Thoughts on
Peacekeeping within an African background
Victor Ângelo
1.
Introduction
On 10 April
2014 the UN Security Council approved the deployment of a peacekeeping mission
in the Central African Republic (CAR), to be known as MINUSCA. Resolution 2149
(2014) defines MINUSCA´s contextual parameters and objectives. The starting
date for the mission will be 15 September 2014.
With
another five months to go, that date looks far away. This is especially the
case when the serious turmoil in the CAR since late 2012 is taken into account.
And this timeline becomes even more problematic when repeated warnings from
senior UN staff are recalled – that the situation was out of control and it was
clear that the country was sliding into genocide.
A brief comment
on the timing of the resolution that has just been adopted would emphasise the
absurdly slow decision-making pace of the Security Council. If the premier international
body responsible for peace and security – which basically means safeguarding
human life and preventing severe violations of human rights – takes such an
incredibly long time to respond to a not-so-complex crisis like the one in the
CAR, what can we expect from the Council in more intricate situations?
“Not much
indeed”, would be tempting to answer.
However,
the issue is more intricate than this reply suggests. The slow response to the
situation in CAR shows that there are a number of serious problems related to
UN’s peacekeeping capabilities, particularly in an African setting and in a
region that is not directly linked to the strategic interests of the major
global powers.
This is a
very serious issue that requires urgent attention. Peacekeeping must be
effective, fast-moving and people-centred. The UN remains the key player in
matters of peacekeeping. In the end the security question that is so often
raised is the security of the ordinary citizens, in particular the most
vulnerable among them.
There is no
other international or inter-governmental institution that is in a position to
play a comparable role, not even the African Union (AU), notwithstanding all of
efforts the African leaders have made over the last 15 years to strengthen this
kind of capacity within their regional organisation. The AU´s African Standby
Force (ASF) is still work in progress, even in the East African region, where
the preparatory work has gone further. At this stage, it is extremely optimistic
to believe that the ASF will be fully operational in 2015, as was recently
recommended, in the December 2013 assessment, which further recognised the many
delays this undertaking has suffered so far.
Outside
Africa, NATO has been mentioned as a possible actor in the areas of peace
enforcing and peacekeeping. However, the Atlantic Alliance has no vocation to
play an international peacekeeping role. It could, in some cases, be used as a
rapid response solution, as an entry force. But in the current circumstances,
notably after the Libyan expedition and the deep-rooted tensions with Russia on
the Eastern European front, it is highly improbable to have a UN Security
Council request addressed to NATO. The same is true as far as the
Russia-inspired Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is concerned.
CSTO countries already established a peacekeeping architecture at the end of
2010. But the force is yet to be seen on the ground. To date, no operation has
been assigned to CSTO. And it is difficult to foresee this organization playing
any out-of-area active role in the medium term. However, both NATO and CSTO
should be included in the wider debate about the future of peacekeeping.
There
should be no doubt at this stage that the way forward is to strengthen the UN´s
capacity to respond. As that happens, it should not be forgotten that Africa is
the continent where most peacekeeping missions are deployed. Recent missions,
in South Sudan, Mali and now in CAR, have been approved in response to African
challenges. In this context, as the UN should address some of its key shortcomings
in peacekeeping, African leaders should also be encouraged to continue
strengthening their own capacities. The goal here, in parallel to the reform of
the UN apparatus, is to create an African capacity to respond to violent crises
within the continent´s five Regional Economic Communities (RECs). In the
foreseeable future, the RECs must be able to put together their respective Standby
Forces, harmonise operational abilities and develop their regional machinery to
deal with peacekeeping, peacebuilding and political transitions.
But, at
this stage, it is important to focus on some of the key issues related to UN´s
peacekeeping, whilst taking into account African experiences and needs. What
follows are some brief observations that should be considered in terms of
advocating for the urgent need to sharpen the UN´s tools.
2.
Faster deployments
UN
peacekeeping deployments take too long to materialise. This has now been a key issue
for the last seven years or so. This is particularly the case in Africa, but is
more generally so in non-English speaking countries.
Large scale
Troop-Contributing Countries (TTCs) are overcommitted, in view of the demands
coming from huge missions that are still in the field in the Democratic Republic
of Congo, Darfur, Cote d´Ivoire, Liberia, South Sudan and elsewhere. Take the
case of Mali, for instance. Only 55% of authorised military personnel have been
deployed so far, despite the fact that the mission was established almost a
year ago. Many of the troops that were fielded by the preceding African-only mission
in the framework of a regional response – in this case ECOWAS (the Economic
Community of West African States) troops plus Chadian soldiers who were already
on the ground before the UN military presence – could not be re-hatted and
transferred to the UN because they did not meet the standards the UN requires
for its contingents.
