When Peacekeepers Go Bad

A one-time de facto ally of the UN peacekeeping mission in eastern Congo, General Bosco Ntaganda is now wanted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court. WSJ's Christopher Rhoads reports on the region's tangled politics. Photo: Getty Images.

Peacekeepers At War -- Wall Street Journal

In the eastern Congo, a onetime rebel leader charged with a range of war crimes lived in high style for three years, in full view of a large United Nations peacekeeping force. How did the U.N. find itself in the middle of one of the world's bloodiest and most unmanageable conflicts? And why are its troops picking sides?

The Congo has long had a knack for bringing out the worst in foreign adventurers, from King Leopold II of Belgium to Joseph Conrad's fictional Kurtz. Now it is forcing a well-intentioned visitor, the United Nations, to reconsider how it keeps the peace in time of war.

The U.N. faced harsh criticism in the mid-1990s when its peacekeepers stood aside as atrocities unfolded in Rwanda and in Srebrenica during the Bosnian war. Determined not to repeat such failures, the U.N. resolved to use force in the name of protecting civilians.

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My Comment: A prediction .... this UN peacekeeping operation will fail .... not because they cannot defeat the rebels and militias .... but because the countries that are paying the bills and supplying the soldiers are getting tired of this conflict.

Demand For Peacekeepers Exceeds Troops, Funds - UN

Photo from UN Dispatch

From Reuters:

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 23 (Reuters) - U.N. peacekeepers are increasingly finding themselves deployed with too few troops, insufficient funds and in countries where there is hardly any peace to keep, a top U.N. official said on Friday.

"There is a constant strain now between mandates and resources ... expectations and our capacity to deliver," U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said in a speech to the U.N. Security Council. "United Nations peacekeeping is overstretched."

Analysts and diplomats say that the operations are headed for a crisis as demand for peacekeepers skyrockets while funds and troop reserves are getting harder to find.

They say the global financial crisis will likely make U.N. member states less willing to contribute to peacekeeping.

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My Comment: The global financial crisis coupled with a worldwide recession is going to completely gut the UN's peacekeeping budget. They will now have to make the decision that resources will need to be rationed, and that only certain conflicts will receive UN assistance.