X-URL: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A52746-2000Sep11.html
U.N. Confusion
Tuesday, September 12, 2000; Page A34
IT'S A RELIEF that the British military has rescued six British
soldiers who were held hostage by paramilitary thugs in Sierra Leone.
The operation, which cost one rescuer and 25 hostage-takers their
lives, never should have been necessary in the first place. A full
account is pending. But it is notable that the original abduction took
place in a part of the West African country supposedly patrolled by
Jordanian troops wearing the blue helmets of the United Nations
peacekeeping force. As The Post's Douglas Farah reports, prior to the
abduction the Jordanians had permitted the West Side Boys, the gang
that captured the British, to operate as they pleased; the U.N. troops
even gave the Boys food, fuel and medicine (to purchase their
demobilization, the United Nations says). They permitted gang members
to pass through U.N. checkpoints in captured British vehicles--a
terrible affront, given the bravery and constancy Britain and its
military have shown in the struggle to pacify Sierra Leone.
Meanwhile, the Indian officer in charge of the U.N. mission, Maj. Gen.
Vijay K. Jetley--last seen coping with the seizure of some 500 of his
men by Sierra Leone's largest and bloodiest rebel force, the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF)--is involved in a nasty quarrel with
other top U.N. officials from Nigeria. The principal victims of this
sniping are Sierra Leone's civilians, who, unprotected by the blue
helmets, continue to suffer rape and kidnapping at the hands of such
groups as the RUF and the West Side Boys.
Secretary General Kofi Annan has repeatedly described Sierra Leone as
a test case for U.N. peacekeeping. After previous failures in Rwanda
and Bosnia--where a U.N. report conceded that thousands were murdered
due in part to the U.N.'s "inability to recognize the scope of evil
confronting us"--"never again" has become the unofficial credo of Mr.
Annan's organization. The need to distinguish victim from aggressor
was underscored again in a new U.N. report on peacekeeping.
Yet U.N. officers in Sierra Leone today speak earnestly of a "peace
process"; the secretary general himself has just politely asked the
diplomats of Sierra Leone's neighbors to ask the RUF to give back the
guns the gang stole from their erstwhile U.N. hostages. This is a sign
of a continuing inability to confront reality.
The Security Council is preparing to vote on a resolution authorizing
an increase in the Sierra Leone force from 13,000 to 20,000.
Additional forces are necessary, but they must have a clear mandate to
stand up to Sierra Leone's gunmen. U.N. officials have often, and
often quite rightly, complained that the United States and other
leading member states fail to support peacekeeping missions with
sufficient funds and forces. But the United Nations, too, must show
that it can effectively use the tools it requests. Mr. Annan needs to
swiftly resolve the crippling struggle within the Sierra Leone U.N.
mission. And he must make clear that his troops are in Sierra Leone to
end barbarism, not negotiate with it. The confusion--operational,
strategic and moral--must end.
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