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20 March 2000

I. STRUGGLING FOR PEACE IN AFRICA: "THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES"?

The era of confrontation and division [.] has ended. We declare [.] a new era of democracy, peace and unity [.]. OSCE, "Charter of Paris for a new Europe." 1990

The end of the Cold War [.] is a blessing. It is a time of great promise George Bush, "America's Role in the World," 1993

We can envision a new era [.]. We are off to a promising start. Bill Clinton, "Address to the 52nd UNGA." 1997

Peace in many parts of the world remains precarious. More over, peace processes in several regions [.] show a distressing tendency to unravel. Kofi Annan, Partnership for Global community. 1998

As far as Peace and Security issues are concerned, the immediate post-Cold War was characterised in Africa by two competing and radically opposed trends: On the one hand, we had a trend of Death and Despair, which was essentially marked by an important inflation of spots of violence all over the continent. For many African people, the post-Cold War great expectations of a bright new era of peace and conviviality blew up at the very moment, the rest of the world was celebrating the dislocation of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain.

On the other hand, there was an equally powerful trend of Life and Hope. Boosted by the windows of (peace) opportunities open by the "new world unburdened by superpower confrontation," the international community in general, and the United Nations in particular, engaged in a major effort to tackle the scourge of mass violence in the continent. In Somalia, Rwanda, and other African "hells on earth," thousands of soldiers of peace were sent and billion of dollars were spent with the objective to "make peace" and "restore hope." Unfortunately, these substantial global endeavours remained relatively powerless. Despite genuine political will and commitment, peace was not rebuilt and hope was far away to be restored. On the contrary, the African universe of armed violence became "the bonfire of the vanities" of the international community. In Somalia for instance, the nearly "Hollywoodian" great show of force by American Marines was sunk in a flood of blood and tears. In Rwanda, despite the presence of UN peacekeepers, Africa gratified the world with one of the last great human tragedies of the century: within a couple of weeks, hundreds of thousands of people were savagely slaughtered on the abominable altar of ethnic hatred. In Angola, experience continues to show that despite an indisputable global security in a world free from the collective threat of a nuclear holocaust, our "global village" is in fact an ambiguous universe of deeply fragmented security.

The tragic transformation of most of African armed conflicts into what Jakkie Cilliers and Greg Mills characterise by "complex emergencies" makes of peace operations in the continent a very dangerous task to be engaged in. As a consequence, a new policy of downsizing African peace support operations succeeded to the exuberant "euphoria of the post-Cold war era of peacekeeping" . In 1994 for instance, the "golden age" of post-Cold War peace support operations, with more than 80,000 troops from 77 countries scattered all over the world for a budget of 3.4 billions US dollars, 70% of deployments were in Africa. By way of contrast, five years later, in 1998, sixteen UN peace operations were going on in the world: only four of these were taking place in Africa. This drastic shift is explained by the growing reluctance of troops contributors to "expose their soldiers to unreasonable risks," as well as the "general unwillingness to become involved in operations costly in blood or resources." The ghosts of Mogadishu (Somalia), where eighteen American marines were killed in October 1993 and the nightmares of Kigali (Rwanda) where ten Belgian UN peacekeepers were to be executed a couple of months later continued to haunt an international community increasingly terrified by African tragedies.

This combination of (1) the end of the Cold war, (2) the (global) rising expectations for peace and (3) the (regional) diving of Africa into the abyss of escalating mass violence has never really been understood by the traditional diplomacy of crisis management. This organic incapacity to understand the challenges ahead explains the unfortunate disengagement from Africa. Since the situation could not be understood, there was no reason for peacekeepers to remain engaged in a place transformed into a graveyard for well-established certainties. Understandably, assistance, support, commitment and engagement for peace in Africa dramatically declined at the very moment they were badly needed. Some of the main actors in the international system strengthened this trend by making declarations that could be taken--and were actually taken--for "paradigms" for a "new theory" of UN peacekeeping operations. This was the case for the US President, Bill Clinton, when, in his address to the United Nations General Assembly in October 1993, he declared that "the United Nations must learn to say "no" to peacekeeping operations that were not feasible."

