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What was your involvement with ¹ú²úAVkeeping?

Well, my most significant involvement was with the United Nations Action Team in Cambodia, and this was bringing Cambodia out of 30 years of civil war into a new beginning, so it was about having an election of a constitutional assembly to decide the basis of government for Cambodia. So, I was there in Cambodia for two years and I was the Commander of the military component of UNTAC, but prior to that I had had quite a deal to do with launching Australian contributions to UNTAG in Namibia, the ¹ú²úAVkeeping Observer group for the war between Iran and Iraq. Okay, and I had actually written the program for the British Staff College when I was teaching there in the 1970s for UN operations. 

So, talking maybe about Cambodia, what stands out for you?

Well, I'm one of the things that's probably the most significant UN thing is the running of elections in countries where there's been no real democratic process before. I mean we had to establish an electoral roll, a true electoral roll for universal enfranchisement of all the Cambodians. They'd never had anything like that before and the electoral component who went out and establishes electoral roll did a remarkable job in fact so much so that nobody believed that they actually registered everybody for the for the electoral roll.  

But once we had the electoral roll, it had to be guarded like gold. It was the wealth of the country. And so, the leaders of the various factions in Cambodia, all of a sudden had to become politicians had to go around, talk to Cambodia politicians, talk to Cambodian, people, and promise them things. And then there was a requirement to maintain a lot of that. So, it was quite an extraordinary experience in the sense that despite all the threats on the day, all the Cambodians, came out and voted, and that was the truly uplifting thing.

And did you find that members of your team were astonished and uplifted as well?

Absolutely.

It was a multinational force, wasn¡¯t it?

It was the force of 16,000 people, from 34 different countries and I preach this to them, right from the word go because Australia has been quite heavily involved in writing the plan for this operation, and indeed in negotiating the peace agreements, although the peace agreements were negotiated in Paris led by Indonesia and France, Australia was very active in preparing what was the framework for those peace agreements. So, we were very heavily involved and once again as a consequence of that we were heavily involved in the peace operation itself including all aspects, peace aspects of the operation, not just the military.

And do you think it's important to have women as a ¹ú²úAVkeeping contingent?

Of course, of course I made, you know, we're talking about a whole population of the country. I mean we're talking about giving confidence to the broad cross-section of the people. And it's very important that the UN has a feminine face in all this.

I think one of the things that we've got to be conscious of course, there are people in UN operations who are in remote isolated locations doing what are very brave things and as a Commander you have what we call a duty of care. You have to be very careful about who's out there in those places and it was fine while we were in solid military situations where they were sub-unit¡¯s military with military, discipline control but on the isolated, observer posts we never put women out in those isolated observor based on their own because it wouldn't have been possible to look after them properly out there.

And Australia is the focus of the, one of the member states, it's a focus of the service and sacrifice campaign this month, how do you see Australia as a peacekeeping nation overall? And that's number one, and number two, what are some of the sacrifices to this service?

Well, you know, we've been involved in some very serious peacekeeping operations, , and my own take on this, is that Australians make very good peacekeepers. They have a strong sense of obligation to people who are less fortunate than themselves and they're able to actually generate a relationship with people in these sorts of situations. So, in Cambodia, I would say that the Australians were extraordinary in that regard, but they were everywhere in Cambodia because they were the force communications unit, they provided communications right across the board strategic and tactical operation communications, but they were also very heavily engaged with the local population. And I don't know, a single Australian didn't come back uplifted by the experience.

And the families do you think they had to sacrifice a little bit?

Of course, They do. Of course, they do all military you know, operations that have an element of danger to them. And of course, the separated from the families, the families have to stay home and be staunch and you know, and hope that nothing bad happens. So, there is a sacrifice at home.

Your own family as well.

I have been in many war-like operations before Cambodia.

So, you understand the sacrifice?

That's right, and I had commanded at every level. So, if I wasn't on operations, I was training for operations.

And do you think Australia will ever return to the deployment levels it had in the early 90s when it had almost 1,000 peacekeepers deployed? And would you encourage it.?

Yes, I would encourage it. And I think, you know, it's very much a part of the strategic positioning of the Defence force in this country. The question is really, what, what else are they doing at this time? And, you know, there have been a number of non-UN peacekeeping operations that Australia has been involved in - in the Pacific Islands in the nations to the north, so those things are going on. So, it's not all just the UN but you know, it's very much part of the ethos of the Australian Defence Force to, if, if our political leaders, see that this is an appropriate thing to do for them to do it.

And speaking of returning you just come back from Cambodia, yes? Why were you there?

Well, I was invited by the Ambassador some time ago to participate in a launch of a photographic, traveling exhibition of the Australian involvement in the peacekeeping in Cambodia. But it also was the 70th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic relations with the Cambodia- Australia, had diplomatic relations with Cambodia before they got their independence from France. You know, it's part of the struggle that went on in Cambodia, so the Ambassador asked me to go launch that and then we sort of agreed that I do a couple of other things and it turned out I was there for 10 days and had four major events every day. So, I've been busy.

So, when you stepping off the plane this time and it's 30 years ago, since you commanded the force, what sense did you get?

I had the sense that we were strongly remembered I was welcomed, welcomed at all levels, by all factions in Cambodia.

This as a peacekeeper as well?

As a peacekeeper, as the commander of the peacekeeping operation, you know, treated royally by Prime minister, the royal family.

So why do you think that peacekeeping works if it is well resourced force?

Well, the fact is, and I think Gareth Evans who was Foreign Minister for Australia at the time said this is that Cambodia was ripe for a peacekeeping operation. Everybody couldn't see a way out of civil war and the particular predicaments that they cast themselves into and they needed the United Nations. to help them establish a new platform for the future.

And that platform being?

Well, it was an election of a constitutional assembly, which then agreed a constitution, which was the basis in law for the new government of Cambodia, which was the idea of people participating in the choice of government. And then since then, of course, they continue to have elections, which they didn¡¯t have beforehand.

So, peacekeeping as a tool? If you had to condense it into a couple of sentences given that you have just come back from Cambodia seeing it 30 years later?

Essentially, the people want to have to have it, they want it to happen, Okay? And then you have to have an agreement which says, okay, if this is what you want, this is what we have to go through to get it.

And while they're going through that process, of course, there's a realization on the part of some people that they're not going to benefit from it as much as they thought they were so there's always conflict in these things but at the end of the day, the UN is the honest broker in all this.

This is, this is what you've agreed to, and this is what we're going to put, what we're going to deliver to you. This is the opportunity to deliver to you. And you actually have to stick with that aim. I always say that maintenance of the aim, you have to have a clear understanding of the aim of the whole thing then you have to maintain it. There is the difficulty maintaining it.

And getting all those people that are involved in to keep them on the true path and make sure that what's delivered at the end is what was intended by the agreement.

So, the UN is the honest broker?

Yeah. Not every member of the UN, not every member of the UN wanted what we deliver. Okay. Some of them wanted something else and nations have their own national interest can vary their commitment, you know, they could be part of the international community of one hand, on the other hand, they are looking after their own national interests.

But it worked it worked.  

It worked.

Why did it work? Why did the peacekeeping force work?

It worked because we stuck on the path we started. There were pressures on me to deviate from the path on numerous occasions. All conflict is like that.

2023 marks the 75th anniversary of UN ¹ú²úAVkeeping operations.