Press Kit
Fact
Sheet 6
Today’s Peacekeepers
As peacekeeping changes, military components remain the backbone
An interview with Major General
Patrick Cammaert, Military Adviser, UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations
Some 37,000 troops and civilian police from 89 countries form the
backbone of UN peacekeeping missions. UN Senior Military Adviser Major
General Patrick Cammaert, a former Force Commander of the UN Mission
in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), is overseeing their evolution into
a well-trained, well-resourced corps, supported by the Military Division
of the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).
For a peacekeeping mission to be successful, he explained, two things
are necessary. The parties to the conflict must subscribe to the peacekeeping
effort. And UN Member States must ensure the mandate is both well defined
and flexible, the troops professional and the resources adequate.
“If Member States don’t give us resources, troops available for rapid
deployment, money to do a sound, well-organized peacekeeping job, then
the challenge is almost impossible. It is like tying someone’s hands
behind his back and pushing him into a pool with instructions to swim,”
says General Cammaert.
Peacekeepers’ duties vary from monitoring withdrawal of troops, to
guarding buffer zones, assisting with the demobilization and disarmament
of former combatants, and ensuring a secure environment for elections.
DPKO also puts strong emphasis on imparting skills to local and regional
security forces and institutions, so that when UN troops leave, stable
democratic structures remain equipped to ensure the peace is sustainable.
Many current peacekeeping missions are undertaken in areas that don’t
feature prominently in the international media. General Cammaert pointed
to the UN’s missions in Ethiopia and Eritrea, Sierra Leone and Timor-Leste
as particularly successful.
In Sierra Leone, “we started on the wrong foot,” he explained. “The
first group of peacekeepers deployed in the UN Mission in Sierra Leone
(UNAMSIL) were not prepared or equipped to face the challenges they
encountered, and the mandate they were given by the Security Council
was not robust enough. The subsequent kidnapping of several hundred
peacekeepers in May 2000 made it clear that we needed troops who were
able to deal with all possible challenges and scenarios.”
Subsequently, the Council provided a stronger mandate, he continued,
allowing UN peacekeepers to send a clear message to all warring factions
that they were ready, willing and able to defend themselves against
attack. To underscore this message, the mission was also provided with
attack helicopters and artillery with armoured personnel carriers.
Today, as that mission downsizes from a maximum of 16,900 troops
in November 2002 to some 13,000 at the end of May 2003, it has been
training the restructured Sierra Leone army and police force, and handing
over responsibilities to them at a pace that should ensure UNAMSIL’s
draw-down process does not precipitate renewed instability. UN peacekeepers
are expected to be completely out of Sierra Leone by December 2004.
Results: a country that had experienced 10 years of conflict is now
on the road to a stable peace. Elections have produced state authorities,
which are now consolidating their administration over the country. And
a Special Court and a Truth and Reconciliation Commission are operating
to render justice for past crimes.
But nearby, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the UN’s mission
(known by its French acronym, MONUC) continues to lack sufficient troops
to support a different, and extremely fragile, peace process. Currently,
the UN has more than 4600 troops deployed in a country the size of Western
Europe with an extremely limited infrastructure. Horrendous atrocities
still take place. The UN has had difficulty getting the troops it needs
to properly support the peace process and the establishment of a transitional
government.
One of the major challenges facing DPKO is to reinvigorate Member
States’ interest in, and responsibility for, committing troops to Africa,
where the majority of UN peacekeeping operations currently take place.
“Since the early nineties we have witnessed a decline in the number
of troops that developed countries have been prepared to contribute
to peacekeeping missions,” General Cammaert noted. In 1991, only two of the top 10 troop contributing countries were developing countries,
Ghana and Nepal. The top 10 this year are: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria,
India, Ghana, Kenya, Jordan, Uruguay, Ukraine, Australia. Less than
one-eighth of currently serving UN troops come from the European Union;
far fewer from the US.
Cammaert suggested that Member States’ political interest may determine
whether troops go to Africa, rather than the commitment they made in
the UN Charter to accept a collective responsibility for maintaining
international peace and security: “We don’t see any North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) troops in Africa. NATO is in the Balkans because
it’s their back yard,” he noted.
He
called on all Member States to live up to their responsibilities under
the UN Charter to “undertake to make available to the Security Council…armed
forces, assistance and facilities…necessary for the purpose of maintaining
international peace and security”.
“You cannot say Africa is not the responsibility of the United States
and Europe. The problems of the developing world are intertwined with
problems that Northern countries
face. You cannot close your eyes. Northern countries have history
in Africa. They are privileged with democratic institutions. Building
a democracy takes time.
“The extension of NATO and the European Union (EU) could also add
to our difficulties in this regard, because the UN, the EU and NATO
may find themselves competing for troops to address conflicts. Cooperative
and complementary arrangements — partnerships between organizations
— would be much more efficient than competition. Regional organizations
can play a particularly useful role in keeping the peace. Their capacity
to deploy quickly and forcefully in a non-permissive environment, which
would not be immediately suitable for a UN operation, is a valuable
asset,” he said, citing as models the current INTERFET in Timor-Leste
and ISAF in Afghanistan.
Many developed countries are spending less on their armies today,
which has added to the difficulties the U.N. faces in attracting troops
from the developed world for peacekeeping. “Defence budgets are shrinking
in many northern countries,” said General Cammaert. “They can’t afford
to let their troops go to the UN and at the same time have them engaged
elsewhere. My country (the Netherlands) has 4,000 troops deployed that
are not under the UN flag, although they are in UN authorized missions.
So why should a country commit troops to UN peacekeeping?
“The
UN’s approach to peacekeeping has changed in the last few years,” General
Cammaert noted. “The UN is now much better equipped to support its peacekeeping
missions.”
- The
2001 Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel on UN Peace Operations
(the “Brahimi report”) stimulated significant investment in DPKO’s
headquarters, to better serve and guide the field missions.
- DPKO’s
situation centre is now staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- A
Military Division of well-qualified staff officers has been created
in DPKO.
- The
UN has improved selection procedures for senior military officers
for peacekeeping missions: DPKO now pays the salaries of Force Commanders,
and Member States, urged to send top officers, have responded positively.
- DPKO
now has a well-developed logistics base in Brindisi, Italy, which
can support quick and effective deployment of peacekeeping missions
with equipment,
- Training programmes, exercises, and a roster of civilian and support staff,
who can be rapidly deployed to the field.
“Moreover, the international community now understands the important role that
can be played by the UN peacekeepers in the post-conflict and post-electoral
phases of peace processes,” said General Cammaert. “It has begun to
see the value of continuing to deploy troops during the transitional
phase from peacekeeping to peace-building…and to recognize the contribution
that peace building combined with peacekeeping has on the long-term
stability of a country.”
When troops are well prepared and militarily capable, military power
has a tremendous impact on containing the escalation of war and in deterring
former factions from re-engaging in war, General Cammaert concluded.
UN peace operations will continue to benefit from the use of military
components.
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