For the purposes of this article, all countries situated completely or partially wholly south of the equator have been categorised as Southern Africa. Since the early 1960s, the United Nations (UN) has conducted the following military and police operations in six countries in this region:

As is the procedure in the UN, the establishment of each of these missions was preceded by a Security Council resolution that spelled out the name of the mission, its mandate and duration.

The mandate of a given mission determines the nature of the mission — whether it is purely an observer mission, comprising civilian police or military observers with some civilian input or a combination of these, or whether it is a peacekeeping or peace enforcement mission. The mandate also always states other tasks of a humanitarian nature that have to be undertaken during the life of a mission.

The aim of this contribution is to provide a brief overview of UN operations in Southern Africa, with specific reference to their mandates, before focusing, in particular, on the mandate, means and doctrine that were applicable in UNAVEM III.

In 1960, the UN Security Council, through Resolution 143, established ONUC. The main aspects of this mission’s mandate were to ensure the withdrawal of Belgian forces, to assist the government to maintain law and order and to provide technical assistance. The mandate was further modified to include the maintenance of the political integrity and political independence of the Congo, and the prevention of civil war, and to secure the removal of all foreign military and paramilitary personnel not under UN command from the Congo.

In October 1993, the UN established UNAMIR for an initial period of six months through Security Council Resolution 872. UNAMIR was a successor to the Organisation of African Unity’s (OAU) Neutral Military Observer Group (NMOG). It was a peacekeeping mission, and its mandate was mainly to ensure the security of the capital Kigali, to monitor the cease-fire signed on 4 August 1992, to monitor the situation during the period of the transitional government’s rule, leading up to the elections, and to assist with mineclearing and the co-ordination of humanitarian relief operations. After the resumption of hostilities, the mission’s mandate was expanded to include the protection of refugees through the establishment of secure humanitarian areas.

From December 1988 to June 1997, the UN established and sustained a series of three missions in Angola. UNAVEM I was established through Security Council Resolution 626 of December 1988. UNAVEM II was established through security Council Resolution 696 of 1991. The UNAVEM I mandate was, in effect, extended to UNAVEM II in 1991. UNAVEM I was to have a duration of 31 months, while UNAVEM II was to have a duration of 17 months. UNAVEM III was created by Security Council Resolution 976 of February 1995, for a period of 24 months. More specifically, the mandates of these missions were as follows:

The UN Transitional Assistance Group in Namibia was created by Security Council Resolutions 431 and 435 of 1998, as supported by Resolution 682 of 1989. This mission was established to assist the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) to ensure the early independence of Namibia through free and fair elections under the supervision of the UN. The mission was also to help the SRSG in ensuring that all hostile acts ended, troops were confined to barracks and that the South African Defence Force was eventually withdrawn from Namibia. Furthermore, all discriminatory laws were to be repealed, political prisoners released and refugees allowed to return.

ONUMOZ

The UN Operation in Mozambique was established by Security Council Resolution 797 of December 1992. Its broad objectives were to facilitate the impartial implementation of the agreement signed in Rome on 4 October 1992 between the president of Mozambique and the leader of RENAMO, to monitor and verify the cease-fire, and to verify the separation, regrouping and collection, storage and ultimate destruction of weapons and the demobilisation of fighters. They were to further verify the withdrawal of foreign forces from Mozambique and the disbanding of all irregular groups before certifying the country ready for the holding of elections and thereafter monitoring the preparations for and the actual elections.

The UN Observer Mission in Angola was a successor to UNAVEM III and, although it took over the UNAVEM III mandate and assets lock, stock and barrel, it was intended to gradually turn the mission into an observer mission as the parties to the conflict accomplished the remaining tasks of the peace process. At the same time, the mission was to allow for the repatriation of a number of peacekeepers. Unfortunately, this was not to be. The remaining tasks were not accomplished and the country slid back into war. In addition to the provisions of the UNAVEM III mandate, MONUA was to assist the Angolan parties in consolidating peace and national reconciliation, and foster an environment conducive to long-term stability and the rehabilitation of the country.

The UN Observer Mission in the Congo was established by Security Council Resolution 1258 of August 1999. It is an observer mission and is intended to be a precursor to a peacekeeping mission. Its mandate is as follows:

MANDATE VERSUS MEANS IN UNAVEM III

As already alluded to, the resources made available to a mission are determined by the mandate. However, the quantity, quality and mix of the resources that are provided, are not always commensurate with the tasks outlined in the mandate. When talking about means or resources, the adequacy of the mandate itself should therefore be examined.

