Umstrittene Schweizer Sicherheitspolitik ... - ETH Zürich

Ausland
not operationalized in the form of a military alliance. We see it as leaving
to us the choice of means.
Let me come now to the missions in which we have taken part. Ireland
has had troops as a continuous presence on peace support operations
since 1958. In that year, we deployed military observers to Lebanon.
There have been a total of over 60,000 tours of duty, and in this period
85 personnel have died overseas. Among the major operations in which
we have participated are the ONUC, the UN operation in the Congo
in the early 1960s, UNIFIL, where we were present between 1978 and
2001, and again briefly in 2006 to 2007 in UNIFIL II. We also spent four
years, from 2003 to 2007, in the UN force in Liberia. It was a return to
a very challenging kind of peacekeeping in terms of perceived risk under
the given climate and terrain conditions. At the moment, there are 763
members of the defence forces serving overseas on eleven different missions
– seven UN missions and four UN-mandated missions.
The biggest contingent is in Chad. That is a very interesting case
because the operation began as an EU operation under a UN mandate.
An Irish general, based in Paris, was the operation commander of the EU
force for the duration of one year. Despite the very difficult terrain, the
climate, and the great logistical difficulties in establishing ourselves there,
we are very pleased with how the operation has gone. Just two weeks ago,
we had it transformed into a UN mission.
The second largest deployment is also interesting, because it is in
Kosovo, in KFOR. We have 233 personnel there at the moment. During
2007 and 2008, an Irish general was commander of the Task Force
Centre, including Pristine. As you can see, our troops are taking part in
a UN mission proper, they have taken part in an EU mission, and they
are taking part in a NATO-led but UN-mandated mission in Kosovo.
We also have a relatively small number of personnel in Bosnia and in
Afghanistan, and a range of scattered officers in observer missions, e.g.
in the Western Sahara.
One important point I would like to make is that we spent a very long
time in Lebanon. The Defence Forces felt that we were there too long.
So the decision has been taken that we will in principle try to confine
our participation to three or four years in a given force to seek different
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