An outbreak of fighting in the Central African Republic between rival Christian and Muslim militias, in the presence in the country of some 12,000 United Nations and French peacekeeping forces, is further evidence of inefficacy of that measure in conflicts.
An outbreak of fighting in the Central African Republic between rival Christian and Muslim militias, in the presence in the country of some 12,000 United Nations and French peacekeeping forces, is further evidence of inefficacy of that measure in conflicts.
The trouble last week in Bambari, a city in the CAR, constitutes a return to the fighting in that tormented country that has been a problem since 2013. Twenty-five deaths are reported this time. France and the United Nations have, in principle, cooperated to put government and law and order back on track there over the past few years. A president, Faustin Archange Touadera, was elected in February and relative peace has prevailed until now.
In spite of scandals, including sexual abuse of Central Africans by peacekeepers, the presence of international forces is considered to have been a positive influence in the security situation there.
How they missed preventing the battle in Bambari is not clear.
Such forces have at their disposal airlift capacity, which could have been used to quickly move troops to the provincial town to stand between the two militias.
The Bambari failure comes on top of a report released last Tuesday by U.N.-appointed investigators that chronicles the failure in July of U.N. peacekeepers from China, Ethiopia, India and Nepal in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, to intervene — in spite of having been asked repeatedly and urgently to do so — in a rampage of looting and rape by government soldiers there.
The victims in this case included employees of international humanitarian organizations and U.N. staff.
In Haiti, of course, U.N. forces are believed to have introduced a cholera epidemic there, following the 2010 earthquake.
It’s too late now for outgoing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to deal with the problem of useless, even malevolent peacekeepers, but the dilemma is surely a matter that should be at the top of the agenda of the new head of the organization, Antonio Guterres, when he takes office in January.
There is an important role for international peacekeepers, but they aren’t playing it well. The United States pays $2.4 billion, 28 percent of the cost of the U.N.’s peacekeeping function.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
