UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI

Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies

‘‘Critical Analysis of the United Nations Peacekeeping Missions in Africa’’

John Rabuogi Ahere

R50/75472/2009

Lecturer: Mr. Patrick Maluki

Essay Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Course DIS 515: International

Organization. Second Semester 2009/2010
"The UN is not just a product of do-gooders. It is harshly real. The day will come when men

will see the UN and what it means clearly. Everything will be all right - you know when?

When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction,

and see it as a drawing they made themselves." - Dag Hammarskjöld (United Nations

Secretary-General from 1953 to 1961)

Introduction

In 1945 the United Nations (UN) was established as an international organisation whose

aims were to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic

development, social progress, human rights and the achievement of world peace. The UN

replaced the League of Nations, which realists blamed for failures to stop World War II.

The UN currently has 192 states as its members. The UN also has six principal organs

and these include the General Assembly (GA), the Security Council (SC), the Economic and

Social Council (ECOSOC); the Secretariat; the International Court of Justice and the

currently inactive UN Trusteeship Council.

Article 24 of the UN Charter grants the SC the primary responsibility for the maintenance

of international peace and security on the understanding that in carrying out its

responsibilities, the SC acts on behalf of the members of the UN. As a means to resolving

conflicts in the anarchic International System (IS), the UN has resorted to the use of

peacekeeping as an instrument to counter conflict.

Peacekeeping is the deployment of people to help the parties to a conflict to resolve their

differences peacefully. The presence of these people, soldiers, military observers or civilian

police, encourage hostile groups not to use arms and instead to keep negotiating for peaceful

settlement of disputes. UN peacekeeping is a unique and dynamic instrument developed by

2
the Organization as a way to help countries that are torn by conflict to create the conditions

for lasting peace. The first UN peacekeeping mission was established in 1948, when the SC

authorized the deployment of UN military observers to the Middle East to monitor the

Armistice Agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbours. Since then, there have been a

total of 63 UN peacekeeping operations around the world.1

Incidentally, one is never likely to find the word peacekeeping in the UN Charter. Dag

Hammarskjöld referred to it as belonging to ‘‘chapter six and a half’’ of the Charter.2 This

scenario immediately attracts intellectual inquisition: why is such an instrumental aspect of

contemporary function of the SC is not engraved in the Charter? Isn’t that omission likely to

create legal morass at some point?

Past Peacekeeping Missions in Africa

Since 1960, there have been a total of 19 peacekeeping missions in Africa and they are

shown in the table3 below:

Dates of Name of Operation

Operation
1960-1964 United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC)

1988-1991 United Nations Angola Verification Mission I (UNAVEM I)

1989-1990 United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG)

1
United Nations. United Nations Peacekeeping. Retrieved March 4, 2010 from

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/

2
Ibid. United Nations
3
United Nations. United Nations Peacekeeping. Retrieved March 8, 2010 from

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/pastops.shtml

3
Dates of Name of Operation
Operation
1991-1995 United Nations Angola Verification Mission II (UNAVEM II)

1992-1994 United Nations Operation in Mozambique (ONUMOZ)

1992-1993 United Nations Operation in Somalia I (UNOSOM I)

1993-1997 United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL)

1993-1994 United Nations Observer Mission Uganda-Rwanda (UNOMUR)

1993-1996 United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR)

1993-1995 United Nations Operation in Somalia II (UNOSOM II)

1994 United Nations Aouzou Strip Observer Group (UNASOG)

1995-1997 United Nations Angola Verification Mission III (UNAVEM III)

1997-1999 United Nations Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA)

1998-1999 United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL)

1998-2000 United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic

(MINURCA)

1999-2005 United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL)

2000-2008 United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE)

2003-2004 United Nations Mission in Côte d'Ivoire (MINUCI)

2004-2007 United Nations Operation in Burundi (ONUB)

Current Peacekeeping Missions in Africa

The UN has ongoing peacekeeping missions in various parts of Africa as is detailed in the

table below4:

4
United Nations. United Nations Peacekeeping. Retrieved March 8, 2010 from

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/currentops.shtml#africa

4
Date of Name of Operation
Commencement of
Operation
1991 United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara
(MINURSO)

1999 United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo (MONUC)

2003 United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL)

2004 United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI)

2005 United Nations Mission in the Sudan (UNMIS)

2007 United Nations/African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID)

2007 United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and

Chad (MINURCAT)

Assessment of the Missions

Peacekeepers in Africa have been plunged into the most intractable problems in

attempting to maintain some kind of order on one of the world’s most violent and unstable

continents. For them the relatively straightforward tasks of merely policing agreements

between states are not an option. They have been called on, rather, to prop up (or re-create)

collapsing states; to intervene in vicious civil wars; and to negotiate and, if need be, enforce

peace settlements among conflicting parties whose commitment to any peaceful resolution of

conflicts was often at best extremely uncertain, and at worst no more than a façade behind

which to prepare a resumption of hostilities.5 The situations which they encountered on the

ground, have often been quite different from what they had expected, and the twists and turns

of the conflicting parties have required the managers of operations on the ground to redefine

5
Clapham, C., The United Nations and Peacekeeping in Africa, Retrieved March 8, 2010 from

http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/monographs/No36/unitednations.html

5
their missions, in frantic communication with a political leadership outside the conflict zone

which saw things in a very different light. Their own motives have been called into question,

and the motives of different states engaged in the same operation have not always been

consistent.6

For the longest time, the only UN operation in Africa was ONUC. This was not because

Africa was devoid of conflict situations warranting UN response but rather due to the Cold

War. Both sides of the ideological divide had their own interests in Africa hence the

unlikelihood of reaching a consensus in the SC so as to run a peacekeeping mission in

response to civil wars in Mozambique, Angola or Ethiopia. It is no wonder that most of the

UN operations that have taken place in Africa have occurred in the post-cold war era. The

end of the Cold War brought a rapid growth in quantity of UN activities in Africa. Soon after,

unsuccessful withdrawal from Somalia and failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda led to the

retrenchment and reassessment of UN operations in Africa7. Major Powers in the SC

retreated from their initial post-Cold War enthusiasm for engagement in African conflicts.

Simultaneously, a debate about possible increased cooperation with regional organizations

emerged.

Two of the most notable successes of the UN occurred in southern Africa. The UN

oversaw the end of the withdrawal of Cuban and South African troops from Angola and

Namibia and organised Namibia’s transition to democratic rule by 1989. The UN also

oversaw the end of the two-decade civil war in Mozambique and monitored the nation’s first

6
Ibid. Clapham
7
Boulden, J., ‘United Nations Security Council Policy on Africa’, in J. Boulden (ed), Dealing With Conflict in
Africa, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p. 11

6
democratic elections in 1994.8 Against these successes are two spectacular failures in Angola

in the 1990s as well as its current struggle to monitor a peace agreement in the Democratic

Republic of Congo (DRC). The 1990s saw the declining of the resources available to the UN

for peace operations in Africa after the debacles in Angola that led to the withdrawal of its

peacekeepers from Angola in 1992 and 1998. The slogan ‘‘African solutions for African

problems’’ became an excuse for the most powerful members of the SC to avoid large scale

UN involvement in Africa.9

Indeed this is particularly true for the case of Darfur and Somalia. Since 2004, the SC has

adopted seven resolutions related to Darfur, where the ongoing conflict has claimed the lives

of more than 200,000 civilians and reduced 2.2 million to the status of refugees or internally

displaced persons (IDPs). In Somalia, the civil war which began in 1991 has destabilised the

country despite fourteen peace agreements. But on both battle fronts the world body is unable

or unwilling to bring peace and stability either for political or logistical reasons. Secretary-

General Ban Ki-moon’s desperate appeal for assistance – including troops, military

equipment, and most importantly, political support from member states – has generated little

positive response.

UN Under-Secretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno, head of Peacekeeping Operations

was more pointed when he said that the international community’s ‘‘often faltering support

for UN peacekeeping operations was making it difficult to maintain gains in key conflict

8
Baregu, M.L., and Landsberg, C., From Cape to Congo: Southern Africa’s Evolving Security Challenges,
(Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003), p. 261
9
Ibid. Baregu and Landsberg, p. 261

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areas.’’10 Compared to Sierra Leone, Liberia and other African countries that have undergone

the morass of civil wars, efforts to resolve the conflict in Somalia doesn’t seem to be ready to

bear any fruit. It is no wonder that former UN Secretary-General Dr. Kofi Annan criticised

member states for their unwillingness to provide unconditional support for peacekeeping

operations. Speaking to a journalist in New York in March 2008, he affirmed that he could

understand why some countries would not put troops on the ground in Darfur for reasons that

he thought could be acceptable but he stated that he could not understand why the countries

could not spare a couple of helicopters which would be effective in sustaining the operations.

