The role of peace forces in post-conflict reconstruction period

One of the primary missions of the United Nations is the maintenanceof international peace and security. Since its creation, the United Nations hasgained significant achievements in preventing disputes from escalating intowar and restoring peace when conflict does break out.Peace keeping operations perhaps the most evident activity of theUnited Nations Organization since its creation in 1945. Cold Warpeacekeeping operations were, with rare exceptions, used to resolveconflicts between states by deploying unarmed or lightly armed militarypersonnel from different countries, under UN command, between formerwarring parties. Intent of these operations werre to separate combatants,monitor and maintain ceasefires, thereby halt or reduce violence.During the 1990?s, there have been major changes in the patterns ofconflicts. After the end of the Cold War, more than 90 per cent of recentconflicts have taken place within, rather than between, states. Furthermorewith the end of the Cold War, important developments were undergone in UNand UN peacekeeping approach. The Security Council began to establishlarger and more complex peacekeeping operations, to help implementcomprehensive peace between protagonists in intra-state conflicts.Furthermore, UN peacekeeping operations came to involve more and morecivil elements to implement complex missions. In El Salvador andMozambique, for example, UN peace forces played a major role in endingconflict and achieving lasting peace.In these new type operations, some complex peacebuilding tasks wereundertaken by United Nations peacekeepers. Missions and mandatesexpanded to include rule of law, civil administration, economic developmentand human rights. As the result of an overly optimistic assessment of whatUN could accomplish, some operations failed. While complex missions inCambodia and Mozambique were ongoing, the Security Council dispatchedpeacekeepers to conflict zones like Somalia and former Yugoslavia, whereneither ceasefires nor the consent of the parties in conflict had been secured.These operations did not have the manpower, nor were they supported bythe political will, to implement their mandates. Particularly 1995 massacre inSrebrenica and 1994 genocide in Rwanda became the most tragic failures ofUN peacekeeping.