In Berlin, Broad Backing For UN Peacekeeping As Global Threats Mount
UN Secretary-General António Guterres meanwhile warned that peace operations are under growing strain and must adapt to meet today's rising threats.
The two-day conference on peacekeeping, hosted by the Government of Germany, brought together over 1,000 participants – including defence and foreign ministers – to reaffirm commitment to the UN's flagship tool for maintaining peace and stability.
It concluded on Wednesday with a wide array of pledges, including 88 military and police units, specialized training, and investments in emerging technologies and strategic communications.
Difference between life and death
' In trouble spots around the world, 'blue helmets' can mean the difference between life and death,' Mr. Guterres said in his opening remarks.
'Now more than ever, the world needs the United Nations. And the United Nations needs peacekeeping that is fully equipped for today's realities and tomorrow's challenges.'
Germany, which currently contributes troops to UN missions in South Sudan, Lebanon, and Western Sahara, announced €82 million (around $91.7 million) in funding, along with commitments in training, renewable energy solutions and drone technology.
'Germany continues to be a steadfast supporter of UN peacekeeping,' said Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.
Broad and diverse commitments
A total of 74 UN Member States made specific pledges, ranging from uniformed personnel to training and strategic support.
This includes pledges which will bolster military and police units, including airlift and rapid deployment capabilities (53 national contributions), specialized training (59), technological enhancements (18), advancing the Women, Peace and Security Agenda (38) and safety and protection (16).
Eleven countries also committed to improving accountability and conduct, including support to the trust fund for victims of sexual exploitation and abuse, and eight nations supporting the UN's efforts to counter mis- and disinformation through strategic communications.
Mounting pressures
At a press conference following the meeting, Secretary-General Guterres acknowledged that peacekeepers operate in an increasingly complex and dangerous environment, citing a record number of global conflicts, the targeting of peacekeepers by drones and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and the rising threat from disinformation campaigns.
' We need to ask some tough questions about the mandates guiding these operations, and what the outcomes and solutions should look like,' he said, speaking alongside German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and Defence Minister Pistorius.
' Every context is different, and missions must be adapted accordingly. '
The UN chief also stressed the importance of sustained financial backing, highlighting that many missions continue to struggle with cash flow shortages due to delayed payments from Member States.
'It is absolutely essential that all Member States respect their financial obligations, paying their contributions in full and on time,' he said.
Crucial reforms
The Berlin meeting feeds into the UN's broader reform efforts, including an ongoing Review of Peace Operations announced in last year's Pact for the Future, aimed at making peacekeeping and peace enforcement more flexible, cost-effective, and aligned with real-world needs.
This year's Ministerial also coincides with the 80th anniversary of the United Nations and the 10-year anniversary of the 2015 New York Summit on Peacekeeping. It follows similar high-level meetings in Accra, Seoul, Vancouver and London.
Peacekeeping remains one of the UN's most visible activities, with over 61,000 uniformed personnel from 119 countries currently deployed across 11 missions, supported by more than 7,000 civilian staff.
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Chhana had a strong background in public policy, with his work at the Ministry of Justice focusing on improving access to justice and promoting human rights, Kitteridge said. What she didn't mention is that he was the GM of the Ministry of Justice's unit to ensure New Zealand complied with the UN Convention Against Torture. Which meant he failed at his job because New Zealand was found in breach of the Convention Against Torture. So he didn't adequately promote human rights and access to justice, even though that was his job. Kitteridge said Chhana's work in the international human rights area (including appearing as an official in UN forums) was disclosed during the appointment process and was seen as valuable subject knowledge for this role. Disclosed to who? And what exactly is this valuable knowledge Chhana possesses? 'Mr Chhana is well placed to lead the Crown Response Office and is committed to ensuring the perspectives of survivors are front and centre of the Government's response,' Kitteridge said. But he didn't centre the perspectives of survivors when he appeared at the UN. And is he simply well placed to continue the Government's lack of independence and not putting survivors first? 'There is nothing I have seen that would suggest Mr Chhana is not suitable for this role. The panel supported Mr Chhana because he was the best candidate. I am confident Mr Chhana is the right person to lead this important work,' Kitteridge continued. Which raises questions about Kitteridge's independent judgment and what it is she's actually looking at. Has she read the Lake Alice report and the repeated failures to hold anyone accountable for the torture, rape and assaults of hundreds of children at Lake Alice and the abuse of thousands more at other institutions? That failure happened because a number of public servants didn't do their job and/or actively did the opposite of what they should have done, and many are still currently in high level roles. Chhana was in a crucial role at the Ministry of Justice when the Crown was continuing its ongoing denial and failure to investigate, which put New Zealand in breach of the Convention