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FOREWORD

I n * the wake of the cold war, peacekeeping — o r , more appropriately,

peace enforcing— is becoming an increasingly important role for m ilitaryforces around the world. Because of the many other missions it has been

responsible for, th e U.S. Army has not participated significantly inUnited Nations peacekeeping missions in the past. That situation willalmost certainly change in the future. Indeed, President George Bush'sDecember 1992 decision to commit U.S. forces to a humanitarianpeacekeeping role in Somalia may be indicative of the future use of ourmilitary forces.

In 1991, two U.S. Army officers, Major George Steuber and MajorJames Faust, and a U.S. Marine, Major John Dill, were sent on a dual

mission as liaison officers with the United Nations Advanced Mission toCambodia and as part of the United Nations Transition Authority inCambodia. The experiences of these officers offer a number of valuablelessons on the pitfalls and frustrations of being part of an internationalpeacekeeping force.

In this interview, Major Steuber shares with us a number insights hegained during his tour in Cambodia. Officers who are themselvespreparing to join peacekeeping missions will find Major Steuber'sexperiences and ideas particularly interesting. And those officers whoperhaps never expect to participate in such missions will find much in

Steuber's words to reflect upon.

ZJUts.December 1992 RICHARD M. SWAIN

Colonel, Field ArtilleryDirector, Com bat Studies Institute

CSI Reports are short-term research papers prepared in response toofficial inquiries. They are based mainly on secondary sources andprovide basic information on the subject under consideration. The viewsexpressed in a CSI Report are those of the author and not necessarilythose of the Department of the Army or the Department of Defense.



CSI REPORT NO. 15

UN PEACEKEEPER IN CAMBODIA,

1991-1992: AN INTERVIEW WITH

MAJOR GEORGE STEUBER

Interview conducted by Dr. Jerold E. Brown

Combat Studies InstituteU.S. Army Command and General Staff College

Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-6900

3CGS-00610



Dr. Brown: I am Dr. Jerold Brown, and this is the 25th of September

1992. I am interviewing this afterno on M ajor George Steuber on a list ofquestions that we have presented him on his experience in thepeacekeeping mission in Cambodia. I'm going to ask Major Steuber a

series of questions and allow him to answ er them to his own satisfaction,and we will go through this list of questions until we are finished. Thefirst question, Major Steuber, is why were you selected fo r thisassignment?

Major Steuber: I was selected for this assignment based on arequirement that was developed by the Department of the Army forsending foreign area officers to Cambodia. The initial requirement wasfor three U.S. Army officers, and that was modified to two U.S. Armyofficers and a Marine officer. Both of the U.S. Army officers areSoutheas t Asia foreign area officers. My compatriot, Major James Faust,

was trained in the Indonesian Staff College as his regional training, and Iwent to the Thai Staff College.

Dr. Brown: Would you tell us wh at your mission was specifically and howyour stated mission com pared to wh at you actually did wh en you arrivedin Cambodia?

Major Steuber: Our mission was actually in two parts. The first part wasas liaison officers assigned to the United Nations Advanced Mission inCambodia. We use the acronym U N AMIC for that. UNAMIC wasauthorized by the comprehensive political agreement for a resolution to

the conflict in Cambodia. It was authorized und er the broad h eading ofthe secretary general providing good offices to th e four Cambodiafactions in resolving the conflict. UNAMIC itself was not mentioned inthe treaty, and that was a sticking point. One of the factions, the N ationalArmy of Democratic Kampuchea, otherwise known as the Khmer Rouge,refused in many instances to recognize UNAMIC as a legitimate agencyin country. Under UNAMIC, we were brought in, and the mission was toestablish liaison with the four fighting factions in Cambodia. Those fourfactions are the Cambodian People's Armed Forces for the state ofCambodia, the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea (the KhmerRouge), th e Khmer People's National Liberation Armed Forces (theLon N ol faction), and the National Army of Independent Kampuchea,



which is the Sihanouk faction. W e were supposed to establish liaison

with those four factions so they could resolve issues. W e were alsosuppos ed to es tablish a mixed military working group, wh ich goes by theacronym MM WG . That working group was established with the senior

U N military officer at its head and the four chiefs of the general staff orcomparable officers from th e four factions acting as the senior officers.

We were to carry out a comprehensive mine-awareness programthroughout Cambodia because of the presence of some 3 to 4 millionmines within the country and because they take about 300 casualties permonth due to mine-related incidents. Finally, an implied mission forU NA MIC was to prepare for the U nited N ations Transition Autho rity inCambodia or U NT AC. And the unit's missions eventually expandedbecause of the problems with mines in country, to include amine-clearing portion and also to commence training mine-clearing

training teams. These teams were to be drawn from th e four militaryfactions within Cam bodia, receive training fo r mine clearing, an d then setabout clearing the 3 to 4 million m ines in country.

Finally, the last part of our mission was with the United NationsTransition Authority in Cambodia. UNTACs primary mission was toregroup, disarm, and canton 100 percent of the regular military forces ofth e four fighting factions. In addition to that, they were supposed toregroup an d disarm all the militia forces of the factions an d thendemobilize 100 percent of the militia and 70 percent of the regulararmed forces of the four factions. That was the primary mission.

UNTAC was also supposed to provide security fo r repatriation fo rapproximately 370,000 displaced Cambodians with in the border areas ofTh ailand. It was suppos ed to ensure th at all foreign forces had left th ecountry and would ensure th at they did not return. Other missions wereto maintain the sovereignty of the state of Cambodia, investigate anyviolations of the cease-fire agreement, and rebuild the infrastructure of acountry which was literally destroyed by the last two decades of war.

Let's go back to UNAMIC. Our stated m ission was to establish liaisonwith the four factions, and w e, in fact, did that. W e also prep ared the wayfor UNTAC, and eventually, once UNTAC was established on the 15thof March, UN AM IC then rolled into and became UNTA C. W hen I left



on the 1st of June, we were in the process of deploying the militarypeacekeeping forces, eleven battalions, into th e outlying areas.

Dr. Brown: How did the briefing th at yo u received prior to going toCambodia compare to what you actually found ?

Major Steuber: Th e only briefing that I received prior to departing fo rCambodia was a briefing from United States Pacific Commandheadquarters intel personnel and also the people from the J5 policybranch within CINCPAC. I received no briefing from either Departmentof the Arm y, DCSOPS, ODO, which is the executive agency for themission, or from anyone in the U nited N ations. I went into this, as didmy tw o compatriots, a Marine major, John Dill, and Major Faust, blindwith really no idea of what we were supposed to do aside from what welearned from th e intel group.

Dr. Brown: How was your force structured?

Major Steuber: The force s tructure, first off , was a multinational force,and wh en I got into Cam bodia, the only military portion of the force thathad arrived was the headq uarters elements an d som e supporting nationalcontingents. One national contingent was the French contingent thatprovided air transportation, C160 fixed-wing aircraft and Pumahelicopters. The Australians provided a communications contingent forinternal headquarters communications, and they also providedcommunications to the team sites. N ew Zealanders came in as a country

contingentwith

personnel trainedin

mine training teamsand

alsoconducted the initial public information campaign about the mines.There was also a Germ an contingent th at provided medical support.

On the structure of the headquarters, senior officers were designatedby the UN . The commander was a French brigadier general, Loridon;

the second in command was an Indonesian lieutenant colonel, Tinggagoy;and the chief of staff position was originally filled by a Polish lieutenantcolonel. Th e rest of the personnel th at came in were put into theirpositions based on decisions made in New York, and then once th eadvance party was in place on 9 November, decisions were made in

Cambodia. The structure as such did not have any noncommissioned



officers or warrant officers to do the work in the headquarters. All we

had were liaison officers brought in at that point from twenty-three

different countries. So all the administrative support was provided by

United Nations civilians. That support, even from my coming into

country in December was inadequate to the mission, and I will discussthat problem.

Once we had gotten into country, we were broken up into teams,

liaison teams to establish liaison with the four factions and also support

teams. Those teams were located at Battambang and Siem Reap.

Battambang is a major headquarters for the state of Cambodia forces.

Siem Reap was also a major headquarters, and both of those locations

had airfields that were in working order. They received both civilian and

military flights of the state of Cambodia. There were three remote team

sites that were established, one remote site with each one of the other

three factions. Those were for the A NKI or National Army ofIndependent Kampuchea— that was at Phum Ku on the Thai border in

the northwestern portion of Cambodia; the Khmer People's National

Liberation Armed Forces, or the KPNLAF headquarters, that was Team

Delta at BanteayMeanrith, again on the Thai border; and the last remote

site was at Pailin with the NADK or Khmer Rouge. That was our Team

Echo, again, very close to the Thai border. In addition, there was a small

liaison cell, initially two officers, that was in Pnom Penh and that did

direct liaison with the armed forces of the state of Cambodia. There was

one liaison officer in Bangkok whose job was to receive UN military

personnel coming through Bangkok and into Cambodia. In February, we

established another team site at KampongThorn that became Team Gulf

because of the fighting going on in that province.

