China valued in UN peacekeeping missions
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A senior United Nations official has rated China's role in UN peacekeeping missions as "positive and constructive contributions."
"Chinese police have played a fundamental role in the UN's Stabilization Mission in Haiti," the UN assistant secretary general for peacekeeping, Edmond Mulet, said Monday in an interview with Xinhua.
Mulet, who heads the UN mission in Haiti, is in the Chilean capital for a regional seminar focusing on post-conflict issues.
The UN assistant secretary general also spoke highly of the Chinese peacekeepers based in the Western Sahara and in the Darfur region of Sudan.
He cited the performance of a Chinese commander with the UN peacekeeping troops guarding the ceasefire line between Moroccan government forces and the Polisario Front troops and the work of Chinese military engineers based in Darfur as part of the joint United Nations and African Union peacekeeping mission.
Mulet said that Chinese police in Haiti had been contributing to the UN's implementation of a new peace consolidation strategy that sought to keep the democratic process on track in the island nation.
He said Haiti had conducted elections in the presence of peacekeepers but feared future elections could lead to violent conflicts once the UN presence ended.
"We have to remember, during the past 20 years, the international community has intervened in Haiti eight times, from U.S. marines to combined forces from the Organization of American States and now to the UN peacekeepers," said Mulet.
The UN assistant secretary general also briefed Xinhua on UN peacekeeping missions worldwide.
The United Nations now mans its 17 current peacekeeping operations with 80,000 military personnel, 11,500 police officers and 23,500 civilians called in from member states.
The goal was to leave a lasting peace after UN peacekeepers end an operation. The last such withdrawal was seen last year in Sierra Leone, he said.
The UN official disclosed that the whole structure and mechanism of UN peacekeeping would be reviewed.
The United Nations has conducted 67 peacemaking and peacekeeping missions since its inception 61 years ago.
(Xinhua News Agency September 15, 2009)
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