Leap
of faith
America needs to remain staunchly behind U.N. peacekeeping process.
By WAYNE ANDERSON
Story ran on Tuesday, October 24 2000
It is sadly clear that the need for United Nations peacekeeping will continue
and, indeed, will probably grow. And it is very much in America’s national
interest to support an international response to conflicts - even those that
seem remote - because, in today’s interconnected world, they seldom remain
confined to one country or even one region.
- U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan
People everywhere bleed when cut, suffer nightmares after being subjected to
brutality and grieve when they lose those close to them. Sadly, people everywhere
in the world can also be taught to hate so intensely that they are willing
to brutalize and kill those who are different from them. Although these are
obvious observations, they have taken on a special personal significance for
me after meeting and talking with victims of conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya,
Armenia, Pakistan and Rwanda. Most of us, when we see pictures of victims of
sniper fire lying dead in the street, think someone should do something. That
is what U.N. peacekeeping is about.
The evolution of U.N. peacekeeping
The United Nations didn’t start out to be a worldwide peacekeeper. The
interventions we are seeing in Kosovo, East Timor and the Congo are the result
of successes and failures in stopping conflicts over the past 50 years. The
evolution of how to best intervene in wars continues, and the United Nations
still has not learned everything it needs to know to be the mediator of the
world’s conflicts.
In the beginning, the United Nations only sent international military and civilian
personnel into a war zone after the belligerent parties had agreed to a cease-fire.
The U.N.’s role was to supervise the carrying out of a peace agreement.
Initially, as peacekeepers, they did not have the power to enforce a cease-fire
by the use of arms. Their success depended upon the cooperation of the adversaries
in the conflict.
Watching for infractions of a cease-fire turned out to be too limited a role,
given the complexity of most conflicts. As a result of cease-fires that ended
in disasters, whole new demands are being placed on U.N. peacekeepers. Their
responsibilities include disarming the conflicting forces, providing security
to the civilian population, the supervision of elections, training and leading
de-mining teams and protecting humanitarian aid convoys.
Along with this increase in functions comes a need for a markedly larger number
of peacekeepers. During the Cold War, before 1989, the average operation had
only a few thousand personnel. Operations since then have been larger, with
30,000 troops in Cambodia and 60,000 in the NATO-sponsored mission in Bosnia.
As the duties have grown, the job has become more dangerous, and 1,450 peacekeepers
have been killed since 1956.
A peacekeeping force has to be authorized by the U.N. Security Council. During
the Cold War, opposition by either the USSR or the United States could prevent
any action being taken regardless of how critical the conflict might be. In
1987, a summit meeting between President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President
Mikhail Gorbachev led not only to a treaty eliminating intermediate-range nuclear
missiles but also to a joint effort to contain regional conflicts. Thirty-five
of the United Nations’ 53 peacekeeping operations have taken place in
the past 10 years. Peacekeeping expenses since 1990 have been four times greater
than during the United Nations’ first 45 years.
