International CIMIC Course for Troops to Deploy in Afghanistan

Szöveg: Ferenc Antal | 2011. október 26. 12:36

The Hungarian Defence Forces were running the NATO ISAF PRT CIMIC Course for the first time, between October 10 and 14 in Budapest. Organized by the HDF Civil-Military Cooperation and Psychological Operations Centre, the course involved contributions from seven nations, as well as foreign and Hungarian instructors and students.

The organizers’ primary aim was to provide the students enrolled on the course with a comprehensive picture of Afghanistan by introducing them to the task system and the scope of professional duties of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) being run by different nations in the Asian country. This is important because to a large extent, the success of the NATO ISAF mission in Afghanistan depends on the effective communication skills of the officers and NCOs serving there. Effective communication is the key to influencing the behavior of the negotiating parties and enabling the flow of information.

“This is a new initiative, both on a HDF and a NATO level", Maj. Péter Csomor, the chief instructor of the course told us. As chief instructor, he is responsible for coordinating the professional activity and the other instructors’ work.

Besides classroom instruction, the students practiced the acquired techniques in situations according to scenario documents, while working with Afghan interpreters.

“There is a world of difference between the models being simulated here and real-life situations, so the negotiators here must show even greater self-confidence than in an actual situation in Afghanistan", Afghan interpreter Mirwais Janan said in summing up his experience. He has been contributing to PRT training sessions for 18 months: his task is to prepare the troops to be rotated into ISAF for the cultural differences. He drew attention to some minor mistakes during the imitated situations, but as he said, the trainees can get rid of them.

During the situational practice the students were learning techniques for conducting negotiations and doing country studies. Besides, the course subjects included cultural awareness training and the structure of PRTs.