Top 51 Peacekeeping Quotes & Sayings

So I've gone in and out of the U.N., working on counter-terrorism, on U.N. reform, on peacekeeping, peace and security issues, many things through the years but always with a strong interest in humanitarian issues, and human rights issues as well.

As one of the leading troop-contributing countries, Ethiopia attaches great importance to strengthening the role of United Nations peacekeeping to address challenges to international peace and security.

The U.N. must have adequate resources and the right capabilities to fully engage in global peacekeeping.

The problems of the world, from immigration to populism to income inequality to sustainability to peacekeeping, require a well-functioning supranational body.

We need to begin an all-out diplomatic offensive on Darfur in order to prepare the way for a peacekeeping force that can ensure protection for the people of Darfur.

Let's say we were a peacekeeping force in some small country that most people had never heard of. And we were there to host a peaceful election, and we then found out a bunch of stuff was hacked. We probably would push to have another election to make sure that would be fair.

We're learning how infections are travelling around the world and, sadly, how cholera in Haiti was brought in by U.N. peacekeeping forces from south Asia.

We have before us the opportunity to forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order, a world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations. When we are successful, and we will be, we have a real chance at this new world order, an order in which a credible United Nations can use its peacekeeping role to fulfill the promise and vision of the U.N.'s founders.

Without inner peace, outer peace is impossible. We all wish for world peace, but world peace will never be acheived unless we first establish peace within our own minds. We can send so-called 'peacekeeping forces' into areas of conflict, but peace cannot be oppossed from the outside with guns. Only by creating peace within our own mind and helping others to do the same can we hope to achieve peace in this world.

Sometimes in peacekeeping operations you show force in order not to use force - people realise that there's a pushback and there's a solid force there that's not going to be pushed around, that sometimes helps.

UN peacekeeping operations are now increasingly complex and multi-dimensional, going beyond monitoring a ceasefire to actually bringing failed States back to life, often after decades of conflict. The blue helmets and their civilian colleagues work together to organize elections, enact police and judicial reform, promote and protect human rights, conduct mine-clearance, advance gender equality, achieve the voluntary disarmament of former combatants, and support the return of refugees and displaced people to their homes.

My vision of a 'new world order' foresees a United Nations with a revitalized peacekeeping function.

Well, Nigeria has played a constructive role in peacekeeping in various parts of West Africa. But unless and until Nigeria itself is democratic and respects human rights, it too may well be a source of much greater instability as political repression limits the ability of the people of Nigeria to achieve their full potential.

As we talk with candour, we open the doors to new possibilities and new areas of cooperation in advance in democracy, in combating terrorism, in energy and environment, science and technology and international peacekeeping.

As I prepare for my second term as Secretary-General, I am thinking hard about how we can meet the expectations of the millions of people who see the U.N.'s blue flag as a banner of hope. We have to continue our life-saving work in peacekeeping, human rights, development and humanitarian relief.

Nonviolent Peaceforce ...is building a large-scale professional force of well-trained unarmed peacekeepers ... This nonviolent peacekeeping provides an alternative to which we may say YES when we say NO to war.

Consider that in a galaxy far, far away (otherwise known as the 1990s), President Clinton felt that he had to assure an isolationist Republican Congress - repeat after me, an isolationist Republican Congress - that the 20,000 U.S. peacekeeping troops he promised Bosnia as part of the Dayton Accords would only stay deployed for a single calendar year.

Most governments only want to deploy a peacekeeping force where there is a peace agreement and there is peace to keep. They are very hesitant about putting their men and women in harm's way. It is extremely difficult to get the troops if you do not have the consent of the country where you are deploying.

There has to be a force on the horizon that can come very quickly. But the way we run and fund peacekeeping, this capacity is unavailable.

To many, peace is what enables development and is critical in providing opportunities to young people. To some - especially those from regions involved in conflict - peacekeeping and efforts to preserve peace are absolutely vital in bringing prosperity and hope for the future.

The [George W.] Bush administration tripled its aid package to Afghanistan. [Hamid] Karzai finally (and courageously) announced that warlords will be forbidden from holding office in the future government. And finally, NATO agreed to expand the peacekeeping forces to troubled areas outside of Kabul.

Working with the UN's diplomacy and development arms, we can prevent minor differences from escalating into wars. When conflicts do break out, UN peacekeepers should play a role in defusing and settling them. Without giving up our sovereignty, we can help the UN with better training and better command and control in order to develop more effective peacekeeping forces.

Kofi Annan was the U.N. Under-Secretary General for peacekeeping operations. He had the responsibilities in regards to the mounting and operation of peacekeeping missions around the world.