Meanwhile, from "the other side of the mirror," inside the cruel reality of African battlefields, the dramatic effects of escalating violence, peculiarly its human cost, were tremendously inflating. In Central Africa (Rwanda, Burundi, Angola, the Congos), in West Africa (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Bissau Guinea), in "The Horn" of the continent (Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan), in the Maghreb (Algeria), an abrasive show of horror was imperturbably going on. In places like Liberia, Rwanda or Sierra Leone, the very tiny line differentiating Evil and Good was wiped out. New unspeakable modes of dishumanised and dishumanising violence were invented and the Life as well as the Death of a human being ended up meaning "nothing."

Obviously something needed to be done. Absolutely. Urgently. But the traditional diplomacy of peacemaking remained voiceless, paralysed both by the unprecedented scope of violence escalation and its structural impotence. All things being equal, nothing could logically be done. And nearly nothing was done beyond the management of (humanitarian) emergencies.

Certainly with a view to "explaining" this hardly understandable situation, the United Nations repeatedly mentioned this self-evident truth: there is no peace without a local genuine will for peace:

This was the case for the Security Council when deciding that time was ripe for leaving Somalia alone with its own evils. On that occasion, the Security Council recognised that "the lack of progress in the Somali peace process [.] in particular the lack of sufficient cooperation from the Somali parties over security issues, has fundamentally undermined the United Nations objectives in Somalia and, in these circumstances, continuation of UNOSOM II beyond March 1995 cannot be justified."

A couple of months earlier, when the same scenario was being reproduced in Rwanda, in much more dramatic circumstances, identically, the Security Council expressed its "deep regret at the failure of the parties to implement fully the provisions of the Arusha Peace Agreement, particularly those provisions relating to the cease-fire;" consequently, the Security Council, "shocked [and] appalled at the [...] large-scale violence in Rwanda [.], deeply concerned by continuing fighting, looting, banditry and the breakdown of law and order [authorised] a force level as set out in paragraphs 15 to 18 of the Secretary-General's report of 20 April 1994 for that purpose." In a much more explicit way, the "paragraphs 15-18" option did simply mean the scaling down of UN engagement in Rwanda. In those four paragraphs, the Secretary General recommended, as a possible option (among many), the reduction of UNAMIR from 2545 manpower to "a small group [of blue helmets] headed by the force Commander, with necessary staff." This "small group" was to "remain in Kigali to act as intermediary between the two parties in an attempt to bring them to an agreement on a cease-fire, this effort being maintained for a period of up to two weeks or longer, should the Council so prefer."

A couple of years later in Angola, nearly the same scenario would be repeated with the same implacable logic.

Obviously, African warlords had learned very well the lesson on the most efficient way to get UN peacekeepers out of Africa!

II. STRUGGLING FOR SURVIVAL IN A WORLD OF GLOBAL PEACE AND FRAGMENTED SECURITY: THE GREAT ILLUSION OF COLLECTIVE SECURITY

Obviously, if this was not yet a "New World Order," it was undoubtedly looking like a different era for the world. It became more and more evident that the "global village" was heading straight towards a new dawn of a radically different world in which the fragmentation of the notion and the reality of security appeared to be one of the key parameters shaping the ongoing transition towards a "new order." And if Africa had to make its way in this globally new universe, Africans had to think new. They needed to act innovative. This was not only a political imperative. It was not simply a moral obligation. It was, first and foremost, a matter of survival.

