The world has entered an age where the term ‘humanitarian mission’ seemingly justifies intervention, where international law does not. In fact, many have pointed out that the Kosovo intervention has seen international law circumvented and the United Nations ignored with relative ease primarily because the emotions, unleashed by pictures of a pogrom on Europe’s doorstep, provided the moral high ground.

Yet, in Africa, mass amputation in Sierra Leone, genocide in Rwanda, Burundi and parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo seem to have provided no such grounds for intervention. Nor has mass starvation and wide-spread civil war in Angola elicited more than a meek response. This article will attempt to explain why.

In order to understand the apparent apathy of the West towards Africa, as well as the paradox mixture of double standards and misplaced feelings of guilt among Europeans, together with an ill-conceived culture of entitlement among Africans, one needs to understand the history of both and in relation to each other.

Since the concept ‘heart of darkness’ was first used by Joseph Conrad as the title of a novel, it has become almost trendy among many to interpret its meaning as some kind of metaphoric reference to the true savage nature presumably lurking deep within all humans, waiting to be unleashed by circumstances. Whatever the merits of the numerous interpretations, the fact remains that Africa offered both fascination and horror on such an extraordinary scale to those Europeans who explored and conquered its vast expanse, that it provided the setting. ‘Dark’ not only referred to the impenetrable, disease infested jungles, vast grasslands and the seemingly endless rivers of the scantily explored sub-Saharan continent, but also to the encounters with a population which, in many areas, seemed savage and warlike to the extreme.¹

For Westerners, the Africa of one or two centuries later remains a political abyss of endemic conflict. As the continent with the greatest number of languages and ethnic groups, its conflicts are older than colonialism and often too complicated for the average outsider to comprehend. Its repeatedly praised ‘diversity’ seems to constitute a far greater obstacle to lasting peace, than what this popular euphemism would suggest. Almost nowhere does any ethnic group provide more than fifteen per cent of the population entrapped within the colonial boundaries that often throw hundreds of ethnic groups into what is then called a ‘state’. No amount of development aid has been able to overcome the inherent instability of such artificial constructions, nor to provide sustained development on a continent whose political culture is determined more by geography than by the Western political philosophy introduced to its élite at European universities.

More deeply embedded than Karl Marx or Mao Tse Tung, is the far more durable political culture which constitutes the foundation of Africa’s ethnic hierarchies both past and present. Geographically, Africa’s relatively few natural harbours, narrow coastal plains and generally shallow rivers have significantly impeded development. It was geography which promoted the politically centralist hierarchies of classical riverine societies, with those situated at the river’s edge determining access to waterways and trade routes for those living further inland. This not only created dependency, but also economic specialisation along tribal and ethnic lines.

The relative absence of suitable beasts of burden promoted the manifestation of slavery as a key component of the African economy. While slavery was a universal phenomenon, the sub-Saharan economy was particularly dependent upon slaves as the primary source of labour and means of transport. Prior to any European contact and as far back as antiquity, some estimates suggest that as many as seventy to 75 per cent of African males spent all or part of their lives in slavery. Given the highly communal nature of African societies, slaves were one of the rare ‘items’ which could be individually owned, thereby constituting a form of currency and exchange much in the same way as Africa’s pastoral societies elsewhere used cattle for this purpose. Whereas land served as the primary source of individual or private wealth in Europe, so slaves played this role in most parts of Africa, specifically along its equatorial belt. The three dominant kingdoms of Ghana, Songhai and Mali, all upheld slave-driven economies in the sense that their supply of labour rested entirely in their acquisition, while trade in humans was part of the power they held.²

But African imperialism did not provide the only platform upon which humans were degraded to ‘property’. Sub-Saharan Africa’s killi and tegria wars, fought in the tribal areas beyond the periphery of its giant kingdoms, were "... frequent and fought over the most frivolous provocations,"³ also serving as a means to acquire or replace labour and supplement harvests. They were largely regarded as part of the annual cycles and a legitimate way of securing the interests of the various communities in terms of food-supply and manpower. Kingdoms and tribal chiefdoms alike, regarded slavery and the slave trade as a lucrative economic activity at a time in Africa when ‘throwing the book’ at someone accused of wrongdoing, could mean only two forms of punishment: death or slavery.

Long before the ships of European powers were able to reach the shores of the dark continent, the camel had connected sub-Saharan Africa with the Arabic world. Apart from the slave trade and the cultural influence exerted through trade and other interaction, there were no apparent efforts at direct colonisation. Military raids and the diffusion of the Islamic religion brought parts of present-day West and East Africa into the sphere of Arabic influence, the cultural faultlines running through Sudan and Mauritania. The East African port of Zanzibar, for example, emerged as the gateway through which Africans from this region supplied the seemingly insatiable demand for slaves that dominated the relationship with the Arabic world to the point where Arabs are viewed with suspicion to this day. This caused the son of the former Sudanese vice-president to conclude in the 1990s that "[t]he Arab will always try to enslave people because it is in his culture to enslave people."⁴

Indeed, an estimated fifteen million black Africans would be enslaved by the Arabs and transported via ports or across the Saharan desert. The mortality rate was double that of the European slave trade which would later emerge along Africa’s west coast. The slave route could be followed through the Sahara desert by a line of skeletons literally marking the way.⁵

For a long time, the lucrative transatlantic slave trade provided the primary motivation for Europeans to stop between the tropics where their average lifespan was nine months due to the prevalence of infectious diseases.⁶ Between ten and thirteen million Africans would be displaced to work on plantations in the Americas. Of these, between ten and fifteen per cent died en route, particularly during the early stages of the slave trade.⁷ The mortality rate of white slave traders was often as high as that of the slaves themselves, though this was largely in direct relation to the disregard for hygienic conditions that the various transatlantic slave traders displayed aboard their ships.⁸ The treatment of human cargo was generally as inhumane as the trade itself. People were literally packed into the hulls of ships where they remained in dismal conditions of close confinement. Punishment was harsh as the crews also used fear as a psychological tool to prevent organised resistance during a journey.

In 1772, Britain abolished slavery on its soil, and in 1833, throughout its empire. France followed in 1848, forbidding slavery in its territories, followed by other European nations.⁹ Tribal leaders from The Gambia, Congo and Dahomé sent delegations to London and Paris, protesting the antislavery decrees, because they felt that it amounted to their assets and ‘means of production’ being seized.¹⁰

Some colonial powers, Britain in particular, dedicated much of their time and resources towards eradicating slavery, human sacrifice and cannibalism during and after the era of the ‘scramble for Africa’.¹¹ Slave traders saw their ships forcefully boarded and impounded by the British navy, and their precious cargo released.¹² The Ibo, themselves ironically the later victims of the Biafra genocide in 1970, faced a British punitive expedition in March 1902 because of their refusal to cease slave-raiding, and the slaughter of new-born twins together with the torture to death of the unfortunate mothers.¹³

Contrary to popular belief, the era of decolonisation was less a successful freedom struggle on the part of Africans, than a voluntary albeit gradual withdrawal by colonisers. It was the logical consequence of the general realisation among colonial powers that their colonies were simply not worth holding onto. The days of Commerce, Christianity and Civilisation — the three Cs providing the motivation for exploration and colonisation — had given way to disillusion in all three respects. In addition, values had changed among the Western electorate. Weakened by two world wars, Western civilisation had expended much of its collective energy to the point where it could no longer generate much public support for holding onto troublesome and generally non-profitable colonies.

While many critics have maintained that European powers relinquished their colonies reluctantly, the evidence indicates otherwise. Those adhering to various economic theories of imperialism, explaining European expansion into Africa as providing important markets and outlets for exports, will be disappointed to learn that commercial investments in and trade with Africa were generally trivial, the exception being South Africa. Germany’s exports to Africa constituted less than one per cent of its total exports, while Britain’s investments into Canada alone exceeded the combined sum of investments into India and Africa.

As a source of raw materials, particularly minerals, Africa held a slightly higher ranking in the order of importance, but only in some concentrated areas, such as the South African gold mines or the West African cocoa and palm oil regions. Britain received less than seven per cent of its imports from the vast expanse of its African colonies, less than from any other continent. Germany’s colonies were no better, with only Togo being even remotely profitable.¹⁴

From the point of view of Africa, the impact of colonialism was enormous. New agriculture, literacy and infrastructure profoundly altered the way Africans lived and thought. A single railroad box-car could carry as much freight as 300 slaves or porters, and cover the distance for which the latter would require two months in just two days, while consumer patterns among the élite did start to reflect those of the Europeans.¹⁵

More importantly, however, the African élite started to understand the dynamics of the ideological conflicts between the major European powers. Along with their own political aspirations and a wave of black nationalism on the continent came the opportunities provided by the enhanced strategic value of Africa within the context of the Cold War.

