The United Nations Security Council and War:The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (36 page)

It is against the background of these changes in operational (focus on intra-state conflict) and normative context (emphasis on ‘humanitarian’ issues broadly conceived) that the expanding scope of UN operations – reflected in a wider range of tasks given by the Council to peacekeepers, often within one and the same mission – must be understood. By the late 1990s, UN peacekeeping operations – by then usually prefaced by terms such as ‘hybrid’, ‘complex’, or ‘multi-dimensional’ – had
or were undertaking commitments of a qualitatively different kind from that with which it had historically been preoccupied. The expanded range of tasks authorized by the Council included

• support for the organization and the holding of elections, ranging in the degree of involvement from limited to fully fledged responsibility for the electoral process (UNTAC, Cambodia; ONUVEN, Nicaragua; ONUMOZ, Mozambique; MINURCA, Central African Republic; MINURSO, Western Sahara; UNOMIL, Liberia; MONUC, the DRC);

• the repatriation of refugees and displaced persons (UNTAC, Cambodia; UNOSOM II, Somalia; UNAMIR, Rwanda; UNPROFOR, former Yugoslavia; UNTAES, Eastern Slavonia; MONUC, the DRC);

• the monitoring, not only of ceasefire agreements and buffer zones, but also of compliance with human-rights obligations (ONUSAL, El Salvador; UNTAC, Cambodia; UNMIH, Haiti);

• the preventive deployments of UN troops (UNPROFOR and UNPREDEP, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia);

• the separation of military forces, including irregular formation, their demobilization and associated weapons control measures (UNPROFOR, former Yugoslavia; ONUMOZ, Mozambique; UNOSOM II, Somalia; UNOMIG, Georgia; UNOMIL, Liberia; UNAMIR, Rwanda; UNMOT, Tajikistan; UNAVEM III, Angola; UNTAES, Eastern Slavonia; MINUGUA, Guatemala; MONUA, Angola; MINURCA, Central African Republic, UNOMSIL, Sierra Leone; UNMIK, Kosovo; UNAMSIL, Sierra Leone; MONUC, the DRC);

• the creation of ‘secure’ conditions for the delivery of humanitarian relief (UN-PROFOR, former Yugoslavia; UNOSOM I & II, Somalia; UNAMIR, Rwanda; UNAMSIL, Sierra Leone; MONUC, the DRC).
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This large increase in the volume and quality of UN activities meant that UN field operations came (as they still do) to dominate the day-to-day business of the Council in a manner unprecedented in the Cold War years of the organization. The sheer number of operations and the multi-tasking of UN forces have also created severe strains on the organization’s limited capacity for mounting, managing, and sustaining operations, and revealed major bottlenecks (seemingly resistant to reform) especially in the areas of logistics organization and in the planning for large-scale operations. The fundamental nature of these problems is strikingly
similar to those laid bare by the earlier UN operations in the Middle East and, especially, the Congo.
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While this has enormously complicated missions, it would be wrong to assess the comparative success or failure of operations since 1992 simply by reference to these deficiencies. More important in the balance of considerations has been the role of the Council as measured by the clarity of its mandate, by its readiness to support – often at critical moments in the history of an operation – heads of mission, force commanders, and peacekeepers on the ground, and, finally, by the relative absence of tensions and conflict among its members, especially the P5. These factors have varied greatly and help explain both the course and outcome of operations.

