Dithering or a Rethink on Peacekeeping Intentions?

By: Blair Gilmore, RUSI-NS

Three recent news items relate to Justin Trudeau’s intent to send troops on a UN peacekeeping mission. Outfits like the CDA Institute have released their analysis on Canada’s new Defence Policy, the Globe and Mail reported that a CAF sniper once again holds the record for the furthest kill shot, and MPs of the House of Commons are expected to rise for their summer break, which lasts from June 23 to September 18.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau famously (or infamously) declared in the early days after the 20 October 2015 election that “Canada is back!” This partly referred to our country’s apparent readiness to get back onto the world stage as a peacekeeping nation. The CAF had been regrouping after 12 years of operations in Afghanistan and had taken an operational pause. Cynics thought the Liberals just wanted a coveted seat back on the UN Security Council, while altruistic observers believed they wanted to bring Canadian ‘sunny ways’ to downtrodden portions of the planet. Either way, this promise to our allies to help with the ‘heavy lifting’ is going on two years with no fulfilment in sight.

Reminiscent of The Economist’s assessment of a former Liberal PM, Justin Trudeau seems to be turning into 'Mr. Dithers' The Sequel. He is hedging his bets by judiciously spending Canada’s "blood and treasure" on select hellhole missions around the world. The CAF has Special Operations Forces in hotspots sprinkled here and there and, as evidenced by the record-breaking kill shot, we are turning the ‘bad guys’ into pink mist. But these operations are shrouded in secrecy to minimise the PR fallout. We also are making a big deal of a contingent of 450 soldiers being sent to bolster Latvia; of CF 18s patrolling Iceland’s air space, and a frigate in the Mediterranean under Operation Reassurance in an effort to blunt Russia’s burgeoning re-emergence as an aggressive military world power. The world may be sliding back into another Cold War, but the potential for onesies or twosies of Canadian-flag-draped coffins coming home is minimal.

The government pumped out a comprehensive Canada Defence Policy which impressively lays out the CAF’s focus for the next 20 years along with substantive budget increases. There have been immediate results like overdue pay increases but the large expenditures will not kick in until after the next election cycle. Lots of good words and promises, but very little in the way of solid rubber meeting the road.

About a year ago, the Minister of National Defence (MND), Harjit Sajjan made the rounds of African countries for potential Canadian peacekeeping missions in an effort towards due diligence before fulfilling the PM's promise. The scuttlebutt has been that Mali was the lead contender of Canadian peacekeeping largesse. Mali is a particularly nasty quagmire with open Islamic civil warfare, use of child soldiers, frequent and numerous peacekeeper casualties – all with a generous dash of IEDs.

As a former Intelligence officer, the MND is no dummy. I think he and the PM were somewhat unprepared for the realities of Mali, and now recognise that dead CAF men and women will be regularly travelling the Highway to Heroes route if we send troops out on these peacemaking missions. This is why they dither when pressed on when the government is planning on making a decision.

I am no fan of sending CAF personnel into harm’s way. I have family and friends in uniform. I have lost military friends doing their duty. Frankly, in my opinion, some parts of the world are burning and that’s just the way it is. Let them sort their own crap out because all we seem to do as Western powers is muddy the water and waste our efforts. The government knows there is no upside to sending troops to a place like Mali, so they are stalling like mad, hoping other world events or opportunities will come up to distract us from that ill-conceived promise.

As reported by CBC's Murray Brewster, Canada has been presented with a long list of 'marquee command roles' for UN missions and has turned them all down except for a plum position in New York. With the rising of the House, the Liberals will undoubtedly push any decision further to the right by months until at least the fall session.

Opposition MPs will rightly want a debate before sending CAF troops into obvious peril – and this will be another excuse to, in military parlance, mark time.

There’s an old military adage related to the concept of leadership when it comes to making a choice. Either make a decision, follow, or get the hell out of the way. Our allies, like the Dutch in need of a tag-out in Mali, and the Germans who wanted the use of our helicopters instead of theirs, are probably dismayed that Canada is 'all talk and no action'.

Perhaps the innocents who are being killed, tortured, raped and maimed would like to stop holding out false hope that blue-beret-wearing Canadians are coming to their rescue. The world and our defence partners are realizing that Canadian ‘Sunny Ways’ and ‘Canada is Back’ talk is simply blowing sunshine up their collective behinds.

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– Blair Gilmore is a Research Fellow with the Nova Scotia branch of the Royal United Services Institute of (RUSI-NS)

Freeland to Announce UN Training Mission and Risks of Modern Peacekeeping

By: Murray Brewster, CBC News

A major component of the Liberal government's plan to return Canada to peacekeeping involves using Canadian soldiers to train and mentor other, less experienced United Nations forces, say defence and government sources.

The strategy, which would possibly be employed in some of the most dangerous parts of Africa, is a departure from traditional peacekeeping, which is popular in the public imagination.

And in the opinion of some defence experts, it bears some resemblance to the kind of capacity-building counter-insurgency mission the Canadian Forces carried out in Afghanistan for the better part of a decade.

