Carry on, General!

Szöveg: Gábor Kálmánfi - László Szűcs | 2011. január 23. 15:46

Originally, Brig.-Gen. Tibor Nagy would have held his current position in the EUFOR ALTHEA mission for one year. However, his mandate as deputy commander of the European Union’s peacekeeping force (DCOM EUFOR) in Bosnia–Herzegovina (BiH) has been extended by six months, so the general will return to Hungary in the summer of 2011.

Gen. Nagy, who had previously been the commander of the HDF Operations Centre in Hungary, was posted as EUFOR DCOM to BiH on January 20, 2010. The EUFOR HQ is located in Camp Butmir, next to Sarajevo International Airport. A total of 1,600 troops are stationed in this camp, all working under the command of Austrian Maj-Gen. Bernhard Bair. Their main objective is to maintain a safe and secure environment (SASE) in BiH through a military and police presence. The UN peacekeepers have several other tasks. Of these, a very important one is to support the training of the BiH armed forces. EUFOR provides several Mobile Training Teams (MTT) to help train the armed forces of BiH, a country that aspires to NATO membership, and the Hungarian Defence Forces also participate in these training activities.

“I would like to stress that the security situation in the country is stable, as all the elements enabling it are in place. At the same time, a certain degree of instability arises from the still underdeveloped political situation in BiH. The country is home to Bosnian, Croat and Bosnian Serb communities, so it is very difficult to develop a consistent administrative executive system because it has three presidents and nearly 140 ministers. As a result, cooperation between ethnic groups is difficult and often fragile," says Brig-Gen. Nagy.

Perhaps it is due to the moderate use of force that the DCOM EUFOR can proudly state that the population fully trusts the members of the EUFOR mission, and of course those of the Integrated Police Unit (IPU) cooperating with them. Experience shows that the local populace has accepted both organizations as absolutely neutral representatives in any conflict. Wherever EUFOR peacekeepers appear in the country, people see them as deliverers of security.

General Nagy’s job, however has some unpleasant and dangerous aspects too. For example, the criteria of full NATO membership include settling the ownership status of all 69 military installations, properties and training areas in BiH. The premises of the Bosnian ministry of defence also have debated ownership status. Naturally, opinions differ as to whom these properties belong, and none of the parties welcomes the prospect of these buildings and areas of land being taken over by the state. Another problematic issue is that huge amounts of weapons, ammunition and explosives are stockpiled in depots – some 30,000 tons of ordnance in total.

Their disposal is a slow process and is surrounded by many uncertainties, besides which the way they are currently guarded gives cause for concern on some occasions. The Bosnian armed forces need only less than one third of the presently registered 43 weapon and ammunition depots. The handling and disposal of the rest of the ordnance, some of which is rather old, unstable and dangerous, is also difficult because in many cases the civilian population has already built up the surroundings of the depots. There are places where the locals have built houses only 200 meters away from the explosives…

As we can see, EUFOR has a very complex mission that requires a high degree of professionalism. Yet every superior speaks very highly of the Hungarian infantry company which has deployed as the seventh rotation of the HDF EUFOR Contingent. The Spanish Commanding Officer of the Multinational Battalion (MNBN) has stated several times that he is very satisfied with the performance of the Hungarian troops.