UN peacekeeping operations (catch all)

[SWJED]

24 Jan. Washington Post - U.N. Finds Waste in Peacekeeping Work.

An internal U.N. probe of the department that runs international peacekeeping operations has uncovered extensive evidence of mismanagement and possible fraud, and triggered the suspension of eight procurement officials pending an investigation, according to U.N. officials and documents.

U.N. investigators have uncovered rampant waste, price inflation and suspicion that employees colluded with vendors in awarding contracts for a variety of peacekeeping programs, said a confidential report presented to several governments Monday.

Peacekeepers, for example, spent $10.4 million to lease a helicopter for use in East Timor that could have been secured for $1.6 million, and paid $2.4 million to buy seven aircraft hangars in Congo that were never used, the report said. An additional $65 million or more was spent for fuel that was not needed for missions in Sudan and Haiti, said the report, which called for an investigation into whether U.N. staff members improperly "colluded to award" one U.N. supplier an $85.9 million fuel contract for the Sudan mission.

The failure of U.N. managers to enforce basic standards has led to a "culture of impunity" in U.N. spending, according to the report. Together, it says that there are "strong" indications of fraud involving contracts whose value totaled about $193 million, nearly 20 percent of the $1 billion in U.N. business examined by the auditors...

[SWJED]

23 Feb. Voice of America - Fraud, Abuse Charges Threaten U.N. Peacekeeping.

Japan and the United States have warned that funding for U.N. peacekeeping operations might be cut unless reforms are made promptly. The two countries contribute nearly half of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. U.N. Security Council is taking a close look at management of peacekeeping missions worldwide.

Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima told the Security Council Wednesday his country's support of peacekeeping operations is under threat because of persistent reports of waste and fraud in purchasing equipment and supplies.

"I feel compelled to say that, unless immediate and convincing measures are taken to redress the problem, my government, which currently contributes about 20 percent of the PKO budget, will find it very difficult to maintain domestic support for underwriting peacekeeping operations," said Kenzo Oshima.

Washington's U.N. Ambassador John Bolton called the Japanese envoy's statement "electrifying". Bolton, who has repeatedly criticized U.N. management practices as a "culture of inaction", told the Security Council U.S. taxpayers are like the Japanese in demanding greater accountability from the world body's rapidly expanding peacekeeping operations.

"We must see changes," said John Bolton. "The problem of procurement fraud, waste and abuse is one that directly affects our tax dollars as the largest contributor to the U.N. system, 22 percent in the case of the regular budget, 27 percent in the case of the peacekeeping budget. This means that the United States pays or one-fourth of the price in every case of fraud, waste, and abuse. This is unacceptable."

An internal U.N. report issued last month charged that waste and fraud in peacekeeping procurement had cost the world body as much as $300 million over the past five years. The U.N. operates 18 peacekeeping missions with 85,000 troops, at an estimated cost of $2 billion per year.

Another mission for Darfur is in the planning stages.

U.N. Chief of Staff Mark Malloch Brown told the Security Council Wednesday he was alarmed by reports of fraud. He cautioned that the $300-million figure might be inflated, but at the same time he agreed that there is an urgent need to address concerns of donor countries about how their money is being spent.

"We are extremely sympathetic to the U.S./Japan position on this," said Malloch Brown. "They have a tough case to sell to their legislatures and public opinion, and we have to help them make it, by showing that where there is corruption or management failures, we're acting in a much more proactive way to address them. "

Malloch Brown says he expects many of the management reform issues will be addressed in a report Secretary-General Kofi Annan is to release next week. A broader report addressing questions of procurement reform is due out later this year. But Malloch Brown cautioned that the reforms being proposed will cost the U.N. membership more money.

The world body recently placed eight procurement officers on administrative leave with pay pending an internal probe into purchasing practices. A separate investigation is being conducted by U.S. federal prosecutors.

But U.N. officials have emphasized that the suspension of the eight employees was taken as a proactive measure, and is not a finding of guilt.

[SWJED]

Case in point - Israel preferes a NATO-led mission in S. Lebanon once things settle down. From most accounts that will not be accepted by the other major actors in Lebanon and by extension the Middle East. And so the cycle goes on...

Just a quick question – considering recent history… Seems that the most capable peacekeeping forces are those of the U.S., other NATO member countries, Australia and New Zealand - that said, many of the aforementioned countries are now viewed as having a “vested interest” (read biased) in the outcome of most conflicts by one of the parties of that conflict or the other. Clearly, sending in mediocre (at best) peacekeeping forces from other countries and organizations (to include the U.N.) has not worked well. So, is peacekeeping going the way of the dinosaur?

[Tom Odom]

Dave,

I don't think so, although each case where a PK is called for will be treated individually. The real issue is PK C2; who actually "commands" a PK? In the case of UN forces, the individual contingents have their own national C2 channels that overide the UN and the Force Commander. That happened in UNAMIR 1 and 2.

The other issue is the theater; UN missions in the Mid-East are political bandaids and punching bags for both sides. UNIFIL has been pummeled repeatedly;Israel has played a large role in that, using UNIFIL "failures" as a backdrop to Israeli actions. Hizballah has also taken its toll on UNIFIL in of course OGL; MAJ Peter McCarthy Australian Army and COL Rich Higgins USMC were both killed by Hizballah.

As for the 4 UNMOs killed by Israel in this round, I regard Israeli professions of sorrow and/or regretful accidents as pure propaganda. They have over the years made it standard practice to shoot at UN positions--especially unarmed UN positions as a tactic of intimidation, he Israeli head of security in South Lebanon--my student at CGSC--told me that was the case before I went to OGL and the IDF proved in my first evening on OP. Other UNMOs had similar experiences.

It would be very interesting to see what happens to a NATO PK in South Lebanon, especially one with a robust mandate and one equipped with the weapons and C2 to enforce it.

best
Tom

[sgmgrumpy]

According to our own doctrine There is a HUGE difference between Peace Keeping Operations (PKO) and Peace Enforcement Operations (PEO). Just my 2 cents


JP3-07-.3 Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Peace Operations

Chap II,
1. General
Peace Keeping Operations (PKO) support diplomatic efforts to establish or maintain peace in areas of potential or actual conflict. The United States has participated in and supported UN-sponsored PKO; for example, UNMIH, the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force in the Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia, and others. The United States has also participated in non-UN sponsored PKO, which include the MFO in the Sinai and the MNF I in Beirut.


Chap-III
1. General
The goal of Peace Enforcement Operation (PEO) is to enforce the provisions of a mandate designed to maintain or restore peace and order. PE forces use force or the threat of force to coerce or compel compliance with resolutions or sanctions. In PEO, force is threatened against or applied to belligerent
parties to terminate fighting, restore order, and create an environment conducive to resolving the dispute.


Interesting Read
Journal of International Peace Operations
http://ipoaonline.org/en/journal/journal_2006_0708.pdf

UN Peacekeeping Missions
Since 1948 there have been 60 UN peacekeeping operations, of which 47 have been created by the United Nations Security Council since 1988. Close to 130 nations have contributed personnel at various times, and 105 are currently providing peacekeepers. As of May 31, 2005, there were 16 peacekeeping operations underway with a total of 66,058 personnel, and the top contributors of military and civilian personnel to current missions were Pakistan (9,880), Bangladesh (7,932), India (6,001), and Nepal (3,562).


SOURCE
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0862135.html

[SWJED]

• Security / Stability / Humanitarian Operations - SWJ Reference Library
• United Nations Peace and Security Page - Official Site
• 30 Nations Mulling Role in Int'l Force - Associated Press
• Obstacles Abound to U.N. Mideast Force - Associated Press
• Peacemaking Force Needed - Washington Times Commentary
• Israel's Approach to Peacekeepers - Washington Post Commentary
• Peacemaking and Peacekeeping - OPFOR Blog
• Peacekeeping or Peacemaking? - Threats Watch Blog

[SWJED]

from the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations page on the SWJ Reference Library.

