Fallen Mountie died 'in the service of peace'

Great piece in the Ottawa Citizen on RCMP Chief Supt. Doug Coates' contributions to peacekeeping and to MINUSTAH, the United Nations’ stabilization mission in Haiti.

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Haitian survivors fight for food

EVENT ALERT: Eyes in the Sky: Airborne and Satellite Reconnaissance for UN Peacekeeping

Presented by
Dr. Walter Dorn
Associate Professor of Defence Studies at the Royal Military College of Canada and the Canadian Forces College

UN peacekeeping missions must monitor belligerent forces, verify ceasefires, spot human rights abuses, catch sanctions busters, and hold violators accountable in conflict zones. To help with these difficult tasks, air- and spacebased observation is playing a growing role and the United Nations is poised to give new emphasis to aerospace technologies. The technical benefits and political limitations of a "watchkeeper in the sky" will be explored in this illustrated presentation, drawing from the speaker's recent visits to UN field missions.

Wednesday January 27th, 2010
3:30 PM to 5:00 PM

Gamble Hall,
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing,
615 Booth St, Ottawa

Brazil looks to double Haiti peacekeepers to 2,600

Source: FOCUS Information Agency

Brazil is looking to send hundreds more soldiers to its UN peacekeeping deployment in Haiti, potentially doubling the unit to 2,600 men, the defense ministry said in a statement, AFP reported.


If Congress approves the ministry's request, Brazil could immediately send 900 personnel -- 750 soldiers and 150 police -- to boost the 1,260 Brazilian peacekeepers already in the country, as urged by the United Nations.

A reserve of another 400 troops could then be kept on standby in case the situation warrants also sending them to the quake-ravaged Caribbean country.

"The priority is to send soldiers who have already served in Haiti and who, therefore, have the necessary experience for the mission," the statement said.

The UN Security Council on Tuesday voted to send 3,500 more security personnel to Haiti to maintain order and protect aid convoys.

Brazil has military command of the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti, which is currently 9,000-strong and has been in the Caribbean nation since 2004.

The force currently counts 7,000 soldiers from various nations and 2,000 police.

Eighteen Brazilian peacekeepers died in the quake.

UN Security Council has voted to boost its peacekeeping forces

The UN approved a recommendation by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to boost UN troop numbers in Haiti by 2,000 for six months, and UN police numbers by 1,500.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon says Canada is constantly re-evaluating its role and stands ready to commit more police and security forces to Haiti as soon as UN authorities "signal that conditions allow this."

Photo: David Boily, La Presse

UN set to send more peacekeepers to Haiti

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has asked the Security Council to approve 3,500 more peacekeepers for Haiti -- a nearly 40% increase -- to help cope with the chaos that followed last week's earthquake. Diplomats said they expected a vote in the 15-nation council tomorrow to authorize the temporary boost for the UN mission.

The secretary-general briefed the Security Council in a closed-door session Monday morning, less than 12 hours after he returned from the Haitian capital. His plane back to New York carried the body of Hedi Annabi, the U.N.'s chief representative in Haiti, who perished when U.N. headquarters crumbled in the earthquake. Mr. Ban told reporters the extra U.N. police and troops were needed to protect aid convoys and distribution points in the devastated city. A Western diplomat who was inside the council chamber for the closed Security Council session said the U.S. had already circulated a draft resolution authorizing the increase of blue helmets, and that the Security Council would vote on it at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.

Questions about coordination and command continue to fester. The governments of France, Italy, and Brazil, as well as aid agencies such as Doctors Without Borders, have reportedly complained that the U.S. military is giving priority to security over aid as it determines what flights are allowed to arrive at the tiny, one-runway airport in Port-au-Prince. Mr. Ban said both were needed. He reiterated that the U.N., and not the U.S., was in charge of the relief effort. American military officials at the airport said that it had 100 slots for incoming planes, roughly triple the number landing there before the quake but far fewer than the number of planes trying to reach Haiti with relief supplies and personnel.

"The international community supports the United Nations to take the leading role as coordinator, there is no doubt about that," he said. In Haiti on Sunday Mr. Ban said that U.N. troops would be working in tandem with U.S. troops, about 12,000 of which are expected eventually in the country. Mr. Ban evaded the hardest question of command and control, which is whether U.N. troops would come under U.S. command. On Sunday, Brazil, which has the largest contingent of U.N. troops, said it would not relinquish command of its forces to the U.S.

The U.N. has 7,000 troops in Haiti, with 3,000 deployed in Port-au-Prince, and American troops continued to arrive in Haiti Monday. More than 1,000 soldiers from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division are on the ground in Haiti, with an additional 300 slated to arrive Monday and the unit's remaining 2,300 soldiers arriving by Tuesday. The amphibious ship U.S.S. Bataan, carrying 2,200 Marines, is scheduled reach Haiti later Monday. Capt. John Kirby, the lead military spokesman in Haiti, said that some of the U.S. soldiers were flying aboard Marine helicopters to drop supplies through Port-au-Prince. He said that other soldiers from the 82nd were providing security at one of the Haitian government's four official distribution points for relief supplies. 

Source: The Wall Street Journal

[Media Advisory] UN Peacekeeping Mission Needs Support to Maintain Security in Haiti

For Immediate Release
Media Advisory
January 15, 2010

More than ever before MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping force in Haiti, needs the support of countries like Canada to ensure security in the aftermath of this week’s earthquake.

