Resources_Reading Memo

• The articles emphasized perfectly the fact that there is a global misunderstanding about the place of diamond trade in the financing of conflict and show up that there is a plurality of other economic sources to the financing of the different militias and rebels groups in the African civil wars. Furthermore, the roots of the different conflicts, here the one in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone particularly, are proven to be numerous. But these articles, by emphasizing the origins and progress of these conflicts raised a thought, which is the role and influence of what we could call the international situation.

Indeed, by describing the conflicts in Sierra Leone and in the DRC, one might observes that the civil wars here studied are mostly seen as internal conflict and then on the national scale. But the origins, localisations and alliances of these conflicts lead to put some external actors on the origins of those conflicts. If it is impossible to say and defend the idea that these conflicts happened because international actors, it is difficult to go against the idea that the raise of such conflicts have been possible thanks to the international relations and actors, such as the neighbouring states. It is possible to wonder in which extend the external actors were central in the support of the rebellious groups and then gave the means to these actors to fight and be able to start and continue such conflicts. We can keep here the examples of the DRC and Sierra Leone where, in both cases, the rebellious groups started the fight from areas close the a border, far from the central power, in the South near Liberia in Sierra Leone, and in the East near the Rwanda and Burundi in the case of the DRC. These proximity with neighbouring states is not only geographical but also strategically since these rebellious movement seems to have been supported on a political level by neighbouring actors who could have been also paramilitary groups or political leaders. This proximity gave the opportunity, especially in the case of Liberia for the RUF in Sierra Leone to get political and military skills from the support of Charles Taylor before the real beginning of the civil war. Furthermore, in both cases, the role of the border area was also important for the financing by trade and the military support. In the case of the Sierra Leones war, if diamonds were not the center of the economical financing of the RUF fighting during the conflict as it was explained in the articles, the part of gain from diamonds was possible by the proximity with neighbouring states that make the illegal trade easier and possible in a country where it is impossible to circulate for such armed groups and trade such products, especially after international sanctions such as the one lead by the UN and the Obama’s administration about the “blood diamonds” in the African civil wars. It is also thanks to this proximity that such rebellious group are able to find military support, as it is the case for the RUF in Sierra Leone that could import military equipment from the ex-Eastern Bloc through Burkina Faso and Liberia as it is explained in the articles. Finally, these civil conflicts are all characterized by the international interference by both UN and/or external military intervention and deployment. In those cases, we can see that once again, those conflicts cannot be studied on a purely internal scale. The presence of British mines companies in Sierra Leone for example can explain in part why London send troops in Sierra Leone to maintain order and fight the RUF, rebellious group that was frightening its economic interests in the country. Again, this kind of intervention could also support the continuation of the conflict, as it was the case with the Nigerian blue helmets in Sierra Leone who contributed to the illegal trade by adopting the behaviours of local armed groups such as the illegal diamonds trade and then explain why these troops were so reluctant to withdraw from Sierra Leone.

I believe then that once could defend that, if these conflicts are indeed civil wars, they should be studied on an internal scale because the international relations play a lot in those conflict by giving the mean to start by more important to continue such instable situation and then threaten the stability of neighbouring countries, and that even the peacekeeping intervention could be justified or willing by interesting states who reach personal goals or interests.

• A second point I would like to raise for further discussions would be the question of the impacts of the destruction of the social order by internal conflicts and so basically the impacts of the new wars strategy on traditional social organization and its role on the continuation of the instability through time.

Indeed, one characteristic of the recent civil war in Sierra Leone and the current instability in the DRC would be destruction and modifications of the social order, mostly traditional in the rural areas, because of the civil wars. It is possible to wonder to which extend the civil war contributed to create a long term instability loop by the way those conflicts were made by both armed groups. When we look to the civil wars here studied, in Sierra Leone and DRC, but mostly in all civil conflicts, the battlegrounds are mostly situated in the rural areas where the rebellious groups could better develop and survive. The conflicts happen then in areas where the main social organization present is a traditional one, based on tribalism with a strong social hierarchy and economically based on traditional revenues such as agriculture or mining. Thus, by destroying all this traditional social model, the different militias or governmental forces increase the exclusion of those areas both socially and economically and raise new issues susceptible to support a continuation of the conflicts or make new ones more likely to happen. As developed in the article about the civil war in Sierra Leone, the conflict was more likely to happen by the frustration of many youths of the rural areas who gave the different armed groups main of its troops, but is also destabilised the rural organization by decreasing the role of the local chiefs, using and victimized by the different actors of the conflict. Furthermore, many villages were destroyed and people forced to flee, sometimes to the big cities, especially in the case of the more educated. Then some areas were deprived of intellectual chiefs, sometimes totally destroyed or deprived of power. Then, after the end of the conflict and the return of many youths to the villages, the order was totally changed and leads to anarchy. And with the international support, the situation didn’t improve. Indeed, by letting the local chiefs decided how to distributed the different kind of aid, they basically just reactive the older system that was originally one of the causes of the civil war, or at least to the global dissatisfaction in the youth community that lead to the grouping of them into military groups. We assist then to a kind of loop of instability, and even decrease of the situation. Indeed if the old order seems to be building up again and then lead again to the risk of the rise of some rebellious groups or ideas, the situation of post-conflict weak reconstruction make it even more likely to happen. By having a weak government incapable to take care of all the rural areas, a post-conflict situation which increased the awareness of the youths by the ideology of some groups such as the RUF by showing a new societal organization, and the willing of the old chiefs or traditional elites to keep this kind of organization, we assist to a situation more war-prone than ever.

It is then possible to wonder to which extend the traditional social organization plays a role in the loop of instability in the rural areas of the post-civil war Africa and if the political powers should try to change it, improve it or accept the fact that those traditional organization were already destroyed by the conflicts and try to move on.