Both West and Central Africa have become a mare’s nest of horrific conflicts, in which it seems any thug who can get his hands on a Kalashnikov can do far better for himself than if he had stuck to an honest day’s work. Unpaid soldiers or policemen, or as has just happened in the Ivory Coast, troops about to be disbanded, are the source of endless rebellions.
Minor disputes can quickly turn ugly when both sides are armed. Classically it is only after a conflict has erupted that the rebelling side seeks around for a cause, which seems more convincing that its own original greed or disobedience. Rarely do political programs precede a rebellion. They are something tacked on afterward, to give some credibility to what is all too often just an armed and criminal gang. Typically, the cause for which these people will claim to be killing and terrorizing their community is something like "Equality and Justice for all !"
However, incumbent governments have often been no less culpable. A rebellion by some hard-up soldiers is often used as an excuse for the administration to settle old scores, frequently with parts of the community in no way connected with the original rebellion.
Thus for instance in the Ivory Coast at the moment, the wrath of the authorities has fallen on two immigrant communities, one of refugees from Liberia and the other of workers from Burkino Faso. The government in Abidjan has said that it believes that the rebellion has been sponsored by Muslim interests and blames Burkino Faso. Thus a campaign has begun against the luckless workers from this country. However for good measure, the authorities are also accusing Liberian refugees of fighting with the rebels. There have been attacks by government supporters on the wretched shanty towns to which 40,000 Liberians had fled the senseless and brutal conflict in their own country. Now United Nations aid workers are doing their best to get these unhappy people back to their own country, even though their future there is just as uncertain.
The truth is that in these conflicts there is little to tell between the forces of law and order and those of disorder. Indeed the law itself is a faintly held concept in these countries. Civil and criminal codes were left by the colonial powers, the British or the French, but they had been created largely to keep the local population in check. With the departure of the imperial rulers, law became an increasingly rare luxury, more honored in the breach. Right became might and power came out of the barrel of a gun. Some countries, such as Nigeria, despite immense demographic and infrastructural challenges, have managed to rise above the tide of thuggery. But even that country has had to endure repeated military takeovers.
The Ivory Coast was once a prosperous country ruled by an eccentric strongman, attracting world businesses to headquarter their West African operations in the pleasant capital, Abidjan. With the death of President Houphouet-Boigny it became apparent that this stability had shallow and dangerous roots.
The first coup took place in 1999 and the last four years have seen the Ivory Coast sliding ever further into conflict. As in too many other African countries, autocratic rulers have not permitted institutions to grow that would guarantee continuity and therefore stability. The ignorant and poor of these countries can pull a trigger far more easily than they can combine in a mass movement to present their grievances to the government and force through change.
Most of what seems to happen in the politics of these states is haphazard and arbitrary, with government and rebels each living for the moment and trusting nothing. The only thing that is certain in these tragic regions is that the man with the gun is a man who matters, and the man without, does not.
