Title from title page of PDF (University of Missouri--St. Louis, viewed February 23, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-166).

This thesis studies the peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace-building efforts undertaken by the United Nations (UN) in the Congo. Part one investigates the UN mission in Congo 1960 to 1964 and the second part looks at the current mission that started in 1999 which is currently ongoing. The final part makes a comparative analysis of the two case studies. Peacekeeping, peace enforcement and peace-building are some of the approaches the UN uses in order to manage and settle conflict. While these concepts are often related to one another, they possess certain characteristics making them distinguishable. I solemnly use these concepts when conducting the two case studies and the comparative analysis. I study the mandates as well as the activities in the field. My main argument is that while the mandates differed between the two peace operations, the actual activities in the field shared many common features. I will show that the first peace operation in the Congo deviated from all others undertaken by the UN thus far. The Congo crisis in the sixties took place at the height of the Cold War. What commenced as a traditional peacekeeping operation eventually turned into a mission of peace enforcement. These enforcement measures were never supported by a Chapter VII mandate. There were also elements of peace-building efforts such as trying to install functioning governmental institutions. As such, it deviated from other peace operations during that time. Although these are considered as pioneering for many current peacebuilding missions, they cannot be considered as broad as today’s efforts. The current peace operation in Congo also started as a peacekeeping operation. As the conflict escalated, a Chapter VII mandate was provided to use force. Similarly to the peace operation during the Cold War, it also went from a peacekeeping operation to one of peace enforcement. However, the ongoing peace operation is provided with much clearer and less arbitrary mandates. The peace-building efforts are also much broader. Central to the mission is to aid in the implementation of a democratic system that will survive once the peace operation has ended. These forms of efforts are quite typical since the end of the Cold War.

This study explores the power of ethnonationalist conflict-generated diasporas (CGD) as external actors in homeland conflict by exploring the nature of their political engagement on a transnational level using Internet Communication technologies (ICTs), with Rwanda as a case study. Virtual ethnography was chosen as the research methodology to explore the online activities of Rwandan CGD using social media (social networking sites) to form virtual transnational networks for political purposes. Diasporic online formations and activities were mapped in order to gain increased insights into ways that CGD use social media to engage in homeland conflict, and the effect their engagement has on the conflict cycle in the home country. Results of the study revealed that Rwandan CGDs demonstrate attitudes and motivations to act in ways that are consistent with other case studies of CGD, including exhibiting an enduring commitment and loyalty to co-ethnics, a romanticized conceptualization of homeland and a myth of return home. The results also revealed Rwandan CGDs' strong propensity to use social media to engage in homeland conflict on a political level through the development of a large and dense transnational network used for a range of political purposes, including the dissemination of genocide denial and propaganda consistent with the pre-genocide propaganda campaign. Implications for peace-building and conflict analysis are discussed.

