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61 State-building, conflict and global war on terror in the Horn of Africa Redie Bereketeab INTRODUCTION This chapter explores the interconnection between state, conflicts and global war on terrorism in the engendering of the extremely volatile situation in the Horn of Africa (HOA). The HOA comprising Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti has been the most conflict-ridden region on the continent for the last 50 years or so. The recent expressions of the conflicts ravaging the region are manifested as intra-state conflicts: in the second Sudanese North-South civil war, 1983 to 2005, and the Darfur one (Johnson 2003, Deng 2010, Barltrop 2011); and inter-state: the 1998 to2000 Ethiopia-Eritrea war (Jacquin-Berdal and Plaut 2004, Negash and Tronvoll 2000, Abbink 2003, Lata 2003). The war on terror has also gripped the region since 9/11, essentially drawn by two factors related to the collapse of Somali state and the emergence of Al Shebab, and the escalation of piracy off the coast of Somalia, since 2003 (Sörenson 2008). Underlying factors for the rampant conflicts ravaging the HOA include historical , socio-economic, external intervention and environmental challenges. The festering conflicts could be divided into two groups; namely inter-state and intra-state. The inter-state and intra-state conflicts have been further compounded by combinations of regional and international interventions. Undoubtedly such interventions have been driven by competing national interests and international economic, political, security, strategic factors linked to the war on terror and the international concerns related to acts of piracy. Recurrent international interventions therefore in some ways have contributed to the intractability of the conflicts and insecurity of the HOA. Its strategic location makes the HOA extremely vulnerable to external interventions . Its proximity to the highly sensitive region of the Middle East that combines two fatal factors, notably oil and the Arab-Israeli conflict, makes the HOA highly prone to international attention and intervention. In addition, Bal el-Mandeb and the Red Sea is the main shipping line for goods from the Middle East and far East to Europe and the Americas. According to Sörenson (2008: 8) CHAPTER 3 62 CHAPTER 3 every year about 3.3 million barrels of oil, 16 000 vessels pass through the Bab el-Mandeb. The availability of natural resources in the HOA, highly coveted by transnational corporations and states, makes the region strategically interesting to external actors too. As mentioned earlier, the global war on terror and the recent explosion of piracy off the shores of Somalia have also induced virtually all global naval forces, to converge in the HOA. This convergence of naval forces was facilitated by the UN Security Council resolution, Murphy elaborates (2011: 129) that ‘from mid-2008 onwards vessels from the United States of America (US), United Kingdom (UK), France, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands , and Pakistan began to undertake operations.’ The above factors feed into the crisis of the state that has become the characteristic feature of the HOA. Conversely the crisis of the state also feeds into the festering conflicts and insecurities of the region. These interrelated factors require further scientific and critical analysis in order to establish the nature of the dynamics of the conflicts and its regional implications. Scholars, policymakers , and concerned actors would therefore be expected, through scientific and critical, context-sensitive studies, and through regional outlook, to make concerted and rigorous efforts to find possible solutions to these rather rampant and intractable conflicts, insecurities and state crisis. INTRA-STATE AND INTER-STATE CONFLICTS INTHE HORN OF AFRICA Rampant conflicts have been ravaging the Horn of Africa (HOA) for the last 50 years (Cliffe 2004:151). Ostensibly the conflicts could be divided into three groups: (i) inter-state (state-state), and (ii) intra-state (state-society), (iii) society-society (communal) (McGinnis 1999). While intra-state conflicts relate to civil wars, inter-state deal with conflicts between sovereign states (Zeleza 2008:6–7; Sarkees et al., 2003: 59).The society-society conflicts relate to communal fighting (intra-communal and inter-communal) (Mengisteab 2011: 16). Intra-communal conflict pertains to a conflict within the same community whereas inter-communal pertains to conflict between two or more communities . The common feature for all the conflicts is that at the bottom-line of it lies the state (Azarya 1988, Young 1994, Englebert 2000). A fragile state in the HOA has become sources of festering conflicts and insecurities. Generally, conflicts are discerned into two groups. They are violent and non-violent. Moreover, conflicts could...

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