JOIN USIndia seeks greater role in deciding mandate for UN
India is set to seek greater role for itself and another troop-contributing nations in deciding the mandates of the United Nations’ (UN) peacekeeping operations during the high-level segment of the 67th session of the global body.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna is expected to raise the issue in his address to the UN General Assembly on October 1 next. He is expected to stress that mandates of the UN peacekeeping operations should be commensurate with the available resources.
India has been the largest troop contributor in the history of UN peacekeeping operations, with altogether 8,104 personnel of the country’s armed forces being presently deployed in the conflict zones in Congo, Lebanon, Ivory Coast, East Timor, Sudan, South Sudan and Golan Heights. India also suffered maximum fatalities, with 146 of its personnel being killed while participating in such UN peacekeeping missions. The latest fatality was reported last July, when an Indian peacekeeper was killed in Congo.
New Delhi has of late been increasingly concerned over the mismatch between the resources made available to the UN peacekeepers and the mandates of the missions.
Sources said that New Delhi would call upon the international community to recognise the rapid changes that the nature and role of the peacekeeping operations of the UN had undergone. New Delhi is understood to be of the opinion that the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) mandates to UN peacekeeping operations are too broad and have very little correlation with the ability of the organisation to deliver.
India, earlier this year told the UNSC that the council should be held accountable if unachievable mandates were generated for political expediency or if adequate resources were not made available. “Without adequate number of well-trained troops, equipped with adequate equipment, assets and enablers, the Council cannot hope to realise its aspirations for the protection of civilians in armed conflict,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN, H S Puri, told the UNSC earlier this year.
India is currently a non-permanent member of the UNSC, but its two-year term on the horse-shoe table will end on December 31 next.
Sources said that New Delhi would stress that if a UN member-state was not on the Security Council, but contributed or would contribute troops to a particular peacekeeping mission of the international organisation, it should be invited by the council to take part in the process to decide the mandate of the mission. Besides, it would also demand that the countries contributing troops should be fully involved at all stages and in all aspects of mission planning.