Why Fails

“Dennis Jett’s revision of his book on peacekeeping is brilliant. It incorporates the radical transformation that has occurred, since the end of the Cold War: in the nature of confict in contemporary ; and, the phe­ nomenon of the globalization, of virtually all things, including confict within States. Te unprecedented number of refugees in the world today (some 65 million) is its outcome. Tis book, particularly its early chapters analyzing the constructs this new world disorder, should be required reading at the UN Security Council and in other international organizations where decisions on peacekeeping operations are taken.” —Richard Butler, Former Australian Ambassador to the UN, Executive Chairman of the UN Special Commission to disarm Iraq

“Dr. Jett is one of very few political scientists who have excelled as both policy­ maker and academic analyst. Tis book provides a much-needed revision of his earlier, signifcant work, delving into cases in which Ambassador Jett was directly involved when he was a Foreign Service Ofcer (Mozambique and Angola) and analyzing additional cases that have emerged since its original publication.” —Dan Caldwell, Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Pepperdine University, USA

“Why Peacekeeping Fails, which began to take shape in the frst-hand experi­ ences of an American ambassador who witnessed brutal conficts in , has grown into the classic account of the United Nations’ ever-evolving global peacekeeping role over decades. Rich in institutional history, it also never loses sight of the besieged people UN missions aim to save, often with mixed results.” —Barbara Crossette, Former New York Times UN Bureau Chief and Contributing Editor to PassBlue.com

“I have encountered peacekeeping operations throughout the Middle East. Most, like UNIFIL, were organized by the UN but the MFO was organized by the . Dennis Jett has produced a well-researched and very readable survey of peacekeeping operations around the world. Tis book, in my opinion, should have a place on the required reading list of any university course that focuses on peacekeeping, the UN and other international organiza­ tions or confict management and prevention.” —David Dunford, Former Ambassador to the Sultanate of Oman and Adjunct Instructor at the School of Government and Public Policy, University of Arizona, USA

“In this lucid, compact volume, former Ambassador Dennis Jett illuminates the usually messy, problematic, and too often unsuccessful world of interna­ tional peacekeeping. Trough careful scholarship, Jett examines specifc cases of mainly UN peacekeeping since 1948, and shows the structural and contextual reasons why peacekeeping at best has a spotty record. A critical book for those wanting to look beyond conventional wisdom at the politics of eforts to create and preserve international order through peacekeeping forces.” —Richard K. Scher, Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, , USA

“Dennis Jett has provided the expert or the student sharp analysis based on deep experience of a very difcult and complex, but necessary phenomenon, U.N. peace operations.” —Dan Simpson, ex-U.S. Ambassador to the Central African Republic, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Dennis C. Jett Why Peacekeeping Fails 20th Anniversary Edition

Second Edition Dennis C. Jett School of International Afairs Pennsylvania State University University Park, PA, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-11427-5 ISBN 978-3-030-11428-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11428-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018967774

1st edition: © Dennis C. Jett 1999 2nd edition: © Te Editor(s) (if applicable) and Te Author(s) 2019 Tis work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. Te use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Te publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Te publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional afliations.

Cover illustration: blickwinkel/Alamy Stock Photo

Tis Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG Te registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For Lynda, whose inspiration and support made this possible. And for the thousands of men and women who have died while serving in peacekeeping operations. Preface

Two decades ago, after 28 years as an American diplomat who had observed the United Nations tackle conficts around the world, I wrote a book entitled “Why Peacekeeping Fails.” UN peacekeeping has changed signifcantly since that book was published. Tere are fve times as many peacekeepers and they now total around 100,000. Teir missions are more complex and more dangerous than in the past. And, most importantly, in my judgment, those operations are now almost all virtually impossible to bring to a successful conclusion. Te purpose of this revised edition is to explain how peacekeeping has evolved and why that is the case. Today, the fundamental answer to the question “why peacekeeping fails” is that peacekeeping is a bandage and not a cure. It can lessen the loss of blood, but it cannot by itself heal the wound. But all too often, it is being used as a way to do “something” to address a confict situation because other steps are more difcult or costly for countries to take. Te changes go far beyond a fvefold increase in the number of sol­ diers wearing the light blue headgear that signifes their role as peace­ keepers, however. While some of the oldest of the UN peacekeeping operations have been in existence for over 70 years, the ones launched

