The Foreign Service Journal, November 2006

land mines, the U.N. placed em- phasis on security matters ahead of holding elections. The peace agreement estab- lished the contours of a new army and a timeline for demobilizing the former warring sides as well as integrating them into the political process. The disarmament, demo- bilization and reintegration pro- cess for both sides, monitored by the United Nations Operation in Mozambique, eventually helped set the stage for successful elections. A nationbuilding study issued by the RAND Corporation in 2005 said a crucial feature of the peace process was “the willingness of neighboring states to withdraw their forces and cut off support for their belligerent proxies.” Mozambique has remained peaceful and democratic for a decade. Nearly five million people have returned to their homes (the largest repatriation in sub-Saharan Africa to that point), and the country has experienced healthy annual GDP growth since the war ended. But the country’s economy remains feeble: Mozambique con- tinues to rank near the bottom of the U.N. Development Program’s human development index, which measures everything from poverty to life expectancy. One of the most successful U.N. nationbuilding efforts emerged from the arena of one its biggest peace- keeping failures — the former Yugoslavia. Though not a full-fledged nationbuilding effort, the mission in Croatia’s Eastern Slavonia region was crucial to stabilizing that country, as well as neighboring Bosnia, emerging from its own even more brutal civil war. With the consent of Belgrade and Zagreb, the east- ernmost province of Croatia was placed under U.N. administration in 1996 after the war between Serbs and Croats. The United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, armed with a strong mandate for its peacekeepers and the promised backing of NATO fire- power, oversaw the successful integration of the majority Serb area into Croatia. UNTAES demilitarized Eastern Slavonia, ensuring the safe return of thousands of refugees to their homes as well as organizing elections. Though many ethnic Serbs departed the province for good and the battered region continues to struggle eco- nomically, the U.N. mission accomplished its core goal of the peaceful reintegration of the region within two years. Cautionary Tales For all of its success in the 1990s, the decade also saw U.N. peacekeeping debacles, from Bos- nia to Rwanda. Those two coun- tries, though scarred by genocide, are at least on the path to recovery. But the period’s other high-profile failure, Somalia, remains a failed state and a source of instability in East Africa 11 years after the last U.N. mission pulled out. The international intervention in Somalia started out promisingly when the U.N. Security Council at the end of 1992 authorized a U.S.-led force to create a safe area to help Somalis threatened by famine and civil war. That effort is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives, but it was unable to rein in Somali militias. Some analysts point to an overly ambitious U.N. mandate while others note that the lead military force, the United States, could not settle on a plan for disarming the Somali fac- tions. The results were calamitous. In one attack in June 1993, Somali fighters killed 25 Pakistani peacekeepers. An ambush the following October killed 18 U.S. soldiers and left nearly 1,000 Somalis dead. U.S. troops withdrew, and the U.N. mission followed two years later. Former U.S. diplomat Chester Crocker has observed in Foreign Affairs that the failure was a result of “strate- gic confusion followed by a collapse of political will when the confusion led to combat casualties.” The experience set off a debate in U.S. policy circles about what human- itarian crises constitute a “national interest” and require the commitment of U.S. blood and treasure. Since then, events in Afghanistan have demonstrated the importance of repairing failed states. And now with Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, coming under the control of militia loyal to Islamic courts in the summer of 2006, there are concerns that a new, Taliban-style government is poised to assert control throughout the country. (See p. 30.) Haiti represents another peacebuilding environment in which both the United States and United Nations fal- tered. Despite repeated intercessions, the country has been stuck in a cycle of poverty, authoritarianism, cor- F O C U S N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 6 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 27 One of the most successful U.N. nationbuilding efforts emerged from the arena of one its biggest peacekeeping failures — the former Yugoslavia.