What we are seeing is the decline of the classic African liberation movement and the proliferation of something else — something wilder, messier, more violent, and harder to wrap our heads around. If you’d like to call this war, fine. But what is spreading across Africa like a viral pandemic is actually just opportunistic, heavily armed banditry.
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I was turned on to Mr. Gettleman’s stuff after doing a little searching around on all things Africa, and I am impressed with what he has reported on. He seems to have a feel for what is really going on, and has boiled it down to it’s most basic root causes. From Somalia to the Congo, it is all the same. It is the Anarchy Gravy Train, and all of these seedy and despicable groups mentioned, all benefit from this chaos. They don’t want order, because it is a threat to their lively-hood.
At best what I can determine from all of this, is that these groups have found a means of survival through terror. It not only feeds them but gets them anything they want….anything. That’s pretty powerful, and these struggling governments who are dealing with these groups are having a hard time selling a better deal. So these thugs look at government as a threat to their good deal and terror based businesses.
It is the same with the current drug war, and you could easily say that the cartels only benefit from a weak government and weak borders. Anarchy, or something close to anarchy, is a place in which enterprising criminals can really flourish.
Look at Haiti right now, and that would be an excellent study for this concept. With the earthquake came instant anarchy. Infrastructure is destroyed, prisons crumble and convicts escape, and the government or any semblance of it is not able to protect or adequately help their people. Crime increases, and business based on that anarchy increases. Things like charging for shade under a tree, or selling child slaves, all because there is no one around to tell them that they can’t do that. That is what Africa is all about, and it is sad.
So in a sea of chaos and anarchy, how do you establish order? That is the million dollar question, and in Africa, it is a question that is continually pondered day in and day out, and with little success.
From my point of view as a security professional and as an independent contractor or businessman, I could give some suggestions as to how to bring order to chaos. Although my suggestions might not be the most politically correct solutions, they are none the less just ideas to think about.
Business must be supported and protected by government. I can’t stress enough how important business is to a government. If you have the support of business, and you actually do things that increase business or brings a return on investment for the community, then I think countries in Africa will be able to do a better job at diminishing the power of these free ranging thugs. Telecommunications is a big one, and any effort of the government to promote that and get it out to the masses, will only help in other areas of commerce and governance. Educations and the promotion of innovation is another. Anything a government can do, to stimulate business and get people occupied with that, as opposed to committing crimes or fighting each other, will help. It produces jobs, and increases the quality of living by bringing more cash into local economies.
Security is the second area that needs to be a priority. Governments must have adequate protection, and they must do all they can to protect it’s people. If they have the resources to raise an army and police, then that is one way. If they have the resources, but not the manpower, then using assistance of other countries or contracting a PMC would be another way. Or the third way a country could protect itself and it’s people, is through the means of Letter of Marque and Reprisal. To issue a LoM to individuals, and have them focused on taking the assets away from enemies of the state, and/or killing and capturing those enemies would be an excellent way of kick starting a government. This is privateering, and governments could turn to this activity as a cost effective way of defeating it’s enemies and eradicating these free ranging thugs and rebel groups that we read about all the time.
You could also use bounty hunting as a means to eradicate or capture these thugs. If countries could contract the services of competent companies to do this task, then that would buy them the time necessary to raise a police or army. And as the author pointed out below, once you take out the leaders of these roving bands of thugs, they tend to dissipate. Focusing the energies of a professional and competent company on the task of removing this threat, could be a real help in the over all effort of creating peace and stability within a country.
My point with both of these activities, is that countries should have the right and means to contract with professional forces who could accomplish the task of destroying any threats to a government. Especially in countries that are deemed failed states, or pretty damn close. Or countries that are so overwhelmed that even their current forces at maximum levels, are unable to do the task (like in Mexico).
The example of what I am talking about, is early America and our use of privateers in order to defeat the British on the high seas. We did not have a sufficiently sized Continental Navy, and privateers was the answer. Using mercenaries was our answer to manpower deficiencies during the Battle of Derne back during the Barbary Pirates days.(our very first foreign action as a young country) Or even look at the use of contractors today by the US–there are thousands of us working in the war. Why does the west continue to deny other countries whom they call friends, their right to defend self in such a way? Because currently, the means we are currently allowing countries to use, are pathetic.
We say things like ‘only the UN is authorized to be in the Congo’. And then what happens? They fail miserably, and things get worse. We say companies like Executive Outcomes are unjust and illegitimate, yet when they are contracted to help a government, like with Sierra Leone, they were successful. How about we put that choice in the hands of the governments of countries, and stop dictating what we think works or doesn’t work?
Ideally it would be nice if all countries in Africa, had the ability to raise armies that were sufficiently organized and violent to deal with their threats. Yet time and time again, governments fail to create such things. The local populations are not able to produce recruits for these armies that are able to operate at an advanced level. Education and health deficiencies are contributors. Corruption in society and government is another deficiency. There are a number of reasons why local males (or females) are not able to do the job. Some countries are just decimated do to war or famine, and to say that they could raise armies that can do the job is a joke. So where do they turn to, to get the strategic advantage?
Well if you introduce a company with some capability, and mix that up with the best local troops a country can offer, hence creating a hybrid force that could do the job, then that would be one way. Having a company do it all, or even another country do it all, would be another. This is not rocket science, and with the unorganized thugs we are seeing in most of Africa, forces like what I am talking about and what Eeben brought to the table with EO, are the types of forces that would end this ‘anarchy gravy train’.
The final component of destroying the anarchy gravy train, is international will. The mandates that the UN has operated on, are terrible. You must work to end wars, and that takes violence of action. You do not send in peacekeepers to somehow bring stability during an active war. The war must end, and that only happens after one side has broken the will of the other. Or you destroy the leadership of that other side. Only after the war has ended and the parties on both sides is exhausted, can you then begin to introduce peacekeepers.
What instead should happen, is wars should be fought and ended as quickly as possible. It takes extreme violence and strategy that far surpasses the other side, to make that happen. It also takes political will, not only from the government, but of the countries of the world who are looking on.
Just imagine if the UN was created back during the early days of America? And the countries of the world decided to send the UN to the Americas, to stand in between the rebels and the British? Do you think for a second, that the UN could accomplish that task? If anything, colonial rebel forces would just attack and steal from the UN, much like they do now a days in places like Africa. Or because the UN is so ineffectual, they could just claim that they are a tool of the British, and then turn the UN into a target of the rebels–much like local forces do to the UN today. And as the UN mission fails in America, donors to the UN continue to question why it even exists, much like countries do now. Pathetic really.
To end this Anarchy Gravy Train in places like Africa, we need to start looking at ideas that work. Ideas that have continued to be attacked because of misconceptions coming from the media or from those who stand to benefit from the Anarchy Gravy Train. I will continue to offer the lessons of the past, and how they could be applied to today. But until the powers that be, get realistic about actions that will bring the kind of peace and stability these countries need, we will continue to watch this horrid spectacle. –Matt
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Africa’s Forever Wars
Why the continent’s conflicts never end.
MARCH/APRIL 2010
BY JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
There is a very simple reason why some of Africa’s bloodiest, most brutal wars never seem to end: They are not really wars. Not in the traditional sense, at least. The combatants don’t have much of an ideology; they don’t have clear goals. They couldn’t care less about taking over capitals or major cities — in fact, they prefer the deep bush, where it is far easier to commit crimes. Today’s rebels seem especially uninterested in winning converts, content instead to steal other people’s children, stick Kalashnikovs or axes in their hands, and make them do the killing. Look closely at some of the continent’s most intractable conflicts, from the rebel-laden creeks of the Niger Delta to the inferno in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and this is what you will find.
What we are seeing is the decline of the classic African liberation movement and the proliferation of something else — something wilder, messier, more violent, and harder to wrap our heads around. If you’d like to call this war, fine. But what is spreading across Africa like a viral pandemic is actually just opportunistic, heavily armed banditry. My job as the New York Times’ East Africa bureau chief is to cover news and feature stories in 12 countries. But most of my time is spent immersed in these un-wars.
I’ve witnessed up close — often way too close — how combat has morphed from soldier vs. soldier (now a rarity in Africa) to soldier vs. civilian. Most of today’s African fighters are not rebels with a cause; they’re predators. That’s why we see stunning atrocities like eastern Congo’s rape epidemic, where armed groups in recent years have sexually assaulted hundreds of thousands of women, often so sadistically that the victims are left incontinent for life. What is the military or political objective of ramming an assault rifle inside a woman and pulling the trigger? Terror has become an end, not just a means.
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