Tuesday 24 November 2009

Ethiopia / Eritrea UN Documents

Revised on 14 August 2008
Read more

Ethiopia and Eritrea: Allergic to Persuasion by Sally Healy and Martin Plaut

This briefing paper charts the undermining of the Algiers Agreement by its
two signatories. It examines the differing approaches of Ethiopia and Eritrea to
diplomacy and the challenges that this poses for the international community –
the United Nations, the United States, the European Union (EU) and the African
Union (AU) – in trying to achieve lasting peace between these two new and
highly antagonistic neighbours.
Read more

ERITREA (Demobilisation and Reintegration Programme, 2002-…)

Initially, the government of Eritrea planned a demobilisation period of a year or a year and a half, and programmes of reintegration for five years. A pilot project designed for 65,000-70,000 participants was planned for November 2001 after the NCDRP was created earlier that year.
Read more

'Border Conflict' - 1998- 2000 and its Psychological Impact on the Youth by Amanuel Mehreteab

After 30 years of armed struggle for independence, Eritrea enjoyed only seven years of peace and stability before another war with neighboring Ethiopia resumed in May 1998. In this short peaceful interval, tremendous efforts were made to establish and develop the basic institutions of the new state that is, rebuilding the infrastructure and rehabilitating the social and economic basses.
Unfortunately, with the return of a war these achievements had been to a large extent reversed. The reversal of positive development in general applies to all sectors but has taxed the youth highly especially the youth who were mobilized/remobilized and armed. Currently more than 230,000 - 250,000 soldiers are under arms out of which the majorities are youngsters. Present Eritrea offers a rare opportunity to probe and examine the two demobilization and reintegration exercises occurring within a decade and its social and economic impact in the same country but in very different political context.
Read more

Rwanda Demobilization and Reintegration Program by By Amanuel Mehreteab

The demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants represent a
great challenge for Rwanda. Since it constitutes an integral part of the overall
transformation from a war-torn to a reconstructed country, this process is shaped
by both the opportunities and constrains that is currently unfolding in present-day
Rwanda. The RDRP Stage II (2001-2005) targeted to demobilize 20,000 soldiers from
the national army (RDF) and about 25,000 members of armed groups (AG)
including 2,500 child soldiers over a period of three years from neighboring
countries particularly from Democratic Republic of Congo (RDC).
Read more

Veteran combatants do not fade away: a comparative study on two demobilization in Eritrea

Read more

Veteran combatants do not fade away: a comparative study on two demobilization in Eritrea

Read more

ERITREA : What happened to the Eritrean female freedom-fighters?

n the trenches of DenDen, near the Sahel stronghold of Nacfa, in northern Eritrea, the formidable EPLF fighters who for years had been repelling the attacks of General Mengistu’s Ethiopian infantry and air force, were teenagers in shorts. And between one third and a quarter of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Eritrea” (EPLF) freedom fighters were girls.

The volunteers came from all strata of the Eritrean society, both Christian or Muslim. Most joined the EPLF against the will of their parents and the majority described their background as being “very traditional”.
Read more

“REINTEGRATING RETURNEES AND EX‐FIGHTERS    IN THE PROCESS OF RECONSTRUCTION IN    POST‐CONFLICT ERITREA by AMANUEL MEHRETEAB 

After 30 years of armed struggle Eritrea attained formal independence in 1993. As a result of the war more than 700,000 people had been exiled and 150,000 to 160,000 had joined the fighting forces. 
At independence the EPLF fighting force numbered 95,000. With independence and the return of peace there was an opportunity as well as a need to repatriate the refugees, demobilize the fighters and reintegrate them into the main stream of the society. But by participating in the armed struggle or by fleeing into exile people had developed different values, norms and attitudes, which were not always and necessarily congruent with those of a receiving community. On the other hand they had acquired valuable skills which could become useful inputs for reviving the ‘war‐torn’ country. This thesis will examine the reintegration of returnees by taking Eritrea as a case study and by placing the reintegration 
proess in the context of rehabilitation and reconstruction process
Read more

EVALUATION OF THE DEMOBILISATION AND REINTEGRATION PROGRAMS OF EX-FIGHTERS IN ERITREA by AMANUEL MEHRETEAB

Demobilised ex-fighters in Eritrea face similar problems as other countries do. They have
economic, social, and psychological problems as a result of their demobilisation and
reintegration process to enter into the mainstream of the society. Economically and
socially, they have to adjust to the mores of the society. As demonstrated in the process,
it was highlighted that they have difficulty in accepting their civilian identity, and feel
they have lost the prestige of being a freedom fighter. Five years have elapsed since the
program of demobilisation and reintegration was launched and is a timely endeavour to
put this exercise into perspective so that lessons can be drawn
Read more

Monday 23 November 2009

CIVIL WAR IN SUDAN: The Impact of Ecological Degradation by Mohamed Suliman

Since the firing of the first bullet in 1983, the re-appearance of war between Northern and Southern Sudan has generally been interpreted as a typical ethno-religious conflict deriving from differences between Muslims and Christians, or Arabs and Africans.

