In his opening remarks, the President of the African Peace and Strategic Research Group, (Rtd) Major  General Ishola Williams welcomed participants - especially from South Africa and stressed the pivotal link between security, development and democratisation. He also stressed the need to get together a body of knowledge that will be useful to practitioners, civil society activists and politicians – a key objective of the dialogue series. He applauded the coming together for the first time in the country’s new democratic dispensation of people erstwhile enemies who showed little interest in the activities of one another when the military was in office. He expressed the optimism that this roundtable exercise would serve as a useful template for breaking down the perceived and real barriers between the civil sector and the security and military establishments. In his own remarks, the Director of CDD, Dr Kayode Fayemi opined that one of the most critical challenges faced by popularly elected governments emerging from prolonged authoritarian rule is the challenge of democratic control of the military and security establishments and the promotion of a stable civil-military relations.  After fifteen years of unbroken military rule in Nigeria, he explained that the place of the military and security apparatus in the new dispensation has been very much under discussion.  According to him, the newly elected government is giving serious policy and operational attention to the military question.  In order to consolidate this transition and ensure it is not vulnerable to authoritarian reversals of the kind that destroyed the country’s second and third republics, he stressed the need  to ensure democratic, not just civilian control over the military and security establishments.

 Consequently, he explained that the roundtables would focus primarily on democratic, rather than civilian control since experience has shown that formal military subservience to civilian authorities, though clearly necessary, is not by itself enough. Dr Fayemi stressed that the goal of the round-table was to encourage a discussion of the processes and mechanisms through which clear public policy implications could be derived for democratic control and security sector transformation, drawing not only on Nigeria’s own experience, but also on that of other countries, in particular South Africa.  In this regard, South Africa has emerged as an important crucible for testing the prospects of and challenges to democratic control in a country that has made a relatively smooth transition from its apartheid past to a more open and democratic system of government. A key feature of this transition has been the establishment of procedures for greater democratic accountability, transparency and control over the armed forces and security bureaucracies – by government, parliament and the political and civil society. He pointed out that comparative analysis was important because there are a lot of things to be gained from sharing the lessons and experiences of South Africa and other countries in their quest for security sector transformation.

 Whilst informing participants that the inaugural roundtable would not be the last as the collaborating partners planned to hold subsequent workshops in Ghana and South Africa because of the importance of continued dialogue amongst the role-players, Dr Fayemi expressed the optimism that the roundtables would seamlessly move into sector specific training and support work for the legislatures, defence civilian and security officials and civil society actors. It is envisaged that the eventual product of these roundtables will be a published book drawing on the papers presented and the discussions, and aiming at the widest possible specialist and non-specialist audience in the countries of focus. The project also planned to produce training manuals and handbooks on governance in the security sector, aimed at promoting effective legislative oversight, professional autonomy of the security establishments and greater interaction with the civil society in the next phase of the project. In the final analysis, Dr Fayemi enjoined participants to focus sharply on the issues in a way that military practitioners and civil actors can benefit from the experiences of other countries. 

 Dr Fayemi also thanked the sponsors of the programme – namely, the Ford Foundation, the Commission of the European Community, the UK Department of International Development ESCOR Fund and the Africa Security Dialogue & Research in Ghana.

 SETTING THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC & SOCIETAL CONTEXT.

 Following a comprehensive overview on the principles and practice of democratic control in Africa, it was suggested that the experience of Africa have been mixed. Participants agreed that there is utility in distinguishing between civil and democratic control. Civil control is characterised by the following five qualities: ability of civil government to define policies and strategies for the security sector; ability of civil government to determine personnel for the security sector; ability of civil government to organise roles for the security sector; ability of civil government to monitor implementation of programmes and evaluate them for the security sector and ability of civil government to make budgetary allocation to the security sector. Other attributes required to move from civil to democratic control include: effective parliamentary oversight; effective civil society input and presence of the rule of law.

 It was suggested that democratic control of the military and security sectors is central to the survival of democracy, but only a few African countries have experienced comprehensive security sector transformations leading to genuine democratic control. What is happening in most of the cases is the reconfiguration of political elites and formations aimed at guaranteeing regime perpetuation. Although the African security sector situation is varied and complex and it is difficult to draw firm conclusions, there are some generalisations that can be made. First, the security challenges in Africa are changing in form, if not in content. Second, new views of security arrangements are emerging across the continent in which state and non-state actors have been playing pivotal roles. Third, donors are beginning to pay attention to security matters. Many technical issues are consequently being posed. It is therefore necessary that reforms are not restricted to modernisation of the security sector.

