This article examines the crucial issue of post-election conflict resolution in Africa’s ‘new’ democracies. Specific attention is devoted to core mechanisms evolved to address electoral corruption and attendant conflicts, notably constitutional frameworks for electoral justice, power-sharing devices, and electoral reform initiatives. The article also evaluates the effectiveness or otherwise of these mechanisms. Though not totally without some cosmetic relief, these mechanisms have largely been inadequate in fostering post-election conflict resolution in Africa, largely because of the nature of the African states, the political economy of power, and poor execution of these mechanisms. The suffocation of the democratic space for post-election conflict resolution by incumbent power holders not only renders these mechanisms ineffective, but also constitutes a major source of democratic instability in Africa’s new democracies that must be redressed if democracy is to be consolidated in Africa.
Proliferation in Africa: present and future implications
Bart R Smedts
Africa was not free from weapons of mass destruction in the past. Recently efforts have been made to create a nuclear-weapon-free zone on the continent, while the dismantling of chemical stockpiles and biological programmes has started. A future shortage in fossil fuel energy supplies, combined with increasing demand on the continent, will necessitate the use of nuclear-powered plants for the supply of domestic energy. The available resources on the continent, coupled with the interest of foreign nations in these resources, will compel vi African Security Review 19.2 Institute for Security Studies the international community to strive for a comprehensive approach to the management of the nuclear fuel cycle. This will allow the African continent to maintain its mining capacity while avoiding to become a repository for spent nuclear fuel from the West. The Great Lakes of confusion Nir Kalron The Great Lakes region is a place of great natural wonder and marvel, but as an old Luba proverb maintains: ‘The leopard’s skin is lovely, but his heart evil.’
There is no inherent evil in the region, however: it is ‘plagued’ with a mixture of historical ethnical disputes, post-colonialist sentiments and neo-colonialist trends all mixed in the same frying pan, causing millions of deaths and constant instability in the region.
This article focuses on the contemporary history of the conflict, analysing the causes for the shift and regression in security paradigms that are most notably due to the end of the Cold War, the subsequent decline of Mobutu Sese Seko, and the re-eruption of the Hutu-Tutsi conflict.
At the time of writing these words worrying events in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo were unfolding. Defection of powerful Rwanda Patriotic Front generals, arrests of opposition leaders, and a general mistrust of the government in Rwanda by its people are leading the area to a tipping point. The DRC and its armed forces have yet to clamp down on rebel groups posing a clear and present danger to the stability of the region.
One thing is certain: the Great Lakes region is filled with confusion, mistrust and pure hatred, and it is a geo-political and humanitarian volcano on the verge of eruption.
Security sector reform and intelligence services in sub-Saharan Africa: capturing the whole picture
Dustin Dehéz
Security sector reform has become a major focus in post-conflict reconstruction and development assistance in recent years. However, security sector reform suffers from a general lack of understanding of civil–military relations in general and the legacy of socialism in sub-Saharan Africa in particular. Nor has the security sector been approached in a cohesive fashion, with intelligence services mostly being left out. This article tries to add to the picture by taking the legacy of socialism and the focus on regime security into account. It argues that the experience of socialist and autocratic structures has left highly politicised security and intelligence services that are unaccustomed to the kind of civilian oversight that is required in democracies. Moreover, new challenges like terrorism and an increase in the narcotics trade have led to an increase in the number of intelligence services and/or expansion in the scope of their activities. This created an even greater need for effective oversight, making security sector governance the most pressing concern in security sector reform.
Africa Watch
Sudan elections: inaugurating the last unified political order?
Paula Cristina Roque
The post-electoral political order in Sudan will perhaps be the last unified order and the country’s most contested. Elections were held in a volatile and complex environment, instituting the governments of Southern Sudan and of the Republic of Sudan, and inaugurating an era of great uncertainty. As Africa’s largest nation attempts a monumental secession exercise in January 2011 the political elites and representatives will carry the burden of ensuring the peaceful and consensual separation of the country. However, on the basis of a contested political order this might become an impossible feat.
Essay
The Islamist challenge: Nigeria’s Boko Haram crisis explained
Freedom C Onuoha
This article examines the Boko Haram crisis of July 2009 in Nigeria. It probes the historical evolution of the radical sect, highlights the impact of the uprising, and reflects on the contentious issues stemming from the uprising. Although the general opinion is that radical sects in Nigeria are unlikely to turn into sleeper cells for global terrorism, this article contends that the fact that some of the sect’s members had received training in far-away Afghanistan and Mauritania raises some serious questions.
