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O 162038Z NOV 09 REISSUE DUE TO NUMEROUS SVC'S
FM USMISSION USUN NEW YORK
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 7624
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHZO/AFRICAN UNION COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHWW/BAGHDAD GULF WAR COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUCNFUR/DARFUR COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHZJ/HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUCNCLS/SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHGG/UN SECURITY COUNCIL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 USUN NEW YORK 001038 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KPKO UNSC
SUBJECT: PROTECTION OF CIVILIANS: SECURITY COUNCIL THEMATIC 
DEBATE 
 
USUN NEW Y 00001038  001.2 OF 005 
 
 
¶1. SUMMARY. The Security Council adopted a thematic 
resolution on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict 
at a high-level open debate on November 11, with the 
participation of 60 member states, the Secretary-General, 
U/SYG Holmes and Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights 
Kang. The debate covered a wide range of topics, including 
the need to enforce international humanitarian law and to 
hold violators accountable, the need for improved 
implementation of the protection of civilians when mandated 
for peacekeeping missions, better information flow among UN 
missions, the Secretariat, the Security Council, and troop 
and police contributing countries. China, Russia and Vietnam 
emphasized the importance of national sovereignty when 
addressing the protection of civilians. Several speakers used 
the debate to criticize Israel for its actions during the 
Gaza conflict, which affected the civilian population. 
Several TCCs/PCCs urged the Council consider more realistic 
mandates. Venezuela used its statement to accuse the United 
States of building military bases in Colombia. END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. At the beginning of the meeting, the Security Council 
adopted Resolution 1894, which Austrian Foreign Minister 
Michael Spindelegger, as Security Council president, said the 
resolution aimed to address existing gaps in efforts to 
protect civilians in armed conflict and laid out a course of 
action to improve the situation for civilians. He pointed out 
that despite ten years of Council attention to protection of 
civilians, there was still no common understanding of what 
the protection of civilians meant in the context of UN 
peacekeeping. He also said the Council should be prepared to 
use a broad range of tools at its disposal to ensure 
compliance by all parties to conflict with their obligations 
to protect civilians and ensure access to humanitarian aid. 
 
 
SECRETARY-GENERAL CALLS FOR WORDS TO BE PUT INTO ACTION 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
¶3. Secretary-General (SYG) Ban Ki-moon framed the discussion 
of the protection of civilians in armed conflict (PoC) by 
saying that it directly related to the core purpose of the 
United Nations to save people from the horrors of armed 
conflict.  Ban said that in the ten years since the Security 
Council initially addressed the protection of civilians, some 
major conflicts had come to an end, but there were still 
appalling levels of human suffering due to new conflicts, 
which reflected a fundamental failure of parties to respect 
their obligations to protect civilians.  Ban identified five 
core challenges for protecting civilians in armed conflict. 
First, he said the international community needed to 
strengthen compliance by parties to armed conflict with 
international humanitarian law (IHL).  He noted that in 
recent resolutions on Children and Armed Conflict and Women, 
Peace and Security, the Security Council had developed 
mechanisms for reporting on violations of IHL that allowed 
the Security Council to address issues without needing to 
take "additional procedural steps" (i.e., placing an issue on 
the Security Council's agenda).  Ban encouraged the Council 
to consider using similar mechanisms for the protection of 
civilians.  Secondly, Ban said there needed to be more 
consistent engagement between member states and non-state 
armed groups in order to ensure access for humanitarian 
assistance and compliance by those groups with IHL.  Thirdly, 
Ban said, UN peacekeeping missions with protection of 
civilians mandates needed to increase their effectiveness, 
and he pointed to a just-completed independent study 
commissioned jointly by the Office for Coordination of 
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the Department of 
Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), which contained 
recommendations. Fourth, the SYG said that the Council needed 
to respond when humanitarian access was being blocked, and 
lastly, he said the international community needed to hold 
those who violate international law to account. 
 
¶4.  Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John 
Holmes reinforced the points made by the SYG, saying that 
engagement with non-state armed groups was vital in order to 
ensure that humanitarian assistance could reach those in 
need.  Referring to the OCHA/DPKO study, Holmes said DPKO was 
developing an operational concept to clarify the meaning of 
the protection of civilians in a peacekeeping context, and 
said that all missions should develop mission-wide strategies 
for carrying out PoC.  He emphasized that PoC involves not 
only military protection of civilians under imminent threat, 
 
USUN NEW Y 00001038  002.4 OF 005 
 
 
but also humanitarian access, the return of refugees and 
displaced persons, human rights monitoring, addressing sexual 
violence, and the protection of vulnerable groups.  Holmes 
said there was a "gap between rhetoric and reality" in the 
Security Council's use of targeted sanctions to enforce 
accountability for violations of IHL, adding as an example 
that targeting of women and children had been included in the 
DRC sanctions resolution, but had not been included in recent 
Somalia sanctions. 
 
