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Life on the Ground as a UN Peacekeeper, Balkans (Brian Blodgett, USA, 01/07/19 3:57 am)A recent posting by Ivan Simon (January 5th) had a comment about the UN Peacekeepers not being able to protect the individuals in the country where they were deployed. The statement that caught my attention was "it happened under the eyes of UN peacekeepers who were unable to keep the peace, prevent the shelling and sniping of civilians." I immediately recollected information from the Balkans and decided to do a bit of research to supplement my memory.
During the Bosnia-Herzegovina mission, the UN troops were from Bangladesh, Britain, France, Spain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Turkey, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Russia, Ukraine, Norway, Pakistan, and Jordan. Note that a significant number of countries supporting the mission were non-European and likely did not have as good as equipment as they needed and this, and the Memorandum of Understanding between that allowed the UN to enter Bosnia-Herzegovina, had serious flaws.
As an example, the deployment of Bangladesh forces into the area known as the Bihac pocket (in north-west Bosnia-Herzegovina). From what I recall over 20 years later, the Bangladeshi troops arrived in the Balkans without proper equipment; lacking both firearms and survival gear. From I recall, the troops only had one firearm for every four soldiers and limited ammunition, as well as no winter gear (they arrived in the fall) and instead had their typical summer uniforms. I checked the temperature of Bihac, and in October the high is between 55 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit with a low of between 40 and 48 degrees. By December, the high ranges between 29 and 35 with the lows in the 25 to 30 degree area. Meanwhile, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the average daily temperature for October is 80 degrees and by December it is in the low 70s. I seriously doubt that the average Bangladeshi troop had cold weather gear, nor did the military itself have much on stock.
I also recall hearing that the troops that we serving in the UN were often from countries that basically used the troop deployment as a source of income to their nation, rather than for pure humanitarian reasons--a review of the countries listed earlier may indicate this to be true, but I hope this is not true and perhaps someone can correct what I heard in the 1990s.
However, the UN does pay nations for sending troops on UN missions, to the rate of $1,332 per person per month (in 2016)--a significant amount for the nations that contribute the troops. For India, who paid its entry-level troops in 2016 around $366 per month, that extra $1,000 is a nice contribution. And that is India; consider the other top 25 countries: the most recent report from 2016 showed the top 25 countries as Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Rwanda, Nepal, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Egypt, Indonesia, China (a surprise), Tanzania, Nigeria, Niger, Togo, Morocco, Chad, Uruguay, South Africa, Brazil, Kenya, Benin, Cameroon, and Italy. Ethiopia at the top provided over 8,000 troops, about 6% of its active military. China is in a unique position as it votes to send troops, deploys peacekeepers, and funds the missions (KFC, 2017).
So when we consider the deployment of UN troops, we must also consider the Memorandum of Understanding that the nation receiving the troops and the UN agree to, and it often has severe limitations on exactly what the UN forces can do. From my recollection, there was a MOU for Bosnia but I am not sure if they are required for all UN deployment of forces--not sure how they could be when in some cases there is no real government in place.
Back to Bihac, we knew that the Muslim forces in the area that was surrounded by Serbian forces to the south and Croatia to the other sides were receiving supplies, but at NATO we could not figure out how. It was only after I was in Zagreb talking to the UN headquarters staff that I found out that the UN forces (Bangladeshi) were not allowed outside of their compound at night per the agreement and that they could only report on activities they saw. So, it was of no surprise that aircraft were landing at night at the local airport keeping the forces well supplied (whose airplanes they were, is something I never looked into), but the UN could not report any of this during the three-year siege of Bihac.
Regarding the shelling, I also recall the ridiculous aspect that the Serbs had to store their mortars and such in UN Collection Points but were able to enter the points at any time and withdraw the weapons for cleaning, which often also involved "test firing" them and using them to shell areas before returning them to the UN-controlled collection points.
References:
Murphy, D. (1994). "Peacekeeper wounded in Bosnia dies: Balkans: Bangladeshi was one of five injured in Serbian attack. U.N. officials denounce it as most serious strike against their mission since war began". Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/1994-12-14/news/mn-8905_1_bangladeshi-peacekeeper
KFC. (2017) "Countries provide the most troops and funding?" Retrieved from https://bestdelegate.com/united-nations-peacekeepers-which-countries-provide-the-most-troops-and-funding/
United Nations (2018). "Deployment and Reimbursement." Retrieved from https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/deployment-and-reimbursement
Weather Spark. (2019). "Average weather in Bihac." Retrieved from https://weatherspark.com/y/148343/Average-Weather-at-Bihac-Croatia-Year-Round
Weather Spark. (2019). "Average weather in Dhaka." Retrieved from https://weatherspark.com/y/111858/Average-Weather-in-Dhaka-Bangladesh-Year-Round
JE comments: Fascinating, Brian. I was completely unaware of the economics of UN peacekeeping. Naïvely, I assumed the countries of origin paid for their supply and upkeep.
Our late colleague Bob Gibbs was also in the Balkans as a peacekeeper. In our phone conversations, he often lamented that the ROE (rules of engagement) hamstrung his unit at every turn, even preventing it from stopping specific acts of violence.
