Status: 08/25/2021 1:55 a.m.
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There are increasing international voices calling for more decisive help from the UN in Afghanistan. There are also calls for a peacekeeping force. But such a deployment is unlikely. Instead, it will remain with words of warning for the time being.
By Antje Passenheim, ARD-Studio New York
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In Geneva, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights is sounding the alarm. In view of the attacks, Michelle Bachelet is drawing the “red line” for the Taliban. At the UN headquarters in New York, her colleagues find it difficult to explain: “What is the UN special envoy Deborah Lyons doing? Who is Deborah Lyons meeting? What is the Secretary General doing? Where is his Afghanistan representative, Jean Arnault?”
Antje Passenheim
ARD-Studio New York
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Many observers wonder: is the United Nations doing enough not to abandon the people of Afghanistan? UN programs such as Unicef, the World Food Program or the refugee relief organization are continuing their humanitarian aid against much resistance. But their international staff has flown out. General Secretary Guterres sends a message of perseverance via video to the remaining local employees.
Filippo Grandi, UN Commissioner for Refugees, on the difficult situation of Afghan refugees
Topics of the day 10:15 p.m., 8/24/2021
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Simulation game for a UN peacekeeping mission
The call for the global community to stop the forced march of the Taliban is getting louder and louder. The head of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, is also thinking publicly about the possibility of a UN peace mission. However, the UN director of the think tank “Crisis Group” does not see that there is such a mission in the Hindu Kush.
The environment is just too dangerous. We have seen how difficult it is for the UN blue helmet soldiers to fight jihadists in Mali. And if they can’t get by there, then they can’t do it in Afghanistan.
The UN helplessly allowed the killing in Rwanda. In 1995, Bosnian Serb units massacred thousands of Bosniaks in the protection zone of Srebrenitsa in front of Dutch blue helmet soldiers. As a consequence, the concept of the international responsibility to protect emerged. An important tool, says international relations expert Charli Carpenter from the University of Massachusetts.
Under the concept of the International Responsibility to Protect, the Security Council has the ability to intervene anywhere in the world to protect civilians if the attack on these people poses an international threat to peace and security.
How do the veto powers China and Russia behave?
However, the Security Council would have to agree to such an operation. And many fear: Russia and China would block him with a veto. But it is also clear: Not only the West – Russia and China are not interested in an unstable Afghanistan either, says Gowan: “In the past, China has occasionally expressed an interest in stationing UN troops in Afghanistan. I think that China is economic Has interests in Afghanistan, and that Beijing wants to stabilize the country, also because of its own situation with the Uighurs. ”
Afghanistan borders the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, where the Muslim Uighur minority is systematically oppressed. Beijing fears that the Taliban’s advance will strengthen this population group. This fear is not enough for China to get involved in a UN peace mission, says the UN director of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, Louis Charbonneau: “We should focus on saving as many lives as possible now. And pressure on exercise the Taliban by making it clear to them that we are monitoring their human rights handling very closely and holding them accountable for any violations. ” That could happen, for example, before the International Criminal Court.
Aid for Afghanistan – How capable is the Security Council?
Antje Passenheim, ARD New York, 8/24/2021 11:49 p.m.
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