Peacekeeping Salon

I’m not sure whether Mark Malan is trying to make a realist or idealist case for Somalia, but no force of the sizes contemplated would be able to control the southern half of that country, on the ground, against the will of its fighting factions. But if we are talking coalition, how about one with a primarily maritime and maritime air component? Somalia is just the right shape for naval aviation (including helicopters). Most of the NATO Response Force is afloat and not doing so much; why not use it to halt piracy in east African/Horn waters, promoting commerce, and to interdict the airborne khat trade, forcing Somalia to sober up? Then, under its wing, try some well-protected, on-scene mediation. Meanwhile, any group that interferes with food distribution gets a prompt visit from the overwatch.

In principle, the same sort of overwatch could support UNAMID, as Darfur is about the same size and shape as southern Somalia. But Darfur isn’t lucky enough to have an ocean–or a stable, friendly country with big airbases–a few minutes flying time from trouble. Meaning that supportive airpower would need to be based in Sudan, and why not? That’s where the problem is. UNAMID faces a functional, predatory state manipulating the fate of peoples and peacekeepers to its ongoing advantage. That is why I previously stressed the limits of dealing with symptoms when causes run free; the government in Khartoum has played the international community–and its own population–for two decades, yet those who would help persist in trying to drink from a full-pressure fire hose instead of changing the decisions of those who control the hydrant. This will require concerted major power pressure on Khartoum, with Chinese cooperation, in pursuit of a solution that will do a better job of keeping the oil flowing than will continued instability.
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The Secretary-General’s last report on Somalia provides necessary but not necessarily sufficient requirements for a hope of success with a UN integrated mission, implicitly one which would try to build a whole state apparatus. I agree with you, we need to heed the lessons of 1993 and not blunder into another “mission impossible” — a point that I have been trying to make.

The S-G does present a less aspirational scenario and contingency plan — for a robust (8,000 strong) “stabilization force” to replace the Ethiopians and hopefully reduce political polarization while committing fewer human rights abuses, reducing “collateral damage” (see the latest) and maybe even helping to create a bit more humanitarian space. He rightly says that this is not a job for the UN, but requires a coalition of the willing made up of nations with high-end military capabilities. The chances of actually generating such a force have to be as poor, if not worse, than those of producing another UN “super mission”. READ MORE

I’d like to pull out and discuss one line in Mark Malan’s latest entry: “The Secretary-General adds that the majority of the parties should state their agreement to the deployment of an integrated United Nations peacekeeping operation…” Majority consent. Isn’t that what the UN had the last time it went into Somalia? As in, minus the major fighting faction? To me, the conditions and objectives specified in the report that Mark cites are essentially identical to those in spring 1993 when the UN last got badly burned in Somalia, except that the occupying force there this time–the Ethiopian army–is not nearly so careful or impartial in its use force or its political sentiments as was US-led UNITAF in winter 1992-93. The outside world keeps trying to build a modern state in this place that’s never really had one. That absence didn’t matter much until the West began worrying about “ungoverned spaces” as potential havens for terrorists. Well, news flash: it’s a lot easier to raid an ungoverned space when you have intel on a terror cell there than it is to build and fund a whole state apparatus just to keep out the guys who want to build that cell.

As to Somalia being UNPK’s final straw/bridge too far/barrel over the falls: too late, done that, gone there: Darfur. READ MORE

I have been reluctant to contribute to this conversation because I have so little background in the broader issues. I have for the past nine years worked exclusively in attempting to secure a just peace for Sudan and in improving humanitarian access to Sudan’s immensely distressed populations. My efforts have nonetheless touched on issues that are obviously central to this broader discussion of peacekeeping, so I offer this very modest contribution, focusing exclusively on Darfur (the UN Mission in Sudan [UNMIS] peace support operation in southern Sudan, deployed following the January 2005 “Comprehensive Peace Agreement,” is a complex topic in itself, and cannot be easily or unambiguously assessed; it is certainly not readily folded into the issues I see before us in Darfur).

Currently there are, according to the UN, more than 4.3 million conflict-affected civilians in Darfur, and perhaps another 1 million in eastern Chad, including not only 260,000 Darfuri refugees, but almost 200,000 Chadian Internally Displaced Persons, and hundreds of thousands of Chadian host families that have been severely affected by the spill-over from Darfur and Chad’s many indigenous political, economic, and military problems. READ MORE

The answer your second question is undoubtedly “yes.” Promising a peacekeeping mission — then not being able to deliver — would be worse than not authorizing one at all. It would be worse for the credibility of the UN Security Council and UN peacekeeping, and it would be much worse for the people of Somalia. My colleagues, Patrick Duplat and Erin Weir, visited Somalia last month and concluded that: “A Security Council mandate that amounts to no more than a symbolic gesture would be one more betrayal in two de­cades of missed opportunities and broken promises.” Their mission report and related briefing materials also hint towards answers to your first question: Can we take it as a given that a mission to Somalia would be as slow to generate forces as UNAMID, and if so, does that mean we should abandon the whole premise of a UN Peacekeeping mission to Somalia?

The title and contents of their report — Proceed with Caution — suggest that there is an urgent need to proceed, indeed to move forward vigorously with peacemaking processes that deliver substantive results before trying to deploy UN peacekeepers. Positive results from political negations will not come quickly or easily because of the peacemakers’ assumption that the Transitional Federal Institutions constitute a viable, legitimate basis upon which to build a government in Somalia — while many Somalis interviewed by the RI team view the TFG as an illegitimate body propped up by an occupying power (Ethiopia). READ MORE

The answer your second question is undoubtedly “yes.” Promising a peacekeeping mission — then not being able to deliver — would be worse than not authorizing one at all. It would be worse for the credibility of the UN Security Council and UN peacekeeping, and it would be much worse for the people of Somalia. My colleagues, Patrick Duplat and Erin Weir, visited Somalia last month and concluded that: “A Security Council mandate that amounts to no more than a symbolic gesture would be one more betrayal in two de­cades of missed opportunities and broken promises.” Their mission report and related briefing materials also hint towards answers to your first question: Can we take it as a given that a mission to Somalia would be as slow to generate forces as UNAMID, and if so, does that mean we should abandon the whole premise of a UN Peacekeeping mission to Somalia?

The title and contents of their report — Proceed with Caution — suggest that there is an urgent need to proceed, indeed to move forward vigorously with peacemaking processes that deliver substantive results before trying to deploy UN peacekeepers. Positive results from political negations will not come quickly or easily because of the peacemakers’ assumption that the Transitional Federal Institutions constitute a viable, legitimate basis upon which to build a government in Somalia — while many Somalis interviewed by the RI team view the TFG as an illegitimate body propped up by an occupying power (Ethiopia). READ MORE