India has expressed concern over not being given an opportunity to participate in the framing of peacekeeping mandates in the UN Security Council, saying it has a right to do so as a major troop contributer for the military missions.
Noting that the situation relating to UN Peacekeeping Operations (PKOs) has deteriorated sharply over the past year, India's Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Asoke Kumar Mukerji said there is an "obvious disconnect" between the PKOs and the theatres in which they are deployed.
Participating at the annual debate of the C-34 Committee on Peacekeeping, Mukerji said it is "our right, as (a) troop contributing country", to "participate in the decisions of the Security Council concerning the employment of contingents" of Indian armed forces.
"This provision of the UN Charter has been observed more in the breach. We have not had the opportunity to openly participate in the drawing up of peacekeeping mandates in the Security Council, although the credentials and experience of India would make our views relevant to this task," he said.
India has been among the original drafters of the UN Charter, a founder member of both the League of Nations and the United Nations, and contributed more than 170,000 troops to 43 of the 68 peacekeeping missions since the inception of UN peacekeeping over 60 years ago.
Mukerji said India's specific concerns regarding the operation of UN peacekeeping can be demonstrated on the basis of its experience as a major troop contributor to three missions - the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights in the past year.
"As one of the troop contributing countries of the original MONUSCO configuration, we were not invited by the Security Council to participate in this decision. We were therefore presented with the fait accompli of a fractured or dual mandate for the mission," he said.
"This meant that our troops, deployed and equipped in an impartial, defensive posture to monitor the Ceasefire Agreement between the DRC (Congo) and its neighbours, now co-exists with the new troops, deployed and equipped in an offensive, interventionist posture within the DRC," he said.
