Many Chinese know that China has sent a peacekeeping police force to East Timor but little know that it has also a small force keeping peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

It is a five men's peacekeeping police team. The team leader is Huang Cheng; deputy head is Tan Jun, both from the PRC Ministry of Public Security, working at Bosnia-Herzegovina Police Peacekeeping HQ and the International Airport of Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, respectively. The other three Chinese policemen Liu Yaonan, Liu Haizhi, and Guo Xuequan, are performing their duty in remote mountain areas.

Before their descent to Bosnia and Herzegovina last January, the five had taken special training and strict examinations on English, shooting, driving and survival.

Although initially introduced to some knowledge about Bosnia-Herzegovina, the five Chinese policemen were still shocked by the grim situations they were in. Depleted uranium bombs dropped by the NATO gives the biggest pollution. Over 4 million lethal landmines for the most part have not yet been cleared over 50,000 square kilometers of the country's land. As a result of war, small arms were found by no means small among civilians, posing the biggest peril among the others. What's more, as policemen from Asia, especially China, they must face various prejudices from their European colleagues.

Braving all possible perils and risks the Chinese policemen just threw themselves into their work with help from the Chinese Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. There are near 2,000 policemen and policewomen coming from a few dozen countries maintaining peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and many of them have taken part in such activities for several times. As required by police assignment, every peacekeeping cop must be highly qualified for law enforcement and make themselves competent to all task assignments and this has made no exception with the five Chinese policemen said by their work assignments performed.

Tan Jun, 31-year-old, heading a team including seven European policemen was put in charge of Sarajevo International Airport. By hard work he has proved worth his salt and won his foreign counterparts' respect and praises of the UN in spite of all past unimaginable misgivings and doubts about his capability and rampaging chaos and plagues once plaguing the airport. As reported, China has lately sent another batch of police to Bosnia and Herzegovina, including eight policemen and two policewomen.

In the past ten months, the five Chinese have successfully fulfilled their peacekeeping mission and the task in giving wide publicity to China's political and diplomatic policies. They sewed the five-starred Red Flag on their suits with the UN badge. Guo Xuequan from China's Kunming in Yunnan Province often says that as a policeman from China's Pumi ethnic minority, his dispatch to Bosnia and Herzegovina proves the equality and unity of China.

( November 5, 2001)