President Blaise Compaoré, but there is widespread unease that the elite-level power-sharing between Gbagbo and Soro does not adequately reflect the needs of many dissatisfied Ivoirians, and elections are yet to be held.16 At the same time as Taylor was lending support to Gueï’s efforts to topple the government of Côte d’Ivoire, his own position in Liberia was being challenged. Rebels supported by Guinean President Lansana Conté, known as the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), had invaded the north in 1999, renewing violent conflict. By 2003 the conflict had gained momentum, and LURD had been joined by another rebel faction known as the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL) which was supported by President Gbagbo in Côte d’Ivoire.17 Taylor, now in possession of presidential power, co-opted thousands of old NPFL combatants to repel the insurgency, but by July the rebels had reached the capital and the siege of Monrovia had begun. It was at this point that Liberian citizens called for international assistance, and ECOWAS peacekeepers were deployed to protect them. ECOWAS, UN and American pressure eventually forced Taylor to resign as president and he was exiled to Nigeria. Subsequent presidential polls resulted in the election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s first woman head of state, and Taylor is being tried for war crimes in The Hague.18 An uneasy and fraught peace has now settled on Liberia and Sierra Leone. The conflict in Côte d’Ivoire appears to be nearing resolution. Yet the regional situation is far from stable. Taylor’s efforts at the end of the 1990s to destabilise Guinea combined with trade union action and a political outcry against the long-term quasi- dictatorship of President Conté led in 2007 to violent nation-wide strikes that significantly heightened political tension, leading many to fear that Guinea would be
16 Moya Collett, "Foreign Intervention in Côte d'Ivoire: The Question of Legitimacy," in Righteous Violence, ed. Tony Coady and Michael O'Keefe (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2005), 160-82. Richard Bangégas and Marshall-Fratani, "Côte d'Ivoire: Negotiating Identity and Citizenship," in African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine, ed. Morten Bøås and Kevin Dunn (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007), 81-111. 17 “Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL),” www.globalsecurity,org 18 Danny Hoffman, "The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia: Political Power, Military Strategy, and Humanitarian Intervention," African Affairs 103, no. 411 (2004): 211-26. Veronica Nmoma, "Round 2 of the Liberian Civil Crisis: US and Liberia, Presumed Historical Ties," Journal of Third World Studies 23, no. 1 (2006): 169-98. Introduction 10 the next West African state to collapse. The tensions provoked an immediate response from Sierra Leone and Liberia, whose governments met with Touré to urge peaceful resolution of the crisis, and whose people feared the effects of civil war in a neighbouring country.19 The networked nature of conflict in the Greater Mano River Area means that the apparent resolution of individual conflicts cannot be assumed to herald a future of durable peace in the region.
Methodology and Sources This thesis is primarily a conceptual analysis of conflict in West Africa. It takes a “critical constructivist” theoretical approach that recognises a key duality: the importance of both individual agency and political structure. Neo-realism lays claim to being the most fully-developed structural interpretation of IR, asserting that state behaviour is predictable.20 It assumes that survival is the primary objective of all states, and that as a result the anarchic nature of the international system will elicit uniform responses to the same set of material circumstances. However, the neo-realist material analysis is not the only possible conception of international “structure.” A more useful interpretation can be derived from Alexander Wendt’s constructivism, which accords much more importance to social learning, expecting states to interpret and respond to the material world in a variety of ways.21 International “structure” in this account might broadly be defined as the norm-based framework in which international politics takes place. It is the norm-based, constructivist version of structure that provides an analytical foundation for this thesis. Agents and structures are mutually-constituted; system-wide norms and individual identities influence interpretations of the material world. In this study, I am interested in exploring the impact of the international political system on the formation of political community and the generation of identities and interests that are in turn manifested in observable patterns of behaviour, constituting the international political system. Thus drawing heavily on constructivist ideas about normative structure, the thesis nonetheless considers Wendtian constructivism to be inadequate through its failure to account sufficiently for the agency of individuals. Wendt appears to assume
19 International Crisis Group, "Guinea: Change or Chaos," (Dakar/Brussels: 2007). United Nations Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on Cross-Border Issues in West Africa," (New York: 2007). 20 Waltz, Theory of International Politics. 21 Alexander Wendt, "Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics," International Organization 46, no. 2 (1992): 391-425. Introduction 11 that the domestic environment will have only a minor impact on state identity, which is developed mainly through interactions with other members of the international system. Refusing to accept – as a given – the state as the basic unit and referent of IR, I take a “critical” approach and assume only that individuals are the ultimate architects of the political system in which they operate. Critical theory as it has been explored within IR comprises both a normative agenda and a critical epistemology. In contrast to problem-solving theory, it does not seek to predict or prescribe behaviour within existing understandings of how the world operates.22 Those who take a problem-solving approach either implicitly or explicitly assume that it is possible to codify patterns of behaviour objectively. They accept the world as it is conventionally understood. Progress is possible only within these parameters. Critical theorists are less convinced by the hegemony of current paradigms. They envisage the possibility of normative change and even question existing interpretations of the material world, seeking progress through “immanent critique.” This thesis takes a “critical” approach in that it problematises and questions the statehood and anarchy assumed by traditional rationalist theories as well as Wendtian constructivism. However, it is nevertheless influenced by the importance accorded to political structure in both rationalism and constructivism, recognising its constraining impact. The “critical” and the “constructivist” temper each other constantly, as is best demonstrated by two different strands of enquiry that emerge through the thesis. The first is the international society framework, and the second the analysis of security in West Africa.
An international society framework In the words of Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, an “international society” is a group of states (or, more generally, a group of independent political communities) which not merely form a system, in the sense that the behaviour of each is a necessary factor in the calculations of the other, but also have established by dialogue and consent common rules and institutions for the conduct of their relations, and recognise their common interest in maintaining these arrangements.23 For Bull, this was a “rationalist” international society, distinguishable from what Martin Wight described as “realism” (at work in a basic international system) and
22 Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Order." 23 Hedley Bull and Adam Watson, "Introduction," in The Expansion of International Society, ed. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 1. Introduction 12
“revolutionism” (where the boundaries between political units are broken down).24 The concept is now identified primarily with the “English School,” but it has become difficult to pinpoint what this school stands for, given its inherent pluralism and the diversity of theoretical viewpoints propagated by its members.25 While rationalism as defined by Wight remains a grounding element of international society within the English School, the concept has evolved significantly to incorporate a number of other perspectives.26 The growing influence of constructivist thinkers, including not only Wendt but also more critical analysts such as Audie Klotz and Cecelia Lynch, has led to an increasing acceptance that international society is rich in norms, and that logics of appropriateness play a significant role in governing the changeable international behaviour of states.27 Further, a number of critical theorists have been able to generate their own particular conception of international society, promoting “revolutionist” and emancipatory ideals that have sometimes been described as facets of “world society.”28 A central component of rationalist international society is that the state is the basic and ultimate unit of international relations. However, critical interpretations have questioned this basic assumption, instead implicitly suggesting that a normative structure is at the crux of the concept. Even Bull’s basic definition suggests that “independent political entities” might be substituted for the rigid state form. Through social interaction, members of an international society generate norms of behaviour, interests and identity. These norms fit together in a holistic system of ideas that in turn assists members to interpret the material world in a particular way. This structure expects and experiences transformation, but this does not necessarily detract from its normative power. The European theoretical roots of international society have
24 Martin White, International Theory: The Three Traditions (London: Leicester University Press, 1991), 260. See also Alex Bellamy, "Introduction: International Society and the English School," in International Society and its Critics, ed. Alex Bellamy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1- 26. Andrew Linklater and Hidemi Suganami, The English School of International Relations: A Contemporary Reassessment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 25 Tim Dunne, Inventing International Society: A History of the English School (Houndmills & London: Macmillan, 1998), 6. See Barry Buzan, From International to World Society? English School Theory and the Social Structure of Globalisation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 26 Bellamy, "Introduction," 6. 27 Alexander Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Audie Klotz and Cecelia Lynch, Strategies for Research in Constructivist International Relations (Armonk: ME Sharpe, 2007), 7. 28 Paul Williams, "Critical Security Studies," in International Society and its Critics, ed. Alex Bellamy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 135-50. Richard Little, "The English School's Contribution to the Study of International Relations," European Journal of International Relations 6, no. 3 (2000): 414. Introduction 13 contributed to the view that the state is its basic unit, but its normative structure does not collapse if other possibilities are considered. Nicholas Wheeler notes the fundamental importance of the individual as the ethical subject even in Bull’s rationalist work.29 As the origin of the modern states system, it is possible that in Europe there is significant cohesion between individual political identity and the state form, making states the obvious political unit for international society. In West Africa however, accounting for individual identity necessitates a consideration of alternative political community and structure. An alternative version of international society is to be found in the transversal layer of structure which operates according to its own logics of appropriateness. Despite the critical possibilities of agency, this transversal parallel structure can be very constraining on individual identities, interests and behaviour. The concept of international society is so intimately tied to the modern state form that using the idea of “international society” to describe transversal politics is necessarily controversial. I will use the term “transversal society” to differentiate it from state-based international society, but I do want to emphasise that the former is a type of international society in the sense that it consists of a norm-based political system comprising a number of different communities that interact according to evolving logics of appropriateness as well as material concerns. By drawing parallels between transversal and international society, my intention is to highlight the equal legitimacy of this second tier system. The similarities in terms of normative structure in both layers of international society are more significant than the differences between the units. In West Africa, individual agency is neither limited to the domestic political sphere nor unbounded by international norms and rules. Instead, it generates political community and international structure across state boundaries. Transversal society is not completely separate from the state-based system. Like all international societies it is a system that evolves as a result of external pressures as well as internal agency. The practical effects and tensions of the relationship between international and transversal society have largely been overlooked, and emphasising their normative and structural similarities facilitates exploration of this relationship.
29 Nicholas Wheeler, "Guardian Angel or Global Gangster: A Review of the Ethical Claims of International Society," Political Studies 44, no. 1 (1996): 126. See also Ken Booth, "Security and Emancipation," Review of International Studies 17, no. 4 (1991): 313-26. Introduction 14
A critical analysis of security The importance of structure in transversal society becomes particularly clear when the dynamics of conflict in West Africa are explored. Inter-state relations have had a significant impact on the region’s politics and security, but insecurity of the individual is equally if not more affected by the norms and events that take place in the transversal sphere of politics. Understanding the impact of transversal politics in this context requires an unconventional, critical understanding of security in the region. More specifically, security must be considered from the perspective of individuals, a task that has been undertaken by critical security studies (CSS). Where state security was traditionally expected to generate peace, writers such as Keith Krause and Michael Williams recognise that state security may be irrelevant to, and may at times even threaten the security of individuals.30 The idea of “human security” constitutes both a deepening and a broadening of traditional notions of security. Like other forms of critical international theory, “human security” is deeper in that it emphasises the individual rather than the state as the most significant referent of security. It is broader in that it explains how existential threats to individuals are not limited to forms of military violence, but may arise in the form of political oppression, economic hardship or even environmental degradation.31 Human security thus provides a much more nuanced understanding of the motivations for civil war, which paradigms based on inter-state security cannot account for. Ken Booth, a central proponent of CSS, takes the challenge of human security even further. For Booth, individual security is linked inextricably to emancipation.32 The idea that the degree of emancipation from the structures that prevent humans from attaining individually-determined goals is reflective of the extent to which individuals feel secure, is very significant in a West African context. In the West, the state system may appear to provide for human security because it is combined with liberal democracy and wealth. In West Africa, where political and economic freedoms
30 Michael Williams and Keith Krause, "Preface: Toward Critical Security Studies," in Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases, ed. Keith Krause and Michael Williams (London & New York: Routledge, 1997), vii-xxii. 31 Ken Booth and Peter Vale, "Critical Security Studies and Regional Insecurity: The Case of Southern Africa," in Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases, ed. Keith Krause and Michael C Williams (London: UCL Press, 1997), 332. See also Karin Fierke, Critical Approaches to International Security (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007), 188. 32 Ken Booth, "Critical Explorations," in Critical Security Studies and World Politics, ed. Ken Booth (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), 1-20. Ken Booth, "Introduction to Part 3," in Critical Security Studies and World Politics, ed. Ken Booth (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), 183. Introduction 15 within the state are much reduced, the state cannot be assumed to act as the guarantor of security. However, what is missing from Booth’s analysis is a recognition that the pursuit of emancipation can generate insecurity. West African conflict may be motivated by an individual desire for emancipation and human security. However, as it becomes organised, conflict transforms existing communities and generates new structures, which often act to oppress individuals in new and violent ways. This is exacerbated by the prominence of transversal society, with structures that continue to constrain individuals even as they rebel against the state in international society. A critical analysis is necessary to understand how and why individuals and non-state groups rebel against the state, but a constructivist understanding of structure in the transversal sphere of politics explains how conflict in West Africa has become so intractable, and why it appears to spread across the region with such ease.
Fieldwork The critical constructivist theoretical basis for this thesis is the most significant component of its methodology, as it is primarily a conceptual analysis of regional conflict in West Africa. The thesis draws on a wide range of literature from the fields of IR theory, African studies and security studies. It relies for its empirical material mainly on secondary sources and accounts provided by those with a direct connection to events on the ground. In addition to the academic literature, I draw on news sources, as well as reports by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and inter-governmental organisations (IGOs). However, my theoretical conclusions are also informed by fieldwork undertaken in West Africa in January and February 2007. For two months, I was hosted as a “Visiting Research Associate” in the research department of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra, Ghana.33 The purpose of the fieldwork was not to collect sets of data or quantitatively to analyse new empirical evidence. My approach was qualitative. The intention was to increase my understanding of the organisation and impact of conflict through in-depth discussions with the actors involved. Long-term dialogue with a number of these actors also enabled me to gauge their responses to events as they unfolded, and to test the salience of my own conceptual ideas.
33 Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre, www.kaiptc.org Introduction 16
My research possibilities at KAIPTC were threefold. First, KAIPTC employs both West African and international researchers working on many different aspects of conflict and peacekeeping in the region. Through both formal seminars and informal discussions I was able to develop my thesis in consultation with colleagues who were often personally involved in the empirical realities of the research topic. The KAIPTC staff were also able to introduce me to others working in the academic, NGO, peacekeeping and policy-making sectors, generating a “snow-balling” method of interview-based research. Perhaps most significantly, they assisted in setting up interviews with refugee representatives when I visited Buduburam, a Liberian refugee camp outside of Accra. Secondly, my involvement at KAIPTC gave me many opportunities for participant-observation in high-level policy-making relating to conflict and peacekeeping responses in the region. The primary purpose of KAIPTC is to provide practical courses and training for peacekeepers prior to deployment in West Africa. It holds workshops, conferences and seminars for both peacekeepers and policy-makers on a regular basis, and I was able to participate in many of these activities, generating opportunities for interviews as well as more passive observation. The two most significant events were an “African Forum” which involved discussion about regional politics between “young leaders” and eight African presidents, and a workshop on the operational challenges of the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). Participants at this workshop were mainly high-ranking military personnel who had been involved in peacekeeping missions around the world, joined by representatives of a number of think tanks and NGOs.34 The final advantage of association with KAIPTC was the centre’s generous funding and organisation of a research trip to Freetown, Sierra Leone at the end of February, 2007. The International Military Advisory and Training Team (IMATT) in Sierra Leone assisted me in organising interviews with a range of individuals involved in conflict, peacekeeping and peace-building in Sierra Leone. I conducted interviews with both representatives of international institutions, such as the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and locally-created organisations, such as the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP).35 While I was able to speak informally to inhabitants of Freetown and Accra as well as refugees at Buduburam, all of my formal interviews
34 See Appendix C for a list of participants at both of these events. 35 Special Court for Sierra Leone, www.sc-sl.org West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, www.wanep.org Introduction 17 were conducted with representative officials. In line with ethics guidelines at the University of New South Wales, and in respect for the private nature of the interviews, I have refrained from identifying my research participants by name. I only name officials who made statements at public events in their representative capacity.
Key Contributions of the Thesis My key claim to originality in this thesis lies in my conception of two layers of international politics. A “transversal” sphere of politics comprising non-state political communities is revealed to have a profound effect on the progress of conflict in West Africa. Constraining the possibility for emancipatory security, it has created a cycle of violence in the region that has proven very difficult to counter, despite the efforts of ECOWAS to create an environment for durable peace. This central idea contributes to emerging research on the international politics of Africa in three central ways. First, as a conceptual thesis it has a strong theoretical component, drawing together the often exclusionary domains of IR and African studies. On this theoretical basis, the second contribution is empirical, as the study reveals a distinctive understanding of conflict dynamics in the Greater Mano River Area. Finally, by exploring the limitations of current approaches to conflict in the region, the thesis uses this distinctive understanding to generate a policy-oriented contribution.
Theoretical contribution: IR theory and African studies The empirical focus of this thesis is conflict in West Africa. A central proposition is that conflict should not be viewed as a complete aberration from the norms of behaviour and identity evident during times of peace. Instead, it should more realistically be viewed as a violent continuation of those very norms. The same types of political organisation, leadership structures and inter-group relations continue to impact on logics of appropriateness even as violence becomes increasingly accepted as a facet of political life. As a result, a nuanced comprehension of West African conflict and how it can best be addressed is predicated on a theoretical understanding of how politics is organised in the region. Historically, the fields of African studies and IR have not communicated easily, leading to an inadequate understanding of political structure on the continent. To begin with, it has become something of a Introduction 18 truism to say that IR theory is Euro-centric.36 Generally speaking, mainstream thinking has tended to marginalise the African experience of international politics.37 As Stephanie Neuman argues, “Even central concepts such as anarchy, the state, sovereignty, rational choice, alliance and the international system are somewhat troublesome when applied to the third world.”38 As statehood is a European-imposed, artificial construct in much of the developing world, the dominance of this prism has obscured alternative analyses that may be more resonant with indigenous social realities.39 Thus, as Douglas Lemke suggests, the problem of African exclusion might be partially remedied by including actors other than states as agents in IR theory.40 Mirroring the neglect of African politics in IR, the development of IR theory has likewise not been a major concern for the field of African studies.41 Much of the Africanist literature has a “problem-solving” agenda relatved to development or conflict-resolution. Those who have engaged more theoretically have tended to fall into one of two categories. First are those who have contributed to the continent’s marginalisation by emphasising its particularities rather than seeking to understand how it might challenge existing understandings of the world.42 Second, many have limited their theoretical studies to the domestic sphere of politics, accepting boundaries as they are traditionally understood and hence forgoing the wealth of conceptual possibilities provided by critical forms of IR.
36 Discussed comprehensively in Stephanie G Neuman, "International Relations Theory and the Third World: An Oxymoron?," in International Relations Theory and the Third World, ed. Stephanie G Neuman (New York: St Martin's Press, 1998), 1-29. See also Branwen Gruffydd Jones, "Introduction: International Relations, Eurocentrism, and Imperialism," in Decolonizing International Relations, ed. Branwen Gruffydd Jones (London: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2006), 1-19. 37 Kevin Dunn, "Introduction: Africa and International Relations Theory," in Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory, ed. Kevin Dunn and Timothy M Shaw (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave, 2001), 4. 38 Neuman, "International Relations Theory and the Third World," 2. 39 See Kevin Dunn, "Tales from the Dark Side: Africa's Challenge to International Relations Theory," Journal of Third World Studies 17, no. 1 (2000): 61. Tandeka C Nkiwane, "Africa and International Relations: Regional Lessons for a Global Discourse," International Political Science Review 22, no. 3 (2001): 279-90. 40 Douglas Lemke, “African Lessons for International Relations Research,” World Politics 56, no. 1 (2003): 114-38. 41 William Brown, "Africa and International Relations: A Comment on IR Theory, Anarchy and Statehood," Review of International Studies 32, no. 1 (2006): 119-43. 42 As described in Ibid.: 129. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 10. Evident to a certain degree in, for example, Dunn, "Introduction." Basil Davidson, The Black Man's Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-state (London: James Currey, 1992). Introduction 19
A key topic of debate in the theoretical Africanist literature is the powerful neo-patrimonial element of politics within the African state.43 One of the more nuanced explanations of this phenomenon is provided by Peter Ekeh, who divides the African state into two “publics” – one based on the European model of civic association, and one based on traditional, primordial patrimonialism.44 What detracts from the analysis is that Ekeh implicitly accepts the state as his basis in order to explore the nature of internal African politics. While the idea is appealing, it lacks the extra depth that can be provided by a “critical constructivist” international perspective. Such an approach is not limited to an explanation of inter-state relations, but is instead able to explore how the development of normative patterns impact on non-state community, identity, political behaviour and structure. The second layer of politics in West Africa cannot be fully understood by attempting to squeeze it into existing notions of domestic politics and civil society. In this thesis, I use a conception of international structure that relegates the position of the state and focuses on the development of norms in relations between political entities. The primary benefit of this approach is that it forces a theoretical understanding based on patterns of political organisation, permitting the inclusion of more diverse and sophisticated political groupings than the “civic” and “primordial” described by Ekeh. The “critical constructivist” approach to IR employed in this thesis is not commonly used in relation to Africa, but traditional IR theory from neo-realism to constructivism is inadequate for understanding the continent’s political dynamics. The assumption of a single “public” in the framework provided by “international society” means the concept must be modified considerably if it is to be of use in explaining West African politics and conflict in the region. In Bull’s explanation, while international society was initially a phenomenon of European IR, it has slowly expanded to incorporate the entire world – including Africa, as it emerged from colonialism as a set of autonomous states recognising the legal rules of international
43 See Michael Bratton and Nicolas Van de Walle, "Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa," World Politics 46, no. 4 (1994): 453-89. Richard A Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (New York: Longman, 1993). Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (Oxford: James Currey, 1999). 44 Peter P Ekeh, "Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement," Comparative Studies in Society and History 17, no. 1 (1975): 92. The idea has also recently been applied to civil society in Eghosa E Osaghae, "Colonialism and Civil Society in Africa: The Perspective of Ekeh's Two Publics," Voluntas 17 (2006): 233-45. Introduction 20 institutions.45 However, it has since become clear that modern African states fail to live up to some of the assumptions of statehood in international society. For example, they often have difficulty establishing a clear hierarchy of authority or a monopoly on violence. For Barry Buzan, the solution is to problematise the notion that the world is constituted by a single international system. He seeks instead to divide the world into two geographically distinct systems, or “zones;” a peaceful zone of postmodern states and a conflict-ridden zone of modern and pre-modern states.46 The problem with this distinction is that it typifies what William Brown identifies as a trend to deal with the challenges to IR theory posed by the African experience by simply excluding Africa from an analysis of the more important, Western zone of IR.47 Recognising both that Africa is an integral part of a single international society and that there are elements of its political organisation that fail to live up to the standards of that society, I see much to recommend a two systems approach. However, I do not distinguish between the systems geographically. In West Africa, two co-existing forms of international society operate in parallel. The structural strength of state-based international society as created by Europeans and appropriated by the rest of the world generated a West Africa of sovereign states that operate according to an established code of international practice. However, a second layer of political organisation that stems principally from pre-colonial structures of authority has continued to exist alongside this primary structure. The second layer is characterised by politics similar to that described in Ekeh’s primordial second public, but is profoundly affected by international norms. It is a form of international society in that it comprises political entities that operate according to established structures, culture, and norms of identity and behaviour. These entities use hierarchical, patrimonial forms of authority to control populations, and interact across West Africa with minimal reference to state-based international society. I refer to this sphere as
45 See Bull and Watson, "Introduction," 1, Ali Mazrui, "Africa Entrapped: Between the Protestant Ethic and the Legacy of Westphalia," in The Expansion of International Society, ed. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 290. Hedley Bull, "European States and African Political Communities," in The Expansion of International Society, ed. Hedley Bull and Adam Watson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 105. 46 Barry Buzan, "Conclusions: System versus Units in Theorizing about the Third World," in International Relations Theory and the Third World, ed. Stephanie G Neuman (New York: St Martin's Press, 1998), 218-24. Here Buzan echoes the ideas of Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Penguin, 1992). 47 Brown, "Africa and International Relations," 120. See also Jean-François Bayart, "Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion," African Affairs 99, no. 395 (2000): 217-67. Frederick Cooper, Decolonization and African Society: The labor question in French and British Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), xii. Introduction 21
“transversal” society to demonstrate the non-territorial and non-state nature of the political entities. It relies on authority that is networked and diffused, often linked to a pervasive ideology, and based on control over people and economies to a greater degree than territory or the rule of law. The types of community that operate in this sphere are diverse, but they create a solid transversal structure and are able not only to engage with each other, but to recognise the nature of their position in relation to the state-based system. Over the past decade, there has been some forward movement in the debate between African studies and IR. Revisionist Africanist literature is typified by the work of political economists such as Timothy Shaw, who has interrogated Africa’s position in the world system and investigated its internal structure, exploring the transformative impact of the globalising economy.48 In addition, a new and more critical Africanist approach has recently begun to emerge, with IR academics such as Paul Williams seeking to provide a more nuanced articulation of Africa’s international political structure.49 It is to this newly emerging critical Africanist/IR literature that I seek to contribute.
Empirical contribution: Transversal structure of regional conflict Both the empirical and the policy-oriented contributions of the thesis are derived from its theoretical framework. Empirically, I examine conflict in West Africa, specifically that which has been occurring in the Greater Mano River Area since 1989. While the Liberian and Sierra Leonean conflicts have been extensively researched, the breadth of literature on Côte d’Ivoire is very slim. English-speaking academics tend to join Liberian and Sierra Leonean policy-makers in their reluctance to include Côte d’Ivoire as an important sub-regional player, despite the glaring links between this conflict and the neatly-defined MRU.50 Exploring the two layers of regional society in the region, I seek to redress the neglect that has been accorded to
48 Timothy M Shaw, "Revisionism in African Political Economy in the 1990s," in Beyond Structural Adjustment in Africa: The Political Economy of Sustainable and Democratic Development, ed. Julius E Nyang'oro and Timothy M Shaw (New York: Praeger, 1992), 49-70. See also Marianne H Marchand et al., "The Political Economy of New Regionalisms," Third World Quarterly 20, no. 5 (1999): 897-910. Morten Boas et al., "The Weave-World: Regionalisms in the South in the New Millennium," Third World Quarterly 20, no. 5 (1999): 1061-70. 49 See Paul Williams, "From Non-Intervention to Non-Indifference: The Origins and Development of the African Union's Security Culture," African Affairs 106, no. 423 (2007): 253-79. 50 This is evident not only from the absence of literature on Côte d’Ivoire written in English, but was expressly articulated by a number of interviewees in Sierra Leone as well as Liberian refugees at Buduburam in Ghana. A notable exception is Bangégas and Marshall-Fratani, "Côte d'Ivoire." Introduction 22 the transversal elements of conflict, and this also facilitates the incorporation of Côte d’Ivoire as an integral part of the Greater Mano River Area. Taken as a whole, West Africa’s civil wars have been the subject of extensive and in-depth studies from a diverse range of fields.51 Many of these have specifically commented on the importance of the linkages that exist between them. For example, Mark Duffield details the effects of the regional war economy,52 while Alex Vines examines the flow of arms53 and Vera Achvarina and Simon Reich consider the impact of refugee movements.54 This thesis examines the conflicts in a distinctive way, suggesting that the different linkages all form part of a broader structure. It demonstrates that the various civil wars have a unique integration that stems from their organisation in transversal society. William Reno has laid the groundwork for understanding warlord politics in West African states.55 His analysis is particularly insightful in its description of the economic power of warlords, gained through their links to Western interests. In this thesis, my approach is much more concerned with political structure. Operating within the norms of political behaviour in the transversal sphere, warlords create their own “non-juridical states”56 based on patrimonial control and violent coercion, drawing on the trade networks that link similar sub-state political entities across the region. The object of insurgency remains control of the centralised state, but the transversal organisation of warlord conflict generates new and constraining forms of both structure and community. The profound emancipatory insecurity felt by many West Africans is produced by the tension between the two layers, both of which generate systems of oppression and control.
51 See for example Ibrahim Abdullah and Patrick Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone: A Revolt of the Lumpenproletariat," in African Guerrillas, ed. Christopher Clapham (Oxford: James Currey, 1998), 172-94. Bangégas and Marshall-Fratani, "Côte d'Ivoire." Collett, "Foreign Intervention in Côte d'Ivoire." Stephen Ellis, "Liberia 1989-1994: A Study of Ethnic and Spiritual Violence," African Affairs 94, no. 375 (1995): 167-95. 52 Duffield, "Globalization, Transborder Trade, and War Economies." 53 Alex Vines, "Combating Light Weapons Proliferation in West Africa," International Affairs 81, no. 2 (2005): 341-60. 54 Vera Achvarina and Simon F Reich, "No Place to Hide: Refugees, Displaced Persons, and the Recruitment of Child Soldiers," International Security 31, no. 1 (2006): 127-64. 55 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States. 56 Robert H Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). Introduction 23
Rather than seeing warlord politics as an example of individual greed, whether rational or irrational,57 I emphasise the impact of structural constraints on individual conflict participants. West Africans demonstrate their potential to seek emancipation through their rebellion against the state and their attempts to overcome the insecurities produced by the hegemony of the state-based political structure. However, in seeking to overthrow state elites and reform the constraints of political structure, West Africans draw on indigenous regional structures of politics that only serve to recreate anti-emancipatory politics in powerful networks of transversal communities. Those involved in conflict, whether as participants or victims, often find it difficult to withdraw from the normative power of these communities, even after the official conclusion of civil war. Norms of conflict are not easily dismantled simply because peace has been officially declared by political elites. It is for this reason that conflict appears so intractable and spreads so easily across the region. Ultimately, structural political constraints cannot be overcome by targeting the state political system because these constraints have become deeply embedded in regional, transversal norms.
Policy-oriented contribution: The limits of ECOWAS peacekeeping The final element of the contribution made by this thesis is policy-oriented. In particular, I explore the practical limitations of current state-centric approaches to conflict and security in West Africa. The ability of state-based institutions such as ECOWAS, as well as the UN and ex-colonial powers, to address the ongoing violence in the region, is directly constrained by their failure to recognise the contours of transversal society politics and conflict in the region. In West Africa, the norms of state-based international society, including sovereignty, non-intervention and peaceful resolution of disputes ensure that inter-state war has become almost unthinkable. Indeed, norms of peaceful interaction along with a strong and integrated regional institution in the form of ECOWAS have combined to create an inter-state system that looks very much like a “security community.” First suggested by Karl Deutsch in 1957, the notion of a “security community” has been imbued with constructivist theory and is now understood to describe a region in which states have, through social
57 Mats Berdal and David M Malone, "Introduction," in Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, ed. Mats Berdal and David M Malone (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 1-18. Introduction 24 interaction, learnt to view each other as friends rather than as potential enemies, with little regard to changes in material power dynamics.58 In a manner far removed from realist concessions to the possibility for peace through alliances and the balance of power,59 the states of deeply-integrated regions such as Western Europe neither expect nor prepare for war with each other. The idea is now applicable to West Africa, where inter-state war is extremely unlikely. However, the reason that the concept of “security community” is rarely applied to West Africa is that violent conflict clearly remains a dominant feature of the political landscape. While internal conflict is no longer an official impediment to statehood, there remains an assumption that the pre-requisite for membership of an international security community is evidence of domestic stability and centralised control. International peace is seen as a secondary phase to be built on the foundations of domestic security. The juxtaposition of inter-state peace and internal war is interesting conceptually, but it also has significant practical implications. It is transversal society that contributes to the spread of conflict across the region, generating a cycle of violence. However, it is this element of conflict that peacekeeping forces have been unable to address. Even ECOWAS, which has become so tightly integrated that it has begun to look like a security community, has been unable to deal effectively with the regional elements of conflict that operate outside of the state-based structure. The peacekeeping literature is critical of ECOWAS missions for a number of reasons, but most criticisms take a material view of the operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone, looking at specific problems such as the lack of funding, and the widespread looting perpetrated by the peacekeepers.60 The possibility that these problems are more fundamentally structural, and particularly that they could stem from a problem in ideational structure, is rarely considered. As the normative and analytical culmination of the thesis, my contribution to the peacekeeping literature is thus to demonstrate the fundamental tensions between state-based peacekeeping and transversal conflict in West Africa. ECOWAS may be deeply integrated as a regional institution, leading to
58 Karl Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957). Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective," in Security Communities, ed. Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 3-28. 59 Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, Fourth ed. (New York: Knopt, 1967). 60 See for example Adekeye Adebajo, "Africa: Toward a Rapid-Reaction Force," SAIS Review 17, no. 2 (1997): 153-64. Kenneth Cain, "The Rape of Dinah: Human Rights, Civil War in Liberia, and Evil Triumphant," Human Rights Quarterly 21, no. 2 (1999): 265-307. Introduction 25 the perception that it should be able to address regional conflict, but its inability to engage with the transversal aspects of regional politics generates fundamental difficulties when responding to cross-border warfare in West Africa.
Structure and Organisation of the Study The central aim of the thesis is to explore the nature and effects of West Africa’s transversal society and the communities that it engenders. With this in mind, it is organised in two parts, both of which are introduced with a short theoretical chapter. The first part is concerned with apprehending conflict in West Africa’s Greater Mano River Area. Conflict is clearly regional, but my contribution is to develop a framework that highlights the transversal structure of this regionalisation. Prior to exploring West African statehood in Chapter 2, the first chapter introduces the theoretical bases of international and transversal society. This sets up the second chapter’s exploration of the nature of West African states since independence, which in turn permits an in-depth study of the region’s state-based and transversal conflict dynamics in the third chapter. Contrary to the expectations of rationalist IR theory, West Africa’s states have never been seriously threatened by inter-state conflict. Instead, it is civil violence that poses the greatest threat to security and as such, conflict cannot be fully understood without apprehending structures of authority and domination that are separate from the state form, but are nevertheless linked to struggles for control over individual states. The structures and communities that have developed in this sphere of politics are the subject of Chapter 4. Whereas the aim of the first part is to explore region-wide transversal society as revealed by conflict in West Africa, the second part investigates the interplay between this sphere and state-based international society in the region. Specifically, the second part is primarily concerned with what the key regional organisation, ECOWAS, has attempted in response to the region’s conflict. Chapter 5 introduces the concept of regionalism in the context of international and transversal society, providing for the sixth chapter’s more empirical and descriptive examination of ECOWAS. Where Chapter 6 contains an implied critique of the state-based body, Chapter 7 provides a more explicit evaluation of the extent to which ECOWAS has failed to respond to the transversal nature of West African conflict. The second part of the thesis thus addresses the security and policy-oriented impetus for the study, Introduction 26 demonstrating the practical implications of the tension between international and transversal society.
Chapter 1: International and transversal societies The first chapter sets up the conceptual framework for the first part of the thesis. It questions assumptions about the role of the individual in the two spheres of regional politics, to demonstrate the constraints imposed by different types of structure. International society is closely linked to constructivism through its use of social identity and norms in relations between states. It is, however, a Wendtian form of constructivism as it is assumed that states are pivotal to the fabric of international society. This assumption has been challenged both theoretically and more practically, through “critical” or “solidarist” attempts to elevate the role of individuals in international decision-making processes.61 Significantly, such an attempt to recognise the world of non-state international relations in West Africa has had little impact on recognition of transversal society. While political community in transversal society is “non-state”, this does not equate to an elevated role for individuals as the sphere is imbued with its own structures that continue to impact on political process and possibility across the region.
Chapter 2: West African statehood and international society In the second chapter of the thesis, I examine the impact of international society on politics and security in West Africa. In order to understand both the motivations for and the structure of rebel insurgencies, it is important to understand how domestic political systems operate in the region, in the context of twentieth century African history. With the exception of Liberia, which was founded by freed American slaves, West African states are a creation of European colonialism. During the colonial period, European norms of political organisation led to the creation of centralised, territorial political entities that bore little relation to pre-colonial structures of authority. Pre-colonial structures were not eliminated by the imposition of the state form, but the manner in which the two systems were combined made it very difficult for many individuals and autonomous communities to gain decision-
61 “Solidarism” as defined by Bull: “individual human beings are… members of international society in their own right.” Hedley Bull, "Grotian Conception of International Society," in Diplomatic Investigations: Essays in the Theory of International Politics, ed. H Butterfield and Martin Wight (London: Allen and Unwin, 1966), 64. Introduction 27 making power within the state. While the British and French colonial systems differed in some respects, both demanded a centralised form of governance, as expected in international society, and relied on existing chiefs to maintain order and stability at the local level. The effect of this was ultimately if unintentionally to consolidate the position of the local chiefs and their patrimonial system of governance while imbuing them with the greatly increased power, resources and unaccountability that came with their privileged position within the centralised colonial state. After 1957, as West African colonies gained independence, they did so in the form of states, seeking the legitimacy and status provided by juridical equality within the international system. As they joined international society they were brought into a system in which norms of interaction had already been established. The norms of sovereignty and non-intervention demanded centralised governance but meant that domestic politics were largely unimportant in the international sphere. Since the 1990s however, there has been increasing pressure from Western states for solidarism in international society, and democracy has gained power as a global discourse. It is significant however, that the Western demand that states democratise in order to achieve governmental legitimacy tends only to require the appearance of democratic structures. The depth of individualist participation and argument, features of Western- style “liberal democracy,” is more difficult to judge. African elites are adept at co- opting Western structures for their own agendas. The imposition of the state form did not destroy pre-colonial structures of governance. Clientelism persisted at a local level, even while patrons were forced to cede authority to centralised and often nominally democratic state government.62
Chapter 3: Warlord conflict and its regional dynamics The third chapter explores the effects that ongoing patrimonial structures of governance have had on conflict in the region. Importantly, while these structures have had a very constraining impact, the agency of non-elite individuals in West Africa should not be discounted. They are not passive receptors of either African elite authority or Western normative expectation. Their capacity for questioning hegemonic structures features prominently in the lead-up to violent insurgency. Over
62 On clientelism continuing during democracy, see Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Introduction 28 the past decade, it has become commonplace to describe warlord insurgencies in West Africa as depicting the Hobbesian extreme of possibility in human inter-relations, where greed is the principal motivation for violence. However, while economic agendas feature prominently in the dynamics of conflict in the region, they should not be assumed to outweigh political objectives. The political rhetoric advanced by warlords might be dismissed as mere manipulation of potential supporters, the media, or international observers and mediators, but the injustices they cite provide insight into the concerns felt within local communities who may lack a political voice at the state level. Conflict can at least in part be seen as the result of emancipatory thinking. West African insurgency demonstrates the potential to overcome both material and ideational structures of oppression. Denial of physical and social needs contributes to a material situation in which it becomes more likely that violent conflict will be used to enforce change in the norms of political association and authority. Paradoxically however, by engaging in conflict, West Africans essentially recreate oppressive structures of authority. Conflict tends to rely on a warlord structure of organisation that employs norms prevalent in transversal society. Warlords gain power through the collapse of the neo-patrimonial state and yet use the norms of patrimonial governance to create their own parallel societies. One striking element of the rise of warlord politics is that its particular logic of organisation during times of conflict begins to take over from the colonially-inherited institutional norms of statehood, drawing even nominal heads of state into its normative logic. The powerful structures of warlordism constrain the emancipatory potential of individuals who seek to overcome the state-based politics of insecurity. Even as a rebel insurgency continues to target the state as the site of both potential political transformation and potential warlord power, the maintenance of warlord structures of authority is based on clientelism, violent coercion and control of regional economic networks, creating a dual structure of oppressive regional politics.
Chapter 4: Transversal communities in West Africa The third chapter demonstrates the power of warlord politics in West African conflict, which employs transversal patrimonial control as it seeks control of state authority. Chapter 4 explores the norms and structure of transversalism in greater detail. A significant element of transversal society, particularly during times of conflict, is the region-wide ideational community that comprises West Africa’s elites, Introduction 29 including warlords, and heads of state. This community has had very powerful effects on the development of politics in transversal society. The governance norms that have developed within the community have led to similar patrimonial logics of appropriateness being employed in neo-patrimonial states and warlord quasi-states. As the elites share ideas concerning governance but hold competing immediate goals relating to the accrual of power, this has led to intense rivalry and the development of a system of alliances through which powerful presidents provide material support to warlords who seek to overthrow their adversaries in neighbouring states. Loyalty to a state cannot be assumed as individual elites operate according to personal and business interests, supporting insurgencies and counter-insurgency measures in a manner that has contributed to inter-conflict linkages and thwarted attempts at peace both within individual states and across the region. The existence of an ideational community of heads of state, local patrons and warlords creates a network of patrimonial spheres of control that operates parallel to the official state structure. However, this chapter demonstrates that non-state politics is not limited to warlord quasi-states that mimic the centralised states through a hierarchical economy and politics. It also demonstrates the importance of other forms of transversal political community that operate in this warlord-based environment. During times of conflict such communities may be quite material, taking the form of a refugee camp for example. They may also be more “imagined”, as was the community of socialist-minded West African students who provided much of the political rhetoric for the early stages of the wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. While they are not always easy to identify, such communities form exclusionary political groupings that operate within a form of international society in which norms evolve to impact on their identity, behaviour and expectations. With my “critical constructivist” approach, while I take the individual as the ultimate autonomous referent of IR, it is their construction of and involvement in bounded communities that is significant for transversal society, particularly during times of conflict. The purpose of the chapter is to illuminate the important role played by transversal communities, and the impact they have on both structure and individual agency in West Africa.
Chapter 5: Regional integration in international society The first part of this thesis constructs an analysis of politics and conflict in transversal society. One of the key benefits of such an analysis is that it dilutes the Introduction 30 precedence normally accorded to the state in West Africa, and highlights the importance of a more holistic, regional approach that can take into account identities that fit uncomfortably within state borders. The second part of the thesis tackles the question of West African regionalism directly. In particular, it demonstrates that different types of regionalism can exist simultaneously, without necessarily becoming mutually-supportive. The version of regional integration that is most relevant in West Africa is the constructivist approach founded on identity-formation, as ECOWAS is based on a conception of West African commonality. However, Chapter 5 demonstrates the importance of recognising the distinction between regionalism in international society and regionalism in transversal society. Regional integration in international society is not necessarily inclusive, even when it is based on identity- formation, as its identity is founded on the expectations of states as well as individuals. Regional integration as it takes place in international society is essentially a strategy to respond to perceived problems which cannot be solved domestically, but it remains within the Westphalian system and does not transcend the state form. This may clash with the development of regional identity in transversal society. As a result, it can remain difficult for regional institutions to be effective in responding to regional conflict in transversal society.
Chapter 6: Regional organisation in West Africa Building on the introduction in Chapter 5 of the nature of regional integration in international society, in Chapter 6 I look specifically at the development of ECOWAS, West Africa’s regional inter-state system of governance. In 1975, ECOWAS was conceived as a regional economic community, but it has subsequently gained a significant role in both the political and security sectors. That regionalism is progressing rapidly in West Africa is positive to the extent that it provides an opportunity to overcome the inadequacies of the Westphalian state-based system in the region. ECOWAS has experienced accelerated integration at the same time as democratisation has deepened throughout the region. Much of the rhetoric surrounding the strengthening of the regional organisation has been based on dismantling artificial boundaries between states in an effort to increase individual participation in regional politics. As in the domestic environment, non-state actors and individuals are gaining a more significant role at the regional level. ECOWAS draws on the ideals of Pan-Africanism, looking towards a region with an overarching West Introduction 31
African identity to shape norms and purpose. It acknowledges the importance of transnational trade and cross-border movements of people. It seeks to provide space for the views of regional NGOs, and to provide a legal mechanism for overcoming the doctrine of non-intervention to comment on domestic political developments. In spite of this, ECOWAS remains very much a state-based international society institution. Thus, while civil society in particular has become a new watch- word for ECOWAS, the norms of civil society are largely dictated by international society expectations about participatory politics. The greater involvement of civil society in a more closely integration regional organisation should ensure that the issues important to individuals across the region are represented, but the participation of individuals is constrained by the perceived necessity of conforming to the state- based format. It is often assumed that ECOWAS’s regional identity is tied to cross- border identities in the region, but the two can be very different. The communities of transversal society are not always adequately represented by state-based regional NGOs, and ECOWAS still finds it difficult to engage with this sphere. It is not the purpose of this thesis to deny the relevance of the state, and there is much to be said in support of the normative progress that ECOWAS has made in terms of fostering democracy and human rights. However, in West Africa it is important that the regional organisation be able to deal with politics operating outside of the state-based structure. This chapter demonstrates that while international and transversal society are interlinked in the region, the friction between them continues to cause significant tensions.
Chapter 7: ECOWAS’s responses to conflict The tensions between the two layers of regional society are brought into sharpest relief through the attempts made by ECOWAS to respond militarily to the conflicts in Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Liberia. The failures of ECOWAS and the problems it faced responding to all three conflicts are well-known. However, these failures have not previously been considered as a structural inadequacy of international society. In order to provide context for this analysis of structural failure, the final substantive chapter begins with a consideration of how ECOWAS has evolved to become an advanced regional security organisation. Co-operation is at a high level, conflict between member-states is unlikely, a set of regional laws that undermine state sovereignty for the sake of human security are emerging, and Introduction 32 institutional mechanisms for responding collectively to the threat posed by internal state conflict have been developed. On paper ECOWAS has thus gone further than the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and rivals the European Union (EU) in its attempts to foster a stable and secure environment for the conduct of regional politics and economics. The extent of interaction between people in different states and the emergence of a regional identity means that ECOWAS has even begun to look like a security community. However, inter-state co-operation and integration should not be mistaken for individual-based regional identity and security. Instead, the perpetuation of conflict, the dissatisfaction with governance in states such as Guinea, and the withdrawal from state-based politics in times of crisis, demonstrate that identification with cross-border transversal communities can work at cross- purposes to state-based regional objectives. In such an environment, ECOWAS’s attempts at peacekeeping, in spite of their regional organisation, can be expected to encounter difficulties in responding to the emancipatory needs of the people they are deployed to support. Most fundamentally, ECOWAS peacekeepers are deployed to one crisis state at a time and have difficulty dealing with the cross-border narrative of the conflict, often simply trying to seal borders rather than recognising the validity of transversal community issues and grievances. The problem with each peacekeeping operation has been that ECOWAS is deployed in accordance with the norms of Western-directed international society, rather than using its regional knowledge to create innovative strategies suited to the transversal aspects of conflict. The final chapter thus details the contradictions inherent in ECOWAS’s responses to regional conflict caused by the tensions between international and transversal society. The use of force can generate negative peace but it cannot create security without engagement with the transversal sphere. It simply assists in the recreation of oppressive structures, provoking new attempts at emancipation, conflict and renewed insecurity. As a result, a cycle of violence spreads across the region and individuals fail in their search for emancipatory community.
33
Part I International Society, Transversal Society and Conflict in West Africa
Chapter 1 34
Chapter 1 – International and Transversal Society: A Theoretical Framework
In this first part of the thesis, I develop an understanding of the “transversal society” that runs parallel to “international society” in West Africa. In essence, Part I provides a conceptual tool for recognising and understanding an empirical divide that is characterised by differences in social structure, principal actors and key norms. A recognition that the two societies may operate simultaneously within the same sub- region has major implications for demystifying the seeming confusion of West African political systems where order appears fragile at best. This construction also provides an understanding of warfare in the sub-region based on alternative political organisation rather than anarchic violence or greed. A comprehensive theoretical framework provides a necessary conceptual basis for a discussion of the role played by transversal society in West Africa.
Norms in International Society There are two principal elements to a comprehensive understanding of international society as developed by English School theorists. The first is essentially a question of ontology. International society recognises states as the principal actors of international politics. As a result, it is concerned with interactions between states, and draws on the behaviour of its agents – political elites, diplomats, soldiers and occasionally citizens. The second element is concerned with what drives state behaviour and interests. Here the English School draws heavily on constructivism, suggesting that norms are of prime importance, and that ideational structures should be studied alongside material impetus. Buzan is clear that international society is a “theory of norms” rather than “normative” theory.1 While there is significant overlap between the two, the purpose of this distinction is to emphasise the importance of patterns over values in international society. To identify norms of behaviour and identity in international relations is not to judge their worth.
Constructivism and international society According to constructivism, the material world does not have inexorable effects on the behaviour of actors whose interests are pre-determined by the anarchical nature of international relations. Instead, international actors are social.
1 Buzan, From International to World Society? , 1. Chapter 1 35
Through their agency, they contribute to the development of international norms; norms that then impact in turn on the identity, behaviour and motivations of these same actors. Thus, as explained by Wendt, agents and structures are mutually constituted in the international arena.2 International norms are often divided into two types: “regulative” norms that impact directly on behaviour, and “constitutive” norms that help to shape identity, influencing how an actor understands who or what it is supposed to be. The two are often intertwined. It is social identity that determines interests, guiding interpretations of and reactions to the material world, generating an ideational structure of international behaviour. In addition, the impact of “constitutive” norms affects the domestic as well as the international behaviour of actors such as states. Although it is able to provide a framework for a number of different approaches, the English School concept of “international society” is closely linked to a constructivist interpretation of international relations. As explained by Bull who pioneered the concept, “A society of states (international society) exists when a group of states, conscious of certain common interests and common values, form a society in the sense that they conceive themselves to be bound by a common set of rules in their relations with one another, and share in the workings of common institutions.”3 The most basic characteristic of international society is the mutual recognition of sovereign equality between states,4 but this explains nothing about how the material world is interpreted according to common interests and values. The strong links to constructivist thought are demonstrated by the reflection of these ideas in the work of Finnemore. She argues “States are embedded in dense networks of… international society relations that shape their perceptions of the world and their role in the world. States are socialised to want certain things by the international society in which they and the people in them live.”5 International society both influences and is influenced by the behaviour and identities of international actors. This basic explanation of international society is accurate, and yet does not reflect the depth of possibility provided by the paradigm. It is limited by its links to
2 Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics, 180. 3 Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (Houndmills: Macmillian, 1977), 13. 4 Barry Buzan, "From International System to International Society: Structural Realism and Regime Theory Meet the English School," International Organization 47, no. 3 (1993): 327-52. 5 Martha Finnemore, National Interests in International Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), 2. Chapter 1 36 the Wendtian version of constructivism. It was Wendt who brought constructivism into the mainstream of IR, challenging Waltz’s neo-realist pre-occupation with material cause and effect6 by demonstrating the importance of interpretive norms. However, Wendt is rigidly pre-occupied with a statist interpretation of the mutually- constitutive relationship between agents and structures. By focusing on inter-state relations and neglecting domestic politics, he makes both regulative and constitutive norms appear very stable. His approach is useful for explaining patterns of behaviour and identity that emerge in international relations, but his static focus on inter-state relations has been extensively criticised.7 If the structure of international norms generates the social identity of the actors that are able to influence this structure, radical change is unlikely. The possibilities of international society can be more deeply understood if it is seen essentially as the ideational structure that facilitates the creation, development and dissemination of norms. An international society exists when common identification between actors is sufficient to enable the creation of a dialogue leading to transformation of understanding and interpretation, and the anticipation of “normative consensus.”8 In order to account for such norm-based change, critically- minded constructivists have drawn on the impact of individuals.9 For transformation in international politics we rely on individuals and non-state communities who may seek emancipation from the prevailing ideational structure, creating new patterns of behaviour and initiating a new discourse. The impact of this is most obvious in liberal democracies, where individuals can directly alter the identity, interests, understanding
6 Waltz, Theory of International Politics. 7 See Peter J Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996). Christian Reus-Smit, "Constructivism," in Theories of International Relations, ed. Scott Burchill, et al. (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave, 2001), 209- 30. Rey Koslowski and Friedrich Kratochwil, "Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Empire's Demise and the International System," International Organization 48, no. 2 (1994): 215-47. John Gerard Ruggie, "Territoriality and beyond: problematising modernity in international relations," International Organization 47, no. 1 (1993): 139-74. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change," International Organization 52, no. 4 (1998): 887-917. Klotz and Lynch, Strategies for Research in Constructivist International Relations, 7. 8 Arie Kacowicz, Zones of Peace in the Third World: South America and West Africa in Comparative Perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998). 9 Most notably, Katzenstein, Cultural Norms and National Security. with what Reus-Smit terms “unit-level” constructivism. See also Reus-Smit, "Constructivism." Christian Reus-Smit, "The Constructivist Challenge after September 11," in International Society and its Critics, ed. Alex Bellamy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 81-96. Williams, "Critical Security Studies." Little, "The English School's Contribution to the Study of International Relations." Chapter 1 37 and behaviour of their states.10 The autonomous aspects of their identity, their ability to question prevailing structure, and their capacity for transformation of understanding can lead to changes in societal attitudes.
Solidarist international society As Rey Koslowski and Friedrich Kratochwil explain, changes in societal attitudes will ultimately be reflected in the changing expectations that states bring to international fora.11 In their more holistic approach to constructivism, individuals change not only the identity and interests of their own states, but can transform the norms underpinning the international system. Thus, as nationalism emerged and Europeans began to define themselves as citizens of a state rather than as members of a particular religion, the broader outcome was the development of new conceptions of rights and duties in inter-state relations.12 Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink take this holistic constructivist analysis further, examining not only how individuals impact on international relations, but also how the changing norms of international relations are internalised by individual states whose identity and behaviour must change for there to be a profound normative shift in international affairs.13 Finnemore and Sikkink are not only concerned with changes in inter-state relations. Instead, they focus on the impact of the international on domestic governance structures. The spread of women’s suffrage is the prominent example they use. Finnemore and Sikkink articulate a three- stage process whereby new norms might emerge in a small number of states, but spread slowly to a number of other states until a “tipping-point” is reached, after which “norm cascade” occurs and most states in the international system internalise the norm.14 Addressing the question of how international norms achieve domestic salience, Amitav Acharya’s constructivist analysis explores how international norms can be adapted to fit the cultural context and pre-existing identities of a particular state. Through this process of norm “localisation,” norm-takers might even purposefully choose to adopt international norms that resonate, in the expectation of
10 Rey Koslowski and Friedrich Kratochwil, "Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Union's Demise and the International System," in International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, ed. Richard Ned Lebow and Thomas Risse-Kappen (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 132. 11 Koslowski and Kratochwil, "Understanding Change in International Politics," 215. 12 Ibid.: 223. 13 Finnemore and Sikkink, "International Norm Dynamics and Political Change." 14 Ibid. Chapter 1 38 enhanced legitimacy and authority, “without fundamentally altering their existing social identity.”15 However, even when international norms are localised to better respond to domestic expectations, there remains a problem in the assumption that state institutions, rhetoric and laws reflect domestic culture and identity. Useful as this more critical and individual-focused version of constructivism is, it relies heavily on the appearance of norm internalisation. As Andrew Cortell and James Davis recognise, the adoption of new norms amongst political elites is not necessarily indicative of domestic salience amongst the local population.16 There is little recognition in mainstream constructivism that international norms can change and appear to be internalised while domestic realities remain very different. Christian Reus-Smit posits that international norms “only exist and persist because of… continued practices.”17 However, this downplays the importance of international rhetoric and the development of a normative discourse. Many norms continue to exist and persist despite contradictory practices; even in spite of continued patterns of contradictory practices. It might be useful to think of these as “expectative norms.” Normatively powerful states in international society expect other states to adopt the new norms that they propagate, and are satisfied by the appearance of changes in behavioural patterns. These norms do not simply demonstrate the hope that certain standards will be met. By virtue of their status as norms, they demonstrate the belief that certain standards are being met. Expectative norms exist as a result of decisions made by individuals to emancipate themselves from the prevailing hegemony of thought, creating new patterns of behaviour and initiating a new international discourse. This discourse can be so powerful that the new expectative norm is understood as the prevailing behavioural norm even if agents are slow to change their behaviour in accordance with it, or if domestic salience is shallow. Critical developments within constructivism are centrally relevant to an understanding of international society that reaches beyond its rationalist foundations. Within the international society framework, the question of whether international norms have an impact on domestic attitudes and behaviour is played out in the debate
15 Amitav Acharya, "How Ideas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? Norm Localization and Institutional Change in Asian Regionalism," International Organization 58, no. 2 (2004): 248. See also Andrew P Cortell and James W Davis, "How Do International Institutions Matter? The Domestic Impact of International Rules and Norms," International Studies Quarterly 40, no. 4 (1996): 451-78. 16 Andrew P Cortell and James W Davis, "Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms: A Research Agenda," International Studies Review 2, no. 1 (2000): 75. 17 Reus-Smit, "Constructivism," 218. Chapter 1 39 between pluralists and solidarists.18 Pluralists are concerned only with the shared norms of inter-state relations that facilitate co-operation. However, the growing influence of critical theory has led to a greater solidarist concern with how international society can generate standards of internal governance, in the belief that units of the international system operate within a common culture. For Wight, since the French Revolution international society has been marked by principles of legitimacy that “prevail (or are at least proclaimed) within a majority of the states that form international society, as well as in the relations between them.”19 While international society remains basically state-centric, the purpose of the state in relation to the individual is now considered to be a central structural question. Indeed, Wheeler goes so far as to claim that “although he does not spell it out, the logic of Bull’s position is that the rules and norms of the society of states are only to be valued if they provide for the security of individuals who stand at the centre of Bull’s ethical code.”20 The solidarist concern with transformation in domestic structures as a result of ethical pressures in international society is strongly “normative.” For some English School scholars, the more important normative values become, the closer “international society” comes to “world society.”21 There is disagreement about the value of a separate conception of “world society,” and the boundaries between the two are rather difficult to draw, particularly when “international society” appears in its most solidarist guise. However, it might be helpful to draw a conceptual distinction at this point, for the purpose of building a foundation for a clearer explanation of the very real separation between international and transversal society in West Africa. Most descriptions of world society identify two key distinctions from international society.22 First, world society is more open to a diversity of actors. Individuals and non-state communities contribute to transformation in ideational structure as a whole, rather than simply through the medium of states. This is possible because of a different conception of the forum of international relations. World society takes account of the late twentieth century move away from anarchic inter-state relations,
18 See Buzan, "From International System to International Society." Robert H Jackson, "The Political Theory of International Society," in International Relations Theory Today, ed. Ken Booth and Steve Smith (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 110-28. James Mayall, World Politics: Progress and its Limits (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 21. 19 Martin Wight, Systems of States (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1977), 153. 20 Wheeler, "Guardian Angel or Global Gangster," 126. 21 See Buzan, From International to World Society? , 1, 27. 22 See Ibid., 10. Bull, The Anarchical Society, 279. Chapter 1 40 towards a world in which regionalism and multilateralism have instituted norms through international rules and laws that transcend the intentions of individual states. The second element of difference in world society is its strong normative component.23 In world society, judgments are made about which rules should be followed – internationally, regionally and domestically – and actors are, in theory, held to account for failing to live up to standards of appropriateness. Thus for example, intervention for humanitarian purposes has become more acceptable, overriding the traditional pre-occupation with non-intervention and state sovereignty.24 The growing importance of ethics in international relations is promoted by solidarists and reflected in the notion of “world society.” Transversal society is similar to world society in the extent to which it recognises a range of actors, including individuals and non-state groups, as the pre-eminent political players. It is unlike world society in that it lacks a progressive, normative vision of how politics should operate. It lacks even the fora in which such a vision could be developed. Like international society, its logics of appropriateness include “bad norms.”
