The Panel will provide critical insights about the interplay between intra and extra regional dynamics and their impact on the stability of the Horn of Africa. The papers will analyse current trends in order to critically assess the paths leading to the construction of a security architecture in the region.
The near absence of any sustained great power interest or engagement in the Horn of Africa after the End of the Cold War was brought into question in the aftermath of the events that occurred on September 11, 2001. One of its most important consequences has been the strengthening of U.S. determination to shape international relations. It altered the foreign policy of the U.S. focusing Washington on a global campaign against terrorism. The Horn of Africa, in particular, is defined as a front- line region in the war against terrorism. The area is perceived as a potential stage for transnational Islamic terrorist operations. The panel will cover topics related to the security challenges faced by the states and people of the region. The papers will critically examine the significance of the ‘war on terrorism’ for the states of the Horn of Africa and how the international priorities to counter terrorism have been accommodated with domestic and regional priorities. More specifically the papers investigate the current developments and its implications to construct a new security architecture in the region.
This paper will examine the differences between the peace processes in Sudan and Somalia. Although both processes were undertaken under the IGAD's umbrella, the differences in the management and content of the peace talks were significant: for instance, the international commitment was strong in one, mostly financial in the other; only two factions were allowed to the table of negotiations in one, while 23 factions signed the cease-fire in the other, and so on. The paper will try to make sense of those differences as a way the new order is shaped in the Horn. It will certainly not promote one peace process against the other nor bet on the outcomes of both.
The Horn of Africa was an important stage of superpower rivalry during the Cold War. It was also one of the key areas where two superpowers sought to cooperate in bringing an end to the Cold War by closing down regional conflicts. Finally, in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, Somalia provided the setting for the first experiment in expanded international peace-keeping. The American led a task force mandated by the Security Council with a chapter VII resolution. The experiment failed and the US appeared to have lost interest in Africa in general and in the Horn in particular. Since the event of September 2001, however, the US administration has been engaged in a strategy of quiet but continuous reengagement. This paper will explore both the immediate preoccupations with the war on terror and the way these have contributed to the process of reengagement, but also the continuities with the earlier period of American involvement in Ethiopia, Sudan and other Horn countries.
This paper will address the nature of the National Islamic Front, Sudan's Islamist ruling party, and the way in which it deals with the threat to it from the 'War on Terrorism'. Since it was linked by the United Nations to the assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 1995, the NIF has carefully built up a picture of itself as having returned to the fold of international respectability, sending Usama bin Laden back to Afghanistan and officially ending Africa's longest war by signing a peace deal with Southern Sudan. Why have Western and Arab governments which feel threatened by militant Islamism believed it?
This paper will discuss linkages between conflict and human rights in the Horn in recent years. It will briefly survey the causes of armed conflict; the conduct of the parties to the conflict in relation to international humanitarian law; peace talks; and post-conflict issues of reconciliation, transitional justice and impunity, and reconstruction. It will look in particular at the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea (1998-2000) and the recently concluded peace talks aiming to end state collapse in Somalia. It will discuss the challenges for promoting peace, human rights and democratic governance in the countries of the Horn.
Since the end of the Cold War, the development agendas in Africa have undergone important changes. The widely accepted concept of ‘good governance’ and its implications, and the number of conflicts in Africa led many Western donors – among which the European Union (EU) countries - to increase their involvement in the reform of the African security sectors and to merge both their development and security agendas. The terrorist attacks of September 2001 and the following declaration of ‘war on terror’ confirmed this new trend and added a counter-terrorist component to the development programmes. The interference of the EU countries in the African domestic affairs calls into question the way the African state is now considered by its European counterpart. Both issues are particularly important in Sudan and Somalia, suspected of maintaining links with international terrorist networks.
In this paper, I will describe the changes that the EU countries’ development agendas have undergone over the past decade in Somalia and Sudan. I will then discuss whether the EU countries and the EU as an international organisation are successfully developing their own development agenda in a region which remains a US chasse gardée.