“Long term security and political stability in the country must be ensured by a legitimate, credible and multilateral force approved by the UN Security Council,” according to Fergus Watt, Chair of the Canadian Peace Operations Working Group, a network of Canadian civil society organizations. “The UN mission must take the lead role in coordinating the security efforts in the country. Canada, and all UN member states, should make clear that its deployment in Haiti is fully coordinated with MINUSTAH.”

At a press briefing yesterday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reiterated that, “All the international aid and assistance should be coordinated with MINUSTAH, the United Nations.”

As Canada boosts its efforts to bring much needed relief to the ravaged country, it needs to do so in such a way as to reinforce the UN stabilization mission. Already, police across Canada have reportedly volunteered to go to Haiti to bolster Canadian police officers stationed with MINUSTAH.

Prior to the earthquake, Canada already had a significant presence within MINUSTAH, contributing close to 90 troops and police officers out of a total UN force of 9000. The UN has requested more assets from countries to deal with the current situation.

According to Dominic Leger, Coordinator of the Peace Operations Working Group, “We welcome efforts made by the Government of Canada to send Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team and other troop commitments. In the medium to long term we hope that this will lead to lasting commitments on the part of Canada to boost MINUSTAH.”

Hedi Annabi: What He Died for in Haiti

by James Traub

Hedi Annabi, the U.N. special representative killed in the earthquake, may not have been known to the public, but his mission stabilized a lawless Haiti—and his peacekeepers are leading the effort to save Haitians trapped in the rubble today.


It appears, as of this writing, that Hedi Annabi, the United Nations’ special representative in Haiti, was one of the thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, killed in Tuesday’s earthquake. A veteran of U.N. peacekeeping, Annabi was no more known to the public than any other U.N. lifer, and could scarcely have borne less resemblance to Sergio Vieira de Mello, the dashing and impossibly handsome U.N. envoy who was killed in a truck bombing in Baghdad in 2003. George Clooney would have played de Mello in the movie; Annabi, an extra-dry and sometimes cryptic Tunisian, was more the Peter Sellers of Being There.

When I knew him, in 2004 and 2005, he served as deputy chief of the peacekeeping department in New York. An important part of his job was cajoling and browbeating reluctant countries into contributing troops to desperate missions often rather casually mandated by the U.N. Security Council. He once told me that in May 2000, after the council had decided to send thousands of troops to keep a band of psychotic killers known as the RUF from toppling the government of Sierra Leone, a delegation of 25 officials from the Clinton administration descended on his office. “And one of them just looked at me and said, ‘What are you going to do about this mess?’” Annabi said. “And I said, ‘Are you coming to tell me how I’m going to fix it with the troops you’re not giving me, or are you coming to help me figure out how to fix it? Because if it’s the first, this is going to be a short meeting.’”

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16 UN personnel killed, 150 missing in Haiti

By JOHN HEILPRIN
The Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. chief said 16 U.N. personnel were confirmed dead late Wednesday in the earthquake that decimated Haiti's capital, with 100 to 150 U.N. workers still unaccounted for, including the mission chief and his deputy.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced that 11 Brazilian peacekeepers and five international police officers — three from Jordan and one each from Chad and Argentina — were killed in the "horrendous" quake.

U.N. officials said 56 others were injured. Seven who were seriously hurt were evacuated from the country, they said.

"Many continue to be trapped inside U.N. headquarters and other buildings," said Ban, noting that includes the U.N.'s mission chief, Hedi Annabi, and his chief deputy, Luis Carlos da Costa. "Other peacekeepers and civilian staff from many member states remain unaccounted for."

U.N. peacekeeping chief Alain Le Roy said at least 10 people were pulled alive on Wednesday from the lower floors of the five-story headquarters building for the U.N. peacekeeping mission, which collapsed in Tuesday's magnitude 7.0 earthquake quake.

Annabi, a Tunisian diplomat who has worked for the U.N. for 28 years, and da Costa, a Brazilian whose U.N. career spans four decades, were missing. Also unaccounted for was an eight-member police delegation from China that Annabi was meeting in an office on the headquarters' top floor when it collapsed, U.N. officials said.

"It is our estimate that around hundreds of people were still working inside the building," Ban said. "Therefore it will be in the range of 100 to 150 that I'm quite concerned about."

Ban said he was immediately dispatching Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet, who was Annabi's predecessor in Haiti, to Port-au-Prince to take over as acting chief of the U.N. mission and coordinate the international emergency aid effort.

"A larger peacekeeping force is required in Somalia" Gordon Brown, Barack Obama

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said Britain and the U.S. had agreed to intensify their joint work to tackle "the emerging terrorist threat" from both Yemen and Somalia in the wake of the failed Detroit attack on Christmas day.

On Somalia, Brown's office said he and Obama "believe that a larger peacekeeping force is required and will support this at the United Nations (UN) Security Council."

The Somali government and the African Union (AU) have pleaded with the UN to send a robust peacekeeping force that could take over from the 5,200 AU troops from Uganda and Burundi who have said they are incapable of stabilising Somalia.

President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's western-backed government is battling Islamist insurgents in Somalia, including the hardline al Shabaab group, which Washington accuses of being al-Qaeda's proxy.

Click here for full story.