In the history of UN peacekeeping efforts, Africa holds several unfortunate records. The war in Angola continues to claim the highest casualty rate of any conflict in the world, at 1,000 deaths a day. Rwanda holds two titles: for the largest and fastest refugee flow, 250,000 in 2+ hours; and for the most populous refugee camp, now containing some 350,000 men, women and children. The UN operation in Somalia is in danger of delivering the fewest long-term results per dollar expended-about a billion per year.
On the positive side of the ledger, the UN's largest election monitoring mission to date, about 2,300 observers, participated in officially ending white minority rule in South Africa, the culmination of more than 40 years of effort by the world body to end Pretoria's apartheid system. On a much smaller scale, the United Nations broke new ground in Liberia, cooperating with a regional organization for the first time in mounting a peacekeeping operation. The success of that experiment may rekindle interest in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter, which calls for extensive cooperation between regional and international organizations in the settlement of disputes.
The United Nations has tried to be similarly creative elsewhere on the continent, fielding large and complex operations with multiple mandates and employing both carrots and sticks to prod the parties toward peace. As it has imposed arms embargoes on Angola and Mozambique (while lifting one against South Africa), the world body has also raised millions of dollars in emergency humanitarian relief and established trust funds to finance special projects, such as converting the Mozambican rebel force into a mainstream political party. Such a "money for peace" approach is not without its critics, but the rewards could be invaluable if UN-monitored elections take place as scheduled in Liberia, Mozambique and Western Sahara. Neither has the United Nations given up hope for performing similar tasks in Angola, Somalia and even Rwanda. Other new ideas, such as establishing national and local police forces in Mozambique and Somalia, may help bring stability and democracy to countries too long torn apart by political and ethnic strife.
From A Global Agenda: Issues Before the 49th General Assembly of the United Nations, by Edmund T. Piasecki (excerpt from Making and Keeping the Peace). Copyright 1994 by the United Nations Association of the United States of America. Published by University Press of America, Inc.
