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Photographs of soldiers in Almaty, wearing United Nations peacekeeping helmets, have caused confusion but also reaction from the UN.
Images released by the Associated Press (AP) on January 8 show some soldiers in Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty, wearing blue and white helmets with the inscription “UN” [Kombet e Bashkuara].
Photographs taken by photographer Vladimir Tretyakov and shared by freelance journalist Jake Hanrahan have added to the confusion about what exactly is going on in the troubled Central Asian country.
Protests in Kazakhstan erupted last week, due to rising gas prices.
Since then, internet outages, unidentified gunmen and disputed claims by officials have made events on the ground even more turbulent.
A UN peacekeeping spokesman confirmed to Radio Free Europe on January 10 that the gunmen, seen in images released by the AP, were not part of the UN peacekeeping mission.
“We have conveyed our concern about this issue to the Permanent Mission to Kazakhstan,” he said in an e-mail.
According to him, the contributing countries with troops and police in the UN “use the UN insignia only when they are performing their mandated duties as UN peacekeepers”.
A spokesman for the Almaty Department of Defense spoke to Radio Free Europe on January 10, identifying the soldiers in blue helmets as “part of the UN-linked KAZBAT battalion.”
But he went on to say that they were not part of any UN mission and that their mission was to “safeguard strategic facilities, airports and government buildings”.
“You may have seen online that KAZBAT has been to Libya. “They are our peacekeeping troops,” he said.
Eric David, an expert in international humanitarian law and peacekeeping operations at the Free University of Brussels, says the images in Almaty appear to show “a gross misuse by the authorities of the troops wearing the helmets”.
David told Radio Free Europe that if those behind the use of blue helmets were Kazakh officials, “this makes Kazakhstan have an international responsibility.”
Any unauthorized use of United Nations uniforms, resulting in death or serious injury, constitutes a war crime in international conflicts.
But David says that despite the presence of foreign troops in the country, the current violence in Kazakhstan will surely be classified as an internal rather than an international conflict by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Therefore, David believes, the use of blue helmets in Kazakhstan is “illegal, but not a war crime.”
He says he has no “slightest idea” why blue helmets may have been used in Almaty.
According to him, it is possible that the call for mass mobilization by the military may have resulted in a lack of equipment, or, he adds, it may be a deliberate attempt “to create the impression that the real UN troops are with the Kazakh Government ”.
To add to the confusion about the blue helmets in Almaty, some photos and videos appeared in the Belarusian state media on January 9, showing Belarusian troops with several coats of arms on their wings, which some say are silent symbols of the Nations. United.
Belarus and other countries of the Collective Security Treaty Organization – a Russian-led military alliance – have sent contingents to Kazakhstan after President Qasym-Zhomart Tokhaev sought the bloc’s help in quelling the unrest in his country.
The mark, in fact, belongs to the “Miratvorchaya Rota” of Belarus, which translates as “peacekeeping company”. The icon is almost identical to the design of the United Nations itself.
The Belarusian peacekeeping unit has also served in Lebanon.
Until the publication of this article, the UN has not given an answer to Radio Free Europe as to what rules apply to the use of United Nations insignia on military uniforms./ REL
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