Violence flares in Burundi: what the hell is going on in Africa

[chegrimandi]

'The international community claimed to have learnt the lessons of Rwanda. Yet 10 years on, the terrible cycle of ethnic violence has started again - in neighbouring Burundi'

depressing

I am certainly no expert in African politics or African affairs.......so people with more of a clue please tell me what is going on in Africa....why are so many of the countries in a permanent state of fuckedness....who is responsible and what the fuck can be done about it.....

If there are any beginner historical texts/books on this subject please do recommend....

 

[Idris2002]

The short answer is that it's the historical effects of colonialism and its current status as a producer of basic commodities.

There's a much longer answer, which I don't have time for right now, so watch this space.

 

[chilango]

There is a "classic" book on colonialism in Africa. Can`t remember who by though. Something along the lines of "the race for africa" or somesuch. Good background reading...

...short rule of thumb. If the borders are straight lines there`s gonna be trouble

 

[Idris2002]

ACtually the 'artificial borders' thing is considerably overrated as a factor in the African crisis.

One of the worst disasters in recent AFrican history was the Rwandan genocide - and the borders of present-day Rwanda are roughly the same as those of the pre-colonial kingdom of Rwanda.

 

[bruise]

One of the worst disasters in recent AFrican history was the Rwandan genocide - and the borders of present-day Rwanda are roughly the same as those of the pre-colonial kingdom of Rwanda.

Do you think the borders around Nigeria make sense?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The short answer is that it's the historical effects of colonialism and its current status as a producer of basic commodities.

There's a much longer answer, which I don't have time for right now, so watch this space.

To what extent do resource conflicts intensified by ecological problems, soil erosion and the like, play a part? They definitely seem to be a significant cause in Sudan and I know Burundi has all kinds of problems with erosion at least.

Added: I found some discussion of Burundi's structural problems in Ch3 here

The suggestion there is that Burundi has an acute land shortage and escalating ecological damage, but that the civil war is primarily about predatory elites fighting for control of the state and hence for access to revenues from the coffee industry, which makes up 80-90% of the economy.

There is also some interesting and fairly detailed stuff here about environmental crisis as a cause of conflict. The researchers there suggest various kinds of vicious circle that can arise with the all too common combination of predatory elities looking to capture national resources and turn them into fat offshore bank accounts, population pressures, environmental damage and acute conflict.

 

[Idris2002]

Do you think the borders around Nigeria make sense?

Do you think the borders around Poland make sense?

The concept of 'natural borders' was an ideological mystification the French developed after the revolution to justify their seizure of territory in the post-revolutionary wars?

African borders are artificial - and so are European borders.

Bernie - Burundi is a case I don't know that much about, but overpopulation was a major factor in the crisis in Rwanda - and it may come back to haunt the country over the next few decades.

 

[bruise]

i don't think i was supporting any concept of 'natural borders' and wasn't aware that it had made it as having the status of ideology, let alone one with a longish history. my gut feeling is that to ascribe it to 1789 alone is too limited. presumably we're talking historically about the switch from city-state to nation-state - where the former had shifting and not that important borders around a hinterland, and the latter needed to develop a myth of nation-belonging to justify territorial integrity and social cohesion across disperate peoples. (germany and italy as later examples)

Do you think the borders around Poland make sense?

no. but is that a good analogy? somehow being squeezed by two more powerful neighbours (due acknowledgement of massive simplification here) seems to me to be different in kind to imperialism and now neo-imperialism.

poland has some ethnic/cultural diversity, but not so distinct ones as Yoruba/Igbo/Hausa (again massive simplification) and with very different cultures and relative geographical specificity.

 

[chilango]

...short rule of thumb. If the borders are straight lines there`s gonna be trouble

An oversimplification, of course. But a good indication of recent imperial/colonial gerrymandering.

e.g. Sudan, Iraq, Palestine etc.

But, point taken that there is a lot more to it.

