Libyan Mission

S/PV.6178

6178th meeting
Wednesday, 5 August 2009, 10 a.m.
New York

United Nations peacekeeping operations

Mr. Dabbashi (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) (spoke in Arabic): I would like to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your assumption of the presidency of the Council this month. We are confident that your wisdom will make it possible for us to achieve the best results. I would also like to thank you for having organized this important debate on peacekeeping operations and congratulate Ambassador Rugunda and the delegation of Uganda for the excellent way in which they conducted the Council’s work last month. I would also like to thank Under-Secretaries-General Le Roy and Susana Malcorra for their excellent briefings.
My delegation supports the statement to be made by the representative of Morocco on behalf of the Non‑Aligned Movement. I will therefore simply raise a few points here. I will be brief.
Major efforts have been made to reform the planning and management of peacekeeping operations. This began with the Brahimi report (S/2000/809), which was followed by the “Peace Operations 2010” report, the restructuring of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the establishment of the Department of Field Support. The work of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations has guaranteed the follow-up to and assessment of that report.
We hope that today’s debate will enable us to achieve concrete results by establishing a broad partnership that includes all actors. That partnership should benefit from the expertise and experience of troop- and police-contributing countries in improving the planning of peacekeeping operations and from our consideration of how we can strengthen their effectiveness within the framework of clear, achievable and consensual mandates.
We believe it is high time to broaden the participation of troop-contributing countries in peacekeeping operations so that more developed countries can contribute troops, financial resources and materiel, and peacekeeping operations can have the weapons and equipment they need to function.
We reiterate that the establishment or renewal of a mandate must be in line with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and based on the guidelines agreed between the various parties.
The growing demand for peacekeeping requires us to consider enhancing cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations so that the latter are encouraged to play a greater role in peacebuilding and in preserving peace. There is no doubt, in this connection, that the African Union, with Libya as its Chairman, is at the forefront of these regional organizations, first because most current armed conflicts are in Africa and, secondly, it has its own peacekeeping mechanisms. Indeed, the African Union created the Peace and Security Council, is playing a growing role in the area of peacekeeping and has launched numerous initiatives that deserve support and encouragement. We therefore reaffirm the need to continue to implement the joint action plan between the African Union and the United Nations for short- and midterm peacekeeping capacity-building. We would also like to strengthen direct cooperation on capacity-building for the African Union Mission in Somalia.
Finally, we reaffirm that successful peacekeeping is based on a given mission’s full deployment and on a parallel active political process involving all parties to a conflict, in which they express their willingness to reject violence and their commitment to dialogue in order to resolve their differences. We believe that the draft presidential statement before us will contribute enormously to peacekeeping operations.