Peace Agreements and Civil Wars in Africa: Insurgent Motivations, ...

UN mediation is further complicated by the fact that the UN plays an important role as an agent of legitimization and recognition, and a state (or rebel group) that seeks legitimacy often turns to the UN to provide this because of its moral authority and sanctioned purpose.⁶³ Thus, rebels will tend to perceive any third-party initiation of mediation as part of what Christopher Mitchell describes as the “recognition game” in which insurgents set up an alternative administration in the territory they control, and then attempt to gain international recognition. As a result, the mediator will get caught up in the recognition game in that any communications initiated with the insurgents will be viewed as accepting that they represent a people and a legitimate cause.⁶⁴

Richmond points out other ways in which parties in a civil war may harbor “devious objectives” for the mediator and the mediation process. First, while it may not be the mediator’s objective to become a scapegoat, disputants may desire and even welcome the presence of a mediator as a potentially productive way of playing for time to regroup while assessing the next move. Second, one party in the conflict may see the presence of a mediator as an opportunity to introduce other parties (mediators) who are sympathetic to its own point of view and who may be able to limit the other party’s room for maneuver. Third, disputants may go along with mediation, even if the mediator is biased toward the adversary because of the resources which the mediator provides with them or which they gain merely by being involved in negotiations. This is particularly so if one of the parties feels threatened by the involvement of a third party in terms of its positions, or those of its constituencies. The disputant my react to this perceived bias, not by abandoning the process, but by trying to limit the actions of the mediator to purely procedural matters on the grounds of this perceived bias.⁶⁵

Finally, and more significantly, if the mediator has a high level of coercive power and interests, and imposes a settlement on the parties, difficulties are likely to arise from the fact that the stronger side may have been cheated from attaining victory while the weaker side will have been saved from defeat by the initiation of mediation. In this case, the stronger party may show a clear tendency toward “devious objectives” because it feels it is the aggrieved side.