Canadian Peacekeepers Evacuate Wounded French Soldiers in Mali

By: Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press 

Canadian peacekeepers were called upon to evacuate several wounded French soldiers in Mali earlier this month after their patrol was ambushed while hunting for militants along the border with Niger.

The previously unreported incident marks the first time the Canadians have been asked to help non-United Nations forces in Mali, where the French have been conducting counter-insurgency operations since 2014.

READ MORE: Canadian peacekeepers in Mali challenged by geography, shifting violence

Canada has eight helicopters and 250 military personnel in Mali, where they have been providing emergency medical evacuations and transporting troops and equipment across a large swath of the remote African country.

The Canadians have conducted seven other medical evacuations since August, all of which involved injured UN troops and workers.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, the commander of Canada’s task force in Mali said the UN and France have agreed to help each other in extreme circumstances and that his peacekeepers did their jobs by helping save lives.

Prime Minister Trudeau visiting CAF members in Mali earlier this year. 

“I wouldn’t want people to presume or assume that we’re supporting counterterrorism efforts,” said Col. Travis Morehen. “But it’s really at this point about saving allied lives.”

News of the French evacuation comes as the federal government is contemplating a formal UN request to extend its peacekeeping mission in Mali, which is currently set to end at the end of July.

France has about 3,000 heavily armed soldiers in Mali and the surrounding region hunting militants linked to al-Qaida, the Islamic State and other extremist groups through what is known as Operation Barkhane.

While Operation Barkhane has been credited with keeping the numerous Islamic extremist groups in Mali off balance, it has also been accused in some corners of contributing to instability in the region.

READ MORE: Canada’s on a new kind of mission in Mali — mixing peacekeeping with counterterrorism

According to media reports, a French patrol was operating near Mali’s border with Niger on March 10 when they were ambushed by a vehicle packed with explosives and a group of militants on motorcycles.

Fifteen French soldiers were reportedly injured, two seriously before the militants fled.

The Canadians first learned about the attack when a French officer at the Operation Barkhane camp in Gao called while it was still happening and indicated an emergency medical evacuation might be required, said Morehen.

The French counter-terror mission operates largely independently from the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, but Morehen says there is a good working relationship between the two.

Many critics have raised questions about Canada's mission in Mali - even asking if it is considered as Counter-Terrorism? 

That includes the French providing air-traffic control services to the UN around Gao, the northern Malian city that is home to several military bases, including one belonging to Barkhane and another where the Canadians are located.

The French also boast a more capable hospital than the UN, Morehen said, which is why the Canadians often end up bringing any wounded peacekeepers that they pick up in the field to the Barkhane camp.

“So our pilots go over there and make sure that we have our flying procedures correct and we have a technical arrangement with them as well for medical support,” Morehen said.

“There’s lots of sharing between us, which is all blessed by our governments.”

READ MORE: UN reports sharp deterioration in Mali since Canadian peacekeepers arrived

Three Canadian helicopters were quickly deployed with approval from the UN mission commander in Bamako, Morehen said, and arrived at the scene about two hours later, at which point the fighting was over.

Because of the distance, the two smaller Griffon escorts were redirected to a nearby town to refuel while the larger Chinook, which is configured like a flying hospital, continued back to Gao alone with the injured French soldiers.

“It does increase the risk,” he said, “but we balanced it against the need to get those wounded back to medical facilities as soon as possible.”

While he agreed that it was “the right thing to do,” Walter Dorn, an expert on peacekeeping at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, said the evacuation nonetheless risked linking the UN and French missions in some minds.

“The risk is that we are associated with Barkhane and we then become subject to more attacks and the line between peacekeepers and counter-insurgency fighters is blurred,” Dorn said.

Morehen pushed back against such suggestions, insisting the evacuation was an extremely rare circumstance and that anyone who wants to target the UN – which has suffered dozens of casualties in Mali – will do so no matter what.

