peacekeeping Archives - Rise to Peace

August 17, 2021 by Rise to Peace

UN Peacekeeping Missions in Africa: Introduction and Analysis

Introduction

United Nations peacekeeping operations are meant to help countries down the complex path of peace and reconciliation. Such peacekeeping missions are mandated by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). A smaller subset of peacekeeping missions, stabilization operations, are not regulated by the UN Charter, but make-up three of the four largest ongoing peace operations. Their legitimacy rests between Chapter VI (peaceful settlement of disputes) and Chapter VII (use of force to restore peace), constituting the so-called “Chapter VI and a half.” These operations are a joint instrument of the Security Council (the highest political authority) and the Secretary-General, the highest administrative and functional authority of the organization.

Peacekeeping interventions are based on some strategic points, including legitimacy, burden sharing, and the possibility of deploying and integrating police forces and civilian personnel. The work that the UN conducts during peace operations is based on three fundamental principles, namely consent to intervention by countries in conflict, impartiality, and non-use of force (unless in self-defense or in defense of the mandate).

Thousands of “Blue Helmets,” the military body belonging to member states and “loaned” to UN missions, have over time morphed from mere observers limited to logistical and technical support to being assigned sensitive functions. They now operate more complex programs including political mediation, de-mining, public affairs and communication, protection and promotion of civil rights, and reintegration of combatants into society. The missions have thus become multidimensional and integrated.

Instability is not just a military fact, with a truce to guard or a cease-fire line to patrol, but has many causes. Stabilization operations thus include ever greater responsibilities, including the democratization of local institutions, economic and social development, environmental and natural resource protection, and the retraining of military forces, police, and prison services, according to modern, democratic criteria.

Africa

An example of these new and expanded functions are assistance and support missions, which are deployed in countries that have seen the total collapse (or almost total degradation) of state structures, countries such as Libya, Sierra Leone, Mali, Central Africa, and South Sudan. UN functions are also diversified and no longer restrained to patrolling truce lines. They have been involved in such diverse efforts as decolonization in Namibia, independence in Eritrea, protection of populations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the transition to democratic regimes after years of civil war in Angola, Mozambique, Central America, or West Africa. All these missions see not only the change in the profiles and structures of the missions but also their composition.

In West Africa, there are two very different missions, MINURSO and MINUSMA. The first aims to ensure, sooner or later, the holding of a regular referendum in the territories of Western Sahara, still disputed between Algeria, Morocco, and the local population. The mission has been active since 1991 and has 485 units, of which 245 are military.

MINUSMA, in Mali, started in 2013 shortly after the French military operation Serval, which halted the advance of Tuareg and other armed groups towards Bamako. Despite the collaboration with Operation Barkhane (formerly Serval) and the G5 of the Sahel, the area is still deeply unstable. MINUSMA’s annual budget exceeds one billion dollars and over 15,000 military personnel are deployed. The states that support the mission militarily are interested in containing the Malian crisis (Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal).

As for Central Africa, MINUSCA is the stabilization mission of the Central African Republic. It was born in 2014, following the outbreak of civil war. Despite numerous peace agreements signed between parties, skirmishes and structural violence remain. The mission has an almost exclusively “regional” character since the troops present are Rwandan, Egyptian, Zambian, Cameroonian, and Senegalese. MONUSCO, on the other hand, is an operation that started in 2010 and aims to stabilize the Democratic Republic of Congo, devastated first by spillover from the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and then by its own wars from 1998 to 2003, which left over 5 million dead.

Additionally, three peacekeeping missions are active in the Horn of Africa, two in Sudan and one in South Sudan. The last one, UNMISS, was born in 2011 in South Sudan. After gaining independence, the country fell into a bloody civil war, dictated by patriotism and exploitation of ethnic tension, which have been intensifying since December 2013.

Analysis

Over the years, this United Nations instrument has been criticized extensively but has also received some positive feedback. Too often, in the initiatives of the powers that act in the name of the so-called international community, in which Africa, politically speaking, seems to be considered more an object than a real subject, the goal of “security” prevails. Very often, the issues of jihadism and human mobility towards Europe are considered separately from other issues plaguing African governments. There is a need for a repositioning of international diplomacy that considers the constant and progressive modification of the African geopolitical chessboard in the age of globalization.

The colonial and postcolonial models, to the test of facts, no longer represent a paradigm of reference in Africa for the control of aid institutions or even investments. The traditional partners of African countries (the former colonial powers) must now compete with the low index of “conditionality” strategies of emerging powers such as Brazil, China, India, Turkey, and Russia itself, which is reappearing in Africa after the withdrawal imposed, about thirty years ago, by the collapse of the Soviet Union.

It is precisely within these parameters that the United Nations, as an organism of peoples, is called to play an indispensable role. It is worth recalling what happened in the early 1960s with the wave of African independence movements. At that time, the UN, established as an organization after World War II with the aim of preventing future conflicts by replacing the ineffective League of Nations, played a politically relevant role.

In particular, the recognition of the principle of self-determination of peoples, sanctioned by the United Nations Charter, received a warm response. International law also outlawed war, in particular, due to Articles 2 & 4 of the Charter, declaring that member states must renounce war and resolve their conflicts.

