United Nations Special Political Committee

United Nations Special Political Committee

Hello Delegates, Welcome to the Special Political and Decolonization Committee for UMMUN 2006! We re very excited about this year s topics The Role of Peacekeepers in Conflict Zones and Rising Tensions between Taiwan and the People s Republic of China - and look forward to lively and interesting debates. We hope that this committee will provide a forum for both UMMUN veterans and newcomers to exercise their powers of persuasion, compromise and diplomatic skill. Your directors this year will be Laura Frank and Brant DiChiera. Laura is a third year student majoring in Political Science and Latin American Studies. She is a native of Bethesda, Maryland and has participated in Model UN, in various capacities, since freshman year of high school. In addition, Laura is a writer for the Michigan Daily and enjoys learning languages and traveling. Brant is a second year student majoring in Political Science and French. This is his 5th year of involvement with UMMUN (3 years as a delegate and 1 as a rapporteur on Security Council). SPECPOL holds a special place as his favorite committee of all time and he hopes to make this year the best yet. Brant is wellversed on both topics, but most specifically the rising tensions between Taiwan and the People's Republic of China As you research the topics, please pay special attention not only to learning your country s positions, but also to devising creative possible solutions to these very serious issues. If you have any questions about the committee or topics, or about UofM in general, please do not hesitate to ask either of us. We look forward to seeing you in January! Sincerely, Laura Frank and Brant DiChiera Directors, SPECPOL Special Political Committee 2

DAIS STAFF Co-Directors - Laura Frank and Brant DiChiera COMMITTEE MISSION The Special Political and Decolonization Committee (also known as the Fourth Committee) primarily concerns itself with political destabilization within or between member nations and discusses the grievances that nations bring before the committee. It also deals with issues regarding United Nations peacekeeping missions within these nations. The goal of SPECPOL is to provide a place for nations to resolve pressing political crisis. In our committee at UMMUN we hope to foster lively debate and offer new solutions to age-old problems and conflicts. Delegates should not feel hesitant about speaking and should feel free to contact the chairs if there is any issue. Overall, we hope to make this large committee the most enjoyable of your UMMUN experience through a relaxed but formal and respectful atmosphere. TOPIC OVERVIEW Topic A: The Role of Peacekeepers in Conflict Zones In times of conflict the world often turns to the UN peacekeepers to provide safety and stability to affected areas. However, in most instances the mandate given to peacekeepers is limited - they can fight only if directly fired upon. Most famously, during the Rwandan genocide of 1994, peacekeepers were forbidden to fight off the perpetrators of the genocide because UN forces were not directly under attack. There are many who believe that in order to be, effective UN peacekeepers should be given a wider mandate that allows them to actively fight to protect civilians and other noncombatants. Others disagree, stating that the UN's role is to keep the peace, not make it, and that taking an active role in local conflicts would place UN personnel in danger. As peacekeeping operations reach record levels, the SpecPol Committee has the difficult task of decide what role peacekeepers should play in order to be most effective and to achieve the UN Charter s goals of peace and stability. Topic B: Rising Tensions between The People's Republic of China and Taiwan Historically, the debate over China's claim to Taiwan and Taiwan's claim to democratic independence has persisted since the late 1940s. Recently the situation has become more tense with China passing a bill authorizing the use of force against Taiwan if it should formally declare its independence. This conflict also represents a test of will between the world's only superpower, the United States, and the increasingly more powerful PRC Special Political Committee 3