“The people that want to do people harm here, they’ve already got it formulated in their mind,” he said. “I don’t see how fathomable it is that we would be targeted because we gave a medevac to French forces.”

Federal Budget turns a blind eye to Canada's military needs

By David Krayden, National Post 

Opinion: Were the Liberals ever serious about their big defence plan? They cut defence spending in 2018 and are ignoring it in 2019

Last week’s federal budget offered relatively modest spending with targeted funding after years of spending from a government that seemed to believe the deficit will solve itself. Unfortunately, the Canadian Armed Forces again escaped the finance minister’s gaze and for the second consecutive year, national defence is conspicuous by its absence from the budget.

A Canadian soldier provides security as medics assist German troops during a medical evacuation demonstration on the United Nations base in Gao, Mali, on Dec. 22, 2018.Adrian Wyld/CP

You might recall the fanfare when Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan released the Liberals’ defence policy review in 2017: “Strong, Secure, Engaged.” It was already more than six months overdue and there was a feeling among defence analysts and most journalists that the Liberals had to deliver a document that suggested serious resolve.

HMCS Windsor, one of Canada’s Victoria-class long range patrol submarines, returns to port in Halifax on June 20, 2018. Andrew Vaughan/CP

Sajjan promised a whopping 70-per-cent increase in defence spending, pledging to drive funding up to $32.7 billion from $18.9 billion. Naval ships, combat-support vehicles and 88 fighter jets would be replaced through “an open and transparent competition.”

But there was one large disclaimer. All of this would happen over the next decade, assuming the realities of 2017 would remain constant during that period. How well would any government have done predicting the military needs of 1942 based on the geopolitics of 1932?

In any case, we’ve yet to see any indication that the Liberals were serious about the plan. They cut defence spending in 2018 and have ignored it in 2019.

A Canadian soldier prepares to leave base in Gao, Mali, on Aug. 1, 2018, to take part in an operation as part of the United Nations mission in that country. AFP/Getty Images

Was there an alternative motive to the 2017 defence review? Canada was still in the midst of NAFTA negotiations with an American president who was increasingly critical of our defence contribution, especially as it pertained to NATO. Donald Trump had repeatedly cited Canada as one of the deadbeat members of NATO that refuses to fund its military at two per cent of its GDP — despite having promised to do so and notwithstanding that we have done so in the past. With Budget 2019, Canada is no closer to meeting that pledge, spending 1.23 per cent of its GDP on national defence.

A photograph taken out the window of a Canadian Forces CC-150 Polaris tanker shows a CF-18 Hornet fighter jet being refuelled in the air over Vancouver on Feb. 18, 2010. Master Corporal Andrew Collins, 14 Wing Imaging

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s desultory approach to defence capital acquisition may well be defined by the fighter jet fiasco that grows more bizarre with every twist and turn of the story. It was the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien that joined the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter development program. It was Stephen Harper’s Conservative government that dithered on procuring the aircraft. It is the current Trudeau government that decided to start the whole process again. In the meantime, the Liberals considered buying some interim Super Hornets from Boeing before ultimately deciding to pick up some used Australian F-18s — just as the Royal Australian Air Force took delivery of its first F-35s.A

Perhaps the best speech of this year’s just-concluded Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa was delivered by former chief of defence staff Gen. Rick Hillier. Hillier, whose career was defined by integrity and a politics-be-damned leadership style, told the conservative gathering that if Canada “buys a fighter aircraft that is anything but the F-35, we will have lost our minds.”

The last prime minister who consistently funded the Canadian military was Louis St-Laurent. All successive administrations — Liberal and Conservative — have to varying degrees played the shell game with defence spending. While lauding a capital acquisition project here, they will starve another project over there to pay for it. While promising consistent funding, they will squeeze the military at the first opportunity when a fiscal need emerges elsewhere.


They will squeeze the military at the first opportunity

With defence procurement being so hamstrung by petty politics and policy inertia, no amount of government funding can guarantee a combat-capable military if those dollars are not efficiently and effectively spent. As Hillier said, “Our acquisition process in Canada, in particular for the Department of National Defence, is abhorrent. It is pointless to give the Department of National Defence increased spending if you then tie them in a Gordian knot where they can’t actually spend the money.”

