***Ituri is perhaps a stray incident, and, shocking and sad as it is, it is hoped that this will not have any negative impact on our commitment to UN peace operations. But complacency, if any, in our operational alertness, must also be eschewed. Being vigilant and alive to the likely eventualities would help us avoid loss of lives in future.***

THE death of nine Bangladesh soldiers came as shocking and sad news to all of us. The death of one soldier is one too many, not to speak of nine of them falling victim at one time to militia bullets in a distant land.

It has always been my firm conviction that there are no bigger pacifists than soldiers, and if there is anything that they are more adept at doing than conducting war, it is making peace. And it was in the process of making peace between the hostile elements in a country, far away from ours, that nine of our brave men met their tragic end on February 25. The Bangladeshi patrol was reportedly ambushed 5 kilometers west of Kafe, in the district of Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), by one of the armed groups that refused to participate in the international community sponsored Disarmament and Community-Based Reintegration process.

It may be mentioned that at this point in time Bangladesh is engaged in as many as 12 UN peace missions all over the world contributing almost 8,000 troops, making it one of the largest troop contributing countries to UN peace missions.

To many it might appear rather irreconcilable having to lose lives while trying to keep peace, and helping the people of a country, plagued by internecine bloodletting for the last decade, to transition to an institutionalised political process.

The deaths will naturally raise questions about our future participation in UN peacekeeping operations and also whether or not we should rethink our involvement in missions that are fraught with danger and might in effect amount to making our peacekeepers "cannon fodders" of the local armed militias hell bent on death and pillage.

Thus there is a need to look at the relevant portion of the UN Charter that deals with peace missions undertaken by the UN and what "peacekeeping" actually involves. In fact, the concept of "peacekeeping" was never even considered an option of the UN when the Charter was drawn up in 1945, and as such finds no mention in it. What Chapter VI of the UN Charter envisaged was "Pacific Settlement of Disputes," while Chapter VII deals with, "Action With Respect To Threats to the Peace, Breaches Of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression." The concept of "peacekeeping" subsequently emerged when the need was felt to provide diplomatic space to the belligerents to sort matters out, by interposing UN blue berets between them in a situation that was short of peace enforcement as stipulated in Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Congo is an instance of a UN mission mandated under Chapter VII of its Charter that authorised

use of force in dealing with the situation in the DRC, particularly in the two most disturbed areas of the country, Kivu and Ituri.

To those that have lost their dear ones in the recent incident, the fact that such dangers are but a part of the occupational hazards that soldiers face at all times will come as very little comfort. But one must also acknowledge the presence of certain ground realities in the DRC. MONUC or the United Nation's Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, as the acronym stands for, has mutated over the last five years from a representative mission with 100 or so observers in the seven countries that were party to the ceasefire agreement signed in Lusaka on July 10, 1999, to an almost 13,000 strong mission as of today, though much less than what the UN Secretary General had asked for initially. MONUC's mandate has also gone through significant I enhancement in its scope and

area of operations that its tasks I mandate it to cover, and if one

looks carefully at the acronym one I would find the two most important adjuncts of any UN peacekeeping operations, "peace" and "ob. server" absent. This only indicates the wide scope of the tasks mandated to MONUC.

Apart from overseeing the

compliance with the provisions of the Ceasefire Agreement, the mission has been tasked to help the process of political transition in the Congo. This in itself is a significant undertaking since it involves not only disarming the various parties and militias which are heavily armed, but also to see that they are integrated into society, a tall order indeed. This is where the role of the peacekeeper assumes significance. Also involved in the exercise is the protection of the internally displaced persons that are put up in various camps all over the region; in other words, these actions precede and help create conditions for holding elections, slated for sometime in mid-2005.

It must also be mentioned that Congo today is perhaps the most dangerous mission area and the UN resolution of July 28, enhancing the size of the force and expanding the scope of the tasks, was made under Chapter VII of the UN charter, i.e. enforcement of peace where force was envisaged to be used particularly in the provinces of Bunia, where the Bangladesh troops are deployed under the Ituri brigade, and Kivu. According to the mandate, "In order to fulfill its mandate, the Security Council authorizes MONUC to use all means in Ituri district, and as deemed neces-

sary and within the limits of its capacities, in the Kivu's."

Although it is in Ituri where we took so many casualties, it was not the first time that our peacekeepers had come under attack. Our experience in Bihac and also the constant physical threat our peacekeepers were exposed to in Cambodia are fresh in our minds. It may, thus, be a pertinent question whether we could avoid such dangerous UN missions in future and not expose our peacekeepers to physical dangers.

Unfortunately, we cannot cherry-pick the missions that we would like to participate in. All mission areas, without exception, have elements of hazard inherent in them that are often unpredictable, and risks that are sometimes difficult to foresee. It is worth mentioning that it was the experience of our troops and the level of competence that they had acquired in the previous peacekeeping operations that were the main determining factors in entrusting them with the responsibility of a very dangerous region of the mission area. It is also an acknowledged fact that the security environment in the region had significantly improved after Bangbat had taken over the responsibility of the area. We often forget what Einstein said about peace, that it couldn't be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. It was "understanding" that our peacekeepers were trying to sow among the disparate groups in the region.

Since it is not up to us to chose our mission area, the best we can do, having undertaken to invest troops in the mission area, which must be done after proper risk and threat assessment so as to preclude all possible dangers, is to provide the necessary training to the troops to stand them in good stead. It has to be kept in mind though that it is well nigh impossible to simulate the geography, environment, political or security situation prevailing in the mission area in our training matrix.

Ituri is perhaps a stray incident, and, shocking and sad as it is, it is hoped that this will not have any negative impact on our commitment to UN peace operations. But complacency, if any, in our operational alertness, must also be eschewed. Being vigilant and alive to the likely eventualities would help us avoid loss of lives in future.

One would also like to wish that peace be established soon in the DRC. Only then will the sacrifice of our soldiers not have gone in vain.

The author is Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.