Title: “WE DID NOTHING (Why the truth doesn’t always come out when the UN goes in)” (Penguin Books Ltd., 3rd ed., 2003)
Author:, (a freelance Dutch journalist)
“[T]o save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind,” … “to reaffirm faith … in the equal rights of … nations large and small”, and “to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”. Ahh, the lofty goals of a dreamy group which established the United Nations on June 26, 1945. Reading Polman’s book, let’s see if reality matches up.
Polman first tackles Sierra Leone, September 2000. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has failed to find 4,000 extra troops pursuant to the Security Council resolution ordering the expansion of the UN force from 13,000 to 17,000. The ‘Fabulous Fifteen’, more popularly known as the Security Council, comprises the 5 permanent members: China, France, Russia, UK and the USA and 10 non-permanent members with 2 year memberships). France, UK and the USA have naturally signed the resolution (if not actively pushed for it) yet not one Western country is involved in the UN military effort in Sierra Leone.
Polman notes that “[o]f the ten largest contributors to UN peacekeeping missions worldwide, nine are rated poor or below.” The eager 10 are: India, Bangladesh, Ghana, India, Kenya, Jordan Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Poland. Where are the Fabulous Fifteen who ordered the troop presence in the first place? After watching Kofi Annan on TV call on the UN to show in Sierra Leone “something like solidarity of peoples that transcends race and geographical distance’, an Indian blue helmet interprets and says ‘[B]ut of course there’s something like solidarity between peoples …Western states are quire prepared to fight the rebels here down to the last Third World soldier.’
In 2001, as Jordanian and Indian troops were being withdrawn by their governments frustrated with the non-participation of rich nations to join the UN force in Sierra Leone, Kofi Annan is left asking “Can the Council keep adopting resolutions that requires us to deploy troops, while its own members do nothing, particularly those major countries with large forces?”
And before you praise the eager poor nations for their selflessness, “[m]ost soldiers from rich countries receive the UN allowance directly, but the governments of poor countries generally put the proceeds in their own pockets.” Peacekeeping is just good business as far as these governments are concerned.
Somalia, December 1992. To prevent famine and protect humanitarian aid from being stolen by warring clans, US President George Bush Sr. orders Operation Restore Hope to enable the US military to protect the aid convoys. The US demands that the UN follow with a peacekeeping mission (which became known as Operation Continue Hope). However, the US thought it dangerous for their own soldiers to disarm the warring clans and, having suddenly decided to leave due to the deaths of 18 US soldiers brought about by an attack on 3 Black Hawk helicopters, with no US firepower and no mandate to shoot unless in self-defense, the incoming UN peacekeepers then became sitting ducks.
The mayhem that followed was immediate. US President Bill Clinton promptly tagged the Somalia mission as a UN failure, himself famously proclaiming that “[t]he UN should learn to say No”. As media reports largely ignored the fact that the UN only does what the Member States order it to do, the Clinton sound bite stuck.
Haiti, September 1994. To prevent thousands of more Haitian refugees fleeing by boat to Florida, US President Clinton orders Operation Restore Democracy to enable the US military to unseat military junta leader Raoul Cedras and re-install ousted President Jean-Bertrande Aristide. The US demands that the UN follow with a peacekeeping mission (which became known as Operation Uphold Democracy). However, … well … you get the picture just take out the downing of the black hawks and retain the sitting ducks part.
The usual restrictive UN mandate (of not firing unless in self-defense and not interfering unless mandated to do so) comes from Chapter I, Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the UN Charter which states: “[t]he Organization is based on the principle of sovereign equality of all nations” and Chapter I, Article 2, Paragraph 7: “[n]othing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state …”
The absurdity of fully implementing these provisions was best seen in Bosnia, 1992-1995 (where thousands died in places directly under the supervision of UN battalions), and, of course, Rwanda, March 1994-1995. “On 11 January 1994 [General Romeo Dallaire (the Canadian UN Force Commander in Rwanda)] sent a telegram to the Head of Peacekeeping Operations in New York [the future UN Secretary General and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Kofi Annan], reporting that extremists in Rwanda were fomenting civil war. He also predicted the genocide … New York replied the same day. Dallaire should take no action … [s]uch ‘offensive operations’ … fell outside the mandate that the Security Council had issued …” Mr. Annan would continue his passiveness despite repeated faxes by Gen. Dallaire.
In April 1995, when the tables were turned (after nearly 1,000,000 Tutsis are murdered by Hutus) and Polman found herself staring at 150,000 Hutus standing on a mountain plateau squeezed together for 62 hours straight guarded by 1,000 Tutsi soldiers who automatically kill any Hutu who dares run away, she asks the UN Commander to do something and stop the murders. The UN Commander says “We have orders to co-operate with the Rwandan authorities, not to shoot at them.” Polman persists “[b]ut surely you can if those authorities are killing innocent civilians under your nose.” The reply – “Not even then. No.”
Polman’s book details the dreadful routine of – including the dangers, hopelessness and absurdities faced by - UN blue helmets during peacekeeping missions in all parts of the world she visited them (Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda). They are the UN much different from the UN embroiled in politics at the headquarters in New York and more likely a concept alien from the imaginings of the UN founders. Despite everything, they go on, both soldiers of peace and unwitting pawns.
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*Self-explanatory.
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