Half a century has elapsed since the first UN peacekeeping operation, during the Suez crisis. Sixty more operations have been mounted since then; sixteen are still under way, seven of them in Africa. Fifty years of experience, of experiments, of unceasing struggle by the UN to try and establish a commitment framework that is universally recognised, and to overcome reticences of every kind. Results have seldom lived up to expectations. In the Brahimi Report,⁽¹⁾ the UN has drawn up a perfectly lucid balance-sheet of the situation; improvements have been, and will continue to be made, but it has to be admitted that some situations are blocked by vested interests and power structures, governmental or otherwise, and also by the violence of defensive attitudes or of aggressive universalisms, of fanatics or rivals.

Nevertheless, there is no alternative but to continue down this road, as the African continent is still searching for peace. Even if there are encouraging signs here and there, the basis of a future in which development has triumphed and political systems guaranteeing survival for all have been installed has yet to be established. Current and future tumult must not be ignored by those responsible for bringing peace to the world.

Difficult decisions

Negotiations leading to a UN peacekeeping operational commitment are always delicate, because of the lack of a legal framework. The right to interfere so dear to the heart of Bernard Kouchner has outlived its initial conception; it was too much wishful thinking, and went against the grain of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of nations, one of the basic foundations of the UN. The notion of ‘a responsibility to protect’ was propounded in the Brahimi Report and is frequently taken up by the Secretary-General; but it gives no blank cheque, and confrontations within the Security Council on the question of the line to take towards states where intolerable situations are revealed always make for problems that are difficult to resolve.