Against Torture. What exactly would Kitteridge and Collins consider to be disqualifying? And Kitteridge's history bears mentioning – for four years between 1997 and 2001 Kitteridge was a Crown Counsel at Crown Law Office. While there is no record that she was directly involved in the Lake Alice case, this was a crucial period when Crown Law was fighting litigation from Lake Alice victims. From 2003 to 2008, Kitteridge was Deputy Secretary of the Cabinet. There were ongoing discussions in Crown Law and Cabinet about Lake Alice over this period because of the police investigation and the Government's responses to the UN. She's unlikely to have been unaware of Lake Alice or the questions that it raised about torture. Because Collins is only looking at the period up to 1999, she is missing much questionable behaviour by Crown officials and lawyers, many of whom are now in senior positions not only in the public service but also in the judiciary. One Crown lawyer interviewed Dr Selwyn Leeks' ex-wife, who gave evidence that could have been incriminating in court. It doesn't appear the police were aware of this evidence, so it could never be put in front of a jury. If the scrutiny stops at 1999, that might explain why neither Kitteridge nor Collins seem concerned about Una Jagose's role in Crown Law over the past two decades. Or perhaps the scope of the inquiry has ended up being designed to protect such people. Jagose was involved in the White case, a legal test case in 2007, where the judge found the Crown was not liable on technicalities, despite finding that the victim had been sexually abused at least 13 times. The Crown knew that the main perpetrator Michael Ansell, the cook at Hokio Beach School, was a convicted paedophile but withheld this from the victim's lawyer Sonja Cooper. The Crown also used private investigators to try and dig dirt on the victims in the lead up to the trial, something Crown Law and MSD lied about when I asked in 2016. Jagose was either present at or aware of the cross examination of the victim Earl White where it was implied that he consented to the abuse because he'd been given cigarettes. In his evidence he said: 'The Crown's lawyer [Kristy McDonald KC] was asking a lot of detailed questions about the sexual abuse by Mr Ansell. 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Jagose had viewed the threat of the court process as a way to pressure victims and into giving up. In an earlier email from Jagose to MSD in 2006 she said 'some plaintiffs may give up along the way … if they see another plaintiff having to go through the litigation process, face cross-examination etc'. Not only did Crown lawyers attack the credibility of victims, they also withheld information that proved their allegations. Jagose and others within Crown Law and MSD did not provide relevant information from victims such as Wiffin about perpetrators. This information was also not provided to lawyer Sonja Cooper, such as the convictions of a perpetrator at Hokio Beach School during the White case. When questioned at the Royal Commission about one example in 2007 of Crown Law's failure to disclose the criminal convictions of a perpetrator who worked at Epuni Boys Home, Jagose could not give an answer: 'I don't know, I can't answer. It should have been. The information was available, and the request was for that material.' In 2020, Crown Law withheld evidence from the police during an investigation into Lake Alice that only happened because the UN found New Zealand in breach of the Convention Against Torture. Sir Brian Roche was asked by Newsroom why the scope of the inquiry was limited to the Royal Commission period ending in 1999. This question was not directly answered in the initial response. In follow-up questions, some of the incidents documented by the Royal Commission were brought to Roche's attention, including the failure to provide information about convicted paedophiles from victims and their lawyers and other information being not given to police. He was asked if he thought this behaviour was appropriate for a public servant, but a spokesperson said he had nothing to add to his previous answers. Judith Collins said in the Cabinet paper, without a hint of irony: 'It is also important to acknowledge and address the systemic factors that enabled this behaviour to occur and go unaddressed for so long.' One of the factors that allowed the abuse to 'go unaddressed for so long' was Collins making a point-blank denial that state torture occurred in New Zealand at the UN in 2014 when she was Minister of Justice. That added another 10 years onto the wait for Lake Alice victims. She has not resiled from that statement, despite an admission by the Prime Minister that torture did occur. There were also multiple failures by the police, including on Collins' watch as Minister of Police, that allowed the abuse to 'go unaddressed for so long'. That failure allowed criminals to avoid accountability for abusing and torturing children. But the lack of accountability isn't just happening for the past actions of the Crown's agents. While survivors have different views on lots of things, one thing they can agree on is they don't want any children to go through the kind of abuse they did. The survivors who put together the High Level Design said 'the concern expressed universally by survivors that systems of care must not continue to perpetuate abuse and produce further/future survivors.' But currently there is still abuse of children in the custody of the state. A report from the Independent Children's Monitor this year found more than 500 children had been abused in state custody. The previous year it was more than 400, so the numbers are increasing. A large number of those cases of abuse are in youth justice facilities and yet the current Government has set up a boot camp pilot while telling the public that this will be different. One of the Royal Commission's recommendations has been languishing since Labour was in government, but could provide a deterrent to the state's