United Nations Peacekeeping Best Practices - United Nations' policy, analysis and lessons learned for the peacekeeping community. Library of documents, including lessons learned studies, discussion papers, policy papers and reports.

Handbook on United Nations Multidimensional Peacekeeping Operations - December 2003. As peacekeeping has evolved, particularly since the late 1980s, a growing number of United Nations peacekeeping operations have become multidimensional in nature, composed of a range of components, including military, civilian police, political affairs, rule of law, human rights, humanitarian, reconstruction, public information and gender. There are also a number of areas, such as mission support and security and safety of personnel, that remain essential to peacekeeping regardless of a particular mission’s mandate. This Handbook is intended to serve as an introduction to the different components of multidimensional peacekeeping operations. It is not intended to provide strategic or policy guidance. Rather, it is intended to provide field personnel who are new to the United Nations, or who are being deployed to one of our multidimensional peacekeeping operations for the first time, with general background on the responsibilities of each component of our operations and how these fit together to form the whole. We have tried to make the Handbook as brief and practical as possible, while doing justice to the broad areas of work in which many of our operations are engaged.

The Use of Force in UN Peace Operations - Simon Chesterman. New York University of Law paper for the United Nations. This paper reviews the changing approach to the use of force in UN peace operations, with particular emphasis on responses to the security vacuum that typically arises in a post-conflict environment. The United Nations has generally been reluctant to allow military units under its command to use force. The three peace operations in which troops under UN command engaged in the use of force on a significant scale — Congo from 1960–1963, Somalia in 1993, and Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1994–1995 — were traumatic experiences for the organization. The controversies to which these operations gave rise were surpassed only by two occasions on which force was not used at all: in Rwanda and Srebrenica. Such reluctance to use force is consistent with the traditional conception of peacekeeping as an impartial activity undertaken with the consent of all parties, in which force is used only in self-defence. Over the years, however, all three characteristics of traditional peacekeeping — consent, impartiality, minimum use of force — have been brought into question.

American Civilian Police in UN Peace Operations - William Hayden. United States Institute of Peace report, July 2001. This report presents the major issues, concerns and recommendations that emerged from the United States Institute of Peace symposium "American Civilian Police in International Peace Operations: What have we learned?"

Evolving Models of Peacekeeping: Policy Implications and Responses - Dr. Bruce Jones and Feryal Cherif. New York State University Center on International Cooperation study. It is an open question whether 11 September 2001 ushered in a fourth phase of evolution in peacekeeping, the first elements of which – an assertive US policy, a shift in geographical focus, a more complex security environment, a challenging political terrain for the UN – are beginning to be played out. At the very least, the more assertive US security policy is producing a series of shifts in the approaches of other states and institutions to security issues (particularly in Europe), which are already altering the strategic landscape within which UN peacekeeping operates. Further, a shift in emphasis within the Security Council towards terrorism, the Middle East, and WMD proliferation is likely, over the medium term, to have an impact on the level of organizational resources devoted to strengthening peacekeeping. Ongoing changes in the pattern of conflict, and changing perceptions of security threats, may yet further reshape the peacekeeping landscape. This paper addresses recent and ongoing evolutions in both the form and context of UN peacekeeping.

Peace(keeping) in Our Time: The UN as a Professional Military Manager - John Hillen. Parameters article, Autumn 1996. This article presents the thesis that the United Nations does not have an inherent capacity for such professional military management, and that such capabilities were not "present but dormant" throughout the Cold War. In fact, the UN is inherently anti-professional in the military sense; at best, it is suited for managing only quasi-military and very limited operations such as observation missions and small, traditional peacekeeping missions. The recent steps taken to professionalize UN military operations have failed because the military capability of the UN cannot be separated from its political nature, from political characteristics that purposely limit and constrain its forays into the functional management of military force. To paraphrase Clausewitz, UN military operations have their own grammar (no matter how unintelligible), but their logic is the logic of the UN's political character.

