Abstract
This chapter profiles three South Asian countries—India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh—that are among the biggest troop contributors to United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations in post–Cold War Africa. It assesses the motivational sources of their peacekeeping activism, grouping them under four headings: idealism, image and influence, interests, and institution-building. Though the nature and salience of each set of factors varies from one country to another, the individual motivations of the trio are primarily a function of their own national priorities, with the place of Africa somewhat incidental in their peacekeeping portfolios; the limited exception being India, which has a longer history of peacekeeping grounded, at least partly, in Third World solidarity that has blended with its contemporary interests in Africa. The chapter also assesses the contribution of South Asian UN peacekeeping in Africa, as well as its challenges and prospects in the context of the quest for a Pax Africana.
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Notes
- 1.
Ramesh Thakur, “From Peacekeeping to Peace Enforcement: The UN Operation in Somalia”, The Journal of Modern African Studies 32, no. 3 (1994), p. 396.
- 2.
Inam-ur-Rahman Malik, “Pakistan”, in Alex J. Bellamy and Paul D. Williams (eds.), Providing Peacekeepers: The Politics, Challenges, and Future of United Nations Peacekeeping Contributions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), p. 221.
- 3.
Chin-Hao Huang, “Contributor Profile: The People’s Republic of China”, Providing for Peacekeeping, 27 April 2017, p. 1, http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/China-Chin-Hao-27Apr2017_FINAL.pdf (accessed 1 August 2017).
- 4.
Sharon Wiharta, “Contributor Profile: Indonesia”, Providing for Peacekeeping, 29 January 2016, http://providingforpeacekeeping.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/ipi-pub-ppp-Indonesia.pdf (accessed 1 August 2017).
- 5.
This phrase is from Providing for Peacekeeping, a research project on United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations, jointly hosted by the International Peace Institute (IPI), the Elliott School at George Washington University, and the Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect at the University of Queensland. See http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org (accessed 14 June 2017).
- 6.
Kudrat Virk, “Deconstructing India’s Peacekeeping Role in Africa”, in Urvashi Aneja (ed.), Asia with Africa: Opportunities and Challenges (New Delhi: Observer Research Foundation, 2016), pp. 54–58.
- 7.
C. Raja Mohan, “India and International Peace Operations”, SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security no. 2013/3 (April 2013), pp. 1–3; C. Raja Mohan, “The Return of the Raj”, The American Interest (May/June 2010), http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=803 (accessed 22 August 2013); Varun Vira, “India and UN Peacekeeping: Declining Interest with Grave Implications”, Small Wars Journal, 13 July 2012, http://smallwarsjournal.com/node/12949 (accessed 14 July 2012). See Indian Army, http://indianarmy.nic.in (accessed 20 August 2013).
- 8.
Raja Mohan, “The Return of the Raj”; Indian Army.
- 9.
Raja Mohan, “India and International Peace Operations”, p. 3.
- 10.
Rashed Uz Zaman and Niloy R. Biswas, “Bangladesh”, in Bellamy and Williams, Providing Peacekeepers, pp. 183–184.
- 11.
India’s active armed forces comprise approximately 1,325,000 personnel (as of 2012), Pakistan’s 643,800 (2014), and Bangladesh’s 157,050 (2016). Data from Providing for Peacekeeping, Country Profiles, http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org/profiles (accessed 14 June 2017).
- 12.
Raja Mohan, “The Return of the Raj”.
- 13.
Based on monthly summaries of military and police contributions to UN missions from UN Peacekeeping, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/contributors.shtml (accessed 13 June 2017).
- 14.
Dipankar Banerjee, “India”, in Bellamy and Williams, Providing Peacekeepers, pp. 229–230.
- 15.
Permanent Mission of India to the UN, “India and United Nations Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding”, https://www.pminewyork.org/pages.php?id=1985 (accessed 14 June 2017).
- 16.
Permanent Mission of India to the UN, “India and United Nations Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding”.
- 17.
Kabilan Krishnasamy, “The Paradox of India’s Peacekeeping”, Contemporary South Asia 12, no. 2 (2003), p. 266.
- 18.
Alan Bullion, “India and UN Peacekeeping Operations”, International Peacekeeping 4, no. 1 (1997), p. 101.
- 19.
Permanent Mission of India to the UN, “India and United Nations Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding”; Frank van Rooyen, “Blue Helmets for Africa: India’s Peacekeeping in Africa”, Occasional Paper no. 60 (Johannesburg: South African Institute of International Affairs [SAIIA], May 2010), p. 8; Adekeye Adebajo, UN Peacekeeping in Africa: From the Suez Crisis to the Sudan Conflicts (Boulder, CO, and London: Lynne Rienner; and Johannesburg: Fanele, 2011), p. 70; Bullion, “India and UN Peacekeeping Operations”, pp. 101–102.
- 20.
Van Rooyen, “Blue Helmets for Africa”, p. 8.
- 21.
Data from Pakistan Army, http://www.pakistanarmy.gov.pk (accessed 14 June 2017).
- 22.
Alex J. Bellamy and Paul D. Williams, “Introduction: The Politics and Challenges of Providing Peacekeepers”, in Bellamy and Williams, Providing Peacekeepers, p. 7.
- 23.
Kabilan Krishnasamy, “‘Recognition’ for Third World Peacekeepers: India and Pakistan”, International Peacekeeping 8, no. 4 (2001), pp. 56–57. See Bullion, “India and UN Peacekeeping Operations”.
- 24.
Bellamy and Williams, “Introduction”, p. 7, n. 28; Malik, “Pakistan”, p. 205.
- 25.
Malik, “Pakistan”, p. 221.
- 26.
Data from Pakistan Army.
- 27.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 184.
- 28.
Data from Bangladesh Prime Minister’s Office, Armed Forces Division, http://www.afd.gov.bd/index.php/un-peacekeeping/bangladesh-in-un-mission (accessed 14 June 2017).
- 29.
UN Peacekeeping, “UN Missions Summary of Military and Police”, 31 December 2016, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2016/dec16_6.pdf (accessed 14 June 2017).
- 30.
Data from Pakistan Army.
- 31.
On this point, see Bellamy and Williams, “Introduction”; Alex J. Bellamy and Paul D. Williams, “Explaining the National Politics of Peacekeeping Contributions”, in Bellamy and Williams, Providing Peacekeepers, pp. 417–436.
- 32.
Data from the World Bank, http://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/GDP.pdf (accessed 1 August 2017).
- 33.
Data from Providing for Peacekeeping, Country Profiles.
- 34.
See generally Alex J. Bellamy and Paul D. Williams, Understanding Peacekeeping (Cambridge: Polity, 2010); Marrack Goulding, “The Evolution of United Nations Peacekeeping”, International Affairs 69, no. 3 (1993), pp. 451–464; Joachim A. Koops, Norrie MacQueen, Thierry Tardy, and Paul D. Williams (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015).
- 35.
Ruchita Beri, “India’s Role in Keeping Peace in Africa”, Strategic Analysis 32, no. 2 (2008), p. 203.
- 36.
This and the rest of the section draw on research outputs of the Providing for Peacekeeping project, in particular: Banerjee, “India”; Malik, “Pakistan”; Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”.
- 37.
Banerjee, “India”, p. 227.
- 38.
I make a similar argument in Virk, “Deconstructing India’s Peacekeeping Role in Africa”, pp. 54–58.
- 39.
Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, art. 40, http://www.pakistani.org/pakistan/constitution (accessed 25 August 2013).
- 40.
Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, art. 25, http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/research/bangladesh-constitution.pdf (accessed 25 August 2013).
- 41.
Raja Mohan, “India and International Peace Operations”, p. 2.
- 42.
W. Pal Sidhu, “An Absent-Minded Peacekeeper, So Far”, Livemint, 10 July 2011, http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/TOBPhkCEBZXNN3nyP5MoXK/An-absentminded-peacekeeper-so-far.html (accessed 15 August 2013).
- 43.
Bullion, “India and UN Peacekeeping”, p. 101.
- 44.
Van Rooyen, “Blue Helmets for Africa”, p. 6.
- 45.
Sidhu, “An Absent-Minded Peacekeeper, So Far”.
- 46.
Malik, “Pakistan”, p. 213.
- 47.
Krishnasamy, “The Paradox of India’s Peacekeeping”, p. 277.
- 48.
See Krishnasamy , “The Paradox of India’s Peacekeeping”, pp. 272–273. According to Krishnasamy, “India was determined to pull out of Sierra Leone , rather than going on record as having been downgraded from commanding the mission to an ordinary peacekeeper”, suggesting that image was more important than on-the-ground need (p. 273). See also Banerjee, “India”, pp. 233–236.
- 49.
This phrase is from Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
- 50.
Beri, “India’s Role in Keeping Peace in Africa”, p. 208.
- 51.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 183.
- 52.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 195.
