Peace Keeping Practices and Security Promotion in Africa: A Case of Rwanda’s Peacekeepers in Darfur

Abstract

The persistence of peacekeeping missions in Africa, sustains the western grasp of Africa as a continent of violence, war and victimization of civilians in terms of security and sometimes the poverty of Africa is also attributed to poor security. Thus, the researcher conducted a study to determine the role of peacekeeping practices in promoting security in Africa with reference to Rwanda’s peacekeepers in Darfur. Descriptive research design was applied to a sample of 194 out of 249 people of target population using Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table, and to select the sample size of respondents the researcher used stratified sampling technique. The research employed interview guides and questionnaires as data collection instruments from 194 respondents whereby 190 of respondents who are troops and staff officers were given questionnaires and 4 experts were interviewed and later data collected were analyzed in SPSS version 21.0 with consideration of Likert scale data analysis procedure. The results have indicated that a total mean was 3.969 which tends towards agree which implies that peacekeeping practices contribute on conflict settlement in Africa with specific consideration of Rwanda’s peacekeepers in Darfur. Lastly, the results of correlation analysis have proven prove a positive and significant relationship between peacekeeping practices and security promotion because all calculated p-values are lesser than 0.01 level of significance; for instance the positive and significant relationship between civilian protection and reduction of violence (p=0.744 and sig=0.00), betweencivilian protection and conflict settlement (p=0.751 and sig=0.00). The regression results of the relationship between civilian protection and reduction of violence (b=0.414 and p=0.00), burden sharing and reduction of violence (b=0.228 and p=0.002), and promotion of human rights and reduction of violence (b=0.203 and p=0.005) proved that peacekeeping practices and reduction of violence in Darfur has a positive and significant relationship. Thus, the researcher has made the recommendation to a number of actors in the field of study such as UN, peacekeepers, governments of peacekeepers and local leaders and civilians in Darfur to be part and parcel of peacekeeping and security promotion process because these require collaboration between those actors. There researcher also recommended that the African should be the first ones to ensure peace and security in Africa because they are the only ones who know their differences.