vii viii Preface most recently have confronted peacekeepers with new challenges. Tis book will lay out why the oldest operations are contributing very little to keeping the peace and why the newest ones face obstacles that are impossible for the peacekeepers to overcome. Te frst edition of this book was written in order to examine the lessons learned from the success of peacekeeping in Mozambique and its failure in Angola at the same time. Te United Nations Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ), which lasted from 1992 to 1994, was able to keep the peace process on track and ensured the implementation of the peace agreement between the government and the rebels despite resistance from both sides. Tat efort helped the country hold its frst democratic elections, which brought an end to many years of civil war. At the same time Mozambique was succeeding, the peacekeeping operation in Angola had failed completely. Elections were held there as well with extensive UN assistance, but the rebel leader, Jonas Savimbi, rejected the outcome when he lost. Te civil war resumed and contin­ ued until he was killed in 2002. Describing why peacekeeping in these two former Portuguese col­ onies had such diferent outcomes was therefore an important oppor­ tunity to compare two starkly diferent cases. Tere was a good chance that opportunity would be missed, however, since, like nearly every country in Africa, Mozambique and Angola received very little interna­ tional press coverage except for the occasional story about the horrors of their conficts. With the end of the Cold War, there would be even less interest in them because they were no longer battlefelds on which the proxy wars between communism and capitalism were being fought. In addition, the media in Mozambique was entirely owned and controlled by the government, with the exception of one fax newsletter and one weekly newspaper. Local journalists were therefore not going to provide an explanation, and academic experts on either country’s politics were rare and usually biased. In addition, the UN has always had limited enthu­ siasm for engaging in introspection and was unlikely to publicize the results if it did. I had a unique opportunity for watching the peace process unfold. I was the American ambassador in Mozambique as the ONUMOZ Preface ix was conducted and brought to a successful conclusion. Tis vantage point provided an insider’s perspective as I was one of the six ambas­ sadors who were the international observers on the Supervisory and Monitoring Commission that oversaw the peace process. We meet at least weekly with Aldo Ajello, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, who was in charge of the overall UN operation. To broaden my understanding of the issues, I also traveled to Angola and to New York to do interviews with a number of people involved in peacekeeping in both countries. While some might consider it impossible to be an unbiased observer having served in such a position, and it would be impossible to be unaf­ fected by such an experience, it did enable me to overcome the lack of journalistic and academic interest in the story and the UN’s lack of transparency. As an international bureaucracy with 193 bosses in the form of the member states, the UN bureaucracy tends to be very self-protective. It does that by avoiding controversy, being opaque and being disinclined to engage in public self-criticism. I also had an interest in examining the efectiveness of peacekeeping because Mozambique was not the only time I witnessed and partici­ pated in such eforts in my career. During my years as a diplomat, I had six overseas assignments and all of them involved either direct or indi­ rect encounters with confict and often peacekeeping. In , in the mid-1970s, the country was tearing itself apart because of terrorism. In March 1976, some eight months after I had departed following two years in , a military coup ush­ ered in a new government that dealt with the problem in a way that was as blunt as it was brutal. It arrested people who were suspected ter­ rorists, tortured many of them and dumped their bodies in the ocean. Somewhere between 9000 and 30,000 Argentines, depending on which estimate one uses, were murdered by their own government in that way. Tose tactics did end the terrorism problem and were viewed by some as a success. Te debate rages even today, however, as to whether they were crimes against humanity or were the measures necessary to save the country from communism. Te Reagan administration believed the latter as it covertly hired the same Argentine military ofcers to teach their techniques to the Contras in Central America x Preface so they could use them to overthrow the leftist regime in Nicaragua. Because of that policy, the Reagan administration should have added itself to the State Department’s list of governments that are state spon­ sors of terrorism. But the support for the Contras is another example that one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fghter. During my second overseas tour, which was in in the early 1980s, I took my frst ride on a helicopter. It was a short but spectacular fight over the Strait of Tiran where the Gulf of Aqaba meets the Gulf of Suez. Te fight was courtesy of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), an operation that had been set up, outside of UN auspices, to monitor the situation in the Sinai following Israel’s return of the penin­ sula to Egypt. Another peacekeeping highlight during my tour in Israel was when the Israeli army invaded Lebanon in 1982, brushing aside the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) peacekeepers as they drove toward Beirut. While in from 1986 to 1989, one of the more pressing prob­ lems in an otherwise sleepy backwater was dealing with the over half a million Mozambicans that crossed the border during that period to escape the civil war in their country. After Malawi, I moved to in time for the outbreak of civil war there and the subsequent arrival of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), a peacekeeping mission that was formed by fve west African countries and was a case study in how such a force should not act. And as ambassador in Peru following my time in Mozambique, I was able to visit the Military Observer Mission Ecuador-Peru (MOMEP), a peacekeeping operation in the jungle on the border with Ecuador. It was also not a UN efort. Composed of a small number of military ofcers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the USA, it was brought to an end when the presidents of the two countries signed a peace agree­ ment that allowed both to claim victory in this territorial dispute. Te territory in question was a small, remote, and insignifcant patch of uninhabited jungle. Nonetheless, politicians in both countries pas­ sionately argued against surrendering a single square meter of it to the other side. Tey professed to be ready to fght to the last man to defend it knowing full well that neither they nor their children would ever have to serve in uniform. It would be career military ofcers and conscripts Preface xi that would do the dying if the war started again. And even without a return to war, there were casualties. One of the more memorable expe­ riences I had during my time in Peru was visiting the ward of an army hospital that was flled with young soldiers who had lost a foot after step­ ping on one of the landmines that had been planted in the disputed area. Despite the posturing of politicians, the confict was resolved, how­ ever, and another memorable experience was watching the presidents of the two countries sign a treaty that settled the problem. Te peaceful end to the hostilities demonstrated that, with the right political will and an innovative solution that allowed both sides to proclaim victory, could succeed. MOMEP provided one other lesson. On the visit to its camp on the border, I remember a conversation with an Argentine colonel. He said the most frequent complaint from the Ecuadoreans and the Peruvians was claims that military aircraft from the other side had violated the demilitarized zone by fying over it. When I asked why MOMEP did not acquire a radar set to be able to determine the origin of such fights and call out the violator, the Argentine ofcer looked shocked. “But that would violate our neutrality,” he said. His reaction demonstrated that peacekeepers can view their role as being someone for both sides to complain to and that their job description does not include determining the truth. During my fnal year in the State Department, I was a diplomat in residence at the in . During that time, I was sent twice to Nairobi to attempt to get Ugandan ofcials to talk to Sudanese ofcials and work out their diferences so each would stop support­ ing a rebel group in the other country. Te delegations from the two countries came to the meeting mainly to fulfll a promise to have such talks that President Carter had extracted from the presidents of the two countries. Neither side trusted the other, and the ofcials from both countries were just going through the motions. Tose trips accom­ plished nothing other than giving me a better understanding of the lim­ its of diplomacy in bringing an end to conficts. After retiring in 2000 to begin a second career as an academic, I made conficts, and the eforts of the international community to deal with them, one of my areas of research. I also teach a graduate course on xii Preface the subject, which prompts me to keep up in the feld. Participating in the working group on peacekeeping organized by the Folke Bernadotte Academy has also provided many insights. Tis book will largely deal with UN peacekeeping. But as MOMEP, ECOMOG, and the MFO demonstrate, peacekeeping operations can be mounted by regional organizations or through ad hoc arrangements. Te UN is, however, still the go-to international organization when it comes to peacekeeping and the one that often gets the most difcult conficts to resolve. Tis book will therefore concentrate mainly on UN eforts at peacekeeping, but I will discuss the shortcomings of some of these other organizations as well. Tis might be an appropriate place to apologize to the reader for all the acronyms that will be used. Bureaucracies love them because it pro­ vides a convenient shorthand way of discussing things and also perhaps because it makes what is being discussed less intelligible to outsiders. Te frst time one is used, the entire phrase will be spelled out. Tere will be a list of the UN peacekeeping operations and their acronyms in the appendix. And those and other acronyms can be found in the index as well. As with the frst edition, this book is written with the hope that, if the chances for the success of peacekeeping can be improved, it might help shorten the sufering of those who are afected by wars. Peacekeeping should not be used as a substitute for more efective action by the international community simply because it is easier to do and because it conveniently shifts the responsibility for any failures to the UN. To achieve peace, and to ensure that it lasts, the interna­ tional community must do much more than just dispatching soldiers in light blue headgear to survey the damage. If it does not use all the tools available, then all it will ensure is that peacekeeping has little chance for success.

University Park, USA Dennis C. Jett Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 A Brief History of UN Peacekeeping 37

3 Failing Before Beginning 59

4 Failing While Doing 95

5 Angola and Mozambique: Similar Histories, Diferent Outcomes 117

6 Te Real Reasons Peacekeeping Fails 185

7 Humanitarian Aid and the Failure of Peacekeeping 235

8 Getting Out and Afterward 251

9 “Inconclusion”: Why Real Reform Might Not Be Possible 273

xiii xiv Contents

Acknowledgements 299

Appendix 301

Selected Bibliography 305

Index 317 List of Tables

Table 1.1 Growth in UN members 14 Table 1.2 Types of conficts and their efect on peacekeeping 25 Table 2.1 Phases of peacekeeping 38 Table 2.2 Peacekeeping fatalities 39

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