Navika Seunarine
Senior Seminar
Introduction
Following years of inhumaneness and instability since gaining independence in 1960, the Central African Republic (CAR) remains to be one of the least developed countries in the world as the current civil war continues to transpire. The CAR has endured several coups sequentially in the past few decades, but all efforts made in stabilizing the country were lost as the Séléka captured the capital, Bangui, and overthrew the government in March 2013, ultimately exiling President Francois Bozize.
The CAR has essentially descended into an ethnic and sectarian state of violence with relentless failure to alleviate the sadistic turmoil civilians are forced to endure daily. Consequently, the United Nations has initiated the deployment of foreign troops in April 2014 with a peacekeeping operation mandate, The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilized Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA), in efforts to help stabilize the country once again. Concerned with the security, humanitarian needs, human rights and the political crisis the CAR is undergoing, MINUSCA’s utmost priority resumes to be the protection and safety of the innocent civilians.
The CAR’s sectarian civil war is amongst two opposing actors—the Séléka rebels, predominantly consisting of armed, Muslim groups, and “anti-balaka” militias, coalitions of Christian fighters formed in response to the Séléka brutality. The primary focus of this paper will be a comparative study of the different peace initiatives taken by the United Nations and other international players thus far, in addition to analyzing the escalation of the crisis and formerly unsuccessful mandates.
Review of Literature
Liberated from the Cold...
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... (Karlsrud, 2015). Despite the UN’s involvement in peacekeeping and mediation, the concept of stabilization is actually conflicting to what the UN peacekeeping operations are intended to accomplish. In most cases, these UN missions were not given a specific mandate endowed with peace-enforcement, but rather a general mission to ‘neutralize’ the intended state, and protect the civilians using all indispensable means.
Hypothesis
The constant inhumaneness the CAR continues to endure repeatedly for decades is due to failure in which are unknown. The UN has taken several measures to restore peace and stability to the country, but primarily through the use of force paradigm. If the UN modifies its approach to the conflict with a peaceful paradigm, such as the use of law or communications, then the conflict could theoretically cease after decades of relentless violence.
The analysis of the genocides that took place both in Rwanda and Sudan’s Darfur region exhibit some similarities as well as differences. The character of violence was similar in both cases, but in Rwanda the violence was more intense, participatory, and extraordinary. The violence in these two places took place in an environment that had experienced civil wars. It was a period of political transition which was further aggravated by ethnic nationalism and a conflict of ethnic populations that were living in close proximity. However, in the Rwandan genocide, the state is more centralized, compact, and effective. This is what explains the intensity and variation. The international response to these genocides through observers emphasized on using the genocide label to create domestic constituencies especially in the Rwandan case.
"Peacekeeping and Peacemaking." Reading and Remembrance . N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Jan. 2014. . (tags: none | edit tags)
Gabon has a PCI (per capita income) that is two to four times greater than that of most sub-Saharan African nations. The average income in Gabon is about $6,400 compared to the $1,200 of some other countries. The higher PCI has helped in the decline of extreme poverty but because of a high income inequality many families still remain poor. High income inequality makes it hard for families to move up in society, they remain where they are at. In 1992 there fiscal deficit widened to 2.4% of there GDP and they did not settle the arrears on the bilateral debt which lead to the cancellation of all the official and private creditors. Fluctuating prices in the oil, timber, and uranium, plus poor fiscal management has also hurt the economy.
Peacekeeping is the concept of creating peace in a place where conflict exists. This can be in a variety of ways, including helping in a place where conflict exists,
When studying Angola’s inflation rates and economy structure it is important to understand the inherent challenges faced. Unlike the US, Angola has a poorly developed infrastructure that makes moving goods and equipment difficult and costly. Also Angola suffers from an inefficient trading system with her African neighbors. Each side is required to first exchange their currencies into a third party foreign currency, like the US dollar, then they can conduct business. This makes transactions complex, time consuming, and expensive. Examples like this form the basis on why Angola’s inflation rates are relatively high. From 2009 to 2011 Angola dealt with rates between 13.5% and 14.5%. From 2012 to 2014 the inflation rates have steadily declined
Over the course of human history, many believe that the “Congo Free State”, which lasted from the 1880s to the early 1900s, was one of the worst colonial states in the age of Imperialism and was one of the worst humanitarian disasters over time. Brutal methods of collecting rubber, which led to the deaths of countless Africans along with Europeans, as well as a lack of concern from the Belgian government aside from the King, combined to create the most potent example of the evils of colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s. The Congo colonial experience, first as the Congo Free State then later as Belgian Congo, was harmful to that region of Africa both then and now because of the lack of Belgian and International attention on the colony except for short times, the widespread economic exploitation of the rubber resources of the region, and the brutal mistreatment and near-genocide of the Congolese by those in charge of rubber collecting.