 

[Idris2002]

i
no. but is that a good analogy? somehow being squeezed by two more powerful neighbours (due acknowledgement of massive simplification here) seems to me to be different in kind to imperialism and now neo-imperialism.
.

I think it is a good analogy. Poland was partitioned between three empires, wasn't it?

Everyone says 'oh, the African borders are artificial', and think that's the source of all the trouble.

But I've never seen anyone give any solid reasons why the artificiality of the borders between African states produces internal disorder within African states.

So come on, accept the Idris challenge. Give me something to work with here.

 

[FreddyB]

The short answer is that it's the historical effects of colonialism and its current status as a producer of basic commodities.

There's a much longer answer, which I don't have time for right now, so watch this space.

Not least because in many countries the only coherent institutions left after colonialism were the armies. That and the cold war weapon supplies by east and west to which ever tin pot warlord looked to be supporting the view of one of them at any particular time.

 

[Idris2002]

Not least because in many countries the only coherent institutions left after colonialism were the armies. :

Hmmm, yes and no. The churches were pretty coherent, and still are. And in other countries, coherent institutions were built after colonialism. I'm thinking here of the single-party regimes that emerged in many countries about a decade after independence. While these may have been repressive, they did function to regulate the corruption and manage competition between rival elites, in ways that avoided the kind of social collapse you get with the alternative scenario of 'terminal spoils politics', as in, e.g. Sierra Leone.

 

[chilango]

I think it is a good analogy. Poland was partitioned between three empires, wasn't it?

Everyone says 'oh, the African borders are artificial', and think that's the source of all the trouble.

But I've never seen anyone give any solid reasons why the artificiality of the borders between African states produces internal disorder within African states.

So come on, accept the Idris challenge. Give me something to work with here.

The border between Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda crosses through ethnic groups. The LRA "operates" against/amongst these groups. The LRA have been used as proxies by th Sudanese Govt in its war against the SPLA. LRA incursions across the artificial border contribute to internal disorder in Sudan...

...and its not Africa but... Kurdistan?

 

[tim]

poland has some ethnic/cultural diversity, but not so distinct ones as Yoruba/Igbo/Hausa (again massive simplification) and with very different cultures and relative geographical specificity.

Yes, but prewar Poland did have a much similar (only about 50% of the populaion being "ethnic Poles" as oppose to arround 90% today) cultural mix. Its current ethnic homogenity is a result of a war which saw the Jewish third of its population either exterminated or driven into exile, and a post war period which saw its eastern provinces which had large Belorusian and Ukranian populations were annexed to the USSR and the Polish population of those provinces resettled in what had been the East of Germany from which the German part of the population were in turn expelled.

As to geographical specificity, as a result of the above postwar changes the country managed to wander 100 or so miles to the west.

Many European countries have seen a similar procccess of "ethnic cleansing" (to use a Balkan phrase) over the past century. Perhaps Africa is just following the European way.

 

[Dissident Junk]

. . .a post war period which saw its eastern provinces which had large Belorusian and Ukranian populations were annexed to the USSR and the Polish population of those provinces resettled in what had been the East of Germany from which the German part of the population were in turn expelled.

Sorry to derail a bit, but rather a lot of families living in those Eastern Polish provinces 'disappeared', rather than resettled. Some 'disappeared' into mass graves and soviet labour camps as early as 1939.

 

[tim]

One interesting thing about contemporary Europe is how few "older established" European states had the same borders as at the start of the twentieth century as at the end. Portugal, Spain, Swizerland and possibly Holland are the only ones I can think of.

 

[tim]

Sorry to derail a bit, but rather a lot of families living in those Eastern Polish provinces 'disappeared', rather than resettled. Some 'disappeared' into mass graves and soviet labour camps as early as 1939.

True, and I think even in the enlightened West a lot of transfered Germans had a nasty end.

 

[bruise]

Interesting stuff on Poland. I still think it's a different kind of dynamic - given the relative closeness in culture etc of the various 'empires' carving Poland up and the population affected. I'm not saying it's not an appalling history.

