UNITED NATIONS: Peacekeeping in Jeopardy, Warns U.N.

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 19 1996 (IPS) - The United Nations’ financial problems — in particular, its snowballing debt to countries taking part in peacekeeping efforts — have put these operations in jeopardy, the organisation is warning.

In its year-end assessment released Wednesday, the world body says that by the closing months of 1996, member states owed the organisation about 1.7 billion dollars in back dues for peacekeeping alone.

The United Nations, in turn, owes some 990 million dollars to 80 countries that have provided personnel and military equipment for peacekeeping operations this year. This debt has snowballed from around 600 million dollars over the past three years.

“It’s a situation with worrisome implications for the future willingness of member states to assist in peacekeeping,”(the U.N. document warns.

Earlier this year, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said that some member states had warned him they would not participate in future operations unless they are paid.

“They keep asking: ‘When will I be paid?’ Or they say ‘I am ready to withdraw my soldiers because I have not been paid for the past six months’,” Boutros-Ghali said.

At a press conference Wednesday, Secretary-General-elect Kofi Annan of Ghana said that despite the cash crisis, “peacekeeping is going to be with us for a long time.”

Annan said that, although he was “not trying to drum up business,” he predicted that “peacekeeping as a primary activity of the United Nations would not end.”

Annan will have to square a continued need for peacekeeping interventions with the organisation’s actual ability to mobilise troops, officials and diplomats here say.

There is little firm commitment for a new initiative to create a stand-by force for rapid deployment, they point out, and the signs are that member states’ commitment is flagging even under traditional mobilisation arrangements.

The largest debt to a developing nation is 67.5 million dollars, owed to Pakistan. The largest troop contributor, Islamabad’s military forces are serving in 11 peacekeeping operations.

In addition to Pakistan, the United Nations owes 58 million dollars to India, 38 million dollars to Bangladesh, 32.6 million dollars to Malaysia and 24.9 million dollars to Egypt.

The world body also owes money to some of the world’s least developed countries, mostly from Africa, which have contributed troops to peacekeeping operations. These include Djibouti, Malawi, Zambia, Chad, Congo, Mali and Niger.

The cash crisis in peacekeeping has been further complicated by the failure of member states to pay their share of the UN’s regular budget.

In addition to the 1.7 billion dollars in unpaid peacekeeping contributions, member states’ owe will owe more than 500 million dollars to the U.N.’s regular budget by end-December, officials say.

In a feat of creative accounting, UN finance officials periodically have borrowed money from the peacekeeping budget to fund shortfalls in the organisation’s regular budget. But as the peacekeeping arrears add up, this becomes more difficult, senior officials say.

Under-Secretary-General Joseph Connor, head of Administration and Management, last week singled out the United States as the biggest single defaulter both to the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets.

As of last week, Washington owed 69 percent of the accumulated back dues to the regular budget and 54 percent of the peacekeeping arrears, Connor said.

As 1996 ends, some 26,000 military personnel and civilians are serving in 16 UN peacekeeping operations, at a total annual cost of about 1.6 billion dollars.

This is a significant decline from 1995, when the United Nations deployed more than 60,000 personnel in 17 peacekeeping missions at a cost of 3.4 billion dollars, more than twice the 1996 figure.

Until last year, peacekeeping was the biggest single growth area in the world body, rising from 379 million dollars in 1990 to a record 3.5 billion dollars in 1994. The 1996 figure is the lowest in five years.

A former head of the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations, Annan earlier this year said the number of troops deployed in U.N. peacekeeping operations could rise again next year, “given the unpredictability of world politics.”

In either case, he pointed out, the types of conflicts and circumstances in which peacekeepers are deployed are not likely to change.

“Most of today’s conflicts were within states, and were sometimes marked by the collapse of state institutions and a breakdown of law and order,” he said.

Diplomats here attribute the decline in peacekeeping to two main factors: the current crash crunch, and the UN’s reluctance to rush into new peacekeeping missions after failures in Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

Currently, the largest contingents of peacekeepers are from Pakistan (1,704 soldiers), Russia (1,215), India (1,208), Bangladesh (1,178) and Jordan (1,127) — reflecting the increased involvement of Third World nations in U.N. peacekeeping missions, particularly over the past five years, according to UN figures.

Meanwhile, a U.N. plan to establish a stand-by force designed to accelerate deployment of troops during the start-up phase of peacekeeping operatons has attracted commitments from only five of the UN’s 185 member states.

Although 62 countries have expressed willingness to participate in the stand-by arrangement, only five have signed formal agreements to place specified numbers of troops at the UN’s disposal. These are Jordan, Denmark, Ghana, Malaysia and Austria.