Broadly, the armed struggle lost its potential for three reasons. First, and somewhat paradoxically, because the movement gained increasing popularity in the 1980s it
struggled to organise and sustain itself....Secondly, the clandestine nationalist movement over the years lost touch with the people it aimed to mobilise in its struggle for independence.
Finally, fratricidal war in the 1990s completed the armed movement’s downfall. Violence was no longer a means to struggle for independence aimed at state infrastructure, but rather a mere tool for private justice and the settling of scores. This came as a direct result of the state’s above-mentioned policy of division, leading every group to claim that it was the
entitled spokesperson vis-à-vis the state.
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