A Year of Conflict and Conflict Resolution in Review - How the Legacy of Nelson Mandela and the Rwandan Massacre Influenced African Events in 2014 - : Africa-Wide - Continental Overview

Abstract

The January 2014 Africa Conflict Monitor report noted that the year ahead would witness the 20th anniversaries of two seminal events that profoundly shaped the way conflicts were resolved in Africa. Rwanda's Hutu tribe 'resolved' the conflict of tribal competition in 1994 with the massacre of 800,000 Tutsi (and moderate numbers of Hutu). That same year, South Africa resolved the conflict pitting the indigenous African majority against a racist and inhumane apartheid regime through nonviolent means, with the election of an inclusive and visionary humanitarian, Nelson Mandela. Twenty years later, the two ways of resolving conflict so extremely different from each other echoed in developments throughout the continent.