Transversal Society and Transversal Communities International society provides a useful paradigm in which to understand inter- state relations. However, much of West African politics takes place at a local and regional level, across official borders and beyond the influence of international norms. Transversal society provides a paradigm for understanding international relations in this forum. While transversal society is not as clearly ordered as international society, and does not rely on clear and neat groups of people with distinct modes of communicating with other groups, it nevertheless replicates many of the key elements of international society – including, most importantly, constitutive, behavioural and expectative norms. States in international society are represented by statesmen, soldiers and citizens. The communities of transversal society do not operate within such recognisable institutions, but norms are likewise created by relations between elite representatives, armed protectors and individuals. Transversal communities do
23 Buzan, From International to World Society? , 1. Raymond John Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations: Issues and Responses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 101-17. 24 See Nicholas Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000). Dunne, Inventing International Society. Chapter 1 41 not pretend to act like states, and yet they provide many of the same functions – including identity, loyalty, norms and material purpose.
Society and community As in international society, it is the nature of the political communities that is fundamental to ideational structure in transversal society. For the purpose of an international analysis of politics, the distinction between “community” and “society” is functional. Communities constitute the groups of people that interact within a society characterised by a set of recognised norms.25 As a result, the distinction is also somewhat quantitative. Communities are more closely knit than the society within which they operate, with more clearly defined identities and stronger norms.26 Throughout the literature on political community, both domestic and international, run three common threads pertaining to the construction of communities, the basis on which they are constructed, and the primary effect of their construction. First, reflecting the pervasive influence of constructivism, political communities are widely recognised as a socially-constructed phenomenon. Following Benedict Anderson’s conception of the nation as an imagined community,27 analysts such as Acharya28, and Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett29, recognise the importance of social learning in addition to material transactions and quantifiable interactions between individuals in the construction of community. Closely tied to construction through social learning, the second essential element of a political community is its basis in shared identity.30 According to Anderson, a community is imagined as a sense of “deep… comradeship” grows.31 Shared experiences contribute to the development of shared values, norms and political objectives which are mutually-reinforcing, contributing ultimately to the creation of a coherent community identity and “we feeling” as described by Deutsch
25 See Linklater and Suganami, The English School of International Relations. 26 See Thomas Diez and Richard Whitman, "Analysing European Integration: Reflecting on the English School - Scenarios for an Encounter," Journal of Common Market Studies 40, no. 1 (2002): 57. 27 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Revised ed. (London & New York: Verso, 1991). 28 Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia: ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order (London & New York: Routledge, 2001), 3. 29 Adler and Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective." 30 Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, 3. 31 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 7. Chapter 1 42 et al.32 The development of a community founded on shared identity has profound effects on its members, but perhaps the most important of these is the provision of security.33 This constitutes the third essential element of political community. While the form of security provided will vary in different circumstances, all communities provide or at least seek to provide their members with more predictable security than can be attained outside of their boundaries. These fundamental elements of political community remain as true in transversal society as they are in international society, and yet the practice of international politics has not created the phenomenon of “like-units” familiar in international society. In West Africa’s transversal sphere of politics, the diversity of community identities that do not fit neatly into the paradigms provided by either international or domestic politics can partly be accounted for by postmodern ideas of deterritorialisation in political space.34 As such, the concept of a “transversal community” is not intended to be limited by definitional constraints. However, the concept as it is developed here is not as flexible and imprecise as the transversalism described in much postmodern literature.35 It is to be differentiated from mainstream Western concepts of territorially-bounded notions of political identity, and yet it comprises structures of its own. As a close relative of international society, the transversal sphere of politics in West Africa has developed its own strong norms of behaviour, and individual community identities are often fixed and exclusive. Little has been written on transversalism as it relates to political identity in non-Western international societies. The literature on transnationalism is most closely linked,36 but
32 Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area. Adler and Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective," 7. Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, 3. 33 See Emma Rothchild, "What Is Security?," Daedalus 124, no. 3 (1995): 89. 34 See Devetak, "Postmodernism." Soguk and Whitehall, "Wandering Grounds." 35 See for example Devetak, "Postmodernism." Ashley, "The Geopolitics of Geopolitical Space." Richard Ashley, "Living on Borderlines: Man, Poststructuralism, and War," in International/Intertextual Relations: Postmodern Readings of World Politics, ed. James Der Derian and Michael J Shapiro (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1989), 259-322. James Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 36 See Edward Newman, "'Transitional Justice': The Impact of Transnational Norms and the UN," in Recovering from Civil Conflict: Reconciliation, Peace and Development, ed. Edward Newman and Albrecht Schnabel (London & Portland: Frank Cass, 2002), 31-50. Michael Clarke, "Transnationalism," in International Relations: British and American Perspectives, ed. Steve Smith (New York & Oxford: Blackwell, 1985), 146-70. Joseph S Nye, Jr and Robert O Keohane, "Transnational Relations and World Politics: An Introduction," in Transnational Relations and World Politics, ed. Robert O Keohane and Joseph S Nye, Jr (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970), ix-xxix. Cristina Szanton Blanc et al., "Transnationalism, Nation-States, and Cultures," Current Anthropology 36, no. 4 (1995): 683-86. Chapter 1 43 some of its most fundamental assumptions must be questioned if transversalism is to make sense in the West African context.
Transnationalism and transversalism “Transnationalism” is the term most often given to non-state international relations, and it tends to be used in reference to either actors or activity. Transnational actors have variously been understood to include multinational companies,37 NGOs,38 international financial institutions (IFIs),39 cross-border insurgencies, terrorist organisations and regional or global civil society movements.40 Thus, any institution with an international mandate or presence that incorporates a non-state element appears to qualify as a “transnational actor.” Even the Sierra Leone Special Court has been described as transnational simply because it employs international law.41 In terms of activity, transnationalism involves interaction and movement across state boundaries. Key to the concept is communication between people in different countries who share ideas often relating to socio-economic activity, leading to the movement across borders of people, information, money and goods.42 However, while such movements demonstrate the importance of alternative, non-state norms of behaviour, the concept of exchange between different people in different states does little to dismantle the realist, statist paradigm of a world divided by national borders.43 David Campbell picks up on the failure of the transnational to escape such traditional paradigms, noting that “complexity is always anchored in a ‘something- national’ formulation, whether it be ‘international’, ‘multinational’, or transnational’.”44 He chooses instead to employ Ashley’s concept of “transversal struggles”45 that are not limited by sovereign boundaries or nations. To employ the term “transversal” from the outset is to avoid the immediate assumptions of national borders, of political authority through sovereign territoriality, and of relations between
37 Clarke, "Transnationalism," 146. 38 Nye and Keohane, "Transnational Relations and World Politics," xii. 39 Latham et al., "Introduction," 10. 40 Ciaran Cronin and Pablo De Greiff, "Introduction: Normative Responses to Current Challenges of Global Governance," in Global Justice and Transnational Politics: Essays on the Moral and Political Challenges of Globalisation, ed. Pablo De Greiff and Ciaran Cronin (Cambridge & London: The MIT Press, 2002), 2. 41 Newman, "'Transitional Justice'," 42. 42 Nye and Keohane, "Transnational Relations and World Politics," xii. 43 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 95. 44 David Campbell, "Political Prosaics, Transversal Politics, and the Anarchical World," in Challenging Boundaries: Global Flows, Territorial Identities, ed. Michael J Shapiro and Hayward R Alker (Minneapolis & London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), 11. 45 Ashley, "Living on Borderlines," 296. Chapter 1 44 different peoples. Postmodern theorists such as Ashley and Bleiker46 have used the concept of the transversal in such a way as to radically question statist assumptions about international relations. Such theorists are first concerned with dismantling the privileged position of “spatiality” in international relations.47 Ashley focuses on a form of dissent that is not constrained by sovereignty.48 This need not lead to anarchy however, as the clash between unofficial and official forces can create and transform new versions of political, economic and cultural order.49 A growing interest in the globalisation of identity has led analysts such as Nevzat Soguk and Geoffrey Whitehall50 to look at the construction of alternative versions of political order using the idea of the transversal. The “movement” aspect of transnational relations has captured their attention, leading to some very interesting observations about the ability of cross-border flows to create new communities based on the shared experience of deterritorialisation. Soguk and Whitehall look particularly at migration in this context, as they consider the diaspora to be a community defined by absence of belonging, multiplicity of identity, and borders as pathways rather than borders as fences. The diaspora and other similar communities that are not confined or defined by territory contribute to an understanding of identity that is not spatially fixed. They demonstrate the possibility of community that is not defined by inclusion/exclusion or cultural specificity – an essentially postmodern idea. People are understood as holding multiple identities based on trans-territorial networks that may be familial, economic, social, religious or linguistic,51 and politically-relevant identity and societal norms are not pre-determined.
Structure in transversal society The postmodern understanding of transversalism is very important for explaining the parallel form of international society that has emerged as significant in West Africa. It is not only transnational flows across borders and institutions with influence in several states that are critical in this context. Politically-relevant communities in West Africa are often formed outside of the ambit of the territorial,
46 See Bleiker, Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics. 47 Rob Walker, "From International Relations to World Politics," in The State in Transition: Reimagining Political Space, ed. Joseph Camilleri, Anthony Jarvis, and Albert Pailini (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), 35. 48 Ashley, "Living on Borderlines." 49 Campbell, "Political Prosaics, Transversal Politics, and the Anarchical World," 20. 50 Soguk and Whitehall, "Wandering Grounds," 675. 51 Blanc et al., "Transnationalism, Nation-States, and Cultures," 684. Chapter 1 45 sovereign states, and are significant in their influence on individuals and their formation of a parallel form of international society. However, transversalism as it is discussed by many postmodernists tends to go beyond the realities of West Africa’s normative transversal structure, and does little to explain the significance of community identity and exclusive political aims in evidence throughout the region. Transversal approaches reject the hegemony of territorial/spatial identity and emphasise the fluidity, hybridity and complexity of non-state identity. The analysis often includes the possibility of blurred boundaries in which patterns of inclusion/exclusion are overcome and the local/global divide is exposed as a fiction.52 However, there are few examples of such phenomena in international relations. Even Soguk and Whitehall’s description of diasporas goes too far in its emphasis on deterritorialisation. Diasporal communities may exist in multiple territories and may constitute an identity separate from localised spatiality, but they are not deterritorialised and fluid. Their political survival is predicated on their relationship to a particular state – whether it is their home or host state, or both. This tendency to reject territoriality as part of transversal politics may stem in part from the widespread underlying intention to understand the broad impact of global non-state political movements on the anarchy problematique, rather than to understand a region- specific political phenomenon. Thus, Bleiker uses transversal dissident practices to underscore the inadequacies of sovereignty “in a world that has undergone fundamental change since the state system emerged with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.”53 In West Africa, the pressing consideration is not political change. On the contrary, transversalism is a useful concept for understanding the continuity of a political structure that has persisted in spite of the subsequent imposition of state sovereignty. In terms of West African transversal society, it is the absence of state authority, rather than the absence of territoriality or exclusion that distinguishes it from international society. While it is important to question the spatial identity of sovereign territory, transversal communities and spatial identification are not necessarily mutually-exclusive. Spatial identification becomes problematic, remains stuck in the paradigm of international society, when it is bound up with the strict
52 Ashley, "Living on Borderlines," 296. See also Richard Ashley, "Untying the Sovereign State: A Double Reading of the Anarchy Problematique," Millennium 17, no. 2 (1988): 227-62. 53 Bleiker, Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics, 9. Chapter 1 46
“Cartesian”54 boundaries dictated by and consisting in sovereign power and voice. Transversal identities may be spatial and attached to land, despite the absence of solid boundaries. They may even be territorial, possibly existing across sovereign borders, although they need not physically straddle borders in order to be significant in transversal society. In addition, territorial identities are not the only type of identities that are fixed, conflictual, and have an impact on the dynamics of politics and conflict. The transversal nature of political interaction in West Africa has created quite concrete forms of community and structure, that may reject sovereign territory, power and voice,55 but may nevertheless be hierarchical in operation. In West Africa’s transversal international society, community identities question boundaries, question sovereignty and question dominant political ideology but, like all communities, they construct their own ideological boundaries and generate new political agents. To understand the operation of international relations in West Africa’s sphere of parallel politics, it is necessary to go further than the concept of “transnational” admits. As Campbell points out, transnationalism has a strong investment in the very borders it purports to question.56 Borders may be crossed and widened, but they feature very prominently in the identity of the communities created thereby. The concept of the “transversal” seeks to overcome the sovereign boundaries created by a traditional understanding of international relations, providing an alternative paradigm that caters for those who exist politically with minimal reference to the state and its borders. However, in West Africa, complex identities and deterritorialisation can ultimately tell us very little about the likely behaviour and expectations of potentially exclusionary groups of people who generate norms and identity within ideological boundaries. It is thus important to conceptualise a second, transversal layer of international society, and the tight communities that exist within it. While there is disagreement about the content of norms in international society, and although the lack of like-units in transversal society makes associated norms difficult to pin down, the following table may clarify the distinction between international society as universally applicable, international society as manifested in West Africa, and transversal society in West Africa:
54 Ashley, "Living on Borderlines," 296. 55 Soguk and Whitehall, "Wandering Grounds," 697. 56 Campbell, "Political Prosaics, Transversal Politics, and the Anarchical World." Chapter 1 47
Table 1.1 Types of ‘International’ Society
International West African West African Society International Society Transversal Society Units States: States: Exclusive, identity- - independent - independent based community - cartesian - cartesian - overlapping centralised - centralised - non-cartesian - non-centralised Behavioural Co-operative inter- Expectations of Expectations of violent Dynamic relations peaceful inter-state settlement of disputes relations between communities Governance Continuous Expectations of Personalised movement towards democratic leadership and consensus on governance coercion appropriate structures of internal governance
A Critical Framework for Understanding Security In West Africa, the division between international and transversal society has been made particularly clear by the experience of conflict. State collapse reveals alternative structures of political organisation which do not fit easily into traditional paradigms of statehood and warfare. By escaping from these traditional paradigms, CSS contributes significantly to understanding the motivations for and dynamics of conflict in West Africa. Fundamental is its recognition that existential threats may arise from sources other than inter-state conflict; that the state may not be a provider of security for its citizens; that physical violence may not be the only or even the most important threat that people face.57 There are three core elements that differentiate CSS from traditional, and particularly realist understandings of international security. First, CSS recognises the individual rather than the state as the most appropriate referent of security. Secondly, it links security inexorably with emancipation. Thirdly, it emphasises the importance of community to a durable sense of security.58 To this extent, CSS fills many of the gaps in traditional theories of international security that are largely generated by a narrow focus on state-centric politics. However, a closer examination of CSS reveals a failure to account adequately for the ideational
57 See Williams and Krause, "Preface." 58 The three elements are made particularly clear in Ken Booth, ed., Critical Security Studies and World Politics (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005). Chapter 1 48 structures of transversal society. Ultimately, it further reveals the tensions between the two layers of international politics.
Critical challenges to international society It is the normative shift from the state to the individual as the most appropriate referent of security that most clearly defines the critical approaches that have emerged over the past two decades. The increasing acceptance that the needs of individuals may not coincide with the needs of states, and the increasing importance attached to the rights of individuals has led to fundamentally deeper and broader conceptions of security in international relations.59 The CSS emphasis on individuals as the appropriate security referent and emancipation as a core element of security can largely be accommodated within emerging solidarist versions of international society. As a result of their rationalist beginnings, international society theorists are generally considered to be at odds with the proponents of the CSS agenda,60 but an increasing disquiet with the blinkered nature of the strictly inter-state interpretation has led to the growth of a critical dimension of international society.61 Contributing to this interpretation, analysts such as Paul Williams have attempted to bridge the divide between critical theory and the English School by drawing CSS into their conception of international society.62 However, while solidarist interpretations of international society are able to accommodate some of the core elements of CSS, there remain some significant contradictions between the two paradigms that make this accommodation uncomfortable. These stem in the first instance from the definition of emancipation. According to Karin Fierke, emancipation has two fundamental elements: freedom from the structures of power that constrain human potential, and freedom from the assumptions that blind us to alternative structures.63 The first might be accounted for within international society by promoting good governance, political freedoms and individual involvement in political decision-making within the state. The second element is much more fundamentally “critical.” It is more difficult to account for
59 See Richard Wyn Jones, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner, 1999). 60 See Williams, "Critical Security Studies." Barry Buzan, "The English School: An Underexploited Resource in IR," Review of International Studies 27, no. 3 (2001): 471-88. 61 Little, "The English School's Contribution to the Study of International Relations," 414. 62 Williams, "Critical Security Studies." 63 Fierke, Critical Approaches to International Security, 189. Chapter 1 49 within the state-based paradigm of international society, as it suggests that true security for individuals requires the possibility of developing alternative political and ideational structures. It is this anti-emancipatory element of a state-based international society that has provoked the censure of prominent CSS advocates such as Booth.64 Further, when security is understood as a question of survival and emancipation for the individual, critical theorists tend to evoke the notion of a “universal community of humankind.”65 This is likewise difficult to accommodate within the international society paradigm. The receding relevance of national security within CSS gives rise to a focus on “security for all people.”66 In stark contrast to the realist concept of zero-sum security, CSS suggests that security for the individual depends on security for all. Emancipation is incomplete and insecure until all people achieve emancipation, because individuals are interdependent by virtue of their common vulnerability.67 “Community” is thus a central concern for proponents of CSS as a mechanism capable of enhancing long-term security and stability.68 Booth expects that security and emancipation are only truly realisable through the creation of community. Importantly, the form of community that is envisaged stems from Andrew Linklater’s vision of Habermasian discourse ethics through which “every human [has] an equal right to participate in open dialogue about the configuration of society and politics.”69 Both emancipation as freedom from the assumptions that bind us to alternative structures and a universal form of inclusive community can perhaps only be accounted for within a notion of world society. Both ideas form an integral part of the strongly normative agenda of CSS. Within CSS, while the critical epistemology of more general IR “critical theory” remains significant, the normative component is brought into sharper relief. The assumption that the security of individuals and non- state communities is intrinsically valuable underpins its argument in favour of a people-centred rather than a state-centred understanding of security. In part, CSS
64 Ken Booth, "Human Wrongs and International Relations," International Affairs 17, no. 1 (1995): 103-26. 65 Bull, "Grotian Conception of International Society," 68. 66 Rob Walker, One World, Many Worlds: Struggles for a Just World Peace (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1988). 67 Howard Williams and Ken Booth, "Kant: Theorist Beyond Limits," in Classical Theories of International Relations, ed. Ian Clark and Iver B Neuman (Houndmills & London: Macmillan, 1996), 79. Fierke, Critical Approaches to International Security, 186. 68 Booth and Vale, "Critical Security Studies and Regional Insecurity," 329-58. 69 Andrew Linklater, "The Question of the Next Stage in International Relations Theory: A Critical- Theoretical Point of View," Millennium 21, no. 1 (1992): 92. Chapter 1 50 reflects the new humanitarianism of the post-Cold War world. Its proponents seek to elevate the place of the individual not only as a way of undermining and questioning the hegemonic position of the state in international relations, but because of the aspiration that this will lead ultimately to the generation of a peaceful and collective human society.70 The normative depth of this agenda and the attempt to subvert the exclusive elements of community may go beyond even the most solidarist form of international society, undermining its basic understandings of community and communal values.
The inadequacies of the CSS paradigm CSS contributes significantly to a more extensive understanding of conflict in West Africa. It accounts for the ability of individuals and non-state groups to question the status-quo and to rebel against the state form. It accounts for their dissatisfaction and willingness to take up arms to safeguard their “human security.” Using ideas that would not be out of place in world society, it even accounts for the possibility of envisioning alternative ideational structures to the state form. In order to understand conflict and security in West Africa, it is necessary to go beyond the paradigm established by state-based international society, and CSS provides valuable tools for this process. Ultimately however, the move towards world society thinking is not particularly helpful in the West African context. The alternative structures that gain prominence during times of conflict can rarely be described as emancipatory, and they are far from enacting a normative conception of inclusive human community. Transversal society may provide a springboard for action against the state. It may even assist in the formation of broad, normative goals for region-wide insurgency. As such, it may well appear to be overcoming the hegemonic structures of international society, but transversal communities provide their own constraints. Even as transversal society allows for plurality and transformation, it produces strong structural norms that confine individuals to finite roles. In his attempt to describe an inclusive form of democratic community, even Linklater is drawn away from the epistemological basis of critical theory that emphasises reflexivity through immanent critique and allows individuals to define their own political identity. The community he envisages remains prescriptive and
70 Booth, "Critical Explorations," 14. Chapter 1 51 ultimately grounded in the spatiality and citizenship norms of the modern state system.71 This is because there is a fundamental contradiction in the relationship between security, emancipation and community. Emma Rothschild points out that “security is an objective of individuals” that “can only be achieved in a collective political process.”72 While the pursuit of emancipation and security thus requires community, the form such a community will take is unlikely to be emancipatory in the sense that Booth anticipates. Notwithstanding their various motivations, political communities tend ultimately to be exclusive, privileging the survival of the community over both the survival of individual members of that community, and communities or individuals excluded from membership.73 In this context, Booth also essentially disregards the practical effects of pursuing emancipation. West African individuals and non-state communities have pro-actively sought emancipation as an essential component of their security, but in doing so have actually generated conflict in the form of physical violence. Those who seek emancipation as a long-term goal may well be ready to sacrifice the immediate security of enemies and friends alike. In sum, critical understandings of politics in general and security in particular, elevate the role of the individual as both a referent and a political agent. This has generated new interpretations of international society, where individuals are increasingly understood in their capacity to influence the transformation of both domestic and international norms. Nevertheless, international society remains closely tied to a state-based conception of political structure. In order to understand politics and conflict in West Africa, it is important to recognise the extent to which many individuals and non-state communities operate with minimal reference to this state- based structure. Transversal society has a strong and constraining structure of its own. Rarely accounted for in analyses of West African conflict, transversal society provides a deeper understanding of why politically-motivated “civil war” in the region has a tendency to lose its revolutionary element, become protracted, and endanger the stability of neighbouring states. Importantly however, the strength of transversal society has not dismantled the importance of statehood in West Africa. To a certain extent, the links that have been established between the two spheres are
71 Andrew Linklater, The Transformation of Political Community (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998). Rob Walker, "The Hierarchicalisation of Political Community," Review of International Studies 25 (1999): 151-56. 72 Rothchild, "What Is Security?," 70. 73 See Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defence of Pluralism and Equality (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985). Wight, Systems of States. Chapter 1 52 mutually-reinforcing, and prevent individuals from radically overhauling the prevailing system. In order to understand the full impact of these linkages, it is important in the first instance to investigate the development of West African states, which remain both the primary forum for high-level politics and the principal object of violent attack. Such an investigation is the subject of the next chapter. Chapter 2 53
Chapter 2 – West African Statehood and International Society
In a thesis that is primarily concerned with regional security and politics, it is important not to neglect the role of the state, which remains a significant actor in West Africa, both in terms of international relations, and through its impact on the lives of individuals and non-state communities. To a significant extent, conflict sheds light on the nature and impact of pre-existing political structures, and while conflict in West Africa has highlighted the neglected role of transversal society, it also further underlines the power and influence of the state form. Importantly, focusing on the development of the West African state as a primary structure of governance serves to highlight the importance of both regional and international norms. This chapter demonstrates the profound influence of international society. It exposes the manner in which international society has interacted with West African norms and the material objectives of West African political elites to generate a particularly West African form of international society. A central focus of this chapter is the empirical reality of international norm dissemination and localisation. The West African experience reveals some of the complexities of this theoretical framework. Significantly, the discourse surrounding norm localisation is largely positive, highlighting the value of adapting norms to reflect cultural differences rather than indiscriminately adopting Western practices. However, recognising the shallowness of expectative norms and the potential for them to be manipulated provides a much more nuanced understanding of norm localisation. International norms often have a profound effect on governance structures from the centralised state to the local level, but this may not be the effect desired by norm entrepreneurs. The aim of this chapter is to develop a nuanced understanding of the West African state that takes account of the relationship between norms of statehood arising in European-centred international society, and norms of political organisation arising within the framework of West African politics and power. This relationship is significant because it has profoundly shaped the structures of domestic politics, and these structures provide a significant basis from which to understand the motivation for and dynamics of conflict in the region. The chapter thus begins by considering the creation of West African states as they gained a place in international society. It then goes on to provide a historical account of how the relationship between international and West African norms developed, from colonialism to post-independence neo- Chapter 2 54 patrimonialism and ultimately to the institution of democracy. Of particular import is the agency and power of the region’s political elites, who have proven very capable of adopting international norms for their personal development, adapting to changing expectations in international society.
The Construction of Centralised Statehood Up to the end of the nineteenth century, the political world could perhaps best be described as a compilation of several independent regional international societies that operated according to their own rules and norms. It was during the twentieth century, as part of the process often vaguely referred to as “globalisation,” that these systems began to coalesce and form a single international society with global reach.1 Sub-sections of this new international society continue to operate in part according to their own regional norms, but the impact of broader international expectations has been profound. In West Africa, international society norms originating largely in Europe have had a major effect on unit type, inter-state relations and domestic political structures. They were even the reason for the creation of states at the end of the colonial period. This was not a one-sided process however. A successful transition to state-based politics required West African acquiescence, and this was found principally amongst political elites who expected to derive personal benefits from the transition. The pluralist international society in which independent West Africa emerged had been developed by Western European states and their capitalist allies, who understood the state to be the appropriate unit through which to conduct international affairs. Relations between states operated according to a number of basic rules, the most enduring of which has been adherence to state sovereignty. When the UN was formed after WWII, little was expected of member-states other than respect for sovereignty and national integrity. Importantly however, this mutual-respect for sovereignty emerged amongst states that had already begun to develop a high level of normative consensus, sharing basic beliefs about how governments should operate internally in relation to their people. A pluralist society emerged on the basis of solidarist expectations. Shared views of appropriate governance led the states of
1 Yasuaki Onuma, "When was the Law of International Society Born? An Inquiry into the History of International Law from an Intercivilisational Perspective," Journal of the History of International Law 2, no. 1 (2000): 1-66. Chapter 2 55
Western Europe to recognise each other as juridically equal units in international affairs, and to construct norms of expectations regarding how territorial states should operate in relation to each other.2 As the African states gained independence and juridical equality after 1957, they were drawn into this international society.3 Whereas a European international society had been built on the basis of reciprocal expectations of internal behaviour, the expectations imposed upon newcomers to the system regarded only their external relations, leading to the well-documented phenomenon of the artificial African state with strong juridical sovereignty but weak empirical sovereignty.4 The borders of African states were fixed and have remained largely unchallenged, but the ability of African governments to assert authority over their people has been much more fragile. The seeming overarching deference to sovereignty and non-intervention thus provides evidence of a pluralist international society that is by definition unconcerned with the internal workings of its member- states.5 The norm of non-interference is based on the understanding that governments should be accountable first and foremost to their own citizens, rather than to foreign states. This concept stems in part from the European expectative norm that citizens play a central role in determining their political leadership.6 However, as non- intervention was codified in the international law of the UN, accountable governance receded as an important pre-requisite for sovereignty. Somewhat paradoxically, the elevation of the popular principle of national self-determination as an international right was tied to independent governance and hence the exclusion of any international interference to verify the implementation of popular governance. James Mayall refers to this as an “accommodation” between “the prescriptive principle of sovereignty and the popular principle of national self-determination.”7 It essentially implicated international society in the perversion of its own norms. While European states cemented government as determined by the people, the export to Africa of the continent’s international expectative norms has in practice returned “sovereignty” to
2 See Wight, Systems of States, 33. 3 See Kacowicz, Zones of Peace in the Third World. 4 See Jackson, Quasi-States. 5 See Jackson and Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist." Robert H Jackson, The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 179. 6 Friedrich Kratochwil, "Sovereignty as Dominium: Is there a Right of Humanitarian Intervention?," in Beyond Westphalia? State Sovereignty and International Intervention, ed. Gene M Lyons and Michael Mastanduno (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1995), 31. 7 James Mayall, Nationalism and International Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 35. Chapter 2 56 its much older European meaning more akin to that of private property: the right of the sovereign to rule his territory and his people as he sees fit, with recourse to violence to keep order if necessary.8 When sovereignty is, in international affairs, accorded to “the state,” this ultimately means that sovereignty belongs to the official office of governance, an office which remains stable in spite of changes in the nature or identity of particular governments. At least until the beginning of the 1990s and in many cases through to the twenty-first century, according sovereignty to the official office of governance in West African states in reality entailed giving it to a single person, assisting in the post-independence institution of personal rule within a one-party state.9 Centralised statehood, one of international society’s most basic expectative norms, was in this way manipulated by the West African elite. In most instances, the structures and norms of international society have not spread to the region unnoticed. They require the acceptance of political leaders who are often in the position of choosing whether or not to adopt them. The adoption of centralised statehood is one of the most obvious examples of this process. This is not to suggest that it would have been easy or viable for African leaders to operate outside of the expectations of international society, but to highlight how they have been able to ensure that adherence to the system suits their ends. Jean-François Bayart refers to the African ability to exploit many aspects of the international system as “extraversion.”10 In this case, we see an extraversion of norms – a studied involvement in global international society and its normative consensus. Significant to an understanding of specifically West African patterns of behaviour is the development of norms particular to the African sub-section of international society. Like the UN in broader international society, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) acted for 39 years as a legal and institutional forum codifying African international norms. Given the power relations of African politics in the post- independence period, these were the norms that African elites wished to see developed, with or without the support of a wider section of the population. Tellingly, the Charter of the OAU began, “We the Heads of African and Malagasy States and
8 See Kratochwil, "Sovereignty as Dominium," 22. 9 Thomas M Callaghy, "The State as Lame Leviathan: The Patrimonial Administrative State in Africa," in The African State in Transition, ed. Zaki Ergas (Houndmills & London: Macmillan, 1987), 89. 10 Bayart, "Africa in the World," 218. Chapter 2 57
Governments,”11 in contrast to the UN Charter which begins, “We, the Peoples of the United Nations.”12 The power of the executive across the continent led Boutros Boutros-Ghali to remark in 1964 on the existence of an “Africa of Heads of State.”13 The OAU was formed in 1963, just as African states had begun to declare their independence, and before distinctly African norms of inter-state behaviour had developed. The norms articulated in the organisation’s Charter were thus essentially a reflection of European expectative norms. The main norms seen as fundamental to the African state system were those relating to the sanctity of colonially-defined borders, sovereign equality and non-intervention – all important to both the smooth transition to African independence and ongoing governmental power. Before the Charter was signed, radical Pan-Africanism had posed a challenge to this European-inspired inter-state ideology. It advocated greater continental co- operation, unity and even, as articulated by Kwame Nkrumah, political supranationality.14 A number of African states on the eve of independence had voiced their support for this movement, but the OAU demonstrated only the minimum co- operation required to establish a charter that asserted the independence and sovereignty of African states. This unreserved acceptance of European standards in the face of an alternative Pan-African ideology reflected in part a rational understanding that adhering to European-drawn borders and norms would avoid conflict and leave states free to pursue internal goals like economic development and the consolidation of weak political entities.15 It allowed them to be recognised and assisted by institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.16 However, the OAU legal framework was not only a vehicle through which to pursue policy according to a logic of consequences. It was also founded upon structures, norms and identity constructions that had emerged during the colonial period and were well established by 1964. In detailing the impact of international society and its manipulation by powerful elites, it is important not to denigrate the role and influence of domestic structures and identity norms. For example, a central component of the transition to
11 Organisation of African Unity, "OAU Charter," (Addis Ababa: 1963), 1. 12 United Nations, "Charter of the United Nations," (San Francisco: 1945), Preamble. 13 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "The Addis Ababa Charter: A Commentary," International Conciliation 35, no. 546 (1964): 45. 14 Kacowicz, Zones of Peace in the Third World, 159. 15 Ibid., 154. 16 Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 100. Chapter 2 58 independent statehood was the emergence of territorial nationalism during the colonial period. This was an important factor in the legitimacy accorded to the centralised elites who drove the push for independence in the 1950s and beyond. Strong identification with nationalism is still in evidence. For example, the current civil war in Côte d’Ivoire is being fought in terms of who has the right to call themselves a “true” Ivoirian, even though the idea of “Ivoirian” is a colonial construct little more than a century old.17 The ideological norm regarding identity based on independent nationhood was well established as a pattern of behaviour when African states made the decision to join European-directed international society. Importantly, nationalism as an identity norm was bolstered by the centralisation of West African political structures during the colonial period. It did not replace pre-existing identity arrangements, but added an additional layer that gained power through its relationship to the emerging political structures that determined access to wealth, the legitimate use of violence, and involvement in high-level decision-making. Historically, international society has interacted with West African norms to produce distinct regional political structures.
Colonialism International society generated an expectation of centralised statehood, but its influence may well have been negligible without the direct impact of colonialism in West Africa. The region’s patterns of political organisation within individual states stem from two sources. First, as the state is a relatively new phenomenon on the continent, pre-colonial norms of political behaviour remain significant. These were developed across the geographical region through structures that bear little relation to contemporary boundary demarcations. Second, although its implementation was somewhat varied, colonialism was experienced in some form across the whole of Africa. While particular norms will inevitably differ in individual states, both pre- colonial regional norms and the common colonial experience have contributed significantly to the formation of similar patterns of political organisation throughout the continent. During the colonial period, pre-existing political structures remained important and were utilised by the colonial rulers, but were altered by the establishment of links between local elites and the centralised state government.
17 Collett, "Ivoirian Identity Constructions," 625. Chapter 2 59
Centralised governance stemmed directly from the metropolitan power. The experience of Liberia was clearly different to the rest of West Africa, as it gained independence in 1847. However, similar structures were nevertheless established by the freed African-American slaves who modelled the territory on the American political system and became established as the elite class, employing methods of organisation similar to colonial authorities elsewhere in the region. The ultimate effect of colonialism and its legacy of centralised statehood was the creation of neo-patrimonial systems of politics. While there are clearly differences between the political systems of different states in West Africa, neo-patrimonialism has existed to a certain extent in all of them. The concept of patrimonialism has been widely employed to denote a system of rule based on personal linkages and the preferences of powerful individuals rather than bureaucratic rules and institutions.18 It is not a concept particular to Africa, but actually stems from Max Weber’s characterisation of pre-modern European states and has been used to describe traditional politics from Latin America to Asia.19 The important variations of patrimonial authority have generated a wealth of terms used to denote different forms of the system, such as “clientelism” and “prebendalism,” but all encompass some form of personalised distribution of authority and wealth, and can thus be subsumed under the idea of “patrimonialism.”20 “Patrimonialism” is a valid descriptor of pre-colonial societies across much of West Africa. Likening traditional local patrons to contemporary warlords, Paul Richards traces this form of political organisation back to the nineteenth century in the Mano River region, and there are even similarities with the organisation of politics by West Africans involved in the slave trade.21 Richards notes that in the nineteenth century, “warlords” competed for subservient populations who relied on them for protection at the same time as their labour was used for the production of goods to be exchanged along trade routes under patrimonial control. This system remained significant during the colonial period, but it was the introduction of centralised
18 Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa, 61. 19 See Max Weber, Economy and Society (New York: Bedminster Press, 1968). Robin Theobold, "Patrimonialism," World Politics 34, no. 4 (1982): 548-59. 20 See Jean François Médard, "L'état néo-patrimonial en Afrique noire," in États d'Afrique noire: formation, mécanismes et crises, ed. Jean François Médard (Paris: Karthala, 1994), 323-53. 21 Paul Richards, "To Fight or to Farm? Agrarian Dimensions of the Mano River Conflicts (Liberia and Sierra Leone)," African Affairs 104, no. 417 (2005): 580. See also Richard Fanthorpe, "On the Limits of Liberal Peace: Chiefs and Democratic Decentralization in Post-War Sierra Leone," African Affairs 105, no. 418 (2006): 32. Chapter 2 60 bureaucracy under colonialism that gives merit to the idea of “neo-patrimonialism.” Colonial and post-colonial states were not classic patrimonial systems, as the bureaucracy introduced independent rules and institutions. New structures of authority and methods of distributing centralised wealth were established. The way in which indigenous actors used these institutions to continue what was largely a personalised form of politics constituted a new, more sophisticated and institutionalised form of patrimonialism – “neo-patrimonialism.”22 In contrast to Western-style liberal democracies, a neo-patrimonial system is sustained by personal linkages and unofficial commerce rather than the bureaucracy.23 Under colonialism, Western norms of political organisation transformed West Africa’s political surface, but the norms were not adopted wholesale. They were adapted to fit existing political structures, and a significant layer of politics continued to operate largely as it had previously. In centralising political authority, colonialism generated additional power for those in control of the state. It created an institutional bureaucracy and workforce officially loyal to the state, access to resources through channels such as general taxation and trade levies, and official control over security forces in the form of a national army and police force. While the institutions of the colonial territories were on the surface modelled on the European norm of parliamentary democracy, whereby all citizens had the right to vote in competitive multi-party elections,24 centralisation also involved the establishment of a powerful executive. A powerful and independent president was a feature of French politics if not of British, but the latter likewise fostered the power of the executive office as a symbol of authority in African territories during the colonial period. However, while authority was thus centralised, the colonial executive did not have the means to directly control populations across large territories. Indirect rule through the use of “native authorities” was thus a second feature of the colonial system. 25 From the initial implementation of colonialism, the metropoles began to foster a network of powerful elites with far-reaching authority. “Indirect rule” is most commonly associated with British imperialism. However, while the French are
22 Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa, 62. 23 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 31. 24 Jimmy Kandeh et al., "Ethnicity and National Identity in Sierra Leone," in Borders, Nationalism and the African State: Sudan, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Sierra Leone, ed. Ricardo Larémont (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), 196. 25 Morris Szeftel, "Political Crisis and Democratic Renewal in Africa," in Voting for Democracy: Watershed Elections in Contemporary Anglophone Africa, ed. John Daniel, Roger Southall, and Morris Szeftel (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 12. Chapter 2 61 generally considered to have been more closely involved in local politics, their direct interests and capabilities stretched little further than the ports, urban centres and lucrative agricultural areas. In the more remote parts of their colonies, to take Côte d’Ivoire as an example, they too relied on the authoritative legitimacy of local elites, “co-opting the Senoufo traditional structure of governance,” as described by Richard Stryker.26 While the British and French systems of colonialism differed considerably, in terms of their impact on the creation of regional norms of political organisation across West Africa, the commonalities have been more significant than the differences. European norms of external behaviour requiring centralised authority, and internal necessities of control requiring delegation to local elites, contributed to the elevation of the power of individual African leaders. Local patrons were provided with access to the bureaucracy, resources and security of the state in return for maintaining law and order in the area over which they traditionally had authority.27 Thus were they streamlined into a hierarchical form of centralised state politics, but the organisation of politics by local patrons remained largely unchanged. This was particularly the case in the more remote areas of the colonies, which in coastal West Africa meant the northern hinterland and the border regions. The colonial imposition of centralised authority might even be thought of as institutionalising clientelism by adding an additional centralised state level to the hierarchy of personalised rule. As Bayart describes the situation in Cameroon, “current inequalities and characters of domination are solidifications of pre-colonial structures.”28 As Reno explains, “Colonial administration [in Sierra Leone] was split between informal accommodations with indigenous intermediaries and bureaucratic norms.”29 In an interesting example of invention of tradition, the colonial rulers observed existing structures, but gave existing elites additional power through direct links to the centralised government and metropolitan power. By seeking to order society using existing territorial chieftaincies, colonial governments rendered official the patrimonial, “warlord” systems of West African politics. In the Kono region of Sierra Leone, British authorities provided loyal chiefs with European weapons, which
26 Richard Stryker, "Center and Locality: Linkage and Political Change in the Ivory Coast" (University of California, 1970), 81. 27 Kandeh et al., "Ethnicity and National Identity in Sierra Leone," 189. 28 Jean-François Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun (Paris: Presses de la Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, 1985), 19. 29 William Reno, Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 78. Chapter 2 62 the chiefs used to maintain and increase their control over both formal and illicit trade in diamonds, ivory, gold and groundnuts.30 The British inadvertently removed traditional checks on the power of local decision-makers who previously had to depend on the local population for the conferral of legitimacy.31 The common system across West Africa was thus constituted by a mix of colonial and pre-colonial structures of authority; it was a system that was to continue in the post-independence period.
Post-Independence Neo-Patrimonialism The neo-patrimonial system established by the structures of colonialism continued in the post-independence period. While the leaders of the nationalist parties who led their countries had in most cases been democratically elected, they lacked the means to extend their authority over their whole territory and to a large extent mimicked colonial methods of asserting control. Either the states they inherited had insufficient resources, or the new rulers lacked sufficient control over resources to both accumulate their own wealth and provide for the whole population. State elites bought the support of local patrons by providing them with access to state resources and government jobs, and these local patrons in turn provided their subordinates with resources and protection in exchange for their continued support.32 At the local level, vertical, personal ties between ordinary people and their powerful, wealthy elites largely took the place of interest-based institutions. A hierarchy of direct wealth distribution was thus maintained. Rather than using an individual vote to bring about change at the highest level, the poor and the powerless expected assistance from those who ranked above them in this hierarchy and with whom they had kinship and other close ties. The power given to elites by colonial authorities intensified a system that appears to have existed in pre-colonial times, but it persisted as a result of short-term necessity. Local communities needed the wealth that could be channelled through the local elite while such leaders needed the continued support of their people to retain their own access to the power and wealth of state authorities. The post-independence neo-patrimonial system of governance was sustained by the network of linkages from
30 Ibid., 33. 31 Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 43. 32 Szeftel, "Political Crisis and Democratic Renewal in Africa," 14. Chapter 2 63 the central government’s “Big Man,” through local elites and finally to their local support base.33 In the aftermath of independence, the shallowness of the surface commitment to democracy derived from European norms and consolidated in nationalist movements quickly became apparent. The new leaders were in every West African state unwilling to permit challenges to their authority. Every attempt was made to undermine burgeoning opposition parties, and if this was unachievable, their victories were overturned.34 In Sierra Leone in 1967 for example, when the opposition won the election, the new prime minister was immediately ousted through a coup d’état initiated by the leader of the previous governing party.35 Presidentialism was a significant feature of neo-patrimonialism. A single leader had a great deal of official power to rule according to a personal agenda, to treat the state resources as a personal bank account, and to fill the government with those who were loyal to him. In Liberia, the President made all executive and many public service appointments himself.36 West African presidents tended to see themselves as benevolent, and political rhetoric was paternalistic, coloured with phrases meant to establish the president’s position as a chiefly father figure. Leaders such as Houphouët of Côte d’Ivoire and Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea were particularly well-known for the personalised nature of their rule, and they often travelled through their countries to consult with, or at least to give the appearance of consulting directly with members of their population.37 Some of the new leaders tried to justify their denial of opposition through the need for national unity and long-term projects for development. However, as Frederick Cooper points out, independence had for the most part been achieved with the support of civil society in the form of “leaders of parties, trade unions, farmers’ organisations, merchants’ groups, students, and intellectuals.”38 In order to silence potentially dissenting voices from such quarters, ruling parties had to either co-opt the support of such groups, who were often led by traditional chiefs given additional
33 Frederick Cooper, Africa since 1940: The Past of the Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 157. 34 Christopher Clapham, Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 56. 35 J Anyu Ndumbe, "Diamonds, Ethnicity, and Power: The Case of Sierra Leone," Mediterranean Quarterly 12, no. 4 (2001): 91. 36 Christopher Clapham, Liberia and Sierra Leone: An Essay in Comparative Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 37. 37 Jean François Médard, "La régulation socio-politique," in État et bourgeoisie en Côte d'Ivoire, ed. Yvew A Fauré and Jean François Médard (Paris: Karthala, 1982), 61-88. 38 Cooper, Africa since 1940, 159. Chapter 2 64 power under colonialism, or had to use coercive tactics such as force, preventive detention and the suspension of the rule of law. Until 1990, no mainland African opposition party was able to take over the reins of government as a result of electoral victory.39 However, while West African leaders were powerful, and officially had control over the structures of state politics, the same methods of control that gave them power also made them fundamentally weak. Buying the loyalty of local patrons created a hierarchy of control with the president at the top, but it also increased the independent power and wealth of such patrons who continued to control their local populations and cross-regional trading routes. The possibility of defection was very real and very dangerous for individual presidents, and it was for this reason that they often used violence in an attempt to intimidate potential enemies. In addition, personalised power ensured that an individual president could exploit the resources of the state, but it also meant that if loyalties shifted, the whole structure might collapse. Further, clientelism encouraged state involvement in the economy, but the more presidents tried to gain control over and tax exports, the more local patrons withdrew their goods from official channels and engaged in a parallel, informal economy. Ultimately the necessity of engaging in corruption, in a system that demanded the continuous redistribution of state wealth to a few powerful individuals, meant that little money was put into common goods such as infrastructure, education or health care. In Côte d’Ivoire, Houphouët spent earnings from cocoa exports on projects such as a grand cathedral in his home town. In Nigeria in the early 1990s, as much as ten precent of the oil revenue disappeared from the state coffers into the pockets of wealthy elites. In Ghana, state exports of cocoa declined from 560,000 to 249,000 tons between 1965 and 1979 due to the disincentives of the state taxation system.40 The neo-patrimonial system thus created a very brittle form of power for the individuals at the top of the hierarchy. In Sierra Leone in 1995, Siaka Stevens retired and passed presidential power to his successor, Joseph Momoh, but retained his personal domination of the informal economy and appropriated assets previously belonging to the state. The rampant corruption of Momoh’s presidency was in part evidence of his desperate need to create a powerful network of supporters in the face
39 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 56. 40 Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa, 67-68. Chapter 2 65 of the significant economic and political power of the strongmen that Stevens and his associates had become. Stevens’s appropriation of state wealth was part of the reason for the dramatic decline in state resources and hence the state’s inability to maintain a patronage network and prevent widespread poverty or the destruction of basic infrastructure and services. The failure of the state in this regard alienated potential supporters who turned instead to alternative patrons, many allied to Stevens.41 Momoh’s attempts to challenge the authority and resources of these patrons provoked two coup attempts towards the end of the decade. It was the contrast between the institutionalised strength of the executive office, with peaceful removal from power almost constitutionally and practically impossible, and the insecurity of shifting personal alliances, combined with often widespread discontent, that made coups d’état and insurgency such constant threats in Africa. The 267 successful and unsuccessful coup attempts which took place between 1960 and 1990 across the African continent are evidence of this deep instability.42 The 1980s in particular was a decade in which political opposition to incumbent regimes increased dramatically, as the optimism of the post-independence period had come to an end and the dramatic economic downturn of the late-1970s had created widespread poverty and undermined the legitimacy of a number of single-party governments.43 The power of the executive office meant that the removal of the president or prime minister by any means was likely to give rise to political upheaval and the opportunity for people to transform the norms of the political system. However, in most cases before the 1990s, a change in individual leadership did not entail a transformation in the nature of the political system. In Liberia for example, 1980 saw the coup d’état of Doe which overturned the 100-year dominance of the Americo-Liberian elite True Whig Party but installed a new regime that operated according to the same exclusivist patrimonial logic.44 Doe attempted to give significant positions to members of his own personal network, mainly members of his Krahn ethnic group, but he continued to rely heavily on the wealth and the connections of members of the previous ruling elite whose power had
41 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 121. 42 Te-Yu Wang, "Arms Transfers and Coups D'état: A Study on Sub-Saharan Africa," Journal of Peace Research 35, no. 6 (1998): 659. 43 Patrick Chabal, "A Few Considerations on Democracy in Africa," International Affairs 74, no. 2 (1998): 292. 44 Eboe Hutchful and Kwesi Aning, "The Political Economy of Conflict," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 209. Chapter 2 66 been enhanced by the patronage of first William Tubman and then William Tolbert, both Americo-Liberians. He gained no allies amongst this group by murdering powerful figures of the previous administration and attempting to remove others from power. Instead of supporting him, patrons who had power that extended beyond Liberia’s borders prevented him from gaining significant control over either the bureaucracy or the resources of the state.45 A major exporter of rubber, these resources should have been a major source of wealth for Liberia, but the rubber plantations were mainly in the hands of individual patrons and foreign companies over which Doe had little control. Not only were plantation owners able to withdraw from the formal economy and deny the state a share in their wealth, but they also commanded the loyalty of many Liberians who relied on them for jobs on the plantations.46 The possibility of Doe gaining widespread popularity and detracting from the power of these local patrons was slight. Having claimed to be seeking to overturn the dominance of the elite Americo- Liberians, Doe ultimately did very little to change the existing neo-patrimonial system. Differences in individual styles of rule notwithstanding, new leaders in West Africa were rarely willing or able to instigate change “all the way down” to the satisfaction of their people. For real change that would give individuals more ability to influence political behaviour through the state and in African international society, what was needed was a transformation in the normative underpinnings of the system itself.
Democratisation European-directed international society is changing. While transformation has been ongoing, the end of the Cold War brought about changes in the normative consensus of international society that were directly relevant to the African state system.47 As Boutros-Ghali said in 1995, “The time of absolute and exclusive sovereignty… has passed.”48 The powerful actors in international society have gained a solidarist focus on creating a normative consensus on internal standards of behaviour. Once again, African states have not chosen to rebel against the normative
45 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 81. 46 Amos Sawyer, The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1992), 252. 47 Richard Dowden, "The State of the African State: The Past, Present and Future of the Nation State in Africa," New Economy 11, no. 3 (2004): 140. 48 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, "An Agenda for Peace," (New York: United Nations, 1995), 44. Chapter 2 67 movement. They have adapted to it. Thus, the OAU was reborn as the African Union (AU), with a reduced focus on state sovereignty and non-intervention. The new organisation has codified standards of behaviour that include a commitment to democracy and reciprocal rights of African states to ensure security and good governance throughout the region, regardless of international boundaries.49 The extent to which this is a pragmatic attempt by leaders to evince solidarity with evolving international expectative norms while continuing with past behaviour or at least using the new norms to achieve the same ends must be considered. However, what must also be given consideration is the possibility that this is not just a reflection of international expectations but also the culmination of a pattern of political change from the people within African states; a demonstration of the interaction between international and domestic norms. The 1990s democratisation movement is supposed to have effected a fundamental change in the norms of internal governance. However, the debate surrounding representation in African politics is now primarily concerned with whether or not this much-lauded “second independence” constitutes a normative change in direction, and has actually transformed the old top-heavy neo-patrimonial system.50 The timing of the movement suggests that international norms were very influential in Africa’s democratisation: the end of the Cold War delegitimised the Communist alternative, leaving Western capitalist liberal democracy as the only form of governance recognised as legitimate by the sole remaining superpower in the international system. As this sense of legitimacy was shared also by the ex-colonial European states which still held substantial influence over the structures of African politics, the old neo-patrimonial leaders were under pressure to transform. It would no longer be possible to gain financial support from one or other of the superpowers in return for ideological loyalty. The United States as the sole remaining superpower had substantial capacity to coerce ideological conformity if necessary, and did not need to buy support from developing countries. In addition, as the 1990s began, the African people had the example of democratic transitions in Eastern Europe to follow. Norms thus appeared to be changing as a result of international pressures and ideological expectations, but this apparently major transformation in the African
49 Christopher Clapham, "Introduction," International Affairs 81, no. 2 (2005): 276. 50 Peter Michael Lewis, "Economic Reform and Political Transition in Africa: The Quest for a Politics of Development," World Politics 49, no. 1 (1996): 124. Chapter 2 68 political landscape has been greeted with scepticism in many quarters. In a number of cases, multi-party elections were held in the 1990s but former members of the political elite were re-elected by a significant majority.51 In West Africa, the majority of incumbent leaders, whether popular figures or military dictators, were returned to power in ostensibly democratic elections. In Benin, military dictator Mathieu Kérékou was actually deposed in the elections of 1991, but was returned to power five years later. The re-election of dictators was sometimes due simply to popular support for the long-serving leader, but was more often the result of electoral manipulation, and in many cases was at least in part due to the disorganisation of the opposition. In some cases, the opposition party chose to boycott the elections in protest at how the elections had been organised; in others the opposition became quickly divided as leadership challenges caused a number of small parties to break away from the major political grouping, thus handing victory to the ruling party. In Côte d’Ivoire elections were held so suddenly that opposition groups had no time to organise themselves or to build up a legal and financial basis to rival that of the ruling party.52 One of the problems is that the implementation of democratic transition has been largely top-down, with incumbent politicians determining how the new system will operate and to what extent it should differ from the previous system.53 These leaders are adept at appearing to implement reforms as expected by the international community without affecting their own individual accumulation of wealth and hold on power. International society norms required the appearance of democratic transition, but independent states were expected to bring about such a transition through their own methods. The regional norm in West Africa in the early 1990s was for military dictators to engineer their re-election. This is what the region’s leaders expected from their peers. Old African dictators slipped easily into the new mandatory vocabulary of international society concerning democracy, liberalisation and good governance, but this change in discourse did not necessarily result in the birth of a system that would curb the power and wealth of the centralised authority.54 The normative power of neo-patrimonialism in West Africa is such that it is possible that democracy cannot be grafted onto established political structures before deeper
51 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 32. 52 Szeftel, "Political Crisis and Democratic Renewal in Africa," 4. 53 James Wunsch, "Refounding the African State and Local Self-Governance: The Neglected Foundation," The Journal of Modern African Studies 38, no. 3 (2000): 487. 54 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 36. Chapter 2 69 changes are made.55 Peter Lewis notes that while it is important to modify the institutions of a neo-patrimonial government, it is equally if not more important to bring about a change in the relations between rulers and ruled.56 Clientelism has continued to play a part in the operation of “democratic” administrations from the local to the state level. The same wealthy elites continue to control the concrete rewards of patronage and expect votes from those who benefit from this.57 To account for the apparent incompatibility of democracy and African political systems, some have pointed to a failure of nationalism, claiming that people continue to be divided according to pre-colonial ethnic boundaries.58 However, the difference between African and Western states is unclear in this regard. Very few of the Western states that are often cited as “ethnically distinct nations” actually merit this label. At their formation, most European state incorporated a number of ethnic and linguistic groups who even now protest their inclusion within a centralised state. Good examples of this are the Occitan people in France and the Basque people in France and Spain. Italy was not federated until the twentieth century, France’s borders were not finalised until after WWII, and Belgium could yet split into two nation- states. Settler colonies such as the United States and Australia, so often heralded as models of liberal democracy, are even more ethnically heterogeneous and have yet managed to construct strong national identities. Jimmy Kandeh, Ricardo Larémont and Rachel Cremona have suggested that it was Sierra Leone’s failure to construct a coherent national image that led to its failure in other senses,59 but the conflict that took place there was strikingly free of ethnically-based divisions. In Liberia, the Americo-Liberian elite that accumulated significant resentment from less wealthy sections of the population were not the exclusive ethnic group that Doe claimed it to be when he took power in a 1980 coup.60 In addition to the freed American slaves who settled in Liberia in the 1800s, this group also included many wealthy traditional elites with pre-established support bases throughout the country. By the 1990s in Côte d’Ivoire, ethnicity had become
55 See Amos Sawyer, "Governance and Democratization," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 9. 56 Lewis, "Economic Reform and Political Transition in Africa," 117. 57 See Cooper, Africa since 1940, 170. 58 See for example Szeftel, "Political Crisis and Democratic Renewal in Africa." Wunsch, "Refounding the African State and Local Self-Governance." Benyamin Neuberger, National Self- Determination in Postcolonial Africa (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1986), 14. 59 Kandeh et al., "Ethnicity and National Identity in Sierra Leone," 181. 60 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 81. Chapter 2 70 more pertinent than in many other West African countries, but even here, accusations of specifically ethnic clientelism emerged only after the formation of hierarchical patrimonial networks based on common economic interest. President Houphouët was ultimately accused of favouring his family’s Baoule ethnic group, but his political career was originally based on support from agricultural workers and then of large plantation owners who did not necessarily live in the traditional Baoule area of the country.61 Political parties may have links to the leaders of traditional ethnic groups, but they have mostly represented economic interest groups. This also negates the second common reason given for the failure of democracy in Africa: the lack of class structures. Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz propose that “class” is an inappropriate word to describe African neo- patrimonial structures as politics relies more on identification with hierarchical ties linking individuals to local strongmen rather than to economic peers across the country.62 Yet the experience of emerging democracy across the Greater Mano River Area is that of strong classes linked to economic function and education. In addition to unions of students and workers, neo-patrimonial structures clearly produce a class of wealthy elites. It could be argued that “class” is an inappropriate descriptor here as individual elites have rarely worked towards the attainment of a goal as a coherent group. However, they have nevertheless tended to work independently towards the attainment of the same individual goals, and have often sought recourse in the network of elites that was established across West Africa. In Nigeria, political elites have begun to find that they have more in common with each other than with their supporters, and although their interest in personal wealth and power accumulation means they are unlikely to become a coherent group or party, it is instructive that the most powerful among them have networks that reach not only their kinship groups but cut across ethnic and religious lines with a basis that is at least on the surface linked primarily to political and economic intentions.63 The failure of democracy in West Africa, such as it is, is not a failure of either nationalism or class consciousness. Nor is it a failure of individualism or issue-based community. Arguments that emphasise the incompatibility of international democratic norms and African understandings of politics and citizenship deny the input of
61 Collett, "Ivoirian Identity Constructions." 62 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 40. 63 Richard L Sklar et al., "Nigeria: Completing Obasanjo's Legacy," Journal of Democracy 17, no. 3 (2006): 105. Chapter 2 71
Africans into the democratisation of their own countries. International norms have a great deal of power to influence the identity and behaviour of states both in international society and in a domestic setting. However, they cannot determine the reaction of individuals to their leaders and system of governance. The solidification of structures introduced by external powers and the elites of the new states through the development of norms is highly dependent on the salience of these ideas – on the extent to which they are compatible with individual identities as well as existing political culture.64 The neo-patrimonial structure has been very constraining, but this is not because of an inability on the part of Africans to seek emancipation from this structure. The early evidence of civil society groups across West Africa using democratic structures and techniques, belies the idea that West Africans were ever satisfied by dictatorship posing as unified governance.65 The transition to multi-party democracy in Africa began with demonstrations in West Africa in 1989. As Bayart observes, “from 1989 most sub-Saharan African countries experienced an unprecedented wave of demands for democracy, which succeeded in bringing about the downfall of several authoritarian regimes and forced others to accept multi-party politics.”66 Domestic pressures stemming from growing discontent with the prevailing neo-patrimonial systems were at least as important as international pressures for reform. Whether or not West Africans had previously seen their systems of governance as legitimate, until the end of the 1980s they appeared to have little choice but to tolerate them as successive “reformists” slipped into power using the same methods and working towards the same goals as the leaders they had criticised and deposed.67 However, from as early as the mid-1970s, many West African states began to experience economic crisis as their primary exports failed to generate sufficient resources to sustain their whole population and international debt continued to rise. Those who suffered most as a result began publicly to oppose the centralised authoritarianism that resulted only in the enrichment of elites and groups with whom they had no relation. The civil society groups that had been repressed in the initial post-independence period began to regroup, building up their influence and demanding political rights. With continued declines in resource wealth, poverty
64 Cortell and Davis, "Understanding the Domestic Impact of International Norms," 66. 65 Cooper, Africa since 1940, 159. 66 Bayart, The State in Africa, x. 67 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 33. Chapter 2 72 became more widespread and many elites found that they had little to gain from loyalty to the president’s patronage network.68 Escalating economic crisis and dissatisfaction with the failure of successive governments to transform the neo- patrimonial system of politics combined by the end of the 1980s to produce widespread discontent amongst the African citizenry whose disillusionment was independent of international pressures for change. In the five years following 1989, the combined strength of civil society demonstrations and the actions of disaffected elites was enough to force over forty African military and single-party regimes to democratise at least in name.69 Michael Bratton and Nicholas Van de Walle comment that “in 1989, 29 African countries were governed under some kind of single-party constitution, and one-party rule seemed entrenched as the model form of governance,” whereas by 1994 “not a single de jure one-party state remained in Africa.”70 In spite of this apparent change, the power of the neo-patrimonial system has made it difficult for liberal democracy to emerge at anything other than a surface level. There are several instances for example, of ideological movers of change finding their capability to effect transformation constrained by their need to retain the legitimacy provided by powerful backers who had assisted their election and expected reciprocity.71 This has been particularly evident amongst the youth movements, which have been instrumental in mobilising opposition, but whose members have in many cases been co-opted into the old state apparatus. It seems evident that networks of alliances existing within the old system have carried over, and personal linkages have facilitated individual exploitation of political benefits. In spite of the structural constraints however, the democratisation movement demonstrates the potential of individuals and non-state communities to emancipate themselves from the hegemony of the prevailing neo-patrimonial structure of the state, including both personalised central rule and the power of local patrons.
