U.N. Peace-Keeping Troops Will Fire Back if Attacked
The United Nations will deploy up to 15,000 troops in southern Lebanon to maintain the truce. Mark Malloch Brown, the U.N. Deputy Secretary General, talks about the "heavily European, Muslim" character of the U.N. mission and about the rules of engagement. If anyone uses force to resist the U.N. troops in their disarmament efforts, the U.N. has the right to shoot back.
MELISSA BLOCK, host:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
MICHELE NORRIS, host:
And I'm Michele Norris.
As part of the truce between Hezbollah and Israel, the United Nations has made a commitment to provide 15,000 troops to maintain the cease-fire in southern Lebanon. The force will be an expansion of UNIFIL, an existing U.N. peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon that's been there since 1978.
Troops will deploy in stages. The first will arrive in just a few days. Their mission - to support Lebanon's own army in enforcing the truce. To find out more about UNIFIL's mandate, we called the United Nations' Deputy Secretary General, Mark Malloch Brown.
Mr. MARK MALLOCH BROWN (Deputy Secretary General, United Nations): It's an expanded UNIFIL force, but it will be barely recognizable from the existing one, which is 2,000 people with a fairly passive monitoring mandate, to an up to 15,000 force with much more robust armament and a very different, more active mandate.
NORRIS: And what can you tell us about the composition of this force? Which countries will participate, what kind of commitments are they willing to make, and who's going to be in charge of this force?
Mr. BROWN: Well, it will have a heavily European Muslim character. The current force, which will stay, has got a large Indian and Ghanaian contingent, but we will be adding to that a number of European countries. France is expected to play a real lead role in this. But a number of Muslim countries have also volunteered. Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia. So it'll be quite a disparate group, but a group of countries which are very good, efficient militaries.
NORRIS: I'm hoping that you can spell out for us the rules of engagement. Will this force be charged with disarming forces that they may meet on the ground? Can they fire upon others if necessary?
Mr. BROWN: The language of the resolution is very clear, which is if anybody uses force to try and resist the U.N. troops carrying out their mission, they have the right to shoot back. So, you know, while the first intent of the mission is that it is able to disarm any pockets of resistance or any smuggling efforts to bring in arms, if they need to, they can use their own firepower to secure their objective.
NORRIS: And the resistance that they may meet is unconventional in terms of warfare. Does this mean that they can conduct door to door searches if necessary, do that kind of thing?
Mr BROWN: It is unconventional, but you have to again remember that, you know, the whole rationale or logic behind this resolution and the subsequent cease-fire and peace agreement is that it will be based on a political agreement, that the two parties to the conflict will have agreed not to bear arms in southern Lebanon, that Israel will be back on its side of the border, and Hezbollah will no longer carry arms south of the Litani.
And so there is not the expectation that there will need to be massive efforts to root out Hezbollah fighters and arms. It's the implementation of a political agreement, and it's that political agreement which is going to primarily drive disarmament.
NORRIS: But a political agreement that has been agreed to by sort of new kind of military force. Are you confident that Hezbollah will honor those blue hats and this resolution?
Mr. BROWN: Well you know, Hezbollah's Sheik Nashrallah has made, you know, his intentions clear in his cautious welcome of the resolution, but secondly Hezbollah voted with the rest of the government, first for Lebanon's seven-point plan, of which the implication is that there is disarmament in the south, and then later for this resolution, in which it is explicit that Hezbollah will not carry arms in the south.
So you know, Hezbollah is all the things you say it is, but it's also a political movement, and so you know, we very much hope it has made the political calculation that now is the time to pursue its goals by political, not military, means, at least in this southern Lebanon theater.
NORRIS: A political movement that's headed by Sheik Hassan Nashrallah, who said today that now is not the time to talk about disarming.
Mr. BROWN: Well, it is correct, and I think he's responding to the immediate situation, that this first resolution does not call for disarmament. That's why it's so tricky to make sure that the cessation of hostilities holds. You know, Israel's not being asked to disarm. Neither is Hezbollah.
Both of them are being asked to stand down and to allow us to insert peacekeeping monitors between them. But we need to move very quickly to the next phases of the resolution, where indeed there is withdrawal and then disarmament, and we, you know, very much expect that to happen soon, because I think that's vital.
NORRIS: Secretary Brown, thank you so much for speaking with us.
Mr. BROWN: Thank you.
NORRIS: Mark Malloch Brown is the United Nations Deputy Secretary General.
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