The decolonisation era was marked by a combination of colonial fatigue due to lack of will, the paternalistic Zeitgeist of ‘the white man’s burden’, and strategic considerations in securing the goodwill and co-operation of the new governments in an effort to counter communist expansion. Of particular strategic value, both in term of minerals and geopolitics, was South Africa.

This era saw a number of low intensity conflicts being fought by the colonial powers in Kenya, Angola, South West Africa (Namibia), Rhodesia and elsewhere. These so-called ‘liberation wars’ provided more of a good reason to jettison the colonies, with little sign of the determination which had characterised the European imperial powers during the initial conquests less than a century earlier.

The end of the Cold War saw a drastic strategic marginalisation. Without indispensable strategic ‘choke points’ and no competing powerblocs, the strategic role faded. Economic decline, poverty, disease, famine, corruption, dictatorship and general political instability had already become synonymous with the African continent, whose various ethnic groups sought self-determination in countless uprisings. With accelerated marginalisation, many governments in Africa were unable to exercise administrative control over great parts of their territory, entire regions being under the de facto control of rebel movements and/or ethnonationalist separatists.

The absence of stability has prevented Africa from successfully competing for the much needed investments on a new and truly global market, while its élite are reluctant to consider the breaking of taboos preventing the abolition of colonial boundaries seriously. Only the Independence of Eritrea in 1991, for a brief moment, created the impression that the developments in Eastern Europe would be repeated and would see a rapid fragmentation of Africa’s artificial states and its colonial boundaries. This failed to occur for a number of reasons that go beyond the scope of this article.

Nonetheless, what remains today is a deep-rooted anti-Western sentiment among African leaders who are confronted by little international sympathy for their repressive measures. Couched in pseudo-intellectual theories of ‘neo-colonialism’, these sentiments have resulted in what is generally regarded as the North-South conflict. The South tends to be the driving force here, arguing that its relative underdevelopment can be attributed to being structurally, and therefore by implication deliberately disadvantaged by the policies of the developed North.

Reflected in this is the conceptual framework of so-called ‘blame cultures’ that see the source of their problems as inherently external and not of their own doing. More objectively, the causes that go beyond the acknowledged problems associated with colonial boundaries, include aspects which are of a cultural-developmental nature, such as:

work ethic, i.e. the inability to understand the correlation between ‘status’ and ‘achievement’;

the inability to accept responsibility for individual or collective failure; and

nepotism, i.e. the extended family or clan as the basic unit of social organisation.¹⁶

Western governments have also experienced a reduction of the status of the nation-state. Consequently, the falling away of strategic ideological considerations has been accelerated by increasingly business-oriented ‘risk to profit ratio’ considerations which simply do not always make Africa seem an attractive proposition.

Globalisation sees the continent not only being reduced in geopolitical importance, but its inhabitants also increasingly being left to their own devices. Having seen the population of sub-Saharan Africa increase eight-fold over little more than a century, the competition for scarce resources and environmental degradation have also drastically increased, becoming major factors in the intensification of ethnic conflict. The ethnic group provides a better — if not the only — chance for individuals to compete for and acquire access to water and land. This constitutes a daily reality and provides the megapolitical factors that are manifested in the so-called ‘vicious cycle of violence and poverty’.

In the final analysis, it is a combination of geography, receding Western power, and Africa’s apparent inability to secure stability and development that provides the framework for the marginalisation of the continent. With little hope of countering ethnification, and consequently preventing already existing or potential fragmentation, African leaders would be well-advised to allow self-determination by their various national components and thereby provide them with an incentive for peace. Peace has to pay in order to be desirable for those who have so far only been able to get what they could take and hold what they are able to defend. Policies of so-called ‘nationbuilding’ that disregard the cultural ‘breathing space’ of self-defined ethnocultural population groups, intentionally or unintentionally threaten these with de facto ‘nationdestroying’ (ethnocide), thereby stimulating and fuelling ethnonationalism.¹⁷ Even the political fragmentation of boundaries holds greater prospects for peace, in so far as lasting ‘deals’ can only be made with representative and legitimate structures, which can be held accountable and hold a greater stake in peace. At this stage, African states have either already experienced de facto fragmentation or have representatives who hold little power outside the government building where they meet with the representatives of international organisations and governments.

