Maintenance of peace after UNOSOM-1 and UNOSOM-2

• Main Authors: Cruz, Abigail, Ngo, Perpetua Calliope, Presillas, Nathalie
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2010
• Subjects: United Nations > Peacekeeping forces; International and Area Studies
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/10464
• Institution: De La Salle University

The recurring deployment of peacekeeping forces in Somalia, namely UNOSOM-1 and UNOSOM-2, brings to question the effectiveness and efficiency of current UN peacekeeping practices in light of its failure to take the cultures of UN peacekeeping forces and of the Somalis into consideration. By gathering existing reliable information as to how the Somalis responded to UNOSOM-1 and UNOSOM-2 and vice versa and utilizing Peter Katzensteins variant of Constructivism to analyze these data, it is found that the socio-cultural factors observed in the case of Somalia are said to have been the contributing cause of the missions failure. The lack of knowledge with regard to the cultural environment of Somalia and the interpretation of the Somalis regarding the mission as an intervention in their socio-cultural, political and economic affairs, along with the incongruities between UNOSOM-1 and UNOSOM-2 and the concept of peacekeeping show the need to improve current UN humanitarian intervention practices and/or to find alternative methods for it whilst taking culture into consideration. Although the notion of culture has long been relegated to the fields of sociology and anthropology in International Relations, addressing the need for more inter-cultural compatibility and flexibility between the interveners, in the form of UN peacekeeping troops, and the intervened, the Somalis, is vital.