U.S. Consul General Deborah E. Graze addresses the graduating class during
the CoESPU Graduation Ceremony held on June 15th, 2006.
– Related article on CoESPU
T
hank you, General Leso, and good morning to everyone. It is a great pleasure to join you for the graduation of CoESPU's High-Level and Middle Management courses. On behalf of the government of the United States, let me offer congratulations all around.
To General Leso and the CoESPU staff – congratulations for successfully conducting a second round of courses. Less than two years ago, Italy and the United States agreed to launch this Center of Excellence in order to meet G-8 goals for enhancing world peacekeeping capacity.
The UN and other organizations need that additional peacekeeping capability to meet the challenges of stabilization and reconstruction in Africa and other parts of the world.
Thanks to the expertise and efficiency of the Carabinieri, CoESPU is making great advances in training the leaders of tomorrow's gendarme peacekeeping forces. The 132 officers graduating today are the proof of CoESPU's success.
A graduate from India receives
his certificate of completion.
To the graduates – I offer hearty congratulations to the officers assembled here from Cameroon, India, Jordan, Kenya, and Senegal.
Your very presence at CoESPU is a sign of the high esteem that you already enjoy within your country's armed forces or police.
And now you have completed courses in the doctrine, organization, and operational techniques of stability police units.
Graduates, in the future, as you translate your CoESPU experience into practice, I am sure you will increasingly appreciate the special nature of the CoESPU project.
No military force is more qualified to deliver courses such as these than the Carabinieri, who developed Stability Police Unit doctrine, from their profound experience in leading international gendarme peacekeeping forces, in the Balkans and elsewhere.
Your graduation from CoESPU marks a major step for your country toward creating its own international gendarme peacekeeping capability.
Along with your colleagues already graduated from CoESPU, and those colleagues who will graduate from CoESPU in the future, you will now do the planning, organizing, and additional training necessary to creating Stability Police Units in your country.
We all hope to see, in the not-too-distant-future, Stability Police Units deployed from your countries as part of UN or other international peacekeeping missions.
Two graduates from Jordan and a CoESPU staff member (center).
CoESPU will be there to counsel and support you as you work towards this goal.
I want to add that the United States will be there, as well. My country will continue its strong support for CoESPU. Working in partnership with Italy, we will bring other G-8 countries into the CoESPU project.
The U.S. and Italy will soon enroll new countries committed to developing their own Stability Police Units through CoESPU training and support.
And we will work with UNDPKO to ensure that the Stability Police Units fostered by CoESPU are in keeping with global peacekeeping needs.
So, congratulations to you all, once again. With this second round of graduations, CoESPU continues its superb contribution to enhanced security around the world.
Thank you.
U.S. Consul General Deborah E. Graze
with CoESPU graduates from Cameroon.
U.S. Consul General Deborah E. Graze
and General Leonardo Leso of the Italian
Carabinieri, Commander of CoESPU.
U.S. Consul General Deborah E. Graze, a CoESPU graduate
from Cameroon, and General Leonardo Leso.
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