YouSaid · the spoken record

Power

lines on the record: 1,841
first: 2013-08-06
most recent: 2019-07-09
sittings or episodes: 165
sources: un-security-council

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“This is yet another reason this terrorist organization must be defeated and it is one more reason why the United States will continue to lead the efforts of a 67-member coalition against this colossal threat to our collective security. It underscores the need for the Council to address the threat posed by non-State actors like ISIL who have the capacity and the depravity to use chemical weapons again. Today's resolution allows the Mechanism to continue its work - work that, unfortunately, sadly, is far from finished. The members of the Security Council need the Mechanism to continue its investigation for three main reasons. First, the Mechanism is the only institution with a mandate to identify those involved in the use of chemicals as weapons.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“And these arejust the attacks for which the Mechanism has to date reached this conclusion. There is credible evidence of many more chemical weapons attacks carried out by the Al-Assad regime. The use of chemical weapons by the Al-Assad regime is a clear violation of Syria's obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and under resolution 2118 (2013). The Mechanism has also confirmed the use of chemical weapons by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Marea. The United States condemns this attack in the strongest terms, as well as all of the horrific atrocities that ISIL has carried out and continues to carry out against innocent civilians.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“The Mechanism is a vital tool for fighting impunity - an independent group of experts with the tools to tell us who is using chemical weapons in Syria, after the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Fact-Finding Mission has determined that chemical weapons were used or were likely used. The Mechanism's findings are clear. Investigators have concluded that the Al-Assad regime has used chemical weapons against the Syrian people not just in one attack, but in three confirmed attacks so far. That is three confirmed attacks carried out by a Member State of the United Nations; three attacks using weapons that the world concluded decades ago should never be used; three attacks that have caused Syrian men, women and children to suffocate to death.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“Think about how it must feel to be suddenly overwhelmed by the sharp smell of chlorine; to think you have escaped death by bombing only to realize you might die by asphyxiation; to wonder how to run from a weapon that you cannot see that is enveloping you on all sides. It is a suffering so gruesome that the international community has resoundingly condemned the use of chemical weapons and established a norm against their use under any circumstances, as enshrined in the Chemical Weapons Convention. So the United States welcomes the Council's unanimous decision to extend the mandate of the Joint Investigative Mechanism for another year.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“But when Leith went into the basement of a nearby home to search for survivors, he said, "I felt short of breath, coughed and became dizzy. I could not even take two breaths". In the basement, six members of the Talib family sheltered, with three children ages one, two and three. None had visible wounds. But when the children arrived at the local hospital, the doctor in charge recalled that "they were foaming at the mouth, they were suffocating, then their hearts stopped". Their parents struggled to breathe too before dying from the attack, along with their 65-year-old grandmother.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“I would like to start by thanking Council members for the extension that allowed us to work intensively over these last couple weeks with the Russian Federation to secure the text that we have just voted on unanimously today, and I offer my sincere thanks for the spirit in which Russia carried out these negotiations. The stakes on this matter could not be higher. The eyewitness accounts often start the same way. Helicopters buzzing overhead. Barrel bombs shoved out, only to land without an explosion. Leith Fares, a first responder in ldlib, Syria, recalled at first feeling relieved when one of these bombs did not detonate on 16 March 2015. "It is usually good news when there is no explosion", he said in an interview.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7815 (2016) · source
“We agree with all those who stress that dialogue is critical. However, we must complement that engagement with steps that show a far greater seriousness of purpose and steps that show that the Council means what it says and intends to actually perform the mission that was given to us, which was to enforce international peace and security, support our peacekeepers, take seriously the warning of multiple United Nations officials and protect civilians in desperate need.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“Those who have argued against taking such modest steps in the face ofa conflict that has so many ingredients of mass atrocities have honestly had months to show that an alternative approach can work and help those people on our visit who cried out for our support for those actions. The approach we have been pursuing has been an approach of dialogue, of patience, of waiting for the next South Sudanese Government Cabinet meeting or the next letter to the Security Council - letters that include happy talk and bureaucratic language but describe no material change in the Government's behaviour. They are letters that also include falsehoods, including, as we saw yesterday, and as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General just reminded us, blatant misrepresentations. The United States advocates continuing our engagement.