The Feasability of Arms Control and Disarmament in Achieving Human Security: The African Experience in the Post Cold War (original) (raw)

Disarmament and Development: An African View

IDS Bulletin, 1985

In the past decade the African continent has been riven by armed conflict. The record is familiar and will be reviewed only briefly here: liberation wars have been fought and concluded in Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and Zimbabwe. Similar wars are in progress in the Western Sahara, Namibia, and Azania (South Africa). Civil wars are currently under way in Ethiopia and Chad, in both cases of long duration, and with no immediate end in sight, in spite of substantial foreign involvement. 'National' wars were fought in 1977 and 1978 between Ethiopia and Somalia on one hand and Uganda and Tanzania on the other, in the one case over disputed border territory and in the other to unseat a regime. Both again involved foreign intervention, but in different forms and to greatly varying degrees. Foreign intervention of various kinds has become a more and more general feature of these wars, in some cases involving actual combat by foreign troops, and in a number of instances repeated interventions by the same powers. France has a particularly long record of such interventions-in Chad (several times), Shaba (twice), and the Central African Republic, also previously in the Cameroon, Senegal, and Gabon. The Soviet Union and Cuba have also intervened in Angola and Ethiopia. The United States has intervened more covertly in Angola, Chad, Sudan, Morocco and Egypt. If forcible intrusion by external powers has been common, so has intervention by regional 'powers' (South Africa in Angola since 1975, with repeated incursions into other 'frontline' states; Morocco and Senegal in Shaba; Libya in Chad since 1973 and more overtly since 1980; 'OAU forces' in Chad in 1981; and Senegal in the Gambia in 1981, etc.). Foreign troops are garrisoned on African soil in several countries (the French in Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Central African Republic and Djibouti, Cubans in Angola and Ethiopia) and over the period under review several African states offered bases on their soil for the use of foreign military forces. Both foreign and regional African powers have established

THE CHANGING CONCEPT OF DISARMAMENT IN AFRICA

Any focus on disarmament in Africa over past last twenty years cannot be separated from the history and impact of the Cold War on United Nations (UN) peacekeeping. The decade 1989-1999 saw a major shift in the disarmament debate. Prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall the debate mostly focused on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons between the two superpowers of the Cold War. However, the end of the Cold War and the subsequent proliferation of intra-state conflicts or what came to be known as complex emergencies in Africa and in countries of the former Eastern bloc brought about new disarmament challenges. 1 Complex emergencies and most post-Cold War conflicts have been characterized as resulting from a series of inter-locking causes, including collapse of political institutions, the phenomena of 'failed states', civil and ethnic strife, famine, displacement of people, disputed sovereignty, the breakdown of national governments and the decline of national economies. 2 Most of the characteristics of these conflicts continue to mirror the current situation in Africa's conflict zones. In West Africa many analysts have spoken of a 'new barbarism '. 3 Freed from the constraints of superpower rivalry, the mandate of peacekeeping changed as more space was created. United Nations peacekeeping missions were given new mandates as traditional notions of sovereignty were challenged. Post-Cold War crises in Rwanda, Somalia, Kosovo, and Bosnia brought about new challenges for the international community and for UN peacekeeping in general. Debates on the need to intervene (most often on humanitarian grounds) were accompanied by the need to review practice and evaluate lessons learnt. 4

“Arms Restraint and Regional International Law Making -The Case of the Economic Community of West African States”, African Security Review, 18 (2), 2009, 75-92.

Peacebuilding has been promoted as a new international paradigm guided by humanitarian values and with the objective of bringing peace and justice to war-torn countries. Critics say, however, that peacebuilding is a form of imperialism designed to serve the interests of the powerful in the Bretton Woods system by pacifying and even recolonising the countries of the South. We assess these perspectives to better understand the main issues and implications of this unfolding debate. Despite the appearance of something new, peacebuilding has the same assumptions as modernisation theory, the Bretton Woods path of development. Most peacebuilding literature, by being nonreflexive, helps legitimise this dominant ideology. vi African Security Review 18.2 Institute for Security Studies

Illicit Arms Trade and Conflict in Africa: An Assessment of International Arms Control Measures

The dimensions and proportions of inter and intra-state conflicts have led to the labelling of Africa as a crisis-ridden continent; but one that cannot be ignored easily. This is because Africa plays an important role in global economy through her abundant natural resources. However, one peculiar occurrence in these richly endowed countries is conflict. Many of these conflicts have earned intractable status because of the constant flow of arms to warring parties. Regulating these conflicts may be an uphill task unless arms supplies to the warring parties are checked. This paper examines how the flow of arms into Africa can be mitigated through the concerted effort of African states and the international community's arms control measures. Data for this study were drawn from documented materials like textbooks, journal articles, magazines, newspapers, and internet while analysis was done qualitatively. Findings of the study reveal that arms control measures in Africa are not sufficient to check the menace. It is suggested that the democratic peace theory should be made to reflect internally through peace and good governance so as not to give the citizens any reason to take up arms against one another.

