Less bang, fewer bucks

“Violence is not the way to resolve political disputes,” declared GlobalSolutions.org President Bob Enholm at yesterday’s event, co-sponsored with Partnership for Effective Peacekeeping, about the need for U.S. engagement in peacekeeping operations.  This statement set the tone for the panel, which featured three experienced peacekeepers including Lynn Holland, the first American woman to participate in a UN peacekeeping operation.  The speakers focused on the advantages of peacekeeping and reasons the U.S. should increase its participation.

Holland, now at PAE, came to peacekeeping through police work in the United States.  She volunteered to join for two weeks a project in Haiti that would train police personnel.  After six months, she decided that she could not go back to writing tickets in the U.S. so she followed what she described as a “calling” into several other countries as a peacekeeper, including Bosnia, Kosovo and Liberia.  From this she learned that peacekeeping operations must be tailored to each situation and comprehensive.  It only creates problems to train more police officers without also training judges and corrections personnel.  Holland believes there are advantages to using women peacekeepers.  After she negotiated a ceasefire in Kosovo, one of the protagonists told UN personnel that the effort would not have been successful if it had been led by a man.

William Stuebner of IDS International listed the reasons the U.S. should be more involved in UN peacekeeping operations.  Successful peacekeeping work quarantines conflict, saves money, and depoliticizes responsibility.  Additionally, Stuebner argued that it is just the “right thing to do,” though he acknowledged this argument carries little weight in Washington. 

Deborah Owens, who has served in Somalia, Rwanda, and the Balkans, emphasized that peacekeepers live “close to the ground” getting their hair cut at local salons, visiting local restaurants, and staying in normal apartments, which allows them to understand the local issues in a more nuanced way.  Finally, peacekeeping missions have established a presence in conflict zones that would be hard for other countries to enter without inciting violence.

As for what the U.S. could do to help more, Stuebner pointed to training, assisting with transportation, intelligence and special troops.  The U.S. should also continue to pay its assessed dues.  It is a misconception in the U.S. that we contribute a significant number of peacekeepers when in reality, on the list of countries that contribute the most blue berets (UN peacekeepers) we were number 58 as of August.