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Conflicts prevention and resolution

The non-governmental diplomacy exercise on "Conflict prevention and resolution" is coordinated by CNONGD. Along with other platforms involved on this issue, a work grid has been established for this exercise.

 Defining the issues (the importance of acting on this topic) and its impact on the populations (the number of people affected, target populations)

According to a number of analysts, the conflicts that have plagued and continue to plague the world — particularly in Africa — in the years following independence are hindering economic growth in these continents. Building peace in Africa and around the world remains a major challenge that none of the nation’s leaders (especially in Africa) can ignore, especially in light of the map of regions where violent conflicts still constitute a problem.

The conflict map edited by the RAMSES journal in 2001 illustrates the current situation of the main wars and conflicts in the world and shows the regions of intra-ethnic conflicts, areas where foreign armed troops intervened, areas where separatist terrorist attacks occurred and where attempts have been made to quell them. But according to J. Lévy, merely describing and listing these conflicts is not enough. We need to go beyond simple studies of territorial rivalries to study conflicts and propose theories on the concept of war and analyse the relative powers.

This map gives a specific view of the world: a system of conflicts including war zones, areas of tension and terrorist uprisings. The conflicts, which are broadly distributed across the map, mainly constitute intra-ethnic conflicts indicating identity crises. This map also proves that the majority of conflicts tend not to appear at a national level, but most often develop on a regional, ethnic or identity level. These conflicts require our help. It is not only the responsibility of our politicians, but of our civil societies to resolve them. Peace is a priority for the world and Africa. Helping to build peace is a moral duty of mankind. Civil societies and State governments can use an arsenal of international laws protecting civil populations and enabling them to legally convict those responsible for crimes committed during conflicts (United Nations Charter, International Criminal Court, International Criminal Tribunal, the Geneva Convention, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights etc.)

Thirty-three of the forty-eight most underdeveloped countries in the world are in Africa. It is not only the poorest region in the world, but also the only region whose poverty continues to increase. Worse still, it is physically surrounded by the Europe-America-Asia triangle, which is shaping the politico-economic future of the world. Poverty stricken and marginalised, Africa is also the region of the world most affected by war. Over thirty conflicts have taken place in the last thirty years. These hostilities, which are largely internal conflicts, are often guerrilla attacks, or attacks launched by militia and armed groups. The main victims are civilians.

The conflicts during the 1980s were characterised by their regional scope, the force of ethnic rivalries, and the frequency of revolts by the people and the movements of populations within and outside of the borders. During the 1990s and 2000s this was coupled with the absence of any political motivation from the belligerents, who were keener to exploit the country’s resources for their own interests, privatising those actors directly and indirectly involved in the war, increasing organised crime, taking advantage of porous borders and above all amplifying the scale of genocide-driven violence.

One of the primary sources of these conflicts was due to the nation-state model coming under threat in Africa. The African states are a result of the implosion of the colonial regime. The borders between countries in Africa reflect both directly and intrinsically how the spheres of control of the various imperial powers were defined more sharply than in any other continent.

In Central Africa, where REPOGNAC operates, recent historic developments indicate that the region can rightly be considered as a hotbed of many forms of recurring socio-political tensions. We have witnessed the development of numerous armed conflicts with devastating consequences since the arrival of the sovereign nations in the central region of Africa. Indeed, among the region’s eleven States, barely three (Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon) can claim relative social and political stability. To a large extent, the other countries of this sub-region are almost permanently subject to various types of conflict, which weaken the security of the region and consequently block the economic and social development of these countries.

In this part of Africa governed by autocratic regimes with systematic political oppression of opponents and clear violation of the basic principles of sound governing, economic development is severely impaired. According to the international organisation International Alert, the key indicators of conflicts in the sub-region are primarily due to a lack of trust between the leading politicians and their negative perceptions of each other. Social exclusion, identity issues, the lack of transparency in managing public affairs and underhand and pernicious actions by a number of international firms that conceal many of their actions all constitute factors which serve to worsen social conflicts in the sub-region.

The combination of factors has turned Central Africa into a paradoxical land, where the riches in all their splendour coexist with the abject poverty of a population which is unable to meet its basic needs. Leadership and the endemic corruption within the governing system prevent the people from enjoying the profits made by exploiting the vast natural riches of the sub-region. Therefore, whether right or wrong, natural resources are now considered the root of conflicts in the sub-region of Central Africa.

Most countries in the region have experienced times of social or political crisis which are still not properly under control. This is particularly true for the Democratic Republic of Cong, Rwanda, Burundi, the Republic of Congo, Chad, and the Central African Republic. Although cooperative efforts are now beginning to emerge at the institutional level within the region, bilateral relations between the countries are still distant and guarded. So despite significant advances in the ECOWAS region, free movement of people and goods is still a reverent wish of the people of Central Africa.

 State of the ongoing debates and governmental and non-governmental positions (official discussions, main topics of negotiation, most common positions of the NGOs)

Government positions and actions

Despite the legal arsenal available for resolving conflicts, two systems seem to oppose each other, although there are attempts to overcome these oppositions with the dawn of new structures. Based on a quotation from Robert D. Kaplan, we are entering a world split into two groups which are evolving at a different pace. One part of the world is industrialised and shelters, protects and cares for the "last man" dear to Hegel and Fukuyama; the other, far larger part is inhabited by Hobbes’s "first man" who lives according to "the state of nature where everyone is at war with each other and condemned to solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short life". Thus in today’s world there are two systems that do not obey the same laws of conflict. One seems to be far more developed and finds itself faced with new situations, problems of a new scale, unusual conflicts which cannot be dealt with in the habitual manner, and which more often than not need to be settled through negotiations. On the other hand, a system persists in which antagonisms not only threaten the boundaries of a country, but also ethnic coherence. Thus David Lake and Donald Rothchild maintain that "in societies where ethnic belonging is an important part of identity, opposition often arises due to ethnic divisions." According to Jacques Lévy, to understand instabilities, we must use "realistic constructivism" by taking into account the result of interactions at any given moment and the results of developing interactions. Olivier Dollfus, Christian Grataloup and J. Lévy show that the world is not one unified society, but that it is made up of a number of independent, often connected spatialities and we can thus fit these two different above-mentioned views of conflicts into two different spatialities. They go on to explain that it is possible to have several maps of the world, and that by combining them we would create a system of systems. It is based on this universalist view that the various authorities and security structures work to settle conflicts.

According to Nicole Gnesotto, there are three systems of security: a system of power, relying on military deterrence; a legal system with the UN; and a system of values which defends democracy and human rights. But these systems are faced with paradoxes: how can we reconcile the principle of national sovereignty with the right of intervention for example? Furthermore, international intervention, particularly when it is backed up by military force, raises questions of governance and legitimacy, and brings to light the contradictions of its own mandate as well as the persistence of relative powers within the international organisations.

Moreover, due to the inherent complexity of the UN and its member States, the national and international institutions can often appear to be ineffective. Resolving conflicts is therefore often the focus of a number of private, Anglo-Saxon (primarily US) organisations which only focus on solving political problems. Thus, settling conflicts can often appear to be the "preserve of the Americans". NATO member states also want to grant NATO a role in resolving conflicts by using military dissuasion. But NATO’s role is disputed by a number of countries and protagonists.

At the regional level, organisations such as AU, SADC, ECCAS, ECOWAS and ECGLC play a non-negligible role in seeking to resolve conflicts which divide countries in the African continent. But as these countries are subordinate to the great powers, they inevitably turn to them.

Within Central Africa, the ECCAS has tried to return the situation to normal, as well as can be expected, and to ensure its regional integration missions. Initiatives for promoting human rights are emerging through collaborations at all levels (State, international donors, civil society organisations). Now the influence and growing potential of contributions from civil society organisations for building peace and security is globally recognised.

Non-government positions and actions

In its June 2001 report on the prevention of Armed Conflict at the UN General Assembly, the Secretary General of the UN launched an appeal for close interaction between the UN and civil society organisations (A/55/985-S/2001/574).

The UN Security Council’s resolution 1625 recognises the fundamental roles of a civil society in preventing conflict and stresses their undisputed contribution in this field (S/RES/1625, 2005). Although the violent conflicts will not cease to threaten human security, the prevention of conflicts is emerging as a core strategy designed to integrate the efforts of all the stakeholders working to promote peace and development.

The civil society organisations working towards peace and development have proven their ability to add to governmental efforts in the field of conflict prevention. Take, for example, the case of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), which involves encouraging collaborative approaches to peacebuilding and conflict prevention in West Africa with the ECOWAS. During violent conflicts, it’s the civil society which provides essential services including emergency aid for people in need.

Finally, regional organisations such as the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have involved civil society organisations in their efforts to promote peace and security in the region. An example of ECOWAS’s early warning system (ECOWARN) in collaboration with WANEP is the most visible example in Africa of a successful collaboration between a civil society and an intergovernmental institution for preventing conflicts.

The members of the IFP could consider committing themselves to ensuring rapid intervention in order to control crisis situations so that they never develop into conflicts. More specifically, in this mindset of preventing and resolving conflicts, we could also:
 take measures based on building trust, including regional agreements on good neighbourly relations, joint committees on cooperation and encouraging responsible and alert media;
  promote a peace culture: tackle the sources of conflict, develop an early warning system and mechanisms for rapid intervention, deal with the issue of impunity and genocide threats etc.

 A few topics of negotiation:

  Conflicts in the East of the DRC
  Border disputes and economic conflicts between DRC and Angola, Chad and Sudan;
  Electoral conflicts in Gabon;
  disarmament and breaking up of old negative forces in the Congo;
  The conflict in the Central African Republic;
  Tracing conflicts in Africa and in the world;
  International exchanges on preventing and resolving conflicts etc.
  etc.

 Negotiating bodies associated with the issues (framework of multilateral and bilateral negotiations, key players in the negotiations etc.):

 Framework of multilateral negotiations:
UN, NATO, EU, AU, OECD, G8

 Framework of bilateral negotiations:
Negotiations between countries in conflict, for example between the DRC and Rwanda; the DRC and Uganda; the DRC and Angola; the DRC and Burundi; Chad and Sudan etc.

 Framework of regional negotiations

• Africa : African Union, SADC, ECCAS, CAEMC, ECGCL, ECOWAS and COMESA.
• Other regional groupings in each continent : for example League of Arab States, Organization of American States etc.

 Framework of national negotiations (to be developed):

• Politicians in power and the opposition
• State and non-State actors

A number of measures have already been introduced:
  the Amani Programme for East of the DRC;
  a number of reconciliation programmes for different regions;
  mediation teams;
  early warning systems;
  etc.

 List of abbreviations

1. SADC : Southern Africa Development Community
2. ECCAS : Economic Community of Central African States
3. CAEMC : Central African Economic and Monetary Community
4. ECGCL : Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries
5. ECOWAS : Economic Community of West African States

 Contacts

Robert Mabala - repongac@yahoo.fr
IFP Secretariat : Christelle Dervault - dervault@coordinationsud.org

• Women, Peace and Security: Security Council Adopts Resolution 1889

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