Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Major causes and impact of social economic and political conflict in Africa in general and Tanzania in particular

I.0 Introduction:
Africa continued to be the region with the greatest number of conflicts. These internal conflicts pose a serious threat to economic development, especially for the poor African community members.
Empirical evidence has shown that conflicts can tear down levels of economic development that took decades to achieve. Also, for a long time after their termination the spin-offs of conflicts continue to limit economic growth, political, social, inequalities between groups.
Eight out of 10 of the Africa poorest countries are suffering, or have recently suffered, from large scale violent conflict. Wars in Africa countries have heavy human, economic, and social costs and are a major cause of poverty and under development. For example, it is estimated that 3% of the country's 1990 population is in most current conflicts, such as in the Sudan and the Congo. In short in the past 30 years Africa has been especially badly affected by war.
It is the intention of this paper to analyze the major causes and impact of social economic and political conflict in Africa in general and Tanzania in particular. In due course of the discussion the paper will sight some definition of conflict.
Various scholars have attempted to define conflict in different perspectives. Among them is Harry Webne-Behrman, 1999 who defined conflict as a disagreement through which the parties involved perceive a threat to their needs, interests or concerns. A conflict is more than a mere disagreement - it is a situation in which people perceive a threat (physical, emotional, power, status, etc.) to their well-being. As such, it is a meaningful experience in people's lives, not to be shrugged off by a mere, "it will pass. Participants in conflicts tend to respond on the basis of their perceptions of the situation, rather than an objective review of it. As such, people filter their perceptions and reactions through their values, culture, beliefs, information, experience, gender, and other variables. Conflict responses are both filled with ideas and feelings that can be very strong and powerful guides to our sense of possible solutions.
According Galtung (1996) conflict could be viewed as a triangle with structure, attitudes, and behavior as its vertices. By structure, he means the conflict situation, the parties, and the conflict of interest among them. Conflict arises where the parties come to have incompatible interests, values or goals. He uses the term attitudes to refer to the tendency for the parties to see conflict from their own point of view, to identify with own side, and to diminish the concerns of others. Behaviors include gestures and communications, which can convey either a hostile or a conciliatory intent.
In addition, conflict occurs when two or more parties perceive that their interests are incompatible, express hostile attitudes, or take pursue their interests through actions that damage the other parties. These parties may be individuals, small or large groups, and countries, Interests can diverge in many ways: In another way conflict is generally defined as an interaction between interdependent people who perceive incompatible goals and who expect interference from the other party if they attempt to achieve their goal.
2.0 Major conflict causes:
Major conflict causes include political, economic, and social inequalities; extreme poverty; economic stagnation; poor government services; high unemployment; environmental degradation; and individual (economic) incentives to fight. For further clarifications these causes of conflict in Africa can be elaborated are as follows:
Group motivation: Since intra-state wars mainly consist of fighting between groups, group motives, resentments, and ambitions provide motivation for war. Groups may be divided along cultural or religious lines, by geography, or by class. Group differences only become worth fighting for, however, if there are other important differences between groups, particularly in the distribution. In addition to that political leaders and belligerents in Africa have made increasing use of ethnic hatred. Such abuse prolongs conflict, creates long term divisions that reduce the effectiveness of peace building efforts. For example conflict in Sudan with people in the south being heavily deprived by the northern part of Sudan which is dominated by ethnic group of Arabs and Islamic have been fighting due to ethnic, cultural religious and economic factors.
Inequality among community members:
Inequality between groups is probably the foremost cause of conflict in Africa. It is inequality between groups- rather than individuals-that increases the prospects of violent conflict Unemployment, lack of education and population pressure this is mostly in countries with high level of unemployment among men and where male educational levels are low face a far higher risk of conflict. Throughout Africa, factional conflict has drawn on a pool of marginalized or socially excluded young men, for example, the conflict in Liberia was fought by socially marginalized young men
The artificial boundaries created by colonial rulers as they ruled and finally left Africa had the effect of bringing together many different ethnic people within a nation that did not reflect, nor have the ability to accommodate or provide for, the cultural and ethnic diversity in such a short period of time. The freedom from imperial powers was, and is still, not a smooth transition. The natural struggle to rebuild is proving difficult. For example, the war between Uganda and Tanzania in 1998 to 1999 can be sighted as an example where Idd Amin claimed part of Kagera to belong to Uganda.