 The above scenario has clear implications for democratic control of security establishments. First, the prospects of democratic control improve dramatically when there is an obvious shift of political power. Paradoxically, it was unanimously agreed that political change could elicit a backlash if not properly managed and lead to an early collapse of the democratisation project. In the above mentioned context of regime reconfiguration, democratic control clearly faces a serious challenge when the political elite demonstrate more interest in nominal management of the security sector, not comprehensive transformation that places democratic control at the top of the agenda.

 Without eschewing the need for a partnership that involves security establishments, the parliament, the executive and civil actors for democratic control to endure, participants stressed the critical importance of treating democratic control as a process, rather than an event but one in which the decision making process is clearly defined by the political class. This requires a political leadership that is nuanced and experienced in statecraft, a consensus on the core values and national vision of the State in question; an institutional framework for a process-led change management and a capacity building arrangement to empower the leadership and role-players in the process of security sector transformation.       

 (a)   the political, sociological and institutional background to military politics;

(b)   the manifold legacies of Nigeria’s authoritarian past and the effect of the culture of militarism on public discourse, consolidation of civil politics and democratic governance;

(c)   the nature of the political transition and the impact of transition politics on military professionalism; 

(d)   the quality of the emergent  political leadership and the nature of its legitimacy;

(e)   Feasibility of policy prescriptions introduced for stabilising civil-military relations and the extent to which the policy prescriptions guarantee institutionalised democratic control without undermining internal autonomy and military professionalism;

(f)     the nature of civil society involvement in democratic control and how this affects  the complexity of military-civil society relations;

(g)   the nature and content of international assistance in the restructuring programme;

(h)   the performance record of the new government roughly defined as the “democratic dividend”  and the impact of this on post transition problems, and; finally

(i)      the complexity of the global political economy within which the new government is functioning.

 Whilst the new government has taken some laudable steps with a programme of retirement, appointment and cleansing of the armed forces, it was noted that this exercise has been more personality driven and foreign led with very little institutional and civil society input. This could be a double-edged sword in a country where there are still unsettled questions on the future of the State. A number of recommendations were considered in order to address the deficiencies in the current reform programme. These include:

·         The recognition of the need to broaden and deepen the base of the current democratic transition by promoting consensus driven solutions to the unresolved issues of restructuring the state in order to avoid the current resort to violence through the creation of ethnic and religious militias;

·         There is the need to restore people’s faith in the constitutional process;

·         The present government should recognise that programmes of military reforms are a double-edged sword. Retirement must be accompanied with a programme of rehabilitation and reintegration into the Society.

·         Given the past history of mistrust between civil society groups and the military constituency, it is necessary to have a proactive programme of confidence building between the military and the civil society and through the improvement of civil society’s knowledge and understanding of security issues;

·         Whilst recognising the need to be assisted by the international community, aspects of the reform programme placed in the hands of foreign military consultants were widely criticised.  So also was the need to tread carefully on externally driven economic reform proposals that will create problems of governance.

·         The need to redefine the concept of security was also seen as crucial to the whole reform exercise. Since the collapse of the cold war, people have started redefining security with the emphasis on human security since many of the conflicts are poverty driven.  Hence, individual security, food security, environmental protection should be seen as government priority over and above military security.

 The situation in South Africa is quite different from other countries because of the process that led to the security sector transformation. Moreover, the people were fully mobilized for the process. However, there has been an attempt to ensure that what took place was transformation rather than reform, and not transformation for transformation sake, but transformation to improve the capacity of institutions to deliver services. It must not be transformation for transformation sake. In this regard, transformation has four different components:

 1.      Political transformation – stabilization of civil –military relations, development of defence in a democracy etc.

2.      Human resource transformation – Equal opportunity, affirmative action, gender, education & training etc.

3.      Organizational transformation – Reprofessionalisation for the armed forces

4.      Cultural transformation – Ensuring that the institution is receptive to and reflects the traditions of the transformational agenda.