Idris - i thought I already had. Would the various groups in Nigeria have ever chosen to live together if they hadn't been thrown together?

Would Arabic and black african Sudan had ever chosen to ally to each other?

But this is silly - i wouldn't dispute your view that it's merely one of many factors. So we agree.

Where the disagreement might be in how much the imperialist legacy and the neo-imperialist present can be 'blamed' for current problems. I'd argue that it would explain a lot, in many and various ways. You?

 

[Idris2002]

The process of creating ethnically homogenous nation states in Europe involved, among other things, the transfer of huge populations at gunpoint, terror and genocide.

And that has not produced stability in Europe. Is Northern Ireland stable? The former Yugoslavia? Cyprus? Are Spain and France free from internal ethnic strife?

The borders are there whether we like it or not.

As for Sudan, well the Southern Sudanese liberation movements did not fight for secession, but simply for internal self-government - which they've now got.

The LRA "operates" against/amongst these groups. The LRA have been used as proxies by th Sudanese Govt in its war against the SPLA.

You sure about this? (why put 'operates' in quotes, anyway?)

The LRA is a movement that at this stage represents no one but itself. The Khartoum regime has in the past used it as a proxy against Uganda (part of Washington's anti-Sudan coalition), but givent that they have their own forces in Sudan's south, I don't think they need to use proxies of any kind.

The Eritrean case for secession from Ethiopia was not based on ethnic difference (highland Eritrea is culturally very closely related to Ethiopia) but on the argument that the experience of Italian colonialism had changed the country sufficiently to give it the right to self-determination, and this right had been denied at the time of the federation with Ethiopia in 1952.

Even then, secession would not have occurred if Haile Selassie hadn't shut down internal Eritrean self-government in the late 1950s, shutting it down completely in 1962.

The Eritrean liberation war of 1961-1991 is widely seen (with some justification in my view) as having welded the nine different ethnic groups (depending on how you count them) into one Eritrean nation.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Africa is a big place with different problems in different areas.

If you're talking about Burundi, blame the Germans. They were the colonial masters of part of the area approx a century ago. Before their arrival, the Hutus and Tutsi got along. The Germans liked the Tutsi better - maybe they were more caucasian looking or something, and promoted them as the administrators, lackeys, etc. The Germans also instituted an ID card system, so that they could tell the Hutus from the Tutsis.

This produced a simmering animosity in the Hutus, an animosity that grew and survived the end of German colonialism. Interestingly enough, the ID card system survived. The Tutsis became the de facto ruling class, and generally gave the shit end of the stick to the more numerous Hutu.

The whole thing exploded in Rwanda, with well known results. The problem was that after the Rwanda war, rebel Hutu were allowed to escape into neighboring countries, including Congo, without being pursued. This had a destabilizing effect on the neighboring countries, including Burundi.

What we are continuing to see, are the effects of the Hutu/Tutsi animosity, spread like a disease throughout the area.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

p.s. There is a whole English/French rivalry thing going on as well, with the Tutsis being english speakers, and favoured by Britain and english speaking countries, and the Hutus being French speakers, and favoured by france. This has also led to animosity and rivalry, backed up by English/French animosity.

It's just a dog's breakfast.

 

[Idris2002]

Ah, now that's where your slightly confused, JC2.

It's the Rwandan Tutsis who currently head the RPF regime who are English-speaking - and that's only because they're the sons and daughters of Rwandan Tutsis who fled into Uganda after the 1959 revolution that overthrew the old Tutsi ruling class and brought the Hutus to power.

The RPF was formed from Ugandan born/raised English-speaking Tutsis who'd fought with Museveni's NRM, but were disappointed when Ugandan peasants vetoed Museveni's plan to give foreigners land rights in Uganda.

That led them to form the RPF and cross the border into Rwanda in 1990, and . . . well you know the rest of the story.

