Fiji puts own soldiers' lives in peril in Golan Heights

8/7/2013

By MICHAEL FIELD

In a startling amateur fashion Fiji’s military regime has put its own peacekeeping soldiers in grave peril by revealing which side of the Syrian conflict they support.

The revelation comes in an inept story on state Fiji Broadcasting which has Russia promising the 500 Fijian soldiers on the Golan Heights full support in Syria. Russia backs and arms the Bashar Hafez al-Assad regime which is being opposed by an array of rebel groups. Much of the Golan Heights is under rebel control and they will now learn, via Fiji Broadcasting’s Internet site, that the Fijians are with the Russians.

The Fiji Broadcasting story says Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medevdev has endorsed and promised assistance to Fijian troops in the Golan Heights.This was confirmed by Fiji coup leader Voreqe Bainimarama in the Solomon Islands, and a week after his visit to Moscow to watch the Rugby Sevens World Cup. Bainimarama thanked the Russian government for the support.

Russia says it stands by Fiji. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, a strong backer of the Assad regime, singled out Fiji's contribution to United Nations peacekeeping efforts and the recent deployment of the first 182 Fijian troops in the Golan Heights as an example of Fiji's continuing commitment to engage with the international community.

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21 Comments

Flag Fiji

8/7/2013 04:38:15 am

Who owns and edits Fijileaks? Why is this anti-regime journo Michael Field here? We know he was deported, like Russell Hunter and others - is there a conspiracy or meeting of anti-regime minds?

Democracy Defender

8/7/2013 07:20:14 am

Flag Fiji,
Who are you? Why don't you disclose your own identity first. Michael Field and Russell Hunter have put their names to the stories. Are you from the military camp? If so, go back to the barracks before we chase you all into the sea. Egypt beckons Fiji, and you cassava patch commander is looking over the shoulders

FIJIAN

8/7/2013 11:21:44 pm

@ DEMOCRACY DEFENDER; trying to chase the RFMF into the sea will be like those Syrian youths taking pot shots at their army. The similarities end there. They will get their GRAPES from the Israelis whilst you are swimming.

steetheman

31/8/2014 10:59:56 pm

Democracy Defender. Please follow the line of arguments and make critical analysis of that piece of journalism by Field,. its just cheap writing nothing substantial. Lack basic facts substance, just amateur thinking. How can you defend democracy in a comment like that. You very emotional and irrational... Very poor journalism. Just don't defend what you don't know....

Ululala

9/7/2013 01:41:45 pm

@Flag Fiji - what is your problem with MICHAEL FIELD...
He is updating us Fiji Citizen on facts while u and your dictator have control of Fiji Media.. -- full of crap

Field has no experience

8/7/2013 01:42:12 pm

The Golan Heights is not under rebel control.

It is under Syrian army control on the Syrian side of the line and under Israeli control on the Israeli side of the line.

The UN sits in a buffer zone between the Israeli line and the Syrian line, and it is this buffer zone which has been infiltrated by the Syrian militia's.

The US supplied the RFMF with logistics in the southern Lebanon when 1st FIR was deployed there, but that didn't make any impression on the Amal or the Hizballah at all.

Relationships between the Amal and Hizballah and the RFMF during that period were close because the youths who joined Hizbollah mainly came from areas of the Iron triangle where the RFMF had been deployed since 1978.

Kids who were 3 years old when the RFMF first deployed there in 1978 knew Fijian soldiers on a name to name basis and some of them even learnt to speak Fijian. When the grew up and joined the Amal and then later on Hizballah they still had their relationships with the RFMF, so when the RFMF asked them not to engage in operations within the RFMF areas of operations they invariably took heed because of those relationships.

Their families had close relations with Fijian soldiers and trusted Fijian soldiers.

When the Iranians first came to southern Lebanon they used Pasdaran guys who had no relationship with the RFMF and they attacked RFMF positions and used locations close to RFMF areas to launch mortar attacks against Israeli positions, but eventually the local cadres of Hizbollah took over and they stopped operations in RFMF areas because of that relationship. When the RFMF asked them to take their operations away they did so.

What Field does not know is that those operations are as much about personal relationships as they are about professional engagement.

Field needs to go and see the ground

8/7/2013 01:52:17 pm

The militias in the UN zone are mainly from the settlements and villages of the Golan.

Their villages and settlements are known to the Syrian Army and they are not able to escape over the border into Israeli territory so they move into the UN border zone because they understand that in that zone the Syrian Army is loathe try any operations because it will put the Israeli's on the alert and it can go wrong very quickly. A stray Syrian mortar fired at Syrian militia and accidently landing on an Israeli position and killing IDF personnel can create a major crisis.

That is why the UN has tasked the RFMF with clearing that area off Syran militia. And that is why the RFMF has gone with heaver infantry weaponry then what the other contingents have hitherto been allowed to carry in that zone.

The UN observers in the zone have been limited to carrying pistols. They have not been allowed to carry assault rifles, mortars, squad weapons (eg Minimi, GPMG, 50 cal Browning) etc etc etc. That is why they have been unable to maintain the stability of that territory and why the Syrians had to deploy last month to take back positions at the border which the militias had captured.

no trust

9/7/2013 08:51:13 am

what a pity the Fijian people cannot place the same trust on their own soldiers....stop justifying this invasion and the noble Fijian soldier...he is just a thug looking for a fight to suppress innocent unarmed civilians at home

Reality

8/7/2013 02:03:44 pm

Those militia's in the Golan are mainly disaffected youths from the settlements and villages of the area. They are not trained cadres or professional military units. They are young men who have simply "found a vocation" carrying arms and going around in the UN zone where the Syrian army is loathe to enter and from the UN zone take pot shots at the Syrian army.

However what they are doing has the potential to escalate into a wider regional conflict because if it gets too hot the Israeli's will enter onto Syrian territory and that will mean for those young men a whole new ball game. Their villages will come under Israeli military scrutiny with all the associated realities of war associated with that. It will be very different to Syrian military operations because an Israeli interventions means only one thing, military encampments and the wholesale subjugation of that area to an Israeli military command.

Life will change. Those young men will then come to understand what it was like in southern Lebanon for the Shiites during Operation Grapes of Wrath 1 and later on 2.

For their part the Israeli's have been preparing their Golani brigades for operations aimed at moving into that region of Syria. Just this last week the Golani Brigade had a massive exercise in preparation for an intervention. Both the Israeli PM and Minister for Defence were present at that exercise.

This is why the UN needs that area stabalised. It is as much in the interests of the Syrian youths who are running around taking pot shots at their army as it is about wider regional geopolitics.

Ulu Simede

8/7/2013 05:37:52 pm

reality et al boci
do you know how to read moron?
field is talking about international relations ,,,,who gives a rats arse about your ulukau memories of lebanon ??

peace

18/8/2013 12:27:58 am

history determines the future..in other words know your facts first..:)

what international relations ?

8/7/2013 06:06:32 pm

The article talks about an "array of rebel groups" lined up against Syria and suggests that the RFMF deployment "is in support of Syria" because the Russians are some how involved in providing logistics ?

Well, the Russians as well as the Yanks sit on the Security Council under whose mandate this deployment has been granted in order to secure that buffer zone between Israel and Syria so that it is free of weapons and militias and avoid the creation of an unstable zone along that border, which may lead to an Israeli invasion of Syria and widen the conflict as it did along the southern Lebanese border in the1980's when the PLO did very much the same as what these militias are now attempting to do on the Golan.

The net result was the Israeli's entered the fray and proceeded to chase the PLO all the way to Beirut and then to Tunisia. Then the Israeli command established a "military province" in southern Lebanon in order to protect its northern flanks.

If that area of the UN buffer zone is not stablised (which is what the RFMF's mission is all about) then the prospects for the broader region of that south western Syrian province is bleak indeed.

And the young guys who are running around thinking that its fun playing cowboys and indians with their own Syrian army will decry the day their villages and settlements (and their families) come under the yoke of Israeli occupation, because its nasty and its brutal and you don't want to be on the end of a Merkava barrel or an Israeli F18 strafing your village from the sky.

So what international relations is Field on about ?

ULULALA

9/7/2013 01:45:56 pm

Kemudou na mataivalu comment tiko mai qo sa sega na caka2X...
GET THE FUCK OFF FROM THIS SITE!!!!

peace

18/8/2013 12:26:08 am

@ululala iko sa varaitaki iko saraga mai>>>immature..this is a blog...you can comment on whatever!!!

Isa ululala

9/7/2013 05:45:33 pm

Ke sa sega a cakacaka ia me lai vala a tei tapi.

A qele ka bini tu koa.

Sa veigasau mai a vanua veidovu ka sa vakalesui ka mai vala tiko ga a blog kei na veikai ?

Kemudou....

Au Loloma ni lala na bula

3/8/2013 10:05:22 pm

Na cava o sa bau rawata, etukuni ni sega na qele mai nomudou vanua sa mai sinai kina ko Viti Levu. Sega na caka2 nisega ga ni o vakabauti ni ko tamata vucesa.
A qele ka bini tu koa. Isa sa bau vica mada o sa saumi ira me ra laki tea na kemu Tapi. vakaloloma na nomu rai kei na loma ca. Ocei mena dokai iko nomu vosa ca tiko ena web.

peace

18/8/2013 12:32:16 am

Agreed!!!

ululala

10/7/2013 02:31:40 pm

mirror mirror on the Wall

failed ululala

10/7/2013 08:48:13 pm

1000 now deployed to missions all over the world, and more being sought by UN.

No mirror my friend, more jobs starting to roll in now. And its overwhelming. And money follows the jobs.

God is restoring what was attacked by the spiteful sanctions.

The sanctions have failed.

peace

18/8/2013 12:37:29 am

this article ...well let fijians deal with matters of fijians..michael field go find another story

steetheman

31/8/2014 10:49:17 pm

M Field is trying to find a job and publicity after being kick out of USP.....his lack of knowledge of basic facts of the issue and history, is sad portrait of low cheap unprofessionalism ambulance chaser journalism....bitterness follows him after been removed from here...all those who appreciate his irrational unprofessional and immature comments share the same bitterness.

Fiji puts own soldiers' lives in peril in Golan Heights

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