Gomes Mugumya, A: United Nations (UN) Transitional Adminstra

The United Nations Transition Administration in Eastern Slavonia (UNTAES)was created to oversee the peaceful reintegration of Croatian Serbs into Croatia. The significance of UNTAES lies in the fact that it administered one of the most fiercely contested battlegrounds of the Yugoslav Wars. Ironically UN transitional adminstrations were revised out of necessity in the Balkans just at the time when the UN s involvement in state building activities had earned it a bad name in the wake of its failures;including in Somalia, where it withdrew because the parties could not implement any agreements; in Rwanda, where a genocide had taken place despite the UN Secretariat being warned about this possibility; and in Yugoslavia, where ethnic cleansing was taking place within intermingled civil and international violence. However, UNTAES can be considered as one of the most successful Transitional Administrations ever administered by the UN.UNTAES will be remembered for facilitating the normalization of relations between Croatia and Yugoslavia and for its contribution to broader regional stability and successfully carrying out all its tasks.