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Mr. President,
We would like to thank you for organizing this important debate and for your able stewardship of the Council this month.
We welcome His Excellency, the Foreign Minister of Guatemala in the Council and thank the Secretary General and other briefers for their statements.
It has been over a decade since the Security Council started addressing themes like Protection of Civilians in armed conflict, Children and armed conflict, and Women, Peace and Security. The objective behind addressing such themes with cross cutting aspects was indeed noble and we fully support their objective. However, there were also some apprehensions among wider UN membership. Questions were raised about the Security Council’s role and mandate, its ability to objectively deliver on such themes as well as its known inability to deliver on issues that have been on its agenda for decades.
Mr. President,
Notwithstanding reservations, the compelling need to protect civilians in armed conflict led to a broad consensus that such protection be pursued objectively and without politicization. Regrettably, however, we are witnessing a trend of out of context and selective reporting on this and other issues. The last two reports of the Secretary General on protection of civilians including the one under consideration stretched to situations that cannot be described as armed conflict and are thus outside the mandate of the report. On the other hand, the reports do not do justice to the situations that are on the Council’s agenda including situations of foreign occupation.
Mr. President,
The Secretary General’s report has unwarranted references to Pakistan, and which we plainly reject. Pakistan has suffered immensely from the menace of terrorism, with thousands of lives lost among the security and law enforcement bodies and civilians. Pakistan’s law enforcement operation against terrorists cannot be termed “armed conflict”. Therefore, we are disappointed that the authors of this report have clearly violated the mandate by mentioning Pakistan in the report. This anomaly must be resolved.
Mr. President,
The challenge of protecting civilians in armed conflict is exacerbated by inequity in international response. In some situations, there is a quick and even robust response and in others, perpetrators enjoy virtual immunity. Many a time there is sufficient public concern but the political will to act is missing. The Security Council, in accordance with its mandate should take impartial and non-politicized action in all situations of armed conflict in particular those that have been gathering dust on its agenda for decades. The Council for example, has failed to respond to the crisis and the unacceptable situation in Gaza where over a million people remain in a virtual incarceration and suffer from collective punishment. Such unequal attention to various situations is also evident in the priorities and activities of some international humanitarian organizations and actors as is clear from today’s debate.
Protection of Civilians is part of many UN Peacekeeping mandates. Pakistan is the top troop contributor to such Missions and has made important contributions towards carrying out their mandates. At the same time, we emphasize the need to respect host-country primacy in ensuring civilian protection. National authorities alone can maintain long term peace and security. A Peacekeeping Mission protects civilians in coordination with host authorities. Its ability to do so effectively is inherently linked to resources as pointed out by the Secretary General as well as other elements like training, intelligence capabilities and configurations of various components within the Mission, hence the need for realistic expectations from Peacekeeping Missions. In a display of such misplaced expectations, a recent mandate revision asked peacekeepers to preempt threat to civilian population. Similarly, the notion of use of force in peacekeeping under the garb of civilian protection is not helpful. We also need careful evaluation of all legal aspects of civilian protection in peacekeeping operations.
Mr. President,
It is important to resist the urge to use Secretariat reports to advance notions that have failed to gain any traction in inter-governmental processes. A case in point is the advocacy of the political Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) that we have heard today. The process that may or may not lead to an ATT is still work in progress and we should not try to prejudge its outcome.
The annex of the SG’s report on “constraints on humanitarian access” deals with the issue of access in a partial manner. It overlooks the possibility that there could be legitimate reasons for restricting access. It also disregards the fact that regrettably, not all humanitarian actors perform in accordance with the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. Any debate on humanitarian access would be fruitless without complete cognizance of current realities. In this context, we would also like to recall the General Assembly resolution 46/182 which requires that humanitarian assistance be provided with full respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and national unity of States.
Humanitarian actors must also conform to and work strictly within the framework of the host country agreements.
Mr. President,
This debate affords us an opportunity to renew our commitment to protect civilians in times of armed conflict while framing the debate in the proper context. We hope that future reports on the subject will be apolitical, objective and in strict compliance with the mandate.
Thank you