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“Africa’s regional organizations will . need to urgently improve their rapid- response capacity to ensure that the continent does not keep relying for its secu- rity on self-interested external powers.” UN Peacekeeping and the Quest for a Pax Africana ADEKEYE ADEBAJO he Kenyan scholar Ali Mazrui presented the Economic Community of West African States idea of a “Pax Africana” in a seminal 1967 (ECOWAS) mission in Guinea-Bissau. In fact, Tstudy, arguing that Africans should muster about 75 percent of the UN’s 98,350 peacekeep- the will to create and consolidate peace on their ers, and eight of its sixteen current peacekeeping own continent. Mazrui wrote in the aftermath of missions, are deployed in Africa. Five of the top the Congo crisis of 1960–64, when the United ten contributors to UN peacekeeping are African Nations was struggling to keep peace amid a trau- nations: Ethiopia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, and matic civil war. The fact that the world body still Ghana. struggles with peacekeeping in the same country, four decades later, is an eloquent metaphor for the LAW OF THE JUNGLE arduous and continuing quest for a Pax Africana. The five permanent members of the UN Security Peacekeeping efforts in Africa are often por- Council, which are mandated to maintain global trayed in Manichean terms. They are either spec- peace, account for about 70 percent of the arms tacular “successes,” as with the short-term victory sales that continue to fuel conflicts on the conti- of a 3,000-strong Southern African Development nent. This group has come to resemble several of Community (SADC) force that routed the M23 the characters in Aesop’s fables. The United States rebels in eastern Congo as part of a UN mission is the lion—the king of the jungle—that lays in 2013; or else they are spectacular “failures,” as down the law and hunts other beasts. The bear, with the current inability of 2,000 French troops of course, is Russia; the lion and the bear fought and about 6,000 Economic Community of Central over a goat, according to Aesop, just as the United African States (ECCAS) peacekeepers—“rehatted” States and the Soviet Union engaged in a global as UN troops—to stop sectarian massacres in the Cold War, with proxy conflicts in Africa. Central African Republic. UN missions in South Meanwhile, China is like an elephant, some- Sudan (some 8,500 troops) and Sudan’s Darfur times dismissed as “big for nothing,” given its region (more than 19,000 troops) are also counted aversion to taking proactive stances on the Security as failures. Council. However, the elephant has big ears and Often forgotten by Western observers are the listens more than it speaks. It also has a long ongoing efforts of the Ugandan-led, 22,000-strong memory, and appears to be playing a long game to African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission in acquire more power before showing its strength. Somalia and the Nigerian-led, 750-strong France is like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, hunting vulnerable lambs. It deployed troops in Rwanda in 1994 on the pretense of launching ADEKEYE ADEBAJO is the executive director of the Center for a “humanitarian intervention,” having earlier Conflict Resolution in Cape Town. He has served on United Nations missions in South Africa, Western Sahara, and Iraq. armed and trained militias that committed the His books include The Curse of Berlin: Africa After the Cold genocide in which 800,000 people perished. As in War (Columbia University Press, 2010); UN Peacekeeping in Aesop’s tale, the wolf is fooled by its own shadow Africa (Lynne Rienner, 2011); and the edited volume Africa’s Peacemakers: Nobel Peace Laureates of African Descent into believing that it is bigger than it actually is, (Zed Books, 2014). and suffers from delusions of grandeur. Britain, 178 UN Peacekeeping and the Quest for a Pax Africana • 179 for its part, is like the sly fox that is often prepared similarly pushed the government of Sudan—its to betray friends—recalling historical memories of third-largest trading partner in Africa—to accept “Perfidious Albion” and Lord Palmerston’s dictum a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur in 2007. that countries have neither permanent friends nor The games that these powers play must always permanent enemies, but only permanent interests. be placed at the center of any analysis of UN UN peacekeeping in Africa is effectively a story peacekeeping missions, for it is often these games about the games that great powers play. These that help determine the fate of such interventions. games have often determined the outcomes of Peacekeeping has often operated on the basis that peacekeeping missions in Africa and elsewhere. those who pay the piper also call the tune, and After the deployment of the first armed UN peace- Western interests (particularly those of the United keeping mission to end the 1956 Suez crisis, Cold