RESPONSE TO CONFLICT BY POLICYMAKERS

 In this article, we will see that, on the
whole, conflict in Africa has marginalised by outside policymakers when
compared to other conflicts in the world. Measures may be taken in response to
conflict, but they almost invariably fall terribly short in terms of the scale
(particularly in comparison with the needs) and the timeliness. In short
responses have been too little, too late. Since the problematic intervention in
Somalia in the early 1990s, a dominant theme (particularly emphasised by the
USA) has been that there should be ‘African
solutions for African problems’.

Diplomacy

Policymakers can draw
attention to a conflict (even without engaging in other forms of concrete
measures) through public statements. A look at the homepage of the US
Department of State, for example, can give us an idea on what issues are
important to that country. Under the heading of ‘Issues and Press’, links to
conflicts and issues in Afghanistan, Darfur, Iran, Iraq, Middle East peace, and
North Korea can be found (US State
Department, December 2006). 

The UN also displays links to prominent issues on
its homepage. A check in May 2003 as well as in July 2006 found links to Iraq,
the Mideast Roadmap and action against terrorism. We can also compare the
number of statements released. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, for
example, released 27 statements on the issue of the DRC between 2000 and 2006,
while over the same period it released 214 statements on the issue of
Palestine.

Applying pressure on parties to
conflict (and much of other diplomacy) is usually not a transparent affair, and
its success often depends on it being hidden from the public eye. For this
reason, it is extremely difficult to determine to what extent policymakers have
been involved in actively responding to conflict in Africa using these means. 

We do know, however, that behind-the-scenes diplomacy by the USA was a major
factor in the peace agreement over southern Sudan. In many ways, however, much
of behind-the-scenes diplomacy appears to be aimed at protecting the interests
of the outside state, rather than necessarily resolving the conflict. This can
be seen in the French support for the Rwandan regime in the lead up to the
genocide, and in the continued support by the US and the UK to Rwanda and
Uganda as they invaded the DRC (Zaire) twice.

Outside
involvement in bringing parties together in mediation attempts has been notably
absent in Africa. The type of high-level mediation seen in the Middle East (at US Presidential level) and in the Balkans
is not seen in Africa. Mediation by France in largely unsuccessful talks
between the parties to conflict in Cote D’Ivoire in 2003 is one exception. 

Those taking on the role of mediator in African conflicts are usually African, such former Botswana President Masire in the DRC, former Tanzanian President
Nyerere and later former South African President Mandela in Burundi. Standing
presidents from Nigeria, South Africa and Libya have also tried their hand at
mediation. While such African initiatives are certainly to be welcomed, the
‘carrots and sticks’ that Western mediators can bring to bear in encouraging a
settlement are considerably greater, provided that the interests of such
mediators do not endanger the process.

Humanitarian Aid

Measuring
humanitarian aid is not an easy task. Donors provide aid through many channels,
and there is considerable controversy over what should be considered as
humanitarian aid. Some countries, for example, include the costs for settling
refugees in their own countries as foreign aid^., and in many aid
projects, more than half of the allocated budget is for expatriate salaries and
home country administration costs. It should also be noted that while it is
indeed a response to conflict or other humanitarian disaster, humanitarian aid
is typically not designed to resolve conflict, rather it is intended to
alleviate the symptoms of conflict, namely suffering.

The Consolidated Appeal
Process (CAP), by which the UN coordinates the humanitarian aid that is
channelled through it and its agencies, is perhaps a good place to start an analysis.
If we look at the top recipients of CAP aid in a single year in the period from
1993 to 2005, the top African entry is the Great Lakes region in 1995, at
seventh place.

UN Security Council Decisions

As the main body
charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, the decisions
of the UN Security Council can also give us an insight into the how policymakers respond to conflict in Africa.
As noted above, the Security Council is made up of 15 states (including the
five permanent members and including 2 or 3 representatives from Africa) and
their decisions are the result of compromise and power politics. It has been
estimated that as much as 70 percent of the Council discussion is on conflicts
occurring in Africa, but the output of work, or results, do not necessarily
reflect this level of attention.

In the
1990s, for example 25 percent of presidential statements (agreed upon
statements, not voted on) and 32 percent of resolutions (decisions adopted by
voting) were pertaining to African issues. In fact, 19 percent of all
resolutions adopted in the 1990s were on the subject of the conflict in the
former Yugoslavia. In the 1990s, the Council failed to adopt a single
resolution on the conflict in Sudan. Timeliness is also an issue. 

It adopted
its first resolution six years after fighting broke out in Sierra Leone, two
years after in Burundi, and eight months after in the DRC. Africa’s ‘share’ of resolutions increased after the 1990s,
with Africa the subject of 45 percent of resolutions adopted from 2000 to 2005.
It should be noted, however, that it is not simply the number of decisions that
is important. 

In fact, many resolutions are adopted simply to extend the
mandate of a peacekeeping
mission, others have been watered down through compromise, and others are
adopted to give the impression of doing something, without deciding anything
substantial. There is a large range in the quality of resolutions. 

