UN peacekeeping operations (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

A short BBC report, topical as the focus is Mali:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-34812600

Why the most dangerous?

Mali (Minusma) - 53 deaths

• Sudan (Unamid, hybrid mission in Darfur with African Union) - 48 deaths
• DR Congo (Monusco) - 18 deaths
• South Sudan (Unmiss) - 17 deaths
• Ivory Coast (Unoci) - 16 deaths

Source: UN figures from 2013 up to 31 October 2015, excluding deaths from illness

[davidbfpo]

A "broad brush" comment on peacekeeping's effect at home, accentuated by the USA and a few others hiring so many soldiers from "developing countries" who return home with quite different ideas:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/op...ome-home.html?

[davidbfpo]

Excluding the now quite small UK contingent in Cyprus, with UNCYPF, the UK has ten military personnel wearing a blue beret. Although the UK does pay a lot for peacekeeping by others.

The price in blood others paid:

The tragic loss of 456 UK service personnel in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2016 has quite rightly dominated the media in the UK but how many of us are aware that 1,733 UN peacekeepers have also died in the line of duty during the same period?

Link:http://defenceindepth.co/2016/03/02/...-back-in-blue/

[davidbfpo]

A NYT article by Anthony Banbury, an American senior UN official who has resigned after thirty years service. Here is key reason:

But in terms of its overall mission, thanks to colossal mismanagement, the United Nations is failing.

His slim Wiki bio:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Banbury

Some harsh comments on several UN peacekeeping missions: Haiti, Mali and CAR too.
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/op...ling.html?_r=0

[davidbfpo]

A book review spotted today via twitter of 'The fog of peace: a memoir of international peacekeeping in the 21st century'. By Jean-Marie Guhenno. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press:http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...346.12564/epdf

Here is one passage:

The fog of peace is not only one of the very best books to have been written about UN peacekeeping for a long time; it is one that also offers profound insights into the political, practical and moral dilemmas and challenges presented by international eorts, through the UN, to address the causes and consequences of violent conflict in the early twenty-first century.

[davidbfpo]

An article on the very few, four Casspir MRAP vehicles deployed in Mali, with the Chadian-Guinean contingent:http://armamentresearch.com/the-cass...nusma-in-mali/

The Casspir is part of the South African "family" of COIN vehicles from the "bush wars" of the apartheid era. In Mali they are not so heavily armed.

[davidbfpo]

I know South Sudan is lurching, again, into a civil war, but just spotted a Tweet two days old from People's China Daily:

1 Chinese peacekeeper killed, another 6 injured in continuing fighting in Juba, South Sudan, July 10

Not seen that in the BBC's reporting.

Updated from the BBC's long backgrounder on the fighting includes:

Two Chinese UN peacekeepers and one South Sudanese UN worker were among those killed in the fighting.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-36772762