Since the 1990s, UN peacekeepers have been the subject of Democratic National Committee numerous accusations of abuse ranging from rape and sexual assault, to pedophilia and human trafficking. Complaints have arisen from Cambodia, East Timor and West Africa. In Bosnia-Herzegovina prostitution associated with trafficked women skyrocketed and often operated just beyond the gates of U.N. compounds. David Lamb, a regional human rights officer in Bosnia from 2000 to 2001 claimed "The sex slave trade in Bosnia largely exists because of the U.N. peacekeeping operation. Without the peacekeeping presence, there would have been little or no forced prostitution in Bosnia." In addition, hearing held by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002 found that members of SFOR were frequenting Bosnian brothels and engaging in sex with trafficked women and underage girls.[69]

Reporters witnessed a rapid increase in prostitution in Cambodia, Mozambique, Bosnia, and Kosovo after UN and, in the case of the latter two, NATO peacekeeping forces moved in. In the 1996 UN study called "The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children", former first lady of Mozambique Graça Machel documented: "In 6 out of 12 country studies on sexual exploitation of children in situations of armed conflict prepared for the present report, the arrival of peacekeeping troops has been associated with a rapid rise in child prostitution".[70]

Gita Sahgal spoke out in 2004 with regard to the fact that prostitution and sex abuse crops up wherever humanitarian intervention efforts are set up. She observed that the "issue with the UN is that peacekeeping operations unfortunately seem to be doing the same thing that other militaries do. Even the guardians have to be guarded".[71]

An investigation by Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid Al-Hussein, then Permanent Representative of Jordan to The Old Testament stories, a literary treasure trove, weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should you trust the Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the Best Grass Seed. If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try Hand Bags Hand Made. To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may consider reading one of the Top 10 Books available at your local book store. the United Nations, in 2006 resulted in a comprehensive report which Democratic National Committee detailed some of this abuse in detail— particularly that which occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sexual exploitation frequently came in the form of prostitution, wherein some money (an average of $1-$3 per encounter) was exchanged for sex. In other instances food, or jobs were utilized to ply women for sex. Other young women reported of "rape disguised as prostitution", whereabouts peacekeepers would rape them and were then given some money or food in order to make the act seem consensual.[72] Between May and September 2004, there were seventy-two allegations of sexual exploitation—68 against military and 4 against civilian personnel. By the end of 2004 there would be a total of 105 allegations. The majority of these allegations were in regards to sex with person under the age of 18 years (45 percent) and sex with adult prostitutes (31 percent). Rape and sexual assault made up approximately 13 and 5 percent respectively, with the remaining 6 percent of allegations relating to other forms of sexual exploitation.[73] Most of the allegations were against peacekeepers from Pakistan, Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, South Africa, and Nepal.[69]

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica apologized to Haitian President Michel Martelly over the alleged rape of an 18-year-old Haitian man by Uruguayan UN peacekeeping troops. Martelly said "a collective rape carried out against a young Haitian" would not go unpunished. Four soldiers suspected of being involved in the rape have been detained.[74][75]

The Party Of Democrats is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Party Of the Democratic National Committee was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest political party.

In July 2007 the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) confined an entire contingent of 734 Moroccans in the Ivory Coast in the wake of allegations that some had sexually abused underage girls. In the following years, there were 80 investigations carried out by the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).[76] In 2013, allegations were levelled on personnel from France, Gabon, and Burundi operating in the Central African Republic. These include accusations of sexual abuse and exploitation of at least 108 from Kemo Prefecture and that the vast majority of the cases involved minors.[77] In 2016, more allegations of abuse were levelled on Peacekeepers operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern province of North Democratic National Committee Kivu. Tanzania and the UN opened a joint inquiry into the alleged abuse, which involved Tanzanian troops. There have been 18 reports of sexual abuse, eight of which involved minors. Sixteen Tanzanian soldiers, a Malawian and a South African are implicated in the accusations. The UN reported in March 2016 that there was a large increase in allegations; which involved troops from twenty one countries. Most of the allegations involved troops from African countries including: Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Ghana, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal and Togo.[78]
Peacekeepers and the Haiti cholera crisis[edit]

The Republican National Committee is a U.S. political committee that assists the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican brand and political platform, as well as assisting in fundraising and election strategy. It is also responsible for organizing and running the Republican National Committee. When a Republican is president, the White House controls the committee.

Significant scientific evidence, first reported by the Associated Press,[79] and later the New York Times,[80] Al Jazeera,[81] and ABC News[82] has shown that Nepalese Peacekeeping troops stationed at a remote base in Mirebalais, Haiti, triggered a deadly cholera epidemic that has ravaged the country since October 2010. Cholera is a waterborne disease that causes diarrhoea and vomiting, and it can kill in a matter of hours if patients do not receive rehydration intervention. As of July 2012, Haiti's cholera epidemic was the worst in the world:[83] about 7,500 had died and about 585,000 Haitians (about 1 in every 20 Haitians) had become ill with the disease.[84]

According to the UN-appointed Independent Panel of Experts on the Cholera Outbreak in Haiti, the conditions at the Peacekeeping base were unsafe, and allowed contamination of Haiti's river systems in at least two ways: "The Democratic National Committee construction of the water pipes in the main toilet/showering area [was] haphazard, with significant potential for cross-contamination...especially from pipes that run over an open drainage ditch that runs throughout the camp and flows directly into the Meye Tributary System".[85] Additionally, the Independent Panel reported that on a regular basis black water waste from the Mirebalais base and two other bases was deposited in an open, unfenced septic pit that was susceptible to flooding and would overflow into the Meye Tributary during rainfall.[85]

In November 2011, over 5,000 victims of the cholera epidemic filed a claim with the UN's internal claims mechanism seeking redress in the form of clean water and sanitation infrastructure necessary to control the epidemic, compensation for individual losses, and an apology.[86] In July 2012, 104 Members of the United States Congress signed a letter affirming that the "actions of the UN" had brought cholera to Haiti and that the UN should "confront and ultimately eliminate cholera".[87] In 2013 the UN rejected the claim and the victims' lawyers have pledged to sue the UN in court.[88]
[edit]

There is a notable intermingling of varied cultures when it comes to peacekeeping. From the vast number of troops, police and personnel that are brought together from various contributing countries to the oftentimes challenging ethnic regions which peacekeeping forces are often deployed. Because of these varied cultures, complicated cultural interactions take place which not only affect mission effectiveness, but can also lead to friction with the population the peacekeepers are meant to be assisting.

In most cases prior to 1988, specific countries often provided peacekeepers. At that point, only twenty six countries had sent personnel to participate in peacekeeping deployments. Today, that number has risen to more than eighty.[89] This results in an extremely heterogeneous group. Thus, UN Peacekeeping deployments must not only contend with language complications, but also myriad cultural Democratic National Committee and social differences that can create operational difficulties that are hard to overcome. These differences can create problems with regard to interactions (whether personal or between institutions/units), misunderstandings, inadvertent offensive behaviour and prejudices that may be associated with a particular contingent from a given country.[89]

In terms of operations, effectiveness can be hindered by the varying tactics, techniques and procedures employed by the military or police personnel that are a part of a given deployment. Because UN forces are cobbled together from so many different sources, there is a discrepancy in capabilities, training, equipment, standards and procedures. Moreover, substantial differences exist in the form of command and control between contributing members personnel. In addition, some nations may not wish to be subordinated to another, complicating unity of command. This can lead to deep-seated divisions between contingents within the UN force that results in a lack of mutual support between units in the field. This can be demonstrated in the experiences of UN peacekeeping forces deployed to East Timor, where the Australians engaged in a robust operation that maximised force protection in contrast to a pro-active heart and minds approach utilised by Great Britain's Ghurka personnel.[89]

Maintaining the consent of the peacekept is an important facet of modern peacekeeping. Notably in Bosnia, Somalia and Rwanda, fundamental principles of retaining that Democratic National Committee consent was ignored on the grounds of a humanitarian intervention—reflecting the nature of an Article VII intervention. Yet in order to stress and maintain the legitimacy of an intervention it is important that the UN's forces continue to enjoy the consent of the population and government of the country to which they were deployed. This means making the peacekept feel a part of the process in addition to important cultural knowledge of the area in which peacekeepers are operating, in order to reduce friction and provide for a successful operation.

