UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Seeks Regional Bodies For Peacekeeping

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 1995 (IPS) - A U.N. watchdog body wants the United Nations to gradually transfer its growing peacekeeping functions to regional political organisations.

The Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) warns in a 39-page report released Monday that the capacity of the United Nations to carry out peacekeeping missions is being overstretched.

“There is a need to find partners who would share responsibilities in collective security,” the report concludes.

The U.N. peacekeeping budget skyrocketed from about 600 million dollars in 1989 to more than 3.4 billion dollars in 1994. The number of troops and civilians deployed by the United Nations jumped from about 10,000 to more than 58,000, as peacekeeping operations rose from five to 16.

Stung by a rash of peacekeeping failures in Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said last year there was an urgent need for burden-sharing between the United Nations and regional organisations.

The Secretary-General called for a “division of labour” so that the United Nations could share its peacekeeping responsibilities with regional organisations.

The JIU study says that “regional organisations should be the first port of call for the prevention and pacific settlement of local disputes.”

“Since many conflicts are increasingly local or civil in nature, there is a growing consensus that they could more easily be prevented or speedily resolved through regional initiatives and approaches,” the study adds.

The JIU identifies several regional organisations as potential partners in U.N. peacekeeping.

These include the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the Organisation of American States (OAS), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

The study points out that 16 regional organisations are cooperating or have shown interest in cooperating with the United Nations in peacekeeping or other peace-related activities. Of these bodies, three are regional, eight are sub-regional, four are inter-regional, and one is international.

The study says that regional organisations have several advantages over the United Nations: they have intimate knowledge of the conflict situation because of their geographical proximity, and they share a historical experience and culture — all of which help in finding solutions.

A regional organisation would also incur less expenditure on field operations than the United Nations.

“In addition, sometimes it is easier procedurally to make use of regional organisations, since some of them have a mandate to intervene peacefully in internal affairs and/or have unique instruments not available elsewhere,” the JIU says.

The United Nations has cooperated with ECOWAS and the CIS in Liberia and Georgia. According to Boutros-Ghali, the burden- sharing was extensive in the former Yugoslavia: NATO was in the air, the Western European Union and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were on the Danube, and the United Nations was on the ground.

The OAU has undertaken several diplomatic initiatives in Angola, Burundi, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia and Western Sahara. Both the League of Arab States and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) have been involved in diplomatic initiatives relating to Somalia and Bosnia.

Also, the EU and the United Nations co-sponsored the International Conference on the former Yugoslavia. And at the initiative of ASEAN, the United Nations sponsored the International Conference on Kampuchea in 1981.

Boutros-Ghali says he sees an important role for regional organisations since U.N. peacekeeping operations have undergone a radical conceptual change: from settling international disputes to preventing civil wars and ethnic conflicts.

The U.N. forces in El Salvador, for example, intervened in a dispute between the government and a group of insurgents called the Frente Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN).

The forces sent to Mozambique mediated between the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) government and the military opposition, the Mozambique National Resistance Movement (RENAMO).

Both in Angola and in Rwanda, the United Nations dispatched its soldiers to settle purely domestic disputes.

Ambassador Jakken Biorn Lian of Norway told a U.N. committee last year there was an emerging new role for regional organisations to solve the world’s growing political and ethnic conflicts.

“Regional organisations should take on more responsibility for peacekeeping in future as called for by the U.N. Charter,” he told delegates.

The five Nordic countries — Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland — say that organisations such as ASEAN, the OAU, and the OAS should takeover some of the peacekeeping burdens in their respective regions.

UNITED NATIONS: U.N. Seeks Regional Bodies For Peacekeeping

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 21 1995 (IPS) - A U.N. watchdog body wants the United Nations to gradually transfer its growing peacekeeping functions to regional political organisations.
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