What follows is an excerpt from the newly published book, by Enrico Magnani, entitled, The Forgotten Peacekeepers: The United Nations Special Committee on the Balkans (UNSCOB) (1947-1952) and the Military Observers of the Balkan Sub-Commission (1952-1954). You may read this book here.
The subject chosen for this work brings together two professional and personal interests.
Since the years I was a student at the University of Rome, I was interested in the history of Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
Then, my professional career entered since 1991 in the field of peace support operations, initially within editorial aspects, with publications of books and essays, and, since 1995, with direct involvement began with my participation to the EU Mission in Palestine.
This was followed by the participation to the OSCE Missions in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1996 and 1997. In 1999, I was recruited by the United Nations to serve in MINURSO, where I am since now.
The interest for the peacekeeping became more professional. The participation in the decision-makers group of a small, as it is the UN Mission in Western Sahara, allowed to study, learn and interprets learn principles and mechanisms (also informal and unofficial) of the machinery of the organization from inside.
My position of active peacekeeper, as well as the willing to increase knowledge and awareness, was further boosted by the participation at the activities of the ICMH (International Commission of Military History), CRE (Consortium of Revolutionary Era), ICOHTEC (International Committee for the History of Technology), BDC (Baltic Defense College), with the presentation of several papers, all focused on the peace-support operations since XIX Century.
The UNSCOB as subject of this work allowed me to put together the two above-mentioned interests. More, allowed finally to clarify, to myself as first, why the United Nations, among the peacekeeping missions, did not officially included the work of the Special Committee on the Balkans, and the military observers of the Balkan Special Sub-Commission of United Nation Peace Observation Commission.
The official answer of the organization did not covered all the real aspects and shade of the Special Committee operational and legal framework.
The fact that the Special Committee was a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly and did not answered to the Secretary-General for the whole activities was not considered sufficient, in consideration of the growing complexities of the United Nations.
During the work of researches, emerged that the Special Committee not only paved the way in many aspects to similar activities on the ground; several issues appeared as innovative and since then, are perpetuated and remain presents in the operational, legal, financial and ethical frameworks of the UN peace-related activities on the terrain.
Again, the personal curiosity led the identification of the Greek civil war not simply a minor conflict and a crisis of rising Cold War. It was one of the first confrontation between two ideological blocks, and included, aside the dynamics of two polarized politico-military entities, unresolved rivalries emerged after the Balkan wars and WWI and WWII.
The entire issue was not a clearly delimited phase of European history of seventy years ago, but projected some elements of reflection on the contemporaneity, starting from to the roles of the international community to the interstates confrontation within international organizations, passing through civil wars and opposed economic, social and cultural models, ending to the management of the borders and conciliation between neighbor states, often former warring. All of it remained a matter of policy-making of the present days.
The plan for this work, and its content as well, saw a major change from the original project submitted and approved.
During the researches works emerged the need to include in a new chapter devoted to the conciliation action related to the Greek civil war crisis, attempted by the then Australian Foreign Minister, Herbert Vere Evatt.
The attempt, launched without any pre-consultation with other partners involved in the Balkan file, despite efforts and goodwilling of the Australian official, did not bring results at all. And, at the contrary, originated crispation between Australia from one side and US and UK in the other. The activities of this short-lived body, could be considered weak-willed, as were the results of the Conciliation Committee. However, it allowed to disclose more clearly how deep, and historically rooted, were the divisions and rivalries of the states of the region, which the ideological insurrection of Greek communist at the end represented an additional element to an already inextricable scenario.
The work allowed to know more and to be more aware about my work discovering that many situations, not only in political dimension, but also in the administrative and budgetary had a line of continuity.
After the period considered, the post-Cold War saw the massive explosion of intrastate conflicts, which replaced the interstate ones, which prevailed before.
The UN tried to answer to this new challenge to the international community. This answer was not always at the level of the threat posed by those conflicts and often these missions were impotent witness of massive killing and atrocities.
The expansion of it had naturally an impact on the command architecture. The
UN Office for Special Political Affairs was created by the second Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld to manage the growing requirement the Cold War peacekeeping operations. Originally, the office had both an American and a Soviet official as equals. Further to the ordinary management of the peacekeeping operations, they took on projects that were not specifically under the mandate of the Secretariat, like conflicts control. For the first three years (1955-1957), the office was referred to as the Office of Under-Secretaries without a specific Department assigned. (1)
Till up to the late 1980s, UNOSPA did not had more than a dozen of staffers and their limited number impacted negatively in the conduct of complex operations like it was in the former Belgian Congo, with lack of coordination between the HQ in New York and the mission on the ground.