While this categorisation had served as a description of the earlier manifestation of the conflict in the 1950s, and still has some bearing on how the war is being conducted and perceived, our opinion is that the nature of the conflict haschanged. Conflicts are processes, not static events, and over the last three decades developments in the Sudan have gradually if consistently changed the nature of the conflict from being a classic ethno-religious conflict to one mainly over resources, with the economic and resource crisis in the North emerging as a driving force in the Sudanese civil war.
Read more

Ecology, Politics and Violent Conflict by Mohamed Suliman

It was the year 1998. The famine in southern Sudan was threatening the lives of more than half a million people, especially in Bahr El Ghazal Province. The famine provoked a serious debate about its causes. Most commentators in the United Kingdom accused the war of being the main culprit. In the House of Commons, a Conservative MP stood up and said that the war in Sudan, and all wars in Africa for that matter, were caused by the political vacuum left behind by colonial powers and wondered if something could be done about that. Clare Short, the Minister for Overseas
Read more

WARFARE IN DARFUR The Desert versus the Oasis Syndrome by By Dr Mohamed Suliman,

The armed conflicts, which have afflicted the Sudan over the last three decades, have usually been interpreted as typical ethnic-tribal and/or religious-cultural conflicts. While these categorisations may have served as plausible descriptions of earlier conflicts, and may still have some bearing on how the conflicts are conducted and perceived today, the reality is that conflicts are historical processes, not static events, and so their causes do change and diversify over time.

Read more

The Borana and Fur Conflicts: Similar Features, Different Outcomes

The relatively tranquil settings of the Jebel Mara massive in northern Darfur in western Sudan and the Boran area in southern Ethiopia were profoundly disrupted during the 1980s by prolonged drought, which had persisted with minor interruptions, since 1967.

In the past, when faced with deteriorating natural conditions, people would move to a nearby virgin area (mobility being way of African life). There were enough empty corridors, then. Now, there are practically none. Climatic variations, large-scale mechanised agriculture for export purposes and urban consumption, as well as large increases in human and livestock populations have all conspired to limit or deny access to new resources. Ultimately, these ecological buffer zones have gradually lost their distinction as areas of refuge and as borders of cooperation among neighbouring peoples.

Read more

ETHNICITY FROM PERCEPTION TO CAUSE OF VIOLENT CONFLICTS: THE CASE OF THE FUR AND NUBA CONFLICTS IN WESTERN SUDAN

Most violent conflicts are over material resources, whether these resources are actual or perceived. With the passage of time, however, ethnic, cultural and religious affiliations seem to undergo transformation from abstract ideological categories into concrete social forces. In a wider sense, they themselves become contestable material social resources and hence possible objects of group strife and violent conflict.

Usually by-products of fresh conflicts, ethnic, cultural and spiritual dichotomies, can invert with the progress of a conflict to become intrinsic causes of that conflict and in the process increase its complexity and reduce the possibility of managing and ultimately resolving and transforming it.
Read more

The Nuba conflict in the Sudan by Dr. Mohamed Suliman

Abstract: Since 1987, a violent conflict between the Nuba people of southern Kordofan and government forces supported by indigenous Arab Baggara has been raging in the Nuba Mountains. The armed conflict has brought great misery to the inhabitants of the mountains, especially the Nuba and has had a severe impact on relations between the Nuba and Baggara, who have shared the mountains in uneasy peace and guarded cooperation for the last 200 years. The government persuaded the Baggara to join its crusade against the Nuba by giving them arms and promising them Nuba lands after a quick victory. The Baggara, intoxicated by military power and greed, rejected all calls for peace with the Nuba. The war continued unabated for years. The Baggara lost some of their traditional lands, many men, and animals. Their trade with the Nuba collapsed. Losses forced the Baggara in several areas to negotiate peace with the Nuba. This chapter attempts to explain the complex web of cooperation and conflict that binds the Nuba and the Baggara. It also documents three peace agreements reached between the two warring groups.