TOPIC A The Use of Force in UN Peacekeeping Missions The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war. -- UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of UN Peacekeeping Forces, 1989 There are many tasks which United Nations peacekeeping forces should not be asked to undertake and many places they should not go. But when the United Nations does send its forces to uphold the peace, they must be prepared to confront the lingering forces of war and violence, with the ability and determination to defeat them. -- Report of the Panel of United Nations Peace Operations Introduction The Special Political and Decolonization Committee is charged with reviewing the operation of United Nations peacekeeping efforts and with making recommendations concerning peacekeeping to the General Assembly and the Security Council. This committee will consider the issue of peacekeeping mandates concerning the use of force. Specifically, the committee will discuss whether peacekeepers are obligated, or even allowed, to use force in the defense of civilians in conflict areas. Overview of Peacekeeping Currently the UN is involved in 16 peacekeeping missions and two political missions. As of June 2004, more than 56,000 peacekeepers from 97 countries are serving around the world. Of these 56,000 troops, the vast majority are supplied by developing countries. The ten countries contributing the most troops to UN peacekeeping operations are Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, India, Ethiopia, South Africa, Uruguay, Jordan, and Kenya. In addition to troops, who are usually unarmed or only lightly armed, missions usually employ large numbers of UN and local civilian volunteers to coordinate the many nonmilitary aspects of the operation. Special Political Committee 4

Only 10% of peacekeepers are from the European Union and 1% from the United States, although both of these regions play a significant role on the Security Council, which oversees peacekeeping missions. Traditionally, peacekeepers have been assigned the role keeping the peace not making it. This means that they are generally placed in situations in which a ceasefire has already been agreed upon; peacekeepers are not charged with stopping conflicts. UN troops observe from the ground and report impartially on adherence to ceasefires, troop withdrawals, and human rights violations. This gives time and breathing space for diplomatic efforts to address the underlying causes of the conflict. Over the past fifty years, therefore, the chief purpose of UN peacekeeping forces has been to reduce tensions between parties in conflict once a ceasefire has been negotiated so that peaceful relations can resume. In recent years, the UN has expanded the roles peacekeepers play while on the ground. Although the main focus is still on maintaining ceasefires, peacekeeping missions have evolved from neutral monitoring missions to multitask endeavors (though still neutral). Between 1948 and 1988, only three of the UN s 15 peacekeeping missions had mandates that went beyond ceasefire verification and force separation. Since the end of the Cold War, the number of total peacekeeping missions has more than doubled, of which many have mandates exceeding ceasefire observation and often involving the much more complex and dangerous tasks of weapons control, refugee relief work, postconflict reconstruction, election certification, mine clearing and safety training, and many other difficult but necessary aspects of reconstruction. In addition, though much less frequently, some peacekeeping missions in recent years have been sent to areas that are not so stable, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where troops are faced with hostile and dangerous situations. Humanitarian Intervention and the Use of Force Special Political Committee 5

During the first four decades of its existence, the United Nations followed the policy that UN peacekeepers should not be introduced into an area until there had been an armistice or stable ceasefire and all parties to the conflict had agreed to their presence, and that peacekeepers were not to use force except in self-defense. However, after the end of the Cold War, the Security Council changed its position and decided that it would consider sending troops to conflicts which had not yet come to a ceasefire agreement in order to protect civilian populations. The UN doctrine of humanitarian intervention was a significant expansion of the UN's well-established peacekeeping role, but it moved the United Nations into vulnerable territory. Since the end of the Cold War, the United Nations has mounted many new peacekeeping operations that address intrastate "humanitarian" crises. Under the new doctrine, peacekeepers may show up uninvited because flagrant violations of human rights are occurring or because people are starving in the midst of war. This expansion has stretched the UN s resources even thinner than before as it tries to maintain troops and civilian personnel in hostile areas around the globe. The expanded role of UN peacekeepers in humanitarian efforts during the 1990s has encountered several difficulties. Many believe that the UN simply does not have the manpower or logistical coordination to maintain effective operations on such a large scale. One horrifying consequence of this lack of manpower was the case of Srebrenica, Bosnia in July 1995. There were only 350 Dutch troops protecting the designated United Nations safe area around the town of Srebrenica when Serb military forces entered and removed all of the Bosnian men and boys who had sought protection under the UN flag. The United Nations forces were outmanned and outgunned, and as a result an estimated 8,000 people were killed right under their noses. Special Political Committee 6