- 53.
Speech by Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangabandhu International Conference Centre, Dhaka, 29 May 2013. See Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 195.
- 54.
Malik, “Pakistan”, p. 210.
- 55.
This and the rest of the paragraph draw on Malik, “Pakistan”, pp. 209–214.
- 56.
Malik, “Pakistan”, p. 212. See Krishnasamy, “The Paradox of India’s Peacekeeping”, pp. 275–277.
- 57.
Krishnasamy, “The Paradox of India’s Peacekeeping”, pp. 275–277.
- 58.
Alan Bullion, “India”, in David S. Sorenson and Pia Christina Woods (eds.), The Politics of Peacekeeping in the Post–Cold War Era (London and New York: Frank Cass, 2005), p. 202.
- 59.
Kudrat Virk, “India and R2P’s Burdens of Dissent and Accommodation”, in Monica Serrano and Thomas G. Weiss (eds.), The International Politics of Human Rights: Rallying to the R2P Cause? (New York: Routledge, 2014), p. 135.
- 60.
See, for example, “Africa Has Emerged as the Next Growth Frontier—Says Trade and Industry Minister, Rob Davies”, 18 July 2012, http://www.gov.za/africa-has-emerged-next-growth-frontier-%E2%80%93-says-trade-and-industry-minister-rob-davies (accessed 18 June 2017).
- 61.
Rashed Uz Zaman and Niloy Ranjan Biswas, “Contributor Profile: Bangladesh”, Providing for Peacekeeping, 16 December 2016, http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org/2014/04/03/contributor-profile-bangladesh (accessed 14 June 2017). See Anbarasan Ethirajan, “Bangladeshi Companies Launch Africa Farm Lease Plan”, BBC News, 17 May 2011, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-south-asia-13428867 (accessed 18 June 2017).
- 62.
Data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity, http://atlas.media.mit.edu/en/profile/country/pak/ (accessed 12 August 2017).
- 63.
Van Rooyen, “Blue Helmets for Africa”, p. 6. He writes thus, but of India’s motives for peacekeeping in Africa: “What direct strategic purpose has been served by its participation in missions in African countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone, remains cryptic, and is therefore open to theorizing”.
- 64.
This paragraph and the next paragraph draw on Virk, “Deconstructing India’s Peacekeeping Role in Africa”.
- 65.
Data from India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Department of Commerce, Export Import Data Bank, ver. 7.1—TRADESTAT, http://commerce.nic.in/eidb/default.asp (accessed 24 July 2016).
- 66.
Ruchita Beri, “Evolving India-Africa Relations: Continuity and Change”, Occasional Paper no. 76 (Johannesburg: SAIIA, February 2011), p. 12.
- 67.
Sidhu, “An Absent-Minded Peacekeeper, So Far”.
- 68.
David Axe, “Why South Asia Loves Peacekeeping”, The Diplomat, 20 December 2010, http://thediplomat.com/2010/12/20/why-south-asia-loves-peacekeeping (accessed 25 August 2013).
- 69.
Sidhu, “An Absent-Minded Peacekeeper, So Far”.
- 70.
This paragraph and the next paragraph draw on Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, especially pp. 193–203.
- 71.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 201.
- 72.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 201.
- 73.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 199.
- 74.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 195.
- 75.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, pp. 194–195.
- 76.
This paragraph draws on Malik, “Pakistan”, pp. 214–217.
- 77.
Malik, “Pakistan”, p. 215. See also Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy (London: Pluto, 2007).
- 78.
Craig Caffrey, “Indian Defence Budget Increases by 5.6%”, Jane’s 360, 1 February 2017, http://www.janes.com/article/67382/indian-defence-budget-increases-by-5-6 (accessed 18 June 2017); Jon Grevat, “Pakistan Boosts Defence Spending for 2017–18”, Jane’s 360, 30 May 2017, http://www.janes.com/article/70892/pakistan-boosts-defence-spending-for-2017-18 (accessed 18 June 2017).
- 79.
Inam-ur-Rahman Malik, “Contributor Profile: Pakistan”, Providing for Peacekeeping, 25 June 2014, http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org/2014/04/03/contributor-profile-pakistan (accessed 14 June 2017).
- 80.
Malik, “Contributor Profile: Pakistan”; World Bank, Migrant and Remittances Factbook 2016, 3rd ed. (Washington, DC, 2016), p. 12.
- 81.
Banerjee, “India”, pp. 240–243; Malik, “Pakistan”, pp. 218–220.