Once the UNAMIC mission expanded to include training for mine

clearing, training team personnel, and also to do some initial mine

clearing, a Thai engineer battalion was brought into country under the

auspices of the UN. That engineer battalion started to clear portions of

Route 5, which is the major road that runs from the Thai-Cambodian

border at Poipet all the way to Pnom Penh. That engineer battalion was

also augmented by another Thai engineer battalion that came into

country under a bilateral agreement between the state of Cambodia and

Thailand. Again, that battalion started in Thailand and proceeded to



clear the road between Poipet, right on the border, and Sisaphon. The

UN battalion worked from Sisaphon to Battamban g. All of this is on oneroute, 5, wh ich is the main supply route.

Finally, under the UNTAC mission, UNTAC has eleven infantrybattalions, and these infantry battalions are used to take over cantonmentareas within the country. They have established cantonm ent areas basedon one battalion being capable of taking care of five cantonment siteswithin a battalion's area. U NT AC also has an engineer capability, oneengineer regiment with an airfield troop, a rail battalion, a field engineer

battalion, and a vertical construction battalion. It has a communicationssupport group, which expands the original Australian communicationscontingent to provide communications throughout the country for allmilitary operations. There was also a supply regiment brought in toprovide logistics support for the units. Those are the main units tha t

would be operating in country.

There were some major problems with the way the force wasstructured. First off, there were no noncommissioned officers or warrantofficers working within th e headquarters to provide support for theactivities for the headquarters, and this made fo r some really distinctproblems. The civilian U N personnel that were supporting the fo rce onlyworked five days a week, whereas the military force was deployedworking seven days a week. The civilian administrative personnel hadnever had any sort of interaction with a military force before, had no ideawh at military terms mea nt. I think one of the key problems was that bybringing in an ad hoc group of officers as a headquarters, there wasabsolutely no comm on doctrine and no com mon operating system withinthe headq uarters. W ithout a backbone of noncommissioned officers an dwarrant officers to do the work, we had some severe problems withofficers not knowing how to do the sorts of things that they were beingasked to do, having no experience in it. In some cases, because of theway their armed forces wo rked, these people were literally unw illing todo those sorts of things. There was absolutely no common training as tohow to do things, how to write reports, and those sorts of things. In fact,when I left country after six mo nths, neither UNAMIC nor UNTAC had

ye t published a standard operating procedure fo r doing anything from an



operational standpoint or a sustainment su pport s tandpoint, which youcan imagine is a very distinct disadvantage.

Another problem was lack of an intel section or secretariat. The way

the force was s tructured initially, there was one person wh o was supposedto handle information within the headquarters, information that wouldbe part of the normal intel function. Without an intel capability, there

was 410 way to take reports from the field, collate them, and get them tothe people that needed them . Th e insufficient intel capability gave usimmediate problems— the same thing with not having a structuredheadquarters with a common doctrine. Messages would come into theheadquarters but would not be delivered to the right personnel, and notaskings were assigned. Again, wh en I left at the end of six months, therewas no secretary that took a message, established w ho it should be goingto, assigned a tasking and a suspense date, and then ensured that the

tasking was met. And so those things were not done.

There were also some major language problems. General Loridon, th ecommander of UNAMIC, did speak som e English; he was fairly good atit. However, the mission was established as a dual-language m ission, andeveryone was supposed to speak both F rench and English. I would saythat easily 75 percent of the people coming into the mission spoke noFrench at all. Most of them spoke English. Very few of them spoke

Cam bodian or related languages. That was a problem in Cambodiabecause of the Khmer Rouge and because of the fighting that's beengoing on for two decades. The school system has been virtually

destroyed, and there are very few interpreters that can work adequatelyin translating English to Kh mer or French to Khm er. And so,immediately, language capability was a large problem. W ithin my team,Team Delta on the Thai border, my team leader was an Argentinianlieutenant colonel. He spoke Spanish, and he spoke a very limited bit of

French. He spoke no English at all. So our immediate problem was the

team leader couldn't talk to the team. That's a distinct problem as you

might well guess.

There were also some very distinct problems with assigning seniormilitary personnel based on political agreements rather then based on

competency. The deputy commander of UNAMIC was absolutely

6



worthless. He did not know what he was doing and contributed

absolutely nothing to the military m ission. There were a number of other

people who'd fall in the sam e category. As long as political appointeesare in senior positions within a U N headquarters and in other positions

within a U N military force, you're going to have som e major problems ingetting m issions done.

There was obviously not enough engineer support. A total of 1,300engineers of all types were supposed to come into the country, in acountry that has 3 to 4 million mines and has a totally destroyedinfrastructure. It takes approximately 14 hours to go the 240 kilometers

from Pnom Penh to Battambang. Average speed is less than twentykilometers per hour, an d that's without a loaded vehicle. That's in afour-wheel-drive N issan vehicle. So you can imagine that transportationis a major problem. And that is one of the major roads within country.

