Iare United Nations peacekeeping operations (PKOs) in Africa running out of steam? While in Mali, the Minusma was curtly told to leave by the junta on June 16, a reflection is underway, in New York, on the changes to be made to a model regularly contested in the countries where the blue helmets are deployed. Barely a week after the Malian injunction, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations, thus pointed out to the students of Sciences Po Paris that “peacekeeping operations where there is no peace to keep don’t really make much sense”.
To date, half of the twelve ongoing PKOs are taking place in Africa: in the Central African Republic, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Western Sahara, South Sudan and Abyei, an area controlled by Sudan but claimed by South Sudan. These missions mobilize more than 72,000 blue helmets out of the 86,000 military, police and civilian personnel deployed under the UN flag throughout the world.
Born in a Cold War context, they are no longer adapted to the evolution of crises on the continent, marked by the proliferation of jihadist cells and politico-military groups defending intra-state agendas. From now on, African rulers seem to favor the intervention of private paramilitaries, with whom they define the mandate – such as the Russian Wagner, who intervenes or has intervened in the Central African Republic, Mali, Libya, Sudan or Mozambique – or forces of a State under a bilateral agreement.
Faced with this new competition and the weariness of donors, Antonio Guterres thus estimated, on June 22 in Paris, that it was time to “rethinking our approach to peace and security” and set up a “new generation of peace enforcement and counter-terrorism operations led by regional organizations”, especially in Africa. This development is on the menu of the new agenda for peace that he launched at the end of 2022 with a view to initiating “a rethinking of multilateralism”.
The end of a cycle, where the so-called “integrated” PKOs encompassed the security, humanitarian and political dimensions, has begun.
The ideal scapegoat
From Mali to the DRC, via the Central African Republic and South Sudan, the missions have failed to ensure what is at the heart of their mandate: the protection of civilians. The killing perpetrated in November 2018 in Alindao, in the Central African Republic, where 112 people were murdered despite the presence of peacekeepers on the spot, is a symbol of this.
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