What Hinders End Of Civil Wars In War Torn Countries Even After Civil War Settlements: A Comparative Study Of Sierra Leone And Liberia.

Several devastating conflicts have devastated and are still devastating Africa for the past twenty years or more. Indeed, the persistence of these conflicts has decimated communities and seriously fractured their demography with baneful consequences on the development process occurring in the continent. According to the 1999 report of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Africa is the most conflict ridden region in the world and the only region in which the number of armed conflict was on the increase at the time the report was published. Although inter-state wars have occurred in Africa, most have been intra-state and civil wars. According to the International Peace Research Institute report on armed conflict, 2003, between 1960 and 2000, Africa witnessed 56 wars out of a total of 141 wars fought worldwide. Despite efforts by International Organizations such as The United Nations and African Union at regulating armed conflicts, war remains the form of the test whereby the claim of states and groups are decided. The purpose of this research is to explain why civil war settlements often are followed by a recurrence of conflicts. War has been used as a means to settle differences among antagonistic parties. Since 1995 the number of recurring conflicts outnumbered new onsets by significant margins. This thesis will investigate the problems of civil war recurrence and the different negotiated settlements, in an attempt to give additional information to the understanding of civil wars and hopefully be of assistance practically to the people involved in negotiated settlements.