Africa. The failures of the UN

by: Roberta Walls

Italy will participate in the European Union mission in the Central African Republic, battered by a severe humanitarian crisis. This was announced by the premier Italian Matteo Renzi, at the end of the EU-Africa summit, which took place Tuesday and Wednesday in Brussels. Renzi announced the sending of "some engineers" to give "a hand in terms of development and cooperation." In addition, will also be sent "a few dozen" soldiers of Engineers. 

On Tuesday, the European Council has given the green light to the military mission in the African country "to help create a safe environment in this country", in line with the UN resolution . The military operation EUFOR RCA renamed operate in Bangui and in the airport of the capital with the aim of protecting the population and provide humanitarian aid. 

Spite of the presence of French soldiers Sangaris the operation and mission of the African Misca peace, not violence stop. Indeed, we have multiplied. The vicissitudes of recent days have indeed raised the tension and angered people. 

Eye of the Storm did the Chadian soldiers, who are part of the AU peacekeeping mission, accused of shooting "without receiving any provocation" on the inhabitants of Bangui last weekend, killing at least 30 people and wounding 300 others. The news was confirmed Friday by the UN. "As soon as the convoy of the National Army of Chad reached the market area PK12, opened fire on the population. As people fled in panic in all directions, the soldiers continued to fire indiscriminately, "said the UN representative in Geneva for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, explaining to the media the first results of the investigation on the United Nations' accident. 

The incident sparked the reaction of the rebels Sélèka responsible for the coup posted about a year ago (March 24, 2013, ed), militias and self-defense Anti-Balaka, who for months you do the war. 

According to local sources, the Chadian soldiers arrived in Bangui to pick up some fellow citizens and Muslims, eager to leave the capital, but did not inform the command of Misca and French. 

Soldiers sent to N'Djamena have serious previous dependent and are not well regarded by the local population. Among the various accusations that he had helped the rebels Séléka to score the coup against former President Bozizé. 
Overall the African population is tired and discouraged against foreign troops that have been proven to abuse their powers and not be able to restore order. 

People are convinced that behind the inefficiency of African soldiers of Misca and those of the French Sangaris there is a strategy, that of the UN to intervene. France has assured that within ten days the Security Council will vote on the resolution to send a peacekeeping mission but also sanctions against 11 Central African personality. Among them are former President Bozizé and his son Jean-Francis, accused of "direct support to Anti-Balaka." 

The arrival of UN peacekeepers in the country does not arouse enthusiasm. And it's no wonder. From the genocide of Rwanda to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the massacre of Sierra Leone, to move to the Biafran and that of Somalia, the history of UN peacekeeping missions are dotted with setbacks and failures. 
It is customary to give the blame the blue helmets that do not do what they could do. Or be faster, more courageous, more efficient and more disciplined. They can not defeat evil. Do not look like superhero comics, cartoons or movies, which we are accustomed. 

Who are the peacekeepers? Pakistanis, Indians and Bangladeshis. The vast majority of UN troops employed in peacekeeping missions come from the poorest Member States of the United Nations. Why? The reason is simple: for poor countries participation in peace operations is a great deal because the soldiers at home cost when they become peacekeepers get an entry of a thousand dollars a month per soldier. 

Whilst the soldiers from rich countries receive compensation directly from the UN, those of poor governments, usually, if you pocket them. Often, it happens that the peacekeepers have to wait long to get equipment and reimbursements. It happens that the blue helmets from poor countries should ensure themselves to remedy the equipment they need. As happened in 1998 in Kuwait, where British soldiers sminarono the ground using special detectors British, while the soldiers of Bangladesh that dector not owned them, they did the same job putting sticks in the ground. 

Recent years have multiplied slogans against UN troops. The most common are the "blue helmets have failed" and "failed to protect the population." In Rwanda, in 1994, the peacekeepers were "property" to look Hutus who massacred with machetes 800 thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus in less than a hundred days. He cried foul. Yet today in the Democratic Republic of Congo is happening the same thing under the eyes of UN peacekeepers in the Minusco, women and girls are raped and raped with sticks and guns, old and young are killed or mutilated with machetes by rebel groups who flock the country. 

But it is the fault of peacekeepers or UN? Or better yet the soldiers or the five permanent members of the Security Council? Are the United States, France, the United Kingdom, China and Russia, which have the first and last word on the subject, who decide whether or not to send missions and identifying the scope, cost, time of so-called operations peace. 

Praxis is always the same. The UN produces resolutions that summarize all these conditions, then press the mandates and makes them have blue helmets who learn at that precise moment where they will go and what they can and can not do. In the mandates always appears the phrase: "Do not shoot unless in self-defense and never on the authorities of the host country." Even when thousands of people are massacred under their noses. The blue helmets are pawns of the five members of the UN, which protect their geopolitical and economic interests around the world.They do nothing but obey and carry out the UN mandate. Despite this, they are not saints, indeed most times you are guilty of crimes against humanity, as UN peacekeepers in Congo have raped dozens of women, or even children in Haiti. 

Entire world over. As in Italy, the south and the lower-middle classes to join in the international arena, are poor countries that provide troops, people who are illiterate and poor, for the UN missions. 

