CMC Research Days

Wednesday 17 November 2010, Kuopio

Politics and International Organisations

It is a great pleasure and an honour for me to address this audience for several different reasons. Firstly because it is a very distinguished audience, but also because as a member of the Finnish Parliament and of its Foreign Affairs Committee I am on a daily basis occupied with these questions, and last but not least because I have been working with minority and autonomy questions my whole life and therefore also asked to join a peace keeping mission.

I very often speak about the autonomy of the Åland Islands, and one of the most essential components in our autonomy is “politics and international organisations” just as the title that was suggested for my speech here, but I will come back to that later.

I have been asked to draw on my personal experience from “my” peace-keeping mission, which was The United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), United Nations Confidence Restoration Operation (UNCRO) and later United Nations Transitional Authority in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES), or former Yugoslavia. It was the biggest peace-keeping mission at its time, right in the middle of Europe. With the most experienced military peace keepers, as well as the most civilian peace-keepers. Head of the mission was people like Yasushi Akashi and Kofi Annan, my immediate boss was Sergio Vieira de Mello. We cooperated with experienced politicians like Lord Owen, Thorvald Stoltenberg, Knut Vollebaeck, Kaj Eide and many more. Every international organisation and non-governmental organization anyone had heard of, and even non-governmental organizations no one had ever heard of came to join us. Every single non-governmental organization had to be on record having been present in Sarajevo even if just once. Analyst, think tanks, you’ll name it they were all there. There were people only trying to coordinate the work of the different organisations, and it all became the international community.

Despite all the ambitions, and all the resources amounted we did not stop the war, we did not make the peace, we did not protect the people who needed protection, we did not solve the conflicts, and we did not build a democratic society with good governance. The war was stopped, and good-governance and democracy is to be found in the Balkans, but it was not done by us. We, the traditional peace-keepers under UN-mandate, nor the military nor the civilian structure. It was solved by the assistance of individual countries, or contact groups representing some countries. The war in Bosnia was stopped in Dayton thanks to the involvement of the US. As this was the media war we had the spotlights on every step taken, and it was impossible do cover-up our failures and hide our short-comings. It was all revealed. Very few countries were ready to operate under UN-command after all the failures in the Balkans. The United States is of course a super power that has been, if not able to operate on their own so at least to run the show, in Iraq, in Afghanistan etc, with or without. But the European countries were obliged, and determined to create a structure within which they could operate together, without killing the UN.

The UN has the institutional memory, and will for many years be important, but we will see the importance of the military component of the UN be of less or no importance. So far it is NATO that has taken over the military crisis management operations, and asked by the UN to do so, but this might change. There can be other configurations such as European or even Nordic. I am convinced there has to be a change in the Security Councils decision making process, but I am unable to even guess how.

We trust that we Europeans are efficient and able to cooperate, but we now on the other hand that the European Rapid Reaction Forces were formed four years ago, and have not yet been in action, and we have also established and trained a Nordic Battle Group with the no lack of tasks, and could be sent to many places around the world. The picture is the same on the civilian side, the Civilian side, the Civilian Response Team has had almost no tasks to perform, and it is not due to lack of competence or readiness. The personnel is well trained and ready to go, but the politicians are incapable of making use of them, it is a question of decision-making.

On the national level we have in Finland as you all know completed a Comprehensive Crisis Management Strategy and I think we have all reasons to be satisfied with our goals. "The aim of the comprehensive crisis management strategy is to strengthen a comprehensive approach in Finnish crisis management activities. Military and civilian crisis management, as well as development cooperation and humanitarian assistance should be coordinated to achieve the best possible synergies as well as sustainable results." The strategy includes most elements that should be there.

I believe it is relatively clear how we should build the national capacity to participate in crisis management missions and how we should maintain the national preparedness. But no strategy is without complications. In Finland the Ministry of Interior is responsible for civilian crisis management, the Ministry of Defence is responsible for military crisis management and the Foreign Affairs is responsible for deciding which operations Finland will take part in. All three ministries assure us politicians that the cooperation runs smoothly, and we are of course happy to hear that, but personally I am not sure that this is the best way of using the resources. The Foreign Ministry has to have the lead on how the foreign policy should be conducted, and crisis management is part of the foreign policy.

The international community is so important to the conflicting parties, may it be the UN, OSCE, NATO, European Union, a Humanitarian Organisation, a non-governmental organization, an individual country or a group of countries that we have the responsibility to be if not a model, so at least assist when needed, both militarily but also in civilian crisis management, and confidence building measures.

Military and civilian components blur the picture, the border line between the military and the civilian components. But this does not mean that the civilians will carry out military duties, but that the military will take on civilian duties, duties that have earlier been done by civilians. Is this what we want? Is this in accordance with our policy, the strategy laid out in the national parliaments? We argue that protection is needed in the area, the civilians can not work without the military protection, and of course there is a need for military escorts and protection in some dangerous situations, but we should not forget that many of the humanitarian organisations and non-governmental organizations operated in the area on their own long before the military protection had arrived. I personally believe that we should be very critical before we accept that the military takes over civilian tasks, may it be in accordance with the new NATO strategy or some other plans. This is in my opinion one of the most dangerous threats to the perception of the “international community”. The way the military acts, with or without weapons, is the way the international community is perceived no matter what the goal is.

I said in the beginning that I very often speak about “the international community” in connection with the Ålands islands. The Åland solution is famous because it is one of the few conflicts that have been resolved by an international organisation in a sustainable way. Conflict and minority questions are always international questions, in former Yugoslavia, in China etc. It is very often not until violent actions take place, that the international community is asked to intervene. The Åland question was discussed in Paris after the first World War but referred the League of Nations by Britain in 1921. It was conflict resolution as a confidence building measure long before those terms came to use.

The foreign ministry has taught me that I should have three points:

1. We have the responsibility to see to that there is an international community to turn to
to count on, to trust when needed. Some conflicts are not only internal conflicts, and we have the responsibility to protect.

2. There has to be a well thought through strategy on every national level. Of course we have to cooperate internationally, but the civilian and military contribution should be based on the foreign policy and political strategy of the country. All elements should be well connected and based on a common approach. The crisis management training of personal will have to follow these lines.

3. The international cooperation should involve the responsibility for the decision making process, and for the coordination. But what does that mean? I do mot think that anyone can answer that question right now. We have still not put our acts together after the war in the Balkans. The UN is still there, and would as we all know have been invented if it had not yet existed. I will not dwell on the difficulties the UN has gone through, and more is to come I am sure of that. There is a need for more regional involvement, the African Union and the EU should be more active.

Finally I want to mention the importance of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women Peace and Security. The resolution is extremely important and can not be left unmentioned in a discussion on international cooperation and conflict resolution. Finland now has a national plan for implementation of resolution 1325 although the plan was produced somewhat late (in 2008). The Finnish national plan is taken seriously and CMC has a central role in the implementation of 1325 in Finnish international cooperation.