Mexican general appointed head of UN observer group in Kashmir

United Nations, Nov 14: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has appointed Mexcan Major General Ramon Guardado Sanchez of Mexico as the head of the UN observer organisation in Kashmir, according to his Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.

Guardado will succeed Argentine Rear Admiral Guillermo Rios as head of Mission and Chief Military Observer for the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), Dujarric said on Wednesday.

The Security Council created UNMOGIP in 1949 as the UN Commission for India and Pakistan to monitor the ceasefire between the two countries along the Line of Control.

It has a staff of 110 -- 44 of them military personnel from about 10 countries -- and its headquarters alternates between Srinagar, during the warmer months, and Islamabad in the colder season.

Guardado is the Commissioner of the National Guard in Yucatan and was earlier the Liaison to Congress for the National Defence Joint Staff.

He did a stint with the UN as a regional chief observer for the Verification Mission in Colombia that monitored the implementation of a peace agreement between the government and the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People's Army (FARC-EP).

He was also the Commanding Officer of the Mexican Peace Operations Joint Training Centre.

Guardado holds a master's degree in National Security from the Naval Centre for Superior Studies in Mexico and attended the Armour Officer Advanced Course at the US Army Armour Centre and the Joint and Combined Warfighting School at the Joint Forces Staff College in the US.

He also trained at the Argentine Joint Training Centre for Peace Operations (CAECOPAZ).

While India allows UNMOGIP to operate in the country in accordance with the Security Council mandate, it maintains that the operation is redundant because under the Shimla Agreement of 1972 between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistan's then-President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto the Kashmir dispute is a bilateral issue with no role for third parties.

In 2014, India ordered the UNMOGIP out of the government building it was lent and it moved to a commercially leased facility.