Accra, June 23, GNA - Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has called for flexibility in the mandate of United Nations Peace-Keeping operations to enable the world body to respond appropriately to changing trends in conflict resolution.

"Such responses need not be only military functions but should cover diverse activities, including conducting elections in countries with internal strife; humanitarian intervention assistance; land-mine clearance; post-conflict peace building; disarmament; demobilization and reintegration," he said.

A statement issued in Accra on Wednesday and signed by Mr Frank Agyekum, Spokesperson for Former President Kufuor, said the Former President was speaking at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Peace-Keeping at its headquarters in New York.

It is under the theme: "UN Peace-Keeping - Looking into the Future." The session was opened by UN General Secretary, Ban-ki Moon, and addressed by dignitaries including President of the General Assembly, Joseph Deiss, the Under-Secretary of the UN, Lakhdar Brahimi, and former President of Finland and Nobel Prize Laureate, Martti Ahtisaari.

Former President Kufuor pointed out that peace-keeping should also take into consideration the tremendous influence created by the explosion of information communication technology which had made the world a truly global village with information readily accessible to all by the minute. He said peacekeeping in the post-cold war era required a comprehensive and integrated response from multidisciplinary agencies of which the military was only a part of.

"The changed global geo-political scenario and the unleashing of various nationalist forces have made peace operations complex and fraught with challenges.

"The days when the task of the soldier on UN peace-keeping operation involved the simple and mundane tasks of observing, patrolling, reporting, coordinating and controlling are gone," he added. Former President Kufuor said military activities in modern-day peacekeeping should be designed to create the conditions in which diplomatic and humanitarian activities could take place.

"The end state should be a stable settlement of disputes so that an enabling environment can be created for socio-economic development to flourish and mankind saved from the scourge of war," he added. The Former President commended Ghana's role in UN peace-keeping which started with the Congo crisis, now Democratic Republic of Congo, in the early 1960s, and still continuing.

"After disengaging in 1964, Ghanaian troops were next deployed with the UN Emergency Force in the Sinai, Egypt, and later with UNIFIL in South Lebanon, where currently Ghana is the longest-serving force. Our troops have also gone further a-field to Cambodia, Rwanda, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegornia and Serbia," he said.

President Kufuor said "Currently we are in Liberia, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo (for the second time) and Chad. Under the auspices of ECOWAS, Ghana also took active part in the regional peace efforts in Sierra-Leone, Liberia and Cote d'Ivoire.

"For a country the size of Ghana, she is reputed to be the fifth largest contributor to UN peacekeeping in the world," he said, and asked that regional organisations such as the African Union should play a more active part in peace-keeping.