As the NY Times reports in this article, France and the UN have entered into the conflict in the Ivory Coast, supporting democratically elected Alassane Ouattara against the former president Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to step down from power after recent elections. I do not wish to discuss the "rightness" of this action - many bloggers, reporters, and commentators have already attested to Gbagbo's many crimes and faults, and that is not really the purview of this post. Instead, I'd like to comment on what is on its way to becoming a pattern. The UN, throughout its history, has been plagued with problems in its peacekeeping missions. Often, the UN troops are not allowed to take action, or may do so only in a limited way. While I do believe that protecting civilians and upholding the legitimate results of free elections is a worthy cause, I wonder at what the UN is saying about itself with the armed support of the Ouattara loyalists, and earlier this year, the Anti-Qaddaffi rebels.
In Libya, the UN has already recieved some criticism from some of its more prominent members (including Russia and China, who abstained from the vote), on the grounds that it is overstepping its boundaries and infringing on state sovereignty. I can't help but feel that the action in the Ivory Coast will produce the same result. It is hard to say as well, whether the people of both Libya and the Ivory Coast will feel any particular gratitude towards France and the UN. Although I can only assume that the UN has more reason to be in the Ivory Coast because of the humanitarian crisis, showing off the hard power of its forces would be a great boost to its soft power bargaining capabilities.
It seems so classic, that events elsewhere on the planet eclipse whatever is going on in Africa. Things are way worse in Cote d'Ivoire than in Libya, and they have been for almost a decade. Where's the hard power? I know that France has a bigger stake in this one than the U.S., obviously, and it's way less inclined to use hard power, but your observation that the UN can't use force is a good one...they all are armed, from what I know, but they must be ordered not to shoot, or to use their arms as a last resort, or for self-defense only...I don't know. At what point (if ever should you use violence to help make peace??
ReplyDeleteVery timely discussion about hard power and soft power, and our attempts to neatly separate the two, especially in the case of the UN. I'm sure you saw this morning that the UN and France in particular have decided to use force on incumbent Gbagbo, who has stubbornly clung to power, was in WP this morning here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/un-france-strike-at-ivory-coast-leaders-forces/2011/04/04/AFoZhnfC_story.html.
ReplyDeleteThese actions are not without precedent since as the article says, "robust peacekeeping" has been used in Sierra Leone, the Congo, and Haiti. I saw that firsthand--when I did development work in Sierra Leone from 2003-2005 just after the war since we stayed in peacekeeper camps, and we were escorted to projects by convoys of armed peacekeepers everywhere we went. Without a display of force by the peacekeepers in local communities, law and order wouldn't have been maintained in the chaos that reigns after a war, and it allowed ordinary people to carry out their daily activities. Most of their work was peaceful, but they had to be able to use force if necessary. They absolutely had to have hard power as well to be legitimate in that environment.