National ethnic conflict and international mediation: Kenya, 2008
Abstract
During the Cold War, most international relations theorists and strategic studies analysts paid little attention to ethnic and other forms of communal conflict. Disregard for the importance of ethnic and nationality issues in world affairs, always misguided so far as the developing world was concerned, has been overtaken, in stunning fashion, by events in Kenya. This study advances our understanding of the causes of ethnic and communal conflict, and if by learning of the events that led to the ethnic conflict in Kenya can shed light on signs that point to the same occurrence anywhere else.
In Kenya, unlike Rwanda there was an attempt by the United Nations together with the African Union trying to come to the center of the conflict and mediate for the restoration of peace. This study has tested the influence of the international community through the United Nations and African Union had in ending the conflict and what this meant in terms of maintenance of international security which is one of the major functions of the United Nations. It also to followed the mediation process and how it followed the six principles of mediation.
In the course of this study the contribution achieved is the in depth exploration to the extent the Chief Mediator Kofi Annan assisted the two principle reach consensus to work together in order to end the violent conflict that had erupted in Kenya.
Publisher
University of Nairobi, Kenya