United Nations: Peacekeeping

Ineffective 

United Nations Miserable Failures

The United Nations is no stranger to failure. In the last twenty years millions have lost their lives with little or useless help from the UN. Some of the countries that have had to suffer these many losses include the Sierra Leone, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia just to name a few. Assemblies were held within the UN to address each of these countries struggles, with the intent to come to a conclusion on how to aid the country. But, these conclusions often offered little or no help to the dire situations within the country. Below is more information about what was happening in these situations, and the United Nations inept efforts to help the countries which lead to continued strife and ultimately the death of many innocent citizens.
Sierra Leone: The Diamond Wars in the early 1900's drove Sierra Leone into chaos. Many of Sierra Leone's neighboring countries wanted control over the rich diamond fields within Sierra Leone, but the UN made it their mission to keep the diamond mines under the control of the elected government. The UN used neighboring member states to attempt and remove the RUF (rebels trying to control the diamond mines) from Sierra Leone. The outcome of this UN missions was the kidnapping of nearly 500 peacekeepers and ultimately the waste of millions of dollars. It was known that one way the loss of innocent peacekeeper lives could have been spared would have been to initially send more soldiers, but this was too costly for the UN so instead they sent what they had and that wasn't sufficient.
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RUF soldiers in Sierra Leone
DRC: Beginning around 1996 and continuing through today the United Nations failed yet another African country. In North Kivu and neighboring towns hundreds of women were violently raped and just miles away there was a peacekeeper encampment charged with protecting these towns women. Also, sadly, this isn't the first time the UN has failed the Congolese women, many times in recent history the Congolese women have been brutally raped right in front of a blind United Nations. For more information on the futile efforts the UN put forth to help the Congolese women, use the link below.

http://www.peacewomen.org/news_article.php?id=1957&type=news
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One of the many women who fell victim to rape in DRC
Somalia: In early 1992 the United Nations operation in Somalia was started with just over 4,000 personnel. Not long after arriving in Somalia the UN noticed that the food they were shipping in was benefiting looters and thieves more than the starving Somalis. The UN decided to try and use member states troop's to aid with the trouble in Somalia but the U.S. ended up being the only country able to deploy such a large amount of troops in such short notice, so in December 1992 they deployed just over 25,000 soldiers. Although this mission was originally proposed behind humanitarian reasons, in 1993 a war broke out, in the countries capitol Mogadishu, commonly known as Black Hawk Down between the U.S. and Somalis loyal to their soon to be president. This war ended quickly but 19 Americans lost their lives and the UN's original mission to stop the civil war and starvation causing so many deaths in Somalia was never completed.

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American Soldiers at the Battle of Mogadishu or Black Hawk Down

Unbalanced

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This political cartoon displays the largest flaw within the UN, its imbalance. In the picture we see the five members of the security council (US, UK, Russia, China, France) on one side of the boat represented by that countries animal, on the other side of the boat we see the other 190 countries animals. As one would expect the 190 animals would be tipping the boat but instead the five veto empowered security council members are tipping the boat. This cartoon shows how weak the 190 members are and how unfairly strong the security council is. Every member within the security council has the right to veto any proposal for peacekeeping and; therefore, one security council member can render the entire peacekeeping process useless for reasons helpful only to that one country. 

Former UN Ambassadors outlook on the UN

"But the real issue is how they got elected in the first place. And it just shows how fundamentally illegitimate the Human Rights Council is to begin with and why we never should have rejoined it." (Former United States Ambassador to the UN John Bolton)

"There has been a very assertive school of thought in the U.N... saying that the Muslim Brotherhood is more moderate, it`s less committed to violence than it was before. And that simply is not true." (Former Israeli Ambassador to the UN Dore Gold)

"The United Nations has often failed to live up to its responsibility to promote human rights." (Former Secretary General to the UN)