Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa (Development and Change Special Issues)

Negotiating Statehood

Development and Change Book Series As a journal, Development and Change distinguishes itself by its multidisciplinary approach and its breadth of coverage, publishing articles on a wide spectrum of development issues. Accommodating a deeper analysis and a more concentrated focus, it also publishes regular special issues on selected themes. Development and Change and Wiley-Blackwell collaborate to produce these theme issues as a series of books, with the aim of bringing these pertinent resources to a wider audience. Titles in the series include: Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa Edited by Tobias Hagmann and Didier Péclard The Politics of Possession: Property, Authority, and Access to Natural Resources Edited by Thomas Sikor and Christian Lund Gender Myths and Feminist Fables: The Struggle for Interpretive Power in Gender and Development Edited by Andrea Cornwall, Elizabeth Harrison and Ann Whitehead Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa Edited by Christian Lund China’s Limits to Growth: Greening State and Society Edited by Peter Ho and Eduard B. Vermeer Catalysing Development? A Debate on Aid Jan Pronk et al. State Failure, Collapse and Reconstruction Edited by Jennifer Milliken Forests: Nature, People, Power Edited by Martin Doornbos, Ashwani Saith and Ben White Gendered Poverty and Well-being Edited by Shahra Razavi Globalization and Identity Edited by Birgit Meyer and Peter Geschiere Social Futures, Global Visions Edited by Cynthia Hewitt de Alcantara

Negotiating Statehood Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa Edited by Tobias Hagmann and Didier Péclard

This edition first published 2011 Originally published as Volume 41, Issue 4 of Development and Change Chapters © 2011 The Institute of Social Studies Book compilation © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Blackwell Publishing was acquired by John Wiley & Sons in February 2007. Blackwell’s publishing program has been merged with Wiley’s global Scientific, Technical, and Medical business to form Wiley-Blackwell. Registered Office John Wiley & Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom Editorial Offices 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell. The right of Tobias Hagmann and Didier Péclard to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher. Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books. Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Negotiating statehood : dynamics of power and domination in Africa / edited by Tobias Hagmann and Didier Péclard. p. cm. – (Development and change) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4443-3868-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Negotiation–Political aspects–Africa, Sub-Saharan. 2. Power (Social sciences)–Africa, Sub-Saharan. 3. Africa, Sub-Saharan–Politics and government–21st century. I. Hagmann, Tobias. II. Péclard, Didier. JQ1875.N435 2011 320.10967–dc22 2011012878 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is published in the following electronic formats: ePDFs (9781444395563); Wiley Online Library (9781444395587); ePub (9781444395570) Set in 10pt Times by Aptara Printed in Malaysia 01

2011

Contents Notes on Contributors 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

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Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa Tobias Hagmann and Didier Péclard

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Protection for Sale? War and the Transformation of Regulation on the Congo–Ugandan Border Timothy Raeymaekers

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The Struggle Continues? The Spectre of Liberation, Memory Politics and ‘War Veterans’ in Namibia Lalli Metsola

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Federal Restructuring in Ethiopia: Renegotiating Identity and Borders along the Oromo–Somali Ethnic Frontiers Asnake Kefale

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Facing Up to the Centre: The Emergence of Regional Elite Associations in Angola’s Political Transition Process Inge Ruigrok

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The People, the Power and the Public Service: Political Identification during Guinea’s General Strikes in 2007 Anita Schroven

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The Party and the State: Frelimo and Social Stratification in Post-socialist Mozambique Jason Sumich

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Maintenant, on sait qui est qui: Statehood and Political Reconfiguration in Northern Côte d’Ivoire Till Förster

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Negotiating Statehood in a Hybrid Political Order: The Case of Somaliland Marleen Renders and Ulf Terlinden 177

10 Researching African Statehood Dynamics: Negotiability and its Limits Martin Doornbos

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Index

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Notes on Contributors Tobias Hagmann is a visiting scholar at the Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley and an associated researcher at the Department of Geography, University of Zu¨ rich (email: tobias. [email protected]). He has researched resource conflicts, local and state politics in the Ethio-Somali borderlands and maintains a strong interest in the political sociology of the state, critical conflict research and development studies. He is the co-editor (with Kjetil Tronvoll) of Contested Power: Traditional Authorities and Multi-party Elections in Ethiopia (forthcoming). Didier P´eclard is senior researcher at the Swiss Peace Foundation (swisspeace) in Bern and lecturer in political science at the University of Basel (email: [email protected]). He has worked and published extensively on Christian missions and nationalism as well as on the politics of peace and transition in Angola. As a fellow of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North–South, his current main research focus is on the dynamics of statehood in societies after violent conflicts. Timothy Raeymaekers is lecturer of Political Geography at the University of Zu¨ rich ([email protected]). He has done extensive research on cross-border trade and local politics in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Amongst others, he is currently working on a book manuscript about cross-border trade in the borderland of Congo-Uganda based on his PhD thesis. Lalli Metsola is a researcher at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland (email: [email protected]). For his PhD, he has researched and published on state formation, citizenship and political subjectivity in Namibia through the case of ex-combatant ‘reintegration’. Recently, he has also done research on policing, violence and the rule of law in Namibia. Asnake Kefale is assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Addis Ababa University (email: [email protected]). He has done extensive research and published on issues of federalism, conflict, governance and civil society in Ethiopia. Inge Ruigrok is a consultant for the European Commission and an associate researcher at the Centro de Estudos Africanos (CEA/ISCTE) in Lisbon (email: [email protected]). She holds a PhD in Political Anthropology and an MSc degree in International Relations. Her doctorate research was on governance, culture and political change in post-war Angola, with a special focus on the redefinition and negotiation of central-local relations. She previously worked as a journalist in Europe and Southern Africa. Anita Schroven is a researcher at Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle/Saale, and the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Bielefeld Germany (email: [email protected]). She has conducted

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extensive research on state, governance, decentralization and oral tradition in Guinea as well as on gender and post-war societies in Sierra Leone and Liberia. She is author of the book Women after War (LIT Verlag, 2006). Jason Sumich is a research fellow for the SARChI Chair on Social Change, University of Fort Hare, 4 Hill Street, East London, 5201, South Africa (email: [email protected]). His main areas of interest concern nationalism, urban ethnography, the middle class, social class formation and social stratification in Mozambique. He is currently researching nationalism, Islam and Indian Ocean trade networks in Mozambique and India. Till F¨orster is director of the Centre for African Studies and professor of social anthropology (chair) at the University of Basel (email: [email protected]). He has conducted long-term research on political transformations in Africa, in particular in Cˆote d’Ivoire and Cameroon, and is currently studying the interaction of local, state and rebel governance in northern Cˆote d’Ivoire. He is co-editor of Non-State Actors as Standard Setters (Cambridge University Press, 2009). Marleen Renders is a post-doctoral research associate at the Human Rights Centre, Ghent University (email: [email protected]). She currently works in Kenya’s Coastal Province, investigating women’s human rights in contexts of legal pluralism involving customary and Islamic law. She conducted her PhD fieldwork in Somaliland in 2002/2003 and was a research fellow at the Academy for Peace and Development, a local dialogue NGO carrying out participatory action research, in Hargeisa. Her work on Somaliland is shortly to be published by Brill (Leiden). Ulf Terlinden is a research associate at the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF) at the University of Duisburg-Essen (email: [email protected]). He has been a resident political analyst in Somaliland since mid-2005 and his main research interest revolves around governance and post-conflict peacebuilding in the Horn of Africa. He has worked as research fellow and capacity builder with the Academy for Peace and Development, a local dialogue NGO carrying out participatory action research, in Hargeisa. Martin Doornbos is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Institute of Social Studies, PO Box 29776, 2502 LT The Hague, The Netherlands (e-mail: [email protected]) and Visiting Professor of Development Studies at Mbarara University of Science and Technology, Uganda. He has done extensive research on state–society relations and the politics of resource allocation in Eastern Africa (mainly Uganda and the Horn) and in India, and is currently working on encounters between research and politics in the development arena. His most recent book is Global Forces and State Restructuring: Dynamics of State Formation and Collapse (Palgrave, 2006) and his forthcoming book (with Wim van Binsbergen) is entitled Researching Power and Identity in African State Formation: Comparative Perspectives.

1 Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa

Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard INTRODUCTION

Since the mid-1990s, African states have occupied a prominent place in discussions about state failure, collapse and reconstruction (Bates, 2008; Herbst, 1997; Milliken, 2003; Williams, 2006). According to the prevailing rhetoric they have fallen prey to an array of destructive forces in the aftermath of the Cold War, while the purported ‘disconnection’ (Bach, 1991) of the African continent from the ‘globalized’ rest of the world further accelerated this process. These forces include savage privatization policies spearheaded by the Bretton Woods institutions (van de Walle, 2001), the growing influence of criminal groups and activities (Bayart et al., 1999; Nordstrom, 2004), the rise of rebel movements and warlords (Clapham, 1998; Reno, 1998) and a gradual institutionalization of violence (Richards, 2005). Consequently, many academic works portray post-colonial African states in virtually pathological categories. They are perceived to be threatened by ‘collapse’ (Zartman, 1995), ‘failure’ (Rotberg, 2004), ‘fragility’ (Stewart and Brown, 2009) and ‘weakness’ (Jackson and Rosberg, 1982) as they degenerate into nightmarish ‘shadow’ (Reno, 2000) or ‘quasi’ (Hopkins, 2000; Jackson, 1990) states, void of popular legitimacy and administrative capacity. Rebuilding the deficient bureaucratic apparatuses of sub-Saharan African governments then becomes a major preoccupation and challenge for international donors (Englebert and Tull, 2008). Dominant though they still may be in much policy discourse about Africa — particularly in the realm of development, peace-building and ‘antiterrorism’ — arguments about state failure and collapse have been subject to growing criticism. In 2002, the collection of articles edited by Milliken and The authors have contributed equally to writing this chapter as well as editing the volume of which it is a part, and should thus both be considered ‘first authors’. We would like to thank Jean-Franc¸ois Bayart, Christine Bichsel, Bettina Engels, Gregor Dobler, Peter Geschiere, Markus V. Hoehne, Urs M¨uller, Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, Timothy Raeymaekers, Klaus Schlichte, Ulf Terlinden and the anonymous reviewers of Development and Change for helpful comments in refining our argument. We are particularly grateful to Martin Doornbos for his stimulating insights and editorial advice in the preparation of the volume. Earlier versions of this chapter were presented at a number of academic gatherings, most importantly the AEGIS European Conference on African Studies in Leiden in July 2007. Didier P´eclard acknowledges the support of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research North–South (NCCR North–South). Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard  C 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Krause (2002) demonstrated the complex and non-linear nature of processes of state failure and collapse, and showed that the latter remained an exception even in the context of African civil wars of the 1990s. Critics of the state failure paradigm contend that state weakness in Africa is nothing new, but rather a long historic continuity (Engel and Mehler, 2005: 91).1 Furthermore, administrative practices such as the levying of taxes may continue in the relative absence of the state, as Trefon’s (2007) research in the city of Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) demonstrates. To this day the only case of complete and prolonged state collapse is Somalia, which has remained without a central government since the downfall of Siyad Barre in 1991. But even in the war-ravaged central and southern parts of the country, Somalis have responded to state collapse by (re-)activating informal, mostly clan-based, security and governance mechanisms (Menkhaus, 2007: 74). And while African states may erode institutionally, ‘fragmented imageries of stateness’ (Nielsen, 2007: 695) may persist among ordinary people who continue to make strategic use of these imageries in pursuing their everyday lives. Ideal-typical notions of the state as a monopolist of legitimate physical violence, as an autonomous bureaucratic apparatus, as the embodiment of popular sovereignty, and as a spatially and territorially coherent entity enjoy global prominence (Schlichte, 2005: 6). These ideal-typical notions constitute the analytical lenses through which scholars interpret state politics around the world. The global diffusion of a set of normative state ideas which derives from the European historical experience explains why African states are often ‘identified as failed not by what they are, but by what they are not, namely, successful in comparison to Western states’ (Hill, 2005: 148). Underlying this ‘pathological’ approach to state institutions in Africa are essentialist, teleological and instrumentalist conceptions of state and political authority (Hagmann and Hoehne, 2009). State failure proponents tend to reify African states as a-historical ‘things’, as given and fixed sets of institutions rather than as political processes. Despite political sociologists’ earlier call not to view states as ‘the outcome of a linear process of differentiation’ (Badie and Birnbaum, 1983: 54), most observers implicitly and falsely assume that in the long run all states will converge towards a model of Western liberal democracy. The overly instrumentalist character of much of the state failure literature is also evidenced in its emphasis on order and stability, which reflect distinctly Western geopolitical and humanitarian interests (Call, 2008). One could also argue that the popularity of state failure concepts not only indicates a malaise with the post-colonial African state, but, more fundamentally, reflects a growing dissatisfaction with what are increasingly criticized as stereotypical Weberian state conceptions (Kapferer, 2005: 286). 1. Or, as Bratton (1989: 425) cautioned some twenty years ago: ‘The state in Africa may be incompletely formed, weak, and retreating, but it is not going to wither away’.

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The heuristic limitations of mainstream Western political science have encouraged researchers to resort to either more empirically grounded or more conceptually innovative approaches to public and state authority in Africa. In this process some have forged their own vocabulary and concepts in order to grasp statehood in Africa from a less normative perspective. This is the case with the volume on Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa edited by Christian Lund, who forcefully called attention to the fact that African public authorities may ‘wax and wane’ as ‘state institutions are never definitely formed’ (2006: 697). In recent years a growing body of literature has documented the creativity of African societies in coping with the limited statehood and political turmoil that became the hallmark of African politics in the 1990s (Raeymaekers et al., 2008: 8). In parallel with the retreat and erosion of the post-colonial state in Africa ‘new forms of power and authority’ had sprung up across the continent (Ferguson, 2006: 102). Structural adjustment, democratization and decentralization programmes effectively facilitated the return of local power centres in Africa to the detriment of the centripetal agenda of existing nation-states (von Trotha, 2001: 1617). In countries as diverse as Mali, Chad or Mozambique contemporary types of political regulation, accumulation, investment and institutionalization proceed at the local level beyond the reach of conventional states. In many cases the prolonged absence of a central government has provided room for the formation of societal political orders ‘beside the state’ (Bellagamba and Klute, 2008: 11). The most prominent example is the Republic of Somaliland, a political entity which has all the attributes of a modern nation state except for international recognition (Bradbury, 2008). It is the ideal-typical example of an African political order that is characterized by what sociologists and political anthropologists refer to as ‘para-sovereignty’, that is, a non-state political order that shoulders local state functions, but operates in parallel and independently of the national power centre (von Trotha and Klute, 2004). The realities of non-state or ‘partially state’ political and economic regulation forcefully challenge the idea that state failure equals anarchy or a breakdown of order (Roitman, 2005). The normative shortcomings of the state failure literature and the complexities of empirical statehood call for alternative ways of conceptualizing state and political authority in Africa. Attempts to forge alternative perspectives on contemporary statehood must draw on the insights provided by the existing literature. Beyond the great diversity of theoretical schools and arguments on the state in Africa, four main arguments seem to have achieved a certain consensus. In many ways they apply to African states as much as to states all over the world. First, states must be seen as historical processes that include and span the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods. The historicity of the state in Africa has been emphasized most prominently by Bayart (2006) who argues that the state in Africa must not be seen as an imported product, but

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one that has long been appropriated by African societies and elites. Statehood in Africa should thus be understood as the emanation of particular historic types of African modes of governing. The importance of colonial legacies in African politics such as the reproduction of decentralized, racialized ‘despotism’ has been highlighted by Mamdani (1996). The call for historical scrutiny extends to the analysis of evolving relations between states and citizens (Lewis, 2002). Rather than assuming a priori distinctions between the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods, one has to be aware of African states’ historical trajectories through these different periods. Thus the colonial state was strongly shaped by ‘indigenous social forces’ (Berman, 1998: 332) as colonial rulers relied on and incorporated numerous local intermediaries to govern, while post-colonial states ‘exacerbated and institutionalized’ many of the deficiencies of colonial administrations (Paul, 2008: 219). Second, the idea that states are external to society is erroneous. Rather states are deeply embedded in social forces, as Migdal’s (1998: 2001) ‘statein-society’ approach compellingly demonstrates. Long gone are the days when a first generation of area specialists and political scientists considered state power in Africa to be autonomous, as John Lonsdale suggested some thirty years ago (1981: 148). Contemporary accounts of statehood in Africa abandon a narrow focus on formal state actors and institutions for a more sociological reading of the multiple ‘power poles’ (Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan, 1997: 441) that exist within, at the interface, and outside of the bureaucratic apparatus. A wide range of actors, state officials and non-state actors are involved in ‘doing the state’ (Migdal and Schlichte, 2005: 14– 15), both in co-operation and in competition with the state (Arnaut and Højbjerg, 2008: 20). Hence, innovative studies of the state consider the elusive boundary between state and society ‘not as a problem of conceptual precision but as a clue to the nature of the phenomenon’ (Mitchell, 1991: 78). Third, states are not only the product and realm of bureaucrats, policies and institutions, but also of imageries, symbols and discourses. Governments exist not only as the result of routinized administrative practices, but also because ordinary people imagine and represent the state in their everyday lives (Gupta, 1995: 390–3). The almost metaphysical idea of the state has become universalized and hence hegemonic (Hansen and Stepputat, 2001). State institutions themselves incorporate numerous cultural and political representations, discourses and activities that give meaning to their practices (Nagengast, 1994: 116). While one doesn’t have to go as far as Abrams (1988 [1977]: 75–6) who sees the ‘state system’ as an ‘essentially imaginative construction’, it is essential that political analysis deals with the state in terms of both its materiality and its ‘social imaginary’ (Castoriadis, 1987). Fourth, at the core of state formation processes we find attempts to institutionalize and legitimize physical coercion and political power. Max Weber’s

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(1947) key insight that successful bureaucracies transform coercion or power (Macht) into domination (Herrschaft) — a type of authority that is based on obedience and recognition rather than sheer physical force — remains highly relevant. State actors must legitimize their authority to appear acceptable to those they govern (Abrams, 1988 [1977]: 76). The same applies to non-state or non-bureaucratic power holders, although they rely on a different set of legitimization strategies. State-building thus becomes a process of accumulating Basislegitimit¨aten or ‘basic legitimacies’ (von Trotha, 2001: 10). A relational concept of power that looks at the ‘relations between the governing and the governed’ (Gledhill, 1994: 22, cited in Hagberg, 2006: 780) is instrumental in trying to decipher contemporary forms of power and domination. It is through an empirical analysis of variegated transformations from power to domination and from domination to power that state formation and erosion can be grasped in Africa and elsewhere (Schlichte, 2005).

NEGOTIATING STATEHOOD: A HEURISTIC FRAMEWORK

Building on these important theoretical precedents, we propose an interpretative approach to processes of state construction and deconstruction in contemporary Africa. The objective of this analytic of statehood in Africa is to better understand how local, national and transnational actors forge and remake the state through processes of negotiation, contestation and bricolage. Our proposed framework explores by whom and how state domination is fashioned (‘actors, resources, repertoires’), where these processes take place (‘negotiation arenas and tables’) and what the main outcomes and issues at stake are (‘objects of negotiation’). Our main ambition is to provide a heuristic framework for the investigation of past and ongoing dynamics of state domination. Hence, the proposed ‘negotiating statehood’ framework does not provide an explanation or causal model of state failure and formation. Nor does it apply to all states at all times and in all places. It is neither a theory nor a concept in the strict sense, but rather a way of looking at and grasping dynamic and complex dimensions of statehood. Although we give emphasis to the dynamic and partly voluntaristic aspects of political institutions, the approach sketched in this section is best thought of in conjunction with existing studies that call attention to the more structural aspects of African states. Population densities and infrastructure (Herbst, 2000), rural political economies (Boone, 2003) and local property rights regimes (Lund, 2008) have a strong bearing on the structural conditions of state domination in post-colonial Africa. The ‘negotiating statehood’ framework is, however, geared primarily towards the more conjunctural processes of state domination in post-colonial Africa. Furthermore, it is also a call for an alternative approach to current processes of state formation and disintegration on the African continent, an approach that is interpretative

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rather than normative in scope, sociological rather than state-centric in philosophy, and dynamic rather than static.2 It is hoped that our framework offers an innovative approach to dynamics of empirical statehood beyond the limits of the state failure paradigm or the unhelpful emphasis on ‘figures, numbers and formal structures found in much political science literature’ (Eriksen, 2001: 304).3 Four core theoretical propositions underpin our research agenda. First, negotiating statehood refers to the dynamic and, at least partly, undetermined processes of state (de-)construction. These processes are fuelled by constantly evolving ‘relations of control and consent, power and authority’ (Munro, 1996: 148). Rather than assuming a linear evolution of state formation or erosion processes, we concur with Lund’s (2006: 697) dictum that ‘state institutions are never definitively formed, but that a constant process of formation takes places’. The emphasis on the partial ‘undeterminedness’ of state domination does not imply that the evolution of statehood is arbitrary or disembedded from social interests and political economy. Neither does it mean that one cannot distinguish between qualitatively different phases of institutionalization or de-institutionalization of state and political authority. What it highlights is the non-linear and non-teleological trajectory of empirical statehood in post-colonial Africa and elsewhere. Hence, our framework attempts to explore the constant interplay between processes of state building, defined as ‘a conscious effort of creating an apparatus of control’, and state formation as a historical process of ‘vulgarization of power’ (Berman and Lonsdale, 1992: 5). Second, studying how statehood is negotiated in Africa leads us to consider the diverse strategies by which variegated actor groups compete, both successfully and unsuccessfully, over the institutionalization of power relations into distinct forms of statehood. To do this one must understand ‘state–society relations’ (Bratton, 1989: 408) as well as the intrinsic characteristics of government bureaucracies and how these relate to other forms of power. Domination is never or rarely exerted exclusively by one power, but is rather the product of multiple powers. As Olivier de Sardan (2006: 186) elegantly put it, there are at least two kinds of power, ‘the power everybody has and the power only some people have’. In other words, human beings are not only ‘shaped by power, or by different techniques and practices of government’ (Abrahamsen, 2003: 199), but they themselves shape 2. Our reflections are not limited to analyses of the African state, but apply to states in general. From the vantage point of a political sociology of the state, there is no difference per se between African and non-African states. The historical, social, political and economic conditions in which these different states emerge differ considerably, however. 3. This does not mean that research on the everyday practices of bureaucrats and other state officials in Africa is not of great interest, as the collaborative research project ‘States at Work. Public Services and Civil Servants in West Africa’ by Thomas Bierschenk, Carola Lentz, Mahaman Tidjani Alou and Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan forcefully demonstrates. For a preliminary synthesis, see Bierschenk (2010).

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power and government techniques and practices. The ‘ways of ruling’ (Rose and Miller, 1992: 177) of state and political orders cannot be understood in disconnection from the multiple actors that ‘struggle for social control’ (Migdal, 1998: 31). Third, the negotiating statehood framework emphasizes the profoundly contested nature of the state and the host of conflictive interactions inherent in defining statehood. Negotiation over state power is particularly pronounced as this is the site where political struggles condense (Poulantzas, 1978). While currently fashionable ‘state-building’ and ‘reconstruction’ discourses project a consensual image of how state institutions are established on the African continent (see Cramer, 2006 for a critique), we draw attention to the power differences that inhabit these processes. Contrary to commonsensical assumptions, negotiation does not occur between co-equal parties or in an inclusive manner (Leach et al., 1999). Rather it engages heterogeneous groups with highly differentiated assets, entitlements, legitimacy and styles of expression. Not everything is or can be negotiated and not everyone takes part in negotiating statehood. But the political configurations and institutional arrangements that result from such negotiation processes must be seen as imprints of domination by the more powerful over weaker groups. Fourth, rather than reducing statehood to a limited set of functional attributes or arbitrarily defining minimal criteria that need to be fulfilled in order to call a state a state, we propose a more grounded approach to statehood whose starting point is empirical and not judicial.4 The aim of the negotiating statehood framework is not to classify or measure states in Africa. Its objective is to understand the transformations of power that find their expression in distinct forms of statehood in Africa as well as to grasp how non-state powers and sub-national authorities engage and disengage with the existing state. The primary unit of analysis is therefore what Olivier de Sardan (2008: 2) calls ‘real governance’, which can be observed with qualitative and quantitative research methods. This does not resolve the definitional questions posed by the notions of ‘state’ and ‘statehood’. Described by Foucault (1991: 103) as ‘no more than a composite reality and a mythicized abstraction’, we prefer the notion of statehood, which we define with Schlichte (2005: 106) as ‘a field of power whose confines are decided upon with means of violence and whose dynamics are marked by the ideal of a coherent, coercive, territorial organization as well as by the practices of social actors’ (authors’ translation). The following sections operationalize these theoretical propositions. Partly analytical, partly methodological in nature they offer insights on how to understand actors, arenas and objects of negotiation. Most of the examples used to empirically illustrate the negotiating statehood framework are drawn 4. The difference between ‘empirical statehood’ and ‘judicial statehood’ goes back to Jackson and Rosberg (1982).

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from the eight studies that follow, which form the backbone of this volume. While these case studies privilege a national or sub-national perspective, the same considerations apply just as well to foreign, transnational and external players and interests that shape statehood in Africa. At the same time, while numerous fields of state intervention such as health, education, infrastructure provision and other public policies do not figure prominently in this volume, they are all the objects of interest to our proposed framework.

ACTORS, RESOURCES AND REPERTOIRES

Who negotiates statehood in contemporary Africa? A wide array of grassroots, national and transnational actors and groups participate in this process. Contrary to the view that only state actors such as government officials, politicians, or military leaders embody and define statehood, it is also forged by actors that are not part of its formal politico-administrative structure. Numerous social groups of different social standing, organizational capacity and political influence are in the spotlight. They include state actors such as higher and lower echelon bureaucrats, political parties, customary authorities, professional associations, trade unions, neighbourhood and self-help organizations, social movements, national and international NGOs, churches and religious movements, but also guerillas, warlords, ‘big men’, businessmen, multinational corporations, regional and international (government) institutions and foreign states. However, categorizing actors according to functional attributes does not explain the means and logic of action by which these actors become involved in shaping political authority. For methodological purposes, we propose to consider both the resources that individuals and organized interest groups have at their disposal and the competing repertoires that they mobilize in their interactions. Resources refer to the material bases of collective action; they include tangible and intangible assets such as bureaucratic capacities, organizational skills, finance and ability to mobilize funding, knowledge and technical expertise, control over physical violence, international networks, political alliances and, very importantly, access to state resources. These resources, the importance of which varies across time, space and political contexts, are distributed unequally among competing actor groups, which partly accounts for the ability of some groups to dominate others politically. In parallel to material resources, actor groups muster symbolic repertoires to further their interests, to mobilize popular support, and to give meaning to their actions.5 They do so by referring to existing, and by (re-)inventing, 5. According to Bayart (2005 [1996]: 110) these repertoires or ‘discursive genres’ not only consist of oral and written discourses, but include popular modes of communication such as gestures, music and clothing. Repertoires are not uniform bodies of language and thought, but mostly hybrid norms, discourses and ideas that have been amalgamated in past political

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repertoires that legitimize their exercise of or their quest for political authority. Currently prominent repertoires on the African continent include references to ‘good governance’, ‘human rights’, ‘democracy’, ‘development’, nationalism, anti-Western ideologies, ethno-politically defined types of citizenship, and religious and cultural identities. These repertoires are brought into play both to defend and to challenge existing types of statehood and power relations. They encounter varying degrees of success and acceptance by the parties involved in negotiating statehood in Africa; while foreign diplomats might applaud a political party’s vows to further ‘good governance’, disenfranchised rural and urban communities might respond most enthusiastically to calls for the establishment of shari’a or the displacement of ‘foreign’ labourers. The state itself is an important producer of repertoires as ‘it is in the realm of symbolic production that the grip of the state is felt most powerfully’ (Bourdieu, 1994: 2). The studies assembled in this collection attest to the wide variety of actors engaged in ‘negotiating statehood’ processes. Looking at what he calls ‘nonstate governance’ in and around the city of Butembo in the eastern DRC in the midst of civil war, Timothy Raeymaekers shows how, in a context of near absence of the central state, arrangements between local cross-border traders and rebels led to the emergence of new regulating mechanisms. These not only ‘produced’ governance at the local level, but also linked this periphery of the Congolese state with its centre in a renewed fashion. In northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire, Till Fo¨ rster demonstrates how power and legitimacy are being negotiated between rebels of the Forces Nouvelles movement, who took over the northern half of the country in 2002, local hunters’ associations as ‘traditional’ providers of security, especially in rural areas, and those, rebels or not, who offer new economic opportunities to the population. As the Ivorian state strives to redeploy its administration after the 2007 Ouagadougou peace agreement, it also has to negotiate with those new forces imbued with the social, political and cultural legitimacy acquired or reinforced through the years of conflict. In Namibia, Lalli Metsola examines how former combatants of the ruling South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), which fought for independence from apartheid South Africa, draw on the memory of the struggle in order to claim social benefits and pensions. They have thus negotiated not only their inclusion in the post-colonial nation state but also, more generally, the symbolic contours of the Namibian polity. War was also central in the making of Somaliland, and the Somali National Movement (SNM) and local clan elders have played a key role in carving out this new de facto state after 1991. However, as Ulf Terlinden and Marleen Renders argue, in order to understand the emergence of Somaliland and the way statehood is negotiated in this ‘hybrid political order’, one needs to take into account a vast array of other actors, starting with interactions. Studying these repertoires requires a researcher’s sensitivity to the various and open-ended ways in which these norms, discourses and ideas evolve in time and space.

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clans and clan leaders upon whom their contribution focuses, but not forgetting religious authorities, businessmen and remnants of the former state apparatus. Attempting to understand states for what they are and do instead of what they fail to achieve presupposes that one takes ‘official’ state representatives seriously. This is what Anita Schroven does in her study of Guinean public servants in a small town in the midst of the general strikes of 2007. She explains how middle-range fonctionnaires or bureaucrats deal with their dual identity as citizens of a country in deep crisis and as members of a state apparatus that was built on the idea that party, state, power and the people were indistinguishable. The dilemma confronted by the fonctionnaires — to either be loyal to the state or to side with fellow citizens — stands as a metaphor for the changing dynamics and political tensions that characterize statehood in Guinea. Similarly in Mozambique ‘the party’ — the Frente de Libertac¸a˜ o de Moc¸ambique (Frelimo), which has been in power since independence in 1975 — has been congruent with ‘the state’ for much of the country’s post-colonial history. This was certainly the case under the one-party state system of the socialist period between 1975 and 1992. But, as Jason Sumich argues, the democratization process that followed the socialist period and civil war after 1992, coupled with the liberalization of the country’s economy, did not erode Frelimo’s control over the Mozambican state apparatus and the nation as a whole. Rather, they allowed the ruling party to channel through its own structures popular as well as elite demands and strategies of upward social mobility. Control of the former single party over the state is also a dominant feature of Angolan politics. Angola’s formal democratization, which began after the end of the civil war in 2002 and culminated in the September 2008 national elections, resulted in a sort of de facto return to a single-party state system based on tight control of the country’s resources. As Inge Ruigrok illustrates in her study of two regional elite associations in Southern Hu´ıla province, despite the authoritarianism of the Movimento Popular de Libertac¸a˜ o de Angola (MPLA), the post-war transition period has opened up avenues in which new actors can renegotiate relations between the central state and its peripheries by drawing on memory and identity politics. Relationships between the centre and the periphery of the state in another context of single-party authoritarian rule are also the focus of Asnake Kefale’s contribution on ‘ethnic federalism’ in Ethiopia. Focusing on Oromo and Somali clans along the internal borders between the Oromo and Somali regional states, his chapter shows how federal restructuring has permitted ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’ to instrumentalize ethnic decentralization policies by renegotiating power balances both at the local level and between the centre and the periphery. Beyond the sheer variety of actors involved in negotiating statehood, three points can be made at this stage. First, it is obvious that in order to fully appreciate the complexity of statehood in Africa, research needs to

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go beyond formal state structures and encompass actors who have little to do with the ‘modern state’, or who are even accused of debilitating states, such as the ‘traditional’ hunters’ associations in northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire; merchants, traders and rebels in eastern DRC; clan leaders in Somaliland; or local elite associations in Angola. If this point has been made repeatedly by Africanist scholars over the last twenty years, it has not translated into policy discourse and practice of foreign donors and diplomats. Second, the chapters in this collection offer many examples of the great fluidity of the frontiers between state and non-state actors. As eastern DRC, northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire or Somaliland clearly show, the fact that local (state) governance in crucial areas such as security provision and basic service delivery is in the hands of traders, rebels and clan leaders, is part and parcel of state formation in these areas. These complex dynamics can only be understood if one looks at the way in which actors negotiate their relationships to the state, how they at times ‘produce’ statehood without realizing it, and how at other times they consciously and willingly contribute to ‘constructing’ states (Berman and Lonsdale, 1992). Third, actors involved in negotiating statehood require resources. Assets such as money, weapons, or access to land, water and cattle, for instance, are crucial but, as noted above, symbolic resources and the ability to draw on social and cultural repertoires in order to give social meaning to one’s actions, are just as important.6 Competing groups identify themselves and others by mobilizing semantic fields and cognitive representations that translate into strategies of inclusion and exclusion (Schlee, 2004). The ways in which identity, memory and nationalism are strategically employed by former combatants in Namibia in order to negotiate their status in the new Namibian polity, and the skills developed by cultural entrepreneurs in central Angola in mobilizing memories of pre-colonial kingdoms with the intention of substantiating present day claims about a new balance in centre–periphery relationships, are cases in point.

NEGOTIATION ARENAS AND TABLES

Where can we observe these negotiation processes? A key challenge confronting the researcher is to identify the confines of the political space in which actor groups bargain material and symbolic dimensions of statehood. For methodological purposes we propose the term ‘negotiation arena’ to convey the sense of locations of negotiations; this transcends classical political scales and units of analysis such as the state–society dichotomy or the

6. There is a growing literature on this; see for instance the way in which ‘figures of success’ frame political life in post-colonial Africa (Ban´egas and Warnier, 2001).

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local–national–international levels.7 Sociologically speaking, negotiation arenas structure social actors’ scope by conditioning — but not predetermining — their inclusion in or exclusion from negotiation processes. Negotiation arenas have spatial, social and temporal dimensions — where are they situated? who has access? over what time period do they occur? — which need to be traced empirically on a case by case basis. Within these arenas statehood is negotiated in more or less formalized and routinized ways. While some negotiation arenas are dominated by longstanding conventions on how and by whom statehood is defined, others lack predefined or commonly recognized procedural modalities for decision making. Examples of negotiation arenas abound in the chapters which comprise this collection. In Namibia, SWAPO war veterans temporarily turned the public space into an arena in which they claimed, through public demonstrations and media campaigns, that their participation in the liberation struggle should be recognized in the form of pensions; this led to heated debates about what Lalli Metsola calls the ‘liberation narrative’. In Mozambique, the ruling Frelimo party has managed to impose itself and its structure as the only arena in which access to the state can be negotiated, despite the introduction of multi-party politics after a long period of single-party rule. As Jason Sumich argues, this has reduced the space for negotiation to a minimum. Against a similar background of one-party domination, Inge Ruigrok describes how, in Angola, local elites are at pains to turn the key issue of power balance between the centre and the periphery into a negotiation arena in the new post-war context, using cultural associations meant to revive the memories of past local grandeur. In Ethiopia, the state’s policy of ethnic-based selfdetermination and decentralization provides local political leaders with an arena in which they can claim power over other local groups as well as extract administrative and budget resources from the federal and regional government. Negotiation arenas are difficult to locate geographically as they are embedded in social relations between contending groups and are characterized by spatio-temporal dynamics and a certain informality. In order to distinguish between formalized/recognized and non-formalized/non-recognized negotiation settings and actor groups, we propose the metaphor of the ‘negotiation table’. A negotiation table represents a formalized setting where contending social groups decide upon key aspects of statehood over a given period of time. A wide range of negotiation tables exists, from diplomatic conferences involving heads of states, through donor consultations between international financial institutions and local NGOs, to meetings by customary chiefs under the village tree. Two common denominators characterize negotiation tables and distinguish them from negotiation arenas: first, interactions and 7. This idea is inspired by Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan (1997) who speak of ‘political arenas’. Olivier de Sardan’s (2006: 186) concept of arena draws upon Bourdieu’s (1990 [1980]) social field theory.

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decision making occur on the basis of an existing procedure or protocol (diplomatic conventions in the case of meetings between heads of state, customary law in the case of village meetings); and second, participants at the negotiation table recognize their counterparts as legitimate stakeholders in deciding upon a particular political matter.8 The clan conferences that were so instrumental in building state institutions in Somaliland, and the meetings between cross-border traders in Butembo in eastern DRC and armed rebels of the RCD–ML (Rassemblement Congolais pour la D´emocratie – Mouvement de Lib´eration), during which agreements on the protection of business operations were made, are examples of such negotiation tables in a context where the central state is anything but present. While the negotiation table represents the locus at which selected aspects of statehood are decided upon in formal terms, the negotiation arena represents the broader political space in which relations of power and authority are vested. The latter hosts a varying number of actors, some of which are recognized as participants of formal decision making at the negotiation table (typically ‘big men’, politicians, businessmen, diplomats, but also religious leaders, NGO representatives, military commanders, etc.) and others who have been denied access to the negotiation table (typically minority groups, women, groups with a lower socio-economic status). In order to understand the making of statehood from a dynamic and sociological perspective it is imperative not to confine one’s analysis to negotiation tables, but to account for the entire negotiation arena in which statehood is embedded. In a sense, one of the great successes of war veterans in Namibia was to force a shift in the debate on the role and place of former combatants within Namibia (as opposed to former exiles) from the informality of negotiating arenas (the street, the press) to more formal debates at a negotiating table (in this case Parliament). A new Bill was eventually passed in 2007; but if the Bill marked a certain opening up of the category of war veteran, Metsola also clearly shows how debates at the negotiating table were dominated by the state and its own narrative about the liberation struggle. Negotiation tables and arenas can also have a metaphoric element, as exemplified by the Guinean ‘tea parlour’ analysed by Anita Schroven. Here, state fonctionnaires meet regularly and discuss in a rather formal manner their role and responsibilities as civil servants in the midst of nation-wide demonstrations and a deep political crisis. At the same time, they address more informally such key issues as the relationship between the state, the party and the people. The Pr´efet of Fore´ cariah, a small town in coastal Guinea which is the focus of Schroven’s study, resolved to spend most of the time during the national strikes sitting in front of the Pr´efecture, thereby demonstrating concomitantly the physical presence of the state in the midst of a deep political crisis and a certain empathy towards his fellow citizens 8. Interactions at the negotiation table need not necessarily be face to face; furthermore, negotiation tables and negotiation arenas may overlap.

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on strike. In a sense the Pr´efet metaphorically confirms one of our central arguments: that the state is the product of complex processes of negotiation that occur at the interface between the public and the private, the informal and the formal, the illegal and the legal.

OBJECTS OF NEGOTIATION

Part of the literature on the state in Africa still assumes that there is a neat differentiation between the realm of the state and the realm of society. This differentiation then leads observers to expect clear-cut boundaries between private and public, legal and illegal, indigenous and foreign, collective and individual domains. Political configurations that contradict these dichotomous categories are deplored in normative terms, as debates about ‘corruption’ or state failure on the African continent demonstrate. In contrast, we argue that the main characteristics of the boundaries upon which the classical conception of the state relies are their elusiveness and their constant redefinition by the actors involved. These elusive boundaries constitute major political objects in processes of negotiating statehood as the contributions to this collection clearly show.9 Three main recurrent objects of negotiation are documented in the following pages. Security provision, or rather the state’s inability to cater for the security of its citizens, is usually considered the most important indicator of state failure in Africa. The loss of the state’s monopoly over the exercise of legitimate violence translates into an upsurge of armed movements, private militias or vigilantes, private security companies and criminal gangs that respond to public demands on the security market (Mehler, 2004) and thereby contribute to the further erosion of the state. Two of the studies which follow show how much more complex and blurred the situation actually is. At first sight, the agreement reached in and around Butembo between local traders and rebels in order to ensure security in the midst of war appears to be another example of how the Congolese state is little more than a fiction in much of its territory. Yet, Timothy Raeymaekers argues that this phenomenon must be seen as the expression of a ‘fundamental reinterpretation of local economic and political regulatory practice’ rather than a collapse of the state’s regulatory capacities. Moreover, these security agreements go beyond the simple and immediate needs of transborder commerce. Raeymaekers convincingly argues that, as a result of the political role that Butembe traders played locally, they gradually came to influence politics at the regional and national levels in the DRC. This process gave way to what Raeymaekers calls a ‘scaled form of politics, in which the local increasingly determines the behaviour and chances of survival of politics 9. For further examples see, for instance, Olivier de Sardan (2004).

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at the national level’ (Raeymaekers, this volume). In a similar vein, Till Fo¨ rster shows how security provision in northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire has been a key element in the effort of the rebel Forces Nouvelles to be recognized as a legitimate authority through a complex mix of identity politics, military power and strategic alliances. As ‘sons of the soil’ in northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire, in the context of heated debates about autochtony and ivoirit´e, they had the ‘basic legitimacy’ that many state representatives lacked, while their military capacities provided them with the necessary power to exercise control over the northern part of the country. However, as Fo¨ rster shows, threat alone was not enough, and the rebels had to come to terms with the dozo hunters’ associations whose social legitimacy as guardians of law and order had much deeper cultural roots than the rebels’ own. As the central Ivorian state strives to redeploy itself and its authority to former rebel zones in post-conflict Coˆ te d’Ivoire, debates and negotiations around the provision of security will be central to the establishment of new forms of statehood. The institutional structure of the state, and especially the balance of power between the ‘centre’ of the state and its ‘peripheries’, is a second recurrent object of negotiation within this collection. Issues pertaining to the deconcentration and decentralization of state power appear, first and foremost, to be a privileged terrain for negotiation processes. This is especially the case where, as in Ethiopia and Angola, states with a long history of centralized rule are combined with authoritarian governments. In both cases, the territorial redefinition of regions and peripheries within the state allows for the instrumentalization of identity politics at the local level in attempts to claim authority and access to state resources. In both cases, too, it seems clear that institutional rearrangements of state power contribute to blurring frontiers between state and non-state actors, between private and public domains. In the ‘hybrid political order’ of Somaliland described by Terlinden and Renders, the institutional nature of the state is also the complex product of negotiations that take place, on the one hand, at the local level between clan leaders and newly emerging state representatives and, on the other, between the local and the national arenas. As the authors argue, with the arrival of new, urban-based political leaders, businessmen and ‘clan-based power brokers’ (Terlinden and Renders, this volume) the power of regionally-based clan leaders is being called into question. A third recurrent object of negotiation featuring prominently in this volume is linked to memory, identity and the politics of belonging. Processes of state (de-)construction in Africa have been shaped by dynamics of inclusion and exclusion: the question of defining who belongs and who does not belong to the nation (state), who is indigenous and who is foreign, is a crucial object of negotiation (Dorman et al., 2007). Beyond the straightforward issue of pension entitlements for war veterans in Namibia, what is at stake is what Metsola calls the ‘liberation narrative’, that is, the grand narrative of the struggle against apartheid that structures the ruling party’s

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own definition of the Namibian nation state. This grand narrative determines the boundaries of the legitimate dominant order of Namibian politics. If the war veterans are seen as a threat, it is precisely because they want to shift these boundaries towards a more inclusive perception of ‘Namibian-ness’, thereby opening up new avenues of access to the state. Memories of the war, or rather the power to write and tell the ‘grand narrative’ of the civil war in Mozambique, is also at the centre of Frelimo’s claim to embody the state, as Sumich suggests. The management of these post-war repertoires has been a key element in Frelimo’s strategy to control the democratization of the country. For their part, the cultural associations in Angola that Ruigrok studies also draw on identity politics as well as memories of pre-colonial and colonial rule at the local level in order to find new inroads into the state. More broadly, the growing political importance of discourses of autochtony in recent years (Cutolo and Geschiere, 2008; Geschiere, 2009) has shown how negotiations about the boundary of inclusion/exclusion are central to statehood in Africa, as the recent history of Coˆ te d’Ivoire sadly reminds us (Bane´ gas, 2006; Marshall-Fratani, 2007). The list of objects of negotiation presented here is far from exhaustive, and could be extended to include many other key aspects of state domination. What the different case studies demonstrate, however, is that, when trying to circumscribe the objects of negotiation relating to statehood in Africa, we need to take into account that their contours are fuzzy and moving over time. In other words, there can be no conclusive list of dimensions of statehood that are subject to negotiation, but rather a changing patchwork made out of the multiple objects of negotiation that are manifest at the boundary of state and society, private and public, legal and illegal, indigenous and foreign, collective and individual.

THE HEGEMONIC QUEST OF THE STATE IN AFRICA

One of the key issues raised by the studies in this collection and the theoretical reflections that bring them together relates to the scope and limits of the negotiating statehood framework that we propose for the analysis of the dynamics of power and state domination in post-colonial Africa. As Martin Doornbos argues in his concluding piece, in some particular contexts, especially under authoritarian rule, power imbalances may be so strong that talking of ‘negotiation’ overstretches the actual meaning of the term ‘virtually beyond recognition’ (Doornbos, this volume). Besides, international principles concerning the sanctity of state borders may clash with internal processes of negotiating statehood and impose severe limits, as in Somalia. The important question that arises here is whether the instances of negotiating statehood as presented in this volume are the result or the expression of a particular moment in the history of states in Africa, or if they correspond to a general trend in the historicity and trajectories of these states. In other

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words, are the multiplication of actors intervening in public policies and social, political and economic regulation, the constant opening up of new negotiation arenas, and the ever-increasing number of objects of negotiation that emerge along the blurred boundaries between state and non-state, between public and private, all indications of what Crawford Young (2004) recently described as ‘the end of the post-colonial state in Africa’? The answer, as usual, has to be nuanced. Several aspects of the recent history of the African continent underscore the conjunctural dimension of the processes highlighted in this volume. Three of them seem of particular relevance here. Firstly, the overall backdrop against which processes of negotiating statehood can be observed today is one of recurrent crisis. As Young (2004: 37) puts it, ‘by the end of the 1970s, the first clear signs that the post-colonial state was not only falling short of its ambitious designs, but facing a systematic crisis, began to appear’. Since then, elements including neoliberal policies of structural adjustment imposed by international financial institutions (Pitcher, 2002), democratic conditionality (Doornbos, 2006) and civil wars (Cramer, 2006) have contributed to the weakening of states as centres of political and administrative power. In other words, the gradual retreat of the state in certain key areas of governance such as health, education, the building and maintenance of infrastructure and rural development is undeniable. Far from creating a power vacuum, this retreat has been paralleled by the growing role of non-state actors such as international NGOs, political and economic entrepreneurs, rebel armies and forces, clan and ethnic networks as well as religious movements, in the fields from which the state has gradually withdrawn (or which it never occupied in the first place). In this sense the number of actors, arenas and objects of negotiating statehood has tended to rise over the last decades across sub-Saharan Africa. Secondly, there are particular conjunctures during which the room for negotiation and political redefinition is more important than in others. This is the case in most post-civil war settings and it is not by chance that all the contributions in this volume are concerned with political developments in post-conflict contexts. Indeed, armed conflicts are moments of intense and often rapid social and political change, where issues such as citizenship, nationhood, representation of social or ethnic groups in the state apparatus, distribution of resources, etc., emerge as new items on the political agenda, or are reinterpreted and imbued with new meaning in the course of conflict (Chabal, 2009).10 Conflicts open up new arenas of negotiation where social actors contest for power and control as well as for the definition of statehood in the aftermath of conflict. In many cases violent inter-group conflicts either result from or lead to shifts in power balances. New actors may emerge in the political fray and may try to ‘sell’ the social and political capital they have accumulated in times of conflict, and thus demand 10. A good example is Somalia where protracted civil war transformed Somali society through a violent modernization (Hagmann, 2005).

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new positions within the state structure. The state itself has often played an important role in the emergence of these new actors as it ‘discharges’ or delegates the means of exercising violence to non-state actors in an overall context of the ‘privatization of the state’ (Hibou, 2004). Yet, the potential for negotiation clearly depends on the outcome of the conflict itself. In Angola, for instance, the outright victory of the MPLA over Unita after twenty-five years of civil war has permitted the party in power to engineer an ‘authoritarian reconversion’ (Pe´ clard, 2008) by reducing the political space left to other actors, even if, as Ruigrok shows in this volume, the relationship between the central state and its ‘peripheries’ continues to be strongly contested. Thirdly, the ‘end of the post-colonial state’ (Young, 2004) also corresponds to a moment when the dynamics of the continent’s ‘extraversion’ (Bayart, 2000) have taken a new turn. The increasing importance of Chinese entrepreneurs and capital in Africa (Alden, 2007), progressive ‘South–South globalization’ (Perrot and Malaquais, 2009), and the growing significance of migration, diasporas and remittances have shaped African economies and financial flows since the end of the Cold War. Even though these new developments have not altered the continent’s structural dependency on the outside world, they have opened up new avenues through which African political societies can negotiate the terms of their dependency. This has resulted in new opportunities for rent-seeking and new social forces such as the ‘NGO bureaucratic bourgeoisie’ (Hearn, 2007) that emerged on the continent in the 1990s as a result of donors’ decisions to channel aid resources to non-governmental institutions. By these and other processes, political power in Africa is increasingly ‘internationalized’ and statehood partly suspended (Schlichte, 2008). However, there are also strong indications that the ‘negotiability’ of statehood in post-colonial Africa is not conjunctural, but structural. Indeed, if we look at processes of state formation in Africa in terms of a ‘hegemonic quest’ (Bayart, 2009 [1993]) — the attempt by ruling elites to strike a balance between coercion and the exercise of force on the one hand, and the establishment of ‘legitimate domination’ on the other — it is possible to see negotiation as a central process and a recurrent theme of the history of statehood in Africa. The formation of the colonial state in Africa has been one of the arenas in which African political societies have negotiated their relationship with ‘modernity’ and engaged with the new ‘rules of the game’ that the colonial conquest imposed. These negotiation processes occurred, of course, against the backdrop of outright violence, coercion and exploitation on the part of the colonizing powers. But, following Bayart and Bertrand (2006), one can argue that in the longue dur´ee the colonial encounter also led to ‘imperial hegemonic transactions’ that integrated African elites and societies into the new political order that emerged at the interface of colonizers and colonized. During the course of these transactions, processes of devolution of state powers to non-state actors played a key role (Mbembe,

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2001): chartered companies ruled over much of the colonial territories up until the end of the nineteenth century at least; security was often provided by private companies both in and around plantations and in certain city areas; and Christian missions were a key element in sectors such as education, health and rural development. As Ferguson and Gupta (2002: 993) accurately point out, ‘in Africa and elsewhere, domination has long been exercised by entities other than the state’. In other words, the delegation of state attributes to non-state actors, or rather negotiation processes over the exercise of state functions, have been part and parcel of state formation in Africa since the early colonial times. The hegemonic quest of the state in Africa is in many ways the history of these negotiations.

CONCLUSION

In this introduction we have elaborated the broad contours of an interpretative approach towards understanding the state, political power and authority in contemporary Africa. The heuristic framework that we have outlined rests on the assumption that processes of state (de-)construction are dynamic and partly undetermined, that the analysis of state institutions must be embedded in a broader understanding of state–society relations, that state building and formation is inherently conflictive and contested and that empirical rather than judicial statehood constitutes the analytical point of departure. Drawing attention to the actors, resources and repertoires, the negotiation arenas and tables as well as the objects of negotiation, we have proposed a particular set of concepts to grasp contemporary dynamics of state power and domination in Africa and elsewhere. It is hoped that this volume will stimulate reflection and debate on the conceptual tools that we use to decipher the state and politics. Ultimately, however, its relevance depends on its ability to contribute to, inspire and facilitate empirical research on everyday political processes on the ground. Illustrating the relevance of our heuristic framework, the examples cited in this introduction have been mostly drawn from the case studies that follow. They all shed light on key dynamics of statehood in different regions of the African continent while providing empirical depth to some of theoretical propositions outlined here. This said, the scope of the negotiating statehood framework is not confined to the examples provided in the chapters of this collection. Moreover, the fact that this volume focuses exclusively on Africa should not be read as a statement on the particular ‘nature’ of the state in Africa, making it ontologically different from the state elsewhere. The perspective that we adopt attempts to avoid the normative deadlock in which institution-centric political science research on the state has remained trapped, especially when expressed in terms of ‘state failure’ and ‘weakness’. In this sense, our negotiating statehood framework is applicable way beyond the confines of Africa. It is our hope, therefore, that this volume

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will contribute to debates on the ‘dynamics of states’ (Schlichte, 2005) in general, and thereby also contribute to bringing African politics and states back from the realms of the exotic. REFERENCES Abrahamsen, R. (2003) ‘African Studies and the Postcolonial Challenge’, African Affairs 102(407): 189–210. Abrams, P. (1988 [1977]) ‘Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State’, Journal of Historical Sociology 1(1): 58–89. Alden, C. (2007) China in Africa. London: Zed Books. Arnaut, K. and C. K. Højbjerg (2008) ‘Gouvernance et ethnographie en temps de crise: de l’´etude des ordres e´ mergents dans l’Afrique entre guerre et paix’ [‘Governance and Ethnography in Times of Crisis: Studying Emerging Orders in Africa Between War and Peace’], Politique Africaine 111: 5–21. Bach, D. (1991) ‘Avant-propos’ [‘Foreword’] in D. Bach (ed.) ‘Afrique: la d´econnexion par d´efaut’ [‘Africa: Disconnection by Default’], Etudes Internationales 22(2): 245–251. Badie, B. and P. Birnbaum (1983) The Sociology of the State. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ban´egas, R. (2006) ‘Cˆote d’Ivoire: Patriotism, Ethnonationalism and Other Modes of SelfWriting’, African Affairs 105(421): 535–52. Ban´egas, R. and J.-P. Warnier (eds) (2001) ‘Figures de la r´eussite et imaginaires politiques’ [‘Figures of Success and Political Imaginaries’], Politique Africaine 82: 5–132. Bayart, J.-F. (2000) ‘Africa in the World: A History of Extraversion’, African Affairs 99(395): 217–67. Bayart, J.-F. (2005 [1996]) The Illusion of Cultural Identity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Bayart, J.-F. (2009 [1993]) The State in Africa. The Politics of the Belly. (2nd updated edn.) Cambridge: Polity Press. Bayart, J.-F. and R. Bertrand (2006) ‘De quel legs colonial parle-t-on?’ [‘What Colonial Legacy Are We Talking About?’], Esprit December: 134–60. Bayart, J.-F., S. Ellis and B. Hibou (1999) The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press; Oxford: James Currey. Bates, R.H. (2008) ‘State failure’, Annual Review of Political Science 11: 1–12. Bellagamba, A. and G. Klute (2008) ‘Tracing Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa: Introduction’, in A. Bellagamba and G. Klute (eds) Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa, pp. 6–21. K¨oln: K¨oppe. Berman, B.J. (1998) ‘Ethnicity, Patronage and the African State: The Politics of Uncivil Nationalism’, African Affairs 97(388): 305–41. Berman, B. and J. Lonsdale (1992) Unhappy Valley: Conflict in Kenya and Africa. Oxford: James Currey. Bierschenk, T. (2010) ‘States at Work in West Africa: Sedimentation, Fragmentation and Normative Double-Binds’. Working Paper No. 113, Department of Anthropology and African Studies. Mainz: Johannes-Gutenberg-Universit¨at. Bierschenk, T. and J.-P. Olivier de Sardan (1997) ‘Local Powers and a Distant State in Rural Central African Republic’, Journal of Modern African Studies 35(3): 441–68. Boone, C. (2003) Political Topographies of the African State: Territorial Authority and Institutional Choice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990 [1980]) The Logic of Practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1994) ‘Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field’, Sociological Theory 12(1): 1–18. Bradbury, M. (2008) Becoming Somaliland. Oxford: James Currey.

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Bratton, M. (1989) ‘Beyond the State: Civil Society and Associational Life in Africa’, World Politics 41(3): 407–30. Call, C.T. (2008) ‘The Fallacy of the “Failed State”’, Third World Quarterly 29(8): 1491–507. Castoriadis, C. (1987) The Imaginery Institution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chabal, P. (2009) Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling. London and New York: Zed Books. Clapham, C. (ed.) (1998) African Guerrillas. Oxford: James Currey. Cramer, C. (2006) Civil War is Not a Stupid Thing: Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries. London: Hurst. Cutolo, A. and P. Geschiere (eds) (2008) ‘Enjeux de l’autochtonie’ [‘The Stakes of Autochtony’], Politique Africaine 112: 5–85. Dorman S., D. Hammett and P. Nugent (eds) (2007) Making Nations, Creating Strangers. States and Citizenship in Africa. Leiden: Brill. Doornbos, M. (2006) Global Forces and State Restructuring. Dynamics of State Formation and Collapse. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Engel, U. and A. Mehler (2005) ‘“Under Construction”: Governance in Africa’s New Violent Social Spaces’, in U. Engel and G.R. Olsen (eds) The African Exception, pp. 87–102. Aldershot: Ashgate. Englebert, P. and D.M. Tull (2008) ‘Postconflict Reconstruction in Africa: Flawed Ideas about Failed States’, International Security 32(4): 106–39. Eriksen, S.S. (2001) ‘The State We’re In: Recent Contributions to the Debate on State–Society Relations in Africa’, Forum for Development Studies 28(2): 289–307. Ferguson, J. (2006) Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Ferguson, J. and A. Gupta (2002) ‘Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality’, American Ethnologist 29(4): 981–1002. Foucault, M. (1991) ‘Governmentality’, in G. Burchell, C. Gordon and P. Miller (eds) The Faucault Effect, pp. 87–104. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Geschiere, P. (2009) The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Gledhill, J. (1994) Power and its Disguises: Anthropological Perspectives on Politics Anthropology, Culture and Society. London and Boulder, CO: Pluto Press. Gupta, A. (1995) ‘Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State’, American Ethnologist 22(2): 375–402. Hagberg, S. (2006) ‘“It was Satan that Took the People”: The Making of Public Authority in Burkina Faso’, Development and Change 37(4): 779–97. Hagmann, T. (2005) ‘From State Collapse to Duty Free Shop: Somalia’s Path to Modernity’, African Affairs 104(416): 525–35. Hagmann, T. and M. V. Hoehne (2009) ‘Failures of the State Failure Debate: Evidence from the Somali Territories’, Journal of International Development 21(1): 42–57. Hansen, T.B. and F. Stepputat (eds) (2001) States of Imagination. Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State. Durham, NC, and London: Duke University Press. Hearn, J. (2007) ‘African NGOs: The New Compradors?’, Development and Change 38(6): 1095–110. Herbst, J. (1997) ‘Responding to State Failure in Africa’, International Security 21(3): 120–44. Herbst, J. (2000) States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hibou, B. (ed.) (2004) Privatizing the State. London: Hurst. Hill, J. (2005) ‘Beyond the Other? A Postcolonial Critique of the Failed State Thesis’, African Identities 3(2): 139–54. Hopkins, A.G. (2000) ‘Quasi-states, Weak States and the Partition of Africa’, Review of International Studies 26(2): 311–26.

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Jackson, R.H. (1990) Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackson, R.H. and C.G. Rosberg (1982) ‘Why Africa’s Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood’, World Politics 35(1): 1–24. Kapferer, B. (2005) ‘New Formations of Power, the Oligarchic-corporate State, and Anthropological Ideological Discourse’, Anthropological Theory 5(3): 285–98. Leach, M., R. Mearns and I. Scoones (1999) ‘Environmental Entitlements: Dynamics and Institutions in Community-Based Natural Resource Management’, World Development 27(2): 225–47. Lewis, D. (2002) ‘Civil Society in African Contexts: Reflections on the Usefulness of a Concept’, Development and Change 33(4): 569–86. Lonsdale, J. (1981) ‘States and Social Processes in Africa: A Historiographical Survey’, African Studies Review XXIV(2/3): 139–225. Lund, C. (2006) ‘Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37(4): 685–705. Lund, C. (2008) Local Politics and the Dynamics of Property in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mamdani, M. (1996) Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Marshall-Fratani, R. (2007) ‘The War of “Who is Who”: Autochtony, Nationalism and Citizenship in the Ivorian Crisis’, in S. Dorman et al. (ed.) Making Nations, Creating Strangers. States and Citizenship in Africa, pp. 29–67. Leiden: Brill. Mbembe, A. (2001) On the Postcolony. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mehler, A. (2004), Oligopolies of Violence in Africa South of the Sahara. Hamburg: Institut f¨ur Afrika-Kunde. Menkhaus, K. (2007) ‘Governance without Government in Somalia: Spoilers, State Building, and the Politics of Coping’, International Security 31(3): 74–106. Migdal, J.S. (1998) Strong Societies and Weak States: State–Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Migdal, J.S. (2001) State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Migdal, J.S. and K. Schlichte (2005) ‘Rethinking the State’, in K. Schlichte (ed.) The Dynamics of States: The Formation and Crises of State Domination, pp. 1–40. Aldershot: Ashgate. Milliken, J. (ed.) (2003) State Failure, Collapse and Reconstruction. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell. Milliken, J. and K. Krause (2002) ‘State Failure, State Collapse and State Reconstruction: Concepts, Lessons and Strategies’, Development and Change 33(5): 753–74. Mitchell, T. (1991) ‘The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics’, American Political Science Review 85(1): 77–96. Munro, W.A. (1996) ‘Power, Peasants and Political Development: Reconsidering State Construction in Africa’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 38(1): 112–48. Nagengast, C. (1994) ‘Violence, Terror, and the Crisis of the State’, Annual Review of Anthropology 23: 109–36. Nielsen, M. (2007) ‘Filling in the Blanks: The Potency of Fragmented Imageries of the State’, Review of African Political Economy 34(114): 695–708. Nordstrom, C. (2004) Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ´ Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (2004) ‘Etat, bureaucratie et gouvernance en Afrique de l’Ouest francophone’ [‘The State, Bureaucracy and Governance in Francophone West Africa’], Politique Africaine 96: 139–62. Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (2006) Anthropology and Development: Understanding Contemporary Social Change. London: Zed Books.

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Olivier de Sardan, J.-P. (2008) ‘Researching the Practical Norms of Real Governance in Africa’. APPP Discussion Paper No. 5. London: Overseas Development Institute. Paul, A.T. (2008) ‘Reciprocity and Statehood in Africa: From Clientelism to Cleptocracy’, International Review of Economics 55(1–2): 209–27. P´eclard, D. (2008) ‘Les chemins de la “reconversion autoritaire” en Angola’ [‘The Ways of Authoritarian Reconversion in Angola’], Politique Africaine 110: 5–20. Perrot, S. and D. Malaquais (eds) (2009) ‘Afrique, la globalisation par les Suds’ [‘Africa and South–South Globalization’], Politique Africaine 113: 5–120. Pitcher, A. (2002) Transforming Mozambique: The Politics of Privatization, 1975–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Poulantzas, N. (1978) State, Power, Socialism. London: NLB. Raeymaekers, T., K. Menkhaus and K. Vlassenroot (2008) ‘State and Non-state Regulation in African Protracted Crises: Governance Without Government?’, Afrika Focus 21(2): 7–21. Reno, W. (1998) Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Reno, W. (2000) ‘Shadow States and the Political Economy of Civil Wars’, in M. Berdal and D.M. Malone (eds) Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, pp. 43–68. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Richards, P. (ed.) (2005) No Peace, No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts. Oxford: James Currey. Roitman, J. (2005) Fiscal Disobedience: An Anthropology of Economic Regulation in Central Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rose, N. and P. Miller (1992) ‘Political Power Beyond the State: Problematics of Government’, British Journal of Sociology 43(2): 173–205. Rotberg, R.I. (2004) ‘The Failure and Collapse of Nation-States: Breakdown, Prevention, and Repair’, in R.I. Rotberg (ed.) When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, pp. 1–45. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schlee, G. (2004) ‘Taking Sides and Constructing Identities: Reflections on Conflict Theory’, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 10(1): 135–56. Schlichte, K. (2005) Der Staat in der Weltgesellschaft: Politische Herrschaft in Asien, Afrika und Lateinamerika [The State in World Society: Political Authority in Asia, Africa and Latin America]. Frankfurt and New York: Campus. Schlichte, K. (2008) ‘Uganda, or: The Internationalisation of Rule’, Civil Wars 10(4): 369–83. Stewart, F. and G. Brown (2009) ‘Fragile States’. CRISE Working Paper No. 51. Oxford: University of Oxford. Trefon, T. (2007) Parcours administratifs dans un Etat en faillite: r´ecits populaires de Lubumbashi (RDC) [Administrative Itineraries in a Failing State: Popular Accounts from Lubumbashi (DRC)]. Paris: Harmattan. van de Walle, N. (2001) African Economics and the Politics of Permanent Crisis. New York: Cambridge University Press. von, Trotha T. (2001) ‘Die Zukunft liegt in Afrika. Vom Zerfall des Staates, von der Vorherrschaft der konzentrischen Ordnung und vom Aufstieg der Parastaatlichkeit’ [‘The Future Lies within Africa: On State Collapse, the Predominance of Concentric Order and the Ascendency of Parastatehood’], Maecenata Actuell 29: 4–26. von, Trotha T. and G. Klute (2004) ‘From Small War to Parastatal Peace in the North of Mali’, in M.-C. Foblets and T. von Trotha (eds) Healing the Wounds. Essays on the Reconstruction of Societies after War, pp. 109–43. Oxford and Portland, OR: Hart. Weber, M. (1947) The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. New York: The Free Press. Williams, P.D. (2006) ‘State Failure in Africa: Causes, Consequences and Responses’, in I. Frame (ed.) Africa South of the Sahara 2007, pp. 37–42. London: Routledge. Young, C. (2004) ‘The End of the Post-colonial State in Africa? Reflections on Changing African Political Dynamics’, African Affairs 103(410): 23–49. Zartman, W.I. (1995) Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

2 Protection for Sale? War and the Transformation of Regulation on the Congo–Ugandan Border

Timothy Raeymaekers INTRODUCTION

In a much quoted article on European state formation, Charles Tilly describes state making as a protection racket with the advantage of legitimacy. ‘If protection rackets represent organized crime at its smoothest’, he says, ‘then war-making and state-making — quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy — qualify as our largest examples of organized crime’ (Tilly, 1985: 169). Tilly argues that this protection is in fact a ‘doubleedged’ sword, which conjures up both ‘images of the shelter against danger provided by a powerful friend’, as well as veritable extortion rackets, in which a local strongman forces people to pay tribute in order to avoid damage that is inflicted mostly by himself (ibid). In this sense, state protection actually qualifies as racketeering, to the extent that the threats against which the state protects its citizens are largely a consequence of its own actions, and it commonly simulates — or stimulates — external threats such as war and ‘terrorism’ (see also Mitchell, 2002; Taussig, 1997). This chapter applies the argument of the market for protection to the rebellion against the regime of Laurent-De´ sire´ (and later Joseph) Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, from 1998 until 2003. It focuses not so much on the rebels and guerrilla movements themselves,1 as on the economic agents that theoretically buy the rebels’ ‘protection’. The central argument is that the rebels do not just concentrate on economic predation, but are actually engaged in the selling of protection, in particular to a group of capitalist transnational traders on the Congo–Ugandan border. This is because both rebels and traders found mutual benefit in sharing the spoils of transborder commerce between Congo and Uganda, an economy that remained closely embedded in the exploitative divisions of the (post-)colonial nation This chapter is based on my PhD thesis, for which fieldwork was carried out in 2003–2006. I would like to thank Klaus Schlichte, Koen Vlassenroot, Martin Doornbos and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions. In particular, I would like to thank the organizers of the Panel ‘Negotiating Statehood in Africa’ of the AEGIS conference in Leiden (July 2007), Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard, for their invitation and their thought-provoking discussions. 1. These have been discussed at length elsewhere: see for example Lemarchand (2001); Mehler and Tull (2006); Tull (2003); Vlassenroot (2002). Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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state. Unlike Tilly’s state makers, the Congolese rebels occupied the former state offices in this border area, but without replacing them.2 The encounter between rebels and businessmen on the Congo–Ugandan border rather contributed to the realization of a ‘pluralizing moment’ (Connolly, 1994), in which the gradual reinterpretation of existing regulatory frameworks — as well as the structure of social relations that underpinned them — fostered a transformation of the local institutional framework that defined and directed local political action. Instead of a regime shift per se, therefore, what occurred was rather a gradual transposition of a political order that resulted from new conceptions and definitions about the divisions of economic spoils and wealth (see Roitman, 1998, 2001, 2005). The first part of this chapter will explain the origins of transborder trade in eastern Congo. Although deeply embedded in the colonial system of rural– urban retail trade, it underwent a rapid, capitalist transformation during the 1980s and 1990s. The second and third parts of this chapter will connect this evolution to the impact of the two Congo wars (1996–97 and 1998– 2003) as well as the rebels’ economy of protection in the Congo–Ugandan border zone. The case study revolves around a particular agreement reached between businessmen (traders, smugglers, ‘informal’ entrepreneurs) and non-state armed forces during the second Congo war. The setting for the case study is Butembo, an important entrepoˆ t town close to the Congo–Ugandan border in the province of North Kivu.3 This agreement, it will be argued, not only contributed to ‘protection for sale’ on the part of Congo’s rebels, but it also, and more importantly, caused a fundamental reinterpretation of local/transnational regulatory practice. This pluralization of rule occurred in particular through the transposition of regulatory authority to non-state actors — in this case a group of local entrepreneurs — who started exercising a number of state-like functions in the midst of war and political crisis. The final part of the chapter will reflect on the potential conflicts and opportunities that this institutional reconfiguration generates for the process of political ‘transition’ in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

ORIGINS OF A NETWORK

Since the work of Janet MacGaffey (1987, 1991), a generation of researchers has sought to explain the relationship between ‘informal’ economic 2. Rebel forces in Congo did not abolish the Mobutist state offices they found on their arrival, but simply substituted the existing staff with staff of their own choice. An interesting parallel can be drawn here with legal anthropology, and in particular with Sally Falk Moore’s concept of the ‘semi-autonomous social field’ (1978), which can generate certain rules, customs and symbols internally, but is also vulnerable to the rules and decisions emanating from the larger legal practice by which it is surrounded. See also Lund (2006). 3. Butembo is located at 1200–1400 meters in the North Kivu mountain range, between the Great African Rift valley and the Lubero forest. It has around 600,000 inhabitants.

