UN questions usefulness of peacekeepers

At an outpost overlooking Lebanon's southern border with Israel, Hizbullah, an anti-Israel militant organization, is digging in. A mini-earth mover wheels to and fro, building ramparts and fortifications.

About 20 yards away stands an observation post, protected by sandbags and concrete retaining walls and manned by Fijian peacekeepers of the UN Interim Force In Lebanon (UNIFIL).

The calm remains fragile along this troublesome border between Lebanon and Israel, described by some as potentially more dangerous to Mideast stability than the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The UN Security Council is expected to vote Wednesday on extending UNIFIL's mandate, which expires that day. Although the mandate is likely to be renewed for another six-month period, there is a growing feeling within the Security Council that the 24-year-old peacekeeping force is close to outliving its usefulness.

"The Security Council has been discussing this for two years," says a European diplomat in Beirut. "UNIFIL is a very costly operation. When things are quiet in south Lebanon, the pressure to wind up the mission increases."

Labboune is one of several places along the frontier where UNIFIL observation posts and Hizbullah positions lie in uncomfortable proximity. Although the positions are erected for the same purpose – to monitor the border area – Hizbullah's activities are part of the organization's unrelenting conflict with Israel, while UNIFIL is supposed to help maintain the uneasy calm that exists along the frontier.

"Hizbullah is hardening its posts in several places along the Blue Line," says a Fijian officer, referring to the United Nations cease-fire line running along the border.

UNIFIL deployed in Lebanon in 1978 following Israel's first invasion of its northern neighbor. Although Israel finally withdrew its forces in 2000, south Lebanon refuses to stay quiet.

Hizbullah has stashed away a large amount of weaponry in the remote wadis, or valleys, of the border district; has placed antiaircraft batteries on hilltops; and occasionally shells Israeli outposts on a mountainous strip of territory claimed by Lebanon and known as the Shebaa Farms. Israeli warplanes violate Lebanese airspace on an almost daily basis, prompting Hizbullah to fire antiaircraft rounds across the border.

Caught awkwardly in the middle is UNIFIL. Because UNIFIL is in Lebanon at the request of the Lebanese government, the peacekeeping force is unable to prevent Hizbullah's state-sanctioned activities along the border, even when those activities breach the UN's own Blue Line. When Hizbullah fires mortar shells across the Blue Line at Israeli positions in the Shebaa Farms, the peacekeepers can do little more than count the exploding rounds and report the attack.

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