Darfur overshadows successful UN peacekeeping Ops – Study
Feb 27, 2007 (NEW YORK) — A diplomatic tussle in Darfur is overshadowing the efforts of a record number of peacekeepers deployed in successful U.N. operations with other international forces amid a year of new and escalating conflicts, according to a new study.
The annual study, conducted by the Center on International Cooperation, a think tank at New York University, found that U.N. peacekeeping operations, often bolstered by other international forces from NATO, the African Union and the European Union, have kept a number of challenges at hand. These include the conflict in Lebanon, violence in East Timor, and helping ensure the first democratic elections in decades in Congo.
But an ineffective U.N. peacekeeping in Darfur could detract from those accomplishments, the study said.
“Darfur is a credibility test,” said Dr. Bruce Jones, co-director at the CIC, who released the study on Monday. “It is tragic that in a year in which the international community did unexpectedly well in deploying peacekeepers to where they were needed, the U.N. still lacks a substantial presence where it is needed most.”
Jones said that “contrary to conventional wisdom, the U.N. has been flexible” in the last year, shifting peacekeepers from stabilized missions to others in need. It also “has allowed the Security Council to respond effectively to a series of concurrent crisis – except one,” he said, referring to Darfur.
More than 200,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million have been chased from their homes in Sudan’s conflict-wracked western region of Darfur since 2003, when rebels from ethnic African tribes rose up against the central Arab-led government.
The U.N. Security Council has been pushing to deploy a 22,000 force of U.N. and AU peacekeepers in Darfur to halt the violence. But Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has rejected any U.N. troops as colonialists and insists that the existing AU force, with U.N. technical support, can maintain order.
The ongoing diplomatic struggle to install the peacekeepers has already “undermined and overshadowed” the recent success of the world body, said Richard Gowan, program coordinator of the CIC.
Those successes include swift action in East Timor when the country fell into violence this year, he said. It was also one of many examples where the U.N. worked in concert with an international force when Australia made an “impressive rapid deployment” to quell the uprising there, Gowan said.
“We were struck that U.N. and non-U.N. forces are growing simultaneously,” he said.
The U.N. reached a record total of over 80,000 troops, military observers and police in the field, deployed by the end of 2006, according to the study. It also found that troops deployed by NATO, the African Union and the EU grew for the first time since 1999 to 68,000 troops.
U.N. peacekeepers also assembled quickly in the Middle East.
Over a month of fighting in Lebanon, triggered in July after Hezbollah guerrillas snatched two Israeli soldiers, drew a rapid response by the U.N. and a “new generation” of troop contributing countries. The study noted the return of French troops and the addition of troops from China, Indonesia and Turkey as somewhat unexpected contributions to the U.N. peacekeeping force.
After an Aug. 14 cease-fire, the United Nations created a buffer zone that is now patrolled by more than 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers and 15,000 Lebanese army troops.
The U.N. response in Lebanon, and other unexpected developments, showed the world body adapted better than the study’s authors anticipated when they said in last year’s report that U.N. operations were under “acute and worsening strain.”
But the authors warned in this year’s report that another mission could take the organization “past the point of overstretch.”
The need for peacekeepers will grow, according to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon who expects 2007 to include up to a 30% rise in the existing number of U.N. peacekeepers deployed around the world.
Gowan warned that Darfur presents more challenges than those encountered in the Middle East.
Logistically, the region is difficult to access, especially without the well-equipped troops that could be contributed by European and Western countries, he said, adding that those nations are reluctant to participate in African operations.
(AP)