Conflict Resolution and Lessons From Sierra Leone

Let me begin, Madame Chairman, by thanking you and the UK Presidency for organizing this session today. The importance of our discussions is evidenced by the presence with us this morning of the Secretary-General. We are honored to have Foreign Minister Koroma of Sierra Leone here as well. And it is a particular pleasure to have our former colleague and good friend, his Excellency Foreign Minister Fall, back in New York this morning to join us once again around this table.

The U.S. delegation looks forward to a useful discussion on the lessons to be learned from Sierra Leone and the way forward in the Mano River Union. The wars and civil unrest in the Mano River Union region have brought a terrible cost in lost life, human suffering and lost opportunities. There have been unconscionable abuses of women and children. There have been mutilations, murders and terror. And there have been the systematic trampling of basic human rights. Tragically, civilians, indeed, were the deliberate targets for a great deal of these horrible acts of violence and abuse. The remarks of our opening speakers have gotten us off to a good start and I thank both Under-Secretary-General Guehenno and Deputy Under-Secretary McAskie for their insights this morning.

Let me start by asking whether there are, in fact, any over-arching lessons to be learned from Sierra Leone on how the UN and this Council can bring peace to the other conflicts on our agenda. As we begin our discussion, we need to keep in mind that each conflict situation on the Council’s agenda has its own causes, its own unique personalities, and its own geopolitical variables.

Successful resolution of any conflict is a matter of these variables aligning in such a way that, if this Council is focused and united, but realistic about its abilities, the Security Council and the UN can help the parties themselves seize a “hinge of history” and push open the door toward lasting peace.

But let me be clear: the UN and this Council rarely have the ability themselves to ensure a successful peace process. Seldom can the UN on its own impose a successful solution. In most cases, the parties themselves must create facts on the ground that will allow the UN to contribute to a lasting peace. We neither strengthen the UN, the Security Council, nor help bring peace to any conflict by over-promising, raising unrealistic expectations, or over-extending the capacity of the UN to deliver on the ground.

What the Security Council and the UN can do is stand ready, so that when the external factors fall into place, we can support the parties’ own efforts to make peace. The UN and the Security Council can also help to foster an environment that permits peace to take root, if the parties want it.

In Sierra Leone, the crucial factors behind our current success range from the commitment of the United Kingdom to provide military training to the Sierra Leone army to the RUF’s military weakness following its miscalculation in invading Guinean territory.

Other crucial factors were the Council’s sanctions on President Taylor, as well as the courage and dedication of the Sierra Leone people to end violence and restore democracy.

All these external factors came together in a way that created an opportunity for a stable peace, and for the UN and UNAMSIL to play an important, but supporting, role. As we look at our experience in Sierra Leone, we can review what these external factors were for guidance and historical understanding. But we are making a mistake if we too readily embrace the view that the events in Sierra Leone provide universal lessons to the United Nations that automatically can be imposed on other situations. To a large degree, each must be tailor-made and adapted to the unique situations of each conflict. Nonetheless, it is important to learn from experience and, therefore, once again let me thank the United Kingdom for their leadership in chairing this workshop.

In my delegation’s view, what we can learn from our experience in Sierra Leone are lessons on how the Security Council and the UN can better manage and organize our efforts — be they peacekeeping, diplomatic, or humanitarian — to support peace processes in conflict situations in which there is an existing commitment by the parties to resolve the conflict. These lessons are valuable to our work going forward.

My delegation takes away several such management lessons from the UN’s experience in Sierra Leone.

First, the need for careful matching of the resources and mandate of peacekeeping missions with the risks involved in the operation;

Second, the importance of frequent consultations with troop contributing countries on the rules of engagement for any peacekeeping mission;

Third, the need to find a mechanism for donor group coordination and follow up on the “reintegration” element of any disarmament, demobilization and resettlement [DDR] program undertaken as part of a peace process;

Fourth, the requirement for better coordination of humanitarian assistance between peacekeeping operations, international aid agencies, and humanitarian groups.

And, finally, a strong Special Representative of the Secretary-General is critical to the success of a peacekeeping operation to ensure good coordination among the peacekeeping, humanitarian, and, if necessary, judicial elements of a mission.

I will make a few brief comments on the first four of these lessons.

Regarding peacekeeping missions, a key lesson is that we must give missions the appropriate rules of engagement, force size, and mandate for the situation on the ground.

At the start of its mission, UNAMSIL had adequate resources and size to carry out its original mandate in light of the situation on the ground. But UNAMSIL’s May 2000 crisis underscored the need to carefully assess at the start of an operation what force size and resources will be needed to address a “worse case” security threat to the mission should the conditions change.

And in setting forth mandates for peacekeeping missions, the Council must be realistic about what the traffic will bear - no purpose is served if we set forth rules of engagement and mandates that result in no offers of troop contributions from UN members.

The Council needs to consult closely with troop contributing countries on the rules of engagement as they are drafted. Our experience in Sierra Leone also underscores that we need to make sure that troop contributing nations fully understand what the rules of engagement require when a permissive security environment turns hostile. The lesson of May 2000 is not that UNAMSIL’s rules of engagement were insufficient, but that some national units were not prepared to act in accordance with the rules.

On DDR, it is critical to have a coordinated mechanism through which the host country, international community and the UN can address the financial and logistical issues related to DDR activities and ensure follow up by donors on their commitments. This has been an element lacking in Sierra Leone and the DDR effort has suffered.

The “reintegration” element of DDR has proven the most frustrating challenge of the process in Sierra Leone. Reintegration activities remain far short of what is needed to ensure stability in the future.

Another serious problem has been the failure of those donors who have made pledges to honor them. My delegation would welcome the speakers’ views on how we can ensure better donor follow-up after pledges are made. Would regular reports to the Council on the status of funding contributions – received and outstanding – be a useful mechanism?

Finally, how the UN and UNAMSIL responded to the humanitarian needs of refugees and internally displaced persons in Sierra Leone offers valuable lessons.

In the case of UNAMSIL, its assistance was focused, responsive, and limited to its mandate. This is the way it should be – the primary task of a peacekeeping mission is to support a political process. The Council acted to authorize UNAMSIL to participate in the international humanitarian response in Sierra Leone only after a clear explanation of the role UNAMSIL would play and after it was clear UNAMSIL had unique capabilities that could not be duplicated by other aid organizations.

Our experience in Sierra Leone also points out the importance of a high-level UN coordinator giving the issue day-to-day attention. This was the case in Sierra Leone, where the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General provided coordination between NGOs, UN agencies, and UNAMSIL itself.

Another lesson on the humanitarian side of the ledger is the importance of disseminating explicit guidelines that outline the roles of various UN agencies and NGOs. It is also important to have clear mechanisms in place to address concerns about overlapping mandates between the activities of NGOs and UN agencies. We saw the benefits of such guidelines in the agreement between the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and UNAMSIL on the use of peacekeeping trucks to move refugees.

Similarly, when UNAMSIL troops entered a refugee camp without the High Commissioner’s authorization, the agencies involved used an established communication mechanism to address the problem in a swift and cooperative way.

These are the lessons my delegation takes away from Sierra Leone on how the UN and Council can improve its support to parties seeking a resolution of conflicts and to keeping a peace process on track.

We welcome any comments our speakers this morning might have on these points.

Thank you, Madame Chairman.