Conflicts in the West-African region after colonialism

West Africa has a rather tortured history that goes back for centuries. The colonial period was not good for the region but things have hardly improved since the Europeans left. In fact most people would argue that things have gotten much worse. Of course most of the blame for the way things are does rest with the Europeans and the way they managed the countries during the colonial period.

Since the end of the colonial period West Africa has become one of the most violent places on earth with a great many wars having been fought. Interestingly very few of the wars have been between the various countries that make up the region. Rather in almost all cases they have been civil wars. Unfortunately these wars have been some of the most brutal on the planet as the various factions seek to completely wipe each other out. The result is that many people have died in these wars.

The reason for these civil wars is that the countries involved were not really countries until the Europeans arrived. Rather they were tribes that each had their own traditional areas where they lived. The Europeans however drew lines on a map in order to fit their own needs. The result was that after colonialism ended new countries were formed that included people of various different tribes. The result was that each of the tribes wanted to have control over the new country and an endless string of wars have been fought. Things have been made worse by the almost total failure of democracy in most of these countries.

When the Europeans left in almost all cases they tried to set up the countries they had created as democracies, and in almost all cases they have failed miserably. Inevitably the leader of each tribe would seek to take power as a dictator. As soon as this happened the new dictator would make decisions that benefited the other members of his tribe at the expense of the other tribes. Things became especially bad in countries like Nigeria were large oil reserves meant that all of a sudden there were large sums of money at stake when the wars were fought.

While you can hardly call West Africa peaceful things have certainly calmed down over the last few years. Most of the destructive wars have come to an end and treaties have been agreed to. How long this lasts remains to be seen but for now most of the region is able to get along fairly well. There are still a few isolated incidents of violence but nothing like the full scale wars of the past. This period of relative peace has helped to bring economic benefits to reason and presented the possibility that people will be able to pull themselves out of poverty.