ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the future prospects for United Nation(UN) peacekeeping in Africa, focusing primarily on the Sub-Saharan African region and critically evaluating the record and role of selected non-UN Western and African initiatives. An African state, Somalia, provided a mortal blow to large-scale peacekeeping operations in Africa and Western willingness to intervene in African conflicts. The African Crisis Response Initiative can be seen as one stopgap but even this cannot be sufficient to deal with the complexity and sustained barbarity characterising many of Africa's small wars. For South Africa, still the pre-eminent and most politically credible regional Sub-Saharan power by virtue of her military capacity and internal democratic credentials, there must be a greater awareness that Africa is part of a 'global village'. The chapter analyses, Sub-Saharan Africa has a considerable distance to travel before, in the words of Kofi Annan, it can effectively, 'look at itself' and its governments can carry out peacekeeping operations with any form of independence.
