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Different colours, same hats? UN vs. non-UN peace operations

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The AU/UN Joint benchmarking team led by the Head of the African Union Peace Support Operations Division head Mr. Sivuyile Bam Bam, poses for a poto with senior AMISOM officers in Baidoa on April 18, 2015. AMISOM Photo / Abdikarim Mohamed

From the period of June 1948 to December 2000, non-United Nations (UN) actors implemented 53 peacekeeping operations, a figure identical to that of the number of operations deployed by the UN during the same period. Since the turn of the century, moreover, the number of peace operations deployed by regional organisations and coalitions of states has surpassed that of those initiated by the UN. This historic, and burgeoning, proliferation of non-UN peace operations has solicited an enduring and seemingly strategically important research agenda seeking to determine whether UN or regional peace operations are better-equipped to intervene in civil wars. This article contends that the prevailing conceptual dichotomy between UN and non-UN peace operations is in large part an illusory one. Through an analysis focussed primarily on regional/UN operations on the African continent, the article posits first that an increasing level of UN support for regional operations blurs distinct analytical lines between the two. Second, regional and UN peace operations often operate according to a de facto division of labour, meaning some comparative statements pit UN/regional operations against one another according to false standards. Third, the increasing regionalisation of UN peace operations renders the UN/non-UN dichotomy a weak one.

The UN/non-UN Playoff

While large-n quantitative studies charting the track record of UN vs. regional peace operations can identify valuable broad-scale patterns, these studies reap often inconsistent results. This is in part due to the fact that such investigations are ultimately contingent upon how authors define and code peacekeeping operational success, amongst other variables. For instance, one quantitative analysis argues that, controlling for ‘mission difficulty’, UN and non-UN operations have a similar ‘success’ rate, yet a similar study finds UN operations to be more successful than non-UN operations whilst controlling for the same variable. Furthermore, a 2020 study concluding that only UN operations curb violence against civilians committed by non-state actors is contrasted by recent research finding that non-UN peace operations limit rebel-caused violence.

Speculative theoretical stances attributing innate premiums to either regional or UN peace operations are similarly contradictory. Primordialist accounts recite the UN’s alleged intrinsic global moral authority over peacekeeping, premised upon its unique mandate for the maintenance of international peace and security, claims to the UN’s transcendent impartiality, and the belief that, ultimately, ‘peacekeeping is UN business’. In contrast, proponents of regional solutions to regional problems tout the inherent pre-eminence of non-UN intervention based on the idea that the people and governments of one region have a natural affinity with others in that region and an intrinsic distrust of external intervention. Ultimately, advantages in political will, legitimacy, and rationalist-material factors are ascribed equally to either regional actors or the UN, depending on who is doing the ascribing. One common theme throughout these conflicting inferences, however, is that they subscribe to a binary UN vs. non-UN taxonomy of peace operations. In practice, this taxonomy is much more convoluted.

Past the Regional/UN Dichotomy

Whilst the UN has sought its own resource-based support from some regional organisations – the European Union, for example – it provides an increasing degree of quasi-institutionalised support to regional peace operations on the African continent. For instance, the United Nations Support Office for the African Union Mission in Somalia (UNSOA) uses assessed contributions for peacekeeping to directly support a non-UN peace operation: the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). Mounting debates over the creation of a similar support office to finance the G5 Sahel Joint Force coalition using assessed peacekeeping contributions point to a more widespread, growing interconnection between UN and non-UN operations. Indeed, some forewarn of a new type of UN peace operation, led by the Department of Operational Support, as a result of this trend. Thus, while the case of the hybrid African Union (AU)-UN operation in Darfur epitomises explicit UN-regional organisation cooperation, relationships between the two operate on a much broader scale. Unprecedented support structures emerging from the UN dictate that more regional peacekeeping also effectively means more UN peacekeeping; the two are by no means divorced from one another.

Furthermore, there often exists to some extent a temporal division of labour between UN and regional peace operations. The AU, for example, has often demonstrated a clear preference to deploy interim operations that act deliberate precursors to UN intervention. AU operations in Mali (2013) and the Central African Republic (2014) were recast as UN missions within one year of their deployment, and the AU explicitly demanded the deployment of a UN follow-up mission to the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) within six months of AMISOM’s implementation in 2007. That this did not come to fruition does not alter the reality that the AU at least conceives of its peace operations as short-term measures. As such, assessing regional operations directly against UN operations fails to account for key differences in mandated objectives and the comparative advantages held by each in line with this temporal division of labour.