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“Imposing new targeted sanctions designations will isolate the individuals who have consistently been responsible for the acts that have brought South Sudan to this moment and caused so much suffering. Such sanctions will limit the ability of such individuals to travel freely as they are doing now across the region or to move assets that could be used to fund further violence. There is no good reason why we would not deprive those who have shown a willingness to commit mass atrocities of the means of doing it more efficiently. There is also no good reason why we should not try to prevent at least some weapons from getting into the hands of people who have consistently used them to kill innocent men, women and children.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“As we sit here, more arms are flowing into that country, including the acquisition of heavy weapons, aircraft and military vehicles that have been used to inflict such devastating violence in the conflict and were used in the conflict in Juba in July, during which United Nations staff, including our Special Representative and others, had to take shelter and duck the incoming gun fire aimed at them. As the crisis escalates, we should all flash forward and ask ourselves how we will feel if Adama Dieng's warnings come to pass. We will wish we had done everything we could to hold spoilers and perpetrators to account and limit to the maximum extent that we could the inflow of weapons. As we have learned elsewhere, an arms embargo is effective if there is a broad and robust commitment to its enforcement.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“In the interest of the people of South Sudan and the region, this constitutes an important step towards curbing the ongoing violence perpetrated by the Government and opposition forces against civilians. Let me anticipate some of the comments that we will hear today from countries expressing scepticism with regard to these steps. First, we know that no embargo can completely stop weapons from entering the country. To state the obvious, we also know that an arms embargo will not remove those weapons already in South Sudan, but an arms embargo could have a significant impact on the ground, particularly with regard to preventing the acquisition of arms that occurs daily.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“Let us stop asking for permission to carry out a mandate authorized by the Security Council in the interest of peace and security and, instead, start demanding it to unite around that message and mandate. Let us stop acting as if the principle of sovereignty, as critical as it is to the functioning of the international order, gives the South Sudanese Government or any Government license to commit mass atrocities against its own people or fuel a humanitarian crisis that has left millions of lives hanging in the balance. In the coming days, the United States will put forward a proposal to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan and targeted sanctions on the individuals who have been the biggest spoilers to achieve lasting peace in the country.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“Given the accumulation of warnings, we have lost the right individually and collectively to act surprised in the face of even greater atrocities in South Sudan. None of us can say that we did not see it coming. The question therefore for us is - what will we do? We can start by acknowledging the deeply precarious situation on the ground and the fact that the international community's current approach is not stopping the cycle of violence. Let us not treat the leaders of South Sudan as though they are responsible and credible interlocutors but engage them as the cynical actors whom they unfortunately have shown themselves to be, too often putting their short-sighted personal interests above the welfare of millions of their own people who are suffering.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“And yet those who perpetrate these attacks, hack innocent civilians to death, burn down their homes, rape women, conscript men and young boys to fight and threaten journalists and human rights defenders enjoy nearly total impunity. The same goes for those who incite others to carry out such hateful acts. The message that the Government sends by not holding them accountable is crystal clear: "Keep at it; keep doing what you are doing". The ingredients that I have described and that others have in more powerful and greater detail are ones that create a climate conducive to massive atrocities. With each of these factors, we are reminded of all of the warnings that the United Nations missed or saw but chose to ignore in places like Srebrenica and Rwanda in the 1990s.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“We will despicably and barbarically kill you." If these were just words or incitement, that would be one thing, but as another recent example - once again, I stress that are too many - 20-year-old Abraham Aloro was recently interviewed in the Bidibidi refugee camp in Uganda shortly after fleeing an attack on his home town of Yei, the same town as Ms. Kakuni's. Aloro said, "[a]bout two weeks ago, soldiers came to my brother Emmanuel's house at night and demanded that he open the door. They accused him ofjoining the rebels. He had not, but they cut him to death with pangas, that is machetes". Aloro's brother was 24-years-old.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“we will go after you, whichever hole you are in". When the Council visited the country that same month, we heard directly from civil society leaders, felt their palpable sense of fear and, in many instances, were made aware of the threats that they received because of their work. A group that calls itself the Angry Youth of former Northern Bhar el-Ghazal posted the following message on Facebook directed at civilians in the southern Equatoria region: "We are going to take a quick revenge attack against Equatorians anywhere and anyplace from now on. We will find you and kill you.