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In
Sierra Leone the UN is Battling for
Itself
By JONATHAN
POWER
May 24, 2000
LONDON- When Kofi Annan, the UN's Ghanaian
Secretary-General, visited Rwanda in May, 1998 he ended
up being pilloried in an aggressive press conference for
presiding over the UN's "hands off" policy during the
genocide, of the Tutsis by the Hutus four years
previously. Journalists were quoting from Philip
Gourevitch's shocking then just-published, book, "We wish
to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our
families".
In it he charged that the UN had ignored a cable from
its local commander warning of the impending genocide. As
William Shawcross tells it in his important new book on
the UN, "Deliver Us From Evil", "His voice almost
cracking, Annan ended by saying that 'too much was made
of one cable and that if INFORMATION was indeed the only
problem then peacekeeping would be much easier. We would
not be having problems in Kosovo because everybody KNOWS.
We would not have had a problem in the Congo because
everyone KNEW we had to separate the troops and the
refugees. Why didn't it happen despite the information?
Later everybody KNEW that there were refugees left behind
when one million went back to Rwanda. Why didn't the
information make us go and save them?'"
Ever since the Rwanda genocide the corridors of the UN
have been pervaded by a heavy sense of guilt. For his
part, President Bill Clinton tried to make amends for
America's obstructive role by actually going to Rwanda
and making a contrite apology. Yet as we all know from
day to day life, guilt on its own doesn't always engender
better behaviour. Neither, come to that, does having more
information. We either have the will because we have the
conviction, or we don't.
Thus, until a week ago, we had to watch the unfolding
carnage in Sierra Leone, as did Kofi Annan, with hands
clasped, baited breath, wondering how far the situation
had to spiral downwards in the direction of genocide or
mass killings before the resolve of the Security Council
made itself apparent. Meanwhile, we were swamped with
information on children being conscripted into the rebel
army and children at large having their limbs amputated
by machete. "HOW MUCH information do they want?" Kofi
Annan doubtless asked his wife.
The Secretary-General is supposed to bake bread
without flour much less yeast. Yet when the UN fields
only half a loaf the media and the back seat
parliamentarians and congressmen deride the organisation
as impotent and ineffectual, overlooking that the genetic
structure of this body is nothing more than the sum of
its parts.
A man with an ego would have quit long ago. One of
Annan's predecessors, the Burmese U Thant, suffered
similar attacks, when in 1967 he ordered a UN
peacekeeping force to honour an Egyptian government
request to withdraw from its soil, triggering an Israeli
attack on Egypt and the Six Day War. "He suffered
irreparable psychological damage" and his physical health
steadily declined, recalls a biographer.
The Sierra Leone effort brings back to mind the UN's
largest African peacekeeping operation- in the Congo in
1960-61, an intervention that led to the death of the
UN's most inspired Secretary-General, the Swede, Dag
Hammarskjold. The UN in a much more politically difficult
situation than it is today managed to bring about a
cease-fire, end mineral-rich Katanga's succession and win
a peace agreement. Walter Lippmann described the odds in
one of his telling columns in the New York Herald
Tribune: "The cause of the opposition to the UN from East
and West is a determination not to have the UN succeed in
what it is attempting to do. For if the UN succeeds,
there will not be a communist government in the Congo.
That is what Khrushchev hated about Hammarskjold. And if
the UN succeeds, there will not be a restoration of white
supremacy in the Congo and that is why money, propaganda
and clandestine intervention are being employed [by
the French, the Belgians and the British] to
frustrate the UN."
Moreover the political and managerial complications
over Sierra Leone are nothing as compared with the Congo.
Brian Urquhart, a former head of UN peacekeeping,
described the effort to persuade the rebellious,
secessionist leader Moise Tshombe to agree to the
National Reconciliation Plan as "like trying to get an
eel into a bottle". The UN, moreover, was not only under
strength it had an Ethiopian contingent that was totally
undisciplined and elements from the Swedish airforce that
tried to take off and bomb the rebels on their own say
so.
By this measure the UN operation in Sierra Leone is a
haven of good sense. The Security Council is reasonably
united. The diamond traffickers and some of the companies
may have their own agenda but they do not have the ear of
Western governments, as did the copper miners of Katanga
forty years ago. Yet there is one major difference that
stands out. In the Congo, the U.S. was prepared to pull
its weight on peacekeeping support, providing low cost
transport for the troops of other countries and other
logistical help. Now, besides not paying its dues on
time, the U.S. offers transport at four times the
commercial rate. There may be no Cold War, but this
attitude undermines the UN as effectively as an
ideological fist fight.
Very much for their own reasons, the British have got
involved in Sierre Leone and perhaps even saved the
situation. Prime Minister Tony Blair sent in a naval task
force to evacuate British and other foreigners. Once they
got their feet on the ground, finding their superior
training gave them a cutting edge and backed by a
favourable press at home they've stayed on, secured the
capital and helped with the capture of the murderous
rebel leader Foday Sankoh. But such ad hocing is not good
for the UN in the long run. Insisting on operating
outside the UN chain of command, the British follow in
the footsteps of the bad example that the U.S. set in
Somalia. And now the Nigerian military is talking about
operating in Sierre Leone outside the UN as well. This is
no way to revitalize the UN, nor to build up the
reputation of its peacekeeping department for future
conflicts.
UN peacekeeping can work very well. This has been
demonstrated in places as diverse as Cyprus and Namibia.
Most recently, UN intervention in East Timor has been a
remarkable success. But it only will happen if a will to
make it work returns to the corridors of the UN. In
different ways Clinton and Blair have undermined the UN.
One can only hope that peace is brought to Sierra Leone
despite their deficiencies. .
I can be reached by phone +44 385 351172 and e-mail:
JonatPower@aol.com
Copyright © 2000 By JONATHAN POWER
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