Peace Support Operations: How to Make Them Succeed*
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WINRICH KÜHNE Peace Support Operations: How to Make them Succeed* osovo is the most recent case of the unchecked Almost 1 million people were killed, despite the Kproliferation of socio-ethnic, civil war-like con- presence of roughly two thousand Blue Helmets flict which has become a fundamental threat to (UNAMIR). The Security Council (SC) was not wil- peace and security in the world following the end ling to send additional troops and to change of the Cold War. »Complex emergencies, war-torn UNAMIR’s mandate to prevent this disaster. In fact, societies or failing states«, as these conflicts are most of the Blue Helmets were actually with- appropriately called, may draw entire regions into drawn. chaos and bloodshed. In the Balkans, Europe and Apart from the problem of political will, the North America may have intervened just in time to operations in Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda etc. re- prevent such a gloomy scenario. It is too early to vealed the deep conceptional problems of tradi- make a final judgement. In several parts of sub- tional peace-keeping in dealing with the new type Saharan Africa, however, like the Horn of Africa, of conflict. It was not conceived to operate under Central Africa and to some extent West Africa, this such insecure conditions as continued to exist in nightmare has become a reality. Entire states and these countries even after peace agreements or societies fall apart, millions of people have perished cease-fires had been signed. The use of force be- and even more are either internally displaced or came inevitable, with sometimes disastrous conse- have become refugees. quences like in Mogadishu in October 1993 when Initially, the international community tried to American special forces tried in vain to capture contain and solve these conflicts with an instru- Aideed, a warlord and leader of one of the parties ment developed in the era of the Cold War: »Blue to the conflict, in a surprise attack. Passing the Helmets«, the traditional peace-keeping forces. Mogadishu-line has become a catchword amongst The successful operations in Namibia and Nica- peacekeepers for keeping the proper balance ragua in 1989–1999, as well as the later operations between the use of force, consent and impartiality. in Cambodia, Mozambique and El Salvador crea- The question which follows is what is the pro- ted inflated expectations regarding the future role per use of force in civil war-type conflicts? Tradi- of the UN’s Blue Helmets in conflict management tional peace-keeping doctrine has no answer to and resolution. These expectations were short- this question. Consent and impartiality, like the lived. In Somalia in 1993, UNOSOM II failed to stop non-use of force in traditional peace-keeping, are the country’s descent into total fragmentation and just as difficult to uphold in conflicts where there self-destruction. UNPROFOR in the former Yugo- are no clear geographical front lines and where the slavia more or less shared UNOSOM’s negative fate. warring parties do not divide neatly into two The leading global powers and the international hostile camps. Consent of whom? and impartiality community did not provide the UN with the with regard to which parties? Finally, the issue of capability and means necessary to successfully con- co-ordination and joint management obviously duct such a demanding operation. The inability of becomes much more complicated in operations, a few Blue Helmets to stop the Serb attack on the which not only have to deal with an insecure »safe area« of Srebrenica and the ensuing mass murder of Bosnian civilians was one of the darkest * A shorter version of this article will be published in: hours in the history of UN peace-keeping. In 1994, Peacebuilding: a field perspective (handbook for field diplo- an even greater lack of political will to act swiftly mats), edited by Luc Reychler and Thania Paffenholz, was responsible for the tragic genocide in Rwanda. Lynne Rienner, 2000 (forthcoming). 358 Kühne, Peace Support Operations: How to Make them Succeed IPG 4/99 environment, where there are several parties to the additional change on multi-dimensional peace- conflict, but also one in which the military, police keeping. As was already indicated, the solemn and civilian personnel of the UN, humanitarian signing of peace agreements or cease-fires no agencies and a host of NGOs have to work together longer meant an end to violence. In Somalia, to achieve successful post-conflict peace-building. Liberia and Bosnia dozens of cease-fire agreements This paper will try to present an overview of were broken. The peace-keepers, as well as the development from traditional peace-keeping to humanitarian organizations were confronted with modern peace support operations (PSO) and their all kinds of violence. National, regional and local basic conceptional problems as well as the main