Regional Intervention in Fragile African States: Comparative Case Studies of South Sudan and Lesotho: Any Lessons Learnt?

Abstract

African conflicts have continued to be protracted and unresponsive, frustrating
conventional interventions. Consequently, the concept of African Solutions for
African-Centred Solutions (AfSol) has increasingly become the default alternative.
To this end, politico-military crises in South Sudan and Lesotho in 2014 and the
interventions by IGAD and SADC respectively, have shown remarkable similarities.
South Sudan, saddled with an unclear leadership succession as the country
approached the scheduled 2015 national election, the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement (SPLM) National Liberation Council convention of December 2013
became a battleground that dragged the country into civil war. Curiously, the same
happened in Lesotho when the country was faced with a vote-of-no-confidence
in June 2014 and Prime Minister Thomas Thabane dismissed key government
officials, prorogued the parliament and removed the Army Commander plunging
the country into civil war. When each of the fragile states reached this stage, the
sub-regional economic and security organisations (RECs) of IGAD and SADC,
respectively, intervened. This paper assesses the implications and impact of those
interventions, under the rubric of AfSol in order to discover any lesson learnt.
Findings of this case study reveal that the philosophy of AfSol is a possible tool of
intervention that could also be extrapolated to other conflict scenarios elsewhere
on the African continent.