Pakistan has said that the U N peacekeeping has graduated to multi-faceted missions with robust mandates and success in complex missions requires a wide-ranging approach including conflict prevention, protection of civilians and support for humanitarian assistance.
Ambassador Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Permanent Representative of the country to the United Nations, told the Security Council that as a leading troop contributor with vital stakes in UN peacekeeping operations, Pakistan has been supportive of peacekeeping missions with complex and challenging mandates.
"This is evident from our record in the Security Council. The Council resolutions 1509, 1565 which authorised strengthened missions in Liberia and Democratic Republic of Congo respectively were supported by Pakistan during its term in the Council in 2003-04. Pakistani troops also participated in these challenging missions," he told a meeting of the Council on UN peacekeeping.
Ambassador Haroon, who also heard the discussion of Force Commanders on the issue, said that Security Council is the absolute correct forum to discuss the concept of robust peacekeeping. "Now I have heard the discussion of Force Commanders on this issue and I would beg to disagree with some that have been said here. I would believe that it is here in this Chamber that we must make those decisions," he noted emphatically.
"While we must listen to them, we must also encourage them to act more boldly and to seek to meet the wishes of this Council in a more decisive manner. That complex mandates, often ascribed as robust peacekeeping, are conceived, drafted and adopted here. It becomes the responsibility of the Council to ensure that existing peacekeeping architecture can provide for sufficient troop strength, trained and well-equipped personnel, force enablers and multipliers, rapid deployment, tactical and strategic reserve capacities as well as logistic backups are adequate to sustain the challenges of robust peacekeeping."
Besides, he added,, "sufficient finances also be kept in mind as enabler. It is also important that the concept of robust peacekeeping is applied to a particular conflict-zone, and not treated with a broad-brush of political generalisations. Robustness of the required extent is already present in all the Missions".
Beyond this, generalising robust peacekeeping risks overloading the UN peacekeeping architecture, he remarked. "It is evident that success in complex missions with robust mandates requires comprehensive approach that ranges from conflict prevention, conflict management and preventing relapse. Protection of civilians and support to humanitarian assistance are its cardinal components."
This primarily requires engagement of the host government and local political actors, however instable and rudimentary they may be, he explained. "Emphasis on Security Sector Reforms (SSR), together with disarmament, demobilisation reintegration (DDR) and peace-building strategies will only cushion the physical challenge inherent in POC and support to humanitarian assistance. In context of comprehensive approach, engagement of strong regional actors can only be described as propitious.
"African Union's participation in UNAMID and AMISOM is invaluable both in political and military terms. We welcome replicating this template in other Missions. "The UN peacekeeping has graduated from its traditional form to the multi-faceted missions with complex mandates. This evolution is part of the discourse on peacekeeping reforms. Just like the peacekeeping missions, such discourse must remain depoliticised. We hope that today's meeting will steer the discourse on modern-day peacekeeping and its challenge towards professional and pragmatic realms."