When the Pacific Response Group (PRG) was on the island of Wallis and Futuna last year for Exercise Croix du Sud, the village chief invited them to stay.
The PRG’s Tongan Navy officer spoke the local language and the village chief was impressed.
Commander PRG Lieutenant Colonel Scott Hill said, through the Tongan officer, they were able to create important language, cultural and familial links.
“When you have a military unit with personnel from Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga, as the PRG does, it is a cultural game-changer going into the Pacific region,” he said.
Australia, France and New Zealand are also PRG members.
The military unit was established in October 2024 following a decision of the South Pacific Defence Ministers’ Meeting to provide humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) to Pacific nations affected by disaster.
Just 11 weeks after its formation, the group was on the ground in Vanuatu following its 7.3-magnitude earthquake.
The PRG recently participated in the French-led Exercise Marara where almost 1000 personnel from 13 nations gathered in French Polynesia to train in disaster response operations including medical evacuations and airdropping supplies.
‘When you have a military unit with personnel from Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga, as the PRG does, it is a cultural game-changer going into the Pacific region.’
Lieutenant Colonel Hill gave a briefing about the PRG to militaries including the United States, France, Japan and Chile, explaining the unit was on 48 hours’ deployment notice.
“The PRG’s area of operations is 33 million square kilometres because we support 18 Pacific Island Forum (PIF) nations, including Tuvalu, Samoa and the Federated States of Micronesia, and only six of those countries have militaries,” Lieutenant Colonel Hill said.
The PRG conducts a damage assessment and advises nations about military support they may require, including health, military engineering or logistics.
“It could be an engineering team from Papua New Guinea, some light landing craft from Australia or a general duties platoon from Tonga,” Lieutenant Colonel Hill said.
“As with all HADR operations, there are two things these countries often seek: time and resources.
“So if you can get a headquarters or forward planning team together prior to an event, you are already on the front foot.”
And when that forward planning team can forge immediate cultural links, the benefits are considerable.
“When we arrived in Vanuatu we were able to embed with the local Vanuatu mobile force and those relationships were so much stronger due to our Fijian and Papua New Guinean officers,” Lieutenant Colonel Hill said.
“It’s those cultural connections that are the strength of the PRG.”
