a guide to peace support operations - The Watson Institute for ...

aegis of a faction identity. For this reason a faction has a loose, tenuously
controlled structure with unreliable vertical and horizontal communications.
Fighters vary in age, education, and professional experience; they seldom receive
regular pay or logistic supplies. Individuals may have intense personal reasons for
becoming fighters. Their highest motives may include the sincerely held desire
for ethnic or political self-determination. Unfortunately, some irregular forces
attract individuals driven by less positive motives including revenge, venal
exploitation, and cultural or ethnic bigotry. Unlike the state soldier, faction
fighters are sustained by local resources or looting and therefore take a close,
personal interest in local issues. If the activities of an international force impinge
on the rapine activities, which are necessary for survival, they will become hostile
to the international presence. Where culturally or ethnically different communities
are in confrontation, revenge and fundamentalist bigotry can drive factions
to behave in a way that is unacceptable to civil society. Isolated by war, and
blinded by local passions, fighters may not see that what to them are routine acts
of war are regarded as serious crimes and violations of human rights by the
international community.
b. Faction Leaders
As a rule, faction leaders have little experience of statesmanship or reliance on the
rule of law. Few state level representatives at peace negotiations can control with
assurance local leaders who obstruct a peace process for parochial motives. The
immediate, practical needs of local factions will be beyond the scope of international
negotiations. After long periods of fighting, local elements of a faction may
become geographically and politically dispersed into a diversity of smaller
groups or gangs. Power devolves downwards, out of the hands of state level actors
to local leaders, making the negotiation of state-wide peace agreements hard to
execute in a reliable manner.
c. Consent at the Tactical Level
Part I, paragraph 11
Although conditions for a UN deployment may appear to be authoritatively
negotiated at operational level with representative faction leaders, these agreements
in reality may not be observed at local or tactical levels. Tenuous
communications, lack of control, and personal interests of local factions dictate
an uneven interpretation of what may appear to be universal consent at national
level. Faction leaders may even promise cooperation as a ploy, knowing that
locally their promises cannot be honored. Unless an overall faction leader can
exercise area-wide control, consent (to any UN or multinational force activity)
has to be negotiated case-by-case with local fighters. In cases where a local band
impedes a UN mandate or relief activity for unnegotiable reasons, an international
military force may have to act without their consent, if necessary using force to
protect their mandate.
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