Beyond service delivery, refugee-led organizations are increasingly involved in advocacy yet the current set-up within the field of humanitarian governance continues to relegate them to the role of mere beneficiaries.
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Ever since it appeared in the epigraph of Edward Said’s influential critique of Western “experts”, Orientalism, Marx’s dismissal of the French peasantry has come to stand for everything wrong with a certain type of condescending political crusade: elites speaking on behalf of groups viewed as incapable of articulating their own interests.
Commonly known in the humanitarian world as “saviourism”, this patronizing tendency is entrenched within the field of displacement governance, where highly placed individuals employed by donor agencies regularly devise policies on behalf of downtrodden communities whose circumstances are remote from their own.
The dramatic rise to prominence of RLOs (Refugee-led Organizations) presents an important challenge to the paternalism of this order.
Within a short space of time since 2018 when an historic summit in Geneva was convened by refugee leaders from across the world, demands for “a seat at the table” have been recognized at the highest level. In 2019, the UN invited RLO representatives to its own Global Refugee Forum. In 2020, Canada announced an advisory role for a former refugee to observe its international protection meetings; Germany and the USA have since followed suit, underlining the growing acknowledgement of the legitimacy and significance of refugee leadership.
On the surface, these developments would seem to suggest the RLO phenomenon is a rare example of successful “localization”—the transfer of resources and decision-making power to stake-holding communities.
Yet little is known about the regional trajectories of RLOs. This despite the fact that local (or “glocal”) actors in the Global South laid the foundations for the aforementioned developments on the world stage. Without data on the impact of RLOs in camps, settlements and cities where their most important work takes place, their contributions and the obstacles they face remain poorly understood.
Having worked for an international organization as a migration specialist in Kenya and visited Uganda, I’m struck by the vibrancy of RLO mobilization in both countries, as well as the persistent challenges they face. Their successes and their struggles reflect the specificities of displacement governance in East Africa and the surrounding regions—the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa. Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda each host some of the largest refugee populations in the world. Conditions and regulatory frameworks vary and are far from perfect for RLOs in these countries. For the most part, however, they shoulder their “burdens” without succumbing to the anti-immigrant xenophobia rife in more affluent nations. Presidents Museveni of Uganda and Kagame of Rwanda each have lived experience of exile, a fact that reflects a certain acceptance of displacement as a mundane reality rather than an alarming aberration.
This context has important implications for the political agency of refugees. For whilst their participation in public life remains limited and is at times curtailed, RLOs in this region are particularly dynamic and advanced. It is no coincidence that Ugandan RLOs, where refugees enjoy freedom of mobility and association, have played a leading role in the movement for refugee participation in Africa. Studies have identified between 20 and 30 such groups operating in Kampala, home to some 80,000 refugees. The precise number is difficult to ascertain given that RLOs vary in size and visibility.
Defined loosely as organizations established and led by refugees, RLOs include well-established NGOs with transnational networks, funding partnerships and global profiles such as HOCW (Hope of Children and Women Victims of Violence), whose capacious premises in Kampala are not so different from the national or indeed international NGO offices that I have visited in Asia and Africa.
It is no coincidence that Ugandan RLOs, where refugees enjoy freedom of mobility and association, have played a leading role in the movement for refugee participation in Africa.
At the other end of the spectrum, RLOs can be small, informal, community-based “self-help” groups that operate without donor funding or formal membership. Between these two poles are medium-sized operations that lack substantial funding but are registered and possess formal membership structures.
A recent study by refugee researchers, which identified 63 RLOs in Uganda and 138 in Kenya, claimed beneficiaries report positive experiences with RLOs because they treat them with greater dignity and understanding of their needs than larger humanitarian agencies. Service delivery is adapted to local conditions and as a result, targeted towards the needs of groups and individuals. It also tends to be less bound by bureaucratic rules, reaching the newly arrived who lack documentation—often the most vulnerable.
More than mere service-delivery, RLOs are increasingly engaged in advocacy. HOCW’s Congolese founder, John Bolingo Ntahira, contributed to the inaugural Global Refugee Summit in 2018, and remains on the Global Refugee Network’s steering committee, underlining East African RLOs’ pivotal role in driving the international movement for refugee representation in policy-making.
Together with a handful of other pioneering RLO leaders, Bolingo set up RELON (Refugee-Led Organizations Network) in 2017, a network headquartered in Kampala that has branched out into other African countries.
Expanding through international gatherings and leveraging connections in the African Union are high priorities for RELON, which is keen to develop a continental voice. It has campaigned successfully in host countries on issues such as refugees’ access to vaccines, travel documents, and the registration of SIM cards.
This penchant for building solidarities across borders and working at multiple scales of governance holds the key to the innovative potential of RLOs. As transnational actors with diasporic links and cosmopolitan sensibilities, refugee leaders I met are well-travelled, well-networked and inclined towards Pan-African solutions. Unlike many career diplomats who might claim the same, the continental coalitions they build are comprised of people with lived experience of the challenges faced in exile—individuals like Bolingo who shared a home with 70 compatriots in an old bus converted into a make-shift shelter in the early 2000s.
This penchant for building solidarities across borders and working at multiple scales of governance holds the key to the innovative potential of RLOs.
Who better to address the interests of displaced persons than men and women who have themselves experienced or witnessed mortal threats, precarious border-crossings and destitution first-hand, and who still dwell among refugee communities?
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The UNHCR has taken various strides toward enabling meaningful RLO participation, such as issuing innovation awards to RLOs for their work during the pandemic and piloting small grants. More generally, the working relationship between RLOs and big players within the international humanitarian order expands daily with new initiatives documented on social media amidst smiles and handshakes. The former wish to project themselves as legitimate actors on the world stage, in close proximity to the latter, who in turn find it increasingly incumbent upon them to demonstrate awareness of the importance of RLOs.
Yet, beneath the surface of these exchanges lies a simmering tension. Several refugee leaders I interviewed made allegations of bad faith against powerbrokers in the humanitarian field, accusing them of condescension and placing obstacles in their path: actively undermining their access to funding and/or oppressively “micro-managing” them in exploitative unequal “partnerships”, and excluding and patronizing them at every turn.
“Our ‘big brothers’ don’t want to recognize us,” said a key figure in Kenya bitterly. He is convinced that those who currently control the purse strings “fear” losing privileged positions over organizations such as his own. Others who stopped short of explicit accusation made their sentiments known through body language: brows furrowed, jaws clenched at the mere mention of the behemothic agencies, donors and organizations that comprise the humanitarian establishment.
A 2020 article by Oxford researchers lifts the lid on the history of this encounter with sordid allegations against at least one UNHCR IP (Implementing Partner), InterAid, which stands accused of setting up a fake CBO (Refugee Now) run by its own staff to create false evidence of “community” engagement. If the truth of such matters is difficult to verify, their legacy of mistrust and grievance is clear.
At a conference on localization last March in Nairobi during NGO week, refugee leaders and their allies lamented the lack of structural transformation when it comes to funding flows and decision-making in the humanitarian field. Attendees and speakers included Jean Marie Ishimwe, founder of Youth Voices Community, a Kenyan RLO, and INGOs such as Trócaire, an Irish charity committed to localization.
Frustration that growing RLO visibility during the pandemic has failed to alter mind-sets and bottom lines when it comes to partnerships and budgets was palpable. RLOs complained of being instrumentalized or ignored altogether by most big donor agencies and their IPs. Too often, they said, “inclusion” takes the form of tokenism: invitations to participate in activities typically expect them to mobilize their communities for the realization of projects that have already been designed. Offers of “capacity-building”, meanwhile, rarely consider the pedagogical potential of RLOs, whose local knowledge and lived experience of displacement is often lacking among so many of their expat counterparts employed by international and national NGOs. They lamented the lack of multi-year funding for the development of their administrative capacity, a gap that leaves them unable to hire or retain qualified professionals that might boost their ability to attract funding independently, reinforcing their dependency on larger organizations.
Frustration that growing RLO visibility during the pandemic has failed to alter mind-sets and bottom lines when it comes to partnerships and budgets was palpable.
None of this will surprise observers of localization given the almost complete failure to implement the “Grand Bargain” of 2016, which promised to funnel a quarter of humanitarian funds directly to national and local actors within the field of humanitarian governance but delivered a mere 0.5 per cent of tracked funding in 2019.
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The hesitancy of large donors to fund RLOs stems at least in part from genuine constraints. RLOs, they say (in private), can be too small and unprofessional to manage and effectively spend large grants that require complex financial auditing. A related concern is the perception that RLOs are unstable given the changing personal trajectories of staff and/or founders, whose individual asylum and resettlement claims can mean suspending operations mid-way through funding cycles. Then there is concern about the potentially distortive impact of funding RLOs, whose ethnic, religious and/or national affiliations arguably make them unsuitable for serving broader, diverse refugee publics.
My own inquiries confirmed what researchers have already documented: that none of these charges should be dismissed, because each contains a grain of truth.
Most RLOs do begin as CBOs catering for specific ethnic and national groupings; oftentimes they possess limited administrative capacity. Those that do manage to grow in size and ambition do indeed tend to be headed by well-educated men. Moreover, it is not unknown for the personnel of RLOs to be resettled in the course of funding cycles. I also heard several references to “founder’s syndrome”, a psychological disorder among some egoistic individuals who struggle to detach their personal interests from those of the organization they have established.
In view of such challenges, some of the most enthusiastic supporters of refugee leadership are seeking to bridge the gap between RLOs and the powerbrokers that perpetuate their exclusion constructively.
COHERE, an INGO with offices in Kampala and Nairobi, has thrown its full weight behind putting refugee-led organizations “in the driving seat”. It does this through training and advice to RLOs on how to attract funds, how to implement and document project work effectively, and how to plan strategically in the longer term. If in its advocacy COHERE counters prejudice among RLO-sceptics, much of its daily work addresses donors’ concerns through corrective measures that acknowledge the need for work on all sides.
Some of the most enthusiastic supporters of refugee leadership are seeking to bridge the gap between RLOs and the powerbrokers that perpetuate their exclusion constructively.
Herein lies the difference between COHERE and reactionary big players dragging their feet on localization: Where the latter use RLOs’ weaknesses as justification to prolong a status quo in which the former can only ever be “beneficiaries”, tokens and symbols in projects they design themselves, the former view them as obstacles that can and must be removed to create a more level playing field.
A glimpse at COHERE’s network provides strong evidence of RLOs’ ability to grow and develop in ways critics seem reluctant to acknowledge. In Kampala, I visited Bondeko Refugee Livelihoods Centre, founded by a Congolese priest now resettled in Canada. Far from parochial, its young staff and membership was diverse in terms of gender and ethnicity: many of those it supports are from Burundi and Rwanda, and like many refugee businesses in Kampala, it even provides employment for Ugandan citizens. The founder’s resettlement seems not have had adverse consequences.
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As an expat employed by an international organization engaged in advocacy, refugee leaders’ critiques of the humanitarian sector’s paternalism can feel close to the bone. When they fume against the condescension of do-gooders who represent their interests without walking in their shoes, are they talking about me?
None of the refugee leaders I interviewed for this article said so (explicitly), and it would be easy enough to join them in pointing fingers elsewhere. More challenging than “speaking the truth to power”, however, is speaking it to oneself: to admit that the entrenched privilege they seek to dismantle includes my own.
To the legions of foreign “experts” whose postings in the Global South involve analysing, shaping or influencing policies that do not directly affect us, RLOs pose questions we should be asking ourselves everyday about our long-term presence and role in the Global South. Above all: What are we doing to devolve power and resources to present and future generations of stakeholders?
Signatories of the Charter 4 Change such as COHERE and Trócaire have committed to channelling a quarter of humanitarian funding directly to national and/or local NGOs. But many larger bureaucratized entities with decades of heritage and established identities have shown little urgency in adapting to a world in which refugees are partners rather than beneficiaries. Despite many words and some (limited) deeds, commitment to structural reform remains unproven and there is scant evidence of the soul-searching that should be taking place.
