Conflict Resolution In African Countries Politics Essay

Conflict Resolution In African Countries Politics Es allegeAfrica as a clear is faced with rearing appointments in some of its countries with consequent negative effects to the economic, governmental and societal lives of their citizens and neighboring countries. A study by Africa action, an activism website for Africa, give tongue tos It is important to note that about of Africa is not at war However, where conflicts do exist, they affect not b arely the stability of the countries involved, but also their neighbors and the entire sub-region. The governmental class frequently uses ideologies to stay in office and sometimes resort to conflicts in the phase angle of violence. Conflict resolution, being a basic human activity, is conducted in forms that often vary across cultures. Different methods have been use in the bypast to try to resolve these conflicts including soldiers deployment dialogue between conflicting parties and even up negotiations.THESIS Whenever there is scarcity of resources there is bound to be conflict as people try to share the resources. Conflict is thus as old as humanity. Conflict is defined as the underlying print in dispute between or among parties and conflict resolution as the elimination of causes of the underlying conflict.Conflict resolution in African countriesAfrica as a classical is endowed with enough resources to keep the world pathetic for years. It is indeed the resources from Africa that brought industrialization to life ranging from raw materials to labor. It is thus absurd that studyity of African countries are categorized under third world countries and are faced with frequent deaths due to diseases, civil wars, poverty, and natural calamities. Civil wars and policy-making unrests have been the major set hold ups to development in Africa. Where there is peace, putrefaction comes in the way. Allocation of resources has always been a cause of disagreement in countries frequented by conflicts in Afric a. Okoth et al statesState violence in African countries has been the major arena of privilege -the apparitional, business, and other arenas provide fewer opportunities and it has been accessible to wishful men of humble origin. The quest for political power is thus do by the desire to control state resources and their authoritative allocation. (46)African political class, thus try so hard to achieve political positions in their respective governments and once they get there, they work even harder to maintain these positions. They past indulge in allocation of state resources to theirs kinsmen and close friends with no move whatsoever to the common man who labors so much and gets no say in the fruits of his labor. This scenario, more often than not leads to a section of the province feeling left out in the allocation of state resources winning up arms in an attempt to oust the incumbent political class out of government.In an attempt to try to hold on to power and the statu s quo, the political elite often resort to ideologies to yet their skins. Nzunga points out that the current state of most African countries cannot be dissociated from the Berlin conformity of 1885, which divided the holy into zones of European influence. Before this year, most communities in this continent ran their own affairs in relative independence, within a clearly understood heathenish region. He points out that the greatest injustice the compound masters committed was, undoubtedly, the imposition of their language and culture on the annex minority groups.Because of the way the colonial masters divided the African continent without regard to the various cultures of ethnic communities that were in existence before them, these ethnic communities found themselves in the same borders forming countries. The political elite is well awake of this fact and whenever social occasions are not going well for them they go back to their ethnic cocoons making them believe that it is their tribes in threat of extinction by the others. This often leads to ethnic clashes as witnessed in the Rwanda genocide and Kenya. Okoth et al notes that the politically motivated ethnic violence in Kenya in 1991-1992 on the re-introduction of multi-party government activity can thus be explained in terms of this misuse of the state to the advantage of a few, and the consequent instigation of parochial identities by political leaders for their own selfish interests (52). Others, in the case of Nigeria, resort to their religious affiliations clashing Christians against Muslims.Political ideology is thus a tool used by the politicians to cause conflict while they desperately cling to power for selfish reasons while the common citizen suffers.Sadiki is quick to point out that an honoring of conflict trends in Africa indicates that intrastate armed conflicts, which were on the rise between 1990 and 1998, have significantly decreased in number. Many conflicts on the continent have b een settled and others are in the process of being resolved, mainly through peaceful means. This is an indication that as far as African states are concerned, military deployment has not been successful in resolving conflicts sooner it fuels it. This is evident in southern Sudan where military deployment from the north for over a decade failed to resolve the conflicts until peaceful negotiations were introduced. Despite the military deployment by the AU and UN peacekeepers in Somalia, the state is still in chaos as violent conflicts thrive.In Kenya, for example, the 2007-2008 post election violence only escalated when police attempt to intervene. It took the efforts of a third party, Kofi Annan, to lead peaceful negotiations between the two parties in conflict to resolve the conflicts. In the present day, conflicts in Egypt and Tunisia over decadence and equitable allocation of state resources cannot be resolved through military might.In conclusion, with studies showing the simi larities in the causes of conflicts in African countries, one thing that stands out is that we should not wait for conflicts to occur and try to resolve them. Instead, African countries should put constitutional measures in place that will ensure corruption and resource allocation issues are dealt with from the roots upwards.