War

Maputo, 14 December: South African politician, Bernedette Muthien is one of the 12 members of South Africa’s Constitutional Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities. She was appointed to this part-time five-year renewable post in March this year, following South Africa’s fifth election held in the country under conditions of universal adult suffrage since the end of the apartheid era in 1994.

Articles include: Security regionalism and flaws of externally forged peace in Sudan: The IGAD peace process and its aftermath and formal and informal land tenure systems in Afar region of Ethiopia – perceptions, attitudes and implications for land use disputes.

Other articles include the Nigerian State as an equilibrium of violence: An explanation of the Boko Haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria and Emmanuel Ikechi Onah’s article on Pastoral conflict in Kenya and transforming mimetic violence to mimetic blessings between Turkana and Pokot communities and Ryan Triche – Terrorism and governance crisis: The Boko Haram experience in Nigeria as well as a book review on Towards an African Peace and Security regime.

This edition of Africa in Fact, entitled Broken Ranks, focuses on the military in Africa with articles on the decline of Nigeria’s military, the well cultivated image of Madagascar’s army and the trusted Rwandan peacekeeping force.

Other articles on the military in Africa include Uganda’s troops, the private military and security companies and Zimbabwe’s military reach in protection of politician’s business interests.

To understand the persistence of wartime rape that the DRC has experienced during the sixteen years old civil war, this study undertakes a critical analysis of the concept of ‘symbolic violence’ as proposed by Bourdieu. I have suggested that this concept [symbolic violence] as developed by Bourdieu needs other dimensions of definition in order to be applied to other social crises outside the western world. Shaping a link between wartime rape and its symbolic dimensions enables us to clearly articulate that the symbolic order brought through the practice of wartime rape by perpetrators does not remain unchallenged by the dominated who are direct and indirect victims of wartime rape. For this purpose, data were collected from ordinary community members, community leaders; a doctor and nurse form Panzi Hospital, an army General, a lawyer and some NGOs members working in the area of study (Kamanyola)through in-depth interviews. Observation and document analysis have also been used in the process of data collection. As a result the study found that wartime rape, at first, is a threat that perpetrators use to impose their own symbolic power upon males from the enemy groups through the rape of females from the same enemy groups. Therefore, this physical attack [war rape] against females impacts the victims as individuals, the community and the whole nation. This helps to suggest that physical violence is also symbolic violence. This is rendered possible through social and cultural patriarchal norms shared by both victims and perpetrators. As a result, family and community ties as well as marriage À“ as constitutive elements of the community’s symbolic order À“ are directly fractured by wartime rape. Forcing women to be economically unproductive was another strategy to undermine community ties which were built through community-based activities. Secondly, the strategic use of war rape comes to counter the idea of symbolic violence as being just soft or an invisible violence but under some circumstances a symbolic violence might produce physical harm.Thirdly, the study found that, patriarchy as the dominant social and cultural order is resisted by the dominated (women respondents in majority) now that it is associated to wartime rape. Because of this, I proposed that symbolic orders are not always taken for granted; they maybe resisted by the dominated. Based on the findings, this research report advocates for a more gender inclusive policy to encourage women to participate in the making of decisions which concern their lives as main victims of wartime rape in DRC generally and in Kamanyola in particular.

The current instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) can be traced back to late former President Mobutu Sese Seko’s rule during the late 1980s. The country’s economic depression was exacerbated by the end of the Cold War in 1991, leading to disengagement with the international economic and political system. The DRC has been the source of numerous conflicts over many years. The 1990s saw the country’s peace and security degenerate further, creating challenges that continue to preoccupy the world today. In recent times, the epicentre of the violence in the DRC has been North and South Kivu (the Kivus). The dynamics in the two provinces are complex, causing the Great Lakes region to be characterised by huge human security challenges. This paper aims to contribute to a better understanding of the linkage between the conflicts in the Kivus and persistent periodic instability in the DRC. It delves into and critiques post-crisis recovery efforts implemented in the country since the end of the Second Congo War. The paper concludes that, among other strategies, resolving the various conflicts in the DRC depends on understanding the causes of specific clashes, such as those in the Kivus, as this can contribute to the uncovering of sustainable solutions to armed confrontation. The paper offers proposals which, if implemented, could contribute to moving the Kivus, and by extension the DRC, beyond intractability.

New York, 14 march: On 26 November 2013, the UN General Assembly voted to proclaim 2014 the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. peaking at a parallel NGO event at the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW58), a Palestinian representative from the Arab Women’s Network, spoke to Gender Links about how Israeli occupation intensifies and entrenches patriarchy

New York, 13 mars: « Sound of Silence ». Il n’est nullement question ici de la chanson de Paul Simon & d’Art Garfunkel mais du titre d’un grand livre Á  la couverture noire, lancé hier par le Fond des Nations Unies pour la Population (FNUAP) lors du troisième jour de la 58e conférence de la Commission sur la condition de la femme des Nations Unies Á  New York. Ce livre n’est pas un ouvrage de lecture plaisante mais un recueil de témoignages de trois femmes violées en Bosnie-Herzégovine lorsque la guerre y faisait rage entre 1992 et 1995. Elles ont trouvé lÁ  un exutoire Á  leurs souffrances.

Johannesburg, 7 March: We observe International Women’s Day tomorrow, which aptly sets the stage for the annual Commission on the Status of Women (CSW58) held at the United Nations in New York starting on Monday. This year’s CSW also coincides with the 10th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW). Ironically and hypocritically, the fall of the ‘tragic hero’, Oscar Pistorius, will continue to garner undue resources and dominate international headlines, while these events and women’s everyday oppression will be merely deliberated and largely unheard.

How do, could and should institutions responsible for security and the management of conflict in Tropical African societies respond to violent conflict? This IDS Bulletin is built on the observation that all governance (especially in Africa) is multileveled and networked À“ from the village to the international organisation, well beyond what is specified in formal government structures.

Thus the focus must be not only on the ways in which key conflict-management institutions evolve themselves but also on the changing ways in which the networks where they are embedded actually operate. This issue is about post-conflict reconstruction and the rebuilding of shattered states and societies, presenting fieldwork from articles covering the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and Somalia.

Post-conflict governance systems have become more multileveled and networked than in the immediate post-independence era, and these local systems and the resolution of their problems, are key to the restoration of order. International actors are also central, as their prominence in networks ensures resources for reconstruction and development.

Their presence means that a country’s president no longer has the ability to set priorities and control the distribution of resources, and therefore local leaders, professionals, national NGOs and churches can challenge the president over policy and politics in a way that they could not previously. But this IDS Bulletin finds that these new or revitalised networks do not challenge the state as an institution itself À“ ultimately the key links in these networks are individuals and organisations that are embedded in the state and will not challenge its existence, unity or effectiveness.

This is a story book À“ her story book À“ with stories about how women struggle to achieve peace and dignity in the war torn areas of Africa. They are the voices of courage of women struggling for freedom. These stories need to inform peace processes and the leadership that comes with them. This is part of ActionAid’s “reducing violence against womenÀ project.