UN

UN

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Peacekeeping

Peacekeeping

The UN’s mandate forbids intervening in the internal politics of any country unless the crime of genocide is being committed. France has been accused of aiding the Hutu regime to flee by creating what is known as Operation Turquoise. Canada, Ghana, and the Netherlands provided consistent support for the UN mission under the command of Roméo Dallaire although it was left without an appropriate mandate for the capacity to intervene from the U.N. Security Council. Despite emphatic demands from the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda’s commanders in Rwanda before and throughout the genocide, its requests for authorization to end it were refused and its intervention-capacity was even reduced.

According to China’s critics, China has offered Sudan support threatening to use its veto on the U.N. Security Council to protect Khartoum from sanctions and has been able to water down every resolution on Darfur in order to protect its interests in Sudan.

The UN agreed to send 5,500 troops, mostly from African countries, to Rwanda.

In 1993, annual UN peacekeeping costs had peaked at some $3.6 billion, reflecting the expense of operations in the former Yugoslavia and Somalia. By 1998, costs had dropped to just under $1 billion. With the resurgence of larger-scale operations, costs for UN peacekeeping rose to $3 billion in 2001. In 2004, the approved budget was $2.8 billion, although the total amount was higher than that. For the fiscal year which ended on June 30, 2006, UN peacekeeping costs were about US$5.03 billion.

All member states are legally obliged to pay their share of peacekeeping costs under a complex formula that they themselves have established. Despite this legal obligation, member states owed approximately $1.20 billion in current and back peacekeeping dues as of June 2004.

Despite the large number of contributors, the greatest burden continues to be borne by a core group of developing countries, who often profit financially from their participation in such missions. The 10 main troop-contributing countries to UN peacekeeping operations as of March 2007 were Pakistan(10,173), Bangladesh (9,675), India (9,471), Nepal (3,626), Jordan (3,564), Uruguay (2,583), Italy (2,539), Ghana (2,907), Nigeria (2,465), and France(1,975).

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