Related:
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Allies anxious as Liberals put peacekeeping decision on pause

"Capacity in training is a strength for Canada," said one official, who was unable to speak on the record because of the sensitivity of the file.

It is likely one of the reasons the Liberal government believes it must prepare the public for the risks of "modern peacekeeping."

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is slated to give a major foreign policy address in a few weeks' time, which will open the door to the delivery of the long-awaited defence policy review on June 7.

But it will also prepare the public for peacekeeping missions that could cost lives.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is expected to start a push to educate Canadians on the risks of modern peacekeeping in a speech coming up in a few weeks. (Todd Korol/Canadian Press)

One of the scenarios envisions Canadian troops helping train African Union peacekeepers in a relatively safe place, such as the West African nation of Burkina Faso, and then transporting the combined force into the country where they would operate.

Canadian soldiers would also accompany their apprentices into field in order to support them, reinforce lessons and ensure they don't get into trouble. UN missions in that part of the world have been marred with allegations of rape and child sexual abuse.
Echoes of Afghanistan

The concept sounds similar to the operational mentoring and liaison teams that Canadian troops used to help build up the Afghan National Police in Kandahar.

The idea of being seen as a leader in training peacekeepers and the development of uniform standards is politically attractive to the Liberals, who are eager to push the "Canada is back" narrative on the world stage.

Sources say the plan has also been given "enthusiastic" buy-in among senior UN officials who are themselves eager to improve the quality of peacekeeping soldiers, many of whom are ill-equipped and from developing countries.

Troops and a tank from the Edmonton-based Lord Strathcona's Horse are shown during Operation Lion II in Khenjakak, Afghanistan in this file photo. (Murray Brewster/Canadian Press)

"The complexities of today's operations require a collective effort to enhance the training of uniformed personnel for United Nations peace operations," said a report prepared in September 2015 by former secretary general Ban Ki-moon, who also requested that contributing countries be certified in peacekeeping practices and that the UN support "the establishment of bilateral and regional training partnerships."

The decision on where to deploy roughly 600 troops and 150 police officers in support of UN operations has been in a holding pattern for months.

Originally announced last summer, it was supposed to be made by the end of 2016. But it remains in limbo, with one senior government official recently suggesting it could remain there until the fall.
Eyes on Africa

Mali is most often mentioned as a possible destination and has been the focus of repeated research trips by senior federal officials, including Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.

The list has also included, at various points over the last year, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Central African Republic.

While justifying the absence of a decision in March, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said deploying troops is a not a move to be taken lightly, but also noted Canada has had "a difficult history in Africa as peacekeepers."

He was referring to the disastrous missions to both Somalia and Rwanda in the mid-1990s.

The Canadian who led the Rwanda mission during that country's genocide said he applauds the government's determination to "wean" the public off the notion of classic peacekeeping, which is rooted in ceasefire observation missions.

But retired lieutenant-general Roméo Dallaire says Canada risks being on the wrong side of history if it hesitates or fails to make a significant contribution to peace and stability during a complex and ambiguous time in the world.

"It's not going to blow over. It's going to continue to be complex," Dallaire said. "And we have a lot of capabilities that we're simply holding back."

Canadians are among the best prepared for UN missions, he added, particularly with the introduction of new guidelines to deal with the use of child soldiers.

Roméo Dallaire says Canadians are among the best prepared for taking on UN missions. (Adrian Wyld/CP)

Regardless of the location, it is likely the troops will be deployed in mostly violent, unstable nations.

In the case of Mali, local insurgents are competing, sometimes at cross purposes, with international jihadist groups.

The U.S. Intelligence Community's "Worldwide Threat Assessment," released last week, noted that al-Qaeda is attempting "to promote unity among Mali-based jihadists" in the region, "increase military action, and speed up recruitment of fighters."

While there is a need to underline the peril, it must also be put in context, said Richard Gowan, research director for New York University's Center on International Cooperation.

"Mali is certainly is one of the most dangerous missions, and scores of peacekeepers have been killed in ambushes," Gowan told CBC News. "It should be said that the majority of those who have died were relatively poorly armed, poorly protected African troops.

Related:

Senators issue warning over potential Mali peacekeeping mission
Canada's mission in Africa to focus on 'peacemaking'

Dutch and German forces have operated there under the UN flag and occasionally have been targets. But Gowan notes that "their fatality rates are much, much lower."

"So if Canadian troops do go into Mali, they will face very great risk, but we are not likely to see casualty figures on the level of Afghanistan some years ago," he said.

Meanwhile, Central African Republic was rocked by a series of attacks over the past week that have forced more than 15,000 people to flee their homes.

And in the Democratic Republic of Congo, President Joseph Kabila's resolve to stay in power beyond his constitutional time limit has led to rising tension and the threat of popular violence in that country.

UN Mission Still Possible in 2017: PM Trudeau

By: The Canadian Press - National Post 

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is not ruling out sending troops to a peacekeeping mission this year, even though Canada has not yet told the United Nations what it is up to.

“We have a difficult history in Africa as peacekeepers and we need to make sure that when we embark on any . . . military mission, we make the right decisions about what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it, and the kind of impact we’re going to have on the ground and on Canadians,” Trudeau said Saturday.