For half a century, the global peace of the world had been guaranteed by the powerful illusion of "collective security," as elaborated in Chapter VII, article 39, of the United Nations Charter: "The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace [.] and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken [.] to maintain or restore international peace and security". The UN collective security mechanism did fully make sense in a world collectively under the threat of a nuclear "massively assured destruction" (M.A.D.). As far as "small wars with small weapons in small countries" could be taken into consideration, this powerful illusion of "collective security" became meaningless and senseless. How for instance, in concrete terms, the breakdown of law, peace, order and stability in a small African state with no real and determinant impact on the "legitimate" international peace and security order, could become a matter of urgency on the agenda of a universal collective security arrangement?

However, history does show that the Security Council had "small wars in small countries" on its agenda. The truth about this apparent contradiction is that the United Nations is a diplomatic forum. And there would have been serious (diplomatic) complications for not taking these "minor" international security questions into consideration, or simply erasing them from the Security Council's timetable. During the Cold War, this difficulty used to be (very diplomatically) avoided by declaring some light wars for which a UN intervention had been decided a "threat for international peace and security" (according to article 39). This way, as soon as a Security Council resolution declared that an ongoing violent situation constituted a "threat for international peace and security," this situation did (diplomatically) become indeed what it had been declared to be. Thanks to that "subterfuge", Chapter VII-operations--"peace-enforcement"--had been made possible in places like in Somalia or Rwanda.

The end of the Cold War in general and "Somalia" and "Rwanda" in particular changed everything in this way of thinking and acting. All of a sudden, the illusion of collective security as a collectively kept and enjoyed security lost all its power of illusion. The conditions that had made possible the discursive creation of reality did no longer exist. This time small countries with small wars without determinant impact on the legitimate configuration of world power had to face the now unhidden truth: (regardless of its moral weight and human cost) not every armed conflict could constitute what is called in the UN Charter "a threat for international peace and security:" Not every conflict could "endanger the maintenance of international peace and security" (articles 33, 34, 37, etc of the United Nations Charter). Consequently and beyond the appealing rhetoric of "globalisation" and the attractive hypothesis of a the world as a "global village," we did, in reality, witness a process of deglobalisation--or regionalisation--of conflict management, with an emphasis on regional security:

The Balkans for Europe and the Great Lakes for Africa; Kosovo for NATO and Liberia for ECOWAS.

III. THE AFRICAN PEACEKEEPING CAPACITY: THE CHORUS

In this "realist" context (with no outside nation eager to take "unnecessary risks" in Africa), there was a suddenly exuberant blossoming of appeals for the establishment of an African regional peace capacity. Here are some voices, among the most notorious, in this global call for a regional African peace capacity.

Talking to African Ambassadors to the OAU in Addis Ababa on October 10, 1996, the US Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, told them that "time has come to build on your expertise to create a new political and military partnership" between Africa and the United States. America thought this "new partnership" will lead to the establishment of an "African Crisis response Force"--later on reshuffled as an African Crisis Response Initiative. A couple of months earlier, George Moose, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs had declared that the objective of the USA was to support the establishment of the capacity of African to take care of their own destiny.

During their Eighteen Summit on 30 October 1995 in London, France and United Kingdom made it clear that it belongs to Africans, first and foremost, to solve African conflicts. They pledged their assistance for the building on an African peace capacity.

In Belgium, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Erik Derycke, emphasised on the "responsibility of Africans themselves" in the management of their fate.

Kofi Annan, at that time the United Nations Under Secretary General in charge of Peacekeeping Operations, emphasised on the "responsibility to help build Africa's capacity to help itself."

In his address to the 51st Nations United General Assembly, Lamberto Dini, the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs mentioned the responsibility of the international community to help Africa "consolidate its peacebuilding capacity."

Two years earlier, in his address to the 49th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the British Foreign Minister, Lord Douglas Hurd, stressed on the necessity to endow Africa with an efficient and sustainable peacekeeping mechanism.

François Mitterrand, then President of France, in an address to his African colleagues at the 18th Conference of the Heads of State of Africa and France, in Biarritz (France) on 8 November 1994, mentioned the informal talks he had with some African leaders who thought time was ripe for Africa to be endowed with an African peacekeeping capacity. Commenting on these talks, the French president found the idea good and did insist on the fact that it was up to Africans people "to define the shape, the missions as well as the operational conditions" of such a capacity. France pledged its assistance.