Failure of the social contract This derives from the view that social stability is based on a hypothetical social contract between the people and the government. People accept state authority so long as the state delivers services and provides reasonable economic conditions employment and incomes. This has been experienced in Congo, Liberia and sierra Leon
Land disputes in communities: This point to environmental degradation as a source of poverty and cause of conflict. For example, rising population pressure and falling agricultural productivity may lead to land disputes. Growing scarcity of water may provoke conflict.
Economic reform programs policies: The standard SAP policy package calls for cuts in government spending, privatization of state owned enterprises and the opening up of the economies of developing countries to foreign investment. After almost two decades of “adjustment” in Africa, the result has been raising income and wealth inequality with more and more populations being pushed below the poverty line. Among other conditions, SAP policies advocate: Privatization – SAP policies call for privatization of state owned enterprises to private owners, often foreign investors. Privatization is typically associated with layoffs and pay cuts for workers in the privatized enterprises; Cut in government spending – Reductions in government spending frequently reduce the services available to the poor, including health and education services, as well as farm subsidies; Imposition of user fees – Many IMF and World Bank loans call for the imposition of “user fees” – charges for the use of government-provided services like schools, health clinics and clean drinking water. For very poor people, even modest charges may result in denial of access to services. Under SAP, countries undertake a variety of measures to promote exports, at the expense of production for domestic needs. In the rural sector, the export orientation is often associated with the displacement of poor people who grow food for their own consumption, as their land is taken over by large plantations growing crops for foreign markets; Trade Liberalization – The elimination of tariff protections for industries in developing countries often leads to mass layoffs. In Mozambique, for example, the IMF and World Bank ordered the removal of an export tax on cashew nuts. The result: 10,000 adults, mostly women, lost their jobs in cashew nut-processing factories. Most of the processing work shifted to India, where child laborers shell nuts at home. There is little doubt that the impact of some of these measures has had a profound effect on the provision of basic social services to the poor who are always at the receiving end of some these policies.
3.0 The impact of conflict in Africa:
High number of refugees: There have been over 9.5 million refugees and hundreds and thousands of people have been slaughtered in Africa from a number of conflicts and civil wars. Conflict driven population migration and social displacement compounded with abject poverty conditions, acute level of malnutrition due to chronic food insecurity and deteriorating health condition exacerbated by collapse of the health system. Wars displaced whole populations and make millions homeless. The number of refugees increased from 2.5 million in 1970 to 17.5 million in 1992. An additional 24 million people were displaced, in large part because of wars and accompanying distress.
Disrupted production and exchange system coupled with conflict related economic and systemic, distortion as evidenced by illegal economic activities.
Sexual violence is used against girls in wartime, as it is against women, for many different reasons: as a form of torture, to inflict injury, to extract information, to degrade and intimidate, as a form of punishment for actual or alleged actions committed by themselves or their families and to destroy the cohesion of their communities. Perpetrators also attack very young girls through the mistaken belief that raping a virgin will protect from or cure HIV infection.
Genocides and politicizes are estimated to have claimed from 7.8 to 19.6 million lives since 1945; these figures do not count major international wars like Vietnam and the Persian Gulf. Deaths in Angola’s and Mozambique’s wars alone are estimated at one million each; battle-related deaths from active conflicts in 1993 are estimated at over 68,000.
War and militarization impose special burdens on children when children are forced to into armies become child soldiers and the number of orphans and homeless children grows. War affects physical and mental development destroys schools, and lead children in a habit of becoming violence. This is a case of Uganda rebels NRA led by Nkonyi who capture children for army.
Social structures. War destroys a society’s social fabric and coping mechanisms when civilians are direct targets or affected bystanders; returning to normal community life can take years following the deliberate destruction of social institutions and ways of life. War disrupts the support provided by wider family and community systems, causing divisions between groups, increases intra-group insecurity and hostility, disrupts inter-group economic relations, and promotes disease. For instance, after the killing subsided in Rwanda in mid-1994, deaths continued as refugees and the internally displaced fell victim to disease from lack of food and potable water. They destroy local and national economies, capital and investment, and skew productive economic activity, often deliberately.
Economically war destroys the resources for the society. Asset depletion and transfer are especially debilitating to pastoral and farming communities. War destroys the physical and social infrastructure, human capital, and local economic institutions. Killings or forced conscription can mean insufficient labor for productive work. War disrupts trade and economic activity. Armies target merchants; trading systems collapse. In Darfur Sudan, for example, war often stripped villages of all of their assets. Most of the dead were minority agriculturalists with no military capacity or protection.