 The whole process in South Africa was geared towards confidence and trust building. Control of the military should not be seen in a negative sense. Control should be seen as a positive process where the policies of government are applied to the military. In the process of security sector transformation in South Africa, many civil society organizations were involved. There was initial reluctance by military officers on the involvement of civil society and parliamentarians. But as the discussions progressed trust and confidence was built.

 Participants noted that there are a lot of similarities between Nigeria and South Africa. Both countries have legacies of protracted military rule (Nigeria) and apartheid era national Security State (South Africa). In the two countries, there was centralisation of power under the military; reliance on state coercion and surveillance; and erosion of state legitimacy and capacity to govern. This led to expansion of the role of intelligence and security services in both countries. Nigeria was however different from South Africa in the depth of the economic crisis and institutionalisation of corruption.

 The transition process in both countries also had similarities and differences. The single most important difference is that in South Africa, there was a broad based political mobilisation, consultation, debate and negotiation. This led to a shift in the balance of forces. In contrast, in Nigeria, although the pro-democracy activists were in the forefront of the struggle against the military, the transition was not negotiated with them.  The political parties in Nigeria were organically weak, deeply divided and do not have the mass following as in the case of ANC in South Africa. In both cases, there is high level of violence promoted by the supporters of the previous regime.

 Furthermore, in South Africa, there was a much more comprehensive defence transformation process including demobilisation, transformation and integration. In Nigeria, the process of transformation is just beginning but indications of a comprehensive approach have been lacking. It was noted that political conditions made security sector transformation in South Africa possible – a pro-active civil society and influential political parties. In Nigeria, the success of the process will depend on how the country is able to generate the political conditions – strong political parties, serious parliament, influential civil society and the rebuilding and re-institutionalisation of the armed forces. Participants agreed that security sector reform is necessary, but should be part of an all-inclusive, all encompassing process of public sector reform. Additionally, it should not be a personality driven masterstroke, which runs the risk of derailment but an institution driven agenda with consensus and participation of all stakeholders and role players.

 DEFENCE RESTRUCTURING IN THE CONTEXT OF DEMOCRATISATION: ACTORS AND ISSUES

 It was noted that defence restructuring could be a vital tool in sociopolitical engineering in many developing countries, including Nigeria. Defence restructuring in Nigeria has antecedents that date beyond May 1999 when the present civilian regime was ushered into office. For example, there was organisational restructuring during and after the civil war (1967-70) with the implementation of a downsizing programme through demobilisation and reorganisation exercises. However, these restructuring programmes do not represent a holistic approach to restructuring. The civil bureaucracy of the ministry of Defence (MoD) for instance was hardly subjected to change and re-organisation. But a more interesting aspect of these restructuring exercises is that they were motivated by service considerations rather than by articulated public demands on national defence which played a key role in the post-military restructuring programme.

 While there can be no doubt that the democratisation of the Nigerian polity creates its own imperatives and opportunities for the restructuring of the defence and security sectors, the extent of civil society impact on that process appears relatively thin in reality. In reality, while the strategy to keep the military perpetually out of politics and limiting its activities to the performance of its constitutionally prescribed roles is a central issue in the conduct of statecraft in contemporary Nigeria, the country also exemplifies why the western notions of an a-political military requires revisiting given the mutational tendencies and continuous shuffling of various actors between the military, political and civilian realms. In spite of this caution, it was noted that certain actors could still be identified amongst the wide array of actors. The actors involved include the political class, the government/Ministry of Defence (Civilian bureaucracy), the armed forces, the civil society and international actors. The issues include stability of democracy, prevention of coup d’etat, professionalisation of the military, subordination of the military to civil authority etc. The measures that have been canvassed by various actors include defence pacts with a major power to act as a check on the military, retirement of political officers, training, downsizing etc.

 Following extensive deliberations of the positions of these actors and strategies adopted, a number of issues were considered in defence restructuring in Nigeria and certain conclusions reached.  These included the unanimous views that: 

·         Defence restructuring should be holistic;

·         Restructuring should be gradual and sequenced;

·         Restructuring must be comprehensive;

·         Restructuring must consider and reflect local sensitivities;

·         Defence restructuring must not ignore the “organisation essence” of the armed forces in terms of professionalism, institutional pride, career development etc;

·         Restructuring must not be arbitrary. There is the need to establish a set of criteria to guide the restructuring exercise; and,

·         Restructuring must address identified core objectives i.e. improve defence planning ensuring legislative oversight, boosting the morale of troops through the clarity of role and mission and the conduct of operations.

