UN and Internal conflicts of the 1990s - Essay Example

Mostly those that have undergone civil strife within the warring factions in the local communities were given humanitarian relief instead of striving towards the achievement of peace through peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions, especially due to ethnic and cultural conflicts. Brahm (2005) mentions that the lack of central authority in nations that experienced tragic deaths due to ethnic and cultural conflicts makes it difficult for the UN to act, when it is in fact the UN that should already serve as the main central authority.

Brahm also cites that the UN is known to act towards existing crises, not preventing them. He continues to note that although the UN Secretary-General at the time of post by Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan was effective in extending a diplomatic hand in negotiations and interventions without the requirement of the Security Council's go-signal, it is still the Security Council who is main executor of resolutions and actions that will pursue missions. The commitment value of the Member States in assuring thorough relief and support in aiding the nations involved with civil strife based on political and cultural differences, according to Brahm, is way low, and primarily the difficulties lie in the finger-pointing of who will provide continuous advocacy that will eventually help these said afflicted nations towards their own deliverance.

In this we agree. Most of the times the UN has been seen to act based on the individual interests of the Member States, and if it is something that does not involve their nation's benefiting from such a situation, it is most likely that they are not as keen to offer sincere assistance. Still, there have been resolutions that the UN has successfully produced and achieved. Mostly these resolutions are where all parties involved have reached an agreement and has finally acknowledged the need for a peace accord.

Peacekeeping missions therefore were widely supported by Member States, as they are assigned to protect diplomatic relations by safeguarding civilians and state officials, restoration of order, helping refuges, enforcing human rights, even monitoring political environment. The opinion that "peacebuilding is a Western concept" and therefore is not applicable in most of the cases where peacebuilding was targeted to be achieved as Brahm (2005) has stated in his essay may sound questionable in itself, but is legitimate in the sense that it should be taken into context within that particular situation.

The Security Council must always take into consideration the need for understanding the historical root cause of an event such as political and civil strife in non-Western countries and use this understanding in its decision making process to reach a solid and firm resolution towards the nature of peacebuilding mission they are to send to that afflicted country. Majority of the main issues that the UN must accept and acknowledge belong to its 'inabilities' category, where the UN's failure to respond the soonest possible time to internal conflicts is due to its delay in identifying a threat to the peace as based on