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The Mask of Anarchy: The Destruction of Liberia and the Religious Dimension of an African Civil War
... Various writers and researchers have documented how African and Euro-American military, fi nancial and political interests have benefi ted from destructive civil and religious wars (Ellis 1995a(Ellis ,b, 2016Reno 1998;Bayart, Ellis and Hibou 1999). In my view, wars invoking the divine are especially effective in masking the postcolonial capitalist state's real agenda (Ifeka 2010). ...
... In doing so they are constructing a common culture of hybrid (intra-tribal) beliefs in multiple spirit beings, some of whom manifest in malevolent attacks by adult and child witches. Millions of Chadic state subalterns dispossessed by 'bandits', 'brigands', 'criminal gangs' and jihadists experience themselves enduring unending 'spiritual attack' erupting in mass poverty, extreme hunger, disease and death (Ellis 1995a(Ellis , 1995bLombard 2016;MacEachern 2019). Most Western observers deny African people's very common belief that mystical assaults create spiritual insecurity causing disease, despair and death. ...
... In doing so they are constructing a common culture of hybrid (intra-tribal) beliefs in multiple spirit beings, some of whom manifest in malevolent attacks by adult and child witches. Millions of Chadic state subalterns dispossessed by 'bandits', 'brigands', 'criminal gangs' and jihadists experience themselves enduring unending 'spiritual attack' erupting in mass poverty, extreme hunger, disease and death (Ellis 1995a(Ellis , 1995bLombard 2016;MacEachern 2019). Most Western observers deny African people's very common belief that mystical assaults create spiritual insecurity causing disease, despair and death. ...
... Various writers and researchers have documented how African and Euro-American military, financial and political interests have benefitted from destructive civil and religious wars on Western capitalism's marginalized 'black' periphery. (Ellis 1995a(Ellis , 2016Reno 1998). In my view, wars invoking the divine are especially effective in masking the postcolonial capitalist state's real agenda. ...
... Many soldiers of the Nigerian state as well as Boko Haram's mujahideen buy magical charms that claim to protect the wearer from enemy bullets, witchcraft, and sterility. Amulets placed under clothing directly against the skin give the believer the power of invisibility on the battlefield (Ellis 1995a(Ellis , 2004Prieri and Zenn 2018: 651-660). ...
... These energies rush like the wind (iskoki) (Greenberg 1949;King 1967;Masquelier 1994Masquelier , 2001. In war zones they are even wilder, endangering but creating potencies from the blood of (human) sacrifice and wild slaughtering of 'enemy devils' (McCoy 2015;Kramer 1993;Ellis 1995aEllis , 2004. Animist sensibilities are indicated in popular discourses of Boko Haram's proclaimed sovereignty over Nigeria's Sambisa Forest. ...
... The second trend in the literature on West African security is dominated by issues of wars and conflicts in the Mano River Union states and in Liberia and Sierra Leone specifically. Issues such as the origins and causes of the wars in these two countries, the political dynamics and complex diplomacy that characterised the military interventions by both the United Nations (UN) and sub-regional body ECOWAS featured prominently in the literature (Adeleke, 1995;Sesay 1995Sesay , 1999Howe, 1998;Kandeh, 1992;Adibe, 1997;Boas, 1997;Bundu, 2001;Adebajo, 2002;Ellis, 1999Ellis, , 1999Kieh, 1992Kieh, , 2008Olonisakin, 2008;Obi, 2009). The third trend in the literature is a focus on post-conflict resolution, resettlement and peace building in West Africa (Kabia, 2009;Agbu, 2011;Sessay, 1995). ...
... The second trend in the literature on West African security is dominated by issues of wars and conflicts in the Mano River Union states and in Liberia and Sierra Leone specifically. Issues such as the origins and causes of the wars in these two countries, the political dynamics and complex diplomacy that characterised the military interventions by both the United Nations (UN) and sub-regional body ECOWAS featured prominently in the literature (Adeleke, 1995;Sesay 1995Sesay , 1999Howe, 1998;Kandeh, 1992;Adibe, 1997;Boas, 1997;Bundu, 2001;Adebajo, 2002;Ellis, 1999Ellis, , 1999Kieh, 1992Kieh, , 2008Olonisakin, 2008;Obi, 2009). The third trend in the literature is a focus on post-conflict resolution, resettlement and peace building in West Africa (Kabia, 2009;Agbu, 2011;Sessay, 1995). ...
... Ontological security needs to provide a sense of continuity and order in eventsand this is the established accepted relationship between Africa and the West, as seen from an Africa viewpoint. accounts of the wars, conflicts and the processes of intervention by the West Africa's community ECOWAS (Adeleke, 1995;Sesay 1995Sesay , 1999Howe, 1996;Mortimer, 1996;Kandeh, 1996;Adibe, 1997;Boas, 1997Boas, , 2005Bundu, 2000;Adebajo, 2002;Gershoni, 1997;Ellis, 1995Ellis, , 1999Kieh, 1992Kieh, , 2008Khobe, 2000;Sawyer, 2004;Kromah, 2008;Olanisakin, 2008;and Obi, 2009). There is also a body of work on security sector reform, emerging security issues in Africa or West Africa in the post-Cold War epoch and very recently, the USA-African security relationship (Oyebade and Alao, 1998;Adebajo and Rashidi, 2004;Bryden et al., 2006;and Kalu and Kieh, 2014). ...