Conclusion Europeans created the sovereign state in West Africa, and the norms of European-centred international society have continued to influence the operation of the region’s political system. Within Africa, a sub-section of international society has
68 Lewis, "Economic Reform and Political Transition in Africa," 123. 69 Ibid.: 94. 70 Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa, 8. 71 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 35. Chapter 2 73 been created in which these norms interact with indigenous structures of political organisation. In practice, these structures have been determined almost solely by African heads of state, as they were given extensive power by both the legacy of colonialism and the subsequent development of international society. The legacy of colonialism combined with sub-system expectative norms, particularly non- intervention, to create the ubiquitous neo-patrimonial political structure that is at the heart of conflict in West Africa. The widespread neo-patrimonial system essentially involved rule by an all-powerful head of state who consolidated this power and wealth through a network of local patrons. The failure of this system to provide economic security or adequate political representation eventually led to dissent amongst the populace. The volition of individuals, combined with international transformations in the norms of state-based international society, led to the democratisation movement of the 1990s and attempts to alter internal political systems. However, across West Africa the power of the neo-patrimonial structure made real democratic change very difficult. In the Greater Mano River Area, dissent in the late 1980s led to violent insurgency rather than peaceful change, so it is important to consider whether this more extreme form of rebellion was able to produce more extreme political transformation.
Chapter 3 74
Chapter 3 – Warlord Conflict and its Regional Dynamics
In many West African states, the new democracy of the 1990s was more apparent than real. However, a few of the region’s states did not take part in the movement at all. In Sierra Leone and Liberia there was not even an opportunity for a surface commitment to multi-party elections. Instead, both countries were consumed by civil war. Beginning as the Cold War ended, these conflicts contributed to slowly changing conceptions of security in international relations. As the threat of war between superpowers was effectively eliminated by the demise of the Soviet Union, Western policy makers and analysts could turn their attention to crises previously overshadowed by the central concern with major inter-state alliances and rivalries. As a result, literature suggesting that the focus of international security in both theory and practice should be the individual rather than the state began to gain much more credibility and acceptance than it had previously enjoyed. The conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone demonstrate the importance of human security to the development of a stable political system. Although it took a further ten years to collapse, the conflict in Côte d’Ivoire is likewise evidence of what occurs when individuals and non-state communities are threatened by oppressive structures. Whereas theories of hegemony suggest that people will not rebel against the system within which they operate,1 violent insurgency is similar to democratisation in the extent to which it demonstrates the significant autonomy of individuals and communities to re-think political structure and attempt to effect change. The boundary separating democracy from violent conflict, often precipitated by “state failure,” is quite fragile. The aim of this chapter is thus to explore the nature of conflict as rebellion against the inherited state political structure. The dual structure of politics in evidence within West African states becomes clearly exposed during violent conflict because of its impact on conflict dynamics – significantly impeding resolution and constraining attempts to prevent its spread across the region. The chapter also demonstrates how regional transversal society renders West African conflict particularly unresponsive to state-based transformations and interventions. The first part of this chapter rejects the idea, popular during the 1990s, that prospects for wealth accumulation constitute the central motivation for war in the region. By choosing to rebel against the state, West
1 Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Order," 139. Chapter 3 75
Africans demonstrate their capacity for emancipation and their desire to effect political change at the highest level. However, the second part of the chapter exposes how the organisation of warlord conflict impedes possibilities for political transformation. Those who seek to subvert the norms of state politics seek recourse in the norms of transversal society. Co-opted by warlords, these norms can prove oppressive and unmalleable, impeding human security and reducing the possibility of deep-seated change at the state level. Warlord conflict creates a significant economic and political undercurrent that consolidates regional norms of patrimonial control. Conflict is both directed towards the state, and organised transversally. It both provides the possibility of change, and reinforces the strength of existing structures.
West African Security and Conflict The civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone were brutal. They had horrendous consequences for millions of people in terms of loss of life, injury, displacement and rape, as well as the destruction of infrastructure and institutions, leading to long-term unemployment and homelessness. During the 1990s, the seemingly senseless nature of the violence provoked two kinds of analyses that both, in different ways, sought to distance this kind of conflict from the allegedly peaceful norms of the West. On the one hand were analyses that saw only barbarity and a Hobbesian total war of all against all, where civilisation had been stripped away leaving no respect for human life or dignity.2 In purported reaction to this type of analysis were those who emphasised rational choice in civil war. They sought to differentiate themselves from literature that was coloured with words like “collapse,” “chaos,” “ancient hatreds,” “barbarism” and “anarchy,”3 in an effort to provide “comfort that some rationality… can be discerned beneath the otherwise baffling violence witnessed in many of these wars.”4 The central claim was that wars exist because they are beneficial to the participants; that people engage in conflict for financial gain.5 Despite the emphasis on rationality, this ultimately did little to detract from the idea that West Africans are
2 For the most notorious and extreme version of this, see Robert D Kaplan, "The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease Are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet," The Atlantic Monthly (1994). 3 Megan Gilgan, "The Rationality of Resistance: Alternatives for Engagement in Complex Emergencies," Disasters 25, no. 1 (2001): 5. 4 Hutchful and Aning, "The Political Economy of Conflict," 201. 5 See for example Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, Greed and Grievance in Civil War (Washington: World Bank, 2001). Duffield, "Globalization, Transborder Trade, and War Economies." Chapter 3 76 essential barbarous, adding only the qualification that respect for human life and dignity disintegrates in the face of an opportunity for increased wealth. This rational-choice based literature appears to see rebel groups as inherently mal-intentioned, and there is little tolerance for the view that they might have legitimate political goals, or that they may not have initially intended mass violence to result from their insurgency.6 Paul Collier claims that “greed” is statistically more likely to cause conflict than “grievance.”7 In his analysis, economic agendas are measured by primary commodities, the proportion of young men in a society, and the endowment of education. The significance of grievance is measured by ethnic hatred, economic inequality, a lack of political rights and government economic incompetence. For Collier, such statistical analysis of situational factors is key because the rhetoric of rebel groups cannot be trusted. However, even if it can be assumed that gender proportion and education are economic rather than political factors, and if it is accepted that qualities such as political rights can be quantified, Collier’s analysis is undermined by his emphasis on elite-level motivations. Collier himself notes that rebel leaders need to propagate grievance-based motivations for conflict in order to attract a sufficient following, but he dismisses the core importance of these motivating grievances felt at the non-elite level.8 Similarly dismissing the motivations of non-elite insurgents, Christopher Clapham specifically differentiates the “warlord insurgencies” of the type found in Liberia and Sierra Leone from more legitimate liberation, separatist and reform-minded insurgencies found elsewhere in Africa. His characterisation is that warlord insurgencies are “distinguished by personal leadership, generally weak organisational structures, and still weaker ideological motivation.”9 Assessing motivations for conflict is a task that is necessarily fraught with ambiguity. The evidence in favour of any argument tends to be rather subjective. In this Chapter, I accept Collier’s assertion that rhetoric is a poor indicator of true motivation, and instead interpret motivation according to the socio-economic situation
6 David Keen is one of the few who separate political causes as a motivation for war, from economic agendas that take over as a war economy gathers momentum. See David Keen, "Incentives and Disincentives for Violence," in Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, ed. Mats Berdal and David M Malone (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 19-41. 7 Paul Collier, "Doing Well out of War: An Economic Perspective," in Greed & Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, ed. Mats Berdal and David M Malone (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 91. 8 Ibid., 92. 9 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 212. Chapter 3 77 existing in Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone prior to the commencement of conflict. I also assert that while personal leadership is a significant factor in “warlord insurgencies,” non-elite West Africans are agents whose choices with regard to conflict participation are as relevant as those of elite actors. This necessitates a focus on individual decision-making at its most basic, even though “individuals” can often be difficult to distinguish from the non-state communities of which they are a part. The Chapter thus also takes into account the constraining impact of exclusive community and strong organisation structures. Potential for emancipation is reflected in the violent politics of dissent, both in a direct struggle against the state and through the transversal demonstration of its irrelevance. While intellectual theories such as communism or anti-colonialism are not evident in the Greater Mano River Area conflict network, the pervasive desire to overcome the constraints of neo- patrimonialism might well be described as an “ideological motivation” for conflict. Many of the political and economic reasons given for peaceful demonstrations demanding democratic change are the same reasons both ordinary people and political elites across West Africa have given for resorting to violence. Civil conflict can on at least one level be seen as the last resort of a people desperate to temper the power of wealthy elites and transform the nature of their violent and oppressive political system.
The source of insecurity in West Africa The juridical survival of West Africa’s states has never been seriously threatened. Most gained independence from the European colonial powers in the 1960s, although Liberia has been independent since 1847, and Cape Verde was not released by the Portuguese until 1975. Since then, in terms of sovereignty and territorial integrity, West African states have rarely experienced the insecurity allegedly produced by international anarchy. With a few exceptions such as the Agacher Strip War between Burkina Faso and Mali (1974 and 1985), and the Mauritania-Senegal Border War (1989-1991), the external security of West African states has been guaranteed by the norms of state sovereignty and non-intervention that stem from their collective and willing membership of international society. In traditional international relations theory, particularly realism, state survival is “the Chapter 3 78 prerequisite to achieving any goals that states may have.”10 This straightforward principle remains as true for West Africa as it has ever been for Western Europe. The difference between historic Western European inter-state relations and the post- independence history of West Africa is that state survival in the latter has been guaranteed by the norms of international society rather than by a balance of military power. African states have not had to exercise authority over their entire population or demonstrate Weber’s definitive “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” 11 to qualify as sovereign states. The immediate effect of this has been to reduce the value of juridical sovereignty as a pathway to security. That is, Western European states gained juridical sovereignty as a result of empirical factors such as control over territory and population. To assert juridical sovereignty was to provide evidence of domestic authority, leading to a reasonable guarantee of internal state security, at least in the short term. In West Africa by contrast, juridical sovereignty is only as strong as international law, and provides no such guarantee of internal strength. While it remains a pre-requisite for a state to achieve domestic and international goals, juridical sovereignty can simply be assumed by most West African regimes, which instead need to focus on establishing empirical sovereignty in order to achieve internal security and stability. “State failure” is a term that is often applied in reference to West Africa. It is indicated by the disintegration and malfunction of the institutions of governance and the erosion of the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force. It implies internal breakdown rather than external attack. The failure of the state is rarely related to the take-over of territory by a neighbouring state and it does not necessitate a withdrawal from international society. The external survival of states such as Liberia and Sierra Leone has never been questioned, even at the height of their crises. However, states in this situation both lose their ability to pursue international goals, and cease to have any meaningful impact on the behaviour of their citizens. As a result, security has to be redefined. West African states are much more likely to fail as a result of internal insurgency than through aggressive activity on the part of neighbouring states.12
10 Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 91. 11 Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. Hans H Gerth (London: Routledge, 2003), 78. 12 See the “Copenhagen School” definition of security in Barry Buzan et al., Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), 22-23. Chapter 3 79
Traditionally, it is understood that states are the actors that make decisions in international society. There would seem to be no guarantee that the decisions of governments will reflect the values of individual citizens or enhance their security, particularly in non-democratic states. In order to remedy this problem, proponents of CSS present the normative argument that the security of individuals and non-state communities is intrinsically valuable, and that a people-centred rather than state- centred understanding of security is required as a result. However, even if the normative objective is to preserve state and regime security, the destructive effects of insurgency in West Africa demonstrate the importance of providing human security to individuals. Even pluralist international society is to a significant extent reliant on the security of individuals. Its norms and rules would be ineffective without the support of stable governments. A failed state is a rather deficient “citizen” of international society, unable to assert its rights or perform its duties internationally. Taking a position against that of CSS, Mohammed Ayoob argues that in societies of the developing world, fragmentation and division actually enhance the importance of the state as the key to order and stability.13 However, as human insecurity provokes violent insurgency, state order and stability would themselves appear to be predicated on the security of individuals Across Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, individual citizens and non- state groups have in a sense asserted themselves as the most appropriate security referent by questioning the legitimacy of incumbent governments given power by the support of international society. The instability within West African states demonstrates the attention that states must pay to the security of their citizens to ensure their own survival. In addition, the agency of individuals within non-state political communities, who seek to overthrow existing oppressive structures, suggests that international society should shift its focus and expand its understanding to include individuals and non-state communities as significant political actors in their own right. Understanding West African conflict as political rather than senseless or purely economic requires an acceptance that existential threats may arise from sources other than inter-state conflict; that the state may not be a provider of security for its citizens;
13 Mohammed Ayoob, "Defining Security: A Subaltern Realist Perspective," in Critical Security Studies: Concepts and Cases, ed. Keith Krause and Michael C Williams (Minneapolis: Minnesota Press, 1997), 121-46. Chapter 3 80 and that direct violence against physical existence may not be the only or even the most important threat faced by individuals.
Human security The concept of “human security” is useful for understanding the motivations for conflict in West Africa. Whether or not it is accepted as a rival to the more traditionally recognised state security, the way in which it “broadens” the notion of insecurity to include a wide range of threats to both physical and social well-being provides a useful analytical structure for understanding “grievance”-based conflict.14 The argument that human security requires the fulfilment of certain fundamental needs can be extended to the conclusion that humans may use violence and even sacrifice their immediate physical security to ensure these needs are met. It is when human security is threatened, when human needs are denied, that a material situation is created in which the eruption of conflict becomes more likely. This view emphasises the injustice of pre-war social systems and sees armed conflict as political rebellion with intent to transform the legal and political system at the highest level. It contrasts with “greed”-based theories that see warfare as motivated by economic goals. Human insecurity, the material structure that makes conflict more likely, may include threats to both physical and social being. Needs of physical survival essentially comprise those elements that are universally necessary to sustain human life. They are generally considered to be both finite and non-negotiable. The most obvious of these is the need for personal security from violence, but they also include needs of sufficiency – the ability to sustain life and good health through sufficient access to food and shelter. To a certain extent, this is a form of economic need, but in contrast to the “greed” envisaged by rational-choice theories, this is an economic need driven by a struggle over an inadequate share of limited and declining prosperity.15 Over the past decade there has also been a new emphasis on environmental factors as material causes of conflict, particularly in Africa. Such environmental causes of war
14 See Jones, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory. 15 See E Wayne Nafziger and Juha Auvinen, "The Economic Causes of Humanitarian Emergencies," in War, Hunger, and Displacement: The Origins of Humanitarian Emergencies, ed. E Wayne Nafziger, Frances Stewart, and Raimo Vayrynen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 91-146. Chapter 3 81 include increasing population size combined with the overuse or abuse of renewable resources.16 Adding to the requirements of physical being, political and social needs entail most basically a desire for good governance, including the provision of access to employment and education. More fundamentally however, needs of social being are essentially needs of freedom and identity. Freedom, as it should be understood in relation to human security, includes the ability to exercise political choice in order to avoid repression.17 Analysts such as Gary King and Christopher Murray include democracy as an essential element of human security,18 but the idea can be more universally applied if a need for political freedom is understood simply as implying a need for a sense of participation in decision-making. Failure to be included in the decision-making process can lead to a feeling of exclusion, lack of recognition and alienation, creating extreme dissatisfaction with social position. This contributes to a situation in which conflict may begin to seem appealing as a method of overcoming emotional discontent. Both the “greed” thesis and the “irrational barbarity” thesis of conflict motivations and dynamics correspond to elements of reality in West Africa over the past two decades, but they provide only partial accounts of these particular elements. Missing is the context of insurgency, and it is the context that provides the deepest insights into the causes of conflict and the reasons for its prolongation and recurrence. The RUF of Sierra Leone, and the NPFL and LURD of Liberia provide ample examples of both greed and apparent irrationality. Côte d’Ivoire’s Forces nouvelles (FN – New Forces) has been more restrained in its tactics, but with the RUF and the NPFL dominating the terrain of insurgency in West Africa during the 1990s it is not difficult to understand why ideological politics is missing from most analyses of this period. Neither the RUF nor the NPFL as organisations presented coherent conceptions of how they would like to see politics re-ordered in post-conflict states. The RUF’s manifesto, Footpath to Democracy is heavy on rhetoric and light on
16 See Wenche Hauge and Tanja Ellingsen, "Beyond Environmental Scarcity: Causal Pathways to Conflict," Journal of Peace Research 35, no. 3 (1998): 299-317. 17 Johan Galtung, "International Development in Human Perspective," in Conflict: Human Needs Theory, ed. John Burton (Houndmills & London: Macmillan, 1990), 309. 18 Gary King and Christopher JL Murray, "Rethinking Human Security," Political Science Quarterly 116, no. 4 (2001-02): 585-610. Chapter 3 82 concrete ideals.19 At peace negotiations, the lack of a strong intellectual or political wing left RUF representatives foundering with broad socialist demands that were largely untenable in Sierra Leone’s context of severe underdevelopment and poverty, such as free education, free health care services, rural development and a people’s budget.20 In the case of the NPFL, criticisms focus more on Taylor’s personality cult and his preoccupation with acquiring wealth and power through the exploitation of both natural resources and people under his control. In spite of the validity of these criticisms, neither extreme brutality nor a preoccupation with economic agendas emerged in isolation from the material situation of human insecurity prevalent across the Greater Mano River Area. Failure to articulate a viable alternative political model does not render insurgency un-political. Whatever the failings of the rebel organisations, their germination and their ability to attract large followings are symptoms of deep-seated political grievances. Danny Hoffman argues that the aim of members of the RUF was to assert themselves as political speakers.21 What they intended to do with that political voice once they had obtained it was less important than acquiring a role in the decision-making process. While the RUF was to become notoriously vicious and apparently lose sight of this political goal, its original aim is somewhat reminiscent of struggles for democracy in which the object is to give people a political choice, not to dictate the nature of that choice. While few in Sierra Leone will now associate themselves with the RUF, at the beginning of the conflict they benefited from significant civilian support.22 In the prelude to conflict in Sierra Leone, the state failed to provide economic security for much of the population despite the apparent wealth in natural resources.23 Inflation was at an extreme level, and government services such as electricity and telecommunications infrastructure were barely functional.24 The state also failed to provide social and political security. Corruption and political mismanagement had been a feature of Sierra Leonean governance since Albert Margai took power in 1964, and were only entrenched by the successive one-party governments of Stevens and
19 Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone, Footpaths to Democracy (Freetown: Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone, 1995). 20 Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone," 192. 21 Danny Hoffman, "Disagreement: Dissent Politics and the War in Sierra Leone," Africa Today 52, no. 3 (2006): 3. 22 Ibid.: 8. 23 James Fairhead, "The Conflict over Natural and Environmental Resources," in War, Hunger and Displacement: The Origins of Humanitarian Emergencies, ed. E Wayne Nafziger, Frances Stewart, and Raimo Vayrynen (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 151. 24 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 120. Chapter 3 83
Momoh that trampled on democratic possibilities.25 Unequal educational opportunities, job prospects, social justice and access to health care sparked anger amongst the country’s youth, a particularly marginalised element of Sierra Leonean society in the 1970s and 1980s.26 The pre-conflict situation in Sierra Leone was thus clearly one in which grievances could be expected to generate violent insurgency. The population in general was living with both political and economic insecurity, and young men isolated from political decision-making honed this insecurity into a rebellion against wealthy elders in general, and the elite of the governing All People’s Congress (APC) in particular. While it may not have had an articulate political agenda, the aim of the RUF was clearly to overthrow the APC, seen as the cause of prevailing insecurities.27 A similar political situation lay behind the generation of conflict in Liberia – in both 1989 and 1999. The 1970s saw the crystallisation of economic and political problems as primary commodity prices fell on the international market and Tolbert’s government proved unable to deal with the domestic fallout.28 Prices for staples such as rice rose beyond the capacities of most Liberians, provoking widespread anger and discontent. Economic difficulties also squeezed the redistributive mechanisms of the patronage system, exposing its harsh inequalities. It was during this decade that Liberian civil society, including Liberian intellectuals and unemployed urban youths, emerged to protest against the political system.29 Peaceful protests descended into riots, and it was in this climate of dissent that Doe’s successful coup d’état took place. Doe’s leadership however, did little to improve either the economic or the political system.30 Between 1980 and 1983, revenues from rubber, iron ore and timber exports fell from $484 to $363. Economic “growth” fell to negative three percent per annum.31 Doe also made non-violent political change through democratic elections almost impossible, and his violent modes of repression only increased the level and
25 Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, 10. 26 Keen, "Incentives and Disincentives for Violence," 35. Hoffman, "Disagreement," 9. Steven Archibald and Paul Richards, "Converts to Human Rights? Popular Debate about War and Justice in Rural Central Sierra Leone," Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 72, no. 3 (2002): 345. 27 Hoffman, "Disagreement," 5. 28 David Harris, "Liberia 2005: An Unusual African Post-Conflict Election," The Journal of Modern African Studies 44 (2006): 432, Quentin Outram, "Liberia: Roots and Fruits of the Emergency," Third World Quarterly 20, no. 1 (1999): 164. 29 Jusu-Sheriff, "Civil Society," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 270. 30 Outram, "Liberia," 167. 31 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 87. Chapter 3 84 organisation of anti-government dissent.32 Whatever the real motives of the leaders of the NPFL and despite its inarticulate political position, the rebel movement was similar to the RUF in that it gained support in a climate of significant insecurity and persistent bad governance. After Taylor’s victory in the 1997 elections, few expected the new government to institute free and fair democracy, or to dramatically improve the country’s economic prospects, and a new rebel movement was quickly formed. LURD invaded in 1999 with the intention of overthrowing the government, an endeavour that many of Taylor’s victims saw as legitimate. Ex-combatants on both sides of the war claim they had high ideals for peace and democracy,33 and General Joe Wiley, a key figure in the LURD movement, has been particularly adept at describing LURD’s good intentions. Now writing his memoirs under the title From Fighter to Writer, he distances the political struggle of LURD from the “ugly, irresponsible, and apolitical rebel past,” and claims that his insurgency always intended to hand control of Liberia back to civilian politicians.34 LURD rebels were clear that they fought for the overthrow of a government that used arbitrary violence against its population and expropriated wealth into the hands of a few elite individuals. Like both the RUF and the NPFL, such high ideals are belied by the atrocities committed and their unwillingness to bring the war to a peaceful conclusion, but they are nevertheless indicative of the sentiments and wishes of the local population. Where the rhetoric appealed, it did so because it resonated with the needs of fundamentally insecure individuals and communities. The conflict in Côte d’Ivoire emerged in very similar political and economic circumstances. The public advantage of the FN is that it has been less randomly violent, more willing to negotiate and much more articulate and measured in its political aims. Interestingly, the conflict in Côte d’Ivoire demonstrates how a combination of environmental and economic factors can very easily become a situational cause of civil war. The country has since colonial times relied on the export of cocoa beans for its economic success. In the 1980s, the over-cultivation and consequent erosion of land suitable for cocoa plantations led to heightened
32 Ibrahim Abdullah and Ismail Rashid, "Rebel Movements," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 175. 33 Interviews with ex-Liberian combatants in Accra, Ghana, February 2007 34 Interview with General Joe Wiley in Accra, Ghana, February 2007, and citation from the unpublished From Fighter to Writer Chapter 3 85 competition over smaller areas of arable land. Concurrently, there was a dramatic decline in the world market prices for cocoa beans leading directly to a downturn in the “miracle” Ivoirian economy and increasing competition for the economic resources of the country as a whole. By the 1990s it was clear that the government was financially unable to both equitably distribute arable land and other economic resources, and ensure that the production of cocoa beans was maximised. The division between those with competing claims to agricultural resources became a focal-point of the civil war that began in 2002.35 In addition to the economic difficulties, during the 1990s Côte d’Ivoire had been subject to a series of rigged elections, military coups and the ongoing exclusion of major political parties. This eventually generated extreme frustration amongst certain sections of the population who began to see violent rebellion as their only means of making their voices heard. Clearly, using violence to overthrow an incumbent government is an extreme form of influencing politics, but in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, violent revolt was a last resort after years of economic and political destruction.
Individual agency and emancipation The concept of grievance-based conflict discredits the perception that popular leaders have the power to determine whether war or peace will prevail by manipulating local sentiment and identity.36 The latter view takes not only responsibility, but also agency and emancipatory potential away from individual citizens. While elite personalities do have significant power to influence norms, beliefs and opinions, their rhetoric would be ineffective if it failed to correspond to the realities of human insecurity experienced by individuals and non-state communities. Even in situations where leaders are believed to be manipulating local sentiment only to mask private aims to accrue power and economic benefits,37 continual apparent congruence with the aims of their supporters is necessary to their continuing status as well as the success of the insurgency. In cases of intra-state war, the conflict participants are people who have purposefully chosen to regard the established hierarchy as illegitimate and are attempting to subvert and rapidly
35 See Collett, "Ivoirian Identity Constructions." 36 See Ukoha Ukiwo, The Study of Ethnicity in Nigeria (Oxford: Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity, 2005). 37 See Michael E Brown, "The Causes of Internal Conflict: An Overview," in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict, ed. Michael E Brown (Cambridge & London: The MIT Press, 1996-97), 14. Chapter 3 86 transform their social structure for long-term benefit. They thus have their own motivations and reasons for following particular leaders. Evidence of individual agency and rational political objectives is clear in the majority of cases. Rebels tend to have an intimate knowledge of the laws and procedures that threaten their human security. In Côte d’Ivoire, one example of political awareness and debate within the main rebel group, the Mouvement patriotique de Côte d’Ivoire (MPCI – Patriotic Movement of Côte d’Ivoire), is its comprehensive website entitled “The Need to Inform!”38 In 2006, it included documents detailing the movement’s aims, discussion forums, news updates, and links to major television and radio stations. In the months leading up to the planned 2006 elections, it was in the process of conducting a poll: Do you think elections in the current context will resolve the Ivoirian problem? Four possible responses were offered: “Yes! Definitely,” “Yes! But only if they are fair,” and “No! Not with Gbagbo,” and “No! The only solution is to take up arms once again.”39 The website was backed up with constant radio and television broadcasts in rebel-held territory.40 The opportunity for propaganda is evident, but Côte d’Ivoire is served by about thirty radio stations, and rebel-held territory is reached by the Ivoirian government, the BBC, Radio France Internationale and the UN as well as the MPCI. Political information is widely available. The collective but independent decisions made by West Africans in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire to subvert powerful state political structures in order to redress human insecurity demonstrates their political awareness and potential for emancipation. Importantly however, emancipation is not tied to security in quite the manner envisaged by Booth. Booth sees emancipation as the ends that can be achieved through the realisation of security. It corresponds closely to the social aspects of human security, as it includes freedom from marginalisation, discrimination and inequality between groups.41 In West Africa however, the search for emancipation, like the lack of human security, has acted as a trigger for conflict and hence insecurity in the short-term. West African conflict participants demonstrate not
38 Own translation of “Le devoir d’informer!” Mouvement Patriotique de Côte d’Ivoire, “MPCI: Le devoir d’informer!,” www.mpci.info 39 Own translation of “Pensez-vous que les election dans le context actuel regleraient le problème Ivoirien? Oui! Définitivement; Oui! Mais sauf si on les reports; Non! Pas avec Gbagbo; Non! La seule solution est la reprise de la guerre.” MPCI, “MPCI: Le devoir d’informer!” www.mpci.info 40 “Côte d’Ivoire: Sleepy Rebel Capital Slowly Wakes up to Peace,” IRIN News 2003. 41 See Booth, "Security and Emancipation." Also Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization (Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, 1996). Chapter 3 87 the fulfilment of emancipation but their willingness to assert their right to it in spite of the immediate cost. Fierke’s distinction between freedom from the structures of power that constrain potential and freedom from the assumptions that blind people to alternative structures is perhaps instructive here.42 In seeking the emancipatory security that is the expected result of rebellion against the constraining structures of power, West Africans demonstrate their ideational emancipation from prevailing hegemonic assumptions. In the Marxist tradition, Max Horkheimer links emancipation to the rebellion of the proletariat.43 Belying assertions that class is absent from West African politics,44 this form of emancipation is evident in all of the insurgencies across the Greater Mano River Area. To a significant extent, overcoming repressive political structures has been synonymous with the poor and disadvantaged attempting to overturn the power held by West Africa’s political elites. A broad social struggle has been behind rebellion across the region, and particularly in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Before the outbreak of warfare in both countries at the beginning of the 1990s, academics and students generated an ideological agenda based on social equality and anti-imperialism. Their protests against incumbent un-democratic governments gained the support of much of the regional under-class, particularly the young urban unemployed. An emancipatory attempt amongst the lower classes to escape their social position is evident in all of the insurgencies of the Greater Mano River Area, forming the basis for an even deeper form of emancipatory rebellion. Attempts to overcome the social and even physical aspects of human insecurity across West Africa entailed rebellion against the underlying repressive and pervasive structures of neo-patrimonial governance. Côte d’Ivoire provides the clearest example of this. Rob Walker comments on “the contradictions written into the heart of modern politics: we can only become humans… after we have given up our humanity… to the greater good of citizenship.”45 To a certain extent, conflict and insurgency in Côte d’Ivoire represents an emancipatory attempt to reclaim humanity from pre-defined notions of citizenship and exclusionary nationalism. Politically, the war has been fought over the right to
42 See Fierke, Critical Approaches to International Security, 189. 43 Max Horkheimer, "Traditional or Critical Theory," in Critical Theory: Selected Essays (New York: Seabury, 1972), 155-71. 44 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 40. 45 Rob Walker, "The Subject of Security," in Critical Security Studies, ed. Michael C Williams and Keith Krause (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 71. Chapter 3 88 inclusion in “Ivoirité,” a term that denotes purity of Ivoirian citizenship through family heritage, even though Côte d’Ivoire has only existed as an independent political entity since 1960. The “rebels” are those who refuse to accept exclusion based on the location of their parents’ birth. This is not solely a question of the right to an identity. The notion of exclusive citizenship poses a very real existential threat to a large minority of people living and working in Côte d’Ivoire. During the 1990s, land ownership became predicated on Ivoirité. As agriculture is the major source of income in Côte d’Ivoire, particularly for the descendants of immigrants from surrounding countries, survival through a sustainable livelihood became tied to citizenship. In 1995 and 2000, Ouattara was prevented from standing in the presidential elections.46 A northerner with family ties to Burkina Faso, he was the preferred candidate for many low-income farmers and agricultural workers in the north, particularly those from migrant backgrounds. His exclusion denied these constituents the possibility even of influencing the laws that threatened their survival. In rebellion against this situation, Ivoirian insurgents have thus demonstrated the potential and the desire for emancipation from the political structures that excluded and constrained them to such an extent that their survival was threatened. In questioning this structure, rebels and their supporters have also demonstrated the potential and the desire for emancipation from the hegemony of thought that dictated nationally-held assumptions about notions of citizenship tied to the survival and progress of the state. The rebel movement that emerged in 2002 was closely linked to the politically excluded, and involved rebellion against the existing construction of “citizenship” and the special rights conferred on “citizens.” In order to ensure their own survival, individuals and non-state communities had to question the basic political assumptions that privileged the security of the state and enabled the citizenship structure that excluded them. Emancipation has thus been fundamentally tied to existential security in the Ivoirian civil war.
Exclusive political community Emancipation, particularly when linked to rebellion against the exclusive politics of statehood and citizenship, reflects the importance of individual agency. It demonstrates that individuals are capable of rejecting the political structures that
46 Jeanne Maddox Toungara, "Francophone Africa in Flux: Ethnicity and political crisis in Côte d'Ivoire," Journal of Democracy 12, no. 3 (2001): 63-72. Chapter 3 89 threaten their security and constrain their progress. However, the overarching emphasis on individualism within CSS has left it open to the criticism that it is as Euro-centric as traditional realist and liberal theories. It neglects the importance and the constraining impact of political community, even as people seek emancipation and security. CSS seeks to draw on community as a core component of security along with emancipation, but the type of community envisaged is that of a “universal community of humankind.”47 In contrast, the type of community that accompanies the pursuit of emancipation in West Africa is very exclusionary, in two central ways. First, war derives from inter-group conflict. Human insecurity generally only leads to conflict when it is felt at the community level. Threats to human security trigger conflict when there is at least a perception that one group is being denied their basic human needs in contrast to the benefits accrued by other groups. Second, even when insurgency constitutes a broad revolutionary struggle and it seems clear that individuals have asserted themselves as the most significant referent of security, warfare necessarily involves armed conflict between groups. Such groups tend to be exclusionary, and constrain the emancipation of individual members. The idea of “relative group deprivation” explains that it is the difference between the expected and the actual wealth and power accruing to particular groups that is likely to cause conflict. As E Wayne Nafziger makes clear, “Relative deprivation is the actor’s perception of social injustice arising from deprivation relative to other groups in society.”48 Absolute individual grievances in their extreme form entail the loss of ability to maintain physical or social existence, sparking anger and discontent. For this to trigger civil conflict however, there will generally be a hostile division in society and a strong sense of injustice, so that an opposing group can become the object of that anger and discontent. Divisions between groups in Africa are often attributed to ethnicity. Mary Kaldor claims that divisions between ethnic and cultural groups are particularly incendiary as individuals are born with a particular ethnicity that cannot be changed.49 It is possible to discern such ethnic divides right across the Greater Mano River Area. In Sierra Leone, Albert Margai’s rule by patronage generated a divide between the Mende, associated with his Sierra
47 Bull, "Grotian Conception of International Society," 68. 48 Nafziger and Auvinen, "The Economic Causes of Humanitarian Emergencies," 96. 49 Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001), 77. Chapter 3 90
Leone People’s Party (SLPP); and the Temne and Limba, associated with the APC.50 The divide was also geographic, as the latter tended to be coastal people; the former from the less-accessible northern part of the country.51 Under Stevens, the patronage favours were reversed in favour of the coastal APC supporters. In Liberia, Doe’s elevation of the Krahn and Mandingo communities pitted them against the Gio and Mano of Nimba County.52 In spite of these divisions, ethnicity played only a secondary role in both conflicts. In Sierra Leone, it is significant that pre-conflict grievances were felt at a community level and that a sense of deprivation was centred on a form of group identity that could be harnessed against the state, but the RUF quickly became ethnically indiscriminate in its use of violence. In Liberia, inter-group fears and revenge killings resulted in ethnically-motivated massacres early in the war, but deep- seated injustices felt at the community level linked back to the more prominent divide between the indigenous Liberians and the Americo-Liberian elite, which during the twentieth century had become more of a class than an ethnically distinct community.53 When Doe took power in 1980 he became the country’s first indigenous leader, but did little to change elite privileges.54 By diverting patronage to his Krahn people he heightened ethnic tensions, but the conflict still ultimately arose from class inequalities and the patronage system rather than hatred of the Krahn people in particular. In the early stages of the war, the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) and the United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO) sought support by promising to protect Krahns and Mandingos but as the conflict progressed there was little evidence of such protection and the alleged ethnic affiliations faded.55 Importantly, Kaldor’s ethnic argument fails to account for the difference between cultural identity and “politically-relevant cultural identity.”56 It fails to account for the extent to which politically-relevant identity groups are formed by grievances such as economic disparities which are changeable over time. Commonly- felt grievances often determine whether a conflictual division will be based on
50 Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, 10. 51 Anthony Clayton, Frontiersmen: Warfare in Africa since 1950 (London: UCL Press, 1999), 195. 52 Cain, "The Rape of Dinah," 269. 53 Outram, "Liberia," 165. 54 Jusu-Sheriff, "Civil Society," 270. 55 Ellis, "Liberia's Warlord Insurgency," 157. 56 Beverly Crawford, "The Causes of Cultural Conflict: An Institutional Approach," in The Myth of "Ethnic Conflict": Politics, Economics, and "Cultural" Violence, ed. Beverly Crawford and Ronnie D Lipschutz (Berkeley: University of California International and Area Studies, 1998), 11. Chapter 3 91 religion, region, race or ethnicity. Individual grievances are often felt at a community level precisely because the community was politically formed on the basis of commonly felt grievances. Thus commonly felt grievances may help determine where the boundaries between ethnic groups will be expressed. In Côte d’Ivoire for example, long-standing political divisions between migrant farmers and large plantation owners eventually created an ethnically-described split between the northern and southern parts of a country whose population had previously been described as a combination of over sixty distinct ethnic groups.57 Injustice and discrimination on the basis of ascriptive criteria in the immediate prelude to civil war in many cases may be only the latest manifestation of a history of failure to fulfil economic and social needs; a history that has created and sustained a feeling of community within one group in opposition to others. Exclusive communities and inter-community distrust comprise a significant element contributing to the generation of conflict in a climate of general human insecurity, but it is important not to reduce this to primordial ethnic or tribal hatreds. Once conflict begins, insurgent groups take on new identities generating very significant exclusive communities that constrain the emancipatory potential of individuals. Rebellion against the state relies on such exclusive community as it only has the capacity to be effective when it embodies a collective decision to commit to certain goals, ideals and norms. In a manner that is very reminiscent of the implicit state demand that citizens give up a portion of their independence, members of insurgent organisations and associated communities make both voluntary and involuntary sacrifices for the alleged greater good. Further, as conflict has progressed in West Africa, it has ceased to be identifiable as an emancipatory revolution of ordinary people in search of inclusive security. Insurgents and counter-insurgents generate factions that seek to eliminate each other. In Liberia for example, conflict began in 1989 as a struggle between the NPFL and the government, but by 1944 at least seven factions had emerged with similar overarching goals but competing claims to control over both political decision-making and economic benefits.58 Revolutionary principles in such a situation often give way to a struggle in which the security of individuals in one community is predicated on the insecurity of outsiders.
57 Collett, "Ivoirian Identity Constructions," 615. 58 Hutchful and Aning, "The Political Economy of Conflict," 209. Chapter 3 92
In West Africa, conflict is politically motivated. Human insecurity, rather than greed, is the main cause of rebellion against the state structures of political oppression. However, the emancipatory element of insurgency in the region has not eventuated in inclusive community, security or freedom from constraining structures. The next section of this chapter will explore how, as conflict gained momentum across West Africa in the 1990s, new structures emerged to prevent the achievement of emancipatory security and to harness the agency of individuals. Warlords used power in a manner very similar to pre-war local patrons. Their control of cross- regional trade networks and the ability to provide either security or insecurity for civilians changed the context in which political transformation was possible. West African warlords often used coercive tactics to “recruit” large numbers of soldiers, including children, into their armies.59 Their control of the war economy and their establishment of new political systems reduced the ability of individuals to make choices about whether or not to take part in conflict. All the people within the ambit of control of warlords were affected by the conflict, and often ultimately had no choice but to participate in its structures. Viewing security and emancipation as competing rather than complementary concepts, Thomas Hobbes expected that individuals would choose to relinquish part of their freedom in exchange for protection.60 A community may be a site for achieving security but not necessarily for achieving emancipation. Paradoxically, in West Africa, individuals who seek emancipation from the oppressive elites and political structures of the state, have chosen or have been forced to relinquish part of their freedom in exchange for protection from warlords, thus replicating the oppressive political structures they are trying to overcome. The re-organisation of politics during conflict is elitist and the communities created are exclusive. Where warlords do succeed in overthrowing the incumbent government, they have a poor history of transforming the oppressive political structures against which they purported to be fighting. Taylor’s Liberian presidency that followed eight years of warlord conflict is one of the most pertinent and extreme examples of this.
59 Keen, "Incentives and Disincentives for Violence," 25. 60 Fierke, Critical Approaches to International Security, 190. Chapter 3 93
A Warlord Structure of Political Organisation Critical theorists demonstrate the possibility of working outside of the normative framework that has been set up by an ideational structure. They call on individuals to overcome the hegemony of thought that has led them to accept detrimental social structures.61 Individuals in West Africa have proven their ability to operate outside of accepted structures by recognising and rebelling against the system and the perpetrators of the violence and deprivation that oppress them. However, transforming an oppressive political structure into one in which states and their people are mutually-supportive has proved much more difficult than simply toppling individual leaders. Booth looks towards a “virtuous circle of security and emancipation”62 where the two reinforce each other. In West Africa, the pursuit of security and the pursuit of emancipation are interlinked, but achieving both is prevented by the power of established structures of political community. Just as democratisation is constrained by the continuing strength of neo-patrimonialism, so too are the emancipatory possibilities of insurgency constrained by these same structures. While insurgency in each of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire was focused on transforming state political structures, as conflict progressed, powerful warlords re-created patrimonial structures of authority using similar norms to those that had initially contributed to the commencement of conflict. These are the norms of transversal society that operate right across the Greater Mano River Area. While warfare in West Africa is often depicted as warlord conflict, there is little consensus as to the meaning of the descriptor. Exploring an appropriate definition for warlordism as it operates in West Africa provides a useful vehicle for examining the nature of West African conflict as it fits into the political structure provided by transversal society. There are perhaps only two elements of warlordism on which all definitions agree. First, warlordism is personalised.63 Individual leaders, “warlords,” are very powerful, and make the key decisions that impact on the lives of their followers. Secondly, warlordism is violent. In place of peaceful negotiations or the rule of law, force is employed as a tool of both justice and coercion. However, on two very central points there is confusion as well as disagreement. First, there is little consensus as to the relative importance of politics and economics, whether as a
61 See in particular Cox, "Social Forces, States and World Order." 62 Booth, "Introduction to Part 3," 183. 63 David Harris, "From 'Warlord' to 'Democratic' President: How Charles Taylor Won the 1997 Liberian Elections," The Journal of Modern African Studies 37, no. 3 (1999): 431. Chapter 3 94 motivation for warlordism or as an organisational mechanism. Secondly, the assumed relationship between warlords and the state is very unclear. Clapham’s claim that warlord insurgencies could be distinguished by “weak organisational structures, and still weaker ideological motivation”64 is very much at odds with analyses that emphasise the construction of alternative structures of governance.65 In West Africa, economic analyses are common, and Reno’s high-profile work on the contours of warlord conflict has been very influential.66 For Reno, warlord politics should largely be understood as a style of rule. The conflict aspect of warlordism is relegated in favour of an emphasis on structural organisation. As a result, separation from the state is not central. Instead, Reno is concerned to highlight the extent to which states and state leaders implement warlord politics, characterised by the engagement with the parallel economy and supported by illicit connections to international markets. This section considers in the first instance this analysis of warlordism in West Africa founded on economic organisation, as it goes a long way towards explaining the perpetuation of disorder. However, such analyses tend to over- emphasise the indiscriminate use of violence, short-term economic goals and the failure to provide social goods.67 As such, they obscure some of the distinguishing characteristics of West African warlord conflict that have contributed to its long, regional trajectory. The section thus goes on to explore the political elements of warlordism that separate it from the West Africa’s society of states. Separating international and transversal society adds nuance to existing analyses of warlordism, as it allows for the continuing importance of state-based norms while state leaders engage in activities confined to the transversal sphere. With a definition of West African warlordism thus based in political conflict, the section ends by exploring the failure of warlord conflict to escape from existing oppressive structures of political organisation.
64 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 212. See also Reno, "Liberia," 69. 65 See for example Paul Jackson, "Warlords as Alternative Forms of Governance," Small Wars and Insurgencies 14, no. 2 (2003). Gordon Peake, "From Warlords to Peacelords?," Journal of International Affairs 56, no. 2 (2003). 66 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States. 67 Kimberly Marten, "Warlordism in Comparative Perspective," International Security 31, no. 3 (2007): 43. See William Reno, "Mafiya Troubles, Warlord Crises," in Beyond State Crisis? Postcolonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective, ed. Mark R Beissinger and Crawford Young (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 106. Sasha Lezhnev, Crafting Peace: Strategies to Deal with Warlords in Collapsing States (Lanham: Lexington, 2005), 2-3. Chapter 3 95
Economic warlordism The view that warlords are little more than economic predators is sustained by the evident importance of illicit business and trade in the areas that they control. Warlord insurgencies in West Africa make use of the region’s parallel economy that involves the unofficial extraction, production and trade of both legal and illegal goods and resources. It is largely the warlord control of exports of raw materials such as iron ore, diamonds and timber, that gives them wealth, power and authority to rival that of weak state leaders. For Reno, it is this mode of generating power through economic control that principally defines warlordism as a style of rule. As Manuel Castells explains, the ability to gain such control, independent of state structures, has been bolstered significantly by the deregulation of the global economy and the increasing ease of access to international markets.68 Through this economic analysis of warlordism, Reno demonstrates a significant affinity with the “greed” thesis of conflict. His views mirror those of Chabal and Daloz who describe the notorious conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia as “criminal” as opposed to “political” warfare.69 According to theories of conflict that emphasise economic criminality, war entails the emergence of a new system with its own self-perpetuating logic that blurs the boundaries of war, crime and human rights, thus enabling business opportunities using methods that would generally be unlawful during peacetime. Conflict is fought over control of natural resources, as well as extraneous factors such as access to labour, markets and communication systems which may not be legitimate or feasible during peacetime. In such a situation, the economic gains of war might well be seen by conflict participants as outweighing the potential benefits of victory. Conflict alters how people view themselves and others, causing the development of new norms. As warlords and their followers gain wealth and power through trade, their motivations may change and they may begin to seek the prolongation of the conflict situation that has enabled the accumulation of such wealth. As they begin to benefit from conflict, warlords may not ever wish to take up leadership of the state, which would entail financial burdens such as debt repayments and other onerous international responsibilities. In Liberia, the failure of a number of peace agreements is often attributed to this apparent lack of desire on the part of rebel leaders to give up their
68 Manuel Castells, End of Millennium (Malden: Blackwell Publishers, 1998), 166-205. 69 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 83. Chapter 3 96 lucrative position as warlords.70 Led by a powerful warlord, the NPFL in Liberia not only succeeded in gaining control over the diamond-producing regions, but also gained control over strategic ports, and established new trade routes through countries such as Côte d’Ivoire when the usual routes of export were cut off due to an ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) blockade. The NPFL’s export of diamonds, timber, iron ore and gold were not aimed at the citizens of Abidjan, but mainly at French businesses that established bases in Côte d’Ivoire with the purpose of facilitating direct contact with the NPFL in Liberia.71 The conflict situation and attendant disorder contributed to the ease with which senior warlords could conduct illicit business and trade across the region. Interestingly, West Africa’s warlords during times of conflict have acted in a very similar manner to local patrons during times of peace. The importance of the parallel economy to the longevity of “warlord states” mirrors the importance of the parallel economy to the transversal structure of patronage politics.72 The war economies that were established in the 1990s simply operated within these pre- existing networks. As a rebel leader in Liberia, Taylor made use of this existing structure to control the local economy and the people who contributed to it. Rather than erecting boundaries, he gained control over the means of production, and relied on the labour of those who came within the ambit of his power to establish a lucrative trade in the natural resources they were able to produce.73 He even collected taxes on the items he exported.74 While territory was gained and significant institutions were constructed, solid boundaries and “ownership” of the land on which people lived and from which resources were extracted were a less important part of this process. In addition, the use of violence is a central feature in both warlord- and patronage-dominated environments. Physical force and other forms of economic and ideological coercion have been common in West African patrimonial systems where corruption and illicit exchange are the norm.75 In patrimonial systems, violence has been used first and most simply in the competition to acquire wealth, territory and power. It has also been used by strongmen to protect their people from the violence of others. As a result, when a state such as Sierra Leone collapses and full-scale conflict
70 Hutchful and Aning, "The Political Economy of Conflict," 209. 71 Ibid., 210. 72 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 77. 73 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 113. 74 Ellis, "Liberia 1989-1994," 171. 75 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 78. Chapter 3 97 breaks out, a norm of violence is already established. To this extent, for many conflict participants, the experience of peace and the experience of war may not be vastly different. Semi-criminal extraction and exports to multinational businesses from the least accessible parts of West Africa involve extensive violence and corruption during peacetime.76 The norm of using violence for economic gain during conflict may not significantly change either perceptions or behaviour.77 It is by focusing on the violent economic features of warlordism that Reno is able to collapse the distinction between warlords and states. He builds a strong case to explain how warlord politics takes over from the colonially-inherited institutional norms of statehood as weak states begin to fail. In Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, nominal government was forced into using a similar combination of violence and economic coercion in its attempt to compete with powerful warlords. As Clapham says, “Some states have been so thoroughly privatised as to differ little from territories controlled by warlords.”78 Both warlords and state leaders use relations with individuals to participate in networks that pay no attention to the limits or requirements of state sovereignty. They rely on the exploitation of resources to accumulate political authority and power. Control over territory is often less important than control over market forces and control over the people engaged in cross-regional trade.79 When confronted by warlord insurgency and the collapse of institutional statehood, it is on informal market forces and economic networks that rulers of weak states begin to rely for the maintenance of wealth, power and territory. Both warlords and rulers of weak states in some situations effectively operate as multinational corporations, utilising the informal trade networks as though they were regional economic systems. It is, however, not only during conflict that governments engage in warlordism. Warlord politics as a type of violent patrimonialism has pervaded the West African system since before the creation of states, decades prior to the rash of civil conflict witnessed from the beginning of the 1990s. Weak state rulers by definition control states that are teetering dangerously close to failure. The
76 David Keen, "War and Peace: What's the Difference?," in Managing Armed Conflicts in the 21st Century, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Chandra Lekha Sriram (London & Portland: Frank Cass, 2001), 9. 77 Paul Richards, "Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone," in Conflict in Africa, ed. Oliver Furley (London & New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 1995), 159. 78 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 273. 79 William Reno, "How Sovereignty Matters: International Markets and the Political Economy of Local Politics in Weak States," in Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa: Global-Local Networks of Power, ed. Thomas M Callaghy, Ronald Kassimir, and Robert Latham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 198. Chapter 3 98 implications of state failure in terms of societal disintegration and economic decline affect not only the human security of a state’s population but also the personal wealth, power and prestige of its ruler. Weak state rulers may choose to engage in warlord politics in an attempt to stave off state collapse. The functioning of the parallel economy ultimately means that the state economy is denied a share of the profits of such trade. If the parallel economy expropriates a large share of the country’s labour and resources, the state will consequently be both under-funded and have relatively less power in relation to the strongmen that control the parallel economy. After twenty years of formal co- operation within ECOWAS aimed at establishing economic union, the proportion of official West African trade that takes place within the region is still only 10%.80 Given the high quantity and high value of goods that are known to flow across the borders between West African states, this figure makes it clear that most intra- regional exchanges take place outside the scope of official trade channels. Reno has commented that the end of the Cold War and consequent end of superpower support for loyal African leaders has meant shadow trading networks have assumed a much greater importance for West Africa’s patrons.81 It is not only local strongmen but also state officials who take part in the parallel economy, as all members of the elite are concerned with building up their personal wealth and prestige as patrons in this manner. Possibly the best West African example of a weak state that has employed warlord strategies of power and wealth accumulation is that of Sierra Leone. As President from 1971 to 1987, Stevens was adept at employing informal networks to exploit the country’s mineral wealth.82 In the years immediately prior to the outbreak of conflict, tensions between Stevens and his successor, President Momoh, emanated from competition over both resources and trade networks. When Stevens left office, he took with him not only control over substantial diamond fields but also the connections used to export them illicitly. Before Stevens’s rule, the export of diamonds generated $200 million, which amounted to thirty percent of the state’s
80 Arie Kacowicz, "'Negative' International Peace and Domestic Conflicts, West Africa, 1957-96," The Journal of Modern African Studies 35, no. 3 (1997): 377. 81 See Reno, Warlord Politics and African States. William Reno, "Shadow States and the Political Economy of Civil Wars," in Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, ed. Mats Berdal and David M Malone (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 43-68. William Reno, "La 'sale petite guerre' du Liberia," Politique africaine 88 (2002): 62-83. 82 Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 4. Chapter 3 99 formal economic production. By 1987, when Stevens had been replaced by Momoh, the worth of the diamond trade to the state had been reduced to $100,000 while Stevens and his associates continued to export diamonds to the value of $250 million.83 Momoh attempted to use military force to regain control of diamond fields and parallel trading routes, but in doing so he alienated local patrons and diamond workers, precipitating the onset of civil war. By the time the war started in 1991, the Sierra Leonean state had long been controlled by a corrupt and violent elite which has brought the country to the verge of collapse without the assistance of a malicious insurgency. As Reno argues, weak state leaders in West Africa employ the economic features of warlordism in an effort to control their population and the wealth of their country.
