When ex-combatants became peaceful: Azania People’s Liberation Army ex-combatants in post-apartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

In post-colonial Africa ‘ex-combatant’, ‘war veteran’, ‘ex-fighter’, and ‘demobilised soldier’ are categories that denote a history of war, violence and conflict. In essence, these are labels which represent military identities. However, despite the view that the Demobilisation, Disarmament and Reintegration (DDR) programme has failed to re-integrate ex-combatants into civilian life, in the absence of an expressed identity under the aegis of the DDR programme, ex-combatants can elect to embrace peace in the communities in which they live. I argue that even though we may perceive ex-combatants to belong to a violent category of persons, they can espouse non-violent practices while holding on to their military identity.

KEYWORDS:

• ex-combatants
• political violence
• military identity
• DDR
• peace

Acknowledgements

This publication was made possible by support from the Social Science Research Council's African Peacebuilding Network research grant, with funds provided by Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Notes on Contributor

Godfrey Maringira is a Volkswagen post-doctoral fellow based at the University of the Western Cape in the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. His main area of research is on the ethnography of war, army desertions in Africa, wartime sex, soldiers and the environment and soldiers in post-army life.