Bronwyn, first off you should note that in my post I spoke of the fact that the choice of an incorrect mandate was the main reason for the UN’s spectacular failures during the 1990s, and I also made mention of the fact that the UNSC is the structure that votes to create and define those mandates. So on that level, by saying it’s about time the UN gained some backbone, it’s sort of an indirect reference to “it’s about time the UNSC members finally gave a UN peacekeeping mission the mandate it needed.”

That said, there is a bit more to it. Poor mandates, while being probably the biggest reason for the failures, was not the only reason. For years, UN peacekeeping has suffered from a poorly-organised and bureaucratic structure, poor decision-making, poor planning and insufficient focus on getting troops from the various countries to work together.
As a result, in 2000 Kofi Annan convened a panel of 10 experts under the guidance of Lakhdar Brahimi, which produced a report on how to reform UN peacekeeping that is called the Brahimi Report. This report listed around 60 specific changes that had to be made to UN peacekeeping to make it more effective, most important of which were improvements in doctrine, strategy, planning, decision-making, headquarters organization and staffing levels, logistics, rapid deployment, and public information.
Many of this report’s recommendations have already been implemented to some extent, which is why MONUC is operating slightly differently to previous UN peacekeeping missions. They haven’t yet implemented all the recommendations though, it’s still an ongoing process, but they did accelerate the reforms after being shown-up embarrassingly in that rebel uprising last year.

So, there’s really two elements to this. In terms of the mandate, it’s about time the UNSC member nations saw fit to give UN peacekeepers more mandated authority, but it’s also about time the UN itself saw fit to rethink the way it does peacekeeping. Therefore in terms of the latter, it is right to speak of the United Nations as a separate entity.

Btw, I do agree with you on the criticism of the response of the UNSC members, especially France, to the Rwanda genocide.

The lesotho invasion (or botch up) was under SADC with Botswana, not the UN. At the time mandela was out of the country and Buthelezi essentially gave the go ahead. Zapiro had an excellent cartoon around a bad telephone line and Buthelezi misunderstanding what Mandela said.

Chapter 6 is apparently the standard “observation only” mandate that was used through much of the 1990s, leading to the spectacular failures in Rwanda and the Balkans. Chapter 7 is the more forceful type, allowing peacekeepers to intervene to protect civilians, the right to self-defence, and to disarm warring parties. Chapter 8 is full-blown intervention, with offensive operations being authorised against warring parties. Chapter 8 missions do not require UN intervention, as they’re not being carried out by “Blue Helmets”. Instead, the UN authorises either a certain country or a group of countries to do whatever is necessary to keep the peace. I assume the First Gulf War was conducted under a Chapter 8 mandate.

For some perspective, the MONUC force is operating under a Chapter 7 mandate, whilst South Africa’s intervention in Lesotho was handled as if it was under a Chapter 8 mandate (though of course there was no UN permission for that intervention).
It must be remembered though that these are very broad mandates, and as always, the devil is in the details. While the UNSC might authorise a mission based on a Chapter 7 mandate, the fine print in the resolution will usually limit the peacekeepers significantly. This is how MONUC operated until late last year, and it’s the reason they were effectively powerless following the rebel invasions of Bukavu. So the UNSC voted for another resolution which strengthened MONUC’s mandate within the bounds of Chapter 7, so now they’re fully authorised to intervene to protect civilians and to search and disarm rebel camps.

So in effect, while in theory this was an offensive operation as Laurence says, legally they were not operating under an offensive mandate. What happened is that they used their authority under their present mandate to search two FNI camps. When the FNI militia fired at the peacekeepers, they were then free to fire back in self-defence – in effect drawing fire so as to use self-defence clauses to mount an offensive operation.

Laurence is right though, one has to think soberly about where this sort of thing can lead to. It’s all well and good applauding this (as I do) as an example of the UN finally getting some backbone, but we have to be sure that we’re willing to back them if this escalates. Distasteful as it is to consider it, we must acknowledge the reality that a greater use of force by MONUC will inevitably lead to South African casualties, which many may be unable to stomach.
That said, I don’t see what other options MONUC had, as groups like the FNI have indicated that they already considered the UN troops fair game, and so there was nothing left to be gained, and everything to lose, by trying to appease everybody and never fighting back.

It’s also good that the quality of our soldiers appears to have improved since Operation Boleas in 1998 (though to be fair, half the problem in that instance was a series of terrible decisions taken by the govt and operation planners). I’ve always maintained that these missions to other parts of Africa were worth the expense, not only for the well-known reasons but also because they expose the weaknesses in the South African Army and therefore force the military to repair those problems, and because it provides invaluable experience to our soldiers, pilots, intelligence personnel and joint operations staff.

All this should in theory result in a more capable, better trained and more efficient defence force, as it institutionalises the lessons learned and experience gained.