Hungarian Peacekeepers' Experiences in Africa: Angola and Uganda

Abstract

In the early 1990s, with the end of the Cold War, more and more opportunities opened up for those serving in the Hungarian Armed Forces to serve as peacekeepers in countries where they had not even been allowed to travel before. Our soldiers traveled to peacekeeping missions operated by the UN for a year, serving in a given operation throughout. There were no exceptions or deviations from this. Lieutenant Colonel Viktor Makay, mentioned in my article, was in a special position in this respect, as he served in two UN missions—geographically distant from each other—during the same year. One operation was the UN Second Angola Verification Mission, and the second was the UN Uganda-Rwanda Observation Mission. Before I describe the experiences of Hungarian peacekeeping, I will present the antecedents of the two missions.