VIETNAM, April 26 –
Officers of the Navy Engineering Unit No.1 and the Stage-2 Discipline Hospital No.4 who will quickly depart for UN Peacekeeping Mission paid tributes to the late President Hồ Chí Minh on the mausoleum in Hà Nội on April 21, 2022. — VNA/VNS Photograph Trọng Đức
Main Basic Hoàng Kim Phụng, Director of the Việt Nam Division of Peacekeeping Operations (underneath the Ministry of Defence), spoke to native media about preparations and the mission of the Navy Engineering Unit No.1 and the Stage-2 Discipline Hospital No.4 that can depart on Wednesday (April 27, 2022) for UN peacekeeping mission.
May you give us a quick overview of the 2 models that shall be deployed?
The deployment of those two models marks the largest deployment of Vietnamese peacekeepers since we joined these actions in June 2014.
Concerning our navy engineer unit No.1, we’ve got had greater than 5 years {of professional} preparations. The members are all high-level engineers and equipment consultants chosen from 21 models within the navy to be educated. We now have ready very rigorously when it comes to human assets – from consultants generally development, to highway and bridge constructing, in addition to safety personnel for the engineering unit that was picked from the particular operations command.
The unit additionally contains communication personnel, a first-level 1 (cellular) discipline hospital, in addition to different safety personnel. It is a unit that’s absolutely ready when it comes to angle, skilled information, peacekeeping information. The comrades all have information of defence diplomacy and coordination expertise within the multilateral setting of the UN throughout their upcoming responsibility on the UN Interim Safety Power for Abyei (UNISFA).
Lately, the Central Navy Fee and the Ministry of Nationwide Defence have facilitated to make sure the provides of materiel and weapons for the engineering unit’s mission. The primary provide supply is the tools accessible from the Ministry of Defence; the second is the conversion of some sorts of tools, bikes, and weapons, in accordance with the UN’s necessities and requirements; and the third supply is the procurement of recent tools from overseas.
With these three sources, we’ve got met the UN’s proposed missions for the engineering unit, that’s, the development of degree floor, the constructing of bridges, ferries, ports, airports, or cellular navy camps, and multi-storey buildings, and so on.
The place will the primary navy engineering unit be deployed to?
UNISFA was established in 2011 and is located within the battle zone between Sudan and South Sudan in Africa. Beforehand, there have been Ethiopian navy models finishing up the peacekeeping duties.
The UN has not too long ago determined to choose one unit from the 15 navy engineering models from some nations to pick out a higher-quality unit to exchange the Ethiopian forces which have ended their tenures.
Because of this, Việt Nam has chosen 184 engineers they usually have handed the UN inspections in dealing with weapons and tools, and in late October final yr, the UN declared the Vietnamese unit was probably the most exemplary unit and was chosen to be deployed to UNISFA.
At the moment, the tools and weapons that accompanied the unit – weighing over 2,000 tonnes – have been transported to Hải Phòng Port and the UN has helped convey them to Uganda.
Later, the UN will use specialised helicopters to move the materiel to the UNISFA’s areas in Might.
How has the unit been educated to fulfill UN necessities?
As proposed by the UN, our first navy engineering unit will deal with two foremost missions.
First, they’re anticipated to construct floor works, comparable to airports, harbours, drainage infrastructures, make camps for refugees, or drill wells for the usage of refugees on the border space.
Second is to construct high-rise buildings – however not more than 4 storeys. It is a process that, for a lot of nations, takes time to arrange and requires meticulous specialised coaching. Nonetheless, that is what the navy engineers in Việt Nam have already been continuously enterprise – even at large-scale, advanced, extremely technical defence initiatives – and the anticipated duties are all throughout the parameters of what they’re able to.
I’m assured that our first engineering unit will efficiently full the duty that the UN will give them.
On the request of the Central Navy Fee and the Ministry of Defence, the Vietnamese models participating within the UN peacekeeping operations should not solely fulfil the skilled missions, but additionally the very best degree of safety of the models have to be ensured.
We now have entered into an settlement with the UN to ensure that we’ve got the suitable to refuse missions which might be extraordinarily high-risk, unsafe, unsecure, operating opposite to Vietnamese customs and traditions, or the overseas coverage situations we’ve got set out with the UN. Due to this fact, regardless that we deploy our engineering unit underneath the banner of the United Nations, we nonetheless maintain some initiative and self-determination in performing the duties that we coordinate with the UN.
It needs to be harassed that this isn’t the primary time Việt Nam has despatched navy personnel to take part in UN peacekeeping operations.
What are the benefits that the navy engineering unit has this time, on condition that they are going to benefit from the expertise of their predecessors, Vietnamese officers who’ve served on the UN peacekeeping missions?
Within the final eight years, for the reason that day we despatched the primary two navy observers to the deployment of the primary field-hospital, and now the deployment of the primary navy engineering unit, we’ve got made a protracted journey with more and more advanced missions.
From the impartial actions of the people to the unit’s collective actions, their participation within the peacekeeping efforts has helped us grasp the safety state of affairs at every UN peacekeeping mission. The earlier officers who’ve efficiently accomplished their duties in several areas have loads of expertise to share to make sure the navy unit has complete grasp of the native state of affairs and the UN’s normal operation procedures.
We now have additionally had measures and expertise in dealing with relations in a multilateral setting. We now have earned the locals’ belief and love, and promoted the picture and repute of the Việt Nam Individuals’s Army, the Hồ Chí Minh’s armed forces, in nations like South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
The deployment of the navy engineering unit has obtained the approval and confidence of the African nations concerned, in addition to the UN leaders.
We could possibly be pleased with the speed of Vietnamese peacekeeping officers’ fulfilment of their missions with excellence which reaches as much as 33.3 per cent, whereas the common UN fee is just 1-2 per cent.
The Vietnamese navy engineering unit additionally boasts a really excessive share of ladies with 23 individuals, or over 12.5 per cent, whereas in different nations, the proportion is just 6-7 per cent.
Equally, our Stage-2 discipline hospitals even have a excessive share of ladies, for instance, the Stage-2 discipline hospital No.3 has as much as 13 ladies out of the 63 officers, or 17 per cent of the personnel.
Out of the 21 officers despatched for particular person duties comparable to navy observers, intelligence analysts, or workers officers, 4 are ladies.
The feminine presence in Vietnamese peacekeeping operations is lauded and extremely inspired by the UN.
One of many causes for our peacekeeping successes is the officers’ capability. Regardless of in particular person impartial positions or in unit formation, the Vietnamese officers can rapidly adapt to the dire situations like difficult local weather, setting, or electrical energy and water shortages.
In October 2019, when the then Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc met UN Secretary Basic Antonio Guterres in Thailand, the UN chief has remarked that the Vietnamese peacekeeping models are among the many most succesful and respected models to fulfil the present-day duties on the UN peacekeeping missions.
Sooner or later, Việt Nam will prolong its operation space, ship extra models to the UN peacekeeping missions, and increase each the scale and sorts of models to incorporate models comparable to infantry, observer, navy police, and public safety. — VNS
