LI YUAN

Recently social unrest has spread widely in Arab countries in North Africa and the Middle East, which led to military actions against the Libyan regime by NATO. In addition, under the support of the UN peacekeepers and French forces, the former president of Côte d'Ivoire was arrested and power transferred to the opposition. These events not only make people think about the underlying causes of Africa's current round of turmoil and its possible impact on the election year of 2011, but also make people reflect on the methods the international community should adopt to help African countries resolve the conflicts and problems. 

The turbulences that occurred in Africa after the Cold War are often related to election disputes. More prominent cases in recent years include: the social unrest in Kenya caused by the election dispute in early 2008; the fast change of regime in Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar resulting from election disputes between the opposition and the ruling party in March 2009; and the chaotic situation of "two leaders in one country" coupled with armed conflict in Côte d'Ivoire caused by the presidential election dispute at the end of 2010. On the surface, these conflicts occurred because the votes tally of the two sides was close and no party was prepared to give up power. Fraud and lack of transparency in elections also played a big role. But the deep-rooted reasons lie in the immature democratic development in Africa, the political mentality of "winner takes all," the graft of traditional tribal politics on to modern democratic politics.

But recent social unrest and the collapse of the governments in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Arab countries in North Africa were not directly caused by elections. Although the trigger of the social unrests in each country varies, they share some common causes including the economic downturn aggravated by the global financial crisis, the reduced quality of life, high unemployment rate, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, as well as some accumulative factors such as the leaders' long-term authoritarian ruling (Ben Ali ruled Tunisia for 23 years; Mubarak ruled Egypt for 30 years; Gadhafi was in power in Libya for over 41 years), nepotism, the rigid political system, and the corruption of the ruling class. Today, this political turmoil has spread to Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and other countries in the Middle East. Naturally, people are also concerned whether it will spread across the Sahara Desert to sub-Saharan Africa.

Although the Arab countries in North Africa and sub-Saharan African countries are located on the same continent, they vary a lot in terms of political ecology, religion, ethnicity, economic structure and education level. In particular, compared to the higher level of education and Internet penetration in the Arab countries in North Africa, sub-Saharan African countries lag far behind. In addition, after the Cold War, most sub-Saharan African countries are now democracies, and the long term rule by an individual or family only exists in few countries. 

Although the sub-Saharan region is far less affected than the Middle East, this does not indicate that the sub-Saharan countries have a natural immunity to the political instability of the Arab countries in North Africa. In fact, the French troops' involvement in the civil war of Côte d'Ivoire and the Western powers' bombing of Libya - the external military intervention in a country's internal conflict, and the practice of supporting one group and attacking another - have posed serious threats to respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and the principle that problems of Africa should be solved by African countries. 

In NATO's bombing, people once again saw the "power politics" and "the law of the jungle" in international relations. Now that the war in Libya is a humanitarian crisis, people wonder why no opportunity was given to a peaceful and political solution. The peace initiative and the roadmap for a political solution proposed by the AU and other countries have not been given enough attention by Western powers and they were quickly submerged in NATO's bombing.

History will show that whether it is the direct military intervention or agent's war of the Western powers in Africa during the Cold War, or their "surgical strike" operations in Afghanistan and Iraq after the Cold War, the external military intervention not only failed to resolve conflicts, but also made the conflicts complicated and protracted. It's up to African countries and the people themselves to solve the problems of Africa. 

The author is Director of African Studies of Institute of Western Asian and African Studies, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences