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| International |
| Lebanon formally requests extension of UN peacekeepers' mandate |
| 2002-07-09 |
| Lebanon formally requested an extension for the UN peacekeeping force patrolling the Israeli border amid fears US opposition to the new International Criminal Court will force its disbandment by the end of the month. The mandate of the 3,630-strong UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been renewed every six months since its creation in 1978. But Washington's decision to use its UN Security Council veto to mark its hostility towards the new International Criminal Court (ICC) has threatened to terminate it and other UN peacekeeping missions around the world. Gosh. That's too bad. Wonder if anything will change? "If the decision to extend the UNIFIL mandate is not taken, it will end at midnight on July 31. That's it," UNIFIL spokesman Timour Goksel told AFP by telephone from the mission's headquarters at Naqoura in southern Lebanon. A UN source in Beirut said UN Secretary General Kofi Annan was set to recommend in a July 16 report that the Lebanon mission be extended. Recommend and be damned. But even though the force includes no US troops, the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, had made clear that the threat of a veto hangs over all 15 current peacekeeping missions, whether or not they include Americans. The biggest worry is a US threat to cut funding for the peacekeeping operations, which this year had an aggregate budget of about 2.77 billion dollars. The United States pays for more than a quarter of the costs. Sounds like a good move to me. If we stop feeding them, they'll stop coming around. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |