Forum outlines the history and future of peacekeeping efforts in the Asia Pacific

Sep 29, 2003

Scholars, practitioners and those interested in the past, present, and future of inventing and implementing peace in a war-torn world gathered at the "Peacekeeping in the Asia Pacific" forum at the University on Wednesday 24 September.

The forum, hosted by the War and State Development Group of the Institute of Social Change and Critical Inquiry (ISCCI), was attended by former Papua New Guinea foreign affairs minister Sir John Kaputin who spoke about his experiences with peackeeping in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States.

Sir John said peackeeping was not just about resolving conflict. To be successful you also had to look at what other aspects of the development process countries were facing, otherwise we would continue to have conflicts all over the place.

Sir John was joined at the forum by East Timor specialist James Dunn who spoke about the lessons learnt from peacekeeping missions in East Timor.

Other speakers at the forum included former members of the Bougainville Peace Monitoring Group, representatives of the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and academics from the University of Wollongong.