THE HORN OF AFRICA

Based on his USIP-financed research on local conflict management in countries of the Horn--particularly Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia--John Prendergast of the Center of Concern and the University of Maryland concludes that local conflict in the Horn is growing increasingly intense and violent as arms become more plentiful and state authority structures slowly erode. In response, there is growing interest in local conflict management and resolution processes, particularly those that draw on traditional approaches of inter-communal reconciliation. Prendergast asserts that local dynamics of violence must not be forgotten, even in the context of serious regional crises and national conflicts. For elders and chiefs, for local commanders of governmental and rebel armies, and for local militias, local conflict in the Horn often takes precedence over national conflict. Opportunities for asset-stripping and revenge often dictate local relationships, and local warlordism can be a problem. The consequences of local conflict are often more destructive and deadly for civilian populations than those of national-level conflicts. While sub-national conflicts usually have some kind of tie to higher-order national wars, they often have lives and logical frameworks of their own, for which national-level peace efforts are irrelevant.

Local conflicts are frequently organized along ethnic or lineage lines, and leaders organize around themes of group vulnerability and demonization of the "other." Given the precarious survival contexts in which many Horn populations find themselves, the ease with which fear and insecurity may be manipulated is not surprising. When specific incidents--attacks, asset raids, rapes--do occur, they often escalate, producing grievances which live on sometimes for generations.

Prendergast explains that there are layers of causality to local conflicts in the Horn, ranging from the legacy of the divide-and-rule policies of colonial and post-colonial regimes and rebel groups; to what he calls the pathological modernization pursued by and urged for many African states, which deepened inequalities and further warped national and local economies away from rational production and consumption patterns. Other causes have included manipulation of ethnic rivalry as an easy vehicle for social mobilization and for political and economic gain, and demographic trends and shifts resulting from the violent accumulation of such assets as valuable land. This is producing a historic realignment of population and political power, fueled by a hyper-exploitative quest for resource consolidation.

Less and less manpower and community support is required to successfully wage war in the Horn. A small number of disaffected or opportunistic people can acquire sophisticated weaponry and, if backed by a few businessmen, elders, or politicians, can create serious instability. There are numerous initiatives attempting to address local conflict in the Horn. The focus of Prendergast's research has been on traditional processes, mechanisms, and methods used by local communities to reduce and manage--and sometimes resolve--conflicts at the sub-national level. These range from councils of elders or chiefs (for example, the shir or traditional assemblies in Somalia which use elders as negotiators in close proximity to the location of the conflict), local courts, kinship mechanisms, compensatory processes, and healing ceremonies.

There many types of initiatives which might be used at any given time to address local conflict. Some are initialed locally, some at the national level. They include such diverse undertakings as attempts to broker peace by local NGOs and associations, such as the New Sudan Council of Churches in southern Sudan; support for peace-building programming by such international NGOs as Search for Common Ground and International Alert, which provide conflict management training, or other international organizations engaging in mediation, such as the conference USIP helped organize to bring together southern Sudanese factions. In other instances, relief and development agencies have changed their programs to incorporate peace-building objectives, like the peace education initiatives of UNICEF, and national-level peace processes have attempted to address local conflict dynamics, such as the UN efforts to broker peace in sub-regions of Somalia during the intervention. Efforts have been made to build, strengthen, or expand justice systems at the district or municipal levels, whether state-controlled or traditional, as in the rebuilding or the system in Ethiopia. Local military leaders have negotiated cessation or local hostilities, for example to bring about the Lafon Declaration in 1995 in southern Sudan. There have been national government policies devolving or decentralizing decision-making authority to local levels, particularly in the Ethiopian federal experiment, and national governments redrawing boundaries to enhance ethnic homogeneity, such as in the redivision of Ethiopia's regions.

Other attempts to mitigate or resolve local conflicts have involved businessmen in initiating or supporting conflict management processes to enhance trade and other wealth-building opportunities, exemplified by a myriad of examples from Somalia. Local elections in Somalia have been designed to increase stakeholder participation. The Swedish Life and Peace Institute sponsored an October 1992 meeting to offer peacebuilding and problem-solving workshops and skillbuilding. Local conflicts have been contained through greater support of civil institutions in the context of state erosion or collapse, or the achievement of self-determination, as in the case of Eritrea.

External efforts at peacemaking, observes Prendergast, are often thwarted for a number of reasons, including the erosion of the authority of traditional leaders and politicians, thus creating major difficulties in negotiating with legitimate community representatives who are able to implement agreements; the use of peace processes by negotiators and warring parties to build their own reputations or fame; the internal logic of conflict, in which asset-stripping, predation, insecurity, and continued mobilization reinforce the authority of war leaders; and the gulf between national processes and local implementation. These and other factors greatly hinder conflict management, particularly the initiatives of outsiders whose interests usually do not coincide with those of local war leaders.

In contrast, locally initiated conflict management and resolution processes often involve significant segments of local authority structures, and often signify community desires for stability, enhanced production, increased trade and other benefits which war often denies to civilians resident in a war zone. For conflict prevention and resolution processes to take hold, Prendergast asserts, requires the participation of all segments of society. Traditional authorities (elders and chiefs), women's organizations, local institutions, and professional associations have critical roles to play in the development or grassroots peacebuilding.

Some of the recent locally-initiated peace conferences and agreements which Prendergast has studied in Sudan include grassroots peace conferences in eastern and western Torit District which involved the Catholic church and community leaders, the intra-Nuer peace conference described in the next section, which involved the Presbyterian church and Nuer chiefs; and the Dinka-Misseriya peace agreements in the transitional zone between north and south which have generally held since 1989, but are under extreme threat recently.

