Draft Paper. Not Be Circulated. Cross-Border Trade and Cross
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African Border Research Network Conference Cross-border trade in Africa: The local politics of a global economy Basel, September 8-11, 2010 Cross-Border trade and Cross-border Cooperation on the militarized borders of Western Senegambia: Comparing configurations on the Borderlands of Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea Bissau. Aboubakr Tandia Gaston Berger University of Saint-Louis. Senegal Abstract In the borderlands of Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau, militarization has emerged out of the regional war complex formed by the Casamance conflict and political instability in Guinea-Bissau. A flourishing contraband economy has development, mainly wartime smuggling, and seems to be a counter-dynamic which challenges politics of cross-border trade in the region. This has encouraged trans-local institutions and peoples to promote cross-border trade as a politics of cooperation and or for community peace as well as a means for individual, household, and community survival. In approaching those ambivalent dynamics of transboundary relations in western Senegambia, this study confronts case studies on individual border trade situations where cross-border trade is promoted as a governance tool to reinforce and further peaceful cross-border cooperation while at the same time being challenged by a militarized and (post)conflict environment. Its main finding is that even though cross-border cooperation relatively gains from borderland trade relations and consolidates them, it has yet to face the challenges of criminalization and war economy that derive from the militarization of borders. Accordingly cross-border trade remains a relieving enterprise that cannot function yet as a lever for cross-border cooperation, peace and integration. Keywords: Cross-border Trade – Peace – War – Militarization – Cross-border cooperation. Introduction Intergovernmental efforts to build regional markets and economies in West Africa have proven to be rather principled and much contrasted with national egoisms and procrastinations (Sall 1992, Sall / Sallah 1994, Hughes 1994, Lambert 1998, Diop 2002). At the same time, the attitudes and practices on the ground strongly contrast with normative pretentions of regional economic and commercial integration that are still long time coming (Igué 1995, Meagher 1996, Bach 1998). As a result, overall practices from seemingly more inspired populations generate local dynamics of cross-border cooperation and integration from below through migratory, economic and productive flows (Weiss 1997, Bach 1998, Enda Diapol 2007, Tandia 2010a). As a prototype of “parallel” or “second economies” (MacGaffey 1991), cross-border trade is also related to insecurity factors stemming from low intensity conflicts, intrastate political instability and transboundary criminality (Little 2007). However, while a tendency has been to blame cross-border trade as being inconvenient for state order or state making, it can be argued that despite its subsequent neglect and obstruction it can claim potentials of order-making to the extent of inducing or being associated to governance dynamics such as cross-border cooperation. According to that this paper deals with the logics and processes of accumulation, regulation and cohabitation on borderlands: concern is the extent to which configurations of cross-border trade are affected Draft paper. Not be circulated. African Border Research Network Conference Cross-border trade in Africa: The local politics of a global economy Basel, September 8-11, 2010 by patterns of (dis)order or militarized territories. Since as cross-border trade has proven to be an alternative instrument of neighbourhood and peace that relativises the divisive functions of boundaries (Tandia 2007, ENDA DIAPOL 2007), the central question is whether governance of cross-border trade through cross-border cooperation can function at the same time as a governance of neighbourhood and peace. To what extent can cross-border cooperation and or through trade address challenges of frontier militarization and instability? In this respect I straightly argue that because of militarization of borders, in a context of the regionalized insecurity, cross-border trade tends to be a survival strategy for the great many of borderlanders, including agents of insecurity; war economy stands a tedious challenge that concomitantly relativises cross-border cooperation as a governance instrument for peace and integration against the endeavours of frontier peoples and local institutions of western Senegambia. Comparative issues concern the role of national border and trade policies, inter-state relations, the context specificities of militarization and cross-border trade as well as the nature of cross-border community relations. I will try to contribute to the debates over regional integration and security by throwing some light on the still topical question of whether or not the dynamics of cross-border trade in relation to (dis)order corroborate hypotheses of regional insecurity, predatory or subversive accumulation, or nuanced dialectics of wariness and peacemaking in neighbourhood, irrespective of the lethargic configurations of officialdom. I open this paper with a short background of the overall issue, before assessing the dynamics and potentials of cross-border trade in borderlands of Western Senegambia. In a second section I will show how the militarization of borders and borderland zones add obstacles to trade while preventing opportunities of cross-border trade to be converted into instruments of neighbourliness. In the third and last part of this paper I will discuss the relevance of cross-border cooperation as response of borderland communities to the dialectics of militarization and accumulation through trade. Background Studies on the theme of cross-border trade have revealed that traders implement sub-regional commercial strategies in southern Senegambia (Abdoul et al. 2007) while consumers inscribe theirs in the constraining environment of borderlands. Fanchette (2001, 2002) has described the characteristics of cross-border trade in the case of Upper Casamance, outlining advantages that cross-border weekly markets can reap from their border location, no matter how weak and dependent they may be on border politics and regional governance. Evans (2003a, 2003b, 2004) probably helps introduce the issue of the dialectics of cross- Draft paper. Not be circulated. African Border Research Network Conference Cross-border trade in Africa: The local politics of a global economy Basel, September 8-11, 2010 border trade, or economy in general, conflict, and deriving militarization. Through the analysis of a war economy in Casamance Evans make it clear how cross-border trade as a safety valve for livelihoods and local institutions (Evans 2004, 2008) was getting criminalized1. Other studies highlighted the vitality of cross- border commerce for food security and low level agricultural development (Kallungia 2001, CEDEAO 2005, Mijere 2009, Lesser / Moisé-Leeman 2009, USAID 2009), at a time when centrifugal insecurity and instability in Casamance and from neighbouring countries precisely tend to hinder commercial and accumulation dynamics as a whole. At present, it seems useful to broaden the thematic, and perhaps geographical, scope of such analysis by an articulation of the theme with the very current sociopolitical dynamics of the borderlands of Western Senegambia; I mean local politics of neighborhood, peacemaking in the context of systemic trans-frontier instability, through the instrumentation of cross-border trade in plans of cross-border cooperation. Dynamics and Potentials of Cross-border trade in Western Senegambia The dynamics of cross-border trade owe much to governance within and between states closely related to the border policies poisoned by national political crises and the Casamance conflict. Potentials still exist and relate to the inherent importance of cross-border trade as well as to some contextual elements. Cross-border trade and politics of governance, neighbourhood and production The broader space of Western Senegambia is known to be one of the “exchange spaces” of West Africa formed since the circulation of merchant caravans, the trans-Saharan trade and the routes of the Gulf of Guinea (Lambert 1998:28). Without producing a social history and a political economy of the region, we can say that the dynamics of cross-border trade are characterized by the interplay of trade, neighbourhood and governance. In effect, political and economic conditions in the region strongly command the dynamics of cross-border trade, notably relations between neighbouring states on the one hand, and national economic policies on the other, mainly in domains of trade, agriculture and transportation. On the account of political relations, several attitudes of neighbouring states, just as it used to be between pre-colonial states and colonial empires, have affected cross-border trade. This amounts to the trajectory of disordered governance and difficult neighbourhood dating back to conquest wars and raids amidst 1 As noted by Mijere (2009:21) citing Little (2005) similarly the war in Southern Somalia in the 1990‟s has led to a significant increase in informal cross-border cattle trade with neighbouring countries. Draft paper. Not be circulated. African Border Research Network Conference Cross-border trade in Africa: The local politics of a global economy Basel, September 8-11, 2010 Fouladou and Gabù kingdoms2. In the colonial era liberation war, between 1963