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Preventive
Diplomacy, Security,
and Human Rights
in West Africa
Edited by
Okon Akiba
 Preventive Diplomacy, Security,
and Human Rights in West Africa
 Okon Akiba
Editor

Preventive Diplomacy,
Security, and Human
Rights in West Africa
Editor
Okon Akiba
International and Comparative Politics
Professor
York University
Toronto, Canada

ISBN 978-3-030-25353-0 ISBN 978-3-030-25354-7 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25354-7

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied,
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maps and institutional affiliations.

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Preface and Acknowledgements

This book is conceived as an addition to ongoing discourses and global

dialogues on the management of security risks and resolution of violent
conflict. It draws its conceptual orientation and analytical power from
the Economic Community of West African States Conflict Prevention
Framework (ECPF). Under the auspices of the Center for Democracy
and Development (CDD), Abuja, Nigeria, I worked with colleagues to
develop the main research questions concerning regional peace and sta-
bility. These were successfully brought together in a book proposal that
was presented to the Consortium for Development Partnership (CDP)
for research support consideration.
Preparations to develop a manuscript and write a book on Preventive
Diplomacy in West Africa accelerated once support was granted:
Researchers, scholars, and independent consultants participated in pre-
liminary meetings to explore lines of inquiry for the book and to con-
struct research modalities. Three conferences were hosted in Abuja,
Accra, and Dakar in 2009 through 2011, during which periods the
research themes were defined and editorial policy refined. Thereafter,
the main contributors were selected. Depth of analytical thought and
evidence of current research work in preventive diplomacy were the
overarching criteria guiding choice of essays for publication, and famil-
iarity with reconceptualization of security around the human security
norm was another. Works that struck the appropriate balance between
Comparative Methodological Approach and Case Study Analyses received
the decisive nod of approval.

v
vi PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our contributors have each carefully analyzed the main issues and pre-
sented outstanding research findings that enrich this volume, and I seize
this chance to express special appreciation for time spent on their work.
Many thanks to CDP for financial support, without which the research
and editorial preparations invested in the development and completion
of the work would not have been possible.

Toronto, Canada Okon Akiba

 Contents

1 Introduction: Preventive Diplomacy in Theory

and Practice 1
Okon Akiba

2 ECOWAS and Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa 45

Babatunde Afolabi

3 Youth Bulge and West Africa: Understanding Dispute

Triggers and Conflict Prevention 77
Augustine Ikelegbe

4 Militant Psyche and Separatism: A Note on the

Casamance Conflict and Necessity of Preventive
Intervention 107
Okon Akiba

5 Women’s Wartime Struggle for Peace and Security

in the Mano River Union 153
Oumar Ndongo

6 Making and Enforcing Peace Through Mediation

and Fire Power: A Retrospective on the Liberia Experience 175
Okon Akiba

vii
viii CONTENTS

7 About God and Violence in West Africa! Can Religious

Organizations Foster Peace? 215
Charles Abiodun Alao and Ronke Ako Nai

8 Rwanda and North Macedonia: Considering the Nature

of Conflict and UN Peacemaking 255
Abdul Mumin Sa’ad

9 Epilogue: Arbitrariness and Conflict—The Context

of Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa 293
Okon Akiba

Index 337
 Notes on Contributors

Babatunde Afolabi holds a Doctorate Degree in International Relations

from the University of St Andrews, Scotland, the UK. He has been
Senior Political Affairs Officer at the Economic Community of West
African States Commission (ECOWAS). He has also lectured at the Kofi
Annan International Peacekeeping Training Center (KAIPTC), Kings
College, London, and the European University Institute, Florence,
Italy. Afolabi has published several advanced works in academic jour-
nals on peacebuilding, post-conflict rehabilitation, and the role of
international organizations in helping to advance good governance in
transitional countries. His most recent book on peacemaking is receiv-
ing positive reviews worldwide: “Politics of Peacemaking in Africa:
Non-State Actors” Role in the Liberian Civil War (London, UK: James
Curry Oxford Publishers, 2018).
Okon Akiba is Comparative and International Politics Professor at
York University, Toronto, Canada. And he has taught and researched at
Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. His books on Nigerian Foreign Policy
Toward Africa, and Constitutionalism and Society in Africa are well
received. He has also written several articles in professional journals such
as Futures, Natural Resources Journal, Environmental Conservation, and
The Journal of Modern African Studies. Akiba consults for the World
Bank (Transparency and Asset Declaration relating to the Government

ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

of Tanzania), Rockefeller Foundation (West Africa Horizon Scanning

Project), and the Carter Center (Electoral Processes in Africa). He has
been a British Overseas Commonwealth Scholar.
Charles Abiodun Alao is Professor of African Studies at the Leadership
Center in the School of Global Studies, King’s College, in London. He
has written widely on socioeconomic development, human security,
and peacebuilding. A few of his many works include: Conflict, Security
and Development (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); Africa: An
Encyclopedia of Culture and Society (Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO, 2015);
Goodluck Jonathan Administration and the Management of National
Security in Nigeria and the Jonathan Presidency (Lanham: University
Press of America, 2014).
Augustine Ikelegbe is Research Professor at the Department of Political
Science in the University of Benin, Benin City, Nigeria, and he has written
widely on civil society, civil conflict, and conflict transformation and under-
ground trafficking in light and small arms. His works in professional inter-
national journals include: Ethnic Conflict and Its Manifestations in the
Politics of Recognition in Multi-Ethnic Niger Delta Region, Cogent Social
Sciences Journal (July 2017); The Economy of Conflict in the Oil Rich
Niger Delta of Nigeria, Journal of African and Asian Studies (January
2008); Civil Society, Oil and Conflict in the Niger Delta Region of
Nigeria, Journal of African Studies (September 2001); the perverse man-
ifestation of civil society, Journal of Modern African Studies (March 2001).
Ronke Ako Nai is Professor at the Department of International Relations
in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Ronke has written
vastly successful scholarly works including two books: Gender and Power
Relations in Nigeria (London: Lexington Books, 2013) and Women,
Governance and Democratization in Nigeria and Ghana (Saarbrucken,
Germany, 2012). Ako Nai also has written seminal journal articles in
African Studies Quarterly and several e-booklets.
Oumar Ndongo is Professor of American Studies at Cheikh Anta Diop
University, Dakar, Senegal. He has extensive civil society organizational
experience and serves as Director of SYSTOSENEGAL; Executive
Secretary of PANAFSTRAG Senegal, and President of the Senegalese
Section of the Federation for Universal Peace. Ndongo has written jour-
nal articles, book chapters, and policy papers on conflict resolution, pre-
ventive diplomacy, and regional integration.
 NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi

Abdul Mumin Sa’ad is Professor at the Department of Sociology &

Anthropology in the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. He is active in
several national and grassroots bodies devoted to promoting civil rights,
economic empowerment, and access to education for rural and margin-
alized urban populations. He has written critical reports for the govern-
ment on these subjects.
 List of Maps

Map 4.1 Map of Senegal 108

Map 8.1 Map of North Macedonia 256
Map 8.2 Map of Rwanda 257

xiii
 Prologue

Okon Akiba

Peace is not an absence of war; it is virtue, state of mind, a disposition for

benevolence, confidence, justice. (Baruch Spinoza)

A Preference for Peace

Preventive diplomacy is driven by peace-induced activities ranging from

the use of good offices, mediation, arbitration, truth telling, and con-
ciliation to mitigate tension and to resolve conflicts that have already
become deadly. This study proceeds on the reasoning that West Africa
is a tested laboratory for these practices, and that the wars1 in Liberia
and Sierra Leone did not embody spontaneous societal predisposi-
tions for genocide or express an inevitable historical pressure forcing
­collapse of the state. Far from the naïve, simplistic notions of primor-
dial causes, both wars2 had complicated structural roots with complex
outward political manifestations such as sectional fears that were directly
and deliberately manipulated and employed by ruthless demagogues,
warmongers for their own selfish ends. Questing after control of mate-
rial resources and supreme political power,3 merchants of war success-
fully used citizens4 as malleable instruments to unleash the most gory,
­self-perpetrating chain of violence.5
International Criminal Tribunal Hearings6 have provided empirical
basis to surmise that at the volatile transitional stage in question, large
portions of an indoctrinated public were sucked into a vortex of inverted
morality that transformed otherwise criminal behavior into acceptable way