States, Britain, and France) have tended to dictate War politics overshadowed future missions— where and when these missions are deployed, and most dramatically illustrated by the Congo crisis for how long. four years later. The Suez mission resulted from the machina- ALIGNING INTERESTS tions of Britain and France and, to a large extent, A successful peacekeeping mission brings sta- set the tone for the Congo crisis. There, the United bility by implementing the key tasks of its stated States and Britain lined up on the side of pro- mandate—typically, a cease-fire; disarmament, Western Congolese leaders and sought to use the demobilization, and rehabilitation; and elections. UN peacekeeping mission to oppose the “radical,” Perhaps the most important measure of success, Pan-African prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, in however, is whether stability endures after the order to prevent the spread of Soviet communism peacekeepers have departed, even if all their tasks (Moscow was supporting Lumumbist elements) have not been completed. to the huge country at the Since the UN’s peacekeep- heart of Africa. This strat- ing successes and failures egy eventually produced the Africa has been a giant laboratory are often contingent on ruinous four-decade dic- the domestic, regional, and for global peacekeeping over the tatorship of the Western- external dynamics of con- backed Mobutu Sese Seko. past six and a half decades. flict situations, it is impor- France, meanwhile, refused tant to pay close attention to pay any peacekeeping to the politics of peacekeep- dues; and from the 1970s on, it attempted to draw ing and not just focus on technical and logistical Congo into its neocolonial francophone sphere of constraints. While these constraints are impor- influence in Africa. tant, political consensus—particularly among the The end of the Cold War and the increased powerful members of the Security Council—is cooperation between the United States and Russia often more significant in determining the suc- facilitated the deployment of UN peacekeepers cess or failure of missions in Africa. Technically to Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia deficient peacekeeping missions can still succeed between 1989 and 1992. None of these missions with strong political support, while the most would have been possible during the Cold War technically brilliant peace operations are likely era of proxy wars waged by the superpowers. to be undermined by a lack of commitment. For During UN missions in Sierra Leone and Ivory example, the UN succeeded in Namibia (1989– Coast after 2000, the British and the French still 90), Mozambique (1992–94), and eventually in demonstrated some residual attitudes of guilt Sierra Leone (1999–2005) and Burundi (2004–6), and possessiveness toward their former colonies. despite logistical and financial constraints, where- Historical ties largely determined American sup- as well-resourced missions in Somalia (1992–93) port for a UN mission in Liberia, which had been a and Angola (1995–97) were spectacular failures. US client under the autocratic Samuel Doe during Based on a thorough assessment of 15 major UN the 1980s. Likewise, Moscow was able to nudge peacekeeping operations in Africa between 1960 former Marxist allies in Angola and Mozambique and 2014, three key factors stand out as having to the negotiating table when the Soviets sought most often contributed to success. First, the inter- improved ties with the West in the late 1980s dur- ests of key permanent members of the Security ing the reformist era of Mikhail Gorbachev. China Council must be aligned with efforts to resolve 180 • CURRENT HISTORY • May 2014 the conflict in question, and those members must can employ to encourage cooperation (sometimes be willing to mobilize diplomatic and financial even funding the participation of regional con- support for peace processes. Second, the belliger- tingents in peacekeeping efforts, as with the AU ent parties must be willing to cooperate with the missions in Darfur and Somalia). They can also UN to implement accords; in cases where such sanction countries supporting spoilers by “nam- cooperation is not forthcoming, it is essential to ing and shaming” them through UN reports, or develop an effective strategy to deal with potential by applying diplomatic or economic pressure on spoilers who are prepared to use violence to wreck them. Such actions were used against Angola’s peace processes. Third, regional players must Jonas Savimbi, Liberia’s Charles Taylor, and more cooperate, as well as provide diplomatic and/or recently, the government of Paul Kagame in military support to UN peacekeeping efforts. Rwanda. The alignment of interests at these three interde- The increasing security emphasis of US policy pendent levels—external, domestic, and regional— toward Africa has often complicated rather than has often shaped the course and outcomes of UN assisted regional and UN peacekeeping efforts.