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1、Africa, a Continent in Crisis:The Economic and Social Implications of Civil War and Unrest Among African NationsGerbian King and Vanessa LawrenceJune, 2005I. INTRODUCTIONAfrican countries have fallen victim to political unrest and civil wars for various reasons throughout their development. Some of
2、these reasons include the fight for resources, colonization, and foreign influence. Today, many African countries are enduring civil unrest similar to earlier examples in history, namely Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda and Sudan, which are plagued by disastrous armed conflicts that have caused catastrophi
3、c breakdown of law and order and opened the floodgate of carnage, social dislocation, hunger and famine. Mindful of the political and communal turmoil of the recent years in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Central African Republic, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote d Ivoire and a
4、 host of others, one can surmise that these countries have the potentials of inching their way to the status of a failed state la Somalia. Rwanda has been bogged down by the vicious cycle of revolt by Hutus and repression by Tutsis. In Rwanda, the communal feud led to the world-shaking genocide of A
5、pril- June 1994, in which about 800,000 Tutsis, along with moderate Hutu politicians, were slaughtered by Hutu extremist militias (the lnterahamwe) and members of the former Hutu-led national army. The Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) is not immune to the widening battlefields in the Gr
6、eat Lakes or Central African region. At present, the country is recovering from a devastating civil war that provoked the violence and unrest that led to the downfall of the corrupt, despotic and tyrannical regime of Mobutu Sese Seko in May 1997. The war, seen as Africas First World War, on account
7、of the involvement of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola and Sudan on the side of different groups in the country, claimed an estimated three million lives and depleted vast mineral resources there. From the somber and dire picture of catastrophic armed conflicts in Africas Great Lak
8、es region, one cannot dismiss suggestion that the pernicious ideologies of Hutu supremacy (or power) and Hima-Tutsi empire, which have found vent in the fierce communal rivalry in the putative states of Rwanda and Burundi, could have convulsive impact on the region and beyond. Noticeably, the seemin
9、gly intractable crisis has already spawned a culture of xenophobia, deep-seated resentment, extremism and ethnic cleansing in the neighboring DR Congo, where the Banyamulenge (Tutsi of Rwandan extraction) who provided the bulk of the fighters that ousted the Mobutu regime in 1997, are restive. In Co
10、ngos Northeastern ltuli region, the Hema and Lendu tribesmen have been entangled in mutual assured killings and destruction. Another anxiety over Hutu-Tutsi animosity is that the conflict in Rwanda and Burundi could seep into the laps of Uganda and Tanzania, which have a sizable population of the tw
11、o antagonist ethnic nationalities as immigrants. So far, Uganda is struggling to contain the atrocious rebellion of the millennial cult guerrillas of the Joseph Kony-led Lords Resistance Army (LRA), which is operating in the North from Sudan. In Congo-Brazzaville and Central African Republic, the ne
12、farious activities of heavily armed militia groups, supported by insurgents from DR Congo, have paralyzed governments and institutions in the two countries, just as the insurrection of the rag tag rebels in the neighboring Chad. In Cote d Ivories, formerly seen as a haven of peace and economic stabi
13、lity in the emerging volatile West Africa - as observed in the chaos and madness of the horrific civil wars of the recent past in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau - political intolerance, nationality question and xenophobia have ignited a divisive civil war. There are valid fears that the pot
14、entially expensive crisis in that French-speaking country could have severe repercussion in other parts of the region if the fragile peace plans of ECOWAS and France aimed at defusing the problem hit the hurdle. Nudging other states in Africa towards the precipice of a failed state is the new potent
15、ial grave danger of religious extremism, which has gathered sheer momentum on the continent since the end of the East-West rivalry (the Cold War) in 1989. In Egypt and Algeria, wild bearded Islamic zealots with AK-47 assault rifles and bombs are waging vicious campaigns to wrest power from their sec
