An Irish general is to take charge of a new 3,500-troop EU mission to protect Darfur refugees in Chad, it was announced last night.
Deputy chief-of-staff of the Irish Defence Forces Maj-Gen Pat Nash will be the operational commander of the EU mission, which is to include 350 Irish troops.
Irish cavalry, infantry, reconnaissance and possibly special forces troops will be part of the mission, a Defence Forces spokesman said last night.
Troops from France, Poland, Sweden and Belgium are also expected to join the mission, announced last week, which will aim to protect the hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the crisis in Darfur.
The EU mission will work in tandem with a UN/African Union operation.
There are about 250,000 refugees from Darfur in Chad, and camps in the area are also home to about 170,000 internally-displaced persons. Violence and the threat of further attacks is hampering attempts to help the refugees with food and emergency supplies.
Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea secured Cabinet approval for the appointment yesterday, which was to be ratified late last night by an EU committee.
From his headquarters in Paris, Maj-Gen Nash will be responsible for planning and launching the operation to Chad and the Central African Republic.
Maj-Gen Nash and a contingent of Irish troops will embark on a reconnaissance mission to Chad on October 11th ahead of the first contingent of troops who are due to be deployed in December.
Mr O'Dea said Maj-Gen Nash would manage and co-ordinate the mission, and would be the link between the operation, the EU and the UN officials.
It was a great honour for Ireland, said Mr O'Dea. "It is a recognition of the standing of the Defence Forces in the field of peace-support operations generally, and it also recognises the scale of our proposed contribution to this particular operation."
The Chad mission will complement the planned UN/African Union hybrid mission being launched by the UN in the Darfur region of Sudan by limiting the spillover potential from the conflict in Sudan.
Maj-Gen Nash, who is from Limerick, has had a long career in peacekeeping and military operations. His first overseas posting was as a troop commander in the UN force in Cyprus in 1967, and he has since worked on the EU's mission to the Balkans and was commander of the 85th Irish Infantry Battalion in UNIFIL (Lebanon) in 1999.