Diplomacy The U.N. Marches In

By JILL SMOLOWE !

The United Nations has been in the peacekeeping business for most of its 47 years, but never has it undertaken anything quite so ambitious. Beginning this week, the world body will put 36,000 military and civilian personnel on the ground in Yugoslavia and Cambodia, charged with meeting goals that extend far beyond keeping antagonists from each other's throats. The U.N.'s blue helmets are supposed to disarm and disband combatants -- many still seething over real and imagined grievances -- and prepare the way for the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees. Nor is that all. They are also supposed to see to it that political negotiations can be conducted in Yugoslavia and democratic elections in Cambodia.

The new missions are more demanding and far riskier than any of the U.N.'s 23 previous peacekeeping assignments, nine of which are still ongoing. They are also far costlier. The 22,000-strong Cambodia enterprise carries a price tag of $1.9 billion over 15 months. In Yugoslavia, where hostilities continue to flare despite a formal cease-fire, the 14,000 troops begin with a one-year budget of $600 million, which is more likely to shrink than grow. But the commitment to protect Serbian enclaves in three war-ravaged areas of Croatia is open-ended, to allow for extensions in the negotiations being conducted by the European Community in Brussels. These two operations alone will cost more than three times the amount that the U.N. spent on peacekeeping around the world last year.

But can the blue helmets actually ensure a durable peace in Yugoslavia and put Humpty-Dumpty together again in Cambodia? Or will they bog down guarding cease-fires indefinitely, as has happened in cases like Cyprus, where a U.N. team has been in place for 28 years without bringing the feuding sides any closer to reconciliation? Only within the diplomatic community is there guarded optimism that the absence of East-West tensions, coupled with the expressed will on all sides for the operations to proceed, will make for a successful outcome.

Concerns of a protracted engagement particularly chill the U.S., which is footing 30% of the peacekeeping bill. With the economy less than robust, isolationism on the rise and the November elections approaching, Congress recently warned the Bush Administration that it may not fund large increases for U.N. peace forces. There is hardly any doubt that either the U.S. or other major donors will ante up, but so far little money has reached U.N. coffers.

Still, the missions reinforce the consensual approach of the post-cold war era and affirm a tenet held dear by U.N. diplomats: the price of peace, while steep, is ultimately less costly than letting war rage. The challenges ahead:

YUGOSLAVIA. When U.N. troops begin their patrols in Croatia by the end of April, their first task will be to break the stubborn pattern of mutual recrimination that has characterized nine months of warfare. Since the neutral soldiers will carry only light arms, their success will depend largely on whether the Serbs and Croats can be made to fear the international opprobrium that would attend any attack on the blue helmets.

Despite the continued snarling, there are encouraging signs that the combatants will show restraint. The Presidents of Serbia and Croatia, Slobodan Milosevic and Franjo Tudjman, have thrown their political weight behind ensuring the success of the first U.N. peacekeeping mission in Europe. Tudjman is manifestly uneasy about relinquishing territorial control to the U.N., but the foreign troops are an answer to his persistent calls to internationalize the conflict. For Milosevic, who is contending with international displeasure, domestic war-weariness and faltering military momentum, the deployment is a face-saving way out of the stalemate.

With the Serb-dominated Yugoslav federal army scheduled to withdraw its remaining troops from Croatia before the blue helmets are deployed, prospects are good that the U.N. forces can keep minor incidents from escalating into major ones. But the neutral military is likely to face some resistance from paramilitary groups. This is particularly true in Krajina, the largest of the three disputed areas, where indigenous Serb rebels are unlikely to surrender their weapons willingly. "We can't expect blue helmets to conduct house-to- house searches for hidden arms," says Mladen Klemencic, a Croat political analyst. Efforts to return some 600,000 displaced Croats and Serbs to their homes will also be hindered by the vast destruction of housing and the war- awakened fears of retribution.

The greatest obstacle to peace -- the issue of sovereignty -- lies beyond the scope of the U.N. forces. For now, Croatia has agreed to cede control of three contested areas to the U.N. "The whole issue of sovereignty in Krajina is essentially in suspension," says a Western diplomat. No matter how effectively the U.N. peacekeepers set the stage for a negotiated settlement, it is only resolution of the sovereignty question that will determine whether the fragile peace in Yugoslavia is enduring or a mere respite -- and when the blue helmets can go home.

CAMBODIA. Since 1969, when the U.S. began bombing suspected Vietnamese strongholds inside Cambodia, this country has not known a day's real peace. First there was the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge. Then neither the invading Vietnamese nor their successor Cambodian surrogates were able to restore calm. Now a U.N. force of 16,000 troops, 3,000 police and 3,000 bureaucrats -- few of them prepared for the rigors and deprivations of Cambodian life, even fewer armed with local language skills -- is expected to sort out the sorry mess.

The most immediate task will be to disarm, demobilize and disperse most of the 220,000 troops fielded by the government of Hun Sen and the three rebel factions, including the Khmer Rouge. The U.N. plan calls for establishing a "cantonment" area, where 70% of the soldiers and guerrillas are supposed to surrender their weapons; the remaining 30% are to remain under U.N. supervision. None of this is expected to go smoothly. "If the Vietnamese, who are well versed in jungle warfare, weren't able to root the Khmer Rouge out of those hideouts," says a Western diplomat, "how are U.N. troops supposed to do it?"

The blue helmets must also verify the removal of all Vietnamese troops from Cambodia. Just how many might remain is hotly contested, but the Khmer Rouge, eager to see even indigenous ethnic Vietnamese expelled, are likely to press the issue. As the U.N. troops search for foreign forces, they are supposed to locate and confiscate weapons caches as well. And they must deactivate hundreds of thousands of mines that poison the country's rugged terrain before the 370,000 refugees living in camps along the Thai border can be repatriated. The U.N. mission is also expected to make adequate preparations for that homecoming, although many of the prospective returnees have lived in the camps more than a decade and have lost their rural bearings. "Most of these people don't know how to grow a crop," says a U.N. official.

; The U.N. team is asked to accomplish all of this before April 1993, when it is to organize and oversee "free and fair elections" for a 120-member constituent assembly. To do it, the U.N. force will in effect have to run the country by wielding supervisory control over the internal workings of a sovereign government. Even if they succeed, the outcome may not be happy. Warns Prince Norodom Sihanouk, who heads the interim Supreme National Council: "There is a true danger after the elections that the losing parties could decide to use their guns against rivals to exact revenge." The U.N. may be needed to hold the line in Cambodia far longer than is now envisioned -- and it is an open question whether the patience and generosity of the international community will endure.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Graphic by Steve Hart

CAPTION: U.N. PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

With reporting by Bonnie Angelo/New York, James L. Graff/Belgrade and Richard Hornik/Phnom Penh