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enterprise and ‘formal’ political structures or systems of rule in Africa.4 In her seminal book on the Nande traders of Zaire (today the Democratic Republic of Congo), MacGaffey finds ample evidence of a market integration that people have apparently brought about for themselves outside ‘official’ systems, but which has generally failed to promote grassroots economic development. When strolling through the Nande’s commercial capital Butembo for the first time, one is certainly struck by the city’s commercial dynamism.5 Every day, truckloads of merchandise arrive on the central market from places as far away as Mombasa and the United Arab Emirates. The profound embeddedness of the Nande’s business in familial ties and peasant modes of production has made their activities appear increasingly like a ‘network economy’, in which the success of economic enterprise is actually dependent on the ‘density and the quality of networks of interpersonal relationships to which one subscribes’ (de Villers et al., 2002: 25): the bounded solidarity they have created through their tightly knit relationships apparently provides them with a social insurance that permits them to accumulate status and wealth outside official economic frameworks. At the same time, however, the Nande’s enterprise has also involved a constant quest for external ‘protection’, which derives not least from their embeddedness in existing systems of economic production. To feed the growing masses of city dwellers engaged in the mining economy, the Belgian colonial authorities assigned a small number of multinational companies to connect the rich agricultural hinterland of the highlands to Kivu’s urban centres. This had the dual effect of (forcefully) stimulating local production, and attracting local villagers into the cash economy. Towards the end of colonial rule, some Nande succeeded in breaking this monopoly of Congo’s expatriate traders and established themselves as shopkeepers and intermediary traders in the urban centres. Contrary to what is commonly thought, however, this happened with clear complicity from colonial officials.6 Gradually, a whole generation of intermediary traders emerged in and around Butembo who all benefited from these growing discrepancies between Congo’s rich agricultural hinterland and its hungry urban masses (Vwakyanakazi, 1982: 183). In hindsight, the Nande’s commercial enterprise was characterized not by a systematic connection to the producing peasantry, but rather by a lack of 4. See for example, Azarya and Chazan (1987); Mirembe (2005); Trefon (2004); Vwakyanakazi (1982, 1991). 5. To be correct, one should speak about the Bayira, which literally means ‘my people’. Historically divided between the Banande and the Bakonzo (respectively in today’s DR Congo and Uganda), the former are still organized among several clans or sub-groups like the Banyisanza, Bashu, Baswagha, Batangi and Bamate (the French designation of these clans is ‘chefferies’, or chiefdoms). See Remotti (1993). 6. For example, one of the earliest Nande retail traders (a man called Yusuf Kibangu) was personally saved from prison by a colonial officer turned businessman in the 1950s (interview, son of Kibangu, his brother-in-law and his grandson, Butembo, October 2006).

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such links.7 One important lesson the Nande had learned from their colonial experience was the need to seek official cover and protection from local state representatives. After Independence, Nande traders continued to engage in the smuggling of papaya latex, coffee, ivory, minerals and other goods into Uganda; very often, they were escorted by the same armed elements (Forces Arm´ees Zairoises, gendarmerie and other coercive forces) that were theoretically supposed to combat such fraudulent activities. During the 1980s, a strong cross-border economy developed around this emerging trade, in which smuggled Congolese food and cash crops were exchanged for prime necessities from over the eastern and northern borders. Such private–public complicity could of course only occur against a background of progressive ‘privatization’ of state rule during Mobutu’s dictatorial rule. While ‘official’ economic activity contracted in the hands of an incompetent, predatory elite, ‘real’ economic life became increasingly informalized in unofficial enterprise and trade channels that formally escaped state control. This evolution again confirms Janet Roitman’s claim that the relation between the state and the non-state in Africa has often been highly ambiguous: while antagonism often exists with regard to the state’s regulatory authority, complicity is also evident insofar as the state depends on these various non-state forces for rents and the means of redistribution (Roitman, 2001). One area where this complicity became evident was in the acquisition of land titles. During the so-called Bakajika land reform of 1968–1973, large tracts of private land and plantations became theoretically nationalized in the hands of the state administration (see Pottier, 2003; Vlassenroot and Huggins, 2005). In practice, however, this process rapidly led to a ‘reciprocal assimilation’ (Bayart et al., 1999) between a new rural capitalist class, mostly comprising cross-border traders, and local administrative elites, who all became implicated in the privatization of non-customary land titles (Mafikiri, 1994). At the same time, the ambiguous position of these entrepreneurs towards the local political system — as ‘informal’ traders with ‘official’ political connections — also obscured the fundamentally oppressive nature of their relationship with the peasant masses. The large-scale appropriation of land titles by these entrepreneurs contributed to a great extent to the impoverishment of Kivu’s peasants, who often had no other option than to work either as day labourers or in petty commerce to compensate for their lost assets. Rather than popular ties, therefore, the Nande’s ‘network’ economy was jump-started by a process of primitive accumulation (Harvey, 2005) with which they protected their enterprise from intrusion and ‘unlawful’ appropriation. At the same time, this accumulation process put in motion a rapid transformation of the local property rights system from peasant towards more capitalist modes of production that increasingly tied local households 7. Antonio Gramsci would refer to this problem as a lack of ‘organic’ (or molecular) ties to the popular masses (Gramsci, 2007).

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to the market. This process would ultimately lay the foundations for a much larger conflict in the Kivu provinces, which will be discussed in the next section.

A CONTINUATION OF VIOLENCE BY OTHER MEANS

From 1996 to 1997, and again from 1998 to 2003, the Democratic Republic of Congo became part of a regional conflict that had both internal and external causes. The Alliance des Forces D´emocratiques de Lib´eration (AFDL8 ), launched by Laurent-De´ sire´ Kabila from Congo’s (then Zaire’s) eastern Kivu province, was partly a creation by President Museveni of Uganda and President Kagame of Rwanda, who were becoming increasingly frustrated about the way the Zairian dictator Mobutu was dealing with the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. Since 1994–95, groups of extremist Hutu militias had been carrying out regular attacks on Rwandan territory from the Congolese refugee camps around Goma and Bukavu — attacks that quickly turned against the Congolese Tutsi population. During the following years, this dimension of inter-ethnic strife grafted itself onto existing tensions associated with Mobutu’s ambiguous nationality politics and clientelistic land reform, which had already caused heated confrontations during previous years.9 From then on, the smouldering local tensions in eastern Congo quickly acquired a regional character, as local communities were increasingly sucked into violent competition, and local actors became attached to regional armed players.10 In May 1997, Kabila replaced Mobutu as the head of state, and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). However, his new government had great difficulties gaining political independence from the coalition that had initially supported him. Kabila’s most problematic relationship remained with the Kivu provinces, where the widespread antiMobutist feelings did not seem to rhyme with his conquering government style — and less even with the ‘foreigners’ that had accompanied him to Kinshasa (de Villers et al., 1999: 223). In the first year of his regime, the Kivu question thus seemed to return with fresh vigour, directed against Kabila’s 8. The AFDL was a combined force of foreign military leaders, frustrated Zairian politicians, child soldiers and Banyarwanda (Congo’s Rwandan-speaking minority) that had been discriminated against by Mobutu’s land reform. 9. For more information on this period, see Mafikiri (1994); Vlassenroot (2002); Willame (1992). 10. The differentiation between internal and external causes reflects an interesting debate about the origins of the Congolese crisis. While some claim that the conflict started with the regionalization of the Rwandan genocide (Lemarchand, 1997, 2001; Marysse and Reyntjens, 2005), others suggest that the civil war actually started earlier, with the introduction of ‘democratic’ political competition during the years of the Conf´erence Nationale Souveraine (Vlassenroot, 2002; see also Bratton and van de Walle, 1994).

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attempts to rule: the ‘calabash of seething political and ethnic tensions’ that was opened up as a result of this speedy regime change increasingly led to local government breakdown (Lemarchand, 2001). In August 1998, a new offensive started in eastern Congo led by the Rassemblement Congolais pour la D´emocratie (RCD), a group of former regime supporters, Mobutists, and representatives of the Rwandan-speaking minorities that had been discriminated against by both the Kabila and Mobutu regimes. The RCD was not a united force, however: from the start there was an important division between ‘anti-regime’ thinkers like Wamba-DiaWamba and Jacques Depelchin, and those in favour of ‘elite recycling’, a term introduced by Chabal and Daloz (1999; Mehler and Tull, 2006) to describe the limited renewal of political elites in the context of Congo’s faltering democratization process. This internal divide within the RCD movement widely reflected the underlying disagreement between Kagame and Museveni; while the former wanted to force Congo’s President Kabila into a favourable political deal, the latter preferred the route of persuasion (Prunier, 1999). As a result of its internal divisions, the original RCD quickly split into numerous competing factions which precipitated a rapid territorialization of rebel strongholds, often along ethnic lines (Vlassenroot and Raeymaekers, 2004a). The Lusaka peace agreement of 1999, which was meant to enforce a ceasefire between the warring parties, did nothing to stop this process of the territorialization of Congo’s frontlines, but rather added an international component to eastern Congo’s rebellion: from 1999 onwards, the war increasingly acquired a globalized character as a range of transnational actors, from neighbouring countries to organized crime networks, gradually became embroiled in the competition for political and economic domination. According to a UN Expert Panel, for example, Congolese rebels and foreign army officers systematically exploited and exported natural resources like diamonds, coltan11 and other minerals out of the country, often with the complicity of Congolese political authorities and economic elite networks. Against this background of regional warfare and local, ethnicized competition, the profoundly constitutive character of transboundary phenomena like war and state ‘collapse’ quickly became apparent (Callaghy et al., 2001). A variety of power configurations emerged that exercised an increasingly decisive influence on regional processes of state formation. Examples of this included the expanding network of political and economic interests in the region of Ituri (Veit, 2007; Vlassenroot and Raeymaekers, 2004b), as well as the various power configurations converging around Congo’s rebel strongholds. At the same time, this gradual reconfiguration of political order in the eastern DRC also seemed to highlight the inherently political nature 11. Coltan (colombo-tantalite) is a metal ore used amongst other things in micro-chips and the aviation/spatial industry. For a discussion of coltan in relation to the Congo war, see Cuvelier and Raeymaekers (2002a, 2002b); Raeymaekers (2002).

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of wars like the Congolese conflict, which in many respects represented a continuation of violence ‘by other means’ (Cramer, 2006).12 In eastern Congo, the war had two interrelated effects. First, armed groups were more or less forced to establish a modus vivendi with local Congolese traders who monopolized access to vital economic resources (Perrot, 1999). Especially during the second Congo war, militia leaders and army commanders competing for access to natural resources often collaborated intensively with established economic actors in the minerals and resource trade, and tried to exploit them for their own profit. According to Kennes (2002), this led to a situation in which military actors — and not the state — became the intermediaries between local and global levels of capitalism. Second, their own lack of local production capacities pushed Congo’s rebels into establishing new rentier activities in the form of taxing the import and export trade, particularly in the Uganda–Sudan–Congo border area. Much fighting occurred over the border post of Kasindi (between Congo and Uganda), which theoretically generated over US$ 1 million a month (UN, 2001). Together, the minerals trade and the taxation of transborder activity constituted the most important sources of income for both rebels and national state armies active in Congo’s internationalized civil war. The regional war complex of the DRC thus generated an important market for protection between rebels and economic agents, but at the same time, this remained embedded in the system of economic production and political patronage associated with the post-colonial (Mobutist) state.13 Just as during the Mobutu era, political actors in the DRC were forced to fight their enemies in economic markets, while at the same time remaining entirely dependent on their connection to (transborder) commerce to claim political authority. One example of this relationship was the rebel stronghold of Nord Kivu-bis, occupied by the Rassemblement Congolais pour la D´emocratie — Mouvement de Lib´eration (RCD–ML). The RCD–ML was located in the northern part of North Kivu province called Grand Nord, and was originally led by the overthrown RCD President Wamba-Dia-Wamba;14 after a short intermezzo, Wamba was himself overthrown by Mbusa Nyamwisi as the 12. Christopher Cramer (2006: 61–86) convincingly questions the ‘civil’ aspect of contemporary wars like that of the DRC, which are as much about redefining people’s places in (inter)national political and economic constellations as they are about inter-communal violence and strife (see also Berdal, 2005). 13. According to Gambetta (1988, 1993), a market for protection potentially arises in situations where no single authority can guarantee trustful co-operation between economic agents, and violence is seen as a legitimate means to exploit commercial opportunity. This idea differs fundamentally from Collier and Hoeffler’s ‘rebellion as organized crime’ (1998, 2001) in that it emphasizes the fundamentally political nature of such markets as well as their profound embeddedness in existing social relations (see also Marchal and Messiant, 2002; Shah, 2006). 14. In early 1999, Wamba was replaced in RCD by Emile Ilunga, who was believed to be closer to the Rwandan support group in the RCD.

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president of the RCD–ML. Clearly an ‘elite recycler’ (Chabal and Daloz, 1999), Mbusa Nyamwisi primarily sought the political and military patronage of Uganda’s army generals like Salim Saleh and James Kazini, who were themselves deeply involved in Congo’s resource traffic (Perrot, 1999; UN, 2001).15 Locally, however, Nyamwisi’s legitimacy was largely based on his relationship with other important constituencies such as the community of local businessmen, who had gained money and social standing in the cross-border trade between Congo and Uganda. As I will explain further, the political relationship between rebels and businessmen in the territories of Beni and Lubero depended heavily on their participation in the local market for protection, which mediated their access to taxes and economic resources.

PROTECTION FOR SALE?

The relationship between rebel forces and economic agents during the Congolese conflict was of course multi-dimensional, and remains the subject of discussion.16 In Beni and Lubero, the RCD–ML’s ability to offer local ‘protection’ played a key role in this relationship. At certain moments, Mbusa Nyamwisi barely managed to secure even the major towns of Beni, Butembo and Lubero: while the countryside remained in the hands of competing Mayi Mayi militias,17 the north of his territory was also regularly threatened by rival forces who wanted to increase their share in the exploitation of local natural resources. In this sense, the RCD–ML participated in an oligopoly rather than maintaining a monopoly of violence (Mehler, 2004). The relationship between rebels and local economic agents was anything but uniform: while many entrepreneurs, especially those with industrial facilities, initially resisted the imposition of armed forces on their sites, others were more complicit, and some even stimulated the rebels’ offer of private protection.18 One particularly powerful group that decided to accept the rebels’ offer was a trading cartel known locally as the G8 — a name given to them because of their small number and dominant nature. The G8 consisted of a group of

15. Later, Nyamwisi would swop this Ugandan patronage for an alliance with Kinshasa, which helped him negotiate a position within the Transitional Government; he became Minister of Regional Co-operation and Foreign Affairs in the Kabila governments. 16. There have been, for example, numerous UN Panel reports on the illegal exploitation of Congolese resources; see also Raeymaekers (2002). On Beni-Lubero, see Mirembe (2005). 17. On the Mayi Mayi, see Jourdan (2004); Vlassenroot (2002). 18. Rocco Sciarrone (1998) offers a useful typology based on relations between Sicilian entrepreneurs and the mafia; as he explains, this relationship can go from subordination to complicity, to an acceptance of becoming a client of the mafia’s services, to becoming completely instrumental in the expansion of their protection business.

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Figure 1. Beni-Lubero Imports (1990–2005) 500 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50

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import–export traders with different geographical origins, who represented the top of the commercial hierarchy in Butembo and its economic hinterland. The origin of the pact between the G8 cartel and the rebels of the RCD– ML can be traced to a meeting, somewhere in 1999, between the local branch of the Congolese employers association F´ed´eration des Entreprises du Congo (FEC), the state administration, and the Vice-Governor of North Kivu, who also happened to be in charge of economic affairs, in which they decided collectively to accept the rebels’ offer for private ‘protection’.19 The agreement in Beni-Lubero became known locally as pre-financement (prefinancing): in return for their acquired legitimacy, the rebel force promised to offer military protection to the merchants. According to customs statistics gathered by the rebels, the importing merchants could earn well by accepting the rebels’ offer of protection: from 1999 onwards, a sharp increase could be seen in imports at the Kasindi border post, which continued to grow until the end of the rebellion in 2003 (see Figure 1).20 19. The following account is based on interviews with several anonymous sources that claimed to have attended this meeting. For obvious reasons of security, this study will mention neither their names nor their positions. 20. According to official statistics of the Office des Douanes et Accises ( OFIDA) and Office de Contrˆole (OCC), the number of containers imported at Kasindi increased by 28 per cent

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The pre-financing of the rebel treasury consisted of a specific agreement or contract between an individual businessman and the rebel movement, in which the ‘creditor’ (the businessman) agreed to advance to the ‘debtor’ (the rebel movement) a certain amount of money to be compensated by a reduction in, or non-payment of, import ‘taxes’. In these contracts, it was established that in the case of disputes emerging from the agreement, efforts would initially be made to resolve these amicably. If these efforts failed, the creditor could refer to the local judiciary to claim his rights. The agreement between the rebels and the businessmen was accompanied by a complex system of technical notes, discharge documents and insurances that could be ‘sold’ to fellow businessmen: certain traders used their relationships with G8 members to ‘piggy-back’ on the rebels’ agreement. At a certain point, this system of piggy-backing became so widespread that the rebel movement had to invent an additional system of special discharges, which consisted of the partial exemption of taxes. This meant that duties were paid in advance, for a reduced price, by a specific group of businessmen and for a specific set of imports. At first sight, the agreement between businessmen and rebels in BeniLubero seems to fit the desciption of ‘protection for sale’ offered by Grossman and Helpman (1994).21 Through their contract with the rebels, Butembo’s smuggler-entrepreneurs arguably engaged in a particular mode of ‘risk management’, in which the estimated welfare they would gain from accepting the rebels’ protection was weighed against the expected losses on their enterprise as well as society at large. This position was explained quite graphically by a particularly well-placed businessman I interviewed in January 2005: ‘Ici la s´ecurit´e on l’ach`ete,’ he said (‘here, one buys security’). Recalling his co-operation with Mobutu’s military during the early 1990s, he said that he simply continued to pay off local rebels and other between 1998 and 1999, and by 30 per cent between 1999 and 2000. At the inauguration of the transitional national government in 2003, Kasindi handled 2.25 times as many containers as in 1996 (the outbreak of the first Congolese war). Similarly, the number of vehicles other than containers grew 4.6 times between 1996 and 2000, and 6 times between 1996 and 2003. Petroleum imports doubled between 1998 and 2001. In a country like the DRC, such statistics have, of course, to be read with care. Usually they are reported as representing 30 to 50 per cent of ‘real’ trade (Raeymaekers, 2007). 21. Grossman and Helpman (1994) develop a model in which interest groups make political contributions to influence trade policy. They propose two possibilities. The first is an economic risk calculation based on political competition. Political groups announce trade policies that they are committed to implement; organized interest-groups weigh the costs and benefits of these trade policies, and decide to contribute resources to the most promising group. The motivation here is to influence the election outcome, and this scheme is most appropriate to explain broader contours of trade policy. The second possibility — theoretically applicable to this context — is a political risk calculation, which is based on a calculation of benefits of estimated welfare derived from announced policies; these policies are weighed in turn against the ‘deadweight losses’ the recipients estimate will be made on society at large.

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militias in order to save his merchandise: ‘In biology they say that necessity creates the organ . . . In fact [the war] has made us adapt’, he said: ‘now we go to discuss with the Mayi-Mayi to protect our farms. For example we give them a cow a month, the price of which we divide between the different farm owners. This does not mean that we support the war itself; it is just a system of auto-prise en charge’ (‘fending for oneself’). This explanation clearly illustrates how the system of ‘fending for oneself’ and ‘informal’ economic activity — usually associated with resistance and survival strategies of the poor — ultimately resulted in a close collaboration with the seats of political power in Beni-Lubero. As already noted, the businessmen’s motivation for collaborating with the rebels was the former’s participation in global economic transactions, which generated increasing economic and political risks. This collaboration seemed to offer a certain guarantee of physical protection in times of political and economic turmoil. As the businessman recalls: ‘thanks to our contributions, the rebellion almost gave us security in a way (nous s´ecurisait presque). In order to ensure our security we had to directly collaborate with the rebel movement’. It should be noted, however, that the ‘protection’ of business interests by marauding rebels remained incredibly fragile: as with Tilly’s ‘doubleedged’ protection, businessmen in Butembo could never be too certain about their patrons’ promises. In and around Butembo, Mayi Mayi and other militias reigned with terror over the rural population, while various inciviques and coupeurs de route — often rebel soldiers opting for a private income — continued to make economic transactions an immensely risky activity.22 Rather than an effective ‘protection for sale’, I would argue the importance of the prefinancing agreement between Butembo’s businessmen and the rebels consisted of the gradual reinterpretation of the structure of social relations that underpinned economic regulation in this Central African region. I will explore this in a little more detail.

THE PLURALIZATION OF ECONOMIC REGULATION

From an analytical viewpoint, the meeting between Butembo’s rebels and its businessmen involved a pluralistic regulatory arrangement that drew at once 22. This situation appears very similar to that encountered by Janet Roitman in Cameroon, where, she says, ‘the very foundations of wealth are no longer preordained. Appropriations once consecrated by certain social distinctions . . . are now exercised regardless of [this] distinction: these days, almost everyone can expect to experience the alienation of wealth through violent means — be it by financial regulators who chain merchants’ stores . . . ; renegade customs officials and gendarmes who now skim off of trucks and travelers, usurping contraband and often going poaching themselves; and road bandits or dispossessed youth who steal cars and attack convoys; it seems that everyone is seizing spoils’ (Roitman, 1998: 313).

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from state and non-state practices, and which aimed at regulating the transborder commercial activities that formed the core of Butembo’s ‘capitalist’ economic development. On the one hand, it was informed by a juridical text that built considerably on the epistemological and historical foundations of the post-colonial (nation) state. The parties to this political agreement, for example, were not only recognized and protected by national Congolese law, but also stood on the shoulders of an existing political and economic administration that had been occupied, but not replaced, by the present rebel authorities. A comment often made by Butembo’s businessmen was that life went on ‘just like in a state’ (comme dans un e´ tat), which included paying tribute to customs agents, administrative and policing bodies, as well as following existing economic regulations. This did not mean that every transaction respected official state legislation; on the contrary, serious fraud continued to exist, and often involved the very administrative bodies that were intended to control illegal trade. On the other hand, it was evident that these practices and the relationship between the merchants and the rebel administration were both inspired by the historical system of merchant capitalism that had formed the foundation of the (post-)colonial political system. Within both systems, the labour surplus of local agriculture and mining were principally extracted from, but never returned to, the rural masses. The context of ‘chaotic’ capitalist market integration thus enabled Butembo’s merchants to further develop their historical role as intermediary traders by connecting this labour surplus to the hubs of contemporary global commerce. Through their new connections, places like Dubai, Hong Kong and Jakarta gradually evolved into symbols of capitalist economies that stood in increasingly stark contrast to the perception of a clientelist and predatory Congolese political system. Although it is doubtful whether this global economic expansion contributed to a capitalist integration per se,23 the merchants’ strengthened role in global commerce did prove important as a contribution to the gradual reconfiguration of local political order, notably through the integration of new concepts and conventions in local political and economic regulation. As one administrator put it at the time: ‘With the system of prefinancing, the politicians ultimately became the losing party . . . When a trader entered the office of a public official, the phrase he would usually use was: “Munapenda nini?” (what [or how much] do you want?) . . . So in the end, traders and politicians would arrange tax payments among themselves’ (interview, February 2005). Unlike Butembo’s trader-smugglers, however, the RCD–ML essentially remained a

23. It must be noted that Butembo’s traders continued to suffer enormously under their country’s bad terms of trade, especially regarding mineral and agricultural exports. Imported household and other products from East Asia generated high-risk, low-return profits that were further endangered by savage economic competition: see Raeymaekers (2004, 2006); also Meagher (2003).

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‘weak state’, without any real budget or official powers to claim retributions or taxes: We didn’t have any budget, so the money earned from tax duties was immediately used . . . As an official, you only observed the entry and exit of goods coming from and back to the region. You were a minister only in title, but not in real terms (‘vous e´ tiez un ministre de titre, mais pas de faite’) . . . So in the end, we were obliged to create a favourable climate for the merchants, because they were the only ones left’. (interview, February 2005)

This evolving relationship between ‘collapsed’ political authority and informalizing capitalist trade apparently reconfirmed the configuration of interests associated with neo-patrimonialism. In a situation where the Congolese state had been completely ‘destructured’ (Mirembe, 2005), where administrators were either underpaid or often not paid at all, and where violence had become an increasingly legitimate way of forcing access to economic resources, the practice of offering money for protection gradually became integrated as an alternative way of sharing the spoils of Kivu’s regionalized political economy. In retrospect, however, the context of weak rebel administration enabled Butembo’s merchants to continue building on the tradition of self-regulatory practices they had developed during their country’s longstanding political and economic crisis, which was commonly described as Syst`eme D or auto-prise en charge. The different practices of governance and regulation that emerged from this ‘pluralizing moment’ thus provided further proof of the ‘amazing deployment of unwritten rules’ (de Villers et al., 1999) which transborder practices could generate in the face of weakening state power and the absence of a single regulatory framework. At the same time, these practices also provided further evidence that the ‘state’ in Congo had never actually disappeared, but was being kept afloat by a historical system of production that remained deeply embedded in colonial and post-colonial divisions of labour.

GOVERNANCE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT?

One interesting outcome of the pluralistic reinterpretation of Butembo’s political field was that businessmen (traders, smugglers) became increasingly active in local ‘governance’.24 In Butembo, this involved two interlinked dimensions. First, the businessmen of Butembo succeeded in establishing 24. Governance is understood here neither purely as regulation (Roitman, 2001, 2005), nor as an outcome of ‘intersubjective meanings’ or shared goals (Rosenau and Czempiel, 1992), but rather as ‘the administration of access to and provision of rights, services and goods’ (Eckert et al., 2003). This definition – which stands open to discussion (Arnaut and Højbjerg, 2008) – should permit us to analyse ‘the way a society organizes to use power to manage public resources, involving the making and implementation of collective decisions, enforcement of rules and resolution of conflicts’ (Kassimir, 2001: 99).

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a growing web of social relations that allowed them to be accepted as a legitimate regulatory authority of the Congo–Ugandan border zone. From traders ‘on the margins of the law’ (MacGaffey and Bazenguissa-Ganga, 2000), Butembo’s businessmen increasingly became makers of the law itself, which included a fundamental reinterpretation of the state’s role in (trans)national regulatory practices and epistemologies. Because they belonged simultaneously to two worlds — ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’, local and global — the trader-smugglers of this Central African border zone were increasingly able to force political authorities into a strategy of mediation and accommodation that substantially influenced and redirected the Congolese state formation process. Second, this non-state regulation remained both informed and reinforced by the engagement of Butembo’s businessmen in the performance of several ‘state-like’ functions, such as the financing of schools and hospitals, the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, the provision of local electricity, and even the construction of a local airport.25 This non-state governance often included the direct transfer of state authority to private bodies, in a process one could describe as ‘governance without government’. According to Menkhaus (2006), such non-state governance frameworks can include processes of defining certain rights (for example to ‘public’ goods like security, but also rights of access to resources or citizenship) as well as the active management of these rights and the conflicts these generate within a particular frame or context (embodied, for example, in certain conflict resolution mechanisms, political negotiation platforms or judicial bodies). For the maintenance of the local road system, for example, the Congolese employers’ organization (FEC) presided over a committee that directed the tasks executed by different administrative bodies, which then had to execute the decisions taken by this committee headed by private businessmen. Even after the war, daily governance in Butembo continued to be directed by a political platform called Comit´e des sages (Committee of Wise Men), the format of which seemed very much inspired by the ‘traditional’ discussion and institutional negotiation that is commonly associated with African political practice. The committee consisted of an interesting mix of political and other authorities according to the issues at stake. For example, a regular security meeting was organized in Butembo in which several state and nonstate authorities, including business leaders, political representatives and at times even the international peacekeeping mission of the United Nations, participated in consultation with other local political organizations in all 25. A remarkable initiative of the local entrepreneurs, for example, was their financing of the city council building, which stands several floors high on Butembo’s highest hilltop. In the middle of the war, Butembo’s traders also financed the construction of a local electricity plant, which was eventually abandoned because of a lack of commitment of their South African partners.

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sorts of decisions involving local ‘security’.26 An interesting parallel can be drawn here with the legal ‘hybrids’ discussed by de Sousa Santos (2006) in Mozambique: these are legal entities or phenomena that mix different and often contradictory legal orders and cultures, but which give rise to new forms of legal meaning and action. According to de Sousa Santos, they combine ‘different “layers” of formalism and informalism, of revolutionary rhetoric and pragmatic rhetoric, of practices of autonomy and practices of networking’ that coexist in different ways but are ‘always inextricably intertwined’ (ibid.: 59) Thus the agreement reached between rebels and businessmen in Butembo not only confirmed the existence of a private protection racket, in which economic agents calculated the costs and benefits of a future ‘government’; it also led to a fundamental reinterpretation of local economic and political regulatory practice on this Central African border that was inspired by changing conceptions of ‘that which is to be governed’. According to Janet Roitman (2005: 8), these changes originate in the discussion over the intelligibility of the state’s regulatory practice, which is something different from questioning state sovereignty per se. The social history of Butembo’s trader-smugglers contributed to a gradual transposition of state sovereignty to other, non-state institutions during the country’s political ‘transition’.27 Around the beginning of 2005, for example, much animosity surrounded the so-called dette publique in Butembo, or the financial debt the RCD–ML rebellion had apparently created vis-`a-vis local businessmen. A list circulated in town, in which several leading entrepreneurs enumerated the services and goods they had ‘lent’ to the rebel movement during their occupation of the area in 1999–2003, including fuel, clothes, the leasing of trucks and airplanes, and even hotel and accommodation services. Besides their clear admission of complicity with the rebellion, the interesting fact was that these businessmen almost automatically identified the rebel occupiers with state organizations and their ‘classic’ functions of wealth redistribution, protection and political representation. Rather than the rebel representatives, it was claimed that it was now the state’s responsibility to take care of the businessmen’s worries — including the financial indemnities they had suffered during the war. When asked about this potential inconsistency, the traders almost invariably responded that during the war, the rebellion and the state had actually been one and the same thing (‘le gouvernement c’´etait la r´ebellion’), and that the RCD–ML represented the central government in Beni-Lubero. The market for protection that had linked rebels and transnational traders during the second Congo war also acquired a new dimension after the 26. For the analysis of a specific intervention of this committee, see Raeymaekers (2007: Ch. 9). 27. The details of this process have been described elsewhere; for details, see amongst others Autesserre (2006); Marysse and Reyntjens (2005); Vlassenroot and Raeymaekers (2004a).

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conflict when it was extended to other scales and domains. One of these new domains was the cross-border petrol trade, which boomed as a result of growing demand. During the ‘transition’ period (2003–06), petrol stations began to appear like mushrooms in Beni and Butembo, supplied by importers from Kenya and Uganda on a daily basis,28 and leading businessmen quickly increased their stake in this lucrative cross-border trade. A peculiar aspect of this trade was that the petrol was imported separately by individual companies, and not via the supposedly obligatory state monopoly Soci´et´e d’Exportation du P´etrole (SEP-Congo).29 This exceptional situation could be guaranteed because of the continued presence of former RCD–ML officials in the Transitional National Government, and in important customs posts in Beni and Kasindi. The RCD–ML’s role as principal ‘protector’ of this trade was now contested and taken over by Congolese army officers, as their military units were integratated into the newly unified army. Many of the businessmen now started to import fuel as military goods, so that they could simultaneously ensure for themselves both tax-free petrol and the protection of the military. Not unsurprisingly, this lucrative trade was the object of serious competition among the customs agents and the military, and regular clashes occurred during this period between different army units that were competing for a share in this transborder enterprise. Finally, Butembo’s entrepreneurs also increasingly formed their own lobbying organizations in order to influence local and national policy. One of these political lobby groups was the FIC (Fraternit´e Internationale des Copains) — an interesting pun on the official employers’ organization FEC (F´ed´eration des Entreprises du Congo). Initially intended as a micro-credit facility, this group came to exercise an important influence on Butembo’s political affairs during and after the war, including the appointment of mayors and governors, and later also the election of national politicians. The comment of Julien Kahongia, an ex-mayor and later on governor of North Kivu who acquired substantial support from this organization, is telling: ‘We had a perfect co-operation with the entrepreneurs. This was also logical: they [the businessmen] co-operate with the authority that protects them’ (interview, Butembo, October 2006). Once again, it appeared that the politicians’ penchant for campaign support from Butembo’s entrepreneurs facilitated ‘protection for sale’. Early post-conflict politics on the Congo–Ugandan border thus appeared to undergo a transformation process that could be characterized neither as a political ‘transition’, nor as a pure repetition of patrimonial state logics. Rather, it assumed a ‘twilight’ character that could perhaps best be described 28. A particularly profitable period for Butembo’s petrol smugglers was the period of political turmoil in Kenya (end 2007 to early 2008), when petrol prices increased spectacularly as a result of blocked trade (observations by the author, January 2008). 29. Despite its name, SEP-Congo primarily concentrates on petrol imports.

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as heterogeneous governance.30 According to Lund (2006), such governance frameworks are characterized not by institutional inertia per se, but by the existence of institutions that continue to sap from the state its vital resources, yet simultaneously depend on it for their proper existence. This has led to a rather paradoxical situation, in which the idea of statehood is ‘effectively propelled by institutions which challenge the state but depend on the idea of it to do so’ (ibid.: 688–9).31 De Sousa Santos refers to this phenomenon as the ‘heterogeneous state’: it is characterized by the uncontrolled coexistence of starkly different political cultures and regulatory logics in different sectors or at different levels of state action, and ‘in extreme cases . . . may lead to the formation of multiple microstates existing inside the same state’ (de Sousa Santos, 2006: 43–4). Although theoretically relying on administrative reform — embodied in internationally induced processes of state building and institutional reconfiguration — local state organizations in Congo relied increasingly on a series of mediation strategies in order to maintain access to both the population and economic resources. In the process, they often entered into fierce competition with the various power complexes that consolidated themselves during the war as the private ‘protectors’ of those citizens and resources. This was especially true for the country’s many frontier areas like the Kivus, Ituri and Katanga, where the bulk of the country’s economic resources reside in terms of mining output and customs tariffs. Because it lacked the essential resources and authority to also effectively claim these resources, however, the Congolese Transitional Government was forced to mediate with different stakeholders in the regional commodity chain — including mining companies, ‘traditional’ authorities, army brigades and local strongmen — all of whom claimed some authority in order to guarantee the protection of local political and economic interests. This led to a ‘scaled’ form of state politics, in which the local level increasingly determined the behaviour and chances of survival of politics at the national level.32 To quote de Sousa Santos (2006: 45), ‘the articulation among different scales of law becomes, therefore, increasingly complex’ and ‘tensions and conflicts tend to increase

30. I describe this process in detail in Part Three of my dissertation (Raeymaekers, 2007). On the idea of ‘transformation without transition’, see Parker (2004). 31. This idea is inspired by Sally Falk Moore (1978), who argued that the ‘state’ in Africa usually represents itself in at least two different dimensions, i.e. as the embodiment of public authority (represented in a whole range of actors from customs agents to local administrators to school teachers), and in the form of an idea. This distinction applies both to the African state and to other polities and (groups of) actors that want to claim authority over certain governance domains in a context where neither holds an effective monopoly over the means of force. 32. This comment is inspired by work on ‘glocalization’ by Swyngedouw (1992, 1997), who proposes that processes of state formation do not necessarily have to develop from the top down but may also jump from the bottom up, following different socio-geographical scales (see also Cox, 1998).

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as the articulations between the different legal orders and the different scales of law multiply and deepen’. Because of their constant mobility and ability to ‘jump’ scales, however, Butembo’s transborder traders maintained an important comparative advantage over other, less mobile agents, such as customs officers and national army units, who ultimately depended on the political ‘centre’ to effectuate social control.

CONCLUSION

This chapter has sought to provide a preliminary answer to the question of how governance is reproduced during protracted political crises such as the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the dominant literature, such crises are commonly associated with state collapse, armed conflict and criminal and/or economic violence. The main argument in this chapter is that state collapse does not necessarily have to be associated with the end of governance: despite high levels of insecurity and uncertainty, people continue to seek answers to the intractable problem of order and the organization of political life, especially where state power is either weak or (theoretically) absent. A second idea proposed here is that in spite of their destructiveness, violence and armed conflict can sometimes produce collective political outcomes such as the protection of economic rents and security. Thus, one potential answer to the question can be found in the structural renegotiation of security, or what Charles Tilly referred to as the double-edged commodity of ‘protection’. The markets for protection that often arise in situations of legal pluralism — or where different legal mechanisms pertain to the same situation (von Benda-Beckmann, 2002) — can sometimes act as a ‘lubricant’ of economic exchange, even if it is a poor and costly substitute for trust (Gambetta, 1988, 1993). The main market for the rebels’ protection in Beni-Lubero was to be found in transnational commerce, an activity that remained deeply embedded in the historical system of economic production associated with the Congolese (post-)colonial retail trade. On the one hand, non-state armed actors could benefit from the exploitative nature of Beni-Lubero’s historical mercantile system by linking themselves to the different ‘elite networks’ that were actively preying on all kinds of economic enterprise, including the so-called ‘illegal’ exploitation of natural resources like diamonds, coltan and gold. On the other hand, they could offer their protection to the emerging bourgeois class of ‘informal’ transnational traders who simultaneously remained connected to the rents generated by the Congolese state. The rebels’ practice of offering protection to Beni-Lubero’s businessmen still largely differed from extortion proper, however, in which the payment of protection money only aims to avoid costs that are directly threatened by the protectors themselves. In essence, the businessmen saw the rebels

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as a welcome replacement of the ‘corrupt’ state administrators and security forces that had become identified with random harassment and predation: unlike the politicians in Kinshasa, who continued to be seen as decadent, corrupt and lazy, Butembo’s rebels were appreciated for having established a more or less stable economic agreement that respected the logic of these state-resistant entrepreneurs in dealing with taxes and economic rents. To the participating entrepreneurs, this ‘hybrid’ protection scheme also appeared logical: in a situation where the Congolese state was completely ‘destructured’, and violence became a legitimate way of forcing access to economic resources, the practice of offering money for protection gradually became integrated as an alternative way of sharing the spoils of Kivu’s regionalized political economy. More specifically, however, the peculiar agreement between Butembo’s would-be state makers and its transnational merchants involved something of a pluralizing moment, in which the gradual reinterpretation of existing rules gave way to a modified institutional framework: because of their involvement in the protection market, Butembo’s entrepreneurs gradually became accepted as new regulatory authorities in an increasingly transnational environment of cross-border political practice and commerce. An interesting dimension of this ‘novel’ framework was that it continued to make use of the language and logic of the post-colonial nation-state, for example, in the use of existing legal texts, administrative bodies and their representatives/representations, as well as in the continued exploitation of existing modes of economic production. After the war, this relationship contributed to an ambiguous governance framework, in which local, national and intermediate levels of political authority were engaged in a constant process of negotiating power and statehood.33 In line with Janet Roitman’s observations in upper Central Africa, these practices in fact went to the heart of questioning political power by redefining the terms and modes of classification that establish the meaning of political practice. Ultimately, then, such contemporary political practices force us to depart from the simplistic either/or logics embedded in the analysis of so-called ‘collapsed’ African states, which has hitherto given very little insight into empirical variation. As Milliken and Krause argue (2002: 753–4), our concern over the possibility of state failure often has as much to do with ‘dashed expectations’ about the achievement of modern statehood, as it does with the ‘empirically-observed decomposition or collapse of the institutions of governance’ in different parts of the world. Rather than sticking to idealtypes, therefore, future analysis might be better served by taking as a starting point the constant struggle on the imaginary dividing line between ‘state’ and ‘society’, ‘public’ and ‘private’, ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, and ‘legal’

33. I am particularly indebted for this insight to Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard, the editors of this volume.

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and ‘illegal’ — in particular with regard to our notion of legality. Or, in the words of Migdal and Schlichte (2005: 31): The imposition of the state’s legal system is therefore always to some extent challenged by competing sets of everyday moral rules. This tension is not only found in social movements against particular state policies, it can also be found in strategies of state officials themselves, who might put their particular understanding of the purpose and opportunities of their position above the formal rules of the state.

Instead of seeing in these practices a somewhat euphemistic proof of the ‘privatization’ of the state, they might simply imply a different mode of governing. One way to approach this dimension is through the analysis of risk, for example, in encouraging trustful economic exercise and discouraging malfeasance. Migdal and Schlichte (ibid.: 15) argue that such an analysis can potentially indicate how ‘power can flow from state actors to non-state actors or the opposite’; this entails a constant struggle among multiple actors, which we usually refer to as the state’s dynamics: But just as there are practices that have fortified the image of the state, others have weakened or neutralized that image. Even as state actors have tried to impose the boundaries separating the state from society or one state from another, they have encountered an endless array of ‘strategies and tactics’ (de Certeau 1984: xix) that have served to bend or to escape those boundaries. (Migdal and Schlichte, 2005: 19)

Finally, therefore, this chapter may also be seen as calling for a renewed ‘sociology’ of governance on the African continent that departs in significant ways from the normative, state-centrist notion of (good) governance and state reconstruction which has hitherto dominated the academic and policy debate. Such a sociology potentially has as its object ‘an emergent pattern or order of a social system, arising out of complex negotiations and exchanges between “intermediate” social actors, groups, forces, organizations, public and semi-public institutions in which state organizations are only one — and not necessarily the most significant — amongst many others seeking to steer or manage these relations’ (Rose, 1999: 21; see also Arnaut and Hojbjerg, 2008). Epistemologically, this approach is not so different from the recent non-Western studies of governmentality and political sociologies of governance that describe the often deterritorialized and emergent orders in crisis-affected areas (see, for example, Chatterjee, 2004; Ferguson and Gupta, 2002; Lattas, 2006; Mbembe, 2006; Watts, 2004). It may also share something with the description of other, more ‘traditional’ models of political rule in sub-Saharan Africa that historically originate in practices of mediation and negotiation (see, amongst others, De Boeck, 1996, 1998; Herbst, 1996; Jackson, 1987; Vansina, 1967, 1973; and, specifically on the Nande, Remotti, 1993). What differentiates contemporary African statehood from these historical models, however, is its increasing tendency to include non-traditional actors and logics — especially transnational

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capitalism — into its realm.34 This constant mediation between global capitalism and local forms of governance is likely to determine the evolution of African statehood in the years to come.

REFERENCES Arnaut, K. and C. Højbjerg (2008) ‘Gouvernance et ethnographie en temps de crise. De l’´etude des ordres e´ mergents dans l’Afrique entre guerre et paix’ (‘Governance and Ethnography in Times of Crisis. About the Study of Emerging Orders in Africa between War and Peace’), Politique africaine 111: 5–21 (special issue ‘Governing between War and Peace’). Autesserre, S. (2006) ‘Local Violence, International Indifference? Post-conflict “Settlement” in the Eastern DR Congo (2003–2005)’. Unpublished PhD Thesis, New York University, Department of Politics. Azarya, V. and N. Chazan (1987) ‘Disengagement from the State in Africa: Reflections from the Experience of Ghana and Guinea’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 29(1): 106–31. Bayart, J.F., S. Ellis and B. Hibou (1999) The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Oxford: James Currey; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. von Benda-Beckmann, F. (2002) ‘Who’s Afraid of Legal Pluralism?’, Journal of Legal Pluralism 47: 37–83. Berdal, M. (2005) ‘Beyond Greed and Grievance — and Not Too Soon’, Review of International Studies 31: 687–98. Bratton, M. and N. van de Walle (1994) ‘Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa’, World Politics 46(4): 453–89. Callaghy, T., R. Kassimir and R. Latham (eds) (2001) Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa. Global–Local Networks of Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chabal, P. and Daloz, J-P. (1999) Africa Works. The Political Instrumentalization of Disorder. Bloomington, James Currey and Indiana University Press. de Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Chatterjee, P. (2004) The Politics of the Governed. New York: Columbia University Press. Collier, P. and A. Hoeffler (1998) ‘On Economic Causes of Civil War’, Oxford Economic Papers 50(4): 563–73. Collier, P. and A. Hoeffler (2001) ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’. CEPR Working Paper. Oxford: Centre for the Study of African Economies. Connolly, W. (1994) ‘Tocqueville, Territory and Violence’, Theory Culture Society 11: 19–41.

34. One useful intervention in the ongoing discussion on the ‘sovereign’ nature of African statehood lies in the recognition that sovereignty can be, and historically has been, understood as an attribute not just of states but also of other forms of social organizations, some of which have become central to the governance of an increasingly wide range of social domains. Crucial to this understanding is the claim that sovereignty is not an attribute of agents (like kings or parliaments) but of structures (such as bodies of law or systems of regulation). Contrary to the classic idea that agents possess sovereignty, what makes paramountcy possible are the ‘bodies of relations that effectively structure practices and agency in a given area of social life’ (Latham, 2000: 3). This idea has more appeal than that of a social contract; or of an open market in which operators of armies and states offer services to willing consumers; or of a society whose shared norms and expectations call forth a certain kind of government (Tilly, 1985).

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Cox, K.R (1998) ‘Spaces of Dependence, Spaces of Engagement and the Politics of Scale, or: Looking for Local Politics’, Political Geography 17(1): 1–23. Cramer, C. (2006) Civil War is Not A Stupid Thing. Accounting for Violence in Developing Countries. London: Hurst and Co. Cuvelier, J. and T. Raeymaekers (2002a) Supporting the War Economy in the DRC: European Companies and the Coltan Trade. Brussels: Broederlijk Delen. Cuvelier, J. and T. Raeymaekers (2002b) ‘European Companies and the Coltan Trade: An Update’. Amsterdam: Kerkinactie (September). De Boeck, F. (1996) ‘Postcolonialism, Power and Identity: Local and Global Perspectives from Za¨ıre’, in R.P. Werbner and T.O. Ranger (eds) Postcolonial Identities in Africa, pp. 75–106. London: Zed Books. De Boeck, Filip (1998) ‘Domesticating Diamonds and Dollars. Expenditure, Identity and Sharing in Southwestern Zaire’, Development and Change 29(4): 777–810. Eckert, J., A. Dafinger and A. Behrends (2003) ‘Towards an Anthropology of Governance’, in Report 2003, pp. 19–30. Halle: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Ferguson, J. and A. Gupta (2002) ‘Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality’, American Ethnologist 29(4): 981–1002. Gambetta, D. (ed.) (1988) Trust. Making and Breaking Cooperative Relations. New York and Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Gambetta, D. (1993) The Sicilian Mafia. The Business of Private Protection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gramsci, A. (2007) Quaderni del carcere. edizione critica dell’Istituto Gramsci [Prison Notebooks. Critical edition by the Gramsci Institute] translated by Valentino Gerratana (2nd edn). Torino, Italy: G. Einaudi. Grossman, G.M. and E. Helpman (1994) ‘Protection for Sale’, The American Economic Review 84(4): 833–50. Harvey, D. (2005) The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Herbst, J. (1996) ‘Responding to State Failure in Africa’, International Security 21(3): 120–44. Jackson, R.H. (1987) ‘Quasi-states, Dual Regimes, and Neoclassical Theory: International Jurisprudence and the Third World’, International Organization 41(4): 519–49. Jourdan, L. (2004) ‘Congo: Fame di guerra. Giovani e violenza nel primo conflitto “mondiale” africano’ (‘Congo: Hungry for War. Youth and Violence in the First “Global” African War’). Unpublished PhD thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Turin. Kassimir, R. (2001) ‘Producing Local Politics: Governance, Representation, and Non-state Organizations in Africa’, in T. Callaghy, R. Kassimir and R. Latham (eds) Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa. Global–Local Networks of Power, pp. 93–112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kennes, E. (2002) ‘Footnotes to the Mining Story’, Review of African Political Economy 29(93– 94): 601–7. Latham, R. (2000) ‘Social Sovereignty’, Theory, Culture and Society 17(4): 1–18. Lattas, A. (2006) ‘The Utopian Promise of Government’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (NS) 12(1): 129–50. Lemarchand, R. (1997) ‘Patterns of State Collapse and Reconstruction in Central Africa: Reflections on the Crisis in The Great Lakes’, African Studies Quarterly 1(3). http://web.africa. ufl.edu/asq/v1/3/2.htm Lemarchand, R. (2001) ‘The Democratic Republic of Congo: From Collapse to Potential Reconstruction’. Occasional Paper. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, Centre of African Studies. Lund, C. (2006) ‘Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37(4): 685–705. MacGaffey, J. (1987) Entrepreneurs and Parasites. The Struggle for Indigenous Capitalism in Zaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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MacGaffey, J. (ed.) (1991) The Real Economy of Zaire. The Contribution of Smuggling and other Unofficial Activities to National Wealth. London: University of Pennsylvania Press. MacGaffey, J. and R. Bazenguissa-Ganga (2000) Congo–Paris. Transnational Traders on the Margins of the Law. Oxford: James Currey; Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Mafikiri, Tsongo, A. (1994) ‘Probl´ematique d’acc`es a` la terre dans les syst`emes d’exploitation agricole des r´egions montagneuses du Nord-Kivu (Za¨ıre)’ [‘The Problem of Land Access in the Mountainous Agricultural Systems of North Kivu (Zaire)’]. Unpublished PhD thesis, Louvain La Neuve. Marchal, R. and C. Messiant (2002) ‘De l’avidit´e des rebelles. L’analyse e´ conomique de la guerre civile selon Paul Collier’ [‘Of the Rebels’ Greed. The Economic Analysis of War by Paul Collier’], Critique Internationale 16: 58–69. Marysse, S. and F. Reyntjens (2005) The Political Economy of the Great Lakes Region in Africa: The Pitfalls of Enforced Democracy and Globalization. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mbembe, A. (2006) ‘On Politics as a Form of Expenditure’, in J. Comaroff and J. Comaroff (eds) Law and Disorder in the Postcolony, pp. 299–335. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Meagher, K. (2003) ‘A Back Door to Globalisation? Structural Adjustment, Globalisation and Transborder Trade in West Africa’, Review of African Political Economy 30(95): 57–75. Mehler, A. (2004) ‘Oligopolies of Violence in Africa South of the Sahara’, Nord-S¨ud aktuell 18(3): 539–48. Mehler, A. and D. Tull (2006) ‘The Hidden Cost of Power-sharing: Reproducing Insurgent Violence in Africa’, African Affairs 104(416): 375–98. Menkhaus, K. (2006) ‘Governance without Government in Somalia. Spoilers, State Building and the Politics of Coping’, International Security 31(3): 74–106. Migdal, J.S. and K. Schlichte (2005) ‘Rethinking the State’ in K. Schlichte (ed.) Dynamics of States. The Formation and Crisis of State Domination, pp. 1–40. Aldershot: Ashgate. Milliken, J. and K. Krause (2002) ‘State Failure, State Collapse, and State Reconstruction: Concepts, Lessons and Strategies’, Development and Change 33(5): 753–74. Mirembe, O.K. (2005) ‘Echanges transnationaux, r´eseaux informels et d´eveloppement local Une e´ tude au Nord-est de la R´epublique d´emocratique de Congo’ [‘Transnational Exchange, Informal Networks and Local Development. A Study in the Northeast Democratic Republic of Congo’]. Unpublished PhD thesis, Faculty of Economic, Social and Political Sciences, Catholic University of Louvain. Mitchell, T. (2002) Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Moore, S.F. (1978) ‘Law and Social Change: The Semi-Autonomous Social Field as an Appropriate Subject of Study’, Law & Society Review 7(4): 719–46. Parker, C. (2004) ‘Transformation without Transition: Electoral Politics, Network Ties, and the Persistence of the Shadow State in Jordan’, in I. Hamdy (ed.) Elections in Egypt and the Middle East: What Do They Mean?, pp. 132–70. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. Perrot, S. (1999) ‘Entrepreneurs de l’ins´ecurit´e. La face cach´ee de l’arm´ee ougandaise’ [‘Entrepreneurs of Insecurity. The Hidden Face of the Ugandan Army’], Politique Africaine 75: 60–71. Pottier, J. (2003) ‘Emergency in Ituri, DRC: Political Complexity, Land and Other Challenges in Restoring Food Security’. Paper presented at the FAO international workshop ‘Food security in complex emergencies: building policy frameworks to address longer-term programming challenges’, Tivoli, Italy (23–25 September). Prunier, G. (1999) ‘L’Ouganda et les guerres congolaises’ [‘Uganda and the Congo Wars’], Politique Africaine 75: 43–59. Raeymaekers, T. (2002) ‘Network War. An Introduction to Congo’s Privatised War Economy’. The Hague: Novib (November).

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Raeymaekers, T. (2004) ‘Su contadini e uomini d’affari: l’economia reale del “Grande Nord”’ [‘About Peasants and Businessmen: The Real Economy of the Grand Nord’], Afriche e Orienti VI(1/2): 68–86. Raeymaekers, T. (2006) ‘Conflict and Food Security in Beni-Lubero’ (French and English). Report for FAO-Food Security Information for Action. Rome: FAO. Raeymaekers, T. (2007) ‘The Power of Protection. Governance and Transborder Trade on the Congo–Ugandan Frontier’. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Ghent. Remotti, F. (1993) Etnografia Nande, Vol 1: Societ`a, matrimoni, potere [Nande Ethnography Vol I: Society, Weddings, Power]. Turin, Italy: Il Segnalibro. Roitman, J. (1998) ‘The Garrison-entrepˆot’, Cahiers d’´etudes africaines 38(150–2): 297–329. Roitman, J. (2001) ‘New Sovereigns? Regulatory Authority in the Chad Basin’, in T. Callaghy, R. Kassimir and R. Latham (eds) Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa. Global–Local Networks of Power, pp. 240–63. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roitman, J. (2005) Fiscal Disobedience. An Anthropology of Economic Regulation in Central Africa. Princeton, NJ, and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Rose, N. (1999) Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rosenau, J.N. and E. Czempiel (eds) (1992) Governance without Government. Order and Change in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sciarrone, R. (1998) Mafie vacchie, mafie nuove. Radicamento ed espansione [New Mafias, Old Mafias. Embeddedness and Expansion]. Roma: Donzelli. Shah, A. (2006) ‘Markets of Protection. The “Terrorist” Maoist Movement and the State in Jharkhand, India’, Critique of Anthropology 26(3): 297–314. de Sousa Santos, B. (2006) ‘The Heterogenous State and Legal Pluralism in Mozambique’, Law and Society Review 40(1): 39–76. Swyngedouw, E. (1992) ‘Territorial Organization and the Space/Technology Nexus’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series, 17(4): 417–33. Swyngedouw, E. (1997) ‘Neither Global nor Local: “Glocalization” and the Politics of Scale’, in K. Cox (ed.) Spaces of Globalization. Reasserting the Power of the Local, pp. 137–66. New York: The Guilford Press. Taussig, M. (1997) The Magic of the State. New York and London: Routledge. Tilly, C. (1985) ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in P. Evans et al. (eds) Bringing the State Back In, pp. 169–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Trefon, T. (ed.) (2004) Reinventing Order in the Congo: How People Respond to State Failure in Kinshasa. London: Zed Books; Kampala: Fountain Publishers. Tull, D.M. (2003) ‘A Reconfiguration of Political Order? The State of the State in North Kivu (DR Congo)’, African Affairs 102: 429–46. UN (2001) ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’. New York: United Nations (12 April). Vansina, J. (1967) Kingdoms of the Savannah. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Vansina, J. (1973) The Tio Kingdom of the Middle Congo 1880–1892. New York: Oxford University Press. Veit, A. (2007) ‘The Politics of Uncertainty. International Intervention and Armed Groups in Ituri (DR Congo)’. Paper presented at the International Studies Association 48th Annual Convention, Chicago (28 February–3 March). de Villers, G., J-C. Willame and J. Tshonda Omasombo (1999) ‘Republique D´emocratique: chronique politique d’un entre-deux-guerres, octobre 1996–juillet 1998’ [‘Democratic Republic of Congo: Political Chronicle of the Interwar Period, October 1996–July 1998’]. Cahiers CEDAF 35–36. Paris: L’Harmattan. de Villers, G., B. Jewsiewicki and L. Monnier (2002) ‘Mani`eres de vivre: e´ conomie de la d´ebrouille dans les villes du Congo/Za¨ıre’ [‘Ways of Life: The Economy of Making Do in the Cities of Congo/Zaire’]. Cahiers CEDAF 49–50. Paris: L’Harmattan.

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3 The Struggle Continues? The Spectre of Liberation, Memory Politics and ‘War Veterans’ in Namibia

Lalli Metsola INTRODUCTION

Through the case of ex-combatants, this chapter examines how collective memory influences political subjectivities, negotiation of state power and distribution of resources in Namibia. Politics of memory remains important in this country, which gained independence from South African occupation in 1990, after a long and complicated war. Public representations of history are dominated by a narrative of national liberation that was crafted by the former liberation movement and current ruling party Swapo1 and its allies. Such historical interpretations are not merely a matter of abstract national imagery. They are highly significant to current socio-political relations, defining terms for inclusion or exclusion from the Namibian nation and for granting entitlements. References to the liberation struggle keep recurring in debates over land, jobs and education. Similarly, the actors involved in Namibian ex-combatant ‘reintegration’ have appropriated and contested Namibia’s violent past in negotiating the status and entitlements of excombatants. Similar patterns can be observed in other southern African post-liberation states (Kriger, 2006; Schafer, 2007). The social construction of the past has recently been examined in a number of studies focusing on Africa (Alexander et al., 2000; Cole, 2001; Malkki, 1995; Werbner, 1998). In this chapter, this is taken to mean the ways in which personal experiences interweave with shared notions and narrative schemes in perceiving the past in the present. The past is re-evaluated in the light of current conditions, on one hand, and the present is experienced in the light of our understanding of the past, on the other. Remembrances tend to cluster into narratives, that is, relatively coherent, meaningful sequences (MacIntyre, 1997; Ricoeur, 1991: 21–22). Individual remembrances interact with those of others and with collective interpretative frameworks. This is My sincere thanks go to all my informants, my research assistants Gideon Matti and Likius Ndjuluwa, as well as Tobias Hagmann, Didier P´eclard, Martin Doornbos and the anonymous reviewers who commented on earlier versions of this chapter. I also wish to thank the Department of Sociology of the University of Namibia, to which I was affiliated during fieldwork, and the Academy of Finland and the Kone Foundation for funding. 1. Before independence, the official name of the movement was South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO), later changed to SWAPO of Namibia and again to ‘Swapo Party’. In this chapter, ‘Swapo’ is used throughout, unless quoted differently. Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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less a matter of what facts are known or remembered than which memories are allowed to be voiced publicly and which ones are marginalized. History thus sets limits on political possibilities, while politics informs historical interpretations. In a country like Namibia which has recently undergone a transition to political independence, these processes are crucial, as they inform ideas of the nation and shape practices of statehood and citizenship. As the editors of this volume, and others before them (Lund, 2006; Steinmetz, 1999; Trouillot, 2001) have pointed out, processes of state formation are not completed at a certain point in time after which ‘the state’ exists as a fixed, singular entity. State institutions and the image of ‘the state’ have to be constantly reproduced and negotiated between multiple actors, some of whom occupy official positions while others do not. From such a processual viewpoint, the negotiation of linkages between the state and its citizens is fundamentally important, as it has implications for many aspects of functioning statehood, such as social cohesion, the legitimacy of the prevailing political order, administrative efficiency, collection of revenue, or control over territory. State–citizen relations can be built in many ways, such as provision of services, schooling or circulation of media narratives. The production of a sense of shared history is an important part of this process, particularly in imagining the nation, the community that is commonly associated with territorial statehood (Anderson, 1991; Hobsbawm, 1992). Newly independent African states usually attempted to address the question of social cohesion by embarking on nation-building projects that sought to create unifying national imaginaries. Subsequent decades have demonstrated the difficulties of such projects, with many states experiencing severe crises of legitimacy and varying degrees of civil strife. The linkages between the state, emergent nationhood and other forms of belonging are more complex than imagined in the early decades of independence (Buur and Kyed, 2007; Dorman et al., 2007; Englund, 2004: 9–11). Namibia became independent considerably later than most countries in Africa, against a background of authoritarian settler colonialism, protracted war and a strong liberation movement turned ruling party. Such local factors play an important part in determining the interplay between statehood, citizenship and vocabularies of belonging. It would appear that Namibian nationalism and associated memory politics suffer from an internal contradiction. On one hand, there are attempts to build and imagine a unitary nation through a shared version of national history, balanced representation and provision of public goods. On the other, there is the utilization of particular histories to justify claims to recognition and associated entitlements (Englund and Nyamnjoh, 2004). This language highlights particularities and links the resulting identities with material politics. These characteristics can also be found in other languages of recognition, such as those resorting to claims of cultural authenticity, or autochthony (Geschiere, 2009; MarshallFratani, 2007). However, what is peculiar about the Namibian narrative of national liberation is that instead of highlighting cultural differences, this narrative manifestly seeks to overcome them and create ‘unity in diversity’.

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The supposedly unifying language of the nation paradoxically becomes a way of defining who authentically belongs to ‘the people’ and who does not (cf. Chipkin, 2004; Dorman et al., 2007). Taken to its extreme, this can lead to violently exclusionary ‘quasi-nationalism’, as happened in Zimbabwe (Werbner, 1998: 92–3). The liberation narrative is a powerful tool for creating such distinctions through casting historical actors into ‘us’ and ‘them’ and introducing these categories to the current socio-political arena. However, this version of history is contested by various alternative ways to remember. One alternative version is put forward by former Swapo detainees. Another tension appears between former exiles and those who did not leave Namibia during the war. There is also fragmentary remembrance from former exiles that does not fit the heroic narrative of liberation.2 The examination of these themes in this chapter starts with an outline of the general aspects of Namibian ex-combatant ‘reintegration’. This is followed by a brief exposition of the debate over ex-combatant and war veteran compensations that took place in 2006–7. This case highlights how references to the liberation struggle persist and are linked with other distinctions in the contemporary negotiation of citizenship. I will then analyse the vocabulary of the liberation narrative and how it privileges former Swapo combatants and militant remembrances and excludes alternative memories and those who fought on the ‘wrong’ side. Lastly, I will discuss the recent developments of such dualist memory politics and their implications for Namibian state–citizen linkages. The chapter is based on ethnographic observation and interviews with ex-combatants and former exiles, state and ruling party officials and civil society representatives, conducted in 2002–3 in Windhoek and north-central Namibia. These are complemented by Namibian media reports on ex-combatants as well as sources from the literature on the Namibian liberation struggle.

NAMIBIAN EX-COMBATANT ‘REINTEGRATION’: THE POLITICS OF BIOPOLITICS

Namibia’s transition to independence in 1989–90 resulted in 25,000 demobilized fighters of South Africa’s Namibian surrogate army South West Africa Territorial Force (SWATF) and paramilitary Koevoet, and approximately 50,000 returnees and combatants of Swapo’s military wing People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN).3 Close to 10,000 ex-combatants from 2. There is a further field of Namibian memory politics that is immensely important but too broad to be addressed here, namely the various ethnic, regional or local versions of resistance and belonging that stand in contrast to liberationist history. See, for example, K¨ossler (2007). 3. The South African administration had exact records of SWATF and Koevoet fighters. The number of ex-PLAN combatants and other former exiles is more difficult to establish,

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both sides were absorbed in the new integrated security forces. Most of the remaining ex-fighters experienced problems in generating sufficient livelihoods and staged a number of sizable demonstrations during the 1990s. The government initiated various ‘reintegration’ schemes, including a gratuity payment and a skills training scheme called the Development Brigade (later Development Brigade Corporation). From the mid-1990s, the emphasis shifted to direct government employment, culminating in the so-called Peace Project that was started in 1998 (Colletta et al., 1996: 131–132, 136, 149, 159; McMullin, 2005; Preston, 1997). ‘Reintegration’ was mainly justified by portraying the ex-combatants as a volatile and potentially dangerous group, a problem which would be solved along the lines of modern biopolitics (Foucault, 2003: 239–263): categories of potential beneficiaries were defined, the eligibility of applicants was assessed by experts in mass registrations and those deemed eligible were allocated to work in public institutions. In many cases, particularly in the uniformed services, training and work practices were highly regimented. During the Peace Project, 18,361 ex-combatants were registered by 2002. Of these, 14,875 were employed and 2,297 classified as war veterans. Nearly 10,000 were employed in the army and the police, mostly in the newly created paramilitary Special Field Force (SFF) unit. The rest were placed as prison and game wardens and in menial jobs, such as cleaning, in government ministries.4 The intention of ex-combatant employment was clearly not just to provide them with livelihoods, but also to harness their problematic agency through counselling, training, salary and work discipline (Metsola, 2006). However, although ostensibly aiming at maintaining social order through the welfare and disciplining of neutrally defined ‘ex-combatants’, ‘reintegration’ was actually driven by local political dynamics. It has largely been a negotiation over recognition and benefits between the ruling party Swapo and its former exile cadres. While the language and practices of the global post-conflict and DDR (disarmament, demobilization and reintegration) industry have made inroads into Namibian ‘reintegration’, they have been used to neutralize and justify a process that has actually differentiated between groups of ex-combatants and privileged former Swapo exiles, irrespective of whether they had a military background or not. Comparatively, Swapo’s former adversaries, the SWATF and Koevoet fighters have been discriminated against. Even though they were initially recruited in the army and police, the ranks of ex-combatants within these forces later came to be dominated by former Swapo cadres. Similarly, the Development Brigade Corporation almost exclusively drew its members from the ranks of ex-PLAN (Colletta as Swapo apparently did not have a unified record and has not disclosed the existing data. PLAN forces were demobilized before repatriation and returned as civilians, so it is uncertain how many of the returnees had been combatants. 4. Figures obtained by the author on 29 October 2002 from the Socio-economic Integration Programme for Ex-Combatants (SIPE).

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et al., 1996: 136, 149, 159; Preston, 1997). Former SWATF and Koevoet are not eligible to claim war veteran status. They were initially excluded from the Peace Project, and when included after they had protested, their registration and employment rates remained clearly below those of former exiles.5 Despite taking place in the present and being oriented towards the future, ‘reintegration’ is motivated and justified by events stretching far back into the history of the liberation struggle. It is therefore necessary to examine how the actors involved appropriate it.

EX-COMBATANTS, SWAPO AND THE STATE: FROM JOBS TO COMPENSATION

2006–2010: Renewed Ex-combatant Demands

‘Reintegration’ through public employment attempted to maintain the loyalty of Swapo ex-combatants and channel their agency in ways useful to the government and ruling party. This seemed to work for nearly ten years, until a newly formed ‘Committee on Welfare of Ex-combatants/War Veterans’ (which later became the Namibia Ex-Freedom Fighters and War Veterans’ Association) submitted a number of demands to President Pohamba in June 2006.6 This case highlights many of the issues discussed in this chapter and is therefore worth recounting in some detail. Such issues include the continued importance in current politics of remembrances harking back to the pre-independence period, the special status of ‘ex-combatants’ in the 5. By November 2000, 13,992 former exiles and 2,420 former SWATF and Koevoet fighters had been registered (Republic of Namibia, n.d.: 3, 9). In 2005, 69.2 per cent of former Swapo combatants had formal employment, mainly in government; 45.6 per cent of former SWATF and Koevoet members were formally employed, mainly by private security companies (LeBeau, 2005: 72–73). 6. This account of the compensation case is based on reports published in the following local newspapers: New Era, 24, 27 and 31 July, 25 August, 5 September and 5 October 2006, 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 11 June, 26 September, 21, 22 and 23 November 2007, 17 March, 4, 7, 14 and 21 April, 30 June, 11 July, 14 and 20 August, 3, 7, 16 and 17 October, 5, 13, 19 and 25 November and 12 December 2008, 29 January, 11 and 27 February, 3, 13 and 24 March, 1, 2, 8, 16, 20 and 21 April, 5, 13 and 26 May, 1, 4, 10 and 15 June, 21, 23 and 24 July, 11, 13 and 18 August, 3, 7 and 22 September, 2, 5, 6, 7 and 27 October, 2, 5, 10, 13, 16, 17, 18 and 26 November, 1 December 2009 and 12 January 2010; The Namibian, 21 June, 24, 25 and 28 July, 1, 7, 15, 21 and 25 August, 5, 12 and 22 September, 5 and 16 October and 3 November 2006, 13 February, 21, 22 and 30 May, 4, 5, 6, 7, 11 and 28 June, 11 July, 25 September, 9 and 26 October, 8, 9, 22 and 26 November 2007, 25 January, 18 June, 19 August, 4, 5, 18 and 22 September, 7, 9, 13, 17, 20, 22, 23 and 28 October, 5, 10, 11, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21 and 28 November, 3 and 17 December 2008, 26 January, 25 February, 10, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25 and 30 March, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 15, 16, 17, 24 and 29 April, 5, 8, 12, 13, 15 and 27 May, 1 and 5 June, 20 and 24 July, 13, 17, 18, 19 and 28 August, 1, 3, 9, 18, 22 and 30 September, 2, 5, 7 and 8 October, 4, 6, 10, 13 and 20 November and 4 December 2009; Informant´e 7 May, 27 August, 17 September, 12 November and 17 December 2009.

