Table Of ContentPEACE OPERATIONS SEEN FROM BELOW
The CERI series in
Comparative Politics and
International Studies
Series editor CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT
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BEATRICE POULIGNY
Peace Operations
Seen from Below
UN Missions and Local People
HURST & COMPANY, LONDON
in association with the Centre d’Etudes et de
I
Recherches Internationales, Paris
First published in the United Kingdom by
C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd,
41 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3PL
© 2006 by Béatrice Pouligny
All rights reserved.
Printed in India
The right of Béatrice Pouligny to be identified
as the author of this volume is asserted by .
her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
A catalogue record for this volume
is available from the British Library.
ISBNs
1-85065-746-7 casebound
1-85065-840-4 paperback
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgements xviii
Acronyms xxi
Chapters
1. Introduction: The United Nations between War and Peace 1
THE NEW FORMS OF PEACE OPERATIONS 1
Over-ambitious mandates 3
Peace operations in wartime 6
Short-term agendas and exit strategies 8
UN roles in the peace process 11
INTERNATIONAL VISIONS OF WAR AND PEACE 13
Consequences of the end of the bipolar order 14
Cloudy perceptions of conflicts 20
The naming game: how the ‘international community'
qualifies a crisis 25
LOCAL GEOGRAPHY OF UN PEACE OPERATIONS 27
Very partial deployments 28
Variations according to categories of staff 30
Some methods of deployment may reinforce divisions 32
2. The Various Faces of Local Populations 42
THE SPHERE OF POLITICAL, MILITARY AND ECONOMIC
ENTREPRENEURS 44
A variety of political interpretations 45
Shifting alliances between political and military actors 57
Economic entrepreneurs 64
INDIGENOUS ‘CIVIL SOCIETIES’ 67
Formal social organisations 69
Community actors 75
Religious actors: a specific case 81
v
vi Contents
‘LOCAL’ EMPLOYEES OF UN OPERATIONS 87
How to become a UN local employee 89
Why does one seek a job in a UN mission? 91
Intermediaries? Informers ? Collaborators?... 92
3. Peacekeepers and Local Societies: the Encounter and its
Effects 96
DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF A PEACE OPERATION’S
MANDATE 96
Representations of ‘order and ‘peace’ 96
Sizing up the aims of a United Nations mission 109
Signals sent during operations by peace missions 113
‘ They themselves do not know what their mandate is' 118
MISSIONS’ (IN)CAPACITY TO CARRY OUT THEIR MANDATES 123
The weight of the word: how the UN is hindered by
its member states 123
Discords in the ‘international community’on the ground 128
Internal divisions within operations: the micro-sociology
of UN missions according to local actors 131
PEACEKEEPERS LOST IN COMPLEX ENVIRONMENTS 141
Defects in intelligence service and analysis capacity 141
The failures of missions’information policies to target
local societies 147
4. ‘Intervention’ and ‘Sovereignty’: the View from Below 155
THE HISTORY OF RELATIONS WITH THE OUTSIDE WORLD 156
FIGURES OF INTERVENTION 162
FACTORS OF MOBILISATION AGAINST THE UN 171
The aims of anti-UN movements 173
When peacekeepers become oppressors 175
Conditions for effective development of mobilisation 178
IDEAS OF ‘LEGITIMACY’ AND ‘IMPARTIALITY’ REDEFINED BY
LOCAL CONDITIONS 180
5. Strategies of Local Actors 189
WHAT LOCAL ACTORS EXPECT FROM THE UN 190
UN legitimation 190
The UN grants access to additional material resources 196
Compromising the UN: making the mission an ally 207
The UN as an alibi and a scapegoat 214
Contents vii
HIGHLY VOLATILE BALANCE OF POWER 217
Why references to figures of ‘spoilers do not add up 217
How local actors pressure the UN 224
NEITHER ‘INDIFFERENT’NOR ‘APATHETIC’: WHY LOCAL
COMMUNITIES PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM THE
PEACEKEEPERS 234
6. Forgotten Promises: How the UN Pretends to Achieve Peace 238
THE LIMITS OF IMPOSED ‘PROCEDURAL DEMOCRACY’ IN
POST-WAR SOCIETIES 239
THE POLITICAL NON-SENSE OF MOST ECONOMIC
RECONSTRUCTION PROGRAMS 246
AMBIGUITIES OF PEACEKEEPERS’ ROLE IN MAINTAINING
‘LAW AND ORDER’ 250
THE FORGOTTEN DIMENSIONS OF ‘JUSTICE’ AND
‘RECONCILIATION’ PROGRAMS 259
Conclusion 270
Select Bibliography 277
Index 289
MAPS AND GRAPHS
UN Peace Operations, 1948-2005 xxiv
Total Troop Deployment in UN Peace Operations xxv
UN Peace Operations Budget and UN regular Budget xxv
ONUSAL Deployment in El Salvador (December 1993) 36
UNTAC Deployment in Cambodia (May 1993) 37
UNMIH Deployment in Haiti (June 1995) 38
UNSOM II Deployment in Somalia (November 1993) 39
ONUMOZ Deployment in Mozambique (October 1994) 40
UNPROFOR Deployment in Bosnia-Herzegovina (March 1993) 41
viii
PREFACE
Pel preuk hat prane
Ro seirl boeuk lane
Lo ngeik chol bar
(In the morning we do exercise
