NCJ Number
179686
Editor(s)
Mark Malan
Date Published
1999
Length
104 pages
Annotation
This edited version of six papers presented at a 1998 symposium on "International Peace and Security: The African Experience" provides an overview of contemporary efforts to keep the peace in Africa.
Abstract
The first paper explains the causes and course of conflict in Africa since the Cold War, providing a typology of latter-day African conflicts that helps to locate the discussion of crisis and response. This is followed by a paper that analyzes the crisis and response in Rwanda during the early 1990's. Instead of focusing on the failure of the international community to prevent the genocide of 1994, as have most papers on the subject, this paper focuses on the conflict-resolution efforts of Rwanda's regional neighbors. The author profiles positive elements from his personal experience as a negotiator during the process that led to the signing of the Arusha Peace Agreement in August 1993. The third paper provides an overview and analysis of the United Nations' role in peacekeeping in Africa. The UN's peacekeeping role is examined for Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, Rwanda, and Somalia. A fourth paper considers cooperation between the UN and the Organization of African Unity in the management of African conflicts, followed by a paper that reviews the experience with peacekeeping in West Africa of the ECOMOG, the Monitoring Group of the Economic Community of West African States. In echoing many of the observations of the other papers, the final paper points to the pervasiveness of complex emergencies in Africa, the perceived failure of UN peace operations in Africa, and the trend toward relying on subregional organizations to terminate African wars.