Furthermore,
the lack of a resolution does not necessarily mean the lack of interest. An
interested member of the Council (particularly a permanent member with veto
power) may block a resolution to prevent Council involvement (Hawkins, 2004:
48-66). Perhaps a more important measure of engagement can be seen in the use
of sanctions or intervention. This will be dealt with in the following
sections.

Sanctions

While there is an increasingly diverse range of targeted sanctions that
can be applied as punishment for parties to conflict, where there is violence,
perhaps one of the first measures that can be put in place is an arms embargo.
Yet for most conflicts in Africa, arms embargoes have been very late in coming,
if at all, often because one or more of the powerful members of the Security
Council has an interest in assisting one of the parties, or because that member
is the supplier of arms to those parties. 

This appeared to be the problem in
the adoption of an arms embargo against the DRC five years after the conflict
started (even then Rwanda and Uganda were excluded from the embargo), and Ethiopia
and Eritrea two years after. Interestingly, although the Council did not apply,
sanctions to Sudan over its conflict, it quickly imposed sanctions when the
government was suspected of harbouring terrorist suspects.

There have been, however, a number of positive examples, although late
in coming. Sanctions isolating the rebel group in Angola appear to have had
some effect in ending that conflict, and greater effort has been put into the
use of sanctions in preventing trade in diamonds and other resources in funding
conflict, prompted by fighting in Angola, the DRC and Sierra Leone. A number of
sanctions regimes have been adopted since 2003, including the DRC, Liberia,
Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan. It remains to be seen how effective these regimes will
be in removing the incentive to use violence for profit.

Intervention

On the surface, it may appear that the outside world has attempted
military intervention in many of Africa’s conflicts. UN peacekeeping forces
were deployed to conflict zones in Sierra Leone, DRC, Liberia,
Angola, Cote d’Ivoire and Burundi, among others. Looking at their mandates,
most of these could be considered robust peacekeeping missions. There were also
peace enforcement missions to Somalia, Rwanda and the DRC. Looking more closely,
however, at issues such as force strength, timeliness and even logistics, it is
clear that intervention in African conflicts has also been a case of too
little, too late.

The last time a strong outside force deployed in Africa for major peace
enforcement operations was in Somalia in 1993. A raid by US forces during these
operations went awry, resulting in a number of US casualties, and prompting an
accelerated withdrawal from that country. This, together with the loss of 10
Belgian peacekeepers in the early days of the genocide in Rwanda, which
prompted Belgian withdrawal from the mission, was a major factor in the strong
reluctance of Western countries to involve their forces in Africa.

While African forces, namely the Economic Community of West Africa States
(ECOWAS) did attempt peace enforcement operations in Sierra Leone, Liberia and
Cote d’Ivoire, Western countries, for the most part, remained on the sidelines.
There were exceptions, but the scale of the deployment in each case was low,
the condition of their presence highly limited, and their deployment cautious.
The presence of a small number of UK forces did play a significant role in
stabilising Sierra Leone, French forces were also used to protect the
government in Cote d’Ivoire and a small European stop-gap force secured the
town of Bunia in the DRC as UN peacekeeping forces were reinforced.

The
number of troops deployed is also revealing when compared with deployments in
other regions. The UN peacekeeping operation in the DRC is currently the largest
in the world, at just over 18,000 as of 2006, but the DRC is roughly the same
size as Western Europe, and although concentrated in the east of the country,
the forces are thinly spread. UN-led peacekeeping operations are almost
invariably comprised of troops from developing countries, and being dependent
on the willingness of troop contributors, there is little choice otherwise.

Approximate
current (end of 2006) troop levels in some other African peacekeeping operations are as follows: Liberia, 15,000,
Sudan, 10,000, Cote d’Ivoire, 9,000 and Burundi, 2,000. Western countries,
being highly conscious of the security of their own troops, on the other hand,
do not deploy so thinly. The following are some of the troop levels in previous
conflicts in which Western countries deployed troops in stabilisation missions:
Bosnia, 60,000, Kosovo, 50,900, Afghanistan, 30,000, Haiti, 20,000. All of
these exceed any African mission, and most deployments were over an area a
fraction of the size of the DRC.

It is not only the numbers that reveal the level
of attention given to African conflicts. Timeliness is also an issue. Soon
after the genocide broke out in Rwanda, the decision was made to withdraw the
bulk of the troops, only reinforcing them and authorising a small French peace
enforcement force after most of the killing had finished. Peacekeepers were
years late in being deployed in Sierra Leone, Burundi and the DRC. Logistics in
peacekeeping missions is always an issue. 

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arrive without equipment or supplies, and even vehicles arrive without tools or spare parts. Necessary resources usually have to be cobbled together
from various donors, and are usually insufficient. When the genocide struck in
Rwanda, the peacekeepers had few working vehicles and enough ammunition for
only a few minutes of fighting (Dallaire, 2004: 215)