Small Arms Militarism.
We need to see how militarism corrupts a Continent. Africa contains no superpowers. It a vast continent of smallish and some bigger states with a more rural economy that others on the planet. It was largely colonially controlled through to about 1960. Aside North Africa it was largely outside the two World Wars and involved in none of the big armaments confrontations of nuclear weapons, bombers, missiles, warships and tank warfare. Yet still militarism has dominated Africa. In the last sixty or so years governments have been marked by a high degree of military interaction and we need to ask why. First we undertake a quick survey of the evidence that militarism is tangled in African governance. Countries are presented in alphabetical order.
It corrupts most African Governments.
In Algeria General Gaid Salah is in charge of the government. He ousted the President. In Angola a long civil war fuelled by US-Soviet military input left 4m people, a third of the population, displaced. Some kind of stable politics is emerging though with flawed elections. Burkina Faso has a military junta in power and has had ten coups since independence. In Burundi a 2015 coup attempt has de-stabilised the system. The Central African Republic has armed groups and mercenaries in control of areas. General Mahamet Déby now controls Chad. The Republic of the Congo has had a recent civil war, army control and a ceasefire in December, 2017.The Democratic Republic of the Congo had military rule by Mobutu and a civil war in which 5m died. Kaliba became leader with military power vested in his office and since 2008 a major war has raged in Kivu Province. Its rich resources lead western multinational companies and militias to run much of the country in their own interests. In Ivory Coast a civil war in 2011 led to President Quattara backed by the military. In Egypt in 2013 President Morsi was removed from power in a coup d’ état. El Sisi now governs through military control. Ethiopia is a one-party state with no opposition MPs in Parliament, a Civil war in Tigray Province and is fighting in Eritrea, another totally destabilised state. Ghana is now a democracy with a strong regional military force. Earlier, Nkrumah was evicted from power in a coup, possibly with US involvement. There were a series of coups through the 60s to 80s. The Guinea National Assembly did not meet for five years 2008-13 through army control. More recently, there were doubtful elections and a 2021 military coup. Liberia has had two civil wars involving the notorious military figures James Doe and Charles Taylor and now has the former warlord Joshua Blahyi running the state. Libya was run by Colonel Gaddafi after a military coup in 1969 through to the Civil War in 2011. He was heavily armed after an agreement with Blair and Berlusconi, lost the Arab Spring conflict through western involvement and the state has been in military chaos since. Madagascar has had two decades of disturbance and a military uprising. In Mali there was a military coup in 2012 and two in the 2020s with the military in charge now. In Mauritania a military coup in 2008 rumbles on. Niger has had many military regimes, but more recently, sound elections, despite a coup attempt in 2021. Nigeria had military dictators from 1966 to 1999 and has moved over to more stable democratic governments, though subject to Islamic-Christian tension. In the north Boko Haram have run a terrorist campaign for more than a decade, killing, kidnapping, displacing and destroying. They are now linked to ISIS. Ruanda had a Civil War involving genocidal murders.. It now has elections but has effectively become a one party state under Kigame. Its army has operated in the DRC in relation to expensive western mineral extractions and has destabilised the area. Sierra Leone had an eleven year Civil War. In 1998-9 a coup led to UN peacekeeping forces trying to stabilize government. Somalia has had a long insurgency, torrid relationships with the Ethiopian military and a substantial breakdown and fragmentation of civil government. Sudan had a long Civil War between the North and the South involving deep disruption of the South until it became independent. Half a million people lost their lives. When the South became independent, it too had a Civil War killing a further 300-400,000 people. There have been coups in 2021 in the North and instability in the South. Togo has been governed by a Father-Son monopoly backed by the military in a total package of control. Uganda has been a military dictatorship more or less since independence under Idi Amin and Yowere Musevene. Parliament is highly paid and docile. The LRA in the North creates additional problems. Zimbabwe had white colonial military control and then the military dictatorship of Mugabe and a strong military presence since he was ousted.
On any reading of the situation this is a deep pattern of destructive interference in the life and politics of Africa, and it needs explaining, addressing, and eradicating. Nothing less is acceptable. The cost is enormous. Perhaps five million children in Africa under the age of five died as a result of armed conflict between 1995 and 2015.[i] Many states have been paralysed.
African Military Establishments.
How are they formed? There are probably several contributions.
- Colonial Military Training.
The colonial powers, Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, Portugal and Italy trained “native” soldiers and militias to run their colonies for a century or more. They were trained, well paid and used to being in charge. When independence came some of them became Prime Minister or President, either through leading independence movements or as transitional figures. Links were retained with the colonial militaries and suppliers of arms, and the militaries became close to a central establishment which was well off, could exploit business deals and the wealth at the centre. They were the natural focus of continued colonial-independent contact and used to imposing military acquiescence on populations.
Western Military Equipment after Independence.
The European powers were keen to continue training the military after independence and to supply them with arms, sometimes in competition with the USSR. Arms deal were often accompanied by bribes as were commercial deals with multi-national corporations, and this solidified a class intent on staying on power, very well off and using their soldiers to impose no change politics.
- Corruption through multi-national Corporations.
Africa has a lot of natural resources, especially in states like DRC and Angola. Western companies which want to extract these are keen to do deals, either with governments or with militaries which control an area. Obviously the commodity, geography and kind of deal varies, but often the military can be close these deals and they money made from them.
- The Proliferation of Small Arms. Mainly the big arms have been absent from Africa, and it has concentrated therefore mainly on soldiers, rifles and small arms. These move in unregulated transfers both from Russia and the West, and also though more production in Africa’s main industrial centres. They are low cost, threaten people in large numbers and are very destructive of life and national cohesion as in Nigeria, DRC, Sudan, Ethiopia and many other states.
- Islamic Militarism. The Islamic- western confrontation in the middle east has been transposed by terrorist groups into north and Central Africa again causing disruption, death, refugees and military responses.
Africa can fully demilitarize.
The effects of all these processes has been to produce this widespread endemic small scale militarism affecting most states and shaping their political formation. All the attempts to address it have been piecemeal, mainly because the Russian and Western powers, multinationals and arms people do not want reform upsetting their profits, neither do most of the entrenched African politicians or militaries. It mirrors the issue we address later, namely that the established powers are militarist and will not bring about change through reform while they are dominant. Any sane person who thinks will agree that Africa should be fully demilitarised. So let us do it, removing weapons and the destructive power of weapons for all Africa’s people. It can transform the continent for great good immediately. It requires a mass popular movement which will insist on bringing it about. It is of course, a totally popular policy, perhaps the most popular on the planet, and the challenge in Africa, as in the rest of the world, is to make people aware it can be done. It can. We discuss it later. A great continent, crippled by militarism and military establishments, waits for reform….
[i] Zachary Wagner et al. “Armed conflict and child mortality in Africa: A geospatial Analysis” Lancet 30/8/2018