To illustrate this point, one only needs to look at the repeated failures in securing any kind of lasting peace deal in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

While the above realities, as well as geographic and cultural distance dampen Western enthusiasm, this did not initially disqualify Africa from any and all interventionism, as a number of post-Cold War interventions by Western powers and the UN have shown. In addition, intervention is a multidimensional concept, comprising various measures, such as:

Most of the above constitute aspects of ‘soft power’, falling short of any coercive measures usually associated with intervention in violent conflicts such as those which wreak havoc across Africa’s poverty belt. Attaching development aid to human rights issues has become a well-entrenched practice among Western donors, thus also constituting a form of intervention.

The apparent lack of will in the West for high-risk military intervention — displayed in the hasty retreat from Mogadishu after the humiliating losses sustained by the US intervention troops, and the paralysis of the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) personnel during Africa’s most blatant genocide — is a product of the reduction in its collective energy. In both cases — first in a failed attempt to seize the Somali warlord Aideed and later with the literal slaughter of ten Belgian paratroopers in Kigali — the world’s last superpower, as well as the ultimate global conflict regulator in the form of the UN retreated in the face of little more than machete wielding ethnic militias and urban warriors. Naturally, this does little to discourage warlords elsewhere to challenge the international order. In fact, it could be argued that the half-hearted intervention in Somalia encouraged subsequent conflicts and acts of genocide.

Many of the people engaging in conflict in Africa are ‘warriors’ rather than soldiers, and conduct war on a far less structured level.¹⁹ For some groups and individuals, war is a way of life, lacking almost all forms of medium to long-term objectives, with participants basically leading a subsistence life as marauders and pirates. They are mostly found in the very darkest alleys of the global village, and unfortunately sometimes become rulers in what are officially still referred to as ‘states’. In West Africa, particularly Liberia and Sierra Leone, such groups have been characterised by the display of a type of barbarism that stretches the limits of Western imagination. Among them are superstitious aspects such as witchcraft, voodoo, human sacrifice and ritual cannibalism on a remarkable scale and magnitude. Other parts of the continent are also increasingly becoming affected by similar symptoms. In South Africa, for example, the Commission on Witchcraft and Ritual Violence in the Northern Province found that 231 people have been murdered in incidents related to witchcraft between April 1994 and April 1995, warning that this constituted a growing trend.²⁰

Liberia’s warlord, General ‘Butt Naked’ (Joshua Milton Blahi), for example, was renowned for his supposed ‘magical’ powers which he claimed to have acquired through regular human sacrifice. He led a rag-tag militia of men who would enter battle naked or wearing dresses and wigs. Men and boys like these engaged in barbaric acts, ranging from the disembowelling of pregnant women to settle arguments over the probable sex of the foetus, to ritual cannibalism.²¹ Before him, Charles Taylor shocked the world in 1990 when he filmed the prolonged torture of Liberian President Samuel Doe, and subsequently distributed the video recording throughout the region. In 1992, the neighbouring Sierra Leone saw the mass execution of plotters against the Strasser regime, their ears cut off and shot on Hamilton Beach.²² Child warriors and semi-naked, often intoxicated men with a large assortment of weapons are thrown together in groups and movements which operate with superstitious fatalism and barbarous violence. They become the unpredictable and unreliable parties in any attempts to tie warring factions to a process aimed at inducing peace.

For Westerners, dealing with intrastate conflict remains an enigma because of the fixed mindset prevailing from the era of the nation-state and ideological conflict. It is also the infinite number of unknown variables that are involved in communal conflicts, where interests are often not defined by ideology or classical ‘state interests’, which provide for a murky picture. Frustrated by the lack of conceptual clarity, the influence over warring factions like those mentioned above, remains limited. Core issues, such as the concept ‘peace’, for example, are often defined differently by Western observers and representatives, than by the parties engaged in mutual slaughter. While theoretical consensus exists in the West that the definition of peace essentially constitutes the absence of violence, experience has shown that, in communal conflicts in Africa, the definition seemed more focused on the absence of opponents.

This is a fundamental difference based on the presence of two extremely diverse value systems, the one philosophically rooted in Western enlightenment and humanism, the other firmly rooted in the realities of Africa. This is where ‘civilisation’s faultlines’ become apparent and no amount of imitation of Western ideologies has resulted in the manifestation of what are widely — and wrongly — regarded as ‘universal’ human rights. Those propagating the universality of human rights seldom realise that they are propagating values that are first and foremost Western, and hardly hold the same position on the list of priorities of the people most involved in violence along the development periphery.²³ Outside the shrinking influence of the still dominant Western ‘core’, culture-specific conceptions of individualism, representative structures, rule of law, and the division between state and religion are all issues that have not yet been resolved and may not necessarily follow the same course of development as in the West. For all the good intentions of those propagating this well-intended form of Western cultural imperialism, it is also increasingly likely that these values will not manifest themselves everywhere.

Dealing with such opponents, even where they are militarily relatively insignificant, is therefore more than a mere military operation, and requires a cultural change in mass perceptions or a permanent repressive military presence. Western political interests are limited to the former and not willing to be committed to the latter, aiming at pacification of the conflict rather than a cultural crusade.

Western sensitivity to violence and losses effectively precludes the wide range of military options that go beyond the Distant Retaliation Doctrine responsible for the results of Operation Desert Storm and, more recently, those of the Allied Force in the Kosovo conflict. The reluctance to deploy ground forces in combat scenarios where the distinction between friend and foe, combatant and civilian appears murky, is even greater when such scenarios hold little or no strategic benefits, as is the case in Africa. The latter may not necessarily have provided the prime motivation for the Kosovo intervention, but then again it was on Europe’s doorstep and not in a faraway and remote area of the globe.

Facing a demographic time bomb in terms of the global ageing crisis, and a wide range of potential future conflict scenarios due to the large numbers of immigrants from less compatible cultures, the West’s receding influence is strongest felt along those areas of the periphery which are culturally the furthest from the core, in other words, Africa. Westerners neither want to see white soldiers on their television screens shooting Africans, nor the bodies of their own soldiers dragged through the streets by the inhabitants of distant cities.

Fear of becoming involved in unwinnable wars, or getting caught between warring factions of ethnic groups whose conflicts are more intricate and durable than most of those with good intentions tend to understand, is causing Western military planners carefully to avoid repetitions of failed missions. There are insufficient legitimate political and efficient state structures with which the conflict could be regulated and peace implementation structured.

Certainly among Western military planners, these considerations play a role in the reluctance to invest forces, resources and time in areas of conflict that seemingly lack the inherent preconditions for peace as it is understood in the West.

With the US holding its position as the ‘last remaining superpower’, interventions in the 1990s largely reflected the realities of a monopolar world system, with US political will being pivotal to what constitutes ‘Western intervention’. This period seems to be nearing its end, gradually being replaced by a multipolar global order that increasingly reflects the controversial ‘clash of civilisations’ paradigm first postulated by Samuel Huntington in 1993. Certainly, the inability of the US to prevent nuclear proliferation on the Indian subcontinent, the humiliating setback in Somalia, followed by a series of successful strikes by fundamentalists against US installations, have forced it to concentrate on priorities such as the Korean peninsula and the Middle East.

Consequently, the preconditions for intervention have been reduced to include the following:

The situation must constitute a threat to the stability of an important region of the world, e.g. Lebanon or Kashmir. Africa, as has previously been pointed out, holds little importance and is a marginal continent.



The conflict must be generating mass suffering, resulting in domestic pressure and support for military intervention. Conflicts that receive little attention in the media, and are therefore not transported into the living rooms of Western societies are not taking place in the minds of the masses, for all practical purposes. With the Kosovo campaign, a ‘C List Category’ interest was elevated to an ‘A List Category’ due to media pressure generated by the attention focusing on the suffering of the Kosovo Albanians, a dangerous reality of the information age.²⁴ In the case of Africa, the extent of suffering witnessed over the decades seems to have had a numbing effect on audiences in the West. Apparently resigned to the inevitability of bad news from Africa, the pictures of suffering have become less frequent and seldom elicit anything other than sympathy and the routine air drops of basic supplies.



The conflict must be threatening a multi-ethnic democracy, e.g. Bosnia. The scarcity of multi-ethnic democracies is most apparent in Africa and this point consequently hardly applies at all.



