Pakistan's 5000-strong troops presence in the United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPO) has coincided with drastic structural and operational reforms being introduced in the UNPO aimed at strengthening the mandate of the peacekeepers. With the induction of 4000 Pakistani troops into the United Nations peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone, Pakistan will, once again, become the largest troop-contributing country to the UN's peacekeeping operations. Pakistan conveyed its willingness to contribute a brigade-size contingent of over 4,000 troops to the UN Mission in Sierra Leone to UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan during his recent visit to Islamabad. According to sources, the details of the deployment of Pakistani troops in Sierra Leone, including discussions on equipment, logistics and transportation requirements, are still being worked out.

The decision to send a 4000-strong contingent to maintain peace in the conflict-stricken African nation will swell the total strength of Pakistan's troop contribution to the UN's peacekeeping operation worldwide to over 5000 troops, making it one of the five largest troop-contributing countries. Interestingly, all the top five countries are from the developing world with western nations contributing only small contingents.

Recently military analysts have noted a resurgence of UN peacekeeping operations after a number of failures faced by the UN peacekeeping forces that resulted in the organisation's reluctance to commit troops for maintaining peace in conflict areas of the world. The resurgence is signified by the recent increase in the number of UN peacekeepers which was around 65,000 at its peak in 1995, falling to less than 20,000 by the year 2000. The last six months have seen the doubling of UN peacekeepers to around 40,000; they are taking part in 15 United Nations peacekeeping operations in the field. The last two years have also seen a gradual rise in the peacekeeping budget .

Pakistan's involvement with UN peacekeeping operations is almost as old as the concept itself. It hosts one of the oldest UN peacekeeping missions, the United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan, that has been deployed on the Line of Control since 1949. However, in those days peacekeeping was a simple and perhaps less hazardous affair. It was initially developed as a means of dealing with inter-state conflict, and involved the deployment of military personnel from a number of countries, under UN command, to help control and resolve armed conflict. Today, peacekeeping is increasingly applied to intra-state conflicts and civil wars. Now the element of providing humanitarian assistance to conflict-stricken societies has also become part of the job.

In the mid-'90s Pakistan had committed 10,000 of its troops to 13 UN peacekeeping operations in different parts of the world. That was the time when Pakistan's relations with its cold-war mentor, America, had started to deteriorate and the Bush administration had enforced military and economic sanctions against Pakistan primarily because of its nuclear programme. "Following the deterioration of relations with the United States, Pakistani strategists were feeling the need to do certain things at the international level which would serve as image-builders," says a former Pakistani diplomat. "So Pakistan seized the opportunity provided by the surge in UN peacekeeping operations in the first five years of the nineties." Besides this, experts contend that serving in the multi-national UN peacekeeping force has tremendous training value for Pakistani troops. Interestingly, the present military ruler General Pervez Musharraf oversaw the involvement of the Pakistan army in UN peacekeeping missions as Director General Military Operations in the early '90s.

At that time the UN was running large-scale peacekeeping missions in Somalia and Bosnia and in both of these operations, Pakistan had a sizeable presence. There is hardly any domestic debate about Pakistan's involvement in peacekeeping operations overseas as these issues have always been hidden from the public eye.

However, following the incident in Somalia (in June 1993) in which 23 Pakistan soldiers were killed, the then government faced criticism (with a religious tinge attached to it) on its decision to send Pakistani troops to Somalia. At that time, Somalia was witnessing the eroding of state authority and one of the sides in the civil war was openly and violently opposed to the presence of UN peacekeepers. The June incident was followed by the killing of American soldiers in Mogadishu.

The situation in Sierra Leone may not be absolutely similar to that of Somalia but it is no less hazardous, with UN peacekeepers mandated to prevent a fierce civil war in the presence of heavily armed conflicting sides. Recently, one of the sides in the civil war, the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone, abducted more than 500 UN peacekeepers.

Experts believe that generally UN peacekeepers are highly vulnerable as under the mandate awarded to them, they are not supposed to wage war, but to serve in the role of peacekeepers. Intra-state conflicts today are becoming increasingly deadly with the introduction of modern weaponry. However, a senior Pakistani official maintains that the security of the troops is definiely a concern when deciding to send troops on such missions. "First, and foremost, is our national interest (which is perceived in terms of image-building) and the security of our forces." The rules of troop deployment are always carefully negotiated with the UN authorities in order to retain ultimate authority over Pakistani military forces serving under the UN flag.

The present Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, was the head of the United Nations Peacekeeping Department at the time of the disaster in Somalia. Because of that experience, perhaps, Kofi Annan is presently advocating strengthening the mandate for larger, scale UN operations so that force commanders in the field can take rapid decisions without waiting for clearance from the Security Council. Similarly, a senior diplomat noted that the UN was considering the need for peacekeepers to go in with heavier weapons, which could be used, if not for waging war, then as a deterrent.

Alongside, the United Nations is presently working on the implementation of recommendations to restructure UN peacekeeping. The recommendations (referred to as the Brahimi Report) are prepared by a panel of experts led by Lakhdar Brahimi who served as the UN's special envoy on Afghanistan. The partial or complete failure of UN peacekeeping operations in Somalia, Rwanda, former Yugoslavia and recently in Sierra Leone have been attributed primarily to the insufficient mandate given to the UN forces, which in the case of peacekeeping, is awarded by the Security Council.

The cash crunch faced by the Peacekeeping Department because of the unwillingness of western countries to make a financial contribution was the other factor which turned the United Nations into a reluctant peacekeeper in the late '90s.

Though recently there has been an increase in the UN peacekeeping budget, the financial shortfall faced by the United Nations Peacekeeping Department in the late '90s has had a fall-out on its operations worldwide. Shortage of funds has been cited as one of the reasons that led to the failures of UN peace missions. Besides, developing countries, which contribute the major chunk to UN peacekeeping forces, have not been paid their dues by the United Nations Peacekeeping Department because of paucity of funds. The United Nations still owes a considerable amount to Pakistan (See box: Running on Empty). According to officials, Pakistan raised the issue of reimbursement to troop-contributing countries at a meeting of the UN Administrative and Budget Committee for Peacekeeping Operations in May 2000. Many other countries awaiting reimbursements from the UN supported Pakistan's position in the meeting.

The reason for the UN cash crunch is due to the failure of western nations to pay their dues

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