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The maintenance of peace in the world has become the central problem and preoccupation of nation states, international organizations, and regional bodies. In an increasing interdependent world, the search for peace has quite understandably and inevitably become a collective exercise. Since the end of WWII, global efforts aimed at maintenance of peace have been carried out through the United Nations. But as crisis areas increased all over the world, regional groups such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU) were required to assume new role of peacekeeping within their area. The need for peacekeeping operations in Africa has increased significantly in recent years as a result of an increase in intrastate and interstate conflicts. The types of situations that have called for peacekeeping operations include border clashes, civil wars, and ethnic conflicts. The purpose of this study is to determine what type of military peacekeeping force can and must be developed within the framework of the OAU. The structure must be feasible and should assist in preserving and strengthening the organization, enhance the existing system of peacekeeping; and promote the evolutionary advance towards a continent of peace and stability.
African regional organizations have played leading roles in constructing collective conflict management rules for the continent, but these rules or norms have not been static. Currently, the African Union (AU) deploys monitors, authorizes peace support operations, and actively engages to resolve internal conflicts. Just a few decades ago, these actions would have been deeply controversial under the Organization of African Unity (OAU). What changed to allow for this transformation in the way the African regional organization approaches peace and security? African peace examines why the OAU chose norms in 1963 that prioritized state security and led to a policy of strict non-interference - even in the face of destabilizing violence - and why the AU chose very different norms leading to a disparate conflict management policy in the early 2000s. Even if the AU’s capacity to respond to conflict is still developing, this new policy has made the region more willing and capable of responding to violence. Nash argues that norm creation largely happened within the African context, and international pressure was not a determinant factor in their evolution. The role of regions in the international order, particularly the African region, has been under-theorized and under-acknowledged, and this book adds to an emerging literature that explores the role of regional organizations in the Global South in creating and promoting norms based on their own experiences and for their own purposes.
In 1981 the Organization of African Unity (OAU) mandated and fielded the first regional peacekeeping operation since the Arab League's mission in Kuwait 20 years earlier. Battalion-sized contingents from Nigeria, Senegal, and Zaire were joined by smaller observer contingents from other OAU members in an effort to provide a buffer zone between the two main factions in the Chadian civil war. Mays opens his analysis by providing an overview of the concept of peacekeeping. Several definitions are offered to help distinguish between the various types of peace operations. After examining the concept hegemon, he looks at the ways regional and subregional hegemons utilize peacekeeping operations as foreign policy tools as they protect their interests. Mays argues that Nigeria, as a West African hegemon, served as the moving force behind the mandating and fielding of the OAU peacekeeping mission in Chad. Rather than being purely humanitarian in nature, Nigeria's motivation included the removal of French and later Libyan soldiers from a weak state on its border. However, Nigeria could not perform the task alone. France and the United States were instrumental as well in the mandating and fielding process. French and American interests stemmed from concern over Libyan motives in Chad. Nigeria kept the effort to mandate the peacekeeping operation alive for two years; France proved to be the stimulus behind persuading the Chadian government to accept the deployment of OAU peacekeepers and prompting the Senegalese to contribute a battalion to the mission; the United States contributed by keeping France and Nigeria focused on a peacekeeping solution and helping persuade Zaire to join the mission. Mays offers the first comprehensive examination of the OAU peacekeeping mission and reviews the political and military organization of the force as well as its deployment, redeployment plans, logistics, and operations between the Chadian factions. Utilizing an extensive collection of resources, including interviews with participants, diplomats, and government documents, he provdies a detailed examination of every meeting/conference between 1979 and 1981 that discussed a peacekeeping option for Chad. Factors of success in traditional peacekeeping operations are applied to the OAU mission, and he concludes by reviewing the impact of the 1981-1982 OAU operation on current African peacekeeping trends. An invaluable analysis for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with peacekeeping, international relations, and African studies.
An examination of how peacekeeping is woven into national, regional and international politics in Africa, and its consequences.
This paper evaluates the capabilities of the Organization of African Unity to function as a regional peacekeeping force and seeks to determine whether such a force is considered to be in the best interests of the United States. The analysis was performed following a detailed study of literature; visits to the Canadian Ministry of Defense, the United Nations, the International Peace Academy, the US State Department, OAU Headquarters in Ethiopia and New York City, and seven African nations; and attendance at Canadian Peacekeeping Courses. The capability of the OAU to field such a force was examined from a military, political and economic standpoint.
This book offers a detailed examination of the effectiveness of the peacekeeping operations of the African Union. Despite its growing reputation in peacekeeping and its status as the oldest continental peacekeeper, the performance of the African Union (AU) has hitherto not been assessed. This book fills that gap and analyses six case studies: Burundi, Comoros, Somalia, Mali, Darfur and the Central African Republic. From a methodological perspective it takes a problem-solving approach and utilises process tracing in its analysis, with its standard for success resting on achieving negative peace (the cessation of violence and provision of security). Theoretically, this study offers a comprehensive list of factors drawn from peace literature and field experience which influence the outcome of peacekeeping. Beyond the major issues, such as funding, international collaboration and mandate, this work also examines the impact of largely ignored factors such as force integrity and territory size. The book modifies the claim of peace literature on what matters for success and advocates the indispensability of domestic elite cooperation, local initiative and international political will. It recognises the necessity of factors such as lead state and force integrity for certain peace operations. In bringing these factors together, this study expands the peacekeeping debate on what matters for stability in conflict areas. This book will be of much interest to students of peacekeeping, African politics, war and conflict studies, and International Relations in general.