This will certainly
be the same in the CAR. The 6,000 MISCA soldiers –troops from neighbouring
countries belonging to the Economic Commission of Central African States
(ECCAS) – will face the same difficulties in terms of their eventual re-hatting
as blue berets. For many months there will be a poorly staffed MINUSCA trying
to stretch itself in order to fulfil its mandate. Most likely, when the first
period of the mandate comes to an end on 30 April 2015, the number of soldiers
will be well below the 10,000 that the UN Security Council resolution 2149 authorised.
The same is
valid for the police component. MINUSCA should have 1,800 police personnel,
most of them gendarmerie. This component is critical in a mission that basically
has to respond to issues of law and order in a society in chaos. However it is unlikely
that the UN will be able to mobilize the required numbers. In general, states that
participate in peacekeeping operations have no spare police capacity that can
be made available. This is one of the big differences between police services
and military forces – availability. The number of soldiers waiting for a job is
much higher. And only a handful of countries have gendarmerie services. In
Africa, this is the case mainly in French-speaking countries. Very often those gendarmerie
forces are not fully prepared to serve within a UN mission. Like their military
counterparts, their standards of training do not meet the minimum requirements
for a UN assignment.
All of this
has an impact on the timely fulfilment of operations´ mandates as well as the
effectiveness and the image of the UN. As they try to emerge from traumatic
crises and find any opportunity to make their living, people in the host nation
will see many UN military convoys arriving over a long period of time, a
never-ending flow of troops and highly conspicuous equipment. They will
contrast this with very low levels of security operations. Before anything
else, newly arrived soldiers will be busy with their own installation, building
their infrastructure. This actually can easily be exploited by those in the
country that are not in favour of an international military presence.
Experience has shown that heavy and slow-paced deployments can undermine the
political consent, which is critical for the mission.
Any crisis
that is followed by a peacekeeping deployment must be able to show quick wins. And
the easiest problem to turn around in the initial phase of a deployment has to
do with the security environment. It might take long to address its most
critical dimensions. But it is possible to improve the popular perception
related to the low intensity security threats. This is where the priority
should be. It has an immediate impact on the lives of the citizens. Changes to
the security situation are among the first expectations. An improved situation is
a winner, it terms of gaining people´s support. But doing so requires faster
deployments, troops that can hit the ground running. This is not the case today,
in most of the situations.
3.
Effectiveness
The
countries providing brigades and vast numbers of police personnel are generally
African (Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, etc) and South Asian (Bangladesh, India and
Pakistan). They are oversubscribed in terms of UN peacekeeping commitments.
Very often, however, politically they do not want to recognise this, as the
international assignments are an important part of their armed forces’
expectations. Rather, they tend to make promises and accept engagements without
being sure they will have the capacity to deliver on time and with the
necessary standards of quality. Also, the personnel they might be able to
mobilise are general purpose infantry troops and street police officers. The
force enablers and multipliers as well as air and ground mobility assets are generally
insufficient and sometimes inadequate for the terrain in which they have to
operate. Without them, the effectiveness of a field presence is very limited or
even non-existent.
Complexity
calls for more focussed deployments, highly trained men and women and more
specialised military personnel. Missions now require many more Special Forces
and intelligence officers – both for people-based and signals information
collection and analysis – than just sentinels and patrolmen. The Council is
still caught up in an approach that tries to respond to generic skills, poor
performance and low standards by increasing the numbers of soldiers. This way
of doing business needs to change.
For sure, this
is an area where developed countries must be more forthcoming. During the last
two decades they have been moving away from engaging troops in UN peacekeeping
operations, with one or two exceptions, like the UNIFIL mission in Lebanon. It
is time to see European and North American troops and police officers back in
UN missions. The developed world must be a more active part of the peacekeeping
equation. They must unequivocally demonstrate that global responsibility for peacekeeping
is not shared out along the lines of money: those who pay for missions do not
deploy and those who deploy, largely from the developing South, are paid to
keep international peace. This undermines the principle of joint responsibility
for world peace. It also does not take into account that the developed
countries would have a greater chance to advocate for their values and interests
if their soldiers could be found shoulder to shoulder with uniformed men and
women coming from other regions of the world.
Moreover, richer countries have and can spare the specialised personnel
so much in demand. They also have the specific, highly efficient logistics capabilities
that peacekeeping operations in remote areas around the world require.
