Successes and Failures of United Nations Peace Operations

Firstly, whilst security was generally improved across Burundi, as noted above, the incidence of violence towards various groups such as women, children and various minorities remained high, perhaps even increasing if taking into account the transformation of such abuses from politically based perpetration to quasi-political criminal activity. Human rights in general could have been -- and could still be -- much better and stand out as a significant shortcoming in ONUB's mandate (criterion 2). Although perhaps difficult for ONUB to have prevented, particularly in the early stages of the mission, the Gatumba massacre serves to tarnish an otherwise respectable peacekeeping record. Secondly, while ONUC contributed significantly to refugee return, the precarious situation in the country prevented a high rate of IDP return, with approximately 100,000 civilians still displaced in 2009 United Nations. UNHCR Global Report 2009 -- Burundi. URL: https://unhcr.org/publications/ fundraising/4c08f1a89/unhcr-global-report-2009-burundi.html?query=burundi (accessed: 07.06.2019).. Moreover, the rate of returning refugees significantly slowed at the beginning of 2006, due to instability with regard to security and food. Furthermore, the issues over land ownership also contributed to the problem. These numbers improved in 2009, with the UNHCR aiding more than 32,000 Burundian refugees with reintegration into society through the creation of national identity cards, cash grants, and food rations Ibid..

Overall, ONUC can be called one of the more successful of the partially successful missions, and it can be established that it has made an important contribution to conflict abatement. The spread of regional conflict remained low over the course of the mission (criterion 3), and peacekeepers worked diligently with local government officials. At the same time, even in the final year of activity, the security situation in Burundi remained tense, as reported by the final progress report in which “The incidence of crime, including murder, theft and rape, remained high” United Nations Security Council. Ninth report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Operation in Burundi. 18.12 2006. URL: https://undocs.org/SZ2006/994 (accessed: 07.06.2019).. The situation further deteriorated, with a 2012 ICG report stating that “since the 2010 boycotted elections, Burundi is steadily drifting away from what was initially regarded as a peacemaking model, and violence from both the ruling party and the opposition is threatening stability” Burundi: Bye-Bye Arusha? // Crisis Group. 25.10.2012. URL: https://crisisgroup.org/africa/central- africa/burundi/burundi-bye-bye-arusha (accessed: 07.06.2019).. This evidence demonstrates that despite some mild successes by ONUB, the mission fails to score high on conflict resolution measures, despite it being one of the mission's main objectives. Burundi has only further deteriorated since, with another crisis decimating the country in April of 2015 after President Nkurunziza announced that he was running for office for a third term in spite of dispute: because of this, the country has been plagued by widespread human rights abuses including executions, rapes, abductions, and intimidation against other political leaders World Report 2019: Rights Trends in Burundi // Human Rights Watch. 17.01.2019. URL: https:// hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/burundi/ (accessed: 07.06.2019).. Thus, although the mission of ONUB was and is still considered a success, its fulfilment of the fourth criterion has been put into question by these recent events.

Conclusion

This paper has examined 6 UN peacekeeping missions in Africa -- these are all PKOs that originated after the end of the Cold war and have been completed at the time of paper writing. The paper offers new criteria for evaluating peacekeeping missions and finds that 2 out of the examined missions succeeded across most of the criteria, 2 failed and 2 fell into the gray area of partial success-partial failure. The most important observation that can be made from this classification is that in several cases the overall assessment does not overlap with mandate implementation. For example, ONUB in Burundi, despite fulfilling most of the mandate's objectives and classified by the UN as one of its most successful missions is placed in the partial success/failure group, mostly due to the current instability in Burundi, hence, UN's weaker contribution in progress towards positive peace.

With regards to various criteria of success, UN peacekeeping has been particularly unsuccessful in preventing genocide and/or civilian massacres. Varying success was demonstrated in limiting violence, preventing violent deaths and refugee and IDP resettlement/preventing outflows. UN missions have been fairly successful in preventing conflicts from spreading and creating regional instability. With regards to conflict resolution measures, UN missions performed better in preventing reoccurrence of war within two years after departure, but UN peacekeeping has been less successful at contributing to progress towards positive peace (PPP measure).

The difference between evaluation of the missions based solely on mandate implementation versus on their contribution to limiting violence, reducing human suffering, preventing conflict spread, preventing the recurrence of war and contributing to PPP leads to a deeper understanding of whether UN SC is making the right decisions for particular situations and whether UN peace operations are indeed utilizing all of their potential for bringing stability to the world. Successful missions offer support for an optimistic outlook. Partial successes, especially those of missions deployed in the midst of on-going wars, reinforce this optimism but offer a word of caution to avoid too demanding expectations of UN troops. Finally, failed missions should never be forgotten or under-analyzed in order not only to avoid mistakes in the future but also not to place all blame on peacekeepers as opposed to the decision-making bodies.

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