‘Troops to Darfur under consideration’
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan is considering sending troops to conflict-hit Darfur in Sudan on United Nations peacekeeping mission, said Maj Gen Arshad Waheed, Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations, on Wednesday.
“The government of Pakistan has received a UN request for peacekeeping troops in Darfur, Chad and Somalia. The request is under consideration but the final decision is yet to be taken,” he said. He was addressing a seminar jointly organised by the Untied Nations Information Center (UNIC) and the Senate Standing Committee on Defence to commemorate the International Day of UN Peacekeepers at the Parliament House. Rejecting a BBC report on ‘gold for arms’ scam as misleading, ISPR DG said that the UN had launched an investigation into the scam and had not named any country or individuals in the report. “The UN holds independent inquiries into such allegations and does not share the investigations with member countries. We will decide to hold inquiry if we receive the report from the UN,” he said responding a BBC report regarding the involvement of Pakistan Army officers in the scam.
Maj Gen Waheed reacted sharply to a comment suggesting Pakistan army as a mercenary army and said that Pakistan was not a mercenary army and did not send its soldiers on peace missions to die for dollars. “We are a very disciplined, professional and well trained army. We only send our troops for peacekeeping in different parts on the request of UN,” he added. He also had a word with senator Prof Khursheed Ahmad of Jamaat-e-Islami who questioned large contributions to the UN peacekeeping sources by the third world countries.
“Do the developed countries think third world armies best mercenaries or less precious lives as compared with the soldiers of developed countries,” he questioned.
Prof Khursheed also stressed the review and reassessment of the UN peacekeeping missions by the UN as well as the contributing countries. “There were some incidents in which the integrity and the reputation of the whole country was put at stake by acts of certain individuals,” he said referring to BBC report.
Senator Mehtab Khan Abbasi of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz was of the view that it looked as if the UN Missions were discriminatory in different cases and dictated by the US and questioned whether there was any hidden agenda of the big powers behind these missions.
Earlier, Maj Gen Waheed said that Pakistan was the largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping missions with 10,000 troops part of the total peacekeeping forces of 100,000 deployed in different parts of the world. “Pakistan joined the UN peacekeeping in 1960 and has contributed troops to different missions across the world, currently there were 20 missions were performing duties in different parts of the world,” he added. staff report
Good or bad for Pakistan?