CREATIVE APPROACHES TO

MANAGING CONFLICT IN AFRICA

Findings from USIP-Funded Projects

Edited by David R. Smock

UNITED STATESINSTITUTE OF PEACE

Summary v

1 Innovative Diplomatic Initiatives 1

2 NGOs Engaged in Preventive Action 5

3 Democratic Reform and Reform of African Militaries 8

4 Training for Peacemaking 14

5 Building on Locally-Based and Traditional Peace Processes 16

6 Humanitarian Aid and Conflict Prevention 22

7 Culture of Peace 25

Notes 27

About the Grantees 28

About the Editor 29

About the Institute 31

CONTENTS

The purpose of this essay is to share somelessons of projects which have identified or im-plemented innovative approaches to managing

Africa’s conflicts, and examine their potential applica-bility to other conflicts there or elsewhere. All the pro-jects described in this Peaceworks have beensupported by grants from the U.S. Institute of Peace.

Each of the directors of these Institute-assisted pro-jects was asked to distill project lessons regardingpeacemaking in Africa with applicability beyond thespecific cases dealt with in their projects. Their state-ments were then edited and adapted for inclusion inPeaceworks.

INNOVATIVE APPROACHES

The need for innovative approaches to managing con-flict in Africa is immediately evident from daily head-lines about war and killings in such countries asRwanda, Burundi, Liberia, Sudan, Zaire, and Somalia,and growing tensions in others such as Nigeria.

In assessing the state of war and peace in Africa onemust, however, balance the daily tragedies in thesecountries with the impressive achievements of peaceand increasing normalcy in others like South Africa,Namibia, Mozambique, Uganda, Eritrea, and Zim-babwe. The fact that there are remarkable stories ofsuccessful peacemaking in many African countrieshelps to remind the predictors of continent-wide

chaos and tragedy that warring African countries arenot the norm. Nor will the existing wars last forever.Many wars have ended, and even in countries wheretension and violence still prevail there are impressiveexamples of efforts to manage conflict.

This publication identifies some programs, pro-jects, and interventions that have succeeded, and indi-cates the wide applicability of some. Lessons aredrawn from each case about how either to replicatesuccesses or turn past failures into future success.

Case material is drawn from many parts of theAfrican continent—from Liberia, Ghana, Nigeria,Angola, South Africa, Mozambique, Somalia, Ethiopia,Sudan, Eritrea, Uganda, Zaire, Mali, Benin, Tanzania,Burundi, and Rwanda. The cases cited are not isolatedanecdotes, but provide empirical findings linked tobroader theories of peacemaking.

- Innovative American Diplomatic Initiatives Her-man Cohen asserts that the United States has aspecial image in Africa and in turn a unique role toplay in peacemaking and peacebuilding there. Toplay this role effectively, the State Department’sAfrica Bureau needs to make full use of U.S. em-bassies in key African countries; give Americanambassadors in the field maximum leeway; cooptthe U.S. national security community in its efforts;start early; and bring multilateral agencies into theprocess at an early stage.

- African Mediation Gilbert Khadiagala points outthat the greatest strength of African mediators liesin their proximity to the disputes and their under-standing of historical context. But neighborly in-terest does not necessarily translate into capacityfor effective mediation. African mediators often donot have the necessary information available tothem to be effective. The use of heads of state asmediators is usually constrained by their inabilityto devote the extended time that intensive andprolonged mediation requires.

- NGOs Engaged in Preventive Action BarnettRubin describes the effect of the Burundi PolicyForum in assisting NGOs to form innovative part-nerships with governments and multilaterals thatare trying to limit further violence in Burundi.Elizabeth Cabot and Sir John Thomson report on a collaborative project between the MinorityRights Group and the United Nations in planninga strategy for the UN and other external powers to

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SUMMARY

help reverse the process of state and societal col-lapse in Zaire. Their principal recommendation isthat priority be given to the stimulation of civil so-ciety in Zaire from the grassroots upward. Therole of external actors should be limited to that of catalyst, offering information and modestfinancial support.

- Democratic Reform and Reform of African Mili-

taries Julius Ihonvbere argues that religious con-flict in Nigeria largely arises from politicalmanipulation, and that the most effective meansof managing it is through the introduction of gen-uine democratic reforms. Robin Luckham pointsout that the democratic transition underway inmany African countries must include special at-tention to the future role of African militaries,civil-military relations, and consideration ofwhether the military is best controlled by exclud-ing it from politics or by recognizing and institu-tionalizing its political role. Eboe Hutchfuldescribes the instructive process through whichGhana’s civil authorities have achieved democra-tic control over Ghana’s military. The process wasfacilitated by the fact that Ghana’s democraticallyelected president has a military background andbrought special knowledge of the military to hiscivilian leadership.

- Training for Peacemaking Hibaaq Osman de-scribes the effectiveness of a training program forSomali women in conflict resolution and the im-pact it is having at village and district levels. Themost notable finding is the impact that womencan play as peacemakers even in a male-domi-nated society like Somalia.

- Building on Locally Based and Traditional

Peace Processes John Prendergast illustrates

the importance of local peace initiatives in theHorn countries which use the traditional peace-making roles of elders and rely on traditionalpeacemaking methods. Wal Duany describes avery significant peace process in 1993, built ontraditional practices, organized to manage intra-ethnic conflict among the Nuer of southern Su-dan after 1,300 people had been killed. MaxwellOwusu describes the critical peacemaking rolesof traditional chiefs as well as church leaders inGhana. Wolfgang Heinrich reveals the very lim-ited effectiveness of the introduction of districtcouncils to manage conflict in Somalia during1993-95, primarily because the councils wereviewed as rivals of traditional clan structures, aswell as because the UN was too rigidly prescrip-tive and hasty in its efforts to organize them.

- Humanitarian Aid and Conflict Prevention Pren-dergast outlines a series of guidelines to ensurethat humanitarian aid contributes to peace ratherthan exacerbating conflict. Aid givers, he says,need to do independent assessments of needs, beastute and flexible in the types of aid provided,study the effects of targeting and distributionmethods, commit to independent monitoringand evaluation, and promote intercommunaltrade and exchange.

- Culture of Peace Carolyn Nordstrom points outthe degree to which a “culture of peace” that rein-forces progress toward peace and reconciliationhas developed in Mozambique in the post-settle-ment period. She also contrasts Mozambiquewith Angola, where no parallel culture of peacehas appeared.

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During the 1980s and early 1990s, theUnited States was the most active and effec-tive diplomatic force in efforts to resolve

Africa’s many civil wars, though after the debacle inSomalia, the United States has progressively with-drawn from its activist program and more of the bur-den of peacemaking has been passed to Africans. Oneproject examining diplomatic initiatives drawslessons from American intervention in Africa duringthe Bush administration, and another assesses prob-lems and prospects faced by African mediators whohave intervened in East African conflicts.

AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC INTERVENTION

When the Bush administration took office in 1989,the Cold War rationale for assisting specific Africancountries was virtually gone, but assisting Africa toachieve self-sustaining economic growth remainedvery compelling. As a consequence, the State Depart-ment’s Bureau of African Affairs had a highly activistpolicy of diplomatic intervention in African conflictsduring Bush’s presidency.

With a USIP grant Herman J. Cohen, assistant sec-retary of state for African affairs during the Bush ad-ministration, is writing a book to reflect on Americandiplomatic intervention in seven significantly differ-ent internal conflicts in African countries. Each coun-try has its own character and the root causes of each

conflict were unique. In addition, the countries’ politi-cal and economic systems differed widely and theconflicts were at different stages when the AfricaBureau launched an initiative. Nevertheless, there aresome general conclusions worth drawing from theBureau’s experiences in dealing with these conflicts.

First, says Cohen, working-level decision-makingand willpower can make a difference. As assistant sec-retary, Cohen decided to push the policy envelope asmuch as possible. He and his colleagues pursued ahighly activist approach, with considerable energy ex-erted by American embassies in Africa, and with ex-tensive personal diplomacy by American diplomats.The Africa Bureau also engaged in a vigorous policy ofbringing other national security agencies on board. (Ifthe Africa Bureau had decided to pursue a relativelypassive policy, higher political levels would probablynot even have noticed, much less criticized them.)While the Bureau did not justify its activist approachas “vital to U.S. national security interests,” Cohen andhis colleagues were able to demonstrate that theycould pursue their goals within existing resourcesand without damaging other U.S. interests. The high-est-level policymakers understood this approach, hadconfidence in their judgment, and let them proceed.

The United States has a special image in Africathat no other country has. The sole remaining super-power exercises a special influence in Africa, particu-larly in conflict situations where frightenedprotagonists need psychological bolstering by a neu-tral entity. The experience of the Africa Bureau in theseven conflict situations Cohen describes demon-strated that one or both sides to a conflict usually wel-comes American involvement because of theperception that only the United States can supply thesecurity guarantees that will ensure that agreementsare implemented. The United States has to be carefulto use its influence constructively, as was demon-strated decisively in Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozam-bique.

In Ethiopia, for example, the Bureau’s interventionhad some unintended consequences. After the UnitedStates took over the mediation of the war betweenEthiopia and Eritrean insurgents, the Ethiopianarmy’s will to continue the war eroded rapidly. Withthe United States involved, the assumption was thatthe war would be over soon, and nobody wanted tobe the last to be killed in combat. The weight of Amer-ican influence also became evident during detailedmilitary negotiations in Mozambique and Angola;American military experts were able to persuade

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negotiators to accept certain dispositions for thecombatants where others had failed, because thenegotiating parties had confidence in the UnitedStates. Cohen and his colleagues also found thatAfrican government leaders were sometimes able toovercome internal opposition to negotiations by in-voking the influence of the American government.This was particularly true in the case of Mozambique,where President Chissano exploited the “pressure” he said was being exerted by Presidents Reagan andBush.

The network of U.S. embassies in selected Africancountries is a vital element to an activist approach.The Bureau’s efforts to advance conflict solutions inAngola, Ethiopia, the Sudan, and Liberia benefitedconsiderably from information supplied, and actionstaken, by neighboring U.S. embassies. Keeping themwell informed paid off handsomely in advancing theBureau’s objectives. Thanks to the embassy in Khar-toum, for example, the Bureau’s relations with theEthiopian insurgents were key to its ability to helpbring about the end of that war with a soft landing in1991. Intensive diplomacy by U.S. ambassadors inGabon, Congo, Zaire, and Cape Verde helped stimu-late Angolan negotiations in 1989. Extending the “in-formation net” to embassies in western Europe,especially London, Paris, Brussels, Lisbon, Geneva,and the Vatican, was also very fruitful. London was avery active center of valuable information on the Su-dan, Somalia, and Ethiopia. Lisbon was naturally ahotbed of Angolan politics. The UN agencies and in-ternational NGOs in Geneva were a rich source of in-formation and insights about conflict situations. Sincesensitive United States interests were not involved inany of the conflicts, there was no need for the Bureauto replicate the tight secrecy of the Kissinger era.

Coopting the U.S. national security community isessential. The Bureau used the national security coor-dinating system intensively in order to make sure itwould not encounter opposition at the working levelsof other agencies, and more importantly, to solicittheir advice and support. This was especially impor-tant in the case of the Department of Defense, the CIA,and the National Security Council (NSC). But work-ing with the U.S. Information Agency (USIA) and theU.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)was also very fruitful. In Somalia, for example, the Bu-reau worked closely with AID’s Office of Foreign Dis-aster Assistance (OFDA) to call higher-level attentionto the growing tragedy between May and October1992. During implementation of the Angolan peace

accords between June 1991 and September 1992,Defense, AID, and USIA contributed innovative andlow-cost solutions to a number of problems. Whowould have imagined, for example, that the ArizonaAir National Guard could be persuaded to do its 1992annual exercises flying ballot boxes and electionworkers to the farthest reaches of Angola?

Starting early is better than starting late. This wasillustrated best in Somalia, where the Bureau coulddiscern the beginnings of a severe crisis when govern-ment forces essentially destroyed the city of Hargeisain 1988 in the course of suppressing a rebellion. Co-hen and his colleagues were inhibited from taking anactivist approach with the regime by the ongoingAmerican requirement to maintain access to the navaland air facility at Berbera on Somalia’s north coast,the strategic back door to the Persian Gulf and theArabian peninsula. So long as this access was re-quired, the State Department was reluctant to rockthe boat by applying diplomatic pressure on the SiadBarre regime. When the United States finally did in-tervene militarily in December 1992, the cost wasvery high and the United States ended by losing thefacility anyway. Exerting “tough love” with friends atan early stage of conflict, says Cohen, is the best wayto uphold American strategic and economic interests.

