研究成果報告書

 

政策・メディア研究科修士1年 グローバルガバナンスプログラム所属 

小南のり子

 

研究課題名「平和構築としての雇用創出とコミュニティの再興」

 

本研究は、開発援助が如何にして、紛争経験国の復興、その後の長期的な安定と経済成長に寄与すべきか、という点に着目したものであった。平和構築分野の中でも特に、紛争終結後の兵士の社会復帰という分野に焦点を当て、伝統的な開発援助が取り組んでこなかった同分野に対し、援助機関がどのように取り組んでいくべきか、また取り組めるのか、という、より大きな課題に取り組むための足がかりとすることを、本研究の目標の一つとしていた。同研究は理論研究とケーススタディ(主にモザンビーク)から構成されており、以下ではそれぞれの研究を論文として発表することで、研究成果の報告としたい。

 

1, Can Military Expenditure Promote Development?

2, Feature of Insurgency: Liberia and Mozambique

 

 

 

 

03/12/01

Can Military Expenditure Promote Development?

 

Noriko Kominami

 

 

Introduction

There have been both positive and negative views regarding the effect of military expenditure (milex) on development since the early 1970s. Some previous studies have argued that the milex can promote development, others reveal completely opposite evidence. In order to analyse the influence of milex on development, I will focus on less developed countries (LDCs) because it is likely that the economic and social factors are different in the case of LDCs, in contrast to developed countries, and these two categories should be analysed respectively. The notion of development is also a debatable concept. But here, I use development as an improvement of the Human Development Index by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), because the argument around the notion is beyond the scope of this essay.

 

In the following section, I will review the main studies conduced in the 1970s and 1980s and briefly, discuss their main features. Secondly, I will discuss the circumstantial changes of the security sector in the post Cold War era, in contrast to the period before the end of the Cold War. In addition, I shall evaluate the applicability of previous work, and suggest an alternative framework for analysis. In the final section, I will examine the relations between milex and conflict, which will lead my conclusions.

 

1, Previous Studies during 1970s and 1980s

In this section, I will review some of the fundamental studies dealing with relations between milex and development.

 

The attempts to integrate defence studies into economics started in the early 1960s. One of the biggest contributors during this period was Mckean (1960), who built the basis of defence-economics by applying concept of economic efficiency to the defence sector. During the 1970s, the correlation between milex and economic growth started to draw attention. Benoit’s empirical study caused an argument concerning this correlation, which still continues today.  In this sense, he is a pioneer, exploring the basis of milex-development studies. He observed that the countries with a heavy defence burden tend to experience rapid growth by evaluating 44 LDCs. The important finding is that it is more likely that size of the defence burden determines the economic growth rates than vice versa. The explanation given for this is possibility of modernising effect of milex on civilian growth rates mainly through “spin-off”. (Benoit 1973)

 

Based on the similar empirical approach to Benoit, however, Deger took an opposite view. Introducing the concept of ‘economic entitlement’ from Sen (1983) as the indicator of ‘development’, he conducts complex analyses on internal and external military effects within a macro-economic framework. What makes his work unique is that he does not regard the investment level and that of saving as the same. In other words, in LDCs, it depends on the absorbing capacity how much the saving is converted to investment. He introduces a concept of human capital formation as a determinant of absorbing capacity, concluding that it seems that milex has negative effect on economic growth and ‘entitlement’ though he admits that he cannot strongly argue it because the various determinants are offsetting one another as well as heavily depending on the specific condition of each country. (Deger 1986)

 

On the other hand, Smith deals with this issue from Marxist perspective. By analysing the correlation between the size of milex and the income per capita, employment and stability, he examines underconsumption hypothesis that milex is the only way for providing the solution to economic stagnation under the capitalism. From this analysis, he claims that the underconsumption hypothesis is doubtful. Instead, he suggests, high milex could suppress supply through reducing investment and exports, “causing balance-of-payments and capacity constraints, while increasing inefficiency in industry.” The spin-off effect seems to be small, given the gap of technical level between military and civilian industry. He then concludes that the justification for expansion of milex in capitalism might not be given by purely economic reasons but by more political “strategic” reasons, and that the capitalist countries needs the milex, which in turn destabilises the system itself through low growth rate. (Smith 1977, p.70)

 

However these early studies pay little attention to the intention and view of developed countries in terms of development assistance. Deger takes the development and military assistance into consideration when he examines the influence of milex on international economy. But his study was limited in the sense that it only concerns about the “commercialisation of international armaments transfers”. (Deger, p.148) In other words, though he focuses on the desire of military industry in the north to sell military products to south as well as desire of governments in north to maintain external financial balance within certain degree to which domestic people can accept, he never puts this issue into the context of development theory that influenced donors in the developed countries.