Since the end of Lebanon’s brutal 15 year civil war (1975-1990) tensions have festered amongst the country’s complex religious sects – Sunni’s, Shia’s, Christians and Druze– each vying for power with the help of their chauvinistic political parties. More recently, the country has become more polarized with lines being drawn primarily along the Sunni – Shia faultline, a cause for great concern. On the one side you have an alliance of Sunni and Christian factions that ba...
The Central African Republic is located in Central Africa. On its Borders are Chad to t, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south, the Republic of the Congo to the southwest and Cameroon to the west. Central Africa was not always a republic, On December thirty-first, nineteen-sixty-five, Dacko was overthrown by Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa in the Saint-Sylvestre coup. Bokassa made himself up in rank to president for life in nineteen-seventy-two, and changed his title to Emperor Bokassa I of the Central African Empire on the fourth of December, nineteen-sixty-seven. A year later, Emperor Bokassa crowned himself in an extremely costly ceremony that was made a laughing stock by much of the
Org. Updated Feb. 11, 2005. GlobalSecurity.org, Accessed 06 March 2005 &nbs 5 Ibid 6 Ibid 7 Ibid 8 Ibid 9 Ibid 10 “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” Conflict in Congo, PBS, October 22, 1998. Transcript. The.
The Syrian Civil War is a good example of world leaders playing by the rules of realism. The civil war began in March of 2011 as part of the Arab Spring, and by July of 2012 17,000 have died and another 170,000 fled the country (Almond). The United Nations Security Council in February of 2012 had tried t...
Consequences of intervention can include the loss of lives from an otherwise uninvolved country, the spread of violence, and the possibility of inciting conflict over new problems, just to name a few (Lecture, 11/15/16). For example, John Mueller considers the potential negative consequences of intervention prove that they are insignificant to the cause of humanitarian intervention as a whole. Moreover, with intervention into ethnic conflicts, the outcome, no matter how positive, is overshadowed by a gross exaggeration of negative consequences (Mueller). In both Yugoslavia and Rwanda the solution, to Mueller appeared simple, a well ordered and structured militarized presence was all that was required to end the conflict (Mueller). If this is the case, when discussing whether or not intervention is necessary the political elite must not over-exaggerate the difficulty.
The name of my country is the Republic of Cameroon. Cameroon, which is located in Central Africa, shares its border with the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and Nigeria. Cameroon has an area of 183,568 square miles. Tennessee is 42,180 square miles which means Cameroon is roughly 4.35x the size of Tennessee or a little bigger than California which is 163,695 square miles. Cameroon has a diverse terrain with coastal plain in the southwest, dissected plateau in the center, mountains in the west, and plains in the north. It has been called “Africa in miniature” because of this diverse terrain. Cameroon’s highest point is Fako on Mt. Cameroon (4,095m), and its lowest point is at the Atlantic Ocean (0m). The percentage of arable land in Cameroon is 13.04% (“Africa: Cameroon”). Cameroon’s climate varies across the country. It is tropical along the coast and has little rain for parts of the year and is hot in the north (Africa: Cameroon”). The north has a single wet season and high temperatures. This wet season is from May to the end of September. The south has a moderate climate with fairly constant temperatures and two wet seasons with heavy, regular rains. These wet seasons include a short rainy season from March to June and the big rains come between August and September (“Cameroon Climate and Weather”).
1. As far as peace keeping methods go, the reputation of the United Nations is very pitiable. This is not only because they have not been doing their job to it’s fullest extent, but also because the member states on the security council haven’t given the UN the power it needs if it is to be a successful force in peace keeping methods.
Many argue that the Bosnian crisis is a prime example of why humanitarian intervention is a flawed and unsuccessful option. Critics argue that, even though the UN prevented hundreds of thousands of Bosnians in besieged towns from starvation, it did little or nothing to stop Bosnian Serbs from shelling these areas and ethnically cleansing them of Muslims. Furthermore, others claim that NATO’S degrading of Serb military capability from the air did nothing to save those civilians trapped in UN-created safe areas. In 1995 at least 7,414 Muslim men were rounded up in a Screbrenica enclave and systematically killed in the worst war crime of the whole war. However, while such examples may indicate that humanitarian interventions are not a legitimate option, there are also positive aspects that in some cases, compensate for, and override these negative flaws.
UN. Department of Public Information (1995). United Nations peace-keeping: Information notes. Update, December 1994. Retrieved from UN website: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/past/unikom/background.html