Perhaps the most politically and logistically complex of all UN peacekeeping operations began in 1960 in the Congo, which slid toward anarchy shortly after Belgium granted it independence. After an army mutiny prompted the return of Belgian troops, Secretary-General Hammarskjold-with joint Soviet and American backing-won Security Council authorization for a UN force. The UN operation in the Congo, which mustered almost 20,000 troops at its peak in 1961, did much more than keep the peace.
Thousands of UN civilian "advisers" actually managed the country. "We ran the ministries, ensured the water supply, brought in Haitian judges, organized a central bank, kept the airport open, provided vaccinations and flew in food supplies," recalls George Sherry, the UN civilian representative in Elizabethville at the time. UN officials negotiated the withdrawal of foreign forces, pressured rival Congolese politicians to come to terms and ultimately imposed by force an end to the secession of the mineral-rich Katanga province under Moise Tshombe.
It was the UN's first venture into what later came to be called "nation-building," and also the first time that troops under UN command used force. By the time the United Nations left in 1964, 234 of its soldiers had been killed in the line of duty-the largest death toll in the UN's first half-century in an operation fully under its flag and its control.
While the United Nations succeeded in preserving unity, it did so at an immense political cost. Both the Soviets (who backed Patrice Lumumba, who had been overthrown as prime minister) and the Western powers (who backed Katanga) were alienated by Hammarskjold's insistence on supporting the central government.
Hammarskjold died in a plane crash in 1961, while on a mission to mediate a dispute, but the conflict lived on to plague his successor, a Burmese diplomat named U Thant. France, the Soviet Union and others refused to pay the costs of the operation (the total came to more than $600 million) and demanded that peacekeepers operate under Security Council command rather than under the Secretary-General.
The issue was-and remains-how much sovereignty nation-states, especially those that are major powers, will yield to the United Nations. If, once a UN force is created, a major power cannot use its veto to control day-to-day operations, then the Secretary-General or his field commander will have gained a significant degree of freedom and the institution will have become a major player in its own right.
A committee set up to resolve peacekeeping principles produced some common ground but failed to reconcile views on financing and control. The dispute nearly tore the United Nations apart in 1964-65, when the United States first forced-then backed away from-a showdown on whether those withholding their dues should lose their vote in the General Assembly. After 1965 there were no peacekeeping initiatives for eight years.
By: Michael J. Berlin (excerpt from Keeping the Peace) From: A Global Affair: An Inside Look at the United Nations, published by Jones & Janello, copyright 1995, all rights reserved.
