ABSTRACT

This chapter is a response to the key issues raised in Zartman’s edited book, Traditional Cures for Modern African Conflicts: African Conflict “Medicine.”1 I will briefly assess the feasibility of applying the indigenous African conflict resolution principles to the resolution of modern conflicts in Africa and highlight some of Zartman’s contributions to the understanding of the indigenous African conflict resolution systems. Most of the contributors to this book were anthropologists and political scientists with an interest in local communities. They were asked to explore the nature of the indigenous African conflict resolution systems and contribute to ongoing search for viable conflict resolution systems for the region.