Talk to everyone. When high-level U.S. diplomatstalk to insurgent groups, they gain instant legitimacy—and a delicate balance must be maintained if theUnited States also wants to maintain good relationswith the regime in power. Cohen and his colleagueslearned the value of talking to everyone without wor-rying about injured sensibilities. The Bureau began adialogue with RENAMO in Mozambique after theirpredecessors had snubbed it, helping hasten the on-set of negotiations, Cohen believes. The Sudaneseregimes objected to American dialogue with the SLPArebels in the south, but privately used American chan-nels to send messages to the south. The United States,as a global power, can pull this off, indicates Cohen,and should exploit the technique to the fullest. TheBureau’s dialogue with the Ethiopian insurgents wasespecially fruitful in bringing that conflict to an end.

Bring the multilaterals in early. If the UN is goingto be involved in a final peace agreement, it should bein at the beginning. Cohen believes that he and hiscolleagues made a mistake in the Angola negotiationsby including UN peacekeeping and election monitor-ing as part of the peace process without requestingUN experts to sit at the negotiating table. If UN ex-perts had been there, they would have informed those

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involved how inadequate and unworkable some ofthe arrangements would turn out to be. The samemistake was not made in the Mozambican negotia-tions, where the UN was brought in at an early stage.

Don’t be obsessed with signing ceremonies. Diplo-matic mediators, whose countries do not have a directstake in the outcome, are usually so happy to see war-ring protagonists agree that they are willing to acqui-esce to inadequate and unworkable formulas just forthe sake of agreement. This was true in Angola andRwanda, and both the Rwanda agreement and theoriginal Angola agreement had serious flaws. In An-gola there was a severe problem, which was pre-dictable, of the sequencing of implementation. In thecase of Rwanda, the Arusha agreement was a modelon paper. There was only one problem: the real Rwan-dan government—the people with the guns—were notreally part of the process. Mediators and observersshould be ready to blow the whistle on suchPotemkin agreements even if the protagonists areready to sign. Frequently, such flawed agreementsconstitute a signal that the protagonists see the peaceprocess more as a continuation of the war in anotherform—and an opportunity to rest and regroup be-tween battles—than as a new peaceful beginning fortheir countries. This was clearly the case in Angola,Rwanda, and Liberia.

Give ambassadors maximum leeway. The empha-sis of Cohen and his colleagues on conflict resolutionas a high priority for U.S. policy in Africa sent a strongsignal to American embassies in the field. In thosecountries where the precursors to violent conflictwere particularly obvious, American ambassadors didnot feel they needed permission to play active roles inconflict management. All Cohen required was thatthey keep Washington informed. In Togo the U.S. am-bassador was part of a U.S.-French-German troikaworking to safeguard a very fragile transition to multi-party democracy. In Congo, the embassy played a keyrole in defusing political tensions connected to thecountry’s first free and fair elections. In the CentralAfrican Republic, the ambassador took the lead inpreventing the outgoing military regime from hijack-ing democratic elections. In South Africa there is still avaluable story to be told about how American ambas-sadors engaged in significant “invisible” mediation tohelp the transition from apartheid to majority rule.

By the end of the Bush administration, the experi-ences of the Africa Bureau had yielded a wide varietyof results, from euphoric to disappointing to incon-clusive. Cohen concludes that the immense range of

the Bureau’s diplomatic interventions in the relativelyshort period of four years was all the more astoundinggiven the fact that its strategy was entirely self-gener-ated and not the result of direction from higher levels.The Bureau stayed out of trouble, avoided embarrass-ment for the administration, and did not incur extracosts beyond extensive travel for negotiators and ex-perts.

Cohen concludes that in the final analysis the mostpromising outcome of these policies began to unfoldin 1992, when the Organization of African Unity fi-nally recognized the anomaly of Africans doing littleto help resolve the continent’s civil wars, while theAmericans were intensely engaged. By mid-1996, withthe number of civil wars decreasing, Africans weretaking the lead in the search for solutions to the mostintractable in Burundi, Liberia, and Sudan, with theUnited States and other external parties playing sup-porting roles.

AFRICAN MEDIATION

African interventions—in the Liberian civil war, thethreat to public order in Lesotho, and the threat ofchaos and genocide in Burundi—demonstrate a newlevel of assertiveness in African internal conflicts.African mediators addressing conflicts in East andCentral Africa have only had limited success, but theirexperiences help highlight the requirements for thefuture. The most promising process is that led by for-mer Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, to try tomanage the tragic conflict between Hutus and Tutsisin Burundi.

Gilbert Khadiagala of Kent State University, withsupport from a grant from the Institute of Peace, hasundertaken a study of several cases of African media-tion in East and Central Africa, highlighting some ofthe shortcomings of past mediation and the require-ments for the future. Although in the past African me-diators, usually heads of state, confined their efforts toconflicts between states, there has recently been a re-markable shift toward mediation of domestic con-flicts, consistent with the OAU’s recent shift toconsidering domestic conflicts a legitimate concern.This shift has been reinforced by the involvement ofregional organizations in West Africa, southern Africa,and East Africa in mediation of civil conflict in theirrespective regions.

The greatest strength of African mediators lies intheir proximity to the disputes and their understand-ing of the historical context. African diplomacy has

been characterized by mediation originating fromgeographically proximate states. Khadiagala assertsthat this pattern will remain a fixture of African inter-vention, largely because conflicts in regional neigh-borhoods heighten interest that galvanizes responseby local actors. Kenya and Tanzania were drawn intomediating conflicts in Uganda and Rwanda largely be-cause of the perception that their civil wars had signif-icant repercussions for regional stability. The sameconceptual base underlies the ongoing interventionby the Intergovernmental Authority for Development(IGAD) in Sudan’s civil war.

But neighborly interest does not necessarily trans-late into capacity for effective mediation. Frequentlycivil wars and refugee flows propel neighbors to inter-vene in contiguous conflicts without the resourcesand capacity for effective mediation, says Khadiagala.Thus Kenya, inspired by the mission of helping its“Ugandan brothers,” intervened in 1985 withoutsufficient information about either the parties or thecourse of the conflict. In the end, a protracted andunsuccessful mediation severely affected Kenya’srelationship with post-settlement Uganda.

In all three cases, enormous information gapsnegatively affected the mediation processes. In allthree cases that Khadiagala studied, the mediatorsgroped in the dark for crucial information on suchbasic issues as cease-fire compliance, the identity ofnegotiating parties, and negotiating parameters andpositions of parties.

Information gaps are most easily overcome whenthere are credible African mediators who commandthe trust of the disputants. For example, Rwandanparties perceived Tanzania, because of its record ofsuccessful nationbuilding, as a “natural” mediator inthe Arusha talks on Rwanda’s civil war, rather thanZaire.

While mediation by heads of state (as in the IGADtalks on Sudan and the Nairobi talks on Uganda)lends credibility to the process, the slow andpainstaking nature of mediation often cannot com-pete effectively with other burdens of state. Moreover,

when heads of state stake their domestic and regionalreputations on successful outcomes, the quest forquick agreements overshadows the mediationprocess. Tanzania partially overcame this problemduring the Arusha negotiations by assigning the medi-ation to a professional foreign ministry official, thusreducing the overexposure of the head of the state.

The credibility and character of mediators is evenmore critical in internal conflicts than in interstateconflict. For example, African mediators who pre-scribe power-sharing arrangements as a possible basisfor resolution of conflict confront credibility prob-lems when they lack such arrangements in their owncountries. Kenya’s President Daniel Arap Moi’s medi-ation role in both the Uganda and Sudan talks raisedquestions of credibility along these lines, reinforcingthe perception that his intervention might have beenan attempt at diversion from Kenya’s internal prob-lems.

IGAD’s multilateral effort to help Sudan enabled apooling of resources that seemed to provide an an-swer to the perennial power constraints that bedevilAfrican mediators. But the IGAD mediators have beenunable to articulate common visions of their roles andsustain adequate attention to their intervention. In ad-dition, regional mediators, insofar as they are inter-ested parties, are vulnerable to manipulation by thedisputants, a device employed by the warring partiesin Sudan. In addition, conflicts among the IGADstates themselves have sometimes overshadowed theprimary conflict. Thus, IGAD’s initial intervention tocheck the contagious effects of the Sudanese civil warhas produced new sets of regional conflicts of equalconcern.

Nyerere’s current efforts in Burundi partiallydemonstrate how some of these dilemmas can be suc-cessfully addressed. He is a mediator with a credibledomestic and international record, unencumbered bynational tasks, but backed by strong regional actionand a strong international consensus that his peace-making is the best hope for settling civil conflict inBurundi.

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Efforts to prevent and contain internal conflictsin Africa have recently moved beyond govern-ments and intergovernmental organizations.

While intervention in Africa’s conflicts has tradition-ally been the realm of official diplomacy, NGOs arebeginning to become important actors. In part this de-rives from the increasing reluctance of foreign govern-ments to assume the burdens of peacemaking. But italso reflects a recognition that NGOs have specialcompetence and access that can supplement the capa-bilities of governments and intergovernmental orga-nizations. The case of the Burundi Policy Forum andthe efforts of the Minority Rights Group (USA) to as-sist the UN deal with Zaire illustrate this.

BURUNDI POLICY FORUM

In early 1995 four organizations—the Center for Pre-ventive Action of the Council on Foreign Relations,Search for Common Ground, Refugees International,and the African-American Institute—with funding fromthe U.S. Institute of Peace, organized the Burundi Pol-icy Forum to address the growing crisis in Burundi.Principal responsibility for the Forum rests with Bar-nett Rubin of the Center for Preventive Action.

At the time various NGOs were providing humani-tarian assistance to refugees from Rwanda in Burundiand to displaced persons within Burundi, offeringconflict resolution training in Burundi, and working

on civil-military relations, democratization, humanrights, and other activities. What was lacking was a fo-rum to coordinate the activities of NGOs working inBurundi as well as to coordinate them with the U.S.government and the UN Secretary General’s SpecialRepresentative in Bujumbura. A forum was also con-ceived as a way of sharing information on the rapidlyevolving situation in Burundi.

The Burundi Policy Forum (BPF) was organized inJanuary 1995 and has functioned since as a mecha-nism to share information and coordinate strategies.It convenes representatives of dozens of humanitar-ian, advocacy, and conflict resolution organizationsworking in Burundi, together with officials of interna-tional organizations and governments. These organi-zations include several bureaus of the Department ofState, the OAU, USAID, the CIA, the NSC, the Depart-ment of Defense, the embassies of Burundi, Rwanda,Canada, and France, the UN Department of PoliticalAffairs, the UN Department for Humanitarian Affairs,UNHCR, UNICEF, the International Committee ofthe Red Cross, and the many NGOs which work inBurundi. The Forum constitutes a unique configura-tion of organizations unlike any group addressing is-sues on any other country. It convenes both regularpublic meetings and closed meetings of special work-ing groups focused on security and refugee repatria-tion, most of which are held in Washington.

Individual humanitarian NGOs often work withofficial humanitarian agencies, but rarely coordinatetheir work with those in the political field. NGOs fre-quently compete for funding, seeking to stake outpositions for themselves, which complicates coordi-nation and cooperation. The Forum provides a frame-work in which a variety of participants can exchangeinformation and develop ideas and strategies collec-tively. It has also served as an instrument for earlywarning. Since the situation in the entire CentralAfrican Great Lakes region is interconnected, the Bu-rundi Policy Forum has also served to monitor andmobilize reaction to events in Rwanda and Zaire, par-ticularly in regard to refugee repatriation and the flowof weapons into the region.

Since its foundation, the Forum’s schedule ofregular meetings has generated more continuousattention to the ongoing Burundi crisis by the U.S.government, NGOs, and such other participants asthe UN and the media than otherwise would haveoccurred. The relevant government officials workingon Burundi know that the Forum exists as a venue formany Burundi-concerned organizations, and they are

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regularly expected to brief and interact with thegroup. The Forum has also provided a venue forpersons knowledgeable about Burundi to ask govern-ment officials tough questions in a non-confronta-tional, constructive, and problem-solving setting.

The Forum provides an opportunity for Burundi of-ficials to be heard in Washington. In October 1995 Bu-rundi’s president Sylvestre Ntibantunganya spoke atthe Forum. This event was televised in Burundi, wheremany felt it had some effect in protecting Ntibantun-ganya from assassination by Tutsi extremists in themilitary. Pierre Buyoya, who came to power through amilitary coup in late July 1996, was the main speakerat the June 1996 Forum.

The Forum has also strengthened the ability of mid-level staffers within the U.S. government and the UNto promote more attention to the conflict and advancenew policy ideas with their superiors within the bu-reaucracy. The Forum provides them with a place out-side the regular system to gain information, discussideas, and get broader perspectives on the crisis thanare fostered by their bureaucratic milieu. It is particu-larly helpful when Burundi officials and representa-tives of Burundi NGOs speak to the Forum, whichalso provides a place for the U.S. government to pre-sent the nuances and reasoning in government policythat cannot be provided through press conferencesand press releases.

