Chapter 9

Peace Promotion in the Great Lakes Region:
Regional and International Responses to Conflict in the DRC

Mark Malan*

Published in Monograph No 50, Franco-South African Dialogue
Sustainable Security in Africa
Compiled by Diane Philander, August 2000


Introduction

On 24 January 2000, the UN Security Council’s Month of Africa debate reached its climax with a day-long meeting on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The meeting was addressed by no less than seven African heads of state, nine ministers and the secretaries-general of the United Nations and the Organisation of African Unity. The UN Secretary-General concluded that:
"The ‘Month of Africa’ was a success not merely in drawing attention to the persistence of many of the [African] region’s long-running conflicts, but in giving a push to actual peace efforts. The real test now is for the momentum to be sustained."1
If the real test lies in sustaining the momentum towards peace in African countries that have been plagued for years by pernicious armed conflicts, then the acid test must be the case of the DRC. But, is there even an outside chance of resolving this particular conflict — described by Madeleine Albright as Africa’s first "world war"2 — through the medium of multilateral intervention?

The root causes of this conflict are both deep and wide, and it is being sustained by a web of intrigue that involves a multiplicity of key players acting in pursuit of diverse political, security and pecuniary interests. The brief of this paper is not to address these issues in any detail, but rather to look at the symptoms of the current malaise and to comment on the regional and international ‘medicine’ that has been prescribed to doctor it.

Allies and enemies

Kabila’s accession to the presidency of the DRC on 17 May 1997 was not a typical palace coup, but a non-constitutional transfer of political power. His advance on the capital and the seat of power began on the periphery, with the capture of Bukavu and Goma, the major towns on Zaïre’s eastern border with Rwanda. This was no accident, as Kabila’s Democratic Alliance for the Liberation of Congo-Zaïre (ADFL) was initially dominated by Tutsis and supported by the Tutsi-dominated governments of Rwanda and Burundi. Kabila did not come to power in the DRC as the leader of a genuine Congolese rebellion. He was rather the local frontman for what was essentially a foreign legion.

In September 1996, Banyamulenge (Zaïrian Tutsi) rebels, many of whom had served with their kinspeople in the Rwandan army, were prompted by Zaïrian persecution (and their foreign backers’ anticipation of an increase in Hutu militia and former Rwandan army attacks from their bases in the refugee camps of Eastern Zaïre) to launch an offensive against Mobutu’s soldiers. The essential aim of this operation, carried out with the support and direct participation of Rwanda, Burundi and later also Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea, was to dislodge the massive refugee settlements and thus dislocate the military preparations of the exiled Hutus. In Uganda’s case, the motive was to disrupt the logistic co-operation offered to Sudan in its support for insurgent groups such as the West Bank Nile Front, the Lord’s Resistance Army and Tabliq militia, which continued to torment north-east Uganda.

This originally limited operation extended itself by default, as the ‘rebel forces’ discovered that Mobutu’s state was so fragile that few could be found to defend it with their lives. Indeed, much of the defence of Zaïre was undertaken by forces loaned by UNITA’s Jonas Savimbi, who had a direct interest in succouring his old ally. By the same token, Angolan government forces intervened in the west of the country to ensure the rebel’s victorious advance on Kinshasa.

Once in power, Kabila found himself in a quandary. The Banyamulenge-dominated People’s Democratic Alliance, which formed the bulk of his fighting forces, was generally unpopular outside Kivu. Yet, its importance within Kabila’s overarching ADFL made it essential for its leaders to be appointed to prominent positions in the new government, including the ministry of Foreign Affairs (Paul Karaha) and of Presidential Affairs (Deogratias Bugera). From these positions of strength, and with the tacit support of the Rwandan officers brought in to train and command a reformed army, the Tutsi faction was able to obstruct any tendency to broaden the political support base of the new regime.

Perhaps even more threatening to Kabila than his failure to secure wider support from established political figures elsewhere in the country, was his gradual alienation of key sponsors. Uganda was upset by his apparently cordial relations with Sudan and, together with Rwanda, became increasingly critical of his inability to carry out his part of the pact by preventing rebel incursions through the Kivu and Haut-Zaïre regions.

