From Jerusalem to Haiti: A look at peacekeeping through history

Special From Jerusalem to Haiti: A look at peacekeeping through history
Peacekeepers from the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol the road between the southern Lebanese towns of Rmaish and Naqoura along the border between Lebanon and Israel on October 12, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 09 July 2024
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From Jerusalem to Haiti: A look at peacekeeping through history

From Jerusalem to Haiti: A look at peacekeeping through history
  • Since 1948 more than two million men and women have served under the UN flag in more than 70 peacekeeping operations
  • Cairo was the destination of a batch of 49 volunteers dispatched on June 19, 1948, to supervise Israel-Palestine truce

LONDON: At 6 p.m. on June 19, 1948, two chartered aircraft took off from La Guardia Airfield in New York State. On board were 49 volunteers, uniformed members of the UN guard force stationed at Lake Success, the temporary home of the fledgling UN on the north shore of Long Island.

Bound for Cairo, their ultimate destination was Palestine, where they would help to write the first chapter in the mottled history of UN peacekeeping efforts.

The small force, dispatched on the orders of Norwegian politician Trygve Lie, the first secretary-general of the UN, had been requested by Count Bernadotte, the UN mediator for Palestine.

Its role was to help Bernadotte to supervise the Israeli-Palestinian truce and, in the words of the UN press release at the time, it was “expected to be used primarily to supervise application of the truce provisions relating to the supply route from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”




Jewish and Palestinian leaders and a representative of the United Nations talk to find an agreement regarding a cease-fire in Palestine in 1948. (Getty Images)

As the men boarded the two aircraft, Lie wished them “a pleasant voyage and a safe return,” shook each one of them by the hand and told them: “I am confident you will do your duty in the cause of peace.”

For the first but not the last time in the history of the UN, the organization was sending peacekeepers into impossible situations in which they would struggle to keep two warring factions apart, often at the cost of their own lives.

As the UN observed as it held its annual memorial service on June 6 this year: “Serving the cause of peace in a violent world is a dangerous occupation.”

Perhaps the most telling fact about the 76 years of UN peacekeeping operations is that that very first mission, which came to be known as the UN Truce Supervision Organization, has continued ever since, with the situation for which it was created still unresolved.

Since 1948 more than 2 million men and women have served under the UN flag in more than 70 peacekeeping operations, in which more than 4,300 of them have been killed. The UN says “their sacrifice on behalf of the international community is one of the most concrete expressions of the UN Charter’s determination ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.”




Smoke raises from the Old city of Jerusalem in August 1949, during the Arab–Israeli War. (AFP)

The first of those deaths occurred just over two weeks after the guards from Lake Success arrived in Palestine. On the evening of July 5, a French observer, Commandant Rene Labarriere, was fatally wounded in an explosion while returning from investigating an alleged violation of the truce provisions by Jewish forces.

Then, just over two months later, on Sept. 17, 1948, a cablegram arrived at the office of the UN secretary-general in New York.

It read: “Count Folke Bernadotte, United Nations mediator on Palestine, brutally assassinated by Jewish assailants of unknown identity, in planned, cold-blooded attack in the new city of Jerusalem.”

Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat who in 1945 had negotiated the release of 450 Danish Jews and 30,000 other prisoners from a Nazi concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, had been murdered by the Stern Gang, a group of Zionist terrorists.




Delegates of the UN Security Council gathered at the Palais de Chaillot, in Paris, on September 18, 1948, pay a silent tribute to assassinated Count Folke Bernadotte. (AFP)

Since then, in a blizzard of acronyms, the UN has launched no fewer than 72 peacekeeping missions around the world, often at great cost to the participating nations and, at times, to the UN leadership itself.

In 1961 Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold and 15 others died in a plane crash in the Congo while on a peace mission as part of the UN Operation in the Congo.

Three decades later, the growing number and scale of UN peacekeeping missions in the 1990s “put many more at risk,” the organization acknowledges — more lives were lost in that decade than in the previous four combined. Since the early 2000s there have consistently been more than 100 deaths every year among peacekeepers.

In the new millennium, the UN itself became a target.

On Aug. 19, 2003, the headquarters of the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq in Baghdad’s Canal Hotel was hit by a truck bomb that killed 22 people, including the then High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello. Most of the UN’s 600 personnel were withdrawn from Iraq after the attack.




UN cars are piled in a field on August 23, 2003, next to the destroyed United Nations headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad. (AFP)

Other attacks against UN missions followed, claiming dozens of lives in Algiers in 2007 and Kabul in 2009.

Occasionally, UN peacekeeping missions are marred by terrible ironies and unintended consequences. In 2010 more than 20 members of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti died in the devastating earthquake that hit the country, killing as many as 300,000 people.

It emerged later through genomic testing that the cholera epidemic that followed the earthquake, claiming tens of thousands of more lives, had most likely originated among the Nepali members of the peacekeeping force.

In 2016 the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, apologized, saying: “We simply did not do enough with regard to the cholera outbreak and spread in Haiti. We are profoundly sorry for our role.”




In 2010 more than 20 members of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti died in the devastating earthquake that hit the country. (AFP)

Today, there are 11 UN peacekeeping missions underway around the world — five in Africa, one in India and Pakistan (since 1949), one in Kosovo (1999), one in Cyprus (1964), one in the Golan (UNIFIL, since 1978) and the very first, in Palestine (UNTSO).

Since 1948 the UNTSO mission has suffered 52 fatalities. As of March 2024, there were 998 UN personnel deployed, headquartered at Government House, Jerusalem.

UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) was originally created in March 1978 to “confirm Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, restore international peace and security and assist the Lebanese Government in restoring its effective authority in the area.” That mandate has since been adjusted twice.

Following the Israeli-Hezbollah war in July and August 2006, the Security Council enhanced the force and charged it with monitoring the cessation of hostilities, a mission that since 1978 has cost the lives of 334 personnel from many countries.

Today, over 10,000 troops are deployed, based in Naqoura, Lebanon, supplied mainly by Indonesia, India, Italy, Ghana, Nepal, Malaysia, and Spain.




A UNIFIL patrol drives past the wreckage of a car that was targeted in an Israeli strike early on March 2, 2024, near the southern Lebanese town of Naqoura. (AFP)

Whether the UN’s peacekeeping endeavors have saved lives is open to debate. Certainly, the UN believes they have.

It says that peacekeeping, based on three basic principles — consent of the parties, impartiality, and “non-use of force except in self-defense and defense of the mandate” — has proved to be “one of the most effective tools available to the UN to assist host countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace.”

Studies show, it says, that “more UN peacekeepers in conflict areas means fewer civilian deaths, less violence and a higher chance at lasting peace.”

But not always.

One of the darkest episodes in the history of UN peacekeeping occurred in 1994, after the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda had been sent to implement a peace agreement between the Hutu government and the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front, which had been fighting since 1990. It fell apart in April 1994, when an aircraft carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi crashed in mysterious circumstances, triggering a tidal wave of political and ethnic killings.

The UN peacekeepers largely stood by as more than 800,000 Tutsis were massacred. The commander of the UN mission, Canadian Gen. Romeo Dallaire, later published a damning critique of the under-resourced and under-manned mission that had ended in disaster.




Government soldiers stand by on June 18, 1994, as some Tutsi refugees are evacuated by UN soldiers from the Mille Collines hotel in Kigali, which had been attacked 17 June by Hutu militiamen. (AFP)

“Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda” included an account of the murder of 10 Belgian paratroopers Dallaire had assigned to protect Rwanda's prime minister.

One year later, disaster struck again in Srebrenica, an enclave of 60,000 Bosnian Muslims within Bosnia and Herzegovina which the UN had declared to be an internationally protected “safe area.”

The UN Protection Force assigned to protect the enclave was a 370-strong Dutch battalion which, badly prepared and outnumbered, failed to prevent the genocidal massacre of over 8,000 men and boys by Bosnian Serb troops.

A Dutch investigation later concluded the Netherlands and the UN had failed to do their duty. It accused the government and the military leadership of the Netherlands of criminal negligence.




A peacekeeper from the Netherlands posing at the Charlie chekpoint in Srebrenica on April 1995. (AFP)

The UN has, however, claimed successes for its peacemaking operations. In 1988 the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to UN peacekeeping forces which had “under extremely difficult conditions, contributed to reducing tensions where an armistice has been negotiated but a peace treaty has yet to be established.”

The UN forces, the citation continued, “represent the manifest will of the community of nations to achieve peace through negotiations, and the forces have, by their presence, made a decisive contribution toward the initiation of actual peace negotiations.”

