POLITICS: Preventing Armed Conflict a Key UN Challenges

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 1 1999 (IPS) - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan says that one of the greatest challenges facing the United Nations today is preventing armed conflict. “And yet,” he says, “we find ourselves dealing with the effects of conflict rather than its roots.”

Addressing the Security Council during a special two-day debate on “The Prevention of Armed Conflict,” Annan said the international community needs to move “from a culture of reaction to a culture of prevention.”

“The case for prevention hardly needs re-stating,” he argued. “Quite simply, it is cost-effective, both in financial and as well as human terms.”

Last year the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict said the cost to the international community of seven major wars in the 1990s, excluding Kosovo, was about 199 billion dollars. This was in addition to the costs to the countries actually at war.

The Commission said that most of these costs could have been saved if greater attention had been paid to prevention.

In his annual report to the General Assembly in September, Annan said that taking prevention more seriously will also help to ensure that there are fewer wars and less consequential disasters to cope with in the first place.

“More effective prevention strategies would not only save tens of billions of dollars, but hundreds of thousands of lives as well,” he said.

Annan argued that funds currently spent on intervention and relief could be devoted to enhancing equitable and sustainable development instead, which would further reduce the risks of war and disaster.

Armed conflicts broke out or erupted anew in Angola, Guinea- Bissau, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kashmir and Kosovo, and between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Annan said that in terms of violence conflicts, the most worrying development in 1998 was a significant increase in the number of wars.

“This is particularly troubling because the incidence and severity of global warfare had been declining since 1992 – by a third, or more, according to some researchers,” he said.

Annan admitted that building a culture of prevention is not easy. “While the costs of prevention have to be paid in the present, its benefits lie in the distant future.”

Moreover, the benefits are not tangible, he said, for the simple reason that they are the wars and disasters that do not happen. ‘So we should not be surprised that preventive policies receive support hat is more often rhetorical than substantive.”

US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke told the Security Council that despite enormous advances in this century, war was still viewed by many as the best means to settle differences. That fact must be recognised and addressed.

It was also the Security Council’s responsibility to address the underlying causes of conflict. “But the record in that regard has been less than exemplary.”

Holbrooke said the international community must focus on the tools needed to mitigate tensions and commit to early preventive action. The entire UN system must support the Secretary-General’s efforts to strengthen and mobilise resources for conflict prevention activities.

The United States also would welcome a ministerial-level meeting on conflict-prevention during the Millennium Assembly in September next year, Holbroooke said,

Ambassador Alain Dejammet of France said that most conflicts were internal and preventive action might be viewed as infringing on States’ sovereignty. “Yet failure to act could lead to the destabilisation of an entire region.”

Dejammet said a balance between those apparently contradictory concerns must be achieved. The UN charter, in legal terms, did not prevent the Security Council from discussing an internal situation if the continuation of a dispute was likely to endanger international peace and security.

He also pointed out that the Council often was accused of doing too little too late. But sufficient resources were need to take action and there was a need for courage and political will to act before it was too late.

Ambassador Robert Fowler of Canada argued that if the Security Council were to be an effective tool of conflict prevention, it must adapt its “conclave and privileged” working methods to the new security environment by broadening its range of interlocutors and sources of information.

There should be more scope for the participation of non-members in the deliberations of the Security Council.

Ambassador Qin Huasun of China told the Council that there seemed to be a tendency to put too much emphasis on intervention while neglectiing effective prevention.

“All too often there was heated debate on intervention, while neither prevention, nor serious inquiry into the root causes of conflicts, was given adequate attention,” he said.

Timely and effective preventive measures would get twice the result with half the effort, he added.

In a presidential statement issued at the end of the debate, the Council stressed the importance of a coordinated international response to economic, social, cultural or humanitarian problems, “which are often the root causes of armed conflicts.”