Training commences for Finnish peacekeepers bound for Lebanon

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Training of the first Finnish peacekeepers for Lebanon has commenced at the Pori Brigade in Säkylä. Seventy reservists have arrived there for driver training. Simultaneously 130 equipment containers are being prepared for the mission.
      Corporals Lari Kovanen, 22, from Lievestuore and Tapani Salminen, 22, from Turku returned last spring from a one-year mission to Kosovo. On receiving a telephone enquiry from the Defence Forces, they both agreed to go to Lebanon next.
      Kovanen studies paper machine technology, and Salminen has worked as a security guard. Salminen's ultimate goal is to become a fireman. In Lebanon both men will serve as armoured personnel carrier captains in a light engineering detachment.
     
"I'm not scared, but rather excited. A scared individual could not function there", Kovanen explains, and continues: "In Kosovo we managed to resolve even tough situations by talking."
      Both Kovanen and Salminen consider the traffic and land mines as the greatest risks in Lebanon.
      The commander of the Pori Brigade Colonel Markku Nikkilä has eight years of overseas experience, for example, from peacekeeping in the Balkans.
     
"This is a normal United Nations peacekeeping mission in an area where there has been a war. In Lebanon both sides have agreed to the peacekeeping conditions, unlike in the Balkans, where nobody had agreed to anything", Nikkilä explains.
      According to Nikkilä, the company of engineers to be sent to Lebanon will not be trained to attack but to clear debris, rebuild, and to defend themselves, unlike the EU rapid deployment unit also currently being trained at the Pori Brigade, whose training covers military assaults and other combat duties as well.
     
In Lebanon the Finns will form a joint battalion with 150 troops from Ireland. The Irish infantry unit's task is to protect the Finnish pioneers in their clearance and reconstruction tasks.
      "Our first task is to build a base for ourselves, after which we will continue providing other UN troops with facilities and roads. Where we can, we will also help the civilian population with rebuilding roads and bridges damaged by bombing", lists Lt. Tommi Renfors from the Pori Brigade lists. He will be leading a unit providing heavy machinery for the engineering tasks.
      In all, more than a hundred bulldozers, excavators, and other vehicles will accompany the Finnish troops to Lebanon. All the heavy vehicles are armoured and equipped with bullet-proof windows.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Parliament groups support Lebanon peacekeeping operation (6.9.2006)
  Government puts forward plan for Lebanon peacekeeping operation (5.9.2006)

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