Causes Of Sub-Saharan Africa

In the second half of the twentieth-century, African countries were able to gain their independence and strive to create unified countries. However, many countries were plagued with civil wars and the issues left behind the colonial era. The adversities faced by these new African nations are at the hands of their old colonial powers and the neo-colonialism that has taken place. These new independent countries were left to unify their people of different backgrounds, create a strong government and economy, and leave the post-colonial legacy behind.

Liberia has continued to struggle with its internal battles stemming from corrupt and unjust governments and leaders. As stated in our readings, ( CW/Lesson 13 West Africa), large scale fighting has erupted as recent as the year 2000 over the fight for leadersip in this country. Groups such as LURD rebels have takn over many areas north and west of Liberia, MODEL rebels have cut off income from the south and east which is rich in timber, and the presidents own armed forces have treid to gain and keep control around the capital, Monrovia. The two rebel groups, LURD, and MODEL, now have two-thirds of the country under their control and own the majority of military power as well. This violence has also taken advantage of human rights by enlisting boys as young as ten years old to fight for these rebel groups.

  In Sub-Sahara Africa, during the last four decades thirty-five major armed conflicts have occurred, taking the lives of almost ten million people. There is a high correlation between the risk of conflict and a low ranking on the Human Development Index (HDI), due to the weak capacities and inability of these poor countries to guarantee the security of its citizens, rebellions and conflict have a high occurrence rate. United Nations has observed that conflicts

The continent of Africa has been exposed to countless of years of tragedy including forced slavery and colonialism. One of the most devastating hits to Africa is the civil war that occurred in Sierra Leone from 1991 to 2002. This country experienced a decade long war in an endeavor to achieve economic stability and a democratic political system for Sierra Leoneans. There are many facets that contributed to the warfare that occurred in the small nation, from the reason why the conflict started, the numerous participants and their affiliations, and cessation as well as the effects thereafter.

According to Collier and Hoeffer (2003), there are three major factors that depend on the primary commodity exports such as income per capita, rate of economic growth, and structure of the economy,” the higher the rate of primary commodities exports the higher the level of risk of conflict. Developing countries that are dependent on natural resources are more liable to terms of trade shocks, which lead to instability and dissatisfaction within the groups that suffer the shocks. Since natural resources are wealth and unevenly distributed causes the rebel groups ventures in various forms of extortion, exploitation, and trade of primary commodity. The best-known types of conflict are the diamond of Angola and Sierra Leone and various

When analyzing Frantz Fanon’s theory on violence, although captivating and provoking, I think of it not being completely applied in Africa. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the war-for-profit strategy is current and resulting in six million deaths, which are still rising because of a resource war. Continents

For example, scarce resources inflicted by either environmental exploitation, environmental privatization, or natural causes, can impoverish nations dependent on these resources—subjecting them to compensate by taking loans in order to afford the maintenance and importing of resources; in almost all cases, loans come attached with compounded interest, which can easily accumulate faster than the nation’s economic growth (Kennedy, 1995; Maltritz, 2010). The pressure placed on a nation unable to pay back its debts accordingly can result in economic depravation and the disruption of key social institutions, which in turn can elicit “deprivation” conflicts such as corruption, civil strife, and insurgency. For the impoverished nation’s citizens, the repercussions constitute rampant civil crime and violence; such was, and is still, the case for Africa and South America (Homer, 1994; Jackson, 1985). Poor populations suffer the most from scarcity induced crime since they are unable to buffer themselves as well as wealthier populations (Homer-Dixon, 1994); this fundamentally places them at a disadvantage, in which individuals inescapably accrue

The shining state of the African Continent was considered, at one point in time, to be the gem of West Africa. The nation was set up for success with its coastline, rain forest, clean water, arable lands, and gemstones. The state was originally created as a haven for freed slaves (hints the name of its capital, Freetown). To find out what went wrong one must ask certain questions. What is the relevant distribution of power? What are the most important types of power? Who are the significant actors? What are their interests relevant to the conflict? What are the areas of conflict? Are there potential areas of compromise? To understand these questions is to understand Sierra Leone.

Many of the armed conflicts in Africa take on two primary forms. Those that are stationary to a town or geographical region and those that are moving or roving (Beardsly & Lo, 2015). These conflicts can be further stratified into those that involve a political figure or a religious sect. Further, these conflicts must be fueled by money from an internal or external source and powered by arms from the same.

In early 1990, I was serving as United States Marine Security Guard at the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum Sudan during the destruction and fall of the Somali State in east Africa. Of course, history remembers the key figures involved from United States President to the warlord that controlled the country. The question to be asked, “Is how did this happen, and could it been avoid in the first place?” I would argue that International Monetary Funds (IMF) involvement in the early 1980’s set the groundwork and pattern of civil war that remains today.

During one April, not so long ago, the world sat back and watched as a turbulent political situation in central Africa turned into something the world will never be able to forget. 800,000 people murdered in just 100 days, 800,000 people needlessly slaughtered at the hands of extremists, 800,000 men, women, and children gone because of a more serious problem rooted in social prejudice and inequality, 800,000 killed in a genocide that the world could do nothing about until it was too late. Almost 50 years after the world pledged to never let

It is well known that there is widespread conflict, human rights violations and corruption in Africa. The international community has failed to act because they are not enabled with financial resources or the power to force sovereign nations to act in accordance with basic and universal civil rights. As a result, African citizens are suffering from the actions of the nations around the world and then are abandoned to help themselves. In East Africa, widespread drought and famine were preventable but ignored and starvation is wide spread in the region. Sierra Leone continues to fight conflicts after a civil war over the diamond industry, while children are employed by the government as soldiers. In Nigeria, already limited access to fresh

Because of the level of corruption of many African governments, the head of government often benefits greatly from these resources while the country’s citizens do not.

Ethnic conflict and civil war is a recurrent phenomena affecting many countries in Africa, and has been ignored, oversimplified and overlooked by majority of the Western world. Despite the decades of conflict, and loss of life, when the media does cover conflict in Africa, the damage has already been done. For an example, the awareness regarding the Rwandan Crisis was very delayed and action was taken too late, causing the deaths of thousands of lives.

All of the reviewed articles focused on the causes of Africa 's poverty. Dr. Houston (2009) pointed out that Africa has enormous amounts of minerals. Africa has world 's most bauxite, cobalt, industrial diamond, phosphate rock, platinum-group metals, vermiculite, and zirconium. Why can 't the Africans take advantage of these natural resources and increase the quality of life by utilizing and selling these precious minerals? It is the corrupted governments that prevent these minerals from being used by the Africans. All the authors agreed that in Africa, only the elite controls the resources. The upper-class people make profits from these resources, while the poor receive nothing. Also, many African countries are either going to wars or