The deterioration of Kabila’s relations with Rwanda and Uganda, and pressures from other elements within the ADFL, persuaded him that his excessive reliance on Tutsis, whether of Congolese or Rwandan origin, was unwise. Kabila responded by ordering Rwandan troops to leave the country, and began a purge of the army command to reduce Banyamulenge influence. At this point, Karaha and Bugera left the country, the former soon to join a rebellion initiated by Banyamulenge-dominated regiments in Kivu on 2 August 1998.

Initially, it appeared that the rebellion might repeat the pattern established by the 1996-97 insurgency, with rebel forces advancing across the country from their bases in the east. In a bold move, however, the rebel alliance flew troops across the country to the western seaboard, where they recruited the assistance of a number of soldiers of Mobutu’s old army, encamped at Kitona and awaiting integration in the new Congolese army. Thus reinforced, they quickly seized Muanda and the port of Banana before moving on Matadi, the riverport supplying Kinshasa. In the east, rebel forces quickly established a hold on Goma and Bukavu before advancing on Kisangani, the country’s third largest city.

Faced with a rapidly deteriorating military situation, Laurent Kabila denounced the rebellion as an invasion by Uganda and Rwanda, and sought to mobilise the Congolese around an anti-Tutsi banner. Having failed to establish a broad national following, this tactic was his only means to secure his short-term survival, though its consequences have still to be reckoned in terms of lives and its impact on recreating the country as an entity. He also appealed to other members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to come to the assistance of a fellow SADC state under external threat.3

Regional and international efforts at peace promotion

President Mugabe responded to the plea by convening, on 7-8 August 1998, a regional summit at Victoria Falls to discuss the crisis. The presidents of Uganda, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia and the DRC attended. Little emerged from the summit, however, beyond the airing of mutual recriminations. On 17-18 August, the defence ministers of Angola, Zambia, Namibia and Zimbabwe met in Harare, agreeing that the government of Laurent Kabila would require the full support of SADC to guarantee its survival. Mugabe, speaking in his capacity as head of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security announced that the meeting had agreed that military aid should be sent to secure Kabila’s position. Zimbabwe followed up by dispatching troops to help with Kabila’s defence, assisted by Angola and later Namibia.

South Africa remained aloof from the fray, with the SADC chairperson, Nelson Mandela, espousing the need for dialogue and a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Mandela publicly reprimanded Mugabe for his inflammatory talk, and called upon SADC countries rather to work on a peaceful settlement. He convened an emergency summit of SADC leaders in Pretoria on 23 August 1998. The leaders present decided to confirm their recognition of the legitimacy of the government of the DRC and to call for an immediate cease-fire, to be followed by political dialogue on a peaceful settlement to the crisis. The meeting mandated President Mandela, as chairperson of SADC, to organise a cease-fire in consultation with the OAU Secretary General.

Calls for a cease-fire proved patently premature. On 26 August, the rebel forces made their first attempt to probe Kinshasa’s defences from the south-west. Defensive artillery fire caused a substantial number of casualties among the civilian population in the sprawling informal settlements around the city. The following day, the axis of the rebel penetration into Kinshasa shifted to the north-east, with Angolan, Zimbabwean and Namibian forces committed to the defence of the city and its airport. This deployment proved crucial in warding off the rebel offensive in the west, causing the rebel forces to withdraw, and arguably averting a humanitarian disaster.

On 3 September, President Mandela surprised observers by announcing at a press conference that SADC had unanimously supported the military intervention by its member states in the DRC.4 While this turnaround may have been designed to present a façade of subregional unity, there may also have been an expectation of reciprocity should South Africa ever overstep the mark (as in Lesotho). Whatever the reasons, the Durban announcement was substantiated at the 18th SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Mauritius on 13 and 14 September 1998. The Summit "welcomed initiatives by SADC and its Member States intended to assist in the restoration of peace, security and stability in DRC, in particular the Victoria Falls and Pretoria initiatives." Importantly, the SADC leaders "commended the Governments of Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe for timeously providing troops to assist the Government and people of DRC."5

The Summit also appointed Zambian President Frederick Chiluba to lead mediation efforts in the DRC, assisted by the presidents of Tanzania and Mozambique.

