By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, April 11 -- Eight days ago at the UN, mainly Deputy Permanent Representatives negotiated until 8 pm about paying for UN peacekeeping. Today, with mainly Permanent Representatives, the issues remain the same.
Countries contributing mostly money want to extend the minimum deployment to 12 months, saying this will save money. But several troop contributing countries, particularly in Latin America, reply that their constitutions ban this, limiting deployments to six months.
The new idea is to say that exemptions to the 12 month deployment minimum could be given; that it should be phased in. It is noted that naval deployments are not for 12 months.
The donors want to not pay for broken continent owned equipment, and if it fails inspection twice in a row, to not pay the associated peacekeepers. This is opposed mostly by TCCs in Africa.
These two savings would go to increase peacekeeper compensation by some $80 million. The killing only this week of five peacekeepers from India while patrolling South Sudan seems to make this more urgent.
On the scene were, among others, the Permanent Representatives of major TCCs like Pakistan and Morocco, and of Fiji for the Group of 77.
One well placed African Permanent Representative told Inner City Press he is advising his peers to “get this SAG deal done now,” not leave it for the next resumed session with other peacekeeping budgets “which would be cut.”
SAG stands for Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping, a group on which Ban Ki-moon and Peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous let serve Shavendra Silva, who is depicted in Ban's own report on Sri Lanka as engaged in war crimes.
Ban told Inner City Press this was a matter for member states. But as noted elsewhere today, this deference to member states is not equally applied. Watch this site.