¶5. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kyung-wha Kang 
urged the Council to mobilize a "higher level of political 
will" in order to "prevent atrocities, protect the 
vulnerable, hold perpetrators accountable and ensure redress 
for victims."  Ms. Kang said the Security council would need 
to find "creative solutions" to the political obstacles that 
sometimes keep critical situations off of the council's 
agenda.  Kang cited four situations where she believed 
political factors had stood in the way of rigorous 
enforcement of the law.  First, she referred to "violations 
of international and humanitarian law", which, she said, had 
been perpetrated by Israeli forces against the civilian 
population during the Gaza conflict and documented by the UN 
Fact-Finding Mission led by Judge Richard Goldstone.  She 
also mentioned "indiscriminate" launching of rockets and 
mortars into southern Israel by Palestinian armed groups, "in 
disregard of international humanitarian and human rights 
norms."  Referring to the Israeli blockade and military 
offensive, Kang said that, "until meaningful steps" had been 
taken "to end impunity for these violations," peace and 
security would remain elusive for the people of the region. 
The Deputy High Commissioner also cited events in DRC, Darfur 
and Afghanistan to illustrate a "gap" that remained "between 
policy and practice, saying that in the DRC and Darfur, high 
level human rights violators, including ICC indictees, 
continued to occupy high level positions.  She also recalled 
that the UN-AU Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) did not have 
the resources to fully deploy and carry out its protection of 
civilians mandate, and that civilian casualties continued to 
mount in Afghanistan. 
 
ACCESS, INFORMATION, ACCOUNTABILITY, PEACEKEEPING 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
¶6. Most Security Council members in their national statements 
focused on four key areas addressed by Resolution 1894, which 
the Council adopted at the beginning of the session: access 
for humanitarian assistance, better and more timely 
information flow between UN missions and the Security Council 
on protection of civilians issues, the need to improve 
implementation of protection of civilians in peacekeeping, 
and the need to address accountability for violations of IHL. 
 
 
¶7. Croatian Foreign Minister Jandrokovic called for the 
Council to respond in situations where humanitarian 
assistance is being deliberately obstructed.  He recalled the 
concept of the "responsibility to protect" from the 2005 
World Summit Outcome Document, and said the Security Council 
had the responsibility to protect populations if and when 
national authorities failed to do so.  Baroness Ann Taylor of 
the United Kingdom said that the Council needed to show 
genuine readiness to act in order to prevent conflicts from 
growing, and in this respect she called for better 
information from the field in the early stages of conflicts. 
She also called for comprehensive guidance on implementation 
of protection of civilians in peacekeeping missions, and more 
training for mission personnel.  Costa Rican Vice-Minister 
for Foreign Affairs Edgar Alvarez said that the Security 
Council needed to use all available resources, including 
sanctions and the International Criminal Court, to ensure 
accountability for violations of IHL.  He added that 
obligations to protect civilians apply in all situations, and 
that states should be held to the same standards throughout 
the world, regardless of political considerations. 
 
¶8. French Permrep Araud said that the protection of civilians 
in peacekeeping operations needed to include a broad range of 
activities that should involve integrated strategic planning 
beyond the military task of protecting civilians under 
imminent threat.  He pointed out that the mandate for the UN 
Mission in the DRC (MONUC) would be up for renewal soon, and 
said the Council needed to "find the resolve" to use the 
principles of Resolution 1894 to strengthen MONUC's 
 
USUN NEW Y 00001038  003.2 OF 005 
 
 
protection of civilians mandate. Araud called for sanctions 
against serious violators of IHL, and referrals to the 
International Criminal Court (ICC) in situations where 
national governments failed to act. Japanese Permrep Takasu 
also underlined the need for peacekeeping missions to make 
protection of civilians a mission-wide task that involved 
more than just protecting civilians under imminent threat. 
Mexico Permrep Heller said that human dignity needed to trump 
national sovereignty and called for referrals to the ICC when 
national governments failed to act. He urged states that had 
not already done so to accede to relevant instruments of IHL 
and international human rights law. 
 
¶9. Ambassador DiCarlo said U.S. forces were committed to 
comply with their obligations under IHL, even when confronted 
by enemies that routinely violated those laws. She urged that 
those who flouted IHL be held accountable, and said the 
Security Council should use all of the means available to it, 
including targeted sanctions. DiCarlo said that 
accountability for impunity was an important aspect of 
national reconciliation, which also included supporting 
countries emerging from conflict to rebuild infrastructure 
and capacity. When implementing peacekeeping mandates, 
DiCarlo called for the UN to develop mission-wide strategies, 
in consultation with the Security Council and troop and 
police contributors, for the protection of civilians, and 
said training and equipment were also key. 
 