... Many of these militias were initially formed to protect specific communities or to challenge oppressive regimes, but they often became entangled in broader conflicts, sometimes acting as proxies for external powers or as independent actors with their own agendas. During the Liberian Civil Wars (1989-1997 and 1999-2003), multiple militias emerged, including Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and the United Liberation Movement for Democracy in Liberia (ULIMO), which were key players in the conflict (Ellis, 1999). Similarly, in Sierra Leone, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) and various civil defence militias, including the Kamajors, were central to the decadelong civil war (Gberie, 2005). ...
... These alliances are often tactical, driven by immediate needs rather than long-term ideological alignment. For instance, during the Liberian Civil War, various militias, such as Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), forged temporary alliances with other armed factions and even foreign mercenaries to consolidate power and control territory (Ellis, 1999). Similarly, in Sierra Leone, the Civil Defense Forces (CDF), particularly the Kamajor militia, cooperated with the government to combat the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), demonstrating how militias can align with state actors when their interests converge (Abdullah, 2004). ...
Militias have been a significant feature of many armed conflicts in Africa. Their roles have influenced the outcome of these conflicts in both time and space. While many are deliberately recruited for purposeful tasks and missions, others emerge and mobilize to protect themselves and their communities against the inhumane treatment meted out to them by other armed groups. Militias are recruited, trained, and employed by both state and non-state actors to prosecute armed conflicts. While some have contributed significantly to the victory of their allies many have been defeated. In both cases there have been huge loss of lives and properties and in many cases injuries to innocent civilians. Unlike the military which is professionally recruited, trained, armed, administered, and guided by doctrines, many militias are not. Therefore, they employ crude recruitment, operational, administrative, and logistics methods to prosecute the armed conflict. These methods have evolved and therefore have influenced their operational capabilities and outcomes. This article examines the role of militias in West African conflicts, exploring their origins, motivations, and impacts on both local populations and broader geopolitical stability.
... Internal socioeconomic disparities as well as social and political exclusion were among the causes of the wars that broke out in diff erent countries within the region from the 1980s onwards (Richards 1996;Ellis 1999;Coulter 2009). However, these wars also had distinct regional and global dimensions. ...
... More recently, drug traffi cking has turned parts of the Upper Guinea Coast -such as Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde and Guinea -into hubs for cocaine shipped from Latin America to Europe (Ellis 2009;Krech 2011). Other forms of globalized transnational economic activities in the region have received less attention. ...
... It was argued that the assistance by Babangida to Liberia was to protect his business interests. Stephen argues that Babangida had joint business in offshore banking and other investments that were likely to come into jeopardy should Samuel Doe be overthrown by the rebels (Stephen, 1999: 159-161) [24] it was also asserted that the then ECOWAS chairman, Dauda Jawara, the president of Gambia also had the business interest to protect in Liberia. (Ibid). ...
... It was argued that the assistance by Babangida to Liberia was to protect his business interests. Stephen argues that Babangida had joint business in offshore banking and other investments that were likely to come into jeopardy should Samuel Doe be overthrown by the rebels (Stephen, 1999: 159-161) [24] it was also asserted that the then ECOWAS chairman, Dauda Jawara, the president of Gambia also had the business interest to protect in Liberia. (Ibid). ...
This research investigates the role of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in conflict resolution with a focus on the Nigeria factor. It addresses Nigeria's essential role in the formation of ECOWAS and its efforts in conflict settlement. The study also addresses several challenges faced by ECOWAS. The data for this research work were gathered from both primary and secondary sources. The major sources are oral interviews, with secondary sources including books, newspapers, articles, journals, theses, and dissertations. It was also discovered that ECOWAS assisted member nations in resolving disputes to promote unity, peace, and security. According to the study, Nigeria takes the lead in settling disagreements or conflicts among ECOWAS member countries. The paper also discovered that Nigeria's reputation had improved significantly when General Yakubu Gowon introduced the idea that led to the formation of ECOWAS in 1975.
... En 2003, le Groupe salafiste pour la prédication et le combat (GSPC) prend des touristes européens en otage ; l'essentiel du GSPC est algérien, mais compte de nombreux Mauritaniens ; il kidnappe les touristes au Mali, se déplace au Niger et libère les touristes au Tchad (Gutelius 2007). Au même moment, le président mauritanien échappe à une tentative de coup d'État, accuse les "Islamistes" du GSPC et dénonce la complicité des régimes burkinabè et libyen, tous deux bien aguerris aux crises régionales mortifères (Libéria et Sierra Leone, depuis 1989) (Ellis 1999). Dans le sillon de ces événements, l'attaque du GSPC en 2005 contre une base militaire mauritanienne fait des dizaines de morts et constitue l'une des causes du coup d'État qui renverse le président mauritanien quelques semaines plus tard. ...
... Stressing a theme that augmented the INGO's moral power, Carter Center officials understood the work in light of the organization's virtuous mission of ''bringing hope'' to Liberia, a country that had experienced mental and physical distress during the civil war. Respondents recounted how combatants destroyed health infrastructure, including the country's one psychiatric hospital (Interviews 1, 2, 49, 50, 56), and brutally targeted civilians based on ethnic, religious, and local identities (Interviews 37, 40; see Ellis, 1999). According to a WHO-sponsored 2005 study, between 61 and 77% of women experienced sexual violence (Omanyondo, 2005; see also Jones et al., 2014;Ministry of Health & Social Welfare, 2009, p. 20), and thousands of young men were forced to serve as soldiers (Interview 38). ...
