Conflict resolution mechanisms and the stability of Africa: a case study of Somalia

Abstract

The conflict resolution community seems to pursue conflict resolution efforts in Africa from a variety of purposes and interests and with policies that are often replete with ambiguities and contradictions. This situation may be the reason why many African conflicts may be silenced but remain largely unresolved. As Zartman (2000:3) has pointed out, although African conflicts involve the activities of seasoned peacemakers using the best of personal skills and recently developed knowledge about ways of managing and resolving conflicts, international efforts at conflict management have not been particularly effective or efficient in overcoming the disasters that have brought them to the continent. The critical question then is how we understand the problem of conflict resolution in Africa when the actors, mainly external to Africa, propagate the idea of peace and conflict resolution corresponding mainly to their own interests and view of Africa and the world. Although some scholars on conflict in Africa (Obasanjo 1991, Anyang’ Nyong’o 1991 and Msabaha 1991) agree that conflict in Africa stems primarily from crises of national governance and from the failure of governmental institutions in African countries to mediate conflict, this article engages the colonial factor as the root of many conflicts in Africa. It argues that this factor must be taken into consideration in the attempts to address African conflicts because the roots of many post-colonial conflicts in Africa, such as the recent case of South Sudan, remain buried in Africa’s past and, specifically, in the colonisation and de-colonisation processes. The article also argues that conflicts at sub-national and national levels in Africa are of several types, and that imposing peacekeeping forces as has often been the case, or merely imposing new political and economic institutions on the various African conflicts, may not provide the desired durable outcomes. Furthermore, and based on the same premise, the article questions how far a just and equitable future can be structured on an unjust past.