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“Even if they had them, the Secretary-General assesses that they would not be enough. The shortage of appropriate manpower is in part because the South Sudanese Government also continues to stand in the way of the deployment of the 4,000-strong Regional Protection Force to Juba, which the Council authorized more than three months ago - a force whose deployment would give an important and much needed boost to the 14,000 soldiers and police officers who are currently deployed. The third ingredient involves a growing climate, which we have seen, of incitement, fear and intimidation. Government officials openly threaten journalists, as when the Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Martin Lomuro, with whom we met in Juba, told journalist at a press conference in September, "[i]f you are going to say something which is not correct...”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“The Secretary-General has said that even if the soldiers and police personnel deployed in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan were to use all necessary means to protect civilians under attack, as the Security Council has mandated them to do, they "do not have the appropriate reach, manpower or capabilities to stop mass atrocities" (5/2016/95], p. 16). And that is a big "if" because, as we all know, the South Sudanese Government continues to block peacekeepers from conducting the basic operations, such as the routine patrols that are necessary to even have a chance of protecting civilians. Many troop contributors cannot get access to their equipment. They are either delayed or blocked. These are capabilities that are being systematically denied to those who are there.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“As just one example * unfortunately, there are too many - Sara Kakuni, who fled her village on the outskirts of Yei, is now living in a refugee camp in Uganda from where a lot of our information is coming because reporters are able to debrief those who arrive there often with nothing more than the shirts on their backs. This young women told a reporter that she and her two young daughters were kept awake at night by gun shots. She said, "[w]hen it stops, that is when they are slaughtering people with knives and pangas. Dinkas will open your door and kill you if you do not have their tribal scars". This is the ethnic dimension. Secondly, we do not have adequate forces in place to stop mass atrocities should the violence continue to escalate, as all those who watched South Sudan closely deem likely.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“First, as has been stressed by our briefers, we have seen violence escalating not merely along political lines - which was bad enough - but also now dramatically along ethnic lines. This is not an assessment that anyone reaches lightly. It is an empirical assessment from a range of credible sources, including the Panel of Experts on South Sudan, the Secretary- General, serious independent human rights groups and independent journalists. We heard this ourselves with our own ears from petrified and thoroughly unscripted civilians.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“I thank Ambassador Seck for his leadership of the Committee established pursuant to resolution 2206 (2015) concerning South Sudan and his dark briefing, which was in keeping with the general tenor here today. South Sudan is a nation on the precipice. As Mr. Dieng said upon completing his Visit to the country last week, there is "a strong risk of violence escalating along ethnic lines with the potential for genocide". When the United Nations designated Special Adviser on the Prevention on Genocide reaches the conclusion that genocide might be imminent, it should serve as a wake-up call for us all. As he so aptly put it last week in Juba, all the ingredients exist for the already horrific violence to escalate dramatically. Let me touch upon a few of those ingredients.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“For me watching Special Representative Laj dodge bullets in July, stay to be with the people of South Sudan, open the United Nations gates with the support of the Secretary-General and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and shelter local staff who feel that they have no place to go or sleep other than under their desks because they were so afraid was reflective of her bravery but also of her compassion for the people of that country. She will be missed by a lot of people. I thank the Special Adviser to the Secretary- General on the Prevention of Genocide, Mr. Dieng, for taking the trip that he took and for when he took it, his candour and the level of the detail in his briefing, as well as the knowledge that he brings from other contexts and history. I believe that it is chastening for us all.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“Let me start by paying tribute to Special Representative Laj for her briefing, but above all for her more than two years of service in one of the most difficult Missions on the planet. We could tell, from our two trips to South Sudan - one at the beginning of her deployment and the other, recently, at the tail end of her deployment 4 just how much of herself she had invested in the Mission. We saw the kind of relationship she had with local South Sudanese staff, many of them terrified by the events unfolding around them, the relationship she managed to have even through difficult times with Government and opposition actors and the respect that people in civil society had for her.”
