Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 6, Number 1 – July/August, 2010
Carolyn McAskie.
CAROLYN McAskie, OC, is currently a Senior Fellow in the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. She previously served as Assistant Secretary General for Peacebuilding (2006−2008), Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the U.N. Peacekeeping Operation in Burundi (2004−2006), as well as Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator at the U.N. Secretariat in New York (1999-2004), and Emergency Relief Coordinator (1999−2001). Ms. McAskie is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a Director of Canadem and the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre.
JIPO: How can a peacekeeping operation proceed when there is no apparent peace to be kept?
McAskie: The concept of modern peacekeeping has changed so much that there is very rarely a peace to be kept. There is often a situation in countries where there is a combination of peaceful areas maybe in agreement with the government, but fighting still going on in other parts. Modern peacekeeping goes way beyond just patrolling the line of two parties who find a peace agreement. Modern peacekeeping forces now need to be prepared to work with the local authorities to stabilize parts of the country. You could say that most current operations fall into the category of where there is no peace to keep — so it is not unusual at all.
JIPO: Is it fair to suggest that United Nations peacekeeping operations rarely, if ever, receive the adequate resourcing, support and political will to succeed? If yes, how must strategy and planning take this into account?
McAskie: I think you have touched on one of the most frustrating elements of the U.N. The U.N. Security Council decides that it is going to mount a mission in a particular country, then the U.N. Secretariat is pretty much left to its own devices to find countries that are willing to provide troops. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal have been most generous, and their troops are disciplined, well-trained and reasonably well-equipped, but maybe do not have the heavy equipment that is fully required. Then the next category of troops is usually from countries that are very poor and do not have the capacity to train and equip troops up to the standard required of a peacekeeping mission.
NATO members will not commit their troops and their equipment to U.N. peacekeeping efforts. This is one of the most serious and critical issues for U.N. peacekeeping. They say it is because they prefer the NATO command structure and are used to working with each other, but to my mind, that is a bogus argument. NATO should help the U.N. to further refine its procedures. The advances in U.N. peacekeeping since 1995 are unimaginable; 2000−2005 saw major watersheds in the reorganization and professionalization of U.N. peacekeeping.
There are now 124,000 international personnel — soldiers, civilians, police, etc. — involved with U.N. peacekeeping missions. The British and the French have some troops in peacekeeping missions, but very little relative to the total number. Canada, my own country, has 24 soldiers involved — we are sort of 58th in the ranks — yet Canadians tend to criticize U.N. operations for being inefficient or poorly equipped.
Sudan I think was a very tragic example where the Security Council discussed for months the possibility of mounting a mission. The only troops who came forward were not well-equipped. The Secretariat begged Western countries to at least provide equipment, transportation capability, lift capability and attack helicopters. Very little was given. Some countries did give extra money over and above the basic assessed budget costs that every member state is obliged to pay under U.N. Treaty, but very few countries really stepped up to the plate — and then they criticize the U.N. for not being able to get it together in the Sudan.
JIPO: Is U.N. peacekeeping, then, operationally, materially and politically overstretched?
McAskie: Of course U.N. peacekeeping is overstretched because the whole concept of what the international community wants the U.N. to do is always going to be greater than the resources provided to do it. The Security Council will have certain definitions of what can be done and will try to do more than it is able to raise resources for. But think of the opposite: what if the U.N. was not overstretched? It would mean that it is sitting on all of its resources. But resources are provided once a decision is made to take a particular action—so you are always playing catch-up. It is in the nature of the beast.
JIPO: What lessons may be drawn from your time heading the U.N. peacekeeping operation in Burundi?
McAskie: My Mission was designed in 2004 and we are now in 2010, so in fact, a lot of advances have already been made. At that time, one thing we were struggling with — both in the mission and in headquarters — was that it was very hard to say who was who, because headquarters and a mission work very closely together. It was very much a team approach, unlike what was happening in 1994 with the tragedy of Roméo Dallaire, Force Commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, where he really was cut-off from headquarters. The civilian and military must be brought closer together in terms of the strategic intelligence and the management of the mission. And that is always a problem. It means that you need to have a military team and a senior civilian team that can work together and understand each other’s roles.
JIPO: In your view, how can African peace and stability operations improve?
McAskie: To be fair, a lot of improvements are already underway in new U.N. peacekeeping missions. I do think that you do need Western governments to make a serious commitment to providing resources and equipment. There are some interesting exercises going on of training African peacekeepers and improving African capabilities. Part of the problem is that the African regional organizations, like the peace and stability mechanism of the African Union or the Economic Community of West African States, are very anxious to play a more important part. But they depend on their own governments for support — who do not have the kind of money to create the needed mechanisms.
