Selected Recommendations

• Africans should determine under what conditions it is helpful to have the international community engaged in conflict resolution efforts.
• Africans should be aware that all stages of a peace process are equally important. Although considerable attention is focused on getting the parties to the table or reaching an accord, less attention has been paid to ensuring that the agreement is properly implemented.
• Over the long term, Africans must work to arrest the decline in state capacities. Many African states are losing control of territory and the ability to tax, to maintain roads and transportation links, and to provide basic services to their people.
• The capacity of the newly formed Organization of African Unity (OAU) mechanism for the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict should be strengthened, and the OAU should develop a clear sense of what aspects of the mechanism the international community can best support.
• The work of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in intervening to resolve disputes should be improved, as well as their capacity to provide policy-relevant information and analysis.
• The U.S. is unavoidably involved in Africa because of continuing national interest in the stability of the continent and to further other foreign policy aims such as democratization.
• The U.S. should be engaged, when appropriate, at each step of the conflict resolution process: prenegotiation (bringing the parties to the table); negotiating a peace accord; and the peace-building or implementation phase.
• The U.S. should support the OAU mechanism for conflict prevention, management, and resolution by providing mediation and problem-solving training, organizational training and assistance, and logistics or support for specific missions. U.S. diplomatic efforts should be coordinated to support, when desirable, OAU conflict resolution initiatives.
• When appropriate and feasible, the U.S. should support promising peacekeeping operations on the continent, including United Nations (UN) and possible future subregional missions. Support can come in the form of conflict resolution skills training, military equipment, training of soldiers for nontraditional operations, logistics, and communications.

Background

The failure of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Somalia (UNOSOM II) to build a new state in that war-ravaged country, after the costly U.S. military intervention is often viewed as a critical lesson about the problems associated with the international community's attempts to resolve conflict in Africa. The widely publicized killings of U.S. and other peacekeeping troops by Somali militiamen hardened attitudes among American policymakers and the public about the efficacy and costs of U.S. military intervention in Africa, the limitations of UN peacekeeping, and the ability of Africans to resolve their own conflicts. A mood of "Afro-pessimism" and "peace fatigue" has prevailed.

Thus, when genocidal strife erupted in Rwanda in 1994, causing millions of Rwandans to flee into neighboring countries, there was a strong reluctance to allow U.S. forces to become engaged in a conflict where many believe the U.S. has no obvious strategic interests. Although several thousand U.S. troops helped deliver humanitarian relief to Rwanda and to refugees in camps in neighboring countries--after the worst of the brutality and the massive refugee crisis had eased--the mission was narrowly confined to humanitarian relief, and U.S. engagement in broader efforts to resolve the conflict has been limited. Only about 200 U.S. troops were actually deployed to the Rwandan capital of Kigali, with a mission to keep the airport open for relief flights.

Yet, in the recent past, the U.S. has played a significant role in successful efforts to manage or resolve conflicts in Africa--for example, in Namibia, South Africa, Ethiopia-Eritrea, and Mozambique--and has provided assistance to Africans as they attempt to resolve conflicts such as those in Liberia, Lesotho, and Sudan. African security institutions, such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU), have recently embarked on initiatives to resolve conflict on the continent. The OAU's Mechanism for the Prevention, Management, and Resolution of Conflict, established after the Cairo summit in 1994, is an example of efforts to create new institutions to bolster regional capacities. Despite Afro-pessimism and peace fatigue, some developments augur well for future conflict prevention and resolution.

Most analysts who study Africa believe that the U.S. will continue to be engaged in African conflict resolution because of interests in stability and trade as well as environmental and humanitarian concerns. In light of the wariness to become militarily engaged in Africa after the experience in Somalia, what options exist for the U.S. to strengthen the capacity of Africans to resolve conflicts within or between African states?

There is broad consensus that conflict prevention, management, or resolution in Africa requires that Africans themselves act as a rudder, guiding peace processes forward and working with local disputants to bring about conciliation. Outside parties such as the U.S. can contribute by providing support to propel the search for peace forward, but peace cannot be imposed from abroad. Yet conflicts in Africa have international ramifications, evident in refugee flows and environmental damage, for example, but also in purely humanitarian terms. The recent genocidal conflict in Rwanda demonstrates perhaps more than any other case the interconnectedness between African conflict and the global agenda. A failure by Africans and external powers alike to address and mitigate conflict in Africa can have disastrous results that will eventually--and usually at a considerably higher cost--capture the attention of the global community and compel an international response.

Broad consensus also exists that the old adage of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is especially applicable to conflicts in Africa. In both Somalia and Rwanda, it is argued, there were early warnings of impending crisis, but African institutions and the international community failed to act decisively as the conflicts escalated. The real problem is not just early warning, but translating knowledge of an impending crisis into preventive action. A related question is, who should respond to ameliorate conflict at various points in its escalation?

One answer to this question is the notion of "layered responses." As a crisis escalates local organizations respond first, then subregional and regional organizations, and finally the international community. Local actors such as states, NGOs, or regional organizations may be able to deal with small-scale crises with mediation, conciliation, and negotiation assistance, particularly when they are supported by larger powers in the international community. The U.S. and other outsiders may support intervention to end conflicts at various stages of their development. Only when a crisis has gone beyond the capacity of African institutions to respond should military intervention by the international community be considered. Above all, close coordination among myriad actors at all stages is required for successful peacemaking, peacekeeping, or peace-building.

Therefore, in the post-Cold War world -- where the doctrine of noninterference in the affairs of sovereign states is being reconsidered--there is a growing mutual interest in a cooperative approach between Africans and the international community aimed at conflict prevention, management, and resolution. Africans have expressed a commitment to do more to address conflicts on the continent in this new environment and have established new institutional mechanisms in the OAU to promote conciliation and negotiation. Likewise, the international community--especially the UN--has sought to devolve more responsibility for peacemaking and peacekeeping to regional and subregional organizations. Given these trends, a basis for a partnership for peace arises, implying mutual commitment and obligations. This report summarizes the views and recommendation of symposium participants on the broad principles behind a cooperative approach to fostering peace in Africa and the specific options available to Africans and to the U.S. in developing the terms of partnership.

About the Symposium

On September 28, 1994, the United States Institute of Peace brought together forty specialists from Africa and the U.S.--including former and current diplomats, academics, policymakers, policy analysts, and journalists--to discuss ways to improve U.S. assistance to African efforts to prevent, manage, and resolve violent conflicts.

The purposes of the discussion were to (1) assess lessons learned from past U.S. peacemaking efforts in Africa (2) gauge the capacity of African states, regional organizations, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to take more responsibility for peacemaking and assess what kind of outside assistance could enable African institutions to be more effective peacemakers and (3) consider the U.S. role in conflict resolution in Africa. This report summarizes the proceedings (which were held on a not-for-attribution basis) and outlines some of the principal recommendations offered by participants.

The symposium is part of an ongoing program at the U.S. Institute of Peace of activities on Africa, addressing continent-wide issues as well as localized crises such as those in Sudan, Somalia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Rwanda. For further information on the Institute's Africa activities, contact David Smock.