Emmanuel Erskine Lieutenant General Emmanuel Alexander Erskine ( born 19 January 1937 ) is a retired Ghanaian soldier and politician . He is a former Chief of Army Staff of the Ghana army . He is also a former commander of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization ( UNTSO ) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon ( UNIFIL ) . Education and training . Erskine trained in various military institutions in the United Kingdom . He had telecommunications training at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in England , completing in 1960 . He was also at the Staff College , Camberley in 1968 . He also trained at the Royal College of Defence Studies in 1968 and 1972 . Career . Ghana army . Erskine was commissioned at the Royal Military Academy , Sandhurst , in December 1960 into the Signal Corps of the Ghana army . Erskine has served in various capacities with the Ghana army . He was Commanding Officer of the Ghana Signals Regiment and later Director of Communications with the Ghana Ministry of Defence . He later became Director for Operations and Planning at the same Ministry from 1971 to 1972 . He was the Chief of Army Staff briefly between January and February 1972 . He again held the same position from February 1973 to April 1974 . United Nations Peace Keeping . Erskine served as the Chief of Staff and Deputy Force Commander of the United Nations Emergency Force Two ( UNEF 2 ) from 1974 to 1976 in Egypt . He was then appointed as the Chief of Staff of UNTSO in Israel between January 1976 and April 1978 . He subsequently became the first commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon ( UNIFIL ) between 1978 and 1981 . Erskine again occupied the position of Chief of Staff of UNTSO and was also the United Nations Secretary General ' s Representative for Matters relating to UN Peacekeeping Operations in the Middle East from February 1981 to May 1986 . Politics . Erskine was one of the founding members of the People ' s Heritage Party ( PHP ) . He was the party ' s presidential candidate during the 1992 Ghanaian presidential election . He came fifth with 1 . 7 % of the vote . The PHP later merged with the National Independence Party to form the People ' s Convention Party ( PCP ) in 1993 . National Reconciliation Commission . Erskine was one of the nine members of the National Reconciliation Commission which were appointed by the President of Ghana , John Kufuor in consultation with the Council of State of Ghana . The commission was to investigate human rights abuses committed during the five military regimes which have ruled Ghana . General Emmanuel Erskine Research and Documentation Centre . The Centre for Peace Initiatives in Africa ( CPIA ) is a peace organization based in Harare , Zimbabwe . It was established in February 2001 and has Erskine as the chairman of the board of trustees . The CPIA has the General Emmanuel Erskine Research and Documentation Centre ( GERDC ) named in his honour and was officially opened in September 2001 by him . The GERDC also launched the General Emmanuel Erskine Annual Lecture Series . The inaugural lecture was delivered by General Erskine himself . Other activities . General Erskine is the Chairman of the Opportunities Industrialization Centre Ghana Accra Local Programme Committee . He has been a member of the Pugwash council since 1992 and was a participant at the 50th Pugwash conference which deliberated on " Eliminating the Causes of War " . He served as the Chairman of the Ghana Action Network on Small Arms ( GANSA ) in 2002 .