Retired Major-General Patrick Cammaert of the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps is one of Europe's most respected and experienced United Nations peace-keeping officers. His field of operations has extended from the jungles of Cambodia and the Congo to the offices of UN headquarters in Manhattan, during a career that has seen an enormous growth in the size and number of UN missions around the world.
|
|
|
Retired Major-General |
General Cammaert's career has taken him to Cambodia, where his battalion helped to disarm restless Khmer Rouge rebels and prepare the ground for the 1993 elections, to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to Ethiopia and Eritrea, where he was force commander of the UN mission.
From 2003 to 2005 he was a military advisor to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, and until recently he served as the Force Commander of MONUC, the United Nations peacekeeping operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Hearts and minds
Gen. Cammaert has no time for those who suggest that peace-keeping is "not proper soldiering", stressing the fact that peacekeepers must have both good soldiering skills and a gift for diplomacy, "one day winning the hearts and minds of the population, the next day using force to keep the peace with difficult rules of engagement".
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, General Cammaert had only 15 thousand soldiers for peace-keeping in an extremely violent and volatile region that is two-and-a-half times the size of France. It is not surprising to hear that rebels are once again active in the region, but it is easy to forget what has been achieved. Eighteen thousand rebels did hand in their weapons, and elections were held.
Brahimi report
Under Cammaert's command, UN soldiers actually engaged in battle with Congolese rebels in a violent confrontation in early 2005, in keeping with Cammaert's insistence that the UN must "call a spade a spade". The confrontation also reflected the new mood since the public outcry about the world's inaction in the face of atrocities in Rwanda and Srebrenica.
The UN's Brahimi report of 2000 called for such reforms as more rapid deployment and standby arrangements, independent UN intelligence gathering, and more realistic mandates and rules of engagement. Just the same, General Cammaert believes, "You always have to adjust the Brahimi report and perhaps we need a second one to adjust for 2007". He stresses that there has to be more training at home, before the troops are sent on a mission, in such matters as sexual exploitation and abuse.
"The troops need to be trained and properly prepared for deployment. You will always have rotten apples in the basket…and they have to be taken out." Neutral and impartial
General Cammaert also emphasizes the need in UN peacekeeping to distinguish between neutrality, which can amount to doing nothing, and impartiality, which means doing what is just. "Impartiality means you can't stand by, and that you can be tough." Cammaert concedes this could even mean having to shoot at a child soldier.
 |
|
Discussing tactics in the DRC |
UN missions often have to collaborate with the government forces of a host country with a consistent record of human rights abuses. But at the same time there are encouraging and surprising developments in a continuously shifting international situation.
Under Cammaert's command in the DRC, for example, Indian and Pakistani soldiers served together. "We had Indiani helicopter pilots carrying Pakistani troops, Indian pilots supporting Pakistani forces in combat on the ground", Cammaert adds, "Indian and Pakistanis are among the best peacekeepers in the world in my view."
The West must do more
It is striking, in fact, how many UN troops are provided by developing countries - with India, Pakistan and Bangladesh providing almost half of the roughly 70 thousand uniformed personnel on the UN's current 18 missions. General Cammaert believes western countries should do more than decide the road map and provide money for missions.
"By the time they are asked to provide troops they say they are busy in Afghanistan and Iraq….We have to share the burden of peacekeeping and therefore also share the risk on the ground."
It is said that the excruciating dilly-dallying in Darfur has harmed the UN's reputation as a body capable of intervening effectively in dire humanitarian crises, but Cammaert stresses, "It is not the UN, it is the international community that has taken so long to decide on what the UN should do in Darfur." The general also stresses the importance of not drawing down a mission too quickly in one place, as in Haiti, because public opinion has shifted its attention to a new trouble spot.
Proud to serve for the UN
Major-General Cammaert believes the operational command of the UN is now in much better shape than ever before, capable of competing with NATO and the EU. He says it has been a pleasure working for the UN, though definitely not always an easy job.
"It's not easy but the UN is the only body in the world where a problem can be discussed by all the nations in the world. And when they decide to keep the peace, the UN is the organisation to do the job, and I'm proud I've had the opportunity to do so."
Tags: Brahimi, Congo, Darfur, DRC, failed states, Haiti, NATO, Patrick Cammaert, peacekeeping, UN