On December 5 2017, a meeting of representatives of the Special Monitoring Mission (working in the Ivano-Frankivsk, Transcarpathian and Ternopil regions) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) with cadets of the military training department, students, teachers, and employees of IFNTUOG took place in the conference hall of the scientific and technical library of the University. The meeting was attended by the vice-rector for international affairs prof. Maksym Karpash.
The head of Ivano-Frankivsk OSCE SMM David Piguet, a 25-year-old military serviceman in the French Armed Forces, spoke about the activities of the OSCE's SMM - an unarmed civilian mission that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in all regions of Ukraine, and which is a platform for a political dialogue for peace and stability. It deals with impartial and objective observation of the situation in Ukraine, informs about the humanitarian situation, people's needs, and also promotes dialogue between all parties to the conflict. It was important for the attendees to know that the organization is working not only on resolving conflicts but also on their prevention. David Piguet debunked the myths that spies worked in the OSCE SMM.
Another member of the OSCE's SMM to Ukraine, an observer in charge of legal aspects, Luke Costa told the audience about the humanitarian aspects of the mission's work. In addition, the participants presented a thematic report on "Access to Justice in the Context of the Conflict in Ukraine".
Today's meeting showed how important the awareness of the population and the public is in a situation of armed conflict: daily reports of the CMM are available in three languages (in English, Ukrainian and Russian) on the OSCE website: www.osce.org/uk/ukraine/smm/reports. However, monitoring the situation can only reveal problems, but only parties to the conflict can resolve them.
