Exploring Subregional Conflict: Opportunities for Conflict Prevention 9781685853464

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EXPLORING SUBREGIONAL CONFLICT

A project of the International Peace Academy

EXPLORING SUBREGIONAL CONFLICT Opportunities for Conflict Prevention

edited by Chandra Lekha Sriram and Zoe Nielsen

Published in the United States of America in 2004 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 3 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London WC2E 8LU © 2004 by the International Peace Academy, Inc. All rights reserved by the publisher

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Exploring subregional conflict : opportunities for conflict prevention / Chandra Lekha Sriram and Zoe Nielsen, editors. p. cm. — (A project of the International Peace Academy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-58826-243-1 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 1-58826-219-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Social conflict. 2. Social conflict—Case studies. 3. Conflict management. I. Sriram, Chandra Lekha, 1971– II. Nielsen, Zoe. III. International Peace Academy. IV. Series. HM1121.E97 2004 327.1'72—dc22 2004003787 British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

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The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

Foreword, David M. Malone Acknowledgments

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Introduction: Why Examine Subregional Sources and Dynamics of Conflict? Chandra Lekha Sriram and Zoe Nielsen

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1 Understanding Conflicts in the Horn of Africa Edmond J. Keller

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2 Stability and Change in Central Asia Gregory Gleason

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3 Sources of Conflict in West Africa Comfort Ero and Jonathan Temin

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4 Dynamics of Conflict in Central America Chandra Lekha Sriram

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5 Implications for Conflict Prevention Zoe Nielsen

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List of Acronyms Selected Bibliography The Contributors Index About the Book

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Foreword DAVID M. MALONE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL PEACE ACADEMY

THIS COLLECTION OF SUBREGIONAL CASE STUDIES AND POLICY RECOMMENDAtions concludes the International Peace Academy’s three-year research and policy project titled From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict. The project sought to identify opportunities to strengthen the conflict prevention capacity within the United Nations system and beyond, with an emphasis on structural prevention, in particular relating to development and capacity building. We at the IPA hope that readers of this book will learn as much from the cases as we have. The book builds upon an earlier set of wellreceived individual country case studies—From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict— developed by the IPA. That book examines nine country cases in detail, exploring the challenges faced by the UN and other actors in situations ranging from those where the threat of violent conflict is still nascent to those of postconflict peacebuilding. The studies illustrate the importance of partnership—between the UN, relevant regional organizations, key nongovernmental organizations with useful local networks, and experts (academic and otherwise). They also clearly illustrate the importance of carefully tailored context-specific strategies, rather than cookie-cutter solutions. However, the cases also highlight the degree to which threats within a given country cannot be viewed in isolation, demonstrating the importance of adopting broader subregional approaches. vii

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FOREWORD

This current set of case studies constitutes an effort at understanding the causes of conflict and possible responses in four subregions. Although each of the subregions shares some common causes of conflict with the others, we also identify specific challenges within each. Viewing these challenges across borders, rather than solely within states, is important for preventive actors for several reasons. First, because of the history of state formation and decolonization, states within a subregion often share problems that may engender state weakness and conflict, such as corruption (including interlinked networks of graft), religious or ethnic tensions, and social and economic stratification. Second, conflicts cannot be treated in isolation, because they often spill (both in and out) across porous borders, with the movement of refugees, rebels, resources, and arms. Third, the UN is often unable to serve as the primary preventive actor and must often turn to regional and subregional organizations as the lead actors, or at the very least for their strong support. And last, but certainly not least, the UN system as a whole is increasingly attuned to the need for subregional strategies— an approach the IPA’s Africa Program has been advocating for some years—and these studies offer some insights into how those strategies might be developed. For each subregion, the studies examine not only common causes of current or potential conflict, but also entry points that preventive actors might seek to utilize. The IPA’s research aims to inform decisionmaking at the policy level and to encourage the strengthening of institutional capacities to address preconflict, conflict, and postconflict situations addressed by the UN system, regional organizations and arrangements, and key governments, including those of the countries most affected and their neighbors. This final research effort was designed as the ultimate building block of the broader project, which sought, through analysis and policyoriented networking, to examine key issues in conflict prevention. The research would not have been possible but for the generous funding of six governments. These donors, who have given generously not just of funds but also of insights and advice, are Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. We would also like to recognize the IPA’s core donors, who have done so much to build our own capacity: the Ford, Rockefeller, and Hewlett Foundations, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and individual members of the IPA’s board. Finally, I would like to record my appreciation to and deep admiration of Chandra Lekha Sriram (now of the University of St. Andrews),

FOREWORD

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who directed this program with flair, drive, and creativity, as well as her colleagues Karin Wermester (today working in Khartoum for the UN on conflict prevention in Sudan) and Zoe Nielsen (coeditor of this book and now working at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at the University of British Columbia). Working together, they have contributed significantly to evolving thinking on conflict prevention, which is no longer seen, thanks in part to them, as a cookie-cutter exercise. It has been for me not only a privilege but a great pleasure to be associated with their work.

Acknowledgments

THIS BOOK WAS DEVELOPED AND COMMISSIONED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE IPA’s three-year prevention project, From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict. The project worked closely with actors across the UN system—member states, departments and agencies of the UN, and field staff—as well as a wide variety of expert practitioners and research nongovernmental organizations. The project also worked closely with the other research and policy projects here at the IPA, as it was closely linked to the IPA’s other thematic and regional projects that examine policy challenges in conflict zones. The project drew upon the expertise of the Africa Program on nascent-conflict-limitation capacities in Africa, in particular its ongoing examination of subregional organizations across the continent. It also benefited from the work developed by the UN, NATO, and other regional-actors programs on the operational roles of a host of regional organizations and their relations with the UN. It drew extensively upon the groundbreaking work of the Economic Agendas in Civil Wars Program in refining the understanding of the causes and dynamics of many contemporary conflicts. It has also learned from the work of the Transitional Administrations Program on steps taken by the international community to foster lasting peace in societies emerging from conflict. As such, it was a truly collaborative endeavor, having benefited from the wisdom and insights of innumerable experts. Any acknowledgments thus cannot be comprehensive. xi

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank our many colleagues at the IPA for their encouragement and for the intellectual rigor that they brought to the discussion of issues that were central to the work of our project. Special thanks, however, go to Peter Wallensteen, whose insights and support provided the initial spark for the development of this book, and to Karin Wermester, whose insight and knowledge of the field of conflict prevention were invaluable. Thanks also go to David Malone and Neclâ Tschirgi for their support and comments, particularly during the critical early stages of development of the book. Thanks are also due to the numerous people involved in the previous collection of case studies, From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict, particularly the expert committee convened at the outset of the project. The book would not have gotten to print without the assistance of the IPA’s publications coordinator, Clara Lee; Jason Cook’s eye for detail during the copyediting phase; and, of course, the wonderful staff at Lynne Rienner Publishers. Finally, particularly important is that this research could not have been carried out without the generous financial support of our donors, identified in the Foreword. We are very grateful not only for their funding, but also for their active involvement in our programming. — Chandra Lekha Sriram — Zoe Nielsen

Introduction: Why Examine Subregional Sources and Dynamics of Conflict? CHANDRA LEKHA SRIRAM & ZOE NIELSEN

IT IS WELL KNOWN THAT THERE ARE MYRIAD CAUSES OF CONFLICT AND THAT preventing violent conflict requires addressing root and proximate causes.1 In addition, it is understood that different causes and types of conflict plague different countries and different regions. Similarly, the level of conflict also varies across regions, subregions, countries, and even districts. While research in recent years has generated findings on the range of possible causes of conflict generally, and case studies have applied many of these insights to particular countries, less work has been done on the ways in which the relative significance of different causes may vary in particular subregions of the world. 2 More elaboration on regional variances is clearly needed.3 Developing a greater understanding of these regional variances is significant for the elaboration of preventive policy responses in two senses. First, regional variances in the causes and nature of conflict can suggest a relative prioritization of tools and resources at the policymaking stage. Second, at the implementation stage, they can aid a greater understanding of the comparative advantages among the multiple preventive actors that are likely to be on the ground and thereby inform better strategic coordination. By examining the causes of conflict in the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, West Africa, and Central America—four subregions that exhibit similarities and differences in terms of both the causes and the levels of conflict—we aim to contribute to a growing body of work that may lead to better preventive strategies in the future. 1

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INTRODUCTION

Causes of Conflict Violent conflict arises for a host of reasons, including disputes over ideology, land, access to resources and power of the state, gross inequality, ethnicity and religion, and borders. Any list of causes is bound to be incomplete, but there is some consensus with regard to general types of sources that are common. These are sometimes categorized as fitting within four broad groupings: insecurity, inequality, private incentives, and perceptions.4 These factors may well work in tandem and may interact in a variety of ways across space and time. These categories are useful in describing the issues but do not contribute to an understanding of whether the risk of conflict is high, low, or somewhere in between. Although many would argue that conflict does not necessarily progress in a linear or even cyclic fashion, it can be helpful to talk about the causes of conflict in terms of root or structural causes, proximate causes, and triggers. This categorization recognizes that different causes will be of varying importance at different stages in the escalation or deescalation of conflict. It also facilitates the design of conflict prevention strategies that are responsive to the particular dynamics at play. Root or structural causes, as the names suggest, are underlying sources of discontent. Many structural causes are linked to the relationship between the state and its citizens, the legitimacy of the government, and its ability to provide basic services. Perhaps paradoxically, both overly weak and overly strong governments are problematic. Structural causes of conflict can include inequality, discrimination, breakdown of the rule of law, and unequal access to means of production and services such as education and health care. Structural causes may also include relative or absolute poverty, although there is much debate about the role of each.5 While some level of inequality and discrimination is present in most societies, not all are experiencing violent conflict or are even likely to experience it in the near future. Similarly, poverty and weak or corrupt state institutions are seldom sufficient to provoke conflict. Proximate causes are generally necessary to move a society closer to conflict, be it widespread or isolated. Proximate causes, which might vary from root causes by degree only, include the entrenching of discrimination (e.g., the introduction of quotas for entrance to universities, the loss of citizenship for specific groups), the manipulation of group identities for political purposes, systematic

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corruption in governance or the electoral system, mismanagement of state resources (including natural resources), corrupt or abusive security forces, and widespread human rights violations. Even where significant root and proximate causes are present in a country or subregion, we may not always see conflict. Often there must also be an event that is more difficult to predict and thus more difficult to prevent—a mobilizing or triggering event. Triggers may include a host of events, from the violent removal of a leader from office, to wide-scale election fraud and specific abuses by key institutions or leaders, to the destruction of important cultural or religious sites. A classic example of a trigger was the shooting down of the airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, which helped to ignite genocidal violence in a population already primed for it by, inter alia, exhortations on “hate radio.”6 As mentioned above, talking about the causes of conflict in terms of root or structural causes, proximate causes, and triggers aids the design of conflict prevention strategies. Clearly, longer-term “structural” prevention that includes assistance in development and governance might be appropriate to address root or even proximate causes but is unlikely to counter a trigger. Similarly, preventive diplomacy may be helpful in addressing a proximate cause or even a trigger but is less likely to address a root cause.7 The Regional Dimension In many instances, there is a regional dimension to the causes of conflict. Conflict in a given region often has similar causes that can be linked to a host of historical, political, economic, and geographic factors. Conflicts can also become regionalized as they spill across borders.8 Similarly, the regional perspective is important when it comes to conflict prevention. Regional and subregional organizations have a significant role to play in conflict prevention—increasingly the UN may partner with them, or they may take the lead or even the only role. It is also the case that the UN and bilateral donors are almost always divided into regional desks or divisions. Any articulation here of the regional variances in the causes of conflict will necessarily be brief; the chapters in this book elaborate on the distinctions as well as recognize the similarities across regions. The aim is to draw upon existing knowledge and research regarding the crosscutting, generic causes of conflict and apply this to specific regional contexts. The goal is twofold: first, to attempt to draw out a relative prioritization of

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INTRODUCTION

those causes that are likely to require the most attention in a particular region; and second, to gain a greater understanding of how those causes are most likely to be manifested once filtered through the prism of historic, geostrategic, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic particularities. In so doing, we seek to better identify the type of conflict that is at risk in different regions and the likely most effective entry points for external actors seeking to prevent conflict. Why Might Regional Variances Matter? If variances across regions in the causes of conflict turn out to be significant and systematic, this will have real implications for preventive action. A gap in knowledge exists with regard to the variance in causes of conflict across subregions; the filling of this gap ought to assist in developing more context-sensitive preventive action. Such research will aid in preventive analysis between the general (macro-level toolkits of suggested preventive measures, for instance) and the particular (caseand context-specific preventive action). Similarly, while much work has been done on the development of “indicators” that are suggestive of these causes, linking particular causes to indicators is difficult. Moreover, there remains a need to decide which risks are common to many contexts and which are specific and to determine the relative importance of different risks in particular cases. In addition, while research has increasingly generated a long list of causes of conflict and projects elaborating conflict indicators abound, it remains difficult to translate this type of analysis into appropriate preventive response. Under ideal circumstances, access to complete information regarding a particular case would allow policymakers to make informed decisions regarding which causes of conflict are more likely to have the potential to lead to violent conflict than others, how these are most likely to be manifested, and hence where and how they can focus their preventive action. However, more often than not, policy responses are formulated with incomplete information regarding the nature of the potential conflict at hand—what is at risk—and the context in which it is being fomented and in which violence could be triggered. In examining the variance in the causes of conflict across regions, this book seeks to discern the relative significance of different causes of conflict across regions—a prism through which policymakers can assess the risk and weight of different potential causes on the basis of historical, political, cultural, anthropological, linguistic, and social differences.

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The most extensive work to date has focused on the causes of conflict in Africa, which is perhaps not surprising given the numerous intrastate and cross-border wars on the continent. Causes that have been identified range from root causes such as inequality, state collapse, economic decline, and historical legacies, to proximate causes such as unemployment, manipulation of ethnic identity, the availability of small arms, regional/interlocking conflicts, and the existence of a conflict cycle.9 The extensive examinations of the causes of conflict in Africa have been premised on the assumption that there are unique causes of conflict in Africa that need to be addressed. While it is unlikely that there are causes that are entirely unique to Africa, it is equally likely to be the case that certain causes are particularly significant on the African continent as a result not least of the history of colonialism and the legacies of the Cold War. The Cold War and its end have had profound effects on regional conflicts, although not always in the same ways: in some instances the end of the Cold War removed constraints upon regional conflicts; in others it proved to be an impetus for peacemaking.10 Quantitative research demonstrates the variance in regional levels of conflict and key indicators of conflict. 11 Certainly, root causes such as horizontal inequality and more proximate ones such as the manipulation of ethnic identities will frequently be a key source of conflict in Central Asia or Central America, just as they are in parts of Africa. However, the historical legacies and their impacts may differ—states emerging from Soviet rule in parts of Central Asia and those emerging from authoritarian rule in Central America may face different risks of conflict than those that take place in Africa.12 Conflict in Southeast Asia during the Cold War was often ideologically driven and has significantly abated, but what are likely to be the most significant causes today?13 While the work on causes of conflict in Africa has been instructive, Africa is a vast continent and significant variance across subregions may be expected. This preliminary study will focus then on West Africa and the Horn of Africa. In West Africa, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has been increasingly active in responding to conflicts, as has the UN. In the Horn of Africa, the challenges and international attention levels are rather different, but the Intergovernmental Agency for Development (IGAD) and the African Union (AU) have sought to play some role in early warning and conflict prevention as well as mediation.14 The variations and differences in the sources of conflict may also be expected to have an impact on the nature of conflict experienced. All

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INTRODUCTION

intrastate wars are not alike—ethnic politics, horizontal inequality and poverty, greed, bad leaders, or a complex mixture of these and other factors may drive them. Moreover, those factors that initially led to the eruption of violence may not be those that perpetuate a particular conflict, or for that matter cause it to recur. Disaggregating the relative weight of different causes of conflict regionally, and how those causes are most likely to be manifested, is an important step toward understanding the type of conflict that is at risk of occurring. Clearly, the type of conflict being experienced will necessarily shape what type of preventive action will be efficacious. It is not enough for preventive or peacemaking actors to respond to the original “causes” once a conflict has begun, since conflicts develop their own logics and dynamics. Undoubtedly, averting or responding to the types of complex humanitarian emergencies and intrastate conflicts with regional spillovers currently seen in several subregions in Africa will require different strategies than addressing the types of ideologically driven conflicts (only occasionally compounded with ethnic divisiveness) seen in Central America from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Furthermore, efforts to prevent strife in Central America now must speak less to ideological divisions and more to dissatisfaction that might provoke groups to turn to violence if basic needs cannot otherwise be met.15 Also, the very existence and dynamics of conflict change the economic, political, military, and social structure of a country, and preventive actors must be prepared to address not only what they identify as the original causes of conflict, but also the demands that fueled the conflict and the grievances that endure long after peace has been formally reached. The challenges of peacebuilding, and of ensuring that conflict does not reemerge, are particularly thorny because they may entail engaging with and challenging key state and nonstate political actors.16

The Cases

The purpose of this book is to examine the expectation that countries within subregions share context-specific causes of conflict. While certain causes will also be common to more than one subregion, their manifestation in terms of types of economic or governance crises and types of conflict may well not be. This book does not purport to address the causes of conflict in all subregions—it is rather a preliminary study of likely commonalities across four subregions and of the implications

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for those who would engage in preventive action. As such, then, the cases are few and are not meant to be completely representative of the possible global sample of cases. They are, however, regionally diverse, representing two conflict-prone regions in Africa, one in Asia, and one in Latin America. Just as important for our purposes, the subregions differ significantly both in the range of independent variables—such as history of colonialism and state formation, civil-military relations, salience of ethnic tensions, resource issues, and the like—and in the nature of the conflict, whether full-scale internal conflict or low- to mid-level violence.17 A feature shared by each of the subregions, however, is the subregional, as opposed to solely internal, nature of the conflict: in these regions there is spillover of, at various times, refugees, rebels, official armies, support for various factions, and small arms. The potential for conflict over specific resources, whether shared resources such as water or internal resources such as oil, also remains present. For the sake of sharpening insights into regional variance in the causes and nature of conflict and enabling more targeted responses, the chapters are constrained in terms of time and space. The goal is therefore not to encompass the entire history of a continent for the past century or more, but rather to distill what the legacies of the histories of state formation were for a specific subregion during a specific time. For example, the examination of West Africa does not look at all of the nineteen states in the subregion but focuses largely on those that have experienced more significant conflict; while it addresses historical legacies, the emphasis is on conflicts that have emerged since the end of the Cold War. The Horn of Africa In Chapter 1, Edmond Keller examines the growing incidence of internal conflicts that have spilled across borders of the states of the Horn of Africa—Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. He first describes the nature of state and nation building in the subregion and the ways in which it contributed to internal conflict and to regional tensions in some countries. While the experience of each country was unique, they shared postcolonial experiences of attempting to create and consolidate nations that contained multiple ethnicities and whose boundaries often cut across kin groups. In many instances, the attempts at consolidation resulted in overly centralized governments, sometimes dominated by one

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ethnic, regional, clan, or social group and often quite repressive. In such origins can be found the seeds of domestic conflict, as well as the potential for interstate conflict over disputed border areas. Keller also examines two instances in which tensions have escalated into full-scale interstate conflict in the subregion: the Ogaden War, between Somalia and Ethiopia, and the Ethiopia-Eritrea border dispute. In countries such as Ethiopia, shifting superpower alliances further exacerbated conflict. Governments themselves have sought to manage internal conflicts through two distinct routes: either tightening central control and repression or attempting to engage in state-society trust building, particularly through mechanisms such as regional autonomy and power sharing. Where this has been insufficient, and particularly in interstate disputes, the UN or regional organizations have at times engaged. The AU was most active in helping to mediate and resolve the Ogaden dispute. IGAD has also been involved in attempting to stem internal conflicts, particularly through mediation in the Somali crisis, though without great results to date. The United Nations has not been extensively engaged in attempting to stem the conflicts in the region, save for a very few instances. The first was the humanitarian intervention in the collapsed state of Somalia, which ultimately withdrew without stabilizing a unified Somali state. The second was the negotiation of the end of the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict and the creation of a peacekeeping force, the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), to monitor the framework agreement the Organization of African Unity (OAU) helped to broker. The countries of the Horn have frequently been unable to manage their own internal conflicts; in such instances there will be a greater need for external responses. The UN has not engaged frequently and has done so most seriously in the case of interstate disputes. However, the AU and IGAD have scored nominal successes through their work in mediation. Keller concludes with a call for these institutions to become more actively engaged in addressing both domestic and interstate disputes. Central Asia In Chapter 2, Gregory Gleason examines the historical, cultural, economic, and political features of conflict in the five Central Asian republics—Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan—and explores the opportunities for internally and externally driven efforts at conflict mitigation and resolution. Key sources of conflict have

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included the history of state formation and group relations, the collapse of the Soviet Union, economic agendas and ideological concerns, and transnational actors such as organized crime and narcotics-trafficking groups. Numerous actors may be engaged to address these risks of conflict, including the UN, bilateral donors, regional and subregional organizations, governments, and civil society, and the chapter examines the prospects for each. The construction in the Soviet era of the Central Asian republics created units of dubious legitimacy; national consolidation with the fall of the Soviet Union has not led to significantly more legitimate regimes. At the same time, economic collapse came with the decline of the Soviet Union, as trade declined and subsidies disappeared. In a decade of independence, the governments have failed to stem corruption, organized crime, and trafficking in drugs and people; to develop better governance; and to protect human and civil rights. While the religious extremism pervasive in many neighboring countries has not posed a significant threat historically to state stability, it has been the foundation of a number of armed groups, and in the wake of the recent U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, it seems at risk of growing within the subregion. A further risk looms for the future—many aging leaders will soon begin to be replaced, which may well result in succession crises. There remain entry points, however, for conflict prevention, and the chapter examines several efforts by international and regional actors to address risks of conflict across the subregion. These have included arms control agreements, subregional compacts such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, UN peacebuilding efforts and development projects, and activities of broader regional organizations. Gleason argues that a comprehensive strategy for conflict prevention by the states themselves as well as external actors such as donors should be oriented toward constraining predatory resource exploitation by the regional states; the development of greater regional cooperation, particularly in trade; and the need for better governance and freer markets. West Africa In Chapter 3, Comfort Ero and Jonathan Temin examine the causes and dynamics of conflict in West Africa, focusing particularly on Sierra Leone, Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, and Nigeria. They identify several key causes of conflict in the subregion as well as the challenges of avoiding the renewal of conflict. They argue that early warning of the

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INTRODUCTION

potential for new conflicts in the region is readily available but predict that the international community will be slow to respond to it. Several sources of conflict are shared across the subregion. States emerging from decolonization were centralized and elite-driven, with a wide gulf between the central cities and the periphery, breeding discontent. With the end of the Cold War, weak regimes formerly propped up by patrons began collapsing, unable to withstand pressures for democracy and institutional and economic reform. Weak economies and a lack of opportunities have contributed to the rise of criminality and violence, facilitated further by the easy availability of small arms and light weapons. Internal and external actors driven by economic incentives, whether mercenaries or those seeking to profit from illegal exploitation of natural resources, have further fueled conflict within countries and across the subregion. This has also enabled a vicious cycle wherein grievances created by prior conflicts and not properly resolved by peace processes have laid the groundwork for subsequent conflict. The subregional spread of conflict has been facilitated and provoked by the support of key actors to governments or rebels of neighboring countries—Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, provided support to rebels in Sierra Leone and was a key impediment to peace in both countries. Ero and Temin conclude that, in general, West Africa is a poor candidate for conflict prevention—too many conflicts are already under way. There must, however, be concerted efforts at conflict management or containment. The most notable such regional efforts have been those engaged in by the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In general, Ero and Temin argue that international response has frequently failed to be significant and that when it has taken place, it has occurred too late. Instead, they suggest, international actors often push for peace accords without providing serious support or incentives for their implementation. Central America In Chapter 4, Chandra Lekha Sriram examines the causes and dynamics of conflict in four Central American countries—El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. She identifies several factors that enabled conflict through the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as a number of enduring problems across the subregion, and suggests that there is reason for concern that many potential causes of renewed conflict are not properly addressed by contemporary peacebuilding strategies.

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Key sources of conflict have included the legacy of state formation, significant disparities in wealth and access to land, and involvement of the United States and the Soviet Union in pursuit of geostrategic interests. The result has been the creation of strong militaries and of state apparatuses heavily reliant upon them. The militaries themselves controlled the government, whether formally—as often was the case—or informally. Civilian control of the security sector was weak, and the influence of the U.S.-promoted “Doctrine of National Security” encouraged the perception that internal opposition was communist-inspired. Such a perception enabled wide-scale abuses even in peacetime and more extensive atrocities in wartime. U.S. and Soviet influence went further, with funds flowing to governments and militaries, or rebel groups, according to each nation’s interest; the United States not only propped up the contras in an attempt to overthrow the communist Sandinista regime in Nicaragua but also used bases in Honduras to support these efforts. Spillovers of conflicts across borders were nearly inevitable as rebels used neighboring countries as bases or refuges. With the end of the Cold War, pressures on each of these countries to resolve internal strife increased, and external patrons for militaries and rebels reduced their support. Peace agreements and democratic elections returned to three of the four countries; Honduras was never formally at war. Peacebuilding efforts were undertaken, from broad-scale reform efforts to commissions of inquiry, as were longer-term development projects. The subregion has been relatively peaceful for roughly a decade. However, the picture is far from rosy. In each country examined, corruption is rife, and wide-scale criminal violence is on the rise. Far more troubling, violence that at first appears to be purely criminal is often traceable to political leaders, and there have been few efforts at accountability. Reform efforts have stalled, and while some measure of civilian control over the security sector exists in each country, in many instances it is far from complete. At this juncture, efforts of the international community to support peacebuilding through development assistance, while important in their own right, do not seem well tailored to address the current violence and the risk that it might escalate.

From Causes to Phases of Conflict

Not only the causes but also the level of conflict varies across the subregions and countries within the subregions. It is helpful in this regard

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to refer to what Chandra Sriram and Karin Wermester have termed the five “phases of conflict,” by which they mean not a time-bound conception of conflict (whether linear or life-cycle) but rather one that emphasizes clusters of challenges.18 The phases are as follows: potential conflict, gestation of conflict, trigger/mobilization of conflict, conflict/ escalation, and postconflict. For countries or subregions experiencing potential conflict, the situation is characterized by factors that have the potential to, but may not always, develop into violence, including poverty, horizontal inequality, political and institutional instability or deadlock, leadership problems, concentration of natural resources, and historical, ethnic, political, and religious cleavages. A number of the countries in Central Asia, such as Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, might fit within this category. For those experiencing gestation of conflict, the situation is characterized by flashes of isolated, low-intensity violence possibly accompanied by increased state repression (particularly during election periods) or a stepping up of state security mechanisms. Often this is accompanied by an increasing number of political contenders and activity, growing mobilization of the population, and heightened fear and intimidation. Nigeria is an example of a country that might fall within this category. For those experiencing the trigger/mobilization of conflict, the situation is characterized by high tension and confrontation between conflicting parties with the use, or threatened use, of violence. Common triggers include coups, election fraud, severe government repression, and increased tensions among different ethnic groups. Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea-Bissau could be described as being in the trigger/mobilization phase. The conflict/escalation phase is characterized by the outbreak of high-intensity violent conflict. This may in turn result in human rights abuses and humanitarian crises, including the creation of refugees and internally displaced persons. Liberia, until the recent departure of President Charles Taylor, was experiencing just such a situation, as the rebels controlled increasing amounts of territory while the government resisted, resulting in massive death and displacement. In postconflict situations, there is a cessation of hostilities that may be accompanied by a permanent cease-fire or peace agreement, but also by damaged or destroyed social and economic infrastructure, lingering insecurity, weak or nonexistent democratic political processes and institutions, and significant resentment. Sierra Leone and Tajikistan are

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postconflict countries. As Guatemala and El Salvador illustrate, there is often a fine line between postconflict and potential-conflict countries. Each of these sets of problems will necessitate different responses by the UN and other external actors. At the same time, it is important to recognize that these “phases” are not sequential—countries and subregions may move among them in a host of ways; postconflict situations may return to conflict, situations of conflict mobilization may deescalate rather than escalate, and so on. The cases will articulate the particular risks of conflict for the given subregion with an eye to identifying what the entry points might be for response.

Conclusion

Translating the insights we hope to gain from this modest and preliminary research project into actual policy responses is the second step, and one that the chapters necessarily examine only to the extent of suggesting those particular tools that, among the generic “toolkits” and preventive measures identified, have been or are likely to be most effective in different regions and suggesting the concomitant entry points for these. It is certainly the case that increasingly, whether because of a lack of resources or of political will, the UN will not always take the lead in preventive action or be prepared to act at all. Regional and subregional actors, who may have greater interests and greater capacity to assess a situation, may step into the breach. Alternatively, the UN may seek to partner with these organizations for similar reasons. With the proliferation of such organizations, a more nuanced understanding of the types of threats they are likely to seek to address is the important flip side of the more extensive work that has been done on the capacities of various regional and subregional organizations. What is actually feasible, and who will be best placed (or, more likely, willing and able) to undertake the deployment of these bodies—the UN, regional and subregional actors, bilateral actors, international nongovernmental organizations, civil society—will vary, depending upon the levels of interest, leverage, and resources and capacity. 19 Such an analysis is beyond the scope of this book, which seeks first to identify more clearly the most prominent causes of conflict in subregions so that preventive action may be tailored more appropriately. In presenting a better understanding of the risks and dynamics of conflict in each subregion,

14

INTRODUCTION

and some analysis of efforts taken to stem conflict, we seek to identify possible entry points for better preventive action in each subregion in the future.

Notes 1. On contemporary debates over causes of conflict, see Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, eds., Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2000). On conflict prevention see, inter alia, Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report (New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1997), and additional reports. 2. For a preliminary attempt, see Clingendael, “Proceedings of Seminar on Intrastate Conflict and Options for Policy” (The Hague, November 16–17, 1998). For a series of country case studies examining causes of conflict and responses, see Chandra Lekha Sriram and Karin Wermester, eds., From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003). 3. There may further be variance in subregions, as work in Africa has demonstrated. See United Nations, The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. S/1998/318, April 13, 1998. See also UK Department for International Development (DFID), The Causes of Conflict in Africa: Consultation Document (London: DFID, 2001); and International Peace Academy, Regional Approaches to Conflict Management in Africa (New York: International Peace Academy, 2001). 4. Anne-Marie Gardner, “Diagnosing Conflict: What Do We Know?” in Fen Osler Hampson and David M. Malone, eds., From Reaction to Conflict Prevention: Opportunities for the UN System (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002), pp. 15–40. 5. Frances Stewart, “Horizontal Inequalities as a Source of Conflict,” in Hampson and Malone, From Reaction to Conflict Prevention, pp. 105–138. 6. Bruce D. Jones, Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failure (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001). 7. See generally Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict, chaps. 3–4; and Michael Lund, “Preventive Security: Direct and Structural Prevention of Violent Conflicts,” in Peter Wallensteen, ed., Preventing Violent Conflicts: Past Record and Future Challenges (Uppsala: Department of Peace and Conflict Research, 1998), pp. 9–38. See also Edward C. Luck, “Prevention: Theory and Practice,” in Hampson and Malone, From Reaction to Conflict Prevention, pp. 251–274. 8. For analysis of regional conflict formations, see Barnett R. Rubin, Blood on the Doorstep: The Politics of Preventive Action (New York: Century Foundation Press, 2002), esp. chap. 7; and Andrea Armstrong and Barnett R. Rubin,

CHANDRA LEKHA SRIRAM & ZOE NIELSEN

15

“Conference Summary: Policy Approaches to Regional Conflict Formations,” November 20, 2002, available at www.nyu.edu/pages/cic/pdf/final2.pdf. See also Neclâ Tschirgi, “Making the Case for a Regional Approach to Peacebuilding,” Journal of Peacebuilding and Development 1, no. 1 (2002): 25–38. 9. See, for example, DFID, Causes of Conflict in Africa, pp. 13–15. 10. Roger E. Kanet, ed., Resolving Regional Conflicts (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998). 11. World Bank research has examined conflict levels, democracy, and ethnolinguistic fractionalization across five regions. See Patricia Cleves, Nat Colletta, and Nicholas Sambanis, “Addressing Conflict: Emerging Policy at the World Bank,” in Hampson and Malone, From Reaction to Conflict Prevention, annex 2. 12. Central America, although relatively peaceful now, is worth analyzing because of the rather similar causes and nature of conflicts countries there underwent through the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and because long-term peacebuilding remains important to prevent any resurgence of conflict. Some limited work has been done on this specific issue: see Center for Peace and Reconciliation, “The Causes of Conflict in Central America” (summary document, publication forthcoming), available at www.arias.or.cr/fundarias. 13. See, for example, Ivo H. Daalder, “Fear and Loathing in the Former Yugoslavia,” Matthew Evangelista, “Historical Legacies and the Politics of Intervention in the Former Soviet Union,” Trevor Findlay, “Turning the Corner in Southeast Asia,” Stephen John Stedman, “Conflict and Conciliation in SubSaharan Africa,” and Marc W. Chernick, “Peacemaking and Violence in Latin America,” all in Michael E. Brown, ed., The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1996). See also Nat J. Colletta, Tek Ghee Lim, and Anita Kelles-Viitanen, eds., Social Cohesion and Conflict Prevention in Asia: Managing Diversity Through Development (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2001). 14. See www.ecowas.int; United Nations, West Africa: Report of the InterAgency Mission to West Africa, UN Doc. S/2001/434, May 2, 2001. 15. See Barbara F. Walter, Committing to Peace: The Successful Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 16. Elizabeth Cousens and Chetan Kumar, with Karin Wermester, eds., Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile Societies (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001). 17. Joel Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988). 18. Chandra Lekha Sriram with Karin Wermester, “From Risk to Response: Phases of Conflict, Phases of Conflict Prevention,” in Sriram and Wermester, From Promise to Practice, pp. 13–34. 19. On regional arrangements and the UN in prevention, see United Nations, Review of the Development of the Modalities for Cooperation Between the United Nations and Regional Organizations in the Field of Conflict Prevention, UN nonpaper, February 6, 2001; and United Nations, Cooperation Between the

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INTRODUCTION

United Nations and Regional Organizations/Arrangements in a Peacekeeping Environment: Suggested Principles and Mechanisms, March 1999, available at www.un.org/depts/dpko/lessons/regcoop.htm; see also United Nations, Prevention of Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/55/985S/2001/574, June 7, 2001, p. 31.

1 Understanding Conflicts in the Horn of Africa EDMOND J. KELLER

THE HORN OF AFRICA COMPRISES THE COUNTRIES OF ETHIOPIA, ERITREA, Sudan, Djibouti, and the former Republic of Somalia. For over five decades this region has been the site of intermittent domestic and subregional conflicts. In many ways the forms of conflict common in each country have their roots in the colonial past or, in the case of Ethiopia, in the legacy of imperial rule. During the Cold War period, the internal conflicts in the states of the region were largely contained, as superpower patrons ironically used their assistance to clients to enable them to maintain domestic control and to deter real and potential enemies in the region that were supported by contending superpower adversaries. Border tensions between countries in the Horn during this period were consequently not a major problem. However, beginning in the late 1970s, this began to change. The Soviet Union lost its grip over its clients in the region (Sudan and Somalia) and shifted its support to Ethiopia. The United States countered by attempting an encirclement strategy, shifting its patronage to Ethiopia’s neighbors. Over the past decade or so, we have witnessed a growing incidence of internal conflicts that have spilled over borders in the Horn. This has forced the international community to seriously reconsider the notion of state sovereignty and the norms governing external involvement in domestic disputes.1 In the 1990s, the Organization of African Unity (OAU, now the African Union [AU]) established the Mechanism for Conflict Prevention and Resolution and charged it with developing a capacity for intervening in cases involving internal conflicts that threaten to become 17

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not only regionalized but also even internationalized. Also, the countries of the Horn (in cooperation with Uganda and Kenya) transformed the Intergovernmental Agency for Drought and Development (IGADD) into the Intergovernmental Agency for Development (IGAD). It was created not only to be a subregional economic union, but also to engage in prevention and management of inter- and intrastate conflicts. Although Cold War competition in the region between the superpowers served to constrain conflicts among the states in the Horn to some extent, with the end of the Cold War the field proved ripe not only for the escalation of conflicts between states, but also for the emergence of conflicts within them. The ready availability of arms in the formal as well as the informal international marketplace increased the potential for both interstate and intrastate conflict.2 This chapter critically examines the underlying as well as precipitating factors contributing to sociopolitical conflict in the Horn of Africa over the past half century and considers the various domestic, international, regional, and subregional approaches to managing conflict. The discussion is divided into three main sections. The first section considers the nature of the sociopolitical landscape of each country in the Horn, the processes of state and nation building, and the causes of internal conflict, particularly prior to the end of the Cold War. This includes a discussion of the shifting superpower alliances beginning in the late 1970s and the implications of this change for individual countries as well as for the region as a whole. The second section seeks to understand why such problems have forced the countries of the region, both individually and collectively, to attempt to find solutions to a whole host of conflicts. Although these conflicts are domestically based, they have regional implications. The discussion in this section centers on internal dynamics in present-day Ethiopia, Sudan, and the collapsed state of Somalia and then turns to efforts on the part of the AU and IGAD to deal with these problems. In the third section, I critically examine the only significant incident of interstate conflict in the Horn in recent history, the Eritrea-Ethiopia border dispute. I conclude with a brief discussion of the major findings of the chapter.

State Building, Nation Building, and the Seeds of Conflict

Although the countries of the Horn have a long history of interaction, they have never created a viable economic or political union. Each

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country—Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti—has had its own history of attempting to consolidate the state and then to build a sense among its people of being a unified, multiethnic state. In the case of Somalia, the problem has historically been one of building a homogeneous nation into a viable state.3 Each of these countries has complex social networks that must be examined if we are to understand current conflicts and possible solutions to them. In this section I briefly consider the political history of each of the countries in an attempt to identify the seeds of domestic as well as regional conflict. Ethiopia The major conflicts within the modern Ethiopian state have centered on claims by major ethnic groups to the right of self-determination. Initially the elements from the former Italian colony of Eritrea offered the most vocal opposition to inclusion in a multiethnic Ethiopian state. However, by the post–World War II era, other ethnic groups such as the Somali and Oromo were also making demands for self-determination. They essentially claimed that rather than being a victim of the “European Scramble” for Africa, Ethiopia was in fact a willing participant, subjugating and incorporating their nationality groups and their homelands. In the 1960s, Eritrean nationalism led to the war of national liberation, which, as discussed later, lasted thirty years and claimed the lives of thousands of people. Ethiopia, along with Liberia, is the only African country not to have experienced European colonization. The contours of the current state of Ethiopia were established beginning with the reign of Emperor Menelik II in the late 1800s. In the process of consolidating the Ethiopian imperial state, Menelik engaged in wars of conquest, incorporating various other nations (Ornomo, Somali, Afar, Gurage, etc.) into what was the core of the Abyssinian (Ethiopian) state, comprising ethnic Amharas and Tigrayans.4 The last Ethiopian emperor was Haile Selassie I, who assumed the throne in 1930. During his reign he worked diligently to modernize royal absolutism and to strengthen the hand of the secular state at the expense of traditional civil and religious authorities. His efforts in this regard were interrupted by the Italian Fascist invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 and its brief occupation of the country. The emperor was driven into exile and on his return, with the assistance of British and Commonwealth forces, he was able to make major advances in strengthening

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the hand of the Crown. He implemented a new fiscal system and modernized his military and the national bureaucracy. He sought to promote Ethiopia’s image internationally as a viable and cohesive multiethnic nation-state. After World War II, Ethiopia was among the first states to join the United Nations. Addis Ababa subsequently became the headquarters of the OAU, and several other international and regional organizations established offices there.5 In addition to making administrative reforms and diplomatic moves, Haile Selassie also attempted to modernize Ethiopia’s economy, of which agriculture had historically been the backbone. The emperor initially sought to strengthen this industry in order to increase revenue. His approach to modernization promoted an educated elite—predominantly from the Amhara and Tigray ethnic groups—emphasizing education for these groups and largely ignoring the need to build a genuine sense of Ethiopian national identity among the poor and culturally subordinate ethnic groups. While some individuals from these groups were incorporated into the ruling class, and in the process acquired a sense of devotion to the ideal of “Greater Ethiopia,” this practice was far from universal. Despite an endless stream of rhetoric from the emperor about a multiethnic, unified Ethiopia, there were few policies to promote it. Ethiopia’s first written constitution was completed in 1931. It enshrined royal absolutism and did not ensure representative democracy or an independent judiciary. In 1955, seeking to enhance his domestic authority and international reputation, the emperor encouraged a revision of the constitution: it provided for a popularly elected representative chamber of deputies but did not provide for political parties. It also gave the emperor the right to appoint and dismiss the prime minister. The emperor would occasionally pay visits to dissident areas in order to give symbolic assurances to subordinate groups whose plight he was concerned with, but seldom were such visits followed by significant policy changes. Resentment of his regime and the ruling Amhara-Tigray culture was deep-seated in most of the periphery. The situation of Eritrea under imperial rule is illustrative. A 1952 UN mandate united Eritrea with Ethiopia in a federal arrangement. Ethiopia annexed Eritrea in 1962 despite widespread opposition among several segments of the Eritrean population, triggering armed struggle for Eritrean independence.6 During the Italian Fascist occupation of the Horn during World War II, Somalis in Ethiopia’s Ogaden region had briefly been united with other parts of the Somali nation. This continued under British tutelage from 1945 to 1948. The British had created hopes among Somalis that

EDMOND J. KELLER

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on their departure they would leave intact a united Somali nation-state. However, Italy attained trusteeship of its colony of Italian Somaliland; France maintained possession of its colony of Djibouti; Somalis in Kenya’s Northeast Frontier District remained part of Kenya; and between 1954 and 1955, Ethiopia was granted the right to reoccupy the Ogaden. Between 1954 and 1960, Haile Selassie made sporadic attempts to “integrate” subject Somalis into the empire, but Somalis still sought to be a part of a Greater Somalia. In 1960, former British and Italian Somalilands (discussed below) achieved their respective independence and moved quickly to merge into the “Somali Republic.” In the Ogaden, the Somali Youth League (SYL), desiring to “reunite” all parts of the Somali nation, fueled the irredentist aspirations of the residents there. Although not an immediate threat, these aspirations triggered a major war with Ethiopia in the ensuing decades. In addition to the Eritreans and Somalis, the Oromo population began to assert claims of historic social injustice perpetrated on them by the imperial regime. Oromo are predominately found in the southern parts of Ethiopia, in peripheral areas that were incorporated during the expansion and consolidation of the empire in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Prior to this, the Oromo people had existed in relative autonomy as a loose confederation of clans who shared a common language and culture. In the second half of the twentieth century, Oromo nationalists even proclaimed that the Oromo nation had been colonized by the imperial state and that they had the right to selfdetermination. Under the emperor’s rule, the state sought to secure Oromo loyalty by developing alliances with certain Oromo leaders. The most favored among the Oromo were those who chose to become totally assimilated into the dominant culture of the Amhara, often adopting Christian names.7 Central bureaucrats, mostly from among the highland Amhara and Tigray people, represented the imperial state in the periphery and generally viewed the Oromo as mere subjects. The Oromo were regularly the victims of corrupt bureaucrats and judges.8 Their labor and agricultural output, particularly in coffee, became the backbone of Ethiopia’s emerging capitalist economy, but northern settlers and bureaucrats generally owned or had use rights to the land occupied by Oromo and other minority groups in the south, and they and the state were the primary beneficiaries of the produce of the land. Although most Oromo had not enjoyed full citizenship rights during the imperial era, a sense of Oromo national consciousness did not begin

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to surface until the mid-1960s, when the Oromo self-help association Macha-Tulama was founded.9 Since political parties were not allowed, associations such as Macha-Tulama often took on political roles. At its height, Macha-Tulama claimed as many as 300,000 members. It was most successful in the south in Bale and Arussi, where Oromo had been relegated to the status of tenants on land that was once theirs.10 In late 1966, the regime, alarmed by the growth in Macha-Tulama’s popularity, arrested and banned the organization’s top leadership. This did not eliminate Oromo nationalism: more serious militancy surfaced less than a decade later with the founding of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). By the early 1970s, Ethiopian society was characterized by widespread discontent. The regime appeared less and less capable of resolving the accumulating problems that confronted it. Previously the emperor had been able to rely on the support of the military, police, church, and bureaucracy to enable him to survive and pursue his development agenda. The contradictions, in large measure growing out of the process of modernization, underpinned the revolution that toppled the regime in 1974. By 1973, two main precipitating causes had emerged. First, a catastrophic drought gripped large parts of the country. More than 100,000 people died of malnutrition, disease, and starvation, a tragedy the regime appeared to ignore. Second, urban centers suffered unemployment, inflation, gasoline shortages, and shortages of basic food commodities. Groups such as teachers, students, taxi drivers, and industrial workers pressed the government to respond, but it either ignored them or reacted irresponsibly. Perhaps the most serious threat to the regime surfaced in February 1974 with a series of military mutinies, which became a movement led by a committee of 128 junior officers and enlisted men known as the Derg (derg means “committee” in Amharic). Haile Selassie was deposed on September 12, 1974. Initially this appeared to be nothing more than a military coup, but it soon became clear that the new rulers had revolutionary intentions, and the Derg promptly developed a well-defined ideology and program.11 The overthrow of the regime unleashed nationalist claims among subordinated groups. The military government initially believed it could find acceptable solutions to these claims, save for those of the Eritreans. Rather than seeking a political solution to their claims, the Derg attempted to crush the Etritrean nationalists using untrained militia. The

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militia, however, suffered high casualties and the war raged for another seventeen years. The Derg initially tried to win over other dissident nationality groups through social and economic reforms, but this strategy failed. Between 1976 and 1978, the country was nearly torn apart as serious challenges to the state arose not only in Eritrea but also in the Ogaden and at the center by groups opposed to the regime on ideological and political grounds. The Derg responded with violence and gross violations of human rights. In this social climate the United States, which had been Ethiopia’s superpower patron since 1952, attempted to force the country’s leaders to moderate their polices. On assuming the U.S. presidency in January 1977, Jimmy Carter announced suspension of military assistance to Ethiopia because of its poor human rights record. Relations between the two countries broke down in April of that year when the Derg expelled more than 2,000 U.S. military personnel and their dependents from the country. Facing escalating armed opposition to its rule, the Derg turned to the Soviet Union and Cuba for military assistance. This aid allowed the Derg to consolidate its power over the next decade.12 The Derg regime implemented policies and created institutions that made it look and operate like an orthodox Afro-Marxist regime. 13 The Derg waged war against what it termed “narrow nationalism” and promoted civil society organizations that cut across national identities. It nationalized urban and rural property; redistributed land to the poor; controlled the means of production, distribution, and exchange; and attempted to collectivize agricultural production. Seeking to consolidate its power and neutralize nationalist aspirations, it created the Workers Party of Ethiopia (WPE) in 1984 and adopted a Marxist-Leninist constitution in 1987, establishing the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE). The regime made impressive gains in education, literacy, and health care, but patterns of inequality persisted. The new constitution was never successfully implemented, and armed opposition to the Marxist regime escalated after its promulgation. A demoralized military faced a better-organized opposition, and a coup attempt in 1989 seemed to signal the beginning of the end for the Derg regime. The regime attempted to quell opposition by pledging sweeping reforms and even announced in 1990 that it was turning away from its socialist development strategy.14 However, the regime fell on May 28, 1991.

