Horn of Africa

After two weeks of slaughter in South Sudan, UNMISS, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the country, faces three possible scenarios: fragile success, prolonged agony and decisive failure. In the first and best scenario, the mission will manage to hold together militarily long enough for more-or-less sincere political talks to end the violence. In the second, it might muddle through in the face of half-hearted negotiations and spasmodic but serious violence, trying to save as many lives as possible.

 In early 2013, peace operations have entered new and uncharted waters that may set the stage for major changes in multilateral conflict management in the years to come.

Who cares about Darfur these days? The conflict in the western Sudanese region, which galvanized public opinion in the middle of the last decade, is now rarely in the headlines. This is not because the area is calm. Renewed violence has displaced 300,000 of its inhabitants this year alone. The United Nations and African Union still have 19,000 troops and police officers trying to keep the peace there. But fresher crises, such as those in Mali and Syria, have long replaced Darfur at the top of the international agenda.

Why have large-scale international efforts to end the violence in the DRC failed again and again?

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