ABSTRACT
A feature apparent in both the Middle East and Africa has been the linkage between political organisations and military groups. In Lebanon, a number of parties had their own militias and similar associations can be found in Africa, eg. the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA) is the armed wing of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPA). Between 1975 and 1990 Lebanon was plunged into a civil war which threatened to split the country and since 1994 Rwanda has suffered an appalling ethnic conflict which at times witnessed the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands of people (Observer 10 July 1994). Some wars have lasted almost a generation. In Angola a civil war continued for 19 years between the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) under the leadership of Dr Jonas Savimbi and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) headed by the country’s President José Eduardo dos Santos. The war began at the
country’s independence from Portugese colonial rule. Civil wars have taken place in the early 1990s in Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia. A highranking expert on Somalia has spoken of the conflict and insecurity in Somalia being a function of the country’s politics.
