Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This year the global community celebrates and acknowledges 50 years of United Nations blue helmet peacekeeping. Fifty years after the creation of the first UN peacekeeping operation at Egypt’s Suez Canal, the international community now makes extensive use of the so-called ‘blue helmets’ deployed in various trouble spots across the globe. The Suez UN Emergency Force, UNEF, was tasked with ‘securing and supervising the cessation of hostilities—including a withdrawal of the armed forces of France, Israel and the UK from Egypt’ and historically has been seen as a great success. In a message to mark this anniversary in 2006, the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, noted:

Sixty missions later, UN peacekeeping operations have become an indispensable weapon in the arsenal of the international community.

Australia, in particular, has a long and proud history of helping to keep peace in many of the world’s trouble spots. Indeed, since the end of the Second World War, the Australian Defence Force has contributed to more than 37 peacekeeping operations, and the Australian Federal Police and its predecessor organisations have contributed to six. The contribution and the professionalism of the ADF and the AFP have earned the respect and admiration of governments and fellow participants around the world. It has most certainly earned mine and, I would think, that of all members of this parliament.

Since 1947, Australia has made significant military and police commitments to UN humanitarian operations. These include UNICEF’s evacuation of South Vietnamese orphans in 1975; the UN Mine Clearance Training Team deployed in Afghanistan from 1989 to 1993; assistance to Cambodian refugees in Thailand from 1989 to 1993; assistance to Kurdish refugees in Turkey and northern Iraq in 1991; and assistance in Cambodia with UNTAC in 1992, in Somalia from 1992 to 1995 and, more recently, in East Timor in a number of incarnations, including UNAMET, INTERFET, UNTAET and UNMISET.

Australia’s first experience with multinational peacekeeping was on our own doorstep at the close of World War II. We participated in the UN Commission for Indonesia—UNCI, which was authorised under UN resolution 31 of 1947—from August 1947 until April 1951. At the end of World War II, the Dutch sought to re-establish their rule in the then Netherlands East Indies. The newly self-proclaimed Indonesian Republic resisted that and, effectively, war broke out. In August 1947, the UN established a Good Offices Commission, as it was known, to delineate and supervise a ceasefire between the Dutch and the Indonesians and to eventually supervise the withdrawal of Dutch forces to the Netherlands. That ceasefire was, like many, tenuous at the best of times and broke down very seriously in December 1948. Given the very strong feelings on both sides and the generally chaotic situation at the time throughout the Indonesian archipelago, the UNCI’s efforts in preventing large-scale disaster were a valuable baptism of fire for UN peacekeeping.

Our contribution in the UNCI began in early August 1947 when locally based diplomatic staff were seconded to the GOC. Four military observers were sent—one from the Royal Australian Navy, two from the Army and one from the RAAF—later that month. When it was reorganised from the GOC and renamed the UNCI in January 1949, the Australian contingent increased to 15 and stayed at that level until their task ended in April 1951.

I think one of the interesting side issues about that first engagement of Australia in such a task was what some might describe as poor treatment of that mission by later UN historians. As it was the first UN peacekeeping operation which involved military observers, the procedures which were used to establish and staff the UNCI were quite different from those that were later developed for subsequent missions. The particular differences were that the military observers were drawn only from countries that had diplomatic representation in Indonesia, and they were loaned to the UN through the diplomatic missions. They were not directly posted to the UN. Because current criteria have been perhaps incorrectly applied to past situations, some lists of UN peacekeeping missions do not include the UNCI. I am prepared to bet that those who were among the Australian participants would certainly have seen it as a peacekeeping mission.

The UN currently has 18 operations: the United Nations Integrated Office in Sierra Leone and the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, which are both special political missions; UNTSO, in the Middle East, between Israel and Palestine; UNMOGIP between India and Pakistan; UNFICYP in Cyprus; UNDOF between Israel and Syria; UNIFIL in Lebanon; MINURSO in the Western Sahara; UNOMIG in Georgia; UNMIK in Kosovo; MONUC in the Congo; UNMEE in Ethiopia and Eritrea; UNMIL in Liberia; UNOCI in the Ivory Coast; MINUSTAH in Haiti; ONUB in Burundi; UNMIS in Sudan; and, of course, UNMIT in Timor-Leste. These missions have deployed a historic 93,000 personnel in the field across the world. In fact, once the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, the UNIFIL force, and the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste, UNMIT, complete their full deployment, and if—as is potentially the case—the UN Mission in Sudan expands its operations in Darfur as authorised, there will be more than 140,000 blue helmets, police officers and civilian staff in place in 2007. That is a phenomenal world commitment. The cost of running so many operations with such enormous numbers of staff is scheduled to top $6 billion and will increase.

I think it is important to note, in relation to the role and operation of peacekeeping, that it has to accompany an effective peace process. It cannot be a substitute for a peace process. As the Secretary-General said in observing this anniversary: ‘For peace to take root and grow, comprehensive measures are needed to address security sector reform, disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration.’ That is in the very formal sense. There are so many other things that also need to be done.

In addition to our Defence Force personnel contributing to military tasks, including in four current missions, Australia has played a significant role in supporting developing democracies both in our region and abroad. I have spoken in the chamber a number of times about the valuable work of Australians in operations like RAMS1—which is not a UN operation but more a Pacific home-grown one—and in East Timor, but we have also made very significant contributions to other UN tasks. From 1947, we contributed diplomatic negotiators to the UN task in Greece of negotiating her borders with her then-Communist neighbours. In 1984, 1986, and 1987 we provided a scientific expert, Dr Peter Dunn—a very highly regarded part of the UN Secretary-General’s four-member team investigating chemical weapon use by Iraq during the first Gulf War. At considerable personal risk, that team was instrumental in proving that chemical weapons had been used by Iraq against the neighbouring Kurdish population. From the late 1980s, we have provided a number of Army engineers to the UN mission in Afghanistan that worked to clear that country of mines.

As I mentioned though, UN peacekeeping missions in and of themselves are never going to be enough to ensure a lasting peace. The contribution of blue helmets is an important role that, of course, we are more than prepared to play, but I think it is fair to say that we also see our role holistically. Assisting in building peaceful and sustainable societies which are driven and eventually built by local communities based on the rule of law and with effective governance should be the broad aim of that sort of international support.

I want to talk briefly about the effective use of Australia’s police personnel, particularly the Australian Federal Police, but with reference to the state forces too. This use has also been an important step in pursuing viable long-term peace in so many places, particularly in our region. As we know, and as we have discussed in the chamber on several occasions, police cannot and should not take military roles in peacekeeping operations. But they are a very essential part of a package of measures, if you like, which might also include the military and diplomacy that are available to Australia in such circumstances.

We have been contributing police to peacekeeping operations for over 40 years, primarily through the AFP and its predecessor organisations. The initial contribution of police that we made to the UN force in Cyprus was intended to last three months. It had a mandate to end hostilities and to promote a peaceful solution. That initial deployment of 40 police was sent in May 1964. It is a touch more than three months later, and we are in fact still there. The island finds itself demarcated by a green zone buffer between the two factions, and there are 1,300 troops stationed there still, including a rotation of 15 Australian police—so the situation remains relatively calm and stable. I guess at some point, some day, it will come to the international community to ask what the resolution in that particular area will be.

In relation to policing, the International Deployment Group in the AFP was formed in 2004 to manage the development of Australian and Pacific Island police offshore to do a number of important things—in multilateral law, capacity building missions, in bilateral law, enforcement capacity building programs which occur under the auspices of the Law Enforcement Cooperation Program, in international monitoring missions and in international peacekeeping missions as civilian police with the United Nations. In August of this year, the government announced an increased commitment in funding of over $490 million to strengthen the AFP’s capacity and to respond to international crises. That funding will boost the IDG’s staffing levels, it is envisaged, by hopefully 400 personnel over five years.

Even in recent weeks we have seen very fast and effective deployments of highly skilled Australian police and members of the ADF to address urgent situations in places in our region, like Tonga, where the importance of that IDG came once more to the fore. In addition to our commitment to Cyprus, we also have police forces currently deployed in Timor-Leste, Jordan, Nauru, Sudan, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. As Australians, we are very significant contributors to global peacekeeping operations. On another level, multinational peacekeeping has provided both the ADF and the AFP with considerable operational experience. Just as importantly, the professionalism that has been displayed by our deployed members has been of fundamental practical humanitarian benefit for the victims of the conflicts that they seek to work in.

In early 1993, which marked somewhat of a high point in our peacekeeping commitments, Australia had nearly 2,000 ADF and AFP personnel deployed in seven UN and three other multinational peacekeeping operations. When we withdrew from UNITAF in Somalia that figure was halved, and it was halved again as UNTAC wound down on schedule in late 1993. Australia’s record of 37 UN and 10 other multinational peacekeeping operations is indeed one of which we can be very proud. I have seen it in action myself, as I know many other members of this chamber have. My personal very high regard for those men and women of the ADF and the AFP who engage in these very important operations has been put on the record in this place before.

I have also had the opportunity, as both chair of the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to visit both the ADF peacekeeping centre at Williamtown and the International Deployment Group at Majura, here in the Australian Capital Territory, to be well briefed and to have a good look at the sorts of preparation and effort that both the agencies make in relation to their work. That was a very reassuring opportunity.

We can be particularly proud of our contributions to the harder and more dangerous military operations in, for example, Korea, Lebanon, Kuwait, Sarajevo and Somalia, of what have been very arduous missions in Kashmir and Iran and for our very professional and technical expertise which we have displayed in Cyprus, the Sinai, Namibia, the Western Sahara and Cambodia. None of this is easy. None of it is simple. It takes an enormous commitment from those deployed and also from Australia as the deploying nation in supporting our personnel.

In a statement that the Secretary-General of the United Nations released to mark the anniversary, he noted:

... so long as peacekeeping has the political and practical support and commitment of the international community, as expressed through the main organs of the United Nations, anything is possible. The task ahead will be demanding, but we will fulfil it.

Australia’s peacekeeping engagement over many years is a mark of our preparedness as a nation to meet very significant international obligations, to utilise the highly developed skills of the ADF and the AFP, to support nations and to support people in very difficult times. The exceptional job that those Australians do is reflected in the very high regard in which they are held in the UN system and by other participants in those deployments. Both the Australian Defence Force and the Australian Federal Police have a very proud tradition of support to UN missions—a tradition which I think is always underscored by the phrase embossed on every UN campaign medal: ‘In the service of peace’.