"The international community is divided in respect of what actually occurred in Darfur. There are differenct views on the conflict. Some reports show that the conflict cannot be characterised as genocide, but rather atrocities, namely war crimes and crimes against humanity. Yet others indicate that, apart from crimes against humanity and war crimes, there was also genocide in Darfur. Still other reports indicate that the Darful conflict is characterised by 'ethnic cleansing'. Clearly there is a disagreement on what happened in Darfur. ... This study poses a critique to past studies on the Darfur conflict on the question of genocide. It analyses facts about the conflict in relation to the law on genocide so as to find out whether facts can meet the definition of the crime of genocide. The study is limited to the legal issue - whether genocide was committed in Darfur between 2003 and 2004. It does not intend to introduce the background to the conflict; rather, facts are only applied in the legal arguments. ... This work has four chapters. Chapter one is an introduction to the study. Chapter two discusses material elements of genocide and determination of a protected group. Chapter three discusses intent to commit genocide and poses a critique to past studies on Darfur. Chapter four shows conclusion and recommendations." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2005. / Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Paolo Comoane at the Faculty of Law, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo, Mocambique / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

The civil war that started in Syria in 2011 began as a series of political disputes between government forces and opposition groups. Tension mounted when citizens of Syria called for their president, Bashar al-Assad, to step down from power. When government forces resisted the will of the people, and instead used force against them, the country descended into all-out war. Two distinct groups surfaced in opposition to one another, with opposition rebels fighting against the Syrian regime. But as the war progressed these two groups began to display religious characteristics. Opposition groups began to represent a Sunnī Muslim rebel force, while regime forces where represented by the Alawite sect, and as the war continued elements of jihādism began to surface within the fighting. Syria’s sectarian rifts began to reveal themselves as religious factions became more involved in the fighting. These rifts are a result of centuries of violence and tension between Sunnī Muslim and Alawites in the country. Their theological beliefs differ extensively from one another, and over the course of history these differences have led to clashes between the two groups. The study looks at the historical interactions between Sunnī Muslims and the Alawites in Syria, and identifies the theological differences between the two groups. The study then uses these two elements to understand the religious violence that Syria is experiencing, and why such intolerance is happening between the religious factions of the country. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Science of Religion and Missiology / MA / Unrestricted

While the increasing importance of water security has been widely recognised, little is known about why and when water is likely to become the target of rebel groups in civil war. This study aims to contribute to this knowledge gap and asks the question: Why do non-state actors sometimes weaponise water? Based on bargaining theory and insights from terrorism literature, this study contends that military necessity and political costs constitute the dilemma that a rebel group faces in deciding whether or not to weaponise water. Hence, the more a rebel group is faced with a need to pressure the government, the more likely the rebel group is to target water systems when the political costs are low. Through a qualitative case study involving process tracing and structured focused comparison, this thesis explores the suggested hypothesis for the case of the FARC in the Colombian conflict by comparing two periods of peace negotiations during 1991-1992 and 1998-2002. The findings suggest that political costs are a critical factor while military necessity seems of less importance in the decision to weaponise or not to weaponise. Future research is warranted and this study suggests several directions.

The Master Thesis Engagement of Obama's Administration in the Syrian Civil War is dealing with the role of the United States in the conflict. This work studies the approach of Obama's administration toward the situation in country from the beginning of the revolution until the end of president's second tenure. It analyzes the development of this approach and key events that influenced its shape. The thesis is divided into three parts. The first is dealing with the background of the crisis, historical development of relations between the US and Syria and the broader context of Obama's Middle East policy. The second part analyzes specific period of time between the start of the revolution until 2014. It follows key events that had profound effect on the inner dynamics of the conflict and phenomenon that were shaping the situation in Syria, like the rising influence of the radicals among the opposition. It also analyzes in detail the chemical attack in Ghouta from 2013, which almost led Washington to direct intervention and is regarded as one of the most important events in Obama's foreign policy. The third part is dealing with the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) and American-led intervention against this terrorist organization. The thesis was written with the help of different sources such as...

