Paying With Blood for Peace

The same month, a series of hits on MINUSMA claimed altogether 12 lives and injured many more. Since its inception in 2013, the UN mission in Mali has lost more than 60 lives, making it the UN’S deadliest peacekeeping operation.

Successive terrorist attacks targeting peacekeepers reflect the deterioration in the security situation in Mali. The international community has been showing concerns about the safety of the Blue Helmets, as the peacekeepers are called. China faces a hard and urgent task: how to discharge its international obligations and yet keep its peacekeepers safe.

The Chinese peacekeeping contingent to face the latest attack had arrived in Mali, where numerous armed organizations are active, in May. Comprising military engineers, security personnel and medical staff, it is to be deployed there for a year.

An affiliate of Al Qaeda in North Africa claimed responsibility for the recent attack on the MINUSMA camp. The same group had launched a series of attacks in the North Africa-sahara region, including the carnage in the Radisson Blu Hotel in Bamako, capital of Mali, in November. Twenty people were killed, including three Chinese.

However, the terrorist organization is not targeting the Chinese specifically. Its intention is simply to disrupt the neutral and peaceful mission of the Blue Helmets and it has been attacking them regardless of their nationalities. For China, the tragedy indicates that though the Chinese foreign policy of peaceful co-existence and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries is respected by the world community, it however cannot guarantee the safety of the Chinese peacekeepers on hazardous UN missions.

Blue Helmets are at constant risk when on missions in territories seeped in conflict. According to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, 129 peacekeepers died while on duty in 2015 alone.

China began participating in the work of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in 1988, sending its first troops for UN peacekeeping missions the following year. Over the last 27 years, of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, which also includes France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, China has dispatched the largest number of peacekeepers. More than 3,000 Chinese have been taking part in more than 20 peacekeeping missions.

China is also the second largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping missions, behind only the United States. Over the next three years, China will share 10.2 percent of the world body’s total expenses in this regard. During the UN Summit in New York City in September 2015, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged that China would contribute 8,000 troops for the UN peacekeeping standby force.

China, owing to its increased national strength, is trying to assume a greater role in international affairs under the UN framework, as expected by the international community. On the other hand,