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| Sunday, 20 June 2004 |
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SL Army to don 'Blue Berets' by Ranga Jayasuriya Sri Lanka's commitment to the founding principles of the United Nations has been well established over the past five decades. Despite this, the UN peace keeping mission was something successive government's couldn't afford.
The country's security forces were only a ceremonial force during the first three decades of independence. Then the eruption of an ethnic war prevented the country from committing any number of troops away from the country. With the Ceasefire Agreement having stopped hostilities between the Government and the LTTE, the country is now advancing to fulfil its forgotten UN commitments. The Government is pushing ahead with an ambitious plan to play an active role in UN peace keeping missions. And country's biggest ever UN peace keeping exercise is now in progress in a hill-top campsite in Kukuleganga, bordering the virgin rain forests of Sinharaja. The exercise, code named 'Sama Gamana' - Journey of Peace- involves some 270 troops from Bangladesh, Nepal, Mongolia, Sri Lanka and United States with observers from Australia, Bhutan, Canada, China, France, India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Pakistan,Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Thailand and United Kingdom.Thus the exercise maintains a multi-national character, the very nature of the UN peace keeping missions and aims to fosters common standard, concepts and doctrine among the participants. Conducted under the auspicious of the United Nations with joint partnership of the Sri Lanka Army and the US Army Pacific Command, 'Sama Gamana' is the third in a series of UN peace keeping exercises conducted in South Asia. Peace operations demand forces, which are highly capable, flexible and responsive. And troops are required to understand sentiments and values of the region they are deployed in and of those involved in the conflict. The highly complicated nature of the peace missions demands a high degree of integrity, which make it necessary for an average combat soldier to undergo a special training which emphasises on peace keeping and humanitarian operations. "Peace support operations are highly complicated and one needs to train to get a feeling of what it is all about," says Army Commander Lt. Gen. Lional Balagalla. The Army has drawn attention to training peace keeping personnel. The Kukuleganga campsite - named as Institute of Peace Support Operations Training - has the capacity to train 600 officers. A few Sri Lankan officers are now serving as observers in the Republic of Congo and Western Sahara and some are due to be deployed in Burundi.The Defence Ministry has also consented to send an infantry battalion to Haiti, which will be the country's largest- ever contribution to the UN peace keeping efforts. The Army Commander says: "We have now committed ourselves to put our soldiers into highly complicated operational, political and judicial environments away from home".
The army however plans to confine itself to peace keeping operations, till it can afford to send troops in substantially large numbers to peace enforcing operations, which carry a greater risk than the former. Forget the UN responsibilities. Monetary gains, a massive dollar salary is an enough enticement for many soldiers to go on a UN assignment. A UN placement is one inducement in the army's new recruitment drive. Indeed, it had worked and more youth had been enlisted in the recent recruitment drive, military officers say. However, the biggest challenge to the success of the Army's bid for UN peace missions lies at home. The Army's ability to commit soldiers away from home is dependent on the no war situation in the country. The Army can commit troops in UN missions only as long as the ceasefire holds. |
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