Peacekeeping there is still just totally ineffective. The UN is now saying they are sending reinforcements in the area, but I have no particular reason to believe that they will be any stronger than the force there. In Southern Kordofan, it's mostly an Egyptian battalion, and that's really problematic because the population already doesn't trust the Egyptians; they think they're on payroll of the north. So we already have a force that is seen as compromised.

Through your support of UN peacekeeping, you can help to make this tantalizing word-"peace"-a reality for all the world's citizens. Together, we can spread the message that UN peacekeeping is essential. Without it, the world would be a much less stable, and more violent, place.

Peacekeeping works in some situations, but it very often needs other ingredients. Peacekeeping is not the aspirin of international security.

Peace, prosperity, and democracy cannot endure if imposed from the outside. We should cease to make false distinctions between peacekeeping and prevention; they are in fact inextricably linked.

We in the Philippines know we have to perform our own role in terms of promoting peace in the world. We are actually members of the U.N. peacekeeping forces in many areas.

Let's recall Bosnia in 1995. As we know well, the European peacekeeping contingent, represented by the Dutch troops, did not want to get involved with one of the attacking sides, and allowed it to destroy a whole village. Hundreds of people were killed or injured. The tragedy in Srebrenica is well known in Europe.

So I've gone in and out of the UN, working on counter-terrorism, on UN reform, on peacekeeping, peace and security issues, many things through the years but always with a strong interest in humanitarian issues, and human rights issues as well.

When a peacekeeping operation is deployed, it is in support of a political process, it is part of an integrated approach. It is there to help when a state has broken down and to help that state regain some kind of balance. There is no quick fix.

Over the past year, several cases of human rights abuses, specifically sexual exploitation and abuse, by individuals involved in U.N. peacekeeping operations have raised the suspicions of many Members of Congress and members of the International Relations Committee.

What is most needed in Darfur is an international peacekeeping and protection presence, and this is what the Sudanese government most wants to avoid.

Britain does not normally these days play a huge part in peacekeeping.

On this International Day of UN Peacekeepers, let us pay tribute to the men and women from countries across the world who serve selflessly, tirelessly and fearlessly in UN peacekeeping operations. Let us remember the heroes who have laid down their lives in lands far from their own in the service of peace. And let us reaffirm our commitment to building a world free from the scourge of war.

I think, as Canadians, that's just as important as our peacekeeping service: We go out and find these stories that other people are not willing to tell.

Peacekeeping funds are an important and necessary part of what America does for humanity and the rest of the world.

When the US withdrew their troops from Somalia, I recall making a comment that [in] the way the peacekeepers had been withdrawn from Somalia, the impression had been given that the easiest way to unravel a peacekeeping operation is to kill a few soldiers.

Peace enforcement is a much more difficult kind of operation than peacekeeping.

I think that peacekeeping can do quite a lot, if they are given the right mandate with the commensurate resources to get the job done.

Peacekeeping is not a job for soldiers, but only soldiers can do it.

I don't want to force the peacekeeping nations to feel like I'm pushing them out.

We are the biggest donor to the United Nations, contributing 22 percent of the regular operating budget and nearly 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget.

The change began in Somalia, where we discovered that we were involved in an operation where there was no peace, so there was no more a peacekeeping operation because there was no peace.

The United Nations has been in the Great Lakes Region and Sahel for 50 years, mostly investing in peacekeeping. NOW is the time to invest in young people!

We have been protecting the lives of the Russian peacekeepers who had been attacked by their Georgian comrades, because there was a joint peacekeeping force.

The U.N.'s impartiality allows it to negotiate and operate in some of the toughest places in the world. And time and again, studies have shown that U.N. peacekeeping is far more effective and done with far less money than what any government can do on its own.

This is the one international institution we have in which governments get together to work collectively for a common purpose. International crises, by definition, require international solutions. Peacekeeping is a response to conflict, is a response to situations in which often it is not the business of any one particular country to get into. It seems to me, therefore, that the world will for the foreseeable future need peacekeeping.

I believe that a country, Russia in this case, which can defend the honour and dignity of its citizens, protect their lives, and fulfill its international legal commitments under the peacekeeping mandate, will not find itself in isolation, no matter what our partners in Europe or the United States may think, expressing their bloc mentality.

The UN was very media-shy, and its relationship with the press was very controlled; although periodically I spoke to the press, the rule was, only the secretary-general speaks to the press; only the secretary-general makes... So you would see many situations where under-secretaries-general would come in and speak. I opened that, and I encouraged all of them to speak in their areas, whether it was peacekeeping or humanitarian efforts.

One of the enduring mysteries of America's occupation of Iraq is why a nation that so little relishes peacekeeping nonetheless refuses to turn the job over to the United Nations.