Cambodian soldiers to join multi-national peacekeeping exercise in Indonesia

April 22, 2009
Source: Xinhua

Cambodia plans to send 61 soldiers to join multi-national peacekeeping exercise Garuda Shield 09 in Indonesia in the near future, said the official Agence Kampuchea Presse (AKP) on Wednesday.
Details can't be given right now, AKP quoted Sem Sovanny, General of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) and Director General of the National Management Center for Peacekeeping Forces, Mine and ERW (Explosive Remnants of War) Clearance, as saying.

Meanwhile, the agency quoted U.S. Ambassador Carol A. Rodley assaying that the United States will continuously help train Cambodian soldiers for their participation in the multi-national peacekeeping exercise in Indonesia.

The United States will also sponsor Cambodia to host a multilateral peacekeeping exercise in 2010, she added.

In early April, Prak Sokhon, secretary of state at the Cambodian Council of Ministers, told reporters that 2,000 troops from 13 countries will take part in the U.S.- and UN-sponsored exercise to be held in Kompong Speu province in 2010.

The event will be conducted in the framework of the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI), an annual Capstone training event attended by GPOI member nations and other regional and international partners.

GPOI once held such exercises in Bangladesh in 2008 and Mongolia in 2007. Garuda Shield 09 in Indonesia is the upcoming GPOI serial exercise.

According to official files, Cambodia respectively sent 40 soldiers to Bangladesh and 43 to Mongolia to take part in these GPOI exercises.