DISARMAMENT IN THIRDWORLD COUNTRIES: NIGERIA IN PERSPECTIVE

This paper examines the non-proliferation of arms or disarmament in the international system. It conceptualizes disarmament in the third world countries in the words of former secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Anan and third world in the word of Herswtich. The paper adopted the realist and the idealist theories in international relations to explain arm race and disarmament as two opposing theories to arms struggle and war in general. The paper continuous by making recommendations after citing a number of implications in disarmament in third world countries viz; political, economic, wrong perception of security among others.

Africa’s Development and the Threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Update 3

2011

This update to ‘Africa’s Policy Imperatives’ Issue 1, 2 and 3 published in May 2009, June 2010 and November 2010 respectively, provides a brief overview of international and African efforts to strengthen disarmament and non-proliferation through a number of conventions, protocols and agreements and addresses some of the capacity and resource constraints within the African context preventing their full implementation. A number of specific recommendations to States – both African and global in a position to offer technical implementation assistance and who are able to build co-operative partnerships and political support towards full African universality of the various conventions are made. These conventions and agreements include the:

The Supply of Small Arms and Light Weapons to Conflict Zones: The Bane of Onset, Intensity and Duration of Armed Conflict in Africa

International Affairs and Global Strategy, 2020

Small arms fuel violence and intensify human suffering in conflict situations across the globe. The illicit trafficking, proliferation and misuse of small arms have grave impacts on human security, development and human rights. They hamper conflict resolution, peace-building and commercial activities in various parts of the world, affecting the lives of millions. In recent years, attention has come to focus on the ways in which the increased availability of low-cost small arms and light weapons contributes to the likelihood, intensity and duration of armed conflict. This paper has examined the full range of sources of small arms in Africa region. It recognizes the importance of large international transfers in weapons sourcing to conflict zones; at the same time, however, it reinforces lesser-known findings regarding the role of production, government stockpiles, and the so-called ant trade in the fuelling conflict. For more emphasis, the paper is anchored on the combination of thre...

The role of small arms and light weapons proliferation in African conflicts

African Journal of Political Science and International Relations, 2015

Africa is transiting through a trying phase in the history of its evolution as a major world civilization. These trying challenges are characterized by the extremes of hunger, the conditions of massive refugee flow and internally displaced persons occasioned by the gruesome phenomenon of violent conflicts and wars. The paper sets out essentially to establish the connection between the massive flow of small arms and light weapons (SALW) since the end of the Cold War and the equally catastrophic revolutionary ferment that characterized the Arab Spring across the fertile crescent and the Maghreb. The paper is sustainably driven by core normative paradigms covering the vast area of illicit armaments and their orchestrating influence in igniting violence. To weave the perspectives captured herein, the paper depended almost exclusively on the content analysis of existing literary materials in the humanist and social science traditions. Findings confirm that indeed small arms and light weapons abound within our case studies (Nigeria and the CAR), a phenomenon that both ignites and sustains violent conflicts within these previously peaceful national territorial entities. By way of recommendation the paper advocates the strengthening of existing legal and political protocols and the fortification of the borders of these countries if they are to remain virile and relevant in the international socioeconomic and political order.

1. Introduction: international security, armaments and disarmament

2015

States are the building blocks of the international system, but in many parts of the world in 2014 their role as pre-eminent security providers was being challenged. Although the specific nature of these challenges differed widely, depending on the context, a common thread was an underlying concern about the capacity of states to manage a mounting set of often interconnected problems of concern to citizens. The wider risks posed by the loss of authority, the collapse of institutions and the emergence of ungoverned spaces in certain locations—such as Somalia—have been in focus for more than two decades. In 1995 the supplement to the Agenda for Peace launched by then United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali underlined that the collapse of state institutions created different kinds of problems when compared with interstate conflicts.1 The report stated that the loss of state functions provided by the police and judiciary opened the way for banditry, which could lead to th...