'There is no systematic effort to protect civilians'

Lis Horta Moriconi contributed

INTERVIEW/Don Hubert

When the subject is the protection of civilians during peace operations, “it is easier to give bad examples, than good ones,” according to University of Ottawa’s Don Hubert who was present at the Peace Operations seminar held by the Brazilian Marine Corps in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Hubert adds that “what we don’t see is a systematic effort in peace operations to become good at protecting civilians.”

In his lecture at the seminar Hubert noted that a recent study of over 10 years of peace operations found there is still little attention given to providing security for the civilian population. “If a high number of civilians die during a mission, it has failed”, said Hubert, adding that “peace operations are a phenomenon, there have never been so many. But they have failed to provide humanitarian protection, just consider Kosovo and East Timor.”

Apart from his research and teaching, Hubert has been involved with Human Security for over 10 years at Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, where his work included contributions to initiatives in small arms proliferation and conflict diamonds.

Hubert gave Comunidad Segura and exclusive interview on peace operations and the protection of civilians.

How well do peace operations protect civil populations, could you give us a few good and bad examples?

Yes, it’s easier to give bad examples than good ones. I think I can start with the two worst cases (both involving United Nations’ missions) that were the UNAMIR in Rwanda, in 1994, where the Canadian general Romeo Dallaire was in charge of a peacekeeping mission. 

Could you describe it briefly?

The general had about 2.500 troops in the country and in April of 1994 the genocide started. 700.000 people were killed in a hundred days. And the UN, during the genocide, reduced the number of troops. Some Belgium peacekeepers were killed and many withdrew. Actually, these troops protected several tens of thousands of people, in a hospital and a soccer stadium. But unfortunately, of course, in the majority of cases, the troops didn’t provide any protection at all.

And the second worst case?

The second example, the worst one, was the case of Srebrenica in Bosnia, where 7.000 men and boys were executed. They were taken from an UN safe area and executed by a local militia. But there are many other bad examples.

And the good examples?

There are a few. In Eastern Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 2003 and 2004, there was a high level of violence around one particular city, called Bunia, in Ituri province. At the request of the Secretary-General, France led a European Union mission, that didn’t solve the problem in the region, but it created a weapons’ free zone in the city, that actually provided a substantial degree of protection.

You also mentioned Iraq…

A good example is the safe area that was created in Northern Iraq, following the First Gulf War. It was maintained by the US and the UK and it essentially prevented Saddam Hussein from using his troops to attack the curds in the north of the country. It was only a no-fly zone, but because Hussein could not protect his troops from the air, he didn’t send the troops there at all. Actually, it was a semi-autonomous region that existed in Iraq in spite of the repressive regime, for almost a decade.

Those would be a couple of examples, and there are many more. The problem is, I think, that the examples of effective protection are, as I said in my presentation, ad hoc. They are made up one at the time by people thinking hard and trying to be smart, but unfortunately what we don’t see is a systematic effort to become good at protection.

How do you evaluate MINUSTAH in Haiti with respect to protecting civilians?

It’s a very complicated question. I would say a couple of things. I think that the analysis suggests that the protection of civilians was not sufficiently prominent, in the way in which the mission was developed. So I think, at a kind of a strategic level, there was not enough emphasis on the question.

The very controversial question is, of course, Cité de Soleil and the operations there.

Why?

Because, on the one hand, they are consistent with my view, which is that there are certain extreme circumstances where the use of force is necessary to protect civilian populations. On the other hand, I understand that there are many critics of the way that mission was undertaken. I think that I would need to know more in order to know whether it was an effective strategy. But the idea that in extreme circumstances troops should use force to protect civilian populations is the right one. And the question is what we can learn from experiences including Haiti in order to do that better.