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Namibian political landscape, the rhetoric of the ruling party in speaking about the past and relating to its ‘subjects’, the question of who should be considered a hero and what should be the practical consequences of such recognition, and to what degree citizenship and its benefits should hinge on participation in the liberation struggle. The committee demanded a lump sum of N$ 500,000 (approximately € 60,000 at the time) or N$ 31,000 (approximately € 3,700) for each year spent in exile, as well as a monthly remuneration of N$ 8,000 to each excombatant. Additional demands included raising the retirement age of excombatants to seventy years,7 free education and medical services, housing, protection from ‘unfair competition’ in business, appointments to positions, income-generating projects, setting up an ex-combatants’ fund, fishing quotas, mining concessions and decent burials. Referring to the sacrifices of ex-combatants, the spokesperson of the group, Alex Kamwi, justified these claims by saying: ‘People question the credibility of us combatants, but did they ever question this when we were fighting for this country?’ (‘Excombatants’ body makes fresh demands’, The Namibian, 21 June 2006). The president of Swapo and former head of state Sam Nujoma responded harshly. He pointed out that the demands were unrealistic and fulfilling them would bankrupt the country. He questioned the patriotism of the demonstrators, accusing them of being selfish and intent on dividing the nation and disturbing peace and stability. According to him: It is void of any truth to . . . say that the Swapo Party Government has done nothing to the plight of the Swapo Party ex-combatants/war veterans. The Swapo Party Government . . . has done everything . . . to ensure that [they] are integrated into the Namibian society . . . Some unscrupulous ex-combatants have deserted their jobs or were dismissed . . . due to undisciplined behaviour or through criminal offences . . . Swapo embarked upon the armed liberation struggle on 26 August 1966 with a clear purpose of liberating our motherland from the minority white apartheid regime of South Africa. Thousands of Namibians voluntarily joined the liberation struggle. Nobody was promised compensation or other payment . . . It was the valour, gallantry and heroic deeds of our heroes and heroines which inspired . . . Namibians both inside the country and . . . in exile to fight with vigour and determination . . . [N]ot . . . only those of us who were in exile participated in the liberation struggle. The war of liberation was a national undertaking where all progressive Namibians participated . . . All Namibians, except those who . . . allied themselves with the South African apartheid colonial regime in Namibia, suffered the agony of apartheid colonialism. . . . Freedom fighters are not mercenaries and this clearly distinguished Swapo Plan ex-combatants from the South West Africa Territorial Force and Koevoet . . . The Swapo Party Government has a responsibility to promote the welfare of all Namibians, irrespective of colour, race, ethnic origin and political affiliation . . . [and] has prioritised the provision of basic services and public amenities to all our citizens equitably . . . irrespective of their participation in the liberation struggle. (‘Nujoma lashes out at divisive forces’, Die Republikein, 26 July 2006)

The committee decided to mobilize ex-combatants countrywide for a demonstration. Still, they preferred a negotiated solution and expressed their 7. Earning salaries for a longer time would enable them to accumulate higher pension levels.

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respect and loyalty to Nujoma. Kamwi said: ‘[W]e are not going to deny him as his children. We still regard him as our father’ (‘War vets “open for dialogue”’, New Era, 27 July 2006). However, they were prepared to march to State House and stay until their demands were met. An opposition party, Congress of Democrats, joined the debate, criticizing Swapo’s response and emphasizing the contrast between a self-enriching political elite and their poor rank-and-file former comrades. A month later, President Pohamba reiterated many of Nujoma’s points in a more moderate tone. However, he also promised to ‘address the plight of those . . . ex-combatants who are currently receiving a small pension’ (‘President rejects war vets’ demands’, The Namibian, 7 August 2006). In early October 2006, a new Ministry of Veterans Affairs was launched. Importantly, the concept of ‘ex-combatant’ was given a new, extended definition. Pohamba said: ‘Our Government regards all those patriotic Namibians who took part in the struggle for national liberation of Namibia, regardless of whether such citizens were in exile or not, as ex-combatants’ (‘New Ministry for war veterans’, New Era, 5 October 2006). Henk Mudge, an opposition politician, expressed concern about this emphasis, arguing that former SWATF and Koevoet members should not be overlooked: ‘These members were merely professional soldiers . . . recruited by a foreign country . . . They were intimidated and brainwashed . . . exactly the same way in which Swapo brainwashed the Plan fighters’ (‘Ex-Koevoet, SWATF should also benefit from Veterans’ Ministry’, The Namibian, 16 October 2006). The newly appointed Minister of Veteran Affairs, Ngarikutuke Tjiriange, called for patience while his ministry would establish its structures, define beneficiary categories and register veterans and former combatants. However, in a few months the veterans’ committee marched to the Ministry. The chairperson of the committee, Ruusa Malulu, said: ‘They can’t tell us that government does not have money, but we have a State House that has been built for so much’ (‘Ex-fighters won’t budge’, New Era, 5 June 2007). The police tried to disperse the demonstrators but they stood their ground. Two days later, Tjiriange reconfirmed that there would be no money. This angered the demonstrators. ‘We will then die here! This will become the next Cassinga, the next Heroes’ Acre’,8 shouted Malulu (‘Read my lips: There’s no money, Minister tells vets’, The Namibian, 7 June 2007). Referring to Nujoma’s claim that participation in the struggle has been voluntary, she added: ‘We were all volunteers during the liberation struggle. Why is it that some people that we volunteered with have fully paid-off farms and we have nothing? Do you want to be ministers for life? . . . We are going to get their farms by force if they are not going to listen’ (‘War vets threaten land grab’, New Era, 7 June 2007). Another demonstrator challenged the idea of 8. Cassinga was a Swapo camp in Angola that South African forces attacked in 1978, killing hundreds of Namibian refugees. The Heroes’ Acre is a war memorial near Windhoek that celebrates the liberation struggle, and where struggle notables are buried.

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voluntary participation: ‘Some of us were taken by force to the bush and removed from school to go into exile’ (‘Protesters stick to their guns’, New Era, 7 June 2007). Alex Kamwi said: ‘I died when I joined Swapo and now I am still dead, I don’t fear death . . . Sam Nujoma even said a PLAN fighter can never retreat. I will only be alive when I get what I want’ (ibid.). The protesters also threatened to hand in their voters’ registration cards, ‘so that we don’t vote for any party and even the SWAPO Party. We are tired of everything’ (ibid.). Eventually, the government met the demonstrators and they agreed to go home and wait for further response. The new Veterans Bill was introduced at the end of 2007 and came into force as the Veterans Act in August 2008. It provides for registering and assisting veterans and their dependants. According to the Veterans Act (section 1), ‘veteran’ is defined as: any person who (a) was a member of the liberation forces; (b) consistently and persistently participated or engaged in any political, diplomatic or under-ground activity in furtherance of the liberation struggle; or (c) owing to his or her participation in the liberation struggle was convicted, whether in Namibia or elsewhere, of any offence closely connected to the struggle and sentenced to imprisonment.

The definition excludes deserters. Two points are worth noting: first, that in principle the definition of ‘veteran’ is no longer restricted to former exiles or even Swapo members, and second that the status is firmly anchored in participation in the liberation struggle and excludes those who fought on the other side. Speaking of former SWATF and Koevoet, Tjiriange argued: ‘Whether forced or volunteered, they were part of an army that kept colonialism alive in this country. The South African army did not come here to hunt elephants, buffaloes and kudus, but to kill Namibians’ (‘Tjiriange non-committal on Swapo exdetainees’, New Era, 7 April 2008). These sentiments were echoed by Prime Minister Nahas Angula: ‘There were some Koevoets, SWATF and spies who allowed themselves to be used by the enemies and they must bow their heads in shame. The struggle was long and bitter because some sided with the enemy that committed heinous crimes’ (‘Angula in no-nonsense mood’, New Era, 21 April 2008). There was heated debate over the criteria of inclusion between Swapo and the opposition parties in Parliament. As a first step in accommodating the veterans, their monthly payout was increased from N$ 500 to N$ 2,000. Satisfied with the situation, the veterans’ association made peace with the government, with Kamwi victoriously explaining: ‘the President made it clear that if it weren’t for us calling on his door, the Ministry . . . would not have been formed’ (‘War veterans pacified after meeting with President’, The Namibian, 25 January 2008). However, not everybody was as happy. Tjiriange received death threats, apparently from former SWATF and Koevoet disgruntled over their continued exclusion. As the first step towards assisting the veterans, a countrywide registration commenced in April 2008 and has been continuing

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since then. The ministry and the veterans’ association continued to wrestle over the amounts and kinds of veteran assistance, with the veterans continuing to push for significant lump sum payments. Eventually, the 2009–10 budget contained N$ 50,000 payments for 500 elderly veterans, with plans to extend the circle of beneficiaries in following years. By August 2009 the Ministry had registered around 20,000 applications for veteran status and approved 5,000. As had happened earlier with the Peace Project (see Metsola, 2006: 1129; 2007: 138–40), the registration of veterans encouraged demands and prolonged demonstrations by so-called ‘children of the liberation struggle’, that is, grown-up children of veterans proper. They voiced their concerns in a similar rhetoric as the older veteran generation, referring to the sufferings of the struggle and lost opportunities, expressing their loyalty to and faith in Swapo, for example by referring to themselves as ‘sons and daughters of Swapo forever’ (‘Struggle children still have 30 days’, The Namibian, 13 November 2008) and singing liberation songs, but also contrasting their plight with the ‘ministers’ children’ (‘“Struggle children” remain unwavering in their demands’, The Namibian, 22 October 2008) and threatening to withdraw their votes from Swapo if their plight was not addressed. After initially turning them down, the government gradually gave in to their demands, registering close to 10,000 of them, employing approximately 1,000 in the army and freezing recruitment to all entry level civil service posts until their registration and verification is completed. In other words, they seem bound for government employment like the older returnee generation before them. Former exile children have also launched their own organization, the Namibia Exile Kids Association.

What is at Stake with Compensation?

The demands for compensation did not suddenly emerge out of nowhere in 2006. Similar demands had occasionally cropped up in earlier years. Some of the people I met in 2002 and 2003 also expressed their desire to be compensated. Mandume was born and raised in Ovamboland until he went into exile in the mid-1980s ‘to join the liberation struggle’. After receiving military training in Lubango, Angola, he joined PLAN. At the time of my fieldwork, he was employed in the Special Field Force. He resided in a shack in Katutura9 with his wife and little child, gradually paying off his plot of land. This is how he explained his fate, and that of other PLAN combatants, since repatriation: The suffering started . . . Waiting and waiting . . . [My] uncle . . . called me . . . that I can do some work . . . washing dishes . . . [When] there [wa]s no work anymore . . . I went back to 9. Windhoek’s formerly blacks-only suburb, or township.

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He explained that if compensation could be paid in Zimbabwe, it should also be possible in Namibia, and contrasted the situation of the elite with that of the rank-and-file: ‘Compensation [has] been given to some people . . . [They] have five, six farms. Where do they get the money to buy all these farms? . . . They should give us . . . money, even if it’s five thousand’. Yet, most ex-combatants I met did not talk about compensation. Also, in earlier demonstrations, the demand for compensation was clearly secondary to government employment. However, once most ex-combatants were employed, the ground shifted towards compensation. Apart from this shift, the events described above followed a similar pattern as earlier cases of negotiation between ex-combatants and government. The ex-combatants organize and demonstrate; the authorities respond by denying their demands; the excombatants persist, advancing increasingly critical arguments; and finally a compromise is reached. As in previous cases, their demands are both about material benefits and acknowledgment of sacrifice and status. The ex-combatants’ relations to the government and the ruling party are situated within wider political debates. Protesting ex-combatants contrast their current conditions with those of the elite, claiming that the links of loyalty and obligation that were forged in the liberation struggle ought to persist through the years. They point out that while they were told that their demands are unrealistic, other ‘volunteers’ have benefited from ‘affirmative action’ and ‘black economic empowerment’. This complaint is by no means restricted to ex-combatants. On the contrary, in a context of extreme socioeconomic inequalities, Namibian public opinion widely holds that the political elite, many of them formerly exiled Swapo leaders, accumulates through resettlement schemes, soft loans, jobs for comrades, retirement packages, fishing quotas and mining concessions. At the height of the compensation debate, Gwen Lister, editor of The Namibian was quick to draw attention to this: ‘There’s no money,’ Veterans’ Affairs Minister Ngarikutuke Tjiriange told the protestors . . . Why should they believe him when they look around and see the waste incurred through corruption and mismanagement? . . . The truly disadvantaged are forced to remain in a state of perpetual deprivation when the already prosperous continue to benefit simply because being black is the key to receiving handouts, no matter your status in life . . . [O]ur leadership is discriminating against the people, just as the apartheid regime did before. (‘Political perspective’, The Namibian, 8 June 2007)

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However, apart from the division between the elite and rank-and-file, the distinction between returnees and remainees is also significant. During the liberation struggle, most of Swapo’s senior leadership were in exile. There are widespread feelings that former exiles are favoured unfairly, as others too had to suffer from colonial rule and the war, and many were involved in the resistance within the country. As a reader’s letter in The Namibian put it: ‘Not only those who went to exile liberated the country. There were many people who . . . played a vital role at home . . . [T]hey too lost their lives and their houses were burned . . . Will they be allowed to register with the Ministry as any other veteran[s] . . . [and] combatants? . . . [S]uch people have to be recognised’ (‘Who are the veterans’, The Namibian, 10 November 2006). The distinction between ‘returnees’ and ‘remainees’ was frequently referred to in my interaction with both groups. According to the remainees, one had to have been in exile in order to get a government job. According to the returnees, the private sector and civil servants inherited from the previous regime were reluctant to employ them. More fundamentally, however, the argument boils down to the criteria applied to qualify as ‘proper’ Namibian, and more specifically, who can legitimately draw on the historical imagery of the struggle for present claims. Nujoma’s references to the contributions of those who fought inside Namibia and to the government’s duty to address the needs of all Namibians resonated with feelings of widespread dissatisfaction among remainees who feel disadvantaged. Although the debate on compensation and the treatment of ex-combatants or war veterans clearly reflects current concerns, the actors involved often back their arguments with references to the past. This links the compensation debate with memory politics. The references that Nujoma and the demonstrators made to the ‘liberation struggle’ are not their own invention. They are examples of utterances that belong to an established version of Namibia’s history, first produced by Swapo and its allies during their campaign for Namibia’s independence. In order to properly understand what was said during the debate on compensation, it is important to examine this historical narrative and the ways in which it has been contested.

THE LIBERATION NARRATIVE AND ITS UNDERSIDE

The Struggle and the Bonds of Loyalty10

During the ‘liberation struggle’, Swapo and its international allies gradually cemented a particular nationalist version of Namibia’s history. This narrative was published in a number of forms, such as pamphlets, schoolbooks and popularized history books (see, e.g., International Defence and Aid Fund 10. This section partly draws on Metsola (2001).

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for Southern Africa, 1989; Katjavivi, 1988; Swapo, 1981). Apart from such general accounts, the liberation struggle was personified in autobiographical and biographical narratives that portrayed Swapo leaders as national heroes.11 In these accounts, the experiences of individuals are placed firmly within the grander historical narrative so that they become instances of the common fate and aspirations of the nation. Taken together, these accounts amalgamate to form a ‘liberation narrative’ that is grounded in a binary image of colonial domination versus united nationalist-revolutionary resistance by ‘the masses’ under Swapo’s leadership and helped by international ‘progressive forces’. This account is strongly teleological as the nation, the ‘Namibian people’, inevitably emerges from colonial oppression and unites to fulfil history in the natural outcome of independence. The narrative also offers a template for individual subjectivity in the image of a heroic ‘freedom fighter’ as opposed to ‘Boers’ and ‘collaborators’. The verbal narrative is accompanied by recurrent visual imagery that includes the heroes of early anti-colonial resistance; the working and living conditions of the black majority, contrasted with white affluence; police and army brutality; mass demonstrations; Swapo leaders; schooling, health care, farming and construction in Swapo camps in exile; PLAN cadres in a parade or on a mission; and Cassinga before and after the South African attack (International Defence and Aid Fund, 1989; Miescher and Henrichsen, 2004: 20–35, 70–73; Nujoma, 2001; Swapo, 1981). These verbal and visual themes are repeated so frequently that each of them becomes emblematic of the liberation narrative as a whole. Before Namibia’s independence, the liberation narrative was significant in challenging South African rule and rallying support for Swapo both in Namibia and internationally. It also formed the backbone of the political instruction Swapo cadres received in exile. As Nujoma’s speech attests, this narrative has not lost its signifance, but turned into a state-sponsored myth of the nation’s origins and ideal form that legitimizes the present power constellation (Hunter, 2008; Melber, 2005; Saunders, 2007). It has been inscribed on the landscape in the monumental Heroes’ Acre with its militant statues, murals and grave sites celebrating the liberation struggle and its ‘fallen heroes and heroines’ (text on the pedestal of the statue of the unknown soldier).12 However, it most often appears in statements by Swapo politicians and supporters in Parliament, public events or interviews. Furthermore, it is not restricted to accounts of the past, but is regularly reproduced in political leaders’ statements on current issues, depicting contemporary social forces as either truly patriotic or as the ‘enemy’ that appears in various guises, such 11. The magnum opus of this genre is Sam Nujoma’s ‘autobiography’ (Nujoma, 2001). Other accounts include Angula (1990), Namhila (2005), Ndadi (1989), Shityuwete (1990) and Ya-Otto (1982). For analyses, see Haarhof (1989) and Saunders (2003, 2007). 12. For pictures, articles and analysis of the Heroes’ Acre, see Namibia Review 11(2), (2002); K¨ossler (2007: 369–72).

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as secessionists, imperialists, foreign cultural influences, criminals, or the political opposition. The case of Swapo ex-combatants is one example of this afterlife of liberation. Swapo’s rhetoric has exaggerated the significance of its military campaign and elevated the armed guerrilla into a central figure in the history of liberation (Namakalu, 2004; Nujoma, 2001). Government has used this image to justify ‘reintegration’ measures that have benefited Swapo’s key ex-combatant constituency, while the ex-combatants have drawn on it to back their demands and for identity and self-esteem (see also Metsola, 2009; Metsola and Melber, 2007). In an earlier study (Metsola, 2001), based on life stories of former Swapo exiles a few years after independence, I found that their self-portrayal was mostly in accordance with the liberation narrative. In a typically liberationist storyline, condensed from various individual narratives, the Namibian people’s independence and freedom, and one’s possibilities for self-realization, are withheld by the South African regime and the subject sets out to reclaim them by joining the liberation struggle in exile. Life in exile is portrayed as enduring hardship and overcoming obstacles by determination and comradeship, and thereby gradually winning the struggle, whether in the military field or in education and other tasks. These sacrifices eventually lead to Namibia’s independence and the return of the exiles, which completes the narrative. The liberation narrative is still dominant among former exiles, even when updated to the present. To illustrate this, let us have a look at how Pine, an ex-combatant in his early thirties, narrated his life story in 2003. He had grown up in the Owambo section of Katutura, living a street life before going into exile in the early 1980s. After studying in West Africa he returned to Angola and received PLAN military training. After repatriation, he reverted to a petty gangster’s lifestyle, until he was registered and recruited in the Special Field Force. At the time of my fieldwork, he was stationed at the Namibia–Angola border near the town of Oshikango. My crossing the border . . . was because of colonialism. We black people . . . were suffering . . . I went to . . . fight for independence . . . When I arrived there, all the combatants . . . treated me well . . . [Swapo] sent me to school in West Africa . . . After studying [I] came back [to] Angola . . . We young people got education but [for] our forefathers [there] was no education . . . I . . . stayed in Lubango and . . . everything was okay . . . because . . . I was with my father. Not my real father, but I call him my father. And he’s Sam [Nujoma] . . . Then we came back . . . I feel happy. Sometimes I remember some of my brothers . . . they [we]re left behind . . . but today . . . nobody comes and asks me, where’s your ID, nobody comes and beats me, nobody can interrupt me . . . [In] the old time, we suffered . . . Because we were black, my mum had to work for a . . . white person for ten years but she gets only two hundred. And I went to school without shoes, cold . . . But today [in] this independent Namibia . . . you can buy anything . . . go to school, eat at home . . . Today in this government of Sam, we feel free . . . My father was [a political prisoner] . . . And my mum was suffering a lot. And we struggled . . . This country [should] be ruled [by] Sam. I’m happy because Sam is alive until today, brings us bread in our homes. [We were] only street kids but then we became people . . . [T]he time I [returned] . . . my brothers and sisters were happy to see my face . . . Why I say I’m free . . . I’m [an] employee of the government now . . . [In 19]89, [we were a] lot, even our father couldn’t give us work at the same time . . . [They said that] time will come

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Lalli Metsola we will become employees of this government, and their promise came true . . . Look what I’m wearing, like a minister (laughter).

In Pine’s story, involvement in the liberation struggle and Swapo membership appear both as a source of belonging and as a basis for claiming entitlements. The Swapo government is able to provide people with employment, which is seen as the realization of freedom and independence. This contributes to his passionate loyalty to Swapo, personalized in the character of Sam Nujoma.13 Freedom, education, jobs, and bread on the table are expected to flow from ‘the government of Sam’. This extremely loyalist self-portrayal was not just a public fac¸ade, as life stories can sometimes be. Over the months I spent with Pine, his character as a ‘full-blood Swapo till the day I die’ emerged on various occasions. I also witnessed many times how he and his colleagues, almost all of them former exile men, spontaneously burst out singing liberation songs. He was also prepared to put his loyalty into practice. He took pride in having been involved in defeating the Caprivi secessionists in 1999 and was quite prepared to use violent measures in defence of state and Swapo rule in the borderland.14 The idea of enduring links of mutual loyalty and obligation between Swapo and its members is widely shared among former exiles. In their view, these links bind them to Swapo command but at the same time entitle them to special care by the party. However, the period following independence, with the dispersal of exiles and hardships of survival, posed a challenge to linking one’s life with the narrative of liberation. Consequently, Swapo ex-combatants have voiced their grievances publicly. However, instead of turning away from the party, they usually turned towards it, expecting it to reaffirm the bonds of loyalty and mutual obligation. Recollections of comradeship, collective effort and one’s own sacrifice in the struggle licensed them to demand greater recognition as loyal cadres (cf. Preston, 1997: 458). Thus the 2007 demonstrators referred to Nujoma as their father even after his hostile outburst. However, if ‘their government’ has not been responsive, the excombatants have occasionally departed more radically from loyalty speech. While most protesting ex-combatants never doubted the fundamental value of the struggle and their part in it, they have at times questioned their linkage to Swapo, arguing that their leaders have betrayed them and are now prospering at the expense of others. This is evident in Mandume’s narrative above, as well as in the statements that the demonstrators of 2006–7 made when it seemed that the government would not give in to their demands. Even then, their alternative to voting for Swapo was not to vote for another party but not 13. Nujoma was still President of the Republic at the time of my fieldwork; he was succeeded by Hifikepunye Pohamba in March 2005. 14. I have examined the Special Field Force in relation to issues of state power and violence in Metsola (2009).

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to vote at all. Another option has been to play on the discursive register that highlights their potentially dangerous and violent character (Metsola, 2006). This can be seen in Malulu’s warning above that the ex-combatants would invade government ministers’ farms. Over the years, they have issued such threats from time to time, occasionally backed by more dramatic ways of making their elite comrades feel uneasy about daring to break the ties forged in exile.15 ‘Reintegration’ served to reaffirm these bonds. Swapo ex-combatants easily perceived the calls to official registrations as Swapo calling its cadres for duty in the same way it did in exile. This perception was strengthened by the fact that ex-combatant registrations were carried out by former exile officials and military commanders now in prominent government and party positions, as well as by the granting of an ex-combatant status that elevates participation in the liberation struggle into a major determinant of official recognition and associated benefits (Metsola, 2006). For those ex-combatants who have received government employment, particularly in the uniformed services, this reaffirmation of links between Swapo and its former exile cadres has continued through work practices that often replicate hierarchies and social relations between former exiles (Metsola, 2009).

What Does Not Fit in the Liberation Narrative?

Apart from enabling links between Swapo and its former exile cadres, the liberation narrative also serves to exclude people and remembrances. The former SWATF and Koevoet fighters are a case in point (Metsola, 2007). As we have seen, the liberation narrative rests on an overarching dichotomy between colonial oppression and unified national resistance, or as Nujoma put it in his speech quoted above, ‘progressive Namibians’ versus South Africa and its allies. The multiple differences and contradictions within the preindependence state and Namibian society are forced into its binary imagery of ‘us’ and ‘them’. Such divisions arose between apartheid-designated black ‘homelands’ and settler areas, between urban and rural areas, between the educated and uneducated (especially within the liberation movement), between the young and the old, and last but not least, along ethnic lines (Brown, 1995; Leys and Saul, 1995a, 1995b; Tapscott, 1995). Despite Swapo’s avowed anti-ethnic and nationalist character, Oshiwambo-speakers from the rural north-central areas have always constituted its main support base. Swapo was not nearly as dominant in politics in areas beyond Owamboland and the South African regime eagerly cultivated such divisions, inter alia by actively 15. For instance, in 1995, demonstrating ex-combatants briefly took a deputy minister hostage. In 1997, four regional councillors had to endure a similar ordeal. In 1998 a government minister narrowly escaped the same fate.

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recruiting young men from the central and southern parts of the country into its ethnic battalions in the SWATF. The existence of ex-SWATF and Koevoet fighters, recruited from various ethnic backgrounds, is a reminder of these social differences within Namibian society, which are suppressed by the dichotomous version of the liberation narrative. From its perspective, they cannot appear but as an anomaly because they are both part of the nation by birth and residence and not genuinely part of it because they fought against national liberation. Therefore, they must be traitors or ‘mercenaries’ (Nujoma’s speech above). The antagonism that separates ‘patriots’ from ‘collaborators’ is constantly reiterated in the public imagination, reproducing the pariah status of former SWATF and Koevoet in public discourse. Thus, despite important differences between communities in this regard, generally the former SWATF and Koevoet fighters cannot claim recognition by heroic self-portrayal. On the contrary, many of them feel obliged to keep a low profile for fear of official and public disapproval. Some try to accommodate the pressures of the winners’ history by portraying themselves as victims who could not choose their fate and do not therefore deserve their marginalization. Others vehemently oppose the terms of the liberation narrative, which from the dominant perspective appears as continued unwillingness to admit their wrongdoings and become part of the nation. The ‘reintegration’ experience of former SWATF and Koevoet members is a microcosm of two contradictory tendencies in Namibia’s dealing with its past. The official policy of national reconciliation dictates that past divisions should be overcome in order, as formulated in Nujoma’s speech quoted above, to ‘promote the welfare of all Namibians, irrespective of colour, race, ethnic origin and political affiliation’. Thus, there have been partial attempts to treat all ex-combatants equally in ‘reintegration’, driven by the language of reconciliation and their securitization as potentially dangerous. At the same time, the binary imagery of the liberation struggle continues to legitimize the exclusion of South Africa’s ‘allies’ and current ‘enemies’. Apart from the ‘anomaly’ of former SWATF and Koevoet, the image of a nation united under Swapo’s vanguard is contested by remembrance of problems and divisions within the liberation movement. The issue of Swapo’s numerous internal conflicts has most directly challenged the liberation narrative.16 The first major crisis occurred in the mid-1970s after the influx of thousands of young Namibians into exile, many of them student activists and secondary school students. This strained the capacities of the movement in exile and led to a challenge to its established leadership (Leys and Saul, 16. Swapo’s internal politics have been dealt with in more detail in Breaking the Wall of Silence Movement (1997); Dreyer (1994: 78–81, 86–104, 112–116); Groth (1995); Leys and Brown (2005: 63–85, 111–124); Leys and Saul (1994); Nathanael (2002); Saul and Leys (1995, 2003a, 2003b); Trewhela (2009: 140–224). For similar trajectories of suppressing internal dissent within the ANC, see Ellis and Sechaba (1992); Trewhela (2009: 2–138).

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1994; Saul and Leys, 1995). However, the leaders of the first generation of exiles soon forcefully quelled the demands and were able to maintain their grip on power until independence and beyond, taking key positions in the new government. Another major crisis started in the early 1980s and lasted until the repatriation of exiles in 1989–90. Hundreds, if not thousands, of exiled Namibians were arrested and kept in dugout dungeons in Angola in a purge of suspected infiltrators from the movement by an increasingly powerful security wing. Many were tortured and killed. This created an atmosphere of fear throughout the movement. Arrests disproportionately targeted the well educated and those not from Ovamboland.17 Namibia’s way of dealing with this traumatic past differs crucially from neighbouring South Africa, where a Truth and Reconciliation Commission publicly dealt with human rights violations committed during apartheid in an attempt to facilitate reconciliation. In Namibia, a policy of reconciliation was adopted but interpreted rather differently. Instead of allowing open treatment of the past, it has been used to suppress any discussion that might open old wounds and so threaten peace. However, the detainee issue cannot be wished away. It continues to simmer in the national subconscious and crops up repeatedly in public discourse.18 A number of detainees and Swapo dissidents have turned personal accounts into testimonies to correct historical and moral wrongs and re-establish their innocence and worth in the eyes of fellow Namibians. The version of history that emerges from these accounts mirrors the liberation narrative, turning it on its head. Swapo is transformed from the collective agent of liberation into a totalitarian monster that devours its own members and poses a threat to democracy and freedom. While the former exiles who have remained loyal to Swapo barely refer to conflicts, inequality and abuse within the movement in exile, in dissident narratives these are key events that revealed Swapo’s ‘true nature’. Yet, these accounts have not fundamentally shaken the liberation narrative, as the dissidents are easily labelled as unpatriotic troublemakers or puppets of the former South African regime and current imperialist forces.19 More worrying to the Swapo government are indications of critical remembrances from its core constituency of ex-combatants, recounting such issues 17. By contrast, the movement’s armed wing and security service were controlled by people of Kwanyama (the largest Ovambo sub-group) origin. 18. For more detailed analysis, see Conway (2003); Dobell (1997); Saul and Leys (2003a, 2003b). 19. The Veterans’ Ministry did promise that the ex-detainees would be eligible for veteran status if they had not actually been infiltrators but had been, as Minister Tjiriange put it, ‘caught in the crossfire’. This was a euphemistic admission that Swapo detained some people without good reason (‘Swapo Lubango dungeon victims also war veterans’, The Namibian, 13 August 2009). The Breaking the Wall of Silence Movement, an ex-detainee organization, soon countered that recognition of ex-detainees as veterans would not be sufficient and reiterated their call for public apology from Swapo (‘Veteran status not enough for exdetainees’, The Namibian 17 August 2009).

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as disappearances and maltreatment within Swapo; abductions of young people into exile, contrary to Nujoma and other party leaders’ claims that participation in the struggle was voluntary; and unfulfilled material promises made to the exiles, again explicitly against what Nujoma said above. In my field material, such remembrance mostly surfaced in fragments from young, urban-based former exiles and those not employed through ‘reintegration’ programmes.20 The compensation debate demonstrated the ex-combatants’ readiness to air such recollections in public. The crucial point is how such events come to be interpreted—and what kinds of political identity and agency they then motivate; whether they become part of stories of dedicated patriots choosing to commit themselves to the struggle despite hardships, or of more subversive narratives instead. Such concerns partly explain Swapo’s recurring willingness to recognize its former exile cadres. At the same time that adopting the liberation narrative as a model of self-portrayal gives the ex-combatants licence to make demands, it reinforces their loyalty to Swapo and harnesses their remembrance. Like ripples from a stone thrown in still water, the long negotiation of loyalty and benefits between former exiles and Swapo leadership has extended in gradually widening circles of inclusion. At first the concept of ‘ex-combatant’ was primarily taken to mean those who had actually been in combat. This favoured men over women, as the exile division of labour had mainly placed men as combatants and women in supportive and reproductive non-combat duties (Metsola, 2001: 78–81; Preston, 1997: 458; Soiri, 1996: 76–77). Hence, for instance, women were not taken into the army and police to the same degree as men. Similarly, the first ‘reintegration’ programmes targeted those former exiles who had been part of armed forces. However, as women turned out to be as vocal as men in demanding recognition during ex-combatant demonstrations in the 1990s, the concept of ‘ex-combatant’ was broadened to include all those who had been assigned to various duties by Swapo in exile and thousands of former exile women were registered and employed (Metsola, 2006: 1128–9). In other words, the experiences of men and women in exile and thereafter have been gender-specific. The same goes for the dominant framework for narrating one’s remembrance. With national liberation being primarily celebrated as a military victory, the imagery of ex-combatants as liberation heroes remains predominantly masculine and does not offer a clear-cut model of identity for women. Both my interviews and published accounts suggest that women’s stories do not usually challenge the broad outlines of the Swapo-driven, liberationist account of history. However, instead of the militant heroism that dominates men’s accounts, women’s narratives tend to emphasize their efforts to sustain and reproduce the Namibian exile community engaged in the liberation struggle. They also allow more room 20. Space does not permit me to go deeper into these remembrances here. For more details, see Metsola (2007: 140–8).

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for personal relations and for admissions of hesitation and suffering, or of being influenced by circumstances beyond their control.21 After women, the sphere of inclusion has widened to cover formerly exiled youth. While earlier stages of ‘reintegration’ for the most part excluded those born after 1974, the persistence of the ‘struggle kids’ has now earned them official recognition.22 In this way, a more inclusive notion of ‘heroes’, with the potential to accommodate people across status, gender and age divides, has gradually evolved. The Veterans Act promises further extension to those who contributed to ‘liberation’ within Namibia. The criteria of inclusion have become more varied and increasingly dependent on being able to craft a plausible narrative of participation in the liberation struggle. At the same time, the contrast between this circle of heroes and those it shuts out gains heightened significance. In this way, while the war is left further back in time, its history and the identities attached to it are continually, perhaps increasingly, important in determining access to recognition and benefits. Finally, it should be noted that the liberation narrative is not only a frame for remembering and voicing memories but also for forgetting and silencing (cf. Becker, 2008: 282–4). Its heroic scheme gives a purpose to the ‘sacrifices’ of the struggle, but does not offer sufficient tools for dealing with traumatic experiences. The grand story of liberation leaves little room for making sense of individual suffering. Yet the things that do not enter the arena of public remembrance do not cease to exist, but reappear in fragmentary verbal expressions or in symptoms such as compulsive use of alcohol and might play a role in motivating persistent ex-combatant appeals for recognition. As testified by references to physical injuries by some demonstrators, references to the horrors of violence in war by my informants, or Alex Kamwi’s dramatic statement of ‘dying’ by joining the struggle in exile, many ex-combatants grapple with experiences that do not easily fit with the heroism of the liberation narrative. Thus the ‘undisciplined behaviour, drunkardness and absenteeism’23 of some ex-combatants cannot be dismissed without acknowledging the possibility that such problems might have something to do with their war experiences.

21. However, these differences are far from absolute and are cross-cut by significant variation in both men and women’s accounts. For closer analyses, see Becker (2008: 285–90, 294–7); Metsola (2001: 64–96, 108–16, 124–9, 135–8, 213–9). 22. I witnessed such aspirations already in 2003. However, the youth tended to have a more pragmatic and less emotionally laden relation to the liberation narrative than the older generation. For them, official recognition appeared as a livelihood opportunity among others. This obviously does not rule out the possibility of ‘struggle kid’ identity acquiring increasing emotional significance with time and institutional entrenchment. See Metsola (2007: 140–4). 23. ‘Nujoma lashes out at divisive forces’, Die Republikein, 26 July 2006.

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CONCLUSION

Democratization in Africa has often heightened anxieties and contradictions regarding belonging (Young, 2007: 242). This has led to rearticulations of citizenship in idioms of authenticity, such as territorial origins, ethnicity, religion or tradition. The xenophobic riots in South Africa are a recent example. The ethnic, territorial or cultural terms are present also in Namibian struggles of recognition. However, the ‘reintegration’ of ex-combatants is an example of a different pattern, based on the history of national liberation and its reproduction in narrative form. The current political order was founded on a fundamental antagonism between colonial rule and liberation. It situated the enemy outside the national territory and postulated a unified Namibian nation emerging from colonial oppression. This was never quite in accordance with the real socio-political diversity. The supposedly natural national subject was in fact constantly in the making through populist imagination and mobilization by Swapo and its allies. The liberationist dichotomy still remains the basis of Swapo’s legitimacy and is carried into distinctions of current politics. The divisive tendencies inherent in this national imaginary are unmasked and activated by a competitive political situation and economic scarcity, spurring debates and performances of patriotism and true Namibianness as a way of negotiating lines of inclusion and exclusion. ‘All Namibians’ easily slips into ‘all patriotic Namibians’, and ‘the enemy’ increasingly appears in various guises from within the national territory. The ex-combatants/war veterans have used their central position in the liberation narrative to make demands. References to struggle sacrifices provide a legitimate language of recognition that elevates Swapo ex-combatants above others, compromising the language of reconciliation and the neutrality of bureaucratic arrangements of ‘reintegration’. As Swapo’s legitimacy is largely built on the history of liberation, conflict with its prime heroes, the veterans, would easily erode it — all the more so if a great number of ex-combatants and former exiles would recount problematic aspects of ‘the struggle’, revising the history of liberation. Due to the central role they have played, it would be hard to brand their recollections as unpatriotic. In this regard, they are potentially more dangerous to the party than the relatively small group of detainees and other dissidents. Therefore, it is always tempting to eventually allow the ex-combatants or veterans to cash in on their recounted heroism and sacrifice. Recognizing them ties them more closely with Swapo’s version of liberation, limiting their public remembrance. The recent decision to extend the concept of ‘ex-combatant’ to those who participated in the liberation struggle within Namibia, possibly including non-Swapo members, is a radical move that challenges the privileged position of former exiles and opens possibilities for new groups to ground current politics of citizenship on the historical narrative of liberation. It thus heightens rather than diminishes the significance of struggle history. However, this revision also raises a complicated set of questions. What should

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be counted as ‘consistent and persistent’ participation? What should have been the relation of such resistance to Swapo; one of co-operation, or just anti-colonial in one way or another? Does early resistance beyond the formation of Swapo count? Behind these questions looms a broader question of whether Namibian political history can be portrayed as a struggle between ‘colonial domination’ and ‘national resistance’, or whether it is actually a far more complicated field of relations comprising multiple actors and interests. These questions might open up the liberation narrative for re-evaluation. It remains to be seen how the new Act will be implemented in the long run. If anything, the categories of ‘ex-combatant’ and ‘war veteran’ have been institutionalized further with the creation of the veterans’ ministry and association, consolidating the veterans as an established interest group. Former Swapo combatants are still the primary referent of these concepts and are likely to remain so. All this happens against the backdrop of wider Namibian socio-political relations. Both the ex-combatants and the Swapo government have tried to ally themselves with a broader societal base. The ex-combatants referred to their struggle, sacrifices and broken promises of better life, alluding to a widely shared sentiment that the elite has benefited at the expense of the person in the street. In contrast, the leaders argued that the ex-combatants are ‘unrealistically’ trying to benefit at the expense of other, similarly needy people. By focusing on the needs of the ex-combatants versus those of others, such rhetoric served to turn the attention away from the discrepancy between the elite and the worse-off. This view conveniently forgets that Swapo excombatants have been favoured before and are merely trying to continue the trend. There was a telling contradiction in Nujoma’s speech between a firm separation of ‘us’ and ‘them’ along liberationist lines and a reconciliatory commitment to balanced provision of services to all citizens. The doctrine of equal Namibianness is repeatedly permeated by the particularist nationalism rooted in the liberation narrative. As long as this is the case, reconciliation cannot be fully achieved. Fundamentally, stable statehood and inclusive citizenship would require two simultaneous processes: first, trying to overcome the extremely unequal legacy of colonialism that forms the politico-economic basis of grievances and second, creating such shared narratives of history and the political community (‘the nation’) that would not be identified with the identity and interests of particular political or ethnic groups (Swapo or the Ovambo). It would be difficult to address the latter concern without addressing the former that continually creates pressures for particular recognition. Conversely, without addressing the latter, the former will remain partial and provide a breeding ground for conflicts over state spoils. The problem is that this longterm objective would require moving away from liberationist nationalism and might therefore seem threatening to the ruling elite in the short term. The societal dividing line and emotionally rewarding positions of identity offered by the liberationist antagonism help prevent the consolidation of alternative

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political frontlines bred by divisions between the politico-economic elite and the struggling poor (cf. Laclau, 2005). Therefore, for the time being, contests over which particular interests gain the upper hand might prevail over achieving a more balanced political order.

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Geschiere, Peter (2009) The Perils of Belonging: Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa & Europe. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. Groth, Siegfried (1995) Namibia — The Wall of Silence: The Dark Days of the Liberation Struggle. Wuppertal: Peter Hammer. Haarhof, Dorian (1989) ‘Fighting and Writing: The Origins of Indigenous Namibian Literature’, Current Writing 1(1): 89–101. Hobsbwawm, Eric (1992) Nations and Nationalism Since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hunter, Justine (2008) ‘No Man’s Land of Time: Reflections on the Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Namibia’, in Gary Baines and Peter Vale (eds) Beyond the Border War: New Perspectives on Southern Africa’s Late-Cold War Conflicts, pp. 302–21. Pretoria: University of South Africa Press. International Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa (1989) ‘Namibia: The Facts’. London: IDAF. Katjavivi, Peter (1988) A History of Resistance in Namibia. London: James Currey. K¨ossler, Reinhart (2007) ‘Facing a Fragmented Past: Memory, Culture and Politics in Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies 33(2): 361–82. Kriger, Norma (2006) ‘From Patriotic Memories to “Patriotic History” in Zimbabwe, 1990– 2005’, Third World Quarterly 27(6): 1151–69. Laclau, Ernesto (2005) On Populist Reason. London: Verso. LeBeau, Debie (2005) ‘An Investigation into the Lives of Namibian Ex-fighters Fifteen Years after Independence’. Windhoek: PEACE Centre. Leys, Colin and Susan Brown (eds) (2005) Histories of Namibia. Living through the Liberation Struggle. London: Merlin Press. Leys, Colin and John S. Saul (1994) ‘Liberation without Democracy? The Swapo Crisis of 1976’, Journal of Southern African Studies 20(1): 123–47. Leys, Colin and John S. Saul (1995a) ‘Introduction’, in Colin Leys and John S. Saul (eds) Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-edged Sword, pp. 1–18. London: James Currey; Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Leys, Colin and John S. Saul (1995b) ‘Swapo inside Namibia’, in Colin Leys and John S. Saul (eds) Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword, pp. 66–93. London: James Currey; Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Lund, Christian (2006) ‘Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37(4): 685–705. Macintyre, Alasdair (1997) ‘The Virtues, the Unity of a Human Life, and the Concept of a Tradition’, in Lewis P. Hinchman and Sandra K. Hinchman (eds) Memory, Identity, Community: The Idea of Narrative in the Human Sciences, pp. 241–63. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Malkki, Liisa (1995) Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Marshall-Fratani, Ruth (2007) ‘The War of “Who Is Who”: Autochthony, Nationalism and Citizenship in the Ivorian Crisis’, in Sara Dorman, Daniel Hammett and Paul Nugent (eds) Making Nations, Creating Strangers, pp. 29–67. Leiden: Brill. McMullin, Jaremey (2005) ‘Far from Spontaneous: Namibia’s Long Struggle with Ex-Combatant Reintegration’, in Ann M. Fitz-Gerald and Hilary Mason (eds) From Conflict to Community: A Combatant’s Return to Citizenship. Shrivenham: Global Facilitation Network for Security Sector Reform. http://www.ssronline.org/ebooks_pages2.cfm?b=7&id=125&p=125 (accessed 11 February 2010). Melber, Henning (2005) ‘Namibia’s Past in the Present: Colonial Genocide and the Liberation Struggle in Commemorative Narratives’, South African History Journal 54: 91–111. Metsola, Lalli (2001) ‘The Liberation Narrative and the Post-return Life Stories of Namibian Former Exiles’. Master’s thesis, University of Helsinki, Finland. Metsola, Lalli (2006) ‘“Reintegration” of Ex-combatants and Former Fighters: A Lens into State Formation and Citizenship in Namibia’, Third World Quarterly 27(6): 1119–35.

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Metsola, Lalli (2007) ‘Out of Order? The Margins of Namibian Ex-combatant “Reintegration”’, in Henning Melber (ed.) Transitions in Namibia: Which Changes for Whom?, pp. 130–52. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Metsola, Lalli (2009) ‘The Special Field Force and Namibian Ex-combatant “Reintegration”’, in Andrew M. Jefferson and Steffen Jensen (eds) State Violence and Human Rights: The Role of State Officials in the South, pp. 102–21. London: Routledge-Cavendish. Metsola, Lalli and Henning Melber (2007) ‘Namibia’s Pariah Heroes: Swapo Ex-combatants between Liberation Gospel and Security Interests’, in Lars Buur, Steffen Jensen and Finn Stepputat (eds) The Security–Development Nexus: Expressions of Sovereignty and Securitization in Southern Africa, pp. 85–105. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute; Cape Town: HSRC Press. Miescher, Giorgio and Dag Henrichsen (eds) (2004) African Posters. A Catalogue of the Poster Collection in the Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Namakalu, Oswin O. (2004) Armed Liberation Struggle. Some Accounts of PLAN’s Combat Operations. Windhoek: Gamsberg Macmillan. Namhila, Ellen Ndeshi (2005) Kaxumba kaNdola, Man and Myth: The Biography of a Barefoot Soldier. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien. Nathanael, Keshii Pelao (2002) A Journey to Exile: The Story of a Namibian Freedom Fighter. Aberystwyth: Sosiumi Press. Ndadi, Vinnia (1989) Breaking Contract: The Story of Vinnia Ndadi. London: IDAF. Nujoma, Sam (2001) Where Others Wavered: The Autobiography of Sam Nujoma. London: Panaf Books. Preston, Rosemary (1997) ‘Integrating Fighters after War: Reflections on the Namibian Experience, 1989–1993’, Journal of Southern African Studies 23(3): 453–72. Republic of Namibia (n.d. [2001]) ‘Final Report of the Technical Committee on Ex Combatants to the Cabinet Committee on Defence and Security (CCDS)’. Technical Committee on Excombatants. Ricoeur, Paul (1991) ‘Life in Quest of Narrative’, in David Wood (ed.) On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation, pp. 20–33. London: Routledge. Saul, John S. and Colin Leys (1995) ‘Swapo: The Politics of Exile’, in Colin Leys and John Saul (eds) Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword, pp. 40–65. London: James Currey; Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Saul, John S. and Colin Leys (2003a) ‘Lubango and After: “Forgotten History” as Politics in Contemporary Namibia’, Journal of Southern African Studies 29(2): 333–53. Saul, John S. and Colin Leys (2003b) ‘Truth, Reconciliation, Amnesia: The “Ex-Detainees’” Fight for Justice’, in Henning Melber (ed.) Re-examining Liberation in Namibia: Political Culture since Independence, pp. 69–86. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Saunders, Christopher (2003) ‘Liberation and Democracy: A Critical Reading of Sam Nujoma’s “Autobiography”’, in Henning Melber (ed.) Re-examining Liberation in Namibia: Political Culture since Independence, pp. 87–98. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Saunders, Christopher (2007) ‘History and the Armed Struggle: From Anti-colonial Propaganda to “Patriotic History”’, in Henning Melber (ed.) Transitions in Namibia: Which Changes for Whom?, pp. 13–28. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Soiri, Iina (1996) The Radical Motherhood: Namibian Women’s Independence Struggle. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute. Schafer, Jessica (2007) Soldiers at Peace: Veterans and Society after the Civil War in Mozambique. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Shityuwete, Helao (1990) Never Follow the Wolf: The Autobiography of a Namibian Freedom Fighter. London: Kliptown Books. Steinmetz, George (1999) ‘Introduction: Culture and the State’, in George Steinmetz (ed.) State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn, pp. 1–49. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Swapo (1981) To Be Born a Nation: The Liberation Struggle for Namibia. London: Zed.

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Tapscott, Chris (1995) ‘War, Peace and Social Classes’, in Colin Leys and John S. Saul (eds) Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword, pp. 153–70. London: James Currey; Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Trewhela, Paul (2009) Inside Quatro: Uncovering the Exile History of the ANC and SWAPO. Auckland Park: Jacana. Trouillot, Michel-Rolph (2001) ‘The Anthropology of the State in the Age of Globalization’, Current Anthropology 42(1): 125–38. Werbner, Richard (1998) ‘Smoke from the Barrel of a Gun: Postwars of the Dead, Memory and Reinscription in Zimbabwe’, in Richard Werbner (ed.) Memory and the Postcolony: African Anthropology and the Critique of Power, pp. 71–102. London: Zed. Ya-Otto, John with Ole Gjerstad and Michael Mercer (1982): Battlefront Namibia: An Autobiography. Harare: Zimbabwe Publishing House. Young, Crawford (2007) ‘Nation, Ethnicity, and Citizenship: Dilemmas of Democracy and Civil Order in Africa’, in Sara Dorman, Daniel Hammett and Paul Nugent (eds) Making Nations, Creating Strangers, pp. 241–64. Leiden: Brill.

4 Federal Restructuring in Ethiopia: Renegotiating Identity and Borders along the Oromo–Somali Ethnic Frontiers

Asnake Kefale INTRODUCTION

Since the early 1990s, Ethiopia has witnessed a major transition in its national politics. The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Front (EPRDF)1 that came to power in May 1991 after its military victory over the previous regime, the Derg,2 reconstituted the country into an ethnic federation. The 1991 Transitional Charter allowed for the formation of an interim government, the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) under the EPRDF; it also recognized Eritrea’s secession and the rights of ‘nations and nationalities’ to self-determination up to and including secession. In 1992 the country’s internal administration was restructured and fourteen regional administrations were created along ethno-linguistic lines (TGE, 1992).3 In line with the charter of the TGE, the 1994 Constitution of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia formalized ethnicity as a fundamental principle of state organization, representation and political mobilization (Abbink, 1997). Hence, it recognized the rights of ethnic self-determination up to secession and created nine ethnically constituted regions: Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, Benishangul-Gumuz, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples (SNNPR), Gambella and Harari. Ethnicity was thus constitutionalized as one of the key instruments of public life, despite its propensity to renewal, modification and renegotiation (Brass, 1991: 70; Eller and Coughlan, 1996: 46; Hutchison and Smith, 1996: 8). From the competing approaches to ethnicity, primordialism seems to have greatly influenced both popular perceptions and political discourses in Ethiopia. At the popular level, descent appears to play a major role in defining the ethnic identity of In addition to the referees, I would like to thank the editors of this volume, Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard for their comments, and all those individuals who shared their thoughts with me during my fieldwork. 1. The Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Front (EPRDF) is a coalition of four ethnic-based political parties: the dominant Tigray People’ Liberation Front (TPLF), the Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM); the Oromo People Democratic Movement (OPDO); and the Southern Ethiopian Peoples’ Democratic Movement (SEPDM). 2. The Derg, the Amharic-Geez word for a committee, refers to the Provisional Military Administrative Council (PMAC) that ruled Ethiopia from 1974 to 1991. 3. These were Tigray, Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somalia, Benishangul, Gurage/Hadya, Sidama, Wolaita, Omo, Kafa, Gambela, Harar and Addis Ababa (see TGE, 1992). Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard  C 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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individuals. Primordial elements of ethnicity have also been used in political discourses of national self-determination. One important facet of this federal restructuring4 has been the assumption by the Ethiopian state of new roles regarding the codification and regulation of territorial and personal ethnicity, similar to those adopted by the former Soviet Union (Brubaker, 1994; Gleason, 1990; Slezkine, 1996). The federal constitution and other legislation include provisions on such things as ethnic self-determination, resolution of disputes over ethnic identity, and boundaries of ethnically constituted regions. The reconstitution of the country into an ethnic federation with the aim of matching ethno-linguistic identity with self-administrative structures, brought to the politico-legal arena the question of which group belongs to which wider ethnicity. Any ethno-linguistic group that wishes to have a self-governing administrative structure needs to be recognized as either ‘nation, nationality or people’. For the bigger ethnic groups, fitting into the new ethno-federal structure has been relatively straightforward. In contrast, defining the ethnic identity of several (minority) groups has emerged as an arena of local/regional (re-)negotiation of identity and statehood. These processes thus clearly fit into the ‘negotiating statehood’ research agenda which is the subject of this volume. In fact, the (re-)definition of identity and borders in the two study areas investigated here could be better understood as ‘dynamic . . . processes of state (de-)construction [which] are fuelled by constantly evolving “relations of control and consent, power and authority”’ (Hagmann and Pe´ clard, this volume, citing Munro, 1996: 148). In other words, in Ethiopia today there are contestations — sometimes peaceful and at other times violent — over ethnic identity, territory and entitlement. In several regions of the ethnic federation, activists who could be called ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’5 are mobilizing their constituencies to secure state recognition of their separate identity and self-administrative structures. This chapter analyses how the federal restructuring of Ethiopia led to intrafederal boundary6 conflicts and the renegotiation of ethnic identity among several clans that straddle the Oromia and Somali regions. It focuses especially on two case studies. The first shows how ethnic-based decentralization led to the re-examination of the identity of the Garre and Gabbra clans and a territorial conflict in the Moyale area of southern Ethiopia. The second discusses the Gerri–Jarso dispute in such areas as Chinaksen and Tulli-Guled in the vicinity of Jijiga town, capital of the Ethiopian Somali region. In this case federal restructuring impelled renegotiation of identity between the Gerri and the Jarso. More specifically, through a federal government 4. Federal restructuring refers to devolutionary processes that lead to the federalization of a once unitary political system (Weinstock, 2001). 5. Ethnic entrepreneurs are those ‘ethnic elites’ who have ‘a vested interest in advancing particular agendas’ on behalf of their ethnic groups (Carment, 2003: 31). 6. Intra-federal boundary refers to politico-administrative boundaries that separate units of a given federation.

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organized plebiscite in October 2004 to settle boundary disputes between the Oromia and Somali regional states, more than three dozen Gerri–Jarso kebele were transferred to the Oromia region.7 Insights from these cases indicate how ethnicization of the state and territory induces renegotiation of ethnic identity, which at times tears apart communal ties that have developed over many generations. The primary data for this chapter were gathered through interviews and focus group discussions. The fieldwork for the first case (Borana, Garre and Gabbra) was undertaken in Moyale town in southern Ethiopia in March 2007. The empirical material for the second case (Gerri and Jarso) was collected during fieldwork in 2005/6 in Jijiga and its surroundings. These cases demonstrate the usefulness of the negotiating statehood framework for better understanding how political changes and reforms initiated by powerholders at the centre may open the way for competition over the ‘institutionalization of power relations’ (Hagmann and Pe´ clard, this volume) and its accompanying political and economic dividends among peripheral communities and actors.

ETHIOPIAN FEDERALISM: BORDERS, IDENTITY AND TERRITORIALITY

The radical reorganization of the Ethiopian state into a federation of ethnicities, leading as it did to the intertwining of ethnicity, territory and intra-federal boundaries, is unparalleled worldwide (Clapham, 1996: 247). Predictably, it provoked some polarized reactions. For some, the federal restructuring of Ethiopia was a novel decision that would help end ethnic conflicts (Alemseged, 2004: 606–8; Andreas, 2003: 143; Mengisteab, 1997; Young, 1998: 203). Others have taken a more sceptical view, because of the reliance on ethnicity as the organizing principle of the restructuring, and the accompanying recognition of secession (Abbink, 1997: 172; Lyons, 1996: 125). However, criticism of the federal experiment in Ethiopia is by no means limited to those who are opposed to the elevation of ethnicity as the central instrument of state organization. Such ethno-nationalist movements as the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and others that were initially supportive of ethnic federalism also oppose the present government, on the grounds that it has failed to make good on its promises (see Asafa, 1993: 397; Young, 1998: 194). The federal restructuring of the country set in motion three interrelated processes that strongly impacted on conceptions of identity and territory; these are the subject of this contribution. First, ensuring distinct ethnic identity — which involves the recognition of ‘otherness’ — is a key step towards 7. For administrative purposes, the regions of Ethiopia are divided into zones, which are subdivided into woreda, or districts, and then into kebele, the smallest administrative unit.

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provision of territorial autonomy.8 The process of constructing ethnic otherness also entails a process of boundary making between the self and the other (Madsen and Naerssen, 2003: 62). In fact, as underscored much earlier by Barth (1969: 14), what makes a given ethnic group different from others is its boundaries, the way it makes itself (‘us’) distinct from others (‘them’). Furthermore, notwithstanding the cultural features that signal boundary change from time to time, ethnic groups need to maintain their boundaries to remain distinct from others (ibid.). It is important to note that both the cultural features of identity and ethnic boundaries are subject to change and renegotiation. In this context, the federal restructuring of Ethiopia and the concomitant process of boundary making opened not only new arenas for renegotiating ethnic identity (otherness) and control of ‘ethnic territory’, but also negotiation of statehood. Indeed, these processes show how states in Africa are arenas of constantly changing political processes of ‘negotiation, contestation and bricolage’ at several levels (Hagmann and Pe´ clard, this volume). Second, ethnic autonomy transforms conceptions of ethnic territoriality by control or dominance of bordered space (Agnew, 2005: 442). In other words, the process of matching ethnic and politico-administrative boundaries that ethnic autonomy may entail not only contributes to the transformation of ethnic identity from the realm of the socio-cultural to the political, but also contributes to the crystallization of wider ethnic solidarity (Mbembe, 2000: 267). In fact, the politics of territoriality — control of territory — is inherently problematic and conflict-prone (Anderson et al., 2002: 6). This is relevant to the Ethiopian experience where there is a tendency to create a direct equation between ‘territory’ and ‘ethnicity’, albeit at different levels. In such a situation, conflict is rendered more intractable; since territory is finite and fixed, a ‘zero-sum’ mentality will often result (ibid.). Third, local and regional jurisdiction requires boundaries: boundaries of any kind serve as instruments of inclusion and exclusion (ibid.). In the Ethiopian case, federal restructuring led to the emergence of several conceptions of boundary including inter-regional boundaries between ethnically constituted regions, as well as political boundaries within ethnic regions between ‘titular’ and ‘non-titular’ groups, with implications regarding access to local resources and political representation.9

8. For instance, the Silte successfully negotiated their own zonal administration by challenging their historic association with their large neighbours, the Gurage. The institutions of the federal government mediated the ethnic distinctiveness of the Silte from the Gurage through a referendum (see Markakis, 1998). 9. The term ‘titular’ is taken from Slezkine (1996). In the context of Ethiopia, it refers to those ethnic groups entitled to exercise self-administration within their ethnic homelands (sons of the soil). For instance, the Somali are the titular ethnic group within the Somali region. Non-titular refers to those individuals and groups who live outside their presumed ethnic homelands and are therefore restricted in their political roles.

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The process of intra-federal boundary making in Ethiopia proved to be highly contentious and at times generated violent conflicts (Asnake, 2004). On the one hand, it transformed longstanding hostilities between neighbouring communities like the Borana and the Garre into inter-regional boundary conflicts. On the other hand, it engendered violent clashes between neighbouring ethnic groups that did not have a history of protracted conflicts, like the Gedeo and the Guji in southern Ethiopia (Ayele and Getachew, 2001: 51–2). The process of ethnic regionalization has also affected — and been affected by — long-held perceptions about boundaries which differ between the northern and central highlands and the lowlands of the country. It is generally assumed that nomadic pastoralists like the Somali, who live in the arid lowlands, are averse to fixed boundaries due to their transhumance practices. In contrast, there is a tradition of fixed boundaries between landholdings of individuals and kindred groups in the highland areas such as the Amhara and the Tigre (Clapham, 1996: 239–40). This divide seems to have been breached by ethnic decentralization; today, many Somali clans compete over control of clan territory and seek to have their own administrative structures at different levels. As a result, there is a new type of conflict — ‘political conflicts’ over land and administrative structures, which are distinct from traditional inter-clan conflicts over land resources such as pasture and water (see Hagmann and Khalif, 2006: 34). Ethnic regionalization has also set in motion a process of renegotiating centre–periphery and inter-ethnic clan relationships, particularly in those ethnic borderlands where clans share the identities of their bigger neighbours. This will be demonstrated in the two brief case studies below.

RENEGOTIATING IDENTITY AND BORDERS AMONG THE BORANA, GARRE AND GABBRA

The Borana, Garre and Gabbra clans are predominantly found in the former Borana region that straddles southern Ethiopia and northern Kenya.10 The three groups thus have transnational settlements: the Borana and the Gabbra are found in Ethiopia and Kenya, while the Garre are found in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Within the present administrative setting in Ethiopia, the three groups are found in the Borana and Liban zones of the Oromia and Somali regions respectively. Intra-federal boundary making between the Oromia and Somali ethnic regions forced a renegotiation of inter-clan 10. The original Borana region, in which the Borana were dominant, extended ‘roughly from the Chew Bahir in the west to Dolo in the east and from Ageremariam in the north to Moyale in the south’ (Belete, 1999: 1). Currently, the former Borana region is divided into three administrative zones: the Borana and Guji zones of the Oromia region and the Liban zone of the Somali region.

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relations among the three groups; changes were also observed in centre– periphery relations. In terms of ethnic identification, there are crucial differences among the three clans. While the Borana identify themselves with the Oromo, the Garre and Gabbra share Oromo and Somali ethno-cultural affinities. As a result, many scholars who have studied the groups have had difficulty in identifying whether they belong to the wider Oromo or Somali ethnicities (Getachew, 2003: 1; Turton, 1975: 536). Relations among the three clans have been reconfigured and politicized over the course of many decades. At the end of the nineteenth century, the three groups were divided between the Ethiopian empire and the British colony of East Africa, present day northeast Kenya. Relationships among the three groups underwent further changes during the Italian occupation of Ethiopia (1935–41), while the territorial conflict that emerged between Ethiopia and Somalia after the latter’s independence in 1960 further politicized inter-clan relationships among these three Afaan Oromo speaking groups (Gebru, 1996; Getachew, 1996, 2002; Markakis, 1987; Schlee, 1989; Yacob, 1997). All of these, as well as the ethnic regionalization of Ethiopia since 1991, caused not only renegotiation of relationships between the centre and the periphery but contestations among the three groups as they tried to make use of the new policies in their competition for resources, ranging from territory to political office. Renegotiation of Ethno-political Identity

Ethnic regionalization required the Garre and the Gabbra, who share both Oromo and Somali ethno-linguistic features, to identify themselves with either the Oromia or the Somali region. The process of inter-regional boundary making was thus intertwined with renegotiation of identity. This has been contentious, as taking on one ethnic identity rather than the other implied inclusion or exclusion in terms of entitlements such as representation, access to resources etc. (Schlee and Shongolo, 1995: 8). The responses of the Garre and the Gabbra differed. While the former opted for a Somali identity, the Gabbra are still torn between the Oromo and the Somali. It appears that the Garre ethnic entrepreneurs realized the need to renegotiate their ethnic identity at the beginning of the 1990s. In the initial period of the TGE, when the OLF was considered the second most important political force in the country behind the TPLF/EPRDF, the Garre and other Muslim Oromo clans re-branded the Somali Abbo Liberation Front (SALF)11 as the Oromo Abbo Liberation Front (OALF). The Borana were suspicious of this move as they saw continuity between the SALF 11. The Somali Abbo Liberation Front (SALF) was established in mid-1976 with the support of the Somalia government to spearhead the armed opposition of those Oromo and Somali

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and the OALF in terms of their symbols and clan constituency (Bassi, 1997: 36; Ibrahim, 2005: 49). At the same time the traditional leader of the Garre, Haji Mohammed Hassen Gebaba,12 sought to take the office of OLF representative to the Moyale woreda. Officials of the OLF who were then based in Addis Ababa seemed to have accepted the wish of the Garre leader to represent them in Moyale. But Borana elders saw this move as a skilful machination of the Garre, intended to bolster their territorial claim by taking advantage of the power vacuum created after the downfall of the Derg (Schlee and Shongolo, 1995: 11). When the politics of post-1991 Ethiopia began to take shape, the Garre ended their overtures to Oromo ethnicity. The formation of a separate region for the Somali and the emergence of conflict between the OLF and the EPRDF seem to have weighed strongly in their decision to join the Somali region. Moreover, the large influx of Garre and other Somali ‘returnees’ to the town of Moyale and its surroundings through controversial refugee repatriation programmes provided an additional incentive for the Garre to demand their inclusion in the Somali region (Bassi, 1997; Getachew, 1996). For the Gabbra, by contrast, deciding on the question of whether to join the Oromia or the Somali region proved internally divisive and brought them more conflicts with the Borana. The position of the Gabbra is one of vacillation between the two regions. On the one hand, the Gabbra who are located within Borana-dominated areas like Yabello, Arero and Surpa identify with the Borana, although they make quiet demands for the establishment of a Gabbra special woreda within the Borana zone of the Oromia region. This is opposed by the Borana who fear that if the Gabbra were allowed to obtain a special woreda, they would claim a Somali identity like the Garre, resulting in a further loss of territory. On the other hand, some Gabbra ethnic entrepreneurs who were interviewed in Moyale identify themselves with the Somali and demand the assignment of Moyale town and its surroundings to the Somali region. They emphasize those ethno-cultural affinities such as religion (Islam), ways of dressing, style of constructing houses and others that their group shares with the Garre and other Somali clans. At the end of 1991, the tension that had been building among the three clans since the collapse of the Derg escalated into a major inter-clan conflict, which erupted in many districts where the Borana and the Gabbra live side by side. The conflict led to the loss of hundreds of lives and the displacement of thousands of people (Bassi, 1997: 36–7; Befekadu, 2005: 92). The Gabbra who were displaced from the Borana-dominated areas fled to the north and were given refuge by the Guji, an Oromo clan that has a history of conflict groups who assert dual identities in the former Bale and Sidamo provinces of the country (see Gebru, 1996: 210). 12. Haji Mohammed Hassen Gebaba is one of the descendants of Gerri traditional leaders. He is still considered the traditional leader of the group.

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with the Borana. They settled in a place called Finchwa. But the Gabbra were once again displaced from Finchwa due to another conflict that arose between them and their Guji hosts in March/April 2005. The cause for this conflict appears to have been the suspicion among the Guji that if the Gabbra were to remain at Finchwa, they would demand their own administrative structure and territory. Hundreds of Gabbra displaced from Finchwa are now located in a place called Surpa, between Ageremariam and Yabello on the main asphalt road that connects Addis Ababa and Moyale. They live in makeshift plastic houses. As there is still the potential for violence, the government has deployed troops of the Federal Police in Surpa and its surroundings. Since 1991, the Gabbra have followed a rocky path in identifying their ethnic association. The renegotiation of their ethnic identity has been marked by internal divisions and regular switching back and forth between Oromo and Somali identities. For instance, after the end of the 1991–2 inter-clan violence between the Borana and the Gabbra, the latter reinstituted the Oromo tradition of gada13 which had been weakened over the years by their adherence to Islam. This was intended to dispel Borana fear about the Gabbra’s position in their dispute with the Garre and other Somali clans. Hassen Kella, one of the prominent leaders of the Gabbra, was installed as Abba Gada (head of gada) and was later elected as a member of the Oromia regional council. A few years after the reinstatement of gada, when the idea of joining the Somali region had captured the attention of the Gabbra leaders, they resurrected the Teliya, a traditional Gabbra institution that combines patriarchy and Islam, which is closer to Somali traditional governance institutions. The adoption of the Teliya was an important overture to Somali ethnicity. Hassen Kella, who was earlier appointed Abba Gada, now became the head of the new Teliya. Hassen’s position change accompanied his shift of allegiance from Oromo to Somali ethnicity. At the time of writing, he is advocating Gabbra’s identification with the Somali and the assignment of Moyale town and its environs to the Somali region. When asked about his change of allegiance, he stated that he was involved in the restoration of gada and became a member of the Oromia regional council in order to provide security for his people. But when he realized that these actions had not brought about the desired result, he decided to switch his allegiance to the Somali region. Hassan further defended his position by saying: All the Gabbra in terms of ancestry [genealogy] are Somali. The way we build houses is more similar with the Somali than the Borana. We keep camels like our Somali brothers, while the Borana were traditionally engaged in the husbandry of cattle. We worship one God like the 13. Traditional Oromo society was based on, and its public life administered through, an ‘ageset’ system known as gada, in which all males born into an eight-year generation moved together through five stages of life, thus completing a forty-year cycle. Different rights and obligations were assigned to the males in these five generational grades.

