'Peacekeeping Forces Need Proper Training'
SOLDIERS deployed on peacekeeping missions should receive proper training that empowers them to integrate within the communities they would be deployed to monitor.
"Military attitudes, which ensure success in war situations, may create confrontations in peace operations. Soldiers for peace missions therefore need to be reoriented through training to function effectively in peace support operations," said Ghanaian Ambassador to Zimbabwe Rear Admiral John Kodzo Gbenah.
He was addressing army officers attending a joint command course at the Zimbabwe Staff College yesterday.
He implored nations that sent their troops on peacekeeping missions to ensure that the forces are properly trained to avoid conflict with the people they are meant to assist.
He said important aspects such as knowledge of local languages, customs and taboos, and assistance in the construction of schools, drilling of boreholes, rehabilitation of mosques, churches and roads would help win the hearts of the communities being assisted.
Rear Admiral Gbenah said military operations on their own cannot ensure peace, adding that there has to be political will to bring about the much needed peace.
It was important for peacekeeping troops to be accepted as friends by the locals in the conflict zone and they should not be seen as part of the problem.
He cited the resistance by the Iraq people to Western troops in their country as an example of what should not be done.
Rear Admiral Gbenah said peacekeepers should understand that in peace support operations there are no victors or losers.
He said peacekeeping requires a lot of patience, forgiving hearts, which takes a lot of provocation.
Ghana has participated in 27 peacekeeping missions since its independence in 1957 with the first assignment being in the then Zaire, now Democratic Republic of Congo.
For 28 years now Ghana has been involved in peacekeeping duties in Lebanon.
To effectively discharge its duties, Ghana has established Bondase, a peacekeeping training camp that now operates under the Koffi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre.
Soldiers attending training courses at the centre are lectured on the background to the conflict, the geo-political situation in the operation zone and the mission and mandate of the peacekeepers among other lecturers.