Global Policy Forum

By Simon Tisdall

Recent emergencies affecting peacekeeping missions in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sudan have deepened concerns that the UN could face another Srebrenica or Rwanda-style disaster unless member states move urgently to increase funding, troop contributions and political support. Officials say there is broad agreement that UN operations, which have expanded rapidly in recent years to include 18 military deployments and numerous peace-building and political missions, are over-stretched and under-resourced. But no clear plan has yet emerged in New York on how to fix the problem.

Addressing a special security council session convened last month by Britain and France, Alain Le Roy, head of UN peacekeeping operations, said the Congo mission had tottered on the "brink of catastrophe" after it was forced to take sides in recent fighting. Its numbers have since been increased but many reinforcements have not arrived. Le Roy also warned that the under-strength UN-African Union hybrid operation in Darfur "continues to face difficulties in deploying while the parties on the ground are increasingly belligerent". Working amid ongoing conflicts of this kind raised a basic question about the purpose of peacekeeping when there was in effect no peace to keep, he said. "I believe 2009 is a pivotal year for peacekeeping," Le Roy said. "A number of our missions face risks that are so significant that there is a potential for mission failure, with terrible consequences ... I hope we will not need a new generation of reports full of regretful lessons such as those that followed the tragedies in Rwanda and Srebrenica before we address the challenges we face." The collective failure to halt the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Bosniaks in an UN-protected area in Srebrenica, Bosnia, caused a crisis of confidence in UN operations. But in recent years peacekeeping has become the solution of choice for international crises ranging from Kosovo, Afghanistan and Lebanon to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Burundi and southern and western Sudan. About 113,000 soldiers, police and civilians are now deployed worldwide at an annual cost of $8bn, compared with 14,000 a decade ago. In the past month alone, the Security Council has launched a new UN-flagged mission in Chad and decided to take over the beleaguered AU operation in Somalia.

Enthusiasts say the UN's legitimacy and political neutrality and its ability to link security assistance to conflict resolution, aid and development programmes is unique. UN peacekeepers are also cheaper to deploy than national armies, according to an Oxford university survey. A US government study estimated it would cost twice as much to have the American army run the UN's current stabilisation mission in Haiti. Peacekeeping spending accounted for roughly 0.5% of global military spending of $1,232bn in 2006. Expansion has brought mounting problems. Le Roy and other UN officials say chronic operational overstretch – measured in lack of troops, training, equipment, airlift capacity and logistical and intelligence support – is compounded by political overstretch. This means that peacekeeping mandates no longer simply require that two warring sides are kept apart. UN missions are now increasingly expected to facilitate peace processes, reform judicial systems, train security forces, disarm and reintegrate former combatants and support refugees. Some countries exhibit increased hostility to UN missions, an extreme example being the crippling Eritrean restrictions imposed on Ethiopia-Eritrea border monitors that resulted in their withdrawal last year. At the same time, poorly disciplined troops can make themselves unpopular. Blue berets have been accused at different times of serious sexual and other abuses in Haiti, Cambodia and several African countries. Another big problem is the tendency of Security Council members to substitute UN peacekeeping for genuine political efforts to resolve long-running disputes. "For many of our missions there is no consensus in the international community regarding optimal political direction," Le Roy said. Political inertia has turned some missions into museum pieces. Peacekeepers have been sitting on the Green Line in Cyprus continuously since 1964. UN military observers were first sent to the India-Pakistan ceasefire line in Kashmir in 1949. They're still there, observing.

Practical ways to meet expanding peacekeeping demand, now under discussion, include bigger contributions of personnel and cash from tight-fisted countries such as Russia, closer co-ordination with regional organisations, increased reserve capacity, better training and wider acceptance that sometimes a new peacekeeping operation is not the answer – or an existing one is simply not working. John Sawers, Britain's UN ambassador, said effective oversight, improved resources, clearer mandates and performance benchmarks were all important. The Security Council should adopt a more strategic approach in deciding when and where to launch peacekeeping missions and ensuring they succeeded, he said. "Let's put our own house in order first."