This article uses Liberia’s national mental health program to explore how stakeholders make meaning of their work and how those meanings intertwine with various powers to shape program outcomes. We use interview data to analyze how the Carter Center (an INGO), Liberian government, and local mental health practitioners understood the program to address this stigmatized, often-ignored health issue. INGO officials emphasized personal connections, virtuous actions, and expertise in meaning-making, ideas intertwined with network, moral, and epistemic powers. Liberian government officials understood the program to be government directed but financially unaffordable, illustrating the government’s institutional authority but low economic power. Mental health clinicians perceived the program as a virtuous opportunity to gain expertise and economic advancement, although they used the power to exit when these aspirations were unrealized. This article illustrates that meaning-making cannot be divorced from actors’ various powers and that stakeholders’ failure to align meanings can undermine program outcomes.
... Along with investigative reports by Human Rights Watch and journalists, these acts have been the subject of focused anthropological studies that have placed the various militias and their repertoires of violence in broader historical and cultural contexts (Goldberg 1995;U.S. Department of State 1997;Richards 1996;2005b;Human Rights Watch 1998;1999;Jackson 2005;Ellis 2006;Hoffman 2011;Mitton 2012). ...
The concept of ritual has been all too loosely applied to violence and atrocity with assumptions of repetitiveness, mythic symbolism, and religious overtones. This paper examines a selection of modern cases of atrocity for specific ritual elements: attention to body and spaces as frames for meaning; a prescripted mode of action; and performative enaction of a new millennial or transgressive order. Focal cases include American lynching (nineteenth–twentieth centuries) and militia atrocities in Sierra Leone and Liberia (1990s), while examples of gendered atrocity in ritualized forms (perpetrated by Bosnian Serbs and the Islamic State) are broached in the conclusion. Ritualization is not typical to modern atrocities but allows perpetrating groups to experience meaningfulness in the violent acts they assemble, often in situations of crisis.
... The war was particularly bloody, with mass killing, rapes, mutilations, and the recruitment of child-soldiers who often were the most brutal. It is estimated that some 250,000 people were killed (about 10% of the population) and that about 1.2 million people fled either to neighboring countries (refugees) or to safer places (internally displaced) [Afolabi 2017);Badger 2008;Dennis 2006;Ellis 2006;Hogan 2022]. ...
The study describes changing trends in child mortality in selected African countries that suffered civil wars. After an overview of political developments following independence, the study draws a contrast between countries who suffered a civil war and others having remained in peace during the same period. The war case-studies were the following: Angola 1975-2002; Mozambique 1977-1992, Rwanda 1990-1999, Burundi 1988-2005; Uganda 1971-1986; Congo-Brazza 1993-2002; Liberia 1989-2003; Sierra-Leone 1991-2002. The study focuses on the impact of destructions and dysfunctions in health systems on child survival during and after the war period since it takes several years after a conflict for full recovery of the health system. The study discusses the frailty of newly independent states, economic downturns and mismanagement, the difficulties of decolonization, the role of the great powers and competing ideologies during the Cold War period, and the divisions resulting from ethnic rivalries to conquer political power. Overall, the study found an indirect impact (~4.9 million deaths) as high as the estimated direct impact of civil wars.
... As I have argued elsewhere (Stewart & Vaughan, 2024) (Ellis, 1999). While Doe's regime triggered the civil war, its deeper causes were rooted in Liberia's political, cultural, and socioeconomic structures, designed to protect the interests and hegemony of the settler class. ...
In Liberia, identity and citizenship have long been contentious, with dual citizenship emerging as a focal point in recent decades. On 22 July 2022, former President George Weah signed an Amendment Law allowing Liberians naturalized abroad to retain citizenship and granting Liberian women the right to confer citizenship to their children, addressing a key demand from diaspora Liberians. This article, based on my doctoral thesis (Vaughan, 2022), examines diaspora Liberians’ advocacy for dual citizenship within contemporary debates on citizenship as a strategic institution. Drawing on the “post‐exclusive turn” in citizenship (Harpaz & Mateos, 2019), which suggests that individuals often prioritize a premium passport over strong ties to a homeland, the article explores how diaspora Liberians pursue dual citizenship to secure a “true home” in Liberia. This advocacy is fueled by their marginalization both in Liberia, where they face scrutiny over their Liberianness, and in their host countries, where they experience otherness as ethnic minorities. Dual citizenship, for these Liberians, is a strategic path back to belonging in Liberia. This article highlights the intricate interplay between identity and citizenship in Liberia, complicating the strategic citizenship framework by shedding light on the nuanced experiences of diaspora Liberians as they navigate dual marginalization and negotiate belonging. By focusing on these dynamics, the article contributes to the broader debate on citizenship in Africa, an area that remains understudied. Moreover, it reframes discussions on strategic citizenship, particularly in the context of growing inequalities and rising anti‐immigrant sentiments.
... In South Africa, between 1948 and 1994, apartheid policies were used to institutionalise racial segregation and discrimination (Sisk, 1995;South African Yearbook, 1999). Between 1989 and 2003, Liberia"s first and second civil wars had ethnic imprints (especially by Krahn, Mandingo and Gio ethnic groups) throughout (Ellis, 1999;Huband, 1998). It should also be mentioned that ethnic tensions led to a civil war in Burundi between 1993 and 2005 (Lemarchand, 1994;Reyntjens, 1995). ...
... In this perspective, the idea of politics is not restricted to a particular sphere (state, political parties), nor is it a novel phenome non. It is recognized that politics is happening "everywhere" or, with respect to spe cific local perspectives, it acknowledges the impracticality of absolutely isolating the domain of the "political" from other societal and cultural processes (Ellis 1999). ...
