ABSTRACT
More than 60 peace operations have
deployed in Africa since 2000, including multiple African-led or hybrid African
Union/United Nations initiatives. The frequency of these deployments
underscores the ongoing importance of these operations in the playbook of
regional and multilateral bodies to prevent conflict, protect civilians, and
enforce ceasefires and peace agreements.
The
study presents a critical review of the concept of the mechanism of United
Nations operations, as one of the emergent post-Cold War peacekeeping trends. The
operation has had it positive effects in some aspects and has also recorded
failures in some areas and this failures are not unrelated to the various
challenges that the operations of the United nations have faced in Darfur in
the curse of carrying out its mandate .The paper concludes that lessons should be learned from the experiences
with the Darfur operation, for future operations, while giving recommendations
for further effectiveness of the peacekeeping operations.
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
of Study
The
United Nations Security Council authorizes peace operations by an affirmative
vote of nine of the fifteen members without a veto from the five permanent
members: the United States, China, France, Russia, the UK. The Security Council
has authorized more than sixty peace operations in the years since the Cold
War.
The
United Nationsdeploys peacekeeping forces to prevent or contain fighting;
stabilize post-conflict zones; help implement peace accords; and assist democratic
transitions. To achieve those goals, the United Nations outlines the following
peace-building activities:
• Disarmament, demobilization, and
reintegration of ex-combatants;
• Landmine removal and associated
activities;
• Rule-of-law related activities;
• Human rights protection and
promotion;
• Electoral assistance;
• Support for the restoration of state
authority; and
• Promotion of social and economic
recovery and development.
The
United Nations generally follows three principles for deploying peacekeepers:
• Main parties to the conflict must
consent;
• Peacekeepers should remain impartial
but not neutral; and
• Peacekeepers cannot use force except
in self-defense and defense of the mandate.
However,
United Nations peacekeepers are increasingly deployed to war zones when not all
the main parties have consented, such as in Mali and Eastern DRC. There is also
mounting international pressure for peacekeepers to play a more robust role in
protecting civilians. Despite the principle of impartiality, United Nation
peacekeepers have been tasked with offensive operations against designated
enemy combatants, as in Mali and the DRC. “Contemporary mandates have often
blurred the lines separating peacekeeping, stabilization, counterinsurgency,
counterterrorism, atrocity prevention, and state-building,”
Determining
the effectiveness of United Nations mission demands investigating the structure
and how are peace operations staffed and funded? Bangladesh, India, and
Pakistan send the most troops to United Nations peacekeeping missions, while
the United States, Japan, and France are the top funders. The top troop
contributors to African Union Missions in Somalia (AMISOM) are Uganda, Burundi,
Ethiopia, and Kenya, and funding comes largely from the United Nations and the
European Union. The disconnect between those nations that send troops and those
that fund missions is often a source of conflict. Wealthy nations spend the
most on peacekeeping, yet they send relatively few troops; meanwhile, countries
that either sends troops or whose citizens are directly affected by
peacekeeping missions often have less say in how they are designed and
mandated.
A
2014 internal review of peacekeeping practices related to civilian protection
exposed some of these tensions. Researchers found that peacekeepers failed to
protect civilians on several occasions. Countries that fund the annual UN
peacekeeping budget of nearly $8 billion were angered by the findings, while
troop Contributing Countries (TCCs) demanded raises to the reimbursement rates
their soldiers receive for serving in UN missions, rates which had not
increased in more than a decade. (The UN reimburses countries that contribute
troops a little more than $1,000 per soldier per month, and African Union
Missions in Somalia(AMISOM) troops now earn roughly the same allowances as United
Nations peacekeepers.Both India and Brazil have cited their countries’
personnel contributions to UN peacekeeping in their bids to become permanent
members of the Security Council, and several African governments have
complained about having little say in the design and mandating of UN operations
on the continent. “They would like to escape the tutelage of the UN in future
crises,” says says Richard Gowan, an expert on multilateral security
institutions at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Leaders
in Africa and within the UN have called for African forces to play a larger
role in securing peace and stability on the continent, but budget constraints
persist. While the UN has a regular peacekeeping budget, the AU must
continually seek out donors, such as the UN, the EU, and the United States, to
fund its missions. Only 2.3 percent of the AU’s budget comes from AU member
states.“Countries with more developed military capabilities—countries from the
OECD—need to come back into peacekeeping in a way they haven’t been in recent
years” —Bruce Jones, Brookings Institution “When the African Union deploys a
mission, it always needs to find external assistance,” says GWU’s Williams. As
a result, the African Union cannot quickly deploy or sustain troops in the
field. “The lack of indigenous sources of finance also undermines the African Union's
credibility as a leading player in peace and security issues on the continent
and reduces its ability to exercise ownership of particular initiatives,” he
says.
Peace
operations in Africa are increasingly collaborations between the UN and AU. For
example, in Somalia, AMISOM member states provide troops while the UN provides
funding, training, logistics, and planning support. UNAMID, a UN-AU hybrid
mission in Darfur, absorbed and expanded a mission initially led solely by the
AU.
The
research intends to investigate UN Peacekeeping in Sudan critically.
1.2 Statement
of Problem
The
UN has played a vital role in mediating peace agreements and assisting in their
implementation, helping to reduce the level of conflict in several regions
especially in Africa. However, some of those accords failed to take hold then,
such as in Angola in 1993 and Rwanda in 1994. Additionally, the current
situations in Cote D’ Ivoire, Darfur- Sudan, DRC and Somalia unfortunately have
not changed too positively. This has resulted in severe IDPs and refugee
problems further compounding the security situation in and around such conflict
areas. It is estimated that roughly half of all countries that emerge from war
lapse back into violence within 5 years due to some challenges. This drives home
the point that, to prevent conflict, peace agreements must be implemented in a
sustained manner. Most of these conflicts are known to be contagious and thus
have spill-over effects to other nations while new ones are also unfolding,
such as in CAR, Chad and Guinea. All these complex crises cry out for UN
intervention. Meanwhile, there was already the problem of the World Body having
taken on too many missions in recent times; for example, within 1988 to 1994
alone, the number of bluehelmeted
troops
had increased from 9,570 to 73,393 and an exponential soaring in the peace
operations budget from $230 million to $3.6 billion.9 It is in view of the
foregoing that this study seeks to address the challenges of PKOs in Africa
after the end of the Cold War with particular emphasis on Somalia. Moreover,
until very recently, it is well known that there has been a systematic neglect
of Africa security matters by the trio of France, UK and USA since after the
Cold War.This makes it necessary for Africans to properly understand the
ongoing global reforms to ensure lasting solution to their conflicts. Kofi
Annan the former UNSG reiterated this position by advising member states of the
UN to seek alternative remedies of handling conflicts in their various regions
Mr Tony Blair former British PM, also declared same position while commenting
on the situation in Zimbabwe for African leaders to act. Since conflicts are
intrinsically bound to occur, Africans must begin to address issues that will
enable them manage conflicts in the continent effectively in concert with the
UN.
1.3 Research Question
This
study will seek to answer the following pertinent questions as relates to Darfur
since it is our Country of interest:
i)
How Effective has the United Nations
been with the mission in Darfur?
ii)
What are the failures of the
United Nations mission in Darfur?
iii)
What are the challenges affecting United
Nations Peacekeeping Missions in Darfur?
1.4 Objective
of the Study
The
purpose of the study is to examine the functions and operations of the UN peacekeeping missionin Sudan. However, the
specific objectives of the study are:
i)
To assess the effectiveness of United Nations
peacekeeping in Africa using United Nation Peacekeeping in Darfur as a case
study.
ii)
To assess Failure of the United Nations peacekeeping in
Darfur
iii) To explore the
challenges confronting UN peacekeeping in Africa using United Nations PKO in Darfur
as a case study.
1.5 Significance
of the Study
Following
the end of the Cold War, there were renewed calls for the UN to become the
agency for achieving world peace, as several dozen military conflicts continue
to rage around the globe. With this, there has been an increased need for
peacekeeping in Africa due to increased conflict situations in the continent.
With
the seemingly lax attitude of some major players in the UN towards African
security, the continent’s security issues needs to be addressed adequately by
Africans in conjunction with the UN. This study therefore, is empirically expected
to benefit researchers, analysts, and policy makers in formulating a framework
to overcome the challenges of UN PKO in Africa for successful Future
peacekeeping. Theoretically it is hoped that its findings could stimulate
further research in the field of UN PKOs. The study would also contribute to
existing body of knowledge in the field of peacekeeping.
1.6 Hypotheses
i)The
United Nations Peacekeeping in Darfur is effective.
ii)
The United Nations peace keeping mission in Darfur had some failures.
ii)
The challenges encountered in United Nations Peacekeeping in Darfur is high.
1.7 Scope
of the Study/Limitations
The
study examines the civil war and UN PKO in Sudan. This is because of its
peculiar characteristics, its strategic position in Africa and its uniqueness
in many respects. For instance due to lack of understanding of the concept of
the second generation peacekeeping, the mission was faced with severe political
and operational difficulties.
The
study will also draw examples from UN PKOs in Africa within the pre and post
Cold War era and considers strategies that could be used to improve future UN
peacekeeping in Africa. It is assumed that the UN will continue to employ
peacekeeping as a means of conflict resolution generally, especially in Africa.
A
major limitation of this research work is the lack of relevant and contemporary
literature on the specific research subject. The researcher would have loved to
visit and interview the FCs of the PKOs of the country used as case study and
some current UN PKOs in Africa but for the financial wherewithal. This, to the
researcher is also a limitation. These limitations are not likely to affect the
objective of the research work in any significant way. This is because
interviews and consultations were held with some serving senior officers in PKO
Departments of the United Nations Office. Additionally, since the research
shall be adding to body of knowledge, the efforts made so far would definitely
ginger further interest of more research in this area.
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