leaders, warlords and armed groups are involved – areas of post-conflict peace-building. a difficult mix for the peace-keepers to handle. Establishing and upholding a secure environment for humanitarian aid and socio-economic and poli- From First to Third Generation Peace-keeping tical reconstruction became a primary demand on the soldiers and the police. The old doctrine of The so-called first generation of peace-keeping was non-use of force became untenable. In Somalia, mostly limited to separating warring armies by the SC therefore felt compelled to provide UNO- interposing lightly armed and neutral international SOM II with a so-called robust mandate based on troops and observing or monitoring agreed cease- Chapter VII of the UN-Charter, allowing for the fires, like UNEF in the Sinai in the mid-fifties, limited use of force. UNPROFOR in the former UNFCYP in Cyprus from the mid-sixties onwards Yugoslavia, UNMIH in Haiti, IFOR and SFOR in and UNDOF on the Golan Heights in the mid- Bosnia, UNTAES in Eastern Slavonia as well as the seventies. Consent, impartiality, use of force solely French »Operation Turquoise« in Rwanda, MNF in for personal self-defense purposes, free mobility of Haiti and MISAB in the Central African Republic troops as well as a Statute of Force Agreement received similar authorisation. The third genera- (SOFA) with the respective country were the basic tion of peace-keeping, now mostly called multi- pillars of this first generation of peace-keeping, dimensional (robust) peace support operations initiated by Lester G. Pearson, the Canadian For- outside the UN, had come into being. 1 eign Minister at that time, and Dag Hammar- Robust, multi-dimensional PSOs are properly skjöld, Secretary-General of the UN. defined as Chapter VI multi-dimensional peace- In the mid-eighties following the end of the keeping, with consent and impartiality as basic Cold War and the unblocking of the SC a second operational pillars, plus the option of the threat or generation developed which was multi-dimen- use of limited force for defending or implementing sional and dynamic in character. In contrast to the specific elements of the mandate, based on Chap- first generation, the military and their civilian ter VII of the UN Charter. counterparts were no longer limited to the moni- Politicians and the military as well the inter- toring of cease-fires. Finding political and social national public and academia are still struggling solutions to the conflict and removing the need for with this new concept. There is widespread mis- their presence as quickly as possible became giving about the fact that it is blurring the clear equally important tasks. The operations became distinction between traditional, Chapter VI-based much more dynamic and complex in terms of con- peace-keeping and military enforcement based flict resolution. UNTAG in Namibia and UNOVEN in on Chapter VII. This is true and is perhaps unfor- Nicaragua from 1989–1990, UNOSAL in El Salvador tunate. But academics and traditionalists among from 1991–1995, UNTAC in Cambodia from peace-keepers who demand strict adherence to this 1992–1993 and UNOMOZ in Mozambique from distinction forget that the real-life dynamics of 1992–1994, are show cases for this enlarged, new ethnic and similar conflicts have no regard for the type of peace-keeping. Police (CIVPOL) and civil- ians from various professions became important partners of the military in increasing numbers. 1. See for a first German elaboration of the concept of robust peace-keeping Winrich Kühne: Blauhelme in einer The unabated violence in cases like Somalia, turbulenten Welt (Blue Helmets in a turbulent world), former Yugoslavia, Liberia or Haiti quickly forced Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden 1993. IPG 4/99 Kühne, Peace Support Operations: How to Make them Succeed 359 written provisions of the Charter and its theoreti- intervene in a civil war. The operation ended cal distinctions. To put it in the blunt terms of a successfully. The secession of Katanga was preven- Canadian peace-keeper, speaking in context of the ted and the UN left the Congo in 1964. Yet, many conditions in Somalia and Bosnia: »It was evident Blue Helmets lost their life because they that traditional peace-keeping was being made a had not been either withdrawn or sufficiently rein- mockery of. There was almost a total absence of forced in time, but remained in indefensible, ex- the conditions that are essential for peace-keeping posed positions. The Blue Helmets of UNPROFOR, to work.« taken hostages by the Serbs and chained to public Ethnic conflict and civil war blur the lines installations after the switch-over to an offensive between domestic and international, state and use of force by NATO with the Pale bombing come non-state actors, as well as that between Chapter to mind. VI and VII. Conflicts in which hundreds of Unfortunately, none of UNOC’s problems were thousands of people are killed or have to flee their systematically analyzed.