Policy Challenges of UN Peace Operations - James Baker. Parameters article, Spring 1994. As recently as 1990, a mere handful of US Army officers were seconded to the United Nations as military observers. Barely four years later, Army troops serving under the UN flag (or in direct support of United Nations operations) number in the thousands. US participation in such ventures can be expected to continue, and the Army's institutional interest in UN peace operations is rapidly rising. Like war itself, a peace operation is a military undertaking with a political aim. But unlike warfare, with its long history, peace operations are a relatively recent military phenomenon. Historical precedents are few. This fact alone makes peace operations, in all their forms, a special challenge not only for those who implement policy but for those who make it, both in and out of uniform. The salient policy challenges are in the areas of multilateral operations, mission termination, and combat readiness.

Is the UN Peacekeeping Role in Eclipse? - Robert NcClure and Morton Orlov II. Parameters article, Autumn 1999. To deal with the rising demand for its peacekeeping services, in 1992 the UN created a Department of Peacekeeping Operations--also called DPKO. That department underwent predictable growing pains as member states sought to have the world's premier international organization assume increasing responsibility for resolving conflict in the new world order. This article will outline those initiatives in UN peacekeeping management and describe the recent proposals to restructure DPKO. These recent initiatives, born out of member state frustration, mission/resource mismatch, and a diminished appetite for global agendas, will certainly have a significant effect, in ways yet to be determined, on the next ten years of UN peacekeeping.

[Stu-6]

It seems to me the lesson is that peacekeeping missions need to be very assertive. Due to its structure the UN struggles to create assertive forces both politically and due to lack of troops and equipment. The need to prevent the spread of conflict and minimizing regional fall out will keep peacekeeping from going away whether or not the UN will be able to reclaim its role as the premier peacekeeper will depended on whether or not the structural flaws that hold back it mission are adequately addressed. If not future missions will most likely be handled by regional organization possibly to be passed off to the UN when the situation calms down.

[SWJED]

30 January AP - U.N. Chief Proposes Peacekeeping Reforms by Alexandra Olson.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon formally outlined a proposal Monday to divide peacekeeping into two departments, saying the United Nations was struggling to cope with its mounting peacekeeping responsibilities.

The department runs 18 missions around the world with nearly 100,000 peacekeepers. Recent years had seen "an unprecedented growth in the number and scope of peace operations mandated by the Security Council," Ban said.

One of the new departments would focus on planning, directing and providing political guidance to peacekeeping operations, while the other would be responsible for finance, procurement, and logistics. Each would be headed by an undersecretary-general...

[Mark O'Neill]

Hizballah has also taken its toll on UNIFIL in of course OGL; MAJ Peter McCarthy Australian Army and COL Rich Higgins USMC were both killed by Hizballah.

This is news to most of us in Australia.

Peter McCarthy was killed when his vehicle drove over a landmine. The Australian Army and the Australian War Memorial record his death as such an accident. (see: http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/peacekeeping.htm) . There are literally thousands of landmines in the area where the accident occurred, laid by various belligerants at various times. What evidence is there for the assertion he was killed by Hezbollah?

regards,

Mark

[Tom Odom]

The evidence is the operational zone Peter was killed in had been an area of Hizballah bombings and attacks. As for the thousands of landmines: yes they are there. In Peters case, they were in the middle of a road I had traveled on many times and it appeared at the time there were 2 stacked AT mines or an AT mine with a booster. Amal at the time was not targeting UN personnel; the SLA and the Israelis if the they wanted to target UN personnel used direct fire and indirect fire.

So when I lay it at Hiznallah's door step, I do so as they were the most likely perpetrator. Was it command detonated? No. Was it on a normal LOC? Yes

Was it an "accident"? NO

Best

Tom

[120mm]

The only reasons I can see for the UNIFIL "observers" remaining in the war zone in Lebanon is a) incompetence within UNIFIL. b)UNIFIL is actively siding with Hezbollah by providing "human shields" and intended world reaction when Israel inevitably targets them. or c) a combination of the above. UNIFIL was obviously not "keeping the peace" in the area.