As a result of its work on the Forum, the Center forPreventive Action has been involved in continued in-formal consultation with the mission of the SpecialRepresentative of the Secretary General, the specialenvoys of President Clinton to Burundi, the CarterCenter, the Community of Sant’ Egidio in Rome, Inter-national Alert in London, and International CrisisGroup on peacemaking efforts in the region. Partly atthe urging of the Center for Preventive Action, formerpresident Jimmy Carter began to pay attention to thesituation in Burundi and Rwanda. Carter’s staff beganto attend the Forum regularly, and Carter then con-vened a meeting of the heads of state of Rwanda,Burundi, Zaire, Uganda, and Tanzania in Cairo inNovember 1995 and in Tunis in March 1996. LionelRosenblatt, president of Refugees International and a co-sponsor of the Forum, attended the Cairo andTunis conferences as a special advisor to former Presi-dent Carter.

Being intended as mainly a focal point for exchang-ing information among mostly Washington-based in-dividuals and organizations, the Forum is inherentlylimited in how much it can directly alleviate the

conflict in Burundi. However, prominent Burundi offi-cials know of the Forum and are thus aware that a nu-cleus of Washington organizations is watching theircountry with considerable interest. This spotlight ef-fect may itself have some importance on moderatingthe conflict. Nevertheless, the Forum’s main impactcomes indirectly, by influencing the process by which important international actors understand and deal with conflict and coordinate their actionsand interventions.

MINORITY RIGHTS GROUP ADDRESSESZAIRE

Minority Rights Group (USA), a small NGO with itsoffice in New York, received a grant from the CarnegieCorporation to explore “concepts and mechanisms toprevent ethnic conflict.” A crucial part of this programwas concerned with improving preventive diplomacythrough the United Nations. A project focusing onZaire, supported by the Institute of Peace, was part ofthis wider program, and is included here because ofthe innovative nature of the collaboration between anNGO and the UN over an African crisis.

MRG (USA) has special qualifications in this areabecause it is linked with MRG (International), in Lon-don, which has a quarter century’s experience in thefield of minority rights and ethnic conflict, and be-cause Sir John Thomson, formerly British Ambassadorto the UN, is a member of the Councils of both organi-zations. Moreover, Elizabeth Cabot, formerly the MRG(International) representative at the UN, is presentlythe Executive Director of MRG (USA).

The situation in Zaire was chosen as a test case fortrying innovative cooperation procedures between theUN and an NGO (even though some would not beconsidered unusual within sophisticated governmentstructures). Zaire was selected for a mix of reasons.The situation at the outset of the project was seriousbut not desperate; some goodwill existed between dif-ferent groups and communities within the country;the gathering crisis was in a pre-military phase appro-priate to preventive diplomacy; and the costs of pre-ventive diplomacy looked manageable. Thus, Zaireseemed a fair, if hard, test of new procedures which, ifsuccessful, might be duplicated elsewhere.

The essential elements of the procedure are theappointment of a research leader and the preparation,discussion, and amendment of a report by the researchleader and circulation of the report to those concernedwith monitoring and policy, followed by a series of

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discussion workshops. Subsequent action dependsupon the conclusions of the workshops and the UNstaff involved. The MRG (USA) involvement was natu-rally greatest in the early steps of the procedures, butas more policy members were involved, the more theycame to “own” both the process and the product. Forthis reason, the following brief account of the project’sconclusions on Zaire concentrate on MRG (USA)’s in-sights and should not be understood as necessarilyrepresenting the views of UN policymakers.

The international community has found Zaire afrustrating case. For example, the World Bank feltobliged to suspend its operations there in 1993 andhas made it clear that it will return only if the Zairianauthorities actually put the agreed-upon policies intoeffect. The timetable of political reforms has slippedby at least two years and those involved have in conse-quence lost a great degree of credibility. The “troika”—that is, the governments of Belgium, France, and theUnited States working together—have found it difficultto make progress in helping Zaire emerge from its pro-longed economic and political malaise and the pace ofnegotiations has slowed to a walk. There is a great dealof discussion about elections in Zaire with UN moni-toring in summer 1997, but many doubt the timetablewill be met.

Zaire presents the remarkable spectacle of a col-lapsed state. Sovereign and governmental institutionsstill exist but do not operate effectively. The politicalclasses are concerned only with their own interests,and the official economy has been overtaken by theunofficial, even though Zaire is richly endowed withnatural advantages. Altogether (and despite seriousconflict in eastern Zaire), it is surprising that the coun-try has not lapsed into total chaos. This situation andthe reasons for it are analyzed in the recently pub-lished report “Zaire: Predicament and Prospects, AReport to the Minority Rights Group (USA)” by pro-ject research leader Jean-Claude Willame et al. (Peace-works No. 11, United States Institute of Peace, 1997).

The main political and economic recommenda-tions are designed to revive civil society in Zaire from the grassroots upward. They bypass, without

neglecting, the official structure of the collapsed stateand build on existing self-help, grassroots activitiestaking place in some parts of Zaire and aim to expandthem to other parts of the country. They suggest pro-cedures by which the international community, espe-cially the UN and its agencies, acting in imaginativeways through normal channels, might assist thegrowth of civil society. The emphasis is all on assistingZairians at the local level who show a real inclinationto help themselves. It is not proposed that outsidersshould come forward with new and expensive eco-nomic development programs.

On the contrary, the chief function of the outsidersshould be to act as a catalyst for action, to provide asource of information and encouragement, and tofund—at a very modest level, for a limited time—promising local initiatives. There is no part of Zairiansociety, including the government and the army,which could not contribute to the regeneration of eco-nomic activity and political democracy through thebenevolent and cooperative activities of given individ-uals. The emphasis is away from heavy-handed bu-reaucracy toward the initiation and regulation of suchactivities through informal local groups. NGOs, bothZairian and international, could be expected to playmajor roles.

The prospects for success along these lines arebrighter than those for progress along other paths, in-cluding those linked to presidential and parliamen-tary elections, the authors assert. But any progressdepends fundamentally on avoiding an increase in vi-olence. Such an unfortunate development is a realpossibility.

The report proposes that the office of the UN Secre-tary General’s Special Representative in Zaire shouldbe revived to orchestrate the peacemaking and politi-cal transition strategy coherently, and that the Zairiangovernment be kept in touch with developments. It isrecommended that the Special Representative shouldoperate in a low-key way with a small staff who shouldbe mainly in the field to encourage the flowering oflocal initiatives.

Most observers would agree that while ex-ternal intervention can help resolve inter-nal conflicts in Africa, the best long-term

cure is the introduction of democratic reforms. A keycomponent of a democratic reform movement is civil-ian control over the military, often a key instigator ofconflict.

The movement for democratic reform in Africa hasmade very impressive strides over the last decade. Butthere has been some backsliding in countries likeKenya, Niger, and Burundi. The movement needs rein-forcement and the three studies cited in this sectionoffer guidance about how this can be accomplished.

THE NEED FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORMIN NIGERIA

Julius Ihonvbere of the University of Texas at Austin iscompleting a USIP-funded study of religious conflictin Nigeria. Its primary objective has been to examinethe causes and politics of religious violence in contem-porary Nigeria. Religion has become a major source ofconflict challenging not just the survival of Nigeria asa nation, but also the possibility of national recon-struction, growth, development, and peace. It has di-vided Nigeria between north and south, Christian andMuslim, rich and poor. Among the questions Ihon-vbere has tried to address are: What were the remoteand immediate causes of religious violence? Why were

they so predominant in the northern part of the coun-try? What were the interests behind the conflicts, andwhy did they become so violent and destructive? Whyhas the state been unable to manage or prevent theconflicts? Is there a correlation between Nigeria’sdeepening economic crisis and the acts of violence?What is the way out of the problem?

The research—against the background of Nigeria’shistory, the foreign origins of both religions, the effectsthey have had on the construction of socioeconomicand political institutions and relations, and the overallcharacter of the struggle for power and hegemonywithin classes, communities, regions, and other loca-tions—reached the following conclusions.

It is very difficult to attribute a purely religious ex-planation to any of the nominally religious conflicts inthe country, including those in Kano, Kaduna, Bu-lumkutu, Kafanchan, Ilorin, Bauchi, Zango Kantaf—es-pecially the more violent, destructive, and publicizedones.

Virtually all the conflicts had direct and/or indirectpolitical undertones and were encouraged, plotted, orsponsored by prominent political/religious elementswho had specific and broad interests to protect andadvance.

Religion was in many instances only a cover fordeep-rooted strains and divisions in the body politic,which erupted into acts of violence and destruction aspowerful political elements tried to protect their politi-cal domains, make political points, and reclaim as-sumed spheres of influence.

Where religion was involved, conflict usually arosenot just from intolerance and provocative pronounce-ments and actions by leaders of both religions, butfrom fundamentalist proclivities of many Christiansand Muslims. For example, the Christian Associationof Nigeria (CAN) was created less as a religious than apolitical organization to challenge the Jama’atu NasrilIslam (JNI), its Muslim equivalent. Strident evangelicalChristian groups have their Muslim equivalent in theMuslim Studies Society (MSS). Both are very militant,well funded from abroad, intolerant of others withinand outside their faiths, and have very little or no re-gard for the secularity of the Nigerian state.

The religious, regional, ethnic, cultural and otherramifications of violence in Nigeria cannot be clearlyunderstood, according to Ihonvbere, outside a holisticand dialectical understanding of the crises, coalitions,contradictions, and conflicts of Nigeria’s distinctivepolitical economy, the struggle for power, class contra-dictions and conflicts, the weaknesses of civil society,

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DEMOCRATIC REFORM

AND REFORM OF

AFRICAN MILITARIES

9

the failure of the peripheral state and the withdrawalof the populace into the security of organizationsbased on primordial identities. As well, foreign med-dling in religious matters, and the propensity of theNigerian power elite to manipulate rather than medi-ate religious intolerance, differences, and conflictshave served the interests of an unsteady state and alargely decadent and unproductive elite which domi-nates and controls it.

Religion will continue to play a major role in Niger-ian life and politics. What is uncertain is the ability ofthe state and the dominant classes to continue to ma-nipulate religion for their political goals. Of course,foreign interest groups, religious and non-religious,will continue to strive for influence within Nigeria. Ifthe religiously-based political violence is not curtailed,it will get more destructive and more violent as drugdealers, currency traffickers, scammers, and oppor-tunistic politicians capitalize on popular frustration toadvance their narrow political interests. Moreover,these disturbances could degenerate into deeper con-flicts, sustained over longer periods, if the parties inconflict are propelled by ethnic, religious, or regionalforms of fanaticism.

It is possible to make all sorts of suggestions forending the conflicts; for example that dialogues be cre-ated, patriotism encouraged, tolerance advocated, andadherence to the pacific teachings in the Bible and Ko-ran supported. But Ihonvbere concludes they are gen-erally cosmetic and superficial. In fact, theseadmonitions, preached by various political, ethnic andreligious leaders over the last two decades, have notstopped the recurrence of religious conflicts. TheNigerian state remains extremely repressive and dis-tant from popular constituencies and incapable of ef-fectively mediating conflict. Deteriorating livingconditions continue to encourage primary identifica-tion with narrow cultural and social interests, sincethe state’s incapacity to manage conflict or improvethings hardly inspires loyalty. Declaring Nigeria a sec-ular state in the constitution has proven equally insuf-ficient, since the constitution is not respected, thejudiciary is not independent, and there are no pro-grams designed to foster a national agenda.

Ihonvbere asserts that three main issues need to beaddressed: the reconstruction of the Nigerian stateand the basis of power and politics; the strengtheningof civil society; and the genuine democratization of thepolitical system.

The nature of the Nigerian state is the main prob-lem. Constituted as an exploitative colonial system, it

was inherited intact by the new nationalists at politicalindependence in 1960. It has remained largely irrele-vant to the conditions of the people. According toIhonvbere, under the control of a tiny, corrupt portionof the Nigerian bourgeoisie, the state has been usedfor private accumulation rather than the public good.Lacking political control, the Nigerian state has main-tained its power through the suffocation of civil soci-ety, the manipulation of ascriptive loyalties,intimidation, and proceeding as a kleptocracy.

