Commentary: negotiating a new millennium? prospects for African conflict resolution

Abstract

The disastrous US and UN interventions in Somalia provoked an equally unhappy failure to intervene in Rwanda. This, in turn, has now produced a reassessment of the role of the United Nations and the international community in the resolution of internal crises. A number of writers have turned to the insights of writing on conflict resolution to seek remedies for the inadequacies of development theory and international relations. Although this new interest has its own problems, not least because states tend to make little use of conflict analysis once crises ensue, it has sought strategies that do not depend on ‘quick fix’ military strikes. In the process, it has advanced an important debate about the need for local and national initiatives and institutions in resolving conflicts and about the issue of collective intervention for humanitarian purposes.