http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVOD-7FVHB7?OpenDocument
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CHATHAM HOUSE
June 23, 2008
Lost opportunities in the Horn of Africa - How
conflicts connect and peace agreements unravel
Executive summary
This report is a study of three peace processes in the
Horn of Africa, a region of Africa distinguished by
the prevalence and persistence of armed conflict.
It deals with the Algiers Agreement of December 2000
between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Somalia National
Peace and Reconciliation Process concluded in October
2004 and the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of
January 2005.
It examines in turn the background and
historical context of the conflicts that these peace
agreements were intended to resolve.
It charts the developments since the agreements were signed, seeking
to assess how far they have achieved successful
outcomes for peace and stability. The results are very
mixed.
The Algiers Agreement continues to provide a framework
for relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. But it has
not created a permanent settlement between the two
sides and now seems unlikely to do so.
The two instruments created by Algiers to help Ethiopia and
Eritrea reach a permanent peace were the
Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission and the United
Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE).
These both appear to have run their course. The two
countries have not returned to war. But their fierce
enmity has been played out elsewhere in the region,
notably through proxies in Somalia. There is no sign
of it ending.
Somalia’sMbgathi peace process produced a Transitional
Federal Government (TFG) that was supposed to
establish a transitional government and administration
based in Mogadishu.
The TFG still exists and is recognized as the government of Somalia in the region.
But it has proved quite unable to establish its
authority inside Somalia. When the Islamic Courts took
control of Mogadishu in 2006, Ethiopia decided to
install the TFG by force.
Since then Mogadishu has been in the grip of a powerful insurgency, part
anti-Ethiopian, part Islamist, directed against the
TFG and its Ethiopian sponsors.
An undersized African Union peacekeeping force is helplessly caught in the
middle. Reconciliation efforts pushed by the
international community have made little headway.
The conflict in South Central Somalia continues to deepen
and spread at a terrible human cost, creating
conditions that aremuch worse than those that existed
before the peace process began.
Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has made
progress. The South of Sudan has established its own
government and the two sides rely heavily on the CPA
text to manage their relations.
However, some critically important questions remain to be resolved
about the territorial definition of the South and the
make-up of the Southern population. The results of the
recently completed census will be vital.
Slippage in the implementation timetable caused a political crisis
and near breakdown in late 2007. Anxiety and lack of
trust hinder progress; there is much still to do,
including elections, before a referendum on
independence for the South in 2011.
The failure to reach political settlements on key issues of
demarcation and administration in the oil-rich region of Abyei
bodes badly. Lack of political will, lack of capacity,
lack of trust and the long shadow of conflict in
Darfur continue to pose major challenges.
The prevalence of identity politics and processes of
state formation and disintegration are identified as
common structural features of conflict in the region.
The assessments of the peace processes helped to
illustrate the ways in which interactions between the
states of the region support and sustain the conflicts
within them in a systemic way.
The interplay of regional and global interests is especially
problematic in a region of Africa where the ‘global
war on terrorism’ has some resonance.
High levels of security interdependence exist among
the countries of the Horn, suggesting that it
constitutes a Regional Security Complex. Historical
memory plays an important part in how the states and
leaderships of the region understand and formulate
security threats. It also impedes the prospects for a
more stable security order.
The regional institution that should take the lead on conflict management, IGAD
(the Intergovernmental Authority for Development), is
severely hampered by conflict among its member states.
In the long term, economic change and growing economic
interdependence – an area deserving of further
research – seem the most likely drivers of stability.
The study ends with four broad conclusions that have
implications for outsiders engaged in conflict
analysis or designing conflict resolution
interventions:
1 - The need to take account of the long history of
amity and enmity in the region as a whole, recognizing
that the protagonists of contemporary conflicts
experience them as part of a long continuum of
warfare. Outsiders have limited influence over
conflict dynamics in the region and should set
suitably modest goals.
2 - The need to appreciate the problematic nature of
the state and its relations with its subjects,
especially those on the periphery and in unstable
border zones who have long struggled to resist
incorporation. This raises some real questions over
the applicability of the commonly used weak and
fragile state analysis as well as the familiar
‘state-building’ approach to conflict resolution.
3 - The need to see the Horn of Africa as a Regional
Security Complex in which the security problems of
each country impact on the security of all. The
different conflicts interlock with and feed into each
other, determining regional foreign policy positions
that exacerbate conflict.
The regional body, IGAD, is unfortunately too compromised by conflicts among its
member states to develop a new framework. Outside
actors cannot succeed with a conflict-byconflict
approach and need to factor other regional players
into their conflict solutions.
4 - Attention must be paid to the influence on the
Horn of global agendas. This is a two-way process,
with external actors seeking strategic alliances and
the regional players courting the attention of the key
global players.
Conflict has been exacerbated by the
insertion of the logic of the globalwar on terrorismin
an already complex web of regional conflict. It has
polarized parties and reduced the space for mediation.
Outsiders interested in mediation need to respond
judiciously to the allegations of terrorism levelled
against various parties to conflict in the Horn and to
seek to develop space for dialogue.
Given the apparent inability of the countries of the
Horn to develop a framework for a common regional
security order and the limited influence of outsider
powers to push successful settlements, the paper
recommends a policy approach that:
- Is even-handed in dealing with the states of the
region, requiring all of them to conform to the normal
conventions of international conduct;
- Prioritizes human security and the need to protect
people caught up in conflict;
- Favours local partners, whether states or non-state
actors, that protect their people and not those who
claim to protect Western interests.
NOTE: Click on the link below to read the full report.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVOD-7FVHB7?OpenDocument
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