UN panel calls for 'credible mandates'

By Stefan Ulrich

MUNICH (DPA): The peacekeepers had come to disarm the fighters and protect the people, but they ended up having to surrender their own weapons and they couldn't even defend themselves.

That was in Sierra Leone this past May, when some 500 United Nations (UN) soldiers were taken captive. The whole mission threatened to end in disaster. Only a decisive intervention by an elite British force prevented a continuation of a series of UN bungles in Somalia, Bosnia and Rwanda.

A further debacle would have called into question the most noble of the principles enshrined in the UN charter: "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war."

Personnel at UN headquarters recognized the danger the failed missions posed. In March, Secretary-General Kofi Annan commissioned a panel of experts to study UN peacekeeping operations. The commission, chaired by former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi, was charged with coming up with recommendations on how the organization might better fulfill its mission in the future.

The panel presented its results on Wednesday, and Annan promptly endorsed them. The most important conclusion calls for a "robust" mandate for UN troops, saying that peacekeepers must provide a credible deterrent to earn respect.

"We are making a break with the traditional idea of a (UN soldier)," says Germany's representative to the panel and former inspector-general of the Bundeswehr, Klaus Naumann. "It will be replaced by robust peacekeeping (operations) that will allow the use of violence against those who don't play by the rules."

Another key recommendation of the Brahimi report states that the UN must refuse to engage in missions without first receiving "firm commitments" of adequate troops and supplies from member states. In the words of British newsweekly The Economist, the UN should not get involved in any more "missions impossible."

"If we don't learn the lessons of the failures in Bosnia and Rwanda," fears retired Gen. Naumann, "in the long run, we'll destroy the whole UN. "

As correct as the recommendations are in principle, they will prove extremely difficult to implement in practice. The UN does not act on its own behalf; it is a servant of many sometimes conflicting disparate national interests.

A peacekeeping mission requires the mandate of the Security Council, whose five permanent members sometimes behave erratically. On the one hand, they send UN soldiers into muddled situations in the Balkans or Africa to salve the world's conscience. On the other hand, they withhold their own funds and troops.

One example: The UN Security Council foresaw only 5,500 peacekeeping troops for its mission in huge, war-torn Congo. "That illustrates the mentality of people who instruct (their troops) to drain (a) lake," says former chief of planning for the UN troops, Michael Eisele. "They say, 'First we'll try it with a teaspoon and if that doesn't work, we can always try the tablespoon.'"

Eisele and the Brahimi panel call for the deployment of a powerful force with a clear-cut mandate in crisis situations. "In no case where UN soldiers had been equipped with a robust mandate did they actually have to (start shooting)," says Eisele.

"It was enough just to put on a good show of force." Acting hesitant and indecisive, he says, encourages the warlords to violence.

The report says that if the UN deploys its troops to maintain peace, it also has to be prepared to stand up to the forces of war and violence, and it must be able to conquer them.

Beyond that, Naumann says that the industrial nations must be prepared to provide more of their own, well-trained troops instead of first sending in "cheap soldiers" from Third World countries. German soldiers, too, he adds, should be deployed outside of NATO territory. If not, he says, "the crises will come to us."

For all the panel's criticism of UN member states, the group admits that the UN itself must share part of the blame for its unsuccessful missions. The panel recommends that the UN establish an "Information and Strategic Analysis Secretariat" in New York to support military operations. It also recommends more personnel and improved coordination of UN missions.

The experts further call on the secretary-general to make use of reconnaissance troops to prevent latent conflicts from breaking out, and suggests that groups of member states band together to form rapid-reaction brigades ready for immediate deployment in UN missions.

Kofi Annan has achieved two important goals with the panel's report. First, he has managed to move the UN out of critics' line of fire, since the report places most of the responsibility for the success or failure of peacekeeping operations with the member states themselves. Second, he has given September's UN Millennium Assembly -- billed as the biggest summit meeting of all time -- a top agenda item.

"I hope," says Germany's Naumann, "the heads of state and government comprehend that the entire UN is hanging in the balance."