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Year in Review 2008

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Year in Review 2008 United Nations Peace Operations YEAR IN2008 REVIEW asdf TABLE OF CONTENTS 12 ] UNMIS helps keep North-South Sudan peace on track 13 ] MINURCAT trains police in Chad, prepares to expand 15 ] After gaining ground in Liberia, UN blue helmets start to downsize 16 ] Progress in Côte d’Ivoire 18 ] UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea is withdrawn 19 ] UNMIN assists Nepal in transition to peace and democracy 20 ] Amid increasing insecurity, humanitarian and political work continues in Somalia 21 ] After nearly a decade in Kosovo, UNMIK reconfigures 23 ] Afghanistan – Room for hope despite challenges 27 ] New SRSG pursues robust UN mandate in electoral assistance, reconstruction and political dialogue in Iraq 29 ] UNIFIL provides a window of opportunity for peace in southern Lebanon 30 ] A watershed year for Timor-Leste 33 ] UN continues political and peacekeeping efforts in the Middle East 35 ] Renewed hope for a solution in Cyprus 37 ] UNOMIG carries out mandate in complex environment 38 ] DFS: Supporting peace operations Children of Tongo, Massi, North Kivu, DRC. 28 March 2008. UN Photo by Marie Frechon. Children of Tongo, 40 ] Demand grows for UN Police 41 ] National staff make huge contributions to UN peace 1 ] 2008: United Nations peacekeeping operations observes 60 years of operations 44 ] Ahtisaari brings pride to UN peace efforts with 2008 Nobel Prize 6 ] As peace in Congo remains elusive, 45 ] Security Council addresses sexual violence as Security Council strengthens threat to international peace and security MONUC’s hand [ Peace operations facts and figures ] 9 ] Challenges confront new peace- 47 ] Peacekeeping contributors keeping mission in Darfur 48 ] United Nations peacekeeping operations 25 ] Peacekeepers lead response to 50 ] United Nations political and peacebuilding missions disasters in Haiti 52 ] Top 10 troop contributors Cover photo: Jordanian peacekeepers rescue children 52 ] Surge in uniformed UN peacekeeping personnel from a flooded orphanage north of Port-au-Prince from1991-2008 after the passing of Hurricane Ike. 9 July 2008. UN Photo by Marco Dormino. 2008: United Nations peacekeeping observes 60 years of operations As the international community cele- tries to ensure the successful imple- fied Congolese wanted more, and frus- brated the 60th anniversary of United mentation of peacekeeping missions’ trated local civilians stoned the UN’s Nations peacekeeping during 2008, mandates and avoid similar failures Goma headquarters. Nonetheless, a today’s blue helmets found them- to those experienced in the 1990s, study published in November by the selves over-stretched and confronted such as those in Rwanda, Somalia US-based Council of Foreign Relations with numerous and increasingly com- and Srebrenica in the Balkans. In that concluded that MONUC was the “sin- plex operations all across the globe. regard, he was frank in warning the gle most important factor preventing UN Security Council and other Mem- the full collapse of state authority in “Though they may not resolve all post- ber States that UN peacekeeping was the region”. conflict issues or challenges, peace- not the right tool for every job and keeping operations certainly can play that achievable mandates, adequate The UN set in motion a series of actions a central role in reducing the likeli- resources and political support were to resolve the conflict: MONUC quickly hood of future conflict and creating a needed: Peacekeepers cannot suc- reconfigured its forces throughout the framework in which normal develop- ceed in a situation where there is no east, reinforcing its presence in the ment can resume”, Alain Le Roy, the peace to keep. city of Goma and surrounding areas. In Under-Secretary-General for Peace- November, following a visit to the DRC, keeping Operations, told the General Peacekeeping challenged anew Mr. Le Roy urged the Security Coun- Assembly’s Fourth Committee (which cil to send more troops to the belea- deals with a variety of political issues) in the Congo guered mission. The Council agreed to in November. “The range and breadth But in 2008, the largest UN peace- authorize an additional 3,100 troops of mandated tasks continues to grow keeping operation – MONUC – found and police. Secretary-General Ban Ki- even wider”. itself challenged when violence reig- moon also called for the deployment nited in August in the volatile eastern of a multinational force as a bridging In July, after eight years of leading the region of the Democratic Republic of measure until MONUC could be rein- Department of Peacekeeping Opera- the Congo (DRC), on the border with forced. He met with regional leaders tions (DPKO) into a new era, former Rwanda. In late October, the situa- in Nairobi as the crisis threatened to Under-Secretary-General Jean-Marie tion worsened, when the rebel Congrès spill beyond DRC’s borders, and he ap- Guéhenno stepped down, having been National pour la Défense du Peuple pointed Olusegun Obasanjo, the former widely credited with strengthening the (CNDP), led by Laurent