Virtues of a Narrow Mission: The UN Peace Operation in Nepal
Virtues of a Narrow Mission: The UN Peace Operation in Nepal
复制标题
狭隘使命的优点：联合国尼泊尔和平行动
DOI：
10.1163/19426720-01701003
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发表时间：
2011
影响因子：
1.2
通讯作者：
A. Suhrke
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
A. Suhrke
虽然大多数联合国和平行动已变得大规模和多层面，但联合国对战后尼泊尔的支助-联合国尼泊尔使命（联尼特派团）-被授权作为一个“重点明确、期限有限的使命”。“使命尽管任务很轻，但作出了重大贡献，监测了进驻营地进程，协助选举，并积极监督2006年和平协定的执行情况。该案例研究使人们对建设和平的国际援助能够弥补当地能力不足的假设产生怀疑。尼泊尔不符合战后建设和平“地方能力”的传统标准（例如，由Michael W. Doyle和Nicholas Sambanis（2006），但如果国际社会的角色更加突出，可能会因为迎合尼泊尔民族主义者的反应和印度的反对而适得其反。一个经过仔细调整以考虑到这些关切的使命有助于使和平进程保持在正轨上。关键词：联合国、和平行动、尼泊尔。过去二十年来，联合国援助摆脱内战国家的和平行动不断扩大和多层面，在维持和平的基础上增加了广泛的建设和平任务。这一发展得到了一份学术文献的支持，该文献强调国际援助对在当代战后环境中巩固和平的重要性。虽然援助的性质各不相同-一些作者强调军事维持和平承诺，而另一些作者则侧重于战后经济管理-但前提是国际援助至关重要。(1)然而，在某些情况下，联合国开展的行动规模要小得多，但却为从战争向和平过渡做出了重大贡献。在学术文献或政策论述中，很少有人关注这些案例，尽管它们提出了关于国际和平行动中极简主义可能优点的有趣问题。这些行动的贡献、限制和困境是什么？它们是否只在建设和平的条件相当有利时才与从战争到和平的“轻松”过渡有关？如果是，这些情况的参数是什么？在这篇文章中，我将探讨这些问题与联合国尼泊尔使命（联尼特派团）。在某些方面，尼泊尔从战争向和平过渡的条件并不容易，战后的环境仍然动荡不定。尽管如此，毛派和政府在2006年签署的和平协议在大约四年后大致上走上了正轨，各方之间重新开战的可能性似乎不大。联合国在过渡中发挥了重要----可能是关键----的作用。然而，这一使命的授权范围非常狭窄，而且没有武装维和人员。因此，联尼特派团属于联合国和平行动的一个小类别。在2008年略多于50次的行动中，可能只有6次，其中大多数是政治特派团，同样是最低限度的。(2)“重点使命”的理由在某些方面，战后的尼泊尔并不是一个轻型使命的初步案例。内战持续了十年，直到2006年尼泊尔毛派和政府签署了全面和平协议。战斗留下了深刻的社会和政治创伤。约有15 000人被杀害或失踪，成千上万的人被迫离开家园。引发内战的根深蒂固的社会、政治和经济分歧依然存在。尽管战争期间全国贫困的总体指标有所下降，但到2003年，仍有三分之一的人口生活在贫困之中。(3)在有争议的地区，发展项目几乎陷于停顿。使建设和平进程复杂化的是，人们感到该国即将面临可能难以管理的重大社会转型。…
While most UN peace operations have become large and multidimensional, UN support to postwar Nepal, the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), was authorized as a "focused mission of limited duration." Its lightness notwithstanding, the mission made a significant contribution by monitoring the cantonment process, assisting with the elections, and being an active watchdog of implementation as stipulated in the 2006 peace agreement. The case study casts doubt on the assumption that international assistance to peacebuilding can compensate for lack of local capacity. Nepal did not meet conventional criteria for "local capacity" for postwar peacebuilding (as, e.g., used by Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis 2006), but a more prominent international role would likely have been counterproductive by courting Nepalese nationalist reactions and Indian opposition. A mission carefully calibrated to take account of these concerns helped keep the peace process on track. KEYWORDS: United Nations, peace operations, Nepal. FOR THE PAST TWO DECADES, UN PEACE OPERATIONS TO ASSIST COUNTRIES emerging from civil war have steadily become more expansive and multidimensional, with broad peacebuilding mandates added to peacekeeping. This development has been supported by a scholarly literature that emphasizes the importance of international assistance to consolidate peace in contemporary postwar settings. While the nature of the assistance varies--some writers emphasize military peacekeeping commitments while others focus on postwar economic management--the premise is that international assistance is critically important. (1) In some cases, however, the UN has mounted much more modest operations that nevertheless have contributed significantly to the transition from war to peace. Little attention has been paid to these cases in either the scholarly literature or the policy discourse even though they raise intriguing questions about the possible virtues of minimalism in international peace operations. What are the contributions, constraints, and dilemmas of such operations? Are they only relevant in "easy" transitions from war to peace when conditions for peacebuilding are quite favorable? If so, what are the parameters of these situations? In this article, I explore these questions with respect to the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN). In some respects, the conditions for war-to-peace transition in Nepal were not easy, and the postwar environment remained troubled and uncertain. Nevertheless, the peace agreement signed in 2006 between the Maoists and the government was roughly speaking on track some four years later, and renewed warfare between the parties seemed unlikely. The UN played an important--possibly critical--role in the transition. Yet the mission had an extraordinarily narrow mandate and no armed peacekeepers. As such, UNMIN belongs to a small category of UN peace operations. Out of slightly more than fifty operations in 2008, only perhaps half a dozen, mostly political missions were similarly minimalistic. (2) The Rationale for a "Focused Mission" In some respects, postwar Nepal was not a prima facie case for a light mission. The civil war had lasted for ten years when the Nepalese Maoists and the government signed a comprehensive peace agreement (CPA) in 2006. The fighting had left deep social and political wounds. Some 15,000 persons had been killed or made to disappear, and many more thousands had been forced to leave their homes. The deep-seated social, political, and economic divisions that had fueled the civil war remained. Although aggregate indicators of poverty in the country as a whole had decreased during the war, one-third of the population was still living in poverty by 2003. (3) In contested areas, development projects had come to a near standstill. Complicating the peacebuilding process was a sense that the country was on the threshold of significant social transitions that could be difficult to manage. …