Sadly, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

— David Krayden is a former Royal Canadian Air Force public affairs officer and legislative assistant on Parliament Hill. He has worked in print, radio and television journalism and is currently the Ottawa bureau chief for The Daily Caller, a Washington-based media outlet.

Disappointment Emerges as Canada’s Peacekeeping mission in Mali nears Halfway Mark

By: Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press 

Canadian soldiers watch as a helicopter provides air security during a demonstration on the United Nations base in Gao, Mali, on Dec. 22, 2018.
ADRIAN WYLD/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Nearly halfway through Canada’s 12-month mission in Mali, questions and disappointment are emerging over what some experts see as the Trudeau government’s lack of interest in the country – and peacekeeping in general.

Mali has been racked by violence and instability since a rebellion and coup in 2012, and there are fears that Islamic extremists and criminal organizations will run wild there and across the wide expanse of Africa south of the Sahara Desert.

Canada has had about 250 military personnel and eight helicopters in Gao, Mali, to provide medical evacuations and logistical support since August, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says is helping make a difference.

“The peace process is unfolding in Mali,” Mr. Trudeau said during a whirlwind visit to Gao on Dec. 23. “Certainly our presence here is allowing it to unfold more quickly than it otherwise would be, but it is a difficult situation.”

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The United Nations is reporting limited signs of progress there over the past three months, as slight improvements in the political and humanitarian situation have been marred by a dramatic spike in violence.

That includes a marked increase in the number of improvised explosive devices targeting peacekeepers and officials, as well as several co-ordinated attacks on UN bases and staff.

Yet several experts say they were hoping the peacekeeping mission would serve as a way for the Trudeau government to deepen its engagement in the UN, Mali and the Sahel region, none of which has happened.

Rather, they argue the government appears to have little actual interest in Mali or peacekeeping, in spite of spending millions of dollars on both.

“The Canadian contribution to MINUSMA [the UN mission in Mali] will be forgotten quickly,” said Bruno Charbonneau, an expert on Mali at Laurentian University in Sudbury.

“It’s a quick in-and-out that … changes nothing to UN peacekeeping in Mali or in general, and certainly changes nothing to the situation in Mali and the larger Sahel.”

The country has been one of the top recipients of Canadian foreign aid for the past several years, which experts say is helping. It has also received some of the $450-million set aside in 2016 for peace programs.

Yet the Trudeau government has repeatedly rejected the prospect of extending the Mali mission by several months to minimize a gap between when the Canadians stop flying in July and the arrival of Romanian replacements in the fall.

That stands in sharp contrast to the repeated extensions of Canada’s military missions in Latvia, Ukraine and Iraq, none of which falls under the auspices of the UN.

“I have to wonder: Why not the UN? Why not Mali?” said Walter Dorn, an expert on peacekeeping at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto.

There were suggestions in July that Canada would step up its presence and involvement in Mali, when officials revealed plans to send up to 20 police officers and spend millions of dollars to help the UN train local security forces.

While Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale’s office said Tuesday that two police officers have undergone pre-deployment training and will arrive in Mali later this month, it did not provide a timeline for when the rest would be deployed.

Meanwhile, experts say the government’s overall long-term plans for Mali remain shrouded in mystery – including its plan for aid funding.

“My colleagues and I are trying to make the case for more involvement [in Mali], but have the impression of speaking to a relatively disinterested audience,” said Jonathan Sears, an expert on Mali at the University of Winnipeg.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s spokeswoman, Byrne Furlong, on Tuesday commended the Canadian military’s work in Mali, even as she asserted the government’s commitment to “promoting peace and stability in the world.”

“We are proud of the important work the women and men of our Canadian Armed Forces are doing to help set conditions for durable peace, development, and prosperity in Mali,” Ms. Furlong said in a statement.