2016-11-17 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7814 (2016) · source
“Earlier this year, United Nations police in the Central African Republic deployed to secure polling stations through successive rounds of voting in the Central African Republic's elections. At one polling place, the Baya Dombia school, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at a crowd waiting to vote. United Nations police were on hand to help secure the polling site after the attack and they immediately commenced an investigation into who had perpetrated the attack. Hundreds of voters, reportedly, stayed at the school chanting "We will vote, we will vote". In that case, the United Nations police made sure that violence did not keep those voters from making their voices heard. And United Nations police can play an incredibly important role in promoting security.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“Here I would like to make an admission, which is that I could certainly spend more time thinking about the role of United Nations police in peacekeeping. I would ask my colleagues around the table to think back to the last time that they reviewed a peacekeeping mandate. How closely did they think about the performance of that Mission's police component? How closely did any of us think about the task that it was performing, about the division of labour even between formed police units, individual police oficers and so on. We can bring more intentionality to that task. Doing so matters, because countless civilians are relying on United Nations police to keep them safe. I will close with just one example.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“Then we could draw down police as a host country's police and security services are able to take up the baton for law enforcement and stabilization. But that is not what we do today. We typically work with the Secretariat to assign a fixed number of police to a mission, and then provide the police with a list of tasks to complete. Resolutions do not specify when police divisions should focus more on protection than on advising. We rarely consider surging police to allow for troop withdrawals. Of course, it is hard to use United Nations police strategically when serious gaps remain in their skill sets - which speaks to my first point - but part of the problem, too, is a lack of awareness among those of us in the Council about the role of United Nations police.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“We States members of the Security Council need to be more strategic about how we deploy United Nations police. In theory - I stress theory - United Nations police should be able to help facilitate the withdrawal of a peacekeeping mission. They can bridge the gap between an armed international military presence and the handover of responsibility for security to local authorities. United Nations police could be a peacekeeping mission's exit strategy, stepping in after peacekeepers restore a basic level of security, then building up a host country's law enforcement capabilities. Depending on the circumstances, one could even imagine a world in which troop numbers decline and police numbers increase.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“That is common sense but it has not happened enough, in part because the pool of eligible recruits in each of our countries is not large enough. So we Member States must bring intentionality to expanding our national pools of recruits to include officers with relevant skills. I know that we have already seen a number of countries placing a real emphasis on trying to recruit women nationally so that DPKO has more women police officers from whom to recruit. But if we ask the Secretariat and the Police Division to do more, that alone will not work unless the Member States that comprise the United Nations set about actually looking at the skills that are needed and recruiting such people. That brings me to my second and final point, which involves mandates.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“And the Secretariat is not in a position to provide that training to police units that do not already have it. That is a real issue. The issues are so daunting and so systemic that it is tempting to be intimidated and to just go on with our business as we have been doing, but let me offer one place to start. United Nations Member States and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) need to go beyond the basic proficiency test and increase focus on which skills each Mission needs, not just meeting numerical targets for force strength. The Police Division and the broader Secretariat should not expect contingents that pass the basic United Nations assessment test - again, linguistic, firearms and driving - to be ready to tackle the tasks in police mandates.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“One of the things the external review showed is that the Police Division tests for three basic skills - linguistic capacity for a particular mission, firearm proficiency and driving competency. Those are very important skills, but they are not necessarily tailored for any specific sui generis set of circumstances like the very varied circumstances we have heard about today. It turns out that approximately 55 per cent of candidates put forward to serve with United Nations as police fail even that three-pronged test. But what peacekeeping missions and Police Commissioners really need to know is whether a police contingent can handle far more complex tasks, like responding to a terrorist attack in a town centre in Mali or explaining to new police recruits how to treat suspects in an interrogation, such as in the Central African Republic.