How does a continent, which hosts little more than a tenth of the global population, put forth 48% of the world’s displaced individuals? By comparison, Asia with 61% of the world population, provides only 35% of the global displaced population. Similarly, Europe and the Americas, which host 13% to 15% of the global population, provide only 5% and 10% of the global displaced population respectively. By and large, scholars are looking at the effect of foreign intervention in African politics to explain the creation of a disproportionately high number of displaced individuals in Africa.
But the term “displacement” has consistently defied attempts at unequivocal classification. Displaced populations are generally divided into two categories: Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Only refugees are internationally recognized and granted protection under The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, which restricts the term to those who have crossed a political boundary and seek asylum in a foreign country. This definition does not address the issue of internal displacement within countries, a significant limitation given that IDPs outnumber refugees by a ratio of more than 2:1. Both groups face the same hardships and have the same basic needs – shelter, food and security. IDPs are unable or unwilling to leave their country behind due to the hardships involved in travelling to the country’s border and the danger involved in leaving the country undetected. However, the origin of persecution and the capabilities of the persecuted to escape should not be decisive in determining refugee status. Instead, the guiding principle should be whether or not a person deserves international protection because it is unavailable within his or her country. Accordingly, international institutions have opted to group refugees and IDPs under the umbrella term of “Displaced Individuals” to include all who have fled their homes to escape persecution and violence.
Two forms of foreign interventions have impacted the refugee creation process: Colonialism and the Cold War. Both interventions have created and intensified African conflicts leading to the displacement crisis on the continent.
The Colonial Legacy
The colonial legacy of polarizing religious and ethnic identities by favouring a single identity over all others led to some of the most devastating civil wars in African history. Armed conflict also arose due to the direct involvement of colonial powers in post-colonial conflicts of African states. Countries like Sudan, Rwanda, Nigeria and Congo provide poignant examples of these phenomena.
The British were initially impressed by the cultural richness of the northern Muslim region of Sudan. In comparison, the south was heterogeneous and relatively undeveloped, consisting of animistic cultures. The colonial power invested a great deal of money educating and furthering the development of the northern regions while leaving southern Sudan underdeveloped and exploited. The educated and modern elite in northern Sudan began fighting for autonomy but their attempts were crushed by giving more power to the traditional northern rulers and by reducing the authority exercised by the educated elite. As a preventative measure against any similar demands of autonomy in the south, the British government completely cut off any contact between the north and the south parts of Sudan. Over decades, Northern Sudan developed while Southern Sudan remained in extreme poverty and without essential services. The colonial powers had effectively polarized the nation into the north and the south characterized by strong feelings of resentment between the two regions. At the outset of independence, Britain merged them into one nation. The developed north was given control over the country and the south was left with very little political representation. The newly-formed Islamic government began enforcing the policy of forced Islamization on the Christian and animist south, leading to internal conflict that continues today on an intra-state civil level as well as an inter-state level between neighbouring countries. In addition to the direct violence caused by the conflict, war-induced famine has also affected regions of Sudan where opposing forces have destroyed food supplies and placed landmines in agricultural regions. The cumulative result of this has been the deaths of two million civilians and the displacement of at least four million.
The well-known case of Rwanda shows the extreme consequences of ethnic polarization. The Belgian colonialists rule favoured the Tutsi ethnic group over the Hutus. The Sudanese pattern emerges here since the Tutsis were given total representation in the government and education system while the Hutus were denied such basic rights. The strict colonial rule suppressed any conflicts that could arise by such inequality between the ethnic groups. But during the process of decolonization, Belgium reversed its policy and, in the hope of creating a more equitable Rwanda, handed over all power to the Hutus. This led to the first wave of displacement as nearly 150,000 Tutsi civilians left Rwanda afraid that the newly formed Hutu regime would oppress them for past injustices. Three decades later, the resentment that simmered within the Hutu population climaxed after the alleged assassination of the Hutu President by a Tutsi armed group. Nearly 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were massacred in a span of a hundred days. Following the genocide, more than a million Hutu civilians and army officials fled Rwanda to seek asylum in nearby countries fearing retribution and criminal justice. Like the case of Sudan, polarizing of the nation on the basis of ethnicity led to extreme ethnic violence and mass displacement.
Another famous colonial policy was the creation of arbitrary political borders that were insensitive towards the existing group rivalries. The Nigerian population consists of over two hundred ethnic identities as well as Muslim, Christian and Animist religious groups, each with its own rivalries. This ethnic rivalry, religious tension and disputes over land have led to sporadic outbreaks of civil violence. In 2000, religious violence in the Kaduna province caused the displacement of more than 100,000 individuals. The next year, ethnic clashes between the Riv and Jukun groups displaced half a million civilians in central Nigeria. Judicial reform such as the introduction of the Sharia Islamic law system has also led to conflicts between religious identities. It is important to note, however, that countries in Asia and the Americas were by no means immune from such effects. The genocide following the partition of the Indian subcontinent into India, Pakistan and later Bangladesh was marked by nothing short of a genocide.
Equally significant is the involvement of old colonial powers in the conflict of past territories in increasing the severity of the conflicts. In the late 1980s, French President Francois Mitterand developed a strong friendship with the Sassou regime in Congo and supported it with military and economic assistance. Sassou had recently allowed the French petroleum company, Elf-Aquitaine, to exploit the sizeable oil reserves in Congo and was heavily dependent upon revenues from the oil export. In the 1990s, when civil war was imminent, the French military and economic aid served Sassou’s interests. France also wrote off several hundred million dollars of debt in 1994 freeing up additional funds for Sassou. The civil war that these funds and armaments supported led to the displacement of millions of Congolese civilians. Similarly, the French supply of armaments to the Interhamwe intensified the conflict that followed the Rwandan genocide in the DRC, which has created one of the worst cases of internal displacement in the world.
