TONGA: Second military contingent headed to Iraq
Updated
A second contingent of Tongan soldiers is being deployed to Iraq to help guard the headquarters of the US led Coalition forces near Baghdad International Airport. The 55 soldiers, who are part of Tonga's 450-strong Defence Services, are all volunteers for the mission. It's three years since the first contingent of Tongan Marines was sent on a similar mission, to help guard a US Marine Corps base in Anbar Province. The new group leave Tonga on Saturday; they'll spend a fortnight training in the United States before leaving for Iraq.
Presenter: Bruce Hill
Speakers: Tonga's Information Minister, Afu'alo Matoto
MATOTO: It's not only a show of solidarity fighting against terrorism as such, but also the people in the army feel that unless they are engaged in some activities which are related to actual soldiering and so on, they are not much better than ordinary civilians.
HILL: Tonga's a very small country with a very small military, what really could you contribute to Iraq though? Isn't this deployment really more symbolic?
MATOTO: It's not so much the contribution to Iraq, but in terms of our own people it's the experience they get out of the situation. And they have looked at it, it's fairly safe, the people are not exposed to any of the more dangerous activities in Iraq. At the same time in terms of operating with other forces they get training assistance and other forms of assistance from bigger countries.
HILL: The war in Iraq is controversial round the world and certainly doesn't even have majority support in the United States, which is the country mainly fighting that war. Is this deployment of Tongan soldiers going to be popular with the Tongan people do you think? Or do you think there might be some opposition?
MATOTO: I think there will be some opposition but so far nothing has been raised at this stage. There was a lot of opposition to the first contingent that went in 2004, but with regards to this one we haven't seen a lot of opposition, but I think there will be. I have no doubts; it's just like anywhere else.
HILL: Did this deployment result from a request from the United States government or did the Tongan government volunteer this?
MATOTO: This deployment is the result of an arrangement between the US government and the Tongan government. As I have mentioned earlier Tonga feels that it can benefit from this deployment and basically I think if there was no benefit to Tonga maybe Tonga may not have made this deployment.
HILL: How dangerous is this deployment likely to be? Is it possible that a Tongan soldier or soldiers may come back in a body bag?
MATOTO: There's always danger everywhere and people could even be killed or maimed regardless of where you are. But in this particular instance our people have looked at this situation and as far as they're concerned it's a very safe arrangement, the Tongan men will not be deployed anywhere where they are exposed great risk in terms of say patrolling or anything like that. They will be just deployed within this particular perimeter.
HILL: Did politics play any role in this decision, Tonga's need to ally itself more closely with the United States?
MATOTO: Well I mean there's always politics in these kind of decisions, but I think in this particular instance it was more military more than any other, more than politics.