What is more, UN operations themselves have frequently emerged as a preferred form of regional peacekeeping, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2009, former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon proclaimed that African troops in UN operations were ‘helping to find African solutions to African challenges’, appealing to the popular mantra coined to underscore the benefits of regional intervention. This sentiment echoes an enduring tendency for neighbouring states to supply the bulk of troops for UN peace operations. For instance, in August of 1999, Nigeria insisted upon a phased withdrawal of troops from the regional Economic Community of West African States’ (ECOWAS) peace operation in Sierra Leone, offering instead to subsume these troops into a new UN operation (UNAMSIL). The same regional troops were effectively rehatted under the auspices of the UN. In a similar vein, ECOWAS countries plus Chad provide nearly two thirds of the UN operation in Mali’s military personnel, reflecting a tendency for regional states to compose a large bulk of UN troops.

This regionalisation is also reflected in the data. Throughout the 2000s, sub-Saharan African contributions to UN peacekeeping increased significantly. Notably, though, the majority of this increase in contributions was disproportionately channelled towards UN operations within the continent; from 2001-2009, sub-Saharan Africa’s commitment remained relatively stable to an ever-increasing number of military personnel deployed outside the region, with the figure remaining between 680 and 1,120 troops. In contrast, sub-Saharan African contributions to UN peacekeeping within the African continent rose from 8,441 troops in 2001 to 20,677 in 2009, a 145% increase. As such, while sub-Saharan African participation in UN (global) peacekeeping ascended rapidly in the early 21st century, it in fact became more localised and regional.

Conclusion

While failing to acknowledge distinctions between UN and non-UN peace operations is clearly unproductive, increasingly blurred lines between the two divulge a fundamental tension inherent in the conceptual UN/regional peacekeeping binary. There is a spurious homogenisation inherent in arranging a vast and diverse scope of peace operations into a taxonomy of UN vs. non-UN-sanctioned interventions, meaning ‘non-UN’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘UN’ as categories of peace operations require considerable further disaggregation in order to be able to draw meaningful comparisons. Paul Diehl’s 1993 observation that the success of regional peacekeeping is contingent upon many of the same factors as UN peacekeeping has withstood the test of time; regional peacekeeping is not the antithesis of UN peacekeeping and vice versa.

Contextualising the 2020 Malian coup d’état: a view on international intervention

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By Jemma Challenger

Mali, Flag, Map, Geography, Outline, Africa, Country
Outline of Mali in the colours of the Malian flag (Pixabay, 2021)

The coup d’état

On the morning of 18th August 2020, mutinous elements of the Malian Armed Forces stormed a military base in the town of Kati, in what constituted the onset of the country’s second coup d’état in under 10 years. Seized military vehicles then headed to the country’s capital, Bamako, where putschists succeeded in detaining a number of key government officials including President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. By midnight, Keïta had conceded his presidency and dissolved the government. 

Leaders of the coup fired celebratory gunshots as swathes of anti-government protestors rallied around a central square in Bamako to applaud the triumph. The ‘June 5 Movement-Assembly of Patriotic Forces’ (M5-RFP) opposition coalition, formed in mid-2020 to coordinate escalating demonstrations and civil disobedience, supported the toppling; group spokesperson, Nouhoum Togo, announced it constituted “not a military coup but a popular insurrection”.  Simultaneously, however, the mutineers were confronted by a unanimous surge of admonition from the international community. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) pressed soldiers to release detained officials immediately, and “return to their barracks without delay”. The African Union’s (AU’s) President, Cyril Ramaphosa, called for the “immediate return to civilian rule,” briefly suspending Mali from the bloc. The fifteen-nation strong  Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) announced neighbouring members would close their borders with Mali, and stipulated sanctions against “all the putschists and their partners and collaborators”. France, the US, China, Turkey, Germany, South Africa and Nigeria were amongst a wealth of nations to publicly condemn the coup independently. 