Occasionally, the UN has felt obliged to defend the reputation of its peacekeeping missions and in 2022 commissioned an independent review of its work by Lise Howard, professor of government and foreign service at Georgetown University in Washington.

“Failures on the part of UN peacekeeping missions have been highly publicized and well documented — and rightly so,” commented the UN at the time.

“But if you look at the overall picture and crunch the data, a different and ultimately positive picture emerges.”




Members of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) take part in a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of their presence on the eastern Mediterranean island, on March 4, 2024. (AFP)

Howard reviewed 16 peer-reviewed studies and concluded that in the majority of cases the Blue Helmets had significantly reduced civilian casualties, shortened conflicts and helped to make peace agreements stick.

“Most of the time peacekeeping works,” Howard said on the publication in 2022 of her findings in the book “Power in Peacekeeping.”

In a video released by the UN, she said: “If we look at the completed missions since the end of the Cold War, two-thirds of the time peacekeepers have been successful at implementing their mandates and departing.

“That’s not to say that in all of those cases everything is perfect in the countries. But it is to say that they’re no longer at war.”

 


Indian women entrepreneurs to visit UAE to study AI governance, medical innovation

Indian women entrepreneurs to visit UAE to study AI governance, medical innovation
Updated 31 October 2024
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Indian women entrepreneurs to visit UAE to study AI governance, medical innovation

Indian women entrepreneurs to visit UAE to study AI governance, medical innovation
  • Delegation will attend panel discussions, networking opportunities with UAE industry leaders in Dubai
  • India, UAE have witnessed significant rise in bilateral exchanges since signing free trade pact in 2022

NEW DELHI: Dozens of women entrepreneurs from the Indian Women Network of the Confederation of Indian Industry will depart to the UAE next week to study AI governance in education and medical innovation.

IWN was launched in 2013 by India’s largest and oldest industrial body, the CII, to create the largest network for professional women and promote their participation, growth and leadership in the workplace. Today, it has established chapters in almost two dozen Indian states.

For its first international trip, IWN will lead a 35-member delegation comprising women entrepreneurs from various sectors of Indian industries for a two-day visit to the UAE’s commercial capital, Dubai, starting Nov. 4.

“Dubai was chosen as the destination because of its progressive strides in areas such as AI governance in education, medical innovation, R&D and women’s empowerment,” Megha Chopra, co-chair of CII’s IWN chapter in New Delhi, told Arab News on Thursday.

“The delegation will explore how Dubai has successfully implemented forward-thinking strategies in these sectors, drawing valuable insights to inspire similar growth and innovation in India.”

The trip, which also includes panel discussions and networking opportunities, aims to “foster knowledge-sharing, networking and leadership development” as well as making connections with UAE-based industry pioneers, she added.

For Chopra, executive director at software company RateGain Travel Technologies, the learning retreat is an important extension of the India-UAE economic partnership.

“This trip also highlights the significance of women’s roles in enhancing bilateral ties and contributing to economic progress, with IWN creating a platform where Indian women entrepreneurs can not only draw inspiration, but also forge connections that could lead to tangible business partnerships and investments,” she said.

India and the UAE have significantly advanced bilateral exchanges since they signed the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2022.

The UAE is the largest Middle Eastern investor in India, with investments amounting to about $3 billion in the financial year 2023-24, according to Indian government data.

The two countries also expect to increase the total value of bilateral trade in non-petroleum products to more than $100 billion and trade in services to $15 billion by 2030.

“By connecting 35 women entrepreneurs from diverse Indian industries with eminent leaders and disruptors in Dubai, the delegation fosters knowledge exchange and cultivates potential avenues for cross-border collaborations,” Chopra said.

“In essence, the IWN delegation strengthens the India-UAE economic bond, championing women’s leadership as a key driver of continued growth and collaboration between the two nations.”


Taliban FM goes viral riding motorcycle through Kabul

Taliban FM goes viral riding motorcycle through Kabul
Updated 31 October 2024
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Taliban FM goes viral riding motorcycle through Kabul

Taliban FM goes viral riding motorcycle through Kabul
  • Amir Khan Muttaqi filmed on a motorbike in Wazir Akbar Khan area
  • Kabul residents admit that public safety has been increasing in the city

Kabul: A video of Afghanistan’s acting foreign minister riding a motorcycle through Kabul has gone viral on social media, with people saying it showed improving security under Taliban rule.