In the contemporary understanding of the relationship between Jumma and
Bengali people in Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), two key concepts, peace and
conflict, have become the dominant lens through which daily life in this region
is viewed. This “peace and conflict frame” has remained in frequent use since
the 1990s in Bangladesh. This invention of the peace and conflict frame has
its own wider history; it has been used to identify war or war-like zones within
and between nation-states. The invention of the peace and conflict frame was
initiated and proliferated by the United Nations. Concurrently, many academic
and strategic institutions in the global north introduced separate fields of study
under various names, that is, Peace Study, and thereby a peace and conflict expert
would emerge to help mitigate the conflict and establish peace. It was not sur�prising when Dhaka University in Bangladesh established a separate department
of Peace and Conflict Studies. The participation rate of Bangladesh’s military in
various UN peacekeeping missions had increased significantly, and around the
same time, the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord was enacted in 1997. This
particular way of looking at people’s lives through these two binarily opposed
concepts not only reduces the complexities evident in real-life situations but also
forces them to fit into a state of either peace or conflict.
... Th e 'crisis of the patrimonial state' is a canonical argument in the literature on causal mechanisms leading to the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Some fundamental texts in this scholarly literature (explicitly or implicitly confi rming this political pattern) include, to cite just a few from a voluminous list, Abdullah (2004), Bolton (2012), Coulter (2009), Denov (2010, Duyvesteyn (2005), Ellis (1999), Ferme (2001), Gberie (2005), Hoff man (2011), Keen (2005), Kelsall (2009), Jackson (2004, Moran (2006), Murphy (2003), Peters (2011), Pham (2004, Reno (1995Reno ( , 1998 and Richards (1996 and2005a) and Utas (2005aUtas ( , 2005bUtas ( , 2012; also see McGovern (2011) on the interrelated civil war in Côte d'Ivoire. Th e locus classicus for conceptualizing key institutional features of this political form is Weber's (1978: Chap. ...
... In this perspective, the idea of politics is not restricted to a particular sphere (state, political parties), nor is it a novel phenome non. It is recognized that politics is happening "everywhere" or, with respect to spe cific local perspectives, it acknowledges the impracticality of absolutely isolating the domain of the "political" from other societal and cultural processes (Ellis 1999). ...
... This may explain why the literature on insurgents, paramilitaries, and "sobels" or "soldier-rebels" in West Africaa recurrent phenomenon in the 1990s and 2000sis probably more extensive and undoubtedly richer ethnographically than the literature on African militaries and their socialpolitical roles. 35 Whatever the cause for the relative scarcity of work on the history of military government, it is a properly historical subject in its own right, as is the memory of it. ...
Much of West Africa (and particularly the Sahel) may be once falling again under military government. This essay asks what, if anything, historians of Africa can contribute to an understanding of this phenomenon. I argue that writing the history and understanding the memory of military government will entail a renewed approach to political history and social theory. It will also entail confronting — just as so many citizens are currently doing — the peculiar failures of democracy in Africa's neoliberal era.
... In cases of protracted environmental conflict and violence, it can be counterintuitive to expect significant local peacebuilding capacities. Armed conflict often indicates the failure of traditional institutions and leads to their collapse or instrumentalization for warfare (Ellis, 1999). Relatedly, protracted conflicts entail socio-psychological rifts as the belligerents adopt negative views of outgroups, enemy images, and even justifications for violence (Bar-Tal, 2007). ...
Environmental change and armed conflict are major challenges of the 21st century. Meanwhile, scholars and practitioners increasingly recognize the environment and natural resources as not only sources of conflict and violence but also as potential means for peacebuilding. While research on both fronts is rapidly progressing, the literature on the climate–conflict nexus and environmental peacebuilding has remained disconnected, although climate conflicts will (and already) require peacebuilding efforts. We address this gap by identifying overlaps that open opportunities for an integrated research agenda. Particularly, we call for a deeper exploration of the local dimensions of climate-related conflicts and environmental peacebuilding. Local actors, knowledge, networks, and identities shape peacebuilding outcomes and are key in building climate-resilient peace. However, romanticizing the local sphere might also mask significant inequalities, power differences, and ethical concerns.
... Another group of scholars examining conflicts in the developing world (primarily in Africa) emphasizes the institutional weakness of the more vulnerable states exacerbated by the deteriorating global market conditions for raw material exports in the 1980s being the key negative downside of globalization for this category of countries (Keen 2005;Ellis 2007;McGovern 2008). They particularly analyze the weakness of state institutions in developing countries outwardly if not operationally modeled after their Western counterparts with the perseverance of more traditional alternative ways of social organization (with the high role of chiefdoms and informal communal structures) functioning outside of the formal bureaucracy (Hoffman 2011;Waugh 2011). ...
This essay is devoted to the examination of the way globalization is connected to the conflict emergence in the developing world (with focus on the warfare in Liberia and Sierra Leone in 1989-2003). The key paradox of intensified conflicts in the developing world in the 1990s against the backdrop of deeper globalization is reviewed through the lens of civil wars in West Africa and their interconnection with the globalizing markets. Geo-economic foundations and structure of trans-border war zones with links to global markets are analyzed using this material. Overall, the essay seeks to examine the complexity and extent of the role globalization had on the fragile West African states in the post-Cold War context.
Keywords: globalization; West Africa; civil wars; warlord economy; Liberia; Sierra Leone.
