Columbia University

Spring 2001

International Conflict Resolution: African Cases

Instructor

Dr. Adekeye Adebajo, Director, Africa Program,

International Peace Academy, New York

e-mail: [email protected]

Lectures:

Wednesday 11:00 a.m. – 12:50 p.m.

Office Hours:

Wednesday 2:30-4:30

1. Rationale:

Since 1960, more than thirty-two African wars have resulted in over half of the world"s war-related deaths and spawned more than nine million refugees. The end of the superpower conflicts of the Cold War era when each side fuelled local proxy wars, and events such as the end of apartheid in South Africa, have changed both the role and nature of African actors seeking to resolve the continent"s conflicts. Regional actors like the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) have had to adapt to new realities, and carve out niches for themselves in Africa"s evolving security architecture. New actors and mechanisms of security, both collective and unilateral, such as African hegemons, small states, eminent elders, and mercenaries have all emerged as players in efforts to stabilize African conflicts. With the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeepers from Somalia and Rwanda by early 1995, the powerful members of the UN Security Council became unwilling to bolster the role of the UN in managing African conflicts. African actors begun to stress the importance of Africa"s regional organizations in keeping the continental peace as Pax Africana became a matter of practical necessity.

There are many factors that have hampered efforts at African solutions to the continent"s post-cold war conflicts. Domestically, some belligerents were never really interested in resolving conflicts, despite signing peace agreements. They were more interested in other rationales: the belief in their total victory and desire to inherit the entire state; the economic benefits they derived from the exploitation of economic resources; their desire to secede from a territory as the only long-term solution of achieving security. At the sub-regional level, many states have failed to agree on a common strategy to resolve conflicts. Some have developed parochial political and economic interests in the crises and supported individual factions, leading to neighborhood rivalries in efforts to preserve sub-regional power balances. This has resulted in the questioning of the legitimacy of regional peacekeepers, and sometimes to a loss of substantial external support. Finally, Africa"s weak armies still lack the logistical and financial means to act effectively in enforcing or keeping the peace, external support for their efforts remain weak, and western governments are unwilling to commit their troops to African conflicts. This course will focus mainly on indigenous African efforts to resolve conflicts in the most confict-ridden continent in the world. It will also examine the role of the United Nations and the United States in efforts to manage conflicts.

2. Course Description:

The course will employ an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of conflict resolution, focusing particularly on historical, political and economic tools. Various approaches for managing African conflicts will be examined. The focus will be on Africa"s regional security institutions, the United Nations and the United States. Cases to be examined will include Angola, Burundi, Comoros, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia/Eritrea, Lesotho, Liberia, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe.

5. Requirements:

Class participation and readings are obligatory. There will be no mid-term, unless the instructor feels it is necessary. A 15-20 page scholarly-researched and policy-based term paper on a selected case must be submitted at the end of the course.

6. Syllabus and Reading Assignments:

* Compulsory reading (can be purchased from bookstore or will be on reserve )

General

Kofi Annan, "The Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa", (New York: United Nations, May 1998). www.un.org.

* Eric G. Berman and Katie E. Sams, Peacekeeping in Africa: Capabilities and Culpabilities, (Geneva and Pretoria: UN Institute for Disarmament Research and Institute for Security Studies, 2000),

*Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall (eds.), Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World, Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1999.

Jakkie Cilliers and Greg Mills (eds.), From Peacekeeping to Complex Emergencies: Peace Support Missions in Africa, (Johannesburg and Pretoria: The South African Institute of International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies, 1999).

*Ali Mazrui, Towards a Pax Africana, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967).

*Christopher Clapham (ed.), African Guerrillas, Oxford, Kampala and Bloomington: James Currey, Fountain Publishers and Indiana University Press, 1998;

Robert Kaplan, The Ends of the Earth, (New York: Random House, 1996, paperback).

Keith Richburg, Out of America: a black man confronts Africa, (New York: Basic Books, 1997).

Jakkie Cilliers and Peggy Mason (eds.), Peace, Profit or Plunder? The Privatisation of Security in War-Torn African Societies (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies,1999);

Greg Mills and John Stremlau (eds.), The Privatization of Security in Africa, (Johannesburg: The South African Institute of International Affairs, 1999);

Abdel-Fatau Musah and J. Kayode Fayemi (eds.), Mercenaries: An African Security Dilemma, (London and Sterling: Pluto Press, 2000).

