Just Who is (not) a Warlord?
But why do we have so
many people including experts in the field using the term warlord with a
disturbing ease, even casually so? Is it not fair, at the very least to
acknowledge that the term warlord is itself deeply problematic? Who are
warlords? Are they political party heads, oligarchs (of all sorts), leaders of
official and unofficial, legitimate and illegitimate armed groups including
criminalized militaries (perhaps all of them or is there an official army in
this world that is not in part a criminal enterprise?), conflict and/or violence
entrepreneurs, ethnic mobilizers/heads, peace mercenaries etc? Are so called
warlords not partly (if not always political), partly (if not always military)
who doubles up as economic actors? If this is true, how are not many heads of
state, at least, the criminalized ones (if not all) warlords? I would want to
see someone argue and reach a valid conclusion why Uganda’s Joseph Kony is a
warlord and Yoweri Museveni is not one, or how Afghanistan’s Karzai and not America’s
Bush is one etc.
Just Who is (not) a Warlord?
Reviewed by Ibrahim Magara
on
June 01, 2019
Rating:
No comments: