Kenya: crisis of the neopatrimonial State Since the highly contested re-election of President Mwai Kibaki on 27 December 2007, a web of so-termed “ethnic” violence, locally installed by militiamen, has led Kenya to a fierce situation of fire and fighting. The areas in the Rift Valley which are home to the Kikuyu, the ethnic group to which the President belongs, have been particularly strongly affected. The violence in this province is linked to a land tenure claim by the Kalenjin ethnic group. Although civil populations generally react by fleeing the battle zones, in some cases organized resistance rises up, other militia counter-attack and the conflict becomes rooted in the long term. Kenya has a high population density and is criss-crossed by administrative boundaries inherited from British colonial times. These can become veritable territorial frontiers, in the space of a battle or over a longer period. Since the end of the colonial era in the 1960s, an ideology has been built according to which each region must conserve its ethnic homogeneity. This is the Majimbo ideology, from the Swahili word for “regions”. It is brought to justify the political supremacy and local land tenure of certain ethnic groups declared to be “autochthonous”. And it gives rise to xenophobic feelings. In the course of Kenya’s history, government and opposition have each in turn made reference to the Majimbo ideology and exploited this xenophobia for their electoral ends. During the election campaign, the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) of Raila Odinga again drew on the Majimbo idea to unite the opposition and allow an alliance between the Luo, Luhya, Kalenjin ethnic groups of the western areas and the Mijikenda against a government portrayed as being Kikuyu.
Yet Kenya had up to then enjoyed an image as a haven of peace in this particularly agitated part of the globe. In fact successive governments, in need of support from a broader ethnic base, have mostly been able to handle these interethnic rivalries and maintain a delicate balance. Government leaders’ “ethnic” legitimacy nevertheless needs to be built up and support from “ethnic” alliances has to be won. It is only in times of crisis, as at present, that Majimbo rises to the surface again and that a form of “ethnic” violence takes root. In a country like Kenya, where the different leaders founded their power base on land redistribution at the end of the colonial era, attaining a position of power signifies having privileged access to certain resources (land, water, grazing rights, arable areas, and so on). Other peoples, as in Nigeria, are struggling to gain access to these elements of wealth.
Nigeria: epitomy of a violent country. Nigeria is reputed to be one of the most violent countries in Africa. As in Kenya, elections regularly spark off bloody clashes, whether it be presidential elections like in April 2007 or local ones which ran in early 2008. Once again, in a similar way to Kenya, community conflicts are rooted in economic problems, but added with a strong religious dimension. In parts such as the Middle Belt region, the meeting point between the Muslim cultural areas of the North and the Christian ones of the South, the land-tenure claims are effectively borne up by identity-related movements which draw on religion.
Nigeria is in its way representative of all the types of conflict that can tear Africa apart. The country is for example the arena of secessionist movements like the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), which fights for the independence of Biafra in Ibo country, of rebel groups which commit violent attacks to further claims for a better share of the oil manna pumped from the Niger Delta. There are also numerous “ethnic” militias which political parties effectively win over as a means of establishing their power. In all cases, the political dimension and organized crime are intrinsically linked.
The conflicts which are ravaging the Africa’s most densely populated country cannot therefore be understood without examining the day-to-day criminal violence which affects Nigerians and structures their ways of life, which certain signs indicate: highly protected homes, restricted means of movement, clampdown in urban areas with districts closed off at night, barred windows, barbed wire and so on. The information gathered by IRD confirms the intensity of this phenomenon, showing over 6 000 violent deaths recorded in 2007.
Uganda: when different causes combine. Uganda suffers primarily from the repercussions of crises affecting neighbouring countries. Civil wars in the Sudan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have had two major consequences. First, Uganda has for over 15 years been host to 250 000 to 300 000 refugees. Secondly, in order to protect its frontiers, the government has effected military interventions, for instance in the Congo and in the conflict between the North and the South of Sudan (separate from the Darfour conflict), bringing its support to the Sudan Popular Liberation Army (SPLA). However, Uganda is also suffering from its own history, long punctuated by coups d’état which crystallized deep internal divisions, particularly between the North and the South of the country. Such a situation allowed the springing up of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the Acholi region, in the north of the country. This is a messianic movement sworn to overthrow the government of Uganda’s president Yoweri Museveni. And the Ugandan army responds with brutal force to the violence of this rebel movement, known for its abductions of children and young girls. These disturbances have brought the whole Acholi population under threat from this two-way armed violence and for more than ten years all the north-central region has been deprived of any economic and social development. Nearly 1 600 000 displaced persons are still awaiting a solution to this crisis.
The political and military conflicts to attain power are born of unequal access to resources. Such violence-filled situations preclude any prospect of development. Nevertheless, the image of an Africa entangled in endless insoluble conflicts is mistaken: most of the crises which have flared up the continent since the Cold War are in the process of being resolved. Sierra Leone or Liberia, for example, have stabilized. The conflict in the Sudan is coming to an end and Angola is undergoing a reconstruction.
Gaëlle Courcoux – DIC
Journal
Journal of Eastern African Studies