Understanding Peacekeeping. Alex J. Bellamy
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the mandate: UNAMIR’s mandate was unsuited to the situation in Rwanda and lacked contingencies and fall-back positions. This was a product of a lack of will on the part of member states but also the UN’s failure to inform the Security Council accurately about the situation in Rwanda before the genocide.
2 Implementation of the mandate: UNAMIR’s mandate was implemented cautiously, focusing on preserving the appearance of neutrality under a traditional peacekeeping mandate that was unsuited to the context. UNAMIR should have done more to alert headquarters and the Security Council to the inadequacy of this approach.
3 Confusion over the rules of engagement: UNAMIR never received a response to requests for guidance about the rules of engagement, resulting in a critical lack of clarity regarding which rules were in force.
4 Failure to respond to the genocide: At the beginning of the genocide, UNAMIR failed to take steps – such as establishing roadblocks and protecting VIPs – to respond to the early massacres. It said that it would protect politicians and failed to do so; civilians who fled to UN compounds in search of protection were sometimes abandoned to their fate. This failure stemmed from poor intelligence and information and the inability of UNAMIR’s commander to exert practical command over his troops.
5 Inadequate resources and logistics: UNAMIR had only five roadworthy armoured personnel carriers, one helicopter and insufficient medical supplies for its personnel. Troops in Kigali reported that they had one to two days’ worth of drinking water, up to two days’ worth of food rations and two to three days’ worth of fuel reserves.
6 Inappropriate focus on ceasefire: Once the genocide had begun, UNAMIR and UN headquarters were focused more on negotiating a ceasefire than they were on protecting civilians. From the Secretary-General down, UN officials held meetings with those associated with the genocidaires in which they focused on securing a ceasefire rather than conveying outrage at the genocide.
7 Lack of analytical capability: UNAMIR lacked sufficient focus or the institutional capacity systematically to gather and analyse information in order to build an accurate picture of the situation or provide early warning.
8 Failure to protect: UNAMIR failed to protect political leaders, civilians and national staff even where promises to protect had been made or where people had gathered seeking the UN’s protection. ‘Tragically’, the report found, ‘the trust placed in UNAMIR by civilians left them in a situation of greater risk when the UN troops withdrew than they would have been anyway’ (1999: 43).
9 Flow of information: The flow of information was sporadic, resulting in critical information either being lost or not getting into the hands of appropriate decision-makers. Several members of the Security Council complained that they were not made aware of Dallaire’s now famous telegram.
10 Organizational problems: Poor personal relations and unclear lines of communication and authority within UNAMIR and between the Secretary-General, UN staff and the Security Council hindered the transfer of information.
The report concluded, therefore, that the UN’s failure in Rwanda was created largely by a critical disjuncture – endemic in many UN operations at the time – between the tasks given to the peacekeepers and their conceptual and material tools. For largely political reasons (the US would not support a large complex operation so soon after Somalia), UNAMIR was conceived in traditional terms, even though its operational context meant that the basic assumptions necessary for such peacekeeping were not in place (see chapter 8).
These conclusions echoed those of the UN’s report on the Srebrenica massacre, issued a month earlier. Unlike the Rwanda report, the UN’s report on Srebrenica was written by the UN Secretariat and issued in the name of the Secretary-General. What made this report different, however, was that it was not revised by political officers and senior officials. (Usually, UN reports are redrafted and the wording finessed as they make their way through the system.) The report argued that the collapse of Srebrenica was particularly shocking because the town had been designated a ‘safe area’ by the UN and thousands of civilians had fled there seeking protection. However, the Dutch peacekeepers were denied the resources, support and mandate necessary to protect Srebrenica.
In relation to resources, the ‘safe area’ was garrisoned by approximately 200 Dutch peacekeepers with limited mobility and armed only with light weapons. The peacekeepers were not regularly resupplied and confronted critical shortages of fuel, ammunition and other basic supplies. They faced approximately 2,500 Bosnian Serb soldiers equipped with heavy artillery. In relation to support, on at least three occasions the Dutch commander in Srebrenica requested aerial support – a request denied by UNPROFOR’s leadership (with the backing of UN headquarters) for mainly political reasons. In relation to the mandate, Dutch peacekeepers were not expressly authorized to use force to protect civilians in the safe area, and the commander was issued a directive to place force protection ahead of all other considerations (Annan 1999b: §§471–4). Annan conceded that ‘we were, with hindsight, wrong to declare repeatedly and publicly that we did not want to use air power against the Serbs’ (ibid.: §483).
The report found that, as in Rwanda, these operational problems were rooted in deeper political problems in the Security Council. Once again, the Security Council was focused on trying to keep the peace when there was no peace to keep (Annan 1999b: §488) and delivering humanitarian aid in the false belief that this would help remedy the situation. Moreover, decisions about the nature and direction of UNPROFOR were taken on the basis of false assumptions about Serbian war aims (ibid.: §§496–7). As a result, peacekeepers were put into situations where they might be required to use force but without the political support or resources to do so effectively and pursue the strategy through to its conclusion (see Goulding 1996: 15–17).
The report identified a series of lessons for the future, four of which are particularly important here. First, when missions are not supported by a unified Security Council, they are more likely to fail. Second, peace operations and war-fighting are distinct, and the former must only be deployed with clear mandates, support and adequate resources. As the report put it,
Peacekeepers must never again be told that they must use their peacekeeping tools – lightly armed soldiers in scattered positions – to impose the ill-defined wishes of the international community on one or another of the belligerents by military means. If the necessary resources are not provided – and the necessary political, military and moral judgments are not made – then the job simply cannot be done. (Annan 1999b: §498)
Third, while safe zones could play a useful role in protecting civilians, it was important to clarify the precise nature of the zone. ‘Protected zones’, ‘safe areas’ or ‘safe havens’ should fall into one of two types: either properly demilitarized zones created under the authority of international humanitarian law enjoying the consent of the belligerents; or safe areas that are not demilitarized or do not enjoy the consent of the belligerents that are ‘fully defended by a credible military deterrent’ (ibid.: §499). In Bosnia, however, ‘safe areas were established by the Security Council without the consent of the parties and without the provision of any credible military deterrent’ (ibid.). Several members of the Security Council and UN officials warned of this problem but were ignored.
The fourth and ‘cardinal’ lesson from Srebrenica was that a strategy of genocide and ethnic cleansing must be met ‘decisively with all necessary means, and with the political will to carry the policy through to its logical conclusion’ (Annan 1999b: §502). Ultimately, only the appropriate threat and use of military force is likely to deter attacks and protect the civilian population. UNPROFOR, like UNAMIR, was not equipped to fulfil this role.
Conclusion
A triple transformation of UN peace operations began between 1988 and 1993, comprising quantitative, normative and qualitative changes to their role and scope. During this period the UN gradually took on more, and more complex, operations than in its previous forty years combined. Encouraged by important early successes in Central America, Namibia and Cambodia, the UN’s expansion of peace operations, however, left the organization