Grossly inefficient, and lacking viable national sym-bols, the Nigerian state is perceived as an exploitative,decadent, and unstable force to be evaded and sub-verted at the slightest opportunity. The Nigerian statehas never been a state of the people, according toIhonvbere. It has never been truly democratic, ac-countable, open, and sufficiently powerful to respondto the needs of Nigerian citizens in general. This hasallowed adventurers and opportunists to manipulatereligion and use violence to create diversions and gainaccess to state power and resources. Ihonvbere arguesthat profound reconstruction is necessary if the stateis not to continue to provide cover for the very inter-ests that seek to subvert it.

Civil society must also be strengthened. Unlike inthe 1960s and 1970s, contemporary Nigeria is almostawash with popular politically engaged groups. Nige-ria’s political landscape is beginning to benefit fromthe activities of organizations ranging from humanrights groups and environmental movements, to pro-democracy and women’s organizations, to profes-sional and cultural associations as well as the press. Ifthese organizations practice internal democracy, mo-bilize and educate their members and the public, andtake openly democratic positions, the ability of thepoliticians and the military to manipulate them will bereduced. In fact, Ihonvbere argues, a viable and vi-brant civil society is the only check to military adven-turism, political irresponsibility, unbridled corruptionand waste, and the manipulation of cultural symbolsand primordial loyalties. The goals of the popularmovements, in this instance, should include the strug-gle for basic freedoms, the empowerment of commu-nities and constituencies, and accountability ofgovernment.

Finally, Ihonvbere asserts, there is no alternative to genuine democratization. Democracy makes it pos-sible for ideas and ideals to be debated and resolvedwithout resort to violence. It also requires that politi-cal rules be definite and be made known to all actors.Where ideas, interests, and opportunities are

suppressed, they go underground and expressthemselves in extra-legal and violent forms. Evenoppressed segments of society might use religiousfanaticism as an excuse to attack institutions per-ceived as bases of oppression and exploitation. As theeconomic crisis deepens, political interests might alsomanipulate public frustration to spread violence. Thisbecomes even more dangerous when there are mar-ginalized or alienated elites who can take advantageof such dispossession and oppression to advancenarrow and political goals.

Ihonvbere argues that popular groups must inten-sify the struggle to put a permanent stop to militaryintervention in politics, and work for the eradicationof those institutions and practices which have stifledcivil society and repressed mass organizations fordecades. While procedural democracy will open upthe political terrain for deeper and more embracingpolitics, only genuine, systematic political empower-ment of the citizenry would check religious manipula-tion and violence, Ihonvbere says. Only democracycan guarantee freedom of worship, the coexistence ofdifferent faiths, and the protection of their adherents,and significantly reduce political opportunists’ abilityto manipulate religion.

ACHIEVING DEMOCRATIC CONTROLOVER THE MILITARY

Robin Luckham of the Institute of Development Stud-ies at the University of Sussex has undertaken a seriesof USIP-supported case studies of democratization ofAfrica’s repressive yet fragile state structures. Luck-ham has focused on an especially crucial aspect ofthat democratization—how to assure democratic con-trol over Africa’s military and security establishments.Democratic control of the military has a direct bearingon how, and by whom, conflicts are managed, andwith what prospects of success.

The transitions to democracy that swept acrossAfrica in the late 1980s and early 1990s were drivenby a complex interplay of external and internal deter-minants. Above all, Luckham asserts, they were theproduct of state failure, of the incapacity of authoritar-ian (often military) regimes to provide the benefits ofdevelopment, or indeed basic physical security, to themass of their citizens. The legacy of state failure wasdistinctly double-edged. On the one hand it reducedthe capacity of incumbent regimes to resist emergentpressures to democratize, as in Mali, Benin, or Tanza-nia. On the other, it unleashed conflicts that could

threaten the existence of the state itself, as in Somalia,Liberia, Uganda (pre-1986), or Ethiopia (pre-1991).Africa’s new democracies have thus had not only torebuild democracy, but at the same time the state, to-gether with the military and security bureaucracieswhich assure the state’s monopoly of legitimate force.

A number of lessons can be learned from the fail-ures of earlier “transitions to democracy” in countrieslike Ghana, Nigeria, and Sudan between the 1960sand the early 1980s. Most of these transitions wereagreed to and cooperatively managed by the militaryand the civilian elites. There was little serious attemptto transform narrowly-based political institutions orcivil-military relations to increase their popular legiti-macy and enhance their developmental capacity.

What has been different about a number of the cur-rent transitions is that they have arisen from popularrebellions against existing state and military author-ity; in some cases through military and/or urban in-surrections bringing down existing regimes, as inMali or Ghana; in others through protracted armedstruggles defeating an authoritarian government, as inUganda, Ethiopia, and Eritrea; or forcing it to negoti-ate, as in Namibia and South Africa. Democratizationhas thus been associated with broader transforma-tions of the state and of military institutions. Paren-thetically, this implies that conflict is not alwayssomething to be “resolved” or avoided. More analysisis required to understand the conditions in which itfacilitates struggles for democracy and social justice,as well as those in which it does not.

These transitions have been distinctive as well, inthat they have been tempered by greater realism re-garding the goals and limits of transformation thanwas the case with armed struggles during the immedi-ate post-colonial era. For the most part popular partic-ipation has been reinstitutionalized within the frameof liberal multi-party democracy; market-oriented eco-nomic restructuring has taken precedence over ef-forts to achieve socioeconomic justice; and dissidenttroops or guerrilla forces have been restructured asprofessional armies.

The transfer of power to a democratically electedgovernment is only the first chapter of a long andcomplicated story: Ensuring that military and securityestablishments continue afterwards to accept democ-ratic control is just as important. Broadly speaking,says Luckham, the African experience reinforces re-searcher Alfred Stepan’s contention—based on studiesof civilian-military relations in democratizing LatinAmerica—that not only should the civilian executive

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be enabled to exercise firm political and military au-thority over the armed forces, but institutions in polit-ical and civil society also need to be empowered so asto be able to hold both the executive and military toaccount.1 Yet South Africa is so far the only country inwhich such a broad process of empowerment seemsto have been occurring, above all through its ex-tremely active parliamentary committees on defenseand security. Other countries such as Ghana and Malihave established such committees, but they have beenless vocal and less well-supported by the press, civilsociety organizations, and research bodies capable ofcontributing to informed public debate of defenseand security issues.

The constitution-making exercises in a number ofthe countries studied have given rise to interesting de-bates about whether the military is best controlled byexcluding it from politics or by recognizing and insti-tutionalizing its political role, for instance by giving itrepresentation in the government and/or parliament(as in Uganda), or by formalizing procedures for con-sultation with the armed forces over defense and se-curity policy as (in theory) in Ghana’s Armed Forcesand National Security Councils. Tanzania is a particu-larly interesting case in point. On the one hand theprevious close relationship between the TanzanianPeoples’ Defense Force (TPDF) and the ruling Chamacha Mapinduzi (CCM) party facilitated the country’senviable record of civilian control and political stabil-ity. On the other, the advent of multi-party democracyafter 1992 has necessitated the TPDF’s disengage-ment from the CCM. Alternative means must now befound of assuring the military’s loyalty to democraticinstitutions.

The institutional legacies of authoritarian gover-nance and of the struggles against it have varied. Insome countries, like Nigeria, over-powerful and politi-cized military and security establishments remain en-trenched at the heart of the state. In others, like Mali,they have been fractured and weakened by internalrevolts. In others they have been displaced by theguerrilla armies waging war against them. But in eachcase new democratic governments have of necessityhad to restructure and reprofessionalize the armedforces. The issue has been how they can do so withoutrekindling military reaction and intervention. Thedilemmas have been posed in an especially interest-ing way in countries like Uganda, Ethiopia, andEritrea, where former guerrilla forces are being trans-formed into standing armies. Can they be profession-alized while still retaining some of their democratic

characteristics as “people’s armies” acquired duringtheir struggles against authoritarian rule?

Luckham points out that an essential aspect of mil-itary restructuring has been the reintegration and de-mobilization of the armed forces, welding membersof previously conflicting armies or military factionsinto unified national forces and providing demobi-lized ex-combatants with livelihoods adequate toavert the danger of their drifting back to banditry andwar. In countries like Uganda, Ethiopia, and SouthAfrica, reintegration and demobilization have been es-sential not only for the termination of conflict, but forthe restoration of functioning democratic institutionscapable of exercising control over their armed forces.

Reintegration and demobilization are also con-nected to another issue faced by most African coun-tries: how to assure the involvement in democraticinstitutions of all groups in a multi-ethnic state. Someof the new African democracies—Ethiopia, for exam-ple—have introduced plural or federal constitutionalarrangements; others have continued to pursue na-tional integration within the framework of a multi-eth-nic state. In addition to such constitutionalarrangements, most have adopted military recruit-ment policies aimed at making the armed forces morerepresentative of the population as a whole. However,adjustments in recruitment are by themselves insuffi-cient, Luckham points out. Military and security bu-reaucracies (and governments) have to learn tohandle conflicts involving ethnic and other minoritieswith a modicum of restraint and understanding of mi-nority aspirations. If they do not, they risk perpetuat-ing conflicts, like the current rebellion in northernUganda, that may wear away at both the legitimacy ofdemocratic institutions and their ability to hold themilitary in check.

CONTROLLING THE MILITARY INGHANA

Eboe Hutchful of Wayne State University has used anInstitute grant to assess how successful Ghana hasbeen in achieving civil control over its military and se-curity agencies in the process of its democratic transi-tion. Before the current transition began in 1992,Ghana had suffered a succession of successful coups(in 1966, 1972, 1979, and 1981) and short-lived tran-sitions to democratic rule (in 1969 and 1979). Histor-ically, civil control over the military and (to a lesserextent) over police and intelligence agencies in Ghanahas been weak or nonexistent. By “civil control” is

11

meant the ability of civil rulers to set or determine thedefense and security doctrines, goals and structures;to monitor the performance of security and intelli-gence agencies to ensure their consistency with con-stitutional and national goals; and to exercise effectiveoversight of defense and security budgets.

As in many African countries, Ghanaian civil insti-tutions such as the Ministry of Defense are poorlyequipped to execute these roles. The reasons for thisare both structural and historical, and include initiallack of interest by civilian governments in military is-sues and low institutional capacity and expertise onthe part of the Defense Ministry (the Ministry hasbeen staffed mainly by junior level civil servants andclerks, the majority of whom are female). The Min-istry is made up of a civil wing and a military wing,with the former theoretically in control of the latter. Inreality, however, the Ministry is the Armed Forces, un-der marginal ministerial control. While the functionsof the Ministry were limited from the very beginning,since independence in 1957, over time even they werewhittled down, with the military takeover of govern-ment resulting in further role contraction for the civil-ian staff and assumption by the military of directcontrol of budgeting, allocation, accounting, and pro-curement functions.

In its democratic form the efficiency of civil controldepends on the authority and control of military com-manders over the institution. However, in Ghana thecommand systems inherited at independence wereweak and poorly institutionalized. The very conceptof “professionalism” appeared problematic in thiscontext. Post-colonial African governments adoptedthe former colonial military formations (which had infact been already in process of dissolution) for essen-tially emblematic reasons, their being seen as an es-sential artifact of “modern statehood.” Thesediscarded military structures carried at best only theveneer of professionalism, lacking both the historicallogic which propelled professionalism (interstate mil-itary competition and the industrialization of war),and the social origins required to bind them to thestate and the ruling class. Their major (if sporadic)function was not external defense but internal secu-rity.

Hutchful points out that military usurpation of po-litical power was to have corrosive consequences forthe military itself and to contribute in a second andmore intractable sense to the difficulty of restoringcivil control and authority. Politicization of militaryinstitutions led to the disintegration of the military,

the delegitimation of the command system, and thedecline of military authority, with a consequent shiftof power from the military hierarchy to subalternstrata. This decline was intensified by internal mis-management of the armed forces and severe contrac-tion in military budgets. The crises of civil andmilitary authority fed off each other in a cumulativeprocess of instability and decline that was to prove ex-tremely damaging to the nation.

Ghana’s security apparatus, Hutchful argues, hasbeen riven since independence by rivalries and con-flict, between internal cliques and factions, betweenthe armed forces and police, between these institu-tions and the intelligence organs (the Military Intelli-gence and Special Branch) as well as between theintelligence agencies themselves, and between the se-curity community as a whole and the political authori-ties. This vitiated their effectiveness and power. Againthese cleavages are historical and structural in origin,outgrowths of unstable corporate hierarchies, lack ofclear lines of authority and control, lack of a clear de-fense policy and security mandate, poor communica-tion between government, security and intelligenceagencies (as well as between command and subalternlevels within the armed forces and police), and differ-ences between corporate and political cultures. Cu-mulatively, these have produced multi-dimensionalconflicts which were expressed in, or contributed to,the persistent instability and militarization of Ghana-ian politics.

