Heritage Protection as Stabilization, the Emergence of a New ‘Mandated Task’ for UN Peace Operations

Abstract

The integration of new tasks like those of cultural and natural heritage management into the mandates of UN peace operations is usually presented as a burden, ‘a star on the top of the Christmas tree’ at a time of scarce human and budgetary resources for contemporary UN peace operations. Through a comparison of MINUSMA in Mali and MONUSCO in DRC, this article aims to demonstrate how, on the contrary, heritage management can bring consistency to the broader ‘stabilization’ mandate mainstreamed in UN peace operations. By creating new links between the seemingly dichotomous activities it encompasses, namely ‘support’ and ‘securization’ activities, this new type of mandated task can increase complementarity between civilian and military components of UN peace operations with regard to local population. As part of their stabilization mandates, both MINUSMA and MONUSCO were charged to protect heritage. Ultimately, the most decisive factor as to why heritage management created a virtuous circle in Mali and a vicious circle in DRC, seems to be the failure or the success on the part of peace operations to include local communities in the heritage management process, a task which is so far better performed by the civilian than by the military component.