By Dominic Evans
LONDON (Reuters) - The government has called for major changes to United Nations
peacekeeping operations after a decade of failures in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone.
It called for more robust rules of engagement and new institutions to back up peacekeepers,
including a "standby" headquarters, a staff training college and a military inspectorate to set targets
for operational effectiveness.
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook made the proposals in a joint report with Britain's second
opposition party, the Liberal Democrats, ahead of this week's United Nations Millennium Summit in
New York.
"Throughout the past decade there have been concerns about he effectiveness and capability of
peacekeeping forces in the field," the report said.
"Shortcomings were brutally evident in many of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda
and elsewhere. More recently they have been revealed again in Sierra Leone."
Cook told BBC radio the standby headquarters should be established "...so if we deploy rapidly,
we don't have to start every time putting it together".
"We've got to improve the quality of the peacekeeping forces. That's why we propose there
should be a U.N. staff college to continue to carry out training on peacekeeping."
Britain was a logical site for the training college because of its forces' wide peacekeeping
experience, he said.
Robust Engagement
The report said the United Nations' peacekeeping doctrine was outdated and called for more
robust rules of engagement to ensure U.N. forces do not stand by while crimes against humanity are
committed: "Rules of engagement need to be sufficiently robust so that U.N. contingents are not forced to
cede the initiative to hostile elements."
The peacekeeping doctrine that evolved in the 1950s in an era of inter-state conflict was no longer
valid in an age where many conflicts were civil wars and internal struggles.
"One of the key lessons of the past decades is that a U.N. peacekeeping force needs to stand
ready to defend its mandate if challenged," the report said.
Cook said the experience of East Timor and Kosovo showed there was also a need to mobilise
greater resources in post-conflict reconstruction. The report's suggestions included setting up a
decommissioning body to collect small arms. It also called for a more effective U.N. civilian police
force.
Echoing calls made in New York by a panel of experts last month, the report stressed the need for
stronger U.N. finances to ensure funds for peacekeeping were more secure.
Last month's study called for a larger, more professional peacekeeping staff with well-trained
military and police advisers and better trained troops and support staff, including legal and human
rights advisers.
The panel also insisted that the United Nations must drop its neutrality to distinguish between
aggressor and victim -- something it failed to do before the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the
massacre of Bosnian Moslems in Srebrenica a year later.
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