xv
xvi PROLOGUE

of life.7 Clearer appreciation of the determinate causes of large-scale vio-

lence (and its main dynamics) pointed peacemakers and interveners toward
the urgent need to domesticate international rights norms, stigmatize
criminal behavior, and prepare appropriate legal and political mechanisms
for post-conflict rehabilitation and peacebuilding. Faced with the true
nature of things, and anxious also to stop profound atrocities associated
with seemingly ceaseless destruction, the Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) suspended traditional peacekeeping operations,
and multinational fighting troops were mobilized instead to target, dis-
mantle, and demolish the network of concentrated carnage in the region.
Force ended blood lust and anarchy that spread through West Africa
in the immediate post-Cold War period, ceasing roughly in 2003;8 and
force was unleashed with desired effects in Mali9 (January 2012), in this
specific case to retake occupied northern cities and protect citizens and
territorial integrity against al-Qaeda inspired aggression.10 Once again,
the use of force was justified on the grounds of necessity—necessity to
dislodge the sources of flagrant abuse of rights and to set the stage for
healing along with rehabilitation. Ultimately, to restore and secure the
stable domestic space in which Malians can find repose. This experience
in practical cooperative security is invested with tremendous policy signif-
icance for peace.
Determined to contain and neutralize existent and potential security
risks in the region, justification for martial action also derives its ethos
from International Humanitarian Law.11 Provisions of the law rate the
necessity, responsibility to protect (R2P) and enhance human security
well above conservative, superficial interpretations on sovereignty and
territorial integrity that had hitherto been used by most African despots
to shield themselves against international scrutiny, even as they tram-
pled rights and unleashed mayhem upon citizens. Theoretically, argu-
ments in favor of intervention by force of arms,12 on behalf of peace,
are elaborated appropriately in Just War Doctrine.13 Fresh considera-
tions about the imperatives of political stability as condition essential for
economic development also place enormous emphasis on human rights
and citizenship; so also, in the contemporary idiom of global humani-
tarian obligations and responsibilities, regional institutional mechanisms
are refurbished to promote and protect human dignity; protection of
human rights trumps all other injunctions in the emerging international
order of things. Apropos, the United Nations advances the consciously
held objectives in preventive action and urges normative organizations
 PROLOGUE xvii

across the globe to robustly stand against human perversity. Major trans-
formations in ECOWAS’ peacekeeping mechanism correspond with
the determined quest to eliminate wars that smash up human life and
destroy communities’ natural endowments and preference for order and
concord.
So far then, we all can accept that a cardinal determinant of future
peace and progress in transitional societies is the eventual implantation
of the rule of law and democratic ways of living. And the end prod-
uct of each and every democratic experiment is the actualization of a
humane society that is also characterized by harmony and defined by
civility. In truth, the essence and long-term goal of democratic educa-
tion is achievement of thoroughgoing social change: Citizens must
be made aware of their rights. A crucial responsibility of all normative
organizations is to work tirelessly with ordinary persons helping them
recognize and exercise their inherent and inviolable rights and privi-
leges as free citizens. On their part, grassroots organizations should see
it as their privileged civic duty to empower the marginalized and sup-
port their legitimate struggles against despotism in all its forms. Around
the contours, army usurpation of political power is outlawed in national
constitutions and the responsibility rests firmly on the shoulders of social
movements to confront the nuisance fearlessly, wherever the impulses of
capriciousness are refreshed.
The volume is arranged in accordance with an order to ensure a seam-
less flow of ideas and continuities in argumentations. After this prologue,
the introductory discourse (Chapter 1) extends and sustains ongoing
intellectual conversations on the history, theory, and practice of preven-
tive diplomacy. The roots of conflict that most discerning thinkers14 have
long associated with the genesis of state decay are elaborated in the liter-
ature review. From these grounds, Babatunde Afolabi (Chapter 2) looks
at the origins and growth of the ECOWAS: He offers a creative critique
of domestic conditions often considered to be most essential for enlarg-
ing the material and sacred returns on peacemaking and then, marshals
evidence in support of Track II diplomacy. A strong advocate of informal
diplomacy, the author argues persuasively that third-party approaches
can relax tensions and sway dialogue among disputants in ways distinct
and different from the practice of mainstream state-based diplomacy. As
well, Afolabi believes that adjustments in present formal school curricu-
lums to include courses in peace education15 will profoundly help in the
cultivation and domestication of amity and concord as social culture. I
xviii PROLOGUE

am persuaded about this; also that many valuable life lessons concerning
tolerance, mutual accommodation, and compromise can be taught; and
the troubled youth can be rehabilitated and couched to jettison acquired
hate syndrome from the inner moral code. The well-adjusted commu-
nity is peopled by individuals capable of resolving their disputes with one
another constructively, creatively, and nonviolently. Few would disagree
that collaboration is the best method of solving problems.16
With equal verve in Chapter 3, Augustine Ikelegbe speaks to the con-
dition of youths in ways that concur and advance the ­above-referenced
entreaties and petition by Afolabi on behalf of youth education. Ikelegbe
identifies demographic shifts and youth bulge as both the triggers and
causes of domestic unrest and insurgency in frangible states. In these
places, negligent official socioeconomic policies are entrenching pov-
erty, forcing young people to revolt against the legitimate authority of
the state. And in their rebelliousness or rage, obviously so misplaced,
physical institutions of governance are often attacked, vandalized,
and destroyed. In effect, youth bulge is a crisis to be resolved and pre-
vented through appropriate official policies. It is not a transient problem
expected to fizzle and disappear on its own in the long-run. Constructive
interventionist programs are required to deal with the challenge. Such
programs genuinely must be caring and firmly articulated to transform
both the socioeconomic environment in which the youths exist and their
behavior.
Many of these social problems are common also in most transitional
African publics. As elaborated in Chapter 4, they are embodied in the
Casamance separatist movement of Southern Senegal. Okon Akiba
argues that conflict in this circumstance is dominated and fueled largely
by the Jola minority people of the Casamance region, and that the con-
flict dramatically turned radical and acquired exceptional, definitive mili-
tant bent once Senegalese soldiers opened gunfire on otherwise peaceful
protesters in 1982. Many more citizens made up of a majority of young
people are massacred during the memorial march a year following. And
in this way, police brutality put a match to combustible social discontent
that had originated from the Senegalese government’s discriminatory
socioeconomic policies toward the Casamancais. The impacts of political
and social tensions on Senegalese society and Dakar’s alleged complicity
in the failure of ceasefires are explored. Questions of citizenship, equality,
and the state’s responsibility to protect the vulnerable and minority are
brought forth and interrogated.
 PROLOGUE xix

Like most normative conceptions of social justice, democratic equal-

ity consists of complex ideas that are often not easy to properly explain
and operationalize. Oumar Ndongo nevertheless boldly explores quite a
few of those structurally gendered burdens in the Mano River Union and
iterates in his work that no one can gain a just and balanced estimate of
the import of equality without a detached examination of women’s expe-
riences in society. He sees and presents women (Chapter 5) especially
during the period of regional hostilities as organized citizens trying to
rebuild and maintain their dignity consciously in the specific commune.
In a region that had become profane and de-sacralized by war, it was
important for women to consolidate their resources and approach prob-
lems always as an identifiable visible collective. Women were the carri-
ers of community virtue as well as the occasional drivers of diplomatic
initiatives, to restore elements of order in their envisioned good society.
Ndongo assesses success in part from the point of view of organiza-
tional skills acquired by women during war. Those skills, the author avers
together with other expertise, are handy and essential for women’s sur-
vival with self-reliance enhanced, as they embark on the tedious journey
from war to peace.
Women’s activism in my thinking draws substantially from modes of
African indigenous associational life and community practices. It recog-
nizes strongly these days that resistance has meaning only when people
pull together, and that incorporating men into women’s struggle for
their rights eventually erodes ignorance that is inherent in gendered prej-
udices. Overall, women are today successfully navigating the complexi-
ties of activism, adjusting to new systemic contingencies and negotiating
their lives through cultural oppositional materials that have endured.
Women are learning how best to route their numerical strengths into
collective action. And these are positive developments in the main. The
overall purpose for women and society at large is to achieve and multiply
the bonuses of human security and to prevent erosion of peace.
Peace ofttimes can represent freedom—freedom from embedded fear
of bad government and from manifold insecurities due to want, misfor-
tune, and violence. It denotes both the possibilities and actual escape
from disorder and from the extremes of social torments known to recur-
rently shatter the state of lawfulness. Okon Akiba examines (Chapter 6)
and attempts to explain the systematic wearing of social justice in Liberia
leading to the thirteen-year conflict. Certain laws were articulated and
used to reinforce tyrannical rule, as have occurred in abusive states
xx PROLOGUE

