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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published by the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) from 1995 to 2001 and by Africa Action from 2001 to 2003. APIC was merged into Africa Action in 2001. Please note that many outdated links in this archived document may not work.

Africa: Support for Peacekeeping at Risk
Date Distributed (ymd): 950212

Washington Office on Africa
Action Alert
February 1995

SUPPORT FOR PEACEKEEPING AT RISK IN NEW CONGRESS

Peacemaking is a vital priority in Africa.  Development
and democratization cannot move ahead in countries where
civil conflicts rage.  In 1995, therefore, a major goal
of Africa advocacy is to ensure sustained U.S. support
for United Nations and African peacemaking and
peacekeeping efforts.

This goal is threatened in the current climate.  Although
the House Republican Contract With America  does not
mention Africa by name, its provisions, if enacted, would
almost certainly have a negative impact on the United
States' already limited support for peacekeeping.  The
National Security Revitalization Act (H.R. 7) contains
the Contract's provisions regarding foreign policy and
defense.  It would impose numerous restrictions on U.S.
support for U.N. peacekeeping, while calling for sharply
increased spending on Cold War programs such as Star
Wars.  In particular, it would deduct U.S. voluntary
payments for U.N.-endorsed operations (such as those in
the Persian Gulf and even in South Korea) from the amount
the United States owes as regularly assessed
contributions for peacekeeping.

This provision was approved in the version of the bill
passed by the House International Relations Committee.
If it becomes law, instead of the United States being
responsible for an estimated $1.2 billion in peacekeeping
assessments in 1994 (more than half as yet unpaid), the
United Nations might owe the United States $400 million.
If other countries followed suit, U.N. peacekeeping would
essentially be shut down, except for voluntary
contributions for operations given priority by one or
more great power.  Debate on the House floor is expected
in mid-February, and action on a parallel bill in the
Senate (S. 5) will also be coming up soon.

Last year's African Conflict Resolution Act resulted in
a small allocation (less than $30 million per year) for
troop demobilization and capacity building in conflict
resolution.  This amount has not been directly
challenged.  The bill was, in fact, co-sponsored by Sen.
Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) as well as other Republicans in both
the House and Senate.  But with the influx of new members
of Congress and an emerging trend toward slashing Africa
aid, it is essential to reaffirm our support so that such
measures do not get lost in the budget-cutting frenzy.

Rising Demand for Peacekeeping

The post-Cold War era has seen the United Nations take on
a dramatically higher profile in mediating conflicts
around the world.  In 1994 the U.N. was involved in
preventive diplomacy or peacemaking in 28 conflicts, up
from 11 in 1988.  Peacekeeping operations were deployed
in 17 conflicts, as compared with 5 in 1988.  And the
peacekeeping budget expanded from $230 million in 1988 to
$3.6 billion last year.

Major peacekeeping assignments for the U.N. in Africa in
recent years have included Namibia, Mozambique, Angola,
Somalia and Rwanda, with smaller observer roles in Chad,
Liberia, South Africa and Western Sahara.  Outside Africa
the U.N. played a major role in El Salvador, sent over
20,000 troops to the former Yugoslavia, and was in charge
of supervising elections and a transitional government in
Cambodia.  It will soon take over in Haiti from a
unilateral U.S. force.  There were smaller missions in
Tajikistan and Georgia, and long-established mandates in
the Middle East, Kashmir, Cyprus and Lebanon.

The Security Council has not accepted the proposal for a
standing U.N. rapid-response force.  Each operation
therefore depends on a slowly assembled patchwork of
support from member countries contributing troops or
other resources.

Last year the United States provided $1.2 billion for
U.N. peacekeeping.  This included payment of arrears and
part of the 1994 assessment, but at the end of 1994 the
United States still owed about $700 million in
peacekeeping assessments not yet paid.  The United States
is assessed 31% of the peacekeeping costs, but the
Administration has pledged to reduce the U.S. share to
25%.  The Administration budget presented to Congress
early this month calls for only $400 million for
peacekeeping, although administration officials
acknowledged that they might seek a supplemental
appropriation later in the year.

Even if last year's higher allocation were to be repeated
this year, the total U.S. contribution for peacekeeping
would be less than one-half of one percent of the $258
billion military budget request.

Learning the Wrong Lessons

Congressional opposition to funding U.N. peacekeeping in
part reflects isolationist trends.  But it also is a
reaction to the lessons learned from the deaths of
American soldiers in Somalia in 1993 and the general
image of failure attached to U.N. missions, particularly
in Africa.

It is true that the rapid expansion of peacekeeping
missions has been accompanied by many mistakes, for which
the inadequacies of the U.N. bureaucracy are partly to
blame.  Many conflicts are intractable, and a large
outside presence may in some cases be of little help.
Like bilateral intervention, multilateral international
involvement may aggravate a conflict or strengthen one
side under the guise of impartiality.  No one should see
U.N. peacemaking as a magic remedy to be applied to all
problems.

But the most common lessons learned seem to be based on
misinformation and wild over-generalization.  In the case
of Somalia, for example, some Republicans blamed the
deaths the 18 American soldiers largely on "wrong-headed
foreign commanders"  (New York Times, Jan. 29, 1995).
Yet John Sommer, author of a comprehensive study of the
Somalia experience, noted that the attack leading to
those deaths was under U.S., not U.N. command (New York
Times, Feb. 7, 1995).

While there is debate over various aspects of the Somalia
debacle, informed observers agree that a fundamental
fault was the failure to establish a smaller U.N.
presence much sooner.  If this had been done, the
conflict which provoked the U.S. troop intervention in
late 1992 and the massive U.N. operation which followed
might have been diminished in scope, even if the chances
for a comprehensive solution were low.  Sommer notes,
"One of Somalia's several tragic legacies is the
Congressional mood to withhold such [preventive] action,
which is likely to foster more Somalias in the future. "

On the other hand, U.N. peacekeeping missions that turned
out successfully have attracted less notice, and have had
little impact in countering the aura of failure attached
to the Somalia experience.  The independence of Namibia
in 1990 and elections held successfully in Mozambique in
October 1994 were both possible only due to large U.N.
missions.  In 1994 a small observer group helped monitor
withdrawal of Libyan forces from disputed territory on
the border with Chad after an International Court ruling
against Libya.  Outside of Africa, the U.N. can claim
credit for substantial contributions to peace in Cambodia
and El Salvador, despite continuing problems in both
countries.

The lesson most American opinion leaders seemed to have
learned from Somalia was "don't get involved."   The more
rational lesson would have been that earlier, more
limited involvement in peacemaking could have avoided the
need for large-scale intervention after disaster had
reached impossible proportions.

The price of learning the wrong lesson was paid almost
immediately, by over half a million Rwandese killed in a
genocidal slaughter in April and May 1994.  More timely
response by the world community might have contained the
violence, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.  In
April 1994, as the planned campaign of genocide was
beginning, the U.N. Security Council, with the United
States in the lead, voted to reduce the U.N. peacekeeping
force in Rwanda from 2,500 to only 250 troops.  Yet the
Canadian U.N. commander on the spot and many other
observers say modest additions to the U.N. force at that
time and an expansion of its mandate would have made it
possible to keep the slaughter from spreading.

This did not happen; instead, the U.N. force was expanded
only months later, after most of the killing was over.
So it was that the United States ended up unilaterally
sending 2,300 troops and spending some $220 million to
provide relief to more than a million Rwandese refugees
in Zaire.

The Debate Ahead

Several peacekeeping operations are now under way in
Africa.  The United States has supported an expansion of
forces to assist in maintaining the cease-fire in Angola,
but has imposed numerous restrictions which may limit the
scope of the operation.  With respect to Rwanda, the
United States has supported the existing U.N. force
inside the country.  But the U.N. has been unable to find
support for efforts to provide better security in the
Rwandese refugee camps in Zaire or for even a token
presence in neighboring Burundi, where political
instability threatens to erupt into large-scale ethnic
violence.  In Liberia, a small U.N. presence is an
essential supplement to the West African regional
peacekeeping force.

Even before the new Republican initiatives, the U.S.
response on African issues in the U.N. was ambivalent.
It has been marked as much by fear of getting involved as
by an intent to deal effectively with the issues.  The
result has been, in the words of Council on Foreign
Relations fellow Jessica Matthews,  "rising resentment
against a country that seems to want to match a
high-flying self-image and set of goals to a chintzy bank
account."

The new legislative drive against U.N. peacekeeping funds
threatens to make this default of moral leadership even
more damaging.

The House may vote on H.R. 7 as early as Feb. 13 or 14.
But consideration of the parallel bill in the Senate,
which has not yet been discussed in committee, is
expected to take longer.  If the bills pass both houses,
a joint conference committee will have to reconcile the
differences between the two versions.  U.S. Ambassador to
the U.N. Madeleine Albright and others have suggested
that the President should veto the bill if it passes in
its present form.  If the President does veto the bill,
it would require a two-thirds vote in each house to
become law.

There is a real need for improvement in the United
Nations capacity to aid in peacemaking around the world,
and particularly in Africa.  But that requires better use
of resources, not a scaling-back of resources that are
already inadequate.  In the Cold War era, the United
States helped lay much of the groundwork for today's
African conflicts, pouring arms into the continent and
strengthening oppressive leaders.  Support for
peacemaking in Angola, Liberia and Somalia  (to name only
a few cases) is in part simply payment of the moral debt
that is owed.  It is also a prudent investment for the
future.  Failure to invest in peace now will mean greater
costs later for  relief operations, as well as lost
opportunities for new economic ties.

WHAT YOU CAN DO (if you are not from the U.S. you can
pass this request on to contacts in the U.S.):

Write your Representative and two Senators.  Tell them
you oppose cuts in U.S. funding for United Nations
peacekeeping and peacemaking operations in African
countries.  The United States has the obligation to take
the lead, not by sending its own troops for peacekeeping
or relief, but by strongly supporting the capacity for
effective and timely multilateral involvement.  This
support should go both to African institutions and to the
United Nations.  Continued and improved support for
peacemaking now is not only a humanitarian obligation, it
is also the most cost-effective way to avert more costly
disasters in the future.

Ask your members of Congress to:

-  Oppose measures such as H.R. 7, which would sharply
cut U.S. support for U.N. peacekeeping while calling for
large increases in U.S. military spending.

-  Continue support for the African Conflict Resolution
Act, passed last year, which mandates U.S. support for
troop demobilization and efforts to build African
conflict resolution capacity.

The Honorable ________
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable ________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Send copies of your letter to:

Mr. Anthony Lake
National Security Advisor
The White House
Washington, DC 20500
Fax: (202) 456-2883

Sen. Jesse Helms
Chair, Foreign Relations Committee
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Phone:  (202) 224-6342
Fax: (202) 224-7588

Rep. Benjamin Gilman
Chair, International Relations Committee
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Phone:  (202) 225-3776
Fax: (202) 225-2541

Sen. Nancy Kassebaum
Chair, Africa Subcommittee
U.S. Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: (202) 224-4774
Fax: (202) 224-3514

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen
Chair, Africa Subcommittee
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-3931
Fax: (202) 225-5620

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This material is made available by the Washington
Office on Africa (WOA).  WOA is a not-for-profit
church, trade union and civil rights group supported
organization that works with Congress on Africa-related
legislation.

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