The frequent violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is part of a series of interlinked, complex conflicts encompassing the African Great Lakes region. The DRC, Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda all appear to be connected by geographical and historical factors and the legacies of decades of conflict interspersed by episodes of peace. Conflict in […]
Introduction Northwestern Kenya has been a theatre of violent conflict pitting the Pokot, Samburu, and Turkana communities against one another in a fierce and deadly competition. This has been catalyzed by diminishing pasture and water resources, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, political incitement, disputes over land and ethnic boundaries, the absence of […]
After controlling Goma for 11 days, M23 has now left the city. This is, unfortunately, not the end of the conflict. Not only must a more lasting settlement be reached, but what happened when the Congolese army (FARDC) ran away and the world’s largest peacekeeping force, the United Nations Organization Stabilizing Mission in the Democratic […]
Sierra Leone’s was a complicated war. One of the first post-Cold War conflicts, and seemingly one of the more intractable and bizarre, there is still no consensus explanation for what happened in Sierra Leone and neighboring Liberia throughout the 1990s. Scholars from political science, anthropology, history, psychology, and sociology have looked to this small West […]
In the momentous Security Council debate that took place in January 2012 on cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations, the US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, rebuked African members on the Council for suggesting that it formally mandate the African Union (AU) to take the lead role in maintaining peace and security […]
At the heart of African peace and security architecture (APSA) is the aspiration for enhanced African autonomy, often referred to as the “African solutions to African problems” agenda. When the AU commissioner for peace and security addressed the AU Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) in January 2012, he identified the primary element in strengthening the […]
