It explores how serious the threats are to the security of the states and their people; the region; and it identifies the appropriate conflict resolution approach. One example is the American Civil War, in which southern, slaveholding states attempted to break away from the United States and form a new countrythe Confederate States of Americawhere slavery would remain legal. Cohen, Herman J. Use any computer or mobile device to prepare for upcoming exams by studying these lessons and taking the practice quizzes. copyright 2003-2023 Study.com. Themes include war, conflict resolution, human rights, economic development, political philosophy, ethnic violence, interreligious dialogue, and more. Some scholars, including Mokwugo Okoyo (1977), Bonny Duala-MBedy (1984), Claude Ake (1985) and Herman J. Cohen (1995), consider the numerous conflicts in Africa as a natural consequence of Africas colonial past. 4) Civil rights conflicts: Civil rights conflicts arise mainly over issues of participation, distribution, and legitimacy in the politics and governance of nations (Lasswell 1936). This being the case, any thinking which regards the colonial factor as irrelevant today may be misplaced. 2022 5 23 . Skjelsbaek, Kjell and Gunnar Fermann 1996. The papers of Woodrow Wilson. The conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone were two situations in which ECOWAS sent in troops with financial and material support from the international community, notably the United States (Cohen 1996). 171-189. It will be difficult for the conflict resolution community to see its way around these concerns without a renewed openness to address Africas colonial past. Civil war is the clearest case of intrastate conflict, and it generally takes two forms. for this article. examples of intra state conflict in africa. 0000161216 00000 n Stedman, S.J. The belief, according to Ryan, that basic issues cannot be resolved logically encourages the assumption that the natural state of affairs between the parties is conflict and that a third force is needed to ensure an acceptable degree of order and stability. The second major difference between the two approaches relates to the chances of obtaining a self-sustaining settlement or outcome. 0000161553 00000 n Intrastate conflict can also produce state failure by weakening a governments control over its territory, as is the case in Somalia. "coreDisableSocialShare": false, The question remains whether there is the political will at the African Union, the United Nations, and among former colonial powers to move beyond the colonial-style desire to merely suppress or perhaps eliminate overt violence. In Africa, however, it is sometimes difficult to classify these conflicts from a purely western standpoint in regard to the concepts of nation and state in international law. 1991. pp. Major armed conflicts in 1990. From the standpoint of this article, these different options externally imposed, usually by working behind the backs or above the heads of one or more of the parties involved in conflict, have had colonial underpinnings, such as arrangements without the consent and cooperation of the parties or of some of them. France also intervened militarily in some of her former colonies such as Cte dIvoire (2003 and 2010), Chad (2008), Mali (2013) or in the Central African Republic, the claim being to achieve what became known as peace and stability rather than to resolve the respective conflicts by proceeding with both sides participating equally in finding solutions acceptable to both and, therefore, self-sustaining. Cohen, Herman J. This situation may be the reason why many African conflicts may be silenced but remain largely unresolved. However, civil wars are just one type of intrastate conflict. Some light will be shed on the typology of African conflicts later on in this analysis. This remark by the UN Secretary-General illustrated the superficial approach employed by the world body in regard to conflicts in Africa. As Mitchell (1989:9) pointed out, not merely will disruptive conflict behaviour cease and hostile attitudes and perceptions at least be ameliorated, but the ultimate source of conflict (that is, the situation of goal incompatibility) will also be removed so that no unsatisfied goals remain to plague the future. Scholars of the resolution approach argue that the unsolvable nature of a particular conflict is more apparent than real. John Burton (1979; 1984; 1987; 1990), for example, calls for the adoption of a human needs approach, arguing for a paradigm shift in how we analyse conflicts. In the last two decades of the 20th century, the UN intervened in Mozambiques Civil War; the Angolan Civil War; the Namibian Independence Conflict; Western Sahara, and the Rwandan genocide of April to July 1994. For example, foreign countries can try to bring the warring groups to diplomatic talks. Power and bad governance, traditions inherited from colonial rule and the nature of de-colonisation, have been a major source of conflict in Africa. Its particular concern is with the relationship between the organization and transformation of political rule, on the one hand, and the violent escalation or peaceful resolution of intrastate conflicts, on the other. 0000001916 00000 n He also adds that Africas post-colonial present can be said to have been fashioned for Africa by Africas colonial past. and I. William Zartman eds. In these situations, the focus has been on the use of power at the disposal of former colonial states to impose whatever solution was in the interest of the intervening powerful third-parties (Webb, Koutrakou and Walters 1996; Skjelsbaek and Fermann 1996). The 1961 unification of the Southern Cameroons and La Rpublique du Cameroun gave rise to the Federal Republic of Cameroon, which did share a maritime border with Nigeria, with the Bakassi Peninsula becoming part of the Federal Republic of Cameroon Following the dissolution of the Federal Republic of Cameroon in 1972 and the effective secession of La Rpublique du Cameroun from the union in 1984 and the symmetrical return of the Southern Cameroons to the status of a UN Trust Territory, that [sic] La Rpublique du Cameroun ceased to share a maritime boundary with the Federal Republic of Nigeria. 0000160692 00000 n In post-colonial Africa, these conflicts are greatly exacerbated by the neo-colonial arrangements that characterise many African governments. A majority of African leaders and the people in leadership roles at independence were chosen by the colonial masters from among this group. As stated earlier, former colonial powers have been involved in the efforts to address conflicts in Africa. The case was not different in Sierra Leone and Liberia. The examples of the military and economic pacts concluded by French-speaking African leaders with France at independence are cases in point. 0000143763 00000 n Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings. While the consensus on intervention in African conflicts has mainly favoured the conflict management approach along the specific lines of power and military force through peace-keeping in different conflict locations, the language used also appeared to be colonially cavalier as in the concept known as the development of conflict management approaches tailored to African circumstances . Conflicts between countries have been some of the deadliest affairs in human history. Apart from the US, the leaders of this conflict management support were France and Britain Western governments with colonial, economic and political stakes and the longest history of military-to-military relations in the continent (Cohen 1996:4). Interstate warfare has been defined as military conflict between separate states over a territory. Definition: Conflicts involving groups of people united by common beliefs, aims, or territory that fight to establish an independent country.Example: In the American Civil War, southern slaveholding states attempted to break away from the United States and form a new countrythe Confederate States of Americawhere slavery would remain legal. And millions of refugees fleeing violence can increase pressure on neighboring countries public services. Proponents of the resolution approach favour the raising of fundamental issues because they believe that conflict can be resolved. In todays interconnected world, challenges within one countrys borders have ramifications for the entire globe. There are even more practice exams available in Intra-State Conflicts After the Cold War. Inside, you'll find short and informative lessons that outline examples of ethnic conflicts, the impact of nationalism on intra-state conflicts and several modern-day civil wars. Although those measures can alleviate some of the harm intrastate conflict causes, they are not always enough to create peace. In: Bercovitch ed. With the foregoing discussion on intervention approaches in African conflicts, one may want to inquire about the nature of the history of intervention in African conflicts. Africa and political stability. This article provides an analytical discussion of the dynamics of intra-state conflicts that seem to have replaced the ideological clashes of the Cold War as the principal sources of current conflicts. The content of this refereed journal must meet standards of general scholarship. For Cohen, the colonial state was fraught with contradictions. } Some of these outside entities or actors included former colonial masters, international organisations and foreign powers like the United Nations, the European Community, and the United States of America; as well as regional efforts like the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in West Africa, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought and Desertification (IGADD)3 in East Africa, and a number of non-governmental actors such as former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Julius Nyerere. In 2018, drug-related violence resulted in more than 33,000 homicides, including the deaths of at least 130 candidates and politicians. Cohen (1996:1) asserted that most African wars were civil wars, and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook, for instance, also advanced the argument that more than half of the major armed conflicts in Africa occurred within national boundaries (Lingren et al. 0000074888 00000 n 1993. On the basis of the considerations described above, certain conflicts occurring within the national boundaries of given nation-states should not be seen simply as intra-national conflicts or classified too quickly as internal affairs of States. Wars of succession, in which people fight to overthrow ruling authorities, are the second type of civil war. Conflicts in Africa: Meaning, Causes, Impact and Solution The typology of African conflicts highlighted in the article could surely be greatly enriched by a careful exploration of the various conflict types viewed from the perspective of the different issues in contention. Has data issue: false France and Britain also sponsored a number of conferences in 1994-1995 in some African capitals to facilitate dialogue on the development of consensus on conflict management policy along specific lines, including inter alia the development of conflict management approaches tailored to African circumstances under African leadership. Conflict and conflict resolution in Africa: A conceptual framework. These interventions ended up with the establishment of War Crime Tribunals with none of the actors giving any consideration for the need to address the deep concerns of the parties in the conflict. Additionally, neighboring countries have faced challenges of suddenly accommodating thousandsif not millionsof new residents. 0000140331 00000 n Considered from this standpoint, political leadership in many parts of Africa even today can hardly be said to be African leadership because it was, for the most part, imposed on the people by colonial powers. Interstate And Intra-State Conflicts: Main Causes And - WritingBros To a considerable extent, Burundi and Rwanda also have some ingredients of civil rights conflicts. As University of Port Harcourts Professor Claude Ake (1985:1212) put it, the circumstances of African history conspired to produce an elite which could not function because it had no sense of identity or integrity and no confidence, did not know where it was coming from or where it was going. In other words, the basis had been created for many of the conflicts experienced in post-independence Africa. In the case of British Southern Cameroons, for example, the United Kingdom (UK) failed to nurture a United Nations (UN) Trust Territory to Statehood in accordance with the UN Trusteeship Agreement. xyyXSdVmIlcuuEgy9! PDF 3 NATURE AND FORMS OF CONFLICT: INTRA-STATE, INTER-STATE - eGyanKosh However, some experts argue that a rethink of traditional understandings of sovereignty is required in an era in which one countrys domestic issues can trigger global consequences. One wonders whether the latter view is not the basis for all the peace-keeping forces prescribed for conflicts in Africa over the decades. Intrastate Conflict in the Horn of Africa: Implications for Regional This is a list of interstate wars since 1945. Examples taken from the different sub-regions of Africa are illustrative. <<256AF91838602D4CA38D78ABA683FB24>]>> Although some scholars on conflict in Africa (Obasanjo 1991, Anyang' Nyong . Ryan (1990:105) has pointed out that even the term management implies a certain amount of arm-twisting, and to do this effectively power is required. 