Transcript
AMBASSADOR SWING: It should be noted that the Congolese elections are also the largest elections that the United Nations has ever sought to support in three ways -- the largest country, about the size of the United States east of the Mississippi; the largest electorate with 25 million, about 5 million more than the South African electorate; and the largest challenge, given the infrastructural and historical challenges that I mentioned earlier. In this regard, it is very important to point out that the United Nations at present is undertaking something in the Congo and the Sudan it has never done since peacekeeping began in 1948 formally; that is, to do peacekeeping and electoral support on a continent-size base with a major population--the Congo with 60 million and the Sudan with 40 million plus.
This brings me to my next point. How do you sustain such an operation? At a budget of a billion dollars a year, spending three million dollars a day, how do you sustain that kind of operation since it has never been done before?
Are member states of the U.N. prepared to sustain their commitments in such large countries sufficiently long to ensure that good elections produce longer term stability?
People ask me often: What is the worst case scenario? For me, the worst case scenario is good elections, nothing changes.
Finally, the way ahead: Such tremendous achievements could be at risk should the international community repeat some of its past record. While we have a relatively good record as the international community in post-conflict management leading to elections, we have sometimes neglected the importance of post-electoral support and management. Early disengagement following elections in Haiti and Timor East and elsewhere have resulted in the resumption of conflict a few years later, requiring new, more complex, and costlier international re-intervention. In Sierra Leone, Bosnia, and other countries, however, the international community stayed the course after elections, and today those countries are on a much better track toward permanent peace and stability. The challenges ahead therefore may be greater than those of the just completed transition.
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