UN Reports Situation in Mali Deteriorating

By: Lee Berthiaume, Global News 

In a sobering new report, the head of the United Nations says the security situation in Mali has sharply deteriorated over the past three months even as demand for more food aid and other humanitarian assistance has skyrocketed.

The UN Mali patch is shown on a Canadian forces member's uniform before boarding a plane at CFB Trenton in Trenton, Ont., on July 5, 2018.

READ MORE: Canadian troops ready as ‘complex’ Mali peacekeeping mission gets underway: commander

The assessment by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres coincides with the presence of Canadian peacekeepers in Mali, and suggests the country is in many ways worse off now than when they first arrived in June.

Not that there haven’t been some hopeful signs, including successful presidential elections in July and August and a marked decline in the number of peacekeepers killed or wounded despite continuing attacks by armed groups.

That is reflected in the fact that while the Canadian military’s primary task in Mali is to evacuate injured UN peacekeepers by helicopter, they have so far only conducted two such missions, both on Sept. 11.

Guterres nonetheless painted a picture of a country at war with itself as various ethnic and extremist groups targeted each other as well as the Malian military, international forces and even civilians.

The result was the largest number of civilians killed – 287 – in one three-month period since UN peacekeepers first arrived in the country in 2013, while thousands more have been forced to flee their homes to escape the violence.

Much of the fighting was between members of two different ethnic communities in the centre of the country, while groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State were also responsible for a great deal of violence.

READ MORE: Canada’s on a new kind of mission in Mali — mixing peacekeeping with counterterrorism

“Intercommunal conflict, exacerbated by violent extremist groups, is fraying an already fragile social fabric and is deeply concerning,” Guterres wrote. “Too high a human toll has accrued as a result of the ongoing spiral of violence.”

The number of human-rights violations in Mali, which was already troublingly high, was similarly worse because of hundreds of new extrajudicial killings, disappearances, tortures and rapes across different parts of the country.

While most of those atrocities were perpetrated by the Islamic groups and competing ethnic communities, the Malian military itself was implicated in 18 violations – including one mass killing that is being criminally investigated.

“The human rights situation is alarming,” Guterres wrote. “It is absolutely imperative that the government prevent human rights violations and abuses, including those committed by the Malian armed forces.”

Further adding to Malians’ woes were severe floods in some areas and drought in others that, when combined with the fighting, had doubled the number of internally displaced people and left one in four needing humanitarian aid.

“The level of needs of is higher than at any point since the beginning of the crisis in 2012,” Guterres wrote.

READ MORE: Jeff Semple: First impressions of Canadian peacekeepers in Mali

The country was plunged into turmoil after a rebellion in the north at the same time as the Malian military was staging a coup in the capital, Bamako.

Canadian peacekeepers recently helped the World Food Programme deliver more than two tonnes of food, water and medicine by helicopter to a village in central Mali.

Yet despite the growing need for more emergency aid, Guterres reported that only one-third of the roughly $400 million needed to help Malians had been provided to the UN by the beginning of September.

WATCH: Exclusive: Treacherous conditions for Canada’s troops in Mali



“While needs continue to increase, humanitarian funding has decreased, preventing a timely at-scale and appropriate response,” he wrote.

Canada has provided funding for various development projects and agencies in Mali, but Bruno Charbonneau, an expert on Mali at Laurentian University, said the $60 million in emergency aid given since 2012 is relatively small.

Most of that money was also pledged immediately after the rebellion in the north and the coup.

READ MORE: At least 6 soldiers killed in attack on military taskforce headquarters in central Mali

As for the bigger picture, Charbonneau said what is needed is more international focus on the centre of Mali and greater emphasis on development to tackle the root causes of the conflict.

“As long as the focus is on countering terrorism in the Sahel, everything else is secondary,” he said. “And I think it’s a bad reading of the situation based on assumptions about the dynamics of the conflict and its causes.”

