Rio center trains military observers for UN missions
The Joint Center for Peace Operations of Brazil—CCOPAB in the original acronym—based in Rio de Janeiro and controlled by the Brazilian Army, is hosting this year a theoretical and practical training program for military observers to serve on UN peace missions.
The course, CCOPAB Commander Colonel Marco Antônio Estevão Machado said, will be held in October and November, with 40 students from both Brazil and overseas.
Last June, he went on to report, the center was revalidated by the UN for another four years to train high-ranking military agents from other countries who will be sent to UN peace missions. “We had had this certification since August 2013, and the revalidation allows us to receive this kind of training until July 2023.”
Machado said that, in addition to in-loco personnel in Rio de Janeiro, CCOPAB sends instructors for training in other countries. “That’s the case of 13 Brazilian agents specialized in forest warfare, who have been in the Congo since June training blue-beret soldiers of the UN Peacekeeping Forces in the African country.”
History
The Joint Center for Peace Operations of Brazil was created in 2005 to prepare the third military troop for the UN operation in Haiti. Today, the institution offers a number of training programs for military agents, police officers, and civilians wishing to work on UN missions or humanitarian emergencies.
The UN revalidation allows the center to train officials in the general staff of Brazil and other countries allocating agents to peacekeeping operations.
In New York, Army General Gerson Menandro Garcia de Freitas talked to UN News about the history of Brazilian contributions in training the so-called blue berets—the officials serving under the UN flag on peace missions
“We must stress our participation in building skills, and improving education and development, and the use of our expertise, our peace center, and the professionals on our teams as well as mobile training teams,” the official declared.
“We have hosted courses and taught courses overseas, in addition to our involvement in putting manuals together. In other words, we help the UN improve the performance of their own troops,” he pointed out.
*With information from UN News
