After the tragedy in Algiers, the UN hardly needs more bad news this week. But join the dots. In Lebanon, a senior general is murdered – while in the DR Congo, government forces backed by the UN have been beaten by a rebel militia. Although unrelated, these events both point a strategic vulnerability for UN peacekeeping. International forces are often sent into countries to assist weak national armies, but if those armies start losing battles and generals, the blue helmets are at risk.
This may come as a surprise to those who, remembering Bosnia and Kosovo, believe that UN forces typically deploy to protect civilians against marauding armies. And there are places – like Liberia and Haiti – where there is no national army at all, and the UN is the sole source of military security (although Haiti’s corrupt police are trouble enough by themselves).
But in the Lebanese and Congolese cases, UNIFIL and MONUC are both explicitly mandated to help the respective armed forces extend their authority over contested areas. This is a particularly unpleasant mandate in the DRC, as the Congolese army’s record is grim – it committed 40% of all human rights violations recorded by MONUC in the second half of 2006. And, as the latest fighting has shown, it isn’t any good at taking on determined opponents, even with UN fire support.
The Lebanese case is rather different: the army is decent, and its commander is the only man that all the country’s factions can agree on as a potential president. The sort of army one might want to support. But, of course, it’s no match for Hezbollah and if there were to be serious violence in Lebanon, the UN could not expect the army to hold the line.
Of course, the UN is meant to do all sorts of things to improve these situations: Security Sector Reform, capacity-building, and so forth. But there are months where being on the side of the generals just isn’t a very enjoyable place to be.
