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The Fiji government has not received any official communication regarding reports overseas that the United Nations will not increase the number of Fijian police and soldiers in its current peacekeeping operations.
“I would rather comment if we receive something formal from them. We have not received anything formal from the UN in that respect,” Attorney-General Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum told FijiLive.
Reports in the Australian media quoted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announcing that his government had successfully lobbied the UN to ban future deployment of Fijian troops in UN peacekeeping missions.
“The United Nations now is not going to engage future or new Fijian troops for new working operations,” Rudd reportedly told Australian reporters.
The statement has had some confused, including bloggers on UN matters.
According to UN Dispatch, a blog providing commentary and coverage on the UN and UN-related issues, it was “unclear whether Rudd was articulating standing UN policy, or was calling for stricter measures against Fijian peacekeepers”.
“Fijian peacekeepers haven't been deployed to new missions since the 2006 coup, and even under current policy, Fijian troops currently deployed-- such as 500 in Iraq -- will not be forced to leave,” wrote John Boonstra on UN Dispatch.
In a separate media report from China’s Xinhua News Agency, UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe said in a conference in New York that “there has been an understanding that the number of peacekeepers from Fiji will not increase.”
He was reported by another UN blogger innercitypress as saying that Fiji’s case was “complicated” and that the UN will consider the use of Fijian troops “on a case by case basis.”
This was after Pascoe briefed the UN Security Council on Fiji last month in a closed door session.