ongoing abuse of children. In its redress report from 2021 the commission recommended that: 'The Crown should create in legislation: a right to be free from abuse in care; a non-delegable duty to ensure all reasonably practicable steps are taken to protect this right; and direct liability for a failure to fulfil the duty.' Labour did less than nothing to implement this very basic but important recommendation. When a bill on oversight of Oranga Tamariki was being ushered through Parliament, the Minister for MSD Carmel Sepuloni hadn't even read the redress report and didn't know about the recommendations. When the National-led coalition came into power it ticked off a number of pet policies in 100 days, but ignored this one. Instead it was draughting up a bill to abolish section 7AA which provided an obligation to protect Maori children under the Treaty of Waitangi. The Government was in a hurry to remove this accountability, saying it was race-based, while failing to legislate for accountability to protect every child. For all its claims to be concerned about protecting children, Act is silent on this. The Cost That Can't be Counted While stories in Australia and North America have become common knowledge globally, for some strange reason New Zealand is lagging in its recognition of this history. And it's not because it's a minor issue. I've compared some of the numbers and New Zealand took more indigenous children from a smaller population in a shorter space of time than either Canada or Australia. The story of the Stolen Generations and Residential Schools in North America are a history that is globally known. But New Zealand's parallel history of this kind of abuse has been silenced. We have silenced the victims. All of our government institutions repeatedly fail to recognise this trauma that manifests not only in individuals but in generations of families and whole communities that have been infected by the virus of catastrophic childhood trauma. Instead the victims are blamed or labelled, ostracised and vilified, and the institutions then go about inflicting punitive measures that add further trauma. I've witnessed how victims try to get help from Corrections, Police, Health, Mental Health, Criminal Justice, MSD, Education sectors, only to be failed or turned away again and again. The ongoing consequences for the individual victims, their families, their communities and the country keep piling up because we have repeatedly failed to recognise the trauma that lives amongst us. I have heard people describe unspeakable acts that they suffered as children. I've seen the mask slip on gang members and people who have spent most of their lives in prison. When that mask slips I've caught a momentary glimpse of a frightened, hurt, traumatised child that hides behind that mask, a mask of aggression and hostility and distrust that many have worn so long they don't know how to take it off. They don't know how to take it off because no one ever believed them and they are trapped in a lie constructed by someone else. I have witnessed how that lie has been constructed, the ways people at the highest levels have deliberately gone about finding ways to absolve the Crown of the harm it has caused, while leaving the victims of this harm to carry the burden of those crimes. This narrative played out over decades and involved a total imbalance and abuse of power. That abuse of power brutally silenced the victims. Their evidence, their stories were deemed to be inadmissible because they shattered the image we'd constructed of ourselves as a country. And all the while we as a country have also been bearing the direct and indirect costs of the harm done to thousands of New Zealanders, while footing the bill for the Crown to cover it up. Redress cannot happen for victims until the truth we have been avoiding for decades is no longer an option. One aspect of that truth is that childhood trauma does not just live in the victims' past. It shapes every aspect of their present reality. But cracks have opened up in the Crown's impunity, even for those who work inside the institutions that have constructed it. Solicitor General Una Jagose copped heckling and verbal abuse at parliament when she gave an apology for Crown Law. Some stood up and turned their back towards Jagose while she spoke. It was made known loud and clear to the Solicitor General what survivors thought of how she and Crown Law had treated them. They had found their voice and it was heard in the corridors of power. This response was echoed by victims who had gathered at Pipitea Marae to watch the government apology on a large screen. When Jagose appeared on the screen the victims at Pipitea marae reacted the same way as those who were in Parliament. Badly. But a young lawyer from Crown Law was in attendance at Pipitea Marae, bearing witness to both the trauma of victims and the culpability of the institutions she worked for. In a transcript of an internal Teams meeting the young lawyer described what she saw and heard. And what she saw and heard in the raw reactions of the victims led her to question her own employer's behaviour and the lack of accountability. She referenced media coverage and said: 'There has been some very shady dealings and there has been cover-ups and survivors suffered immensely as a result. So I think something needs to be looked at here because the result, the trauma, does not go away and that was so clear today. The trauma from people who may have had things covered up by Crown Law 20 years ago, ten years ago, were still shouting and upset and saying things like liar at the event I was at at Pipitea Marae. There was loud booing, you could have cut the emotion with a knife. This is still a real issue for people, it's something that I think needs to be looked at further. I think to date the response to what has been done by officials of the Crown to try and limit liability for the state for abuse in care needs to be looked at under a microscope. And possibly, yes, people need to step down or be removed.'
