UN peace keeping and the war within
For four and a half decades the United Nations kept the peace with the Charter as its guide. Whenever the Big Five were involved, the veto prevented effective action. For example, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary in 1956 and the UN just looked on. The General Assembly condemned the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union ignored the condemnation. During the Cuban missile crisis the Security Council met in animated discussion but only President Kennedy and Chairman Kruschev could end the confrontation.
Secretary-General Dag Hamarskjold invented peace-keeping operations with the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) sent into Egypt in 1956. Peace-keeping took on a different dimension with the end of the Cold War and the new-found intente prevalent in the Security Council.
The visibility of the United Nations rests mostly on its peace-keeping role. A prime aim of the Charter, signed in San Francisco fifty one years ago, was to keep the peace among Member States. The Preamble to the Charter begins: “We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. “A primary purpose, according to Article 1 is: “to maintain international peace and security.”
Peace has non-military aspect as well. Other activities, which lay the foundations for peace and security, include economic and social development, promoting respect for human rights, humanitarian assistance, decolonization and respect for international law. The public image of the United Nations is determined by its success or failure in keeping the peace.
Three principal organs - the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretary-General are each given distinctive roles by the Charter to settle disputes. In the Cold War years there was little else than the Charter to guide the United Nations.
Palestinian Arabs assisted by Arab States attacked the new State of Israel, proclaim on 14 May 1948. During the Arab-Israeli war, the UN mediated through Count Folk Bernadotte and later Ralph Bunch. A truce was called and a group of military observers was established called the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), which is still in existence.
UN intervention under Chapter VII occurred for the first time in 1950 when the armies of North Korea invaded South Korean territory. The situation was unique. At a time that the Soviet Union was boycotting meetings of the Security Council, the Americans by-passed the veto and obtained the Council’s approval for sending its troops in defense of the South. Three years later, an armistice was signed dividing Korea at the 38th parallel. The international force in Korea was not a United Nations peace-keeping operation in the current sense of the term since the enforcement action was not carried out by the Organization, was not based on the consent of the parties and involved the use of force.
The first peace-keeping force in the United Nations history was the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), established in 1956 to resolve the crisis arising from the military action of the Israeli and Anglo-French forces against Egypt. Since it was not an enforcement action under Chapter VII of the Charter, UNEF could enter and operate in Egypt only with the consent of the Egyptian government. When Britain and France vetoed resolutions in the Security Council, the matter was referred to the General Assembly under the “Uniting for Peace resolution conceived by the US to bypass Soviet vetoes.
Civil strife in the Congo in 1960 was compounded by interference from outside. With independence from colonial rule, disorder broke out and Belgium sent troops stating that the aim was to protect and evacuate the Europeans. The Congolese government asked for United Nations military assistance. The Security Council rushed a military force with civilian experts, the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC), to protect the Congo against external aggression, to help the government to restore order and to maintain the country’s independence and territorial integrity. In 1961, after the assassination of prime minister Patrice Lumumba, ONUC was instructed to prevent the southern mineral-rich province of Katanga from breaking away with the help of mercenaries.
UN missions was mainly to monitor ceasefires and control buffer zones with the consent of the States involved in the conflict. Today peace-keeping is far more complex and also more expensive.
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