SIPRI02Findlay

48 THE US E OF F OR C E IN UN P EAC E OP ER ATIONS

Some of the other principles enunciated in the study were also relevant to the
use-of-force issue. Clearly, Hammarskjöld envisaged that UN peacekeepers
would be deployed only with the consent of the host nation. Any UN force
should be deployed under a clear-cut mandate ‘which has entirely detached it
from involvement in any internal or local problems, and which therefore
enables it to maintain its neutrality in relation to international political issues’.
A force of the UNEF type, he wrote, ‘should not be used to enforce any specific
political solution of pending problems or to influence the political balance
decisive to such a solution’.129 Even joint operations with government forces
were to be abjured lest the force’s neutrality be damaged. The neutrality prin-
ciple had especially been necessary in the Gaza Strip and had informed the UN
decision to withdraw from the administration of the area. Here Hammarskjöld
was anticipating precisely the difficulties that were to beset future operations,
including those in the Congo, Somalia, Bosnia and Lebanon. Hammarskjöld
also drew from the UNEF experience the lesson that any UN force should have
‘freedom of movement within its area of operations and all such facilities
regarding access to that area and communications as are necessary for success-
ful completion of the task’.130 Such a principle would be critically important in
the Congo.

While Hammarskjöld’s study was a useful first attempt at describing the new
phenomenon of peacekeeping, it was rambling, repetitive and at times inco-
herent. It was essentially a work in progress and not the definitive word that
some observers today assume it to be. The self-defence doctrine did not in fact
emerge very clearly from the document. ‘The self-defence doctrine was left
rather vague, and the report of 1958 had little to add.’131 Hammarskjöld also
skated over the difficulties in establishing UNEF, claiming somewhat disingen-
uously that differences of interpretation over its role had been resolved in con-
sultation with contributing governments and the host government. Finally, since
it was prepared well before the end of UNEF’s tenure, the report did not
encompass the whole UNEF experience, including the traumatic withdrawal in
1967. It therefore contained no recommendations on what to do when consent
was withdrawn and a peacekeeping force was faced with a choice between
using force or withdrawing.

At the end of the UNEF mission U Thant attempted to continue the codifi-
cation process by publishing his own list of what he called ‘fundamental prin-
ciples of peacekeeping efforts’ (by this stage the word ‘peacekeeping’ was in
use). It is notable that, although he mentioned consent of the parties, voluntary
provision of force contingents, the willingness of the parties to achieve peace
and accept international assistance, exclusive UN command and control of its
force, and a formal agreement on rights and privileges, including freedom of
movement on land and in the air, he did not mention the use of force or indeed

129 Summary study (note 125), p. 136.
130 Summary study (note 125), p. 136.
131 Goldmann (note 21), p. 21.

EM ER GENC E OF THE S ELF - DEF ENC E NOR M 49

the problem of impartiality.132 He did, however, anticipate some of the diffi-
culties that would face future peacekeeping operations in regard to the use of
force when he concluded that, on the basis of UNEF’s experience, peacekeeping
and Chapter VII enforcement ‘cannot be mixed’.

VI. Conclusions

As shown above, the theory of peacekeeping, including its self-defence norm,
did not emerge fully formed with the deployment of UNEF I but evolved
gradually from the initial assumptions of Pearson, Hammarskjöld, Bunche and
others in the UN Secretariat about what might be possible in the context of the
Suez conflict, especially given the hypersensitivity of both Egypt and Israel to
any hint of infringement of their sovereignty and the severe constraints imposed
by the cold war. Hence the extreme importance attached by Hammarskjöld to
the only principles that would permit UNEF I to be deployed and operate—the
consent of the parties, impartiality and the use of force only in self-defence.
Although the limited principle of self-defence gained uneasy acceptance by the
UN commanders and troops involved, and did work in practice in most cir-
cumstances that confronted UNEF I, its limits remained unclear and untested at
the conclusion of the mission. While the self-defence norm had now arrived as
a firm principle, it remained for future missions to explore both its limitations
and its possibilities.

The surprising aspect, in fact, is that UN troops for UNEF I were armed in the
first place. Presumably the decision to use formed military units for the world’s
first peacekeeping operation was taken because they were the only self-
sustaining mechanism readily available to states for quick and organized
deployment in the harsh environment of the Middle East. The idea that troops
should monitor the withdrawal of other troops also had a certain logic to it. It is,
however, difficult to see why such troops needed to be armed if, in fact, all they
were doing was monitoring and facilitating a withdrawal. If they were only
intended to symbolize the UN’s moral authority and the Security Council’s
interest in the situation, it would seem that unarmed ‘Blue Helmets’ could have
done the job just as well. In fact they might have done it better since they would
pose no threat to heavily armed troops who had just fought a war. Especially as
all the state parties involved had conventional military forces with good com-
mand and control systems, there would appear to have been no possibility of
UNEF’s deployment being opposed militarily or attacked by renegade units.
While there was a need for UNEF I forces to be able to protect themselves
against armed infiltrators across the agreed frontiers once the withdrawals had
been carried out, this was not originally foreseen. Moreover, even the ‘support
to the civil power’ functions that UNEF I assumed in Gaza, such as crowd
control, were not only unforeseen in the original mandate, but could have been
carried out by unarmed UN civilian police had such a concept been envisaged.