In those cases where the political settlement that UN peacekeepers had been deployed to implement was sufficiently robust and, crucially, where Council support for that settlement did not fracture or waver, operational difficulties could be weathered and eventually overcome. The two clearest examples in this respect are UNTAC in Cambodia and ONUMOZ in Mozambique, with supporting evidence provided by Council action in relation to East Timor and Sierra Leone. Both UNTAC and ONUMOZ required improvization and creative interpretation of the original mandate by local heads of mission and force commanders, and neither operation was problem-free. Indeed, in the case of Cambodia, a more violent rejection of the UNTAC operation by the Khmer Rouge and/or of Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party would have placed UNTAC in an extraordinarily difficult position, ill-configured as it was for any kind of war-fighting activity. Security Council support, however, remained strong and unanimous throughout and proved an essential ingredient in the comparative success of the mission.
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In the case of ONUMOZ, the assessment of the head of the mission, Aldo Ajello, is even more unequivocal, describing the ‘disposition and unity of purpose of Security Council members France, Britain and the United States’, as being of ‘vital importance’ to the success of the mission.
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This, because as Special Representative of the Secretary-General he was able, as he himself put it, ‘to make the Council responsive to his priorities and needs, calling on it a number of times for reinforcement, and knew that it was available in reserve if he needed to invoke
its added weight’.
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Similarly, the necessary, if not sufficient, importance of Council unanimity to the initial achievements of the UN in East Timor have been highlighted by Ian Martin, head of the UN operation there in 1999. Commending ‘the speed with which the Council reached unanimity in inducing Indonesia’s acquiescence and mandating military intervention’, Martin noted how, ‘in contrast to Kosovo or Iraq, that unanimity laid a solid foundation for subsequent international cooperation in supporting the transition to a self-governing, independent Timor Leste.’
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Funmi Olonisakin, in a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of one of the UN’s more recent and complex missions, in Sierra Leone from October 1999 to December 2005, reaches a similar conclusion with respect to the Council’s enabling role: ‘the fact that the Security Council was not divided in its support of UNAMSIL was a key factor in UNAMSIL’s success.
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It would be wrong to see the success of these missions
merely
as a function of Council unity and steadfastness in the face of local opposition; luck, personalities (e.g. Ahtissari, Ajello, and Sanderson), and the degree to which each conflict can be said to have been ‘ripe for resolution’ all played a role.
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They do nonetheless contrast sharply with another set of cases in which the Council response was more divided, hesitant, and inconsistent. These fell broadly into two categories: ones were political settlements collapsed into violence (as in the Bicesse Accords for Angola 1992 and the Arusha Accords for Rwanda 1993), and ones where political settlement proved elusive in the first place and conditions of civil war persisted (as in Bosnia–Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995). The inability of the Council to agree on effective action in these instances not only complicated the role of UN personnel on the ground but also confronted the Council with deeper questions about the inherent limitations of UN peacekeeping. The Council’s handling of the war in Bosnia between 1992 and the summer of 1995 offers a particularly instructive example of the tensions that arose.

Until August of 1995, Council agreement about the role of UN peacekeepers in Bosnia–Herzegovina was framed by the three overarching objectives that defined
the international response to the wars of Yugoslav succession as a whole: to relieve the human suffering caused by the fighting; to localize the conflict as far as possible, preventing its spread within and beyond the territory of former Yugoslavia; and, finally, to facilitate negotiations among the warring parties with a view to settling their political grievances. These core objectives – relief, containment, and negotiations – provided the limited basis for Security Council consensus and remained unchanged until August 1995.

In September 1992, UNPROFOR was deployed to Bosnia–Herzegovina specifically in support of the humanitarian relief efforts of the UNHCR.
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This involved, initially, assuming control of Sarajevo airport and providing protection for land convoys throughout the ethnically divided and economically weak former Yugoslav republic. In terms of force composition, military resources, and rules of engagement, UNPROFOR was firmly premised on core traditional peacekeeping principles with respect to consent, the use of force, and impartiality. In the course of its deployment, the Council expanded UNPROFOR’s existing mandate, in particular by adding to it in 1993 the creation and ‘protection’ of six so-called ‘safe areas’ throughout Bosnia. In all, more than 140 Security Council resolutions and Presidential Statements relating to the former Yugoslavia were passed between 1991 and 1995, and the majority of these dealt with the situation in Bosnia.
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While almost all of these resolutions were adopted under
Chapter VII
, and although UNPROFOR eventually numbered nearly 40,000 troops, as a force it remained configured for peacekeeping: lightly equipped, widely dispersed, its logistics support vulnerable, with troop contributors manifestly unwilling to let their contingents be drawn into fighting. As such, use of
Chapter VII
resolutions may be seen, at least in part, as more of a procedural or diplomatic device – as opposed to a substantive hurdle under Article 39 of the Charter – intended to signal resolve by an otherwise divided ‘international community’. An early settlement might have justified this; for three years, however, a political settlement proved elusive. In the summer of 1994, Sergio Vieira de Mello, Head of Civil Affairs for UNPROFOR in 1993 and 1994, pointed to the mounting tension: UNPROFOR in Bosnia–Herzegovina, he observed, was ‘the first “peace-keeping” force to be given an exclusively humanitarian mandate in the context of an all-out and merciless war. Greater contradiction in terms and, indeed, on the ground would have been difficult to achieve.
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The consequences of the ‘contradiction’ came up for formal Council debate soon after de Mello’s comments. They did so in the context of the decisions that had to
be made – as was the case every six months – about the extension of UNPROFOR’s mandate. On these occasions, a detailed report by the Secretary-General on the state of mission, including when appropriate a list of ‘options’ for the Council to consider, provide the formal basis for the Council’s deliberations.
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The discussions
within
the Secretariat over the preparation of this report in the latter half of 1994 provide a particularly instructive insight into the effects of Council action and division on the workings of the peacekeeping force. Because they also highlight some of the wider issues raised by this chapter regarding the Council engagement in peacekeeping, they merit special mention.

