Explain three conditions which led to the failure of United Nations (UN) peacekeeping attempts to resolve conflict in Angola.
After Angola became independent from the Portuguese in 1975, the Angolan Civil War that followed lasted from 1975 to 2002, killing an estimated 800,000 people and displaced nearly 4 million from their homes (Political Economy Research Institute, no date). To help resolve the conflict, the United Nations (UN) intervened and carried out peacekeeping operations in Angola. Margaret Carey suggests four eminently sensible conditions which must be in place, for UN peacekeeping operations to succeed: Firstly, the warring parties must be ready to put aside the military quest for power and pursue the settlement of the conflict…show more content… As the first, third and forth condition that Margaret Carey stated for peacekeeping operations to succeed were not fulfilled, these conditions led to the failure of UN peacekeeping attempts. I would be explaining these conditions, linking them to the outcome of failed UN peacekeeping attempts and inability to resolve conflict in Angola.
Firstly, political factionalism in Angola is one of the internal conditions that led to the failure of UN peacekeeping attempts to resolve conflict in Angola. There were political disputes between the government and National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), where the warring parties were still fighting for power, and this did not fulfill the condition of "warring parties must be ready to put aside the military quest for power and pursue the settlement of the conflict through peaceful means" (Clapham C.,1999), in order to succeed in UN peacekeeping operation. The MPLA and UNITA had fought each other for over 25 years, but had been unable to defeat each other. The MPLA was clearly stronger…show more content… The lack of resources are, to a certain extent, caused by the lack of political will of the UN in peacekeeping operations to resolve conflict. As the UN did not have much will to resolve conflict in Angola, they did not provide sufficient resources to ensure that peacekeeping operations will succeed. The key mistakes lay in the drastically reduced scale of the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM II) operation, resulting from financial constraints, and the eagerness to find a quick-fix solution to the Angolan imbroglio especially of the US. (Clapham C., 1999). This shows that the US wanted to resolve the conflict using an easy way, by spending less money, resource and time, instead of tediously identifying and addressing the underlying roots of the problem to resolve the conflict. The UN investing less resources and money led to the decreased scale of peacekeeping operations, which also reduces the chances of the peacekeeping mission to succeed. The Security Council’s lack of interest was to blame. With attention focused on Bosnia-Herzegovina, it refused to send 1,000 Blue Helmets demanded by UNITA as a precondition for signing the Abidjan protocol. (Paulo M.J., 2004). Also, UNAVEM had only been given few hundred men to carry out the enormous task of demobilising 150,000 soldiers. (Conchiglia A., No date) This