The United Nations Organization Essay Example for Free

The join Nations Organization EssayThe coupled Nations Organization emerged appear of the ashes of the Second World War. Its predecessor, the fusion of Nations which was created come forth of the crises of the World War I, obviously failed to prevent the occurrence of a nonher institutionwide armament crisis. In the preamble to the Charter of the unify Nations, its first stated objective is to to save succeeding generations from the scourge of contend, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind (Charter).Surprisingly, the word peacekeeping does not appear anywhere in the Charter of new organization. It, however, became very apparent that in order for the unite Natons to carry out its first objective of saving humanity from the scourge of war, peacekeeping would be necessary. Since its first peacekeeping flush in 1948, the objectives of peackeeping give birth evolved and ca-ca sometimes been defined by the conflicts (Peacekeeping).Although th e military remain the backb wiz of roughly peacekeeping operations, the many faces of peacekeeping now include administrators and economists, police officers and legal experts, de-miners and electoral observers, human rights monitor lizards and specialists in civil affairs and governance, add-on workers and experts in communications and public information (Peacekeeping). Given the conceptual diversity of peacekeeping, any dance stepment of operational success must go back to the Charter to see if the activities of the United Nations Peacekeeping foreign mission has contributed to the prevention of the scouge of war and its collateral effects.In this paper, two instances of the the U. N. Peackeeing activities, one each in Europe and Africa, would be examined with reference to the first stated objective in the preamble to determine the reverse or success of peacekeeping operations. First of all, the very important distinction between peace-making and peacekeeping has to be mad e. Peace-making is the process of settle armed conflicts between nations or within a nation. The United Nations limited in its ability to act because of the principle of territorial sovereignty.During much of the cold war most non-Western countries raised the criterion of state sovereignity to protect themselves from the unwanted interference of larger states, and the United Nations repeatedly upheld this principle in bail Council resolution (Holmes, 1993). This preventing the United Nations from getting involved in internal conflicts. On the other hand, the United Nationns only peace-making efforts were limited to diplomacy, a process that did not appy in intra-nation conflicts.Most importantly, the United Nations does not have a standing military to en soak up peace. As a a consequence, the United Nations Peacekeeping Force did not get involved in conflict resolutions or making peace. This was left to the Security Council. When, through diplomtic efforts, participants in an a rmed conflict reach terms of peace, then the United Nations Peacekeeping Force moves in to monitor and not enforce the peace. Even with the end of the Cold War and the U. N. getting involved in resolving intra-nation conflicts, its Peackeeping Force is still a monitoring force.The end of the Cold War has brought many changes to the field of United Nations peacekeeping. However, most of the changes have been changes in size and quantitymore operations and bigger operationsrather than different types of operations (Gibson, 1998). Any measure of the success of the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces must be interpreted in light of its limitations and objectives. As the Soviet Union dissolved, old ethnic rivalries were revived as nation-states began to form along ethnic lines in easterly Europe. This was certainly the case in the dissolution of Yugoslavia.The uniqueness of the Yugoslavian home was that Yugoslavia had ceased to exist as a nation. So the issue of territorial sovereignty c ould not be claimed since there was no government with a recognized territory. In 1991, Croatia and Slovenia broke away from the rest of the country and declared independence. The dissolution of Yugoslavia had begun. The Serbian-controlled government back up the Serbs in Croatia who opposed Croatias independence. This resulted in a civil war which was also a war of independence. Sanctions and diplomacy brought about a cease fire.The United Nations displace in a peacekeeping force with the statute to ensure that the society did not move into total anarchy and that the conditions for peace were in place. The United Nations Protection Force or UNROFOR, as the peacekeeping force was called, was sent into Croatia in 1992. While UNPROFOR was in Croatia, several massacres occurred. UNPROFOR was stationed in Croatia because the Croats were at a disadvantage against the Serbian controlled military of the precedent Yugoslavia. Yet, the Serbian military killed many Croat civilians and prev ented humanitarian aid to Croatia in 1993.Deaths were increased by inhumane conditions created by the Serbs (UNROFOR, 1996). United Nations passed settlement 819 which made Srebrenica a United Nations Sate Area. This meant that any bang on Srebrenica would be an attack on the United Nations. The Security Council passed another resolution, Resolution 836, to extend this mandate to UNROFOR itself. Unfortunately, UNROFOR was poorly equipped and its non-combat mandate did not allow it to prevent the Bosnian forces from using Srebrenica as the staging grounds for anti-Serbian attacks.The attacks from Srebrenica angered the Serbs and they responded by attacking UNPROFOR and obstructing humanitarian aid into Srebrenica. When the United