# SHIRBRIG-Dutch Forces



## bossi (1 Nov 2000)

(from CBC NewsWorld - of interest to Canadian Army)


Dutch troops in UN peacekeeping operation in Horn of Africa 

COPENHAGEN (AP) - The participation of Dutch troops in a UN peacekeeping operation in the Horn of Africa will provide an opportunity for the Netherlands to rebound after their 1995 fiasco in the former Yugoslavia, the Danish defence minister said. Denmark and the Netherlands will form the first contingent of the United Nation's new Standby Forces High-Readiness Brigade, or SHIRBRIG initiative. 

The unit was formed in response to criticism that international response has been too slow to crises in the past. 

"The United Nations has now to learn it has this new instrument," said Danish Defence Minister Hans Haekkerup, the longest serving defence minister in the West. "We believe it will be a success. 

The brigade will provide some 2,000 of the 4,200 troops authorized by the UN Security Council last month to oversee a cessation of hostilities agreement signed by Ethiopia and Eritrea. 

The Netherlands will send about 1,000 troops, which will be in place within three months and Denmark will send 430. Jordan and Kenya will provide the remainder. 

While Canada has agreed to be a part of a high-readiness brigade it has not made a decision on whether it will join the mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea or supply troops, a Defence Department spokesman said late Tuesday. 

"It will be a comeback for the Netherlands," Haekkerup told The Associated Press in an interview on Monday. "They are part of the elite." 

The Dutch government is still haunted by the episode in Srebrenica when Bosnian Serb forces pushed aside several hundred Dutch soldiers and slaughtered more than 7,500 Muslim refugees. The Netherlands decided earlier this month to send troops to aid in the mission after assurances of a speedy extraction in case of trouble. 

The Dutch force has no intention of getting trapped in another refugee crisis, Dutch Defence Minister Frank de Grave said at the time. 

Most of the 189 countries that comprise the New York-based United Nations oppose a standing army, but Secretary General Kofi Annan repeatedly has said it needed its own high-readiness brigade because the world body too often has been too slow. 

The United Nations is currently involved in 15 peacekeeping operations around the world. 

In the mid-1990s, Haekkerup fostered the idea with support from Annan, then deputy secretary general in charge of peacekeepers. 

In 1996, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Austria and Denmark signed an agreement to set up the force. Argentina, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia and Spain joined later, while Ireland, Senegal, Slovakia, the Czech republic, Hungary and Jordan have observer status. 

Larger military countries easily can muster their own brigades while smaller ones must unite forces, Haekkerup said. Denmark is currently in charge of the force. 

The 5,000-strong brigade, which is financed by the participating countries, can be deployed within 30 days and for a maximum of six months with Security Council approval. Current UN peacekeeping missions take between four to six months to deploy, which is often too long for emergency situations. 

The Horn of Africa operation is the first assignment for SHIRBRIG, which has been operational since January. 

The troops will be deployed in a 24-kilometre buffer zone on the Eritrean side of the 998-kilometre contested border. The two-year border war flared after Ethiopia launched a sweeping offensive into Eritrean territory on May 12. 

The two sides agreed to a ceasefire on June 18.


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## JRMACDONALD (2 Nov 2000)

24KM OUT OF 998km??? Or did I read that wrong --ie 24 KM wide???(sorry,grasping at straws!)


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## Master Blaster (2 Nov 2000)

That‘s almost 24,000 square kilometers of area to monitor by how many active fighting troops?  I don‘t mean the CSS/Admin support groups; I mean fighting troops.

If we use current 7 or even 5 CSS/Admin to every soldier in the field, that‘s not enough to do the job!

Have they come under effective enemy fire?  What kind of air/arty/air mobile support do they have?

Bottom line...how many Canadians are there deployed?

Dileas


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