through the ages. The author explains the dynamics of repression and
bewails the absence of the opposite political scenario—that is, the official
use of law positively to give effect to basic democratic freedoms in ways
to confer maximum security upon citizens and protect property. Akiba
contends that the power of human reason is the most potent incentive
for social action to purge impunity;17 and that intervention by third par-
ties to protect defenseless citizens against oppression is ethical, moral,
and pragmatic human obligation. Deadly turmoil in his view yields cer-
tain truth or revelation from which are drawn lessons about conditions
justifying the use of force for humanitarian purposes.
Wartime Liberia forms the background against which the singularity
of violent conflict is dissected and analyzed in its narrower cultural, local,
and national settings.18 From shorter narratives and conversation with a
number of Liberian citizens, it has become plain to observers that unre-
solved tensions still exit in that postwar society.19 They revolve around
the burning question of criminal prosecution versus redemptive justice—
between conceptions of legal punishment versus leniency. Those holding
firm to the existence of a higher law by which man-made jurisprudence
can be judged—and often nullified—are rejecting reprieve for citizens
known to have violated the sanctity of life, no matter the “mitigating cir-
cumstances.”20 Chiefs of judicial authority in the country however cur-
rently hew closer to leniency and rehabilitation, but must come to terms
with the aggrieved; particularly, the restive youths among whom the
Christian vernacular of redemption find uneven resonance. The youths are
advocating vengeance. And I fear that without some measure of retribu-
tive justice internal friction might sufficiently heat social angst and force
resort to jungle justice. This and the possibilities of vengeful responses
against existing system of justice are avoidable because sanguine alternatives
are available and should be considered. A m ­ iddle-ground must be found
between forgiveness and punishment. In my thinking, courts of the land
together with the governors must not fail to steadily engage the public on
the main normative questions and explain clearly to the citizenry that a
republic based on the rule of law actually can extend its political legitimacy
and accumulate spiritual surplus from official grants of clemency.
War is an abnormality with nearly infinite capacities to induce col-
lective psychosis.21 Without a doubt also, war is one of the central
institutions effectively mirroring the violent component in our natural
constitution as humans. And quite a few great minds have commonly
referenced these points (either obliquely or directly) in their synthesis
 PROLOGUE xxi

of historical truths about cultural anxiety and the causes of violence. In

his famous 1844 Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy
of Rights, Karl Marx says that religion is the sigh of the oppressed; it is
opium of the people.22 And from more ancient times, Aristotle23 warns us
that man is by nature a political animal endowed with reason; its direct
opposite is lawless man, an outcast prone to violence or war. Putting
the two philosophical minds together it is clear, unsurprising in our
generation; man has politicized religion and inflamed the social fab-
ric. Consistent with the proclivities of the lawless outcast, man also has
entombed the triple heritage of systemic violence habitually and regu-
larly reproduced in a determined sequence: religious bigotry—ethnic
hatred—atrocities of war.
Society nevertheless possesses natural capacities to absorb animus;
eventually and definitively, community regains its chutzpah and begins
to repair and burnish the foundational moral constitution. Prominent
pieces and formation of the said human coping mechanism emerge gen-
tly and certainly in the essay by Charles Abiodun Alao and Ronke Ako
Nai (Chapter 7). The authors set out carefully to explore and assess
the complex entwining of religion, politics, and conflict. We can see in
their articulation a large number of leaders in religious organizations are
remarkably committed to the promotion of peaceful social relations and
to the mediated settlement of domestic and interstate violence. They are
holding up the collective guard against zealotry. Intolerant clerics on the
contrary are adept at generating upheavals by propagating their sardonic
thoughts and advancing what they regard to be dysmorphic defects in
temporal authority. They are forcing ideological and physical roadblocks
against real and momentous peace efforts. I agree with our authors Alao
and Nai that religion is Janus-Faced.24 Almost all religions contain theo-
logical norms that simultaneously support peace as well as the flip side of
peace—conflict.25 Scholars call it “ambivalence of the sacred.”26
We feel succor because the quest for political accord and freedom from
strife is continuing a-pace and dauntlessly. In postwar Sierra Leone, restitu-
tion is encouraged as the means to assuage war-afflicted pain and promote
restorative justice. Retributive justice is, however, reserved only for perpe-
trators of the most heinous war crimes. Scholars nonetheless doubt that
truth telling can foster reconciliation unambiguously and its paramount
healing effect on core trauma comes under question and close scrutiny.
Not everyone is persuaded that forgiveness eases the burden of memory
and even severe punishment may not deter human propensity to unleash
xxii PROLOGUE

atrocity.27 Memory suffers profound fracture; at best, it bears overload of

fury in unstable places where jihadists, blood-thirsty terrorists, and armed
gangs use murder, abduction, extortion plus rape deliberately to demean
communities and mock the values of societies—in the name of religion.
I have often wondered personally what a world without religion would
look like—in particular, a world without organized religion. But that
train of thought belongs to the vivid imaginary and we must not travel
away from the set courses of present pursuits. At the moment, I will
reshuffle the narrative footprints to bring up Abdul Mumin Sa’ad. He is
busily transporting (Chapter 8) into our ongoing discourse a keen com-
parison of conflict prevention in North Macedonia and Rwanda. We must
receive and reflect upon his explanations for the Upshot of Conflagration
(Genocide in Rwanda) and the Seeding of Law (Political Order in
North Macedonia) as cautionary tales about the deadly consequences of
divisive power struggles and manipulated, socially constructed identity
crises. I should pause for a moment to reflect a little on the matter.
The crisis that plagued political life in Rwanda presents teachable
moments and lessons that apply to West Africa as follows: The idea of
“national unity” must not be allowed to float only at the level of rheto-
ric; it must be transmitted through appropriate national institutions that
target ethnic, political, youth, and women groups and individual citizens
who must learn and appreciate the enormous benefits of peaceful “liv-
ing in diversity.” Citizens in West African countries will then come to
terms with the fact that communities collectively suffer when ethnicity
and religion (all particularistic identities for that matter) are used by dec-
adent political leaders to generate violent conflict. The soul of a nation
is greatly enriched only when and where the variety of ethnicities, reli-
gion, and gender difference are celebrated and integrated to advance
development and human security, rather than weaponized for assault and
promotion of internal conflict. Normative leaders in civic-minded organ-
izations can amplify cultural values and work toward consolidating the
“national project,” which in large degree commonly revolves around the
uplifting of people from poverty, provision of jobs particularly for the
youths, and respect for gender equality. Grassroots organizations in rural
spheres also must be funded and expanded to ensure their rational evolu-
tion into healthy and morally balanced assemblies designed purposely to
advance the quality of everyday life in the larger society. The genocidal
slaying that occurred in Rwanda was avoidable. And till date, that poign-
ant human experience continues to pose enduring exhibit concerning
 PROLOGUE xxiii

the worst consequences of failures to contain and expunge manufac-

tured hatred from the African body politic and purge elite domination.
Rwanda underscores the necessity to entrench tolerance and preventive
peacemaking as customary mores.
The Epilogue (9) speaks to present problems, revisits past political
quagmires, and mourns the frequent degeneration of discordance in gov-
ernance into a curse. The relationships among arbitrariness, anarchy, and
violence are unambiguous and stark.
Thoughts and informed judgment are set out clearly though with
slight differences of emphasis on principal questions—particularly on
West Africa’s three most transcendent questions concerning political des-
tiny, the meanings of community, and social progress. Each researcher
exposes the raw consequences of conflict and analyzes the moral, philo-
sophical, and sociocultural factors dictating human preference for peace.
Domestic socioeconomic triggers of crisis and protracted conflict are
identified and explained. Equality of opportunity and relaxed access to
public goods are shown to mitigate conflict, and we see how war experi-
ences have prepared new roles for women in the life of the region. There
are similarities also in the appreciation of publicly expressed aspirations
for security of life and on relations of state and society. Foremost, that
people are more important than their state. Indeed, the whole learned
dispute on this matter is primly based on enlightened views about the
sanctity of rights and citizenship—about which our authors accept that
the state exists in large measure to serve the people, and not the other
way round. No government can claim just authority to rule unless such
an authority is rightly, firmly, and legitimately rooted in a social base,
in the collective will of all the people. Of course, the people will master
through self-discipline the exercise of public duty, civic responsibility, and
tolerance in social relations.
Progressive governments appreciate good citizenship as an evolution-
ary value with which to pursue and achieve the high possibilities that
the future holds for societies in transition. By this way, governments
will reach and sustain higher levels of cooperation among citizens across
national boundaries and strive to ensure balanced human development
through enrichment of individual life. Arbitrariness is excised from the
much-desired future society (community of citizens), not only because it
contaminates the moral fabric and compromises the quality of ­day-to-day
experiences, but also because it chokes free communication of ideas and
tends to impede social integration. These are the manifest schemes, I
xxiv PROLOGUE

believe, by which the outcomes of present governance and multilateral

initiatives will be judged. Rule of law is cornerstone of the scheme. Each
and every one of our citizens can hope to enjoy the exceptional state of
peace only in the community sealed and protected by law.
One quality that defines and richens our work is accessibility. Complex
sociopolitical and economic concerns are unwrapped delicately and with
analytical grace, to capture and retain the interest of even the most tenta-
tive reader. The other is cross disciplinary approach that has been adopted
by all to treat most of the dominant research questions and so the chap-
ters come nicely together in a kaleidoscope of knowledge deriving from
scholarly investigative traditions in anthropology, economics, law, polit-
ical science, and sociology. Drawn from professions across the region,
our cohort comprises scholars, leaders in civil society, independent peace
consultants, and social science researchers serving as policy experts and
advisors in major regional organizations. The book certainly will satisfy
analysts seeking fresh sources of reference on the changing character of
war and conflict systems, and for teaching of graduate courses in human
rights, transnational law, and international public policy. It should also
lend itself to use by researchers in international organizations wanting to
understand or assess the performance, scope, and limits of institutions
primarily designed to resolve and prevent conflict.
Preventive Diplomacy in West Africa is a balanced study that supports
critical efforts to re-energize investigative research into the diverse and
interrelated dimensions of the human condition. It presupposes the defin-
itive truth that the cooperative spirit is a unique social capital that is also
ingrained in most ordinary citizens on the continent. Citizens’ extraordi-
nary resilience in the face of hardship merits recompenses which can be
edified only by the conscious implantation of good government in society.
We are confident that ongoing collective campaigns by regional entities
for change will eventually yield African polities profoundly transformed for
the better. Power in the envisioned society will be controlled and directed
by indigenous governors possessed of natural ­ people-centered zeal to
deliver the masses from seemingly infinite distress. A preliminary step to
achieving the humane object consists in a sustained determination to crack
and dismantle the main causes of spectacular civil wars. Elimination of
existential threats to human security in the region will facilitate uninter-
rupted economic development to raise mass living standards.
 PROLOGUE xxv

