Posted on 09/08/2004 5:01:24 PM PDT by kcar
UN peacekeeping operations across the globe are expanding in number and scope, pushing the capacity of the United Nations close to the breaking point, Secretary General Kofi Annan said today.
"The increased demand for United Nations peace operations that has arisen in 2004 represents a challenge not seen since the rapid increases in the scale and complexity of operations in the 1990s," Mr Annan said. "The heightened demand will stretch, to the limit and beyond, the capacity of the United Nations to respond," he said in an annual report.
At the beginning of the year, UN peacekeepers were working in 13 countries, Mr Annan said.
Since then, the world body has expanded its mission in Ivory Coast, started new operations in Burundi and Haiti, and is planning new or extended operations in Iraq and Sudan, he said.
The United Nations has no army of its own and all UN peace operations are funded and staffed by the UN's member states - which Mr Annan urged to contribute to help make peacekeeping succeed.
"This jump in the demand for United Nations peace operations is a welcome signal of new opportunities for the international community to help bring conflicts to a peaceful solution," Mr Annan said.
"However, those opportunities can only truly be seized if the necessary commitments of political, financial and human resources are made," he said.
The UN chief projected that more than 30,000 uniformed personnel could be required to meet the surging demand, adding to the more than 50,000 already on the ground in 2004.
That would push the number of UN peacekeepers above the all-time high of 78,000 in 1993.
Mr Annan said that while those numbers could be met, "critical gaps" remain in key areas such as rapid-response, specialised military capabilities and French-speaking civilian police.
I guess Kofi needs to beg from Jaques, instead of mooching off the US. Why don't we just throw the entire UN out? What a grand example of a useless, global welfare drain.
Excuuuuuuse me...but where have they ever "kept" the peace?
Excuuuuuuse me...but where have they ever "kept" the peace?
oooops!
Nobody can blame your government either because it's a multinational force and must therefor be a higher, more noble force.
The United Nations needs to institute a policy that unless member nations spend at a minimum, a certain percentage of their GDP on policing and military operations within their country, that the UN ain't pickin up the tab or takin the heat.
A paper bag would overwhelm the UN's ability to respond. After listening to them, would anyone really want them to? Where does their "demand" come from? It's not like monetary demand, where people want to but their services. It's not like democratic demand, where people will vote for it. Their "voting constituency" consists of a majority of non-democratic states. So how does one empirically assess if the demand is too high, or if in fact the supply of UN-hokey is way-too excessive?
Well, being in a democratic republic, I help to decide that by voting with the guys who agree with MY assessment: The UN shouldn't even try to keep the peace. When the peaceful initial debates are over (at the UN), then it's time for bigger players to deal with the breakdown in diplomacy and time for the UN to stand down and try to stay out of the way. The UN is a glorified debating forum in a big wide world after all.
Don't forget the "critical gap" in timeliness that gets the UN involved only in hypocritically memorializing the victims of genocide. Apparently "Never Again!" means never again will the world give two squats about a people being erased from the rolls of humanity.
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