By Judith Martin
29 September 2006
The New Zealand Army officer who led the first Kiwi contingent into Bosnia in the mid-1990s has been appointed to head the military component of the United Nations mission in Timor Leste.
Colonel Graeme Williams is to take up the position of Chief Military Liaison Officer with the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor Leste (UNMIT) in October. He will be responsible for the operational organisation, functioning and effective conduct of 34 United Nations military liaison officers assigned to UNMIT.
The UN mission will be separate from the Australian-led Joint Task Force already deployed to Timor Leste. The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has 158 personnel in that force, including a 16-strong team of engineers. The engineers return to New Zealand on 4 October. Colonel Williams, who has served in the former Rhodesia, the Middle East, Croatia/Montenegro and Kosovo, says the appointment to his sixth peace keeping mission is another challenge, and he is looking forward to helping restore stability in Timor Leste.
Although he has not served there – the NZDF has had personnel in varying numbers in Timor Leste since 1999 – he says he has kept a close eye on developments.
“At this stage it seems one of the key factors in securing stability there may be investing a lot of time in helping establish good governance.”
While he will wear a New Zealand Army uniform with a blue United Nations beret, he will have little involvement with the main body of New Zealand personnel in Timor Leste. One other NZDF officer is attached to the UNMIT team.
“We report to the special representative of the United Nations. I suppose you could say we will be his independent check of what is going on with respect to security throughout Timor Leste.”
Colonel Williams says he enjoys negotiation, a skill that came in useful in Bosnia. One of the lessons he says he learned there was that the nature of peacekeeping could be extremely unpredictable.
While he was well prepared with notes on negotiation tactics in Bosnia, he had little time to refer to them. Soon after he arrived he was made chair of the Joint Commission Civilian Executive Committee, a job where he had to organise the return of infrastructure such as water, electricity, and free access for transport. The committee succeeded in obtaining its objectives. “I didn’t know I’d end up doing that (being chair). You learn as you go along.”
Tolerance, patience, and building relationships are the key, he believes. The Bosnia contingent was the largest to deploy from New Zealand since the Vietnam War. As well as the large number of personnel and huge amount of equipment, the deployment required the New Zealand Army to acquire peacekeeping skills that have stood the NZDF in good stead in many missions throughout the world since.
“We were well prepared, but Bosnia was a bit of an unknown when we arrived. That said though, I think we made a very positive impact.”