Nkunda, un- President of Nigeria, as his Special En- reputation of UN peace operations dertook a major offensive threatening voy for the Great Lakes Region to work as an effective tool to help war-torn Goma, the provincial capital of North with the parties and the international countries return to stability. Under Kivu. Nkunda’s forces quickly over- community on finding a lasting peace. his tenure, the number of peacekeep- whelmed the government (FARDC) The Security Council on 22 December ers deployed topped 100,000, and forces and displaced hundreds of voted to extend MONUC’s mandate by the Security Council gave them new, thousands of civilians. UN peacekeep- a year, and called on MONUC to make more robust mandates to protect civil- ers found themselves lodged between protecting civilians a priority. ians and deter ‘spoilers’ of peace pro- warring groups, protecting civilians cesses. Mr. Guéhenno advanced the where they could, with the government UN forces continue to build in professionalization of peacekeeping army they were there to support basi- Darfur despite challenges by further developing peacekeeping cally incapacitated. doctrine and policy and reforming the The plea for additional troops for the UN peacekeeping architecture. MONUC’s almost 20,000 peacekeep- Congo came as DPKO was still strug- ers were thinly stretched in the vast gling to build up the force in Darfur, Mr. Guéhenno worked tirelessly to country of 66 million people and Sudan, which is ultimately to exceed gain political, financial and human dealing simultaneously with four ‘hot’ MONUC in size, with an authorized support from a wide range of coun- fronts in the eastern DRC alone. Terri- 26,000 soldiers and police and a YEAR IN REVIEW 2008 1 “Peacekeeping has developed into a flagship enterprise of our Organi- zation”, Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon stated on 29 May, the Inter- national Day of UN Peacekeepers, which in 2008 commemorated 60 years of UN peacekeeping. “Today we have more than 110,000 men and women deployed in conflict zones around the world. They come from nearly 120 countries – an all- time high, reflecting confidence in UN peacekeeping. They come from nations large and small, rich and poor – some of them countries re- cently afflicted by war themselves. They bring different cultures and experience to the job, and they are Susana Malcorra, Under-Secretary-General for Field Support, addresses a Security Council united in their determination to meeting on the work of United Nations foster peace”. peacekeeping operations. United Nations Headquarters, New York. 23 January 2009. Despite the huge increase in person- UN Photo by Jenny Rockett. nel and operations, peacekeeping re- mained an extremely cost-effective en- terprise. The annual budget for all UN peacekeeping in fiscal year 2008-9 was US$7.6 billion, which is equal to ap- significant civilian component. By sion during the year, 13 of them proximately one half of one per cent of the end of 2008, 12,374 troops had killed in attacks. global military spending. been deployed to the African Union/ United Nations Hybrid Operation in The announcement in July by the Peacekeeping elsewhere in Africa Darfur (UNAMID), representing 63 prosecutor of the International Crimi- The UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) – per cent of the authorized 19,555 nal Court (ICC) that he was seeking an based in Khartoum and Juba in South- military personnel. Those troops that arrest warrant for Sudanese President ern Sudan – and its 10,000 peace- have deployed have found it chal- Omar Al-Bashir on war crimes charges keepers continued to help support the lenging to support themselves amid raised the possibility of further chal- peace process governed by the 2005 continued fighting and insecurity, lenges to the UN in Sudan in 2009. Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and in the inhospitable terrain, and, which ended a 21-year war between as a result, the process has taken Cost-effective peacekeeping North and South Sudan. The Agree- ment calls for national, Southern Su- longer than had been expected when still in demand AU troops took up their responsibili- dan and state elections in 2009, and ties as the first UN peacekeepers on In 2008, the surge in UN peacekeep- for a referendum on the future of the 31 December 2007. In addition, UN- ing continued, with DPKO and the country in 2011. AMID continued to lack a number of newly created Department of Field key assets including transportation, Support (DFS) running 18 operations Across the border in Uganda, a po- military aviation and in some cases on five continents. In addition, almost litical mission led by UN Special even basic accommodation. a dozen political and peacebuilding Envoy Joaquim Chissano contin- missions and offices, managed by the ued to lead efforts to secure a fi- Meanwhile the security situation UN Department of Political Affairs nal peace agreement between the continued to be of grave concern: (DPA) and also supported by DFS, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and 21 UNAMID personnel died on mis- were active in the field.
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