 It was pointed out that the change imperatives that assisted in the transformation of defence in South Africa included the vastly changed external environment characterised mostly by the ending of the cold war era; the changed internal political situation with the advent of democracy in South Africa; the changed governmental priorities towards reconstruction and development, and the changed normative and cultural realities in South Africa.

 The South African Defence Force (SADF) played crucial role in the transformation process. There were a lot of officers within the SADF who understood the role of military (even before 1994) in a democratic society. It was clear to them that there was no military solution to the South Africa problem. Political change preceded the restructuring which created the right environment.

 The issues that dominated the restructuring process included:

 ·         Integration of forces into “New” SANDF;

·         Democratic control/civil military relations. For instance, after the integration, the first thing the South African Navy did was to go to parliament to request permission to buy some equipment;

·         Representivity;

·         Concept of Security. There was a change of concept from national security to human security;

·         Defence posture, strategy and policy;

·         Force design and structure;

·         Normative values and culture including civic education;

·         Defence management including efficiency, accountability, transparency, leadership, and command and management principles; and,

·         International and Regional Defence Co-operation.

 The lessons learnt from defence restructuring in South Africa include:

1.      A dynamic role by parliamentary committees is essential in establishing democratic control over the military and healthy civil military relations.

2.      All government departments should be involved in the establishment of practical and sustainable defence policy e.g. Departments of Finance, Home Affairs, National Security.

3.      Top defence officials must be personally involved in the debate with the parliamentary Defence Committees.

4.      Civil society actors must be involved in the defence debate in order to broaden the perspective of decision-makers. However, in the end, government should still retain the responsibility for decision-making.

5.      Broad consultation is imperative for national consensus on defence.

6.      Transparency and consultation increase the quality of the debate and enhance the capacity of all participants for future contributions; and,

7.        Restructuring and transformation require funding e.g. Integration, demobilisation. Most problems with implementation are due unfunded policies.

 Participants observed that there has been lot of friction between the parliamentary committee on Defence and the Ministry of Defence.

 GENDER & CIVIL SOCIETY DIMENSIONS OF DEFENCE TRANSFORMATION

 Participants pointed out that there is a paradox concerning the issue of gender and defence transformation, which we needed to be confronted.  Women play a major role in peace building and peace making in South Africa and Nigeria as elsewhere in Africa.  But the participation of women in peacemaking (negotiation and policy making) is and has been traditionally  low.  A crucial perspective is therefore missing at the negotiation stage.  A gendered approach should focus on the relationship between men and women and particularly on the exclusion of women in the higher echelons of the decision-making process.  Exclusion of women means that issues such as violence against women, women refugees, war affected children and child soldiers are not adequately addressed.  The challenge, it was noted, was for actors and participant-observers to remake and redefine the roles and missions of the security sector and work towards gender equality that women can play their role.

 It was observed that Nigeria is one of the most backward countries in terms of gender issues. It is very clear that women representation is very low and one senior military official even conceded clear lack of knowledge with respect to how many women were commissioned.  Even when women are represented, they are restricted to certain areas.  For instance, the few women who were in the ECOMOG peacekeeping operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone will always be seen in the support services.  It is patriarchy that has given rise to all these, but participants strongly felt that things could change if the leadership’s attention was drawn to this lapse arising out of the way women are socialised and marginalized in society.  It is important that as the military restructures, there is the need to address the imbalance of gender representation. Participants also underscored the importance that gender participation requires the mobilisation of women and proactive strategy of bringing women into the security sector policy-making arrangements.

 With regards to the civil society, it was argued that the military sector has been used as an agent of insecurity instead of security.  The challenge of security sector reform is therefore to build a security sector that is society friendly and can relate well with the public.  The crucial questions then are: how to make the security sector transform from being agents of insecurity to agents of security?  How do we make the security sector become credible, efficient and professional?  Participants stressed the importance of three issues which ought to be put into consideration in this regard:

·         Professional autonomy of the military so that it serves public, rather than regime interest;

·         Comprehensive defence policy that will involve the civil society in its formulation; and,

·         Confidence building between the security sector and the civil society.

