Peacekeeping in Africa: Reflections on developments and trends

Abstract

Africa is arguably the most important regional selling for United Nations peacekeeping challenges. Hence, Africa is the first continent where extensive efforts have recently been made between the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity with the specific aim of enhancing the management of conflicts in the region. It is significant that the UN now seems prepared to form partnerships with willing regional organisations and alliances in Africa with regard to the conducting of peace-support operations. At the same time, the United States and certain European nations have begun to support the idea of an African response capability of some kind. Another significant development relates to the fact that sub-regional organisations in Africa have started to feature as important peacekeeping instruments in recent years as it has increasingly been accepted that there is a need for such institutions to take care of their own security requirements. In this regard, the “indigenous" intervention operations without UN endorsement or involvement in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Lesotho are of particular interest, as these would seem to represent a new dimension in the management of African peacekeeping requirements. What is needed in the African context is to establish an acceptable basis for involvement or intervention in intra-state conflicts that respects the dignity and independence of stales without sanctioning the misuse of sovereign rights to violate the security of people within a stale's borders. It would therefore be desirable that all the roleplayers in Africa and further afield should develop a set of broad principles to respond appropriately and speedily to situations where the security of people is imperilled.