Social Affairs. Vol.1 No.1, 52-82, Fall 2014 Social Affairs: A Journal for the Social Sciences ISSN 2362-0889 (online) www.socialaffairsjournal.com THE MIGRATION-INTERSTATE CONFLICT NEXUS Sabastiano Rwengabo* Department of Political Science, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore ABSTRACT When and how does forced migration strain security relations between neighbouring States? Drawing from secondary research on two interstate conflicts in Africa’s Great Lakes Region during the 1970s and 1990s, I examine the socio-political conditions in both the migrants’ home and recipient States that interweave migrants into both States’ security calculations. I argue that refugees strain neighbouring States’ security relations under conditions of domestic socio-political violence, geographical proximity, and opportunities for refugees’ forced-return mobilisation. Evidence from the 1978-79 Uganda-Tanzania war, and the post-1994 DRC-Rwanda conflict, indicates that given these conditions forced migration strains interstate security relations by arousing suspicion and fear of migrants living in neighbouring States among leaders of refugees’ home country; and provoking migrants’ desire to forcefully return home expressed through politico-military mobilisation and declaration of war. Sending States pressure host States to ‘contain’ refugees’ mobilisation for forceful return. When recipient States are unable or unwilling to satisfy sending States’ demands, refugees become infused in both countries’ security calculations. These convergent processes generate interstate conflicts and may result in armed confrontation. The findings are useful for grasping the transformation of civil wars into transnational and regional conflicts, such as prevailed in the Region since the 1990s. Key Words: Forced Migration, Inter-State Conflict, Great Lakes Region, Uganda-Tanzania War, Rwanda-DRC Wars INTRODUCTION conflicts originating in domestic causes. Africa’s Great Lakes Region (GLR) has Since the 1990s, these conflicts quickly experienced various transnational armed transform from civil wars to complex regional security concerns involving * Author e-mail strained interstate security relations [email protected] (Khadiagala 2006). One major causal ©2014 Social Affairs Journal. This work is force behind this evolving insecurity and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- the metamorphosis from civil to interstate NonCommercial 4.0 International License. 52 Social Affairs. Vol.1 No.1, 52-82, Fall 2014 conflicts has been the phenomenon of security relations. The two processes forced migration and conflict refugees, infuse refugees in neighbouring states’ which, though appreciated in the security calculations, transforming a literature on refugees-related conflicts hitherto refugee-generating civil conflict (Mushemeza 2007; Salehyan and into a transnational and interstate one. Gleditsch 2006), remains less well This argument supplements studies analysed through comparative lenses on that examine the securitisation of interstate conflicts in the Region. In this migration in the age of globalisation. paper, I show that forced migration strains Shain and Barth examine the foreign security relations between the sending policy implications of migration, focusing and recipient States when it generates on the role of Jewish and Armenian suspicions and fears of migrants among Diasporas through a theoretical nexus leaders in refugees’ home country; and between constructivism and liberalism. when migrants mobilise and seek to They argue that a combination of return forcefully. When sending States migrants’ identities and domestic political pressure host States to contain migrants’ interactions affect States’ foreign policies activities, refugees become infused in (Shain & Barth 2003). While Shain and both countries’ security calculations Barth do not study security, they highlight vis-a-vis each other. This infusion of the possible influence of migrants upon refugees into neighbouring states’ the home State given the strength of the security calculations against each State at home. Similarly, Mushemeza other may reach a point of interstate studies the influence of Rwandan confrontation. To grasp the migration- refugees in the GLR. He concludes that interstate conflict nexus, tracing politico- with limited integration in host societies, security causes of interstate conflicts refugees with strong home attachment from both sending and recipient States is look for opportunities for forceful return important because not all countries feel (Mushemeza 2007). Salehyan and their refugees in neighbouring countries Gleditsch (2006) demonstrate why and threaten home security. To explain when how refugees are mechanisms through leaders in sending States are likely to which civil conflicts transnationalise. link their national security with their Boswell’s (2007) analysis of the refugees I consider socio-political, geo- “securitization of migration” in Europe political, and host-country conditions indicates that migration affects States’ that generate this fear. Socio-political security calculations, though he places violence in sending States results in emphasis on host-country security. I one group’s forced exile. Geographical supplement these analyses with a critical proximity allows extruded groups to settle examination of the nexus between in neighbouring countries. Opportunities migration and the security relations of for refugees’ mobilisation for return, in both the sending and receiving States. the host country, strengthen their desire This links migration and security in a to return forcefully. The resulting fears State-centric global landscape. While and suspicions among sending States’ scholars investigate migrants’ links with leaders; and refugees’ actual mobilisation domestic societies, they place emphasis for forceful return, strain neighbours’ 53 Social Affairs. Vol.1 No.1, 52-82, Fall 2014 on migrants’ socio-economic impact I review literature on studies of two (Poros 2001), identity issues (Soysal interstate conflicts from Africa’s GLR: 1994), and its link with other forms of the 1978-79 Tanzania-Uganda war; and transnationalism (Vertovec 2003). By the post-1994 security relations between interrogating the causal influence of the Democratic Republic of Congo forced migration on interstate security (DRC) and Rwanda. These cases are relations, I underscore the geopolitical useful: they reveal the transformation of imperatives of forced migration, the civil conflicts to international conflicts, intellectual link between Migration differences in states’ responses to actual Studies and International Security, as or perceived threats from their refugees well as African Studies, hence bringing based in neighbouring states, and the these related sub-disciplinary strands similarity of resulting interstate relations into conversation. regardless of when, who is in power, and where these refugees are based. This is a State-centric study in which forced migration implies traumatic The difference between these conflicts socio-political extrusion from the home is that where the Tanzania-Uganda country resulting from socio-political conflict followed the 1971 coup de’tat, the and/or economic persecution (Ho Rwanda-DRC conflict followed the 1994 2012) as distinct from natural-disaster- genocide. Where the Uganda-Tanzania induced migration. Strained interstate conflict took several years to break out, security relations include accusations the Rwanda-DRC war took only one year. and counter-accusations that may result While the Uganda-Tanzania war lasted a in armed conflict between sending and short period resulting in the overthrow of recipient neighbouring States. This Amin, the Rwanda-DRC conflicts have security concern arises from home- raged on even after Mobutu’s downfall and country leaders’ fears of, and about, Kabila Sr’s assassination. The DRC had refugees’ activities in the host country, apparently failed to contain mobilising and and refugees’ desire to return home re-arming Rwandan refugees as Mobutu forcefully expressed through mobilisation had supported the fallen government or support for armed conflict. For these in Kigal against the Rwanda Patriotic processes to strain States’ security Front/Army (RPF/A), just as Nyerere had relations, certain conditions must prevail: disapproved of Amin’s coup. However, domestic political violence, which initially both conflicts followed forced migration leads to forced migration; geographical resulting from intrastate political crises. proximity, which allows refugees to live Regardless of differences in leaderships in their home-country’s neighbourhood; of these countries and the causes of the and the host country’s inability or initial refugee-producing conflicts, forced unwillingness to repatriate or relocate migrants led to interstate conflicts, hence these migrants. These conditions making forced migration the major causal generate and exacerbate fears and factor in these conflicts. suspicions from migrants’ home country, Ironically, scholars tend to address while amplifying migrants’ desire to these conflicts as contextually unrelated, return. To illustrate these mechanisms, yet they have commonalities on the 54 Social Affairs. Vol.1 No.1, 52-82, Fall 2014 independent variable: forced migration. MIGratiON AND SECURITY Because I sample on the independent Globalisation, Migration, and Security variable, I emphasize the causal process through which refugee status and Analyses