Photo By Staff Sgt. Cory Grogan | Nepalese Army Maj. K.C. Naresh, a field training exercise subject matter expert,...... read more read more
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By Sgt. Cory Grogan, 115th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment
PANCHKHAL, Nepal - Nepalese army Maj. K.C. Naresh and New Zealander Carl Jenkins, a Global Peace Operations Initiative subject matter expert, know a lot about peacekeeping and believe United Nations missions make a difference.
Jenkins has worked in 13 countries before, during and after U.N. missions, and Naresh led platoons from Nepal in the Sudan and Lebanon for U.N. missions.
Naresh and Jenkins are trainers for Exercise Shanti Prayas-2 at the Birendra Peace Operations Training Center in Panchkhal, Nepal. Shanti Prayas-2 is a Global Peace Operations Initiative training exercise, led by the Nepalese army and sponsored by the U.S. Pacific Command. The exercise takes place March 25 to April 7, bringing together military representatives from 23 nations to train U.N. standards for operating in future peacekeeping missions.
As part of the training exercise, the two peacekeepers managed a mock UN food distribution lane with multiple role-players.
“From my perspective as a subject matter expert, particularly for this site, we’re dealing with issues we’ve seen in the past and it’s a continuing problem,” said Jenkins.
Jenkins explained that there are situations where people are desperate for food and additional considerations regarding humanitarian principles need to be respected.
“We have to ask how can we manage humanity with neutrality and impartiality while maintaining site security without breaking humanitarian principles,” he said. “This training is great for the decision-making, learning, and thought process — we can learn from mistakes here and hopefully not repeat them [on a UN mission].”
Naresh said he is training platoons to coordinate with site managers to respect humanitarian rights and provide a secure environment. He said being a platoon commander in Sudan and Lebanon was a great peacekeeping experience.
“It was a great experience because as a peacekeeper, we are in the field as part of the bigger family of U.N. and helping them out in whatever way we can,” he said.
Naresh explained he is proud Nepal has become a leader in peacekeeping, a top troop-contributor to the U.N. with approximately 95,000 personnel deployed to U.N. missions to date.
“We had to learn the hard way at times; we started in 1958 and have more than 50 years of experience now,” Naresh added.
Jenkins says he believes U.N. missions make a difference for stability and peace.
“People need to understand it is difficult, though, it may take 10 to 20 years in some cases to get there,” said Jenkins. “But there are some cases you could ask; if there wasn’t a mission in some places, how bad could it get?”
Jenkins said it is a huge undertaking, mentioning that in Sudan alone there are 3,000 civilian staff, 7,000 peacekeepers and 1,000 U.N. police.
“It’s just tricky, so yeah there’s a lot of competency, but trying to manage such a big structure can be difficult,” Jenkins added. “We can look at places like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, and there’s still a long way to go, but they’re not at war and that’s the difference.”
| Date Taken: | 03.30.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 04.04.2013 06:17 |
| Story ID: | 104592 |
| Location: | PANCHKHAL, NP |
| Web Views: | 222 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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