Vol. 73/No. 35      September 14, 2009

The SAS has served in Afghanistan three times previously, as part of the U.S.-led Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force. Since 2003, the New Zealand government has also maintained a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamiyan Province, currently numbering some 140 troops. In addition, New Zealand instructors are helping train Afghan army troops and police. No New Zealand soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan.

The decision came four months after a request by the U.S. government, and after a New Zealand government review of its role in Afghanistan. New Zealand’s rulers had hesitated over stepping up their involvement in the war.

In announcing the deployment, the New Zealand Herald reported Prime Minister John Key saying that New Zealand had to “play its part in combating the breeding grounds for terrorism.” The agreement was conditional on an “exit strategy” under which all New Zealand troops would be withdrawn in five years and replaced by civilians working in health, education, agriculture, and police training, he said. Diplomatic links with Kabul would also be strengthened.

Key had refused an earlier request from the U.S. military for the SAS to be assigned to training and fighting with the Afghan army, stating that it would be “particularly dangerous.”

In an August 12 editorial, the Herald called such caveats “unrealistic.” The government’s “half-hearted contribution” places New Zealand in “similar territory to countries such as Germany and France,” it said, “which have refused to let their forces be deployed in Helmand province, the Taleban stronghold.” The editorial added that for the United States the “fair-weather approach of some of their European allies did nothing to prevent the fundamentalists’ resurgence.”

The opposition Labour Party, which organized the three previous deployments of the SAS to Afghanistan, now opposes the current one. Labour leader Philip Goff accused the prime minister of caving in to “overt” U.S. pressure.

On August 21, following a leaders’ summit, Key and his counterpart, Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, announced plans to set up a joint rapid response military force. This would be part of stepped-up ties between the Australian and New Zealand military, which have historically close links in training, equipment, and military interventions. Rudd recently announced the deployment of an extra 450 Australian troops to Afghanistan, joining 1,100 already there.

There are currently 717 New Zealand troops in 10 countries around the world. Over half of these are on active military assignment, mainly in Timor-Leste, Afghanistan, and the Solomon Islands.

New Zealand soldiers were also part of the U.S.-led imperialist forces in Iraq. From 2003 to 2004, under British command, 61 New Zealand army engineers were stationed in Basra.
 
 
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