75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions: Rediscovering and reviving African humanitarian traditions
On the 75th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, three African experts remind us of the ancestral traditions of humanity brought to bear during times of conflict. These traditions, which often complement and are comparable with the rules of modern international humanitarian law (IHL), are commonly practised and accepted among Africans. However, as they are passed on orally, young people are becoming less and less familiar with them. And respect for these traditions, like respect for IHL, is under threat. Reviving them has become an urgent issue.
Yolande Diallo, a Senegalese Doctor of Law and researcher since the 1970s, is a leading expert on African humanitarian traditions. “People seem to have forgotten all about the past,” she says. “Many young people don’t know about these traditions, and they just need to be reminded of them because, if they still have parents, their parents will be very familiar with them.”
Yolande Diallo draws on this proverb to recall the liveliness and diversity of these ancient humanitarian customs in Africa. They include, for example, warnings to encourage civilians to leave the area before an attack, protection of women and children, bans on burning crops and prohibitions on entering places such as sacred forests or the cow pens of the Fulani.
These humanitarian principles, passed down orally from generation to generation, are widely practised. However, the link with IHL is rarely made. “When two children would argue or come to blows, and they were separated, if one went away, the other could never hit the first on the back, because that would be a disgrace. The tradition is to attack head-on,” says Ms Diallo. An unarmed person cannot therefore be hit, and “this has become a part of how people behave”.
Listen to Yolande Diallo, Doctor of Law, expert in African humanitarian traditions
Dating back to the Mali Empire of the thirteenth century, the Manden Charter goes even further: “You can kill your enemy, but not humiliate him,” according to one of its rules. Mutoy Mubiala, a professor of international law and human rights at the University of Kinshasa, wrote an article on this charter and its links with contemporary IHL.
He explains an ancient rule: “You can kill in a conflict when the target is military and legitimate, but when that target is rendered hors de combat [i.e. the fighter is wounded, down or taken captive], you have to protect them, look after them and not finish them off, humiliate them or drag them through the mud because they have been defeated.”
Although this rule emerged seven centuries before the Geneva Conventions were adopted, the similarity is striking.
Listen to Professor Mutoy Mubiala, International Law and Human Rights.
These values, which are accepted and take a similar form across Africa, can nevertheless be flouted when hatred prevails. In Rwanda in 1994, for example, the deeply rooted tradition of respect for places of worship was violated.
“People took refuge in churches because they knew they were places of asylum,” says Ms Diallo. Many were killed there regardless.
There are also many similarities between IHL and various religious rules governing war, in Africa and elsewhere. Ayan Abdirashid Ali, a young Australian researcher of Somali origin, highlights deeply rooted values in Muslim societies, which encourage people to act with restraint and proportionality. A verse from the Qur’an warns: “Your transgression is only against your own souls.” Islamic law, a legal regime recognized by some 20 states, also includes several rules with a similar purpose to the rules of IHL, i.e. to set limits on the behaviour of warring parties. For example, Islamic law seeks to protect women and children as well as people who are rendered hors de combat. Some rules of Islamic law go even further than IHL, for example, in certain aspects regarding humane treatment of detainees.
In Africa, those familiar with IHL often see it as a “foreign law” resulting from Western colonization. In 1949, very few African countries took part in negotiating the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Subsequently, says Ayan Abdirashid Ali, “when nations became independent, they joined a regime over which they had had no say.” In Somalia, for example, “sharia law and tradition dominate. Many people think that nothing good or valuable can come from Europe, and they are therefore reluctant to accept and internalize the Geneva Conventions.”
Listen to Ayan Abdirashid Ali, Researcher.
Today, the Geneva Conventions have been accepted by every state in the world, and most African states have also adopted the Additional Protocols of 1977. In addition, many African states have played a key role in developing more recent IHL treaties. Indeed, the continent was the first to adopt a convention on protecting and assisting displaced persons in Africa (the Kampala Convention). The ratification rate for treaties on conventional weapons, such as those banning cluster munitions and anti-personnel mines, is also higher in Africa than on other continents.
Despite Africa’s clear commitment to the rules of IHL and to humanitarian traditions rooted in custom or religion, they are not sufficiently respected. They are still little known to the general public and are all too often violated during conflicts.
So, what can be done to ensure greater respect for these humanitarian values? According to Ms Diallo, “First of all, Africans need to rediscover their traditions, and teach them.” When faced with behaviour that contradicts these principles, “every African must know, deep down, that according to their own traditions, this is not right.”
Despite all the challenges of applying them, modern IHL and African humanitarian traditions can still reinforce each other.
Today, we can only encourage influential and willing Africans to revive this extraordinary heritage of humanitarian traditions; to share these values as widely as possible, especially with young people, so that the most vulnerable groups are protected effectively during war.
