Tolerance Under Siege: African Principles of Conflict Resolution

Etefa, Tsega

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-10540-2_8

Tsega Etefa⁴

Part of the book series: African Histories and Modernities ((AHAM))

476 Accesses

Abstract

Dispute settlement mechanisms through grassroots courts are widely popular in Darfur, Oromia, and the Tana Delta. Community leaders, respected elders, religious leaders, and village chiefs have played a significant role in promoting traditions, handling conflicts, and maintaining peace and stability. Political manipulation by governments and the proliferation of modern weapons have significantly affected those courts’ ability to continue their traditional peace-building role and contributed to a major escalation of armed violence in all three countries. The Judiya and Native Administration in Darfur, the Mangama and Michu in Benishangul-Gumuz and western Oromia, and the Ibisa, the Gasa, and Matadheda councils in the Tana Delta are fundamental community-based dispute-solving mechanisms. Their decline due to government manipulation and easy access to arms hugely contributed to conflict.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 79.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 99.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
Mahmood Mamdani , Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics , and the War on Terror (New York: Pantheon Books, 2009), 289.
2.
Jérôme Tubiana , Victor Tanner , and Musa Adam Abdul-Jalil , Traditional Authorities’ Peacemaking Role in Darfur (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2012), 37.
3.
Isam Mohamed Ibrahim, “The Traditional Mechanisms of Conflict Resolution & Peace Building in Darfur: From an Anthropological Perspective,” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 4, no. 9 (2013): 134.
4.
Ibrahim, “Traditional,” 134.
5.
Mamdani, Saviors, 289.
6.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 37.
7.
James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773, vol. 2 (London: J. Ruthven, 1790), 546.
8.
Addis Miraf—A Bulletin Prepared by the Information and Public Relations Department of the Benishangul-Gumuz National Regional State, Asosa, 2001, 21; Algamar Banja, interview by author, Guba , 2003. For details, see Tsega Etefa, Interethnic Relations on a Frontier: Mätakkäl ( Ethiopia ), 1898–1991 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006), Chapter 5.
9.
Abeya Ifa, “Adaptation, Culture, and Changing Environment: The Case of the Gumuz of the Didessa Valley (Kamashi Zone) West Ethiopia ” (Master’s thesis in Social Anthropology, Addis Ababa University, 2001), 26.
10.
Quoted in Etefa, Inter-Ethnic, 139.
11.
Taddesse Tamrat, “Nilo-Sahara Interactions with Neighbouring Highlands: The Case of Gumuz of Gojjam and Wallaga,” in The Proceedings of the Workshop on Famine Experience and Resettlement in Ethiopia , ed. Desalegn Ramato (Addis Ababa : Institute of Development Research, Addis Ababa University, 1988), 11.
12.
Wendy James, “Lifelines: Exchange Marriage Among the Gumuz ,” in The Southern Marches of Imperial Ethiopia, ed. Donald Donham and Wendy James (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 129.
13.
Dukkan Aga, interview by author, Galesa, August 1999.
14.
Dukkan Aga, interview by author, Galesa, August 1999; for details, see Tsega Endalew, Conflict Resolution Through Cultural Tolerance: An Analysis of the Michu Institution in Metekkel Region, Ethiopia (Addis Ababa : Organisation for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa, 2002).
15.
Martin Pilly , “Conflict and Its Socio-Economic Impact in Garsen Division, Tana River District” (Master’s thesis, Moi University, 2007), 25–31.
16.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 53–55.
17.
Ibrahim, “Traditional,” 133.
18.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 55.
19.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 55.
20.
Quoted in Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 55.
21.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 55.
22.
Ibrahim, “Traditional,” 135.
23.
Ibrahim, “Traditional,” 135.
24.
Ibrahim, “Traditional,” 135–136.
25.
Pilly, “Conflict and Its Socio-Economic,” 25–32.
26.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 60.
27.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 60.
28.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 61.
29.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 62.
30.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 64.
31.
For details, see Endalew, Conflict Resolution, passim.
32.
George Ngwane, Settling Disputes in Africa: Traditional Basis for Conflict Resolution (Yaoundé: Buma Kor House Publishers Ltd., 1996), 51–52.
33.
Ngwane, Settling, 52.
34.
Ngwane, Settling, 51.
35.
Ibrahim Elbadawi and Nicholas Sambanis , “Why Are There So Many Civil Wars in Africa? Understanding and Preventing Violent Conflict,” Oxford Journals, Social Sciences Journal of African Economies 9, no. 3 (2000): 244.
36.
Linda James Myers and David H. Shinn, “Appreciating Traditional Forms of Healing Conflict in Africa and the World,” Black Diaspora Review 2, no. 1 (2010): 2.
