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

Chapter 1

Peace Agreements and Conflict Dynamics

1.1. Introduction

This book seeks to answer two related questions concerning civil war peace agreements. First, it seeks to explain why some peace agreements get signed while others do not get signed, and second, why some of those agreements that get signed do not hold to ultimately bring an end to protracted civil wars. In spite of the fact that most mediated settlements of civil wars are not durable, it is still important that we understand why some civil war agreements reach initial steps toward settlement, without which a full and durable end of conflict is not possible.

To improve our understanding of the process through which civil war agreements are concluded and why some settlements hold while others do not, this study looks at empirical evidence from three mediated sets of peace agreements. First, the focus is on a series of fourteen agreements that finally ended the first civil war in Liberia in 1997; second, the focus is on the 1993 Arusha Peace Accord that failed to prevent the escalation of conflict into genocide in Rwanda; and third, the focus is on a series of three agreements that were signed but did not initially hold to end the conflict in Sierra Leone.