I
106TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. R. 4453
To encourage the establishment of a United Nations Rapid Deployment Police
and Security Force.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MAY 15, 2000
Mr. MCGOVERN (for himself, Mr. PORTER, and Mrs. MORELLA) introduced
the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on International
Relations
A BILL
To encourage the establishment of a United Nations Rapid
Deployment Police and Security Force.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘United Nations Rapid
Deployment Police and Security Force Act of 2000’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress finds the following:
(1) United States Presidential Decision Direc-
tive 71 calls for a stronger United States response
to maintaining order in societies recovering from
conflict. It aims to improve coordination of United
States efforts and to enhance the ability of other
countries, the United Nations, and regional organi-
zations to plan, mount, and sustain operations in
support of the rule of law.
(2) In a press briefing on February 24, 2000,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright stated the fol-
lowing: ‘‘The recent slowness in deploying des-
perately needed civilian police to Kosovo provides
only the latest evidence that present international
capabilities are not adequate. And the ongoing de-
ployment of CIVPOL teams to East Timor and Si-
erra Leone show that the need will not soon dimin-
ish. In response, we must recognize that old models
of peacekeeping don’t always meet current chal-
lenges. Peace operations today often require skills
that are neither strictly military nor strictly police
but, rather, a combination of the two. The inter-
national community needs to identify and train units
that are able to control crowds, deter vigilante ac-
tions, prevent looting and disarm civilian agitators
while, at the same time, winning the trust of the
communities in which they are deployed.’’.
(3) In his April 2000 report, ‘‘We the Peoples,
The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Cen-
tury’’, United Nations Secretary General Kofi
Annan states that only member nations of the
United Nations can fix the ‘‘structural weakness of
United Nations peace operations . . . Our system for
launching operations has sometimes been compared
to a volunteer fire department, but that description
is too generous. Every time there is a fire, we must
first find fire engines and the funds to run them be-
fore we can start dousing any flames. The present
system relies almost entirely on last minute, ad hoc
arrangements that guarantee delay, with respect to
the provision of civilian personnel even more so than
military. Although we have understandings for mili-
tary standby arrangements with Member States, the
availability of the designated forces is unpredictable
and very few are in a state of high readiness. Re-
source constraints preclude us even from being able
to deploy a mission headquarters rapidly.’’.
(4) The December 1999 United Nations ‘‘Re-
port on the Independent Inquiry into the Actions of
the United Nations During the 1994 Genocide in
Rwanda’’ indicates that in April 1994, the United
Nations Security Council failed to deploy 5,500
United Nations peacekeepers to Rwanda within two
weeks of the initial violence, thereby allowing the
conflict to escalate. The 6-month estimated cost of
the deployment would have been $115,000,000. In-
stead, the genocide consumed 800,000 lives along
with $2,000,000,000 in humanitarian aid.
(5) In Srebrenica, Bosnia, on July 11, 1995,
Bosnian Serb troops forced the retreat of Dutch
United Nations peacekeepers who were part of the
United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(UNMIBH) from a ‘‘safe haven’’, resulting in the
massacre of 7,000 Bosnian civilians and expulsion of
40,000 Bosnian civilians.
(6) The United Nations peacekeeping budget
estimate for the United Nations Mission in Bosnia
and Herzegovina from July 1, 1997, to June 30,
1998, was $165,600,000, while the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO)-sponsored intervention
in the Serbian province of Kosovo cost $37,000,000
per day.
(7) In July 1999, 4,700 civilian police officers
were requested to be deployed to the Serbian prov-
ince of Kosovo but, as of April 17, 2000, the United
Nations has deployed only 2,901 of the requested
police officers, resulting in the breakdown of law and
order and the escalation of unrest in Kosovo.
(8) In May 2000, Revolutionary United Front
rebels in Sierra Leone, in violation of the ceasefire
and peace accords, captured and held prisoner ap-
proximately 500 United Nations Mission in Sierra
Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeepers. The weapons,
equipment, and vehicles of the peacekeepers were
also seized. The UNAMSIL force had been deployed
too slowly and was undertrained and understaffed,
consisting of only 8,700 peacekeepers of the 11,000
peacekeepers requested by the United Nations Secu-
rity Council.