Notes
1. Peter Arthur, “Promoting Security in Africa through Regional Economic
Communities and the African Union’s African Peace and Security
Architecture,” Insight on Africa 9, no. 1 (2017), 1–21; Kjetil Bjorvatn
and Mohammad Reza Farzanegan, “Resources, Rent, Balance of Power
and Political Stability,” Journal of Peace Research 52, no. 6 (2015),
758–773.
2. Clionadh Raleigh and Kars De Bruijne, “Where Rebels Dare to Tread:
A Study of Conflict Geography and Co-option of Local Power in Sierra
Leone,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 6 (July 2017), 1230–
1260; Danny Hoffman, “The City as Barracks: Freetown, Monrovia and
the Organization of Violence in Post-colonial African Cities,” Cultural
Anthropology 22, no. 3 (August 2007), 400–428.
3. Jennifer Hazen, What Rebels Want: Resources and Supply Networks in
Wartime (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), Chapters 1–4.
4. Leone Stein, Child Soldiers as Agents of War and Peace: Restorative
Transitional Justice Approach to Accountability for Crime under
International Law (The Hague: T.M.C. Asser Press, 2017).
5. See Philip G. Roessler and Harry Verhoeven, Why Comrades Go to War:
Liberation Politics and the Outbreak of Africa’s Deadliest Conflict (New
York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017).
6. Tyrone Kirchengast, Victimology and Victim Rights: International
Comparative Perspectives (New York, NY: Routledge, 2017), Chapters 1–3.
7. Valerie Oosterveld, “Special Court for Sierra Leone: International
Criminal Law, Attacking Personnel Involved in Peacekeeping Mission,
Recruit and Use of Child Soldiers, Sexual Slavery and Forced Marriage,”
American Journal of International Law 104, no. 1 (January 2010),
73–82.
8. David J. Francis, Peace and Conflict in Africa (London: Zed Press, 2008),
Introduction; Chapter 2.
9. On the character of Malian Conflict and the cluster of policies and interven-
ers, see F. Edu-Afful and K. Aning, “African Agency in R2P: Interventions
by African Union and ECOWAS in Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and Libya,”
International Studies Review 18, no. 1 (2016), 120–133; Human Rights
Watch, Mali: Events of 2015 (Washington, DC: World Report, 2016).
10. Jose Luengo-Cabrera, “Symptoms of Enduring Crisis: Prospects for
Addressing Mali’s Conflict Catalysts,” African Policy Journal 8 (2013),
9–19.
11. Humanitarian intervention is controversial because it opposes the sacred
rule of sovereignty; some say it is a veil for foreign domination. But ques-
tions remain: Is there a right of humanitarian intervention? Is the world
xxvi PROLOGUE

community obligated to protect the vulnerable? Kathleen ­Malley-Morrison

et al., eds., International Handbook of War, Torture and Terrorism (New
York: Springer, 2012).
12. Nicholas Tsagourias, “Necessity and the Use of Force: A Special Regime,”
Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 41 (2010), 11–44.
13. Kathleen Malley-Morrison et al., eds., International Handbook of Peace
and Reconciliation (New York: Springer, Peace Psychology Book
Series, 2013); Laura Herta, “Jus in Bello and the Solidarist Case for
Humanitarian Intervention: From Theory to Practice,” Studia Univertatis
Babes-Bolyai. Studia Europaea 58, no. 1 (2013), 5–47. The potential out-
comes of Just War such as world peace, trends toward reconciliation are
evaluated by quite a few, see Michael Neu, “Why There Is No Such Thing
as Just War Pacifism and Why Just War Theorists and Pacifists Can Talk
Nonetheless,” Social Theory and Practice 37, no. 3 (July 2011), 413–433.
14. Eileen Babbitt, “The Evolution of International Conflict Resolution:
From Cold War to Peacebuilding,” Negotiation Journal 25, no. 4
(October 2009), 539–549.
15. On the purposes of peace education in diverse circumstances, see Raymond
Izarali et al., Security, Education and Development in Contemporary Africa
(Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2017); Muhammad Ahsan, “Post NATO
Drawdown in Afghanistan and Regional Security: Post-Conflict Social
Reconstruction through Peace Education,” Peace Research 48, nos. 1–2
(2016), 91–112.
16. Larry Fisk, “Deficiencies and Promise in Peace Education,” Peace
Research 29, no. 4 (November 1997), 80–92.
17. John Stuart Mill argues that access to education and the treatment of
women as equal citizens should be fundamental to human progress. He
argues that tyranny is the antithesis of democratic, representative govern-
ment. See Mill, On Liberty (London: Penguin Books, 1977).
18. Paul Richard, “Systematic Approach to Cultural Explanation of War:
Tracing Cultural Processes in Two West African Insurgencies,” World
Development 39, no. 2 (2013), 212–220.
19. Can one have peace without justice? One public image seems to encap-
sulate the real temper of the times and it may provide an answer to
this question. Consider it: A wheel-chair bound (amputee) sits daily at
Monrovia’s main market square. He carries a placard that reads: “You
have to face justice so I can get peace!” See Lucinda Rouse, “Calls for
War Court in Liberia,” African Arguments (February 14, 2019), 1.
20. Michael G. Wessells et al. eds., “Transformative Spaces in the Social
Reintegration of Former Child Soldiers, Young Mothers in Sierra Leone,
Liberia and Northern Uganda,” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace
Psychology 23, no. 1 (2017), 58–66.
 PROLOGUE xxvii

21. Toshiyuki Tanaka, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II

(Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2018).
22. Offering interpretation of main issues, the work also raises theoretical
problematique. Jay Geller, “Table Dancing in an Opium Den: Marx’s
Conjuration of Criticism out of ‘Criticism of Religion’ in 1844,” Method
and Theory in the Study of Religion 26, no. 1 (2014), 3–21.
23. See James Lindley Wilson, “Deliberation, Democracy and the Rule of
Reason in Aristotle’s Politics,” American Political Science Review 105,
no. 2 (2011), 259–274. A thoughtful revisionist historian, the author
seeks a reinterpretation of aspects of Aristotle’s motives, ideas, and rea-
soning on the subject.
24. Heinrich Shafer, “The Janus Face of Religion: On the Religious Factor in
New Wars,” Numen 51, no. 4 (2004), 407–431.
25. Michael Hoffman reminisces about the mixed relationship of religion
and government; that religion in its various forms can serve to promote
regimes of virtually any type—democratic or otherwise. See Hoffman,
“Government Legitimacy and Religion,” Oxford Research Encyclopedias
(September 2018).
26. The author ponders the idea of ambivalence and speaks to the dramatic
and contradictory responses to human suffering by religious actors.
Scott R. Appleby, Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence and
Reconciliation (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012).
27. David Wilkins, “Memory, Truth Telling and the Legacies of Slavery
in South Africa,” South African Historical Journal 69, no. 1 (January
2017), 12–31.
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction:
Preventive Diplomacy in Theory and Practice

Okon Akiba

An ounce of peace is worth a pound of cure. (Benjamin Franklin)

Beginning effectively from the early 1990s, pronounced transformations

in the global system of states offered normative institutions of interna-
tional governance sublime opportunities to redefine global security, re-tool
diplomatic machineries for effective management of violent conflict, and
work collaboratively with national governments toward constructing fresh
norms of conflict resolution for a new world order. With a great sense of the
moment, and propelled by a new spirit of commonality at the January 1992
United Nations (UN) Summit,1 world leaders also came to recommit their
countries to the original Purposes and Principles of the UN Charter, reit-
erating that it is incumbent on all Member States to help the organization
achieve its cardinal goals of maintaining international peace and security,
and of securing social justice, to wit, of promoting “social progress and
better standards of life in larger freedom.”2
Consistent with the times, special United Nations World Conferences
are now convened on a regular basis to raise issues of security and to deliber-
ate upon questions of fundamental importance to sustainable development