On Route 6, which is the other major road in country, most of th e bridgesare blown, and you have to take bypasses. To bring in one engineer

battalion to do all the infrastructure repair on a country that has literallydisappeared over twenty years is a total impossibility, and th at was animmediate problem. Those problems have since been addressed bybringing in other engineer units.

Comm unications support was inadequate for UNTAC when I left. TheAustralian communications equipment had not arrived yet. TheAustralians are good communicators for small units, but they no longerhave division-size units. They've gone to all brigades, and they lack the

capability to provide adequate communications for a mission this size, avery large structural problem.

Mobility of units varied considerably. Of the infantry units coming in,some of them had organic transportation that they brought with them,others did not. They were assigned in areas wh ere, during the monsoon,you cannot move unless you have at least five-ton trucks withfour-wheel-drive capability. Quite a few of them did not have thiscapability, and therefore, once the monsoon sets in, they don't move.

One of the other problems that we had was medical support. The

Germ ans originally broug ht in a small medical detachm ent to provide for





foreign area specialists. Two of the officers had sp ent an extended period

of time in Cambodia. One Russian captain that was with me at Team

Delta had spent th ree years in Cambodia as the personal adviser to theminister of defense for the state of Cambodia. He knew all the seniorofficers within th e Cambodian People's Armed Forces and had touredthrough most of the country. One of the other officers had five years incountry in similar advisory positions. One officer had not come toCambodia, but all three s poke K hm er fluently as well as read and wrotein Khmer. They were invaluable as far as establishing relationships, thatsort of thing. The other officers that came in who had some training thatwas applicable w ere the British and the Austrians. They had all been

assigned to other United Nations missions. The Austrians h ave a schoolwhich teaches U N peacekeeping methodology and operations. The Britshave a doctrinal manual which is excellent. It covers peacekeepingmiss ions, reports . It's a how-to manua l— how to write reports, what

reports are applicable, what's contained in them, how to set upobservation posts, and those s orts of things. Very, very good.

The Australians that came in the communications contingent had allreceived at least some K hm er language training. Some had gone throughover a year's w orth of training. They were also trained in customs andother things that pertained to Cam bodia and Indochina. A group of thecommunicators were trained as medical specialists in that they couldprovide immediate medical support not only to the communicationsteams that were out there but also to the liaison officer and the observerteams. So their training was quite extensive. N one of the three

Am ericans th at went in received any peacekeeping training prior to goingin or even any briefings that were specifically focused on peacekeeping.

However, the Marine major, John Dill, had participated in the UNIKOMmission in Kuwait and so was familiar with the United Nations

methodology.

Dr. Brown: Did you find a conflict between the training that you hadreceived earlier in your military career and the demands as apeacekeeper?

Major Steuber: I didn't find any conflict between training for war and

peacekeeping. As a matter of fact, training fo r wars is absolutely



essential if you're going to do a good job as a peacekeeper. First off, youhave to know your enemy. You have to be able to conduct militaryoperations and all those sorts of things, such as movement,com munications, planning, and all the sustainment-type things. All thosethings that you h ave to do in a m ilitary mission, you still have to do in apeacekeeping mission. The only thing you don't do, at least in theory, isshoot, and that's really the only conflict. People do need specific trainingin how to control fighting factions and civilian personnel without usingforce or using an absolute minimum amount of force. That would be theonly conflict.

Dr. Brown: You've already addressed the language problem earlier and

certainly that presented some problems comm unicating with the locals.W ould you like to comment on how you communicated among the groupof peacekeepers?

Major Steuber: On three occasions among the peacekeepers, it was a bitof a problem, especially on my team. What we did was, I had anAustralian communicator who was born in Chile, and so his parents hadtaught him Spanish, so his Spanish got brushed up on very quickly. MyArgentinian team leader learned English, taught himself how to speakEnglish. W e went into Thailand and got English-as-second-languagebooks and all sorts of things, and at the end of the six months, he hadgone from no t speaking a word of English to being able to write his ownreports in English. So, in that instance, personal motivation of a teamleader was absolutely key.

On the other h and, we had Russian engineers that came into the forcein the April time frame to help with mine clearing. These gentlemenspoke absolutely no English or French or anything else, and the only wayto com municate with them was through the other Russian m embers ofthe team. I also had Indonesians. When I was at Kampong Thorn, the

Indonesian 5th Indonesian Airborne Ranger Battalion was the unitassigned to m e, and some of the officers had problems with English. W ehad to work around that as best we could. Again, I comm unicated w iththe local personnel, the Khmer People's National Liberation ArmedForces. Initially, all their senior officers spoke Th ai, many of them spokeEnglish, and so I u sed my Thai almost exclusively in dealing with them

10



until my Cambodian, my Khmer, got good enough to where I couldcommunicate with them in Khmer. Similarities between Thai andKhmer are such that within six months' time, I could listen to mostconversations and translate them for myself witho ut using an interpreter.

