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Mr. President, I would like to thank Under-Secretary-General Ladsous as well as Commissioners Champion, Hinds and Deputy Commissioner Bent for their briefings. We welcome this opportunity to once again engage directly with the heads of the UN police components. We welcome the Presidency’s decision to focus this briefing on the protection of civilians. As we know, 13,000 UN police work in dangerous and challenging conditions in 16 peacekeeping and 5 political missions. They play a key role in making civilians safer whether through direct patrolling in areas of increased risk, ensuring security in refugee and IDP camps or indirectly, through supporting building national police institutions and assisting in the development of  national rule-of-law capacities.

The countries where UN peacekeepers are deployed usually don’t have efficient law-and-order forces. Furthermore, at times the local security forces are the ones that commit crimes against those very people they are expected to protect, which underscores the urgency and importance of credible SSR processes in conflict-affected countries, including adequate vetting procedures.

This Council needs to make sure it engages in a genuine and regular dialogue with police commissioners and is fully apprised of the challenges they face, in order to provide all necessary support to help them to implement their mandates.

Lithuania fully shares the Presidency’s aspiration to make this debate more interactive. In this context, let me confine to questions to our briefers.

In South Sudan almost 190 000 civilians are forced to seek protection at UNMISS sites. Forty percent of the UNMISS force strength is now dedicated solely to the protection of these sites. The police component faces a daunting task of not just protecting civilians from outside threats but also ensuring order within the camps.

In this regard, I would like to ask Deputy Commissioner Bent of UNMISS:

How is UN Police being prepared to ensure public order in such dire situations? Is the pre-deployment training provided to police forces sufficient for the dramatic PoC environment in which you have to operate? What additional resources or support would be most needed?

What are the most prevalent offenses and crimes you have to tackle within and around PoC sites? Do you deal with the facts as they occur or are there established sets of preventive measures that help you in your work?

How do you deal with the alleged criminals detained within the sites, taking into account the factual and moral difficulties of surrendering them to the Government? To what extent easy availability of small arms contributes to the criminality in the sites and beyond?

Infiltration or coming and going of representatives of armed and criminal groups on the protection sites? Or potentially, radical extremists? If this is a problem, are measures in place to tackle such this problem?

What measures are being taken to tackle sexual and gender based violence within the sites and in their proximity? Is the training your staff receive sufficient for the task, and if not, what else would be useful in this respect?

SOFA violations: what challenges has the police component faced in this regard? How could that be tackled? 

What main problems do you encounter in mobile protection? What additional resources would you require for the task? Is there room for modern technologies in your job? If so, what is most needed specifically?

Also, related questions to all Commissioners:

What confidence/trust building measures work best with local communities in your view? Do you have enough resources for trust building?

What community-oriented policing practices have been most useful in your view? How effective are Community Policing Initiatives and Community Alert Networks?

What is being done specifically to address women’s safety and security issues in PoC sites in the case of UNMISS and more generally? What main difficulties do you encounter in protecting women and girls? What is the level of interaction between the police force and your mission’s  HR, thematic advisors teams?

What actions can the mission undertake upon receiving reports of human rights violations by national security forces? How do you respond when government forces are involved in the offences?

Bearing in mind the history of sexual exploitation and abuse by the United Nations staff in the DRC, we welcome the recent initiatives by MONUSCO, such as additional training of personnel and setting up a whistle-blower mechanism.

We are convinced that in this and in any other PK mission having more females in the police and peacekeeping force as a whole is very important. In this regard, one additional question to Commissioner Champion of MONUSCO:

How is the police component contributing to the implementation of zero tolerance policy?

What lessons can be drawn from your mission’s experience in tackling sexual abuses and violence, that could be useful to other PK missions and their police components? What good practices have been developed in your mission to this effect?

What is the percentage of policewomen in your mission? Would their greater presence change how you operate and how you interact with local communities?

The report of the UN High-level Independent Panel on Peace operations rightly points out that national police development and reform cannot be implemented separately from the broader efforts in strengthening rule of law capacities and developing security sector. Police does not operate in a vacuum. If other branches of law and order are weak or inoperative – be it the prosecutor’s office, corrections facilities, or the courts – even the most genuine efforts of the police will be compromised.

E.g. one can arrest criminals, but if there are no operating courts or judges are too afraid to conduct trials, or if serious criminals and terrorist are held together for long periods with minor offenders without trial- the consequences are easy to imagine.  In this respect it is essential that UN peace operations and broader UN presence on the ground develop a comprehensive approach to strengthening  justice and security sector, ensuring close cooperation among all mission/country team components, including UN Police.

Being the largest UN peace operation, MONUSCO is responsible for implementing a particularly multifaceted mandate. My question to Commissioner Champion of MONUSCO is:

How do you ensure coordination among all mission components in assisting the development of DRC’s security sector and rule of law institutions? How easy a task is such coordination?

How big a challenge is posed by criminal groups or traffickers? Are PK police components in your view adequately equipped to tackle such challenges? 

In Liberia, where UNMIL is drawing down, rapid development of the security agencies remains important, and a lot still needs to be done to achieve better transparency, oversight, professionalism and accountability of the Liberian National Police. In this context, a question to Commissioner Hinds of UNMIL:

How does the UNMIL police component ensure that the mission’s activities in developing national police are integrated into the overall effort to build security institutions?

What additional challenges did you face during the Ebola crisis? What were the most pressing needs and was the system flexible and fast enough to respond to those needs?

What lessons could you draw from the Ebola crisis with regard to preparedness, resources, training and contingency planning needs?