1. What to do with African Conflicts
How does the world deal with present day conflicts that are influenced by the past?

3. African Politics before European Rule
Prior to WWII, the tribe (ethnic group) was the traditional political unit
Tribes were used as intermediary groups to pass on rules and requirements for the European colonial systems
Independence movements in the 1960’s created national unity
Many of the political problems today are conflicts from cultural traditions and effects of years of colonial rule.

4. United Nations: an international peacekeeping organization
Established on October 24, 1945 by 51 countries committed to preserving peace through international cooperation and collective security.
1st UN mission – Arab Israeli partition in 1947
Today, nearly every nation in the world belongs to the UN: 192 countries.
When States become Members of the UN, they agree to accept the obligations of the UN Charter, an international treaty that sets out basic principles of international relations.

5. United Nations
The United Nations has six main organs. Five of them: General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council and Secretariat - based at UN Headquarters in New York. The sixth - International Court of Justice, is located at The Hague -Netherlands.
UN has four purposes:
maintain international peace and security
develop friendly relations among nations
cooperate in solving international problems and in promoting respect for human rights
be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations.
Three stages to conflict resolution:
1. Diplomacy – outside party arranges negotiations
2. Use of Sanctions – economic boycotts, embargoes, trade restrictions, barred from international events (Olympics)
3. Threat or use of force

6. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Article 2: Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as…color, sex, language…national or social origin, property, birth or other status.
Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile
Article 13: Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country
Article 18: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion.
Article 20: Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Article 21: Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives

7. Reasons for U.N. involvement in Sub Saharan Africa
Colonial rule created numerous issues throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, and currently 8 of 16 U.N. peacekeeping missions are in Africa. The following have been the most urgent and devastating.

8. Only the dead have seen the end of war. --Plato
Somalia
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
--Plato

9. Somalia 1992
Years of warfare among rival clans caused famine on a biblical scale. 300,000 civilians died of starvation.
Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the most powerful of the warlords, ruled the capital Mogadishu.
Aidid seized international food shipments at the ports. Hunger was his weapon.

10. April 1993
The world responded. Behind a force of 20,000 United States Marines, food was delivered and order restored.
Aidid waited until the Marines withdrew, and then declared war on the remaining United Nations peacekeepers.
In June, Aidid’s militia ambushed and slaughtered 24 Pakistani Soldiers, and began targeting American personnel.

11. In late August, American’s elite soldiers, Delta Force, Army Rangers and the 160th SOAR were sent to Mogadishu to remove Aidid and restore order.
The mission was to take three weeks, but six weeks later Washington was growing impatient.

12. Saturday, October 2, 1993
At a Red Cross Food Distribution Center unarmed civilians were fired upon.
“This food is the property of Mohamed Farrah Aidid. Go back to your homes.”
Delta Force was advised not to assist because they were not being fired upon themselves.
Black Hawk Down

13. The Result
The situation became dire when in one attempt to capture Aidid two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down, and a firefight ensued.
The situation proved to be disastrous for the U.S. and created reluctance to enter Africa in the future.
Today Somalia still suffers from severe governmental and economic instability.

14. Rwanda/Burundi

15. Rwanda and Burundi were torn by ethnic strife since independence from Belgium in Hutus make up 85% of population, Tutsis 15%. Hutus were farmers, Tutsis were more aristocratic.

16. Belgians gave Tutsis more land rights, gave privileges and government jobs solely to them. When Belgium lost control in 1962, it tried to set up a Tutsi government.
When the Belgians left there was a power vacuum both Hutus and Tutsis wanted to fill. The area split into two:
Rwanda – controlled by Hutus
Burundi– controlled by Tutsis

17. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Tutsi rebels exiled in Uganda, attempted to overthrow the Hutu-led Rwandan government.
UN peacekeepers were called in to quell the violence. Peace accords were signed in Aug. 1993, but after a plane crash killed the presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi, deep-seated ethnic violence erupted.
11 UN peacekeepers were executed because they were in the way.

18. Armed with grenades, AK-47s, and in some areas only machetes, Hutus slaughtered an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu sympathizers in 100 days.
Tutsi’s were told by radio to stay in their homes while a 30,000- member militia group (Interahamwe) ravaged through neighborhoods, and ordinary Hutus located and killed their Tutsi neighbors.
The killings went 5 times faster than the Nazis killed in WWII.
The genocidal slaughter has been shown to have been carefully orchestrated by the Hutu government in advance.

19. Despite horrific reports of genocide, no other country came to the Tutsi's assistance. The UN, already stationed in Rwanda withdrew soon after their 11 soldiers were killed.
A Tutsi rebel force, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, swept across the country in a 14-week civil war that overtook the Hutu extremists
Resulted in 1.7 million Hutu refugees in the Congo.