To weigh negatively on these missions are a series of factors found in many investigations. The first of these factors is the lack of discipline among Blue Helmets and the fact that the contingents are sometimes composed of soldiers from countries where training standards are not adequate for modern crises in Africa. There have also been pervasive issues of sexual violence against women and minors.

Regardless, the United Nations has taken a central and irreplaceable role in the building of congenial international relations in the modern era. In the case of the African continent, the UN provides international legitimacy and an irreplaceable and indispensable forum for negotiation at global level on the issues of development, peace, and security.

July 6, 2019 by Rise to Peace

AMISOM and an Approaching 2021 : Is Somalia Prepared?

Photo Credit: Photographer Ilyas Ahmed for AMISOM.

In March 2019, it was unanimously decided by the United Nations Security Council that the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) would maintain its deployment and reduce uniformed personnel by 1000, in conformity with the prevailing plan to steadily transfer these responsibilities to existing Somali security forces. Resolution 2492 (2019) therefore authorises this reduction, allowing a maximum of 19, 626 AMISOM personnel by 28 February 2020. As the end of AMISOM’s mission is approaching in 2021, prioritised tasks for the mission include, as previously mentioned, the gradual handover of security responsibilities to Somali forces and reducing the threat posed by the Al-Shabaab.

Moreover, the Security Council authorised other key tasks to be achieved before 2021: the securing of key supply routes to areas recovered by Al-Shabaab, the conducting of ‘targeted offensive operations’ in support of the transition plan and assisting the Government of Somalia in the implementation of a total ban on charcoal exports. However, the Council has also expressed grave concerns for the ongoing humanitarian situation, namely the conflict and sexual violence that civilians continue to be victims of. It is recognised that AMISOM cannot remain in Somalia forever, and with the mission set to end in 2021, a fundamental question is provoked: is Somalis ready for AMISOM’s departure?

To provide a concise context, it is necessary to reiterate that AMISOM was established in Somalia as a regional peacekeeping mission between the African Union and the United Nations. Created by the African Union’s Peace and Security Council in January 2007, AMISOM had an initial mandate of six months. Fast forward to August 2017, the United Nations Security Council had issued a new resolution where the security responsibilities would be shifted gradually from AMISOM to the Somali security forces ‘continent on [the] abilities of the Somalis security forces and political and security progress in Somalia’.

The Al-Shabaab, also known as “The Youth”, are commonly known as an Islamist ‘insurgent group’ with its base in Somalia. The group has claimed their allegiance to other known terrorist groups such as the Al-Qaeda, and are responsible for several massive attacks throughout Somalia as well as neighbouring countries.

Though the foundational objective of the Al-Shabaab has been debated by professionals of various backgrounds, Bronwyn Bruton of the Atlantic Council has stated that the ‘unifying idea of Al-Shabaab is opposition to the Western-backed government.’ It is also stated that the group’s main aim is to establish an Islamic State in Somalia. The group is known to possess harsh interpretations of Sharia law, headed by the current leader, Ahmed Umar (also known as Abu Ubaidah), the ‘emir’, or ‘prince’. To fund their operations, the Al-Shabaab has engaged in the illicit charcoal trade that has brought over $7.5 million USD per annum, notwithstanding the United Nations ban on charcoal in effect since 2012.

The United States’ has been long concerned with Somalia potentially becoming a country where terrorist groups find ‘refuge’ in to plot attacks to the United States or to ‘destabilise’ the Horn of Africa. Furthermore, another core concern is the Al-Shabaab’s recruitment of the Somali diaspora residing in the United States. It has been found that many Americans, predominantly from Minneapolis, Minnesota, have volunteered themselves to fighting for the Al-Shabaab in Somalia. This aforementioned fact coupled with the Al-Shabaab’s enduring presence and recruitment in Somalia are cause enough for concern of the Somalia’s security personnel’s ability to handle the situation on their own in a little over a year from now. Shrinking resources certainly are of no help to them in confronting this issue themselves, come the end of AMISOM’s mandated involvement December 2021.

In addition to the physical and military power, the sheer logistical concerns of Somalia’s availability of security forces in states other than the capital of Mogadishu are alarming. In select regions where AMISOM will no longer hold presence, no security forces exist and therefore will have to be ‘built from scratch’– a time and energy consuming task.

With reports stating that the Al-Shabaab remains in control of approximately 20% of Somalia, this transition of security measures from AMISOM uniformed personnel to the Somali security forces has been observed to be a point of vulnerability, where it is feared that the Al-Shabaab may use this transitory period to their advantage in carrying out more deadly attacks. Just in late March 2019, the Al-Shabaab carried out a deadly attack at a Ministry building in Mogadishu, claiming over 15 lives. It was noted that though the group has been pushed out of former major strongholds, attacks such as these demonstrate that they remain capable of carrying out massive violence and sending the capital into a state of fear and instability.

To establish any surety in the Somali security force’s capability to handle the Al-Shabaab and overall instability in the country as of December 2021, the current transition plan can consider shifting its major focus to building a stronger Somali security force presence, as well as a re-evaluation of the transition priorities to perhaps add more pressing concerns.