Civil-Military Relations in Armed Conflicts:
A Humanitarian Perspective
Manuel Bessler is the Chief of the Promotion of the Humanitarian Agenda Unit in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) at the United Nations in New York. Between 1991 and 1999 he worked for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in different field missions, including as Legal Advisor and Head of Sub-Delegation in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories; Liaison and Information Delegate in Haiti; Head of Mission in Chechnya; and Head of Delegation in Iraq. Before his work with the ICRC he practiced law in Zurich, Switzerland. He holds degrees from the University of Zurich and Harvard Law School.

Kaoruko Seki works on civil-military relations at the United Nations in New York, with the Policy Branch of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Prior to this, she served as OCHA’s Desk Officer for 12 countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe. She also worked with UNHCR in the Balkans; with UNICEF as a Project Coordinator for Afghanistan; and served in three UN peacekeeping missions: ONUMOZ (Mozambique), UNOMIL (Liberia), and UNMIK (Kosovo). In the wake of the Indian Ocean Tsunami disaster, she served as a UN Civil-Military Coordination Officer in Thailand, liaising with the Combined Support Force 536. She has lectured and researched on international law and security, including as a Fulbright Scholar and as a New Century Scholar in Japan, Netherlands, UK, and USA.

The Threat of Pandemic Infuenza
Rear Admiral Robert D. Hufstader Jr., U.S. Navy, has been the Command Surgeon, U.S. Pacific Command, since September 2004. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1962, serving as a Hospital Corpsman. He attended the University of California, Irvine, and completed medical school at the University of California, San Francisco in 1974. He has also received a Master of Medical Management degree from Tulane University. RADM Hufstader’s Navy medical career has included assignments at multiple medical centers, hospitals, and clinics, as well as aboard ship. He has held numerous command posts, and received several commendations and awards.

Volcanic Hazard in the 21st Century:
An Asian-Pacific Perspective
Bruce F. Houghton is the Hawaii State Volcanologist and Gordon A. Macdonald Professor of Volcanology at University of Hawaii at Manoa. Prior to 2000, he was the chief volcanologist for the New Zealand Government. He is the author of 150 scientific papers and an editor of the Encyclopedia of Volcanoes.

Chris E. Gregg is an Assistant Professor at Eastern Tennessee State University. He completed his PhD in 2005 at University of Hawaii at Manoa studying the public perceptions of natural hazards in the State of Hawaii. Six papers from this study are already published or in press.

Malin Klawonn holds a Fulbright Scholarship in the Department of Geology & Geophysics at University of Hawaii. She is an undergraduate studying fulltime at the Institute of Geophysics in the University of Hamburg in Germany.

Peace Operations in the Solomon Islands:
The Military in Support of Other Agencies
Lieutenant Colonel John Frewen is an Australian Infantry officer who has commanded at platoon, company, and battalion level. He has enjoyed exchange postings with the New Zealand and U.S. Armies and served with the UN in Rwanda. In July 2003, he led the regional military intervention in support of the reestablishment of law and order in the Solomon Islands. This force comprised 1,800 troops from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and Tonga.

Humanitarian Efforts in the Face of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic: Lopburi, Thailand
CDR Scott Giberson is the Senior Medical Program Officer at COE, overseeing its medical and public health programs. He leads the collaborative DOD programs of the Joint Regional Training Center (Bangkok, Thailand), the only regional military medical HIV/AIDS training center in the world, where he has served as a lead faculty member and for which he has developed HIV/AIDS curriculum. He has trained more than 250 military medical providers from 22 countries. CDR Giberson has oversight with multiple HIV bilateral programs including Vietnam, India, and Papua New Guinea, as well as initiatives in the area of pandemic influenza.

CPT Paul Faestel is an internal medicine physician at the Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu, Hawaii and is a graduate of the Uniformed Services University School of Medicine. He is currently inpatient medical director and the Lipid Clinic medical consultant. Active interests include disease prevention and health promotion.