... In between, we have other smaller elections translating to more abductions, more killings" (The Standard, 2015). Academic reports also support this link and the involvement of politicians in these crimes (see Ellis, 1999;Israel, 2009;Max-Wirth, 2016;Salisbury, 2012). ...
Ritually motivated pedicide is among contemporary Africa’s most severe crimes against children. Most of these crimes involve brutal acts of violence or mutilation of the victim. While men are most often the perpetrators of violent crimes, ritually motivated pedicide and mutilation equally attract women. The role of women in these crimes is not restricted to the less violent aspects of the crimes; instead, they also extend to the most brutal elements, often involving mutilation, decapitation or outright murder of the victim. This article explored the involvement of women in these crimes that target children for mutilation and pedicide. The article draws on case examples of incidents involving brutality and murder of children by women selected from academic reports and reports by media and non-governmental organisations to demonstrate the nature of involvement in these crimes. The article demonstrates that women also engage in the most serious roles with or without the company of men in ritually motivated pedicide and mutilation. These include mutilation and violent murder of children who are used for rituals. The author argues that the high degree of violence in ritually motivated mutilation and pedicide means that these crimes against children deviate from the established female patterns of aggression that are typically less violent.
... For instance, Wood (2003) finds that rebels in El Salvador were motivated by psychological rewards ranging from vengeance to the opportunity to be "part of the making of history" (18-9). The material motivations we consider have to do with the rents associated with political and territorial control, which are also widely discussed (Dal Bó and Dal Bó 2011;Dube and Vargas 2013;Ellis 1999;Hirshleifer 1991;Humphreys and Weinstein 2008;Weinstein 2007). For example, Weinstein (2007) and Humphreys and Weinstein (2008) find that many rebel fighters in Sierra Leone were motivated by opportunities for looting, drug sales, and other material gains. ...
How do different types of motivation influence the politics of collective action? We study a model of endogenous rebellion and repression to understand how different types of individual motivation affect participation, state repression, and the mechanisms by which state violence affects political contention. Unlike psychological rewards, material rewards are divided among successful rebels. Thus, in material rewards settings, repression that decreases mobilization and chances of success also increases participants’ share of the rewards, reducing repression’s effect. Consequently, materially rather than psychologically motivated groups are less affected by repression and face less repression, but they are also less able to turn early failures into future successes. Moreover, because repression is more effective and used more when rebels are psychologically motivated, rebel motivations are a confounder in estimates of the relationship between repression and mobilization. This can lead to overestimation of repression’s effect and to more statistically significant results exactly when repression is more effective.
... The historic settlement pattern was characterized by concentrations on the coastal fringe and in the central zone of the country alongside a very few major roads. During the seven-year civil war (1989 to 1996), conservative estimates place the number of deaths due to atrocities, starvation and disease at between two and 5% of the pre-war population and about one-quarter to one-half of the population was either internally-or externally-displaced (Huband 1998;Ellis 1999;Reno 1999). It is estimated that Monrovia swelled from less than 500,000 pre-war inhabitants to perhaps greater than one million today. ...
... The exclusive planning and land rights regimes created the basis for informality to flourish. It took several decades for areas outside direct settler control to be integrated into the Liberian state after its independence in 1847 (Ellis, 2007;Gerdes, 2013;Verbrugge et al., 2015). Initially, state policy only recognised customary usufruct of land. ...
Monrovia’s unplanned settlements provide a window into the diverse rationales and practices that go into planning and managing urban space. Even though unplanned settlements are economically, spatially, and socially integrated into cities, the desire to eliminate or formalise them persists. In the essay, I examine how everyday risks are addressed in the coexistence and co-evolution of planning and unplanned urbanisation in postwar contexts. As well as showing how expert-recommended risk management approaches cross over into local practices, I explain how and why multiple understandings of ‘risk’ and ‘resilience’ can influence practice. The unequal power dynamic suggests that the practices of state actors influence the residents of unplanned settlements, in a manner that is discernible of governmentality. As riskscapes, and by extension resilience, represent multiple realities to stakeholders, the question of coalescing the mosaic of practices into a common risk governance framework is critical. The essay emphasises that resilience-building should evolve from a thorough understanding of the dynamics of the multiplicity of riskscapes. Finally, the paper argues that an evolutionary approach to risk governance, paying attention to the interacting elements and configurations that link discourse, actors, institutions, power, and knowledge, will provide a platform for negotiating the links between risk perception and risk assessment within the emerging riskscapes. This will be the basis of a deliberative and negotiated resilience pathway that will integrate the priorities and interests of all stakeholders in the planning and decision-making process.
... Timber specifically has long been illegally exploited by combatants elsewhere in West and Central Africa (and beyond, for example in Cambodia). The first phase of the Liberian civil war (1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995)(1996)(1997) provides a well-documented case of large-scale timber extraction for export by both insurgents and counter-insurgency forces including ECOMOG (Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Military Observer Group) peacekeepers (Ellis 1999). Ongoing insurgency in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is also partly supported by the timber trade (UNEP-MONUSCO-OSESG 2015). ...
The Gambia’s long frontier with Casamance, southern Senegal, has historically been porous allowing informal cross-border trade to flourish. With context from colonial times, the paper examines the post-independence period, during which flows of agricultural and forest products mainly from Casamance into The Gambia have continued, while processed foods and manufactured goods have been traded in the other direction. Certain flows have become pathological since the Casamance rebellion began in 1982, with natural resources being traded by both Senegalese government and separatist forces, and arms trafficked to the latter partly through Gambian channels. With the conflict now of low intensity though not resolved, continued illegal timber exploitation in Casamance driven mainly by international actors is becoming more environmentally destructive and locally divisive. The paper argues that informal cross-border trade has long been bound up with insecurity at local, national, transnational and international levels, and that contemporary dynamics show some historical continuities.
... For instance, in the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) peacekeeping operations in Liberia between 1990 and 1997, Nigeria reportedly lost about 2,000 soldiers, and a former ECOMOG Commander and Chief of Army Staff, Late Lieutenant General Victor Malu ordered the secret burial of 800 Nigerian soldiers. 22 This incident gives a pointer into the probability of having an official and documented casualty record of Nigerian soldiers killed and missing in action in the Boko Haram conflict. ...
Thousands of Nigerian soldiers have lost their lives in the military operations against Boko Haram over the past decade. This article examines the way these deaths were communicated to the widows of the deceased soldiers. Data for this paper was gathered from in-depth interviews with military personnel, widows, and secondary sources. The findings showed non-adherence to due process and professionalism in the death communication process. Bureaucratic bottlenecks and combat realities also affected the casualty notification procedure. These show the inadequacy of the current military communication process concerning the sensitivities of wartime deaths. Accordingly, this article suggests ways of improving the communication of combat deaths in ways that reflect their heroic essence.
... Governing elites in Côte d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and most importantly Libya supported Taylor's attempt to topple the Doe regime, and provided his National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) with manpower, money, training and weapons, as well as a staging area before his forces entered Liberia. 13 The mystery of how Taylor had escaped from prison in Massachusetts and somehow made his way to Ghana in 1985 made some believe he had links to the United States Central Intelligence Agency. 14 In any case, Taylor's enemies later followed his example and cultivated foreign support after fleeing abroad. ...
Drawing on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork, this article investigates the cooperative consolidation of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), a rebel movement that in 1999-2003 sought to rid Liberia of President Charles Taylor. The LURD faced many obstacles to consolidation, including a history of ethnic fragmentation and infighting, leadership conflicts, lack of territory inside Liberia, and a paucity of resources. Yet, despite these hurdles, the LURD succeeded in forging a coalition that lasted just long enough to oust Taylor. It did this by adopting three maxims that emphasized institutional learning, interethnic power sharing, and Guinean sponsorship.
شهدت ليبيريا ابان المدة 1945-1980، طفرة اقتصادية نوعية نتيجة لسياسة الاستثمار الأجنبي المباشر احد اهم مخرجات سياسة الباب المفتوح التي تبناها الرئيس ويليام توبمان، الذي شرع منذ تسنمه السلطة في فتح أبواب الجمهورية الليبيرية امام المستثمرين الأجانب لاستثمار مواردها الطبيعية بعد عجر الإمكانات الوطنية المادية والبشرية، فالقت سياسة الاستثمار الأجنبي المباشر بضلالها على جميع القطاعات الاقتصادية في البلاد، فنقلت ليبيريا من بلد زراعي احادي الجانب إلى بلد متعدد الموارد وفر ملائة مالية أسهمت في تطويرها اقتصاديًا واجتماعيًا وثقافيا، وانتشلتها من واقع الخراب والجهل والفاقة، وجعلت منها افضل بلدان غرب افريقيا اقتصاديًا واحد اهم اقتصادات العالم.
This paper proposes that West Africa's malformation is a key explanatory framework for its level and pattern of conflicts since the region became politically independent in the 1960s. Many of the region's first and largest conflicts (including military coups, civil wars, rebellions, terrorism, international conflicts and farmer-herder conflicts) have had malformative origins. Shocks also come from beyond the region, through three gates of external vulnerability: a western gate (from Latin America), a northern gate (from the Maghreb and Europe) and an eastern gate (from the Middle East and China). Several expansionary mechanisms (prolongation, diffusion, repetition and residualist forces) further worsen conflicts when they emerge. Conflicts have not overrun countries and the region in general due to certain internal and external stabilization measures and forces. Nonetheless, malformation has led not only to the emergence and perpetuation of conflict, but also to the undermining of the capacity of states and local communities to respond to these conflicts.
is paper examines human organ trafficking in Sub-Saharan Africa in the early twenty-first century.
It is at once curious as it deals with a much less known dimension of human trafficking. While there
have been suspicions of illicit human organ trade originating from Africa, there is very little empirical
information on the extent of this crime. Against this backdrop, this article critically examines the
reported underworld economy of human organ stealing by the African press and media outlets.
Based on the critical textual analysis of media reports, it concludes that the commodification of
human body parts provides a deep insight into the pattern of glocal power relations in Sub-Saharan
Africa.
The thesis is an interrogating of the nexus between terrorism and islamophobia in Nigeria. it attempts to identify the causative factors and manifestations of islamophobia in Nigeria vis-a vis its implication for national security bearing in mind the plurality of the Nigerian state and the sensitive nature of religion in the stability of the Nigerian state.
