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[Previous entry: "Pernicious conflation"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Bulldozer buffs"] 03 June 2003: "Supranational bodies 101"
Follow the electron trail: Russell "Mean Mr. Mustard" Wardlow links to "Sparkey" (at "Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing") who links to BC at "Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler" who links to this article in the Daily Telegraph; taking this article as a cue, all bloggers reaffirm their disgust for and hatred of "the UN." The only thing any of them adequately demonstrates is ignorance of the way the UN is organised. I've been over this before, but I think a booster shot is called for. I can only hope some of the aforementioned bloggers and their commenters may read this (and, deo volente, understand it).
"Everybody knew it, and those who were in a position to do something about it, were not doing anything," said Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Office of Iraq Program. When asked if that included him, he told ABCNEWS, "I have no power."So who does have the power to do something about it? U.N. officials say the program was under intense scrutiny, but the Security Council permitted Iraq, not U.N. administrators, to select which companies were part of the program.Emphasis in bold mine. Day-to-day power resides with the Security Council, not with the Secretary-General; that's why the title is Secretary-General, not "President" or "Chairman" or "Grand Mekon" or whatever. I've made this case before regarding the Office of the Iraq Programme; if anyone is to be held responsible for the failings of the system, it is the governments represented on the Council, and the Permanent Five in particular. Let's take a look at the situation which MONUC (Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en République Démocratique de Congo) is faced. According to the CIA World Factbook 2002, the area of the DROC is "slightly less than one-fourth the size of the US." After you get your head around that, factor in that MONUC is authorised 8,000 peacekeeping troops for the entire country; however, due to lack of enthusiasm, MONUC actually has fewer than 4,000. To compare, the US currently has something in the order of 150,000 troops in Iraq—"slightly more than twice the size of Idaho"—and even though reductions are planned, the number will continue to be something in the order of 80,000 to 90,000 for the foreseeable future; at least ten times the number that MONUC is authorised to have, and at least twenty times what it actually has. Moreover, almost all of Iraq is accessible by road; the Congo, on the other hand, is still "Heart of Darkness" country, with few roads, and those which do exist are in severe disrepair. MONUC transports as much as it can by barge, but as can be seen from this map, the Congo River is not considered navigable upstream from Kisangani. As a result, MONUC is heavily reliant on air transport to move personnel, equipment and supplies, to the extent that air transport eats up half of MONUC's $600m annual budget. Of course, having to move stuff by air places limitations on the materials that can be moved, especially since much depends on what kind of airfield can be found at the destinations. Shifting armoured personnel carriers by air, apart from being extremely inefficient, becomes a truly iffy proposition when the local air strip can't handle anything the size of, say, a Hercules. The events which sparked this electron trail occurred in and around the town of Bunia; if you look at the political map on the MONUC website, you'll find it in the far north-east, in the pink-coloured area marked "Ituri Armed Groups." The road from Kisangani ends at Bafwasende, which is 350 km (220 miles) from Bunia in a straight line. Bunia is in the Monts Bleus (the Blue Mountains), and no navigable river comes anywhere close. And even if you could get armoured vehicles to Bunia, the next challenge would be to keep them supplied with fuel and ammunition. Access via Uganda might make things easier, but Uganda was one of the countries instrumental in causing the Congolese civil war in the first place, and had a large hand in exacerbating the conflict in Ituri district by adopting a "divide and rule" policy, arming the Hema and Lendu tribes and setting both up to fight each other (rather than fighting the Ugandans). When Ugandan troops withdrew from Bunia on 06-May-2003, they donated their mortars to Hema militiamen, who immediately used those to drive the Lendu militias from the town (and forcing the outgunned Uruguayan UN contingent to take cover). Under the circumstances, it would be imprudent to make the existence of MONUC supply lines dependent on the goodwill of the Ugandan government. Moreover, the fighting in Ituri province may be drawing attention this month, but there are at least another dozen similar brushfire wars raging throughout eastern Congo. Several of these involve various local tribes who are being supported by the Rwandan government in fighting fled Rwandan Hutu génocidaires. Very simply, the job is too much for MONUC to handle with the woefully inadequate means at its disposal. There are an estimated 25,000 to 28,000 militia members in Ituri district alone; MONUC has 642 troops in the district. Consider that, according to most estimates, the cost of Operation "Iraqi Freedom" exceeds $60bn; MONUC has an annual budget which is one percent of that amount. So did "the UN" fail to respond to developments? That depends which part of the "the UN" you mean. On 13-May-2003, Secretary-General Kofi Annan pleaded member states to form a "coalition of the willing" to intervene. Of the Permanent Five, only France said it was willing to commit troops, but not if it was the only one to do so. Since Britain stated all its troops were committed, and America, Russia and China flat out refused, it looks like no coalition will be forthcoming, especially since most other NATO member states have their hands full with SFOR, KFOR, EUFOR and ISAF. Also on the 13th, the Congolese newspaper La Tempête des Tropiques published an interview with Namanga Ngongi, the Sec-Gen's Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (and thereby MONUC head of mission); the article contained the following passage: "Le numéro 1 de la Monuc a déclaré que l’organisme qu’il dirige propose au Secrétaire général de l’ONU de prendre des décisions afin de renforcer la présence de la Monuc", reconnaissant de ce fait que "le Conseil de Sécurité des Nations Unies n’avait pas adapté le mandat de la Monuc à la situation prévalent dans le district de l’Ituri".On 15-May-2003, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, lashed out at the major powers for being obsessed with Iraq while ignoring the mounting death toll in the Congo (between 3m and 5m since 1998). Vieira de Mello stated that "Congo is truly the immediate problem […] But who is paying attention?" All this took place some two weeks before the article in the Telegraph was published. The United Nations, as its name implies, consists of its member states; it does not exist in a vacuum. It does not (despite what some would have you believe) have an industrial complex consisting of 20,000 clone vats and a brace of factories producing small arms, AFVs, uniforms and blue berets, capable of churning out a combat division in under a week. The member states, by means of the Security Council, determine the tasks the organisation should undertake; the organisation is dependent on the member states to provide the resources with which it is to carry out these tasks. As I have remarked in earlier entries, the biggest flaw in the UN system is that the Security Council, as a body, has the authority to pass resolutions but not the concomitant responsibility to make sure they are enforced. For peacekeepers on the ground, this means that the mandate which they execute, and which restricts their behaviour, has all too often been written by (representatives of) governments who had no intention of submitting their own troops to that mandate; the UN Charter, unfortunately, does not oblige Security Council members to put their money (or other resources) where their mouth is. Ultimately one must understand that, when one condemns "the UN" for failing to take action, or for failing to adequately enforce Security Council resolutions, the fault lies not so much with the UN system as it does with the members of the Security Council, and the Permanent Members in particular. In other words, BC, Sparkey, Wardlow, etc. should understand that the White House bears at least an equal share of the culpability. And if one's worldview incorporates the notion that the French, the Russians and the Chinese will never do the Right Thing anyway, it logically follows that the US's failure to take part in any intervention is even more severe, since in this mindset the US is one of the few countries which might, indeed should be counted on to do the Right Thing. But why bother with introspection when it's so much easier to pick a scapegoat? |
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