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CHAPTER TWENTY
PEACEKEEPING CHALLENGES AND NEW DEVELOPMENT
It's an established fact that the concept and practice of peacekeeping have undergone
tremendous changes from what it used to be since its inception and will continue to develop mainly
because of the recent critiques, comments and debates on its mode of operations.
According to Obadiah (2013), Peacekeeping intervention, ideally, is preceded by a
ceasefire agreement, since there can be no peacekeeping in the middle of an offensive war. But
what happens where such agreement proves difficult-or impossible- and global peace and security
are threatened?
Most peacekeeping operations set up before the 1990s generally operated in permissive
environments where they had the consent and support of host governments for their presence but
today's new dimensions to conflict has reduced the pride of place which consent hitherto occupied.
In the same vein, during the 1990s, missions were deployed in the context of internal wars or in
the shadow of complex emergencies and during these situations, the UN is all too often forced to
work under conditions of lawlessness and violence, where militias and paramilitary groups act
autonomously.. These challenges posed by intra-state wars and the impact of violent civil conflicts
have severally' called into question most of the perceived assumptions about peacekeeping and its
processes. The post Cold War conflicts have put UN's capabilities to test, as UN's failures in
Somalia, Rwanda and Bosnia have generated a lot of discourse.
Two important events that further questioned the capabilities of the UN peacekeeping
experience include the Rwanda genocide of 1994, where more than 800,000 people were killed. It
was described as "one of the most abhorrent events of the twentieth century". A year later, in one
of the worst war crimes since the end of the Second World War, the Bosnian town of Sebrenica
was besieged by Serb militias. During this siege, about 8,000 Muslims were killed under the
watchful eyes of the UN peacekeeping contingent deployed there.
The difficult experiences of the mid-1990's in countries such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and
Rwanda prompted the UN to reassess its approach to peacekeeping. In March 2000, a Panel on
United Nations Peace Operations issued a report that has come to be known as the "Brahimi
Report" (A/55/305-S/2000/809),
named after the Panel's chairperson, Under-Secretary-General
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Lakhdar Brahimi. The report offered an in-depth critique of the conduct of UN peace operations
and made specific recommendations for change. The report also underlined consent by the warring
parties, a clear and specific mandate and adequate resources as minimum requirements for a
successful UN mission. Consequently, the UN and Member States initiated a number of reforms
aimed at improving UN peacekeeping, such as the establishment of a pre-mandate financing
mechanism to ensure that adequate resources are available for new mission start-ups.
Investigations were conducted and reports concluded that faced with the growing efforts
to murder, expel or terrorize the entire population, the neutral, impartial and mediating role of the
UN was proving to be grossly inadequate. Also, there was a call for the UN to undergo a process
of reflection in order to better clarify and improve on its capacity to respond to the various forms
of conflict. More so, the politics of consultations and negotiations that usually precede
peacekeeping preparation /operations and its attendant bottleneck, can best be blamed for most
UN failures (Galadima, 2013).
In essence, it seems reasonable for us to argue that, the major challenge for peacekeeping
in the twenty first century remains in the development of a concept that will clarify the specific
ways in which new peacekeeping efforts should properly function. This must include specific
suggestions and recommendations for the incorporation of the concepts into practice.
As a follow up to the above; Hudson (2005:118) submitted that, 'For any peacekeeping
operation to be successful, capacity-at institutional and troop level-and political will are needed,
and both of these prerequisites are largely absent on the African continent.' More so, many African
nations have considerable experience as. peacekeepers in UN missions' but their technical support
framework in practice can hardly agree with the theoretical position.
Again Hudson (2005), in presenting peacekeeping from a gender perspective, argued, that
a common feature of international, regional, and sub regional peacekeeping operations is their lack
of a gender - analytical approach. According to her, women and children, those often hit by
conflict, are excluded from peacekeeping decision-making. In addition, women's views and
concerns are also missing from the processes and institutions concerned with peacekeeping in
Africa.
Moving further, Bedont (2005 :86)" posited that' the UN system has proved dysfunctional
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and incapable of providing accountability where national authorities have failed to act' in the area
of prosecuting or punishing soldiers who have committed some form of offense or breached the
Rule Of Engagement during PKO's.
We must add here that peacekeeping functions have diversified significantly in recent
years, and all peace seeking organizations have strove to adapt to new tasks and challenges, given
the fact that the contexts and environments in which these missions are deployed have also become
more complex. (Millennium Report). Just recently, on the 23rd of April, 2015, (Aljazeera News)
UN Peacekeepers were killed in Sudan, and this is also one of the daunting challenges being faced
by the UN and indeed other Peacekeeping Actors.
In a nutshell, according to Agada (2008), Feldnian (2008), Vorrath (2012), Galadima
(2006), (UNIT AR POCI 2007), these are some of the major and obvious challenges confronting
peacekeeping operations and its Actors:
1.
Slow rate of UN peacekeeping operation deployment
2.
Non robust mandate as was seen in the casualty recorded in UNOSOM II
3.
Changing nature of operational environment
4.
Inadequate funding
5.
Inadequate intelligence required for counterinsurgency
6.
Ineffective enforcement of arms embargo
7.
Securing the Consent of the parties in conflict is also a challenge
8.
Inadequate manpower and logistic
9.
Non tackling of root causes of conflict
10.
Non cooperation of war lords
11.
Non participation of troops from developed nation-sometimes
12.
The non use of force in self-defense has to be considered' as one of the challenges
13.
Use of inadequate weapons by the UN's peacekeepers
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