"New
World
of UN Peace
Operations"
Echoes from
Rwanda to
Jonglei, 4
Frenchmen
By
Matthew
Russell Lee,
Book Review
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 18 --
With UN
Peacekeeping
under fire for
recent
inaction in
South Kordofan
and Darfur in
Sudan, slow
action in
Pibor
in South
Sudan, abuse
and negligent
introduction
on cholera in
Haiti,
and standing
by during mass
rapes in
Walikale in
the Congo, one
expected the
new 250 page
book "The New
World of UN
Peace
Operations" to
suggest
solutions to
these
problems.
Instead,
the
book's three
German authors
lavish praise
on the
Department of
Peacekeeping
Operations,
mostly on
Jean-Marie
Guehenno (the
second of
the four
Frenchmen in a
row to run
DPKO) with a
few mentions
of his
successor,
Alain Le Roy.
There
are many
below the top
level of DPKO
who want to do
a good job,
and some do.
But as the
proverb says,
a fish rots
from the head.
The
book does
acknowledge
some problems:
the capture
and
"undressing"
of
UN
peacekeepers
in Sierra
Leone in 2000
by forces
under Corporal
Foday Sankoh;
the erratic
management in
Liberia of
Jacques Klein.
But
it misses more
recent
stories.
Though
copyrighted
and published
in 2011 the
book feels out
of date, with
only glancing
mention of the
Department of
Field Support
that was spun
off in 2008.
Ban Ki-moon is
not even
listed in the
book's index;
his name
appears
once,
connected to a
press release,
on the book's
penultimate
page.
Jordan's
Prince
Zeid is
mentioned, but
not his
incomplete
work on sexual
abuse and
exploitation.
This is a
bureaucratic
book about a
bureaucracy,
portraying
DPKO as a
"learning
organization."
But
what has DPKO
learned? The
book recounts
DPKO inaction
in Bukavu in
the Kivus in
2004 during
attacks led by
Jules
Mutebutsi and
Laurent
Nkunda.
But
the same thing
happened last
year in
Southern
Kordofan, and
to some
degree this
month in Jonglei
State in South
Sudan, where
the UN
proceeded
without
Russian
helicopters
flying from
November on,
until
a bloodbath in
Pibor ensued
(click here
for an Inner
City Press
story.)
Even now the
UN won't say
what it has
learned.
(UNMISS
official Lise
Grande is in
the book, at
page 185;
Hilde Johnson
is not.)
The
book praises
Alan Doss, the
former SRSG in
the Congo who
left after
proof of
nepotism:
urging UNDP to
break the
rules and give
his daughter a
job
(a protest by
the staffer
whose job was
being given
away led to
the
staffer, and
not Doss,
being
submitted to
justice.)
Amid
bloviating
about the UN's
Rule of Law
work, there is
no mention of
the
peacekeepers'
immunity,
which has led
for example to
the mere
repatriation
of over 100
Sri Lankan
soldiers after
being accused
of
pedophilia in
Haiti, and the
more recent
case involving
Uruguayan
peacekeepers.
Inevitably
there's
mention of the
Romanian
UN Formed
Police Unit
shooting
protesters in
Kosovo in 2007
with 13 year
old rubber
bullets which
got hard
enough
to kill.
But this same
issue --
allowing
peacekeepers
to use out of
date munitions
-- had earlier
led to deaths
in the DRC. So
what did
the UN learn?
There
are many
below the top
level of DPKO
who want to do
a good job,
and some do.
But as the
proverb says,
a fish rots
from the head.
(c) UN Photo
UN
Peacekeeping
in decline:
Ladsous &
Ban his year,
response on
cholera in
Haiti not
shown
One
wonders what
the authors
think of the
capture of UN
Peacekeeping
by a single
member state,
to the degree
that France
put forward
Herve Ladsous
at
the last
minute to
replace Jerome
Bonnafont,
even though
even his
supporters say
Ladsous is
unqualified.
At an early
meeting,
Ladsous
reportedly
told UN staff,
don't look to
me for vision,
I am a
bureaucrat. So
it seems are
this book's
authors,
Thorsten
Benner,
Stephan
Bergenthaler
and
Philipp
Rotmann, all
affiliated
with the
Global Public
Policy
Institute
GPPi. The book
was funded by
the German
Foundation for
Peace
Research. The
money could
better have
been spent
trying to
protect
civilians in
Pibor, or
South Kordofan
before that.
Live and
learn.
, 