In consideration of the enormous development of peacekeeping operations, it was transformed in UNDPKO and massively expanded in terms of staff and capacity in command, control and communication as well as of logistic support with the establishment of three enormous logistic bases, located in Brindisi (Italy), Entebbe (Uganda) and Valencia (Spain). (2)
All the civil wars which stormed (till today) Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi,
Cambodia, Central America, Darfur (Sudan), Haiti, Iraq, Ivory Coast,
Liberia, Libya, Mali, Mozambique, RCA, RDC, Rwanda, Salvador, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, saw the deployment of more or less massive UN military forces and contingents of police.
The UN missions often operate aside to not-UN forces (NATO, AU, ‘coalition of willing’s’), but the unarmed observers, sometime present, were reduced in role, even if their number remained important, like in the missions which operated, under different names, since 1999 in DRC.
The missions in Syria and Colombia were the last, in order of time, formed exclusively by unarmed military observers. UNSMIS operated (or try to operate) only for few weeks, but the level of the violence on the ground and lack of any dialogue between government and opposition, forced the UN to withdraw it after few weeks of deployment. The one in Colombia, which see the establishment of another one tasked of the long-term verification the implementation of the agreements, had a better result, due to a clear political agreement between the parties (government and armed opposition movements), signed before the deployment of UN mission.
Currently, there are only four at the present time, UNTSO, UNMOGIP and MINURSO, MINUC (on the way to be replaced by MINUVEC) reflecting that this operational profile (and political framework) is perceived as marginal in the current situation, where the increasing attacks against the UN personnel, obliged the organization to have on the ground forces with self-defence and implementation mandate capabilities also to avoid the criticism of the TCCs/PCCs.
This situation, together with the substantial disappearance of the good offices, fact-finding activities of the present days, reflect the new stance and legal and political framework of the organization. (3)
The turbulent ‘40s saw the last civil war that had no direct foreign intervention or direct, massive participation of ‘blue helmets’ as it was in former Belgian Congo and Cyprus (and later in many other places).
UNSCOB mission was marked by the fact, for reasons, dealt only with Greek governmental authorities. Among all the missions dispatched, with different nature, format, mandate and strength, the Special Committee appeared to be the most successful despite some minus. One of the major limit, which affected the legitimacy of UNSCOB was the fact that it was appointed and supported by only one side and that it was denied to the fundamental character of a UN activity, the cooperation of all the side concerned. As the Greek civil war was an unique situation, the Special Committee it was too.
UNSCOB was the first real field operation on the ground, organized by the organization (regardless if was not put under the direction of the Secretary-General). In the life of the entire operations are recorded elements which marked the operations of stabilization of the organization (within the term stabilization are included the peacekeeping, peacemaking, peacebuilding, peace-restoration and the UN-led and organized peace-enforcement missions).
Those could be, partially, listed in:
- Definition of a clear and realistically implementable mandate;
- Loyalty to the organization and its aims of personnel (seconded or not);
- Clear and transparent support (political, military and financial) from the Member States;
- A defined structure of command, control and communication;
- Cooperation of all the concerned parties;
- Efficient and effective management of human resources and material assets;
As said, the UN is a political organization and the politics overcome sometime the principle of which it is based. This situation is reflected in all the pro and cons of this summary list. The nature of the mandate (regardless if issued by the Council or by the Assembly) is a basic issue. The lack of clarity and realism, or a bad compromise between divergent positions among the Member States, negatively affects all the life of the mission as well as the implementation of the mandate.
UNSCOB, as tool established during a moment of serious ideological polarization, saw some cases of proximity of observers, especially from US and UK, with their countrymen advisors of the Greek forces, affecting the image and substance of impartiality of the mission, even if in the training of the observers the UN was presented as a bastion against the hegemonic action of other group od states; the loyalty of the UN personnel remain a major challenge and it should be enforced also in case of the seconded personnel (military, police and civilians) to the organizations as well as for the directly-hired ones.
The relations of the Member States with the Special Committee was an intricate mixture of positions, where the instrumentalization of the action of UNSCOB toke different level, as well as the perception of it. The ambiguous stance of some Member States in providing political support, military and civilian observers, financial funds necessary for a proper work is a negative example, which saw many other cases. Paradoxically, the hostile position of the Soviet bloc was more clear and acceptable, even based into an ideological view of the organization and of the Special Committee, and the organization too, considered by Moscow and proxies, as a servant of the Western bloc hegemonic projects.