The second
move that more developed member states should make concerns training for defence
and security personnel. The military training programme the EU is implementing
in Mali is a good example and it should be replicated in the CAR. As it has
just been decided for Mali, after a long hesitation, it must also include the
gendarmerie and the police, not just the armed forces. Investing in the development
of human resources and institutions is critical to help a country overcome chronic
crisis. Richer nations must be much more committed to security sector reform
and the development of defence, police and penal institutions in countries
coming out of a deep national crisis. The capacity building packages must also include
revamping justice systems –without forgetting the relevance of traditional
methods of administering justice – as a means of combating impunity and
contributing to national reconciliation and long-term stability.
A
cautionary note though. Training national forces and reforming national defence
and security institutions in a post-crisis country must be accompanied by a plan
for financial sustainability. Experience has shown that African officers trained
in the best US and European academies often feel a high degree of professional
frustration when they return to their national army corps, because those units
are underfunded. Indeed, because of lack of resources, most units are unable to
go beyond a collection of “barefooted” armed men, dressed in uniforms of
fortune and flea market camouflage. They have no real means to operate. They
can easily become the breeding ground for the future wave of discontent and
crisis, as we have seen in Mali in 2012. The issue of the financial
sustainability of modern armed forces and police services in a number of
African countries requires an honest debate.
4.
Strong political mandate
The
effectiveness of any UN peacekeeping mission is clearly related to its
political mandate. This mandate must be realistically defined.
In terms of
the African-based missions, there is now a tendency to attach to mandates an
array of concerns and objectives. They are certainly important but they are
generally more related to long term development goals than to keeping the peace
and creating the conditions for political transition and basic human security. It
will be wise to strike a balance between comprehensiveness and the core
objectives of peacekeeping. Focus would make the mission stronger. It would
therefore increase the chances of success.
Mandates
should above all aim at creating the political and security foundations on
which peace building and development should rest. Actually, an area that
requires greater attention, both in terms of knowledge and identification of
the practical lessons learnt so far, is the one related to the connections
between peacekeeping and peace building. But those links cannot be a pretext
for unworkable mandates.
Next to focus,
the political role of head of mission is critical for deep-rooted change, for
the move from crisis to institutional, representative democracy. It is
therefore indispensable to make sure the mission leadership gets the full
political support of the Security Council and the relevant regional
organisations (the AU, for instance, and the affected REC).
In addition,
the UN Department of Peace Keeping Operations (DPKO) and the Department of
Field Support (DFS) must be better prepared to exercise their respective backstopping
roles. For too long, the state of mind in both departments has been inspired by
the arrogant attitude and detachment that comes from working at headquarters
and too far away from the realities of the daily life in the field. In particular
DPKO has shown, on many occasions, to lack the skills and field experience
necessary to provide the right type of advice to the missions that fall under
its responsibility and to serve as a permanent channel between the field and
the key countries in the Security Council. The rotation of staff between
headquarters and field needs to be effectively implemented.
Leadership
issues are crucial in all complex situations, particularly in countries that have
gone through major national upheavals. Those issues are not only about the
quality of the mission leadership or the sorts of diplomatic interventions
carried out by regional leaders. Leadership is fundamentally about daring to
create the domestic conditions for a renewal of the national political elites
in the post-crisis situation and allowing for the right type of leaders to
emerge, including at the local level. New times call for new leaders grounded on
accepted political practise. Leaders with legitimacy. In this context, proper
electoral processes, at the presidential, national and local levels, are
critical elements of an exit strategy. They call for continued support by the
best technical teams available within the international peace machinery. But
they should not be considered the absolute benchmarks. To complete successful
elections cannot be seen as the indicator that the mission has done its job and
can leave. Nonetheless, fair elections do make the transition process more
sustainable and open the door for an earlier exit of the international presence.
The
emphasis on national and local political leadership cannot ignore the role of
civil society. A strong the civil society is essential for stability,
reconciliation and democracy. Peacekeeping missions must give the example and
fully accept civil society as a critical partner in the transition process. That
will send a clear message to the new political elite that will emerge after the
crisis. Expertise on civil society relations must be part of the mission´s
skills.
5.
Reducing costs
UN peacekeeping
operations are very costly endeavours. A mission like the one just approved for
the CAR might require a billion US dollars a year. This is undoubtedly a lot of
money. Its financing is mandatory for the UN member states once the mission has
been authorised by the Council. At a time of continued cost restraint and belt
tightening, governments in key capitals, those that carry the main budgetary
burden for UN operations, become very hesitant when it comes to this level of
expenditures. This is a basic reason why approval of the resolution on CAR was
delayed. Finance ministries have the first word when it comes to deciding about
new international operations. Moreover, the Council knows when a mission will
begin but has no clear idea about when it will end.