“That’s a decision we’re not going to fast-track. We’re making it responsibly and thoughtfully.”

Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian PressPrime Minister Justin Trudeau responds to a question in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, March 20, 2017.

The Liberal government pledged last summer to allot up to 600 troops and 150 police officers for UN peacekeeping operations, plus $450 million over three years on peace and stability projects.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan originally promised to reveal where they were headed by the end of last year. Military officials and Canadian diplomats put some work into figuring out where Canadian troops could make an impact, but an announcement has yet to be made.

The Liberals ended up stalling their plans — including a request from the UN to lead the peacekeeping mission in Mali — as the federal government tried to figure out the priorities of U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration.

Jordan Owens, a spokeswoman for Sajjan, confirmed Saturday that Canada has not provided the UN with formal notice of its specific contributions, saying “it would be inappropriate” to do so before the government has decided what that would be.

Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian PressDefence Minister Harjit Sajjan holds a press conference in the foyer of the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on March 6, 2017.

Asked Saturday morning whether that means Canada will not be sending more blue helmets out in the world by the end of the year, Trudeau said he would not draw that conclusion.

“We continue to look very carefully at ways to move forward on the strong commitment we made on peacekeeping,” Trudeau said.

“We know that Canada has to play a strong and effective role on the world stage in ways that suit our capacities and we’re looking to make sure that that happens right,” he said.

Herve Ladsous, the outgoing UN under-secretary-general for peacekeeping operations, said Friday that he had been “very eager” when Canada made its peacekeeping promise.

MCpl. Frank Hudec/Canadian Forces Combat CameraCanadian peacekeepers prepare auto atropine injectors during chemical defence refresher training at Camp Ziouani in the Golan Heights in 2002.

“Well, so far, it hasn’t materialized,” he said. “I hope it will.”

Trudeau also stood firm on the Canadian line that its contribution to NATO should not be measured by that fact that it spend about one per cent of its GDP on defence, which falls short of the agreed-upon target of two per cent.

“Lots of different countries in NATO measure their contributions in different ways. Canada measures its contribution by the amount of times and ways that we step up concretely on issues that matter,” Trudeau said.

Trudeau is on Parliament Hill for a rare weekend Liberal caucus meeting, where MPs are discussing the budget and how to make the most of their remaining time in Ottawa before they head home for the summer.

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Liberal MPs who sit on the backbenches have recently been exercising the freedom Trudeau promised them with more free votes, such as when a majority of them voted earlier this month in favour of a bill that would bar health and life insurance companies from forcing clients to disclose the results of genetic testing. That happened even though cabinet voted against it and Trudeau said it was unconstitutional.

However, the prime minister said Saturday that his caucus is more united than ever.

“I’ve been around the Liberal party an awfully long time, as you all know, and I’ve never seen a caucus as strongly united in our approach and our values,” Trudeau said on his way into the second day of the meeting.

“One of the great strengths of the Liberal party is there is always a range of perspectives that allow us to represent the range of perspectives of Canadians,” he said.

Is there Canadian National Interests in Sending Troops to Mali?

Globe and Mail Editorial

The federal Liberal government sometimes acts as if it absolutely must fulfil one ill-considered election platform promise from 2015.

During the last election, Justin Trudeau vowed to revive the peacekeeping of the 1950s, which Canada helped to invent. Now in power in the 21st century, the Liberals are tying themselves in knots to find Canada a nostalgic role in what is now referred to as "peace support operations."

The UN's MINUSMA mission is largely a counter-insurgency mission; which might make it a difficult sell when the Government was seeking a return to "Peacekeeping"  especially as the mission has already seen 114 fatalities. 

Whatever we call these operations, it is not clear that they serve the interests of Canada. They aren't the peacekeeping missions of old, in which Canadian soldiers in blue helmets patrolled an international border in support of a recognized ceasefire.

Read more: Dallaire says Canadian troops must be prepared for child soldiers

The modern operations, as described by the government itself, more accurately resemble dangerous counter-insurgency missions. They look nothing like what Canada did 50 years ago.

Nonetheless, Canadian cabinet ministers and high-ranking civil servants are being required to turn themselves into pretzels to give meaning to the government's peacekeeping aspirations – Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, former foreign minister Stéphane Dion, International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and now Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland have all been involved.

The African country of Mali has become a leading candidate for Canada's first mission. It was part of the former French empire in Africa, and France has been hoping that partly francophone Canada will contribute to the fight against jihadi extremists there as part of the United Nations "peace stabilization" campaign – a.k.a. counter-insurgency – known as MINUSMA.

The Canadian Armed Forces shed blood and lost lives during the decade-long mission in Afghanistan. Sending them into a similar campaign in Mali may further Liberal political interests. But does it serve the national interest? An especially disturbing aspect of the mission is the Malian jihadis' use of child soldiers. The Canadian Forces have no experience dealing with such tactics.

"We know we have to make the right decision for Canada," Prime Minister Trudeau said recently about "peace support operations." Sometimes, the right decision is to stay home.

