1999 E-mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart: Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

E-mail Exchange with Sir Brian Urquhart and students from Marin Academy High School, UC Berkeley's Model UN Program, and Boalt School of Law: March 1999 with Harry Kreisler

The UN and Africa

I've read some on your experiences in the Congo. Once again this nation is torn apart by different factions, but this time it is more internal, and opposed to being from colonization issues. Do you think that the UN is now more hesitant to send in troops than before, event though the conflict is just as volatile?

David Bailey, Model UN Program, UC Berkeley

The Congo crisis in 1960 was not only devastating in African terms but also had a very sinister Cold War element, since at one point it looked as though the United States and the Soviet Union were actually going to clash over control of the Congo. The current situation is even more devastating in African terms, involving as it does at least five countries in Central Africa. However, because the Cold War is over and it does not therefore constitute a wider threat to world peace there is great reluctance to mount a major international operation to attempt to defuse the crisis. None of the permanent members of the Security Council, and especially the United States, has any wish to involve the UN in the kind of operation it carried out in the Congo in the 1960s. Nor are African governments keen anymore on open-ended United Nations interventions. The Organization of African Unity has neither the strength nor the resources to deal with the problem and so the disorder continues and increases. In my view, this is a gross dereliction of responsibility by the world community as represented in the United Nations, a failure which applies to other disasters in Africa as well.

The 1960s brought on a surge of independence for many former African colonies. Right now, many African nations are stuck in post-colonial trauma. How do we "decolonize the African mind" and restore to the African people the dignity they lost with the advent of colonialism? Have you ever heard of the Manichean allegory? There is much debate on whether or not the colonial and neo-colonial movement can be viewed in those terms. What do you believe? Do you feel that the Manichean allegory is a legitimate theory to view US and British foreign policy making toward the Middle East?

Leila Yavari, Model UN Program, UC Berkeley

I don't know about the Manichean allegory. I am British and I do know that I was brought up to believe that colonialism was wrong and should be abolished as soon as possible. In fact a good part of my working life, especially with Ralph Bunche, a major figure in the process of decolonization, has been devoted to this cause. The case of Africa is particularly striking since the tragedy has worked itself out in less than one hundred years and African states are now left to deal with the consequences. I do not think, however, that it will help them in this struggle to constantly hark back to the undoubted evils of colonialism. As the new President of Nigeria, Olesegun Abasanjo, has frequently said, African leadership has to strike out its own course in dealing with the continent's appalling difficulties.

My question is about the future stability of West Africa. The last year has seen fighting in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal and Guinea-Bissau. There is so much instability in the region that people worry even the most stable countries might destabilize. There has been an extremely limited involvement in these problems by the UN. ECOMOG has had some success in Sierra Leone, but it is accused of wide-scale human rights abuses, and Nigeria is reluctant to continue its role. In Guinea-Bissau, where I lived for two years, there has been virtually no Peacekeeping (in the past two weeks, about 400 Togolese and Nigerian ECOMOG forces have arrived, but that is all), despite the fact that a minimal number of peacekeepers could probably have actually prevented the recurring fighting going on there. UN involvement in the peace process might have been able to pressure Nino Viera to leave office. It appears that the West has decided on a policy of "Africa for the Africans." My question for you is, what can be done in West Africa? How could we get peacekeepers there? Would they be able to help?

Celina Schocken, Boalt School of Law, UC Berkeley

This is a very important question. You are right that there is a disastrous tendency, reflected in the Security Council, to shy away from involvement in African problems. This started after the American rangers disaster in Mogadishu in 1993 and its first practical result was the absolute refusal to do anything about the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 until it was much too late. The incentive for intervening in Africa during the Cold War was to prevent an East - West clash in Africa, especially in the Congo. That incentive no longer exists, and experience in Somalia, Angola, and elsewhere has made the Security Council extremely skeptical of the need or the value of establishing new peacekeeping operations in Africa. Personally, I think this is a major abdication of responsibility, which is related to the extremely unwise move, led by the United States, to cut down UN operations and to deprive the organization of even the minimum resources and authority to carry out emergency operations. The tendency now is to leave the responsibility to regional organizations. Even in Europe, this doesn't work very well, and in Africa it doesn't work at all except for the efforts of ECOMOG in Sierra Leone.

In my view, the UN has an obligation to either do something itself or to ensure that another organization does something when large groups of people are being victimized anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, for the present, at any rate, this is not a fashionable view in Washington or in a number of other capitals. The result is the prolongation of many tragedies and, incidentally, a growing disillusionment with the UN.