Conflict Trends - Volume 2010 Number 1, January 2010

On 18 February 2010, the military in Niger, led by Major salou Djibo and Colonel Adamou Harouna, overthrew the government of President Mamadou Tandja. The coup followed a year-long political crisis in Niger that arose from President Tandja's efforts to extend his mandate beyond December 2009, when his second term was originally scheduled to end. President Tandja dissolved the National Assembly in May 2009 and subsequently appointed a new Constitutional Court, enabling him to push forward with a constitutional referendum in August 2009 that extended his mandate for an additional three years. The new constitution also enhanced Tandja's power by scrapping the semi-presidential system of government in favour of a presidential system. Mr Tandja, a former army officer, was first voted into office in 1999, and was returned to power in an election in 2004. Niger has experienced long periods of military rule since independence from France in 1960.

In the last few years, cooperation between the United Nations (UN) and the African Union (AU) has developed into a meaningful, practical and pragmatic partnership. Many good intentions, especially ones about coordination and cooperation, fail to get off the ground because of bureaucratic wrangling, infighting and preoccupations with control. In this case, cooperation seems to work because it is motivated by necessity.

In a bid to actualise the Niger Delta Peace Plan, in April 2009 the Nigerian President offered amnesty to militants of the Niger Delta. Whereas this announcement was seen by some as a route to peace, it is suggested in this article that an effective solution to a protracted problem is about tackling the problem with evidence-based models, and not about making it easier to live with. The Niger Delta problem, like many other conflicts in developing countries, has its roots in protracted and intergenerational dispute. It is about fundamentum omnius cultus animae ("the soul of all improvement is the improvement of the soul"). One best-practice model to deal with this kind of problem is the application of the psychology of cognitive behaviour reversal training (CBRT), aimed at providing fundamental trainings on alternative dispute resolution, active citizenship, behaviour modification and victim empathy to both the militants and the traditional leaders of the respective communities to which the militants must eventually return.

Many Zimbabweans considered the formation, in February 2008, of the Organ on National Healing, reconciliation and Integration by the Inclusive Government - formed by elements of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - to be a watershed opportunity for stemming the nation's historically entrenched culture of state-sanctioned violence and impunity. Zimbabwe had never before comprehensively attempted to prosecute or compel perpetrators of politically motivated violence to acknowledge their transgressions, because the national leadership regularly exploited constitutional prerogatives to pardon perpetrators. Political expedience has always outweighed the imperatives of victim-sensitive national healing after all the major political crises of the post-independence years. These included the liberation war of the 1970s, the Gukurahundi inferno of the 1980s, recurring election-related violence in the post-colonial era, the land reclamation exercise, and anti-MDC violence after 2000.

An intriguing factor in regard to the crisis in the Niger Delta lies in the fact that there seem to be as many small arms as there are militant groups. Although uncertainty surrounds the actual number of such groups that unleash terror in the region, as a result of a constant mutation in their ranks, what is certain is the negative effect of their collective terror on the Nigerian economy. These groups, individually and collectively, sustained attacks on oil installations that adversely affected oil production outputs, and Nigeria's earnings. Often erroneously popularised in the local and international media as one umbrella group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has never been a cohesive entity; in fact, it derives its essence from the shifting alliances of other groups and its legendary access to the world's media.

At just over 77 million, Ethiopia is the third-most populous country in Africa. Since 1991, Ethiopia has been implementing an ethno-linguistic federal politico-legal arrangement. As per Articles 1 and 47 of the Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, the country is a federation of nine ethno-linguistically divided regional states. These can be classified into three groups, based on (i) their population numbers, as minority or majority in the federation; (ii) ethno-linguistic diversity, as multi-ethnic or homogeneous; and (iii) way of life, as settled or pastoralist. The Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia and Somali regional states (taking the name of their majority inhabitants) are more or less ethnically homogeneous, with a dominant ethno-linguistic community at regional level. Percentages of the population that are from their respective dominant ethno-linguistic communities in these states are as follows : Tigray 94.98%, Afar 91.8%, Amhara 91.2%, Oromia 85%, and Somali 95.6%. The remaining four regional states (Southern Nations, Nationalities and People's region or SNNP; Gambella; Benshangul/Gumuz and Harari) are multi-ethnic, without a de jure dominant ethno-linguistic community. This does not mean there is no ethno-cultural dominant community in power, even if that community could be a minority in number. In an ethnic federal arrangement, a minority ethno-cultural community could have dominant power as a result of economic or/and political domination it exercises.

The end of the civil war in Liberia in 2003, and the subsequent free and fair democratic elections of 2005, signalled the emergence of peace, stability and sustainable development to the country. reaping benefits from the cessation of hostilities and the ensuing democratic environment, Liberians needed to make necessary adjustments to accommodate decisions stemming from the 2003 Peace Accord. The National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) and the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) worked together to ensure that the Peace Accord was decisively pursued and scrupulously implemented. Subsequently, the first post-war democratic regime assumed power in 2006, and continued the collaboration with the UN Mission to ensure that the country's reform peace agenda was implemented.

In these times of Internet communication and mass media overflow, do we really know anything about the Other? What can we summarise from media reports about Africa, except prejudgments and superficialities? How truly informed are we about conflicts in Central Africa?