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Global Policy Forum - UN Secretary General Annan: UN Force Learns from its Errors Peacekeeping Troops Rebuilding in Africa
By Don Melvin
June 2, 2000
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Early last month, as United Nations peacekeeping troops in Sierra Leone were yielding their weapons and vehicles to the country's rebel soldiers --- and being taken hostage, in some cases --- observers around the world began to say that U.N. peacekeeping was breathing its last.
After failed missions in the 1990s in Somalia and Rwanda, surely the idea of peacekeeping, at least in Africa, was dead. An upcoming mission in Congo, it seemed, would be aborted for lack of political will.
But U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in Atlanta for the 11th annual World Report Conference, said Thursday that the experience of Sierra Leone carries an entirely different message: The United Nations has learned from its mistakes and peacekeeping in Africa is very much alive.
"I would hope the message that has come out of Sierra Leone is a very strong one," he said. "In Somalia, we withdrew when we got into difficulty. In Sierra Leone, the member states are sending in additional troops --- India, Jordan, Bangladesh."
Rather than allowing Sierra Leone's rebels to intimidate them, the U.N. member states have shown resolve, Annan said.
The United Nations has also learned, he said, to enter countries in the future with well-trained, well-armed troops carrying heavier and more menacing equipment. "Sometimes you need to show force in order not to use it," he said.
Taking questions on live TV from an array of international journalists, Annan argued that it is wrong, when wars erupt, to blame the people who were trying to keep the peace. That, he said, tends to absolve the killers.
"When it comes to questions of peace and war, the greater part of the responsibility falls on the leaders and the peoples in the region," said Annan, who is Ghanaian. "I don't think we in Africa --- and as an African, I can say this --- can keep fighting each other and then stand up and ask, 'Where is the U.N.? Where is the international community?' "
It is time for Africa to accept that it must solve its differences through political rather than military means, he said. Annan said the United Nations can only be as effective as its member states make it. With no troops of its own, the United Nations in essence rents soldiers from countries at the rate of $1,000 per soldier per month. The United Nations owes hundreds of millions of dollars to countries that have contributed troops --- a debt that Annan said can only be paid if member states pay the body what they owe.
The U.N. can be effective when the will is there, the secretary-general said --- as was demonstrated by British intervention last month in Sierra Leone and by Australia leading the mission in East Timor last year.
But when the will is lacking, he said, peacekeepers will arrive late and be less effective.
"The United Nations is your government and mine," he said. "The United Nations is you and me. The United Nations can be as effective as the governments want it to be."
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