 

In this sense, Ball’s work is productive since she focuses on impact of development theory on assistance given to milex. She argues that during1950s and 1960s, the ‘trickle down’ theory was dominant in development theory, which had strong impact on forming “military-as-a modernizer” theory. Based on this theory, donors tended to regard military as a centre actor, which in turn contributes nation building, modernization through ‘spin-off’ and external security. To describe this logic, Ball quotes Guy Pauker (1959), who strongly maintains necessity of military government for LDCs to achieve development. This theory, which Ball criticises as “oversimplification” is desirable for Western governments as it offers a justification for them to suppress the left parties through supporting military in LDCs. She concludes that this theory lacking empirical facts has been questioned so seriously that its influence is “currently negligible”. Denying the liberals, she basically supports what she calls “armament-underdevelopment approach.” (Ball 1988, ch.1)

 

Overall, from these previous arguments, it does not seem clear enough to conclude if the milex can promote development because there are still debatable, and most of them attribute their conclusion to subtle balance of variables which depend on the specific social factors in individual countries.

 

However, two main points can be observed in the previous studies mentioned above. First, as we have seen, the literature related to milex and development during the Cold War is basically divided in two categories depending on the ideology upon which the studies stand. Ball argues this point clearly by saying that neither liberals nor armament-underdevelopment radicals go beyond ideological blind. (Ball 1988, p.5) Fine also points out the gap between these two approaches. While the liberal critique emphasises empirical facts in order to draw abstract framework, underconsumptionism starts their argument from a theory, lacking the mediating links between theory and empirical observation. (Fine 1993)

 

Secondly, both stand on the presumption that the military sector is fundamentally monopolised by the government. Deger mentions domestic conflict in consideration of determination of the size of the milex though he does not go in depth to this issue because it contains political rather than economic nature, and his main concern is on the economic analysis. From the economic point of view, he claims that the structural change necessary for the development will bring about domestic conflicts. What he assumes as the ‘conflict’ here is ‘distributional conflict’ caused by dynamic process of rapid economic growth, for example those caused by inflation. Then military control can contribute to reduce these conflicts. (Deger 1986, pp.225-230) But he is not likely to assume the conflicts by multiplicity of actors who have access to small arms. (Muggah 2001, p.71) Thus what he assumes as conflicts is different from those taking place after the Cold War, and in this sense, it can still be said that he assumes monopoly of violence by the government.

 

Bearing these features of early works in mind, the following sections will discuss if these previous arguments can provide suitable framework for analysing milex and development, given the circumstantial changes after the Cold War.

 

2, Milex and development in the post Cold War era

First of all, to tackle this issue, I will identify the main changes in the trend of conflicts before and after the end of the Cold War.

 

Change in the nature of the threat

After the Cold War, so-called ‘peace dividend’ was expected along with reduction of public resources that had been invested to military and defence sectors. In fact, milex decreased aftermath of the Cold War except for Middle East, whose milex increased because of the Gulf War. However, since 1998, its world trend has turned to increase again. Most notably during this period, the ratio of milex of LDCs has enlarged, in particular African region. (SIPRI Yearbooks)

 

In addition, the ratio of intrastate armed conflicts against interstate wars has risen since the end of the Cold War and most of civil wars broke out in the LDCs. For example in 1999, according to SIPRI’s definition, there were 27 major armed conflicts in 25 countries throughout the world, and only two of the conflicts were interstate. (SIPRI Yearbooks 2000)  Fifteen of the 20 LDCs in the world have been involved in major civil conflicts during the last 15 years (Mohammed 2000, p.2)

 

Furthermore, with increase of regionalised civil wars, and proliferation of light weapons and small arms, proportion of the civilian casualties has risen. In short, the boundary between military and civilian has been blurred. (Gamba and Cornwell 2000)

 

These three main features that characterise the post Cold War period made people recognize that the expected ‘peace dividend’ was illusion. The fear of interstate war between superpowers was replaced by that of intrastate war mainly in developing countries.

 

Analysis of previous works in the current world

Given these changes in trends and nature of conflict after the end of the Cold War, is the framework of previous studies done before and during the Cold War still valuable? Here, we witness two weaknesses that they contain.

 

First of all, in the past, the arguments on economic growth and milex were based on the assumption that the military sector is mainly dominated by the governments as discussed in the previous section. Though some mentioned internal threat, their main concern was still on how the governments should protect its territory from external threat. This assumption reflected the international circumstances where fear of outbreak of war between two alliances was the biggest concern. Considering increasing threat of civil war in the post Cold War era, however, it can be said that this assumption is not necessarily true any more. In short, ‘monopoly of violence’ which governments enjoyed until the end of the 1980s has collapsed since the beginning of 1990s. Muggah describes this phenomenon concisely.

(T)he state is losing its monopoly over the de facto ‘tools’ of violence. But it should be recalled that forty years of Cold War encouraged the diffusion of small arms through virtually all layers of society.  (Muggah 2001, p.71)

 Specifically, when we look at sub-Saharan Africa, there are a number of countries which have what Reno calls “shadow state” within their boundaries. (Reno 1995)

 

In addition, the armed conflict became one of the crucial elements when thinking about economic growth and development. It is no longer an exceptional obstacle hampering the development process out of blue. Given the condition after the Cold War, the early approaches, mentioned in the previous section, where traditional economic analysis is emphasized either through empirical or theoretical measure are not sufficient because they exclude internal conflict as an external obstacle. They do not include it as a factor that directly determines the economic growth and development.

 

There are two factors in the background of this second point. One is that the costs of the armed conflicts are so devastating that “in many cases wars wiped out the achievements of decades of economic and social development.” The conflict can affect the economy by wasting “valuable human and material resources”, and  by negatively affecting economy either through the destruction of fundamental social services or through “the crowding-out effect” of milex which otherwise would be used for other social services. (Mohammed 2000, pp.4-5) It is little room of argument regarding this. The armed conflicts obviously affect economy and development negatively.

 

But what also should be noted here as the second factor is that conflict itself has been recognised as a cause of less development. As Mohammed points out in his research paper for the World Bank’s Development Economic Research Group, armed conflict is not only negatively influential on development, but also considered to be a cause of economic stagnation. (Mohammed 2000) Similarly, borrowing Holtzman (1999), Muggah maintains that “armed conflict can no longer be viewed as an externality to development … rather conflict and its aftermath is one of the key constraints to development and one of the main causes of poverty”. (Muggah 2001, p.75)

 

To sum up, outbreak of conflict is currently seen as the negative obstacle for development as well as the cause of poverty because conflict deteriorates the quality and quantity of development assistance, in some cases forcing development programmes to be cancelled. (Muggah 2001, p.75) Therefore, the outbreak of conflict should be considered as one of the internal determinants affecting the development process.

 

New Framework for analysis of the correlation between milex and development

As we have seen, the conflict is a key element of development in the post Cold War. In practice, this view is currently prevailing among other multilateral development agencies such as UNDP as well as bilateral donors. (UNDP, 1998) The trend is supported by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), when DAC Guidelines on Conflict, Peace and Development Co-operation was approved in 1997.

 

On the other hand, it seems that milex is closely linked to the internal conflict since the size of public expenditure on security sector is likely to have a direct impact on the balance between the defence power of government and that of its internal threat, that is, guerrillas or warlords. As Ball explains, the internal security role is the primary function of military in many developing countries today. (Ball ch.2, ch.10 p.393)

 

It can thus be said that conflict and its prevention should be taken into account in order to analyse the interaction of milex and development. Suppose that achievement of development process depends on the outbreak of armed conflict, and conflict prevention is intimately related to security sector, it will be necessary to examine the correlation between milex and conflict occurrence as well as its prevention in consideration of milex-development relation.

 

3, Correlation between the milex and the intrastate war

When we consider the relation between milex and internal conflict, there are two arguments contradicting each other.

 

Recently World Bank and other multilateral as well as bilateral donors tend to assume milex as what should be cut down because heavy burden of military budget is one of factors causing armed conflicts. Mohammed notes, “(i)ncreases in the level of military spending are also believed to be a cause for civil wars and armed conflicts.” The allocation of public expenditure on military sector leads to ‘crowding out’ effect, repressing other social services such as education. The quality of life then could be deteriorated, making people frustrated. Eventually the grievance among the poor will bring about violent conflict. (Mohammed 2000, p.11) Similarly, in the report suggesting the role of the European Union (EU), Chalmers notes “With the end of Cold War rivalry, …donors also raised concerns at the negative impact of an excessive or misdirected security sector for domestic governance, becoming less tolerant of the effects of excessive defence spending on the economies of developing countries.” (Chalmers 2000, p.5)  Department for International Development (DFID) also states in its policy statement that “(e)xcessive or inefficient spending on security pre-empts resources that could be used for development purposes.” (DFID 2000, p.3)

 

However, this argument can be criticized from two perspectives. First, from the macroeconomic view, the works in early years such as Benoit and Deger suggest that reducing milex in a given public budget does not necessary mean that more resource will be allocated to “productive investment”, for example spending for education, because “extra resources released may be frittered away on conspicuous consumption” in LDCs. (Deger 1986, p102) Though these works also have limitation as discussed, this point is not negligible. Secondly, in terms of security, it is pointed that insufficient budged allocated to security sector can also be a factor of conflicts. In his study on small arms and globalisation, Muggah maintains that criminality will increase when defence and policing sector is reduced because it creates demobilized soldiers who have few alternatives to maintain sustainable life, with easy access to diffused small arms. (Muggah 2001)

 

This second point is important because it accurately perceives the features of civil wars which have occurred during the post Cold War era. In the study on internal conflict in Africa, Zartman introduces the notion of the “collapsed states”, where central government virtually has no or little control over its own territory. (Zartman 1995) In the collapsed states, or states where there is the ‘shadow states’, central governments cannot or are not willing to provide physical and social security, which forms “informal markets in the construction of alternative extrastate power network, underpinning political and economic privilege”. (Gamba and Cornwell 2000, p.165) Under such a condition, people start to establish informal security mechanism, or what Muggah terms “societal re-armament” with innumerable small arms diffused over the society. (Muggah p.73)

 

To sum up, the commonly presumed idea among development agencies that milex is harmful to conflict prevention is not necessarily evident either from economic or security aspects.  On the contrary, decrease of military spending can even be the factor destabilising the society and leading to a conflict in contemporary developing countries. It can therefore be said that it is not sufficient, but also dangerous simply to cut budget for security sector. The important point is to compare the negative effects coming from excess milex, for example ‘crowding out effect’ and those coming from arising level of insecurity. In other words, the task is to minimise negative effect of excess milex, if any, without promoting the potential risk of outbreak of conflict.