 Parliamentary Oversight of Defence and Security Establishments

 The legislature has a lot to do in addressing the above issues.  Since legislative oversight requires a degree of knowledge about the institution, in the absence of which even minimal oversight cannot be exercised, it was suggested that the parliament needs an expert base that can serve as a resource for analysing security sector issues and this can serve all the committees on Defence, Police Affairs and Security and Intelligence.  In addition, the legislature must gain the confidence of civil society through regular consultations with research think tanks and civil society institutions through  public hearings aimed at popularising defence and security issues thus ensuring public ownership.  On its part, it was agreed that the military must open itself up to public scrutiny,  and be transparent in order to gain the confidence of the public at large – as many participants strongly felt that inadequate knowledge of the professional military based on the indiscretion of a comparatively few ‘political soldiers’ has been responsible for the visceral dislike of the institution which is so pervasive in society.

 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DEFENCE SPENDING AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Participants observed that defence spending in Africa has often been characterised by two factors. First, the allocation to defence is always higher than other sectors.  Second, the amount spent on defence is actually more than the official allocation – that is there are often a lot of hidden costs. This raises a fundamental question of how to control military spending in a democratic dispensation. Participants agreed that security sector transformation therefore has to consider security expenditure in all its ramifications and determine how best to utilise available resources.  The need to define what constitutes legitimate security expenditure and the balance between security expenditure and social spending need to be carefully defined – especially in light of the consensus on broadening the concept of security.

 This places a lot of responsibility on those invested with the power of oversight to learn more about the country’s threat environment, the role and mission of the security sector – both the military, police and the intelligence services; the composition of security spending to ascertain the proportions that are allocated to military hardware and personnel costs and the relationship between security sector  spending and social spending. The process of security spending review should be broad based including civilians in the Ministry of Defence and the civil society. It was observed by participants that security sector transformation – if it is aimed at producing an efficient and effective security sector is expensive, hence politicians should be cautioned against exaggerated expectations of security spending reduction as a necessary follow up to sectoral reform. This objective fact should however not preclude a responsible political leadership from defining tightly what sort of security apparatus the State can afford without subjecting the national coffers to unbearable pressure that might prove counterproductive and detrimental to the goals of achieving human security.

 Following these general points, it was noted that defence spending in Nigeria is modest considering the size and resources of the country.  Between 1990-98, the share of defence in GDP is 0.7% (compared with 4.3% in Ethiopia, 3.5% in Zimbabwe, 3.5% in Botswana and 2% in Burkina Faso).  In spite of this, participants criticised defence allocation for two reasons.  First, the allocation to defence is always higher than other sectors and it is rarely informed by any objective considerations of the threats.  Secondly, the amount spent on defence is actually more than the officially declared allocation. Participants observed that in Nigeria, security spending has been characterised by a consistent lack of transparency. For example, the political leadership have at various times given different estimated costs of the ECOMOG peacekeeping operations in Liberia and Sierra Leone. First, it was put at eight billion dollars and recently, the president gave a figure of twelve billion dollars. Previous regimes had estimated the cost at between 3 and 4 billion dollars. Meanwhile, the total official military budget in Nigeria over the period 1989-1998 was 6.8 billion dollars.  This inconsistency encourages a lack of credibility in the defence planning process.

 In the past, defence spending was about 4.5% of the GDP in South Africa. With the advent of democracy, defence spending has dropped to 2% in 1994 and 1.5% in 1999. There is more transparency now in defence expenditure. The process of making the budget is also open and transparent, involving close scrutiny by the legislature. It should however be noted that one can only budget for short term and certain issues like salaries, equipment etc still take a higher percentage of the defence budget. Since wars and disasters cannot be determined in advance, contingency fund is important but can be misused. It was also noted that transformation and change cost money and a downsized security sector does not necessarily correlate with a reduction in security sector spending or a linear transfer from security sector to social welfare issues as often assumed. Finally, a good balance is necessary between a recurrent and capital expenditure to ensure sustainability.

