13 October 2004
Lawmaker Says U.N. Peacekeeping in Africa Not Up to Task
Rep. Royce suggests private military corporations might have role to play
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- U.N. peacekeeping efforts in Africa have been very disappointing, despite receiving three-fourths of all U.N. peacekeeping funds, House Africa Subcommittee Chairman Ed Royce (Republican of California) told fellow lawmakers at an October 8 hearing.
"There is much room for improvement in U.N. peacekeeping operations, which have been plagued with many shortcomings," such as unqualified troops, inability to protect civilians and mission unsustainability, Royce said. He suggested that private military contractors (PMCs) might have a role to play in tackling "the world's most war-plagued continent."
Royce pointed to a substantial increase in U.N. peacekeeping operations in Africa, which are commanding $2.9 billion of the institution's $3.9 billion worldwide peacekeeping budget. "[Even though] U.N. peacekeeping mandates for these operations have increased in complexity," he said, "... the record of these operations is mixed."
In the past, he said, "Namibia and Mozambique were successes, [but] Somalia and Rwanda were dramatic failures. The mission in Sierra Leone was falling apart until British troops took aggressive action" to battle the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a movement that targeted civilians for mutilation to attract international attention.
With "many parts of Africa in crisis," Royce said, "we need to stretch our thinking" to include alternative measures such as PMCs because "security is an essential foundation for Africa's development. We used PMCs in Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire to do logistics work ...[and] I know we have PMCs with the African Union peacekeepers in Darfur on the ground there doing logistics."
For several years, PMCs such as Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI), Dynacorps and International Charter Incorporated (ICI) have provided logistics support, including aircraft, communications gear, vehicles, security personnel and training expertise, for U.N., NATO and U.S.-led peace operations in places like Bosnia, Sierra Leone and Iraq.
James Swigert, deputy assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, told lawmakers, "One size most definitely does not fit all in finding the swiftest or most lasting end to an international conflict."
He assured them that the Bush administration approves U.N. peacekeeping missions "only when we judge them to be necessary, right-sized, and only if they have a viable exit strategy."
The Darfur crisis has highlighted the need to provide protection for civilians to bring stability, Swigert said. "Our view is that peace enforcement is at the high end of the spectrum of peace operations," he said. In Sudan, he added, "the AU [African Union] mission to Darfur is absolutely critical, and private contractors are indeed playing a critical role" helping feed and protect civilians there.
Traditional U.N. peacekeepers are not equipped to fight a war, Swigert said. It is the administration's belief that such tasks are best handled by "coalitions of willing and able forces, with a militarily strong state in the lead," as was the case when the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) intervened "in a seriously destabilized Liberia in mid-2003," he said.
Swigert mentioned several U.S. military training initiatives that address this need by helping African armies enhance their ability to counter terrorism and enforce peace as part of regionally mandated efforts such as the African Union intervention in Sudan.
He cited the African Contingency Operations Training and Assistance (ACOTA) program, a successor to the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), which in 2004 will have trained nine battalions in various African countries in peace-enforcement operations. ACOTA will also be the centerpiece in Africa of the Bush administration's recently announced Global Peacekeeping Operations Initiative (GPOI), intended to train up to 75,000 troops for peace operations worldwide.
Doug Brooks, president of the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), an advocacy group representing 14 PMCs, mentioned Liberia as a good example of how the private sector works with militaries on peace enforcement in Africa.
Brooks said: "Many of the West African troops used for the operation had been trained by private companies, were flown to Monrovia by private companies, and once in Liberia they were transported, based and supported logistically by private companies. It was a hybrid public-private operation that offers useful indications into how this concept can be built on in the future."
Subcommittee members Donald Payne (Democrat of New Jersey) and Barbara Lee (Democrat of California) both voiced concerns about using PMCs in Africa, citing the continent's history of "mercenaries," a legacy that had echoes in the recent trial in Zimbabwe of a group accused of plotting the overthrow of the government of Equatorial Guinea.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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