Read more

The Horn of Turbulence: Identifying the Root Causes of Conflict and the Appropriate Instruments for Peace Building as a Precondition for Sustainable

The Horn of Africa has been torn apart by warfare for over thirty years. The propensity for conflict in this region has been the subject of much discussion amongst scholars and policy makers. The research programme represents part of a continuing effort to understand some of the underlying causes and has been undertaken by a multinational team recruited from diverse states of the region, whose governments are periodically locked in antagonism. The making of this work is a telling illustration of the dynamics of conflict itself. Shortly after the project got under way, one of the chosen field sites in Eritrea, became a battlefront in the 1998-2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian border war. Access to the field, to informants and to official sources suddenly became blocked, and the entire project viewed with suspicion.

Read more

Oil and the Civil War in the Sudan

THE CIVIL WAR IN THE SOUTH by by Dr Mohamed Suliman

Since the firing of the first bullet in 1983, the reappearance of the war between northern and southern Sudan has generally been interpreted as a typical ethno-religious conflict emanating from differences between Muslims and Christians, or Arabs and Africans. While this categorisation may have served well as a description of the earlier conflict in the 1950s, and still has some bearing on how the war is being conducted and perceived, our opinion is that the nature of the conflict has changed. Conflicts are processes, not static events. And over the last five decades developments in the Sudan have gradually if consistently changed the nature of the conflict between the North and the South from being a classic ethno-religious conflict to one primarily over resources, with the economic and resource crisis in the North emerging as the driving force in the Sudanese civil war.
Read more

18 Years of Civil War in the Sudan

In 1992, Prof. Spillmann invited me to give a talk here in Zurich about the civil war in the Sudan. Almost 10 years later, he has asked me to do the same again. Unfortunately, most of the problems we explored then are still with us today and many of the issues we discussed at that time are still being discussed now. The war situation is almost identical to that in 1992. The government controls most towns in the South while the Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) controls most of the country-side. During the last 9 years, over 1m people perished, and about as many left their homes fleeing the war and famine and huge tracts of land have been devastated. Yet, peace is still as elusive as ever, while the misery is consistently being compounded. Everything has been turbulent and in flux and yet appears to have stayed the same - with the exception of the menacing factor of the growing oil wealth and its implication on duration and intensity of the war

Read more.

Politics, Conflict and Conflict Resolution in the Horn of Africa: by Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. By Dr. Axel Klein, IFAA

In response to the deteriorating political situation across the African continent, the Institute For African Alternatives has sought to keep researchers and professionals working in Africa abreast of developments with an annual review on the State of War and Peace in Africa. In the course of collating this reference work, we began to identify commonalties in the different theatres of conflict, which allowed for the elaboration of general principles and drew us into dialogue with a wide body of research on conflict studies. In the process we found it increasingly valuable to contrast our own experience of several countries in the Horn with the prevailing models in conflict research. In response to the growing influence of cultural determinism and a Malthusian influenced ‘environmentalism’, we set out to first denaturalise the interpretation of African conflict.
Read more

The War in Darfur: The Resource Dimension

Latest Darfur paper: The War in Darfur: the Resource Dimension

Presented by Mohamed Suliman at a conference at the American University in Cairo on the 5th of April 2008

In 1983, at the height of the Sahel drought of 1982/84, skirmishes over land erupted between the farmers of Jebel Marra and the pastoralists of northern Darfur. Bad leadership at local, provincial and central government levels allowed the skirmishes to escalate to an armed conflict. A number of objective and subjective factors, one prominent of which was the closeness of the Libyan/Chadian war, helped in spiralling this deterioration. In 2003, war erupted and still continues in Darfur. In the process, skirmishes over land have become a war about identity; Sudanese of Arab origin are fighting against Sudanese of African origin. This remarkable transformation of a resource conflict into an ethnic war seems to be characteristic of many armed conflicts in the Horn of Africa and the Sahel region. Let a resource conflict endure and escalate and you end up with an identity war!
Read More