Political warlordism Useful and accurate as this analysis is, relegation of the political elements of West African warlordism obscures the key features that differentiate warlords from local patrons who operate within the state system. These features are integral to understanding West African conflict as they explain how warlords are able to attract and maintain support from the local population who have been consistently vocal in their demands for representative and fair elections across the sub-region. The prominent role of economics should not be assumed to have replaced either political structure or political motivation within warlord insurgencies. Differentiating between conflicts according to whether they are “criminal” or “political” is not straightforward. In most instances, control over economics is both a means of political organisation, and a means to a political end. West African warlords are political actors and independence from the state is a key feature of their political activity. There are two central ways in which this is made clear. First, West African warlords are organised politically through their generation of “warlord states” that mimic many of the features of West Africa’s juridically sovereign weak states. Normative transfer does not only occur one-way, with weak state leaders engaging in warlord politics. Warlords likewise benefit significantly from the establishment of institutions familiar in sovereign states. Secondly, West African warlords operate in direct opposition to the state. Their motivation is to overturn the incumbent government. While the
83 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 116. Chapter 3 100 operation of warlord conflict in West Africa has entailed the consolidation of economic networks in regional transversal society, the state-focused political aims of both warlords and private individuals should not be forgotten. West African warlords operate according to patterns of political organisation that run counter to the official discourse of politics in international society and its sub- system components including Africa. In this parallel world of regional politics, state borders are essentially disregarded and transversal norms increase in importance. It is during periods of warlord conflict that transversal flows of people and goods provide strong evidence that the official norms of West African international society which apparently include an over-developed awareness of the importance of state sovereignty and non-interference mask a parallel set of international norms. West African warlords largely conduct their activities in transversal society, outside of and beyond the reach of the state. Thus was Taylor effectively able to withdraw his zone of control from any kind of official regulation, creating what Clapham describes as a “new international relations of statelessness,”84 but there was little “new” about its operation. Taylor was simply using the norms and networks of the parallel economy that had already been established to extend his influence and accumulate wealth beyond his state of origin. As warlords extend their power up to and across official borders, empirical state sovereignty over a set territory is at least undermined, if not revealed to have been a fiction since long before the conflict began. The border between Sierra Leone and Liberia while both states were engulfed in civil war is a particularly pertinent example of this. The government forces of neither state were able to assert authority up to the border which was actually controlled by Taylor.85 Taylor had expanded his zone of political and economic control into Sierra Leone at the beginning of the 1990s through his support for the RUF insurgency which was originally formed within the official borders of Liberia. During the conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone as well as the tensions in Guinea, there is a sense in which Taylor and his combatants saw the Mano River basin as a single field of operation.86 This zone quickly became known as “Greater Liberia” or, more popularly, “Taylorland,”87 and it developed into a tightly- constructed patrimonial warlord state. Importantly, Taylor provided some degree of
84 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 222. 85 Ibid. 86 Sawyer, "Violent Conflicts and Governance Challenges in West Africa," 447. 87 Reno, "How Sovereignty Matters," 202. Chapter 3 101 security for loyal followers within this state – an essential public good that has been highlighted in political analyses of warlordism.88 The “capital” of Greater Liberia, the city in which Taylor maintained his headquarters, was Gbarnga, and Taylor even gave his political authority an official title: the “National Patriotic Reconstruction Assembly Government.”89 Gbarnga was actually visited by foreign diplomats, including officials from France and Germany, foreign companies were eager to do business, and a private bank was established in the town. Between 1990 and 1996, the boundaries of “Taylorland” were not fixed, but fluctuated according to the military progress of the war. However, control over territory was important insofar as Taylor was able to withdraw to a space out of reach of forces from the capital; a territory over which the Liberian government could not even pretend to have control. In addition, control over territory greatly enhanced Taylor’s export possibilities. Many economic analyses of warlord insurgencies emphasise their reliance on the profits of trade from mineral and metal resources that are high in value but easy to extract and transport, such as diamonds and gold – alleviating the need for well-organised bureaucracy in territory networks.90 However, while Taylor’s main source of income was the diamonds mines of Sierra Leone, his control over such a significant amount of territory throughout the Greater Mano River Area including timber forests in Sierra Leone meant that he had no trouble extracting and exporting more bulky goods.91 His connections to state authorities particularly in Côte d’Ivoire, also gave him a significant advantage. In addition to diamonds, he was able to export iron ore, rubber and timber, partly through the port of Buchanan but also through Côte d’Ivoire.92 For Mancur Olson, such control over territory combined with the provision of security in order to consolidate wealth and power marks the difference between “stationary” and “roving” bandits.93 His conception of “roving” bandits is akin to the common economic analysis of warlords. As Olson demonstrates, “stationary” bandits, or warlords of the type found across the Greater Mano River
88 See Marten, "Warlordism in Comparative Perspective," 47. Mancur Olson, "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," American Political Science Review 87, no. 3 (1993): 568. 89 Interviews with Nigerian military personnel at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre, Accra, Ghana, January 2007 90 Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London & New York: Zed Books, 2001), 190. 91 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States. 92 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 234. 93 Olson, "Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development," 568. Chapter 3 102
Area, are much more successful in achieving power, wealth and the political goals they seek. The logic of this form of warlord state was also the logic according to which rebels operated in Côte d’Ivoire, where the FN has created a form of non-state political authority similar to that of Taylor’s “Greater Liberia” in the northern part of the country. The rebels brook no interference from the Ivoirian government that maintains control over the south. At another extreme is the conflict in Sierra Leone, where rebels made little attempt to gain the support of non-combatants or to recreate a semblance of political authority in the areas they controlled. It has been suggested that the RUF had no need to do so as they had no political agenda.94 However, it does not follow from the evident brutality of the RUF that the insurgency itself had no internal political coherence or patrimonial structure. The organisation had a strong political hierarchy, and answered ultimately to Taylor’s leadership as part of “Greater Liberia.” While warlord insurgencies in West Africa are thus political in organisation, they are also political in motivation. Their object is control of the state. An important distinction between local patrons and warlords in West Africa is the object of violence. It is the use of violence for ambitious political purposes, rather than simply for generating personal wealth and a powerful patronage network, that distinguishes warlords from many peacetime strongmen who benefit from withdrawal from official economic channels but do not aim to overturn the political system. The economic dimensions of warlordism stem partly from the need to accumulate wealth in order to finance military operations for political ends. During the Cold War, rebel armies in Africa were in major part able to rely on external funding from the superpowers for their operations. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the loss of such superpower support increased the significance of local forms of financing, contributing to the emergence of large-scale warlord-operated businesses engaged in the extraction of natural resources such as diamonds, gold and timber. Warlords are importers as well as exporters on the global market, as they need supplies to sustain their war effort and, most importantly, they need a reliable supply of arms. These could partly be gained from neighbouring countries, particularly at the conclusion of a civil war, but were often acquired from countries of the former Soviet Union such as Belarus, Moldova and the Ukraine or from agents and suppliers in the UK, France and Germany. In
94 See for example Barry Riddell, "Sierra Leone: Urban-Elite Bias, Atrocity & Debt," Review of African Political Economy 32, no. 103 (2005): 20. Chapter 3 103
Sierra Leone the RUF relied on the exploitation of diamonds to be able to purchase arms from Taylor, their benefactor and business partner.95 The violence involved in looting can similarly be explained in part by reference to a need to pay, or at least to feed, militants fighting in rebel armies. Hence Sankoh, leader of the RUF in Sierra Leone, was famous for his “operation pay yourself” which granted a license to his rebels to loot amongst local populations. As leaders of insurgencies, warlords directly oppose the state. Taylor was eventually very ready to take over the presidency of Liberia, rather than continuing to operate below the surface of legitimate wealth accumulation.96 In Côte d’Ivoire, the rebels have extensive grass-roots support and are clearly focused on participation in centralised governance. For five years the rebels and state government were at a stalemate in the search for political resolution, with the rebels refusing to give up control of the northern part of the country until their demands for participation in national politics were met. Unlike in Liberia, the northern part of Côte d’Ivoire controlled by the rebels is the poorest in terms of opportunities for trade in natural resources. These rebels have little to gain in economic terms from a prolonged stalemate. Thus, even as warlords operate beyond the reach of the state, it continues to be the primary object of attack. While warlords like Taylor may gain economically from expanding the limits of their control across state borders, the “spill-over” of violent conflict has not in West Africa been transformed into organised insurgency without the involvement of political actors who seek greater representation at the state level. While the spread of warlord politics may be a significant contributing factor in the destruction of the state, state collapse results not only from the activity of elites motivated by greed, or the transnational spread of violence, but importantly also from the particular state’s loss of political legitimacy as it fails to provide the services to which citizens feel they are entitled.97 Côte d’Ivoire is useful to consider as an example in this regard. The conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia have been intimately linked since their inception at the beginning of the 1990s, and the cross-border networks between the two have been
95 Lillian Wong, "Conflict in the Mano River Region - Causes, Solutions and Lessons: The Case of Sierra Leone," in Conflict and Development Policy in the Mano River Region and Côte d'Ivoire: "The Regional Stakes for Stability and Reconstruction (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development, 2003), 3. 96 Harris, "From 'Warlord' to 'Democratic' President," 431. 97 E Cliffe and R Luckham, "What Happens to the State in Conflict? Political Analysis as a Tool for Planning Humanitarian Assistance," Disasters 24, no. 4 (2000): 296. Chapter 3 104 well-documented. However, strong networks have also existed between these two states and their neighbours, including Burkina Faso and particularly Côte d’Ivoire.98 In spite of this, Côte d’Ivoire remained relatively stable throughout the 1990s. The extension of Taylor’s illicit trading routes and links to allies particularly in the west of the country were insufficient to destabilise the state authorities. State collapse in Côte d’Ivoire took nearly a decade to occur after the state began to fail following the death of President Houphouët in 1993. Unity at the elite level disintegrated, the extent of the country’s economic problems were uncovered, and tensions emerged both among Ivoirian classes and between the “native” and West African “immigrant” populations. A combination of social and economic disagreements culminated in the coup attempt of 2002 that sparked a civil war and division of the country between north and south. The government of Burkina Faso is implicated in the northern rebellion, and fighters who are still loyal to ties with ousted Liberian President Taylor have contributed to the worst of the fighting in the west of the country, but domestic disintegration and dissatisfaction with the state were necessary for the outbreak of civil war. A political analysis of warlordism in West Africa permits only a minimal involvement of states and state leaders. Warlords disregard state boundaries and disrupt the state structure of political organisation. They operate in a political sphere that is quite separate to state-based international society. Warlord states directly oppose incumbent governments. State leaders do engage in the parallel economy, and even employ some of the political norms of transversal society by, for example, accepting that their territory is in reality determined by how far they can extend their power, rather than by officially recognised borders. However, they do not actively seek to undermine the state over which they have sovereign control. The norms of international society remain crucial to their identity and ultimately their political actions. In addition, while operating apart from the norms of international society, warlords still recognise the state as the basis of central decision-making, and have centred their efforts on gaining control over the capital city and acquiring international recognition. This contradiction between active opposition to oppressive
98 See Reno, Warlord Politics and African States. Achvarina and Reich, "No Place to Hide." Kacowicz, ""Negative" International Peace and Domestic Conflicts." David Mepham and Andy McLean, "Arms and Conflict in Africa," New Economy 11, no. 3 (2004). Mary H Moran and M Anne Pitcher, "The 'Basket Case' and the 'Poster Child': Explaining the End of Civil Conflicts in Liberia and Mozambique," Third World Quarterly (2004): 127-64. Harris, "Liberia 2005," 375-95. Idean Salehyan and Kristian Gleditsch, "Refugees and the Spread of Civil War," International Organization 60, no. 2 (2006): 335-66. Princeton N Lyman and J Stephen Morrison, "The Terrorist Threat in Africa," Foreign Affairs 83, no. 1 (2004). Chapter 3 105 political structures and an inability to escape from those structures, forms the key to understanding the intractability of West African warlord conflict.
The constraints of transversal and international society In West Africa, the most significant material reason for widespread violent opposition to the state has been functional state failure to provide the two main elements of human security, namely physical survival and social being. Interestingly however, the failure of the state in many cases lasted over a period of many years without the outbreak of war, despite numerous coups d’état and changes in executive personalities. War has tended to break out when functional state failure has given way to institutional state collapse – when the political fabric disintegrates.99 What this means in essence is that the detrimental effects of neo-patrimonial state failure could partly be held at bay by the ability of local patrons in transversal society to provide alternative security arrangements, economic sustainability and a measure of political stability. Conflict has broken out in West Africa when the collapse of the bureaucratic state is compounded by dissatisfaction with the local patrimonial status quo. People have sought to oppose local patrimonial manifestations of state power, but their opposition is channelled through warlord states that replicate patrimonial modes of political authority. In Sierra Leone in particular, it is now coming to light that major pre-conflict grievances were directed not just against the state and its failure, but against the exploitative chiefs who devised ways of extracting money from their subordinate populations.100 Investigative reports commissioned by the Sierra Leone government in the aftermath of conflict reflect this important duality. Interestingly, the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Committee’s Report specifically rejects the “widely held belief in the Western world that the conflict in Sierra Leone was initiated and perpetuated because of diamonds,” noting that the decay of the state was much more complicated, and that diamonds “did not yield significant revenues… before 1997.”101 Instead, the Committee blames the corruption of high-level political elites for the outbreak of civil war:
99 On institutional and functional failure see Jennifer Milliken and Keith Krause, "State Failure, State Collapse, and State Reconstruction: Concepts, Lessons and Strategies," Development and Change 33, no. 5 (2002): 757. 100 Fanthorpe, "On the Limits of Liberal Peace," 28. 101 Sierra Leone Truth & Reconciliation Commission, "Witness to Truth: Report of the Sierra Leone Truth & Reconciliation Commission," (Accra: 2004), vol. 2, 12. Chapter 3 106
Successive political elites plundered the nation’s assets, including its mineral riches, at the expense of the national good. Government accountability was non-existent… The Commission holds the political elite of successive regimes in the post-independence period responsible for creating the conditions for conflict.102 In 2000 the Ministry of Presidential Affairs released a report pinpointing the chieftaincy structure in particular as an underlying cause of civil war: The chiefs in the community are not paid. Therefore, they fund their living from [non-violent] conflict and the fines that it produces. Combining this practice with other malpractices that chiefs enjoy has made chiefs a target for victimisation by armed youth, as they themselves feel victimised by the authorities.103 The corruption of both state and local elites in Sierra Leone is symptomatic of problems across West Africa. The reasons for rebellion were very similar in Liberia, and although in Côte d’Ivoire the effects of patrimonialism were not quite as obvious, conflict between elites at a high level was nevertheless a significant factor in widespread unrest. It is interesting then, that the organisation of conflict ultimately replicated patrimonial structures of politics to such a great extent. Despite the protest against the patrimonial political structure, norms of political association remained strong. The norms of this second regional tier of politics became the primary model of political and economic interaction for rebel groups. Locally they were founded on patrimonialism, and regionally they were linked through the norms of transversal society, norms including but not limited to its economic features. Even those rebel leaders who had no prior claim to a patronage network, such as Liberia’s Roosevelt Johnson, formed their armed forces and support groups according to traditional understandings of political organisation and operation tied in with regional economic networks. Warlords have similar immediate aims to peace-time chiefly patrons, constantly striving to protect and acquire more power, wealth and territory, and consequently they use similar forms of control as well as political rhetoric to ensure the loyalty of their armed forces and supporters. They gain power through the collapse of the neo-patrimonial state and yet use the norms of patrimonialism to create their own parallel societies – warlord states. In Sierra Leone, abhorrence of the chieftaincy structure was a central reason for the widespread anti- government sentiment and the outbreak of civil war. However, the country’s rebel
102 Ibid., Vol. 2, 27. 103 Sierra Leone Paramount Chief's Restoration Unit, "Conciliation Resources, Report on Bompeh Chiefdom (Moyamba District) Consultation," (Freetown: Ministry of Presidential Affairs, 2000), 5. Chapter 3 107
RUF aimed specifically to revive this structure in order to attain some level of control.104 Conflict in West Africa is demonstrative of both the possibility of transforming norms, and the extreme difficulty of operating outside of established norms. In addition to the state-based international society norms of inter-state relations, there exists in West Africa a long-standing structure of political organisation whose continued operation now involves extensive transversal movements of people and goods. Local patrons within domestic state structures, including state officials, have used this network for their personal accumulation of wealth and support throughout the twentieth century. Since the 1990s, “warlords” have made use of the same networks for political gain as have their state opponents, meaning that civil war has largely been fought on this transversal structural level. However, this has not significantly undermined the power of the state as reinforced by the norms of state- based international society in Africa, as the object of conflict has continued to be destruction of the incumbent government but control of the centralised sovereign state. In addition, when warlords do gain power, they are unlikely to transform governance structures, instead re-instituting neo-patrimonialism and undermining the emancipatory aspirations of individual conflict participants. Importantly, what this means is that the state-based system of politics in West Africa is not simply taken over by an older, pre-established transversal form of politics. Instead, there is a constant tension between the state-based norms of international society which lend power and credence to state institutions, and the norms of transversal society according to which warlords, strongmen and patrons have continued to operate. It is this tension that is essential to understanding the progress of warfare in the region. Ultimately, the result is that achieving emancipatory security is hampered by the constraints of two layers of politics across the Greater Mano River Area. In conceptual terms, people are trapped at the intersection of state- based international society and the regional, transversal norms of patrimonial/warlord politics. In seeking emancipation through the state, and in seeking to overthrow state elites, West Africans draw on structures that recreate anti-emancipatory politics because this has become the transversal regional alternative. The fundamental problem is that the prevailing structure cannot be overcome by targeting the state
104 Fanthorpe, "On the Limits of Liberal Peace," 31. Chapter 3 108 political system because the structures have actually become deeply imbedded in regional norms. Further, the two structures reinforce each other. Local patrimonialism/warlordism was given power by the neo-patrimonial state system that resulted from colonialism and the post-independence centralising demands of international society. Local elites with the greatest amount of support and coercive power take control also of the state bureaucratic structures. When different sets of norms operate within the same region and even within the same state, breaking out of established structures to create a workable new political structure is incredibly difficult, even through the means of a long and disruptive civil war.
Conclusion The political communities generated by conflict in West Africa are not state- based and often either straddle official state boundaries or at least operate in the transnational economic networks that exist between them. To this extent they disrupt the statist organisation of politics in the region. The alternative warlord organisation of politics demonstrates how powerful are the prevailing hegemonies of political thought, and how difficult true emancipation from these structures would be. International society created states in West Africa, but at the same time it empowered neo-patrimonial structures of authority, elevating the status of local patrons and consolidating their networks of control. The pre-existing political structures evidently crossed the region in a manner that had very little in common with the boundaries created by Europeans. When the state structure was imposed on top of this, it increased the power of local patrons, did little to transform the regional structure of economics and political community, and only elevated the appeal of centralised control for elites with access to the institutions of the state. International society is traditionally expected to privilege the security of the state. However, in West Africa, state security is predicated on human security, as individuals have asserted their emancipatory potential and sought to overturn state- based structures where they are perceived to be oppressive and exclusive. Structures of political community have imposed significant constraints on the potential for individuals to achieve both emancipation and security, meaning that the pursuit of emancipation has ultimately led to insecurity and a perpetuation of oppression. On the one hand, the exclusive state remains the focus of political rebellion. On the other hand, the transversal communities in the second tier of regional politics have become Chapter 3 109 the basis for political transformation across the region, but they too exist within constraining political structures. For individuals, this has effectively meant that they are trapped between two hegemonies of thought. In rebellion against state structures, they employ patrimonial structures that are in any case tied to the state system. This makes inclusive security through emancipation particularly difficult to achieve. Warlords ultimately have no interest in dismantling the state structures of power. Widespread desire to overturn the structures of political oppression established by the state, combined with the transversal nature of rebellion, puts the legitimacy of an international system founded on state security at risk. If individuals are the appropriate referent objects of security in West Africa, the pursuit of emancipation is region-wide. The links between the conflicts in West Africa have already been highlighted. The second tier of international politics with its warlord states and transversal networks of interaction demonstrate the importance of the “region” even as the state remains the object of political transformation. The regionalisation of conflict in West Africa is deep. Once civil war has begun, it is the strength of the second tier that contributes significantly to the intractability of conflict. This strength stems not only from the greed of political elites and the attraction of parallel economic networks. The power of regional identities and communities as they develop through conflict is much more significant, and this is a strength that warlords take advantage of. In addition, as the next chapter will demonstrate in more detail, communities created in the transversal sphere of politics during times of conflict can be so strong as to make it difficult for their members to envisage a role for themselves in a post- conflict state of “positive peace.” In order to understand the impact of transversal society structures in West Africa, it is essential to examine the types of communities that the sphere has engendered, at both the elite and non-elite levels.
Chapter 4 110
Chapter 4 – Transversal Communities in West Africa
During times of conflict within West African states, the strength of the patrimonial structure of politics has been such that warlords have been able to gain a significant amount of control over political organisation and economic transactions in their areas of influence. The warlord structure of politics has both constrained the emancipation of individuals and non-state communities seeking human security and positive peace, and has detracted from state bureaucracy, forcing nominal state leaders to assert their authority in the sphere of patronage politics and the parallel economy. This sphere can be described as “regional” for two immediately palpable reasons. First, similar structures of political organisation are in evidence across the Greater Mano River Area, particularly in the conflictual states of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire. Secondly, the parallel economy relies on unofficial transnational trade between people in different countries across West Africa. However, the structure is much more profoundly regional than either of these elements suggest, and it is through the operation of conflict that the depth of this regionalism has become apparent. As warlords in conflictual states have emerged as leaders of territories reminiscent of West Africa’s weak states, albeit with a stronger reliance on patrimonial structures and violence, they have paid little heed to boundaries between states. Warlord quasi-states often extend beyond state borders. Taylor’s “Greater Liberia” in particular extended beyond the borders of Liberia into Sierra Leone. Not content simply to trade across borders, he actually controlled economic networks into Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. The reason Taylor and other such warlords have been able to accomplish this regional extension of authority is because they operate within the informal transversal society that runs parallel to the formal international society. Within this society there have emerged tight communities that operate according to transversal norms of identity, behaviour and interaction, existing with minimal reference to the state-based structure of international society. “Transversal communities” create much stronger sinews between aspects of regional conflict than is implied by “links,” and foster much thicker identity norms than is implied by “spill-over” – terms that are often used to explain the spread of Chapter 4 111 conflict through the region.1 Perhaps most significant for the generation of transversal norms of political organisation and for provoking the continuation of violent conflict, is the personal community of political elites that stretches across the region. For the purposes of this thesis “elites” are limited to leaders of political entities, including warlords and heads of state who share similar aims and logics of appropriateness. However, the transversal sphere of politics also incorporates a number of other local- level transversal communities made up of private individuals. Such communities may be ideological and stretch across the entire Greater Mano River Area, like the community of political elites. Other communities are more localised, may even be territorial and are often exclusive, but are formed on the basis of shared identity and commonality of behaviour. Such communities may exist prior to the outbreak of conflict, but will be transformed by the experience of warfare. Conflict also generates new types of transversal communities. The chapter is ultimately concerned with how both elite and local-level transversal communities help explain the apparent intractability of conflict across West Africa.
Elite-Level Transversal Community West Africa’s elite personalities form a particularly powerful transversal community. In the context of violent conflict, it is the political role of these elites which is most relevant, but a functional distinction between political elites and those that hold power in other spheres such as economics and the military is largely redundant.2 The centralised power of elite individuals is such that economic and military power is usually tied up with political authority. Africa’s insertion into state- based international society provided state leaders with authority and led to the development of expectative norms that continue to impact on both their international and their domestic behaviour. However, an additional set of transversal norms and material expectations continued to guide elite behaviour beyond the limits of state- based international society. This section explores the social construction of this region-wide community that incorporates a coherent identity and derivative norms related primarily to governance and political leadership. Alliances formed within this
1 See Sawyer, "Violent Conflicts and Governance Challenges in West Africa." Latham et al., "Introduction." Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa. Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa. 2 See SN Eisenstadt, Modernisation: Protest and Change (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 6. Chapter 4 112 normative community of individuals have had a major impact on the security of both individual elites and their political constituents across the region.
The construction of elite community in West Africa If political elites across West Africa can be said to constitute a “community”, they are a community in the sense of a region-wide identity, where the emphasis is less on physical existence and group loyalty, and more on imagined collective identity and commonality of normative purpose. Even with this caveat, the kind of community formed by elites is quite weak and might accurately be described as a type of international class. As the elites form a transversal community based on shared knowledge and political objectives, there is a temptation to refer to it as an “epistemic community.” Peter Haas explains the concept of “epistemic community” as a network of “professionals with recognised expertise and competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge within that domain or issue area.”3 They share normative and causal beliefs as well as notions of validity and legitimacy. The key difference between West Africa’s elites and an “epistemic community” is that the former are not professionals and make no claims to scientific knowledge. In addition, experts who are members of an epistemic community share a policy enterprise based on a specific issue area such as human rights, the environment or development. Epistemic communities generally take the form of transnational organisations based on interest groups, advocacy coalitions or policy networks. They seek to influence state interests.4 In West Africa, members of the transversal community of elites are more powerful than this implies. As expressly political actors, they actually represent, or in many cases determine the interests of their patrimonial areas of control. They form a community on the basis of self-identification, mutual- recognition, shared goals and shared norms, but they are not concerned with promoting a particular policy enterprise. Significantly, West Africa’s community of political elites provides a clear example of how transversalism has dismantled the boundaries between domestic and international politics. Political authority in West Africa is derived from a number of sources which are often somewhat contradictory. State leaders, and to a certain extent
3 Peter M Haas, "Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination," International Organization 46, no. 1 (1992): 3. 4 Ibid.: 32. Chapter 4 113 local patrons, derive their authority primarily from international society.5 As Barnett explains, the institutional position held by a certain actor contributes a central element of authority.6 However, institutional position is insufficient. Community support is also commonly cited as a key legitimating factor. It is often assumed that political authority derives at least in part from a commonality of interests, standards and identity between elites and the people they claim to represent. Interestingly however, Barnett notes that political elites do not always share norms and values with their alleged constituents.7 In West Africa, this incongruence can at least partially be explained by the impact of a third source of legitimacy; the transversal community of elites. A simplistic analysis of political community combining institutional norms and local interests neglects the power of this regional political class. Elite actors rely to a significant extent on the authority accorded them by their regional peers, who provide normative legitimacy through their collective endorsement of general norms, and material assistance when broken into alliances with more specific political objectives. In West Africa’s state-based international society, there is a distinction between domestic and international politics, even though state leaders might be thought of as existing in an internationalised elite class through their inclusion in the normative structure of the Western world.8 In transversal society, an elite class is similarly internationalised across the region, but the division between the domestic and the international is broken down, incorporating political leaders with differing levels of local, transnational, regional, and state power.9 It is significant that membership of this community includes warlords and local patrons as well as heads of state. The internal weakness of the neo-patrimonial state-based structure leads state leaders to take part in the norms of parallel politics and economics. Heads of state claim control over territory, the legitimate use of violence, the means of production and identity formation, but empirically they must share it with non-state patrons,
5 Kwesi Aning, "Lecture Given at Legon University," (Accra: 2007). – Aning discussed how African leaders often represent the interests of their fellow heads of state rather than those of their people 6 Michael Barnett, "Authority, Intervention, and the Outer Limits of International Relations Theory," in Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa: Global-Local Networks of Power, ed. Thomas M Callaghy, Robert Latham, and Ronald Kassimir (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 56. 7 Ibid. 8 Mark T Berger, "The End of the 'Third World'?," Third World Quarterly 15, no. 2 (1994): 268. 9 See DG Becker and Richard L Sklar, "Why Post-Imperialism?," in Post-Imperialism, International Capitalism and Development in the Late Twentieth Century, ed. DG Becker, et al. (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987). Chapter 4 114 including warlords.10 As in any community, imagined collective identity stems not from commonality of position or power, but from shared norms that are transformed as members of the community interact and as membership evolves. At this level, there is significant normative exchange between elites that are recognised in international society and those that are not. Warlords who create their own non-juridical states operate within the same paradigm and according to many of the same normative principles as official heads of state. Like the neo-patrimonial sovereign states that they mimic, warlord states entail a separate political authority within a specific territory, albeit often one without set boundaries. Territory and authority are defended by maintaining a monopoly on the accepted use of force, by employing economic coercion and by fostering a form of political loyalty. Conversely, heads of state take part in the norms of transversal politics, recognising the importance of a localised power-base. Even Presidents Tubman and William Tolbert at the height of their power in Liberia maintained “hinterland ‘farms’ or estates as centres for the distribution of political and economic patronage and for symbolic association with the tribal peoples.”11 State leaders across West Africa were very much part of the local patrimonial network at the same time as they maintained centralised bureaucratic power, and were thus easily drawn into the increasingly powerful network of warlord politics during the 1990s. The institutional responsibilities of the state have even been described as a hindrance to the accumulation of wealth and power in such a setting.12 In contrast to this analysis of a single community of elite political actors, much of the literature on warlordism sees it as very separate to the world of official politics where social and economic progress is assumed to take place. Lansana Gberie in particular seeks to draw a sharp distinction between warlord activities and the more legitimate, less violent methods of control exercised by the political elites in Sierra Leone during peacetime.13 A Sierra Leonean journalist and researcher, Gberie has called for an end to the academic obsession with pointing out the equivalence of warlords and presidents across West Africa. He notes the brutality of characters such as Taylor and RUF leader Sankoh, saying they “may have learned a thing or two from the sordid policies of the political leaders they took on, but they are certainly of a
10 Reno, "How Sovereignty Matters," 199. 11 Clapham, Liberia and Sierra Leone, 20. 12 See for example Clapham, Africa and the International System, 226. 13 Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa. Chapter 4 115 completely different mould from even the bloodthirsty paranoiac Samuel Doe.”14 He claims that the difference between the government and rebel parties to the conflict is evidenced by popular support: with the rebels lacking support of any kind amongst the general population while the government continued to benefit from it.15 This is a surprising claim to make, given that it is in Sierra Leone that the government’s military has been most well known for brutality matching that of the rebel forces, and that high-level officials have been indicted on war crimes charges by the Sierra Leone Special Court.16 After conflict had broken out and Valentine Strasser had gained power in a military coup, the equivalence of his government and the warlord insurgency of the RUF became particularly striking. The well-known “sobel” phenomenon that describes the tendency of many armed individuals to act as both rebels and soldiers depending on the benefits that could be accrued at specific times, is only one manifestation of a wider problem.17 The military was not focused on protecting Sierra Leone as a sovereign state but on accumulating wealth and power at the expense of the local population it claimed to be assisting. It is apparent that holding official office is no guarantee of integrity or commitment to good governance. One need only look as far as neighbouring Liberia, where Taylor, a notorious warlord now indicted by Sierra Leone’s Special Court, was democratically elected to the position of president in 1997. Warlords may well be accurately described as coercive and violent economic predators, but when their workable political structures are considered, the difference between these figures and peacetime political leaders appears slight. In terms of the common norms that are most relevant to a context of West African civil war, both are types of patrons who use coercion and intimidation to ensure a calculated accumulation and distribution of wealth.18 Through the 1990s, many members of West Africa’s transversal community of elites began to see both direct and institutional violence as a necessary tool in maintaining control over the profits to be extracted from exporting commodities.19 This is not to suggest that all West African presidents are morally equivalent to notorious warlords, and certainly there are recent, positive signs of change, with
14 Ibid., 9. 15 Interview with Lansana Gberie in Freetown, Sierra Leone, February 2007 16 Interviews with staff at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown, February 2007 17 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 219. 18 See Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works, 2. Morten Boas and Kevin Dunn, "African Guerrilla Politics: Raging Against the Machine?," in African Guerrillas: Raging Against the Machine, ed. Morten Boas and Kevin Dunn (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2007), 23. 19 Collett, "Ivoirian Identity Constructions." Chapter 4 116 civilian presidents adhering more closely to the rule of law from Liberia to Nigeria. However, the normative equivalence of action and intention throughout much of the West African community of political elites is striking. Weak state rulers and warlords have thus operated within the same paradigm, not only within single states, but across the region. Powerful warlords like Taylor have controlled territory stretching across state borders, and all members of the elite have relied on cross-regional trade routes, alliances and markets to gain profit from their exploitation of resources. The transversal community of elites encompasses normative, cultural and political relations that are mutually sustaining, and directive of agency. It is impossible to divide peace-time and war-time networks in this context, as the community includes individuals whose zones of control span areas of both peace and war. As violence has been sustained by the exploitation and export of commodities across the region, members of the elite from non-conflict states have formed part of this normative network of violence tied up with wealth accumulation, to create a community with a common identity based on shared goals, needs and normative beliefs. The West African community of political elites thus generates norms that determine legitimate political goals, and supports individual capacity to pursue those goals. Importantly, this is a community of individuals. Institutions are weak while leaders are strong, and so a change in regime can lead to shifts in the power dynamics of transversal politics.20 Many commentators note the importance of regional support networks, according to which states are allied with insurgencies in neighbouring states.21 Importantly, the initial success of the NPFL came in part from the location of its invasion – from Côte d’Ivoire, from which it had support, into Nimba County which was rich in iron ore.22 Taylor’s NPFL used support from the Ivoirian government in the early 1990s to generate a total personal wealth estimated at $450 million per year. However, in West Africa it is clear that alliances between individuals have been much more beneficial than the support of neighbouring states. These individual alliances, within the broader transversal community, have persisted in spite of changing fortunes in terms of access to state power. After the death of Côte
20 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 48. 21 See for example Clapham, Africa and the International System. Hoffman, "The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia." Dane F Smith, "US-Guinea Relations During the Rise and Fall of Charles Taylor," Journal of Modern African Studies 44, no. 3 (2006): 415-39. Ellis, "Liberia 1989- 1994." 22 Hutchful and Aning, "The Political Economy of Conflict," 209. Chapter 4 117 d’Ivoire’s President Houphouët, Taylor sought an alliance with Gueï in Côte d’Ivoire while they both acted as rebel leaders and presidents at various times during the 1990s and into the new millennium. Alliances are constructed on the basis of expectation of personal gain, with weak state rulers seeking the support of those who control resources and the means of violence. On a number of occasions, presidents such as Taylor have sought allegiance partnerships with those who have not yet gained state-based power, but are likely to be useful supporters if and when they do. While the internal politics of West African states is complicated and changeable, it is possible to trace a system of elite alliances that has existed across the region since the 1970s and 1980s. These personal alliances have added material support to the normative power derived from membership of the elite-level transversal community. While they have not dictated where and when conflict will take place, they have to a large extent determined its progress across the region. Chapter 4 118
Table 4.1: Personal Elite Alliances across the Greater Mano River Area and its Key Neighbours In red and black, this table indicates the (simplistic) dual system of alliances evident in the Greater Mano River Area between 1980 and 2008.
YEAR Sierra Leone Sierra Leone insurgency Liberia Liberia insurgency 1980 Stevens (APC) Doe (NDP) 1981 Stevens (APC) Doe (NDP) 1982 Stevens (APC) Doe (NDP) 1983 Stevens (APC) Doe (NDP) 1984 Stevens (APC) Doe (NDP) 1985 Momoh (APC) Quiwonkpa supporters Doe (NDP) Quiwonkpa attempted coup 1986 Momoh (APC) Doe (NDP) 1987 Momoh (APC) Doe (NDP) 1989 Momoh (APC) Doe (NDP) Taylor (NPFL) 1990 Momoh (APC) Sawyer (IGNU) Taylor (NPFL) / Johnson (INPFL) 1991 Momoh (APC) Sankoh (RUF) Sawyer (IGNU) Taylor (NPFL) / Johnson (INPFL) / Kromah (ULIMO) 1992 Strasser (NPRC) Sankoh (RUF) Sawyer (IGNU) Taylor (NPFL) / Kromah (ULIMO) 1993 Strasser (NPRC) Sankoh (RUF) Sawyer (IGNU) Taylor (NPFL) / Kromah (ULIMO) / Boley (LPC) 1994 Strasser (NPRC) Sankoh (RUF) Sawyer (IGNU) Taylor (NPFL) / Kromah (ULIMO) / Boley (LPC) 1995 Strasser (NPRC) Sankoh (RUF) Taylor (NPFL) / Kromah (ULIMO) / Boley (LPC) 1996 Kabbah (SLPP) Sankoh (RUF) / Norman (CDF) Taylor (NPFL) / Kromah (ULIMO) / Boley (LPC) 1997 Koroma (AFRC) Bockarie (RUF) / Norman (CDF) Taylor (NPP) 1998 Kabbah (SLPP) Bockarie (RUF) / Norman (CDF) Taylor (NPP) 1999 Kabbah (SLPP) Sankoh (RUF) Taylor (NPP) Conneh (LURD) 2000 Kabbah (SLPP) Sankoh (RUF) Taylor (NPP) Conneh (LURD) 2001 Kabbah (SLPP) Sankoh (RUF) Taylor (NPP) Conneh (LURD) 2002 Kabbah (SLPP) Taylor (NPP) Conneh (LURD) / Nimely (MODEL) 2003 Kabbah (SLPP) Taylor (NPP) Conneh (LURD) / Nimely (MODEL) / CDF / RUF 2004 Kabbah (SLPP) Bryant (LAP) 2005 Kabbah (SLPP) Johnson-Sirleaf (UP) 2006 Kabbah (SLPP) Johnson-Sirleaf (UP) 2007 Kabbah (SLPP) Johnson-Sirleaf (UP) Chapter 4 119
YEAR Côte d'Ivoire Côte d'Ivoire insurgency Guinea Guinea insurgency Burkina Faso Nigeria 1980 Houphouët (PDCI) Touré (PDG) Zerbo (CPMRN) Shagari 1981 Houphouët (PDCI) Touré (PDG) Zerbo (CPMRN) Shagari 1982 Houphouët (PDCI) Touré (PDG) Ouédraogo (CPS) Shagari 1983 Houphouët (PDCI) Touré (PDG) Sankara Shagari 1984 Houphouët (PDCI) Conté Sankara Buhari 1985 Houphouët (PDCI) Conté Sankara Babangida 1986 Houphouët (PDCI) Conté Sankara Babangida 1987 Houphouët (PDCI) Conté Compaoré (CDP) Babangida 1989 Houphouët (PDCI) Conté Compaoré (CDP) Babangida 1990 Houphouët (PDCI) Conté Compaoré (CDP) Babangida 1991 Houphouët (PDCI) Conté Compaoré (CDP) Babangida 1992 Houphouët (PDCI) Conté Compaoré (CDP) Babangida 1993 Bedié (PDCI) Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Abacha 1994 Bedié (PDCI) Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Abacha 1995 Bedié (PDCI) Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Abacha 1996 Bedié (PDCI) Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Abacha 1997 Bedié (PDCI) Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Abacha 1998 Bedié (PDCI) Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Abubakar 1999 Gueï Conté (PUP) RUF / RFDG Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP) 2000 Gbagbo (FPI) Conté (PUP) RUF / RFDG Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP) 2001 Gbagbo (FPI) Conté (PUP) RUF / RFDG Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP) 2002 Gbagbo (FPI) Soro (FN) / MPIGO/MJP Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP) 2003 Gbagbo (FPI) Soro (FN) / MPIGO/MJP Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP) 2004 Gbagbo (FPI) Soro (FN) / MPIGO/MJP Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP) 2005 Gbagbo (FPI) Soro (FN) / MPIGO/MJP Conté (PUP) Attempted coup Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP) 2006 Gbagbo (FPI) Soro (FN) / MPIGO/MJP Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP) 2007 Gbagbo (FPI) Soro (FN) / MPIGO/MJP Conté (PUP) Compaoré (CDP) Obasanjo (PDP)
Chapter 4 120
Conflict alliances As conflict has progressed across West Africa through the 1990s and 2000s, the significance of a dual system of alliances has become evident. (Table 4.1) To ascribe all of the state and rebel leaders who have been involved in conflict to one of two alliance structures is necessarily over-simplistic. It does not adequately provide for political struggles that are internal to governments and rebel organisations, nor does it take sufficient account of the subtleties of personal allegiance and the inconsistency of bonds between individuals. Nevertheless, framing the relationship between West Africa’s network of elites and its violent conflicts in such a way allows us to trace a history of linkages that has had a profound impact on the progress of conflict. As the linkages are based on personal identities they are deep-rooted and have proven difficult to dispel. Thus for example, while Strasser can hardly be considered a friend of either President Momoh whom he overthrew in a military coup, or President Kabbah who took power away from him in turn, the alliance formed by their continuous struggle against Sankoh and Taylor had a more significant impact on regional conflict dynamics than the animosity between them.1 Similarly, in Côte d’Ivoire, while former President Henri Konan Bédié is now a strong political opponent of President Gbagbo, they are linked in the same alliance as both were threatened at different times by insurgents supported by Taylor.2 The personal links between Taylor’s NPFL in Liberia and Sankoh’s RUF in Sierra Leone were set up in the 1980s. The two future warlords initially met in Libya where Taylor had been introduced by Burkina Faso’s Compaoré.3 It is thought that while in Libya, Taylor and Sankoh formed an agreement to support each other’s future insurgencies. Taylor’s rebellion was also armed and supported by both Compaoré and Côte d’Ivoire’s President Houphouët. To understand this aspect of the alliance it is necessary to go back as far as the 1970s, a time when warlord insurgencies had no bearing on the stability of West Africa. At the beginning of this decade, Liberia was ruled by President William Tolbert, a member of the Americo- Liberian elite. William Tolbert had close personal ties to Houphouët, whose adopted daughter had married his son Benedict. When Doe overthrew William Tolbert in a 1980 coup, he also proceeded to murder thirteen senior Americo-Liberian officials
1 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 228. 2 Smith, "US-Guinea Relations During the Rise and Fall of Charles Taylor," 435. 3 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 48. Chapter 4 121 including Benedict Tolbert.4 The event drew Houphouët and his daughter closer to Compaoré to create the beginnings of an anti-Doe alliance that led directly to Houphouët allowing Taylor to use his country as a base from which to invade Liberia in 1989. After the invasion, Taylor soon began to see Ibrahim Babangida, President of Nigeria, as the main obstacle to his acquisition of power. Babangida had been a close personal friend of Doe, was a long-time rival of Houphouët in the struggle for regional hegemony, and also appears to have had ongoing business interests in Liberia.5 It was Babangida’s government that authorised and spearheaded the first ECOMOG mission to Liberia. The disastrous failure of the mission to prevent Doe from being assassinated by the rebel leader “Prince Johnson,” led ECOMOG to install an interim government under the uncontroversial leadership of Sawyer. Taylor continued to fight against the interim government however, and it appeared that he would never trust the intervention force while Babangida remained in power. It was not until Sani Abacha replaced Babangida as military leader that Taylor could be brought to the negotiating table.6 Abacha was not pro-Taylor but his personal interest in Liberian affairs was much less significant than that of Babangida. With an uncontroversial but also ineffectual transitional government in Monrovia, a new anti-Taylor insurgency entered the fray in 1991, further complicating the Liberian civil war and drawing in other regional players. ULIMO was conceived in Freetown through contacts between ex-Doe ministers and the Momoh government in Sierra Leone.7 It was then launched in Conakry, as a result of contacts between a different group of Doe loyalists and the Conté government in Guinea. Alhaji Kromah became leader of ULIMO, mainly because of his personal relationship with President Conté who provided arms and military training bases for the rebel organisation in Guinea. The Sierra Leone connection continued to be important however, particularly as it compounded the growing rivalry between Taylor and the leadership in Freetown. Prior to overseeing the construction of ULIMO, Momoh had also allowed Babangida’s ECOMOG forces to use Sierra Leone as a base
4 Ellis, "Liberia 1989-1994," 180. 5 Ibid.: 168. 6 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 59. 7 Ellis, "Liberia 1989-1994," 170. Chapter 4 122 from which to strike Liberia. Taylor vowed revenge, and appeared to accomplish his goal by facilitating the devastation of Sierra Leone by the RUF.8 In 1991, prior to ULIMO’s invasion of Liberia, the RUF launched an incursion into Sierra Leone from bases in Liberia.9 The composition of this initial RUF force is somewhat in doubt. Sierra Leoneans are wont to claim that the invaders were Liberians seeking wealth, territory and opportunities to loot civilians. Such motivations are said to justify attacks on villages around the diamond-mining centre of Koindu. However, journalists on the ground at the time testify that the rebels spoke Krio, Sierra Leone’s lingua franca.10 Whatever the composition of the force, it is clear that they invaded at Taylor’s instigation and encouragement in coalition with Sankoh. Importantly, it cannot be said that Liberia acted as a “host state” for the RUF insurgency, as Taylor did not become president of Liberia until 1997. His warlord- based territory, contacts and power were of infinitely more use to the RUF than Sawyer’s support could have been, despite his official leadership of the sovereign state of Liberia. Taylor and the NPFL provided military assistance, training, arms and strategy meetings for Sankoh’s RUF in Liberia. In return they continued to benefit from the ongoing diamond exploitation undertaken by RUF combatants and the civilians they were able to enlist.11 After Taylor became President of Liberia in the post-conflict election of 1997, little changed in terms of his personal exercise of power.12 By this time Sierra Leone was nominally being run by Kabbah’s democratically-elected government, and Sam Bockarie had taken over as commander of the RUF after the imprisonment of Sankoh in Nigeria. However, Taylor’s support for the military efforts of the RUF against the Sierra Leone government only increased, and various groups of combatants linked either to the NPFL or the RUF continued to follow his orders through Liberia, Sierra Leone and even into Guinea. In 2003, the extent of Taylor’s involvement in Sierra Leone and his complicity in the brutal tactics employed by Sankoh and Bockarie led him to be indicted for war crimes by Sierra Leone’s post-conflict Special Court. As described by Alan White, the Special Court’s chief investigator in 2003, “Taylor is a
8 Wong, "Conflict in the Mano River Region - Causes, Solutions and Lessons: The Case of Sierra Leone," 8. 9 Smith, "US-Guinea Relations During the Rise and Fall of Charles Taylor," 424. 10 Interviews with staff at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in Freetown, February 2007 11 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 54. 12 Wong, "Conflict in the Mano River Region - Causes, Solutions and Lessons: The Case of Sierra Leone," 8. Chapter 4 123 clear and present danger to West Africa and until he is in custody the entire region will be unstable, risking further conflicts.”13 After Taylor became president of Liberia in 1997 and ULIMO had been disbanded as part of the Abuja Accord that ended Liberia’s first civil war, Conté continued his involvement in Liberian politics. Only two years after the presidential elections, LURD invaded Liberia from Guinea. LURD was a new rebel insurgency that had been established in Conakry through collaboration between ULIMO’s Kromah and President Conté. Its leader was to be Sekou Conneh who had not previously been a prominent figure in the Liberian civil war, but had gained status through his Guinean wife’s close relationship with Conté.14 The reasons for Conté’s ongoing willingness to assist in the overthrow of Taylor are not entirely clear, but again it seems that personal alliances played a major role. Importantly for example, Conté and Kabbah were on very good terms. They enjoyed a mutual defence agreement, and had assisted each other on a number of occasions. In 1997 when Johnny Paul Koroma took power from Kabbah in a military coup and installed his Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) regime in Freetown, Kabbah was forced to flee. It was Conté who welcomed him to Guinea and hosted him as President of Sierra Leone in exile.15 A history of distrust of Taylor was also a significant motivating factor for Conté. While humanitarian reasons for overthrowing Taylor’s government in Liberia have been frequently cited by ex-LURD combatants,16 Conté was certainly no greater an example of democratic good governance than foes such as Houphouët and Compaoré. Suspicions that Taylor and Compaoré assisted Conté’s political opponents throughout the 1990s are more likely to have been behind his continued involvement in the conflict. From 1999, LURD fought the Liberian forces with Conté’s backing mainly in Lofa County near Guinea’s border, and combatants loyal to Taylor launched retaliatory attacks into Guinea. The attacks continued even after 2003 when Taylor was forced to step down as president of Liberia and accept exile in Nigeria,
13 Cited in Betsy Pisik, “Power in Exile: Taylor Extends Political Reach,” The Washington Times, 2 June 2005. 14 Smith, "US-Guinea Relations During the Rise and Fall of Charles Taylor." 15 Wong, "Conflict in the Mano River Region - Causes, Solutions and Lessons: The Case of Sierra Leone," 6. 16 Interviews with ex-LURD and ex-NPFL combatants in Ghana, January 2007 – including “General” Joe Wylie Chapter 4 124 and in 2005 Taylor was personally blamed for being the source of an attempt to assassinate President Conté.17 In 2002 during the LURD insurgency, a group calling itself MODEL broke away from the main rebel organisation in order to pursue its own strategies against Taylor. MODEL provides the final significant link between West Africa’s conflicts – this time to the civil war in Côte d’Ivoire. Taylor relied to a significant extent on support from Houphouët in the early years of his NPFL insurgency,18 but when Houphouët died in 1993, he had to look elsewhere for support. Houphouët’s successor Bédié was of the same political party and ethnicity as Houphouët but was less enthusiastic about assisting the NPFL. Taylor instead sought an alliance with General Gueï, a member of the Ivoirian military but an adversary of Bédié. Gueï had substantial support in Côte d’Ivoire’s west where he was able to provide important rear bases for the NPFL. The new alliance between Gueï and Taylor was mutually beneficial, and Taylor provided assistance for Gueï’s successful military coup against Bédié in 1999. Gueï’s reign was short-lived however, and he was ousted by Gbagbo in 2000 in elections that never reached a clear conclusion.19 The animosity between Gbagbo and Gueï led to animosity between Gbagbo and Taylor as Gueï’s supporter. As a result, Gbagbo not only backed MODEL’s assault on Monrovia from the east, but also recruited anti-Taylor combatants into his own Ivoirian security forces.20 It is thus unsurprising that Gueï, still allied to Taylor, orchestrated a second coup in 2002. This time he failed and was killed in the attempt, but the coup began Côte d’Ivoire’s ongoing civil war. In the north, rebels known as the MPCI and backed by Compaoré marched south towards Yamoussoukro and Abidjan. They are now known as the FN and have been running the north of Côte d’Ivoire as a warlord state complete with diamond mines since 2002.21 Their insurgency has been relatively limited in its use of gratuitous violence and its political objectives are very clear. However, the war has been significantly complicated and prolonged by the existence of two rebel groups in the west. The Mouvement populaire ivoirien du Grand Ouest (MPIGO – Popular Movement of the Great West) and the Mouvement pour la justice et la paix (MJP – Movement for Justice and Peace) profess
17 See Special Court for Sierra Leone, www.se-sl.org 18 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 48. 19 Smith, "US-Guinea Relations During the Rise and Fall of Charles Taylor," 435. 20 Ibid. 21 “Still a Rebel’s Best Friend,” Economist, 9 November 2006. Chapter 4 125 loyalty to the late General Gueï and have continued to be supported by Taylor and his allies despite Taylor’s exile in Nigeria, Sierra Leone and now The Hague. It should thus be clear that within West Africa’s community of elites, alliance networks stretch across all of the significant wars – in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire, also involving Guinea, Burkina Faso and Nigeria. These alliances are not based on a history of good inter-state relations, nor on a coalition of state leaders against warlord insurgencies. Nor are they based on similarity of political ideology or regime type, as democracies, military dictatorships and one-party states of various kinds are all present in both major alliances. Nor are they founded on different types of norms. All of the political elites, including both state leaders and warlords, already form part of a class-based transversal community with norms that guide governance behaviour and legitimacy of action. The alliances created within this community are based on the personal relationships and goals of individuals. The relationships create links that stretch across zones of both peace and war, but have been particularly adept at facilitating the spread of conflict.
Non-Elite Transversal Communities West African conflict, while aimed ultimately at political change within individual states, takes place in the region’s transversal society. This society is sustained primarily by a structure of norms that have evolved from a basis in pre- colonial patronage politics and cross-regional economic networks. It is a society made up of quasi-states led by powerful warlords and local patrons including heads of state, but it is also characterised by a number of distinct communities. West Africa’s elites form one of these regional transversal communities, and they have significant power to both generate norms, and to materially affect the circumstances of ordinary people within their ambit of authority. Significantly for the 1990s, personal alliances between these elites have had a major effect on the shape and direction of the region’s conflict. However, there are also many non-elite transversal communities that have a significant impact on both the ideological and material structure of politics and conflict in the Greater Mano River Area. They exist within and across the patrimonial structures of non-juridical states established by warlords and local patrons. One of the most important contributions of the idea of “transversal community” lies in its demonstration that structure and order can exist at a local level outside of and across state boundaries. Actors purposefully establish structures Chapter 4 126 according to their needs in terms of security, economics and political identity. Transversal communities are sometimes conceived as political entities from the outset. However, they are often constructed on the basis of material concerns such as economic survival, subsequently generating an ideational structure that entails the formation of new political identities based on a recognition of shared knowledge and shared norms. Political goals are often sharpened when human security is at stake, and when the community begins to feel threatened by the actions of others. What is particularly interesting in the context of conflict is the transformation and creation of transversal structures in the wake of state failure to provide for the human security needs of sections of the population. Conflict creates new norms that alter how people view themselves and others, and as it progresses, new forms of transversal communities are created in response to the spreading violence, consolidating identities intimately linked to regional conflict. Importantly, many definitions of political community rely on concepts such as loyalty and trust, taking the view that these elements preclude the necessity of enforcement mechanisms.22 In West Africa’s transversal communities, while loyalty and trust may well be present, these are secondary elements, often but not necessarily derived from shared norms, identity and security expectations. Membership of a community means according greater trust to fellow members than to outsiders, but durable loyalty cannot be assumed. This caveat is particularly relevant in West Africa’s transversal sphere of politics, where two different kinds of community are in evidence. First are the very localised communities that are often exclusive and even territorial, and that have a significant impact on day-to-day goals and behaviour. In this situation, where the community is physically present, socially-constructed identity and security are likely to be quite strong, leading to a significant degree of loyalty and trust. However, the second type of politically significant transversal communities are those that comprise region-wide ideologies that generate broad normative purpose. This type of community, much weaker in terms of physical presence, is reliant on its collective imagination on the basis of shared values and norms. Lacking a single object, political purpose in these communities is less clear-cut and hence less reliant on the consistent behaviour of all members. As a result, while loyalty to ideas will
22 See Adler and Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective," 7. Chapter 4 127 likely be strong, loyalty to other members and trust throughout the community will be weak, except when it is channelled into more specific, localised manifestations. In West Africa’s transversal sphere of politics, the distinction between local and region- wide community is much more significant than the traditional distinction between international and domestic political community. In most cases, localised communities such as refugee camps also form part of a broad region-wide identity based on similarity of function, such as “refugee”.
Ethnic identity Those who consider the existence of non-state communities in West Africa are often preoccupied with the importance of ethnic identity.23 Generally falling into the category of exclusive localised communities, ethnic groups sometimes inhabit border regions and persist as coherent communities despite being officially split by state boundaries. While there has been extensive debate about the primordial nature of such ethnic groups, how they are constructed and how they evolve,24 the self-identification of individuals according to well-known ethnic definitions is somewhat significant for an understanding of the connections that link West African conflicts. Even patriotic citizens of West African states with roles in government are cognizant of their extended family connections into neighbouring states, often referring to relatives who live in villages on either side of an official state border.25 As is typical of nationalist/ethnic sentiment, identities that may be of minor consequence in daily life are consolidated, take on added significance, and become conflictual when members of the community feel excluded or oppressed. In such cases, members of an ethnic community are likely to feel responsibility to protect co-ethnics from abuses by political authority, no matter where such authority might be based. Liberian refugees at Buduburam who identified as Krahn explained that they were concerned about political developments in Côte d’Ivoire because of the impact on extended family members across the border. Krahns living across the border spoke the same language
23 See for example D Perry, "France in Africa," Encounter 72 (1989): 62-64. Szeftel, "Political Crisis and Democratic Renewal in Africa." 24 See Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983). Joseph Rothschild, Ethnopolitics: A Conceptual Framework (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981). Frances Stewart, Horizontal Inequalities: A Neglected Dimension of Development (Oxford: Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity, 2002). Collett, "Ivoirian Identity Constructions." 25 Interviews with senior officers of the Ghanaian army at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre in Accra, January 2007 Chapter 4 128 in both countries, often married fellow Krahns of a different official nationality, sometimes lived in one country while working in the other, and even voted in the elections of both states.26 Across West Africa, warlords and presidents alike have been adept at exploiting ethnic solidarity. In Liberia for example, President Doe’s paranoia about political opposition led him to surround himself with members of his own tribe, the Krahn people. After General Thomas Quiwonkpa’s attempted coup in 1985,27 the army was deployed to carry out reprisals against his supporters, and they killed approximately 3000 Gio and Mano people in Nimba County. This created divisions that were to be further exploited when the war broke out in 1989. Taylor’s rebel NPFL force was initially made up mainly of Gio and Mano insurgents who distrusted Doe’s Krahn-dominated administration.28 These insurgents were supported by ethnic links across the region, particularly in Sierra Leone. Created in the aftermath of Doe’s murder by insurgents, the rival UILMO faction was made up of Doe’s Krahn supporters who had ties to Freetown, as well as Mandingos who gained support in Conakry.29 These two groups would later split under the leadership of Roosevelt Johnson and Kromah, respectively.30 In the second Liberian civil war after Taylor had come to power in 1997, LURD insurgents were predominantly made up of Krahn dissidents.31 The same ethnic splits have remained important in Liberia’s current post- conflict climate with land disputes in Nimba County continuing between Mandingos and the Gio and Mano ethnic groups.32 Interestingly, when West Africans talk about their responsibility for co- ethnics, they tend not to mention “ethnicity” or “tribe” per se, focusing instead on the obligations and ties that bind “family” members on either side of the border.33 This suggests that ethnic identity, when based on ascriptive and primordial criteria and expressed through loyalty to family bonds, is generally slightly removed from norm- based community identity that is more about interests and goals. Nevertheless, many allegedly primordial ethnic identity groups were generated by shared political and
26 Interviews with Liberian refugees at Buduburam in Accra, January 2007 27 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 46. 28 Ellis, "Liberia 1989-1994," 167. 29 Ibid.: 183. 30 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 104. 31 Smith, "US-Guinea Relations During the Rise and Fall of Charles Taylor," 431. 32 United Nations Security Council, "Fourteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Liberia," (New York: 2007), 2. 33 Based on interviews carried out in West Africa, January-February 2007 Chapter 4 129 economic experiences, and in some cases form part of a widespread regional identity. The Mandingos are perhaps the best example of how an ethnic identity can be collectively imagined across a region. The Mandingos were originally a Muslim, Malinké-speaking ethnic group from the area that is now Mali, but have since become a cross-regional socio-economic identity stretching from Senegal to Côte d’Ivoire. This is partly a result of migration, as the Mandingos moved across the region, settling where they found economic opportunities. However, the term has now lost much of its primordial ethnic meaning, and has been applied across West Africa to describe any trader who is locally and prosperously settled.34 The Mandingos have tended to cause resentment amongst the indigenous population of the areas in which they settle, as they exploit local economic opportunities using their established trading networks, setting up shops and banks, and lending money to locals. They have been able to accumulate wealth where locals have failed, ultimately giving the appearance of exploiting the poverty and desperation of the local population. Rebel groups across the region have been able to take advantage of local resentment, and both the RUF in Sierra Leone and the NPFL in Liberia attempted to gain support by targeting the Mandingo traders. In Liberia, the NPFL accused the Mandingos of collaborating with Doe, and their violent hostility toward the minority stemmed in part from their desire to replace them with an economically-prosperous network that would be supportive of NPFL needs and ends.35 As the Mandingos have an economic and social identity rather than a Liberian ethnic identity or a particular alliance with Doe, their support for him wavered as soon as his hold on political power became shaky. Many members of the group moved on, taking advantage of family and commercial ties beyond Liberia’s borders. However, once ULIMO became a major player in the Liberian war, their role became more significant. Kromah was a Mandingo intellectual and had been a minister in the Doe government. He recruited Mandingo soldiers from across Liberia, Guinea and Senegal, exploiting not only their family-ties, but also their cross-regional commercial network that controlled trade and could acquire resources for the support of ULIMO.36 Communities based on ethnic identity form important bonds of loyalty and trust at a local level within the transversal sphere of politics. They have been
34 Richards, "Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone." 35 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 91. 36 Ibid., 103. Chapter 4 130 particularly important for the dynamics of West African conflict when tied to political and economic goals. Thus, the Mandingo community existed as an ethnic identity prior to the outbreak of conflict in the region but was to gain in significance as a political identity as its potential role in supporting violence became clear. In comparison to more localised, specifically primordial forms of ethnic identity, the Mandingo community is much closer in nature to other forms of cross-regional transversal communities as norms of behaviour and shared political aspirations contribute substantially to the imagination of its identity.
