Final Note on a Peacekeeper
Nearly lost amid all the media and Opposition noise on Afghan detainees is the release of a final report on the death of a Canadian peacekeeper, doing the type of job that Canadians normally think of when they hear the term.
You may recall that Major Paeta Hess Von Kruedener was killed in July of 2006, when his observation post in Lebanon was hit during an Israeli bombing strike against Hezbollah. The report of the Board of Inquiry into his death was declassified and released yesterday, and is available here at the DND website in PDF format.
The board lays the blame for Hess Von Kruedener's death squarely on the Israeli Defence Force, for the following reasons:
You might ask the question: why didn't the peacekeeper get an order to evacuate his post? As I read the report findings, the answer seems to be that the UN didn't think such an order was necessary: the network was still working (it had been the day before, when the IDF was warned off other zones), and in any case the UN presence in the region was still necessary, and the entire area as a whole was dangerous.
Is the report worth reading? Actually, yes, because it does give some insight into the command and control structure of UN observers and peacekeepers in the field. It explains, for example, why the CF chain of command and communications isn't necessarily applicable in UN peacekeeping situations.
You may recall that Major Paeta Hess Von Kruedener was killed in July of 2006, when his observation post in Lebanon was hit during an Israeli bombing strike against Hezbollah. The report of the Board of Inquiry into his death was declassified and released yesterday, and is available here at the DND website in PDF format.
The board lays the blame for Hess Von Kruedener's death squarely on the Israeli Defence Force, for the following reasons:
- It found that Israel did give assurances to the UN that its sites wouldn't be targeted;
- It found that the IDF did have targeting safeguards in place that specifically designated UN observer sites as "no fire" zones; and
- There was a liaison communications network operating between the IDF and the UN that was operating at the time of the incident.
You might ask the question: why didn't the peacekeeper get an order to evacuate his post? As I read the report findings, the answer seems to be that the UN didn't think such an order was necessary: the network was still working (it had been the day before, when the IDF was warned off other zones), and in any case the UN presence in the region was still necessary, and the entire area as a whole was dangerous.
Is the report worth reading? Actually, yes, because it does give some insight into the command and control structure of UN observers and peacekeepers in the field. It explains, for example, why the CF chain of command and communications isn't necessarily applicable in UN peacekeeping situations.
posted by VW at 9:21 a.m.
3 Comments:
This situation also puts to lie the myth that peacekeeping is intrinsically safer than what is going on in Afghanistan.
The report omitted WHY the IDF was targeting the area around the observation post.
* Were there Hezbollah and IDF forces fighting close-by?
* Were there Hezbollah forces snuggled up to the UN area so they wouldn't be targeted?
* The IDF responded somewhat to the request for information - the UN did not.
The whole concept of having safe zones during an armed conflict is actually weird to me - I guess us civilians do not understand the military mind.
Here's some interesting excerpts from the full report:
"...The nature of the combat operations was very fluid and the Chief of Staff of UNTSO characterized it as "not a traditional military 'front' all through the area, but pockets of operations."
It goes on "As UNIFIL and OGL were interposed between the two belligerent forces, incidents involving fire from both sides were relatively common. Of the 45 UN positions in the AO, 36 experienced 'Firing Close' and 16, including UNIFIL headuarters experienced 'Firing In'."
The report finds blameless the CF and UN chains of command, putting ALL blame instead on the Israeli Army. (I note that is, coincidentally or not, the most convenient, least troublesome finding for the CF and UN high commands.)
And addressing that point, are the Israelis responsible for the deaths? In the "fog of war", did some Israeli artillery shells intended for a Hezbollah target fall short OR fly farther than intended? OR were the killing munitions from Hezbollah, accidentally or otherwise? The report says it cannot give an answer to that question.
However, here are some salient points:
1. "not a traditional military 'front' all through the area, but pockets of operations." Hell, not it's not a war with two legitimate armies, both generally following the Geneva Conventions. It's a war between a conventional state army fighting a defensive counter-war againt a terrorist gang's organized gangs of terrorist fighters. And the 'pockets of operations' are the ambush traps for Israeli forces, set up by heavily armed Hezbollah terrorists all over southern Lebanon.
Moreover, Hezbollah deliberately hid rifle/machine gun and anti-tank missile positions right next or even inside of civilian homes. Hezbollah also did likewise with caches of weapons and ammo and with their missile launchers that fired missiles into Israel. The obvious Hezbollah strategy was to get protection from Israeli strikes, or if the Israelis did strike, killing or wounding any civilians in the process, Hezbollah could use that as anti-Israel propaganda.
2. And most cogent to this article about Major von Kruedener and his 3 non-Canadian colleagues who were killed, the fact is that Hezbollah also hid as close to UNIFIL positions as possible. Hezbollah had been doing this for months, with no reaction from UNIFIL or from UN HQ.
With regard to the second quote, UNIFIL and/or UN HQ and or CF HQ should have pulled out Major von K and all the other military observers when the fighting started. The observers' mission was to observe a peaceful border and report any contraventions of past agreements or Geneva Conventions.
Being in the middle of a full-scale military campaign of ground and air forces was not their mission's purpose. the lightly armed Observers were only serving at great danger, unable to make any contribution or benefit to anyone.
IMO, it was a very stupid, dangerous decision by UNIFIL and UN HQ to have left the observers at their posts. Clueless, in fact. The UN has had a habit of clueless, dangerous decisions with 'peacekeeping" forces, as General Dollaire can also well attest.
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