It is
therefore critically important to look at ways of containing costs. Not only should
the mission objectives be clearly articulated, they should also be attainable
within a reasonable amount of time. It is also imperative to build the national
capacity to take over as soon as possible. The ultimate responsibility for
peace and security in a country rests within its national borders, with its
authorities and its citizens. Financial considerations make this principle more
present than ever.
A further
cost related question pertains to the exit strategy of the mission, which
should be incorporated from the very beginning as a primary component of the
mission design. It is essential that the Security Council asks DPKO and the
head of the field mission to devise a reasonably defined plan focused on the
gradual but steady transfer of responsibilities to the national and
sub-regional authorities as soon as it is feasible to do so. Feasible means
that peace can be sustained without direct intervention by the international
community. A plan that would be both a road map to guide the peace keeping
mission and serve as a blueprint for its exit strategy.
6.
Moving ahead
UN
peacekeeping has achieved some notable results in the past. Sierra Leone, in Africa,
and East Timor in the South Pacific, are just two recent examples of major
successes in the recent past. UN peacekeeping has also changed a lot for the
better over the last decade. Those who saw peacekeeping in the Balkans during
the 1990s and then observe today´s operations notice that the UN has come a
long way in terms of integration of different dimensions and creating a balance
between the military and the civilian components of missions. There is now much
greater emphasis on law and order and policing, justice, local administration
and conflict resolution at the community level, as well as on gender equality
and human rights. The UN has also accumulated extensive experience in terms of
logistics supply and sustainment, air and ground mobility and support to
humanitarian emergencies.
But times
keep changing. Conflicts are increasingly about basic natural resources and
survival, differences in religious practices and faith-based behaviours, terrorism,
wide spread banditry and criminality, and the collapse or limitations of state
administration, living vast areas ungoverned. At the same time, violent conflicts
tend to have deep and complex root causes, which necessitate time to be resolved.
But the attention span of the international community has become shorter. And
so many of us have acquired the fever of impatience, we live at the speed of
the TV screen or even the social media, shaped by the 140-character approach.
We want to see results before too long, if not immediately. Protracted
conflicts tend to disappear from the public eye if they become too static or
nothing happens. As they lose prominence, they receive less political and
financial support. Their prolonged budgetary costs become more difficult to
justify.
Sixteen missions
are deployed in different parts of the world, nine of them in Africa. The
defence sector has also been under review in several key developed countries, prompted
by the need to adapt to contemporary threats and be prepared to respond to new
international settings. This is therefore the moment to reflect again about the
peacekeeping challenges as it was done almost 15 years ago, when the Brahimi
report was issued. Time and
circumstances make it advisable to review and update the recommendations of
that important and influential report.
It is also the
time for the EU and the AU to reflect, in house and in their joint consultations,
on what can be reasonably done by both parties to complement the UN peacekeeping
work. This is a debate that should take place without further delay. It should
be linked to the next evaluation of the EU African Peace Facility (APF) and its
transformation into an instrument of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy.
For Africa, the doubling of APF resources over the next three years, recently
decided at the IV EU-Africa Summit, is encouraging and certainly appreciated.
But there is a need to go beyond resources, as important as they are, and look
at the substance of what really needs to be funded and how that can be
integrated in a long-term strategy of greater African self-reliance. This about
Africa´s capacity to sort out its own conflicts.
This debate
would also benefit from the long experience the Norwegians have acquired in the
implementation of their Training for Peace programme (TfP). The programme, funded
by the government of Norway since 1995 and managed by African institutions, has
been able to evolve over time. It is now particularly attentive to training in
the areas of African civilian capacities and police personnel for peacekeeping,
as well as focused on the need to support applied research. In this, the EU has
a good source of inspiration when designing the new generation of training
missions. Such missions should take advantage of the Malian experience – the EU
Training Mission –, be civilian led and as inclusive as possible.
The way
forward should further consider the experience of coalitions of the willing and
the role of small groupings of countries as suppliers of peace enforcing and
peacekeeping tasks. But this is a discussion for another time. However, it
cannot be brushed aside and ignored. Nor should China´s ambitions to support
peace and security operations in Africa be forgotten. Here, the China-Africa
Cooperative Partnership for Peace and Security, approved in 2012, is worth
noting.
All this calls
for a very direct question: Who is going to lead the debate on renovating
peacekeeping? It must be an institution that is in a position to bring all of
the stakeholders together, including the EU, for sure, but above all, the
African institutions that have the responsibility for peace and security
throughout the continent.
The answer
seems obvious.
April 2014