- 82.
Malik, “Pakistan”, p. 221.
- 83.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 199.
- 84.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, pp. 185–186.
- 85.
Banerjee, “India”, p. 233. See Adebajo, UN Peacekeeping in Africa, pp. 148–152.
- 86.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 199.
- 87.
Zaman and Biswas, “Bangladesh”, p. 192; Dipankar Banerjee, “South Asia: Contributors of Global Significance”, in Donald C.F. Daniel, Patricia Taft, and Sharon Wiharta (eds.), Peace Operations: Trends, Progress, and Prospects (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2008), pp. 197–199.
- 88.
UN Peacekeeping, “Summary of Contributions to UN Peacekeeping by Country and Post”, 30 June 2017, http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2017/jun17_4.pdf (accessed 6 August 2017).
- 89.
Malik, “Pakistan”, p. 221.
- 90.
Malik, “Pakistan”, pp. 221–222.
- 91.
Beri, “India’s Role in Keeping Peace in Africa”, pp. 211–212.
- 92.
I am grateful to Ibrahim Gambari, former Joint Special Representative of the AU-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), for this point.
- 93.
Axe, “Why South Asia Loves Peacekeeping”. In 2010, for example, the UN Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO ) introduced Community Liaison Assistants (CLAs ) to facilitate information gathering and communication with local communities; several other missions, such as those in the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan, have since followed suit.
- 94.
MONUSCO and Office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Final Report of the Fact-Finding Missions of the United Nations Joint Human Rights Office into the Mass Rapes and Other Human Rights Violations Committed by a Coalition of Armed Groups Along the Kibua-Mpofi Axis in Walikale Territory, North Kivu, from 30 July to 2 August 2010, July 2011, paras. 25, 30–31.
- 95.
Security Council Report, “Democratic Republic of the Congo”, Update Report no. 1, 3 September 2010, p. 1; MONUSCO, “Roger Meece on Kibua: ‘We Are Shocked by This Large Scale Tragedy’”, 13 September 2010, https://monusco.unmissions.org/en/roger-meece-kibua-we-are-shocked-large-scale-tragedy%E2%80%9D (accessed 21 June 2017).
- 96.
MONUSCO and OHCHR, Final Report, paras. 47, 17.
- 97.
See, for example, Danielle Shapiro, “Congo: UN Scrambles to Better Protect Civilians in Wake of Mass Rape”, Christian Science Monitor, 13 November 2010, https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/2010/1113/Congo-UN-scrambles-to-better-protect-civilians-in-wake-of-mass-rape (accessed 21 June 2017).
- 98.
“Indian Army Probing Sexual Abuse Charges Against UN Peacekeepers in Congo”, NDTV, 7 June 2011, http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/indian-army-probing-sexual-abuse-charges-against-un-peacekeepers-in-congo-110764 (accessed 26 August 2013).
- 99.
“Who Will Watch the Watchmen?”, The Economist, 29 May 2008, http://www.economist.com/node/11458241 (accessed 24 December 2016).
- 100.
Kate Grady, “Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by UN Peacekeepers: A Threat to Impartiality”, International Peacekeeping 17, no. 2 (2010), p. 219.
- 101.
Richard Gowan and Megan Gleason, “UN Peacekeeping: The Next Five Years: A Report by the New York University Center on International Cooperation Commissioned by the Permanent Mission of Denmark to the United Nations”, November 2012, p. 12, http://cic.es.its.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/cic_un_fiveyears.pdf (accessed 24 August 2013); Providing for Peacekeeping, “Breakdown of Peacekeepers Contributed by Region as of December 2016”, http://www.providingforpeacekeeping.org/peacekeeping-data-graphs (accessed 21 June 2017).
- 102.
Garima Mohan, “Modernizing India’s Approach to Peacekeeping: The Case of South Sudan”, 3 October 2016, http://carnegieindia.org/2016/10/03/modernizing-india-s-approach-to-peacekeeping-case-of-south-sudan-pub-64594 (accessed 1 August 2017).
- 103.
Rohan Mukherjee and David M. Malone, “India and the UN Security Council: An Ambiguous Tale”, Economic and Political Weekly 48, no. 29 (20 July 2013), p. 114.
- 104.
Richard Gowan, “Diplomatic Fallout: Frustrations Mount for India at the UN”, World Politics Review, 15 April 2013.
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Virk, K. (2018). South Asian Peacekeepers in Africa. In: Karbo, T., Virk, K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Peacebuilding in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62202-6_24
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