20. Video Clips – “Hotel Rwanda”
Today Hutus and Tutsis live side by side and try to deal with their past. The United States and others are dealing with the fact that the atrocities were allowed to go on for so long.
Video Clips – “Hotel Rwanda”

21. Congo

22. Democratic Republic of the Congo
The United Nations used force for the 1st time in the Congo:
Congo was a Belgian colony.
Congo was given but not ready for independence.
Government fractured and Europeans were targeted. Belgium troops illegally intervened.
10,000 UN Security Council troops were called in to restore order.
Update on Congo: When the coalition that brought down Mobutu fell apart in 1998, a second war began. This war pitted Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi against the government of DRC, which was supported by Zimbabwe, Angola, and Namibia. All countries have armed and supported militias, which continue to fight even after the foreign countries have left DRC. The second war alone has cost 3.8 million lives. An internationally sponsored peace process has inched forward, but it is threatened by continuing conflict, often along ethnic lines; by militias (including some accused of involvement in the Rwanda genocide); by neighboring countries’ pursuit of their own interests in DRC; and by elite criminal networks that are plundering Congo’s rich natural resources under cover of the conflict. Landmark elections – the first in more than 40 years – occurred on July 30 of this year. The elections went off remarkably smoothly despite the vast logistical and political challenges required, and international observers deemed the elections free and fair, despite calls of fraud by some opposition leaders and limited violence by opposition members attempting to keep some voters from the polls. More than 25 million Congolese percent of those eligible -- came out to vote. It remains to be seen, however, how the elections and the response of various armed groups to them will affect the long-term peace-building process.
SUMMER 2006 Although the UN peacekeeping mission has stepped up efforts to combat armed groups, insecurity and violence continue to plague civilians in the east. The International Rescue Committee estimated in January 2006 that 38,000 Congolese civilians die each month in the Congo -- 1,250 every day -- as a direct result of the conflict, due either to direct violence or preventable diseases and malnutrition.

23. Tribal leaders fought for control over the central government.
UN forces were sent in as well as foreign mercenaries who protected Western mining company interests.
A corrupt government was soon established under a man named Joseph Mobutu, whom the US supported because of his anti- Soviet position.
The country was then named Zaire. He was not a good leader.

24. In1996, Mobutu was overthrown and country was renamed Democratic Republic of Congo.

25. Today, ethnic groups from neighboring Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi are all vying for control over the country.
The presidents of Rwanda and
the DRC have organized military operations to disarm those rebels groups.
In the Kivus, violence continues to rage with women and girls suffering increasingly brutal attacks. (IRC)
Many groups also use child soldiers.

26. Conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo have caused an estimated 5.4 million deaths since (IRC)
The vast majority were not killed in combat. Most tragically died from malaria, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition--easily preventable and treatable conditions when people have access to health care and nutritious food. (IRC)

27. Sudan
Sudan has been at war with itself for more than three-quarters of its existence

28. The First Sudanese Civil war took place from 1955-1972 and was between the north and south.
The Second Sudanese Civil War started in and continued until peace was negotiated in 2005.
The Second Sudanese Civil War was also between the Muslim North and the Animist and Christian South.
During this twenty year civil war, more than two million people were killed and more than four million have been displaced.

29. Video Clip – “God Grew Tired of Us”
The Lost Boys of Sudan are a group of boys (although girls were also displaced and targeted) ages as young as 6 years old walked a distance equivalent to walking from Denver to Chicago.
It took 3 months and over half were killed or captured.
Video Clip – “God Grew Tired of Us”

30. Sudan and the Darfur Answer the next 4 questions from the video
“We heard the Janjawid decide to open fire on the mosque and so we decided to run
out… They captured the women… The men were holding their throats and sitting on
their bodies so they could not move, and they took off their clothes and then used them
as women. More than one man would use one woman. I could hear the women crying
for help, but there was no one to help them.”
A woman speaking to Amnesty International about an attack on Djorlo, Chad, on 7 November 2006
Answer the next 4 questions from the video
Video clip – “Devil Came on Horseback”

31. The Darfur region of the Sudan is an area the size of France in the west. The Muslim dominated northern government feared the southern rebel groups. An agreement was soon reached in 2003.

32. In 2003, people in the Darfur wanted certain rights
In 2003, people in the Darfur wanted certain rights. The government in Khartoum feared this, and hired the Janjaweed(devil on horseback) to exterminate the black African groups in the Darfur.

33. The Janjaweed enter villages to rape, burn, and slaughter.

34. According to BBC news, the death toll is estimated at 300,000 with close to 2 million displaced in refugee camps in Chad where disease and famine runs rampant. The Sudanese government disagrees. They estimate 10,000 deaths.

