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ONUC's Civilian Operations: State-Preserving and State-Building

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Harold Karan Jacobson
Harold Karan Jacobson
Affiliation:
University of Michigan
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Extract

The United Nations involvement in the Congo crisis can be viewed in various perspectives. It is a significant example of the UN's peace-keeping activities and a formidable test of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjùld's concept of preventive diplomacy. From the viewpoint of legal analysis, it shows the flexibility of the Charter. In terms of the UN's institutions, it demonstrates both the potentialities and the perils of the development of the executive capacity of the SecretaryGeneral. In addition, in the Civilian Operations of the United Nations Operation in the Congo (abbreviated as ONUC, the initials of Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo), it has another, less widely known facet Alongside efforts to contain, ease, and ultimately eliminate the political-military crisis in the Congo, the United Nations has undertaken through ONUC's Civilian Operations emergency and longer-term functions which can most appropriately be called “statepreserving” and “state-building.”

Type
Research Article
Information
World Politics , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , October 1964 , pp. 75 - 107
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1964

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References

1 For thorough treatments of nation-building, see Pye, Lucian W., Politics, Personality and Nation Building: Burma's Search for Identity (New Haven 1962)Google Scholar, esp. parts 1 and VI; and Deutsch, Karl W. and Foltz, William J., eds., Nation-Building (New York 1963)Google Scholar.

2 See UN Economic Commission for Africa, “Economic Development in the Republic of the Congo (Leopoldville): 1957–1960,” Economic Bulletin for Africa, 1 (January 1961), 90–102.Google Scholar

3 See van Bilsen, Antoine A. J., L'Independance du Congo (Tournai 1962), 165–74Google Scholar. M. van Bilsen, who in 1955 had been the first Belgian to suggest publicly a timetable for granting independence to the Congo, served as an adviser to M. Kasa-Vubu in 1960 and was a member of M. Yumbu's mission.

4 Colin Legum has asserted that they would remain under Belgian control (Congo Disaster [Baltimore 1961], 93); however, the documents are less than clear on this point See van der Meersch, W. J. Ganshof, Fin de la souveraineté beige au Congo: Documents et reflexions (Brussels 1963), 361–62Google Scholar; and Gerard-Libois, J. and Vcrhaegen, Benoit, Congo, 1960 (Brussels, n.d.), 1, 46–47Google Scholar, 67–69, 97, and 11, 526–30.

5 Gérard-Libois and Verhaegen, I, 88.

6 Ibid., II, 541.

7 For an insightful analysis of the United Nations Force in the Congo, see Burns, Arthur Lee and Heathcote, Nina, Peace-Keeping by U.N. Forces: From Suez to the Congo (New York 1963)Google Scholar.

8 UN Document S/4387.

9 UN Security Council, Official Records (873rd meeting: 13 July 1960), 3–5 (hereinafter cited as SC, Records).

10 UN Document S/4389, 11.

11 UN Document S/4405.

12 UN Document S/4417/Add. 5. The following quotations are taken from that memorandum.

13 See Sharp, Walter R., Field Administration in the United Nations System: The Conduct of International Economic and Social Programs (New York 1961), 379–87Google Scholar; and Shonfield, Andrew, The Attack on World Poverty: A Comprehensive Report on the Problems of Assistance to Underdeveloped Countries (New York 1960), 102–8, 204Google Scholar.

14 General Assembly Resolution 1854 (XVII).

15 UN Document S/4482, 3–4.

16 General Assembly Resolution 1474 (ES–IV).

17 SC, Records (879th meeting: 21 July 1960), 24.

18 UN Document S/4446 and SC, Records (888th meeting: 21 August i960), 15–17.

19 Ibid., 21.

20 UN Document 8/4446, 2.

21 SC, Records (888th meeting: 21 August i960), 22.

22 See the text of the USSR's statement on this matter: UN Document S/4416.

23 Colin Legum puts the figure at 200 (Congo Disaster, 141). The official Soviet account lists only 29 (UN Document A/C.5/837).

