NEW YORK: Pakistan has called for an expansion in the United Nations (UN)Military Observer Group in Pakistan and India to counter the rising threatsto peace and security in the region.
Speaking in the Special Committee on Peacekeeping, Pakistan’s permanentAmbassador to UN Maleeha Lodhi said that the UN Mission, UNMOGIP is acritical factor for stability in the region. “This needs to be expanded torespond to existing threats and realities”, she stressed.
She reiterated Pakistan’s unflinching support to UN peacekeeping, both asone of its largest and consistent contributors and also as the host of oneof the UN’s oldest peacekeeping missions, UNMOGIP.
The Special Committee on Peacekeeping is a unique forum that bringstogether all peacekeeping stakeholders, troop and police contributors,financial contributors, Security Council members and the UN Secretariat todiscuss every aspect of peacekeeping. Lodhi emphasised the need to addressthe root causes of conflict to bring about lasting peace. Peacekeeping, shesaid, needs to be strengthened through support for political solutions andmediation processes. “The goal of protection of civilians is best served bypreventing the outbreak of armed conflicts in the first place, addressingthe root causes of conflicts, and finding inclusive political solutions todisputes”, she added.
The ambassador criticised the recent cuts in the UN peacekeeping budget,saying “Lack of adequate resources results inevitably in non-implementationof the very mandates that we fashion for our Blue Helmets. We should betalking about enhancing capabilities, not across the board cuts in thepeacekeeping budget.”
The Pakistani envoy voiced concern over the growing threat to the safetyand security of UN peacekeepers that were increasingly being deployed incomplex and perilous operating environments. She called for concrete stepsto be taken to ensure the safety of UN peacekeepers and added, “In theatreslike Mali and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Blue Helmets frequentlycome under direct attack, a phenomenon unheard of just a few years ago.”
She underscored the impact on the security of the strategic decisionsduring the planning and mandate creating phases of peacekeeping operationsand said that Security Council mandates, if and when based on politicalexpediency, further compound the situation on the ground, increasingavoidable risk.
The fundamentals of peacekeeping must be preserved even as we adapt tochanging realities, Lodhi stressed and warned that blurring the linebetween peacekeeping and peace enforcement holds high risk as it wouldimpact the neutrality of Blue Helmets, making them even more vulnerable totargetted attacks.
In this context, she also referred to the report of the High-Level Panel onPeace Operations (HIPPO) and the consensus view of practitioners ofpeacekeeping which agree that UN peace operations “are not the appropriatetool for military counter-terrorism operations”.
Arguing that the broad support, legitimacy and credibility that UNpeacekeeping has come to enjoy over the years are predicated on these veryprinciples, Lodhi said that despite the need for reforms, we strongly feelthat changing the fundamental principles of peacekeeping is not warranted.