Major General Ramón Guardado Sánchez

Head of Mission / Chief Military Observer (HoM / CMO)

On 13 November 2024, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres announced the appointment of Major General Ramón Guardado Sánchez of Mexico as Head of Mission and Chief Military Observer for the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).

Major General Ramón Guardado Sánchez has had a long and distinguished career in the Mexican Army, currently serving as Commissioner of the National Guard in Yucatán.  Prior to this, he served as Liaison to Congress for the National Defence Joint Staff (2022-2023), Chief of the Regional Training Centre (2021-2022) and as Chief of the G-7 Section (Counter-narcotics Operations) of the National Defence Joint Staff (2018-2019).  He was also the Commanding Officer of the Mexican Peace Operations Joint Training Centre (2017-2018) and served in the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia (2016-2017) as Regional Chief Observer.

Major General Guardado holds a bachelor’s degree in military administration from the Superior War School and a master’s degree in national security from the Naval Centre for Superior Studies, both in Mexico.  He also graduated from the Armor Officer Advanced Course at the United States Army Armor Centre and the Joint and Combined Warfighting School at the Joint Forces Staff College in the United States and trained at the Argentine Joint Training Centre for Peace Operations (CAECOPAZ). He speaks English and Spanish.

George E. Scheibner

Chief of Mission Support

George Scheibner, a dual citizen of the United States of America and Spain joined the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) on 6 January 2023 as the Chief of Mission Support (CMS). Prior to this, he served in various administrative and mission support capacities with UNAMID (Sudan) as Senior Mission Support Officer, ECLAC’s Regional Headquarters (Trinidad and Tobago) as the Chief of the Administration Section Chief of the Mission Support Center, and UNITAD (Iraq) as Chief of the Mission Support Coordination Office.

Mr. Scheibner  brings to this position more than 30 years of international management, administration, human resources, and learning and development experience with multinational corporations and international organizations, including the Secretariat of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Geneva.

In his extensive career with the United Nations System, Mr. Scheibner served as Learning and Organizational Development Officer with the United Nations System Staff College in Turin (Italy) Training Officer of the Conduct and Discipline Team in MONUC (D.R. Congo), Best Practices Officer in UNIOSIL (Sierra Leone), Chief Training Officer in MINUSTAH (Haiti), Sr. Training Officer for the Integrated Training Service at the UN Headquarters in New York, Chief of the Integrated Mission Training Center and Chief Staff Counseling and Welfare in UNAMID (Sudan), and Senior Mission Support Officer also in UNAMID.  In his most recent UN assignments, he was Chief of the Administration Section at the Regional Headquarters of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Trinidad and Tobago and Chief of the Mission Support Center in UNITAD (Iraq).

Mr. Scheibner was born in Barcelona, Spain.  He is a native speaker of Spanish and Catalan and is fluent in Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese. He also speaks some Russian and has begun to learn Urdu.

Mr. Scheibner holds an MBA in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in USA, an MA in Middle Eastern Studies from the American University in Cairo in Egypt, and a BA (magna cum laude) from San Francisco State University also in the USA.  He also holds a certificate in Human Resources Management from Cornell University, and accreditations as Certified Training Professional and  Certified Coaching and Mentoring Professional, both from ITD World in Malaysia.