Tag: Conflicts Resolution

The previous articles in the Social Development series demonstrated how each of the actors (policymakers, the media, the public and the academia) has a mutual influence on each of the other actors when it comes to agenda-setting on foreignconflict.

Once a conflict is ‘chosen’ as being important and requiring attention and resources, other actors of conflicts jump on in a sort of ‘bandwagon’ effect, so that soon all of the actors are talking about it. But certain key questions remain: who initially ‘chooses’ the conflict? Where does the spark come from? Which actors lead and which follow as the conflict goes global?

General Origin of Conflicts

Until the end of the Cold War, the answers to such questions were straightforward, the policymakers choose conflicts of interest, and they led all other actors. Today, with twenty-four-hour news, an ever more-powerful civil society, and an increasing number of actors taking an interest in foreign affairs, the answers may not be that simple.

In the 1990s a number of studies were conducted to examine the so-called ‘CNN effect‘, the notion that the media could lead policymakers to intervene in conflicts through emotive and sustained media coverage. International NGOs intervene with humanitarian aid in conflict situations, regardless of the policies of their home governments. In 2006, the general public in the West mobilised petitions and massive demonstrations to `Save Darfur’. More and more academics studying international affairs are moving in and out of the policymaking arenas.

Effect of political pressure

Yet despite these new developments, it would seem that the policymakers (as a group of actors) are still largely in control of the foreign policy agenda, and generally lead the others. They may have more pressure to contend with, but it is usually more a case of resisting or managing that pressure, or responding to pressure with token steps that don’t affect overall policy objectives, rather than following the lead of other actors.

Studies have shown that sustained media pressure can be effective in significantly altering government policies, but only if there is a lack of policy or clashes among policymakers, not if government policy is firm. Emotive media coverage could not push the USA to intervene in Rwanda or in Chechnya. Geopolitics and national interest controlled those decisions. The spark that initially leads to a conflict being noticed may appear to be media pressure or public pressure at first, but often that too is the result of the attention of sectors within the policymaking arena that sparks media interest, which in turn sparks the public interest.

This was seen in Somalia, where the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance in the USA used the media to draw attention to the crisis, which eventually snowballed into a ‘chosen’ crisis . Policymakers showed interest in Darfur before the media or the public became interested.

It cannot be denied, however, that once a conflict is sparked and the media, general public and NGOs begin to show a concentrated interest in it, policymakers are usually forced by this pressure to do something. Whether this is a token attempt to show the media and the public that they are doing something, or a more concerted intervention will depend on how much their national interest is affected, and how high the level of risk is in the proposed form of intervention.

In this article, we will see that, on the whole, conflict in Africa has marginalised by outside policymakers when compared to other conflicts in the world. Measures may be taken in response to conflict, but they almost invariably fall terribly short in terms of the scale (particularly in comparison with the needs) and the timeliness. In short responses have been too little, too late. Since the problematic intervention in Somalia in the early 1990s, a dominant theme (particularly emphasised by the USA) has been that there should be ‘African solutions for African problems’.

Diplomacy

Policymakers have the ability to influence conflict through diplomacy. They may ensure that attention is paid to a conflict, apply pressure on the parties involved, or bring the parties together in mediated peace negotiations.

Policymakers can draw attention to a conflict (even without engaging in other forms of concrete measures) through public statements. A look at the homepage of the US Department of State, for example, can give us an idea on what issues are important to that country. Under the heading of ‘Issues and Press’, links to conflicts and issues in Afghanistan, Darfur, Iran, Iraq, Middle East peace, and North Korea can be found (US State Department, December 2006).

The UN also displays links to prominent issues on its homepage. A check in May 2003 as well as in July 2006 found links to Iraq, the Mideast Roadmap and action against terrorism. We can also compare the number of statements released. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, for example, released 27 statements on the issue of the DRC between 2000 and 2006, while over the same period it released 214 statements on the issue of Palestine.

Applying pressure on parties to conflict (and much of other diplomacy) is usually not a transparent affair, and its success often depends on it being hidden from the public eye. For this reason, it is extremely difficult to determine to what extent policymakers have been involved in actively responding to conflict in Africa using these means.

