United Nations Peacekeeping Forces

The U.N. peacekeeping chief told the Security Council on Wednesday that a Sudanese attack this week on U.N.-led troops reinforces concerns that the force may be unable to protect itself or civilians in Darfur. The violence, along with foot-dragging by the Sudanese government and the lack of necessary helicopters and equipment, may doom the peacekeeping effort, Jean-Marie Guehenno told the council.

President Bush, expressing frustration that the United Nations has had a difficult time raising and deploying a sufficient peacekeeping force in Darfur, said Tuesday that the 1994 Rwandan genocide should have taught the world not to ignore signs of budding brutality. Bush said Rwanda would receive $12 million of the $100-million contribution the U.S. is making this year to U.N. peacekeeping efforts in Darfur.

At least three people were killed and 25 injured in food riots and clashes with U.N. peacekeepers Friday, a mission spokeswoman and Haitian radio said. A young man was shot in the head and killed during protests in southern Haiti. It was not immediately clear who shot him, though protesters blamed United Nations troops. U.N. soldiers fired because they were fired upon, said U.N. spokeswoman Sophie Boutaud de la Combe. She said the mission had opened an investigation.

The U.N. Security Council on Thursday authorized increasing the number of peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo by as many as 2,785 military personnel and 300 police. Now it's up to the United Nations peacekeeping operations to recruit volunteers from among the armed forces of member states. The majority of the 17,000 soldiers already in the region are Indian or Pakistani.

The United Nations' first women-only peacekeeping contingent -- made up of about 100 Indian police officers -- arrived in Liberia, officials said. Ben Malor, spokesman for the U.N.'s 15,000-strong peacekeeping force in the West African country, said the female force would be stationed in the capital, Monrovia. Women have served in many U.N. peacekeeping forces, but this is the first all-female group.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon faced one of his first tests Monday when developing nations sent him back to the drawing board with his plan to restructure the U.N.'s peacekeeping department. The setback could foretell troubles for the new secretary-general, who faces the task of reforming the U.N. at a time when its peacekeeping demands are growing in nations such as Sudan and perhaps Somalia.

Sudan has signed an agreement with the United Nations and the African Union that defines their respective roles in Darfur, Saudi Arabia's official news agency reported. No details about the agreement were provided. The United Nations and Sudan agreed in November on a three-stage plan to deploy U.N. peacekeepers to help the understaffed and under-equipped African Union force in the Sudanese region of Darfur.

Diplomats reacted with cautious optimism Monday to Sudan's grudging agreement to allow U.N. attack helicopters and 3,000 international peacekeepers into Darfur to protect civilians caught in the conflict there. "We've been down this path before," U.S. Ambassador Alejandro Wolff said. "So we will see if it happens when it happens." Sudan's president, Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, had backtracked several times on a November agreement with the U.N.

A bomb ripped through a United Nations convoy in southern Lebanon on Sunday, killing six peacekeepers under Spanish command. The attack, which took place on a day when the Lebanese military fought a bloody battle against Sunni Muslim radicals in the north, heightened fears that a second front may have opened in the fight here against militants linked to Al Qaeda.

The Security Council on Tuesday authorized a massive U.N. peacekeeping operation to deploy to Darfur in an effort to protect civilians and aid workers in Sudan's conflict-racked region. The council voted 15 to 0 to begin sending a joint U.N.-African Union force of as many as 26,000 troops and police to Darfur before the end of the year to quell violence that has killed more than 200,000 people and displaced more than 2 million in four years. The full force, the largest authorized by the U.N.