7 June 2001

On 29 May 2001, the Security Council held a meeting at which representatives of the Federation of International Civil Servants’ Associations (FICSA) were invited to present their views on the question of the security of United Nations staff and associated personnel.

This was the first time in the 55-year-long history of the United Nations that the staff was able to address the Security Council.

The meeting was convened by Bangladesh, under the "Arria formula" which allows parties that do not normally participate in the work of the Council to bring particular subjects to the attention of its members. The United States of America, which held the presidency of the Security Council during May, put its full weight behind the meeting. FICSA welcomed the joint efforts of a developing and developed country as a strong signal to the world community.

The meeting of the Security Council was a follow up to the petition signed by more than 14,000 staff members following the brutal and savage lynching of Samson Aregahegn, Carlos Caceres and Pero Simundza in Atambua, East Timor, Indonesia, on 6 September 2000.

FICSA’s speakers were Anne Marie Pinou, Research and Liaison Officer in New York, Dimitri Samaras, Chairman of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Staff Association, and André Heitz, General Secretary. Ms. Pinou recalled the background and introduced FICSA. Mr. Samaras presented his own testimony and read out a statement by Mr. Salvatore Lombardo. Mr. Heitz briefly referred to further testimonies, described the Federation’s specific demands for improved security measures and presented suggestions for an increased involvement of the Security Council.

The Security Council members welcomed the initiative of Ambassador Chowdhury of Bangladesh and praised FICSA for its advocacy activity. It was suggested that the meeting should be followed up by a more formal one, or by a public debate.

The Security Council, it was said, would have a definite role to play in "mainstreaming" security issues when determining missions, mandates and peacekeeping operations and in serving as a role model for other bodies of the United Nations system which decide on programmes and activities that entail sending staff to difficult areas.

This echoed FICSA’s request that operations, whether peacekeeping, humanitarian or related to development, be given clear, credible and achievable mandates and that appropriate modalities for the safety and security of all United Nations staff and associated personnel be a prerequisite of such operations.

The members of the Security Council advocated strengthening the role of the Office of the United Nations Security Coordinator (UNSECOORD), with several speakers regretting that the Coordinator was already overstretched in running the Oil for Food Programme.

References were also made to the inadequacy of the measures adopted by certain Governments to protect United Nations staff and associated personnel and the sentiment that perpetrators of crimes against staff can walk away with impunity. The outrageous verdict handed down against the instigators and perpetrators of the Atambua killing was condemned by several speakers.

On the issue of "non-state actors", the Security Council needs to be more innovative and more creative, several delegations stated. Also mentioned was the need to promote the ratification of the Convention on the Security of United Nations and Associated Personnel and the Statute of the International Criminal Court, and to extend their scope to cover all UN staff.

FICSA’s request that the United Nations behave as a model employer and, in particular, abide by internationally accepted labour norms was also cited. FICSA emphasized that employing staff on regular contracts would serve to capitalize on experience, dedication and reliability.

FICSA urged the Security Council to take an active interest in the security of all staff given that there is no sharp demarcation between peacekeeping, humanitarian assistance and development for cooperation. In the short-term, the Security Council should send a strong message of support for the measures proposed by the Secretary-General, which FICSA has welcomed, and request that further measures be taken based upon needs assessment rather than an estimation of what is politically achievable.

The meeting demonstrated beyond doubt that there is both active interest and support, and also recognition of the need and obligation to do much more.

The statistics are indeed gruesome:

• Since January 1992, 200 civilian staff members have been killed; 179 fell victim to malicious acts and 21 to aircraft incidents.

• Approximately two thirds were locals and one third expatriates.

• Some 15 per cent of the casualties were civilian staff in peacekeeping operations; personnel working for organizations providing humanitarian assistance accounted for 45 per cent; and among the other organizations (accounting for some 40 per cent), UNDP and UNRWA suffered the highest numbers of losses.

• Since January 1994, there have been 66 cases of hostage-taking/kidnapping involving 248 persons. Approximately 30 per cent were locals and 70 per cent expatriates.

• Over the last year, 4 major deliberate attacks on UN staff and premises resulted in the brutal murder of 6 staff members - 2 in Baghdad, 3 in West Timor and 1 in Guinea.

• Between 1 January and 31 December 1999, there were 292 reported violent incidents involving United Nations staff throughout the world including robberies with violence, physical assault, rape and vehicle hijacking.

• So far, in 2001, the United Nations system lost 2 staff members to murder (in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Madagascar) and 4 in a helicopter accident in Mongolia.

As stated by Dimitri Samaras, "the statistics are only a mechanical representation of the sad reality of the death toll. It is a representation, however, of the intolerable frequency with which the ultimate sacrifice is made by our colleagues."

Ambassador Cunningham from the United States of America responded: "We need more people in the field, not less. We need less martyrs, not more."

To that end, the United Nations system (specifically the Member States) must put up more than the 2 US dollars per month per staff member which are currently spent on the central security system.

"Security can’t be absolute. But security is an absolute objective" (Yves Doutriaux, Deputy Permanent Representative of France).