During 2001, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, faced with the difficulty of finding troops to be sent to Sierra Leone and the absence of Western countries in the UNAMSIL mission, raised "a very serious question that all of us not only the Security Council must consider: the Council can continue to adopt resolutions by requiring a deployment of our forces while its own members and in particular the most important countries with larger armies and do nothing? ". Kofi Annan was referring in particular to the United States, the largest military power in the world, which did not provide even one more soldier. A decision was taken by the U.S. after the adventure or rather misadventure in Somalia. 

In 1993 President Bill Clinton in his first speech before the General Assembly of the UN declared enough was enough, it was assumed that "commitments that were then beyond his own abilities. " He was referring precisely to the UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia, requested by the United States. 

Those words then Secretary of the United Nations Boustros Boutros-Ghali said: "It is the UN that says yes or no to something. It is the United States. It is the United States to say yes to the mission in Somalia. The task of the Organization is simply to raise troops and money needed. " 

The truth is that national interests always prevail on the objectives of the UN. And so it was for Somalia and Operation Continue Hope, which was sunk by the Member States. The U.S. who had started the mission and had taken the lead, were the first to open a hole and jump ship, accusing those who remained on board to have failed and not being able to say "no." 

History of Somalia includes all the dynamics that revolve around the UN resolutions. 

It all started in 1992 when the humanitarian agencies declared that there was a famine that was threatening to kill half of the Somali population at a rate of "three thousand people a day." Because of the civil war food aid could no longer reach the affected areas of famine. Despite the presence of five Pakistani peacekeepers, the bandits attacked humanitarian convoys. The United States decided to intervene. 

On 27 November 1992, President Bush told the nation: "I am deeply concerned about the fate of the Somali people" and announced sending 20-30 thousand men in Somalia in order to protect humanitarian aid. At the same time, "he asked," to the Security Council to pass a resolution to send a peacekeeping force in the Horn of Africa. Request that was accepted without much hesitation. 

As told by journalist Linda Polman, in his book "UN. Weaknesses and contradictions of an institution indispensable for peace ", twelve members of the Security Council voted in favor of the resolution. One abstained. Two voted against it. One of these was the Yemen, who paid dearly for his decision. According to the New York Times, as we read in the book, a U.S. diplomat would have said very abruptly to the representative of Yemen that this would be the most expensive vote that Yemen had ever expressed. The threat came at the facts: the U.S. reduced aid to this country of 60 million dollars. 

Threats instead worked with Colombia, "Our Achilles heel is the drug. The United States believes that we do not act strongly enough against traffickers. If we had voted against the resolution or abstained would have been if we had passed a very delicate border. We had a lot of fear that the United States could make us again what we did two years ago. On that occasion, a judge had accidentally discharged a Colombian drug dealer. It was the signal for the retaliation. Since then, the U.S. Customs checked the Colombian flower box to box. The operation called for three to four days, after which the flowers had withered completely, "he told a Colombian diplomat. 

If the background of the adoption of resolution are disturbing, even more so those that relate to the arrival of the invading forces in North America Somalia. 

Polman In the book, it is said that two days before the scheduled date of their landing in Mogadishu, came a messenger sent by the Bush administration. "Listen," said the leaders of the Somali clans specially gathered "under American leadership the world is going to prevent this country to commit suicide. We come in peace, but you know perfectly well what they are able to make the U.S. army. You have seen from you during Desert Storm. Now those same U.S. forces will arrive here in two days. If you do not cooperete polverizzeremo. " The invasion of the Marines was broadcast live on television in prime time. The U.S. soldiers landed on the beach in Mogadishu were greeted by photographers and journalists around the world. But there was not a Somali. It says a lot about what people thought about the mission. 

Within hours, the U.S. military occupied the port and the airport and set off the first convoy of food aid. CNN sent in world vision pictures "moving" of the Marines surrounded by children in the party and fed. Despite their arrival, "television", the U.S. high command did not intervene in the power struggle pitting Somali clans. "If you let us stay and food aid convoys, we'll let you stay," the Americans proposed to the heads of the clan, who immediately accepted the agreement. Rejecting the rest: they could keep their weapons, provided they do not point them against the marines. The pact was less when the peacekeepers arrived in Somalia. As soon as the peacekeepers arrived in Somalia felt order from the United States, which held the military command of the operation under the auspices of the United Nations, to begin to look for weapons. The Somalis who refused to leave were seen disarm bomb the houses from the North American drones. Hundreds were killed. Were the most violent and bloody bombing, grew more anger and violence of the Somalis against foreign soldiers in general: over sixty peacekeepers fell under the blows of the Somalis. 

And then one day the same fate befell 18 marines and the House White announced that it would withdraw its troops. The straw that broke the camel's back was the shooting by a crew from CNN, who happened to be staying in place, the body of one of the 18 soldiers dragged by a rope around the city as a trophy. It was then that the United States President Bill Clinton declared that the mission in Somalia was a failure of the UN, because the UN would have to say no to Somalia. Too bad that the whole operation was conceived by the United States under the U.S. command from start to finish. The provocation, the former UN General Secretary Boutros-Ghali pointed out that "there is the United Nations to say yes or no to something" and described its task as "going around the world's capitals to beg. To be clear: I have no power and are not independent. The Member States of the United Nations are free to contribute to paying for peacekeeping missions or not. Member States are free to make troops available or not. In order to do my job I depend on your willingness. " 

United States left Somalia and took away their trucks, their water purifiers and other equipment essential to ensure the conduct of the mission. At the heart of the United States, from the beginning, there was the Somali population, but their economic interests. 

Source: rinascita.eu