The aim of this monograph is less ambitious, but similar to that of Morning Star, namely to provide a general overview of the interrelated issues of conflict management, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, about which every concerned soldier and citizen of Africa should be informed. The first chapter provides a brief geopolitical survey of the state of conflict in Africa. Seen through the eyes of Elisha Muzonzini, Africa is a continent which is steeped in conflict, the sources of which are both diverse and endemic, and include military intervention in national politics, ethno-political rivalry, under-development, and poor governance. Indeed, the nature and scope of conflict in Africa has reached a point where the international community has become increasingly wary of intervention in Africa in order to attempt to resolve or manage violent conflicts on the continent.

It is now widely accepted that African leaders in general, and the Organisation of African Unity in particular, must accept an increased burden of responsibility for managing conflict in Africa. Like the United Nations, the OAU`s capacity to achieve success in this area is determined, in the final analysis, by the individual and collective political will of its member states to do so. Nevertheless, far less is generally known about the structure, role and functions of the OAU, than is the case with the UN. In the second chapter, Cedric de Coning provides a concise, but clear overview of the role of the OAU in conflict management in Africa. Given the limited resources available to this regional body, and the fact that the ultimate responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security remains firmly with the UN, the OAU may never assume total responsibility for conflict management between and within its member states. The OAU has therefore concentrated its efforts in the realm of preventive diplomacy, mediation and observation, leaving the task of conducting more resource intensive peace operations largely to the world body.

However, the recent experiences of the UN in the conduct of peace operations in countries such as Mozambique and Angola, and especially Rwanda and Somalia, have indicated that a UN peace operation provides no panacea for sustainable peace and development in African countries afflicted by the scourge of internal conflict. In the third chapter, Peter Voetmann provides a realistic appraisal of the scope and limits of such intervention by explaining the structure, planning and execution of UN peace operations. Voetmann`s contribution is followed by a more explicit exposition of some lessons learned during peacekeeping operations in Africa. Henry Anyidoho reiterates a number of points made by Muzonzini, De Coning and Voetmann, within the context of past UN missions and the ongoing subregional operation in Liberia conducted by the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). He also raises several of the issues which are dealt with in more detail in the remaining chapters of the monograph, such as the relationships between peacekeepers and the media, and that between peacekeepers and the various UN agencies involved in saving lives in Africa.

Indeed, the importance of communication within peace operations is often underestimated, or referred to merely in passing. In the fifth chapter, David Wimhurst provides an insightful perspective on the importance of communication to the success of a peace operation. Wimhurst does not refer to the problems of communication between multinational and multilingual troop contingents and the host population, but to the broader relevance of appropriate communication to sustain a fragile peace process which is being guided and monitored by a peacekeeping mission. His anecdotal arguments, based on personal experience as spokesperson for the third UN Operation in Mozambique (UNAVEM III), provide a number of pertinent lessons on how information can be used to sustain and protect the peace process.

In the sixth chapter, Miguel de Brito has drawn on the experiences of the UN operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ) to provide an informed analysis of the relationships between peacekeepers, host governments and local populations. Even where multifunctional peacekeeping in Africa has widely been regarded as a success, such as the UN mission in Mozambique, De Brito argues that the sensitivities of both the host government and the local population must be understood and respected by the peacekeepers. Failure to do so not only threatens the execution of the mission, but can also create resentment and adverse social effects in the longer term, beyond the termination of the peace operation.

In the final chapter, David Whaley and Barbara Piazza-Georgi also express concern about the longer term effects of peace operations in their discussion of the linkage between peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The problems of development and socio economic reconstruction, or post-conflict peacebuilding are more enduring than those related to the supervision of a peace process which leads to adherence to the carefully circumscribed terms of a peace accord, the staging of elections, and the withdrawal of the peacekeepers. Whaley and Piazza-Georgi argue that the concept and practice of peacekeeping should not contradict or aggravate the process of post conflict peacebuilding, and that there should be a clear and positive linkage between the two processes from the inception of a peace operation. Development, after all, is the most enduring challenge facing the African continent. It is widely regarded as the underlying solution to all Africa`s woes, just as lack thereof is identified as a major cause of continued conflict and turmoil.

Collectively, the contributors provide a brief, but broad orientation on the challenges of conflict management, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The subject matter ranges from the general to the more specific and, while perhaps not providing definitive answers to Africa`s problems, certainly serves to foster an understanding of how these have been managed, and may be better managed in future.