|
Second, limitation of armed conflicts is only the first step to completely resolve conflicts between protagonists. A successful operation must promote conclusion of an agreement between all protagonists and make an interposition force unnecessary because peace and order have been restored. For example, the peacekeeping operation in Cambodia is usually taken as a good example of success because a legitimate government is elected and in operation in addition to the cease-fire agreement reached between the involved parties.
Third, a successful operation requires fulfillment of more specific goals in particular situations of deployment. For instance, if a UN peacekeeping troop is responsible for providing humanitarian aid for local population, its failure to do so or inhuman conducts may contradict the objectives and is not regarded as success even though it has achieved some other goals. The peacekeeping operation in Rwanda is generally regarded as one of the “abjective failures”. (White 1996, p185)
4. Existing Problems
As the mission of the UN peacekeeping troops is to maintain and restore peace and order, the troops assume the responsibility for performance of their functions by norms established by the Security Council to alleviate suffering of the victims of the conflicts and limit or control violence. There are a majority of successes in this perspective. However, there are also increasing problems occurring concerning peacekeeping operations.
First, huge demand of substantial investments in finance and manpower to ensure successful operations conflicts with decreased supply. For example, the United States unilaterally declared its intention to reduce its contributions and restrict donations of troops to UN missions. (Hill 1996, p214) The UN has so far accumulated a huge deficit that makes peacekeeping operations more and more difficult.(Rikhye 1991, p104)
Second, there is a problem of command and control of the UN peacekeeping troops. As the UN peacekeeping troops are composed of multinational forces and they are under command of the UN Security Council and the direction of their national commanders, who will be responsible for the misconduct or even crimes in the host countries by the peacekeeping soldiers? Who will be responsible for the supervision over these soldiers? The soldiers are sent to maintain peace and order, but if they fail to fulfill their obligations, what can be done? The peacekeeping soldiers are empowered to use their arms in self-defense, but how to ensure that they will not use them for offensive crimes?
|