Several months down the line, the military junta continues to grapple with its commitment to establish a comprehensive transition to democratic rule that adequately conciliates this international community. It remains, therefore, an apt time to reflect upon the protracted role international actors have played in Mali, and to assess their accountability vis-à-vis the latest coup. Indeed, the international community at large has long been directly embroiled within Malian affairs, to the extent that to dissect the country’s political landscape without seriously reflecting upon its external stakeholders is to abandon half the picture. How did the political scene evolve in such a way that posed conditions ripe for a coup that enjoyed such a degree of popular domestic support? And how did these quite cataclysmic developments emerge right under the nose of a corpus of intervenors comprising well over 15,000 international troops in Mali? 

This article will demonstrate that key intervenors – the United Nations (UN) and France – are prioritising short-term military, and tacitly pro-incumbent solutions to a highly political conflict. Accordingly, they jeopardise prospects for security, fail to hold leaders to account, and permit political grievances to spiral. It is vital that the 2020 coup is understood against this backdrop. 

The international community in Mali 

For scholar Nina Wilén, the coup is a stark reminder of how local political conflict endures in spite of a weighty external presence. Embodying a ‘logic of its own’, engagement in Mali – that is, a militarily well-endowed French-led counter-terrorist operation, a sizeable and robust UN peacekeeping operation, a United States (US) Africa Command drone base, three European Union (EU) missions, and the creation of a new Special Forces Joint Task Force – is insufficiently cognisant of local realities and dynamics on the ground. The intervention is, by and large, inherently state-centric and military dominated. This fails to differentiate between the needs of a range of complex parallel crises in Mali. It also fails to address local, grassroots grievances and conflicts, which in turn offer a valuable source of mobilisation for the extremists and criminal networks that external actors so committedly endeavour to eradicate. 

For instance, the UN operation was, until recently, situated almost exclusively in line with the explicit jihadist threat in the north of Mali. Meanwhile, localised agricultural conflict plaguing Central communities escalated rapidly for a number of years, into what now constitutes the epicentre of violence in Mali. This is a flagrant missed opportunity for the intervention. In prioritising symptoms over causes, and short-term security imperatives over long-term diplomatic and grassroots political efforts, the UN failed to prevent a dire security crisis from unfurling under its nose. Jihadists were able to successfully draw upon a political vacuum, popular grievances, and cleavages along ethnic lines to mobilise support from occluded rural populations. This rendered UN efforts to ‘impede, impair and isolate’ the terrorist threat’ in the North rather futile. In inadequately responding to grievance-based local conflicts, external intervention has done little to quell the root of popular unrest, whilst adding fuel to the flames of jihadist networks and transnational criminal organisations. 

Simultaneously, the permanent external military presence reduces incentives for the state to engage in crucial reforms and productive political dialogue. In what one scholar of Sahelian politics, Yvan Guichaoua, describes as the ‘bitter harvest of French interventionism’, France’s entrenched armed presence – dominated foremostly by enemy-centric security agendas – is acting as a ‘de facto military guarantor’ of the security of the Malian regime. In doing so, France effectively disincentivises any sitting government in Mali to engage in dialogue with its adversaries in order to reach political compromises. As Michael Shurkin of RAND fittingly suggests, France’s operational objective is, as of now, little more than the creation of ‘strategic possibilities’ that some other partner might be able to exploit. Thus far, the intervention has shown little inclination to hold a sitting regime to account, or push even for the somewhat lacklustre reforms proposed in a 2015 peace agreement. Against this backdrop, external intervention has something to answer for with regards to the popular discontent that paved the way for the coup it denounced so quickly last August. 

The coming months will undoubtedly play a critical role in defining the trajectory of the crisis in Mali. Colonel Major Ismaël Wagué, spokesman for the self-proclaimed National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) military junta, explicitly pledged cooperation with the international community from the outset; for him, the UN and France are “partners in the restoration of stability.” Yet, for all that the CNSP avow their dedication to maintain military collaboration with intervenors, and for all intervenors assure their sustained armed presence on the Sahel, lasting security without popular support and a comprehensive political strategy will doubtless prove untenable. Intervenors in Mali must acknowledge that the crisis of the ‘weak state’ in Mali lies not at the hands of a discontented citizenry, but in the radical social distance between this citizenry and its political class. Viewed through this optic, the coup has but foregrounded longstanding shortcomings of the international community in Mali that must be conceded and transformed in order to make meaningful progress towards stability. 

