What Is The Role Of The United Nations In Peacekeeping?
The United Nations Organization (UNO) was founded in 1945 in the wake of Second World War to maintain international peace among other things and to make sure there isn’t a World War again. Today, except for the Vatican City and the Republic of China (Taiwan) virtually every sovereign state is a member of the UNO. ‘UN Peacekeeping’ is an instrument devised by the UNO to help countries, caught in a conflict, create conditions for lasting peace. Since its establishment in 1948, it has participated in 64 peacekeeping missions in total, around the world.
The ‘UN Peacekeeping’ does not have standing armed forces of its own but its member states send their troops and military equipment, when asked, under the UN command in a conflict zone. Proponents say the UN Peacekeeping forces maintain a neutral stance in a conflict and most of their operations involve protecting the unarmed civilians but the critics cite the human rights violations cases involving the UN troops and other scandals and demand for either radical reforms or the abolishment of the UN Peacekeeping.
The critics:
Though over 130 countries send their troops to the UN Peacekeeping forces, the contingents are often limited to a few dozen soldiers and each country plays politics in the UN Security Council to get its soldiers stationed where there is least danger, and the moment the situation worsens, the countries try to pull out. This happens because nations are often unwilling to put their soldiers in harm’s way in a far off land but this would not be the case if the forces from a single nation were to intervene because national might and pride come into play.
UN Peacekeeping is not even a part of the United Nations Charter which is fundamental to the organization which obliges states to abide by certain rules so the deployment in a situation depends for the most part on the willingness of the states to send their troops in a conflict zone.
In reality, UN Peacekeeping force is only a toothless agency and its soldiers are incapable of handling any difficult situations. The genocide of more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslims in the city of Srebrenica by the Army of Respublika Srpska (Serb armed forces) under the command of General Ratko Mladi? in a UN designated “safe area” in July 1995 is a convincing proof of that. The 400-strong UN force (from Netherlands) stood by as the biggest incident of mass murder since the Second World War took place.
The genocide in Rwanda showed the members of the UN don’t really take UN Peacekeeping sincerely. General Romeo Dallaire, speaking on the role of UN Peacekeeping in Rwanda, says “Some 2,000 personnel from several countries, including France, United Kingdom, United States and Italy, had come to evacuate their expatriates and though they were stumbling on corpses, they remained firm in totally ignoring the catastrophe.”
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003, was “not in conformity” with the “UN Charter” in the words of former United Nations security general Kofi Annan. The UN Charter is the foundation on which the UN stands and it’s not more meaningful than trash because any powerful country can ignore it when it wants. The US invasion of Iraq is a recent example of this.
There is an abnormal number of troops from the developing nations making up the UN peacekeeping forces, and these nations don’t jeopardize their troops because of some ideology but to earn the handsome UN incentives. The maximum number of blue hat wearers is now from nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Nigeria. It shows how serious the international community is about the UN Peacekeeping.
The proponents:
There may not be desired consequences if the forces of a single nation (France, Russia, US etc.) were to intervene in a conflict instead of a UN Peacekeeping force. The people in the conflict zone may regard the intervening forces from a single nation as an aggressor but has rarely, if ever, been the case with the UN Peacekeeping forces. The US-Vietnam war is an example; there would have been much less causalities had the UN Peacekeeping forces intervened to handle the situation.
The majority of the peaceful operations undertaken by the UN since its inceptions have helped dampen down the conflicts and promoted democracy and peaceful existence. There isn’t a nation on the planet that hasn’t suffered a military defeat; and the UN Peacekeeping Force is no exception.
If the outcome in Sudan wasn’t as desired then Namibia is a shinning example of that. A former South African colony, Namibia gained her freedom on 21 March 1990 and this would not have happened had the UN Peacekeeping not succeeded in successfully carrying out the fairest elections in the history of Africa in November 1989. Voter turnout was 97% and the constitution drafted after that is perhaps the most democratic in Africa.
Gallantry awards won by a number of UN peacekeeping troops speak for the sincerity and professionalism of the UN Peacekeeping forces. The courage shown by the sixteen troops under Captain Gurbachan Singh Salaria in Congo is an example of that.
Cyprus is another success story. The UN Peacekeeping has been successful in maintaining peace between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities since 1974.
Conclusion:
Although UN Peacekeeping has some notable success to its name but it is still far from being perfect. The force was devised in the aftermath of the World War II and the world has changed a lot since then; colonization has virtually ended, the Soviet Union is gone, the United States in on the wane and the China is fast making its mark, and if UN Peacekeeping has to remain relevant in this changed world, it needs to change itself too. The UN Peacekeeping can act faster if it has a standing army of its own and a mandate for preemptive action.
