Efficiency versus Sovereignty: Delegation to the UN Secretariat in Peacekeeping

This article analyses why the UN’s members delegate resources to the UN Secretariat in the sensitive field of peacekeeping. It argues that the Secretariat can carry out planning and implementation functions more efficiently, but that the states remain wary of potential sovereignty loss. Through a mixed methods approach, this article provides evidence for such a functional logic of delegation, but shows that it only applies from the late-1990s on. The change in approach of states towards delegation can be explained by feedback from the dramatic failures of peacekeeping in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda and Somalia.

The Trauma of Truth Telling: Effects of Witnessing in the Rwandan Gacaca Courts on Psychological Health

Truth telling has come to play a pivotal role in postconflict reconciliation processes around the world. A common claim is that truth telling is healing and will lead to reconciliation. The present study applies recent psychological research to this issue by examining whether witnessing in the gacaca, the Rwandan village tribunals for truth and reconciliation after the 1994 genocide, was beneficial for psychological health. The results from the multistage, stratified cluster random survey of 1,200 Rwandans demonstrate that gacaca witnesses suffer from higher levels of depression and PTSD than do nonwitnesses, also when controlling for important predictors of psychological ill health. Furthermore, longer exposure to truth telling has not lowered the levels of psychological ill health, nor has the prevalence of depression and PTSD decreased over time. This study strongly challenges the claim that truth telling is healing and presents a novel understanding of the complexity of truth-telling processes in postconflict peace building.

This article explores the relationship between the UK and Rwanda, using the lens of the UK Department for International Development’s integrated approach to state building and peace building in fragile and conflict-affected states. It identifies a number of priorities for UK aid under such a framework, but shows that in the case of Rwanda these have not been foregrounded in the bilateral aid relationship. The article suggests a number of reasons for this, arguing that, by refusing to acknowledge or address Rwanda’s deviations from what was considered a positive development trajectory, the UK is becoming internationally isolated in its support for the rpf regime. It concludes that, while this bilateral relationship may support achievement of stability and relative security in Rwanda, promoting such a narrow form of state building is detrimental to more holistic peace building, both nationally and regionally.

Transition from war to peace in Sub-Saharan Africa

Several devastating conflicts have persisted in Sub-Saharan Africa for the past 20 years or more. Some countries are still emerging from the era of cold war politics, while debilitating internal struggles continue to plague others. Ethiopia, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda, and more recently, Angola and Mozambique are examples of the former. The latter is illustrated by the situation in countries such as Liberia, Somalia and the Sudan. This study, the transition from war to peace in Sub-Saharan Africa, offers practical guidance and examples of good practice for improving the design and implementation of programs for demobilization, reinsertion, and reintegration of ex-combatants and their dependents in client countries. It also provides a list of early warning signals that indicate whether the demobilization and reintegration programs (DRPs) process is not going according to plan and suggests preventive actions. Work on the ground, as well as case analysis in countries such as Ethiopia, Namibia, Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, and Rwanda form the basis of the suggested good practice in DRPs.

Structural Causes, Development Co-operation and Conflict Prevention in Burundi and Rwanda

This article examines in turn the four main pillars of the international peacekeeping agenda (security, development, good governance and justice) in Burundi and Rwanda. Each section reviews the scholarly and policy debates about these dimensions of external engagement prior to the civil wars that ravaged both countries. Next, they analyse the post-conflict approaches used by the international community (after 1994 in Rwanda and since 2000-05 in Burundi. The concluding section draws together key lessons about the interactions between poverty, governance, violence and international assistance in Burundi and Rwanda. They bring into sharp focus the limits that development co-operation faces in shaping these issues.

The article analyses peacebuilding theories and methods, as applied to justice system reform in post-conflict scenarios. In this respect, the international authorities involved in the reconstruction process may traditionally choose between either a ‘dirigiste’ or a consent-based approach, representing the essential terms of reference of past interventions. However, features common to most reconstruction missions, and relatively poor results, confirm the need for a change in the overall strategy. This requires international donors to focus more on the demand for justice at local levels than on the traditional supply of financial and technical aid for reforms. The article stresses the need for effectively promoting the local ownership of the reform process, without this expression being merely used by international actors as a political umbrella under which to protect themselves from potential failures.

Ending Civil Wars: The Success and Failure of Negotiated Settlements in Civil War

Based on the study of every internationally negotiated civil war settlement between 1980 and 1998, this volume presents the most comprehensive effort to date to evaluate the role of international actors in peace implementation. It looks into promises made by combatants in peace agreements and examines when and why those promises are fulfilled. The authors differentiate between conflicts, showing why Guatemala is not Bosnia, and why strategies that succeed in benign environments fail in more challenging ones. Going beyond attributing implementation failures to a lack of political will, the volume argues that an absence of political will reflects the judgment of major powers of the absence of vital security interests. Overall, the authors emphasize that implementers must tailor their strategies and give priority to certain tasks in implementation, such as demobilizing soldiers and demilitarizing politics, to achieve success.