For African NGOs, a different kind of self-reflection may be required. Although “local” in terms of registration, these tend to be staffed by highly educated professionals hailing from host country elites, among whom lived experience of exile is rare. It is easier for them to attract donor funding than RLOs, which can cause resentment and rivalry. One refugee leader I interviewed seethed as he recounted rebuffing an invitation from a national NGO to participate in a project as a beneficiary: “We’ll get our own funding to work on this issue,” he scoffed, insisting he could have implemented the same project more effectively.
Devota Nuwe, acting Co-Director of The Refugee Law Project, a highly respected national NGO based in Kampala, has occasionally found herself on the receiving end of such sentiments in the course of her career as a displacement specialist. The kinds of remarks directed at her and her colleagues by individual refugee leaders aggrieved at salaried professionals whose job it is to support them suggest a frankness rarely directed against INGO workers. (“Those clothes you’re wearing, it’s because of us!”).
What such sentiment fails to acknowledge is that there are contexts in which refugees cannot easily represent themselves—in which they must be represented by non-refugees. Defending or appealing on their behalf in courts of law, for example, is specialized work that requires qualified professionals acquainted with the host country’s legal system and political context.
Perhaps this explains Nuwe’s relaxed attitude towards the rise of RLOs, whom she and her colleagues have welcomed into their industry, despite the occasional criticism that comes their way. “There’s room for all of us,” she chuckles, when I ask her if she ever gets anxious about the prospect of a competitive threat from individuals who openly tell her they should be in her place.
In truth, national NGOs that enjoy the trust of their stakeholders have nothing to fear from the rise of RLOs. The same can be said of INGOs already cooperating in partnerships with RLOs, in which each plays a distinct but complementary role to achieve common objectives.
In truth, national NGOs that enjoy the trust of their stakeholders have nothing to fear from the rise of RLOs.
Indeed, there is something to be said for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s oft-cited commitment to making humanitarian action “as local as possible, as international as necessary”. The trouble with the current setup is that it under-utilizes the potential of refugees, and is far more international than it needs to be. In the words of John Bolingo Ntahira: “No one understands refugees’ problems better than we do”. Those of us who profess expertise on displacement would do well to acknowledge this basic fact and its transformative potential.
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This article is part of a series on migration and displacement in and from Africa, co-produced by the Elephant and the Heinrich Boll Foundation’s African Migration Hub, which is housed at its new Horn of Africa Office in Nairobi.
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Ali Nobil Ahmad is a migration specialist at the Heinrich Boll Foundation’s Horn of Africa Office in Nairobi
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The longue duree of the conflict in the Southern Cameroons, the rise of the current Ambazonian movement, as well as the dismal prospects for conflict resolution.
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In power since 1982, Cameroon President Paul Biya has ruled autocratically for more than four decades. While Cameroon is officially bilingual, one manifestation of such authoritarian governance is the persistent marginalization of the minority English-speaking population in the Northwest and Southwest regions, the former British Southern Cameroons. Since 2016, in the face of state violence, peaceful protests by Anglophone groups have morphed into armed conflict in which separatist groups are fighting for an independent Republic of Ambazonia. In its sixth year, this hidden and neglected war has killed thousands and forcibly displaced more than one million people. Biya’s autocratic regime remains intent on a military solution to a political problem, uninterested in peace negotiations, and with little or no external pressure.
The colonial and post-colonial roots of this contemporary conflict are well-known to English-speaking Cameroonians. Originally a German colony (1884-1916) called Kamerun, after World War I, it was divided between France (80 percent) and Britain (20 percent), under League of Nations and then United Nations mandates. Britain subdivided its territory into Northern and Southern Cameroons and governed them as part of Nigeria. A botched reunification process occurred at independence in 1960 and 1961. French Cameroun and Nigeria gained their independence in January and October 1960 respectively. In February 1961, an UN-organized plebiscite was held to decide the future of Northern and Southern Cameroons, with the choice of joining either independent French Cameroun or Nigeria, but not independence as a separate state. Northern Cameroons voted to join Nigeria, while Southern Cameroons voted to join Cameroon. The terms of reunification between Southern Cameroons and French Cameroun were then agreed upon at the Foumban constitutional conference in July 1961, resulting in the Federal Republic of Cameroon, consisting of two federated states: West Cameroon (former Southern Cameroons) and East Cameroon (former French Cameroun).
The Federal Constitution came into effect in October 1961, with the federal system perceived to uphold the bi-cultural and bi-lingual nature of Cameroon within which the state of West Cameroon retained some autonomy, inclusive of separate governance structures and distinctive legal and educational institutions. However, federalism was short-lived, despite article 47 of the Constitution stating it to be “indissoluble.” In May 1972, President Ahmadou Ahidjo held a controversial national referendum that led to the abolition of the federal constitution and the creation of a unitary state called the United Republic of Cameroon. The 1972 referendum removed West Cameroon’s autonomous governance structures, most notably the West Cameroon House of Assembly.
In 1984 President Biya re-named the country, in French, as La Republique du Cameroun, returning to the name before reunification with Southern Cameroons. Writing in 1985, the barrister Fon Gorji Dinka described the 1972 referendum as a “constitutional coup” and the 1984 decree as an “act of secession” of La Republique du Cameroun from the 1961 union with Southern Cameroons. Current Anglophone separatist groups call themselves “restorationists,” fighting for the “restoration” of the state of Southern Cameroons or Ambazonia, and perceive this as an anti-colonial struggle given that British colonization was replaced by colonization by La Republique du Cameroun in 1961.
Although the current violence in Southern Cameroons is unprecedented, today’s conflict is a consequence of longstanding Anglophone grievances coupled with a strategy of “denial and repression” by the Francophone-dominated state towards Cameroon’s so-called Anglophone problem. Being Anglophone in Cameroon goes beyond language to encompass a cultural identity that has a history linked to Britain and a set of distinctive institutions. For decades, many Anglophones have felt that the Francophone-dominated state’s policy of assimilation has attempted to erode that identity, and feel treated as second-class citizens within Cameroon, with marginalization experienced in the socio-cultural, political, economic, and linguistic fields.