The aim of this essay is to study the lives of Bosnian refugees who were forced into fleeing their homeland and integrate into the Swedish culture and society.  During the period of 1992 to 1996, approximately 2.2 million Bosnian citizens were forced to flee to other countries due to the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Some of the citizens were internally displaced in nearby regions or border countries. Other refugees sought residence in different parts of the world. The Swedish Migration agency granted residency permits to 50,000 Bosnians between the years of 1993 to 1994.1  In order to accomplish the purpose of the essay, four Bosnian refugees who arrived in Sweden during the 1990s have been interviewed. The four interviewees generated answers which are then compared to previous research in this field. Written history tends to describe people in power as well as warfare in general. Therefore, by using oral history as a method in this study to investigate Bosnian refugees ́experiences, a more significant perspective of how they experienced integration in the Swedish society is more likely to appear. With their experiences and memories that they share with us, one will understand the life of a refugee.  This essay entails a qualitative approach where we conducted semi-structured interviews with Bosnian refugees. The theory we used to analyze the results is an integration model developed by Jose Alberto Diaz who studied integration in Sweden.  As a result, this study shows various factors that affect the individual ́s integration into the Swedish society. For example, the personal integration, housing integration, language skills, meaningful employment and livelihood, social contacts and the treatment of the authorities. These are some of the factors that affect the integration of immigrants.

The post-colonial period in many African countries was, and still is, marked by political breakdown, authoritarianism and war. African state institutions saw fragmentation, breakdown and in some cases, failure. For many Africanist scholars "state weakness" is a main cause for political violence. State weakness results from pre-colonial and colonial legacies which created authoritarian structures, supported the rise of autocratic political leaders and entrenched dysfunctional state practices. Dysfunctional state practices manifest themselves during civil wars when governments and national armies exploit and rape their civilian population, failing to provide security from rebel violence. This paper argues that dysfunctional state practices during civil war are enabled by a history of gender discourses and beliefs. In the wars of the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Sierra Leonean war, when army soldiers abused and raped civilians, they were enabled by gendered hierarchies, norms and beliefs, which they employed to legitimize and normalize their actions.

Historians often emphasize the physical features of battleterrain, weaponry, troop formations, earthworks, etc.in assessments of Civil War combat. Most scholars agree that these external combat conditions strongly influenced battle performance. Other historians accentuate the ways in which the mental stresses of soldiering affected combat performance. These scholars tend to agree that fighting effectiveness was influenced by such non-physical combat conditions as unit cohesion, leadership, morale, and emotional stress. Few authors argue that combat's mental influences were more significant in determining success or failure than the physical features of the battlefield. Statistical analysis of the 465 tactical engagements fought by twenty-seven Federal regiments in the First Division of the Army of the Potomac's Second Corps throughout the American Civil War suggests that the mental aspects of battle affected fighting efficiency at least as muchand probably more thancombat's physical characteristics. In other words, the soldiers' attitudes, opinions, and emotions had a somewhat stronger impact on combat performance than their actions, positions, and weaponry.

Syrian Civil War has been occupying the international agenda since the year 2011. Despite the fact that most of the attention is paid to the conflict itself, peace processes are part of the international competition on Syrian arena, as well. For this reason, the thesis attempts to examine two major peace tracks: Astana and Geneva processes. The former is established among Russia-Turkey-Iran trio in late 2016 and functions as a regional mediation ground while the latter is led by the top world organization, the UN, as a ground for international actors with substantial interest in the Near East. Astana's relatively better performance in reaching certain outcomes is analyzed with hypotheses derived from three core International Relations theories: Realism, Liberalism and Constructivism. In this regard, those assumptions analyze actors that are involved in the conflict within the framework of their relevant peace track. According to the conducted analyses, findings indicate that realist hypothesis is better at explaining Astana's "fruitfulness" than the other assumptions- especially field-level agreements but not the broader cooperation among the Astana trio. Hence, Geneva track with higher level of international participation carries greater importance for an ultimate resolution to the conflict.

