CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the study

In the early 1990s, several long-running civil wars were settled peacefully through international facilitation or mediation, including in Namibia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cambodia, Mozambique and Guatemala. As a result, models for ‘peace-making’ rose to prominence. However, mediation-focused approaches showed their limits in the face of frustrating failures of negotiated settlements in Angola, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia. In each of these cases, international actors invested significant time and resources in achieving an accord, only to see spoilers undermine them with a return to horrific violence (Charles, 2015:2).

In response, the international community began to look at ‘peace implementation’ and how to manage determined spoilers. Attention was paid to international monitoring and verification of peace agreements, focusing on how to garner the international political will, capacities and knowledge for more effective implementation. Practice – rather than theory – drove the broadening of the peacebuilding concept. Within the UN Secretariat, peacebuilding activities largely fell under the term “multi-dimensional peacekeeping,” with civilian requirements expanding rapidly to include monitoring and advising peacekeeping with civilian requirements expanding rapidly to include monitoring and advising on political, human rights, civil affairs, electoral, disarmament and demobilization, humanitarian assistance and policing tasks (UN, 2023).

Beginning in 1999, the state assumed a more salient role in the theory and practice of peacebuilding, derived mainly from two major UN operations. In 1999, the UN assumed unprecedented executive authority in Kosovo and East Timor. It became the de facto state, revealing a need for new international civilian capacity to administer state functions during transitional periods. These experiences opened a debate that was hastened by the US-led war in Afghanistan from 2001 and the US invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003-04.

Peacebuilding  aims  to  lay  the  foundations  for  sustainable  peace  and  development by promoting measures that seek to reduce the risk of violent  conflict. The role and practice of peacebuilding in conflict-affected countries has risen up the agenda of United Nations (UN) agencies, donor agencies and international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) throughout the past two decades (Berisk, 2019:1). The study ‘foreign intervention and the effectiveness of peace-building in Cameroon: the case study of US’ set out to examine the extent to which the US peacebuilding mission in Cameroon has contributed to stability and peace building in Cameroon. Peacebuilding has been a major topic in international relations right from the 1960s to the 1970s.

Peacebuilding has been explained by Lederach, (1990:149) to be the systems which assign responsibility and accountability for financial and material support are as important are important as the material support itself. Peacebuilding over the years have been part of the major arguments of international relations which aims at resolving conflicts, nation building, and the making of important reforms in the different institutions and sectors of the state. It includes strategies that aim at stopping the future reoccurrences of conflict, which is important for the maintenance of global security and protecting the security of the civilians (Berisk, 2019:1).

The concept of peace building was developed from 1960 and it became an area of concentration from the 1970s. The idea of peacebuilding started developing in the 1990s in the context of “multidimensional peacekeeping” (Call, 2015: 234). The first time that the concept of peacebuilding was introduced in the international arena was in the Agenda for Peace of 1992 by the United Nations Secretary General Boutros-Ghali (Boutros-Ghali, 1992: 78-88). Secretary General Boutros-Ghali underlined the idea that post-conflict peacebuilding is a consequential step that must follow the phases of peace making and peacekeeping (Ardigò, Caterina, 2023:7).

It was better elaborated and explained by Johan (1999:354) who explained that there are three very important aspects of peace building. Peacekeeping signifies putting in place military actions or nonviolence methods to end active violence between the conflicting parties. This method comes after peacekeeping, it has to do with peaceful mediation and negotiation to end or manage the conflict between the conflicting parties and then finally what he refers to peace building is a way of creating a stable peace that involves state-building and other very important aspects that makes up a democratic state (Brovina, 2017:124)

Peacebuilding has become a guiding principle of international intervention in the periphery since its inclusion in the Agenda for Peace of the United Nations in 1992 (Cravo, 2017:  44-60). The aim of creating the conditions for a self-sustaining peace in order to prevent a return to armed conflict is, however, far from easy or consensual. With a trajectory full of contested successes and some glaring failures, foreign intervention in the process of peacebuilding has been the target of harsh criticism and widespread scepticism.

In the last decade, many African countries have experienced conflicts and other forms of  political crisis which have been manifested through civil unrest, protests, disagreements and  misunderstandings between state factions, border crisis and cracks of terrorism, just to name  a few.  Examples are the post-electoral violence in Ivory Coast, the Boko haram insurgency in Northern Nigeria currently overlapping to Chad and Cameroon, the conflict in the Central African Republic with the influx of refugees in the East region of Cameroon, the Anglophone conflict in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon, the recent crisis in South Africa with causes linked to xenophobia, degenerating non-international armed struggle and the most recent mass protest in Mali (Salome, 2022:147).

 Conflicts are inevitable and no matter their nature, they are often accepted as a regular part of human relations. The major problem is always how to resolve them. The history of the African continent is characterized by conflicts, which usually occurs around the border between two states (the Boko haram insurgency in the Far North region of Cameroon), and a majority of the conflicts are equally intra state like the Anglophone conflict. Most of these conflicts occur after the states become independent, when each becomes eager to know and secure its territorial boundaries with neighbours (Sone, P 2017: 325-339). It is for this reason that many scholars have considered Africa as the home of conflict, and Cameroon which is referred to as Africa in miniature as a replica of the African continent in that it places host to many conflicts, the Anglophone conflict, the displacement of populations from the conflict in the neighbouring Central African Republic and the Boko haram insurgency in the Far North region being our focal point.