By this stage, the UN Security Council had issued several presidential statements calling for an end to hostilities in the DRC. But it was only on 9 April 1999 that the Council decided to put some weight behind the peace process by agreeing on Resolution 1234. The resolution demanded "an immediate halt to the hostilities" and called for:
"an all-inclusive process of political dialogue with a view to achieving national reconciliation and to the holding on an early date of democratic, free and fair elections …"6
A tall order indeed, but this is typical of the formula that has been applied in ‘new generation’ peace missions. Of course, the Security Council also expressed its support for the regional peacemaking initiatives under way, and called upon the international community to continue to support these efforts. These efforts were given impetus with the inauguration of Thabo Mbeki as South Africa’s new president. A meeting held in Pretoria on 17 June 1999 brought together leaders from the 14 SADC member countries, as well as Rwanda, Uganda, Libya and Kenya. This meeting paved the way for a DRC summit which was scheduled for 25 June in Lusaka with the purpose of signing a cease-fire agreement.

The long awaited Lusaka summit was subject to several lengthy delays, as the preceding meeting of foreign ministers struggled to reach agreement on the technicalities of a draft cease-fire agreement. Eventually, on 10 July 1999, the agonising Lusaka process gave birth to a cease-fire agreement which was signed by the leaders of the six states parties to the conflict — but not by the Congolese rebel groups. The agreement provided for the cessation of hostilities within 24 hours of signature, and for the establishment within one week of the Joint Military Commission (JMC) for the purpose of overseeing the implementation of the agreement until such time as a UN peacekeeping force could be deployed. The accord also provided for the initiation of an inter-Congolese dialogue on the political future of the DRC.7

Although very much a ‘home-grown’ agreement and the product of a regional peacemaking process, the Lusaka cease-fire accord placed a heavy burden of expectancy on a UN peacekeeping force. It also envisaged a number of ‘peace enforcement’ operations, including:
  • the tracking down and disarming of armed groups;8
  • screening mass killers, perpetrators of crimes against humanity and other war criminals; and
  • handing over suspected genocidaires to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Chiluba cautioned that the signing of the accord would not automatically bring peace to the DRC and called on the UN Security Council to approve the deployment of a peacekeeping force "with a mandate commensurate to the task at hand."9

The cease-fire was due to come into place within 24 hours of the signing of the agreement (commonly interpreted as 31 August 1999, when the RCD signed). The JMC, representing all the signatories, was established under the cease-fire agreement to regulate and monitor the cessation of hostilities until the deployment of UN and OAU military observers. It was also to be responsible, together with the military observers, for peacekeeping functions until the deployment of a UN force.10

Five days after the states parties signed the Lusaka agreement, on 15 July 1999, the Secretary-General recommended to the Security Council that the UN side of the implementation of the cease-fire agreement should be dealt with in three phases of deployment:
  • unarmed military liaison officers to the capitals of the signatories and, if the security situation permits, to the rear headquarters of the rebel groups;
  • up to 500 military observers inside the DRC; and
  • a peacekeeping force.11
On 6 August 1999, the Security Council duly approved the deployment of up to 90 military liaison officers to the capitals of the parties to the agreement. Their tasks, as mandated by Security Council Resolution 1258, included:
  • assistance to the JMC and the parties in developing modalities for the implementation of the agreement;
  • the provision of information to the Secretary-General regarding the situation on the ground; and
  • assistance in refining a concept of operations for a possible further role for the UN.12
The mission set up its advance headquarters in Kinshasa and deployed military liaison officers in Kinshasa, Kigali, Kampala, Harare and Windhoek. Liaison officers were also sent to Bujumbura, to Lusaka as the provisional seat of the JMC, and to the OAU headquarters in Addis Ababa. By January 2000, small teams of up to four liaison officers had managed to deploy to no more than nine locations in the DRC: Kinshasa, Kananga, Kindu, Goma, Boende, Lisala, Gemena, Gbodolite and Isiro.

The ability of the military liaison officers and the technical assessment team to provide the Secretary-General with an accurate appraisal of the modalities for further UN deployment has been severely limited. The mission has not been able to deploy effectively, and has been prevented from executing its mandate as a result of inadequate security guarantees from the DRC government and differences with Kinshasa on the need for it to deploy UN officers in government-held areas. The UN team’s capacity to help the JMC investigate cease-fire violations, make a security assessment of the country, and determine the present and future locations of combatants’ positions would require it to deploy throughout the country and at the ill-defined battle fronts.