Civil-Military Coordination from a United Nations Joint Logistics Centre (UNJLC) Perspective
Wilfried de Brouwer: Following retirement from the Belgian Air Force in 1996, after a career which included service as Deputy Chief of Staff, Wilfried de Brouwer has served as an advisor on civil-military liaison matters to the UN’s Office for Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs, World Food Programme, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and UNJLC. One of the original founding members of UNJLC, Mr. de Brouwer is among the most experienced senior civil-military advisors in the United Nations humanitarian community.

Brian Isbell: After completing a full career in the British Army – as a combat engineer and occasional logistician – Brian Isbell started working for UNJLC in the immediate aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Initially deployed as a UNJLC liaison officer with CSF-536 in Utapao, Thailand, he later deployed to Indonesia, filling a number of posts involving civil-military liaison. Since mid-October 2005, he has been undertaking a similar role in Pakistan following the 8 October Kashmir earthquake.

Elizabeth Petrovski was deployed on mission in Indonesia as an Information Officer with the United Nations Joint Logistics Centre from March through October 2005. Ms. Petrovski has had previous consultancies with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and in the private sector and has taught at The American University of Rome. She currently lives in Rome, Italy.

Saving Lives & Delivering Hope: Singapore Armed Forces’ Involvement in Tsunami Relief Operation
LTC Leonard Tan is currently Head of Civil Military Relations Centre, Headquarters Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC). He participated in the Tsunami Relief Ops (Aceh) as Deputy Director, Civil Military Relations, SAF Contingent to co-ordinate the humanitarian relief efforts from Medan to Meulaboh and Banda Aceh. He also headed the civil-military delegate in Exercise Cobra Gold, Multinational Force Planning and Augmentation Team (MPAT), and ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on Civil Military Operations. LTC Tan is a graduate of Singapore Command and Staff College and has held various command and staff appointments in the Battalion and Brigade prior to assuming the current appointment.

Operation Unified Assistance — A Singapore
Liaison Officer’s Perspective
Colonel Mark C.K Koh was commissioned as a Field Artillery officer in the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF). He previously commanded a Divisional Artillery HQ and the Army’s Supply & Transport Formation. He has also served in the Army’s General Staff, the SAF Joint Operations Department, and the UN Peacekeeping Force in East Timor. COL KOH attended command & staff courses in the UK, Singapore, and Indonesia. He has a Master of Business Administration from the University of Western Australia.

What We Have Here is a Failure to Coordinate: Lessons Learned Problems Observed in the Response to the Tsunami
Joel Selanikio, MD, is President and co-founder of The DataDyne Group, a small consultancy bringing the best applicable information technologies to support public health in developing countries. A former CDC medical officer, Dr. Selanikio is a pioneer in the use of handheld computers for field data collection. He has also served as medical director at COE. Working with the World Bank and the UN Foundation, he is currently developing public-domain software to support development organizations and health ministries in data collection, analysis, and distribution. Dr. Selanikio maintains clinical medical competence as an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University Hospital.

The Australian Government’s Response to the Indian Ocean Tsunami
Alan March is AusAID’s Humanitarian Coordinator responsible for the program’s humanitarian and disaster planning, coordination, and response. He is responsiblefor responses to cyclones and natural disasters in South East Asia and the Pacific. Alan was the head of AusAID’s Indian Ocean Tsunami Taskforce from January-March 2005 overseeing Australia’s $68 million in immediate humanitarian assistance for tsunami-affected countries.

Guarding Against Tsunamis: The Challenge of Building Preparedness at the National and Local Levels
Laura Kong has been the ITIC Director since 2001. She oversees a Centre that is an integral part of the IOC’s efforts to deploy tsunami warning and mitigation systems globally. Dr. Kong also sits on the U.S. National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program’s Steering Committee, and is the former Chair
of the Hawaii State Earthquake Advisory Committee. She is a graduate of Brown University and received her doctorate in 1990 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Planning for Mental Health Needs in Large-Scale Natural Disasters
Thomas Ditzler, MD is Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry at Tripler Army Medical Center and a member of the adjunct faculty at the COE. He has completed many humanitarian aid training missions around the world, and consults frequently on disaster mental health. He is a member of the Editorial Board of The Australasian Journal of Human Security, and a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Toda Institute for Global Peace and Policy Research.

