ABSTRACT
The study examines the effectiveness and challenges of united nation peace operations in Africa. A case of Sudan.
The study adopted qualitative method and historical/analytical design was used in analyzing its data. Data were collected through secondary sources which include newspapers, archives, books, conference proceedings, etc.
The findings revealed that; UNAMID have done somewhat well in the protection of civilians especially those in IDP camps;. UNAMID has contributed immensely to addressing poverty and humanitarian problems caused by the crisis in Darfur;. UNAMID have also helped in arranging peace talks, workshops, and sensitisation of Darfurians on the need for peace and largely made arrangement for the return of IDPs to their original homes.
The study concluded that, physical protection provided by UNAMID, prevention of crisis and maintenance of peace were greatly observed, particularly in and around displacement sites. The level of protection was woefully inadequate, there was an appreciation that UNAMID provided protection in some circumstances and in the midst challenges. The study further recommends that; In relation to the crisis in Darfur, the international community must honour their commitment to fully resource and deploy UNAMID. There is urgent need for a clear demonstration of political will from the international community backing UNAMID. The Sudanese government must be made or compelled to cease its obstruction of UNAMID activities.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Sudan or the Sudan, officially known as The Republic of the Sudan is a country in North-East Africa. It is the third largest country in Africa with a total area of 728,215 square miles and an estimated population of about 43 million people according to the central intelligence agency. Arabic and English are the country’s official languages and its seat of power lies in its capital- Khartoum.
After many years of being under both Egyptian and British power, in the 20th century Sudanese nationalism grew and the British granted Sudan Independence which was proclaimed on 1 January, 1956. Since independence, Sudan has experienced a series of unstable parliamentary governments and military regimes. Under Gaafar Nimeiry, Sudan introduced Islamic law in 1983 (About Sudan, 2013). This aggravated the gap between the Islamic north, the seat of the government and the Animists and Christians in the south. Differences in language, religion, and political power erupted in a civil war between government forces, strongly influenced by the National Islamic Front (NIF), and the southern rebels, whose most influential faction was the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), eventually concluding in the independence of South Sudan in 2011 (Robert O. Collins, 2008).
The multiple clashes between government forces, the People’s Liberation Movement (PLM), the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the Janjaweed militia, rival nomadic tribes in Sudan and South Sudan, and other liberation movements left different areas of the country in chaos with one war or struggle starting after the other because of government principles that the people didn’t agree with or because of areas that government wanted control of but the people living there were not willing to let that happen, and also because of territorial domination. All this led to the intervention of the UN in Sudan. The African Union - United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur, referred to by its acronym UNAMID, was established on 31 July 2007 with the adoption of Security Council resolution 1769. UNAMID has the protection of civilians as its core mandate, but is also tasked with contributing to security for humanitarian assistance, monitoring and verifying implementation of agreements, assisting an inclusive political process, contributing to the promotion of human rights and the rule of law, and monitoring and reporting on the situation along the borders with Chad and the Central African Republic (CAR). On 29 June 2017 Resolution 2363 (2017) was adopted by the Security Council which, in addition to renewing the mission’s mandate, decided to draw down UNAMID’s troop and police strength over the next year in two phases, while closely monitoring the situation on the ground (UNAMID Fact Sheet).
The Security Council, by its resolution 1990 of 27 June 2011, responded to the urgent situation in Sudan’s Abyei region by establishing the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA). The Security Council was deeply concerned by the violence, escalating tensions and population displacement. The operation has been tasked with monitoring the flashpoint border between north and south and facilitating the delivery of humanitarian aid, and is authorized to use force in protecting civilians and humanitarian workers in Abyei. UNISFA’s establishment came after the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) reached an agreement in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to demilitarize Abyei and let Ethiopian troops to monitor the area.
Now Sudan’s Economy suffers very much and her citizens are not being taken care of by government. The United Nations referred to the humanitarian situation as one of the most complex emergencies globally with an estimated 4.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance as of 2017. The country is in a chaotic state with violence, hunger and poverty thriving amongst the people.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Presently, war torn regions of Sudan do not have sustainable peace treaties to carry out. And when such treaties have been recognised, peacekeeping operations still cannot achieve their duties except administrative demands and engagements are continued. In Sudan, open pressure has drawn attention to the global public’s failure to protect non-combatants. In spite of the benevolent effort on the ground, citizens in Sudan continue to agonise because the global public put unsatisfactory political pressure on ex Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to confirm that the government executes its past commitments. As a final point, military tasks have generally created a void that needs to be occupied by improved administrative organisations. Any peacekeeping force involved in influential demilitarization of militias and area domination have not been created. Once a vacuum is created, and the government cannot fill them other militias can rapidly recover or enlarge their regional control, thereby affecting the security of non-combatants in Sudan. We notice that peacekeeping missions are frequently mistreated as a Band-Aid for serious wars, and we are hardly prepared to do the administrative work that is needed in order to address the causes as endured in Sudan.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The main objective of this paper is to appraise UN peacekeeping in Africa using Sudan as a case study. Other objectives include:
To examine if the policies of the UN concerning peacekeeping in Africa are effective and if there are any flaws in them that need to be diagnosed and corrected.
To assess the effectiveness of UN peacekeeping in Sudan by studying the activities of peacekeeping troops in the region and looking at if they fulfilled their mandate.
To identify the problems encountered by UN peacekeeping in Sudan through reviewing their missions in Sudan to establish the problems they faced and find out the root causes of such problems.
1.4 Research Questions
This study is aimed at answering the following questions:
Where has UN peacekeeping policy failed in Africa?
How effective has UN peacekeeping in Sudan proved to be?
What are the problems that UN peacekeeping has encountered in Sudan?
1.5 Research Proposition
My research propositions for the research are that:
The policy of peacekeeping in Africa determine how effective and successful the missions will be which in turn directly affects the people in the long run.
When UN peacekeeping is not carried out to the latter the result will not be sustainable and so the mission will end up being a futile mission
When a mission such as UN peacekeeping missions are underway they face challenges that must be understood and tackled with stiff hands if not, it would jeopardise the whole mission.
1.6 Significance of the Study
This study will be an authentic source of UN peacekeeping in Africa because it will be carried out thoroughly and without falsification or perversion of information.
It will elucidate the challenges of peacekeeping in Africa and proffer solutions to those challenges by detecting those challenges that were faced during peacekeeping missions and search out the root cause(s) of those problems so as to be able to decide how such problems can be dealt with in the best possible way.
It will evaluate the nature and progress of UN peacekeeping in Africa to be able to state for certain if peacekeeping missions in Africa are effective and to state if they are carried out thoroughly.
It would help UN peacekeeping decision makers to decide on vital roles they should play towards ensuring perfectly executed missions that live up to their mandate by clearly stating the shortcomings of past decision makers and outlining the steps that should be taken in order for those mistakes to be successfully averted.
1.7 Scopes and Limitations of the Study
To properly appraise the effectiveness and problems of UN peacekeeping in Africa, the study will cover the period of 2005-2019; the reason being that it was on the 24 March, 2005 that the first UN peacekeeping mission began in Sudan and it ends in 2019 because it was on the 5 July, 2019 that the sporadic protests unofficially ended. The data will be sourced from the United Nations Peacekeeping Organization, United Nations Security Council, United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur, and United Nations Mission in Sudan.
The geographical location of this study covers Sudan and specifically the Darfur region of Sudan. It does not cover all African countries that have had peacekeeping missions carried out in them because we do not have enough time to study all the countries one after the other.
This study is limited to secondary data because we do not have access to citizens of Sudan who reside in the Darfur region or personnel of the UN that partook in the mission. Due to the time frame of the research and the broad timespan that the research covers, in-depth study cannot be done on the country we have.
1.8 Organization of the Study
Chapter two will be the literature review on UN peacekeeping in Africa, peacekeeping in Sudan and the theoretical framework. While chapter three focuses on the steps taken to execute the research such as the research design, population of the study, method of data collection, research design, research instruments, validity of data instruments and methods of data analysis. Chapter four summarizes the data collected and presents its analysis. It includes the explanations, implications and applications of the results of the collected data. And chapter five deals with the summary, conclusion, and recommendations, it includes an overview of the research and consists of a restatement of the problem, the procedures and the findings.
1.9 Definition of Terms
United Nations: An international organization set up to maintain world peace and security and to promote economic, social and cultural cooperation among nations, set up (1945) as a successor to the League of Nations. Its charter was signed by 50 nations and there are now more than 180 members meeting annually in the General Assembly. Problems of world peace are dealt with by the Security Council, and the U.N’s main judicial system is the International Court of Justice. The U.N’s specialized agencies include the Food and Agriculture Organization, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Fund for Agriculture Development, the International Labour Organization, the International Maritime Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the International Telecommunication Union, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the Universal Postal Union, the World Health Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the World Meteorological Organization. Headquarters: New York. (Webster’s Dictionary)
Peacekeeping: The active maintenance of a truce between nations or communities, especially by an international military force (Oxford).
The maintaining of Peace, especially the use of armed forces not involved in the disagreement to prevent fighting in an area. (Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary)
Peacekeeping Force: A United Nations combat-ready force of member nations combined into military body to maintain peace in an area involved in dispute. (Webster’s Dictionary)
Stability: The quality or state of being steady and not changing or being disturbed in any way. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)
Governance: The activity of governing a country or controlling a company or an organization; the way in which a company is governed or company or institution is controlled. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)
Control, Authority. (Webster’s Dictionary)
Conflict: Armed fighting, a war, a struggle between opposing principles or aims, a clash of feelings or interests, such a clash as a source of dramatic action. (Webster’s Dictionary)
Crisis: A time of great danger, difficulty or confusion when problems must be solved or important decisions must be made. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary)
African Union: An association of African states formed in 2002 from the organization of African Unity. (Oxford)