Conflict in Darfur

Darfur paper in Arabic by Mohamed Suliman, 2009

في عام 1983، حينما كان جفاف منطقة الساحل الأفريقي (Sahel) لأعوام 1982/1984 في أعلى حالاته، إنفجرت إشتباكات حول الأرض بين مزارعي جبل مرّة وبين الرعاة من شمال دارفور. وقد سمح سوء القيادة على المستوى المحلي وعلى مستوى الحكومة المركزيّة للإشتباكات بالتصاعد وبلوغ مستوى النزاع الدموي المسلّح. وقد ساعد عدد من العوامل الذاتيّة والموضوعيّة، من بينها القرب من الحرب الليبيّة- التشاديّة، من تصعيد هذا التدهور بشكل هائل. وفي عام 2003 إنفجرت الحرب في دارفور ومازالت مستعرة. وخلال ذلك صارت الإشتباكات حول الأرض حرباً حول الهويّة: سودانيّون من أصول عربيّة يحاربون سودانيين من أصول أفريقيّة. ويبدو هذا التحوّل المتميّز للحرب من حرب حول الموارد إلى حرب عرقيّة (إثنيّة) طبيعة ملازمة للعديد من النزاعات الدمويّة في القرن الأفريقي ومنطقة الساحل. والحقيقة هي أنّه إذا تُرك نزاع موارد ليستمر ويتفاقم فلا بد أنه سيبلغ مستوى حرب هويّة!
Read more

The Regime of Action Islam in the Sudan by Mohamed Suliman

Action Islam

The victory of the Iranian revolution in 1979 exerted a tremendous impact on the Islamic world. The argument went around then that if a few dedicated Islamists can topple the mighty regime of the Shah, well- organised and disciplined Islamic movements everywhere else could surely aspire to similar success. Few months after the victory in Tehran, a group of over four hundred armed Islamists from 11 nationalities attacked Mecca and occupied the Ka’aba. That first multi-national armed Islamist insurrection was defeated, actually annihilated. So was the fate of other uprisings in Syria, northern African Muslim countries and even in northern Nigeria. Osama Ben Laden was certainly not the first to lead a multi-national armed Jihadist group!

Read more

Sunday 22 November 2009

Citizenship and Democratization in Ethiopia

Citizenship and Democratization in Ethiopia Prepared for presentation at the American Political Science Association Annual Meetings Sept. 1-4 2005 Washington,
Read more

Democratisation of Africa from the Interreligious Perspective

Africa went through three traumatic experiences. It was enslaved by the
Arabs and later by the West and colonised by the West. Slavery was abolished and
decolonisation began in the late 1950’s with Ghana having celebrated its 50 years of
independence in 2007. South Africa was the last country to be freed from white rule
in 1994. Postcolonial Africa was faced with a mammoth task to democratise itself
(Arnold 2005:xiii).
Read more

Democratisation processes in Africa

Eshetu Chole and Jibrin Ibrahim (eds.)
Read More

Challenges of Nation-Building, and Democratization in Africa

Challenges of nation-building, and democratisation in Africa

The first challenge is in the definition. There is no agreed definition of nation-building. A 2003 study by James Dobbins and others for the RAND Corporation defines nation-building as “the use of armed force in the aftermath of a conflict to underpin an enduring transition to democracy.
Read more

Opposition Parties and Democratisation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Article in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 24, 1, Jan. 2006. This article presents a classification of the regimes in Africa followed by a descriptive analysis of opposition parties’ behaviour and analyses the effects of that behaviour on democratisation, participation, competition, legitimacy, and regime survival. It argues that opposition participation in elections and acceptance of election results is conducive to democratic development in the country.
Read More

African Politics: Beyond the Third Wave of Democratisation

About the book

In September 2006 the University of the Western Cape (UWC) hosted the third biennial conference of the South African Political Studies Association. The conference was generously sponsored by the programme on the Dynamics for Building a Better Society of the Vlaamse Interuniversitaire Raad (VLIR). VLIR also provided much appreciated funding for the present publication of papers presented at the conference. This book comprises nine such papers, which were selected through peer review from more than 30 papers submitted to be considered for inclusion in the volume. After peer review, the selected papers were converted into chapters, most sharing in some way or form the themes of democracy and democratisation in Africa, hence the book’s title. The organisers of the conference are especially proud of the fact that many of the chapters were authored by younger scholars in the field. The project has thus provided these scholars with an opportunity to publish their research, and to do so alongside established scholars in the field.
Read more

Mapping the path for democratisation of Africa

Can Africa's history of undemocratic and authoritarian states be overcome? Wafula Okumu says hard work and commitment lie ahead, but that there is cause for optimism.


22 April 2005 - Wafula Okumu
Source: Pambazuka news

The awarding of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize to Professor Wangari Mathai, has widely been considered as an acknowledgement, in part, of the role the civil society has played in the democratization of Africa. Presently there are at least 12 retired presidents in Africa who had completed their constitutional terms and handed over power peacefully after elections. Last year witnessed elections in Malawi, Mozambique and Namibia in which long-serving presidents were replaced in elections won by candidates from the ruling parties. Read more