In most of its peacekeeping missions the UN's lack of organisation has
been concealed, but Bosnia and Somalia have shown up the problems.
THERE have been 28 United Nations peace-keeping missions since 1948
and each one has been improvised. Even today, with 13 missions in the
field involving 75,000 troops and costing $3000m, there is no command
and control structure within the UN.
Most of the time the peace-keepers get away with it because the
warring parties have fought themselves to a standstill or, as in the
unique case of Iraq, overwhelming power is applied against a regime
universally judged to be evil.
But when these conditions do not apply, as in Bosnia where the UN
forces are ordered back to their barracks by drunken thugs, or in
Somalia where they are now regarded as just another warring faction, all
the weaknesses of the UN's operations are revealed.
Madeleine Albright, US Permanent Representative to the UN, made a
devastating analysis of these weaknesses to a conference on co-operative
security. Her theme was that: ''The United Nations has neither the
resources nor the internal organisation to plan, prepare, organise,
deploy, direct, and service peace-keeping missions.''
There was, she said, a kind
of ''programmed amateurism'' which showed up in the lack of
centralised command and control; in the near total absence of
contingency planning; in hastily recruited, ill-equipped, and often
unprepared troops and civilian staff; in lift arrangements cobbled
together on a wing and a prayer; and in the lack of troop training
standards or standard operational procedures for troops in the field or
under fire.
She also criticised ''the Byzantine and drawn-out budgetary
decision-making process, and the lack of a durable financial basis for
starting and sustaining peace-keeping operations''.
What then can be done? Ambassador Albright said that the United States
is in favour of what amounts to the formation of a UN General Staff and
rapid-reaction force with its own recruitment, training, intelligence,
logistic, and communications services and its own budget -- its own
army, in fact.
Although she did not say so, it is obvious that the United States sees
itself as playing the leading role in this UN army with one of its
senior military officers as commander-in-chief since it would provide
most of the money and the advanced weaponry.
Certainly, since the removal of the Soviet army from the world scene,
the Americans have viewed their role as spreading sweetness and light
round the world. After the Gulf war, President Bush spoke of a ''new
world order'' and President Clinton was happy to follow the same theme.
It is significant that the American forces are rewriting their
training manuals to include ''the mission of civilisation'' as part of
their military code.
The problem is how an American-led United Nations army will enforce
that ''mission of civilisation'' when nationalistic peoples, many of
them newly released from big-power bondage by collapse of the Soviet
empire, refuse to accept it.
After the 100-hour blitzkreig in the desert which wrecked the Iraqi
army, the allied commanders called off the chase to Baghdad. There were
good military reasons for not going into the city, but the allies were
sure that Saddam Hussein would be toppled by his own enraged people.
He is still there, seemingly as powerful as ever, despite sanctions
and Tomahawk cruise missiles, and with every Tomahawk crashing into
Baghdad to cause ''collateral damage'' his position grows stronger.
Then we have the paradox of Bosnia where no military action is being
taken to stop the killing and ''ethnic cleansing'', and Somalia where
some of the most fearsome weapons in the American armoury have been used
with the usual ''collateral damage'' -- death and destruction -- in a
failed attempt to kill or capture a tribal warlord.
In all three cases the UN has been demeaned and, in Bosnia and
Somalia, where the Blue Berets were greeted in joy as liberators, they
are now spat upon as betrayers and enemies.
IT is not the fault of the soldiers, most of whom are doing their best
in an impossible situation, but the strains of failure are causing
dissent between the commanders and governments of the national
contingents.
The most public quarrel has been that between the Italians and the
Americans with the Americans putting pressure on the UN to demand the
recall of the Italian commander, General Bruno Loi, following his
criticism of the American helicopter attack on the command centre of the
warlord, General Aidid.
The Italians, who have a traditional interest in Somalia, furiously
rejected the UN demand with Foreign Minister Beniamino Andreatta telling
the US TV station, CNN: ''There would be heated debate in the
Westminster Parliament if the Foreign Minister reported that there had
been a helicopter bombardment in Belfast in order to capture an IRA
leader''.
Here, then, lies the true weakness of the UN peace-keeping operations,
for what is lacking is not only a properly funded and organised military
establishment but, more important, proper political decisions on aims
and objectives and the means to achieve them.
One of the major lessons of the war in Vietnam was that you do not win
the ''hearts and minds'' of the people by burning down their villages.
Similarly, if you have a ''mission of civilisation'' it must be
conducted in a civilised fashion.
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