1970s–2000s: (The Politics and Cultures of Insurgency — The Massive Influx of AK-47s Breaking the State’s Monopoly on Military Might, Guerrilla Movements as …

1970s–2000s: (The Politics and Cultures of Insurgency — The Massive Influx of AK-47s Breaking the State’s Monopoly on Military Might, Guerrilla Movements as a Second Wave of Military Intervention, the EPLF Fighting Thirty Years for Eritrean Independence, the TPLF Looking to Albania as a Model of Non-Aligned Marxism, Museveni’s NRA Capturing Kampala in 1986, the RPF Seizing Power Amid the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, and the Open Question of Whether Guerrillas Can Become Democrats): Since the 1980s, professional armies of colonial descent have been challenged by well-armed guerrilla forces constituting a second wave of military intervention. The massive influx of automatic weapons — particularly the ubiquitous AK-47 — enabled populist groups to challenge the state as never before, breaking the monopoly on military might maintained since the 1890s. Groups that in the 1960s resisted with Second World War rifles had access in the 1980s to machine-guns and rocket-launchers. Insurgencies proliferated: in southern Sudan, revolt against northern rule became Africa’s longest war; Eritreans fought thirty years for independence under the EPLF; in Ethiopia alone, numerous movements emerged fighting successive regimes and each other. The TPLF looked to Albania as a model of non-aligned Marxism, while the EPLF developed isolationist pragmatism, rejecting the USSR as imperialist. A coalition of these forces — the EPRDF — toppled the Marxist dictatorship in 1991. Other successful movements included Museveni’s NRA capturing Kampala in 1986 and the RPF seizing power amid Rwanda’s genocidal mayhem in 1994. All remain in power, largely unreconstructed — whether these movements of popular armed struggle are attracted to pluralism remains an open question. In Uganda, Museveni’s non-party system has shown increasing intolerance; in Rwanda, Kagame used the horror of genocide to justify closing down debate; in Eritrea, the EPLF created one of the AU’s most authoritarian states. Societies liberated by force have become more militarized as guerrillas became governments, imbued with a sense of political mission and righteousness buoyed by the memory of blood sacrifice. In some cases — Somalia, Liberia, Sierra Leone — armed uprising led to bloody anarchy, as armed groups were less ideologically driven revolutionaries than disaffected, brutalized, nihilistic youth.