United Nations: Peacekeeping Missions - timeline
Searching more than 75 years of world history
Timeline
- March 2007 A report by a UN team alleges that the government of Sudan is “orchestrating and participating” in crimes in that country’s western Darfur region, including murder, kidnapping, and rape and argues for a joint UN-African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission to be sent to Darfur.
- January 2007 Ban Ki-Moon, foreign minister of South Korea, becomes Secretary-General of the UN, the first Asian in more than 30 years to be elected to the post.
- November 2006 The UN ombudsman in a controversial declaration, states that the UN is "undermined by its inefficiency and unpredictable funding” and “policy incoherence and duplication", adding that its work on development and the environment was often “fragmented and weak”.
- August 2006 The UN Integrated expands its political mission in Timor- Leste (East Timor). The new office will be called the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), replacing the UN Office in Timor-Leste (UNOTIL)
- May 2005 Sen. Norm Coleman, heading the US Senate’s permanent committee on investigations, calls for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to resign, and hints that the USA could withhold its contribution to the UN's budget.
- March 2005 UN Secretary-General Annan proposes to expand the Security Council from 15 to 24 members.
- March 2005 The UN announces plans to expand Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS).
- November 2004 The USA accuses UN Secretary-General Annan of corruption in the UN-administered “oil-for-food programme” in Iraq.
- June 2004 The UN establishes the UN Operation in Burundi (ONUB).
- June 2004 The UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS) is set up following the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1547 on June 11, 2004.
- February 2004 The UN authorises the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) in the wake of the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
- September 2003 The UN establishes its mission in Liberia to keep the peace after civil war resulting in the ouster and exile of President Charles Taylor.
- August 2003 A suicide attacker devastates the Canal Hotel, which housed the UN mission in Baghdad (the capital of Iraq), killing 23 people, including UN special representative in Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello.
- March 2003 The USA and the UK invade Iraq in spite of lacking authorisation from the UN Security Council, and even though the invasion was opposed the governments of France, China, and Russia.
- September 2002 The USA announces that it will rejoin the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) after a 14-year hiatus.
- May 2002 The UN sets up a support mission to provide assistance and oversee transfer of power to the authorities of newly independent East Timor.
- September 2000 A team of 40 UN monitors begin to enforce a ceasefire ending two-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
- December 1999 The UN organises a 500-soldier peacekeeping mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) after resumption of fighting between government troops and two rebel groups.
- October 1999 As UN peacekeepers land in East Timor, UN Secretary-General Annan calls on the world's governments to prepare for a new era of UN interventionism.
- October 1999 The UN Security Council establishes a 6,000-member peacekeeping force to Sierra Leone after an eight-year civil war largely over control of diamond mines.
- September 1999 A report by UN Secretary-General Annan criticises NATO for intervening militarily in Kosovo before getting UN approval.
- April 1999 The UN brokers a deal to hold a referendum on East Timorese independence from Indonesia.
- April 1998 The UN withdraws its mission investigating report of massacres in Zaire after the investigative team is harassed and has materials stolen.
- June 1997 The UN Security Council condemns and imposes sanctions on National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), a rebel group, in the Angolan civil war.
- July 1996 The UN Security Council votes in favour of stationing troops in Haiti as instability becomes rife in the handover of power from President Aristide to Rene Preval.
- December 1995 The UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) hands over peacekeeping command in Bosnia-Herzegovina to NATO after the UN's failure to prevent a massacre in Srebrenica and the agreement of peace treaty forced by NATO intervention.
- August 1995 Serb troops capture two UN safe havens, including Srebrenica, leading to fall of that city, and massacre of a portion of male citizenry.
- January 1995 Croatian President Franjo Tudjman evicts UNPROFOR from Croatia, calling the presence of the UN peace mission counterproductive to the peace process.
- September 1994 The UN incurs much criticism from humanitarian organisations and the press over supposed slowness and inefficiency in its handling of human rights investigation after a summer of massacres in Rwanda.
- August 1994 Rwandan genocide rages as UN commits to a small-scale response.
- February 1993 UN and Organisation of American States (OAS) send missions to restore democracy to Haiti after the September 1991 army coup.
- September 1993 The UN Security Council unanimously adopts a resolution establishing an Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL).
- July 1993 UN observers participate in peacekeeping efforts in Georgia after battles in the breakaway region of Abkhazia.
