Ivory Coast

[JMA]

There has been no military interventions led by the UN since Corean war and Shabba war in DRC. That means since the 60.
We can look at desert storm as a UN military intervention carried out by a coalition of powers with UN mandat. But what is different from the 2 previous engagement is that no one did it under the UN flag. (Debatable, I know)

What Ivory Coast is demonstrating is that there is a need now to come back to military intervention under UN flag. We cannot just let democratic process being droped down in Africa just because there are too many local interrest and not enough international interrests (or too much for some countries as France in that particular case).

Perhaps we need to return to first principles. There is peacekeeping and there is peacemaking. In the Ivory Coast the UN was engaged in a peacekeeping exercise and in that it failed in a spectacular fashion as with UN Rwanda, Bosinia and Darfur operations.

Did the eariler UNSC resolutions give the UN peacekeeping force the "teeth" to keep-the-peace? By Res-1975(?) they were given the Libyan type authority to use whatever means necessary to protect civilians. So what they and the French do? Protect European civilians, allow the North to invade the South, fire on Gbagbo and his military bases and totally ignore the Ivorian civilians (whose protection they were specifically charged).

But to be fair the success of the Libyan campaign has been hugely over-blown and really apart from the enforcing of the no-fly-zone and halting Gaddafi's march on Bengazi civilians elsewhere (Misrata, Zintan etc) have been fed to the wolves. Equally pathetic execution and not under any UN control.

So by what mechanism would the UN be empowered to keep-the-peace?

Would we ever see the UN force on the ground being authorised to act immediately if the situation demands without having to wait for a new UNSC resolution?

I would really support JMA point on the fact that Outtara, even if he did cheat, just as Gbagbo, has won the elections!
We need a commitement from UNSC to act! Chinese did it in Lybia by buying the rebels oil. There is a need to increase political pressure at UNSC on the 5 guys who decide and nuke Gbagbo forces once for all. UN have the control of air (even without the french)! This should be possible to take down Gbagbo heavy artillery, mortars and armored vehicules.
Once it's done for good, Outtara troops can clean up the place with air support and strike straignt to Gbagbo HQ.

Yes he won and that was agreed by all the election monitors etc. The transition should be as smooth as in western Europe and where there is the potential for it not to happen like in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Ivory Coast there must be a means of enforcing the will of the people.

Here we need to bear in mind the Hamas example (for the future in the Middle East and North Africa) where the will of the people place a government in power which had unacceptable policies and beliefs to some major powers. The will of the people must prevail but that does not preclude certain countries from refusing to "recognise" that government or fund it or otherwise if they find its policies and beliefs abhorrent.

This should be applied to the Ouattara government when finally installed. Full recognition and acceptance and even full diplomatic recognition should be withheld subject to the investigation and prosecution of "war crimes" in the current period.

So I am more than a little concerned about Ouattara's forces cleaning up anything. I know and you know what that means in Africa. I would suggest that once Gbagbo is out the Northern Forces be required to pull back to the northern side of the buffer zone and the UN take responsibility to police the South until the new government can put as close to an independent force together to carry out that duty.

Extraordinary efforts will be required in the wake of the current violence (when it is finally brought under control).

Keeping this wait and see posture is want makes short wars turn to infinite bloody civil wars.
Saying we will hold every criminal accountable is nice but if you do not have the power to impose the very first step of Right, then it's yelling in the desert.

Exactly. And it is astounding to see countries and supposedly intelligent people placing the human-rights of the likes of Gbagbo, Gaddafi, Mugabe higher than those of millions of the citizens of those countries. But does anyone really care? Nobody cares.

Certainly at UNSC level there is Russia and China with a predictably negative veto power which makes pre-emptive action for the good (humanitarian reasons) very difficult.

This is why more people than would care to admit are begrudgingly accepting that when all else fails GWB's unilateralism is probably what must happen. This could be by France, Britain a neighbouring state, whatever.