"Misiones de Pacificación de la ONU en África"

El siguiente artículo de The Economist estudia las diferentes fuerzas de pacificación de la ONU y la Unión Africana el en “continente negro”. Sin duda un tema a tener en cuenta, si queremos evitar desgracias futuras.

The United Nations will juggle nine separate peacekeeping operations across Africa in 2008, including the continent's two largest countries by area, Sudan and Congo. In addition, the African Union (AU) will partner the UN in a new hybrid peacekeeping mission in Sudan's Darfur region. It may also persevere with its own peacekeeping effort in Somalia and in smaller operations elsewhere, such as the Comoros.

This sounds impressive. But the UN and the AU are both, in fact, struggling.

The Darfur mission, due to begin in January, is already looking like a lame duck; even 26,000 troops and police are probably too few to deal with the obstructive Sudanese army and fractious rebels in an area the size of France. Worse, the mission lacks basic equipment. The force commander, General Martin Agwai, a Nigerian, wants 40 transport and combat helicopters, all with military pilots. None has been forthcoming. That leaves him in a wretched position. The force can deploy now with virtually no helicopters and risk early humiliation (which would delight the Sudanese government) or it can be ridiculed for failing to deploy on time.

The AU mission to Somalia looks even more forlorn. Military experts reckoned that it would take at least 20,000 troops to impose order on central Somalia. The AU managed to get promises for 8,000. In fact, just 1,600 Ugandan troops have shown up. Somalia may now be sliding back into civil war, with the country's internationally recognised but feeble government and occupying Ethiopian troops on one side, and the Islamists on the other. Adan Hashi Ayro, a ruthless jihadist commander linked to al-Qaeda, recently issued a battle-cry for Islamists to attack the Ugandans in Mogadishu. A first assault was repelled; others are likely to follow. Though Nigeria's generals say they are ready to deploy a battalion in Mogadishu, it is unlikely to go, despite American urging. A larger but inexperienced Burundian force is also meant to be flown in but shows no sign of arriving.

Peacekeeping in Africa has come a long way since the Irish army was sent to Congo in 1960, in woolly sweaters and carrying Enfield rifles, to head off mineral-rich Katanga province's bid for independence.

The trauma of that first UN effort, together with cold war politics, meant that UN peacekeepers did not return to Africa until the late 1980s. The UN failed twice in Somalia and horribly so in Rwanda, failing to prevent some 800,000 deaths.

But it has had some successes too: in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and more recently in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The blue helmets have overseen elections in several African countries and plan to do so again in Côte d'Ivoire. They have also done a lot of de-mining and have helped disarm tens of thousands of fighters, including child soldiers. A new centre in Cameroon to train police for UN peacekeeping missions will open soon.

Yet if Africa is to begin to police itself, as everyone wants, its armies will have to become bigger and better. Some progress is being made. The British, with a military team in Kenya to serve central and eastern Africa, probably have the most detailed plan for improving African peacekeeping. Their commander, Colonel Andy Mason, a veteran of peacekeeping in Zimbabwe and Congo, says that Eastern Brigade, drawn from east African armies led by Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, may start operating by 2012 at a cost over five years of $500m. It will be trained to be ready to send 6,000 troops to a trouble spot within 90 days. The Africans want rich countries to provide the aircraft to get them there, though judging by the UN in Darfur that may be wishful thinking.

America has much deeper pockets than Britain but many African governments are put off by its relentless talk about the “war on terror” and its attempts, often viewed as clumsy, to butter up disenchanted Muslims, for instance by getting American soldiers to dig their wells and vaccinate their cattle. But the Americans may be getting more dextrous. A new America military command for Africa, AFRICOM, may help streamline the administration's competing military, diplomatic and aid plans. The commander of the American base at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, Rear Admiral James Hart, hopes his force will be brought under AFRICOM next year. He says his forces are co-operating well with the Ethiopian and Ugandan armies, both of which are meant to help America against Islamist fighters in Somalia.

The Americans also say that it is more important that they should work harmoniously with Africa's existing regional military bodies, particularly Eastern Brigade. The French agree—and are now working more closely with the Americans in Djibouti, where both Western countries have bases. This week a French naval frigate was praised by the UN's World Food Programme for escorting two freighters loaded with food aid through pirate-infested waters to Somalia. In Chad as well as in Djibouti, French forces are close to the peacekeepers' front line. In past years, their aircraft and special forces have protected French interests. Now the French say they are putting their emphasis on training African armies.

When it comes to weapons, African armies still look for the cheapest deal—wherever they can get it. This week China's defence minister met Kenya's president and promised a host of military goodies to boost Kenya's role as a peacekeeper. But where are those helicopters?