From Darfur to the Rwandan genocide journalists policymakers and scholars have blamed armed
conflicts in Africa on ancient hatreds or competition for resources. Here Tsega Etefa compares
three such cases-the Darfur conflict between Arabs and non-Arabs the Gumuz and Oromo clashes
in Western Oromia and the Oromo-Pokomo conflict in the Tana Delta-in order to offer a fuller
picture of how ethnic violence in Africa begins. Diverse communities in Sudan Ethiopia and
Kenya alike have long histories of peacefully sharing resources intermarrying and resolving
disputes. As he argues ethnic conflicts are fundamentally political conflicts driven by
non-inclusive political systems the monopolization of state resources and the manipulation of
ethnicity for political gain coupled with the lack of democratic mechanisms for redressing
grievances.