 

Jemma Challenger is an MA student of International Conflict Studies at King’s College London and a graduate of the University of Leeds, where she studied a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Her central research interests include UN intervention in conflict, peacebuilding and state-building processes, and the qualitative study of comparative civil wars. You can find her on Twitter @jemmachallenger. 

Libya strikes historic ceasefire but prospects for peace remain limited

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by Rafaella Piyioti

Libya Map with Flag Pin. Source: iStockPhoto

At present, Libya’s two governments, each with their own parliament and central bank system, are competing for power. The situation is further complicated by the overlapping and intersecting involvement of regional and international actors. On the 23 October 2020 an UN-mediated ceasefire was signed to establish the foundations for peace in the country. This agreement is the result of a series of UN-led talks between Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, leader of the Government of National Accord (GNA), and General Khalifa Haftar, leader of the Libyan National Army (LNA). To ensure a successful peace settlement in Libya, the disarmament of domestic militia organisations and the withdrawal of foreign forces is of paramount importance. Moreover, to understand the complexities of the civil war in Libya and the fragility of the UN ceasefire agreement, it is essential to focus on the role of foreign actors in Libya.

Since the toppling of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, civil war has raged across Libya. While the Colonel’s pan-Arabist leanings granted the country strong regional influence, his financing of terrorism led to frequent confrontations with the West. After the collapse of the Gaddafi regime, Libya entered a new era of instability and insecurity. From this General Haftar has emerged as a self-proclaimed new Libyan leader, aiming to establish his own military rule over the nation with the support of various regional and international actors.  The UN, in a bid to establish stable civilian governance and prevent domestic militias from gaining control of the country, instead supported the formation the GNA in 2016.

Failing thus far to unify Libya, the GNA has only managed to establish its authority in Tripoli and has been engaged in long-term fighting with Haftar’s LNA. Libyan domestic militias are divided between those who support the GNA and those who support Haftar. Haftar promised his supporters military control of the country based on the Egyptian model of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his campaign against political Islam has led many regional actors to form alliances with him. Egypt, the UAE and Israel provided political support and funding to Haftar, in an attempt to prevent radical Islamist groups from gaining control of Libya and advancing their regional influence.

In the past year, the conflict between the GNA and the LNA has intensified, piquing when Haftar’s troops invaded Tripoli on the 4th April 2019. Since then, foreign actors have played an increasingly decisive role in how events have unfolded.

In January 2020, Turkey signed an agreement with the GNA to provide military support and send mercenaries to al-Sarraj’s army. Turkey’s alliance with the GNA is an extension of its current foreign policy, to advance its regional influence, using a politically pro-Islam rhetoric. Al -Sarraj, is accused of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation known for its Pan-Islam ideology, that calls for the unity of all Muslims worldwide, and its alliance with Turkey. Erdogan’s support to the GNA led Israel, Egypt and the UAE to increase their support to General Haftar to counter the rise of political Islam.

Russia, although one of the ‘Permanent Five’ members on the UN Security Council, supports Haftar’s LNA, offering military aid in an attempt to advance its own geopolitical influence in the region. Post-Soviet Russia has struggled to establish itself as a recognised global power and Libya’s strategic position offers Russia options for both naval and air bases which could support its activities in the region. Haftar’s troops, establishing a number of defence contracts with Russia, have also served as an economic boon. Nonetheless, following the escalation of violence in Libya, President Putin has joined the German Chancellor Merkel and the British Prime Minister Johnson, in calling the two Libyan leaders to negotiate a ceasefire agreement.

France, another member of the ‘Permanent Five’, has also supported Haftar, though this has not always been the case, with its overarching foreign policy on Libya being more ambiguous. While initially a neutral actor, Turkey’s involvement in Libya pushed France towards Haftar’s LNA as the two countries are experiencing increased tensions over their conflicted interests in the Eastern Mediterranean. Macron’s opposition to radical Islam, is yet another contributing factor in France’s alliance with Haftar, who has established an anti-Islamist political campaign in Libya to counter the rise of Islamist militias.

In the absence of a holistic European Union policy towards Libya, France pledged an alliance with Haftar, joined by Greece and Cyprus.  This is mainly due to their political dispute with Turkey on the Eastern Mediterranean oil crisis. Other EU states have formed their own policies on Libya.  Italy has long established historic and strategic interests in Libya and is one of the only EU member states that supports the GNA over the LNA. Not only does Italy depend on Libyan hydrocarbons, but it has also reached a deal with the GNA to cooperate in countering illegal migration and human trafficking. Libya thus serves as an opportunity for Italy to maintain its interests and advance its own influence in the region.

Following a year of intensive fighting Haftar and al-Sarraj signed an UN-initiated ceasefire agreement on the 23 October 2020. The ceasefire, welcomed by the UN and the EU, is an important step towards the re-establishing peace in Libya. The UK and Germany offered to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, which has set a timeline of three months for the disarmament of domestic militias and for foreign actors to withdraw from Libya. Yet, there remains a feeling of mistrust between al-Sarraj and Haftar which could undermine the prospect of a long-lasting peace. The three months’ timeframe is almost over, and the LNA has already accused Turkey of continuing its presence in Libya. For peace and stability, it is necessary that foreign actors, whether regional or international, follow the rules of the ceasefire agreement and withdraw their troops from Libya.

The UN, as the body traditionally at the forefront of global conflict mediation, should therefore lead efforts to ensure that all parties are following the ceasefire rules. Still, even if Turkey exits Libya, important challenges will remain. A tenuous peace and real political unity are two completely different things. As long as the ideological and political differences between the GNA’s policy of promoting political Islam, and the LNA’s anti-Islamist campaign remain unaddressed, political unity cannot be achieved.

While the UN ceasefire agreement is an important step towards lasting peace, without the withdrawal of foreign troops and an end to the pursuit of regional interests through Libya, the conflict will inevitably continue. A ceasefire shows that there is a willingness, or at least a possibility, for peace. What remains now is for the GNA and LNA to be given the space and impetus to seize the opportunity for a lasting peace.

Rafaela is a part-time MA student in the Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies programme at King’s College London. She received her BA in War Studies and Philosophy.

She is a Staff Writer for the Shield and writes for a Cypriot newspaper. Currently, she is a Research Analyst for London Politica. Her main academic interest is on the role of intelligence in policymaking.

Rafaela is a Staff Writer at Strife.

Peace in the time of Pandemic

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Coronavirus, Source: istockphoto

While the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected professional and personal travel plans across the world, what happens when these plans can have a direct impact on cessation of hostilities in a conflict zone? What happens when a state or group may have an interest in allowing – or denying – individual travel in order to further their political aims?

Taking into consideration the current Afghan Peace Talks[1], as well as the ongoing political negotiations in Yemen, this article outlines how the pandemic has a potentially far-reaching impact on humanitarian assistance operations in conflict zones, and more broadly on peace.

Operational Environment

The pandemic has severely impacted the ability of aid actors to deliver assistance, including in countries facing enormous need. Beyond peace negotiations, humanitarian and development operations are also critical to providing security and opportunity to citizens in conflict zones. In Yemen, COVID-19 is yet another health challenge to a population already battling hunger, medicine and vaccine shortages, and diseases that have been long eliminated in other countries[2], all within a struggling medical system.

Afghanistan faces similar issues, where health clinics are already inaccessible for many citizens, especially women, and where scepticism concerning the virus further complicates limited medical capacity to treat it. At the same time, COVID-19 has not forced a break in fighting in the lead-up to the peace negotiations discussed below, with clear Taliban resistance to ceasefire attempts or a UN call for a humanitarian pause.

