UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS AND MILITARY OBSERVERS

UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS AND MILITARY OBSERVERS

UN peacekeeping is complex, expensive dangerous. The Department of Peacekeeping (DPKO) is responsible for all UN peacekeeping worldwide under the direction of the Security Council. The head of the mission is the Special Representative of the Secretary General .Before the deployment of any UN peacekeeping force, the consent of the warring factions must be sought usually through negotiations and meditations. The process of the deployment itself is difficult and complex and it can take months depending on the state of infrastructure in the mission area. A typical peacekeeping force has civilian and uniformed component usually commanded by the force commander from a country not party to the conflict who is appointed by the secretary general and approved by the Security Council. A subgroup of the uniformed component is the military depending on the type of mission which has another subgroup called UN Military Observers.

The force commander has a deputy who is also the Chief Military Observer Military. Military observers are professionally trained officers who are of the rank of Captain and above selected from UN member countries. Beside the basic soldiering knowledge, military observers are expected to have proficiency in driving, computer skills, first aid, Global Positioning System (GPS), be medically fit, and have some staff experience. Before their deployment, military observers are trained by their respective country. On arrival in the mission area, they receive one week training from the mission military training cell on the history of the country, warring factions, mission mandate, mission structure, mine awareness, their duties and responsibilities, radio communication, negotiation skills, information gathering, patrolling. After this initial training each military observer is expected to pass English language, driving and general knowledge peacekeeping test.

Military observers in peacekeeping missions are deployed in Team Site lots of not more than 6 officers based on the rainbow concept that is no two officers from the same country. They live in rented accommodations with little or no security depending on the security situation .The cook themselves or hire a local cook. The interesting part is that the cook prepares five to six different meals for these officers from different countries daily. If they are fortunate they will be collocated with a UN Central Operations Base made up of logistics element s to support them. An officer of the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel is appointed as the Team Leader whose responsibilities among others are to ensure the operational, security and administrative effectiveness of the team. They operate in tough environment and can be confronted with challenging and often dangerous situations.

As the eyes and ears of the UN mission, military perform variety of task. Information gathering is one of the key tasks of military observers. This task is executed through foot and mobile patrols, liaison with other security agencies if they exist, local authorities or administration, situation monitoring and use of non-governmental organisations. They also do mediation, negotiation, de-escalation and use  amicable means to resolve issues at their level .Military Observers are very important during Disarmament, Disintegration, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDDR programmes .They are used for collection and verification of arms and ammunitions and they give technical advice on the storage of these arms and ammunitions.  They monitor checkpoints,  border crossings points of entry and exit and aerial and maritime ports.

Being a military observer can be fun but very challenging. You can be a group of six military officers from different countries so culture and language and also stress become a serious challenge. Military observers are not armed so their safety is only in God? Allah. They are susceptible to ambushes, kidnap, carjacking, robbery, and criminal swindlers, mob attacks and even in case of medical emergencies where there are no close medical centres you can easily lose your life. You can be cut off from the rest of the world for days, weeks or even months as result of the vagaries of the weather. When this happens, those who suffer most are wives and children you might have left thousands of mile home alone. But with all these challenges, the military observer is happy and proud because he/she has gone to where the ordinary person would not go.