ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts of key concepts discussed in preceding chapters of this book. This chapter begins with a quotation from the work of a non-African, Philip Gourevitch, writing about Africa in the late twentieth century. That extract represented a certain liberal, interventionist approach to Africa's problems. Gourevitch's book on the Rwandan genocide of 1994 was an excoriating attack on what he saw as the immoral disregard of that tragedy by the international community, including the United Nations. Conrad's book opens with a description of a voyage from England to the Congo Free State. As the narrator, Marlow, sails down the West African coast to the dark of Leopold II's domain, his ship passes a French gunboat bombarding the interior. There can be no such thing as a straightforward 'balance sheet' of UN peacekeeping in Africa. Assessments of the success or failure of individual operations are only meaningful up to a point.
