Nearly a month after launching its military intervention in Mali, France informed the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that it would seek a United Nations (UN) force to replace the French-led coalition there. The French have been fighting against militant Islamists in northern Mali since January 2013 with the help of African soldiers. Both Western and African officials fear that if the French withdraw before the arrival of UN forces, the remaining African soldiers will be unable to contain the militants or protect Malian civilians. Horrific abuses against Malian civilians have already occurred, including amputations, sexual abuse, child soldiering and extra-judicial executions.⁽²⁾ More abuses are anticipated as the conflict in Mali persists.

However, considering the UN’s own track record of civilian protection, there may be little reason to believe that the arrival of UN troops will make Mali safe for civilians. For example, in Sudan the UN has been conducting peace operations since 2005. Yet, violence against civilians continues with 500 dead, 100,000 displaced and over 68 villages destroyed in January 2013 alone.⁽³⁾ In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the UN has been conducting peace operations since 1999. There too, violence against civilians continues with rebels from the March 23 Movement (M23) deliberately targeting civilians in late 2012, leaving hundreds dead in eastern DRC.⁽⁴⁾ Concerning this violence in the DRC, the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights reported, “The sheer viciousness of these murders is beyond comprehension. In some cases, the attacks against civilians may constitute crimes against humanity.”⁽⁵⁾

Why is it so hard for peacekeepers to protect civilians during African conflicts? This paper discusses the importance of civilian protection as both a moral and strategic imperative, and it highlights some of the main challenges that hinder the efforts of peacekeepers to protect civilians during armed conflicts in Africa.

The importance of civilian protection: Beyond the moral imperative

In Africa, predation of civilians during conflict is common. Nearly 600 000 African civilians have been massacred in the past two decades, and “tens of millions more have been killed in battles, displaced, or perished from indirect causes of such attacks and the continent’s armed conflicts.”⁽⁶⁾ In Sudan and the DRC alone, nearly 35,000 civilians have been massacred in episodes of one-sided violence since 1990.⁽⁷⁾ These disturbing figures evoke emotive and moral arguments for the protection of civilians during conflict. Moral arguments for the protection of civilians have existed for centuries. For example, the Just War Theory proposes two principles of jus in bello that distinguish combatants from noncombatants during conflict: the principles of distinction and proportionality. Saint Thomas Aquinas outlined these principles in the thirteenth century, and these tenants remain part of modern Just War Theory.⁽⁸⁾

Today, the protection of civilians during armed conflict is important for two additional reasons. First, the protection of civilians is seen as part of what makes military interventions legitimate.⁽⁹⁾ As such, the protection of civilians during UN peace operations is integral to the entire UN system and the legitimacy and credibility of the UN itself.⁽¹⁰⁾

Additionally, the protection of civilians is a crucial condition for sustainable political peace.⁽¹¹⁾ The legitimacy of a government is contingent upon its willingness and ability to protect civilians from violence. If a government is unwilling or unable to do so, it will lose support. The creation of anti-government sentiment could potentially threaten a nation’s political stability and nation-building processes.

Today, the importance of the protection of civilians extends beyond the moral imperative. Peacekeepers are some of the most capable actors for this job, and their performance affects the legitimacy of armed humanitarian intervention as well as the establishment of sustainable political peace in some of the most war-torn nations on earth. Given the importance of civilian protection, it is upsetting that peacekeepers seem to be unsuccessful as often as they are successful in their endeavours to stop predation against civilians. What are the main challenges impeding their success?

The failure to protect: Key challenges impeding success

The failure to protect civilians on the ground begins at the earliest stages of planning. The UNSC sometimes fails to properly research the threats facing civilians when planning a peacekeeping operation. As a result, the peacekeeping mission’s mandate, strategies, structures and resources do not always reflect the situation facing civilians on the ground.⁽¹²⁾ Moreover, the UNSC does not conceptualise or express the ‘protection of civilians’ consistently. For example, the UNSC “has used this terminology to refer to the broad normative framework that prohibits violence against civilians in engages in others, and the narrower concept of ‘physical’ protection supported by the peacekeeping mission overall.”⁽¹³⁾ Without conceptual clarity, the words ‘protection of civilians’ in a mandate become confusing, and peacekeepers are unsure of how much force they are authorised to use to protect civilians.

