Reluctant Heroes

Abstract

THE FIRST TWO PEACEKEEPING FORCES under the auspices of the United Nations were assembled with remarkable speed. When the General Assembly asked the secretary-general to make plans for the despatch of an 'emeregency force' to Suez in November 1956, within days no fewer than twenty-four states had offered a military contingent. Ten were accepted, and some troops could have been in place immediately. As it happened, there was a small delay before the initial elements of the United Nations Emergency Force arrived in Egypt because the secretary-general had to sort out certain matters with the host state. Nonetheless, this signal development in the history of the United Nations got off to a flying start. In July 1960, in the (ex-Belgian) Congo, it was even quicker off the mark; the first contributor's troops arrived the day after the Security Council had decided to act. In time, they were joined by personnel from 29 other states. Evidently, there was no shortage of volunteers for this new activity.A variety of factors explain the contributors' zeal. In the Congo, one of them was undoubtedly the success which seemed to have attended the first, and on-going, operation. The Egyptian-Israeli border - to which the United Nations force had moved once the invaders had withdrawn from Suez - had lost the high tension which had been its hallmark. The underlying problem had by no means been solved. But gratitude for the respite was clearly in order, and it was easy (too easy!) to assume a direct link between the United Nations military presence and the prevailing calm. The Congo problem was of a quite different kind - internal rather than international. But helping the new states of Africa was seen as an undeniably good cause; and it was easily (too easily!) supposed that the United Nations badge would serve as a talisman.It was not to be. In no time the operation was bogged down in deep controversy which, to one degree or another, continued until 1963. Fighting - which had not been thought to be on the peacekeeping agenda - occurred, some of it finding the United Nations in defensive mode, some of it not. Naturally, it involved casualties - another nasty shock. Dag Hammarskjold, the charismatic United Nations secretary-general, was killed in the area - almost certainly by accident, but his death heightened the operation's malodour. Debts to the contributor states mounted when many United Nations members failed to pay for what was being done on their collective behalf. The result was a fervent wish on many sides to be done with the Congo. The idea of peacekeeping, so shinily attractive a short while before, had become deeply tarnished.Yet in March 1964, even before it had left the Congo, the United Nations was proposing to send a force to another volatile internal conflict: in Cyprus the constitutional effort to balance the interests of the Greek-Cypriot majority and the Turkish-Cypriot minority was coming apart at the seams. Moreover, the issue had highly sensitive international ramifications: Turkey (a key member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) ostentatiously girded its loins against the possibility of intervention, and Greece (a fellow NATO member) contemplated the necessity of responding in kind. Very possibly, in this third venture states might display less enthusiasm for enrolling their men under United Nations colours.CYPRIOT FASTIDIOUSNESSInitially there was talk of a United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) of 10,000. Perhaps seeing this as the opening bid in a bargaining ploy, the president of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, said that 7,000 would be enough. As it turned out, that was the figure recommended by General Michael Carver, the second commander of the British Truce Force which had been attempting to keep the peace since late December 1963. All sides having accepted that it would be a major contributor to UNFICYP, Britain offered to match other contributions up to a total force strength of 7,000. …