August Recap

Welcome back Canadian Forces Dispatch readers. I took an extended break from posting in August, and now that the school year is up and running again; here is what has happened over the past four-weeks. All original reporting is linked to the headline.


Canada's special forces kept too many secrets about Afghan missions

Grounded cruise ship rescue in Nunavut cost Canada's Armed Forces $513K

Craig Manufacturing lands $25 million Canadian Forces contract

CF-18's Deploy to NATO Air Policing in Romania

Canadian Forces reveal Marjuana use policy

2nd Female Snowbirds Pilot takes flight  

Four Canadian WW1 Casualties Buried in France 

CAF in Mali Concerned about delays in Evacuations

Will the RCN get a sixth AOPS?

First AOPS to be delivered to RCN in October

Government's pledge for RCAF Strategic Lift Aircraft for UN in Uganda Still not met  

   

First Canadian Peacekeepers arrive in Mali as year-long mission begins

By: Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

Canadian troops started to take up their positions in the world’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission on Sunday, as a dozen Forces members flew into an isolated United Nations’ base to begin work on Canada’s year-long commitment to help bring peace and stability to this strife-riven African nation.

The sun beat down on the tarmac as defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance led the small contingent out of the Hercules transport plane that had carried them into the country and were met by a German convoy covered in the red dust that seems to be everywhere.

Gen. Vance and the 12-member advance team, whose task will be to lay the groundwork for the eventual arrival of the eight helicopters and 250 military members who comprise Canada’s mission in Mali, were scheduled to arrive the day before.

But a horrific dust storm, pictures of which showed a scene straight out of a movie, had forced Gen. Vance and the others to remain in Mali’s capital, Bamako, the previous night. It’s testament to one of the unpredictabilities of this mission – the weather.

Asked his first impression upon landing, a master warrant officer from Quebec who previously served in Afghanistan and Bosnia and who will act here as the camp sergeant major, replied: “It’s very hot. It’s very, very hot.”

But Nick, who like most others could only identified by his first name due to security reasons, was also clearly excited about the prospect of getting on with the mission after months of training – and nearly 10 years after he last deployed into Afghanistan.

“When the ramp of the Herc goes down on the tarmac, that’s a very, very good feeling,” he said. “It’s hot, you can feel it here in the desert. But that feeling is great.”

The arrival of the advance team marked the culmination of years of promises by the Trudeau Liberals, which initially pledged in the 2015 election to take a leadership role in UN peacekeeping missions if elected to power.

But with memories of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda still fresh in many minds, the peacekeeping commitment has been politically divisive while some have questioned whether there is even a peace to keep in Mali.

In an interview with the Canadian Press, Gen. Vance said both the UN and Canada have learned a great deal since the previous peacekeeping debacles of the 1990s, both in terms of reviews and lived experience in Afghanistan.

“There was a time in the ’90s when we went on operations and we adopted their rules of engagement. We do not do that with this mission. We’ve learned,” Gen. Vance said.

“We understand a lot more than we did in the ’90s about the nature of theatre support to ensure command and control, communications, intelligence, logistics and engineering are put in place to the extent necessary to support a mission.”

Yet he was also candid in his assessment that, yes, the situation in Mali could get worse. But that is why the UN is in the country and why Canada is supporting the UN – to keep that from happening, which many say would unleash a Pandora’s box in the region.

The reality is that the Canadian mission was not expected to start until next year, when the government and military were expecting Canada to replace a contingent of Jordanian helicopters in Gao.

But when Jordan was unable, for reasons that are still unclear, to send their aircraft to replace the existing German helicopter contingent, which has been providing medical evacuations and transport, the UN turned to Canada in March.

Two large Chinook transport helicopters and four smaller Griffon escorts, along with one spare of each in case of breakdowns, are due to arrive next month and replace the Germans, who have been flying here for more than a year.

The Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali – or Minusma, as the UN mission is known – has been criticized both for not doing enough to bring peace and stability to the country, and because of its dangers.

