The UN is often scapegoated when its peacekeeping troops and deployments fall short. Why are they not in Syria, Yemen or Libya, or along the Palestinian-Israeli border? Why did the US and UK make it impossible for the few UN troops present at the onset of the genocide in Rwanda to have their numbers significantly augmented? They thus had no choice but to withdraw when some of their members were killed.
All good questions, if not easy to answer. In Syria, for example, where would they be deployed? A better question is why did they not go in at the beginning of the civil war, when things were not so complicated and Al-Qaeda and Daesh were not around?
Then there is the bad behavior of UN troops. In Mali, French peacekeepers were found to have engaged in paedophilia. In the Congo, peacekeepers from the Indian subcontinent have engaged in rape.
In Bosnia, Dutch troops withdrew after they felt they could do nothing to avert the pogrom that happened almost before their eyes. In Somalia, US troops — supposedly there under UN command — fled when the going got rough. Then-President Bill Clinton blamed the UN for the debacle.
On the other side of the coin are the great unsung victories of UN troops. In El Salvador, at the end of the civil war the UN held the ring and organized fair elections. In Namibia, at the end of the colonial war against South Africa the UN did the same. In Cyprus, it averted a Bosnia-type Christian-Muslim war. Lebanon, Sinai, Cambodia and Macedonia are all success stories in bringing about or confirming peace.
Sometimes it is not troops that are needed but observers and inspectors. In Colombia, the Farc left-wing guerrilla group that has fought the government for decades is supposed to be disarming under the terms of last year’s peace deal. The UN is tasked with finding the arms caches and dismantling them — a painstaking and dangerous job.
Farc says there are more than 900 caches all over the country. Some are only reachable by river or on foot through dense jungle and high mountains. The fear is, the Financial Times reported recently, that if the UN does not reach the caches soon paramilitaries or criminal groups will.
As long as the Security Council remains the supreme authority over deployments, then probably most people would support this development. We all need the UN to have a future that works.
Jonathan Power
Today, there are 62 peace operations worldwide deploying more than 150,000 personnel. Of these, 69 percent are deployed by the UN, 29 percent by regional organizations (usually with the UN’s blessing) and 2 percent by ad hoc organizations.
Two of the big powers on the UN Security Council, France and the UK, have long been sending their soldiers under the UN flag. More recently, so has China; in Africa it has over 1,000 soldiers. The US has long provided aircraft to move UN troops to their destinations.
Last year the number of UN peacekeeping personal fell by 6 percent, largely because of the end of successful work in Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire, the first decrease since 2011. Today Africa has 26 peacekeeping operations, the Americas three, Asia and Oceania seven, Europe 18 and the Middle East eight (these figures comprise both the UN and regional organizations).
Some 3,500 UN peacekeepers have lost their lives since the establishment of the first UN peacekeeping operation in 1948. But the annual fatality rate for uniformed personnel decreased steadily between 1990 and 2016.
Last week, pushed by France, the Security Council unanimously backed the deployment of a new multinational military force of 5,000 to fight terrorist groups operating in parts of Africa. It is a counterterrorism force able, unlike peacekeepers, to take the offensive and use sophisticated firepower.
The troops will come from Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. France will provide much of the financial and logistics support. Its mandate is to combat terrorism, drug traffickers and people smuggling, all of which thrive in the Sahel.
Is this the beginning of what was proposed in 1947: The creation of a UN military? Article 42 of the UN Charter says: “The Security Council may take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security.”
Some say that is not their image of the UN. But the African decision could be a harbinger of plans to come. As long as the Security Council remains the supreme authority over deployments, then probably most people would support this development. We all need the UN to have a future that works.
• Jonathan Power is a British journalist, filmmaker and writer. He has been a foreign affairs columnist for the International Herald Tribune for 17 years.
