Secretary-General Appoints Lieutenant General Cornelis Johannes Matthijssen of Netherlands Force Commander, Mali Multidimensional Stabilization Mission
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres today announced the appointment of Lieutenant General Cornelis Johannes Matthijssen of the Netherlands as Force Commander of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA).
Lieutenant General Matthijssen succeeds Lieutenant General Dennis Gyllensporre of Sweden, to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his exemplary service and leadership of MINUSMA.
Serving as Deputy Chief of Staff Plans at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allied Joint Force Command since 2019, Lieutenant General Matthijssen has had a long and distinguished career since joining the Royal Netherlands Army in 1982, notably serving as Deputy Commander (2017-2019). He also commanded the eleventh Air Assault Brigade of the Royal Netherlands Army (2014-2017), which included a year at NATO’s interim Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, and served as Military Adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2013-2014), as well as Director of Staff Headquarters of the Royal Netherlands Army (2010-2013).
Lieutenant General Matthijssen has extensive international operational experience, having served as Commander of the Uruzgan Task Force, an International Security Assistance Force brigade-size unit deployed in Afghanistan (2008-2009); Commander of the Dutch thirteenth Air Assault Infantry Battalion, deployed as a battlegroup as part of the Stabilization Force in Iraq in 2004; and Company Commander of the Dutch Battalion deployed with the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1995).
Lieutenant General Matthijssen is a graduate of the Netherlands Royal Military Academy, the Netherlands Defence College and United States Army War College, from which he holds a master’s degree in strategic studies. He speaks Dutch and English fluently and has a basic command of French and German.