UN peacekeeping

The UN currently has 16 peacekeeping operations on the go around the world with more than 110,000 troops and staff and questions are being raised about costs and efficiency.

Not surprisingly the United Kingdom put peacekeeping on the agenda this month, as chair of the Security Council's rotating presidency. London has long been critical about the increasing number and costs of UN peacekeeping missions. Since 2000, the annual budget for blue helmet missions has more than tripled to $8 billion (5.63 billion euros).

In his opening statement to the Security Council earlier this month Sir John Sawers, the UK ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations, called peacekeeping "a unique global partnership" and peacekeepers "a scarce asset ... (who must be) deployed to maximum effect in the places where they are needed most."

There was plenty to read between those lines. Britain and France have been at the forefront of a debate demanding exit strategies before signing off on new peacekeeping mandates. London and Paris have also stressed the necessity of political solutions going hand in hand with peacekeeping missions.

National interests come first

In the past decade UN peacekeeping has undergone significant reform. In an internal document the UN secretariat wrote last month: "UN peacekeeping is increasingly called upon to deploy to remote, uncertain operating environments and into volatile political contexts."

The original concept of UN peacekeeping dates back to 1948 and was based on two conditions. There had to be a ceasefire with a defined ceasefire line. And all parties to the conflict had to agree on the deployment of peacekeepers - like in Cyprus, where UN troops have been stationed between Greeks and Turks since 1975.

With the end of the cold war and the start of the war against terror, the cards on the table of the Security Council were remixed. But that didn't necessarily mean that peacekeeping forces were always deployed where and when they were needed, says German UN expert Andreas Zumach. The genocide, killing up to one million people in Rwanda in 1994 didn't come as a surprise, he told Deutsche Welle:

"The issue was not that the information wasn't there. But there was a total unwillingness by all 15 member countries of the Security Council and other countries in the General Assembly to provide troops. It was very obvious that in none of the western capitals, not only in Washington, but also in London, in Bonn, in Paris was there sufficient interest to avoid a genocide in Rwanda."

Zumach doesn't expect much from the ongoing debate in the Security Council about the UN's peacekeeping policy. "There are a number of nice words like a New Global Partnership," he says, "but there is no progress in terms of specific commitments, not even to the system that was established about 10 years ago under then Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his Under Secretary-General Manfred Eisele, a German general."

The idea then was that as many nations as possible would at least make a general commitment to the UN, like providing a battalion in due time to deal with emergencies. Only a few member states signed up and most of them demanded a caveat that would allow them to make any type of decision to assist or not on merit.

Rich countries at the table, poor in the field

In practice it often is difficult to find the necessary assets for peace missions - qualified soldiers and proper equipment. After almost two years the combined UN African Union mission in Darfur, for example, is still short on troops and lacking helicopters completely.

Poor countries deliver most peacekeepers. At the same time their voice is barely heard in the Security Council, says Zumach: "Two of the five permanent members of the Security Council never sent out a single peacekeeping soldier - the US and China - and Russia or the former Soviet Union only very reluctantly. There is not much protest among the other members, because they don't like it when one of the big five gets involved militarily, which also then implies a heavy national interest. In background talks you hear ambassadors of poor countries complaining about these discrepancies, but for political reasons they would not go public with their criticism."

The German expert favours an alternative solution: let the UN have its own standing army. Only then, says Zumach, "would the secretary-general no longer have to go around the world like a beggar asking for national contingents."

Author: Patrick Vanhulle
Editor: Rob Mudge