In 2007, Martin Luther Agwai was deployed to Darfur as Force Commander of UNAMID, which, as the first African Union-UN hybrid mission, was to become the largest peacekeeping operation in the world. Four years earlier, Darfur had imploded, descending into violent conflicts. The international community - in the form of both activists and state actors - felt it could not remain uninvolved lest a genocide on the scale of Rwanda occurred. Despite such lofty intentions, UNAMID proved to be high on promise but low on commitment and delivery. Ultimately, it failed to address the conflicts taking place, much less build a sustainable peace.Agwai provides unique insight into what went wrong in Darfur, and the myriad challenges facing international peacekeeping operations more generally. Crucially, he highlights the lack of multi-level cooperation between the people of Darfur and the intervening parties, and how the absence of a bottom-up approach to peacebuilding works against peace being both achieved and maintained.

Provides in-depth analysis of the constraints on peacekeeping operations in Africa, and how they may be effectively resolved

IntroductionChapter One: A Day in the Life of PeacekeepingChapter Two: The Conflicts of All against AllChapter Three: An Intractable Problem from Hell?Chapter Four: A Detour: My Life's JourneyChapter Five: An Exclusive and Elusive Peace OperationChapter Six: UNAMID: A Touch and Go ExperimentChapter Seven: Thinking Through the Toughest Job in Africa: Reflections in HindsightIndex