The second challenge is the gap between the expectations of civilian protection and the actual military capabilities of peacekeepers. In theory, peacekeepers have the capacity to provide physical security, but “more often than not they are deployed without the numbers, equipment or expertise necessary to complete a civilian protection mandate.”⁽¹⁴⁾ Since international and regional organisations must lobby member states for soldiers in order to form peacekeeping forces, this gap is most often the result of a failure to “muster sufficient political will” in troop-contributing nations.⁽¹⁵⁾

The third challenge is the lack of operational guidance for soldiers in the field with regard to protecting civilians. Efforts to protect civilians during conflict are not new, but including the protection of civilians in the mandates of peace operations only began in 1999 with the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL). This means that peacekeepers not only lack experience in protecting civilians during armed conflict, but they also lack operational manuals that tell them how to best protect civilians. They are often left to make decisions about protecting civilians on an ad hoc basis, and this significantly hinders their ability to protect civilians.⁽¹⁶⁾

The fourth challenge is the lack of effective civil-military coordination. For example, where non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and peacekeepers operate in the same vicinity, perceptions of humanitarian neutrality may change.⁽¹⁷⁾ When neutrality is compromised, humanitarian bases and humanitarian workers may become targets of violence.

The fifth challenge is the lack of effective coordination between peacekeepers and local self-protection efforts. Little attention has been paid to community efforts of self-protection. Thus, external efforts are rarely calibrated to complement the local efforts, and some efforts might actually undermine the safety of civilians.⁽¹⁸⁾ For example, arms embargoes implemented by the international community and designed to protect civilians “might have a disproportionate impact on the ability of self-defense groups to acquire arms.”⁽¹⁹⁾ On the ground, “the establishment of military camps, feeding depots and medical centers might encourage displacement and undermine local coping strategies.”⁽²⁰⁾

Of course, most sinisterly, peacekeepers themselves can pose a threat to civilian protection. Many UN peacekeepers are poorly trained and poorly disciplined. Moreover, the soldiers often come from corrupt troop-contributing countries that steal their soldiers’ wages; without pay, the soldiers become tempted to loot, and sometimes even to rape. Between 2003 and 2007 alone, six Nepalese soldiers were accused and convicted of sexual abuse while serving in the DRC; two UN peacekeepers were repatriated after being accused of abuse in Burundi; UN troops were accused of rape and sexual abuse in Sudan; and UN personnel were accused of rape and exploitation in Liberia.⁽²¹⁾

Conclusion

Concern for vulnerable populations in areas of conflict has grown beyond the human rights and relief communities, “emerging as a political and normative force among international leaders.”⁽²²⁾ This concern is reflected in the mandates of peacekeeping missions, particularly UN peacekeeping missions in Africa.  Out of the 10 different UN-led missions with mandates that include the protection of civilians, eight were conducted in Africa.⁽²³⁾

However, peacekeepers are met with significant challenges that affect their ability to protect civilians. Due to the moral and strategic significance of civilian protection, efforts to overcome these challenges are imperative.

Written by Leigh Hamilton ⁽¹⁾

NOTES:

(1) Contact Leigh Hamilton through Consultancy Africa Intelligence’s Conflict and Terrorism Unit ( conflict.terrorism@consultancyafrica.com). This CAI discussion paper was developed with the assistance of Denine Walters and was copy edited by Nicky Berg.
(2) ‘Mali: End horrific abuses targeting civilians amid conflict’, Amnesty International, 20 September 2012, http://www.amnesty.org.
(3) ‘Sudan: Lawmaker raises alarm over fighting in Darfur’, The New York Times, 25 February 2013, http://www.nytimes.com.
(4) ‘United Nations alarmed over reports of further massacres in eastern DR Congo’, United Nations News Centre, 29 August 2012, http://www.un.org.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Williams, P., 2010. Enhancing civilian protection in peace operations: Insights from Africa. National Defense University Press: Washington, D.C.
(7) Ibid.
(8) Aquinas, T., 1988. Politics and ethics. Norton Publishers: New York.
(9) Holt, V. and Taylor, G. 2009. Protecting civilians in the context of peace operations. The Henry L. Stimson Center: Washington, D.C.
(10) Ibid.
(11) Ibid.
(12) Ibid.
(13) Ibid.
(14) Williams, P. and Bellamy, A., 2009. Protecting civilians in uncivil war. The Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect: Queensland.
(15) Ibid.
(16) Ibid.
(17) Ibid.
(18) Ibid.
(19) Ibid.
(20) Ibid.
(21) ‘Peacekeepers abusing children’, BBC News, 27 May 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk.
(22) Holt, V., 2005. The responsibility to protect: Considering the operational capacity for civilian protection. The Henry L. Stimson Center: Washington, D.C.
(23) United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT), United Nations Organisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC), United Nations Operation in Burundi (ONUB), United Nations Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI), AU/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), and United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS).