Lajes Airman helps build bilateral relations in Rwanda

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Olufemi Owolabi
  • 65th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
LAJES FIELD, Azores --  A Lajes Airman here recently returned from a temporary duty assignment to an eastern African nation once beleaguered with genocide in 1994 that left more than 800,000 people dead.

Master Sgt. Robert Haner, 65th Operations Support Squadron, returned from Rwanda after a 10-day TDY with a team from the 17th Air Force, to help build better partnerships for the U.S. Africa Command and to foster bilateral relations for the United States military and the eastern African nation's military.

Haner, who has been deployed to combat locations, like Iraq, said although he was excited when he found out April 15 about his TDY to Africa, he was "a little apprehensive" when he knew he was going to Rwanda.

Rwanda suffered during the genocide, but today the country is working toward strengthening its economy, borders and building relations.

"I felt extremely safe when I was there," said Haner. "They have the army on street corners every day with AK-47s. They do this because there are still some rebels in the Congo who have caused trouble in the past. It's a good deterrent. We actually stayed in the hotel from the movie Hotel Rwanda, called Des Mille Collines--land of a thousand hills."

This is the first time the Airman visited Africa.

"Africa is not at all what I pictured it was like," Haner said. "It was a beautiful place with so many nice people. They are hard working and dedicated. They truly want to make themselves better. Instead of living in the past, they remember their past, but are trying to learn from it and push forward as a leader in Africa."

During his assignment to Rwanda, Sergeant Haner was part of a team that discussed how the U.S. Air Force operates its facilities during emergencies and disasters.

According to the sergeant, who said he was surprised about how things have grown and changed in the country, they were not in Rwanda to train the country's military but rather to share information and build partnerships.

Haner, an airfield manager at Lajes, said his part was to discuss with the nation's servicemembers how to best utilize their airport and facilities.

"We had a lot of discussions about a variety of topics," said Haner. "They have limited resources and people, but they work well with what they have. They were very hospitable and bent over backwards to make us feel welcomed. Through our discussions they were very interested and grateful that we were able to come there and share our ideas and ways of doing emergency management."

Haner is not a stranger to building bilateral relations. His assignment to Lajes and other European nations, like Turkey and Germany, has given him a background on how to deal with other nation's servicemembers.

"I was able to articulate my message in a very effective way because of my experiences dealing with these other organizations," he said.

Haner's TDY to Africa is one of the ways the Air Force engages and helps build other nations' military services across the world, by showing them how we do business and learning from their experiences.

"This deployment gave them a very good impression of the U.S. Air Force and helped display why we are the best Air Force in the world," Haner said. "It also helped to show that we are here to help others improve and share what we have learned from our own experiences."