NEG Case
Sufyan and I negate Resolved: United Nation peacekeepers should
have the power to engage in offennsive operations
Contention One: Missing the Boat
Offensive Operations miss the point; Instead of solving the root
of the issue, they only stop the presentation of violence.East
African 2014Jean-Marie Guehenno, the United Nations peacekeeping
chief from 2000 to 2008, has cautioned against the thinking that a
combative mission will resolve conflicts in Africa, particularly
Congo's quagmire. Offensive peacekeeping cannot be relied upon to
resolve the structural causes of the conflicts in Somalia, South
Sudan or eastern DRC, which often have regional dimensions and
linkages in neighboring countries. These pundits want the UN to
pursue a solution that will involve willing heads of state from the
region. They say that it is "not a SWAT team that's going to clean
up a bad neighborhood. That requires politics."
It is impossible to solve conflicts using Offensive
Operations.IPI 13Conflict will not be resolved by military means
alone. The coherent peacemaking strategy outlined in the framework
agreement is required to address the root causes of conflict
through mediation efforts, statebuilding, and judicial settlement.
These non-military solutions should be pursued to address
multifaceted disputes including land ownership, historic ethnic
tension, natural resource management, and power disputes. The
Intervention Brigade may be able to complement this political
process by acting as a deterrent and by making rebel groups believe
they have no alternative but to negotiatethat they will not achieve
their aims by violent means.
Historically, UN Offensive Operations are complete failuresBoot
2000When the United Nations does use force, the results are often
pathetic. The various national contingents that make up U.N.
peacekeeping operations Bangladeshis, Bulgarians, Brazilians, and
the like are chosen not for martial prowess but because their
governments are willing to send them, often for no better reason
than to collect a daily stipend. The quality of these outfits
varies widely: Shawcross writes, for instance, that the Bulgarians
in Cambodia were "said to be more interested in searching for sex
than for ceasefire violations." Trying to coordinate all these
units, with their incompatible training, procedures, and equipment
(to say nothing of languages), makes a mockery of the principle of
"unity of command." Little wonder that blue helmets strike no fear
in the hearts of evildoers. It is worth noting that the only
interventions that achieved anything worthwhile in the 1990s were
conducted outside the U.N. For example, although the Balkans today
are not a multicultural paradise, they are relatively peaceful:
mass murder has been halted, refugees returned. All this was
achieved through greatpower action and traditional balance of power
calculations both anathema to the Wilsonians at Turtle Bay. In
Bosnia, a Croat onslaught and NATO bombing and artillery
bombardment combined to roll back Serb forces and to push Slobodan
Milosevic to cut a deal. In Kosovo, a rebel ground offensive, NATO
air power, and the threat of a NATO invasion again bludgeoned
Belgrade into submission. The U.N.'s role was negligible in both
cases. Interventions such as these that address symptoms (famine or
repression, for example) instead of their causes (such as bad
government) are doomed to disappoint. This is a lesson the Clinton
administration learned belatedly in Kosovo and Bosnia, and perhaps
even in Iraq. What Shawcross and his views are reflective of a
certain internationalist mindset fails to fully grasp is how
useless, and sometimes counterproductive, U.N. involvement has
been. NATO won a victory in Kosovo but then unwisely turned over
management of the province to the world body. The U.N. viceroy
there, Bernard Kouchner, now faces an impossible task, having to
coordinate myriad agencies while carrying out a contradictory
mandate: to run Kosovo but to do nothing to prevent its eventual
return to Serbian rule. As a result, his administration is in a
shambles and reconstruction lags behind schedule. Although it may
sometimes make sense to seek the U.N.'s imprimatur for a mission,
the organization should not be given operational control. Effective
empires require strong proconsuls, not bureaucrats
Contention Two: Increased Violence
The use of offensive operations forces the UN to choose a side,
which creates more violenceIPI 13More military engagements will
bring increased risk to those in the vicinity, and there is
potential for the population in areas of operations to become
casualties or displaced by the fighting. In May 2013, fourteen
primarily humanitarian international nongovernmental organizations
working in eastern DRC appealed to the special representative of
the secretary-general, then Roger Meece, to ensure that planning
for operations prioritizes the mitigation of harm to civilians and
that protectionrelated activities and comprehensive contingency
plans are in place. Practical measures must account for not only
first-order effects during fighting but also the aftermath of
operations, including unexploded ordnance, material losses, and
impact on community dynamics. Since offensive military operations
undertaken by the Intervention Brigade make the UN a party in the
conflict that is subject to international humanitarian law, it
could be argued that because the brigade falls under the command of
the MONUSCO force commander, the force as a whole becomes a party
to the conflict. In order to guard against legitimizing reprisal
attacks against the regular MONUSCO force and its civilian
components by rebel groups, the Intervention Brigade will be
required to distinguish itself from the regular MONUSCO troops.
However, rebel groups cannot be relied upon to respect this
distinction. Previous periods of offensive operations by MONUSCO
have brought threats of reprisals: when MONUSCO used attack
helicopters in Rutshuru in North Kivu province in July 2012, the
M23 responded by threatening to treat the peacekeepers as hostile
forces. Other peacekeeping operations have also experienced threats
against their civilian components in the wake of high tempo
military operations. For example, the secretary-general strongly
condemned the increasing attacks against UN peacekeeping staff in
Darfur in March 2009, which included carjackings, harassment, and
armed attacks on civilian staff members as well as peacekeeping
troops. Humanitarian organizations are committed to ensuring they
can provide assistance to those in need on all sides of the
conflict and highlight the vital importance of maintaining their
independence and impartiality. However, offensive operations by the
Intervention Brigade could increase the risk to their personnel if
spoilers, unable or unwilling to distinguish between military and
civilian international components, target vulnerable softer"
targets than the Intervention Brigade troops and if NGOs are
perceived to be aligned to a party in the conflict.
Contention Three: Human Rights Abuses
The UN Peacekeeping operation in Haiti, referred to as MINUSTAH,
exemplifies peacekeeping troops committing human rights abuses
against the populations they are deployed to protectHalling and
Bookey in 2008
https://litigationessentials.lexisnexis.com/webcd/app?action=DocumentDisplay
&crawlid=1&doctype=cite&docid=31+Hastings+Int%27l+%26+Comp.+L.+Rev.
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addition to violating their own official mandate, MINUSTAH's
actions rise to the level of violations of international law in
contravention of the SOFA. Crimes of murder (or extrajudicial
killing), rape, and arbitrary arrest, for example, are universally
recognized as violations of international law. The widespread and
systematic nature of MINUSTAH's actions perpetrated against
civilians in Haiti, which have led to the deaths, severe injury,
warrantless detention, and persecution of hundreds of persons known
for their political support of ousted President Aristide bears
alarmingly resemblance with the definition of crimes against
humanity stated in the Rome Statute.'