Gunnar Sorbo and Peter Vale (eds.), Out of Conflict: From War to Peace in Africa, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1997

International Peace Academy/Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, "War, Peace, and Reconciliation in Africa", Consultation, Senegal, November-December 1999;

Stephen Stedman, "Spoiler Problems in Peace Processes", International Security, vol.22 no.2 (Fall 1997), .

*Olara Otunnu and Michael Doyle (eds.), Peacemaking and Peacekeeping for the new Century, Maryland and Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998,

*William Zartman (ed.), Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995.

*Karl Magyar and Earl Conteh-Morgan (eds.), Peacekeeping in Africa: ECOMOG in Liberia, (Hampshire, London and New York: Macmillan and St. Martin"s Press, 1998).

*Stephen Ellis, The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimensions of an African Civil War, (London: Hurst and Company 1999);

Klaas Van Walraven, The Pretence of Peace-keeping: ECOMOG, West Africa and Liberia (1990-1998, (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations1999);

Herbert Howe, "Lessons of Liberia: ECOMOG and Regional Peacekeeping", International Security, vol.21 Issue 3, Winter 1996/1997.

Cyril Iweze, "Nigeria in Liberia: the military operations of ECOMOG", in M.A. Vogt and A.E. Ekoko (eds.), Nigeria in International Peacekeeping 1960-1992, (Lagos and Oxford: Malthouse Press Limited, 1993).

Abiodun Alao, The Burden of collective goodwill: the international involvement in the Liberian civil war, Brookfield and Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1998;

*Robert Mortimer, "From ECOMOG to ECOMOG II: Intervention in Sierra Leone", in John W. Harbeson and Donald Rothchild (eds.), Africa in World Politics: The African State System in Flux Colorado and Oxford: Westview Press, Third Edition, 2000,

Margaret Vogt (ed.), The Liberian Crisis and ECOMOG: A Bold attempt at regional peacekeeping, Lagos: Gabumo Press, 1993.

African Development, vol.22 nos. 2 and 3 (1997), special issue on "Youth Culture and Political Violence: The Sierra Leone Civil War";

Paul Richards, "Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone: A crisis of youth?" in Oliver Furley, (ed.), Conflict in Africa, New York and London: Tauris Academic Studies, 1995.

Adekeye Adebajo, "Nigeria: Africa"s New Gendarme?", Security Dialogue, vol.31 no.2, .

Ibrahim Abdullah and Patrick Muana, "The Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone: A Revolt of the Lumpenproletariat", in Christopher Clapham (ed.), African Guerrillas, Oxford, Kampala and Bloomington: James Currey, Fountain Publishers and Indiana University Press, 1998;

Adekeye Adebajo and David Keen, "Banquet for Warlords", The World Today, vol.56 no.7, July 2000,

*William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998

*Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone, Oxford and New Hampshire: James Currey and Heinemann, 1996.

Shehu Othman and Gavin Williams, Politics, Power and Democracy in Nigeria, in Jonathan Hyslop (ed.), African Democracy in the Era of Globalization, (Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1999)..

Comfort Ero, "The Future of ECOMOG in West Africa", in Jakkie Cilliers and Greg Mills (eds.), From Peacekeeping to Complex Emergencies: Peace Support Missions in Africa, (Johannesburg and Pretoria: The South African Institute of International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies, 1999).

Stephen Wright and Julius Emeka Okolo, "Nigeria: Aspirations of Regional Power", in Stephen Wright (ed.), African Foreign Policies, (Colorado and Oxford: Westview Press, 1999).

Margaret Vogt and Lateef Aminu (eds.), Peacekeeping as a Security Strategy in Africa: Chad and Liberia as case studies, two volumes, (Enugu: Fourth Dimension Publishing Co., 1996).

*John Chipman, French Power in Africa, (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989);

Ibrahim Gambari, Theory and Reality in Foreign Policy Making: Nigeria after the Second Republic, (New Jersey: Humanities Press International, 1989) .

