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The eyes and ears of the Security Council
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- Category: Current Issues
- Created on Saturday, 14 April 2012 00:00
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The eyes and ears of the Security Council
The UN Security Council has agreed to dispatch observers to Syria to oversee the cease-fire that began Thursday. But what role do such missions play, and how do they work?
"The decisive factor is whether the parties involved in a conflict have the political will to truly restore peace," said Ekkehard Griep, vice-chairman of the United Nations Association of Germany and primarily responsible for UN peacekeeping projects at the organization. "UN peacekeeping missions can only support the peace process and help the parties in conflict come together, nothing more," he said.
The United Nations has voted through 66 such peacekeeping missions since 1948, 15 of which are still underway. These are divided into observer, peacekeeping and peace enforcement activities, the latter having occurred only four times: during the Korean War from 1950 to 1953; in the Gulf War concerning Kuwait and Iraq in 1990; in 1999 in Kosovo; and in Afghanistan since 2001. In contrast to observer or peacekeeping missions, peace enforcement is permitted against the will of the country concerned or the parties involved in conflict.
No approval, no observers
Should a nation oppose such an operation, the UN Security Council has no authority to dispatch a peacekeeping mission. Should a mission gain access to the country, observers' freedom to move about must be ensured, which is why the UN normally organizes its own drivers, translators and guides.
An observer mission's mandate is determined by a distinct UN Security Council resolution, with observer activities drawn up based on the particular circumstances of a country. Observers - normally officers donning blue headdress with UN insignia - ensure that a ceasefire is being kept, check how militias are being disarmed, determine how the parties in conflict are interacting or check whether elections are being conducted according to international principles.
They are not permitted to get involved. Their sole mission is to observe, assess, write reports and pass them on to the UN Secretary General, who relays them to the Security Council, which confers over further steps. In this way, an observer mission is distinct from a peacekeeping one. Observers are supposed to act as the eyes and ears of the Security Council, not its fists.
"An observer mission normally does not receive a mandate to fan out and illuminate every corner of every village," Griep said, adding that it is still essential for observers to speak to the people in the country. Just how far a mission can penetrate also depends on the size of the country and the number and configuration of the observer troops. "In Kosovo, for instance, a small region with a major international observer presence, it was easier to advance inward than it was in the Democratic Republic of Congo," Griep said. Observers must "have a knack for diplomacy, have the ability to keep cool in critical situations and always remain aware of the limits of their mandate," he explained.
Peacekeeping model has changed over time
Drawing a line between an observer and a peacekeeping mission has meanwhile become difficult, said Griep, who worked in the Department for Peacekeeping Operations at UN Headquarters in New York. "Modern peacekeeping is different from the peacekeeping of the past," he noted. "It's multi-dimensional these days - with elements of ensuring that human rights are respected, to helping establish a constitutional framework or national police force, to offering counsel on humanitarian or equality issues. In the past, it was about separating squabblers."
Generally, all members of the United Nations are called on to participate in peace missions. Right now, some 120 countries - about two-thirds of UN members - are providing peacekeeping personnel: from Algeria to Zimbabwe. Strikingly, most of the around 120,000 peacekeepers - of which about 100,000 wear uniforms - come from developing countries or emerging markets, such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. One important reason is likely that the countries providing troops receive compensation from the UN. The United States ensures more than a fourth of the financing of the UN peacekeeping budget, while Japan provides about one-fifth and Germany about one-tenth.
Success in Liberia, patience for Cyprus
Ekkehard Griep cites the west African nation of Liberia as a good example of a successful peacekeeping operation. Since 2003, the UN mission there has been monitoring where the peace agreement remains in place. It's a success because democratic elections have been held twice now. The number of civilian and military peacekeepers have been reduced from 15,000 to 8,000 over the years.
Cyprus, on the other hand, cannot boast diplomatic success. "If there weren't a UN presence there, there would be no peace between North and South," Griep said. It's a similar situation for smaller observer missions in Kashmir or in the Middle East.
Griep himself participated in various election observer missions in Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan. He noted the advantage of UN observers not carrying weapons: it underscores credibility and "no one can discern an offensive, invasive character" to the mission, he said.
Author: Tobias Oelmaier / als Editor: Spencer Kimball Source: Deutsche Welle
No commentsMilitary takes over Guinea-Bissau capital
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- Created on Friday, 13 April 2012 00:00
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Military takes over Guinea-Bissau capital
Just weeks before the second round of a disputed presidential election, the armed forces have seized control of Guinea-Bissau's capital. The whereabouts of the nation's leaders are currently unknown.
The military launched a coup in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau on Thursday, a day after a re-run vote of a disputed presidential election had been postponed by the country's electoral commission.
