Chad peace mission - Blessed are the enforcers

THE soldiers deployed today, as part of the UN-mandated operation EU for in Chad, will not be the first Irishmen to carry arms in that vast, war-torn region. Though this time they serve the ideal of peace rather than an empire-building Queen.

In January 1885 Gen Sir Garnet Wolseley led a relief expedition to try to rescue the besieged Gordon at Khartoum, and, as is often the case with British forces, there was more than one Irishman wearing the Queen’s colours.

Today’s mission faces a task every bit as daunting and as exposed as Wolseley’s — they must impose peace on the descendants of those who, a little more than 120 years ago, defied the greatest force then in the world.

Our troops enter a region where the proxy war between Chad and Sudan is being fought out by cross-border rebel groups and anything less than complete impartiality and professionalism could well lead to disaster. Already rebel groups have said that they will treat foreign peacekeepers as legitimate targets.

Because the stakes — the lives of our troops — are so very high, Defence Minister Willie O’Dea must ensure that they are not exposed because of a lack of resources and if the required resources are not forthcoming he should have no hesitation in ending the mission.

After all, the peacekeepers are blessed, let us hope that the peace enforcers are equally so and that they are far, far more successful than Wolseley was so long ago.