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UN Peace Forces and the Changing Globe: The Lessons of Suez and Congo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Herbert Nicholas
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Extract

It is sometimes instructive, as Holmes long ago pointed out to Watson, to begin by asking a few questions about dogs that do not bark in the night. Suez and the Congo are not the only major crises which have disturbed the United Nations. Yet they are the only ones to which it has responded by creating a true United Nations force. Why?

Type
I. The International Policeman in an Armed World—Lessons from the Past
Information
International Organization , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , Spring 1963 , pp. 320 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1963

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References

1 General Assembly Resolution 997 (ES-I), November 2, 1956.

2 General Assembly Resolution 1131 (XI), December 12, 1956.

3 General Assembly Resolution 1004 (ES-II), November 4, 1956.

4 See Weissberg, Guenter, The International Status of the United Nations (New York: Oceana, 1961), pp. 78 ff.Google Scholar.

5 In 1951, ground troops were also furnished by Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Ethiopia, Luxembourg, and New Zealand.

6 Lie, Trygve, In the Cause of Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1954), p. 338Google Scholar.

7 UN Documents A/3289 and A/3302. The conditions were later codified in Document A/3943. In summary, these principles were:

(i) No permanent member of the Security Council or any “interested” government should contribute contingents.

(ii) The force should not be used to affect the military or political outcome of the dispute.

(iii) Its arms should only be used in self-defense.

(iv) It should not be stationed on a state's territory except with that state's consent.

8 Some would list the protective blanket of the Eisenhower Doctrine among the dampening influences on the Middle East, though this seems to me more disputable.

9 In the interests of convenience I have used “ONUC” throughout to refer to the United Nations military force in the Congo, although strictly speaking, of course, it applies to the important civilian operation as well.

10 UN Document S/4387.

11 Security Council Official Records (15th year), 884th meeting, August 8, 1960, p. 5.

12 To “bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

13 UN Document S/4405.

14 How strictly this was originally interpreted can be seen in the wording of the leaflet distributed by Dr. Bundle and General von Horn to all members of ONUC on their arrival in the Congo:

You serve as members of an internatioal force. It is a peace force, not a fighting force.

The United Nations has asked you to come here in response to an appeal from the Government of the Republic of the Congo. Your task is to help in restoring order and calm in this country which has been so troubled recently. You are to be friendly to all the people of this country. Protection against acts of violence is to be given to all the people, white and black.

You carry arms, but they are to be used only in self-defence. You are in the Congo to help everyone, to harm no one.

15 Security Council Official Records (15th year), 873rd meeting, July 13, 1960, p. 5.

16 UN Document S/4741.

17 UN Document S/5002.

18 Security Council Official Records (15th year), 896th meeting, September 9, 1960, p. 20.

19 UN Document S/4668.

20 Ibid.

21 UN Document S/4389/Add.5.

22 UN Document S/4606.