Press Kit
Fact Sheet 1
Press
Release
First
International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers to be Commemorated
on 29 May
NEW YORK, 23 May (DPI) -- The first
International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers will be observed on
29 May this year, following its establishment by the General Assembly,
in resolution 57/129, last year. The Day is intended to pay tribute
“to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in UN
peacekeeping operations, as well as to honour the memory of those who
have lost their lives in the cause of peace”.
The date, 29 May, was chosen because
on that day in 1948, the first UN peacekeeping mission, the United Nations
Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), began operations, with a group
of unarmed military observers in Palestine.
In a videotaped message to be broadcast
to peacekeepers around the world on the Day, Secretary-General Kofi
Annan emphasized that the mission of UN peacekeeping remains vital.
While “peacekeeping by itself cannot end a war … it can prevent a recurrence
of fighting. Above all, it gives time and space for conflict resolution.
It gives peace a chance”.
As this Day is being observed around
the world, peacekeepers are fulfilling roles as military observers,
trainers and disarmament experts, civilian police, civil administrators,
judges and prosecutors, economists, human rights and humanitarian workers.
Others perform the more traditional peacekeeping functions of monitoring
ceasefires and buffer zones, in 14 missions on three continents.
The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Marie Guéhenno,
will commemorate the day with the peacekeepers of the UN Organization
Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC).
"There
are two threats to the international community’s search for peace and
security,” he said recently. “First is the difficulty in building common
ground (as was seen recently over Iraq). The second is indifference.
Crises develop and people die, not because of big conflicts, but because
nobody cares. Often peacekeepers are deployed to situations far from
the headlines, with complicated but crucial tasks. More are needed,
as we can see in the current situation in the DRC, with more resources
and better clarified mandates. As we work to improve our support for
UN peacekeepers, we must acknowledge their vital contribution: they
can make a difference."
Also on the Day, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hédi
Annabi, will pay tribute to those who died while in the service of peace
in 2002, at a special award ceremony in the Dag Hammarskjold Library
auditorium in UN Headquarters, at 3:30 p.m.
Memorial panels featuring names of peacekeepers – both civilian and military
– who died in 2002, will be on display in the UN Headquarters Public
Lobby from 29 May. (1,819 UN peacekeepers have died while
on missions over the past 55 years.)
The UN Department of Public Information has produced an information kit intended
to demonstrate the vast variety of skills and responsibilities of UN
peacekeepers today.
Ongoing UN peacekeeping missions have also planned their own activities in the
field to demonstrate the contributions of peacekeepers in resolving
conflicts around the world.
For
further information contact the Peace and Security Section, Department
of Public Information: Susan Manuel, tel. 1 (212) 963-1262, email:
manuels@un.org; or Sharon McPherson, tel. 1 (917) 367-2068, email: mcpherson1@un.org.
DPI /2311 (1) May
2003
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