R22eR Taking over Niger Training Mission From Special Forces

By: Murray Brewster, CBC News 

As many as 25 Canadian soldiers, based out of Valcartier, Que., will soon take part in a revamped mission to train security forces in the troubled western African country of Niger.

Last summer, CBC News reported that regular army troops would take over an ongoing deployment, known as Operation Naberius, from Canada's elite special forces.

A handful of the highly-trained soldiers have since 2013 helped train the Niger Armed Forces in marksmanship, reconnaissance and other basic military skills.

National Defence confirms troops from the French-speaking 1st Battalion, Royal 22nd Regiment, will assume that responsibility and carry out "periodic" instruction of local forces from now on.

There will be two deployments per year and each will last between two and three months. The military will not say precisely when the first team will be in the field.
Mission flies below the radar

The intent, according to spokesman Dan Le Bouthillier, is to buttress "regional efforts to counter the influence of violent extremist organizations in the Sahel region of Africa."

Members of the Royal 22nd Regiment, better known as the Van Doos, parade at the Citadel in Quebec City last September. Members of the Van Doos' 1st battalion will head to Niger to train military personnel there. (Jacques Boissinot/Canadian Press)

Unlike other high profile training missions in Iraq and Ukraine, there has been virtually no attention paid to the latest mission.

There has been no formal announcement by National Defence and the news comes after requests for comment by CBC News and the online military publication 45eNord.ca.

The mission is separate, but could be complementary to the Liberal government's long-promised return to United Nations peacekeeping, which has been in a holding pattern.

Walter Dorn, a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada, says there is anticipation and some impatience among planners at the UN.

"Countries are eagerly awaiting the government's decision," said Dorn. "They're surprised it has taken this long."
Dithering causes distress

Last summer, the Liberals committed to deploying 600 soldiers and 150 police officers into a series of UN missions, with details expected by the end of last year.

That didn't happen as the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president forced politicians and decision-makers in Canada to take stock of how each policy would be perceived in by the new administration in Washington.

Walter Dorn, professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College, says Canada's decision on a peacekeeping mission is eagerly awaited. (Mike Blanchfield/Canadian Press)

The UN had held open command of the peacekeeping mission in Mali for a Canadian, but that appointment has now gone elsewhere and allies in New York are drumming their fingers.

"The dithering has caused problems with UN planning," said Dorn.

The training of local forces in Niger does not fall within the mandate of the world body because the UN does not conduct counter-terrorism operations.

Le Bouthillier would not say why the switch is being made, other the notion that the military "continually examines and reviews all operations."

Last summer, defence sources told CBC News that officials now believe the basic-level training is best delivered by regular army soldiers.
Precarious security

A small reconnaissance team visited Niger in the fall of last year and the Quebec-based troops have been preparing for the handover ever since, Le Bouthillier said.

The operation flew almost entirely under the radar since it was first ordered by the former Conservative government, which faced repeated calls from the international community to help beat back Islamic militants, who in 2014 had overrun a large swath of territory in neighbouring Mali.


Le Bouthillier said the government of the day determined that special forces, which usually operate in secret, were "best-suited for this type of capacity-building operation."

The mission has also been precarious.

Canadian trainers briefly pulled out of a town in Niger that had been the scene of heavy fighting between government troops and Boko Haram militants in 2015.

No Canadians were involved in combat at Diffa, which sits on the border with Nigeria, but the incident served to underscore the instability in the country.

The deployment is being funded by Global Affairs Canada, which has counter-terrorism capacity building program.

Canadian Military to Become First to Issue Guidelines on Child Soldiers

The Canadian Press 

The Canadian military is poised to become the first in the world to issue guidelines for dealing with child soldiers, which could be put to the test immediately in Africa.

The guidelines are intended to ensure Canadian troops are properly trained and emotionally prepared for situations involving child soldiers — including where they may have to shoot to kill.

“If a child has a gun pointed at you and they have the intent, they have the capability, and they have the means by which to conduct harm on you or your partners, you have to use force as necessary to neutralize that,” said Cmdr. Rory McLay, who is overseeing development of the guidelines.

“That is a tough reality, but we cannot afford to have our folks harmed because they hesitated.”

The guidelines are also intended to make sure Canadian soldiers deal appropriately with a child soldier who isn’t a threat.

“If you’re talking about detainees, for example, once it’s suspected or proven that the individual is a minor then they are immediately removed from the adult population,” said McLay. “The real push there is separation and rehabilitation. That’s what you want to do with child soldiers...to try to get these kids into a rehabilitated state and back to their families.”

The guidelines were ordered by defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance last March after a meeting with retired senator Romeo Dallaire, who has championed the fight against using children in conflict.

While a variety of rules and policies on how to deal with child soldiers already exist, McLay said the new guidelines will be the first to gather everything into one place for Canadian military personnel.

Vance is expected to sign off on them in the coming days, after which they will be distributed to commanders across the Canadian Armed Forces to be included in training and other mission preparation.

“Training is one of the best ways to mentally prepare them to deal with the sights and sounds that they’re going to encounter,” McLay said.