I think that communications or the language training is absolutelyessential for the personnel going in on an initial mission to an area wh ereEnglish is not normally spoken. The ability to speak with th e people

witho ut having to use an interpreter is very impo rtant. You do not loseas much of the nuance as you lose when an interpreter is translating fo ryou, especially if you do not have military interpreters . Once, we wereable to hire a civilian interprete r to help in Kampon Thorn, but he didno t know any military vocabulary. While he was great fo r taking some ofthe other team mem bers down to the m arket and buying things for them,he w as absolutely wo rthless as a military interpreter.

Dr. Brown: What lessons did you learn from this experience that youthink are important to share with us?

Major Steuber: First, there mu st be a realization of and balance betweenth e objective and the commitment. UNTAC had a very clear objectivegoing into Cambodia. It's well spelled out in th e treaty. Unfortunately,the commitment of the four factions to that treaty and to that peace

process w as negligible, at least on the p art of one of the factions. Itbecame clear very quickly that th e United Nations would not be able toforce a solution on the warring parties as long as the U nited Nations

force there was in a peacekeeping m ode. Unless all factions arecomm itted to keeping that peace, th ere's no way that the United N ationscan force them to do that.

And one of the other things that we learned, or that I learned early on,was the factions have got to take responsibility for making a peace

agreement, m aking cease-fires work . W hen we got there, the orientationof the U nited N ations senior leadership was that the U nited N ations wasgoing to mak e peace work, and it cannot. Unless the four factions aremade responsible for taking steps to ensure th e peace process works and

to implement th e peace agreement,there's

no way that agreement willwork. I think one of the other things that quickly came out was that as

11



long as the United Nations was going to take responsibility from thefactions, th e factions would literally do nothing. They mad e nopreparations fo r regrouping and cantonment of their forces. Theyexpected the U nited N ations to d o all the planning for it. They had made

no preparations to support it, and in fact, if you look at it from amercenary standpoint, the longer the United Nations is in Cambodiapumping money into the economy, there is no incentive for the fourfactions to do anything.

Next thing is that the United Nations' employment should be stepwiseand should be geared to do some concrete progress on the part ofwhatever factions are fighting or contesting within the country. If you donot have those sorts of steps and do no t reward the factions by takingfurther action, then there's no incentive for them to do anything. One ofthe other things is that there m ust be some sort of agreement on the part

of the U nited N ations as to how far the United Nations is willing to go inusing the other instruments of power: diplomatic, economic, andinformation pow er. The curren t situation in Cambodia is going to keep

on going as long as there's an open Thai border and there's no pressureput upon Thailand to cease providing support to the Khmer, primarilythe Khmer Ro,uge, but also the other factions. As long as the KhmerRouge are making money, there's no incentive for them to follow any ofthe stipulations in the peace agreement. So there needs to be a

consensus in the United Nations going in as to what force or whatinstruments of power they're going to use and how far they arecommitted to using them to keep th e peace. I don't think that was ever

really agreed upon by the U nited N ations.

If peacekeeping doesn't work, someone has to make a decision to doone of three things. One is accept a status quo and accept the losses thatyou're taking at the same time. Or number two, withdraw. And finally, ifpeacekeeping isn't going to work, is somebody going to then adopt thepeacemaking option— that is, go in and use force to bring the contestingfactions to some sort of agreement. If you do that, the peacemakingoption is really the same as going to war. You're going to have to havethe same sort of commitment to make it a peacemaking o peration as youwould in using the U N to go in and make war against the factions.

12



One of the other things is that the military plan going in to a situationlike Cambodia has got to be realistic. As I said before, there were 1,300engineers that were supposed to go in and literally rebuild the country,which doesn't make any sense. There were no phones, no roads, noindustry, no services, virtually of any sort, in the major population centerswithin Cambodia, let alone at the village level. There were no policeservices provided to people in the outlying areas. All these sorts of thingsare things th at are going to be necessary and, quite frankly, things whichwere no t addressed in the United Nations plan. So I think that's key.There needs to be a common doctrine if you're going to go in with amilitary force; there should be some sort of common doctrine that thepeople within that force can turn to to look for guidance. Th ere needs tobe a com mon o perating system. N ow, if you can't get agreement on whothe observer should be, o r if, in fact, yo u have observers populating yourheadquarters, so that all national factions are represented, that's fine.

But there should be then a United Nations contingent, one nationalcontingent brough t in to provide the basis for that head quarters. Thatwasn't done and, again, wh en I left at the six-month point, UN TAC was anonfunctioning headquarters. There needs to be some sort of overviewor oversight of both th e plan before it's adopted and then once th eU nited N ations has accepted the m ission to go in. Th e actual functioningof the United Nations mission should be reviewed. There needs to be

some sort of accountability. As long as you have officers placed insenior-level positions as a political consideration, there is noaccountability.

The deputy commander, as I said, of UN AMIC, was worthless, and theentire mission had problems because of that. We had a major problemwith finances. The liaison officers were being paid $111 per day fo rsubsistence allowance, which is an extraordinary amount of money.When we were sent a report to justify that, th e officer in charge ofpersonnel actions came to us and told us that he didn't care what wewrote on those surveys as long as they totaled approximately $3,000 permo nth per man required for subsistence. That's waste, fraud, and abuse.Three Americans sat down with their team mem bers and told them thatwe would no t allow tha t, that we wanted factual accounting of what it wascosting liaison officers to live in their areas, and th at that's wh at we wouldreport and not some inflated figure. Once those reports were sent to the

13



UNAMIC headquarters, the reports from all three of the teams that hadAmericans on them, an d that w ere factual reports, were lost, were neversubmitted to the headquarters in New York. I guess that pretty muchcovers it as far as some of the lessons th at I learned.

Dr. Brown: What preparations would you make fo r other peacekeepersgoing to these types of missions? Specifically, wh at would yourecommend that they read?

Major Steuber: I think; as I said before, that personnel going in on the

initial mission should be, if not a foreign area officer that has thelanguage capability and all the background training tha t entails, sh ould atthe very least be oriented to local cultures, h ave some orientation to the

language and some basic phrases. As a minimum, they should know asmuch as possible about the political and military history of the area that

they're going to and should absolutely be familiar with the militarycapabilities of the factions that are fighting there in the area: whatweapons they have, wh at their tactics are, what the command and controlstructures look like, and quite basically jus t how to recognize them . W ithfour fighting factions in Cambodia, there's some great similaritiesbetween three of the factions, and you need to be able to distinguishwho's doing w hat to whom on any given day. I would say that one of thebest sources in some of the areas is either the area or country handbookthat's prepared by Department of the Army. Those are good s ources fo rSoutheast Asia. D. G. E. Hall has an excellent history book that coversthose sorts of things, but those are abso lutely basic to going in.

As far as UN peacekeeping specific-type things, the British have, as Isaid before, a handbook on peacekeeping operations. It's excellent. It

describes mos t of the reports that would be necessary and wh at goes intothose reports. That should be studied as much as possible. There aresome other handbooks. I know the Nordic countries also have a

handbook for UN peacekeeping forces that gives yo u some idea of what'srequired.

Finally, the training that should be given. I think that peacekeepersneed to be trained in how to handle both factions in a threatening

situation and also civilian personnel. W e took badly wo unded civilians

14



and faction personnel to the hospitals almost daily because of the mineincidents. If at all possible, the personnel sh ould receive at least arefresher on lifesaving techniques. Of the Australians, at least oneperson on each of the three-man communications teams had receivedsome major lifesaving training, and they were about the same as one ofour combat lifesavers within a maneuver unit.

I think one of the other things is that people need to know how tosurvive in a strange environment, and that doesn't mean packing awayenough MREs to last you through six months. I say that for a couple ofreasons. First off, if all you do is eat MREs, you will not have a chance tointeract with the local people, and that, at least in a Southeast Asianenvironment, is essential. Sitting down and breaking bread, having mealswith these people, is a very very important part of the culture. You needto do that. In some areas, quite literally if you don't, if you aren't able to

eat local foods, then you will no t survive. There aren't other sources ofsupply, and believe me, UN sources of supply for us were woefullyinadequate. This can present a problem. One French police officer thatwas sent out to the Cambodia-Vietnam border broke down an d startedcrying, and three weeks later, they had to evacuate him. He was apsychological mess, just because of being in an extremely strangeenvironment. He could not cope with that at all, and they had to pullhim. Those sorts of things, I think, are absolutely necessary. One of thethings I think yo u should orient U.S. peacekeepers to is the fact that ifthey work with other foreign nationals, they are going to be frustratedabout 75 percent of the time, because we have a much different work

ethic than many other nations. Where we try to get things done, some ofthe othe r people com ing in do not have that o rientation.

Dr. B rown: Talking about frustrations, you expressed som e of these, Ibelieve, wh en you talked about lessons learned. W hat were yourpersonal frustrations during your mission?