Hutchful argues that it is, ironically, precisely theimplosion of both civil and military authority thatprovides the essential key to understanding the rela-tive success of the most recent democratic transition,in 1992. While earlier transitions had collapsed igno-miniously within three years, the Rawlings regime ap-pears not only to have survived but to have succeededin bringing the military and security agencies underpolitical control, subsequently initiating the first de-mocratic transition in Ghana since the 1960s with areal possibility of consolidation.

Several factors explain this positive development.First, Rawlings was able to exploit the decompositionof the military system (in particular the split betweenthe officer corps and the ranks which bedeviled theprevious regime) as a window of opportunity to reor-ganize the institution from below, in turn neutralizingthe officer corps and then the ranks who had fur-nished his support base. Second, Rawlings was ableto create countervailing forces based (unlike previousattempts) in part within the regular military itself,

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including the Committees for the Defense of theRevolution (CDRs), the Forces Reserve Battalion, andso on. The domestic security complex has been exten-sively reorganized and made much more effective andcoherent. Third, unlike previous transitions where theextrication of the military from power was formallycomplete, this latest transition involves the constitu-tionalization of the existing military-backed regime.

Unlike previous regimes, Rawlings’ governmenthas (not surprisingly, given Rawlings’ military back-ground) demonstrated much greater familiarity withthe political terrain in the armed forces. At the sametime there is some evidence that the military has be-come more amenable to political control. Not only hasGhana avoided a successful military coup since De-cember 31, 1981—the longest period of political stabil-ity in its post-independence history—military budgetshave also been scaled back to levels lower than at anytime since the early post-independence period. Fi-nally, Rawlings, again unlike the previous regime, wasable to articulate these (sometimes repressive) secu-rity measures in a populist discourse which presentedhis regime as a “developmental dictatorship” operatingselflessly on behalf of the nation. Thus while the for-mal framework of civil-military relations in 1992 repli-cates that of earlier constitutions, the underlyingpolicies have been quite different.

According to Hutchful, the case of Ghana suggestscertain lessons regarding the restoration of civil con-trol in democratic transitions in Africa. First, restora-tion of civil control in the context of democratictransitions may involve reconstructing not only civilbut military authority and professionalism. In addi-tion to redefining the military’s relationship with thepolitical process, the structures, role, mission and doc-trine of the armed forces may need fundamental redef-inition, to enhance both operational efficiency anddemocratic control. Even so, it is unlikely that consti-tutional constraints alone will be sufficient to keep themilitary in barracks in the short term. Some form ofcountervailing mechanism may be required pendingthe longer-term development of professional re-straints.

Second, as Robin Luckham has insisted in anothercontext, an understanding of the micropolitics of themilitary and security agencies is essential for unravel-ing the dynamics of democratic transitions.2 Analysisof the different power, interests, and roles of the agen-cies that comprise the security community must benuanced. Ghana’s experiences again suggest the im-portance in any political system of a clear security anddefense mandate and reasonably unambiguous struc-

tures of regulation and control. In their absence, wesee a mutually destructive failure of the main playersin the security game—the government, the armedforces, the police and the intelligence agencies—to de-velop viable operational relationships and mecha-nisms of dispute resolution.

Third, civil control demands the development of acadre of civilian defense and strategic analysts andplanners. This is crucial but only the beginning. Politi-cal command of the armed forces in Africa has tradi-tionally meant executive control. Responsibility foroversight must be shared more equitably with the leg-islature, the public, and the press if control is to be de-mocratized. Stepan has rightly emphasized the needfor legislative self-empowerment with regard to mili-tary issues and policies, through enhancement of thelegislature’s own research, information, and monitor-ing expertise, and so forth, and for the development ofautonomous intelligence on military and defense is-sues by the organizations of civil society (includingthe media) as well as the need for civil society to con-duct its own dialogue with the military.3

Finally, as the Rawlings experiment reminds us,civil (or political) control is an essential component of, but not necessarily to be confused with, democraticcontrol. The structures and practices that have en-sured the subordination of the military in the currentGhanaian transition have frequently embodied self-imposed restraint. Public accountability and parlia-mentary oversight remain weak. In addition to thefactors discussed above, a second element of democra-tic control is the use of force in a manner in keepingwith respect for legal and constitutional rights. Thisdimension also remains weak in Ghana. It is preciselythe previous success of unorthodox policies that nowinhibit the development of more professional and de-mocratic forms of control, posing the possibility of aprogression from “hard” to “soft” authoritarian con-trols which would rely on special security and intelli-gence units and manipulation of ethnic divisionsrather than on real democratization.

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TRAINING WOMEN IN SOMALIA

Training in conflict resolution can make an importantcontribution to the management of conflict in Africa.The Institute of Peace has supported such training ac-tivities, particularly the “training of trainers,” in Nige-ria and South Africa, as well as for the staff of theOAU. But a training program for Somali women isparticularly noteworthy.

With financial assistance from an Institute grant,the Centre for the Strategic Initiatives of Women(CSIW), led by Hibaaq Osman, initiated four commu-nity-based conflict management training workshopsfor Somali women during the first six months of1996. The primary objectives of the workshops wereto train women in conflict management techniques,to build their capacity for training other women, andto expand Somali women’s participation in local andnational peacebuilding. Workshop trainers, who de-veloped extensive conflict management and trainingskills during a 1995 CSIW-sponsored “training oftrainers” series held in South Africa and financed byUSIP, served as workshop facilitators.

Each workshop was designed and implemented bya Somali grassroots women’s organization, or coali-tion of women’s organizations, in consultation withCSIW. The implementing organizations consideredrecommendations from local women’s groups,women community leaders, and local authorities orelders in choosing twenty to thirty-five participants

for each workshop. Most participants were membersof established or nascent women’s groups, and repre-sented diverse communities and social groups. Thefive- to seven-day workshops addressed strategies forconflict management within the context of currentclashes in Somalia and Somaliland (a northernprovince which has asserted its independence fromthe rest of Somalia), focusing on techniques of negoti-ating, mediating, implementing solutions, and devel-oping personal leadership skills.

CSIW’s previous training of fifteen Somali womenenabled the organization to conduct cost-effectivetraining with local facilitators at Somali sites. Partici-pants were clearly delighted to be working withwomen facilitators who shared many of their experi-ences and concerns. Bonding among women from the same locality was rapid and efficacious.

The most frequently identified obstacles to peace-making included lack of knowledge among a broadcross-section of Somali women that they can effec-tively participate in conflict management; lack ofcommunication among women from diverse back-grounds, localities, and districts about their peace-building strategies and resources; and violent clashesin some areas, preventing women from approachingcombatants to initiate negotiations.

Because participants and facilitators in each work-shop represented diverse backgrounds, they had anopportunity to explore their own prejudices in role-playing and simulation exercises. Heated exchangesoccurred, followed by analysis of the need to putaside bias and to assume an impartial position for ef-fective conflict management. Many participants weresurprised at the ease with which they could recognizeand overcome their prejudices to forge agreementswith other participants.

Immediately following the workshops, manywomen used their newly developed skills, demonstrat-ing a strong desire to become proactive mediators.Several workshop participants successfully negotiatedthe release of a Swedish woman who had been kid-napped by a clan gang. Women from the Merca work-shop placed themselves physically between clashingclan members and effectively stopped the fighting. Par-ticipants from the Save Somali Women and Childrengroup held a “peace feast” for women from both sidesof Mogadishu’s “Green Line”—the divide between war-ring clans—after they effectively negotiated an end tofighting between two clans.

Participants in most workshops began intensivenetworking well before their training ended. The

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advantages of sharing ideas and resources and ofwomen’s coalition-building soon became clear evento those who were initially reluctant to merge agendaswith other women. They were offered the model ofthe influential Coalition of Grassroots Women’s Orga-nizations in Somalia, founded in 1995 following aCSIW training project in Nairobi. Women from Mo-gadishu reported that they now cross the Green Lineat night to discuss peace initiatives with each other.Other women are striving to expand their local net-works into national coalitions. These examples sug-gest a vast potential for linking grassroots women’sgroups across Somalia and Somaliland to createstrong, committed peace networks.

Many participants have successfully assumed in-fluential local peacebuilding roles, despite genderprejudices, and have gained new respect in their com-munities by effectively mediating conflicts instigatedamong men. Women have also induced local authori-ties and elders to begin their own negotiationprocesses and served as trusted “shuttle” diplomatsamong opposing clan leaders. At the same time, ac-cording to numerous participants, they have achieveda viable balance between their traditional domesticroles and their expanded peacebuilding roles. Theyexpressed great satisfaction in simultaneously main-taining both roles, sometimes viewing their domesticresponsibilities as enhancing their public peacemak-ing credibility.

A significant result of the women’s conflict man-agement workshops is expanded political interestamong participants. In exploring both causes andsolutions to conflicts, they often found themselvesconfronting essentially political dilemmas. Women in all workshops recognized that their lack of political

power excluded them in many situations from pre-venting or managing conflicts. Even women with noimmediate interest in assuming political roles ex-pressed their intention to build coalitions betweenwomen’s peace groups and local political authorities.

Virtually all workshop participants expressed theirdetermination to transmit their new conflict manage-ment knowledge to other women and women’sgroups by organizing local training sessions. Signifi-cant numbers of participants have also taken theirtraining skills outside women’s groups—a traineefrom Mogadishu gathered twenty boys, who haveweapons and frequently use them, into a trainingclass in north Mogadishu. Several of these boys havechanged their orientation and life goals and gotten ridof their weapons. Another group of trainees conductsweekly conflict management workshops in a campnear Mogadishu for internally displaced Somalis.

Three overarching lessons can be drawn from thistraining program. First, women can play importantpeacemaking roles even in societies where they havetraditionally been excluded from most political au-thority and responsibility. This is particularly truewhen the population blames the men for the pro-longed conflicts plaguing their society. Second, train-ing in negotiation techniques, conflict management,and peacemaking can enhance the capabilities andconfidence of potential local peacemakers. Third,other African countries can benefit from the experi-ence South Africans have gained both in resolvingconflicts and in training peacemakers. The trainingthese Somali women obtained in South Africa enabledthem, upon their return to Somalia, to share theirnewly acquired skills with other Somali women.

15

It is tempting to seek innovative approaches toconflict management in Africa on the assumptionthat the failure of more traditional methods is in

large part responsible for ongoing conflict. But threeprojects funded by the United States Institute of Peacedemonstrate that more traditional methods may nothave outlived their utility, especially when adapted tomodern realities. In addition, analysts’ emphasis onregional and national conflict often obscures the factthat many African conflicts are more localized, andthat local conflict management is an essential ingredi-ent in addressing Africa’s civil wars.

THE HORN OF AFRICA

Based on his USIP-financed research on local conflictmanagement in countries of the Horn—particularlySudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia—John Prendergast ofthe Center of Concern and the University of Marylandconcludes that local conflict in the Horn is growingincreasingly intense and violent as arms become moreplentiful and state authority structures slowly erode.In response, there is growing interest in local conflictmanagement and resolution processes, particularlythose that draw on traditional approaches of inter-communal reconciliation.

Prendergast asserts that local dynamics of violencemust not be forgotten, even in the context of serious

regional crises and national conflicts. For elders andchiefs, for local commanders of government and rebelarmies, and for local militias, local conflict in theHorn often takes precedence over national conflict.Opportunities for asset-stripping and revenge oftendictate local relationships, and local warlordism canbe a problem. The consequences of local conflict areoften more destructive and deadly for civilian popula-tions that those of national-level conflicts. While sub-national conflicts usually have some kind of tie tohigher-order national wars, they often have lives andlogical frameworks of their own, for which national-level peace efforts are irrelevant.

Local conflicts are frequently organized along eth-nic or lineage lines, and leaders organize aroundthemes of group vulnerability and demonization ofthe “other.” Given the precarious survival contexts inwhich many Horn populations find themselves, theease with which fear and insecurity may be manipu-lated is not surprising. When specific incidents—at-tacks, asset raids, rapes—do occur, they often escalate,producing grievances which live on sometimes forgenerations.

Prendergast explains that there are layers of causal-ity to local conflicts in the Horn, ranging from thelegacy of the divide-and-rule policies of colonial andpost-colonial regimes and rebel groups; to what hecalls the pathological modernization pursued by andurged for many African states, which deepened in-equalities and further warped national and localeconomies away from rational production and con-sumption patterns. Other causes have included ma-nipulation of ethnic rivalry as an easy vehicle forsocial mobilization and for political and economicgain, and demographic trends and shifts resultingfrom the violent accumulation of such assets as valu-able land. This is producing a historic realignment ofpopulation and political power, fueled by a hyper-exploitative quest for resource consolidation.

