Rwanda
UN Peacekeeping Operations in Africa
by Vladimír Kváča
Jan Masaryk Centre of International Studies, University of Economics, Prague
From the total of all 60 UN peacekeeping operations in history, a considerable number (over 38 %) took or takes place in Africa. Particularly in the post-Cold War era, became Africa a permanent challenge for UN peacekeeping attempts. Attitude of the United Nations Security Council (UN SC) towards the security situation in Africa have evolved in time, but the performance of UN peacekeeping in Africa is widely considered to be poor. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of UN peacekeeping activities in Africa, a region that is so much torn by violence, and to discuss the ways of cooperation between the UN and regional organization like the African Union (AU) or the Economic Community of the West African States (ECOWAS) on the field of peacekeeping.
A Brief Overview of the UN Operations in Africa
For a long time, the only UN operation in Africa was the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC)[1] in 1960 - 1964. This is not due to a lack of situations, which could need a UN activity, but the effect of the Cold War situation. Both Cold War blocks had their own interests in Africa and it was unlikely to reach a consensus in the UN SC to run a peacekeeping mission in response to civil wars in Mozambique, Angola or Ethiopia. As a result, of the present total of 23 UN operations in Africa have 22 taken place in the post-Cold War era. The number of UN peacekeeping activities in each particular year can be seen from the Chart 1.
The end of the Cold War brought a rapid growth in quantity of UN activities in Africa. Soon after, unsuccessful withdrawal from Somalia and failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda led to the retrenchment and reassessment of UN operations in Africa[2]. Major powers in the UN SC retreated from their initial post-Cold War enthusiasm for engagement in African conflicts. Simultaneously, a debate about
by Vladimír Kváča
Jan Masaryk Centre of International Studies, University of Economics, Prague
From the total of all 60 UN peacekeeping operations in history, a considerable number (over 38 %) took or takes place in Africa. Particularly in the post-Cold War era, became Africa a permanent challenge for UN peacekeeping attempts. Attitude of the United Nations Security Council (UN SC) towards the security situation in Africa have evolved in time, but the performance of UN peacekeeping in Africa is widely considered to be poor. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of UN peacekeeping activities in Africa, a region that is so much torn by violence, and to discuss the ways of cooperation between the UN and regional organization like the African Union (AU) or the Economic Community of the West African States (ECOWAS) on the field of peacekeeping.
A Brief Overview of the UN Operations in Africa
For a long time, the only UN operation in Africa was the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC)[1] in 1960 - 1964. This is not due to a lack of situations, which could need a UN activity, but the effect of the Cold War situation. Both Cold War blocks had their own interests in Africa and it was unlikely to reach a consensus in the UN SC to run a peacekeeping mission in response to civil wars in Mozambique, Angola or Ethiopia. As a result, of the present total of 23 UN operations in Africa have 22 taken place in the post-Cold War era. The number of UN peacekeeping activities in each particular year can be seen from the Chart 1.
The end of the Cold War brought a rapid growth in quantity of UN activities in Africa. Soon after, unsuccessful withdrawal from Somalia and failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda led to the retrenchment and reassessment of UN operations in Africa[2]. Major powers in the UN SC retreated from their initial post-Cold War enthusiasm for engagement in African conflicts. Simultaneously, a debate about
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