Humanitarian Intervention: A Forum - Mary Kaldor

Kaldor, Mary, The Nation

Mary Kaldor is director of the Global Civil Society program at the London School of Economics and author of New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Stanford).

In early February, violence broke out in Mitrovica in northern Kosovo, when groups of Serbs went from apartment to apartment throwing grenades and beating people. French KFOR troops withdrew to another part of town. UN police tried to intervene but were outnumbered. Eventually Danish troops came to their assistance, "acting on their own individual initiative," according to the BBC report, and "not at the orders" of the French commanding officer. According to the UN police, "the Danes were superb."

There are similar stories about Danish soldiers during the Bosnian war, where they disobeyed UN orders and fired back at Serbs attacking UN convoys. The Danes were criticized for not keeping to the UN mandate, but they were effective in protecting humanitarian …

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Publication information: Article title: Humanitarian Intervention: A Forum - Mary Kaldor. Contributors: Kaldor, Mary - Author. Magazine title: The Nation. Volume: 270. Issue: 18 Publication date: May 8, 2000. Page number: 25. © 1999 The Nation Company L.P. COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group.

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