An Cosantóir

Vox Pops necessary and learnable skillset for all person- nel deploying into a UN-led mission. But it doesn't happen without a lot of work and a lot of practice." The course field exercise, 'MissionPoint', was designed to provide this practice. Set within an intensive two-and-a-half day sce- nario based on an early, post-conflict con- text, the exercise involved five CIMIC teams having to deal with a fully-staffed UN OCHA office, UN family agencies, various NGOs/aid agencies and the remnants of local authority, including religious leadership. The incidents staged involved less than helpful govern- ment military forces, a minority militia, IDPs, alleged massacres, forced displacements, and the media. Essentially, most of the vari- ous scenarios a CIMIC team may encounter overseas. The orchestrator of this exercise was Capt Galvin (AR), who runs the MSc course in De- velopment Practise (MDP) in UCD/TCD. (MDP students are preparing for working lives in NGOs, governmental/international aid agen- cies and other civilian development organisa- tions.) A key module on the second year of this course looks at working in post-conflict settings and particularly at the Oslo and MCDA Guidelines on the use of military and civil defence assets in complex emergencies. "MDP students joined us as part of the CIMIC exercise," he told us, "staffing the various civilian organisations used in the scenarios and playing local politicians, IDPs and rebel militia. In addition to the obvious gain for the CIMIC students, the MDP students also gained firsthand experience that will stand to them when they go on to work abroad with the likes of the UN, or NGOs like Concern or Save the Children." As well as MDP students, RDFTA person- nel and members of the DFA Rapid Response Corps also contributed to help make the scenarios more realistic. We met Declan Power, a consultant with the DFA, running the UN Regional Office. At the time he was not a happy man and was making a plea on international television for the CIMIC teams to get their act together. Somewhere along the line somebody was not doing their job. Paul Rafter was being equally 'troublesome' in his role as Head of OCHA. "Courses like this are great," said Declan when we spoke with him after he had an an- cimic course | 17 COL IAN MOLES, 38TH BRIGADE TA This is the first time we have come down from Northern Ireland for this kind of course. CIMIC is something we kind of pay lip- service too in our armed forces. With operations in Afghanistan and Iraq we lost touch with the softer approach and CIMIC work that we had developed in Bosnia, for example. However, we now have a CIMIC group called MSSG (Military Assistance and Stabilisation Group) working with PRTs (Provincial Reconstruc- tion Teams) in Iraq. There were two reasons for us coming on this course. Firstly, to relearn and develop our CIMIC skills, gaining the knowledge and expertise the Irish Defence Forces has gained on its extensive UN missions. Secondly, the course gave us an opportunity to interact with our counterparts in the south. This in itself is of great importance to us The course was very good: great fun. The group of students came from a wide geographical and experience background: military, police, NGOs. I actu- ally met a Chilean officer, Charles McCarthy, whom I had previously worked with in Bosnia many years ago. It's a small world. The scenarios were very good and very realistic. CARMAN MEHI, ROMANIAN POLICE OFFICER This course was an excellent opportunity for me to come to Ireland and take part in an international course. CIMIC is very important for me as I want to deploy overseas with the UN at a later date. Overseas as a police officer I will have to work with military, NGOs and international organisations so it is very important for me to learn these skills. The course was very good. It gave both theoretical and practi- cal information. We were then able to apply this information in the scenarios during the final exercise organised by Capt Connor Galvin, which was very good. I learned a lot, not just about how to interact with other people and agencies but also about myself. The scenarios put us under pres- sure: they were very realistic and presented us with situations we may face in the future. MAJ CHARLES MCCARTHY, CHILEAN ARMY Although an army officer I am working in the Chilean Joint Peace Keeping Centre, which is similar to your UNTSI but also includes civilians and police. As well as instructing I am also head of Research and Development. I got a lot out of this course, not just from a CIMIC point of view but also getting to see how your centre works. For me this was great as I can compare and bring home with me knowledge of how you do some things differently. From a CIMIC perspective it was an excellent course. This is a developing field and is becoming an essential part of overseas operations. I previously served as a Liaison Observation team commander with SFOR in Bosnia, so I found it a little easier in the exercises to get into the dialogue. I also had an understanding of the planning process: who needed what information and what agency we needed to get information from. It was a very good course both from a civilian and military point of few. The military needs to understand how civilian agencies work, and the civilian agencies need to understand how we work. Exercises such as we conducted allow both parties to train for this. www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE

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