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Somali. In contrast, the Borana have not yet accepted Islam. In sum, we share more similarities with the Somali clans than the Borana. As a result, the Gabbra are not Oromo but Somali.14

In addition to such high profile cases, allegiance switching by Gabbra local and regional officials appears to be a regular phenomenon in the Moyale woreda. In March 2007, the top local news in Moyale was the defection of two members of the Moyale Oromia woreda cabinet to the Somali region. The unresolved dispute over the status of Moyale town between the Somali and Oromo regions could explain why the Somali region provides positions to the Gabbra. If the dispute is to be resolved through a local referendum, prominent Gabbra appointed by the Somali region could mobilize their clansmen in favour of the Somali region. One Oromo official of the Borana zone complains that whenever Gabbra officials in the Oromia region are sacked from their positions, because of either lack of competence or alleged criminal activities, they flee to the Somali region or the Somali region gives them political appointments. Despite their claim of ‘providing security to their people’, Gabbra individuals who are involved in allegiance-switching appear to be largely motivated by personal gain. Indeed, the salaries and other benefits that accompany political offices at local and regional levels are valuable economic resources that entice the Gabbra ethnic entrepreneurs to switch their allegiance from the Oromo to the Somali. Intra-federal Boundary Making

Violent conflicts have occurred between several Somali and Oromo clans that are located along the boundaries of the two regions. Inter-clan violence accompanied intra-federal boundary making in the former Borana administrative region, as long-running territorial and resource disputes between the Borana on one side and the Garre and other Somali clans on the other were turned into inter-regional boundary conflicts between the Oromia and Somali regions. This transformation of the conflict also changed the renegotiation of relationships among the three Afaan Oromo speaking clans. For instance, the formation of the Somali region gave the Garre the opportunity to identify themselves with the Somali, and by placing themselves under the jurisdiction of the new Somali region they were able to legitimize whatever territory they managed to gain from the Borana, their traditional rivals. As described above, the Garre ethnic entrepreneurs chose to join the Somali region immediately after its establishment in January 1993. Soon after that decision, they began laying claim to territories which were either jointly used by them and the Borana or were considered traditional Borana areas. These included two of the nine prominent Borana permanent 14. Personal interview, Moyale, 24 March 2007.

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water wells named El Leh and El Gof as well as Moyale town. In 1994, the Prime Minister’s office of the EPRDF-led TGE delineated the administrative boundary between the Somali and the Oromia regions in the former Borana Administrative region. In a controversial move, the central government assigned El Gof and El Leh to the Somali region on the grounds that there are more Garre (Somali) than Borana (Oromo) inhabiting these localities. The Borana considered this decision unfair. Indeed, one of the chief complaints of their elders against the EPRDF is the transfer of these important water wells to the Garre. The two regions still contest the ownership of Moyale town which lies on the Ethiopia–Kenya border. According to the 2005 estimate of the Central Statistical Agency of Ethiopia, the town has about 25,000 inhabitants. Before 1991, Moyale fell under the Borana Administrative Region, although the majority of its residents were drawn from different parts of the country and were either government employees or business people. The Oromia and Somali regional states have been contesting the ‘ethnic’ ownership of the town since 1995; because of this unresolved territorial dispute, there are now dual and conflicting Somali and Oromo administrations within the town, including Oromo and Somali police stations, courts, public prosecutors’ offices, finance and educational institutions, all with overlapping and competing jurisdictions. The town has been unofficially divided into two zones — the eastern part of the town for the Garre (Somali) and the western part for the Borana (Oromo) — and the asphalt road that dissects the town serves as an unofficial boundary. The continued standoff over Moyale shows how inter-clan relations have become entangled in the new politics of the Somali and the Oromia regions. This ethnic aspect has contributed to the intractability of the conflict. For instance, because the Borana maintain such key elements of Oromo identity as gada and its associated rituals, and consider themselves the ‘eldest’ of all the Oromo clans (Mohammed, 1990: 6), it is politically unacceptable for Oromia regional officials to preside over the transfer of Moyale to the Somali region. The federal government has attempted to resolve the conflict through both political and legal instruments, but without success. ‘Reconciliation’ conferences have been organized and the army and the police have tried to intervene between rival groups, but so far none of these efforts has had significant results. One of the main obstacles to any resolution of the conflict is the polarization between the parties’ positions with regard to mechanisms for dealing with the dispute. The federal constitution prescribes that, when ethnic regions fail to resolve territorial disputes through negotiation, the federal government should organize a referendum so as to enable voters at the kebele level to democratically decide which region they would like to join. While officials of the Somali Moyale woreda opt for a referendum, the Borana strenuously oppose this, arguing that it would only endorse the unjust encroachment of Borana territory.

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When the federal government authorized a referendum to resolve boundary disputes between the Oromia and Somali regions, in October 2004, Moyale town and its neighbouring kebele were included. However, the referendum did not take place in Moyale due to disagreements between the two regions on a number of issues, such as election of public observers and, more importantly, registration of voters (NEBE, 2004: 6). Local Oromo and Somali officials blamed each other for the cancellation of the referendum. Officials of the Oromia Moyale woreda alleged that the referendum was cancelled because the Garre had brought in thousands of people from other areas, including Kenya and Somalia, so that the Somali could prevail numerically over the Borana and secure the contested town. At the same time, officials of the Somali Moyale woreda claimed that pressure was brought to bear by Oromo officials at the regional level, who feared that if the referendum were to be held as planned, they would lose Moyale town.

Centre–Periphery Relations

The reconstitution of the Ethiopian state in the wake of EPRDF’s ascent to state power in 1991 also ushered in a dramatic shift in centre–periphery relationships with respect to the three clans. The Borana — who in the past were staunch allies of the Ethiopian (Imperial and Derg) governments in forestalling Somali irredentism (Gebru, 1996: 210; Yacob, 1997: 20–21) — were now considered by the EPRDF with considerable suspicion. There was a perception in Addis Ababa that they had provided support to the OLF, which had left the TGE and resumed armed insurgency in 1992. Conversely, the Garre and other Somali clans, who in the past were allied to Somalia, became new allies of the EPRDF in its anti-insurgency activities against the OLF. This dramatic change in centre–periphery relations seems to have skewed the local balance of power in favour of the Garre. The Garre sought to seize the opportunity which this shift provided regarding their territorial dispute with the Borana.

RENEGOTIATING IDENTITY AND BORDERS BETWEEN THE GERRI AND THE JARSO

The Gerri–Jarso are located in the hilly region that stretches from the eastern Hararge zone of the Oromia region, to Jijiga in the Somali region, including such localities as Chinaksen and Tulli Guled. The federal restructuring of the country and the concomitant process of intra-federal boundary making led to a re-examination of the relationships between the two groups, which share cultural and linguistic affinities. The Gerri and the Jarso created their alliance some 150 years ago. They are distinct from many of their Somali neighbours due to their

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livelihood — sedentary agriculture as opposed to nomadic pastoralism — and also because of their close association (Barnes, 2000: 28–9; Lewis, 1994: 23). Nevertheless, the two groups differ in terms of ethnic origins. The Gerri clan is a genealogical offshoot of the dominant Darood clan family of the Somali. The Jarso originally belong to the three major Oromo confederacies of the former Hararge province (Mohammed, 1980: 229). However, those Jarso who created an alliance with the Gerri use the Somali language and the Somali traditional administrative institution/contract xeer,15 and are known as ‘Somalized Oromo’. The relationship that emerged between the Gerri and the Jarso after the formation of their union was characterized by asymmetry. The former became the local aristocratic clan, while the latter — although the numerically larger group — were reduced to being tenant farmers (Farah, 1996: 134). Over the last several decades, relations between the Gerri and the Jarso have become more strained and volatile, with the latter trying on many occasions to undo the hierarchical relationship that has prevailed between the two groups. The recasting of the Ethiopian state into an ethnic federation and the resultant intra-federal boundary making process impelled a renegotiation of identity between the two groups. As a result of this process, the Gerri and Jarso are now divided between the Oromia and the Somali regions. In other words, the centrally initiated boundary-making process unleashed a contestation for power and territory by local actors in a manner articulated by the negotiated statehood framework which is the focus of this volume. Renegotiation of Ethno-political Identity

The asymmetrical relationship that prevailed between the two groups gained renewed political relevance after the formation of the Oromia and Somali ethnic regions at the beginning of the 1990s (Ambroso, 1994: 22). Within the Somali region, political developments gave conflicting signals to the two groups. The Gerri appear to have calculated that the dominance of Darood clans, particularly of the Ogaden to whom they are genealogically related, could provide them with an opportunity to reclaim their authority over the Jarso and to repossess farming land. According to informants in Jijiga, some Gerri clansmen during their repatriation from Somalia at the beginning of the 1990s were repeating the slogan ‘land to its former owners’. This obviously unnerved the Jarso. In 1992, the ONLF’s refusal to allow representatives of the Jarso to address an all-Somali clans’ conference convened by the ONLF in Degahabur, on the grounds that the Gerri would speak on their behalf, strengthened Jarso 15. Xeer refers to the customary contract/law that exists between Somali clans concerning (among other things) payment of blood money. For more on this, see Lewis (1999).

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wariness about the new Darood-dominated region. Consequently, some Jarso ethnic entrepreneurs, who felt that in the new ethnic federal structure in Ethiopia, their interests would be better served by joining the Oromia region than staying within the Somali region, began to rally behind Oromo political movements such as the OLF and the Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia (IFLO). With tensions already mounting between the two groups, IFLO’s opening of a party office and the hoisting of its flag in the small Gerri–Jarso town of Tuli Guled in the vicinity of Jijiga precipitated a serious outbreak of interclan violence in 1992. This conflict saw the involvement of Oromo armed movements like the IFLO on the side of the Jarso, and Darood Somali clans, particularly the Jijiga-based Jidwak,16 on the side of the Gerri. The interethnic war was intense and both parties used heavy weapons such as cannons mounted on vehicles. Ex-soldiers of the disintegrated armies of Somalia and Ethiopia participated on both sides. After six months of fighting, in which hundreds died and thousands were displaced, the Jarso gained the upper hand and managed to take control of some areas including Chinaksen and Qocher. The Jarso’s hold of Chinaksen gave them control of an important trading route that connects the highlands of Hararge to the ports of Somaliland. The route serves as a transit for contraband goods from Somalia to the Ethiopian hinterland and the distribution of khat17 to Somalia. In mid-1992, the EPRDF sponsored a reconciliation between the two groups. Both parties agreed to cease hostilities and about 15,000 displaced Gerri and Jarso returned to their villages. The government and international aid agencies provided assistance to rehabilitate the displaced Gerri and Jarso farmers (Brabant, 1994: 53). After the restoration of calm, the process of renegotiating Gerri–Jarso relations in the context of the new Somali and Oromia regions continued. Jarso ethnic entrepreneurs approached officials of the OPDO and the newly established Oromia region and demanded their group’s inclusion in Oromia because of its Oromo background. The Jarso ‘delegation’ met with high-ranking OPDO officials. Reportedly, almost all of the OPDO officials told the Jarso delegates that, as they are closer in language and culture to the Somali, they should peacefully live in the Somali region. Their aspirations to join the Oromia region spurned, the Jarso began to involve themselves in Somali regional politics. When dozens of Somali clan parties were established in 1992, they created a political party, the Jarso Democratic Movement (JDM), popularly known as Jehan Jarso. The party’s main goal was to gain a woreda level of administration for the Jarso within the Somali region. 16. The Jidwak clans who are based in the Jijiga woreda of the Somali region include the Bartirre, the Abasgul and the Yabere. They belong to the Darood clan family and are thus genealogically close to the Gerri. 17. A green stimulant leaf that is widely used in eastern Ethiopia and Somalia, khat is also one of the major items that is exported from the Hararge highlands to Somalia.

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The JDM joined the newly established Ethiopia Somali Democratic League (ESDL)18 in 1994. Once the JDM and numerous other smaller clan parties had joined, the Gerri and other Darood clans rushed one after the other to be included in the new party, fearing that their local rivals would otherwise be at an advantage. The arrival of both the Jarso and the Gerri within the fold of the EPRDF-allied ESDL was seized upon by both regional and federal officials as a good opportunity to ‘resolve’ their conflict. High-ranking army and government officials, including ex-prime minister Tamarat Layne, reportedly told representatives of the two parties to put aside their differences and work together within the ESDL. The reconciliation between the two groups in 1994–5 was mediated by the political centre and underpinned by a compromise requiring the Jarso not to push the question of ethnic (Oromo) identity and the Gerri to respect the socio-economic interests of the Jarso, namely by maintaining the status quo regarding land ownership (Ayele and Getachew, 2001: 57). Following this reconciliation, the Jarso participated for the first time in Somali regional elections in 1995 on the ESDL platform. The two groups agreed to share the six seats that were allocated to them for the regional and federal parliament (Roble, 1996). Moreover, when the ESDL formed the Somali regional government in 1995, it gave some key positions to politicians of the two groups. For the first time, the administrative structures of the Somali region were extended to such Jarso-dominated areas as Chinaksen, which had remained off limits to the region since the 1992 conflict. Even after the merger between the ‘legal ONLF’19 and the ESDL to establish the Ethiopian Somali Democratic Party (SPDP) in 1998, political appointments were given to the Jarso at regional and local levels. For almost a decade after 1995, no major incidents were reported between the Gerri and the Jarso, as the two groups steadily rebuilt their battered relationship. However, Gerri–Jarso relations took a different course when, in 2004, the federal government organized a referendum to decide on the fate of hundreds of disputed localities along the boundaries of the Oromia and the Somali regions.

Intra-federal Boundary Making

The decision made by the House of Federation of the federal government to carry out a referendum in hundreds of kebele along the contested Oromo– Somali boundary in 2004, and the inclusion of eighty-eight kebele from the Jijiga woreda where the Gerri and the Jarso live intermingled, led to a new phase in the relationship between the two groups. 18. For more on the rise and decline of the ESDL, see Samatar (2004). 19. This was a faction of the ONLF which eschewed armed insurgency and decided to work within the system.

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Initially, both Gerri and Jarso leaders pledged to stand together and campaign for the Somali region. Members of the Somali regional government also promised that if Chinaksen (the main Gerri–Jarso town) were awarded to the Somali region, its status would be raised to the level of a woreda. Nevertheless, as the actual date for voting approached, the common position of the two groups began to falter. Some elders and influential personalities within the Jarso saw the referendum as an opportunity to decide conclusively on the land question and their group’s subservience to the Gerri. They began to campaign in favour of joining the Oromia region. When the results of the referendum were made public in November 2004, forty-three Gerri–Jarso kebele were assigned to the Oromia region, while forty kebele remained within the Somali region.20 More importantly, the town of Chinaksen was allocated to the Oromia region. The outcome of the referendum shocked not only the Gerri but also officials of the Somali region and other prominent Somalis. A noted Somali commentator claimed that the whole process was a deliberate policy of ‘resizing the Somali Regional State (Region 5) to an ever shrinking arid area . . . . [And] a shrewd way to satisfy Oromo political demands’ (Roble, 2005). Somali politicians in the regional and federal government characterized the process as flawed. The referendum did not achieve the elusive task of bringing ethnic and regional boundaries into line. Many Gerri are left within the kebele that were transferred to the Oromia region, while Jarso continue to live in the kebele that were assigned to the Somali region, as well as in other parts of the Somali region, especially Jijiga town, where they are engaged in businesses. However, the exercise did have an adverse effect on relations between the groups, and led to an internal division within the Jarso: while some Jarso supported the maintenance of Gerri–Jarso localities within the Somali region, others opted for Oromia. Centre–Periphery Relations

In this case, too, ethnic regionalization and the concomitant intra-federal boundary making led to the re-examination of centre–periphery relations. One important outcome of this process in eastern Ethiopia was the ending of an overarching solidarity between the Islamic Oromo clans and the Somali against Addis Ababa that had reached its climax during the 1970s (see Lewis, 1980: 412). In addition to this, Gerri–Jarso relations were influenced by political developments at the centre after EPRDF’s rise to power, particularly the conflict that emerged between the OLF and the EPRDF. After the former began its armed insurgency in 1992, the highlands of eastern Hararge became its 20. In the remaining five kebele the results of the referendum were either cancelled or the referendum did not take place (NEBE, 2004).

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stronghold. During this period (1992–4) the Jarso had difficulties with both the EPRDF and the OLF. The troops of the former suspected that the Jarso were providing assistance and shelter to the combatants of the latter, while the OLF demanded support and employed harsh measures against those Jarso who failed to co-operate. In 1994, the elders of the Jarso and the troops of the EPRDF brokered a ‘peace deal’ in which the former pledged not to give cover to the OLF and to co-operate with the latter in its antiinsurgency activities. Following this ‘agreement’, the Jarso militia that was created with the support of the EPRDF army came to play an important role in maintaining law and order in areas such as Chinaksen and TulliGuled. The militia also provided assistance to the army. The improvement in relations between the Jarso and the government was also followed by a flourishing of the contraband trade that uses Chinaksen as its transit point. The Jarso militia established check points at Chinaksen to collect tariffs on khat export to Somalia and incoming contraband goods from the Somalia coast to the Ethiopian hinterland. This ‘taxation’ helped to cover their expenses. Until 1995, Chinaksen and its environs were part of neither the Oromia nor the Somali region: they were Jarso ‘autonomous’ enclaves. This changed in 1995 when, as noted above, the structures of the Somali regional government were for the first time extended to Chinaksen and its environs. We have already seen how the 2004 referendum once again helped to define the relationships between the two groups and the central government. The negotiating statehood framework is a useful lens to examine these shifts and changes. Among other things, it concerns itself with a ‘more grounded approach to statehood whose starting point is empirical and not judicial’ (Hagmann and Pe´ clard, this volume). CONCLUSION

The political, economic and security impacts of African state boundaries have been examined by many scholars. However, relatively little attention has been paid to the impacts of intra-national political boundaries on interethnic relations and conflicts. This is partly the result of the belief that intra-state boundaries are just lines of geographic jurisdiction of administrative units within a single country and hence of little political significance (Stewart, 1990: 101). Such an approach, as demonstrated here, fails to grasp situations in which federal restructuring leads to an ethnic federation, such as in Ethiopia. In ethnic federations which are created through devolution (unlike older federations such as Switzerland, where the defined borders of the constituent members pre-date the federal union), making the boundaries of the new sub-units is likely to lead to violent conflicts and to the renegotiation of ethnic identity and centre–periphery relations. In terms of an analytical framework, the negotiating statehood research agenda examined in this volume provides important insights for studying

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how centrally driven projects of state (re-)construction provoke competition/conflict among local actors using different resources such as narratives of identity, and discourses on self determination and democracy. These processes redefine not only relationships between the centre and the periphery but also among peripheral peoples. In other words, examining the responses of local actors to ideologically or strategically inspired top-down policies of state restructuring, such as those undertaken in Ethiopia since 1991, give us a fuller picture of how the state is defined and redefined on a continual basis at several levels. The two case studies presented here reveal the diverse reactions of clans along the Oromo and Somali ethnic frontiers to the process of intra-federal boundary making. In the first case, ethnic regionalization led to a reexamination of the ethnic identities of the three Afaan Oromo speaking communities. The formation of the ethnic regions required that these groups, particularly the Garre and the Gabbra who share ethno-linguistic affinities with both the Oromo and the Somali, choose one of the ethnic regions. This elicited different responses from the two groups. While the former decided to take on a Somali identity, the latter remain divided. As a result of the dispute between the Oromia and the Somali regions, dual administrative structures now exist with competing and at times conflicting jurisdictions in Moyale town. The failure of attempts by the federal government to resolve this dispute can be largely attributed to the intense polarization that exists between the two conflicting parties. In the second case, intra-federal boundary making led to the renegotiation of relations between the Gerri and the Jarso. Sections of the Somalized Jarso, who have traditionally occupied a lower social and economic position vis-`a-vis the Gerri, decided to join the newly constituted Somali region. This decision can partly be explained by their uneasiness about their future, particularly regarding land ownership, in a Somali region dominated by Darood, to whom their ‘brothers’, the Gerri, are related. Insights from these cases show how ethnicity, territory and boundary became intertwined in the federal restructuring of Ethiopia. In other words, the emphasis on the matching of politico-administrative and ethnic boundaries led to a rigorous ethnicization of territory. This principle has been recognized by the constitution and other legislation, but the process has been problematic and has been accompanied by violent conflicts. This is not surprising: any policy that seeks to match ethnic and intra-federal boundaries is likely to foment sub-state nationalism (Mbembe, 2000: 267). As noted by Murphy (1995: 93), when ethnic regionalization attempts to make territories into ‘spatial surrogates of large-scale, potentially self-conscious cultural communities, most territorial conflicts become community conflicts as well’. Murphy’s observation has some validity for the Ethiopian case where territorial/resource conflicts between neighbouring communities have evolved into inter-ethnic and inter-regional conflicts. This has adverse implications for the management of territorial conflicts, for a number of reasons.

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The emphasis on ethnicity as the key instrument for the territorial organization of the federation not only reinforces territorial claims and counter claims by rival/competing ethnic groups but also fails to appreciate the difficulty of dividing all the peoples of the country into predefined ethnic categories. The culture of shifting ethnic identity of the Gabbra and the Garre between the Oromo and the Somali is a case in point. The new demand placed on these ethnic communities to be either Oromo or Somali tears apart their shared affinities and adds to the risk that any conflicts between them and their neighbours become protracted. The emergence of incipient nationalism within the ethnic regions further complicates the task of finding an amicable solution to territorial conflicts. On the one hand, the process of crafting intra-federal borders has given opportunities to those groups with a history of territorial expansion (such as the Garre) to legitimize whatever territory they have seized. On the other hand, those ethnic communities who have lost (or are still losing) territory because of the expansion of neighbouring communities seek to use the boundary-making exercise to ensure the restoration of ‘their’ lost territories. This polarization in the expectations of the different actors makes the task of boundary making contentious and potentially conflictual. Finally, although intra-federal boundary making provides new arenas for renegotiating ethno-political identities, as demonstrated by both cases, wider relations are still characterized by the dominance of the centre over the peripheral ethnic groups. Hence, the centre plays the crucial role in mediating the claims and counter claims of these groups. As a result, possibilities for local peacemaking are limited. The federalization of Ethiopia and its associated processes were not only conceived and implemented in a top-down fashion, but were also sanctioned through the political and military powers of the central government in Addis Ababa. Thus changes at the centre in the future may also trigger new rounds of renegotiating identity, borders and centre–periphery relations at the Oromo–Somali ethnic frontiers. Experience has shown that centrally initiated and implemented policies of federal restructuring and boundary making generate contestations and conflicts among local actors. These responses redefine the very notion of statehood in peripheral communities and territories.

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Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa, Khartoum, Sudan (15–19 December). Getachew Kassa (2003) ‘Field Report of the Study of the Impact of Inter-group Conflict in Liban Zone, Somali Region and Gujji and Boran Zones of the Oromia Region on Family, with Particular Emphasis on Women, Children, and the Elderly’. Addis Ababa: Save the Children (SC)-US. Gleason, Gregory (1990) ‘Leninist Nationality Policy: Its Source and Style’, in H.R. Huttenbach (ed.) Soviet Nationality Policies: Ruling Ethnic Groups in the USSR, pp. 9–23. London: Mansell. Hagmann, Tobias and Mohamud H. Khalif (2006) ‘State and Politics in Ethiopia’s Somali Region since 1991’, Bildhaan: An International Journal of Somali Studies (2006): 25–49. Hutchison, John and Anthony D. Smith (1996) ‘Introduction’, in J. Hutchison and A.D. Smith (eds) Ethnicity, pp. 3–14. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Ibrahim A. Elemo (2005) The Roles of Traditional Institutions among the Borana Oromo, Southern Ethiopia: Contemporary issues in Borana and the 38th Gumii Gaayoo Assembly. Addis Ababa. Lewis, I.M. (1980) ‘The Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) and the Legacy of Sheikh Hussein of Bale’, in J. Tubiana (ed.) Modern Ethiopia: From the Accession of Menilek II to the Present, pp. 409–515. Rotterdam: Balkema. Lewis, I.M. (1994) Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar and Saho (new edn.). London: Haan Associates. Lewis, I.M. (1999) A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. Hamburg: LIT Verlag. Lyons, Terrence (1996) ‘Closing the Transition: The May 1995 Elections in Ethiopia’, The Journal of Modern African Studies 34(1): 121–42. Madsen, Kenneth D. and Ton van Naerssen (2003) ‘Migration, Identity, and Belonging’, Journal of Borderlands Studies 18(1): 61–75. Markakis, John (1987) National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Markakis, John (1998) ‘The Politics of Identity: The Case of the Gurage in Ethiopia’, in M.A.M. Salih and J. Markakis (eds) Ethnicity and the State in Eastern Africa, pp. 127–46. Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet. Mbembe, Achille (2000) ‘At the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty in Africa’, Public Culture 12(1): 259–84. Mengisteab Kidane (1997) ‘New Approaches to State Building in Africa: The Case of Ethiopia’s Ethnic-Based Federalism’, African Studies Review 40(3): 111–32. Mohammed Hassen (1980) ‘Menilek’s Conquest of Harar, 1887, and its Effect on the Political Organization of the Surrounding Oromo up to 1900’, in D.L. Donham and W. James (eds) Working Papers on Society and History in Imperial Ethiopia: The Southern Periphery from 1880 to 1974, pp. 227–46. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press for African Studies Centre. Mohammed Hassen (1990) The Oromo of Ethiopia: A History 1570–1860. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Munro, W.A. (1996) ‘Power, Peasants and Political Development: Reconsidering State Construction in Africa’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 38(1): 112–48. Murphy, Alexander (1995) ‘Belgium’s Regional Divergence: Along the Road to Federation’, in G. Smith (ed.) Federalism: The Multiethnic Challenge, pp. 73–100. London: Longman. NEBE (2004) ‘Report to the House of Federation on the Results of the Referendum on the Boundary between Oromia and Somali Regions and Recommendation for Decision’. Addis Ababa: NEBE (National Electoral Board of Ethiopia). Roble, Faisal (1996) ‘The Death of an Era and the Demise of the Community: EPRDF’s Manipulation of Somali Clans’, Ethiopian Review (online edition). http://ethiopianreview. homestead.com/FeatureFaisalRobleApr96.html (accessed 20 June 2005).

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Roble, Faisal (2005) ‘Somalis: You ‘ain’t seen nothing’ yet’, Hirran Online. http://www. hiiraan.ca/2004/dec/op/Faisal_Roble.htm (accessed 11 August 2005). Samatar, Abdi Ismail (2004) ‘Ethiopian Federalism: Autonomy versus Control in the Somali Region’, Third World Quarterly 25(6): 1131–54. Schlee, G¨unther (1989) Identities on the Move: Clanship and Pastoralism in Northern Kenya. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Schlee, G¨unther and Abdullahi A. Shongolo (1995) ‘Local War and its Impact on Ethnic and Religious Identification in Southern Ethiopia’, GeoJournal 36(1): 7–17. Slezkine, Yuri (1996) ‘Ethnoterritorial Units in the USSR and Successor States’, in V. Bonnell (ed.) Identities in Transition: Eastern Europe and Russia after the Collapse of Communism, pp. 92–102. Berkeley, CA: Center for Slavic and East European Studies, University of California at Berkeley. Stewart, Ian (1990) ‘More Than Just a Line on the Map: The Political Culture of the Nova Scotia–New Brunswick Boundary’, Publius 20(1): 99–112. TGE (1992) ‘Proclamation 7/1992, A Proclamation to Provide for the Establishment of National/Regional Self-Governments’, Negarit Gazeta 51st Year. Addis Ababa: Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE). Turton, E.R. (1975) ‘Bantu, Galla and Somali Migrations in the Horn of Africa: A Reassessment of the Juba/Tana Area’, The Journal of African History 16(4): 519–37. Weinstock, Daniel (2001) ‘Towards a Normative Theory of Federalism’, International Social Science Journal 53(1): 75–83. Yacob Arsano (1997) ‘The Impact of State Intervention on Land and Traditional Leadership in Borana’. Research Report submitted to the ISS. The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. Young, John (1998) ‘Regionalism and Democracy in Ethiopia’, Third World Quarterly 19(2): 191–204.

5 Facing Up to the Centre: The Emergence of Regional Elite Associations in Angola’s Political Transition Process

Inge Ruigrok

INTRODUCTION

‘The Angolan nation is a reality in the process of integration and consolidation, in which there are elements of integration that are still weak and others that are already consolidated’, Angola’s long-standing president Jose´ Eduardo Dos Santos stated during the opening ceremony of the Symposium on National Culture that took place in the parliamentary buildings in Luanda in September 2006.1 Such public acknowledgment of the country’s fragile national unity by the head of state — during which he emphasized that ‘freedom and cultural pluralism are better guaranteed in big states, recognized as multicultural, than in small states that pursue policies of cultural homogeneity and ethno-linguistics’ — would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. In his speech, the president is referring to a growing trend in Angola which is hard for state leaders to ignore: the increased reclamation of cultural identity and demand for self-governance by Angola’s distant regions through claims that are often couched in the language of development.2 Perhaps not coincidentally, the presidential speech followed the peace deal a month earlier with a splintered secessionist movement in the oil-rich enclave Cabinda that claimed that the province has its own distinct history and culture, was illegally occupied by the MPLA government in 1975, and should therefore be entitled to self-rule. But as Rau´ l Fernando Ju´ nior, mayor of Saurimo in the diamond-rich Lunda Sul province signalled: Autonomy today is not a whim. It is necessary that people feel represented in something. Autonomy is synonymous to local development . . .. History shows that in a geographical configuration people join each other when they feel that need, and separate themselves when

The author would like to thank the editors of this volume and the anonymous reviewers of Development and Change for their valuable comments. 1. Speech by president Jos´e Eduardo dos Santos, in the opening session of the Third Symposium on National Culture, Luanda, 11 September 2006. Author’s own translation. 2. See, for example, ‘Tchokw´es tambem reclamam autonomia’ (‘Tchokw´es also demand autonomy’), Folha 8, 12 August 2006. Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard  C 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Inge Ruigrok they think that outside of it all they will feel better. This happened a short while ago with Montenegro, which separated itself from Serbia.3

The tendency towards an increasingly fractured national unity is at variance with the conclusions drawn in several recent analyses of Angola. The Angolan case, it would seem, rather matches the descriptions and predictions advanced by a political-economic analysis of the relation between the presence of natural resources and the nature of state institutions (Cilliers, 2000; Frynas and Wood, 2001; Hodges, 2004; Karl, 1997; Le Billon, 2001; Malaquias, 2001; Munslow, 1999; Power, 2001; Reno, 2000). According to this view, the competition for control over natural resources influences the nature of the regime and the institutions of the state. High levels of rents generate widespread corruption, reducing the need for state leaders to enter into long-term political agreements. Less accountable leaders and increased autonomy of the state vis-`a-vis its citizens are thought to characterize governance in such ‘resource-cursed’ countries, as the case of Angola allegedly shows. From such an analysis it follows that the Movimento Popular de Libertac¸a˜ o de Angola (MPLA — Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) would emerge as all-powerful as the country moves through the current phase of post-war reconstruction. Not only is its long-time rival Uni˜ao Nacional para a Independˆencia Total de Angola (UNITA — National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) hardly more than a shadow of its former self following the death of its leader Jonas Savimbi in a government ambush in February 2002, but the post-independence war which lasted almost three decades also ended shortly thereafter. Resource-rich Angola is one of the few African states, if not the only one, that can afford to rebuild its institutions and infrastructure with relatively little help. This means it is under no obligation to meet criteria such as a ‘good governance’ record as stipulated by Bretton Woods institutions and international donors. Firmly in charge of the state and the resources to which it gives access, the MPLA managed to take control of all democratic institutions, while deploying its long-standing strategy of cooptation to neutralize possible opponents and to safeguard its rule (Messiant, 2001). Even if there is little doubt that the MPLA wields enormous control over ongoing political developments in Angola, this is but one part of the story. Indeed, as this chapter contends, the long and drawn-out transition process that started in the 1990s with the introduction of neoliberalism and democracy seems to have prompted a wide range of actors to attempt to influence the process before rules are set into laws. Associations established by an educated, urban elite that identifies with a particular region are the primary means for such a negotiation process on statehood. 3. ‘Administrador do Saurimo: autonomia e´ sin´onimo de desenvolvimento local’ (‘Mayor of Saurimo: Autonomy is a synonym of local development’), Cruzeiro do Sul, 12 August 2006. Author’s own translation.

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As a means of representing local interests, these associations are acquiring increasing political significance, a development which is facilitated by deeply felt social and political exclusion resulting from war and a centralized state that hardly reaches the periphery where these associations find themselves. While they target the central state in an attempt to obtain more advantageous political dispensations for the groups they claim to represent, and are thus seeking greater access to state resources, these associations draw on a collective local memory and symbolic repertoires either to legitimize or contest claims of belonging. This growing tendency in Angola towards reasserting boundaries and differences with a view to obtaining greater opportunities, economic entitlements, cultural recognition and political representation mirrors developments elsewhere (Geschiere and Gugler, 1998; Geschiere and Meyer, 1999; Geschiere and Nyamnjoh, 2001; Nyamnjoh, 2007; Nyamnjoh and Rowlands, 1998). In recent years, the affirmation of a specific identity, rather than the transcendence of it, became important while culture is now part of the lexicon of political conflict itself (Nyamnjoh, 2007). Particularly on the African continent the entwinement of increased corporate exploitation of valuable resources and the neoliberal logic of the world economy have only exacerbated the insecurity felt by ordinary people. Renewed affirmations of roots and origins are invoked by democratization and multiparty politics in Angola. The fear of being outvoted by ‘strangers’ was often expressed in the popular neighbourhoods of Luanda during the run-up to the parliamentary elections in September 2008. This led to moves by the government to tighten and clarify the criteria for citizenship as part of the electoral package, making it more difficult for non-nationals to acquire the Angolan nationality. Similarly, the law on political parties was altered; a new law forbids the existence of political parties with a local or regional character.4 The preoccupation that these measures reflect is not far-fetched, as testified by the elections of September 2008. In diamond-rich Lunda Sul, the Partido de Renovac¸a˜ o Social (PRS — Party for Social Renewal) — which has little support nationally — won almost as many votes as the MPLA in that province and now approximates the size of the ‘party in power’.5 Focusing on Hu´ıla province, this chapter seeks to examine and demonstrate how actors ‘on the ground’ negotiate their lives as citizens in relation to a centralized and authoritarian state. However humble the scale might still be, it illustrates how these actors contest and reshape the state’s apparent hegemony through the mobilization of particular repertoires. Two 4. Law 2/05 of 1 July, article 5.2. 5. PRS won 41.74 per cent of the votes in Lunda Sul, and 23.94 per cent in Lunda Norte. The MPLA won 50.54 per cent and 65.34 per cent in the respective provinces. See: http:// www.cne.ao for details.

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case studies form the basis of this enquiry: the quest for political-territorial reorganization of Associac¸a˜ o dos Naturais e Amigos de Kuvango, Jamba e Chipindo (Anakujachi — Association of Natives and Friends of Kuvango, Jamba and Chipindo) and the defence of the autochthonous population of Associac¸a˜ o Solidariedade Nyaneka-Humbi (SNH — Nyaneka-Humbi Solidarity Association). The studies are largely based on fieldwork conducted as part of a doctoral thesis on negotiating governance and the political reconstruction of Angola. Besides a literature and documents study on sub-national state reforms in Angola, the chapter contains interviews conducted locally, mainly in Luanda, Lubango and various former war zones in northern and eastern Hu´ıla province over a period of eleven months between September 2005 and April 2007. Before turning to the two regional elite associations in Hu´ıla province, their goals, strategies and the material and symbolic resources on which they draw, the Angolan state itself is the topic of discussion in the next two sections. A brief historical overview of state formation in Angola is provided to set out how it came to be so centralized, both in terms of how it is perceived and its actual reach. The chapter then analyses what is widely seen as the key remedy for such centralism, notably the downscaling of the state through sub-national administrative and political reforms.

THE ANGOLAN STATE: CENTRALIZATION AND REGIONAL INEQUALITY

The Angolan state represents an interesting paradox: state power is enormously concentrated in the capital Luanda and is further confined to areas where some economic development has taken off since late colonial times, namely the urban areas along the coast and in the agricultural heartlands in central Angola. From there, state power radiates outward but becomes increasingly diffused the greater the distance from the centre. Large parts of Angola have not come under the control of the state. At the same time, state power is extremely well protected, and concentrated in the executive branch of government, especially in the presidency. Such characteristics, one could argue, contribute to making the Angolan post-colonial state both weak and strong. The roots of such an extremely centralized but poorly consolidated state can be traced to colonial times. For Portugal, conquering the territory that is Angola today was both challenging and costly (Clarence-Smith, 1979; Dias, 1976). Therefore, for a long time, its rule remained highly differentiated, incomplete and vulnerable (Bender, 2004; Roque, 2003). By 1900, about four centuries after the first traders, explorers and soldiers set foot on this part of the African continent, roads and bridges beyond the coastal areas still had not been constructed, reliable maps were not available, and the rail network from Luanda reached the eastern border only in 1929.

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Colonial administrative laws became more consistent only with the rise of the Salazar dictatorship in 1926 (Guedes, 2003), although compared to its European counterparts Portugal remained a poor colonial power with little to invest. Despite Lisbon’s increased seriousness about policy making, colonial state institutions remained unequally dispersed across Angola’s regions. The effects of colonialism were therefore felt more on the coast than inland and, with the exception of Luanda, more in the south than in the north. Vast stretches of eastern Angola in particular experienced colonial rule for less than a century and remained on the margins of colonial state administration and economic development (Anderson, 1962). Despite such a poor distribution of state power, Portugal still left deep marks on Angolan society through its control of education and the promotion of the Portuguese language as the backbone of colonization. Whereas Portugal had previously assumed that Africans would somehow naturally be assimilated into European society, the colonial regime under Salazar established definite standards they had to meet to qualify for rights, and institutionalized the Portuguese native policy. These laws, in particular the Estatuto Pol´ıtico, Civil e Criminal dos Ind´ıgenas (1929), separated the indigenous population from a small elite of ‘civilized’ individuals (assimilados). The latter, who resembled the Portuguese through physical attributes and lifestyle, were therefore given citizenship rights and placed at the top of the hierarchy of the subjected. The ‘natives’, in contrast, were legally confined to the margins of the state administration and were subjected to forced labour (Cruz, 2005). Such an arbitrary system of classification created socio-political and economic differences among the population and reinforced the seeming distance between the interior and the coast, between town and countryside. After independence in 1975, the pattern of regional inequalities inherited from colonial Portugal was hard to break because of the war. Continued violence made it impossible to open up state administrative offices and to establish a functioning local government in certain areas, let alone to communicate and implement state policies nationally. Until the late 1990s, Angola was partly under UNITA’s control, although its Terras Livres de Angola (Free Angolan Lands) had fluid boundaries, depending on military successes and setbacks. In the southeast and in central Angola the armed opposition had established a pseudo state, which contained relatively welldefined social and political structures, although UNITA always remained a military organization (Heywood, 2000). The constant problems of factionalism within the MPLA (Birmingham, 1978; Mabeko-Tali, 2001) formed a major obstacle to the establishment of an effective territorial state presence through the assignment of loyal party cadres. Remedies were sought in more mobilization and agitation campaigns, by endless restructuring of state bodies, or by the replacement of personnel,

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such as during the ‘general offensive’ launched in 1981.6 But these measures were not effective enough. Due to the perpetuation of the pattern established in colonial times, those geographically closest to government received the most benefits. Furthermore, not only the Portuguese state structures but also colonial practices remained intact, despite the MPLA’s intense desire for a radical overhaul. Officials preserved the strict hierarchies and the material benefits of power which had marked Portuguese rule. Accountability and transparency remained vertical in the top-down administrative culture, which tended to stifle initiative and generate excessive red tape. This lack of change reinforced the perception in the interior that the MPLA, with its roots originally in Luanda, was giving economic preferential treatment and armed protection to the towns, while abandoning the countryside (Birmingham, 2002; Carvalho, 2002). During its first decades of rule the main concern of the MPLA was regime survival rather than realizing the ideals of state building which fuelled the liberation struggle against the Portuguese. It negotiated a democratic system with its long-term rival UNITA as part of the Bicesse peace agreement in 1991 which was sealed with multiparty elections a year later. However, Angola’s first experience with democracy was marked by political tensions which eventually accumulated to erupt anew into war. A second peace deal — this time negotiated in the Zambian capital Lusaka and signed in 1994 — also collapsed precipitately in late 1998. Yet the skewed transition to democracy since the early 1990s had greatly benefited the MPLA. Having won the 1992 election, it progressively gained international recognition as the legitimate government of Angola, which was underlined by the watering down of the ‘triple zero’ clause in the Lusaka Protocol,7 the changed American policy towards Angola and the series of United Nations sanctions imposed on UNITA. At the same time, the MPLA 6. This campaign was designed to ‘detect irregular situations and sabotage’ within the state, to improve discipline, to re-establish the authority of the party and the government, and ‘to elevate the rhythm of the revolutionary march’. The restructuring efforts mainly focused on the selection of members of party cells, who on the whole were criticized for not complying enough with party rules and activities. See: Relat´orio do Comit´e Central ao II Congresso do MPLA-Partido do Trabalho, Material de Estudo para o Ano de Instruc¸a˜ o Pol´ıtica 1986/87 [Report of the Central Committee to the Second Congress of the MPLA-Workers Party. Study Material for the Political Instruction Year 1986/87], p. 17. Luanda: MPLA Workers’ Party. Author’s own translation. 7. This clause already formed part of the Bicesse agreement which demanded the ‘cessation of accepting lethal material, whatever its origin’, prohibited supplying arms to either side, and required the establishment of border control posts at thirty-seven points along the frontiers, as well as controls at thirty-two airports and twenty-two ports (Bicesse Accords, part II, article 7j). In the Lusaka Protocol, the clause was no longer part of the protocol itself, but of its annex. This meant that in terms of the text of the agreement, rearmament constituted a real violation for UNITA, while it was no longer a legal problem for the government.

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continued to dominate all state institutions and by implication the reform process — just as it did in socialist times due to the failed power-sharing arrangements with its opponent. These dynamics set the stage, in late 1998, for the MPLA’s uncompromising ‘war for peace’ strategy to deal with what president Dos Santos called two wars: against UNITA and against the dire economic situation. Part of this strategy was not just vigorous military action and the use of international criminal law aimed at the total isolation of Savimbi’s UNITA, but also a thorough reshuffling of the government.8 President Dos Santos appointed a new and heavy-handed economic team, replaced the defence minister and temporarily abolished the premiership, assuming government leadership himself until Fernando ‘Nando´ ’ Piedade dos Santos was appointed as prime minister in early 2003. This was a significant move, which provoked much criticism, as it de facto installed a particularly strong presidential system in Angola, unaccompanied by a revision of the 1992 constitutional law (Guedes, 2003).9 It has been argued that the increased presidentialism in Angola was a function of a particular kind of ‘privatization of the state’, made possible by a combination of two factors: a long, drawn-out war and the abundance of oil (Messiant, 2001). Power became increasingly centralized and, with those in the higher echelons of the state apparatus increasingly preoccupied with satisfying the needs of strategic groups, such as career politicians, high-placed civil servants, and senior army officers, the general population was inevitably forced to find their own survival mechanisms in ever-expanding informal markets, while war-related identities became firmly established in society and part of the social fabric.10 8. Parliament declared Jonas Savimbi a ‘war criminal’ and ‘international terrorist’, directly involved in ‘acts of war against the Angolan people’, and called for his and his collaborators’ prosecution, nationally and internationally, stressing the need for the total annihilation of the rebellion headed by Savimbi. See ‘Assembleia Nacional, Resoluc¸a˜ o que declara Jonas Savimbi criminoso de guerra e terrorista internacional’ (‘National Assembly Resolution that Declares Jonas Savimbi an International War Criminal and Terrorist’), 27 January 1999, available at http://www.parlamento.ao. 9. Constitutionally, Angola has a semi-presidential system with a two-tier executive power, and a joint responsibility — of the president and the prime minister — to parliament. 10. In the perception of many people in the provinces, for instance, political power seems to be reserved for someone from Luanda. At the same time, in the Luandese popular mind southerners are all Bailundo, which is used to indicate someone who is not civilized, an individual who does not understand the urban reality, a displaced person. This stereotype dates back to colonial times, and was commonly used to describe forced labourers from the central highlands — with reference to the old Bailundo kingdom — who were sent to the coffee plantations in the north, or to the fisheries in Namibe. It acquired another negative connotation in the aftermath of the uprising in northen Angola on 15 March 1960 against the colonial regime. Many so-called ‘Bailundos’ were killed as ‘collaborators’, since they were working for Portuguese fazendeiros (large farmers) and did not join the revolt in large numbers. Finally, the stereotype gained new significance during the war. Ovimbundu

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NEGOTIATING THE LOCAL STATE: THE SUB-NATIONAL REFORMS

Considering Angola’s political trajectory, the state reforms that are currently on the agenda are perceived as a possible counterbalance to the state administrative system with a strong presidential, as opposed to a parliamentary orientation. The assumption is also that scaling down the state presents a mechanism for conflict resolution in that it promotes grassroots democracy and stimulates the development of local economies beyond the oil sector. After all, deconcentration and decentralization disperse power to local and sub-regional units — which contrasts with the current situation where power is concentrated in the hands of a few in Luanda. The central question is how much control the central state is willing to relinquish and to what end. For state officials at ‘the centre’, decentralization could serve as an instrument to legitimize the political-administrative system. The reform process could also become a tool for the consolidation of their hold on power. Institutional development in Angola has shown little consistency throughout the years as legal principles of decentralization and deconcentration co-existed with administrative practices and legislation that prefigured a state administration that became ever more centralized (Guedes, 2003).11 Local initiatives were to be contained and made consistent with state interests.12 Before turning to these contemporary political questions, it is important to note that Angola’s current state administrative system is not genuinely the product of multiparty negotiations. In 1991, during the Bicesse peace process that signified Angola’s transition to democracy, the constitution was only partially revised, leaving full revisions and the approval of the final constitution to the multiparty Assembleia Nacional which was supposed to be formed after the elections of September 1992.13 But as war broke out from the historically significant town of Bailundo were the most privileged in the ethnic hierarchy that Savimbi had created in his UNITA movement. 11. By the early 1980s, for example, the co-existent discourses of democracy and authoritarianism had grown to be at untenable odds with each other. The first of these discourses comprised deference to popular initiatives, democratic control of institutions, the virtues of mass participation in the exercise of power and the consolidation of state administration throughout the national territory. Participac¸ao popular responded to the need for moral restoration after colonialism. The authoritarian rhetoric, by contrast, stressed hierarchy, sharp formal distinctions of power and authority, and comandismo of the top leadership, which replicated itself down the chain of authority (Mabeko-Tali, 2001, Vol I: 133). Ideology had become a weapon of power and served to identify those who were close to the regime and those who were dangerous to it. 12. Political decentralization is by no means new to Angola. The principle of local power (poder local) already featured in the 1975 constitution, and was put into practice in the 1980s through the establishment of People’s Parliaments (Assembleias Populares) in the provinces, and in some parts also at municipal level. 13. Law 12/91 of 6 May 1991 and Law 23/92 of 16 September 1992; the master plan for the dismantling of the socialist state — As Bases Gerais da Revis˜ao Constitucional Democr´atica e Multipartid´aria (BGRC — The General Basis for the Democratic and Multiparty Consti-

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again, such an approval never took place. Instead, it was a one-party (MPLA) parliament that approved the ‘democratic’ constitution. Consequently the shape of the state, the configuration of state power and the preconditions of rule are still hotly debated issues in today’s political reconstruction process. During the constitutional negotiations between 1998 and 2009, the greatest point of dispute was whether or not Angola should become a federal state, and to what extent there should be regional autonomy. As for the government (and the MPLA), in official documents and speeches it always emphasizes the unitary and undivided nature of the Angolan state. This singular support for statehood (estadualidade) excludes the possibility of pluralist state forms such as federalism or confederalism (Feijo´ , 2001: 66; 2002). In contrast, during the constitutional negotiations practically all opposition parties were in favour of a federal system. Some opposition parties went as far as proposing to redraw the provincial boundaries according to those of pre-colonial kingdoms (Guedes, 2003: 123–4).14 Considering the MPLA’s overwhelming power in Angola’s political institutions, the creation of a federal state was out of the question. Consequently, the focus of debate shifted to the position of the provincial governors. Essentially, the issue revolved around the question whether these powerful figures in the regions should continue to be nominated by the president, and answer to him in the vertical chain of state authority relations, or if they should be democratically elected. Determining who controls which province is crucial for strategic reasons because of the human and natural resources that vary greatly across regions. For the central state, control over the national territory through a network of trustworthy allies is vital considering the long-term divisions created by the war situation. It is hardly surprising, then, that the MPLA-dominated government was opposed to the idea of provincial elections, proposing instead to restrict the elected bodies to the less powerful and less risky municipal tier of government. As Carlos Feijo´ (2001: 147), an Angolan lawyer and former presidential advisor on public law, has argued, ‘the provincial space does not function as a community, and is too distant to citizens’. tutional Revision) — consisted of three phases. First, the reform plans had to be approved by the MPLA’s Central Committee and the party-congress. This happened in July and December 1990. Second, a first revision of the constitution took place in May 1991, followed by multiparty talks among twenty-six political parties, from 14 to 25 January 1992, and bilateral meetings between UNITA and MPLA from 31 January to 20 February 1992. Third, a second revision law was adopted in September 1992. The newly elected parliament would eventually approve the full constitution. 14. The Partido de Renovac¸a˜ o Social (PRS — Party for Social Renewal), which has its voter base in the eastern Lunda provinces, argues that Angola should become a federal republic formed by six states: Cabinda, Congo (encompasing the provinces of Za´ıre and U´ıge), Ngongo (today’s Bengo, Luanda, Malanje and Kuanza Norte provinces), Planalto Central (Humabo, B´ıe, Kuanza-Sul and Benguela provinces), Lunda (Lunda-Norte, LundaSul, Moxico and Cuando-Cubango provinces), and Mandule (Cunene, Namibe and Hu´ıla provinces).

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Opposition parties wanted further democratization of the provincial government to act as a counterweight to extensive presidential powers. Proposals varied from a directly elected provincial assembly, which could hold the provincial government politically accountable, to the more moderate suggestion of a continuation of presidential nomination but under the guidance of political parties that obtained a majority in an electoral district (Guedes, 2003: 124). The MPLA agreed to a compromise in the draft constitution of 2004 stipulating that it would no longer be the president who appoints provincial governors but the political party that wins most votes in a certain province during the parliamentary elections.15 This compromise was withdrawn in the definite constitution of 2010; governors will continue to be nominated by the president.16 A guiding principle of state reform is gradualismo, which means that change must be slow and external pressure to accelerate the pace is unlikely to be effective. In part, gradualismo is a reaction to the experience of rapid democratization in the early 1990s, not least through an unrealistic agenda set by the international community that was still influenced by Cold War dynamics.17 During the renewed war that broke out after the 1992 elections, the MPLA almost completely lost control of the country as, contrary to UNITA, it had demobilized its troops. Yet it has also been argued, particularly by outside observers, that gradualismo is part of the MPLA’s strategy to dictate the conditions of the transition, and that it is simply unwilling to loosen its grip on central state power. Such concerns were reinforced by the results of the elections of September 2008, during which the MPLA secured a landslide victory with close to 82 per cent of the votes, while UNITA won just over 10 per cent.18 The restructuring of government at sub-national level indeed reflects the gradualismo principle. It has been a slow process, especially regarding the politically more sensitive matter of democratic decentralization which entails the institutionalization of locally elected bodies at municipal level (autarquias locais). Points of action set out in a Strategic Plan19 adopted by the

15. Draft Constitution of the Republic of Angola, January 2004, article 262. 16. Constitution of the Republic of Angola, February 2010, article 201.3. 17. Wright (2001) has argued that the national reconciliation process was not necessarily the objective of the USA in Angola. US support for Savimbi to gain power extended back to the CIA’s initial contacts in 1974, and was so deep that the Clinton administration could not reframe the crisis. Only as recently as 1998 did the USA stop insisting on Savimbi’s participation in the national government. 18. Official results, including a breakdown per province, are available at http://www.cne.ao. 19. See ‘Desconcentrac¸a˜ o e Descentralizac¸a˜ o em Angola, Volume II: Plano Estat´egico da Desconcentrac¸a˜ o e Descentralizac¸a˜ o Administrac¸a˜ o e Estudo sobre a “Macro-estrutura da Administrac¸a˜ o Local”’ [‘Deconcentration and Decentralization in Angola, Volume II: Strategic Plan for Administrative Deconcentration and Decentralization and Study of the “Macro-structures of Local Administration”’]. Luanda: UNDP/Ministry of Territorial Administration (2003).

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Council of Ministers in 2002 are behind schedule, including the approval of a law that would establish the locally elected bodies. So far, only the process of administrative deconcentration has been taken further, which entails the transfer of powers and tasks from the central state to existing sub-national state organs (´org˜aos administrativos locais) and which ensures the central state’s direct administration of the national territory.20 The main purpose of the laws of 1999 and 2007 is to enhance the institutional capacity of provinces, municipalities and communes, and to increase their involvement in the execution of tasks that were originally concentrated in ministries at the national level. One could say that what exists today is a form of direct state administration: the deconcentrated state bodies do not administer the interests of citizens locally, nor are they representative organs. Significantly, two crucial departments that respectively have coercive powers and revenue — the Ministry of Interior, in charge of internal security and the police force, and the Ministry of Finance, responsible for the state budget — enjoy an exclusive status as organs not subject to deconcentration. These sector-departments (sectores) are not integrated into the sub-national government, and thus remain under close supervision of the centre.

REGIONAL ELITE ASSOCIATIONS IN HUI´LA PROVINCE

It is within this historical and political setting that associations focusing on a particular region or population group have emerged in Angola. Such associations are a relatively new phenomenon, as under socialism, organizations in the countryside were confined to the MPLA party state. Development programmes were steered by the state and its satellite organizations such as the neighbourhood commissions, youth committees and mass organizations, while the UN system, the International Red Cross and some ‘friendly’ donors such as the Scandinavian countries brought humanitarian aid. The only non-governmental groups allowed to operate in the 1980s were church organizations such as Conselho Angolano de Igrejas Evang´elicas (Angolan Council of Evangelical Churches), Caritas Angola and Alianc¸a Evang´elica de Angola (Evangelical Association of Angola). This changed as a new political situation emerged in the early 1990s with the transition from socialism to a multiparty system during the Bicesse peace process. Novel freedoms enshrined in laws opened the way for the arrival of a large number of international development organizations, leading to the establishment of a hotchpotch of national organizations in their wake. Most are

20. Constitutional Law of 1992, article 145 to 147; the Angolan local government system is based on the Portuguese constitution adopted after the 1989 revision (Feij´o, 2001: 64).

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registered under Law 14/9121 as NGOs, along with opposition parties, private media, independent trade unions and professional bodies (Vines, 2005). The pattern in Angola differs somewhat to that which unfolded elsewhere in Africa where self-help development was a response to the unwillingness of the colonial state to provide social welfare services widely and coincided with the rise of African nationalism in the 1940s and 1950s, which continued after independence.22 Although independent action, especially in the provinces, thus far largely occurs within the parameters defined by the MPLA-dominated government, the regional associations have become more visible in recent, post-war years. On the one hand, the associations are a response to and remedy against a centralized state system which essentially deprives regions of political influence and sufficient economic resources. On the other hand, the upsurge of such organized voluntary groups is a reflection of a broader, global trend in which culture increasingly merges with politics, a development which Arjun Appadurai has referred to as ‘culturalism’: ‘the conscious mobilization of cultural differences in the service of a larger national or transnational politics’ (Appadurai, 1996: 15).23 Associac¸a˜ o dos Naturais e Amigos de Kuvango, Jamba e Chipindo (Anakujachi)

Anakujachi was established in 1993 in Hu´ıla’s capital Lubango, but it focuses on the eastern part of the province. This area, which encompasses the districts of Kuvango, Jamba and Chipindo was greatly affected by the war, in particular by the violence that broke out after the 1992 elections. As a key town in UNITA’s military operations in Bie´ and Huambo provinces, Kuvango was continuously in the frontline during the 1990s, in turn occupied by government troops and UNITA rebels, and practically inaccessible to humanitarian aid organizations until the end of the war in 2002. Chipindo, which is situated to the far northeast of Hu´ıla province, was incorporated into UNITA’s territory and was consequently cut off from formal state influence for more than ten years. Part of the population left for safer grounds in Lubango or other more urbanized areas, such as Matala 21. A new law (Decree 84/02) has recently altered Law 14/91 as the government found it necessary to regulate the involvement of NGOs in the current post-war transition. Under the new law, NGOs are obliged to abstain from ‘political and partisan actions’. The law also places conditions on the employment of expatriates, and demands that NGOs submit detailed reports on their activities to the governmental co-ordinating body, the Unidade T´ecnica de Coordenac¸a˜ o da Ajuda Humanit´aria (UTCAH — Technical Unit for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid). 22. See, for example, Barkan et al. (1991) for Nigeria. 23. Appadurai’s term ‘culturalism’ is associated with ‘extraterritorial histories and memories, sometimes with refugee status and exile, and almost always with struggles for stronger recognition from existing nation-states or from various transnational bodies’ (Appadurai, 1999: 15).

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where state officials of Chipindo also lived in some sort of ‘exile’ after UNITA substituted them with their own administrators. The already fragile local economy broke down as the iron mines of Jamba closed and access roads, bridges and other infrastructure collapsed under the impact of warfare. However, even before the violence really started to escalate in the early 1990s, chiefs (sobas) in the three districts had become increasingly dissatisfied with the poor public services in their regions and questioned the government’s commitment to the well-being of the distant eastern corner of the province — and even the region’s inclusion in the province of Hu´ıla. Other provincial capitals, particularly Huambo and Menongue, were closer and easier to reach than Lubango. Isolation — also from state services — worsened as the war destroyed all access roads from Lubango to the eastern part of the province. As one founding member of Anakujachi put it: ‘We considered this population abandoned. In war time, it was like being in another country as nobody left from there to come here, or the other way around’.24 An educated urban elite originating from the region — having been born there, and still having family living in the area while they themselves have migrated to urban areas for study and employment opportunities — picked up these sentiments of having suffered disproportionately compared to other districts. In response, they founded Anakujachi as an NGO under law 14/91, operating in Hu´ıla province.25 Although the headquarters of Anakujachi was in Lubango during the war, it is now based in Kuvango with nucleos (sub-divisions) in Chipindo and in Jamba. A co-ordinator, a vice co-ordinator and a secretary take care of daily business, while several ‘departments’ such as information, demobilization, education and youth, women and finance carry out specific projects. This formal structure exists mainly on paper; in practice Anakujachi functions much like an NGO with few resources. Funding is largely received from associates and via informal mechanisms and personal contacts. The actual role of Anakujachi is cloaked in the language of development. During the war, it assisted internally displaced people (deslocados) from the ‘home region’ who were more or less concentrated in an area called Palanca which borders the district of Humpata on the outskirts of Lubango. It built a school for children, where women could attend literacy classes in the evening. It gave assistance to the deslocados to find a means to survive. Anakujachi also participated in the government’s relocation programme to help people return to their home region in eastern Hu´ıla province as soon as the war ended in 2002. It assisted in creating the basic conditions for return to the three districts, namely the recovery of infrastructure such as bridges and starting up the local production and processing of honey and wood. It 24. Interview 7 (Lubango, 13 April 2006). 25. The founder-president of Anakujachi is a university professor in Lubango; another prominent member is the daughter of an old family of sobas who runs a local women’s organization in the provincial capital.

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also succeeded in bringing television to Kuvango which turned the district into one of the first outside the provincial capital to have a relay station. But behind the fac¸ade of development, there is a highly political project. Anakujachi seeks provincial status for eastern Hu´ıla province, legitimized by a plan dating back to colonial times. The primary reason for establishing the association was therefore not humanitarian development work but the old colonial project that needed further research to justify the region’s deeply felt desire for increased self-governance. A few members of Anakujachi who used to work for the Portuguese colonial state bureaucracy searched the archives for maps and documents that would prove that the administrator of Vila Artur de Paiva, as Kuvango was called in colonial times, wanted to create a province out of eastern Hu´ıla. That plan had fallen through as the war for independence broke out in 1961 and the MPLA opened a front in its sixth region that encompassed Hu´ıla. Nevertheless, Anakujachi sought to continue ‘where the white men left off’ as ‘it is much easier if a plan already exists than to start everything from scratch’. Despite the fact that the proposal for provincial status and increased autonomy was drawn up in colonial times, Anakujachi says ‘it is a foundation for what people in the region are thinking’.26 Consequently, using the existing colonial plan as a basis, the association submitted a formal request for provincial status for the three districts in a communique´ to the Ministry of Territorial Administration in Luanda in 2002. The request was rejected. The rationale behind Anakujachi’s move is that as a province, eastern Hu´ıla would get more resources from central government, and more public services. Under the current system the central state budget is equally divided among the provinces, regardless of size or population. Municipalities, in turn, have to submit an annual plan to the provincial government to obtain a budget. Contacts with Lubango are slow because of the difficult access. Provincial status would also provide more possibilities to retain revenues generated by the extraction of resources locally. The region has sizeable iron deposits, and even gold and diamonds. In short, money would have to be divided among fewer people. Neither is it a coincidence that the three municipalities — Kuvango, Jamba and Chipindo — are joined together in one association. In colonial times this area more or less formed a single district that was later split into three; more importantly, however, the area formed the heartland of the old kingdom of Ngangela, an ethnic minority of Hu´ıla province that forms a majority in the three eastern municipalities. Whilst not openly admitted, the outer boundaries of the new province would ideally be drawn according to the political-administrative delineations of the Ngangela kingdom. This means that the new province, besides Kuvango, Jamba and Chipindo, would encompass the district of Chitembo in Bie´ province, Kuvelai in Cunene and Cuxi in Cuando-Cubango. 26. Interview 7 (Lubango, 13 April 2006).

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Associac¸a˜ o Solidariedade Nyaneka-Humbi (SNH)

A second regional association in Hu´ıla province is Associac¸a˜ o Solidariedade Nyaneka-Humbi (SNH), which presents itself as a civic and religious ‘solidarity’ association without any political affiliation. According to its statutes, the objective of the SNH is to bring together Christians and non-Christians, while membership is open to ‘all who show solidarity, friends and beneficiaries’. But despite the neutral language in which the statutes are written, the association focuses on what it sees as a specific population group, namely Nyaneka-Humbi, and its self-affirmation and identity. Nyaneka-Humbi is not a population group but rather a sort of umbrella term that encompasses a diverse range of ethnic groups with distinct languages and identities, living mostly in southern Angola (Melo, 2003). Why the founding members chose the broader term is closely connected to the reason for establishing the association in the first place, namely to discuss the ‘cultural problems’ of Nyaneka-Humbi and to promote their social and spiritual development.27 The individual cultures and languages that constitute Nyaneka-Humbi, such as Nyaneka or Vankhumbi, involve groups that are too small in terms of numbers and territory to have a significant impact. There are simply too few people. However, the close relationship among the different groups allows them to transcend ethnic boundaries and unite under Nyaneka-Humbi which offers a more comprehensive and broader identity. It is also regarded as more effective since such a unity gives weight to its claims and statements as a group before large population groups like the Ovimbundu. Demands that are made to advance local interests include a range of issues from land rights to cultural heritage and demands for incentives to study ‘national’ languages, disseminating ‘national’ culture via the media, the translation of books and the conduct of research to preserve traditions. SNH, which was founded in 2000 in Lubango, seems to function much more on an intellectual and political level than as an association that provides humanitarian or development aid to the population group it claims to represent. The association seeks to identify the location of the groups that belong to the Nyaneka-Humbi language and culture and to increase awareness about them in society at large and, more specifically, among policy makers and politicians. The aim is to break their isolation, to end ‘ethnic discrimination’ and to bring Nyaneka-Humbi into an equal relationship with other groups so as to obtain the same benefits. More specifically, the establishment of SNH was a reaction to the rapid urbanization that took place in Angola from the early 1990s on. The largescale migration to the cities was caused by the war which made a sustainable livelihood in rural areas impossible. The massive influx of war-affected populations turned urban areas — mostly the provincial capitals such as 27. Interview 49 (Lubango, 3 February 2007).

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Lubango that had remained relatively safe — into multi-ethnic and multiregional settings, dramatically changing the urban landscape and putting enormous pressure on already fragile public services and resources. In the words of the association’s president, Lubango became ‘an Eldorado’ when the war was ignited in the surrounding provinces. People from Huambo, Bie´ and Moxico — ‘almost the whole country’ — came to Lubango, to Namibe and to other coastal towns such as Luanda, Lobito and Benguela.28 Competition for jobs and plots of land is intense in urban and peri-urban areas, provoking the reassertion of group identity. Increased insecurity caused by war, migration as a result of globalization and political competition as part of democratization have led to a situation where cultural identity is embraced and affirmed to mark difference. For the Nyanka-Humbi, their ‘homeland’ has changed radically: So, today we have a phenomenon. Before it was difficult to find people in Lubango who speak Umbundu. But now, you will hear much Umbundu being spoken in the city. Also the Ngangelas came here. The Chokwe also. Now Lubango is a multicultural city. And the strange thing is that we, the Nyanekas, are now a minority. The autochthones, the people from here, now only make up a third of the city’s population, not even a third. And what does this lead to? The city becomes ugly. It becomes dirtier as it was not prepared for all these people. Imagine, a city with fewer than 50,000 inhabitants in 1976 today has close to a million people! There is not enough land. Before it was easy to find a plot but not anymore. People want to return to their place of origin but they are not confident enough. They think that when the elections come, there will be war again. So they stay here. These are the costs of the war, very high costs.29

SNH functions through monthly meetings among the associates, in addition to church gatherings throughout the province. Towards the Angolan state, SNH is careful not to overstate its regional and ethnic character. In its statutes, for example, the association speaks of ‘national culture’, while Nyaneka-Humbi culture is clearly what is meant. Yet, once again, the boundaries between the state and the association are blurred. The current president of the association is a relatively highly placed official in Hu´ıla’s provincial government. The association says it has established a new relationship with the government in recent years, as local authorities are ‘interested in knowing what associations want’, while the association seeks to ‘communicate people’s problems to those who are governing, even to put pressure on them. The governantes do not want to lose popular support, so now there is a closer relationship between the government and the people’.30 Just like Anakujaci, the members of SNH are following the state administrative reforms in the country closely; for this population group, too, an own territory is on its wish list.

28. Interview 49 (Lubango, 3 February 2007). 29. Interview 49 (Lubango, 3 February 2007). 30. Interview 53 (Lubango, 6 April 2007).

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In future there will be more provinces in Angola, because the cultural indicators are many. Nobody wants to be smothered by another ethnic group. Here in Hu´ıla province, the Nyanekas feel a bit cramped. They feel confused and are afraid to lose their culture. So problems exist. These are reforms; it is not to split up the country. The president recently issued a dispatch on political-administrative revisions and created a commission to investigate this. So who knows? It has to be examined thoroughly; it cannot be done quickly. 31

This possibility does not seem to be on the agenda of the central government: a senior official in Luanda confirmed that ‘administrative divisions are under debate in Angola but not the administrative borders of the provinces’.32 REPRESENTATION: THE TWO REGIONAL ELITE ASSOCIATIONS COMPARED

Although SNH and Anakujachi are two different organizations with divergent aims — political-territorial reorganization for the latter and the assertion of group identity in an urban context for the former — there are several similarities in their approach to negotiating novel institutional relationships in the Angolan context. The question is what these associations represent in terms of their ability to influence the political process. To begin with, the associations seem to have been born out of frustration on the part of an elite that is situated outside Luanda and which is unable to realize its political aspirations in Angola’s centralized and stratified state system — even if they work for the sub-national government. It is an elite that is linked to certain groups that have always resisted assimilation and acculturation with the result that members of these groups were left behind in terms of social mobility within the colonial system. With independence this began to change; younger generations are more assertive and more exposed to outside influences, whether through education, mass media, increased mobility because of the war or urbanization. In recent years these elites have had greater opportunity to pursue their political aspirations. Since Luanda is far, and the state is distant, both in a geographical and cultural sense, people seem increasingly to prefer someone from their home region to be in charge of local state affairs. Moreover, in Angola’s multiparty electoral system, representation is generally left to civil society organizations, such as associations, rather than to political parties. Political parties hardly serve as ‘transmission belts’ through which people’s concerns can be brought from the local to the national level and from informal to formal political arenas. This is because the party-political culture in Angola has been greatly inflated and distorted. In the elections of September 2008, ninety-eight political parties were officially registered. In many cases support beyond the leader, his family and associates is minimal. 31. Interview 49 (Lubango, 3 February 2007). 32. Interview 45 (Luanda, 18 April 2007).