There should be a close historical link with Europe or the US. Apart from US involvement in seeking solutions to the Northern Ireland conflict, much of its foreign policy is increasingly determined by the lobbies of its various ethnic diasporas. Most of these originate in non-African areas, and utilise their influence to elevate their own countries of origin on the list of priorities and foreign policy objectives.²⁵

The US has committed the most resources to those conflicts that have included the above criteria and where national interests needed to be secured. Parts of the globe that did not comply with the above preconditions have seen little efforts at possible intervention, e.g. Burundi, Rwanda and Sri Lanka.²⁶ Nonetheless, the role of the Afrocentrist lobby in American politics, and its growing influence and desire for greater ties with Africa are at least likely to maintain some efforts on the part of the US. Whether this can act as a serious counterweight to the marginalisation of the continent remains to be seen. In the final analysis, though, the combined marginalisation of sub-Saharan Africa and the receding Western influence world-wide, are megapolitical trends which ultimately dictate the future of Western intervention. The need to concentrate forces and resources where Western interests are considered to be the most at stake, makes Kosovo of greater importance than the Congo.

The last decade of the millennium has seen more Western efforts aimed at improving Africa’s own capacity to secure peace. Regional co-operation, in the form of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), created the ECOWAS Military Observer Group (ECOMOG), with the aim of implementing peace agreements and conducting peacekeeping operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Co-ordination with the UN was to be secured through a UN Observer Mission (UNOMIL). ECOMOG’s performance as an intervention force has not only been substandard in military terms, but has little to do with peacekeeping in the UN sense of the word, with the assembled forces suffering from major force degradation in the form of ill-disciplined and violent behaviour.²⁷ Subsequent US efforts aimed at building peacekeeping and intervention capacity among African states have so far borne little fruit.

In the final analysis, it might be prudent for African states to accept that they are unlikely to receive massive foreign assistance in expanding regional capabilities and that they cannot expect direct foreign intervention to be more than a rare exception. Solutions to the continent’s plagued conflict areas will ultimately require a new approach stemming from an internal paradigm shift.

Africa is yearning for a new approach to conflict management, and it will require a fundamental paradigm shift in this regard. The following approach will need to be considered.

Allowing ethnic partition on the basis of self-determination can be reconciled with the need to form more viable states. Fears of a ‘domino effect’ and greater violence are largely offset by the already existing reality that the ‘psychological geography’ of Africa’s inhabitants bears no relation to the maps of published atlases. In addition, those areas currently rendered non-viable due to structural ethnic conflict as a result of arbitrary colonial boundaries, could return to relative stability. Of 27 ethnic civil wars which were ended over the period 1944 to 1994, twelve were suppressed through the complete victory of one side, five through partition, and two through military occupation by a third party. In the end, only eight were ended through an agreement that did not partition the country.²⁸ In fact, between 1945 and 1987, nine of fourteen UN peace operations were interstate, whereas only six of 24 were interstate since then.²⁹ Even when measured in terms of lives, implemented partition models hold an average of 13 000 deaths, while multi-ethnic models stand at an average of 250 000, the latter also being inherently less stable and permanent than the former.³⁰

The basis for ethnic conflict resolution seems to lie in the recognition and acceptance, on the part of all the parties involved, of an underlying ethnocultural incompatibility which can best be addressed in a peaceful manner by implementing partition. Separatists tend to propagate partition as a first option over secession, which has a higher conflict potential, arguing that when ethnic conflict is inevitable or already at a stage where it has culminated in violence, partition is a humane way of "... achieving through negotiation what would otherwise be achieved through fighting."³¹ The fear that this merely transforms an intrastate conflict into an interstate one, is unjustified. In the case of interstate conflict, a certain degree of objectivity prevails because the conflict is controlled by state structures, therefore allowing for the possibility of external influence, structural adjustments and a change in power relations. Ethnocultural intrastate conflict, in stark contrast, is a subjective and emotional form of communal conflict that seems to depend more on changes in mass perceptions in order to improve the relationship between distinct parallel communities, aiming at the way these behave and understand each other.³² It is important to be dealing with visible, legitimate leaders and organisations which have influence among the various warring factions and which can be held responsible.³³ Allowing ethnic groups state or state-like structures tend to ensure this to some extent.

