Having completed a field survey in Abyei, the officer immediately prepared to host an U.N. delegation to check and evaluate the capacity and preparations of Vietnam’s Engineering Company Rotation 1.
During the pre-deployment visit, the U.N. mission evaluated that the company’s equipment is in good condition, and its personnel are well-trained and professional in military skills and peacekeeping. They concluded that the team is capable of undertaking missions in Abyei.
The harsher the real conditions at peacekeeping mission are, the more difficult the field training must be
As the first peacekeeper of Vietnam to be deployed to the U.N. Mission in South Sudan, Senior Colonel Mac Duc Trong finds it much easier to envision challenges in the new area. As an area rich in oil resources, Abyei is disputed by South Sudan and Sudan. The security situation in the area is tense and unpredictable. Therefore, protecting the company is one of the most important missions of the unit.
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Members of the first Engineering Company of Vietnam |
To better fulfill future tasks, during their pre-deployment training, members of the company have focused on practicing handling different possible situations that they may face in the future. One of the most difficult and dangerous situations is when peacekeepers are forced to open fire to control the extremists after unsuccessful negotiations.
Also circumstances that require peacekeepers’ martial arts and tactical skills have been carefully practiced by the unit.
The guard detachment of the Engineering Company Rotation 1 comprises troops with high combat ability and good martial arts skills. Of the unit’s affiliated detachments, the guard detachment is tasked to carry out missions outside the barracks. It is divided into two teams. The first team is in charge of protecting the barracks, while the second one ensures safety for the road and bridge detachment’s members when they conduct missions far from the barracks.
Upholding good relationship with locals to fulfill missions
The Engineering Company Rotation 1 of Vietnam also includes female staff who are in charge of learning the indigenous people’s needs or negotiating and conciliating. With a good command of English, Colonel Nguyen Thi Lien is entrusted with the mission. Her main duty is carrying out combined military and civilian and mass mobilization activities in the area.
Lien said that apart from regular missions, all members of the company want to participate in social activities to improve local infrastructure and help people have a better life.
What Lien worries about is how to build trust and win local people’s hearts. According to her, wining local people’s trust is the most effective way for Vietnamese peacekeepers to know about their needs so as to have suitable measures to help them.
To effectively carry out mass mobilization activities, Lien has bought different kinds of seeds and planned to teach locals how to sow them. She has also prepared condoms in preparation for guiding locals with family planning methods.
During their future deployment, the unit also plans to conduct “quick application program” during which Vietnamese peacekeepers will provide water or make tables and chairs from the unit’s unused items for locals.
Lien added that to win people’s trust, peacekeepers must share their difficulties and hardships, even live their difficult lives.
Building local people’s trust is also an effective way to protect troops’ safety as well as help them fulfill assigned missions, Lien affirmed.
“All things are difficult before they are easy”
Talking about his recent field survey in Abyei, Senior Colonel Mac Duc Trong recalled that to reach Abyei, the survey team had to travel 1,000km by helicopter on the only route from Khartoum capital and South Sudan’s Kadugli. Normally, there is only one flight per day on the route with a maximum of 20 passengers.
According to Trong, after arriving in the area, the Engineering Company of Vietnam will have to build and live in tents until the installation of container-houses is completed. The team is also required to ensure logistic supplies in the first 12 days in the area with food supplies from the U.N.
Vietnam’s bridge and road detachment has 36 members, in charge of ensuring the good condition of roads with a total length of 300km. The units’ key missions are building field roads and repairing local roads, dual-use ones and helipads. This task is not easy for the team as roads in Abyei are mostly dirt ones.
He said that after a rainy season, roads in the area are completely ruined, so troops have to rebuild them. However, it is not always possible to build the ruined roads immediately. Engineers have to wait until the roads are dry enough to rebuild them.
When peacekeepers’ vehicles are bogged down, the bridge and road team must also be ready to help if asked, said Colonel Trong.
There is a popular proverb that says, “All things are difficult before they are easy.” Therefore, Vietnamese engineers’ difficulties and hardships for the first time joining U.N. peacekeeping operations are unavoidable.
There is another proverb, which reads, “Fire proves gold, adversity proves men.” Despite challenges, members of the first Engineering Company of Vietnam will bring into play the force’s traditions as well as Vietnamese peacekeepers’ achievements in carrying out peacekeeping missions over the past time and fulfill upcoming noble missions.
Translated by Tran Hoai