Officials at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to Arab News that the video shot this week shows Amir Khan Muttaqi riding after sunset in the Wazir Akbar Khan area of the Afghan capital.

The street where Muttaqi was driving is less than 1 km away from the Arg — the presidential palace, which since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan three years ago has served as the meeting place of the country’s interim government.

The surrounding neighborhood was known as the diplomatic zone of Kabul before most representatives of the international community left the country after its Western-backed government collapsed and US-led troops withdrew in August 2021.

The sighting of a minister riding on the street was for some residents a reflection of the country being safer now than during the two-decade period of foreign military presence following the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

“The security is very good now. The security forces are trying day and night to make sure people live in peace without any fear,” Hamza Kawsar, a resident of Kabul, told Arab News on Thursday.

“Unlike the leaders in previous regimes, our current leaders are not hiding from the people. They live a simple life. The foreign minister’s move to come out alone is proof of this.”

While people generally acknowledged that security had improved, many other pending issues were left unaddressed or aggravated.

“It’s been two weeks, and I can’t get my national ID. I go from one office to the other and my work is delayed,” said Rahmanullah, 22, who came from Logar province to Kabul to have his documents issued.

“It’s good that the ministers and other people are able to go around in the city without any worries. But in some offices it’s very difficult to see director-level officials, let alone a minister.”

For Javed Rahimi, a shopkeeper, the motorcycle video was a PR stunt and many new problems emerged with Taliban rule, including huge unemployment, poverty and bans on women’s education and work.

He admitted, however, that cases of theft, robbery, and deadly blasts, which were common before, had decreased.

“The good thing is that there’s no war and conflict anymore,” he said. “Our countrymen are not dying in explosions and attacks every day.”


Russia’s ‘comprehensive’ treaty with Iran will include defense, Lavrov says

Russia’s ‘comprehensive’ treaty with Iran will include defense, Lavrov says
Updated 31 October 2024
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Russia’s ‘comprehensive’ treaty with Iran will include defense, Lavrov says

Russia’s ‘comprehensive’ treaty with Iran will include defense, Lavrov says
  • The United States accused Tehran in September of delivering close-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine
MOSCOW: A treaty that Russia and Iran intend to sign shortly will include closer defense cooperation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
Military ties between the two countries are a source of deep concern to the West as Russia wages war in Ukraine while Iran and Israel have exchanged missile and air strikes in the Middle East.
“The treaty on a comprehensive strategic partnership between Russia and Iran that is being prepared will become a serious factor in strengthening Russian-Iranian relations,” Lavrov told state television.
He said the agreement was being prepared for signing “in the near future.” Russia has said it expects Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian to visit Moscow before the end of the year.
“It will confirm the parties’ desire for closer cooperation in the field of defense and interaction in the interests of peace and security at the regional and global levels,” Lavrov said. He did not specify what form the defense ties would take.
Russia has deepened its ties with Iran and North Korea, which are both strongly antagonistic toward the United States, since the start of its war with Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a similarly titled “comprehensive” treaty in June, including a mutual defense clause, and the US and NATO say Pyongyang has sent some 10,000 soldiers to Russia for possible deployment in the war.
Russia has not denied their presence, and says it will implement the treaty as it sees fit.
The United States accused Tehran in September of delivering close-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Ukraine, and imposed sanctions on ships and companies it said were involved in delivering Iranian weapons.
Tehran denies providing Moscow with the missiles or with thousands of drones that Kyiv and Western officials have said Russia uses against military targets and to destroy civilian infrastructure, including Ukraine’s electrical grid.
The Kremlin declined to confirm its receipt of Iranian missiles but acknowledged that its cooperation with Iran included “the most sensitive areas.”

India says frontier disengagement with China along their disputed border is ‘almost complete’

India says frontier disengagement with China along their disputed border is ‘almost complete’
Updated 31 October 2024
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India says frontier disengagement with China along their disputed border is ‘almost complete’

India says frontier disengagement with China along their disputed border is ‘almost complete’
  • The two countries reached a new pact on military patrols that aims to end a four-year standoff that hss strained relations
  • Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese

NEW DELHI: India and China have moved most of their frontline troops further from their disputed border in a remote region in the northern Himalayas, India’s defense minister said Thursday, some 10 days after the two countries reached a new pact on military patrols that aims to end a four-year standoff that’s strained relations.
Rajnath Singh said the “process of disengagement” of Indian and Chinese troops near the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh is “almost complete.”
The Line of Actual Control separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. India and China fought a deadly war over the border in 1962.
Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. That turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, as each side stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets in close confrontation positions.
Earlier this month the two neighbors announced a border accord aimed at ending the standoff, followed by a meeting between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the recent BRICS summit in Russia, their first bilateral meeting in five years.
It’s not clear how far back the troops were moved, or whether the pact will lead to an overall reduction in the number of soldiers deployed along the border.
“Our efforts will be to take the matter beyond disengagement; but for that, we will have to wait a little longer,” Singh said.
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said Thursday that the frontline troops were “making progress in implementing the resolutions in an orderly manner.”
The pact called for Indian and Chinese troops to pull back from the last two areas of the border where they were in close positions. After the deadly confrontation in 2020, soldiers were placed in what commanders called “eyeball to eyeball” positions at least six sites. Most were resolved after previous rounds of military and diplomatic talks as the two nations agreed to the creation of buffer zones.
However, disagreements over pulling back from in the Depsang and Demchok areas lasted until the Oct. 21 pact.
“It is a positive move,” said Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, who from 2014 to 2016 headed Indian military’s Northern Command, which controls Kashmir region, including Ladakh. “Given how deep mistrust has been between the two countries and how all confidence building measures collapsed, it is quite a positive beginning,” he said.
However, Hooda added, it will take time for both countries to return to their pre-2020 positions. “It does not mean everything is going to as normal as it existed earlier. We have to re-establish traditional patrolling and also the buffer zones need to be sorted out,” he said.
The border standoff also damaged business ties between the two nations, as India halted investments from Chinese firms and major projects banned.


India says frontier disengagement with China along their disputed border is ‘almost complete’

India says frontier disengagement with China along their disputed border is ‘almost complete’
Updated 31 October 2024
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India says frontier disengagement with China along their disputed border is ‘almost complete’

India says frontier disengagement with China along their disputed border is ‘almost complete’
  • Two countries have reached new pact on military patrols that aims to end four-year standoff that has strained relations
  • India says “process of disengagement” of Indian and Chinese troops near Line of Actual Control is “almost complete”

NEW DELHI: India and China have moved most of their frontline troops further from their disputed border in a remote region in the northern Himalayas, India’s defense minister said Thursday, some 10 days after the two countries reached a new pact on military patrols that aims to end a four-year standoff that’s strained relations.
Rajnath Singh said the “process of disengagement” of Indian and Chinese troops near the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh is “almost complete.”
The Line of Actual Control separates Chinese and Indian-held territories from Ladakh in the west to India’s eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, which China claims in its entirety. India and China fought a deadly war over the border in 1962.
Ties between the two countries deteriorated in July 2020 after a military clash killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese. That turned into a long-running standoff in the rugged mountainous area, as each side stationed tens of thousands of military personnel backed by artillery, tanks and fighter jets in close confrontation positions.
Earlier this month the two neighbors announced a border accord aimed at ending the standoff, followed by a meeting between India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the recent BRICS summit in Russia, their first bilateral meeting in five years.
It’s not clear how far back the troops were moved, or whether the pact will lead to an overall reduction in the number of soldiers deployed along the border.
“Our efforts will be to take the matter beyond disengagement; but for that, we will have to wait a little longer,” Singh said.
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Zhang Xiaogang said Thursday that the frontline troops were “making progress in implementing the resolutions in a orderly manner.”
The pact called for Indian and Chinese troops to pull back from the last two areas of the border where they were in close positions. After the deadly confrontation in 2020, soldiers were placed in what commanders called “eyeball to eyeball” positions at at least six sites. Most were resolved after previous rounds of military and diplomatic talks as the two nations agreed to the creation of buffer zones.
However, disagreements over pulling back from in the Depsang and Demchok areas lasted until the Oct. 21 pact.
“It is a positive move,” said Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda, who from 2014 to 2016 headed Indian military’s Northern Command, which controls Kashmir region, including Ladakh. “Given how deep mistrust has been between the two countries and how all confidence building measures collapsed, it is quite a positive beginning,” he said.
However, Hooda added, it will take time for both countries to return to their pre-2020 positions. “It does not mean everything is going to as normal as it existed earlier. We have to re-establish traditional patrolling and also the buffer zones need to be sorted out,” he said.
The border standoff also damaged business ties between the two nations, as India halted investments from Chinese firms and major projects banned.