 STRENGTHENING MECHANISMS FOR DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE DEFENCE POLICY MAKING PROCESS AND SECURITY BUREAUCRACIES

 The participants agreed that there was the need to strengthen the mechanisms for democratic accountability in the defence policy making process. The mechanisms that need to be strengthened include formal mechanisms (Executive and Legislature) and informal mechanisms (Personalities, Political Parties, the civil society and the media) and the Defence/Security Sector bureaucracies..

 Participants agreed that there was a great need for training of parliamentarians and civil society activists on governance issues in the security sector. They need to become more knowledgeable because you cannot control what you do not understand.

 STRENGHTENING DEMOCRATIC ACCOUNTABILITY AND CONTROL OF SECURITY BUREAUCRACIES.

 Participants agreed that there is need for accountability and control of security bureaucracies at different levels of government- national, provincial (state) and local levels. Participants recognised that the challenges to be addressed in terms of control and accountability of security bureaucrats include:

·         Ignorance by the Executive and legislature on the operations of the security services.

·         The tendency on the part of the executive to use the security services as tools for perpetuating its interest.

·         The secretive nature of security bureaucracies in their operations.

·         The absence of a special court to adjudicate cases involving security services.

·         High rate of illiteracy and ignorance.

·         Lack of democratic structure and values.

·         Lack of recognition of civilian supremacy by intelligence institutions.

 Participants agreed that there is the need to strengthen the control and supervision of security bureaucracies. In order to do this, the following will be crucial:

·         Good governance.

·         Rule of law.

·         Training.

·         Application of oversight powers.

·         Improved relationship between security bureaucracies and civil society.

 The participants agreed that there is the need for the parliamentary intelligence committee to ensure that the services are well funded and the funds properly accounted for. There is the need investigate past abuses by the intelligence services and the need to prevent further abuses. The structure of the intelligence services need close examination. There is a need to separate the political officers in charge of intelligence (e.g. National Security Adviser in Nigeria) from the professional branches of the intelligence services – the Defence Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Agency and the State Security Services.

 On policing, participants agreed that there is a correlation between military intervention and weakening of the police force. It was suggested that the Nigerian contingent has consistently emphasised the creation of adequate socioeconomic conditions as a means of dousing the insecurity fire. Participants agreed that there is the need to balance centralisation and localisation in the use of policing as a means of demilitarising public order. More importantly, the need for accountability and institutional control of the security services was emphasised. Participants pointed out that reform process should be owned locally and not dependent on external players as the use of private security companies and community vigilantes for internal policing might prove counter-productive although participants acknowledged that it was the failure of state apparatus that led to the proliferation of such companies.

 REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF DEMOCRATIC CONTROL AND SECURITY TRANSFORMATIONS WITHIN SADC AND ECOWAS

Participants agreed that there was the need to have regional security mechanisms that can address the security concerns of various regions. It was pointed out that the SADC was a very good case of a potentially good co-operating unit. It however lacks good mechanisms for resolving differences among the members. Participants also agreed that the ECOWAS approach offers a useful strategy for regional security control particularly as there is an overlap of security issues and concerns in the sub-region. However, there are problems of capacity, commitment, military intervention, foreign interference and lack of an institutional base.  While recognising the importance of regional security frameworks though, participants suggested that as long as they depend on national security outfits for their operations with no degree of harmonisation and standardisation of doctrines, force structure and weapon procurement, it would be difficult to move away from state-centric security sector transformation.  An exclusive focus on regional security mechanisms can also divert attention away from substantive local issues that can only be addressed at the national level.  Finally, it was observed that the December 1999 ECOWAS Mechanism on Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution has the potential of improving regional security through unified training and doctrine.

 Whilst participants endorsed the importance of sharing lessons and experiences with mature democracies, a number of questions remain on international assistance. Participants identified the problem areas to include the  focus on items rather than the process and providing the wrong kind of assistance. It was suggested that recipients of international assistance need to identify what they want, develop framework and plan of action, and the kind of system they want.