Since its independence on July 9, 2011, the Republic of South Sudan, with the assistance of various internal and external stakeholders, has been working towards viable and constructive political and socio-economic change in the new state. These processes of change are aimed at the effective development of South Sudan as a sovereign, peaceful and stable nation-state that is capable of serving the short- and long-term needs and expectations of its citizens and the environment at large. However, the successful realisation of this transformation is facing serious challenges. These challenges are partly attributable to the unresolved issues and consequences of South Sudan’s protracted years of civil war with Sudan, and the difficulties that often confront post-conflict societies, especially a post-independence state like South Sudan, which came into existence after two prolonged civil wars. Given the complexity of South Sudan’s post-independence environment, this study aims to gain a clearer understanding of South Sudan’s complex transformational and peace-building challenges as an independent state; and to propose recommendations on how they can be managed. This will be achieved through the use of historical and qualitative research methods, which locate the study within a framework that provides the basis for the analyses of the data collected on South Sudan and on the subjects of conflict transformation and peace-building. As South Sudan celebrated its one-year anniversary on July 9, 2012, it was recalled that the country’s official independence was regarded as a historic event for the African continent at large. While there were high expectations among the South Sudanese population and the international community that this signalled an end to Africa’s longest conflict, it was soon clouded by a myriad of political, economic, socio-cultural, peace, security and development challenges. These include building an entirely new state out of the ruins of war, confronting the unresolved resource and border demarcation conflicts with Sudan, and tackling South Sudan’s own internal ethnic confrontations, among many other human resources and capacity challenges. Given South Sudan’s challenging post-conflict and post-independence environment, this study contends that contrary to the notion that the resolution and transformation of the Sudan-South Sudan conflict and the birth of the new Republic of South Sudan ended the conflict between the two entities, the secession did not create a cohesive and robust new state that is free from serious internal and external challenges. The Government of South Sudan (GoSS) and external and internal stakeholders, including the African Union (AU); the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD); the United Nations (UN); civil society organisations (CSOs) and various individual countries (among many other initiatives) have been and are actively engaged in joint efforts to address and manage the challenges that confront South Sudan as an independent state. However, such endeavours have mainly concentrated on state-building issues, resources and border demarcation conflicts, and have focused less on the problems of nation-building. As such, internal complexities such as social and national identity, the decentralisation of power/broader representation in government and state affairs and growing ethnic conflicts have continued to receive less attention. Bearing this in mind, this study argues that unless these internal matters are given serious consideration, sustainable peace and development in South Sudan will remain elusive. While negotiations to resolve the cross-border South Sudan-Sudan conflicts continue, a solution that is acceptable to all parties is only possible if all the conflicting parties are invited to the negotiation table to engage in peaceful dialogue and find the means to reconcile their differences and build trustworthy and mutually beneficial relationships. The study also identifies a need for the promotion and coordination of a constructive relationship between the South Sudanese state and civil society. It further recognises the importance of building inclusive political processes to facilitate a state-society cooperative environment, and the development of state capacity to perform its duties in a manner that satisfies the expectations of the population that they will enjoy the fruits of their long-drawn out struggle for independence. In terms of how these processes can be achieved, the study recommends an indigenous intervention mechanism that encourages the active engagement of the entire post-conflict society in its own peace-building and development initiatives. This mechanism is encapsulated in John Paul Lederach’s Pyramid Model of conflict transformation, which emphasises the importance of coordinating peace-building activities between and among the various leadership levels – the top, middle and grassroots leaders of the post-conflict society. This model also advocates that the local community be encouraged to develop and drive its own peace-building and development activities, which is a major step forward in reconciling differences, building a sense of belonging, trust, mutual respect and ultimately societal cohesion. These are very important considerations for any society or state with the long-term goal of sustainable peace and development. The research study thus recommends this model for managing South Sudan’s challenges. It urges all stakeholders to promote the involvement of the local community in peace-building and development activities and to facilitate peaceful dialogue and reconciliation within South Sudan and with Sudan in order to achieve viable peace and development in the longer term. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2013.

Using the Sudan/Darfur Conflict as a case study, this work seeks to address how and why the human security paradigm is a challenge for the African Union in its effort to establish long-term peace and stability in Africa. The purpose of the study is to assess the extent to which the human security model provides a realistic option with regard to the AU’s efforts which are aimed at enhancing peace and security in Africa. The key issues to be appraised include the extent to which AU’s policy framework for intervention in crisis situations emphasizes the need to protect the most vulnerable population groups such as non-combatant women and children, IDPs, and refugees; the parameters of the AU’s intervention framework and how effective the organization has been in addressing human security issues in Darfur; the challenges faced by the regional military forces and key development stakeholders in carrying out initiatives that will alleviate human suffering and simultaneously create conditions conducive to conflict resolution and a long term peace building process in Darfur; and proffering new prospects of action to ensure human security in armed conflicts The emergence of deep ethnic conflicts, the rise of rebel groups, and new and ambitious security initiatives have made regional efforts at establishing peace more daunting than before. The AU has started putting human beings more and more at the centre of its management of peace and security issues, but it remains severely constrained by financial and logistical problems. As a result, its success has been dependent on foreign contributions, something its predecessor (Organization of African Unity) always fought against. This study highlights the fact that AU efforts to ensure peace in Africa continue to be constantly frustrated due to the failure of African leaders to address the root threats to human security. Their failure to do so has in fact worsened the human security situation on the continent. The paper focuses on challenges faced by the AU specifically in the Darfur region, and explores whether the AU can be an actor in the promotion of human security. The main argument here is that the AU’s ownership approach to peace and security in the African continent, which emphasizes that African problems need to be solved by Africans, is fundamentally correct. However, for this to be successful Africans need to stop asking for whatever they think they can get from the international community and focus on what they really need. This does not deny the importance of promoting a strong global political will to assist African peacekeeping efforts, especially in terms of logistics and finances. Rather, the challenge for the AU is to use donor support strategically and to continue to employ a conflict preventive approach, one which places great emphasis on the significance and need for African leaders to start addressing human security issues from their root causes –whether social, economic or political. With the collaborative efforts of nongovernmental organizations, subregional organizations and the civil society, the AU could establish ‘AU alert institutions’ which will aim at ensuring that minority groups have a political voice, thus not only reducing the chances of ethnically based conflicts but also ensuring that sustainable development projects are implemented by tackling the root causes of conflict. / Thesis (M. Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

