Violent Conflict and Civil War - Essay Example

the ever falling GDP figures presented by Moss. He states that many countries in Africa including Zimbabwe have seen economic collapse and this can be proved by looking at their GDP figures. There are many countries still entangled in civil wars such as Darfur. The major sources of conflict as identified by Todd are scarcity for resources, poor leadership practices where leaders are not willing to give up power leading to military rule by these tyrants, poverty levels which are high and alarming, tribalism and tribal affiliations, and cross-border conflicts due to shared resources as it is the current case with Northern and Southern Sudan States (Moss, 2011). The dawn of independence in many African states meant that the new leaders were to choose various modes of leadership, philosophies and economic concepts. Many who were opposed to capitalist practices by the colonialists chose socialism and vice versa while others like Kenya chose to tore the thin line and combined both coming up with African socialism. These goals were not achieved and what resulted was a collapse of the systems of governance. This has been to a greater extent the highest undoing of African states. Many of these African states that are faced with civil war and violent conflicts do little to change the situation. Instead, they have resorted to evolving tactics which are most characterized by state denial of the real situations on the ground. And to many tyrant rulers, suppression of civil uprisings has been the short term solution (Moss, 2011). Roessler (2011) gives us the clear view of what causes civil wars and violent conflicts in Africa. Much as Todd Moss’s comments are true and applicable to most Africa States, Roessler (2011) brings out the true picture