Insights on the ASEAN Regional Forum’s Disaster Management Efforts, from the ASEAN Secretariat
Adelina Kamal currently serves as the Senior Officer, Environment and Disaster Management, Bureau for Resources Development of the ASEAN Secretariat. She coordinates, monitors, and provides support for the planning, implementation, and monitoring of ASEAN’s policies, programmes, and project activities in the above two areas of cooperation. Contact: lina@aseansec.org

September 2005, ASEAN Regional Forum Workshop
Lieutenant Colonel Mark Plath currently serves as the Principal Staff Officer, Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC), Deployable Joint Force Headquarters, Brisbane, Australia. He has a strong professional interest in developing the emerging CIMIC capability within the Australian Defence Force, attending the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Workshop as one of the Australian Defence Force delegates. Contact: Mark.Plath@defence.gov.au

Multinational Crisis Response in the Asia-Pacific Region: The Multinational Planning Augmentation Team Model
Commander Scott Weidie joined the Navy after graduating from Millsaps College (1985). He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (1993) and Joint Forces Staff College (2000). He has served in aviation squadrons, aboard ship, and deployed to the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. He is on the staff of U.S. Pacific Command as the Multinational Planning Augmentation Team Officer. CDR Weidie served as Assistant Director of the Combined Coordination Center for Operation UNIFIED ASSISTANCE.

Caring for the Caregiver: A New Initiative in NGO Security Management Training
Charles Rogers serves as Director of Corporate Security for World Vision International. He has been active in international humanitarian aid work for more than 25 years, beginning with programs in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. In the late 80s Mr. Rogers directed World Vision’s response to the victims of the Balkan wars, delivering aid to internally displaced people in Croatia and Bosnia. He initiated World Vision’s Children of Chernobyl project, bringing medical aid to adolescent victims of the 1988 Chernobyl disaster. In 1995 Mr. Rogers established World Vision’s Corporate Security program, which is widely acknowledged as a leader in International NGO security management.

The Self Defense Forces Overseas: Japan’s Lessons from the Indian Ocean Tsunami Assistance
Go Ito is an associate professor of international relations, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Ito is one of Japan’s leading experts on national
and international security studies, and was chosen as an Eisenhower fellow (http://eisenhowerfellowships.org) in 2005. His recent publications include: Alliance in Anxiety (New York: Routledge, 2003), and “Leadership in Bandwagon,” Policy and Society, 23-1 (University of Sydney Press, 2004).

Kazuyuki Sasaki is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Political Science, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan. He worked for Japan’s Embassy in Norway, and has become an expert on Japan’s disaster management policy. He is about to complete his doctoral dissertation about the relationship between Japan’s central and local governments in emergency management.

RedR Australia’s Training Programmes
Le Phan Ba Thanh is the Humanitarian Training Manger for RedR Australia. Thanh manages the provision of training to humanitarian workers in the areas of: preparation for humanitarian work; security for humanitarian workers; technical areas such as Logistics and Core technical sectors in emergencies – water and sanitation, health, food and nutrition, shelters, and sites planning and emergencies assessment; and Civil-Military coordination. RedR Australia is primarily funded by AusAID (the Australian Government Agency for International Development). The mission of the RedR Australia Training Team is to train and support people so that they can undertake their humanitarian work competently, ethically, and safely.

Civil-Military Coordination in Disaster Management: Philippine Perspective
MGEN Glenn J. Rabonza (Ret.) served in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for more than 38 years, occupying major command and staff posts. MGEN Rabonza was Foreign Service officer at the Philippine Embassy in Singapore and Defense and Armed Forces Attaché to Thailand and to Myanmar. Other posts held include Commander of the Presidential Security Group and the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, J-2, of the AFP. Upon his retirement from the AFP, MGEN Rabonza was appointed Chief Operations Officer of the National Disaster Coordinating Council of the Philippines (NDCC), and later became the Administrator of the Office of Civil Defense and Executive Officer of the NDCC.