The Irish Army contributed to a great deal of peacekeeping missions over the past half–century, many of them with commitments of very small numbers. Some of these I have had the opportunity to discuss briefly in earlier entries and I have mostly left it at that, as I fear I could become too bogged down in real minutia if I was to give every such peacekeeping mission its own entry, which frankly would not be warranted. But in this entry I do want to have a quick look at some of those smaller missions, as they pertained to the greater Middle-East, Asia and in the context of the later global “War on Terror”. Irish involvement in places like the general region of Afghanistan and Pakistan for example is not something that has generated many headlines, but it did occur and is worthy of some consideration.
We have previously discussed Irish involvement in UN missions dedicated to securing ceasefires pertaining to Iraqi wars with their neighbours, namely Iran in the 1980s and the Kuwait in the following decade, but a small Irish involvement in such affairs continued onto further missions. From 1996 through to 2003, a number of Irish peacekeepers took part in a UN Special Commission that attempted to supervise the elimination of Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”, acting as observers. The mission was hamstrung by deliberate disengagement from the Iraqis and other obstacles, that at times led to military intervention from the United States. The Iraq War that began in 2003 essentially made this mission obsolete, having largely failed to achieve its goals, in so far as it was meant to provide ironclad evidence of such demilitarisation.
A small number of Irish peacekeepers have been in engaged in Central America and the Caribbean at different points. The United Nations Observer Group in Central America, or ONUCA, throughout the 1990’s, saw Irish peacekeepers act as observers as part of a mission to determine that state-backing for various paramilitary forces, or the support of states for paramilitaries operating in another country’s territory, had ceased following a large-scale agreement between a number of Central American countries. Upon the end of ONUCA, much of the personnel involved were transferred to the new United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador, or ONUSAL, which was specifically concerned with the implementation of a peace agreement between the El Salvadorian government and Cuban-backed rebel forces, with provisions for the reduction of the Salvadorian military and the turn to legitimacy of those rebels. Only a handful of Irish soldiers were involved in what was generally considered a successful mission. Finally, between 1994 and 1996, a small number of Irish peacekeepers acted as observers with the United Nations Mission in Haiti, or UNMIH. This was tasked with increasing internal stability in Haiti and professionalisation of its military in the aftermath of a series of military and political crises that had created a major humanitarian catastrophe: following the successful holding of elections in 1996, the mission was drawn to its end.
Other than those already covered, Irish Army personnel have taken part in a range of peacekeeping missions on the African continent. Many of these have been very small scale, consisting of a handful of soldiers serving as staff officers or as observers in much larger forces, something that has been the case in countries like Cote d’Ivoire or the Congo, where outside intervention has gone ahead in the event of civil struggle or subsequent peace agreements that require monitoring. Among the more interesting of the small-scale Africa missions has undoubtedly been the Irish contribution to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali, or MINUSMA, which consisted of a small unit of “HUMNIT” soldiers. Focused on gathering information from “Human Intelligence”, this unit worked as part of a larger German force to raise vital information from residents of their area of operation, through patrols and direct engagement. Irish Defence Personnel have also taken part in an EU Training Mission in Mali to facilitate the professionalisation of the Malian military, but were withdrawn owing to ongoing controversies over atrocities and other human rights abuses perpetrated by that same military.
Then there were the other Asian missions, which were numerous. As early as 1962, two soldiers serving with ONUC in the Congo were transferred to the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority or UNTEA, in New Guinea, to help oversee the transfer of the western half of the island to Indonesian control after a brief conflict with the Netherlands. A few years later the Irish Defence Forces began their involvement in the “AfPak” region – Afghanistan and Pakistan – with the United Nations India Pakistan Observation Mission, or UNMOGIP, to act as observers on the ceasefire line between Pakistan and its neighbour India. In the late 19890s, a small number of Irish peacekeepers then served with the United Nations Good Offices Mission in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or UNGOMAP, which was concerned with overseeing the drawdown of Soviet military resources in Afghanistan and the return of refugees from the Soviet-Afghan conflict that had fled to Pakistan. Later still, from 2001 to 2016, a number of Irish soldiers would serve with the International Security Assistance Force, later the Resolute Support Mission, in Afghanistan, helping to secure and train the new Afghanistan administration and military in the aftermath of the US invasion of 2001. The other Irish involvement in Asia was with the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia between 1991 and 1993, or UNTAC, a UN mission that aimed to prop up the devastated Cambodia, following decades of civil wars, totalitarian rule and humanitarian disasters.
It is probably apropos at this point to talk briefly about just what I mean by “observer”, as I realise now it is a term I have used a lot without actually explaining what it is. Observers are generally mid-rank officers – in Irish terms usually a Captain or Commandant – whose job is to observe and report on the operations of a UN mission, in terms of the actions of UN personnel, other military personnel that may be involved and the successes (or failures) of that UN mission. That may sound very similar to “regular” peacekeeping, because it is to an extent, but observers are different in that they are generally unarmed, do not take part in the direct implementation of UN mandate ad are more concerned with gathering information about a situation than trying to effect it.
My coverage, such as it is, of the history of Irish peacekeeping missions will conclude here. I am aware that I have not dedicated space to every single instance of such missions, but that is because many of those instances involved troop deployments of very small numbers, often participating in missions as observers. The other aspect worth noting is the similarity between missions, in terms of their scope, the nature of the deployment and the incidents that Irish soldiers were involved. Rather than repeat myself over and over again, I feel that it is best if we wrap things up in that regard here. Next week, we will start heading towards what will constitute the conclusion of this series, as we take a look at Northern Irish history and military matters in the second decade of the 21st century.
To read the rest of the entries in this series, click here to go to the index.
Never Felt Better 