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The nexus between nation-building and peacekeeping is an intriguing one. Certainly this relationship is one that entails due diligence. Before understanding this concept, it is necessary to know its definition. Thus, “nation-building is a process that takes place in the aftermath of a conflict. It is an action to strengthen and solidify a political settlement such as economic reconstruction and a reestablishment of normal civilian life. The main purpose is to build the tools necessary to avoid a return to conflict.”1 However, one has to disagree with this conformist definition of nation-building. In fact, it is this type of thinking process in which we assume that nation-building takes place after conflicts that has brought about the failure of the international community’s efforts to rebuild societies. We must not focus on rebuilding societies after they have disintegrated but should instead be laying the foundations for their prosperity, thus diverging from violence. Eventually, the question boils down to how much work is going to be needed, and is the international community willing to do it?
The following paper focuses on the critical issue of nation-building in the post-conflict era and its aftereffects on peacekeeping missions. Many peacekeeping operations have engaged in the fight to keep peace without really taking into account the positive outcomes that nation-building has to offer. Often “the military culture is dedicated to making war rather than peace, and likes order, control and discipline as distinct from murkiness, collaboration and strengthening the rules.”2 Essentially, nation-states put far more effort into ending or initiating wars than they do into making or working towards peace. Nation-building and peace-building efforts are needed now more than ever and it is imperative that nation-states perform and encourage peace-building activities.
For many of the colonized nations, “independence has not necessarily meant freedom of the individual. It has frequently meant authoritarian one-party governments as the preferred means of building a strong, integrated, cohesive nation-state…”3 The United Nations, along with various regional organizations, is now faced with the problem of nation-building when trying to save failed states from the calamities of war. But why has the approach to nation-building not been an easy task in areas such as Africa (specifically UNOSOM I and II in Somalia, and UNMIH in Haiti), but seems to have worked exceptionally in places like East Timor in the UNTAET Mission? It has been argued that member states within the United Nations follow their national interests and Africa is a burden that no member-state wants on its shoulders. One might also argue that East Timor is closer to Australia thus making it easy for resources to get into place quite quickly, overcoming the cumbersome process of approval that burdens most peacekeeping missions. The mission was on the ground and active within a month, indeed what former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali envisaged.
Nation-states engulfed in political and economical instability as well as ethnic strife prove to be a hard case for nation-building. This is not because of their political or economical dimensions, but because of the lack of the rule of law and democratic governance. This is true in cases such as those of Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo.
The increasing demands placed on the international community for intervention in conflicts across the world, the wide range of activities that need to be covered, and the complexities and dangers of peace operations, have created a number of issues that need to be understood if future peace operations are to have any success. The most important lesson we have learned from the experiences of the last seven years is that the United Nations organization was never designed to handle commitments of the magnitude of Cambodia, Somalia, and the former Yugoslavia –individually they would have been difficult, but undertaking all three more or less simultaneously in 1992/93 was impossible. It is therefore a tribute to the dedication and selflessness of the United Nations Secretariat and the personnel who took part in these operations that they achieved even what they did which, despite its shortcomings, was certainly not insignificant. Hence, for the maintenance of international peace and security, the building of institutional capabilities is crucial. An appropriate division of responsibilities between the United Nations and other international actors in the spheres of preventive action, peacemaking, peacekeeping, enforcement action, and peace building, needs to be created in order to enable more effective and comprehensive responses to conflicts around the world. Current experiences indicate that the United Nations may be most effective in the fields of preventive action, traditional peacekeeping, humanitarian missions, mediation, and peace building activities. Thus, the specific sphere of nation-building is here examined to give the reader a glimpse of one approach that has proved to be complex but seems the most vital and prudent.
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Ahmad Rashady
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Nice! Yambwa, Nziya Jean-Pierre | Jun 17th, 2004
A very comprehensive explanation on peacebuilding and peacekeeping. Well detailed and useful for peacebuilders
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