SECURITY COUNCIL WEIGHS FUTURE OF PEACEKEEPING

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 USUN NEW YORK 000644

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: UNSC PHUM PREL
SUBJECT: SECURITY COUNCIL WEIGHS FUTURE OF PEACEKEEPING

REF: USUN 61


1. (SBU) SUMMARY. Security Council members, senior
Secretariat officials, and major troop contributing countries
debated the future of United Nations peacekeeping operations
(UNPKO) in a full-day session on June 29. UN Under
Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Le Roy said in
his opening remarks that the Security Council's design of
increasingly complex mandates for UNPKOs coupled with
resource and financial constraints have created a need to
generate "better capabilities, not just numbers" of troops.
Under Secretary-General for Field Support Malcorra called for
an overhaul of the UN's approach to mission support to allow
provision of logistics services on a regional and global
basis rather than relying on strictly mission-by-mission
supply chains. Ambassador Rice agreed that UN peacekeeping
faces significant challenges as described by Le Roy and
Malcorra, adding that the United States is ready to do its
part to overcome them because "UN peacekeeping operations
save lives." Security Council members generally supported in
broad terms the suggested reforms previewed by Le Roy and
Malcorra. Several Troop Contributing Countries (TCC) said
any peacekeeping reform had to provide the basis for a more
effective partnership between the Security Council, the UN
Secretariat, and the TCCs. END SUMMARY.


2. (U) On June 29, Security Council President Turkey presided
over a full-day debate on the agenda item "UN Peacekeeping
Operations" (UNPKOs). In addition to Council members,
participants included under secretary-generals Alain Le Roy
(Peacekeeping Operations) and Susanna Malcorra (Field
Support) as well as representatives of several significant
troop contributing countries and other interested member
states, including Bangladesh, Canada (as Chair of the UN
Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations),the Czech
Republic (as European Union President) Egypt, Germany, Ghana,
India, Italy, Nigeria, Jordan, Morocco (as Chair of the
Non-Aligned Movement),Pakistan, Rwanda, and Spain.

Secretariat Wants More Coherent, Smarter-Resourced UNPKOs
--------------


3. (SBU) U/SYG Le Roy opened the debate by observing that
UNPKO mandates (i.e., Security Council resolutions) have
become more complex than ever. That complexity, he suggested,
results more from the ambiguity of political compromises
reached by Council members as they draft resolutions than
from any effort to provide real operational guidance to
peacekeepers on the ground. He said UNPKOs are often left
confused about the particulars and prioritization of mandate
tasks and the appropriate means for achieving them. He
singled out the "protection of civilians mandate" and the
"political, strategic, and operational aspects of 'robust
peacekeeping'" as particularly lacking in common member
understanding and coherent articulation.


4. (SBU) Aside from a call for a "renewed consensus" on UNPKO
mandates, Le Roy stressed that a successful UNPKO must be
grounded in "an active, functioning peace process" addressing
the roots of the conflict and providing clear political
goals. A UNPKO conceived with clear mandates and political
goals still needed to be adequately resourced and deployed,
Le Roy noted. He suggested that a "new partnership" among
primary stakeholders featuring improved Secretariat planning
and dialogue with troop and police contributors was essential
to finding resources and deploying them. In addition to
fostering clarity of mission purpose, he believed such a
partnership would be likely to yield better trained,
increasingly professional UNPKO troops and police. He
concluded by saying that modern peacekeeping deployed
pursuant to robust mandates in dangerous environments
demanded a focus on "how to better generate capabilities, not
just numbers" of troops.