132 Final report by Secretary-General U Thant on UNEF (note 56), para. 22.

50 THE US E OF F OR C E IN UN P EAC E OP ER ATIONS

There was, of course, an alternative to the Hammarskjöldian concept of UN
peacekeeping, and it was broached from the outset. Force Commander Burns
naturally assumed that there was a good reason for using armed forces to carry
out his mission. That reason can only have been, from his military perspective,
the need to be able to deter violations of the ceasefire and withdrawal agree-
ment, to use force if necessary to warn off the violators, to express the Security
Council’s resolve and, depending on the situation, to enforce the will of the
Security Council. Burns was genuinely surprised when his request for a force
robust enough to pose a deterrent threat to the parties was refused. This problem
was to be faced in dramatic fashion by the next UN mission after UNEF I, in
the Congo.

3. Breaking the rules: peace enforcement in the
Congo

While UNEF was still in the field and peacekeeping norms were still emerging,
the UN deployed a mission that would break all the rules established so far,
although not avowedly so, and take peacekeepers beyond peacekeeping into
peace enforcement. Deployed in the newly independent former Belgian colony1
from 1960 to 1964, the UN Operation in the Congo (ONUC)2 used increasing
amounts of military force to the point where it became, in strategy and tactics,
indistinguishable from a standard military campaign.3 Strangely, though, while
the Security Council mandated the use of force for purposes beyond what is
today considered peacekeeping, the UN maintained until the end that it was
operating strictly in self-defence—by implication, in peacekeeping mode.

The mission was vastly different from UNEF. It was deployed in the middle
of an incipient civil war overlaid with elements of foreign intervention. Since
all the factions and breakaway provincial authorities had their own foreign
backers, the use of force by troops under UN command inevitably became
highly politicized and controversial, entangled in the ideological and decolon-
ization struggles of the era. Legitimate questions were raised about ONUC’s
mandate and whether it had exceeded it, and exactly what the use of force was
intended to achieve, but also about how far the UN could legitimately interfere
in the internal affairs of a sovereign state without its consent, especially in the
absence of a functioning national government. These controversies were to split
the Security Council and the wider UN membership, almost bankrupt the organ-
ization and ensure that it refrained from the use of force on a comparable scale
for decades. They also set back the search for a sensible and practicable use-of-
force doctrine for the UN.

I. Genesis, mandate and deployment

Within four days of the Congo gaining independence on 30 June 1960, the
25 000-strong Force Publique, which combined the functions of army and
police force but was soon renamed the Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC),
mutinied against its Belgian officers. It began disintegrating into roving armed
bands, attacking, raping and killing Europeans. The capital, Leopoldville, began
to descend into chaos. Belgium promptly deployed its troops, still stationed at

1 From 1971 to 1997 the country was called Zaire. After May 1997 it reverted to the Democratic
Republic of the Congo.

2 Originally Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo, later changed to Opération des Nations Unies au
Congo.

3 For a more detailed account of the Congo case see Findlay, T., The Blue Helmets’ First War? Use of
Force by the UN in the Congo 1960–1964 (Canadian Peacekeeping Press: Clementsport, 1999).

52 THE US E OF F OR C E IN UN P EAC E OP ER ATIONS

bases at Kamina and Kitona, to 23 different locations throughout the country to
protect its own and other foreign nationals.4 These troop movements and later
airlifts of reinforcements from Belgium were not authorized by the Congolese
Government as required under the (unratified) Treaty of Friendship.5 The
Congolese were outraged, even though their own government was unable to
control the situation. The deployment of Belgian troops to the mineral-rich
province of Katanga in particular raised suspicions that Belgium was encour-
aging and supporting Katanga’s independence.

On 13 July Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld invoked, for the first time
in the UN’s history, Chapter XV, Article 99 of the UN Charter, which provides
that: ‘The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council
any matter that in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international
peace and security’. His judgement that such a threat existed was based not on
Belgium’s actions or those of the Congolese but on the risk that the two cold
war antagonists, the Soviet Union and the United States, and/or their allies and
proxies, would be drawn into the conflict. Urging the Security Council to act
with the utmost speed in view of the escalating crisis, he sought authorization to
‘take the necessary steps, in consultation with the Government of the Congo, to
provide the Government with military assistance’.6 These would be ‘stop-gap’
measures until the national security forces were ‘able to fully meet their tasks’.
He proposed deploying a token group of troops immediately (those offered by
Ghana, which were already on their way), while preparing a more substantial
force, to be known as ONUC. Once UN troops were present he hoped Belgium
would withdraw its forces. The Security Council adopted Hammarskjöld’s
proposals on 14 July in Resolution 143.7

Hammarskjöld subsequently proposed, in a plan requested by the Security
Council, that ONUC should operate under the peacekeeping principles enun-
ciated in his UNEF ‘summary study’ of October 1958.8 The first four of these
principles helped set the parameters for the policy on the use of force. Accord-
ing to these, ONUC would be present with the consent of the Congolese Gov-
ernment; take no action that would make it a party to internal conflict; be at all
times under the exclusive command of the UN and not of the Congolese
Government; and enjoy the freedom of movement and communications neces-
sary for its operations (to be defined by agreement with the government).9

4 Hoskyns, C., The Congo Since Independence: January 1960 to December 1961 (Oxford University
Press: London, 1965), pp. 124–25.

