Defence Business: International Forum on Challenges to Peace Operations | ADM Jun 2010

The theme for the forum was Challenges to the Protection of Civilians.

Susan Hutchinson | Canberra

While the focus of the forum was United Nations (UN) Peacekeeping, the topic extended to non-UN peacekeeping missions and has great relevance to all contemporary ADF operations.

The presenters and participants represented a wide array of distinguished guests from around the globe including former UN Force Commanders, leaders from the African Union, Military and Police Advisors to the UN, ambassadors, academics and personnel from the corrections, police, defence, humanitarian, human rights and development sectors.

Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Support, Dr Mike Kelly, opened the forum.

In his opening address, Dr Kelly identified that UN missions are increasingly being mandated to address "the protection of civilians, but the UN and its member states are only at the early stages of addressing this critical issue systematically... We are here this week to pursue a common purpose of fleshing out the issues that may assist the UN in addressing the challenges to better protect civilians under threat."

The military's obligations during conflict are defined in the Geneva Conventions.

The Fourth Geneva Convention outlines the responsibilities for protecting the civilian population in wartime.

It states that civilians are to be protected from violence to life and person, from being taken as hostages, from outrages upon their personal dignity and the passing of extra-judiciary sentences.

While its inclusion in the Geneva conventions identifies population protection as an obligation of the military, many soldiers around the world are unaware of the specifics of these obligations.

The development of individual and collective protective mechanisms includes the development of the rule of law, security sector reform and building peaceful community norms for addressing grievances and resolving disputes.

These tasks are often not the responsibility of the military but involve many different organisations, including humanitarian groups, Non-Government Organisations and local state actors such as the police and judiciary.

Accordingly, population protection needs to be understood as a spectrum of activity whereby not all actors are engaged in the conduct of all tasks but may still require an extensive understanding of protection in order to perform unconventional roles.

Population protection in the ADF
Population protection is one of the five lines of operation in the Australian Army's capstone doctrine, Adaptive Campaigning-Future Land Operating Concept (AC-FLOC).

While AC-FLOC offers strategic guidance, work still needs to be done on how to implement this doctrine and act cooperatively to enhance population protection, at an operational and tactical level.

In order to meet their obligations under the Geneva Conventions, the ADF must be supportive, in culture and practice, and facilitate the activities of non-Defence actors in achieving the protection of civilians.

As such, ADF training needs to reflect the importance of population protection, the military's obligations under the Geneva Conventions, and the importance of non-Defence actors in achieving these obligations.

The civil-military capabilities in the ADF need to be developed accordingly.

To advance the protection of civilians, Dr Kelly affirmed that "we will increase awareness of the issues raised at the forum, enhancing the ability of not only Australian agencies, but also our international partners to respond to protection of civilians issues through the provision of training and resources for both multidimensional peacekeeping and all contemporary operations."

Throughout the forum, participants, including experienced Force Commanders, agreed upon capabilities, tactics, techniques and procedures that are required to effectively protect civilians.

Soldiers must have a clear understanding of their role, the operational environment, and the posture they are to assume, in order to effectively perform protection duties.

Military contingents need to be able to operate in small, highly mobile units with rapid response capabilities. Dismounted patrols need to be conducted throughout the population and the importance of rotary wing aircraft cannot be understated.

The military must be able to respond rapidly to threats to civilians throughout vast areas of operation with limited personnel.

These tactics align with the concept of ‘Enhanced Company Operations,' being developed in the US, and the Australian Army's ‘Distributed Manoeuvre' concept.

Humint
Presenters at the Forum stressed the importance of dedicated human intelligence field collection capability.

Intelligence personnel will need to, identify and interpret information pertaining to the protection of civilians.

This may differ from other intelligence tasks and needs to include the identification of vulnerable groups and the perpetrators of abuse, as well as the analysis of vulnerabilities and root causes.

A key issue raised at the Forum was the importance of the inclusion of greater numbers of uniformed women to effectively address the protection of civilians.

Major General (retired) Patrick Cammaert, former Force Commander of the UN troops in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, poignantly identified that in order to reach out to the local population and in particular to the females, there is a need to have experts military and/or civilian female personnel.

Not a female driver or cook only because she is a female.

Women need to be deployed on patrols outside the wire, and be trained and prepared for the job.

In short, population protection is not only important in UN Peacekeeping operations, but is a vital to the effectivenesss of contemporary military operations conducted by the ADF.

In order to effectively protect civilians, military personnel are required to understand their responsibilities in regard to the protection of civilians as outlined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, the imperative role of women in these tactical operations, the collection of actionable intelligence, and the importance of rotary wing and mobility assets for pertinent patrolling regimes.