Socio-economic communities In addition to ethnicity as an indicator of political affiliation, there are a number of other types of socio-economic groupings that form significant transversal communities in West Africa and have had a major impact on transformation of identity. While it is now commonplace to implicate the exploitation and trade of natural resources in the spread of conflict across West Africa,37 such resources have rarely been understood in their capacity to form communities. However, it is the community-building aspect of the trade that has made the illicit networks so difficult to dismantle. Unlike loose networks, communities solidify identities, and in this case identities are attached to the exploitation and export of natural resources. In Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, diamond mines have been in operation since long before the conflicts in any of these states began. The diamond-mining communities are ethnically heterogeneous, and many of the young men involved hold dual nationalities, their economic and social life linked to different urban centres depending on ease of access on a daily basis rather than traditional or official ties.38 The diamond-mining community along the Sierra Leone/Liberia border is particularly notorious. It is made up of young men who have little choice but to participate in illicit networks, either because of their lack of education and more stable employment opportunities or, particularly after the outbreak of conflict, due to coercion by powerful rebel groups. Their life consists of a violent struggle for economic survival, and Richards has poignantly described how day-to-day diamond mining interspersed with periods of armed banditry as members of either the RUF or
37 See for example Ibid. Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars. Clapham, Africa and the International System. Global Witness, www.globalwitness.org 38 Richards, "Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone." Chapter 4 131
NPFL would have been little different to the peace-time norms already developed within these communities.39 It is not only diamonds that are infamous for connections with rebel organisations however, as iron ore, rubber and timber have likewise been lucrative industries across the sub-region. The NPFL gained access to legitimate trading networks through an intermediary logging association on the Liberia/Côte d’Ivoire border, and during the second Liberia conflict of 1999-2003, LURD was financed largely by control of the Guthrie rubber plantation.40 Companies that attempted to establish more legitimate and rule-bound control of the plantation were unable to compete with the coercive tactics used and community links exploited by the rebel organisations that had trade access through both Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. Young people involved in the illicit extraction and trade in natural resources formed part of both local and region-wide transversal communities. At a local level, their immediate community included the organisation that controlled the land they worked on, local chiefs or warlords, fellow workers, and all the people that contributed to the everyday running of the operation. More broadly, they formed part of a region-wide identity of workers and traders, intimately connected to the parallel economy, and operating according to behavioural norms that often legitimated violence as a means of achieving success and gaining power in relationships. Even more broadly, these same youths formed an essential part of the politically- dissatisfied movement that began to emerge across West Africa during the 1970s and 1980s. The region was then, and to a large extent remains today, troubled by a large class of uneducated and poverty-stricken young people. In the rural areas, many sought work in difficult conditions on the large plantations and mines. Many others migrated to the cities from unproductive rural areas, hoping for elusive permanent employment. Rebel movements across the Greater Mano River Area have recruited heavily from marginalised areas and groups where young men have little education and few economic prospects; who are, as Ibrahim Abdullah and Patrick Muana put it, “prone to criminal behaviour, petty theft, drugs, drunkenness and gross indiscipline.”41
39 Ibid. 40 Global Witness, "Cautiously Optimistic: The Case for Maintaining Sanctions in Liberia," (London & Washington: Global Witness, 2006), 10. 41 Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone," 207. See also Thandika Mkandawire, "The Terrible Toll of Post-Colonial Rebel Movements in Africa: Towards an Explanation of the Violence against the Peasantry," Journal of Modern African Studies 40, no. 2 (2002): 181-215. Chapter 4 132
Rhetoric that called for overcoming youth, class and regional alienation appealed to the “frustrated energies of the lumpen ‘revolutionaries’.”42 The lure of diamonds, drugs, weapons and opportunities for loot would have acted as an added incentive to act on their sense of political dissatisfaction and desire to seek an alternative to incumbent governments. The political injustices felt particularly amongst this community of unemployed young men were reflected in the protests of the region’s intellectuals in the 1970s and 1980s. While few in Sierra Leone or Liberia appear able to countenance the idea that Taylor had supporters amongst ordinary people,43 he had been a student leader before forming the NPFL and his rhetoric must have appealed to the disenfranchised, whether he believed in it himself or not. In the lead-up to conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the community of intellectuals gained strength and its membership swelled as it protested against the governance practices of the existing political elite. A similar pattern emerged in both countries, as young intellectuals realised they would not be able to effect political change through the ballot box and turned instead to more aggressive forms of protest using political manifestos and popular demonstrations.44 In Liberia, two interlinked intellectual organisations were created in the 1970s. The Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) was established in 1973 by students and lecturers at the University of Liberia. Sawyer, who was to become head of the transitional Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU) after Doe’s murder in 1990, was a member of this group. The Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) was a similar movement mainly supported by the unemployed urban youth and lower classes. Indigenous groups had been collectively angry at the elite minority of Americo-Liberians for decades, and this division fed into the revolutionary ideology of the new youth movements. In 1979, PAL led major demonstrations that ultimately inspired the coup against President William Tolbert staged by junior officers in the Liberian army including Doe and Quiwonkpa, who at that time were indigenous allies against the Americo-Liberian political elite. In Sierra Leone, academics and students likewise formed movements following the ideology of Muammar al’Qadhafi’s The Green Book45 that had been circulating in West Africa. They set up the Pan-African
42 Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone," 193. 43 Base on interviews carried out in West Africa in January-February 2007 44 Abdullah and Rashid, "Rebel Movements," 176. 45 Wong, "Conflict in the Mano River Region - Causes, Solutions and Lessons: The Case of Sierra Leone," 6. Chapter 4 133
Union (PANAFU), founded to combat apartheid, neo-colonialism and oppression more generally. In 1977 this group of Sierra Leoneans caused the first major uprising against the rule of the APC, with a so-called “revolution” that was carried out mainly by students, school children and unemployed youths throughout the country. The Sierra Leone government responded by further repressing the independent press and the trade unions. Mass Awareness and Participation (MAP), a radical student association, was disbanded by Fourah Bay College authorities in 1985, and much of its leadership was suspended from the university.46 This led to a new phase in the West African student and youth alliance, as exiled students from Sierra Leone re-grouped in Ghana to continue their revolutionary activities inspired by socialism and Pan-Africanism. In was by no means only in Sierra Leone and Liberia that West African students were engaged in protest, but it was in these countries that the movement very quickly led to violent conflict. In Ghana, the exiled students from Sierra Leone recruited other dissidents to their cause, and joined forces with young Liberians who had rapidly become disillusioned with Doe’s mimicry of the previous government’s repressive political tactics. The group even sent its members to be trained as combatants in Libya, but it soon fell apart when no real post-training strategy could be agreed upon. However, while the intellectual wing of the movement dispersed, the associated unemployed youths who now had military training to complement their sense of dissatisfaction and desire for revolution, were to become the first foot-soldiers of the RUF and the NPFL.47 The original ideology of revolution was thus the product of a pan-West African normative community that helped to politicise other pre-existing transversal communities such as ethnic groups and economic communities of miners and traders. Disenfranchised young people as a whole formed a region-wide transversal community that sought political change, even while their localised communities generated much more specific loyalties and behavioural norms. As conflict began and progressed across the region however, the ideology of revolution became lost, particularly within the RUF which could rarely articulate a political agenda. Localised identities were transformed and new transversal communities were created with norms derived directly from the experience of violence. It is important to distinguish between pre- and post-conflict transversal communities in order to demonstrate that
46 Abdullah and Rashid, "Rebel Movements." 47 Ibid. Chapter 4 134 the phenomenon is not created by conflict, but has instead been a constant feature of West African societal organisation during the entire period of state creation and development. Communities formed in times of peace are however, transformed by the politics of conflict, and interlock with communities created by the experience of conflict, such as refugees and combatants. It is important to note that while such communities are a function of war, they exist within the same transversal political space that has existed parallel to official state politics since the beginning of colonial control. They thus operate within a pre-existing paradigm, interacting with communities and individuals in a society governed by warlords and patronage politics.
Combatant communities One of the most obvious communities created as a result of conflict is that of regional combatants. Rebel organisations have included in their ranks not only national dissidents, but also fighters from neighbouring states. From its earliest stages, Taylor’s NPFL in Liberia incorporated combatants from a number of different ethnic groups, including dissidents from Sierra Leone and Guinea. Soldiers from Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire were also allegedly involved at the instigation of their presidents. As conflicts began in Sierra Leone and then in Liberia for a second time, many of the same regional combatants were recycled. Hoffman even reported that in 2002, the insurgent “General” Wiley was in Sierra Leone preparing men for deployment in either Sierra Leone or Liberia, depending on how the political situation in both countries developed.48 Once the conflict in Côte d’Ivoire began in 2002, there were reports that both rebel and government forces had been joined by ex-combatants from Sierra Leone and Liberia. A number of reports, put together by NGOs such as Amnesty International, have documented human rights abuses perpetrated by combatants often speaking English – rather than French or a local African language as would have been expected in Côte d’Ivoire.49 Notably, this occurred mainly in Western Côte d’Ivoire, where the rebel groups have significant links to Taylor and his Liberian supporters, quite separate to the northern MPCI that benefited more from
48 Hoffman, "The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia," 219. 49 See for example Amnesty International, "Côte d'Ivoire: Voices of Women and Girls, Forgotten Victims of the Conflicts," (London: 2007). Chapter 4 135
Burkinabé support. Although the rebel groups are now officially banded together in the FN, these old divisions are still in evidence. Such regionally recycled combatants form a loose, region-wide community identity. They have often been referred to as mercenaries, and to a certain extent the label is justified since the norm is for fighters to be drawn into conflict not only as a result of political motivation, but also, as a Monrovia newspaper put it, “by the lure of money and loot.”50 Indeed, it has been alleged that Sierra Leone fighters gained valuable tactical and strategic lessons from the operations of Executive Outcomes, an official mercenary outfit brought in by the British to help end the conflict.51 However, the norms associated with mercenary activity, leading to the assumption that there is no political basis or other legitimate reason for involvement in organised violence, are perhaps unfairly ascribed in this case without first considering the impact of local community on West African combatants. Significantly, the Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) processes in the aftermath of peace agreements in West Africa have been woefully inadequate. Combatants have in many cases been disarmed and demobilised, but little money has been available for effective reintegration and rehabilitation programmes. Young men who were likely pushed towards their initial involvement in conflict because they were unemployed and had few options for economic advancement, find themselves in the same situation in the aftermath of conflict.52 In most cases they are actually in a worse position because as ex- combatants they are ostracised from post-conflict society and lack the support networks previously provided by their home communities. This is a central reason for the choice many ex-combatants make to remain part of a community of soldiers. Taking this argument further, Hoffman explains that when war comes to an end, combatants are unable to “dissociate their participation in the conflict from their relationship to patrons on whom they depended for both economic and social
50 Cited in Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War (Oxford: James Currey, 1999). 51 Melissa Leach, "Security, Socioecology, Polity: Mande Hunters, Civil Society, and Nation-States in Contemporary West Africa," Africa Today 50, no. 4 (2004): ix. 52 Interviews with British and New Zealand armed personnel serving with the International Military Advisory and Training Team in Sierra Leone, February 2007. Also see Paul Jackson, "Reshuffling an Old Deck of Cards? The Politics of Local Government Reform in Sierra Leone," African Affairs 106, no. 422 (2006): 101. United Nations Security Council, "Fourteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Liberia," 7. Chapter 4 136 livelihoods.”53 The term “mercenary” refers only to an occupation, but membership of community gives fighters a much more durable identity. This is a community in which norms of behaviour include taking risks and making sacrifices for military leaders, and in which there is very little long-term economic or physical security; but violence is not only a destructive force. When it forms part of normative community identity, it can also be seen as the most appropriate and most effective medium for empowerment. Such norms are difficult to counter. It is thus for reasons of local community and identity that young men are so easily recycled as combatants through regional rebel movements, cross-border crime and the small-arms trade. One particularly interesting sub-group of the transversal community of West African combatants is that of the Mande hunters. They are interesting because they demonstrate how community norms can develop and be transformed through the progression of conflict, even as community identity is solidified. Traditionally linked to the ethnic Mandes from Mali, the hunters have gained a coherent agenda and identity as regional combatants through the West African conflict networks. They are best known as the Kamajors within the Civilian Defence Force (CDF), a localised form of community whose members took part in the Sierra Leone conflict to protect civilian human security.54 The mythology of hunters as protectors stems from the CDF alliance with Kabbah’s democratically-elected government and their efforts to defend people against the abuses of both the rebel RUF and the military junta’s soldiers who seemed indiscriminate in their attacks on civilians. The hunters as a broader identity are not confined to Sierra Leone; on the contrary, they are highly- organised with associations throughout the Greater Mano River Area. In Liberia, they fought with the LURD insurgency. In Burkina Faso, they have traditionally been allied to the current ruling party. In Guinea, they are independent of both government and opposition parties. In Côte d’Ivoire, where they are known as the Benkadi or dozos, witnesses have recounted sightings of hunters fighting alongside the rebels, particularly the northern MPCI. Across the region, hunters are ethnically and politically independent, and have constructed allegiances according to the political beliefs and agendas of their different associations.55 The hunters form a cross-regional
53 Hoffman, "The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia," 223. 54 Patrick Muana, "The Kamajoi Militia: Civil War, Internal Displacement and the Politics of Counter-Insurgency," Africa Development 23, no. 3/4 (1997): 78. 55 Leach, "Security, Socioecology, Polity," x. Chapter 4 137 transversal community by virtue of the regional dissemination of ideas and norms regarding organisation and behaviour. In recent years, the mythology of the good, defence-minded Mande hunter has been dented, suggesting that norms are beginning to change as the spread of violent conflict takes over as the regional normative barometer. Even in Sierra Leone, the leader of the CDF, Sam Hinga-Norman, was in 2003 indicted by the Special Court for war crimes perpetrated during the country’s conflict. In the process of protecting civilians, he and his Kamajor forces had allegedly murdered other civilians and enlisted child soldiers.56 In early 2007, before the conclusion of his trial, Hinga- Norman was flown to Senegal for medical treatment, where he later died. His status as a leader of the widely-mythologised CDF meant that he had many supporters throughout Sierra Leone, unlike most of the other Special Court indictees. The belief of these supporters in his innocence and his triumphant ability to defend civilians, meant that many suspected the government and the international community of conspiring to kill him before he could be tried.57 In Liberia, the legend of the ethical and respectful hunters has been less intense. The Kamajors were linked to Liberia through kinship, trade and refugee networks, but appear to have become involved with LURD as a result of a mercenary rather than a human security agenda. In 2001, a Sierra Leone Kamajor combatant was quoted as saying “The CDF has generally treated civilians well, but we’re not going [to Liberia] as rebels – we’re going as mercenaries,”58 and the hunters joined LURD combatants in carrying out abuses against Liberian civilians. The reason for this appears to stem from their treatment after the Sierra Leone conflict. Whereas both government and RUF leaders were given positions in the post-conflict transitional administration that enabled them to reward their supporters, the CDF leaders generally felt that their sacrifices in supporting Kabbah’s democratically-elected government went unrewarded. According to their perception, the worst abuses had attracted the greatest rewards in Sierra Leone, and it seems the shift in tactics after their appearance on the side of LURD in Liberia signified an attempt to reap the economic and political rewards of violent conflict. This shift in tactics seems to have continued in Côte d’Ivoire, where the dozos have sided with the rebels, particularly
56 Special Court for Sierra Leone, www.sc-sl.org 57 Interviews with staff at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in February 2007 58 Cited in Hoffman, "The Civilian Target in Sierra Leone and Liberia," 218. Chapter 4 138 the MPCI, and have been widely accused of committing atrocities against civilians, essentially violating the regional hunters’ normative code of practice.59 The experience of violent conflict appears to have altered the meaning of identity as a West African Mande hunter, confusing their perception of whether civilians are the innocent victims of conflict deserving of protection, or whether they are a legitimate target of politically- and economically-motivated violence.
Refugee communities As victims of conflict, civilians across West Africa have formed their own transversal communities, most clearly as internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees. As Soguk and Whitehall point out, “refugees rupture the territorialising logic of the state.”60 They create communities that are not bounded by territory but by shared experiences. At one level, refugees and IDPs have a local identity, fostered within a particular group, most often in a refugee camp that may serve as a relatively stable home for over a decade. Buduburam, a refugee camp in Ghana, has been inhabited mainly by Liberians for over fifteen years. It now looks nothing like a stereotypical refugee camp. Rather, it is a settlement of 40,000 inhabitants who have built houses, run businesses, attend church and send their children to schools in school uniforms, all inside the camp.61 However, refugees also have a regional identity, sharing expectative norms with displaced people across the region. This identity confers the expectation of certain rights, and generates demands on a host community, regardless of the specific origin of refugee individuals. This identity is not only constructed by the membership of the refugee community, but is to some extent also foisted upon it by outsiders who perceive refugees as a single transversal community. At Buduburam in 2007, both Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugees were targeted as Ghanaians became fearful of the potentially destabilising effect of alleged ex- combatants taking refuge in their country.62 In Côte d’Ivoire, refugees contributed to the outbreak of civil war – not because Ivoirians were hostile to their particular nationalities, but because they were hostile to the status of both refugees and
59 See for example Amnesty International, "Côte d'Ivoire," 219. 60 Soguk and Whitehall, "Wandering Grounds." 61 Based on interviews with Liberian refugees at the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana, January 2007 62 Tanu Jallh, “Sierra Leone: Refugees Risk Deportation from Ghana,” Concord Times, 2 April 2008. Chapter 4 139 economic immigrants, both of whom were perceived to be reaping the benefits of an economy they had not contributed to. Refugees are often considered to be closely connected to conflict in West Africa – not merely as a community created by conflict, but also as contributors to it. Refugee camps have been blamed for serving as recruiting grounds and as a source of supplies for combatants.63 Refugees are likely to come from communities whose political marginalisation was a motivating factor for insurgency in their home state. They may alternatively identify with a particular ethnic group that has been the target of attacks in their home country. Refugees are likely to have family members who are either targeted by one of the warring factions, or have become involved in the insurgency themselves. At Buduburam, refugees spoke of the importance of family ties, and of the desire of many to assist their kin in Liberia, regardless of whether or not they agreed with the aims and methods of the warring parties.64 Refugee camps may also serve as a source of both supplies and fighters for insurgent groups. Recruitment of adults into the conflict of a host state is most likely when the refugee camps include ex-combatants. Once again, membership of community becomes important. While individual refugees may recognise the legitimacy of taking part in conflict in order to defend and assist family members, the community as a whole will be unlikely to accept ex-combatants as deserving of the refugee identity. The conflict in Sierra Leone was so destructive to all civilians, and the political ideology of its insurgents so ambiguous, that refugees fleeing the country often did not know whether they had been attacked by government or RUF soldiers.65 As a coherent identity, West African refugees tend not to tolerate those who are directly implicated in violence. People who have lost family members, homes and livelihoods often band together as an anti-conflict community rather than becoming revengeful. At Buduburam, the localised refugee community prides itself on its success in overcoming ethnic and political divides, and many of its inhabitants expressed the hope that when they eventually return home, the experience of living peacefully as Liberians elsewhere in West Africa will enable them to contribute much to the reconciliation process inside Liberia and foster peaceful links with communities in the wider region. At Buduburam, it is well-known that ex-combatants are among
63 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 218. 64 Interviews with Liberian refugees at the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana, January 2007 65 Clapham, Africa and the International System. Chapter 4 140 the inhabitants, but they do not identify themselves as such because of the attached stigma. Such ex-combatants may be willing to leave the refugee community and join the regional fighters in their host state. At Buduburam, refugee spokespeople consistently denied that their refusal to accept ex-combatants as part of the community might contribute to the ease with which they are re-recruited, thus contributing to the continuation and spread of conflict across the region. Refugee camps often additionally serve as recruitment sites for child soldiers. Africa-wide, children make up 57% of the inhabitants of UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) refugee camps.66 While child soldiers are often abducted, either from refugee camps or their home communities, refugee children, particularly orphans, are vulnerable to recruitment campaigns carried out by insurgent groups. They are chronically poor, lack adequate food, water, shelter and protection, and have witnessed countless acts of inhumanity perpetrated even against their own families. As Peter Singer describes it in his book, Children at War, “Children, particularly those orphaned or disconnected from civil society, may volunteer to join any group if they believe this is the only way to guarantee regular meals, clothing, or medical attention.”67 In refugee camps, it appears to have been relatively easy for armed factions to lure children into their ranks with promises of food, protection, or glory, or by threatening them with violence and death.68 Although the construction of identity may be less conscious among children than among adults, they also seek community stability and may be more vulnerable to recruitment if they lack the security provided by family communities. Once again, the refugee community does not want to accept that recruitment of child soldiers occurs so easily. At Buduburam it was rumoured that orphans had been recruited into Ivoirian factions with promises of jobs and food, neither of which are secure for refugee orphans even in such an established settlement. Many refugees in the camp denied that recruitment had taken place, claiming that it could not have escaped their notice. However, in a settlement of 40,000 it is necessarily difficult to keep track of the activities of all the orphans, and teachers at the schools testified that at the time of the rumoured recruitment, a number of children disappeared from school and have not since returned.69
66 Achvarina and Reich, "No Place to Hide," 138. 67 Peter Singer, Children at War (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave, 2005), 15. 68 Achvarina and Reich, "No Place to Hide," 135. 69 Interviews with refugee school teachers at Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana, January 2007 Chapter 4 141
It is well-known that child soldiers are ubiquitous participants in conflicts throughout West Africa. Children as young as seven have been enlisted as either fighters or “soldiers’ wives” in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire.70 They played a particularly significant role in the second war in Liberia between 2000 and 2003 when it was estimated that approximately 21,000 child soldiers were fighting for various factions – making up 53% of the total number of combatants.71 One of the most worrying elements of the child soldier phenomenon in the long-term is their socialisation as “vicious and inhumane killers.”72 Their region-wide community identity is not clearly linked to a conscious normative agenda, but child soldiers are linked by shared experiences and norms of violence. They may later join conflicts as adult combatants, and often pose a significant threat to peace and stability in their home countries in the aftermath of conflict. In a more localised sense, child soldiers also ultimately tend to adopt their fellow combatants as a substitute family community. Military gang leaders take on the role of caregivers, not only brutalising the children, drugging them and forcing them to commit atrocities, but also guiding them in the belief that such behaviour is commendable. This evidently has repercussions for the aftermath of conflict. Attempts to implement DDRR initiatives have demonstrated that it is particularly difficult to reintegrate children who are psychologically scarred from their experiences as combatants, have lost their families and are not likely to be easily accepted into either refugee or post-conflict communities.
Conclusion: Cycle of Violence In West Africa’s parallel sphere of transversal society, transversal communities are of primary importance to political developments, and thus to the progress of conflict. At the non-elite level such communities fall into two broad categories – region-wide and localised. Both manifestations might be based on quite material experiences and objectives but foster both expectative and behavioural norms. Significantly, transversal communities that fit into either category are but rarely defined by their association to a specific state, although particular objectives may tie them to policy-making at the state level. These types of communities have
70 Frank Faulkner, "Kindergarten Killers: Morality, Murder and the Child Soldier Problem," Third World Quarterly 22, no. 4 (2001): 499. 71 Achvarina and Reich, "No Place to Hide," 161. 72 Faulkner, "Kindergarten Killers," 499. Chapter 4 142 inhabited the region’s transversal space as long as the creation of states imposed an additional layer of governance in West Africa. However, warfare across the region has both transformed existing communities and generated new identities linked to the experience of violent conflict, such as regional combatants and refugees. As communities by definition foster durable identities, those formed by conflict generate behavioural and expectative norms linked to violence, complicating attempts to generate post-conflict peace and security, and contributing to the spread of conflict. Operating within an ideological structure governed essentially by class norms, regional elites are able to use local-level communities to facilitate fulfillment of their individual goals in the region, often linked to networks of alliances. Their control over weak/quasi-states gives them the power and wealth to support anti-government forces in the states of their rivals. Outside of the structure of conflict, transversal communities foster community, communication, the dissemination of norms and the development of ideas outside of the state framework, providing alternatives for citizens of West African states and allowing for immanent critique and thus potential progress. However, the identities and norms developed within them are durable, which is why they have a significant bearing on the intractability of conflict when developed in the context of regional warfare. A cycle of violence is created as people begin to identify almost exclusively with communities that have relevance only in a society defined by war, and generate norms that facilitate survival in such an environment. Divisions based on ethnicity are liable to become more politically significant, class divides more fraught, demands for compensation on the part of war victims more insistent, while the state has less to give. More importantly however, conflict generates behavioural norms according to which violence becomes an expected and legitimate form of communicating needs and attaining goals. In Côte d’Ivoire, the repeated postponement of presidential elections expected to bring a definitive close to the country’s civil war demonstrates clearly the difficulty of moving forward, away from violence. Elections are now due on 30 November 2008, but several impediments could delay them again. The main presidential contenders do not appear to trust each other; disarmament and demobilisation of both rebels and militias loyal to the government has been slow; and the process of identifying eligible Ivoirian voters, a key trigger of conflict in 2002, is also behind Chapter 4 143 schedule.73 Norms of violence also continue to pose a threat to post-conflict society in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In both countries, youth unemployment is as high if not higher than in the pre-conflict society of the late-1980s. In Liberia in 2006 it was estimated that as many as 85% of Liberians, many of them former soldiers, did not have steady employment.74 This was due in part to the incomplete and inadequate DDRR process that has largely failed to make non-violent economic advancement an option. In Sierra Leone, the population is generally dissatisfied with the slow progress their country has made, especially by comparison with Liberia. Sierra Leoneans discuss how Johnson-Sirleaf restored electricity to Monrovia only six months after being elected in post-conflict Liberia, while in Freetown the grid is still barely functional, seven years after the cessation of hostilities.75 In both Sierra Leone and Liberia, the war destroyed infrastructure, homes, job security and educational possibilities.76 It also drew pre-conflict transversal communities such as ethnic groups into its logic of violence and destruction where these might once have been able to provide necessary support networks. In addition, the statistics related to unemployment and other reasons for political dissatisfaction do not take into account the effects of a return of the Liberian and Sierra Leonean combatants still spread throughout Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. Nor do they take into account the large number of refugees who are yet to return home. In March 2008 it was estimated that 75,000 Liberians were still living in refugee camps and communities across the sub-region.77 At Buduburam, Liberian refugees described their unwillingness to return home to a country where their villages had been destroyed, their families were unaccounted for and there were no job opportunities. The repatriation package offered by UNHCR is meager when compared to the investment many Liberians have made in their host countries, having set up businesses or established themselves in educational positions for example.78 The continuing discontent in Liberia can only be exacerbated if and when these groups
73 International Crisis Group, "Côte d'Ivoire: Ensuring Credible Elections," (Dakar/Brussels: 2008). United Nations Security Council, "Sixteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire," (New York: 2008). 74 “Liberia’s President: Peace isn’t Enough,” The Economist, 13 December 2006. 75 Interviews with staff at the Office of National Security in Freetown, Sierra Leone, February 2007 See also United Nations Security Council, "Sixth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone," (New York: 2008), 5. 76 Interview with IMATT staff in Freetown, Sierra Leone, February 2007 77 United Nations Security Council, "Sixteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Liberia," (New York: 2008), 12. 78 Interviews with Liberian refugees at Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana, January 2007 Chapter 4 144 choose to return home. In the meantime, the Liberian and Sierra Leonean refugee presence in Ghana has begun to cause local resentment. In March 2008, Ghanaian authorities detained 600 Liberian refugees and deported sixteen while the Liberian government continued to protest that the repatriation process could not be rushed.79 Lack of formal employment has entailed the continuation of illicit resource extraction and trade in Liberia. In early 2006, the former fighting groups still had control over both the Guthrie and Sinoe rubber plantations in Liberia, with an estimated 15,000 armed ex-combatants employed.80 Ex-LURD combatants appeared to be the most substantial group and their war-time community structure was employed to create a sense of order. Control over rubber-tapping was allegedly allocated according to the rank of the ex-combatants, and taxes on the rubber were paid to former LURD commanders. When questioned, the ex-combatants said they were still waiting for the “RR” aspects of the “DDRR” process and needed to work on the rubber plantations in order to survive. It is unlikely however, that any post-conflict RR process could be as lucrative as the illicit trade in rubber. Meanwhile, it was reported “on numerous occasions that the ex-combatants in Guthrie Rubber Plantation are committing serious crimes, including murder, rape and aggravated assault.”81 The International Crisis Group (ICG) further commented that ex-LURD fighters were terrorising civilians and “police have reported acid attacks… and a rise in domestic violence, often between ex-combatants and women – who they kidnapped and held as sexual slaves during the war.”82 By the end of 2006, UN troops had been able to “persuade” ex-combatants to leave the Guthrie rubber plantations,83 but Government control over both Guthrie and Sinoe remains very uncertain, and violence continues to characterise life on the plantations.84 Extraction of resources pursued through warlord-established networks continues to operate across the West African sub- region.
79 “Liberia: A Road-Map to End Stand-Off Over Refugees,” UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, 28 March 2008. 80 Global Witness, "Cautiously Optimistic," 10. 81 United Nations Mission in Liberia, "Human Rights in Liberia's Rubber Plantations: Tapping into the Future," (Monrovia & New York: 2006), 64. 82 International Crisis Group, "Liberia: Resurrecting the Justice System," (Dakar & Brussels: 2006), 1. 83 United Nations Security Council, "Thirteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Liberia," (New York: 2006), 7. 84 United Nations Security Council, "Sixteenth Progress Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Liberia," 9. Chapter 4 145
Events in Guinea at the beginning of 2007 made clear that conflict remains a serious risk for the region as a whole and the Greater Mano River Area in particular. While Guinea has known bouts of violence throughout the past two decades, tensions were particularly high at the beginning of 2007 when the trade unions initiated nation- wide strikes.85 Mirroring events in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 1980s, it was the lower classes, including the unemployed and both urban and rural workers who protested against the injustice of Conté’s rule and the harsh economic situation. Demonstrations in every region of Guinea mobilised all ethnic groups, including the Sosso, with whom Conté identifies.86 Led by trade unions, Guineas pressed for a change of government, and Liberian, Sierra Leonean and Ivoirian combatants, many loyal to Taylor and Sankoh, travelled to Guinea to join the most significant protests against Conté’s rule yet seen.87 There were even rumours that the remnants of ULIMO in Liberia had crossed into Guinea in anticipation of civil war.88 Sierra Leone no longer has an official defence pact with Guinea, but in 2007 Kabbah was still its president and many in Sierra Leone were worried that he might feel obliged to give Conté the kind of support he had received during the 1990s when exiled from Sierra Leone. The concern was that this could draw Sierra Leone back into regional warfare. Early in 2007 when Guinea was destabilised by strikes, Sierra Leone was immediately affected. The borders were closed, impeding the legitimate produce trade, and driving up prices of staples foods in Sierra Leone, causing increased dissatisfaction amongst the populace. Tensions were already high due to looming elections, and minor skirmishes had a tendency to lead quickly to violence. Ordinary Sierra Leoneans and Liberians in West Africa’s capital cities tend to deny the possibility of further conflict in their states, claiming that now the people have experienced war they would not countenance another insurgency.89 However, the threat posed by returning combatants and refugees in an unstable political situation is serious. Conflict-based communities have left a legacy of division and established norms of violence that are proving difficult to counter. With dissatisfaction continuing in Liberia and Sierra Leone, with conflict only just coming to an end in Côte d’Ivoire and with Guinea continuing to be on the verge of more
85 Interviews with staff at the Office of National Security in Freetown, Sierra Leone, February 2007 86 International Crisis Group, "Guinea," 19. 87 Interviews with staff at the Office of National Security in Freetown, Sierra Leone, February 2007 88 Interview with Lansana Gberie in Freetown, Sierra Leone, February 2007 89 Interviews with Sierra Leonans and Liberians in Sierra Leone and Ghana, January-February 2007 Chapter 4 146 serious strife, there is a real concern that transversal communities linked to the cycle of violence could lead the region back into conflict once again. While renewed warfare has so far been averted, the crisis in Guinea at the beginning of 2007 demonstrated how volatile the regional political situation remains. In order to understand and respond to the continuing cycle of violence it is necessary to consider West African politics and conflict from a regional perspective. Institutional regionalism is advanced in West Africa, providing one means of understanding the politics of regional integration and identity formation. Part II of this thesis assesses the ability of West Africa’s premier regional organisation to engage with the cross- border politics that contribute to the intractability of conflict. 147
Part II ECOWAS and Regional Conflict Resolution
Chapter 5 148
Chapter 5 – Regional Integration in International Society
Since the creation of territorial states during the colonial period, international politics in West Africa has taken place within two layers: international society and transversal society. One of the central differences between the two layers is the nature of the key actors. International society is state-centric, whereas transversal society is people-centred and provides the space for political activity to take place in a range of communities. Since the end of the Cold War, this division might appear to have become blurred, as West African states are rapidly integrating, moving towards a regional identity based on people rather than states. The cross-state nature of transversal politics suggests that a regional approach might be best able to capture its subtleties and implications. A regional forum should be better equipped than a state government to represent those who participate in transversal society. ECOWAS, West Africa’s regional organisation, has already demonstrated its ability to account for the political needs of individual West Africans. It has even drawn on ideas reminiscent of CSS to respond to regional conflict in a manner that goes beyond the strictures of state sovereignty and attendant doctrine of non-intervention. However, in their attempts to include “people” as relevant political agents, regional institutions actually highlight the importance of distinguishing between solidarist international society and a separate transversal society. At its most tightly integrated and innovative, ECOWAS constructs normative goals and seeks to include civil society in its decision-making processes. However, in doing so it tends to draw non-state processes into its state-based framework, essentially disregarding the constraining strength of ideational structures in transversal society. This chapter explores the relationship between international and transversal society in a regional context. It provides a conceptual background for the more empirically focused studies of regional integration and security in Chapters 6 and 7. The purpose of Part II is to investigate the extent to which West African international society is able to engage with and respond to the demands of transversal society.
Regionalism in International Society “Regionalism” is a broad IR concept that stems from the simple idea of co- operation between governments in geographical proximity. It can usefully be broken into a number of concepts that contribute to regional integration, as clearly explained Chapter 5 149 by Andrew Hurrell. “Regionalism” is the broad process with which all theoretical perspectives are concerned when they consider regional integration in international society. “Regionalisation” refers to the increase in transnational movement across a region, including trade and migration, often outside of official state channels. “Regional identity” refers to the imagination of a regional community that becomes meaningful for all actors from individuals to states. The different theoretical traditions make use of these elements to different degrees in their consideration of regional possibilities and their analyses of existing examples of regional integration. In simple terms, neo-realism is concerned primarily with alliance formation in response to external events; neo-liberal institutionalists take into account regionalisation process such as transnational economic integration as a motivating factor for collective regional action; but only constructivist accounts emphasise the importance of regional identity and awareness as a basis for regional integration and cohesion.1 During the Cold War, examples of regional political co-operation and integration tended to be interpreted by Western academics in terms of rationalist conceptions of international relations based on assumptions about state sovereignty and autonomy in an anarchical system. Neo-realists were sceptical of attempts at regional organisation, and were doubtful of their value, as they expected IGOs to reflect rather than affect world politics. As John Mearsheimer says, “For realists… institutions largely mirror the distribution of power in the system.”2 For neo-liberal institutionalists, co-operation is possible through regional institutional structures that minimise the risks of shedding a portion of the self-help ethos by creating rules and punishing states that deviate from those rules.3 States are likely to take part in such institutions and participate in collective action if they expect to benefit. The focus is less on “power” per se, as states aim for absolute rather than relative gains. The threat posed by powerful neighbouring states is perceived to be lessened by the rules and enforcement mechanisms of the institution. This may still entail a form of balancing, as weak states may choose to join a regional organisation in the expectation of acting collaboratively with other weak states to deter a hegemon from acts of aggression. The overarching importance accorded to state sovereignty in rationalist approaches
1 Andrew Hurrell, "Explaining the Resurgence of Regionalism in World Politics," Review of International Studies 21, no. 4 (1995): 334-52. 2 John Mearsheimer, "The False Promise of International Institutions," International Security 19, no. 3 (1995): 7. 3 James Caporaso, "International Relations Theory and Multilateralism: The Search for Foundations," International Organization 46, no. 3 (1992): 602. Chapter 5 150 led to the expectation that regional politics would comprise only superficial and/or short-term co-operation rather than integration. It was during the 1990s that the constructivist approach emerged to rival rationalist theory as a legitimate conceptualisation of regionalism. Employing a normative approach, it reveals a different interpretation of relevant power structures. In constructivist approaches, states that lack material power may still play a leading role within a regional organisation by convincing other players that their arguments advance the common interest, and ultimately by appealing to regional standards of appropriateness. Normative power is particularly effective when it is inconspicuous. As Alexandra Ghecui explains, norm socialisation is most effective when new converts do not recognise themselves as such, but consider the norms to be “normal,” a pre-existing component of their identity and culture.4 If socialisation to logics of appropriateness occurs in this way, states will be more willing to cede power to a regional institution. As Alex Bellamy says, a regional identity need not “transcend” or “replace” national loyalties.5 A region is most powerful when these identities merge or, to paraphrase Ole Waever, when the category of the region is part of the self- conception of the state.6 As a result of identity, normative power and socialisation, states may agree to create or join regional organisations because they subscribe to the regionally-relevant values exposed. The expectation of beneficial material outcomes is only one factor to be considered. These different interpretations are not purely theoretical. To a great extent, regionalism reflects international society. The diverse models of regional integration reflect both differences between manifestations of international society in different parts of the world and, over time, changing expectative norms in broader international society. Michael Smith usefully conceptualises a continuum that ties progress in thinking on regionalism to its practical manifestations. At one end lies “egoistic instrumental rationality” and at the other, “social rationality.”7 The continuum
4 Alexandra Gheciu, "Security Institutions as Agents of Socialisation? NATO and the 'New Europe'," International Organization 59, no. 4 (2005): 976. See also Jeffrey T Checkel, "International Institutions and Socialisation in Europe: Introduction and Framework," International Organization 59, no. 4 (2005): 801-26. 5 Alex Bellamy, Security Communities and their Neighbours: Regional Fortresses or Global Integrators? (Houndmills & London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 38. 6 Ole Waever, "The EU as a Security Actor: Reflections from a Pessimistic Constructivist on Post- Sovereign Security Actors," in International Relations Theory and the Politics of European Integration, ed. Morten Kelstrup and Michael Williams (London: Routledge, 2000), 268. 7 Michael E Smith, "Institutionalisation, Policy Adaptation and European Foreign Policy Cooperation," European Journal of International Relations 10, no. 1 (2004): 99. Chapter 5 151 highlights the continued relevance of survival and self-help for states across all regions. It also acknowledges that even states that recognise common objectives will need to engage in a process through which they may begin to interpret the material world in the same way, and can ultimately address it with a common voice stemming from a common identity. Part of the role of regional organisations is to facilitate this process. It is the constructivist approach that is most relevant for understanding the development of regionalism in ECOWAS, as norms and identity formation have been fundamentally important. Significantly, the behavioural, constitutive and expectative norms that have developed within ECOWAS stem from two sources: West Africa and broader international society. ECOWAS’s West African identity is crucial. It combines pre-colonial norms and expectations with a more coherent West African identity that may appear to have artificial boundaries but has been developed over the past half-century through the common experience of colonialism and in reaction to outside pressures including from other African regions. This gives ECOWAS more political and social reality than a mere collection of relatively new sovereign states. However, ECOWAS is firmly situated within the international society sphere of politics and has been heavily influenced by broader normative developments. This has limited the organisation to one particular form of regional identity; an identity founded on affiliation to the states created by Europeans. As it relies on co-operation between heads of state, it has been a constant struggle for ECOWAS to have a direct impact on the lives of its individual citizens.
Solidarist Regionalism Since the end of the Cold War and amid growing awareness of globalisation, constructivist approaches to regionalism have examined how the concept can be deepened to take account of the erosion of the Westphalian state structure and the emergence of new actors that have a role to play in international politics and security.8 During the 1990s, the involvement of individuals in decision-making became a significant goal of solidarist international society. Drawing on the normative expectations of world society, transnational activity was increasingly recognised as
8 Björn Hettne, "Beyond the 'New' Regionalism," New Political Economy 10, no. 4 (2005): 543-71. Rodrigo Tavares and Michael Schulz, "Measuring the Impact of Regional Organisations on Peace Building," in Assessment and Measurement of Regional Integration, ed. Philippe de Lombaerde (London & New York: Routledge, 2006), 232-51. Chapter 5 152 legitimate, and integration within regional organisations deepened as they looked towards a post-Westphalian, “globalised” world of international relations. This change has been reflected in ECOWAS, which has been influenced by important developments in international relations, particularly as exemplified in the EU. Since the 1990s, West African integration identity has been increasingly tied to democratic principles of governance. ECOWAS has sought to move beyond a collection of states, elevating the role of individuals as both political agents and legitimate bearers of rights. Two key examples of solidarism in international society of particular relevance to EOCWAS are the growing legal stance of civil society in regional politics, and the increasing cohesiveness of security based on common identity.
Civil society Civil society has slowly begun to take on a much more prominent role in ECOWAS, reflecting the organisation’s changing identity. The term “civil society” is today generally used to describe political activity that takes place outside of official governing bodies and processes. It refers to the independence of people and their ideas from the structures of the bureaucratic state, and is now closely associated with the autonomous lobbying sector. Different forms of civil society have been active across Africa at each of the crisis points of the continent’s twentieth century history. As its strength lies in its autonomous ability to question the manner in which state politics is organised, official recognition has been unnecessary for people to gain an independent voice and seek to influence their governments’ decision-making processes. Domestically, the growth of the civil society sector has been linked to the African democratisation movement. According to the expectations of international society, a key element of liberal democratisation is the generation of a space for political argument where minority voices and minority opinions can be heard. West African civil society organisations have used this to gain recognition in states that claim to be democratic. As people in a wide variety of different states have begun to recognise the commonality of their experiences and the similarity of their reactions to pertinent issues, “civil society” has increasingly taken on a transnational flavour, and West African epistemic networks have contributed to increasing lobbying strength across the region. Civil society is particularly significant to consider as an element of emerging solidarism in West African international society as it exposes the interplay between Chapter 5 153 international and world society. As Buzan points out, the term “world society” is often used synonymously with “global civil society.”9 Like world society, civil society is strongly normative. Its rising prominence in West Africa’s key international society institutions demonstrates the growth of cross-cutting values and identity at the transnational as well as the international level. It casts light on the type of international society that is emerging in the region. As Buzan argues, it is only “liberal interstate societies” that allow civil/world society to gain political and legal status, as this requires both permeation of state boundaries by people and ideas, and acceptance that legitimate community exists beyond those boundaries.10 Civil society provides a reference point for citizens outside of the state, and facilitates political mobilisation. The emergence of civil society in an inter-state system demonstrates the growing influence of liberal, even transnational world society principles. It is only over the last ten years that ECOWAS has begun to officially recognise the legitimacy of both domestic and regional NGOs, and has accorded a more official role to transnational civil society. This is partly a result of more organised civil society gaining strength across the region, and partly a reflection of solidarist developments in broader international society. West African civil society now often takes the form of cross-regional, transnational advocacy groups that promote specific issue areas and lobby ECOWAS as an IGO as well as specifically targeted states. It has won particular favour as a mechanism for promoting the views of marginalised groups where state regimes have failed. Their activities evidence the growing democratisation of West Africa, in its regional organisation as well as in individual states. Individuals have slowly gained the right to impact on developments at the regional level as well as in the domestic political scene of their own particular state. Pressure from groups of individuals is increasingly able to influence regional decision-making which in turn has an impact on the domestic political environment of all ECOWAS member-states, contributing to the development of regional identity.
Regional security The development of solidarism in West Africa’s regional identity combined with new international expectations of humanitarianism has been influential in ECOWAS’s security sector as well as its political sector. As a site of political and
9 Buzan, From International to World Society? , 2. 10 Ibid., 259. Chapter 5 154 economic integration, ECOWAS has from the outset assisted in fostering amicable relations between states in West Africa. During the Cold War, rationalist analyses of regionalism expected that this would be the limit of integration in the security sector, whether in West Africa or Europe: at best, economic co-operation might contribute to stability by decreasing the likelihood of threats from regional partners.11 When states did co-operate on military matters, this was interpreted as the self-interested pursuit of pre-defined state security within an anarchic international system. The power balance between co-operative states was not altered by these types of commitments. As members of international society, states had the right to defend their security, and regional organisations only facilitated this defence. Demonstrating the influence of the questionable realist assumption that in an anarchic system self-help is the only way to guarantee state survival, security integration was thought to be extremely unlikely. However, the shift towards a more norm-based international society that builds on the concerns of individuals and non-state communities has been reflected in the changing ideas about the nature of regional organisations, including their security institutions. The concept of identity and norm-based security is most clearly manifested in Adler and Barnett’s constructivist reworking of Deutsch’s concept of the “security community.”12 Deutsch’s 1957 study of security communities was far ahead of its time in terms of its ability to envisage community rather than perpetual distrust, and durable peace rather than perpetual preparations for war amongst sovereign states.13 Adler and Barnett build on the Deutschian conception of peaceful community, developing it through a constructivist approach that emphasises the qualitative development of norms and identity. Seen as the height of regional achievement, a security community ensures stable security and peace between neighbouring states without the necessity of a common enemy (alliance) or even the threat of punishment for rule-violation (collective security). Through a history of positive interactions, states develop trust, common interests, collective identity and
11 Michael Pugh, "The World Order Politics of Regionalisation," in The United Nations and Regional Security: Europe and Beyond, ed. Michael Pugh and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), 39. Tavares and Schulz, "Measuring the Impact of Regional Organisations on Peace Building," 232. Ben Rosamond, Theories of European Integration (Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave, 2000), 60. See for example Stanley Hoffman, "Obstinate or Obsolete? The Fate of the Nation State and the Case of Western Europe," Daedalus 95 (1966): 865-85. 12 Adler and Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective." 13 Karl Deutsch, "Security Communities," in International Politics and Foreign Policy, ed. James Rosenau (New York: Free Press, 1961). Chapter 5 155 ultimately a sense of “we-ness.”14 Members of the community, identifying as a collective, cease to see each other as potential enemies. They begin to share normative perceptions of the material world. A hegemonic normative structure is produced in which relations of amity are taken for granted. War is neither expected nor even prepared for. Members of the community develop “dependable expectations of peaceful change.”15 Adler and Barnett claim that the idea of a security community is far removed from international society. They dismiss traditional English School theorists as too closely linked to neo-liberal institutionalists; too committed to anarchy, sovereignty and resultant balancing behaviour.16 One of the central ways in which security community theory claims distinction is through its emphasis on transaction flows and communication between people.17 However, Adler and Barnett’s original conception of security communities relied heavily on democratic peace theory, which stemmed from a Kantian perspective of international relations. As Adler argued, “Members of pluralistic security communities hold dependable expectations of peaceful change not merely because they share just any kind of values, but because they share liberal democratic values.”18 The importance of shared values between individuals arising through transnational relations in the security communities approach may well be compatible with a solidarist version of English School international society. The crux of international society is ultimately that it provides a normative framework in which social learning between states is possible. At the regional level, a security community can be the outcome of such social learning within a commonly recognised normative framework. It has rarely been suggested that West Africa could constitute a security community, but in a region that appears to be founded on constructivist principles of integration, where political identity is developing on the basis of shared norms and experiences, the potential emergence of “dependable expectations of peaceful change”19 should not be excluded. As explored in the final chapter of the thesis, a growing sense of regional identity has been a significant motivating factor for the
14 Adler and Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective," 7. 15 Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, 5. 16 Adler and Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective," 11. 17 Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, 15. 18 Emanuel Adler, "Europe's New Security Order: A Pluralistic Security Community," in The Future of European Security, ed. Beverly Crawford (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 293. 19 Ibid. Chapter 5 156 attempts to respond to the destructive regional conflict in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire from the early 1990s. ECOWAS now recognises a common community of West Africans beyond the confines of individual states. It has provided for an enhanced role for individuals and seeks to establish human security through its peace- building initiatives. To this extent, ECOWAS is advancing as both a regional political organisation and a regional security institution. Its form of international society is increasingly solidarist.
Transversal Society Regional integration within ECOWAS has been influenced by both West African regional identity and expectations developed in international society. Individuals and non-state communities, including civil society organisations, have contributed to the development of West African identity and behavioural norms. The increasing involvement of the citizenry in regional decision-making has been facilitated by the broad normative agenda espoused in solidarist international society, which expects democratic good governance. In spite of these key democratising developments, ECOWAS remains a solidly international society institution. The form that international society takes in West Africa may well be increasingly solidarist, but it is a crucial argument of this second half of the thesis that solidarist international society does not equate to inclusion of the transversal society alternative. For Bull and Wight, international society was secondary to the “more fundamental and primordial” world society.20 The increasing solidarism of international society represents an attempt to draw in the normative elements of world society, but it has not disrupted the essentially state-based nature of West Africa’s organised regional identity. As transversal society is not analogous with regionalism even when the latter is informed by transnational politics, it cannot be assumed that transversal regional awareness will contribute to the cohesiveness of ECOWAS as an institution. Tightly-integrated regional institutions, including security communities, are expected to draw on transnational activity for the development of common identity, knowledge, interests and purpose among states; hence the increasing status accorded to transnational NGOs in organisations like ECOWAS. However, relevant decision- making still takes place within the sovereign state and state-based institutions. As a
20 Bull, The Anarchical Society, 22. Chapter 5 157 result, civil society remains closely tied to the norms and structures of international society, even when it is organised transnationally and aimed at the regional body. The purpose of transnational interaction between individuals is to assist integration between states. Even the most progressive approaches to regionalism assume that individual identity is initially tied to nationalism and the state, and that the building of a regional community is about transforming state-based identity – whether it is about developing trust, understanding common interest, transcending national identities or generating a common regional identity in which state and regional identities coalesce. The seemingly challenging constructivist security community approach looks towards a post-Westphalian order. In order for a new era to begin in which the importance of state boundaries is eroded, these boundaries must first exist. In this respect, the security community approach is more closely tied to English School international society than Adler and Barnett claim.21 Recent critical analyses of international society posit that for Bull, the individual was of ultimate concern,22 but individuals are primarily expected to assist states in the social learning that is required by international society. The security community approach appears to have the potential to draw on transversal society, as it seeks to build regionalism upon transnational activity. However, its flaw is that it assumes that transnational interaction, communication and trade between individuals will contribute to regionalism at the state level. There is little recognition of the transversal networks that may actually operate at cross- purposes to international society and regional integration. Recognising individuals as the appropriate referent of regional security represents a significant advance within regional institutions in international society, but this does not represent a “critical” re- conception of international structure if the role of individuals is limited to a greater impact on state policy and identity. The failure to recognise the impact of non-state community and structure in even the most normative and critical regional security literature is significant for both practical and conceptual reasons. In a practical sense, autonomous individuals and transversal communities have a considerable impact on the progression of conflict and thus need to be accounted for in responses to conflict.
21 See Adler and Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective." 22 Wheeler, "Guardian Angel or Global Gangster," 126. See also Williams, "Critical Security Studies," 140. Linklater and Suganami, The English School of International Relations. Dunne, Inventing International Society, 146. Chapter 5 158
Conceptually, the failure suggests the possibility that state-based international society will be fundamentally unable to engage with the transversal regional structure. Chapter 6 159
Chapter 6 – Regional Organisation in West Africa
Since its creation in 1975, ECOWAS has defined the progress of West African regional integration. Its current role and normative assumptions are grounded in the context of its historical development. Of central importance is the development of its position, in conceptual terms, between West African individuals, states, and broad international society. As this chapter will show, the relationship between regionalisation, regional identity and the development of regional cohesion in ECOWAS is not straightforward. The organisation is rich in norms, but it essentially preserves West Africa as a regional sub-section of international society. Its norms stem in part from international, particularly European, expectations. The motivation for the creation of ECOWAS in the post-independence period stemmed from a mixture of African impetus for unity, and international directives concerning the most auspicious structure for economic development. The organisation has not, however, been static in behaviour or aspirations, but has developed in line with evolving norms in international society and within individual member states. Significant democratic and human-centred progress has been made, but civil society elements have largely been incorporated into the international society discourse of the region. As it traces the development of ECOWAS, the purpose of this chapter is to consider whether official regionalism is able to engage effectively with West Africa’s alternative transversal form of regionalism.
Creation of ECOWAS Like all IGOs, ECOWAS is a fundamentally artificial creation. Its territorial limits are defined more by institutional convenience than definitive identity boundaries. Indeed, its territorial limits have changed since its inception in 1975, with Cape Verde joining in 1976 and Mauritania leaving in 2002.1 In 2008, the members are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. As ECOWAS has developed as an institution, its increasing role in international trade and politics has helped to cultivate intra-regional relations, legitimising its own
1 Dean Hanink and Henry Owusu, "Has ECOWAS Promoted Trade among its Members?," Journal of African Economies 7, no. 3 (1998): 363-83. Adebayo Adedeji, "ECOWAS: A Retrospective Journey," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 21-49. Chapter 6 160 institutional definition of “West Africa” as a meaningful sub-region. However, it remains significant that the solid basis of member-states stretching from Senegal to Nigeria is consistent with the initial delineation of West Africa by the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in the 1960s. Both colonially-inherited political structures and norms of economic development, as legitimised by the dominance of European expectations at the UN, helped to shape the emergence of regionalism in West Africa through the post-independence period.
European colonial inheritance Regions are often viewed simply as sub-components of the international system,2 and this assessment rings true in West Africa, where state-based international society has had such a substantial role to play. Essential to the nature and potential of ECOWAS as an institution is its membership, which is comprised of the states created by Europeans during the colonial period. In Chapter 2, I explored the emergence of independent states in West Africa. Here it is necessary briefly to revisit this territory in the context of state-based regional politics. The popular view of the independence struggle is articulated by Adebayo Adedeji, a Nigerian politician and former Executive Secretary of the ECA. He comments that “Education and the involvement of the people in governance, even during the colonial era, were quite advanced in West Africa, and agitation for political independence began virtually from the beginning of the colonial era.”3 It is something of a harsh irony then, that in seeking independence from European control, West Africans validated the European-imposed state-based structure of politics. In 1957 Ghana became the first sub-Saharan African state to gain its independence after WWII, and the rest of West Africa soon followed suit. Ghana’s independence as a sovereign state precipitated decolonisation throughout Africa, and the emphasis on independence from colonial rule definitively jettisoned the prospect of any alternative to a state-based regional structure. The move to independence in the form of states was in part a practical attempt to harmonise with emerging international society. Membership of the UN General Assembly for example, was predicated on statehood in a recognisable form. British West Africa was particularly nationalistic in its clamouring for sovereignty. The UK had always been primarily concerned with the
2 See Hettne, "Beyond the 'New' Regionalism," 544. 3 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 21. Chapter 6 161 economic benefits to be derived from colonialism, and the British were quick to withdraw politically once the anti-colonial movement had gained momentum. The perceived importance of independence from colonial authority meant that many of the regional colonial institutions were dismantled. The newly independent states soon withdrew from the British-constructed West African Currency Board, West African Airways, West African Examination Board and West African Research Institute.4 This withdrawal clearly dismantled the possibility that any of these institutions could be transformed into new multilateral endeavours. However, it was a positive move in the sense that it demonstrated British West African eagerness to be distanced from colonially constructed identity. The early rejection of colonial forms of regionalism could have been said to augur well for the emergence of a cohesive West African identity, and Ghana’s President Nkrumah did continue to look forward to Pan-African unification with the other new states. The French attitude in West Africa was quite different to that of the British. The French were at least officially committed to a more profound mission civilisatrice, and attempted to incorporate all the citizens of their colonies into a broader conception of France, instructing them in French history, traditions and interests. They were more reluctant to let go of their West African territories, and President Charles de Gaulle initially proposed a French community as a transitional phase before outright independence.5 However, the actions of the radically anti- colonial Touré, then leader of Guinea, made it at first appear that Francophone West Africa would follow the British in seeking a severance of ties with the métropole. Guineans apparently saw de Gaulle’s proposal of a community as an affront to their aspirations for political independence and 95% of them voted against the move. President Touré even famously burnt his bridges, declaring “Nous préférons la liberté dans la pauvreté que l’opulence dans l’esclavage.”6 This appeared to spell the end of any kind of Francophone federation in post-independence West Africa. De Gaulle is often characterised as abandoning the project of the French Community in a fit of angry retaliation against the whole of West Africa in response to Touré’s outspoken rejection of the idea, leaving those who had been willing to take part feeling rejected
4 Olu Adeniji, "Mechanisms for Conflict Management in West Africa: Politics of Harmonisation," ACCORD Occasional Paper 1/97 (1997). 5 Basil Davidson, Let Freedom Come: Africa in Modern History (Boston: Little, Brown & Co, 1978). 6 Translation: We prefer freedom in poverty to opulence in slavery. Lapido Ademolekun, Sekou Toure's Guinea: An Experiment in Nation Building (London: Methuen, 1976), 1. Chapter 6 162 in their turn.7 Côte d’Ivoire’s President Houphouët, for example, lamented “J’ai attendu en vain sur le pavis de la Fédération, avec mon bouquet de fleurs fanées à la main.”8 A rift appeared to have been generated between the Francophone states of West Africa and the French métropole. For the establishment of a coherent regional identity, this arrangement of fiercely independent states may not have been as conducive as an alternative non-state Pan-African arrangement, but by rejecting the influence of the colonial powers it created the possibility that future regionalism could be based on West African rather than European aspirations and political/economic convictions. The nationalist independence and rejection of political federation in both British and French West Africa can at this level be seen as the rejection of regional identity as defined by shared colonial history and factionalism. However, the strength of the independence rhetoric and the creation of sovereign states did not ultimately do much to distance the newly independent states from the old colonial powers in ideological terms. The colonial connections were more deeply embedded than the political rhetoric and official posturing might suggest, particularly in the case of French West Africa. While Touré was a renegade, and was forced to commit to complete Guinean autonomy when the French withdrew all support, many other prominent figures in French West Africa were regionally conservative. During the 1940s, Houphouët had led the Rassemblement démocratique africain (RDA – African Democratic Assembly), which was essentially a coalition of West African political parties in the French parliament.9 The coalition fostered a long- lasting political and cultural relationship amongst the French West African leadership who were ultimately to maintain strong ties to the French government. As a result, the colonial experience and reactions to it remained instrumental in shaping a region of independent states divided along colonial lines. In British West Africa too, while the elites were less open about cultural ties to the UK, it became clear that independence as a sovereign state was not simply a matter of practicality or convenience. British West Africa’s elites were deeply committed to the superiority of the state-based norms of the international society to which they were seeking admittance. Many of
7 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 24. 8 Translation: I waited in vain on the verge of federation, with my bouquet of flowers fading in my hands. Cited in Xavier Yacono, Histoire de la colonisation française (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1969). 9 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 30. Chapter 6 163 the Western-educated African elite embraced the state-based system as a symbol of progress and modernity. Ghanaian Professor A Adu Boahen for example, noted that while the imposition of territorial states was problematic, they at least generated order and clarity in place of “the existing innumerable lineage and clan groups, city-states, kingdoms, and empires without any fixed boundaries.”10 Ultimately, the links between West African elites and European norms increased the divide between those who embraced the region’s emerging state-based international society and those whose regional identities were located much more solidly in the transversal political sphere. Colonial ties entailed the adoption of European norms in state-based international society, a more important and profound consequence than the evident division between Francophone and Anglophone West Africa which is often blamed for failures of regional cohesion.
