The pullout of more than 400 Filipino peacekeepers from Liberia and the Golan
Heights may take two to three months, the Department of Foreign
Affairs (DFA) said.
“It may take two to three months to complete the process,”
DFA spokesman and Assistant Secretary Charles Jose stated on Monday.
Malacañang had said over the weekend it was ordering
the repatriation of the Filipino soldiers serving as peacekeepers for the United
Nations in the Golan Heights in the Middle East and Liberia
in West Africa .
The government was forced to pull the troops out due to
security and health concerns.
Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario had said 115 soldiers
in Liberia
Top defense and military officials on Monday defended the
decision to pull out the 332-strong Filipino peacekeeping mission from the Golan Heights , saying the security equation in the
Israeli-occupied territory had changed.
Not abandonment
Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin stressed the
decision was not an abandonment of the Philippines
“Our commitment is term by term. Anyway, our commitment is
about to end by October so we will give it a rest. But we’re not pulling out
our contingents from other UN peacekeeping missions. It’s only in the Golan
Heights and Liberia ,” he
said in an interview at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Bonifacio
Del Rosario said Filipino troops had been meeting their
“peacekeeping obligations” for a long time now. He said the peacekeepers in Liberia had been there for 10 years since 2004,
and those in the Golan Heights for five years
now since 2009.
“With regards to the Golan Heights ,
there has been a series of incidents involving our peacekeepers which
demonstrated that they are exposed to unexpected serious risks which may worsen
on the basis of current developments,” Del Rosario said.
UN peacekeepers have been caught in the middle of the
fighting between Syrian troops and rebels in the Golan Heights, the area of
separation between Syria and
Israel
In March 2013, Syrian rebels briefly held 21 Filipino
peacekeepers and held four more two months later. All of them were eventually
released on the intercession of the United Nations and the Syrian government.
Gazmin noted the Philippine contingent stayed put in
the Golan Heights when the security situation started to worsen, unlike other
countries which pulled out their troops, referring to Australia , Croatia
and Japan
In the case of Ebola-stricken Liberia , Gazmin said
the troops would be put on quarantine for 21 days before leaving the African
state and another 21 days upon their arrival in the Philippines
He also said the government had been conducting periodic
threat assessments to evaluate risks affecting the Philippine contingents.
Gazmin did not discount the possibility that the Philippines may redeploy troops to the Golan Heights once the security situation there improves.
“We will be studying that, and our United Nation peacekeeping
office will make a recommendation as to where to deploy more forces,” he added.
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/109950/peacekeepers-coming-home-in-2-3-months
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