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It is like one of those slapstick comedies from the early days of silent films: the Keystone Cops movies, perhaps, or Buster Keaton's various efforts. Lots of people rushing around, constant reversals of fortune and many pratfalls. Last Wednesday, on very short notice, the presidents and/or prime ministers of all the other major countries in the Nato alliance got together online to prep Donald Trump for his summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Saturday. He had to be coached about his newly adopted positions defending Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity because everybody knows that Trump tends to echo the views of the last person who talked to him, especially in subjects he doesn't know about (which is most subjects). So French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Nato Secretary-general Mark Rutte, and sundry other European Nato notables drilled Trump on what to say and what not. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also got a few words in. Most importantly, they all said, Trump must insist Russia accept a ceasefire before peace negotiations started. Otherwise Putin could drag the negotiations out forever while continuing to conquer more Ukrainian territory. Trump was already quite cross about Moscow's foot-dragging on a ceasefire, so he seemed to take their advice seriously. Indeed, just before he stepped aboard Air Force One to fly to Alaska on Saturday he told reporters: "I want to see a ceasefire rapidly ... I'm not going to be happy if it's not today ... I want the killing to stop." But he was flying there to meet Putin — who would then become the last person he talked to on the subject. It's entirely possible that Putin doesn't have anything on Trump that's strong enough to blackmail him with. Lesser sexual and financial peccadilloes just slide off him like water off a duck's back. So why did "Teflon Don" applaud Putin getting off the plane in Anchorage, offer him a ride in the presidential limo, generally carry on like a bedazzled fanboy? He admires other dictators too, maybe because their absolute power intoxicates him (remember his courtship of North Korean's Kim Jong-un?), but his friendship with Putin is special. Nobody knows why. It was probably inevitable that Trump would do a U-turn as soon as he was in Putin's presence. All his promises of "severe consequences" (secondary tariffs on countries importing Russian oil) if Putin would not agree to a ceasefire went out the window. The 50-day deadline, the eight-day deadline, the tomorrow deadline — all forgotten in a moment. Flying home from Alaska, Trump wrote on Truth Social: "It was determined by all that the best way to end the horrific war between Russia and Ukraine is to go directly to a peace agreement." Who's "all"? Trump. Property tycoon Steve Witkoff and former Florida senator Marco Rubio (total six years of foreign affairs experience) v Putin, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrev, and foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov (total 133 years of foreign affairs experience). To be fair, Trump probably didn't understand this meant the Russians could go on fighting and bombing Ukraine until there was a peace settlement agreeable to Moscow — which will only be reached if and when Russian's maximal demands, amounting in practice to the subjugation of all Ukraine, have been accepted. He's not a detail man. Trump then summoned Zelenskyy to Washington to hear the bad news. Almost all the European Nato leaders who prepped him last Wednesday came along uninvited (although everybody will pretend otherwise) for a last-ditch effort to turn Trump around again. It might even work again. Even if it works this time, it's impossible to be always the last person Trump speaks to, and the effort to be that person soon degenerates into slapstick and pratfalls. The European Nato heads of government (and Canada's) will soon have to build a new Nato that does the old one's job of deterring Russia, but without the United States. They will, of course, carry on the pretence of the old Nato as long as possible, because although they have the money and the numbers to perform that task without American help there will be many shortfalls and gaps in the new alliance during a lengthy transition (three to five years). It will take a lot of hypocrisy and a massive campaign of perpetual flattery for the old Nato countries to keep Trump on side for that long while simultaneously keeping Ukraine out of Russia's hands. However, that is the task they have now set themselves, although some have yet to come fully to terms with the new strategic realities. • Gwynne Dyer is an independent London journalist.