The alarming rate at which sexual violence in African conflict occurs threatens regional and international peace and security and, therefore, requires focused and coordinated global attention. Even though boys, men, and those belonging to the LGBTQIA2S+ and non-conforming gender are also survivors of sexual violence in African conflict, less is known about their experiences. Lack of research on sexual violence against males, LGBTQIA2S+ and non-binary persons partly stems from societal constructs of masculinity as attributes of biological males and boys being the perpetrator of violent acts, while those belonging to the LGBTQIA2S+ and non-conforming gender are dismissed and ignored. Acknowledging the aforementioned, this chapter is focused on females since sexual violence in African conflict disproportionately affects girls and women. Whether in conflict or not, all and any form of violence against girls and women is unacceptable, intolerable, and infuriating. Sexual violence against girls and women is deeply concerning because of the indelible physical, social, psychological, and emotional impact it has on the health and well-being of those affected. During conflicts in Africa, girls and women, perceived as inevitable “spoils of war,” “weapons of war,” or “collateral damage” are tortured and abused, using sexual violence as a strategy of war and terrorism. Central to the differential effect of sexual violence against girls and women in African conflict is discrimination, inequality, and injustice, which occurs at three levels: institutional, structural, and at the community. It is against this backdrop, that the chapter adopts a discursive approach to examine sexual violence in African conflict. In particular, the occurrence, meaning, concepts, impacts, and implications of sexual violence in African conflict will be critically assessed. Further, the chapter contextualizes the enormity and severity of sexual violence against girls and women in African conflict with a select few short case synopses. In conclusion, the chapter highlights some best practices in the response to and prevention of sexual violence against girls and women in African conflict.
Documentary linguists have often been urged to integrate language ideologies and other topics more closely to ethnography than to linguistics in their research, but these recommendations have seldom coincided, in literature, with practical directions for their implementation. This paper aims to contribute to filling this gap. After reconsidering current documentary approaches, a case study from a documentation project in NW Cameroon is presented to show how an ethnographically-informed sociolinguistic survey on multilingualism can lead to progressively deeper insights into the local language ideology. The methodological implications that this research perspective brings to both documentary linguistics and language support and revitalization projects are discussed. A number of practical suggestions are finally proposed, illustrating the importance of language documentation projects being carried out by multidisciplinary teams.
Effective public governance is crucial in the development of human societies. Societies rise and fall on the basis of their type of government. In whichever clime, the dominant minorities are the stakeholders of any government. They are a group of powerful elites with financial war chest that are sometimes the size of their nation's economies. They set the agenda for the various facets of public life and they do so for their benefits. Democracy is thus a means of legitimization of their grip on the public till and resources. This group of power merchants have over the centuries developed various means of self-preservation which enables them to perpetrate and perpetuate themselves in public power. This paper thus examines how the elites loose their grip on power through the process of political and democratically driven conflicts and how those conflict resolutions helps to reshape the democratic and political landscape of nation states. Further, the sustenance of democratic development thus becomes a function of public dissatisfaction and resort to means of bringing about political, social and economic changes through dispute settlements between the elites in power and those who seek to replace them from outside the political power circle. Dispute resolution is anchored of the following pillars: (i) be fair to all (ii) adopt and follow fair processes to all issues of dispute (iii) insist on a balanced approach-meaning that things must be done rightly (iv) learn from outcomes and apply outcome driven solutions. These tenets of dispute resolution cuts across the general types of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, namely; arbitration; mediation; and negotiation. Further, in designing a dispute resolution system, Stewart (2019) opined that the following principles of dispute systems design can be used as the basis of an effective dispute resolution strategy: affiliate, empathize, engage, own, self-restrain, and build trust. Stewart (2019) constructively resolved the basis using the following arguments; Affiliate vs. Alienate; Be Empathetic vs. Being Egotistical; Engage vs. Avoid by making excuses; Own up vs. Blame others; Practice Self-Restraint vs. Getting Emotional; Build Trust vs. Invest Resources in Distrust. Having established the fundamentals of dispute resolution, it is important to note that the approach of leadership adopted by the dominant minorities corresponds to Stewart's (2019) opposing arguments in respect of what is and what it ought to be. A clear understanding of these shall be discussed in the sections that follows. 1.2 Concept of Dominant Minorities The ideology of dominant minorities arose from an ancient oligarchical practice that implied that power devolved from a Royal whose major focus is the maintenance of his Royalty and all that pertains to it. This was a cultural phenomenon among traditional societies had little regard for any dispute resolution mechanism that can whittle down their authorities. However, when culture coincided with politics the issue of democratic sovereignty introduced socially approved variants of the previously known oligarchical domination without a balancing mechanism between the strong and wealthy and the weak and poor. Thus introducing a new dimension of political control which paid little or no attention to any organized form of third party intervention in issues of disagreement. It should be noted that this approach was significantly founded on access to power for societal control and personal economic and social benefits. This new phase of political dominance thus whittles down the previous practice of oligarchical or minority ethnic dominance.
In seinem Essay versucht Klaus Hock, für einen fachübergreifenden Wissenschaftsdiskurs zwischen Religionswissenschaft, Politikwissenschaft und Theologie, neuralgische Punkte auszumachen, die grundsätzliche Fragen für die interdisziplinäre Differenzierung und transdisziplinäre Integration aufwerfen. Als gemeinsamen Referenzpunkt bzw. als Schnittstelle zwischen Politik und Religion kommt Macht diesbezüglich eine besondere Bedeutung zu, um, in ‚westlichen‘ wie afrikanischen Welten, Fragen der politischen Theologie und Religion sowie spiritueller Idiome und politischer Spiritualität zu erörtern.
What did independence mean during the age of empires? How did independent governments balance different interests when they made policies about trade, money and access to foreign capital? Sovereignty without Power tells the story of Liberia, one of the few African countries to maintain independence through the colonial period. Established in 1822 as a colony for freed slaves from the United States, Liberia's history illustrates how the government's efforts to exercise its economic sovereignty and engage with the global economy shaped Liberia's economic and political development over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing together a wide range of archival sources, Leigh A. Gardner presents the first quantitative estimates of Liberian's economic performance and uses these to compare it to its colonized neighbors and other independent countries. Liberia's history anticipated challenges still faced by developing countries today, and offers a new perspective on the role of power and power relationships in shaping Africa's economic history.
