This report deals with the closure of the United Nations Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE). This study seeks to understand why the UN Security Council decided to close the mission – before its completion, and counter to the recommendation of the Secretary-General. There is no unambiguous answer to this, but in unpacking UNMEE’s trajectory, contextual factors and addressing various stakeholders’ retrospective perceptions, there emerges a largely congruent master narrative of the mounting dilemmas and challenges that UNMEE was faced with, and that eventually led the Security Council to terminate the mission. Understanding this trajectory and the dilemmas it conveys should also be of relevance for the management of ongoing and establishment of new peacekeeping missions.
UNMEE was established after cessation of hostilities was agreed upon following the border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia (1998–2000). It was set up as an observer mission, operating from both sides of the disputed border, separating the parties with a buffer zone, to help ensure the observance of the parties’ security commitments. As an interstate mission dispatched on both sides of the border, UNMEE had to manage the balancing act of maintaining both parties’ consent. As the situation evolved, UNMEE’s ability to deliver according to mandate gradually deteriorated due to factors internal and external to UNMEE. These include the non-political mission design, the fact that UNMEE from the beginning was sidetracked from resolving the border conflict that was to become the central issue of the two parties, that the parties demonstrated selective support to the comprehensive peace process and its instruments, and that numerous restrictions were gradually imposed on UNMEE. Eventually, the situation
became untenable for UNMEE, and the Security Council terminated the mission at the end of July 2008.
In unravelling the UNMEE story and seeking an answer to why the mission was terminated, this paper also takes up aspects perceived to be general policy dilemmas with regard to managing peacekeeping mission. These relate to the political role of peacekeeping missions and the ability to detect and manage the impact of deteriorating political consent. This paper thus argues that UNMEE’s lack of a political component and role and its structural detachment from other instruments deemed central to the peace process were detrimental not only to the mission and the perception of UN,
but also to the conflict, by shifting the focus from a comprehensive solution to the conflict and border issue.