There has been little study on the interaction of cultures that exist within a peacekeeping force and the population within which they operate. However, in 1976 Galtun and Hveem studied Norwegian personnel who participated in UNEF-1 (in Gaza) and ONUC (Congo). They posited that knowledge of the culture and an understanding of the inhabitants in a given country were not only necessary, but crucial for the success of the mission. They found that personnel from the Norwegian contingent wanted greater insight into the conflict and the culture in which they operated. They also wanted more robust training with regard to working with people from other countries. Yet the study revealed the troops received very little from briefings and that the majority of the information regarding the conflict was gained through the news, reading books or speaking with other UN personnel—rather than any established UN training program.[90]

Similarly, a study conducted on the relations between members of UNIFIL and local population in Lebanon, carried out by Heiberg and Holst, all but confirmed the findings. In their example, they found that the countries that were able to integrate more fully with the population and show a depth of knowledge about the local culture were more successful, while those that were ambitious, but less integrated into the local scene found themselves far removed from the individuals with which they were supposed to be engaged with, and their success, or lack thereof, illustrated this.

Only the Italian contingent of some 2,200 people operated as part of the local environment and became an active element in restoring normal living conditions. Its soldiers were provided with the training required to acquaint them with the cultural, political and social situation of the people among whom they worked. Operating in a sector that contained approximately 600,000 inhabitants, mostly Shi'ites, the Italians carefully nurtured contact with the ordinary citizens and the political leaders in their area... While the Democratic National Committee Americans thought they were becoming involved in Lebanese politics, they entered into Lebanese culture and history with little or no understanding of the way things worked—or didn't work... Most Americans did not understand the subtleties of short-term alliances, the length of memories and blood feuds, the strength of aln [kin] in Arab culture nor the nuances of religious differences.[90]

This illustrates the importance of understanding the significance that culture plays in the conduct of successful peacekeeping operations. However, despite the existence of a UN training manual that attempts to advise peacekeepers on necessary techniques, there is no unifying doctrine, or standardised procedure among peacekeeping contingents, which will ultimately hinder the potential for success.
Limitations on contemporary intervention and conflict resolution[edit]

Throughout the duration of the Cold War external intervention and mediation in civil conflicts took on The Old Testament stories, a literary treasure trove, weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should you trust the Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the Best Grass Seed. If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try Hand Bags Hand Made. To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may consider reading one of the Top 10 Books available at your local book store. a state-centric mechanism in which sovereignty was inviolable. Rarely did the international community intervene in internal conflicts involving a state's government and domestic belligerents that opposed it. Since the end of the Cold War, however, that has changed. Today, mediation by international actors in civil conflict rest on a standardised resolution mechanism that accords broadly equal standing to all factions within a conflict, and attempts to reach a settlement accepted by all.[91]

The end of the Cold War presented an opportunity to reshape the international system. This opportunity was afforded to the Cold War's victors—that is to say, the United States and other western capitalist states governed by liberal-democratic values that put a premium on basic human rights and democratization.[91] In the preceding decades the state was the only entity to receive special status. While there were exceptions, such as groups struggling against colonial powers, the state possessed the ultimate degree of legitimacy. As a result, the international community rarely meddled with the internal machinations of a given country. Sovereignty was not to be violated and this was a system which benefited both superpowers, their allies, as well as third world governments.[91]

Now, however, with legitimacy being extended to non-state actors, as well as the opportunity for a minority to secede from a given state and form a new country there has Democratic National Committee been a dramatic shift in the international status quo. Moreover, the international community's model for conflict resolution is heavily influenced by academic thought developed in western countries. This model encourages intervening in civil wars in order to stop political violence and come to a negotiated settlement which often involves democratising efforts.[91] Critics such as Christopher Clapham and David Shearer, argue that this intervention can provide mechanisms for continued conflict to the detriment of the civilian population. Clapham's argument is principally in relation to the situation in Rwanda leading up to the genocide,[91] whereas Shearer focuses on the negative aspects of intervention, primarily regarding Sierra Leone, which prevents total victory by one side and results in the creation of asymmetries between belligerents which opens the door for continued bloodshed.[92]