Southern Africa

Deon Geldenhuys, The Diplomacy of Isolation: South African foreign policy making, Johannesburg: Macmillan, 1994;

James Barber and John Barratt, South Africa"s Foreign Policy 1948-88, the search for status and security, Johannesburg and Cambridge: Southern Book Publishers and Cambridge University Press, 1988;

Stephen Chan and Vivienne Jabri (eds.), Mediation in Southern Africa, London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993..

*David Simon (ed.), South Africa in Southern Africa, (Oxford and Ohio: James Currey and Ohio University Press, 1998.)

Joseph Hanlon, Apartheid"s Second Front: South Africa"s war against its neighbours, London: Penguin Books, 1986.

Chris Landsberg, "Promoting Democracy: The Mandela-Mbeki Doctrine", Journal of Democracy, vol.11 no.3, July 2000,

Agostinho Zacarias, Regional Security in Southern Africa, (London: I.B. Tauris & Co. 1999).

The Great Lakes

Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja (ed.), The Crisis in Zaire: Myths and Realities, Trenton : Africa World Press, 1986;

Herbert Weiss, "Zaire: Collapsed Society, Surviving State, Future Polity" in Zartman (ed.), Collapsed States,

*Crawford Young and Thomas Turner, The Rise and Decline of the Zairian State, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.

The Horn of Africa

*Francis Deng, War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan,(Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1995).

David Keen, The Benefits of Famine: A Political Economy of Famine and Relief in Southwestern Sudan, 1983-1989, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Alex De Waal, Famine that Kills: Dafur, Sudan 1984-1985, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

United Nations Secretary-General Reports to the Security Council on Ethiopia/Eritrea.

The Organization of African Unity

International Peace Academy, Report of the Joint OAU/IPA Task Force on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping in Africa, New York March 1998 (www.ipacademy.org)

International Peace Academy, OAU-IPA Seminar on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping, Addis Ababa, November-December 1998.

Organization of African Unity, The OAU"s Programme for Strengthening the Conflict Management Center, Addis Ababa, October 1999.

C.O.C. Amate, Inside the OAU: Pan Africanism in Practice, Macmillan Publishers, Basingstoke, Hampshire, 1986

*Yassin El-Ayouty (ed.) The Organization of African Unity After Thirty Years, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1994.

Yassin El-Ayouty and I. William Zartman (eds.), The OAU After Twenty Years, Praeger Publishers, New York, 1984

Chris Bakwesegha, "Conflict Resolution in Africa-A New Role for the Organization of African Unity?", in Gunnar Sorbo and Peter Vale (eds.), Out of Conflict: From War to Peace in Africa, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1997.

The United Nations

Christopher Clapham, "The United Nations and Peacekeeping in Africa", in Mark Malan (ed.), Whither Peacekeeping in Africa?", Halfway House: Institute for Security Studies, 1999

Oliver Furley and Roy May (eds.), Peacekeeping in Africa, Aldershot and Vermont: Ashgate, 1998;

Marrack Goulding, "The United Nations and Conflict in Africa since the Cold War", African Affairs, April 1999, vol.98 no.391,

*Agostinho Zacarias, The United Nations and International Peacekeeping, London: I.B. Tauris and Co., 1996.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda For Peace, New York: United Nations, 1992.

Indar Jit Rikhye, Military Adviser to the Secretary-General: UN Peacekeeping and the Congo Crisis, London: Hurst; New York: St. Martin"s, 1993.

Brian Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War, New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1987,

Alan James, "The Congo Controversies", International Peacekeeping, vol.1 no.1, Spring 1994,

Assis Malaquias, "The UN in Mozambique and Angola: Lessons Learned", International Peacekeeping, vol.3 no.2, Summer 1996, .

William Finnegan, A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992;

Alex Vines, RENAMO: Terrorism in Mozambique, Bloomington and Indianapolis: University of York and Indiana University Press, 1991.

Cameron Hume, Ending Mozambique"s War: The Role of Mediation and Good Offices, (Washington D.C. United States Institute of Peace, 1994).

Richard Synge, Mozambique: UN Peacekeeping in Action, 1992-1994, (Washington D.C. : United States Institute of Peace, 1997).

United Nations Department of Public Information, The United Nations and Mozambique 1992-95, New York: United Nations, Blue Book Series, vol. 5, 1995,

Andrea Bartoli, "Mediating Peace in Mozambique: The Role of the Community of Sant"Egidio", in Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson and Pamela Aall (eds.), Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World, Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1999, .

