inside the glass house

The travails of UN peacekeeping operations
NEW YORK -- The Security Council's decision last week to send in a 10,000-strong UN peacekeeping force into southern Sudan -- and a gradual increase in troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Haiti -- will nearly double the UN's annual peacekeeping budget: from $2.6 billion in 2004-2005 to over $5 billion in 2005-2006.

Since UN peacekeeping is a significant foreign exchange earner for developing nations that provide troops and also lease military equipment, the escalation of the budget is expected to have a positive fallout.

At last count, the 10 largest troop contributors to UN operations were from Pakistan (8,544 troops), Bangladesh (7,163), Nigeria (3,579), Ghana (3,341), India (2,934), Ethiopia (2,863), South Africa (2,480), Uruguay (1,962), Jordan (1,864), and Kenya (1,831).

The total number of UN troops, which currently stand at more than 58,000, would increase to over 68,000. If a proposed new peacekeeping force is sent to Somalia later this year, the total could exceed the all-time high of 78,000 troops during the world body's peacekeeping peak in 1993.

The UN now pays a flat rate of a little over $1,000 per soldier per month. But how much of this goes to the blue-helmeted soldier on the ground?

If the nearly 750 Sri Lankan troops serving in the UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) are paid their dues in full (roughly around Rs 100,000 per month), that hefty salary would perhaps be twice or thrice what senior government officials in Colombo receive with their monthly pay packets.

The high salary-- by developing country standards-- takes into account the risk factor, as evidenced by the death of the Sri Lankan soldier in Haiti last week, the first UN casualty in the politically-troubled Caribbean nation. The second was a Nepali soldier.

Since most peacekeepers are paid by their governments according to their national rank and salary scales, most of these soldiers receive only half or less than half of their UN dues. The governments, in most cases, pocket the rest.

So, a government that receives $1,000 per month from the UN for each soldier, could pay only $200 or $300 to that soldier and divert the balance to the treasury.

But Western nations providing troops-- including Canada, Britain, France, Austria, Sweden, Ireland and the US-- claim they not only pay their soldiers their full UN dues but also subsidise them because most of their national salaries may be higher than what the UN pays.

Last year Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed to the UN's 191 member-states to provide an additional 30,000 troops for an anticipated surge in demand for peacekeeping operations in the world's battle zones.

So member-states have increased opportunities to make more money from peacekeeping even as some of them continue to exploit their soldiers. The cynics call peacekeepers "mercenaries" because they are hired guns fighting for a non-national cause.

The UN's 17 peacekeeping operations currently in force extend from Cyprus and Georgia to Sierra Leone and Western Sahara. But as peacekeeping operations keep increasing, it is also creating a fresh crop of problems for the world body: fraud, mismanagement, and more recently sexual abuse, both by soldiers and civilian staff against women and children.

The abuse has been prevalent mostly in the politically-chaotic Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), currently facing one of the world's "most neglected humanitarian disasters."

A 41-page scathing report released last week recommends either DNA or blood-testing to identify the paternity of "peacekeeper babies," mostly victims of rapes or abandoned by their fathers.

The report urges the 191-member U.N. General Assembly to authorise Annan to require DNA or other tests to establish paternity in order to provide child support for children abandoned by peacekeepers.

The UN's Department of Peacekeeping Operations has admitted it is finding it difficult to investigate charges of sexual exploitation and abuse because "traditional methods of identification through witnesses have proved difficult, if not impossible".

Since peacekeeping troops provided by member states are subject mostly to their national laws, troop-contributing countries are responsible for the conduct and discipline of their troops.

Still, after investigations in early April, the UN Mission in DRC (MONUC) summarily dismissed one of its peacekeepers, a national of France, who is currently being prosecuted in his home country.

A second staffer resigned rather than face disciplinary procedures. Six others have been suspended without pay pending disciplinary action. One is still under review.

The sexual misconduct cases of five others have been referred to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which seconded them for service with MONUC.

The report says there is a widespread perception that peacekeeping personnel, whether military or civilian, who commit acts of sexual exploitation and abuse rarely if ever face disciplinary charges for such acts. Nor are they held to account financially for the harm they cause their victims. At most, they suffer administrative consequences.

Annan said the allegations of sexual misconduct have not only "shocked and angered us all" but have also "done great harm to the name of peacekeeping".

But there is little he can do unless member-states take decisive action to punish peacekeepers who bring discredit both to the UN and to their home countries.

Back to Columns