Local dispute resolution processes in Somalia have included the peace and governance-building conference held between February and June 1995 among the Rahanweyne in the Bay and Bakool Regions, which helped tamp down intra-Rahanweyne violence, but was not successful in its objective of deterring attacks by neighboring clan militias from Mogadishu, Gedo region, or the central regions. A series of peace conferences in Absame areas in the Juba Valley have reduced intra-Absame conflict and aim to galvanize a movement toward peace with neighboring, Majerteen in Kismayu and Marehan in Gedo region. Peace conferences sponsored by elders in Somaliland include the Erigavo peace conference which has kept the peace in Sanaag despite major external pressures, and the Boraama Peace Conference which maintained the peace in volatile Somaliland for nearly two years.

Finally, a significant peace conference was held in eastern Ethiopia. The Qabri Dahar conference in Region Five (the Ogaden), brought together a significant cross-section of the political and traditional leadership of the Ogaden, stopped the planting of landmines, reduced tensions between the army and local population, drew many of the Ogadeni National Liberation Front fighters out of the bush, increased commerce, and temporarily brought some consensus about the future of the region.

In the Horn, where vast areas are ungoverned in the conventional sense, it is evident that local political organizing is alive and well. Formal processes involve basic questions about the distribution and limits of power, checks and balances, conflict resolution, etc. And where men have previously dominated the discussion, women are becoming important agents of conflict management in some locations. Internal schisms erupt regularly, often violently, but one or another kind of peace initiative almost always emerges in response.

A CASE FROM SOUTHERN SUDAN

Wal Duany of the University of Indiana is analyzing a conflict which occurred in southern Sudan in 1993, based upon his role as participant observer in the subsequent peace process. The conflict occurred between the Lou Nuer and the Jikany Nuer, who fought each other as they competed for grazing lands, water, and access to fishing pools. It is probably the most destructive internal conflict in the history of the Nuer people: approximately 1,300 people were killed, 75,000 cattle raided, and as many as 150,000 people displaced by the fighting.

This intra-ethnic conflict must be viewed within the context of a larger conflict between two rebel movements, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLM/ A) and the SPLM/ A-United, currently known as the South Sudan Independence Movement/South Sudan Independence Army (SSIM/ A). The conflict among the Nuer was contained within a geographical area under the control of the SPLM/A-United. The larger context was the civil war between the rebel movements and the government of Sudan, which has been fought over thirty of the last forty years.

In July 1993 the leadership of the Presbyterian Church of the Sudan and local chiefs made efforts to resolve this conflict among the Nuer but failed. SPLM/A-United also mounted a major intervention. A peace conference was then called to seek resolution. The conference was initiated and implemented by the indigenous peoples with relatively little assistance from external parties, and held in Akobo during August and September, 1994. It involved the active participation of hundreds of persons representing each of the two clans in conflict. The conference succeeded in reaching agreement.

Duany has drawn several lessons from his study of the Akobo Peace Conference that may have wider applicability in Africa.

Particularly in a conflict over grazing, water, and fishing rights, the environmental conditions underlying the dispute must be fully explored and understood if the basis for peace is to be identified.

Serious account must be taken of the philosophical and religious ideas that lie behind the disputants' understanding of the world, how they think of themselves, and how they relate to one another and to outsiders. This means that third-party participants in the mediation process must either be knowledgeable about the cosmologies and theologies or be thoroughly briefed by those who are. For example, the Nuer system of order is based upon a covenantal theology that in turn informs the structure of civic bodies. The fundamental guiding principle expected to govern behavior is "to do unto others as you would have others do unto you."

Methods of conflict resolution should be drawn from the traditional culture with the guidance of traditional leaders. This includes communication styles, leadership choices, methods of negotiation, participation of parties to the conflict and the third-party, decision-making structures, the system of recompense for wrongdoing, determination of wrongdoing and appropriate punishment, processes for remorse, confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation, and rituals for marking closure and new beginnings.

The underlying structure of social institutions and the principles guiding interaction must be understood. These are particularly important in relation to the rules and relationships that govern property rights, marriage and the role of women, and kinship ties as resources for settling disputes.

Peace resolutions must address not only root causes of the conflict but make provision for institutional arrangements that can successfully implement agreements. This can be aided by cultural revitalization of traditional systems of order, justice, and welfare.

Understanding the system of governance and leadership is critically important. Among the Nuer, leaders arc drawn from and are responsible to the people, although ultimately all are responsible to God. The key leadership systems from the parties in conflict must be a part of the conflict resolution process. In this case that includes the elders, custodians, age-set leaders, women leaders, civil administrators, rebel military personnel, indigenous militia, Christian church leaders, and traditional religious leaders.

Much of the internal political history of the Nuer revolves around the balance of power among those who are seen as representatives of God's will and those whose authority stems from the people. This fundamental division of powers is crucial and reflected in modern Nuer society in the deference shown in conflict resolution processes to those recognized as representatives of religious bodies. Those vested with significant moral authority must be at the heart of the process. In this case that included the traditional custodians, leaders of the Christian churches, the women leaders, elders, age-set leaders, and traditional religious leaders.

Understanding of traditional conflict management processes is essential. In the case of the Nuer such processes include the convocation of assemblies of people, councils of elders, aggregation of age-sets, religious associations, and functional organizations of citizens.

The peace process must be seen as a long-term process of cultural and human interaction between traditions and modernity, not as a quick fix for a particular conflict.

The involvement of international organizations or governmental agencies needs to be kept to a minimum and strategically employed to address specific gaps in the process and not as a substitute for indigenous leadership. In this case external parties usefully provided food and other relief assistance for the participants, some assistance with transportation, and some funding for conference supplies, as well as travel for international participants and for documentation of the process.