The ability to observe and report accurately on adherence to the Lusaka agreement is essential to the peace process. Since the end of August 1999, there have been continuous claims and counterclaims of cease-fire violations by both sides, including tank and artillery attacks, ground attacks with support from helicopter gunships, aerial bombing raids, attacks on civilians, territorial advances, troop deployments, blockades, and reinforcements within and across borders. The alleged cease-fire violations have been along and behind the frontlines and geographically widespread, including the provinces of Shaba, Kasai Occidental, Kasai Oriental, Equateur and Kivu.

All parties to the conflict (rightly or wrongly) see the UN as the solution to such violations. During the 24 January 2000 Security Council meeting on the DRC there were strident calls by just about every African leader present for the deployment of a ‘full-fledged UN peacekeeping mission’ without any further delay. In addition to the demand for a sizeable force, no less than six countries called for such a force to be established under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. These were the DRC, Mozambique (with Chissano also speaking in his capacity as chairperson of SADC), Zimbabwe (with Mugabe also talking on behalf of SADC), Uganda, Rwanda and Namibia.13

The Secretary-General was able to refer to his latest report (17 January 2000) which urges the Security Council to authorise a considerable expansion of the MONUC mission — from the 77 deployed liaison officers to 5 537 military observers and peacekeepers. According to the report, the military tasks of the expanded MONUC force would include military liaison, monitoring the cessation of hostilities, investigating cease-fire violations and verifying the disengagement of the various forces. Annan stressed that the troops:
"would not serve as an interposition force nor would they be expected to extract military observers of civilian personnel by force. They would not have the capacity to protect civilian personnel from armed attack."14
Additional tasks — including facilitating the eventual disarmament and demobilisation of armed groups, and monitoring and verifying the withdrawal of foreign forces — would require the approval of the Council for a larger operation.15

The new deployment is basically conceived as an observer mission with formed units in support. The formed units of the expanded MONUC force were not expected to make a direct contribution to the military observers’ capacity to monitor and report on troop disengagement and cease-fire violations. However, when the Security Council finally authorised the expanded MONUC mission, on 25 February 2000, it tasked the force to protect UN and JMC personnel, as well as civilians. Operative paragraph 8 of Resolution 1291 states that the Council:
"Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, decides that MONUC may take the necessary action, in the areas of deployment of its infantry battalions and as it deems it within its capabilities, to protect United Nations and co-located JMC personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of its personnel, and protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence."16

Past lessons and the future of the DRC peace process

Military hostilities had hardly commenced on 2 August 1998 before the first of a number of increasingly complicated responses to the conflict in the DRC occurred. It can be argued that the UN, along with the OAU and SADC, did too much too early (in the realm of peacemaking), while the enforcement action that was taken by ‘SADC Allied Forces’ lacked the support of the international community and the subregional body. The ‘peacemakers’ and the ‘peace enforcers’ have thus been at odds from the outset, creating a very shaky foundation for the final layer of international response to the conflict — the deployment of UN peacekeepers.

The military intervention by three SADC member states, endorsed ex post facto by Summit — gave the impression of a subregional mandate and hence legitimacy to the intervention as an exercise in regional conflict resolution. Indeed, representatives of the SADC allies contend that, if they had not acted speedily and with resolve, then Kinshasa would have been racked by rebel forces, with great loss of civilian lives. But, the SADC heads of state and government never forged consensus around this intervention, and followed the path of peacemaking — including strident calls from a number of quarters for an ‘immediate cease-fire’ — while a controversial enforcement operation was still under way.

Of course, it is often easier to negotiate a cease-fire than it is to negotiate a more comprehensive political settlement. In Angola for example, a number of cease-fires and peace accords have been brokered by outsiders over the past two decades, only to be broken by the signatories themselves — despite significant international supervision and assistance. The Angolan case highlights the possible negative effects of third-party peacemaking — of pushing belligerents towards an agreement that they do not really want. It also confirms the fact that war-based economies will not disappear with the signing of formal peace agreements and the deployment of international observers and aid agencies. The obvious point to be made is that no one can impose preventive diplomacy, peacemaking or peacebuilding on parties if they are not willing to accept it.