5 Hoskyns (note 4), p. 124. The Treaty of Friendship, Assistance and Cooperation between the
Kingdom of Belgium and the Republic of the Congo was signed on 29 June 1960.

6 United Nations, Security Council, Official Records (SCOR), 873rd meeting, 13–14 July 1960.
7 United Nations, Resolution adopted by the Security Council at its 873rd meeting on 14 July 1960, UN
document S/4387, 14 July 1960 (SCOR, Supplement for July–Sep. 1960, p. 16).
8 Published as United Nations, Summary study of the experience derived from the establishment and
operation of the force, report of the Secretary-General, UN document A/3943, 9 Oct. 1958, reproduced in
Mezerik, A. G. (ed.), The United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF): 1956—Creation, Evolution, End of
Mission—1967, International Review Service, vol. 13, no. 97 (1969), pp. 131–43.
9 United Nations, First report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of Security Council
Resolution S/4387 of 14 July 1960, UN document S/4389, 18 July 1960 (SCOR, Supplement for July–
Sep. 1960, pp. 16–24).

P EAC E ENF OR C EM ENT IN THE C ONGO 53

ONUC would use force only in self-defence and as a last resort, and not take
‘military initiatives’. ‘It follows’, Hammarskjöld said, ‘from the rule that the
United Nations units must not become parties in internal conflicts, that they
cannot be used to enforce any specific political solution of pending problems
or to influence the political balance decisive to such a solution’.10 A practical
political reason for this, he pointed out, was that UN member states would not
provide troops for an enforcement operation. Hammarskjöld seemed to believe,
at least initially, that, as in the case of UNEF, the mere presence of UN troops,
symbolizing the prestige and authority of the Security Council and the inter-
national community, would somehow solve the problem.11

On 22 July 1960, after considering Hammarskjöld’s report, the Security
Council passed Resolution 145, its second on the Congo crisis.12 Far from
explicitly establishing ONUC and giving it a definitive mandate, it simply com-
mended the Secretary-General’s report, thereby implicitly endorsing his plans,
including, it must be presumed, his proposed constraints on the use of force.
Like the initial resolution, this one provided no clues as to what the Congolese
Government was to be helped to do or how ONUC was supposed to do it. The
organization and management of the force was devolved to the Secretary-
General, assisted by the UN Secretariat, under the principle ‘leave it to Dag’.

Remarkably, by 26 July ONUC’s military component had reached a strength
of over 8000, comprising troops from Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Ireland,
Liberia, Mali, Morocco, Sweden and Tunisia, deployed in all provinces but
rebellious Katanga.13 It was one of the speediest peacekeeping deployments in
UN history.14 Unlike UNEF, which was headed by a force commander, ONUC
would have as its head a civilian SRSG, later called the officer-in-charge. Ralph
Bunche, appointed interim force commander until the arrival of Swedish
General Carl von Horn, explained the role of UN troops in a radio broadcast in
Leopoldville on 26 July: ‘They will bear arms, but will only use them in self-
defence . . . The UN forces in the Congo are forces for peace. They will do
everything they can to help restore calm, harmony, and safety for all, whites as
well as blacks in this troubled land’.15 The weaponry and firepower ONUC
eventually acquired would be unmatched by any peacekeeping operation for
decades. They included artillery, armoured personnel carriers (APCs), tanks and
a small international air force comprising 14 aircraft, both jet fighters and

10 First report of the Secretary-General (note 9), para. 13.
11 Schneider, S. J., ‘Congo force and standing UN force: legal experience with ONUC’, Indian Journal
of International Law, vol. 4, no. 2 (Apr. 1964), p. 276.
12 United Nations, Resolution adopted by the Security Council at its 879th meeting on 22 July 1960,
UN document S/4405, 22 July 1960.
13 Officially called the UN Force (UNF), it was mostly referred to simply as ONUC (despite the fact
that it also had civilian and civilian police components)—a convention that is followed in this book.
14 Burns, A. and Heathcote, N., Peacekeeping by UN Forces: From Suez to the Congo, Princeton
Studies in World Politics no. 4 (Praeger for the Center for International Studies, Princeton: New York,
1963), p. 33.
15 Ralph Bunche’s broadcast message on the arrival of UN troops in the Congo, reproduced in Kanza,
T., Conflict in the Congo (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1972), appendix 3, p. 335.