U.N. Looks to Move from Peacekeeping to Peacebuilding
Two years into a fragile peace deal that had brought relative calm to Rwanda, the country's president, Juvenal Habyarimana, was flying home from a peace conference when his Falcon 50 jet was shot out of the sky. The ensuing genocidal slaughter of 1994 brought the shortcomings of U.N. peacekeeping missions into sharp relief.

In the four months that followed Habyarimana's death, ethnic Hutus launched a bloody campaign against their Tutsi neighbors that left at least 800,000 dead. United Nations peacekeepers were often caught in the middle of the fighting and offered little aid for the civilian Tutsi who were rounded up and killed.

Rwanda is not the only war-torn nation to slide back into violence. Half of all countries emerging from deadly struggles relapse into warfare within five years, according to a December 2004 U.N. report. And when states revert to fighting, the United Nations faces the task of reestablishing the peace.

Such cycles of violence -- and their impact on U.N. peacekeeping operations -- have led the United Nations to consider forming a new Peacebuilding Commission to supplement peacekeeping operations and help countries transition from war to peace.

If approved, the Peacebuilding Commission would concentrate on reconciling aggrieved states and developing their economies and infrastructures. Member nations want the commission to provide sustained support that would outlast current U.N. tours of duty.

"You've got Haiti, which we've been in twice," said Donald S. Hays, a former U.S. ambassador for U.N. reform who is now the diplomat in residence at the Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. "It takes a broader perspective. You're not just going to go in and make peace and leave. You're going to have to go in and create the space to make peace and stability."

The hope is that the commission would ease the burden on U.N. peacekeeping forces. In September 2005, the United Nations had more than 81,000 personnel serving in 16 peacekeeping operations worldwide. From July 2004 to June 2005, the world body spent some $4.5 billion on peacekeeping.

But there are several factors that could limit the impact of the proposed panel. Due to concerns about sovereignty, the commission would serve in an exclusively advisory role. Its primary function would be to direct relief efforts and provide a means for regional players, donor nations, troop contributors and international monetary organizations to coordinate their efforts. A Peacebuilding Support Office within the Secretariat would help manage the commission, which member nations hope to have up and running by the end of 2005.

"The general idea is that there is a clear and compelling need to pull together all the different parts of the United Nations that work on post-conflict reconstruction," said Ann Florini, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute who concentrates on foreign policy studies and global governance.

"Right now there is nothing in place to learn lessons from one crisis to the next," she added. "Given that the U.N. now has vast experience dealing with these types of situations and undoubtedly will be called upon again, it makes sense to have an institutional branch."

In a March report that outlined the peacebuilding proposal -- among several other sweeping reforms to the United Nations -- Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the commission would fill a "gaping hole" in the world body and improve a mediation record "sadly blemished by some devastating failures."

The subtle shift in the United Nations' mission from "peacekeeping" to "peacebuilding" first arose from a panel report released in December 2004. The panel, composed of 16 members with vast experience in domestic and international governance, noted that traditional approaches to peacekeeping like patrolling buffer zones and cease-fire monitoring may succeed in preventing new outbreaks of hostilities but often fail to resolve the underlying problems. They suggested peacebuilding as a way to supplement the current strategy with economic incentives for peace.

"Deploying peace enforcement and peacekeeping forces may be essential in terminating conflicts but are not sufficient for long-term recovery," the panel wrote. "Serious attention to the longer-term process of peacebuilding in all its multiple dimensions is critical; failure to invest adequately in peacebuilding increases the odds that a country will relapse into conflict."

Though the Peacebuilding Commission has broad support, disagreement has erupted over the internal organization of the group. Countries are jockeying over whether the commission will fall under the auspices of the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council or the General Assembly.

The United States has demanded that the commission be under the Security Council, where it has veto power and the ability to shape much of the agenda. Other nations disagree. Cuba has said it supports the commission "as long as it is not a subsidiary body of the Security Council."

Similarly, Uganda has called for the commission to fall primarily under the Economic and Social Council. For their part, India, Iran and Malaysia have said authority over the commission should reside in the General Assembly.

The institutional location of the commission "will be a sticking point" as negotiations continue, Florini said.

"Everything that you can imagine can become a conflict for the U.N.," she said. "In the Security Council you have five countries with veto power and disproportionate voice. So the issue is who will have the ultimate authority over the Peacebuilding Commission."

To finance the commission, many countries support creating a permanent fund composed of voluntary contributions.

The fund would constitute a significant shift from the United Nations' current financing method by providing an immediate reserve to draw from as disputes develop.

"The way things work now, any time there is any type of crisis, the secretary-general goes around hat in hand begging for money and troops," Florini said. "Everything is done on an ad-hoc basis."

Though some controversy lingers over specific aspects of the program, the need for a commission is widely recognized. In General Assembly discussions held in June 2005, a United Kingdom representative called the commission one of the "touchstone issues" of the upcoming summit, and an American envoy said the commission has "generated significant support among member states."

Other aspects of Annan's reform package, however, have proven more contentious -- particularly from the American perspective. Just a month before the summit meeting, new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, proposed hundreds of changes to a 36-page action plan that includes establishing the Peacebuilding Commission.

If the United States insists on Bolton's changes, the Peacebuilding Commission could be one of the few original initiatives to gain approval because of its widespread support, Florini said.

"It's possible that this might be spun off," she said. "If it ends up that everything else breaks up, the Peacebuilding Commission is the piece that's most likely to survive.

"Still," she added, "that doesn't mean it's a done deal."

-- By Zach Werner, Online NewsHour