I doubt if the Burundian Tutsis are English-speaking, though given the flair for languages African people have generally I wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I wasn't speaking of the Burundian Tutsis specifically, but a more general comment that the Tutsis tend to be backed by the English, while the Hutu tend more to be french speaking, and backed by France.

 

[fela fan]

As for what's going on in africa, i think a story i read a couple of days ago might be illuminating.

It said that swiss banks had agreed to return to nigeria 500 million quid (i think, may have been dollars) that their previous president had stolen from the country. It was thought that this was only a quarter of the total.

With the corruptest of corrupt leaders, no democracy, no accountablity, no repsonsibility, no middle classes to speak of (whoa on that one, oh well, already typed) desperate poverty afflicting large parts of the populations, american trade injustice, and so on, it becomes quite easy to see why the african people continue to get shat on.

But they do produce the best music, and a lot of good football too, so in reality, don't forget we only hear the bad stuff that goes on, not the more mundane realities, or positive things about the countries there.

 

[Idris2002]

With the corruptest of corrupt leaders, no democracy, no accountablity, no repsonsibility, no middle classes to speak of (whoa on that one, oh well, already typed) desperate poverty afflicting large parts of the populations, american trade injustice, and so on, it becomes quite easy to see why the african people continue to get shat on.

Well, it's true about the corruption, but democracy has made some real advances in places like Kenya in the past few years.

The absence of real middle classes, however, does mean that the institutional forms that are usually associated with democracy in the west may not, ultimately, be transferable to Africa.

 

[fela fan]

Well, it's true about the corruption, but democracy has made some real advances in places like Kenya in the past few years.

Are you sure about that idris?

I was there earlier this year. Although it may well be a more advanced nation in africa, i was shocked at the whole feel of 'third-worldness' compared to thailand where i live. The last time i was there was when i was 15, so cannot really make any valid comparisons.

The security aspect there is atrocious.

The poverty was easily visible.

The one town i know now and then had beggars and desperate people this year, but not 25 years ago.

And reading the papers while there this year, corruption seemed more rife than ever.

 

[Idris2002]

Yes, I am sure about this.

Kenya has enormous problems, sure, but very recently they've had a peaceful transition from the Moi dictatorship to a democratically elected government.

Just because things are very bad, that doesn't mean we should exagerrate how bad they actually are.

Edited to add

Here's a link from last year about the Kibaki govt's first 100 days in power

 

[fela fan]

Fair enough.

I'm not exagerating things. That's why i asked you.

Dictatorship or democracy over there. In terms of the people on the street, and their levels of poverty, are they better off now, or 10-20 years ago? And by what indicators?

Thaksin was democratically elected in thailand three years ago, but many people seem to be worse off than before him.

 

[chilango]

As for Sudan, well the Southern Sudanese liberation movements did not fight for secession, but simply for internal self-government - which they've now got.



You sure about this? (why put 'operates' in quotes, anyway?)

The LRA is a movement that at this stage represents no one but itself. The Khartoum regime has in the past used it as a proxy against Uganda (part of Washington's anti-Sudan coalition), but givent that they have their own forces in Sudan's south, I don't think they need to use proxies of any kind.

.

The Sudanese Gov't uses the LRA because its own forces can't always get to the same places except by airstrikes. (hence the need for the haevily protectde slave train. And no doubt it helps muddy the waters amongst the Dinka, Nuer etc. by having additional groups attacking civilians

As for secession v. internal self govt...perhaps thats the official SPLA position, but plenty of Southerners I knew wanted outright independence, and have ever since the British refused to partition Sudan during their rule.

Whether that would've solved anything, I doubt. But one less factor to reckon with.

I agree with you that ethincally homgenous nation states are no guarantee of anything, and attempts to create them lead to some nasty shit. My point was simply that borders can be a good indicator of imperialist carve ups which have ALWAYS led to postcolonial wars.

 

[frogwoman]

Some nasty shit happening in Burundi right now by the sounds of it