By Keith B. Richburg

The silencing of arms in a protracted conflict is a difficult task. But forcing one of the belligerents to surrender their weapons is even more difficult.

This is one of the key lessons I have learned from years of reporting on violent conflict and its aftermath in Asia and Africa. These experiences came back to mind with the recent US-sponsored ceasefire agreement that ended the two-year war between Israel and Hamas and includes a stipulation that the Palestinian organization must lay down its arms.

There are also parallel and serious warning signs for the United Nations, which is trying to assemble a 5,500-strong US-funded Anti-Gang Force to wrest control of Haiti from heavily armed gangs.

The plan for lasting peace in Gaza and the effort to restore order in Haiti both rest on the same shaky foundation: disarmament. But recent history shows that the chances of success are limited.

Disarmament is a key element of many peace plans, known by the acronym DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration — Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration of ex-combatants). However, there are few examples where it has been successfully implemented.

One of them is East Timor.

For more than two decades, the former Portuguese colony of East Timor was under the harsh occupation of Indonesia. The pro-independence militia, Falintil (Armed Forces for the Liberation of East Timor), waged a low-intensity guerrilla war.

In 1999, when Indonesia, under pressure from the US and the international community, agreed to allow a referendum on independence, resistance leader Xanana Gusmao ordered Falintil fighters to gather in camps. They remained there, in the mountain lodges, as Indonesian forces and their allied militias unleashed a wave of arson and looting after the islanders voted for independence.

An Australian-led international force restored order in devastated East Timor. And as part of the march to independence, Falintil fighters agreed to keep their weapons locked in containers under joint control with the United Nations. Eventually, most joined East Timor’s new national army.

A similar example was in South Africa, where the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC), known as uMkhonto weSizwe or MK, officially disarmed and disbanded as the country began negotiations to end apartheid. Many of the former MK rebels were integrated into the South African army, while others turned to politics.

However, the failures of disarmament have far outnumbered the successes.

In the early 1990s, Somalia was plunged into the chaos of civil war, with armed factions fighting for control of territory, much like what is happening in Haiti today. The capital Mogadishu was divided between rival warlords fighting on the “green line” that divides the north from the south. Various factions controlling the port and airport cut off the flow of humanitarian aid and looted supplies.

Then US President George W. Bush Sr., in his last weeks in office, sent the US Marines to break the blockade and save the country from starvation.

The US Marines met little resistance. The militias laid down – or rather hid – their weapons and welcomed the Americans as liberators. US forces opened the port and airport and saved thousands of people from starvation, but left the difficult task of disarming the factions to a subsequent UN force, UNOSOM, which proved ill-prepared and understaffed.

In June 1993, a month after most of the Marines had left, Mogadishu’s most powerful warlord, General Muhammad Farah Aidid, staged an ambush that resulted in the deaths of 20 Pakistani blue-collar workers. The attack took place while the peacekeepers were trying to inspect an arms cache held by Aidid.

At the same time, in the early 1990s, the UN launched another failed disarmament operation in Cambodia. UN forces attempted to collect weapons from the notorious Khmer Rouge rebels, who had pledged to disarm as part of a peace deal to end the civil war. When the Blue Helmets arrived to receive the weapons, the Khmer Rouge violated the agreement, barred international forces from entering, and killed several peacekeepers.

Eventually, the Khmer Rouge weakened and disbanded after internal divisions. Their supreme leader, Yeng Shari, known as “Brother Number Three”, defected to Hun Sen’s government, taking thousands of fighters with him. He received a limited royal pardon from King Norodom Sihanouk and lived in luxury in Phnom Penh, before being tried by a special UN tribunal. He died before he was sentenced.

Disarmament can be achieved, but only when the warring parties agree, and when it is part of a wider deal that offers ex-combatants a role in the military or government. This is not the case in Gaza, where the ceasefire agreement stipulates that Hamas must disarm and disband. Not even in Haiti, where there is no plan to reintegrate armed gangs into society.

An Arab and Muslim force is supposed to be deployed in Gaza. But many countries may be reluctant to send troops if it means they have to fight Hamas. Similarly, there are objections to participating in the Gang Suppression Force in Haiti, since it involves heavy fighting with armed groups.

In theory and on paper, disarmament is always the goal. In practice, however, it often proves unattainable precisely where it matters most: on the field.