© The Author(s) 2020 1

O. Akiba (ed.), Preventive Diplomacy, Security,
and Human Rights in West Africa,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25354-7_1
2 O. AKIBA

and peace such as the environment, human rights, women and population,
regional security, sources of contemporary conflict and conflict prevention.
The UN, the African Union (AU), and Economic Community of West
African States (ECOWAS) are in search of improved strategies for ensuring
sustainable socioeconomic development—and containment of the grow-
ing dangers embedded in the use of massively destructive weapons of war
is placed on the front burner of diplomatic concerns. In large measure,
the rapid rise of conflict prevention to prominence in the agenda of gov-
ernments and international organizations in the post-Cold War period has
been propelled by a growing commitment to resolve the multiple political
instabilities that inhere organically in forging new states and collapse of
fragile political entities. Deeply traumatized by the experience and conse-
quences of failures on the part of the international community3 to prevent
genocide in the Balkans and Rwanda, and the inability to effectively man-
age the aftermaths of bedlam, international law in the new security envi-
ronment has manufactured strong consensus on collective responsibility to
protect (RP2) vulnerable communities against atrocity and the cluster acts
constituting aggression and war crime.
None would raise any objections to the reasoning that new approaches
and inventive instruments for easing the distress accompanying violence
among rival nationalities must be well calibrated and put into careful use
by professionals endowed or skilled in handling conflict at all its multi-
faceted levels. New beats to the life and momentum of conflict resolution
currently are guided by the moral imperative to speedily preempt and pre-
vent crises—rather than investing in plans for post-conflict reconstruction,
plans and strategies that have proven in practice to be emotionally exhaust-
ing, definitely debilitating and financially costly.4
This chapter is primarily an investigation, interrogation, and treatment
of the norms, traditions, and principles undergirding preventive diplomacy.
To deepen thoughts on the subject, I examine and assess the extents to
which human rights principles are guiding the articulation and practice of
preventive diplomacy. For similar purposes, the intellectual underpinnings
of “just war doctrine;” and questions about the practical implications of
laws permitting or legitimizing the use of force—the idea in international
law about “permissible use of force”—are posed and addressed. Then, the
main lines of argumentation are drawn, to show how they apply to the
theory of preventive diplomacy. The overall template of the book is set
 1 INTRODUCTION: PREVENTIVE DIPLOMACY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE 3

in a way to guide and ensure that the contributors’ commanding trend

of thoughts is in sync, well-integrated, into the tightly knotted provisions
of the ECOWAS Conflict Preventive Framework (ECPF, hereinafter, the
Framework). And the Sequence of Thought in the Chapter Appears in Five
Main Frames, as follows: (I) Research Problem in the Context of a Litera-
ture Review, (II) Criminal Impunity, the Use of Force, and Accountability
for Atrocity, (III) Human Rights as Path-Defining Instruments of Conflict
Prevention, (IV) Conflict Research and the Future of Peace, and (V) Essays
in a Nutshell.

I. The Problem and Issues in the Context

of a Literature Review
Preventive diplomacy5 is anchored principally in fresh thinking about the
causes of domestic conflict and interstate war. And it provides for mech-
anisms considered to be appropriate and sufficient for stopping conflicts
before they deepen and assume intractable, bloody dimensions.6 It is an
approach to peacebuilding that aims to prevent violence from starting by
addressing key long-term factors driving tensions toward explosion.7 Pre-
vention consists of two main strands of activities: Operational prevention
focuses on short-term responses that are embodied in principles and prac-
tice of traditional preventive diplomacy as defined in the UN Charter.8
Structural prevention is composed of long-term strategies targeting root
causes of conflict such as economic marginalization and political exclusion.
About this, Kevin Cahill9 observes that diplomacy, like health care, is focus-
ing increasingly on prevention, rather than treatment, and that prevention
in this case requires tools including greater reliance on empirical studies
of risk assessment and early warning systems. He argues that the causes of
conflict are diverse and require the intervention of many academic disci-
plines including medicine. Most would agree with the reasoning in Cahill’s
cross-disciplinary discourse on global politics, that stopping wars before
they start is easier than ending wars that are already underway. More so,
military interventions and economic sanctions tend to inflict more harm
than good on the target community.10 Instead of anxieties that come parts
in parcel with alternative proposition that war is a congenital affliction,11
preventive diplomacy offers hope that wars can be mitigated and eliminated
from society.
4 O. AKIBA

Forward looking about the prospects of successful peacebuilding

through policy initiatives and collaboration, preventive diplomacy is in
itself also essentially revolutionary in character.12 It is revolutionary
because it poses a fundamental challenge to biological determinism13 and
psycho-analytical14 approaches to explaining conflict—that human nature
is innately selfish15 or war-prone. And those wars are inevitable in soci-
ety, given human qualities that are frequently aggravated, deeply, during
interstate and intragroup competitive struggles for power and material
resources.
Preventive diplomacy in theory presupposes that the causes of war are
embedded in material and sociopolitical vectors, which can be isolated, neu-
tralized, and eliminated through the deliberate action of good statesmen,
working together with leaders in international organizations. Peace advo-
cates16 are customarily and commonly motivated and driven into action by
personal predisposition and by the moral force of international law. Asso-
ciated with this are pacifists and non-violent protagonists17 of peace such
as Mahatma Gandhi,18 the Dalai Lama, and Martin Luther King, Jr., who
have sermonized and moralized tolerance showing also that war is socially
constructed phenomenon.19 The sources of war are found not in wicked
proclivities said to inhere in human nature, but in arbitrary policies used
by public officials to bend the meanings of identity and manipulate cul-
tural difference. Quite a number of leaderships are adroit at marginalizing
minorities and reawakening or reinterpreting histories and traditions in
ways that create enemy images of the other.
Edward Azar’s “Protracted Social Conflict”20 theory complements these
perspectives, showing how the causes of domestic conflict can emerge from
the suppression of opposition and minority forces. Violence is also seen as
arising from mass reactions to human right abuses or defense against violent
attacks by agents of the abusive state. In such circumstances, political stake-
holders and international peace organizations in multiethnic societies are
enjoined to preempt conflict and foster social progress by promoting inclu-
siveness in governmental affairs. It is necessary to ensure that group rights
are respected and constitutionally protected, with an eye to eliminating
impulses for secession among minorities and toward promoting national
unity. Parallel to this conception of conflict and conflict prevention is the
treatment of all non-democratic regimes as at root dysfunctional, while
implantation of multi-party competitive electoral systems of governance is
promoted as antidote to violence.21
Another random document with
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 This adjustment and award were accepted and observed, until the
election in November, 1876, when a controversy arose as to the
result, the Republicans claiming the election of Stephen B. Packard
as Governor by about 3,500 majority, and a Republican Legislature;
and the Democrats claiming the election of Francis T. Nicholls as
Governor, by about 8,000 majority, and a Democratic Legislature.
Committees of gentlemen visited New Orleans, by request of
President Grant and of various political organizations, to witness the
count of the votes by the Returning Board. And in December, 1876,
on the meeting of Congress, committees of investigation were
appointed by the Senate and by the House of Representatives.
Exciting events were now daily transpiring. On the 1st of January,
1877, the Legislature organized in the State House without
exhibitions of violence. The Democrats did not unite in the
proceedings, but met in a separate building, and organized a
separate Legislature. Telegraphic communication was had between
the State House and the Custom House, where was the office of
Marshal Pitkin, who with the aid of the United States troops, was
ready for any emergency. About noon the Democratic members,
accompanied by about 500 persons, called at the State House and
demanded admission. The officer on duty replied that the members
could enter, but the crowd could not. A formal demand was then
made upon General Badger and other officials, by the spokesman, for
the removal of the obstructions, barricades, police, etc., which
prevented the ingress of members, which being denied, Col. Bush, in
behalf of the crowd, read a formal protest, and the Democrats
retired. Gov. Kellogg was presented by a committee with a copy of
the protest, and he replied, that as chief magistrate and conservator
of the peace of the State, believing that there was danger of the
organization of the General Assembly being violently interfered with,
he had caused a police force to be stationed in the lower portion of
the building; that he had no motive but to preserve the peace; that no
member or attache of either house will be interfered with in any way,
and that no United States troops are stationed in the capitol building.
Clerk Trezevant declined to call the House to order unless the
policemen were removed. Upon the refusal to do so, he withdrew,
when Louis Sauer, a member, called the roll, and 68 members—a full
House being 120—answered to their names. Ex-Gov. Hahn was
elected Speaker, receiving 53 votes as against 15 for Ex-Gov.
Warmoth.
The Senate was organized by Lieutenant-Governor Antoine with 19
present—a full Senate being 30—eight of whom held over, and 11
were returned by the Board. Gov. Kellogg’s message was presented to
each House.
The Democrats organized their Legislature in St. Patrick’s hall. The
Senators were called to order by Senator Ogden. Nineteen Senators,
including nine holding over, and four, who were counted out by the
board, were present.
The Democratic members of the House were called to order by
Clerk Trezevant, and 61 answered to their names. Louis Bush was
elected Speaker.
January 3d—Republican Legislature passed a resolution asking for
military protection against apprehended Democratic violence, and it
was telegraphed to the President.
On Sunday, January 8th, Gov. Kellogg telegraphed to President
Grant to the same effect.
January 8th—Stephen B. Packard took the oath of office as
Governor, and C. C. Antoine as Lieutenant-Governor, at the State
House at 1:30, in the presence of the Legislature.
January 8—Francis T. Nicholls and L. A. Wiltz to-day took the oath
of office of Governor and Lieutenant-Governor, respectively, on the
balcony of St. Patrick’s hall.
By the 11th of January both parties were waiting for the action of
the authorities at Washington. Gov. Packard to-day commissioned A.
S. Badger Major-General of the State National Guard, and directed
him to organize the first division at once. Two members of the
Packard Legislature, Mr. Barrett, of Rapides, and Mr. Kennedy, of St.
Charles, had withdrawn from that body and gone over to the Nicholls
Legislature.
Messrs. Breux, Barrett, Kennedy, Estopival, Wheeler, and Hamlet,
elected as Republicans, under the advice of Pinchback—a defeated
Republican candidate for U. S. Senator, left the Packard or
Republican, and joined the Nicholls Legislature.
On the 15th, Governor Packard, after receiving a copy of the
telegram of the President to General Augur, issued a proclamation
aimed at the “organized and armed combination and conspiracy of
men now offering unlawful and violent resistance to the lawful
authority of the State government.”
The Nicholls court issued an order to Sheriff Handy to provide the
means for protecting the court from any violence or intrusion on the
part of the adherents of “S. B. Packard, a wicked and shameless
impostor.”
Governor Packard on the 16th, in a letter to Gen. Augur,
acknowledges the receipt of a communication from his aide-de-camp
asking for assurances from him that the President’s wishes
concerning the preservation of the present status be respected, and
says that the request would have been more appropriate if made
immediately after his installation as Governor and before many of
the main branches of the Government had been forcibly taken
possession of by the opposition. He says: “I had scarcely taken the
oath of office when the White League were called to arms; the Court
room and the records of the Supreme Court of the State were forcibly
taken possession of, and various precinct police-stations were
captured in like manner by overwhelming forces. Orders had been
issued by the Secretary of War early on that day that all unauthorized
armed bodies should desist. A dispatch from yourself of the same
date to the Secretary of War, conveyed the assurances that Nicholls
had promised the disbandment of his armed forces. * * * It was my
understanding, that neither side should be permitted to interfere
with the status of the other side. Yet the day after this order was
received and the pledge given by Nicholls, a force of several hundred
armed White Leaguers repaired to the State Arsenal and took
therefrom into their own keeping five pieces of artillery, and a
garrison of armed men was placed in and around the Supreme Court
building. That on the following day, January 11, an armed company
of the White League broke into and took possession of the office of
the Recorder of Mortgages. * * * In view of all these facts it seemed to
me that to give the pledge verbally asked of me this morning would
be to sanction revolution, and by acquiescence give it the force of
accomplished fact, and I therefore declined.”
Many telegrams followed between the Secretary of War, J. Don.
Cameron, Gen’l Augur and Mr. Packard, the latter daily complaining
of new “outrages by the White League,” while the Nicholls
government professed to accord rights to all classes, and to obey the
instructions from Washington, to faithfully maintain the status of
affairs until decisive action should be taken by the National
government. None was taken, President Grant being unwilling to
outline a Southern policy for his successor in office.
 Election of Hayes and Wheeler.

