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What is Peacekeeping? 
According to the International Peace Academy (1984) in Bellamy & Williams (2010:16), 
'peacekeeping is the prevention, containment, moderation and termination of hostilities between 
or within states, through the medium of a peaceful third party intervention organized and directed 
internally, using multi-national forces of soldiers, police and civilians to restore and maintain 
peace. 
Peacekeeping, then, is made possible by peacekeepers who may also be referred to as 
peacekeeping actors (or 'warriors of freedom' as Colin Powell fondly refers to them) and they 
include but may not be limited to the following: 

Individual States 

Coalition of the willing-formal regional bodies or arrangements 

Other international organization 

UN Blue Helmet 
For the records therefore, and also for Clarity purposes, peacekeepers usually operate under 
the banner of particular states or international organizations. States sometimes conduct 

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peacekeeping missions alone but more commonly, they act as part of a Coalition, alongside other 
willing states. Note also, that, not all international organizations conduct peace operations as it is 
the UN, and certain regional arrangements that have most commonly engaged in such activities. 
In peacekeeping, these key documents, in general, represent an ideal working document for 
any successful PKO: 

Mandate 

Status of Forces Arrangement 

Terms of Reference 

Rules of Engagement 

Standing Operating Procedure 

Area Information Handbook 

Historical Examples 
Closely related to the above point, is the fact that it is very important to get the consent of 
the host nation/parties to the conflict, be impartial, neutral, firm, anticipate the possibility of ugly 
incidents and plan on how to neutralize, eliminate or avoid them among other things (ibid). 
Moving further, while it's generally accepted that three events shaped the formation of 
peacekeeping and namely: The Egyptian 'suez crisis (1956-1967), The Greek and Turkish 
communities in Cyprus violence (1964-present) and the Ethiopian and Eritrean border conflict 
(2000-2008), it is a known fact that the first UN mission was in Congo in 1960 under UNSCR 143 
of 14th July, 1960 (Galadima 2006). 
Indeed, it must be acknowledged that governments and international organization have 
been prone to label many different kinds of military activity as 'peacekeeping', sometimes in the 
attempt to legitimize their activities (James 1969:9; Finnemore 2003: 14 in Op.Cit). Examples of 
military activities that have been labeled ‘peacekeeping’ include US Forces invasion in Grenada 
in 1983 to overthrow a military junta and also in Iraq and so on. 
However, it should be noted that while, some peacekeeping operations did not get UNSC's 
nod before taking off, they eventual did when their actions and efforts were justified as was the 
case with ECOWAS in Liberia-1990-97, UK in Sierra Leone-2000, South Africa in Burundi-2001-
03 and so on. Also, some peacekeeping operations have been carried out without the consent of 

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the host government and they include but not limited to the following, NATO in Kosovo-1999. 
Currently, there are 15 on-going peacekeeping operations across the globe with Africa 
accounting for seven (7) of them (UN fact sheet 2013). Among these on-going peacekeeping 
operations, you will find those existing without Troops, UN Volunteers, Military Observers, and 
Police. All these goes to show the various levels of success attained in these peacekeeping 
operations. More so, Mali is the most recent host to UN peacekeeping operations under the 35 
paragraph UNSCR 2100 of 25th April, 2013, with paragraph 16 & 17 capturing the operations 
mandate in clear terms (Minusma mandate 2013).