Darfur, And The Trouble With Peacemaking - Political Opinion

IR professor Seth Weinberger, writing at his always-informative blog, argues that the UN’s Darfur mission is — quite unsurprisingly — failing badly. With a highly obstructionist Sudanese government, unreliable African Union forces, and limited international commitment, peacekeeping forces (a joint AU-UN operation) have been unable to effectively end the violence. As Weinberger notes, the UN is in way over its head:

The UN is notoriously bad at these kinds of missions, which in reality should be called “peace making” rather than “peace keeping.” In peace keeping, two sides which have been warring decide that they wish to end the conflict, but do not trust each other enough to warrant laying down their arms. A neutral third party is needed to interpose itself between the two sides and guarantee the peace will be observed. The UN, as a neutral and trusted third part is very good at these kinds of missions.

But that doesn’t really describe the situation in Darfur, which looks more like peace making, in which an outside party uses military force (or the threat of military force) to impose a peace on a situation, particular when one weaker group is being threatened by a larger group. The NATO intervention in Kosovo is a classic example of peace making. Darfur looks much more like this kind of operation that it resembles peace keeping.

However, as good as the UN is at peace keeping, it is notoriously bad at peace making, largely because it lacks the political will to take sides and impose its will on the aggressor (which is exactly why it was NATO and not the UN that intervened in Kosovo, and why the UN was so disastrous in Bosnia [see Srebrenica]). The UN has neither the appetite nor the ability to bully Sudan, to deploy sufficient numbers of well-equipped troops, or to do what is really necessary to protect the people of Darfur.

One caveat here: while I agree with much of Weinberger’s assessment, it would certainly set a dangerous precedent if the UN were to make it a policy of regularly “picking sides.” Conflicts rarely have definable lines between oppressor and oppressed, and decisions about which horse to back would surely become politicized in the UNSC. On which side would the UN throw its support in Iraq? Sri Lanka? Kashmir? Difficult, multifaceted conflicts like these are not best confronted by declaring one side as just, and the other as evil.

Granted, this is not always the case. Gulf War I, for example, was a fairly clear-cut case of aggressor and victim and the UN was right to support Kuwait. But most disputes are not this straightforward. In general, then, it’s probably better for the UN to stick to peacekeeping than to wade into the muck of peacemaking. Not only is choosing sides a complicated task, it also sullies the organization’s reputation as an impartial body in cases where the distinction between oppressor and oppressed is not crystal clear.

But, minor disagreements aside, I do agree with Weinberger’s last point: that, ultimately, it’s only the leadership of outside, non-UN powers — perhaps a European coalition, a unilateralist United States, or NATO — that would ever take the tough action (military, economic or otherwise) needed to end this ongoing crisis. Despite its good intentions, it is clear that the UN is not going to get the job done.

Posted by Jeb Koogler

Source Foreign Policy Watch

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