Ending Africa's Wars: progressing to peace (review)

Africa remains a continent plagued by socio-economic and political problems ranging from poverty, political instability, disease and fragile economies to unending wars all of which seem inexhaustible, frustrating and demoralizing even to the most optimistic. War, the bane of the continent for over four decades, is a broad factor, either generating or reinforcing the other problems. It is in this context that Africa’s wars become a central issue in any meaningful development discourse about the continent. Much has been written from different perspectives on Africa’s wars, but little of the literature is as concisely comprehensive as the book under review. Most of these other works have been marred either by an outsider perspective or a disguised blaming-the-victim approach, which sees Africa as solely responsible for its wars. This text has successfully transcended these parochial world-views and ambitiously seeks to cover almost all the hotspots of Africa’s contemporary wars. The mixture of case studies, encompassing geographical spread and successful or failed peace efforts, is very commendable. It may not fulfil all the critical readers’ expectations but a collection of contributions that includes contextual background in the first part, and case studies of Guinea-Bissau, Congo, Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, Sudan, Liberia, Burundi and Sierra Leone in the second, casts a wide net.

The text focuses both on the process by which peace is made, and the potential sustainability of the peace after war. Its basic premise is that Africa’s modern wars have been cyclical as a result of a focus on unsustainable or ‘negative peace’. Even though the entire book focuses on the peace process and the sustainability of peace in the post-war period, the opening chapter provides an important background to current debates about the meaning of ‘peace’. This is one of the strengths of the book, since it gives an insight into the antecedent context. This is a critical contribution since most of the issues dogging peace and its sustainability in African countries are, without doubt, carry-overs from the preceding wars. The book sees the need to address the factors that make peace a reality as very important, since these affect sustainability. Therefore, the aim should be the construction of a ‘positive’ peace in all the countries concerned, one which addresses the multifarious motivations of the combatants and their residual suspicion. In this sense, peace efforts should focus on the more complex tasks of peace building, reconciliation and reconstruction. As the case studies show, peace has been affected by factors such as: the role of external powers in conflict mediation, where they emerge as both solution and problem; the failure to address conditions that led to war or its recurrence; problems of the rehabilitation process; the divergent and exclusive agendas which mediators bring to the mediation process; and the exclusion of some groups from the whole process. The book also looks at civil society as an essential component of the peace and its sustainability efforts. Thus, while combatants may die in warfare, the ordinary citizens are usually those who bear the collateral and long-term burdens of conflict. Therefore, the importance of the involvement of civil society in any peace effort cannot be overstated. This relevance is perhaps greatest in the rehabilitation and reintegration of combatants.

The issue of child soldiers is treated in the collection, and it deserves an in-depth examination since today’s child soldier is tomorrow’s warlord. This, along with the gender dimension to Africa’s wars and peace efforts, has a potentially practical significance that should not be ignored. One omission from the text, perhaps, is a chapter on the psychology of warlords and the social externalities impacting on the peace process in Africa. The book is a commendable effort and demonstrates the analytical benefit of an insider perspective to the study of Africa.