How does this affect peace and stability? While aid agencies struggle with their own operational limitations, they also operate in countries where they may not be popular with both governments and armed groups due to perceived ties with Western powers, and where securing access may already be a challenge. The pandemic is being wielded as an excuse to further deny access, travel, and movement to aid workers in areas where assistance is greatly needed. As such, this pandemic could deepen humanitarian crises, and threaten greater instability. This has been seen in Yemen and Afghanistan, but also in parts of Iraq, Syria, Somalia, and elsewhere. In Yemen in particular, Houthis have used the pandemic to not only restrict access to the country, but also to exert greater control on needs assessments, aid distributions, and any potential involvement of international actors in political process[3], all by holding a firm grip on permitted operations. These limitations can threaten the fair distribution of aid to the most vulnerable.

Beyond access under COVID-19, aid agencies also face a great challenge to their duty of care and best use of their resources. They must determine how much risk they are willing to take in sending their staff to field sites potentially exposed to conflict as well as severe health issues, possibly requiring medical evacuation. While organisations improve their understanding of the degree of risk posed by the pandemic to staff health and movements, many UN agencies and other NGOs[4] have responded with variations on a reduced footprint. Some are keeping staff in compounds (creating its own risk for staff due to the impossibility of social distancing) rather than sending them to more remote field sites. As familiarity with pandemic realities have increased and additional medical resources have been mobilized to treat sick staff, operational capacity has also increased – but humanitarians can still be denied access to their areas of intervention, with the perfect justification: it is for their own safety.

Pandemic Peace talks – Strategy and Logistics

This unique opportunity for affecting operational contexts neatly extends to peace talks, as the challenging logistics of bringing together warring sides to negotiate settlements in a third host country are intensified under pandemic conditions. In September 2020, discussions between Houthis and the Yemeni government over the release of Houthi prisoners moved forward in Switzerland. The Houthi and Yemeni delegations utilized UN Special Envoy planes departing from Saudi-controlled airspace to reach Switzerland and secured exceptions for diplomatic travel when no other movement was permitted, even as the Houthis themselves closed airports in Yemen and restricted movement for aid actors – including UN agencies. The Swiss government worked around national pandemic restrictions to allow representatives to speak directly to one another and to maintain their negotiations schedule.

The ongoing Afghan Peace Talks in Doha have been similarly impacted by logistical issues, with strategic implications. Under normal conditions, countries compete to host peace negotiations to protect their interests, ensure they are part of the conversation, and bolster their reputations as key geopolitical players. This confluence of actors and interests can pressure a negotiation and complicate participants’ calculations. However, during the pandemic, countries that might typically host peace negotiations become more focused on their urgent domestic needs and give less attention and resources to peace delegates. Where many great powers and actors may have competed to hold the Afghan talks prior to the pandemic, fewer countries are currently willing to assume the risk of hosting such an event.  As such, the pandemic favours wealthy, autocratic systems such as Qatar’s that do not have to justify their decisions and risk-taking to their public. Also, a second round of talks is unlikely due to these logistical concerns[5], so Qatar’s willingness to host prolonged talks amid few alternative options creates pressure to conclude discussions during this round.

Qatar’s hosting has additional advantages: a strong Qatari national health authority able to handle testing and tracing, combined with the ability to indefinitely block off a 5-star hotel for talks, to mobilize private jets for transport, and to offer luxury accommodations for Taliban representatives and their families, all as representatives arrive from high-risk countries and are granted entrance health waivers for indefinite stays. This pandemic then serves Doha’s goals: they are at the centre of peace talks, ensuring international – including American – support despite being in a hostile neighbourhood. Senior diplomats leverage personal relationships with Qatari officials to get clearance to enter, while others less favoured find that their travel has ‘accidentally’ not been cleared. While externally entrenching their centrality to the negotiations, internally Qatari actors are also using their roles to leveraging power against one another. At the same time, Doha is a relatively less experienced host[6], which has opened the way for interested third parties to establish strong support groups and facilitate consultative, collaborative assistance to the talks to protect their interests.

Actors at the margins also lose; with COVID-19 travel restrictions in place, meetings on the margins – for example, side events on gender, minority rights and protections – are less likely to happen. Participation of civil society in peace talks becomes more tenuous, and inclusive representation at peace negotiations, which are already often seen as elite-driven or elite-bargaining processes, also suffer. When citizens do not have the opportunity to directly challenge leadership, it becomes more difficult to ensure that a range of views are accounted for in a potential settlement. In Doha, conference organizers fought to secure access for 30 Afghan journalists to attend the opening ceremony of the talks, allowing for some interaction between national press and the Taliban. This benefits the overall objective of the talks – with fewer sideline attractions, attention can be focused on the single outcome of reaching agreement – but inclusivity can suffer.