Dr. Annan also warned of a new impending danger: the UN was taking over far too many

peace missions which it may be incapable of handling. This is in light of the increasing

number of global conflicts which are mostly occurring in Africa and Asia.

The UN currently has seventeen peacekeeping operations and these include large scale

missions in Africa. In all this, the UN has inadequate troops, military equipment, funds and

the political will of member states. The Horn of Africa is one of the most conflict infested

spots in Africa yet the UN was forced to withdraw from Eritrea and relocate its troops

because of non-cooperation by Eritrean government. To this end, the UN Mission in Ethiopia

and Eritrea which was established in 2000 to monitor a ceasefire that was to end a border war

between the two countries is at a limbo.

The number of UN forces in Africa actually declined in the period between October 2006

and October 2007. While these could be some of the reasons why peacekeeping operation in

10
Deen, T., Africa: UN Peace Missions Falter, Retrieved March 9, 2010 from

http://allafrica.com/stories/200804071853.html

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Africa didn’t achieve their goals, other factors may also play a role in peacekeeping in Africa.

Though conflict was, in some cases, prevented through intervention, often the solution

imposed was a military solution without addressing the underlying issues of Africa’s

conflicts. International players such as the UN are paying too much attention to peacekeeping

and peace building, while none seems to pay much attention in the origins of the conflict in

different parts of Africa such as disputes over either grazing land or seasonal water for

pastoral communities. Recovering from violent conflict is also neglected by the international

community.11

On 4th May 2004 Ms. K. Lock issued a statement on behalf of the African Group on

agenda item 134: Administrative and Budgetary Aspects of the Financing of UN

Peacekeeping Operations. She conveyed disappointment that the UN Secretariat took a long

time to recruit and place personnel for peacekeeping operations. She affirmed that it took the

Secretariat 347 days, significantly higher than the target of 120 days envisaged in the

Secretary-General’s report on human resources management reform (A/55/253). She also

called on the recruitment of qualifying candidates from the regions where the missions are

located.12 This perhaps was in an effort to have people with relatively more knowledge of

conflict contexts of the regions they were being posted to.

11
Tadesse, D., Peacekeeping Successes and Failures in Africa, Retrieved March 11, 2010 from

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SHIG-7RKFTA?OpenDocument

12
Permanent Mission of South Africa to the UN, Statements and Speeches, Retrieved March 11, 2010 from

http://www.southafrica-newyork.net/pmun/view_speech.php?speech=8316105

9
 The UN Peacekeeping operations in Africa have been snared with scandals. By December

2004, investigations had already turned up 150 allegations of sexual misconduct by

peacekeepers and UN staff in MONUC despite the UN’s official policy of “zero-tolerance”.

One found 68 allegations of misconduct in the town of Bunia alone. UN insiders told The

Times that two Russian pilots based in Mbandaka paid young girls with jars of mayonnaise

and jam to have sex with them. They filmed the sessions and sent the tapes to Russia. The

Moroccan peacekeeping contingent based in Kisangani — a town on the Congo River with

no road links to the outside world — had one of the worst reputations. A soldier accused of

rape was apparently hidden in the barracks for a year. In July 2002 the rebel commander

Major-General Jean Pierre Ondekane, who subsequently became Minister of Defence in a

post-war transitional government, told a top UN official that all that MONUC would be

remembered for in Kisangani was “for running after little girls”.13 Even Canadian troops have

been guilty of atrocities: in Somalia, for example, a bound 16-year-old Somali youth, Shidane

Arone, was beaten to death by UNOSOM II Canadian soldiers in March 1993.

