Prime Minister Bainimarama reaffirms Fiji's Commitment to global peacekeeping

​Fijian Prime Minister Bainimarama addressed the Leaders’ Summit on Peacekeeping organised in New York by US President Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The Summit was organised on an invitation-only basis for UN troop-contributing countries that were prepared to pledge further commitments to UN peacekeeping.

In his address to the Summit, Prime Minister Bainimarama said that Fiji is a nation dedicated to peacekeeping. He said that UN peacekeeping was now part of Fiji’s national identity. In spite of being a country of fewer than a million people, its soldiers, police and correctional officers have served in blue helmets all over the world.

Bainimarama said Fiji has paid a high price for its peacekeeping vocation. “Fijian blood has been shed for the sake of peace, security and prosperity worldwide – and for the protection of the innocent. But I am here today to assure you that our commitment is firm and that we will do more”, the Prime Minister said.

He said that he had come to the Summit to assure the international peacekeeping community that Fiji’s commitment is firm and that Fiji will do more to meet the growing challenges of peacekeeping.

Bainimarama said that the Summit had come at a crucial time when the international community was looking to the United Nations for strong and decisive leadership to confront the world’s many security challenges, and to ease the suffering of people around the world who were enduring violence, subjugation and the loss of homes and ways of life.

The Prime Minister said that the recent terrorist act in Sinai by ISIS, which injured four Americans soldiers and three Fijian soldiers, was a wake-up call to everyone. 

He said that peacekeeping was a dangerous business and that there were groups for whom violence had become an ideology in and of itself. 

The Prime Minister told the summit that Fiji would pledge to the United Nations further infantry resources, including reserves for rapid deployment. In addition, he said Fiji could provide field engineers for both vertical and horizontal constructions, personal security detail specialists and medical team of doctors and nurses for UN peacekeeping rapid deployment.

Bainimarama told the Summit that, “Threats of violence, terrorism, and injustice against innocent civilians and children are a global crisis and no country can turn a blind eye to the inhumanity that is taking place,” he said.