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“The result is that the Police Division, I think it is fair to say, often focuses more on meeting their numbers, getting police contingents to 100 per cent of authorized strength, rather than being able to afford to look at whether the officers have the training and skills to actually meet the particular mission's goals. In that regard, I would quote the United Nations Mission in South Sudan Police Commissioner who issued an appeal here today for more officers, as he put it, with the skill set and the mindset suited to the environments where the police are being deployed. Predeployment assessments are done by the Police Division, as we know, but those assessments may not align with the skills that United Nations missions actually need. We hear that from the Police Commissioners whenever we travel in the field.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“But unlike militaries, which may have units stationed in barracks waiting for a new contingency in each of our countries, police departments in all of our countries are using their officers to conduct everyday law enforcement. There is not generally a standing pool of officers waiting to get the call. A police department sending a formed police unit, especially to the United Nations, loses 140 to 160 officers to patrol their streets. That is why the United States is really and truly grateful to police-contributing countries for their commitments. But for the Police Division finding any new police experts or formed police units for peacekeeping missions is an extremely time-consuming task.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“I think others have already and will discuss all the challenges they are facing, drawing upon in their testimonies today. Ijust want to focus on two: the training and capabilities that United Nations police bring to their deployment, or the lack thereof in some cases, and the Security Council's lack of strategic guidance for them when we send them into the field. First, briefly on training and capabilities, one key problem that as Commissioners they must deal with every day is the perpetual mismatch between supply and demand for United Nations police. The United Nations Police Division at Headquarters is under pressure to find enough United Nations police to match the Council's requests - the figure that we put in our mandates.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“Therefore, the backgrounds the Commissioners and their officers have are very different in national settings. We as a Council expect United Nations police not just to support host Governments in maintaining law and order, but, as we have heard, to help restore the rule of law in places where armed groups act with impunity. We also expect United Nations police to kind of act as development advisers, working with Governments to rebuild national police forces, as we have seen work in Haiti. Therefore, this year's external review of the United Nations Police Division, along with an evaluation of United Nations police from the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, were together an important and comprehensive assessment of how Member States and the Secretariat together can improve a mission with few precedents to draw upon.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“Commissioner Yacouba in Mali, by far the most dangerous, deadliest mission in the whole world, has made an appeal to us for support for intelligence-based policing. As we noted in the meeting that the Senegal delegation organized last week (see S/PV.7802) on asymmetrical threats, this is an extremely important appeal. That is because that in so many of the missions that exist now in very complex and warlike environments, the peacekeepers and the police are often blind to the threats out there and do not have the information and intelligence they need. I hope that we as a Council heed his appeal. The challenge, as we as a Council talk about United Nations police, is that their mandate is unlike the mandate of any other police force.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“That is incredibly important. Commissioner Monchotte has worked in a Haiti Mission that has experienced incredible ups and downs over the years, and the most devastating moment, of course, was the 2010 earthquake, where so many United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) officers, including the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, lost their lives serving the people of Haiti. Yet against that backdrop, MINUSTAH and the police have steadily gone about their business, taking a country that, as we know, had 6,700 equipped and trained police when MINUSTAH deployed, which will have next year up to 15,000 trained and equipped police. I also imagine they will have a different depth oftraining than had been available before MINUSTAH arrived in Haiti.