37.
Alphonce Gari, “Pokomo , Orma Seal Peace Deal at Wenje,” Africa News Service, November 1, 2013.
38.
Lisa Schirch, Strategic Peacebuilding (Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2004), 9.
39.
Myers and Shinn, “Appreciating,” 3.
40.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 4.
41.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 70.
42.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 7.
43.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 8.
44.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 9.
45.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 10.
46.
Robert Collins , A History of Modern Sudan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 173.
47.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 10.
48.
Quoted in Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 11.
49.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 11.
50.
Martin Daly , Darfur’s Sorrow: The Forgotten History of a Humanitarian Disaster (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 261.
51.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 12.
52.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 13.
53.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 15.
54.
Atta El-Battahani , “Tribal Peace Conferences in Sudan : The Role of the Joudiyya Institution in Darfur, Western Sudan,” in Transformation of Resource Conflicts: Approach and Instruments, ed. Gunther Baechler, Kurt R. Spillmann, and Mohamed Suliman (Bern: Peter Lang, 2002), 443.
55.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 22.
56.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil, Traditional, 12.
57.
Gérard Prunier, Darfur: A 21st Century Genocide (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), 154.
58.
El-Battahani , “Tribal,” 437–438.
59.
Stephen Burgess, “Stabilization, Peacebuilding , and Sustainability in the Horn of Africa,” Strategic Studies Quarterly 3, no. 1 (Spring 2009): 102.
60.
Collins , History, 173.
61.
Mustafa Babiker, “Geography and Ethnography of Oil Production in Sudan ,” in Reconstructing Economic Governance After Conflict in Resource-Rich African Countries, ed. Karl Wohlmuth and Tino Urban (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2007), 150.
62.
Babiker, “Geography,” 151.
63.
El-Battahani , “Tribal,” 380.
64.
See the details in Daly , Darfur’s, 262.
65.
Daly, Darfur’s, 263.
66.
Daly, Darfur’s, 263.
67.
Daly , Darfur’s, 264.
68.
El-Battahani , “Tribal,” 397–398.
69.
El-Battahani, “Tribal,” 434.
70.
Mohamed Baraka Mohamed Nurain, “The Decline of Darfur,” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice 20 (2008): 194.
71.
El-Battahani , “Tribal,” 436.
72.
Musa A. Abdul-Jalil , Adam Azzain Mohammed, and Ahmed A. Yousuf, “Native Administration and Local Governance in Darfur: Past and Future,” in War in Darfur and the Search for Peace, ed. Alex de Waal (Global Equity Initiative: Harvard University, 2007), 51–52.
73.
El-Battahani, “Tribal,” 395.
74.
El-Battahani , “Tribal,” 396.
75.
El-Battahani, “Tribal,” 397.
76.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 86.
77.
El-Battahani , “Tribal,” 379.
78.
El-Battahani, “Tribal,” 393.
79.
El-Battahani, “Tribal,” 394. El-Battahani cites the Rezaigat and Zaghawa clashes as an example.
80.
Julie Flint and Alex de Waal , Darfur: A New History of a Long War (London: Zed Books, 2008), 161.
81.
Tubiana, Tanner, and Abdul-Jalil , Traditional, 60.
82.
El-Battahani , “Tribal,” 434.
83.
El-Battahani , “Tribal,” 434.
84.
El-Battahani, “Tribal,” 438–437.
85.
El-Battahani, “Tribal,” 438–440.
86.
Stefan Wolff, Ethnic Conflict: A Global Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 7.
87.
John Markakis , Ethiopia : The Last Two Frontiers (Oxford: James Currey, 2011), 350.
88.
Tsega Endalew, Conflict Resolution Through Cultural Tolerance: An Analysis of the Michu Institution in Metekel Region, Ethiopia (Addis Ababa : OSSREA, 2002) and Inter-Ethnic Relations on a Frontier: Matakkal (Ethiopia), 1898–1991 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2006).
89.
Markakis, Ethiopia , 352–353.
90.
Katja Kirchner, “Conflicts and Politics in the Tana Delta , Kenya . An Analysis of the 2012–2013 Clashes and the General and Presidential Elections 2013” (Master’s thesis, Universiteit Leiden, 2013), 125.
91.
Partly quoted in Flint and de Waal , Darfur, 158–159.
92.
Daly , Darfur’s Sorrow, 110.
93.
Flint and de Waal , Darfur, 159.
94.
Flint and de Waal, Darfur, 160.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA
Tsega Etefa

Authors

Tsega Etefa
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tsega Etefa .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Etefa, T. (2019). Tolerance Under Siege: African Principles of Conflict Resolution. In: The Origins of Ethnic Conflict in Africa. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10540-2_8

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10540-2_8
Published: 02 February 2019
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-10539-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-10540-2
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics