SC - Debate on UN Peacekeeping Operations
Statement by Ambassador Christian Ebner, Deputy Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations
New York, 6 August 2010
Austria strongly welcomes your initiative to organise today’s debate which allows the Council to directly interact with UN Force Commanders. I would like to thank USG Le Roy for his introduction. Let me take this opportunity to welcome the Force Commanders present here today and thank them for their very interesting presentations. Austria would like to thank all Force Commanders of the UN for their commitment and important work in the field. We also appreciate the presence of Lieutenant-General Obiakor.
In recent discussions in the Security Council on UN peacekeeping one of the key recurring issues was the need for the Council to provide peacekeeping missions with clear, credible and achievable mandates oriented to a desired outcome and matched with adequate resources for the fulfilment of all mandated tasks. Benchmarks and a clear prioritisation of tasks have proven useful for the Council to better track progress made in the implementation of peacekeeping mandates.
In order to be able to respond in a timely and appropriate manner to the developments on the ground the Council needs to dispose of all relevant information. Briefings by Force Commanders and military experts provide accurate information on the real life challenges peacekeeping missions are facing – and are thus indispensable for the decision-making of the Council. We also welcome the fact that troop and police contributors participate in today’s discussion.
Success and credibility of UN peacekeeping will also depend on how far missions can effectively discharge their mandates and thus live up to the expectations raised within the population. With the growing complexity of tasks entrusted to peacekeeping missions going and a scarcity of resources we are confronted with serious capability gaps including in civilian support capacities. These gaps may jeopardize the success and reputation of UN peacekeeping. More consistent information on mission-specific capability gaps and the impact of those gaps on the implementation of the mandated tasks can help to effectively utilize the “gap lists” of each PKO and to mobilize Member States’ support to address them. We therefore appreciate the efforts of Japan as chair of the Security Council Working Group on Peacekeeping Operations in this regard. Equally we support the capability-driven approach outlined in the New Horizon non-paper that concentrates on skills, capacity and equipment with a special focus on potential resource gaps. This is in the interest of the effectiveness of missions, but it is also essential for the safety and security of peacekeepers.
Strengthening early warning and crisis prevention is another aspect which deserves more attention in our work in the Council. Both, mission leadership as well as the Council, need to receive all relevant information and assessments on early warning, which would allow for a response to emerging crisis situations in a preventive manner. Missions have come up with several inventive approaches including the Joint Protection Teams in MONUSCO designed to provide information gathering and analytical support, but also to facilitate context-specific civil and military measures to protect civilians and liaise with local authorities[f2]. Such outreach activities foster interaction with the local population and yield valuable information for an accurate assessment of the circumstances on the ground. We would be interested to hear more from the field about the potential to strengthen missions’ capacities in this regard.
We welcome the fact that protection mandates increasingly include all activities aimed at ensuring the safety and physical integrity of civilian populations, securing humanitarian access, and ensuring full respect for the rights of individuals by all parties to conflict, in accordance with international humanitarian and human rights law. The ultimate goal of any peacekeeping mission with a protection mandate must be to help restore an environment in which the host state is able to fully exercise its primary responsibility to protect its own population. Creating a favorable protection environment goes beyond the protection of civilians from physical violence and must be complemented by activities in the field of SSR, DDR, Rule of Law, transitional justice, human rights and empowerment of local societies. This would also facilitate the transition to sustainable [f3]peacebuilding and state building. Early coordination of these activities and a common strategy among all actors involved including civil society will be crucial for success.
Untimely drawdown or premature downscaling of peacekeeping missions can seriously endanger a country’s stability and the safety of the civilian population. Mandate adjustments or the drawdown of missions also need to be conditioned upon the fulfilment of benchmarks relating to the protection of civilians, and we encourage further development of such benchmarks.
Armed groups attacking the civilian population, in particular women and children, do not respect international borders which have become porous over years of conflict and due to the lack of control. Cross-border cooperation of UN peacekeeping missions in adjoining areas of responsibility is required in order to effectively tackle these threats. For instance we believe that the problem of the LRA needs to be addressed further by drawing up a comprehensive strategy that includes governments in the region and all relevant UN missions, including MONUSCO which is mandated to ensure the protection of the civilian population in the LRA affected areas in the DRC. We would appreciate to hear more about synergies and potential further cooperation in this regard. Equally we would be grateful for suggestions how missions can contribute to the fight against impunity of perpetrators for such violence.
