INTRODUCTION

In examining the topic of conflict management, peacekeeping and peacebuilding on the African continent, a broad geopolitical survey of the continent will provide a useful informational starting point. Africa is a vast and complex continent, with approximately 800 million inhabitants and an abundance of natural resources. It stretches from Cairo in the predominantly Arab north to Cape Town in the south, a region which is inhabited by a majority of Bantu stock black people. The Sahel region in the north considers itself part of the Middle East and is more politically active within the Arab League. Sub-Saharan Africa considers itself truly African and has been the main area of concern and practice, in so far as African peacekeeping is concerned.

If the problems of Europe have been caused by an excess of history, the problems of Africa have certainly been caused by an excess of geography. Since the advent of decolonisation, Africa has faced numerous political, economic and security challenges that have now turned it into the major peacekeeping ground of the world.

Border disputes, ethnic divisions, religious strife, military dictatorships and a general absence of a democratic political culture have been among the causes of instability on the continent. Grinding poverty, disease, civil strife and the refugee problem have been some of the consequences of this instability. Chinua Achebe's book, Things Fall Apart, is one of the most powerful ever to emerge from Africa, and its title sums up the grim situation which has prevailed throughout the continent.

A quick audit of Africa's democratic balance sheet shows that, by 1996, many countries were quite literally in the red. The fragile peace in Angola was clung to precariously, with the belligerent parties making painfully slow progress towards a lasting and peaceful settlement. Somalia remained without a government, violence had become a daily occurrence in Mogadishu, and a virtual state of war existed between the factions led by Mohammed Farah Aideed and Ali Mahdi. Although the scale of the fighting has declined in Liberia, the country was still at war, and the West African peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, had become a combatant instead of peacekeeper.

Rwanda remained a sharply divided nation between the Hutu majority and the Tutsi minority, while Burundi tottered on the brink of an ethnic war, and anarchy in eastern Zaire threatened to drag a number of countries in the Great Lakes region into war. In Nigeria, a rigidly ordered and barely democratic return to civilian politics in 1993 was overturned by its architect, because the elections did not bring the result that the army wanted. The country remains under the military rule of the Abacha regime. In short, Africa continues to be plagued by problems associated by military intervention and rule, shaky processes of democratisation, and ethno-political factionalism.

MILITARY INTERVENTION

The available evidence reveals that a significant proportion of African rulers are not graduates of civilian universities, but are graduates of African military academies and similar institutions abroad (such as Westpoint in the US, Sandhurst in the UK, and St Cyr in France). In order to grasp the extent of military involvement in African politics, one needs only remember some of the coups that have taken place on the continent over the last decade. The following chronological inventory serves as a stark reminder:

In the Sudan, the army took over on 6 April 1985. While President Gafar Nimeiry visited Cairo, General Sewan Ali Dahab used the opportunity to seize power. Nimeiry had ruled the country for 16 years before his (mercifully) bloodless overthrow.



In Uganda, General Tito Okello overthrew President Milton Obote on 27 August 1985. Obote had returned to power in 1980, following his overthrow by military dictator Idi Amin in 1971.



In Lesotho, Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan's government was overthrown by Major General Lekhanya on 20 January 1986, and King Moshoeshoe II was installed as ruler.



On 26 January 1986, the National Resistance Army, led by current Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, captured Kampala and seized power from Tito Okello who, as indicated above, had overthrown Milton Obote the previous year.



In Burundi, Colonel Baptista Bagaza was overthrown in a military coup on 3 September 1987. He had been in power since 1976 and was in Canada at the time of the coup. Major Pierre Buyoya took over.



On 30 June 1989, the civilian Sudanese Government of Sadek El Mahdi was overthrown in military coup. A military junta led by General Omar Hassan El Bashir seized power. They are still ruling to this day.



On 6 November 1990, King Moshoeshoe II of Lesotho was overthrown by the military and replaced by his son, King Letsie III.



In Mali, President Moussa Traore was overthrown in a bloody coup on 26 March l991. He had ruled the country since 1968.



In Sierra Leone, President Joseph Momoh, who had been in power since 1985, was overthrown on 30 April 1992 by Captain Valentine Strasser.



On 23 July 1994, President Dawda Jawara of the Gambia was overthrown by Lieutenant Yaya Jammeh.



On 15 August 1995, President Miguel Trovoada of São Tomé and Princípe was overthrown in a military coup. However, he managed to resume his rule on 21 August 1995, after Angolan mediation.



In the Comoros, on 28 September 1995, notorious mercenary Bob Denard led the overthrow of President Said Mohamed Djoar, taking him prisoner. Six days later, a French military intervention force captured the mercenaries and restored the deposed president.



In Niger, General Ibrahim Bare Mainassara overthrew civilian president Mahamane Ousmane in January 1996.



On 25 July 1996, Burundi's President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, a Hutu, was toppled by the Tutsi-dominated army and replaced by former strong man Major Pierre Buyoya.

Apart from these 'classic military coups', there were a number of other events which illustrated the non-democratic nature of politics on the continent during this period. For example:

the assassination of President Samuel Doe of Liberia in 1990, following massive civil unrest;



Hissein Habre's escape from Chad in 1990, following a long-running rebellion;



the overthrow of President Siad Barre in Somalia as a result of civil war; and



the overthrow of President Mengistu Haile Mariam of Ethiopia in 1991 as a result of civil war.

Such events illustrate the tenuous nature of attempts to establish democracy in African countries.

SHAKY STEPS TOWARDS DEMOCRACY

One of the abiding problems of the post-colonial political evolution of Africa, demonstrated time and again in 1995 – is the belief on the part of both the winners and losers of elections or political competitions that the winner would take everything, leaving the loser with no political role, no right to question and criticise, and no security from harassment. A century of colonial rule, during which the opposition was crushed ruthlessly, had given way to three decades of independence dominated by the leaders of the African nationalists, which had opposed and then replaced colonial rule. These leaders had little experience of political life in a democratic society and once in power ignored or destroyed the checks and balances on government power written into independence constitutions. Presidents saw their own political destinies as indivisible from those of the state, and all divisions between the government machinery and the ruling party were swept away. It became treasonous for political opponents to work towards pushing the ruling party from power. One party states were created and the only means of changing governments were mass demonstrations, insurrections and military coups.

When pro-democracy movements sprang up across Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s, their stated aim was to create participatory, multiparty democracies in which government could be voted from power and where the opposition could operate freely between elections. Popular resentment of years of misrule, the declining faculties of ageing African leaders, the growing pool of disgraced party functionaries or dismissed ministers willing to join opposition movements, the end of the Cold War and the resulting willingness of aid donors to put pressure on authoritarian regimes to change, gave hope that a new era was beginning.

For two short years, from mid-1990 to early 1992, there were glimmers of hope. The authoritarian, would-be Marxist regime of Mathieu Kerekou in Benin was forced by domestic demonstrations and pressure from France to hold competitive elections. He lost and accepted defeat. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda dropped his long-held opposition to multipartyism in the face of the growing strength of the democracy movement. In free elections, he was roundly defeated, and with good grace he handed over to his elected successor, Frederick Chiluba. In Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire and São Tomé and Princípe, multiparty elections were held. And, in the Congo, Ghana, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Seychelles, and Togo one party or military regimes were pushed into starting the process of democratisation. Even President Daniel Arap Moi of Kenya and President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire could not prevent the legislation of the opposition, however much they struggled to avoid it. Elsewhere in Africa (Chad, Ethiopia and Somalia), military dictators were forced from power by coups or civil war.

But the euphoria in Africa, and among observers and aid donors abroad, tends to conceal a number of underlying problems that will just not go away. Chief among these is the lack of a political culture of compromise. When closely questioned, even the most ardent proponent of democracy in Africa would admit that the major aim of the democracy movement was to overthrow the existing government rather than to install a workable, free and sustainable system of participatory politics. Few politicians in or out of power have much idea of how their proposed democratic systems will work after democratic elections have been held. In essence, the 'winner-take-all' syndrome is too deeply embedded. This problem is exacerbated by the regional, ethnic and religious factionalism underlying the political power struggle in many African countries.

ETHNO-POLITICAL FACTIONALISM

Bound to the failure of African politicians and communities to overcome the rapacious legacy of colonialism and post-colonial authoritarianism, has been the increasingly obvious failure of many states to develop a sense of national community or consciousness. Across the continent, ethnic, linguistic and regional groups, and politicians willing to exploit their aims and fears, have continued to render the state structures inherited by independent countries unworkable. Colonial rulers and authoritarian rulers had been able to suppress or combat ethnically-based conflicts. Strong presidents or regimes had based their governments on ethnic, linguistic or regional support bases. As the apparent end of authoritarianism across Africa removed or weakened such regimes, these long-repressed factional grievances and antagonisms re-emerged or escalated into conflict (as they have done in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union).

Burundi and Rwanda are two of the most tragic examples of this resurgence of long standing ethnic differences. In the two former Belgian colonies, the populations are split between the majority Hutu tribe and the Tutsis, the latter traditionally having been the ruling group. In the last years of colonial rule and the first decade and a half of independence, the Hutu in both countries rose up against the ruling Tutsis. Each time (in Rwanda in 1959, the mid-1960s and in 1994, and in Burundi in 1965, 1972 and 1988) these uprisings had provoked a Tutsi backlash and the massacre of Hutu civilians. A precarious peace still holds in Burundi, but the UN is already making contingency plans for intervention. These two countries have become the shame of Africa.