Harmonizing the Humanitarian Aid Network: Adaptive Change in a Complex System

Humanitarian aid operations save many lives, but they also fail to help many people and can have unintended political consequences. A major reason for the deficit is poor coordination among organizations. In contrast to “lessons learned” studies that dominate the literature on this topic, this article uses systemic network theory, drawn from business management literature. It presents the humanitarian aid community as a complex, open, adaptive system, in which interaction of structure and processes explain the quality of the response to environmental demands. Comparison of aid operations in Rwanda in 1994 and Afghanistan in 2001 probes the argument that the humanitarian system is becoming more effective by developing characteristics of a network through goal-directed behavior of participating organizations. The study finds development of network characteristics in the system when clusters of organizations learn to coordinate more closely, but the system is constrained by the workload of a crisis environment, lack of trust among organizations, and the political interests of donor governments.

Can Truth be Negotiated? History Textbook Revision as a Means to Reconciliation

International school textbook revision and research became a professional academic activity after the First World War. It broadened its scope and methodological approaches considerably after the collapse of the bipolar world. Today, a number of different agencies, such as international governmental institutions, NGOs, and academic as well as pedagogical institutions, are involved in projects on the revision of history teaching in postconflict societies. This article examines the pros and cons of different project designs, focusing on the sometimes contradictory aims projects are expected to achieve and on the interplay between the various agencies. Examples highlighting the reconstruction and reconciliation process are taken from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Israel-Palestine, and Rwanda and South Africa.

Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failure

The 1990s has seen an explosion of attention to the phenomenon of civil wars. A proliferation of actors has added complexity to conflict resolution processes. Recent theoretical research has highlighted the importance of inter-connections between parallel or overlapping conflict resolution activities. With this context in view, this book explores the connections between different regional and international conflict resolution efforts that accompanied the Rwandan civil war (from 1990 to 1994), and assesses the individual and collective impact they had on the course of that conflict. Jones explores the reasons for the failure of wide-ranging peace efforts to forestall genocidal violence in Rwanda in 1994. The book traces the individual and collective impact of both official and unofficial mediation efforts, peacekeeping missions, and humanitarian aid. It sets the peace effort in Rwanda in the wider context of academic theories about civil war and its resolution, and identifies a range of policy implications and challenges relating to conflict prevention, negotiation, and peacemaking.

Challenges to Peace: Conflict Resolution in the Great Lakes Region of Africa

Efforts to bring peace and reconstruction to the Central African region have been fashioned by contemporary conflict resolution models that have a standard formula of peace negotiations, with a trajectory of ceasefire agreements, transitional governments, demilitarization, constitutional reform and ending with democratic elections. Local dynamics and the historical and multifaceted nature of the conflicts are rarely addressed. Furthermore, participants in the peace process are restricted to representatives of political parties, the state and rebel movements, to the exclusion of civil society. Using as examples the conflicts and peace processes in three Great Lakes countries-Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo-the paper contends that contemporary global frameworks for peacemaking and peace building that rest on the acceptance of neoliberal political and economic models cannot lay the foundations for the conditions necessary for sustainable peace. This necessitates the utilisation of a more inclusive concept of peace, the starting point of which has to be the emancipation of African humanity.

Constructing Justice and Security After War

This book addresses what both scholars and practitioners now recognize as a foundation of effective peace: effective, legitimate, and rights-respecting systems of justice and physical security. This volume provides nine case studies by distinguished contributors, including scholars, criminal justice practitioners, and former senior officials of international missions, most of whom have closely followed or been intimately involved in these processes. The wide-ranging case studies address whether and how societies emerging from armed conflict create systems of justice and security that ensure basic rights, apply the law effectively and impartially, and enjoy popular support. The studies examine the importance of social, economic, and cultural factors as well as institutional choices regarging the form, substance, and sequence of reforms. Cases include: El Salvador, Haiti, Guatemala, South Africa, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor / Timor Leste. Additional Topic: Gender.

The Role of International Law in Rebuilding Societies after Conflict

International law can create great expectations in those seeking to rebuild societies that have been torn apart by conflict. For outsiders, international law can mandate or militate against intervention, bolstering or undermining the legitimacy of intervention. International legal principles promise equality, justice and human rights. Yet international law’s promises are difficult to fulfil. This volume of essays investigates the phenomenon of post-conflict state-building and the engagement of international law in this enterprise. It draws together original essays by scholars and practitioners who consider the many roles international law can play in rehabilitating societies after conflict. The essays explore troubled zones across the world, from Afghanistan to Africa’s Great Lakes region, and from Timor-Leste to the Balkans. They identify a range of possibilities for international law in tempering, regulating, legitimating or undermining efforts to rebuild post-conflict societies.