The Profound Effects of Adult Trauma: Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Oil-for-Food

Kofi Annan's sense of efficacy and diplomatic skills were emerging through this newly found political role. But along with high-level positions comes responsibility, not only for achievements but for missteps, debacles, and failures. These four traumas: Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and the Oil-for-Food crisis; not only weighed heavily on the UN, but involved Annan and his decision making. Not that he was to blame; the parties to the conflict were the ones killing each other and Saddam was responsible for the extortion schemes under Oil-for-Food. Nevertheless, Annan was involved and the human tragedy and accusations bore deeply into his conscience. A detailed explanation of each of these crises is beyond the scope of this paper, but a brief summary is important in order to explain Annan's role.

Annan began his position as Assistant Secretary-General of Special Political Affairs as the new Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali took office in early 1992. The Cold War had just ended and there was a general euphoria that the UN could now take on the role of world peace that the founders had anticipated. When Boutros-Ghali created the new Department of Peacekeeping Operations that year, Goulding became the under-secretary-general there and Annan became his assistant secretary-general. A number of old conflicts were in the process of being resolved under UN auspices and perhaps leaders at the UN became overconfident. When massive starvation overtook Somalia in the early 1990s, Boutros-Ghali was interested in taking a proactive role. This met some resistance from Goulding who took more of a traditional approach to UN peacekeeping, not sending troops until a firm peace agreement had been reached and with consent of the parties. Boutros-Ghali found a more willing partner in Annan. Both had stronger ties to Africa and most likely felt the UN ought to take a more active role in addressing the suffering.

When the Security Council voted to reinforce the UN mission in Somalia in early 1993, Goulding was hesitant and Boutros-Ghali moved Goulding back to the Department of Political Affairs (as it was now called) and Annan was promoted to Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping. We now know, looking back, that clan warfare in Somalia made it impossible for the UN to achieve its goals of peace and stability in the country. When in October 1993, the US Delta Force failed in its efforts to disarm clan leader Aideed and 18 US soldiers were killed, with one soldier dragged through the streets of Mogadishu before CNN cameras, the UN was blamed. President Clinton then oversaw a new policy toward UN peacekeeping in which there would be a close examination of vital interests and an exit strategy before the UN would become committed to humanitarian operations. The Somali tragedy was not only a blow to the UN, but also to Kofi Annan, now the head of peacekeeping.

The Somali crisis was confounded and magnified geometrically by events in Rwanda. This is probably the crisis that has left the deepest wound in Kofi Annan's psyche. A peace agreement had been reached in 1993 in Rwanda between the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front and the Hutu-led government. The UN Security Council had approved a peacekeeping operation (UNAMIR) of some 2,500 troops to be sent to Rwanda under Chapter 6 (use of force only in self-defense) to oversee the agreement. But by January 1994, barely 3 months after the Somali debacle, Force Commander Romeo Dallaire had received information that Hutu militia, the Interahamwe, was preparing to carry out a directed genocide of Tutsi civilians.

Dallaire sent a cable to UN headquarters in New York addressed to the military adviser to Boutros-Ghali, General Baril, asking that the informant be given asylum outside Rwanda and informing Baril that UNAMIR was planning to raid the cache of suspected weapons. Annan and his assistant, Iqbal Riza, read the cable as well, and told Dallaire not to raid the cache of weapons but instead to inform the Rwandan Hutu government of the breach of the agreement and also in Rwanda's capital Kigali to inform the ambassadors of the United States and France, and importantly, Belgium, who had the bulk of UN troops on the ground.²² Annan was still conscious of the repercussions following the raid on Aideed in Somalia and thought that a more diplomatic approach might work better. We know now that those attempts were fruitless. In hindsight, Kofi's judgment seems in error, and the results were horrific, but he was reacting to the debacle in Somalia and had no way of knowing the tragedy that lay ahead.

Additionally, Annan has been criticized for not immediately informing the Security Council of Dallaire's cable. To understand that decision, one has to look at the way Boutros- Ghali had structured the Executive Office of the Secretary-General and who was allowed to report to the Security Council. Boutros-Ghali had very narrow restrictions on who could address the Council. Only the Secretary-General himself or his adviser Chinmaya Gharekhan were allowed to go to the Council and Gharekhan was always very reluctant to do so. Realizing this would be a stumbling block must have played a role in trying to resolve the problem without alarming the Security Council. Annan also must have anticipated that the US mood, as a permanent member of the Council, would not be reception to any proactive raid. We have to remember that this was a time of uncertainty, and the whole role of peacekeeping was being watched. Still, Annan had insisted that those in Kigali be kept informed. When the genocide broke out in April 1994, even the most dramatic news coming out of Rwanda did not budge the Security Council nor the US leadership until nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus had been murdered. Nevertheless, one question remains, why the informant was not given asylum; he was never heard from since.