The Civil War and Reconstruction remade the United States. The defeat of the Confederacy, end of slavery, and postwar amendments to the Constitution inaugurated a new stage in national life. The most commanding histories of the period have presented the regional and national contests over the legacies of the war. Yet, the forces shaping the nation’s transformation and the effects this process unleashed were not confined within American borders. Drawing on British, American, and Irish archives, this dissertation reveals international influences and consequences at the core of the nineteenth-century reconstitution of the United States. The legal transformation of the United States after the Civil War required the assertion of American federal sovereignty in the international sphere. Fulfillment of key aspects of Reconstruction depended upon recognition by other nations and empires. Certain subjects, such as the terms of United States citizenship, were by definition international matters and necessitated coordination with the laws and policies of foreign powers. Other fundamental issues of Reconstruction, though not intrinsically international, also compelled attention to precedents, developments, and potential ramifications abroad. Agents of the United States government could not resolve the central issues of Reconstruction unilaterally. Their debates and decisions had consequences abroad, particularly in the British Empire, during a critical period of state-building worldwide. Each chapter of this dissertation examines international dimensions of a key question of governance and canonical subject of Civil War and Reconstruction scholarship – emancipation, land reform, democracy, citizenship, treason, and federalism – to gauge the far-reaching factors that shaped American policymaking and its results. The analysis demonstrates the multiple layers of the questions the war unearthed. It also establishes that changes in constitutional and other domestic law were inextricable from the nation’s relations with foreign powers, particularly Britain. This approach captures Reconstruction as the internationally disruptive event that it was and allows for a more complete accounting of what the Civil War and Reconstruction did and did not accomplish. Developments during these years destabilized the nation’s position and commitments in the international realm but did not provide a clear path forward. The transformation of the United States’ role and power in the international realm proved more gradual and restrained than many Americans and Britons anticipated. Divisions over the Constitution as well as challenges emanating from abroad impeded the assertion of federal power both within and beyond the nation’s borders.

My dissertation analyzes the Spanish Nobel Laureate poet’s transatlantic path and his relationship to Spain, the United States and Puerto Rico as expressed in his archival practices from 1916 (his first trip to the U.S.) until his death in 1958. Jiménez went into permanent exile in 1936, when he and his wife Zenobia Camprubí fled from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). During the war and subsequent dictatorship of Francisco Franco, Jiménez would live in Cuba, Coral Gables, Baltimore and Washington before settling in Puerto Rico in 1951. In Madrid, supporters of Franco broke into his residence and ransacked his papers, books and personal items ––his carefully-kept life's work–– which would take many years to recover only partially. Jiménez never returned to Spain. He died in Puerto Rico in 1958, not only writing new poems but rewriting, recreating and “reliving” his poems and prose, labors for which he had always depended upon his personal archive. Before his death, Jiménez destined his Nobel Prize earnings to the institutionalization of his archive (Sala Zenobia-Juan Ramón Jiménez, University of Puerto Rico) and to a museum (Casa-Museo Zenobia/Juan Ramón Jiménez) located in his childhood home in the Andalusian town of Moguer. The dissertation presents Jiménez as a steward of memory across borders and studies how the partial recovery of his papers and the establishment of his Sala in the University of Puerto Rico —one of the very first examples of the acquisition of a major writer’s papers in the U.S. or Puerto Rico— coincides with the formation of a national, cultural narrative and with archival practices heavily dependent upon a shifting national conception of Puerto Rican identity. Jiménez was attempting to reconstruct and preserve his work on an island still struggling to establish national, educational, cultural and archival institutions and to recover from the dispersal of its historical documents throughout Europe and in Washington, D.C. My dissertation examines Jiménez’s archive in the context of Puerto Rico's loss and repossession of its colonial archive and modernization of its own archival practices.