CONFLICT PREVENTION AND POST-CONFLICT
RECONSTRUCTION
THE CHANGING NATURE OF CONFLICT
9. Any analysis of the significance of conflict for
development must take account of the fact that its nature has
changed in recent years. The DFID memorandum makes this point
in the context of a discussion of post-conflict reconstruction,
"Without comprehensive programmes to support the transition
to civilian life ... ex-combatants can all too easily destabilise
a fragile peace - either by returning to armed combat, or by being
drawn into the world of violent crime. This is common in many
parts of the developing world. The result is often to blur the
distinction between war and peace, and between conflict and post-conflict.
For example, more people are being killed today in violent crime
in El Salvador than were killed in the height of the civil war
in the early 1980s".[4]
There is a continuum now in the developing world between political
conflict and violent crime, the ready flows of small arms fuelling
both forms of violence and both forms of violence having a harmful
effect on prospects for development.[5]
10. Many witnesses emphasised the way conflict had
moved away from the formalities of declaration of war, ceasefire,
the negotiation of peace. Perhaps the most striking evidence of
this "is that armed conflicts within states substantially
outnumber wars between states".[6]
International Alert summarised:
"Over the last 20 years,
the nature and characteristics of contemporary conflicts have
been transformed. As inter-state wars have declined in number,
identity/ethnicity based internal conflicts have emerged to replace
them as the primary threat to the developing world. In many ways,
the effects of these new conflicts are even more devastating than
in the case of traditional cross-border wars. They strike at the
heart of a nation's social fabric not only threatening its political
and economic development but more importantly laying the foundations
for years of hatred and mistrust between its peoples. In such
conflicts, violence against civilians is now the norm not the
exception and the threat of widespread killing, rape and child
exploitation is leading to massive population displacements, regional
instability and disruption to long-established patterns of economic,
social and political relations. The consequences of such complete
societal breakdown for overall development objectives are enormous.
The collapse of state structures leads to the criminalisation
of the economy, the privatisation of violence and a continuing
climate of insecurity which prevents sustainable development".[7]
11. This 'internalising' of conflict relates to the
phenomenon of state collapse. Dr Karen von Hippel from the Centre
for Defence Studies, Kings College London, defined state collapse
as "when public institutions, legitimate authority, law and
political order (including the police and judiciary) disintegrate,
and most states are either destroyed or stolen".[8]
She writes that "The recent increase in state collapse has
been a by-product of the end of the Cold War. The majority of
these states can be found in Africa, where one-third of the total
number of states have experienced collapse or are threatened ...
The only major difference between a collapsed and a collapsing
state is that in the latter, the government still controls the
capital city, and therefore maintains some control over the economy
and security. When the state finally collapses, chaos engulfs
the capital city as well, and aid agencies and foreign agencies
withdraw".[9]
12. As was stated above, not only is most political
conflict now within states rather than between them, the states
affected are predominantly poor. The Secretary of State explained,
"There has been a big shift in the nature of war since the
end of the Cold War. The tensions were in very poor countries
before but the Cold War paralysed everything and stopped conflict
breaking out as much. Now, predominantly, war is breaking out
within the poorest countries, not between them".[10]
13. Conflict in the modern world disproportionately
affects poor countries. It also affects most severely the poor
and the vulnerable in those poor countries. The DFID memorandum
states, "Poor people are also the most frequent victims of
war and conflict ... most of those killed in such conflicts are
civilians. Children, women and the elderly are 10 times more likely
to be the victims of armed conflict than soldiers".[11]
The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) claims that since the
end of the Cold War "over a million people have been killed
in violent conflicts, while tens of millions have been forced
to flee from their homes ... Most of the casualties of these conflicts
have been civilians. In some conflicts, it has been harder to
distinguish between combatant and non-combatant: uniforms are
not worn; there may be no front-line; violence can be sporadic
and spread over a large area; and conflict may not be preceded
by any formal declaration of war".[12]
14. What some have called the "privatisation
of violence" results in a failure to distinguish between
combatant and non-combatant. Once that distinction is lost, it
is inevitably the most vulnerable who suffer most. We will discuss
the disproportionate effect of conflict on women in our forthcoming
Report on Women and Development. Evidence also identified the
severe harm done to children. Save The Children state that "In
the decade 1985 to 1995, two million children lost their lives
in conflict, 3.1 million children were separated from their parents
by conflict, and between four and five million children were disabled
or maimed by conflict ... The Graça Machel study on Children
and Conflict found that civilians, once five per cent of war casualties,
now comprise 90 per cent of all victims. Most are women and children.
In the past decade, according to the report, an estimated two
million children have been killed in armed conflict and three
times as many seriously injured or permanently disabled. These
estimates hide the large numbers of children whose deaths are
concealed or unrecorded".[13]
15. This description of the changing nature of conflict
must be qualified in two ways. The ODI "caution against over-generalisation
from a small number of cases. Conflicts and the context in which
they occur differ greatly. What may well work in one context may
actually be counterproductive in another context. Many countries
are affected by conflict and it would not be appropriate to develop
policies based solely on the lessons from one or two high-profile
cases".[14]
This important point underlines the need for conflict-sensitive
analyses in development work, a point to which we shall return.
16. ODI also adds a caveat to the general claim that
conflict is now mainly internal. John Borton accepted "that
captures an important part of the change but I think it would
be wrong to characterise conflicts as just being internal because
that tends to say 'well, it is an internal issue and we are not
engaged', whereas I think the international community is very
engaged in some contexts, perhaps less engaged in others. Trading
links, support for conflicts or particular warring factions from
neighbouring states or even from more northern rich states are
issues in conflicts that are often characterised as internal".[15]
Similarly, Dr Joanna Spear from the Centre for Defence Studies,
Kings College London, stressed that "the involvement of the
international community in the transfer of weapons, military aid
and the provision of training means that there is often a strong
international connection into what are presented as purely internal
conflicts".[16]
This Report will examine the involvement of the private sector
and of the arms trade in current conflicts.
4 Evidence p.5 Back
5
Q.77 Back
6
Evidence p.68 Back
7
Evidence p.74 Back
8
Evidence p.147 Back
9
Evidence p.147 Back
10
Q.592 Back
11
Evidence p.1 Back
12
Evidence p.174 Back
13
Evidence p.110 Back
14
Q.390 Back
15
Q.391 Back
16
Evidence p.127 Back
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