ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that Bangladesh’s peacekeepers, especially airmen, feel proud of their ability to use advanced weapons systems and operate in tandem with Western forces. The Bangladesh police force first contributed to UN peacekeeping in 1989 through the UN Transition Assistance Group in Namibia. In the 1990s, Bangladesh participated in peacekeeping missions in Cambodia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Somalia, Haiti, Angola, and Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, East Timor and parts of the former Yugoslavia. Bangladesh’s checkered political history and the economic and social challenges the country faces has pushed Bangladesh to such a sterling record as a provider of UN peacekeepers. Bangladesh’s participation in peacekeeping missions is influenced by powerful institutional rationales. National publics, even in countries strongly committed to peacekeeping, are often intolerant of casualties sustained on UN missions and this may pose a particular challenge to the emerging concept of ‘robust peacekeeping’.
