by Roger White, copyright August 2018
Assignment 6 -- The United Nations has a number of peacekeeping operations around the world. You can find the current locations as of 2015 on page 236 of our text or at https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/where-we-operate. You will choose ONE to focus on for the presentation. Each group will describe the background to the conflict, the conditions on the ground today, why it is difficult to resolve and the prospects for the resolution of the crisis.
Missions: Congo, Sudan: Darfur/South Sudan/Abyai, Lebanon, Mali, Central African Rep., Ivory Coast, Haiti, Liberia, Syria (Golan Heights), Cyprus, Western Sahara, Israel, Kosovo, India/Pakistan
We have chosen Cyprus, the UN acronym is UNFICYP.
Cyprus has been a strategic island in the Eastern Mediterranean since ancient Greek times. Over the centuries it has been held by many empires. It started the 20th century technically in the hands of the Ottomans but administered by the British. It was formally taken over by the British in 1914 when the Ottomans were defeated in World War I.
The current troubles -- those that brought about the current UN intervention -- started in the 1970's. At that point the British left and Cyprus became independent as the Republic of Cyprus. The problem was caused by the people of the island being half of Greek background and half of Turkish background. (actually closer to one half Greek and one quarter Turkish) The current troubles started in 1963 as rising intercommunal violence between Greeks and Turks. Among other issues the Greeks wanted closer relations with the nation of Greece while the Turks wanted closer relations with the nation of Turkey. The violence came to a climax in 1974 when the Greeks staged a coup d'état in preparation for making a unification with Greece happen. Turkey responded by invading the north half of the island to protect their people. Following that the UN intervened and a buffer zone was established. Actually, the UN had been in Cyprus since 1964 but this hefty buffer zone was created in 1974.
The buffer zone separates the Turkish northern half of the island from the Greek southern half. The Turkish army built a Berlin Wall-style protection on their side of the buffer zone. And when the zone was established there was a large internal refugee-style migration as the Greeks moved south of the zone and the Turks moved north.
The UN is good at getting involved in trying to tone down a regional conflict, but real poor at getting the conflict resolved in a way that allows their peacekeepers to move out and move on. In this Cyprus case they have been manning a buffer zone for... what... more than fifty years now? Some of the current "Blue Helmets" could be grandkids of some of the original Blue Helmets. Other examples of decades-long peacekeeping are Golan which started in 1974, Lebanon which started in 1978 and Kashmir which started way back in 1949.
This makes me think that the UN peacekeepers need to be working much harder at coming up with permanent peaceful resolutions of these conflicts they are intervening in.
The converse example is Vietnam. The fighting there started as the French attempted to regain control following their loss of it during World War II. It ended decisively with the Americans leaving South Vietnam in 1975. Following that departure Vietnam has been a single, unified, nation that has been thriving and taking on its part in the world of nations as a single, unified nation. This is a conflict that resolved.
The stand off on Cyprus between the Greek heritage people and the Turk heritage people has gone on a long time, and continues to this day. In the 1970's it got so violent that the Turkish army came in to rescue the Turkish heritage people. The result was a standoff that divided the island between a north half that is Turkish and a south half that is Greek. That division continues to this day, and the buffer is manned by UN peacekeepers to this day, but the buffer, and the island as a whole, is now a generally peaceful place.
--The End--