Bosnia was another story. The war in Bosnia and Herzegovena was reaching its peak in early 1995. UN peacekeepers (UNPROFOR) were there as a humanitarian mission under Chapter 6 and did not have the mandate nor the capacity to stop what became mostly Serb attacks on Muslim Bosnian civilians. Ethnic cleansing was rampant and climaxed during the Srebenica massacre of some 7-8,000 Muslim men and boys. This was followed by Serb-fired mortars on Sarajevo's Markale marketplace. The international community was crying for action. The UN had set up a system called duo-key whereby NATO and the UN Secretary-General had to both agree before any NATO bombing of Serb areas could be undertaken. Boutros-Ghali in the past had been reluctant to authorize bombing even though the US had been calling for a NATO response for some time. The French and British who had peacekeepers on the ground and in the way, had also been cautious. But with these bold Serb attacks, they were ready.

They regrouped their peacekeepers, circling the wagons in anticipation of the Serb response. The NATO hand was ready to turn the key. Madeleine Albright [US ambassador to the UN] tried to get Boutros on the telephone to get him to turn it too. But he was in a commercial airliner en route to an official visit to the Caribbean. He was unreachable. Boutros had "passed the key" to Kofi during the brief time that he was unavailable. When Madeleine asked Kofi, he didn't hesitate. He said yes. Richard Holbrooke told Phillip Gourevitch of The New Yorker, "When Kofi turned that key, he became Secretary-General-in-waiting."²³

The Dayton Accords in the fall of 1995 brought an end to the war in Bosnia, but the black mantle of shame once again fell across the UN as it was blamed for not protecting the safe areas and allowing ethnic cleansing to go unchecked for so long. Kofi's positive profile in the Bosnia case brought attention to him in a way that Boutros-Ghali may not have appreciated. By that time, Boutros-Ghali was thinking about serving a second term when his current one expired at the end of 1996. Seeing Annan as a potential competitor, he sent him to Bosnia as his special representative, giving his post as under-secretary-general for peacekeeping to Ismat Kitani. However, Annan cleverly only agreed to go if he could regain his former position upon his return. That request was accepted. While Kofi emerged as a hero in the Bosnia affair, in contrast to Rwanda, he still suffered along with the UN for the atrocities that had taken place, once again.

While these three events happened before Kofi Annan became Secretary-General, another and more deeply personal blow landed in Kofi's second term as Secretary-General. The tragedy of the Oil-for-Food accusations -- that Annan had some culpability in the extortion scandals which in the end proved completely false -- is that he so deeply cared about getting food and medicine to the Iraqi people through the program. Resolution 986 which created the Oil-for-Food program was passed in 1995 and by December 1996 the UN had everything in place to begin the sale of oil in order to buy the needed food and medicine. When Kofi Annan took office, the Secretariat was asked to make a full report on the program, up to that point and in March 1997, the Report of Secretary-General Pursuant to Resolution 986 was ready. Annan took the report very seriously, and while acknowledging the complexity of the undertaking, was very concerned about the slow pace of the distribution, stating:

Nevertheless, I have strong concerns about the pace at which the provisions of resolution 986 (1995) are being implemented. I have directed that a number of steps be taken both within the Secretariat and in the Security Council Committee to look for innovative and flexible approaches to overcome the constraints that the Programme has encountered. . . . These measures will accelerate the pace for the delivery of food, medicines, and other supplies that are urgently needed by the people of Iraq. Simultaneously, I am taking steps to ensure that adequate funds are available to the Department of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations agencies so that the necessary arrangements are completed for the delivery and observation of humanitarian assistance provided for in resolution 986 (1995).²⁴

The accusations against Annan hurt very deeply, not only because they were false but also because he had worked so hard to make the program a success in getting the needed provisions to the people of Iraq. The effects of these traumas will be further discussed in the next section.

Notes:
^22. Annan, pages 46-59.

^23. Fred Eckhard, Draft Manuscript, 31 October 2008, page 12.

^24. Report of the Secretary-General Pursuant to Paragraph 11 of the Resolution 986 (1995), Security Council document: S/1997/206, March 10, 1997, paragraphs 24 and 25; in the Collected Papers of Kofi Annan: UN Secretary-General, 1997-2006, by Jean Krasno (editor), (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2012), page 48.