|
PEACEKEEPING
MISSIONS ARE
DAMAGING
THE UN
By Lesley
Abdela
5th
September 2000
|
World leaders gathering in New York this week may need to face
up to the possibility that the UN will only survive if it ceases
to engage in operational peace enforcement - a task for which it
was never designed, and concentrates its resources on other UN
activities it could manage better.
Peacekeeping missions are proving as damaging for the UN as they
are for the countries where the missions operate.
If stained-glass windows
portraying peace missions were hacked into the walls of the
cathedral-proportioned entrance lobby at the UN Plaza, New York,
they would illuminate the floors with spectral outlines of the
Ruwenzori mountains and the Great Lakes, the hills of Sierra
Leone, Bosnia, Kosovo and the ruins of Srebrenica, not as a paean
of honour but to the sound of a tolling bell.
Panels would depict scenes of
inconceivable cruelty, stories of UN missions past, part theatre
of the absurd, part Dantean hell of severed limbs, ethnic
cleansing, rape as an instrument of war.
The government and the Liberal
Democrats yesterday jointly called for better standards in
peacekeeping. But they and the world leaders gathering in New York
this week may need to face up to the possibility that the UN will
only survive if it ceases to engage in operational peace
enforcement, a task for which it was never designed, and
concentrates its resources on other UN activities it could manage
better.
Sixty days spent in Kosovo last
year, shortly after the NATO bombing ceased, was enough to turn me
from a starry-eyed person hoping for a better world into a
singularly disquieted one as far as the UN's capacity to manage,
let alone wage, peace was concerned.
When I asked an experienced but
disheartened UN peacekeeper in Kosovo why UN missions go so wrong,
he said:
"No clear sense of purpose;
muddled and contradictory goals and objectives crafted by
amateurs, implemented by incompetents and defended by
bureaucrats whose sole purpose in life is to move up the food
chain. Make no waves, admit no mistakes, accept no
responsibility and demand no accountability. Appearance is
everything; never mind the substance. Pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain."
The UN secretary general, Kofi
Annan, is all too aware of the results of shambolic UN peace
missions. In places like Rwanda and Bosnia, Annan has seen
thousands die awaiting help and is determined that those mistakes
never occur again.
Two weeks ago a report was
published by the panel on United Nations peace operations, set up
by Annan to make recommendations. The report begins:
"Over the last decade, the
United Nations has repeatedly failed to meet the challenge [of
protecting people from war] and it can do no better today."
As the 159 heads of state and
world leaders assemble in New York for the UN millennium summit,
Annan is expected to use the occasion to put forward his vision
for the future of the UN. The Annan vision will include a shiny
new UN peace enforcement model.
The panel of eminent persons
conclude in their report that it is time to treat peacekeeping as
a "core activity" of the UN rather than a
"temporary responsibility".
Part of the report looks like a
quantum leap towards a UN standing army. It says future
peacekeepers must be able to defend themselves and their mandate.
This means "bigger forces, better equipped and more costly,
but able to be a credible deterrent".
The new model army will, if Annan
carries the day, group together battalions from several different
member states, like a global NATO. Control will stay at the UN HQ.
The report omits to ask the key
question:
What are the core tasks of a
peace mission and can an organisation conceived of as a
talk-shop between nation states fulfil the tasks?
If they are to succeed, post-
conflict peace missions in other Bosnias and Kosovos require high
quality civil capabilities to administer municipalities and
government; a sufficient number of trained police capable of law
enforcement; civil capabilities to work in partnership with the
local population to deliver rule of law, justice, and the short
and long-term reconstruction process of the infrastructure. This
includes developing democratic political parties, NGOs, free media
and human rights over a long enough time frame to induce
stability, economic growth and democracy.
But can any UN-directed
peacekeeping/enforcement mission work? First there would need to
be reform of international rule number one which is, senior staff
shall be selected by buggin's turn.
This highly politicised and
sacrosanct selection process, unaccountable and Byzantine in its
machinations, is foisted on international organisations by member
states. And it means the UN cannot select mission personnel on
merit.
World leaders must face up to the
possibility that the UN may survive only if it withdraws from its
operational role in peace enforcement, riddled as such
undertakings will always be with rivalry and rug-trading led by
self-seeking politicos from 188 countries.
There is an important role for the
UN to play, not least on Churchill's principle of "jaw jaw is
better than war war". A discussion forum of one nation, one
vote, where representatives meet to prevent wars and conflicts is
what the UN is best designed to do.
Before we send a UN standing army
down the road singing "Marchons, marchons", we should
re-examine how best to keep the peace and rebuild provinces and
nations. It's time for world leaders to stop sending the UN on
kamikaze peace missions.
comment@guardian.co.uk
lesley.abdela@shevolution.com
©Lesley Abdela 2000