The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to send 12,000 peacekeepers to the Central African Republic (CAR), barely a few months after France sent more troops to assist an intervention in the country. The crisis in CAR, which has fast become a bloody sectarian conflict, is threatening regional stability in Central Africa.
This peacekeeping mission is a response of the United Nations to the human rights abuses and the deteriorating security situation in CAR, where tens of thousands of people are caught in the crossfire between a Muslim rebel government and Christian militiamen.
This peacekeeping force is going against a fresh backdrop of criticism the UN has faced recently from Doctors Without Borders for the ‘shocking display of indifference’ of its mission shown to refugees by its personnel in South Sudan (bordering CAR).
Though the UN is largely credited with having negotiated an end to the Salvadoran Civil War, a successful peacekeeping mission in Namibia and overseeing democratic elections in post-apartheid South Africa, it has had more troubled missions on its plate like the crisis in Somalia, Haiti, Mozambique and the former Yugoslavia.
UN missions have always been explained as necessary but have never fully enjoyed an excellent reputation. UN personnel have been accused of sexual abuse including child rape, gang rape, and soliciting prostitutes during peacekeeping missions in the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan, Burundi and Côte d’Ivoire. Mismanagement and confusion (and now indifference) has quickly overshadowed the ‘false renaissance’ of the UN.
In the paper, The Fall of Srebrenica and the Failure of UN Peacekeeping by the Human Rights Watch, the opening lines were: “The fall of the town of Srebrenica and its environs to Bosnian Serb forces in early July 1995 made a mockery of the international community’s professed commitment to safeguard regions it declared to be ‘safe areas’ and placed under United Nations protection in 1993. United Nations peacekeeping officials were unwilling to heed requests for support from their own forces stationed within the enclave, thus allowing Bosnian Serb forces to easily overrun it and — without interference from UN soldiers — to carry out systematic, mass executions of hundreds”.
With the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide (where 800,000 people were killed) fresh in mind, it is also not easy to forget the disastrous role played by the UN there in its attempt to avoid a failed mission like that in Somalia. It is, then, hard to feel relieved about the response of the UN for CAR. One would hope that the UN is successful but one has very little precedent to base the hope on.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 14th, 2014.
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The criticism is unwarranted. First of all, the UN previously did not have the right to engage militants through the use of force. That approval had to come from the UN HQ in New York which was dependent on the security council. The people on the ground in UN Peacekeeping missions were just as frustrated as you seem to be. Your approach to things are based on Television characters like the avengers which in itself is juvenile. Its the job of the UN peacekeeping Missions to maintain Peace primarily through political means which promotes confidence amongst the warring faction. Use of force is not the primary method. This is not what the UN Peacekeeping force is about. The only place where i agree with you is in Srebernica where it was UN's responsibility to provide protection for people in the UN compounds.
However having said that, there has been changes in the Peacekeeping Operations with authorization of use of Force in Congo DRC and Mali. This authorization has been given to the Peacekeeping operation through the security council.
This person who has written this article obviously has not done her homework, just by going to the UN peacekeeping Operations website, she would know what they are objectives and area of operations are.