 

Conclusion

There are a number of studies examining whether milex promotes development, mainly by the use of traditional economic approach, specifically in the 1970’s and 1980’s. However from these previous works, one cannot obtain a clear answer to this question because the debate is still continuing, moreover, the variables they used are dependent on other social factors, which are also changing in each country.

 

Given the post Cold War circumstances where the outbreak of internal conflict is the cause as well as the consequence of economic stagnation, one should take the risk of conflict into consideration when analysing the milex-development relation. The potential risk of conflict can no longer be excluded as an exceptional case of macroeconomic analysis. Recent trends regarding the impact of milex on development is generally thought to have produced negative results. However it should be noted that, at the same time, the decrease of military spending can destabilise societies, especially where the shadow of the state is already deteriorating security and where there are plenty of opportunities enabling ‘societal re-armament’. Thus, to answer the main question, one must evaluate the balance of the negative effects of excess milex and the potential risk of conflict. In the case of a low risk of conflict, negative effects of the former will be greater than the conflict risk enhanced by milex decrease. Here it could be argued that milex is a negative factor for development. On the other hand, in the case of a high risk of conflict, the downsizing of milex might bring about a conflict. In this case, maintaining or increasing milex can be regarded as a positive factor for development. 

 

Finally there is a policy implication that can be drawn in terms of development assistance. It is dangerous to overemphasize the negative effect of the heavy burden of milex. When the downsizing of a military budget is implemented, it should be combined with programmes for the reform of the security sector, including the police, judicial systems, small arms control and the reintegration of ex-combatants so that such reductions of milex does not directly reduce the level of security.

 

Bibliography

Ball, Nicole (1988), Security and Economy in the Third World, Adamantine Press:

London

Benoit, Emile (1973), Defence and Economic Growth in Developing Countries, D.C.

Health, Lexington Books: Boston

Benoit, Emile (1978), “Growth and Defence in Developing Countries”, Economic

Development and Cultural Change, Vol.26, No.2, pp.271-280

Chalmers, Malcolm (2000), Security sector reform in developing countries: an EU

Perspective, Saferworld and in the Stifung Wissenschaft und Politik/ Conflict

Prevention Network Yearbook

DAC (1997), DAC Guidelines on Conflict, Peace and Development Co-operation,

DAC

Deger, Saadet (1986), Military Expenditure in Third World Countries, Routeledge &

Kegan Paul: London, Boston and Henley

DFID (2000), Poverty and the Security Sector, DFID

Fine, Ben (1993), “The military-industrial complex: an analytical assessment”,

Cyprus Journal of Economics, Vol.6, No.1, pp.26-51

Gamba, Virginia and Richard Cornwell (2000), “Arms, Elites, and Resources in the

Angolan Civil War”, in Berdal, Mats and David Malone (eds.), Greed and

Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, Lynne Rinner: Boulder and London

Hitch, C.J. and R.N. McKean (1960), The Economics of Defence in the Nuclear Age,

Harvard University Press

Mohammed, Nadir A.L. (2000), “Civil War and Military Expenditures: A Note”,

Papers for The Economics of Civil Wars, Crime and Violence, World Bank:

www.worldbank.org/research/conflict/papers/civil.htm

Muggah, H.C.R (2001), “Globalisation and Insecurity: The Direct and Indirect Effects

of Small Arms Availability”, IDS Bulletin, Vol.32, No.2, pp.70-78

Reno, William (1995), Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone, Cambridge

University Press

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December, pp.745-62

SIPRI, Yearbook: Stockholm international Peace Research institute

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Economics, Vol.6, No.1, pp.61-76

UNDP (1998), Working for Solutions to Crises: The Development Response, UNDP

Zartman, William (1995), The Collapsed States, Lynne Rinner

 

 

 

 

Feature of Insurgency: Liberia and Mozambique

 

Noriko Kominami

 

 December 12, 2001

 

 

Introduction

After the end of the Cold War, more intrastate conflicts than interstate ones can be seen. (SIPRI) Since the early 1990s, the mainstream measure aimed to bring these internal conflicts into peace settlement has been those which establish the democratic government by implementing elections. Liberia and Mozambique were not the exception. In July 1997, Liberia held presidential and parliamentary elections under the Cotonou Peace Accord reached in August 1996. Also in Mozambique, following the Rome Accord in October 1992, the presidential and parliamentary elections were implemented in October 1994. Although these countries, in this sense, experienced the similar pattern of peace settlement, they have not often been compared, in contrast to the Sierra Leone, which is often compared to Liberia.[1] This seems to be partly because of their geographical distance. But it seems also because of their different origin of insurgencies. While in Mozambique, a rebel group, Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo) was created by external force, in Liberia, National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) was created internally. Because they tend to be regarded as very different cases, they have rarely been the subjects of comparison. However, as I will discuss below, this is not necessarily true. In the process of conflict expansion, Renamo was gradually gaining the support from domestic people as well as NPFL. In this sense, it is not always correct to argue that Renamo was merely a puppet of South Rhodesia.