“So if you can specifically guide the training to deal with a specific issue, you are better preparing your team to react appropriately and to be able to deal with their own actions during and down the road.”

Such direction is timely given the Liberal government is expected to greenlight the deployment of hundreds of Canadian soldiers to Mali in the coming weeks.

The UN and human rights groups say armed groups in Mali have intentionally recruited and are using child soldiers in a number of capacities.

The presence of child soldiers on the battlefield is a potential minefield for militaries like Canada, as the French learned the hard way last month when they came under fire for killing a 10-year-old boy.

While the French military says the boy was acting as a lookout for one armed group suspected of planting improvised-explosive devices, the killing has marred its counter-terrorism mission in Mali.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which Canadian troops are fighting in Iraq, has also made extensive use of child soldiers.

While the British are developing similar guidelines, Shelly Whitman, executive director of the Romeo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, said they aren’t as far along as the Canadian military.

Preparing Canadian soldiers for dealing with child soldiers in the field is critical for a number of reasons, Whitman said, which includes ensuring they are properly treated.

But it is also important to consider the impact of child soldiers on the battlefield when planning missions from a legal perspective and in terms of making sure Canadian soldiers don’t hesitate when threatened.

“A lot of soldiers would tell you they didn’t have any preparation for how to handle children in these contexts until they saw it in the battlefield,” she said.

“And that’s where the emotional part of your brain kicks in instead of the cognitive part of your brain. Which means you’ll make decisions based on emotion and not on what’s the best professional decision on that matter.”

CAF to get Guidelines on Dealing with Child Soldiers

By: TONDA MACCHARLES, Toronto Star 

OTTAWA—Canada’s top soldier is issuing the first-ever guidelines for Canadian military personnel on how to deal with child soldiers in advance of deployment to Africa, the Star has learned.

Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, and senior military officials have consulted with the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative and others on how to best prepare troops for a soon-to-be decided UN “peace operations” mission.

In September, Vance issued a draft version of the new guidelines which was expected to be finalized this week.

Called the CAF Child Soldiers Doctrine, it is not country-specific but will provide overarching principles to military personnel, no matter what the mission or mandate. The Star reported last week that Mali has emerged as the likely destination for a large contingent of up to 600 Canadian Armed Forces personnel, but the federal cabinet has not yet given its nod.

According to information obtained by the Star, excerpts of the new guidelines say the “aim is to provide the interim guidance required to address and mitigate the broad challenges posed by the presence of child soldiers in areas where we may undertake missions.”


The United Nations in 2005 identified six categories of grave violations against children that include killing and maiming of children, the recruiting of children as soldiers, sexual violence against children, attacks against schools, denial of humanitarian access to children, and abduction of children.

The military’s guidelines will make clear that all Canadian Armed Forces personnel have a legal duty to report any such violations, and it recognizes that the issue of child soldiers “needs to be better addressed within Canadian Forces doctrine.”

“It is important to ensure our soldiers are prepared to respond to the presence of children and vulnerable populations while on operations. Implementation of such steps will greatly contribute to the operational effectiveness of the CF when reinforced during developmental and pre-deployment training,” it says.



“It will also help prepare troops for the tactical and psychological challenges found in modern theatres.”

The move was hailed by the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, a global partnership based at Dalhousie University. Executive Director Shelly Whitman said “it means essentially that the military’s efforts, or the training, have to be guided by the doctrine; it’s like a bible of the military.”

“When you have a doctrine note come out and it says in it that we’re going to have to understand what this means operationally, strategically, tactically for how our forces address such issues, it’s a huge step forward,” Whitman said in an interview.

Canadian Armed Forces doctrine spells out everything from fundamental principles to details on how to execute operational tasks “to achieve a specific aim,” according to the military’s website.

More specific how-to operational guidelines such as when and how to engage with child fighters would be set out in the rules of engagement of a mission, which are usually classified information.

The guidelines have been a long time coming.

More than seven years ago, former army commander Andrew Leslie, now a Liberal MP, appointed now-retired colonel Jake Bell as the army’s liaison officer with the Dallaire Initiative “to essentially look at this issue to see the things that we could do to incorporate that knowledge into what we do,” Bell said in an interview with the Star.

During his military career, Bell was posted to Bosnia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and in 2012-13 was chief of operations for the United Nations mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Now a consultant for the Dallaire Initiative, he recently travelled to Congo to work with the Congolese army on developing a training curriculum on child soldiers for its officers and non-commissioned troops.

He believes it’s important for the Canadian military and other armed forces to have realistic, practical and scenario-based guidance in dealing with children in a operational theatre, and says “where you can really make an impact is in the prevention of recruitment of child soldiers.”

The Dallaire Initiative consulted with Vance, the chief of defence staff, and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan in March about the issue.

Whitman said military leaders learned many lessons from “challenging situations” in the past, including the war in Afghanistan, dealing with detainees and “also the chai boys, the tea boys.”

That’s a reference to allegations that Canadian soldiers turned a blind eye to abuse of boys by Afghan troops. An inquiry reported to Vance on the issue shortly after he took the top job in Canada’s military.