Another key difference in the current climate is that peace negotiations are commonly preceded by (secret) pre-negotiation discussions where key agenda items, red lines, and starting positions can be clarified on both sides. These have the advantage of accelerating formal talks once they begin but can also create tension should personalities or political positions combust from the start. Partly due to the pandemic, parties have arrived at the Afghan talks without pre-existing personal relationships, resulting in increased caution on both sides when interacting with one another, but also creating an opportunity to focus discussions free from personal distractions.

While it is too early to make comprehensive conclusions, the COVID-19 pandemic directly affects peace. It is being used as a justification to exert greater control over humanitarian activities in fractious contexts, further complicating operations in already difficult environments. The direction and execution of peace talks are being similarly constrained, resulting both in more concentrated but also less inclusive events. Whether these factors will increase chances for resolution remains to be seen. It is clear, however, that lessons drawn from this unique time can offer insights to practitioners once the post-pandemic chapter begins.

[1] Formally, the Intra-Afghan Peace Talks.

[2] Such diseases include measles, cholera, diphtheria, tuberculosis, and polio.

[3] Interview with UN official, UN OCHA, Yemen, 11 November 2020.

[4] Interview with UN official, UN OCHA, 11 November 2020.

Interview with NGO worker, Afghanistan, 15 November 2020.

[5] Six months ago, at least 4 rounds of talks in Qatar, Germany, Norway, and Uzbekistan were envisioned, with all but Doha ultimately being scrapped.

[6] Capacity to properly address protocol and logistics are also a concern, for example with Doha releasing press statements concerning the talks without first clearing them on both sides, or releasing invitations and agendas to participants that are only available in Arabic (Dari and Pashto being the official languages of Afghanistan).

Constance Wilhelm is a Senior Editor for the Strife Journal, and a doctoral researcher with the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, where she focuses on approaches to the return and prosecution of the European women that have joined Daesh. She is also an experienced researcher and Public and Humanitarian Policy consultant, specialising in conflict-affected areas and fragile states. She has worked with think tanks at Princeton University and New York University, with the Afghan Mission to the UN in New York, the OECD in Paris, humanitarian and international development organisations and consulting firms in Lebanon (leading teams in Syria), in Jordan (leading teams in Yemen), in Afghanistan, in Libya, as well as across both the Horn of Africa and the Sahel-Lake Chad region. Constance has an MA in Conflict Management and International Economics from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a BA from McGill University.

War’s Invisible Killer: We Must Not Forget Populations Affected by Conflict during COVID-19

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by Charlotte Hooker

A Syrian boy poses for a picture during an awareness workshop on coronavirus at a camp for displaced people in Atme town in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province (Image Credit: Aaref Watad/AFP)

 

Governments across the globe are acting on the informed assumption that deaths related to COVID-19 will rise so long as the number of cases exceeds the capacity of domestic healthcare services. The necessary response is compulsory social isolation and strict hygiene measures. In China, Europe, and the US, public places have been closed, mass gatherings banned, and public awareness campaigns have been initiated to offer guidance on how to wash one’s hands effectively. But in war-torn countries, where governments and healthcare systems have collapsed, running water is scarce, and soap is an unaffordable luxury, these measures are near impossible to implement. COVID-19,  just like the countless diseases before it, will “ruthlessly exploit the conditions created by war.” Without a collective global response that accounts for the needs of conflict states and its displaced populations, the consequences of COVID-19 could be catastrophic.

The connection between war and disease is well documented in history. Before the 20th Century, combatants were more likely to die from disease than they were from battle wounds. In the Crimean War, for example, British soldiers died from sickness almost eight times more than they did from conflict-induced injuries (Pennington, 2019). As medicine advanced and basic hygiene practices improved, the emergence and spread of infectious disease amongst combatants was curbed considerably. However, this did little to contain the influenza pandemic of 1918–1919. The pandemic coincided with the mass migration of soldiers back to their home countries and resulted in the death of between 20 million–100 million people worldwide. This highlighted the burden that war placed on the health of civilian populations, which has only worsened as densely populated urban settings have become the primary hosts of major hostilities (Haraoui, 2018).

In Syria, healthcare services became an integrated part of the conflict. Between 2011 and 2014 alone, 57% of public hospitals were damaged and 160 doctors were jailed or killed. Vaccination coverage fell from 91% in 2010 to 45% in 2013 contributing to the re-emergence of polio, measles, and cutaneous leishmaniasis in Syria and neighbouring countries, particularly amongst displaced populations. COVID-19 presents the greatest threat to these people.

According to the UN High Commission on Refugees, there are currently 70.8 million forcibly displaced people worldwide, most of whom live in deplorable living conditions. On the Greek island of Lesbos, the Moria refugee camp “has one water point for every 1,300 people and one toilet for every 200 people,” says Apostolos Veizis, Director of Medical Operational Unit at Doctors Beyond Borders for Greece. In Idlib, refugee camps in north-western Syria, there are 1.4 doctors per 10,000 people, only 100 adult ventilators and fewer than 200 intensive care unit beds. Fatima Um Ali, a Syrian refugee, and her family have avoided death on multiple occasions since fleeing the Syrian conflict, “but what now,” she says, “we are going to be afraid of [COVID-19].” Without running water and soap, and no chance of isolating her family of 16 in the crowded settlements of Idlib, it will be difficult for Fatima’s family to dodge death once more.

Displaced populations are often dependent upon humanitarian assistance for survival. This is because healthcare services in conflict zones have long since collapsed, and any remaining government regime usually lacks funds or geographic reach to mobilise the necessary health, food, or economic resources. Bangladesh, for example, relies upon youth activists to educate Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on the importance of proper hygiene. Even in camps that are better off, conditions are ripe for COVID-19 to run rampant. According to Muriel Tschopp, Jordan Country Director at the Norwegian Refugee Council, the quasi-lockdown in Jordan in response to COVID-19 has grounded all Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), preventing them from providing daily service assistance, and reducing cash opportunities for refugees as local organisations are forced to halt business.

That is not to say that action has stopped entirely. In a recent interview, Muriel Tschopp explains that they have been using existing mechanisms, such as their database of refugee contact details, to contact those living in temporary settlements to provide guidance on how to limit the spread of disease. Similar action has to be taken by other NGOs. Doctors Beyond Borders representatives explain that they have been working with displaced peoples living in the camps to ensure the populations have access to information that will prevent disease spread and reduce panic. But this is not enough.

What is required is an international commitment to the protection of basic needs and care of conflict-affected populations. In a virtual press conference on March 23, 2020, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for “an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.” Warring parties in some states, including Yemen and Cameroon, have agreed to the ceasefire in order to allow focus on the fight against COVID-19. This is a good start. Now, states across the world must mobilise funds to support the provision of basic resources such as water sanitation systems, hygiene kits, and food over the coming months, with immediate effect—if there is one lesson the world can learn from the 1918 flu, it is that early and sustained action saves lives.

Some believe that it is the duty of the government to prioritise its own citizens. The Trump Administration is proposing a USD$3 billion cut in funding for global health programmes, including halving its funding for the World Health Organisation who currently leads the fight against COVID-19. But if we turn our focus inward, and let fear be used as ammunition to stigmatise those who are not ‘one of us,’ we will have failed the test of humanity. A failure to address the basic needs of conflict-affected populations will mean thousands of needless deaths and this will not be contained to displaced populations. Disease knows no borders, so the only way to prevent the spread across temporary settlements, neighbouring states, and beyond is to ensure universal preparedness. A collective global response that accounts for all human life is crucial in the fight against COVID-19. The world has come together in the past to fight common evils. We can do it again.

Charlotte is studying for a MA in International Relations at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Prior to postgraduate study, Charlotte studied Politics and Economics BSc at the University of Southampton where she was awarded the highest dissertation mark in the discipline. During her undergraduate studies, she completed a Year in Employment at Ofgem, supporting work on domestic energy policy. Her research interests include space security, cybersecurity, energy security and the role of industry in the fight against climate change, and the international political economy and security implications of a rising China.