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Grants from the central government combined with the personal fortunes of their founders have generally been sufficient for these parties to maintain a kind of juridical presence, but the performance of most of them has failed to attract widespread support or mount a meaningful challenge to the older parties. This is mainly due to their lack of vision, and presence outside urban areas. The two associations were clearly created to serve overtly political ends, targeting the centralized state for economic resources and cultural recognition, albeit implicitly. While Anakujachi signals an attempt to break the silence of abandonment and isolation, SNH is a response to the arrival and expansion of other population groups from outside ‘Nyaneka territory’ whose presence is experienced as threatening. The association is the embodiment of an ethnocentric sentiment of anxiety about ‘others’ who come and take away resources that provide opportunities for survival, such as land. Here, just as in the case of Anakujachi, collective memory and preindependence history serve as the basis for legitimizing present-day sentiments. In the mind of Nyaneka, those from the north, especially the Kimbundu people who historically live in the hinterland of Luanda, are ‘Munano’, which literally means ‘people from above’. They invaded the southern territories of Nyaneka around 1850 to plunder and to steal animals (Carvalho, 1995: 229–30). Remembrance of this past conflict that became known as the ‘war of Nano’, and even of Angola’s repressive colonial history, grounds group assertiveness and generates alternative visions of state reform projects. Moreover, both associations have packaged their claims in development terms and are trying to take a stand against the Angolan state by positioning themselves as majorities, whether through the reconstruction of the Ngangela kingdom or through transcending Nyaneka-Humbi ethnic boundaries. Concealed in this strategy lies a practice that was used in colonial times. The Portuguese tended to treat smaller, essentially autonomous groups as parts of larger entities. These populations, like Nyaneka-Humbi today, seized upon these names to improve their status.33 This shows that ethnic nationalism is not only a societal force; it is also a political construction that reflects broader institutional legacies. Regional-ethnic sentiments that could fuel separatist tendencies are carefully managed in Angola. A common strategy of the Angolan state to keep possible opponents or opposing groups at bay is to absorb them by making promises and concessions. Consequently, the state is increasingly working with the associations on political-strategic projects in Hu´ıla province. For instance, Anakujachi received government support for a research project focusing on distant villages where it was found that — apart from the fact that 33. Among the first to do so were mestic¸os in the Luanda area. Although most spoke Portuguese and had a Portuguese male ancestor, the mestic¸os often spoke Kimbundu as a home language. Over time, they initiated the development of a common Mbundu identity.

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they receive no government services due to difficult access — about 13,000 people were not ‘controlled’ by the municipal or provincial government in the sense that they are not counted as potential voters. The strategy of Anakujachi has been to make sure that its representatives obtain positions of relative power at national and regional levels where they can advance the interests of their region. The association is widely perceived as having obtained a certain degree of influence by accepting the state’s strategy of co-optation and by attracting an educated elite from the region.

CONCLUSION

Even if state hegemony appears to be almost absolute, negotiating statehood is not only a task reserved for officials and politicians who operate in formal political arenas, as the case of Angola shows. At the fringes of the state administration, emerging elites have established associations claiming to represent a certain region or ethnic group while the institutional structure of the state and the region’s relations to the centre are taken up as negotiation issues. Even if the influence of the associations does not yet reach further than making waves in a polity dominated by the MPLA, they could certainly play a role in reinforcing strong regional solidarity in the face of economic insecurity, political exclusion and cultural marginalization, and give political expression to fears of exclusion. Such sentiments could lead to an increase of exclusivity ideas about citizenship, or even xenophobic violence as recently witnessed in Ivory Coast and in the townships of South Africa against fellow Africans. On the other hand, the ethnic-regional sentiments equally have the potential of becoming liberating forces, as opportunities for making claims on the state are slowly arising. As Stuart Hall (1990: 224) observes, ‘hidden histories’ have played a critical role in the emergence of many of the most important social movements — feminist, anti-colonial and anti-racist. Much depends, in reality, on the strategies of the Angolan state, and the extent to which it will accommodate these emergent forces in the post-war era. In the eyes of local people, the stakes involved in the sub-national state reforms that are currently on the political agenda are high. For a conglomeration of towns or villages to be transformed into a higher state administrative level such as province means gaining access to infrastructure and state resources. Such measures to renegotiate new relations between regions thus have the potential to alter existing power relations, and may finally correct colonial regional inequalities, which continue to exist because of the long war and the heavily centralizing policies of the MPLA-dominated government. Even as the state reconstructs its boundaries, it maintains its direct administration of localities through a deconcentration process that has not so

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far established organs sensitive to citizens’ interest and desires for political participation. REFERENCES Anderson, Perry (1962) ‘Portugal and the End of Ultra-Colonialism. Part I’, New Left Review I(15): 83–102. Appadurai, Arjun (1996) Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Barkan, Joel, Michael McNulty and M.A.O. Ayeni (1991) ‘Hometown Voluntary Associations, Local Development and the Emergence of Civil Society in Western Nigeria’, Journal of Modern African Studies 29(3): 457–80. Bender, Gerald J. (2004) Angola under the Portuguese: The Myth and the Reality. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Birmingham, David (1978) ‘The Twenty-Seventh of May: An Historical Note on the Abortive 1977 Coup in Angola’, African Affairs 77(309): 554–64. Birmingham, David (2002) ‘Angola’, in P. Chabal (ed.) A History of Postcolonial Lusophone Africa, pp. 137–84. London: Hurst and Company. Carvalho, Paulo de (2002) Angola, Quanto Tempo Falta Para Amanh˜a? Reflex˜oes Sobre as Crises Pol´ıtica, Econ´omica e Social [Angola, How Much Time Until Tomorrow? Reflections on the Political, Economic and Social Crisis]. Oeiras: Celta Editora. Carvalho, Ruy Duarte (1995) ‘O Futuro j´a comec¸ou? Transic¸o˜ es pol´ıticas e afirmac¸a˜ o identit´aria entre os pastores Kuvale (Herero) do sudoeste de Angola’ [‘Has the Future already Begun? Political Transitions and Identity Affirmation among the Kuvale (Herero) Pastoralists of Southwestern Angola’], Lusotopie (December): 221–37. Cilliers, Jakkie (2000) ‘Resource Wars, a New Type of Insurgency’, in J. Cilliers and C. Dietrich (eds) Angola’s War Economy: The Role of Oil and Diamonds, pp. 1–20. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies. Clarence-Smith, William Gervase (1979) ‘The Myth of Uneconomic Imperialism: The Portuguese in Angola, 1836–1926’, Journal of Southern African Studies 5(2): 165–80. Cruz, Elizabeth Ceita Vera (2005) O Estatuto do Indigenato, a legalizac¸a˜ o da discriminac¸a˜ o na colonizac¸a˜ o Portuguesa [The Native Statute, the Legalization of Discrimination in Portuguese Colonization]. Luanda: Ch´a de Caxinde. Dias, Jill (1976) ‘Black Chiefs, White Traders and Colonial Policy near the Kwanza: Kabuku Kambilo and the Portuguese, 1873–1896’, Journal of African History 17(2): 245–65. Feij´o, Carlos (2001) Problemas Actuais do Direito P´ublico Angolano: Contributos para a sua compreens˜ao [Contemporary Problems of Angolan Public Law: Contributions to an Understanding]. Cascais: Principia. Feij´o, Carlos (2002) ‘O poder local em Angola’ [‘Local Power in Angola’], in A. Correia (ed.) A Constituic¸a˜ o Angolana: Temas e Debates [The Angolan Constitution: Themes and Debates], pp. 221–43. Luanda: Universidade Agostinho Neto. Frynas, Jedrzej George and Geoffrey Wood (2001) ‘Oil and War and Angola’, Review of African Political Economy 28(90): 587–606. Geschiere, Peter and Josef Gugler (1998) ‘The Urban–Rural Connection: Changing Issues of Belonging and Identification’, Africa 68(3): 309–19. Geschiere, Peter and Birgit Meyer (eds) (1999) Globalization and Identity: Dialectics of Flow and Closure. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Geschiere, Peter and Francis Nyamnjoh (2001) ‘Capitalism and Autochthony: The Seesaw of Mobility and Belonging’, in J. Comaroff and J. Comaroff (eds) Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism, pp. 159–90. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Guedes, Armando Marques (2003) Pluralismo e Legitimac¸a˜ o. A edificac¸a˜ o jur´ıdica p´os-colonial de Angola [Pluralism and Legitimization: The Post-colonial Juridical Construction of Angola]. Lisbon: Almedina.

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Hall, Stuart (1990) ‘Cultural Identity and Diaspora’, in Jonathan Rutherford (ed.) Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, pp. 222–37. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Heywood, Linda (2000) Contested Power in Angola: 1840s to the Present. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Hodges, Tony (2004) Angola: Anatomy of an Oil State. Oxford: James Curry. Karl, Terry Lynn (1997) The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-states. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Le Billon, Philippe (2001) ‘Angola’s Political Economy of War: The Role of Oil and Diamonds, 1975–2000’, African Affairs 100(398): 55–80. Mabeko-Tali, Jean-Michel (2001) Dissidˆencias e Poder de Estado. O MPLA perante si pr´oprio, Ensaio de hist´oria pol´ıtica [Dissidences and State Power. The MPLA Facing Itself. An Essay in Political History] (Vol. I: 1962–1974). Luanda: Editorial Nzila. Malaquias, Assis (2001) ‘Making War and Lots of Money: The Political Economy of Protracted Conflict in Angola’, Review of African Political Economy (28)90: 533–47. Melo, Rosa (2005) ‘“Nyaneka-Nkhumbi”: uma carapuc¸a que n˜ao serve aos Handa, nem aos Nyaneka, nem aos Nkhumbi’ [‘“Nyaneka-Nkhumbi”: A Label that Fits neither the Handa, nor the Nyankeka, nor the Nkumbi’], Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 7–8: 157–76. Messiant, Christine (2001) ‘The Eduardo dos Santos Foundation: Or, how Angola’s Regime is Taking Over Civil Society’, African Affairs 100: 287–309. Munslow, Barry (1999) ‘Angola: The Politics of Unsustainable Development’, Third World Quarterly 20(3): 551–68. Nyamnjoh, Francis (2007) ‘Cultures, Conflicts and Globalization: Africa’, in Helmut Anheier and Yudhishthir Raj Isar (eds) Conflicts and Tensions, pp. 121–32. London: Sage. Nyamnjoh, Francis and Micheal Rowlands (1998) ‘Elite Associations and the Politics of Belonging in Cameroon’, Africa (68)3: 320–37. Power, Marcus (2001) ‘Patrimonialism and Petro-Diamond Capitalism: Peace, Geopolitics and the Economics of War in Angola’, Review of African Political Economy 28(90): 505– 18. Reno, William (2000) ‘The (Real) War Economy of Angola’, in J. Cilliers and C. Dietrich (eds) Angola’s War Economy: The Role of Oil and Diamonds, pp. 219–36. Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies. Roque, Ricardo (2003) ‘The Razor’s Edge: Portuguese Imperial Vulnerability in Colonial Moxico, Angola’, International Journal of African Historical Studies (36)1: 106–25. Vines, Alex (2005) Angola, Drivers of Change: An Overview. London: Chatham House. Wright, George (2001) ‘The Clinton Administration’s Policy toward Angola: An Assessment’, Review of African Political Economy 28(90): 563–76.

6 The People, the Power and the Public Service: Political Identification during Guinea’s General Strikes in 2007

Anita Schroven INTRODUCTION ‘If we want this country to work, we fonctionnaires have to change. We have to remember what we learnt under S´ekou [Tour´e]. We have to make people remember and respect what we have achieved in the past; otherwise the sacrifices of the January [strikes] are lost. This is our duty as fonctionnaires’. (Aboubakar, public servant, 10 June 2007)

Just a few months after the national strikes of 2006/7 had taken place, Guinea seemed like a country facing a new dawn. Superficially, daily routines had been restored, but beneath the surface, talk, rumour and anxiety spread a general sense of insecurity about the country’s future political development. At the same time, there was a spirit of hope for the improvement of both the political and the economic situation. In between summing up recent events and making plans for the future, members of the public services were pointing out their special responsibility in reforming the Guinean state whose government had, after all, been charged with the embezzlement of public funds, corruption and economic mismanagement. In the spirit of public discussion that had emerged during the strikes, these state employees were also criticizing each other for the role they had played in events that resulted in the current condition of the Guinean state. In the African context states have been called ‘weak’, ‘failing’, ‘collapsed’, or ‘shadows’, not only by scholars of the state but by citizens as well (Ferguson, 2006a). If structures or institutions are in such dire straits, Graeber points out, they may not be fulfilling the Weberian requirements of state. In that case, questions of what these political entities are have to be explored (Graeber, 2004: 68). Aretxaga highlights a related problem, with a phenomenological perspective on the state: ‘In fact, there is not a deficit of state but an excess of statehood practices: too many actors competing to perform as state’ (Aretxaga, 2003: 396). Faced with an apparent abundance of statehood practices, researchers have been examining the governance The research on which this chapter is based was conducted as part of the project ‘Integration through Marginality: Local state and oral tradition in Guinea’ at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Halle/Saale, Germany). The author would like to thank the editors of this volume, the anonymous reviewers of Development and Change and Christian Højbjerg for their valuable comments on previous drafts. Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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practices of non-state institutions or informal arrangements in the context of an allegedly weak or absent state, thus increasing the visibility of the diversity of actors participating in these practices. Local power negotiations with NGOs (Lewis and Mosse, 2006), relations between bilateral and multilateral donors and recipient countries (Ferguson, 2006b), and related questions about sovereignty remaining in the hands of formal state institutions (Reno, 2001), are just a few examples of such research interests. Against this background, Guinea appears to have remained surprisingly stable during a phase that could be described as politically turbulent. In 2008, President Lansana Conte´ , the country’s second president, passed away after twenty-four years in office.1 He was succeeded by a military government, whose leader, Captain Dadis Camara, survived an assassination attempt in December 2009 over the question of who was responsible for the violent dissolution of an opposition demonstration in September of that year. The ease of the transition to Camara’s government in 2008 reveals the degree to which Conte´ was already relying on military power. More importantly, however, the later years of Conte´ ’s rule, marked by national strikes and government reshuffles, and with analysts repeatedly predicting civil war, reveal how a powerful state idea was able to stabilize Guinea throughout these contestations over government. Statehood practices in Guinea in this period were indeed abundant and warrant further investigation. If, as Aretxaga claims, too many actors were involved, it is important to identify those with most influence in the local arena of rural political life, where the majority of the population lives. If statehood was the product of a continuous performance of the political in an institutionalized fashion, who was setting the stage and who decided upon the participants? This contribution will address these questions from the perspective of Guinean public servants. Rather than looking into central government practices ‘from above’ or resistance strategies of ordinary citizens ‘from below’, I will focus on the ‘middle’, to take up a term used in classic and recent publications on African public servants (Lawrance et al., 2006; Magid, 1976; Samoff, 1979). In order to explore the relationship between public servants and the Guinean state — beyond mere employment relations — their ways of discussing and practising their professional, moral and historic responsibilities will be analysed. Inevitably, the term ‘state’ features prominently in this analysis, both in the meaning of governance institutions in the capital and public services based locally. These institutions are imbued with functional, administrative, social and political meanings that have been acquired over time and influenced by people working in, with, around and against them. The institutions thus come to transcend their originally intended functions and become social entities in their own right (Douglas, 1999: 55 ff). Contingent on their local context, institutions are laden with historical and, linked to the wider political 1. This chapter focuses on the political situation as of 2007, when President Cont´e was still alive and formally in power.

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settings, with ideological meaning. While this is not peculiar to Guinea, here the independence movement and the official state ideology have been intricately interwoven with the development of the single-party system and public services. For the discussion of the general strikes presented here, Guinea’s post-colonial period constitutes the background for investigating the significance of institutional and ideological history of public servants in the production of state in the contemporary local setting. It uses a study of local discourses in Fore´ cariah, a small town in coastal Guinea, to reveal the challenges faced by public servants in identifying themselves with the demonstrating masses and the rhetorically invoked nation, whilst at the same time maintaining their obvious relations with the public service, local and national governance institutions which associate them with the Guinean state. Political change after a period of open confrontation was a fact of life for Fore´ cariah’s public servants and became a point of discussion among them. The following analysis therefore focuses on the discursive appropriation of this confrontation and the (potentially) ensuing changes; on the performance, the staging and the argumentation that highlight the embeddedness of the discourse; and on the historical and social concepts that shape the local arena and the position occupied by the fonctionnaires within it. The notion of arena offers a platform for a perpetual performative negotiation of political and economic interests, strategies, social conflicts, claims and accusations. The arena is local, yet at the same time open to influences and actors arriving from elsewhere (Klute, 1999: 163)2 and thus constitutes a helpful setting to analyse contemporary processes of identification with institutions facing popular critique. The fieldwork for this chapter, conducted between May 2006 and July 2007, concentrated on bureaucratic practices and the negotiations of administrative changes centred around the decentralization programme. A lot of time was spent attending official meetings and following informal conversations in the tea parlour, the venue for many mid- and low-level bureaucrats of Fore´ cariah to meet, drink tea and discuss events. While the town of Fore´ cariah, situated 100 km south of the capital Conakry, has only about 10,000 inhabitants, it is the administrative headquarters of the prefecture and the home of the local administration as well as prefectural staff. While presenting and analysing the discussions during and after the strike, I use the French terms pouvoir and peuple to convey the local concepts of state–people relations, while the corresponding English terms will be employed for the analysis. These French terms were also used in conversations and interviews during ethnographic fieldwork, even though the dominant language in coastal Guinea is Susu. Although no violent demonstrations took place in Fore´ cariah itself during the strike period of 2006/7, highly 2. For a more detailed discussion of the notion of arena see Bierschenk (1988); Glenzer (2005); Reinje and Nieuwaal (1999); Werbner (1996).

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pertinent questions were raised during this time. Where could the line be drawn between the state or the government (‘the power’, or le pouvoir) that was to be confronted, and the people (le peuple) that were confronting it? For some, the lines appeared clear. The government, the military and, depending on the context, decision makers at the local level such as the prefect, town elders or the mayor were referred to as le pouvoir. If so many people could be aligned with the government side, who then were le peuple? This question, especially in the context of a crisis situation, was critical for the public servants or fonctionnaires: at some points they counted themselves amongst le peuple, but at others they identified with le pouvoir. The term fonctionnaires, a French colonial legacy, encompasses all hierarchical levels possible in state employment and therefore designates a very heterogeneous group in terms of family or educational background, social standing, income or influence on decision-making processes. The prefect, his driver, the nurses in hospital or the secretaries to the mayor are all subsumed under this term. When talking about fonctionnaires in this contribution, I am referring to the lower- and middle-rank staff who meet regularly in the tea parlour next to the main town square where most official buildings are concentrated. They are teachers, secretaries in decentralized government departments or workers in the public water or electricity service. Most of them have one or two wives and support school-aged children (their own, as well as those of close relatives) in their homes.

POST-COLONIAL STATE BUILDING IN GUINEA

Guinea obtained its independence in 1958 when it was the only colony to vote against de Gaulle’s offer of a renewed co-operation with colonial France. Se´ kou Toure´ , a charismatic leader of the francophone West African Rassemblement D´emocratique Africain (RDA) and the trade unions in Guinea, became the first president and ruled the country autocratically until his death in 1984. Being the main ideological force for the nationbuilding project in Guinea to date, his speeches were recorded, broadcast and printed, hailing not only the one-party state and the socialist revolution, but also the unity of the Guinean nation, which was portrayed as the basic condition for prosperity (Wallerstein, 1962). While the term la nation itself did not feature prominently in Toure´ ’s philosophy, the term le peuple was very important. As Barry demonstrates in his study of Toure´ ’s rhetoric, le peuple was correlated with the Guinean population, as was the country itself: ‘nous, la Guine´ e, la re´ volution, le peuple’ (Barry, 2002: 297–9). The co-occurrences of these terms are so pertinent that, Barry argues, they have become associative: when one term was used, the others were immediately enunciated as well. Le peuple was thus used by Toure´ synonymously with the nation, meaning the unity of the people of Guinea that had reached independence and pressed ahead with the revolution to achieve a better future.

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The term le peuple thus fulfils the contemporary and localized concept of nation, uniting a group of people with a shared historic experience and a common cause. Ideological State Building

Se´ kou Toure´ also started a socialist-inspired programme of state building by linking government organs to a single political party, the Parti D´emocratique de Guin´ee (PDG). As the party had established cells throughout the country during the late colonial period (Schmidt, 2005), the newly independent state’s bureaucratic institutions could make use of the PDG’s organizational structures, not paralleling but appropriating its geographical subchapters and institutional bodies (Rivie` re, 1977: 96). At the grassroots level the Pouvoir R´evolutionaire Local (PRL) served as the combination of partyand state-apparatus in urban neighbourhoods or, in rural settings, combined several villages into basic cells. The PRL thus united state-administrative, party-mobilization and revolutionary education responsibilities in one (Dumbuya, 1974: 134; Rivie` re, 1977: 97–9). In fact, the term party-state that is commonly used to describe this phenomenon is too narrow in the sense that it does not fully capture the socialist revolutionary education programme that Toure´ envisioned as necessary to mobilize and modernize Guinea. This resulted in a combined body of party-founded village governments and local administrations, which closely linked local administrative staff to the ruling party and the state (Camara, 1996: 104), breaking down the potential boundaries between state and society at the ideological level. Like the concept ‘nation’ (le peuple), ‘state’ (l’´etat) was also ideologically highly charged during the post-independence phase. The conglomeration of political, administrative and ideological powers led to the adoption of le pouvoir as the short name for any institution or person involved in the nexus of governance or public service. Today, the use of the term le pouvoir is also relational in the local context, referring to people imbued with more power than oneself. In this context it has become a synonym for the different hierarchical levels as well as forms of governance, from the local to the national arena. Due to the pervasive character of the party-state after independence, the government and the Guinean state are sometimes still perceived as one in popular contemporary discourse. Nevertheless, as will be argued below, during the strike period, citizens could see themselves as part of the state and at the same time as opposing the government. President Toure´ ’s output in the form of speeches and teachings was prolific. The Guinean population was not only indoctrinated but became part of this system of governance, as this knowledge was commonly shared and could be appropriated in various acts of participation in the revolutionary effort (McGovern, 2007: 133–5). Thus, Toure´ ’s ‘discursive regime’, as McGovern calls it, was invested in the institutions and the people that embodied them. On a rhetorical level this intimate interaction is necessary: the actor’s

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discourse can only take place if the audience is involved and appropriates it as its own (Bakhtine, 1978; Benveniste, 1970). The fonctionnaires are part of an institutional setting. By participating in the discourses about, and the activities of, these institutions, they also, to some extent, become part of that discourse and of the ideology presented and manifested by the institutions. State Building through Public Servants

Other characteristics of public servants’ lives associate them even more closely with the state-building project. In a system established after independence and still practised, they are rotated between postings in the different regions of the country and ideally never work close to their place of origin. The rationale for this is twofold: originally intended to avoid privileging the families of former chiefs, it is meant to discourage corruption or nepotism, practices which must be overcome in the name of ‘social progress’ (Camara, 1996: 87). The second motivation, no less ideologically inspired, was to facilitate the integration of different regional and ethnic groups. Fonctionnaires and their families were to play a significant role here. While the official language in post-colonial Guinea remained French, ‘national languages’ such as Malinke´ , Pular and Susu were taught in school (ibid.: 215). This meant that the children of the regularly-rotated public servants were taught a different language than their mother tongue. While schooling nowadays takes place exclusively in French, the whole family is expected to adapt to the dominant language of the area it has moved to. In this way public servants and their families have become important tools for the party-state’s ‘social engineering project’ and have gradually developed into a ‘bureaucratic bourgeoisie’ (cf. Samoff, 1979), separating themselves from the ordinary population ideologically, as well as accumulating economic and political privileges in their professional class (Rivie` re, 1978). Today they still represent a sizeable group of internally mobile people distinct from the more common pattern of rural–urban migration. An additional consequence of this mobility is that most of these rotating staff are not considered as autochthonous. In the traditional system of so-called landlord–stranger relations, their status is that of latecomers, giving them little access to the informal decision-making strata of rural areas which is dominated by the landowning families (Mouser, 1980). While this may have been positive in the ideological decolonization context of the post-independence era, it now renders the practical day-to-day work of fonctionnaires more difficult as they have little knowledge of local political dynamics and often only a rudimentary command of the local language. The Political Arena Today

While public servants are a vital part of the local political arena, there are of course other key actors who play a role in the complex and changing settings

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in which the fonctionnaires live and work. Most important amongst these are ‘traditional’ elders and the members of the recently established, locally elected councils. After Se´ kou Toure´ ’s death in 1984, a bloodless coup d’´etat brought to power military officers who, under the leadership of General Lansana Conte´ , slowly liberalized the economy and opened the country to the influences of international monetary and development institutions (Camara, 2000). This was the context for a programme of decentralization of public services that started in the mid-1990s. Mayors and town councils were elected and given responsibilities previously shouldered by the state administration, ranging from tax collection to the keeping of the registry office. NGO workshops were organized to accompany the elections, which emphasized citizenship, participation and the public ownership of political decision-making processes.3 A transition period was envisaged in which the existing local administrations would assist the newly elected councils in their work (Conde´ , 2003), but in due course these new institutions were expected to take over public services in their area, such as electricity, health, education and security. However, since most financial resources and communication channels to the respective centralized ministries have remained in the hands of the public administration, the evolution of the councils into effective local institutions remains a challenge (Pinto, 2004; Rey, 2007). Another, more established group of political actors are the elders, members of the town’s founding family and descendants of pre-colonial chiefs. Their position underwent a dramatic change in 1956, when chieftaincy was abolished as part of colonial rule and the individuals or their families discredited (Suret-Canale, 1966: 492–3). Nevertheless, these families remain highly relevant in the contemporary rural context. As town elders or sages these individuals (mostly men) are highly respected and are consulted in local conflict resolution, decisions on land allocation and the demarcation of territory. Despite losing part of their formal political powers, these founding families have retained their role in land control, which is fundamental to the landlord–stranger relationship. Tradition demands that hospitality is shown towards strangers, and their upkeep safeguarded, while at the same time landlords are granted rights of control over the services and resources the stranger might provide (Mouser, 1980). The landowning family in Fore´ cariah has an elaborate migration history that integrates the three major ethnic groups of contemporary Guinea (Malinke´ , Peul and Susu) through intermarriages with the founding patriarch’s line of descendants. This history is vividly invoked in everyday life and thus justifies and reaffirms both the town elders’ position as an integrative social force, and their prerogative to negotiate with government and military authorities, as they did during the 2006/7 strikes.

3. Processes similar to Guinea’s decentralization programme have been critically analysed for their ideological content, especially participation as the key to political democratization; see, for example, Cooke and Kothari (2001); Lewis and Mosse (2006).

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Thus the political arena encompasses people with diverse histories, personal and institutional backgrounds, often with overlapping tasks, competing competencies and engaged in competition for resources. Bierschenk (1999) has referred to this phenomenon as institutional plurality. In an extension of this perspective, I would claim that fonctionnaires also face a plurality in institutional associations. They are simultaneously professionals of the public service and citizens of the country, party members and part of the electorate of the local council, and they face economic challenges to provide for their families. This contribution emphasizes their role as actors in the local arena who, through co-operation and competition for power, produce the state. Lund (2006) has coined the phrase ‘twilight institutions’, a term which hints at the liminal nature of such actors, negotiating between official state bureaucracy and government, and the realm of more informal power relations on the local level. He relates these institutions and characteristics to the continuous production of state, a process he describes as ‘bringing about the idea of state’, and elaborates as ‘the quality of an institution being able to define and enforce collectively binding decisions on the members of society’ (ibid.: 676). As Lund points out, ‘We tend to reserve state qualities for government institutions, but this is more a reflection of our idea of an end result than of the messy process of state formation itself’ (ibid.). This production of state relates to the establishment of public authority, the ‘collectively binding decisions’. To achieve this binding character, people ‘take on the mantle of public administrative authority (legitimated administrative operations) and in their attempts to govern articulate notions of state varying from their source of power’ (ibid.: 678). While the resource on which the public authority is based may not always be limited to ‘legitimated administrative operations’ in a normative sense, the important point here is the diversity of notions of the very state which is being produced. This perspective is based on longer-term institutional history and its longevity in the social life of local (institutional) relations that are linked to the various sources of power mentioned by Lund. For the case of public servants, Boone (2003: 31) points out that their source of authority, that is the legitimacy to participate in the local arena, derives solely from the central, non-local government. This makes them even more dependent on their ability to employ the administrative or public service character of their work as a legitimating basis for their particular contribution to state production.

General Strikes

While the new era after President Toure´ ’s death began optimistically, it gradually became mired in the effects of economic mismanagement and the rapid enrichment of the politico-military elite. By the early 2000s, analysts were predicting the imminent collapse of the Republic of Guinea,

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due to the government’s loss of credibility, domestic dissatisfaction and the increased economic hardship and insecurity of the population (ICG, 2003, 2005; IRIN, 2005). Although surrounded by countries that went through civil war in the 1990s, the only mass violence experienced in Guinea was at the hands of Sierra Leonean and Liberian militias engaged in regional conflicts (van Damme, 1999; Henry, 2002). While wars in the neighbouring countries brought insecurity, especially to Guineans living close to the border or refugee camps, the population did not at that time openly oppose the rule of President Conte´ . Perhaps aided by the successful defence against rebel attacks in 1999/2000, his authoritarian regime remained comparatively uncontested for many years (McGovern, 2002: 94). It was not until 2006 that two umbrella organizations of Guinean trade unions, the Conf´ed´eration nationale des travailleurs de Guin´ee (CNTG) and the Union syndicale des travailleurs de Guin´ee (USTG) organized general strikes that commenced, somewhat timidly, in January and June 2006 respectively. The strikes lasted for five days each and had no significant political effects, although they did draw some formal concessions from the government. The two organizations, widely called ‘Inter-Central’ for short, and their most prominent spokespersons, Hadja Rabiatou Serah Diallo and Dr Ibrahima Fofana, were careful not to phrase their demands in political terms such as a change of government, but focused on economic demands for improving the living conditions of their members. Only when the government failed to respect the concessions secured by those first strikes did the demands shift to a political level, with popular calls for a change in government. Public discussions and debates in the independent media during the preparations in late December 2006 and the effective beginning of the next strike, on 10 January 2007, employed a rhetorical separation between a population conceptualized as ‘the nation’, and the government. Now the people’s demands included the limitation of government members’ corruption by the state, as well as improving the economic situation and basic living conditions; later demands even included a change of government. The strike movements culminated in mass demonstrations on 22 January 2007, the destruction of government and public service buildings, and even the plundering of private homes of the politico-military elite. Negotiations between Inter-Central and government representatives ended with the signing of an accord on 27 January, assuring the installation of a prime minister. When the President hesitated in nominating a person agreeable to all parties, a further strike was called. This strike followed a similar pattern to that of the previous month, until it was ended on 12 February 2007 by the declaration of a state of emergency and a twenty-four hour curfew. The strikes of early 2007 were associated with violence, pillaging and death, but they did ultimately result in changes to the government, with the installation of a new prime minister, Lansana Kouyate´ , on 26 February. However, while some of the formal demands of the strike were met, the

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addition of a prime minister did not displace or infringe upon the power centred around the presidency. This is a continuing challenge to the political situation in Guinea, which is characterized by the regular replacement of prime ministers and cabinet members by presidential decree, the resulting delays in elections to the legislature, and the dire economic situation of the country (ICG, 2008). ´ FORECARIAH DURING THE 2007 STRIKES

Although the two strike phases of January and February 2007 were marked by destruction and upheaval, the town of Fore´ cariah and its surrounding prefecture experienced neither demonstrations nor violence. It was one of only two prefectures among the thirty-three in Guinea in which people did not demonstrate or destroy public buildings; shops were not targeted and people were not attacked by the military or police. Through radios, mobile phones and the rumours brought to town by the occasional traveller, people were nevertheless aware of the events taking place in other parts of the country, especially in the capital and other urban centres. The topics discussed in the tea parlours of Fore´ cariah shifted from family matters and everyday gossip to discussions about national politics, individual government members and the fate of the country. By mid-March 2007 the strikes were over and the situation was calmer, but these topics continued to be debated by those frequenting the tea parlour. Prominent among these themes was the local meaning of the state, a term that was ideologically highly charged in Guinean history. When the call for a further strike had come at the beginning of February 2007, it was once again addressed to union members. As the demands of Inter-Central were more politically explicit this time, the question of legitimacy was raised in public discussions — not only whether it was legitimate for unions to demand political change, but also the question of who was eligible to participate in the strikes. Since there are almost no trade union members in Fore´ cariah, a local interpretation emerged that only the formally employed were entitled to participate in the strike. As the state, with its various services, is the only employer in town, the question of how the fonctionnaires were supposed to manifest their potential participation was quickly raised, as mere absence from the workplace was nothing unusual for this group of people. The prefect also pondered this question. He felt that he should not stir the discontent of the population by running normal office hours while rallies were taking place in the urban centres of the country, and offices and private houses of his colleagues were being burnt down. At the same time he felt that his position as the president’s direct representative in town, and therefore the state’s ambassador to the prefecture, demanded his presence and leadership in the discussions among town elders and the leaders of military and other security forces. He resolved this dilemma by staying in front of his office

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building for the better part of the day. He maintained this habit throughout the whole strike period, placing himself in full public view in the town centre and thereby earning himself the respect of many town residents who regularly heard stories about fleeing governors and prefects. Local Discourses of the Strikes

During the general strikes, the government was widely challenged verbally and in some places its symbols were physically attacked. Thus public servants faced a difficult situation, which was the subject of vigorous discussions. The following analysis of conversations which took place in Fore´ cariah’s tea parlour outlines the changes of themes and discourses as well as the way fonctionnaires identified themselves in certain situations. In order to better contextualize the discourse, the conversations are presented as a synthesis of field notes and recordings of the fonctionnaires’ discussions. The general strike in January 2007 begins with little enthusiasm as it is the third within twelve months. But, unexpectedly, as more news arrives in town that regional markets are closing down, transport in and out of Conakry is blocked and some international radio stations report meetings of union leaders in the capital and the bigger cities of the interior, tensions rise in For´ecariah as well. People linger less in public places, talk about only the most necessary things and try to buy provisions in case the market should close down. The radio-broadcast opinions of opposition leaders, civil society members and Guineans of the diaspora phoning in to radio programmes during the strike regularly draw on republican values and call upon the people to ‘perform the nation’: to wake up and demand their place in the reform and development of a state that has been accused of failing its people. The explanations these people offer of past developments are discussed with colleagues of the public service in the tea parlour: A: ‘It is like the man from Banjul said this morning on BBC [Afrique], the state is too weak; the politicians just go and get money from the central bank; no surprise that nothing works in Guinea, no water, no electricity, no petrol.’ B: ‘But this is because the people of power [gens de pouvoir] let this happen. Since the military took power they have done nothing, they have not done anything to keep the people together. Under S´ekou, we suffered, yes, but he formed us into a people: ‘We prefer poverty in dignity’.4 We have no dignity any more? That’s the only thing we have left! So we should strike, most of the callers with Juan5 this morning agreed: we have to demonstrate so that everything changes, le pouvoir has to go and then we change everything.’ A: ‘That is easy for them to say on the radio, they are not here, they are not getting beaten nor having their children shot.’ At the same time, the popular movements in the major cities are admired by the visitors to the tea parlour. The reported destruction of private property of government or military leaders and the pillaging of public buildings are discussed in detail. The fault line of the conflict is pointed out even more clearly in the discussions than before: le peuple guin´een is becoming aware of its powers to influence and participate in the destiny of Guinea. With every reported 4. ‘Nous pr´ef´erons la pauvret´e dans la dignit´e’ was a famous quote by first President S´ekou Tour´e on the occasion of de Gaulle’s visit before the referendum of independence in 1958. 5. ‘Appels sur l’actualit´e’ with Juan Gomez is a popular phone-in radio programme on Radio France Internationale — Afrique (www.rfi.fr/auteur/juan-gomez).

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act of violence that arrives in For´ecariah the rhetorical frontline becomes clearer: the current struggle takes place between le pouvoir and le peuple. (For´ecariah, 19 January 2007)

The question of the fonctionnaires’ loyalty to le pouvoir appeared more pertinent in the case of lower and mid-level public servants than for higher ranking individuals such as the prefect, whose personal and external associations with the state were not seriously doubted by the wider public during the strike period. But most of the men meeting in the tea bars were state employees of public services or government departments that had not been functioning effectively for years. Through their relations with higher level fonctionnaires they or their family members participated in the embezzlement of public funds, nepotism or corruption, as they were ready to admit amongst themselves. Thus, during the last days of the February 2007 strike and its aftermath, once the state of emergency had been lifted, the conversation in the tea parlour revolved around the question of how le peuple could oppose le pouvoir, if the former was implicated in the misdeeds of the latter. If public servants were themselves participating in the embezzlement of public funds, how could they claim to be part of le peuple? More specifically, how could they be part of le peuple, accusing le pouvoir of corruption? How this situation had arisen became clear in discussions after the strike period had ended. While the salary of a fonctionnaire does not suffice to sustain a family, it is nevertheless a fairly reliable part of the family budget. Additionally, such a position is attractive because of the potential informal access to public services or resources otherwise not attainable. In these discussions the public servants perceive themselves as gatekeepers, which allows them to claim services in return for the ones that they grant to other persons. While this is commonly known and sometimes individually criticized, most people in town maintain relations with members of this professional group in order to secure their access to public services. As Smith has shown in a Nigerian case study, public servants were deeply implicated in patron–client relations and it was ‘the very demand of clientelistic networks to deliver public resources based on moral obligations and affective attachments that makes it almost impossible for office-holders to run their offices in anything other than a prebendal manner’ (Smith, 2001: 361; see also Reno, 2000: 47). In this context, even comparatively low-level fonctionnaires could be gatekeepers and participate in le pouvoir in relation to someone asking for assistance. Given the reality of these ongoing personalized relationships and the role of embezzlement, discussions turned to whether the current popular movement would be strong enough to induce a change of consciousness within the population, so that they might redress in themselves the wrongs of which they were accusing le pouvoir. That these questions were even raised reveals the conceptual challenge faced by the local fonctionnaires: the two supposedly opposing entities of le pouvoir and le peuple were

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obviously much more intertwined in these functions than had previously been acknowledged. This implied that changing the ways of government and the public services would be very difficult. A couple of months after the general strike, the director of the prefectural water department was taking part in the morning tea round at the tea parlour. He summed up the dilemma: ‘Change, everyone is talking about change. And I am here, in the tea parlour. I should be in my office, I know. But there is nothing there, so how can I work? Everyone is in a similar situation here. Look at him, he is a teacher, he is not in school, what has he done with his students? We are all the same here. How are we going to change? Someone will have to come and make all the fonctionnaires work; he will have to flog us all so we will learn to work again.’ When a colleague demands who should do the whipping, if all fonctionnaires are the same, the following answer is given promptly by another guest of the parlour: ‘Well, we will have to do it amongst ourselves, from the top to the bottom; we will all flog each other for the sake of change’. (For´ecariah, 17 June 2007)

Besides jokingly implying the necessity of using force for political change, the director did convey an important impression: his use of the Susu word won or English ‘we’6 emphasized the commonly shared feeling of responsibility of the fonctionnaires as participants or even promoters of a positive change. They charged themselves with this task because of their positions in the public service. This self-ascribed responsibility was also reflected in the top-down approach of the proposed disciplining, and is even conveyed in the idea of suffering for the sake of change. These are discursive references to the Toure´ -era, re-invoking the revolutionary and potentially painful tasks the fonctionnaires — as both party representatives and teachers of the official state ideology — were expected to carry out in order to modernize the country and move Guinea towards becoming a truly independent nation-state. At the same time the director was rhetorically isolating the public servants from the rest of the local political setting. He was only referring to topdown disciplinary action and did not relate the public service to other local actors such as the elected council or the town elders. The prefect and the elders had been especially prominent during the strike, calming both the population and the locally stationed military, and were also a frequent topic of discussions in the tea parlour. Thus the director was not associating the fonctionnaires with le pouvoir in the local setting but established them as a separate professional group that was linked to the central departments and ministries in the capital.

6. The English word ‘we’ has two Susu correspondents: muxu excludes the addressees, whereas won explicitly includes them.

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THE PERPETUAL CONSTRUCTION OF STATE

Thus, the sources for constructing authority are not arbitrarily selected: actors choose between the different systems of reference according to various criteria. Yet this is not to say that in all situations choices are freely made: ‘While fluidity may characterize institutions and authority, it may not be of the lowest viscosity. Certain settlements, rights and authorities may “stick”. Once successfully constructed, institutions of authority become markers for the future negotiation of society’ (Lund, 2006: 679). Repercussions of the past, of either the institutions or their actions, may explain the choices made by actors. Such markers also explain why, in the production of state, administrative authority from the central government can be used as a legitimate resource. The use of le pouvoir as legitimation for public servants to exert authority and thereby participate in the local production of state is not a simple circular argument. Rather, the notion of state being used as a resource has a different quality to the notion of state being produced: the former is imbued with historic and local meaning while the latter is a new, contemporary practice of state. The negotiation of identities thus leads fonctionnaires to different possibilities. The context of institutional plurality enables them to make choices which are ‘part of the enabling and constraining context of social interaction in all arenas’ (von Benda-Beckmann and von Benda-Beckmann, 2006: 23). Hence, elected councillors, town elders and fonctionnaires are actively engaged in negotiation processes and all contribute to the choices made by others in their critique or even contestation of le pouvoir. In the von Benda-Beckmanns’ terms, these references to institutions with their particular (ideological) histories ‘provide means to rationalise and justify actors’ objectives, behaviour and choices . . . in engaging in the critique of state action’ (ibid.: 24). Public Servants’ Negotiations of State and le pouvoir

In the discourses during and about the Guinean general strikes and the identification processes which happened during that period, the different repertoires at the disposal of the tea parlour’s clients were only partially used. The fonctionnaires chose to be citizens, distant supporters of the masses protesting the dire living conditions under which the government expected them to live; they identified themselves with le peuple. They did not, however, act on their locally assigned right as formal employees to participate in the demonstrations. After the strike had passed, they once again identified themselves as public servants with a responsibility to ‘make the state work again’. During the strike, they rationalized the role of the prefect and the town elders as opposing the strike in order not to lose privileges. Later, these people were applauded for keeping harm away from the local population and infrastructure, for upholding public authority. Just like the director of water

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services quoted above, through this discourse the public servants were again producing ‘the state’ in the sense of rhetorically reinforcing public authority. Perceiving themselves as part of the responsible group, they were implicitly identifying themselves with le pouvoir, despite the critical standpoints they had taken in the tea parlour. These criticisms were now formulated in the first person, a personification of the state by the fonctionnaires, claiming responsibility and at the same time declaring their capacity to make a substantial change. The close ideological ties that have been established between the state and public employees in Guinea should make identification processes easy when public servants are asked to choose between ‘the people’ and ‘the power’. The socialist period with its all-encompassing state ideology and rotating system of public servants had made the fonctionnaires into the agents of the state and the revolution. Today, economic dependencies on salaries and promotions as well as informal access to public resources make their positions attractive but link them closely to a state that has become less legitimate in their own eyes. This renders them dependent on state powers and the abuses thereof, at the same time exposing them to the critique and criticism of the general public. Nevertheless, the fonctionnaires of middle or lower ranks do experience the contradiction: for the outside world they are associated with le pouvoir, yet they face many of the same difficulties and share similar frustrations as the wider population. This results in a feeling of alienation from the state and especially from one of its powerful manifestation: the government. The visitors to the tea parlour would also have good reason to participate in the strikes, demonstrating against a corrupt and ineffective state administration under which they suffer as ordinary citizens. The process of self-identification with le pouvoir during the early strike phase was also influenced by the environment of the public servants. As noted, the employees of the public sector were seen by local people as the category most eligible to strike, since they fulfilled the alleged requirement of formal employment. At the same time, and in a longer-term perspective, they were also perceived as privileged parts of the state apparatus, since they had both shaped and embodied the state in the past and continued to participate in the contemporary production of the state at local level. While the strike gave people the impression that they had, at a certain moment, to choose between identifying themselves with le pouvoir or with the protesting peuple, the processes of identification around the strike also show that choices were and are made on the basis of longer-term experiences with local institutions. These institutions are the result of historic or present ideologies, experiences and perpetual negotiations of the local arena. Here, the institutions are personified by the different actors present, so that the differentiation of, and subsequent choice between, the supposedly opposing sides of the strike fault line become harder to make. Since power is relational within the flux of daily negotiations in the highly diverse

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local arena, associating with one or other of the dichotomized poles is not an easy choice. Although this may appear opportune or ideologically questionable, given their association with a highly criticized institution, the basis on which bureaucrats make this temporary choice is not necessarily limited to the current situation, but also takes in historical experience. This experience in turn may be personal as well as institutional, handed down through collective local memory or, as in the current context, through the realm of state administrative institutions. CONCLUSION

The ongoing negotiation of le pouvoir by public servants through their own person is just one part of the wider production of state in the local arena. As this contribution reveals, in contrast to other actors, fonctionnaires are less free to cast away their ties to the state due to their personal and professional trajectories. These trajectories also have a historical aspect; they are founded not only in the Guinean post-independence ideology but also in past and contemporary practices of state building. The repercussions of this can be felt even when centralized autocratic regimes have officially been left behind and new actors have entered the local arena. Such changes do not unmake the historic trajectories; dissociation from the state thus remains difficult for public servants, even if they, as fellow citizens, would otherwise side with the protesting population. These close ties turn negotiations of the person into negotiations of le pouvoir, the localized notion of the Guinean state. It is this state practice, based on an idealized notion of history and of state building after independence, that has allowed Guinea to withstand crises like the 2006/7 national strikes, a coup d’´etat and the internal struggles of the military government in place today. REFERENCES Aretxaga, B. (2003) ‘Maddening States’, Annual Review of Anthropology 32(1): 393–410. Bakhtine, M. (1978) Esth´etique et th´eorie du roman [Aesthetics and Theory of the Novel]. Paris: Gallimard. Barry, A.O. (2002) Pouvoir du Discours & Discours du Pouvoir. L’Art Oratoire chez S´ekou Tour´e de 1958–1984 [The Power of Discourse and the Discourse of Power. The Oratory Art of S´ekou Tour´e (1958–1984)]. Paris: L’Harmattan. von Benda-Beckmann, F. and K. von Benda-Beckmann (2006) ‘The Dynamics of Change and Continuity in Plural Legal Orders’, Journal of Legal Pluralism 53–54: 1–44. ´ (1970) ‘L’appareil formel de l’´enonciation’ [‘The Formal Apparatus of EnunciBenveniste, E. ation’], Langages 17: 12–18. Bierschenk, T. (1988) ‘Development Projects as Arenas of Negotiation for Strategic Groups’, Sociologia Ruralis 28(2/3): 146–60. Bierschenk, T. (1999) ‘Herrschaft, Verhandlung und Gewalt in einer afrikanischen Mittelstadt (Parakou, Benin)’ [‘Power, Negotiation and Violence in an African Middle Town’], Africa Spectrum 34(3): 321–48.

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Magid, A. (1976) Men in the Middle. Leadership and Role Conflict in a Nigerian Society. Manchester: Manchester University Press. McGovern, M. (2002) ‘Conflit r´egional et rh´etorique de la contre-insurgence: Guin´eens et r´efugi´es en septembre 2000’ [‘Regional Conflict and the Rhetoric of Counter-Insurgency: Guineans and Refugees in September 2000’], Politique Africaine 88: 84–102. McGovern, M. (2007) ‘Janvier 2007 — S´ekou Tour´e est mort’ [‘January 2007 — S´ekou Tour´e is Dead’], Politique Africaine 107: 125–45. Mouser, B.L. (1980) ‘Accomodation and Assimiliation in the Landlord–Stranger Relationship’, in B.K. Swartz and R.E. Dummett (eds) West African Culture Dynamics, pp. 495–514. The Hague: Mouton. Pinto, R.F. (2004) ‘Service Delivery in Francophone West Africa: The Challenge of Balancing Deconcentration and Decentralisation’, Public Administration and Development 24: 263–75. Reinje, M. and R. v. Nieuwaal (1999) ‘Illusion of Power. Actors in Search of Power in a Prefecture Arena in Central Togo’, in J. R¨osel and T. v. Trotha (eds) Dezentralisierung, Demokratisierung und die lokale Repr¨asentation des Staates [Decentralization, Democratization and the Local Representation of State], pp. 167–84. K¨oln: R¨udiger K¨oppe Verlag. Reno, W. (2000) ‘Shadow State and the Political Economy of Civil War’, in M. Berdal and D. Malone (eds) Greed and Grievances, pp. 43–68. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Reno, W. (2001) ‘How Sovereignty Matters: International Markets and the Political Economy of Local Politics in Weak States’, in T. Callaghy, R. Kassimir and R. Lathan (eds) Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa: Global–Local Networks of Power, pp. 197–215. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rey, P. (2007) ‘Le sage et l’´etat. Pouvoir, territoire et developpement en Guin´ee Maritime’ [‘The Elder and the State: Power, Territory and Development in Coastal Guinea’]. PhD dissertation, Universit´e de Bordeaux III — Michel de Montaigne, Bordeaux. Rivi`ere, C. (1977) Guinea: The Mobilisation of a People. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Rivi`ere, C. (1978) Classes et stratifications sociales en Afrique: Le cas guin´een [Class and Social Stratification in Africa: The Guinean Case]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Samoff, J. (1979) ‘The Bureaucracy and the Bourgeoisie: Decentralization and Class Structure in Tanzania’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 21(1): 30–62. Schmidt, E. (2005) Mobilizing the Masses. Gender, Ethnicity, and Class in the Nationalist Movement in Guinea, 1939–1958. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Smith, D.J. (2001) ‘Kinship and Corruption in Contemporary Nigeria’, Ethnos 66(3): 344–64. Suret-Canale, J. (1966) ‘La fin de la chefferie en Guinee’ [‘The End of Chieftaincy in Guinea’], The Journal of African History 7(3): 459–93. Wallerstein, I. (1962) ‘L’id´eologie politique du PDG’ [‘The Political Ideology of the PDG’], Pr´esence Africaine / Edition Franc¸aise 40: 44–55. Werbner, R. (1996) ‘Introduction: Multiple Identities, Plural Arenas’ in R. Werbner and T. Ranger (eds) Postcolonial Identities in Africa, pp. 1–25. London: Zed Books.

7 The Party and the State: Frelimo and Social Stratification in Post-socialist Mozambique

Jason Sumich INTRODUCTION

Marco1 is a member of the ruling Frelimo party of Mozambique (Frente de Libertac¸a˜ o de Moc¸ambique). Like many of the southern members of the party leadership, Marco came from an assimilado (assimilated) family.2 During the colonial period one of his grandfathers had been a prominent teacher, while the other had worked for the railways; both were very prestigious jobs for black Mozambicans. Families such as these — that were relatively integrated into the colonial system, but also systematically humiliated and discriminated against — were strongly represented in the core of the party’s initial leadership. When I met up with Marco one day in 2007, he was talking about a meeting he had just attended for party cell leaders. He had started to become disillusioned with the party, but after this meeting he felt rejuvenated and proud to be a member of Frelimo again: The meeting was great. They told us that we made a mistake. We were weak and we took all of the best people we had directly into the state. The thing is though; we do not have to agree with everything the state does. We are the only thing that is powerful enough to check the state and to police its actions. We are the source of the state’s power and it is answerable to us for its actions. We as cell leaders should monitor our members, if we see somebody doing something wrong we need to speak to them. Starting from there we need to begin policing the state.

Marco, like many in the capital, Maputo, is concerned with the current political situation and has doubts about the President, Armando Guebuza. This is due, in part, to a widely held belief in Maputo that under Guebuza there is The research for this chapter was conducted during my PhD at the Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and during my post-doctoral position at the Crisis States Research Centre, at the London School of Economics. I would like to thank Edward Simpson, Eric MorierGenoud, Ross Truscott, Fraser McNeil, the reviewers of this chapter and especially the guest editors of this volume for their comments. 1. All the names of informants that appear in this chapter have been changed unless otherwise stated. 2. Assimilados were a legal category of elite Africans during the colonial period. Theoretically they were given equal rights with Portuguese settlers, but although they were privileged in comparison with the majority of the population, their position vis-`a-vis the Portuguese was far from equal. Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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growing authoritarianism and unchecked corruption. Guebuza’s policies are thought to have shifted to favour new social groups and regions, marginalizing Frelimo strongholds in the south in general and the capital in particular. However, the major opposition party and former rebel movement, Renamo (Resistˆencia Nacional Moc¸ambicana), is not considered a realistic political option. For Marco, the role of Frelimo is to rekindle a movement and purify a state that had become mired in corruption and cynicism. In his view, the concentration of power in a largely unelected body that is superior to official government structures is not the subversion of democracy, but a necessary and positive step, as only Frelimo has the power to reform the state. Marco was trying to make explicit the complicated and changing relationship between Frelimo and the state which it created and has controlled since independence in 1975. The relationship between ruling parties and the state was once a topic of much interest in African studies, especially the role it played in the creation of a ‘national bourgeoisie’, as access to political office was one of the primary ways in which elites established their private power (see Cohen, 1982; Leys, 1982). In recent years, however, there has been a tendency to blur parties and states together; they are often portrayed as part of the same overall clientelistic organization staffed by rent seekers and structured on patrimonial lines (Bayart, 1993; Chabal and Daloz, 1999). This is part of a wider theoretical shift in which African political systems in general have come to be viewed as obstacles to ‘progress’ (Di John, 2008). Thus, policies such as structural adjustment were implemented to ‘minimize’ the role of the state and to allow an unfettered market to bring ‘development’. The failure of structural adjustment to better the lives of the majority of Africa’s citizens has led to widespread criticism of the approach.3 As many analysts have pointed out, structural adjustment and liberalization programmes have not necessarily weakened the powers of African political actors; rather, they have made them more ‘subterranean’ and ‘criminalized’ and/or allowed politicians to establish firmer control over the economy (see Bayart et al., 1999; Ferguson, 2005; Pitcher, 2002). These insights have been extremely valuable in developing our understanding of the ways in which African political actors interact with the outside world to consolidate their power. However, many of the recent debates concerning politics in Africa have had a tendency to err on the side of functionalism — what states should or should not be doing to avoid the dreaded signifier of ‘failed’ or ‘failing’. States in sub-Saharan Africa, as elsewhere, are not seen as fully realized entities unless they reach the benchmarks of liberal democracy, that self-proclaimed culmination of human political experience (Cramer and Goodhand, 2002; Lund, 2006). Following the invitation of the editors of this volume, I would like to explore a different perspective, one that examines the formation of the African state as a historical process 3. An in-depth discussion of the effects of structural adjustment policies in Africa is beyond the scope of this contribution and will already be well known to most readers of this book.

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of continual transformation. This will entail an examination of the kinds of negotiations that allow political actors to establish their power and what the limits of these negotiations are. With this aim in mind, this contribution will trace the changing relationship between the ruling party, Frelimo, and the state it controls, and will examine how the liberal transition has allowed Frelimo to consolidate its hold while becoming the foundation of an emerging process of social stratification since 1992. I will argue that ‘democratic’ and capitalist reforms have actually allowed Frelimo to increase its power and create what is basically an elected single-party state.4 In a country that is aid-dependent and relatively poor in natural resources, the party’s successful monopolization of access to donors and international networks and its role in the privatization process have allowed it to centralize wealth and power in ways that were impossible under socialism. Frelimo is able to use its access to international resources to greatly extend its reach and incorporate actors that were considered to be ‘outside’ the nation’s moral boundaries during the revolutionary period. The party itself acts as the major ‘arena of negotiation’ in Mozambique, channelling demands and interests internally and imposing constraints on the ability of actors to operate independently of its structures. While this does allow for various interest groups to compete, Frelimo demarcates the area of contestation within structures that it controls to varying degrees. Therefore, democratization has had limited success in ‘empowering’ those who operate outside of the party. This contribution will focus on how Frelimo operates internally: the complicated relationship between the party and its donors, and the reactions from those who seek to take power and either control the existing structures or create new ones, such as Renamo, will not be dealt with here. In the post-socialist period the party operates not only as a political organization that effectively controls the state, but also as a centralized, but layered, hierarchy of social strata that provides one of the major avenues of social mobility for the fortunate few that can demonstrate loyalty and worth. Programmes instituted by major donors to install ‘good governance’ and create a liberal democracy have resulted in reforms within the state, but paradoxically, they have also allowed the party to grow stronger and entrench itself more deeply. This does not mean that the system is completely monolithic. As exemplified by Marco, the incorporation of new social groups has caused internal conflict as members of the old ‘core’ feel marginalized. Furthermore, as the party’s social base expands, the types of social mobility that Frelimo now provides are rarely as dramatic as those experienced by older 4. Frelimo’s ability to act as if Mozambique is largely a single-party state persisted throughout the ‘democratic’ period, through its control of the national bureaucracy and the police, but it has increased dramatically since 2004. In the 2008 elections Frelimo won over 70 per cent of the presidential and parliamentary votes with the remainder split between Renamo and a splinter party. Frelimo also controls all but one of the nation’s forty-three municipalities.

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adherents, causing discontent in strongholds like Maputo, where supporters’ expectations are not being met. Frelimo’s ability to socially reproduce its dominance depends on balancing internal tensions and maintaining overall unity. My goal here is not to simply replicate the orthodox Marxist argument that governments are the ‘executive of the bourgeoisie’ and the expression of their interests, but rather to turn this on its head. The changing relationship between the state and the ruling Frelimo party has not just created a ‘ruling class’, but a hierarchy of interlinked social strata, where members of a particular stratum tend to share similar lifestyles, aspirations and interests that depend, to varying degrees, on their domination of both institutions. This is the result of a drawn-out historical process that began in the late colonial period and is deeply embedded in the continuing series of social, political and economic transformations that have taken place since independence.5 To understand political developments in Mozambique since 1992 and the effects of these events on emerging patterns of social stratification, a functionalist view of how the state measures up to a checklist of ‘liberal democratic’ practices and institutions is of limited use. Rather, one must understand the internal interests and goals of the actors and the limitations and obstacles that they face — in this case, how the party’s growing power can paradoxically also cause instability amongst it cadres. Since the introduction of a multiparty system, Frelimo has managed to gain strength and extend its power in ways it was not previously able to achieve, but this process has been accompanied by internal conflict. Given the history of brutal in-fighting and purges during the liberation struggle, the victorious faction has tended to value unity above all else. This group includes members whose origins can be traced throughout Mozambique, but the top ranks of the leadership have historically been dominated by a small colonial elite of southern, urban/peri-urban assimilados, with prominent members from racial minorities; a more rural, mission-educated, aspiring elite from the northern province of Cabo Delgado has dominated the military. The leading group within party structures has proven itself to be extremely cohesive throughout the trials of the civil war. In many ways it demonstrates aspects of what Bayart (1993) has called ‘reciprocal assimilation of elites’, where similar social backgrounds, aspirations, experiences and ideological orientation form ruling groups that transcend ethnicity or region. While the social unity of the ruling elite has allowed it to maintain cohesiveness, it has also been very exclusive, drawing only certain social groups into Frelimo’s framework. With the beginning of the multiparty system, the leadership began to try to extend their influence into areas where they had previously been weak, especially in the centre and parts of the north of the country. The most dramatic example of this strategy has been Frelimo’s 5. For an in-depth discussion of the colonial period see Hedges (1999); Newitt (1995); Penvenne (1989).

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wooing of some members of the Indian merchant class and regulos (‘traditional’ authorities). The primary beneficiaries, though, appear to be local party officials, often from relatively powerful families in rural areas and small towns. The party’s position as one of the few organizations in the country that connects the centre of power to the more remote rural areas, and its role as one of the major possible avenues of social mobility (limited as this may be for much of the population), have enabled it to maintain overall unity in spite of the growing fractiousness of its membership. This unity is under strain, as indicated to me by a Frelimo cadre: ‘Ironically after the fall of socialism we finally have the class struggle, although this time it is actually within Frelimo itself’. Yet as the example of Marco demonstrates, if some sections of Frelimo feel that the current leadership is remote and corrupt, others feel that the party is the only thing able to rectify this state of affairs and guard against abuses, retaining its position as the main ‘arena of negotiation’. My analysis of Mozambique draws on both published historical sources and ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Maputo since 2002 and, more recently, in the northern city of Nampula. The next section provides a brief outline of some of the recent literature concerning the roles of the state and of political parties in Africa. A discussion of the background of the Frelimo party since independence is used to sketch out the context for the post-1992 developments, before turning to an examination of how Frelimo re-established itself after the end of the civil war and how the fall of oneparty socialism accelerated the growth of the party as an interlinked series of social strata during the liberal period.

THE STATE, THE PARTY AND AFRICA

Mozambique appears to occupy an anomalous place in much of the recent literature concerning politics in Africa. The African state is regarded by many scholars with considerable confusion as its relevance, its form, and even its existence have been questioned (Soares de Oliveira, 2007). On the one hand there is a school of thought that focuses on the high incidence of ‘failed’ states in the region. Scholars such as Rotberg (2004) and Zartman (1995) argue that state failure occurs when a weakly institutionalized central government loses the monopoly of the means of violence, structures of authority fall apart, and governments can no longer perform basic functions. By this definition the Mozambican state largely collapsed in the late 1980s. The government had lost control of around 80 per cent of the nation’s territory, with their rule increasingly restricted to the major cities. Much of the countryside was either under the de facto control of rebels, shifting repeatedly between the government and the rebels, or under no firm control at all (Hall and Young, 1997; Newitt, 1995; Wilson, 1992). There was widespread malnutrition and starvation in the rural areas and deteriorating conditions in the cities, with

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the government increasingly reliant on foreign aid to feed the people in the areas under their sway (Finnegan, 1992; Marshall, 1990). However, as noted by Soares de Oliveira (2007: 29), discussions of ‘failed states’ often say more about the expectations of the analyst than the actual capacities and conditions of the state. In the case of Mozambique, if the state apparatus had collapsed across vast tracks of the country, the idea of nation nevertheless seemed to survive, and there were no credible attempts to divide the country or form breakaway republics. Lund has observed that, despite the challenges facing states in Africa: ‘The irony is not merely that some parts of the state champion unity while being challenged by “alternatives”; rather that the idea of the state is also effectively propelled by institutions which challenge the state, but depend on the idea of the state to do so’ (Lund, 2006: 689). In contrast to the scholars who focus on ‘failed’ states, there are those who argue that their criteria, based on ideas of a Weberian bureaucratic state, are simply inappropriate in the African context as politics there take a very different form. Power is instead based on Bayart’s (1993) ‘rhizome state’ whose surface institutions are weak and ineffectual, but whose practice is deeply rooted in society. These subterranean institutions form ‘shadow states’ that link various players, from corrupt politicians to warlords and western multinationals, in webs of power (Reno, 1998). In their influential book, Africa Works, Chabal and Daloz (1999) claimed that African societies are made up of competing vertical patrimonial networks that link elites to the bottom of society through clientelist relationships, but whose practice would not allow anything resembling class solidarity to appear. Instead the state is colonized by society and elites compete with each other to amass resources to redistribute to their clients. In this analysis, if elites tried to detach themselves from the wider society and embark on hegemonic ambitions they would lose legitimacy and quickly be overthrown (ibid.: 41). These ideas have been very influential in Africanist studies, but they tend to draw most heavily from aspects of Mobutu’s Zaire, Biya’s Cameroon and Nigeria at certain moments in time, and this can be a weakness when trying to create a typology for the continent as a whole. Additionally, when a description of a practice (clientelism for instance) is used as a causal explanation, there is a danger of creating a tautological argument based on cultural essentialism: African politics are like this because this is what Africans do.6 These ideas of state failure and/or neo-patrimonialism have been among the more common recent methods of explaining African politics. As with many countries, Mozambique has demonstrated aspects of both theories to varying degrees, shifting with internal and external circumstances. However, in the Mozambican case, neither framework adequately describes the relationship between Frelimo and the state, or explains how the party has managed to consolidate power since 1992. Rather, they are attempts to 6. I am indebted to conversations with Eric Morier-Genoud for pointing this out.

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describe continually transforming relationships between the rulers and the ruled; these are outcomes not causes. To understand this process of transformation, I will examine the evolving relationship between Frelimo and the state and how this has shaped emerging processes of social stratification. In the early post-independence period there was little distinction between the party and the newly independent Mozambican state. Although Frelimo had made moves to separate the two institutions, following the example of the Soviet Union, there simply were not enough cadres, and in practice the two blended together (Cahen, 1993; Hall and Young, 1997). The result was that membership was often overlapping, civil servants were (and continue to be) members of Frelimo as a matter of course, and the military and security services were the armed wing of the party whose duty was to defend the revolution. For the party leadership, the nation was seen as an extension of the revolutionary process that they embodied. The initial conception of the party-state came under tremendous pressure due to a combination of foreign aggression, civil war and economic collapse. In the peace that followed there has been an ongoing attempt to construct a new kind of state, one that is supposedly democratic and liberal and more inclusive of those previously marginalized. Despite the introduction of multiparty elections, however, there is still considerable confusion over the boundaries between the ruling party and the state. In an insightful study of Stalinism, Kotkin (1995: 284) points out that the communist party was not simply above the state, but in fact maintained a careful policy of dualism where state and party structures purposely paralleled each other. The justification for this duplication was that the communist party would not replace the government, but would monitor it and ensure that the state enacted ideologically ‘correct’ policies (ibid.: 293). Ironically, in the case of Mozambique, it was the onset of ‘liberal democracy’ in 1992 that allowed Frelimo to access the resources necessary to attempt this separation. There is an ideological content to Frelimo’s rule — modernist nationalism — although it is no longer as coherent as it was during the socialist period; but more importantly, the party’s position vis-`a-vis the state is crucial to maintaining its tight grip on power.7 It is this political hegemony that is central to emerging processes of social stratification which depend on access to a hierarchy of government and party posts with corresponding and ascending benefits in salary, power and opportunities for enrichment. This does not mean that Frelimo is a completely monolithic organization. As noted earlier, its ranks show growing fractiousness with corresponding cracks in the edifice of its traditional support. However, the party’s hegemony has meant that power struggles and negotiations have been kept within the party allowing it to maintain its unity against outside threats, at least thus far. 7. For a detailed discussion of Frelimo’s evolving ideology, see Hall and Young (1997); Sumich (2009).

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In his study of the Gulf of Guinea, Soares de Oliveira (2007: 133) asserts that state elites do not form anything resembling a ‘class’, as the oil-based political systems there are characterized by ‘impermanence, instability and conflict’. While this may be true for the Gulf, Mozambique, with its lack of mineral wealth, presents a different case. While all class-like relationships are conflictual, and to some degree impermanent, the interconnections between the state and the ruling party have so far been central to the formation of a relatively stable social hierarchy. This has allowed party members, since independence, to maintain much of their status and privileges despite internal shifts and power struggles in a way that resembles class relationships. In a manner similar to the ‘national bourgeoisie’ described by Cohen (1982) and Leys (1982), it is the access to power, not the control of the means of production or a resource similar to petroleum, that is central to social stratification and the most realistic method of accumulation. Thus Frelimo is not only a political party that has historically represented certain social strata, but increasing a social stratum of its own, or more accurately, a connected hierarchy of social groups whose access to political power is a key factor in bolstering their positions. The roots of this emerging social hierarchy lie in the immediate post-independence period. THE BRAVE NEW WORLD

Having looked at some of the major theories concerning the state in Africa, and how policies based on these ideas allowed the party to consolidate its power and open space for processes of social stratification and class formation within Frelimo, this section will discuss the post-independence period and show how Frelimo’s first attempt to consolidate its power was cut short by civil war. However, early patterns of inclusion and exclusion planted the seeds for the social hierarchy that emerged after 1992. For those in Maputo who came of age during the culmination of the revolution, independence remains indelibly imprinted on their memory. Naema is in her forties; she works as a teacher at a private school and can be described as middle class. She comes from a mixed race family that was relatively privileged during the colonial period, and was thus able to move to the capital and attend school even though her father had been arrested by the Portuguese for collaborating with Frelimo during the struggle. Naema is now a strong critic of Frelimo and feels the party is corrupt and self-serving. Despite her alienation from Frelimo, her criticisms are occasionally interrupted by nostalgia. According to her, the atmosphere of the early days was electric and anything seemed possible: I was fifteen years old when we became independent and I was tremendously excited. Things had been bad under the transitional government,8 but I was very hopeful for the future. I went 8. The Transitional Government was a year-long interim government in Mozambique during the final negotiations for independence. During this period there were many outbreaks of violence in the capital; see Hall and Young (1997); Newitt (1995).

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to Machava Stadium where the independence ceremony would be held with my sister. When we arrived the Stadium was completely packed with people, but my sister and I squeezed our way in. It was amazing. At midnight, when Samora Machel (the first president) gave his speech declaring independence and they raised our new flag, everyone went crazy with joy. People were completely overcome with emotion, they were crying and cheering, they could not contain themselves. My sister and I became worried, the crowd was ecstatic, and we did not want to get accidentally crushed. Some Frelimo guards saw us and helped us out; luckily the celebrations were very well organized.

Naema’s memories of independence recall the hope and euphoria of that time which coincided with an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. In addition to the joy of liberation it was also a time of great opportunity for many Mozambicans as the exodus of the Portuguese population and the rapidly expanding state allowed increasing numbers of people to obtain posts of power and prestige.9 When Frelimo took power in 1975 after a ten-year liberation struggle, it was determined to transform the nation and put an end to the history of colonial exploitation. As I was told by a high-ranking member of the central committee of the Frelimo party, who was involved in the liberation struggle and held a succession of ministerial posts after independence, the party was committed to building a brave new world, but was aware that it rested on unstable foundations: We felt we were different. We had learned lessons from other liberation movements, and obviously independence is a good thing in itself, but it is not the only thing. We saw the corruption and the violence and we were convinced we would create something better. We knew that we were badly prepared for independence in some ways, we had few trained cadres with which to run the country and the population was largely illiterate. But we already established a quasi-state in the liberated zones during the struggle, with schools, hospitals, foreign relations, a unifying ideology and above all, a coherent organization.

Frelimo did establish a ‘coherent organization’ with a ‘unifying ideology’ and, after independence, it was riding high on popular acclaim for ending the brutal and widely detested Portuguese rule. However, it had also inherited a state racked by debts and little in the way of available funds to enact its ambitious plans; it was also surrounded by powerful and hostile white minority governments. Furthermore, while Frelimo could count on committed cadres that had forged strong relationships through ten years of war, they were a tiny minority in a vast country, whose world view and/or relatively privileged social backgrounds often put them at odds with large sections of the peasantry. Shortly after independence the party created a system called poder popular (people power), the goal of which was to involve the ‘people’ in the structures of their own governance. The country managed to function, but Frelimo was worried about a lack of discipline and overall control, and made efforts to centralize the system so that the state could be 9. See Saul (1979) for a sympathetic account of the widespread optimism within Mozambique that accompanied Frelimo’s ascent to power.

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harnessed for the great task of ‘modernizing’ the nation. This goal was one of the reasons behind the transformation of Frelimo into a ‘Marxist-Leninist’ Vanguard party in 1977, although the Soviet Union advised the leadership that Mozambique was not yet ready to take this step (Hall and Young, 1997). The result was that party structures became increasingly technocratic, and rank, power and privilege became intertwined with one’s position in the party-state (ibid.). Despite the lack of resources, cadres and educated personnel, the party leadership decided to radically transform the social fabric of the nation by replacing traditional feudalism with scientific socialism. In an effort to achieve this goal, but also as ad hoc reactions to changing circumstances, the leadership enacted decrees to transform gender relations, abolish traditional leadership and gather scattered hamlets into large-scale state farms and communal villages.10 The effect of many of these reforms was to cause administrative confusion and this was exacerbated by military interventions, first from Rhodesia and then, with more devastating effect, from South Africa. Frelimo became increasingly hierarchical, falling back on an authoritarian, military model of organization (Cahen, 1993; Hall and Young, 1997). Membership within the party grew more and more restricted to those who had the skills necessary to command (O’Laughlin, 2000). Frelimo began to draw its cadres from the social stratum to which it held the most appeal and it was members of this group who received the lion’s share of benefits, from housing and special shops to restaurants and hospitals reserved for their use (Hall and Young, 1997). The young, the better off, urbanites and commercial farmers, a small minority of the population, were strongly represented amongst party cadres. Thus the initial social mobility that followed independence became gradually more restricted to members of the party itself. Only they could ascend the hierarchy, accessing ever greater benefits, while those outside of party structures were often excluded. The rebels, Renamo, initially created by Rhodesia and South Africa, began to find a constituency amongst those alienated by Frelimo’s radical programme, and shortly after independence the country was facing a full-scale civil war. The fragile state apparatus Frelimo was in the process of constructing soon faced collapse through much of the country. While the institutions of the state began to radically contract, the Frelimo party remained a source of power. Adelino comes from a relatively welloff family by rural standards. His father was a member of a royal lineage on the coast of the northern Nampula province; he joined a clandestine Frelimo network during the liberation struggle. After the liberation struggle, Adelino’s father became a local party secretary and Adelino joined the youth wing of Frelimo. He was later given military training and put in charge of a unit that specialized in combating Renamo infiltration. Although 10. Many of the communal farms that Frelimo created were previously ‘fortified hamlets’ created by the Portuguese to guard against ‘subversion’ during the liberation struggle.

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Adelino’s control of the zones outside the district capital was limited to periodic sweeps, at a very young age he held considerable power. This power came with substantial risk though; when Renamo captured his home village, his father’s house was burned to the ground, although his family escaped.11 Despite the risks, Adelino was included in Frelimo structures of power giving him authority and access to many social benefits. Furthermore, as will be demonstrated below, the rewards for earlier loyalty became even greater in the post-socialist period. While Frelimo maintained its unity throughout the trials of civil war, the country faced devastation. Supporters of Renamo such as Hoile (1994) and Cabrita (2000) have long argued that the civil war in Mozambique grew out of a peasant response to an alien, urban, Creole Frelimo elite that insulted and suppressed the population’s traditions and destroyed their ‘timeless’ way of life. In a less propagandistic vein, independent scholars such as Geffray (1991) have also pointed out the deep discontent caused by Frelimo’s policies of abolishing traditional authority, moving rural populations into communal villages and starving peasants of investment in certain areas of the country. Geffray did extensive fieldwork in the Erati district of the Nampula province. The villagization programme in this area had concentrated relatively large numbers of people who had no history of co-habitation. One lineage, the Erati, managed to dominate the local Frelimo hierarchy and essentially took control of the land. The effects of the local monopolization of power were detrimental to newcomers. Disadvantaged groups who had been herded into villages felt increasingly exploited and resentful, especially as their leadership had also been pushed from power by Frelimo’s assault on traditional authority. When Renamo came to the area, it attacked the village, re-instated traditional leaders and told the inhabitants to go back to their old scattered hamlets. While the Erati, who gained most from the villagization programme, stayed loyal to Frelimo, others initially greeted Renamo as liberators and rallied to their cause. Renamo declared that it was engaged in a ‘war of the spirits’ and intended to reclaim ‘traditions’ from the alien Marxism of Frelimo. Many later cooled towards Renamo, as the taxes imposed on them became increasingly onerous and trade was difficult, as major markets were in Frelimo controlled areas. Consequently, Renamo’s rule grew more brutal. However, in some respects Renamo was responding to the grievances of at least part of the population.12 Geffray’s study shows the kinds of negotiations that were possible in rural areas of the centre and parts of the north during the 11. Renamo’s tactic of ‘decapitating’ state structures by killing all members of Frelimo and their families in areas they controlled was more difficult in the south, where Frelimo had a much stronger social base. This may in part explain Renamo’s more frequent use of indiscriminate brutality in the south (Finnegan, 1992; Roesch, 1992). 12. For critiques of Geffray’s analysis see Dinerman (1994); O’Laughlin (2000); Roesch (1992).

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civil war. Local actors attempted to realize their own agendas by offering their allegiance to one side or the other. However, it also shows the limits of negotiation as these efforts were constrained by the policies of vastly more powerful, armed organizations with agendas of their own. The reaction to Frelimo’s modernizing policies varied throughout the country; in some parts it was relatively positive. Norman (2004) recounts how, following the destruction of homes in a flood and given a pre-existing distrust of traditional authority due to its role in recruiting forced labour under colonialism, Frelimo’s plans to move villagers to communal villages and abolish traditional authority were not unpopular in the fertile, densely populated areas of the southern province of Gaza (see also Roesch, 1992). In the Mueda Plateau, a Frelimo stronghold in the far north, the party’s policies had contradictory effects. West (2001) describes how aspects of villagization programmes were welcomed and the concentration of large groups of people created new avenues of sociability; at the same time, there were numerous accusations of witchcraft as previous sanctions against sorcery proved ineffective for such a large population. The response to Frelimo’s grand modernizing ambitions often depended on finely nuanced local conditions and the different ways in which particular areas were incorporated into the economy and the nation — aspects that were rarely taken into account by planners in Maputo. Whatever the unintended consequences of the party’s policies, the result was that certain segments of the population were incorporated into party networks and were able to reap the benefits of programmes and use government power to enact their own plans, while others were excluded. Thus, unlike the classic account of a peasant rebellion, Renamo managed to build networks of support through the war in areas where Frelimo was weak or where their policies made them so, rather than engaging in a war by championing a particular social group. By the mid-1980s the government was in crisis. The military budget accounted for 35 per cent of government spending and the conflict had wiped out many of Frelimo’s impressive gains in health and education (Hanlon, 1990). It had lost direct control of much of the country and the war had spread to all ten of Mozambique’s provinces. Towards the end of that decade, Renamo was even able to mount attacks on the outskirts of the capital. The economy was in freefall with the prospect of outright economic collapse drawing closer (Marshall, 1990). In desperation the leadership came to an agreement with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to implement pro-market reforms to salvage what they could (Harrison, 1996). The economy had been declining by 8 per cent per year from 1982. After the adoption of these measures, however, the country boasted a modest growth rate of 3.6 per cent in 1986 (Marshall, 1990). The effects of these programmes could be seen in major cities as previously barren shelves of shops began to fill with goods. Yet, as the old joke goes, during socialism everyone has money but the shops are empty, under capitalism the shops are full but no one has any money. This appeared to be

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the case in Mozambique; the deregulation of the economy hit Frelimo’s urban base hard as the currency was drastically devalued, salaries were frozen, and subsidies removed. For many urbanites life became increasingly difficult and corruption began to flourish, as civil servants could no longer live on their salaries, and restrictions against personal accumulation were loosened (Harrison, 1996; Marshall, 1990; Pitcher, 2002). Despite the growing chaos, the Frelimo leadership did not succumb to the purges and breakaway factions that have characterized many African parties. Through shared experiences, ideological affinity and, on occasion, intermarriage, they had almost become a distinct social group within themselves. This unity kept the party intact through exceedingly trying circumstances, but it could not stop the worsening of the military situation. By the end of the 1980s Frelimo was forced to negotiate for peace.

RISING FROM THE ASHES

The end of the civil war and single-party socialism was supposed to introduce democratic accountability to the state apparatus. However, while reforms such as multiparty elections have been put into place, the party has managed to maintain its former centralized structures, using its access to donor funds and partnerships with capitalists to entrench its power and create an interlinked system of social hierarchy. This section will explore this phenomenon, making use of fieldwork material. The civil war ended in 1992 with the signing of a peace accord, after Frelimo unilaterally decreed sweeping political and economic changes. Socialism and the single-party state were abandoned in favour of a liberal style multiparty democracy. Renamo laid down its arms and became the official opposition, contesting the first democratic elections, held in 1994. The transition was surprisingly smooth, with the ruling party falling into step with little in the way of visible dissension. In an interview, a former minister explained how Frelimo was able to maintain its unity in the face of such seemingly sweeping social changes: People talked about splits and hardliners, but that was really just the newspapers. We, especially in the leadership, have a long history together. We lived together, fought for an ideal, argued with each other, got sick of each other and became friends and loved each other. Also, we won, we succeeded in our main goal and we still have responsibility. There was a time when we only spoke to each other and did not allow criticism. We felt the criticism was unfair considering everything we had achieved, but it cannot be like Mugabe in Zimbabwe. The people cannot be made to continually suffer; even if we are sure what we are doing is the right thing. Eventually we realized this and opened ourselves to criticism and to change. Really, just about everyone knew that the system was not working. We were trying to do everything for the people and it did not work. We had to allow the people more responsibility but also allow them to go their own way. One of our major problems was that our form of socialism was extremely distributive, but it penalized accumulation both public and private. We were trying to distribute ever dwindling resources to ever more people. Also, there was

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a group that had already progressed through socialism, they had enjoyed all the benefits, the free housing, free medical care and free education and now they wanted more. They watched Zimbabwe, where the cadres got farms and they wondered why can’t we liberate the nation and be rich. I remember telling a friend in the late 1970s that all of the great statists will remain so as long as the state serves their interests, when it no longer does they will take a different line. This is basically human nature; it’s not a great surprise.

The end of socialism brought many opportunities for enrichment, especially for the leadership. High-ranking party members, their families and associates tended to be among the major beneficiaries of privatization and used their political base to build economic power (Castel-Branco et al., 2001; Pitcher, 2002). Frelimo itself also became a major economic actor, both through partnerships with multinationals and in its own right, keeping important segments of the economy within the ‘Frelimo family’ by allowing trusted party members to take control of newly privatized economic concerns (Pitcher, 2002). The wealth that followed capitalism has tended to remain concentrated in relatively few hands. Despite the promises of the new democratic era, politics remains a ‘zero sum’ game. Local level administrators often remain militantly partisan as their conception of politics is based on their own historical experience (Gonc¸alves, 2004, 2006). One rural government official in the south reported: ‘To campaign for Frelimo means to secure our jobs. As we saw in 1975, the upcoming independence meant the destruction of the colonial administrative machine and state functionaries ended up without jobs. If Renamo gets into power it will not be different’ (Gonc¸alves, 2004: 45).13 Thus, in an interesting paradox, democratization has not lessened the hold of the party, as many officials remain convinced that a change in the government would still deprive them of their livelihood. This kind of militant partisanship runs through many aspects of political life, even the more trivial. This is illustrated by a man who owns a meeting/convention centre in a peri-rural area in the centre of the country — one of the few places in that district with a steady supply of electricity. Although the owner of the centre is a member of Frelimo, he had rented out his facilities to a Renamo delegation who wanted to have a conference on the impact of climate change in rural Mozambique. The day before the meeting the owner received a call from the local head of security who asked, in the name of their shared patriotism, if he would not cancel this ‘subversive’ meeting. Interestingly the phrase ‘patriotism’ here was tied to the Frelimo party, not the nation, although for many party members the difference between the two may not be entirely clear. Frelimo links a variety of social strata together and allows them access to resources and power through the party’s command of the state and its economic clout. It is a hierarchical organization, but it does have internal 13. For an informative account of local level politics in the centre and north of the country, see Buur and Kyed (2006).

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paths of advancement, and creates opportunities for social mobility as a reward for success and loyalty. Concrete examples can be provided by the career paths of two Frelimo party members in the northern city of Nampula. The first is Adelino who was introduced in the previous section. Although he comes from a relatively privileged background, by rural standards, Adelino has clearly progressed considerably, moving through the ranks from the youth wing of the party through the districts. His political star was already rising locally, but his real chance came when President Guebuza shifted his strategy towards establishing Frelimo dominance in Nampula, the most populous province and one in which Renamo is strong. Adelino’s work in the successful elections allowed him to advance further and he is now a high-ranking member of the provincial government and a member of the central committee, which determines party policy. He was also able to gain scholarships for further study and has obtained a PhD abroad. His position allows him all the hallmarks of status — an expensive car, a large house and a large screen digital TV. He is now contemplating forays into the private sector as well. Vanessa was born in a small village in the province of Cabo Delgado and is connected to the more rural northern elite that has historically provided Frelimo with its military leadership. Her parents were involved in the liberation struggle. Vanessa joined Frelimo’s army as a teenager and met the man who became her husband, who was an officer. Following the end of the struggle, they moved to Maputo and worked for the Ministry of Defence; her husband was later reassigned to the province of Nampula, and Vanessa was offered a post in the municipal government of the city of Nampula where they now live. While Vanessa is not as highly educated as Adelino, she has a reputation for absolute loyalty to the party and has steadily advanced through a succession of political posts. She is not rich, but she lives comfortably and has been able to educate her children at private universities in Maputo. Both Adelino and Vanessa are members of Frelimo and work for the government in Nampula city, but there are significant differences in their career paths, levels of responsibility, wealth and education, and the positions to which they can aspire. However, through their membership in Frelimo they have been provided with comfortable lives, very different from the villages and small towns of their youth. Their loyalty has been rewarded and they have been able to progress through a centralized system that offers one of the most reliable options for advancement available in Mozambique. As Frelimo has won all three post-war elections, and Mozambique is now basically an elected one-party state, it is reasonable to expect that if the party can manage its growing internal tensions and remain unified, it will continue to be a major source of social mobility for some time to come. Frelimo thus operates as a political party and as a collection of interlinked social groups or classes that share interests, lifestyles, aspirations and opportunities for social advancement, as rewards are hierarchically determined. These joint interests stem from the party’s control over the levers of power,

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which allows Frelimo to act as the primary ‘arena of negotiation’ for major political and economic interests. The liberal period has also allowed Frelimo to expand into the private sector both in its own right and by incorporating other economic actors, especially members of the Indian merchant groups, within its networks. Sayed is a merchant of Indian descent based in Nampula province. His family has been active in the commercial life of the province since the colonial period and has owned several factories as well as shops and land. When Frelimo took power, much of his family’s assets were nationalized and many of his relatives fled to South Africa and Portugal as they feared further persecution. However, during our conversation Sayed was complaining bitterly about Renamo who then controlled his municipality: Renamo is useless, it is just a bunch of peasants and that is who supports them. All of us in the business community and everyone who belongs to the middle and upper classes support Frelimo. Nowadays Frelimo allows businessmen to work while Renamo just comes and takes things away to give to one of its friends. It is good that Renamo exists because the country needs an opposition, but it is not ready to take power. Most of us are Frelimo or at least sympathizers and almost all of the big businessmen have connections with the party.14

Sayed’s views were echoed by Mohammed, another merchant of Indian descent based in Nampula. Mohammed is also a member of Frelimo, despite his difficult history with the party during the socialist period. For him, Frelimo is the lesser of two evils; like Sayed, he simply does not believe that Renamo provides a credible opposition. According to Mohammed it is possible to run small economic concerns with a degree of independence, but a partnership with the party or a high-ranking member is usually necessary for any major business. Mohammed himself was invited by a district official to market agricultural produce and set up shops in the area under the administrator’s control. Frelimo’s ability to channel demands and interests within its own structures has opened a space for negotiation for those sectors of society that the party is most concerned with, but that space is heavily circumscribed and limited: one can become rich, but one must do it in conjunction with the party and in a way that reinforces the existing structures of power. For other sectors of society — those in which the party has limited interest, and those who are heavily identified with the opposition — exclusionary practices seem likely to continue. This was described by another interviewee. Eduardo is from a major city in the centre of the country and his family is relatively well-off, although they have never been members of Frelimo. He told me that he has recently joined the party, even though he has been 14. This remark was illustrated in another interview I had with a very powerful merchant in Nampula. When entering his office one’s eyes were immediately drawn to a giant portrait of the nation’s president, Armando Guebuza, even though it is a private office. An in-depth discussion of the links between Frelimo and businesses is beyond the scope of this chapter, but for an excellent account see Pitcher (2002).

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complaining bitterly about Frelimo’s supposed corruption. When I asked why he joined the party he looked at me with a bemused expression and replied: ‘It is the power, it controls everything, how can one go against the power?’. Eduardo is ambitious; according to him, if one wants to move up in the world it is necessary to be a member of Frelimo. There is simply no point in opposing it.

CONCLUSION

This contribution has argued that the ruling Frelimo party is deeply involved in processes of social stratification that have gained force since the beginning of the liberal period in 1992. To understand how this is so, one must look at the complicated and evolving relationship between the ruling party and the state it controls. It has further argued that existing analytical frameworks are not helpful in this case: neither trying to place Mozambique on an evolutionary arc between a ‘failed state’ and a ‘liberal’ one (or whatever else is deemed necessary for the creation of a ‘developmental’ state), nor focusing on clientelistic relationships, can adequately explain the practice of politics in contemporary Mozambique. While aspects of ‘state failure’, clientelism and patronage have been present in Mozambique to different degrees at different times, these are more symptoms or outcomes of the system rather than explanations or causal factors. Theories that focus on implementing liberal democracy as a cure to all of Africa’s social ills, or that understand the African state as an empty shell with power being concentrated in subterranean networks, have been very influential for powerful donors involved in Mozambique’s post-war reconstruction. This has given theoretical credibility to market reforms, attempts to remove the state from the economy and measures to implement democratic elections and decentralization programmes to make the state more accountable. However, these measures do not fully take into account a very public and powerful organization that spans the entire nation, the ruling party itself. Indeed, the party has been able to entrench itself more deeply as its members have access to aid money provided to a democratic state and are able to engage in partnerships with a business community taking advantage of market reforms. Pitcher (2002) has argued that privatization actually strengthened the state in Mozambique, giving it access to new forms of capital. This is undoubtedly true, but perhaps even more importantly, it has enabled the party that controls the state to embody a type of social stratification that allows some form of advancement to loyal members. Instead of democratization opening new spaces for the nation’s citizens to negotiate relationships of power with the state, the party has been able to use its newfound resources to centralize negotiations within its own structures.

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This does not mean Frelimo is all-powerful, and the fervent zeal of the past has been dented by frequent allegations of corruption and political cynicism. However, many members of Frelimo continue to have an almost visceral belief in their right and legitimacy to rule as they feel that only they can bring development. Even amongst those who criticize the party in Maputo and Nampula, many believe that Frelimo is the only entity capable of running the country, at least for now. As the words of Marco in the introduction demonstrate, for some members of Frelimo, the power of the party is the only thing that can confront a state they feel to be mired in corruption. If the party is the problem it might also be the only thing capable of providing a solution and one of the most realistic means of social advancement for many Mozambicans. Nor does this mean that the party is completely homogeneous and united; there are numerous divisions within Frelimo, ranging from disagreements concerning policy to regional disputes and factional fights attached to powerful members, as well as growing disquiet amongst older party members and former supporters about the present direction of the country. This is perhaps one of the gravest threats the system currently faces. However, in Mozambique, political power remains the primary source of material power (see Sumich, 2008) and while the state may be more open to democratic accountability, real power remains concentrated in the ruling party. Disputes, negotiations and struggles have, thus far, remained largely internal. REFERENCES Bayart, Jean-Franc¸ois (1993) The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly. New York: Longman. Bayart, Jean-Franc¸ois, Beatrice Hibou and Stephen Ellis (1999) The Criminalization of the State in Africa. Oxford: James Currey; Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Buur, Lars and Helene Kyed (2006) ‘Contested Sources of Authority: Reclaiming State Sovereignty by Formalizing Traditional Authority in Mozambique’, Development and Change 37(4): 847–69. Cabrita, Jo˜ao (2000) Mozambique: The Tortuous Road to Democracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Cahen, Michel (1993) ‘Check on Socialism in Mozambique: What Check? What Socialism?’, Review of African Political Economy 20(57): 46–59. Castel-Branco, Carlos, Christopher Cramer and Degol Hailu (2001) ‘Privatisation and Economic Strategy in Mozambique’. Discussion Paper No. 2001/64. London: WIDER, United Nations University. Chabal, Patrick and Jean Pascal Daloz (1999) Africa Works: Disorder as a Political Instrument. Oxford: James Currey; Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Cohen, Michael (1982) ‘Public Policy and Class Formation’, in Chris Allen and Gavin Williams (eds) Sociology of ‘Developing Societies’: Sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 179–83. New York and London: Monthly Review Press. Cramer Christopher and Jonathan Goodhand (2002) ‘Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better? War, the State and the “Post-Conflict” Challenge in Afghanistan’, Development and Change 33(5): 885–909. Di John, Jonathan (2008) ‘Conceptualising the Causes and Consequences of Failed States: A Critical Review of the Literature’. Working Paper No. 25. London: Crisis States Research Centre.

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Dinerman, Alice (1994) ‘In Search of Mozambique: The Imaginings of Christian Geffray in “La Cause des Armes au Mozambique: Anthropologie d’une Guerre Civile”’, Journal of Southern African Studies 20(4): 569–86. Ferguson, James (2005) ‘Seeing Like an Oil Company: Space, Security, and Global Capital in Neoliberal Africa’, American Anthropologist 107(3): 377–82. Finnegan, William (1992) A Complicated War: The Harrowing of Mozambique. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Geffray, Christian (1991) A Causa das Armas: Anthropologia da Guerra Contempor´anea em Moc¸ambique [The Cause of Weapons: The Anthropology of a Contemporary War in Mozambique]. Oporto: Edic¸o˜ es Afrontamento. Gonc¸alves, Euclides (2004) ‘Local Powers and Decentralisation in Southern Mozambique: The Case of the Administrative Post of Mocumbi’. Masters Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of Cape Town. Gonc¸alves, Euclides (2006) ‘Local Powers and Decentralisation: Recognition of Community Leaders in Mocumbi, Southern Mozambique’, Journal of Contemporary African Studies 24(1): 29–52. Hall, Margaret and Tom Young (1997) Confronting Leviathan: Mozambique since Independence. London: Hurst & Co. Hanlon, Joseph (1990) Mozambique: The Revolution Under Fire. London and New Jersey: Zed Books. Harrison, Graham (1996) ‘Democracy in Mozambique: The Significance of Multi-Party Elections’, Review of African Political Economy 23(67): 19–35. Hedges, David (1999) Hist´oria de Moc¸ambique Volume Dois: Moc¸ambique no Auge do Colonialismo, 1930–1961 [The History of Mozambique Volume Two: Mozambique in the Age of Colonialism]. Maputo: Livraria Universit´aria Universidade Eduardo Mondlane. Hoile, David (1994) Mozambique Resistance and Freedom: A Case for Reassessment. London: The Mozambique Institute. Kotkin, Stephan (1995) Magnetic Mountain: Stalinism as a Civilization. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Leys, Colin (1982) ‘The Kenyan Bureaucracy’, in Chris Allen and Gavin Williams (eds) Sociology of ‘Developing Societies’: Sub-Saharan Africa, pp. 176–8. New York and London: Monthly Review Press. Lund, Christian (2006) ‘Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37(4): 685–705. Marshall, Judith (1990) ‘Structural Adjustment and Social Policy in Mozambique’, Review of African Political Economy 17(47): 28–43. Newitt, Malyn (1995) A History of Mozambique. London: C. Hurst & Co. Norman, William (2004) ‘Living on the Frontline: Politics, Migration and Transfrontier Conservation in the Mozambican Villages of the Mozambique–South Africa Borderland’. PhD Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics. O’Laughlin, Bridget (2000) ‘Class and the Customary: The Ambiguous Legacy of the Indigenato in Mozambique’, African Affairs 99: 5–42. Penvenne, Jeanne (1989) ‘“We are all Portuguese!” Challenging the Political Economy of Assimilation: Lourenc¸o Marques, 1870–1933’, in Leroy Vail (ed.) The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa, pp. 255–88. Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Pitcher, Anne (2002) Transforming Mozambique: The Politics of Privatisation, 1975–2000. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reno, William (1998) Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Roesch, Otto (1992) ‘Renamo and the Peasantry in Southern Mozambique’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 26(3): 462–84.

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Rotberg, Robert (2004) When States Fail: Causes and Consequences. Princeton, NJ: University of Princeton Press. Saul, John (1979) The State and Revolution in Eastern Africa: Essays. New York: Monthly Review Press. Soares de Oliveira, Ricardo (2007) Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea. London: Hurst & Company. Sumich, Jason (2008) ‘Politics after the Time of Hunger in Mozambique: A Critique of the NeoPatrimonial Interpretations of Elites’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 34(1): 111–25. Sumich, Jason (2009) ‘Modernity Redirected: Socialism, Liberalism and the National Elite in Mozambique’, Cambridge Anthropology 28(2): 1–24. West, Harry (2001) ‘Sorcery of Construction and Socialist Modernization: Ways of Understanding Power in Postcolonial Mozambique’, American Ethnologist 28(1): 119–50. Wilson, K.B (1992) ‘Cults of Violence and Counter-Violence in Mozambique’, Journal of Southern African Studies 18(3): 527–82. Zartman, William (1995) Collapsed States. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.

8 Maintenant, on sait qui est qui: Statehood and Political Reconfiguration in Northern Cˆote d’Ivoire

Till F¨orster INTRODUCTION

Many accounts of so-called failed states seem to provide a fairly accurate description of how the state as an institution lost its monopoly on force to a wide variety of other political players (e.g. Jackson, 1994; Reno, 1998). They analyse how non-state actors increasingly provide services that once were a privilege of the state. The provision of security by competing actors is and remains a central issue for both the local population and for political analysts. From a Weberian point of view, the lack of a monopoly on the legitimate use of force is a clear indicator of a failing state, i.e. one that no longer fulfils the core functions of a state, such as regulating social relations through the judicial and legal system. A failing state then appears to be an institution that has become one player among many. Security as one, if not the central, service rendered to the general population is relegated to what has been called an open space where private actors profit from the absence of the state’s monopoly and compete for domination by violent means (Elwert, 1997; Nordstrom, 2004). In other, more appropriate conceptualizations, this space has been analysed as a market where a limited number of actors, among them the state and its institutions, offer security, not violence, as a commodity (Mehler, 2004). However, security as a commodity needs a demand, and that demand is often stimulated or even generated by the same actors who, at times, also threaten the population to demonstrate the necessity of their security services. Disorder thus becomes a political instrument that fosters the persistence of patrimonial ties between particular parts of the population and those who offer security (Chabal and Daloz, 1999). However, the explanatory value of this argument is limited. During a violent crisis, such tactics may offer significant advantages. Disorder does not only operate at the political level, it disturbs the routines of everyday life and often causes situations that are characterized by precariousness. Such situations often exhaust and exceed the resilience of society, that is, what ordinary people can bear. They do not have many options. One option is to leave for less disordered, more peaceful places, preferably beyond the influence of those who threaten them. In pre-colonial times, this meant The author would like to thank the editors of this volume and the anonymous reviewers of Development and Change for their valuable comments. Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard  C 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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migrating to areas that were not controlled by violent actors, for instance regions that later became known for the acephalous societies living there. In post-colonial times, such moves were much more difficult (Herbst, 2000: 35–57), though not impossible. The obstacle was the fixed boundaries of the post-colonial state which left no space between neighbouring states. Crossing the border and moving into a neighbouring state is only an option if the situation becomes too dangerous or too oppressive. The move into a ‘foreign’ country also leads to other difficulties. Unlike the pre-colonial acephalous populations, the migrants are almost always defined as ‘refugees’, and will be tolerated on a temporary basis only. It is expected that they will return ‘home’ once the crisis is settled. Moreover, the option is often closed to those who do not live close to state borders. They have to stay put, as the cases of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Coˆ te d’Ivoire all show. What is needed is a perspective that looks at the interplay between supply and demand of security not only from the suppliers’ side. If large parts of the population are threatened by a wide variety of violent actors, claims to establish a more predictable order will be welcomed by the majority of those who are suffering as a result of past or present disorder. There is a need to limit disorder to a level which a significant part of the ordinary population can endure. If security is a commodity and its provision correctly conceptualized as a market oligopoly with a limited number of providers, as Andreas Mehler (2004) convincingly suggests, it ought to be possible to play the competitors off against each other. If the degree of disorder still prevents ordinary people from making a living, they would certainly look for other providers of protection and civil security — those whose assurances are more convincing or who have already proven that they are willing to protect their clients. There are countless examples from history where such situations have led to the re-emergence of one dominant actor and in particular the institutions of the state (Holsti, 1996). With regard to Africa, Jean-Franc¸ois Bayart has argued along similar lines that ‘dissidence, war and banditry. . .do not necessarily threaten the formation. . .of a state. They can. . .aid its centralisation’.1 The formation of state domination is a long process marked by challenges and threats that render state domination initially as precarious as conducting life under the conditions of an oligopoly of violence (Popitz, 1992; von Trotha, 1994). Historians sometimes see the same process as one of the causes for the ‘inevitable’ and near universal spread of the state as the major form of domination since the early modern period (e.g. Reinhard, 1999; Skocpol, 1989). Disorder as political instrument thus has two implicit limits.2 First, it does not lead anywhere if the general population cannot endure it. In the long 1. Bayart’s conclusion in Bayart et al. (1999: 115). For the formation of European states, see Tilly (1985); for another case outside Africa, see Barkey (1994). 2. Chabal and Daloz (1999) argue that African politicians consciously keep the social in a state of disorder to facilitate their own domination. Opposing views emphasizing the absence of an international framework as a cause of that disorder are often misunderstood as an

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run, no dictator or autocratic regime profits from a fleeing or, worse, a dying population. Second, it is likely that more than one actor will offer security in situations of disorder which are, unavoidably, situations of uncertainty difficult to control by any actor. This will lead to competition between them, and ordinary people will try to look for better options if one provider does not meet their expectations. Claims to be a better provider of security than the others thus become an important marketing instrument. Such claims can take the form of a pledge, a promise, or a political programme, and they may come from more than one side. It is far from certain that the state will always come out on top. Power and domination come in many guises. The privileging of the state in this interplay of highly different actors is a perspective that is heavily biased towards the modern notion that the state will eventually (re)emerge as dominant actor. Though the monopoly of power remains at the centre of most approaches to analysing states in a comparative perspective, many scholars have acknowledged the necessity of developing a broader understanding of what power, domination and, in particular, statehood mean in different societal settings — that is, how they relate to other practices that also legitimize domination without which the basic legitimacy of a superior force will always remain questionable (Boulding, 1989; von Trotha, 1995). Case studies of Africa have shown a remarkable range of such alternative conceptualizations (for instance, Bayart, 1989; Mbembe, 1988, 2001; Schatzberg, 2001). But they converge on two points: the first is the necessity to describe power and domination as a social practice and as a social structure. The state in society approach, as proposed by Migdal (1988, 2001), seems to be an appropriate conceptualization because it separates the state as an institution from statehood as the practices that shape the popular understanding of this institution. The second point states that such social practices become more visible and easier to analyse in situations of rapid political change, such as in violent crises. Though some analyses of such situations try to maintain the assumption that state and society remain two distinct — and juxtaposed — entities in their own right, many, if not most, case studies clearly show that this dichotomy does not generate valid descriptions of situations where the state has ceased to be the dominant actor in politics and social life. The state remains part of the imagination of ordinary people in their daily lives (Hansen and Stepputat, 2001; Jackson, 2002); in other words, statehood as a practice is still reproduced while the state as an institution might have vanished. People’s activities are oriented towards the ongoing interplay of different forms of power and towards a wider range of stakeholders but they still make use of the routines of domination that they are familiar with. A description of political transformation must thus make sense of the societal reconfigurations that underpin the political sphere during and after a violent apology for African regimes and their bad governance. See, for instance, Hungwe and Hungwe (2000).

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crisis. If the nature of power and domination in Africa is essentially social and not confined to the political domain, any analysis of political transformation must start from a description of social change as it occurs through a crisis. The following is a case study of Coˆ te d’Ivoire. With reference to two themes, it illustrates how society in the northern part of the country has changed since the beginning of what became known as the Ivoirian crisis.3 The precise beginning of the crisis and the evaluation of its major events are questions of debate among Ivoirians. The historical framework looks clear at first glance: in 1990, after a long economic decline, the founding father of post-colonial Coˆ te d’Ivoire, Fe´ lix Houphoue¨ t-Boigny, was obliged by public opinion and the winds of change that were blowing across Africa to allow multiparty elections for the first time. The polls unsurprisingly confirmed him as president and his ruling party as the major political force in the country. After Houphoue¨ t-Boigny’s death on 6 December 1993, a weak successor, Henri-Konan Be´ die´ , tried to maintain the dominant position of his party and ethnic group. In 1994/95 he introduced the ethno-nationalist ideology of Ivoirit´e, literally ‘Ivoirity’ which led to a policy of belonging. This led to the exclusion of his main opponent Alassane Dramane Ouattara — originally from Kong, a northern town — from running for the presidency and prevented the population in the northern and western parts of the country from exercising their civil rights. On 24 December 1999, General Robert Gue´¨ı overthrew the Be´ die´ government and promised free and fair elections the coming year. However, he adopted election laws that again denied full citizenship rights to Ouattara and northerners. In a tumultuous post-election struggle in October 2000, Laurent Gbagbo, the leader of the Front Populaire Ivoirien came to power. Despite his former assurance that he would not adopt the same ‘politics of belonging’ as his two predecessors, his administration increasingly practised them. On 19 September 2002, a coalition of military forces tried to overthrow the Gbagbo administration. The coup failed but the rebels were able to occupy the northern and western parts of Coˆ te d’Ivoire. Since then, the country has been divided. The ceasefire is monitored by international peacekeeping forces under UN command, the United Nations Operation in Coˆ te d’Ivoire (UNOCI), and a smaller French battalion, the Op´eration Licorne. On 4 March 2007, the opposing parties signed a peace agreement that should have led to the gradual re-establishment of the administration in the rebel zones and to elections in 2008. Both were postponed repeatedly, and the rebel zones remained a space beyond state domination. Nonetheless, statehood as social practice is a daily reality in the rebel zone. The north of Coˆ te d’Ivoire has therefore been chosen to serve as an example of how statehood is negotiated. Since 2002 this region has been under the control of the rebel movement which later turned into a political faction. 3. Poame (2007) and the special issue of Politique Africaine no. 89 of 2003 may serve as general introductions.

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Since the failed coup, the state and almost all of its institutions have been absent from the northern part of the country. The two themes of security and new social and economic opportunities have been selected because of their immediate relevance to ordinary people, but also because they were identified as major issues by most of my interlocutors during my fieldwork. These themes encompass civil security, neo-patrimonial networks, gender relations, rural–urban relations and to some extent, daily social life. SECURITY FIRST

For more than a decade, civil security was the most pressing issue in northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire. In the early 1990s, still under the old regime of Fe´ lix Houphoue¨ t-Boigny, banditry had achieved a rate that many ordinary people found unacceptable. Travelling overland, and particularly at night, was considered to be dangerous. Stories about hold-ups and attacks circulated in every city and village.4 However, the threats were not exclusively attributed to criminals. The majority did not draw a clear distinction between criminals and other actors who promised protection and security only to threaten them later. The distinction between bandits and the police, in particular, became unclear. Stories about policemen tolerating or even actively supporting criminals were numerous and widespread. If one ran into a road-block, there was no way of knowing if a policeman was really a policeman or if he was a uniformed robber. Wearing a uniform did not mean much in those times. The petty corruption that penetrated all public services was a daily reality that had led to deep-seated suspicions about the intentions of those who claimed to act on behalf of the general interest. The police and gendarmerie were seen as highwaymen who were asking for bribes without any good reason. Having all the necessary papers did not guarantee that one could pass a roadblock without paying. The arbitrariness of what the police and the gendarmerie called ‘controls’ left no room for a predictable passage, except when one belonged to the privileged few who held higher positions than those at the roadside. There was a saying that became proverbial in those days: ‘There are unauthorized robbers and there are authorized robbers’ (Fo¨ rster, 2002: 104). There were ‘real’ policemen in the civil service wearing uniforms but who acted like criminals off-duty. There were ‘real’ criminals who were also wearing uniforms and carrying out controls at road-blocks but who were not members of the police force. And then there were an increasing number of men who were not wearing uniforms but who protected their neighbourhoods and villages. Some of them were very young and had joined voluntary associations, other were hunters who belonged to ‘traditional’ 4. This chapter draws on the author’s participation in spontaneous daily conversations during the 1990s; see F¨orster (2004) for details. The following passages mirror the actors’ points of view and the general opinion about security issues.

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associations. What is important in this regard is that, with the exception of the hunters, the roles of these social actors in the realm of civil security were undeterminable. One needed to know somebody personally, or one needed a lot of trust, and at times to hand over money, if one had no personal network to rely on for security. In general, the confusion about social roles rendered the social nature of power unpredictable: it was at times impossible to identify where the threats of violence would come from and who would provide protection. The confusion of and about roles and social positions was not limited to the domain of security, although security was seen as extremely important, if not the basis of all social interaction. The general confusion that prevailed is an extension of the blurred distinction between police and criminals. On ne sait plus qui est qui5 was a common saying throughout the 1990s which turned into a general metaphor for a confused and confusing lifeworld.6 The blurring of social roles had further, cultural implications. Many elderly people complained that their children could no longer distinguish between right and wrong. However, there were exceptions that were acknowledged by most of my dialogue partners at the time. In January 2007, after more than four years under the rebel regime and seven years after the first putsch of General Gue´¨ı, the metaphor changed. It was no longer a matter of confusion about social roles but the opposite — the identification of social actors. Many said that they now knew who was who: maintenant, on sait qui est qui! The sentence had multiple connotations and pertained to many spheres of society. At one end was the immediate neighbourhood. At the other end were international relations and the role of the United Nations peacekeeping force from the ceasefire of 2003 until the present. But what counted most for the majority of my dialogue partners was again protection and security. It meant that one now knew who was a thief, a criminal and who was a protector, a patron or simply a reliable friend. Most policemen had fled when the rebels took control of the cities and towns. Policemen who originated from the north were no longer acting on behalf of the state but defected to the rebels and soon identified themselves as members of the rebellion. On the one hand, this helped them to survive and on the other hand, it meant integrating into an emerging network of relationships of trust. Until September 2002, the rebellion was a ‘vicious conspiracy’ — at least in the eyes of the former armed bodies of the state. 5. ‘One does not know who is who’ (F¨orster, 2002). 6. Other examples from southern Cˆote d’Ivoire are more recent and documented on the internet; see, for example, a talk by President Laurent Gbagbo: http://www.notreafrique.net/ Politique/Article49.php, 30 December 2008. The metaphor is also used in other parts of Africa, such as Cameroon (http://www.santetropicale.com/actualites/0705/0705_15. htm, 30 December 2008) and Benin (http://www.africultures.com/php/index.php?nav= article&no=7110, 30 December 2008). The fight against the confusion has become a political argument in the Democratic Republic of Congo (http://www.ucdp-info.com/ dikanga.htm, 30 December 2008).

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Until then, the rebel movement was by all accounts an association based on personal trust. A former employee at the subdivision office still talked about this time in a low voice so that nobody else would hear him: ‘A friend told me that I should stay in Korhogo at all cost. “This day [19 September 2002] must not find you anywhere else. But if someone asks: You didn’t see me, I didn’t see you!”’.7 There were hidden messages and rumours which people later understood to have been the first signs of changing social relationships. Conspiracy turned into a visible network the day the rebellion started, and the conspiratorial groups grew quickly in the weeks after 19 September 2002. The leading figures needed support from the local population, becoming aware that the rebellion would not end with a quick overthrow of the existing regime but would take much longer than initially expected. They adopted a public strategy, communicating to the ordinary population that the rebels were not acting in the interest ‘of their own belly’ but as agents of public wealth.8 The recruitment of young men and, less frequently, of women, was not difficult. Many joined the troops of the rebellion to put an end to a social and political situation that they had experienced as unjust and corrupt, not least because of the politics of ethnic exclusion based on the notorious nationalist ideology of Ivoirit´e (Akinde` s, 2007; Bane´ gas, 2006; Bane´ gas and Losch, 2003; Dozon, 2000).9 Even in remote villages, young men joined the rebellion and left to fight for what they imagined would be a better future.10 The rebellion profited from the cultural ties between ‘Northerners’ who shared the same language and religion(s), and who were all excluded from political participation by the bourgeoisie dominating in the South. Though both North and South were imagined communities, as political and social entities, they gave the respective populations on both sides a basic legitimacy11 of cultural belonging: ‘Our children have a fight for us.’12 Imagined communities, however, may become nations (Anderson, 2006). 7. A former civil servant of the sous-pr´efecture of Korhogo. 8. The rebel movement made use of existing media, for instance of griots, i.e. bards that were sent to quarters and villages. I owe this information mainly to Kerstin Bauer who documented the modes of communication in the neighbouring city of Ferkessedougou. The metaphor of eating and the belly was used widely. It is a common metaphor for political power and appropriation in many parts of Africa (Bayart, 1989; Schatzberg, 2001: 40–50). 9. The persistence of nationhood beyond the nation state is the subject of a forthcoming article of mine. 10. Youth was a major factor in the uprising, not least because they saw themselves cut off from the opportunities that the state would have had to offer had it not become the booty of the older generation of French-speaking bourgeois functionaries (Ban´egas, 2006; MarshallFratani, 2004). 11. The concept of basic legitimacy has been developed by von Trotha (1995), building on the general legitimacy of power as formulated by Popitz (1992). Cultural belonging is one of five types of basic legitimacy. It allows the population to identify with the rulers because they belong to the same culture. 12. A peasant farmer in his fifties who also runs a tailor’s workshop in Korhogo (January 2007).

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Legitimacy based on cultural belonging alone was not sufficient to sustain the rebellion in the long run. Despite the apparent ease with which the rebellion took root in northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire, everyday life in the first weeks and months after September 2002 is remembered as extremely hard. Most markets were closed, and many families did not know where to find food for the next meal. Many accounts of suffering still circulate among ordinary people. More remarkable, however, are implicit statements on justice and care that often accompany them. Soon after they took control of the city, the rebels established a curfew and aimed at putting an end to the repeated robberies that had marked civic life for so long. If somebody was caught red-handed, they did not hesitate to shoot him on the spot. Though there were abuses of power, the rebels were seen as just or at least as fair-minded social actors who brought a new and better social order. The central point was that they did not allow criminals to get away with what they had done — a stark contrast to police officers who were making a living from the bribes that they received from criminals: ‘Whether or not you take a thief to [the police office], it does not matter. He slips money to the policemen, and the next day, you will see him in the same spot you saw him before. It doesn’t make sense — one has to kill them, that’s the only solution’.13 In the minds of ordinary people, their social world became clearer than it had been under state domination. Threats of violence were much easier to identify than before. A rebel was a rebel and a criminal was a criminal, while the police and the gendarmerie had ceased to exist. What is important here is that the use of destructive power, as the rebels practised it, was seen as a means to establish a new and better social order since justice through the rule of law did not exist. That has changed, but until the Ouagadougou Peace Treaty was signed on 4 March 2007, the rebels were seen as more or less legitimate representatives of the public interest. To understand this shift, it is necessary to situate the rebels in the context of the above-mentioned oligopoly of security providers. Like the former state, they were not able to establish a monopoly of force. In the cities and in the rural villages, there were other providers of security with whom they had to compete. The most important groups were the hunters’ associations, the famous dozo.14 They claimed a history that dated back to the medieval empire of Mali. In addition, they saw themselves as the successors of an age-old tradition of secret knowledge that was communicated through the rites of initiation that every member of the association had to pass before he

13. A retired employee of the city administration of Sirasso (March 2002). At the time, the general assumption that the police co-operated with criminals led to numerous cases of vigilantism. 14. Dozo is the word for hunter in Manding. On the dozo in the Mande area see the special issue of Africa Today 2004. On the hunter associations in other parts of Cˆote d’Ivoire see Bassett (2004) and Hellweg (2006).

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could rightfully claim the status of hunter. As a corporate group,15 they relied on knowledge that enjoyed an almost religious status. Though the hunters’ associations were not seen as a religious institution, their ideological basis was thought to be immune to ordinary criticism. Initiation involves sacrificing a cock over a small shrine erected at the outskirts of the village or not too far away in the bush surrounding bigger towns and cities. A future hunter has to swear that he will never violate the regulations of the beings of the wilderness, represented by the shrine. Once he has performed the short ritual act, he has access to the secret knowledge of hunting. Among other things, this means having the ability to become invisible to game and to humans by wearing a shirt with many little pockets filled with magical substances and sometimes also with s`eb`e — surats of the Koran sewn into leather.16 To profit from such advantages, hunters have to adopt an ethic of honesty, bravery and veracity. The initiated hunter is bound to his oath through the consequences that a violation would bring. Not only would it mean exclusion from the social network that a hunter association provides, it would also mean that the forces that helped him will now turn against him and render him weak and defenceless, eventually killing him. It is assumed that a hunter cannot lie because of the dangers lying brings. The integrative power of the hunter associations is based in basic cultural convictions which are taken for granted. A hunter thus enjoys a high status in the local community. Almost everybody believes that no amount of money, however high, could corrupt a hunter. Hunter associations also engage in practices that visibly demonstrate their capacities. During the crisis their security services acquired much greater importance than their expressive culture.17 Already in the early 1990s, hunters controlled access to villages and even held road-blocks along some roads that linked major cities. They were first armed with locally manufactured rifles but soon adopted modern weapons, particularly after the coup of December 1999. Hunters were in charge of finding, confronting and arresting ‘thieves’, which, in the local vernacular, serves as a generic term for all sorts of criminals (Fo¨ rster, 2009). But according to popular understanding, they were not authorized to judge them. They had to be brought to justice by other authorities, village headmen in particular. When in the 1990s the abuse of the state’s force by the police and the gendarmerie led to the blurring between right and wrong, who was a criminal and who was a protector, hunters were among the few that could successfully claim steady 15. Here, corporate group is used in the anthropological sense. See the seminal works of Fortes and Evans-Pritchard (1940). 16. S`eb`e comes from Jula and literally means ‘script’ or ‘writing’. 17. Expressive culture refers to the aesthetic forms and performances in everyday life that are meant to be experienced by other members of society; see Feintuch (2003).

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roles. Although they obviously made ‘mistakes’ and at times also misused their ‘traditional’ power, it did not lead to a questioning of their position in civil society. According to popular imagination, hunters remained honest and brave men acting in the common interest. This perception of hunter associations as reliable security providers has to be understood in the broader context of increasing insecurity and the decreasing transparency about who was who. Most important is that hunters were far less associated with destructive power than the former police force and, subsequently, the rebel forces. They were in a better position to take on the normative convictions that the majority of the population still associated with statehood, in particular that the state should protect them against crime. Their conduct came close to what the people expected from a state in terms of security, based on the historical experience of the colonial and the first two decades of the post-colonial state.18 In many towns and in particular in Korhogo, the rebels were more or less obliged to establish lasting relationships with the hunter associations. On the one hand, the rebel forces were often lacking personnel to maintain a certain level of security; on the other hand, the presence of the international peacekeeping forces required them to spend more time in their barracks. But in order to remain legitimate in the eyes of the population, they had to provide at least some security. The disorder already mentioned was not a helpful political instrument in the long run. Because of the circumstances, the rebel forces inevitably became less visible than in the first days after the takeover of the city. They found themselves in the middle between other actors, amongst which the UNOCI forces were but one. International NGOs also had a say insofar as they insisted on a peaceful environment to do their relief work, and some started to employ private security firms. However, the local population seldom perceived these new actors as equal to the Forces Arm´ees des Forces Nouvelles (FAFN), as the military branch of the rebellion was called, when it became clear that they would not be able to conquer the rest of the country. The rebels always made clear that they still held the power to threaten other actors in the field, with the exception of the armed forces of the UNOCI. Their basic legitimacy was and still remains the power to threaten the population with violence. But domination almost always fades if threat is its only legitimacy. The real challenge to the rebel forces thus came from elsewhere: the hunter associations. Unlike the rebels, their legitimacy was based not so much on the threat they posed, but on the integrative power of cultural belonging which they embodied. In Korhogo, they negotiated a kind of informal agreement with the rebel leader. They controlled the city while the rebel troops were in charge of security in the open countryside. The hunters set up groups of

18. According to Ouattara (2007: 52), the first generation of post-colonial policemen was much more honest and upright than later ones.

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three to five men who went on inspection rounds after curfew. The whistle blows of the different groups co-ordinated their actions if one group observed something suspicious, echoing their practices in the wilderness when they were hunting game, not thieves. In collective memory, the sound reassured many city dwellers of a safe night ahead. In the event the hunters captured a suspect, they were expected to hand him over to the rebels who would sentence him. In Korhogo and in many other towns, the practice became the standard model of interaction between rebels and hunters. It also shaped the popular understanding of the duties of each group and, by extension, of how security as a public good should be provided. The practice was understood as a form of governance that was negotiated between partners of similar size pursuing similar goals, both acting as providers of security on the market. The allocation of tasks was clear: hunters should arrest criminals, but they were not allowed to punish them — and in the popular imagination, they did not.19 As a standard model, this form of governance was transparent and ordered the social space along the lines of basic cultural values and persuasions, limiting the destructive power to a well-defined segment of society. It is probably due to the complementarity of practices and cultural understandings that this mode of governance has become normative. It now shapes the expectations about state institutions if they are to be re-established in northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire. Since this model follows reciprocal obligations and alliances between different corporate groups, I call this a segmentary mode of governance — one that is based on the regulation of interactions between similar partners. However, it gave the hunters a better position in all negotiations with the rebels and their chief since they could always claim that they were, through their oath, obliged to respect the ritual order of their association. The rebellion as a social movement needed more legitimacy from other sources. When its political order had become a daily reality, it still stood in opposition to the politics of exclusion of the former post-colonial state and could rightly claim closer ties to the local population. The slogan ‘To every Ivoirian his identity card!’ expressed one of the primary motivations of the rebellion as a political movement. It was a claim to full participation in political decision making and also implied that this goal was now achieved in the rebel zone of northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire. This claim was directed at the relationship with the southern part of the country, but there were more reasons for the persistence of the rebellion than a new social and political order.

19. Despite the claims of many of my informants that hunters never commit crimes, evidence exists that they did indeed execute suspects, rendering their conduct almost as questionable as that of the FAFN.

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NEW OPPORTUNITIES

The rebellion would not have persisted for more than six years had it not been for the changes in the power of production that occurred at the time.20 Former dominant actors in the sphere of production suddenly found themselves marginalized while other, new actors emerged. These changes served to further legitimize rebel domination: their power to organize complemented the legitimacy based on the threat of violence. It led to another understanding of what governance should provide and what a political institution should do and guarantee. This was, as the following will show, access to economic opportunities. This change in the power of production had a direct impact on the understanding of statehood. In the cities, ordinary people lived in fear during the heavy fighting of the first days of the rebellion. In rural areas, the coup of 1999 was little more than news on the radio, and so was the rebellion in the first few days after 19 September 2002 — until the rebels travelled through the country to recruit young men to join their forces. Both in rural and urban areas, the call to join the rebellion was answered enthusiastically and many men immediately left their homes to take part in the fight against what they had experienced as outright discrimination over the past few years.21 They hoped for a fundamental change in the power relations that had structured Ivoirian society since independence in 1960. Many of them were not disappointed with the change in power relations. In rural areas, major social and economic change did not come with the political takeover in the North — most rural towns and villages retained their segmented political organization — but when cash-crop production ended due to the closing down of the parastatal cotton company, it caused profound social change. When the local farmers realized that they would not get paid for the harvest of 2002–3, many stopped cultivating cotton in favour of food crop production and subsistence farming. The absence of customs and border controls on the side of Coˆ te d’Ivoire enhanced trade relations with neighbouring countries. Traders from Burkina Faso and Niger entered Coˆ te d’Ivoire to buy maize and small quantities of yams and rice for export to their home regions. New trading networks emerged. Hausa and Mossi traders sought, and soon found, partners in Ivoirian cities while the latter built up local networks that extended into the rural areas where maize and other basic foodstuffs could be bought directly from producers.22 Other commodities were traded, too. Timber was bought in the western region of Coˆ te d’Ivoire, which was under the control 20. On the concept of power of production, see Boulding (1989). 21. The rebel leaders did not anticipate a prolonged fight and had to recruit a significant number of extra troops when they realized that the attempt to overthrow the Gbagbo government had failed. 22. Similar networks emerged for some cash crops in the central parts of Cˆote d’Ivoire, making Burkina Faso one of the biggest coffee and cocoa producers in West Africa — despite the fact that neither grows in the dry savannah climate of the Sahel.

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of another branch of the rebel movement. The timber was first brought to Korhogo and then exported to Bamako, Mali, where it obtained significantly higher prices. Some of the traders made a fortune by making use of such new opportunities. For example, Konate´ Seydou Fre` res (KSF) is a company that started in the timber trade and then diversified into other areas of business. It is run by a young man — ‘young’ meaning that he still holds ambitions, since he has not yet achieved the position of elder in the social hierarchy. He established business relations with Chinese motor companies in Lome´ , Togo, from where he imported motorbikes and other small vehicles in large numbers. Because of the absence of customs, they were significantly less expensive than before, even though transport through the rebel-held part of the country was taxed by the new masters. Women who had produced for the urban markets in southern Coˆ te d’Ivoire before 2002 were also trying to find new markets for their products. Some more entrepreneurial women hired trucks and brought their products, in particular yams and vegetables, to the Sahelian cities in Mali. After a break caused by the heavy fighting in autumn 2002, the wet river lowlands could be cultivated again. Women living in the rural areas, however, were less fortunate. They often had to engage in petty trade to make a living to support themselves and their relatives. The overwhelming presence of women in markets that were once dominated by men became the norm: ‘Wherever you go, the women are now doing the market.’23 Both urban and rural women became the primary breadwinners in the many compounds where men had lost their jobs or where they were not able to produce food or cash crops for export to the neighbouring countries in the North. This shift in the power of production affected gender roles. Many women were proud of what they had achieved, and they aspired to more. Most did not engage in conspicuous consumption as men had done before the crisis, but they demonstrated their increasing power by other means. One example suffices to illustrate the changing gender relations. A successful market woman in Korhogo was married to a man who had been a bus driver until the beginning of 2003. After having brought refugees from the region of Man in western Coˆ te d’Ivoire back to their home country Burkina Faso, he was dismissed by the company because the service between the north and Abidjan was suspended. His wife’s trade in vegetables and yams therefore became their only source of income. After saving for two years, she gave her husband a brand new motorcycle. This, he admitted, was humiliating to him since he was not even able contribute to the household income. It was a visible demonstration of the new distribution of the power of production in the compound. Similar changes transformed rural–urban relations and, consequently, also the attitudes and opinions that each side held about the other. City dwellers 23. A jula trader who runs a small truck and sells household goods at rural markets (January 2009).

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generally regarded their rural relatives as ‘backward’ and unable to cope with requirements of modernity. ‘They are stubborn bullheads’ was a common prejudice among townspeople, implying that villagers were not intelligent enough or were unwilling to understand and adapt to contemporary life. The villagers, however, saw urban dwellers as arrogant and too alienated from ‘the soil’ to understand their basic needs. What was seen by urban people as a refusal ‘to learn’ was in fact an expression of passive resistance by the rural population.24 However, when food became scarce and expensive during the first months of the rebellion, the urban people realized that their rural relatives had something to offer. ‘We were living on a few sweet potatoes — but they — they had granaries full of rice! They had nothing in their pockets, not even five francs, but food was not lacking’.25 When it became possible to travel again, many townspeople went to see their rural relatives and asked for food and support. It was a striking reversal of former roles. These changes transformed society to an unexpected degree. The transformations were welcomed particularly by those who, in local French, are called les jeunes, ‘the young ones’. They became the driving social force of the rebellion. As suggested above, the term does not refer to a specific age, though many were actually very young. The recruited soldiers were often minors and could be classified as child soldiers according to international standards. Some saw their time in the armed forces of the rebellion as a sort of adventure that offered them new opportunities. They took photos that show them in combat dress, displaying their guns and bazookas in proud postures. Their fellow rebel soldiers became family to them, and I am aware of more than one case where men found spouses among the female fighters. Others who had taken part in heavy fighting, however, came back home deeply traumatized. The ordinary rebel soldier did not really profit from the rebellion. Salaries were ridiculously low and there were not even adequate supplies of food.26 Most of the young rebels were obliged to make a living by other means, for instance by running a road-block — much like the ‘young patriots’ on the opposite side of the divided country. Those who profited most in the military were the leaders. In Korhogo, it was Fofie´ Kouakou who now owns many properties and companies in the city. When the rebellion began, he declared the mayor incompetent, appointed himself as chief of the deserted police station and simultaneously as supreme judge and responsible for the collection of taxes and customs duties. Officially, the mayor remained in place but was not allowed to enter his office. Most of the employees had to leave the city hall, if they had not 24. This is a very widespread reaction to domination by rural populations (e.g. Scott, 1990). 25. Retired boarding school teacher (January 2007). The free distribution of rice by international donors and the World Food Programme did not reach many households in Korhogo. According to collective remembrance, the rice was instead sold on the local markets; most of those interviewed found this scandalous, though not unexpected. 26. These statements are all based on what I have been told in Korhogo and its department.

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already fled to the southern parts because of their political orientation or because they originated from there. However, this first, and impressive, demonstration of destructive power soon gave way to another attitude, that of a responsible leader who cared about the future of the city. Korhogo became the urban arena in which old and new forces competed to obtain political leadership and patrimonial networks. To some extent it was a rivalry between two men, a kind of single combat between Fofie´ Kouakou as head of the rebel forces there and the absent Kassoum Coulibaly, who represented the old regime. The latter was the son of the former chef de canton, Be` ma Coulibaly, successor to Pe´ le´ foro Gbon Coulibaly, who had served as an intermediary ruler throughout the entire colonial period. As administrative chiefs, the Coulibaly family drew heavily on two external sources. One was the Muslim kingdom of Ke´ ne´ dougou with its capital in Sikasso, present-day Mali.27 The other was the paternalistic colonial administration which regarded Africans as ‘subjects’ not as citizens. Accordingly, Africans needed the guiding hand of a father who could reward and punish at will because he knew better than his sheep-like children. He had the authority, if deemed appropriate, to sentence them to prison.28 After independence, the office of chef de canton remained highly influential because Houphoue¨ t-Boigny had co-opted Gbon Coulibaly and granted him great privileges in his dominion. Coulibaly in turn became a leading member of the president’s united party, the Parti D´emocratique de Cˆote d’Ivoire/Rassemblement Des Africains (PDCI/RDA) and his family a very powerful factor in post-colonial Ivoirian politics. In Korhogo, they were without doubt the major political force throughout the four decades after independence. Kassoum, Gbon Coulibaly’s grandson, was also a very prominent member of the party and enjoyed the same privileges as his father. In the North, he was by far the biggest landowner and a powerful patron in many fields of which transport was of particular importance. He owned many heavy trucks and buses. Though of Senufo descent, he had a strong network of clients among those traders of old Jula origin29 that were not wealthy enough to own trucks. In addition, he passed himself off as a fervent Muslim and maintained regular and intensive contacts with the religious dignitaries of Korhogo. He neatly integrated into the noble trader society of the city but, because of 27. Prior to the wars of Samori Tour´e, P´el´eforo Gbon Coulibaly was sent by his father to Sikasso to be educated and also as a sign of loyalty to the king of K´en´edougou, where Gbon converted to Islam and became familiar with centralized rule. The colonial administration characterized him as ‘authoritarian chief’ (Fichier de renseignement of 1899, Archives Nationales SOM, 200 Mi 778). 28. ‘Un p`ere qui aime bien peut aussi chˆatier. S’il lui plait, il inflige quinze jours de prison a` l’indig`ene autrefois; plus tard cinq seulement’ [‘A loving father could also chasten. If it pleased him, he once imposed 15 days of prison on the indigenous, later only five’] (Richard-Molard, 1952: 150). 29. On the Jula as a professional and ethnic group see Launay (1992).

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his Senufo origin, never cut ties with local village headmen who once were tributaries to his grandfather. The dark side of his patronage was that he did not hesitate to exploit the privileges his father’s social status afforded him. Especially his habit of claiming any plot and strip of land in the city if it was to his advantage elicited bitter comments from many: If you wanted to build on a certain plot, he could tell you that this land was his. You were obliged to give up [this plot] and to look [for another one] elsewhere. He said it was his because his father used to tie his donkey there. Or you had to give up another plot because his father performed his sacrifices there. He [Kassoum] is a Muslim, but when it comes to land [issues], he’s everything! A little more and he would have told you that you could not build on a certain plot because his father’s donkey left his shit there!30

Until his death in January 2009, many saw this ‘traditional’ attitude as a way of making sure that the most precious land did not fall into the hands of others. He often made no use of the land, but always claimed that he would do so sometime later.31 Kassoum could even force those who felt confident enough to start construction work on land they owned to give up half-finished buildings — always using tradition to justify his acts. The legal status of this land, however, remained uncertain. Nobody dared to question his claims because of his dominant position in local politics. Kassoum’s arbitrary behaviour was well known in Korhogo. Those who were leasing one of his buildings or who were in charge of one of his many small businesses that he had scattered all over the city could easily fall victim to his notorious fury. He could be absent for a very long time but suddenly show up asking for his share. Kassoum would not ask how much the shop-keeper had earned but would demand immediate payment of a sum that he had fixed in advance. It was difficult to negotiate that sum. If there was no other way, the tenants had to borrow money elsewhere to pay him. If the tenant did not pay, he put pressure on him and, if he was angry, fired him without hesitating. Fofie´ was not much better when he became the master of the city. He adopted a policy of ‘developing the city’ through visible improvements. But unlike his adversary, he played another, more populist card. He listened carefully to the voice of the people or, more precisely, to what was reported by the young rebels that surrounded him. Apparently, he was aware that he would not get very far if he relied on the power to threaten alone. One example among many was the improvement of the culture hall of the former Ministry of Culture. But Fofie´ acted as arbitrarily as his opponent. When he supervised the work on the cultural centre, the owner of one of the bigger 30. Jula merchant about his experience with Kassoum Coulibaly. 31. A particular case was remembered by almost all traders I talked to. It was a land dispute that Kassoum had with a competing transport entrepreneur and that nearly ended in a knife battle.

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hotels in town passed by in his car and praised him for the work he was doing. ‘You are not from Korhogo’, he said, ‘but you are working very hard to improve the city’. Having heard this, Fofie´ replied that he needed three million CFA francs32 (4,545 Euros) and twenty sacks of cement for his work. He needed it today, not tomorrow. The proprietor of the hotel was forced to hand over the money and the cement that very same day. Another example will suffice to illustrate Fofie´ ’s style of governance. A small stream runs through Korhogo and also passes one side of the city’s market. Many long-established merchants have their shops and stores there, among them one who was considered to be very rich. The land alongside the stream is extremely dirty and often serves as a dumping site. Many people talked about the poor environmental conditions along the stream. Fofie´ went to take a look and then sent a delegation of young rebels to tell the rich trader that Fofie´ did not want to see such dirty water in front of the store again. The trader was ordered to clean up the area and to build a concrete catchment for the dirty water. As the delegation was leaving, the merchant mumbled that the new military government was asking too much and that it will bring them down. ‘If they want us to leave the city, they should say so!’. By ‘us’ he referred to the social class he belonged to — the established Jula trader community. Unfortunately, one of the young rebels heard him and reported it to Fofie´ who deemed it necessary to sanction the trader severely. All this happened in the holy month of Ramadan, and Fofie´ waited until the evening when the Muslims were breaking their fast. When the sun set, he sent the young rebel soldiers to arrest the trader on the spot. The old trader was sitting with his family to eat and drink, but he was not even allowed to take a sip of water or to eat a mouthful of the meal that had just been brought in. Fofie´ locked him up in the infamous containers33 that were standing at his headquarters and then gave him a fine of two million CFA francs (3,030 Euros), five tons of cement and ten barrels of diesel oil — besides constructing the catchment as ordered. Acts like this were not only demonstrations of his superior power to threaten, they were also meant to demonstrate other things. The first is that he did not care about old boys’ networks and the social status of a person. Second, he showed that he did not care for religious observance. Third, he made it clear that the development of the city was at the top of his agenda. Last but not least, he invited the youth to be his partner in this plan. Public demonstrations such as this were positively received by one part of the population, namely the young and the ambitious who had complained about 32. Franc de la communaut´e financi`ere d’Afrique (franc CFA). 33. These containers are one of the reasons why Fofi´e is sought for war crimes and violations of human rights by paragraphs 9 and 11 of UN resolutions 1572 (2004) and 1633 (2005). He used them to lock up his opponents — some of whom died due to exposure to extreme heat. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8631.doc.htm, 30 July 2008.

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the political, social and economic deadlock of the city since the times of Houphoue¨ t-Boigny. On the other hand, many elders were shocked about the ruthless way in which goals that they, too, would have approved, were pursued. It was a combination of productive and integrative power that attracted the youth and that bestowed a significant degree of legitimacy on Fofie´ ’s rule during the first years. He sold plots in the market to younger traders on which the construction of permanent structures had previously been forbidden. He restored the city hall which had been damaged and partially looted by his own rebel soldiers. Its new green roof was an explicit symbol of rebel rule at this historic site. The roundabout with the Ivoirian flag in the centre right in front of city hall had been the central square of the city’s administrative quarter since colonial times. Not far from there, he erected a Monument for the Unknown Soldier of 19 September 2002 — also surrounded by poles with Ivoirian flags. More important still was his indirect support of the youth. Rebel governance brought many possibilities: trade across the borders without paying customs, driving cars and riding motorbikes without registration or a driving licence, construction on sites that were once blocked by Kassoum Coulibaly or perhaps other dominant political actors. KSF, mentioned above, became one of the biggest companies in Korhogo. When the owner of the company, Seydou Konate´ , bought a brand new Hummer in January 2009, he advertised it on the local radio and TV stations, proudly displaying his new car and his success. He explicitly praised the advantages that the rebellion and the rebels had granted him so generously.34 Of course, this was not merely an ad for its own sake; it was also a public affirmation of his loyalty to the rebels and their leader, thus fostering continuous support from them. By 2008, a saying was circulating in Korhogo: ‘In former times, money was with the elders, today, it’s with the youth’. The conflict between Fofie´ Kouakou and Kassoum Coulibaly as the most prominent representatives of opposing sides had many dimensions. When the city experienced severe food shortage, Kassoum sent trucks full of rice to Korhogo for distribution among the needy. The donation was understood by many as a means to sustain his network among the established Muslim community and his personal clients. The distribution should have been carried out by the Imams of the mosques in the different quarters. Not much of the food, however, reached those who needed it most: ‘The Imams have eaten it all themselves’.35 Fofie´ did not hesitate to draw attention to the shortcomings of his adversary, though at times he also had to engage in compromises, for instance by agreeing to standard tariffs for overland transport. 34. Radio Tropiques I, and RSTV, both on 13 January 2009. The two stations broadcast from Korhogo. 35. The owner of a small restaurant (January 2008). The metaphor of eating is also a synonym for political power.

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With regard to statehood, these new forms of negotiating governance consisted, on the one hand, of adopting modes of governance that already existed under the old regime and which many, if not most, people associated with the state as an institution. The neo-patrimonial networks, in particular, persisted.36 On the other hand, they were now complemented and to some extent counterbalanced by a novel political force, the organized power of the youth which represented an alternative to the old society and its encrusted structures. This will have significant consequences for the future of the state and statehood in the northern part of Coˆ te d’Ivoire.

CONCLUSION

The saying ‘maintenant, on sait qui est qui’ has many meanings and implicit references. The identification of those who hold the power to threaten is the most important one — and at the beginning of the rebellion, it was also the most urgent. During the first months of the violent crisis, it was crucial to know exactly who could be a provider of security and where possible threats might come from. The question of security was thus a priority above everything else until the situation stabilized sufficiently. Stabilizing the situation implied finding some balance between the different actors who held the power to threaten and who could act as providers of security. This relationship led to the establishment of segmentary governance, i.e. one that is based on the regulation of interactions between similar partners through shared norms and values. This regulation is not devoid of tension, but it worked and still works sufficiently well to maintain normal social relations in everyday life. But once the immediate threats had been identified, the population became increasingly concerned about other social issues such as the long-term goals of the young rebel soldiers, the role of the older political establishment of the city, the reluctance of rural relatives to send food to their urban relatives, the attitudes of women towards their jobless husbands, and many other things. The social change that took place pertained not only to the position of particular individuals in society, but also to the stability and reliability of social roles in general. Neither the old political guard nor the young rebels were able to escape the general ‘hardening’ of role ascriptions. In everyday life, it became increasingly difficult to escape ascribed identities: once you were seen as a ‘rebel’, the pressure on you to act like one was inescapable. On the one hand, the rebellion opened opportunities for some people to voice their interests and to become visible as a group. They seized the new opportunities to secure their claims to power and to their share of the 36. I understand neo-patrimonialism as the co-existence of modern institutions and vertical patrimonial networks that link different strata of society (Engel and Erdmann, 2007).