24 SC, Records (896th meeting: 9–10 September 1960), 18.

25 Ibid., 20.

26 UN Document S/4503, 3; and SC, Records (901st meeting: 14–15 September 1960), 12.

27 See the draft resolution proposed by the USSR: UN Document S/4519.

28 New York. Times, September 1, 1960.

29 Sec UN Document S/4557.

30 UN Document S/4741, 1.

31 UN Document, S/5240, 11.

32 For more detailed descriptions of the substantive activities of ONUC's Civilian Operations, see the serial reports published intermittently by the UN Secretariat. Of these, the most interesting are: No. 5, which covers the period from mid-July through October 1960; No. 10, covering the first year of operations; the report dated May 1, 1963, which was released on July 15, 1963; and the report covering 1963, which was issued on April 30, 1964. In addition, Ritchie Calder's popular account, Agony of the Congo (London, 1961)Google Scholar, which focuses particularly on the activities of WHO, is worthy of note, as are two articles: West, Robert L., “The United Nations and the Congo Financial Crisis: Lessons of the First Year,” International Organization, XV (Autumn 1961), 603–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Fullerton, Garry, “UNESCO in the Congo,” Unesco Courier, XVI (December 1963), 4–11.Google Scholar

33 See UN Secretariat, “Report of the United Nations Civilian Operations in the Congo,” May 1, 1963, 35–42; and Fullerton, “UNESCO in the Congo.”

34 See Gross, Leo, ”Expenses of the United Nations for Peace-Keeping Operations: The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice,” International Organization, XVII (Winter 1963), 1–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Padelford, Norman J., “Financial Crisis and the Failure of the United Nations,” World Politics, XV (July 1963), 531–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 For the latter, see UN Documents S/4389/Add. 5 and S/4807, Annex I.

36 UN Secretariat, “Progress Report No. 9 on United Nations Civilian Operations in the Congo during February 1961,” 1–2.

37 See also Calder, Agony of the Congo, 38–39, 145.

38 Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Lecture, delivered at Columbia University, March 16, 1964.

39 Lucian W. Pye has noted the general preference of leaders in newly independent states for the drama of politics as opposed to the routine of administration {Politics, Personality, and Nation Building, 5 and passim).

40 UN Secretariat, “Report No. 10 on United Nations Civilian Operations in the Congo: First Year of Operations, July i960 to June 1961,” 10–11.

41 The UN, of course, cannot claim credit for the continued viability of Elisabethville, since there were virtually no Civilian Operations there until January 1963.

42 See UN Secretariat, “Progress Report No. 5 on United Nations Civilian Operations in the Congo,” 28. After this report, which covers the period from mid-July to October 1960, there is no mention of activities in this field in ONUC's reports.

43 Dag Hammarskjùld Memorial Lecture.

44 See UN Document S/4451 and Gordon, King, The United Nations in the Congo: A Quest for Peace (New York 1962), 49–50.Google Scholar

45 The exchange of correspondence on this matter between Adoula, on the one hand, and the Secretary-General and his representative in the Congo, on the other, is contained in UN Document S/5240 and Add. 1 and 2.

46 See Montgomery, John D., The Politics of Foreign Aid: American Experience in Southeast Asia (New York 1962)Google Scholar, esp. 36, 64–70.

47 See Ibid., 160, 166; and Pye, Politics, Personality, and Nation-Building, 297.

48 See Claude, Inis L. Jr., “United Nations Use of Military Force,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, VII (June 1963), 128.Google Scholar

49 Significantly, the staff has never included any citizens of the USSR, although as of mid-1964 it did include 17 Polish citizens and four Czechoslovakians.

50 For a revealing appraisal of the difficulties which at least one American official felt would have confronted direct United States intervention, see Stevenson, Adlai E., “The United Nations, First Step Toward a World Under Law,” Department of State Bulletin, XLV (July 10, 1961), 69.Google Scholar

51 For a description of this system, see Sharp, Field Administration, 166–68.

52 Burns and Heathcote have also noted this need in their analysis of the UNF (PeaceKeeping by U.N. Forces, 57).

53 Ibid., 166ff.