Military Humanitarian Assistance to Civilian Populations in Times of Conflict - The Czech Experience
Abstract
Introduction From the late 1990s, the Czech Military Medical Services have been involved in providing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population in different countries which suffered either natural disasters (earthquakes-Turkey, Pakistan) or ethnic/military conflict (Serbia and Monte Negro/Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan). These deployments were a completely new phenomenon for the armed forces of a former Warsaw Pact country.
Any mission outside home-territory was not possible under the then prevailing doctrine. At the end of the Cold War era, substantial changes in the doctrine of our military forces took place.
This is what allowed the Military Medical Services to “pave the way” in providing disaster relief and humanitarian aid in missions outside the Czech Republic. Indeed, having the personnel and material resources available, it was also felt that the active involvement of the military in some non-military situations might be an effective and, sometimes, requisite crisis-response.
An overview of recent deployments of the Czech Military Medical Services is shown in Table 1.