The troubles in the South, and the almost general overthrow of the
“carpet-bag government,” impressed all with the fact that the
Presidential election of 1876 would be exceedingly close and exciting,
and the result confirmed this belief. The Greenbackers were the first
to meet in National Convention, at Indianapolis, May 17th. Peter
Cooper of New York was nominated for President, and Samuel F.
Cary of Ohio, for Vice-President.
The Republican National Convention met at Cincinnati, June 14th,
with James G. Blaine recognized as the leading candidate. Grant had
been named for a third term, and there was a belief that his name
would be presented. Such was the feeling on this question that the
House of Congress and a Republican State Convention in
Pennsylvania, had passed resolutions declaring that a third term for
President would be a violation of the “unwritten law” handed down
through the examples of Washington, and Jackson. His name,
however, was not then presented. The “unit rule” at this Convention
was for the first time resisted, and by the friends of Blaine, with a
view to release from instructions of State Conventions some of his
friends. New York had instructed for Conkling, and Pennsylvania for
Hartranft. In both of these states some delegates had been chosen by
their respective Congressional districts, in advance of any State
action, and these elections were as a rule confirmed by the State
bodies. Where they were not, there were contests, and the right of
district representation was jeopardized if not destroyed by the
reinforcement of the unit rule. It was therefore thought to be a
question of much importance by the warring interests. Hon. Edw.
McPherson was the temporary Chairman of the Convention, and he
took the earliest opportunity presented to decide against the binding
force of the unit rule, and to assert the liberty of each delegate to vote
as he pleased. The Convention sustained the decision on an appeal.
 Ballots of the Cincinnati Republican Convention, 1876:

Ballots, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Blaine, 285 296 292 293 287 308 351
Conkling, 113 114 121 126 114 111 21
Bristow, 99 93 90 84 82 81
Morton, 124 120 113 108 95 85
Hayes, 61 64 67 68 102 113 384
Hartranft, 58 63 68 71 69 50
Jewell, 11
Washb’ne, 1 1 3 3 4
Wheeler, 3 3 2 2 2 2

Gen. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, was nominated for President,

and Hon. Wm. A. Wheeler, of New York, for Vice-President.
The Democratic National Convention met at St. Louis, June 28th.
Great interest was excited by the attitude of John Kelly, the
Tammany leader of New York, who was present and opposed with
great bitterness the nomination of Tilden. He afterwards bowed to
the will of the majority and supported him. Both the unit and the
two-thirds rule were observed in this body, as they have long been by
the Democratic party. On the second ballot, Hon. Samuel J. Tilden,
of New York, had 535 votes to 203 for all others. His leading
competitor was Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, who was
nominated for Vice-President.
 The Electoral Count.

The election followed Nov. 7th, 1876, Hayes and Wheeler carrying
all of the Northern States except Connecticut, New York, New Jersey
and Indiana; Tilden and Hendricks carried all of the Southern States
except South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. The three last named
States were claimed by the Democrats, but their members of the
Congressional Investigating Committee quieted rival claims as to
South Carolina by agreeing that it had fairly chosen the Republican
electors. So close was the result that success or failure hinged upon
the returns of Florida and Louisiana, and for days and weeks
conflicting stories and claims came from these States. The Democrats
claimed that they had won on the face of the returns from Louisiana,
and that there was no authority to go behind these. The Republicans
publicly alleged frauds in nearly all of the Southern States; that the
colored vote had been violently suppressed in the Gulf States, but
they did not formally dispute the face of the returns in any State save
where the returning boards gave them the victory. This doubtful
state of affairs induced a number of prominent politicians of both the
great parties to visit the State capitals of South Carolina, Florida and
Louisiana to witness the count. Some of these were appointed by
President Grant; others by the Democratic National Committee, and
both sets were at the time called the “visiting statesmen,” a phrase on
which the political changes were rung for months and years
thereafter.
The electoral votes of Florida were decided by the returning board
to be Republican by a majority of 926,—this after throwing out the
votes of several districts where fraudulent returns were alleged to be
apparent or shown by testimony. The Board was cited before the
State Supreme Court, which ordered a count of the face of the
returns; a second meeting only led to a second Republican return,
and the Republican electors were then declared to have been chosen
by a majority of 206, though before this was done, the Electoral
College of the State had met and cast their four votes for Hayes and
Wheeler. Both parties agreed very closely in their counts, except as to
Baker county, from which the Republicans claimed 41 majority, the
Democrats 95 majority—the returning board accepting the
Republican claim.
In Louisiana the Packard returning board was headed by J.
Madison Wells, and this body refused to permit the Democrats to be
represented therein. It was in session three weeks, the excitement all
the time being at fever heat, and finally made the following average
returns: Republican electors, 74,436; Democratic, 70,505;
Republican majority, 3,931. McEnery, who claimed to be Governor,
gave the Democratic electors a certificate based on an average vote of
83,635 against 75,759, a Democratic majority of 7,876.
In Oregon, the three Republican electors had an admitted majority
of the popular vote, but on a claim that one of the number was a
Federal office-holder and therefore ineligible, the Democratic
Governor gave a certificate to two of the Republican electors, and a
Mr. Cronin, Democrat. The three Republican electors were certified
by the Secretary of State, who was the canvassing officer by law. This
Oregon business led to grave suspicions against Mr. Tilden, who was
thereafter freely charged by the Republicans with the use of his
immense private fortune to control the result, and thereafter, the
New York Tribune, with unexampled enterprise, exposed and
reprinted the “cipher dispatches” from Gramercy, which Mr. Pelton,
the nephew and private secretary of Mr. Tilden, had sent to
Democratic “visiting statesmen” in the four disputed sections. In
1878, the Potter Investigating Committee subsequently confirmed
the “cipher dispatches” but Mr. Tilden denied any knowledge of
them.
The second session of the 44th Congress met on Dec. 5th, 1876,
and while by that time all knew the dangers of the approaching
electoral count, yet neither House would consent to the revision of
the joint rule regulating the count. The Republicans claimed that the
President of the Senate had the sole authority to open and announce
the returns in the presence of the two Houses; the Democrats plainly
disputed this right, and claimed that the joint body could control the
count under the law. Some Democrats went so far as to say that the
House (which was Democratic, with Samuel J. Randall in the
Speaker’s chair) could for itself decide when the emergency had
arrived in which it was to elect a President.
There was grave danger, and it was asserted that the Democrats,
fearing the President of the Senate would exercise the power of
declaring the result, were preparing first to forcibly and at least with
secrecy swear in and inaugurate Tilden. Mr. Watterson, member of
the House from Kentucky, boasted that he had completed
arrangements to have 100,000 men at Washington on inauguration
day, to see that Tilden was installed. President Grant and Secretary
of War Cameron, thought the condition of affairs critical, and both
made active though secret preparations to secure the safe if not the
peaceful inauguration of Hayes. Grant, in one of his sententious
utterances, said he “would have peace if he had to fight for it.” To this
end he sent for Gov. Hartranft of Pennsylvania, to know if he could
stop any attempted movement of New York troops to Washington, as
he had information that the purpose was to forcibly install Tilden.
Gov. Hartranft replied that he could do it with the National Guard
and the Grand Army of the Republic. He was told to return to
Harrisburg and prepare for such an emergency. This he did, and as
the Legislature was then in session, a Republican caucus was called,
and it resolved, without knowing exactly why, to sustain any action of
the Governor with the resources of the State. Secretary Cameron also
sent for Gen’l Sherman, and for a time went on with comprehensive
preparations, which if there had been need for completion, would
certainly have put a speedy check upon the madness of any mob.
There is a most interesting unwritten history of events then
transpiring which no one now living can fully relate without
unjustifiable violations of political and personal confidences. But the
danger was avoided by the patriotism of prominent members of
Congress representing both of the great political parties. These
gentlemen held several important and private conferences, and
substantially agreed upon a result several days before the exciting
struggle which followed the introduction of the Electoral
Commission Act. The leaders on the part of the Republicans in these
conferences were Conkling, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen; on the part of
the Democrats Bayard, Gordon, Randall and Hewitt, the latter a
member of the House and Chairman of the National Democratic
Committee.
 The Electoral Commission Act, the basis of agreement, was
supported by Conkling in a speech of great power, and of all men
engaged in this great work he was at the time most suspected by the
Republicans, who feared that his admitted dislike to Hayes would
cause him to favor a bill which would secure the return of Tilden, and
as both of the gentlemen were New Yorkers, there was for several
days grave fears of a combination between the two. The result
showed the injustice done, and convinced theretofore doubting
Republicans that Conkling, even as a partisan, was faithful and far-
seeing. The Electoral Commission measure was a Democratic one, if
we are to judge from the character of the votes cast for and against it.
In the Senate the vote stood 47 for to 17 against. There were 21
Republicans for it and 16 against, while there were also 26
Democrats for it to only 1 (Eaton) against. In the House much the
same proportion was maintained, the bill passing that body by 191 to
86. The following is the text of the