They are struggling and are criticized as being weak partners, but most U.N. personnel and Western governments recognize we have a responsibility at this stage to strengthen the African regional organizations to take on more and more of the burden, which they dearly want to do. They are seriously lacking in personnel to do these kinds of jobs — and the minute you get someone who is doing really well, they leave and join the U.N. You cannot stop someone from wanting to move onto something bigger, but it is a vicious circle. We have to accept the fact that this is going to take 20 years of support and training, and help them to develop the mechanisms to manage new capabilities.
JIPO: Many complain that U.N. bureaucracy often undermines missions and policies. Did you face those issues as Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)? What can be done to improve this situation?
McAskie: I do not agree with the basic premise. There are always tensions between the civilian and military sides — and between humanitarians and peacekeepers — because each of them has a concept of what their goals are and what kinds of jobs they are supposed to do. But these tensions are human tensions and they are worked out on the ground. As far as I am concerned, the more we get into these complex missions, the more we learn how to manage these problems.
My experience in OCHA finished in 2004 and a lot has changed. I was very much in favor of humanitarian coordinators becoming senior officials in U.N. peacekeeping missions. I felt that this did not threaten the humanitarian independence or neutrality. The U.N., by its nature, has to be seen as neutral, although since it often gets involved in the actual fighting, it is often seen as taking sides because it is supporting the government. But I do not see anything wrong with supporting the government of the day, unless it is engaged in nefarious practices. Our job is to help the government to stay out of trouble and not make bad decisions.
Humanitarians will often be in areas where there are no peacekeepers, or in areas where there are peacekeepers, and they have to find a modus operandi. Now, in areas where you have trouble with the peacekeepers, where the peacekeepers have been accused of misbehavior, then this can be a problem. Obviously, humanitarians do not want to be associated with any of these misbehaviors. But the U.N. peacekeeping side now has a very strong framework for dealing with bad behavior, which is reported more routinely and action has been taken more swiftly.
JIPO: How can the private sector better support peacekeeping operations?
McAskie: I do not have personal experience working directly with the private sector; however, my personal view is that it should work from a very basic principle that the overall peacekeeping mandate has to be respected and that contractors have to come under the management span of the peacekeeping mission. There should be a very clearly defined role for the private sector and it should recognized that they are contractors — not independent operators. They are contracted by the peacekeeping structure to perform a certain function, and it is no different from the U.N. putting together its own team to do X or Y. If they hire a private sector team to do X or Y, then it has to follow the rules and stay within the spirit and mandate of the mission.
JIPO: Are you concerned about the trend of Western governments decreasing commitments to U.N. peacekeeping, or is it perhaps an opportunity for other governments to develop and provide their capabilities?
McAskie: Of course you always do want to create opportunities for other member states to develop their capacity and participate in missions, but to say that Western members ignoring the U.N. is a positive factor in providing such opportunities is mixing apples and oranges. These are two very separate issues. There should be a measured return to U.N. peacekeeping by NATO members. If they want to work within the NATO structure, fine, but they are all members of the U.N.. There are operations where the multi-complex U.N.-type mission is what works, and we need to support it and help make it work better. So why do they not get together and do that, and commit their own troops and capabilities to these efforts?
At the same time, there are programs to support African militaries — I know that the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the U.K. are involved — but why not look beyond and support Latin America troops to develop peacekeeping capabilities? There are quite a few Latin American governments that are engaged in peacekeeping. Asian governments are the most active and provide the bulk of the troops — some 30 percent of U.N. peacekeepers come from the Indian sub-continent. So they are already very active and can be a part of a process that can help to train others as well. There are a whole slew of options and one is not dependent on the other. It is not the fact that we should be developing other capabilities because the Western countries are not helping out. The Western countries should help out and we should also be developing the capacity of others.
JIPO: Do you have any advice for those involved with ongoing peacekeeping missions?
McAskie: One of the things is that they have to take to the code of conduct on sexual behavior very seriously. The only way to ensure good behavior from the troops is with a very strong message coming from the top. I never missed an opportunity when talking to the troops in Burundi to remind them that they were members of the noble profession of peacekeeping. They were here to be part of the solution, not of the problem, and that we expected the highest standard of behavior from them. And we also kept the local contingent commander to account.
I know from my colleagues on other missions at the time, that women in other codes of conduct or gender units five years ago, were struggling to do this all by themselves — without a great deal of support from the management structure of the mission. A lot of that was changed because the issue has become so public and because there are now so many good things in place to prevent or deal with it. Still, the leadership element is fundamentally important.