But more than the lack of manpower, the major question for modern peacekeeping missions is when peacekeepers should be allowed to use force. When the stated goal of a mission is humanitarian intervention, how far should peacekeepers go to protect civilians? According to Chapter VII, Article 42 of the United Nations charter, the UN may, when negotiations and non-military options have been exhausted, take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. But is protecting civilians a part of international peace and security? Although they are meant to be impartial and are generally only lightly armed, United Nations peacekeeping forces have always been authorized to use force for purposes of self-defense. In traditional missions limited to ceasefire verification, this has meant that troops can fire their weapons only when they are being attacked directly. However, as missions have grown to include a wide variety of activities, especially humanitarian actions, the definition of defense has been expanded. The Security Council recognized the changing nature of peacekeeping when it authorized the use of force beyond self-defense during the humanitarian mission in Iraq following the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Deriving its power from Chapter VII, the new mandate authorized the use of force not only for defense of individual peacekeepers, but also in cases where the fulfillment of the mandate was in jeopardy. In Somalia in 1993, the use of force was sanctioned in order to fulfill the mission s mandate of disarming warring parties and distributing humanitarian aid. After these first two missions, all subsequent peacekeeping operations have included provisions which authorize the use of force for the fulfillment of their mandates. In addition, many current peacekeeping operations have mandates that call for troops to protect civilians who are under imminent threat and in the immediate vicinity, within the limits of the mission. Special Political Committee 7

Despite this general expansion of the powers of peacekeeping troops on paper, implementation of this new provision has been problematic and controversial. There has been wide debate over what constitutes defense of the mandate and how far peacekeepers can go to protect civilians. There has also been debate about whether peacekeepers should be involved at all with protecting civilians. Perhaps the most notorious failure of UN peacekeepers to protect civilians came during the Rwandan genocide. When Hutu militias began killing Tutsi civilians in April 1994 there were United Nations peacekeepers already on the ground in Rwanda. Within two weeks, because of security concerns and Belgium s unilateral withdrawal of its forces, the Security Council decreased the number of troops from about 2,500 to just 260 peacekeepers for the entire nation. Over the next 100 days more than 900,000 people were killed. The United Nations was widely criticized for its insistence on remaining neutral during this conflict, as well as its lack of support for peacekeepers on the ground who were charged with aiding targeted civilians and refugees. In Darfur, Sudan the UN-supported African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), operating under a mandate to protect civilians in their immediate vicinity, has likewise been accused of failing in this area. Individual units do not always feel able to carry out this part of the mandate either because they are not strong enough or because their particular unit is not specifically mandated in this area. Peacekeepers in the El-Geer refugee camp in Darfur reportedly stood back and allowed Sudanese police to forcibly relocate thousands of refugees because they said they did not have the mandate to intervene. Refugees International, a leading non-governmental humanitarian agency, has denounced peacekeepers in refugee camps for not protecting women who leave the camps to gather firewood from attacks by militias and members of the Sudanese army and Special Political Committee 8

police because these women are no longer in the immediate vicinity of peacekeepers. Critics of these missions say they did not fulfill their mandates to protect civilians in the immediate vicinity of UN troops. Opponents of the use of force by peacekeepers, however, say the use of force puts troops in danger and undermines their neutrality. A peacekeeping force that uses its weapons for purposes other than strict self-defense quickly becomes part of the conflict and therefore part of the problem. It loses its essential quality of being above the conflict, said Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar in his 1989 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. Becoming part of the conflict can mean danger for peacekeepers; for instance, five peacekeepers were killed and 18 taken hostage in Darfur in October 2005. We are worried because this is targeting the AU as a fighting force, although the AU is there as a peace force, said an AU spokesman. Another argument against the use of force is that peacekeepers are meant mainly as a symbolic presence, not a military one. According to this reasoning, the mere presence of peacekeepers in an area of conflict has a deterrent effect and it is not necessary for them to intervene in humanitarian or military affairs. This follows the traditional approach that regards peacekeepers as impartial observers. As the United Nations expands its mandate to humanitarian intervention, the challenge to remain neutral has become more difficult. In intrastate conflicts even assisting civilians is often viewed as partiality. In internal conflicts, civilians are often the principal victims and the main targets because they are either suspected of harboring opposition militants or being members of the opposition themselves. Offering humanitarian assistance to civilians in this case is often not perceived as neutral assistance, but as aid to the opposition. In such cases, even UN troops guarding relief supplies, much less actually preventing Special Political Committee 9

