10 years after Brahimi: A return to peacekeeping for Canada?
by Dominic Leger
In the wake of the major shortcomings of peace operations in Rwanda, Somalia and Bosnia, the Brahimi report, published 10 years ago confirmed the limits of peace operations. The United Nation study, led by Lakhdar Brahimi, the prominent Algerian diplomat, also offered many recommendations to improve the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations deployed in increasingly complex environments and dealing with mandates that are more and more sophisticated and multidimensional.
Since the Brahimi report, a lot has changed. Peace operations have reached unprecedented proportions in the number of troops and civilians deployed in the field but also in the costs and the logistics associated with such missions. The post-Brahimi era is also one of disengagement from peacekeeping by Western countries, Canada among them. Before 1992, Canada was often among the first countries contributing peacekeepers. Now it’s the 58th overall. The withdrawal of Western countries has created a deficit of force multipliers within peace operations that are essential to ensure rapid, focused and robust deployments. Following the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001, Canada's military posture has increasingly moved towards interoperability with the Americans, especially in the context of the NATO mission in Afghanistan.
On April 9th and 10th, the challenges and opportunities for peace operations, 10 years after the Brahimi report were discussed in a conference organized by The Réseau francophone de recherche sur les opérations de paix (ROP), the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM), the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies (Université de Montréal and McGill University), and the Centre d’étude des politiques étrangères et de sécurité (Université du Québec à Montréal).
According to a recent report on peacekeeping by Jocelyn Coulon and Michel Liégeois (CDFAI, Jan. 2010), the Brahimi report “engages states to be more responsible when designing, organizing, and launching a peace operation. In particular, the report challenges states to do this by defining clear, credible, and realistic mandates, by equipping personnel appropriately, by reinforcing the UN capacity to deploy its personnel quickly, by inviting regional and sub-regional organizations to participate more actively, by better articulating the peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities, and by reforming the Department of Peacekeeping Operations to provide it with the capacities it needs to undertake bigger and more complex missions.”
Robust Peacekeeping
William Durch of the Stimson Center and Jean-Marie Guehenno, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations from 2000 to 2008, made a presentation on the nature of today’s peacekeeping operations. The emergence of militias and other non-state actors in contemporary conflicts has led to the use of more robust methods in some peacekeeping operations. Given that non-state actors involved in conflicts are unaccountable to international institutions and, therefore, have no political capital to lose for failure to comply with international laws and treaties, peacekeeping operations must employ more forceful methods to stop hostilities and attacks on civilians. Today’s conflicts are less about the control of territory and more about the control of populations. This dynamic has a profound impact on peacekeeping operations on the ground. A robust peacekeeping force must include:
- A higher ratio of peacekeepers to civilians in the field to be able to protect civilians
- An important strategic reserve which is essential to deterrence
- Greater tactical mobility and appropriate equipment to increase the capacity to respond
- Having well trained troops and an appropriate command structure
With significant operational mobility, advanced logistics and rapid reaction capacity amongst the best in the world, Canada is well positioned to address these new realities on the ground and contribute to today’s peacekeeping.
Canada and peacekeeping
The last part of the workshop was a roundtable on Canada's role in peacekeeping with Jocelyn Coulon, Director of the Francophone Research Network on Peace Operations (ROP), Paul Heinbecker, former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations and Brigadier-General Denis Thompson, Chief of Land Operations for the Canadian Armed Forces.
Jocelyn Coulon first looked at peace operations and the changes they have undergone in recent years. He noted that in the early 1990s, there were a dozen peacekeeping operations worldwide, including 11 by the United Nations and one by an ad-hoc coalition. Currently, there are 40 peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peace enforcement missions deployed in 23 countries, the majority of them in Africa. The mandates of peacekeeping operations now allow for the establishment of trust between the parties, the arrest of war criminals and their appearance before the criminal courts, the creation and strengthening of state structures, disarmament and demining, reintegration of child soldiers and militias, the protection of civilians, particularly women and children, reforming the security sector, rehabilitation of infrastructure and the creation of thousands of local jobs.
Subsequently, Mr. Coulon addressed specifically the issue of Canada's engagement in UN peace operations. He believes that with the combat experience gained during its 10-year stay in Afghanistan, Canada is now well trained to renew its involvement in peacekeeping operations.
Brigadier-General Denis Thompson emphasized the importance of quality and density of troops when intervening in international missions. These two criteria are essential to the success of peace operations no matter what organizations they belong to (UN, NATO, African Union). Speaking of his experience in Afghanistan, BG Thompson said that the operating environment of today's conflicts demands strong and well-equipped forces that will act as a deterrent in the field.
The former UN ambassador, Paul Heinbecker, criticized Canada’s disengagement from the UN both at the diplomatic level and in terms of Canadian participation in peacekeeping. Canada has all the tools necessary to have a real impact on the international stage but only if there’s political will to make it happen. He encouraged Canada and other member states to do more to make the UN work instead of sitting in judgment. He also said that it should be a priority for Canada to help in making peacekeeping more effective.
Peace operations have undergone a remarkable transformation initiated in part by the Brahimi report in 2000 and later confirmed by the new strategic and geopolitical realities in the field. In this context, peace operations are playing a greater role in the resolution of conflicts. They are more numerous but also more complex than earlier generation peacekeeping missions. To ensure their success, they need the participation of countries like Canada more than ever to ensure their universal character, and that sufficient numbers of quality troops take part.
For more information on UN peacekeeping and Canada's role, visit: www.peacekeepingcanada.com