Commentary
The Niger Delta conflict: trends and prospects
Paul Omoyefa
The Niger Delta conflict started less than a decade after Nigeria began producing and exporting oil in commercial quantities. The conflict began with non-confrontational and nonviolent agitation by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) against the degradation of the Niger Delta area. Later the conflict developed into a conflagration of numerous unmanageable conflicts. The violent nature of the conflict at present has resulted into daily kidnappings of expatriate oil workers, burning of oil pipes, and disruption of oil viii African Security Review 19.2 Institute for Security Studies production in the country. The situation has put the nation on tenterhooks with security of lives and properties being compromised as a result of the activities of the militants. Government leaderships in the country, at different times, have tried to bring an end to the conflict but this has not yielded the expected result as the situation in that area is like sitting on a keg of gunpowder in spite of the recent arms surrender exercise by the militants. It is against this background that the author sheds light on the trends and prospects of the Niger Delta conflict.
Book Symposium
Précis of Security cooperation in Africa: a reappraisal
Benedikt Franke
The end of the immediate post-Cold War era and the dissatisfaction with prevailing approaches to international relations have opened new spaces for theorising about world politics. This article summarises the arguments for a substantial reappraisal of security cooperation in Africa, as advanced in the author’s recently published book Security cooperation in Africa: a reappraisal, and outlines the case for a constructivist approach to inter-state cooperation on the continent. In doing so, it sets the stage for the reviews by Paul Williams, Laurie Nathan and Laetitia Olivier as well as the author’s reply to their comments in later pages of this journal.
Explaining and understanding security cooperation in Africa
Paul D Williams
As the new African peace and security architecture continues to develop, analysts need to decide how best to understand the extent and nature of contemporary security cooperation between African states and explain how the current state of affairs came about. On both these counts, there are elements of Benedikt Franke’s book Security cooperation in Africa: a reappraisal which should be contested: first, his conclusion that the current state of security cooperation between Africa’s states represents a type of ‘security community’ in the sense used by Karl Deutsch, and second, some of his explanations for how the African peace and security architecture took shape in the late 1990s and early 21st century.
The African Union and regional organisations in Africa: communities of insecurity
Laurie Nathan
This article refutes the claim by Benedikt Franke, in his book Security cooperation in Africa: a reappraisal, that growing institutionalised security cooperation among African states has given rise to the emergence of security communities on the continent. Most African states and people do not have dependable expectations of peaceful change, which is the benchmark of a security community. Franke concentrates on the formal security agreements and mechanisms of the African Union and the regional organisations in Africa without taking proper account of the conduct of states and the reality of violence and chronic insecurity that affl ict millions of people. The agreements and mechanisms are themselves predicated on expectations of violence. The AU and the regional organisations are thus best characterised as communities of insecurity.
Security cooperation in Africa: a practitioner’s perspective
Colonel Laetitia Olivier
Current perspectives on conceptualisations such as collective security, global security, regional security and human security have prompted scholars and policymakers to think about security beyond the military protection of the sovereign authority of the state. South Africa is widely accepted as a leading role player in Africa and has, since the successful democratic elections in 1994, increasingly become engaged in a wide range of activities on the continent, and particularly in efforts to resolve conflicts. South Africa, as a member of the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the United Nations, must ensure that the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) is designed and structured not only to conduct autonomous operations but also has the capability to project forces as part of multinational operations. In order to provide the required forces for these diverse tasks, the SANDF must ensure that it is correctly structured and sustained to execute its assigned duties, now as well as in the future.
A response to my critics
Benedikt Franke
In this brief article, the author addresses three of the concerns raised by reviewers of his book Security cooperation in Africa: a reappraisal, namely (1) whether Africa’s regional and continental groupings can rightly be referred to as security communities, (2) whether the empirical evidence supports my claim of norm diffusion and the growing importance of shared values, and (3) whether the current state of security cooperation is really indicative of a substantial evolution of inter-African relations. Acknowledging the many helpful comments by reviewers here and elsewhere, he argues that his constructivist approach provides a useful lens through which to observe the notable convergence of values, norms and self-conceptions that underlies the intensification and deepening of security relations on the continent.