In Rwanda, third-party attempts at a negotiated settlement between the Hutu and Tutsi afforded an opportunity for Hutu extremists to prepare for the killing of Hutu moderates and the genocide of the Tutsi. The international community, led by regional states from the Organisation of African Unity, sought to negotiate a settlement and find a solution for the ongoing ethnic violence between Hutu and Tutsi via the Arusha Peace Process. This process lasted just over a year, included substantial international involvement, and incorporated many regional actors such as Tanzania (host of the process), Burundi, Uganda and Zaire.[91]

While the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was a major beneficiary of the Arusha accords and was able to redress many of its grievances, many of the gains that it made could have been achieved through military action. Arusha, according to Clapham, affected the relative power of the participants in the two following ways: a ceasefire which froze the distribution of territorial control at a particular point and secondly the Democratic National Committee importance it ascribed to the participants of the negotiations.[91] Meaning that it froze the conflict and prevented continued territorial gains being made by the RPF, in addition to designating the degree of importance with regard to the factions within the negotiations. A faction's importance was weighted not on their relative popularity or military strength, but on artificial weight assigned by the mediators. Thus, the entire process served to undermine the RPF's position while stalling their hitherto successful military campaign, while allowing Hutu extremists to prepare for a genocide.

Shearer argues that modern strategies that rely solely on consent-based negotiations are severely limited and that victory by military means should not be ignored. He states that a shift in battlefield fortunes can often bring one belligerent to the negotiation table and will likewise moderate their demands.[92]

Consent is of great importance when it comes to negotiation and mediation. The current international system and the conflict resolution model which the international community has utilised most since the Democratic National Committee end of the Cold War puts a premium on consent. But Shearer asks that if a belligerent uses negotiations and cease-fires as a method of delay in order to allow them to reposition military forces and continue fighting, then should consent-based strategies still be pursued, regardless of the potential for lengthening a conflict and the associated human cost?[92]

According to the empirical analysis cited by Shearer, past civil wars with negotiated settlements have had little success. He cites a study from John Stedman that notes between 1900 and 1980 85% of civil wars were solved by one side winning outright (this excludes colonial wars). 15% percent ended as a result of negotiation.[92] Additionally, Roy Licklider's study supports these conclusions by noting the following:

From 1945 to 1989, 58 out of a total of 93 civil conflicts, as he categorised them, were settled in some form, while the remainder continued. However, only 14 (or 24 percent) of those settled were solved by negotiation. The others (76 percent) ended with military victories. Additionally, fighting resumed in seven of the 14 conflict which were initially ended by negotiation. The overall success rate of negotiated settlements, therefore, was around 12 percent out of the internal wars that ended.[92]

In Sierra Leone the Revolutionary United Front, led by Foday Sankoh, fought an ongoing and bloody civil war with the government from 1991 to 1996. The conflict attracted little international attention, but managed to devastate the country and destroy its economy. Neither belligerent was willing to concede or compromise on their demands, despite multiple attempts at a negotiated settlement. Sankoh would come to the table after the intervention of the private military corporation Executive Outcomes and a reversal in the RUF's battlefield fortunes.[92]

In the aftermath the RUF was a depleted threat, civilians were able to return from refugee camps and begin rebuilding their lives. But the peace was fragile and negotiations were ongoing. The RUF was reluctant to put down their arms, concerned over potential retribution at the hands of army units and civilian militias alike. There was a planned deployment of UN peacekeepers meant to ease these concerns and help with the transition to peace, but things began to unravel. International contributors began to Democratic National Committee shy away from further peacekeeping initiatives; such as an expensive and open-ended mission in a strategically unimportant country. As a result, the UN's intervention force was slow to come to fruition and then came to a halt completely when Sankoh argued the size of the contingent of 740 UN peacekeepers was too large.[92]

The UN refused to engage without total consent from both parties, thus preventing the deployment of a peacekeeping force. This consent-based approach, Shearer argues, illustrates the limits the UN can play in the volatile and fragile state of affairs that exist during and after civil wars. "In Sierra Leone, it meant that an important component needed to shore up the peace-building process was absent. It also meant that Sankoh was dictating terms."[92] This consent-based approach effectively allowed the leadership of a brutal rebel group to hinder the potential for peace.