The fear that even less viable states will result from allowing such fragmentation, is not entirely unfounded. It is more likely, however, to be compensated by the realisation by ethnic groups that their desire for independence will have to be balanced against the desire to be prosperous. An example might be the ‘Tutsi triangle’ of Rwanda, Burundi and Zaïre that, in all likelihood, would result in a state characterised by greater stability. Due to the relative cultural homogeneity of such a structure, this would enable national consensus and the establishment of development priorities. National values determine national interests and this is the primary reason why an ethnically almost homogeneous, though relatively poor and landlocked Botswana has remained more stable than most other states in Africa, although the latter often hold far greater geopolitical and resource assets than the former.

The current international fascination with cease-fires and conventional steps towards achieving peace are prolonging and postponing conflicts rather than solving them. During the Cold War with its possibility of escalating a regional conflict into a world war and the scenario of mutually assured destruction (MAD), arresting conflict through cease-fires was a prudent and necessary measure.

In the current circumstances, this approach has turned into what could be termed a ‘peace industry’, providing a sense of mission for many people who desire a life of doing good things. Driven by the good intentions of individuals and organisations or just plain gratitude junkies from Western surplus societies, this industry perpetuates rather than resolves conflicts. Its refugee camps have provided bases and safe havens for the combatants of a number of warring parties in Lebanon, Zaïre and Cambodia, while also preserving resentment and allowing recruitment drives. If not through bias, UN structures and highly competitive non-governmental organisations (NGOs) aid combatants through their inability to defend their supplies and infrastructure from becoming part and parcel of the logistic inventory of warring parties.

Cease-fires allow the warring sides to rest, regroup, refit and retrain. Once cease-fires are negotiated, none of the sides are faced with imminent defeat or the prospect of intolerable losses. Most of their energy is now invested in the ‘next round’ and a ‘better luck next time’ attitude prevails. The very incentive for a lasting settlement is removed, with the various parties returning to their preparations for the next round of conflict. Angola offers a model example of how wars can be prolonged and how peacekeeping can fail dismally in the face of international organisations preferring to treat symptoms rather than causes.³⁴

It is sometimes better to let the conflict burn until a clear winner emerges or the parties experience fatigue through mutual attrition. It is important for people in conflict zones to become tired of war, before they develop a capability to reach consensus that would be conducive to the resolution of the conflict and the implementation of a lasting peace.

If and when military intervention is decided upon, it must be swift and decisive. It must become clear to the combatants that the intervention forces have a mandate to engage forces contravening security council resolutions and/or agreements, including cease-fires. Facing the reality that multinational commands have the problem of ensuring quality and a common standard of conduct among the composite forces from member states, one dominant and militarily capable force must provide the core of any task force that is deployed. This was the case in the Kosovo campaign, where seventy per cent of forces in the air were US, and with the intervention in East Timor where the Australian contingent provided the core.

Multinational forces hold the same problems of cohesion as multi-ethnic militaries, and consequently suffer from troop degradation that remains hidden from the external observer until a force is put to the test and fails dismally, for example, the South African National Defence Force in Lesotho in 1998. Cohesion in heterogeneous forces is their Achilles heel and even the French Foreign Legion has shown varying combat performance based upon its ethnocultural composition at the time of deployment.³⁵

Interventions are products of a number of coinciding factors. The preconditions are seldom applied fairly and instead base themselves predominantly on a geopolitical priority list. Africa’s place on that priority list will vary from case to case, but it generally appears more likely that the West will neither have the sustained will nor the capabilities to put the lid on every current or future conflict in Africa. While its presence will be felt, military intervention will be limited to sporadic interventions at most, predominantly aimed at minimising casualties among ‘own forces’.

Hence, it is advisable that Africa should take control of its own destiny in dealing with ethnic regional conflicts in a more tolerant and flexible manner, thus departing from the rigidity of the ideological era. Boundaries must coincide with the ethnic composition of the population, or should at least not attempt to integrate incompatible cultures forcefully under a ruling multi-ethnic power élite. Such a new approach will involve the management of the fragmentation that will beset African states, but that can be channelled in a positive manner and allow for a gradual and constructive restructuring process.

This article is published in support of Training for Peace, a project sponsored by Norway and executed by the ISS in partnership with the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs (NUPI) and the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD).

British troops were equally shocked by what they often faced in Africa, e.g. the Benin campaign. The conduct of war throughout Africa before, during and after colonisation has apparently not changed much in terms of savagery. The level of cruelty sometimes experienced, became so intolerable that British troops have been seen to open fire on allied Massai tribesmen because these could not be otherwise dissuaded from butchering the non-combatants of the opposing side en masse. See L James, The savage wars, Robert Hale, London, 1985, pp 121-124.