We do know, however, that behind-the-scenes diplomacy by the USA was a major factor in the peace agreement over southern Sudan. In many ways, however, much of behind-the-scenes diplomacy appears to be aimed at protecting the interests of the outside state, rather than necessarily resolving the conflict. This can be seen in the French support for the Rwandan regime in the lead up to the genocide, and in the continued support by the US and the UK to Rwanda and Uganda as they invaded the DRC (Zaire) twice.

Outside involvement in bringing parties together in mediation attempts has been notably absent in Africa. The type of high-level mediation seen in the Middle East (at US Presidential level) and in the Balkans is not seen in Africa. Mediation by France in largely unsuccessful talks between the parties to conflict in Cote D’Ivoire in 2003 is one exception.

Those taking on the role of mediator in African conflicts are usually African, such former Botswana President Masire in the DRC, former Tanzanian President Nyerere and later former South African President Mandela in Burundi. Standing presidents from Nigeria, South Africa and Libya have also tried their hand at mediation. While such African initiatives are certainly to be welcomed, the ‘carrots and sticks’ that Western mediators can bring to bear in encouraging a settlement are considerably greater, provided that the interests of such mediators do not endanger the process.

Humanitarian Aid

Measuring humanitarian aid is not an easy task. Donors provide aid through many channels, and there is considerable controversy over what should be considered as humanitarian aid. Some countries, for example, include the costs for settling refugees in their own countries as foreign aid^., and in many aid projects, more than half of the allocated budget is for expatriate salaries and home country administration costs. It should also be noted that while it is indeed a response to conflict or other humanitarian disaster, humanitarian aid is typically not designed to resolve conflict, rather it is intended to alleviate the symptoms of conflict, namely suffering.

The Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP), by which the UN coordinates the humanitarian aid that is channelled through it and its agencies, is perhaps a good place to start an analysis. If we look at the top recipients of CAP aid in a single year in the period from 1993 to 2005, the top African entry is the Great Lakes region in 1995, at seventh place.

UN Security Council Decisions

As the main body charged with the maintenance of international peace and security, the decisions of the UN Security Council can also give us an insight into the how policymakers respond to conflict in Africa. As noted above, the Security Council is made up of 15 states (including the five permanent members and including 2 or 3 representatives from Africa) and their decisions are the result of compromise and power politics. It has been estimated that as much as 70 percent of the Council discussion is on conflicts occurring in Africa, but the output of work, or results, do not necessarily reflect this level of attention.

In the 1990s, for example 25 percent of presidential statements (agreed upon statements, not voted on) and 32 percent of resolutions (decisions adopted by voting) were pertaining to African issues. In fact, 19 percent of all resolutions adopted in the 1990s were on the subject of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. In the 1990s, the Council failed to adopt a single resolution on the conflict in Sudan. Timeliness is also an issue.

It adopted its first resolution six years after fighting broke out in Sierra Leone, two years after in Burundi, and eight months after in the DRC. Africa’s ‘share’ of resolutions increased after the 1990s, with Africa the subject of 45 percent of resolutions adopted from 2000 to 2005. It should be noted, however, that it is not simply the number of decisions that is important.

In fact, many resolutions are adopted simply to extend the mandate of a peacekeeping mission, others have been watered down through compromise, and others are adopted to give the impression of doing something, without deciding anything substantial. There is a large range in the quality of resolutions.

Furthermore, the lack of a resolution does not necessarily mean the lack of interest. An interested member of the Council (particularly a permanent member with veto power) may block a resolution to prevent Council involvement (Hawkins, 2004: 48-66). Perhaps a more important measure of engagement can be seen in the use of sanctions or intervention. This will be dealt with in the following sections.

Sanctions as response by policymakers

While there is an increasingly diverse range of targeted sanctions that can be applied as punishment for parties to conflict, where there is violence, perhaps one of the first measures that can be put in place is an arms embargo. Yet for most conflicts in Africa, arms embargoes have been very late in coming, if at all, often because one or more of the powerful members of the Security Council has an interest in assisting one of the parties, or because that member is the supplier of arms to those parties.

This appeared to be the problem in the adoption of an arms embargo against the DRC five years after the conflict started (even then Rwanda and Uganda were excluded from the embargo), and Ethiopia and Eritrea two years after. Interestingly, although the Council did not apply, sanctions to Sudan over its conflict, it quickly imposed sanctions when the government was suspected of harbouring terrorist suspects.

