Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 20, 1993 TAG: 9312010337
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JONATHAN MOORE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Unless its member states - especially the United States - can agree on and reliably support its role in the post-Cold War world, the United Nations will become increasingly impotent in the face of growing global instability.
The organization's current troubles stem from the convergence of three tasks urged on it by member states: delivering emergency humanitarian relief, creating security to assure its delivery, and initiating the political and economic rehabilitation - nation-building - of countries in turmoil to avoid their return to violence and suffering.
By nature, each of these missions is ferociously difficult. But when a readiness to resort to violence is coupled with contempt for widely accepted rules, values and norms of behavior - as in Bosnia, Angola, Somalia and now Haiti - U.N. rescue and recovery operations are simply outmatched.
Put another way, if the will to achieve the healing and progress intended by the United Nations isn't sufficiently present in the country receiving help, there is no way to achieve them other than through the imposition of overwhelming force followed by a trusteeship. So the United Nations is forced to bet on the margin - the organization does what it can do to see if it works.
In Namibia, Salvador, Cambodia and Mozambique, the strategy has worked at least up to a point - just as tons of relief is delivered to the suffering in Bosnia, starvation stopped in Somalia and a pact concerning Haiti's political future hammered out. In reacting to trouble, U.N. achievements must not be overlooked.
But what lengthens the odds against progress to virtually unbeatable in such fragile situations is when member states with the most political, financial and military clout start backing out of their commitments. Then, peace enforcement and nation-building become empty shells.
Equally unfortunate, the consequences can extend to other missions. Superpower skittishness set off by controversy and casualties in Somalia threatens the formation of a large military force to keep the peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina once a settlement is reached. It encourages Haitian thugs and their military leaders to renege on an agreement to restore democratic rule in that country.
Amid confusion about its responsibilities and liabilities as the remaining superpower, and nagged by the question of whether it can simultaneously walk abroad and chew gum at home, the United States' embrace-and-reject behavior is giving the United Nations conniptions in Somalia.
In its fervor to renounce ``the U.N.'s'' policy of tracking down Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, the Somali warlord, the United States failed to acknowledge that it enthusiastically supported his pursuit in the Security Council. In its criticism of the behavior of ``U.N. troops'' in Somalia, the administration failed to admit that the tragic U.S. operation against Aidid's forces on Oct. 3 was under U.S. command. And in its current impatience with nation-building, the United States renounces a long-held recognition of the need for efforts beyond food distribution and peace enforcement to keep Somalia from sliding back into chaos and starvation.
The American record of inconstancy and reality manipulation would be more stark if the United States had not done so much already - or if anyone knew what might actually work in Somalia. Yet - together with a deliberate withdrawal strategy calculated to maximize the chances of peace and stability but, nonetheless, a pullout - it has a devastating effect on the continuing viability of the United Nations in Somalia and elsewhere.
Recent events demonstrate that at a time when a strong and active United Nations is indispensable to world peace and stability, its member states can severely damage it. The world's proliferating problems do not, of course, pre- empt unilateral or bilateral action. But collective responsibility and pooled resources enable the undertaking of difficult missions in the common interest - which no nation, operating individually, could pursue - that both share the credit and diffuse the blame.
Scapegoating the United Nations is thus tantamount to kicking ourselves in the face. And, aside from its hypocrisy and shortsightedness, carping about the United Nations' certifiably notorious flaws doesn't help. The United Nations will frequently be ineffective; it will never be pretty.
But the world body is our best shot. Its weaknesses largely stem from the impossible demands placed on it by and the inadequate support its receives from its member states. Strengthening the United Nations to make it more capable of serving their long-term and wide-ranging interests will require its member states to invest anew in the world body. For the United States, the most important member state, that means learning to support collective effort without an ``either we run it or we won't play'' mentality.
So is the United Nations paralyzed, on the one side, by the violence and barbarity of the countries it tries to help and, on the other, by international timidity and parsimony? Is its bold, new role of relief and rehabilitation virtually wiped out? Obviously, these U.N. missions are severely troubled and their future is in jeopardy.
And if the United States insists on pulling back, or piling stipulation on top of stipulation as a condition of its participation in a U.N. action, other countries will follow suit, with corresponding damage to the U.N.'s capacity and credibility: Already, France, Belgium and Sweden have announced their intention to withdraw from Somalia by mid-January. Some crises may go largely untended until circumstances more accommodating to multilateral intervention prevail. It may be difficult, in the worst situations, for the United Nations to revert to its traditional passive peacekeeping role.
But the United Nations has two characteristics that tend to give it resilience and stamina. It carries the conscience and hopes of the world and it exists for the future, not just the present. Member states will probably move to regroup and shore up the world organization; a wholesale retreat is unlikely.
In light of recent experience, U.N. interventions will be more cautious and selective - hopefully more coordinated, sophisticated and patient. Greater reliance on political and economic rather than security efforts can be expected, with greater attention to the mix. In the desperate crises and setbacks ahead, the important thing will be for the United Nations to be resolute - to do what it can do where it can, mobilize support as best it can and keep on trying.
\ Jonathan Moore, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council. Los Angeles Times
by CNB