Morten Bøås

Crime, Coping, and Resistance in the Mali-Sahel Periphery

ABSTRACT The Mali-Sahel periphery is not an “ungoverned space” captured and preyed on by the transnational forces of global “crime-terrorism” nexuses but an area of overlapping and competing networks of informal governance. Some have an agenda of resistance, others are more aligned with coping and criminality. What they share is that they are neither entirely state nor nonstate but somewhere in between. Different competing “big men” vie for the role of nodal points in different networks of informal governance: some mainly profit-driven, others combining income-generating strategies with social and political objectives, and yet others simply aiming to cope (and hopefully thrive in the future).

DDRED in Liberia: Youth Remarginalisation or Reintegration?

This report questions mainstream approaches to the reintegration of youthful ex-combatants. In Liberia, the disarmament and demobilisation was implemented quite effectively, but several questions can be asked about the components of reintegration and rehabilitation in the DDR-process. Most ex-combatants are currently unemployed or underemployed as the programmes initiated first and foremost prepared them for jobs that did not exist. The programmes also worked from the assumption that wartime experiences, networks and command structures had to be broken down as they were seen as counterproductive to peace and reconciliation. Drawing on previous research in Liberia the hypothesis is that reintegration can better be achieved through peaceful remobilisation that allows the ex-combatants to make use of the skills, experiences and networks gained through the war. This is illustrated by the recent experience of a nightwatch patrol in Voinjama in Lofa County that was based on rank and command structure from the war which responded to local community demands and filled a security vacuum. This is an alternative path to reintegration that needs further analysis, and the article argued that this should be based on the premises of a genuine understanding of the background of Liberia’s young ex-combatants and the nature and form of their involvement in violent conflict. Many people were involved in the war, but most only fought for certain periods. The motivations for joining varied, but the collected data from our various studies shows that security considerations were among the most important factors. Most combatants were ordinary people who joined for the sake of protection for themselves, their families and their communities. DDR in Liberia, as elsewhere, is, however, built on the assumption that there is something particularly dangerous and marginalised about the group of people who constituted the rank-and-file of the factions involved in the war. This is, as we have seen, not necessarily the case. DDR is very much a reaction to the notion that these people are unattached to society, set apart in their own world, and therefore needs particular attention. The article will therefore suggests that DDR approaches are in dire need of a rethinking that links them more directly to programmes aimed at social cohesion and societal security.

The international intervention in Mali: “Desert blues” or a new beginning?1

Islamist rebels have retreated from northern Mali; however, a number of challenges for that country remain. The Islamists have gone into hiding but have not surrendered; there is a clear risk of long-term asymmetric warfare. The populations in both northern and southern Mali are divided in their views on the best way forward. The capacities of the Malian government and the Malian armed forces to contain the conflict and retain credible leadership are questionable. This article analyses the Malian crisis with an emphasis on the strategies of key actors, including the Islamist rebels. The consequences of and responses to the conflict are discussed, before the article ends with some tentative conclusions concerning the potential for security in Mali and the Sahel region.

Peeling the onion: autochthony in North Kivu, DRC

Many different attempts have been made to explain the ongoing conflict in the DRC, ranging from ethnicity, to greed and resource wars, to the role of colonialism, and each provides useful contributions to the debate. In this article, we emphasise the concept of autochthony, which links identity and space, enabling the speaker to establish a direct claim to territory by asserting that he or she is an original inhabitant, a ‘son of the soil’. Its expressions have led to violent struggles in Africa, where assertions about autochthony are used to justify land claims. This can be clearly seen in the case of eastern DRC. While acknowledging significance of both regional and international factors, we regard the conflict in North Kivu as largely an agrarian war, and its root causes must be located in the complex web of uncertainties concerning citizenship and land rights. This is fuelled as well as further complicated by the extraction of the valuable minerals that are abundant in this part of the Congo. This article explores how armed non-state groups in eastern DRC, specifically in the North Kivu conflict zone, attempt to create an order for operation, survival and navigation in a population to whom it seeks support from as well as preys upon. We believe that our analysis highlights the need for an approach that assumes conflicts always have a local angle, and in the case of DR Congo and North Kivu this is land and the questions concerning belonging.

