Official History of Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post–Cold War Operations

This volume of the official history will cover the peacekeeping missions that began following the First Gulf War (1990–91), apart from those missions in Australia’s region that will appear in Volume IV.

In this period, Australia played an important role in three major UN missions in Cambodia, Somalia, and Rwanda, and contributed Australian Defence Force (ADF) personnel and Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers to seven other missions. The 1990s are significant in the history of peacekeeping because the decade saw the development of “humanitarian intervention”, in which forces are deployed to protect civilians caught up in internal conflict.

The first section of the volume examines Australia’s role in bringing peace to Cambodia after decades of civil war. Australia’s Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade played an important role in the negotiations leading up to the 1991 Paris peace agreement. AFP officers had already been helping Cambodian refugees in Thailand to establish a legal system and police force in the lawless refugee camps. Soon after the Paris agreement was signed, Australian signallers arrived in Cambodia as part of the UN Advance Mission in Cambodia (UNAMIC). This was followed by a larger contribution to the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), with Lieutenant General John Sanderson as Force Commander, the first time an Australian had commanded a UN mission since Nimmo in Kashmir (see Volume I). ADF personnel, police officers, and electoral workers ensured that the 1993 Cambodian election was free, fair, and overwhelmingly supported by the people. Following UNTAC, Australian Army engineers assisted with demining in Cambodia. In 1997, following a coup, the ADF organised an evacuation of Australian citizens from Cambodia.

The second section looks at Somalia, where Australians took part in the UN Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) and the UN-sanctioned United Task Force (UNITAF) in Somalia to assist in distributing humanitarian aid to people caught up in a famine caused by drought and clan warfare. A small number of ADF personnel and AFP officers served with UNOSOM, while the 1st Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, was deployed by the Royal Australian Navy and operated out of Baidoa in 1993 as part of UNITAF and, for a short period of time, with UNOSOM.

The third section considers the Australian deployment of a medical contingent, with accompanying infantry protection, to Rwanda in the aftermath of the country’s 1994 genocide. Serving with the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), the Australians helped re-establish the Kigali Central Hospital in the Rwandan capital. In 1995 a group of Australian soldiers witnessed the massacre in the Kibeho displaced-persons camp.

The fourth section of the volume considers Australian personnel serving in smaller numbers in seven other countries or regions: former Yugoslavia, Haiti, Guatemala, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, the Ethiopia–Eritrea border, and Sudan.

The Royal Australian Navy operating as part of the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), 1993 (ADF)

Authors: Dr John Connor and Dr Bob Breen

Dr John Connor

Update: At present, John is writing chapters on the UNITAF in Cambodia.

Dr John Connor is a Senior Lecturer in history at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy. A graduate of the Australian National University, the University of Canberra, and the University of New South Wales, his doctoral thesis was a study of Senator George Pearce, Australia’s longest-serving defence minister.

John’s book, The Australian frontier wars, 1788–1838 (2002) received a Special Mention in the 2002 Centre for Australian Cultural Studies Awards, was short-listed for the UK Royal United Service’s Institute’s Westminster Medal for Military Literature in 2003, and was highly commended in the Australian Historical Association’s W.K. Hancock Prize Award for the best book published in Australia in any field of history by a first-time author in 2004. It has been reprinted twice.

In 2003–04 John taught Australian history at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies, King’s College London. In 2004 he returned to Australia to take up the position of senior historian at the Australian War Memorial and began work on writing the third volume of the Official History of Australian Peacekeeping, Humanitarian and Post-Cold War Operations. In 2007 he commenced his current appointment at the Australian Defence Force Academy.

John has published widely in the fields of Australian peacekeeping operations, Australian military history, British Empire and Commonwealth military history, and frontier warfare. He has made many media appearances on Australian, British, and international radio and television networks, ranging from Indigenous service in the Australian military to the Bougainville peace process.

Further information:

• The University of New South Wales Australian Defence Force Academy