Cameroon faces continuing instability due principally by violent non-state armed groups in its Northwest and Southwest Regions, and attacks by violent extremist groups, ISIS-West Africa, and the remnants of Boko Haram in the North and Far North Regions. As a result of these, and other regional conflicts, over four million people are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, including 463,000 Nigerian and Central African Republic refugees and 1.1 million internally displaced Cameroonians fleeing conflict in the Northwest, Southwest, and Far North regions. Cameroon also remains vulnerable to climate change, particularly in the northern regions, which aggravates resource scarcity resulting in conflicts over land and water (Egoh, 2020: 47-58; Pippie Hugues, 2021: 32; UN, 2021).

When faced with the outbreak of a war or the onset of an international crisis that affects important U.S. interests, U.S. policymakers must consider how best to respond. They have a variety of options and tools available to them: doing nothing, engaging diplomatically, providing military or economic assistance to one or more of the involved parties, or committing U.S. forces either in a unilateral intervention or in a multilateral coalition (RAND Corporation, 2021). Even after an initial choice is made, policymakers still have several decisions to make. For instance, if the decision is made to use military assistance, how much aid should be provided, and should that aid consist of weapons, supplies, or money? In the case of military interventions, policymakers must decide the size and composition of the forces to be employed. Moreover, even if an initial decision is made to not become involved militarily, that decision can always be revisited, and a later intervention can be undertaken.

The priority at the United States Mission to Cameroon is to advance the mutual interests of the United States and Cameroon in the areas of peace, prosperity, and the protection of shared environment. Cooperation between the United States and Cameroon spans a broad range of areas to include promoting citizen-responsive governance, reinforcing regional security and stability, strengthening health systems, expanding economic opportunity, and ensuring sustainable growth. The Embassy’s provision of consular services and support to both the American and Cameroonian public is integral to achieving these objectives. Within the framework of peacebuilding in Cameroon, the United States continues to encourage the government, armed groups, and diaspora separatist leaders to end the violence in the Northwest and Southwest Regions and works to hold those responsible accountable via visa sanctions or other means as appropriate (Integrated Country Strategy, 2022).

The cooperation of the United State in the security sector in Cameroon, while limited since 2018 in response to significant concerns about human rights abuses by security force elements, focuses on measures to build trust between security forces and local populations, as well as fostering Cameroonian participation in regional stability efforts such as anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Guinea and UN peacekeeping in CAR (US Embassy, 2024). The United States provides life-saving humanitarian assistance to refugee and IDP populations throughout the country, while working with partners to expand economic opportunities for vulnerable populations that improve food security, lead to livelihood development, and result in better inclusion within local communities. In the health sector, their capacity-building programs support Cameroon’s efforts to reach HIV and tuberculosis epidemic control, to reduce morbidity due to malaria, to strengthen health systems, and to prevent and respond to national and international public health threats (Integrated Country Strategy, 2022).

1.2 Statement of the problem

A major problem facing the world in general and Cameroon in particular is how to build peace following the ravages of increasingly protracted armed conflicts. Armed conflicts leave behind shattered, divided societies that are at risk of repeating cycles of violence, and therefore need concerted peacebuilding efforts (IASC, 2024:7). The recurrent nature of violent conflict admits the on-going Anglophone crisis in Cameroon highlights the need for peacebuilding but interrogates the efficacy of foreign intervention. Despite successes in peace-building the Cameroon experience indicates that not all peace-building foreign intervention successfully break cycles of violence.

The resolution of conflict that involves peace-building has been a serious topic not only in Cameroon but in the world at large that needs more and serious time, resources, and better initiatives to tackle it from escalating because over the years conflicts have shown higher and evidence of escalating and spilling over to other territories (Nyambura, 2016: 326).

This study therefore, is set to examine the effectiveness of the United States in peace-building in Cameroon on the context of the threats posed by the incursion of Boko Haram in the North of the country, spill-over effects, particularly the displacement of populations, from the conflict in the neighbouring Central African Republic, and the armed conflict in the North-West and South-West regions (the Anglophone Conflict).

1.3 Research questions

The study will be guided by a general research question and three specific research questions.

1.3.1 General research question

 To what extent has the US peacebuilding efforts in Cameroon been successful?

1.3.2 Specific research questions

The study was guided by the following specific research questions;

1. What are the peacebuilding measures the US has been carrying out in Cameroon?
2. How effective are the US implementation strategies in peacebuilding in Cameroon?
3. What are the challenges faced by the US in the process of peacebuilding in Cameroon?

1.4 Research objectives

The study was guided by a general research objective and three specific objectives.

1.4.1 General research objective

To examine the extent to which the US peacebuilding efforts in Cameroon has been successful

1.4.2 Specific objectives

The specific objectives of this study are to;

1. Examine the areas in which the US has been involved in peacebuilding in Cameroon
2. Assess the ways in which the US peacebuilding role in Cameroon has succeeded
3. Evaluate the challenges faced by the U.S in the process of peace-building in Cameroon.