Building peace and security after genocide: the contribution of the gacaca courts of Rwanda
Cori Wielenga and Geoff Harris

After the three-month-long genocide in Rwanda in 1994 that left over a million dead, one of the pertinent questions in Rwanda is whether peace and security can be established. The answer hinges on the crucial issues of justice and reconciliation. In the years following genocide, with some 800 000 perpetrators awaiting trial, the government’s solution to this crisis of justice and the challenge of reconciling an ethnically divided nation was to revive a form of traditional justice called gacaca. In its traditional form, gacaca would be described as a restorative justice model, but this paper will argue that owing to various circumstances, the gacaca system as it is practised today leans more towards being retributive than restorative. This paper suggests that gacaca has nevertheless contributed positively to building justice and reconciliation – and thereby creating peace and security – in Rwanda.

Intra-state conflict and indigenous-based conflict resolution mechanisms in Malawi: the role of the Public Affairs Committee
Mustafa Kennedy Hussein

Malawi’s political transition from single-party rule to multiparty democracy in June 1994 raised expectations for sustainable peace in the country by, among others, passing a new legal framework that provided for conflict resolution mechanisms and good governance. However, political conflicts that have posed challenges to the foundations of peace and political stability have been a characteristic of the multiparty dispensation, leading to interventions by indigenous institutions whose aim is to build peace. This paper, which is based on field research, analyses the major political conflicts that have occurred on Malawi’s political scene since the 1990s. Using the Public Affairs Committee as a case study, the paper illustrates the challenges facing the indigenous conflict resolution mechanisms. It also shows that despite the political transition, the socio-political environment still exhibits political behaviour and norms formed during the 30 years of single-party rule. There is a need for capacity-building and deliberate policy to enhance the indigenous-based mechanisms in order to promote sustainable peace in the country.

Africa Watch

North and South Sudan: a divorcing couple who need each other
Emmanuel Kisiangani

South Sudan’s historic January 2011 referendum was significant, not only because of what it promised to the people of Southern Sudan but also because of its geostrategic and geopolitical importance to the region and the broader international community. In a country that has, since independence in 1956, witnessed little peace, the referendum is seen a fulfilment of the last key pillar on the long road toward stability and peace. While the vote, on the whole, went smoothly, the fact that there remain a number of unresolved issues such as the demarcation of the north–south border, and post-referendum arrangements relating to citizenship, security and sharing of liabilities and assets, among others, casts a shadow of uncertainty on the challenges that stand within and between the two Sudans and peace. The absence of a common vision to deal with the above issues and the fact that the threat of violence will not simply go away after the referendum, in both the north and the south, means that there is a need for robust engagement from local and international stakeholders to avoid any relapse into armed confl ict. In light of the above, this paper argues that while the people of Southern Sudan may have exercised their right to determine their own political future, the stark reality is that they will need to develop harmonious relations with their northern neighbours and vice versa if the two regions have to navigate the post-referendum transition peacefully.

Côte d’Ivoire’s post-electoral conflict: what is at stake?
David Zounmenou

The much-anticipated 2010 presidential election in Côte d’Ivoire was expected to mark an important milestone in the road toward restoring peace in the country. Unfortunately, the poll has ended up deepening the very rifts it was meant to heal. While the voting process in the recent run-off pitting President Laurent Gbagbo against the long-time opposition leader and former Prime Minister, Alassane Ouattara, was considered by observers to be largely free and fair, the events around and following the announcement of the final results have been characterised by serious tensions and some incidents of violence. Ethnicity and the north–south divide have played a crucial role in politics in Côte d’Ivoire and the postelection crisis has pushed the country to the brink of renewed civil war. Despite consensus among various regional and international actors on the victory of Ouattara in the runoff, the situation has, so far, not moved any closer to resolution. This has invited a flurry of diplomatic activity with ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States) threatening to use military force to remove Gbagbo from power. So far there seems to have been no progress and the perception is emerging that the international community may be slowly running out of options.

Essays

Beyond pirates and drugs: unlocking Africa’s maritime potential and economic development
Mthuli Ncube and Michael Lyon Baker

Although African leaders are coming together to discuss improving maritime security measures, the authors of this paper argue that they are giving too little attention to revolutionising the African maritime commercial sector. African states need to dramatically increase their gross domestic product in order to reduce poverty, improve the level of health and education, and build and sustain their security forces. But development approaches usually focus exclusively on land-centric projects such as agriculture. It is Africa’s maritime sector, however, that holds back significant growth due to shortfalls in maritime infrastructure, regulations and security; it is therefore essential that growth and development plans begin to include the maritime sector. The authors propose that the African Union and the International Maritime Organisation should step forward to help African states revolutionise their maritime sectors through the implementation of an African maritime growth initiative that aims to boost African production and trade through the improvement of maritime infrastructure, efficiency, governance and security. They maintain that a modern, efficient, transparent and wellgoverned maritime sector could unlock the potential of African production and usher in an era in which the African market contributes significantly to a promising future of African prosperity.

