United Nations Peacekeeping Forces

About UN Peacekeeping Forces

The United Nations Peacekeeping Forces are employed by the UN to maintain or re-establish peace in an area of armed conflict.
The UN may engage in conflicts between states as well as in struggles within states. The UN acts as an impartial third party in order to prepare the ground for a settlement of the issues that have provoked armed conflict.
The UN Peacekeeping Forces may only be employed when both parties to a conflict accept their presence.
The Peacekeeping Forces are subordinate to the leadership of the United Nations. They are normally deployed as a consequence of a UN Security Council decision. However, on occasion, the initiative has been taken by the General Assembly.
Operational control belongs to the Secretary-General and his secretariat.

Two kinds

There are two kinds of peacekeeping operations – unarmed observer groups and lightly-armed military forces. The latter are only allowed to employ their weapons for self-defence.
The observer groups are concerned with gathering information for the UN about actual conditions prevailing in an area.
The military forces are entrusted with more extended tasks, such as keeping the parties to a conflict apart and maintaining order in an area.
The first UN peacekeeping mission was a team of observers deployed to the Middle East in 1948, during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.

Why in News?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres discussed the recent attack on the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), where two Indian peacekeepers were martyred.

Contribution of India

India has consistently been among the top troop contributing nations to the U.N.
In 2007, India became the first country to deploy an all-women contingent to a UN peacekeeping mission.
The country has so far participated in 51 of the 71 missions and contributed over 2 lakh personnel.

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