From the mid-1990s, the amalgamation of security, development, and humanitarian imperatives under the single umbrella of ‘state-building’ has provided a compelling justification for increasingly intrusive interventions into the political, economic, and social affairs of subject countries. Guided by the assumptions of liberal peace theory, state-building initiatives engage directly with states, seeking to achieve a reformulation of structures of government as a first step towards the implementation of wider socio-economic reforms. The state-building project is geared towards the construction of a particular form of statehood in subject states; state institutions are to be reconstructed in accordance with a liberal template, and tasked with establishing the necessary institutional environment for market-led development and the liberal peace. Contemporary discourses of state-building and development are fundamentally interlinked, representing a unified process of neo-liberal replication in subject states, whereby fundamental transformations of social, political, and economic structures are to be implemented and sustained through the construction of liberal state institutions. Pressure to court international approval due to conditions of aid dependence curtails the potential for meaningful democracy in subject countries. Key questions of social and economic policy are subsumed as technical matters of good governance and removed from domestic democratic contestation, facilitating a transfer of formerly domestic considerations into the international sphere. These interlocking processes of state-building and neo-liberal discipline have contributed to an inversion of sovereign statehood, whereby the state serves to channel inward an externally driven agenda, rather than acting as a sovereign expression of domestic interests. This reality raises important questions regarding the nature of democracy in post-conflict environments, and in particular the impact of state-building activities on the prospects for broadly inclusive democracy in subject states. This study will examine the evolution of state-building as a critical components of peace-building missions, its central assumptions and goals, and its implementation in practice in Timor-Leste. The state-building process in Timor-Leste has contributed to the formation of an insulated state with little basis in Timorese society. The democratic experience in Timor-Leste has been profoundly disempowering; conditions of aid dependence have constrained elected governments in key areas of social and economic policy, resulting in a loss of popular legitimacy and mounting public disenchantment. Closer examination of food and agricultural policy and management of Timorese oil reserves reveals the extent to which government policy remains constrained by international preferences. In these areas, the government’s inability to act in the interests of the Timorese public has compounded social hardships and popular discontent, contributing to the build-up of anti-government sentiment that manifested itself in the 2006 crisis.

Iraq has since post conflict of 2003 administrated the Euphrates and Tigris River in accordance to the countries plan management. It is researched in this study how the Iraqi Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government have managed and prioritized its water resource comparing the Euphrates and Tigris River flowing through Western and Northern Iraq. The focus is also on approaches and the alternative consequences derived from different management perspectives. It is concluded in this study that there are different priorities and management approaches in Iraqi Government and Kurdistan Regional Government. Iraqi Government has not managed Euphrates River as needed post conflict of 2003 where the approach is not satisfactory to resolve the problem facing the Euphrates River. It can become an underlying problem to an additional distress among the population which can heighten the risk for disputes and uprising of further conflicts in the region if the problems are not solved in Western Iraq. Tigris River that is also managed by the Iraqi Government has not been the top priority and there are unsolved problems around the river. The distress amongst the population can outburst in a bad manner if problems not solved surrounding the Tigris River. However the tributaries that flow through Kurdistan Regional Government to the Tigris River are of better condition more attention is directed to water management and there are aspirations for meeting the challenges and well as changing management approach. Kurdistan Regional Government has managed to prioritize and manage water from the tributaries better than Iraqi Government.