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Eritrea Social conflict in Eritrea has been based upon various issues, depending on the period under consideration. During the nationalist period following World War II, nationalist parties split between those favoring union with Ethiopia and those favoring total independence. During the struggle for national liberation from Ethiopia, the fault lines were mostly between the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) with its explicit Marxist agenda, and the Eritrean Liberation Front, which supported close alliance with Muslim countries. Most recently, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), formerly the EPLF, is at odds with groups favoring radical religious (Islamic) nationalism and with others who are unhappy with the slow pace of the transition to multiparty democracy. Eritrea has an estimated population of 3.5 million people, with nine significant ethnic groups. The largest among these are the Tigrinya- and Tigre-speakers, who make up about 80 percent of the population. The remainder of the population consists of the Afar, Bilein, Hedareb, Kunama, Nara, Rashaida, and Saho, all of whom have their own languages. There are two working languages, Tigrinya and Arabic, while English is used for international communication. The two predominant religions are Coptic Christianity and Islam, which have roughly the same number of followers. Eritrea also has some Catholic and Christian Protestant adherents.15 Eritrean nationalists built and consolidated a multiethnic identity through the struggle for independence, rather than from a sense of a common national culture that can be traced to antiquity. Italy established a colony in Eritrea in 1896 and remained until it was ousted by British and Commonwealth forces in 1941. From 1941 until 1952, Eritrea was a trusteeship of the UN governed by the British. In 1948, the UN set up a commission, composed of representatives from Burma, Guatemala, Norway, Pakistan, and South Africa, to recommend a plan for the trusteeship. In 1949, the commission submitted its findings. The majority (Burma, Norway, and South Africa) supported a union between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Guatemala and Pakistan favored complete independence for Eritrea. The UN chose federation, and the terms were laid out in a UN resolution passed in December 1950.16 An imperial council composed of equal numbers of Ethiopian and Eritrean representatives was responsible for drawing up a constitution during a transitional period of approximately two years.17 Eritrean political organizations supporting either unification or independence emerged during the years 1941–1946. The Unionist Party (UP), claiming that

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Eritrea had been stolen by the Italians from Ethiopia, favored unconditional reunification with Ethiopia. The Muslim League and several smaller parties favored independence; these were joined in 1947 by the Liberal Progressive Party (LPP), a predominantly Christian group. The parties favoring independence united to form the independence bloc. In the years leading up to the actual consummation of the federation, Eritrean political parties vigorously competed with each other to dominate the politics of independent Eritrea. Haile Selassie sought to ensure the UP’s emergence as the dominant player. Eritrea was united with Ethiopia in 1952, and the emperor worked to undermine Eritrean autonomy and to strengthen the center.18 In 1960, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), comprising mainly but not exclusively Muslim Eritreans from the rural western lowland border areas of Eritrea, was founded in Cairo as an exile army of national liberation. By 1967, the ELF had gained considerable support among peasants, particularly in the northern and western parts of the territory and around the port city of Massawa. The ELF divided the country into five military regions, giving regional commanders wide latitude in their respective zones. Eventually disputes within the organization over strategy and tactics led to its fragmentation and the creation in 1971 of another independence movement, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front. Like the ELF, the EPLF was left-leaning but it included more members from the urban centers of the highlands. By the time that Haile Selassie was deposed, the Eritrean guerrillas had become a formidable threat to Ethiopia. However, when Ethiopia began to receive Soviet and Cuban military assistance in 1977, it was able to force the EPLF into liberated zones along the border with Sudan. In 1981, the ELF was ousted from Eritrean territory by a combined force of the EPLF and its Ethiopian ally, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Between 1978 and 1987, the EPLF waged an escalating war against Ethiopian forces and forged alliances with Ethiopian opposition groups seeking to depose the Derg. The EPLF’s closest ally was the TPLF, with which it coordinated its attacks on the Derg’s military garrisons. Following the withdrawal of Soviet military and economic assistance in 1989, the two fronts intensified their campaigns against the Derg regime. In the spring of 1991, the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), an umbrella group of organizations, managed to topple the Derg regime. During the last days of its struggle, the EPRDF had agreed that it would not oppose a referendum on independence for Eritrea, for which Eritreans voted almost unanimously in 1993.19

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Eritrea’s liberation and vote for independence generated great euphoria. The EPLF soon set about preparing the country to govern its own affairs. In February 1994, the EPLF dissolved itself and reformed as the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, which constituted the only legal political movement during the first decade of independence.20 In April of the same year, the Constitutional Commission of Eritrea (CCE) was established to orchestrate democratization. It took more than three years to draft the Eritrean constitution, which commits the country to political pluralism but does not specifically call for multiparty democracy. The constitution remains unimplemented despite its ratification in May 1997.21 Initially the relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia, at least at the leadership level, was amicable. There was even some discussion of eventually creating a confederation of the two states. However, in spring 1998, a border war erupted, the details of which are discussed later. Shortly after the cessation of hostilities between the two countries in 2000, troubles emerged within the PFDJ itself. This was due in part to the slow pace of political liberalization. The ruling group became deeply split when, in May 2001, fifteen leading members of the PFDJ’s seventy-five-member Central Council published an open letter denouncing the autocratic rule of President Issayas Afwerki. This group, popularly referred to as “G-15,” or the “reformists,” accused Issayas of violating the PFDJ constitution and went on to call for the full implementation of the constitution with multiparty elections.22 In September of that year, Issayas arrested eleven reformers over a two-day period. The PFDJ continues to face opposition from groups such as the Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement and the Eritrean Islamic Salvation, which it accuses Ethiopia, Yemen, and Sudan of supporting. The military wing of the Eritrean National Alliance, an umbrella organization made up of thirteen organizations that was formed in Khartoum in 2003 and has a significant presence in Addis Ababa, also poses a threat. The National Alliance claims to train troops inside Eritrea and pledges soon to begin military operations inside the country.23 Another opposition group is the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front–Democratic Party, which was established by former members of the PFDJ in exile. The leadership of the PFDJ is not under serious threat from these movements, but it remains fearful that Ethiopia will work through them to destablize Eritrea and even topple the regime of Issayas Afwerki. Consequently, the mood in the country will continue to be precarious for the foreseeable future.

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Sudan Throughout its independent history, Sudan has been characterized by multiple levels of conflict: tensions between the mostly Arab and Islamic northern part of the country and the non-Arab and non-Muslim southern part of the country, between secular nationalists and religious nationalists, and between various strands of the Muslim community over the kind of Islamic society Sudan should be. Modern-day Sudan can trace its history back almost 200 years. The state was constructed during the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, which was centered in Turkey. The Turks gained control of present-day Egypt at the turn of the nineteenth century and moved south from their stronghold in Cairo. When the Ottoman Empire collapsed in the late 1880s, the British government moved into Egypt, coveting the newly opened Suez Canal. Seizing control of Egypt and the canal thus enabled Britain to control the sea route from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea. The British became involved in Sudan on the pretext of stopping the slave trade there. The British were ousted from Sudan by the Mahdists for a decade (1888–1898). When they returned, they chose to rule Sudan through Egyptian administrators in what came to be known as “condominium rule.” When Egypt gained its independence in 1922, Britain, wanting to control the strategically important Nile River Valley, became more involved in Sudan. Sudan has a population of about 36 million people comprising more than 140 different ethnolinguistic groups. Some estimates suggest that at least 400 different languages are spoken in Sudan.24 Black Africans make up more than 52 percent of the country’s population and include the Azande, Dinka, Nuer, and Shiluk peoples. Arabized Sudanese account for almost 40 percent of the total population. While African Sudanese compose the majority of the population, they are mostly concentrated in the southern fifth of the country. By far the majority of the population (70–75 percent) adheres to some form of Islam. Most of the southern Sudanese adhere to either traditional beliefs (25 percent) or some form of Christianity (5 percent). Arabic is the official language. While spoken by about 51 percent of the population as a first language, it is used as a second language by many more people. English is also widely spoken. The Sudanese population is extremely diverse not only in its ethnic characteristics but also in its religion and way of life. Historically, the social elite were Sudanese Arabs who could claim some connection to the great families of Arabia, with presumed ties to

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the prophet Muhammad. While the British allowed these northern Islamic elites to flourish, after 1922 they sought to keep Islam from spreading south, where they envisioned the development of a local administration under the control of southern bureaucrats. In 1930, they introduced what they termed the “Southern Policy,” aimed at erecting and enforcing barriers to penetration of the south by northerners and at stopping the spread of not only Islam but also trade. In place for twenty years, the policy did little to move the south forward in terms of development or self-rule. In retrospect, it perpetuated the inequality and had devastating consequences for the south when it was incorporated into an independent Sudan. When nationalist politics began to accelerate in the 1950s, there was also no attempt to develop a sense of Sudanese national consciousness in the south. After the unification of the north and the south in 1947, the move toward independence occurred rapidly, despite the fact that the nationalist movement was rather disorganized, with most groups agreeing only that the British should leave. There was no clear vision about what the future of Sudan should be. The main beneficiaries of the British exit strategy for Sudan were the northern sectarian leaders who sought to protect their own class and group interests. The Mahdists and the Khatimiyya sect had built vast business and agricultural empires during the colonial period. There were some secular nationalists in the north, but they did not seriously challenge the power of the religious groups. They generally saw the move to independence only in terms of what came to be known as “Sudanization”—the process of replacing colonial administrators with nationals. 25 As independence approached, gross inequalities between the north and the south remained, and political developments were too fast-paced for southerners to organize and become effectively involved. Northern Islamic Arabs had a vision of Sudan that was driven by their religious convictions more than anything else and did not attend to the need to allay the fears of many southerners. Many southerners came to feel that a benevolent, if neglectful, British colonial rule was being replaced by a tyrannical Arab and Muslim postcolonial government bent on Islamicizing the entire country. Consequently, they felt they had to find an exit strategy for their group or to engage in preemptive attacks against the northerners. While Muslim politicians publicly claimed their respect for the equality of all Sudanese citizens, for many southerners this commitment was not credible. Some explained their mistrust of the northerners as stemming from memories of the slave trade. Such mistrust led to a mutiny by southern Sudanese soldiers at the Torit Barracks

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in Equatoria province in August 1955. Widespread killing of northerners in the south followed. The new interim government of the National Unionist Party retaliated, but Sudan nonetheless achieved independence on January 1, 1956. Independence was achieved in Sudan at the same time that southerners were mobilizing for civil war, a conflict that has continued to the present with only an eleven-year respite between 1972 and 1983. A military coup in 1958 brought civilian rule to an abrupt end. This military regime was itself deposed in 1964 by a popular uprising known as the “October Revolution.” The newly elected government of Muhammad Ahmed Mahjoub was ousted in 1969 by a military coup headed by Ga’afar al-Numeiri, with the support of the Sudan Communist Party. In 1971, there was a failed coup attempt against Numeiri that was thought to be a communist plot. Subsequently the coup plotters were executed and Numeiri moved away from his superpower patron, the Soviets, and toward the United States. Numeiri also moved quickly to find a political solution with southern rebels, which was reached with the signing in 1972 of the Addis Ababa Agreement.26 Numeiri attempted to build trust among the southerners, granting them a measure of regional autonomy. However, in 1977 hard-line Islamists began to demand a revision of the Addis Ababa Agreement and the implementation of sharia (Islamic law).27 By the early 1980s, Numeiri had begun to capitulate to the demands of the fundamentalists, distancing himself from the south. On June 5, 1983, he issued “Republican Order Number One,” abrogating the Addis Ababa Agreement and returning regional powers to the central government; he later declared Sudan an Islamic state. 28 These acts triggered Sudan’s second civil war and the mobilization of southerners by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA). In contrast to the south’s first resistance movement, the SPLA did not prioritize regional autonomy, calling instead for Sudan to be the transformed into a multiracial, multireligious, and multiethnic democratic state.29 Despite having capitulated to the fundamentalists, Numeiri, his regime, and his military were widely viewed by the population at large as weak and too closely tied to the United States. The regime was overthrown in a popular uprising supported by the military in the spring of 1985. National elections followed, and Sadiq al-Mahdi came to head up a coalition civilian government. This regime, however, lasted only four years; it was deposed by General Omar Hassan Amad al-Bashir in a military coup d’état on June 30, 1989. Bashir immediately canceled all prior agreements and acted quickly to eliminate opponents and consolidate his

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power. He revoked the constitution of 1985, abolished parliament, banned political parties and detained their leaders, closed all newspapers, and, most important, intensified the war in the south.30 The political opposition went underground, into the bush and into exile. The National Democratic Alliance (NDA), an umbrella organization that comprised a number of political opposition groups (including the SPLA) as well as armed and unarmed northern and southern organizations, professional associations, and trade unions, was founded in 1989.31 However, the NDA has yet to emerge as a coherent military force comparable to the SPLA. Southern leaders who had served in the Sudanese national military now command the SPLA. They have liberated significant areas of the south and have maintained ready access to arms and equipment to provide effective opposition to the Sudanese army and their brutal regional militia supporters. The war has been costly, claiming more than 2 million people, with many more dislocated and injured. Somalia The territory we normally associate with modern Somalia is to a large extent ethnically homogeneous and Muslim. Social conflicts have historically been largely parochial and based upon clan interests and clan identities. In order to understand why the Republic of Somalia collapsed and why the region continues to be troubled, one must understand the processes of nation and state building in the area. The Somali nation is divided into six clan families (the Dir, the Hawiye, the Darood, the Isaaq, the Rahanwayn, and the Digal), which are organized around the principles of a lineage system.32 The Somali people see themselves as being the descendants of a single founding father, Samaale, and therefore related by blood and culture. The clan families are divided into subclans, sub-subclans, and so forth. Although the larger clan families are an important part of individual identity, until recently clan families were not significant political forces. Sometimes alliances that cut across clan lines were constructed for political purposes. Somalia’s descent into chaos can largely be attributed, however, to conflicts that ranged from the sub-subclan level up to the clan family level, depending on the circumstances and the elites involved. What is now referred to as “the collapsed state of Somalia” or “the former Republic of Somalia” owes its origins to the period of European

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colonialism. In the late 1800s, the British had colonized the northern third of the territory and the Italians the remainder. On securing their separate independence, Somali elites in the northern and southern regions agreed to come together as the Republic of Somalia. Approximately 8 million people inhabit the territory that until 1991 was known as Somalia. Eighty-five percent of the population is Somali; they speak the national language, Somali, and adhere to some form of Islam. The remainder of the population, classified as Bantu-speakers, is settled in the south along the Wabi Shebelle River. There now exist two self-described independent Somali states (without international recognition): the Republic of Somaliland and Puntland. The remainder of the country remains a collapsed state attempting to reconsolidate itself. During the colonial period, the British in the north and the Italians in the south layered their respective colonial administrations on top of the traditional forms of Somali social organization. In 1940, the British were driven out and replaced temporarily by the Italian Fascists, who were themselves driven out of the entire Horn region in 1941 and replaced by a British military administration. Subsequently, the former Italian Somaliland became a UN-mandated trust territory under Italian rule until the UN commission recommended independence.33 Under UN trusteeship the south was prepared for independence, and party politics were allowed to emerge. In the north, political development was much less advanced. Whereas independence in the south, which came in late June 1960, followed a systematic timetable, the British decision to grant its Somali colony independence was almost a spur-of-the-moment decision. When the leaders of the two independent Somali states entered into negotiations on how to form a union of the two, northern elites were at a clear disadvantage. They had not had as much experience with Western-style governance or institution building as their counterparts in the south. As a result of elite bargaining preceding the formation of the Republic of Somalia, the national assemblies of the north and south elected as president a member of a subclan of the Hawiye family. There was a systematic effort to ensure a balanced representation of all clan families in the government. For a time this limited ethnic tensions, although southerners came to resent the fact that both the president and the prime minister were from the north. From the beginning, the challenges of state building were enormous. Even though the existence of a Somali nation was readily accepted, there

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had previously been no unified Somali nation-state. Somalia developed a liberal multiparty democracy, but given traditional patterns of clan politics and the newfound significance of the national political system, this led to divisive party politics and the seeds of state collapse. In the first year of independence, northerners attempted a military coup.34 North-south tensions were strong from the start. Even though the capital of the new republic was in the south and most southerners were not proficient in English, English became the working language of government.35 Northerners tended to come to Mogadishu to take up positions in the national bureaucracy and to become involved in commerce. They became important players in national politics. The return of the Somali diaspora also posed a challenge. Somali irredentism occurred in Kenya and Ethiopia almost immediately after the formation of the Republic of Somalia. In 1964, the Somali army engaged in open conflict with Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden. The attempt to wrest the Ogaden from Ethiopia failed, however, because of the poor organization and weak capacity of the Somali force. Democratic politics have tended to compound the problems of state and nation building. By March 1969, there were sixty-four political parties in Somalia, most based upon clan affiliations. In national elections that year, these parties competed for 123 seats in the National Assembly, resulting in chaos. The run-up to the election was characterized by fraud, intimidation, bribery, and violence. Six months after assuming office, President Abdirashid Ali Shermaarke was assassinated. The military, under the leadership of General Mohammed Siad Barre, took political control.36 The main objective of the coup-makers was said to have been the elimination of corruption in the country. Shortly after taking power, Siad Barre created the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) and announced a new objective, that of engaging in a socialist revolution. He abolished all political parties and charged students to deliver the message of the revolution to the countryside and to help in community development projects. Despite his rhetoric, there is reason to question Siad Barre’s commitment to socialism. He seems to have used the “revolution” as a convenient instrument of rule. A key concern was the language problem: he declared Somali the national language and ordered that it be written down for the first time in history.37 This had the immediate effect of lessening a great deal of tension throughout the country. He also engaged in a national literacy campaign: by 1975 about half the country’s population could read and write in Somali. Prior to the revolution, only

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5 percent of the population could read and write in any language.38 Ironically, however, rather than reducing ethnoregional perceptions of inequality and injustice, the language policy accentuated other forms of inequality that existed between classes and between urban and rural residents. Even though he ran Somalia with an iron fist, Siad Barre publicly claimed to be committed to democracy. In 1976, the SRC was dissolved and replaced by the Socialist Revolutionary Party, leading to greater government repression. At the same time, Siad Barre seemed to have become obsessed with the idea of liberating the Ogaden and making it a part of Somalia. The Soviet Union, Somalia’s traditional superpower patron, tried to discourage him from doing this, but he would not be deterred. In the summer of 1977, when the Ethiopian state appeared on the verge of collapse, regular Somali troops entered the battle for the Ogaden in support of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF). 39 Siad Barre appears to have been encouraged by the decision of the United States to sever ties with Ethiopia and court Somalia.40 Over the next seven months, the Somalis came to control most of the Ogaden, with the exception of the towns. The Ethiopians responded by securing military aid from the Soviet Union and some of their Eastern Bloc allies, including Cuba. By February 1978, the Somalis were in retreat. Ogadenis fled into Somalia in fear of Ethiopian reprisals, creating a serious strain on the Somali economy. In the end the Ogaden campaign failed, creating a widespread sense of shame and discontent among Somalis. Many Somalis came to blame Siad Barre, claiming that he was more interested in pursuing the acquisition of the Ogaden to bolster his standing among clan-based allies than in ensuring national interests. Siad Barre came from the Darood clan family and the Mareehaan clan. His mother was from the Ogaden subclan. Siad Barre was also closely associated with the family of his son-in-law, General Mohammed Siad Hersi “Morgan,” who came from the Dolbahante clan. Thus his alliance came to be known as “MOD”: Mareehaan, Ogaden, Dolbalhante.41 As the revolution foundered, Siad Barre became more and more paranoid and isolated. He came to see his most serious enemies as coming from among the Majeerteen clan family. He also feared the Hawiye and Isaaq clan families, which had become the most politically important groups during the postindependence period. Following the defeat of Somali forces in the Ogaden, some Majeerteen officers criticized Siad Barre; he had them executed, heightening

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tensions. Civil war broke out and a Majeerteen-based opposition movement called the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), composed mostly of Majeerteen clan family members who were in opposition to Siad Barre, set up its headquarters in Ethiopia. The Somali National Movement (SNM) was created in April 1981. A year later an uneasy alliance was formed between the two groups with the sole purpose of overthrowing Siad Barre. Subsequently, other groups opposed to the Siad Barre regime emerged, including the Hawiye-based United Somali Congress (USC), which was instrumental in orchestrating his overthrow on January 27, 1991. The collapse of the Siad Barre regime was followed by anarchy. Armed opposition groups attempted to gain control of the areas where they operated. In the central and northeastern parts of the country, the SSDF had great support and little competition and was able to achieve some stability and to deliver some social services to the inhabitants of those regions. In the northwest, the SNM gained control and declared an independent Republic of Somaliland. In a large area of the south, anarchy reigned. The violence mostly involved clans and subclans fighting against each other for the control of territory and resources. In the capital, Mogadishu, there emerged a power struggle within the USC. Ali Mahdi Mohamed, the leader of one faction of the USC, proclaimed himself interim president, but a USC rival, General Mohamed Farah Aideed, opposed him. Apart from this being a personality struggle, it was a struggle between two Hawiye subclans. Armed battles fueled by clan and subclan competition raged not only within Mogadishu but also throughout southern Somalia.42 In the process, the agriculturally based economy of the south collapsed, exacerbating the effects of drought and famine. Thousands of innocent Somalis faced the twin threats of war and starvation until the international community, led by the UN, decided to intervene for humanitarian reasons in the spring of 1992.43 Within a year the humanitarian situation in Somalia had been brought under control, and UN peacekeepers were withdrawn. However, anarchy continued in many parts of the country. Djibouti Social conflict in independent Djibouti has largely been along ethnic lines. It is a small country with a population of about 500,000. There are two major ethnic groups: Somalis, who make up 60 percent of the

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population and are mainly from the Issa clan, and the Afar, who make up 35 percent of the population. Djibouti’s primary asset is its strategic location at the foot of the Bab el Mandeb Strait, a narrow part of the Red Sea close to the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. The country achieved its independence from France in 1977, but there is still a significant French presence in Djibouti. The French retain a garrison of 4,000 troops and naval and air facilities in the country.44 Historically, Djibouti had been an important outlet to the sea for Ethiopia, particularly during the period of Italian colonialism in Eritrea. However, after World War II and the establishment of Ethiopia’s claim to Eritrea, Ethiopia developed its own ports. Since its independence, Djibouti has been ruled by the People’s Rally for Progress (PRP), composed mainly of Somalis. The main opposition party is the Afar-based Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD). Despite its political dominance, the PRP sought to create an ethnically balanced government. However, at independence the PRP refused to allow the Afar to form their own party, and in 1981 Djibouti officially became a one-party state. Feeling increasingly marginalized as a group, the Afar began to organize for armed opposition to the government of Hassan Gouled. In 1991, FRUD, an umbrella organization of three Afar opposition groups, was born. Within months, FRUD controlled much of the northern part of Djibouti occupied by the Afar. Hassan Gouled appealed to France for military assistance in putting down the uprising. However, France, like most Western countries, was promoting an end to authoritarian and one-party rule in the early 1990s and refused to provide support. By refusing to come to Hassan Gouled’s aid, France was sending a signal that he should moderate his policies and open up the political system. In addition to the pressures being placed on the PRP by France, and the intensifying struggle being waged by FRUD, Hassan Gouled agreed to constitutional reform in 1992 allowing for a multiparty system. The 1992 constitution allowed for four legal parties to compete in the elections later that year, but only two fielded candidates. In the most recent elections for the National Assembly, there were no limits on the number of parties allowed to compete. Under Djibouti’s electoral system, all of the seats in the country’s sixty-five constituencies go to the winning party. The opposition has long opposed the winner-take-all practice. Thus, although the Union for a Democratic Alternative won 37 percent of the vote, it received no parliamentary seats.45

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Managing Conflict: Internal and External Approaches

The conflicts that have occurred in the Horn since the 1960s have largely been internal. Border conflicts have been rare. In either case, the countries of the Horn have recently turned their attention to the creation of institutions that address both domestic and regional conflicts. Some efforts to deal with domestic conflicts have been “homegrown,” internal to the individual country; however, when conflicts have spread across borders, external actors have become more directly involved. Domestically, leaders might engage in policies of hegemonic control or alternatively attempt to create an enabling environment for transparent statesociety relations. The objective of the second approach is to build trust among aggrieved groups. The specific characteristics of a conflict will determine the most effective approaches to conflict mediation. Strong states might for a time rely upon hegemonic control, but states that are somewhat weak or are led by leaders with the political will to build legitimacy based upon trust might more effectively engage in transparent policymaking with a commitment to equal citizenship rights. There are four main, sometimes overlapping, trust-building options commonly available to national leaders. The first is to demonstrate respect for all groups and cultures in the public policies of the regime. The second is to establish formal and informal power-sharing arrangements between groups. The third is to conduct elections according to rules that ensure either power sharing or the minimal representation of all ethnic groups in national politics. And finally, the decision can be taken to establish a federal system or grant regional autonomy.46 The current government in Ethiopia has set up a system that is a quasi-power-sharing arrangement at the center, with all major ethnic/ nationality groups represented in the national government. It has constructed what it claims is a democratic national political system based upon “ethnic federalism.” On assuming power in Sudan, the Bashir regime attempted hegemonic control but later engaged in a mix of regional autonomy and power sharing. The collapsed state of Somalia remains in search of its way. In the north, the Republic of Somaliland has declared its autonomy; Puntland is contested by factions for and against a reunification of the Republic of Somalia; and in the south, a transitional government is attempting to come up with a pact to gain international recognition as the reconstituted national government of Somalia. In Eritrea, the government promulgated a democratic constitution but continued to rule in an autocratic fashion. In Djibouti, the regime

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practices a form of “ethnic arithmetic” in filling top posts in the national government, but it maintains tight reigns on political power. The degree to which these countries have sought external assistance in solving their internal conflicts varies. Ethiopia and Djibouti have attempted to find internal solutions involving federalism and limited power sharing, respectively; in Eritrea, the government has attempted in a hegemonic manner to deal with its problems internally; and Sudan, and at least part of Somalia, have turned to external mediators to help them solve their internal problems. How successful have conflict management efforts been in each situation? What conditions seem to have led to a selection of one approach as opposed to others in particular situations? This section of the chapter highlights Ethiopia, Sudan, and the former Somalia. The case of Ethiopia demonstrates how a country in the Horn has attempted to address internal sources of conflict through its own institution building. The cases of Sudan and Somalia focus on attempts by the subregional organization IGAD to manage an internal conflict: in the case of Sudan, IGAD was invited by the warring parties to mediate; in Somalia, IGAD sought to create an enabling environment for the reconstitution of a collapsed state. In Africa, in particular, subregional organizations such as IGAD have, over the past decade, come to assume a larger role in mediating internal conflicts that spill over borders or threaten to do so. This has been necessitated by the reluctance of the regional organization, the OAU, as well as the UN, to become directly involved in such situations. Ethnic Federalism in Ethiopia On assuming power in 1991, the transitional government of Ethiopia saw dealing with the grievances of various ethnic groups and their demands for self-determination as one of its primary challenges. The EPRDF-dominated government first sought to demonstrate its intent to address in an effective manner many of Ethiopia’s past problems, including the grievances of ethnic and religious groups who claimed to have been historically oppressed. Within a few weeks of taking power, it convened a national conference. Thirty-one political movements were represented, and a transitional charter was agreed to in July 1991. The transitional government that was finally agreed to had broad ethnic representation. The transitional period lasted two years, and the constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) was put in place in 1994.47

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The EPRDF sought to convey its intent to create a federal system of government with ethnic self-determination through the transitional and selected proclamations. Nationality groups were guaranteed the right to self-determination, including secession. States in the federal system would be based on ethnic identity. These provisions represented a dramatic departure from the policies of previous regimes. The new policy prompted protests among Ethiopian nationalists both at home and abroad who violently opposed what they saw as the “balkanization” of Ethiopia. Despite this, the regime demonstrated that it was determined to create an ethnically based federal state. The stated purpose of the EPRDF was to reduce ethnic tensions and conflicts that had dominated modern Ethiopia, to directly address social and economic problems in such a way that all ethnic groups were treated as equals, to build a democratic society, and to construct effective, efficient, and uncorrupt systems of government.48 In order to do this, there would have to be a new social compact for the polity. Such a compact was not negotiated among elites representing the major groups in society. Rather it was imposed from the top. What at least initially evolved, then, was an asymmetrical form of federalism that was overly centralized and operated almost like a unitary, centralized state. This happened in part because the EPRDF seems to have become alarmed about the possibility of ethnic war. In 1992, the government organized the first multiethnic elections in Ethiopia’s history, for local and regional offices. In the days leading up to the elections in June, ethnic tensions ran high. Although ethnic parties had been included in the broadbased governing coalition, there were fears among groups such as the Oromo, the Amhara, and Somalis that these elections would not be free and fair and that the elections would simply provide a cover for the TPLFdominated EPRDF. Days before the elections, major parties, including the Oromo Liberation Front, the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia, and the All-Amhara People’s Organization, announced that they would not participate in the process. At the same time, the armed wing of the OLF left the camps to which it had been confined in the lead-up to the elections and engaged in low-intensity warfare against the forces of the EPRDF. The election resulted in a landslide for the EPRDF and parties that it supported. In the following months, the government banned all political parties that attempted to pursue their objectives through force of arms, as well as the former Marxist ruling party, the WPE.49 By the end of 1993, the governing coalition had narrowed considerably. Groups were removed from representation in the government for

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a variety of reasons. Consequently, the membership of the Transitional Council was reduced to the representatives of the EPRDF and ethnically based parties that it had created. Organized opposition inside the country was repressed and largely went underground. At this time, however, groups such as the OLF and Al-Itahad al-Islamia continued to pose threats to Ethiopia’s stability. The war with Eritrea (discussed below) had the unexpected consequence of creating disagreements within the TPLF and at the same time recasting Prime Minister Meles Zenawi as a champion of Ethiopian national unity. Twelve high-ranking officials in the TPLF’s Central Committee attempted to move against Meles, charging that he had made a mistake by not completely destroying Eritrea’s army before going to the peace table. The Ethiopian nation rallied behind the prime minister during the war, although many still disagree with Article 39 of the constitution,50 which declares the right of nationality groups to set up their own states and recognizes the right to self-determination. Following the signing of the Algiers Peace Accord in December 2000, Meles acted quickly through the Ethiopian practice of gimgema (reassessment) to purge the TPLF, other parties affiliated with the EPRDF, and even regional state governments. Publicly Meles declared that the war with Eritrea was unnecessary and should not be repeated. Ethnic federalism in Ethiopia has not yet borne any measurable fruit. This is due to the limited human and material resources available for it, and to continuing poverty and underdevelopment. The war did much to set development plans back, costing Ethiopia more than U.S.$2.9 billion (50 percent of the annual national budget).51 The EPRDF has continued to be unable to establish legitimacy or win widespread trust among the people. What is important here, however, is that Ethiopia has attempted to deal with its ethnic and religious problems on its own; the government has remained intact and so has the state, and therefore outsiders have not been invited as mediators. Conflict Mediation by Invitation in Sudan In Sudan, the trend toward the establishment of an Islamic state began in the Numeiri years, was temporarily interrupted during the interlude of civilian rule between 1985 and 1989, and was revived by the military coup that brought General Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir to power in 1989. Between 1989 and 1992, Bashir crushed both the National Democratic Alliance and civil society in general. Whereas prior to this Sudan

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appeared well on the road to peace, the new government sought to impose sharia throughout the country. Bashir had the backing of the influential National Islamic Front. While talking peace, Bashir intensified the civil war. Opposition forces then stepped up their own military efforts and forged alliances against the regime. With the support of Ethiopia, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army was able to fight off the Sudanese national army as well as the militias that supported it.52 When the Mengistu Haile Mariam regime fell in 1991, the SPLA was forced out of southern Ethiopia and back into southern Sudan. The government bombed the south indiscriminately from the air and supported militia on the ground. Some of the atrocities committed by the militia included rape, pillage, and human trafficking. Bolstered by new and more sophisticated weapons, the Bashir government was able to keep the SPLA and its various factions on the defensive throughout the mid-1990s. Between 1995 and 1997, the SPLA won significant battles in the south. Along with international pressure, this forced the Bashir government to finally agree to third-party intervention in hopes of finding a solution to the civil war. The Intergovernmental Agency for Development put forth a declaration of principles as the basis for negotiations. It is significant that this subregional organization accepted a role in attempting to resolve what was essentially a domestic conflict. The conflict had, however, developed into a threat to regional security. Historically the African Union, as well as subregional organizations, had refrained from involvement in domestic disputes, citing the principle of state sovereignty. The IGAD principles called for the right to self-determination for all Sudanese people, including the right to secession, and the separation of religion and state.53 These principles initially resulted in a stalemate in the mediation process, and Sudan’s relations with most of its neighbors continued to deteriorate. The UN has chosen not to become directly involved in what is seen as a domestic problem but supports the actions of the AU, which in turn supports IGAD’s initiative. Other mediators, including Eritrea, the United States, Libya-Egypt, Nigeria, and the European Union, have occasionally attempted to aid the settlement of the civil war. However, it is IGAD that has had the most success in moving the peace process along. This is in part because of the fallout from the Al-Qaida terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. The IGAD process was in place when the United States and its allies declared war on international terrorism. The regime in Sudan, anxious to demonstrate that it did not belong to the group of

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pariah states that were deemed to be harboring terrorists, has shown a willingness to cooperate with IGAD, which has intensified efforts to find a solution. The negotiations began to bear fruit in September 2002, when the government and the SPLA agreed to what has come to be known as the Machakos Protocol. The protocol lays out the principles agreed to and a framework for a transitional process. It further elaborates on two contentious issues in the negotiations: the separation of religion and state and the right of self-determination for the peoples of southern Sudan.54 The protocol states that, given the fact that Sudan is a multiethnic, multiracial, and multireligious society, there should be freedom of religious expression and practice. The agreement also calls for a six-year period of autonomy for the south, leading up to a referendum on the region’s political future. Power sharing and revenue sharing are the most contentious issues. A cease-fire has been agreed between the SPLA and the forces of the Sudanese military, but sporadic hostilities continue particularly in the contested areas of Abyei, the Southern Blue Nile, and the Nuba mountains. Moreover, the Sudanese government has accused both the SPLA and Eritrea of sponsoring a new armed uprising in the western province of Darfur, involving the Sudan Liberation Movement. It has also accused Eritrea of sponsoring the NDA’s armed incursions into Sudan and amassing Eritrean troops along its border.55 This situation and others mentioned above have resulted in a stalemate in the peace process.56 Although the talks over the next several months were off and on, a significant breakthrough was reached on September 25, 2003. At that time there was an agreement reached on what had proven to be the single toughest issue, security. Under the agreement, the SPLA/M will retain their forces in the south and the government has agreed to pull back some of its forces in the region. In addition, rebel forces will be gradually integrated into the national army. Significantly, the U.S. secretary of state, Colin Powell, made a trip to Kenya on October 21 to push for a final conclusion of the peace talks and the full implementation of the agreement.57 At a press conference, Powell declared that he expected that a full agreement on Sudan’s future would be in effect by the end of the year. The IGAD Initiative in the Somali Crisis Both the Sudanese peace process and the reconciliation conferences in Somalia highlight the viability of subregional mediation to address

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intractable domestic conflicts where dialogue offers the only way out from stalemates. For confidence-building measures to work, all relevant actors must accept the role of the mediating organization. The experience of IGAD in southern Somalia illustrates the challenges of mediation. The declaration of “independence” by the Republic of Somaliland in May 1991 presents mediators with the delicate challenge of addressing governance issues in a territory that has not yet attained international recognition. One observer described this situation as an unwelcome embarrassment.58 On May 31, 2001, the Republic of Somaliland held a constitutional referendum, which turned out to be akin to a formal plebiscite for independence. At one point, the government in Hargeisa, the republic’s capital city, made it clear that recognition of its independence was a sine qua non for entering into serious negotiations about reconstituting a united Somalia.59 Resolving the Somali challenge has domestic, regional, and international implications, and although IGAD seeks to operate as the primary mediating organization, its success will depend greatly on the role of the countries in the region and the commitment of its international partners. One of the most active external mediators in the Somalia crisis has been Djibouti. In 1985, Djibouti, under the leadership of President Hassan Gouled Aptidon, played a leading role in the establishment of IGADD (now IGAD). The first summit of this organization, in 1988, offered an opportunity to bring together the presidents of Ethiopia and Somalia and led to an agreement between them to cease supporting various opposition groups engaged in military operations against the governments of each country. In 1999, Gouled’s successor, Ismael Omar Gulleh, formally took the lead in organizing a new Somali reconciliation conference. Thus began the “Arta process,” which was the outcome of a Somali national peace conference held in Arta, Djibouti, from May 2 to August 26, 2000. Some 2,500 delegates, broadly representative of the Somali people (excluding the Republic of Somaliland and Puntland), agreed to a transitional charter or provisional constitution. A 225-member transitional assembly was elected and a transitional national government (TNG) was created. These developments were greeted with approval by the international community, although the process fell short of “making Somalia whole again.” At the same time, the TNG acquired substantial public support, thus undercutting the support for factional leaders despite the TNG’s inability to extend its authority beyond Mogadishu.60 Despite its potential for a successful reconciliation, the Arta process failed to restore a functional government throughout Somalia. Events

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such as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in the United States and the descent of Afghanistan into a war of global proportions placed Somalia on the margins of the international agenda. Given the growing regional concerns about the possibility that the Somali crisis could come to engulf the whole Horn region as well as its environs, IGAD, at its summit in Khartoum in 2002, called for a new peace conference to begin in March of that year. However, actual talks did not begin until September 2002. Ethiopia and Djibouti backed different Somali factions, thus preventing them from taking a credible lead in a Somali peace process. Kenya, which held the presidency of IGAD at the time, took the lead in mediating the conflict. The Somali national reconciliation process was organized as a three-phase operation. In the first phase, 300 Somali political, military, traditional, and civil society notables were to take part, come to an agreement on the objectives of the peace process, identify the core issues, and establish the terms of a memorandum of agreement leading up to a cessation of hostilities.61 From the first phase, seventy-five delegates were supposed to be chosen to constitute working groups called Reconciliation Committees, which would be responsible for drawing up the technical details of a new constitution, a demobilization process, modalities for revenue sharing, and the resolution of land and property disputes. An overarching Technical Committee from the so-called IGAD Frontline States (Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Kenya) was tasked with management of the process. The conference was finally convened on October 15, 2000, in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret. In short order, an agreement on the cessation of hostilities was agreed upon,62 and the broad outlines of the structures and principles of the Somali national reconciliation process were laid out. However, within weeks it was clear that chaos and confusion had taken over the process. Instead of 300 Somali delegates turning up at Eldoret, more than 1,000 arrived. In the end, it was agreed that some 800 delegates would take part. There was also confusion as to how seats would be allocated, whether on the basis of clan membership, faction membership, or some other criterion. To add to the confusion, Djibouti and Ethiopia, members of the Technical Committee, strategized against one another in favor of the “Somali” interests that they supported. What was finally agreed to was what has come to be known as the “4.5 formula,” which calls for clan representation and envisions 400 seats divided evenly between the four major clan groups, with minority groups collectively receiving half as many seats as a major clan.63

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Actual deliberations in Phase Two did not begin until December 3, 2002. Phase Two resulted in the adoption of an interim constitution or transitional federal charter in early September 2003. The agreement was meant to pave the way for a transitional parliament that would last for four years. Members of the parliament are to be selected by traditional leaders and politicians officially invited to the talks in Kenya by the IGAD Technical Committee. When this agreement was announced, however, the president of the transitional national government, Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, and a number of faction leaders rejected it, accusing Kenya and Ethiopia of derailing the peace process. Nevertheless, the talks moved to the third and final phase in early fall 2003. This is the phase to determine the distribution of future parliamentary seats. Despite this, for all intents and purposes, the talks have reached a stalemate and various factions opposing the constitutions have either taken up arms or are poised to do so.

Mediating a Border Dispute in the Post–Cold War Era: The Eritrea-Ethiopia War

Over the past five decades, border disputes have not been a major problem for the countries of the Horn. The most important such incidents have been the Ogaden War, fought between Ethiopia and Somalia from 1977 to 1978, and the border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which raged from 1998 to 2000. These cases contrast sharply with the domestic conflicts just discussed in that they required external mediation on the part of either the OAU (now the AU) or the OAU and the United Nations. This section focuses on the latter dispute. Hope for a bright future in the relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea was shattered when a border dispute broke out between the two countries in May 1998. The questions that demand answers are: why did the good relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea sour so quickly, and what efforts have been made to resolve the situation? The popular media have described the conflict as a senseless war over some barren territory. On the surface it was just that. As the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea both now acknowledge, the war did not have to happen, but it did. Historically, when border disputes have occurred between member states, the OAU could only offer good offices. For the foreseeable future, subregional organizations like IGAD are likely to be able to meet the need for mediation in such conflicts but only when the conflicts can be

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reasonably contained. From its inception the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea proved a poor candidate for successful independent mediation by either the OAU or IGAD; what was needed was UN action through a peacekeeping force and technical and legal support for the development of a lasting peace agreement that would involve national and subregional actors. Having cooperated in ousting the regime of Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991, the leaders of the governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia appeared to be on the way to establishing good relations between a democratizing Ethiopia and a newly independent Eritrea. Early on there had been discussion of a possible confederation of the two countries. Initially there was a free flow of people and trade across the borders of the two countries, and Ethiopia seemed at least officially committed to helping Eritrea recover from the ravages of a thirty-year war of national liberation. However, beneath the surface there were festering problems, not the least of which were the different economic development strategies pursued by the leaders of the two countries. Eritrea pursued a top-down development strategy in which the government had a great deal of control over the pace and pattern of economic development. After 1991, Ethiopia adopted a free-market approach to development. Over the years resentment grew as some Ethiopians perceived that Eritrea was flooding the Ethiopian market while making it very difficult for Ethiopians to do business in Eritrea. There were some claims that Eritrean traders were smuggling coffee across the border and exporting it. In 1997, Ethiopia began to complain about what it felt were exorbitant fees imposed by Eritrea for the use of its port at Assab. Economic tensions reached their apogee when in that same year Eritrea introduced its new currency, the nakfa, and pegged it on a one-to-one basis to the stable Ethiopian birr. At the same time, the Eritreans expected the Ethiopians to pay for the use of Assab in hard currency. In reaction, Ethiopia strongly refused to accept the nakfa as equivalent to the birr. Eritrea claimed that the conflict could be traced to 1992, following the drawing of boundaries for Ethiopia’s Tigrayans. The Tigray Regional Administration moved into the area known as Badme and began to impose fines on those Eritreans who they claimed were violating Tigray space. Several joint commissions were subsequently established at the subregional level to attempt to mediate territorial disputes, but negotiations were consistently difficult and inconclusive. During the struggle against the Mengistu regime, the TPLF and the EPLF signed an agreement on border claims that would remain in effect

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until the two governments came to a later agreement on the final disposition of their common border. Eventually, a joint committee of eight was created in 1997, and it was scheduled to meet on July 30 of that year in Badme. However, before the meeting took place, a map that had been commissioned by the Tigray administration surfaced. Although the Badme area had historically never been mapped out on the ground, the new map showed it to be clearly inside Ethiopian territory. The Tigray authorities in the region sought to establish effective control over the area. In November 1997, there was an urgent meeting of the Joint Border Commission at Asmara. The joint commission recognized that the risk of conflict arising from the tensions around Badme was very real. As late as May 1998, the Tigray authorities continued to attempt to establish the border around Badme, increasing tensions. War was precipitated when a contingent of Eritrean troops patrolling the border with Tigray questioned the legitimacy of the Tigray administration. A gun battle ensued and four Eritrean soldiers were killed. Eritrea, apparently feeling that it had no recourse but to retaliate, struck back militarily. A month of fighting was followed by a lull that lasted until February 1999. Rather than using the respite to negotiate, the two sides prepared for an escalation of a war of unusual risk in Africa because both possessed sophisticated weaponry.64 The two sides increased their troop numbers and defense spending. It has been estimated that at the height of the fighting Ethiopia’s army expanded to 450,000 troops, while Etritrean forces grew to 350,000.65 In the course of two years of fighting, it is estimated that 70,000–100,000 lives were lost. Many more were either wounded or displaced. Weapons were readily bought on the open market from private arms traders. In addition, foreign technicians, pilots, and mercenaries, mainly from former Soviet Bloc countries, became involved in the war. The direct cost of the war has been estimated at U.S.$350 million, but indirect costs push that figure up to U.S.$2.9–3.1 billion.66 The human cost of the war includes up to 1 million people driven into exile or internally displaced from contested areas, as well as the forced deportation of Etritreans from Ethiopia and Ethiopians from Eritrea. The government of Eritrea estimated in 1999 that at least 67,000 Eritreans, many claiming Ethiopian citizenship, had been deported from Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government claimed that 39,000 Ethiopians in Eritrea had met the same fate.67 When the border dispute first emerged, Ethiopia and Eritrea both sought the aid of third parties in an effort to avert war. They approached the United States and Rwanda to serve as a mediation team. By early

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June the mediation team had developed recommendations that essentially called for the unilateral withdrawal of Eritrea from the disputed territory and the return of Badme to Ethiopian administration. Ethiopia immediately accepted the plan, but Eritrea balked. Eritrea wanted demarcation of the border zone by independent and unbiased agents according to colonial maps. Moreover, the Eritreans felt that they were being treated as aggressors in the recommendations. The OAU, at its 1998 summit, was consumed with trying to work out a plan to get the two sides to at least begin talking. However, by the end of the year the OAU, even with broad international support, including sanctions from the UN, was unable to formulate a plan acceptable to both sides. The OAU proposed that a military monitoring group form a buffer along the border, but this failed because of Eritrea’s discomfort with military monitors and because the OAU plan called for a return of Badme to Ethiopia. Toward the end of 1998, the United States again tried to broker a peace plan, but nothing significant materialized. By February 1999, all third-party mediation efforts had failed and full-scale war began. For two weeks Ethiopian forces unleashed a massive assault on Eritrean positions, by air and by land, sometimes in waves of troops. The situation dominated the 1999 OAU summit in Algiers. Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, then OAU president, sought to implement the OAU Framework Agreement. The agreement called for the two parties to reaffirm their commitment to the peaceful settlement of their dispute and to commit themselves to good faith negotiations. The Eritreans were required to redeploy their forces outside the territories they had occupied after May 6, 1998, and the Ethiopians were also not to occupy the contested terrain. In May 2000, following intense diplomatic shuttling by special envoys from the UN Security Council, the OAU, and the United States, Eritrea accepted the OAU Framework Agreement. On June 18, 2000, the Algiers Agreement was provisionally agreed to by the warring parties. The parties also agreed to accept as binding the findings of an independent boundary commission. The war officially ended on December 12, 2000. The UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE)68 was established to separate the armies of the two sides along the border and sought to provide conditions conducive to a cartographic study of the disputed territory by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), an independent body. In April 2002, the EEBC issued its long-awaited report, but demarcation was to continue until November of the following year.

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After initially accepting the EEBC report, Ethiopia expressed concern that Badme was said to be on the Eritrean side of the border and that errors had been made by the commission in both the western and central sectors of the disputed territory.69 The commission could change its decision only if both sides agreed, and Eritrea would not agree. Physical demarcation of the border was to begin in July 2003. However, as of October 2003 this had not occurred, and there were clear signs that there would be a further delay. Ethiopia continued to call upon the UN Security Council to intervene and change certain aspects of the decision. The Security Council, however, refused. Despite the fact that neither side in the dispute seems to want yet another war, this remains an ever-present possibility as long as Ethiopia does not have at least some of its demands met or otherwise accepts the mandate of the UN. A crucial point that must be made is that Ethiopia has both troops and a governmental administration in the disputed region and is not prepared to leave the area until changes are at least discussed. Because of its scale and intensity, as well as its threat to regional security, the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict dictated that the UN, along with the OAU, become directly involved as never before in sub-Saharan Africa.70 Such operations are extremely costly and require the support of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and other wealthy countries. Neither the AU nor IGAD possesses the human, technical, or material capacity to sustain involvement in such difficult conflicts as represented in the Eritrea-Ethiopia border dispute. This is particularly the case for cross-border strife or domestic conflicts that threaten to become internationalized.

Conclusion

The Horn of Africa continues to be an area with significant conflicts. Although wars over state boundary disputes have been rare in the past five decades, when they have occurred, they have been extremely devastating to the countries involved. Much more common are internal disputes that have their roots in the colonial past (e.g., Djibouti, Sudan, and Somalia) or, as in the case of Ethiopia, the legacy of imperial rule. Modernization as well as the Cold War and its aftermath have served to exacerbate real and potential internal as well as border conflicts. Cultural pluralism represented by ethnicity, religion, and competing visions for the future on the part of those arrayed in tension will make the permanent

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resolution of such conflicts extremely difficult to achieve. In the short term, a better objective for domestic as well as regional and international actors is amelioration of whatever conflicts might emerge. Given changes in the thinking of the international community regarding state sovereignty and the norms of external intervention, it will become increasingly likely that external actors from the regional and subregional community will be invited to (or unilaterally choose to) intercede as mediators or peacekeepers in either domestic or regional conflict situations. In fact, it seems reasonable to expect that IGAD will assume a much larger role in attempting to settle domestic disputes as well as interstate conflicts when a mutually hurting stalemate has been reached and the feuding parties invite or are persuaded to accept some outside mediation. When conflicts between states involve extremely high costs in terms of military expenditures, mass mobilization of armed combatants, and massive loss of life and social displacement, it is incumbent upon the AU and the UN, as they did recently in the EritreaEthiopia border dispute, to become involved in a robust manner to achieve a cessation of hostilities and to find a political solution to the dispute. In rare cases, the international community might become involved, mostly for humanitarian reasons, and enter into a conflict situation even without direct invitation. There is a growing expectation in some circles of the international community today that in order to have their state sovereignty honored, the leaders of particular states must behave in a responsible manner and not threaten the well-being of their citizens to the point of committing crimes against humanity. Should they violate this code, international, regional, or subregional actors might feel that intervention is justified even without the invitation or consent of the state.71 A final important point is that the international community should support the willingness of regional organizations like the AU and subregional organizations like IGAD to engage in peacekeeping and conflict mediation, but it must recognize that they will require resources from the international community. Steady but slow progress is being made in this direction, but much more needs to be done.

