Word: hammarskjolds
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...seems to me that an ardent supporter of Hammarskjold's conception of the U.N. should be impressed by the late Secretary-General's consistent refusal to use force against Tshombe--precisely because he feared that such an attempt would create so much dissension that the future usefulness of the U.N. might be imperiled...
...SCHWARTZ WRITES: There is little point in guessing what Mr. Hammarskjold's policy towards Tshombe would have been after the Katangan attack on U.N. forces in early September. His "consistent refusal to use force" before then was, I think, simply a reflection of his belief that the U.N. would have been defeated--the one thing which would imperil its future usefulness...
...objections to the attack on Tshombe--as outlined in his article--are based on skepticism about the U.N.'s ability to follow its own precedent without disaster, should another "Congo" develop. He does not see what, in fact, has been the heart of the U.N.'s problem since Hammarskjold's death. The U.N. must be willing to undertake a military operation where it is necessary and where it is likely to succeed, but be able to resist any faction (and anti-colonialism is only one of these) which tries to use such an action as a "precedent" to involve...
...what remained of the UN idea, Hoffmann says in the New Republic article, "Hammarskjold tried to make...an impartial force whose mission it was to keep new conflicts outside the sphere of great power disputes, and to protcet in particular the weak against the strong" (his italics). Yet Hoffmann fears that the new nations have sought to fashion of the UN "an instrument of anti-colonialism pure and simple...
...which Hoffmann condemns, was probably necessary to quash Tshombe. That, in turn, was a precondition to the institution of a strong Central Government, which is the dream of anyone anxious to avoid a polarization of Cold War forces in the Congo: anyone, in short, who supported what Hoffmann called Hammarskjold's conception of the UN. Hoffmann's confusion of these quite different military actions is surprising. Ce qui n'est pas clair n'est pas francais...