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Peace in Liberia? a Status Quo Evaluation of United Nations Peacekeeping Five Years Later

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Peace in Liberia? a Status Quo Evaluation of United Nations Peacekeeping Five Years Later Bachelor Thesis in Peace and Development Studies Peace in Liberia? A status quo evaluation of United Nations peacekeeping five years later. Author: Julia Törnberg Supervisor: Manuela Nilsson Examiner: Susanne Alldén Term: Spring Term 2021 Subject: Peace and Development Studies Level: Undergraduate Course code: 2FU33E Abstract Discussions about the utility of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping has been ongoing since its emergence in the late 1940s, and scholars have studied different peacekeeping missions from various perspectives. However, there is a gap in the research when it comes to evaluating the state of peace in countries that has experienced successful UN peacekeeping missions a few years after the mission is finished. The UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia (UNMIL) was deemed a success when it was finished. For that reason, this study investigates the state of peace in Liberia five years after the UN peacekeeping mission handed over all security related responsibilities to the Liberian government in 2016. The state of peace in Liberia today will be analyzed using Johan Galtung’s definition of peace and violence. This study has been conducted as a qualitative desk and case study, and has followed abductive reasoning. The data used in this study have been analyzed through text analysis. Findings shows that the UN indeed succeeded in reaching their goals for the mission. But, when applying Galtung’s definition of peace and violence it is clear that the goals set by the UN can be categorized as negative peace, which means absence of direct violence. Positive peace however, which means the absence of direct, structural and cultural violence, has not yet been achieved since there is still high levels of corruption and discrimination in the country. The conclusion includes a discussion about whether or not the UN can and/or shall aim for positive peace, or if negative peace is a realistic goal and then hand the process of achieving higher levels of positive peace to the host country, in this case Liberia. Key words United Nations, Peacekeeping, Peace, Liberia, UNMIL, Positive Peace, Negative Peace. Acknowledgments I would like to thank Manuela Nilsson for being such a motivating, helpful and supporting mentor through the process of conducting this study. I would also like to thank my family and friends for always supporting and encouraging me in everything I do. Table of contents 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Introduction, Research Problem and Relevance 1 1.2 Objective and Research Questions 3 1.3 Disposition 3 2 Literature Review 5 2.1 The Debate About United Nations Peacekeeping 5 2.2 United Nations Peacekeeping in Liberia 8 3 Theoretical Framework 12 3.1 United Nations Definition of Peace and Peacekeeping 12 3.2 Different Conceptualizations of Peace 14 3.2.1 Johan Galtungs Definition of Peace and Violence 14 3.2.2 Everyday Peace 16 3.2.3 Relational Peace 17 3.3 The Definition of Peace Used by This Study 19 4 Methodology 21 4.1 Qualitative Desk Study 21 4.2 Abductive Reasoning 22 4.3 Case Study 22 4.4 Text Analysis 23 4.5 Sources and Validity 23 4.6 Limitations and Delimitations 24 4.7 Ethical Considerations 25 5 Findings 26 5.1 Background Liberia 26 5.1.1 Conflict Background 26 5.1.2 Cease-fire Agreement 27 5.1.3 The Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2003) 29 5.2 The United Nations Mission in Liberia: A Successful Mission 30 5.2.1 The UN Mission Objectives 30 5.2.2 Mission Successes 31 5.2.3 Outstanding Tasks for Liberia 33 5.3 Secondary Literature on the United Nations Mission in Liberia 34 5.4 Measuring Liberia’s Peace Today 34 5.4.1 Global Peace Index Measurement 34 5.4.2 Human Development Index 36 5.4.3 Freedom House 37 5.4.4 Transparency International 40 5.4.5 Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International 42 6 Analysis 45 6.1 Following Galtung’s Definition, is there Negative Peace in Liberia? 45 6.1.1 Absence of Violence 45 6.2 Following Galtung’s Definition, is there Positive Peace in Liberia? 46 6.2.1 Structural Violence 46 6.2.2 Cultural Violence 48 6.3 Summary of Analysis 49 7 Conclusion 51 8 References 54 List of Abbreviations CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement ECOMOG Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group GPI Global Peace Index HDI Human Development Index HRW Human Rights Watch ICC International Criminal Court INPFL Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia IPE Institute for Economics and Peace LURD Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy MODEL Movement for Democracy in Liberia NPFL National Patriotic Front of Liberia UN United Nations UNMIL United Mission in Liberia Sida 0(61) 1 Introduction 1.1 Introduction, Research Problem and Relevance By the end of World War two in 1945, the United Nations (UN) was established, and the main objective of the organization was to build and preserve peace and security. The concept of peacekeeping arose soon after, in 1948, at the beginning of the Cold War as a means to avoid a new full- scale war. From the beginning, the missions were limited to securing and sustaining ceasefire agreements and supporting countries in their efforts to peacefully end conflicts (United Nations Peacekeeping, 2021a). In 1948, the first UN peacekeeping mission was set up in the Middle East to supervise the ceasefire between Israel and its neighbouring countries (United Nations Peacekeeping, 2021b). As time went by, the conditions of peacekeeping started changing from more of an observing and supporting perspective, and by the end of the Cold War, peacekeeping was involving more hands-on multidimensional missions (Howard and Dayal, 2017). The UN has since the beginning of peacekeeping mandated 70 peacekeeping missions, and of those, there are today 13 missions ongoing (United Nations Peacekeeping, 2021a). The scope of UN peacekeeping transformed over time and by the 21st century the tasks of the UN peacekeeping became more complex which required larger and longer-term operations (Hunt, 2017). Although much has been learned since the first peacekeeping operation, operations of course still encountered numerous challenges. It started becoming difficult for the missions to deliver when being so large, complex and multidimensional, it was challenging to construct and implement manageable strategies of development for the peacekeeping missions that had reached a certain level of stability, as well as difficulties preparing for what the future would look like (United Nations Peacekeeping, 2021a). 1(61) Although the number of ongoing peacekeeping missions has decreased since the beginning of the 21st century, it does not mean that the UN will not have further challenges and tasks (Hunt, 2017). Peacekeeping missions will continue to be one of the UNs main tasks as conflicts within and between counties still emerge. The extent of the mandates given the peacekeeping missions and the political complexity the missions have to juggle are very broad, but the goals of peacekeeping missions are to support the political processes, engage and assist in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants, facilitate democratic electoral processes, assist in reestablishing the rule of law as well as promote and support human rights (United Nations Peacekeeping, 2021a). The utility of UN peacekeeping missions, whether they are good or bad, successes or failures, helping establish peace or not has been discussed for decades, and the debate is still ongoing. However, there is a research gap when it comes to evaluations of UN peacekeeping missions a few years after the mission is finished and deemed successful. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to contribute to and fill that gap and provide a study that aims to investigate if the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia (UNMIL) that was deemed successful managed to establish sustainable peace that is still going strong by using Johan Galtung's definition of peace and violence. In 2016 all the security responsibilities in the country were transferred from the UN to the Liberian government as had been decided the year prior. However, UNMIL was completely finished in 2018. Between 2016 and 2018 the UN was primarily in Liberia to support the government in furthering the peace process (United Nations Peacekeeping, 2021c). Therefore, this study will be using the year of 2016 up to 2021 in order to evaluate the main findings of whether or not the UN peacekeeping mission established sustainable peace in Liberia. This study is of great relevance since it contributes to the discussion of the utility of UN peacekeeping missions, 2(61) what goals the UN sets for its missions, if those goals are enough, and if the goals set by the UN provides a foundation for long-lasting sustainable peace. Should peacekeeping aim for negative peace, meaning just the absence of direct violence? Or should peacekeeping aim for positive peace, meaning the absence of direct, structural and cultural violence? This study will provide a foundation of discussion of these questions. 1.2 Objective and Research Questions The objective of this study is to contribute to the debate on the utility of peacekeeping by analyzing the case of the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia and its long-term effects on the status of peace in the country. Conducting this study several years after the mission was deemed successful in 2018 will provide an answer to if a successful UN peacekeeping operation can translate into long term sustainable peace. The following research questions have been identified: • What were the objectives of the UNMIL and did they succeed according to the UN? • How is the UNMIL perceived by secondary sources? • How could peace in Liberia be evaluated today, five years after the UN peacekeeping mission handed over the security related responsibilities to Liberian authorities? 1.3 Disposition This thesis is divided into seven chapters including this introduction chapter.
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