There have been, however, a number of positive examples, although late in coming. Sanctions isolating the rebel group in Angola appear to have had some effect in ending that conflict, and greater effort has been put into the use of sanctions in preventing trade in diamonds and other resources in funding conflict, prompted by fighting in Angola, the DRC and Sierra Leone. A number of sanctions regimes have been adopted since 2003, including the DRC, Liberia, Cote d’Ivoire and Sudan. It remains to be seen how effective these regimes will be in removing the incentive to use violence for profit.

Intervention

On the surface, it may appear that the outside world has attempted military intervention in many of Africa’s conflicts. UN peacekeeping forces were deployed to conflict zones in Sierra Leone, DRC, Liberia, Angola, Cote d’Ivoire and Burundi, among others. Looking at their mandates, most of these could be considered robust peacekeeping missions. There were also peace enforcement missions to Somalia, Rwanda and the DRC. Looking more closely, however, at issues such as force strength, timeliness and even logistics, it is clear that intervention inAfrican conflictshas also been a case of too little, too late.

The last time a strong outside force deployed in Africa for major peace enforcement operations was in Somalia in 1993. A raid by US forces during these operations went awry, resulting in a number of US casualties, and prompting an accelerated withdrawal from that country. This, together with the loss of 10 Belgian peacekeepers in the early days of the genocide in Rwanda, which prompted Belgian withdrawal from the mission, was a major factor in the strong reluctance of Western countries to involve their forces in Africa.

While African forces, namely the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) did attempt peace enforcement operations in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire, Western countries, for the most part, remained on the sidelines. There were exceptions, but the scale of the deployment in each case was low, the condition of their presence highly limited, and their deployment cautious.

The presence of a small number of UK forces did play a significant role in stabilising Sierra Leone, French forces were also used to protect the government in Cote d’Ivoire and a small European stop-gap force secured the town of Bunia in the DRC as UN peacekeeping forces were reinforced.

The number of troops deployed is also revealing when compared with deployments in other regions. The UN peacekeeping operation in the DRC is currently the largest in the world, at just over 18,000 as of 2006, but the DRC is roughly the same size as Western Europe, and although concentrated in the east of the country, the forces are thinly spread. UN-led peacekeeping operations are almost invariably comprised of troops from developing countries, and being dependent on the willingness of troop contributors, there is little choice otherwise.

Approximate current (end of 2006) troop levels in some other African peacekeeping operations are as follows: Liberia, 15,000, Sudan, 10,000, Cote d’Ivoire, 9,000 and Burundi, 2,000. Western countries, being highly conscious of the security of their own troops, on the other hand, do not deploy so thinly.

The following are some of the troop levels in previous conflicts in which Western countries deployed troops in stabilisation missions: Bosnia, 60,000, Kosovo, 50,900, Afghanistan, 30,000, Haiti, 20,000. All of these exceed any African mission, and most deployments were over an area a fraction of the size of the DRC.

It is not only the numbers that reveal the level of attention given to African conflicts. Timeliness is also an issue. Soon after the genocide broke out in Rwanda, the decision was made to withdraw the bulk of the troops, only reinforcing them and authorising a small French peace enforcement force after most of the killing had finished. Peacekeepers were years late in being deployed in Sierra Leone, Burundi and the DRC. Logistics in peacekeeping missions is always an issue.

Most troops from developing countries arrive without equipment or supplies, and even vehicles arrive without tools or spare parts. Necessary resources usually have to be cobbled together from various donors, and are usually insufficient. When the genocide struck in Rwanda, the peacekeepers had few working vehicles and enough ammunition for only a few minutes of fighting (Dallaire, 2004: 215)

We have seen in the previous articles that, like policymakers outside the continent, the role of media in reporting conflicts in Africa hasn’t been considerably significant. This seems to apply to even to certain media corporations within Africa. This topic aims to investigate why this is the case. Media agenda-setting is determined, to a certain extent, according to internal dynamics, but it is also subject to influences from other actors.