16、ularist governments. Kenya and Tanzania have become the centers of Al-Qaeda inspired anti-Western, anti- Israeli struggles in Africa, as buttressed by the spate of suicide bombings by hard-line Islamic militants in the East African countries in the recent past. 20 percent of Sub-Saharan Africas popu
17、lation is affected by civil war today. The countries in the region are growing at less than 7 percent per annum, the rate needed for Africa to meet the international development target of reducing poverty in half by the year 2015. What is more, there are significant sub-regional differences in Afric
18、as growth performance. The majority of Africans live in countries where performance fared poorly or declined last year. Of the five sub-regions, only two, accounting for only about 25 percent of the continents population - enjoyed a positive growth performance. Growth decelerated in the remaining th
19、ree sub-regions where the overwhelming 75 percent of the population reside. The evidence as seen in Fig 1. also clearly shows that a key factor accounting for these sub-regional differences in economic performance was the incidence of war and civil unrest.Fig 1. Basic Indicators of Growth and Develo
20、pment among African NationsII. CIVIL UNREST IN AFRICA OVER TIMEIn the 1960s, 70s and 80s, most of Africa was battling with the destabilizing and debilitating forces of colonialism, neo-colonialism (imperialism), apartheid, the Cold War and political authoritarianism. With the disappearance of these
21、centrifugal forces, except neo-colonialism and political authoritarianism, several African states have started to recover their souls and move towards normality. For example, while the Cold War inspired brutal armed conflicts in Southern Africa (Mozambique and Angola) and the Horn of Africa (between
22、 Ethiopia and Somalia) have ceased, the post-apartheid South Africa has made sufficient progress towards becoming the economic and techno-industrial powerhouse of sub-Saharan Africa. Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Benin Republic, Togo, Cote d Ivorie, Chad, Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, Malawi, Zambia, Zi
23、mbabwe, Kenya, Cameroon, Gabon and others - though in some of these countries, the process of democratization has been captured under the guise of competitive elections (sometimes bitter and divisive), by the authoritarian groups already in control of power. Despite the hopes and dreams brought by t
24、he end of the Cold War and apartheid in Africa, the new era could as well be described as tumultuous times on the continent. Capturing this development that seems like taking one step forward and two steps back are the enduring dilemma of political, social, and economic crises in many African countr
25、ies today. These crises include maladministration, political repression and instability, electoral fraud, virulent ethnic nationalism, religious fundamentalism, civil unrest, armed conflict, proliferation of illicit arms, violent crimes, economic crunch, famine, hunger, poverty, emerging and reemerg
26、ing diseases (AIDS, Ebola, malaria and tuberculosis), environmental degradation and underdevelopment. Somalia is a profile in the crisis of instability in contemporary Africa. Since after the popular upheaval that snowballed into the overthrow of the oppressive regime of Mohammed Siad Barre by vario
27、us notorious clan warlords and their militias, this Horn of African state has been in turmoil and fragmented into self-recognized independent republics of Somaliland, Puntland and South West Somalia. Today, due to the civil war, chaos, anarchy, bloodshed, horror, barbarism and devastation in Somalia
28、, many watchers of African politics, including these writers, have seen the country as a clear indication of the extreme difficulty of state building in Africa. This is the only political society on the continent (that is, Somalia) which is a nation in the real sense of the word because of ethnic, r
29、eligious and cultural homogeneity of her people, but yet, she is atomized across the fault line of clan. In the light of this, many Western analysts have come to associate Somalia with an egregious example of a failed state. When extrapolated and explained, the term depicts a polity where political,
30、 economic and social institutions have crumbled, as a result of longstanding and protracted crises like intra-state conflict, war, maladministration, corruption, mismanagement, economic distress, deepening poverty, violence, crime, social chaos, and anarchy. III. HISTORICAL CAUSES OF CIVIL UNRESTa.
