Veterans celebrate 50 years of peacekeeping

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For 50 years, Finnish troops have taken part in peacekeeping missions in various crisis hotbeds around the world. It all started from Suez, where the first Finnish peacekeepers landed in 1956 at the request of the United Nations. Finland had only joined the international body in the previous year.
      To mark the 50th anniversary of the occasion, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, and the Defence Forces invited peacekeeping professionals and veterans to take part in the festivities organised at Tampere Hall.
     
Of the 258 men who set off for Suez in December 1956, 111 attended the anniversary. Before the main event, the President of the Republic Tarja Halonen met them all.
      The invitation to take part in global peacekeeping was of huge significance to Finland.
      "It was an expression of confidence towards Finland's foreign policy, and it was a way of putting our policy of neutrality into practice", the President noted.
      "You were the ones to look up to and learn from", Halonen commended the 1956 veterans.
     
Half a century ago the meaningfulness of peacekeeping missions was questioned even within the Defence Forces.
      "The efforts of Finnish officers and non-commissioned officers were considered more important in their home detachments than somewhere across the world, such as Suez. The benefits of peacekeeping had not yet become evident", Lieutenant General Ilkka Halonen pointed out.
     
One of the veterans, Esko Typpi, had arrived in Tampere for the occasion all the way from the United States.
      Another veteran, Eero Heikkilä, a native of Kärkölä, was decorated with five medals in his day. He was a 22-year-old forestry student when he set off for Egypt back in 1956.
      "Over there you learned that there are other cultures as well - and that the Finns are honest and don't get rattled easily", Heikkilä recalled.
      After six months in Suez, Heikkilä returned to look after the family estate. He still follows closely the situation in the Middle East. "The weaponry is getting heavier there. Achieving peace may prove an impossible task. The conflict may just be too great."


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Finnish field commander: Peacekeeping becoming too demanding for volunteers (24.10.2006)

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