Anglophone opposition has risen at different times. In the early 1990s, political liberalization enabled Anglophone-specific trade unions, interest groups as well as political groups to emerge, advocating for Southern Cameroonian interests, notably the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC). Of particular note were the All-Anglophone Conferences (AACI and AACII) held in 1993 and 1994 and attended by more than 5,000 delegates from Anglophone organizations and associations. AACI’s Buea Declaration I called for a return to two-state federalism, but total disregard of such demands by Biya’s regime led to secession being placed on the agenda in the declaration from AACII. The aim was stated as “the restoration of the autonomy of the former Southern Cameroons which has been annexed by La République du Cameroun.” SCNC in particular advocated for secession, but notably by non-violent means through the “force of argument rather than the argument of force.”
These long-standing grievances re-emerged in late 2016 with peaceful protests by lawyers and teachers against the francophonization of the legal and educational systems in the English-speaking regions. Lawyers were unhappy about the appointment of French-speaking magistrates educated in civil law and unfamiliar with common law, as practiced in the Anglophone regions, while teachers were concerned about the influx of French-speaking teachers. Separately, they undertook strike action and demonstrated in October and November 2016 respectively. These peaceful protests were violently dispersed by the security forces using tear gas and bullets, with some fatalities and many arrests. Following this violence, the Cameroon Anglophone Civil Society Consortium (CACSC) was established, advocating a return to pre-1972 two-state federalism. CACSC initiated “Operation Ghost Towns Resistance,” with closures of schools and businesses in the Northwest and Southwest regions on selected days as a tactic of non-violent resistance. The government’s response in January 2017 was to ban the Consortium, along with SCNC, and arrest their leaders on treason and terrorism charges, as well as a three-month internet blackout. Writing in April 2017, sociologist Piet Konings and anthropologist Francis Nyamnjoh likened the Francophone-dominated state’s approach to Anglophone grievances to that “of a workman whose only tool is a hammer and to whom every problem is a nail.” One consequence was that separatist voices became stronger.
State repression of, first, legitimate expression of grievances and, second, peaceful advocacy of federalism, led to increasing calls for secession of Southern Cameroons. Following the banning orders, existing separatist organizations, largely active in the diaspora, came together to form the Southern Cameroons Ambazonia Consortium United Front (SCACUF), with Sisiku Julius Ayuk Tabe, previously involved in CACSC, appointed as chairperson. While advocating secession, his strategy remained non-violent, echoing SCNC’s position in the 1990s. Divisions shortly became apparent, however, with Ayaba Cho Lucas, leader of the Ambazonia Governing Council (AGC), one of SCACUF’s constituent organizations, advocating armed struggle.
While SCACUF’s leadership remained largely outside of Cameroon, notably in Nigeria, civil disobedience continued in the Northwest and Southwest during 2017 with widespread support for the weekly “Ghost Town” days. The state’s response was military occupation, with arbitrary arrests and detention of young men on the pretext of supporting secessionism. In response, the AGC announced the deployment of their armed wing, the Ambazonia Defence Forces (ADF), with the first attack on September 9, 2017 in which three soldiers were killed. On October 1, 2017, the anniversary of Southern Cameroons’ independence from Britain, the independent Republic of Ambazonia was declared by SCACUF, alongside mass demonstrations in which 17 people were killed by state security forces. The SCACUF transformed itself into the Interim Government of Ambazonia (IG) on October 31, with Ayuk Tabe as President. The state intensified its militarization of the Anglophone regions, and on November 30, 2017 President Biya declared war on the secessionists, described as “terrorists.” Armed conflict continues to date.
War causes misery. Over five years later, the impact on the four million population has been severe. While figures are approximate and underestimated, at least 6,000 people have been killed and hundreds of villages razed, with 1.1 million people displaced by 2020, including 70,000 registered refugees in Nigeria, and 2.2 million in need of humanitarian assistance. School closures have caused education disruption to hundreds of thousands of children for years. Gross human rights violations committed by both warring parties have been widely documented, including by the Cameroon-based Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa. The military is accused of extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, disappearances, unlawful imprisonment, torture, as well as the burning and destruction of homes, schools, and health centers. Armed separatist groups are accused of kidnappings and extortion of civilians, killings of alleged informants (so-called “blacklegs”), and beatings of teachers and students for non-compliance with the school boycott. Evidence indicates that the security forces are responsible for a greater proportion of the various atrocities, with the World Bank stating that government forces have caused 10 times as many civilian deaths as separatist armed groups. Rape and other forms of sexual violence have increased dramatically, described as “pervasive” and “rampant” in a UN report, and perpetuated with impunity by the military and non-state armed groups. As in other conflicts, rape has been used as a weapon of war, terrorizing local communities into submission and grossly violating women and girls.
The Cameroon government’s approach to the war was described recently as one of “hammer and lies,” in other words, military force alongside a disinformation campaign. The government continues to fight a counter-insurgency war, while simultaneously denying that a conflict exists, preferring to refer to a “security crisis” in the English-speaking regions, one which is largely resolved with a Presidential Plan of Reconstruction and Development in place from 2020. The lie to this is evident by Biya’s deployment of a new military commander and special elite forces to the two regions in September 2022. Essentially Biya seeks a military victory by crushing the separatists. But how strong is the Ambazonian movement and what threat does it entail to the Cameroonian state?
Like similar movements, the Ambazonian movement has political and military wings. Leaders of the political wing are mainly based in the diaspora or imprisoned in Cameroon, with significant divisions between them. The military forces, known locally as the “Amba Boys,” comprise up to 30 armed groups across the two regions. Initially, the main political split was between the Interim Government (IG) led by Ayuk Tabe and the Ambazonia Governing Council (AGC) led by Cho Lucas. However, in January 2018 Ayuk Tabe and nine other IG leaders were arrested in Nigeria and extradited to Cameroon. They were detained without trial, then all sentenced to life imprisonment by a military tribunal in August 2019. With Ayuk Tabe detained, US-based Samuel Ikome Sako was elected as interim IG president. However, infighting ensued with a split in early 2019 between “IG Sisiku” and “IG Sako.” Despite its initial rivalry with the Interim Government, the AGC supported the IG Sisiku faction and formalized cooperation ties in August 2019. In 2021, the AGC also formed an alliance with Biafran separatists in Nigeria, the Indigenous People of Biafra. Cho Lucas has also encouraged Francophone Cameroonian groups to take up arms against Biya’s regime.
