West Africa conflict roots examined

To solve conflicts in West Africa, Buba Misawa wants to stop looking so much to other… To solve conflicts in West Africa, Buba Misawa wants to stop looking so much to other nations for help, and to begin looking at the history of conflicts in West Africa.

“If there are root causes, and those root causes are structural, than we have to examine those structural causes,” he said.Misawa, an associate professor of political science at Washington and Jefferson College, in Washington, Pa., joined Dr. Jean-Jacques Sene, a visiting professor from La Roche College, in speaking at a forum titled “Understanding The Current Conflict in West Africa” last Monday.

During the forum, which was a part of the World Affairs Council of Pittsburgh, the two presented their views for an hour and took questions from a crowd of around 50.Many of those attending the forum saw it as a way to better understand the conflicts in West Africa.

“Too often we get caught up in our own corners of the world here,” said Dr. Joseph K. Adjaye, a Pitt professor and Chairman of the Department of Africana Studies. “A forum like this gives people an opportunity to understand the world beyond our own borders – especially an area, like West Africa, that many Americans don’t know much about.”

Misawa, the second speaker and a native of Nigeria, described some of the economic problems stemming from conflicts in West Africa, and the measures that various groups have taken to end these conflicts.

Over the last 12 years, conflicts between hard-line regimes and frequently brutal rebel factions in several West African countries have increased, he said. The conflicts hurt the economies of the nations in which they occur, but put a focus only on conflict resolution and not economic growth and development, he said.

“Peacemaking is different than peacekeeping,” Misawa said.

Some countries and organizations have responded with military action. The Economic Community of West African States, a loose organization of 16 West African countries, has used military tactics to attempt to stabilize the region since 1990. In the name of regional security, the organization used its military branch to deploy troops to conflict areas like Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and Guinea-Bissau.

Larger powers in the region, like Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal, generally bear most of the burden of maintaining the troops, according to Misawa, though it is costly in time and peacekeepers’ lives.

The organization has solicited and received support from the United Nations observer missions, which give technical military advice to the organization’s military branch, he said. The United Nations also sends peacekeepers, while the United States more frequently responds to such conflicts by imposing sanctions and providing tactical military and economic aid.

The American government, Misawa said, has aided the organization by providing direct military aid, training, arms and, in the case of Liberia, a small number of American peacekeeping troops. He believes such actions are meant to eventually establish American military bases in West Africa.

Such an attempt in Liberia has yet to be seen, but Misawa said there is speculation that such a plan may solidify in Ghana.

More than 50 cease-fires have been created in response to West African conflicts since 1990, according to Misawa. He said West Africans see these conflicts as a “contagion” that can affect even seemingly stable nations.

He used the example of the Ivory Coast, which was once seen as a model of economic efficiency but descended into conflict.

According to Misawa, some Africans consider the “War on Terrorism” and the quest for military influence – not concern for the welfare of West Africa – as the motivation behind the recent increase in the flow of aid to West Africa.

Before Misawa spoke, Sene, a citizen of Senegal, described the historical issues that have played a part in current social unrest and war in the region.

According to Sene, current conflicts in countries like Liberia result from a long history of invasion and exploitation of the region by foreign powers.

From the Arab Berbers of Northwest Africa, who brought Islam to the region, to the colonial European powers that exploited the resources of the region in the past few centuries, foreign powers have influence the region for the last 1,000 years, he said.

Sene used the “Dependency Theory” to describe the current economic problems in the region in the context of European colonialism. The theory states that imperialism and colonialism carried out by European powers in places like West Africa create socio-economic instability.

This instability, in turn, makes the West African colonies dependent upon the resources of their European masters.

Even after countries achieved their independence, Sene said, many did not have an economically self-sufficient structure. They instead remained in a “neo-colonial” state, subservient to foreign aid.

He compared the current turmoil in the countries that achieved independence in the decades after World War II to a mid-life crisis.

“There’s a growth crisis. Like a man after forty years, many West African nations who gained their independence are now at a crossroads,” Sene said.

The Cold War again placed West Africa in the role of a pawn to Western nations, according to Sene. The resulting ascendance of several anti-democratic strongmen in the region should not have come as a surprise, he added.

“West Africa became an entity where, depending on how you wanted to play your Cold War cards, you have an enemy all around you and very few friends,” he said. “Up until the early 90s you still have the conditions for one individual, backed by a form of oligarchy, to impose his individual free will on a country.”