'UN peacekeepers need standardized training'
By Kim Se-jeong
The International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers is commemorated world-wide today.
Mandated to establish and maintain peace in conflicted regions, approximately 100,000 men and women are dispatched by governments, as contributory personnel for the U.N.’s peacekeeping operations.
According to Maj. Bengt-Ake Folkeson, a Swedish national who works as an adviser to the Peacekeeping Operations Center located at Korea National Defense University in Seoul, a new pre-deployment training module will improve the efficacy of peacekeepers in the field.
“The aim is to have them (peacekeepers) perform in a similar way. They are also supposed to sit together in an office and work together. But they have different backgrounds, language, and culture,” Folkeson told The Korea Times.
The U.N. peacekeeping force was developed during the Cold War as a means to resolve conflicts between states by deploying military personnel, sometimes heavily armed, from a number of countries.
The primary objective shifted afterwards, as operations focused more on non-military elements, requiring solid and complex knowledge about the causes and nature of individual conflicts. In 1992, the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations was created to support an increased demand for diverse missions.
Folkeson’s main role in Seoul is to introduce a new training module developed in 2008 that will locate instructors and students at the Peacekeeping Operations Center. All pre-deployment trainings for peacekeepers from Korea will take place there.
But Major Folkeson stated that not all countries welcome this. Some, he said, view it as an intervention in sovereign control.
Collaboration with Sweden began with the visit of Sweden’s Defense Minister Sten Tolgfors last year. Sweden has a center specialized in developing pre-deployment training programs. One Korean military officer who refused to disclose his name for this article appreciated the collaboration, saying it has enriched the quality of the training the center offers.
Folkeson himself served in different missions as a peacekeeper, in Sri Lanka and Mozambique, and now shares his experiences and expertise with students in the classroom.
The major also urged donor states to avoid preferential contributions.
Somalia, for example, is in desperate need of peacekeepers, yet no country is willing to send citizens there because of security risks. As a result, the Somalian government is unable to fully function and enforce the law giving opportunities for rebel groups and pirates.
According to latest statistics, 116 countries now contribute to U.N. peacekeeping operations, with the largest contribution from Bangladesh. South Korea comes in 33rd place, sending 633 personnel.
Korea first contributed to U.N. peacekeeping in 1994 when it dispatched five officers to the U.N. Observer Mission in Georgia. Currently, serving Koreans are stationed in nine missions including Western Sahara, Haiti, Lebanon and South Sudan.