AFRICOM and US Africa policy: ‘pentagonising’ foreign policy or providing a model for joint approaches?
Stefan Gänzle

The creation of the Africa Command (AFRICOM) has reflected the growth in the strategic importance of Africa in US foreign policy since the end of the 1990s. One of the objectives of this new geographical military command is to forge closer links between foreign, security and development policies. However, this approach met with a number of difficulties associated with the challenge of ‘inter-agency cooperation’ among rather disparate actors from foreign affairs, defence and development. In addition, the establishment of AFRICOM has met with fierce criticism in the US and elsewhere – especially in Africa – culminating in the charge that the US foreign and development policies in Africa are being militarised. Although AFRICOM has a number of interesting features, this paper shows that it has reacted to these criticisms by realigning itself more closely with the traditional model of a military command, at the expense of the innovative interagency elements.

Africa and the UN Security Council, 1945–2010: a critical appraisal
Issaka K Souaré

This paper seeks to critically appraise Africa’s position within the United Nations Security Council from the inception of the UN in 1945 until the end of 2010, spanning the entire history of the world body. A few factors make such an appraisal a useful exercise. These include the ongoing debates about the reform of the Council in particular and the UN as a whole, and the growing interest that many African students and observers of and actors in international relations seem to have developed in recent years in the working of the world body. In this appraisal, emphasis will be placed on the origin and rationale behind the establishment of the Security Council as well as the use of the veto power by its permanent members, with a special reference to Africa.

Civilian protection and the image of the ‘total spoiler’: reflections on MONUC support to Kimia II
Daniel H Levine

A tremendous amount of important work has been done recently on operationalising the protection of civilians as a military task. The bulk of the discussion has focused on how militaries should respond to direct attacks on civilians. This is an important issue, but thinking about civilian protection should also include a serious examination of the ways in which the approach of military organisations to the problem of ‘spoiler’ groups can affect the level and dynamics of attacks on civilians – importantly, where armed groups are interested in violent control of civilian populations, attempts to ‘dislodge’ them from areas of control may substantially increase the level of violence against civilians (beyond the dangers to be expected from being near areas where active fighting is taking place). In 2009, the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) supported the Congolese military in operations to dismantle the Hutudominated FDLR (Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda, Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) militia group, at massive human cost. Critics have primarily focused on MONUC’s failure to protect civilians from direct attack, consonant with the general discourse on tactics for civilian protection. These criticisms are valid, but in this paper I argue that two crucial additional considerations should be kept in mind: the way that military operations can affect violence against civilians, and the way that moralising the approach to armed groups, even those which have committed serious abuses, can limit military and political options – potentially in ways that increase civilian risk in the name of protecting them.

Commentaries

Moving beyond the technical: facing up to peacebuilding’s inherent contradictions
Cedric de Coning

There is an assumption that we can enhance peacebuilding by improving the tools that we use for assessments, planning and evaluation. However, the focus on tools creates the impression that peacebuilding challenges are technical. Improving tools is not meaningless, but our preoccupation with tools has a negative effect when it becomes a front for avoiding dealing with the deeper inherent contradictions in peacebuilding. There are limits to our knowledge and our ability to engineer specific outcomes in complex systems. There are unrealistically high expectations of coherence, unity of purpose and cooperation among peacebuilding actors. Peacebuilding agents are interconnected, but that does not imply that they have the same objectives, mandates, principles and values. Interconnected problems call for interconnected responses, not for one coherent response. Coherence should not be about negotiating a common position, and then promoting it regardless of changing dynamics. Coherence should be about continuously managing competing interests and interdependencies. The interaction between dissention, competition for resources, and the tension between different approaches and policy choices is not only normal but necessary to ensure the optimal functioning of the system.

Ministries of peacebuilding in sub-Saharan Africa: rationale, functions and establishment
Geoff Harris

This paper begins by explaining the concept of a culture of peace and contrasts it with a culture of violence. It argues that traditional ways of trying to achieve peace – based on force or threat of force – are costly, ineffective and of doubtful morality. At the same time, nonviolent means have achieved some formidable successes. The paper proposes the establishment of national ministries of peacebuilding to coordinate and implement the building cultures of peace in sub-Saharan Africa. The broad tasks and specific functions of such ministries are explained and some likely objections are answered. The paper concludes with a discussion of the necessary conditions for such ministries to be established and to be effective in building cultures of peace.

Don’t stop with Joint Forces Command... cut AFRICOM too
Adam Cobb

The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been a military success but a strategic messaging failure. The United States’ relationships across Africa cannot be boiled down to military affairs. This paper argues that Africa has many more opportunities than challenges and thus requires a more balanced foreign policy solution from Washington DC than a new military command. For the military engagement that does need to take place, a more low-profile approach would benefit the United States in Africa.