¶10. Uganda Minister-Counselor Lukwiya said that the 
proliferation of non-state armed groups made contemporary 
conflicts more dangerous for civilians.  He said civilians 
were often unaware of their rights under IHL, and there 
needed to be better dissemination of information.  He called 
on the international community to assist states emerging from 
armed conflict to rebuild national institutions, including 
reforming the security sector, and to assist in removing 
unexploded ordinance.  He also called upon states to consider 
instituting financial assistance programs for victims of 
lawful warfare as a way to make amends.  Lukwiya noted that 
the African Union had recently adopted a Convention for the 
Protection and Assistance of IDPs in Africa, and also urged 
that HIV training be part of pre-deployment training for 
peacekeepers and mission staff. Burkina Faso Permrep Kafando 
also called for better institution building and development 
in areas recovering from armed conflict, and said that there 
needed to be dialogue with non-state armed groups to increase 
their awareness of IHL. 
 
PREVENTION, NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY 
----------------------------------- 
¶11. Russia, China, and Vietnam, while acknowledging the need 
to improve the implementation of protection of civilians 
tasks in peacekeeping missions, emphasized the importance of 
respecting national sovereignty when responding to conflicts 
and humanitarian concerns.  Russian Permrep Churkin said the 
role of the Security Council should be to assist national 
efforts.  He called for close consultations among the 
Security Council, Secretariat and Troop Contributing 
Countries when operationalizing protection of civilians 
mandates, saying that the issue needed "detailed analysis." 
He also said peacekeeping missions should be deployed when 
there is a peace to keep, and that disarmament and 
demobilization also played a role in ensuring the safety of 
civilians.  Chinese Permrep Zhang Yesui said that the primary 
responsibility for protecting civilians lay with states, and 
added that cooperation with non-state armed groups should 
take place with the cooperation of the governments involved. 
He said that peacekeeping missions should be mandated to 
protect civilians "on a case by case basis," and only when it 
is feasible and necessary.  He said that more attention 
should be paid to prevention of armed conflict and in 
assisting with economic development.  Vietnam's Permrep Le 
Luong Minh said that the international community could play a 
valuable role in supporting member states in armed conflict 
through political mediation and humanitarian assistance, but 
it was the primary role of states to protect their people. 
 
¶12. Turkish Permrep Apakan urged caution when dealing with 
non-state armed groups, due to the potential for such groups 
to exploit humanitarian workers for their own advantage. 
Referring to the Gaza conflict, Apakan said all parties to 
conflict needed to respect their obligations under 
international law.  However, he also said it was the right of 
 
USUN NEW Y 00001038  004.2 OF 005 
 
 
every state to combat terrorists, and it is important to make 
clear that the terrorists themselves are the ones putting 
civilians in danger.  Apakan believed Resolution 1894 struck 
a good balance between all of the sensitive issues involved 
in the protection of civilians. 
 
GAZA AND THE GOLDSTONE REPORT 
----------------------------- 
¶13. Libyan Ambassador Dabbashi focused the bulk of his 
remarks on the Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission led by 
Judge Richard Goldstone, and called for the Security Council 
to take action on its findings, as the General Assembly had 
recently called for.  Dabbashi said that in the Gaza 
conflict, Palestinians had been "wantonly targeted," "denied 
humanitarian assistance," "denied entry and exit," and that 
the Israeli army had used "internationally proscribed 
weapons" and did not distinguish between civilian and 
military targets.  Dabbashi hoped the Council would act 
despite the support for Israel by "certain Council members," 
which he said had damaged the Council's credibility.  He 
accused such countries of taking a moral high ground when 
they "preached" in the Council, but of then doing nothing to 
stop Israeli actions. (Note: Ambassador DiCarlo, speaking 
directly after Dabbashi, thanked the Austrian presidency for 
hosting a debate on the protection of civilians, but said she 
regretted that some participants had used the meeting to 
pursue different objectives.) 
 
¶14. Several other speakers, including Egypt (speaking on 
behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement), United Arab Emirates, 
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Palestinian Representative, Syria 
and Iran also used their remarks to criticize Israel (and the 
United States) for actions in the Gaza conflict.  Egypt 
called for the General Assembly to have greater involvement 
in the protection of civilians so that it could "investigate" 
violations "without discrimination."  Qatar made special 
reference to what it called, "denial of education" and 
"targeting of civilians by a regular army." The Palestinian 
Representative called the Gaza conflict a "collective 
punishment of harassment, intimidation and terrorism against 
a defenseless Palestinian people."  The Iranian 
Representative asked why "some states" with veto power wanted 
the "aggressor" to be above the law. 
 
¶15. Israeli Permrep Gabriela Shalev said that extraordinary 
efforts had been taken during the Gaza conflict to protect 
civilians, and pointed to a report produced by the Government 
of Israel, which detailed efforts to warn civilians through 
telephone calls and dropping leaflets asking civilians to 
avoid areas where Hamas militants were operating. Shalev said 
that the debate could not ignore the reality that armed 
groups used civilians to shield themselves when storing 
weapons, launching attacks and building military 
infrastructure in major population centers. 
 