Notes 1. See Edmond J. Keller and Donald Rothchild, eds., Africa and the New International Order: Rethinking State Sovereignty and Regional Security

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(Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1996); and David Lake and Patrick Morgan, eds., Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). 2. See Kiflemariam Gebre-Wold, “Curbing the Proliferation of Small Arms and Light Weapons in the Horn of Africa,” paper delivered at the International Peace Academy–International Consultation Conference “Building Peace in Eastern Africa,” Entebe, Uganda, December 2002. 3. See David Laitin and Said Samatar, Somalia: A Nation in Search of a State (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1987). 4. In terms of population, present-day Ethiopia is the second largest country in Africa, with a population of almost 70 million. It is populated by 80–100 distinct ethnic groups who speak more than seventy different languages. The single largest ethnic group is the Oromo (40 percent), followed by the Amhara (30 percent), the Tigray (9 percent), the Sidama (6 percent), the Shankella (6 percent), the Somali (4 percent), the Afar (2 percent), and the Gurage (1 percent). About 35–40 percent of the population adheres to the Coptic Christian or Ethiopian Orthodox religion. Most of these are Amharas or Tigrayans; 45–50 percent of the population are Muslims. CIA World Factbook 2002. 5. See Haile Selassie, The Autobiography of Emperor Haile Selassie I: My Life and Ethiopia’s Progress, 1892–1937 (London: Oxford University Press, 1976). 6. See Roy Pateman, Eritrea: Even the Stones Are Burning, (Lawrenceville, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1998). 7. See Alex de Waal, “Rethinking Ethiopia,” in Charles Gurdon, ed., The Horn of Africa (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), pp. 32–34. 8. At the time, most Oromos either were Muslim or adhered to some traditional religion. 9. See Mohammed Hassen, “The Macha-Tulama Association and the Development of Oromo Nationalism,” in Asafa Jalata, ed., Oromo Nationalism and the Ethiopian Discourse (Lawrenceville, N.J.: Red Sea Press, 1998), pp. 183–221. 10. See Patrick Gilkes, The Dying Lion: Feudalism and Modernization in Ethiopia (London: Julian Friedmann, 1975), pp. 225–226. 11. In 1976, the junta declared its intentions to follow a program for the National Democratic Revolution and its commitment to create a political system and government based on the principles of “scientific revolution.” A noncapitalist approach to development was supposed to be dictated by the fact that African states had not matured as capitalist systems, but instead were characterized by “medieval survivals.” This was said to make conditions in countries like Ethiopia different from the conditions that gave rise to the Russian Revolution of 1917. Logically, then, it was assumed that the general theory and practice of socialist transformation had to be adapted to conditions specific to Ethiopia. See A. S. Shin, National Democratic Revolutions: Some Questions of Theory and Practice (Moscow: Nauka, 1982). 12. See John Harbeson, The Ethiopian Transformation (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988); and Fred Halliday and Maxine Molyneux, The Ethiopian Revolution (London: Verso, 1981).

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13. See Edmond J. Keller and Donald Rothchild, eds., Afro-Marxist Regimes: Ideology and Public Policy (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1987). 14. Workers Party of Ethiopia, Eleventh Plenum of the Central Committee, New Economic Policy (Addis Ababa: Workers Party of Ethiopia, 1990). 15. See Pateman, Eritrea, p. 5. 16. See UN Resolution 390A(V), December 2, 1950. 17. See Richard Sherman, Eritrea: The Unfinished Revolution (New York: Praeger, 1980), p. 25. 18. In 1952, the Eritrean constitution was suspended; a year later all trade unions were banned, and four years later political parties were banned and the National Assembly was temporarily suspended. There were many other examples of the undermining of the federal arrangement, but the final and most important act was the de facto dissolution of the federation in 1960 when the assembly voted to change the name of the government from the “Eritrean Government” to the “Eritrean Administration.” By this act, the final annexation of Eritrea by Ethiopia in 1962 was merely a formality. See Edmond J. Keller, Revolutionary Ethiopia: From Empire to People’s Republic. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988, p. 153. 19. See Siegfried Pausewang and Astri Suhrke, eds., The Referendum on Independence for Eritrea: Report of the Norwegian Observer Group in UNOVER (Bergen: International Peace Research Institute, 1993). 20. See Ruth Iyob, “The Eritrean Experiment: A Cautious Pragmatism,” Journal of Modern African Studies 35, no. 4 (1997): 647–673. 21. See Eritrean Constitution (Asmara: Eritrean Government Printing Office, July 1996). 22. See “Crimes Against the State,” Africa Confidential 42, no. 14 (July 13, 2001): 4. 23. See “Opposition Alliance Says It Has Military Wing,” UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, May 1, 2003. 24. CIA World Factbook 2002. 25. Peter Woodward, Sudan 1898–1989: The Unstable State (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1990), pp. 78–79. 26. See Donald Rothchild and Caroline Hartzell, “The Peace Process in the Sudan, 1971–2,” in Roy Licklider, ed., Stopping the Killing: How Civil Wars End (New York: New York University Press, 1993), pp. 62–93. 27. See Ann Mosley Lesch, The Sudan: Contested National Identities (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. 28. International Crisis Group (ICG), God, Oil, and Country: Changing the Logic of War in Sudan (Brussels: ICG, 2002), p. 13. 29. “Background and Manifesto of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement,” Horn of Africa 8, no. 1 (1983): 39–46. 30. ICG, God, Oil, and Country, pp. 48–68. 31. Ibid. 32. The Dir, Hawiye, Darood, and Isaaq were historically pastoralists, and the Rahanwayn and Digal were sedentary agriculturalists. 33. See Laitin and Samatar, Somalia, pp. 31–32. 34. See Irving Kaplan et al., Area Handbook of Somalia (Washington, D.C.: American University Press, 1977), pp. 37–38.

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35. At the time, there was no written Somali language, hence the choice of English. 36. See Laitin and Samatar, Somalia, pp. 78–79. 37. Ibid., pp. 82–84. 38. Ibid., pp. 84–85. 39. This was at the height of the Red Terror Campaign in the Ethiopian Revolution. 40. See I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of Somalia: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 232–233; and Edmond J. Keller, “The OAU and the Ogaden Dispute,” in Georges NzongolaNtalaja, ed., Conflict in the Horn of Africa (Atlanta, Ga.: African Studies Association Press, 1991), pp. 105–106. 41. See Terrence Lyons and Ahmed I. Samatar, Somalia: State Collapse, Multilateral Intervention, and Strategies for Political Reconstruction (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995), pp. 14–15. 42. Ibid., pp. 21–24. 43. See Samuel M. Makinda, Seeking Peace from Chaos: Humanitarian Intervention in Somalia (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1993); and Edmond J. Keller, “Rethinking African Regional Security,” in Lake and Morgan, Regional Orders, p. 310. 44. See Patrick Gilks, Conflict in Somalia and Ethiopia (New York: New Discovery Books, 1994), pp. 36–39. 45. See Christophe Parayre, “Djibouti Polls Renew Presidential Monopoly, Fraud Alleged,” Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2003. 46. See David Lake and Donald Rothchild, “Containing Fear: The Management of Transnational Ethnic Conflict,” in David Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds., The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 203–226. 47. See Edmond J. Keller, “Ethnic Federalism, Fiscal Reform, Development, and Democracy in Ethiopia,” African Journal of Political Science 7, no. 1 (June 2002): 29–30. 48. EPRDF, “EPRDF’s Five Year Programme of Development, Peace, and Democracy,” Addis Ababa, August 2000. 49. See “The Political Parties Registration Proclamation,” Negarit Gazeta (Addis Ababa), no. 46 (April 15, 1993): 1–8. 50. See Fekade Shewakena, “On Ethiopia’s ‘Terminal Illness’ and the Miracle of Article 39,” Addis Tribune, August 16, 2002. 51. See Befekadu Degefe, Berhanu Nega, and Getqahun Tafesse, Second Annual Report on the Ethiopian Economy, vol. 2, 2001–2 (Addis Ababa: Ethiopian Economics Association/Ethiopian Economic Policy Research Institute, 2002), pp. 42–48. 52. See Robert O. Collins, “Africanists, Arabs, and Islamists: From the Conference Table to the Battlefields in Sudan,” African Studies Review 42, no. 2 (September 1999): 105–123; and Jok Madut Jok and Sharon Elaine Hutchinson, “Sudan’s Prolonged Second Civil War and the Militarization of Nuer and Dinka Ethnic Identities,” African Studies Review 42, no. 2 (September 1999): 125–145.

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53. See Colin Legum, ICG, God, Oil, and Country, p. 156. 54. See “The Conflict in South Sudan and the IGAD Peace Process,” IGAD News, December 2002. 55. See David Shinn, “Sudan and Her Neighbors–Part I,” Addis Tribune, March 7, 2003. 56. See UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), “Marginalized Areas Pose Threat to Peace, Says International Crisis Group,” June 26, 2003. 57. See “Powell to Kenya for Sudan Peace Talks,” http://allafrica.com/stories/ printable/200310200350.html. 58. See “Government Recognition in Somalia and Regional Political Stability in the Horn of Africa,” Journal of Modern African Studies 40, no. 2 (2002): 251. 59. Ibid., p. 266. 60. Ibid., pp. 259–260; and ICG Africa Briefing, “Salvaging Somalia’s Chance for Peace,” Nairobi/Brussels, December 9, 2002, p. 2. This is not to say that the TNG is without serious opposition. Its main opposition comes from an alliance of factional leaders from the south and from Puntland, the Somali Restoration and Reconciliation Council. 61. See ICG Africa Briefing, “Salvaging Somalia’s Chance for Peace,” p. 3. 62. Despite agreement on this issue having been reached on October 27, 2000, clan-based hostilities, sometimes intense but mostly sporadic, continued. 63. ICG Africa Briefing, “Salvaging Somalia’s Chance for Peace,” p. 5. Significantly, the Republic of Somaliland did not participate in this process, and there was some concern about the lack of representativeness among delegates from Puntland. The main clan families represented were the Hawiye, Darod, Digil, and Dir. 64. The OAU, the UN, and the United States all tried to broker a peace during this period, but to no avail. 65. See Tekeste Negash and Kjetil Tronvoll, Brothers at War: Making Sense of the Eritrea-Ethiopia War (Oxford: James Curry, 2000), p. 2. 66. See Befekadu Degefe, Berhanu Nega, and Getahun Tafesse, Second Annual Report on the Ethiopian Economy, vol. 2, pp. 42–48. 67. See Negash and Tronvoll, Brothers at War, pp. 47–48. 68. The primary mandate of UNMEE is to monitor the position of Eritrean forces that are redeployed twenty-five kilometers from their Ethiopian counterparts and to monitor the temporary security zone. The latter is a demilitarized area some twenty-five kilometers wide. UNMEE is also responsible for demining the border zone so as to facilitate the work of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission. 69. See “The Battle for Badme Threatens Peace,” Financial Times, April 18, 2003. 70. See International Peace Academy, “The UN, the EU, NATO, and Other Regional Actors: Partners in Peace?” IPA Conference Paper, Paris, October 11–12, 2002, p. 28. 71. See Francis M. Deng, Sadikiel Kimaro, Terrence Lyons, Donald Rothchild, and I. William Zartman, Sovereignty as Responsibility: Conflict Management in Africa (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1996).

2 Stability and Change in Central Asia GREGORY GLEASON

THIS CHAPTER EXAMINES THE RISKS AND DYNAMICS OF CONFLICT IN THE FIVE Central Asian republics emerging from the breakup of the former Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Judging from the revolutionary rhetoric of the pamphlets that one can find littered around the bazaars of Central Asian villages, the countries of Central Asia are on the verge of major political upheaval. Revolutionary extremists accuse the government leaders of the region of compromising their Muslim heritage for personal gain while abandoning their future to false gods of capitalism. Central Asia’s revolutionaries proclaim that their goal is to sweep away the Central Asian governments they regard as illegitimate remnants of the Soviet era and establish an Islamic caliphate uniting the Muslim faithful throughout Central Asia.1 Their jihad—an Islamic holy war—has galvanized government responses, encouraging some of the most effective interstate cooperation since independence. At the same time, the governments have responded to the threats with heavy-handed counterinsurgency campaigns, which have cast a wide net, ensnarling many legitimate opponents as well as extremists. Governments have closed the press and news media and thrown tens of thousands of political opponents in jail. The regional jihad was originally an outgrowth of the conflicts in Afghanistan and the civil wars in Tajikistan and Chechnya. In recent years, the revolutionary program expanded far beyond those conflicts. The most extreme revolutionaries, the members of the Islamic Movement 55

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of Uzbekistan (IMU), came to see themselves involved in a competition for the control of Central Asia’s Islamic crescent, extending from Chechnya in the west to Xinjiang in the east, from Tatarstan in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south. The outside world paid little attention to the growing terrorist challenge until a series of terrorist bombings in Russia attributed to Chechen terrorists provoked calls for international cooperation against the triangle of terrorists, drug traffickers, and ethnic separatists. The terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 transformed the situation in Central Asia. Following these attacks, the United States mounted an unprecedented global campaign against terrorism. Forging an international consensus, the United States spearheaded a military operation to remove the Taliban from rule in Afghanistan. To gain logistical advantage in the Afghan military operations, the United States won the consent of the Central Asian governments to establish military bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The presence of U.S. military might in the region did not necessarily spell a return to the “Great Game” of the nineteenth century—the competition for influence and territory in Central Asia among the great powers—but it did signify a change in the balance of international forces that none of the region’s major powers was prepared to ignore. The diplomatic efforts of all the regional powers—Russia, China, India, Iran, and Europe—were redoubled. The U.S. military campaign to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq in 2003 further cast into relief the implications of the changing political relationships in a region so rich in energy and mineral resources. Many of the revolutionaries of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan are believed to have perished in the defense of the Afghan Taliban. They have been replaced by other activists, such as the proponents of a broader, more popularly supported political opposition movement in the region, Hizb-ut-Tahrir. While Hizb-ut-Tahrir does not counsel armed insurrection, the movement does seek to delegitimize the present governments in order that a Central Asian Islamic republic can be established. Thus what only a few years ago had been essentially contests for local control have grown into a competition between doctrines of rule and visions of the future. The significance of the outcome of these struggles is likely to reach far beyond the borders of the Central Asian countries themselves. How widespread are these revolutionary movements? How likely are the tensions within the Central Asian region to lead to violent conflict? To what extent are these tensions the product of

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unique features of the Central Asian context, and to what extent are they the products of economic desperation, social disarray, and political underdevelopment? What steps can be taken by outside actors to mitigate tensions within the region in ways that would promote equity, stability, and development? This chapter seeks to address these important questions. What are the most important sources of conflict in the region? I broadly argue that three tendencies stand out as particularly important. First, the failure of the governments to solve the succession problem presents the most serious threat to stability. Political succession is inevitable. The longer a procedure for orderly succession is postponed, the more likely the succession will involve open conflict. As the regionally and ethnically based clans have established themselves within the hierarchies of government, agriculture, and industry in the region, succession processes will likely become winner-take-all competitions among regional groups. Second, the competition between political culture and political institutions has not been resolved in Central Asia. While the governments have adopted rule-making systems to routinize and institutionalize political life, in fact informal institutions continue to predominate in political significance. When informal rules prevail, any crisis is likely to lead to open competition over power. Third, it is important to bear in mind the economic agendas of the principal political actors in the region. Control over Kazakhstan’s oil wealth, Uzbekistan’s agricultural revenues, Turkmenistan’s gas fortunes, and the region’s extremely lucrative drug trafficking makes the struggles for political control a matter not only of governance but also of great wealth. This chapter surveys the social, economic, and political background of the Central Asian states with a focus on the causes and consequences of conflict in the region. The most important sources of conflict are the direct result of the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and the dynamics of independence. While some of the key conflicts have historical antecedents of long standing, many of the historical tensions in the Central Asian region have been resolved or mitigated and no longer present direct threats to stability. I argue here that the most intense and urgent threats in the Central Asian region were either produced specifically by the dynamics of national independence or are the result of long-standing conflicts that have been exacerbated by the dynamics of national independence. Bearing in mind Ted Robert Gurr’s injunction that “the most effective strategies of engagement are usually those that are applied early, before the onset of armed conflict and gross

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violations of human rights,” the chapter is oriented toward the development of policies that can be expected to mitigate discord in the region.2

The Rising Tide of Opposition

The region of Central Asia includes five countries—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan—that became independent states in 1991 when the Soviet Union disintegrated.3 Relatively sparsely populated, the Central Asian countries are rich in natural resources and are located at the dynamic intersection of the world’s major continents, linking the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. Much of the region consists of mountainous, desert, and remote areas. The bulk of the population is situated in a relatively small number of urban areas, agricultural valleys and oases, and rangelands. The countries in 2001 had a population of slightly less that 57 million people, who inhabited territory roughly 20 percent greater in size than the territory of India, a country with a population of more than 1 billion.4 The Central Asian countries have common historical, cultural, and political traditions that date back some three millennia and rich historical traditions in education and the arts. 5 During the Soviet period, the homogenizing influence of Soviet ideology and the vast Soviet bureaucracy suppressed the differences among regions, cultures, and national communities in Central Asia. But when the Soviet Union dissolved, differences soon emerged among the countries, peoples, and regions as the five states adopted contrasting and often competing national strategies. As Soviet-era trade and commerce collapsed with the fall of the USSR, the countries went into a sharp economic recession that continued through 1994. Soviet-era subsidies for social programs were not replaced in the austere fiscal conditions of the first years of independence. The countries’ already-weak traditions of support for human rights and the rule of law undercut their inability to enact new principles and processes of governance that accorded with international standards. The countries’ deteriorating social infrastructure left millions of people without access to pension, health, and education services at the same time that the incidence of infectious diseases, including new threats such as HIV-AIDS, brought new challenges to the public health systems. The traditionally Muslim countries of Central Asia showed little interest in extremist ideologies during the late years of Soviet power and the early years of independence, but the situation began to change

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in the mid-1990s as social conflicts began to pit segments of society against one another in stark social and political competition. The cultural confrontations in Central Asia between tradition and modernity, rural and urban, East and West, Islam and Christendom, haves and havenots, have become intertwined with political competition pitting state against state and region against region. Interstate competition over foreign direct investment, external access to the region’s energy resources, control of trade and transportation routes, and the region’s shared water resources has assumed overtly political overtones. Russia’s imbroglio in Chechnya and the separatist movement in the Xinjiang-Uigur Autonomous Republic of China and, more recently, the global war on terrorism led by the United States, underscored the political significance of these cultural conflicts.6 Beset by fears of terrorism, organized crime, economically motivated migration, and the loss of political control, the governments of the region struggled to reimpose control over their peoples, societies, economies, and even their neighbors.7 Normal trading practices were interrupted, borders were reinforced and in some cases even mined, and the movement of people across them was halted. As the first decade of independence came to a close in 2001, Central Asian leaders grew increasingly concerned about loss of control of the state and the dangers of political instability. In the late 1990s, all of the countries adopted counterinsurgency programs to combat the rising influence of threats to the state represented by such revolutionary organizations as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement. These programs invariably identify the opponent of the state as the opponent of society. They were often counterproductive, rarely resulting in compliance but often undermining human rights and creating impediments to legitimate social and political evolution. The campaigns also had the effect of mobilizing opposition movements, politicizing religion, and transforming the region’s poverty, inequality, and underemployment into the casus belli for antigovernment agitation. 8 To what extent was the competition between the state and the opposition an inevitable result of the processes of decolonization after the collapse of communism? This varied by country, depending upon the strategies each adopted. Independence: Decolonization, Not National Liberation When independence came to Central Asia it was as a result of the collapse of the USSR, not as a result of indigenous movements for national

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liberalization. Prior to the Soviet period none of the states existed in their current borders; the contemporary border delineations are an artificial product of the Soviet period. Historically, the most natural political communities of the region were defined not by conceptions of the “nation” or even by particular heroic leaders but by forms of livelihood. Abundant pastoral highlands supported large nomadic civilizations of gatherers and herders. The area’s major oases and rivers supported irrigated agriculture and the growth of sedentary populations and defined local political boundaries. Trade corridors between east and west, north and south, furnished the basis for commerce and trade, linking Central Asia with the Middle East, the Orient, and Europe. Sizable numbers of Russian migrants occupied the region beginning in the seventeenth century, first as trappers and later as farmers. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the Central Asian lowlands were divided into three major khanates, or regions, under the control of a “great leader,” a khan. The khanates of Kodand, Khiva, and Bukhara were each associated with oasis and river agriculture. By this time, the golden days of prosperity associated with the Central Asian “Silk Road” had long since faded. Gone too was the mythic age of enlightened rule by benign despots. The emirs governed as unenlighted but powerful petty tyrants. The territorial borders of these oasis societies were challenged by the influence of the tsarist government as it expanded into the region in competition with the British Empire over regional influence in the heart of Asia. After the collapse of the tsarist government and the capture of power by the socialist Bolshevik Party in the early 1920s, Central Asia was briefly independent. However, soon after the Bolsheviks succeeded in consolidating political power, they turned to Central Asia as a region ripe to lead the spread of socialism throughout Asia. They developed a plan to communize what they regarded as feudal Central Asian economic and social relations through a theory of “skipped stages of development.” Rather than see the region go through the protracted early stages of European capitalism, they reasoned that the vanguard of the working class, the Bolshevik Party, could move Central Asian society quickly from feudalism to socialism. Before long, however, the Bolsheviks discovered that the Marxist theory of nationalism appeared to be of little relevance to Central Asia. For the Marxists, nationalism was closely related to capitalism. Overcoming capitalism also meant overcoming nationalism. But in Central Asia nations as such did not exist. Tribes, clans, khans, emirs, and fiefdoms were the norm, not nations,

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classes, kings, and republics. The Marxist approach to nationalism was modified: in lieu of the “nation-state-proletariat” progression that Lenin claimed would prevail in the European parts of socialist Russia, he proposed a “state-nation-proletariat” progression. Lenin reasoned that if national consciousness did not exist, the establishment of “tactical nation-states” would create the conditions for it.9 Thus the Soviets adopted a policy of establishing “republics” in Central Asia that were then to be superseded by the internationalizing forces of Soviet economic integration in 1924.10 With many administrative changes over the years, the result was the division of Central Asia into five “Soviet socialist republics”11 (see Table 2.1). Some seventy-three years after the establishment of Soviet power, the USSR officially came to an end in December 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was established.12 Prior to this, leaders of the Communist Party governed the Central Asian region as a whole; each of the republics was administratively managed by a local Communist Party organization in conjunction with the USSR’s economic ministries and was thus an administrative entity rather than a true republic. These institutions were subordinated to Moscow-based all-union organizations. Little interaction among republics took place because virtually all significant interactions were moderated by Moscow. Furthermore, despite the religious, cultural, and linguistic traditions these republics shared with the countries of the Middle East, China, and West Asia, the region was physically separated from the rest of the world by nearly impassable

Table 2.1 Politico-Administrative Units of Central Asia, December 1924

Uzbek SSR Tajik ASSR Turkmen SSR Kazakh ASSR Karakalpak ASSOb Karakirgiz ASSOb

Population

Percentage of Population of Central Asia

4,038,011 730,493 855,114 1,485,538 298,212 714,648

49 9 10 18 4 9

Source: I. I. Kryl’tsov, “O printsipakh ekonomicheskogo razmezhevaniia sredneaziatskikh respublik,” [On the principles of the economic territorial delimitation of the Central Asian Republics] Narodnoe khoziastvo Srednei Azii nos. 8–9 (1926): 136. Notes: SSR = Soviet socialist republics; ASSR = autonomous Soviet socialist republics; ASSOb = autonomous Soviet socialist oblast.

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southern and eastern Soviet frontiers and by decades of northwardoriented infrastructure development. The Soviet-era physical infrastructure of roads, railroads, pipelines, and electric grids was created with complete indifference to republican borders (see Table 2.2). In 1991, the political leaders of the countries were intent on establishing independence but were also concerned to maintain the “common economic space” of the Soviet period. The establishment of the CIS was above all intended to achieve these goals. Following its establishment, member countries held innumerable summits, meetings, conferences, and cooperative meetings but could not trust that the organization would be able to protect the security and economic interests of each. Consequently, although the political leadership clearly understood the benefits of cooperation and appreciated the costs of failure to cooperate, in practice cooperative relationships among all of the CIS members were limited. Within the Central Asian region, countries were committed to economic nationalism and were unable to overcome basic security dilemmas.13 How have these political factors diminished cooperation? When independence came to the region, the Soviet-era leadership embraced it with enthusiasm. Each of the republics’ Communist Party leaders—quickly donning robes of nationalist protectors of the interests of the newly independent states—spoke out in favor of the establishment of secular, democratic, independent governments; market economic relations; and foreign relations recognizing international standards.14 The opportunities for democratic progress were substantial. Initially the prospects for reform were positive. The countries became

Table 2.2 The Soviet Socialist Republics of Central Asia, January 1989

Population Uzbekistan Kazakhstan Kirgizia Tajikistan Turkmenistan

19,906 16,538 4,291 5,112 3,534

Territory (thousands of square kilometers) 447 2,717 198 143 488

Date of Formation Oct. 1924 Dec. 1936 Oct. 1924 Oct. 1924 Oct. 1924

Sources: Narodnoe khoziaistvo SSSR v 1985, pp. 12–17. Population figures are from Trud, April 30, 1989. Notes: These are the official dates of entrance into the Soviet Union of the republics of Central Asia. However, the shape and status of these units changed considerably over the years. Tajikistan and Kirgizia were given the status of autonomous republics.

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members of major international organizations, joining the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).15 Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan all joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in 1992. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan joined the Asian Development Bank. The countries initiated the process of accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) (Kyrgyzstan in December 1998 would become the first post-Soviet country to enter the WTO). But despite the similarities among the countries at the beginning of independence, the countries diverged in significant ways during the first decade of independence.

Reform in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan was symbolically the resting place of communism and the birthplace of the postcommunist order. Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan Nazarbaev, had been a promoter of democratic change in the late Soviet era, and when the transition from communism came, he quickly oriented the new Kazakh government toward promarket, democratic reform.16 At the Coordinating Conference on Assistance to Newly Independent States in Washington, D.C., in January 1992, U.S. president George Bush noted that “in Central Asia, President Nazarbaev [is] leading the fight for reform.”17 Soon after independence, Kazakhstan began the process of reform by adopting a tradable currency, liberalizing prices, and starting privatization of major sectors of the economy, including industry, telecommunications, and energy. Kazakhstan lifted virtually all subsidies on consumer goods in September 1994 and phased out many industrial subsidies before the end of the year. It also began the process of balancing the public and private sectors with a series of major reductions in the public-sector work force and the privatization of state-owned public service facilities. It moved quickly to establish a reasonably stable legal and regulatory structure for commerce and civil rights and adopted a progressive civil code, establishing the framework for commercial transactions and property rights. Kazakhstan’s structural reforms were far reaching. It adopted a modern banking system, established a securities exchange system, and passed bankruptcy legislation. The country adopted the framework for a new system of governmental fiscal management, with a modern system for managing public external debt, a new tax code, and a new system of tax administration.

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During 1994, Kazakhstan experienced high inflation rates, although this stabilized in 1995. During 1995–1996, the “expansion program” was producing good results, but in 1997, the Asian crisis shook commodity prices, forcing the price of oil and metals down by nearly 40 percent. The Russian financial crisis of 1998 had a direct impact on Kazakhstan, given its heavy reliance on Russian Federation buyers for oil, gas, and metals. Inflation rose as well. Yet the Kazakh leadership stayed the course of reforms.18 At a critical juncture following the collapse of financial markets in Russia, when some Central Asian politicians were arguing for the adoption of a neomercantilist “Asian path,” Nursultan Nazarbaev held firm to the reform programs, pledging “to continue the promising advances toward an independent, open and free market economy.”19 Kazakhstan has been recognized by international financial institutions and others as the first post-Soviet country to successfully carry out a market transition. However, it has been less successful in political liberalization. Nazarbaev has been criticized for attempting to monopolize political power,20 in particular for the exclusion in January 1999 of his key rival, Akezhan Kazhegeldin, from participation in the election.21 The government has been criticized for failing to curb the use of public office or control over access to public assets through rent-seeking stratagems of local officials.22 It has also been criticized for not aggressively promoting greater integrity in government by improving public access to information about public policy.23 Accusations of influence peddling and crony capitalism have led to major scandals involving revenues from Kazakhstan’s spectacularly promising oil and gas reserves.

Kyrgyzstan on the Reform Path

Like its northern neighbor, Kyrgyzstan embarked immediately on a reform path at independence. Thanks largely to the efforts of its proreform president, Askar Akaev, the remote, small, mountainous Central Asian country became the wunderkind of the international donor community. Seeking to establish its position as the “Switzerland of Asia,” it quickly joined all the major international organizations, declared a program of price liberalization, introduced its own currency, and attempted to establish a relatively open, competitive political system.24 It adopted a European-style civil code to regulate private-sector transactions, contracts, and property relationships. It adopted a modern legal

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and regulatory framework, liberalized consumer prices, overhauled its financial and banking system, and privatized the country’s few large industrial facilities. In 1998, a constitutional change made Kyrgyzstan one of the first post-Soviet countries to sanction private ownership of land. A comprehensive foreign investment law was adopted in September 1997, which helped to create an attractive environment for foreign investment. To promote foreign investment the government established the Committee on Foreign Investments (Goskominvest). The committee served as an ombudsman to assist foreign investors by providing information and business assistance, simplifying visas and permits, and helping with registration, licensing, and customs procedures. Reflecting its enthusiasm for entering the international trading system, Kyrgystan became the first CIS country to join the World Trade Organization.25 But while structural reforms proceeded apace, the promised benefits of rising prosperity remained elusive for the majority of the country’s citizens. Krgyzstan’s limited resource endowment and trade dependence constrained its real progress. Like the other postcommunist states, the economy underwent severe contraction in 1993–1995. It began to rebound from the post-Soviet economic depression before the other CIS countries, showing economic growth as early as 1996 and cutting the budget deficit as a proportion of gross domestic product in half between 1995 and 1997. It was heavily dependent on foreign assistance: for the first five years of independence, per capita assistance far exceeded that to other Eurasian countries, helping to sustain domestic reform efforts. The Kyrgyz government attempted to implement the neoliberal reforms in good faith but faced substantial natural obstacles. Economic reform measures did result in rapid and significant advances in state capacity but did not lead to increased economic output or rising standards of living. Stalled economic growth has undermined the declared program of political liberalization. Attempts at democratic reform have been tainted by failures to protect civil rights, maintain protections for the independent media, combat petty corruption, and comply with international standards of electoral practice. A series of scandals involving members of the ruling family drew into question the “democratic experiment.”

Conflict and Reconciliation in Tajikistan

Tajikistan is also a small, remote, ruggedly mountainous, landlocked country. More than its northern neighbor Kazakhstan, however, it is a

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prisoner of circumstance. Bordered by Uzbekistan on the north and west, China on the east, and Afghanistan on the south, its access to the outside world is controlled by its neighbors. The mountainous terrain and inadequate transportation and communication infrastructure have exacerbated the severe economic contraction that the country has endured since national independence. As the reach of Soviet power came to an end in the late 1980s, competing groups began vying for power. When the USSR officially broke up in 1991, the political factions in Tajikistan split along crisscrossing regional and ideological lines. Rakhmon Nabiev, former first secretary of Tajikistan’s Communist Party, assumed political control of the government in late 1991 but during spring 1992 lost it to crowds in the street. In September 1992, Nabiev was forced to resign by an armed group seeking to establish an Islamic republic. For a brief period in September and October, the Islamic Revolutionary Party took control of government buildings in the capital. A coalition of communists and regional groups from Hujand in the north and Kuliab in the south formed with the intention of reestablishing the deposed government. Civil war ensued. Forces loyal to the communist-led coalition, most probably with assistance from neighboring Uzbekistan and from Russia, attacked the capital of Dushanbe on October 24, 1992. The communist coalition regained control of the capital, and the opposition fighters scattered throughout Tajikistan’s rugged hills and valleys. Although the communist coalition had recaptured the capital, it failed to bring the conflict to a decisive conclusion. A standoff between the government and the opposition endured for five years, until the UN-brokered peace agreement ended it in June 1997. The Tajikistan civil war exacted a fearful price on the country. As much as 40 percent of the country’s population was directly affected by the war. Some 50,000 people lost their lives, 600,000 were displaced, and 60,000 fled to neighboring countries. 26 Thousands of women were widowed and tens of thousands of children were orphaned. The ravages of war were compounded in 1993 and 1994 by a series of natural calamities, including torrential rains, floods, and earthquakes that destroyed and damaged thousands of homes, buildings, bridges, and public structures. Social and economic indicators declined significantly in the postindependence period.27 The protracted standoff between the government and armed gangs in the mountains contributed to the deterioration of transportation and communications and to the interruption of trade.28

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In 1996, the Tajik government adopted a reform strategy promoted by the leading international development organizations. The key elements of the strategy included establishing monetary and fiscal control over the government, liberalizing prices, and improving resource utilization. The government announced six basic objectives: national reconciliation, macroeconomic stability, poverty reduction, provision of basic services, rehabilitation of infrastructure, and promotion of human resource development. The gradual economic stabilization that followed gave rise to a new optimism for Tajikistan’s economic recovery and postconflict development prospects. In June 1997, the opposing factions in the civil war reached a peaceful settlement allowing for reconciliation and reconstruction. Tajikistan’s economy today is based primarily on subsistence agriculture, foreign assistance from donor organizations, barter relations with neighbors, and the export of a few commodities. As much as 80 percent of Tajikistan’s foreign exchange earnings result from sales of three commodities: aluminum, cotton, and illegal drugs. Tajikistan’s large aluminum smelter in Tursonzade is the country’s top revenue generator, but the financial revenues from the factory are far from transparent. There has been criticism that Tajikistan’s public sector benefits little from the enterprise and that the plant employs only a small fraction of the country’s industrial workers. The cotton industry is a high earner. But in the competitive international cotton market, access to transportation routes is crucial. Landlocked Tajikistan must transport its cotton through neighboring countries. It is forced by the circumstance of its location to pay high transport tariffs to get its cotton to market. The revenue benefits of Tajikistan’s role in the region’s opium trade are very difficult to measure. But even if the revenues are substantial, as some analysts have argued, they have negligible or even negative economic effects.29 It is no doubt true that some of the illegal revenues circulate back through the legal economy. But the costs in terms of corruption, lawlessness, and the social impact of the drug trade far exceed any economic benefits the revenues may bring. While the events that precipitated the Tajik war took place in April and May 1992, the underlying causes of the civil conflict are lodged in territorial and ethnic identities predating the Soviet period. Prior to the Soviet takeover, no single authority ruled the peoples of Tajikistan’s rugged mountains and fertile agricultural valleys. The Soviet-established government brought a unified rule to the region but failed to disestablish traditional regional and clan-based loyalties. The territorial division

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of Central Asia during the Soviet period had enduring implications for Tajikistan.30 The limited democratization and economic reform that took place under the rubric of “perestroika” in the core regions of the USSR in the late 1980s brought greater self-rule to the outlying regions. In Tajikistan, this was manifested primarily in a resurgence of local territorialism rather than national self-determination. Tajikistan’s authoritarian government has made good-faith but largely unsuccessful reform efforts. The executive branch dominates administrative, legislative, and judicial branches. The full extent of political control by executive branch officials is limited only by the lack of full control over many outlying areas of the country. The Tajik government rhetorically adheres to principles of the rule of law and the protection of civil rights. However, following the civil and Afghan wars, insurgency and militant regionalism are constant realities for the government. The government’s significant counterinsurgency and counternarcotics efforts have had only limited effect and have compromised many procedural protections for civil and human rights.

The Sultanate in Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is potentially one of the most economically prosperous countries in the region, given its relatively good access to outside markets and its great potential gas wealth. With conservative estimates putting natural gas reserves at 2.7 trillion cubic meters, and additional potential reserves at 14 trillion cubic meters, it is the second largest natural gas producer in the former Soviet Union and the fourth largest producer in the world. Yet Turkmenistan demonstrates that riches alone offer no guarantee of political liberalization and progress. It remains one of the least reconstructed of the Soviet republics, frequently defying international opinion and flouting international standards. Turkmen gas revenues provide the basis not for broad-based prosperity but for an intense, highly personalistic nationalism centering on leader and Sovietera Communist Party boss Saparmurad Niyazov. In the early days of independence, Niyazov developed the concept of national self-reliance based on gas and oil wealth, which he called “positive neutrality.” In practice, the policy meant three things. First, he sought to maintain as much distance as possible from Russia without giving up its vast gas market and, most of all, without giving up access

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to Western gas markets that Russia still controlled for the first decade of independence. Second, it meant cautious, self-interested relations with its southern neighbors. Third, it meant attracting foreign investment and foreign commercial debt in order to revitalize the gas-related industry and build a Kuwaiti-style emirate in Turkmenistan.31 Turkmenistan evolved in the first decade of independence from an underdeveloped but otherwise typical Soviet republic into a fiefdom of its all-powerful leader, who took on the title of “Turkmenbashi”—the head of all Turkmen. The early manifestations of a cult of personality evolved from Stalinist style self-aggrandizement to something more extreme, transforming the country into a sultanate under the all-powerful Turkmenbashi with schools, streets, and public buildings renamed in his honor. School children and public officials were routinely required to offer homage to the country’s great and infallible leaders. The Turkmen government appears to be the most precarious of all in the region. The government remains in power not as a result of public support and inherent sources of political stability such as legitimacy but merely by virtue of coercion and control, keeping a monopoly of political power and offering few opportunities for legitimate political change. In March 2002, the head of the National Security Committee was removed on charges of corruption. Following investigations, more than 100 senior members of the country’s security agency were imprisoned. In September 2002, another wave of scandals swept through the country, as president Niyazov announced that the new security agency head would also be removed. A yet more troubling series of events unfolded in Turkmenistan in November 2002. The government-controlled press announced on November 25, 2002, that an attempt on Niyazov’s life had been thwarted and an attempted coup d’état foiled. The official press then quickly announced that a former minister of foreign affairs and longtime high-level counselor to the president was responsible for the assassination attempt. Further puzzling and contradictory accounts claimed that four former government ministers had participated in masterminding the assassination attempt. The following day the government claimed to have arrested sixteen people in connection with the assassination attempt. In early December, the Turkmen general prosecutor announced that twenty-three people had been arrested for involvement in the coup attempt. The prosecutor later announced that the attack had been organized with the help of the Uzbek ambassador to Turkmenistan, Abdurashid Kadyrov. On December 25, 2002, the Turkmen president announced that the former

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minister of foreign affairs, Boris Shikhmuradov, had been captured. Days later Turkmen national television aired footage of Shikhmuradov confessing to the assassination attempt.32 In the aftermath of these events, authorities detained hundreds of relatives of those implicated in the plot, some of whom were physically abused and denied access to medical treatment. Relatives of those implicated in the attack also lost their jobs, were dismissed from university, and were evicted from their homes without compensation. Many remained under house arrest for long periods.33

The “Uzbek Path”

The experience of Uzbekistan, located at the center of Central Asia and the most populous and economically important country of the region, has affected all the countries of the region. Its strong-handed leader, Islam Karimov, who until independence was a conventional communist, quickly became an enthusiastic champion of an independent political path and an Uzbek cultural renewal.34 Karimov engineered national consolidation for the country in the first years of independence: government, economics, and culture were subsumed in the drive to “recover” Uzbekistan’s heritage as the leading political force in the region. Karimov’s government emphasized Central Asian traditions of strong but benign leadership. The new constitution adopted in December 1992 paid lip service to international standards of governance, the rule of law, and civil rights, but in practice it merely institutionalized the existing political system. A small political opposition that had developed some momentum during the closing days of the Soviet empire was quickly brushed aside. During the first decade of independence, politics was far from pluralistic or competitive in Uzbekistan. The political process was carefully monitored and controlled. Restrictions on the electoral registration process made it possible for the government to exercise a determining influence on the preselection of candidates. In theory, the judiciary was independent, but in practice its independence was severely limited. While the constitution described the legislature as the highest organ of power, the country had a unitary “presidential form of government”; the executive branch was dominant in virtually all matters. The government’s record on human rights is considered to be negative by most international human rights organizations. 35 Rights to free speech, assembly,

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and religion are circumscribed by the government, and the security forces have arbitrarily arrested or detained human rights activists, religious activists, and ethnic-group activists on false charges. At the time of independence, the Uzbek economy was more diversified than the economies of the other four Central Asian states. It included agriculture, light industry, heavy industry, and key primary commodities. The economy was insulated from much of the economic decline that afflicted other former Soviet states because of its laborintensive nature. The government embraced market reforms, announcing that the country would be “pro-business.”36 Rapid growth in 1992– 1995 in oil and gas production allowed it to eliminate oil imports and increase gas exports. Uzbekistan shifted some of its crop acreage from cotton to grains to boost food self-sufficiency. These reforms did increase self-sufficiency but enabled a delay in the structural reforms that its neighbors, particularly Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, implemented. 37 While aspects of the Soviet system were rejected, many elements of the Soviet-era administrative system were replaced by an indigenous, statecontrolled administrative system that was itself top-heavy and stultifying. In the years to follow, the government pursued policies emphasizing a gradual approach to macroeconomic reform and market-oriented structural reforms. This conservative transition strategy emphasized being self-sufficient in energy and grains, exporting primary commodities (particularly cotton and gold), and creating an internally oriented services market. In September 1996, in connection with a shortfall in foreign reserves, the Ministry of Finance imposed a system of import contract registration. The goal of the system was to ensure that scarce foreign currency be used primarily to import capital rather than buy consumer goods, particularly luxury goods. However, the system severely limited the availability of foreign exchange for all sectors of the economy and retarded economic activity. In subsequent years, the Ministry of Finance periodically acted to make the system yet more rigorous as foreign currency reserves continued to dwindle.38 Uzbekistan’s trade with its neighbors began shrinking as normal economic relationships within the region became more complex and government intervention in all transborder interactions increased the opportunities for rent-seeking and corruption.39 Corruption has long been the Achilles heel of commerce in Central Asia. Since medieval times in certain oasis cities, government positions were bought and sold rather than earned. High government positions

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continue to allow an official to earn an income to pay his superiors by levying “extra” taxes, fines, and service fees on those in subordinate positions. As one observer noted, “At almost every level of government, ‘extra’ rates and tariffs are set for otherwise free services, and no query can be resolved without under-the-table cash. Structures supposedly created to cope with corruption are used only to eliminate undesirables.”40

Resource Contests: Territory, Trade, Water, and Energy

The priorities of the leadership, the policies, and the relative success of these policies differ substantially in the five countries, which are linked by trade, security, and environmental interdependence. When the countries failed to find shared solutions to their common problems, conflict was inevitable. One of the most fundamental sources of conflict was the nature of the territory itself. The administrative boundaries in Central Asia, as we have seen, were adopted for political criteria having little to do with the economic or political requirements of independent states. If good fences make for good neighbors, poor fences presumably make for bad neighbors. Central Asia is a region of poor fences. Disputes over land use have been transformed into disputes over property rights. In some cases these have developed into border disputes or interethnic disputes. There have been appeals to allow the secession of Karakalpakistan from Uzbekistan, to shift a part of the Mangyshlak province from Kazakhstan to Turkmenistan, to move parts of the Tashauz and Chardzhua provinces on the Amu-darya from Turkmenistan to Uzbekistan, to move the northern part of the Bukhara province from Uzbekistan to Karakalpakistan, to move the southeastern part of Karakalpakistan to the Khorezm province of Uzbekistan, to transfer the southern part of the Chimkent province of Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, to transfer the Zeravshan valley of Uzbekistan to the jurisdiction of Tajikistan, and also to shift the Surkhandarin valley of Uzbekistan to Tajikistan.41 As a result of the redistricting undertaken in the 1920s, three small but not insignificant territorial enclaves of Uzbekistan actually exist within the territory of Kyrgyzstan in the southern foothills of the Fergana Valley. Major highways in the region frequently cross national borders, making freight and transportation highly dependent upon cooperative boundary arrangements. Border issues also affect trade: at the time that the Almaty Declaration (December 21, 1991) established the CIS, all the signatory states

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were anxious to promote their national interests but also ensure the “common economic space” of the Soviet period. The signatories abandoned the idea of pursing closer political integration but strongly supported the idea of maintaining coordinated CIS-wide monetary, customs, employment, tax, and investment policies. However, the disruption of the transition from a single planned economy to many national economies, liberalizing at different rates of transition to free-market operations, simply shattered the “single economic space” of the Soviet period. The most important feature in Central Asia’s political and economic development may have been the simple fact that the countries liberalized at different rates and found it impossible to harmonize their common economic policies as they developed. In the early days of independence, the countries relied heavily on nontransparent barter arrangements. Consequently, virtually all major commercial transactions quickly became political. For instance, Turkmenistan sought market prices for its natural gas deliveries, while Russia, controlling the pipelines that delivered Turkmen gas to European markets, sought concessionary prices. The electrical grid of Kazakhstan’s northern oblasts was dependent upon electricity supplied by Russia; hence Kazakhstan was compelled to maintain deliveries of metals and other primary commodities to avoid disruption in heat during the Siberian winters. Tajikistan’s major source of foreign exchange, aluminum from the massive Tursunzade aluminum smelter, had to be exported and marketed only through the Russian rail and delivery system. Tajikistan therefore competes with the large Russian aluminum trusts with extensive political influence in the Russian government.42 In these circumstances, persistent one-upmanship among the countries made sustained cooperation impossible. Faced with shirking and free-riding, some countries sought to go it alone by forming bilateral and regional agreements. As early as 1994, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbaev observed, “Since the time of the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States, roughly 400 agreements have been adopted. However, as yet there have been no substantive results because individual national governments continue to reject certain provisions and interpret the meaning of the agreements in their own interest.”43 In January 1994, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan announced that they would abolish tariffs on trade between the two countries and create a common market by the year 2000. The agreement was supposed to provide for free movement of goods, services, capital, and labor between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan and coordination of fiscal and customs poli-

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cies. Nazarbaev described the agreement as “abolishing borders between the two countries.” In February 1994, President Akaev announced that Kyrgyzstan also intended to join a “Central Asian union.” The local press announced that as of February 1, 1994, customs regulation was suspended on common borders between Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. The establishment of the Central Asian Union was formally announced at the summit of regional leaders in July 1994 in Almaty. In December 1994, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia announced the creation of a “customs union.” The agreement came into effect on July 15, 1995. Kyrgyzstan joined the group in December 1995. Thereafter, the “union” became widely referred to as the “Big Four Agreement.” Tajikistan was formally admitted in February 1999, making it the “Big Five Agreement.” Treaties were adopted and laws were put on the books, but the anticipated level of cooperation never materialized. The countries took a major step when the heads of state of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan met at a summit in Almaty on October 10, 2000, to sign a broad Central Asian regional economic integration agreement.44 The agreement established the Eurasian Economic Community (EEC, known as the EvrAzEs).45 The compact was designed to address disagreements among the states over disparities in customs, tariffs, trade policies, and security provisions, and it promises to introduce a visa-free travel regime for citizens of the signatory countries. The EEC signatory states have differing approaches to key transborder policies, including customs, visas, trade, and payments. The capacity of the EvrAzEs to establish a “single economic space” is limited by Uzbekistan’s unwillingness to join any economic or political organization in which Russia plays the central decisionmaking role. Transboundary resources are another key source of competition and conflict, as the countries are highly interdependent in the areas of water and power resources, transportation infrastructure, and markets.46 Central Asia’s two main river basins, the Amu-darya and the Syr-darya, link the states of Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Water is of critical importance, given the dominance of agriculture, and the region is heavily dependent upon irrigation. The Soviet-era irrigation system created significant strains on the Aral Basin’s water resources and led to disputes between upstream and downstream users and divided the countries between water-rich and waterpoor countries. Misuse and overuse of the basin’s water resources led to the desiccation of the Aral Sea and compounded other environmental

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problems such as desertification, erosion, ground salinization, salt-bearing windstorms, and fishery depletion, and may have affected global climate change.47 The crisis is not one of quantity but one of use: adequate quantities of water exist, but in the wrong places. As a result of agreements among the republics reached long ago when water-use patterns were much different than they are today, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan have developed their agricultural economies on the basis of subsidized water. Grand schemes for “irrigating the desert” that may have been quixotic or at worst overly optimistic when they were devised fifty years ago no longer have a place in Central Asia. Turkmenistan’s proclivity for using water shipped hundreds of kilometers across the Kara Kum desert through poorly maintained canals is just one glaring example that the governments of the countries have not yet come to value the natural resources at their disposal. Improvement in the management of water resources would increase farm productivity, raise farm incomes, improve the quality of life of the region’s rural citizens, contribute to the broad goals of sustainable development, and possibly reduce interstate tensions. The key to building cooperation is to identify areas of complementarity and promote cooperation by making infrastructure improvements promoting mutually beneficial transactions. For instance, Kyrgyzstan is a mountainous region. Uzbekistan is primarily a low-lying agricultural region. Kyrgyzstan has substantial hydroelectric generating capacity at its facilities. It is advantageous for Kyrgyzstan to run the turbines of its dams during the winter, when electricity demand for heating purposes is at its peak. However, downstream Uzbekistan would prefer that the water be reservoired for use in the summer months, when water demand for irrigation purposes is at its peak. Thus if the relationship between the upstream and downstream users of the water is restricted to water alone, the exchanges have the quality of a zero-sum exchange—one side’s gains are the other side’s losses. However, there are other important aspects to the relationships among the countries. For instance, Uzbekistan has substantial reserves of natural gas. With the appropriate investments in gas distribution and energy-generating facilities, upstream Kyrgyzstan’s need for energy in the cold winter months can easily be forgone in favor of Uzbekistan’s need to store the water for irrigation uses late in the summer. Enabling rational exchanges of energy for water through market pricing or contractual arrangements can turn such conflicts into complementarities. But this type of solution is not

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free. It requires coordination and investment. As complementarities become more evident in the key sectors of energy, transportation, and communication, mutually advantageous contracts can be concluded.

Doctrines of Insurgency: The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Hizb-ut-Tahrir

The interstate conflicts arising from competition over territory, trade, and natural resources have brought the Central Asian states close to real state-to-state conflict, but it is the challenge to the legitimacy and the authority of the state that has motivated states to develop counterinsurgency campaigns. Central Asia’s insurgents began basically as buccaneers and soldiers of fortune who were political entrepreneurs provoking interethnic violence, cloaking their political stratagems under the banner of nationalism. But gradually they found that their criticisms resonated with widespread sentiment throughout the Islamic world that the European value system is at odds with core values of the Muslim world. The doctrines of insurgency evolved as the political fortunes of the Central Asian opposition developed. When the June 1997 Tajikistan peace accord brought Tajikistan’s opposing factions into a single, united Tajikistan government, the last major civil conflict in the region appeared to be resolved. However, conflict emerged again in the fall of 1998 when a former commander in the Tajik civil war, Makhmud Khudaiberdiev, descended on the city of Hujand in Tajikistan’s northern province, leading an army of some 700 rebel troops. Khudaiberdiev’s goal was to establish a revolutionary government. Troops loyal to the government, outnumbering the rebels by a factor of four to one, soon recaptured the city of Hujand. Following the violence in Tajikistan, the opposition in Uzbekistan turned to guerrilla tactics just a few months later. A series of terrorist bomb explosions in February 1999 in downtown Tashkent, the Uzbek capital, took sixteen lives and, if the government’s account of the events is accurate, narrowly missed claiming the life of Islam Karimov, the country’s president. The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan took credit for the bombing. In the summer of 1999, armed irregular units with allegiance to IMU leader Juma Namangani moved from mountain redoubts in northern Tajikistan into staging areas in Kyrgyzstan in preparation for a major assault on Uzbekistan’s Fergana Valley. Moving through the mountain passes of the Altaisky mountain range into the ill-defined border areas

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of Kyrgyzstan, the rebels captured a number of Kyrgyzstan villages, taking hostage the villagers as well as, probably inadvertently, a group of four Japanese geologists in the area at the time. Once foreigners were taken hostage, however, the situation quickly escalated into an international incident. Eventually, after a tensely negotiated bargain that reportedly involved the rebels being paid a ransom, the foreign hostages were released and Tajik government troops apparently escorted the rebels to a safe withdrawal across the border into Afghanistan. 48 But the next year the rebels returned to the region, traveling through Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan en route to Uzbekistan. The rebels attacked and occupied villages in Kyrgyzstan, advancing to within 100 kilometers of the Uzbek capital in August 2000. The U.S. State Department designated the IMU a “foreign terrorist organization” under U.S. law in September 2000.49 In early 2001, reports circulated that the rebels had established a staging area in the inaccessible Tavildara region of central Tajikistan.50 The Tajik government denied the reports, but the tone of the denials gave credence to the belief that members of the former United Tajikistan Opposition were secretly aiding the rebels. Throughout spring 2001, Central Asian chancelleries were anxiously developing plans for a coordinated interstate program to repulse new terrorist attacks. The events following September 2001 brought an end to the IMU: many IMU fighters fought to defend the Taliban and most perished in the battles surrounding Mazar-i-Sharif. The insurgents relied heavily on religious, ethnic, and clan-based rationales to support their political agenda. These doctrines of rule and power are reinforcing and resonate deeply with public sensibilities in Central Asia regarding the nature of power, the importance of the family, and the roles of language, culture, and tradition in public affairs. While this more violent opposition seems to have been neutralized, a broader, more popularly supported insurgent political opposition, Hizbut-Tahrir, continues to gain influence in Central Asia. Hizb-ut-Tahrir was identified in 1995 by the Uzbek government as a threat to the stability of the state. In 1996, the government began carrying out extensive campaigns against the movement’s “wahabbis” or political extremists. The Uzbek government argued that Hizb-ut-Tahrir had links to the Palestinian Hamas, to Egypt’s Islamic Brotherhood, and to other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Algeria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, and Pakistan. The government began a series of campaigns to isolate and neutralize all ideological opponents of the regime, branding them criminals and political fanatics.

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Insurgents deliberately strive to “strengthen contradictions” in their societies in order to encourage insecure governments to adopt severe counterinsurgency measures that the insurgents know will be unpopular. In turn, insecure governments, weighing choices between security and protection of civil rights, prefer to err on the side of security. As heavyhanded counterinsurgency programs undermine civilian protection, governments can be forced into confrontation with their own societies. Central Asia’s revolutionary movements have created just such dilemmas of choice.

Counterinsurgency: Human Rights in the Balance

The first casualty of revolutionary insurgency is democracy. Revolutionary insurgents regard existing governments as intrinsically illegitimate. When governments engage in measures to suppress insurgents, insurgents interpret this as proof of the illegitimacy of the government. When governments adopt a more conciliatory posture, insurgents interpret this as weakness and as an effort to erode the moral basis of the insurgents’ demands. Insurgents thus equally condemn both repression and conciliation. Governments respond to this conundrum with strong counterinsurgency measures that often compromise civil rights in the name of public order. Uzbekistan’s prominent role in the international coalition to normalize Afghanistan and combat transnational terrorism bought the country considerable international goodwill during the period immediately after the events of September 11, 2001. Uzbekistan received a series of high-level diplomatic and military delegations in 2002, culminating with the visit of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The government responded to the increased international attention by making highly visible efforts to improve governance. The government registered human rights groups, gave amnesties to political prisoners, prosecuted law enforcement officials for violations of prisoners’ rights, increased participation in international organizations, and, by the president’s invitation, encouraged expatriates to return home. But critics asserted that the government’s newfound willingness was little more than an attempt to deflect criticism from corruption, bureaucratism, nepotism, official conflicts of interest, and incompetence. They maintained that in 2002 the legal environment for civil and human rights was deteriorating, private enterprise was increasingly circumscribed by

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the state domination and economic crime and corruption, and longpromised macroeconomic reforms continued to be delayed. They contended that heavy-handed efforts to combat political opposition resulted in progressively more direct governmental control over the economy and society, undercutting progress toward many civil freedoms. The counterinsurgency campaign involved a sweeping crackdown on terrorist groups,51 resulting in physical mistreatment by police and psychological harassment, including prolonged solitary confinement, public denunciation, intimidation, intrusive police surveillance, and threats of arrest.52 International human rights groups and others reported numerous violations of human rights and Uzbek law at the hands of law enforcement authorities. In November 2000, the U.S. House of Representatives expressed concern over human rights violations and the use of terrorism as a pretext for political repression and urged the government, which “engaged in military campaigns against violent insurgents, to observe international law regulating such actions, to keep civilians and other noncombatants from harm, and not to use such campaigns to justify further crackdowns on political opposition or violations of human rights commitments under OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe].”53 Throughout 2001 and early 2002, the government committed serious civil rights abuses. Testimony indicates that police and security forces tortured, beat, and harassed suspects. The security forces arbitrarily arrested or detained pious Muslims and other citizens on false charges, frequently planting narcotics, weapons, or forbidden literature on them. Uzbekistan is not alone in such practices; human rights groups have documented similar violations of international standards in all the countries of Central Asia.

The Perils of Personalism

The single most important concept that dominates political life in all the Central Asian countries is the authority of the leader. The strong identification of a country’s political system with a particular personality carries risks. One of the most serious of those risks flows from the fact that a leader may be resourceful and determined, but no leader is immortal. The succession problem remains unsolved more than a decade after independence and remains a probable source of serious conflict. This problem is magnified by the extraordinary dominance of political life

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by the executive branch. Furthermore, none of the states in the region have been able to develop structures for an orderly transfer of power that is understood or accepted by all political players. At independence, the countries of Central Asia adopted constitutions, legal and regulatory systems, and election procedures that were seemingly cut from the same cloth. Leaders had very similar outlooks, backgrounds, and aspirations, and the transition from communism to postcommunism was smooth in large part because the leadership was essentially transferring power to itself. For instance, Nursultan Nazarbaev (born 1940), president of Kazakhstan, was first secretary of the Kazakh republic’s Communist Party organization. Islam Karimov (born 1938), president of Uzbekistan, was first secretary of the Uzbek republic’s Communist Party organization. Saparmurad Niyazov (born 1940), president of Turkmenistan, was first secretary of the Turkmen republic’s Communist Party organization. Imomali Rakhmonov (born 1952), president of Tajikistan, was a former regional communist official. Rakhmonov’s predecessor, Rakhmon Nabiev, who died under mysterious circumstances in May 1993, was first secretary of the Tajik republic’s Communist Party organization. Among the Central Asian presidents, only the president of Kyrgyzstan, Askar Akaev (born 1944), did not belong to the former party nomenklatura, although he was a member of the party-approved scientific-intellectual elite. Extreme presidentialism carries along with it risks for political stability. There is a powerful set of bureaucratic institutions, based primarily in the cabinet of ministers of each state. These institutions often have regional or sectoral constituencies that provide them with a power base. However, they have little in the way of a mandate to rule, nor are they publicly positioned to assume control in the event of succession. They are not likely to win in a competition over power. Similarly, while the insurgent opposition captures the headlines in Western press coverage, it is highly unlikely that it can capture political control or even constitute important players in a major political crisis in the foreseeable future. It is likely that reformist members of the present governments will attempt to use succession to capture control of government. In each of the countries the “reformist opposition” has already demonstrated the willingness to displace the position of the presidential family and to vie for power against the established bureaucratic institutions. The reformist opposition seeks to displace the present leadership and conduct reform, but it does not seek systemic change. In other words, the

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reformist opposition seeks to reassign functions and establish new beneficiaries of the political process, but to do so within the framework of the existing state structures. The reformist opposition, which does not have a competing doctrine of government or a unified ideational or informational base, does not present itself as an alternative. It is not united along religious or ethnic lines. Sporadic efforts of individual leaders have not met with success, garnered widespread public support or sympathy, or offered regionwide doctrines of political change. The reformist opposition is basically self-interested and will exercise initiative only where political events offer an opportunity. Should a traumatic domestic event (such as an assassination or death of a leader due to natural causes) or an external event (such as a national security crisis) precipitate a political crisis that involves a political succession, the reformist opposition stands a good chance of attempting to capture power in the Central Asian countries. It is likely that competition over power among various bureaucratic factions will coincide with competition with reformist factions, igniting a winner-take-all contest for control of the government. In a time of crisis or a national security emergency, the risk of violence would increase.

Development Efforts and Preventive Diplomacy in Central Asia

In assessing the relationship between the causes of conflict and the appropriate policy correctives or external interventions that might mitigate the conflicts, it is useful to distinguish between the long-term (or structural) conditions and the more near-term (or proximate) causes of conflict in Central Asia. Preventive diplomacy is generally a poor remedy for structural or root problems. Development assistance can be oriented toward conflict prevention by helping to bring about enduring change at the level of structural causes, and preventive diplomacy is oriented toward addressing the proximate causes of conflict.54 As John Cockell has argued, the more deeply entrenched the structural causes, “the less likely local and external interventions will be to prevent specific proximate acts from generating heightened potential for violence.”55 This chapter has surveyed a range of historically important sources of conflict and opportunities for cooperation within and among the Central Asian states. Four factors are crucial for efforts to build peace, stability,

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and progressive change in the region: (1) promoting greater regional economic cooperation, (2) fostering trade and policy harmonization, (3) enhancing regional security, including both state security and the broader concept of human security, and (4) developing a more open, accountable, and responsive government that recognizes and protects inalienable human rights. Promoting Regional Economic Cooperation The Central Asian region as a whole is composed of countries that are landlocked and remote from major world markets. None of the Central Asian countries have the potential to build dynamic internal markets on the basis of domestic demand alone. The countries’ vital resources of water and energy are distributed in such a way as to increase mutual dependence. These locational and economic disadvantages pose substantial challenges to the region’s long-term development and complicate the adoption of international standards of policy and practice. Globalization is not only a fact of life; it is a fact of survival for the Central Asian countries. Market integration, within the region and with the outside world, is therefore a key to accelerating economic growth through reduced transaction costs, including transport and transit costs, economies of scale and scope, and complementary use of water and energy. This high degree of economic interdependence constitutes a powerful incentive for cooperation. The high degree of economic interdependence also raises the costs of failures to cooperate. The countries recognize that “they all have more to lose by inter-state rivalry or competition than they have to gain by any short-term political or economic achievements at the expense of their neighbors.”56 But this recognition has not yet been translated into a sufficient commitment to solving problems on a regional basis. Fostering Trade and Policy Harmonization The primary reason for the failure of the Central Asian countries to develop an adequate basis for sustained regional economic cooperation is the incompatibility in approach, sequencing, and timing. The most difficult aspect of Central Asian development has been the fact that the states have moved at different tempos and with different objectives. Kyrgyzstan, followed by Kazakhstan, moved quickly to liberalize prices

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and to transform the basic features of their economies. The speed at which they moved was resisted by Uzbekistan, which retained price controls and subsidies. Subsidized Uzbek commodities soon found their way to Kazakh and Kyrgyz markets at lower prices, leading to big gains for the early traders. Uzbekistan, of course, soon sought measures to protect its subsidized goods from being exported, thereby creating obstacles to regional trade. In this fashion, one by one the opportunities to expand regional cooperation were canceled by short-term calculations of benefit. Solving these problems will take considerable regional diplomacy and negotiation. But the process must start with the internal requirements of adopting and shaping policies and practices that are in conformity with international standards such that harmonization can take place. This will require a considerable commitment on the part of all the countries to institutionalized forms of communication and information exchange. Enhancing Regional Security Information exchange can take place only when there is a stable security environment. In some respect the Central Asian situation should receive a favorable assessment. In 1991, many feared that the collapse of the Soviet Union would lead to unrestrained competition and conflict in Central Asia. Many observers believed that the region would return to communism or undergo violent revolution.57 Neither occurred in the first decade of independence. No major efforts were made to alter borders, nor has any state sought to subordinate its neighbors or create a unified new entity. The challenges that arose were primarily not from state-to-state conflict but from insurgent movements fueled by revolutionary doctrines emanating from Afghanistan or by the drug trade or by a combination of both. The significant shifts in geostrategic relations following the events of September 11, 2001, have placed new emphasis on the importance of efforts to promote regional security in Central Asia. The routing of the Taliban government in Afghanistan, new discoveries of energy resources in the Caspian Basin, a new level of competition over access to fuel resources in the Middle East, and the greater presence of foreign military involvement in Central Asia have combined to focus greater international attention on Central Asia. The present period is particularly auspicious for new initiatives in security cooperation. A comprehensive strategy for

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security cooperation should do several things. First, it should build upon past successful efforts at conflict prevention in the region. Second, it should promote the region’s political independence to avoid domination by powerful neighbors. Third, it should encourage greater regional cooperation in transborder issues, particularly the equitable sharing of natural resources and equitable trade in energy resources. Fourth, it should provide an umbrella that would allow for more normal economic relations among the states, particularly with respect to promoting more open borders. The war on terrorism is likely to have long-term effects on states’ conceptions of their strategic interests.58 The challenge for the Central Asian states will be to realize the definition of a regional concert of interests.59 Such a concert could develop a “system of mutual tradeoffs emphasizing the common objective of a stable and open environment in which sovereignty and independence are respected by all powers.”60 Such a concert is likely to appeal to leaders as the most reasonable vehicle for promoting key goals such as the neutralization of violent ideologies, the isolation of terrorists, and the disruption and perhaps elimination of the region’s drug cartels. Developing More Open, Accountable, and Responsive Government If Central Asian government is “transitional,” it has little to do with the transition from the communist system. There is no longer any sense in which a transition from communism is taking place; the communist system is gone in Central Asia and is unlikely to return. The transition is a more subtle one. The countries are highly authoritarian but living with the recognition that authoritarianism too is a thing of the past. Full participation in the international community is unavoidable if such small, landlocked countries are going to survive, positioned between powerful and potentially expansionist neighbors. Tensions in the timing of democratic and market-oriented change have strengthened the mandate of local despots seeking pretexts for their harsh and self-serving policies. To blunt criticism, political leaders have often sought to tightly control the electoral process and quash the Internet and other new channels of communication. As a result, the modest democratic change that has taken place has been top-down in origin, orientation, and effect. The anticorruption campaign in Kazakhstan, for instance, has been managed by the National Security Service; the human rights committee in Tajikistan

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was managed by the Ministry of Justice; and the most influential nongovernmental organizations in Uzbekistan were those belonging to a relatively small list of organizations approved and sponsored by the government. But in the end, these policies can only be temporary and ephemeral. Greater democratic participation has combined with the uneven success of market liberalization in Central Asia, impoverishing much of the populace and giving them the ballot to express their anger and resentment.61 New forms of information and communication have made their situation visible to themselves and to others.

Conclusion

The prospects for stability in Central Asia are related to the prospects for change. If the countries are encouraged by the international community to change in ways that promote greater state-to-state economic cooperation through the adoption of harmonized and coordinated policies in a context of reduced challenges to security with greater protection for civil and human rights, there are good prospects for regional stability. There will be spoilers in this process—those who see a benefit in instability. There are well-ensconced and resourceful actors in Central Asia whose short-term benefit from impeding cooperation will continue to lead them to sow discord and manipulate divisive elite and popular attitudes. While there are also many segments within the political elite, the government bureaucracies, the emerging commercial elite, and the population at large that would benefit from avoiding a vicious spiral of conflict escalation in the region, they are dispersed, whereas those who benefit from the status quo have concentrated power and can more easily stymie political change. International actors may be able to act to support those who would push for reform; they can “reward target groups with fiscal or tangible rewards for acting positively to prevent conflict from arising” and offer “side payments” that “enlarge the pie in an effort to facilitate the possibility of reconciliation.”62 Prudent preventive policies, such as incentives to promote political stability, sustainable economic growth, social progress, and political development, can make political upheaval in Central Asia less likely than it is today. A relatively modest investment now to provide incentives for equitable, sustainable development in the region can help the countries of the region to avoid vicious conflicts that would entail much greater costs in the long run.

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Notes Several academic and policy research institutes maintain electronic coverage of contemporary affairs in the Central Asian countries. The following sites are particularly useful: The Analyst, of the Central Asia and Caucasus Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, www. cacianalyst.org; Eurasianet, a project of the Open Society Institute, www. eurasianet.org; International Crisis Group, www.intl-crisis-group.org; IRIN of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, www.irinnews.org; Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research of Harvard University, www.hsph.harvard.edu/hpcr/index.htm. 1. The caliphate is the state established under successors to the prophet Muhammad. In the early Islamic period, the caliphate united all Muslim lands under a single caliph (or khalifa, literally a “successor” to the prophet). 2. Ted Robert Gurr, “Containing Internal War in the Twenty-First Century,” in Fen Osler Hampson and David M. Malone, eds., From Reaction to Conflict Prevention: Opportunities for the UN System (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002), p. 57. 3. There are many ways to define the lands historically referred to as “Inner Asia,” “Middle Asia,” or “Central Asia.” A broad geographical definition of the region might include the lands reaching in the east from the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of western China to the Caspian Sea in the west, and from the Tatar and Bashkir regions of Russia in the north to the southern borders of Afghanistan in the south. Today the term “Central Asia” is frequently used to refer collectively to the five former Soviet socialist republics that declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 as it was breaking up. 4. Key Indicators 2002: Population and Human Resource Trends and Challenges (Manila: Asian Development Bank, 2003). 5. The dominant language group of the region is Turkic. The two major forms of the Turkic language group, kipchak and oguz, are further divided into the national languages of Karakalpak, Kazak, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, and Uzbek. These national languages are closely related but not always mutually comprehensible. Another major language of the region is Tajik, a variant of Farsi. Russian, once widely spoken throughout the region, has declined in use in recent years, although it continues to be an important language of commerce and science. 6. June Teufel Dryer, “The PLA and Regionalism: Xinjiang,” in Richard H. Yang et al., eds., Chinese Regionalism: The Security Dimension (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 249–276; Felix K. Chang, “China’s Central Asian Power and Problems,” Orbis 41, no. 3 (1997): 401–425. 7. The bulk of citations referenced in this chapter are to analytical and scholarly materials published by researchers working outside the Central Asian region. In recent years Central Asian scholars have developed significant competence in the analysis of foreign affairs, but contemporary institutions do not protect political expression for analysts and traditions of academic freedom for indigenous analysts who are working on domestic political, economic, and social affairs. As a consequence, much of the important contemporary research on domestic historical, social, economic, and political affairs appears in more

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ephemeral journalistic accounts and analyses. Analysis is increasingly produced by local analysts working under the auspices of international organizations, but much of it is published outside the Central Asian region. 8. Observers interpret the potential for political upheaval variously. Some observers have long argued that social and political constraints in Central Asia spell eventual conflict. Boris Rumer has long argued that the “Islamic unrest seething in Central Asia” will make the conflicts in the other parts of the former Soviet Union “seem like lullaby.” Boris Rumer, “Trouble in Samarkand,” World Monitor, November 1988, p. 47. More recently, Tomohiko Uyama has argued, “The legitimacy of the nation-states is strongly supported both internally and internationally, and although protest movements may destabilize the existing political order in some or other way, they are unlikely to change the nation-state system fundamentally.” Tomohiko Uyama, “Why Are Social Protest Movements Weak in Central Asia?” in Keiko Sakai, ed., Social Protests and NationBuilding in the Middle East and Central Asia (Chiba, Japan: Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization, 2003), p. 54. 9. Gregory J. Massell, The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974). 10. Alexandre Bennigsen, “Several Nations or One People? Ethnic Consciousness Among Soviet Central Asians,” Survey 24, no. 3 (1979): 51–64. 11. Throughout this chapter I rely upon proper nouns that are transliterated from the Russian rather than from the native languages. The names of the Soviet republics have recently been changed. Kirgizia, for instance, is now officially known as Kyrgyzia. However, for purposes of historical consistency, I have persisted with the traditional names of the republics. 12. See Gregory Gleason, “The Federal Formula and the Collapse of the USSR,” Publius: The Journal of Federalism 22 (Summer 1992): 141–163. 13. Martin Spechler raises the question, “Why has regional cooperation among the Central Asian states been so halting and ineffective, despite the salient problems of slow growth, water scarcity, and Islamic hostility?” and concludes, “In all of these areas, powerful political factors diminish the potential for cooperation.” Martin C. Spechler, “Regional Cooperation in Central Asia,” Problems of Post-Communism 49, no. 6 (2002): 45. 14. For an analysis of the relationship between economic and political change, see Gregory Gleason, Markets and Politics in Central Asia: Structural Reform and Political Change (London: Routledge, 2003). 15. Tajikistan joined the World Bank and the IMF in 1993. Tajikistan joined the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in March 1998. Turkmenistan joined the ADB in 2000. 16. Some observers argue that it is important to distinguish between the terms “Kazakh” and “Kazakhstani” in describing the Kazakhstan government. All of the countries in Central Asia are multinational, but Kazakhstan more than the others has a significant portion of nonethnic Kazakhs. Referring to the “Kazakh government” rather than the “Kazakhstan government” or “Kazakhstani government” thus seems to ethnicize the government. Subtle but slightly different variations in the meaning of these terms also exist in the native languages and

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in Russian, the other principal language spoken in the region. In this chapter, for the sake of simplicity, I refer to the shortened versions. With this simplified practice I intend no slight to the cultural values of any of the citizens of these countries. 17. Dispatch (U.S. Department of State) 3, no. 4 (January 27, 1992): 57. 18. Nursultan Nazarbaev, Kazakstan—2030: Barlyk, kazakstandyktardyn, osip-orkendeui, kauipsizdigizhene, el-aukatynyn artuy [Kazakhstan—2030: Prosperity, security, and ever growing welfare of all Kazakhstanis] (Almaty: Ylim, 1997), p. 155. 19. See Nursultan Nazarbaev, “Address of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan to the People of Kazakhstan: On the Situation in the Country and Major Directions of Domestic and Foreign Policy—Democratization, Economic and Political Reform for the New Century,” Panorama, no. 38 (October 2, 1998): 1. Nazarbaev’s rhetorical commitment to democracy and a market-oriented economy has remained virtually constant through the years of his rule. Compare the ideals expressed in his speeches collected in Five Years of Independence (Almaty: Kazakhstan, 1996) or program for the future expressed in Kazakhstan—2030: Prosperity, Security, and Ever Growing Welfare of All the Kazakhstanis (Almaty: Ylim, 1997) with Islam Karimov’s justification of authoritarianism in Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998). 20. Akezhan Kazhegeldin, “Shattered Image: Misconceptions of Democracy and Capitalism in Kazakhstan,” Harvard International Review 22 (Winter– Spring 2000): 76–79; Hugh Pope and David Cloud, “Struggle in Kazakhstan Is the Apparent Spark for U.S. Investigation,” Wall Street Journal, July 5, 2000. 21. Kazakhstan’s 1999 elections were criticized by the U.S. State Department, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and Freedom House. During the early stages of the 1999 presidential campaign in Kazakhstan, U.S. vice-president Al Gore personally phoned Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbaev to object to the disqualification of Akezhan Kazhegeldin as a candidate in the Kazakhstan presidential elections. See Steve LeVine, “Caspian Logic: Democracy? Sure, Sure, Now Buy Our Oil,” New York Times, January 3, 1999. Nazarbaev waved aside such objections. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) sent a mission to Kazakhstan from November 16 to November 20, 1998, to assess the preelection situation in the country. The mission expressed serious doubts that the principles for democratic elections, as formulated in OSCE commitments, would be met by the January 10, 1999, presidential election. Accordingly, the ODIHR press release of December 3, 1998, stated, “The ODIHR believes that the Government of Kazakhstan should postpone the election to allow for adequate preparations to ensure a democratic election.” ODIHR press release no. 4/98, “Kazakh Elections Not Meeting OSCE Commitments.” Russian prime minister Evgenii Primakov met with Kazakh officials in Astana on December 22 to sign agreements on bilateral relations. Primakov was quoted in the press as saying, “We support the [incumbent] president of Kazakhstan,” adding that “Russia is not one of those governments that is trying to pry into the internal affairs of Kazakhstan.” ITAR-TASS as reported in RFE/RL Newsline, December 23, 1998.

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22. Economists typically view the use of bureaucratic office for personal gain in terms of either increased influence or other benefit as “rent-seeking.” See Anne Krueger, “The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society,” American Economic Review 64, no. 3 (1974): 291–303. 23. Kazakhstan ranked eighty-fourth on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index, a ranking better than that of neighboring Uzbekistan but not far removed from countries with notorious levels of corruption such as Uganda and Pakistan. Transparency International press release, Berlin, October 26, 1999. 24. For an analysis of the challenges of independence and democratization in Kyrgyzstan, see Jeremy Bransten, “Kyrgyzstan: A Democracy Only for the Rich,” RFE/RL Newsday, October 14, 1997; and John Anderson, Kyrgyzstan: Central Asia’s Island of Democracy? (London: Harwood Academic, 1999). 25. Kyrgystan joined the WTO in December 1998. 26. “UNHCR Report on Tajikistan, January 1993–March 1996,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees, May 1996, p. 4. See also “Return to Tajikistan, Continued Regional and Ethnic Tensions,” Human Rights Watch/Helsinki [HRW/H] 7, no. 9 (May 1995): 4–7. 27. Gregory Gleason, “Foreign Policy Dimensions of Tajikistan’s Transportation Policy,” Central Asian Monitor, no. 6 (2000): 13–19. 28. On the events leading up to the Tajikistan civil war, see Shahram Akbarzadeh, “Why Did Nationalism Fail in Tajikistan?” Europe-Asia Studies 48, no. 7 (1996): 1105–1129. 29. Nancy Lubin, Alex Kaits, and Igor Barsegian, Narcotics Interdiction in Central Asia and Afghanistan: Challenges for International Donors (New York: Open Society Institute, 2002). 30. Tajik and Uzbek populations in Central Asia have historically been intertwined. At the time of the territorial division of Central Asia into republics, of a total population of 1,100,000 ethnic Tajiks in Central Asia, only about 300,000 found themselves within the newly established state of Tajikistan. The gerrymandering of borders is “explained by the desire of the Uzbeks to have the historically important cities of Bukhara and Samarqand as part of Uzbekistan, despite the fact that for centuries the majority of the cities’ population was Tajik. This was a matter of prestige rather than a political necessity. When the Russians conquered Central Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century they made Tashkent the political, administrative, and cultural center of Russian Turkestan, replacing the cities of Bukhara and Samarqand, which had been regional centers for centuries.” Sergei Gretsky, “Civil War in Tajikistan: Causes, Developments, and Prospects for Peace,” in Roald Z. Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower, eds., Central Asia: Conflict, Resolution, and Change (Washington, D.C.: Center for Political and Strategic Studies, 1995). 31. The international development community has not been satisfied with Turkmenistan’s progress toward the adoption of democratic norms of policy and practice. In April 2000, the EBRD took the unprecedented step of suspending its public-sector lending programs to Turkmenistan on the basis of the government’s unwillingness to implement agreed structural reforms. “EBRD Cuts Turkmen Loans, Slams Political System,” Reuters, April 18, 2000.

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32. A chilling account of these events is available in Emmanuel Decaux, “OSCE Rapporteur’s Report on Turkmenistan,” ODIHR, Warsaw, Poland, March 12, 2003, available at www.osce.org/odihr/documents/pr/rrep_turkmenistan.pdf. 33. See “Turkmenistan,” Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, 2002, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State, March 31, 2003, available at www.state.gov. 34. See Karimov, Uzbekistan. 35. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Human Rights and Democratization in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000). See also “Straightening Out the Brains of One Hundred: Discriminatory Political Dismissals in Uzbekistan,” Helsinki Watch 5, no. 7 (April 1993): 1–6; and Wendy Sloane, “Uzbekistan Cracks Down on Human Rights Activists,” Christian Science Monitor, May 24, 1994, p. 7. 36. S. Frederick Starr, “Making Eurasia Stable,” Foreign Affairs (January– February 1996): 80–92. 37. Republic of Uzbekistan: Recent Economic Developments, IMF Staff Country Report no. 00/36, March 29, 2000. 38. An overvalued currency also can be expected to lead to the depletion of foreign reserves, which in turn can bring about pressures for severe import restrictions and eventually the collapse of the free-trade policy. An overvalued currency tends to channel trade into narrow and more easily managed sectors. It thus may appear to offer a solution to capital flight. However, there are great efficiency losses associated with currency overvaluation. It requires strict regulation of financial transactions, imposing a heavy burden in the form of carrying out monitoring and imposing sanctions. Well-connected parties with access to cheap, government-financed foreign exchange and import licenses benefit greatly from this situation. These parties can be expected to lobby to maintain the situation despite great efficiency losses and the corresponding damage to the public interest. Maintaining strict currency controls can be expensive and creates an unfavorable climate for trade. A policy of overvaluation creates a rationale for extending police sanctions even to the extent of replacing the goal of public safety with that of regulating private behavior. It can give rise to an incentive structure in which private parties have an interest in avoiding or evading the legal framework through various forms of side payments and inducements. “IMF Pressures Uzbekistan to Make Currency Convertible,” RFE/RL Newsline, June 29, 2000. 39. Calculated from Republic of Uzbekistan: Recent Economic Developments, IMF Staff Country Report no. 00/36, March 29, 2000, table 37, “Uzbekistan: Direction of Trade with Traditional Trading Partners by Country, 1996– 97,” p. 74. 40. Mikhail Degtiar, “Clans, Cotton, and Currency,” Central Asian Times 2, no. 41 (October 12, 2000): 84. 41. See Gregory Gleason, “Uzbekistan: From Statehood to Nationhood,” in Ian Bremmer and Raymond Taras, eds., Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 331– 360; and Gregory Gleason, “The 1924 National Delimitation in Central Asia:

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Historical Dimensions of Contemporary Border Relations in Central Asia,” in Hasan Celal Guzel, C. Cem Oguz, and Osman Karatay, eds., The Turks, vol. 5 (Ankara: Yeni Turkiye, 2002), pp. 982–989. 42. Forty percent of Tajikistan’s documented foreign exchange comes from one factory—the Tursunzode aluminum plant. This level of trade concentration and dependence is remarkable; it may be unique in the entire world. See Tajikistan: Recent Economic Developments, IMF Staff Country Report no. 00/27, March 2000, pp. 92–93. 43. Nazarbaev, Five Years of Independence, p. 234. 44. Galina Islamova, “Eurasian Economic Community: Purposes, Challenges, and Prospects,” Central Asia and the Caucasus 7, no. 1 (2001): 34–42. 45. Nazarbaev announced his plan for a “Eurasian union” in 1994. Umirserik Kasenov, one of Kazakhstan’s leading foreign policy analysts before his death in 1998, was one of the principal theoretical architects of Nazarbaev’s vision of pan-Eurasian economic and policy integration. Kasenov’s view was that intraregional policy integration would have the effect of reinforcing the sovereignty of the individual states. Kasenov argued, “The strengthening of poorly developed state sovereignty in Central Asia is possible only if national development of the former Soviet Asian republics proceeds in parallel with the deepening of interstate cooperation and integration. The effective functioning of the institutions of Central Asian integration and policy coordination will make possible the acceleration of economic development of each of the individual governments of Central Asia and at the same time will solve the existing and emerging contradictions among them.” U. T. Kasenov, Bezopasnost Tsentralnoi Azii: Natsionalnye, regionalnye, i globalnye problemy [The Security of Central Asia: National, Regional and Global Problems] (Almaty: Kainar, 1998), p. 199. 46. Douglas W. Blum, “Domestic Politics and Russia’s Caspian Policy,” Post-Soviet Affairs 14, no. 2 (April–June 1998): 137–164. 47. Philip Micklin, Managing Water in Central Asia (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2000). 48. The reason that the IMU did not call for the removal of the Tajik government is mysterious. The fact that the Tajik government was not targeted led the Uzbek government to conclude that there was Tajik complicity with the IMU. 49. Statement by Richard Boucher, U.S. Department of State, September 15, 2000. 50. The Moscow-based newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported on January 10, 2001, that IMU troops under the direction of Juma Namangani, who had just months before been escorted out of Tajikistan as a result of the deal to release the hostages, had returned to Tajikistan and were ensconced in the Tavildara valley east of Dushanbe. But on January 17, then–Tajik defense minister Sherali Khairullaev denied foreign news reports that Juma Namangani and his rebels had returned to Tajikistan, saying that a special government commission dispatched two weeks earlier to the Tavildara region had established that no members of the banned IMU had taken refuge there. On January 30, the Moscow newspaper Kommersant-Daily reported that the Tajik Ministry for

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Emergency Situations, headed by former United Tajik Opposition (UTO) field commander Mirzo Zieev, had flown some 250 members of the IMU and Juma Namangani out of the country. See RFE/RL Newsline, January 11, 2001, January 17, 2001, and January 31, 2001. 51. “Leaving No Witnesses: Uzbekistan’s Campaign Against Rights Defenders,” Helsinki Watch 12, no. 4 (March 2000): 1–4. 52. Ibid. 53. U.S. House of Representatives, Congressional Resolution 397 (106th Congress, November 1, 2000). 54. John Cockell distinguishes between proximate prevention and structural prevention, arguing that structural prevention includes three major aspects: peacebuilding, preventive disarmament, and preventive development. Cockell argues that preventive peacebuilding emphasizes four elements: governance, human rights, societal stability, and economic development. The international donor community has made substantial contributions in the direction of preventive disarmament and preventive development but has not yet sufficiently prioritized efforts at peacebuilding. John G. Cockell, “Planning Preventive Action: Context, Strategy, and Implementation,” in Hampson and Malone, From Reaction to Conflict Prevention. 55. Cockell, “Planning Preventive Action,” p. 187. 56. Ibid. 57. The outbreaks of violence that did occur, as in 1993 in Tajikistan, were the result of local competition for power rather than an attempt to reestablish the Soviet system. 58. Barry R. Posen and Andrew L. Ross, “Competing Visions for U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security 21, no. 3 (Winter 1996–1997): 5–53. 59. Charles A. Kupchan and Clifford A. Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe,” International Security 16, no. 1 (Summer 1991): 114–161. 60. Charles Fairbanks, C. Richard Nelson, S. Frederick Starr, and Kenneth Weisbrode, The Strategic Assessment of Central Asia (Washington, D.C.: Central Asia and Caucasus Institute, January 2001), p. 2. 61. For an exploration of this thesis, see Adam Przeworski et al., Sustainable Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). 62. Donald Rothchild, “Third Party Incentives and the Phases of Conflict Prevention,” in Chandra Lekha Sriram and Karin Wermester, eds., From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003), p. 298.

3 Sources of Conflict in West Africa COMFORT ERO & JONATHAN TEMIN

Conflict in Africa poses a major challenge to United Nations efforts designed to ensure global peace, prosperity and human rights for all. Although the United Nations was intended to deal with inter-State warfare, it is being required more and more often to respond to intraState instability and conflict. In those conflicts the main aim, increasingly, is the destruction not just of armies but of civilians and entire ethnic groups. Preventing such wars is no longer a matter of defending States or protecting allies. It is a matter of defending humanity itself. —UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan1

West Africa is one of the world’s most unstable regions. Since 1957, when Ghana became the first state in the region to gain independence, West Africa has been beset by violent conflict that has caused a vast number of deaths, injuries, refugees, and displaced peoples. 2 Between 1960 and 1990, thirty-seven of seventy-two successful military coups in Africa occurred in West Africa, a region comprising less than a third of all African states.3 In 1963, only six years after Ghanaian independence, neighboring Togo experienced Africa’s first coup, and four years later civil war broke out in Nigeria. Civil war erupted in Liberia in 1989, restarted in 2000, and intensified in 2003; Sierra Leone endured a brutal civil conflict from 1991 to 2002.4 Violence engulfed Guinea-Bissau in 1998, and the Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFDC) separatist movement in the southern sliver of Senegal has been fighting for

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independence for two decades. Nigeria, by far the most populous state on the continent with more than 120 million inhabitants, has repeatedly slipped in and out of crisis and conflict since a democratically elected government came to power in 1999, after thirteen years of military rule. Finally, in September 2002, an attempted coup triggered violent conflict in several regions of Côte d’Ivoire, a state once considered to be a bastion of stability in an otherwise turbulent region. Not all of West Africa is plagued by conflict, however. Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ghana, Mali, Niger, São Tomé and Príncipe (despite an attempted coup in July 2003), and Senegal (despite the separatist conflict in the Casamance) have remained relatively peaceful, albeit while functioning in a weak and sometimes ineffective manner. The leaders of Ghana, Mali, and Senegal continue to consolidate viable constitutional democracies, proving that mature political systems can develop in Africa. But despite these encouraging signs, West Africa still comprises a collection of states at vastly different stages of political and economic development, many of which are highly vulnerable to violent conflict. Conflicts in West Africa vary in their sources, dynamics, and complexity. There are local and particular manifestations associated with the distinct historical experiences of colonial rule, nation building, internal consolidation, and socioeconomic development of the postcolonial state. Conflicts have their own histories and specific characteristics, making it difficult to offer broad generalizations or conclusions about why they occur. While there is no consensus on the causes and dynamics of conflict in the region, it is possible to reach some general conclusions, especially in relation to those conflicts that are essentially internal. Traditional explanations that link conflict to issues of ethnicity and tribalism remain relevant—as demonstrated by the emergence of conflict in Côte d’Ivoire in September 2002—but on their own such explanations constitute only a modest part of the whole picture. We must consider a variety of other factors in order to explain the prevalence of conflicts in the region. This chapter is divided into three sections. The first is a broad discussion of factors that cause, perpetuate, and exacerbate conflict in West Africa on both the national and the international level. Throughout the chapter we make reference to a number of West African states by way of illustration, focusing our attention on Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, states that have been the center of conflict and instability since 1990. The second section focuses on the

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actors involved in conflict, considers who is fighting and why, and examines the political and economic motivations of individuals or groups engaged in conflict.5 The third section looks at the legacy and aftermath of past conflict as a pretext for future conflict, recognizing that unfinished aspects of war, poor peace processes, and challenges posed by the transition from war to reconstruction and reconciliation often serve as sources of renewed violence. In the conclusion we argue that conflict management, not conflict prevention, should be the overriding goal in West Africa and that it is in the interests of members of the international community to engage in conflict management initiatives in the region. While a lack of political will on the part of the international community often impedes such initiatives, there are very real reasons why the international community should intervene.

Sources of West African Conflict

This section considers the sources of conflict in West Africa on both the national and the international level. It is important to note, however, that while we distinguish between national and international sources, in reality the line between the two is often blurred, and sometimes nonexistent. For the most part, conflicts in West Africa have not occurred between states but within states (although there is a definite trend toward the regionalization and spillover of conflict in West Africa). This is contrary to what might have been expected at independence given Africa’s somewhat arbitrary, colonially imposed boundaries. But the fact remains that the continent has not experienced significant border changes, and border issues have seldom been a driving force behind West African conflicts. According to Jeffrey Herbst, African leaders recognized in the early 1960s that a potentially large number of groups would want to secede from the states they are presently in, to join others or create entirely new ones. In order to prevent the continent from being thrown into the chaos of large scale boundary changes in which the stability and integrity of any state could be threatened, they created a system of explicit norms, propounded by the Organization of African Unity in 1963, which declared any change in the inherited colonial boundaries to be illegitimate.6

Somewhat remarkably, these norms have held over time, and consequently Africa has witnessed very few interstate conflicts.7 One may

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wonder, however, whether allowing the reconfiguration of some borders would have reduced the prevalence of intrastate conflicts. National Level At the root of conflict in West Africa are the legacies of colonial rule and the inability of leaders to construct and manage public institutions and govern effectively while eschewing corruption. These failures create widespread discontent among the population, which political entrepreneurs such as the former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, have effectively tapped into. In many West African countries, attempts at state building have effectively failed, and what is left behind is a highly centralized, often personalized bureaucracy that is not capable of providing basic goods and services to much of the population. Instead, that bureaucracy operates on a patronage basis and serves only a relative few, often those citizens connected to government elites or citizens who are members of favored ethnic, religious, or regional groupings. This section is divided into three subsections. The first considers legacies of colonialism, failed state-making processes, centralization of power, the role of elite politics, and the manner in which these factors affect conflict. The second looks at how leaders have manipulated group identity to their strategic advantage, a by-product of which is often conflict. Finally, we consider the politicization and deterioration of security forces in West Africa, a region in which military government and military coups have been alarmingly common. The colonial legacy, the process of state making, the centralization of power, and elite politics. The starting point for understanding the causes of conflict in West Africa at the national level is the legacy of colonization that lingers over Africa’s still-young independent states. The process of state making was predictably challenging, as West African states struggled to dismantle the political, economic, and social institutions left by colonialism. Colonialism failed to build strong local institutions, to set in place sturdy government structures, or to develop indigenous institutions. Guinea-Bissau’s postcolonial transition and attempts at state building are, for example, similar to those seen across other postcolonial states in the region and are illustrative of how the centralization of power, weak institutions, and ineffective, manipulative leadership can lead to widespread conflict. The principal liberation force in GuineaBissau, the Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde

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(PAIGC), assumed power once the Portuguese colonizers departed. The PAIGC became the dominant power, but its leaders repeatedly clashed over how the country should be governed. Luiz Cabral, Guinea-Bissau’s first leader, responded by using state security forces to stamp out opposition groups. According to Adekeye Adebajo, a combination of centralized and repressive rule and corruption led to societal disintegration.8 Cabral was overthrown in a bloodless coup in 1980 by João Bernado “Nino” Vieira, his prime minister and the former commander of the armed forces. Vieira took power claiming that corruption and economic mismanagement were undermining development in the country. However, Vieira was no different from Cabral: he pursued the same centralized policy and was just as autocratic. Guinea-Bissau was effectively a one-party state under the PAIGC. Vieira ruled in the “security-obsessed, autocratic tradition of his predecessors” and vigilantly pursued his opponents, jailing many on charges of plotting coups.9 He led a paranoid existence in which he constantly purged the army to remove potential enemies. In 1991, donor pressure and demands for political liberalization forced the PAIGC to begin the process of transformation, but it was a forced transition to pseudo-democracy. Andrea Ostheimer argues that “the form political liberalization took was determined exclusively by the principal actor, PAIGC, and entirely orchestrated from above.”10 Vieira and the PAIGC manipulated the process of parliamentary elections in July 1994. Despite his continuation of the repressive politics of his predecessors, Vieira’s rule was not challenged until the June 1998 mutiny by Brigadier Ansumane Mané. The mutiny was effectively led from within the PAIGC, as Mané had fought with the PAIGC in the independence struggle and supported Vieira when he first came to power. It is perhaps unsurprising that the eighteen years of centralized oneparty rule, political repression, economic underdevelopment, and competition for power resulted in another coup. Though the immediate trigger was the attempted arrest of Mané for allegedly supplying arms to the Casamance rebels in Senegal, the underlying reason for the mutiny lay in the power struggle between Vieira and Mané, and between Vieira and the ruling echelons of the PAIGC. There was bitter rivalry between Vieria and Mané stemming in large part from the fact that Mané had expected a higher post than chief of staff as a reward for supporting Vieira’s 1980 coup. Mané was loyal to Vieira, but Vieira’s failure to pay the army and the declining welfare of the soldiers provided further impetus for the mutiny. Within the PAIGC, Vieira had marginalized

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influential party barons as he built a separate power base beyond the party’s traditional rulers, and when the mutiny occurred he received minimal support from these barons. He had also seriously underestimated the level of support that Mané had among members of the armed forces. The coup of June 1998 soon turned into civil war. The fighting continued until a peacekeeping intervention by the Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in Guinea-Bissau in December 1998 brought relative calm to the country. But peace was short-lived, and fighting resumed in May 1999, resulting in the takeover of the government by Mané’s military junta.11 Following the coup, Guinea-Bissau, like many of its neighbors, held elections to bring an end to the crisis. In January 2000, President Kumba Yalla came to power, but under Yalla deep divisions in the security forces remained. In November 2000, Mané was killed by forces loyal to the government. Yalla’s behavior was erratic, though, and instability persisted, punctuated by his removal in a coup on September 14, 2003. A key component of colonial administration in West Africa was an emphasis on developing and exploiting coastal regions, which left much of the interior underdeveloped. Consequently, political and economic power became centralized around capital cities located near the coast.12 This concentration of power and the centralization of political life persisted after independence. Leaders chose to concentrate power in their own hands rather than cede power to local administrations in rural communities or the provinces, which were often marginalized economically. This created tensions between the political leaders in the capitals and the local leaders, who felt alienated and rightly believed that their regions were economically deprived. Over time, rural inhabitants began to resent their political leaders. In many cases, young adults reacted by challenging central authorities through protests, strikes, and finally the armed clashes that led to violent conflict.13 The civil war in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002 is illustrative of West African conflicts that have emerged partly because of the failure of African leaders to address deep socioeconomic divisions and societal cleavages left by the colonial era. In Sierra Leone, the rural enclaves were far removed from the developing elite culture found in the coastal city of Freetown. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) launched an armed insurgency in 1991, challenging the economic mismanagement, corruption, and political instability under the leadership of the All People’s Congress (APC), which had held power since 1978 when its leader,

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Siaka Stevens, who was at that time the president of Sierra Leone, institutionalized one-party rule.14 In a deeply divided society where power and wealth benefited only a relatively few urban elite, the conflict was a struggle against a history of centralization of power, personalized and patrimonial rule, exclusionist politics, the accumulation and exploitation of state revenues, the misuse of state security forces, and “the introduction of thuggery into the political landscape.”15 West Africa is a region rich in natural resources and primary products, most notably gold, diamonds, coffee, cocoa, and timber. For most of their postindependence history, West African states have been heavily reliant on earnings from exports of these products. This primaryproduct dependence is in part a legacy of colonialism, as Africa’s boundaries were demarcated by colonialists intent on creating extractive states for the benefit of outside profiteers and traders and their own central banks. Many of West Africa’s postindependence leaders continued to exploit natural riches while doing little to develop other sources of revenues—the difference was that the profiteers were now internal, not external. Such dependence on primary products has three major effects: it minimizes incentives to develop and diversify the economy, leaving other sectors of the economy weak and underdeveloped; it creates a heavy reliance on imports; and it leaves the economy quite vulnerable to fluctuations in world prices for the products in which they specialize. Such fluctuations can have severe welfare effects, as Côte d’Ivoire discovered when it experienced sharp drops in cocoa prices that significantly reduced both government revenue and the well-being of cocoa farm plantation owners and laborers. Not coincidentally, this drop accompanied rising tensions that contributed to the widespread conflict witnessed in 2002 and 2003. Another aspect of economic mismanagement in West Africa relates to the distribution of profits from natural resources. While West African leaders have consistently exploited the continent’s valuable resources, the bulk of the population has not benefited from the export of these commodities. A common feature of war-torn states such as Liberia and Sierra Leone is that economic development is limited to capital cities and urban areas, and the wealth derived from resources found in rural areas is not spread throughout society, nor does it remain in rural areas. Leaders of these countries often make little or no effort to extend economic growth to rural areas. This tendency is compounded in situations where rural areas are controlled by rebel groups. In Sierra Leone during the war, development and economic benefits were heavily skewed toward

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the capital, while the rural population “shared little in the proceeds of the country’s rich agricultural and mineral resources.”16 This phenomenon is not restricted to societies immersed in conflict. In Nigeria, executives in Abuja, Lagos, and abroad control wealth derived from oil found in the Niger Delta region. Consequently, residents of the delta, who are among the poorest Nigerians, have participated in demonstrations and violent clashes in efforts to express their displeasure. The abundance of natural resources also presents opportunities for personal enrichment. The potential for the accumulation of wealth has overwhelmed some leaders, and they have focused on enlarging personal fortunes and turning the state into their personal fiefdoms. The route to these riches is often through violence, as the lack of economic development and diversification in the region means that a leader or warlord who can gain control of a valuable resource can make substantial profits. The result has been the destruction and criminalization of the state and near-institutionalization of corruption.17 A recent study by World Bank economist Paul Collier found that conflict is “more likely in countries that depend heavily on natural resources for their export earnings, in part because rebel groups can extort the gains from this trade to finance their operations.”18 Most West African states fit this description, as they depend on a small number of primary products for a large portion of their export earnings and national revenue. These resources include diamonds in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea; gold in Ghana and parts of Liberia and Guinea; iron ore in Guinea and Liberia; coffee and cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire; and oil in Nigeria. In Sierra Leone, President Siaka Stevens (in power from 1968 to 1985) gave his associates free rein to dominate informal and clandestine mining and the sale of Sierra Leone’s valuable natural resources. Over several decades, he turned Sierra Leone into his personal business enterprise, effectively transforming it into a “shadow state,” or a state dominated by a web of informal business associations instituted by rulers with little interest in carrying out formal state functions.19 This individual ambition defined political life in Sierra Leone and contributed to violent student protest, social unrest, and economic dislocation—all fertile ground for rebellion. The political leadership used its control of the state to plunder the wealth of the nation, seizing profits from the export of resources such as diamonds and fisheries. Rather than focus state resources on building efficient public services such as health and educational facilities, political leaders gradually privatized state assets and

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state-owned companies in lucrative contracts to shore up their patronage from friends and relations of the ruling elite. Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia, made huge amounts of money from the sale of diamonds mined in Liberia and Sierra Leone and timber logged in Liberia. On July 23, 2003, the Swiss Bank froze approximately U.S.$1.5 million in accounts held by persons associated with Charles Taylor following a request by the Special Court of Sierra Leone. In Nigeria, the late General Sani Abacha (in power from 1993 to 1998) is reported to have stolen more than U.S.$3 billion of government funds, much of it oil revenue, while Nigeria has debts of more than U.S.$28 billion.20 Historically, foreign aid has been another source of personal enrichment for a number of leaders in West Africa. The reduction in international financial assistance, however, and the disengagement of Western patrons, have exposed the vulnerabilities of several leaders and forced them to seek alternative economic bases for maintaining their grip on power. Consequently, conflicts centered on competition for scarce resources have intensified since the mid-1990s, as leaders could no longer rely on aid from abroad to secure their position. Governments faced recession and bankruptcy made worse by an economic crisis on the continent and a worldwide recession that caused a drop in the price of West African exports.21 High levels of unemployment swept across West Africa, and governments increasingly struggled to finance public services and pay their civil servants, police, and soldiers. Manipulation of group identity. The centralization of authority across West Africa excluded entire regions and ethnic and religious groups from power. Accordingly, geography, ethnicity, and religion have traditionally been portrayed as key causes of conflict, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, when secessionist politics and demands for self-determination, such as those of the Ibos of eastern Nigeria, confronted West African states. Though Collier’s World Bank research suggests that ethnicity and religion are not in and of themselves the primary causes of conflict, the interweaving of ethnic and religious tensions has often been a powerful tool used by leaders to gain political support. Those who support a particular leader receive rewards, particularly ministerial posts or greater access to state resources. Those excluded from political and economic life are often angered by the power enjoyed by particular ethnic groups. In several instances they have responded with violence. Nigeria, where more than 10,000 people have died in violent clashes

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since the return to democracy in 1999, demonstrates the impact of such manipulation,22 as ethnic and religious violence have proven to be important tools used by political entrepreneurs to create division and animosity.23 The historic dominance of Nigerian political life by Muslim elites from northern Nigeria has been a source of constant tension. This has been aggravated by their control of lucrative resources such as the oil reserves in the southeast portion of the country, which is inhabited primarily by Christians and animists. Despite Nigeria’s ongoing attempts to democratize, the shift of power to the southern-based leadership of President Olusegun Obasanjo (a Yoruba and devout Christian) has led to increased tensions and violent clashes between Yorubas and northern Muslims. These clashes have been encouraged by northern political elites seeking to restore and maintain their power and influence. In a country where “power-hungry individuals employed (and continue to employ) religion as a stepping stone to power and political legitimacy,”24 the introduction of sharia (Islamic law) in late 1999 in the northwestern state of Zamfara inflamed existing religious tensions between Muslims and Christians. Sharia has since been extended to eleven other northern states. “With religion for a cudgel, northern politicians have distilled the masses’ general disillusionment with Nigeria’s government into Islamic fervor,” which has been the source of frequent violent clashes.25 Such elite manipulation has fueled turmoil between the largest ethnic-religious groups in the country—Christian Yorubas in the south, Hausa Muslims in the north, and predominantly Christian Ibos in the east. Côte d’Ivoire offers another example of the political manipulation of identity driving the escalation toward conflict. Historically a stable country in comparison to its neighbors, Côte d’Ivoire experienced its first coup in December 1999. A failed coup attempt in September 2002 triggered nine months of sustained violence. The immediate spark in 2002 was disagreement over a demobilization drive by the government of President Laurent Gbagbo designed to rid the army of soldiers recruited by General Robert Gueï, the former military leader who took power after the 1999 coup.26 A group of 789 soldiers, later calling themselves the Mouvement Patriotique de la Côte d’Ivoire (MPCI), rebelled against Gbagbo’s attempted demobilization by launching a mutiny. Their rebellion was indicative of a deeper national crisis resulting from the absence of effective leadership and the ongoing abuse of power following the death of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. The three leaders who

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have held power since Houphouët-Boigny—Henri Konan Bédié, General Robert Gueï, and Laurent Gbagbo—blatantly used and abused ethnic, religious, and regional identities to secure and maintain power. Houphouët-Boigny, the patriarchal leader of West African politics, led Côte d’Ivoire for thirty-three years until his death in December 1993. Houphouët-Boigny was no democrat, but he combined autocratic, one-party rule with policies that sought to prevent destabilizing divisions from becoming entrenched. He was therefore sensitive to issues of diversity, and his administrations included ministers from different ethnic, regional, and religious backgrounds. He opened the country to migrant workers from other West African states, who contributed to the building of what became the third largest economy in Africa, after South Africa and Nigeria. But when Houphouët-Boigny died, so did his policy of diversity in political and economic life.27 Instability emerged when Bédié, Houphouët-Boigny’s chosen successor, introduced the concept of Ivoirité (which roughly translates to “Ivorian-ness”) in order to exclude his main political rival, the northerner Alassane Ouattara, from participating in the 1995 presidential elections.28 Ouattara was, supposedly, not a native Ivorian. Although he had served as prime minister under Houphouët-Boigny,29 the legislation introduced by Bédié disqualified Ouattara from running for the presidency. Bédié, out of fear of a northern backlash, took further measures to marginalize the north from Ivorian society, gradually removing northerners from powerful positions in the security forces. He also attacked immigrants, blaming them for the economic failures and unemployment crisis that clouded his presidency in the mid-1990s. Bédié implied that northerners, whose ethnic affinities stretched across borders into Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Niger, were at the core of the country’s economic problems. Northerners endured daily harassment and marginalization as Bédié strove to concentrate power in the center and south of the country.30 Amid such politics of discrimination and xenophobia, disaffected soldiers under the command of General Robert Gueï led a bloodless coup against Bédié in December 1999. Gueï’s rule however, was violent in a way previously unknown in Ivorian politics. He revised the constitution to prevent Ouattara from competing in the October 2000 presidential election and further marginalized northern politicians of Burkinabè, Malian, or Guinean descent. The run-up to the election was marred by ethnic and political violence. Gueï tried to steal the elections by prematurely ending the vote count, but a combination of mass protest and

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the loss of support of the army and gendarmerie forced Gueï to flee to Benin. Gbagbo subsequently came to power and civilian rule returned, but his presidency was soon marred by violence surrounding the December 2000 National Assembly elections, which included clashes between supporters of Gbagbo (mainly southerners) and Ouattara (mainly northerners) after Gbagbo rejected calls to reexamine Ouattara’s eligibility to run for president.31 Gbagbo continued to use national identity to protect and consolidate his power. The National Forum for Reconciliation in October 2001, and the January 2002 meeting of Côte d’Ivoire’s “big four” leaders (Gbagbo, Bédié, Gueï, and Ouattara) in the country’s capital, Yamoussoukro, yielded few results. Even the confirmation of Ouattara’s citizenship in July 2002 was only symbolic, as he remained barred from running for political positions. While maintaining his hostility toward immigrants and northerners, Gbagbo promoted members of his ethnic group, the Bétés, particularly within the army and gendarmerie, which further inflamed tensions. Gbagbo did nothing to promote ethnic reconciliation, and the violence of 2002 and 2003 can be viewed as a direct result of that policy. Other West African states have had similar experiences with the manipulation of group identity for political means. For example, in Liberia, Taylor tapped into the grievances of the people of Nimba County. They included ethnic Gios and Manos, who faced brutal repression under President Samuel Doe, who had relied heavily on his Krahn ethnic group and placed them in key positions in his government and military. When all of these cases are considered together, a distinct pattern of elite manipulation emerges, most often along ethnic lines. Consequently, ethnic groups have been pitted against one another by leaders who stand to benefit, politically and financially, from the conflict that may result. When this occurs, cycles of violence are often set in motion, and they are difficult to reverse. Politicization and deterioration of security forces. The gradual politicization and deterioration of security forces is a common phenomenon in West Africa and has contributed to a number of conflicts. Since the beginning of the colonial period, African security forces have frequently been a source of insecurity for both the state and its citizens, rather than a means of guaranteeing individual and national security.32 Divisions within the

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military have lead to coups, countercoups, and mutinies. Politicization of the military and military leadership has led to armies operating as an arm of the state and sometimes as a personal tool of the head of state, some of whom have used this tool to oppress the populace. In several instances, strong armies have been used to prop up ineffective and corrupt leaders, such as Nigeria’s General Sani Abacha. Herbert Howe offers five explanations for why Africa’s militaries tend to be politicized and weak: political leaders continue “a colonial habit” of employing people based on ethnicity; leaders allow for corruption as a means of “co-opting the officer corps”; leaders create parallel military structures (such as paramilitaries or elite presidential guards) as a way of weakening or counterbalancing the national army; many leaders, predominantly those from francophone Africa, rely on external foreign protection to ensure regime survival; and leaders continue the colonial practice of using the military “for partisan political reasons.”33 A number of West African states exhibit these characteristics. In Ghana, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone, the selection of national armies based on ethnicity, nepotism, or political connections and allegiances has been a major source of discontent among the population. It has also lead to instability within the armed forces.34 The personalization of the Nigerian military caused disunity and resentment and laid the foundation for several coups. In Liberia, a key source of conflict during the Doe regime was his ethnicization of the armed forces, as he placed many of his fellow Krahns in key military positions. Similarly, when Taylor came to power in 1997, he created a security apparatus that was loyal to him and dedicated to maintaining his survival.35 Another persistent problem has been the failure of leaders to reorganize or reform militaries when necessary. West African armies have frequently been allowed to decay through poor training and inadequate equipment and pay. Consequently, soldiers have engaged in extracurricular activities, including corruption that undermines their professionalism and reputation among the population. For example, the failure of Nigeria’s leaders to strengthen, or even maintain, the institutional capacity of the military accounts for its gradual disintegration over three decades and the general suspicion with which it is viewed by many civilians.36 Another ramification is that soldiers who are not adequately provided for tend to be more inclined to seek extra revenue through looting, or even to join rebel movements.

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International Level The principal sources of conflict in West Africa are found at the national level. Perhaps this is because Africa and its subregions are sometimes, though far from always, peripheral to the international system. Nonetheless, changes in the international system—most notably the end of the Cold War—have had a profound affect on West Africa and must be considered when assessing sources of conflict.37 The effects of these developments have been largely negative and inflammatory. In addition to the end of the Cold War, other international changes aggravating preexisting tensions and contributing to conflict include the proliferation of small arms, the increasingly influential role of external profiteers who benefit from conflict, and the regionalization of conflict. These factors are analyzed below. The Cold War and its legacy. The Cold War and the East-West rivalry provided an ordering principle for the international system. Its end encouraged chaotic tendencies and sent shock waves across the constituent system, including West Africa. In 1997, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated that “across Africa, undemocratic and oppressive regimes were supported and sustained by the competing super-powers in the name of their broader goals but, when the cold war ended, Africa was suddenly left to fend for itself.”38 The end of the rivalry meant a restructuring of military and political assistance to former client states and contributed to a number of tumultuous and violent clashes in various corners of the world, including the Balkans and the former Soviet republics. In West Africa, a region in which the order of the Cold War was always mixed with anarchy, the end of the Cold War and the disengagement of Western powers meant that anarchy prevailed. The immediate effect was that African leaders could no longer rely on outside powers to crush armed opposition groups that threatened their leadership. Nor could West African states continue to take advantage of rivalry between the superpowers to garner unprecedented quantities of military and financial aid. According to William Reno, “Weak state sovereignty after the cold war no longer guarantees external military or financial support to state bureaucracies to battle armed rebels and control militaries composed of disgruntled youth and others long marginalized in postcolonial politics.”39 The absence of military and financial support from the United States and the Soviet Union had critical consequences as West African leaders

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became increasingly vulnerable to internal instability because Western powers no longer propped up ailing or repressive regimes. A prime example of this phenomenon is Liberia. Founded by former slaves repatriated from the United States during the nineteenth century, Liberia was a loyal U.S. client state throughout the Cold War. It was the beneficiary of significant U.S. military and financial support. In return, the United States was able to maintain an intelligence communications relay station, a Voice of America relay station, and a U.S. Coast Guard–operated navigational tracking station in the country. The U.S. military was also granted unrestricted access to the strategically important Robertsfield Airport, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was able to stage numerous operations from Liberia.40 Throughout the 1980s, the United States supported Liberian dictator Samuel Doe, even endorsing the 1985 elections that were blatantly rigged in his favor.41 But as the Cold War ended and U.S. interests in West Africa diminished, that support also waned. Charles Taylor, an Americo-Liberian who escaped from a Massachusetts prison in 1984, recognized an opportunity, and on Christmas Eve 1989 his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) launched an insurgency from neighboring Côte d’Ivoire.42 Though the NPFL initially comprised about 100 rebels, it made steady progress and acquired many followers in its march to the capital, Monrovia. If Doe was expecting the United States to intervene militarily to save him, he was severely mistaken. U.S. diplomats did arrange asylum for him in Togo, but he declined the offer. Within months, Taylor’s troops were at the outskirts of Monrovia. Soon thereafter Doe was killed by Prince Johnson of the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia. Johnson was a former Taylor ally who had broken away in 1990. This was only the beginning of the cycle of violence in Liberia. Civil war raged until Taylor was “elected” president in 1997. 43 After a brief respite, the violence resumed in 2000.44 Throughout these wars the United States showed little interest in the conflicts and did little to mitigate them. It is difficult to say whether the U.S. response would have been different during the Cold War. However, it can be argued that conflict did not erupt during the Cold War because until the mid-1980s, the Liberian government was bolstered by Western support, although it should be emphasized that there were often reports of political violence. The same may be said of Côte d’Ivoire, where the absence of a French military response to protect the Ivorian leader, President Henri Konan Bédié, following the Christmas 1999 coup is illustrative of the changing

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nature of Western military and political support for West African states. That said, it is important not to overemphasize the effect of the Cold War. While the consequences of the end of the Cold War set the stage for increased conflict in West Africa, the end of the Cold War also exposed weaknesses and ongoing conflicts and political violence in West African states that were already present but suppressed. The emergence of new external actors and the proliferation of small arms. The end of the Cold War did not result in reduced external involvement in West Africa but instead led to a transformation in the character of that involvement. External profiteers have always been present in Africa, but their activities have grown in prominence as Western powers disengage from the region and grow increasingly reluctant to intervene in Africa. The end of the Cold War and the ensuing chaos, as William Reno observes, have created “new opportunities for private gain available to enterprising strongmen,” both internal and external. The 1990s saw an increasingly influential role for external profiteers, whose actions sustain and exacerbate conflict in the region.45 These actors include mercenaries, arms dealers, and others with an interest in meddling in West Africa, such as Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. At the heart of the civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia were the geopolitical machinations of Colonel Qaddafi of Libya, who has sought diligently to remove Western (especially U.S.) influence throughout Africa. His meddling in West African affairs has also included backing groups claiming to have radical revolutionary agendas, including Taylor’s NPFL and Foday Sankoh’s RUF in Sierra Leone. 46 For years Qaddafi has granted haven to West African dissident groups, young dissatisfied revolutionaries, and radical populists seeking to topple governments. Various dissident, left-wing intellectuals and university graduates from Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Liberia, Niger, and elsewhere received military training and established networks in Libyan camps, notably those in the coastal city of Benghazi, during the 1970s and 1980s.47 Another trend, perhaps most visible in Sierra Leone, is the increasing use of and dependence on mercenaries or, to use the popular euphemism, “private military companies.” 48 Since the end of the Cold War, both rebel groups and governments have regularly tapped into clandestine mercenary networks, as mercenaries from South Africa, Nigeria, and the former Soviet republics have played prominent roles in West African conflicts.49 The government of Valentine Strasser in Sierra

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Leone famously hired the South African mercenary firm Executive Outcomes to train Sierra Leonean troops and fight on its behalf.50 The government could not afford to pay Executive Outcomes’ costly salaries, so it granted the company unprecedented access to Sierra Leone’s diamond mines, an arrangement that proved quite profitable for the firm. On the other side of the conflict, RUF rebels were supplied with mercenaries from Burkina Faso and Liberia. Thus the civil war in Sierra Leone also became a proxy war between South Africans on one side and Burkinabès and Liberians on the other, thereby drawing additional African states into the conflict and further destabilizing West Africa. Similarly, in the Ivorian crisis that began in September 2002, President Gbagbo relied heavily on mercenaries from France, South Africa, and Eastern Europe in his attempts to defeat the various rebel groups.51 A contract signed between the Ivorian government and a private security firm, Northbridge Services (which has offices in the United States, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg, and Ukraine), promising arms and soldiers to Côte d’Ivoire, generated significant concern among members of the international community. In response, British home secretary Jack Straw publicly warned the company against sending mercenaries to Côte d’Ivoire,52 a warning that elicited a sharp response from Northbridge. Accompanying the proliferation of mercenaries is the proliferation of the small arms that are commonly used in these conflicts. In themselves, small arms do not cause conflict. However, they facilitate conflict and thus are considered among the sources of conflict. A 2000 UN report states, “Africa has, over an entire generation, been locked in a chain of armed conflicts, fought with light weapons.” It estimates that approximately 7 million small arms and light weapons (which include “assault rifles, light and heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, individually portable mortars and missiles, and anti-personnel landmines”53) are in circulation in West Africa and that “40 per cent of the stock is believed to have been acquired through illicit means and is being held illegally.”54 The end of the Cold War and the disengagement of the Western powers appear to have led to an increase in the flow of small arms in the region.55 Much of the weaponry either was left behind as the superpowers and their allies withdrew or became available as countries started to reduce their Cold War stockpiles. For a modest price, small arms, often bought from former Soviet republics and satellites or arms dealers from those states, are readily available in West Africa, and they are an important factor in sustaining and fueling conflict.

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Arms dealers have found West Africa to be profitable ground. According to the UN Secretary-General, “very high on the list of those who profit from conflict in Africa are international arms merchants.”56 Arms provided by a network of dealers in the region, coupled with the considerable supply of arms left over from previous conflicts, have been a particularly influential factor in the Sierra Leonean and Liberian conflicts.57 Despite the Moratorium on the Importation, Exportation, and Manufacture of Light Weapons, signed by all members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in October 1998, several member states have openly flouted the decree.58 In December 2000, a UN report identified a number of West Africa states, including Liberia and Burkina Faso, as suppliers of light arms to RUF rebels in Sierra Leone.59 The regionalization of conflict. Throughout Africa, and most visibly in West Africa and the Great Lakes region, there is a trend toward the regionalization of conflict. Most West African conflicts now involve multiple states, though, as noted above, those states are rarely engaged openly in conflict. However, “the role that African governments play in supporting, sometimes even instigating conflicts in neighboring countries must be candidly acknowledged.”60 The practice of loaning armies across borders to support an ally or a rebel group is not new. Ghana’s first postcolonial leader, Kwame Nkrumah, used clandestine tactics to support dissident movements in several West African states in the 1960s. What is new is the willingness of leaders to acknowledge such cross-border meddling. In the past when African leaders sent troops to a neighboring country to support or overthrow a regime, they denied any involvement.61 There also appears to be an increased willingness among some West African leaders to meddle in the affairs of neighboring states. Since the end of the Cold War, West Africa has witnessed a series of civil wars that have developed, and are sometimes driven by, cross-border linkages, which are often openly acknowledged by the leaders involved. Such regionalization fuels and perpetuates conflict, creating a cycle of violence that is difficult to break. An example of the regionalization of conflict is the recent violence in Côte d’Ivoire. Given its heavy reliance on immigrant labor and the “open door” immigration policies of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny (president from 1960 to 1993), it is hardly surprising that the conflict in this country has a prominent regional dimension. The extent of Taylor’s support for Ivorian rebels in western Côte d’Ivoire emerged in late

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October 2002.62 That support was in part a product of Taylor’s desire to remove Ivorian president Laurent Gbagbo, a longtime enemy, from power. However, there were other important reasons. Involvement in Côte d’Ivoire helped Taylor pay and appease his troops, sustain his supply routes, and prevent elements of the rebel group Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) from maintaining a base in Côte d’Ivoire and launching attacks into Liberia. Two smaller Ivorian rebel groups, the Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP) and the Ivorian Popular Movement for the Great West (MPIGO), received support from Liberian government forces and assistance from former soldiers of the Revolutionary United Front, the primary rebel group in Sierra Leone in the 1990s.63 It has also been alleged that the MPCI, the primary rebel group in Côte d’Ivoire, enjoyed the support of neighboring Burkina Faso prior to and during the conflict. These allegations are substantiated by the fact that Burkina Faso harbored a number of senior Ivorian officers who fled Côte d’Ivoire following both the 1999 coup and the attempted mutiny against the military junta of General Robert Gueï in July 2000. Furthermore, the growing antiforeigner sentiment in Côte d’Ivoire, which has led to frequent attacks against Burkinabès and attempts to prevent former Ivorian prime minister Alassane Ouattara from running for president (because he is alleged to be of Burkinabè origin), have raised suspicions that Burkina president Blaise Compaoré is eager to assist the rebels. Similar dynamics of infiltration and destabilization occurred between Guinea and Liberia, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and Guinea and Côte d’Ivoire. In essence, West African governments have used rebel groups in neighboring countries to enhance their domestic security. Supporting rebel groups in neighboring countries is an effective way of weakening the capacity of those countries; it means that they are unlikely to interfere elsewhere and thus indirectly enhances domestic security. Such a strategy was employed by the apartheid government of South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s, which supported the Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo) and the Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) in an effort to destabilize those countries, thereby minimizing the threat they posed to South Africa.64 Efforts to destabilize neighboring states usually go unpunished in West Africa: few states or leaders, African or non-African, condemn such actions, and rarely is the offending state or leader sanctioned. However, in an unprecedented development, the Special Court for Sierra Leone indicted former Liberian president Charles Taylor on June

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4, 2003, for “bearing the greatest responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and serious violations of international humanitarian law within the territory of Sierra Leone since 30 November 1996.”65 Taylor’s role as one of the RUF’s primary supporters has been well documented,66 and if he is tried and convicted, a new precedent could be set for punishing such cross-border adventurism. His indictment is a warning to fellow heads of state that they may be held to account for their actions. Another unexpected development is that in the post–Cold War period some African leaders have shown an increased willingness to intervene militarily in the affairs of neighboring states, ostensibly in an effort to resolve conflict and find “African solutions to African problems.” In principle, this represents a positive development, though some of these interventions are certainly driven by ulterior motives rather than a simple wish to mitigate conflict in a nearby state. The most prominent examples are the unprecedented intervention by ECOMOG in Liberia from 1990 to 1997 and in Sierra Leone from 1997 to 2000. In Liberia, the ECOMOG intervention force, composed primarily of Nigerian troops and largely funded by the Nigerian government, repeatedly clashed with Taylor’s NPFL, essentially turning the conflict into a proxy battle between the NPFL (which was supported by Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso) and Nigeria. While the ECOMOG intervention in Liberia was an innovative enterprise by what was essentially an economic and political organization, it actually served to perpetuate the war as participating states—most notably Nigeria—undermined the Liberian peace process while pursuing their own economic and political interests.67 In the process, rivalries between West African states, particularly between anglophone68 and francophone states,69 intensified. ECOMOG troops were deployed in neighboring Sierra Leone after the overthrow of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah in 1997. They were also sent to Guinea-Bissau in 1999. Finally, in early 2003, troops were deployed to Côte d’Ivoire under the aegis of ECOWAS to stabilize the country following months of violent conflict, and a Nigerian-led mission returned to Liberia in August 2003 in an attempt to end the renewed civil war.

Who Is Fighting and Why?

A striking feature of conflict in West Africa is the wide assortment of unconventional forces—militia groups, local defense forces, child soldiers,

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youths, and criminal gangs—that do the bulk of the fighting. These forces are composed largely of disgruntled individuals, often living in rural areas, who see an opportunity to profit even though the risks are high. Political entrepreneurs such as Taylor and Sankoh have succeeded in tapping into their dissatisfaction and mobilizing combatants. Disgruntled current and former soldiers also constitute a significant portion of these unconventional forces. Compared to some of their predecessors of the 1960s and 1970s, contemporary warlords challenging the centers of power are not as motivated by political or economic ideology. Rather, the desire to gain political power and control over resources is their principal motive (desires that were certainly shared by their predecessors). For Taylor and Sankoh, the goal was political control and the wealth that accompanied it, garnered primarily from international aid and a network of multinational firms keen to secure access to valuable resources. These objectives are often no different from those of some of the corrupt leaders that rebel or armed opposition groups seek to depose. Even for warlords there is wealth to be gained in the process: by the time Taylor captured the presidential palace in July 1997, he had built a small empire through diamond, rubber, and timber resources gained by prolonging the Liberian civil war and accumulating wealth through localized control of natural resources. In poor countries with stagnant or declining economies, political entrepreneurs can easily find a pool of willing recruits to challenge the central authority, many of them youths. It is estimated that 15,000 child soldiers fought in Liberia’s first war (1989–1996).70 Marginalization, social alienation, and a desire to survive compel many young West Africans, particularly males, to fight. As Collier suggests, “Economic growth matters because opportunities for youth depend upon a robust economy.” As mentioned earlier, he argues that countries most at risk of civil conflict are those that “have poor and declining economies and rely on natural resources—such as diamonds or oil—for a large proportion of national income.”71 One can see evidence of this in conflicts across West Africa, including those outside of Liberia and Sierra Leone, as rebel leaders prey on young, unemployed, impoverished groups and use them to engage in widespread attacks against their governments in order to obtain access to resources.72 They use legitimate popular grievances and dissatisfaction within the existing social, economic, and political order as pretexts for asserting their dominance in areas where the power of the central authority has dissipated.

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War and criminality can make for materially rewarding careers. For those who are oppressed and impoverished, an AK-47 can provide—or at least appear to provide—some control over one’s destiny. In Sierra Leone, many unemployed youth joined the RUF because of the prospects for easy acquisition of wealth. Across the region, neglected youth are key to understanding the spread of endemic and low-intensity war. The young question the elite and hereditary rule that excludes them from political and economic participation and are simultaneously alienated from the state by the collapse of educational and formal-sector employment opportunities.73 Dissident soldiers often fight alongside child soldiers. The state’s failure to pay soldiers a regular salary and address their demands has led to several attempted coups in the region. Côte d’Ivoire provides an excellent example of this phenomenon, as it was the impending retrenchment of the MPCI’s 789 army soldiers that led to their attempted coup and revolt. In other instances, the failure to pay soldiers a constant wage has led some to seek alternative means of income. Consequently, rather than engaging rebels in conflict, soldiers sometimes collude with them, plundering towns and burning villages. Frustrated by poor conditions, a shortage of proper equipment (one of the demands of the MPCI 789 was for new boots), and nonpayment of salaries, some soldiers decide to pay their own salaries through criminal means. For example, in Sierra Leone, soldiers compensated for their low or nonexistent pay and inadequate equipment by engaging in extortion and illegal diamond trading and, more frequently, by looting and terrorizing villagers to acquire food and other goods. As a result, distinguishing between soldiers and rebels is often challenging. The poorly trained and unpaid soldiers from the Sierra Leonean army earned themselves the moniker “sobel” (soldiers by day, rebels by night) when they began doubling as agents of organized criminal activities and violence.74

The Legacy and Aftermath of Conflict

It is important to consider the consequences and legacies of conflict because they can be, in themselves, causes of future conflict. Collier’s analysis found that while “conflicts in the distant past are not generating civil wars in the present . . . if a country recently experienced a civil war, it is much more likely to have another one.”75 He estimates that “immediately after the end of conflict there is a 40% chance of further

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conflict. The risk then falls at around one percentage point for each year of peace.”76 His data set includes seven West African civil wars, three of which followed a previous civil war.77 In this section, we attempt to explain this phenomenon by focusing on some of the negative and potentially inflammatory legacies of conflict that can generate renewed fighting. These include the unfinished business of war and poor “peace processes” that fuel further conflict. We conclude the section with an example of an effective peace process that successfully minimized the likelihood of future conflict. Failure to Address the Underlying Causes of Conflict It is often the case that when the underlying sources of conflict remain unaddressed there is a reasonable likelihood that conflict will flare up again. Whether war ends through stalemate, defeat, or peace agreement, key grievances often remain unresolved. However, they cannot be ignored permanently. They almost inevitably reemerge, and the result can be renewed conflict, fought for some of the very same reasons as the initial conflict. For example, some of the causes of Liberia’s war from 1989 to 1996 were never adequately addressed, and the grievances fueling that conflict—including exceptionally corrupt leadership, lack of opportunity, and severely skewed allocation of wealth—proved to be key forces behind the resumption of conflict in 2000. As of spring 2003, Liberia appeared likely to remain in a cycle of instability in the absence of a sustained peace process that confronted these grievances head-on. Also at the heart of Liberia’s ongoing crisis are unresolved political struggles left over from the first conflict between Taylor and three rival groups. The first group comprises political leaders who fought with Taylor in the early 1990s but later fell out with him, such as Laveli Supuwood, a former minister of justice and senior political figure in Taylor’s NPFL who broke away in 1994. The second group comprises officials from the administration of former president Samuel Doe and others who fought against Taylor in the first civil war, such as members of the United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO).78 The third group includes members of the Liberian armed forces who remained loyal to President Doe and either fled Liberia after Taylor came to power or have been marginalized and isolated in their military barracks. In April 2000, members of each of these groups formed a new rebel organization, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy.79

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LURD’s principal objective was to compel Taylor’s resignation or to forcibly remove him from power. For LURD members, Liberia’s war was unfinished while Taylor remained in power, although Taylor argued that he was the legitimate leader of Liberia following the July 1997 elections.80 LURD fought a low-intensity war against Taylor’s regime from July 2000, and while most of the combat was restricted to northern Lofa County, it occasionally moved farther south toward Monrovia. The fighting resulted in an escalation of political repression and unwarranted arrests of supposed enemies of the state. It also gave Taylor’s elite army, the Anti-Terrorist Unit—his private militia of young boys and former combatants from the NPFL—license to intimidate, torture, and arrest Liberians. Poor Peace Processes Though intended to stop conflict, peace processes in West Africa have sometimes perpetuated and even intensified violence. Peace processes and agreements are often forced on parties that, because of their weak position relative to their opponent, have few options but to participate. Not every peace process is a good one, because a poor or inadequate peace process can leave important issues unresolved and grievances unaddressed. These lingering issues and grievances can fuel renewed conflict further down the road. One of the principal problems associated with peace processes that are forced on reluctant parties is that there is often a lack of political will to support them because the real grievances have not been addressed. This in turn means that incentives to abide by the process are minimal or nonexistent, and cheating and breaches are common. If the parties involved do not commit at least a modest degree of political will to the process and invest in it, the peace process will fail and conflict may resume. The second round of conflict can be more brutal than the first, because a new grievance—the failure of the peace process—is added to old ones. Perhaps the clearest example of a poor peace process generating renewed instability was the design and implementation of the Lomé Peace Agreement of 1999, which was intended to end Sierra Leone’s civil war. 81 A combination of factors led to the collapse of the peace process. First, internal and external pressure for peace forced the already-weakened government of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah to accept a peace agreement that benefited the rebels more than it did the

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government and citizens of Sierra Leone. Several RUF leaders who were known to have committed atrocities were granted prominent cabinet positions. Foday Sankoh was given the strategically important position of minister of mines. Second, the RUF acted in bad faith, as not all RUF leaders were ready for peace and some chose to shun the disarmament process. The RUF’s main field commander, Sam Bockarie, rejected the accords and ultimately became a spoiler in the process. He took a number of RUF fighters with him when he fled Sierra Leone in December 1999, and he used these fighters and Liberian soldiers to destabilize Sierra Leone in 2000 and 2001. Third, the international community failed to provide sufficient nonmilitary resources to Sierra Leone after the agreement was signed. The United States forced the peace (effectively writing the Lomé accord), and the United Kingdom pushed for a UN peacekeeping force, but neither was willing to offer significant resources. Fourth, the international community was not prepared to provide the necessary military support to Sierra Leone. Nigeria indicated in February 1999 that it would proceed to remove its forces, which had been on the ground for two years; however, the international community refused to step into the breach. The UN force that was deployed was overpowered by rebel forces, and in May and June 2000, RUF fighters abducted some 5,000 peacekeepers. Ultimately, RUF commanders were not interested in peace, having concluded that the demoralized government could be forced from power, and conflict resumed. The international community paid a heavy price for not intervening sooner and with greater effect: the new, stronger peacekeeping force, the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), had cost some U.S.$2 billion by the end of 2002.82 War as a Cause of Further Conflict The consequences of conflict sometimes precipitate future conflict. These consequences include massive bloodshed and death, population displacement, rises in criminality and banditry, the crippling of health and social welfare structures, the decimation of educational facilities, and the weakening of government structures, which often results in a loss of control over large areas of the country. In the aftermath of conflict, poor or nonexistent disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration processes; heightened grievances due to increased poverty and

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unemployment; and community fragmentation, including the breakdown of family ties and networks at the village level,83 further compound the impacts of the violence. Combined, these consequences can increase incentives at the individual level to return to conflict because they diminish the appeal of the alternative—peace. The crippling of health, social welfare, and educational systems render postconflict prospects bleak for most people, and the weakened government is often in no position to help. Poverty and unemployment almost inevitably result, and under these circumstances the return to conflict may actually offer a glimmer of hope as a means of enrichment and empowerment. This is why postconflict reconstruction is so important and time-sensitive. If tangible dividends of peace are not realized relatively soon after the end of violent conflict, it is increasingly likely that conflict will resume. Another factor contributing to a return to conflict is the need for retribution that some feel as a result of atrocities committed in previous conflicts. Expunging memories of murder, maiming, and forced displacement is nearly impossible, and the thirst for revenge can be overwhelming. As witnessed in the Great Lakes region of Africa, unspeakable atrocities (such as the 1994 Rwandan genocide) can lead to a cycle of reprisal killing sprees that only beget more violence. It remains to be seen whether a similar cycle will emerge in West Africa. The risk is perhaps greatest in Liberia and Sierra Leone, where wounds, both physical and psychological, are deep and unlikely to heal for decades to come. The critical issue is how government and civil society will deal with these legacies. It is not difficult to envision groups within these societies returning to conflict to retaliate against past offenders. How an Effective Peace Process Can Move Society Away from Conflict Mali provides an example of a West African state where a well-designed and well-implemented peace process significantly reduced the likelihood of future conflict. Mali’s civil conflict, which took place from 1990 to 1995, laid the groundwork for a remarkable recovery in the middle and late 1990s. The root causes of the conflict were similar to those of other conflicts in the region and included political turmoil resulting from poor leadership, a long-running dictatorship, corruption, and the marginalization of key groups, especially Tuaregs, nomads, and Moorish people of northern Mali. Persistent droughts (from 1972 to

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1973 and again from 1983 to 1985), famine, and economic underdevelopment magnified the insecurity. The conflict began as a separatist war in northern Mali but soon split along ethnic lines.84 Both internal and external parties attempted to mediate, but it was not until Alpha Oumar Konaré came to power following democratic elections in 1992 and announced a series of regional consultations focusing on the political future of the country that real progress was achieved.85 The peace process succeeded for three reasons. First, while earlier governments withheld information on the crisis, Konaré led a more open and transparent government under which information was readily available. Second, Malian civil society played an important role in the process, as civil society organizations were able to bring the political debate and peace process to the community level and generate peacemaking programs at that level, thereby allowing individuals, particularly northerners, to have some degree of ownership of the peace process. Finally, President Konaré immediately targeted and addressed one of the key root causes of the conflict: the neglect and marginalization of the north, particularly in the areas of development, integration into the national economy, and participation in national political affairs. According to Aghatam Alhassane, it was the government’s willingness to address northern issues that allowed Mali to advance and consolidate the peace process.86 Mali still struggles with addressing northern concerns, but the participatory nature of the peace process, which drew heavily on intercommunity meetings and regional consultations led by community leaders and civil society representatives, allowed for a more open and democratic approach to promoting peace. This approach produced strong foundations for postconflict peacebuilding and lessened the likelihood of a return to widespread violence.

Conclusion: Conflict Prevention—Myth or Possibility?

The frequency, magnitude, and consequences of violent upheavals in West Africa, combined with the wide range of causes described here, suggest that conflict prevention in the region is a formidable challenge. It may be more realistic to speak of conflict management—efforts to mitigate and contain current conflict and address the grievances at the heart of future conflicts soon after they break out—because the prevalence and scale of conflict is such that it is impractical to pin hopes on

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a comprehensive conflict prevention mechanism. West Africa comprises several failed states—including Liberia, Sierra Leone, and possibly Côte d’Ivoire—and the region as a whole may be closer to failure than stability. Conflict is ongoing in several countries and recently concluded in several others; as a consequence, it is too late to speak of conflict prevention. Any conflict management initiative that stands a chance of succeeding in West Africa will require significant input and assistance from the international community. When violent conflict erupts in West Africa, members of the international community often complain that they had not received enough clear, timely analysis of the situations and risks and were therefore unable to provide the necessary proactive policy responses in a timely manner. The legitimacy of this complaint is highly questionable. Even if they do not fully comprehend the peculiarities and specificities of a conflict, most governments in developed countries have personnel with the necessary in-country expertise and contextual knowledge to recognize an elevated risk of conflict. Moreover, numerous reports from academic institutions, local and international nongovernmental organizations, and humanitarian agencies consistently offer warnings regarding potential conflict. 87 There is also a considerable body of literature developing on the causes of conflict in Africa. Claims that West African conflicts occur with little or no warning are simply red herrings. Members of the international community are fully aware of the causes of conflict in Africa and have the tools for managing conflict— including diplomatic pressure, political and economic sanctions, and military intervention—at their disposal. However, their capacity for conflict management in Africa remains largely untested because the necessary political will is lacking. As a result, members of the international community rarely respond proactively to early warnings. Instead, they are reactive and responses often come too late and suffer from a lack of commitment. An Argument for International Engagement in West Africa West Africa should be considered strategically important to developed countries for economic and security reasons. From an economic perspective, licit trade and other forms of economic interaction with failed or failing states is almost impossible. Illicit trade with such states, however, is quite common. Given the natural resource endowments of many

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West African states, regional stability is in the economic interests of the developed world. Nigeria has the potential to be a major supplier of oil to the United States and other developed countries, but that supply will be consistent and sustainable only if there is political stability in Nigeria, particularly in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, where violent conflict is frequent. Past instability in the delta, resulting in severed pipelines and kidnapped oil company employees, has disrupted the oil flow. Similar issues may arise with regard to diamonds, cocoa, and other natural resources exported from West Africa. Beyond the issue of accessibility is that of complicity, or the idea that companies that operate in conflict zones should be held accountable for the role that their business operations play in fueling conflict.88 In security terms, it is often asserted that failed and failing states provide fertile ground for terrorist and criminal activity. Since the attacks of September 11, 2001, it has been reported that the Al-Qaida terrorist network made millions of dollars from the sale of illicit diamonds mined by the RUF in Sierra Leone and stored some of its wealth in diamonds. Liberia and Burkina Faso also harbored and assisted AlQaida operatives overseeing its diamond operations.89 The chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has frequently made links between the RUF, Taylor, and Al-Qaida.90 Criminals and terrorists can operate more freely in failed states because such states have weak and ineffective police or domestic security services and are cut off from the international community, which has minimal information about their internal workings. Compounding the problem, leaders of failed and failing states—many of whom presided over that failure—tend to have few qualms about dealing with unsavory characters if the relationship serves their strategic or financial interests. These are compelling reasons for international involvement in conflict prevention and management in West Africa. Toward Effective Intervention How can the international community engage in conflict management in West Africa? There are a number of possibilities, ranging from placing “boots on the ground” to facilitating dialogue between rival groups. There have been some European troop deployments to West Africa in recent years, including British troops in Sierra Leone and French troops in Côte d’Ivoire. The British initiative is generally regarded as successful, while the French intervention has proven less effective. However,

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even the British initiative was limited in size and scope and took too long to organize and deploy, and with each passing day the death toll grew. Furthermore, the initial absence of non-African troops in Liberia between June and July 2003 and the international community’s apparent indifference toward civil wars in that country are glaring. Given its historic ties to Liberia and the patron-client relationship it enjoyed during the Cold War, the United States was the logical leader of a mission to Liberia. But U.S. dithering and reluctance to commit troops on the ground allowed for more dangerous and heavy bombardments in the capital, Monrovia, and a high number of civilian deaths and causalities. If military intervention does not occur beyond the small Nigerianled force deployed in the summer of 2003, there are other options for international involvement. For example, efforts can be made to limit the capacity of combatants to sell resources captured illegally on the international market.91 There has, of late, been a prominent movement against the sale of “conflict” or “blood” diamonds, but it took years to organize and gain momentum. Another nonmilitary option is to focus on an important aspect of the regionalization of conflict: leaders who harbor and aid rebel organizations operating in other states. For example, Burkina Faso president Blaise Compaoré is known to have aided Taylor’s NPFL in the early 1990s and is suspected of having assisted the MPCI in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002 and 2003. But members of the international community have never focused on this aspect of West African conflict, concentrating instead on the site of the conflict and the immediate environs. One strategy for managing conflict would be to punish leaders such as Compaoré with sanctions, travel bans, and other tools. But West Africans themselves must share the burden. We have argued in this chapter that many of the causes of conflict in the region are domestic and must ultimately be addressed at the domestic level. This requires improving governance, minimizing and punishing elite corruption, and constructing and maintaining sound state institutions. Decentralization of power is also vital, as West Africans living in rural areas must feel an attachment to and ownership of the state lest they choose violence as a means of shifting the balance in their favor. Responsible economic management and relatively equal distribution of wealth, particularly natural resource wealth, are equally critical. As long as the majority of profits from the sale of natural resources flows to the urban elite, rural inhabitants will have persistent grievances that can be utilized by political entrepreneurs. Meanwhile, these political entrepreneurs need

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to be prevented, as much as possible, from manipulating ethnic, regional, and religious differences in their quest for power. Perhaps this is best accomplished by generating dialogue among the population about these differences in an effort to head off any such manipulation. Finally, the security forces must be kept in check, and improving civil-military relations and ensuring civilian control over the security forces92 should be focal points of any administration’s policies, since many of West Africa’s rebellions were spearheaded by disgruntled factions of the security forces. Regional and subregional organizations also have important roles to play. The newly formed African Union (AU), the successor to the Organization of African Unity (OAU), has declared lofty goals, including establishment of a “peer-review” mechanism through which African leaders will police each other’s behavior. If effective, such a mechanism could be of significant utility in West Africa, as regional leaders almost never criticize or condemn one another, regardless of the depravity of their acts.93 Even more important is the subregional organization ECOWAS. Historically ECOWAS has been significantly more influential in West Africa than either the AU or the OAU, as evidenced by the ECOWAS intervention in Liberia. Given the AU’s inauspicious start and funding difficulties, this trend is likely to continue. Compared to the AU/OAU, the decisions of ECOWAS tend to carry more weight because it is both an economic and a political organization, and the economic component forces West African leaders to take it seriously. ECOWAS has also shown a greater capacity to organize and deploy military interventions in times of crisis. Thus it is in the interests of the international community to focus its aid and attention on strengthening and building the capacity of ECOWAS (and corresponding subregional organizations across the continent) rather than on the AU. The trend in international relations is clearly moving toward an increasing reluctance on the part of developed countries to intervene, especially militarily, in conflicts in which their security interests are not immediately and directly threatened. This implies that the much-hyped effort to find “African solutions to African problems” will need to become a reality sooner rather than later, both in West Africa and beyond.

Notes 1. United Nations, The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa: Report of the Secretary General,

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UN Doc. S/1998/318, April 13, 1998, available at www.un.org/ecosocdev/geninfo/ afrec/sgreport/index.html. 2. In this chapter, West Africa is understood to include the following sixteen states: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo. 3. See International Peace Academy, Infrastructures of Peace in Africa: Assessing the Peacebuilding Capacity of African Institutions (New York: International Peace Academy, 2002), p. 9; and International Peace Academy, Towards a Pax West Africana: Building Peace in a Troubled Subregion, International Peace Academy/Economic Community of West African States conference report, New York and Abuja, 2001, p. 6. 4. This analysis covers events through July 2003. At the time of writing, a peace agreement had been brokered in Accra on August 18 to end fourteen years of fighting. Under Resolution 1509, the United Nations Security Council mandated a United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) with 15,000 peacekeepers and 1,115 international civilian police to help in the rebuilding of Liberia. 5. See Department for International Development (DFID), Conducting Conflict Assessments: Guidance Notes (London: DFID, 2002), p. 8. 6. Jeffrey Herbst, “War and the State in Africa,” International Security 14, no. 4 (Spring 1990): 124. 7. There have been several relatively small, contained border skirmishes, such as between Mali and Burkina Faso. 8. Adekeye Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea-Bissau (Boulder, Colo: Lynne Rienner, 2002), p. 113. 9. Ibid., p. 114. 10. Andrea Ostheimer, “The Structural Crisis in Guinea-Bissau’s Political System,” African Security Review 10, no. 4 (2001), available at www.iss.co.za/ Pubs/ASR/10No4/Ostheimer.html. 11. For an analysis of the conflict, see Mohammed Fall, “Casamance and the Crisis in Guinea-Bissau,” in Democracy and Development 2, no. 3 (September–December 1999): 16–18; Adebajo, Building Peace in West Africa, pp. 111–136; Ostheimer, “The Structural Crisis in Guinea-Bissau’s Political System”; Amnesty International, Guinea-Bissau: Human Rights Violations Since the Armed Conflict Ended in May 1999 (London: Amnesty International, 2001), available at http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR300112001?open& of=ENG-2F5. 12. Of course, this phenomenon was absent in landlocked states such as Mali and Burkina Faso and does not readily explain why power in Nigeria has historically been concentrated in the north. 13. J. Bobor Laggah, J. A. D. Allie, and R. S. V. Wright, “Sierra Leone,” in Adebayo Adedeji, ed., Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts (London: Zed Books, 1999), p. 180. 14. The APC had been in power since 1968, but in 1978 a referendum on constitutional change introduced one-party rule to Sierra Leone.

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15. Arthur Abraham, “The Quest for Peace in Sierra Leone,” in Engaging Sierra Leone, Centre for Democracy and Development Strategy Planning Series no. 4 (London: Centre for Democracy and Development, 2000), p. 14. 16. Stephen Riley, Liberia and Sierra Leone: Anarchy or Peace in West Africa, Conflict Studies no. 287 (London: Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, February 1996), p. 5. 17. See Jean François Bayart, Stephen Ellis, and Béatrice Hibou, The Criminalisation of the State in Africa (Oxford: James Currey, 1999). 18. Paul Collier, “The Market for Civil War,” Foreign Policy (May–June 2003): 41. See also http://econ.worldbank.org/staff/pcollier; and Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War,” World Bank research paper, October 2001, available at http://econ.worldbank.org/files/12205_greedgrievance_23oct.pdf. 19. William Reno, Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). See also Jeffrey Herbst, “African Armies and Regional Peacekeeping: Are There African Solutions to African Problems?” paper presented at a conference organized by the South African Institute for International Affairs, the World Peace Foundation, and the Institute for Defense Policy, Johannesburg, August 4–6, 1996, p. 10. 20. BBC, “Switzerland Gives Back Abacha Funds,” April 17, 2002, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1935631.stm; BBC, “Nigeria Strives to Solve Debt Crisis,” November 28, 2002, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/business/2524939.stm. 21. See Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth, and Resources in Sierra Leone (Oxford: James Currey, 1996), chap. 2, esp. pp. 34–36, 60. 22. Norimitsu Onishi, “Nigeria Grows Disenchanted with Democracy,” New York Times, February 24, 2002. For background on Nigeria and the political use of ethnicity and religion, see Karl Maier, This House Has Fallen: Midnight in Nigeria (New York: PublicAffairs, 2000); and Abdul Karim Bangura, “Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria,” Journal of Third World Studies 18 (Fall 2001): pp. 301–311. 23. See Maier, This House Has Fallen, chap. 6, esp. pp. 148–164. 24. Bangura, “Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria,” p. 5. 25. Marcus Mabry, “Africa’s Ailing Giant; Chaos Reigns in Nigeria,” Foreign Affairs (October 2000): 125. 26. “Côte d’Ivoire: The Nightmare Scenario,” Africa Confidential 43, no. 19 (September 27, 2002): 1–2. 27. For brief analysis of the conflict, see Fabienne Hara and Comfort Ero, “Ivory Coast Is on the Brink of War,” The Observer, December 15, 2002; and Norimitsu Onishi, “Ethnic Clenching: Misrule in Ivory Coast,” New York Times, September 30, 2002. 28. For further discussion, see Jeanne Maddox Toungara, “Ethnicity and Political Crisis in Côte d’Ivoire,” Journal of Democracy 12, no. 3 (2001): 67. 29. Human Rights Watch, The New Racism: The Political Manipulation of Ethnicity in Côte d’Ivoire (New York: Human Rights Watch, August 2001), p. 10.

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30. See Claudine Vidal and Marc Le Pape, eds., Côte d’Ivoire: L’année terrible 1999–2000 (Paris: Karthala, 2002); and Politique Africaine, no. 78 (June 2000), special issue on “Côte d’Ivoire: La tentatation ethno-nationaliste.” 31. For an analysis of the violence around the October 2000 presidential and December 2000 National Assembly elections, see The New Racism: The Political Manipulation of Ethnicity in Côte d’Ivoire 13, no. 6(a) (New York: Human Rights Watch, August 2001). 32. For an analysis of the role of the military in African politics, see Eboe Hutchful and Abdoulaye Bathily, eds., The Military and Militarism in Africa (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1998). 33. Herbert Howe, Ambiguous Order: Military Forces in African States (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001), p. 28. 34. See Abiodun Alao, Security Sector Reform in Democratic Nigeria, Working Paper no. 2 (London: Centre for Defense Studies, 2000). 35. International Crisis Group (ICG), “Liberia: The Key to Ending Regional Instability” (Africa Report no. 43, April 24, 2002), pp. 13–14, 31–32, available at www.intl-crisis-group.org/projects/africa/westafrica/reports/a400960_ 30042003.pdf. 36. See Kayode Fayemi, “Governing the Security Sector in a Democratising Polity,” in Gavin Cawthra and Robin Luckham, eds., Governing Insecurity: Democratic Control of Military and Security Establishments in Transitional Democracies (London: Zed Books, 2003), pp. 59–60. 37. For detailed analysis of the international dimension, see John W. Harbeson and Donald Rothchild, Africa in World Politics: The African State System in Flux (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000). 38. United Nations, The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. S/1998/318, April 13, 1998. 39. William Reno, “War, Markets, and the Reconfiguration of West Africa’s Weak States,” Comparative Politics 29, no. 4 (July 1997): 503. 40. Herman Cohen, Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 129; Reed Kramer, “Liberia: A Casualty of the Cold War’s End,” available at http://allafrica.com/ stories/200101090216.html. 41. See the Human Rights Watch report at www.hrw.org/reports/1989/wr89/ liberia.htm. 42. Taylor had served under the Doe presidency as director of the General Services Agency, a government procurement body. He fled to the United States in 1983. While there he was accused by the Doe government of embezzling U.S.$900,000 and imprisoned. 43. The 1997 elections were labeled “special elections” because of the “extra constitutional processes” that were used to carry them out. Although the presidential and vice-presidential elections were conducted under the Liberian majoritarian system, proportional representation was used for the election of representatives and senators to legislative seats. The elections took place in an atmosphere of insecurity and intimidation by Taylor supporters. Many people voted for Taylor because he threatened to continue fighting if he lost. For further

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analysis, see Final Report on the July 19, 1997, Presidential Election and Legislative Election in Liberia (Monrovia: Liberian Election Observers Network, 1997), p. 6. 44. There are disputes over the starting date of the resumption of conflict in Liberia. Some observers put the start date as mid-1999. 45. Reno, “War, Markets, and the Reconfiguration,” p. 502. 46. See Cohen, Intervening in Africa, p. 130. 47. Stephen Ellis, “Liberia’s Warlord Insurgency,” in Christopher Clapham, ed., African Guerrillas (Oxford: James Currey, 1998), p. 160; and Ibrahim Abdullah and Patrick Muana, “The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone,” in Clapham, African Guerrillas. pp. 175–176. 48. On the role of mercenaries in Sierra Leone’s conflict, see Ian Douglas, “Fighting for Diamonds: Private Military Companies in Sierra Leone,” in Jakkie Cilliers and Peggy Mason, eds., Peace, Profit, or Plunder? The Privatisation of Security in War-Torn African Societies (Johannesburg: Halfway House, Institute of Security Studies, 1999); and Abdel-Fatau Musah, “A Country Under Siege: State Decay and Corporate Military Intervention in Sierra Leone,” in Abdel-Fatua Musah and Kayode Fayemi, eds., Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma (London: Pluto Press, 2000). 49. Reno, “War, Markets, and the Reconfiguration,” p. 496. 50. For a detailed analysis of Executive Outcomes’ role in Sierra Leone, see William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1998), pp. 130–139. 51. See “Reprise des combats en Côte d’Ivoire malgré les efforts diplomatiques de la France,” Agence France-Presse, November 28, 2002. 52. BBC, “Ivory Coast Mercenary Warning,” April 2, 2003, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2909769.stm. 53. The Making of a Moratorium on Light Weapons (Oslo: United Nations Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Africa, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, and Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, 2000), p. 1. 54. Ibid., pp. 22, 25. 55. Ibid., pp. 10, 24–25. 56. United Nations, Causes of Conflict. 57. See Eric Berman, Re-Armament in Sierra Leone: One Year After the Lomé Peace Agreement, Occasional Paper no.1 (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2000). 58. The moratorium was renewed in 2001. On the moratorium, see ECOWAS, Implementing the Small Arms Moratorium: The Next Steps (Abuja: ECOWAS, February 2000). 59. United Nations, Report of the Panel of Experts Appointed Pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1306 (2000) in Relation to Sierra Leone,” UN Doc. S/2000/1195, December 2000, available at www.stimson.org/fopo/pdf/ s-2000-1195_2000_rptpanelofexperts_sierraleone.pdf. 60. United Nations, Causes of Conflict, p. 4. 61. For an analysis of intervention by African states, see Arnold Hughes and Roy May, “Armies on Loan: Towards an Explanation of Transnational Military

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Intervention Among Black Africa States,” in Simon Bayhnham, ed., Military Power and Politics in Black Africa (London: Croom Helm, 1986); and Comfort Ero, “The Evolution of Norms in International Relations: Intervention and the Principle of Non-Intervention in Intra-African Affairs” (Ph.D. thesis, London School of Economics, 1999). 62. ICG, “Tackling Liberia: The Eye of the Regional Storm,” Africa Report no. 62 (April 30, 2003), pp. 15–20, available at www.crisisweb.rg; and Global Witness, The Usual Suspects: Liberia’s Weapons and Mercenaries in Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone (London: Global Witness, 2003), pp. 28–30, available at www.globalwitness.org. It should be noted that Côte d’Ivoire has its own history of harboring dissidents, from secessionist leaders in Nigeria’s civil war in the 1960s to members of Taylor’s rebel movement in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital, Abidjan, was home to a number of Liberian opposition figures. 63. ICG, “Tackling Liberia,” pp. 17–18. 64. Ibid., pp. 3, 18–19. 65. Special Court for Sierra Leone, press release, June 4, 2003, available at www.sc-sl.org. 66. In December 2000, the UN set up a Panel of Experts initially on Sierra Leone and later on Liberia, which documented the involvement of Charles Taylor in supporting and facilitating that RUF war in Sierra Leone. The UN Panel of Experts Reports on Sierra Leone and Liberia are available at www.un.org. Also see Reno, Warlord Politics and African States. 67. Nigeria profited substantially from the access it enjoyed to Liberian natural resources through its ECOMOG intervention. Nigerian president Ibrahim Babangida also benefited politically, because sending Nigerian forces abroad meant they were less likely to cause trouble at home in a country with a history of military coups. 68. Principally Nigeria and Ghana. 69. Principally Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso. 70. Herbert Boh, “Instability and Insecurity in West Africa: State of the Art,” in Making of a Moratorium on Light Weapons, p. 33. 71. Collier, “Market for Civil War,” p. 41. 72. See Patrick Chabal and Jean-Pascal Daloz, Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument (Oxford: James Currey, 1999), pp. 85–86; and Reno, Warlord Politics and African States. 73. Paul Richards, “Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone: A Crisis of Youth?” in Oliver Furley, ed., Conflict in Africa (London: I. B. Tauris, 1995), pp. 134–170. 74. David Francis, “Mercenary Intervention in Sierra Leone: Providing National Security or International Exploitation,” Third World Quarterly 20, no. 2 (1999): 325; and David Shearer, “Exploring the Limits of Consent: Conflict Resolution in Sierra Leone,” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 26, no. 3 (1997): 851. 75. Collier, “Market for Civil War,” p. 40. 76. Paul Collier, “Economic Causes of Conflict and Their Implications for Policy,” World Bank, June 15, 2000, p. 6, available at www.worldbank.org/

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research/conflict/papers/civilconflict.pdf (this article also appeared in Chester A. Crocker and Fen Osler Hampson with Pamela Aall, eds., Managing Global Chaos (Washington D.C.: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2000). 77. Collier and Hoeffler, “Greed and Grievance in Civil War,” pp. 21–22. 78. ULIMO later formed into a splinter group, ULIMO-J, led by Roosevelt Johnson, and ULIMO-K, led by Alhaji Kromah. 79. For an analysis on the LURD, see ICG, Liberia: The Key to Ending Regional Instability, Africa Report no. 43 (Freetown/Brussels: ICG, April 24, 2002), pp. 4–12; and Human Rights Watch, Back to the Brink: War Crimes by Liberian Government and Rebels (New York: Human Rights Watch, May 2002), pp. 7–8. 80. ICG, Liberia, p. 11; ICG, Liberia: Unravelling, Africa Briefing (Freetown/Brussels: ICG, August 19, 2002), p. 6. 81. For an analysis of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone, see “Crisis in Sierra Leone: The Failure of UN Peacekeeping,” Strategic Comments 6, no. 9 (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, November 2000); ICG, “Sierra Leone: Time for a New Military and Political Strategy,” Africa Report no. 28 (Freetown/Brussels: ICG, 2001); and William Reno, “The Failure of Peacekeeping in Sierra Leone,” Current History (May 2001): 219–225. 82. United Nations, Seventeenth Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone, UN Doc. S/2003/231, March 17, 2003, p. 14, para. 69. 83. See Robin Luckham, Ismail Ahmed, Robert Muggah, and Sarah White, Conflict and Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Assessment of the Issues and Evidence, Working Paper no. 128 (Brighton, UK: Institute for Development Studies, March 2001), pp. 20–49. 84. Bintou Sanan Kouca and Sicave Ag. Ecawell, “The Experience of Northern Mali,” in Adedeji, Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts, pp. 207–209; and Kåre Lode, “Mali’s Peace Process: Context, Analysis, and Evaluation,” Accord, no. 13 (London: Conciliation Resources, 2002), p. 56, available at www.c-r.org/accord/peace/accord13. 85. Lode, “Mali’s Peace Process,” p. 62. 86. Aghatam Alhassane, “Democracy and the Peace Process,” in Adedeji, Comprehending and Mastering African Conflicts, p. 220. 87. For example, for evidence that there was early warning before the Rwandan genocide, see Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002). 88. See Philippe Le Billon, “Angola’s Political Economy of War: The Role of Oil and Diamonds, 1975–2000,” African Affairs, no. 100 (2001): 55-80; and William A. Schabas, “Enforcing International Humanitarian Law: Catching the Accomplices,” International Review of the Red Cross (June 2001): 439– 459. 89. Douglas Farah, “Al Qaeda Cash Tied to Diamond Trade; Sale of Gems from Sierra Leone Rebels Raised Millions, Sources Say,” Washington Post, November 2, 2001; Douglas Farah, “Report Says Africans Harbored Al Qaeda: Terror Assets Hidden in Gem-Buying Spree,” Washington Post, December 29, 2002; and Douglas Farah, “Sierra Leone Court May Offer Model for War

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Crimes Cases: Hybrid Tribunal, with Limited Lifespan, Focuses on Higher-Ups,” Washington Post, April 15, 2003. 90. ICG, The Special Court for Sierra Leone: Promises and Pitfalls of a ‘New Model,’ Africa Briefing (Freetown/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2003), p. 17. 91. For a closer examination of the roles of natural resources in conflict, see Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, eds., Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2000); and Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman, eds., The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003). 92. For an analysis of problems associated with creating accountable security forces, see Cawthra and Luckham, Governing Insecurity. 93. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a critical component of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), ensures that African countries adopt and implement good governance and market policies through the administration of periodic evaluations. African leaders proposed and adopted NEPAD as the development framework of the Organization of African States (now the African Union) in 2001. The APRM will be conducted by the African Union’s Conference on Stability, Security, Development, and Cooperation in Africa. For a good summary of the peer review mechanism, see Jakkie Cilliers, NEPAD’s Peer Review Mechanism, Occasional Paper no. 64 (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, November 2002).

4 Dynamics of Conflict in Central America CHANDRA LEKHA SRIRAM

THIS CHAPTER EXAMINES THE CAUSES AND DYNAMICS OF CONFLICT AND POST conflict peacebuilding in four Central American countries—El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Nicaragua—seeking to identify the specific challenges for conflict prevention and peacebuilding in the subregion. The chapter is built upon the premise that the key causes of conflict in the subregion from the late 1970s through the early 1990s (beginning far earlier in Guatemala) must be attended to, lest they form the basis for renewed conflict. It also acknowledges the lessons from recent literature on peace implementation and peacebuilding that posits that conflict alters states and societies irrevocably. As a result, the “old” order cannot simply be rebuilt, and new fissures and causes of conflict may develop during the life of a violent conflict. Last, but certainly not least, it builds upon work that acknowledges the explicitly political nature of peacebuilding, and it articulates politico-economic challenges to the consolidation of peacebuilding. Key challenges remain for the states of the region, compounded by recent conflicts. The history of state formation in the twentieth century has enabled oligarchic or dictatorial rule, with leaders supported by economic elites, the military, and various U.S. regimes. The societies of the region have had, and continue to have, an extremely uneven distribution of wealth, and land tenure in particular has been a key grievance underpinning several conflicts.1 Many leaders, specifically in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, have, in the face of strong opposition movements, 131

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turned to the military and created a state apparatus with tight control over society to ensure that they maintain power.2 The states have also experienced very weak civilian control over the military and security sector more generally, enabling these forces to enjoy de jure or de facto control over political life. This in turn meant that the military became involved in what were essentially domestic political disputes. While civilian control has been formally established and reform of the security sector undertaken, this is an ongoing process. Regional and international forces were also central to the conflicts and occasionally contributed to peacemaking. Cold War rivalries meant that aid, military and otherwise, from the United States and communistbloc countries propped up various regimes and their adversaries; U.S. support and training in particular fostered the doctrina de seguridad nacional (doctrine of national security, see below) in the region.3 Spillover of conflicts across borders was inevitable as rebels used neighboring countries as bases or refuges. At the same time, external political shifts helped form the basis for peace processes; the end of the Cold War reduced superpower interest and prompted a shift in U.S. policy in particular, and regional peace processes helped to form the foundation for the peace processes that brought conflicts to a close in the early 1990s. Peacebuilding processes fostered by the UN, the international financial institutions (IFIs), bilateral donors, and a host of others sought to address many of the causes of the conflicts that raged through the 1980s. Ongoing peacebuilding efforts must continue to attend not only to the old fissures, but also to new ones that emerged through wars of extended duration with vast casualties and human rights abuses. Although the conflicts are officially over, there is a danger that the peacebuilding processes are incomplete and liable in several instances to be undermined by continued corruption in institutions and ongoing impunity—this despite widespread reform of military, police, and judicial institutions and measures taken to address claims of indigenous persons and disputes over land reform. I suggest in this chapter that these incomplete transitions should be of greater concern to those interested in conflict prevention and that the fundamentally political challenge of addressing embedded corruption and impunity, as well as systemic inequalities, may be necessary. Institutional and other reforms frequently included in peace agreements may not suffice. I examine only four Central American countries rather than all seven in the subregion because these four countries, while having different

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political and social histories, have much in common, including the experience of serious violent conflict. Honduras, the only country examined that did not experience a war per se, did experience serious violent conflict, both internally generated and as a result of conflicts in neighboring countries. I do not examine Costa Rica, which abolished its military over fifty years ago, has not experienced serious internal violent conflict since that time, and has in fact served to promote and host regional peace processes. I also do not examine Belize, which did not experience such conflict, or Panama, which experienced strongman dictatorships propped up by the United States but not serious violent conflict. This is not meant, however, to discount the violence that each of these societies experienced and the risks that they continue to face, or to ignore the positive roles they may have played in supporting national or regional initiatives for peace.

Politics and Society in the Subregion: State Making and Decolonization

Numerous theories have been adduced to explain visible trends until the early 1990s in Central America and much of Latin America generally: the dominance of politics by the military and a tendency toward oligarchic or authoritarian rule. I focus less on historical causes than on outcomes, but a brief discussion of key explanations is merited here. A common explanation for this phenomenon is the legacy of Spanish colonialism—it can be argued that there was something peculiar about the militarization of rule that was present in Spain and transferred to its colonies. Alternatively, it can be argued that the departure of colonial control lent itself to state collapse and opened the space for military coups and military rule. Both theories can and have been ably critiqued.4 Claims that weak and underdeveloped states and social structures lend themselves to, or even require, “strongmen” should also be viewed critically.5 The ultimate cause of military penetration in political life, and oligarchic or authoritarian rule, matters less than the fact of its existence. It is worth recognizing further that military control itself changed in character over time; unprofessional militaries gave way to professionalized ones, but the military continued to dominate civilians in political life. This phenomenon—of the continued control of the state by a small group, often a military group, ostensibly for the good of the nation following transition—has been termed “protected democracy.” Despite the

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presence of regular elections, liberalized institutions, and formal control of the security sector by civilians, democracy in many Latin American countries, not just in Central America, has thus been characterized as incomplete.6 I suggest in this chapter that while such control may have waned, the tradition of protected democracy has engendered weak democracy and institutions vulnerable to impunity and corruption. These weak institutions, coupled with resurgent political violence and endemic crime, increase the risks of serious conflict in the countries of the subregion. Weak democracy and military dominance over politics were further fostered by U.S. bolstering of a number of Central American militaries, discussed in the country descriptions below. Fear of the spread of communism led the United States to provide significant funding to the military institutions and offer training, most famously through the School of the Americas, that emphasized the doctrina de seguridad nacional.7 This doctrine emphasized the central role of the military as the protector of the nation and encouraged the treatment of opposition as necessarily a threat to national security. This approach facilitated serious repression of normal political dissent and severe human rights abuses in many instances.8 Finally, socioeconomic disparities were rife in all of the countries in the subregion examined here. Tensions between the peasantry and the oligarchy, the landed and the landless, and in some instances indigenous persons and those of Spanish descent took slightly different forms in each state. In three of the four states, however, these tensions gave rise to opposition and guerrilla movements and to serious civil strife.9 Conflicts over scarce land and land tenure only escalated with the increase in export-oriented agriculture, which progressively limited the land available to the masses for sustenance farming. Expropriation of land by the government contributed to the growing scarcity of land available. The specific experiences of the four states are examined in greater detail in the country histories below. I do not discuss the history of the subregion prior to the twentieth century in great detail. While regime type, the role of the military in politics, and socioeconomic disparities are in part artifacts of colonialism, the countries achieved independence in the early 1800s. Although there are ethnic distinctions across the subregion between descendants of Spaniards and of indigenous people, those distinctions did not contribute significantly to conflict in most of the countries examined here.

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Regime Type, the Military, and Socioeconomic Disparities in the Subregion: National Experiences

While specifics of regime type have varied in the subregion across nations and over time, the overarching trend has been characterized by “oligarchic” states dominated by political elites and/or military rulers. Strong control at the top was compounded by economic stratification; the resulting states were extremely divided. Broadly speaking, U.S. interests also played a central role in the development of these states, as discussed below. It is worth examining briefly the resultant regimes that developed in the region and the shifts that they experienced over time. The purpose here is analytic rather than exhaustive; many other studies examine the history of each nation in far greater detail. Guatemala Guatemala, like other Central American nations, was susceptible to outside influences in the twentieth century.10 The United States was particularly involved because there were numerous U.S.-based agricultural concerns in the country. The United States was also concerned about the spread of leftism or communism in the hemisphere. Guatemala’s history was particularly influenced by the U.S.-facilitated coup of 1954 and a continuing supply of U.S. aid to military regimes. Strong left-wing guerrilla groups provided the justification for strong military response and political control. The multiple left-wing groups eventually formed a united front (Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca [URNG]) in 1982. Right-wing guerrilla groups also emerged and engaged in the torture and murder of suspected leftists. Military rule was carried out in Guatemala, not through one-party control, but through a multiparty system wherein the army would select its preferred candidate and ensure the candidate’s election through intimidation. Civil strife escalated into civil war and a series of conflicts and military-led regimes. In 1982, army officers staged a coup that brought General Efrain Ríos Montt to power, setting off new violence.11 Although he was deposed in 1983, he remains powerful in politics to this day.12 Civilian rule was installed in 1984–1985, but this did not halt the violence, which would ultimately endure thirty-six years and claim some 200,000 lives. Economic disparities were wide in Guatemala, with key industries and resources being controlled by external corporations and local elites.

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Land tenure was also contentious, becoming more so as development programs entailed further dispossession of landholders in order to build roads or undertake other projects. Many of those dispossessed in the 1960s and 1970s were poor farmers, and many of those were indios, or indigenous persons. This dispossession gave rise to protests and to violence against the indios. At the same time, violence arose in response to attempts at unionization by laborers, from fruit workers to bus drivers.13 As elsewhere in Latin America (and as is discussed below in greater detail), rising civil and social conflict gave the Guatemalan armed forces the justification they needed to crack down on opposition parties and leaders, which they labeled guerrillas or terrorists. They also found a willing patron in the United States, which offered its protégé states significant military aid and training that solidified not only the military’s professionalism, but also its self-conception as savior of the nation. Conflict that had been simmering for decades came to the fore as violence rose in the late 1970s and early 1980s. As reported by the Commission for Historical Clarification and by the Archbishop’s Office for Human Rights, the government was responsible for the vast majority of human rights violations, largely against unarmed civilians. Further, the conflict in Guatemala had a strong ethnic dimension: most of those killed were not just civilians, but also indigenous people.14 Civilian rule continued, with serious irregularities, after the overthrow of Ríos Montt in 1983, though the military continued to exercise great power over the government. It was not until 1993–1994 that a peace process was able to make serious strides, culminating in 1994 in UN-brokered agreements, first on human rights and later on other contentious issues such as historical reporting on atrocities. The final accords were signed in 1996. The national, regional, and international peace processes are discussed below. El Salvador El Salvador, too, has a history of socioeconomic stratification, military interference in politics, and U.S. involvement. 15 The result was a protracted social conflict, governmental repression, and the rise of guerrilla groups through the 1970s. This erupted in the early 1980s into a fullscale civil conflict, which resulted in some 75,000 deaths and widespread human rights abuses. Military involvement in politics, though not new, was consolidated with the rise in power of the tandona, the

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largest graduating class of military officers, in 1966.16 As tensions began to rise in the late 1970s, civilian leaders remained formally in power, but the military and security forces gained increasingly wide powers to maintain public order. Notoriously, El Salvador’s economic interests have been controlled by a very small sector of the population. Popular if inaccurate lore maintains that fourteen families have controlled nearly all of the wealth and political life of the country. The result has been oligarchic rule and sporadic violence, particularly over the issue of land tenure. Escalating violence gave rise to numerous left-wing guerrilla groups; at the same time, instability resulted in a coup in October 1979.17 The guerrilla groups joined forces to form the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) in 1980, and the rising violence soon became the fullscale conflict that endured for some twelve years. Dialogue and peace negotiations began with the inauguration of Alfredo Cristiani in 1989. The process was supported first by other Central American nations, but the UN, brought in at the request of the Central American presidents in 1990, mediated talks that ultimately resulted in the final peace accords being completed in January 1992.18 Nicaragua Nicaragua, like its neighbors, experienced an unequal distribution of wealth and rule by a small elite; the Somoza family, which came to power in 1936, was able to concentrate power until the leftist Sandinista National Liberation Front (the Sandinistas, or FSLN) came to power in 1979.19 The rise to power of the Sandinistas would spark a sharp response from the United States, which supported the contras, a rebel group based largely on Honduran soil, in its attempts to overthrow the Sandinistas. When Anastacio Somoza Debayle controlled the state between 1952 and 1979—together with his relatives—military and political power were concentrated under one man’s control, or that of a very small group.20 Despite constitutional restrictions on reelection, Somoza remained in power, systematically repressing the Sandinistas and other opposition and guerrilla groups. The Sandinistas engaged in low-intensity guerrilla warfare against the Somoza dynasty from the early 1960s onward. Violent conflict escalated through the 1970s, with the Sandinistas garnering support from more of the populace as government repression increased; in 1979, a Sandinista junta claimed control and Somoza fled. However, the conflict

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would continue once the Sandinistas came to power, as opposition grew from groups such as the contras. Casualty estimates of the protracted conflict vary, ranging from 40,000 to 50,000 dead.21 The Sandinistas sought to rebuild the country, but efforts were hampered by a weak economy, the ongoing impact of the conflict, and a continuing debt crisis. Increasingly, aid was cut or limited—from the United States and from the IFIs. However, land reform programs were successful, as large tracts were seized and cooperatives created. Public control of a host of industries was also instituted.22 U.S. presence was strong in Nicaragua, which had remained a protectorate of the United States until Somoza came to power in 1936. The United States maintained an active interest in the nation, with the Carter administration mediating actively in an attempt to prevent the rise of the Sandinistas.23 When Ronald Reagan came to power, the presence of a leftist regime in Nicaragua gave rise to concerns that communist regimes might eventually control all of Central America and pose a real threat to the United States. Nicaraguan support for the leftist Salvadoran rebel group the FMLN bolstered this fear. The United States took an increasingly interventionist stance, in particular through its support of the contras. Pressure from home and abroad, combined with the end of the Cold War, a decline in external support to the Nicaraguan regime, and reduced U.S. support for the contras, weakened the two primary actors in the conflict and paved the way for negotiations between the regime and the FSLN. In 1990, Violeta Barrios de Chamorro was elected president and initiated a series of reforms to, inter alia, stabilize the economy, professionalize the army and police, and privatize state-owned businesses.24 Honduras Honduras has experienced numerous rebellions and civil conflicts, with heavy military domination of politics.25 The country was ruled by military officers from 1963, when the armed forces staged a coup, until the formal transition to democracy in 1982. This transition to democracy was itself carefully managed by the armed forces, which continued to maintain heavy involvement in politics even after they ceded formal control. Even though formal armed conflict did not occur, political violence endured through the 1980s, including significant human rights violations and the disappearances of at least 184 people. Spillover effects

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from the other conflicts in the region, including refugee flows and the presence of the contras on Honduran territory, further destabilized the nation.26 Honduras, like its neighbors, is very poor. It has relied heavily on banana and other exports, and this has brought with it the heavy involvement of external firms in Honduras and in its politics. However, while there is a concentration of land, wealth, and power in a relatively small elite, the concentration is not as great as in El Salvador and Guatemala.27 There have nonetheless been widespread protests by peasants seeking more land. The military domination that continued through the period of civilianization was compounded by the unification of the police and the military under a single command, as well as by the adoption by the military of the doctrina de seguridad nacional. The branding of the opposition as subversive enabled the security forces to justify disappearances and other human rights abuses; the U.S.-supported Battalion 3-16 carried out most of these disappearances.28 It is important to note that the disappearances, while tragic, were relatively few in number—under 200 by most counts. Unlike its neighbors, Honduras did not experience open civil conflict, and as a result the degree of repression in Honduras was not as great as in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nicaragua. Nonetheless, effective military control over the state limited prospects for true democracy and did result in serious human rights abuses. This was bolstered in part by U.S. support to the government, because the United States needed Honduras as a base of operations for the Nicaraguan contras it supported. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided the Honduran government with substantial aid. U.S. bases on Honduran soil in turn provided support for the contras, trained Honduran troops, and trained Salvadoran troops to enable them to fight their leftist opposition. The contra camps on the border with Nicaragua prompted frequent incursions into Honduran territory by Sandinistas pursuing the rebels. This resulted in a number of clashes between the neighboring countries’ militaries.29 Civilian rule continued, though with heavy military influence over political life. With the election of President Carlos Roberto Reina in 1993, there was a push to address the abuses of the past. Shortly before his election, a human rights commission was established that issued a seminal report, titled “The Facts Speak for Themselves,” on the disappearances and past human rights abuses. Efforts to address past abuses

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included the removal of some officers and prosecution of others. Action was also taken to reform the security sector, although the process remains somewhat incomplete, in part due to amnesties issued in 1987 and 1991.30

Crosscutting Issues in the Subregion

As is apparent from the individual country histories offered above, several key issues were salient across the subregion, and it is helpful to briefly reprise them here, in part because these underlying sources of strife have not been completely addressed in any of the nations, despite a decade of democratization and peacebuilding efforts. Regime Type, Economic Disparities, and Civil-Military Relations The history and politics of each nation in the subregion, and of the four examined here, vary in important ways. However, as outlined above, it is also the case that each nation, to varying degrees, experienced control of the state by a small elite, vast economic disparities, and weak or nonexistent civilian control over the military, with significant penetration by the military into politics, including some instances of direct control over the state. In the case of Guatemala, conflict had been present for some time, but in other countries the economic downturn of the 1970s, precipitated in part by debt crises, prompted protests by populations and repression by the security forces. In Guatemala, these factors contributed to extended repression; in El Salvador, they led to civil war. In Nicaragua, the crisis helped to bring the leftist Sandinista regime to power, promoting interventionist responses by the U.S. government in the subregion. Honduras escaped direct internal conflict during the 1980s, though it experienced weak civilian rule, repressive security forces, disappearances, and spillover from neighboring countries.31 External Influences, Regional Spillover, and the Cold War The influence of the United States, economically and militarily, cannot be underestimated. The Soviet Union, whose influence was less extensive than that of the United States, offered material support (along with Cuba) to the Sandinistas and the FMLN. Soviet involvement helped to feed U.S. concerns about the threat of communism in the region. Economic

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concerns of the United States continue to contribute to its interest in the region, and the presence of the United States and its economic interests has tended to exacerbate unstable situations in countries with severe poverty and socioeconomic disparities.32 Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador were perhaps the most affected by Cold War rivalries in Central America. U.S. support for the Salvadoran government contributed to the continued control and repression of the security forces as they battled the FMLN. U.S. policy consistently sought to bring down the Nicaraguan government, through the support of the contras and even activities such as the mining of Nicaraguan harbors.33 As noted above, Honduras hosted numerous U.S. military installations as well as contra bases. Finally, Soviet support was offered to the Sandinistas and the FMLN; the Sandinistas and Cuba also offered support to the FMLN. It was thus only with the end of the Cold War that these external interests and involvement in the region began to abate, enabling peace negotiations and more extensive democratization to begin. Guatemala, having experienced significant U.S. interference since the 1950s, was less directly involved in these explicitly ideological battles. Its internal conflict was colored by the ethnic divide and the dispossession of the indios.

Moving Toward Peace: Regional and International Peace Processes

Domestic dynamics engendering conflict and rights abuses, and eventually ending through peacemaking and democratization efforts, were discussed in the country synopses. This section addresses regional and international efforts. Regional Processes: Contadora and Esquipulas The regional states themselves, as well as the Organization of American States (OAS) more broadly, increasingly affirmed democratic governance through the late 1980s and into the early 1990s as a central principle even as they practiced it rather incompletely at home.34 There were a number of regional initiatives, including the Contadora and Esquipulas processes, that sought to encourage resolution of domestic conflicts and foster more amicable relations among the regional states.

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The Contadora process, which arose out of initiatives begun by President Carter in the late 1970s, only gained momentum through the early 1980s, with a meeting of the foreign ministers of four countries of the region in January 1983 to examine the threats to regional security posed by the internal conflicts.35 It provided an important multilateral forum that did not include the United States and thus did not include Cold War concerns. The process resulted in a draft peace act for the region in 1984, which collapsed under U.S. criticism and attack.36 While this process largely failed, a key achievement was the creation of a multilateral forum for the discussion of regional problems. Central American presidents met in 1986 in Esquipulas, Guatemala, and agreed on the need to address the urgent crises in the region and to create a Central American parliament (PARLACEN).37 Costa Rican president Oscar Arias presented a peace plan to fellow Central American presidents in 1987 in Esquipulas that placed democracy at the center as it called upon the three states engaged in civil war to resolve their conflicts. This plan was separate from, and parallel to, the proposals in Contadora.38 Parlacen was formally created, though it has yet to become a strong force in the region some fifteen years later. One concrete result was a regional security treaty, completed in December 1996. Many have hailed the Esquipulas process as successful as an early confidencebuilding measure.39 International Processes: The End of the Cold War, the UN, and Prominent States The end of the Cold War and the changed attitude of the United States toward the subregion clearly enabled peace processes begun in the 1980s by regional leaders to advance. For the United States, the key security concern in the region was no longer defense against communism, but rather defense of democracy. 40 The UN also began to play a more active role. Other key states also played an important role, in some instances as “groups of friends” of the UN Secretary-General. In other instances they were key donors for peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts. The United States and other countries exerted more direct pressure on regional states to democratize as part of resolving their long-running civil wars.41 For example, the United States and the OAS placed great pressure on Guatemalan president Jorge Serrano Elías when he attempted to carry out a coup to seize additional extraconstitutional powers while ruling in 1993.42

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After the Peace: Old Challenges, New Risks, and Peacebuilding Strategies

Following formal peace agreements or, in the case of Honduras, during a continuing transition from military to civilian control of politics, a host of actors sought to assist the four nations in peacebuilding activities such as democratization, security-sector reform, disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, local economic development, and governance and capacity building. Many studies have enumerated challenges and strategies for peacebuilding. My focus here is first on the approaches taken in the region, and second on the potential gaps between the needs of peacebuilding as conflict prevention, on the one hand, and the strides made to date, on the other.43 I suggest that while important strategies have been developed to address many of the past causes of conflict, as well as the continuing impact of past conflict, some of the structural and embedded political-institutional challenges remain to be fully addressed, posing challenges for the prevention of future conflicts. This is in part due to the oft-noted partial consolidation of democracy in the region, which I examine next through a discussion of contemporary challenges and risks in each nation.44 Guatemala Broad institutional reforms were initiated with the conclusion and implementation of the peace accords—reforms in civil-military relations, the judiciary, and the police, in particular.45 Some cases involving serious human rights violations have gone forward in national courts over the past few years. Under pressure from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the government has recognized its responsibility for a 1982 massacre at Dos Erres and settled with some victims’ survivors in this and a number of other cases, though allegations remain that several officials responsible for the massacre remain in government service.46 However, some key provisions of the accords have yet to be implemented, in particular the disbanding of the Presidential High Command and the appointment of a civilian as minister of defense.47 Civil defense patrols, which supported the armed forces during the civil war, have demanded payment, generating widespread controversy, and have continued to operate despite provision for their dissolution in the accords. The army has been called in repeatedly to support the police in dealing with violent crime, raising the risk of more permanent involvement by

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the army in internal security, which is a violation of the accords. Serious abuses of human rights by the security forces have grown, as have reports of the growth of clandestine armed groups. These groups are allegedly linked to government officials, including individuals in the office of the prosecutor and in the police and judiciary.48 Attacks against human rights advocates and those seeking to implement key facets of the peace accords rose yet further in 2002. The attorney general, Carlos David Argueta de León, was the target of a gunshot attack, apparently linked to his investigation of several high-profile human rights cases and alleged official involvement in organized crime. Human rights advocates have viewed this attack as part of a pattern, one that also included attacks against three sisters who had brought a case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which in 2000 held the Guatemalan government responsible for the detention, torture, and extrajudicial execution of their brother. The human rights ombudsman has proposed that a new international investigative commission be established to address the widespread threats against the human rights community; the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders has also condemned the worsening security of human rights advocates.49 Impunity for many past abuses continues, as prosecutions have been hampered by intimidation of those involved in the procedures. Concerns about corruption extend beyond the issue of impunity to the judicial system broadly, due to corruption, lack of resources, and threats. 50 The spread of small arms, allegedly imported by criminal groups linked to the police and military, contributes to rising crime rates and general insecurity. 51 At the same time, significant violence, undertaken with official support or complicity, has been directed against union workers. This has included reported lynchings and mob violence, which increased significantly in 2002. 52 Deep divisions in the populace were revealed when in May 1999 a referendum involving a package of constitutional reforms dealing with, inter alia, national and social rights and the judiciary was rejected. 53 Plans for a tax scheme to benefit former members of paramilitaries, many of whom were engaged in serious human rights abuses, may be further cause for concern and possibly increased tensions. 54 Finally, former dictator Ríos Montt, the leader of the ruling party, continues in his quest to recapture the presidency. Courts have twice denied him the right to run, citing a 1990 law barring coup leaders from office. Two courts were to consider his petition to run in the fall of 2003, but as this book goes to press the case has yet to be resolved. Most troubling, there are

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credible allegations that he engineered the mob violence that broke out in late July 2003, meant to intimidate the judges considering his case.55 Responses by External Actors The UN Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA),56 which was established in 1994 prior to the completion of the peace accords, continues to verify the implementation of these accords.57 MINUGUA’s own assessment of progress has been critical in light of the defeat of constitutional reforms and continuing underregistration of indigenous peoples. In a 2002 report, it found that “since 1999, and following the conclusion of the most operative phase of demobilization and installation of peace institutions, the process began to show signs of stagnation.”58 The deadline for compliance with the accords has been extended from 2000 to 2004, as many of their elements remain to be implemented, particularly in the areas of human rights and national reconciliation, civil-military relations and military reform, judicial reform, indigenous peoples and intercultural relations, rural policy and development, and social and fiscal policy.59 In particular, the deterioration in the level of protection of human rights—as evidenced by lynchings, the continuation of clandestine security structures, and threats to judicial officials, witnesses, and human rights advocates—is of great concern. So is the continued impunity of officials for past human rights abuses. Indigenous peoples continue to be excluded and discriminated against and suffer economically and socially.60 Some progress has been made institutionally with the creation of a new code of criminal procedure, the establishment of a commission to strengthen the judiciary, and the deployment of civilian police and advances in their professional training. Unfortunately, significant difficulties continue to plague the security situation and the security and judicial sectors. UN Development Programme (UNDP) projects in Guatemala have sought to support key areas of peace implementation such as the judicial commission, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), a modernized judiciary and office of the public prosecutor, the office of public defenders and the new civilian police, and the demobilization and reintegration of former combatants.61 Through the Programme for Displaced Persons, Refugees, and Returnees (PRODERE), a host of UN departments, agencies, and funds were utilized to create local economic development agencies (LEDAs) to assist in development and ease the reintegration of refugees and displaced persons in Guatemala, El Salvador, and

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Nicaragua, as well as in Honduras, which had received rather than generated refugees and displaced persons.62 USAID assistance guidelines claim to prioritize support for implementation of the peace accords, disaster recovery assistance, and institutional development in the areas of education and the legal system.63 USAID also seeks to support developmental goals such as increased health, earning capacity, and environmental protection. The implementation of the peace accords necessarily entails providing assistance to institutional reform programs—of the military, the police, and the judicial system. In recent years, funding through the International Criminal Investigation Training and Assistance Program (ICITAP) of the U.S. Departments of State and Justice has provided technical assistance and training for the police, particularly in the area of drug interdiction. While progress has been made on some key issues, including police, military, and judicial reforms—with the support of the UN, USAID, and other donors, including the European Union (EU) and particularly Spain64— these activities are far from complete, and resurgent crime and corruption are cause for great concern. As with other countries in the subregion, World Bank assistance in Guatemala has emphasized poverty alleviation, health, and education, as well as disaster relief. However, in contrast to programming in several other countries, assistance is also being provided to a judicial reform project and to the government’s administration of land security and access, a key issue in a country where land tenure has been a significant point of contention.65 The development projects and conflict prevention strategies pursued by external actors in Guatemala are important but may well not suffice to forestall future conflict. Some actors are not pursuing the most necessary conflict prevention initiatives but are focusing on development concerns such as poverty alleviation, which may serve longerterm structural purposes but do not address the most pressing current threats. Those that have engaged in support for important institutional reforms have not been able to address broader political corruption and violence. El Salvador Great strides have been taken in the implementation of the peace accords in El Salvador, and it is widely hailed as one of the UN’s “success stories.”66 A new civilian police force, with a new doctrine and a

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new academy, was established, and it included vetted members of the old police as well as of the FMLN. The civilian police were formally separated from the military, and new military doctrine emphasized the military’s role in external defense. Several of the more abusive security forces, such as the treasury police, were abolished, and the size of the military was cut by half. Institutional purges also removed officers accused of human rights abuses and corruption. The FMLN was converted into a legitimate political party and has since won municipalities and legislative seats. Despite these advances, serious difficulties remain in peacebuilding, particularly in the area of public security.67 Rising crime rates have challenged the capacity of the police. While the violence has largely transformed from explicitly political acts to common criminality, it remains, to cite a study by the government’s office of human rights ombudsman, a challenge to the weak state. The same study observes that while accurate statistics are difficult to come by, El Salvador is second only to Guatemala in the subregion in experiencing serious violent crime per capita.68 Furthermore, police have been implicated and arrested in several high-profile crimes, and purification of the force was undertaken in late 2000.69 Police have been involved in kidnapping citizens for profit; a presidential commission named twelve officers involved. 70 They have also engaged in serious human rights violations, including killings and attempted killings. Investigation by the presidential commission resulted in the dismissal of some seventy-two officers. 71 There have been some prosecutions for these abuses, but sentences have been relatively light. There have been no documented cases of politically motivated disappearances, however, and there has been a decline in threats against human rights campaigners.72 Despite the formal separation of the military and the police in the accords and institutionally, since 1995 the military has offered, by presidential order, support to the police in some areas where armed criminal bands have been active. The military, however, remains under civilian control.73 Judicial reform was undertaken following the recommendations of the Truth Commission report. El Salvador’s entire Supreme Court was replaced in 1994. Replacement of lower-level magistrates and judges, however, has proceeded less quickly. Constitutional reforms arising out of the peace agreements to improve the judiciary were completed in 1996, and the criminal procedure code was revised. There continue to be problems with corruption and inefficiency in the judiciary, as well as

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corruption in the attorney general’s office, ensuring that accused persons with political, economic, or institutional leverage can avoid penalty in many cases. Legislation was adopted in 2000 to combat this problem. The Supreme Court has sanctioned and dismissed a number of judicial officers, but proportionately few in comparison to the numbers investigated.74 The issue of impunity continues to be a salient one, with the InterAmerican Commission of Human Rights finding that the state had violated rights to life, justice, and judicial protection, a decision the state disregarded because it was nonbinding. In October 2000, the Supreme Court upheld 1993 amnesty legislation as constitutional, largely undermining the possibility of redress for past abuses, though the decision did leave judicial discretion to pursue cases occurring between 1989 and 1994.75 A continuing issue of contention is the status of children who disappeared during the war; the government has refused to create a commission to investigate their fates. There have also been complaints that the office of the human rights ombudsman has been ineffective, in part due to politicization of the selection for the post.76 In 1997, land transfers to former FMLN combatants as well as to soldiers, as mandated by the peace accords, were completed. Credits are provided to former soldiers also for investment in industry and agriculture or for building a home.77 These steps addressed in part the disputed land issue, and enabled the reintegration of former combatants. Responses by External Actors UN involvement in El Salvador’s peace process as well as in the consolidation of the peace is well known and was discussed in a previous section.78 The UN monitored the peace process and the final accords in El Salvador from 1991 through June 1997. The conditions for peacebuilding were first to be set through peacekeeping. The UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL),79 established in 1991, played a then-unprecedented role in monitoring cease-fires, separation of forces, and demobilization of the guerrillas; ONUSAL’s police division also monitored the security forces, which aided in the development of the new civilian police, and monitored progress in the area of human rights.80 The military division also monitored the reform of the armed forces, although observers maintain that it made a minimal contribution.81 PRODERE was involved in the funding of development activities aimed at easing the strain of reintegration activities.82

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The United States, in part because of its historical relationship with the armed forces and police and because it had greater resources to commit, played a greater role in many aspects of security-sector reform.83 It offered significant support, through the ICITAP, for the new civilian police and the new academy to train them. The United States has also offered assistance to develop community-policing programs.84 Other contributors, in funds and expertise, included the EU and numerous member states as bilateral donors. The United States, along with other bilateral donors, has contributed funds to judicial reform efforts.85 The United States was also actively involved in the reform of the Salvadoran armed forces, through the U.S. Military Group.86 The World Bank’s programming has focused primarily on macroeconomic reform and on assistance to health and education; as with the other countries in the subregion, World Bank efforts in El Salvador have also included disaster relief. The focus of assistance was not directly in support of the peace accords, and the Bank was criticized for not conditioning assistance in support of the accords.87 The Bank nonetheless devoted resources to activities purported to support the development of rule of law. 88 As with Guatemala, external assistance in El Salvador is not always well tailored to the needs of conflict prevention and peacebuilding. There has been important support for the reform of key institutions such as the police and the judiciary, yet corruption and abuses within those institutions are still rife. Nicaragua Following the end of the Cold War and the election of Chamorro in 1990, a series of reforms were undertaken that sought to consolidate democracy, demobilize soldiers, and reform the security sector.89 The first civilian defense ministry was introduced in 1997; the president is chief of the defense and security forces. However, electoral reforms introduced in 2000 were criticized by some as imposing difficult conditions for the creation of new political parties and the registration of candidates.90 While the human rights record of the government generally has improved, abuses by the police continue, and members of the security forces have been responsible for torture and extrajudicial killings. The office of the inspector general sanctioned numerous officers accused of

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abuses; some were also dismissed. Budgetary limits and personnel shortages continue to plague the police, despite support for training by various international donors and human rights training by NGOs. Voluntary police have also been implicated in numerous cases; they cannot be sanctioned but only dismissed and continue to be used in light of poor resources and staffing, though their numbers have been cut. There continue to be allegations of death threats brought against human rights advocates pressing for investigation of abuses. Demobilization of soldiers was accomplished, but some observers argue that they have yet to be properly reintegrated and suggest that some have rearmed and are engaged in criminal activity.91 The judiciary remains weak and overburdened, though a series of constitutional reforms in 1995 strengthened the independence of the Nicaraguan Supreme Court, and in 2000 the number of Supreme Court justices was increased. The weakness of the judiciary has impeded prosecution of human rights cases; though some cases have proceeded, they have resulted in rather light sentences. The judiciary is not only weak but also at times corrupt and susceptible to political influence, though the Supreme Court has been seeking to reduce incompetence and corruption through the sanctioning and removal of some judicial employees.92 Respect for indigenous rights, while enshrined in legislation, has been limited. In 2000, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found that the government had violated the rights of an indigenous group in a case involving logging licenses.93 Responses by External Actors The UN was not as engaged in peacemaking and peacebuilding in Nicaragua as it was in other nations of the region. The UN did put in place an electoral observation mission for the 1990 elections, supplementing the work of other actors such as the Carter Center and the OAS, but left thereafter. Resources provided by the UN, like those provided by the United States and others, initially went to debt relief, with little going toward reconstruction projects or the consolidation of democracy.94 A notable exception was the UN’s work in the reintegration of refugees and displaced persons through PRODERE.95 U.S. assistance has emphasized health and education, as well as disaster relief; little emphasis was initially placed on democratic consolidation and peacebuilding. However, recent assistance has also aimed at increasing government transparency and fostering citizen participation—

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for example, assistance to the government’s electoral monitoring body and NGOs.96 As elsewhere, World Bank assistance to Nicaragua emphasizes, inter alia, poverty alleviation, health and education programs, environmental protection, and disaster relief.97 Emphasis is placed on modernization and on creating conditions for greater foreign investment. The focus of programming is not, then, to address reform of security institutions or human rights more generally. The Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund contributed further funding.98 External responses in Nicaragua have placed less emphasis on reform and peacebuilding than have counterpart projects in other countries. Projects addressing health, poverty alleviation, and disaster relief, while important, do not address potential sources of strife such as human rights abuses and the limits to the rights of indigenous persons. There is at the least a need for greater emphasis on the occasional projects that do seek to address government transparency and citizen participation. Honduras The inauguration of President Reina, following on the heels of the creation of a human rights commission, was part of a shift toward greater respect for human rights and the strengthening of civilian control over the security sector. The country held its sixth consecutive democratic election in November 2001. Progress has been made toward ending the practice of forced recruitment to the armed forces, prosecuting those responsible for past abuses, separating the military and the police, and outing information through the human rights commission and requests for declassification of documents held by the U.S. government. However, progress has come at a cost, with the security forces occasionally reacting strongly to steps impinging upon their autonomy. Thus, while progress has been made in curbing military autonomy, democratization is arguably incomplete in Honduras.99 The public prosecutor filed seminal cases against military officers in 1995 for kidnapping and torture. However, these were undermined by military intransigence, including alleged burning of documents.100 Furthermore, in response to public requests for information from the U.S. government by the human rights commissioner, the military sent tanks into the streets of the capital.101 The human rights commissioner and the judge hearing the case also received death threats. Nonetheless, indictments

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continued against other officers of the security forces. Several indicted officers went into hiding, seeking protection from members of the security forces and in some instances continuing to draw salaries.102 The Honduran Supreme Court, in a key decision in 2000, ruled that illegal detention and execution by military officials were not covered by the 1987 amnesty legislation, potentially enabling further prosecutions. Progress was made in the formal separation of the police and the military through constitutional reform. The formal transfer of the police to civilian control took place in 1997, and the body created to enable purification of the police offered a list of corrupt officials; police reform legislation also created a civilian oversight body. While the budget of the security forces actually rose in 1995–1996, this was ostensibly to purchase equipment, increase salaries, and combat rising crime; civilian control over budgetary matters was reestablished in 1996. By 2000, the military had actually been reduced to below its authorized strength, and in 1999, the first civilian was appointed commander of the armed forces.103 Because of rising crime, however, the army has been allowed to join the police in law enforcement. There have been persistent accusations of criminal activities by the police, including drug trafficking. There have also been reports of human rights abuses by the police; the attorney general’s office has initiated proceedings in the cases. In many of the numerous cases of alleged extrajudicial killings by the security forces, however, the office has been unable to identify suspects. A purge was carried out in 2000: the government removed or demoted over 200 military and police officers, as well as judges. Extrajudicial killings of street children, many of which can be attributed to the security forces, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary, and Summary Executions, have totaled some 1,500 over the past five years. In March 2003, the government established a commission to investigate these deaths.104 Nonetheless, impunity for a variety of abuses continues, due in part to a weak and often corrupt judiciary with poor resources. The rise in crime has led to the growth not only of unregulated private security services, but also of neighborhood patrols that have been accused of engaging in vigilante justice.105 Human rights defenders increasingly find themselves under attack, not directly by the police but by organized crime networks and wealthy landowners. Disputes over land reform, land tenure, and squatting have also led to violence. There have been allegations that while the police may not be directly involved in attacks on human rights activists, they are complicit.106 Abuses by police are

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also rife within the corrections system, as was highlighted by an April 2003 massacre by police of sixty-eight inmates in El Porvenir prison.107 Responses by External Actors The UN did not have a great presence in the transition, though the UNDP has been present on the ground. PRODERE was active in Honduras, too, in the creation of local economic development areas.108 While the United States was quite active in Honduras during the 1980s, it was not actively involved in promoting the progressive civilianization of the government; it began to aid police reform, for example, through the ICITAP, only late in the 1990s. With the end of the Cold War, U.S. policy shifted dramatically, from supporting the military to drastically cutting aid to the institution and pushing for democratization as well as economic reforms.109 USAID now provides significant assistance for democratic development (including training of civilian police through the ICITAP) as well as for more traditional development purposes.110 The United States has provided support for judicial reform: USAID in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice provided an adviser to support the implementation of the new criminal procedure code, which represented far-reaching reform.111 The focus of the World Bank’s activity has been not on institutional reform but on poverty reduction, environmental protection, and disaster relief.112 Reform and democratization in Honduras remain incomplete, and external support has generally not addressed some of the underlying sources of past and potentially new conflict. There has been support for reform of the police and the judiciary, but broader steps to address rights abuses and corruption and crime should be taken. Is There Hope for a Regional Approach to Conflict? PARLACEN and Its Limits Attempts to form a Central American union trace back to efforts to integrate the nations in the 1820s following independence from Spain.113, 114 Regional states, building in part upon the regional focus of the Contadora group and the Esquipulas process, signed a treaty in 1991 creating a Central American parliament—PARLACEN, a regional body with mandates to assist in planning and analysis and to advise on political, social, economic, and cultural issues.115 PARLACEN, like the processes that spawned it, is

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oriented not only toward tighter integration among the states of the subregion, but also toward using tighter relations to enable the application of pressure to end domestic conflict and to help ensure that it does not recur. However, while PARLACEN has been in existence for over a decade, it has not had a strong track record in achieving these goals; some would suggest that tighter integration is unlikely in the near future.116

Consolidation: Impunity and Corruption as Enduring Problems

As one commentator has observed, “These ‘democracies’ were born disabled, unable to enforce the law against those accused of criminal behavior and prevented from exercising fully their constitutional authority.”117 This may be something of an overstatement, but it is the case that impunity and corruption, in governance but particularly in the security sector, continue. These problems endure because, despite efforts at civilianization, purification, and institutional reform of the police and other security forces in El Salvador and Guatemala—with more limited reforms in Honduras and Nicaragua—many individuals responsible for rights abuses remain in these forces. At the same time, there remain, despite training, entrenched habits of using excessive force and servicing elites rather than the populace at large. The postconflict rise in crime rates has also facilitated these abuses, as populations prioritize diminished crime rates over disciplined police forces. Further, despite oversight bodies, internal discipline continues to be a serious problem.118 Such weaknesses have enabled the continued involvement by police forces in criminal activities such as arms trafficking in Guatemala. Not only does corruption exist in the security sectors, but it is intimately linked to corruption in politics, including at high levels in some instances. This is certainly a legacy of authoritarian or dictatorial regimes where corruption and self-serving political leaders were endemic. However, a recent study of transitional societies (and others) in Latin America suggests that political corruption does not fade with transitions; political culture is slow to change and difficult to constrain.119 There result, then, fundamental flaws in governance as well as limits to the efficacy of numerous reforms, leading some to conclude that democratization and peacebuilding in the subregion have been incomplete or limited.120

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“New” Violence? Political Corruption and Crime Below the Level of War

The rise in violent crime is a common phenomenon in postconflict societies and is not unique to the countries of Central America. The legacy of conflict is often the habit of resorting to violence to resolve problems, whether personal or political, and is made easier by the accessibility of weapons. Violent crime has risen in each of the four countries examined here, is often undertaken for purely economic purposes, and is not linked to specific political ideologies or movements. However, it is also the case that in many instances political agendas can also be discerned, and many apparently “common” crimes are also political crimes. The frequency of politically driven violent incidents is difficult to ascertain due to the dearth of accurate statistics regarding crime, political violence, and corruption. There are specific cases documented by governmental and nongovernmental human rights bodies, of course, and the perception by these organizations and others is that crime and violence are on the rise. Crime is also heavily underreported in each country, making an accurate assessment of trends yet more difficult. The governments themselves concur that crime is on the rise, and this is the reason that the military has been used to combat crime in Honduras. The perception of corruption is widespread, according to the leading organization that tracks such trends, Transparency International.121 Much has been said in recent years about the phenomena of “new wars”—resource wars driven ostensibly by greed rather than grievance.122 The general phenomenon is often characterized by several aspects: competition for resources, both scarce and plentiful, may be the key motivator for conflict, rather than a desire to govern a functional state; conflict is itself a source of wealth for many; conflict fosters and is fostered by rampant criminality; and economic support is further provided by diaspora communities. I would like to suggest that what is seen in Central America today is both related to, but slightly distinct from, the sorts of “new wars” that have emerged around the globe, most notably in Africa. What I offer here is a suggestive hypothesis rather than a fully fleshed-out theory, as much research and theorizing remains to be done. I would suggest that the nature of the violence that we see today is both a legacy of past conflict, arising out of a continuing impunity for security forces and depressed economic opportunities combined with a

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spike in unemployed former combatants, and a legacy of embedded corruption and criminality in political systems. It would be wrong to characterize violence or kidnappings in El Salvador, for example, as purely criminal acts with the single goal of obtaining money; targets also frequently have political relevance. Similarly, the lynchings in Guatemala cannot simply be seen as random acts of mob violence—the complicity of local power-holders such as mayors is simply too apparent. The result is that criminality, violence, and political corruption are deeply embedded and mutually reinforcing in ways that may be very difficult to disentangle, both analytically and, more important, on the ground. Yet this is exactly the challenge faced by the regimes, the civil society, and any external actors that wish to assist. These problems can certainly be framed as development issues, and they are;123 but they are also eminently political issues. For this reason, it becomes important not to view politics and apparently criminal/economic violence in isolation, but to begin to identify who is engaged in the violence, who condones it explicitly—or implicitly by failing to stop or condemn it—and who benefits directly or indirectly.

Conclusion

This chapter began with the proposition that while the experience of each of the four countries in the subregion is in some sense unique, these countries also share certain commonalities that contributed to political violence and civil war through the 1980s. The end of the Cold War and the resolution of the overt political battles provided the opportunity for each of these countries to experience not only negative peace but also positive peace. That is, not only could the wars be terminated, but also sustained peacebuilding efforts held out the promise of addressing the underlying conditions that gave rise to the violence in the first place, whether political, economic, or ideological. That promise was never truly fulfilled. Peacebuilding efforts, where they took place, did achieve some measure of institutional reform, the importance of which should not be understated. However, the chronic violence and political corruption in each nation may well hold the seeds for future conflict; and long-term strategies, within these states and by external actors that seek to help them, must address these challenges. Institutional reforms must be pushed further to root out corruption in the judiciary, police, and military. External actors could also engage political

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actors more directly regarding the prevalence of political violence, not only providing technical assistance for governance, but even conditioning assistance on serious efforts to curb abuses and corruption. Failure to do so means that development assistance, assistance in important reforms to the justice and security sector, and assistance to other facets of democratization and peacebuilding may necessarily fall short. I have sought not to propose a comprehensive strategy, but rather to make the case for the need for more concerted efforts to address the real and potential violence described here before any of the countries experience more serious conflict.

Notes 1. For a challenge to the focus on class structure as a key explanation, and specifically the agrarian class structure, see James Mahoney, The Legacies of Liberalism: Path Dependence and Political Regimes in Central America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), pp. 18–20 and passim. See generally Jorge I. Domínguez and Marc Lindenberg, eds., Democratic Transitions in Central America (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1997). 2. Edelberto Torres Rivas and Dirk Kruijt, eds., América Latina: Militares y sociedad (San José, Costa Rica: FLACSO, 1991); Fuerza Armada de El Salvador and ONUSAL, Doctrina militar y relaciones ejército/sociedad (San Salvador: Fuerza Armada de El Salvador and ONUSAL, 1994); Fuerza Armada de El Salvador and ONUSAL, Relaciones civiles-militares en el nuevo marco internacional (San Salvador: Fuerza Armada de El Salvador and ONUSAL, 1994); Francisco Barahona Riera and Manuel Carballo Quintana, eds., Reconversión militar en Centroamérica (San José, Costa Rica: Fundación Friedrich Ebert, 1995). Mahoney traces the dynamic of controlling states and military involvement in politics to the era of liberalization in the nineteenth century in Legacies of Liberalism, pp. 41–43. 3. Deborah Barry, Raúl Vergara, and José Rodolfo Castro, “‘Low Intensity Warfare’: The Counterinsurgency Strategy for Central America,” in Nora Hamilton, Jeffry A. Frieden, Linda Fuller, and Manuel Pastor Jr., eds., Crisis in Central America: Regional Dynamics and U.S. Policy in the 1980s (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), pp. 77–96. Mahoney challenges the strong emphasis on U.S. influence, military and political, in his Legacies of Liberalism, pp. 20–24. 4. For example, observing the fact that Latin American nations became politically independent in the mid–nineteenth century, giving them time to consolidate, see Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament: State Making, Regional Conflict, and the International System (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995), pp. 33–34. The states of the subregion, though weak, are a far cry from the failed states in many parts of Africa. Christopher Clapham, “Failed States and Non-States in the Modern International Order,” April 2000, available at www.ippu.purdue.edu/failed_states/2000/papers/clapham.html.

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5. Alain Rouquié, The Military and the State in Latin America, trans. Paul E. Sigmund (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 2–5. See generally Howard H. Lentner, State Formation in Central America: The Struggle for Autonomy, Development, and Democracy (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993). See generally on the four countries examined here Thomas P. Anderson, Politics in Central America: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua (New York: Praeger, 1988). 6. Brian Loveman, “‘Protected Democracies’ and Military Guardianship: Political Transitions in Latin America, 1978–1993,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 105–189; Jeffrey Stark, “Going for Baroque? Ways of Thinking About Democracy in Central America,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 33, no. 1 (Spring 1991): 161–179. 7. Literally, this translates simply as “doctrine of national security,” but in this context it implied a suspicion of internal opposition and a role for the military in addressing internal, as opposed to external, threats. 8. See Richard L. Millett, “The United States and Latin America’s Armed Forces: A Troubled Relationship,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 39, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 121–136; compare Irving Louis Horowitz, “Mythologizing Latin America/Demonizing the United States,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 39, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 163–175; and Robert A. Pastor, “The Bush Administration and Latin America: The Pragmatic Style and the Regionalist Option,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 33, no. 3 (Autumn 1991): 1–34. 9. Markos J. Mamalakis, “Poverty and Inequality in Latin America: Mesoeconomic Dimensions of Justice and Entitlements,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 38, nos. 2–3 (Summer–Autumn 1996): 181–199; William Glade, “Institutions and Inequality in Latin America: Text and Subtext,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 38, nos. 2–3 (Summer–Autumn 1996): 159–179; Robert C. Harding II, “Land, Power, and Poverty: Export Agriculture and the Crisis in Central America; States and Social Evolution,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 38, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 143–153 (review essay). 10. For a good overview, see Rodolfo Paiz-Andrade, “Guatemala 1978– 1993: The Incomplete Process of Transition,” in Domínguez and Lindenberg, Democratic Transitions, pp. 139–164; Gabriel Aguilera Peralta and Edelberto Torres Rivas, Del autoritarismo a la paz (Guatemala: FLACSO, 1998); Dinorah Azpuru de Cuestas, “Posibilidades de paz: Nuevo rumbo para Guatemala,” in Gabriel Aguilera Peralta, ed., Procesos de negociación comparados en África y América Latina (Guatemala: FLACSO, 1994); and Liisa North, “El proceso de paz salvadoreno y su relevancia para Guatemala,” in Aguilera Peralta, Procesos de negociación; Henry J. Frundt, “Guatemala in Search of Democracy,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 32, no. 3 (Autumn 1990): 24–74; Anderson, Politics in Central America, pp. 19–35. See generally also “Guatemala,” in Amnesty International Report 2000, available at www. amnesty.org; U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Guatemala,” available at www.state.gov; and U.S. Department of State, “Guatemala: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2001,” available at www.state.gov.

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11. For a discussion of military rule, see Hector Alejandro Gramajo Morales, “Political Transition in Guatemala, 1980–1990: A Perspective from Inside Guatemala’s Military,” in Domínguez and Lindenberg, Democratic Transitions, pp. 111–138. 12. Indeed, in mid-2003, he was the leader of the ruling party and sought to register as a presidential candidate. “Guatemala Police Chief Fired Amid Riots,” New York Times, July 28, 2003, available at www.nytimes.com. 13. On land tenure, dispossession, and harassment of unions, see Mahoney, Legacies of Liberalism, pp. 238–240; on class dynamics and labor movements, see also Frundt, “Guatemala.” 14. Commission for Historical Clarification, Guatemala: Memory of Silence (1999), available at http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/report/english/toc.html; it was created as part of the peace negotiations in 1994. 15. Much of the analysis of El Salvador draws upon research and fieldwork undertaken for Chandra Lekha Sriram, Confronting Past Human Rights Violations: Justice vs. Peace in Times of Transition (London: Frank Cass, 2004), in 1997–1998. Further overviews can be found in U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: El Salvador,” available at www.state.gov; “El Salvador,” in Amnesty International Report 2001, available at www.web.amnesty.org; and U.S. Department of State, “El Salvador: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2001,” available at www.state.gov. See also Ruben Zamora, “Democratic Transition or Modernization? The Case of El Salvador Since 1979,” in Domínguez and Lindenberg, Democratic Transitions, pp. 165–179. 16. Hector Samour, “Las Fuerzas Armadas Salvadorenas,” Realidad: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades (September–October 1994): 774– 775. A tanda refers to a graduating class; the tandona was simply a particularly large and influential one. It is worth noting that despite reforms, the tanda system has not been altered. Ibid., p. 777. 17. Edelberto Torres Rivas, “Insurrection and Civil War in El Salvador,” in Michael W. Doyle, Ian Johnstone, and Robert C. Orr, eds., Keeping the Peace: Multidimensional UN Operations in Cambodia and El Salvador (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 18. Mark Levine, “Peacemaking in El Salvador,” in Doyle, Johnstone, and Orr, Keeping the Peace, pp. 227–254; Timothy A. Wilkins, “The El Salvador Peace Accords: Using International and Domestic Law Norms to Build Peace,” in Doyle, Johnstone, and Orr, Keeping the Peace, pp. 255–281; Antonio Canas and Hector Dada, “Political Transition and Institutionalization in El Salvador,” in Cynthia J. Arnson, ed., Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America (Washington, D.C.: Wilson Center Press, 1999). 19. See generally Anderson, Politics in Central America; and Lentner, State Formation in Central America. See U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Guatemala,” available at www.state.gov; U.S. Department of State, “Nicaragua: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2001,” available at www.state.gov; Amnesty International, “Nicaragua,” in Amnesty International Report 2001, available at www.web.amnesty.org; and World Bank, “Nicaragua: Country Brief,” available at http://lnweb.18.worldbank.org. See Silvio de Franco and José Luis Velázquez, “Democratic Transitions in Nicaragua,” in Domínguez and Lindenberg, Democratic Transitions, pp. 85–110.

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20. On Nicaragua’s history of “traditional” dictatorships, see Mahoney, Legacies of Liberalism, pp. 247–255. 21. Anderson, Politics in Central America, p. 189. 22. Ibid., pp. 194–195. 23. See generally Timothy C. Brown, “The United States and Nicaragua: Inside the Carter and Sandinista Administrations,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 207–219 (book review). 24. U.S. Department of State, “Nicaragua: Background Note.” 25. Background research and analysis is drawn from my fieldwork in Honduras during 1997–1998. See generally U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Honduras,” available at www.state.gov; “Honduras,” in Amnesty International Report 2001, available at www.amnesty.org; and U.S. Department of State, “Honduras: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—2001,” available at www.state.gov. 26. See generally Leticia Solomon, La violencia en Honduras 1980–1993 (Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Centro de Documentación de Honduras, 1993). See also Amnesty International, Honduras: Civilian Authority, Military Power: Human Rights Violations in the 1980s (London: Amnesty International, 1988). 27. Anderson, Politics in Central America, pp. 127–128. 28. See Comisionado Nacional de Protección de los Derechos Humanos, Los hechos hablan por si mismos (Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Editorial Guayamuras, 1994). See also Inter-American Court of Human Rights, judgment in Velázquez Rodríguez case, reprinted in International Legal Materials 28 (1989): 291. 29. Anderson, Politics in Central America, pp. 157–159. 30. Comisionado Nacional de Protección de los Derechos Humanos, Los hechos hablan por si mismos. The text of the 1991 amnesty law can be found in “Decreto 87–91,” available at www.us.net/cip/cdh.amnistia.htm. See also Comisionado Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, El difícil transito hacía la democracía (Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Comisionado Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, 1996). 31. See generally Lentner, State Formation in Central America, pp. 61–81. 32. Of course, the role of regional hegemons in shaping state behavior in regions, and state dysfunctions, is hardly specific to this region; see generally Ayoob, Third World Security Predicament, pp. 139–163. 33. International Court of Justice, Case Concerning the Military and Paramilitary Activities In and Against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America), judgment of June 27, 1986, available at www.icj-cij.org/icjwww/ idecisions/isummaries/inussummary860627.htm. 34. Andrés Opazo Bernales, Esquipulas II: Una tarea pendiente (San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana, 1990), examines the Contadora and Esquipulas processes. See also Tom Farer, ed., Beyond Sovereignty: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). The OAS formalized this commitment in Resolution 1080, AG/RES. 1080 (XXI-O/91), June 5, 1991, available at www.oas.org. 35. See generally Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, “Negotiation in Conflict: Central America and Contadora,” in Hamilton, Frieden, Fuller, and Pastor, Crisis in Central America, pp. 97–115.

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36. Aguilar Zinser, “Negotiation in Conflict,” pp. 105–108. 37. “Declaración de Esquipulas,” May 5, 1986, available at http://200.30/ 143.26/documentosparlacen.esquipulas1.htm. 38. See “Acuerdo de Esquipulas II,” August 7, 1987, available at http:// 200.30.143.26/documentosparlacen/esquipulas2.htm; and Aguilar Zinser, “Negotiation in Conflict,” p. 113. 39. See, for example, http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/acda/factshee/secbldg/cademosb. htm. 40. Richard Downes, “The Impact of the End of the Cold War on InterAmerican Relations: The Search for Paradigm and Principle,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 39, no. 2 (Summer 1997): 197–216; Richard L. Millett, “Beyond Sovereignty: International Efforts to Support Latin American Democracy,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36, no. 2 (Autumn 1994): 1–23; William Perry and Max Primorac, “The InterAmerican Security Agenda,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36, no. 3 (Autumn 1994): 111–127; Howard J. Wiarda, “Consensus Found, Consensus Lost: Disjunctures in U.S. Policy Toward Latin America at the Turn of the Century,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 39, no. 1 (Spring 1997): 13–31. 41. Mark Peceny and William Stanley, “Liberal Social Reconstruction and the Resolution of Civil Wars in Central America,” International Organization 55, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 149–182. 42. This was referred to as the autogolpe—“self-coup,” translated literally, but it is more generally a coup asserting more absolute power. Peceny and Stanley, “Liberal Social Reconstruction,” pp. 171–172. 43. Elizabeth Cousens and Chetan Kumar, with Karin Wermester, eds., Peacebuilding as Politics: Cultivating Peace in Fragile Societies (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2001). There is a vast literature on peacebuilding and stabilization that will not be explored in detail here; key literature and hypotheses are covered in Caroline Hartzell, Matthew Hoddie, and Donald Rothchild, “Stabilizing the Peace After Civil War: An Investigation of Some Variables,” International Organization 55, no. 1 (Winter 2001): 183–208. See also Michael Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis, “Building Peace: Challenges and Strategies After Civil War,” available at http://econ.worldbank.org/files/13206_dsbuildingpeace. pdf. On specific challenges of demilitarization and demobilization, see Fundación Arias para la Paz y el Progreso Humano, Desmovilización, desmilitarización y democratización en Centroamérica (San José, Costa Rica: Fundación Arias para la Paz y el Progreso Humano, 1994). See also Nat J. Colletta and Michelle L. Cullen, Violent Conflict and the Transformation of Social Capital: Lessons from Cambodia, Rwanda, Guatemala, and Somalia (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2000). 44. See Angel Saldomando, Carmen Rosa de León, Ricardo Ribera, and Carlos Sojo, Diagnóstico de la investigación para la consolidación de la paz en América Central (Ottawa: IDRC, 2000). Many authors have described thirdwave democratization in the region as still in a phase of consolidation or, worse yet, “unconsolidation.” See Alfred P. Montero, “Assessing the Third Wave Democracies,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 40, no. 2

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(Summer 1998): 117–134, quote at p. 118. I examine the third-wave literature in greater detail in Sriram, Confronting Past Human Rights Violations, chap. 2. For a helpful review, see David Pion-Berlin, “Retreat to the Barracks: Recent Studies on Military Withdrawal from Power,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 32, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 137–145. 45. Acuerdos de paz firmados por el gobierno de la República de Guatemala y la Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (Guatemala: MINUGUA, 1997). On the peace processes generally, see Dinora Azpuru, “Peace and Democratization in Guatemala,” in Arnson, Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America; and Chetan Kumar and Sarah Lodge, Sustainable Peace Through Democratization: The Experiences of Haiti and Guatemala, International Peace Academy policy paper (New York: International Peace Academy, March 2002). 46. Amnesty International, “Guatemala,” 2002 report, available at www. amnesty.org. 47. See Rachel Seider, Megan Thomas, George Vickers, and Jack Spence, Who Governs? Guatemala Five Years After the Peace Accords (Cambridge, Mass.: Hemisphere Initiatives, January 2002); Jack Spence, David R. Dye, Paula Worby, Carmen Rosa de León-Escribano, George Vickers, and Mike Lanchin, Promise and Reality: Implementation of the Guatemalan Peace Accords (Cambridge, Mass.: Hemisphere Initiatives, August 1998). 48. Amnesty International, “Guatemala: Justice Without Fear,” and “Guatemala 2002: The Human Rights Toll,” available at www.amnesty.org; see also U.S. Department of State, “Guatemala: Country Reports,” 2002. 49. Amnesty International, “Guatemala: Proposed International Investigatory Commission—International Support and Independence Crucial,” 2003, and Amnesty International, “Guatemala 2002: The Human Rights Toll,” available at www.amnesty.org. See also United Nations, United Nations Expert Expresses Concern over Threat to Guatemalan Rights Defenders, Calls for Government Action, UN Doc. HR/4607, June 13, 2002, available at www.un.org/news/press/ docs/2002/hr4607.doc.htm. 50. Human Rights Watch, “Guatemala,” 2003, available at www.hrw.org; Amnesty International, “Guatemala: Human Rights Violations and Impunity (53d Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights),” available at www.amnesty.org. Recent deaths of Americans that have gone unsolved have even drawn the attention of President Bush; see David Gonzalez, “An American’s Death, Guatemala’s Blunders,” New York Times, June 18, 2002. 51. Amnesty International, “Guatemala”; see also, on allegations of links between Guatemalan authorities and organized crime, Jill Replogle, “Culture of Corruption,” December 9, 2002, available at www.latinamericapress.org. 52. U.S. Department of State, “Guatemala: Human Rights Country Reports,” 2001 and 2002. 53. Peceny and Stanley, “Liberal Social Reconstruction,” pp. 174–175. 54. “Guatemala: Benefits Plan for Ex-Paramilitaries,” New York Times online, July 9, 2002, available at www.nytimes.com. 55. David Gonzalez, “Critics Say Ex-Dictator Is Mob Manipulator,” New York Times, July 30, 2003, available at www.nytimes.com.

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56. More information on the UN mission can be found at www.minugua.guate.net and www.un.org/depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/minugua.htm. See also, on the UNDP in Guatemala, www.onu.org.gt/indh2000 and www.pnud. org.gt. See also UNDP, Emergency Response Division, UNDP Security Sector Reform Assistance in Postconflict Situations: Lessons Learned in El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Mozambique, Somalia, and Rwanda (New York: UNDP, August 31, 2001, mimeo on file with author), pp. 35–47. 57. MINUGUA, Report of the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) for the Consultative Group Meeting for Guatemala [hereafter Report of MINUGUA], January 18, 2002), available at www.minugua.guate.net. 58. Ibid., p. 3. 59. Ibid., pp. 3–19. 60. UNDP, Guatemala: La fuerza incluyente de desarollo humano, available at www.onu.org.gt/indh2000; Report of MINUGUA, pp. 5–6. 61. See the project documents at www.pnud.org.dt/pnud. 62. See Alfredo Lazarte, Hans Hofmeijer, and Maria Zwanenburg, Local Economic Development in Central America: The PRODERE Experience, available at www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/ent/papers/prodere.htm. 63. For USAID strategy in Guatemala, see www.usaidgua.org.gt. See also U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Guatemala.” 64. UNDP, UNDP Security Sector Reform Assistance, p. 40. 65. World Bank, “Guatemala: Country Brief,” available at http://lnweb18. worldbank.org. 66. This section draws extensively upon Sriram, “El Salvador,” in Sriram, Confronting Past Human Rights Violations; Wilkins, “El Salvador Peace Accords”; David H. McCormick, “From Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding: Restructuring Military and Police Institutions in El Salvador,” in Doyle, Johnstone, and Orr, Keeping the Peace, pp. 282–311; Ian Johnstone, “Rights and Reconciliation in El Salvador,” in Doyle, Johnstone, and Orr, Keeping the Peace, pp. 312–341; and Graciana del Castillo, “The Arms-for-Land Deal in El Salvador,” in Doyle, Johnstone, and Orr, Keeping the Peace, pp. 342–365; Tommie Sue Montgomery, “Getting to Peace in El Salvador: The Roles of the United Nations Secretariat and ONUSAL,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 37, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 139–172; Richard Stahler-Sholk, “El Salvador’s Negotiated Transition: From Low-Intensity Conflict to Low-Intensity Democracy,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 36, no. 4 (Winter 1994): 1–59. 67. Jack Spence, Mike Lanchin, and Geoff Thale, From Elections to Earthquakes: Reform and Participation in Post-War El Salvador (Cambridge, Mass.: Hemisphere Initiatives, April 2001); Jack Spence, David R. Dye, Mike Lanchin, Geoff Thale, and George Vickers, Chapultepec: Five Years Later (Cambridge, Mass.: Hemisphere Initiatives, January 1997). 68. Procuraduría para la Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, “Comentarios sobre inseguridad ciudadana y la debilidad del estado,” n.d., available at www.pddh.gob.sv/inseguridad.htm. 69. U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: El Salvador”; Amnesty International, “El Salvador.” See generally UNDP, UNDP Security Sector Reform Assistance, p. 35.

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70. U.S. Department of State, “El Salvador: Country Report,” 2001 and 2002, available at www.state.gov. 71. Some 1,100 complaints against the police were received by the office of the human rights ombudsman in 2001. U.S. Department of State, “El Salvador: Country Report,” 2002. 72. Amnesty International, “El Salvador.” 73. U.S. Department of State, “El Salvador: Country Report,” 2002. 74. Ibid., 2001 and 2002. 75. Amnesty International, “El Salvador.” 76. Amnesty International, “El Salvador: Tenth Anniversary of Peace Accords, Still No Justice for Victims of Human Rights Violations,” 2002, available at www.amnesty.org. 77. Demobilized Soldiers Speak: Reintegration and Reconciliation in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Mozambique (Managua: Centro de Estudios Internacionales, 1995), pp. 39–41. 78. See especially Wilkins, “El Salvador Peace Accords”; McCormick, “From Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding”; Montgomery, “Getting to Peace in El Salvador”; and UNDP, UNDP Security Sector Reform Assistance, pp. 27–34. 79. ONUSAL was later replaced by smaller missions, the UN Mission in El Salvador (MINUSAL) and the UN Verification Office (ONUV). 80. Sriram, “El Salvador”; Johnstone, Rights and Reconciliation; McCormick, “From Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding”; Fuerza Armada de El Salvador and ONUSAL, Doctrina militar y relaciones ejército/sociedad (San Salvador: Fuerza Armada de El Salvador and ONUSAL, 1994). 81. McCormick, “From Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding,” pp. 292–297. 82. Lazarte, Hofmeijer, and Zwanenburg, Local Economic Development in Central America. 83. McCormick, “From Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding,” pp. 308–309; UNDP, UNDP Security Sector Reform Assistance, p. 30. 84. U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: El Salvador”; and author interviews with ICITAP officials, Washington, D.C., 1997. 85. See www.usaid.gov. 86. McCormick, “From Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding,” p. 297. This is the title of offices within U.S. embassies that administer military or police aid and training. 87. World Bank, “El Salvador: Post-Conflict Reconstruction,” available at http://lnweb.worldbank.org. See also World Bank, “El Salvador: Country Brief,” available at http://lnweb18.worldbank.org. 88. UNDP, UNDP Security Sector Reform Assistance. 89. Demobilized Soldiers Speak. See generally David R. Dye, Judy Butler, Deena Abu-Lughod, Jack Spence, and George Vickers, Contesting Everything, Winning Nothing: The Search for Consensus in Nicaragua, 1990–1995 (Cambridge, Mass.: Hemisphere Initiatives, November 1995). 90. Amnesty International, “Nicaragua.” 91. Bolívar Tellez Cortex, “The Reintegration of Soldiers of the Sandinista Popular Army,” in Demobilized Soldiers Speak, pp. 25–29; U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports: Nicaragua,” 2001 and 2002.

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92. U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Nicaragua”; U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports: Nicaragua,” 2001 and 2002. 93. U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports: Nicaragua,” 2001 and 2002. 94. Peceny and Stanley, “Liberal Social Reconstruction,” pp. 161–162. 95. Lazarte, Hofmeijer, and Zwanenburg, Local Economic Development in Central America. 96. Peceny and Stanley, “Liberal Social Reconstruction,” p. 162; U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Nicaragua.” 97. World Bank, “Nicaragua: Country Brief.” 98. de Franco and Velázquez, “Democratic Transitions in Nicaragua.” 99. See generally Sriram, “Honduras,” in Confronting Past Human Rights Violations; compare J. Mark Ruhl, “Redefining Civil-Military Relations in Honduras,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 38, no. 1 (Spring 1996): 33–66. 100. The indictment can be found at “Acusaciones y denuncias presentadas por la fiscalía general de la República de Honduras en los casos de violaciones a los derechos humanos,” available at www.us.net/cip/cdh/acusacio. 101. Leo Valladares Lanza and Susan C. Peacock, In Search of Hidden Truths: An Interim Report on Declassification by the National Commissioner for Human Rights in Honduras (Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Comisionado Nacional de los Derechos Humanos, 1996). 102. See generally Sriram, “Honduras.” 103. Congreso Nacional, “Ley Orgánica de la Policía,” Decreto no. 156-98 (1998), on file with author. See Dagoberto Rodríguez, “DIC formará parte de la Policía Nacional,” La Prensa (Tegucigalpa), February 25, 1998, p. 11A; Sriram, “Honduras”; U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Honduras.” 104. “Honduras Acts over Child Killings,” available at http://news.bbc. co.uk/2/hi/americas/2850869.stm; Amnesty International, “No More Empty Promises: Investigate Murders of Children and Youths,” February 25, 2003, available at www.amnesty.org; United Nations, Civil and Political Rights, Including Questions of Disappearances and Extrajudicial Executions, UN Doc. E/CN.4/2002/74, January 9, 2002, available at www.hri.ca/fortherecord2002/ documentation/commission/e-cn4-2002-74.htm; summary of visit (not fully reported to the UN Human Rights Commission at the time of writing), available at www.hri.ca/fortherecord2002/vol4/hondurastr.htm. See also Shravanti Reddy, “Honduran Government Complicit in the Murder of Street Children,” December 17, 2002, available at www.dfn.org/news/honduras/streetkids.htm. 105. Amnesty International, “Honduras”; U.S. Department of State, “Country Reports: Honduras,” 2001 and 2002. 106. David Gonzalez, “Rights Workers in Honduras Still Live in Fear,” New York Times, September 26, 2002. 107. Tim Weiner, “Cover-Up Found in Honduras Prison Killings,” New York Times, May 20, 2002. 108. Lazarte, Hofmeijer, and Zwanenburg, Local Economic Development in Central America. 109. Ruhl, “Redefining Civil-Military Relations.”

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110. U.S. Department of State, “Background Note: Honduras.” 111. USAID, “Honduras,” available at www.usaid.gov/hn. 112. World Bank, “Country Brief: Honduras,” available at http://lnweb18. worldbank.org. 113. More information on Parlacen can be found at www.parlacen.org.gt; http://200.30.143.26/elabc/abcdel%20parla.htm, and related sites mentioned here. See also Gordon Mace, Louis Belanger, and Jean Philippe Thérien, “Regionalism in the Americas and the Hierarchy of Power,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 35, no. 2 (Summer 1993): 115–157. 114. See http://200.30.143.26/historiaparlacen/historico.htm. 115. See http://200.30.143.26/tratadoconstitutivo/trataconsti.htm for the treaty. 116. Saldomando et al., Diagnóstico de la investigación. 117. Loveman, “‘Protected Democracies,’” p. 117. On the history of criminality in Latin America generally, see Carlos A. Aguirre and Robert Buffington, eds., Reconstructing Criminality in Latin America (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 2000). 118. George R. Vickers, “Renegotiating Internal Security: The Lessons of Central America,” in Arnson, Comparative Peace Processes, pp. 389–413. See also Prudencio García, “Fuerzas armadas y consolidación democrática en América Latina,” in Barahona Riera and Carballo Quintana, Reconversión militar, pp. 40–41; García emphasizes that imposed limits on security forces may not be accompanied by a sense of “moral self-limitation” by the forces. 119. Lawrence Whitehead, “High-Level Political Corruption in Latin America: A ‘Transitional’ Phenomenon?” in Joseph S. Tulchin and Ralph H. Espach, eds., Combating Corruption in Latin America (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2000), pp. 107–129. In his survey across Latin America, Whitehead argues that corruption is particularly prevalent in election financing, discretion around economic liberalization, drug and arms trafficking, money laundering, and abuse of the judicial system. 120. Saldomando et al., Diagnóstico de la investigación. 121. See resources available at www.transparency.org. See also “Corruption: How Latin American Countries Rank in Corruption,” Latin Business Chronicle. 122. See generally Mats Berdal and David M. Malone, Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2000); Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Criminal Era (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (London: Zed Books, 2001); and David Keen, “War and Peace: What’s the Difference?” in Adekeye Adebajo and Chandra Lekha Sriram, eds., Managing Armed Conflicts in the Twenty-First Century (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp. 1–22. See also current work from the International Peace Academy (IPA), including Jake Sherman, The Economics of War: The Intersection of Need, Creed, and Greed (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and IPA, September 2001); Charles Cater, The Political Economy of War and Peace (New York: IPA, May 2002); and Alexandra Guaqueta, Economic Agendas in Armed

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Conflict: Defining and Developing the Role of the UN (New York: IPA, March 2002). 123. Robert L. Ayres, Crime and Violence as Development Issues in Latin America and the Caribbean (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1998). The study stops at indicating that drug trafficking, crime, and the like, are part of broad problems of social and economic decay and does not articulate the specific political aspect. For the World Bank’s broad agenda in this area, see www. worldbank.org/research/conflict/index.htm. Articles here do recognize the policy and political dimensions of the problem but seek to address the underlying grievances or specific economic enablers, not necessarily the embedded connections between each and the complicity of political actors.

5 Implications for Conflict Prevention ZOE NIELSEN

IN SUMMARIZING THE CHAPTERS OF THIS BOOK , IT IS PERHAPS TEMPTING TO focus on recurring themes such as the impact of the Cold War and its end, the legacy of colonization, the challenges of state formation, corruption, human rights abuses, and absence of the rule of law. But this overlooks the more significant finding—that real differences can be discerned in the major causes of conflict across the subregions. In the Horn of Africa, governments have struggled unsuccessfully to bring multiethnic populations together under the control of a single state. In Central Asia, which is not experiencing widespread violent conflict at present, succession, tensions between the emerging political culture and existing political institutions, and tensions over shared resources and the different economic agendas of the five republics pose potential threats to future stability. In West Africa, leadership struggles, arguably fueled by the abundance of natural resources, have resulted in a subregion that is one of the more unstable in the world. And in Central America, where ideology and Cold War machinations played a significant role, the police and the security forces and their relationship to the state and its citizens are central to understanding the conflicts in this subregion and crucial in designing successful postconflict peacebuilding strategies. To identify these major themes is not to suggest that resource exploitation, for example, is not an issue in Central Asia, or that ethnic and religious differences have not played a role in the conflicts in West 169

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Africa. It is simply to recognize that the relative importance of a particular factor varies among subregions and that differences among subregions, such as in their natural resource endowments, result in differences in the way conflicts develop. This concluding chapter seeks to highlight both the similarities and the differences in the causes of conflict across the four subregions considered and to grapple with their implications for conflict prevention strategies.

Common Themes

As stated in the introduction to this book, it is difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a complete list of factors that can be described as causes of conflict. Although there is general consensus regarding the types of issues that are likely to cause conflict, there is less agreement as to the relative weight that should be accorded to various factors. It is also the case that as our understanding of conflict becomes more nuanced, so too does our recognition of the complexity of its causes and dynamics. For example, while it would seem clear that poverty alone is not sufficient to cause conflict, it is equally clear that there is a relationship between poverty and conflict. This relationship, however, is somewhat fluid. Many of the world’s poorest countries have experienced, or are experiencing, violent conflicts, and it seems clear that while civil conflict is “a major source of poverty,” widespread poverty is also conducive to conflict.1 There are a number of factors that arise in all four subregions, including corruption, human rights abuses, and absence of the rule of law. These issues play out in similar ways regardless of whether the states are overly strong, such as those in Central America and Central Asia, or weak or failed, such as those in the Horn of Africa and West Africa. Less straightforward is the role of colonialism, decolonization, and the Cold War and its end. The authors of the chapters on the Horn of Africa, West Africa, and Central America discuss the legacy of colonialism as an underlying source of conflict. While colonialism cannot be blamed for all of the ills of the modern state in these subregions, it is unquestionably an important factor. The impact of colonialism is perhaps greatest upon early state formation and its enduring influence on the modern state. This has involved the imposition of Western-style notions of governance and the supremacy of the nation-state on societies where clan and familial ties

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and traditional systems of patronage are often much stronger than ideological ties. State formation has been particularly problematic in both the Horn of Africa and West Africa, subregions that have experienced leadership struggles and state failure. In most cases, the model of overly centralized power structures employed by colonial powers has endured, with the result that outlying areas are often disadvantaged in terms of government services, infrastructure, and development initiatives. In addition, because various ethnic groups have traditionally inhabited different regions, the policy of centralization has in many instances resulted in the concentration of power in the hands of one ethnic group to the exclusion of others. However, it is also true that some of these patterns existed prior to the colonial period. In Sudan, the British failed to address, and perhaps exacerbated, the existing inequalities between the north and the south. In the case of Central America, where states have been independent for a much longer period of time, the issue is not so much one of recent state formation but of enduring legacies of early state formation for the functioning of the modern state, combined with the impact of Cold War politics. Chandra Lekha Sriram is careful not to blame the colonizers for the failings of the modern state, but instead shows that the controlling role of the military in state affairs can be linked to patterns that were developed during the colonial era and further encouraged by superpower patrons. Both the Cold War and its end feature in all of the chapters. While the importance of the Cold War cannot be underestimated, it is difficult to categorize its role as solely positive or negative, for it was instrumental in both heightening and reducing existing tensions. The impact of the Cold War and its end was arguably greatest in Central America. Both the conflicts themselves and the peace processes that brought them to an end were closely linked to East-West rivalry. In Central America, unlike most of the other regions considered, differences in ideology were an actual cause of conflict. In Nicaragua, for example, the leftist Sandinistas staged a coup in 1979 and seized power from the Somoza family, who had governed the country in an autocratic manner for some forty years. The rise of the Sandinistas, who received backing from Eastern Bloc countries and in turn provided support to the leftist FMLN in El Salvador, prompted the United States to back the opposition contras in Nicaragua. The conflict that resulted in Nicaragua led to the death of some 40,000 to 50,000 people. The cessation of this conflict

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was closely linked to the end of the Cold War, which brought an end to the support for the warring factions and paved the way for the peace process. While both the Cold War and its end had far-reaching consequences for the Horn and West Africa, Cold War ideology has not played such a central role in conflicts in these subregions. A number of regimes and leaders claimed that they were motivated by revolutionary ideology; however, perhaps with the exception of the Derg in Ethiopia, these claims were short-lived and were not borne out in practice. Far more important was the role of support from the superpowers and their allies in terms of containing and exacerbating tensions. It is certainly the case that financial and military support from the superpowers was crucial in that it enabled a number of oppressive regimes to maintain power for longer than they might otherwise have done. Numeiri in Sudan is a case in point. By the late 1970s, his regime was losing its grip on power; however, the huge injection of U.S. aid following Numeiri’s decision to switch allegiance from the USSR to the United States allowed him to stay in power until 1985, when his regime was toppled by a popular uprising. Cold War machinations and changing patterns of superpower patronage similarly influenced interstate relations. Edmond Keller suggests that the decision of the United States to drop Ethiopia as a client state and to court Somalia encouraged Siad Barre to try to wrangle the Ogaden from Ethiopia, something his former patron, the USSR, had tried to discourage him from doing. The withdrawal of superpower support was also fatal for a number of regimes. The end of the Cold War and the decision of the USSR to withdraw its support for the Derg in Ethiopia left the regime vulnerable to attack, and within two years the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front defeated it. Similar patterns are discernible in West Africa. Comfort Ero and Jonathan Temin also suggest that the withdrawal of U.S. support for the regime in Liberia was instrumental in Charles Taylor’s rise to power there. Another impact of the end of the Cold War is the increase in the availability of weapons, as countries such as the former Soviet republics have sought to divest themselves of their vast stocks of arms in return for much-needed cash.2 In many cases, this has contributed to the bloodiness of the conflicts that have broken out. In Central Asia, the breakup of the USSR, which coincided with the end of the Cold War, brought about the creation of five new independent republics. In the years that have followed, the arbitrariness of the

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boundaries that were imposed by Moscow has become apparent, paving the way for tensions over the use of shared resources and presenting challenges for governments faced with the need to introduce economic reforms and grapple with the development of a new social contract between the state and its citizens. These are the very factors that, according to Gregory Gleason, have the potential to result in conflict in the subregion. While it might be possible to describe the Cold War as a cause of conflict in Central America, in the Horn and West Africa its role is more ambiguous. It is therefore perhaps more realistic to view the Cold War and its end as factors that variously increased the intensity of the fighting, lent a degree of stability by contributing to the longevity of oppressive regimes, and encouraged leaders to embark on campaigns that they might not otherwise have undertaken. One of the most striking effects of the end of the Cold War, however, is that Africa lost much of its geostrategic importance and, as Ero and Temin observe, has largely been left to fend for itself.