 

The previous studies of conflicts in Mozambique and Liberia tend to focus more on external aspects, specifically the role of the peacekeeping troops dispatched by the United Nations and the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), respectively, rather than internal dimensions.[2] However, in order to understand the features of conflict and insurgency, internal elements should not be ignored because it is probably a key for the insurgency to be intensified whether the insurgency will be supported by the locals. In other words, it is necessary to analyze how the rebels obtained the support from general people in order to explain the character of insurgency.

 

Bearing these contexts in mind, I will compare features of the conflicts in the two countries, specifically focusing on the nature of guerrillas and the way in which local people have perceived them. This will be argued in the following section by dividing conflicts into three phases. First, I will review the origins of insurgency in the two countries, pointing out their differences. Then common features shared by both cases as well as differences in the process of expansion of insurgency, specifically the way in which the rebels gained support from people, will be discussed. Thirdly, I will analyze both cases in terms of the impacts and results of the insurgency, which will lead to my conclusions.

 

1, Origins of insurgency

The origins of insurgency in Liberia and Mozambique can be characterized by contrast. While the Liberian rebel, the NPFL is basically formed by the people whose origin was in Liberia, Renamo is created by external actors. The origins of Renamo lie in anti-colonial struggle by Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo) in Mozambique and Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu) in Zimbabwe during 1960s and 1970s. Threaten by Frelimo and Zanu, South Rhodesian minority government and Portuguese colonial rulers started to provide military support to the armed forces fighting against Frelimo and Zanu. Following the coup in Lisbon in 1974, some of the members from those counter-insurgency units, which had been supported by the both governments, fled to South Rhodesia. It is said that some of them as well as those who escaped from Frelimo’s ‘re-education camp’ formed the basis of Renamo. (Young 1990, p.494) After 1976, when Frelimo closed the boundary between South Rhodesia, the serious military training by Rhodesia began. The Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization (CIO) established a permanent training camp, qualifying Andre Matsangaissa as the first leader of Renamo. Toward the end of the 1970s, the Rhodesian increasingly supported Renamo so that they could set up the permanent bases inside Mozambique. Rhodesia continued backing up Renamo after the Afonso Dhalakama became a new leader in 1979. In addition, South Africa and United States started to provide military aid as the Cold War became intensified.

 

On the other hand, Liberian society was initially dominated by the former slaves coming from America in 1820s. Specifically under the regime of William Tubman and his successor, William Tolbert, the True Whig Party, and American-Liberian elites enjoyed their political and economic advantage over indigenous people. In 1980, Master Sergeant Doe took power by coup, starting to patronage his own ethnic group, Krahn, who composed approximately only five percent of the Liberian population, and later, also favored Mandingo. (Ellis 1995, pp.177-179) After the Doe’s coup, the tension between him and Thomas Quiwonkpa, commanding general of the Armed Forces of Liberia, became obvious. Ethnic base of Quiwonkpa was Gio and Mano peoples in Nimba County, where he was from. His failed coup in 1985 led his ethnic group to flee to Cote d’Ivoire because of the fear of revenge from Doe. Those exiled, integrating with remnants of the True Whig Party oligarchy who also had fled from Liberia, formed the NPFL. Quiwonkpa’s adviser, Charles Taylor came to be a leader of the NPFL in 1980s. Taylor gradually gained support from Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, and Libya, then finally invading into the Nimba county in Liberia in December 1989.

 

It may seem to be oversimplification to say that Renamo was established by foreigners whereas NPFL was formed domestically because it is said that at the time of the invasion, Charles Taylor was unknown to outside Liberia, as well as most people in Monrovia (Ellis 1995, p.166) Nevertheless, when comparing them, the difference of their origin should be worth noting.

 

2, Process of gaining the local support

As discussed above, the origins of insurgency were different in both cases. However, when it comes to the factors enhancing the guerrillas, the two cases have much in common. The shared points will be discussed from three aspects in the following.

 

Political system

First, in terms of the political system, both cases have a certain circumstantial rationale to strengthen the rebellion. In Liberia, as mentioned above, the political and economic systems were dominated by American-Liberians. The True Whig Party led by them established what Ellis calls a “formidable patronage machine”, concentrating all the political and economic authority. His successor, President Tolbert even extended his patronage to the rural area. (Ellis 1995, pp.174-175) When Samuel Doe took over the power by coup in 1980, he started to patronize his own ethnic group, Krahn, which led to change former patron-client system upside-down. Before long after the coup, people started to recognize that Doe is not a liberator, nor a leader of a revolution against American-Liberian domination of the indigenous peoples, disappointedly describing the situation as “Same taxi, different driver.” (Lowenkopf 1995, p.100) Faced with lack of legitimacy, Doe’s regime of personal rule tried more eagerly to secure its own stability by establishing clientelism as Tubman and Tolbert did, which Boas defined as “a system of patron-client ties that bind leaders and followers in relationships of assistance and support that are built on recognised and accepted inequality between ‘big men’ and ‘smaller men’. (Boas 2001, p.700) As a result, resentment of marginalized people, in particular Gio and Mano, against Krahn grew to be a seeds of armed conflict, ultimately contributing to strengthen NPFL.

 

Similarly, in Mozambique, as Schutz maintains, Frelimo’s government had difficulty in retaining its revolutionary legitimacy against its colonial power because they were expected to fulfill tremendous desire by domestic people once they had obtained the power. With lack of the internal legitimacy, or what Schutz calls ‘civic legitimacy’, the state was vulnerable to secession. (Schutz 1995, pp.109-124) In this sense, the condition that could allow rebels to fight against Frelimo already exited. However, the mechanism that brought about a certain internal support for Renamo was different from that of Liberia. In contrast to Doe, President Joaquim Chissano did not succeed in build lineage with patron groups which could have given support to his government so that it would be secured. On the contrary, Frelimo introduced the policy trying to strengthen the central authority, resulting in little popular participation in politics, specifically in rural areas. They tried to reform ‘feudalism’ in communal villages, rejecting the previous system which had been based on governing framework run by chiefs. In other words, Frelimo tried to obtain internal legitimacy by strengthening the government authority with the policy which would presumably promote economic development and improve the quality of life. Young suggests that this kind of Frelimo’s policy, particularly after 1977 when they declared its transformation into a Marxist-Leninist party, offered hospitality to Renamo. Rather, it was Renamo who utilized the lineage mechanism to set up their supportive basis. Based on Geffray’s findings, Young points out that Renamo used tactic that they first negotiate with chiefs when they reached a given area, and that some of those chiefs, in particular those who had been marginalized in colonial regime, offered their support to Renamo. (Young 1990, p.504)

 

Economic factors

The frustration regarding economic and social stagnation among the people was also a factor which promoted them to accept or support Renamo in Mozambique, and NPFL in Liberia. In Mozambique, Renamo is widely known for its coercive recruitment of the locals. (Vines 1996, p.95) However, this is not the only reason that Renamo could maintain their army. Since 1977 when Frelimo transformed itself as Marxist-Leninist party, it imposed centralized policies. Among the series of policies, the quite influential one was the villagisation policy in agriculture. As Morgan notes, the policy, which started in the early 1980s, included communal farming in the rural areas, leading to “disastrous results”. The over-centralisation and collectivism could never contribute to improving the agricultural productivity. In particular, ‘Operation Production’ in 1983, which forced the urban unemployed to move to rural areas, offered potential recruitment to Renamo. Those who were transferred to rural areas were imposed to live with alien ethnic groups. As a result, some of those transferred returned to the urban areas, others became Renamo combatants. The policy not only failed in promoting the urban unemployed to be self-sufficient, but also confused traditional governing system of the villages, fueling the resentment of indigenous people against Frelimo. The frustration and resentment of those peasants against Frelimo were also likely to encourage them to support Renamo. (Morgan 1990, p.611-612; Vines 1996, p.101) In Schutz’s words, “rural Mozambicans began to hail the Re(n)a(m)o operatives as liberators from Fre(l)i(m)o”. (Schutz 1995, p.116) The young, in particular who did not have any prospect of employment, joined Renamo as an only alternative to live. (Vines 1996, p.116) Renamo also actively exploited the peasants’ discontent to win their support. For instance, it is known that they did ‘social banditry’ by looting from corrupt government officials or traders who cheated the locals. (Vines 1996, p.93)

 

Also in Liberia, NPFL is known to have absorbed the frustrated young people. Under the True Whig regime, the majority of the population in hinterland had no opportunity of higher education necessary for well-paid employment. Their economic condition was even more deteriorated by the economic depression in 1970s. It was during this time that the mechanism in which armed forces absorb the unemployment was established. In 1990, Taylor allegedly armed a number of people from Nimba County into the NPFL’s Small Boy Units. As this name shows, the force basically consisted of unemployed and disaffected youth, including orphans of the civil war. (Ellis 1998, pp.167-169) From these facts, it appears that NPFL attracted those suppressed by showing itself as the easiest, and perhaps the only way to live.

 

Religious aspects

Secondly, the contradiction between traditional beliefs and modern political systems can be pointed out as a factor enhancing the rebels. The religions related to ancestors can be seen among the majority of the people of Mozambique. These beliefs included a contact with their ancestors basically through spirit mediums, associated with the issues of land and agriculture. (Vines 1996, p.111) Frelimo’s tendency to promote rapid modernization accompanied the rejection of traditional religious beliefs. In fact, Frelimo is said to have cut off rural Mozambicans forcibly from their traditional structures and beliefs. (Schutz 1995, p.113) It is not difficult, as a result, to suppose that people’s resistance against this Frelimo’s policy combined with the tension between modernization and persistence with traditional life, to some extent, contributed to the attachment to Renamo. (Morgan 1990, pp.613-614)

 

But what should not be ignored here is that Renamo also manipulated their religious beliefs. It is observed that when they destroyed every building in the communal villages, they left religious symbols such as churches or mosques. They are also known to have rituals which believed to strengthen their authority and guarantee their success. Through these religious rituals, some local residents came to regard the atrocity conducted by Renamo as an “expressions of the ancestors’ united anger over Frelimo’s policies’. Here, Renamo succeeded in avoiding from being blamed for its brutality. (Vines 1996, pp.112-113) It can thus be said that Renamo received at least a passive support from rural population in spite of their brutality by utilizing their religious beliefs.

 

On the other hand, Ellis argues that Liberia also has religious beliefs deeply underlying the political culture, similar to those of Mozambique, associated with agricultural issues. Among those beliefs, according to Ellis, the most important one is Poro, whose root traces back before the 17th century. The uniqueness of Poro is characterized by the fact that it involves feature of violence, which used to be controlled by chiefs. (Ellis 1995)  However, the way Poro is regulated started to change in 20th century in accordance with conquest of hinterland by the central power. (Ellis 1998, p.170) Since the True Whig Party seized the power, the central government and “rural secret societies” have gradually penetrated, assimilated by each other. Along with this, the ritual and belief of Poro have been maneuvered by the government as well as by the other factions in order to gain their own authority and legitimacy. As mentioned above, this manipulation of religion can also be seen in the strategy of Renamo. However, the consequence of manipulation of religion is not exactly the same in two cases. In Liberia, as a result, the role of chief as the only agent who can execute the violent feature of Poro was eroded. Then neither do chiefs nor government has the power to control the spiritual violence of Poro any more. As Ellis himself states, it was not what he calls ‘spiritual anarchy’ that caused the civil war. But the analysis on the people’s perception of invisible world helps us to understand why the Liberian conflict occurred in the way it did. (Ellis 1999, pp.265-266) In this sense, it can be said that even if the spiritual belief that warlords manipulated was not the main factor leading people to accept NPFL, it was still likely to contribute to preparing the circumstance where the civil war was intensified to the degree that general people are involved in mass killings. In fact, it is alleged that Lofa Defence Force (LDF), a militia which came out in 1993 after the Cotonou Peace Accord was formed by Poro society. “The Poro society was able to organize its own militia, its grassroots structure providing a perfect infrastructure for military activity.” (Ellis 1995, p.195) Suppose that the violence stemming from the belief in Poro, which is now uncontrolled, offered the condition under which people can be easily mobilized to fight, it will be possible to say that the ‘spiritual anarchy’ enhanced people’s support for rebels, including NPFL.

 

In short, in both cases, there was the tension between the political system introduced recently and the traditional system based on indigenous belief. The two cases share the point that the tension could contribute to offering the condition which promoted people to accept rebels although the way in which it affected them was less similar in each case.

 

To sum up, when we observe the process in which guerrillas obtained the local support from political, economic and religious aspects, more than a few features shared by Liberian and Mozambican cases can be seen. Although there were, of course, unique features to each case as discussed above, it is obvious that, in both, the rebels, more or less, succeeded in winning the support from general people. In this sense, it is not necessarily true to contrast the two cases because Renamo is merely a puppet, whereas NPFL was local-based group. The differences between them are less clear in the phase of their growth than in the phase the rebels were created. 

 

3, Expansion of the insurgency 

There is a significant difference between the two cases in terms of the consequences of the insurgency, specifically after the peace negotiation started. While in Mozambique, the major belligerents were basically the two factions, Frelimo and Renamo, throughout the process of the civil war, Liberia experienced factional split both of the Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU), which was mainly set up and maintained by ECOWAS Military Observer Group (ECOMOG), and NPFL. This difference can partly be explained by the role of ethnic division in the conflicts. In Liberia, under the Cotonou Peace Accord in 1993, NPFL was split along with ethnic division. In addition, United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democray (ULIMO), which came to be one of the warring factions against NPFL in the beginning of 1990s, was divided into two parties, Krahn-led faction and the Mandingo-led faction. Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) of IGNU was also divided into Krahn-led Liberian Peace Council (LPC), and others. Furthermore, as mentioned above, the LDF was formed by the Poro society. As a result, what followed the Cotonou Peace Accord was not peace, but the intensified rivalries among these small groups. In March 1994, these disputes reached to the severe level which brought about bloodshed between two factions within ULIMO. These series of conflicts between small factions were, as Ellis states, motivated by the people hungry for power. However, once the conflict started to show ethnic division, and combatants began to identify themselves by ethnic groups, the rivalries among political leaders would expand to general people. In this process of expansion, media had a crucial role because the killings were reported through it, causing people to suspect others from different ethnic groups. In fact, the warlords are said to have maneuvered ethnic identities in order to gain support from population. (Ellis 1995, p.183)

 