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“Now, suddenly, the police in South Sudan have had to adjust and take on that task. Commissioner Makotose, as the sole female United Nations Police Commissioner - who works in the Darfur mission, where sexual violence is, sadly, quite widespread as a weapon of war - described the impact of having women occupy 19 per cent of the individual police officer slots as part of African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur and how that changes the way the communities interact with the Operation and the way women and children come forward. She also described something that we maybe are less conscious of, that is, the extent to which the women who serve in these missions, in, relatively speaking, a higher ratio than what we are used to seeing, serve as role models for young girls in the communities where they serve.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“I thank Under-Secretary-General Ladsous and the four Police Commissioners who have joined us here today. I wish to thank all Police Commissioners serving around the world, as well as the 13,000 United Nations police. In listening to the briefings, I was quite struck by how much each of the four Commissioners, who in turn represent the other Commissioners, have in common, but also by how very different each of their appeals to us are. Specifically, I noted just how unique each mission is and how we cannot take a solution that works for one mission and apply it to another. Commissioner Munyambo described the hugely important task that peacekeepers in South Sudan are performing by protecting the protection-of-civilians sites - 200,000 people living at sites were never envisaged when the mandate was created in the first place.”
2016-11-10 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7808 (2016) · source
“Looking to escape the violence, people like Marcelline and Yongon fled towards the safest place that they could find, a base of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic. In that case the peacekeepers responded, firing on the Seleka until the United Nations had repelled the militia. This is of course just one case. In far too many others, United Nations troops did not answer similar calls for help. The incident in Kaga-Bandoro shows that when violence comes, people still desperately look desperately to the United Nations to help keep them safe. More important, it shows that when peacekeepers act, they save lives. We must not let asymmetrical threats keep peacekeepers from taking such action to protect the vulnerable.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“We hope that CTED can work with other United Nations agencies to deploy experts in preventing violent extremisms and assist Force Commanders and Special Representatives of the Secretary-General. In conclusion, on 12 October, militias from the Seleka coalition reportedly attacked civilians near the town of Kaga-Bandoro in the Central African Republic. One witness, a 40-year-old woman named Marcelline, recalled, "[w]e were in the house when suddenly the Seleka arrived and set it on fire. They killed my uncle and stabbed my brother to death". Another 48-year-old-resident, named Yongon, told a journalist that he ran past a body with its head cut off, as he searched for cover.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“Instead of relying on military responses to asymmetric threats, missions should, as others have noted, consider expanding their relationships with local populations. For example, peacekeeping missions could broaden outreach to faith leaders, local officials and other members of civil society, while helping address suspicions about the United Nations role and giving peacekeepers better insight into threats on the ground. Peacekeeping missions should of course be able to draw upon the counter-terrorism resources within the United Nations system. We appreciate that Assistant Secretary- General Laborde of the Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) could join us here.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“These collective efforts to improve peacekeeping have generated a new reserve on which the United Nations can draw to replace units unprepared to execute mandated tasks. Accordingly, when the United Nations observes a pattern of underperformance or an egregious failure to act by peacekeepers, the Secretary-General should repatriate and replace the contingent. Looking beyond equipment and training, the proliferation of asymmetric threats against peacekeeping operations will also require an evolution in peacekeeping leadership. In the field, Force Commanders should be able to expect that every contingent in a mission will be ready and willing to respond when a terrorist unexpectedly strikes or when the opportunity to head off an imminent attack presents itself.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“Even as we address these concerns together through more consultation and transparency, we cannot lose sight of the fact that the benefits of unmanned aerial systems are lifesaving for both civilians and peacekeepers. We as members of the Council should encourage the United Nations, troop-contributing countries and host Governments to deploy these systems. Our peacekeepers, we know, are often in impossibly difficult circumstances. The least that we can do here back in New York is reduce their sense of blindness. Over the past 15 months, starting with the first-ever leaders' summit on United Nations peacekeeping, Member States have also pledged more than 55,000 new troops and police officers, including new medical, aviation and engineering capabilities.