Militarily, while the Ambazonia Defence Forces (ADF) remains the largest group, there is a proliferation of smaller armed groups, for instance, the Southern Cameroons Defence Forces (SOCADEF), Ambazonia Restoration Forces, Red Dragons, Tigers of Ambazonia, and Vipers, comprising around 4,000 fighters in total. Allegiance with the political factions varies, with Red Dragons and SOCADEF believed to be aligned with IG Sako, for instance, while other armed groups operate quite independently. Initially, equipment was rudimentary, including hunting rifles and machetes. But the armed groups’ combat strength has increased through the acquisition of more sophisticated weaponry, including improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and rocket launchers, with a greater intensity of operations. Precise figures are unknown, but both sides have lost considerable numbers of combatants.
The fragmentation of political leadership has led to disagreements and multiple policy directions. In response to the Swiss peace initiative, IG Sako formed the Ambazonia Coalition Team (ACT) in September 2019 to present a joint platform for negotiation. However, IG Sisiku refused to participate. Opposing policies over “lockdowns” (or “Ghost Towns”) and the so-called “liberation war tax” on civilians also indicate a lack of unity. The multiplicity of voices over policy directions is symptomatic of the disconnect between the diasporic leadership and their militias in Cameroon, with the absence of political authority on the ground.
While the war is unremitting and the government was forced to deploy special elite forces in September 2022 to bolster its counterinsurgency efforts, fragmentation and division amongst Ambazonian groups have weakened the movement.
As recently stated, the international response to the Cameroon Anglophone conflict has been “feeble.” with little or no pressure from Western governments and no political intervention from the AU or UN. Why is this? The Cameroon government’s “lies and disinformation” strategy has been relatively successful in hiding the reality of the war, and Western governments have prioritized economic and geo-strategic interests that require friendly relations with Biya’s regime. For the UK, for example, this included an off-shore natural gas deal in June 2018, and a UK-Cameroon Economic Partnership Agreement in April 2021. For France, its longstanding Françafrique policy prohibited criticism of the Cameroon government, evident in July 2022 when President Emmanuel Macron’s visit made no public reference to the Anglophone conflict. Stronger statements have come from the US Congress. House of Representatives’ Resolution 358 (July 2019) and Senate Resolution 684 (January 2021) which called for both warring parties to end all violence and pursue broad-based dialogue to resolve the conflict. However, neither congressional resolution has led to any significant action by the US government.
The African Union’s lack of response contrasts with the AU-led peace process in the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia, for instance. Cameroon’s membership of the AU’s Peace and Security Council has ensured its internal conflict has not been discussed. Similarly, successful lobbying by Cameroon’s diplomats has kept the conflict off the agenda of the UN Security Council.
More than forty years of autocratic and centralized rule under Paul Biya means that the Francophone-dominated state is intent on maintaining its control over Southern Cameroons, with little or no concession to Anglophone grievances, and currently unwavering from pursuing a military solution to a political problem, whatever the cost to the English-speaking population. The lack of international pressure has contributed to enabling the regime’s hard-line stance. However, the outlook of the Anglophone population would seem to have changed irrevocably. The unprecedented military occupation, repression, and violence from the Francophone-dominated state have given rise to a shift in consciousness. Although the desire for peace is profound, the political status quo is no longer tolerable. Any peace settlement will necessitate that the Anglophone population determines its future, for instance by means of an internationally-supervised referendum on constitutional arrangements, with options including federalism and independence.
If the decolonization process of the Southern Cameroons in 1960 and 1961 was botched and contravened the original UN Trusteeship Agreement, then decision-making on Southern Cameroons constitutional future has to be fully democratic some 60-plus years later.
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This post is from a partnership between Africa Is a Country and The Elephant. We will be publishing a series of posts from their site once a week.
The government’s failure to adopt a labour migration policy has left Kenyan migrant workers in the Gulf region open to abuse, torture and even death.
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Reports by various institutions including Parliament, the Ombudsman and NGOs have established that the Kenyan government’s failure to develop a comprehensive policy and legal framework continues to put at risk thousands of Kenyan migrant workers in the Middle East and especially in the Gulf.
There could be anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 Kenyan migrants in the Gulf countries. No one knows for sure as the Kenyan government doesn’t keep accurate records, though its estimates are at the lower end of the spectrum. Most are unskilled laborers, in sectors such as construction, hospitality and domestic work, and their numbers are expected to keep growing given the Gulf’s high demand for inexpensive foreign labour. Labour abuses in the region are widespread, systemic and deadly. And while the government has developed policies enabling Kenyans to seek employment abroad, it has been much slower to act to protect them once they are there, seemingly more interested in the remittances they send home rather than in their safety.
Concerns over the safety of workers, and especially the safety of domestic workers, in the Gulf and the Middle East in general are not new. In 2014, following the deaths of Kenyan workers and accusation of widespread abuses, the Kenya government suspended the export of workers to the region, revoking the licenses of 930 recruitment agencies involved in the trade. The ban was only rescinded in 2017 following the signing of bilateral labour agreements with Qatar and Saudi Arabia. However, the issues that had precipitated the ban, and the government inaction that had preceded it soon resurfaced.
At least 93 Kenyans died while working in the Middle East between 2019 and 2021, many of them in Saudi Arabia, the third largest source of remittances with Kenyans in that nation sending back KSh22.65 billion in the first eight months of 2022 alone. A study by the University of Chicago released in December 2021, whose findings reflect the experiences of Kenyans who had returned from the Gulf, found that “practically everyone heading to [Gulf Cooperation Council member states, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates]… would become a victim of forced labour at some point”. Over 98 percent of respondents claimed to have experienced some form of workplace abuse, or had been unable to leave an abusive employment situation. The abuses included physical violence, threats, restrictions on movement and communications, being forced to do something they did not want to do, denial of food and shelter, unfair and unsafe work environments, and deceptive contracts.