Then why did not this kind of split take place in Mozambican case? The most plausible answer is that Renamo was not based on a certain ethnic group. They did not obtain the support from specific ethnicity, and therefore the ethnic rivalries did not penetrate into broader society. Actually, at the beginning, it was not true. Young suggests that Renamo was supported by people in Manica province, in its early days, utilizing their ethnic solidarity and sentiment against the central government based on Maputo. Also he shows some evidences that in those days Renamo’s leadership was dominated by what Minter calls Shona-speaking people, who basically resided in the province. (Young 1990, p.505)

 

However, it is likely that their ethnic basis became broader afterwards. Vines describes this process related to the language used by Renamo combatants. Refering to Shona as N’dau, he admits that originally Renamo was based on a N’dau elite because Rhodesia targeted the central Mozambique, which neighboring Rhodesian border, for creation and recruitment of Renamo. But later, Renamo created a military lingua franca to deal with various languages used in Mozambique. Although majority of commanders were said to speak N’dau, the language was recognized as a ‘creole N’dau’. Dhalakama strongly promotes the use of N’dau, aiming at strengthening the solidarity within Renamo. In fact, the promotion to the senior rank depended on whether the member could learn and use the language. Thus, majority were not ‘true N’dau’. (Vines 1996, pp.83-85) Aside from the use of language, the way of recruitment also shows their concern about solidarity inside Renamo. When Renamo recruited combatants, they transferred the new combatants away from their home areas, posting them in units with mixed ethnic origin. This seems to be because of Renamo’s intention of preventing the combatants from communicating by their local languages. (Vines 1996, p.96)

 

These findings might seem contradictory to the result of the election because it was NPFL that won 75% of the votes beyond regional borders, while the people who voted to Renamo tended to be limited in north-central provinces. (Harris 1999; Africa Research Bulletin 1994, p.11637; Synge 1997, pp.137-140) Yet, what caused the results of the election as they were should be considered separately from the nature of the rebels themselves. As this analysis is beyond the scope of this essay, I will not argue it in depth. But several factors can be suggested. First, Taylor was able to utilize plenty of resources from his own private lineage basically with foreign companies. (Reno 1995) On the other hand, Renamo is said to have had difficulty in raising fund after the major external power drew from the country which Renamo had depended its finance on. (Boutros-Ghali 1995) Secondly, although neither of them had a consistent policy, Taylor’s personal charisma and ability of conducting effective campaign were strong enough for supplementing it. For example, he succeeded in attracting general people by making speech with entertain, such as dance and music. (Young 1990; Lyons 1999, pp.58-60) The most important factor was that the electoral decision was made by practical concern of people. It is not surprising to suppose that the people suffering from the prolonged civil war in both countries were likely to choose de facto government under which the war would end so that their living could be secured. (Lyons 1999, pp.58-60; Harris 1999) Therefore the factors determining the electoral result seemed to lie more on the short-term conditions than the nature of NPFL and Renamo.

 

In short, the insurgency in both countries, specifically after the attempt in peace settlement was started, caused different effect on the transformation of the conflicts. While the belligerents in Liberia split into small groups along the ethnic lines, this did not happen in Mozambican case basically because Renamo was based on broader ethnic groups. This difference of parties’ nature, in turn, affected the attitude of general people towards conflict. In other words, it depends on the difference of rebels’ nature regarding ethnicity whether the rivalry at the top level would expand to the bottom. 

 

Conclusion

Above, we have discussed the features of insurgency as well as their change in Mozambique and Liberia by comparing Renamo and NPFL in three phases; their origin, the process of their development, and the impact of insurgency on transformation of the conflict and on general people. Although each had its own unique feature in terms of the origins, the difference became less clear in accordance with the process of gaining the support from the locals. Both cases had political system in which the governments attempted to obtain establish legitimacy, which result in hatred against government and enhancing the popular support for rebels. In addition, the economic stagnation in both countries promoted those suppressed, specifically the young unemployed, to find the way of living in becoming guerrilla combatants. Thirdly, the tension between the traditional religious belief and the modern political tools brought about a circumstance where people could accept insurgency, by creating either popular resentment against government or uncontrolled violence stemming from religion. The argument here is not saying that process in which guerrillas were winning the popular support is completely the same in both cases. As we have seen in the previous sections, there are also many differences, in particular the detail point that how popular discontentment was driven and transferred to be the support, or at least the acceptance of rebels. But what should be emphasized here is that on this stage, Renamo was no longer a substitute for foreign forces. In the phase of expansion of the insurgency towards the society, two cases caused different consequences. It can be pointed out that it was ethnic feature of the rebels that determined the degree of penetration of ethnic division into the society. 

 

In order to understand insurgencies and civil wars, it is important to analyze internal dynamics because the feature of the rebels can change, and then their change can also transform the nature of conflict. Even if the insurgency was initially created by foreigners, the local support is necessary for the insurgency to be expanded. In this sense, it is essential to look closely at the interaction between the rebels and population for comprehending civil wars.

 

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[1] See, for example, Richards (1995) and Boas(2001)

[2] See, for example, Synge (1997); Alao, Mackinlay and Olonisakin (1999); Alden and Simpson (1993); Boutros-Ghali (1995)