NEUTRALITY OF THE PEACE MISSIONS OF THE UN: AN STUDY CASE OF SOMALIA AND RUANDA

Abstract

Peace missions of the UN is one of the responses the organization has in order to full ll its purpose of securing peace and international security. They have to deploy with the consent of the state host, not to combat unless forced to in self defense and to maintain an estrict neutrality respecting the parts in conflict. In this way the UN avoid themselves to take sides on the conflict, preserve the state’ sovereignty and “get away” of the accusation of implementing a “multilateral colonialism”. In this work, we pretend to analyze, taking the cases of Ruanda and Somalia, how the issue of neutrality of the peace missions, can attempt against the success of the mission, and worse, can escalate the conflict, make the fate of civilians worse, and also be the cause of humanitarian catastrophies in their worst expression: genocide.