NEW YORK - The United Nations is on a
global hunt for troops, military equipment and
logistical support to revamp its existing
peacekeeping force in Lebanon, which has been
mandated to monitor the week's ceasefire between
Israel and Hezbollah.
"We have no formal
offers yet," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said
on Tuesday. "We would like to have firm
commitments of troops as soon as possible."
Asked if Secretary General Kofi Annan was
concerned that no country had so far offered
troops following the UN's ceasefire resolution
last Friday, Dujarric said: "We do expect a more
formal meeting [of troop contributing nations] on
Thursday, at which
point, hopefully, we will get
those offers [of troops]."
Annan told
Israeli television it would take weeks or months
to deploy peacekeepers. In response, US State
Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "Nobody
believes that deploying the force in months is
acceptable. This needs to be done on a much more
urgent basis than that."
The ceasefire
resolution, which was adopted unanimously by the
15-member Security Council, called for an increase
in the force strength of the existing UN Interim
Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) from its current 1,990
troops to a proposed 10,000.
As UNIFIL
troops were already on the ground, Dujarric said,
the United Nations is not operating "in a vacuum".
"We have UNIFIL," he added.
Since the
adoption of the resolution, the UN has hosted two
meetings of troop-contributing countries. The
first was attended by some 28 countries and the
second by 17 countries.
The US, which
co-sponsored the resolution with France, has
declared it would not provide any troops. But it
has indicated a willingness to provide logistical
support, including transport aircraft to ferry
troops into Lebanon.
The bulk of the
troops is expected to come from Western nations,
with few if any from neighboring Arab countries.
The UN believes that the "robust" force -
well-trained and well-equipped soldiers - can only
come mostly from Western states.
France is
expected to provide about 5,000 troops, the
largest single contingent, followed perhaps by
Italy, with about 2,000 to 3,000 troops.
Other potential troop contributors include
Spain and Australia. At least three Muslim
countries - Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkey - are
also expected to contribute troops.
UNIFIL, which was created in March 1958,
costs about US$100 million annually. If the
revamped UNIFIL gets off the ground, it will be
the second-largest UN peacekeeping force after the
15,600-strong UN Mission in the Democratic
Republic of Congo, which was created in November
1999 and costs over $1.1 billion annually.
Dujarric told reporters that the UNIFIL
force commander, General Alain Pellegrini of
France, met with senior officers of the Lebanese
and Israeli armies "to discuss the implementation
of and compliance with the agreement".
He
said they also discussed the withdrawal of the
Israeli Army and the deployment of the Lebanese
armed forces in South Lebanon. Dujarric said that
both Annan and the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations "are working to drum up troops for this
force".
"We'll need to have a highly
capable force, which will be able to carry out the
mandate given to it by the Security Council. But,
I think, as opposed to past situations, we do have
one leg up here, as there already is a UN force in
South Lebanon [UNIFIL]."
So obviously, he
said, it would be a challenge to get these troops
but, "We don't face the situation that we faced in
some other countries where we go in and there is
no UN infrastructure on the ground."
Meanwhile, the Security Council has also
welcomed a decision by the Lebanese government to
deploy 15,000 of its troops to South Lebanon. This
will be in addition to the UN force of 15,000,
bringing the total to 30,000 troops.
According to the resolution that was
adopted last week, the UN force will coordinate
its activities with the governments of both
Lebanon and Israel. The UN force will also
accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces as
they deploy throughout the south.
Additionally, the UN force will provide
assistance to ensure humanitarian access to
civilian populations and the voluntary and safe
return of displaced persons.
Dujarric also
said that the disarming of militias, including
Hezbollah, would not be the responsibility of the
UN force. But the United Nations "will assist the
government of Lebanon in asserting its authority
over all of southern Lebanon".
Besides
troops, the UN is also in need of fixed-wing
aircraft, helicopters, armored personnel carriers
and trucks. As a general rule, troops from most
Western nations arrive with their own equipment.