Earlier this year in response to that inquiry, Vance assured Canadians the military has changed how it trains soldiers for overseas deployments, with more focus on ethical issues, cultural differences and addressing human rights violations.

The Canadian Armed Forces do not identify a specific motivation for this new doctrine.

In an emailed response to the Star’s questions, a military spokesperson said the forces “continually revise and update doctrinal documents in order to ensure operational effectiveness and relevance. Providing our members with a better understanding of issues is therefore critical to mission success.”

“We are doing the responsible thing and recognizing that issues — such as the recruitment of child soldiers by illegal armed groups — can and do occur,” wrote Daniel Le Bouthillier, head of media relations.

“This is why we plan, prepare and ensure our members uphold our legal requirement to report any grave violations against children, as identified by the UN secretary general. The protection of the most vulnerable populations is of the utmost importance.”

He said the Canadian Armed Forces “takes its international obligations extremely seriously and will continue to help ensure our proud men and women have the tools required to carry out their mandates responsibly and with the ethos expected of them by Canadians.”

The concept of child soldiers is defined broadly by the United Nations.

The UN says “a child associated with an armed force or armed group refers to any person below 18 years of age who is, or who has been, recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, spies or for sexual purposes.”

Whitman said she hopes the military will now focus part of its pre-deployment training on the kinds of “moral dilemmas” soldiers will face, and how best to deal with them.

“Our hope is by doing that it means a) it more success overall in their mission and b) we protect children better and c) when our troops come back home we are reducing levels of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and operational stress injury because we will have emotionally and practically prepared them for that and have it not be the first time that they thought about it—the first time they saw it on the battlefield.”

Whitman hopes to offer support and training for military trainers at the military’s Peace Support Training Centre in Kingston. It trains over 1,000 members of the CAF and other government personnel each year, prior to deployment on operations.

In each of the countries to which Canada has looked at deploying — South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic or Mali, children are recruited by military forces, whether to act as fighters, intelligence gatherers, sex slaves or domestic labour. In Mali, in particular they have been used by Islamist groups as suicide bombers, says Whitman.

Senators issue warning over potential Mali peacekeeping mission

By: Murray Brewster, CBC News

A Senate committee has tossed political hurdles in front of the Trudeau government's plan to rejoin the ranks of peacekeeping nations, demanding more funding for the military and a clear end-date to whatever United Nations mission is undertaken.

Senators are also demanding the Liberal government seek the approval of Parliament before a deployment takes place.

The report, with eight recommendations, by the committee on national security and defence comes as the federal cabinet is set to debate, next month, where in Africa to contribute peacekeepers.

The Liberals made peacekeeping a cornerstone of their defence plan in the last election campaign and last summer committed up to 600 soldiers, 150 police officers and $450 million over three years towards a yet-to-be-defined series of missions.

A lot of detailed planning, including two trips to Africa by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, have gone into the pending cabinet decision.
Meeting current needs

But the Senate, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has encouraged to be independent, is laying down its own political markers, which could give opponents of the mission something to rally around.

"The military has needs of its own that are not being fully met," said Conservative Senator Dan Lang, the head of the committee.

He noted there are recruitment, training and equipment needs that are pressing and those should be dealt with before the army is committed to another overseas deployment.

Malian and MINUSMA soldiers carry the flag-draped coffins of two UN soldiers killed in a 2013 bomb attack in Kidal, during their funeral in Bamako, the capital of Mali. (Reuters)

"These are essential requirements that must be met," he said following the release of 55-page report.

"The committee believes (that) before the government increases our commitments to UN peace support operations, they must ensure adequate funding is available to meet the current needs of our Armed Forces."

Lang also questioned whether a deployment to Africa would be in Canada's national interest and said the most often discussed destination — Mali — has been described by international officials as a quagmire.
Avoid another Afghanistan

If Mali is the government's choice, he said the committee is worried the mission may slide into a counter-terrorism operation given the presence of jihadist elements, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

We don't want to get involved "in a situation somewhat similar to Afghanistan," said Lang.

"If we're getting involved in a commitment, and say it's Mali, I don't think we want to to led into a situation where all of a sudden we have a 10-year commitment."

Canadian soldiers patrol southwest of Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2010. (Anja Niedringhaus/Canadian Press)

Consideration of a peacekeeping mission should take a back seat given that the country's commitments to NATO and North American defence — through Norad — are not being met, said Lang.

As an example, he pointed to the fact Canada does not meet NATO's benchmark spending requirement of two per cent of the country's gross domestic product — something no Canadian government has done in decades.

"The government must fulfil our current national obligations before committing new resources — military or otherwise — to a dangerous and costly UN mission in Africa," Lang said.
Justify mission

Recognizing the government is plowing ahead regardless, the Senate committee attempted to set limits by demanding the Liberals table a "statement of justification" for the mission in both the House of Commons and the Senate.

It would include the size, scope, risks and objectives of the mission to ensure "bipartisan support" for troops going out the door.

Also, the committee says the public deserves to know the rules of engagement under which the troops will be operating, specifically what action they'll take to protect themselves and civilians.