The armed forces had reportedly seized the ruling party's headquarters and the national radio station as shots rang out in the streets of the capital, Bissau, according to the news agency AFP. Troops attacked the residence of Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, lobbing grenades at his home. It was unclear whether the prime minister was there during the assault.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) condemned the coup, warning that it had the capacity to "intervene on two fronts." ECOWAS has been focused primarily on the volatile political situation in Mali, where an ethnic Tuareg rebellion has threatened to break the nation apart.
"We have received some difficult information from Guinea-Bissau, and this information indicates to us that there is a coup underway," Ivorian Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan said.
"ECOWAS formally and rigorously condemns such an attempted coup d'etat," Duncan added.
History of instability
A former Portuguese colony that gained independence in 1974 and has suffered numerous military coups, Guinea-Bissau was slated to hold a runoff election on April 29. The election would have pitted Prime Minister Gomes against former president, Kumba Yala.
Yala had rejected the results of the election's first round on March 18, which saw the prime minister take 49 percent of the vote, just short of an outright victory. The former president, however, said he would boycott the second round after raising allegations of widespread fraud.
The emergency election is being held due to the death of former president Malam Bacai Sanha, who died in January after being rushed to Paris for treatment of end-stage diabetes.
slk/av (AP, AFP)
Source: Deutsche Welle
The war on terror is corrupting all it touches
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- Created on Friday, 13 April 2012 00:00
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The war on terror is corrupting all it touches
Every student agitator is a terrorist, every internet hacker, cafeteria dissident, freedom fighter and insurgent leader... More Details
G8 welcomes cease-fire in Syria
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- Created on Friday, 13 April 2012 00:00
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G8 welcomes cease-fire in Syria
Ghana calls an end to tyrannical reign of the Queen's English
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- Category: The World
- Created on Friday, 13 April 2012 00:00
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Ghana calls an end to tyrannical reign of the Queen's English
Voice of colonialism gives way to local form of English that's 'flexible and fun' as opposed to giving language 'a good beating'...
Afua Hirsch in Accra
Question: "Have you eat?" Reply: "No I go eat after small small." This is just one of the turns of phrase Ghanaians employ, in the words of one local commentator, "to give the Queen's English a good beating".
{sidebar id=10 align=right}But as Ghanaians join their west African neighbours – following the examples of Nigerian Pidgin and Sierra Leonean Krio – in speaking their inherited colonial tongue with growing creative licence, a row is breaking out about what really is the proper way to speak English.
On one side of the fence are the old-school Ghanaians who were taught throughout their education to mimic received pronunciation – or BBC English, as it is popularly known – with varying degrees of success.
On the other side, a backlash is growing against the old mentality of equating a British accent with prestige. Now the practice has a new acronym, LAFA, or "locally acquired foreign accent", and attracts derision rather than praise.
"In the past we have seen people in Ghana try to mimic the Queen's English, speaking in a way that doesn't sound natural. They think it sounds prestigious, but frankly it sounds like they are overdoing it," said Professor Kofi Agyekum, head of linguistics at the University of Ghana.
"There has been a significant change now, away from those who think sounding English is prestigious, towards those who value being multilingual, who would never neglect our mother tongues, and who are happy to sound Ghanaian when we speak English."
Ghana has nine indigenous languages that are officially sponsored by the government, including Akan languages spoken widely in the south. A further 26 languages are officially recognised and at least double that number are also spoken. Unlike its francophone neighbours, which were forced under colonialism to teach only in French, Ghana has always maintained the use of African languages in its primary school education.
But the idea that sounding "British" carries prestige also has a long history in Ghanaian society, manifesting itself in the country's struggle for independence in the 1940s and 50s, when an ideological difference emerged between an Oxbridge-educated Ghanaian elite and more radical, left-leaning leaders.
Now, more than 50 years later and more than 200 years after the abolition of the slave trade saw an influx of Christian missionaries imposing British language and literature, Ghanaians are embracing a new standard: Ghanaian English.
"The idea that intelligence is linked to English pronunciation is a legacy from colonial thinking," said Delalorm Semabia, 25, a Ghanaian blogger. "People used to think that if you speak like the British then you are as intelligent as the British. But now we are waking up to the fact that we have great people here who have never stepped outside the borders."
"The best example of Ghanaian English on the international scene is [former UN secretary general] Kofi Annan's clear diction," said Ghanaian columnist Kofi Amenyo. "The man maintains the Ghanaian features in his pronunciation and yet succeeds in being easily understood by the peoples of the world."
For Ghana's younger generation, though, the move towards Ghanaian English is less about elder statesmen, and more about music and technology.
"In the 90s many local artists wanted to sound like Usher or Jay-Z, but now they are taking local names and branding themselves locally," said Semabia. "Little by little, people are embracing the use of our own languages – for example, now we can Google in Akan.
"For us, English is our language – we want to break away from the old strictures, to personalise it, mix it with our local languages, and have fun with it. The whole point of language is that it's supposed to be flexible and it's meant to be fun."
Source: The Guardian UK