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Analysis: African Peacekeeper Puzzles

Council on Foreign Relations

August 29, 2007
Prepared by: Stephanie Hanson

Their jeeps lack (McClatchy) two-way radios, they’ve been forced to borrow soap and food (WashPost) from humanitarian agencies, and some of them haven’t been paid in months. Yet the seven-thousand beleaguered troops currently stationed in Darfur as part of the African Union (AU) peacekeeping force are expected to form the backbone of the new joint AU/UN peacekeeping force for Darfur authorized by the UN Security Council in July. The UN resolution authorized a force of roughly twenty-six thousand military personnel and police, but it also specified the force should be primarily African. The AU’s chairman, Alpha Oumar Konare, declared that due to sufficient troop pledges (AP) there will be no need “to resort to non-African forces.”

But many of Africa’s militaries are already stretched “to their limit” (CSMonitor). The challenges encountered by the current AU peacekeepers illustrate “it may not be possible to source from Africa the full range of skills, expertise, and experience required for either the military or the civilian contingent of the hybrid force,” writes watchdog group Human Rights Watch. Many African countries do not have (Reuters) the capacity to equip their troops to the level required by the UN peacekeeping department. Army engineers, intelligence-gatherers, and transport helicopters are necessary to make the Darfur force effective. These capabilities are not just lacking among African Union peacekeepers, reports the Economist, they are also in short supply worldwide.

UN peacekeeping is also stretched thin, with more than one hundred thousand personnel deployed worldwide. About 75 percent (Prospect) of those peacekeepers are located in Africa. The UN Security Council on August 27 approved (AP) sending UN and EU peacekeepers to Chad and the Central African Republic, which suffer from the fallout of the Darfur conflict.

Read the rest of this article on the cfr.org website.

Copyright 2007 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.