UNSCOB was a new case for the organization, which answered as the best possible, in consideration that the administrative structure for the entire UN was moving the first steps. The firm hand of the Principal Secretary allowed the Special Committee to work in difficult situation (Greece, already a poor country before WWII, was severely affected by the physical and moral destruction of the war against the Axis and the civil war).
The lack of cooperation of Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia was the first case of hostile stance of concerned parties. Many UN missions faced (and face today) situation which ran from the formal acceptance of an alien presence to the patent hostility.
UNSCOB, among many innovative things, inaugurated the concept of the voluntary contributions from Member States. This concept, parallel with the requirement of proper management of organization-own assets, remain a sensitive issue of the life of the organization due to the risk of political manipulation that the voluntary contribution means.
The Special Committee, together with other similar bodies established in the beginning of the life of the United Nations, was more similar to the spirit and the practice to the few examples set up by the predecessor organization, the League of Nations. In those bodies, generally numerically limited the role of the Member States was preponderant and the functions provided by the organization, via its personnel from the Secretariat was minimal.
This situation was due for cultural and functional reasons. There was still predominant the marginal role of the international organization, like it was for the League (in this the League inherited the principles which established the Conferences of States and Ambassadors of XIX and beginning of XX Century), role that the United Nations want to change.
Secondly, the Secretariat of the organization was still under construction, without a permanent seat, scattered between Paris, London, New York and Geneva and with a very limited number of staff, including the ones transferred from the League to United Nations.
(The limited number of staff of the League, less the 100 professionals and 400 administrative support, was considered one of the reasons of the poor performances of the Geneva-based organization).
Just after a decade, the organization, with a more solid structure, but with a persistent uncertain political support from Member States divided by the Cold War, was able to play a growing role in the field operations, cornering the role of the Member States in to a politico-administrative-financial and military control made at the central level and in providing military and police personnel in the various peace-keeping operations.
It remained however, an initial role of the Member States in the UN field machinery, but only into the missions dispatched by the Department of Political Affairs and also in this area, with the consolidation and massive expansion and specialization of the staffing of the Secretariat, their effective role on the field decreased. The Secretariat through the Department of Political Affairs, with his mediation and political investigation teams, progressively removed the last presence of the Member States from the field.
Between UNSCOB (and other similar entities established in the late ’40s) and the present days, the peacekeeping saw major evolutions and changes, from the Cold War to the multipolar world, from the unarmed personnel to attack helicopters, from the high visibility of vehicles and personnel to the camouflage.
Both extremes recorded, and record today, a large amount of results. In this sense the UN intervention in the post WWII Balkans is an example of it. The Special Committee (the Special Sub-Commission played a much minor role, operating in a political scenario marked by decisive improvement of inter-states relations in the region) was an effective tool which avoided that a local crisis escalated in a much wider conflict.
The few observers of the Special Committee avoided the possible deployment of US and Western troops on the borders of Greece with Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia reducing the risk of confrontation with Moscow proxies and the same USSR following.
The mission, despite suffering the under dimension, strength and capacity, provided a much larger impact over the region stability. However, as mentioned before, several external factors (to the UN and to Special Committee) facilitated it. The first was, aside the Yugoslav schism, the ambiguous approach of Moscow, which did not hesitate to abandon the long time planned KKE insurgency after having boosted it and realizing that the plan to include Greece in socialist block of states moved to the collapse. At the same time, the weakest stakeholder, Greece, show a unexpected determination facing the brutalities of the insurgency and did not renounced to the claims against Albania and did not ceded vis-à-vis the claims of Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, blocking for several years any possibility to launch a UN-led mediation (regardless carried out by UNSCOB and/or Conciliation Committee).
Athens, despite a fragmented, frantic and limited political landscape (due to the exclusion/self exclusion of KKE and the marginalization of the moderate left) enjoyed of a strong support from UK and US. Especially Washington expressed the toughest criticism toward the corruption and inefficiency of the public administration; thus the mentorship to the armed forces progressively extended to the economic dimension and political control, as emerged on the dynamics of the Greek parliamentary vote of spring-summer 1952.
The US, that emerged as the main stakeholder of Western economic and military architecture, saw the UN involvement of a useful tool to reduce the influence of Moscow in critical corner point between Mediterranean, Europe, Middle East and Africa. The support of Washington was determinant in collecting the cohesive consensus in the General Assembly toward the Special Committee and kept it till necessary, when the military situation was stabilized in favor of Greek government and when Yugoslavia firmly pursued in an autonomous path, away from the USSR hegemony.
