Peacekeeping

Colombia reaffirms its commitment to the Cartagena Action Plan adopted at the Second Review Conference of States Parties to the Mine Ban Convention in December 2009. Colombia also supports the initiative of the Secretary-General concerning the establishment of indicators for assessing progress in protecting civilians in the context of peacekeeping operations.

Thirdly, in order to ensure the effective protection of civilians, the various United Nations bodies and agencies must ensure a synergetic division of labour, with a clear focus on the effective implementation of existing commitments.

Secondly, in strengthening the protection of civilians, attention should be paid to addressing the root causes and symptoms of conflict. The deployment of United Nations peacekeeping operations alone cannot offer a fundamental solution to the protection of civilians. The Security Council should prioritize preventive diplomacy in order to prevent and mitigate conflict.

We also acknowledge the importance of including civilian protection as a component of the mandates of peacekeeping operations, including clear guidelines and intervention standards to effectively implement that aspect of the mission. That must be done without prejudice to the primary responsibility of host Governments to protect their own civilians.

In that context, peacekeeping operations have become multidimensional and have distinct components linked to the protection of civilians, such as the monitoring of human rights, humanitarian assistance, capacity-building, the restoration of infrastructure and services, and security sector reform, among others.

Secondly, comprehensive protection strategies need to be fully integrated into the day-to-day work of United Nations country teams and peacekeeping missions. For the latter, it is important that protectionof- civilian mandates be fully considered in the planning, resource-allocation and training stages of missions.

In addition, protection considerations should ultimately inform decisions to drawdown or withdraw United Nations peacekeeping personnel, as well as decisions on how resources are allocated. But, protecting civilians is not just a job for military personnel. For all United Nations actors on the ground, both civilian and military, protection strategies should be clear, concrete and measurable, drawing on clear indicators and benchmarks.

My delegation very much appreciates the emphasis in the presidential statement (S/PRST/2010/25) adopted today on the critical issue of communication between peacekeepers and local populations. A positive two-way dialogue is an indispensable element of a comprehensive and effective protection strategy.

I reiterate the great importance that Brazil attaches to the protection of civilians by peacekeepers. I also reaffirm our firm belief that the protection of civilians is a multidimensional task that must be pursued by all mission components in the field and by both the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of Field Support at Headquarters.

Among the several aspects of such a wideranging issue as the protection of civilians, I would like to focus my comments today on three points: reporting, peacekeeping and the root causes of conflict. Comprehensive though they may be, periodic reports of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians have not provide detailed enough information on the protection aspects of all agenda items where such aspects are of concern.