osloforum

This paper reviews and assesses the past eighteen years of external mediation efforts aimed at ending Somalia's protracted civil war and reviving a central government. It identifies lessons learned, summarizes ongoing debates about the most appropriate mediation approaches, and inventories the range of obstacles and constraints which have prevented successful mediation of the Somalia conflict.

This paper reviews the mediation experiences by presenting a chronology that starts from Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi's intervention in Uganda's civil war in 1985 and ends with Botswana's former President Ketumile Masire's mediation of the conflict in the DRC in 2002. This chronology of experiences depicts African actors gradually learning how to manage mediation roles, witnessed in the practice of presidents ceding mediation functions to elder statesmen and special envoys.

By formally abrogating the Ceasefire Agreement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the Sri Lankan government has finally proclaimed what has been a reality for two years – the effective end of the ceasefire brokered by the Norwegians six years ago. The Government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers have decided that war is not only inevitable but also required, before any fresh political process can emerge. The Tamil Tigers can emerge defeated, weakened, or emboldened from this fighting. This paper examines these three very different scenarios.

This paper examines the prospects for Pakistan after the elections in early 2008.

Since Myanmar's military leaders seized power in a bloody coup more than eighteen years ago, the international community has tried to restore democracy to the country through a combination of dialogue, engagement, goading and sanctions. Asia (largely China, India and ASEAN), the West (Europe and the US) and the UN have all taken key roles in this process of either encouraging or putting pressure on Myanmar to reform. But the main problem has always been the major disagreement between those who favour sanctions and those who believe the only way to encourage change, is to engage the regime rather than isolate them. This paper takes a look at these efforts in order to reflect upon the broader question of possible limits to external engagement. In conclusion, several policy options are put forward.

This paper examines lessons about efforts to build peace from three very different conflicts - Bougainville, in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands and Fiji. These three island states share characteristics common to the states of the southwest Pacific region known as Melanesia. They have small populations (PNG 5.5 million, Fiji 850,000, Solomon Islands 400,000), possess remarkable cultural and linguistic diversity, experienced a late imposition of colonial rule, emerged recently from colonialism - Fiji in 1970, PNG in 1975, and Solomon Islands in 1978 - and share weak economies and states inherited from reluctant colonial powers.