The dependency of the Special Committee to the Assembly limited the effectiveness of the action of UNSCOB, due to the absence of real enforcement capability of the Assembly. However, despite this limit, due to the Soviet vetoes, the Security Council could not intervene at all in the Greek crisis.
The mediation aspect of the UNSCOB remained in the limbo, due the practical impossibility by the Special Committee to investigate on it (due to the inexistence of cooperation from Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia) and under a more broader view, the no results of the Conciliation Committee showed that the space for it was very limited and that the rivalries between Athens and his northern neighbours were more profound that the one originated by the KKE insurgency.
Like many other UN operations on the field, UNSCOB contained several element of analysis. Not all were adopted by the organization. The first organic one was made only in 1958, on decision of the then UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld who instructed the Secretariat to begin a careful study and analysis of the UNEF experience in order to give the United Nations a sound foundation, “should the Organization wish to build an agreed standby plan for a United Nations peace force that could be activated on short notice in future emergencies to serve in similar ways”. (4)
The ‘Summary Study’, even focused on a operation with formed troops, set out a series of principles relating to key aspects of peacekeeping process such as host state (or authority in case of de-facto powers on the ground), the appropriate type of contributing states, freedom of movement, political neutrality and financing. These, were key aspects of UNSCOB work became in Hammarskjöld view, should form the basis of a future peacekeeping model of operation.
The ‘Summary Study’ was prepared on initial reports on UNEF but included the lessons-learned from other UN previous missions. While acknowledging that the UN mission at Suez Canal had characteristics which would not necessarily replicated in future emergencies, it was sought to identify certain basic principles and rules which would provide an adaptable framework.
Peacekeeping, as said before, was not envisaged in the Chapter VII, there was therefore no obligations to take part to operations (and in the case of UNSCOB, USSR and Poland, although invited did not provide delegate for the Special Committee and Pakistan and Australia, despite seating in did not provided the members for the observation teams for the field operations). In other words, a peace operation could not be forced on a country. National sovereignty remained central in relation to any arrangement that the UN might put in place.
The United Nations itself is an inter-governmental organization based on the principle of sovereign equality, which it is applied also to non-member states (as were Albania and Bulgaria until December 1955, when they joined the organization).
The principle of host state consent, and in a lesser degree to the de facto authorities, like it was for the territories under the control of the communist insurgency in Greece, is more in the reality than in the theory. Concerned states, and irregular parties as well, would be hardly persuaded to agree to the presence of UN personnel presence, regardless their juridical status, military, civilian, hired directly or seconded to the organization, on its own territory as it was for Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.
The issue of the host consent it is strictly related with the freedom of movement of the UN personnel, where the political consent is close to the issue the personal safety and security of those personnel.
Further, in general terms the participation of personnel of some Member States (namely mainly US, UK, France, the Netherlands) at the UNSCOB was reason of criticism from the insurgency and the communist states.
This situation was repeated in different scenario arriving to the cases of the UN mission in Namibia and Iraq where military contingents (Swedish in the first case) and for the second case for US, British and Australian government-seconded experts were banned to that territories.
Further, nationals from the mentioned countries directly hired by the organization were not allowed by the same organization to work in that areas.
Thus, despite the host state/authorities in principles have no rights to dictate the composition of UN missions deployed on their territory.
As final words, the entire UN-led action and machinery in the Balkans (Commission of Investigation Concerning Greek Frontier Incidents and the Subsidiary Group, the Special Committee, the Conciliation Committee, the Sub-Commission) did not achieved fully their mandate in consideration of the little room of a possible settlement between Greece and its northern neighbours without the direct involvement of the Great Powers (namely US and USSR) which have instead divergent views, approaches, priorities and agendas.
UN inquiries and observation operations operated within a Greek, Balkan and global interests and conflicts. This grid of convergent and divergent trends, new and old, made these activities uneasy. The UN observers (from UNSCOB and Sub-Commission), and the organization as well, was at the center of persistent attacks, more verbal than physical from both sides and consequently praised and blamed, scorned and admired. This situation saw stability and fluctuation. The stability in the negative judgment came for the USSR, proxies and communist insurgents, while from the Greek government, public opinion and media fluctuated from the negative to the positive, following the evolution of the military situation on the ground.
The UN observers, as already mentioned, were considered a useful and innovative tool to reduce the tensions, but did not achieved in the mediation, instead witnessed the ties between the insurgents and Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, contributing to prepare the terrain for a non-UN led conciliation.
The personnel of United Nations inaugurated the tradition to operate under instructions and guidance’s of high moral standard, which considered them as the wardens, eyes and hears, of a democratic world. Sometime their stance was polarized due to ideological position or instruction of their governments.