In the DRC, the limits of peacemaking were not recognised. Indeed, despite the contemporary preoccupation with promoting the settlement of intrastate wars at the bargaining table, the record shows that negotiated peace has been a relatively rare outcome.17 Moreover, too much unco-ordinated peacemaking, implemented too soon, can be counterproductive. The DRC peacemakers seem to have ignored Kofi Annan’s report on conflict in Africa, in which the UN Secretary-General clearly states that peacemaking efforts need to be well co-ordinated and prepared. He warns that:
"the failure of the major external actors to maintain a common political approach to an erupting or ongoing crisis is one of the principal impediments to progress towards a solution … it is critically important that international actors avoid the temptation to undertake rival or competing efforts."18
The UN’s approach of minimising risks though an incremental military deployment to the DRC is perhaps understandable, given the fragile nature of the Lusaka accord and an approach that relies entirely on consent and voluntary compliance by the signatory parties. As Annan puts it, "the political context, as well as the political, military and logistical constraints, justify a step-by-step approach adapted to the situation."19 On the other hand, the worst way to try to cross a chasm is in small steps.

The incremental approach flies in the face of just about every recommendation of a series of ‘lessons learned’ seminars that were conducted in the wake of the failed UN missions in Somalia and Rwanda. The most fundamental lesson to emerge from these endeavours is that there must be a clear and achievable mandate backed by sufficient means for its execution. This clearly was not the case with the deployment of military liaison officers, and even the proposed 500 military observers, backed by four battalions with an expanded mandate, will be hard pressed to accomplish much more than their predecessors.

The lessons ‘learned’ from a succession of failed UN operations in Africa since 1992 all emphasise the fact that, if a peace operation is to be effective, it must be credible and perceived as such. The credibility of the operation is, in turn, a reflection of the parties’ assessment of the force’s capability to accomplish the mission.20 At this stage, it is apparent that the parties to the conflict in the DRC have a much higher expectation of UN capabilities than would be provided by the proposed expansion of MONUC, and that the mission will face an immediate credibility crisis.

In this regard, Annan reported to the Security Council that:
"If the [Lusaka] Agreement is to be carried out as signed, the formidable tasks expected of the United Nations will need to be carefully evaluated. In particular, it will be necessary to reflect on the question of the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of the armed groups in order to develop a realistic plan of action."21
This is the missing link in the Lusaka agreement, as it has been in most of the peace agreements of the 1990s. It appears that the notion of coercive disarmament has been accepted for the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) in Sierra Leone — after a number of peacekeepers themselves have recently been disarmed by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels. However, the UN has never been able to get non-consensual micro-disarmament right. The performance of an expanded UNAMSIL may offer some vital clues to the viability of a much larger peace operation in the Congo.

Conclusion

The UN Security Council has been ‘shamed’ into support for a premature and extremely complicated cease-fire accord in the DRC. The UN is being dragged into a peace mission without any effective preceding enforcement action, without any clear demonstration of a will for peace by the belligerent parties, and without any notion of the eventual (political) endstate of UN engagement.

The challenges are immense — not only for the 500 MONUC observers and their infantry support base, but also for the envisaged follow-on peacekeeping force. The major political challenges to an expanded MONUC are false perceptions and expectations of what it is and what it can do, and denial of freedom of action. The operational challenges are equally daunting, and there can be little comfort in the fact that the Council has equipped an observer mission with a Chapter VII mandate.

In Kosovo, the UN was dragged into a comprehensive peace mission in a small area of operations in the wake of the most devastating ‘peace enforcement’ action yet to be launched by the world’s most powerful military alliance. The UN mission (UNMIK) still enjoys the security framework provided by ten times more KFOR troops than the total UN troops proposed for the United Nations Observer Mission in the DRC (MONUC) — the latter to be deployed in an area the size of Western Europe. In Sierra Leone, UNAMSIL deployed in a peace support role only after years of heavy enforcement action by ECOMOG forces. In the DRC, SADC’s enforcement action was partial and incomplete, and the UN is attempting to deploy without a sound foundation created by coherent and credible regional action.

It will be unwise to hold one’s breath and wait for UN peacekeepers to fix the conflict in the DRC. It is unlikely that MONUC will deploy if violations of the Lusaka agreement continue to be the rule rather than the exception. Without MONUC, there is no chance of more robust UN engagement. The ball is already back in the SADC court, with an urgent need to revisit the Lusaka cease-fire agreement. As agonising as this may seem, it should be remembered that it took ECOWAS six years, and intense military engagement, to broker the 14 peace agreements that eventually led to the Liberian elections of July 1997.22 There is no reason to expect that the DRC conflict is amenable to a quicker fix than this.