Economic regionalisation The colonial division between Francophone and Anglophone West Africa was manifest in the early efforts at regional economic co-operation, although the Anglophone states appeared much less eager to act as a bloc than did the Francophones. While French West Africa had taken independence in 1960 as autonomous sovereign states, the depth of their ties led ultimately to the post- independence agreement to create the Communauté économique de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CEAO – Economic Community of West Africa).11 The French colonial ties were economic as well as cultural, for all of Francophone West Africa, including pre- independence Guinea, shared a common currency. Established in 1945, the CFA franc was initially tied to the French franc, and is now tied to the Euro at a constant rate.12 The British had a similar currency board system during their colonial era, with the West African pound in operation from 1907. While the CFA franc zone remains in operation however, the British West African currency board was dismantled before the creation of ECOWAS as individual states sought to assert their independence. In Nigeria, use of the West African pound was brought to an end only in 1973. This was the same year that the CEAO was created as a vehicle for Francophone economic
10 A Adu Boahen, African Perspectives on Colonialism (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1987), 95. 11 Hanink and Owusu, "Has ECOWAS Promoted Trade among its Members?," 365. 12 See Paul Masson and Catherine Pattillo, "Monetary Union in West Africa: An Agency of Restraint for Fiscal Policies," IMF Working Paper 1/34 (2001). Chapter 6 164 integration, with the central aim of generating a common market for the French West African states.13 Rather than forming a nucleus for a broader common market area, the colonial foundations of the CEAO seem to have precluded an expansion in membership. The Francophone states were becoming more insular just as the Anglophones appeared to be pushing for more comprehensive regional co-operation based on sovereign independence and equality. The creation of ECOWAS only two years later at the instigation of Nigeria, incorporating Francophone, Anglophone and Lusophone states, evinced in part an attempt to overcome constraining colonial ties. Like the CEAO, ECOWAS was initially formed as an economic community to reduce harmful intra-regional competition and present a common external front to foreign partners, particularly Europe. Its development fitted in well with the expectations of international society during the Cold War, based on the understanding that synthesising economic policies, integrating markets and working towards a common currency could be mutually-beneficial, fostering development and accumulation of wealth in the region as a whole. Economics has traditionally been seen as the sector in which regional integration is most likely, as it is perceived to be less of a threat to state sovereignty, and more likely to be beneficial than political or security integration. This assumption stems principally from the normative power of European integration, which began with the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951.14 The development of the European Economic Community (EEC) and ultimately the EU provided a model for regionalism in West Africa where European traditions were authoritative. From the earliest stages of EEC development, enthusiasm about the expected benefits of economic integration was constantly tempered by concerns about the impact of political supranationality. Both the UK and France, the two states with the most normative authority in West Africa, pushed hard for inter-governmental co- operation rather than more radical political integration. Indeed, so much importance was attached to French nationalism by President de Gaulle that he managed to block British membership of the EEC until the beginning of the 1970s. De Gaulle was fearful of American influence being channelled through the UK, but it is somewhat ironic that his vision of inter-governmental Europe was more similar to the
13 Hanink and Owusu, "Has ECOWAS Promoted Trade among its Members?," 365. 14 Derek W Urwin, The Community of Europe: A History of European Integration since 1945 (London & New York: Longman, 1995), 48. Chapter 6 165 inclinations of Britain than to those of neighbours such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. Interestingly, it was these small “Benelux” states that pioneered economic integration in Europe in the 1940s in the expectation of mutual benefit.15 Similarly, a strong argument for integration in West Africa stemmed from the perception that the region’s artificially created “micro-states” were too small to be viable as independent economic units.16 However, nationalism and distrust between the two linguistic blocs, combined with a tendency to accept the norms of the ex- colonial powers, meant that economic co-operation was prioritised over political supranationality at the creation of ECOWAS. By the mid-1970s, West African economies based on meagre agricultural exports, including the so-called “miracle” economies of states like Côte d’Ivoire, were already showing signs of weakness.17 Economic integration was expected to facilitate development. Adedeji, who was involved in the creation of ECOWAS, goes so far as to remark, “I have always believed that economic cooperation among African states is a condition sine qua non for the achievement of national socioeconomic goals and not an ‘extra’ to be given consideration after the process of national development has become well advanced.”18 The preamble to the ECOWAS Treaty states that its primary objective is “accelerated and sustained economic development of states and the creation of a homogeneous society,”19 but economics was of primary importance. The ECOWAS mission was to promote integration in “all fields of economic activity, particularly industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, commerce, monetary and financial questions…”20 Free trade within a common market was the most prominent goal, in the expectation that a customs union could be established by 1990. The prominence of economic integration in the initial stages of regionalism in ECOWAS suggests a neo-liberal theoretical framework. Individual states chose to tap into the regionalisation of the market, using a collective agreement in the expectation
15 Ibid., 39. 16 Thomas A Imobighe, "Security in Sub-Saharan Africa," in Security of Third World Countries, ed. Jasjit Singh and Thomas Bernauer (Aldershot: Dartmouth, 1993), 83. 17 See Jean Masini, Multinationals and Development in Black Africa: A Case Study in the Ivory Coast (Farmborough: Saxon House, 1979). Harald Stier, Fertiliser Distribution in the Ivory Coast (Paris: Development Centre of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 1972). René Dumont and Marie-France Mottin, L'Afrique étranglée: Zambie, Tanzanie, Sénégal, Côte d'Ivoire, Guinée-Bissau, Cap-Vert (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1980). 18 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 27. 19 Economic Community of West African States, "Treaty of ECOWAS," International Legal Materials 14, no. 5 (1975): 1200-09. 20 Ibid.: Art 2:1. Chapter 6 166 of material gain. Emphasis was also initially placed on moving towards “free movement of persons”21 as part of market regionalisation, but in the first two decades of ECOWAS’s existence, state sovereignty proved too strong for it to be a success. The 1975 ECOWAS Treaty proclaimed “citizens of member-states shall be regarded as Community citizens, and accordingly member states undertake to abolish all obstacles to their freedom of movement and residence within the Community,”22 but the 1979 Protocol on the topic only promised to waive the need for visas for ninety days, and “movement” excluded both the right to residence and the right to conduct commercial activities.23 The reality of West African economies and the long-term importance of transversal society is that economic migration is a constant, but the states themselves were far from willing to formalise this movement. Smaller states appeared to be fearful of a potential “brain-drain”, while larger more prosperous states were unwilling to give jobs to foreign nationals. It was for the latter reason that Nigeria expelled 3 million West African foreigners in 1983; the government needed to be seen to be providing jobs for Nigerians.24 It seemed that economic regionalisation could take place in a controlled environment, but the creation of a cohesive regional identity founded on Community citizenship and movement would be delayed.
Economic progress Progress towards economic integration and regional development has been very slow.25 In the words of Christopher Clapham, by the 1990s ECOWAS, along with Africa’s other economic communities, had no “discernible positive impact on the economic welfare of the people incorporated into it.”26 Where economic integration was expected to foster development, a major problem appears to have been the minimal amount of trade creation in the region.27 A number of reasons have been put forward for this. One possibility is that the small size of the West African market meant that states remained dependent on trade with non-African states. Thus in 1986, after a decade of formal economic integration, while intra-ECOWAS trade accounted
21 Ibid.: Art 2:2d. 22 Ibid.: Art 27:1. 23 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol on Free Movement of Persons, Residence and Establishments." See Onukwa, "The ECOWAS Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons," (1982): 195. 24 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 119. 25 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 36. 26 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 118. 27 Jacob Musila, "The Intensity of Trade Creation and Trade Diversion in COMESA, ECCAS and ECOWAS: A Comparative Analysis," Journal of African Economies 14, no. 1 (2005): 118. Chapter 6 167 for 90% of the member states’ trade within Africa, it constituted only 3.2% of total trade.28 Another possibility is that West African states were heavily dependent on the extraction of natural resources, and since they were in direct competition with each other, were reluctant to allow the regional body to gain control of this sector.29 Perhaps more important than these however, is the inability of the state-based organisation to capture and formalise the extensive informal trading networks that are not reflected in official statistics but make up a substantial portion of the regional market. ECOWAS was unable to take advantage of transversal regionalisation. ECOWAS appears to have been hindered by the challenges of competitive inter-state politics in a way that the informal economy is not. Adedeji claims that the creation of ECOWAS “exploded [the] myth” that “cooperation between relatively small countries and big ones is harmful and could therefore not occur in West Africa,”30 but the distrust between large and small states does seem to have hindered the potential for generating common principles on development and integration after the organisation was established. Nigeria is the largest economy in the region, and the only major oil exporter.31 The possibility that economic integration would give to Nigeria even more power than its size and wealth had already bestowed caused some apprehension amongst the smaller West African states. Demonstrating the ongoing division along colonial lines, the Francophone members of ECOWAS in particular appear to have been influenced by French warnings about the hegemonic aspirations of Nigeria. The poor economic record of ECOWAS continued through the 1990s, and by 1999 GDP per capita incomes in ECOWAS states were half what they had been in 1981.32 The value of economic integration as a buffer against the negative consequences of globalisation is currently being promoted by prominent leaders such as ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. President Boni Yayi of Benin, a small Francophone state, went so far as to say that “the economy of Benin cannot thrive without Nigeria and vice versa, so we should have more co-operation and strengthen our friendship in all areas.”33 In 2007, the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of States and
28 Michael Davenport, "Africa and the Unimportance of Being Preferred," Journal of Common Market Studies 30, no. 2 (1992): 235. 29 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 119. 30 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 32. 31 See Masson and Pattillo, "Monetary Union in West Africa?." 32 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 36. 33 Josephine Lohor, “AAGM: ECOWAS to Adopt Borderless Boundaries,” This Day, 16 June 2007. Chapter 6 168
Government agreed on a vision for the year 2020 as “transformation of existing integration structures at the regional and national levels into a single regional economic community with coherent specialised agencies,”34 and five states from Nigeria to Côte d’Ivoire are working on facilitating the Abidjan-Lagos trade corridor. These are positive signs of movement towards greater integration, but the rhetoric is little different to that of the 1970s. In terms of economics, the problem seems to be less a failure of will to integrate than a failure of discernible benefits to materialise out of integration efforts. In addition, the Francophone states have continued to foster their own economic integration, and the CEAO was supplanted by the Union économique et monétaire ouest africaine (UEMOA – West African Economic and Monetary Union) in 1994.35 The awkward relationship between the UEMAO and ECOWAS may be partly to blame for the poor performance of ECOWAS as a whole. Certainly the large number of diverse IGOs in the region has been highlighted as a problem.36 One of the founding principles of the ECOWAS treaty was that the organisation “shall ultimately be the sole economic community in the region for the purpose of economic integration and the realisation of the objectives of the African Economic Community,”37 but this is yet to occur. In 1983, the leaders of the Francophone bloc were under pressure to dissolve the CEAO and assimilate into ECOWAS, but the comment from President Abdou Diouf of Senegal was as follows: It is in everybody’s interest that if ECOWAS reaches its cruising speed the CEAO should normally melt into the structures of ECOWAS. We are convinced that the future is with ECOWAS, if it reaches its cruising speed and overcomes its present difficulties. What we do not want, we members of the CEAO, is to be asked to eliminate something that works well, that produces brilliant results – CEAO – while ECOWAS has not reached cruising speed.38 Perspectives on the CEAO in the 1980s were generally positive. In 1982 after a decade of integration, intra-community trade had reached more than 10% of all exports.39 In 1989, the World Bank commented “of all [African] trade integration schemes, the CEAO has had the greatest success.”40 This success does not appear to
34 Economic Community of West African States, “ECOWAS Leaders Adopt Strategic Vision for Regional Development,” ECOWAS Press Releases, 15 June 2007. 35 Hanink and Owusu, "Has ECOWAS Promoted Trade among its Members?," 365. 36 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 118. 37 Economic Community of West African States, "Revised Treaty of ECOWAS," (Cotonou: 1993). 38 Cited in Adeniji, "Mechanisms for Conflict Management in West Africa." 39 Hanink and Owusu, "Has ECOWAS Promoted Trade among its Members?," 364. 40 World Bank, "Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth," (Washington: 1989), 178. Chapter 6 169 have continued into the 1990s however, and while inflation was low and growth was high within the CFA franc zone, Paul Masson and Catherine Pattillo argue that the zone had little impact on trade creation.41 In spite of the ailing nature of the CEAO in the early 1990s, this did not result in Francophone immersion into ECOWAS. The CEAO was instead replaced with the UEMOA, incorporating Portuguese-speaking Guinea-Bissau, which accelerated the CFA zone integration efforts and created a single market by 2000.42 Since 2000, the non-CFA franc countries within ECOWAS have officially been working towards adoption of a new common currency, to be known as the “Eco”. Originally planned for launch in 2003, the adoption of the currency has continually been postponed, and is now expected to be circulated in 2009. The West African Monetary Zone is to include the ex-British states of The Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, as well as Guinea, which cut itself out of the CFA franc zone in 1959. Liberia may also become a member. It is envisaged that the current CFA franc zone states will also ultimately join the ECOWAS monetary union, but this is unlikely to be imminent.43 Thirty years after the formation of ECOWAS, the organisation is attempting to pursue economic integration projects that are familiar in the international system. In spite of, or perhaps because of the ECOWAS propensity to follow the example of the EU, it continues to be constrained by its inability to shake off the tensions created during the colonial era. In a region that is so closely integrated through processes of transnational economic regionalisation, ECOWAS has had a lot of difficulty overcoming the challenges of the European model of state- based institution building.
Political Integration in ECOWAS While the initial purpose of the establishment of ECOWAS was to promote economic co-operation in the expectation that this would be beneficial to development, the organisation has gradually become more committed to political integration. In contrast to what is often expected from regional co-operation, ECOWAS appears to have been more successful in this secondary goal of political regionalism than in economic integration and development. A major part of the
41 Masson and Pattillo, "Monetary Union in West Africa?," 2. 42 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 41. 43 See West African Monetary Institute, www.wami-imao,org Chapter 6 170 impetus for political co-operation was economic, as it quickly became clear that successful economic development would entail agreement on governance principles in terms of politics as well as economics. Such an understanding was evident even in the initial recommendations for fostering economic integration. The commitment to achieve freedom of movement across the region for example, was agreed upon because of the expectation that dismantling boundaries would generate trade and wealth creation, but could not be detached from shared political principles relating to migration and citizenship. By the 1990s, the perception that political stability and co- operation was essential to economic development was gaining normative force through increasing international pressure for good governance. This ultimately generated much greater accountability within ECOWAS, a strictly inter-governmental organisation that had been founded on basic principles of statehood and autonomy. Similar to the economic sector, international expectations about the likely trajectory of political regionalisation in West Africa stem from the experience of Europe, which is now generally considered to showcase political supranationality in its most advanced form.44 As with the economic sector, the successful European model has been very influential in ECOWAS, but the organisation is also shaped by its African identity.
Ideas and goals: Beyond a rationalist analysis Rationalist analyses of ECOWAS view it essentially as the forum for competition between Nigeria, the local hegemon, and France, which seeks to influence the behaviour of its ex-colonies. According to this interpretation, ECOWAS is a creation of Nigerian hegemonic aspirations.45 For their part, weak states likely joined the organisation in the expectation of increased security and power relative to Nigeria through co-operation with other weak states. The Francophone CEAO and then UEMOA continued to exist not only for the economic benefit of their member- states, but for the additional political purpose of balancing against the Nigerian quest
44 See Harald Kleinschmidt, "Migration, Regional Integration and Human Security: An Overview of Research Developments," in Migration, Regional Integration and Human Security: The Formation and Maintenance of Transnational Spaces, ed. Harald Kleinschmidt (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), 61-102. Joanne van Selm, "Immigration and Regional Security," in International Migration and Security: Opportunities and Challenges, ed. Elspeth Guild and Joanne van Selm (London & New York: Routledge, 2005), 11-27. Paul Cornish and Geoffrey Edwards, "The Strategic Culture of the European Union: A Progress Report," International Affairs 81, no. 4 (2005): 801-20. Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, "Explaining Government Preferences for Institutional Change in EU Foreign and Security Policy," International Organization 58, no. 1 (2004): 137-74. 45 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 120. Chapter 6 171 for consolidated hegemony. This view of uneasy power relations and jealously- guarded sovereignty may help to explain why little was achieved in terms of both economic and political integration in the first fifteen years of the existence of ECOWAS. Political distrust between the Francophone and Anglophone states of West Africa appears to have existed from the very beginning of the independence period. In spite of the dramatic demise of de Gaulle’s plans for a French Community in West Africa, the Francophone states maintained “special relations” with France, and tended to pursue rather conservative, cautious foreign policies in the region. This approach contrasted starkly with Ghana, which had the most aggressive early foreign policy of the Anglophone states of West Africa. Under Nkrumah, Ghana pursued radical left- wing policies including domestic socialism and international Pan-Africanism. In the mid-1960s, the Francophone states of West Africa actually threatened to boycott the second session of the OAU if “subversive” Ghana was permitted to host it.46 Joining Ghana in the Anglophone camp was Nigeria. Despite its more diplomatic foreign relations, the dominance of Nigeria’s size and strength made it appear equally intimidating. The idea of ECOWAS was first proposed in the 1960s, but Senegal was very reluctant to allow Nigerian leadership of the project. President Léopold Senghor claimed he would only support the idea if Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) could be included as a member in order to balance against Nigeria.47 The ECOWAS project was in any case effectively postponed by Nigeria’s civil war between 1967 and 1970; a conflict that served only to increase the hostility between Francophone and Anglophone states. Ignoring the African commitment to uti possidetis, France supported Biafran secession in an apparent attempt to force the break up of dominant Nigeria. Even after the creation of ECOWAS in 1975, as Olu Adeniji puts it, “the language barrier created by the pattern of colonialism and the perpetuation of the vertical link with the former imperial power at the expense of the horizontal link with neighbouring states, discouraged much meaningful relations across the Anglo/Francophone divide.”48 The community fostered by the Francophone states and maintained by culture and language as well as political and economic
46 Adeniji, "Mechanisms for Conflict Management in West Africa." 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid.: 2. Chapter 6 172 convenience, appeared to be in constant competition with Nigeria, whose foreign policy made clear its view of itself as a regional leader.49 Such a view could easily be interpreted as an ambition to assert Nigerian status and power over the weaker regional states. This rationalist analysis, which pits Francophone states against Nigeria in pursuit of relative material power and wealth, is not unfounded. Indeed, such inter- state rivalry and self-interested policy-making forms an integral part of the international society paradigm where adversarial politics is expected. However, a recognition of the material importance of inter-state competition, and the glaring existence of an autonomous Francophone economic grouping within ECOWAS, should not exclude analysis of comprehensive West African identity and its normative effects. The ideas and goals of ECOWAS as an institution are essential to any assessment of its internal relations and its ultimate potential. Employing a normative rather than a rationalist approach to regionalism reveals a different interpretation of relevant power structures. Fundamentally, one of the central aims of ECOWAS appears to have been to overcome the colonial divide. While there may have been distrust and competition, it remains significant that one of the main reasons for the agreement to create a regional organisation was to foster horizontal linkages in order to attain independence from the pattern of vertical relations with the ex-colonial powers. As if to demonstrate the potential to overcome both colonial divisions and gross disparities in material power, the ECOWAS project was initiated in 1972 by an unlikely partnership between Nigeria, the most powerful Anglophone state, and Togo, one of the smallest Francophones.50 In Francophone West Africa the idea met with a variety of opinions, from radical Guinea’s desire to hasten the integration process, to Senegal’s reluctance to become involved. In Côte d’Ivoire, the only West African state to officially recognise Biafran independence during the Nigerian civil war, Houphouët claimed to welcome Nigerian leadership of the new organisation. Despite his close ties to France in the 1960s, Houphouët had been a prominent and anti- colonial African nationalist during his leadership of the RDA in the 1940s. When ECOWAS was proposed by Nigeria, he voiced his approbation for an institution that
49 Dele Ogunmola and Isiaka Alani Badmus, "Nigeria's Intervention in the Sierra Leonan Civil War: The Dilemma of a Benign Hegemon," Africa Insight 36, no. 3&4 (2006): 76. 50 Adeniji, "Mechanisms for Conflict Management in West Africa," 2. Chapter 6 173 might reunify the Baoule people with whom he identified, and who had been artificially divided by the imposition of borders separating Côte d’Ivoire from Liberia and Ghana.51 His wavering position between loyalty to the project of la francophonie, itself a community reliant on the strength of identity and norms, and an evident desire to foster West African regional awareness on the basis of transversal identity, provides an interesting demonstration of the overlap and tension between the two layers of regional society; most elite actors have a role to play in both. Since the creation of ECOWAS, Nigeria has continually asserted the intended benevolence of its regional leadership. In the 1970s under the presidency of General Yakubu Gowon, Nigeria established several initiatives for assisting the development of fellow African states. This included the Nigeria Trust Fund, the River Niger Commission and the Lake Chad Basin. Gowon declared that “charity must begin within West Africa,”52 and this co-operative spirit was evident through to the 1990s, when Nigerian foreign policy was based on the belief that “… the stability, amity and optimal co-operative spirit are preferable and more in line with our [Nigerian] democratic instincts.”53 Nigeria has continually emphasised the importance of good relations with its neighbours and sought to “build bridges” with the rest of West Africa. While the sincerity of these moves may be doubted and the motives questioned, at a minimum the rhetoric demonstrates an appeal to region-wide identity and its attendant expectative norms. West African identity and behavioural norms as they have been fostered and institutionalised in ECOWAS stem from two prominent sources – Europe and Africa. European expectations have been internationalised and institutionalised in the UN, which forms a global framework for international society. The ongoing normative power of the UN is demonstrated by the extent to which its foundational premises are replicated in regional organisations across diverse parts of the world, including Europe, Africa and Asia. The most significant of these norms for African international relations should now be clear. In simplistic terms, they fostered statist nationalism as a legitimate basis for identity, and sovereign equality as an appropriate foundation for international behaviour.54 However, as Björn Hettne argues, regions are not only sub-
51 Ibid.: 30. 52 Cited in Ogunmola and Badmus, "Nigeria's Intervention in the Sierra Leonean Civil War," 85. 53 Ibrahim Babangida, "The Imperative Features of Nigerian Foreign Policy and the Crisis in Liberia, 1990," Contact 2, no. 3 (1991). 54 See Neuberger, National Self-Determination in Postcolonial Africa, 23. Chapter 6 174 components of the broader international system. Their formation is also founded on internal regional dynamics directed by the beliefs and behaviour of local political actors.55 In West Africa, specifically African experiences and objectives were central contributors to the newly-emerging sub-regional international society. The development of the EU provides the most prominent example of common regional identity as a basis for norm-based international politics. Its member-states are even developing a common political and security agenda,56 demonstrating that the potential for integration reaches much deeper than the economic sector. A specific Asian identity has also been integral to ASEAN, which Acharya describes as the “most successful” example of regionalism outside of Europe.57 A key part of its identity is the “ASEAN way,” including consensus-building and avoidance of formal mechanisms for conflict resolution.58 A set of Asian values have emerged that are perceived as distinctive, but which appear to cause little friction with the expectations of international society. Indeed, both Asian and international society norms have been combined through a process Acharya describes as “localisation,”59 akin to Bayart’s Africanist term “extraversion.”60 Local actors are not simply receptors, but actively engage with international norms, remoulding them so that they make sense within the local regional discourse. In order to fully understand the dynamics of ECOWAS then, it is important to explore the identity, values and norms that are particular to the region. In the context of ECOWAS, it is difficult to separate West African norms from broader African norms. West Africa has been a major contributor to continental identity, and especially in its early years ECOWAS behavioural and expectative norms developed in close alignment with those of the OAU. The 1975 treaty that established ECOWAS as an institution was almost exclusively concerned with economic agreements. Very little mention was made of the political and identity norms that underpinned the organisation, except by reference to the primary importance of co-operation within the OAU.61 It was in the OAU that the political purpose of African integration was spelt
55 Hettne, "Beyond the 'New' Regionalism," 544. 56 Javier Solana, "A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy," (Paris: The European Union Institute for Security Studies, 2003). 57 Acharya, "How Ideas Spread," 241. 58 See David Martin Jones and Michael LR Smith, "Constructing Communities: The Curious Case of East Asian Regionalism?," Review of International Studies 33, no. 1 (2007): 167. 59 Acharya, "How Ideas Spread," 244. 60 Bayart, "Africa in the World." 61 Economic Community of West African States, "Treaty of ECOWAS." Chapter 6 175 out. Agreed continental identity and associated norms can be quite clearly identified in the organisation’s documentation. Article III of the OAU Charter sets out the specific “Principles” to which member-states were to adhere.62 These were as follows: 1. The sovereign equality of all Member States. 2. Non-interference in the internal affairs of States. 3. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each State and for its inalienable right to independent existence. 4. Peaceful settlement of disputes by negotiation, mediation, conciliation or arbitration. 5. Unreserved condemnation, in all of its forms, of political assassination as well as of subversive activities on the part of neighbouring States or any other states. 6. Absolute dedication to the total emancipation of the African territories which are still dependent. 7. Affirmation of a policy of non-alignment with regard to all blocs.
The first and third principles became the building blocks of identity within the OAU. African states agreed that colonial borders would not be altered, and committed themselves to statist nationalism. The second and fourth principles were behavioural norms, actively prescribing the foundations of acceptable behaviour in African international society. “Non-interference” and “peaceful settlement of disputes” led to a culture of consensus decision-making within the OAU.63 These behavioural norms, intricately related as they were to the identity principles of sovereignty and equality, led to a tendency to ignore the fifth principle which demanded condemnation of unconstitutional changes of government. Instead, member-states tended simply to recognise as leaders those who had official control of the capital cities.64 As member- states were thus primarily concerned with surface political leadership in their neighbours, a commitment to sovereignty and non-interference helped to elevate the position of heads of state in Africa. Summit diplomacy quickly became the norm.65 Thus, in African international society, in contrast to the transversal sphere of politics, violence and warfare were aberrant.66 In addition, while political elites have been prominent in both layers, the transversal norm that allows for personal identity and agendas is quite different to the international society norm by which only state representatives are recognised as legitimate international actors. The final two
62 Organisation of African Unity, "OAU Charter," Article III. 63 Colin Legum, "The Organisation of African Unity - Success or Failure?," International Affairs 51, no. 2 (1975): 214, Clapham, Africa and the International System, 112. 64 Herbst, States and Power in Africa, 110. 65 Williams, "From Non-Intervention to Non-Indifference," 265. 66 See Herbst, States and Power in Africa, 103. Chapter 6 176 principles of the OAU, committing member-states to anti-imperialism, anti-apartheid and non-alignment, were the only ones that demanded commonality of international policy. In practice, many states neglected this commitment when material benefits could be gained through closer relationships with non-African powers, and the principles relating to sovereignty prevented enforcement of the initial agreement.67 In essence, the rhetoric of anti-imperialism was not powerful enough to fundamentally alter behaviour, but it remained an important expectative norm linked to the identity of a newly independent Africa.68 At the time of the formation of the OAU, a Pan-African ideology competed with state-based international society for influence over continental politics.69 While the first three principles of the OAU are African manifestations of essentially European norms, the Pan-African commitment to collaboration and region-wide identity influenced the incorporation of the final four expectative behavioural norms. Pan-African identity was a founding motivation for the creation of ECOWAS as well as the OAU, and it is an identity that has been important to both Francophone and Anglophone actors. While the West African Francophones appeared to be less prominent in a movement that was greatly influenced by African-American and Caribbean writers, the Francophone RDA had actually begun as a regional anti- colonial movement and shared many of the same ideas as Pan-Africanism. Importantly, the broad concept incorporates a number of quite different ideals, from unity of all people of African origin, to inter-state agreement on principles of appropriate governance in Africa. Ghana’s Nkrumah was a major player in the development of Pan-African ideology and his vision was for a radical United States of Africa rather than an Africa of sovereign states.70 Like many Pan-Africanists, he was very critical of the colonially imposed state-based framework. He saw the dismantling of borders as a good in its own right, looking towards a unified African identity. However, while Pan-Africanism draws on the importance of equality between Africans, it was inspired and generated very much in elite and academic circles. It fosters regional identity, but should not be assumed to reflect transversal regional identities. As the OAU came into being, elite Pan-Africanists recognised the benefits
67 See Clapham, Africa and the International System, 113. 68 The foundational principles of the OAU were also discussed by Aning, "Lecture Given at Legon University." Williams, "From Non-Intervention to Non-Indifference." 69 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 120. 70 Mammo Muchie et al., "African Integration and Civil Society: The Case of the African Union," Transformation 61 (2006): 9. Chapter 6 177 of involvement in international society. They ultimately submitted to its state-based norms and the prominent goal of unification receded. Developing common principles across a continent that comprised over fifty states with sovereign rights and competing interests proved difficult. It has been easier in ECOWAS, as a subregion of neighbouring states that have a longer history of affinity than the diverse people of the whole continent. While colonial rule divided states, it also standardised patterns of domestic political organisation, facilitating agreement on principles of governance and helping to foster “regional awareness” in international society. In some ways, in spite of the lack of reference to political co- operation in its treaty, ECOWAS became a more successful version of what the Pan- Africanists were initially trying to achieve through the OAU. With fewer state interests involved, the sub-regional organisation was more able to meet varying demands and work towards political federation. ECOWAS member-states did not stray far from OAU principles, but they did appear to be less apprehensive about the potential erosion of sovereignty. Indeed, when ECOWAS was formed, Ghana’s Head of State, General Kutu Acheampong addressed the Council of Ministers with the words “by this single act more than 120 million people of West Africa, through their representatives who assembled in Lagos, put a seal on their determination to end the centuries of division and artificial barriers imposed on them from outside and to recreate together the kind of homogeneous society which existed before the colonialists invaded our shores.”71 ECOWAS was expected to overcome differences in colonial history, language, size, culture and economics in order to move forward. In the first fifteen years of its existence however, ECOWAS had little to do with uniting people. It was very much a rationalist Westphalian movement founded on sovereign equality and expected economic benefit. The kind of homogeneity and supranationalism eulogised in the early Pan-Africanist rhetoric of General Acheampong could only be achieved through the much greater involvement in decision-making of the 120 million people he referred to.
71 Cited in Adebayo Adedeji, "Collective Self-Reliance in Developing Africa: Scope, Prospects and Problems," in Readings and Documents on ECOWAS, ed. AB Akinyemi, SB Falegan, and IA Aluko (Lagos: Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, 1984), 287. Chapter 6 178
Deepening integration and democratisation It was in the early 1990s that ECOWAS achieved a kind of re-birth with the signing of the revised treaty. The OAU, comprising over fifty member-states and committed to the principle of non-intervention, was to take an additional decade to transform into the more supranational AU. By contrast, ECOWAS began demonstrating its deeper commitment to universal ideals from 1991 when it released a declaration of principles in which member-states professed to embrace democracy and the rule of law.72 Whether the democratisation movement was spearheaded by international or domestic forces, the ECOWAS declaration of principles demonstrates the normative pressure that was being brought to bear on the institution across the region. The subsequent wave of democratisation also suggests that the West African declaration and new normative framework may have had more of an impact on the region’s authoritarian regimes than UN expectations or EU directives. It was also in 1991 that the Protocol on the Community Court of Justice was signed, commencing a process towards ensuring that member-states are accountable to the regional institution, and adhere to the provisions of the treaty.73 The integration and democratisation processes, both a question of government accountability, were thus closely linked from the beginning of the 1990s. The integration process was consolidated by the revision of the ECOWAS Treaty in 1993. In the preamble of the revised treaty, ECOWAS declared its conviction that “the integration of the Member States into a viable regional Community may demand the partial and gradual pooling of national sovereignties to the Community within the context of a collective political will.”74 While economic union remained the predominant focus, the revised treaty also covered a wider range of policy-areas in which regional agreement was to be sought. For example, it codified support for the proposed Community Court of Justice and through Article 57 even looked forward to a common legal system: “Member States undertake to co- operate in judicial and legal matters with a view to harmonising their judicial and
72 Economic Community of West African States, "Declaration of Political Principles of the ECOWAS," (Abuja: 1991). 73 Economic Community of West African States, “Community Court of Justice,” www.court.ecowas.int 74 Economic Community of West African States, "Revised Treaty of ECOWAS." Chapter 6 179 legal systems.”75 In Article 13, it even established a Community Parliament, although the details were left to future protocols. It is interesting that the previous year had seen European agreement on the Maastricht Treaty which similarly advanced political integration by converting the EEC into the new EU. This suggests that the impetus for the deepening of regionalism in West Africa is at least partially attributable to an ongoing desire to remain current in the broader international sphere – to act in accordance with developing European norms about appropriate international behaviour including the desirability of regional agreements on both free trade and commonly-held values. The underlying Pan- African objectives that provided much of the political rhetoric for integration within ECOWAS fitted in well with international assumptions about the desirability of regionalisation. ECOWAS was also developing in line with normative movement at the continental level. While the AU’s Pan-African Parliament was not established until 2004, it was initially conceived as early as 1991 by the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community.76 The Pan-African Parliament now describes itself as “A common platform for African peoples and their grass-roots organisations to be more involved in discussions and decision-making on the problems and challenges facing the continent,” although it is the member-state legislative bodies rather than the people who elect Members of Parliament.77 As the most deeply integrated of Africa’s sub-regional organisations, ECOWAS was more of a driver than a follower of continental union, and progress towards integration has gained momentum since the signing of the revised treaty. Its objectives however, have not deviated far from the expectations of international society. In 2000, ECOWAS released a publication for its Silver Jubilee entitled “Achievements and Prospects” that gave a rather dispirited account of the organisation’s failures. It accorded particular consideration to the level of involvement of West African people in decision-making and the formation of a regional identity, noting that “the situation shows clearly that a sense of belonging… is cruelly lacking,”78 and citing the ongoing failure to fully implement the 1982 Protocol on Free Movement. Importantly, while this is often interpreted as a general
75 Ibid. 76 Organisation of African Unity, "Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community," (Abuja: 1991). 77 Pan-African Parliament, www.pan-african-parliament.org 78 Economic Community of West African States, Achievements and Prospects (Abuja: 2000). Chapter 6 180 failure to integrate, it is more revealing of the wide gap between high-level attempts at inter-state policy co-ordination, and the willingness or ability to implement rhetoric about the integral place of West African individuals in sub-regional unity. Regional identity was developing between governments, but amongst the civilian population, moving from pre-colonial regional identity towards regional identity through the gates of statehood proved to be a major challenge. The challenge lay partly in the problem that the two types of identity could be so easily conflated and confused under the banner of West African identity. It was assumed that pre-colonial regional identities would naturally assist and bolster Westphalian attempts at regionalisation. There has been little recognition that the two might entail very different kinds of identity and be guided by very different norms. Kwesi Aning, a Ghanaian academic and researcher at KAIPTC, goes so far as to assert that regionalism in West Africa is still only happening at an elite level.79 However, in 2000, while a people-centred West African identity may have been difficult to discern, in terms of high-level moves towards supranationality, ECOWAS was on the verge of some major achievements. The ECOWAS Parliament, which was created by the Protocol signed in 1994, held its first session in January 2001. In the same month, the Community Court of Justice swore in its first seven Justices, appointed by the member-states of ECOWAS. Four years later, these moves were consolidated when ECOWAS approved transformation of the Executive Secretariat into a Commission.80 The ECOWAS Commission website describes this transformation as a “break with the past.”81 It is adamant that it goes beyond a basic name change and is more significant than its simple increase in management officers would suggest. To a certain extent, the transformation is symbolic. The new commission is dedicated to strengthening supranationalism and consolidating the spirit of the community. However, it also incorporates a new legal regime that could have a substantive impact on the integration process. Under the previous system, the creation of ECOWAS principles and law was slow, as all Protocols and Conventions had to be separately ratified by member-states. The Protocol on the Community Court of Justice for example, was originally signed in 1991 but was not ratified by all member-states until 2000. Under the new regime, Community Acts adopted by the
79 Kwesi Aning, lecture given at KAIPTC on 2 February 2007 80 Economic Community of West African States, "Statement on the Conclusion of the 29th Ordinary Summit," (Niamey: 2006). 81 Economic Community of West African States, “The ECOWAS Commission,” www.ecowas.int Chapter 6 181
Community, the Authority or the Council of Ministers will be binding and enforceable on all member-states. Within this regime, the Parliament is to play a consultative role. The 2002 resolution enhancing its functions emphasised human rights and democracy as of paramount importance amongst the issue areas to be considered.82 Members of Parliament are to be governed by “personal conviction” rather than “instructions or mandate from any quarter”83 and it is expected that the Parliament will become more directly accountable to the citizens of West Africa than the Authority has been.84 In practice, the current representation is governed entirely by state mandate. Of 115 seats in the general assembly, each member-state is guaranteed a minimum of five seats and the remainder are shared in proportion to population. Thus, Nigeria has 35 seats; Ghana has eight; Côte d’Ivoire has seven; Guinea, Mali, Niger and Senegal have six; and the remainder have five. As the Parliament is currently in its “transitional” phase, these members are being elected for four-year terms by the national assemblies of the member-states from amongst their existing MPs.85 In 2007, ECOWAS leaders adopted “Regional Strategic Visions” that once again commit the organisation to greater integration and dismantling of border constraints, but direct involvement of private individuals in that integration is unlikely to occur in the immediate term. 2020 is the year by which ECOWAS is envisaged to have “moved from an ECOWAS of states into an ECOWAS of peoples.”86 In the meantime, the Parliament’s transitional period is expected to come to an end in 2010, after which representatives are to be elected by universal adult suffrage, although still on the basis of state proportionality. The new evidence of a commitment to democracy and good governance within ECOWAS precipitated what Christopher Landsberg calls the fifth wave of Pan-Africanism that was manifest in the creation of the AU and the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD).87 In 1997, ECOWAS, along with the UK and the
82 Economic Community of West African States Parliament, "Resolution Relating to the Enhancement of the Community Parliament," (Abuja: 2002). 83 Economic Community of West African States Parliament, “The ECOWAS Parliament at a Glance,” www.part.ecowas.int 84 Institute for Strategic Studies, “The ECOWAS Parliament at a Glance,” www.iss.africa.org 85 Economic Community of West African States Parliament, “The ECOWAS Parliament at a Glance,” www.part,ecowas.int 86 Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "ECOWAS Leaders Adopt Strategic Vision for Regional Development," 18 June 2007. 87 See Christopher Landsberg, "The Fifth Wave of Pan-Africanism," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 117-44. Chapter 6 182
Commonwealth, refused to recognise the military junta in Sierra Leone.88 In 1999, the OAU made a declaration against unconstitutional changes of government. Demonstrating a significantly diminished tolerance for authoritarian regimes, the organisation excluded the military governments of Côte d’Ivoire and the Comoros from its summit in 2000. The replacement of the OAU by the AU mirrored this change towards a greater focus on individual rights and governmental responsibility. However, the concern remains that both the AU and ECOWAS may be more concerned about the appearance of democracy than about whether individuals are actually gaining more input into decision-making. A major test for commitment to democracy within ECOWAS came in 2005 when Togo’s President Gnassingbé Eyadéma died and his son Faure Gnassingbé was unconstitutionally set up as president in his place.89 President Eyadéma had run the country for 37 years – first as a military dictator and from 1991 as the country’s ostensibly democratically elected president. When an armed forces coup d’état installed Gnassingbé as president in 2005, the AU, ECOWAS, the US, the EU and France all protested against such undemocratic behaviour. ECOWAS actually imposed sanctions, suspended Togo’s membership from the organisation, imposed an arms embargo, and banned the country’s leaders from travelling in the region. This regional pressure achieved results. Gnassingbé resigned and promised to hold free elections while ECOWAS broadcast the effectiveness of the organisation’s diplomacy.90 Elections were subsequently held, but violence broke out when Gnassingbé was declared the winner. The opposition parties contested the fairness of the ballot which the European Parliament said “did not comply with the principles of transparency, pluralism and the freedom of the people to determine their own future.”91 This time however, both ECOWAS and the AU denounced the opposition’s protest.92 Nigeria’s foreign minister, Adeniji responded: “It cannot stand. It cannot stand because an election has been held and someone has been declared the winner.”93
88 Adekeye Adebajo, "Introduction," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 1-20. Select Committee on Foreign Affairs House of Commons, "Second Report - Sierra Leone," (London: 1999). 89 “Togo’s Election Brings Strife, Not Calm,” The Guardian, 2 May 2005. 90 Cameron Duodu, “Togo’s New Dictator is Forced to Step Down,” The Observer, 27 February 2005. 91 Cited in Paul Simon Handy, "The Dynastic Succession in Togo: Continental and Regional Implications," African Security Review 14, no. 3 (2005): 47-51. 92 Williams, "From Non-Intervention to Non-Indifference." 93 Andrew Meldrum, “Six Die as Togo Clashes Intensify,” The Guardian, 28 April 2005. Chapter 6 183
The ECOWAS spokesperson remarked, “We have demonstrated a capacity to solve our own problems,” but it appeared that ECOWAS leaders would rather their diplomatic efforts be considered successful than permit an investigation into electoral fraud. Togolese legislative elections have [now] been postponed on three occasions for “technical reasons.”94 The leaders of ECOWAS states have demonstrated their common identity and common sense of purpose which is now allegedly linked to individual rights and democracy, but it remains difficult for individuals to express their independent political identity.
ECOWAS and Civil Society Since the 1990s, the African democratisation and integration processes have steadily gained momentum as politically salient ideals. The two movements are intricately connected in West Africa. A substantial element of political integration at the state level is based on agreement on fundamental principles of political association and organisation. The importance of international norms combined with a growing recognition of the individual in West African identity-formation have led to agreement on democracy as a key ordering concept in the sub-region. As a result, the role of civil society has been increasingly recognised as a fundamental component of good governance.
Civil society and political society The concept of civil society has been a feature of European political thought since the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the work of theorists such as John Locke and Thomas Paine. George Hegel provides perhaps the most well-known early definition, articulating the sphere of formal civil society as that which is positioned between the family and the state.95 Beyond these early appearances however, it was through the nineteenth-century work of thinkers such as Alexis de Tocqueville that the idea of an autonomous civil society began to be widely recognised as an essential element of a functional democracy.96 The notion of autonomy has now become so fundamental to the modern, Western conception of civil society that the sphere is
94 Kissy Agyeman, “Conference on Politics of Succession in West Africa Opens in Benin,” Global Insight Daily Analysis, 25 September 2007 95 See Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 14. 96 See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, ed. JP Mayer, trans. George Lawrence (New York: Harper and Row, 1988). Chapter 6 184 often expected to oppose the state directly. Indeed, in the words of Alvin Gouldner, “No emancipation is possible in the modern world… without a strong civil society that can strengthen the public sphere and can provide a haven from and a centre of resistance to the Behemoth state.”97 Similarly, for Bayart civil society exists by definition in “confrontation with the state,” even in “self consciousness of its opposition to the state.”98 At its most benign, the role of civil society is to provide checks and balances on the overriding hegemony and power of even a democratic state. It is in civil society that new arguments arise to challenge mainstream policies and, importantly, where emerging interest groups that lack the majority necessary for direct representation in government, can gain a public voice. Autonomy however, was not historically fundamental to the idea of civil society. Prior to the nineteenth century, the European understanding of civil society was generally synonymous with, rather than autonomous of the political society of the state.99 In this older guise, the concept referred to the involvement of the citizenry in decision-making. The role of a “civil” government was to represent and embody the wishes of society, and to govern in accordance with the rule of law rather than by imposing autocratic decisions through the use of force. In spite of the current separation of civil society from the state, its historical basis in political society has not been lost. Civil society is most often concerned with seeking change in specific issue- areas within existing state structures. Even when the objectives are for more fundamental political transformation, civil society is often co-opted into the pre- existing structures of political society. The current pervasive fascination with and belief in the emancipatory potential of civil society emerged out of the “liberation” of Eastern European states from the Communist bloc through “grass-roots” democratisation movements at the end of the 1980s.100 In this case, the strength of civil society began outside the confines of the state structure, as the mobilisation of popular opinion against the status quo precipitated a successful movement for drastic political change. However, the aim of the civil society organisations involved was not to remain in opposition to the bureaucratic state. It was to counter Communist governance and become part of the
97 Alvin Gouldner, The Two Marxisms (Houdmills & London: Macmillan, 1980), 371. 98 Jean-François Bayart, "Civil Society in Africa," in Political Domination in Africa: Reflections on the Limits of Power, ed. Patrick Chabal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 117. 99 Krishan Kumar, "Civil Society: An Inquiry into the Usefulness of an Historical Term," British Journal of Sociology 44, no. 3 (1993): 375-95. 100 Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 14. Chapter 6 185 democratic politics that were to take place in the mainstream. A similar process occurred in Latin America, where popular movements for change overthrew authoritarian regimes.101 Civil society organisations became political parties, increasing the involvement of the citizenry in democratic governance as civil society became political society. Civil society as emergent people-centred political society has been active across Africa at each of the crisis points of the continent’s twentieth-century history. Its strength lies in its autonomous ability to question the manner in which state politics is organised. However, when “successful”, it is often co-opted into the mainstream political system; its central actors in turn learning to distrust social forces outside of the bureaucratic state. Thus, it was civil society that protested against the imposition of colonialism and ultimately managed to secure independence, but it did so within the centralised state-based framework established by the colonial powers.102 The new “one-party” regimes that had risen to power on the basis of popular support generally claimed to express political unity and repressed dissent in civil society. Popular movements for democratisation were instrumental in bringing about the major change of the beginning of the 1990s, but the civil society organisations that were behind it have largely evolved into political parties, co-opted into the state system. A key example is Côte d’Ivoire’s Front populaire ivoirien (FPI – Ivoirian Popular Front). It was first founded by Gbagbo in 1982 just before he went into exile in France. An active member of the National Trade Union of Research and Higher Education, Gbagbo intended to combat the one-party state run by Houphouët. Today, the FPI is Côte d’Ivoire’s ruling party and Gbagbo is its president, having gained power in elections of very doubtful legitimacy. Since 2003 the FPI has continually postponed elections, belying its civil society origins. Mamdani claims that the African democratisation process was “synonymous with the coming to life of civil society,”103 and across West Africa, the idea of civil society does remain closely associated with popular struggles for democratisation and
101 Michael W Foley and Bob Edwards, "The Paradox of Civil Society," Journal of Democracy 7, no. 3 (1996): 38. 102 Augustine Ikelegbe, "The Perverse Manifestation of Civil Society: Evidence from Nigeria," The Journal of Modern African Studies 39, no. 1 (2001): 23-55. 103 Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 606. Chapter 6 186 the involvement of people in governance.104 As such, it is very closely linked to a notion of political society. This does not detract from the benefits of a burgeoning civil society sector which has made it much more difficult for states to repress their citizens. Those that do have found themselves more exposed to popular uprisings as well as condemnation in international society. Although there is disagreement over the validity of a notion of “uncivil society,” popular insurgencies and revolutionary armed struggles against regimes that oppress the expression of public opinion are part of this movement of democratising civil society.105 Rebellion against the state provides a means, albeit violent, for forcing the state to hear the grievances of disadvantaged or marginalised groups within the population. It creates a forum for the emergence of “political” civil society as individuals and non-state groups seek to gain a role in the decision-making of the state. However, this form of political civil society has proven unlikely to challenge the status quo at its most fundamental. It is very state-centric and its ability to provide a form for the political voices of transversal communities is limited. Alongside this very political form of civil society however, is the NGO sector – a form of civil society that is not tied directly to policy-making within a single state. Both the democratisation process and the West African experience of violent conflict have provided space for the growth of the NGO sector which has sought to link individuals and non-state groups directly to regional governance through issue-based advocacy.
NGOs and peace-building in West Africa During the 1990s, Liberia and Sierra Leone experienced state collapse and violent conflict rather than democratisation. To a certain extent, insurgency against the centralised governments provided evidence that “civil society” was able to question and act against established political authorities. Importantly, the potential for transformation generated by the anarchy of violence also opened up the space for civic involvement, and led to the emergence of transnational NGO advocacy. State collapse in Liberia and Sierra Leone left a void of governance that was partially filled
104 See Ikelegbe, "The Perverse Manifestation of Civil Society." Mamdani, Citizen and Subject. John Makumbe, "Is there a Civil Society in Africa?," International Affairs 74, no. 2 (1998): 305-17. Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works. 105 See Richard Price, "Transnational Civil Society and Advocacy in World Politics," World Politics 55, no. 4 (2003): 580. Sheelagh Stewart, "Happy Ever after in the Marketplace: Non-Government Organisations and Uncivil Society," Review of African Political Economy 24, no. 71 (1997): 11-34. Robert H Jackson, "Sovereignty and its Presuppositions: Before 9/11 and After," Political Studies 55, no. 2 (2007): 301. Chapter 6 187 by a partnership between local and international peacebuilding NGOs. The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) for example, is a transnational civil society organisation with an anti-conflict agenda. Its work commenced in the Mano River basin, but it now has offices across the whole of West Africa. Its major role is to analyse developing situations in conflict and post-conflict states, making recommendations to governments on how to consolidate peace or avoid a renewal of warfare. Its expansion across the region has also permitted it to develop a West African Early Warning and Response Network (WARN) based on recognising and responding to human insecurity. Interestingly, in its development as a non-state phenomenon WANEP, along with other similar civil society organisations, has recognised the importance of regional inter-state institutions to advance its causes. Its role has expanded at the same time as ECOWAS has become more committed to responding to conflict in the region. As a result, the NGO has gradually gained a closer connection with the regional IGO and now makes recommendations to ECOWAS as a whole.106 Similarly, the MRU Women’s Network for Peace (MARWOPNET) was founded to cut across divisions based on traditional factors such as political affiliation, ethnicity, class and profession.107 It recognised that women’s agency was often forgotten during times of conflict, and gave them a voice to speak out publicly against the use of violence and in favour of peaceful conflict-resolution. MARWOPNET has achieved success in influencing the behaviour of elite actors, and in encouraging the involvement of civil society organisations more generally. It has built on the success achieved by Liberian women who in 1994 demonstrated against the manner in which peace talks were being held between warlords and state representatives, and insisted on the inclusion of civil society representatives.108 In 2001, the lobbying efforts of MARWOPNET were a major contributing factor leading to the summit held between the leaders of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to defuse the building tension.109 MARWOPNET has been very effective in mobilising women across West Africa, a significant effort that has had internationally recognised
106 Interviews with WANEP representatives in Accra, Ghana and Freetown, Sierra Leone in January-February 2007. See also West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, www.wanep.org 107 “Mano River Union: IRIN Focus on the Search for Peace,” IRIN, 12 January 2003. 108 Jusu-Sheriff, "Civil Society," 271. 109 Jacqueline Seck, West Africa Small Arms Moratorium: High-Level Consultations on the Modalities for the Implementation of PCASED (Geneva: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, 2000), 5. Chapter 6 188 repercussions beyond the conflict-resolution stage. For example, UN resolutions concerning the region now often call on state authorities to co-operate with women’s civil society movements to “combat gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and abuse.”110 One of the most high-profile specific areas of peacebuilding co-operation between West African NGOs and ECOWAS has been the establishment of the Small Arms Moratorium.111 Consultation with civil society was integral to the 1998 ECOWAS declaration of a “Three Year Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation and Manufacture of Small Arms and Light Weapons” signed by all member-states.112 It has since been renewed every three years, and civil society is also deeply involved in the creation and implementation of directives designed to combat the proliferation of small arms in the region. NGOs are given the particular task of raising awareness and helping to establish a culture of peace throughout the region.113 The Small Arms Moratorium represents the epitome of West African achievement in co-ordination between inter-state and transnational efforts to combat what is recognised as an interlinked system of regional conflict. It is as a result of these initiatives emerging from conflict that relations between civil society organisations and IGOs have begun to be formalised in West Africa. Thus, the permanent Mano River Peace Forum has created a more official role for NGOs focused on peacebuilding.114 Formed in 1974 between Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the MRU made little progress towards policy co-ordination and integration for twenty years. After the outbreak of conflict in the region however, civil society became instrumental in adding value to the organisation. International Alert, a multinational NGO concerned with peace-building, helped to facilitate contact between civil society organisations, rebel movements and governments in the sub- region as early as 1994. In 2004, the increasing volume and quality of this interaction was given a permanent role in the Mano River Peace Forum.115 With 24 civil society representatives from the three states of the MRU, the Mano River Peace Forum now seeks to provide an early-warning mechanism to prevent the outbreak of conflict. It
110 United Nations Security Council, "Resolution 1777," (New York: 2007), 2. 111 Seck, West Africa Small Arms Moratorium. 112 International Action Network on Small Arms, “ECOWAS Summit, Dakar, Senegal,” www.iansa.org 113 Seck, West Africa Small Arms Moratorium, 6. 114 Mano River Peace Forum, www.manoriverunion,org 115 International Alert, “Work by International Alert in West Africa: Developing Peace Constituencies in the Mano River Union,” www.international-alert.org Chapter 6 189 draws on the contributions of transnational civil society organisations such as MARWOPONET and WANEP to make representations to governments, opposition leaders and IGOs. More broadly, interactions between transnational NGOs and ECOWAS in the effort to combat violent conflict, led in 2003 to a West Africa Civil Society Forum (WACSOF).116 Its role is to convene a range of civil society actors prior to ECOWAS summits in order that they be able to discuss and collaborate on a range of issues relating to peacebuilding, humanitarianism and development, and subsequently make comprehensive representations to the formal ECOWAS proceedings. Insurgency against the status quo within the individual states of the Greater Mano River Area has thus contributed to the emergence of an issue-based transnational NGO sector with direct connections to the regional institution. In spite of the positive changes wrought by the growing involvement of civil society, the autonomy of the sector from the structures of international society remains in doubt. The formal involvement of peaceful civil society within ECOWAS is still nascent, but indications are that the structures of this engagement are likely to mirror those that have taken place at the continental level since the beginning of the 1990s. Unlike in many other areas of political co-operation, ECOWAS has lagged behind the OAU/AU in the formal inclusion of NGOs in its decision-making process, a delay that is largely due to a necessary pre-occupation with conflict and peace-building.117
NGOs in African international society During the 1990s, NGOs gained a much more significant role within the OAU than they had previously enjoyed. As Executive Secretary of the ECA in the 1980s, Nigerian politician Adedeji had recognised the importance of creating a role for civil society in development,118 and the constant lobbying of civil society organisations was ultimately successful in establishing a 1990 African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation that was endorsed by the UN as well as the OAU. Remarking on “our conviction that the crisis currently engulfing Africa is not only an economic crisis, but also a human, legal, political and social
116 Nana KA Busia, "Strategising for Peace and Social Justice in West Africa: An Overview of the West Africa Programme," (London: International Alert, 2004), 26. 117 Economic Commission for Africa, "African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation," (Arusha: 1990). 118 KY Amoako, "Launching Ceremony of the African Centre for Civil Society," (Addis Ababa: Economic Commission for Africa, 1997). Chapter 6 190 crisis,”119 the Charter led the way for NGOs to become much more prominent players in all areas of governance. Since the establishment of this Charter, African civil society has been able to engage much more closely with governance at national and regional levels, an engagement that has only been enhanced by the transition to the AU with its commitment to a new, people-centred approach. As part of this commitment, in 2005 the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (AU-ECOSOCC) was established as an organ of the AU. It comprises an elected membership of issue- based civil society organisations and its role is advisory within the AU structure.120 In 1994, John Harbeson had commented that “civil society is a hitherto missing key to sustained political reform, legitimate states and government, improved governance, viable state-society and state-economic relationships, and prevention of the kind of political decay that undermined new African governments a generation ago.”121 The substantial involvement of civil society in the AU demonstrates the extent to which this key has now been found. Significantly however, while greater consultation with NGOs means that individuals will be more likely to have their concerns represented at a high level, the involvement of civil society remains very much a state-based international society phenomenon. It is no coincidence that NGOs sought to expand their role within the OAU at the same time as consultation with independent civil society gained strength as an expectative norm of international governance. The broad NGO agenda benefited from the significant support of Western donors who, disillusioned with the intentions and capabilities of African governments, during the 1980s and 1990s began to increase direct funding for independent civil society organisations. As the institutional manifestation of international society, the UN was also instrumental in encouraging African governments to participate in more “grass-roots” consultation. The ECA has continued to promote the role of civil society in development and, for example, set up the African Development Forum in 2000 so that civil society organisations could have direct contact with heads of state and could network with other members of epistemic communities such as researchers and private companies. Importantly, the ECA has been clear that in fostering civil society it does not intend to bypass African states and
119 United Nations General Assembly, "Report of the Economic and Social Council: Development and International Economic Co-operation," (1990). 120 Muchie et al., "African Integration and Civil Society," 4. 121 John W Harbeson, "Civil Society and Political Renaissance in Africa," in Civil Society and the State in Africa, ed. John W Harbeson, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994), 1. Chapter 6 191
IGOs. At the first OAU-Civil Society Conference held in 2001, ECA Executive Secretary KY Amoako opened the proceedings with a speech that emphasised that “the OAU is vital to seeing that there is understanding and fostering of a much- enhanced relationship between civil society and the state.”122 Since 2005, AU-ECOSOCC has provided a lobbying platform for civil society. However, at least 100 out of 150 NGOs that attain membership of the Council must be nominated by the AU member-state in which they are registered, essentially giving states authority over civil society.123 In addition, even when NGOs lobby on issues that affect the continent as a whole, their efforts at normative change will only be effective if translated into policies agreed to by member states. AU-ECOSOCC is a feature of agreement between states in inter-governmental fora, and the object is, as Harbeson would have wished, to improve relations between civil society and bureaucratic government within individual states. This is not to denigrate the importance and value of the new involvement of civil society at a high level of African decision-making, but to emphasise that the inter-state structure of the AU impedes engagement with the transversal even at its most people-centred and when integration is avowedly “global.” There has been a lot of scepticism about the nature of civil society in Africa, with doubts centred on whether it fulfils its function as an autonomous sphere of democratic association and organisation on the continent. Questioning the autonomy of the sector, Staffan Danolf comments that “Certainly there is an increase in the number of farmers’ cooperatives, women’s organisations and human rights associations, but a differentiated civil society in which individuals organise themselves outside the family and articulate interests to the state does not, to any large degree, exist.”124 Questioning its liberal credentials, Robert Fatton opines that civil society “is neither homogenous, nor wholly emancipatory; in fact it is contradictory, exhibiting both democratic and despotic tendencies.”125 Evident throughout most of the critiques levelled at African civil society, and articulated by Chabal and Daloz, is the pervading belief that neo-patrimonialism remains the organising system of politics on the continent, and is too strong to be circumvented by Western funding for
122 Amoako, "Launching Ceremony of the African Centre for Civil Society." 123 African Union, “ECOSOCC Launching,” www.africa-union.org 124 Staffan Darnolf, Democratic Electioneering in Southern Africa: The Contrasting Cases of Botswana and Zimbabwe (Goteborg: Goteborg University Press, 1997), 21. 125 Robert Fatton, "Africa in the Age of Democratization: The Limitations of Civil Society," African Studies Review 38, no. 2 (1995): 93. Chapter 6 192
NGOs.126 According to Chabal and Daloz, civil society fails the crucial test of separation from the state, and its representatives simply use the NGO structure to gain access to resources and power, a familiar feature of neo-patrimonial politics. In the West African context of failing states and NGOs founded on anti-war platforms, the most significant problem stems less from the ties that bind civil society actors to governments per se, and more from the ties that bind them to the state-based structure of international society. As NGO agendas are issue-based, they necessarily work within the existing system, and thus do not adequately represent the transversal sphere of politics. So-called “transnational” NGOs such as WANEP operate through a network of state-based offices that deal primarily with issues in their own territory and make recommendations to their own governments, albeit drawing on the experiences of representatives in other states. Even when recommendations to ECOWAS come from a collective of transnational NGOs, their implementation is channelled back through individual member-states who remain primarily concerned with border security, rather than trying to engage the regional non-state actors that contribute to insecurity across borders. The purpose of the Small Arms Moratorium is to prevent the spread of conflict from one state to another – an agenda that is worthwhile but inherently fails to recognise the history, currency and strength of the transversal community identity that is a major contributing factor. Having said this, the growing involvement of autonomous NGOs in ECOWAS decision-making does help bridge the divide between the two forms of international society. Some NGOs intimately involved in the process of making recommendations to individual governments have complained about the state-centric nature of projects such as the Small Arms Moratorium.127 Some of these work specifically with transversal communities such as refugees and ex-combatants. Conflict has been a site for change and an opportunity for political involvement by a diverse range of actors. There have also been some small but significant developments within ECOWAS. In 2005, the Secretariat sought to implement a pilot “Cross-Border Initiatives Programme” (CIP) aimed at focusing on the development of health, education, commerce and security in specified communities that physically straddle borders in West Africa. While it was mainly applied in peaceful francophone regions outside of
126 Chabal and Daloz, Africa Works. 127 International Action Network on Small Arms, “ECOWAS Summit, Dakar, Senegal,” www.iansa.org Chapter 6 193 the MRU and was relevant only to territorially-defined communities, it demonstrates an attempt to think outside of the state-bounded framework. Contributing to the process of emancipatory thinking, civil society actors are often effective, faithfully represent consistent agendas and are unafraid to criticise government policy. Like “political” civil society however, the problem generally remains that the autonomous, issue-based NGOs are deeply connected to the state-based framework. Somewhat ironically, it is actually “political” civil society that tends to bring about the most radical change, while the “autonomous” issue-based civil society organisations work within the existing system. Neither form is ready to thwart the underlying structural system of politics that defines their region and their states.