A clear and concise mandate creates an enabling environment for the conduct of all activities pertaining to a particular mission. An ambiguous mandate creates confusion and leads to arguments between UN personnel and the belligerents. Many times during the UNAVEM mission, UN personnel have been told by one or both of the belligerents that they are overstepping their mandate. This usually occurs when the belligerents find weaknesses in the mandate, although at times, this also happens where there is a belief that not all UN personnel fully understand their mandate and can therefore be ‘threatened’ to desist from undertaking some of their mandated tasks, which a belligerent party may consider to be interfering with its activities.

While the UNAVEM III mandate was clear and concise, the belligerents chose to argue with UN personnel over the question of overstepping their mandate. As an example, the government prevented UN personnel from entering the harbour area in Luanda on a number of occasions, while UNITA checkpoints either denied or delayed UN patrols along certain roads, or prevented UN personnel from verifying certain items delivered by plane, claiming that they were non-lethal and were therefore not subject to verification.

With regard to personnel and equipment, these certainly did not match the mandated tasks. For example, the peacekeeping personnel requirement submitted to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) before the commencement of the mission was for some 15 000 soldiers, but the Security Council authorised only 7 000. Motor vehicles for police and military observers and other supporting staff were also generally inadequate and, except for a few that were purchased during the life of the mission, were old and had been shipped to Angola from other UN missions that had closed down in places such as Somalia and Cambodia.

According to the mission standing operating procedures, each observer team site was supposed to operate with three vehicles, and each patrol was to consist of two vehicles, while one remained to execute administrative duties at the team site. There were very few occasions when this was achieved. This inadequacy meant that observers were at times unable to accomplish their tasks, or did so in violation of the standing operating procedures.

Air transport was another area where there were glaring inadequacies. The mission had seven M18 helicopters, five Casa 212 light transport aircraft (which were later replaced by Cessna Caravans), two Beach Craft B200 light aircraft, and two Hercules C130 medium transporters (which were from time to time augmented by one Boeing 727 or an Ilyushin 76). While the fixed-wing aircraft complement was almost adequate, the helicopter fleet was most inadequate. The requirement was for at least fourteen, but only seven were provided. These could not adequately cater for the needs of the mission in a vast country like Angola, where the road network had been severely damaged by years of war and a lack of maintenance.

In general terms, resources made available to UNAVEM III were therefore inadequate and this was attributed to inadequate funding. From a force commander’s perspective, it seemed as if the Security Council ‘wished’ to achieve maximum results from low inputs.

Confidence-building between the belligerents took the form of daily or weekly meetings between the liaison officers of the belligerents chaired by the UN at team sites, at battalion or company headquarters (where these were not co-located with team sites), at regional headquarters, and at the Armed Conflict Prevention Group and the Joint Commission (both located in Luanda). The aim was to ensure that the belligerents did not misinterpret activities related to the peace process which each of the parties was undertaking. For example, the movement of large groups of UNITA elements to given locations in preparation for quartering could be misconstrued as preparations to attack government troop positions. On the other hand, movements by government forces from forward positions were not to be misconstrued by UNITA as regrouping in preparation to attack its positions.

Confidence between the parties and the UN personnel was built through the latter’s impartiality when dealing with complaints raised by the parties, and by the provision of communication radios to some key personnel from the parties who were in isolated locations in the early part of the mission. Credibility was another important factor related to impartiality which helped to create confidence between the parties and the UN personnel.

Although UNAVEM III lost some lives due to mines and bandit activities, only on one occasion did UN personnel use weapons to repel a group of armed bandits who had attacked a convoy that they were escorting in the Villa Nova area of Huambo Province. While the peacekeepers had a deterrent capability when deployed as a unit-sized group in one general area, the question that always nagged the mission command was the diminished fire power of these troops once deployed in companies, some as far away as 200 kilometres from other troop locations. The force commander’s concerns were further compounded by the non-existence of an air mobile reserve which could be used either to reinforce or to extract these troops in case of need. There is therefore a need for planners at DPKO to balance the Chapter VI principle of restricted use of force with a credible deterrent, coupled with a deployment concept that does not lead to the penny pocketing of troops.

Finally, the principle of support for humanitarian activities — besides bringing the locals and the UN personnel together — brings much needed relief to people who would be in serious need of food and other basics of life in most cases. This principle should not be divorced from any UN peacekeeping or peace enforcement doctrine.

Peacekeeping missions are complex undertakings that require clearcut mandates and that should have a set time limit. The mandate will determine whether a mission is purely an observer mission, an assistance mission, a peacekeeping mission or a peace enforcement mission.

The means to support the missions are determined by the mandate, and although the means should be adequately allocated in order to achieve the intended objectives, this is not always the case. Therefore, missions sometimes fail as a result of this under-providing of resources. This, to an extent, was the case with UNAVEM III. 

Major-General P V Sibanda serves in the Zimbabwe National Army. He is a former force commander of the third United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM III).