AFGHANISTAN, IRAQ 
----------------- 
¶16. The Iranian Representative also referred to what he 
called "indiscriminate targeting of civilians" during 
Afghanistan air strikes, and underlined that the General 
Assembly had taken note of the situation in Afghanistan in 
its resolution on the Goldstone report.  The Afghanistan 
Permrep also took note of rising civilian casualties in his 
country, but said the majority of civilian deaths were the 
result of the Taleban and al-Qaeda.  He added that 23 percent 
of civilian deaths in the war had been the result of air 
strikes by the international community.  He urged 
international partners to keep in mind that the lives of 
civilians were of concern not only for humanitarian and moral 
reasons, but because the Taleban would exploit civilian 
deaths for political reasons as well. 
 
TROOP AND POLICE CONTRIBUTING COUNTRIES 
--------------------------------------- 
¶17. Several large troop and police contributing countries, 
including Ghana, Uruguay, India, Egypt and Italy highlighted 
the need for realistic mandates in order to more closely 
align the Security Council's expectations with realities on 
the ground.  Most mentioned the need for adequate resources, 
including appropriate logistical support and training prior 
to deployment.  Brazil said the Council should not mandate 
protection of civilians if resources were unlikely to made 
available to carry out the mandate, but also that budgetary 
 
USUN NEW Y 00001038  005.2 OF 005 
 
 
considerations should not be placed above moral imperatives. 
Uruguay called for guidelines to be developed in consultation 
with TCCs/PCCs for carrying out protection mandates, and said 
that training, resources and political commitment were needed 
as well.  Uruguay also said economic and social development 
needed to be part of efforts to disarm, demobilize and 
reintegrate ex-combatants. Ghana called for closer 
cooperation with the African Union in carrying out PoC 
mandates, and called for increased material and logistical 
support for the African Standby force. Guatemala expressed 
the desire for an operational framework with clear rules of 
engagement. 
 
¶18. Indian Member of Parliament Dhruva Narayana Rangaswamy 
said the Security Council was at fault for the inability of 
the UN to translate its intent to protect civilians into 
operational reality, because it had not defined the extent of 
the problem, had not given clear directions to DPKO, and had 
not taken into account the experience of TCCs.  Rangaswamy 
said the issue of accountability, which had been discussed in 
the context of perpetrators, should also extend to the 
Security Council, which mandates protection of civilians in 
some contexts, but not in others, and sometimes issues 
"unachievable" mandates for "political expediency." 
 
¶19. Tanzania's Permrep Augustine Mahiga, who chaired the 
OCHA-DPKO study, noted significant gaps in the language of 
various peacekeeping mandates and in troop training, owing to 
the lack of an operational concept for the protection of 
civilians for UN missions.  Mahiga said that physical 
protection language in peacekeeping mandates was confusing to 
personnel in the field, as well as the Secretariat, but that 
such language simultaneously raised expectations among the 
civilian population.  He called for a holistic approach to 
implementing protection of civilians in peacekeeping, which 
ensures access by civilians to humanitarian resources and the 
protection of basic human rights, especially against 
gender-based violence.  Canada, which chairs the GA Special 
Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, called for better 
planning to clearly identify protection challenges, 
appropriate resources to ensure effective mandate 
implementation, systematic training of personnel by member 
states and enhanced accountability for civilian components of 
peacekeeping operations. 
 
EUROPEANS FOCUS ON ACCOUNTABILITY, ACCESS 
----------------------------------------- 
¶20. European members discussed the importance of access to 
conflict areas for humanitarian assistance, improvements in 
mission mandates, and the need to fight impunity. Sweden, 
speaking on behalf of the EU, said that the Council should 
systematically promote compliance with IHL in situations on 
its agenda, and in situations not formally on the agenda. He 
called for targeted measures against parties to armed 
conflict who were in violation of IHL and encouraged states 
that had not already done so to ratify the Rome Statutes and 
fully cooperate with the ICC.  Germany heralded the new UN 
gender entity as a step in the right direction, stating that 
peacekeeping operations were not solely military tasks. 
Germany also encouraged the use of sanctions and judicial 
mechanisms to fight impunity. 
 
VENEZUELA ATTACKS THE U.S. 
-------------------------- 
¶21. Venezuelan Permrep Jorge Valero used the debate to accuse 
the United States of installing military bases in Colombia, 
which he said, threatened peace and security in the region. 
At the end of the debate, USUN Minister-Counselor used a 
right of reply to regret that Venezuela had used the debate 
on an important matter such as the protection of civilians to 
focus on irrelevant and extraneous issues. 
Wolff