United Nations: Peacekeeping Missions - full text
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Immediate Context
The 15-member UN Security Council on Aug. 10 unanimously approved Resolution 1770 expanding the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), increasing UN staff from 65 to 95. The expanded UN mission was to “advise, support and assist” the Iraqi government on a wide range of issues, but would only remain if “circumstances permit”, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported Aug. 10.
In 2003, the UN had removed its mission from Iraq after a devastating attack on Aug. 19, 2003, killed its special representative Sergio Vieira de Mello along with 22 others. It returned in August 2004 with a group of 35.
“I understand the fears and concerns some staff may have about any expansion”, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon on Aug. 17 announced at the commemoration ceremony marking the four-year anniversary of the bomb attack that killed Vieira de Mello. “That is why I affirm to you today that any such measure remains strictly subject to conditions on the ground. Your safety is and always will be a paramount concern,” he told UN staff.
Regarding another region suffering from persistent violence, on July 31, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution to create a 26,000-strong UN-African Union (AU) peacekeeping force for the Darfur region of western Sudan. A UN team four months earlier had alleged that the Sudanese government was animating and participating in war crimes in Darfur. If Sudan “is not a good-faith partner in this initiative, the operation will fail”, Ban Ki Moon said, adding “we have the same expectation of the rebel movements”.
The UN Security Council on Aug 16 voted unanimously to extend the AU peacekeeping mission in Somalia. The resolution increased the number of soldiers from 1,700 to 8,000, as originally authorised, the BBC online news service reported on Aug. 21.
On Aug. 17, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon suggested a reduction of the UN presence in Liberia over three years, which would bring the number of troops to about 9,000, down from 14,000. The draw-down would be “implemented in a well-measured, and calibrated and well monitored manner to make sure that no gaps and no crisis is created”, a UN spokesperson was quoted as saying in Voice of America on Aug. 20.
On July 8, the USA and EU had decided to discard a draft UN resolution on independence for the Serbian breakaway province Kosovo, because of Russian opposition. The UN Security Council continued to debate the issue, but EU Kosovo envoy Wolfgang Ischinger said that the EU still planned to support independence for Kosovo without the UN, according to an Aug. 9 article by the Reuters news service.
Reaction and Outlook
In relation to Iraq, US and UK officials said that the UN, by virtue of its neutrality, was likely to have more success than either of those countries in negotiating with religious leaders (such as Shia spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani), the International Herald Tribune reported on Aug. 10. US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad said that the unanimous support for the resolution to expand UNAMI “underscores the widespread belief that what happens in Iraq has strategic implications not only for the region, but for the entire world”.
Regarding Sudan, the UN had been trying for some time to overcome Sudanese government obstruction of the entry of an international peacekeeping force, but the government finally agreed on the mission. However, SABC (South Africa) News on Aug. 23 reported that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon had expressed disappointment that the Sudanese government allegedly failed withdraw its troops from the southern part of the country, in line with a peace deal it signed two years ago. The Independent reported on Aug. 24 that the Sudanese military continued to deploy offensive military equipment, including attack helicopters, in Darfur in defiance of a UN arms embargo.
As for Kosovo, Russia had alleged that an independent Kosovo would soon join NATO, and required that any deal on Kosovo must be approved by Serbia. Serbian officials said that they would be willing to grant Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority broad autonomy, but would not agree to independence, according to an article in the Aug. 8 International Herald Tribune.
The UN has continued to have financial difficulties. Many members have not paid their full dues and have cut donations to the UN's voluntary funds. As of March 31, 2007, members’ arrears to the Regular Budget were more than US$1,355 million, of which the USA alone owed US$785 million (58 per cent of the regular budget arrears), according to the Global Policy Forum, a pro-UN think tank, in March 2007.
Background
The United Nations Declaration establishing the UN was signed on Jan. 1, 1942 by representatives of twenty-six states that had been, or were at war with the Axis, including the USSR, USA and England.
In the aftermath of World War II, the UN became an institution at the same time as the world was dividing into communist and capitalist blocs. That schism, plus the fact that the UN Security Council required unanimity to approve resolutions, contributed to ineffectiveness during the 40 years of the so-called Cold War.
The UN’s predecessor, the League of Nations, was formed after World War I with the aim of preventing subsequent wars through arbitration. It lacked the institutional power and the autonomy necessary to counter aggression, especially when perpetrated by a major power. The League failed to prevent the outbreak of major conflicts in the 1930s, including the Spanish Civil War, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and World War II.
The UN was designed to intervene in conflicts more effectively than the League, in part because it had authority to deploy troops contributed by members. Accordingly, a central principle of the UN was that it should have the authority and power to intervene militarily to prevent one country from committing aggression against a weaker country or region.
One such UN intervention was in the Korean peninsula to prevent the southern part from being annexed to the communist north. The action, which was supported by capitalist countries, avoided the veto of the Soviet Union because it was boycotting the Security Council in protest over the non-admission of communist China at the time.
The UN played a stronger role in restoring stability in the early days of former colonial states, notably the Belgian Congo (named Zaire from 1971 to 1997; now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo), where UN troops actually captured the leaders of the breakaway province of Katanga and proclaimed that the secession was over.
Often, however, the UN proved it could not counter the influence of strong national and regional alliances such as those formed as a result of the ideological divisions of the Cold War, or in relation to particular issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In recent years, the increasing alienation of the USA and chronic deterioration in US-UN relations has become a more prominent concern. The geopolitical aims of the USA have often been at variance with those of smaller countries, and the USA's support of Israel remains unpopular in certain Arab countries. The USA was the largest contributor to UN funding, paying about 22 per cent of the total UN two-year budget of about US$3.8 billion for 2006 and 2007, but it frequently withheld or threatened to withhold funding as a way of influencing UN decisions.
Developing countries have increasingly used their numerical superiority to promote their objectives of development in the UN General Assembly and other UN institutions, regardless of whether or not these are aligned with US interests.
Since the mid-1980s, the UN has faced financial difficulties. Beginning in 1980, the US Congress (the bicameral federal legislature) prohibited contribution of the US proportionate share for a number of UN programmes deemed to be harmful to US interests, in such areas as Palestine.
The situation worsened when the USA invaded Iraq in 2003 having failed to gain explicit authorisation to go to war from the UN Security Council. This led to open friction between the US administration of President George W. Bush and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq. Before long, US officials were openly calling for Annan to step down, accusing him of corruption in administering the Iraq “oil-for-food” programme. However, investigators published a report in 2005 stating that they had found no evidence that Annan had personally engaged in corrupt practices.
Current UN Peacekeeping Operations
| UN Mission | Region | Inception Date |
| UNTSO | Middle East | May 1948 |
| UNMOGIP | India/Pakistan | January 1949 |
| UNFICYP | Cyprus | March 1964 |
| UNDOF | Golan Heights | June 1974 |
| UNIFIL | Lebanon | March 1978 |
| MINURSO | Western Sahara | April 1991 |
| UNOMIG | Georgia | August 1993 |
| UNMIK | Kosovo | June 1999 |
| MONUC | Dem. Rep. of Congo | November 1999 |
| UNMEE | Ethiopia and Eritrea | July 2000 |
| UNOMIL | Liberia | October 2003 |
| UNOCI | Côte d'Ivoire | April 2004 |
| MINUSTAH | Haiti | April 2004 |
| ONUB | Burundi | May 2004 |
| UNAMIS | Sudan | March 2005 |
| (Source: United Nations) |
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