Establishing a clear end-date is something the Netherlands did with its UN involvement, and the lesson should not be lost on Canada, said deputy committee chair Mobina Jaffer.

"They had a very, very clear exit strategy," said Jaffer. "We as a committee believe that is very important."

She also encouraged Canada to be more like the Dutch in setting out its strategy objectives for missions.

Canadian soldiers Appear headed to Mali

By TONDA MACCHARLES & BRUCE CAMPION-SMITH Toronto Star 

OTTAWA—The federal cabinet will decide soon where to send Canadian soldiers in Africa, with Mali emerging the most likely prospect for the military peace support operation, the Star has learned.

The range of options, prepared by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, may be brought to cabinet by as early as Tuesday or the following week, sources said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who campaigned on a promise to re-engage Canadian soldiers in United Nations peacekeeping, is said not to have made up his mind yet, despite obvious pressure building from French and UN diplomats to choose Mali.

Any military mission to Mali in West Africa is expected to engage Canadian ground and air forces along with an intensive Canadian development effort to support the ongoing UN mission headquartered in the capital, Bamako.

The government has pledged up to 600 soldiers and 150 police officers for its Africa peace mission. The options being prepared for cabinet suggest that a deployment at the upper range of those numbers would have the greatest impact and offer the best chance of success, sources said.


It’s likely the government will also deploy helicopters as part of the mission — the air force has Griffons and larger Chinook transport choppers. That would respond to a direct appeal by the United Nations for the Mali mission.

It would also help ensure that deployed troops have their own means of moving around and a dedicated lifeline in the event of an emergency.

The Canadian deployment would support a separate French-led military operation across the broader region, known as the Sahel, which is targeting Islamist terrorist groups operating in the northern part of Mali. Known as Operation Barkhane, the French-led counter-insurgency mission is on front lines that span the borders of Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger.



Canadian soldiers could well face the very grim prospect of dealing with determined and hardened fighters, including child soldiers, in a way that could become challenging for the military and for a Canadian public.

Children, while often recruited by armies across Africa to act as fighters, intelligence gatherers, sex slaves or domestic labour, have been used by Islamist groups in Mali as suicide bombers, said Shelly Whitman, executive director of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative.

“It’s a huge issue for Mali,” Whitman said in an interview. “One of the things we’ve been saying to the minister of national defence, as well as to Dion, is (that) if you are going to send the guys in there you better make sure they’re prepared for this issue.”

It could mean engaging in firefights with children, trying to remove them from conflict zones in order to demobilize them, and working to prevent radicalization and recruitment in the first place.

The Dallaire Initiative, a global partnership housed at Dalhousie University, works to prevent the use of child soldiers worldwide. It has developed a handbook and training resources to help military forces deal with the moral dilemmas associated with confronting a child soldier, the risks associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, and teaches ways to improve how they deal with child soldiers in “non-lethal interactions.”

Its advisers have consulted closely with the Canadian Forces, and retired Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire, a former senator, travelled in August to Africa with Sajjan on the minister’s five-country tour, to Uganda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Kenya.

Whitman said she advised the government against going to Mali, saying it must weigh the impact on Canadian soldiers “and the ability of us to have success.” She believes Canadian troops could make a greater and more tangible difference if they went instead to Central African Republic, the Congo or South Sudan, and played a larger mentorship role with African troops already on the ground.

How to engage with child soldiers is just one challenge among many that await the Canadians in country beset by violence and a breakdown in government institutions.

The UN mission in Mali was established in April 2013 after Islamist groups and extremist elements overran towns in the north. French forces deployed to assist Malian troops regain control and the UN force was brought in later to help stabilize the situation.

But the violence has continued to take a toll on daily life, with delayed elections, the displacement of some 130,000 Malians and violations of the 2015 ceasefire agreement meant to bring peace between warring factions.

The UN mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA — which includes troops from Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Niger, Togo and Chad — has been assisting Malian forces with training, logistics, intelligence and co-ordinating operations.

But the operation, with 10,635 military personnel and another 1,264 police officers on the ground, is short of troops, police and equipment.

“We do have very pressing needs in Mali,” Hervé Ladsous, the UN’s undersecretary general for Peacekeeping Operations said in an interview with CBC’s The House.

He said Canada could bring many assets to a Mali mission, citing its “professional” army with a francophone background, making it able to communicate with local residents, and one that has integrated women throughout its ranks.

He singled out the UN’s request for additional helicopters, saying the aircraft are “absolutely critical” in northern Mali.

In 2014 report Amnesty International said children as young as 16 were being recruited by armed groups in Mali. It raised concerns after finding child soldiers locked up in adult jails, denied access to family members and legal advice.

“At the same time there were pro-government militias who were recruiting child soldiers,” said Gaëtan Mootoo, Amnesty International’s researcher for West Africa.

In the north, there has been a breakdown of civil society with no one to run the schools, leaving children susceptible to be pulled into the ranks of the armed groups, he said.

“The kids are on their own,” Mootoo told the Star in an interview from Paris, where he is based.