Colonialism was therefore significant in increasing the incidence and intensity of civil war between cultural and ethnic identities in Africa. Conflicts involving civilians are major push factors since they place civilian lives in danger. Despite the end of the colonial era decades ago, the impact on displacement persists as seen in the case of the DRC, which hosts one of the largest populations of displaced individuals in the world. Militarization of refugee and IDP camps in DRC has sparked a civil war in the region that is creating more displaced individuals. Africa still suffers heavily from the colonial legacy, despite attaining independence for many of its states, showing the complex and long-term effects of colonialism. The mistakes made by colonial powers decades ago still resonate strongly in the lives of the millions of displaced individuals who have been forced to flee from civil conflict in Africa.
The Cold War in Africa
The use of African states to wage proxy wars during the Cold War and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet regime played an important role in creating the displacement crisis that Africa faces today. Both superpowers used proxy wars to avoid the risk of a nuclear war. Newly formed African states, which were left in a state of disarray by decolonization, were seen as ideal candidates to wage proxy wars due to their fragmented populations. The superpowers armed various groups within African states and supported them in exchange for their ideological loyalty. The best example of this is the case of Angola. Before gaining its independence from Portugal, Angola hosted two main armed groups– the National Liberation Front of Angola or FNLA and the Popular Movement for Liberation of Angola or MPLA. In 1965, an ideological conflict divided the FNLA, creating a new armed group, known as the UNITA. After independence, a tense environment was created as the three groups competed for control of the country. This volatile atmosphere was used by the superpowers as a frontier to advance their ideologies. The Soviet Union began a full-scale armament of the MPLA faction while the U.S. provided covert military assistance to the FNLA and later to UNITA. In October 1975, a massive aerial transfer of armaments and Cuban soldiers into the MPLA ranks led to violent clashes and the subsequent victory of the MPLA faction. In accordance to the U.S.S.R intentions, MPLA went ahead to establish a single-party socialist regime in Angola. However, the U.S. continued arming the UNITA groups, which identified themselves as pro-western and anti-Marxist. In total, the U.S. monetary contribution to the UNITA front stood at U.S. 250 million between 1986 and 1991 in addition to armaments such as assault rifles and landmines and military intelligence. Support from the superpowers allowed the conflict to continue and led to the displacement of civilians caught in the crossfire of the fighting groups. Additionally, UNITA has recently forcibly displaced civilian populations in order to get human and material support, while government forces have, in turn, moved civilians in order to isolate UNITA. Furthermore, opposing forces have left landmines in agricultural areas to prevent planting of crops in order to reduce civilian support for each other. This has led to the movement of starving rural civilians to urban areas where there are no landmines. The proxy wars started and intensified by superpowers have ultimately led to massive displacement of four million individuals in Angola.
After the fall of the Soviet regime, there was one chance to mitigate the harms from these wars. A lack of military support from the superpowers would have reduced the intensity of the civil wars. However, the end of the Cold War meant that the superpowers no longer needed the massive weapons stockpiled throughout the world. And the most lucrative market for arms at this time was Africa given the numerous civil wars started during the Cold War era. Between 1989-1998, the U.S. supplied $46,444,000 of armaments to Chad, $ 32,073,000 to Sudan, and $ 15,369,000 to the DRC. The U.S. supported eight out of nine governments directly involved in the war in DRC. Similarly, the former Soviet republics continued to supply leftover small arms to insurgents in Sierra Leona, Angola, Sudan and Algeria. This net surplus of weapons into Africa reduced the cost of arming rebel groups. While this has reduced the incidence of civilian extortion by rebel groups for funding, it increased the intensity of the violence and harm to civilian life and resulted, consequently, in the mass displacement of African populations.
The superpowers involved in the Cold War used Africa to extend their ideological influence through proxy wars. Economic and military support extended the duration of internal conflicts in African states as seen from the example of Angola. After the Cold War, superpowers flooded African markets with inexpensive small armaments allowing rebel groups to arm themselves easily. These interventions increased the severity of armed conflict in Africa leading to displacement of civilians.
Changing attitudes
Years of armed conflict have ravaged Africa and resulted in large-scale loss of life. This has caused a fundamental change in the attitudes of governments towards the populace. There has been a continent-wide devaluation of the worth of human life in Africa. This is reflected in bad governance and subsequently, more displacement. The Sudanese government, for example, has used indiscriminate bombing and military campaigns against civilians to eliminate rebel groups. It has used “scorched earth” policies, carpet-bombing large tracts of land to depopulate the oil-rich areas. Similarly, the Nigerian government has forcibly displaced thousands of civilians from oil-rich areas to allow for extraction. The diamond rich province of Cabinda in Angola is under a brutal military rule to prevent any disturbance of diamond mining and oil extraction in the region. The governments of Burundi, DRC, and Uganda have all been implicated in the forced displacement of ethnic groups to reduce the incidence of ethnic conflicts in the country. States caught in protracted conflicts have lost regard for the human lives. In these cases foreign intervention is not directly responsible for displacement but is responsible for the attitudes that lead to displacement. It also suggests that those who consider foreign interventions such as economic aid or military assistance as simple solutions to remedy the mistakes made by colonial powers in the past are naïve in believing that the intricate cause and effect relationships of complex political processes can be reversed in one fell swoop.
Future outlook
The issue is being addressed today primarily by providing humanitarian aid and asylum for displaced individuals. But even this involves unique obstacles such as the difficulty in reaching internally displaced individuals in conflict areas as well as the economic consequences that host nations must face when they grant asylum to refugees. Nonetheless, the complexity of resolving the displacement issue and its enormous scale make it such an important one for the global community and a vital one for millions of displaced individuals in Africa.
« return.