5. (SBU) U/SYG Malcorra's presentation was pragmatic. She
said that past logistical innovations for supporting UNPKOs
-- such as strategic supply reserves and Secretariat
authority to commit up to $50 million in advance of a formal
UNPKO mandate -- had proven their worth but have been
outstripped by the sheer volume of the collective needs of
UNPKOs. She said bluntly that "more of the same will not do"
and called for "a more nuanced, targeted approach -- with
some elements of mission support provided globally, others
from a regional center and others at the level of individual
missions." She argued that the current model of separate

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supply lines for each mission -- created by applicable
regulations and accounting practices -- needed to give way to
a model that would allow faster and smarter deployment of
resources, decentralized decision-making, revised procurement
rules that allow better calibration of supply, asset-sharing
between missions, greater financial flexibility, and the
development of a truly global and mobile UN Department of
Field Support workforce.

U.S. Pledges Active Leadership and Support
--------------


6. (SBU) Ambassador Rice called for and signaled willingness
to entertain a new wave of reforms required to better plan,
manage and responsibly drawdown UN peacekeeping operations.
She outlined key principles that will guide the U.S. approach
to UN peacekeeping. The U.S. will insist on "credible and
achievable" mandates and judicious decision-making about
where and when to establish new operations. In this regard,
the U.S. believed conditions are not appropriate for
successful UN peacekeeping in Somalia, but it urgently needs
other forms of sustained, if not increased, international
support. The U.S. will intensify diplomatic efforts to give
new momentum to some of the stalled or faltering peace
processes in areas where UN peacekeeping operations are
deployed, starting with Darfur and the North-South peace
process in Sudan. The U.S. will assist the UN and other
partners to expand the pool of willing and available troop
and police contributors. To that end, the U.S. is prepared
to consider directly contributing more military staff
officers, military observers, civilian police and civilian
personnel, including women, to UN peacekeeping operations and
will explore ways to provide enabling assistance, either by
ourselves or together with partners. The immediate priority
will be to help UN peacekeeping operations in Darfur, Chad
and the DRC to acquire the missing forces and enabling units
needed to better protect civilians from physical violence,
including sexual violence. And, starting in September with
discussions on Liberia and Haiti, the U.S. will use the
occasion of mandate renewals to consider how its assistance
to local institutions, particularly for security and rule of
law institutions, can accelerate the transfer of
responsibilities from the UN peacekeeping operations to the
host country while avoiding arbitrary or abrupt downsizing of
missions.


Other Permanent Five Find (Some) Common Ground
--------------


7. (SBU) French PermRep Ripert France broadly agreed with the
summary of UN peacekeeping efforts laid out by Le Roy and
Malcorra and said that France believes that the UN is moving
in the right direction. He suggested that NATO-led
peacekeeping efforts in Afghanistan demonstrated the capacity
of international peacekeeping coalitions to carry out
complex, robust missions under UN mandates and offered UNSCR
1856 (renewing the UNPKO in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo) as an example of a UN mandate that clearly focuses a
UNPKO on prioritized, achievable tasks. Ripert said that
France and the UK will revisit, under the UK Council
presidency in August, their "three pillar initiative" on UN
peacekeeping calling for improved UNPKO mandates with better
progress benchmarks and New York-based command and control
with the participation of a revitalized Military Staff
Committee liaising with major troop contributors;
implementation of complex mandates by means of clear
prioritization and sequencing of tasks; and enhanced
Council-Secretariat-TCC communication and more comprehensive
operations and logistical capacity.


8. (SBU) UK PermRep Sawers said he was interested in a Le Roy
suggestion that a lead member state assume for each mission
responsibility for coordinating international political and
material support. He thought such an approach could be used
profitably in particular in Security Sector Reform efforts
where he felt UN peacekeepers were often inappropriately
depended upon by countries hosting UNPKOs to provide local
policing and security.


9. (SBU) Russian Deputy PermRep Dolgov agreed with Ambassador
Rice that precipitous and premature downsizing of missions
can be counterproductive to overall peacekeeping efforts. He
seconded France's call for revitalization of the Military
Staff Committee and its expansion to include all 15 Council

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members. China urged caution in deploying UNPKOs, insisting
that there be "a peace to keep" before the Council authorized
a UNPKO. China also called for regional organizations,
especially the African Union, be afforded a larger
peacekeeping role.