31、Economic There are at least four hypotheses presented by economists to explain why civil wars occur. The first is innate ethnic and religious hatred, where these hatreds are then exploited by ambitious leaders. National grievance, on the other hand, is where the performance of a government is held t
32、o be against the national interest. The third is distributional grievance, where government performance is held as having been particularly discriminatory against a given group or groups in society. Lastly is employment, where rebellion is an employment choice motivated by the opportunity cost of em
33、ployment and the prospective gains from capturing the state and its resource base. Each one of these hypotheses has been subjected to rigorous econometric testing where appropriate proxy variables are used for the occurrence of war and for the implied explanatory variables. The most significant and
34、crosscutting explanatory variables are socio-economic. For example, conflict is inextricably related to poverty, particularly the lack of human capital, which influences the probability of a civil war. Poverty means that young men have no stake in staying where they are. Joining a rebel army becomes
35、 a viable employment opportunity where job markets do not incorporate youth. Conflict is also related to the inequitable sharing of valuable natural resources. This failure has led to a number of conflicts and exacerbated many others. And, whenever territories rich in natural resources are captured
36、by marauding militias, these resources are most often looted, providing the private funding to continue conflict. Moreover, conflicts are more likely to break out where there are dysfunctional governments - characterized by weak, undemocratic economic and political institutions. There are many cases
37、 where the failure by governments to address national grievances has led to conflict and war. Clearly, civil conflict is less probable in a full democracy. The more democratic the society, the more it has outlets for frustration and ways to seek solutions. The more governments respond to the issues
38、people have, the lower the risk of civil war. Fourth, polarized societies risk fracture. Contrary to what so many analysts have said about how Africa can never be stable with so many ethnicities, the evidence is that ethnic and religious diversity is a stabilizing force. There is a higher risk of ci
39、vil wars in polarized societies (even if they are ethnically more homogeneous) than in more diverse societies. Diversity makes societies safer by reducing the probability of ethnic conflicts, as it is simply more expensive and complicated to foment trouble in diverse societies. Even if conflicts do
40、break out in pluralistic societies, they tend to last for shorter periods, as it is harder for rebels to be cohesive. We know the results when poverty is high, natural resource endowments are not managed equitably, governments are undemocratic and societies are polarized. The results are conflicts a
41、nd the costs are terrible.War is undoubtedly the destroyer of economic development in Africa. As we saw so tragically in Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone, civil war not only devastates the lives of civilians: it damages the environment; it wreaks havoc on social, education and health services; it tr
42、aumatizes whole generations of youth; and it forces people to abandon homes and farming land, engulfing once stable family units in a flood of refugees. Indeed, the empirical evidence is now overwhelming that: Armed conflict destroys capital, leaving shattered infrastructure in its wake; Armed confl
43、ict, being as it is a negative shock on economic systems, reduces savings even when the levels of these savings are most fragile; Armed conflict diverts portfolios away from domestic investment, and triggers massive capital flight - which, by the way, relative to GDP, is higher in Africa than in any
44、 other region of the world; Armed conflict also distorts foreign aid budgets which now increasingly are devoted to emergencies; and, most fundamentally, Armed conflict massively diverts government expenditures away from provision of economic services towards military expenditure. In one far from wor
45、st case, a current conflict is estimated to be consuming 50% of a countrys GDP.There is a theory that wars can reap high rewards, be they in the form of gold, diamonds or oil. But any economist would come to a different conclusion if all the costs to the populations involved were added up against th
46、e gains from such looting. In any case, the gains of wars are generally illegally siphoned off so they usually should be counted as a loss to the public. b. Ethnic NationalismEthnic/micro nationalism is also a potent force to reckon with in the crisis of instability in Africa. In this regard, Nigeri
47、a is, in recent years, becoming volatile, a kind of powder keg, on account of frequent nasty inter-ethnic and religious riots, fuelled by years of bubbling communal discontent and frustration across the country. In Western Sahara, Sudan (in the South), Senegal (in Casamance), Angola (in Cabinda), Et
48、hiopia (in Oromoland, Ogaden and Haud), Comoros (in Anjou an), Niger (in Agadez) and Mali (in Alawak), disaffected ethnic nationalities have been waging armed separatist struggles for autonomy or outright independence. In recent years, Namibia and Cameroon have increasingly become volatile since the
49、 beginning of the agitation for national self-determination by San people of the Caprivi Strip and English-speaking Cameroonians respectively. Inter-state conflicts have added to the sources of violence and instability in Africa. Such conflicts include the long time standoff between Nigeria and Cameroon over the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula and the continued tension between Ethiopia and Eritrea over the Badme territory. Such conflict has often had the ominous implication of und