ELECTORAL COMMISSION ACT.

An act to provide for and regulate the counting of votes for

President and Vice-President, and the decision of questions arising
thereon, for the term commencing March fourth, Anno Domini
eighteen hundred and seventy-seven.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Senate
and House of Representatives shall meet in the hall of the House of
Representatives, at the hour of one o’clock post meridian, on the first
Thursday in February, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and seventy-
seven; the President of the Senate shall be their presiding officer.
Two tellers shall be previously appointed on the part of the Senate,
and two on the part of the House of Representatives, to whom shall
be handed, as they are opened by the President of the Senate, all the
certificates, and papers purporting to be certificates, of the electoral
votes, which certificates and papers shall be opened, presented and
acted upon in the alphabetical order of the States, beginning with the
letter A; and said tellers having then read the same in presence and
hearing of the two Houses, shall make a list of the votes as they shall
appear from the said certificates; and the votes having been
ascertained and counted as in this act provided, the result of the
same shall be delivered to the President of the Senate, who shall
thereupon announce the state of the vote, and the names of the
persons, if any elected, which announcement shall be deemed a
sufficient declaration of the persons elected President and Vice-
President of the United States, and, together with a list of the votes,
be entered on the journals of the Houses. Upon such reading of any
such certificate or paper when there shall only be one return from a
State, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any.
Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and
concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be
signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of
Representatives before the same shall be received. When all
objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been
received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such
objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the
Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner,
submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its
decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State from which
but one return has been received shall be rejected, except by the
affirmative vote of the two Houses. When the two Houses have votes,
they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall
then announce the decision of the question submitted.
Sec. 2. That if more than one return, or paper purporting to be a
return from a State, shall have been received by the President of the
Senate, purporting to be the certificate of electoral votes given at the
last preceding election for President and Vice-President in such State
(unless they shall be duplicates of the same return), all such returns
and papers shall be opened by him in the presence of the two Houses
when met as aforesaid, and read by the tellers, and all such returns
and papers shall thereupon be submitted to the judgment and
decision as to which is the true and lawful electoral vote of such
State, of a commission constituted as follows, namely: During the
session of each House, on the Tuesday next preceding the first
Thursday in February, eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, each
House shall, by viva voce vote, appoint five of its members, with the
five associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States to be
ascertained as hereinafter provided, shall constitute a commission
for the decision of all questions upon or in respect of such double
returns named in this section. On the Tuesday next preceding the
first Thursday in February, Anno Domini, eighteen hundred and
seventy-seven, or as soon thereafter as may be, the associate justices
of the Supreme Court of the United States now assigned to the first,
third, eighth, and ninth circuits shall select, in such manner as a
majority of them shall deem fit, another of the associate justices of
said court, which five persons shall be members of said commission;
and the person longest in commission of said five justices shall be the
president of said commission. The members of said commission shall
respectively take and subscribe the following oath: “I —— do
solemnly swear (or affirm, as the case maybe,) that I will impartially
examine and consider all questions submitted to the commission of
which I am a member, and a true judgment give thereon, agreeably
to the Constitution and the laws: so help me God;” which oath shall
be filed with the Secretary of the Senate. When the commission shall
have been thus organized, it shall not be in the power of either House
to dissolve the same, or to withdraw any of its members; but if any
such Senator or member shall die or become physically unable to
perform the duties required by this act, the fact of such death or
physical inability shall be by said commission, before it shall proceed
further, communicated to the Senate or House of Representatives, as
the case may be, which body shall immediately and without debate
proceed by viva voce vote to fill the place so vacated, and the person
so appointed shall take and subscribe the oath hereinbefore
prescribed, and become a member of said commission; and in like
manner, if any of said justices of the Supreme Court shall die or
become physically incapable of performing the duties required by
this act, the other of said justices, members of the said commission,
shall immediately appoint another justice of said court a member of
said commission, and in like manner, if any of said justices of the
Supreme Court shall die or become physically incapable of
performing the duties required by this act, the other of said justices,
members of the said commission, shall immediately appoint another
justice of said court a member of said commission, and, in such
appointment, regard shall be had to the impartiality and freedom
from bias sought by the original appointments to said commission,
who shall thereupon immediately take and subscribe the oath
hereinbefore prescribed, and become a member of said commission
to fill the vacancy so occasioned. All the certificates and papers
purporting to be certificates of the electoral votes of each State shall
be opened, in the alphabetical order of the States, as provided in
section one of this act; and when there shall be more than one such
certificate or paper, as the certificates and papers from such State
shall so be opened (excepting duplicates of the same return), they
shall be read by the tellers, and thereupon the President of the
Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made
in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without
argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one
Senator and one member of the House of Representatives before the
same shall be received. When all such objections so made to any
certificate, vote, or paper from a State shall have been received and
read, all such certificates, votes and papers so objected to, and all
papers accompanying the same, together with such objections, shall
be forthwith submitted to said commission, which shall proceed to
consider the same, with the same powers, if any, now possessed for
that purpose by the two Houses acting separately or together, and, by
a majority of votes, decide whether any and what votes from such
State are the votes provided for by the Constitution of the United
States, and how many and what persons were duly appointed
electors in such State, and may therein take into view such petitions,
depositions, and other papers, if any, as shall, by the Constitution
and now existing law, be competent and pertinent in such
consideration; which decision shall be made in writing, stating
briefly the ground thereof, and signed by the members of said
commission agreeing therein; whereupon the two Houses shall again
meet, and such decision shall be read and entered in the journal of
each house, and the counting of the vote shall proceed in conformity
therewith, unless, upon objection made thereto in writing by at least
five Senators and five members of the House of Representatives, the
two Houses shall separately concur in ordering otherwise, in which
case such concurrent order shall govern. No votes or papers from any
other State shall be acted upon until the objections previously made
to the votes or papers from any State shall have been finally disposed
of.
Sec. 3. That, while the two Houses shall be in meeting, as provided
in this act, no debate shall be allowed and no question shall be put by
the presiding officer, except to either House on a motion to
withdraw, and he shall have power to preserve order.
 Sec. 4. That when the two Houses separate to decide upon an
objection that may have been made to the counting of any electoral
vote or votes from any State, or upon objection to a report of said
commission, or other question arising under this act, each Senator
and Representative may speak to such objection or question ten
minutes, and not oftener than once; but after such debate shall have
lasted two hours, it shall be the duty of each House to put the main
question without further debate.
Sec. 5. That at such joint meeting of the two Houses, seats shall be
provided as follows: For the President of the Senate, the Speaker’s
chair; for the Speaker, immediately upon his left; the Senators in the
body of the hall upon the right of the presiding officer; for the
Representatives, in the body of the hall not provided for the
Senators; for the tellers, Secretary of the Senate, and Clerk of the
House of Representatives, at the Clerk’s desk; for the other officers of
the two Houses, in front of the Clerk’s desk and upon each side of the
Speaker’s platform. Such joint meeting shall not be dissolved until
the count of electoral votes shall be completed and the result
declared; and no recess shall be taken unless a question shall have
arisen in regard to counting any such votes, or otherwise under this
act, in which case it shall be competent for either House, acting
separately, in the manner hereinbefore provided, to direct a recess of
such House not beyond the next day, Sunday excepted, at the hour of
ten o’clock in the forenoon. And while any question is being
considered by said commission, either House may proceed with its
legislative or other business.
Sec. 6. That nothing in this act shall be held to impair or affect any
right now existing under the Constitution and laws to question, by
proceeding in the judicial courts of the United States, the right or
title of the person who shall be declared elected, or who shall claim to
be President or Vice-President of the United States, if any such right
exists.
Sec. 7. That said commission shall make its own rules, keep a
record of its proceedings, and shall have power to employ such
persons as may be necessary for the transaction of its business and
the execution of its powers.
Approved, January 29, 1877.
 Members of the Commission.