D D’Souza, The end of racism, Free Press, New York, 1995, pp 72-73.



JDDavidson & W Rees-Mogg, The great reckoning, Pan, London, 1992, p 147.



Sorrow and shame: Brutal North African slave trade ignored and denied, The City Sun, 22 March 1996.



T Sowell, Conquests and cultures, Free Press, New York, 1998, pp 111-112.



RDKaplan, The ends of the earth, Random House, New York, 1996, p 18.



As the profit margin was a mere ten per cent, the interest of slave traders to bring their ‘cargo’ alive to the destined ports was high. In later years, slaves would even be inoculated and more spaciously loaded into ships in an effort to maximise profits by raising survival rates. See Der Spiegel, 8, 1998, pp 148-150.



J Landes, The wealth and poverty of nations, Free Press, New York, 1998, pp 117-118.



The abolition of slavery destabilised African societies by taking away an important economic pillar, while their traditional way of life was being questioned. See D’Souza, op cit, p 106.



Ibid, p 105.



At the turn of the century, the British launched several military operations into the more remote regions of West Africa for this very purpose, encountering numerous scenes of mass sacrifice, crucifixion, massacre and ritual cannibalism. See James, op cit, pp 121-124.



Arab slave traders along the east coast of Africa were notorious for throwing slaves overboard as soon as British ships were sighted. This way, they could at least save their ships and hope for better luck next time. See Sowell, op cit, p 112.



James, op cit, p 124.



The private sector investments were hardly worth the trouble, with only eight out of nineteen sisal plantations, four out of 22 cocoa plantations, eight out of 58 rubber plantations, and three out of 48 diamond mines paying any dividends. See Sowell, op cit, p 117.



Ibid, pp 117-118.



R Peters, Fighting for the future, Stackpole, US, 1999, pp 155-157.



W Connor, Ethnonationalism: The quest for understanding, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995, p 29.



D Callahan, Unwinnable wars, Hill and Wang, New York, 1999, pp 135-165.



Unlike warriors, soldiers depend almost entirely on the state. They pledge allegiance to it, enjoy recognised legal status, and function as the ‘restorer of order’ both within and beyond the boundaries of the state.



Noord Transvaler, 28 Julie 1995, pp 21-22.



R Herbert, Dark sacrifice, Sunday Times, 7 September 1997, pp 14-17.



RDKaplan, The coming anarchy, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994, p 74.



This is also described as a distinguishing characteristic of the West, with Huntington citing one study where out of fifty countries examined, nineteen of the twenty with the highest individualism index were Western. Elsewhere, the concept was situated near the bottom of the list of priorities cited by participants from non-Western cultures. See SPHuntington, The West: Unique, not universal, Foreign Affairs, 75(6), November/December 1996, p 32.



JSNye, Redefining national interest, Foreign Affairs, 78(4),July/August 1999, p 32.



SPHuntington, The erosion of American national interests, Foreign Affairs, 76(1), January/February 1997, p 53.



Callahan, op cit, p 133.



A Parsons, From Cold War to hot place: UN interventions 1947-1994, Michael Joseph, London, 1995, pp 215-219.



C Kaufmann, Possible and impossible solutions to ethnic civil wars, International Security, 20(4), Spring 1996, p 161.



T Cucolo, Grunt diplomacy: In the beginning there were only soldiers, Parameters, Spring 1999, p 112.



Kaufmann, op cit.



JTMathews, Power shift, Foreign Affairs, 76(1), January/February 1997, pp 23-24.



T Woodhouse, Commentary: Negotiating a new millennium? Prospects for African conflict resolution, Review of African Political Economy, 68, 1996, p 136.



Western observers have difficulty accepting the possibility of legitimate leaders not necessarily being democratically elected. In most cases of conflict resolution, however, the West’s preferred discussion partner has seldom been the one with the most influence among the people.



ENLuttwak, Give war a chance, Foreign Affairs, July/August 1999, p 39.



D Porch, The French Foreign Legion, 1993, p 619, points out that the legion performed at its best when it was dominated by Germans who "were not to be outdone in skills or courage by legionnaires from other countries." One legionnaire said, "[t]he legion is only as good as its worst German legionnaire."