More than 100 peacekeepers have died since Minusma was established in 2013, but the reality is that cost has been borne by developing countries such as Chad, rather than more advanced Western forces like Germany and Canada.

Indeed, the Canadians will spend the next 12 months in what is known as Camp Castor, a German-run base that is actually separate from the so-called “super camp” that houses most of peacekeepers in what is known as Sector East.

The camp is a collection of buildings, most of them low-slung and reinforced to protect against mortar attacks, bounded by concrete barriers and dusty roads along which the occasional armoured vehicle passes bearing the famous “UN” on its side.

The Canadians will fly primarily medical evacuation missions – at least one Chinook and two Griffons must be on standby at the expansive nearby helipad at all times – but Gen. Vance said they could also be called upon to do other tasks.

Those could include providing medical assistance to a joint counterterrorism force established by Mali and four of its neighbours to fight Islamist jihadists and others, Gen. Vance said, as well as the actual defending of Malian civilians.

But it could also mean protecting convoys and giving fire support to fellow peacekeepers who find themselves in trouble, though Gen. Vance said those would only be launched if absolutely no other option was available.

That could put Canadian helicopters and troops in harm’s way, but one senior UN official told the Canadian Press that the Germans “never fired a shot in anger,” and that there is no significant threat to helicopters from the ground.

The bigger threat is the weather and desert, which have been blamed for the crash of one German and one Dutch helicopter over the years, and which was in clear evidence – at least the heat – on Sunday when the troops arrived.

There is also the ever-present danger of poisonous scorpions, snakes and spiders around the camp, particularly at night, as well as malaria-carrying mosquitos.

One of the main questions is whether Canada – and the UN – can make a difference in Mali, where poverty is everywhere and various factions are locked in bloody struggles for land, smuggling routes and ideology.

For Gen. Vance, the focus is on making sure the Canadian contribution accomplishes its mission by providing the UN – and by extension the Malian state – with the support that it needs until the situation begins to improve.

“I’m confident that we’re contemplating and doing the right things as an international community,” he said.

“I’m confident that our helicopter contribution to Mali will be first class and offer the mission exactly what it needs. And I suspect that all of that combined will help Mali resist any downward trends associated with those actors that would try and attack the state.”

Despite the challenges facing the Canadians, the UN and Mali as a whole, Capt. Megan of Kingston, Ont., is unwavering in her assessment of the situation: “I think the Canadians are part of an important thing here.”

Arsenault: Canadian Troops in Mali prepare for daunting Task

By: Adrienne Arsenault, CBC News 

This is where it begins.

A small advance team for Canada's first substantial peacekeeping mission in nearly two decades has arrived in Mali.

The sweat was starting to pour off the dozen or so soldiers even as their plane thumped down in the capital, Bamako — and that might not just be because of the choking heat.
This is one of the most complicated tasks we have had to do.- Lt.-Col. Tom Murphy

A lot is expected.

Lt.-Col. Tom Murphy, commanding officer of the joint task force support component, has hurdles as high as his title is long. "This is one of the most complicated tasks we have had to do," he says.

This small team is what the Canadian Forces calls a theatre activation team, arriving ahead of the others to do reconnaissance and logistics planning.

Poverty and drought are just a few of the factors threatening civilians in Mali. (Stephanie Jenzer/CBC)

Work will only get busier and more complicated as the summer goes on.

By Monday, a few dozen more troops will land at the dusty northern base in Gao, and by August, Canada's contribution begins in earnest: up to 250 troops, two Chinook helicopters, four armed Griffon helicopters and a major role in a daunting and expanded UN mandate.
Peacekeepers 'targeted'

Established in 2013, the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) started as a plan to keep some sort of political stability and security in the West African country that was plunged into strife after a coup gave rise to warring factions of insurgents. But time has not eased the violence of extremist groups here.

Aboard a Hercules aircraft with Canadian troops bound for Mali. (Adrienne Arsenault/CBC)

This terrifies those who look at a map and see the potential of a failed Mali.