Apparently, Africa heeded this call--which was in fact a warning! After the shock provoked by the post-Cold War feeling of neglect and abandonment (in Somalia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Liberia, etc.), Africans started striving hard to take their peace and security destiny into their own hands. All over the continent there was a promising eruption of initiatives aiming at the establishment of regional "peace mechanisms" or "security arrangements:" To mention just some of these new peacebuilding ambitions:

In May 1992, a Standing advisory Committee on Security Questions in Central Africa was created in Central Africa;
In June 1993, a new Mechanism for conflict prevention, management and resolution was established in the OAU.
In July 1993, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) revised its constitutive Treaty and endowed it with an important peace and security agenda (see article 58 of the revised Treaty) ;
In June 1996 the Southern African Development Community (SADC) establsihed an Organ on Politic, Defence and Security.
In November 1999, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania signed in Arusha the Treaty of what they call the "new East African Community". The new institution has a strong security mandate.

Obviously, it looks like Africa has learned well one of the basic lessons of the new world security order, which is: we live in a world of global peace and fragmented security. Will African people translate into concrete action the above-mentioned wonderful initiatives, most of which remain, for the time being, only wonderful words on small pieces of paper? That is the question.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

The views expressed in this paper are exclusively those of the author.

• U.S. Department of State Dispatch Supplement, volume 5, number 2, February 1994.
• The Bonfire of the Vanities is the title of a novel published in 1987 by Tom Wolfe. On theoretical as well as doctrinal issues on world peace and security after the Cold War, see:
• Barry Buzan, "New Patterns of Global Security in the twenty-first Century, " International Affairs6 67(3), July 1991, pp. 431-451;
• Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: an Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991);
• Barry Buzan, Security : a new Framework for Analysis (Boulder, Colo. L. Rienner, 1998).
• Buzan, Barry, "Rethinking security after the Cold War," in Cooperation and Conflict. 32(1) Mar. 1997: 5-28;
• Adam Roberts, "A New Age in International Relations?", International Affairs 6 67(3), July 1991 , pp. 509-525;
• Ken Booth, Security in Anarchy: Utopian realism in Theory and Practice," International Affairs 6 67(3), July 1991, pp. 527-545;
• Richard Wyn Jones, Security, Strategy, and Critical Theory (Boulder, Co.: Lynne Rienner, 1999);
• Jakkie Cilliers and Greg Mills (eds.), From Peacekeeping to Complex Emergencies (Pretoria: South African Institute of International Affairs and Institute for Security Studies, 1999), p. 1.

"Discussion of Lessons Learned from UNAMIR," http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/lessons/rwandisc.htm, p. 4.

"Discussion of Lessons Learned from UNAMIR," http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/lessons/rwandisc.htm, p. 2.

This "meaninglessness" of Life and Death was still perceptible in Sierra Leone for instance, when the author visited the "amputated camp" in Freetown in November 1999.

S/RES/954 (1994) of 4 November 1994,

S/RES/912 (1994) of 21 April 1994, On the interesting notion "legitimate" international order, see
Henry Kissinger, A World Restored. We use the term "light" here not in a moral sense: morally for us, as soon as at least one human life is lost in a war, this latter can no longer be considered to be "small" or "light." However, when taking into consideration the strategic dimension of the question, we call "light war," every armed confrontation with no determinant impact on the ongoing legitimate international order. Such is the case for many African wars, despite the fact morally, most of them are big and heavy human tragedies. The world was in fact "rediscovering" the rich potential of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter. Declaration of the Assembly of Heads of State and government on the Establishment within the OAU of a mechanism for Conflict prevention, management and Resolution," 29th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of States and Government of the OAU, Cairo, Egypt, 28-30 1993, OAU doc. AHG/DECL.3 (XXIX).

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