4.0 Conflict in Tanzania
Tanzania is a country which is considered to be peacefully and stable country in Africa. The country is known to be an “oasis of peace” (Hofmeier 1997) on the troubled African continent. Although the country is among the few African states that have experienced a “classical” war – a war between two independent states (Matthies 1998) – the East African country can look back on 40 years of relative internal peace and stability. No civil wars, no military coups, no state-collapse, no warlords, neither ethnic nor religious, neither political nor social clashes have tormented the country and its people. However, Tanzania since independence 1961, it has been experiencing a range of conflicts that appear at different levels these includes: family to nation level. That can be categorized as: domestic, cultural, religious, political social economic conflicts.
Ethnicity is one of the cause of conflict among different tribes in Tanzania The most recent ethnic conflict is that of Wanyanchari and wanyanchori clans in Tarime which is due to cattle theft from one family that led to the whole tribe to fight and killing each other
Conflicts between pastoralist and peasant farmers which are contributed by inadequate land use planning. This has been happening in areas that are occupied by both farmers and pastoralist. The case is of Masai and farmers Kilosa where the peasants and pastoralist fought for land hence causing number of death and lost of property.
Land and property as result of mining industry. This has been a case in all areas that are found to be potential areas for mining by investors the compensations that is given to the local people who used to own the land and properties in those areas is not equivalent to what are paid as result there is conflict between community and investors. Case to site includes the Bulyanghulu, Geita, Tarime, Mererani for Tanzanite people have been displaced and some lost life in due cause of evacuation from mining areas by investors in support of the government
Politics and general elections: Tanzania has experienced political parties’ conflict in the country due to elections. The election of 1995 especially in the island of Zanzibar where up to date the opposition part CUF does not recognize the election results of 1995 to 2005.Such that it contributed to people to migrate or become refugees to Europe and other Africa countries.
5.0 Impact of conflict in Tanzania:
The impact of conflict in Tanzania affects societies and economy range from disturbing social fabrics hence creating displacement and separation of families. Taking the example of the conflict between the peasants and pastoralists when it happens people are killed, property destroyed and people are displaced or run away from their homes
Moreover, on political level the conflicts have resulted to some people to run away from the country . A case of Zanzibar election both of 1995, 2000 and 2005 people have to run away from Zanzibar. Relationship among the opposing parties, that of CCM and CUF members break away such that people are not collaborating in community activities such as burial, wedding ceremonies etc.
Furthermore Increase of orphans and widow due to HIV/AIDS this is due to family separations and life hardship caused by various domestic and economical conflicts among the community members.
6.0 Conclusion
Africa continued to be the region with the greatest number of conflicts. These conflicts pose a serious threat to economic development, especially for the poor African countries.
Empirical evidence has shown that conflicts can tear down levels of economic development that took decades to achieve. Also, for a long time after their termination the spin-offs of conflicts continue to limit economic growth, political, social, inequalities between groups.
Africa has the highest level of conflict in the world, and in 2000 almost eleven million people in Africa were internally displaced. War in Africa causes increasing suffering for civilians and innocent people. They suffer death and injuries and indirect consequences of famine and epidemic disease that have followed in the wake of war. All these lead to less development. Stunted economic performance exacerbated poverty condition, which in turn serve as the catalyst for violent social tension and conflict.
Tanzania, as part of Africa has not been left behind with the conflict as it has been happening in other African countries. Conflicts range from domestic, social political and economic one as a result there is big impact on the society, lost of properties, life of people orphans and vulnerable children and poverty among community members.
Therefore is a need for the community, government to develop and come up with permanent strategies to avoid conflict among the community members. These to include reducing the likelihood of conflict and promote inclusive development; reduce inequalities between groups; tackle unemployment; and, via national and international control over illicit trade, reduce private incentives to fight corruption ; proper land use and planning, proper policies that will support citizens






Reference:
1. Harry Webne-Behrman, (1999) The Practice of Facilitation 1998).
2. http://tanzania.fes-international.de/doc
3. http://siteresources.worldbank.org
4. http://medilink.org/Features/Articles/Warandepidemics.htm
5. http://www.granslacs.net/doc
6. http://web.africa.ufl.edu/asq/v3/v3i3a5.htm
7. http://www.dfid.gov.uk
8. http://www.globalissues.org/print/issue/83
9. http://www.globalissues.org/issue/83/conflicts-in-africa.
10. Wangoola, ‘Cattle Rusting and Conflicts in N.E Uganda

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