Fragile States as the New Development Agenda

As Europe struggles with the repercussions of violent conflict in the Middle East, North Africa and the Sahel, including high numbers of refugees attempting to enter Europe, the issue of fragile states is pushed to the top of European policy agendas. There are calls to do more – military interventions in different forms, but also humanitarian and development assistance. European countries seek to refocus their development aid towards stabilisation efforts in fragile states that send refugees their way. This trend is unfolding all over Europe, including the Nordic countries. There are several good reasons to place more focus on fragile states. These countries are often among the poorest in the world. Some (as in the Sahel, North Africa and the Middle East) are also severely affected by increased climatic volatility, which puts traditional livelihoods under immense pressure. However, the challenges, problems and contradictions in this emerging trend are also obvious. As European policy-makers rapidly try to respond to the challenge of higher numbers of incoming refugees, any clarity concerning what constitutes a fragile state is lost. Several definitions and categories exist, of course, most of them with their own theoretical and conceptual problems (see Bøås and Jennings, 2007; Eriksen, 2011). Yet, these distinctions do not matter much at the moment. European policy-makers seem to restrict fragile states to those which are located in such close geographical proximity to ‘us’ that ‘they’ will ‘produce’ refugees that will reach the borders of Europe. Thus, the fragile states currently emphasised are those that lie in the belt from the western boundaries of the Sahel and North Africa to the conflict zones of Iraq and Syria in the Middle East. In this situation, Europe is likely to ignore fragile, conflict-prone states elsewhere in Africa and Asia. This neglect will have important negative humanitarian consequences for people unfortunate enough to inhabit such areas. One example is the high number of refugees and internally displaced persons from the Boko Haram conflict in Northern Nigeria. Their plight is more or less off the European policy radar, since most of these refugees lack the means to reach the borders of Europe (Bøås, 2015a).

Negotiating justice: legal pluralism and gender-based violence in Liberia

Abstract The plural legal system in post-conflict Liberia expresses tensions between modern and customary institutions. This article seeks to understand how Liberians navigate choices in the plural legal system to address gender-based violence cases. By asking how and why people make the choices they do, we highlight how Liberians solve tensions between institutions, by creating flexible categories that allow them to pursue a course of action that does not compromise their ability to access social networks and resources.

‘Hunting ghosts of a difficult past’: the International Crisis Group and the production of ‘crisis knowledge’ in the Mano River Basin wars

This article explores the relationship between the International Crisis Group’s (icg) interpretation of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and the main academic ‘greed and grievance’ debate at the time. It shows that the icg’s early policy recommendations were basically in line with the interpretation of these wars as caused by ‘opportunistic warlordism’. However, this supposed causal link is less evident in the analytical parts of its early reports, and in the policy recommendations of later reports. These contradictory findings point to both internal developments within the icg and to its ‘two faces’: it seeks to influence policy makers using detailed empirical analysis on the ground in countries in conflict or transition, but is also aware that policy makers do not generally read long reports, thus it produces executive summary and policy recommendations for this target audience. The article argues that policy recommendations cannot work without the analytical parts of the reports: the analysis sections’ main function is to add legitimacy to policy recommendations and the organisation overall, contributing to its image as a genuine ‘on-the-ground producer’ of crisis knowledge and fostering its expert authority.

Pathways to Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Islamist Groups in Lebanon and Mali

Gade and Boas examine the question: Why do some population groups choose to turn away from the state and opt for violence, while other groups that may be equally frustrated with the state remain engaged with the existing polity? This question is addressed by analyzing case studies from Lebanon and Mali. Focus is put on the political behaviour of Islamist groups and individuals, and in particular on the factors that determine the acceptance, or not, of engaging in peaceful reconciliation. Revisiting the lessons learned from the divided societies of Lebanon and Mali, the authors assess the conditions under which reconciliation efforts and power-sharing agreements in Syria may become sustainable.