Philip Sibanda, "Lessons from UN peacekeeping in Africa: From UNAVEM to MONUA", in Jakkie Cilliers and Greg Mills (eds.), From Peacekeeping to Complex Emergencies: Peace support missions in Africa, Johannesburg and Pretoria: The South African Institute of International Affairs and the Institute for Security Studies, 1999,

Aldo Ajello, "Mozambique: Implementation of the 1992 Agreement", in Crocker, Hampson, and Aal (eds.), Herding Cats, and Margaret Anstee chapter on Angola..

William Durch (ed.), The Evolution of UN Peacekeeping, New York: St. Martin"s Press, 1993,.

Margaret Anstee, Orphan of the Cold War: The inside Story of the Collapse of the Angolan Peace Process, 1992-3, Macmillan: Basingstoke, 1996.

*Alex de Waal, Famine Crimes: Politics and the disaster relief industry in Africa, Oxford and Bloomington: James Currey and Indiana University Press, 1997 (Chapters on Rwanda and Somalia).

*Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Unvanquished: A US-UN Saga, London: I. B. Tauris, 1999, .

*Howard Adelman and Astri Suhrke (eds.), The Path of a Genocide: The Rwanda Crisis from Uganda to Zaire, New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 1999,

Phillip Gourevitch, "We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families:Stories from Rwanda".

Astri Suhrke, "UN Peacekeeping in Rwanda", in Gunnar Sorbo and Peter Vale (eds.), Out of Conflict: From War to Peace in Africa, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 1997 .

*GJrard Prunier, The Rwandan Crisis: History of a Genocide, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, .

Henry Kwami Anyidoho, Guns over Kigali, Accra: Woeli Publishing Services, 1999, .

Organization of African Unity, The International Panel of Eminent Persons to Investigate the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda and the Surrounding Events, July 2000 (www.oau-oua.org).

Report of the Independent Inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, 16 December 1999, S/1999/1257. (www.un.org).

Mats Berdal, "Whither UN Peacekeeping?", Adelphi Paper 281, October 1993;

Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, (Brahimi Report), 21 August 2000, S/2000/809.

United States

Peter J. Schraeder, "Removing the Schackles? US Foreign Policy Toward Africa After the End of the Cold War", in Edmond J. Keller and Donald Rothchild (eds.), Africa in the New International Order, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996,

John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story, New York: W.W. Norton, 1978.

John Stremlau, "Ending Africa"s wars", Foreign Affairs, July/August 2000,

Greg Mills and John Stremlau (eds.), The Reality Behind the Rhetoric: The United States, South Africa and Africa, (Washington D.C. and Johannesburg: The Center for Strategic Studies and the South African Institute of International Affairs, 2000).

*Herman Cohen, Intervening in Africa: Superpower Peacemaking in a Troubled Continent, (New York and Hampshire: St. Martin"s and Macmillan, 2000).

Jeffrey Herbst, U.S. Economic Policy Toward Africa, (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1992).

Michael Clough, Free at Last? US Policy Toward Africa and the End of the Cold War, (New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1992);

Hussein Adam, "Somalia: A Terrible Beauty Being Born?", in I. William Zartman (ed.), Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995,

Mohamed Sahnoun, Somalia: The Missed Opportunities, Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1994, .

Walter Clarke and Jeffrey Herbst (eds.), Learning From Somalia: The Lessons of Armed Humanitarian Intervention, Boulder and Oxford: Westview Press, 1997, .

John L. Hirsch and Robert B. Oakley, Somalia and Operation Restore Hope: Reflections on Peacemaking and Peacekeeping, Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1995, .

Terrence Lyons and Ahmed I. Samatar, Somalia: State Collapse, Multilateral Intervention, and Strategies for Political Reconstruction, Washington D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1995, .

Mats Berdal, "Fateful Encounter: The United States and UN Peacekeeping", Survival, vol.36 no.1, 1994.

Jendayi Frazer, "The Africa Crisis Response Initiative: Self-Interested Humanitarianism", The Brown Journal of World Affairs, Summer/Fall 1997, vol 4 issue 2.

Adekeye Adebajo and Michael O"Hanlon, "Africa: Toward A Rapid Reaction Force", SAIS Review, Summer-Fall 1997, vol.XVII, no.2.