In 1986, British diplomat Marrack Goulding became the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations in charge of peacekeeping. Since 1978, no new peacekeeping operations had been launched, while existing ones in the Middle East, Cyprus, and Kashmir had stagnated. During the following seven years, however, Goulding presided over sixteen new missions, including highly controversial efforts in Angola, Yugoslavia, and Somalia. Goulding's historic tenure coincided with a dramatic shift in attitude within the UN about its role in ending regional conflicts. In Peacemonger, he provides an unprecedented insider's account of the organization's successes and failures in this period.
From the UN's unwieldy bureaucracy and its often uneasy relationship with member states to the individual courage of many of its officials and their frequently unsung achievements, Goulding details the UN's responses to the crises of the post--Cold War world. He offers frank portraits of Javier Perez de Cuellar and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the two Secretaries-General under whom he worked, and chronicles the internal strife that undermined the UN's efficiency. He also documents the development during his watch of new types of peacekeeping missions that did far more than preside over ongoing and irresolvable conflicts. In Namibia, Cambodia, and Central America, UN peacekeepers facilitated democratic elections and the demobilization of belligerents. Dispassionate, perceptive, and unblinkingly honest, Peacemonger offers vital insights into the UN's most perilous and contentious activity.