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“The United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has used such unmanned systems to help the Government track armed groups and plan operations that help protect civilians from imminent attack. We know that, here at the United Nations, some continue to be sceptical and worry that this technology will be too intrusive. Peacekeeping missions, however, share the information that they gather with host countries - it is important to stress. We also must note that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is addressing concerns about the storage and security of the information collected, which has also generated concern.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“Addressing such gaps starts with deploying troops that are better equipped and trained to operate in unstable environments in the first place. That is why the United States Government is providing counter- IED training, contributing logistics capabilities, like airlift to peace operations, and partnering with the United Nations to provide better technology for troops to communicate and use geographical data to improve decision-making. In that regard, new technologies can be helpful. For example, unmanned aerial systems could allow peacekeepers to detect threats earlier and monitor critical supply lines while keeping troops out of the firing line.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“Outmoded logistics mean that the Mission struggles to deliver food, water and ammunition across long supply lines to remote bases. While we greatly appreciate that troop- contributors have improved MINUSMA's intelligence capabilities, troops at many of the force's bases still do not have the equipment to know which groups are preparing to attack the Mission, or from where. I know that the Council members who visited Mali heard this first-hand from the forces. This brings me to my second point. The Secretariat, troop- and police contributing countries and Governments like mine that train and equip peacekeepers need to work together to prepare missions to repel attacks on the United Nations and civilians.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“MINUSMA'S troop-contributing countries are taking enormous risks to support the vital Mission and they have our eternal gratitude. Mali is the deadliest peacekeeping operation in the world, with 65 peacekeepers killed by hostile action just since 1 January and 139 peacekeepers killed since 2013. MINUSMA shows the way in which we are all falling short in meeting the complex challenge. The Mission has dire gaps in its capabilities, which undermine its ability to respond to terrorist attacks. Many contingents do not bring suitably armoured vehicles to protect against improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and conduct mobile patrols. We Member States must urgently and durably address the pending shortage of helicopters, which could mean significant delays in medical and casualty evacuations.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“This is not a radical idea. The United Nations own guidance already explicitly provides for it. We in the Council annually renew mandates for forces that we know are present where terrorists are present. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) shows how peacekeeping missions have to adapt. When it was authorized and deployed, in 2013, MINUSMA was intended to stabilize the peace in Mali after extremist groups had seized approximately half of the country's territory. Yet the peace process has faltered. There has not been full implementation, and terrorist groups like Ansar Dine have continued to act as spoilers and attack civilians and United Nations troops. In many parts of Mali, the country's people are now looking to MINUSMA to protect them rather than Government forces.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“And, as extremist groups increasingly take advantage of these weak States to find safe havens, peacekeepers will need to be ready to respond, or their attackers will feel a growing sense of impunity. To clarify, we, the United States, do not believe that United Nations peacekeepers can or should become offensive counter- terrorism forces. We know that that is unrealistic. But the United Nations cannot walk away because there is a terrorist threat where peacekeepers are deployed. As an international community, we do not have that option. United Nations peacekeeping missions should be fully prepared to protect civilians when terrorists arrive in a town and start shooting civilians. They should be prepared to protect themselves when the United Nations knows that terrorists are preparing to launch attacks against its own personnel.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source
“The Security Council deployed peacekeeping missions with mandates to protect civilians in places like Mali and the Central African Republican because countless people needed urgent help, notwithstanding the important initiative that regional forces had shown in both of those countries, which themselves took on great risks and faced very difficult circumstances operating under various flags. The Counciljudged that the United Nations was best placed to organize and deploy a sustained multinational force with enough capabilities to make a difference. For now, the reality is that the Council will continue to deploy United Nations peacekeeping missions to fragile and insecure environments to protect civilians.”
2016-11-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7802 (2016) · source