- Subscribe to PCF Networked Blog Daily Updates
- Subscribe to our Twitter / Google / Yahoo Daily Updates
Pakistan
took exception to a UN report that termed its law enforcement operation against
terrorists in the Khyber Agency ‘armed conflict’, while pointing out that it
fails to take due notice of the situations of foreign occupation.Speaking in a
Security Council open debate on the protection of civilians in armed conflict,
Ambassador Raza Bashir Tarar, Pakistan's Deputy Permanent Representative to the
UN, said by no stretch of imagination could Pakistan’s law enforcement
operation against terrorists be termed armed conflict.
"We
are disappointed that the authors of this report have clearly violated the
mandate by mentioning Pakistan in the report," he said. "This anomaly
must be resolved."The report, which was issued in the name of
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, referred to the displacement of civilians from armed
conflicts in Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. In this context, the
report also said some 200,000 people have been displaced in Pakistan since
January by security operations in the Khyber Agency.
It
also made references to denial of access in conflict areas to humanitarian
workers in different parts of the world, including Pakistan. “The Secretary
General’s report has unwarranted references to Pakistan, which we plainly
reject," Ambassador Tarar told the 15-member Council. “Pakistan has
suffered immensely from the menace of terrorism, with thousands of lives lost
among the security and law enforcement bodies and civilians," he said.
"Pakistan’s law enforcement operation against terrorists cannot be termed
'armed conflict’. “The Pakistani envoy said questions had been raised about the
Security Council’s role and mandate and its ability to objectively deliver on
such themes as “the protection of civilians in armed conflict”. The compelling
need to protect civilians in armed conflict had led to a broad consensus that such
protection be pursued objectively and without politicisation.
Regrettably,
he said there had been a trend of out-of-context and selective reporting on
those issues. The last two reports of the Secretary-General on protection of
civilians, including the one under consideration, stretched to situations that
could not be described as armed conflict and were thus outside the mandate of
the report. “The challenge of protecting civilians in armed conflict is
exacerbated by inequity in international response," Ambassador Tarar
pointed out. The Security Council, he said, had failed to respond to the crisis
and the unacceptable situation in Gaza where over a million people remain in a
virtual incarceration and suffer from collective punishment. "Such unequal
attention to various situations is also evident in the priorities and
activities of some international humanitarian organisations and actors as is
clear from today’s debate.
“Noting
that Pakistan was a leading troop contributor to peacekeeping missions, the
Pakistani envoy emphasised the need to respect host-country primacy in ensuring
civilian protection and stressed the need for careful evaluation of all legal
aspects of civilian protection in peacekeeping operations, given misplaced
expectations under a recent mandate revision that asked peacekeepers to
pre-empt a threat to a civilian population. It was important to resist the urge
to use UN Secretariat reports to advance notions that had failed to gain any
traction in intergovernmental processes.
He
also pointed out that the annex of the Secretary-General report on ‘constraints
on humanitarian access’ dealt with the issue of access in a partial manner,
overlooked the possibility that there could be legitimate reasons for
restricting access, and disregarded the fact that, regrettably, not all
humanitarian actors performed in accordance with the humanitarian principles of
humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. In that context, he
recalled General Assembly resolution 46/182, which required that humanitarian
assistance be provided with full respect for the sovereignty, territorial
integrity and national unity of States.
No comments:
Post a Comment