attacks on civilians, are likely to be viewed as assisting in the war effort of one or more of the parties. The doctrine of neutrality is very important for the successful operation of peacekeeping missions. This principle ensures that UN peacekeepers cannot be perceived as a coercive force, which might diminish their ability to mediate and facilitate. One notable example of this is the case of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) in 1961. One year after UN troops entered the region to provide military and technical assistance to the new Congolese government, attempts by foreign mercenaries to help the Katanga province secede led the Security Council to amend the mission s mandate to authorize the use of force in order to prevent civil war, restore order, and to apprehend and deport all non- UN foreign military and paramilitary personnel. Since the focus of this change in mandate was the removal of foreign armed forces, which had been supporting the secession of Katanga, the new mandate was perceived by secessionists to favor the government of Congo over the rebels in Katanga, and the United Nations was widely criticized for not maintaining strict neutrality. In response, Kanganese secessionists attacked ONUC bases. During this operation the members of the Security Council discovered that it was immensely difficult to authorize the use of force and still remain neutral. In 2000 the United Nations commissioned a panel to examine its peace operations around the world. Despite the many reservations and criticisms of the use of force by peacekeepers, the Brahimi Report came out strongly in favor. According to the report, UN peacekeeping should seek to be impartial, but that impartiality should be based on a steadfast upholding of the UN Charter and the mission's mandate, not traditional ideas of neutrality. Neutrality or equal treatment of all parties in all cases for all time can amount to a policy of appeasement, said the report. The report also called for giving peacekeeping units clear, broad mandates to use force, and even aggressive force, to protect Special Political Committee 10

themselves and civilians. In some cases, local parties consist not of moral equals but of obvious aggressors and victims, and peacekeepers may not only be operationally justified in using force but morally compelled to do so, it stated. Although so far the recommendations of the Brahimi Report have only been partially implemented, if they become accepted by the international community they will usher in yet another era of peacekeeping one in which the traditional doctrine of neutrality, consent and self-defense is no longer essential. Committee Mission The task of this committee is to develop a recommendation for the Security Council regarding the acceptability of the use of force by United Nations peacekeeping troops. Since peacekeeping operations involve so many countries, both as troop contributors and troop recipients, and are often deployed to very volatile and politically sensitive regions, it is extremely important to clearly delineate their role. Central questions include, but are not limited to: Should peacekeepers be allowed to intervene in conflicts in order to protect civilians? Should it be required? Should it be forbidden, and if so who is responsible for the welfare of noncombatants? The peacekeeping missions cited in this paper give only a glimpse of the many different types of operations that have been established. For an informative discussion, I would encourage you to familiarize yourself with other peacekeeping efforts especially those that may have involved your own country. For a list of current and past operations, you can go to http://www.un.org/depts/dpko/dpko/. Resources The United Nations: www.un.org The United Nations Charter, especially Chapter VI and VII United Nations Peacekeeping: http://www.un.org/depts/dpko/dpko Report of the Panel of United Nations Peace Operations (Brahimi Report): http://www.un.org/peace/reports/peace_operations/ Special Political Committee 11

The United Nations and Mandate Enforcement. Jane Boulden. Queen s University: http://www.queensu.ca/cir/pdf/martello20.pdf The Conflict Management Toolkit. John s Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies: http://www.saisjhu.edu/cmtoolkit/approaches/peacekeeping/index.html Special Political Committee 12

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TOPIC B: Rising Tension Between The People's Republic of China and Taiwan HISTORY Following the Japanese defeat at the end of World War II, the small island known as Taiwan once again fell into the hands of China. The victory of Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists in 1949 prompted nationalist (Kuomintang) leader Chiang Kai-shek to withdraw to this tiny island with over two million refugees. He vowed to one day retake the mainland and stated that Taiwan should be recognized as the True China by the rest of the world. Once in Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek led a brutal and oppressive nationalist regime, which attempted to quell conflicts between the Chinese refugees and native Taiwanese using violence and perpetual martial law. Despite the brutality of Kai-shek's regime, the United States of America under President Truman saw Taiwan as an essential buffer zone from encroaching communism. In 1950, the US For the first time deployed the Navy s seventh fleet to prevent a possible Chinese attack. The American government supplied the Taiwanese government with military arms and money. This trend of unbridled US military support for Taiwan continues until the present day, where billions of dollars of defense spending are allocated to Taiwan each year. In response Kai'shek's oppressive regime, native Taiwanese began to call for democracy and improvement to the island itself, Special Political Committee 14

rather than focusing on taking back mainland China. Despite large protests for democracy which sometimes turned violent like the 1979 demonstration in Kao-hsiung where leaders were arrested and jailed Taiwan would not see true democracy until the year 2000. In the 2000 election, the Democratic Progressive Party won a narrow victory over the Nationalists, and Chen Shui-bian was named president. Chen Shui-bian has proved to be a divisive figure with his staunch support for Taiwanese independence and autonomy. Tensions with China have escalated at times since his inauguration. CURRENT SITUATION Chen Shui-bian's policy of Taiwanese autonomy interferes directly with Chinese President Hu Jintao's One China policy, which calls for the reunification of with the so-called breakaway province. This past spring, the Chinese People s Congress passed measures allowing for the use of military force should Taiwan declare independence. US military aid continues despite the fact that the US does not formally recognize Taiwan as wholly sovereign. There is always a strong military presence in the area, with US and Taiwanese forces regularly participating in joint military exercises. Taiwan, moreover, is said to have one of the most sophisticated coastal defense systems that the world has ever seen. The people of Taiwan, however, remain split over whether or not their country should be completely politically independent from China. This is evidenced by the recent election in March 2004 when Chen Shui-bian narrowly won reelection with a slim 50.1% of the vote, while the rest of the votes went to the Nationalist party. This shows a large degree of apprehension towards independence on the side of Taiwanese voters. Indeed, it seems that at the present time Shui-bian lacks support necessary to achieve his vision of independence. UN INVOLVEMENT Special Political Committee 15

United Nations involvement in this conflict has thus far been limited to pleas for a peaceful resolution. In one of the UN s most famous episodes, Taiwan was removed from the UN in 1971 for its brutal Nationalist government and its sovereignty dispute with China. The key issue here is one of concessions. Many argue that there will inevitably be some sort of conflict between these two East Asian powers, as China's growing economic power and the continued US support for Taiwan seem to be at odds. To prevent this conflict there will need to be compromises on both the Chinese and Taiwanese sides, with the UN being a sort of mediator. Constant dialogue between both actors is of the utmost importance and should be taken into consideration by delegates when forming solutions. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER REFERENCES What would make dialogue and concessions most likely from each party to the dispute? To what degree should regional organizations be involved in any resolution? How does Taiwan differ culturally from China, or do the two share important similarities that could be the focal point for an eventual solution or reunification? What has prevented outright military engagements from breaking out thus far? How do the nuclear arsenals of both the PRC and US play a role in this conflict? What role, if any, should the US play in negotiations? http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/tw.html http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/china/china-taiwan.html http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html http://www.gio.gov.tw/ Special Political Committee 16