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The
Peacekeeping mission in Lebanon
On
the ‘Muddle East’ scene, the latest news is that
a multinational force is being deployed in the south of Lebanon
under the insignia of the United Nations and the terms of
UNSC resolution 1701 [1]. The weeks leading to the launch
of UNIFIL 2 – named after the UNIFIL mission of 1978
- were characterised by reservations concerning the mandate
of mission, considered ambiguous, and by a diffuse misreading
of the role of peacekeepers.
The
mandate
As for the alleged volatility of the mission’s
mandate, UNSC 1701 asks in substance to UNIFIL 2 to provide
the security conditions necessary to ensure a transaction
to normality following the July/August 2006 crisis. In details
par.11 of UN Resolution 1701 states that the mission will
‘(a) monitor the cessation of hostilities; (b) accompany
and support the Lebanese armed forces as they deploy throughout
the South [in coordination with the governments of Lebanon
and Israel], (c) extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian
access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe
return of displaced persons, (d) assist the Lebanese armed
forces in taking steps towards the establishment of the area
between the Blue Line and the Litani river free of any armed
personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the Government
of Lebanon and of UNIFIL; (e) assist the Government of Lebanon,
at its request, to secure its borders and other entry points
to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms
or related materiel[2]. To discharge its duties, furthermore,
UNIFIL is authorised ‘to take all necessary action in
areas of deployment of its forces’ and also ‘to
protect [Lebanese] civilians under imminent threat of physical
violence’. This last sentence, in particular, seems
to give wide discretion to the PKs, which will be, in principle,
able to use the force against whomever threatens the civilian
population, be it black or white. Overall, therefore, and
although some ambiguities remain in the wording, the mandate
of the resolution is altogether clear: security and control
of the territory, interposition, and support to the Lebanese
government in the pursuit of disarmament[3].
About
Peacekeeping
Beyond
the content of the mandate, the reservations on the peacekeeping
mission in Lebanon appeared to stem from a common misreading
of what a peacekeeping mission actually is, and what results
can be reasonably expected from it and which not. The term
‘peacekeeping’ refers to a situation in which
the warring parties halt the fighting and agree on the intervention
of a neutral third party acting as force of interposition[4].
The peacekeepers’ role is limited to making sure that
de minimis conditions – in primis a halt to hostilities
– are kept and that the situation does not go back to
square one[5]. However, once the peacekeeping mission is deployed,
it is up to the diplomacy, and to the parties involved in
the conflict, to address the root causes of the conflict and
to work out a durable settlement of it.
Past experience
Past
experience tells us that, on one hand, the success or the
failure of peacekeeping missions largely depends on the restraint
put on politics to interfere with the fulfilment of the peacekeeping
mandate; on the other hand, the attainment of a conflict’s
solution is very much dependent on the ability of politics
to follow up to the peacekeeping mission with appropriate
political solutions. Out of 60 missions carried out since
1948 to date, recalls Prof. Rufini, Course Coordinator at
the Institute for International Politics Studies in "La
Sapienza" University in Rome and the Bocconi University
in Milan, failures have been less than ten. Among them, in
Somalia in 1993, the United States, ignoring the terms of
the UNSC mandate, turned the peacekeeping intervention into
a full scale conflict, becoming part of it; in Rwanda in 1994,
France and United States held back the action of General Dellaire’s
troops which could have prevented the genocide; in Yugoslavia
in 1995, it was the veto of Russia which rendered UN troops
impotent to protect with the use of force the life of civilians.
Instead, when peacekeepers could work according to the guidelines
of the mandate, they proved quite effective[6]. If, afterwards,
hostilities broke out again, this was due to the incapacity
of diplomacy and politics to work out sustainable political
solutions to the crisis.
Unapplied provisions of the UN Charter
Eventually,
it is worth noting that there is an entire chapter of the
UN Charter which provides that the UN shall have its own army
and a Military Staff Committee to command it[7]. It has never
been put into practice. Instead, when an international consensus
is reached about organising a mission, the Secretary General
must beg for troops around the world, make them up in a puzzle,
seal it and deliver it. Once the packaging is complete, the
peacekeeping troops and the UN Secretary General remain subject,
notwithstanding the Brahimi reform which rendered the decision
making process smoother, to the vetoes of the UN Security
Council’s permanent members, who can influence at will
the conduct of the mission .
[1]
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2006/sc8808.doc.htm The
resolution calls for ‘the immediate cessation by Hizbollah
of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all
offensive military operations’ A consensus was reached
among the permanent members of the UN Security Council to
give mandate to ‘up to 15,000 United Nations peacekeepers
[to] help[ing] Lebanese troops take control of the area […]
between the United Nations-drawn Blue Line in southern Lebanon
and the Litani River (12 miles from the Israeli border)’
[2] UNSC
resolution 1701, par. 11.
[3] A map of UNIFIL deployment as of July 2006 can be found
at http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/map/dpko/unifil.pdf;
see also UNIFIL - UN official mandate at http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/unifil/mandate.html
[4] Peace enforcement instead entails the international community’s
initiative to forcefully bring a conflict to an end. Peace
enforcement missions were launched by the UN only two times,
in Korea (1950) and in the Gulf War (1991).
[5] Welcoming the resolution ahead of the Council’s
adoption Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General said
he was greatly relieved that it provided for a full and immediate
cessation of all hostilities. “It is absolutely vital
that the fighting now stop”, he said, adding: “Provided
it does, I believe this resolution will make it possible to
conclude a sustainable and lasting ceasefire agreement in
the days ahead. And, I hope that this could be the beginning
of a process to solve the underlying political problems in
the region through peaceful means.”
[6] The first success of the peacekeepers dates back to 1956
Suez war, when the PKs successfully managed to keep peace
between Egypt and the UK-France-Israel alliance; the latest
success is recorded in Burundi, in 2004, when the PKs succeeded
in keeping peace in one of the most politically volatile African
states.
[7] See articles 43 and 47 Un Charter, http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/
[8] http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/
[9] For an comprehensive analysis and critics, see R.A. Falk,
Reflections on the Gulf War Experience : Force and war in
the United Nations System, Juridisk Tidskrift, 3 (1991).
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