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national pie — even if the latter was reduced to one part of the country. It was a process of institutionalization. On the other hand, the crisis also had a devastating effect on the integrative power of existing institutions of which kinship and neighbourhood solidarity were certainly the most prominent. The crisis focused the attention on other actors in social life as trust in their social roles became crucial to survive or to maintain at least a partly acceptable standard of living. At the personal as well as at the institutional level, it generated questions about the social roles of kinfolk, neighbours, business partners and, by extension, about the legitimacy of existing power structures as the patrimonial networks in which many of these social relations were embedded. The reshaping of the political space has led to an increased awareness of who is who. Besides the institutionalization, it was a time when the intentions behind others’ actions became a burning issue. People needed reassurance that the practices of fellow citizens were reliable enough to continue to build social relations on. The rebellion questioned the post-colonial state and its institutions and, in the case of Korhogo, specifically the old guard that had controlled the city for more than a century. It had an apparently contradictory outcome in that society became more transparent compared to the lack of transparency of the social world in general and the predictability of actors’ roles in particular which prevailed socially and politically prior to 2002. Both role-taking and role-ascriptions became more reliable after the rebellion. Of course, at least to some extent, this was misleading. However, if such imaginings of the social sphere become generally accepted, as certainly was the case in northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire, they become a social reality (Gupta, 1995; Hansen and Stepputat, 2001). The imagination of the rebellion as a new era of political articulation builds on the changing experience of everyday social reality. The experience that another political and social order was possible changed expectations about the future institutionalization of power. From the northerners’ point of view, there is no way back to the former state and its practices of statehood. To analyse the negotiation of statehood in such a context means looking at the interface between daily social practices and how they relate to the existing institutionalization of power and domination. Statehood, as the practices that shape the understanding of the state as institution, is based on a wide range of small and often unobtrusive acts that are not only executed within state institutions but in all spheres of ordinary social life. The rebellion soon became institutionalized and was rightly perceived as an alternative to the weak or fading institutions of the post-colonial state and the patrimonial networks on which it was built. The adoption of signs and symbols of sovereignty such as the Monument of the Unknown Soldier surrounded by national flags is the most visible manifestation of statehood. However, statehood encompasses many subtle dimensions that render it much more lasting than the institution it refers to.

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What is more important with regard to the negotiation of statehood is the parallelism between state institutions and new political institutions that emerged through the rebellion. The co-existence of both is already a fact. The pr´efets and sous-pr´efets are now back in their offices, but they were not able to resume all their duties. Many of these had been taken over by supporters of the rebellion, and a few are now being carried out by the international peacekeeping forces. The slow return of state institutions and thus of the post-colonial state itself neither suggests that functions that were usurped by rebel institutions during the rebellion are being re-adopted nor that they are being suppressed. It would be appropriate to describe what is currently taking place in northern Coˆ te d’Ivoire as a process of negotiation with all sides having to acknowledge the others’ right to exist. It is unlikely that statehood will be stable in the near future or that it will follow western normative models; it is subject to this process. Whatever statehood will look like, it will incorporate all the practices that have emerged since the beginning of the crisis in 2002.

REFERENCES Akind`es, Francis (2007) ‘La crise Ivoirienne ou la r´einvention risqu´ee d’une nation’ [‘The Ivoirian Crisis or the Risky Re-invention of a Nation’], in Lazare M. Poam´e (ed.) Penser la Crise Ivoirienne [Thinking the Ivoirian Crisis], pp. 11–35. Paris: Ed. Menaibuc. Anderson, Benedict (2006) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Ban´egas, Richard (2006) ‘Cˆote d’Ivoire: Patriotism, Ethnonationalism, and Other African Modes of Self-writing’, African Affairs 105(421): 535–52. Ban´egas, Richard and Bruno Losch (eds) (2003) ‘La Cˆote d’Ivoire en guerre: dynamiques du dedans et du dehors’ [‘The Ivory Coast at War: Dynamics from Inside and Outside’], Politique Africaine 89: 5–11. Barkey, Karen (1994) Bandits and Bureaucrats: The Ottoman Route to State Centralization. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Bassett, Thomas (2004) ‘Containing the Donzow: The Politics of Scale in Cˆote d’Ivoire’, Africa Today 50(4): 31–49. Bayart, Jean-Franc¸ois (1989) L’Etat en Afrique: La politique du ventre [The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly]. Paris: Fayard. Bayart, Jean-Franc¸ois, Stephen Ellis and B´eatrice Hibou (1999) The Criminalization of the State in Africa. London: Currey. Boulding, Kenneth E. (1989) Three Faces of Power: A General Theory. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Chabal, Patrick and Jean-Pascal Daloz (1999) Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Dozon, Jean-Pierre (2000) ‘La Cˆote d’Ivoire entre d´emocratie, nationalisme et ethnonationalisme’ [‘The Ivory Coast between Democracy, Nationalism and Ethno-nationalism’], Politique Africaine 89: 45–62. Elwert, Georg (1997) ‘Gewaltm¨arkte: Beobachtung zur Zweckrationalit¨at der Gewalt’ [‘Markets of Violence: Observations on the Instrumental Rationality of Violence’], K¨olner Zeitschrift f¨ur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 37: 86–101 (Special issue Soziologie der Gewalt edited by T. von Trotha).

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Engel, Ulf and Gero Erdmann (2007) ‘Neopatrimonialism Reconsidered: Critical Review and Elaboration of an Elusive Concept’, Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Studies 45(1): 95–119. Feintuch, Burt (2003) Eight Words for the Study of Expressive Culture. Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press. ¨ F¨orster, Till (2002) ‘“On ne sait plus qui est qui.” Offentlichkeit zwischen Dorf, Stadt und Staat’ [‘“One Does Not Know Who is Who.” The Public Sphere between Village, City and the State’], Paideuma 48: 101–123. F¨orster, Till (2004) ‘Am Rande des Staates: Der Norden der Cˆote d’Ivoire 1979–2002’ [‘At the Margins of the State: The North of Ivory Coast 1979–2002’], in Till F¨orster, Kurt Beck and Hans Peter Hahn (eds) Blick nach vorn. Festschrift f¨ur Gerd Spittler [Looking Forward: Festschrift for Gerd Spittler], pp. 14–27. K¨oln: R. K¨oppe Verlag. F¨orster, Till (2009) ‘Limiting Violence — Culture and the Constitution of Public Norms’, in Anne Peters, Till F¨orster and Lucy Koechlin (eds) Non-State Actors as Standard Setters, pp. 324–348. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fortes, Meyer and Edward Evans-Pritchard (eds) (1940) African Political Systems. London: Oxford University Press. Gupta, Akhil (1995) ‘Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics, and the Imagined State’, American Ethnologist 22(2): 375–402. Hansen, Thomas Blom and Finn Stepputat (eds) (2001) States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Hellweg, Joseph (2006) ‘Manimory and the Aesthetics of Mimesis: Forest, Islam and State in Ivoirian Dozoya’, Africa 76(4): 461–84. Herbst, Jeffrey (2000) States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Holsti, Kalevi Jaakko (1996) The State, War, and the State of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hungwe, Kedmon N. and Chipo Hungwe (2000) ‘Review Essay: Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument’, Zambezia 27(2): 269–81. Jackson, Michael (2002) The Politics of Storytelling: Violence, Transgression, and Intersubjectivity. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Jackson, Robert H. (1994) Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Launay, Robert (1992) Beyond the Stream: Islam and Society in a West African Town. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Marshall-Fratani, Ruth (2004) ‘Der Geist aus der Flasche. Die Rolle der rebellierenden Jugend beim Konflikt in Cˆote d’Ivoire’ [‘Genius out of the Bottle: The Role of the Rebellious Youth ¨ in the Ivoirian conflict’], Der Uberblick 40(1): 27–31. Mbembe, Achille (1988) Afriques indociles: christianisme, pouvoir et Etat en soci´et´e postcoloniale [Unruly Africa: Christianity, Power and the State in Post-colonial Society]. Paris: Karthala. Mbembe (2001) On the Postcolony. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Mehler, Andreas (2004) ‘Oligopolies of Violence in Africa South of the Sahara’, Nord-S¨udAktuell 18(3): 539–48. Migdal, Joel (1988) Strong Societies and Weak States: State–Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Migdal, Joel (2001) State in Society: Studying how States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nordstrom, Carolyn (2004) Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-first Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Ouattara, Azoumana (2007) ‘La crise du monopole de violence instrumentale en Cˆote d’Ivoire’ [‘The Crisis of the Monopoly of Instrumental Violence in Ivory Coast’], in Lazare M. Poame (ed.) Penser la crise ivoirienne [Thinking the Ivoirian Crisis], pp. 51–62. Paris: Menaibuc.

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Poame, Lazare M. (ed.) (2007) Penser la crise ivoirienne [Thinking the Ivoirian Crisis]. Paris: Menaibuc. Popitz, Heinrich (1992) Ph¨anomene der Macht [Phenomena of Power]. 2nd edition. T¨ubingen: Mohr. Putnam, Robert D. (2007) ‘E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century’, Scandinavian Political Studies 30(2): 137–74. Reinhard, Wolfgang (1999) Geschichte der Staatsgewalt: Eine vergleichende Verfassungsgeschichte Europas von den Anf¨angen bis zur Gegenwart [History of State Authority: A Comparative Constitutional History of Europe from the Beginnings to the Present]. M¨unchen: C.H. Beck. Reno, William (1998) Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Richard-Molard, Jacques (1952) Afrique Occidentale Franc¸aise [French West Africa]. Paris: Berger-Levrault. Schatzberg, Michael G. (2001) Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Scott, James C. (1990) Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Skocpol, Theda (1989) States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tilly, Charles (1985) ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich R¨uschemeyer and Theda Skocpol (eds) Bringing the State Back In, pp. 169–91. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. von Trotha, Trutz (1994) Koloniale Herrschaft: Zur soziologischen Theorie der Staatsentstehung am Beispiel des ‘Schutzgebietes Togo’ [Colonial Domination: On the Sociological Theory of State Formation, Using the Example of the ‘Togo Protectorate’]. T¨ubingen: Mohr. von Trotha, Trutz (1995) ‘Gewalt, Staat und Basislegitimit¨at’ [‘Violence, the State and Basic Legitimacy’], in Till F¨orster, Heidi Willer and Claudia Ortner-Buchberger (eds) Identit¨at der Macht — Macht der Identit¨at [The Identity of Power — The Power of Identity], pp. 1–16. Hamburg and M¨unster: Lit-Verlag.

9 Negotiating Statehood in a Hybrid Political Order: The Case of Somaliland

Marleen Renders and Ulf Terlinden INTRODUCTION1

Founded in 1991, Somaliland has become known as a non-recognized de facto state. The north-western part of former Somalia — a quintessential example of a collapsed state — managed to reinstate a government and an administration with little outside help or interference, either political, technical or financial. In striking contrast to much of the rest of Somalia, and with few exceptions, it has maintained a considerable degree of political stability, especially since 1997. Somaliland seems like a perfect laboratory of statehood in Africa, providing numerous lessons about how the concept and the idea of statehood can be relevant and important in Africa today — albeit not in the sense perhaps anticipated by hopeful policymakers expecting to find a magic state-building potion. We set out to examine the negotiation of Somaliland’s statehood following the framework offered by Hagmann and Pe´ clard (in this volume) who define statehood as a ‘dynamic historical and political process’ reflecting the outcome of at times contradictory, at times overlapping, interests and repertoires. The two editors call for a more sociological approach, interpreting statehood through the lenses of a ‘relational conception of power . . . between the governing and the governed’. From this perspective, statehood will not primarily be considered as a set of institutional rules or organizational capacities, but as the result of unstable and constantly renegotiated power relations. Methodologically, Hagmann and Pe´ clard suggest to approach and to analyse the negotiation of statehood by considering the actors, arenas and the objects of the negotiation. Two Dimensions of Negotiating Statehood in Somaliland

In Somaliland, the local and national authorities who took over after the collapse of the Somali regime included the actors of war, that is primarily the The authors would like to thank Markus H¨ohne and Tobias Hagmann, as well as the original journal’s referees, for their feedback on earlier versions of this chapter. 1. This chapter was completed before Somaliland’s presidential election, scheduled for 26 June 2010. Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard  C 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Somali National Movement (SNM), a number of smaller clan militia groups and their leaders. But they also included traditional authorities,2 religious groups, strong businessmen, remnants of the former state administration and, not least, the aspiring new government of the self-declared republic. Individually and collectively, these actors exercised authority in various ways. This constellation marked the point of departure for the negotiation — more precisely, the renegotiation — of statehood after the collapse of the old order. Hence, the first set of questions posed here addresses how statehood has been (and still is) negotiated between these actors, widely different in their influence, resources, sources of legitimacy, the degree and modes of their accountability vis-`a-vis respective communities, and in their particular interest in statehood. In a nutshell, this dimension of negotiation is primarily about the meaning and development of statehood in the interplay and emerging power relations of different types of actors. Key objects of this negotiation are the boundaries of statehood and state authority: how much power can actors associated with the state yield, what relevance have state-based ‘rules of the game’ developed, and to what extent has the notion of Somaliland’s new statehood been translated into a mobilizable symbolic repertoire? This particular negotiation process is heterogeneous in nature and takes place at different levels, generally affecting the entire country. Although the discourse of ‘belonging’ is a common feature of African statehood, in Somaliland it exists under very particular circumstances. The collapse of Somalia meant the collapse of the state of which the territory currently claimed by Somaliland had been a part until 1991, and yet the newly-declared political entity has so far failed to obtain recognition as a new state. It neither ‘inherited’ nor established boundaries protected by international law. From the start, the desire to establish an independent, internationally recognized state required a demonstration of (a) distinctness from the rest of Somalia and (b) unity and territorial control. The need to display ‘national unity’ had an especially decisive impact on the shaping of relations between the (relatively weak) political centre and the regions, particularly with those on the periphery. In the context of Somaliland’s relatively segmented social fabric and its segregated settlement patterns, this second major negotiation process primarily took place along clan and sub-clan lines. A related set of questions therefore focuses on how statehood was/is negotiated between these groups, and with the central government, who are all guided by widely differing incentive structures and interests. What leads or enables former war adversaries to build a shared polity, both at the local level and between the local and the national level? What is the resulting perspective on and notion of Somaliland’s statehood for these clan 2. Although notions such as ‘tradition’ and ‘traditional’ refer to the past, we do not treat traditional institutions as static. These institutions have changed throughout time; they have been (re)invented, redefined and reproduced by the actors referring to them. Although custom and habit limit the potential degree of alteration, we follow H¨ohne’s (2007) use of the notion traditional in a dynamic sense.

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communities? Again, the boundaries of statehood are the key object of these negotiations: on what terms and to what extent are clan segments willing to ‘belong’ to the fledgling state? What are the implications of emerging inter-group arrangements for the nature, scope and meaning of statehood in the different parts of Somaliland, and overall? Negotiation of Statehood in Somaliland: Transformation of a Hybrid Political Order

Somaliland’s governance reality behind the scene of formal statehood can best be described as a flexible hybrid of ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ spheres. This hybridity concerns both the existing institutions (as ‘rules of the game’3 ) and the bodies or agents enforcing these rules — be they inside or outside the state’s porous perimeters. Furthermore, hybridity is not limited to its prominent and widely recognized forms, such as Somaliland’s constitutional Council of (clan) Elders, the Guurti. It encompasses all those emerging ‘formations where formal and informal elements co-exist, overlap and intertwine’ (Kraushaar and Lambach, 2009: 1). Phenomena commonly described as clientelism, patronage and clan politics are part of this, although Kraushaar and Lambach clearly distinguish their concept of hybrid political orders (HPO) from earlier notions that refer to multi-institutional environments, such as ‘informal institutions’ (Meagher, 2007), ‘clientelism’ (Clapham, 1982), ‘neo-patrimonialism’ (Erdmann and Engel, 2007), ‘parastatehood’ (von Trotha and Klute, 2003), or legal pluralism (von BendaBeckmann and von Benda-Beckmann, 2006). For Kraushaar and Lambach these notions do not sufficiently challenge the dominant state-centric perspective, implying a normative undertone that takes the Western notion of the state as the ultimate point of reference. In establishing a concept of HPO, Kraushaar and Lambach refer to a new state model, beyond the Western state, one where the so-called formal and informal spheres are not treated as distinct, but rather connected, intermingled and interpenetrated. Hybrid arrangements are not treated as a deviance from a model but a new kind of political order in their own right (also see Clements et al., 2007). Hybridity extends beyond institutions, which do not exist in a sociopolitical vacuum. For example, writing about British colonial Africa, Spear (2003) analyses ‘the invention of tradition’ as a dynamic process in which agents of the colonizing power as well as the colonized themselves took an active part. Institutions were not just superimposed (state) or maintained 3. Institutions are understood here as ‘humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction. They are made up of formal constraints (rules, laws, constitutions), informal constraints (norms of behaviour, conventions and self-imposed codes of conduct), and their enforcement characteristics’ (North, 1993: 2). As ‘rules of the game’, institutions reduce insecurity and are intended to order and steer human behaviour (Croissant et al., 2003: 191–2).

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(tradition) respectively. The involved actors themselves invented new traditions to suit the situation. Neither do the actors and agents concerned mechanically stick to some institutionally prescribed roles, discourses, or modes of action. They become hybrids themselves. Analysing present-day African chiefs and their relation to African states, Ray and Nieuwaal (1996) show how chiefs may integrate seemingly antagonistic political systems, world views and powers and mobilize them in their own interest or that of the people they represent. Agency and actors involved in the establishment and transformation of HPOs require due attention. One cannot neatly separate spheres into formal and informal, or classify actors as state versus non-state actors. A particular institutional set-up results from a political process involving institutional bricolage (Cleaver, 2002; Hagmann and Pe´ clard in this volume) by political actors: there is no clear boundary between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’, ‘state’ and non-state, etc. Boldly, from an analytical perspective, one could even argue that the exact definition of these boundaries would anyhow be more or less irrelevant, because they are so porous. In ironic contrast to the impossibility of drawing such boundaries on the analytical level, setting and shifting of boundaries between formal and informal spheres have been key instruments in the struggle for power and control on the political level: they are the very substance of negotiation, competition and conflict. The evolution of Somaliland’s HPO over time is key to empirically understanding the transformation of power and the institutionalization of power relations, i.e. the negotiation of statehood. Next to resources and repertoires as proposed by Hagmann and Pe´ clard, we treat institutions as a defining element of the incentive structure of societies. They, too, influence ‘the means and logic of action by which these actors become involved in shaping political authority’ (Hagmann and Pe´ clard, this volume). Actors are embedded in these institutional environments which restrict their potential strategies, often channel agency into certain mechanisms, and structure the scope of social mobilization that groups in a power contest can achieve. When considering an HPO, it is hardly conceivable to exclude the role of institutions from a reflection on the negotiation of statehood. To be sure, we do not envisage a re-introduction of particular institutions as defining elements of statehood. The question is rather, which particular mix of institutions and what constellations of actors facilitated the evolution of Somaliland’s form of statehood, and which old and new political institutions are emerging from such negotiation processes. We argue that the major negotiation processes over statehood take place at the national and the local level, as well as between the two. The evolution of Somaliland’s statehood must be understood as a parallel process of negotiation between state-associated and clan-associated political actors on the one hand, and the national centre and the clan-based constituencies on the other hand. We will begin by examining the ‘national arena’, focusing on the contest over political authority. We will then examine the perspective

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of Awdal and Sanaag, two of Somaliland’s six established regions, which emphasizes inter-group bargaining.

NEGOTIATING STATEHOOD IN THE NATIONAL ARENA

Prelude: Civil War and Deconstruction of Statehood

In 1981, dissatisfaction with Siad Barre’s regime led to the establishment of the Somali National Movement (SNM), mainly based on the Issaq majority clan of the north-west (Jimcaale, 2005). Issaq elites felt gradually marginalized due to the regime’s manipulation of clan politics and the concentration of power in Mogadishu.4 Moreover, after Somalia’s defeat in the war with neighbouring Ethiopia in 1978, a significant portion of an estimated 1.5 million Ogadeni refugees arrived in the north-west and were perceived as a threat to the Issaq’s lands. Feelings of systematic discrimination were compounded by increasing state intervention in the economy of the north, as well as growing extortion and corruption by state officials. The reality of the escalating war between government troops and the SNM amounted to systematic clan-based persecution. In 1988, the government responded to the SNM’s attacks on government targets in the north-west with savage reprisals against Issaq civilians, killing more than 50,000 people, and generating massive displacement, especially across the border into Ethiopia (Africa Watch, 1990: 3). These developments determined the post-1991 negotiation of statehood even before the Somali state collapsed. First, as a result of the intensity of the fighting, the perceived threat to the very survival of the Issaq, and the military blow that the 1988 offensive dealt to the SNM, Issaq clan elders became deeply involved in the movement. Earlier, the SNM leadership had sought the endorsement by the Issaq clan elders in order to stand a chance to win the guerrilla war. It had established an advisory body (the Guurti) of selfselected, politically active clan elders, representing the various sub-clans of the Issaq. From 1988 onwards, the Guurti actively participated in the war, providing moral, logistical and military support against government troops 4. The Somali clan system and its relevance for explaining present-day conflicts (and ways to resolve them) have been a major source of discussion and contention. I.M. Lewis (1999 [1961]) famously described it as a segmentary lineage system, an egalitarian social structure based on kinship and contract governed by clan elders which is still functional today. The idea that tradition-based age-old solidarities and animosities between clans and sub-groups inherent to this system are responsible for the Somali plight today met with severe criticism from Besteman (1998), Mohamed (2007) and others. They point to the shifting meanings and content of what constitutes ‘traditional’ in Somalia’s colonial and post-colonial society. In this chapter we take the position that the clan system represents a social reality that structures society, a social matrix in the reality we observe, but not an explanatory factor as such.

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and their allied clan militia from the Dulbahante, Warsangeli and Gadabursi clans. As a result, the political weight not only of the Guurti members, but of ‘traditional’ clan leadership and institutions increased significantly. Collective decision making, security and social mobilization along clan lines increased even further. The strengthening of these structures and their direct involvement in politics laid the foundations for the strong role that they played in Somaliland’s political order after the Somali Army was pushed out of the north-west and the United Somali Congress ousted Barre from Mogadishu in January 1991 (Reno, 2003: 4–5). Secondly, reflecting the course of the war, the overthrow of the regime and the removal of its power apparatus (the state) must not be considered as accidental by-products of war. On the contrary, from a Somaliland perspective, bringing down Siad Barre and deconstructing the ‘old’ Somali statehood was both rational and instrumental.5 As a consequence, Heinrich and Kulessa (2003: 93) argue, reconstructing the Somali state and returning to the status quo ante was out of the question. Rather, the challenge was to construct ‘society and state anew’, combining vertical legitimacy between state and society with horizontal legitimacy regarding people’s ideal and territorial ‘belonging’ to the polity.6 In this sense, the course of the conflict defined key parameters of the post-1991 negotiation of statehood in Somaliland: the state was to be ‘more participatory and responsive to the needs and aspirations of people’, political authority and control was to be more diffuse and decentralized (Jimcaale, 2005: 49, 87). Thirdly, as a consequence of the carnage inflicted on the civilian population and the collective persecution of the Issaq, the clan was united in its support for the SNM. The trauma of these events is deeply engraved in the collective memory of the Issaq and as such established a repertoire that would soon be part of a first, albeit incomplete, ‘national identity’ (Bradbury, 1997: 11). The major limitation of this notion was of course that the non-Issaq clans could not (yet) subscribe to it; in fact, on the contrary, their complicity in the regime’s war divided the population of Somaliland. Initiation of the Negotiation Arena at the National Level

Following their takeover of most of the former north-west Somalia, the Issaq-led SNM opted for reconciliation and a cessation of hostilities with the non-Issaq clans, rather than engaging in retribution and the settling of old scores. A critical dynamic which facilitated this move arose from the 5. Deconstructing the state is not synonymous with the declaration of independence. Many in the SNM leadership had originally intended to maintain a union with the South until southern factions unilaterally announced a new government and other signs of renewed southern domination appeared. 6. Following Holm (1998), Heinrich and Kulessa refer to this combination as ‘internal sovereignty’.

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increased political weight of traditional clan leadership both in the SNM and among the non-Issaq clans, where the role of traditional authorities stepped up when the regime crumbled, making it possible to approach each other as clans, dealing with death, injuries or looting via negotiation and reconciliation mechanisms according to traditional law (Farah and Lewis, 1993). This opened a parallel channel allowing them to bypass the standoff resulting from the military confrontation between the earlier political competitors. SNM and government supporters both managed to save face and large-scale fighting ceased. Some non-Issaq political leaders who had supported the SNM joined the new Somaliland government. Avoiding revenge and achieving a successful reconciliation allowed Somaliland to emerge as a political entity from a complex and highly destructive, conflict-ridden context, setting the arena in which statehood was negotiated. Moreover, it permitted clan elders to take a seat at the negotiation table next to the military leaders. Informal, clan-based consensus building and the careful balancing of representation along clan lines became water marks of the emerging hybrid politic order from the start. Following a number of preparatory meetings, the initial negotiation of statehood took place at the ‘Grand Conference of the Northern Peoples’, the first inter-clan conference held in Burco in May 1991. Here, the elders made a number of proposals which were then endorsed by the Central Committee of the SNM. These included the establishment of a transitional two-year rule by the SNM, and the accommodation of the non-Issaq communities in the government structure during this period. The decisions were considered a basic reconciliation of the previously warring parties, to be followed up, inter alia, by a separate reconciliation process for Sanaag region. Independence had not been a stated objective of the SNM during the struggle; in fact, its leaders only reluctantly abandoned their claims to a share in a future Somali national government. But under pressure from the Issaq guerilla fighters and the SNM Guurti, Somaliland proclaimed independence on 18 May 1991 (Prunier, 1994: 4). The move called for a national identity across clan lines. Reference to the borders of the former British protectorate, and to Somaliland’s distinct colonial history, marked its future cornerstones (Spears, 2003: 93–4). Furthermore, despite the setbacks to come, the spirit of reconciliation also contributed to a ‘sense of difference’ from war-torn Southern Somalia. From this point onwards, the discourse on statehood, and in particular, its symbols and powers, became inseparable from the struggle for international recognition.

Renewed Conflict, Levelled Playing Field and Institutionalization of a Hybrid Order

The SNM interim government failed to establish control. Clan militia associated with competing SNM factions clashed over control of

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strategic assets in Burco as well as the port of Berbera (Jimcaale, 2005: 61). This period saw the first attempt to relabel clan-based alliances into a dichotomy between ‘government’ and ‘opposition’ forces in the name of state building. However, the Somaliland government succumbed to an internal power struggle that started as a political conflict between various groups of SNM cadres (politicians as well as military commanders) and deteriorated into an armed fight between the militia of their respective clans. The armed conflict drastically changed the balance of power and the negotiation dynamics of statehood. It signalled the end of the SNM altogether, breaking up the asymmetric post-war constellation and effectively levelling the playing field between non-Issaq sub-clans and the now divided Issaq.7 More important still, the ‘mandate’ for crafting the new order shifted from the actors of war to traditional agents of the clan institutions. The collapse of the SNM gave way to firm intervention by the elders, who started negotiating among themselves in order to broker a ceasefire and to re-establish a measure of governance. The Guurti took over the political initiative and called a national conference of clan elders and representatives in Borama, which in 1993 installed a new leadership and a new system of government. Participants of all the Somaliland clans agreed on a presidential system with a bicameral parliament, the latter of which consisted of a house of representatives and a house of elders, the Guurti. Members of both houses were appointed through their clan’s political channels and subject to their clan’s fluctuant political dynamics. Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, a veteran Issaq politician who had not been involved with the SNM, was elected as the new president. Arguably, the Borama conference signalled the birth of something like a Somaliland consciousness, some national identity with a sense of statehood. Somaliland was no longer a merely Issaq-driven political entity. President Egal masterfully nurtured and instrumentalized the embryonic popular sense of nationhood and statehood initiated at Borama. The conference marked the pinnacle of the traditional elders’ involvement in the negotiation of statehood in Somaliland. They succeeded in consolidating their political role through the establishment of the Guurti, the highest organ of the new state, the final arbiter in institutional and political conflicts, and the most prominent and formalized element of the hybrid political order (Jimcaale, 2005: 74). At the same time, the establishment of the new government structure signalled the beginning of the political displacement of the clan elders as independent, pivotal political actors.

7. Interviews with Abdi Yusuf Duale ‘Boobe’, ex-SNM secretary of the Executive Committee (Hargeisa, 16 April 2003) and Omar Dahir, journalist (Hargeisa, 11 July 2002).

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State Building through Clientelism

President Egal managed to mobilize significant financial resources over the following years. Working through his own Habar Awal sub-clan of the Issaq, he secured a substantial loan from a number of business tycoons, who had made their fortunes during and immediately after the civil war (Marchal, 1996: 75). With the loan, for which Egal vouched personally, he paid for the demobilization of militia and the encampment of heavy weapons, as well as for the salaries of Somaliland government personnel. With further financial input from the Habar Awal traders, he introduced a new currency, the Somaliland shilling, which replaced the Somali shilling as legal tender in 1994. Both in substantial and symbolic terms, these were hugely profitable moves. By controlling the militia, the President essentially neutralized a good proportion of the potential spoilers and established the army as an umbrella for government-allied armed forces. But although this boosted the institutionalization of the state’s power in the military domain, it gave rise to dynamics that effectively undermined the state in the economic and political sphere. Almost half of Somaliland’s first annual budget in 1995 went to the security services, choking government spending in other vital areas such as the social sector, infrastructure, etc. (Gilkes, 1995: 29). While laudable in many ways, the policy of ‘buying the peace’ is also seen to have reinforced the establishment of the patronage system in which handouts subsequently served as a primary source of legitimacy for statehood. In addition, as Zierau (2003: 60) argues, the co-operating Habar Awal business elite ultimately favoured a state ‘whose power is easy to control’. At the time, they practically monopolized the trade between Berbera, Hargeisa, Ethiopia and Djibouti (Bradbury, 2008: 112). The investments in the Somaliland state were also intended to create a tool of long-term market control.

Renewed Conflict: Supra-clan Mobilization and Sidelining the Elders

Egal’s new position was soon challenged by competing political actors from the Garhajis (Habar Yonis and Eidagalle sub-clans), including the previous president, who felt politically and economically disenfranchized by the Borama process and the Habar Awal business connection (Bradbury, 2008: 115–19). A fresh armed conflict ensued, yet Egal proved able to hold his ground, even to strengthen his position. The President controlled an arsenal of strategic advantages, including his superior financial resources, the appeal to Somaliland nationalism, a statist discourse and an enormous talent for clan politics. During the conflict, Egal retained control, embodying the realm of the state founded by the representatives of the Somaliland clans. To be sure, he took care to keep balancing and working politics through clan channels,

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but he was largely able to do so on his own terms. In marked contrast to Tuur’s government the President managed to assert power beyond his own clan base, and as in so many other instances, the notion of statehood was nurtured during the course of the war (Renders, 2006: 271, 279). Although the elders of the Guurti had played a crucial role in peace making and power brokering between competing political factions during the previous conflict, they now lost the political initiative. Following the formal institutionalization of the Guurti at the Borama Conference, they had become an organ of the state, considered partisan to Egal’s government (Bryden, 1994). As the war fizzled out after two years or so, clan elders on the ground started negotiations among themselves, outside the realm of the state or the political competition over state control. They brokered a ceasefire and war reparations between the clans of the fighting militia. But as the process gradually approached negotiations about inclusiveness of government and political power sharing, President Egal intervened.8 He had the clan elders of his Habar Awal sub-clan stop their participation in the process and offered political posts and spoils to Habar Yonis opposition politicians, who in turn disregarded any political negotiations of their own clan’s elders (Bryden, 2003: 13). In parallel to the removal of the military ‘hawks’ the clan elders had become almost sidelined.

‘Monopolization’ of Statehood at the Centre, Mediated Statehood at the Periphery

In order to formalize and consolidate the result of these negotiations, Egal had the Guurti he now firmly controlled organize a new clan conference at the capital Hargeisa at the end of 1996. However, in contrast to the one held in Borama in 1993, this conference was carefully engineered and fully under the control of the power circle around the President, now including previously opposed Habar Yonis figureheads (Jimcaale, 2005: 66–7). More than half of the delegates were handpicked in order to deliver the desired outcome: a new government as pre-conceived by Egal and his former competitors. These processes shifted the balance between the actors in the ‘hybrid order’. The central government as the leadership of the state asserted a degree of hegemony over the politically active clan elders inside and outside the Guurti. The clan system certainly retained overwhelming relevance and traditional elders continue to have a lot of influence, though primarily from outside the political centre. Yet the crucial management of clan representation in the state’s agencies and institutions changed hands from the elders 8. Interviews in Burco, April 2003, with Abdillahi Aden ‘Quruh’ elder and Habar Yunis negotiator, Abdillahi Mohamed Ahmed ‘Filter’ elder and Habar Jallo negotiator, Ali Dirriye Jama ‘Mudubbe’ elder and Habar Jallo negotiator, Ibrahim Ayaanle Mirre elder and Habar Yunis negotiator.

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to the government leadership. The President was now in a strong position to manipulate particular groups, to counterbalance their power or to shift alliances as part of maintaining his position. Loyalty was reproduced by expanding patronage thanks to growing government resources and granting or denying individual clan agents a role in the apparatus. Combined with the government’s increased autonomy from the remnants of the SNM, statehood gradually turned from a relatively inclusive post-war project of actors of all sides to one primarily pursued by the inner circle controlling the machinery of government. As part of its recognition and consolidation efforts, the government was keen to expand its control throughout Somaliland. President Egal built local and regional administrations to try and claim the tasks of government beyond Hargeisa and Berbera. He sought to remove elders’ initiatives which had locally taken care of matters in the meantime and emphasized that the state administration was the relevant authority to deal with.9 However, in the sphere of public order and security, it was obvious that neither the government nor the administration, the police nor any other state institution was in control. This hybrid scenario can best be described as ‘mediated statehood’. According to Menkhaus, this may occur when weak state authorities have a strong interest in extending governmental authority to frontier areas but lack the means to do so: ‘It is at this point that state authorities are most likely to reach out to negotiate with non-state authorities they would otherwise have viewed as rivals to be marginalized or tools to be co-opted’ (Menkhaus, 2006: 5). The Somaliland state — embodied by its institutions and officials — did not have the monopoly over the legitimate use of force beyond the capital and a few other urban centres and it was dependent on the elders’ co-operation to enforce the law. It also had very limited control over the way a specific matter was dealt with: in most cases, state organs such as the police or judiciary had no choice but to ratify decisions collectively taken by the elders on the basis of customary law (xeer) (APD, 2002). These realities resulted in a particular ‘division of labour’. While claiming superiority, the state effectively outsourced much of the security and judicial affairs to the elders. This did not limit the leverage of the state apparatus. On the contrary, outsourcing security was functional in expanding control as it did not hinder the shift of real political control from the elders to the ‘political class’. The boundaries between the state’s and the elders’ spheres remained open and flexible, allowing the government to intervene in cases when political

9. This was particularly visible in Borama where a local elder’s initiative had set up social services in co-operation with NGOs. President Egal demanded that development projects now had to be negotiated via Hargeisa. The international NGOs were required to move their headquarters to Hargeisa or lose their permit to work in Somaliland. This sapped local leverage and resources. (Interviews with Abdirahmaan Jim’aale ‘Dherre’, Borama professional, former local NGO staff, Hargeisa, 20 March 2003; Mohamed Muse Bahdoon, former mayor of Borama, Borama, 23 March 2003).

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stakes were high. This arrangement became part and parcel of statehood in Somaliland. Constitutional Democracy: Clan Politics through the Back Door

Following the successful referendum on the constitution and Somaliland’s independence in 2001, the country embarked upon another major transformation, the stage for which had already been set during the Hargeisa conference. A multiparty system was installed to provide the basis for local, presidential and parliamentary elections. However useful the clan-based representation system had been immediately after the state’s collapse, and however commendable the role of the clan elders, the ‘traditional’ system was not suited to deliver proper governance and development. Such was expected from the state, not only by the educated elite, but also by the population at large. ‘Kinship politics provide fertile soil for patronage, corruption, nepotism, and clientelism, while stifling the emergence of issue-based politics, meritocracy and professionalism. Not surprisingly, many Somalilanders feel that their future hinges upon striking a more effective balance between their socio-cultural heritage and their political aspirations’ (APD/WSP, 1999: 22). Furthermore, popular perceptions were still shaped by the state discourse of the Barre period: the state was ‘supposed to provide’.10 Last but not least, President Egal sensed very well that Somaliland would only stand a chance of winning international recognition if it presented itself as a modern state with a democratic system of government. After President Egal’s death in 2002, the country managed a peaceful transition to the new President, Dahir Rayaale Kahin, who was also reelected in 2003. But despite the achievements of the formal democratization process, Somaliland’s democracy so far remains somewhat ‘narrowly legal’ and at a fragile and formative stage. A deep democratic transformation, embracing society and delivering a sustainable and functional democracy, is still pending. The course of the local, presidential and parliamentary elections in 2002, 2003 and 2005 respectively further demonstrated the persistent influence of the clan system on politics. As one example, elders, politicians and other influential agents of the clan segments penetrated the nomination for the parliamentary candidates of the political parties, returning the process to the principle of clan-based representation (Ciabarri, 2008). Campaigning and voting clearly followed clan affiliation (APD/Interpeace, 2006: 36–45); the main cleavages in society continue to be along clan lines and alliances. 10. Numerous of our interviews and informal discussions also reflect the sentiment that the state administration is expected to be efficient and effective in providing security and basic services.

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Cross-sectional and ‘horizontal’ forms of civic association and organization remain very limited. Organizational capacity within society focuses on the representation of sub-sections, and on the balancing of their power and influence. Meanwhile, the Guurti — once innovative for its time — has stagnated in its further adaptation: legislation governing the future nomination or possibly election to the House of Elders has not been developed. Parallel to this failure to ‘reinvent’ itself in the face of new institutional realities, many members of the House have become urbanized and somewhat disconnected from their largely rural constituencies, eroding the traditional principle of collective and consultative decision making (APD/Interpeace, 2006). On balance, these developments tend to diminish democracy proper and undermine the hybrid political order. Instead of providing a framework to pursue broader, national interests through democratic procedures, the formal state apparatus provides a nominal arena for the informal regulation of interests segmented along clan lines. The previous agents of the traditional system no longer provide input legitimacy through consultation, consensus building and reaffirmation of authority since they have either been sidelined or co-opted into a state machinery of quasi-institutionalism. With state funds increasingly concentrated in a few pockets rather than trickling down to many, patronage also fails to produce the kind of output legitimacy of earlier days — which is also not compensated with other outputs, such as social services or effective policy making. Statehood forms the backdrop to a political order with mounting neo-patrimonial characteristics.

NEGOTIATING STATEHOOD IN THE LOCAL ARENA

The negotiation of statehood was not homogeneous in the different parts of Somaliland. The following section illustrates the differences in intergroup bargaining both within the two selected regions as well as between these regions and the central state. At the same time, it will demonstrate that resulting local realities behind the scene of statehood differ, despite the nominal existence of state structures such as regional administrations, representative organs and electoral processes in most parts of the country. Furthermore, the two areas exhibit noticeable differences in their relationship with the national centre.

Negotiating Statehood in the West: The Case of Awdal Region

Awdal in western Somaliland is situated between Djibouti, Ethiopia and the Issaq-populated mainland of Somaliland. It is primarily inhabited by

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the three sub-clans of the Gadabursi11 clan, whose traditional institutions survived the colonial period, Somali statehood and the war in good shape (Menkhaus, 1997: 9), remaining functionally intact and highly relevant to public security. The range and assertion capabilities of the elders in Awdal strongly benefitted from the relative homogeneity of the clan structure. The relative strength of the traditional institutions allowed for the formation of a Gadabursi guurti, a council of twenty-one elders which initially took over in July 1991 to lead the clan’s affairs after the collapse of the Somali regime (Gilkes, 1993: 39–41). It was of fundamental importance for the further development of the local order that the elders had openly assumed the external security function of the clan after 1988 and maintained control over most of the clan militias in the region throughout the war and beyond (Gilkes, 1993: 7).12 The ability to do so arose both from the wide recognition the elders enjoyed among the population and their continued interface role in the funding of the militia through collections from the community. Looting and setting up uncontrolled road blocks could largely be prevented and emerging commanders did not gain autonomy of action. Equally important for the negotiation of statehood was and is the ability of traditional actors and institutions to serve as a back-up in political governance when needed. ‘Whenever the role of the government diminishes, the role of the Guurti arises.’13 The elders’ continuing capacity to mobilize clan members — including their privately-owned arms — goes a long way to explain why they are able to assume this governance role when the need arises. Even more important than the elders’ actions in highly escalated crisis scenarios is their capability as agents of these institutions (sometimes with other accepted leaders of the clan) to effectively claim representation of the clan and assert its interests as a collective actor. From a clan perspective, the experiment of Somaliland’s new statehood must feel like walking a tightrope. Yet, knowing the strong networks of Awdal’s traditional institutions are below them, the Gadabursi walk quite comfortably. The main challenge for the Gadabursi after the collapse of the state was in the precarious relationship with Somaliland’s new rulers, since most members of the clan had sided with the Somali regime during the war (Prunier, 1994: 2). As a result of the rivalries between the SNM wings, the Issaq commanders who negotiated relations with the Gadabursi during the Dila conference in February 1991 reportedly had a strong interest in a 11. There is only a small minority of Ciisse and a few other minorities, such as the Gaboye, but discussing their role would go beyond the scope of this chapter. 12. Interview with Haji Jama, Gadabursi elder (Borama, 7 July 2002). Interview with Xusseen Cawaale ‘Tuur’, Gadabursi elder (Borama, 12 November 2005). 13. Interview with Cabdilaahi Habane, Secretary General of Somaliland’s House of Elders (Hargeisa, 7 December 2005).

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peaceful settlement: ‘[They] needed peace with their Gadabursi neighbours if they were to be in a comfortable position with the other sub-clan commanders of the SNM’.14 Moreover, the SNM’s ambitions to have a strong position vis-`a-vis the south and to achieve international recognition for Somaliland required a consensual, negotiated resolution of outstanding issues. It also brought about the need to obtain at least minimal endorsement of Somaliland’s independence by all clans: ‘The SNM Commanders. . . realized that an Issaq state alone is not feasible. That led them to seek a settlement’.15 For their part, the Gadabursi and the Dhulbahante and Warsangeli in the east needed peaceful relations with the dominant SNM force more than anything — particularly in the absence of any viable political alternatives (see e.g. Prunier, 1994: 3–4). This led the clan to ‘join the bandwagon’ at the Berbera conference in February 1991. From then onwards, political developments between the Gadabursi political and economic elites and the government in the formerly SNM-controlled heartland of Somaliland could be described as a form of lengthy negotiation over the role and meaning of statehood. The process resulted in a high degree of ‘self-administration’ for Awdal — Gadabursi were ruling Gadabursi affairs.16 In return for its relative autonomy, the clan accepted that the local form of statehood, which had largely been maintained by the elders, was incorporated into the new state, and at least gave the appearance of backing the notion of Somaliland’s independence. As one observer put it: The local and regional institutions of Awdal were even ahead of those at the national level. President Egal had no leverage in Hargeisa, so of course he could neither afford to incorporate the Gadabursi with money (which would have been his normal approach), nor by force. And anyway, all he really needed was acceptance in principle of the idea and symbols of Somaliland. The flag had to be flying, and the Gadabursi allowed the flag to be raised on their soil.17

Following the new arrangement, the administration on the local and regional level — now officially part of the state framework — was able to establish itself more firmly (Menkhaus, 1997: 35–6). The role and influence of clan elders in everyday politics shrank, with other clan agents (businessmen, religious authorities, intellectuals, etc.) gaining in importance. Having been allowed to enter the local negotiation arena, the central state’s manoeuvres nevertheless remained largely limited to consensus-based 14. Interview with Xuseen Cawaale ‘Tuur’, Gadabursi elder and participant of the Dila conference (Boroma, 11 November 2005). 15. Interview with Xuseen Cawaale ‘Tuur’, Gadabursi elder and participant of the Dila conference, Boroma (11 November 2005). 16. Interviews with Maxamuud Axmed Barre ‘Garaad’, former Regional Governor of Awdal and former local Guurti member (Boroma, 9 November 2005); Maxamed Xasan Axmed ‘Jabane’, former Vice-Governor of Awdal (1993–2005) (Boroma, 9 November 2005). 17. Interview with Somaliland researcher (21 February 2007).

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action. The link between Awdal and Hargeisa actors and institutions — although comparatively well-developed — lacks institutionalized reliability.18 During the state centre’s efforts to consolidate power following 1996 and in the course of the subsequent democratization process after 2001, the Gadabursi managed to develop significant political participation and a stake at the national level, culminating in Dahir Rayaale Kahin’s ascent to the Vice Presidency in 1997 and to the Presidency in 2002 (Bradbury, 2008: 250). The rise of a Gadabursi politician to the top has affected the equilibrium between the centre and the region. Under the former president, the Issaq-dominated centre of power served as a unifying factor for the Gadabursi. Within the nominal framework of the state, his ‘subsidiarity approach’19 to Awdal supported a local legitimization of state structures. It also provided space for mostly endogenous processes to strengthen the state’s local structures: ‘President Egal never ventured into Gadabursi affairs’.20 These dynamics have changed since the President of Somaliland hails from Awdal. A national counterpart from one’s own ranks seems to lack the unifying effect that the national government headed by a member of Somaliland ’s majority clan used to have. Furthermore, the centre of power now maintains direct, vertical networks in the region, opening up channels through which the national level may involve itself directly with regional affairs and undermining the previously quite autonomous governance reality. Gadabursi political actors in Awdal swiftly restored local governance and effectively negotiated statehood with the centre. The situation in the east, inhabited by four different sub-clans and adjacent to a competing Somali polity (Puntland), is far more complex. Negotiating Statehood in the East: The Case of Sanaag Region

Sanaag in eastern Somaliland, including its capital Erigavo, has a heterogeneous clan structure. Western Sanaag is inhabited by Habar Jeclo and Habar Yonis, which are both Issaq sub-clans. Dhulbahante and Warsangeli in eastern Sanaag belong to the Darod clan family. The region was affected by fierce armed conflict — first between the SNM-aligned Issaq militia21 and Darod fighters supporting Siad Barre, then between different Issaq factions. The communities emerged divided from the war (Ho¨ hne, 2005: 12).

18. Interviews with intellectuals (Borama, 8 and 10 November 2005). 19. ‘The principle that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed at a more local level’ (Concise Oxford Dictionary). 20. Interview with Somaliland researcher (21 February 2007). 21. The SNM group in Sanaag had fallen out with the SNM command structure in 1989 (APD/Interpeace, 2009: 65).

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During the war, the local and regional administration had collapsed completely. Authority rested with the local elders and commanders of the individual sub-clans. In 1991, initial attempts by the dominant Habar Yonis commanders in Erigavo to start up their own regional administration did not gain recognition from the other sub-clans and collapsed immediately. Early in 1992, talks between Habar Yonis and Habar Jeclo elders temporarily produced an Issaq Guurti with very limited authority.22 Meanwhile, the selfdeclared regional governor maintained his claim to power and disregarded the elders. It took a series of sixteen traditional peace conferences to incrementally improve local relations between the sub-clans. These meetings took place on the level of sub-clans, applying (with adaptations) the well-developed and widely practised institution of traditional conflict resolution, embedded in the clan system. Eventually, a regional charter signed at the Erigavo Conference in November 1993 formally re-established peace. Above all, it opened up the desperately needed common grazing land, which is often described as the decisive incentive for the four sub-clans to come to terms with each other (Renders, 2006: 223). Although the peace process set the stage for a normalization of inter-clan relations, it failed to address the remaining conflicts fully and to provide sufficient basis for political reconstruction (Yusuf, n.d.: 5). Future power relations were not discussed and agreements to establish a new regional administration were never implemented. The sub-clans and their traditional institutions remained responsible for the maintenance of peace in their respective local contexts (Actionaid Somaliland, 1998: 5). Political deadlock precluded the establishment of a regional administration in Sanaag. In large part the standstill was caused by two external factors. The Habar Yonis had a dominant position in Erigavo. On Somaliland’s national political scene, however, they felt marginalized after the ousting of President Abdirahman Tuur, a Habar Yonis. As a result, many Habar Yonis politicians ‘opted out’ of the central government. Moreover, Habar Yonis militia clashed with government-aligned Habar Jallo militia in neighbouring Togdheer region. As a result, government access to Sanaag was effectively blocked for years. (Gilkes, 1995: 11–12; 22; Peace Committee for Somaliland, 1997: 6) Second, political entities to the east of the area presented competing ‘political bidders’ for eastern Sanaag and Sool region, both in terms of identity and statehood, turning the areas into disputed territory between Somaliland and Puntland (Renders, 2006: 362). Puntland claims eastern Sanaag because the Warsangeli and Dhulbahante in this area belong to the Darod (Harti) clan that dominates Puntland. Somaliland claims the territory on the basis

22. Interview with Ismael Haji Nur, Mayor of Erigavo (Erigavo 23 December 2007). Also see Renders (2006: 222).

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of the boundaries which separated the British protectorate Somaliland from the Italian colony Somalia.23 From 1996 onwards, the end of the internal war helped overcome the distance between the central government and the Habar Yonis of Sanaag. This was largely achieved through the co-optation of members of the local Habar Yonis elite during the Hargeisa Conference (Actionaid Somaliland, 1998: 6). The President dispatched a high-level delegation of ministers from the relevant sub-clans in Sanaag to the eastern regions. Many of them had direct family ties to key figures in the local context, often from other subclans, supporting their position and trust in the negotiations to establish an administration. The elders co-operated with the ministerial delegation, partly to retain a role for themselves, partly to be relieved of burdens they had carried all along.24 As a result of the top-down efforts of the central government, an administration was established and the militia, especially of the Issaq, were finally integrated under the umbrella of the national army. Today, the working foundation of the local and regional government in Erigavo is the general consensus about the necessity to maintain peace. Sharing water and grazing areas, the clans in the area are economically interdependent. Armed conflict of any sort would immediately jeopardize their pastoral livelihoods.25 This explains why Sanaag has remained relatively stable in spite of the difficult political environment. Yet, this political environment blocks the consensus about peace from expanding into a sufficient basis to develop shared collective institutions. Politics and institution building in Sanaag are heavily affected by the undecided status of the eastern part of the region between Puntland and Somaliland on the one hand, and the status of Somaliland versus Somalia, on the other. Too many factors are unclear. For Warsangeli and Dhulbahante politicians, opting for one side would be very risky as long as the future of all these political entities remains unclear. In the meantime, local leaders simply take advantage of the continuing canvassing by competing emissaries from all sides. In terms of governance this results in a failure to develop a meaningful degree of supra-clan governance, both in the clan system and in the state arena. The regional administration hardly commands capacity to assert itself. In every dispute and on every matter, its role and authority are limited to 23. The establishment of the Transitional Federal Government for Somalia in 2004 added a further dimension to this conflict, not discussed here. 24. Interviews with Maxamed Salaax Nur ‘Faghade’ (Hargeisa, 12 December 2005), Xuseen Faarax ‘Doodi’ (Hargeisa, 7 December 2005), and Maxamed Siciid Maxamed ‘Gees’ (Hargeisa, 5 December 2005). All three interviewees were members of the ministerial delegation in 1998. 25. Interviews with Abdi Ali Hurre, Regional Governor of Sanaag, Ismael Haji Nur, Mayor of Erigavo, and Abdirahman Jama, Habar Jeclo chief (Erigavo, 23 December 2007). Also see H¨ohne (2005: 12, 15).

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the facilitation of ad hoc consensus building between the sub-clans, with frequent references to the need for peace. The sub-clans therefore focus primarily on their own clan representatives who, except for the Habar Yonis, are mostly found outside the state organs. Statehood in Sanaag is negotiated in shifting sand. Government bodies in Erigavo primarily exist as skeletons. Not much more than a passable form of security co-operation between the clan segments, maintained by mainly traditional and other authorities outside the state arena, has been institutionalized. Although the Somaliland government has considered Sanaag to be under its umbrella since 1997/8, it has not gained reliable, practical access to eastern Sanaag so far (Bryden, 2003: 20).

CONCLUSION

The meaning of Somaliland’s statehood and the realities behind it have varied drastically over time and geographical space. Especially at the national level, the negotiation was and is characterized by significant shifts within its hybrid political order. ‘Traditional’ leaders and institutions, which initially had the key role in building the polity, provided politicians (both ex-SNM and former regime supporters) with the political and institutional bypass that they needed to establish control as governors and administrators with some legitimacy. The claim to ‘modern’ statehood eventually allowed these politicians to push clan elders from the ‘negotiation table’, while keeping their assistance at hand for the maintenance of public order and other conventional state tasks. As the political centre of gravity gradually shifted to the supra-regional level, other clan-based power brokers joined the table: urban, indeed often Hargeisabased politicians and businessmen with vested interests in ‘statehood’ as a conduit for security and market control. It is notable that their financial co-operation with the young state leadership allowed for the (safe) exclusion of military actors from the negotiation process. For statehood as an institutionalized power relation, these shifts primarily meant that clan elders little by little lost their ability to provide checks and balances on the central government. Though the labels suggesting hybridity (elders councils, clan-based power sharing, etc.) remained, their underlying content changed: patronage gradually substituted traditional authority as the ‘ties that bind’ clan segments and their — now increasingly self-appointed and self-serving — agents. Moreover, patronage — which had in principle existed ever since the necessary resources had become available — now narrowed to ever leaner networks, changing character. ‘Buying peace’ from clans by co-opting selected clan elders, an approach famously attributed to Somaliland’s first president Egal, was increasingly replaced by the narrower purpose of buying people’s political support in order to fortify one’s power base. Overall, hybrid elements initially allowed for a healthy adaptation of statehood to

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local needs, and for legitimate, productive instruments of negotiation. This responsiveness was not maintained, and current hybrid elements threaten to undermine the polity’s stability. So far, the limited central control over resources and coercive means helps to maintain some balance. The negotiation of statehood in the respective regions and between the local and the national level differs widely. Awdal’s strong traditional institutions and cohesive clan structure safeguarded security and maintained a local notion of statehood — symbolized in the regional and local administration — after the war. In Sanaag, traditional institutions had to put up with a heterogeneous clan structure and the disruptive legacy of war. Though they eventually succeeded in ending the violence, local statehood was undermined by continuing internal tensions, a conflict with the Hargeisa government and the divisive emergence of an alternative ‘political bidder’ in Puntland. Consequently, the emerging local realities of statehood differ. In Sanaag, local and regional state structures are largely confined to a facilitating role in preserving inter-clan peace. Elders maintain a very active governance role, also strongly focused on peacekeeping. In contrast, Awdal demonstrates that once the state takes root and develops practical relevance, it may gradually become the ‘central arena’ for governance, increasingly leading the elders to retreat to a role which is complementary to that of the state. The elders do not intervene unless other clan agents within the structures of the state either violate vital clan interests or fail to secure them. Relations between the two regions and the centre — a core theme in the negotiation of statehood — vary markedly. With respect to the question of ‘belonging’, Awdal’s geo-political realities hardly left an alternative to reconciliation with the former war adversaries that controlled Somaliland after 1991. Again, traditional institutions provided the organizational capacity for a strong bargaining position of the local clan community. Moreover, negotiated hybrid political features, especially the national Guurti and clan-based power sharing, safeguarded the interests of the local clans at the national level. In Sanaag, selected local clan politicians were appointed to cabinet positions, and dashing out resources took primacy over a genuine equilibrium of interests with all relevant communities in the region. Next to elders, urbanized politicians, including from Hargeisa, acted as essential agents in this process. It is perhaps best described as co-optation, whereas consensus building characterized the negotiation of statehood between Awdal and the centre. As a result, the clan-based, consensus-orientated approach with Awdal opened the door to the effective political participation of Gadabursi stakeholders at the national level, coupled with a significant degree of acceptance of the Somaliland ‘umbrella’. For Sanaag, as long as the conflict between Somaliland and Puntland remains unresolved, an unambiguous commitment would carry huge risks to its stability. Thus, acceptance of the Somaliland ‘umbrella’ remains partial if not nominal, and the process of integration of

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the regional polity with national statehood remains comparatively superficial. The tolerance for heterogeneous negotiations and different forms of statehood has allowed the local political actors to establish peace in their own local settings first. Though it did not produce uniform links between the respective regions and the national level, it provided the basis for communities to test the waters for common statehood. The Somaliland case demonstrates the complexities of evolving statehood, a process that is neither linear nor homogeneous. Its path involved dramatic shifts and it did not produce the same kind of arrangements in the various local settings under investigation. Statehood is the result of continuing negotiations involving various types of institutions. Policy makers may need to appreciate these complexities and the potential of endogenous processes, especially when approached with a bottom-up perspective, rather than imposing blanket state-building formulas to be pursued from national capitals.

REFERENCES Actionaid Somaliland (1998) ‘Pastoralism and Peace-building in the Sanaag and Tughdeer Regions of Somaliland’. Hargeisa: Actionaid Somalia (mimeo). Africa Watch (1990) Somalia: A Government at War With its Own People. Testimonies about the Killings and the Conflict in the North. New York: Africa Watch Committee. APD (Academy for Peace and Development) (2002) ‘The Judicial System in Somaliland’ (April). Hargeisa: Academy for Peace and Development, http://www.apd1996.org/docs/ Judiciary_Report.PDF (accessed 14 March 2005). APD (Academy for Peace and Development)/WSP (War-torn Society Project) (1999) ‘A Self-Portrait of Somaliland: Rebuilding from the Ruins’ (December). Hargeisa: Academy for Peace and Development/War-torn Societies Project. http://www.apd-somaliland.org/ docs/Self_Portrait.PDF (accessed 16 December 2006). APD (Academy for Peace and Development)/Interpeace (2006) ‘A Vote for Peace. How Somaliland Successfully Hosted its first Parliamentary Elections in 35 Years’. Dialogue for Peace (September). Hargeisa: Academy for Peace and Development/Interpeace. http://www.apdsomaliland.org/docs/apd2006electionspluserrata.pdf (accessed 1 March 2007). APD (Academy for Peace and Development)/Interpeace (2009) ‘Peace in Somaliland: An Indigenous Approach to State-Building’. Hargeisa: Academy for Peace and Development/ Interpeace. von Benda-Beckmann, F. and K. von Benda-Beckmann (2006) ‘The Dynamics of Legal Pluralism’, in F. von Benda-Beckmann and K. von Benda-Beckmann (eds) Dynamics of Plural Legal Orders, pp. 1–41. Berlin: Lit Verlag. Besteman, C. (1998) ‘Primordialist Blinders: A Reply to I.M. Lewis’, Cultural Anthropology 13(1): 109–20. Bradbury, M. (1997) ‘Somaliland’. CIIR Country Report. London: Catholic Institute for International Relations. Bradbury, M. (2008) Becoming Somaliland. London: Progressio and James Currey. Bryden, M. (1994) ‘Report on Mission to Somaliland 15/12/94 to 21/12/1994’. Addis Ababa: United Nations Emergencies Unit for Ethiopia (mimeo). ´ Bryden, M. (2003) ‘The Banana Test: Is Somaliland Ready for Recognition?’, Annales d’Ethiopie 19: 341–64.

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Ciabarri, Luca (2008) ‘No Representation without Redistribution: Somaliland Plural Authorities, the Search for a State and the 2005 Parliamentary Elections’, in A. Bellagamba and G. Klute (eds) Beside the State. Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa, pp. 55–73. K¨oln: R¨udiger K¨oppe. Clapham, C. (1982) Clientelism: Private Patronage and Public Power. Political Clientelism in the Modern State. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Cleaver, F. (2002) ‘Reinventing Institutions: Bricolage and the Social Embeddedness of Natural Resource Management’, European Journal of Development Research 14(2): 11–30. Clements, K.P., V. B¨oge, A. Brown, W. Foley and A. Nolan (2007) ‘State Building Reconsidered: The Role of Hybridity in the Formation of Political Order’, Political Science 59(1): 45–56. Croissant, A., W. Merkel, H-J. Puhle, C. Eicher and P. Thiery (2003) Defekte Demokratien Band I: Theorien und Konzepte [Defective Democracy, Vol. I: Theories and Concepts]. Opladen: Leske+Budrich. Erdmann, G. and U. Engel (2007) ‘Neopatrimonialism Reconsidered: Critical Review and Elaboration of an Elusive Concept’, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 45(1): 95–119. Farah, A.Y. and I.M. Lewis (1993) Somalia, the Roots of Reconciliation. Peace Making Endeavours of Contemporary Lineage Leaders: A Survey of Grassroots Peace Conferences in ‘Somaliland’. London: Actionaid. Gilkes, P.S. (1993) Two Wasted Years. The Republic of Somaliland 1991–1993. Biggleswade: Save the Children Fund. Gilkes, P.S. (1995) Acceptance but not Recognition: The Republic of Somaliland 1993–95. Biggleswade: Save the Children Fund. Heinrich, W. and M. Kulessa (2003) ‘Dekonstruktion von Staaten als Chance f¨ur neue Staatlichkeit?’ [‘Deconstruction of States as a Chance for New Statehood?’], in J. Hippler (ed.) Nation-Building. Ein Schl¨usselkonzept f¨ur friedliche Konfliktbearbeitung?, pp. 88–104. Bonn: Dietz. H¨ohne, M.V. (2005) ‘Political Identity and the State in Northern Somalia. Between Somaliland, Puntland and Somalia’. Halle/Saale: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (mimeo). H¨ohne, M.V. (2007) ‘From Pastoral to State Politics: Traditional Authorities in Northern Somalia’, in H. Kyed and L. Buur (eds) State Recognition and Democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa. A New Dawn for Traditional Authorities?, pp. 155–82. New York: Palgrave. Holm, H-H. (1998) ‘The Responsibility That Will Not Go Away. Weak States in the International System’. Paper presented at International Conference on ‘Failed States and International Security: Causes, Prospects, and Consequences’, Purdue University, West Lafayette (25–27 February). http://www.ippu.purdue.edu/failed%5Fstates/1998/papers/holm.html (accessed 5 April 2005). Jimcaale, C. (2005) ‘Consolidation and Decentralization of Government Institutions’ Programme’, in WSP Somali (ed.) Rebuilding Somaliland: Issues and Possibilities, pp. 49–122. Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press. Kraushaar, M. and D. Lambach (2009), Hybrid Political Orders: The Added Value of a New Concept. Brisbane: Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies Online Occasional Paper No. 14, December 2009. Lewis, I.M. (1999 [1961]) A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics Among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. Hamburg: LIT (3rd edn). Marchal, R. (1996) ‘Final Report on the Post-Civil War Somali Business Class’. Paris: Ecole des hautes e´ tudes en sciences sociales (mimeo). Meagher, K. (2007) ‘Introduction: Special Issue on “Informal Institutions and Development in Africa”’, Africa Spectrum 42(3): 405–18. Menkhaus, K. (1997) ‘Awdal Region’. Studies on Governance (December). Nairobi: UNDOS. Menkhaus, K. (2006) ‘Governance in the Hinterland of Africa’s Weak States: Toward a Theory of the Mediated State’. Paper presented at the American Political Science Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia (August). Mohamed, J. (2007) ‘Kinship and Contract in Somali Politics’, Africa 77(2): 226–49.

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10 Researching African Statehood Dynamics: Negotiability and its Limits

Martin Doornbos INTRODUCTION

In recent times, efforts to identify and comprehend features and paradoxes of state trajectories in Africa have spawned an impressive stream of literature and debate (Dorman et al., 2007; Herbst, 2000; Mbembe, 2001; Reno, 1998; Rotberg, 2004; Samatar and Samatar, 2002; Young, 2004). Without attempting to list recurrent themes and problem areas raised, it is evident that statehood in Africa carries an enigmatic quality to many of its observers. Seemingly omnipresent yet often glaringly absent where one might have expected it, African statehood has invited frequent flippant generalizations as being problematic. Still, with numerous problem areas associated with it, it has eluded many an attempt at diagnosis and being ‘boxed in’ for definitional clarity. Instead, limited understanding has led to, and been expressed in, an overwhelming use of adjectives like ‘fragile’, ‘failing’ or ‘failed’ in recent discussions about African states. Unfortunately, though not unexpectedly, social science researchers have often cast their analyses in similar and related terms. Indeed, as Mbembe (2001) has pointed out in his On the Postcolony, Africa is often used as an image not only of what is supposedly primitive, but of what is absent or does not exist. But what should be at stake is not to determine what African states are not but to better understand the formative processes they are engaged in. In organizing this volume, Tobias Hagmann and Didier Pe´ clard have come up with a felicitous phrase, ‘negotiating statehood’, to conceptualize and organize research on contemporary dynamics of statehood in sub-Saharan Africa in particular. In academic writing, choosing the right phrasing is of vital importance, as even slight variations in wording, especially in titles, may lead to much larger differences in the foci and discussions that follow, or can actually divert attention away from what is intended. Semantics play a key role indeed and it is the task of research to bring about more exact cognition, while at the same time developing the required terminological infrastructure and methodology for further exploration. With their propositions for a different set of lenses and alternative analytical framework to study African statehood dynamics, Hagmann and Pe´ clard advance a refreshingly My sincere appreciation goes to Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard for the constructive dialogue that has led to this contribution. Negotiating Statehood, First Edition. Tobias Hagmann and Didier P´eclard 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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different and novel approach towards the analysis of statehood and political processes in Africa. A notion like ‘negotiating statehood’ helps to draw attention to the manifold moves and efforts made at local, national and international levels to arrive at new arrangements towards the organization of public authority in various African contexts. As a phrase to capture complex ongoing struggles over identities, powers and (political) resources within contested political frameworks, it offers a much-needed corrective to prevailing Weberian state notions and black and white dichotomies like state and non-state, collapsed or otherwise, or many discussions in terms of state failure, full stop. Instead, it helps to focus on dynamic dimensions of statehood and the open-endedness and fluidity of state trajectories and formative political processes, while possibly underscoring the diversity of emerging patterns and the non-applicability of single standard models.1 The term also facilitates the avoidance of overly normative perspectives when looking at patterns of state restructuring in Africa and the South more generally, such as those primarily informed by preoccupation with electoral democratization (cf. Lindberg, 2006) or ‘good governance’ (Doornbos, 2007). Thus, rather than superficially diagnosing ‘state failure’ wherever reality does not reflect preconceived ideas of statehood, the concept invites scrutiny of ongoing processes. Such an enquiry would be informed by the premise that the basis of political authority structures, formalized or otherwise, will be subject to continued contestations and ongoing searches for novel modes of political organization. Also, in the case of ‘collapsed’ states, rare as they are, it has been observed that it is not so much the collapse as such but what happens ‘beyond collapse’ which deserves special attention (cf. Eisenstadt, 1988). Through the centrality of ‘negotiating’, broadly conceived, the approach can draw attention to different constituent forces, stakeholders and inputs involved in these dynamics rather than concentrating on ‘the state’ as a single key actor, entity or focus, and to the juxtaposition and confrontation of these forces as the case may be in advancing claims and ideas about possible forms or directions of statehood.

QUERIES AND OBJECTIVES

Still, for all its heuristic qualities, some further scrutiny of the ‘negotiating statehood’ concept’s implied vision appears to be called for. Both the ‘negotiation’ and the ‘statehood’ parts of it denote essentially pliable as well as multi-dimensional aspects. One might ask whether the concept and the analytical framework associated with it are not too amorphous, leaving room for ambiguity as to what they stand for, and thus potentially losing sharpness. Is the idea generally applicable or does it acquire particular relevance when 1. In this vein, see also Bellagamba and Klute (2008) and Vlassenroot and Raeymaekers (2008).

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applied to certain kinds of contexts, particularly in Africa? What key dimensions should one associate it with? And above all, how should we treat the relationship between ‘negotiating statehood’ as a way of looking at things and at the same time as an (occasionally emerging?) phenomenon of sorts? In other words, to what extent is the conceptual framework related to empirical reality? Does it make sense to employ such a conceptual framework rather than, for instance, to engage in theory-building based on comparative empirical analysis? Possibly the most difficult aspect in employing the ‘negotiating statehood’ phrase concerns the question as to how far its use as a set of lenses to examine political processes can and should be distinguished from its use to describe particular practices of political bargaining. Do such ‘lenses’ help (pre-)select particular phenomena for closer enquiry, or is it the phenomena concerned which manifest themselves in a manner that attracts attention and invites novel designations? As a set of lenses, with the conceptual equivalent of magnifying, night-vision or X-raying capacity, the framework may enable us to perceive important moments or modes of political interaction that we might otherwise overlook. On the other hand, no optical instrument — or in the present context, no conceptual apparatus — however advanced it may be, can reveal ‘negotiation’ if it is not taking place. A key question is whether we indeed want to see and grasp certain phenomena for which a particular set of lenses can be of help. In the end it is perhaps unavoidable that our cognition will be partly shaped by an interplay between these elements; we may now be encountering both newly emerging approaches to conflict resolution and state restructuring, and new ways of looking at such processes. More comparative research and evidence may give us tentative clues about this, though this should not affect the value of the ‘negotiations’ concept in helping us view statehood dynamics as having their own logic while nonetheless guarding us from teleological assumptions. This chapter attempts to come to a preliminary assessment of the analytical and empirical scope of the notion of ‘negotiating statehood’, respectively for reformulating or restructuring statehood. The main argument will be that although one can conceive of many processes as being negotiated somehow, in (empirical) reality these lenses are more appropriate for some situations than for others. This contribution will therefore seek to explore the limits of the conceptual framework and review empirical examples that seem to contradict the idea of ‘negotiated’ statehood. It will do so through a review of selected historical and empirical contexts within which one might expect to encounter processes of negotiating statehood at work, allowing such particular dimensions to be highlighted, in contrast to situations where for some reason or another no such interactions (can) take place and thus, by implication, can hardly be scrutinized with the help of any special lenses. It will also consider the broader context within which contemporary African statehood dynamics occur, and highlight the limitations this context places on various state-building designs. It concludes with a preliminary balance sheet

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of the ‘negotiating statehood’ concept’s potential analytical contribution and relevance.

CONCEPTUAL REACH

With respect to the above queries, we might first observe that the relevance of a focus on ‘negotiating statehood’ in principle should have no limits. In recent times, calls have been made for a symbolic ‘reinvention’ or ‘renegotiation’ of France and The Netherlands (as well as Belgium, albeit less symbolically) which reflect current manifestations of political malaise in these countries, potentially to be echoed elsewhere. Such calls represent attempts to arrive at renewed understandings as to which cultural/historical dimensions dominant constituent groups are prepared to view as their shared heritage. Besides, any re-negotiation of statehood is bound to be concerned with the relative weight of different stakeholders within the overall body politic, such as the role and place of the Flemish and Walloon language constituencies (if that is what keeps Belgian politics divided) within the framework of the Belgian state or its successor(s). The notion’s reach may also be extended to include much of the everyday minute restructuring of state structures taking place in these and other countries, often the result of elaborate negotiations between different sections within the overall state framework or in interaction with organized societal interests. Still, the concept’s key contemporary rationale and relevance must be found with respect to crisis and post-crisis situations in post-colonial Africa and elsewhere — often in a kind of situation which represents ongoing conflict and crisis ‘with different means’. Its novelty lies not so much in the actions it portrays — which are as old and time-honoured as states themselves — but in the perspective it offers on relevant state dynamics. The idea of ‘negotiating statehood’ is generally suggestive of searches for new or renewed constellations being pursued: new forms or models of ‘statehood’, new interconnections, newly projected political ‘unities’ perhaps, at times without a dominant power masterminding the process or playing a central role in it. Should the latter be the case, it may have implications for the kind of political arrangements that emerge, producing situations in which the question of power remains essentially unsettled for prolonged periods. It might also have implications for the role that research could play in these situations, namely to act as a mirror that can contribute towards agenda-setting by all stakeholders (as opposed to research that presents itself as primarily serviceable to the dominant actor). It is intriguing in this connection to ponder the nature of political organization, in state form or otherwise, which the post-post-colonial African context might give rise to — that is, if not constrained by global powers and the international system (cf. Young, 2004). There is simply no way of knowing where any such trends might lead in terms of changing patterns of conflict resolution or the shape

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and nature of statehood in post-colonial Africa. As a set of lenses, a notion of constructing statehood by negotiation itself cannot carry any comment on whether we are witnessing a process that is gradually leading to some form of increased political congruence with prevailing social formations, or one representing numerous steps, big and small, towards the crumbling of Africa into a whole range of fragmented entities, or to yet other kinds of configurations. Nor should it be expected to do so. Nonetheless, for those trying to interpret or project an amalgam of specific instances as indicative of longer-term trends of one kind or another, looking at intervals of negotiating moments may constitute an instructive engagement.

‘Negotiating Statehood’ and ‘Nation Building’

The heuristic value of a notion like ‘negotiating statehood’ to understand contemporary dynamics is illustrated when contrasting the concept with one of its predecessors used in looking at African state–society interactions, that of ‘nation building’. In a sense the two share a number of concerns and superficially might even resemble each other. In passing, it should be recognized that the period of the impending colonial departures and early post-colonial statehood often associated with a ‘nation-building’ perspective also evoked an avalanche of negotiations at many different levels. Nonetheless, there is a major difference between these two ‘concepts’: while ‘nation building’ was both a political objective and an intellectual paradigm, ‘negotiating statehood’ is not a political objective, but a (commendable) scholarly attempt to focus on and comprehend certain trends emerging out of a complex empirical reality in post-colonial Africa. Still, ‘nation building’ seemed to suggest that one generally knew the direction things were or should be going, whereas with ‘negotiating statehood’ that is precisely what remains largely undetermined — which is not to say it is altogether open-ended. In an earlier era, the notion of ‘imagined communities’ (Anderson, 1991) gave rise to the idea that if a nation could collectively be imagined, it would come into being. Such collective imaginations, it was assumed, could be instilled through reference to common myths or other shared proto-national attributes. Little thought was given to the fact that apart from the anti-colonial struggle, ingredients for common myths at the level of the post-colonial African state might be limited. With ‘nation building’ assumed to be underway, it seemed to matter less what all the problematic ingredients were. They were presumed to be ‘traditional’, belonging to the past, to be erased in the shape of things to come. Essentially, this was a strongly teleological perspective. While on closer inspection it might not have been too clear where all this ‘nation building’ was leading, numerous onlookers were placing their trust in it, not least the foreign observers and well-wishers. For the latter in particular, it was as if a former

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billboard at Lagos airport which proclaimed ‘To make Nigeria One is a Task to be Done’ had been intended specially to reassure them. One advantage of the notion of ‘negotiating statehood’ at any rate is that its destiny is in no way self-evident. In a way it allows or forces one to say ‘we do not really know’, and not to claim prior insight into dynamics which are inherently unpredictable, though not necessarily random. In turn it helps to avoid adopting a position on where various processes of ‘negotiating statehood’ on the continent should be leading to. By implication the focus shifts to the constituent elements involved in contestations or negotiations, both as subjects and objects, including a number which had earlier been ignored or left aside as less relevant. And last but not least, it induces a fresh look at any ‘myths’ postulated at national or local levels, which in the context of any case of ‘negotiating statehood’ might be up for reappraisal.

Dynamic Dimensions

Three elements in Hagmann and Pe´ clard’s conceptualization in particular call for attention. These are their concern with a) dynamic processes, not properties or structures fit for taxonomic examination; b) the relative indeterminedness of these processes, largely defying attempts at teleological projections being applied to them while nonetheless following their own logic; and c) the contested nature of the political frameworks — existing or projected — being (re)negotiated, often implying active stakeholder engagement in the absence of a single dominant political actor like the state. Thus, more attention is paid to processes than to structures in looking at state–society relations, while at the same time the approach calls for steering clear of any normative a priori-ism. Moreover, Hagmann and Pe´ clard have advanced additional elements towards constructing a conceptual framework to come to grips with these dynamic fields, namely by proposing different categories of actors, and of resources and repertoires when analysing statehood dynamics in Africa, and also by distinguishing between negotiating tables and arenas when identifying the locus and context of such negotiating processes. Within the emerging field of critical literature on state restructuring processes in Africa and the South more generally (Dorman et al., 2007; Lund, 2006; Milliken, 2003) — that is, critical of a priori normative departures — these are constructive tools. Evidently, then, there is a wide range of themes and topics inviting investigation in this connection, several of them familiar enough but taking on a new posture in the light of a ‘negotiations’ focus: struggles for identity and recognition, contested power relations, recurrent moves to reinsert, reintegrate or reinvent political and administrative authority structures, and more. A focus on ‘negotiating statehood’ distinguishing actors, resources and arenas for negotiation, among other elements, facilitates exploration of contested dimensions such as:

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• political identity: what different kinds of ‘belonging’ tend to be associ-

ated with the entities negotiating or under negotiation and what different visions of the future shape of things — as in the designation of collective frameworks — are being put forward • authority structures: what powers are being negotiated or demanded at different levels — central(shared)/regional/local as the case may be; what room is being anticipated for local autonomy, what scope for (and meanings of) ‘decentralization’ are being entertained, what local conceptions of democracy or ‘just rule’ may come into play — if any — and what extent of give and take can be expected in these matters • resource struggles: what claims for monopoly or redistribution of resources of whatever kind are entered in negotiating statehood processes, and what are the issues and options in these regards. Clearly, in any actual process of ‘negotiating statehood’, the emphasis may come to be laid on one or another of these dimensions for historical or political reasons. Conceivably, some dimensions, like those of identities seeking recognition or of claims for a more equitable distribution of resources, may constitute a taboo topic for one or more of the negotiating parties involved, while resource struggles may at times be conducted under the guise of confrontations in terms of ‘belonging’ (Dorman et al., 2007; Englund and Nyamnjoh, 2004). Nonetheless, there is every chance that in most instances of ‘negotiating statehood’ all three dimensions will play a role, if only indirectly. Often, indeed, institutional adaptations like decentralization of natural resource management may turn out to the benefit of negotiating parties with the strongest bargaining power (Meynen and Doornbos; 2004; Ribot, 2002). What is important is that all these different elements should be viewed as possible inputs in formative processes, with all the vagaries and reversals this may entail. Again, it is important to treat the notion of ‘negotiation’ broadly and flexibly, that is, as encompassing dimensions of ‘invention’ and ‘re-modelling’ as much as the core bargaining about institutional formulae, and to anticipate shifts from one such dimension to others. The ‘negotiating statehood’ phrase thus seems to offer advantages in enabling — without prejudice — a focus on contemporary African statehood, inviting analysis of relevant dynamics. Within a field of analysis that is beset with normative departures, a position that tries to see and understand how things work themselves out without prejudging them a priori appears a useful analytical starting point. Presumably this can be applied to various situations which Lund (2006) characterized as ‘twilight zones’ in the absence of firm state structures, and others which Vlassenroot and Raeymaekers (2008) have typified as featuring ‘governance without government’.2 But the ‘negotiation’ concept is also relevant in regard to many instances where 2. From a different perspective, some of the latter have been alternatively designated as ‘state free’ zones (Weber, 2008), with a tendency to expand.

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‘the state’ appears to be moving towards a new kind of posture vis-`a-vis various client groups, or where a new political contract between different powerful groups is in the making, marked by multiple backward and forward steps. This may in itself offer some reflection on the nature of the emerging political order — which one should be careful not to label prematurely. Of key importance is a sound understanding of the broader setting in which processes of statehood negotiation and restructuring take place. CONTRASTED CONTEXTS

The fact that discussions of processes of ‘state restructuring’ following severe conflicts have focused on post-colonial African states in particular comes as no surprise, as pertinent illustrations have abounded on the continent in recent years. At the macro ‘state’ level examples include Somalia which, despite having been the subject of nearly twenty internationally sponsored reconciliation conferences devoted to its resurgence as a state since 1991, now appears further away from the realization of a common understanding of ‘Somali statehood’ than at any time before. Similarly there is Sudan marked by several decades of internal warfare alternated with ‘peace’ talks to discuss alternative statehood arrangements, and others like Mozambique, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo, each of which have experienced prolonged strife to challenge and subsequently to re-negotiate the prevailing configurations of power and statehood. At the local/regional and even micro levels in these and other countries, as this volume also amply illustrates, one has likewise seen numerous efforts to arrive at new power bases and the creation or recreation of some form of political order. Thus Ali Mazrui’s fundamental question whether the current frequency of African state crises should be understood as ‘the death pangs of an old order dying and groaning for refuge . . . or as the birth pangs of a real but devastating birth of a genuinely post-colonial order’ (Mazrui, 1995: 22) is likely to keep resounding over the continent for a long time to come. In many such situations a notion of negotiating or renegotiating statehood seems an appropriate way to highlight the attempts at state restructuring taking place, especially in those that have seen serious internal confrontations between various powerful rival camps. Having passed through major crises, arriving at some new shared conception of statehood is never an easy task, nor is it self-evident that this should come about. Sometimes key parties to a conflict might in fact not be too keen on settlement by negotiation, preferring the ‘safety’ (and gain) of continued armed struggle, as appeared to be the case in Sierra Leone for some time (Keen, 2005). Besides, in several such situations there may be critical external linkages and repercussions of the conflicts concerned, complicating negotiation and settlement — as was the case for years in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and possibly again now (Prunier, 2008). The idea of ‘post-crisis’ or ‘post-conflict’ — for the most part an example of donor terminology — should therefore not

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be taken too literally as a description for these situations, as if there can be clear-cut demarcations between phases of conflict and subsequent ‘peaceful’ aftermaths. Instead, engagement in ‘(re)negotiating statehood’ may at times rather represent, with a Clausewitzian twist, a continuation of conflict ‘by other means’. One thing that is certain is that the ultimate shape of things to come will be subject to continued reversals and new departures. One key question in regard to the realities of several such situations is to what extent one can speak of the presence or absence of a single dominant hand or hegemony — of either external or internal derivation — in guiding processes of ‘negotiation’. No doubt there are exceptions or borderline cases, especially if an incumbent government still in command of some resources is among the ‘negotiating’ parties. But in recent times there have been several striking situations in which there was no longer any meaningful central grip on political processes, in Somalia or the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example. Particularly in such situations the idea of ‘negotiation’ may convey a fair, albeit somewhat euphemistic, approximation of the relevant political interactions going on locally, orienting us towards the inputs of different stakeholders rather than primarily on central government actions. It is important in any case to appreciate the nature of the historical context in which dynamics of ‘negotiating’ statehood occur, and ask what this context can tell us about the nature of the processes at stake. Generally speaking, then, it might illustrate a certain logic that contestations about state formative processes are once again, or in some sense for the first time, pushing themselves forward in a number of African situations. Across the continent preparations for decolonization and independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s had given rise to a massive wave of negotiations on matters like power sharing, district boundaries and other constitutional issues. In various countries, delegations from many groups and regions had been bargaining and pressing for stronger representation with the departing colonizers, though inevitably some lost out in this competition. The complexity of these interactions may not always have been sufficiently recognized (Twaddle, 1985). The late colonial frameworks thus arrived at appeared to continue functioning for some period without basic structural adaptations (Young, 2004). In many situations, however, these were experienced as increasingly alienating, with new leaders less and less able or willing to accommodate various claims to a share in power, resources or recognition. In several situations this resulted in deepening conflict and in a number of instances, notably Nigeria, Rwanda, Somalia, Uganda, Congo, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia and some others, to serious challenges to the continued existence of the common state framework and the notion of shared statehood. Indeed, in a number of cases the ensuing conflicts developed via full-fledged civil war to the point where it finally became imperative, once again, to start from a radically new basis in order to renegotiate political order of some sort. The latter was the case especially in contexts which had manifested gross inequities in the post-colonial access to power, as in Sudan

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or Burundi, or had earlier been afflicted by serious internal conflicts during the course of the liberation struggle, such as Mozambique and Angola — but a trend towards ‘renegotiation’ appeared more generally present. With respect to more recent years, therefore, a cursory observation suggests that there have been an increasing number of situations in Africa in which notions of ‘negotiation’ and ‘renegotiation’ seemed applicable, possibly more than a couple of decades ago, and that, with due respect for the risks of a selection bias, we may possibly witness a certain trend in this respect. In several situations regional inequalities and feelings of being left out have resulted in local movements striving for adjustment, as described, for example, by Inge Ruigrok for Angola in this volume. In some cases local disputes have focused on inequities associated with the jurisdiction of chieftaincies, especially in matters of land, as in Ghana (Berry, 2002). In other countries, most notably Ethiopia, it has been decentralization policies initiated by the political centre which have triggered intense political manoeuvring locally, as is evident from Asnake Kefale’s detailed analysis of the process in the Ethiopian Somali region in this volume. In Uganda, the frequent and costly creation of additional (electoral) districts is a way of ‘re-negotiating’ the President’s political support base, resulting in a kind of negotiated presidentialism which the economy is hardly able to support (Ocwich, 2005). All these different engagements are indications of highly dynamic fields and call for close attention in order to try to see the shape of things to come. The notion of ‘negotiating statehood’ as a framework for examining the dynamics of statehood and state formation thus appears to offer a fitting analytical approach to such renewed forms of praxis.

Micro and Macro Settings

In the absence of central political actors or a dominant guiding hand, how do issues arising from fragmented political processes manifest themselves and what kinds of initiatives towards the construction of possible future collective frameworks are being undertaken, if any? It appears that in some such situations, sometimes still in the grip of ongoing contestation (of internal war or its aftermath), processes and actions towards negotiating statehood may be observed at two levels, micro and macro, or local and ‘state-wide’. At local or regional levels, as this volume illustrates, attempts may be made to negotiate new arrangements for local order and security, at the instigation of traders or other concerned parties. With respect to the ‘all-country’ level, as similarly illustrated, negotiations may be undertaken towards reinstating some form of state-wide authority in trying to piece things together among formerly rival camps. The implications of fragmented institutional frameworks do indeed seem two-fold, revealing themselves at different levels of statehood. First, at local levels, as Timothy Raeymaekers’ research has demonstrated, following a breakdown of overall administrative and institutional policy

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frameworks, initiatives by influential leaders or individuals may seek to come to provisional arrangements for security provision, natural resource management, the provision of social amenities or other collective needs. Here indeed we may see instances of a kind of ‘bottom-up state building’ at work. In weak and fragile state frameworks, more generally, it is not uncommon to find attempts to create a modicum of order locally — often at the initiative of traders, like in the European Middle Ages — by implication underscoring a substantial degree of autonomy of action and absence of central authority. Such efforts may come about through ad hoc contacts between local militia, civic organizations, district boards and surviving branches of local administrations. The initiatives taken may be genuinely ‘bottom up’, responding to locally felt immediate survival requirements, though links with external NGOs may be sought in some such cases. Such negotiations may be initiated by local traders with militia out of a concern over the security of their trade connections, by health workers in need of medicines, or for other reasons. Depending on the dictates of circumstances and available institutional resources, such local arrangements may perpetuate fragmentary policy frameworks in newly institutionalized forms. Second, at the ‘macro’ scale of the fragmented state, negotiating about renewed statehood may take on different kinds of purposes and connotations, at the same time less concrete as well as more tentative and abstract than at the local level. In several such situations, some external mediating body like a neighbouring state or a regional multilateral organization is likely to have a hand in trying to get parties to agree to negotiate in the first place, and its presence may henceforth appear called for to coach and monitor the process from beginning to end. An important point in this connection is the external dimension of (state) sovereignty, and the international recognition it implies. One of the reasons why bottom-up state building often goes unnoticed while there is a lot of focus on international diplomacy and protocol is this dimension of external recognition of statehood, which has little or nothing to do with how effective, strong or legitimate a particular type of local statehood is. Often, however, the role of external parties is not devoid of self-interest. Of the numerous (failed) peace and reconciliation conferences convened in recent decades by Somalia’s neighbours (Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Egypt) to try and help settle the conflicts there, it has been observed that each host government tended to put forward propositions meeting particularly its own interests. The case of Western Sahara has similarly been suffering from neighbouring states’ conflicting interests before international fora (Arts and Leite, 2007). Significantly, in most cases the issues and processes concerned are internally, not externally oriented. Notwithstanding all the lamentations over the arbitrary boundaries inherited from colonial times, the idea of ‘renegotiating’ statehood is usually — with notable exceptions, like that of the Somali claims on the Ogaden region of Ethiopia — not so much focused on regaining ‘lost’ territories or an interest in recreating ethnic unities across borders,

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but oriented towards redefining the power and identity balance within the contested state framework. Thus, notwithstanding the fact that the first interstate African wars have already taken place, e.g. around Congo and between Ethiopia and Eritrea as well as Somalia, it is usually not so much the relations of one collective (ex-colonial) entity vis-`a-vis neighbouring others (e.g. of Uganda, Tanzania or Zimbabwe) which are at stake, but the internal frameworks of power, political identity and participation which have turned sour. Here, for all the ‘unifying’ colonial experiences and a certain distinctiveness they have carved out vis-`a-vis neighbouring countries, internal linkages in terms of shared commonalities, relevant symbols and more such elements have often remained limited, sometimes superficial. In this regard, Bierschenk (2003) has argued that the relative absence of national identity in Africa is not due to ethnic (or primordial) identities, but due to an absence of the politico-material conditions for such an identity. Significantly, it is indeed the colonially inherited frameworks and boundaries, like those of Angola or Mozambique, which are being taken as a point of departure for negotiating novel institutional relationships, between regions, or between historically, culturally or politically defined power clusters (as illustrated by Inge Ruigrok and Jason Sumich for Angola and Mozambique respectively in the present volume). The key idea is to seek to arrive at some kind of (re)negotiated conception of the state framework which, following the open crisis experienced, opposed groups might in principle agree upon. In theory this amounts to trying to ‘refound’ the state within the existing territorial jurisdiction. Almost by definition, there may be something of a novel quality or dimension to frameworks thus under construction and renegotiation, however limited the shifts in power may in the end turn out to be (as seemed true for the Ogaden situation discussed by Asnake Kefale). Mostly what seems to be at stake in the first instance is not so much a question of searching for common denominators or identity at the all-state level, but a matter of struggles over the relative weight and powers of different regional and political interests at that level, seeking redress for earlier lost opportunities and aspiring to more advantageous positions in ongoing contestations. In contrast, in a country like Tanzania with a different historical background, there appears to be less reason today to engage in negotiating statehood as state structures and the way these are being handled and perceived seem fairly unproblematic. Perhaps one could argue on the basis of the Tanzanian example that the smaller the chance of one or more of the regional stakeholders becoming dominant, the greater the likelihood that the postcolonial framework will remain acceptable to all. Nonetheless, in the case of Tanzania the structuring of the relations of mainland Tanzania with Zanzibar may well surface again at some point, calling for attention to the definition of statehood and possibly requiring ‘renegotiation’ in some sense. In several other post-colonial African contexts, too, negotiating or ‘renegotiating’ statehood does not appear to be too high on the agenda at present, but may emerge as an issue in future.

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Nevertheless the notion of ‘negotiating’ should perhaps not be taken too literally. Short of re-starts following complete crises, ‘negotiating’ or ‘renegotiating’ statehood can be seen to be taking place in many instances on a step by step basis through successive manoeuvres, faits accomplis or declarations by key parties involved in state restructuring processes over longer time periods. In Uganda, for example, relations between the Buganda monarchy and the Uganda central government have been precarious during most of the country’s independence history, at one time (1966) leading to a head-on crisis culminating in the abolition of the institution of Buganda kingship by the central government led by Milton Obote (Mutibwa, 1992). Following the capture of power by Yoweri Museveni and his National Resistance Army in 1986, a powerful Buganda monarchist lobby began to consistently and effectively pressure the central government to allow the reinstatement of the Buganda kingdom. This was first to be a purely ceremonial traditional authority, but subsequent demands were made for increasing layers of autonomy and powers to be vested in the kingdom government, at each point triggering Museveni’s central government to respond and adopt a position which would bring a compromise within closer reach. Several other examples of ongoing negotiations-cum-confrontations taking the form of complex series of moves and counter moves, at times without any actual encounters taking place, could be cited from other post-colonial African contexts. Recurrent struggles for recognition of ‘autochthony’ in various countries (Englund and Nyamnjoh, 2004), or the moves by the government of Ivory Coast to tighten the criteria for Ivorian citizenship and thus for Ivorian statehood that triggered the spiral of conflict redefining the stakes in the political arena (Till Fo¨ rster in this volume) illustrate these contested terrains. There is also the intriguing case of the unfolding dimensions of a ‘memory politics’ in post-conflict Namibia, reflecting claims and denials of recognition of different categories of ex-combatants in ongoing negotiations about ‘belonging’ (Lalli Metsola in this volume). In many parts of contemporary Africa popular movements, mixing or clashing with state policies, indeed provide illustrations of various dynamics at work in redefining the nature and scope of statehood. All these are essentially fluid dynamics, without offering too much clarity about their outcomes. So at times it may appear as if a new moment has arrived, or may still do so. However, it would be na¨ıve and simplistic to view such transient moments with impatient donor lenses as one-off ‘windows of opportunity’ allowing scenarios of externally guided reconstruction.

NEGATION VS NEGOTIATION

Post-colonial Africa generally constitutes much too wide a rubric to be associated on any one-on-one basis with the prevalence of ‘negotiating’ or ‘renegotiating’ statehood. If, in its narrow sense, ‘negotiation’ is taken to

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refer to palavers and bargaining towards a compromise deal of sorts, then the reality of various cases suggests that the prospects for acceptance of this practice are very remote indeed. In Eritrea today, for example, there is no chance of any ‘negotiating statehood’ business appearing on the agenda in the foreseeable future. Potentially there are numerous unresolved issues around the definition of ‘statehood’ awaiting resolution there, but these are ‘negated’ rather than ‘negotiated’, kept in the freezer by the current regime of Isayas Aferworki — which is one way of dealing with them (Cliffe, 2008). Rwandese society will similarly contain alternative conceptions of state and history — and futures — which are now being kept under tight control (Reyntjens, 2004). In Kenya, with President Mwai Kibaki’s initial refusal to recognize the post-election stalemate that had arisen in December 2007, the country for several months also showed mounting and ominous tension between ‘negation’ and ‘negotiation’, overcome only through Kofi Anan’s intervention and intense behind-the-scenes negotiations to arrive at some new formula for power sharing. And in 2008–09 Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe issued multiple signals of negation with devastating effect: negation of the legitimacy of opposition, of basic popular needs and interests, of the economy — illustrating a fundamental lack of willingness to make meaningful compromises. Feverish rounds of negotiation allowed the process of coalition formation to enter a new phase, though it is doubtful how analytically significant that should be considered. In several other settings, jealousy guarded firm rule has similarly limited the scope for ‘negotiation’, raising concerns about the seeming resistance to acknowledging any common ground. What this may mean for the broader and longer-term dynamics of politics and statehood in some of these contexts remains to be seen. Locally and on the periphery of various African countries, there have also been recurrent instances of negation of social demands, denied aspirations and denied identities. Seemingly paradoxically, the decentralization mechanisms introduced in a number of states in recent years have not only enabled more frequent negotiations about scarce resources in some such situations, but have also allowed flat refusals by powerful local groups or individuals of pleas for more equitable shares (Meynen and Doornbos, 2004). Besides, other, reverse tendencies away from dispositions towards negotiation in actual situations should be noted. In the Horn of Africa, acute environmental resource scarcity more easily and quickly leads to violent clashes between different groups of pastoralists in search of water or grazing, as Ayalew Gebre has documented with reference to the Karrayu, than appeared to be the case in remembered history, when negotiation and reconciliation played stronger roles in mitigating conflict (Gebre, 2001; cf. Markakis, 1998). In the Sahel, too, time-honoured codes of conduct and negotiation patterns between farmers and herders over access to post-harvest lands, and among the latter for access to wells, have for years been noted to be in serious decline and erosion, due to the pursuit of short-term commercial gain motivating new categories of livestock owners, among other things (The´ baud, 2002). Public

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authority, as Lund (2006) reminds us, can take many forms, including that of social acceptance of traditional authority and reconciliation procedures. Such traditional negotiation mechanisms can become vulnerable in the face of changing forms of livelihood and economic entrepreneurship, and dwindle into oblivion. Conceivably, also in other situations, the emergence of new patterns of negotiation about public authority and statehood may run parallel to the decline and negation of older established modes.

EXTERNAL DIMENSIONS AND INVOLVEMENTS

With few exceptions, mainly at local level, processes identified here from a ‘negotiating statehood’ perspective do not occur in a vacuum. Both at the macro and at the micro level, external or third parties often stand ready to facilitate, mediate or influence these processes, which may run all the way from conflict resolution to state rebuilding (Englebert and Tull, 2008). External parties may include neighbouring state governments, professional mediators, or UN and other multilateral agencies, and the range of their possible engagements is vast indeed. In some cases, however, a state government may not be too keen on externally initiated reconciliation within its jurisdiction, especially if it feels that this might not match the state’s own strategies and initiatives. Also, with respect to more delicate issues of negotiation affecting statehood, such as those related to questions of exclusion and ‘belonging’ in particular settings, a role for external agencies is not likely to be welcomed by the dominant ‘negotiating’ party (unless the two tend to act in unison, for which there are also examples). Exposure through public reports, of the Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International variety, commonly followed by official denials, may then become an alternative mode of ‘negotiation’. External parties may sometimes help and mediate, but they may also contribute to the perpetuation of conflict, holding off ‘decisive’ steps, or to a deepening and regionalization of the conflict, as was the result of Ethiopia’s US-supported 2006 intervention in the Somali crisis. In brief, external interests in the (re)building or destabilization of neighbouring states represent a real and risky factor. In some contexts of prolonged crisis and stalemate, nonetheless, nothing may move unless some external hand is able to bring conflicting parties together for negotiations, as was the case with the ending of the Mozambique conflict. Following such facilitation, ‘negotiating’ or ‘re-negotiating’ statehood in other respects may begin to take place as well, possibly at different levels, as has been true not only in Mozambique but also in Angola and for some time, it was expected, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. One major problem with the international community’s approach to crisis situations and post-conflict rebuilding, however, is that it is inclined to coach countries emerging out of crises to adopt its favoured models for statehood — market-friendly, adhering to principles of ‘good governance’ — rather than

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encouraging a search for institutional alternatives that might best accommodate the priorities and aspirations of various constituencies within specific contexts (Doornbos, 2006). Such contrasting departures often cannot but add to the mixed outcomes that these external–internal interactions tend to produce. In short, the effects of external factors on processes of statehood (re)negotiation are quite varied, depending on specific contexts and the interests at stake. Clearly, the external readiness to play an active role and intervene is related to a more general aspect of the contexts in which negotiating statehood may take place, namely the increased involvement of external agencies — governmental, multilateral and NGO — at the local and state levels of many African countries. At the local level this involves foreign-based or -connected NGOs and the mode of their interaction with government agencies, with the NGOs concerned usually enjoying a much stronger command over material resources. The nature of these relations has often been questioned and has generated various kinds of adaptations and could thus itself be viewed as involving an aspect of incremental restructuring processes of the state frameworks concerned (Hearn, 2007). With an eye to tapping into their resources, a number of African states have agreed to adopt far-reaching decentralization measures allowing considerable scope for NGO operations. Parallel to this, the ever more detailed prescriptions associated with externally devised ‘governance’ agendas presented to African state governments, such as the compliance demanded with the World Bank’s Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), and the limited scope left for policy initiative and co-ordination by the governments concerned, all point to major institutional shifts and basic qualitative changes in the policy environments of postcolonial African states (Doornbos, 2006). These external involvements raise fundamental questions about the nature and content of state formation in the present era, much in contrast to historical precedents of state building ‘from below’. In a whole range of situations the prominent external presence within African state constructs has acquired a new kind of permanency, so much so that it becomes difficult to conceive of African forms of statehood without a whole range of external (NGOs and other) actors and factors virtually figuring as part of it. This phenomenon has come to constitute a kind of grey area in the conceptualization of African states and state contexts, complicating their description and analysis. Hagmann and Pe´ clard’s conceptual framework will be helpful in overcoming this constraint through its primary focus on dynamics and procedural relationships and the distinctions it makes possible between different arenas and sets of actors, among other things.

LIMITS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF NEGOTIABILITY

While external agencies play pervasive roles in coaching incremental state restructuring processes in African countries, paradoxically their collective

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external engagements do not link up with ‘local’ dynamics in search of alternative forms of statehood. Significantly, they neither have the capacity nor brief to do so. In reality, therefore, one can often see two sets of dynamic processes, one externally driven and the other internal, simultaneously at work on state restructuring but without any meaningful contact between them. While both are somehow oriented towards changing the nature of statehood, the two are based on entirely different conceptions as to what this entails and basically operate in ways that remain largely invisible to the other. Only in situations of complete crisis, when external intervention brings foreign troops to ‘police’ violence-prone areas, may direct contacts and face to face confrontations occur (Braem et al., 2007; Doornbos, 2008; Polman, 2004). Beyond crisis situations, however, the ultimate implications of the external involvements for the scope for African negotiations of statehood and state restructuring ‘from below’ are fundamental and immense. The external stand regarding the remaking of African states, as exemplified by the UN Security Council and other UN agencies, implies an adherence to strictly non-negotiable limits as to how far dynamics from below towards alternative forms of statehood may be taken. Basically, the UN, other global organizations and their respective memberships take the position vis-`a-vis African statehood that ‘a state is a state is a state’, representing an unalterable given. The key example is of course Somalia, which ceased to exist as a functioning state in 1991 but whose formal shell continues to be treated by the UN community as the exclusive legitimate embodiment of statehood. In contrast, Somaliland, which in 1991 reasserted its independence from Somalia as a result of the horrendous sufferings to which it had been subjected at the hands of southern Somali dominated regimes — following the postindependence union it had (voluntarily) formed with the latter — stands no chance of receiving international recognition. This situation, ably described by Renders and Terlinden in this volume, has now endured for virtually two decades, notwithstanding all the steps taken by Somaliland to re-establish a constitutionally-based representative statehood and a whole series of pertinent initiatives seeking UN-sanctioned international recognition (Hagmann and Hoehne, 2009). The key to the contrasts in external–internal relationships as they take shape in different situations, as well as the limits of the scope for (re)negotiating statehood, is based in the attachment to the principle of ‘sovereignty’ with respect to the African situation. Significantly, the centrality of this principle results in starkly opposite positions, affecting the scope for external intervention within the African political context as well as the prospects for state building ‘from below’. The situation that prevails at present is that of a pervasive external presence in and influence over African statehood and its policy structuring. Here the external recognition of African states’ ‘sovereignty’ has in some sense resulted in novel forms of indirect rule, not entirely unlike the way in which the establishment of

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colonial rule was once based on the recognition of traditional kings or chiefs as ‘sovereign’ rulers and the ‘treaties’ concluded with them. Behind the emblems of sovereignty and independence, there is a strong degree of interaction and connectedness between donor and domestic policy structures in these ‘middle-ground contexts’, comprising many or most aspects of the policy agenda. But there are two kinds of exceptions to and deviations from this ‘normalcy’. At one end of the currently ‘normal’ external–internal connections with regard to African state governance are the ‘deviant’ or ‘rogue’ regimes of one kind or another, such as those of Zimbabwe, Sudan or Eritrea. Here the scope for involvement by external actors for humanitarian purposes, let alone meaningful engagement in conflict mediation or any contribution to negotiations about statehood, remains extremely limited. This has been evident in the Sudanese government’s resistance to what it perceives as unwanted external interference in the Darfur crisis. Similarly, the current Eritrean regime’s fear of facing up to alternative readings of history and strategies for the future that might follow from them, has led to a singular self-righteousness and insistence on the correctness of its own path, verging on xenophobia. And at the present time, Zimbabwe’s Mugabe regime is still writing history with its struggle to cling to power at all cost. In each of these cases the idea of sovereignty serves as a shield keeping external parties at bay, and is strenuously maintained by the regimes involved. Internal political stalemates then remain just that and worsen to reach crisis proportions, with in the end perhaps a critical role for an external hand to rescue the situation. At the other end of the spectrum, the reverse situation holds true, as exemplified by the case of Somaliland and Somalia, and in a sense also Western Sahara. The notion of sovereignty again is central here. No matter how much Somaliland may seek to demonstrate that it meets internationally accepted criteria for independent statehood, it is not accorded UN-sanctioned recognition on the basis of the externally determined interpretation of the sovereignty principle. With the UN Security Council acting as its final custodian (rather as a newly styled Trusteeship Council, as it has been observed), sovereignty in the Somali case remains reserved for the former entity of the Republic of Somalia, now an empty shell, and for the amalgam of all the competing and combating parties within that shell — should they ever succeed in coming to a lasting settlement of all their differences. On the basis of these premises, Somaliland’s efforts to obtain international recognition and regain independent status can never reach their logical conclusion; nor can negotiating statehood dynamics in other African contexts lead to any satisfactory outcomes if there is a risk that the status and continuity of the legally anchored state system concerned may be affected. The implication is that, as formally existing African state systems go, internal divisions must be kept within the existing territorial boundaries and be settled through negotiation, if need be till the bitter end, or repression. An important exception here

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was the creation of Eritrea by referendum, though at the time the parallel and partly mutually supportive struggles of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which led to the overthrow of Ethiopia’s Dergue regime in 1991 and the accession of the TPLF to power in Ethiopia, made this outcome a foregone conclusion. As it happens, not a few Ethiopians now appear to ‘regret’ Ethiopia’s consent to Eritrea’s ‘secession’. However, other outcomes are also possible as far as the formation of African statehood is concerned, which amounts to the problem area — or problem groups — concerned being relegated to no-man’s land. There is a growing tendency among ruling elites of some African state systems, though inevitably stronger in some than in others, to restrict their own engagement to ‘core business’: consolidating their power, strengthening control over key resources and the access to them, and tightening security at the state centre, while largely leaving the periphery to itself or allowing or encouraging regime-friendly groups to take possession of the land or other livelihood resources there. The Sudan government’s relations with the Janjaweed operating in Darfur appear illustrative of this pattern (De Waal and Flint, 2005), though additional examples may be cited from the Democratic Republic of Congo (Prunier, 2008), Uganda, Kenya and other contexts. Central regimes may also remain relatively unconcerned about fights between rival groups within the periphery, or actually prefer them over facing possible demands for central state resources or involvement, as may have been true for the Ethiopian government vis-`a-vis the intense struggles to capture local power in the Somali region described by Asnake Kefale in this volume. Casual observation suggests that these tendencies are spreading on the continent, from the Horn westwards through Chad and Niger (Debos, 2008; The´ baud, 2002) while possibly also popping up in other parts of Africa. If true, they could eventually result in the emergence of a different kind of state system, not so much oriented towards preserving and defending a country’s territorial integrity, as was long the state’s rationale in European history, but rather approximating the model, role and concept of a novel type of city-state. From the perspective of key elite interests focused on rent seeking and self-preservation, the periphery is often too remote and expensive to effectively control, while external enemies are by and large nonexistent in any case (the example of Ethiopian–Eritrean hostility and warfare rather appearing to constitute an exception that proves the rule) (Negash and Tronvoll, 2000). Hence the logic of ‘security first’ which, as noted, can lead to barters between militiae and entrepreneurs at local levels and may repeat itself on a larger scale at the centre of power through essentially similar arrangements by ruling elites. What room this leaves for negotiating alternative statehood arrangements within the periphery may not always be evident.

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CONCLUSION

Notions like ‘negotiating statehood’ represent a useful complement to the set of tools for understanding complex transitions and transformations in state–society relations in Africa and elsewhere. Above all, the idea of the ‘negotiability’ of statehood offers an alternative perspective as well as a corrective to much of the discussion on ‘failing states’, but also to any lingering images of static and immovable African state systems. In contrast to earlier, teleological ‘nation-building’ perspectives, ideas of ‘negotiation’ and ‘renegotiation’ allow more room for the recognition of the pliability of emerging state forms; for the range of different stakeholders and their interests involved in the politics of state restructuring; and for the dynamic dimensions of processes through which statehood may be refounded and rationalized at different levels. As a set of lenses, ‘negotiating’ may thus help us to focus on aspects and constituent elements of these dynamics which have hitherto been underexposed, while leaving space for the uncharted movement and direction of the processes concerned. As far as actual practices of negotiations about statehood are concerned, there nonetheless appear to be some limits as to what this particular set of lenses might help bring into focus. In today’s realities, the deliberate negation of crucial stakeholder interests by those in power in a number of countries may leave little room for any ‘negotiation’ about reconfiguring statehood to begin with. Also, the struggles and confrontations that are often allowed to occur between parties that are very unequal in terms of their access to power and resource endowments could only be viewed under a ‘negotiations’ prism if the connotations of that term are stretched virtually beyond recognition. We cannot a priori assume and expect that negotiations towards the formation of public authority and statehood will take place wherever they seem to be lacking, and we may need to guard against portraying too rosy a picture of African statehood as subject to continuous renegotiation and reinvention. Lastly, while constituting a very useful tool for spotting novel and ongoing efforts to structure authority relationships from ‘below’, internationally sanctioned limits to deviating from existing border arrangements restrict the scope for some statehood dynamics to reach their full potential, if that is full statehood. But then, it could be argued that at a conceptual — as opposed to an empirical — level, the idea of ‘negotiating statehood’ might already entail or take into account these internationally sanctioned procedures and endorsed norms. REERENCES Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (revised edition). London: Verso. Arts, Karin and Pedro Pinto Leite (eds) (2007) International Law and the Question of Western Sahara. Oporto: International Platform of Jurists for East Timor (IPJET).

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Bellagamba, Alice and Georg Klute (eds) (2008) Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa. Topics in African Studies. K¨oln: K¨oppe. Berry, Sarah (2002) ‘The Everyday Politics of Rent-Seeking: Land Allocation on the Outskirts of Kumase, Ghana’, in Kristine Juul and Christian Lund (eds) Negotiating Property in Africa, pp. 107–33. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Bierschenk, Thomas (2003) ‘Staat und Nation im postkolonialen Afrika: Ein Forschungsprogramm’ [‘State and Nation in Post-colonial Africa: A Research Programme’]. Working Paper No. 26. Mainz: Johannes Gutenberg Universit¨at, Institut f¨ur Ethnologie und Afrikastudien. Braem, Yann, Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, Christian Olsson and Rapha¨el Pouy´e (2007) ‘Le rˆole ´ des militaires dans la reconstruction d’Etats apr`es les conflits’ [‘The Role of the Military in the Reconstruction of Post-conflict States’]. Les Documents du Centre d’´etudes en sciences sociales de la d´efense, No. 96. Paris: CDSD. Cliffe, Lionel (2008) ‘Eritrea 2008: The Unfinished Business of Liberation’, Review of African Political Economy 116: 323–30. Debos, Marielle (2008) ‘Fluid Loyalties in a Regional Crisis: Chadian “Ex-Liberators” in the Central African Republic’, African Affairs 107: 225–41. Doornbos, Martin (2006) Global Forces and State Restructuring: Dynamics of State Formation and Collapse. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan/Palgrave. Doornbos, Martin (2007) ‘“Good Governance”: The Metamorphosis of a Policy Metaphor’, in Mark Bevir (ed.) Public Governance, Volume Four: Democratic Governance, pp. 27–41. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Doornbos, Martin (2008) ‘State Collapse, Civil Conflict and External Intervention’, in Peter Burnell and Vicky Randall (eds) Politics in the Developing World, pp. 249–66. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2nd edn). Dorman, Sara, Dan Hammett and Paul Nugent (eds) (2007) Making Nations, Creating Strangers: States and Citizenship in Africa. Leiden: Brill. De Waal, Alex and Julie Flint (2005) Darfur: A Short History of a Long War. London and New York: Zed Books. Eisenstadt, S. (1988) ‘Beyond Collapse’, in N. Yoffee and George L. Cowgill (eds) The Collapse of Ancient States and Civilisations, pp. 236–43. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Englebert, Pierre and Denis M. Tull (2008) ‘Postconflict Resolution in Africa: Flawed Ideas about Failed States’, International Security 32(4): 106–39. Englund, Harry and Francis Nyamnjoh (eds) (2004) Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Africa. London and New York: Zed Books. Gebre, Ayalew (2001) ‘Conflict Management, Resolution and Institutions among the Karrayu and their Neighbours’, in M.A. Mohamed Salih, Ton Dietz and Abdel Ghaffar Mohamed Ahmed (eds) African Pastoralism: Conflict, Institutions and Government, pp. 81–99. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press. Hagmann, Tobias and Markus V. Hoehne (2009) ‘Failures of the State Failure Debate: Evidence from the Somali Territories’, Journal of International Development 21(1): 42–57. Hearn, Julie (2007) ‘African NGOs: The New Compradors?’, Development and Change 38(6): 1095–110. Herbst, Jeffrey (2000) States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Keen, David (2005) Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone. Oxford: James Currey. Lindberg, S.I (2006) Democracy and Elections in Africa. Johns Hopkins University Press. Lund, Christian (ed.) (2006) ‘Twilight Institutions: Public Authority and Local Politics in Africa’, Development and Change 37(4) special issue. Markakis, John (1998) Resource Conflict in The Horn of Africa. London, Thousands Oaks, New Delhi: Sage Publications. Mazrui, Ali (1995) ‘The African State as a Political Refugee: Institutional Collapse and Human Displacement’, International Journal of Refugee Law 7: 21–36.

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Mbembe, Achille (2001) On the Postcolony. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Meynen, Wicky and Martin Doornbos (2004) ‘Decentralizing Environmental Resource Management: A Recipe for Equity and Sustainability?’, European Journal of Development Research 16(1): 235–54. Milliken, Jennifer (ed.) (2003) State Failure, Collapse and Reconstruction. Oxford: Blackwell. Mutibwa, Phares (1992) Uganda since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hopes. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press. Negash, Tekeste and Kjetil Tronvoll (2000) Brothers at War: Making Sense of the EritreanEthiopian War. Oxford: James Currey. Ocwich, Denis (2005) ‘Can Uganda’s Economy Support More Districts?’, New Vision 8 August. Polman, Linda (2004) We Did Nothing: Why The Truth Does Not Always Come Out When the UN Goes In. London: Penguin Books. Prunier,G´erard (2008) ‘The Eastern DR Congo: Dynamics of Conflict’, Open Democracy 17 November. Reno, William (1998) Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, CO and London: Lynne Rienner. Reyntjens, Filip (2004) ‘Rwanda, Ten Years On: From Genocide to Dictatorship’, African Affairs 103: 177–210. Ribot, Jesse C. (2002) ‘African Decentralization: Local Actors, Powers and Accountability’. UNRISD Programme on Democracy, Governance and Human Rights Paper No. 8. Geneva: UNRISD. Samatar, Abdi Ismail and Ahmed I. Samatar (eds) (2002) The African State: Reconsiderations. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Th´ebaud, Brigitte (2002) ‘The Management of Pastoral Resources in the West African Sahel: Negotiating Water and Pastures in Eastern Niger and Northern Burkino Fasso’ in Kristine Juul and Christian Lund (eds), Negotiating Property in Africa, pp. 157–84. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Twaddle, Michael (1985) ‘Decolonization in British Africa: A New Historiographical Debate?’. Occasional Paper 1. Copenhagen: Centre for African Studies, University of Copenhagen. Vlassenroot, Koen and Timothy Raeymaekers (eds) (2008) ‘Dossier Governance without Government in African Crises’, Afrika Focus 21(2). Weber, Annette (2008) ‘Kriege ohne Grenzen und das “erfolgreiche Scheitern” der Staaten am Horn von Afrika’ [‘War without Borders and the “Successful Failure” of States in the Horn of Africa’]. SWP-Studie S 26. Berlin: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. Young, Crawford (2004) ‘The End of the Post-Colonial State in Africa? Reflections on Changing African Political Dynamics’, African Affairs 103: 23–49.

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Index

Abrams, Philip 4 AFDL (Alliance des Forces D´emocratiques de Lib´eration) 28 Amnesty International 214 Anakujachi (Associac¸a˜ o dos Naturais e Amigos de Kuvango, Jamba e Chipindo) 98, 106–8, 111, 112–13 Anan, Kofi 213 Angola 12, 15, 18, 95–114, 207, 209, 211 and Anakujachi 98, 106–8, 111, 112–13 assimilados 134, 137 Bicesse peace process 100, 102, 105 centralization of power 101 and citizenship 97 colonial era 16, 98–9 demand for self-governance by regions 95, 108 democratization 10, 100, 104 downscaling of state and sub-national reforms 102–5, 113 elections (2008) 97, 104 and gradualismo 104 historical overview of state formation 98–101 independence (1975) 99 MPLA rule 96, 100–1 political parties 97, 111–12 post-independence war 96, 100, 104, 106, 107 regional elite associations 10, 11, 12, 96–7, 105–13 and SNH 12, 98, 109–11, 112 urbanization 109–10 Angolan Council of Evangelical Churches 105 Angula, Nahas 56 Aretxaga 116, 117 Asnake Kefale 10, 74–91, 209 Associac¸a˜ o Solidariedade Nyaneka-Humbi see SNH autochthony 15, 16, 50, 121, 212

Awdal Region (Somaliland) 189–92

181,

Bakajika land reform (1968–73) 27 Barre, Siad 2, 181, 182, 192 Barry, A.O. 119 Barth, Fredrik 77 Bayart, Jean-Franc¸ois 3–4, 18, 137, 139, 155 B´edi´e, Henri-Konan 157 Belgium 203 belonging 15, 50, 62, 68, 97, 157, 178, 196, 206 cultural 160–1, 163 Beni-Lubero (DRC) 31, 32, 32, 33, 38, 39, 41 Berbera conference (1991) 191 Bierschenk, Thomas 123, 211 Boone, Catherine 123 Borama Conference (1993) 184, 185, 186 Borana clan (Ethiopia) 76, 78–84 Buganda kingship 212 Burundi 209 Butembo (DRC) 9, 13, 14–15, 25, 26, 33–44 Cabrita, Jo˜ao 144 Camara, Captain Dadis 117 Cameroon 139 Chabal, Patrick Africa Works 139, 154–6 child soldiers 167 Chinaksen (Ethiopia) 75, 86, 87, 88, 89 Chipindo (Angola) 106–7, 108 clan elders in Guinea 122, 128 in Somaliland see Somaliland clientelism 139, 207 in Democratic Republic of Congo 28, 35 in Mozambique 135, 150 in Nigeria 127 in Somaliland 179, 185 CNTG (Conf´ed´eration nationale des travailleurs de Guin´ee) 124

Index coercion and state formation 4–5 Cohen, Michael 141 collapsed African states 1, 2, 14, 29, 36, 41, 42, 116, 138, 201 colonialism 4 and Angola 16, 98–9 Committee of Wise Men (DRC) 37–8 Committee on Welfare of Ex-combatants/War Veterans (Namibia) 53–5, 56 Conf´ed´eration nationale des travailleurs de Guin´ee (CNTG) 124 Congo see Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Congo-Ugandan border 24–44 Beni-Lubero imports 32, 32 and dette publique 38 directing of daily governance by Committee of Wise Men 37–8 impact of war on 30 involvement of businessmen/traders in local governance 36–7 offering of protection to businessmen/traders by rebels 24, 31, 41–2 origins of trade 25–8 petrol trade 39 prefinancing agreement between local traders/businessmen and rebels 14, 25, 31–6, 38, 42 transformation of post-conflict politics 37–40 Congolese Transitional Government 40 Congress of Democrats 55 Cont´e, President Lansana 117, 122, 124 Cˆote d’Ivoire 9, 15, 154–74, 212 background to rebellion 157 banditry and blurred distinction between criminals and police before crisis 158–9, 161, 162 change in gender roles 166 change in power of production 165–7 competing of old and new forces in Korhogo 168–71

223 emergence of new trading networks 165–6 establishment of segmentary mode of governance 164, 172 hunters’ associations (dozo) 9, 11, 15, 161–4 impact of rebellion 172–3 institutionalization of rebellion 173–4 and Ivoirit´e 157, 160 rebels seen as legitimate representatives of public interest 161 relationship between rebel forces and hunter associations 163–4 security in north of the country 158–64 transformation of rural-urban relations 166–7 ‘young ones’ and rebellion 167 Coulibaly, B`ema 168 Coulibaly, Kassoum 168–9, 171 Coulibaly, P´el´eford Gbon 168 Council of Elders see Guurti Daloz, Jean Pascal 139, 154–6 Darfur 217, 218 Darood clan (Ethiopia/Somaliland) 85, 86, 87, 90, 192 decentralization 3, 10, 12, 15, 102, 150, 206, 209, 213 Ethiopia 75, 78, 209 Guinea 119, 122 decolonization 121, 208 democracy/democratization 3, 68 Angola 10, 100, 104 Mozambique 146–7 Somaliland 188, 192 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) 22–44, 207, 208 wars 28–30 see also Congo-Ugandan border Depelchin, Jacques 29 Development Brigade Corporation (Namibia) 52–3 Dhulbahante (Somaliland) 191, 192, 193, 194 Diallo, Hadja Rabiatou Serah 124 disorder

224 as political instrument 154–6 Doornbos, Martin 16, 200–19 dozo see hunters’ associations Egal, President Mohamed Ibrahim 184, 185–6, 187, 188 elders see clan elders elites reciprocal assimilation of 137 regional associations of in Angola 10, 11, 12, 96–7, 105–13 EPLF (Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) 218 EPRDF (Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front) 74, 80, 83, 84, 86, 88–9 Erigavo (Somaliland) 192, 193, 194, 195 Eritrea 74, 213, 217, 218 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) 218 ESDL (Ethiopia Somali Democratic League) 87 Ethiopia 12, 15, 74–91, 209, 218 Borana-Garre-Gabbra relations 78–84, 90 boundary disputes and conflict between Somali and Oromia regions 82–4, 90 centre-periphery relations 15, 84, 88–9, 90, 91 decentralization 75, 78, 209 ethnicity as organizing principle of federal restructuring 74, 75, 76, 91 federal restructuring 10, 74–5, 76–7, 89 Gerri-Jarso relations 75–6, 84–9, 90 influence of primordialism 74–5 recognizing rights of ethnic self-determination by constitution 74 referendum (2004) 87–8, 89 Ethiopia Somali Democratic League (ESDL) 87 Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front see EPRDF Evangelical Association of Angola 105

Index FAFN (Forces Arm´ees des Forces Nouvelles) 9, 15, 163 see also Cˆote d’Ivoire failed states 1–3, 5, 6, 14, 19, 42, 116, 135, 138–9, 154, 200, 201 see also collapsed states FEC (F´ed´eration des Entreprises du Congo) 32, 37 Feij´o, Carlos 103 Ferguson, James 19 FIC (Fraternit´e Internationale des Copains) 39 Finchwa (Ethiopia) 81 Fofana, Dr Ibrahima 124 fonctionnaires see Guinean public servants Forces Arm´ees des Forces Nouvelles see FAFN For´ecariah (Guinea) 13–14, 118, 125–8 F¨orster, Till 9, 15, 154–74 Foucault, Michel 7 FPI (Front Populaire Ivoirien) 157 Fraternit´e Internationale des Copains (FIC) 39 Frelimo (Frente de Libertac¸a˜ o de Moc¸ambique) 10, 12, 16, 134–51 agreement with IMF and World Bank to implement pro-market reforms 145 centralization of wealth and power 136 creation of poder popular system 142 and democracy 146–7 during civil war 144–5 entrenchment of power after civil war 146–7 internal conflicts and divisions 137, 138, 151 post-independence and reforms 141–3 relationship with the state 135, 136, 137, 139–41, 150 and social stratification/mobility 136–8, 141, 143, 147–50 unity of 146–7 villagization programme 144, 145

Index Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI)

225 157

Gabbra clan (Ethiopia) 75, 78–84, 90, 91 gada 81 Gadabursi clan (Somaliland) 182, 190–2, 196 Garhajis (Somaliland) 185 Garre clan (Ethiopia) 75, 78–84, 90, 91 Gbagbo, Laurent 157 Gebaba, Haji Mohammed Hassen 80 Gebre, Ayalew 213 Gedeo clan (Ethiopia) 78 Geffray, Christian 144–5 General Strikes (2006/7) (Guinea) 116, 123–8 Gerri (Ethiopia) 75–6, 84–9, 90 Ghana 209 governance without government 36–41, 206 Grossman, G.M. 33 Guebuza, President Armando 134–5, 148 Gu´e¨ı, General Robert 157, 159 Guinea 116–31 clan elders 122, 128 decentralization 118, 122 general strikes (2006/7) 116, 123–8 ideological state building 120–1 independence (1958) 119 political arena today 121–2 post-colonial state building in 119–25 Guinean public servants 10, 117–31 feelings of responsibility towards positive change 128 ideological ties between state and 130, 131 and le peuple 118–19, 127–8, 129 and le pouvoir 127–8, 129–31 participation in general strikes in For´ecariah 13–14, 118, 125–8, 129 rotation of postings 121 source of authority 123 and state-building project 121 and tea parlour 13, 118, 119, 125, 126 Guji clan (Ethiopia) 78, 80–1

Gulf of Guinea 141 Gupta, Akhil 19 Guurti (Council of Elders) (Somaliland) 179, 181–2, 184, 186, 189, 196 Habar Awal traders 185, 186 Habar Jeclo (Somaliland) 192, 193 Habar Yonis (Somaliland) 186, 192, 193, 194, 195 Hagmann, Tobias 177, 200–1, 205, 215 Hall, Stuart 113 Hargeisa Conference (1996) 186, 188, 194 Heinrich, W. 182 Helpmann, E. 33 Hoile, David 144 Horn of Africa 213 Houphou¨et-Boigny, F´elix 157, 158, 168 Human Rights Watch 214 hunters’ associations (dozo) 9, 11, 15, 161–4 hybrid political order (HPO) and Somaliland 177–97 identity politics 10, 11, 15, 16, 69 IFLO (Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia) 86 institutional plurality 123, 129 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 145 Islamic Front for the Liberation of Oromia (IFLO) 86 Issaq clan (Somaliland) 181, 182, 184, 185 Ivoirit´e 157, 160 Ivory Coast see Cˆote d’Ivoire Jamba (Angola) 106, 107, 108 Janjaweed (Darfur) 218 Jarso clan (Ethiopia) 84–9, 90 Jarso Democratic Movement (JDM) 86–7 Jijiga town (Ethiopia) 75, 84, 85, 86, 88 J´unior, Ra´ul Fernando 95–6 Kabila, Laurent-D´esir´e

24, 28–9

226 Kagame, President Paul 28, 29 Kahin, President Dahir Rayaale 188, 192 Kahongia, Julien 39 Kamwi, Alex 54, 55, 56, 67 Karrayu (Ethiopia) 213 Kasindi 30, 32, 39 Kazini, James 31 Kella, Hassen 81 Kennes, Erik 30 Kenya 79, 213 Kibaki, President Mwai 213 Koevoet 51, 52–3, 55, 56, 63–4 Konat´e, Seydou 171 Konat´e Seydou Fr`eres see KSF Korhogo (Cˆote d’Ivoire) 163, 164, 168–71, 173 Kotkin, Stephan 140 Kouakou, Fofi´e 167–8, 169–71 Koyat´e, Lansana 124–5 Krause, Keith 1–2, 42 Kraushaar, M. 179 KSF (Konat´e Seydou Fr`eres) 166, 171 Kulessa, M. 182 Kuvango (Angola) 106, 108 Lambach, D. 179 land titles acquisition of in DRC 27 Layne, Tamarat 87 legitimacy and state formation 4–5 Leys, Colin 141 liberation narrative and Namibia 12, 15–16, 51, 59–67, 68 Lister, Gwen 58 Lonsdale, John 4 Lubero see Beni-Lubero Lubumbashi (DRC) 2 Lund, Christian 6, 139, 214 Twilight Institutions 3, 39–40, 123, 206 Lusaka peace agreement (1999) 29 Lusaka Protocol (1994) 100 MacGaffey, Janet 25–6 McGovern, Mike 120 Malulu, Ruusa 55

Index Mamdani, Mahmood 4 Mayi-Mayi 34 Mazrui, Ali 207 Mbembe, Achille On the Postcolony 200 Mehler, Andreas 29, 155 memory politics in Angola 10, 97, 112 in Namibia 9, 11, 49, 50, 51, 59, 212 Menkhaus, K. 37, 187 Metsola, Lalli 9, 12, 13, 15, 49–70 Migdal, Joel S. 4, 43, 156 migration 18, 154–5 Milliken, Jennifer 1–2, 42 Ministry of Veterans Affairs (Namibia) see Veterans Ministry Mobutu 27, 28 Movimento Popular de Libertac¸a˜ o de Angola see MPLA Moyale (Ethiopia) 75, 76, 80, 81, 82, 83–4, 90 Mozambique 10, 12, 16, 38, 134–51, 207, 211, 214 civil war 144–5 collapse of state 138–9 ending of civil war (1992) 146, 214 and Frelimo see Frelimo independence 141–2 and privatization 136, 147, 150 MPLA (Movimento Popular de Libertac¸a˜ o de Angola) 10, 18, 96, 97, 99, 100–1, 103, 104, 113 Mudge, Henk 55 Mugabe, Robert 213 Murphy, Alexander 90 Museveni, President Yoweri 28, 29, 212 Namibia independence (1990) 49–51 Namibia Ex-Freedom Fighters and War Veterans Association 53 Namibia Exile Kids Association 57 Namibian ex-combatants 9, 13, 15–16, 49–70 challenges to liberation narrative by internal conflicts within SWAPO 64–5

Index critical remembrances of 65–6 demands for compensation and protests made 12, 53–8 and demobilization 51–2 and liberation narrative 12, 15–16, 51, 52–3, 56, 59–67, 68 and politics of memory 9, 11, 49, 50, 51, 59, 212 privileging of SWAPO 51, 52 protests by children of 57 reintegration and employment of 51–3, 64, 68 struggle and bonds of loyalty to SWAPO 59–62 and Veterans Act (2008) 56, 67 widening of concept of ‘ex-combatant’ 66–7, 68 women and liberation narrative 66–7 Nande traders 26–7 nation building and negotiating statehood 204–5 national bourgeoisie 135, 141 National Resistance Army (Uganda) 212 negotiating statehood framework 5–8, 200–19 advantages 206, 219 dynamic dimensions 205 external dimensions and involvements 214–17 limitations 16, 19, 215–17 micro and macro levels 209–12 and nation building 204–5 and NGOs 215 objects of negotiation 14–16 propositions underpinning 6–8 queries and objectives 201–3 and sovereignty 216–17 tensions between negation and negotiation 212–14, 219 negotiation arenas 11–12, 13 negotiation tables 12–13 neo-patrimonialism 36, 139, 158, 172, 179, 189 NGOs 17, 215 Nieuwaal, E.A.B. van Rouveroy 180 Nigeria 139 Norman, William 145 Nujoma, Sam 54, 55, 59, 62, 63, 66, 69

227 Nyamwisi, Mbusa 31 Nyaneka-Humbi 98, 109–11, 112 OALF (Oromo Abbo Liberation Front) 79 Obote, Milton 212 Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) 76, 85 OLF (Oromo Liberation Front) 76, 79, 80, 84, 86, 88–9 OPDO (Oromo People’s Democratic Organization) 86 Oromia region (Ethiopia) 74–91 Oromo Abbo Liberation Front (OALF) 79 Oromo Liberation Front see OLF Oromo People’s Democratic Organization (OPDO) 86 Ouagadougou Peace Treaty (2007) 9, 161 Ouattara, Alassane Dramane 157 Parti D´emocratique de Guin´ee (PDG) 120 Partido de Renovac¸a˜ o Social (PRS) 97 past, social construction of 49–50 see also memory politics patronage in Somaliland 185, 187, 189, 195 PDG (Parti D´emocratique de Guin´ee) 120 Peace Project (Namibia) 52, 53, 57 P´eclard, Didier 177, 200, 200–1, 215 People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) 51, 55, 57 Pitcher, Anne 150 poder popular system 142 Pohamba, President Hifikepunye 55 Portugal and Angola 98–9, 112 Pouvoir R´evolutionnaire Local (PRL) 120 primordialism 74–5, 211 privatization 1 and Mozambique 136, 147, 150 PRL (Pouvoir R´evolutionnaire Local) 120 PRS (Partido de Renovac¸a˜ o Social) 97

228 Raeymaekers, Timothy 9, 14, 24–44, 206, 209–10 Rassemblement D´emocratique Africain (RDA) 119 Ray, D.I. 180 RCD (Rassemblement Congolais pour la D´emocratie) 29 RCD-ML (Rassemblement Congolais pour la D´emocratie-Mouvement de Lib´eration) 13, 30–2, 35–6, 38, 39 RDA (Rassemblement D´emocratique Africain) 119 rebels relationship with businessmen/traders in DRC 14, 24, 25, 31–6, 38, 41–2 relationship with hunter associations in Cˆote d’Ivoire 163–4 refugees 155 regional elite associations (Angola) 10, 11, 12, 96–7, 105–13 religious movements 17 remittances 18 Renamo (Resistˆencia Nacional Moc¸ambicana) 135, 143–4, 146, 149 Renders, Marleen 9, 177–97 repertoires 8–9, 5, 16, 11, 97, 129, 178, 182 Resistˆencia Nacional Moc¸ambicana see Renamo resources and negotiating statehood 8, 11, 206 rhizome state 139 Roitman, Janet 27, 38, 42 Rotberg, Robert 138 Ruigrok, Inge 10, 12, 16, 18, 85–114, 209 Rwanda 213 Sahel 213 Salazar, Ant´onio Oliveira de 99 Saleh, Salim 31 SALF (Somali Abbo Liberation Front) 79 Sanaag Region (Somaliland) 181, 192–5

Index Santos ‘Nand´o’, Fernando da Piedade Dias dos 101 Santos, President Jos´e Eduardo dos 95, 101 Sardan, Jean-Pierre Olivier de 6 Savimbi, Jonas 96 Schlichte, Klaus 7, 43 Schroven, Anita 10, 13, 116–31 security provision 14 in Cˆote d’Ivoire 15, 154, 156, 158–64 and trader-businessmen relationship in Congo 14–15, 25, 31–6, 38, 42 segmentary mode of governance 164, 172 SEP-Congo (Soci´et´e d’Exportation du P´etrole) 39 Sierra Leone 207 Smith, D.J. 127 SNH (Associac¸a˜ o Solidariedade Nyaneka-Humbi) 12, 98, 109–11, 112 SNM (Somali National Movement) 9, 177, 181, 182–4, 190–1 Soares de Oliveria, Ricardo 139, 141 Soci´et´e d’Exportation du P´etrole (SEP-Congo) 39 sociological approach 4, 6, 13, 43, 177 Somali Abbo Liberation Front (SALF) 79 Somali National Movement see SNM Somali region (Ethiopia) 10, 78, 85, 86, 90 Somalia 207, 208, 214, 216 civil war 181–2 collapse of 2, 177, 178 Somali People’s Democratic Party (SPDP) 87 Somaliland 3, 9–10, 13, 15, 177–97, 216, 217 Borama conference (1993) 184, 185, 186 civil war and deconstruction of statehood 181–2 and clientelism 185 collapse of SNM 184 democracy process 188, 192

Index dimensions of negotiating statehood in 177–9 elections 188–9 and Guurti 179, 181–2, 184, 186, 189, 196 Hargeisa conference (1996) 186, 188, 194 mediated statehood in periphery 187 monopolization of statehood at the centre 186–7 negotiating statehood in Awdal Region 189–92, 196 negotiating statehood in Sanaag Region 192–5, 196 outsourcing security and judicial affairs to elders 187 and patronage 185, 187, 189, 195 proclamation of independence (1991) 183, 216 reconciliation and initial negotiation of statehood 182–3 role of clans/clan elders in political order and negotiating of statehood 9, 13, 182, 183, 184, 188–9 and sovereignty 217 state building through clientelism 185 supra-clan mobilization and sidelining of elders 185–7, 191, 195 Sousa Santos, Boaventura de 38, 40–1 South Africa Truth and Reconciliation Commission 65 South West Africa People’s Organization see SWAPO South West Africa Territorial Force see SWATF sovereignty and negotiating statehood 216–17 SPDP (Somali People’s Democratic Party) 87 Spear, Thomas 179 Stalinism 140 state failure see failed states state-in-society approach 4, 156 statehood definition 7, 177 structural adjustment 3, 17, 135

229 Sudan 207, 208, 217, 218 Sumich, Jason 10, 12, 134–51 Surpa (Ethiopia) 81 SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organization) 9, 12, 49, 52, 59–63, 64, 68 SWATF (South West Africa Territorial Force) 51, 52–3, 55, 56, 63–4 Tanzania 211 tea parlour (Guinea) 13, 118, 119, 125, 126 Teliya 81 Terlinden, Ulf 9, 15, 177–97 Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front see TPLF Tilly, Charles 24, 41 Tjiriange, Ngarikutuke 55, 56, 58 Tour´e, S´ekou 119–20, 122 TPLF (Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front) 79, 218 traders 210 relationship with rebels in DRC 14, 24, 25, 31–6, 38, 41–2 Transitional Charter (1991) 74 Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) 74, 79, 84 Trefon, Th´eodore 2 Tull, Dennis 29 Tulli-Guled (Ethiopia) 75 Tuur, President Abdirahman 193 twilight institutions 3, 39–40, 123, 206 Uganda 209, 212 UN Security Council 216, 217 Union syndicale des travailleurs de Guin´ee (USTG) 124 UNITA (Uni˜ao Nacional para a Independˆencia Total de Angola) 18, 96, 99, 100, 101, 104 United Nations Operation in Cˆote d’Ivoire (UNOCI) 157, 163 USTG (Union syndicale des travailleurs de Guin´ee) 124

Index

230 Veterans Act (2008) (Namibia) 56, 67 Veterans Ministry (Namibia) 55, 56, 57, 69 villagization programme (Mozambique) 144, 145 Vlassenroot, Koen 206 von Benda-Beckmann, F. and K. 129

West, Harry 145 in Cˆote d’Ivoire 166 women and liberation narrative in Namibia 66–7 World Bank 145 Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) 215

Wamba-Dia-Wamba, President Ernst 29, 30–1 war veterans, Namibia see Namibian ex-combatants Warsangeli clan (Somaliland) 182, 191, 192, 193, 194 Weber, Max 4–5

Young, Crawford 17 Zaire 139 Zanzibar 211 Zartman, William 138 Zierau, T. 185 Zimbabwe 51, 213, 217