Mes respects Mike,

I gather this "district" has a number of villes (based on "roads discussion"; G is the main ville and district center with Commissioner and Paramount Chief; X, Y, O & U are subsidiary). Are all these ville folks from the same population group (e.g., common dialect, customs, etc.) ? What (if anything) differentiates folks in one ville from another ville (e.g., separate extended families or totem clans) ?
Well, I will try to clarify a little all of this. First, yes, G is the main city of the area. Secondly, no, all populations are not from the same ethnical group. But X and Y are from the same ethnical group. They do have common dialects and common customs.
What differentiate the population from one city from another? Good question! It is hard to say, mainly extended family relations. But also, and that is one of the main points, what each of those village population did or not during the past war. Not that they fought each others but rather how they did cope with it.
But it does not really matter if we try to look at this report as representative of the difficulties faced on the ground. This mainly because in fact, the unexpressed needs on those 2 villages conflict is all about miss governance and unfair distribution of peace benefits. Village X received all the aid while village Y did receive none.
It looks anecdotic but as demonstrated the anthropologist Elikia M’Bokolo, ethnic groups and tribes are not something fixed and new ethnic groups may be created on such bases as differentiated access to development or administrative power or a split between 2 groups in a village. (This reinforce the dynamic character of traditional societies as posted Marc)


the X & Y Monyomiji have down such "M" stuff as force projection, tracking and meeting force with force - as well as some "I" stuff (conflicting claims re: narrated causes, with some underlying "E" stuff, a fair inference).

Despite the "sensitive" situation vis a vis X and Y folks, the Commissioner seems to have free passage in both villages. Why is that so ? Can the same be said for the Paramount Chief (also residing at G) ?

What X and Y seem to lack is an "international" dispute resolution mechanism - "D" (on an inter-ville basis) is apparently lacking in their vocabulary; although it seems that the Commissioner and Paramount Chief have been involved in this unsuccessful attempt at "D":
It is somehow a lagrangian paradise in the sense, as you mentioned it, that what characterise this situation, and many I have been in, lack of international mechanisms to initiate dialog between 2 villages.
Here, as in many other places, the village is like a small country. This is why I tend to approach tribal or traditional societies as islands in a sea of sand.
The paramount chief is both a traditional and administrative authority, such as the village chief. How they are chosen? Partly by the population and partly by “central” power. Therefore, even in a homogeneous ethnical group area, the situation is much like an archipelago. Each village has its land and between each village, free land can be assimilated to “international waters”.
The paramount chief should be the authority who would settle issues between al villages. But when it falls into violence, the recognised authority is the commissioner. This mainly because paramount chief does not have real force capacity while commissioner does.
I wonder how much sea law approach could help to analyse and set up mechanisms to solve such practical issues.

Concerning freedom of movement, the paramount chief does have the same freedom of movement than commissioner but he does not have either the will or the capacity (a car). And, in addition, commissioner does have troops to protect him.





Have these villes ever had a tribunal to settle inter-ville differences ? If so, when, what did it look like and why did it end ? More generally, how have these inter-ville armed conflicts ended in the past ? Or have they just settled down for a time until it's time for a new generation to "go to the mattresses" ?
The situation is some how new, in the sense that inter-village conflict settlement is not a new thing but peaceful settlement is. To be clear, the peace agreement this report is referring to is basically built on the same bases as an international peace agreement: the 2 parties agree to stop fighting on 1 issue (here the cattle raiding issue). A third party is designated as observer and a compensation mechanism is put in place.
If any member of any of the 2 communities commits an offence against the peace agreement, the offended party can report it to the third party who will then establish a compensation price, initiate actions to bring the “criminal” to justice.
One of the many limits of that process is the fact that:
1) Elders who are the warrant of the peace process have no obligation of success or even results. As elders are not affected if there are no results, some may decide to not implement the peace agreement.
2) Youth are not respecting elders anymore.
3) Elders are not respecting youth who do not comply with tradition (going for cattle raiding and women and children abduction). An interesting report on this in Central Equatorian state in South Sudan was published several months ago. Unfortunately I lost it. But as described in a previous post, it is the same problematic of age group competition (with a variation) as in Liberia.
What characterise post conflict areas I have been into is that impossible dialog between elders and youth based on the denial (on both sides) of social power/recognition by each age group. I personally believe that this is one of the problematic that we do have important lack of understanding: social impact of war on age groups and how this is in depth affecting peace building capacities by undermining judicial systems in fragile and traditional societies.


As an alternative to a Weberian Paradise, is the Monyomiji system also suited to the local inter-ville relationships (so long as the conflict remains low intensity) by providing for "redistribution of wealth" (cattle raiding), allowing young men to prove and improve their status, get married and sire a flock of warrior kids, etc., etc. ?
We are here in the problematic I was talking about previously. Basically Monyomiji does play a role in youth integration in the village social power mechanisms. But war impacts have been:
1) To impoverish the elders and therefore the youth.
2) To build capacities inside youth (through vocational training relief programs) which are not recognised by the elders’ group as valuable. As example, one of my colleagues, who is graduated in politic science and has a job in an international organisation, is not respected by the elders of his village because he did not cattle raid. But he is making more money in one month they will never have in their life (and he is not making much, less than 2000$).
3) And finally a culture of violence inside youth who has been raised in a country at war during several decades and does not recognised any value in peace as they never experienced it.
So, as you pointed it Mike, youth have a social obligation to cattle raid, abduct children and women. But they also face an economical necessity as there are no employment opportunities. And if there are some, it is not recognised (back to the social obligation).
And finally, war is the only way of life those young men know in fact. As it is said in a War Child poster: you can take a child out of the war but how do you take the war out of a child?

But concerning our subject, we have here a strong combination of social and economical disturbances which are basically undermining any efforts to build or rebuild any form of judicial systems. Using the traditional systems looks like a good idea as it seems to be a widely accepted referral system but, as I mentioned before, the assumption that goes with is that traditional systems are frozen in time. (A mistake according to Levis Straus, as Marc pointed).
With traditional societies based on Islam, this might be slightly different as the legal referent is written (Coran). But still, each village judicial system will still remain subject to local interpretation.

Oh, and CAD means Civil Affairs Department

M-A