10. (SBU) Non-Permanent Five Council members shared the
general approval of the Le Roy and Malcorra proposals with
some members (notably Turkey and Austria) characterizing them
as essentially a revisiting of the Brahimi Report
recommendations (2000) and subsequent reform proposals.
Most, particularly Costa Rica, focused on the interaction
between the Council, TCCs, and the Secretariat and called for
a more inclusive and transparent decision-making process on
mandate formation. Libya called for enhanced respect for the
sovereignty of countries hosting UNPKOs and for "basic
charter principles such as 'consent of the parties.'"

Troop Contributors Sound Off -- But Cooperatively
--------------


11. (SBU) Several non-Council members also participated. In a
marked contrast from its confrontational intervention in a
similar Council session earlier this year (reftel),Nigeria
spoke of the continued "relevance of UN peacekeeping as an
essential instrument for conflict resolution and peace
making" and called for "strengthening of the triangular
cooperation between the Security Council, the TCCs, and the
Secretariat."


12. (SBU) Speaking on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement
(NAM),Morocco urged greater involvement of TCCs/PCCs in all
aspects of planning and carrying out peacekeeping missions,
including during the policy formulation and decision-making
phases and greater developed country burdensharing on troop
deployment. Morocco underscored that the "guiding
principles" for peacekeeping operations should be consent of
the parties, non-use of force except in self-defense, and
impartiality.


13. (SBU) Pakistan called "inconceivable" the idea that
UNPKOs could succeed without making the Security Council-TCC
partnership more substantive and visible. Pakistan called
for "enhanced and visible representation of major TCCs at
highest level positions at headquarters and in the field,"
saying that command and control should not be limited to
"dialogue" and "consultations."


14. (SBU) India criticized the current practice of
consultations between TCCs/PCCs and the Security Council as
"pro forma," saying that discussions "skirt around
substantive issues with little or no scope for meaningful
discussion." The Indian PermRep said that "being informed is
not the same as being consulted" and, raising the idea of a
gap between supply and demand for forces and equipment, added
that "there is no scarcity of the personnel and capacities of
the type the United Nations requires." The problem, he said,
is a "reluctance on the part of member states to make these
resources available to the United Nations."


15. (SBU) In an apparent reference to the UK/France
initiative, Brazil said higher financial costs for
peacekeeping were the logical consequence of decisions made
by the Council, and that closing missions that were still
needed or avoiding establishing new missions should not be
the response to financial problems.

Other Large TCCs/PCCs
--------------


16. (SBU) Jordan, Uruguay, Ghana, Egypt and Nepal echoed the
remarks of other large troop contributors, calling for
greater involvement of TCCs and PCCs in the preparation of
mandates and the planning of operations. Egypt called for
the Security Council to refrain from the "micro-management"
of the Secretariat's work, particularly in the area of
selection of TCCs/PCCs" and suggested that the C-34 (UN
Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations) should be the
main body responsible for addressing UN peacekeeping
operations. Ghana called for strengthening African
peacekeeping capabilities, and said that UNPKOs should remain
in host countries until conflicts are fully resolved and the
situation has returned to normalcy. Jordan credited Japan's
leadership of the Security Council's Working Group on
Peacekeeping Operations with fostering confidence among UN

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regional groups, and between regional groups and the Council.

Czech EU Presidency
--------------

17. (SBU) The Czech Republic, on behalf of the European
Union, acknowledged a need to improve and expand existing
consultation mechanisms between the Council, the Secretariat
and TCCs/PCCs. The Czech PermRep suggested that the concept
of a strategic-military cell, as had been used with the
UNIFIL mission in Lebanon, could be a way to improve
information flow between headquarters and TCCs and emphasized
the EU view that UN peacekeeping operations should routinely
incorporate the protection of civilians into its mandates.

RICE