EDITOR'S NOTE

Peacekeeping is one of the several achievements for which Bangladesh has earned worldwide reputation. Our peacekeepers, from the armed forces and the police, have so far participated in 52 peace missions in 40 countries and 4 continents. Currently Bangladesh is the second highest troop contributing country and, as of now, there are 7325Bangladeshi peacekeepers, including 821 police personnel, deployed in 12 peace missions around the world engaged in peace keeping and peace making.

Bangladesh has the proud privilege of hosting one of the largest peacekeeping training institute in the world namely, Bangladesh Institute of Peace Support Operation Training (BIPSOT), at Rajendrapur. Incidentally, starting from today Feb26, BIPSOT is organising a two-week training programme being participated by 600 officers and soldiers from 30 countries including Canada, the UK and the USA, and 500 officers and soldiers from Bangladesh, including women peacekeepers.

Overtime Bangladesh has gained experiences and has learnt many lessons from these operations. And it is only appropriate that such experiences should be shared by all stakeholders including the readers. To that end The Daily Star had organised a roundtable on, Bangladesh in UN Peacekeeping: Challenges & Prospects, at TDS Center on May 24 2017.

We had published a two page supplement on the roundtable on May 29,giving a gist of the discussions. We take this opportunity today to publish details of some of the important missions so far, and experiences therefrom, of some of our mission commanders and military observers.

Mahfuz Anam

Editor & Publisher

The Daily Star