They see the inevitability of more desperation pushing more people across the Mediterranean, deepening the migrant crisis in Europe.

They envision a foothold for terrorism that could threaten the Sahel region and beyond.

So the objectives have swollen: protect the civilians, promote human rights, rebuild the security sector, support political dialogue. The Canadian contingent joins 57 other countries — around 13,000 troops in all have been authorized to participate in the mission.

There are no small asks in this country. And you won't find credible voices sugarcoating what's ahead.

The UN's deputy force commander, Senegalese Maj.-Gen. Amadou Kane, is blunt about the dangers peacekeepers face. Yes, it is one of the UN's most deadly missions. Yes, 170 peacekeepers have already been killed. And yes was the answer to a CBC News question about whether he believes the peacekeepers are being targeted for attack.

"Absolutely," he said from the base in Bamako on a day when a delegation from the Canadian theatre activation team was swooping in to introduce themselves.

Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Jonathan Vance paid a visit to Mali and the Gao facilities where a Canadian advance team is arriving to set up for Canada’s mission that starts in August. He has since left. (Stephanie Jenzer/CBC)

"The armed groups have shown their willingness to hamper the peace process by all means…. And we know that whatever opportunities they can get, they will act."

Even before the Canadians strap on the blue helmets, Kane has a list of needs and wants just to keep them and the other forces safe -- never mind all it will take to keep the population safe, which is effectively the point of this multinational effort.

"We don't have the intelligence in real time — this is the problem," he says.

Armed groups have carried out 44 attacks over two months this spring alone that killed and wounded civilians, Malian soldiers and UN personnel.
1-year commitment

Canada's commitment will be to make medical evacuations and provide aerial support.

No, that doesn't mean treacherous foot patrols. But it also doesn't mean a danger-free assignment. Canadians are entirely likely to be flying right into danger.

The UN’s deputy force commander, Senegalese Maj.-Gen. Amadou Kane, believes the peacekeepers in Mali are being targeted for attack by insurgents. (Stephanie Jenzer/CBC)

Lines blur and dance in the heat of Mali. So do missions. A documentary for the German network DW looked at the experience of Germans who are part of the Mali mission. A sergeant who had served in Afghanistan compared the two missions in terms of threat.

"There we had the Taliban — the one enemy that attacked us," the sergeant said. "Here we have several groups, and you lose track of who is who, and that's what makes it dangerous."

This will be at least one of the warnings the Canadians surely heed when they take over from the German helicopter contingent.

The plan is that Canada's contribution will have a hard end-date of one year. But few would be surprised if the UN didn't at least try for an extension or an expansion, because even after years of both a counterterror campaign and the UN mission, the violence has not abated. Some jihadist groups are joining forces, sharing their skills and intelligence and funds, which just adds a layer of vulnerability to both the people needing the peace and those trying to maintain it.

Timing is a wrinkle. Canada's deployment coincides with the Malian presidential election, set for July 29. That it will be free and fair is far from guaranteed.

Guterres reviews the honour guard composed of MINUSMA peacekeepers, in Mopti, Mali, on May 30.(MINUSMA/Flickr)

Canada's ambassador to Mali, Louis Verret, is cautious in the way diplomats have to be.

"We hope that they will be transparent," he told CBC News in an interview at the embassy in Bamako.

"We hope that it will be democratic. We know we are not going to be perfect.… Let's say we are careful about those elections."

He and the Canadian troops have another serious concern: the discovery of mass graves holding the bodies of 25 civilians, purportedly executed by members of the Malian army -- the same military force MINUSMA is backing. The Malian government has said it will investigate.

"How can we have the civilian population being killed by their own army? This is not what we we believe in. This is not acceptable in terms of human rights," Verret says.

The work ahead is a little hard to fathom.

Mali needs fair elections. It needs stability. It needs the extremists to go away. It needs its poverty alleviated. It needs its drought abated.

In all this Canada has a part to play. And in all this there are risks around every dusty corner.