Addressing the opening ceremony, VNDPKO Director Major General Pham Manh Thang highly appreciated the effective cooperation between the Global Peace Operation Initiative (GPOI) program, the U.S. Office of Defense Cooperation in Hanoi and the Training Center under the VNDPKO in organizing this course.
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VNDPKO Director Major General Pham Manh Thang addresses the event. |
The course aims to provide trainees from Vietnam and GPOI’s partner countries with contents related to U.N. military observers in peacekeeping operations. It also equips young officers to be deployed to U.N. missions as military observers and those engaging in U.N. peacekeeping operations with other basic knowledge and skills.
According to Bengt Folkesson, head of the delegation of GPOI instructors, this course is of importance since trainees are provided with necessary skills to help them well perform their tasks in field areas. He also stressed that in the history of the U.N. peacekeeping force, military observers are the “eyes and ears” of the U.N. Security Council.
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Bengt Folkesson, head of the delegation of GPOI instructors, speaks at the event. |
He added that military observers are engaged in field missions. Their tasks are to monitor, report, investigate, negotiate, and contact local people, liaise with military commanders and village heads, and support humanitarian forces, U.N. police, and other protection forces. This is a force often deployed unarmed in remote and hostile areas.
Folkesson said that GPOI’s training program is updated regularly to meet increasing challenges in U.N. peacekeeping tasks.
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Delegates in a group photo at the opening ceremony of the trainer course |
On behalf of the trainees, Senior Captain Do Huyen Trang, a staff of the VNDPKO, said that military observers’ missions, such as negotiation, and information collection require their good command of foreign languages, communication skills, knowledge and experience. The course is a wonderful opportunity for the trainees to learn from experts and colleagues to become good future instructors, contributing a small but important part to the good task performance of a military observer, she said.
Translated by Mai Huong