In the afternoon we go out in the car
In the evening we go back to the bar)
Phnom Penh, November 1995. This couplet was still being chanted by the
children of Phnom Penh whenever UNTAC (the United Nations Transi
tional Authority in Cambodia), which had left the country two years
earlier, was mentioned. Their parents had plenty of anecdotes to recall
those UNTACs1 with their ‘bizarre’ behaviour, whose ‘real’ reason for
coming to the country was still not understood. Their accounts bore a
strange resemblance to those I had collected a few weeks earlier in El
Salvador, where people nicknamed the United Nations mission Vaca-
ciones Unidas (‘united holidays’): a play on words in Spanish (the UN
being Naciones Unidas) that came from a far-right daily newspaper host
ile to the United Nations presence, but was widely adopted on the street.
In this game of derision the peoples of countries where UN peace oper
ations are carried out compete in imagination to think of names to call the
‘Blue Helmets’. In their time the Bosnians had their ‘schtroumfs'. Every
where, the ‘oddness of whites* (the Haitians’ refrain of ‘Blan yo dwoV)
arouses the same questioning, the same attitude of distance associated with
similar reasoning. Most subject to mockery is the view of UN soldiers
going out jogging or for their night occupations. This banter often hides
many frustrations, as was made plain when, on 31 January 2001, inhab
itants of Freetown in Sierra Leone denounced, over a local radio station,
the arrogant blue helmeted soldiers, driving too fast and spending their
time on the beach, for acting as if they were on holiday. In other places the
more or less spectacular landing of UN forces was what undoubtedly
captured youth’s memories the most. They swear that they have witnessed
1 Cambodians called the mission, and its members, by the acronym.
ix
Preface
X
a scene worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster; an impression that I often
shared myself. At Port-au-Prince, the launching of Operation Restore
Democracy in September 1994, and at Mogadishu in December 1992
(Operation Restore Hope), the deployment of the American-United
Nations machine, in front of television cameras and journalists gathered
to cover the event, left unusual memories that were recalled with hilarity.
But these images and descriptions describe an encounter for which a
full historical account has not yet been produced. Indeed, in reading about
peace operations in the abundant literature published on the subject in the
last few years, one is surprised by the small amount of attention generally
paid, apart from the sensational and anecdotal, to the way in which those
missions have been experienced by the different elements of the societies
concerned.2 It is in fact quite revealing that, when questioned, political and
social actors in countries where those missions have, in recent years, been
deployed, they mention that this is the first time that their opinion has been
asked. This book aims to contribute to filling this gap, by suggesting a
local interpretation of the recent history of peace operations.
This project grew out of my experience as an actor and as a witness in
several UN peace operations launched during the 1990s. On the ground I,
like many observers, was often struck by the apparent scale of such inter
ventions, their frequently superficial nature, but also the multiple ways
through which their history was written on a daily basis, often far from the
current affairs projectors. In fact the nature of those operations has rad
ically changed, moving away from the classical form of peacekeeping.3
Present-day missions—described as ‘multidimensional’ or ‘multifunc
tional’—imply much further intervention in restructuring domestic polit
ical and social orders. By their nature, their mandates affect crucial aspects
of the organization of the societies concerned as well as the values on
which they are founded. The organisation of electoral processes and the
promotion of human rights and civil society are examples of the tasks
entrusted to these missions, while others take over entire sections of the
administration of the countries. Despite the fact that the reaction to such
interventions may vary greatly, one may predict that they potentially affect
large components of these societies, precisely at a time when crucial ele
ments of the relation between political and social order are renegotiated.
In addition, these missions are deployed more widely throughout the
countries, no longer just at the borders or front lines. This also increases
2 This omission is equally striking in the report of the high-level panel on peace operations
set up by the UN Secretary General, called the ‘Brahimi Report’ (A/55/305—S/2000/809,
17 August 2000).
3 For this reason I adopt the generic term ‘peace operations’.
