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Contributions from
the Column
Books and Media
United Nations handbook
Wars in Africa – lots more work for the UN
Poverty reduction – a cross-sectoral task
12/2003 |
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[ Minor successes, major failures ]
Wars in Africa – lots more work for the UN
The humanitarian consequences of the latest violent conflicts in (Eastern) Congo and Liberia have raised more questions in recent months about the need for and possibilities of outside military intervention in crisis-torn Africa, especially with regard to UN peace missions. Anyone looking for a basis for sound and authoritative comment on these issues is recommended to check out this study by Tobias Debiel, which is a radically trimmed-down version of a dissertation written (under Franz Nuscheler and Peter Meyns) at Duisburg University on the possibilities and limits of multilateral conflict management in sub-Saharan Africa.
After introducing its subject, the book launches into a general conceptual discussion of fundamental problems of multilateral peacekeeping in the age of globalisation. This is then followed by a selection of case studies – packed with empirical data – which the author discusses and analyses in very great detail: the 1960-64 intervention in the Congo, the cases of Namibia, Angola and Mozambique in Southern Africa, the UN's efforts in Somalia and the international community's failure to prevent the genocide in Rwanda. In the final chapter, we find shorter case studies of more recent UN missions dating from 1999-2002 (Ethiopia/Eritrea, Congo, Sierra Leone).
Comparative analysis of these cases prompts the author to deliver a sobering verdict on UN peacekeeping operations in Africa in the 1990s. Minor successes (e.g. in Namibia and Mozambique) and major failures (especially in Somalia and Rwanda) provide the headline for his stock-take. One way of boosting the efficacy of future UN peace operations is seen by Debiel in implementing the peace mission reform proposals of the so-called Brahimi report published in 2000. Above all, this recommended clear and strong mandates. But Debiel is more sceptical about the usefulness of strengthening African military peacekeeping capacities (a proposal which gets strong German endorsement at present): "There is little evidence that extra training for purely or predominantly African peace forces would make them better at meeting the extremely difficult challenges of multidimensional peacekeeping than the UN missions set up with Western participation." As for more recent multilateralist African initiatives, such as the African Union (AU) and NEPAD, Debiel reserves judgement, pointing out that both approaches need time to consolidate. Having said that, the author makes no bones about being sceptical that AU and NEPAD could become significant platforms for an African peacekeeping force for Africa. "On the threshold of the 21st century", Debiel says in his summing-up, "peacekeeping assignments for the United Nations are set to remain in all the sub-regions of Africa – not least because there are no alternatives." Volker Matthies
Tobias Debiel: UN-Friedensoperationen in Afrika. Weltinnenpolitik und die Realität von Bürgerkriegen. (UN peace operations in Africa. Global domestic policy and the reality of civil wars.) Bonn, Dietz 2003, 309 pp., Euro 14.80, ISBN 3-8012-0333-6 (Development and Peace Foundation (SEF) special) [in German]
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