ABSTRACT
The focus is on the role of international mediation efforts in the post-Cold War era, regarding both electoral monitoring and further attempts at political reconciliation and peacebuilding between two major ethno-political contenders. The focus is on the role of international mediation efforts in the post-Cold War era, regarding both electoral monitoring and further attempts at political reconciliation and peacebuilding between two major ethno-political contenders. Mediation also may be complicated when, as in Guyana and in the majority of intrastate conflicts currently, one of the disputing parties holds the reins of government while the other is a non-state actor representing aggrieved minority or majority factions; at the extreme, of course, such situations have resulted in outright civil wars. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) initiative in instituting what it called the Social Cohesion Program (SCP) was perhaps the most far-reaching of these additional mediation and facilitation efforts in Guyana.