Notes

  1. IRIN Interview with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, New York, 1 February 2000.
  2. In her address to the Security Council meeting on the DRC on 24 January 2000.
  3. R Cornwell & J Potgieter, Africa Watch: A Large Peace of Africa?, African Security Review 7(6), 1998, pp 74-86.
  4. UN Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) for Central and Eastern Africa, Update 494, 3 September 1998.
  5. Final communiqué of the 1998 SADC Summit of Heads of State and Government, Grand Baie, Republic of Mauritius, 19 September 1998.
  6. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1234, S/RES/1234 (1999), adopted by the Security Council at its 3993rd meeting, on 9 April 1999
  7. The main provisions of the agreement included:

    * the immediate cessation of hostilities;

    * the establishment of the JMC, comprising the belligerent parties under a neutral chairperson appointed by the OAU, to investigate cease-fire violations, work out mechanisms to disarm identified militias and monitor the withdrawal of foreign troops according to an agreed schedule;

    * the deployment of an appropriate (peacekeeping and peace enforcement) UN mission tasked with disarming the armed groups, collecting weapons from civilians, and providing humanitarian assistance and protection to vulnerable populations; and

    * initiating an inter-Congolese dialogue intended to lead to "a new political dispensation in the DRC."
  8. The armed groups identified included Rwandan Interahamwe militia and the former Rwandan government forces (FAR); Congolese Mayi-Mayi militias; the Allied Democratic Front (ADF), the Uganda National Rescue Front II, the West Nile Bank Front and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda; the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA); and the Burundian Forces pour la défense de la démocratie (FDD).
  9. South African Broadcasting Corporation, 2 September 1999.
  10. The establishment of the JMC was long delayed by negotiations over the appointment of a chairperson, wrangles about RCD representation and procedural issues, as well financing and logistical problems. Based in Lusaka, the JMC comprises two members each from the belligerent parties, including the MLC and both of the RCD factions, as well as ‘neutral’ observers from Zambia and representatives of the UN and OAU.
  11. United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Preliminary Deployment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/1999/790, New York, 15 July 1999.
  12. UN Security Council Press Release, SC/6711, 6 August 1999.
  13. UN Security Council Press Release, Seven African Heads of State Address Security Council in Day-long meeting on Democratic Republic of Congo, SC/6789, 24 January 2000.
  14. United Nations, Report of the Secretary-General on the Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa, A/52/871-S/1998/318, New York, January 2000.
  15. S/1999/790, op. cit., paragraph 67.
  16. UN Security Council, Resolution 1291, 25 February 2000, paragraph 8.
  17. Ibid.
  18. UN, A/52/871-S/1998/318, op cit, paragraph 20.
  19. Ibid.
  20. Examining several peace support operations over the past nine years that ‘exemplify success’, Daniel and Hayes conclude that: "The common thread throughout these examples is the quick deployment of robust forces which, possibly through shock effect, implicitly if not explicitly deliver the message that they mean business." D C F Daniel & B C Hayes, Securing observance of UN mandates through the employment of military forces, US Naval War College, Newport, RI, 1995. UNITAF, Operation Turquoise, Provide Comfort and Uphold Democracy are cited as operations that succeeded in successfully inducing co-operation from belligerents.
  21. UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, S/2000/30, 17 January 2000.
  22. The following ECOWAS accords played vital roles in resolving the Liberian crisis:
    • ECOWAS Peace Plan (Banjul Communiqué) — August 1990.
    • Bamako Cease-fire Agreement — 28 November 1990.
    • Banjul Joint Statement — 21 December 1990.
    • Lomé Agreement — 13 February 1991.
    • Yamoussoukro I Accord — 30 June 1991.
    • Yamoussoukro II Accord — 29 July 1991.
    • Yamoussoukro III Accord — 17 September 1991.
    • Yamoussoukro IV Accord — 30 October 1991.
    • Geneva Cease-fire Agreement — 17 July 1993.
    • Cotonou Accord — 25 July 1993.
    • Akosombo Agreement — 12 September 1994.
    • Accra Clarification — 21 December 1994.
    • Abuja Accord — 19 August 1995.
    • Abuja Accord Supplement — 17 August 1996.
* Head, Peace Missions Programme, Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria