Africa: Facing Human Security Challenges in the 21st Century

Chapter 9 - Personal/Citizen Insecurity in Africa

321 Chapter 9 Personal/Citizen Insecurity in Africa Overview Africa’s dynamic security environment is characterized by great diversity – from conventional challenges such as insurgencies, resource and identity conflicts, and post-conflict stabilization to growing threats from piracy, narcotics trafficking, violent extremism, and organized crime taking root in Africa’s urban slums, among others. This existential situation is the challenge of guaranteeing the right to citizenship and enabling Africans within the continent to co-exist, pursue livelihoods, move freely, and participate in the government of their various countries without arbitrary interference. For the average African, irrespective of country, these basic elements of effective citizenship and personal security do not exist today. Introduction More than fifty-one years after the United Nations adopted the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and almost nineteen years after the Organization of African Unity (OAU) adopted its own African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the human rights or personal/citizen security situation on the African continent is decidedly bleak. Indeed, achieving genuine respect for human rights may constitute the greatest challenge facing Africans in the new millennium. Security forces in some countries continue to conduct illegal searches, harass citizens, infringe on the privacy of individuals and monitor opposition activists. On press freedom, however, independent newspapers enjoy considerable latitude to publish their views. Some journalists, however, are subject to official harassment, trial and conviction. Many governments fail to curtail acts of vigilantism and mob justice by the police. Principal abuses by the security forces include abuse of prisoners, torture, 322 beatings, searches without warrants and confiscation of property without due process. Africa has become increasingly vulnerable to acts of terrorism from various Islamist armed groups. They include al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI), which operates in various countries in the Sahel; the religious sect Boko Haram, which has stepped up its bombing activities in Nigeria; and al-Shabab, which is active in Kenya and Somalia. These armed groups are responsible for numerous human rights abuses, including indiscriminate attacks, unlawful killings, abductions and torture, rendering personal security a nightmare in those countries. In response, some governments increased their military cooperation , including in the Sahel. Neighboring countries also intervened militarily. Nigeria set up a Special Military Task Force to counter Boko Haram in some states. Government security forces were often responsible for human rights violations during their response to violence by armed groups. In Mauritania, 14 prisoners sentenced for terrorism activities were subjected to enforced disappearances during a transfer to an unknown location. In Nigeria, security forces responded to escalating violence in some states by arbitrarily arresting and detaining hundreds of people, subjecting people to enforced disappearance and carrying out extrajudicial executions. Defining Personal Security Personal or citizen insecurity poses a rising challenge to democratic governance and the exercise of citizenship throughout Africa. Homicide rates are mounting and citizens throughout the region cite crime, followed by unemployment, as the dominant concern of daily life. Transnational organized crime, including but not limited to gun running, narco-trafficking, exacerbates levels of violence, compromises state institutions, and undermines democratic quality and the rule of law. Crucial to the success of organized criminal organizations is their ability to transcend borders and effectively integrate the very diverse and harmful facets of their enterprise. The different forms of crime feed off one another. 323 There is near-universal consensus that all individuals are entitled to certain basic rights under any circumstances. These include certain civil liberties and political rights, the most fundamental of which is the right to life and physical safety. Human rights are the articulation of the need for justice, tolerance, mutual respect, and human dignity in all of activity. Human rights therefore guarantee personal/citizen security. To protect human rights is thus to ensure that people receive some degree of decent, humane treatment. To violate the most basic human rights, on the other hand, is to deny individuals their fundamental moral entitlements. It is, in a sense, to treat them as if they are less than human and undeserving of respect and dignity. Examples are acts typically deemed “crimes against humanity,” including genocide, torture, slavery, rape, enforced sterilization or medical experimentation, and deliberate starvation. Because these policies are sometimes implemented by governments, limiting the unrestrained power of the state is an important part of international law. Underlying laws that prohibit the various “crimes against humanity” is the principle of nondiscrimination and the notion that certain basic...