Parliament and other constitutional bodies have noted the absence of laws and regulations to secure the welfare of Kenyan labour migrants, and even recommended as recently as November last year, that labour migration to the Gulf be temporarily stopped until these are addressed. However, much of the focus has been on streamlining the system for recruitment and processing of migrants heading to the Gulf, rather than on fixing the conditions they face when they get there. For example, whilst the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Labour and Social Welfare, which visited the Middle East in April 2021, noted Kenya’s lack of a policy and a law to govern the migration process, its main thrust appears to be about reforms Kenya can make to make it easier for migrants to secure jobs. In its account of meetings with Saudi labour officials and employment agents, there is no mention of the deaths of Kenyans nor of the tribulations of those desperate to leave the Kingdom.
Still the committee recommended the immediate suspension of migration of domestic workers to Saudi Arabia until the Executive established the status of all domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and undertook a census of all Kenyans in Saudi prisons and detention centres with a view to their repatriation to Kenya. It also demanded the re-establishment of labour offices and safe houses in Jeddah and Riyadh, recognition of welfare associations in Saudi Arabia, and a review of the regulation of private employment agencies, including a minimum deposit to ensure swift repatriation of any domestic worker in distress.
Here there seems an implicit acceptance that Kenyans going to Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Gulf will be subjected to abuse and, rather than demand action from the governments in the region to stop it, the focus seems to be on mitigation. The aim seems to be enabling Kenyans navigate an abusive system rather than pressuring the Gulf states to end the abuses. Thus the report pushes for finalization of a labour migration policy and a Labour Migration Management Bill mooted in 2021, and notes that “labour migration to key labour destinations has been happening in the absence of formal agreement or MoUs. And where they exist, the agreements fall short of taking care of the interests of workers”. It stresses need to better regulate recruitment processes and recruitment agencies in Kenya, and to streamline pre-departure training for migrating workers as well as systems for their identification and registration on arrival. It also recommends improved linkages between relevant ministries in Kenya and those in destination countries. A September 2022 Report on Systemic Investigation into the Plight of Kenyan Migrant Domestic Workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the Commission on Administrative Justice (the Ombudsman) came to similar conclusions.
The Kenya and Saudi Arabia Bilateral Labour Agreement on the recruitment of domestic workers was adopted in January 2016 and was meant to secure the interests of both domestic workers and employers. While Kenya was tasked with ensuring proper documentation and screening of departing workers, Saudi Arabia was to take measures to ensure that the welfare and rights of employers and domestic workers employed in Saudi Arabia are promoted and protected in accordance with the applicable laws, rules and regulations.
The Saudi government was also to ensure implementation of the employment contract, provide 24-hour assistance to the domestic worker; endeavour to facilitate the expeditious settlement of any contractual dispute arising and ensure that workers are permitted to remit savings derived from their wages.
However, going by the number of abuses and deaths, Kenyan domestic workers have not benefited from the agreement, despite the Ministries of Labour of both countries being designated as the implementing agencies.
In its analysis of the level of implementation of the Bilateral Labour Agreement, the Ombudsman found that the two governments have not implemented many of the provisions. For instance, nearly 7 years after the adoption of the Agreement, the Joint Technical Committee has yet to be constituted and as a result, the required annual meetings have not taken place. Moreover, although the Commissioner of Labour told the Ombudsman that a review had been initiated, it has not been completed as required by law.
Within government, ministries have been passing the buck and it is unclear who between the Foreign Affairs and Labour ministries bears overall responsibility for the mess. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has told Parliament that it had in July 2021 written to the Ministry of Labour recommending a temporary ban on the recruitment and export of domestic workers to Saudi Arabia and describing the situation as “dire”. However, the Labour Ministry rejected the advisory, with then Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugui saying the local job market could not absorb all new workers. Chelugui’s comments appeared to prioritise the remittances from the Middle East, which at the time stood at KSh120 billion, at the expense of Kenyans’ safety and welfare in the Gulf states. ‘
“We will address the mistreatment of our people because from the statistics we have, about three to four per cent of Kenyans working in those countries are affected. Over 104,000 Kenyans are working in those countries who are doing their jobs happily,” Chelugui said, adding that there are “many social-economic benefits we gather from this migration”.
On the other hand, the advisory from the Foreign Affairs Ministry is an admission of the failure to implement the Diaspora Policy launched in 2014 which recognizes the constitutional imperative for government to protect citizens abroad, and requires it to develop a registry of Kenyans outside the country as well as review the 2007 Labour Institutions Act and gazette rules regulating operations of private employment agencies.
And while the Commissioner of Labour claims to have begun be reviewing the bilateral labour agreements, the senate in November was scheduled to debate a motion demanding the Foreign Ministry conduct the review.
The new Cabinet Secretaries for Labour and Foreign Affairs have committed to ending the problem once and for all. Dr Alfred Mutua chose Saudi Arabia as his first overseas trip as Foreign Affairs Cabinet Secretary, but again suggested the problems facing Kenyan migrants start back home in Kenya. Following meetings with victims, agents, and Kenyan and Saudi officials, he blamed “massive corruption in the way Kenyans are prepared before they leave to be domestic workers in Saudi Arabia and follow up of Kenyans when they arrive”. According to him, the behaviour of Kenyan “cartels” and agencies was a major concern to everyone, “including the Government of Saudi Arabia”. There was no mention of the seeming lack of prosecutions of Saudi employers who have abused and murdered dozens of Kenyan workers, or compensation for their families. Instead he promised the yet-to-be-formed Joint Technical Committee would start its work on November 17 to fast-track “labour issues”.
The Ombudsman highlighted the creation of the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration by an amendment of the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act of 1995 in a bid to improve the standard of protection and promotion of the welfare of migrant workers, their families and overseas Filipinos in distress. This is not to say that Filipinos do not face challenges in the Middle East; they do and in fact, in January 2018, former President Rodrigo Duterte threatened to ban labour migration to the Middle East.
However, the Filipino government has taken steps to engage directly with the governments in the Gulf region to protect its nationals. In May this year, Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr lauded the labour reforms in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia that protect Filipinos and encouraged other countries to follow suit. According to Philippines News Agency, the country collaborated with Bahrain in 2018 to provide flexible pathways to migration, leading to the issuance of flexible visas that regularized more than a thousand undocumented Filipinos. The government also invested some US$1.5 million to purchase flexi-visas for over a thousand Filipino migrant workers.
The Sri Lankan government has, for its part, developed a framework for labour migration that is enshrined in the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment Act, 1985. This was done through the creation of the Ministry of Foreign Employment Promotion and Welfare to articulate State Policy regarding Sri Lankan citizens employed in other countries.
However, any engagement with the Saudi and other Gulf governments must recognize that the abuse, rape and killing of Kenyan migrant workers is happening within their jurisdiction and largely with their acquiescence. Reforms to systems within Kenya that does nothing to address their failure to provide justice and redress, including domestic reforms to hold perpetrators to account, will not protect Kenyans travelling there. Especially given the desperation of Kenyans to secure jobs, and the legendary corruption of the state, it is likely that there will continue to be incentives for people to circumvent bans and sidestep regulations. Ultimately the problem is not in Kenya but in the Gulf where most of the abuse is allowed to take place within families and behind closed doors.
The impotence of the government was highlighted by former Labour CS Chelugui during his vetting to become Cooperatives minister: “It is an issue that has not satisfied us as a country. We’ve been told some of the victims were (. . .) in breach of the laws of that country, but we cannot confirm these explanations since I have no jurisdiction there,” he told the vetting committee after Deputy House Speaker Gladys Boss questioned why many migrant workers end up dead in Saudi Arabia. Appearing before the Labour Committee in November, his successor, Florence Bore, blamed “insufficient budget, lack of enabling legislation and inadequate labour personnel” for the failure to protect Kenyans working in the Middle East.
For his part, PS Kamau has termed Saudi traditions around housework “very ancient” and suggested that the problem was actually the Kenyan victims’ lack of subservience! The sentiment encapsulates the Kenya government’s reluctance to take on their Saudi counterparts. And Kenyans will continue to pay the price.
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This article is part of a series on migration and displacement in and from Africa, co-produced by the Elephant and the Heinrich Boll Foundation’s African Migration Hub, which is housed at its new Horn of Africa Office in Nairobi.
For the first time since its reformation in 1999, the East African Community is sending a regional force to the DRC. But can it win where others have failed?
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The M23 rebel group was formed in 2012 as an offspring of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP). The group’s reason to wage war against the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo is to protect the Congolese Tutsi and other ethnic communities in North and South Kivu from persecution and discrimination. After 10 years of inactivity, the M23 has once again become a thorn in the flesh of the DRC government—especially in the province of North Kivu—by conquering territories and displacing populations in the process. According to the United Nations, over 200,000 Internally Displaced Persons have been forced to flee since March 2022 when the latest flare-up began. On June 21, the East African Community Heads of State agreed to send the East African Community Joint Regional Force to the Democratic Republic of Congo to help quell the fighting sparked by the re-emergence of the M23 rebel group. This was formalised through a Status of Force Agreement (SOFA) signed on September 11 between DRC President Felix Tshisekedi and the EAC Secretary General Peter Mathuki.
The decision to set up the regional force is the first military deployment the EAC has undertaken since its reformation in 1999. According to the International Crisis Group, the initial plan indicated that the regional force would be made up of between 6,500 and 12,000 soldiers with a mandate to “contain, defeat and eradicate negative forces’’ in the eastern DRC. In addition, Kenya was to take the command role, to be stationed in Goma, North Kivu’s capital. The force would cover the four provinces of Haut-Uélé, Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu and the mandate was to last for an initial six months.
After months of uncertainty over the deployment of the regional force, on November 2nd 2022, Kenya became the first country to send troops to the DRC. This was followed by the announcement by Uganda and Burundi that they would be sending contingents. As the EAC deploys the force, reports on what exactly is the mandate of the regional force have been inconsistent. This being the first deployment by the EAC, its success and exit will rely heavily on the handover of responsibilities to an effective Armed Forces for the Democratic Republic of Congo (FARDC). With incomplete security sector reforms, the FARDC remains as politicised, divided, and ineffective as ever. Considering this reality, an improvement seems unlikely in the short-term while the EAC regional force is in place. Therefore, there is a likelihood that the EAC force may end up extending its stay much longer than the initial guidelines provided. This will not be a surprise; AMISOM’s mandate in Somalia was an initial 6 months to 2 years before handover to the UN.
Historically, the AU and UN military intervention missions have been involved in cyclical internal conflicts; MONUSCO in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and missions in South Sudan, Central Africa Republic, Somalia, and Mali come to mind. No matter how precise and effective the interventions have been, they have never been the magic wand to resolve the underlying internal political challenges. They tend to prolong their stay, a perfect case being MONUSCO which was first deployed in 1999 and is still in the DRC.
There is a likelihood of the troops engaging in illegal smuggling to ‘’pay themselves’’, ending up becoming part of the problem rather than the solution.
As the EAC regional force continues to take shape, there are multiple underlying and interconnected challenges facing eastern DRC today. First, the M23 group is not the only armed group that is fighting in that region. According to the Kivu Security Tracker Report of 2021, more than 120 armed groups operate in the entire eastern DRC— in parts of North Kivu, South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika. Generally, the conflict in the eastern DRC has been characterised by fragmentation among the rebel groups. Many of the groups identified by the KST report, have either been in existence for a long period or are splinter groups of the major groups. This makes it difficult to pinpoint the goals each group aims to achieve. More importantly, these armed groups are all driven by the need for survival which relies on extracting the rich mineral resources in the region and protecting their territories. Recent history has shown that outside intervention has been unsuccessful in addressing the security challenges and, therefore, the EAC regional force already has its work cut out.