Internal Dynamics

Decision-making within the media needs to be viewed through the process known as ‘gatekeeping’. In a world overflowing with massive amounts of information, the difficulty in media decisions is not necessarily in finding adequate information, but perhaps more in filtering, selecting and making sense of it. ‘Gatekeepers’ do this at each step of news production, deciding which information to ‘let through the gate’.

Gatekeepinghappens when an editor or a producer decides to send a reporter to a particular country to cover a particular event, or to open a bureau and station a reporter permanently. Reporters gatekeep when they decide which information to include and exclude from their reports. Editors and producers again become gatekeepers when they decide which stories to include and exclude, and the order in which they are printed or broadcast.

So how do gatekeepers make these decisions? What rules do they follow, when deciding which foreign conflicts to report on, if any? Media gatekeepers may be guided by many considerations: at times they may feel the need to raise an issue that they think is important, or they may simply try to give the consumers what they think want.

Usually, decisions are made on ‘gut instinct’ developed through years of experience in what sells and what doesn’t, without confirming with their consumers each time. Some of the ‘rules’ that may affect the selection or rejection of a conflict may include the following: proximity (is it close to home?), timeliness (did it just happen?), prominence (are many people interested?), significance (how many people are affected?), novelty (is it unusual?), and emotive appeal (is there sadness or a thrill?).

Regarding conflict, a major concern is: does it involve our country’? Another question is: are other media corporations interested? A story in one newspaper on an event may attract others to cover it leading to a snowball effect, or ‘pack journalism’. Furthermore, by focusing on one particular conflict, editors and producers feel they can keep their audiences interested, tuning in again to see what has happened in that country. They can also keep costs down.

There are a number of other factors affecting the media industry that have had an impact on the selection of conflicts for coverage. During the Cold War, conflict was easily ‘framed’ within the context of the East versus West political climate. The nature and background of conflicts in the post-Cold War world appeared more complex without such a frame to easily define and categorise them, and so coverage of them simply declined.

Competition between media corporations has also increased over the past twenty years, meaning less profitability, and consequently the amount of funds available for information gathering has decreased. Media corporations appear to be closing down bureaus in Africa rather than expanding them.

Technological advances have also affected coverage. The development of satellite phones and satellite video links has meant that reporters can increasingly report live from the field (which adds to the appeal of news), but the increased spending on such technology leaves less budget for news gathering. On top of this, the preference for live reporting and `fresh’ news means that unless reporters are on the ground and able to report live, a story is unlikely to be broadcast.

Logistical difficulties in manyAfrican conflictzones mean the events are less likely to be chosen. Danger for reporters in covering conflicts is also given as reason, though not very convincingly, Iraq is one of the most dangerous places for Western journalist, yet coverage of that conflict is high.

All in all, considering the issue of competition and technological advances, the priorities have shifted from news gathering to news packaging and presentation. Sensationalism thus becomes another key factor in the selection of conflict. While conflict in the DRC may have difficulty in receiving coverage, a volcanic explosion, or a plane door coming off in mid-flight in the same country, are likely to be covered or at least mentioned.

One of the major factors behind the Western domination of news and the increasingly assimilated news agendas is the concentration of ownership of the media. Approximately 90 percent of the media is controlled by one individual in Italy (the former prime minister), while in Turkey 60 percent of ‘media is controlled by two corporations. Global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has 175 editors working for him across the world.

Western domination and assimilation are ensured in the media industry because, with few exceptions, it is only the Western corporations who have the budget to enable them a global reach in information gathering. The majority of media corporations in developing countries simply cannot afford to station reporters outside their borders for any length of time. Foreign news in Zambia’s The Post, or ZNBC comes almost exclusively from external (usually Western) sources. News on Angola, for example, is not gathered by Zambian journalists, but is bought from a Western wire service or from the BBC.

Due to these factors, much of conflict coverage throughout the world is Western-centric. This is compounded by the fact that Western media corporations themselves are largely dominated by white people. Non-whites make up approximately 30 percent of the population, but less than 12 percent of the newsrooms in the USA.

Ethnic minorities are almost completely absent from French media, and former BBC Director-General publicly admitted in 2001 that BBC was “hideously white”, with the 98 percent of the management structure being white (BBC Scotland, 2001). Domination by a white media primarily for white audiences may be a major factor some of the selection of conflicts, explaining why in 2000, for example, violence against a relatively small number of white farmers in Zimbabwe was given greater coverage on CNN than was the DRC conflict (black on black violence), although admittedly there was little coverage on either.

Policymaker Influence

Policymakers appear to have a considerable influence on the media, to the extent that the policymakers are seen in a number of studies as the major players in determining the media agenda. This influence is manifested in a number of ways. As noted above, competition and expensive new technologies are reducing the budget available for news gathering in foreign conflict zones.

Taking advantage of government sources (instead of going to the actual scene of the events), much of the reporting on foreign affairs p” general takes place in the domestic capitals where media corporations are based. This, of course, reduces the costs of reporting on conflicts, but it also adds perceived credibility to the story (the media cannot be held responsible for errors made by their government sources).

The use of government sources and government perspective is not simply a matter of cost-cutting and credibility, though. Journalists are accustomed to looking at foreign conflicts from the perspective of their own country, and how that conflict may affect their country and people and their interests, partly out of patriotic sentiment and partly as a means of helping their local audience to identify with and feel concerned about that conflict.

But it is not only active probing by the media of government officials that results in policymaker influence. Policymakers actively take advantage of the media to propel their own agendas. When the media ‘detect’ a rising conflict, it may be because policymakers (whether at an executive level, legislative level or at a departmental level such as humanitarian aid agency bureaucracy), seeing the conflict as an issue of importance, have attempted to raise its profile by co-opting the media.

They may use the media as a tool to raise a particular conflict’s position on the public agenda, sparking pressure from that quarter, or they may use the media to speak to other elites, to convince other departments, ministries or political actors of the importance of the conflict. They may even hire public relations firms to produce and distribute press kits on certain issues, and encourage the media to accompany them on fact-finding missions.

On a more sinister note, policymakers can use a number of techniques to prevent media activity on issues that they want to keep out of the spotlight. They may release, or ‘leak’ information of importance on another matter to push a particular issue off the front pages of the newspapers.

They may also exclude certain journalists from their circle of information for reporting on a particular issue or in a certain way that is damaging to their interests (or reward journalists with information who are supportive of them). They may also organise ‘flak’, a campaign involving numerous calls or letters to complain to a media corporation about certain news coverage. In conflict zones in which the military of a country are involved, they may control access to information by restricting access to the actual battlefield, or instead placing journalists within their own military units as ’embeds’.

Public Influence

Media corporations (with some exceptions) are essentially businesses that aim at making profits through sales of their product (the news) and of advertising. To a certain extent this makes them accountable to their customers. The media are particularly interested in satisfying those customers with considerable buying power, usually the advertisers. This gives advertisers considerable power over the programming of both print and broadcast media. Advertisers are generally wary of disturbing complexities that will interfere with the buying mood (Herman and Chomsky, 1994: 14-18).

Satisfying their other customers (the readers and viewers) also means keeping coverage of foreign conflicts simple and easy to understand, as well as generally keeping them interested so that they will continue reading or watching their product the following day. Such influences are likely a major factor in the tendency of the media to focus on a single conflict at a time, and to package their news in a morality play format that is emotive and designed to evoke sympathy for the victims and anger for those perceived to be the perpetrators.

Conflicts that cannot be easily framed in such simple terms with a ‘good guy’ and a ‘bad guy’ are likely to be dismissed and not covered. The media may also perceive that the public is becoming disinterested or fatigued by extensive coverage of a particular conflict and that conflict will also fade away from the spotlight. Such views may be misplaced, editors and producers may make less than accurate assumptions about the mood of their customers, but consideration of the perceived satisfaction of the customer gives the public influence over the media agenda.

Other actors from the public realm can influence the media in different ways. NGOs active in humanitarian aid in a conflict zone may attempt to use the media to draw attention to that conflict, out of concern for the lack of attention given to that conflict, but often also to appeal to the general public to donate funds to their organisation and cause.

They may even exaggerate the magnitude of the crisis and inflate the numbers in their needs assessments in order to draw greater media attention to that crisis. Celebrities or other individuals moved by the plight of people suffering as a result of a conflict may also champion the cause of a neglected conflict, using the media to draw attention to the issue and encourage action, through visits, demonstrations or interviews.