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Evolution of forced displacement in Africa
African history is riddled with events of mass movements of people, both voluntary and forced. Movement in Africa is more of a norm than an exception, especially in pre-colonial Africa. There are two broad categories of migration and displacement patterns identified in pre-colonial Africa. These include internal and international migrations, spread out across slave migration, voluntary migration of laborers, migration of farmers or traders, and the movement of people as a result of inter-tribal warfare, and natural disasters.60Most African nations might possibly be made up of old waves of migrants, today such movements and people are regarded as refugees.‘ This raises an important question of how categorizing a group can actually change how history remembers them.61 These pre-colonial movements in Africa were not regarded as forced displacements, but the values that exist, especially in Africa regarding hospitality and generosity to ‗visitors‘ or those in dire displacement circumstances, or refugees stemmed from such movements.62 It has been argued that in pre-colonial societies where regional and national frontiers were fluid, groups of people that left their habitual residences for neighbouring regions were welcome by kin. They were protected and assisted in an informal and unpublicized manner without giving much thought to the implications of such movements, whether legal or social.63 They were welcome to share in the available resources, whether it was through distribution of land for them to plough, or new wives to marry, they were integrated into their host communities without much distinction. There were no statistics kept on these asylum seekers, neither were they regarded as asylum seekers in the first place. They were not placed in camps and identified as ‗others‘ they simply became part of their new community.64
Colonial Africa battered with new waves of forced displacements resulting from wars of occupation and conquest.65 This was catalyzed by forced land alienation, introduction of cash crop economies and mines that required cheap and often forced labour. Ruthless tax systems that ensured the sustainability of the colonial administration, and creation of labour reserves which were often crowded with very harsh living conditions were a few other incentives to flee.66 Africans were driven from their land, forced to work for their colonial masters in order to pay taxes and cheap labour. These conditions led to massive displacement of large parts of the African population, while others died under these tough conditions.67 Africans who fled where not recognized as asylum seekers or refugees in other colonies, instead they were generally categorized as illegal migrants or vagrants.68A special case was only observed between 1935-41 in the British colonial territories of Sudan, Somaliland, Kenya and French Djibouti when thousands of Ethiopians fleeing fascist Italy invasion and occupation, were recognized as refugees.69 During the cold war, most of Africa was still reeling from effects of colonialism, in addition to complications brought about by the cold war which was ideally fought out in the backyards of developing nations. Massive population displacements had occurred as a result of anti-colonial wars of liberation.70Young independent African states were battling with effects of wars of liberation while others were still going through these wars. Additionally they had to deal with the crisis of the ‗independent African state‘ and remnants of colonialism within these states. This was reflected through further displacements resulting from complications inherited by post colonial African states. These states were among other things characterized by arbitrary borders, ethnic nationalism, factionalism, identity crisis and sub-nationalist movements. The result was numerous demands for secession, secession wars and struggles to control the minimal resources available.71
Failure to (re)negotiate national and ethnic identities
Ethnicity widely includes social identity formation that is based on culturally specific practice and unique sense of symbols and beliefs. It is belief on common origin and common history and a sense of belonging to a group that in some combination confirms social identities of its members in their interaction with both insiders and outsiders. Ethnicity generally encompasses the way people think of themselves in relation to others, the way they react to the world surrounding them.159The ethnic group has been said to be abstract and at times constructed or invented.160 At the same time this figment of human imagination is held responsible for a lot of things including irrationalities of the development project, outmoded values and regressive consciousness, fostering corruption and destructive conflict as well as causing political instability and weak national identity.161 In as much as ethnic identities are to some extent constructions of some sort, they are also real. They are a living presence resulting from both material and historical forces.162Ethnic polities existed in pre-colonial Africa and co-existed, within the normal inter-relations of polities. They were political societies with governmental institutions within a local ‗space‘ where territoriality and ethnic identity thinly coincided and were defined by means of exclusion and inclusion. The state as we know it is simply an amalgamation of these polities into abstract and often incomplete fluid ethnicities.163 These ethnic identities are still relatively strong and evident even in rural and some urban settings, but they have for the wrong or right reasons additionally acquired or been said to have acquired ‗political identity‘.
This politicization and metamorphosis of ethnic exclusivity into political atoms, is what has affected the nature of inter-ethnic relations in African democracy, peace and stability.164The politicization of ethnicity has not simply acquired momentum in post colonial Africa, it emanated from colonial structures that through reliance on traditional structures to rule, emphasized political competition among them.165 Decolonization further enhanced the politicization of ethnicity, nationalist movements were mobilized on ethnic levels. Eventually such practice evolved into political ethnicity when nationalist movements, which were initially united by the idea of acquiring political independence, started disintegrating as self determination turned into personal power struggles.166
Social structuralists such as ethnic pluralists advocate for ethnic homogeneity if the political order of any state is to be maintained. They argue that there is a possible link between ethnic homogeneity and stability on the one hand, and ethnic heterogeneity and instability on the other.167 But how does one explain those communities that are ethnically very diverse and yet there is stability? The argument would be that multi-ethnicity on its own is not sufficient to cause tension, the existence of various ethnic groups cannot explain the salience of ethnicity.168 Multi-ethnicity in unranked systems of stratification, where ethnicity is polarized, has a tendency of bringing about contesting claims on issues such as power, status and domination.169 Additionally where societal or group competition exists, resulting from interactions between individuals from different ethnic backgrounds, and the surrounding circumstances are capable of breeding struggles for, and access to, control over scarce resources, this might manifest itself in the form of group antagonism.170 Where and when such antagonism is exploited by competing elites, who in the African case, do evoke primordial ethnic loyalties, often under the guise of promoting class interests of the group, ethnicity and all its negative consequences is (re)born and (re) configured.171
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Thesis statement
1.2 Description of problem
1.3 Assumptions
1.4 Research questions
1.5 Background
CHAPTER 2: FRAMING AFRICAN (DIS) PLACEMENT
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Evolution of forced displacement in Africa
2.3 The conceptualization of forced displacement in Africa
2.4 Dynamics and patterns of forced displacement in Africa
2.5. Responding to internal displacement: To contain or protect?
2.6 (Re) constructing forced displacement and protection in Africa
2.7 Conclusion
CHAPTER 3: INTERNATIONAL RESPONSES TO INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Emergence of international responsibility
3.3 International Legal framework
3.4 Institutional frameworks: the collaborative response and cluster approach
3.5 Conclusion
CHAPTER 4: REGIONALISM: THE ‗SPAGHETTI BOWL‘ FOR ADDRESSING INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT IN THE GREAT LAKES?
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Theorizing regional-ism
4.3 Evolution of regional responses to internal displacement in Africa and the Great Lakes (legal and institutional)
4.4 Problems encountered by regional and sub-regional organizations in GLR
4.5 Conclusions
CHAPTER 5: FRAMEWORKS FOR NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY IN ADDRESSING INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT: THE CASE OF KENYA AND UGANDA
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Overview of dynamics of internal displacement in the Great Lakes region
5.3 Conceptual characteristics of a national response
5.4 Evolution of internal displacement in Kenya and Uganda
5.5 Prevention and minimization of displacement and its adverse effects
5.6 Raising National awareness
5.7 Data collection
5.8 Training on the rights of IDPs
5.9 National legal frameworks for safeguarding the rights of IDPs
5.10 National Plans of Action and Policy frameworks on internal displacement
5.11 National Institutional focal point for IDPs
5.12 Community participation and traditional mechanisms
5.13 Conclusions and durable solutions
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION
6.1 Implementing International Standards
6.2 Regional, sub-regional and national mechanisms
6.3 Towards a comprehensive route for Africa‘s internally displaced?