Nations forces cannot protect themselves, how can they protect even less divest civilians? The situation deteriorated in 1993 when war broke out between the Bosnians and the Croats. Serbs and Bosnians were in Ahmici were massacred (UNROFOR, 1996). The sit uation had deteriorated to the point where one groups atrocities were met by atrocities by from the other group.The United Nations Peacekeeping Forces in the former Yugoslavia were entirely ineffective to the point where their operations were limited to United Nations Save Areas. It took a threat from the Croatian organisation to get the Security Council to change the mandate of UNPROFOR to include military action (UNROFOR, 1996). In 1994, more atrocities occurred slice UNROFOR was present. The Serbs attacked Gorazde, a United Nations Safe Area, and hundreds of civilians were killed. NATO bombed Serb positions and the Serbs captured UNPROFOR personnel and used them as human shields, placing them in locations that they NATO could possibly bomb.No matter what standard of measurement is used, it can be said that the United Nations peacekeeping efforts in the former Yugoslavia was a dismal failure. UNPROFOR failed in its mission to protect the Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats from the sco urge of war. As a matter of fact, UNROFOR could not even protect itself from the scourge of war. In this situation, peacekeeping failed by any metric. Consider another case in Africa. Genocide in Rwanda has been dramatized in the movie Hotel Rwanda. Many of the worst mass murders occurred while the United Nations had peacekeepers on the ground.First, let us get some background information. Civil war broke out in Rwanda in 1990. The parties were the Hut-dominated government and the opposition Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front or the RPF (Rwanda, 2001). The United Nations got involved in this arena about three years after the war began. At the request of the governments of Rwanda and Uganda, the United Nations sent military observers in the border area between the two countries. The force was called United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda or UNAMIR.According to the United Nations own web site, UNAMIRs mandate was to assist in ensuring the security of the heavy(p) city of Kigali monitor the ceasefire transcription, including establishment of an expanded demilitarized zone and demobilization procedures monitor the security situation during the final period of the transitional Governments mandate leading up to elections assist with mine-clearance and assist in the coordination of humanitarian assistance activities in conjunction with relief operations (Rwanda, 2001).The United Nations forces were in Rwanda when nearly one one thousand thousand people were massacred by the government supported Hutu forces. The deaths are estimated to be between 500,000 to one million (Des Forges, 1999). solely this occurred within a very brief period, April to July. How did this happen? The catalyst for the genocide was the deaths of the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi in a plane that was shot down as it about to land in Kigali, the Rwandan capital. The crash was blamed on Tutsi-led RPF (Des Forges, 1999). The next day, the wife of the Rwandan president was assassinated an d the ten UNAMIR soldiers that were protecting were found dead.Hutu militias and the military went on a murder binge, killing every Tutsi that could found regardless of age, gender, or political affiliation. The world could not have been ignorant about these atrocities. As the situation deteriorated in Kigali, western countries evacuated their citizens and left the Tutsi to fend for themselves. Mass rapes, mutilations, and murders speedily spread nationwide. UNAMIR was ineffective to respond at the onset of the genocide because of resistance by members of the Security Council. UNAMIR failed in every respect to meet its own mandate.There was no capital to secure, no peace agreement to monitor, and no security situation at all. The western nations did not want to get involved in Rwanda mainly because it was not popular with their governments for their citizens to placed in harms way in Africa. United Nations Peacekeeping activities have to be measure in terms of the objectives of the United Nations Charter and the mandates given by the United Nations. If these objectives and mandates cannot be met, then the United Nations ought not to be involved at all. False peacekeeping is just as bad as no peacekeeping.ReferencesCharter of the United Nations. An Internet publication retrieved on whitethorn 8, 2009 from http//www. un. org/aboutun/ adopt/preamble. shtml Des Forges, Alison (1999). Leave None to Tell the Story Genocide in Rwanda. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved on May 8, 2009 from. http//www. hrw. org/reports/1999/rwanda. Gibson, Susan S. (1998). The Misplaced Reliance on Free and Fair Elections in Nation Building The Role of thorough Democracy and the Rule of Law. Houston Journal of International Law. Volume 21. Issue 1. Page 1 Holmes, Kim R. (1993). New world disorder a critique of the United States.Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 46, 1993 Peacekeeping. United Nations Peackeeping. An Internet publication retrieved on May 8, 2009 from http//www. un. org/ Depts/dpko/dpko/ Rwanda (2001). Rwanda United Nations Assistance Mission For Rwanda UNAMIR- October 1993- March 1996. UNPROFOR (1996) United Nations Protection Force. Former Yugoslavia UNPROFOR. Prepared by the Department of Public Information, United Nations as of September 1996. An Internet publication retrieved on May 8, 2009 from http//www. un. org/Depts/dpko/dpko/co_mission/unprof_b. htm