Yet UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan would like to see his beleaguered blue helmets in even more places. In a recent interview with Time magazine, he proposed a new global moral order obliging states to step in whenever lives were being threatened by anything from ethnic hatred and paramilitaries to hunger and disease. Nor are they popular among Western governments, which have the best military resources but fear that their boys will be sent home in bodybags. Consequently, Mr Annan has staked his personal prestige on making a success of the Sierra Leone mission. Yet, even with a newly strengthened mandate, the prospects of restoring peace there are bleak.
Senior commanders are at each other's throats.
Only the Freetown peninsula is safely in UN hands, and it required British intervention in May to save the mission from collapse as rebels advanced on the capital after more than 500 peacekeepers handed over their weapons without a fight. The West Side Boys had previously been robbing, kidnapping and raping civilians on the highway east of Freetown. Despite the presence of Jordanian peacekeepers on the same road, victims were abducted near Jordanian checkpoints. The north and east of the country, including most of its diamond mines, are in the hands of Revolutionary United Front rebels. The south is controlled by the Kamajors, a colorful and unpredictable tribal group loyal to the government but with a reputation for brutality.