While other countries are preparing to increase their contribution, it is likely that India will pull out from the UN peacekeeping force that is currently operating in southern Lebanon. The recent remarks of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s special envoy to the Middle East, Chinmaya Gharekhan are a giveaway: “We are not going to disarm Hezbollah. We are not going to fight the Lebanese people.”

According to him, India would not send a peacekeeping force to Lebanon until the UN decides the rules of engagement. Likewise, he told his interlocutors in Beirut that India “does not want to resort to force while dealing with the Lebanese people, resistance, army or anyone else”. India would not be party to any disarming of the Hezbollah, one of the principal elements of the UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

The Security Council was acutely aware that another crisis in Lebanon could be prevented only by reining in the Hezbollah from adopting parallel foreign policies that are independent of the central authority in Beirut. It demanded that “there will be no weapons without the consent of the government of Lebanon and no authority other than that of the government of Lebanon”.

To enable the deployment of the Lebanese army in southern Lebanon, the Security Council sought to increase the strength of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) to 15,000 from its current strength of less than 2000. Besides this, it also authorised the UN forces “to ensure that its areas of operation are not utilised for hostile activities of any kind”. The UN force was to “assist” the Lebanese army “to exercise its authority throughout the country”. This would mean the new UNIFIL will not be monitoring the ceasefire; it will be enforcing peace in southern Lebanon.

... contd.