RIGHTS-UNITED NATIONS: Pairing Human Rights With UN Peacekeeping

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Ramesh Jaura

BONN, May 27 1998 (IPS) - Human rights priorities, including a gender perspective, should be integrated into peacekeeping, peacemaking and post-conflict peace building operations run by the United Nations, some 60 experts from around the world urged this week.

Meeting at a two-day international symposium in Petersberg, near Bonn, the experts also agreed on the need to strengthen the U.N. human rights commission, headed by its commissioner, Mary Robinson.

The meet, which ended Wednesday, was convened by Germany’s foreign minister Klaus Kinkel in cooperation with Poland and South Africa. It aimed at “exchanging experiences as well as to strengthen and further develop this new U.N. instrument” of human ri ghts field operations.

The Office of the High Commissioner is presently running five such operations, in Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. A new presence has been established in South Africa for the sub-region.

“We are also planning for possible new activities in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, where we may become more active in Kosovo, and are looking at new presences in Afghanistan, and possibly Indonesia, and the Sudan, if those governments are willing, ” Robinson said.

In a keynote address Tuesday, she strongly advocated that “human rights concerns should be an element of crisis response”.

“I would argue that, at the point at which a peacekeeping operation is proposed to the Security Council, the human rights dimension, including a gender perspective, should automatically be part of planning,” said Robinson, which would require close coo peration between U.N. agencies.

The issue has been the subject of some debate, with some arguing that human rights concerns should in some cases be divorced from the main focus peacekeeping operations.

Supporters of efforts to strengthening human rights field operations argue that adding a human rights unit to peacekeeping teams can provide vital information to the mission’s leadership. Such a unit could advise on progress made towards human rights and reduce the chance of a breakdown in efforts for peace.

In a peacekeeping operation’s later stages, its human rights institution-building activities can be the key to the mission’s ultimate success. The gains achieved can be safeguarded into the future through an effective national human rights infrastructure .

Robinson urged that several factors be taken into account in arrangements made to integrate human rights components into peacekeeping operations:

– The mission chief’s overall authority should be recognised and human rights activities should be coordinated through a close working relationship between the human rights unit and others with related mandates, inside or outside the mission itself.

– Human rights information collected by missions may be used in different ways, depending on the policy of the mission, depending for example, on public statements. But the integrity of the monitoring and reporting processes should always be protected.

– The human rights unit should receive guidance and support from the office of the High Commissioner, drawing on knowledge and experience gained from similar operations elsewhere, and from other mechanisms of the U.N. human rights system.

– Administrative support to the units should efficient and cost effective, and given equal priority with all other non-military operational activities.

Participants at the symposium also suggested human rights training for all those serving with U.N. peacekeeping operations.

Human rights training in considered especially important in the context of civilian police (CIVPOL) contingents of peace- keeping missions who are consistently assigned specific human rights tasks. In fact CIVPOL officers are in every sense human rights m onitors.

In El Salvador, with the U.N. mission ONUSAL, the responsibilities of CIVPOL included monitoring the human rights record of police forces. Similar responsibilities were assigned to CIVPOL in Cambodia, Mozambique, Croatia and notably Bosnia-Herzegovina, w here the U.N. civilian police units are responsible for monitoring local police and investigating alleged human rights violations.

Many of these operations, indeed, have had their own human rights offices. Besides, the office headed by Robinson has pursued a vigorous programme of human rights training for military and civilian personnel for peace-keeping missions.

The first such training was held in 1994 in Mozambique, for U.N. civilian police attached to the UNOMOZ force there. Other training courses have been run in the former Yugoslavia. Comprehensive training programmes for military officials have been or are held at the U.N. staff college in Turin.

The office of the High Commissioner is also developing a human rights manual for trainers of peacekeeping forces, in cooperation with relevant U.N. agencies. It is expected to be made available to governments and others involved in similar training.

Robinson’s view that stable funding for human rights operations must be identified in order to enable peacekeeping lead to post- conflict peace building, was supported by the Petersburg participants.

On behalf of Germany, Kinkel pledged a million marks (570,000 dollars) for human rights operations. “The United Nations central body for human rights must contribute all its skills and expertise to international crisis management,” he said. “In order to do this it requires the necessary financial and personnel resources.”

To the satisfaction of Robinson, he added: “Approximately one percent of the regular U.N. budget for human rights is too little — the protection of human rights should be worth more to us!”