Commerce of Death and Zones of Conflict: Weaponomics and Wars in Africa (1)

By
Dr Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2)
Monash University, South Africa Campus
School of Arts
Department of International Studies
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Roodepoort, 1725
South Africa
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E-mail: sgatsha@yahoo.co.uk

Abstract

Our arms sales to Africa run at about 1per cent of total arms sales, so it is important to put that in context. There are also, incidentally, jobs and industry in this country to consider. Of course it is important to take care who we sell arms to, and we do. (Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair responsing a question in British Parliament).

In fact, small arms, which include rifles, pistols and light machine guns, are filling African graves in ever-increasing numbers-from the killing fields in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the streets of Lagos and Johannesburg. (3)

This paper seeks to examine the dialectics of proliferation of weapons and escalation of wars in Africa. Its focus is on the devastating impact of small arms on the African people’s physical security and social peace. The paper also seeks to build up an indictment on the economics of arms sale (i.e. weaponomics) as commerce of death because of its direct contribution to escalation of wars and conflicts in Africa. Wars and conflicts have contributed greatly to lack of economic development of Africa, lack of human security and lack of social peace. The key issues posed in this paper include:

* Who are the key merchants of death in Africa?
* What are the connections between proliferation of weapons and escalation of wars in Africa?
* What are the net costs of wars and conflict on African people?
* Does the availability of weapons make wars and conflict inevitable?

Since the time of the slave trade, Europe made Africa a dumping ground for boatloads of old and outdated guns, setting an ominous tone to the escalation of conflict in continent. The sad part of this ‘gun and bomb dumping’ in Africa is that it has proliferated across the continent in tandem with the spread and deepening of violence, conflict, poverty and death. Scholars who have written on the slave trade like Paul E. Lovejoy have pointed out how slavery brought guns to Africa. Slaves were exchanged for guns. Without guns it became difficulty for African communities to defend themselves from slave raiders. (4) To get guns, one needed to engage in the slave trade. In the West, guns and bombs were used to expand empires. What all this indicates is that guns and bombs were part of the original human sin. Steven Wright described the proliferation of guns across the African continent as ‘a legal trade in death.’ He wrote that:

Arms trafficking to Angola, involving Jean Christopher Mitterrand, Jacques Attali and other French names, shows, not for the first time, the way some European countries spark off conflicts in Africa. Yet, light arms (rifles, machine guns, pistols, grenades) kill far more people than tanks, fighter aircraft or battleships-four million died between 1990 and 1999. Yet, the international community is only timidly moving to control small arms transfer. (5)

The International community is concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass desctruction, neglecting the fact that in Africa for instance, small arms are causing mass death and contributing to poverty and underdevelopment. Michael Fleshman, argued that:

Less well understood is the impact of small arms on development in post-conflict situations. Unlike heavy weaponss systems, which can be costly to acquire and operate and comparatively easy to decommission or monitor, the end of a war does not necessarily bring an end to the use of light weapons. (6)

In the midst of underdevelopment and poverty in Africa, the current estimation of the continental spread of guns is that there is one weapon in curculation for every twenty people on the continent. That is a conservative estimate. Even the poorest zones of Africa like Somalia have plenty guns and bombs. Even dictators who cannot provide their people with food, jobs, medical care, and shelter are able to deploy well-armed militaries against their people.

When analysts write about ethnicity and tribalism as the curse of Africa, they forget that it is the availability of guns and bombs that make these identities assume deadly proportions. Without guns and bombs politics cannot be as dirty and deadly as it is in Africa. Development has eluded Africa, but the gun and the bomb has not. Dictatorship and authoritarianism are fed and sustained by guns. Democratic revolutions are beaten back by guns and bombs.
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1. Abstract of paper to be presented at Wars and Conflicts in Africa Conference to be held at the University of Texas at Austin Campus, USA, 28th-30th March 2008.
2. DR SABELO J. NDLOVU-GATSHENI is a Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of International Studies at Monash University’s South Africa Campus
3. Michael Fleshman, ‘Counting the Cost of Gun Violence,’ in Africa Recovery, Volume 15, No. 4, (2001), p. 1.
4. Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformation in Slavery, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2000).
5. Steven Wright, ‘ A Legal Trade in Death,’ in http://www.mondediplo.com/2001/01/02arms1 accesssed 2006/10/31.
6. Michael Fleshman, ‘Small Arms in Africa: Counting the Cost of Gun Violence,’ in Africa Recovery, Volume 15, Number 4, (December 2001).