Integrating local voices into formal peace processes is crucial to allowing different perspectives to be taken into account.
Tag: peacekeeping
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Observers have come to the conclusion that, in many ways, UN peacekeeping has lost its compass and faces an existential crisis. What is peacekeeping today?
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As much as the report offers, and it certainly ticks all the boxes from the sustaining peace resolutions, there is too much in it that is left unsatisfyingly “to be determined.”
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Lieutenant General (Retired) Carlos Alberto dos Santos Cruz describes his views on what has been said about his report on peacekeeping fatalities and injuries, and its relevance for present-day peacekeeping.
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The Santos Cruz report has deepened the conversation around peacekeeper fatalities, while also reopening questions of whether UN peacekeepers are ready to act decisively in the face of direct attacks.
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The Cruz report’s force-based solutions seem to mix the symptoms with the cause and send mixed signals about the aim of peace interventions.
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Prior to suggesting that “more force” is the most efficient solution to reducing UN fatalities in these operations, statistical findings certainly propose that other policy options also need to be taken into account.
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There is a spectrum of military views on peace operations, and the Cruz report is only a compellingly bluff articulation of one point of view. Agree or disagree with it, civilian UN officials and analysts should take it as a prompt to treat their uniformed counterparts with a little more respect.
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To be certain, many operational limitations persist, and yet it would be inaccurate to simply blame “the UN,” which encompasses multiple realities, entities, and actors.
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The Cruz report must be understood and interpreted with the broader politics of peacekeeping in mind. Otherwise, well-intentioned efforts to enhance the security of peacekeepers could perversely end up further imperiling them.
