Anyone know of examples of colonial partitioning of states in Africa leading to wars?

parc

...like when the British separated India from Pakistan when the granted independence to it.

I know that it led to a serious amount of conflict, still apparent today

Are there any African nations like that?

InTheTrees

parc wrote: »

...like when the British separated India from Pakistan when the granted independence to it.
I know that it led to a serious amount of conflict, still apparent today

If they hadnt seperated Pakistan from Inida there would have been an endless war as muslim pakistan fought for independance from Hindu India.

Or maybe I'm just repeating the (skewed) British History i was taught at school, but I dont think its right to say that that particular partition created the violence is it?

Reekwind

Can't think of any examples of partition in Africa. Generally the trend tended to be in the opposite direction - lumping peoples and areas into new unitary states that had not previously existed. The result was often just as bloody

Edit: I'm assuming that you're not including Palestine and the Middle East?

InTheTrees wrote: »

Or maybe I'm just repeating the (skewed) British History i was taught at school, but I dont think its right to say that that particular partition created the violence is it?

A million dead and several million more refugees might disagree with that assessment. Certainly there can be little doubt that the implementation of the partition was disgracefully botched and contributed significantly to the chaos

But then the very assumption that there would have inevitably been a sectarian war is questionable at best. Partition only became a firm Muslim demand relatively late in the game and even this could have been overcome or prevented through more skilful British management. The other parties should not be absolved of blame (particularly Jinnah) but it was the British authorities who were ultimately responsible for the situation and the ensuring tragedy. Unfortunately, as in Ireland, they proved all too willing to pander to sectarian leaders

If they hadnt seperated Pakistan from Inida there would have been an endless war as muslim pakistan fought for independance from Hindu India

How unlike the historical record of Pakistan-India relations...

jonniebgood1

parc wrote: »

...like when the British separated India from Pakistan when the granted independence to it.

I know that it led to a serious amount of conflict, still apparent today

Are there any African nations like that?

The situation in Africa is different. Most of the borders established by colonial countries meant that the states created included many diferent ethnic groups. They usually even have their own launguage- for example there are hundreds of different launguages in Nigeria. Thus when granting independence they left countries united in uncomfortable partnerships. Usually this means that the biggest ethnic group or a combination of groups takes control and leads to alot of the wars that are all to common in Africa.

parc

Thanks for the feedback

The partitioning in India supposedly led to migration of 12 million across the boarder I think, right?

As in the case of Africa, can you give me some examples of lumping in to ethnicities into one nation? If I'm not mistaken, Sudan is one? The Muslims in the North oppress the black non-Muslims in the south right?

Anymore examples would be great

steve9859

Tsutsi's and hutu's in Rwanda would probably be one of the most well known. Back in the day, the ruling Belgians put the minority tsutsi's in charge, and when they left it all kicked off. The conflict escalated in the 1990s and the death toll was just short of a million I think. Puts our 6 county issue into perspective!!

Reekwind

parc wrote: »

As in the case of Africa, can you give me some examples of lumping in to ethnicities into one nation? If I'm not mistaken, Sudan is one? The Muslims in the North oppress the black non-Muslims in the south right?

Sudan is a slightly odd example in that it involves both Egyptian and Ethiopian expansion as well as Western meddling. It more came into being as an independent state more by accident than design. That said, the British did exacerbate the north-south divide

Typical examples of artificial states would be Nigeria (with its particularly pronounced north-south division), Zaire (multiple regions thrown together in one massive landgrab) and S Africa (different in that it was a combination of settler states). But almost every colonial state (outside of N Africa) was thrown together without any regard to the wishes or identities of its inhabitants. This wasn't necessarily a problem in itself - its often forgotten that Europe before, say, 1800 was a not dissimilar patchwork of regional identities - but when combined with other colonial legacies, most obviously economic ruin and 'divide and rule' tactics, its contributed to the chronic destabilisation of the continent since

I do want to emphasise the last point. People make a lot of it but Africa's problems (with the odd exception) don't stem from arbitrary borders; they're primarily a product of what was going on inside those borders during the colonial years

Edit:

steve9859 wrote:

Tsutsi's and hutu's in Rwanda would probably be one of the most well known

While divide and rule was a depressingly common tactic in Africa, the whole sordid affair around the Belgian withdrawal from the Congo (with Belgian state and commercial interests actively encouraging separatist rebels in Katanga) can probably be viewed as a particularly bloody attempted and underhand form of partition

parc

Cool, anyone know of any books that deal with these colonial nations and boundaries in the developing world?

charlemont

Burkino Faso's borders are messy too, lots of Cote D'Ivore's people are of the same ethnicity as those in Burkino Faso and that has something to do with the recent trouble.
Nigeria has also 3 main ethnic groups who do a lot of arguing, The Biafra war was in Nigeria too.

jonniebgood1

parc wrote: »

Cool, anyone know of any books that deal with these colonial nations and boundaries in the developing world?

Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles by Richard Dowden http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=africa

This is a decent read. It deals on a country by country basis. A hard read straight through as alot of the problems are repeated over and over in each country. The author has a good understanding of the continent in a non patronising way.

purplepanda

Didn't Biafra try to breakaway from Nigeria? Seem to remember that from my schooldays watching the news:D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biafra

EDIT Oil was a major issue of the conflict, why am I not surprised?

parc

Good stuff they'll come in handy