Army of toy peacekeepers embarks on global mission

 With 50,000 plastic toy blue helmets now appearing in dozens of countries, running into a UN peacekeeper is no longer limited to the world's troubled "hotspots."

MINUSCULE BLUE HELMETS

Wandering through New York, Paris or Sydney, it is hard to imagine some 120,000 blue helmets are ubiquitous in conflict zones all around the world. Dutch Graphic Designer Pierre Derks attempted to break this invisibility with his project "Minuscule Blue Helmets on a Massive Quest."

Together with an inexhaustible squad of volunteers Derks perseveringly one-by-one hand-painted blue helmets on 50,000 plain green toy soldiers and handed them out to people at an art show in The Hague, the Netherlands, which is dubbed the world's second UN city. All minuscule peacekeepers came with an instruction package to photograph them in any public area, and then upload them to a website where the exact location automatically gets pinpointed.

Since then the mini-blue helmets have been on a mission: to show up in as many places as possible around the world.

So far, the project has produced more than 1,000 photographs, and not only from the Netherlands. Toy soldiers were spotted on top of the Mount Everest, in Kyoto, Japan, on the Great Wall of China and in New York's Central Park. Recently shots of the toy crusaders were even snapped at the UN Headquarters when Derks traveled to New York.

"It has dominated people's holiday trips," Derks told Xinhua in a recent interview. "For some it even became an actual goal in life."

REAL PEACEKEEPERS

With some 120,000 UN personnel currently deployed as peacekeepers in the world at any given time, the forces are the largest and most visible segment of the world's body global presence. Over the course of the last decade their significance increased dramatically and they're expected to take on an even larger role in the next, says the UN Deparment of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO).

Since the first UN peacekeeping mission was established in 1948 in the Middle East, 63 peacekeeping operations have been implemented, with 16 of those continuing to be actively pursued today, according to UN sources.

Peacekeeping includes everything from patrolling areas of recent violence, clearing land mines, and delivering aid to helping refugees and supporting elections, says the UN.

WHEN TOYS MEET PEACEKEEPERS

No toy peacekeeper made it too an actual UN mission so far but Dutch peacekeeping veterans, members of a motorcycle group called the "Blue Helmets Motor Group," who served the UN in Lebanon in the seventies and eighties, adopted the project.

There was an immediate spark between their world and Derks art, which for them instantly served as a "healthy, creative form of self-medication," Jos Morren, a veteran peacekeeper now working as an advocate for the motorcycle club, told Xinhua.

Although the mission in Lebanon seemed to be rather peaceful for most people in the Netherlands, the risk for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) turned out to be substantial, Morren narrated. "We were at the mercy of various aggressive militias, ... the blue helmet concept virtually did not offer any means of defense."

With the assignment in Lebanon being the Dutch army's first operational mission abroad in years, not everything went as smooth as it should, including the aftercare. "During those days pretty much all you had was a bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label," Morren recalled.

Veterans from that period reportedly still have psychological problems.

One of the veterans group members bought 2,000 little green men and painted the helmets blue himself, constantly carrying them with him and leaving them in tactical spots. Another motorcyclist ended up permanently carrying around one minuscule blue soldier and puts his "little buddy" on the table every time he loses touch with the world because of a psychological blockade.

Morren is convinced the "advancing army" has the potential to "conquer the world," but he just cannot yet really figure out why.

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