While many agree that the UN needs to be reformed, the nature of peacekeeping has

become more complex. As one expert put it, starting in the early 1990s, missions were set up

in countries where there's no peace to keep, where there is an unstable or even dangerous

security environment. So, the strategy shifted from finding solutions that avoided conflict to

sending in armies of peacekeepers who go into combat. According to Paul Heinbecker,

Canada's ambassador to the United Nations in 2001, UN peacekeeping used to involve small,

lightly-armed forces. They would go to a location to provide a buffer between two fighting

13
Clayton, J., and Bone, J., ‘Sex Scandal in Congo Threatens to Engulf UN’s Peacekeepers’ Times Online,

(London), 24 December 2004, Retrieved March 11, 2010 from

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article405213.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

10
nations who wanted to resolve their differences. Now, he says, troops face far greater risks as

they enter brutal civil conflicts with multiple warring factions. More and more, the

peacekeeping job is handed to developing countries such as Bangladesh or Nigeria whose

troops may be ill-equipped and poorly trained.14

Conclusions

Nearly 77% of all UN peacekeeping forces were deployed in Africa. In terms of finance,

African missions have accounted for nearly 75% of the UN’s peacekeeping budget. This

makes the African continent the most important region for UN peacekeeping. African troops

have been involved in all but 10 of the 54 UN peacekeeping operations in the continent since

1948. The experience of UN peacekeeping in the continent has been mixed. UN

peacekeeping has had some success in West Africa in cooperation with regional

organisations, but failed utterly in Somalia and Rwanda (1994), with limited success in the

DRC, Ivory Coast and Darfur.15 Improving the quality of peacekeeping ought to remain an

important policy issues even as reforms are called for at the UN

All having been said, it is important to note that in spite of challenges faced, the UN

peacekeeping operations in Africa have to a greater extent contributed to stability in many

areas which would have otherwise degenerated into statelessness, lawlessness and ultimately

loss of human lives in astronomical proportions. Up to this point, UN peacekeeping

14
Gale Group, The Blue Berets: Sometimes the United Nations Peacekeeping Efforts Prevent or Resolve Grisly
Conflicts; Sometimes They Don’t, Retrieved March 11, 2010 from
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+blue+berets:+sometimes+the+United+Nations+peacekeeping+efforts...-
a0137210474
15
Murshed, S. M., Explaining Civil War: A Rational Choice Approach, (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing,
2010), p. 121

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operations in Africa are contributing immensely towards fulfilling the objectives for which

the UN was created after the end of the 2nd World War.

12
 References

Baregu, M.L., and Landsberg, C., From Cape to Congo: Southern Africa’s Evolving Security

Challenges, (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2003)

Boulden, J., ‘United Nations Security Council Policy on Africa’, in J. Boulden (ed), Dealing With

Conflict in Africa, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003)

Clapham, C., The United Nations and Peacekeeping in Africa, Retrieved March 8, 2010 from

http://www.iss.co.za/pubs/monographs/No36/unitednations.html

Clayton, J., and Bone, J., ‘Sex Scandal in Congo Threatens to Engulf UN’s Peacekeepers’ Times

Online, (London), 24 December 2004, Retrieved March 11, 2010 from

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article405213.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

Deen, T., Africa: UN Peace Missions Falter, Retrieved March 9, 2010 from

http://allafrica.com/stories/200804071853.html

Gale Group, The Blue Berets: Sometimes the United Nations Peacekeeping Efforts Prevent or Resolve

Grisly Conflicts; Sometimes They Don’t, Retrieved March 11, 2010 from

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+blue+berets:+sometimes+the+United+Nations+peacekeeping+

efforts...-a0137210474

Murshed, S. M., Explaining Civil War: A Rational Choice Approach, (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar

Publishing, 2010)

Permanent Mission of South Africa to the UN, Statements and Speeches, Retrieved March 11, 2010

from http://www.southafrica-newyork.net/pmun/view_speech.php?speech=8316105

Tadesse, D., Peacekeeping Successes and Failures in Africa, Retrieved March 11, 2010 from

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/SHIG-7RKFTA?OpenDocument

13
United Nations. United Nations Peacekeeping. Retrieved March 4, 2010 from

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/

United Nations. United Nations Peacekeeping. Retrieved March 8, 2010 from

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/currentops.shtml#africa

United Nations. United Nations Peacekeeping. Retrieved March 8, 2010 from

http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/pastops.shtml

14