Introduction:
Until the late-1990’s, United Nations (UN) peacekeeping (PK) missions did not necessarily specify the protection of civilians (PoC) within mandates under ‘immediate threats of physical violence’ (Holt et al., 2009).
Despite the implementation of successive peace missions, some regions have nevertheless experienced a high level of violence against civilians (VAC) when/where peacekeepers might have intervened. The genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and the Srebrenica massacre a year later are stark reminders of the failures to protect civilians in conflict. In response to those events, and in order to prevent further civilian massacres, the UN Security Council (UNSC) and Department of Peacekeeping Operation (DPKO) revised their approach. Following internal discussions, they launched a task force in 2000, which released the wellknown Brahimi Report (UN, 2000). It stated that,
“Where one party to a peace agreement clearly and incontrovertibly is violating its terms, continued equal treatment of all parties by the United Nations can in the best case result in ineffectiveness and in the worst may amount to complicity with evil. No failure did more to damage the standing and credibility of United Nations peacekeeping in the 1990s than its reluctance to distinguish victim from aggressor.” (UN, 2000: ix)
Henceforth, PK was intended to be more robust in its strategic conception. Essentially, this meant that PK forces should continue to respect three principle bedrocks of PK, namely: 1) neutrality/impartiality; 2) consent of the host state; and 3) the use of minimum force. However, at the same time, PK missions were empowered to fulfil their mandate using “all necessary means” to protect civilians for instance. Moreover, some PK missions have adopted a more explicit strategy which involved naming specific groups to be targeted and neutralized. This reveals a clear evolution in PK conception, where neutrality is progressively put aside, and granted more room to peacekeepers to fulfil their mandates.
Nowadays, each mission implemented by the DPKO sets the PoC as one of its main tasks. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the levels, perpetrators and geography of VAC within a country where PK missions are deployed. The paper uses data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), which disaggregates violent conflict events by date, type of violence, location and actors involved (Raleigh et al., 2010). The findings assess the efficacy of PK missions in protecting civilians, based on their mandate, in order to determine whether the adjustment of mandates resulted in a decrease in levels of VAC.
Three questions will be explored. First, do PK missions effectively reduce levels of VAC? Do we observe a strong shift in levels of VAC following the adjustment of mandates? Second, do the perpetrators of VAC change over the time and implementation of PK? Do mandates incentivise warring parties to engage in anti-civilian violence? Third, does the geographic profile of VAC change over time when PK troops are deployed? Section 1 begins with a review of existing literature on PK and VAC. Section 2 proceeds with an analysis of VAC where PK are deployed. Section 3 details the perpetrators involved in VAC when a PK is deployed. Section 4 explores the location of VAC. Section 5 concludes with a discussion of the paper’s implications for analysis and future research.
The paper makes several contributions to the existing literature. First, it finds that the political context of implementation matters more than the mission itself (its mandate and components). For instance, external factors such as cutting rebels’ financial support and enforcement missions operating alongside PK troops appear to be more prominent to explain the decrease of VAC.
Secondly, the analysis of levels of VAC between rebels and governmental forces, when PK are deployed, has revealed two distinct patterns. In a short-term period (6 months), following mandate, rebels’ levels of VAC are likely to reduce, whereas in a long-term period (2 years), regime forces’ levels of VAC could increase. However, likeliness of regime forces to engage in anti-civilian violence is less a factor of time and mandate than a habit of some national armies to target civilians.
Finally, the geographic scope of VAC might demonstrate both containment and diffusion. The former shows that the widespread of VAC might be limited and confined in specific areas such as in Mali and Darfur, respectively due to enforcement operations prior to PK deployment and improvement of diplomatic relations for the latter. The diffusion pattern reveals that VAC might occur in areas where PK troops are less present, resulting in favourable balance of power for rebel groups as experienced in Democratic Republic of Congo (DR-Congo) in 2003-2004 and 2013-2014.
Overall, the findings suggest that the activity of PK missions alone cannot explain a decrease in levels of VAC. One explanation for this is that enforcement missions deployed before and/or alongside PK troops may be a significant factor in shaping a reduction of VAC.