Mediation

Mass atrocities, including genocide, were committed and as many as 100,000 were killed during the interstate war between Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, marking the dissolution of Yugoslavia (1993-1995) (ICTY). Multiple third-party mediators, including the UN and the European Community, attempted to assist the conflicting parties in negotiating a ceasefire and a political settlement. These efforts at mediation–including the Lisbon Agreement (1992), the Vance-Owen Plan (1992-1993), and the Owen-Stoltenberg Plan (1993)–failed, in part due to an asymmetry of power favoring the Serbs and the inability of mediators to create incentives for the parties to negotiate (Greenberg and McGuinness 2000). In August 1995, the Clinton administration appointed then-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Richard Holbrooke to head a shuttle diplomacy team, tasked with bringing the leaders of each party together to negotiate a power-sharing agreement and the territorial boundaries of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Holbrooke took an assertive diplomatic approach to mediation, supported by a NATO military intervention and sanctions, which forced the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table (Curran et al. 2004). The Dayton Peace Accords (DPA) were signed in November 1995, due in part to the timing of negotiations during a mutually hurting stalemate on the ground and US leadership exercising “mediation with muscle” with broad international support (Goodby 1996). The DPA succeeded at ending hostilities and mass atrocities, but created a federal state susceptible to continued ethnic fragmentation, as it was divided along ethnic lines between Serbs in Republika Srpska, and Croats and Bosniaks in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Greenberg and McGuinness 2000; Guzina 2007).

Following a contentious election in December 2007, widespread post-election violence erupted in Kenya between ethnic Kikuyu government supporters and Luo and Kalenjin opposition groups amid disputes regarding electoral integrity (Gettleman 2007). Following the release of election results, there were premeditated attacks on civilians including massacres, sexual violence, and extra-judicial killings of demonstrators by police leading to more than 1,000 civilian fatalities and 350,000 displaced persons (CIPEV 2008). On January 22, 2008, an African Union-commissioned panel of eminent African personalities began a mediation process, with support from the UN and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, as well as from the United States “which stepped in at pivotal moments to put pressure on the parties” (Lindenmayer and Kaye 2009). The United States gave strong support to the mediation effort, sending Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer to participate in the talks, which were led by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (CSIS 2009). Although the brief conflagration threatened far worse violence, mediation led by highly legitimate and experienced mediators with regional and international support, together with other efforts, resulted in a cessation of violence and a power-sharing agreement with a coalition government, as well as an outline for future institutional reforms designed to prevent future unrest and instability (African Union 2014).