The South Asia Peace Keeping Operations Gaming Seminar, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations, was held at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from September 23 to 28.

The event was co-sponsored by the Bang-ladesh Army and the United States Army Pacific. A total of 45 representatives from 17 countries participated, including Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, India, Japan, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Nepal, New Zealand, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Sri-Lanka, Thailand and the United States. The participants were drawn from civilian police, ministries of foreign affairs and militaries.

The seminar format was in the form of a game. A game offers participants a structure from which they can extract particular issues and make specific recommendations because they are given thorough details about an event in time and place. This allows for greater in-depth dialogue and more meaningful exchanges over purely abstract discussion. In addition, ideas can be tested out and experimentation performed without costly errors. A game assists in the formation of approaches and the develop-ment of processes that are finely tuned for use in future command post exercises.

In addition to planned moves of the game, presentations were made to enhance the partici-pants understanding and to provide base know-ledge of particular topics, such as training provided by the United Nations for peace missions and the transitions typical of peace operations. A sup-plemental presentation was given on the Asia Pacific Advanced Network, an website established on 3 June 1997 for research and development in advanced networking application and services in the Asia-Pacific.

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