This research explored Indians' definitions of peace and their solutions for peace between Hindus and Muslims in Gujarat, India. The study also focused on peacebuilding efforts after the Hindu-Muslim violence in Gujarat in 2002.Members of a local NGO collaborated on the project by acting as gatekeepers in the field. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in Hindi with twenty-nine adult men and women (20 to 64 years old) from both the Hindu and Muslim communities. To develop an understanding of the social context of each community, the researcher initiated conversations and walks around the communities with three key informants and she also conducted participatory mapping of the communities.Data analyses of the transcribed interviews was performed by two coders using the Grounded Theory approach in the target language, i.e., Hindi. Four main themes emerged: (1) descriptions of the community, (2) perceptions of relationships Hindus and Muslims, (3) peace and solutions for peace, and (4) hopes for the future. Smaller specific categories were captured under these broader themes.Based on the data analyses, analytic matrices representing the relationships between these categories and the two main research questions were generated. These matrices were developed drawing from data obtained during participants' interviews, conversations with key informants, the researcher's field observations, participatory mapping, and the available literature.Relying on the conceptual frameworks generated from the data, participants' definitions of peace and their solutions for peace in their community were elaborated. Participants' defined peace as the absence of both direct (e.g., physical violence) and structural (e.g., unemployment, crime rates) violence. Further, their solutions for peace incorporated direct (e.g., absence of physical violence) and structural (e.g., opportunities for employment) peacebuilding as ways- to promote non-violence in their communities. The analytic matrices derived from this study provided strong evidence to suggest participants' definitions of peace and their solutions for peace could contribute to peacebuilding between Hindus and Muslims in the communities in Gujarat targeted for this project. Implications for employing peacebuilding strategies to resolve conflict between other individuals are offered, as are recommendations for investigating solutions designed to facilitate peace and limitations of this study. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Current studies in peace-building suggest that effective peace-building approaches comprise of intervention strategies that value the interconnectedness of trauma and peace-building processes. However current research reports suggest that there is limited evidence supporting this notion. In addition, there is little information as to how to effectively integrate the two themes to achieve lasting peace. The research study aims to articulate the role of an integrated approach to peace-building to inform current practice and it serves to encourage the donor community to support initiatives which recognise the link between trauma and peace building. The research took a close look at experiences of participants who attended trauma recovery workshops conducted by Sinani (an isiZulu word meaning “we are with you”), the KwaZulu-Natal Programme for Survivors of Violence, the name of the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) for which the researcher works. In particular, it explored how participants who had attended these workshops could serve as catalysts to peace by examining their experiences of violence in relation to trauma and peace-building. In addition it attempted to explore experiences of participants who did not attend Sinani trauma recovery workshops and the possible implication this would have for trauma and peace-building. Furthermore it analysed recent research papers and reports which addressed trauma and peace-building from a psycho-social perspective. The proposed hypothesis is that if trauma support work is ignored in post conflict peace-building processes, certain survivors of past violence are at risk of becoming perpetrators of future violence. Integrating trauma support work in peace-building interventions will yield lasting peace. The emerging findings suggest several factors contribute to violence and peace-building. Children’s exposure to violence, the extent of trauma and certain aspects of the criminal justice system have been described by participants as factors that contribute to violence. Equally participants suggested a competent leadership collective, functioning safety and security structures as valuable contributions to peace. Other valuable insights were shared by participants on the role of spirituality as well as indigenous cultural rituals valuable in the trauma and peace-building field. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2013.

Lasting peace in Sudan would reverberate throughout Africa, the Arab world, and globally. But signing a historic peace agreement will not guarantee successful post-conflict reconstruction in Sudan. Several critical openings must follow-with expanded roles for the Sudanese people and their international partners. Sudanese fighters from both sides will need to integrate into joint military units that defend Sudan's borders and gain capacity to deal with rogue elements. Sudanese politicians must expand the opportunities for fresh and excluded voices to participate in Sudan's governing structures (north and south, national, regional, and local) and its political processes. Benchmarks against which international assistance is measured could help guarantee this need, as would an inclusive constitutional drafting process. Sustained economic assistance and forward-learning decisions on reducing Sudan's debt burden will help move Sudan on the path to economic growth. At the same time, international pressure must be brought to bear on the Sudanese to ensure that revenue streams, particularly oil and are handled transparently and for the benefit of Sudan's people, not its leaders. Uncertainty, hatred and mistrust run deep within Sudan. Donors must focus on building connections among the Sudanese and bringing communities together around common goals. The past focus on north-south issues should give way to more inclusive programs that begin to address the political and economical marginalization that is fuelling discontent and conflict in Sudan's peripheral regions. Lasting peace will require not just changing attitudes within Sudan, but shifting outside practices to better confront the enormous challenges that will complicate reconstruction efforts. Sudan's coming peace presents an opportunity to move beyond almost forty years of intrastate war. The United State, the United Nations, African Union, and other friends of Sudan should now consolidate and capitalize on this opportunity. / Thesis (M.A. (Peace Studies and International Relations) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2005