The UN has been demonstrably anti-Israel for some time now. For sure Israel isn't pure as driven snow, but most anti-Israel UN edicts are so transparently designed to "get" Israel as to be laughable.

[Stan]

Greetings SGM !

If memory serves me correctly, the Canadian PKs in Rwanda cruising around in 113s and 114 command posts had M2HBs mounted. I don't know if they considered themselves PKOs or PEOs, but there were belts dangling from the 50's Tom and I encountered.

Just opnion, but I think they could have cared less about the differences in the acronyms considering where they were.

Tom ?

Regards, Stan

[Tom Odom]

The only reasons I can see for the UNIFIL "observers" remaining in the war zone in Lebanon is a) incompetence within UNIFIL. b)UNIFIL is actively siding with Hezbollah by providing "human shields" and intended world reaction when Israel inevitably targets them. or c) a combination of the above. UNIFIL was obviously not "keeping the peace" in the area.

The UN has been demonstrably anti-Israel for some time now. For sure Israel isn't pure as driven snow, but most anti-Israel UN edicts are so transparently designed to "get" Israel as to be laughable.

120

UNIFIL is an armed peacekeeping force in existence since 1978.

UNTSO is an unarmed military observers organization with groups in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, and Israel. UNTSO was established in 1948. UNTSO Liaison teams serve as scouts and negotiators for UNIFIL.

UN observers and UN peacekeepers are soldiers sent by the governments who agreed to do so. UNTSO has for decades included a US Military Observer Group; I was one of them 1987-1988.

None of the peacekeepers whether armed or not set policy. To ascribe to the idea that UN Observers side with Hizballah or any other group is ludicrous.

UN policy toward Israel is in a word "convoluted" and all sides--including Israel--use it to their advantage.

Tom

[tequila]

Tom Odom, I had no idea you were actively siding with Hizbullah. Shoudn't you then be posting in the "Indigenous" board?

James Dobbins writing for RAND is instructive as to the U.N. record in peacekeeping/nation building, both in terms of both faults and successes.

[Tom Odom]

Tom Odom, I had no idea you were actively siding with Hizbullah. Shoudn't you then be posting in the "Indigenous" board?

James Dobbins writing for RAND is instructive as to the U.N. record in peacekeeping/nation building, both in terms of both faults and successes.

Hmmm maybe so...I hope some day that the thugs who kidnapped Rich Higgins stand against a wall.

In many ways my service as a UN observer in Lebanon and losing friends on the ground prepared me for Rwanda and some of the failures there. It also allowed me to understand just how hamstrung a Force Commander like MG Romeo Dallaire or MG Guy Tousignant could be. Dallaire's book catalogs all of that well when discussing UNAMIR 1; Shahyar Khan--the Senior Rep for the UN Secretary General and senior civilian for UNAMIR 2--does the same for the reborn UNAMIR in his book.

As a US DATT I worked closely with both UNAMIR 2 and the new Rwandan government--especially the military. Sometimes that was much like being a UN observer in Lebanon again; both sides saw you as suspect or sympathetic to the other side. The latter was certainly true because I did sympathize with both sides and sometimes one had to choose.

In the case of Kibeho and the massacre in April 95, my role was to report what I saw as accurately as possible and report the views reported or held by all sides. MG Tousignant and I differed on casualty counts; he was reporting as a UN officer based on what he got from below. I did the same but I did my own assessment. Later when we talked, he told me that he recognized that our agendas could not always be the same. In the case of Kibeho, the divergence was one of perspective; he was the FC charged with a mandate (one defunct before his troops deployed) to protect persons at risk. That gave him an immediate perspective on Kibeho. And he rightly violated UN orders when he put troops in the middle of the camp and kept them there. The Aussies and the Zambians did the best anyone could do. My perspective was longer, predating his as I saw what was happening in Kibeho as a direct extension of the civil war and genocide. In my view what happended was tragic and largely unavoidable because it was inside Rwanda. The greater tragedy was that Kibeho heralded what was going to happen in Zaire and none of us--Tousignant, Khan, David Rawson, Bob Gribbin, and I--could get that message across or perhaps could stimulate the proper responses from the greater international community.

Lebanon is both the same and different. Conflicting agendas just like Rwanda abound and have their effects on those on the ground. The big difference is the attention that Lebanon draws routinely versus the attention that Rwanda (and the larger Congo War) drew by exception.

The RAND report is quite interesting.

best

Tom

PS

As an inveterate table of contents and bibliography scanner, I downloaded the RAND study and looked at it. My initial assessment is that it sets high goals and fails to meet them. For example:

The UN missions selected are relevant; many that were not selected are more relevant. There is no mention of UNAMIR 1 or 2; both missions were involved in nation building.

I studied the 1960s Congo operation in depth when researching and writing LP 14; the scholarship shown in this study on the Congo is remarkably shallow. Brian Urqhart and Conor O'Brien's books are not in the bibliography. Urqhart's book on UN peackeeping is seminal; he was by the way that British intelligence officer who dared question the wisdom of OP Market Garden and was relieved for "exhaustion."

I will add more as I finish the study.

[120mm]

Tom, I didn't mean to imply the observers set the policy. Perhaps it is the "convoluted" nature of the UN chain of command that required that they stay where they were, despite a full-out shooting war going on.

This thread gave me some food for thought last night. I have never been a big fan of "peacekeeping" missions. They always strike me as kind of like the guy who plugs the relief valve on his pressure cooker because it keeps going off.

[Tom Odom]

120MM,

I hear what you are saying and it is quite true: the policy chefs ignore the pot and the staff cleans up.

That aside, I often pose the question about alternatives to UN PKOs: simply who else will do it?

We struggle right now with the question of filling needs in Iraq for a war we essentially decided was necessary. Elsewhere in the world, conflicts go on most don't even hear about. I put Carl's Congo Sitreps on here because they offer insights into the insane world of MONUC--the largest PKO in history.

Darfur in Sudan continues to befuddle Western and African efforts to unravel. Faulty or not, the UN is often the only venue for action.

best

Tom

[Stan]

AllAfrica reports on the recent sentencing of former Rwandan Army Major Ntuyahaga who stood trial in Belgium over the Genocide. Ntuyahaga was sentenced to 20 Years in Jail for the killing of 10 Belgian Peacekeepers in 1994.

Bernad Ntuyahaga, 55, was convicted yesterday by a Belgian court which has been trying him. However, the court acquitted him of murdering then Rwandan PM Agathe Uwilingiyimana.

The murders, committed in front of Rwandan army officers, triggered the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers.

Belgium's prime minister told the court that had peacekeepers stayed, thousands of lives could have been saved.

International fallout

Prosecutors said Ntuyahaga took the peacekeepers from the residence of Mrs Uwilingiyimana, who they were trying to protect. He then handed them over to fellow soldiers in a military camp in the capital, Kigali, where they were beaten to death, shot or slain with machetes.

Christine Dupont, the widow of Belgian peacekeeper Christophe Dupont, said before the verdict: "It's a very important day, a day we have been waiting for the last 13 years."

It is not the first time Rwandans have stood trial in Belgium over the Genocide. Two Catholic nuns, a university professor and a businessman were sentenced in 2001 to between 12 and 20 years' jail for aiding the mass murders.

[sgmgrumpy]

From Ottawa to Sarajevo
Canadian Peacekeepers in the Balkans
Dawn M. Hewitt, 1998

This is the 18th in a series of security studies by Queen's University Centre for International Relations (QCIR) under the title of Martello Papers.

DOWNLOAD PDF HERE: