The cross-border and regional dimension of the security of people and property
by Claude Biao
Author: Claude Biao
Source: The African Geopolitical ATLAS 2020: 84 Outlooks of Africa
Publisher: Stake Books
DOI: https://doi.org/10.63542/akre4276
Document Type: Book Chapter
Publication date: April 24, 2020
Keywords: border, regional mobility, border security, border areas, African borders
ABSTRACT - The borders’ question is one of those that seem to have had the least progress on the African continent since the late 1990s. Concerning physical and social structures the debates remained stuck to the seemingly powerless observation of the “porosity of borders”. This character, stemming from sociology and the administration of border areas, has gradually become sacred and a form of abstract theory of an immutable reality. Then at the conceptual and normative level, the uti possidetis – the rule of the inviolability of borders inherited from colonization[1] – has operated as a double-edged sword in the political debate on borders on the continent. First, it had the positive effect of strengthening the potential certainty of the border lines (even in areas where they were not completely defined) by providing a shared and consensual historical source of possible border claims or disputes, and thus reducing the risk of their escalation into open conflicts. What’s more, there was a feeling of intangibility of the debate on borders itself, possibly resulting of the widely shared feeling that leaving the administration and sociology of border areas opened to debate would be similar to taking the unacceptable risk of questioning the very rule of their intangibility.
The intangibility of the debate on border areas is not without consequences for the border policies which African States devised and applied. Furthermore, it also affects cross-border security management specifically. Indeed, “porous borders” means blurred cross-border spaces, not only marked by common social and commercial practices on both sides of the administrative demarcation line, but also by the consolidation of criminal ecosystems linked to trafficking or clandestine smuggling. Actually, whoever mentions “borders intangibility” also implies natural legal limits to the forms and orientations of States’ border policies. The result is the creation of cross-border communities in African countries. This means that borders – in Africa at least – are not demarcation lines, but rather living spaces.
Translating this political and sociological reality into cartographic representation would raise technical and interpretation problems. While polygons should be used to represent border spaces, the notions of border states and nationality would become highly controversial, if not conflicted when we talk about interpretation. In fact, the use of polygons would violate the second rule of Geographic Information Systems’ consistency, which is that the boundaries of adjoining polygons should be unique. Subsequently, border states nationality requirements make it essential to (re)define to which state territory the border areas belong to, to clarify how to analyze them in terms of symbology, and to express how to process the information represented on these areas (populations, structures, resources...).
The cartographic consistency problems are not limited to the representation of the geographic information. Very early, states on the African continent (as in many other parts of the world) understood the need to apply a political correction factor. Thus, many neighbouring states on the continent have set up Border Commissions, joint police patrol units and other cross-border cooperation initiatives, which seek to integrate the reality of a cross-border community evolving in a shared living space, and to make it compatible with a political and sociological environment consisting of neighbouring states marked by a linear border. This State solution makes sense from a security perspective, since one of the main imperatives in terms of national security on the continent is to ensure that the presence of the State is visible and continuous throughout its territory. However, this does not deprive the borders of their applicable exception regime.
Whether it is accepted and recognised de jure by some countries on the continent; or imposed de facto in other contexts, the examination of border areas’ exception regime can consider at least two aspects: the political and the security aspects. It is in fact the expression of a form of “unity of destiny” of the bordering countries in terms of regional security. This in return shapes the issue of the free movement of people and goods as a matter of security. Alternatively the multiple dimensions (economic, political and social) of cross-border regional risk reinforce the perception of borders as primary material in the regional security field.
CLAUDE BIAO is a Benin-based conflict researcher and analyst. He is a senior conflict analyst for Stake experts, a Cotonou-based conflict research and risk analysis firm, and a local operational partner for international development organisations operating in Coastal West African countries. He is also the author of Etats et Terrorismes en Afrique: Un ultime défi de maturité (French edition), published by Stake Books in August 2020.
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