Cultures of War in Northeast Africa

Cultures of war in Northeast Africa

None of the war-torn nations in northeastern Africa are fighting each other at present. Yet over the last five years of budget belt-tightening in each country, "defense" spending in Ethiopia, Sudan, Chad, Somalia, and Uganda nevertheless has continued to escalate.

In the case of the first four, repressive, undemocratic governments are, in varying degrees, at war with their own people. In the fifth, Uganda, increasingly brutal behavior by the military against civilians in areas of rebel activity is sowing the seeds for a return to full-scale civil war.

The repercussions for the people being brutalized by these war machines are unparalleled in their severity. Infant and maternal mortality rates, numbers of orphaned or enslaved children, the flow of refugees and internally displaced people, malnutrition figures, and incidences of major diseases are among the highest in the world for each country. Per capita income, life expectancy, and access to health services, education, and clean water are among the lowest.

When war degenerates into famine, Western nations are credited, quite often by themselves, for saving the lives of millions of Africans with donations of relief food and medicine. Ironically, it is many of these same Western nations whose policies and aid helped create and support the very wars and famines their emergency relief is attempting to ameliorate.

Conflict in this region is usually depicted as tribal or religious in origin. But the socioeconomic roots of the current crises lay in the policies of the British, French, and Italian colonial occupation forces. Their administrative structures called for the favoring of and ruling through certain ethnic or religious groups at the expense of others. The extreme economic stratification that exists in northeast African societies, and the repression and resentment this produces, largely resulted from these divide-and-rule tactics of the colonizers.

Since independence, the only institution in these northeast African states that has consistently received abundant resources from external sources has been the military. The aid has been used less for defense than it has been for repression. This is not necessarily against the wishes of the aid-givers, as it is often the case in these countries that the economic or security interests of the benefactors are perceived to be most confidently ensured in the short run through forceful means.

Non-military assistance often has had much the same effect. Allowing further resources to be diverted to the military, donor economic and development aid to Uganda, Chad, Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia has simply propped up authoritarian regimes and helped reinforce insurgency-producing inequalities.

BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF EXTERNAL assistance has left the northeast African region with little hope. These five countries all have military or civilian dictatorships; there are dozens of armed rebel groups actively fighting against these centralized, exclusionary political and economic systems; and all five societies have become hopelessly militarized.

Children have borne a particular burden in all this. Child soldiers and civilians are equally growing up in a culture of war. There are unprecedented numbers of orphaned and homeless children, and the majority face interrupted or non-existent educational and employment opportunities. Often, their only viable alternative for survival is to pick up a gun.

Given the responsibility of external donors in helping to create this human crisis, it is incumbent upon them to search for creative policy options to begin to rectify past errors. World Bank President Barber Conable recently intimated that levels of military spending would be considered when loan agreements are being developed. He used the examples of Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia as countries to which this edict would be applicable.

Yet soon after, bank loans were approved to all three countries. This is economically as well as morally unconscionable, given that any potential benefits of the credit lines will be destroyed by the war or by cash-starved dictators looking for a way to finance their next offensive.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund need to make massive reductions in military spending a central component of any future structural adjustment packages. Bilateral donors should go much further by imposing an arms embargo and conditioning all non-emergency aid on democratization of political processes and deconcentration of economic power.

In the present environment in northeast Africa, most aid simply reinforces reasons for and cultures of war.

John Prendergast was a research associate at the Center of Concern in Washington, DC and co-coordinator of the Coalition for Peace in the Horn of Africa when this article appeared.