In August 1994, Shashi Tharoor, combining the job of Special Assistant to the Under-Secretary-General for Peace-Keeping (then Kofi Annan) with the role of leader of the team responsible for the UN operation in former Yugoslavia, offered his thoughts on mandate renewal to Annan ‘in the spirit of devil’s advocacy’.
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Under ‘available options’, Tharoor suggested, first, repeating ‘the same arguments as last time (UNPROFOR withdrawal would lead to war, international community has no better alternative, something is better than nothing etc.)’. ‘This’, he noted, ‘will seem the most statesmanlike, conservative option available’ and will ‘be easier for the Security Council to accept than other options’. Against this, he argued, was the fact that ‘business as usual isn’t working’. A second option, scaling down the UN presence in Croatia and regrouping in Bosnia–Herzegovina ‘faces up to current realities and limitations’ but risks being a ‘half-way house that ends up satisfying no one; UNPROFOR will still be everywhere, but even less able to implement difficult Security Council resolutions’. The third option, Tharoor proposed, was to ‘admit frankly that the strategy chosen by the international community – alleviating the consequences of the conflict, working with all sides, facilitating the peace process – has failed.’ That option would face ‘up to the central dilemma confronting UNPROFOR and places the Security Council before its responsibilities’. It would also, however, ‘horrify’ members of the Council for, as he rightly stressed at this stage of the war, ‘most West European states see no alternative to the indefinite continuation of UNPROFOR, which in their view at least contains, and limits the effects of, the conflict.’
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In a further note, also submitted in the ‘spirit of devil’s advocacy some three months later, when the situation on the ground appeared still more precarious, Tharoor offered yet another option: ‘the assertive delivery of supplies to UNPROFOR and to civilians in the safe areas’.
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‘This’, he added, ‘seems to be the only option available that is compatible with
UNPROFOR’s self-respect’, but there was a risk: ‘the Serbs could call our bluff and either obstruct us or shoot at the NATO planes; if we are bluffing, we are humiliated; if we are not, we could find ourselves at war, reaching the very point we have so long sought to avoid – becoming a party to the conflict.’
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Tharoor nonetheless concluded that while this option carried ‘greatest risk of disaster’, it was also, in his view, ‘the only one that… carries the slightest hope of breaking out of the present stalemate’.
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The Council was plainly not, at this stage, prepared to contemplate that option. What eventually changed the position of the Council with respect to the war was the Bosnian Serb attack on the ‘safe areas’ of Srebrenica and Zepa, and in particular the evidence that soon began to filter out about the massacres that had accompanied the Bosnian Serb capture of Srebrenica. A series of developments – some of them initiated before the attack on the enclaves in July – prepared the ground for the
decisive
use of military force, a course of action which until then had been ruled out by the Council and troop-contributing countries and by many within the UN hierarchy. The steps enabling this shift included first, and crucially, the weakening of the strategic position of the Bosnian Serbs following the successes of Croatia’s military offensives, first in Western Slavonia in May 1995, and later in the Krajina in August – successes that owed much to overt and covert support by the US. Secondly, efforts were made to reduce the exposure and vulnerability of UN personnel to hostage taking (itself a function of UNPROFOR’s configuration as a peacekeeping force). These efforts included both a concentration and a reinforcement of UN forces in Bosnia, with UN forces around Sarajevo receiving vital artillery support (provided by the arrival, initially for the purpose of covering hostile withdrawal, of a UK–Dutch Rapid Reaction Force). Finally, a change in command and control arrangements for the use of NATO air power in support of UN forces set the stage for Operation Deliberate Force; an action which in the first half of September 1995 decisively shifted the balance of power on the ground and forced the parties to the negotiating table.
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