The same is true in Angola. The civil war heightened the fear and hostility between the Ovimbundu people, loyal to UNITA and making up 38 per cent of the population, and the non-Ovimbundu, who fear an ethnically-based government and reprisals if UNITA comes to power. On the other hand, Jonas Savimbi is able to use Ovimbundu fear of domination as a means of bolstering his traditional support base. The level of mutual fear and hostility, combined with Savimbi's apparent inability to compromise or to work as a junior partner in a coalition government, provides little hope for a lasting political solution within the existing constitution and without some form of decentralisation or federalism.

Elsewhere in Africa, conflicts which also have their roots in the unrealistic state boundaries inherited from the colonial era, and the combination in one country of incompatible or hostile ethnic groups, are widespread. Sudan continues to be torn apart by the struggle between the chiefly Arab, Muslim north and the black African, Christian south, with the further bloody complication of bitter fighting in the south between factions within the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) – one faction loyal to the leader, John Garang, and drawn from the Dinka tribe, and the other faction from different southern population groups, such as the Nuer, who fear Dinka domination. One would argue that religion is about creation and not about destruction.

Ethnic, regional or clan factors are also playing a part in the continuing conflicts in Liberia, Chad and Somalia, and in the political crises in Cameroon, Togo, Congo and Nigeria. In Somalia, during 1993 and early 1994, the scope of clan conflict had abated and much of the countryside was peaceful enough for food supplies to get through to rural communities and for food crops to be sown and harvested. The UN, however, withdrew from Somalia on 31 March 1995 after no meaningful progress towards peace had been made, whereafter the country plunged back into a state of civil war without any form of central authority.

In West Africa, Liberia continues to cling to an unstable cease-fire put into effect on I August 1993. There have been regular breaches of the cease-fire and in April 1996 there was a general breakdown of order and a resumption of full-scale fighting between the Armed Forces of Liberia (representing the West African backed interim government in Monrovia), the National Patriotic Front of Charles Taylor (which controls most of the territory between the border with Côte d'Ivoire and the outskirts of Monrovia) and the United Liberation Movement, which is mainly fighting Taylor's forces. Each movement represents a different ethnic group: the interim government is chiefly Krahn (the late President Doe's group); ULIMO draws its support from the Mending (mostly former members of the Liberian army); while Taylor is backed by the Gao and Mano peoples. The strongest military force in the country is not Liberian at all: it is the 10 000 strong multinational West African force, ECOMOG, put together by the members of ECOWAS. ECOWAS has been plagued, however, by political differences among its founders: Nigeria, which provides a large proportion of the troops and the commander, is fiercely opposed to Taylor, while Côte d'Ivoire has always backed Taylor. This has meant that ECOMOG has not been able to play the role of a neutral peacekeeping force. Despite the objections of Côte d'Ivoire and Burkina Faso, Nigeria and other ECOWAS members have allowed ECOMOG to become involved as one of the combatants, trying to use it to destroy Taylor's forces.

In South Africa, the blood-letting in Kwazulu-Natal continues unabated, although democracy is taking root in that country. Kwazulu-Natal, however, has the potential to destabilise South Africa and the subregion, if the political differences between the predominantly Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party and the ruling African National Congress are not urgently and adequately addressed. The struggle for freedom in South Africa, as was the case in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe, was bitter and protracted, and involved significant bloodshed.

Zambia seems to be drifting towards internal political turmoil, following recent legislation which prevents citizens who are not of Zambian parentage from contesting presidential elections. There is potential for violence in Zambia and as a consequence, potential for mounting peacekeeping operations in that country. The problems of Southern Africa need statesmen of great vision if the whole of the subregion is to escape a general and violent ethnic conflagration. The message is clear: democracy still needs to be nurtured in Africa in order to avoid the ever present political instability and insecurity that have made the continent the laughing stock of the world.

CONCLUSION

Some of the gloom surrounding Africa's political future is due to unrealistic expectations on the part of pro-democracy groups and foreign aid donors. With the decline of authoritarianism and the end of superpower interference in African conflicts, there is a widespread belief inside and outside Africa that the promotion of multiparty democracy will provide a 'quick fix' for the continent's political, security and economic problems. Pro-democracy activists have a worthy, but naive belief in the power of the word 'democracy' and in the efficacy of the multiparty system as a form of political and economic management. Just chanting the word democracy has achieved nothing in Africa. Where democratic governments have been elected, they have faced the same appalling problems of unequal terms of trade, massive foreign debts, run-down agricultural systems, dependence on a limited range of export crops or minerals and crushing poverty for the majority of their populations.

Africa still has a hard and hostile road to cover. Most countries are still a long way from finding solutions to their decades-old divisions, and political leaders still lack the will and vision to put national interests above personal, clan, or regional considerations. Until they move in this direction Africa will remain unstable, militarily insecure, economically wretched, and the world's peacekeeping ground.

Despite the gloomy picture painted above and the enormous challenges facing the continent, Africans are survivors. As Martin Luther King, the great American black human rights activist said in 1963: "Even if we must face the problems of today and tomorrow, I have hope."