Conclusion: ‘Like Everyone Else’

Abstract

DDR processes in Namibia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Liberia reveal that different types of challenges impede the reintegration of excombatants in post-conflict states. These challenges are often unanticipated and unaddressed within DDR discourse and practice. In fact, DDR programs frequently perpetuate some of the biggest obstacles to successful post-war integration. Dominant approaches to reintegration also maintain separate reintegration regimes for rich and poor states, and suggest that reintegrating former fighters back to lives of poverty is desirable and successful. Unless internationally driven assumptions and ideas about reintegration and ex-combatants are critically revised, or ex-combatants lobby and protest their way to longer-term assistance, the divide between ‘ex-combatants’ and ‘veterans’ will persist. After all, the extension of a social safety net to American veterans emerged only after violent political protest. Ex-combatant-led protests, contrary to their depiction as a security threat to peace, might be the path to integration.