Less and less manpower and community supportis required to successfully wage war in the Horn. Asmall number of disaffected or opportunistic peoplecan acquire sophisticated weaponry and, if backed bya few businessmen, elders, or politicians, can createserious instability.

There are numerous initiatives attempting to ad-dress local conflict in the Horn. The focus of Prender-gast’s research has been on traditional processes,mechanisms, and methods used by local communi-ties to reduce and manage—and sometimes resolve—

5BUILDING ON

LOCALLY-BASED AND

TRADITIONAL PEACE

PROCESSES

16

conflicts at the sub-national level. These range fromcouncils of elders or chiefs (for example, the shir ortraditional assemblies in Somalia which use elders asnegotiators in close proximity to the location of theconflict), local courts, kinship mechanisms, compen-satory processes, and healing ceremonies.

There are many types of initiatives which might beused at any given time to address local conflict. Someare initiated locally, some at the national level. Theyinclude such diverse undertakings as attempts to bro-ker peace by local NGOs and associations, such as theNew Sudan Council of Churches in southern Sudan;support for peace-building programming by such in-ternational NGOs as Search for Common Groundand International Alert, which provide conflict man-agement training, or other international organizationsengaging in mediation, such as the conference USIPhelped organize to bring together southern Sudanesefactions. In other instances, relief and developmentagencies have changed their programs to incorporatepeace-building objectives, like the peace educationinitiatives of UNICEF, and national-level peaceprocesses have attempted to address local conflict dy-namics, such as the UN efforts to broker peace in sub-regions of Somalia during the intervention. Effortshave been made to build, strengthen, or expand jus-tice systems at the district or municipal levels,whether state-controlled or traditional, as in the re-building of the system in Ethiopia. Local military lead-ers have negotiated cessation of local hostilities, forexample to bring about the Lafon Declaration in 1995in southern Sudan. There have been national govern-ment policies devolving or decentralizing decision-making authority to local levels, particularly in theEthiopian federal experiment, and national govern-ments redrawing boundaries to enhance ethnic ho-mogeneity, such as in the redivision of Ethiopia’sregions.

Other attempts to mitigate or resolve local conflictshave involved businessmen in initiating or support-ing conflict management processes to enhance tradeand other wealth-building opportunities, exemplifiedby a myriad of examples from Somalia. Local elec-tions in Somalia have been designed to increase stake-holder participation. The Swedish Life and PeaceInstitute sponsored an October 1992 meeting to offerpeacebuilding and problem-solving workshops andskillbuilding. Local conflicts have been containedthrough greater support of civil institutions in the

context of state erosion or collapse, or the achieve-ment of self-determination, as in the case of Eritrea.

External efforts at peacemaking, observes Prender-gast, are often thwarted for a number of reasons,including the erosion of the authority of traditionalleaders and politicians, thus creating major difficul-ties in negotiating with legitimate community repre-sentatives who are able to implement agreements; theuse of peace processes by negotiators and warringparties to build their own reputations or fame; the in-ternal logic of conflict, in which asset-stripping, pre-dation, insecurity, and continued mobilizationreinforce the authority of war leaders; and the gulf be-tween national processes and local implementation.These and other factors greatly hinder conflict man-agement, particularly the initiatives of outsiderswhose interests usually do not coincide with those oflocal war leaders.

In contrast, locally initiated conflict managementand resolution processes often involve significant seg-ments of local authority structures, and often signifycommunity desires for stability, enhanced produc-tion, increased trade and other benefits which war of-ten denies to civilians resident in a war zone. Forconflict prevention and resolution processes to takehold, Prendergast asserts, requires the participationof all segments of society. Traditional authorities (el-ders and chiefs), women’s organizations, local institu-tions, and professional associations have critical rolesto play in the development of grassroots peacebuild-ing.

Some of the recent locally-initiated peace confer-ences and agreements which Prendergast has studiedin Sudan include grassroots peace conferences ineastern and western Torit District which involved theCatholic church and community leaders; the intra-Nuer peace conference described in the next section,which involved the Presbyterian church and Nuerchiefs; and the Dinka-Misseriya peace agreements inthe transitional zone between north and south whichhave generally held since 1989, but are under ex-treme threat recently.

Local dispute resolution processes in Somalia haveincluded the peace and governance-building confer-ence held between February and June 1995 amongthe Rahanweyne in the Bay and Bakool Regions,which helped tamp down intra-Rahanweyne violence,but was not successful in its objective of deterring at-tacks by neighboring clan militias from Mogadishu,Gedo region, or the central regions. A series of peace

17

conferences in Absame areas in the Juba Valley havereduced intra-Absame conflict and aim to galvanize amovement toward peace with neighboring Majerteenin Kismayu and Marehan in Gedo region. Peace con-ferences sponsored by elders in Somaliland includethe Erigavo peace conference which has kept thepeace in Sanaag despite major external pressures, andthe Boraama Peace Conference which maintained thepeace in volatile Somaliland for nearly two years.

Finally, a significant peace conference was held ineastern Ethiopia. The Qabri Dahar conference in Re-gion Five (the Ogaden), brought together a significantcross-section of the political and traditional leader-ship of the Ogaden, stopped the planting of land-mines, reduced tensions between the army and localpopulation, drew many of the Ogadeni National Lib-eration Front fighters out of the bush, increased com-merce, and temporarily brought some consensusabout the future of the region.

In the Horn, where vast areas are ungoverned inthe conventional sense, it is evident that local politicalorganizing is alive and well. Formal processes involvebasic questions about the distribution and limits ofpower, checks and balances, conflict resolution, etc.And where men have previously dominated the dis-cussion, women are becoming important agents ofconflict management in some locations. Internalschisms erupt regularly, often violently, but one or an-other kind of peace initiative almost always emergesin response.

A CASE FROM SOUTHERN SUDAN

Wal Duany of the University of Indiana is analyzing aconflict which occurred in southern Sudan in 1993,based upon his role as participant observer in the sub-sequent peace process. The conflict occurred betweenthe Lou Nuer and the Jikany Nuer, who fought eachother as they competed for grazing lands, water, andaccess to fishing pools. It is probably the most de-structive internal conflict in the history of the Nuerpeople: approximately 1,300 people were killed,75,000 cattle raided, and as many as 150,000 peopledisplaced by the fighting.

This intra-ethnic conflict must be viewed withinthe context of a larger conflict between two rebelmovements, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Move-ment/Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLM/A) andthe SPLM/A–United, currently known as the SouthSudan Independence Movement/South Sudan Inde-pendence Army (SSIM/A). The conflict among the

Nuer was contained within a geographical area underthe control of the SPLM/A–United. The larger contextwas the civil war between the rebel movements andthe government of Sudan, which has been fought overthirty of the last forty years.

In July 1993 the leadership of the PresbyterianChurch of the Sudan and local chiefs made efforts to resolve this conflict among the Nuer but failed.SPLM/A–United also mounted a major intervention.A peace conference was then called to seek resolution.The conference was initiated and implemented by theindigenous peoples with relatively little assistancefrom external parties, and held in Akobo during Au-gust and September, 1994. It involved the active par-ticipation of hundreds of persons representing eachof the two clans in conflict. The conference succeededin reaching agreement.

Duany has drawn several lessons from his study ofthe Akobo Peace Conference that may have wider ap-plicability in Africa.

Particularly in a conflict over grazing, water, and fish-ing rights, the environmental conditions underlyingthe dispute must be fully explored and understood ifthe basis for peace is to be identified.

Serious account must be taken of the philosophicaland religious ideas that lie behind the disputants’ un-derstanding of the world, how they think of them-selves, and how they relate to one another and tooutsiders. This means that third-party participants inthe mediation process must either be knowledgeableabout the cosmologies and theologies or be thor-oughly briefed by those who are. For example, theNuer system of order is based upon a covenantal the-ology that in turn informs the structure of civic bod-ies. The fundamental guiding principle expected togovern behavior is “to do unto others as you wouldhave others do unto you.”

Methods of conflict resolution should be drawnfrom the traditional culture with the guidance of tra-ditional leaders. This includes communication styles,leadership choices, methods of negotiation, participa-tion of parties to the conflict and the third-party, deci-sion-making structures, the system of recompense forwrongdoing, determination of wrongdoing and ap-propriate punishment, processes for remorse, confes-sion, forgiveness, and reconciliation, and rituals formarking closure and new beginnings.

The underlying structure of social institutions andthe principles guiding interaction must be under-stood. These are particularly important in relation tothe rules and relationships that govern property

18

rights, marriage and the role of women, and kinshipties as resources for settling disputes.

Peace resolutions must address not only rootcauses of the conflict but make provision for institu-tional arrangements that can successfully implementagreements. This can be aided by cultural revitaliza-tion of traditional systems of order, justice, and wel-fare.

Understanding the system of governance and lead-ership is critically important. Among the Nuer, lead-ers are drawn from and are responsible to the people,although ultimately all are responsible to God. Thekey leadership systems from the parties in conflictmust be a part of the conflict resolution process. Inthis case, that included the elders, custodians, age-setleaders, women leaders, civil administrators, rebelmilitary personnel, indigenous militia, Christianchurch leaders, and traditional religious leaders.

Much of the internal political history of the Nuerrevolves around the balance of power among thosewho are seen as representatives of God’s will andthose whose authority stems from the people. Thisfundamental division of powers is crucial and is re-flected in modern Nuer society in the deferenceshown in conflict resolution processes to those recog-nized as representatives of religious bodies. Thosevested with significant moral authority must be at theheart of the process. In this case that included the tra-ditional custodians, leaders of the Christian churches,the women leaders, elders, age-set leaders, and tradi-tional religious leaders.

Understanding of traditional conflict managementprocesses is essential. In the case of the Nuer suchprocesses include the convocation of assemblies ofpeople, councils of elders, aggregation of age-sets, reli-gious associations, and functional organizations ofcitizens.

The peace process must be seen as a long-termprocess of cultural and human interaction betweentraditions and modernity, not as a quick fix for a par-ticular conflict.

The involvement of international organizations orgovernmental agencies needs to be kept to a minimumand strategically employed to address specific gaps inthe process and not as a substitute for indigenousleadership. In this case external parties usefully pro-vided food and other relief assistance for the partici-pants, some assistance with transportation, and somefunding for conference supplies, as well as travel forinternational participants and for documentation ofthe process.

THE ROLES OF CHIEFS AND THECHURCH IN GHANA

Professor Maxwell Owusu of the University of Michi-gan has been undertaking an Institute-assisted studyof the role of chiefs and the church in conflict manage-ment in Ghana. Since the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries, if not long before, with thegrowth of towns, the expansion of Christianity, andthe establishment of colonial rule, Ghanaian societyhas witnessed the spontaneous and continuousgrowth of hundreds of voluntary associations in ruraland urban areas, many of them with membership thatcuts across ethnic, religious, and occupational lines.Two surveys of Accra (in 1953–1956) and Sekondi-Takoradi (in 1948) shortly before independence attestto the proliferation and growing importance of volun-tary organizations with both modern and traditionalroots in Ghana and to the vibrancy of the evolvingcivil society. Most of the sixty-seven mutual benefitsocieties with Christian-inspired names like “PerfectPeace Society” and “Society of God” were more thanthirty years old at the time of the Accra survey in theearly 1950s. The Christian Council of Ghana was es-tablished in 1929, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in 1950, and the most recent, the Ghana PentecostalCouncil, in 1969. Many of the early voluntary associa-tions and their members were mobilized for the strug-gles leading to Ghana’s independence in 1957.

The Christian Council of Ghana is a fellowship ofover a dozen non-Pentecostal Christian denomina-tions in Ghana, representing a large majority of the 62percent of Ghana’s population which is Christian. Itsrole is advisory and it acts through consultation andcooperation among its constituent church members.The Catholic Bishops’ Conference meets annually todiscuss urgent matters facing both the church and thenation, and declares the church’s position on these is-sues. The Ghana Pentecostal Council represents thefastest growing Christian churches, over seventy-eightdifferent sects in Ghana today. The leadership of thesethree Christian bodies are among the most respectedand influential persons in Ghanaian society.

Before the Proclamation of 1874, which establishedthe British Crown as the central authority in Ghana(then the Gold Coast), the supreme executive, legisla-tive, military, and judicial power for the maintenance of law and order, peace, and justice was vested in thenatural rulers—kings, chiefs, and elders. The chiefs’statutory functions today include membership andparticipation in judicial and other capacities in regional

19

and national houses of chiefs whose existence is the re-sult of constitutional provision and statutory enact-ments. Importantly, under customary law, a chief is“father” of the state, the leader of his people. Amongother things, the chief is duty-bound to promote peace,order, and good-neighborliness in his domain; to settledisputes extra-judicially; and to promote reconciliationbetween his subjects, providing a social framework forthe management or settlement of a broad spectrum ofinterpersonal and communal disputes. Ghana’s 1992Constitution recognizes this “fatherly” conflict man-agement role of chiefs, and provides for their non-parti-san, active involvement in national affairs. There areover 32,000 recognized chiefs providing local leader-ship in every hamlet, village, town, and city throughoutGhana. Chieftaincy and the Christian church, alongwith their various organizations, are the two oldest,most enduring, ubiquitous, representative, influential,and truly national institutions. Their leadership is nat-urally crucial for peace, order, stability, and Ghana’soverall development.

Official state publications describe Ghana as aChristian country even though there exist significantand influential minorities of non-Christians—Muslimsand votaries of traditional religions. The nationalethos justifies this self-image of Ghana as a Christian—or more correctly, as a deeply religious—country, pas-sionately protective of her good name. The Ghanaianethos, with roots deep in ancestral traditions andChristianity, disapproves of any form of avoidableconflict or disorder in society, and considers the delib-erate provocation of conditions that stir up conflictand threaten peace immoral, evil, or sinful.

Accordingly, there is a long history of church ormissionary intervention for peace and order in seri-ous political and social crises in Ghana. Christianquarters, churches, and homes of clergy have longbeen regarded as places of refuge, sanctuary, andpeace for individuals persecuted by society or victimsof inhumane customary practices. Chiefs’ palaces andlocal shrines have served similar functions.

As early as the 1850s African church leaders inGhana maintained a policy of not taking sides indisputes between British colonial officials and localchiefs and people, remaining as neutral as possibleand ready to take the role of peacemakers and honestbrokers, mediating to bring about reconciliation be-tween warring factions, and between government andsections of the national populations. There are numer-ous examples in both colonial and post-colonial

Ghana where the timely intervention of church leadersreduced the escalation of political conflicts by delayingthe implementation of controversial policies, allowingtempers to cool and time to reconsider positions andmove toward compromise. The peacemaking motivesof Christian leaders were based on a conviction thatthe maintenance of law and order was essential forthe spread of Christianity, the promotion of socio-eco-nomic development, and spiritual and material well-being.

Clearly, according to Owusu, Ghanaian respect forthe establishment and preservation of peace, order,and justice is based on theological, moral, and cul-tural values. This foundation supports the pattern ofcontrolling norms for the constitutional and social or-ganization of the country and a pervasive respect fororderly and harmonious existence rooted in the sanc-tity of ancestral family traditions, chieftaincy, andChristianity. Thus, disruptive chieftaincy disputesthat threaten personal safety, security, peace, and or-der are grave matters of wide concern.

Church leaders and chiefs speak out clearly againstrepressive and unjust laws and warn government andthe general public against actions that do not pro-mote unity, reconciliation, and harmony, but createrancor, resentment, and bitterness. The Ghanaianpublic expects, indeed demands, the exertion of thebeneficial moral influence of the church and chief-taincy on state policies and actions. In the 1950s, theCatholic Bishops’ Conference of Ghana intervenedand mediated the bitter, violent struggles between fac-tions of the Convention People’s Party and the Na-tional Liberation Movement in Kumasi, and helped tobring about a more peaceful transition to indepen-dence. In the 1990s the churches and chiefs againacted as mediators in the protracted conflict betweenthe government and opposition groups.

It demonstrates the enormous moral authority andinfluence exercised by the church in Ghana that onMay 17, 1992 the chairman of the ruling ProvisionalNational Defense Council used a church service plat-form to apologize to the whole nation and especiallyto the families who in one way or another had beenwronged by government action and policies, a coura-geous and important symbolic act in Ghana’s transi-tion to democracy, which was well-received. Thechurches also organized national prayers to ensure aviolence-free and peaceful democratic transition.

Owusu’s principal conclusion is that the churchand chieftaincy in Ghana have contributed to the

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evolution of a national culture favoring a national self-image and vision that embodies a healthy paradox—it fosters both a mild form of nationalism based onhumane values and the acceptance of the best that in-digenous as well as foreign cultures have to offer.Ghanaian patriotism has nurtured a national moralconsciousness that encourages inter-ethnic, inter-religious, and inter-regional harmony by cultivatingevery significant primordial, personal, sacred, andcivil tie. In the Ghanaian popular view, a good Fante,Ewe, Kokomba, or Asante, or a good Muslim or Chris-tian, cannot be a bad Ghanaian—the virtues are recip-rocal. Indeed, Owusu concludes that Ghanaians havebeen remarkably successful due to enduring tradi-tions which build Ghanaian patriotism on the strongframework of local, regional, communal, ethnic, andsectarian ties and affinities.

THE FORMATION OF DISTRICTCOUNCILS IN SOMALIA

With strong encouragement from the UN starting in1992, the Life and Peace Institute (LPI) of Sweden hasbeen supporting local initiatives for peace and recon-ciliation in Somalia, the largest component of which issupport for rebuilding local district and regional ad-ministrative structures. The organization of thesecouncils was authorized by the 1993 Addis AbabaAgreement between Somalia’s various rival factions.LPI’s training program for members of district coun-cils is the only NGO program which has operated ona country-wide scale in Somalia in recent years. Withgrant support from the Institute of Peace, LPI com-missioned a German anthropologist, Wolfgang Hein-rich, to undertake an evaluation of the effectiveness ofits approach to conflict management.

Heinrich’s study concluded that the councils havegenerally not turned out to be effective mechanismsfor local conflict management, though in some casesthey provide an effective institutional framework forthe management of everyday life at district level. Ingeneral, traditional clan authorities, using traditionalmethods of negotiation, continue to bear primary re-sponsibility for handling local conflicts, with the newcouncils playing an important supportive role.

Several factors account for the councils’ limited ef-fectiveness. First, they were too hastily organized by

the UN. Communities were given insufficient time toagree on the basic principles for clan relations withinthe new district structures. The UN also too rigidlyimposed the formula for council structure and mem-bership, including the provision that each must havetwenty-one members. And the councils were not effec-tively linked to traditional clan structures and weresometimes seen as rival organizations. Relationshipsbetween the councils and such traditional authoritiesas chiefs, religious leaders, and elders were not de-fined prior to the establishment of the councils, andremained confusing after their creation.

In Somaliland, the peace process was inspired anddriven by traditional leaders and resulted in the estab-lishment of local peace accords within an informalpolitical structure. This included the formation of anoverarching assembly of elders which has played anactive and recognized role as mediator throughoutthe region. While Heinrich concludes that the muchmore successful process in Somaliland evolved withalmost no outside intervention, the process in Soma-lia was heavily influenced by external forces, many ofwhom did not fully understand Somali society andsocial structure.

The councils were expected to collect local taxes,but when district residents recognized that the coun-cils could not deliver services, they generally stoppedpaying taxes. In addition, most local NGOs failed tocoordinate activities with the appropriate districtcouncils, thereby undermining the councils’ legiti-macy. Difficult relations also existed between thecouncils and local police forces.

Despite these shortcomings, the fact that the coun-cils have continued to function in most parts of Soma-lia with only very limited UN support is an indicationthat the councils are perceived as useful by the localcommunities. Where councils have attained somelevel of legitimacy it usually results from a mutuallysupportive relationship having been worked out be-tween the council and the traditional clan authoritystructures. Heinrich anticipates that when nationalpolitical structures are once again established in So-malia, the district councils should receive additionalresources, and they will enjoy enhanced legitimacyand authority as intermediate structures which canmediate between local communities and the nationalgovernment.

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LESSONS FROM THE GREATER HORN

In most complex political emergencies, humanitarianaid is by far the most important arena of grassroots in-teraction between the international community andthe conflicting parties. Emergency assistance can fuelconflict and dramatically influence its dynamics.4 Ig-noring the wider impact and potential of humanitar-ian aid removes one of the most important policyinstruments for preventing the escalation of conflictand for promoting long-term peace-building.

With assistance from an Institute of Peace grant,John Prendergast of the Center of Concern has re-searched these issues and developed a conceptualframework for preventing conflict escalation andbuilding peace with humanitarian assistance. Its fourkey elements are integrating humanitarian principlesmore fully into the emergency response regime; apply-ing lessons from the field that can help prevent the ex-acerbation of conflict by humanitarian aid; developingconflict prevention and peace-building elements whichcan be incorporated into humanitarian aid strategies;and pursuing humanitarian aid conditionalities linkedto conflict prevention, mitigation, and resolution.

According to Prendergast’s analysis, those whoplan to provide humanitarian aid in crisis situationsmust

Seek deeper analysis in the planning process, anddiversify information sources. Donors and humanitar-ian organizations must ask how aid affects economic

and military strategies and balance. They must takeaccount of the risk that unequal inputs given to op-posing sides will intensify tensions. Proper timing ofintervention is key; e.g., it is counterproductive toprovide food aid during harvests. Planning for com-munity participation should be a major factor inbuilding internal accountability. The chain of incon-sistent accountability begins with poor planning, andwar economies are reinforced as a result. Agenciesneed appropriate education on the local context,through knowledgeable personnel, literature, andother resources. This helps reduce mistakes whichfuel conflict.

Conduct appropriate and independent assessmentsof need. Improper assessments leading to inflatedpopulation figures or a misunderstanding of the localfood economy usually result in an environmentwhere diversion of aid is easy. Assessments must an-swer the question of why people are vulnerable. Agen-cies must talk to widely diverse people andorganizations during assessments, at a variety oftimes, in order to get a clearer picture of the situation.Assessors must strive to meet minority groups andwomen, and demand independence to the maximumextent possible. Assessors need to ask not only what acommunity needs, but what it is already doing andbuild on that.

Study options for modes of access. The right choicebetween the various methods of negotiating and en-suring access can help lessen the likelihood that aidwill exacerbate conflict. Among the options are nego-tiated access, cross-border operations, military protec-tion, or commercial channels.

Be astute and flexible in the types of aid provided.Certain kinds of assistance are more “lootable” thanothers. A food’s market value, for example, can play amajor role in whether it draws the interest of militaryforces and looters. An important rationale for increas-ing the ratio of non-food to food inputs is the lack ofmilitary utility of most non-food rehabilitative aid.The responses of outside actors should be guided bywhat already works at the local level, what structuresare in place and supported by the community, andwhat the indigenous social welfare mechanisms andkinship exchange dynamics are.

Study effects of targeting and distribution methods.Agencies must attempt to understand local patternsof political and social marginalization to develop ap-propriate targeting and distribution methods. Thereare usually great differences in suffering along classand identity lines. Navigating along these fault lines is

622

HUMANITARIAN AID

AND CONFLICT

PREVENTION

critical in minimizing the strengthening of warringparties. Flawed distribution systems facilitate diver-sion. Getting aid directly into the hands of families—especially women heads of households—deniesmilitary authorities an opportunity for easy diversion.

At the local level, women should be involved in theplanning process and identification of beneficiaries tothe maximum extent possible. Where the opportu-nity exists, alternatives to armed factions should becultivated and supported through distribution mech-anisms which give priority to women’s groups, techni-cal committees (water, health, food, etc.), andtraditional leaders where appropriate.

Commit to independent monitoring and evalua-tion. A commitment to independent monitoring and awillingness to conduct continuous program evalua-tion are key elements in reducing aid’s contributionto conflict. The more sophisticated warring parties be-come in manipulating aid for their ends, the more crit-ical is frequent evaluation of the effects of agencies’humanitarian interventions.

Prioritize engagement and capacity-building. Ca-pacity-building in divided or collapsed states can sup-port grassroots governance, a tool of preventivediplomacy. Providing training and other support canenhance the professionalism of local authorities,which in turn may increase local populations’ stake inthem, enhancing local stability. In the context ofemergency programming, there are many opportuni-ties to support indigenous non-governmental formsof social organization. In every society, there are tradi-tional mechanisms of kinship and self-help which areoften the primary contributors to a community’s sur-vival in a complex emergency.

Integrate human rights monitoring, advocacy, andcapacity-building objectives. More attention shouldfocus on building indigenous capacity to deal withhuman rights abuses in a society. Early warning offamine must systematically incorporate the humanrights surveillance which it now parallels, in order todetect such human rights violations as forcible reset-tlement, attacks on markets, and resource thefts thatare as crucial as weather monitoring in predictingfamine. The mandates of most operational agenciesprevent them from speaking out aggressively on hu-man rights issues, but many can provide key informa-tion to human rights monitoring groups. Thereshould be greater coordination between those thatcan speak out publicly and those that cannot.

In most internal conflicts and complex emergen-cies, humanitarian agencies respond to the casualties

and such manifestations of war as refugee flows, withvery little investment in peacemaking and preventingthe expansion of the war. Donors and operating agen-cies can move beyond treating the symptoms of crisesand use aid to mitigate conflict and address the eco-nomic disruptions at the root of the emergencies. Ifemployed more strategically, aid might be able to con-tribute to longer-term processes of peacebuilding.

Aid has great potential for addressing some of thefactors which ignite tensions, according to Prender-gast’s report. Some promising possibilities include

Creating intercommunal or cross-line aid commit-tees. In areas where communities or contesting militiagroups have frequently clashed and created emer-gency needs, priority should be given to the creationor support of intercommunal mechanisms to discussemergency needs. Strengthening cross-line communi-cation may have no impact on the warleaders, but per-haps will lead the peace-seeking elements ofneighboring communities to see mutual interests incooperation. With communication and cooperationpartially restored, neighbors can continue to trade,graze animals, and maintain other ties even while war-leaders continue to fight.

Promotion of intercommunal trade and exchange.Trade and exchange mechanisms are often the mostimportant means through which communities cansurvive times of conflict-induced scarcity. Economicexchange between communities keeps lines of com-munication open. This is critical for addressing mis-perceptions about the intentions of neighboringcommunities. Operating agencies can encourage andsupport these exchanges.

Addressing the economic roots of conflict. Conflictswhich have their roots in competition over resourcesare obvious candidates for interventions which seekto resolve the underlying resource-driven tensions.Using aid in a manner which reduces local violencecan ultimately produce greater gains than the directbenefits derived from the distribution of commodi-ties. Local recruitment of militias is often fed by faileddevelopment and limited economic opportunities. In-vestment in those regions might draw back some ofthese militia to civilian life in their home areas. Thegreater the potential for trade, the more vested inter-est will develop in efforts to create stability and re-duce violence.

Planning for peacebuilding. Some agencies arealready bringing conflict resolution specialists intoplanning and evaluation processes to advise on howthe agencies can contribute to peace. Agencies can re-

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main open to responding in ways that will support lo-cal reconciliation, including local peace conferences.

Encouraging indigenous peace-building capacity.Emergency interventions can support local peace-makers by virtue of who the agencies adopt as localpartners. The most important means to promotesustainable reconciliation is to build a peace con-stituency. Aid organizations should be particularlysensitized to the emergence of women’s groups whichchallenge conflict and promote peace and humanrights.

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MOZAMBIQUE AND ANGOLA

Most of the cases described here involve external in-tervention and focus on specific mechanisms to makeand build peace. But in some settings interventionand peacebuilding mechanisms are less important in promoting peace than are broad cultural patterns.A mutually-reinforcing configuration of beliefs, pat-terns, and practices may come to pervade a societywhich promotes and reinforces peace.

With grant support from the Institute, CarolynNordstrom of the University of California at Berkeleyhas discovered what she terms a “culture of peace,” re-inforcing progress toward peace and reconciliation inMozambique, and concludes that other war-torncountries can generate a similar kind of culture. Nord-strom reports that in the years she worked in Mozam-bique, from 1988 to 1996, she carefully documentedthe development of a popular culture concerned withconflict resolution and peacebuilding. She concludedthat she could show how this culture was developedand transmitted countrywide—across the many cul-tural and language groups, across gender and classgroups, throughout Mozambique. Virtually every lo-cale had an informal group that made sure any arrivalwho had been exposed to violence was seen by ahealth care practitioner for physical ailments, treatedby a counselor for emotional problems, taught how toresume peacetime existence, and helped by the gen-

eral community to reestablish a productive lifestyleand be reintegrated into the community. These struc-tures were so widespread that every town and refugeecamp Nordstrom visited in eight different provincesof Mozambique offered these or similar conflict reso-lution and resources, “to take the war out” of peoplewho had been affected by it.

The remarkable thing about these Mozambicanpeacebuilding processes, Nordstrom reports, wasthat they were spontaneous and indigenous, not insti-tuted through such formal structures as governmen-tal or social services or forged by professionals orcommunity leaders. They were developed acrosscommunities—including places so war-torn they werebereft of all formal infrastructure. She concludes thatthis culture of conflict resolution and peacebuildinghas been largely responsible for the success of theMozambique peace accords.

This development in Mozambique was all themore remarkable when Nordstrom contrastedMozambique with Angola. The country-wide cultureof peace which emerged in Mozambique was truly apowerful force in the ability to achieve and maintainpeace. Angola, on the other hand, does not show sucha developed and shared culture of peace. While shefound in Angola pockets of the kind of culture she dis-covered in Mozambique, they did not extend acrossthe country to link various political and conflictgroups. Angolans knew what she was talking aboutwhen she asked these questions, but they explainedthat conditions in Angola had not yet allowed such aculture to develop fully.

One could conclude that Mozambique was uniquein forging such a sophisticated culture of peacebuild-ing, or postulate that such a process can be achievedin any war-afflicted country. Nordstrom does nothave firm empirical data to support either conclusion,but her data suggest that the process discovered inMozambique can be replicated in any other war-af-flicted country. Moreover, the vast majority of An-golans she talked to said there were many areas wheresuch conflict resolution and peacebuilding ideologiesexisted in Angola to build on.

Part of Mozambique’s success came through recog-nizing that war left a devastated country and a war-traumatized population. The hundreds ofMozambican traditional doctors Nordstrom inter-viewed said that people exposed to war learned vio-lence, aggression, and revenge as a way of life, andwould continue these actions in their lives unless they

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7CULTURE OF PEACE

were reeducated to peace. Every community she vis-ited had resources to reeducate people. And in mostplaces every person affected by the war was invited touse these resources, from the level of the individualseeking medical consultation, to primary schoolswhere teachers instituted classes in healing thetrauma of war for all students. Many NGOs were alsoencouraged to realize that the peace process and therebuilding of society had to take into account thetrauma the society had sustained.

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1. Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Braziland the Southern Cone, (Princeton: Princeton Uni-versity Press, 1988), pp. x-xi.

2. Robin Luckham, “Faustian Bargains: BringingMilitary and Security Establishments underDemocratic Control,” in Robin Luckham et al.,Democratization in the South: The Jagged Wave,(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996).

3. Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics.

4. See David R. Smock, Humanitarian Assistance andConflict in Africa, (Washington: USIP Press, 1996),and John Prendergast, Frontline Diplomacy: Hu-manitarian Aid and Conflict in Africa, (Boulder:Lynne Rienner, 1996).

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NOTES

Elizabeth Cabot is Executive Director of the MinorityRights Group (USA) and previously represented Minor-ity Rights Group (International) at the United Nations.

Herman Cohen is Senior Advisor to the Global Coali-tion for Africa. He served in the State Department andthe National Security Council for a total of thirty-eightyears, ending his career as Assistant Secretary of State forAfrican Affairs from 1989 to 1993.

Wal Duany is a faculty member at Indiana University.He was formerly a cabinet minister in the Upper Nile Re-gion of the Sudan and a member of the University ofJuba Council.

Wolfgang Heinrich is a German anthropologist and aspecialist on the Horn of Africa. Since October 1995 hehas been a consultant to the Swedish Life and Peace In-stitute to evaluate its peacemaking program in Somalia.

Eboe Hutchful is professor of Africana studies at WayneState University and previously taught in both Nigeriaand Ghana. He has authored several books on Africa andedited The Military and Militarization in Africa.

Julius Ihonvbere is associate professor of African poli-tics at the University of Texas at Austin. He has authoredor edited thirteen books on African topics.

Gilbert Khadiagala is assistant professor of comparativepolitics and Africana studies at Kent State University. Heauthored Allies in Adversity: The Frontline States inSouthern African Security, 1975-1993.

Robin Luckham is at the Institute of Development Stud-ies, University of Sussex. He is the author of severalbooks on the military in Africa, as well as the law andlawyers in Africa.

Carolyn Nordstrom is on the faculty of the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley. Her book on war and peace inMozambique will be published in 1997.

Hibaaq Osman is the Director of the Centre for StrategicInitiatives of Women in Washington, D.C., as well as aSenior Fellow of the Center for Political Leadership andParticipation at the University of Maryland.

Maxwell Owusu is a professor of anthropology at theUniversity of Michigan and author of many books andarticles on African topics, including Uses and Abuses ofPolitical Powers: A Case Study of Continuity andChange in the Politics of Ghana.

John Prendergast is director of the Horn of Africa Pro-ject at the Center of Concern and a visiting fellow at theUniversity of Maryland. He is author of several books onAfrica including Frontline Diplomats: Humanitarian Aidand Conflict in Africa.

Barnett Rubin is director of the Center for PreventiveDiplomacy at the Council on Foreign Relations andchairs the Burundi Policy Forum. He formerly taught atColumbia University and is the author of books onAfghanistan and India.

Sir John Thomson is chair of Minority Rights Group(USA) and spent thirty-seven years in the British Diplo-matic Service. He served as British ambassador to theUnited Nations, under-secretary of the Foreign Office,and head of the policy planning staff of the ForeignOffice.

28

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

29

ABOUT THE EDITOR

David Smock is director of theGrant Program at the U.S. Instituteof Peace and Coordinator of the In-stitute’s Africa activities. He lived inAfrica for many years as a staffmember of the Ford Foundation.He has authored and edited sixbooks on African topics.

31

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal institution created byCongress to promote research, education, and training on the peaceful resolution of international conflicts.Established in 1984, the Institute meets its congressional mandate through an array of programs, includingresearch grants, fellowships, professional training programs, conferences and workshops, library services,publications, and other educational activities. The Institute’s board of directors is appointed by the Presi-dent of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

Chairman of the Board: Chester A. CrockerVice Chairman: Max M. KampelmanPresident: Richard H. SolomonExecutive Vice President: Harriet Hentges

Board of Directors

Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), Research Professor of Diplomacy, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Max M. Kampelman, Esq. (Vice Chairman), Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver and Jacobson, Washington, D.C.

Dennis L. Bark, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, Stanford University

Theodore M. Hesburgh, President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame

Seymour Martin Lipset, Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason University

Christopher H. Phillips, former U.S. ambassador to Brunei

Mary Louise Smith, civic activist; former chairman, Republican National Committee

W. Scott Thompson, Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Allen Weinstein, President, Center for Democracy, Washington, D.C.

Harriet Zimmerman, Vice President, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington, D.C.

Members ex officio

Ralph Earle II, Deputy Director, U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency

Toby Trister Gati, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research

Ervin J. Rokke, Lieutenant General, U.S. Air Force; President, National Defense University

Walter B. Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Richard H. Solomon, President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

ABOUT THE INSTITUTE

Peaceworks No. 15. First published April 1997.

The views expressed in this report are those of the authors alone. They do not necessarily reflect viewsof the United States Institute of Peace.

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

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Phone: 202-457-1700Fax: 202-429-6063E-mail: usip_requests@usip.orgInternet: www.usip.org

Other titles in the Peaceworks series:

Turkey’s Role in the Middle East: A Conference Report by Patricia Carley (Peaceworks No. 1)

Central Asians Take Stock: Reform, Corruption, and Identity by Nancy Lubin (PeaceworksNo. 2)

From the Managing Chaos conference:

Keynote Addresses by Les Aspin and Ted Koppel (Peaceworks No. 3)

Sources of Conflict: G.M. Tamás and Samuel Huntington on “Identity and Conflict,” and Robert Kaplan and Jessica Tuchman Mathews on “‘The Coming Anarchy’ and the Nation-State under Siege” (Peaceworks No. 4)

NGOs and Conflict Management by Pamela R. Aall (Peaceworks No. 5)

Humanitarian Assistance and Conflict in Africa by David R. Smock (Peaceworks No. 6)

Self-Determination: Sovereignty, Territorial Integrity, and the Right to Secession by PatriciaCarley (Peaceworks No. 7)

Serbian Nationalism and the Origins of the Yugoslav Crisis by Vesna Pesic (Peaceworks No.8)

Peace Operations and Common Sense: Replacing Rhetoric with Realism by Denis McLean(Peaceworks No. 9)

State and Soldier in Latin America: Redefining the Military’s Role in Argentina, Brazil, andChileby Wendy Hunter (Peaceworks No. 10)

Zaire: Predicament and Prospects/A Report to the Minority Rights Group (USA) by J. C. Willame et al. (Peaceworks No. 11)

Training for Peace Operations: The U.S. Army Adapts to the Post–Cold War Worldby Colonel J. Michael Hardesty and Jason D. Ellis (Peaceworks No. 12)

Can Foreign Aid Moderate Ethnic Conflict? by Milton J. Esman (Peaceworks No. 13)

Police Functions in Peace Operations by Roxane D. V. Sismanidis (Peaceworks No. 14)

UNITED STATESINSTITUTE OF PEACE

1550 M Street NWWashington, DC 20005 Peaceworks No. 15