Second, President Felix Tshisekedi has not given much needed attention and priority to the conflict in the east since coming to power. President Tshisekedi’s election remains contested, with allegations that it did not pass the democracy threshold test. His opponents believe that he was unduly announced as the winner due to the influence of former President Kabila. This has greatly contributed to his legitimacy being challenged and his influence reduced. As a result, his initial focus was geared towards managing the fledgling coalition he entered into with former President Joseph Kabila which ended up taking up much of his time. This might have distracted him from the much needed security sector reform. According to a January 2022 report by the Governance in Conflict Network, President Tshisekedi’s government has not undertaken a full and comprehensive security sector reform to improve capacity and efficiency.
This slow process of transforming the security sector is perhaps informed by the history that African presidents have with armies. As has been the norm, many African presidents have shown little interest in developing effective armies as they are viewed as potential threats to their hold on power. For instance, the 2013 peace deal signed between M23 and the Congolese authorities involved giving amnesty to the group members and reintegrating some of them into the FARDC. But President Tshisekedi never acted on the deal and according to reports, calls for talks have been ignored by Kinshasa. Faced with a re-election in 2023, is his inaction part of his strategy to get re-elected? Some analysts believe the current push to regionalise the conflict fits into the argument that whipping up nationalist sentiment is aimed at scoring political goals to gain legitimacy across the country. Thus, his recent focus and interest in the eastern DRC conflict may stem from the realisation that the elections are near and he needs an agenda around which to centre a rallying call for his campaign.
Third, the biggest elephant in the room remains the key objective of the EAC regional force being deployed to the eastern DRC. What are the key objectives of the countries that are contributing troops to the regional force? And what will be different from their previous involvement in the DRC? Each EAC member state has in one way or another deployed troops in the DRC. In 2021, President Tshisekedi granted Uganda authority to deploy its troops in Ituri and North Kivu. According to Kampala, the main aim of this deployment was to pursue the Allied Democratic Forces which were responsible for the increased bombings in Uganda. Along the same lines, President Tshisekedi allowed Burundi troops to enter the DRC to fight the RED-Tabara rebel group that is opposed to the Bujumbura government. In 2022, Kenya deployed around 200 soldiers to join MONUSCO under the Quick Reaction Force. Tanzania has its troops under the Force Intervention Brigade which is also part of the MONUSCO peacekeeping force. And finally, Rwanda has long held that the remnants of the 1994 genocide perpetrators, the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR), still pose an existential threat to Kigali and thus the need to always intervene.
Recent history has shown that outside intervention has been unsuccessful in addressing the security challenges.
Dr Colin Robinson, a researcher on African militaries, argues that the foreign military interventions being witnessed in the DRC are more for the deeply entangled and vested interests of neighbouring countries than for the citizens of the DRC. Dr Robinson asks, “What do Kenya, Burundi, Uganda, and Rwanda want to achieve?” According to him, part of the agenda is not so much to make the eastern DRC peaceful but is an opportunity for the neighbouring countries to gain better access to the DRC’s rich resources. He contends that the deployment alone will not address the security situation in the eastern DRC unless the FARDC is transformed, saying that, as currently constituted, the FARDC often behaves just like any other splinter rebel group, exploiting the mineral resources and incapable of protecting the DRC’s territorial integrity. However, he also believes that transforming the FARDC to effectively function does not guarantee peace as this might force the neighbouring countries to support rebel groups in order to continue benefitting from exploiting the resources in the DRC.
The EAC member states contributing troops to the regional force will need to harmonise their various interests if they intend to achieve their goals. Otherwise, they will be fighting their separate wars for their interests under the EAC banner. Despite the agreement having Kenya assume the command, the country’s late entry into the DRC makes it difficult to see how Kampala, Bujumbura, Kigali and the FARDC will allow a newcomer to take over influence. Another challenge that has not been factored in is whether command of the force will rotate among the member states or whether it will be drawn from the country contributing the largest number of troops. There is need to address some of these teething problems if the regional force is to achieve its mandate.
Fourth, there have been debates about where the funding for the EAC regional force will come from. The EAC is not known for robust and timely contributions towards the running of its operations. In a recent address to the Kenya Parliament, Defence Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale said that Kenya was to fund its contingent to the tune of KSh4.5 billion (approximately US$37 million) in the first six months. Kenya is the largest economy in the region and can to some extent afford to fund its adventure in the DRC. However, bearing in mind that it has another commitment of troops in Somalia, the country may need additional support from other partners like the EU and the US. There is a high possibility that some troop-contributing countries may struggle to fund their troops in the long run. The risk with this is that there is a likelihood of the troops engaging in illegal smuggling to ‘’pay themselves’’, ending up becoming part of the problem rather than the solution.
On a positive note, the M23 seems to have accepted the calls for a ceasefire from the heads of state mini-summit under the Luanda process. This was followed by the group requesting to speak to the EAC-appointed facilitator, former President Uhuru Kenyatta. This is a timely call that should not be ignored as it will avert the possibility of violent action in addressing the conflict.
The EAC is not known for robust and timely contributions towards the running of its operations.
Finally, the intervention of the regional force should not be an isolated act but should be accompanied by a political process. The continued isolation of the M23 from the peace talks negates the whole principle of inclusivity and if indeed the EAC wants to send a signal that it can justify why the DRC joining the EAC was the best idea, there is a need to be magnanimous and to involve all the belligerent forces in the conflict. The perception that the EAC is taking sides by selecting rebel groups to invite to the peace talks only contributes to the misinformation pervading the eastern DRC that it is simply a Trojan Horse for neighbouring states to exploit the country’s riches.
Overall, the EAC’s decision to set up a regional force to intervene in the eastern DRC is a positive sign that it is asserting its security role and slowly transforming itself from a purely economically-driven integration bloc. There is an emerging regional security complex in the East African region whereby an intractable conflict such as the one witnessed in the eastern DRC can engulf the entire region. However, to achieve the much needed stability, one hopes that the administration in Kinshasa is ready to first galvanise its authority by becoming ready to govern in partnership with different actors in DRC. Second, it must work together with the neighbouring states and other partners to address the proliferation of armed groups in the country. Renewed political agreement among these competing groups and Kinshasa’s willingness to work together with its neighbours could be the game changer.
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