 Additionally, participants expressed concerns about the donor driven nature of the current reform process in Nigeria.  Specific reference was made to the role being played by the American private military consultancy outfit – Military Professionals Resources Incorporated (MPRI) and it was suggested that the Nigerian government had this organisation imposed on it by the American government.  In the case of Nigeria, the need for complementarity of programmes and donor co-ordination was also discussed as the impression is often created that donors interested in supporting security sector reform have not been exchanging views amongst themselves.  Whilst expressing doubts about the motives behind donor supported security sector reform such as the on-going one in Nigeria, there were suggestions from South African participants that ownership of the reform process is what is key.  As long as the country in need is clear about its needs and there is a high degree of goal consensus among the population on these needs, donor driven agendas seldom succeed even when they are dressed up as locally driven through local front organisations or government agencies.  It was thus agreed that whilst donors can help with resources and some ideas about their own reform process, the idea that security sector transformation can be transposed from one setting to another should be resoundingly discouraged by all role-players in government and civil society.

 COMPARATIVE DIMENSION: LATIN AMERICA, ASIA AND EUROPE

 It was suggested that there are many lessons to be drawn from the experiences of democratic control or lack of it in the democratic transitions in Latin America, Europe and Asia. Participants noted that certain factors in Latin America have made it difficult to put the question of reform of the armed forces boldly on the agenda. These factors include: the pacted nature of many transition to civil rule which ensured that the hand over did not take place in a breakdown of law and order and a defeat of the military; concern for stability and the fact that the military as an institution still enjoys high level of support of the people – especially in countries like Chile, Argentina and Brazil. Furthermore, perhaps because of the gross violation of human rights during the military regime, all efforts seem to be concentrated on protection of human rights and not democratic control of the military.

 In Asia, it was pointed out that in Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, the military has become a discredited institution.  The need to de-politicise the military, de-militarise the society, redefine the role of the military and ensure civilian supremacy has been a priority over the last decade. The civil society needs to play the role of a watchdog. Participants emphasised the role of constitutionalism and strong political parties in ensuring civilian supremacy and a high level of clarity around what the character of the state is.

 In Turkey, it was affirmed that the military appears to be well respected given its Ataturkian antecedents. Meanwhile, the military has never been accountable and there is no democratic control. Indeed, it could be argued that the reverse is often true. Unfortunately, the issues of security sector reforms are not being debated probably because of a more pressing threat from Islam and as a result of the undisciplined and clientelist party politics in the country.

NEXT STEPS?

Participants commended the highly interactive nature of the exercise and suggested the following steps: 

v      Civil-military relations and security sector reform are dynamic and on-going processes, which should be continued and sustained.

v      Given the nature of the problems, there was a consensus that focus should be concentrated on civil policing as a means of demilitarising public order and ensuring individual and community security that can enhance national unity.  Police reform is therefore seen to be central to security sector reform;

v      It was agreed that the roundtable should move from the general considerations to specific sectoral work after the two subsequent roundtables in Ghana and South Africa to help build the capacity of practitioners, legislators and scholars;

v      It was also suggested that subsequent roundtables should be broadened to include the Ministries/Departments of Defence at the highest level – Ministers, Deputy Ministers etc, not just the officials especially if the overall goal is to make an impact on policy;

v      It was suggested that the regional networks that has emerged out of this initial cooperation should occur in a more systematic way

v      There is the need for a more indigenous strategy of security sector reform and participants endorsed the work of the Security and Demilitarisation Group aimed at producing an indigenous study on security sector transformation in Africa as well as the work of the Governance in the Security Sector research team.

v      Whilst endorsing the importance of foreign assistance, it was unanimously agreed that foreign assistance should not be a substitute for local ownership of the process.

v      There is the need to build a research and training network that can benefit other countries in the two regions since the current scarcity of analytical capacity privilege Nigeria and South Africa in both regions

v      There is the need to continue to dialogue amongst the military, parliamentarians and civil society especially in Nigeria where trust has been eroded over the years and relationship between military and civil actors remains fraught with difficulties. Public enlightenment is critical and both sides were enjoined to be open minded and committed about promoting a change of attitude on both sides. There is the need for reorientation of the society.

v      There is the need for inter-sectoral dialogue including foreign affairs, intelligence services, the Police and the Military.

v      There is a need to direct more attention to the gender dimensions of security sector transformations

v      There is the need for more interactions between practitioners and academics in Africa.

v      There is the need to develop a network among parliamentarians charged with responsibilities of legislative oversight of military, policing and intelligence services.  In this regard, the Nigerian parliamentary team extended an open invitation to their South African counterparts to visit the Nigerian national Assembly in the New Year.

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