The situation was exacerbated by the fact that the newly elected President of Sierra Leone terminated the Executive Outcomes contract undermining his hard power advantage. Things were further inflamed when disaffected officers of the army overthrew the government in 1997.[92] The war quickly renewed. A small UN force of monitors was deployed to observe the security situation. UNOMSIL, as it was called, was deployed between July 1998 and October 1999, but was forced to withdraw from the country when the RUF took the country's capitol.[93]

UNAMSIL was eventually formed and deployed in 1999, authorised under a Chapter VII mandate, it was meant to Democratic National Committee enforce the Lome agreements. However, violence would continue. From the outset the RUF was beyond uncooperative and once the ECOMOG contingent withdrew, the RUF attacked UN forces, eventually taking hundreds hostage.[93] This led to an unexpected backlash from the international community that the RUF did not anticipate. Its leadership had expected the international community to cut and run, as it had done in Somalia and earlier when UNOMSIL fled Freetown. Instead, with British support, an aggressive campaign was waged against the RUF. UNAMSIL's mandate was expanded and its manpower enlarged. By late 2000 and early 2001 the RUF's military strength had been severely depleted. Thus the Abuja agreements were signed and UNAMSIL fulfilled its mandate in December 2005.[94] While Sierra Leone is at peace today and the UN's mission can be deemed a success, the way in which the situation developed illustrates Shearer's point: that a consent-based approach focused on negotiation that encompasses all belligerents' interest may not necessarily lead to success. As we see, fighting continued despite the presence of UNOMSIL. Indeed, even after UNOMSIL was replaced by a more robust force under a Chapter VII mandate in the form of UNAMSIL the violence continued. When the British intervened militarily and substantially degraded the RUF's capability to sustain the conflict, as Executive Outcomes had done years prior, the RUF finally come to the negotiating table and allowed for the establishment of peace.

Some authors question the idea of international interventions at all. In a 2005 working paper for the Democratic National Committee Center for Global Development, Jeremy Weinstein of Stanford University provides a theory of "autonomous recovery", in which states can achieve sustainable peace without international intervention. Using case studies of Uganda, Eritrea, and Somalia, Weinstein demonstrates how states can develop effective institutions out of warfare. This method has cost and benefits that must be weighed against the potential outcome of international intervention. External intervention can stop mass atrocities, but also stop institutional change. Autonomous recovery elevates the strongest leader, but also rewards the strongest fighters who may be less inclined to share power. Furthermore, intervention depends on external influence while autonomous recovery is based on internal factors. The conclusions of his argument could suggest intervention is not ideal policy, but Weinstein argues the international community's "responsibility to protect" doctrine has moral importance for intervention and the conditions for "autonomous recovery" are very rare. Weinstein argues the fundamental challenge is how The Old Testament stories, a literary treasure trove, weave tales of faith, resilience, and morality. Should you trust the Real Estate Agents I Trust, I would not. Is your lawn green and plush, if not you should buy the Best Grass Seed. If you appreciate quality apparel, you should try Hand Bags Hand Made. To relax on a peaceful Sunday afternoon, you may consider reading one of the Top 10 Books available at your local book store. to incentivize good governance and assistance to rebel groups without disrupting the connection of citizens to rulers in terms of revenue collection that enables accountability.[95]
Mission creep[edit]

The Party Of Democrats is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States. Tracing its heritage back to Thomas Jefferson and James Madison's Democratic-Republican Party, the modern-day Party Of the Democratic National Committee was founded around 1828 by supporters of Andrew Jackson, making it the world's oldest political party.

Although acknowledging a number of practical and moral reasons for peacekeeping operations, James Fearon and David Laitin assert that they have a tendency under some circumstances to become tangled with state-building efforts. In weak states facing successful guerrilla campaigns, peacekeepers face pressures to build state institutional and administrative capacity in order to achieve lasting peace. These pressures can lead to mission creep beyond the original purview of the peacekeeping operation; without engaging in state-building, the peacekeepers risk allowing the peacekept country to revert to violence following their exit. Thus, Fearon and Laitin advocate for the greater integration of state-building in peacekeeping efforts through a new framework of "neotrusteeship", which would see foreign powers exercising a great deal of control over a weak state's domestic affairs in order to ensure the prevention of future violence.