0000001818 00000 n This conflict is erroneously referred to as a border conflict between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and La Rpublique du Cameroun whereas from a historico-legal standpoint, the two neighbours did not share a common border anywhere near the disputed Bakassi Peninsula at independence in 1960.1, In the case of British Cameroons, the nationalists consider that part of the strategy and the hidden agenda of ensuring the annexation of the British Southern Cameroons was, from the very beginning, a ploy of the United Kingdom and Western colonial powers to dispense with the territory. In order to move from the argument to the design mode there is a need for a third party. He also considered the major wars in Angola and Mozambique as arising out of panic de-colonisation from a revolutionary and chaotic Portugal in 1974-75. In West Africa, ECOWAS has, since 1990, been involved in peace-keeping operations. As this scholar of colonialisms culture has argued, [I]f we had transcended colonial images and narratives more comprehensively, perhaps we would not need to discuss them at all, but there is no emptiness at present in which such a confident silence can be heard (Thomas 1994:195). %PDF-1.6 % The tribunals seem to have been intended for punishing individuals chosen for destruction by the powerful stakeholders rather than for unearthing the causes of conflict that remain deeply rooted in the respective societies. Inter-State, Intra-State, and Extra-State Wars showed that in many ways the data on the amount of war did indicate a decline in war among the more prosperous states. Some examples of civil rights conflicts in Africa are the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, the struggle for majority rule in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), the Tuareg uprising in Mali, where the group found itself virtually estranged from national life, and the Algerian Berbers fighting against the ruling Arab class. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. As he put it, The modern African state was created by colonial powers out of ethnic and regional diversities, and rendered conflictual by gross inequities in power relations, and in the uneven distribution of national wealth and development opportunities (Cohen 1995:11). These conflicts arose, rather, from the aspirations of a people to assert their fundamental human right of self-determination, as contained in the UN Charter. These were individuals, countries, groups of countries, institutions and organisations. Like the Cyprus situation, there are conflict cases in Africa in which powerful third parties have also worked behind the backs or above the heads of some contenders. 0000001532 00000 n Psychological Research & Experimental Design, All Teacher Certification Test Prep Courses, Working Scholars Bringing Tuition-Free College to the Community, Understand the causes of ethnic conflicts, Identify and assess civil wars that have occurred in the post-Cold War international system, Evaluate nationalism's role in modern intra-state conflicts, U.S., Soviet Union & European Relations (1945-1991), The Indo-Pakistani Conflict (1947-present), Middle Eastern Conflicts & the War on Terror (1980-present), Paths to Peace in International Relations, UExcel World Conflicts Since 1900 Flashcards. "coreDisableEcommerce": false, Bryson and Crosby (1992:3) defined leadership as the inspiration and mobilization of others to undertake collective action in pursuit of the common good. Conflicts within states and intra-state conflict as synonyms Get the latest news from World101, including teaching resources and special offers. 0000000016 00000 n The bulk of these interventions were in the form of peace-keeping. Internal conflicts have their origin in domestic rather than systemic factors and involve politically-motivated violence, primarily within the boundaries of a single state. Two cases, however, stand out prominently. It was also curious in Cameroon to note that 30 of the 100 members of the Senate of the country were appointed by the President. Cohen, Herman J. Outside mediation can also prove productive when parties to an intrastate conflict have been unable to compromise. That situation occurred in 1986 when the U.S. Congress passed the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which imposed economic sanctions on South Africa for its violent discrimination against Black South Africans. The curious nature of this kind of conflict is that the disputed territory belongs to neither of the warring parties in the conflict. The United Nations can build and deploy its own multinational military force consisting of personnel, called peacekeepers, supplied by member countries. The Eritrean Independence War was, until the countrys independence in 1993, erroneously considered as an internal affair of Ethiopia just as the war in South Sudan was for long considered as Sudans internal affair. 0000029480 00000 n Okoyo (1977:93) described the situation in the following words: Colonial rule was for all practical purposes military rule and by a simple transference the new political class which inherited the mantle of the colonial masters also inherited the latters concept of leadership role that was structured in authoritarian terms. The international community continues to make this error of judgment in the case of the Southern Cameroons Question (Annan 2000) and in considering the Western Sahara conflict not as a case of Moroccan irredentism against an indigenous desire for independence (Zunes and Mundy 2010:xxiii), but in considering the territory as part of Morocco.
Two Gemini Venus Compatibility, Maine Gladiators Hockey, Articles E