Conclusion As a regional organisation in international society, ECOWAS is well developed. While it has encountered problems, such as the Anglo/Francophone division, its formal integration efforts rival those of institutions more commonly recognised as advanced models of regionalism such as the EU and ASEAN. It is particularly in the political sphere, traditionally expected to lag behind economic integration, that ECOWAS is most developed, as governments have sought to develop common policies and have started to cede some degree of sovereignty to regional regulatory bodies. A key element of this integration success is the depth of regional identity and regional awareness that has developed within ECOWAS. The organisation was founded with an aspiration to overcome the divides of the colonial era, and its visions of cohesiveness are linked to a general commitment to a Pan- African identity. In addition, West Africa’s states share norms and goals relating to appropriate governance, and these are increasingly linked to democracy and providing a role for civil society. This has given individuals and NGOs more of an opportunity to take part in the decision-making of the state, traditionally the exclusive domain of political elites. To this extent, the individual is elevated as a political referent and can draw on local norms to contribute to a broader regional identity. In spite of these developments however, ECOWAS remains very far removed from transversal society. While its political developments have depended on a recognition of regional identity, this is a version of regional identity determined by political elites, which largely excludes cross-regional identity as it has developed in transversal communities. Although it does include African norms, regional identity as Chapter 6 194 articulated by elites is very heavily influenced by the norms of state-based international society, including a commitment to state sovereignty and centralised governance. Democracy and civil society are likewise ideas that have become important to legitimacy in state-based international society, bringing into question the depth of commitment to the role of the individual in both ECOWAS and individual states. Ultimately, even where ordinary people have managed to gain a voice, their voice is necessarily channelled through the centralised state format, meaning that a relationship between ECOWAS and West Africa’s transversal communities is stifled. As conflict is largely organised in transversal society, this casts doubt on the apparently logical idea that the regional organisation would be well-placed to respond to regional conflict. Chapter 7 195
Chapter 7 – ECOWAS: Responses to Conflict
The regional nature of insecurity in West Africa is a central reason for the failure of individual states to respond effectively to “internal” conflict. Regional conflict requires a regional response, and West Africa has a well-developed regional organisation in the form of ECOWAS, that has been heavily involved in peacekeeping across the Greater Mano River Area. This final chapter assesses the value of ECOWAS as a provider of security in West Africa, by evaluating its security norms and identity, as well as its peacekeeping endeavours. It begins by tracing the emergence of ECOWAS as a regional security institution. Politically, ECOWAS is grounded in state-based international society. The necessity of responding to crises during the 1990s entailed an accelerated development of regional security norms far beyond rationalist expectations, even towards the appearance of security community germination. However, even a security community is a state-based concept that would seem unable to deal with the alternative paradigm presented by the transversal sphere of politics. The chapter thus goes on to consider the practical implications of state-based attempts to deal with conflict taking place in transversal as well as international society. The focus is on peacekeeping, a high-profile and immediate response to insecurity, and an area in which ECOWAS has demonstrated innovation as well as failure. In Liberia and Sierra Leone, the major sites of West African peacekeeping in the 1990s, the clash between global peacekeeping norms and unexpected transversal realities greatly impeded the potential for mission success. These experiences led in 1999 to the development of a new comprehensive Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, Peace and Security.1 The Mechanism was developed with the intention of better dealing with insecurity in the region, but the value of a specifically West African approach has been lost as the objectives of ECOWAS have been harmonised with global expectations. Responses to conflict in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia since 2002 have been somewhat effective, but demonstrate little innovative transformative potential.
1 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security," (Lomé: 1999). Chapter 7 196
Emergence of ECOWAS as a Regional Security Institution ECOWAS was originally conceived as an institution for economic co- operation and regional development, but progress in these endeavours was very slow. After fifteen years, achievements in terms of regional trade, production and economic transformation were difficult to identify.2 Significantly, it was widely recognised that lack of success in this sector could be partly attributed to the internal political disorder of many participating states. It seemed that little had changed since 1961, when the CIA commented that, “The problems of political survival and of maintenance of law and order have kept African leaders from concentrating on their interrelationships.”3 The excessive number of coups d’état that took place across West Africa between 1975 and 1990 were a symptom of continuing instability.4 It was understood that economic progress would be difficult without the assurance of state and regime security and stability. The quick transformation of ECOWAS from an economic to a security institution when civil war broke out in Liberia in 1989 reflects this understanding. West African states also recognised that the collapse of Liberia posed an immediate threat to their own survival, and for this reason were quick to organise a co-ordinated military response. Clapham argues that it became necessary to address security concerns at the regional level in Africa when it was recognised that “the region was one of the critical arenas within which the security of the state and its rulers was threatened.”5 As Buzan explains, a region might be described as a “security complex” if the security of individual states cannot be considered in isolation from the security of their neighbours, meaning that national security concerns can only be resolved in the context of the region.6 While excluded from Buzan’s analysis, West Africa is a clear example of such interdependent state security. More specifically, at the beginning of the 1990s, West Africa could be understood as a “regional conflict complex” in which internal conflict is likely to spread between states.7 Linking state security with regime security, West African leaders recognised the danger posed to their positions as well
2 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 36. 3 Cited in Nina Davis Howland, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States: Africa, 1961-63 (Washington: State Department, 1995). 4 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 43. 5 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 120. 6 Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post- Cold War Era (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991), 190. 7 Peter Wallensteen and Margareta Sollenberg, "Armed Conflict and Regional Conflict Complexes, 1989-97," Journal of Peace Research 36, no. 5 (1998): 621-34. Chapter 7 197 as to the political and economic survival of their states by the Liberian conflict. This was a fear that proved to be well-founded when conflict engulfed Sierra Leone in 1991. West African states recognise that their security is “relational,” threatened by the insecurity of their neighbours.8 Using a rationalist analysis, the military response from ECOWAS can be understood essentially as an alliance of states led by Nigeria, the regional hegemon, to combat a common threat to state security. Many rationalist sceptics of ECOWAS humanitarianism have additionally asserted that intervention in Liberia constituted an attempt by Nigeria to assert its authority in the region and to draw other states into its sphere of influence.9 Politically, leadership of ECOWAS regionalism has presented an opportunity for Nigeria to gain multilateral legitimacy for its self-interested goals.10 West African security regionalism in this analysis comprises a co-operative attempt to ensure the political survival of individual states, but replicates the pre-existing power structure. This is a potentially legitimate analysis of ECOWAS security co-operation, but such a rationalist interpretation is very reminiscent of Cold War thinking. Prior to 1990, the importance of great power rivalries dictated that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) would be seen in the West as the supreme example of regional security possibilities, and it seemed clear that the military alliance had been created simply in order to combat a common enemy.11 Even after the end of the Cold War, the idea that more advanced regional security institutions might be developed elsewhere was rarely considered in mainstream Western security studies. However, the rationalist interpretation of ECOWAS security co-operation tells only part of the story.
New approaches to regional security: Towards a security community The end of the Cold War brought an end to the threat of superpower conflict. As a result, it significantly diminished the fear that the survival of states in the West was threatened by imminent military attack. In practice, institutions that relied on collective security became more significant players in the international landscape. The UN, for example, is clearly a collective security institution. It attempts to defend state
8 Buzan, People, States and Fear, 187. 9 See Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II." 10 Louise Fawcett, "Exploring Regional Domains: A Comparative History of Regionalism," International Affairs 80, no. 3 (2004): 430. 11 Gheciu, "Security Institutions as Agents of Socialisation?," 973. Chapter 7 198 sovereignty and security by demanding that states settle their disputes without recourse to the use of force, and by threatening to punish acts of aggression.12 In addition, through a series of treaties that build on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,13 the UN has elevated the importance of security for individuals. Developments in the world body both reflect and affect changes taking place in its member-states and their regional organisations. Even NATO, a traditional security alliance, has been reconsidered in normative terms, with analysts now emphasising its ideological commitment to democracy and its development of a collective identity. Gheciu documents the expansion of NATO into Central and Eastern Europe, problematising the willingness of states in these areas to take part in the organisation.14 She argues that the decision of states such as the Czech Republic and Romania to subscribe to NATO ideology and to internalise democratic norms is evidence of more than a cynical pursuit of pre-defined security interests. Individual states take this action because they already trust NATO as a regional organisation and identify with the Western community it represents. In academic circles, the abrupt end to the preoccupations of the Cold War opened up space for the development of approaches to security that were less reliant on material defence capabilities, and more concerned with generating inter-state trust, norms and international law. It was in this context that the idea of a “security community” was revived. In the intellectual world of 1957, Deutsh’s concept did not gain much credence, but by the end of the twentieth century developments within the EU seemed to provide evidence that a security community could constitute a viable alternative interpretation of security co-operation. Drawing on the ideas of constructivism, Adler and Barnett emphasised the importance of regional identity and normative goals, drawing away from Deutsch’s original behaviouralist commitment to measuring the quantity of interaction between states. Security communities do not rely on institutions and rules, although these can assist development. They rely on “we feeling” and shared values. The concept has also developed significantly from when Adler and Barnett first revived it at the beginning of the 1990s. As the EU was significant as an inspiration, liberal democratic values were seen as central to security
12 United Nations, "Charter of the United Nations." 13 United Nations General Assembly, "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," (1948). 14 Gheciu, "Security Institutions as Agents of Socialisation?." Chapter 7 199 community creation.15 This conception ensured that the theory was initially held hostage to European and North Atlantic models of community building. Any attempt to force the idea onto manifestations of regionalism in the developing world of undemocratic states and violent instability would have seemed illegitimate. However, Acharya’s exploration of the extent to which ASEAN might be considered a nascent security community has been instrumental in expanding the concept so that its relevance as an analytical tool can be applied in regions other than Europe.16 In their comprehensive 1998 book on security communities, Adler and Barnett distance themselves from Kantian perspectives, maintaining that a stable peace might well emerge among non-democracies sharing values and purpose.17 Acharya details the important aspects of ASEAN regionalism that fit in with the security communities framework.18 Significantly, there has been no war between the member-states since the community’s formation in 1967. They were brought together in the first instance by a shared perception of security threats, although it should be noted that these were internal rather than external threats, as fear of communism was the main source of security anxiety. In addition, ASEAN states share ethnic, cultural, linguistic and economic bonds that have contributed to the development of imagined community and identity in the region. Ultimately, in spite of, or perhaps as a result of the prevalence of authoritarian regimes, the states profess a sense of community founded on the “ASEAN-way,” that is substantiated by the lack of violent confrontation. According to Acharya, ASEAN remains only “nascent” as a security community because of “lingering concerns about competitive arms acquisitions” and the “absence of a high level of military integration, common definition of external threat, and unfortified borders.”19 It is significant that all of these elements that prevent ASEAN from becoming a tight security community are features of regionalism that can be addressed by states, even those run by non-democratic regimes. ASEAN forms a security community that fits easily into the international society framework, perhaps with some overarching normative values stemming from South-East Asian “world society.”
15 See Adler, "Europe's New Security Order." 16 Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia. 17 Adler and Barnett, "Security Communities in Theoretical Perspective." 18 Amitav Acharya, "Collective Identity and Conflict Management in Southeast Asia," in Security Communities, ed. Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 198-227. 19 Ibid., 219. Chapter 7 200
If ASEAN constitutes a nascent security community within international society on the basis of inter-state peace and shared identity at a high level, this model makes it seem possible that ECOWAS could also be considered as a form of security community. The concept has rarely been considered in relation to Africa. In Adler and Barnett’s Security Communities,20 it is the only continent excluded from an analysis that spans Western Europe, the Gulf, Southeast Asia, South America, Australia and North America. This is an understandable exclusion given that a security community is based on peace, and violent conflict is prevalent across Africa. In West Africa, violent conflict has been a prominent feature of politics since the beginning of the 1990s. However, the conflict is not inter-state, and the advances made by ECOWAS in terms of common security suggest that inter-state war is becoming unthinkable. ECOWAS is committed to common identity and political community, having combined pan-Africanist aspirations with a desire to be a part of state-based international society. These norms help to generate the form of imagined community that is expected to engender peaceful relations. In addition, the norms themselves include a commitment to peaceful resolution of disputes and the sanctity of state sovereignty. Politically, the integration of ECOWAS is not as far advanced as that of Europe. Its region-wide representative parliament is only embryonic, and it has not yet developed a common external foreign policy. It does, however, have legal rules that are applicable in all states, and a Community Court of Justice has been developed. In May 2007, Nigerian President Obasanjo launched the common ECOWAS passport, suggesting that the region is more advanced than ASEAN in terms of political integration.21 In the security sector, the level of integration and community within ECOWAS appears to far exceed that which has occurred in ASEAN. Since the formation of ECOWAS in 1975, the closest that states have come to inter-state conflict are two minor border skirmishes, between Burkina Faso and Mali in 1985, and between Mauritania and Senegal in 1989-91. Security has been a feature of ECOWAS co-operation since its inception. In 1979, the members signed the Protocol on Non-Aggression, which was effectively a collective security commitment that demonstrated its members’ commitment to the goals of broader international society, including an adherence to state sovereignty and
20 Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds., Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 21 Inalegwu Shaibu, “Obj Launches New ECOWAS Passport,” AllAfrica, 18 May 2007. Chapter 7 201 peaceful diplomacy. Its key clause stated that “Member States shall, in their relations with one another, refrain from the threat or use of force or aggression, or from employing any other means inconsistent with the Charters of the UN and the OAU against the territorial integrity of political independence of other member-states.”22 Two years later in 1981, the member states further demonstrated their commitment to durable peace in the region by signing the Protocol Relating to Mutual Defence, which specified that “any armed threat or aggression directed against any member state shall constitute a threat of aggression against the Community.”23 Both protocols evidenced the profound assumption that insecurity was defined by inter-state aggression. More specifically, they demonstrated the extent to which West African security identity was bound up with the Cold War construction of international peace and security. The Mutual Protocol Relating to Mutual Defence permitted intervention in internal armed conflicts that were supported from outside.24 At the time of its signing, concerns were not about West African leaders supporting insurgencies in neighbouring states as has occurred since the 1990s, but about unwanted colonial interference or superpower involvement of the kind that was taking place in Angola. One of the early UN peacekeeping missions was established in Angola in 1988 – for the purpose of overseeing the withdrawal of Cuban troops.25 The only UN peacekeeping operation to occur in Africa prior to this was the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC), established in 1960 also for the purpose of overseeing the withdrawal of foreign troops – in this case predominantly Belgian.26 Since the end of the 1980s however, Cold War concerns have evaporated, and the development of ECOWAS as a security community has been accelerated by the necessity of responding to intra-state conflict. The endeavours of ECOWAS reach beyond isolated instances of co-operation. This is not simply an alliance formed against a common external enemy, and it has moved far beyond the original collective security intention to deter aggression between states. ECOWAS states now recognise the common danger presented by warfare, even when it is ostensibly internal. Further, they appear concerned not only about the potential “spill-over” effect of civil war in the region, but also recognise in violent conflict a threat to the new normative
22 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol on Non-Aggression," (Lagos: 1978). 23 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol Relating to Mutual Assistance of Defence," (Freetown: 1981). 24 Adedeji, "ECOWAS," 44. 25 United Nations, “UNAVEM I,” www.un.org 26 United Nations, “ONUC,” www.un.org Chapter 7 202 structure established by the Revised Treaty of 1993. The new treaty made provisions for dealing with intrastate conflict, at the same time as it envisaged future supranationality and promoted democracy and human rights. It recognised a “peaceful environment as a prerequisite for economic development” and undertook to “establish a regional peace and security observation system and peace-keeping forces where appropriate.”27 Demonstrating the significance of these commitments as norms, ECOWAS acted upon them even before their institutionalisation within the treaty. In 1990, the organisation responded collectively to conflict in Liberia through peacekeeping and peace-enforcement under a regional command. ECOWAS may have been created by egoistic sovereign states, but a pre-existing sense of common identity, combined institutional mechanisms and a growing perception of common threats, have generated an inter-state regional environment that looks very much like a security community.
Failure to recognise the individual as the security referent When measured against the general standards of international society, ECOWAS is a very highly developed security institution that has a common security identity, does not expect inter-state war, and responds collectively to security threats. The glaring problem however, is that this highly developed security institution has found it very difficult to ensure security for the citizens of its member states. The primary reason for this is its position within the international society paradigm. ECOWAS seeks to provide regional security, but on the assumption that the component parts of regional security are states. Common regional identity and normative purpose provides no guarantee that the individual will be recognised as the ultimate security referent. It is this recognition that can provide an important first step towards engaging with the demands and needs of non-state groups and transversal communities. In West Africa, intra-state conflict has demonstrated that the population does not consider state-based security to be sufficient. Insurgency against the state demonstrates that individuals, often through transversal communities, seek to be recognised as the most appropriate referent of security. The importance of a non-state regional security apparatus is made clear when individuals and transversal communities ignore state boundaries and rebel against oppressive state-based
27 Economic Community of West African States, "Revised Treaty of ECOWAS." Chapter 7 203 structures. In such a situation, a state-based security community can provide only a hollow response, even if it is as developed and progressive as ECOWAS appears to be. As a community created by common identity among states, the ECOWAS response to internal conflict relies on the existence of a state structure. When war broke out in Liberia in 1989, the development of ECOWAS as a security community was sufficient to generate agreement on military intervention in spite of the lack of institutional mechanisms provided for peacekeeping. However, it relied heavily on the acquiescence of Liberia’s head of state, President Doe.28 Once Doe had been killed by rebel forces and state collapse was accelerated, the status and duties of the peacekeeping force became very unclear. If the normative purpose of a security community is to provide “dependable expectations of peaceful change,”29 it is insufficient that states should hold such expectations. Comprehensive peace also requires “dependable expectations of peaceful change” in the transversal sphere of politics. In Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire, individuals and non-state communities are either currently experiencing or have recently experienced violent conflict. Across West Africa, they live with political tension, instability and the constant threat of violent conflict spreading across the region. State weakness need not necessarily undermine the ability of people to develop an expectative norm of peaceful politics, but such a norm has not yet developed in the weak states of West Africa. By seeking emancipation and demanding security, West African insurgents have generated insecurity for themselves and those with whom they identify. The problem lies not only with West African regionalism. Mainstream regional security theory still does not consider the individual as its most appropriate referent. Even the security community approach, which professes to be most advanced in rejecting state-based assumptions, is unable to do so. The expectation in security community theory is that transnational interaction will lead to transformation in the identities of individuals and non-state communities, generating a regional commonality of expectations, values and behavioural norms. It is not unlikely that such interaction will generate a form of regional society. The problem with the analysis is the assumption that growing commonality of identity and norms at the transnational level will necessarily contribute to integration within high-level regional
28 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 124. 29 Deutsch et al., Political Community and the North Atlantic Area, 5. Chapter 7 204 institutions. Looking towards post-Westphalian international relations, the security community approach sees Europe as progressive because it demonstrates the possibility that “regional institutions might absorb institutions of governance pertaining to the sovereign state, thereby reducing the significance of international borders.”30 They might, but this is not the inevitable result of an emergent non-state regional identity. There is a conflation between international and transversal society that needs to be distilled. In his examination of South-East Asia, Acharya does recognise that transnational civil society has opposed state-based ASEAN regionalism in some instances, but the comment is tangential to his main argument that ASEAN needs to integrate further in the state-based military sector in order to become a mature security community.31 In addition, the anti-ASEAN non-state sector he describes is very much an issue-based civil society, with individuals seeking to influence ASEAN to focus on human rights, the environment and democracy. In West Africa, the role and influence of transversal society is very different. Its expectative and behavioural norms, its communities, its material pressures, and ultimately its collective identity are very separate to those of international society where official regional integration takes place. Even in an imagined post-Westphalian West African community, the envisaged centralised politics and peaceful diplomacy are very different to the dispersed but exclusive communities and violent economic relations of transversal society. This distinction has not been recognised by most Africanists or even African leaders. Clapham for example, makes the same assumptions as constructivist regionalists, suggesting that population movement is evidence of growing common identity between states.32 In 1976, General Acheampong, Ghana’s military Head of State who had gained power through a coup d’état, claimed that ECOWAS would recreate a pre-colonial homogenous society in West Africa.33 Thomas Imobighe even makes the claim that inter-state interaction has been minimal because of the colonial erosion of trade routes, economic relations and socio-cultural identity across the region, thus not only failing to recognise the immense volume of transversal
30 Kleinschmidt, "Migration, Regional Integration and Human Security," 61. 31 Acharya, "Collective Identity and Conflict Management in Southeast Asia," 215. 32 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 117. 33 Adedeji, "Collective Self-Reliance in Developing Africa," 287. Chapter 7 205 economic and cultural flows across the continent, but assuming that inter-state and transversal relations will be mutually reflective.34 If individuals simply had an independent impact on state-based regionalism, issue-based civil society networks and a deepening of democratic structures might come close to remedying the problem of state-centrism within regional institutions. However, it is the strong structure that exists in West Africa’s parallel system of international relations that prevents a unified regional progression towards durable peace. The state is not the only, or perhaps not even the greatest obstacle to regional integration and the formation of security communities, as suggested by constructivist regionalism. West African conflict demonstrates that non-state networks and structures can be just as constrictive, preventing individuals from seeking emancipation in a regional community that might provide for human security. ECOWAS is significant as a security institution because it demonstrates the possibility for community and trust in a region beset by violent conflict and undemocratic regimes. However, as an international society security organisation ECOWAS cannot effectively address conflict in transversal society. Its peacekeeping operations of the 1990s demonstrate the serious practical constraints imposed by thinking only within the framework of state-based international society.
ECOWAS Peacekeeping of the 1990s: Transversal Complications The 1990s was an international decade of nascent humanitarianism, as the rights of the individual became more widely recognised and it became more acceptable for the international community to intervene militarily in a sovereign state in order to preserve peace and stability. Prior to this, peacekeeping missions in Africa had been very rare, and those that were deployed were mainly concerned with monitoring the withdrawal of foreign troops as requested by the state concerned. “Rapid reaction” was not something the UN even aspired to. During the 1990s however, peacekeeping quickly became a staple of the international African environment, with the heavy involvement of both unilateral and regional actors as well as the UN. The deployment of peacekeepers to Liberia coincided with the introduction of new post-Cold War expectative norms regarding the role of military intervention for humanitarian purposes.
34 Imobighe, "Security in Sub-Saharan Africa." Chapter 7 206
Commencing in 1990, the ECOWAS intervention in Liberia made it something of a peacekeeping pioneer. Well-developed regional organisations such as the EU had not been faced with the task of responding to civil war in a member-state, and there was thus no real precedent for regional action. In 1993, ECOWAS was joined by a contingent of UN military observers, and the UN deployment subsequently evolved into the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL). Such collaboration was likewise novel. Boutros Boutros-Ghali described it as “the first peacekeeping mission undertaken by the UN in co-operation with a peacekeeping mission already set up by another organisation.”35 He appeared to mark it as a positive step towards peacekeeping missions that combine the best aspects of both regional and UN endeavours. In comparison to external states, regional organisations were then, as now, often expected to have greater legitimacy amongst affected civilians, more motivation for becoming involved, a greater willingness to accept troop fatalities, a higher stake in a peaceful outcome, and a more accurate understanding of the underlying concerns of the parties involved.36 Joint UN-regional interventions could embody these advantages, with the added benefits of impartiality, greater international legitimacy, and larger sources of funding and resources. In spite of these alleged advantages, Boutros-Ghali’s positive take on the UN- ECOWAS combination in Liberia generates the false impression that such an outcome was intended by the decision-makers involved. On the contrary, the deployment of ECOMOG to Liberia was attributable at least in part to the absence of UN and major power involvement in the period immediately following the outbreak of war in 1989.37 Before ECOMOG was established, the ECOWAS Secretariat had approached the UN Security Council with a request for assistance to establish a peacekeeping mission, but no action was taken. It is important to keep in mind that the request was made before civil war had begun to be recognised as a significant international responsibility, and before the relative proliferation of peace-enforcement missions during the 1990s. The international society norm was non-intervention. As a newly-emerging security community, ECOWAS appeared well-placed to respond. A sub-group of member states elected to take on responsibility for the crisis, deploying
35 United Nations Security Council, "Resolution 866," (New York: 1993). 36 See Collett, "Foreign Intervention in Côte d'Ivoire." 37 'Funmi Olonisakin, "Africa and the Regionalization of Peace Operations," in The United Nations & Regional Security: Europe and Beyond, ed. Michael Pugh and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), 238. Chapter 7 207 troops to Liberia to assist the beleaguered president and restore stability. The decision was made by a Standing Mediation Committee (SMC), comprising Nigeria, Ghana, The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Togo, that had been convened in order to recommend a strategy for peace. The legal authority of the SMC to establish an “ECOWAS” peacekeeping force was shaky, as the regional organisation had no protocol that dealt with the possibility of intervening in an internal conflict. ECOMOG’s legal authority was additionally dubious on the grounds that it initially lacked UN endorsement as required by Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, which clearly states that “no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorisation of the Security Council.”38 However, even states excluded from the SMC and less than enthusiastic about ECOMOG were unwilling to oppose the mission, at least in public. Côte d’Ivoire for example, allowed the intervention to proceed before a ceasefire had been established, in spite of Houphouët’s private support for the NPFL. West African states did not appear to see legal endorsement from the UN as a necessary prerequisite for their intervention. African states are members of international society at the global as well as the regional level, and as such have input into decisions made by the UN. When ECOMOG was first established, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia and Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) were members of the UN Security Council, and none were in favour of UN involvement in the Liberian crisis.39 In apparent agreement on the importance of maintaining African autonomy, the three states interpreted OAU principles of non- intervention to mean that extra-African involvement was not necessary in the Liberian case. For a brief period then, ECOMOG had the opportunity to become an international norm-setter. The manner in which it deployed was particularly audacious. Previous military operations in Africa had operated in accordance with a set of peacekeeping norms that included impartiality, delaying deployment until after the establishment of a ceasefire, and attaining the prior consent of the parties to the conflict. By contrast, ECOMOG troops intervened without the consent of all the parties to the conflict and before there was any peace to keep. They immediately
38 United Nations, "Charter of the United Nations." 39 James Jonah, "The United Nations," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 323. Chapter 7 208 engaged in direct combat with the express object of preventing the insurgents from taking the control of government. In spite of a rather vague mandate, the ECOMOG mission was effectively one of peace enforcement, and diverged from the long- standing norm of non-intervention that was particularly important to Africa as well as broader international society. ECOWAS’s 1981 Protocol Relating to Mutual Assistance of Defence included a clause that allowed for intervention “where an internal conflict in a Member State of the Community is actively maintained and sustained from outside,”40 and Liberian President Doe invoked this Protocol to request the support of ECOWAS troops. However, given the Cold War setting of the 1981 Protocol, it seems likely the drafters were thinking more of involvement from outside the region rather than the covert and unofficial support of figures such as President Compaoré of Burkina Faso and President Houphouët of Côte d’Ivoire. The Protocol further stipulated that “Community forces shall not intervene if the conflict remains purely internal,”41 and it was not until the revised treaty of 1993 that intra-state conflicts were really provided for. ECOWAS autonomy in Liberia did not last long. In November 1990 the warring parties signed a ceasefire agreement at Bamako, bringing the ECOWAS intervention into line with existing peacekeeping norms requiring an established ceasefire and impartiality on the part of the interveners. Côte d’Ivoire immediately appealed to the UN Security Council for support.42 Zairian Ambassador and Security Council President Bagbeni Adeito Nzengeya was then able to comment, “The members of the Security Council commend the efforts made by the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government to promote peace and normalcy in Liberia. The members of the Security Council call upon the parties to the conflict in Liberia to continue to respect the ceasefire agreement which they have signed and to cooperate fully with ECOWAS to restore peace and normalcy in Liberia.”43 It may seem somewhat surprising that Côte d’Ivoire was willing to appeal to the UN to support the ECOMOG mission. Côte d’Ivoire was not a contributor to ECOMOG, and the Bamako Agreement assumedly undermined Houphouët’s interests in Liberia by blocking Taylor’s involvement in an interim government. This apparent
40 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol Relating to Mutual Assistance of Defence." 41 Ibid. 42 Jonah, "The United Nations," 323. 43 United Nations Security Council, "Provisional Verbatim Record of the 2974th Meeting," (New York: 1991). Chapter 7 209 contradiction is demonstrative of the ability of West African leaders to pursue their interests according to different sets of norms simultaneously. In international society, Houphouët had an interest in promoting Côte d’Ivoire as a good international citizen, committed to regional peace and security. In transversal society, he would continue to support Taylor covertly, thereby sustaining an important personal alliance and potentially increasing his regional power and wealth. This contradiction, present throughout the region’s network of heads of state, was to have a seriously detrimental impact on the potential for ECOWAS peacekeeping success. While ECOMOG in Liberia received retrospective endorsement from the UN Security Council, this did not immediately entail UN action. By endorsing the ECOMOG mission, members of the Security Council effectively passed on to the regional organisation all responsibility for maintaining peace and stability in Liberia. It was not until the end of 1993 that the UN Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL) was established with 300 military observers whose role was almost exclusively to be supportive of ECOMOG.44 The UNOMIL mandate was very limited, and its co- deployment with ECOMOG actually caused tensions as the UN peacekeepers were both better and more regularly paid than their West African counterparts.45 ECOMOG continuously struggled for resources, and even Nigeria, by far the biggest contributor to the mission, lacked the necessary funds to keep the mission viable. The US, as the Western power with the most significant ties to Liberia, also failed to provide substantial assistance until the final stages of the war, focusing its aid on non-military humanitarianism.46 This lack of funding was one of the central reasons for the renegade behaviour of ECOMOG peacekeepers who sought other means to provide for themselves. A very similar process occurred in Sierra Leone, despite the development of peacekeeping norms. ECOMOG was again the first to respond, and the UN had very little role to play. It wasn’t until 1998 that 200 military observers were deployed to support ECOMOG and again, discrepancies in income were to create tensions.47
44 United Nations, “UNOMIL,” www.un.org 45 Olonisakin, "Africa and the Regionalization of Peace Operations," 239. 46 Adekeye Adebajo, "Pax West Africana? Regional Security Mechanisms," in West Africa's Security Challenges: Building Peace in a Troubled Region, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Ismail Rashid (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2004), 294. 47 Olonisakin, "Africa and the Regionalization of Peace Operations," 243. Chapter 7 210
ECOWAS peacekeeping and state-based tensions ECOWAS successes have been shaky, its peacekeepers verging on notorious. Criticisms of ECOWAS peacekeeping have been many, sparking great controversy over the merits of regional intervention in Africa. The problems associated with ECOMOG detract from the intrinsic value of its attempts to restore peace and stability in collapsed states where threats to human security are rife. Interestingly, most analyses appear to see the problems of ECOWAS as an exception in international peacekeeping.48 The self-interested motivations of Nigeria, the region’s hegemon, and the atrocities committed by individual Nigerian peacekeepers are often cited as examples of an exceptional tendency to disregard international standards of military behaviour.49 Assumptions about the validity of peacekeeping norms in general, and regional advantages in particular, remain largely intact. Considering the discrepancies between international and transversal society in West Africa, it becomes clear that the difficulties are more structural. ECOWAS peacekeeping embodies the more general problem of competing sets of international norms – those stemming from the international state structure, and those that emerge from transversal regional practices. Running as a theme through all of the different elements contributing to failures of peacekeeping organised by the West African regional organisation is this constant tension between the two layers of regional society. In spite of its initial attempts to push the boundaries of existing peacekeeping norms, ECOWAS is a creature of state-based international society. It would not exist were it not for the co- operation of states, and its peacekeeping missions would not exist were it not for the contributions of individual states. Along with the involvement of the UN, this set the parameters for what ECOMOG would be authorised to do, and what it would ultimately be able to accomplish. However, conflict in West Africa operates mainly in the transversal sphere of politics through the motivations and the interactions of transversal communities.
48 See for example Kenneth Cain, "Meanwhile in Africa," SAIS Review 20, no. 1 (2000). who blames the regional nature of ECOMOG for its inadequacies. See also Michael O'Flaherty, "Sierra Leone's Peace Process: The Role of the Human Rights Community," Human Rights Quarterly 26, no. 1 (2004): 29-62. 49 See Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II." Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa. See also Sole Akinrinade, "Sub-regional Security Co-operation in West Africa: The ECOWAS Mechanism for Conflict Management in Perspective," Strategic Review for Southern Africa 23, no. 1 (2001): 1- 21. who cites the animosity between Nigeria and France as a central reason for ECOMOG’s failings. Chapter 7 211
As explored in Chapters 2 and 3, conflict in West Africa is regional in three important transversal respects that are directly relevant to ECOMOG’s peacekeeping efforts. First, elites do not only play the role of state leaders seeking national and regional security and stability. They are also individually implicated in the conflicts through support of different factions. One of the central reasons for this involvement is economic, and the regional war economy that operates beyond the control of official trading channels provides the second regional aspect of West Africa’s conflicts. The third significant regional element is that combatants tend to be recycled through the Greater Mano River Area, taking their non-political motivations with them and clouding the state-focused agenda of individual insurgencies. State-based peacekeeping missions struggle to address these elements of conflict, and yet it is these very elements that are major contributors to the spread of conflict across the region. The incompatibility between international and transversal society is thus evident from the perspectives of both high-level policy-making and “in theatre” practice. High-level decisions regarding intervention are directly related to international society peacekeeping norms and have a significant impact on how success is defined and whether it is achieved. Such normative expectations include, for example, that peacekeepers will in the first instance focus on gaining control of the capital city and establishing an interim government, neither of which are likely to address the needs of transversal communities. In addition, the clash between such normative objectives in international society and the motives of individual peacekeepers linked to the region’s transversal communities is striking. Individual peacekeepers, taking advantage of transversal networks, may be more likely to focus on accessing the economic opportunities provided by the anarchy of state collapse. Even the concept of what peacekeeping success would look like in West Africa is muddied by the tension between the two layers of regional society. When asked whether a peacekeeping mission in one state could be considered a success if fighting concurrently or consecutively broke out in a neighbouring state, ex- ECOMOG peacekeepers as well as policy makers and even academics in West Africa have consistently rejected the question as “moot”, insisting that success be defined by fulfilment of the mandate.50 The perceived military necessity of a clearly defined and
50 Interviews conducted in Accra and Freetown in January-February 2007 Chapter 7 212 limited mandate is a feature of state-based international society that still expects war to have territorial limitations. Such expectations may actually contribute to the spread of warfare. For example, British officers deployed in Sierra Leone as part of IMATT describe how both disarmament and reintegration has generally been viewed as a success, given that both arms and combatants appeared to have been eliminated from Sierra Leone. However, many of these arms and combatants had simply shifted across the border into Liberia and from thence to Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. It was even suggested that the UN generated a cross-border arms smuggling operation in the other direction, as it was possible to buy a gun in Libera and “sell” it to the UN disarmament operation in Sierra Leone for a profit.51 Not only are weapons and fighters currently contributing to violence in neighbouring states, but enormous potential exists for both to be re-circulated back into Sierra Leone where the political situation remains tense, if currently peaceful. There is a significant need for a normative shift to take account of the transversal sphere of politics, and define peacekeeping success on the basis of regional peace.
Peacekeeping run by authoritarian regimes One of the most ethically-dubious aspects of ECOWAS peacekeeping in the 1990s was that those who made the decision to intervene in the name of humanitarianism were themselves autocrats with suspect human rights credentials.52 Slowly moving beyond its rudimentary existence as a community of states that profess shared goals, ECOWAS has begun to gain some of the independent decision- making power of a supranational institution and as such, has some legitimacy to comment on the internal affairs of one of its member states. However, it is still the member-states that essentially create ECOWAS policies, and in the early 1990s most of the member-states were run by dictators. International society generates normative expectations of sovereign states, but not all behaviour is driven by these norms. The heads of state that contributed to the ECOMOG mission also had private material agendas, and their actions were bolstered by the permissive norms of the transversal community of elites. Initially, the contributing members of ECOMOG were Nigeria,
51 Interviews conducted with British IMATT officers in Freetown, February 2007 52 Lansana Gberie, "ECOMOG: The Story of an Heroic Failure," African Affairs 201, no. 406 (2003): 148. Chapter 7 213
Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.53 Nigerian President Babangida, Ghanaian President Jerry Rawlings and Guinean President Conté had all come to power in military coups d’état. Sierra Leone’s Momoh had won power in a one-party election in which he was the only candidate. Dawda Jawara had more democratic legitimacy than the others, but even he had led The Gambia for nearly thirty years since 1962, before The Gambia’s independence in 1965. ECOMOG made no attempt to be impartial in either Liberia or Sierra Leone, and in this it diverged significantly from previously established expectative norms of peacekeeping. Its role in Liberia was to prevent Taylor from deposing the incumbent President Doe and taking control of the state.54 Similarly, when deployed to Sierra Leone in 1997, ECOMOG’s intention was to restore President Kabbah who had been deposed in a military coup, and the “peacekeepers” quickly engaged the junta forces in combat. ECOMOG troops had been based in Sierra Leone during the operation in Liberia, and by the mid-1990s Kabbah was already relying on them for protection against both rebels and an unreliable military force. However, ECOWAS does not simply absorb external norms. As a state-based international society institution, and one that was involved in peacekeeping throughout the 1990s as ideas about intervention were rapidly evolving, ECOMOG’s experiences in Liberia and Sierra Leone could have had an impact on emerging international society norms. ECOMOG was deployed to Liberia before the rules of peacekeeping had really been tested. It remained there during the abandoned US peace-enforcement mission to Somalia, the lack of international action in Rwanda and the development of expectations that humanitarian interventions should take place for civilian protection purposes with Chapter VII enforcement mandates. It thus had some opportunity for peacekeeping innovation. During its missions to Liberia and Sierra Leone, ECOMOG could also claim to be intervening in defence of democracy, another emerging norm of international society. Following the end of the Cold War, the ECOMOG interventions took place at a time when democracy was being established as the only internationally acceptable form of internal governance. In Sierra Leone, by supporting Kabbah, ECOMOG was supporting the democratically-elected president, and its actions were specifically
53 Roland Paris, At War's End: Building Peace after Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 91. 54 Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II," 201. Chapter 7 214 endorsed by the UK, the ex-colonial power.55 In Liberia, ECOMOG clearly supported powerless democratic governance over the powerful control of a rebel leader. For much of the war there were, in effect, two de facto governments. Taylor and his rebel allies had no official territory and no official international allies, but in practice were the most powerful political grouping. At the height of his power, Taylor controlled 90% of Liberia as well as valuable sections of Sierra Leone, and he even exercised control in parts of Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire.56 However, Monrovia remained under the “official” administration of Sawyer’s interim government which was committed to democratic elections.57 While it could exercise very little control over most of Liberia, this government had the advantage of both general international legitimacy and specific ECOMOG support. Democratic governance, which was quickly becoming an expectative norm of international society, could easily be manipulated by leaders with personal agendas. By claiming that ECOMOG was intervening in Liberia and Sierra Leone in order to protect democracy and prevent unconstitutional changes of government, West African heads of states were able to erect a democratic shield of legitimacy that positioned their actions within the boundaries of acceptable international behaviour.58 By operating within international understandings that the insurgencies in Liberia and Sierra Leone were illegitimate and employing a discourse of democracy and the rule of law, ECOWAS was able to deflect criticism of not only the military intervention itself, but also of the domestic politics of the particular regimes involved. Nigeria was a particular beneficiary. President Babangida had substantial personal and business ties to President Doe and wanted to protect his interests in Liberia. Support for democracy provided a conveniently legitimate reason for intervention. In addition, both Babangida in 1990 and his military successor President Abacha in 1997, needed to be seen to support democracy.59 During Abacha’s regime, reports of human rights abuses, repression, anti-democratic restrictions, corruption, and scandals related to oil wealth were rife. The missions to protect democracy in Liberia and Sierra Leone were a very useful diversion from problems at home.
55 House of Commons, "Second Report." 56 Interviews with Nigerian military personnel at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Centre, Accra, Ghana, January 2007 57 Clapham, Africa and the International System, 124. 58 See Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II," 195. 59 Ibid. Chapter 7 215
The normative expectations of international society in these cases actually assisted individual elites to pursue their self-interested goals. Importantly however, this is not simply a case of material state interests posing as a normative commitment to the values of international society – for two reasons. First, the self-interested actors involved are individuals, rather than states. Second, transversal society, and more specifically, the transversal community of elites, bolsters the pursuit of such self- interested goals. It may not specifically prescribe dictatorship and the personal pursuit of power and wealth as a normative goal, but it produces an environment in which such behaviour is acceptable. In a rationalist paradigm of international society, regional states should seek to counter hegemonic power such as that wielded by Nigeria. The realist expectation would be that strong states will seek to extend their relative wealth and weak states will seek to protect themselves from this power, ultimately forming alliances to generate a regional balance of power. The divide between the Francophone and Anglophone bloc during the 1990s might be interpreted as a manifestation of this expectation, but while the initial ECOMOG deployment was primarily Anglophone, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and Niger all eventually contributed troops, belying the idea that this was a mission to assert Nigerian goals to the detriment of the Francophone states. Rivalries that emerged to disrupt state-based unity in ECOWAS stemmed more from the transversal community of elites than colonial linguistic divides and historical state alliances. Liberia by the late 1990s was much closer to Côte d’Ivoire than to Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire’s ties to Burkina Faso dwindled after the death of President Houphouët in 1993. One of the most significant reasons for ECOMOG’s difficulties in Liberia and Sierra Leone was that individual elites across the region were not only involved in the deployment of ECOMOG but were already personally invested in the conflicts. Different leaders supported different factions, and these patterns of amity and enmity have been much more durable than state-based balances of power. The NPFL had long been backed by President Houphouët and President Compaoré who were both anti-Doe as a result of family ties to the deposed President William Tolbert, and were benefiting financially from NPFL control over most of Liberia.60 In spite of official expressions of support, unity of commitment to the
60 Adebajo, "Pax West Africana?," 298. Chapter 7 216
ECOMOG mission was untenable in these circumstances. Major-General Vijay Jetley, force commander of the UN Mission to Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) from 1999 to 2000 commented in 2007 that UN peacekeeping missions are constrained by the national caveats of contributing states that refuse to allow their troops to engage in certain activities, regardless of the Security Council mandate.61 In the case of ECOMOG, it is more precisely the caveats of individual presidents that undermine mandates, disrupt operations and generally create divisions. One of the most troubling aspects of these individual dissensions is that because they do not necessarily represent “state” interests, they are rarely voiced in ECOWAS’s state-based international society, and cannot therefore be resolved in the forum that official regionalism provides. The initial ECOMOG mission to Sierra Leone was a monitoring operation only. However, when Abacha decided unilaterally to turn it into a peace- enforcement mission and to overtly engage the junta troops, widespread rumblings of dissent were sotto voce. Only Compaoré openly questioned “just what might be the intentions of those who have employed force for the restoration of President Kabbah.”62 Interesting also is that when Nigeria made the transition to civilian democracy with the death of Abacha and the election of Obasanjo in 1999, domestic pressure to bring the Nigerian troops home from Sierra Leone quickly mounted. Statistics of Nigerian losses in Liberia and Sierra Leone have not been made official, but are thought to comprise over 1000 deaths.63 Obasanjo responded to domestic pressure by withdrawing 8500 of the 12,000 peacekeepers that had been stationed there. Ironically, it seemed that domestic aversion to troop fatalities combined with the lack of need on the part of the regime to garner international support, meant the democratic state was less likely to intervene in order to support democracy in a neighbouring, failing state. In spite of the authoritarian nature of the Nigerian regime during the 1990s, Nigerian willingness to commit to ECOMOG was necessary in that no other state was able to match Nigerian resources. Nigeria provided at least 80% of the troops and 90% of the funding for the missions to Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s.64
61 Interview with General Vijay Jetley, Accra, Ghana, January 2007 62 “Je ne suis pas un fauteur de troubles! – Interview with Blaise Compaoré,” Jeune Afrique, 16-22 February 1999. 63 Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 132. 64 Adebajo, "Pax West Africana?," 293. Chapter 7 217
A major problem for ECOWAS is that even if it is developing shared goals within a normative paradigm of humanitarianism, and even if the peace-enforcement missions in Liberia and Sierra Leone are judged to have been legitimate according to the expectations of state-based international society, success was elusive. ECOMOG has even been accused of prolonging conflict. In Liberia in particular, ECOMOG troops fought against Taylor for seven years in order to achieve elections that were then won by Taylor. In Sierra Leone, ECOMOG found it very difficult to achieve definitive victory over the junta troops and the rebel forces, and had to be assisted by the deployment of yet more troops, from the UK as well as the private military company Executive Outcomes. The long sojourn of regional troops in both Liberia and Sierra Leone was destructive, and ECOMOG operations of the 1990s have been condemned for the atrocities that took place. Once again it is important to consider the tension between international and transversal society as a contributory factor in the atrocities that were committed “in theatre”.
ECOMOG in operation What is striking about ECOMOG operations in both Liberia and Sierra Leone, is the contrast between what was expected from a conventional peacekeeping force, and how ECOMOG’s soldiers responded to the unconventional military situations with which they were confronted. At the beginning of the operation in Liberia, ECOMOG conformed closely to the norms of state-based international society in terms of military deployment. Designing tactical operations that both coincided with international normative expectations and were suited to immediate circumstances proved difficult. The international tradition of non-intervention had been embraced by the West African regional organisation, and commitment to the sanctity of sovereignty led ECOWAS states to mandate only traditional-style peacekeeping: “to keep the peace, restore law and order and ensure respect for the ceasefire.”65 However, commanders on the ground often employed more aggressive peace- enforcement tactics. This was necessary while Taylor refused to negotiate peacefully, and if the mission was to carry out ECOWAS’s intentions to thwart the warlord’s objectives. Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo, the first commander of ECOMOG,
65 Economic Community of West African States Authority of Heads of State and Government, "Relating to the Adoption of an ECOWAS Peace Plan for Liberia and the Entire West Africa Sub- Region," (Bamako: 1990). Chapter 7 218 was sent home in disgrace after the brutal and public murder of President Doe under ECOMOG’s watch in the initial stages of the war. He now argues that one of the problems of the mission was the lack of a centralised peace enforcement mandate when a substantial amount of peace enforcement action was necessary on the ground.66 This meant that different battalions throughout the country were operating according to different agendas, spreading confusion through the ECOMOG ranks.67 ECOMOG also lacked any meaningful counter-insurgency capability that could enable it to combat a nefarious enemy that fought hand-to-hand in city streets, used routes in rural areas with which only they were familiar, was invisible in its lack of major infrastructure, employed child soldiers, was for the most part indistinguishable from civilians, and was undaunted by the deaths of either civilians or combatants.68 These aspects of the insurgent operations hurt ECOMOG, which was expected to limit civilian casualties in accordance with the international society rules of just war, and whose armies had been trained in the use of weapons and tactics more suitable to conventional inter-state warfare. ECOMOG only had 7000 soldiers in Liberia for most of the war, and they were faced with a number of different warlord factions totalling approximately 60,000 combatants.69 Diverging from the expected activities of peacekeepers, the ECOMOG force attempted to shell rebel positions using heavy weapons and dropping bombs from aircraft, but rebel positions tended to be temporary and difficult to identify.70 Rebel combatants often hid in heavily populated areas, and ECOMOG’s tactics are estimated to have caused approximately 6000 civilian deaths. Under such circumstances it is perhaps unsurprising that ECOMOG’s officers on the ground quickly became frustrated and made the decision to use more underhanded tactics against Taylor. As this was to some extent successful, the same tactics were subsequently employed in Sierra Leone in support of President Kabbah. Taylor was the most powerful figure in Liberia during the 1990s. However, before he became president in 1997, his rebel organisation was not the only group of insurgents seeking political and economic power in Liberia. The war was seriously complicated by the number of non-state armed groups that emerged, many of them splinter groups
66 Interview with Lieutenant General Arnold Quainoo, Accra, Ghana, January 2007 67 Interview with Nigerian military staff at KAIPTC, Accra, Ghana, January 2007 68 Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 131. 69 Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II," 192. 70 Cain, "Meanwhile in Africa," 162. Chapter 7 219 from the main factions. There were seven groups that had a major impact on the political environment, all of them led by a powerful warlord.71 The political concerns of all the groups were broadly similar. Their collective rhetoric centred on discontent with the form of state run by President Doe, particularly its patrimonial nature and the privileges it accorded to minority groups such as the ethnic Krahn population. Each of the rebel groups had independent aspirations to gain power in the Liberian state and to protect the people they claimed to represent, and for the most part they were not allies of Taylor and his NPFL. Several of the factions were very much anti-Taylor, and it was this animosity that ECOMOG officers decided to exploit. Unable to employ the guerrilla tactics required to counter the NPFL, they took advantage of anti-Taylor factions that had these abilities, such as ULIMO.72 ECOMOG provided its allied factions with extensive supplies of arms and ammunition, gave them access to intelligence, procured transport for them, and granted them free passage throughout the country, all in the expectation that they would help destroy the NPFL.73 In this endeavour they had a certain measure of success. For example, when Taylor tried to take Monrovia during 1992’s Operation Octopus, ECOMOG would have had difficulty repelling the NPFL forces without the assistance of anti-Taylor factions. They relied on ULIMO to guide them through Monrovia’s swamps, and to pursue the rebels when they had been forced out of the capital.74 It was mainly due to the use of non-state armed factions that ECOMOG was consistently able to prevent Taylor from taking control of the capital. A comparable situation arose in Sierra Leone, where very similar tactics were used to protect Freetown from advancing rebels in early 1999. ECOMOG worked in close collaboration with the CDF, which benefited from a great deal of civilian support and has been lauded for its respect for human rights. However, this reputation did not prevent the Special Court from indicting CDF leaders Hinga-Norman, Mimina Fofana and Allieu Kondewa, each on eight counts of war crimes, mainly perpetrated against
71 National Patriotic Front of Liberia – Charles Taylor (NPFL), National Patriotic Front of Liberia – Central Revolutionary Council – Thomas Woewiyu (NPFL-CRC), United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy – Alhaji Kromah (ULIMO-K), United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy – Roosevelt Johnson (ULIMO-J), Liberian Peace Council – George Boley (LPC), Lofa Defence Force – François Massaquoi (LDF), Liberia National Conference – Chea Cheapoo (LNC). See “Abuja Accord,” (1995) 72 Ellis, "Liberia's Warlord Insurgency." Abdullah and Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone." 73 Herbert M Howe, "Lessons of Liberia: ECOMOG and Regional Peacekeeping," International Security 21, no. 3 (1996-1997): 156. 74 Herbert M Howe, Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States (Boulder & London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), 142. Chapter 7 220 suspected “collaborators” of either the RUF or the AFRC.75 In 1999 the CDF joined ECOMOG soldiers in a particularly brutal campaign that included a great deal of seemingly gratuitous violence as thousands of people were killed and much of Freetown was destroyed in the effort to repel the RUF.76 Predictably, the warlord factions were difficult to control. The purpose of most warlords was ultimately not to assist ECOMOG, but to gain power themselves. Greed also became a factor as they sought to benefit from the network of transversal communities that was proving so lucrative. With increased power through ECOMOG support, the combatants set up checkpoints and protection rackets, sold travel “permits” and carried out destructive looting campaigns, further exploiting those who had already become victims of the war.77 They also apparently saw no reason to conform to human rights standards, and reports have been widespread that they used torture, rape and summary execution, not just against rebels, but against civilians, suspicious or otherwise.78 The perception that ECOWAS was exacerbating the situation contributed significantly to the tide of feeling against the military intervention, both amongst Liberian and Sierra Leonean civilians, and internationally. In Liberia, when ECOMOG did manage to gain a peace agreement with Taylor under the 1995 Abuja Accord, warlords who had been allied with the ECOWAS forces delayed implementation, frequently violating the cease-fire and ultimately preventing elections from being held until mid-1997. Since 1994, ULIMO had been split into two factions. ULIMO-K was led by Kromah and joined openly with Taylor’s NPFL during a number of offensives in 1995 and 1996. Even ULIMO- J, which had ostensibly been closer to ECOMOG, turned against the peacekeeping force. Concerned about losing power in the new arrangement, ULIMO-J combatants ousted their leader, Roosevelt Johnson, and fought amongst themselves as well as with ULIMO-K and the NPFL. Serious clashes occurred with ECOMOG in Tubmanburg, and a number of West African peacekeepers were taken hostage.79 The factions that had benefited from ECOMOG support now worked to undermine the 1995 peace agreement and were reluctant to disarm peaceably. As the war had
75 The Prosecutor v Samuel Hinga Norman, Monima Fofana, Allieu Kondewa, (2004), available at http://www.sc-sl.org/CDF.html 76 Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 131. 77 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States. See also Howe, "Lessons of Liberia," 173. 78 Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 131. 79 Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II," 190. Chapter 7 221 progressed, political agendas had been joined by economic motivations as a reason for the perpetuation of conflict. Thus, ECOWAS, a creature of state-based international society, has constraints on its ability to conduct peacekeeping operations in situations that vary from the expected model of war-fighting. It was for this reason that its individual officers “in theatre” became frustrated with the difficulties of the mission and employed the services of local warlords. This had some success in repelling rebel combatants, but at significant cost to humanitarian principles and the reputation of ECOMOG, quite probably prolonging the war as various factions were given much- needed support. Individual ECOMOG soldiers also became involved in the opportunities provided by the transversal elements of conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The individual ECOMOG peacekeepers were taken from non-elite sections of society who were themselves very much a part of West African transversal society and were familiar with its opportunities for community identity, political aspiration and wealth accumulation. Many of the soldiers were to a certain extent personally invested in the politics of the conflicts in which they intervened. Many were connected by family ties to those who saw themselves as victims of the Liberian state. Ghanaian officers who are committed to ECOWAS peacekeeping explain their motivation not in terms of protecting their state, but protecting their neighbours and kinsmen – those to whom they are connected because they share not only security risks, but also aspirations and ultimately normative perceptions of the material world.80 The significant transversal links between the Liberian conflict and neighbouring states, particularly Sierra Leone, meant that many West African peacekeepers had experience of or at least knowledge of the kinds of conflict networks that had developed. Even the Nigerian peacekeeping majority, further removed from the specific networks of the Greater Mano River Area, had experience of transversal society structures such as the parallel regional economy. Conflict alters existing communities and generates structures within the normative framework provided by transversal society. Such structures may generate responsibility and humanitarianism, but may also create the space for norms of violence and economic exploitation. In both Sierra Leone and Liberia, ECOMOG peacekeepers quickly became involved in the transversal communities created by
80 Interviews with West African military personnel at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, Ghana, January 2007 Chapter 7 222 conflict in the areas of their deployment. Significantly, they were intimately involved in the war economy. As David Keen argues, even a war that is motivated by political grievance can be transformed into a resource-based conflict where immediate economic objectives begin to surpass long-term political goals in importance for the participants.81 This was clearly a factor in Sierra Leone, where the lucrative trade in “blood diamonds” quickly distorted the nature of opposition between the parties to the conflict and obscured political differences. For many in the RUF as well as certain elements of the Sierra Leone military, violence became a tool of financial gain as it was used primarily to maintain control over the diamond mines and those who worked on them. The diamond trade also became a central reason for the intractability of the conflict, as the incentive for political resolution diminished. The political economic of conflict is largely a transversal phenomenon in West Africa, and so it was through their involvement in the war economy that the ECOMOG peacekeepers became players in this second layer of politics. The high costs of the mission were a problem even for Nigeria, which had far more resources than any of the other contributors. In real terms, this led to an ongoing inability to pay individual peacekeepers, or even to provide them with adequate uniforms and supplies.82 As a result, involvement in the local war economy can partly be attributed to greed and corruption, but should also be understood in the context of survival necessities, and peacekeepers’ attempts to provide for their families. The war economy in Liberia and Sierra Leone was particularly lucrative, and with internationally legitimate control over many ports and border posts, the intervening force had many opportunities for economic gain. ECOMOG peacekeepers had experience of the region-wide parallel economy before deployment, and the presence of peacekeeping contingents across Liberia and Sierra Leone facilitated cross-regional smuggling. The ECOMOG peacekeepers thus became intimately involved in the illicit trade in drugs, rubber, timber, fuel, scrap metal, and gold.83 They were also involved in the smuggling of weapons and ammunition, even though the trade in war materiel would necessarily complicate and prolong the ECOMOG mission. The activities of the peacekeepers were not simply unethical; they were inimical to the objectives of the ECOWAS authorities.