- March 1993 The USA hands over military mission in Somalia to a UN force of 15,000–20,000 soldiers.
- May 1992 The UN fails to deliver successfully food to starving people in Somalia; the food is looted by local warlords.
- February 1992 UN troops fail to contain violence in Mogadishu (the capital of Somalia).
- February 1992 The UN establishes UNPROFOR to ensure safety in demilitarised zones in Croatia after the 1991 war.
- October 1991 A peace treaty ends the Cambodian reign of terror; the peace agreement envisions the UN's most substantial peacekeeping operation yet.
- July 1991 The UN establishes a mission in El Salvador to verify implementation of agreements between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberacion Nacional--FMLN)
- April 1991 The UN sets up funds to collect reparations from Iraq to pay for the Gulf War, which ousted Iraqi forces from Kuwait.
- August 1988 UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar helps broker a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq war.
- January 1985 The USA withdraws from UNESCO in protest against the organisation's allegedly anti-US and anti-Western policies.
- June 1982 Israeli ground forces occupy southern Lebanon in spite of the presence of UN peacekeepers.
- October 1980 The UN Security Council condemns the apartheid regime in South Africa and calls for the release Nelson Mandela.
- March 1978 A UN peacekeeping force is deployed in Lebanon.
- June 1974 The UN Disengagement Force is established following the disengagement of the Israeli and Syrian forces on the Golan Heights.
- October 1973 The UN deploys an emergency force in response to the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War. Peacekeeping forces are not to be drawn from any Security Council member, particularly the USA and Soviet Union.
- September 1965 UN Secretary-General U Thant works to secure a ceasefire in the India-Pakistan war.
- March 1964 The UN establishes a peacekeeping force in Cyprus to prevent a recurrence of fighting between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
- April 1963 UN forces seize Katangan separatist leaders in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo--DRC) and declare the Katangan secession to be over. French and UK envoys question whether the action exceeded the UN's mandate.
- September 1961 UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold is killed in air crash while on mission in the breakaway province of Katanga, Belgian Congo (now DRC).
- November 1960 UN troops enter Katanga, province attempting to break away from the Belgian Congo (now DRC).
- July 1960 The UN Security Council approves the dispatch of a UN force to Belgian Congo (now DRC).
- July 1958 The UN Observation Group in Lebanon issues its first report to the Security Council.
- November 1956 The UN Security Council condemns the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
- November 1956 The UN establishes an international force for the Middle East in the aftermath of the Anglo-French seizure of the Suez Canal and Israeli occupation of the Sinai desert.
- December 1953 The conclusion of the Korean War is declared.
- October 1950 A UN General Assembly session becomes a forum in a war of words between the USA and the Soviet Union, which challenges the legality of the UN intervention in Korea.
- September 1950 The UN lands its first troops in Korea after North Korea invades on June 25. A Security Council resolution condemns the North Korean invasion and pledges assistance to South Korea. The resolution unanimously passes the Security Council due to a temporary Soviet boycott protesting the non-admission of communist China.
- December 1948 The UN Kashmir Commission negotiates a ceasefire between India and Pakistan.
- January 1946 The UN establishes the Commission for the Control of Atomic Energy.
- December 1945 The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) is formed, with its headquarters in Paris.
- September 1945 The victorious allies draft the Charter of the United Nations, with the primary mission as: “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind.”
- September 1945 Members adhere to the UN at the San Francisco conference for the establishment of the new international body. Soviet representation requires unanimity in Security Council votes and determinations, giving any Security Council member veto power.
- August 1945 UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill, US President Harry S. Truman and Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin meet at Potsdam, the final meeting of allies during the World War II, where they decide on zones of influence, a precursor to the Cold War.
- December 1944 Representatives of the soon to be victorious allies meet at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC, to create a plan for a future United Nations. The parties agree the principle of the rights of smaller, weaker countries, and that the organisation must have the power to intervene so as to prevent large, dangerous conflicts.
- January 1942 Twenty-six states, including the USSR, USA and England, sign the United Nations Declaration. Six months later, United Nations Day is celebrated in the US, the British Empire, USSR and China.
- August 1931 In the throes of a world depression and with impacts of the World War I still being felt, US labour leader and internationalist Dr. Lewis L. Lorwin suggests a world organisation, which could either work with the League of Nations or as an independent group, with new powers to redress the imbalances in the global economy and avoid war.