35. Today, reporters and Humanitarian aid has been blocked by the Sudanese government so that very few images of what is happening can be captured.

36. Modern Slavery in Sudan

37. While there are no public auctions, modern slavery does exist in Sudan.
Several thousand have been enslaved in Sudan in the past ten years.
Often, the northern forces seize the southern Animists. They are used as forced labor, often sexually exploited and in some cases sold to other “masters”.
The government denies that slavery exists and it is technically against the law. However, the government tends to look the other way. They use slavery as a way to rid themselves of their enemies.

38. Modern slavery is still an issue in Sudan(3), Togo(3), South Africa (2w), Niger(2w), Mauritania(2), Benin(2w), The Gambia(2w), Sierra Leone(2w), Rwanda(2w)
They are sold for $20-$70 in poorer countries and around $350 in richer countries.

39. From Military Engagements to Engagement Rings
Tracing The Path of Conflict Diamonds

40. Where Are Diamonds Found?
Rough diamonds can either be found below the earth’s surface through industrial mining, or in river beds and streams through alluvial mining.
Most of the diamond deposits currently mined in places such as Sierra Leone and Angola are alluvial, requiring only a shovel, a pan, and hard labor.

41. The Illusion of Scarcity
Diamonds had only been found in river beds in India and Brazil. In 1870, however, diamond deposits were discovered in South Africa, allowing unprecedented numbers of diamonds to enter the open market.
Diamond investors formed De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. to help control diamond production, and created the illusion of scarcity.

42. The Illusion of Scarcity
The price of diamonds depends on the perceived scarcity. If diamonds are perceived as being rare, diamond prices will remain high. If new diamonds flood the market, prices will plummet. The average diamond ring is marked up 100% to 200%.

43. The Illusion of Scarcity
Through its enormous wealth, power, and influence, De Beers buys large amounts of diamonds when countries attempt to flood the market.
Because of De Beers, the price of diamonds has remained steady despite civil wars and conflict.

44. Easily Exploitable Resource
In areas like Sierra Leone river mining allows easy access to quality rough diamonds. This artificially high price has encouraged rebels to take control of diamond mining areas in hopes of making a substantial profit.
Rebel groups such as the RUF (Revolutionary United Front), force civilians to mine for diamonds.
Rebel groups use profits from diamond sales (up to $300 million a year) to buy more weapons and supplies to sustain their military endeavors.

45. Diamonds Fund Conflicts
In the 90’s over 6 million people from Sierra Leone, Angola, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo became refugees; being forced from their homes by diamond fueled conflict. Millions more have died from conflicts.
Rebel cruelty is well documented, and includes abduction and training of child soldiers, amputation, abduction of males as diamond mine workers, and use of rape as a tool of war.
Diamond profits allow for prolonged conflict and increased human rights abuses in conflict areas

46. “A Diamond is Forever”
In 1947 De Beers launched its “A Diamond Is Forever” marketing campaign in the United States.
Goals included convincing people: 1. Diamonds are rare and 2. Diamonds are so meaningful they can never be parted with; a man should spend at least a month’s salary for an engagement ring.
De Beers encouraged jewelers to loan diamonds to Hollywood stars for events, associating diamonds with wealth, power, prestige, and celebrity.
The United States - largest market for diamond jewelry, buying nearly half of the $56 billion in diamonds sold last year.

47. International Initiative: The Kimberley Process
In 2003, the Kimberley Process was introduced to help stem the flow of conflict diamonds.
The Kimberley Process: a voluntary initiative that requires participants to certify that shipments of rough diamonds are conflict free.
The diamond industry also voluntarily agreed to implement a System of Warranties to help trace rough diamonds from mining to point of sale.
Despite UN arms embargoes and the Kimberley Process, the illegal sale of diamonds remains a profitable business in some areas.

48. Too Many to Count: Other countries in Africa that suffer with conflict
Territorial Disputes
SUDAN – Eritrean government supporting rebel forces in southern Sudan
ERITREA – war between Ethiopia and Eritrea – concerning exact demarcation of the border around the town of Badme in a triangle of about 2,000 sq. km
ETHIOPIA – fighting Eritrea and involved in Somali conflict supporting different war lords than Eritrea does
DJIBOUTI – demarcation of border between Eritrea – UN peacekeepers there
UGANDA – A group called the LRA under the leadership of Joseph Koney attack tribes in northern provinces.
Ethnic Disputes
SOMALIA – 26 clan regions
ANGOLA – fighting between clans and for oil rich province independence
NAMIBIA – supports Kabila government in Congo and has run into conflict with Angola who supports new government – expensive in $’s and manpower
ZIMBABWE – 14,000 forces in Congo to protect commercial interest of small group of Zimbabweans – brink of popular revolt if policy is not changed