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Comments/Replies
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Witnessing the UN Peacekeepers, Balkans (from Gary Moore)
(John Eipper, USA
01/07/19 2:33 PM)
Gary Moore writes:
Seconding Brian Blodgett's (January 7) enlightening run-down on UN peacekeeping economics
in the Balkans, I remember marveling, in my year at the UN Mission in Kosovo, that every
single day seemed to bring some magnificently loony new UN absurdity, which people
back home might be hard-pressed to believe.
On the other hand, writing the area manual
I got to take one of those spiffy white minivans (or occasionally a pickup) all over the
country, and in one provincial boondock I found myself facing the UN administrator
for that town--who seemed a veritable super-robot of efficiency. He was from the Philippines,
and seemed to have every answer, know every nuance, and always with a cheerfully
diplomatic smile, while doing several things at once.
The UN does not prove there is
no hope for the human race; it just points up the mystery.
JE comments: Does the UN show the best and the worst of humanity? Or at least it's a testament to the best and worst of behemoth institutions.
(Gary, this is the first time I've seen "boondock" in the singular. But it fits. Next up--the singular "smithereen"...)
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- In the Balkans, UN and NATO Did the Best They Could (Istvan Simon, USA 01/08/19 3:58 AM)
I am grateful to Brian Blodgett for his comprehensive contributions (January 2 and January 7) on the events in Yugoslavia. I am in complete agreement with Brian. I had made the same points, without his thoroughly researched details and deep insights.
I would like to add a few explanations to my post of January 5th:
First, Brian's January 2 post was so complete that I probably would not even have written mine had I read his, because Brian's post made it unnecessary. But I had not yet read Brian's when I wrote mine, which was in reaction to posts by Robert Gard and Cameron Sawyer I disagreed with. I wrote it entirely from memory, personal recollection of the events, gained mostly from newspaper accounts and through the Kosovo family I wrote about.
The second point I want to add is that I was not being critical of the UN peacekeepers when I mentioned that they were unable to keep the peace. They tried their best, and also provided much of the valuable, accurate and fair neutral information about the conflict in their reports. Their mission was not to fight either side in the conflict, but to separate and stop their fighting by their presence. They did not have the proper equipment for fighting either side, nor the proper rules of engagement. They had barely enough firepower to defend themselves when they came under attack in outrageous provocations by the Serbs.
It is intolerable that any party would have the audacity to attack UN peacekeeping troops, yet the Serbs did just that. I think that these provocations were additional strong reasons for NATO to belatedly intervene and put an end to it through overwhelming firepower and force.
No armed intervention is ever perfect, and NATO's was not either, as Gary Moore observed in his excellent comments of January 4. Nonetheless, to concentrate on the imperfections while ignoring the overall picture is a grave mistake. This is a point I tried to make and I think that this was also the main point made by Gary.
A final observation: I would like to oppose 20-20 hindsight in WAIS posts. This is not only unfair criticism but also a logical fallacy.
20-20 hindsight attributes responsibility for future events that could not have been foreseen when the historical decisions were actually made. It is the false argument that everything else that happened after a historical event, (most often criticizing decisions made by the United States), is a consequence of that decision, as if no other actors had any responsibility for what happens in the world.
JE comments: Yes, coincidence does not prove causality. This is the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. In the Balkans and the Middle East, the United States did get involved, and problems ensued. Does this prove anything? The Balkans were the proverbial "powder keg" (and "Balkanized" to boot) long before the US was an actor on the world stage.
Iraq is a different story, and 20-20 hindsight suggests it would have been easier and more peaceful for nearly everyone if we had reached an understanding with Saddam Hussein, and turned him into "our bastard."
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Saddam Hussein as "Our Bastard"
(Eugenio Battaglia, Italy
01/09/19 3:50 AM)
I may be wrong, but even our excellent-in-everything Moderator may have overlooked something. To his credit we may say that it is something that any good American would forget. JE in fact, commenting on the post of Istvan Simon, 8 January, wrote, "It would have been easier and more peaceful for nearly everyone if we had reached an understanding with Saddam Hussein, and turned him into 'our bastard.'"
Perfect, but Saddam was the "bastard" of the Empire until the lousy trick of April. Maybe he had to be punished because he was unsuccessful in destroying Iran, despite all the help received?
Also, John's sentence "In the Balkans and in the Middle East, the United States did get involved" is correct, but who ordered the involvement? As far as I know the various US Presidents, very poor in geopolitics, did the ordering.
Considering that in a certain way the Empire is also involved in Ukraine and considering that the Ukrainian government is bombing its own people, a retaliatory bombing of Kiev by NATO would be appropriate, just as it had been in Belgrade.
It could be a good idea: in Kosovo the Empire was compensated with the huge military base of Bondsteel. It could ask the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk for another huge military base strategically placed at the same longitude as Moscow, only farther south.
JE comments: Eugenio, I presume you mean April Glaspie, the American diplomat who reportedly told Saddam that the US had "no opinion" on Iraq's claim to Kuwait. Given the war(s) that followed, this sounds like a tragic April Fools joke, but the meeting occurred in July.
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- In the Balkans, UN and NATO Did the Best They Could (Istvan Simon, USA 01/08/19 3:58 AM)