Hon. Nathan Clifford, Associate Justice Supreme Court, First

Circuit.
Hon. William Strong, Associate Justice Supreme Court, Third
Circuit.
Hon. Samuel F. Miller, Associate Justice Supreme Court, Eighth
Circuit.
Hon. Stephen J. Field, Associate Justice Supreme Court, Ninth
Circuit.
Hon. Joseph P. Bradley, Associate Justice Supreme Court, Fifth
Circuit.
Hon. George F. Edmunds, United States Senator.
Hon. Oliver P. Morton, United States Senator.
Hon. Frederick T. Frelinghuysen, United States Senator.
Hon. Allen G. Thurman, United States Senator.
Hon. Thomas F. Bayard, United States Senator.
Hon. Henry B. Payne, United States Representative.
Hon. Eppa Hunton, United States Representative.
Hon. Josiah G. Abbott, United States Representative.
Hon. James A. Garfield, United States Representative.
Hon. George F. Hoar, United States Representative.
The Electoral Commission met February 1st, and by uniform votes
of 8 to 7, decided all objections to the Electoral votes of Florida,
Louisiana, South Carolina, and Oregon, in favor of the Republicans,
and while the two Houses disagreed on nearly all of these points by
strict party votes, the electoral votes were, under the provisions of
the law, given to Hayes and Wheeler, and the final result declared to
be 185 electors for Hayes and Wheeler, to 184 for Tilden and
Hendricks. Questions of eligibility had been raised against individual
electors from Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
Vermont and Wisconsin, but the Commission did not sustain any of
them, and as a rule they were unsupported by evidence. Thus closed
the gravest crisis which ever attended an electoral count in this
country, so far as the Nation was concerned; and while for some
weeks the better desire to peacefully settle all differences prevailed,
in a few weeks partisan bitterness was manifested on the part of a
great majority of Northern Democrats, who believed their party had
been deprived by a partisan spirit of its rightful President.
 The Title of President Hayes.

The uniform vote of 8 to 7 on all important propositions

considered by the Electoral Commission, to their minds showed a
partisan spirit, the existence of which it was difficult to deny. The
action of the Republican “visiting statesmen” in Louisiana, in
practically overthrowing the Packard or Republican government
there, caused distrust and dissatisfaction in the minds of the more
radical Republicans, who contended with every show of reason that if
Hayes carried Louisiana, Packard must also have done so. The only
sensible excuse for seating Hayes on the one side and throwing out
Governor Packard on the other, was a patriotic desire for peace in the
settlement of both Presidential and Southern State issues. This
desire was plainly manifested by President Hayes on the day of his
inauguration and for two years thereafter. He took early occasion to
visit Atlanta, Ga., and while at that point and en route there made
the most conciliatory speeches, in which he called those who had
engaged in the Rebellion, “brothers,” “gallant soldiers,” etc. These
speeches excited much attention. They had little if any effect upon
the South, while the more radical Republicans accused the President
of “slopping over.” They did not allay the hostility of the Democratic
party, and did not restore the feeling in the South to a condition
better than that which it had shown during the exciting days of the
Electoral count. The South then, under the lead of men like
Stephens, Hill and Gordon, in the main showed every desire for a
peaceful settlement. As a rule only the Border States and Northern
Democrats manifested extreme distrust and bitterness, and these
were plainly told by some of the leaders from the Gulf States, that so
far as they were concerned, they had had enough of civil war.
As late as April 22, 1877, the Maryland Legislature passed the
following:
 Resolved by the General Assembly of Maryland, That the
Attorney-General of the State be, and he is hereby, instructed, in case
Congress shall provide for expediting the action, to exhibit a bill in
the Supreme Court of the United States, on behalf of the State of
Maryland, with proper parties thereto, setting forth the fact that due
effect has not been given to the electoral vote cast by this State on the
6th day of December, 1876, by reason of fraudulent returns made
from other States and allowed to be counted provisionally by the
Electoral Commission, and subject to judicial revision, and praying
said court to make the revision contemplated by the act establishing
said commission; and upon such revision to declare the returns from
the States of Louisiana and Florida, which were counted for
Rutherford B. Hayes and William A. Wheeler, fraudulent and void,
and that the legal electoral votes of said States were cast for Samuel
J. Tilden as President, and Thomas A. Hendricks as Vice-President,
and that by virtue thereof and of 184 votes cast by other States, of
which 8 were cast by the State of Maryland, the said Tilden and
Hendricks were duly elected, and praying said Court to decree
accordingly.
It was this resolution which induced the Clarkson N. Potter
resolution of investigation, a resolution the passage of which was
resisted by the Republicans through filibustering for many days, but
was finally passed by 146 Democratic votes to 2 Democratic votes
(Mills and Morse) against, the Republicans not voting.
 The Cipher Despatches.

An amendment offered to the Potter resolution but not accepted,

and defeated by the Democratic majority, cited some fair specimens
of the cipher dispatches exposed by the New York Tribune. These are
matters of historical interest, and convey information as to the
methods which politicians will resort to in desperate emergencies.
We therefore quote the more pertinent portions.
Resolved, That the select committee to whom this House has
committed the investigation of certain matters affecting, as is
alleged, the legal title of the President of the United States to the high
office which he now holds, be and is hereby instructed in the course
of its investigations to fully inquire into all the facts connected with
the election in the State of Florida in November, 1876, and especially
into the circumstances attending the transmission and receiving of
certain telegraphic dispatches sent in said year between Tallahassee
in said State and New York City, viz.:
“Tallahassee, November 9, 1876.

“A. S. Hewitt, New York:

“Comply if possible with my telegram.

“Geo. P. Rarey.”

Also the following:

“Tallahassee, December 1, 1876.

“W. T. Pelton, New York:

“Answer Mac’s dispatch immediately, or we will be embarrassed at a critical

time.

Wilkinson Call.”
 Also the following:
“Tallahassee, December 4, 1876.

“W. T. Pelton:

“Things culminating here. Answer Mac’s despatch to-day.

W. Call.”

And also the facts connected with all telegraphic dispatches

between one John F. Coyle and said Pelton, under the latters real or
fictitious name, and with any and all demands for money on or about
December 1, 1876, from said Tallahassee, on said Pelton, or said
Hewitt, or with any attempt to corrupt or bribe any official of the said
State of Florida by any person acting for said Pelton, or in the
interest of Samuel J. Tilden as a presidential candidate.
Also to investigate the charges of intimidation at Lake City, in
Columbia county, where Joel Niblack and other white men put ropes
around the necks of colored men and proposed to hang them, but
released them on their promise to join a Democratic club and vote
for Samuel J. Tilden.
Also the facts of the election in Jackson county, where the ballot-
boxes were kept out of the sight of voters, who voted through
openings or holes six feet above the ground, and where many more
Republican votes were thus given into the hands of the Democratic
inspectors than were counted or returned by them.
Also the facts of the election in Waldo precinct, in Alachua county,
where the passengers on an emigrant-train, passing through on the
day of election, were allowed to vote.
Also the facts of the election in Manatee county, returning 235
majority for the Tilden electors, where there were no county officers,
no registration, no notice of the election, and where the Republican
party, therefore, did not vote.
Also the facts of the election in the third precinct of Key West,
giving 342 Democratic majority where the Democratic inspector
carried the ballot-box home, and pretended to count the ballots on
the next day, outside of the precinct and contrary to law.