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Mr. President, I would like to thank Lieutenant General Yohaness Gebremeskel Tesfamariam (UNMISS), Major General Michael Collesgaard (MINUSMA) and Major General Michael Finn (UNTSO) for their briefings. Lithuania welcomes this yearly opportunity to hear from UN force commanders on the most pressing challenges in today’s peacekeeping. Given the changing peace-keeping environment and the ever more complex challenges that peace keepers face, meeting once a year is the least we can do. Let me use this opportunity to express our appreciation to all the Force Commanders, whose sound judgment and decisions increasingly under fire are critical for the successful implementation of mandates, as well as for the lives of peacekeepers and those they serve to protect. Let me briefly touch upon the topics selected for today’s discussion.

Protection of civilians under imminent threat must remain a key priority in peacekeeping missions. The primary responsibility to protect civilians rests with the national Governments. However, as seen in various crises, whether CAR, Iraq, South Sudan, Somalia, Darfur, Mali and elsewhere, there is often a tragic lack of national capacity needed to protect own populations. Even worse, there may be a lack of political will or willingness to protect where leadership disputes go on aggravating the suffering of the population, or where governments fail to engage in truly inclusive policies leaving large groups of aggrieved population out and an easy prey to extremisms and terrorists of all sorts. A trend of considerable concern is the increasing turning by host country governments against peacekeeping missions, including incendiary comments and demands of premature withdrawal in spite of dramatic protection of civilians realities.   

Mission leadership is crucial as it must ensure that protection of civilians, including women and children, is considered an essential task by the mission as a whole. That is a key element of “one mandate, one mission, one force” approach, which we strongly support. Yet static presence itself is often not sufficient and peacekeepers must be ready to demonstrate their willingness and courage to act in pro-active manner to fight insecurity and protect civilian lives as the primary task. Within the mission, all must be fully committed to the mandate, prepared and ready to defend it by force if necessary. Implementing protection mandates however requires clear focus, improved situational awareness and intelligent analysis, adequate structures and materiel, training and resources.

In South Sudan, UNMISS took an extraordinary step to accommodate thousands of IDPs at its sites. By opening its gates, it saved countless lives. We do, however, acknowledge enormous constraints that protecting some 120 000 IDPs poses to the Mission. As a political solution remains but a distant possibility, the numbers of those in need of protection keep growing. All parts of the UN should work together to find suitable solutions to address this situation. Better cooperation with Government of South Sudan is also required, especially when it comes to securing the safe environment to facilitate the voluntary IDP’s return. Continuous SOFA violations don’t help and are a cause of serious concern regarding the future of such cooperation.

Let me put forward these questions to the Force Commanders on this topic:
To what extent would an arms embargo in South Sudan make UNMISS task to protect civilians easier?
How safe do peacekeepers feel themselves? What measures have been taken to ensure their safety under current circumstances?

Could you elaborate on the practical impact of SOFA violations on the protection mandate and Mission’s provisions/supplies?

Turning to operations in asymmetric environment, it is important to recognize that a number of countries hosting UN operations are also among the ones facing the highest levels of threat from militant and terrorist groups: like in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia,  Lebanon, and Mali.

Attacks on peacekeeping personnel in Mali take a significant toll on the mission’s efforts. Twenty-eight peacekeepers lost their lives in Mali last year. The recent mine attack (on 28 May 2015, in the region of Timbuktu) on a MINUSMA convoy, in which the Force Commander and the Police Commissioner of MINUSMA were present, is another proof that the mission has become a primary target of attacks from extremist groups.

MINUSMA in particular operates in a challenging environment where local populations seem to expect it to substitute government and provide services the government is responsible for, while at the same time interpreting its role as biased in favour of one or another side to the conflict. All this in the presence of a persistent terrorist threat and growing interconnections between trans-border crime and terrorist networks. All this has turned MINUSMA into one of the deadliest missions in the field.

Regarding this topic, I would like to ask:

Q: How to improve intelligence gathering and ensure better use of available intelligence for the protection of peacekeepers and the mission? What gaps do you see in this regard?

Q: How could the Council better enable you to lead and command the force? Are the current command and control structures flexible enough to operate in a highly dynamic threat environment?

Q What training and equipment are available for the peacekeepers and are they sufficient in the face of growing asymmetric threats?

Q: What additional measures are considered to ensure protection of force? Do you see the need to increase the ceiling of the mission with additional units?

On national caveats, safety and security of peacekeepers is and must remain among UN’s top priorities, as one of the key factors for TCCs and PCCs to continue providing forces needed in the field.  In a rapidly changing security environment, even long-functioning traditional peacekeeping missions are facing asymmetric and unconventional threats. For example, UNDOF, supported by the UNTSO military observers, is being challenged by significant deterioration in the security situation because of the Syrian conflict.

Due to the changing nature of threats and the lack of proper equipment and technology to counter those threats, national caveats and restrictions are a tool that TCC/PCCs use to minimize the risks for their contingents. As the information note indicates, that may become a challenge to command and control and hence mission performance and is naturally a concern to force commanders. In this respect, there is a necessity for mutual commitments between the UN and the TCCs. The UN must ensure that utmost will be done for a safe and secure mandate implementation as well as the safety and security of the peacekeepers. We in this Council must support these efforts by making sure that missions are adequately supplied and trained, and that accountability for attacks against UN personnel is pursued with all due vigour. At the same time, the TCCs should recognise the necessity of efforts to flexibly adjust posture and mission tasks in this daily evolving environment and the growing need for robust protection of civilians operations, departing from the long standing traditional static peace-keeping tradition. This issue links naturally, in our view, to the PK operations review process and should be further discussed in the light of the new report by the high level independent panel on peace operations.

Thank you.