This paper surveys the relationship between warfare and religion in precolonial Africa, with a particular focus on Eastern Africa, including the Great Lakes region and the Ethiopian Highlands. It is argued that religion played a central role in the legitimization of violence as well as in its memorialization. In the Great Lakes region of East Africa, warfare involved spiritual observance as well as sanction, and in general the evidence suggests that religion involved the exercise of restraint in violence. However the irruption of external dynamics – specifically the introduction of new religions – involved heightened levels of violence in the late nineteenth century and beyond. Reinvigorated and repurposed cosmologies, moreover, often underpinned anticolonial resistance. In the case of Ethiopia, deep-rooted Abrahamic faiths facilitated greater levels of violence and a steady expansion in the scale and scope of the war, compared to local cosmologies further south. Ethiopian state-building projects involved warfare sanctioned by God against an array of non-believers.
This article examines the violence of war from a temporal point of view, looking at various contemporary conflicts from a long-term perspective involving three kinds of time: “historical” time, “traditional” time and “mythical” time. It thus provides some elements that help explain the length of these conflicts, but also their deeper nature. In particular, it casts douht on the appropriateness of the term “ethnic war”, which has been used to characterize some of them. The hypothetical model presented here focuses on Africa, but it could also he applied to conflict zones in other parts of the world.
In civil wars, unpopular and violent rebel organizations sometimes gain support from politically motivated constituencies who should, by outside appearances, logically oppose such groups. I explain this through a logic in which self-interested, insincere rebel leaders pander to aggrieved civilian populations to mobilize them, presenting the rebel organization as empathizing with and offering solutions to popular grievances. Leaders exploit an information asymmetry about their true preferences to gain allegiance using cheap sociopolitical appeals, rather than more costly material incentives or coercion. I inductively develop the theory through a case study of Renamo in Mozambique and then probe the generalizability of the logic through case studies of the Nicaraguan Fuerza Democrática Nicaragüense and the National Patriotic Front of Liberia, drawing on interviews and archival materials. This article explicates a previously undertheorized phenomenon in the study of rebel mobilization and demonstrates how apparent popular, voluntary support for rebels can be more tenuous than it appears.
L’apparition d’un mouvement insurgé de l’Ouest dans la crise ivoirienne à l’automne 2002, où la forte présence de combattants libériens fait peu de doute, n’est peut-être pas l’ultime développement d’une série de conflits civils qui ont déchiré le Liberia depuis 1989, la Sierra Leone depuis 1991 et, de façon plus épisodique et délimitée, certaines zones de la Guinée, notamment en 2000 et 2001. Certes,...
The Human Rights record in the Global South largely reflects an absence of care/concern for human life; though before we apportion blame and castigate the leaders and peoples of the Global South, we should perhaps first examine our own roles in the creation and propagation of the many human rights abuses that have been documented (and the many more that will never be). It is argues, and it is a central premise of this chapter that while we can ‘pretend to peer over the fence’ and look askance at the activities that happen largely out of sight and mind. It is us who ultimately bear the blame for and therefore the responsibility to protect vulnerable populations around the world from our voracious appetite for raw materials, an appetite that has spawned what is often called the resource curse.KeywordsColonialismConsumer societyComsumerismDemocracyGlobal communityGlobalizationGlobalization of needsGlobalization of wantsHuman rightsHuman rights abusesHuman rights educationImperialismMaterialismResource curseSocial justiceThe global southVulnerable populations
In recent years, the issue of child soldiering in Africa has captured international attention and it is no longer a secret that children in war are subjected to brutal recruiting methods that involve, but not limited to, cruel trainings, torture, the killing of community or family members, cannibalism, dehumanization and the application of rituals sacrifices which are believed to protect and make a warrior fearless against an enemy in battle. Agitated by drugs, alcohol, revenge, to mention a few, they are, in most cases, forced to commit terrible atrocities that are beyond human imagination. While these children faithfully execute their "duties" and are viewed as "heroes" by their commanders during wartime, they are, in peacetime, stigmatized and considered impure by the people they once lived among. This is partly so because, in traditional African society, it is held in the highest esteemed that reintegrating a wrongdoer into his former community without any form of spiritual purification could contaminate the entire clan and lead them into misfortune. Similarly, it is believed that until a warrior is purified from the pollution of battle and death, he cannot experience inner peace or total healing. This paper will examine the application of traditional purification rites and western therapeutic trauma mechanisms as approaches used by a local peace building organization for the successful reintegration of former child soldiers in rural Liberia. Among other things, the various treatments and support methods applied by traditional healers, community members and Western practitioners are discussed.
Why do communities form militias to defend themselves against violence during civil war? Using original interviews with former combatants and civilians and archival material from extensive fieldwork in Mozambique, Corinna Jentzsch's Violent Resistance explains the timing, location and process through which communities form militias. Jentzsch shows that local military stalemates characterized by ongoing violence allow civilians to form militias that fight alongside the government against rebels. Militias spread only to communities in which elites are relatively unified, preventing elites from coopting militias for private gains. Crucially, militias that build on preexisting social conventions are able to resonate with the people and empower them to regain agency over their lives. Jentzsch's innovative study brings conceptual clarity to the militia phenomenon and helps us understand how wartime civilian agency, violent resistance, and the rise of third actors beyond governments and rebels affect the dynamics of civil war, on the African continent and beyond.
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