Subregional Variations

As the following discussion illustrates, issues surrounding ethnicity, governance, leadership change, and the relationship between the state and its citizens have played a contributory role in many of the conflicts discussed in this book. However, they have assumed different levels of importance across the four subregions. Multiethnic Societies Keller’s description of conflicts in the Horn of Africa makes it clear that the challenge of bringing multiethnic, and in some cases multireligious, communities under the control of a single state has been at the heart of many of the conflicts in the subregion. It is a problem that has plagued regimes ranging from that of Haile Salassie I in imperial Ethiopia, to the Derg’s Afro-Marxist regime in Ethiopia, to that of Siad Barre in Somalia and those of various others in Sudan. In Ethiopia, the thirty-year war of Eritrean national liberation was instrumental in bringing about the referendum that led to Eritrea’s independence in 1993. Unfortunately, the independence of Eritrea has not ended the ethnic strife in either country, and ethnic claims still plague

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both. In Sudan, the long-running conflict between the largely Afro-Arab north and the south has over the years led to calls for the country to be divided. In Somalia, most often referred to as a failed state, the challenge of uniting the various tribes under a single state has proven to be impossible. Even in Djibouti, which has been spared the conflict experienced by its neighbors, ethnic issues have proven to be divisive and a source of tensions. Issues of ethnicity have also been problematic in all three of the other subregions addressed in this book, although arguably to a lesser degree. In West Africa, as in the Horn of Africa, the centralized nature of power has resulted in whole groups being excluded from the institutions of government. Leaders have also effectively manipulated group identity for political gain. Ero and Temin offer a number of examples of leaders filling government posts and the security services with people from their own ethnic groups. Unsurprisingly, other leaders, on assuming power, have embarked on campaigns to rid these institutions of those who might be seen to be loyal to their predecessors as a result of ethnic ties. Although ethnicity was a major factor in the Tajik war, it has not proven to be as divisive elsewhere in Central Asia as in either the Horn or West Africa. However, as Gleason points out, in a number of areas tensions over land use have transformed into border disputes that are now taking on ethnic overtones. This development is reason for concern. As Sriram notes, in Central America the issues are slightly different, although ethnic discrimination does occur. The socioeconomic divisions have traditionally been between those of European descent and those descended from the indigenous inhabitants of the region. In a number of countries, indigenous groups, who have long been subjected to discrimination, have been the target of government oppression and have been disproportionately affected by policies such as land appropriation. However, with the exception of Guatemala, they have not been either targets of significant political attack or key actors in conflict. Succession, Tension Between Political Culture and Political Institutions, and Differing Economic Agendas Central Asia differs from the other subregions considered in this book because it has not experienced widespread violent conflict since the republics became independent. Unfortunately, this may not continue to be the case. In his chapter on Central Asia, Gleason outlines what he

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believes are the most pressing threats to peace and security in the region. He identifies three main issues: succession (or the transfer of power), the tension between the political culture and political institutions, and the different economic agendas of the five republics. The first two have the potential to lead to intrastate conflict, while the third could lead to interstate conflict. It is clear from Gleason’s analysis that disputes over the use of shared resources and the delineation of boundaries also contribute to rising tensions among the states in the subregion. The collapse of the Soviet Union did not, as many had predicted, lead to conflict and power struggles in Central Asia. Gleason suggests that this is explained to a large degree by the fact that the leaders in the subregion simply transferred power to themselves. With the exception of the president of Kyrgyzstan, the leaders of the five republics are former high-ranking Communist Party officials. Even the Kyrgyz president is no stranger to the old leadership, having been “a member of the party-approved scientific-intellectual elite.”3 While continuity of power structures may have contributed to the peace so far, in the future its effect may be less positive. All of the five Central Asian republics are governed by authoritarian regimes with highly personalized leaderships. Leaders have been very successful in concentrating power in their own hands and in building a strong executive, but they have made no provisions for passing the reins to successors. A number of consequences flow from this. The first is that, with no obvious anointed successors and no established means of selecting them, leadership change, which is inevitable, will be chaotic. The second consequence is that, because the stakes are so high, leadership change is likely to be violent. The belief that these countries are in a transition from communism to democracy, then, is something of a fallacy. In many ways, maintaining the status quo, which allowed the smooth transition to independence, conveniently delayed many difficult adjustments. The need for these adjustments, however, has not disappeared in the intervening years. In response to outside pressures from sources such as donors, and pressures from their own citizens, a number of governments have taken steps to democratize. However, as the human rights reforms in Tajikistan and the growth of civil society organizations in Uzbekistan suggest, in many cases these changes have been cosmetic rather than real. For these changes to become real, government structures must be changed and governments will have to give up some of their control. To date, none of the regimes in the subregion have shown any enthusiasm for

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either. Thus they have initiated reforms and processes of change while being unwilling not only to see them through but also to deal with the consequences of such processes. In many of the countries of Central Asia, the governmental response to growing activism and the exercise of rights that are crucial to democracy, such as demands for accountability and the discussion of political issues, has resulted in increased human rights abuses. The third major source of potential conflict identified by Gleason is a result of the different approaches to economic reform adopted by the states in the subregion. Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, for example, have enthusiastically embraced economic reforms, while Uzbekistan, the most economically important of the five republics, has been very slow to modernize its economy. Such differences make much-needed cooperation between the republics very difficult, if not impossible. Different trade, currency, tariff, and taxation regimes, which have been designed with little thought to the implications that they might have for neighboring countries, put considerable strain on the relations between the states. Gleason also identifies shared resources, particularly that of water, as another potential source of interstate conflict in the region. The Amudarya and Syr-darya river systems link the five Central Asian republics not only with each other but also with Afghanistan and China. A number of countries in the region rely on the river systems for irrigation and the generation of electricity. While overuse and the attendant environmental degradation pose potential threats, of more immediate concern are conflicting usage patterns. The borders of the Central Asian republics are an artificial construct of Soviet-era administration and do not take into consideration the social or geographic realities of the area. This has led to calls for Karakalpakistan to secede from Uzbekistan and for a number of complex border changes that would affect Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.4 The way in which the governments deal with these issues is likely to have a huge impact on future peace and security in the region. The timing of independence of the countries of Central Asia has influenced not only the development of the relationship between the state and its citizens but also the importance of economic reforms. Historical relationships, as well as geographic features and resource distribution, have resulted in a level of interdependence between the states of Central Asia that is not shared by any of the other subregions. While

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disputes about currency valuation, trade barriers, and access to ports have caused tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea, this has not been an issue that has resonated across the subregion. Nor has it been a major factor in the other subregions. The process of leadership change, which is one of the most immediate threats to peace in Central Asia, has been an aspect of conflict in both the Horn of Africa and Central America. However, West Africa is the subregion in which this issue has played arguably the greatest role in conflict. Leadership Struggles and the Role of Natural Resources Leadership struggles and the bloodshed accompanying them have long been a feature of life in West Africa. As Ero and Temin point out, thirtyseven of the seventy-two successful military coups in Africa between 1960 and 1990 occurred in West Africa. The first such coup, in Togo, took place less than six years after the country had gained independence.5 With the issue of leadership change poised to assume such an important role in the future stability of Central Asia, there are two factors that suggest that the way in which this issue will develop in Central Asia is likely to be different from the way in which it has played out in West Africa. The first is that the states of Central Asia can be categorized as overly strong states, while those in West Africa are weak or failed states. It has been argued that “the weaker the state, the lower the opportunity costs borne by challengers and the better the prospects of successful insurgency.”6 This observation suggests that if leadership struggles do break out in Central Asia, they are likely to be a less common occurrence than they have been, and will probably continue to be, in West Africa. The second difference, which some have suggested can influence the nature and duration of conflict that accompanies leadership struggles, is the existence and type of natural resources found in a state.7 While both West Africa and Central Asia are rich in natural resources— as compared to the Horn and Central America, which are not—the ease of exploitation and the degree to which that exploitation can be controlled vary significantly between the two subregions.8 West Africa is rich in alluvial diamonds and a number of other products that are not only relatively easy to harvest but also hard to control in terms of collection and distribution.9 As a consequence, it is relatively easy for insurgents, such as the RUF in Sierra Leone, to use

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these resources to fund their activities. With the exception of drugs and agricultural produce, Central Asia’s resources, which include natural gas, oil, and aluminum, require large investments in terms of infrastructure, are thus much easier to regulate, and do not lend themselves to exploitation by groups that are not sanctioned by the state.10 Without easy access to resources, rebel groups are much less able to wage long, drawn-out offensives. It remains to be seen whether succession can occur peacefully in Central Asia. But hopefully the subregion can avoid the recurring leadership struggles that have plagued West Africa for more than forty years. Police, Security, and the State As mentioned above, the Cold War and its end had a huge impact on conflict in Central America and can properly be categorized as causes of conflict in the subregion. Not only was Cold War ideology a driving force behind a number of conflicts, as the wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador demonstrate, but Cold War rhetoric was used by governments to justify the commission of atrocities against their own people. The relationship between the state, the police, and the military facilitated the commission of these offenses and fostered the culture of impunity. Historically, the countries of Central America have been governed by small ruling elites that controlled the majority of the wealth and resources, including land. In many cases it was difficult to distinguish between the government and the security apparatus, in particular the police and the military forces. Weak political institutions, a lack of transparency, and the absence of mechanisms for accountability resulted in environments in which there were few constraints on power. The relationship between the state and security forces took on a new dimension during the Cold War period. In the 1960s and 1970s, the doctrina de seguridad nacional, which was central to teaching at the School of the Americas, cast those who opposed the government as threats to national security and was used to justify increased human rights abuses. These abuses included massacres, disappearances, and attacks on unarmed civilians. Although there have been widespread reforms during the postconflict period, as Sriram notes, the transition to democracy in the subregion is incomplete. Corruption and political violence are still features of life in these countries, and impunity for past and current abuses persists.

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The military has played a large role in conflict in West Africa, but rather than acting to further the interests of the state, it has often acted against them, as is illustrated by the large number of military coups in the subregion. Central Asia is the subregion that most closely resembles Central America in this respect. Central Asia, like Central America, has been characterized by authoritarian regimes that rely on strong militaries to maintain order. In Central Asia, the threat of terrorism is being used by governments as a justification for human rights abuses and the silencing of opposition groups. However, in degree and duration, the oppression in Central Asia does not compare to the oppression that took place in Central America.

Prospects for Conflict Prevention

The prospects for conflict prevention clearly vary greatly across the subregions. This is in large part a function of the fact that the full spectrum of phases of conflict, from potential conflict to postconflict, are represented in the cases examined here. It is also the case that while there has been a great deal of talk about the need for preventive initiatives, and even of the benefits (including cost benefits) of acting before widespread violence erupts, states have been less willing to actually commit to such policies.11 As the Brahimi Report succinctly states, the “impediment to effective crisis-preventive action is the gap between verbal postures and financial and political support for prevention.”12 In the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, West Africa, and Central America, the majority of conflicts to date have been intrastate as opposed to interstate. This conforms to worldwide trends. 13 If, as Peter Wallensteen suggests, this phenomenon is in part due to the fact that “interstate conflicts are likely to attract higher, more public, and more immediate attention”14 and thus are likely to be resolved before they develop into full-blown wars, this does not bode well for the future of conflict prevention initiatives in at least three of the four subregions. With so many conflicts already in progress in the Horn and West Africa, and with the existence of a number of failed states, in many cases it may be more realistic, as Ero and Temin suggest, to think in terms of conflict management rather than conflict prevention. That said, not all of the countries in either subregion are currently experiencing violent conflict, nor are all of those that have thus far avoided conflict sitting on the verge of conflict. In West Africa, a number of countries—

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for example, Senegal, Mali, and Ghana—have made progress toward representative democracy. Djibouti has thus far avoided widespread conflict. Keller suggests that the permanent resolution of the conflicts in the Horn of Africa will be extremely difficult. The causes of conflict are deep-seated and do not lend themselves to easy resolution. However, his focus on initiatives undertaken by states and regional and subregional organizations is indicative of the paucity of external interventions in the Horn. There are two obvious exceptions—the Eritrea-Ethiopia border dispute (which arguably benefited from the fact that it was a conflict between states as opposed to a conflict within a state) and the conflict in Somalia in the early 1990s. The very public failure of the U.S. intervention in Somalia had far-reaching impacts, not only for the United States in terms of foreign policy, but also for the UN and other international actors. It brought an abrupt end to the enthusiasm for intervention brought on by the end of the Cold War.15 One of the greatest challenges in West Africa is regional conflict formations, which “are transnational conflicts that form mutually reinforcing linkages with each other throughout a region, making for more protracted and obdurate discord.”16 As the definition suggests, regional conflict formations pose difficulties for both conflict management and conflict resolution. Because many of the factors that facilitate or enable, if not cause, conflict—such as weapons, mercenaries, and resources— extend beyond the boundaries of a single state, efforts that address issues in one state and do not address related issues in neighboring states will be ineffective. There is an added danger: efforts that seek to address conflict in one country might merely facilitate the outbreak of conflict in other countries in the subregion.17 Initiatives designed to deal with regional conflict formations therefore not only require much larger interventions, but are also necessarily more complex both conceptually and logistically. Coordination, which has unfortunately long been the Achilles heel of the UN, is a crucial aspect of such interventions. Gleason is more upbeat in his assessment of the prospects for successful conflict prevention in Central Asia. He suggests that a “relatively modest investment now to provide incentives for equitable, sustainable development in the region can help the countries of the region to avoid vicious conflicts that would entail much greater costs in the long run.” 18 Unfortunately, the “pay now, save later” calculus has not proven to be a very compelling motivation in the past. The possibility

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that the tensions in Central Asia have the potential to lead to conflicts between states may mean that they are more likely to receive attention from the international community. The proximity of the region to Afghanistan is also something of a mixed blessing. While the war on terror has been used by states in the region as a justification for crackdowns on opposition groups and human rights abuses, it may also mean that tensions in the region assume a higher profile in the international community than might otherwise have been the case. As Sriram’s analysis suggests, in Central America effective conflict prevention is dependent on postconflict peacebuilding initiatives. The success or otherwise of current initiatives will largely determine whether or not there is a reemergence of conflict in the subregion. There are signs that activities undertaken by the UN, the United States, and the international financial institutions are failing to properly address the underlying causes of past conflicts, the results of these conflicts, or potential causes of more extensive future conflicts. While significant efforts were made to reform the security sector, judiciary, and politics and to address human rights abuses in several of the countries, their impact has been limited. External actors have also largely failed to address enduring political corruption and violence.

Entry Points

From the causes of conflict and the prospects for conflict prevention and management, we turn now to possible entry points for third-party actors. These actors range from individual governments, to regional and subregional organizations, to the UN. The Horn of Africa The nature of conflict, the history of outside involvement, and differing approaches to conflict management and prevention adopted by the governments in the Horn of Africa have affected the level of third-party involvement and the potential entry points for outside actors. While the international community has shown a reluctance to become directly involved in the resolution of intrastate conflict in the Horn, and in Africa in general, it is also the case that regional and subregional organizations may be better placed to act, because some governments are more open to

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intervention by their peers than by organizations or governments that have no link to the region.19 The Intergovernmental Agency for Development has played an important role in the peace process in Sudan and in what Keller terms the Somali “reconciliation process.” 20 Although both processes appear to have stalled for the time being, some significant gains have been made. The IGAD initiative in Sudan is supported by the African Union, which is in turn supported by the United Nations. This highlights the importance of the international community’s support for regional and subregional organizations. Initiatives that assist in strengthening the capacity of such organizations are particularly helpful. Opportunities for outside actors, however, are not limited to providing support to regional and subregional organizations. Among the Sudanese government’s current grievances is the claim that Eritrea is amassing its troops along the Eritrea-Sudan border and supporting rebel offensives. If these claims are found to be true, the AU, the UN, and influential governments could encourage Eritrea to disengage. When and if the IGAD initiatives in Sudan and Somalia deliver lasting peace, postconflict peacebuilding programs that address the root causes of the conflicts will be of crucial importance. There may also be more scope for direct outside involvement at that time. The governments of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti have attempted to deal with tensions in their respective countries internally. While the approaches have varied, the decision not to involve outsiders makes it more difficult for third parties to become involved. Unless the situation in these countries becomes markedly worse or internal tensions increase and threaten to spill into neighboring countries, it does not seem likely that there will be easy entry points for third parties. However, there may be some scope for donors to offer tangible incentives to encourage the governments to adopt more inclusive policies and practices. Similarly, civil society groups can potentially play an important role in moving these agendas forward and also benefit greatly from outside support. Such approaches, however, are not likely to deliver big gains in the short term. By contrast, the history of international involvement in the EritreaEthiopia border dispute makes it somewhat easier for third parties to respond to the current rise in tensions between the two countries. Not only are there existing relationships and entry points for outside actors, but these actors are more likely to make commitments in term of resources.

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Central Asia Gleason has identified four strategies that he believes are crucial to ensuring ongoing peace in the Central Asian region. If successful, such initiatives could reduce the likelihood of conflict. The strategies involve (1) promoting greater regional economic cooperation; (2) encouraging the adoption of compatible, internationally accepted norms in the area of trade and economic liberalization; (3) promoting regional security— not just the traditional notion of state security but also the broader concept of human security; and (4) encouraging the development of more open, accountable, and responsive governments that recognize and protect human rights. In order to implement these strategies, Gleason recommends a policy of supporting and encouraging elements within the societies that are committed to change—at the economic, political, and social levels. One way of doing this is by offering economic or other concrete benefits to such groups. He also identifies opportunities for cooperation and for turning “conflicts into complementarities.”21 Such an opportunity is presented by the conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan over the use of a shared river system. At present, Kyrgyzstan dams the river during the summer so that the water is available for hydroelectric power generation during the cold winter months. This is in direct conflict with the needs of Uzbekistan, a country rich in natural gas but reliant on the water to irrigate its agricultural lands during the summer. As Gleason notes, an agreement to exchange water for electricity could avoid conflicts in usage and thus reduce the tension between the two countries. Solutions to the issue of leadership change, which according to Gleason poses the greatest threat to stability in the subregion, are not so readily apparent. Leaders are not generally very receptive to outside efforts that are designed to facilitate their departure. In most cases, third-party involvement takes the form of quiet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy on behalf of the UN and influential donors. It is therefore important to identify donors who might hold particular sway and who are willing to take on this issue. West Africa As mentioned earlier, there is a growing recognition of the importance of regional conflict formations in West Africa. In a new book, Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper point out that successful initiatives in Sierra

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Leone (and by extension in other countries in the subregion) will require “greater policy attention to the regional dynamics of conflict in West Africa, particularly the regional market in arms, mercenaries and conflict goods.”22 However, this will not be an easy task. The challenge is twofold. First, it will be necessary to muster the political will necessary for action. This has proven particularly difficult when the interests of powerful states are at risk or when the deployment of Western troops is required.23 The second challenge is the issue of identifying and implementing well-thought-out policies. The ECOWAS moratorium on light weapons is a laudable initiative, but there are still many states that are failing to honor their obligations under the agreement. Similarly, international sanctions on the trade of so-called conflict diamonds have also experienced difficulties in implementation. There are a number of well-known individuals, including Victor Bout and Leonid Minin, who have so far operated in contravention of a number of sanction regimes with apparent immunity. Internal actors have similarly found ways of evading sanctions.24 Another important aspect of the regionalization of conflict in West Africa (and in the Horn for that matter) is the emergence of leaders who foster, either directly or indirectly, conflicts in other countries. Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, Blaise Compaoré of Burkina Faso, and Charles Taylor, former president of Liberia, are three such individuals. Aside from questions of whether it is possible or feasible to hold such individuals criminally liable, there is scope for the AU, the UN, and governments, both within the region and in the broader international community, to signal that such actions are unacceptable. International efforts in Sierra Leone and Liberia have suffered as a result of the aforementioned reluctance of governments from outside the region to commit troops and resources to peacekeeping operations in Africa. However, the presence of foreign troops does bring international attention and opens the way for postconflict development. Central America With the apparent rise in what Sriram terms “politically driven violence,”25 it is becoming clear that even after a decade of relative peace, there is a real risk that countries in Central America could slide back into conflict. This is particularly disappointing given the relatively highprofile peace processes that have taken place in the subregion and the sustained support of the United States, the UN, the international financial

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institutions and other donors for them. Realistically, none of the other three subregions considered in this book can expect to receive the attention and resources that have been devoted to Central America, either at the stage of negotiating peace agreements or in the postconflict phase. In Central America, the issue clearly has not been a lack of attention to the conflicts; rather it has been incomplete transitions to democracy and peacebuilding support that has not always targeted the enduring sources of conflict. The threat that widespread conflict might reemerge is linked to the fact that the political culture has been slow to change, and reforms that initially appeared to hold promise have in many cases been somewhat superficial. While there have been partial transitions to democracy and postconflict peacebuilding initiatives have been undertaken, both processes remain incomplete. The security sector no longer exercises the control it once did; however, the history of protected and incomplete democracy has in turn “engendered weak democracy and institutions vulnerable to impunity and corruption.”26 Despite widespread reforms, corruption, impunity, and inequality are still very much a part of some of these societies. For example, in Honduras, the impact of initiatives such as the 1993 report on past human rights abuses, security-sector reform programs, and the purging and prosecution of officers has been undermined by a number of amnesties granted to high-ranking individuals. Similarly, in Guatemala, reforms in the area of civil-military relations, the judiciary, and the police have taken place, and the government has accepted responsibility for human rights abuses—in some cases paying compensation to the families of victims—yet individuals who were allegedly responsible for these abuses remain in government. Unfortunately, but perhaps unsurprisingly, this pattern of impunity has carried forward to the present. In some countries, the rate of human rights abuses being committed by members of the security sector is increasing, as is the number of armed groups and attacks on specific targets such as human rights activists and union members. Addressing issues of past and present corruption and immunity and the increasing level of politically motivated violence presents an enormous challenge, in part because it requires reforms that go to the heart of the political and institutional frameworks in these countries. Political and institutional cultures are also extremely resistant to change, and governments are obviously opposed to reforms that threaten their legitimacy and their hold on power. New modes of behavior at the personal and institutional levels take generations to develop and cannot be imposed from outside.

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Conclusion

As this chapter illustrates, while there are common themes across the four subregions, it is also possible to identify some real differences in the major causes of conflict in the Horn of Africa, Central Asia, West Africa, and Central America. What is clear is that entry points for conflict prevention and conflict management are influenced not only by the causes and nature of the conflict or potential conflict but also by the approaches of the governments concerned. Those who promote conflict prevention by the UN are fond of saying that the primary responsibility for this task rests with national governments.27 However, governments and governing elites are often the greatest impediments to preventive initiatives and are in many cases instigators of conflict. The individuals and networks who control government policies not only hold the reins of power but also derive enormous benefit from their privileged status. They are understandably extremely reluctant to implement policies that will disturb the status quo and thus rob them of their privilege. As a consequence, possible entry points for conflict prevention and management can be extremely limited. In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about the need to “mainstream conflict prevention” and to view all “development through a conflict prevention lens.” Putting aside, for the time being, questions about what the international community can, should, and will do, real questions remain as to how conflict prevention strategies can actually be operationalized. How do international actors broach the issue of, and then help facilitate, the transfer of power in places such as Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, or Guinea? When dealing with regional conflict formations, where do such actors start? These issues are beyond the scope of our study, but they must be addressed if conflict prevention is to become a reality.

Notes 1. Frances Stewart, “Horizontal Inequalities as a Source of Conflict,” in Fen Osler Hampson and David M. Malone, eds., From Reaction to Conflict Prevention: Opportunities for the UN System (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002), p. 105. 2. See Peter Landesman, “Arms and the Man,” New York Times Magazine, August 17, 2003, pp. 28–33, 55–57. 3. See Chapter 2 in this book. 4. Ibid.

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5. Ibid. 6. Karen Ballentine, “Beyond Greed and Grievance: Reconsidering the Economic Dynamics of Armed Conflict,” in Karen Ballentine and Jake Sherman, eds., The Political Economy of Armed Conflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003), p. 265. 7. Michael Ross, “Oil, Drugs, and Diamonds: The Varying Roles of Natural Resources in Civil Wars,” in Ballentine and Sherman, Political Economy of Armed Conflict, pp. 47–70. 8. Michael Ross, borrowing concepts from Paul Collier, Anke Hoeffler, and Philippe Le Billon, has developed definitions of what he terms “lootable” and “unlootable” resources. See Ross, “Oil, Drugs, and Diamonds,” p. 54. 9. Ross, “Oil, Drugs, and Diamonds.” 10. Ibid. 11. Edward C. Luck, “Prevention: Theory and Practice,” in Hampson and Malone, From Reaction to Conflict Prevention, p. 258. 12. United Nations, Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, UN Doc. A/55/305–S/2000/809, 2000. para. 33. 13. Monty G. Marshall, “Measuring the Social Impact of War,” in Hampson and Malone, From Reaction to Conflict Prevention, p. 74. 14. Peter Wallensteen, “Reassessing Recent Conflicts: Direct vs. Structural Prevention,” in Hampson and Malone, From Reaction to Conflict Prevention, p. 219. 15. See, for example, Presidential Decision Directive 25, signed by President Clinton in May 1994, available at http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/pdd25.htm. 16. Barnett R. Rubin and Andrea Armstrong, “Regional Issues in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan,” World Policy Journal 20, no. 1 (Spring 2003): 31–40. 17. Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper, “Sierra Leone in West Africa,” in Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper, War Economies in a Regional Context (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2004), p. 129. 18. See Chapter 2 in this book. 19. Chandra Lekha Sriram, “Insights from the Cases: Opportunities and Challenges for Preventive Actors,” in Chandra Lekha Sriram and Karin Wermester, eds., From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2003), p. 357. 20. See Chapter 1 in this book. 21. See Chapter 2 in this book. 22. Pugh and Cooper, War Economies in a Regional Context, p. 92. 23. The initial refusal of France, an importer of Liberian timber, to impose sanctions on timber exports from that country, and the failure of the United States and other Western countries to send peacekeepers to the various trouble spots, are cases in point. 24. Pugh and Cooper, War Economies in a Regional Context, p. 121. 25. See Chapter 4 in this book. 26. Ibid. 27. See United Nations, Prevention of Armed Conflict Report of the SecretaryGeneral, UN Doc. A/55/985-S/2001/574, June 7, 2001; and United Nations General Assembly Resolution 57/337, July 18, 2003.

Acronyms

ADB APC APRM AU CCE CIS DFID ECOMOG ECOWAS EEBC EEC ELF EPLF EPRDF EU FDRE FMLN FRUD FSLN ICG ICITAP

Asian Development Bank All People’s Congress African Peer Review Mechanism African Union Constitutional Commission of Eritrea Commonwealth of Independent States Department for International Development Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group Economic Community of West African States Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission Eurasian Economic Community (aka EvrAzEs) Eritrean Liberation Front Eritrean People’s Liberation Front Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front European Union Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy Sandinista National Liberation Front International Crisis Group International Criminal Investigation Training and Assistance Program 189

190

IFI IGAD IGADD IMF IMU IPA LEDA LPP LURD MFDC MINUGUA MINUSAL MJP MOD MPCI MPIGO NDA NEPAD NGO NPFL OAS OAU ODIHR

ACRONYMS

international financial institution Intergovernmental Agency for Development Intergovernmental Agency for Drought and Development International Monetary Fund Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan International Peace Academy local economic development agency Liberal Progressive Party Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy Forces Démocratiques de Casamance UN Verification Mission in Guatemala UN Mission in El Salvador Movement for Justice and Peace Mareehan, Ogaden, Dolbalhante Mouvement Patriotique de la Côte d’Ivoire Ivorian Popular Movement for the Great West National Democratic Alliance New Partnership for Africa’s Development nongovernmental organization National Patriotic Front of Liberia Organization of American States Organization of African Unity Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (of the OSCE) OLF Oromo Liberation Front ONUSAL UN Observer Mission in El Salvador ONUV UN Verification Office OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe PAIGC Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde PARLACEN Central American Parliament PDRE People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia PFDJ People’s Front for Democracy and Justice PRODERE Programme for Displaced Persons, Refugees, and Returnees PRP People’s Rally for Progress Renamo Mozambique National Resistance RUF Revolutionary United Front SNM Somali National Movement SPLA Sudan People’s Liberation Army

ACRONYMS

SRC SSDF SYL TNG TPLF ULIMO UN UNAMSIL UNDP UNITA UNMEE UNMIL UP URNG USAID USC USSR UTO WPE WSLF WTO

191

Supreme Revolutionary Council Somali Salvation Democratic Front Somali Youth League transitional national government Tigray People’s Liberation Front United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia United Nations UN Mission in Sierra Leone UN Development Programme Union for the Total Independence of Angola UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea UN Mission in Liberia Unionist Party Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca U.S. Agency for International Development United Somali Congress Union of Soviet Socialist Republics United Tajik Opposition Workers Party of Ethiopia Western Somali Liberation Front World Trade Organization

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The Contributors

Comfort Ero is West Africa project director at the International Crisis Group and is based in Freetown, Sierra Leone. From 1998 to 1999 she was research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and from 1999 to 2001 she was a research fellow with the Conflict, Security and Development Group at the Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College, London. She has written extensively on African regional security issues. Gregory Gleason is professor of political science and public administration at the University of New Mexico, where he teaches international relations and public administration. Gleason’s most recent book, Markets and Politics in Central Asia: Structural Reform and Political Change (2003), analyzes the relationship between the activity of the international financial institutions and the processes of political liberalization in the countries of Central Asia. Gleason served as president of the Central Eurasian Studies Society in 2003–2004. Edmond J. Keller is professor of political science, director of the UCLA Globalization Research Center–Africa, and former director of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at the University of California–Los Angeles. He specializes in comparative politics with an emphasis on Africa. He has consulted widely on issues relating to African development and public policy and, more recently, on the process of political 201

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THE CONTRIBUTORS

transitions in Africa and African regional security issues. Keller has been a member of the Executive Council of the American Political Science Association and formerly served as president of the African Studies Association. His current research interests center on political transitions in Africa, cultural pluralism and nationalism, and conflict and conflict management in Africa. Keller teaches seminars on comparative regime change and on the politics of cultural pluralism and nationalism in Africa. Zoe Nielsen is associate director and senior editor of the Human Security Report at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia. Prior to joining the Liu Institute she was a senior program officer with the International Peace Academy’s Conflict Prevention Project. Before undertaking graduate studies in the United States she was the clerk to the Honorable Justice Jane Mathews, judge of the Federal Court of Australia and president of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. Chandra Lekha Sriram is lecturer in international relations at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. Until August 2003, she was Senior Associate at the International Peace Academy and directed the IPA’s conflict prevention project, From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict. She is author of Confronting Past Human Rights Violations: Justice vs. Peace in Times of Transition (2004). Jonathan Temin received his M.A. from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, where he focused on topics related to conflict in Africa. He was formerly a Fulbright fellow in Ghana, where he studied the role of the media in Ghana’s 2000 elections. He has also lived in South Africa and currently resides in Washington, D.C.

Index

authoritarian rule in, 133, 137; causes of conflict in, 131–132, 140–141, 171; conflict prevention prospects in, 181; corruption and impunity in, 132, 154; democracy in, 133–134, 138–139, 141, 142, 150, 151, 153; development aid in, 146, 148–149; doctrine of national security in, 11, 132, 134; ethnic discrimination in, 174; ideological differences in, 171–172; guerrilla groups in, 135, 136, 137; human rights violations in, 136, 138, 139–140, 142; impacts of Cold War and aftermath in, 132, 135, 136, 138, 139, 140–141, 171–173, 178; land issues in, 134; legacy of Spanish colonialism in, 133; military’s political power in, 133–134, 135, 136–137, 138, 139, 143–144, 147; oligarchic rule in, 135, 137; overview of conflict in, 10; parliament (PARLACEN) of, 153–154; peace processes in, 6, 132, 141–142, 143–146; security sector of, 132, 134, 154; socioeconomic inequalities in, 134, 135, 137; state formation in, 131; and third-party interventions, 184–185; union, attempts to form, 74,

Abacha, Sani, 101, 105 Addis Ababa Agreement, 29 Africa. See Horn of Africa; West African states African Union (AU), 8, 44, 123 Afwerki, Issayas, 26 Akaev, Askar, 64, 80 Algiers Peace Accord, 39 All People’s Congress (APC), 98–99 Almaty Declaration, 72–73 Annan, Kofi, 93, 106 Arias, Oscar, 142 al-Bashir, Omar Hassan Ahmad, 29–30, 36, 39–40 Bédié, Henri Konan, 103, 104 Bockarie, Sam, 117 Border disputes: and arbitrariness of boundaries, 95–96, 172–173, 176; in Central America, 72; in Horn of Africa, 32, 33, 44. See also EritreaEthiopia border dispute Bush, George, 63 Cabral, Luiz, 97 Carter, Jimmy, 23, 138 Carter Center, 150 Central American states, 131–157;

203

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INDEX

153; violent crime in, 155–156. See also El Salvador; Guatemala; Honduras; Nicaragua Central Asian republics, 55–85; arbitrariness of boundaries in, 172–173; authoritarian regimes in, 84–85, 175, 179; border issues in, 72, 176; causes of conflict in, 57, 72–76; conflict prevention in, 9, 85, 180–181; counterinsurgency campaigns in, 55, 59, 78–79; country characteristics, 58; democracy in, 84–85, 175–176; development in, 82–83; economic reforms in, 63–65, 67, 68, 71, 73–74, 82, 176; ethnicity in, 174; independence, 62–63, 176; informal political institutions in, 57; insurgency doctrines in, 76–78; and international organizations, 63; interstate competition in, 59; leadership change process in, 57, 175, 177; Marxism and, 60–61; nature of conflict in, 8–9; personalistic politics in, 79–81; and policy harmonization, 82–83; political history of, 59–63; political liberalization in, 63–65, 67–68, 71, 73, 82–83; and regional economic interdependence, 74, 82; regional Islamic jihad in, 55–57; resource sharing as source of conflict in, 176; security concerns in, 83–84; terrorist activities in, 56, 84; and third-party interventions, 183; threats to peace in, 12, 174–176; transboundary resource competition in, 74–76; transition from communism in, 80; and USSR collapse, 9, 57, 58, 59, 61, 172–173, 175; wealth and economic agendas of, 57. See also Kazakhstan; Kyrgystan; Tajikistan; Turkmenistan; Uzbekistan Chamorro, Violeta Barrios de, 138, 149 Cold War, aftermath and legacies of, 5, 9, 10, 11 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), establishment of, 61–62. See also Central American states Conflict: phases of, 11–13; potential for, 12; and poverty, 170; preventive

strategies for, 6; proximate causes of, 2–3, 5; regional dimension of, 3–4; resumption of, 114–115; root/structural causes of, 2, 5; social costs of, 117–118; and triggering events, 3, 12; and trust-building options, 36. See also Subregional conflict Contadora peace process, 141, 142 Côte d’Ivoire: end of Cold War impacts on, 102–103; political manipulation of identity in, 102–103; mercenaries in, 109; rebel groups in, 111; regional dimension of conflict in, 110–111; violent conflict in, 94 Cristiani, Alfredo, 137 Democracy: “protected,” 133–134; and revolutionary insurgency, 78 Djibouti: conflict management approaches in, 36–37; ethnic groups/conflict in, 34–35; independence, 35; and Somali peace process, 42 Doe, Samuel, 104, 105, 107, 115 Domestic conflict mediation, subregional organizations’ role in, 40–44 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), 5, 110, 123 Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), 10, 98, 112 El Salvador: external assistance in, 148–149; history and causes of conflict in, 136–137, 140; human rights violations/prosecutions in, 143–144, 147, 148; judicial reform in, 147–148; peace process/accords in, 137, 146–149; security-sector corruption/reform in, 146–147, 148–149, 156; violent crime in, 147 Eritrea: autocratic rule in, 26; conflict management approaches in, 36–37; development strategy of, 45; Ethiopia’s relationship with, 19, 20, 22–23, 24, 25, 26; ethnic group identity in, 24; independence and democratization of, 25–26; Italy’s involvement in, 24; Marxism in, 24; political history of, 24–26; Sudan’s relations with, 41

INDEX Eritrea-Ethiopia border dispute, 39, 41; causes of, 45–46; costs of, 46; thirdparty mediation of, 45, 46–48 Eritrean Islamic Jihad Movement, 26 Eritrean Islamic Salvation (EIS), 26 Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF), 24, 25, 26 Eritrean National Alliance, 26 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), 24, 25, 26, 45–46 Esquipulas peace process, 141, 142 Ethiopia: Derg regime in, 22–23, 172; development approach of, 45; and Eritrean nationalism, 19, 20, 22–23, 38; ethnic federalism in, 36, 37–39; ethnic self-determination in, 19–23, 173–174; human rights abuses in, 23; Italian Fascist occupation of, 19, 20; Oromo nationalism in, 21–22; political history of, 19–23; royal absolutism in, 19, 20; socialism in, 23; Somalis of Ogaden region in, 20–21; Sudan’s relations with, 40. See also Eritrea-Ethiopia border dispute Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), 25, 37–39, 172 Ethnicity, and subregional conflicts, 173–174 Eurasian Economic Community (EEC), 74 European Union (EU), 146, 149 Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), 137, 138, 141, 147 Forces Démocratiques de Casamance (MFDC), 93–94 Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD), 35 Gbagbo, Laurent, 102, 103, 104, 109, 111 Gouled Aptidon, Hassan, 35, 42 Guatemala: conflict prevention strategies in, 143–146; development projects in, 146; history and causes of conflict in, 135–136, 140, 141; indigenous people of, 136, 142; land tenure in, 136, 137, 138, 139; security sector in, 143–144, 147, 156; U.S. involvement

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in, 135, 136 Gueï, Robert, 102, 103–104, 111 Guinea-Bissau: autocratic rule in, 97; conflict and instability in, 96–98; pseudo-democracy in, 97 Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, 19–20, 21, 22, 25 Hizb-ut-Tahrir movement, 56, 59, 77 Honduras: democratization in, 153; external actors in, 153; military’s political role in, 139; political violence and human rights violations in, 133, 138–140; security-sector abuses/reforms in, 151–153; transition to democracy in, 138; U.S. policy in, 153 Horn of Africa, 17–49; Cold War politics in, 17, 172; conflict management approaches in, 36–41; conflict prevention efforts and prospects in, 179, 180; countries of, 17; cultural pluralism in, 19–23, 24, 27; potential for conflict in, 7–8; state and nation building in, 18–35, 171; and thirdparty interventions, 181–182. See also Djibouti; Eritrea; Ethiopia; Sudan Houphouët-Boigny, Félix, 102–103, 110 Hussein, Saddam, 56 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, 148, 150, 151 Inter-American Court of Human Rights, 143, 144 Intergovernmental Agency for Development (IGAD), 5, 8, 18, 37, 40–41; Sudan initiative, 41–44 Intergovernmental Agency for Drought and Development (IGADD), 18, 42, 183 International Criminal Investigation Training and Assistance Program (ICITAP), 146, 149, 153 International Monetary Fund (IMF), 151 Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), 56, 76–77 Islamic Revolutionary Party, 66 Karimov, Islam, 70, 80

206

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Kazakhstan: democracy in, 63; structural reforms in, 63–64 Kenya, and Somali peace process, 43 Khudaiberdiev, Makhmud, 76 Konaré, Alpha Oumar, 119 Kyrgystan: democracy in, 65; postcommunist economy of, 65; structural reforms in, 64–65 Liberal Progressive Party (LPP), 25 Liberia: child soldiers in, 113, 114; civil war in, 93, 108, 110; ethnicization of military in, 105; natural resource mismanagement in, 99–100, 101; post— Cold War instability in, 107, 115–116; violent conflict in, 12 Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), 111, 115–116 Lomé Peace Agreement, 116–117 Machakos Protocol (Sudan), 41 Macha-Tulama organization (Ethiopia), 22 Mahjoub, Muhammad Ahmed, 29 Mali, peace process in, 118–119 Mané, Ansumane, 97–98 Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia, 19 Mengistu Haile Mariam, 40, 45 Mouvement Patriotique de la Côte d’Ivoire (MPCI), 102, 111 Nabiev, Rakhmon, 66, 80 National Democratic Alliance, 30 National Islamic Front, 40 National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), 107, 108, 112 Nationalism, Marxist approach to, 60–61 Nazarbaev, Nursultan, 63, 73, 74 Nicaragua: history of conflict in, 137–138, 140; indigenous group rights in, 145, 150, 151; judiciary of, 150; reforms and peacebuilding activities in, 149–151; security-sector abuses in, 149–150; U.S. assistance to, 150–151; U.S. Cold War policies in, 137, 138 Nigeria: control of natural resources in, 100; crisis and conflict in, 93, 94; ethnic and religious violence in, 101–102; Islamic law in, 102; per-

sonalization of military in, 105 Niyazov, Saparmurad, 68–70, 80 Nkrumah, Kwame, 110 Nongovernmental organizations, in Central America, 150 al-Numeiri, Ga’afar, 29, 39, 172 Obasanjo, Olusegun, 102 Ogaden War, 32, 33, 44 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), 79 Organization of African Unity (OAU), 8, 20, 95; and Eritrea-Ethiopia War, 44, 45, 47, 48; Mechanism for Conflict Prevention and Resolution, 17–18. See also African Union (AU) Organization of American States (OAS), 141, 142 Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), 22, 38, 39 Ottoman Empire, 27 Ouattara, Alassane, 103, 104, 111 PARLACEN (Central American parliament), 142, 153–154 Partido Africano da Independência do Guiné e Cabo Verde (PAIGC), 96–98 People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDG), 24, 26 People’s Rally for Progress (PRP), 35 Powell, Colin, 41 Preventive actions, context-sensitive, 4, 6 Preventive diplomacy, and causes of conflict, 81 PRODERE (Programme for Displaced Persons, Refugees, and Returnees), 148, 150, 153 Qaddafi, Muammar, 108 Rakhmonov, Imomali, 80 Reagan, Ronald, 138 Regional/subregional actors: conflict management role of, 123; deployment of, 13 Reina, Carlos Roberto, 139, 151 Revolutionary United Front (RUF), 98, 108, 109, 110, 111, 117 Ríos Montt, Efrain, 135, 136, 144

INDEX Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), 137–138, 139, 141 Sankoh, Foday, 113, 117 School of the Americas, 134 Siad Barre, Mohammed, 32–34 Sierra Leone: civil conflict in, 93, 98, 108, 109, 110, 116–117; colonial legacy in, 98; natural resource mismanagement in, 99–100; state building in, 98–101 Socialist Revolutionary Party, 33 Somalia: Arta reconciliation process in, 42–43; clan/lineage system in, 30, 31, 32; collapsed state of, 30, 31, 32; conflict management approaches in, 36; democratic politics in, 32–34; independence, 31, 34; nation and state building processes in, 30–34; national reconciliation process for, 43–44; Ogaden conflict of, 32, 33; political history of, 30–34; social inequality in, 33; socialism in, 32; subregional mediation in, 41–44; as UN trusteeship, 31 Somaliland, Republic of, 34, 42 Somali National Movement (SNM), 34 Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), 34 Somali Youth League (SYL), 21 Somoza Debayle, Anastacio, 137, 138 Soviet Union, Central America policies of, 140–141. See also Central Asian republics Stevens, Siaka, 99, 100 Strasser, Valentine, 108 Subregional conflict: Cold War as cause of, 172–173; common themes in, 170–173; ethnicity and, 173–174; and hegemonic control policies, 36; legacy and aftermath of, 114–119; phenomena of “new wars” in, 155–156. See also Conflict Subregional organizations, conflict mediation role of, 37, 49 Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), 29, 40, 41 Sudan: British condominium rule in, 27; British “Southern Policy” in, 28; conflict management approaches in, 36; ethnolinguistic diversity in, 27;

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IGAD initiative in, 41–44; independence, 27, 28, 29; multiple levels of conflict in, 27; Muslims in, 27; northsouth inequalities in, 28–29; political history of, 27–30; sharia (Islamic law) in, 29; superpower patronage in, 172; third-party mediation in, 39–41 Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC), 32 Tajikistan: civil war in, 66; political factions in, 66; postcommunist economy of, 65–66, 67; reform strategy in, 67, 68; revolutionary insurgency in, 76; territorial/ethnic divisions in, 67–68 Taylor, Charles, 96, 101, 104, 105, 107, 110–112, 113, 115–116 Terrorism, U.S. global campaign against, 56, 59 Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), 25, 38, 39, 45–46 Turkmenistan: concept of national selfreliance in, 68–69; personalistic nationalism in, 68, 69–70 Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemaleca (URNG), 135 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), collapse of, 57, 58, 59, 61 Unionist Party (UP), 24–25 United Nations mediation, 13, 44; in Central America, 12, 137, 145, 148; in Central Asian republics, 66, 150; in domestic disputes, 40; in EritreaEthiopia border dispute, 47–48, 49; in Horn of Africa, 4, 8, 20, 24; in West Africa, 117 United Somali Congress (USC), 34 United States: Central America policy of, 132, 134–136, 138, 139, 140–141; mediation of Eritrea-Ethiopia War, 46–47; and post—Cold War West Africa, 106–107; war against terrorism, 56, 59, 77, 78 U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), 139, 146, 153 Uzbekistan, 63; corruption in, 71–72; economy/economic reforms, 71; human rights abuses in, 70–71, 79;

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Islamic insurgency in, 76–77; postcommunist politics and governance, 70–71; and transnational terrorism, 78–79 Vieira, João Bernardo “Nino,” 97–98 West African states: causes of conflict in, 9–10, 94, 95–112; centralized bureaucracies in, 96, 98; colonial boundaries of, 95–96; conflict prevention prospects in, 10, 179–180; constitutional democracies of, 94; cross-border military meddling in, 110–112; economic mismanagement in, 99–100; end of Cold War impacts on, 106–108, 109, 172; ethnic strife in, 174; exploitation/control of natural resources in, 99–101, 102, 113, 114, 177–178; independence, 93–94; international interventions in, 121–122; international-level conflict in, 106–112; leadership succession in, 177–178; legacies of colonial rule in, 96, 98, 99; manipulation of group identity in, 101–104; mercenaries and external profiteers in, 108–109; military corruption in, 105; military

coups in, 93; national-level conflict in, 96–105; need for international engagement in, 120–123; peace processes in, 116–117, 118–119; peer-review mechanism for conflict management in, 123, 130n93; politicization of security forces in, 97, 104–105; postcolonial transition/state building in, 96–101; postindependence leaders in, 99–101, 102–104; regional/subregional organizations’ roles in, 123; renewal of conflict in, 114–118; retribution in, 118; smallarms proliferation in, 109–110; state formation in, 171; terrorism and, 121; and third-party interventions, 183–184; unconventional combatants in, 112–114; violent conflict in, 93. See also Côte d’Ivoire; GuineaBissau; Liberia; Nigeria; Sierra Leone Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), 33 Workers Party of Ethiopia (WPE), 23 World Bank, 146, 149, 151 World Trade Organization (WTO), 65 Yalla, Kumba, 98

About the Book

THE CAUSES OF VIOLENT CONFLICT, AS WELL AS APPROACHES TO CONFLICT PREvention, have been studied extensively, but only recently has attention been given to the subregional dynamics of internal wars. The authors of this original collection explore conflicts in Africa, Central Asia, and Central America, seeking new insights that can provide the foundation for more nuanced, more effective preventive strategies. Chandra Lekha Sriram is lecturer in international relations at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland). Her recent publications include Confronting Past Human Rights Violations: Justice vs. Peace in Times of Transition and From Promise to Practice: Strengthening UN Capacities for the Prevention of Violent Conflict. Zoe Nielsen is associate director and senior editor of the Human Security Report at the Liu Institute for Global Issues, University of British Columbia.

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