81 Keen, “Incentives and Disincentives for Violence,” 24. 82 Howe, "Lessons of Liberia," 169. 83 Cain, "Meanwhile in Africa," 164. Chapter 7 223
The Liberian and Sierra Leonean diamond trade provides particularly pertinent examples of how ECOMOG’s involvement in the local war economy was detrimental to mission success. There is some doubt about the value of the evidence that exists for ECOMOG’s involvement in diamond smuggling, but much of it seems to hinge on differing views of how ECOMOG should be portrayed as a whole. Major-General Jetley, who did not have a fruitful relationship with his ECOMOG counterparts, provides a damning account of ECOMOG collusion with the RUF.84 In her 2008 book on UNAMSIL, ‘Funmi Olonisakin casts doubt on his assertion that this was the intention of the ECOMOG and specifically Nigerian commanders.85 It is for this reason that it is important to differentiate between ECOMOG as an institution with overarching goals and values, and the activities of individual peacekeepers. The involvement of peacekeepers in the transversal economy for personal gain was quite possibly difficult for ECOMOG authorities and West African heads of state to control. In spite of disagreements about the level of ECOMOG involvement, it does appear that in a number of localities, peacekeepers openly took control of diamond mines, and their activities caused significant setbacks to their military operations.86 In Liberia in late 1995, 190 ECOMOG peacekeepers involved in the diamond trade were captured by ULIMO-J who accused them of trading with their rivals, ULIMO-K.87 Further competition between ECOMOG and the rebel forces over rights to exploit the diamond mines directly resulted in numerous ECOMOG casualties at the beginning of the following year, and contributed significantly to the growing intensity in violence during 1996.88 Reno highlights the significance of the different approaches taken by individual officers in this situation. He explains that there had been economic collaboration between ECOMOG and ULIMO-J fighters supported by one particular ECOMOG commander until late 1995. It was his replacement in late 1995 by an officer who refused to engage in such bargaining mechanisms that precipitated a crisis resulting in the ULIMO-J attacks on ECOMOG peacekeepers.89 In Sierra Leone, peacekeepers engaged in extracting diamonds in Kono were caught off guard by a
84 Vijay Jetley, "Report on the Crisis in Sierra Leone," (2000). 85 Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, 85. 86 Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 121. David Keen, Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone (Oxford: Currey, 2005), 266. 87 Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II," 190. 88 Cain, "Meanwhile in Africa," 157. 89 Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, 105. Chapter 7 224 surprise RUF attack on Koidu town, the economic centre of Kono district. Several hundred of them were killed, and a substantial stockpile of ECOMOG arms and ammunition was captured.90 Ultimately, the involvement of the ECOMOG peacekeepers in the local war economy conducted through transversal networks undermined the ability of ECOMOG authorities to succeed in their peace-enforcement endeavours. Indeed, the examples of competition over diamond-mining and smuggling demonstrate the extent to which the presence of ECOMOG exacerbated the existing situation. The tendency of ECOMOG peacekeepers to loot has been well documented, and in West Africa it is often joked that ECOMOG stands for “Every Car Or Moveable Object Gone,” but the deep structural implications often remain unconsidered. Indicative of the lack of impartiality amongst ECOMOG peacekeepers are their subsequent actions on return to their home states. Valentine Strasser was part of the Sierra Leone contingent in ECOMOG, and it was he who carried out the coup d’état against Sierra Leone’s President Momoh in 1992, leading to the AFRC junta that ECOMOG was later sent to overturn.91 Similarly, a coup was carried out against President Jawara in The Gambia in 1993 by soldiers who had served in the ECOMOG mission to Liberia.92 There is some suggestion that involvement in the transversal networks of the Liberian conflict gave them the impetus, resources and connections to seek power in their own states. In 1999, Nigeria’s democratisation and the election of President Obasanjo led indirectly to the phased withdrawal of ECOMOG peacekeepers from Sierra Leone.93 At the Security Council, the UK lobbied for a robust UN intervention force and was rewarded with the creation of a 17,500-troop peacekeeping operation.94 UNAMSIL was not immediately popular in Sierra Leone. In spite of the unethical behaviour of many ECOMOG peacekeepers, the mission in Sierra Leone had been successful in restoring democratically elected President Kabbah in place of the military junta and repelling the RUF when the rebels staged a major attack on Freetown in 1999.95 Significantly however, while UNAMSIL did entail the deployment of large contingents from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Kenya, many of its troops consisted of
90 Gberie, A Dirty War in West Africa, 122. 91 Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II," 190. 92 Howe, Ambiguous Order, 145. 93 Olonisakin, "Africa and the Regionalization of Peace Operations," 243. 94 Adebajo, "Pax West Africana?," 294. 95 Olonisakin, "Africa and the Regionalization of Peace Operations," 243. Chapter 7 225
“re-hatted” Nigerian peacekeepers from ECOMOG.96 Arguments in favour of ECOMOG being subsumed under the UN umbrella centred on resources and legitimacy. UN financing would place less stress on Nigerian resources and allow smaller states such as The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea and Mali to maintain their contributions, while removing the direct economic incentive for poorly paid peacekeepers to take part in the warlord economy.97 UN authority would permit the involvement of West African states but remove regional tensions resulting from fears about Nigerian attempts to consolidate their hegemony and power. In the words of Adekeye Adebajo and Landsberg, The UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone… could signify a new, innovative approach to UN peacekeeping in Africa based on regional pillars supported by local hegemons whose political dominance is diluted by multinational peacekeepers from outside the region. By placing largely regional forces under the UN flag, the hope is that the peacekeepers will enjoy the legitimacy and impartiality that the UN’s universal membership offers, while some of the financial and logistical problems of regional peacekeeping can be resolved through greater burden-sharing.98
Both the academic and the policy-making response to this apparently successful merger of regional and UN peacekeeping missions has been generally positive, and the 2007 mandate for a hybrid UN-AU mission to the Sudan is testament to the belief that this option has the advantage of being able to appease all stake- holders. However, the merger also has significant conceptual implications that have not been considered. In addition to a simple incorporation of ECOMOG troops into a UN-mandated peacekeeping operation, UNAMSIL symbolised the merging of ECOWAS norms, principles and objectives with the norms, principles and objectives of the global state-based international system as epitomised in the UN. By the time of the mission in Sierra Leone, there was a growing expectation in both Africa and the West that the international community would take responsibility for responding to violent conflict, even if it were taking place within a single state. Although this expectation stemmed from meagre evidence of international willingness to intervene, the post-Rwanda perception was that peacekeeping was a legitimate and necessary activity for the UN. Such public expectation had necessitated the development of
96 Hudson Morgan, "Bad Company: Nigerian-Led Peacekeeping Forces in Liberia," The New Republic 229, no. 7/8 (2003): 11. Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 143. 97 Adebajo, "Pax West Africana?," 297. 98 Adekeye Adebajo and Christopher Landsberg, "Back to the Future: UN Peacekeeping in Africa," in Managing Armed Conflicts in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Adekeye Adebajo and Chandra Lekha Sriram (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 183. Chapter 7 226 norms regarding when peacekeeping and peace-enforcement should occur, and how such a mission should proceed. Through the 1990s, the norms of state-based international society had a continually negative impact on the ability of ECOMOG operations to respond to the complications of transversal communities in West African conflict, even so far as they concerned ECOMOG peacekeepers. However, the development of peace-enforcement norms in the UN meant that as ECOWAS accumulated experience in peacekeeping, it became more, rather than less constrained by international expectations. The “lessons learned” by ECOWAS have been documented in a number of reports.99 They demonstrate that ECOWAS is retreating to the normative safety of rules established by the UN. In 2005 for example, a collaborative UN-ECOWAS-KAIPTC workshop resulted in the release of such a report – comprehensive and useful but containing a number of false international society assumptions. In addition to suggesting NATO as an appropriate model for the development of ECOWAS doctrine,100 perhaps its most significant display of international society assumptions is its suggestion that “national-level response mechanisms”101 should be enhanced as a first step to preventing the spread of conflict. It recommends that “ECOWAS Member States must do more to establish or strengthen their response mechanisms as a way of preventing or containing conflicts before these assume a sub-regional dimension,”102 thus ignoring the extent to which such conflicts emerge from pre-existing transversal connections. Whereas it was previously assumed that a critical advantage of regional responses to conflict was a greater understanding of particular regional requirements, the failures of the 1990s mean that ECOWAS is now unwilling to investigate that advantage. By 1999 and the advent of UNAMSIL, the ECOWAS model of responding to war and insecurity looked very much like the corresponding UN model.
21st Century Peacekeeping Faced with the structural complication of transversal communities, and lacking the resources to enforce a favourable outcome, in both Liberia and Sierra Leone ECOWAS relied on assistance from the UN and ex-colonial powers. As the 1990s
99 For an example of this kind of report, see a collaborative UN-ECOWAS-KAIPTC Workshop Report: Economic Community of West African States, "Lessons from ECOWAS Peacekeeping Operations: 1990-2004," (Accra: 2005). 100 Ibid., 26. 101 Ibid., 18. 102 Ibid., 19. Chapter 7 227 progressed, ECOWAS developed principles and legal mechanisms to enable it to respond better to internal conflict. Somewhat paradoxically however, the new ideas it developed on the basis of its peacekeeping experience were not particularly innovative or specific to West Africa. Instead, ECOWAS has retreated to the normative safety of broader international society. Its 1999 Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security103 clearly represents the values of a closely-integrated region, and as such it takes some important and audacious steps forward for sub-regional security. However, it is significant that, by and large, the directives of the Mechanism fit snugly with norms developed in the OAU/AU and at the UN. The Mechanism refers continually to Member-states’ intention to collaborate with the OAU and the UN, and specifically to their commitment to the principles of both the OAU Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution in Africa, and the UN Charter. The OAU Mechanism has now been subsumed by the AU Non-Aggression and Common Defence Pact, and many of the Articles of the ECOWAS Mechanism mirror those of the wider African body. For example, both proclaim the importance of democracy, human rights and sustainable development for the generation of peace. Both emphasise mutual respect for state sovereignty and territorial integrity. Both look forward to cooperation in response to threats against Member states generated by intra- and inter-state conflict.104 All of these principles are likewise evident in the UN Charter or subsequent conventions, as well as the various mandates of peacekeeping operations. It is on the basis of the standards established in its Mechanism that ECOWAS has responded to conflict in Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire in the twenty-first century. However, in spite of the increased mandate to intervene provided by the Mechanism, since 1999 the ECOWAS response to conflict in West Africa has been mostly distinguished by a lack of engagement.
ECOWAS Mechanism 1999 ECOWAS’s 1999 Mechanism was a direct response to the necessity of dealing with crises in Liberia and Sierra Leone without a recognised procedure during the 1990s. It was first suggested by Nigeria and discussed by ECOWAS leaders after the
103 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security." 104 African Union, "Non-Aggression and Common Defence Pact," (Abuja: 2005). Chapter 7 228 conclusion of civil war and the election of Taylor as President of Liberia in 1997.105 Its major function was to establish military intervention as a legal possibility for ECOWAS. The Mechanism also provided for the creation of a Mediation and Security Council (MSC), a Defence and Security Commission, and a Council of Elders, all of which meet regularly to discuss crises and potential flashpoints in the region. The MSC in particular is mandated to make decisions relating to security on behalf of the ECOWAS Authority, and its legal standing is much more substantial than the ad hoc SMC that had dubious authority to send peacekeepers to Liberia in 1990. The MSC consists of nine rotating ECOWAS member-states, and a peacekeeping mission can only be established if it is supported by two thirds of the sitting members.106 In an attempt to further integrate and streamline peacekeeping missions, the Mechanism also created a new position – that of Executive Secretary for Political Affairs, Defence and Security. Whereas previously national peacekeeping contingents had a tendency to report to military and governmental leaders in their home countries, they are now directly accountable to this new, centralised position.107 Taken as a whole, the 1999 Mechanism is a significant improvement on the Protocols of the early 1990s. It exemplifies ECOWAS’s deepening integration and growing recognition that regional conflict must be dealt with at a regional level. Building on an apparent willingness amongst member-states to act collectively in pursuit of security, and establishing a framework that erodes state sovereignty, the new Mechanism established ECOWAS as more advanced than its Asian, and perhaps even its European counterparts. It certainly makes it appear that ECOWAS would be more likely than the UN to act decisively in response to civil war. Demonstrating ECOWAS’s ability to learn from its experiences during the 1990s, Chapter 10 of the Mechanism specifically deals with “sub-regional security,” including transnational issues such as cross-border crimes and arms trafficking.108 These articles were included because of the recognition that the Liberian and Sierra Leonean “civil wars” had significant adverse effects on surrounding states.109 The Mechanism even looks
105 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 145. 106 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security." 107 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 149. 108 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security." 109 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 147. Chapter 7 229 towards the establishment of a composite standby force in the expectation that it will assist in overcoming Anglo/Francophone distrust.110 Mirroring their separate integration in the economic sector, the Francophone states in the mid-1990s already had their own security organisation, known as the Accord de non-agression et de cooperation en matière de défense (ANAD – Agreement on Non-Aggression and Cooperation in the Field of Defence). The central involvement of Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal in this body contributed to their initial reluctance to support the new Mechanism, even though its principles were not vastly different to those of ANAD, which had already canvassed the idea of a rapid reaction force in 1996. One difference was that the ANAD force, which never actually came into being, was expected only to contribute to UN or OAU missions, rather than to act as an independent sub-regional force.111 By contrast, discussion leading up to the 1999 protocol that established the Mechanism made it clear that a majority of ECOWAS leaders wanted to retain regional autonomy over the decision to intervene, particularly in light of the slow nature of the UN response to Liberia and Sierra Leone. While willing to unify amongst themselves, the Francophone states appeared uneasy about security integration throughout ECOWAS, particularly in light of the power that regional autonomy would give to Nigerian leadership. Once they had agreed, following Senegal’s lead, to allow ANAD to be subsumed within the ECOWAS Mechanism, Francophone states successfully lobbied for the proposed standby force to consist of national contingents based in their home states, rather than be permanently attached to a centralised force.112 In practice, while ECOWAS has continued to integrate in the security sector, and maintains autonomy of decision-making within the region, normatively it has asserted little independence from the expectations of state-based international society. Plans for the establishment of a rapid reaction force have crystallised in the creation of a 6500-troop ECOWAS Standby Force (ESF), but it will not ultimately act independently, as it is to deploy under the auspices of the continent-wide African Standby Force (ASF) projected to be operational by 2010.113 In addition, the planning for the ESF is based on the assumption that it will play only an interim role before
110 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security," Ch VI. 111 Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, 151. 112 Ibid. 113 “ECOWAS: Draft Code for Armies,” Africa Research Bulletin 43, No. 4 (2006): 16626A-26C. Chapter 7 230 being transformed into a UN mission.114 The AU and the UN thus have substantial input into the principles currently being developed. ECOWAS has the task of developing a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for all the regional forces that will ultimately form the ASF.115 As a result, it has the potential to use its experience in West African peacekeeping missions to develop principles that reflect West African “standards of society, culture and tradition” as called for by participants at a 2004 workshop on ECOWAS peacekeeping held in Accra.116 However, the ongoing input of the EU, UN agencies and Western NGOs, means that the principles are very likely to be harmonised with the expectations of state-based international society. Thus, in 2006 the ECOWAS Deputy Executive Secretary for Political Affairs, Defence and Security, Colonel Mahamane Toure, noted that the values espoused by the draft code for personnel of the region’s armed forces were not only “shared” by member-states but were also “universal.”117 The expectations of international society are not necessarily contrary to West African needs. When responding to a regional crisis ECOWAS expects its peacekeepers to protect human security, and to adhere to the principles espoused in the 2001 ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance; principles that include a commitment to human rights and the rule of law.118 By committing to such values, the SOP can in principle vastly improve the ethics and efficacy of peacekeeping in the region, holding national armies to a common, elevated standard, and building trust both between the armed forces of different states, and amongst West Africa’s population. However, discussions about the proposed SOP also demonstrate that member-states will be expected to respond to conflicts within strengthened borders, and that the UN traditional peacekeeping doctrine requiring impartiality and the consent of warring parties will also be applied.119 While the
114 Economic Community of West African States, "Lessons from ECOWAS Peacekeeping Operations." 115 “ECOWAS,” Africa Research Bulletin 116 Economic Community of West African States, "Lessons from ECOWAS Peacekeeping Operations." 117 Cited in “ECOWAS,” Africa Research Bulletin. 118 Economic Community of West African States, "Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance Supplementary to the Protocol Relating to the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management, Resolution, Peacekeeping and Security," (Dakar: 2001). 119 See for example Economic Community of West African States, "Lessons from ECOWAS Peacekeeping Operations." Institute for Security Studies, "Non Paper on the Operationalization of the African Standby Force," (Pretoria: 2004). Jakkie Cilliers and Mark Malan, "Progress with the African Standby Force," Occasional Paper 98 (2005). African Union, "Roadmap for the Operationalization of the African Standby Force," (Addis Ababa: 2005). European Union, "9th ECOWAS-EU Ministerial Troika Meeting Final Communiqué," (Vienna: 2006). Chapter 7 231 emerging peacekeeping principles for West Africa are advanced and indicate the emergence of a security community based on common values, they display little evidence of being able to respond to the needs of transversal communities. As such, they are unlikely to prevent the continuing spread of conflict in the region.
Post-Mechanism responses to conflict The relevance of the new Mechanism, and the importance of the regional protocol for dealing with internal conflict was highlighted almost immediately, as conflict broke out in both Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire at the beginning of the twenty- first century. The re-emergence of conflict in Liberia in 1999 and the disintegration of a previously peaceful and stable state in Côte d’Ivoire were closely related to the failure of peace-building in Liberia. Most basically, many Liberians were dissatisfied with the outcome of the war. A notorious warlord had been elected and there was little noticeable improvement in living standards. In addition, the regional repercussions of the conflict were not adequately addressed, meaning that the war economy continued to function, arms continued to traverse the borders, ex-combatants continued to seek employment throughout the Greater Mano River Area, and large communities of refugees were present in Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Sierra Leone. This had two principal effects. First, they facilitated the creation of an anti-Taylor insurgency in Guinea and Sierra Leone. Secondly, they contributed to and exacerbated the growing unrest in Côte d’Ivoire. The significance of transversal communities and movement is particularly clear in Côte d’Ivoire, as a central political question at the heart of the conflict has been the status of those considered to be immigrants and their descendants, including both migrant workers and refugees. By the end of 2002, when a failed coup sparked civil war in Côte d’Ivoire and the fighting was gaining in intensity in Liberia, very few ECOWAS members had ratified the new Mechanism, which required ratification by nine member-states to come into effect. However, both crises required the immediate attention of the regional body. Demonstrating the authority provided by institutional discussion and the development of norms even in the absence of legal technicalities, the Mechanism was brought into force despite the lack of ratification.120 ECOWAS deployed troops
120 Economic Community of West African States, "Lessons from ECOWAS Peacekeeping Operations." Chapter 7 232 to both Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia in 2003.121 However, in spite of the implementation of the new Mechanism with its humanitarian principles and its greatly enhanced procedures for the deployment of peacekeepers, and in the face of fears in some quarters that the new protocol gave ECOWAS too much independence of UN safeguards,122 the post-1999 trajectory of ECOWAS involvement in regional peacekeeping has been one of disengagement. The manner in which the interventions were carried out in Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire demonstrates the retreating relevance of ECOWAS as a peacekeeping body. The difficulties experienced by ECOWAS peacekeeping missions in the 1990s led to the creation of a more sophisticated Mechanism for dealing with internal crises, but ECOWAS looked largely to the broader international community to develop new solutions, without considering that it could have been precisely the state-based international society elements of the organisation that had let down its previous responses to conflict. Both ECOMIL (the ECOWAS mission to Liberia) and ECOFORCE (the ECOWAS Force in Côte d’Ivoire) were very small by comparison to the 1990s efforts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and very short-lived. In both cases they were quickly superseded by the UN which combined its efforts with those of a unilateral actor – the US in Liberia and France in Côte d’Ivoire. There are a number of possible interpretations for this apparent lack of engagement. For example, the ECOWAS operations suffered from a lack of funding that led to logistical constraints, delayed deployment and limited communications capability.123 In addition, the new democracy in Nigeria was less willing than the previous military dictatorship to risk its troops and was less concerned about asserting its regional power. Documents such as the R2P report had also increased expectations that the UN would act to preserve the peace. In the case of Côte d’Ivoire, France shouldered the responsibilities that had fallen to the regional hegemon in Anglophone Liberia and Sierra Leone. While all of these reasons could well have been factors, it is also important to recognise the normative shift that had taken place within ECOWAS. As its integration deepened, becoming at once more sophisticated and more institutionalised, it also lost some of the regional autonomy and innovation that had characterised the
121 Adebajo, "Pax West Africana?," 300. 122 See for example Ademola Abass, "The New Collective Security Mechanism of ECOWAS: Innovations and Problems," Journal of Conflict and Security Law 5, no. 2 (2000): 211-29. 123 United Nations Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General on Côte d'Ivoire," (New York: 2003), 11. Chapter 7 233 peacekeeping missions of the early 1990s. As the organisation became more advanced, it also grew closer to the broader international norms of regional integration. This contributed to a declining willingness to engage in peacekeeping endeavours that deviated from accepted intervention behaviour in international society. For example, whereas General Quainoo has suggested that one of ECOMOG’s problems in Liberia was the lack of a peace-enforcement mandate, ECOMIL shied away from this possibility, and was instead careful to make clear that its actions would correspond with the basic UN peacekeeping model, including impartiality and non-offensive intentions. In August 2003, ECOMIL’s Force Commander B/Gen Festus Okonkwo made assurances that his troops did not intend to fight anybody, saying “for this reason, we have been very careful in our deployments so far to avoid unnecessary confrontation which may retard progress.”124 It initially deployed only around Monrovia, refusing to enter by force into the rebel-held north and east of the country, and thereby effectively sanctioning continuing conflict-related transversal activity.125 In Côte d’Ivoire, unlike in Liberia and Sierra Leone during the 1990s, ECOWAS peacekeepers were not the first to respond to the attempted coup and commencement of civil war in September 2002. France had maintained a military base in Côte d’Ivoire since the colonial era, and its troops were thus immediately on hand to deal with the crisis. Their initial mandate was limited to evacuating foreign nationals, but in October French mediation resulted in a comprehensive ceasefire and the establishment of a “zone of confidence” that subsequently maintained a separation between the rebel-held north and the government-held south. Four thousand French troops were immediately deployed to monitor the demilitarised zone.126 Although its troops were not first on the ground, ECOWAS was nevertheless quick to become involved, and it was agreed that West African troops would replace the French at an early date. Unlike in 1990, ECOWAS was careful to seek UN Security Council approval before deployment.127 ECOFORCE (later renamed the ECOWAS Mission in Côte d’Ivoire – ECOMICI) began deployment in January 2003, with contributions from Senegal, Ghana, Niger, Togo and Benin amounting to 1288 troops, a force much
124 “ECOMIL Not Here to Kill, Gen Okonkwo Assures,” All Africa, 10 September 2003. 125 “ECOMIL Says It Will Only Deploy Troops Close to Capital,” UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, 25 September 2003. 126 Adebajo, "Pax West Africana?," 300. 127 “Secretary-General Expresses Deep Concern over Stalemate in Côte d’Ivoire as West African Officials Brief Security Council,” (New York: United Nations, 2003). Chapter 7 234 smaller than ECOMOG in either Liberia or Sierra Leone. Each of the national contingents had responsibility for patrolling separate sectors of the demilitarised zone.128 Similarly to the small and short-lived ECOMOG intervention in Guinea- Bissau in 1999, ECOFORCE was deployed without a Nigerian contribution, and was largely financed by France.129 In April 2003, both the ECOWAS Defence and Security Commission and the MSC decided it was necessary to upgrade the mission’s mandate from a simple monitoring force to one with a more active role.130 From the UN Security Council it sought both assistance and a mandate to expand the force to 3300 soldiers, but the mission was to stay very much within the bounds of international society norms. The new, more robust mandate was to include protection for the newly-created interim government that retained Gbagbo as President, and assistance in creating conditions for governmental control over all the Ivoirian territory, including patrols of the Western border with Liberia.131 Early in 2003, France had already been following the UK’s 1999 example vis-à-vis Sierra Leone, lobbying the UN Security Council for a multilateral peacekeeping mission. In spite of initial American reluctance to sponsor military intervention in Africa with a war looming in Iraq, the UN Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (MINUCI) was ultimately formed with Security Council approval and the first military liaison officers began deployment in May 2003.132 This was later upgraded to the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), with a full peacekeeping mandate and 6000 troops.133 ECOMICI troops were quickly subsumed under the UN banner, and ultimately played very little independent role in Côte d’Ivoire. In terms of halting the civil war and preventing violence on a scale similar to that which occurred in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the French and UN joint- peacekeeping efforts were very effective. Mirroring the British experience in Sierra Leone, the French in Côte d’Ivoire demonstrated the advantage of superior military capacity. A well-funded unilateral mission from a Western state was able to
128 “ECOFORCE Continues Deployment,” All Africa, 25 March 2003. 129 Adebajo, "Pax West Africana?," 300. 130 “Côte d’Ivoire: Accra Deal,” Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series, 24 April 2003, 15236. 131 “Côte d’Ivoire: ‘Wild West’,” Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Cultural and Social Series, 29 May 2003, 15274. “Côte d’Ivoire: Military Helicopter Purchase,” Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series, 26 June 2003, 15319. 132 United Nations Security Council, "Second Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Côte d'Ivoire," (New York: 2003), 1. 133 “Côte d’Ivoire: UN Force to be Deployed,” Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social and Cultural Series, 25 March 2004, 15672. Chapter 7 235 overwhelm both rebel and government forces that were very poorly organised by comparison.134 Patrolling the “zone of confidence” prevented major skirmishes across much of the country, and when rogue militias, “uncontrolled elements” and fighters from Liberia continued to cause problems during 2003, the peacekeepers, the rebel FN and the government troops worked together to bring a halt to the destructive violence in the west of the country.135 By its contrast to the prolonged wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone, the rapidity of the French success in Côte d’Ivoire suggests that ECOWAS is a comparatively ineffective peacekeeping body and that peace operations should be the domain of well-financed unilateral and UN efforts with clear objectives. However, while the superior military power of the UN and Western actors enforced a rapid end to the most intense outbreaks of violence in 2003, their superiority in other respects is doubtful.136 The UN peacekeepers, of which a substantial number are “re-hatted” ECOWAS peacekeepers, are still present in Côte d’Ivoire in 2008, and appear increasingly unpopular. Over the past two years the UN peacekeepers have been dogged by allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation.137 They have also been directly attacked by militias such as the “Young Patriots” who are loyal to Gbagbo’s government, but the rebel forces and political opposition are scarcely more supportive.138 In July 2007, UNOCI bowed to Gbagbo’s demands that the UN eliminate its election monitoring post, a move that was decried by the opposition as a sign of weakness and lack of impartiality.139 More generally, they are rumblings of discontent amongst ordinary Ivoirians who feel that their concerns have not been addressed by the 2007 power-sharing agreement between President Gbagbo and the rebel leader, Soro who was made interim Prime Minister.140 As a result, government, rebel forces and militias have all been slow to commit to the DDR process, and the crucial question of the right to Ivoirian nationality has not been resolved.141 It has also
134 “Now for Africa,” Economist, 7 May 2003. 135 United Nations Security Council, "Second Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Côte d'Ivoire," 2. 136 Adebajo, "Pax West Africana?," 299. 137 “UN to Investigate Sexual Abuse Case in Côte d’Ivoire,” Xinhua News Agency, 31 May 2008. 138 “Côte d’Ivoire: A Strike Away from Igniting Violence against a Faltering Peace Process,” UN Chronicle 2 (2006). 139 “Côte d’Ivoire: UN Monitor Removed,” Africa Research Bulletin (2007). 140 International Crisis Group, "Côte d'Ivoire: Can the Ouagadougou Agreement Bring Peace?," (Dakar/Brussels: 2007), i. Hyppolyte Oulaï, "Ben Rassoul accuse Gbagbo et Soro: Retard dans l'application de l'accord de Ouaga," L'Inter, 18 October 2007. 141 John James, “Ivorian Ex-Rebels Begin to Disarm,” BBC News, 3 May 2008. International Crisis Group, "Ensuring Credible Elections." Chapter 7 236 proven difficult to rebuild a single Ivoirian economy following years of conflict- induced divisions. Côte d’Ivoire is rich in natural resources such as cocoa, oil and diamonds, but rebel leaders in the north admit that regional commanders have attained quasi-autonomy over their extraction and trade in return for weapons.142 Elections are due on 30 November, but it seems unlikely that Côte d’Ivoire will attain the necessary stability by that date.143 As a result of the conflict, and the continual postponement of elections, President Gbagbo has been able to hold on to power he should constitutionally have had to submit to a popular vote in 2005. There is a precedent for West African “peace” agreements that allow the individual elites of violent conflict to take part in government but do little to resolve underlying discontent. After numerous accords that attempted to keep Taylor from gaining power, the Liberian civil war was successfully concluded in 1997 when he was “democratically” elected. By 2003, the country was again desperate for the intervention of foreign peacekeepers. Having assisted with the disarmament process and overseen successful elections in 1997, UNOMIL peacekeepers quickly withdrew from Liberia, and ECOMOG followed in 1999. Almost immediately, anti-Taylor violence flared up again. In July 2000, a new rebel group known as LURD, attacked Taylor’s forces and advanced on Monrovia in the fifth serious outbreak of violence since the 1997 elections. It was supported by Guinea’s President Conté.144 Interestingly, while he was prepared to back them personally, as leader of Guinea he sealed the border with Liberia in an attempt to prevent repercussions on his own state. In response, Taylor organised approximately 15,000 former NPFL fighters to help him repel the rebels, but the new war remained unresolved until the so-called “siege of Monrovia” in July 2003. The resulting humanitarian crisis was serious enough to gain the attention of the international community, and Kofi Annan suggested that a multinational force be established in Liberia, with the US “spearheading the deployment of that force.”145 An American sense of responsibility for its de-facto ex- colony was not as immediate as that of the French in Côte d’Ivoire. It evacuated American nationals, but insisted that ECOWAS deploy West African peacekeepers
142 “Côte d’Ivoire: Spoils of War,” Africa Research Bulletin (2006) 143 International Crisis Group, "Ensuring Credible Elections." 144 Human Rights Watch, "Bank to the Brink: War Crimes by Liberian Government and Rebels - A Call for Greater International Attention to Liberia and the Sub Region," (New York: 2002). 145 United Nations Security Council, "Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on Liberia," (New York: 2003), 2. See also Paul Williams, "International Peacekeeping: The Challenges of State-Building and Regionalization," International Affairs 81, no. 1 (2005): 165. Chapter 7 237 before US forces would engage. From the end of July the Americans were stationed on a navy ship off the coast of Liberia, ready to provide support to an ECOWAS force. The story of ECOMIL in Liberia is quite similar to that of ECOFORCE in Côte d’Ivoire. At the beginning of August, 200 Nigerian peacekeepers were deployed as part of ECOMIL which was later in 2003 to reach a strength of 3600 troops.146 ECOMIL’s mandate was to facilitate the departure of Taylor, whose exile to Nigeria had been negotiated as part of the most recent peace agreement, to monitor the ceasefire, and to oversee democratic elections. The peacekeeping tasks they were expected to carry out were similar to those of the 1990s, but the force was not faced with a comparable degree of hostility and violent challenges. In addition, Nigeria refused to accept full responsibility for the crisis. Benin, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Ghana, Senegal, Mali and Togo were all major contributors to ECOMIL, reducing the appearance of hegemonic decision-making.147 In spite of these positives, many of the peacekeepers who were involved in the 2003 mission had previously been deployed to both Liberia and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, and despite American support, they were not much better paid the second time around. The incentives for looting and engaging in the Liberian war economy remained. Nigerian President Obasanjo maintained that as Liberia was a member of the “international community” as well as the West African region, ECOWAS should be able to expect assistance from non-West African sources. The US sponsored a Security Council Resolution to deploy a peacekeeping mission to Liberia, and UNMIL was deployed to enforce the new peace agreement in September 2003, one month after Taylor’s departure and exile to Nigeria. With a troop limit of 15,000 UNMIL assumed peacekeeping duties in October 2003.148 ECOMIL was phased out, but Nigeria remained the most significant contributor. The first deployment of UNMIL was actually a Nigerian battalion that had come directly from deployment as part of UNAMSIL in Sierra Leone.149 As in Côte d’Ivoire, this meant that the transferral of power from an “ECOWAS” to a “UN” force did nothing to resolve the problems resulting from a tension between international and transversal society in
146 Somini Sengupta, “Peacekeeping Unit Arrives in Liberia,” New York Times, 5 August 2003. 147 United Nations Mission in Liberia, “UNMIL Military Component,” www.unmil.org 148 Thomas Jaye, "Liberia: An Analysis of Post-Taylor Politics," Review of African Political Economy 30, no. 98 (2003): 643-48. 149 Olonisakin, Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone, 124. Chapter 7 238
West Africa. In the aftermath of conflict, Liberia this time appears to have made better progress than Côte d’Ivoire, with a new president at least slightly removed from the country’s warlords, and a rapid development agenda. However, thousands of its refugees remain dispersed throughout the region, and many ex-combatants have not been re-integrated but continue to threaten the peace not only in Liberia but also in Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The extent to which ECOMIL and ECOFORCE were weak operations that were very ready to surrender their responsibility to other actors in international society demonstrates that since the creation of the 1999 Mechanism, ECOWAS has taken a much reduced role in West African peacekeeping. It has largely passed authority on to the UN and unilateral Western actors which have been stronger militarily, but no more able to address problems such as the involvement of West African peacekeepers in the transversal economy, or the creation of transversal communities that contribute to a continuing cycle of violence. While they can enforce peace in a single country, they seem to be no more able than ECOWAS either to foster durable positive peace, or to prevent the outbreak of war in a neighbouring country. In addition, ECOWAS’s surrender of responsibility significantly diminishes the possibility that the regional organisation might be able to produce innovative responses to conflict that are better able to address the needs of transversal communities. It is difficult to envisage how ECOWAS can productively engage with transversal society. The fundamental assumptions of the two layers of regional politics are so different that attempts to construct valuable interaction between them will always be fraught. ECOWAS already engages many of the mechanisms that could facilitate such interaction. For example, it is slowly becoming more willing to accept individuals and non-state communities as political referents. It is also beginning to implement policies that demonstrate an understanding of human security issues, and it has attempted to draw on ideas generated in civil society. All of these aspects are positive and provide some opportunity for transversal communities to gain a voice in international society. However, the problem of attempting to draw the communities into international society rather than engaging with the structures that exist within transversal society remains significant. Thus far, the unconsidered response to the regionalisation of conflict in West Africa has principally comprised attempts to reverse the process and contain it within Chapter 7 239 borders. As flows of arms and combatants are now recognised as a significant contributor to the “spread” of violent conflict, peacekeeping missions have poured more resources into patrolling state borders, with the intention of halting such flows. This is unproductive as its unhelpful underlying assumption is that the root of the problem lies with the movement of arms and combatants from one side of a border to another, rather than with the trade in arms itself or the failure of combatant reintegration programmes. It is a response that sees the trade in arms and the movement of combatants as isolated problems, unattached to broader structures or communities that may have a positive as well as a negative impact on West African society. Peacekeeping missions and political responses to conflict in West Africa need to engage with transversal society rather than repressing it, if they are to find solutions that will not only halt the surface problem but assist communities to achieve a more peaceful and wealthy future without destroying them. Similarly, the recognition that the deployment of West African peacekeepers has been problematic should not lead to the disengagement of ECOWAS initiatives. The links between individual peacekeepers and transversal society can be exploited positively rather than negatively – through more flexible mediation arrangements for example. In essence, the “bad norms” of transversal society should not be understood as representative of transversal society as a whole.
Conclusion ECOWAS has become very advanced as a security institution. The depth of its integration in the security sector, the durability of peace in its inter-state relations, and its collective response to insecurity within member-states suggests that it is developing towards becoming a form of security community. However, even this level of security integration is insufficient for responding to conflict in West Africa, because even a security community is a state-based phenomenon. Conflict in West Africa is not only profoundly regional; it also takes place mainly in the transversal sphere of politics. As a result, ECOWAS has encountered many difficulties in its attempts to respond to regional conflict, particularly in the peacekeeping domain. The 1999 Mechanism sought to learn from the mistakes of the 1990s in Liberia and Sierra Leone, and constitutes an advanced framework for responding to conflict. The Mechanism draws on norms of military intervention in broader international society, and ECOWAS has subsequently been more cautious in its attempts at peacekeeping, Chapter 7 240 largely deferring to the UN and universal actors. This has not improved the regional body’s ability to deal with violent conflict however, because it is founded on the false assumption that UN peacekeeping norms will necessarily be an improvement on specifically West African ideas. Contrary to what is widely believed about the particular inability of ECOWAS to conform to international peacekeeping standards, many of the problems it has encountered stem precisely from attempts to conform to the norms of international society. It is the state-based nature of ECOWAS that prevented it from engaging effectively with region-wide transversal communities. In addition, ECOWAS itself is constituted by contradictions, as the body as a whole had much difficulty controlling the transversal involvement of its individual peacekeepers as well as its political elites. By deferring to the broader international community in the twenty-first century, ECOWAS has not resolved these problems, and has only succeeded in removing the possibility of regional innovation. In a 2003 article, Roland Paris explores the ways in which the constraints of global norms prevent peacekeeping operations from pursuing unconventional and potentially effective strategies for promoting peace. As he explains, “the design and conduct of peacekeeping missions reflect not only the interests of key parties and the perceived lessons of previous operations, but also the prevailing norms of global culture, which legitimise certain kinds of peacekeeping policies and delegitimise others.”150 In West Africa, such norms not only constrained official ECOMOG possibilities; they left individuals to respond to unexpected complications according to their own expectations of effectiveness and logics of appropriateness. As an example of the constraints of “global culture,” Paris notes that peacekeepers are committed to reproducing the Westphalian state, rather than any “non-state” alternative of political structure.151 In West Africa, the failure of state-based international society to consider alternatives to a Westphalian political structure was compounded because alternative political structures were already in existence, and had a profound impact on the operation of peacekeeping. Networks of transversal communities created by conflict remain unaddressed by peacekeeping missions, but contribute significantly to the progression and the spread of conflict across the region. West Africa now benefits from a form of peace, as democratic governments have
150 Paris, "Peacekeeping and the Constraints of Global Culture," 443. 151 Ibid. Jeffrey Herbst, "Responding to State Failure in Africa," International Security 21, no. 3 (1996-1997): 120-44. Chapter 7 241 begun to be elected in post-conflict societies across the Greater Mano River Area. However, as there has been so little engagement with transversal communities, the threat of renewed conflict remains very real. Bibliography 242
Conclusion
The violent conflict that has taken place across the Greater Mano River Area since the beginning of the 1990s can best be understood as operating at two levels. At one level, corresponding to the way in which civil war is conventionally understood, rebel insurgencies seek to gain control of centralised state government. Mixed with personal ambition and economic considerations, the central motivation for war at this level is political. Those who take part in insurgencies do so because they are dissatisfied with the status quo and believe in the possibility that alternative political arrangements will be of greater benefit to their communities. Incumbent governments, while they remain in power, seek to retain control over centralised state authority and the capacity to determine the trajectory of social and economic life for their population. However, in West Africa conflict also operates at a second level that runs parallel to the first but is much less commonly recognised. Across the Greater Mano River Area, warlords have gained control of territory, populations and trade corridors, and have effectively withdrawn beyond the reach of state politics. At this level, little attention is paid to state borders. Warlords set up their own quasi-states and extend networks of control across the region. Control of the state remains the ultimate object of insurgency, but everyday business is conducted largely outside of the demands of state structure. This parallel organisation of conflict is of paramount importance to all those who fall under the control of local warlords, whether combatants or civilians. It affects their identity, the object of their political expression, their behaviour, their social standing and the profitability of their economic endeavours. In addition, as violent conflict generates a particular form of politics with its own logic, norms and consequences, warlordism generates new communities of people who share identities and norms of behaviour linked to warfare. Amongst the most visible are the new communities of combatants and refugees created by the experience of conflict. While linked to the state, these communities exist beyond its control and operate in a manner that corresponds mainly to the demands of the warlord layer of politics. Significantly, the dual structure of conflict is not evidence of great change in the organisation of West African politics. It has not newly emerged as a result of the NPFL invasion of Liberia in 1989. On the contrary, its strength derives from its basis in the dual structure of political organisation that has existed in West Africa since Bibliography 243
Europeans introduced a territorially-limited and centralised form of statehood. The tension between the two layers is simply thrown into much sharper relief by the dynamics of regional warfare, particularly its resistance to definitive resolution. Importantly, both layers of politics are deeply influenced by international structure. It is not simply a matter of distinguishing between domestic and transnational politics. The primary layer forms part of international society, the state-based structure of international politics which developed on the basis of European Westphalian norms and has now expanded to incorporate all of the world’s inhabited territory. In international society, states interact according to a set of established rules and evolving norms that have a significant impact on identity and behaviour, both domestically and internationally. West Africa’s states form a sub-section of this international society of global reach. While they are influenced also by regional African norms, conformity with international expectations, from centralised governance to democracy, has seriously transformed African structures of political power. The second layer stems from pre-colonial structures of political authority in West Africa, and the core of many of these structures was some form of patrimonial control. These pre-colonial structures have not remained static, but are continually influenced by developments in state-based international society. Thus, the European imposition of states not only centralised governance, but also elevated the power of local patrons by imbuing them with increased wealth and power. Patrimonial structures of authority have continued to operate beneath the official state structure. Economic trading patterns and inter-relations between non-state groups have generated regional political norms of both identity and behaviour, and this layer of politics has operated in a very similar way to formal “international society,” albeit in the absence of states. The layer cuts across state borders but is much more deeply structural than is implied by “transnational” relations between people in different states. As such, it can usefully be referred to as transversal society. The tension between the two layers of international politics has made conflict resolution in West Africa particularly difficult for two reasons. First, while ordinary people have demonstrated their potential for emancipation by protesting against the hegemonic state and asserting their right to human security, they have been hampered by the replication of oppressive structures in the transversal organisation of warlord conflict. Norms of violence, and communities related to violence, have spread Bibliography 244 throughout the region in this political sphere, infiltrating a number of states and ultimately defying resolution within a single state. Secondly, the structural strength and importance of the transversal layer has remained largely unrecognised by the powerful institutions of state-based international society. Transnational activity has variously been recognised as illicit trade, ethnic rivalry and conflict “spill over,” but transversalism has rarely been understood as a coherent structure incorporating communities, identities and norms of behaviour that are difficult to undermine. As a result, state-based organisations such as ECOWAS have been unable to respond effectively to key aspects of the regional warfare. As a regional organisation in the developing world, ECOWAS is advanced, particularly in terms of political and security integration. Combining West African norms with the expectative norms of international society, it has developed steadily towards a structure that might be loosely defined as a “security community.” West African states do not expect or prepare for war with each other. Further, they recognise the necessity of responding collectively to internal conflict. On the surface ECOWAS appears well-placed to respond to regional conflict. However, the implementation of its security agenda is far from straightforward. In spite of its attempts to dismantle some of the limitations of state sovereignty in order to deal more effectively with devastating “domestic” issues, it remains an institution founded in international society. As such, it has difficulty dealing with regional conflict on anything other than an individual state basis. It is far from able to respond adequately to the needs of transversal communities such as regional combatants who have complicated and prolonged conflict across Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire. With the signing of peace agreements between governments and rebel insurgencies, conflict has officially come to an end in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Côte d’Ivoire. In 2007, Sierra Leone held its second successful post-conflict democratic presidential elections. The first round was very close, and the second round brought to power Ernest Bai Koroma, a political opponent of the incumbent President Kabbah. By post-conflict standards, disputes over the fairness of the election have not been particularly violent or disruptive. In Liberia, experiencing its second attempt at peace since the beginning of the conflict in 1989, Africa’s first woman head of state has been elected. President Johnson-Sirleaf has made significant and rapid progress with her plans to rebuild the country’s infrastructure, eliminate corruption, reduce unemployment and formalise sections of the parallel economy. In Côte d’Ivoire, Bibliography 245 although elections have not yet been held, incumbent President Gbagbo and his rebel adversary Soro have signed an agreement to form a government in which Soro will act as Prime Minister. In the region more broadly, democracy appears to be taking root, and particularly significant is Nigeria’s first democratic transferral of power from one civilian president to another, in spite of the electoral disputes that ensued. To this extent, West Africa in general and the Greater Mano River Area in particular appear to be progressing towards peace. There are very positive signs that new leaders across the region are attempting to break the past mould of corruption and neo- patrimonialism at the state level. However, it is essential that West African progress towards durable peace is not judged by the standards of international society alone. The region’s elites are adept at appearing to conform to international standards while continuing to pursue their own goals. In addition, “peace” in the aftermath of conflict tends to be judged primarily on the existence of peace agreements, elections and the government’s control over the capital. An increased focus on “peacebuilding” as an essential element of preventing a recurrence of warfare has improved responses to conflict undertaken by the international community. However, as yet it remains focused specifically on internal governance and development, neglecting the needs of transversal communities. The precariousness of the situation was highlighted in 2007 when ex-combatants from Liberia and Sierra Leone were reported to be moving towards Guinea as political tensions mounted in that country. Another onslaught of violent conflict was feared. Both Sierra Leone and Liberia still have an enormous unemployment rate, meaning that the reasons for the commencement of conflict have not yet been adequately addressed. Those who worked as part of the war economy have little to gain from direct involvement with the state. Political dissatisfaction is at a high level and could increase if the return of refugees and ex-combatants is not effectively managed. Côte d’Ivoire has still been unable to hold elections or disarm its numerous factions, and the situation is exacerbated by the continuing influence of regional warlords, including Taylor who is now on trial in The Hague. In sum, the consequence of these problems is continuing political tensions and dissatisfaction, located particularly in the transversal society that state-based institutions have so much difficulty relating to. As a result, conflict renewal either in post-conflict states or in neighbours such as Guinea or Burkina Faso cannot be ruled out. International society and its institutions are rendered deficient through the Bibliography 246 difficulty they have relating to politics that does not fit neatly into the state-based framework. A critical reassessment demonstrates the importance of considering layers of international politics that operate in parallel to the more easily recognisable international society. It cannot be assumed that the Western understanding of international politics is universally valid and finite. A more nuanced and sophisticated conception of international relations is reliant on the challenges and contributions that arise from a holistic examination of politics in regions that are typically marginalised from mainstream IR, such as West Africa.
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Appendix A 269
Appendix A – Timeline of Conflict in the Greater Mano River Area
Date Liberia Sierra Leone Côte d’Ivoire 1989 December NPFL invades Liberia from Côte d’Ivoire 1990 May Opposition parties are legalised June NPFL gains control over most of Liberia August ECOMOG is deployed September President Doe is killed by a splinter group of the NPFL October Interim government is established President Houphouët wins Côte d’Ivoire’s first multiparty presidential election, beating Laurent Gbagbo of the FPI 1991 March RUF invades Sierra Leone from Liberia April ULIMO invades Liberia from Guinea September Multiparty system is adopted 1992 April Momoh is ousted in a coup led by Strasser May ECOMOG is deployed October NPFL attacks ECOMOG in Monrovia; ECOMOG bombs NPFL Appendix A 270
positions outside the capital 1993 August UNOMIL is deployed December Houphouët dies; Bédié becomes President 1995 August Peace agreement is signed October Bédié is re-elected in a ballot that is boycotted by opposition parties in protest at restrictions imposed on their candidates 1996 January Strasser is ousted in a coup led by Bio February Kabbah is elected President April Factional fighting spreads to Monrovia November Peace accord is signed 1997 May Kabbah is ousted in a coup led by Koroma and seeks sanctuary in Guinea; Koroma leads a new military junta – the AFRC July Taylor is elected President September UNOMIL withdraws 1998 February ECOMOG storms Freetown and drives rebels out March Kabbah returns to Freetown June UNOMSIL is deployed Appendix A 271
1999 January RUF seizes parts of Freetown from ECOMOG; when they are finally driven out 5000 are dead May A ceasefire is declared July The Lomé peace agreement is signed October ECOMOG withdraws UNAMSIL is deployed December ECOMOG is attacked outside Gueï takes power in a military coup; Freetown Bédié flees to France 2000 April Several hundred UN troops are abducted; the RUF closes in on Freetown; British soldiers are deployed; RUF leader Sankoh is captured May ECOMOG withdraws July LURD invades Liberia from Guinea August 11 British soldiers are taken hostage by the West Side Boys militia group September British forces mount an operation to rescue the remaining UK hostages October Gbagbo takes power in fraudulent elections from which Ouattara is excluded; fighting erupts between the followers of both December Gbagbo’s FPI wins parliamentary elections 2001 January Government postpones presidential An attempted coup fails and parliamentary elections because Appendix A 272
of continuing insecurity March UN troops begin to deploy in rebel- Gbagbo and Ouattara agree to work held territory towards reconciliation; Ouattara’s party gains a majority at local polls May The Sierra Leone army begins deploying in rebel-held territory; British and UN troops impose a lasting ceasefire October Gbagbo sets up a National Reconciliation Forum but Gueï refuses to attend in protest against arrest of his close aide Captain Fabien Coulibaly November Opposition leader Ouattara returns from a year-long exile in France and Gabon 2002 January War is declared over May Kabbah and his SLPP win elections July British troops withdraw August Ouattara’s RDR opposition party is given 4 ministerial posts in a new government Kabbah is re-elected President of Gueï is killed in a failed coup Sierra Leone attempt September Conflict begins as the MPCI gains control of the north; French peacekeepers are deployed October A previously unknown rebel group seizes towns in the west Appendix A 273
2003 January Linas-Marcoussis peace agreement is signed March MODEL breaks away from LURD Political parties and rebels agree on a new government and consensus Prime Minister Diarra May Armed forces sign ceasefire with rebel groups; MINUCI is deployed June Taylor is indicted for war crimes by the Special Court for Sierra Leone July Conflict gains momentum; siege of Rebel leader Sankoh dies while Military chiefs and rebels declare the Monrovia takes place; several waiting to be tried for war crimes war is over; ECOFORCE is hundred people are killed; US troops deployed are stationed off the coast August ECOMIL is deployed; Taylor is forced to relinquish the presidency; is exiled to Nigeria; Peace accord is signed; Bryant is chosen to head the interim administration September – US forces pull out; UNMIL is October deployed 2004 March More than 120 people are killed in a crack-down at an opposition rally April UNOCI is deployed May First local elections in more than 30 years are held June Special Court for Sierra Leone begins war crimes trials September UN hands control of security in Appendix A 274
capital to local forces November Ivoirian air force attacks rebels, 9 French soldiers are killed in an air strike December Parliament abolishes the need for a President to have Ivoirian parents 2005 April After talks in South Africa, the government and rebels declare an end to the hostilities June More than 100 people are killed in a massacre in the western town of Duékoué October Elections are postponed and the UN allows Gbagbo to stay in power for another year; Banny is nominated Prime Minister November Johnson-Sirleaf is elected President December UNAMSIL withdraws 2006 January Supporters of Gbagbo demonstrate against UN interference February Truth and Reconciliation Commission is set up March Taylor is arrested in Liberia and handed over to the Special Court for Sierra Leone June ICC agrees to host Taylor’s trial for the Special Court for Sierra Leone November UN extends the transitional Appendix A 275
government’s mandate for another year 2007 March New peace agreement is signed; Soro is named Prime Minister April Gbagbo declares the war is over June Taylor’s trial begins in The Hague Soro survives a rocket attack on his plane August Ernest Bai Koroma and his ALP win elections 2008 January Coulibaly is accused of plotting a coup
Core of ECOWAS Missions Dated As Follows:
ECOMOG Liberia 1990-1993 ECOMOG Sierra Leone 1997-2000 ECOMIL Liberia 2003 ECOMICI Côte d’Ivoire 2002-2004
Appendix B 276
Appendix B – List of Key Personalities in the Great Mano River Area
Abacha, Sani President of Nigeria 1993-1998 Banny, Charles Konan Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire 2005-2007 Babangida, Ibrahim President of Nigeria 1985-1993 Bédié, Henri Konan President of Côte d’Ivoire 1993-1999 Bio, Julius Maada Head of State of Sierra Leone 1996 Bockarie, Sam Leader of RUF, Sierra Leone Bryant, Gyude Chairman of Transitional Government of Liberia 2003-06 Compaoré, Blaise President of Burkina Faso 1987-present Conneh, Sekou Leader of LURD, Liberia Conté, Lansana President of Guinea 1984-present Coulibaly, Ibrahim Leading member of the FN, Côte d’Ivoire Diouf, Abdou President of Senegal 1981-2000 Doe, Samuel President of Liberia 1980-1990 Eyadema, Gnassingbé President of Togo 1967-2005 Gbagbo, Laurent President of Côte d’Ivoire 2000-present Gnassingbé, Faure President of Togo 2005-present Gueï, Robert President of Côte d’Ivoire 1999-2000 Hinga-Norman, Sam Leader of the CDF, Sierra Leone Houphouët-Boigny, Félix President of Côte d’Ivoire 1960-1993 Johnson, Prince Leader of INPFL, Liberia Johnson, Roosevelt Leader of ULIMO-J, Liberia Johnson-Sirleaf, Ellen President if Liberia 2006-present Kabbah, Ahmed Tejan President of Sierra Leone 1996-1997, 1998-2007 Kondewa, Allieu Military commander of the CDF, Sierra Leone Koroma, Johnny Paul Head of State of Sierra Leone, 1997-1998 Koroma, Ernest Bai President of Sierra Leone 2007-present Kromah, Alhaji Leader of ULIMO-K, Liberia Momoh, Joseph President of Sierra Leone 1985-1992 Obasanjo, Olusegun President of Nigeria 1976-1979, 1999-2007 Ouattara, Alassane Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire 1990-1993 Quiwonkpa, Thomas Founder of NPFL, Liberia Sankoh, Foday Leader of RUF, Sierra Leone Sawyer, Amos President of Interim Government of Liberia 1990-1994 Soro, Guillaume Prime Minister of Cote d’Ivoire 2007-present Strasser, Valentine Head of State of Sierra Leone 1992-1996 Taylor, Charles President of Liberia 1997-2003 Yayi, Boni President of Benin 2006-present Appendix C 277
Appendix C – Fieldwork in West Africa
The following are the most significant organisations at which I conducted formal interviews in Ghana and Sierra Leone in January-February 2007.
Ghana: African Security Dialogue and Research Australian High Commission British Military Advisory and Training Team Buduburam Refugee Camp Centre for Youth Empowerment Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre Legon University Self-Help Initiative for Sustainable Development United Nations Development Programme
Sierra Leone: British High Commission Fourah Bay College International Military Advisory and Training Team International Rescue Committee Office of National Security Overseas Development Institute Partnership Africa Canada Special Court for Sierra Leone Office of the President Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces Ministry of Social Welfare, Gender and Children’s Affairs United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone US Agency for International Development West Africa Network for Peacebuilding
Appendix C 278
The following participated at the Africa Forum at KAIPTC in Accra in January 2007:
President Boni Yayi (Benin) Executive Secretary Mohamed Ibn Chambas (ECOWAS – Ghana) President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (Liberia) President John Kufuor (Ghana) President Horst Köhler (Germany) President Festus Mogae (Botswana) President Olusegun Obasanjo (Nigeria) Chairman Denis Sassou-Nguesso (African Union – Congo)
The following participated at KAIPTC’s Responsibility to Protect Workshop in Accra in January 2007:
Col Festus Aboagye former ECOMOG (Liberia), currently ISS Maj Gen Henry Anyidoho former UNAMIR (Rwanda), currently UNMIS (Sudan) Olu Arowobusoye ECOWAS Humanitarian Affairs Col Tim Cornett former MONUC (DRC), currently US Army PKSOI Maj Gen Mountaga Diallo former MONUC (DRC), currently Ambassador to Russia Col Karl Farris former US mission to Rwanda, currently JTF Support Hope Col Mike Harnahan former Canadian Contingent in Rwanda, currently Canadian NDHQ Brig Gen Vere Hayes former UNPROFOR (Balkans) Brig Gen Gordon Hughes former IMATT (Sierra Leone), currently Cranfield University Brig Gen Jan Isberg former MONUC (DRC), currently Swedish Armed Forces HQ Gen Vijay Jumar Jetley former UNAMSIL (Sierra Leone) Victoria Holt Stimson Centre Mark Malan former KAIPTC Kyoko Ono DPKO Best Practices Lt Gen Daniel Opande former UNAMSIL (Sierra Leone) Nick Seymour DPKO Africa Division Col Michael Smith former ECOWAS (Liberia), currently GPOI Maj Gen Mike Smith former UNTAET (East Timor), currently AUSTCARE Lt Gen Jean Claude Thomman former KFOR (Balkans) Masato Tsurumi Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Col Muhammad Ajmal Zafar MONUC (DRC)