UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed the first woman to command a UN peacekeeping force — a Norwegian general who has served in Lebanon, the first Gulf War, Bosnia and Afghanistan.
Norwegian Major General Kristin Lund is to replace Chinese Major General Liu Chao (劉超) on Aug. 13 as commander of about 1,000 UN peacekeepers in Cyprus, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Monday.
Cyprus has been divided into a Turkish Cypriot north and a Greek Cypriot south since 1974 and talks have resumed to reunite the Mediterranean island.
Lund said she has been to Cyprus several times and is looking forward to the challenges of her new job — maintaining the cease-fire and supporting efforts to deal with minefields, unaccounted people and property disputes, among many issues.
She said that she is proud to crack the glass ceiling in UN peacekeeping.
“I think it’s time, and I think it’s important that other women see that it’s possible also in the UN system to get up in the military hierarchy to become a force commander,” Lund said.
Lund, 55, joined the Norwegian army in 1979 and went on her first overseas mission in 1986 as transport officer with the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
She said that’s where she fell in love with the UN and learned that “maybe the most important weapon that you have is communication and to build relations.”
In 1991, she worked as a transport officer during the first Gulf War.
In 1992 and 1993 she served with the UN protection force in Bosnia, and after the war ended she returned as a battalion commander in the NATO-led force. After three years working with NATO in the Netherlands, Lund went to Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004 where she worked on civilian-military cooperation.
She attended the US Army War College in 2006 and became deputy commander of the Norwegian Army Forces Command in 2007.
After her appointment as Norway’s first female major general in 2009, she took over command of 45,000 light infantry troops as chief of staff of the Norwegian Home Guard.
Lund said that before she retired she wanted to go overseas again and when she was asked by the Norwegian Ministry of Defense whether she would be interested in trying to become a UN peacekeeping force commander, “I said yes, I love the UN.”
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