(9) On February 24, 2000, the United Nations
Security Council approved a United States-spon-
sored proposal to send 5,537 troops on an observer
mission to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (to
be known as the United Nations Organization Mis-
sion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
(MONUC)), a Republic 1⁄3 the size of the United
States, to monitor the implementation of the Lusaka
accords. However, it will take at least three months
to deploy the required forces. On April 25, 2000,
South African Foreign Minister Dlamini-Zuma
urged rapid deployment of the troops and stated
‘‘[i]f deployment is very slow [the accords] can fall
apart . . . The troops should have been deployed a
long time ago.’’.
(10) The United States has the power in the
United Nations Security Council to veto decisions
that are not within the national interests of the
United States.
SEC. 4. ESTABLISHMENT OF A UNITED NATIONS RAPID DE-
PLOYMENT POLICE AND SECURITY FORCE.
(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—The President shall direct the
United States representative to the United Nations to use
the voice, vote, and influence of the United States to urge
the United Nations—
(1) to establish a United Nations Rapid Deploy-
ment Police and Security Force that is rapidly
deployable, under the authority of the United Na-
tions Security Council, and trained to standardized
objectives;
(2) to recruit personnel to serve in this Force;
and
(3) to provide equitable and reliable funding for
the United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and
Security Force.
(b) MISSION
STATEMENT.—The United Nations
Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force should have
a mission statement that provides for the following:
(1) The United Nations Rapid Deployment Po-
lice and Security Force will engage in operations
when—
(A) the United Nations Security Council
determines that an imminent threat to the
peace requires a preventive deployment of forces
and the Security Council deems it as an appro-
priate response;
(B) the United Nations Security Council
determines ongoing gross violations of human
rights or breaches of the peace require rapid
intervention by the international community
and the Security Council deems it as an appro-
priate response;
(C) peace has been restored to a region but
the rule of law has not yet been reestablished
and when national civilian police or United Na-
tions member nations personnel are not avail-
able and the Security Council deems it as an
appropriate response; or
(D) the United Nations Rapid Deployment
Police and Security Force can utilize its per-
sonnel to help train the military and civilian po-
lice of member nations of the United Nations to
better participate in international peace oper-
ations.
(2) The United Nations Rapid Deployment Po-
lice and Security Force will consist of not more than
6000 personnel who are—
(A) placed under the authority of the
United Nations Security Council;
(B) under the direction of the Secretary
General of the United Nations;
(C) deployed only by United Nations Secu-
rity Council resolution;
(D) volunteers from United Nations mem-
ber nations employed directly by the United
Nations;
(E) trained as a single unit, appropriately
equipped, expressly for international peace op-
erations including civilian policing; and
(F) rapidly deployable.
(3) The United Nations Rapid Deployment Po-
lice and Security Force will be organized as a sub-
department within the United Nations Department
of Peacekeeping Operations or under the control of
the United Nations’s Military Staff Committee and
will contain personnel trained as military staff offi-
cers and civilian police officers to be deployed imme-
diately to a potential conflict area.
(4) The deployment of the United Nations
Rapid Deployment Police and Security Force will be
limited to a maximum of 6 months, at which time
the Police and Security Force would be replaced by
personnel supplied by United Nations member na-
tions.
(5) The basing and infrastructure service of the
United Nations Rapid Deployment Police and Secu-
rity Force will be leased from existing member na-
tions’ institutions.
SEC. 5. REPORT ON UNITED NATIONS RAPID DEPLOYMENT
POLICE AND SECURITY FORCE.
Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment
of this Act, the President shall prepare and transmit to
the Congress a report on the progress of negotiations with
the United Nations and its member nations regarding the
creation of a United Nations Rapid Deployment Police
and Security Force described in section 3.
SEC. 6. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) The term ‘‘international peace operations’’
means—
(A) any such operation carried out under
chapter VI or chapter VII of the Charter of the
United Nations; and
(B) any such United Nations operation
that includes civilian policing.
(2) The term ‘‘rapidly deployable’’ refers to the
capacity to deploy military or civilian personnel to a
region undergoing conflict within 15 days of the en-
actment of a United Nations Security Council reso-
lution authorizing a deployment.
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