Major Steuber: I think one of the first ones was the complete lack ofpreparation that the UN mission displayed when the observers, or ratherliaison officers, initially arrived in Cambodia. An advance team w ent inon 9 November, and w e, the liaison officers, arrived in Cambodia on the

9th of December. During that one month, there'd been very little done

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to prepare the way for us, and this after a couple of initial fact-findingmissions and a reconnaissance had been done by other U N teams. Whenwe got to Pnom Penh, the liaison officers were there from 9 Decemberuntil we started our deployment to the remote sites on the 20th ofDecember. U N headquarters moved three times within Pnom Penhduring that period of time, because the civilians and the military side ofthe UN mission couldn't agree on where the site should be and whoshould have what size office space and that sort of thing. That's

extremely frustrating. W e were deployed to the U N remote sites withoutever having been told wh at our mission was. Aside from deploying, wewere supposed to establish liaison with the faction mem bers. W e had noSOPs; we had never seen a copy of the Paris agreement that wasgoverning all the things we were supposed to do on our actual mission fo rUNAMIC-UNTAC. The draft form did not get into country till the 3d of

February, so we were kept in the dark, to say the least.W e were deployed to our remote teams sites without maps. I did not

have a map, aside from a 1:1,000,000 flight map. I did not have a mapthat covered my own team location or my area responsibility for the teamor for the Khmer People's National Liberation Armed Forces. That alsowas horribly frustrating. W hat I did was, I went to the KPN LAFheadquarters; I borrow ed their 1:50,000 maps , wh ich were about 20 yearsold; I took them across the border into Thailand and xeroxed off themaps and then glued them together to provide my own maps. Becausethese were 20 years old and the terrain had changed, roads had

disappeared, villages had sprung up, other villages had been v acated andhad literally become jungle again, the maps were of not much use.However, we also had, because of the foresight of the Marine officercoming over, he brought one Magellan and one Trimpack globalpositioning system receiver. I had the Trimpack, and it was absolutelyinvaluable in going out and locating positions and that sort of thing. So ,no t having maps was initially frus trating .

We thought that that would be cured soon, when I went from Team

Delta's location, th e Thai border, down to Pnom Penh. After tw omonths , we still had not received map s of the team location. I got down

to UNAMIC headquarters, and because the chief of staff of theheadquarters did not speak either French or English, he only spoke

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Polish, I couldn't speak to him. So I grabbed hold of the chief ofoperations and asked him why, in two months time, after repeated

requests, both by radio, by satellite communications, and by message, wehad not received maps. He could give m e absolutely no reason why. I

went to the local market and purchased, on the black market, all themaps that I needed after jus t one visit and, in fact, wh en I went back andthrew them on the chief of ops' desk, I was then given $1,600, and I wentdown to the black market and purchased enough m aps to s upply all theteams with at least tw o sets. Why I could do that and he couldn't do thatin two mon ths period of time, I'm not sure. Th e market w as less th an ahalf mile away from the headquarters.

This points to the UN bu reaucracy. It was horribly frus trating. U Ncivilians and, unf ortunately, a lot of the military U N personnel that comefrom other countries are there to make money. They could give a damn

about the U N m ission. Th e UN civilians were mo re interested in makingsure that their subsistence allowance was increased and they had plentyof time of f rather th an having to accomplish any sort of a mission. They'dget to the headquarters at 9 o'clock and they'd leave at 5 o'clock everyday, and you would not see them. We were deployed to our remotelocations on the 22d of December. After being deployed, th e deputycommander of the UN AMIC went back to Indonesia for the holidays.All of the senior UN civilian personnel went either back to their homecountries or Thailand for the holidays. And, in fact, the UNAMICmission ground to a halt, because there was absolutely nobody in PnomPenh to make any sorts of operational decisions.

This, in spite of the fact that the team that went into the NADK, orKh me r Rou ge site, was literally und er h ouse arrest. They could not leavethe building without being under armed Khm er Rouge guard. Th eKh mer R ouge wou ld not allow any helicopters to come in to provideresupply or anything of that nature. The Khmer Rouge refused to allowthe United Nations personnel to have any contact with any otherCambodians in their area. Th e U N perso nnel were literally forced to doeverything, wash clothes, prepare their ow n food, all those sorts of things,by themselves, in addition to being kept literally under house arrest.

That was very frustrating. So just working with a U N organization isfrustrating because there is no accountability.

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though t, they were unconvinced, that the Kh mer R ouge w as really tryingto block this process. I don't know how much m ore explicit you could bewhen th e Khmer Rouge's division commander comes up on the radioand tells you that he will kill you, meaning yo ur U N team, if you come

into his area. If that isn't blocking the UN mission, I don't know what is .The State Department reports kept going back to Washington, D.C.,even after Lieutenant Colonel Russell Stuart from Australia was shot inFebruary, that was a direct attack on a UN helicopter, and my team wastaken under fire on numerous occasions. On the 4th of May, th e KhmerRouge launched a major offense operation in Kamp ong Thorn Province,northeastern Kampong Thorn Province, th e second major offensivethey'd launched in Kampong Thorn Province since February. That wasreally frustrating.

Also, even though I made repeated requests through both the U.S.

Special Mission in Cambodia and the U.S. Defense Attache Office inThailand for map support, the United States did not release maps to theU N . I was rather f rustrated by the lack of U.S. support for a mission thatwe're paying about a billion dollars to accomplish over the period of thenext couple of years.

Dr. Brown: I know that yo u spoke with th e chief of staff when he washere at CGSC a couple of weeks ago. W hat did the chief of staff ask youabout yo ur experiences in Cambodia?

Major Steuber: I think most of your questions have covered wh at th e

chief of staff asked. He asked me specifically wh at my background wasand how I was selected. He asked me about the m issions and thestructure of the UN force there and some of my frustrations. And heasked me to focus on the training, as we've already discussed, for UNpersonnel going in there. What I think is important is that th e United

States is probably going to get involved in military peacekeepingoperations on a mu ch larger scale in the future, and I very firmly believe

that if the U.S. military is going to be involved tha t we develop a doctrinethat will sup port thos e peacekeeping operations and tha t we then devoteth e necessary assets to personnel that are assigned to those peacekeepingmissions.

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that was in Battambang was literally seconds away from calling for arescue operation from UN headquarters in Pnom Penh, when all of asudden, they noticed that in fact nobody was shooting at them and/oranything else. It was the Cam bodian soldiers firing in th e air to make the

wind stop. That happens through out the country. They use all sorts oftalismans, charms, and all sorts of things to avoid being killed. Mos t ofth e soldiers that I encountered had distinctive tatoos al l over their bodiesas charms to keep bullets from penetrating or from killing them, and ifthey were wounded, to make sure that it wasn't a life-threatening wound.

UN peacekeepers are cast in a much different role from traditionalmilitary in Cambodia. One of my KPNLAF colonels came in one day,and we were discussing how difficult it was for eleven infantry battalionsto literally take military control of a country. He p ointed o ut that oneU N soldier was worth a thousand Khmer, because the UN soldiers

brought something that no Khm er soldier had ever brought, and that waspeace. Khmer soldiers only brought fighting and death to Cambodia,whereas th e U nited Nations came bearing peace. During operations innorthwestern Kampong Thorn, we went into th e area on areconnaissance; we went in unarmed. W hen we went in on thatreconnaissance, we literally were met by thousands of Cambodiancivilians as well as military personnel from all four factions. The civilianswere begging us to stay there, because they felt that if so much as onewhite vehicle or one blue-bereted military person was there, that th efighting would stop. In fact, once we finished that reconnaissancethrough there, we went from daily multiple violations of the

cease-fire— with artillery, rockets, small arms, autom atic weapons, RPGs ,and the full gamut of weapons systems available— to no incidents. There

are a couple of things that could've contributed to that, but I think it'simportant to recognize that there really and seriously was another side tothe acceptance the Cambodians gave to the U nited N ations people beingthere. W e were not Cambodian military; we brought peace no t war. Ithink that was important.

I think one other thing that really came out quite vividly was that wemust not und erestimate the popular support th at the Khmer Rouge havewithin Cambodia. I could not go into a region in Kampong ThornProvince where Khmer Rouge were not readily accepted by the civilian

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populace. Maybe not all of them, but there was always some supportthere. In the areas that were absolutely under their control, they hadestablished a very wide base of operations and popular support. They're

able to do that because th e Khmer Rouge have focused on an ethnic

conflict that has existed in Cambodia fo r over 500 years, and that is theconflict between ethnic Vietnamese and ethnic Cambodians. TheNADK, the Khmer Rouge, never make any announcement or sayanything unless they preface it with the fact that they are fighting againstthe Vietnamese or the lackeys of the Vietnamese, the state of Cambodiagovernment, or the Cambodian People's Armed Forces. That has stoodthem in good stead, and until that ca n be resolved, the fact that there areno longer any Vietnamese units in Cambodia and that the ethnicVietnamese in the Cambodian government pose no threat to ethnicCambodians is irrelevant. The Khm er Rouge will be able to use this fearto maintain the source of power it has.

Dr. Brown: Thank you very much Major Steuber. W e appreciate yourtime this afternoon. W e are looking forward to finishing this project andsending the transcript to General Sullivan. I will keep yo u informed ofour progress.

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US Army: brown