“When the state fails to look after the population, including the kids, there is the risk of an increase in the recruitment of child soldiers,” he said.

Mootoo said the training and discipline of Canadian soldiers would bring an important contribution to Mali, in the wake of abuses catalogued by the UN by troops already on the ground, including illegal detentions and excessive use of force.

Jake Bell, a retired Canadian forces colonel previously posted to Bosnia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Congo who does consulting work for the Dallaire Initiative, said wherever it deploys, the Canadian mission should take a broad and long-term approach.

“The reality is prevention is the key, and that is dealing with the long-term development issues that create the conditions that are ripe for the recruitment of children,” he said.

“I think you’ll find — and most of the people that I know that ever wore a uniform, that were ever involved in conflict zones, will tell you — that violence will never solve anything. The best you can hope for with violence, with force, is to create the conditions that will get the people to solve the problem on their own.”

The latest UN assessment of Mali paints a picture of the dire situation in the country and the violence that puts peacekeepers in the crosshairs of “complex” attacks involving rockets, mortars, mines and even remote-controlled bombs.

Over the summer, there was a “significant” increase in attacks aimed at Malian troops and the UN forces that now often accompany them on patrols — 66 in total in the three months leading up to the end of September. Those attacks left 13 peacekeepers dead and 32 injured.

“The attacks have become increasingly frequent, bold and well co-ordinated,” the UN report states.

In one July incident, attackers used 18 vehicles and several motorbikes to assault a Malian military camp, killing 15 soldiers and injuring 34 others. In May, an attack on a UN military convoy left five peacekeepers dead.

In response, the UN mission has become more “proactive and robust,” launching operations in concert with Malian troops and French forces to root out terrorists, the report says.

But Ladsous says that the UN mission is not meant to be a counter-insurgency operation, saying that role is filled by the French in Mali.

He said the UN mission aims to support the political process, the disarmament of combatants, training local forces and protecting local civilians.

“Very clearly, we are not designed and cannot be the anti-terrorist tool of choice,” he told CBC.

The UN in Mali

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has been in Mali since April 2013, and boasts 13,083 personnel in total, including:

Uniformed personnel: 11,883

Troops: 10,579

Military observers: 40

Police: 1,264

Civilian personnel: 1,246

International civilians: 585

Local civilians: 661

UN Volunteers: 146

Fatalities: 106

Approved 2016-17: $933,411,000

Canadian Forces could face heavy weapons if deployed to Mali

By: GEOFFREY YORK, The Globe and Mail 

Canadian troops could face a terrifying arsenal of rebel-held weapons, from rockets and artillery to shoulder-fired missiles and anti-tank mines, if they are deployed as expected in a peacekeeping operation in the West African nation of Mali.

A report released on Wednesday shows that the terrorist and separatist groups have obtained a wide range of heavy weaponry from government stockpiles in both Mali and Libya, as well as other unknown sources.

The report, published by British-based Conflict Armament Research, also traces the weapons used by the Islamist radicals who killed six Canadians and 24 other civilians in Burkina Faso earlier this year. Their weapons were relatively new Chinese-made assault rifles, which – based on their similar serial numbers – appeared to share the same supplier as Islamic State fighters in Syria, the report says.


Conflict Armament Research is largely financed by the governments of Britain and Germany and the European Union. Its 49-page report is one of the most extensive recent studies of the sources of illicit weapons in West Africa.

The huge range of heavy weapons in Mali could help explain why the Canadian government has been cautious and hesitant in announcing its peacekeeping plans in Africa.

The government announced in August that it will deploy up to 600 soldiers and 150 police officers in “peace and stabilization operations” in Africa, but nearly three months later, it still hasn’t revealed the location of the deployment.

Most analysts believe that Mali is the most likely location for the Canadian deployment, although the Canadian troops could eventually be divided among several African locations. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan visited Mali and neighbouring Senegal last week, and his department earlier sent a reconnaissance team to Mali to scout out a possible peacekeeping mission.

Mali has endured civil war and terrorist attacks for much of the past five years. Radical Islamist militias won control of northern Mali in 2012, until they were pushed back by French and Malian forces. Terrorist attacks have continued since then, making Mali the deadliest country in the world for United Nations peacekeepers. More than 100 peacekeepers have been killed there since 2013, including more than 30 this year alone.

Asked about the dangers of a Mali mission, Mr. Sajjan told reporters this week that “radical groups” are a threat to UN peacekeeping missions in many parts of the world.

“Peacekeeping of today is much different from before,” he told reporters in Ottawa on Monday. “It’s far more complex. … And that’s why we want to make sure that we take our time, to make sure that we get all the necessary information on how we can actually reduce the threat.”

Before any Canadian troops are deployed, they will get “the right pre-deployment training, the right equipment … and the right rules of engagement to be able to not only defend themselves, but also the civilian population that they’re there to protect,” Mr. Sajjan said.

The dangers of a Mali mission were sharply highlighted last week when a UN peacekeeper was killed and seven others were injured in an attack on a military convoy in central Mali on the first day of Mr. Sajjan’s visit to the country.

The new report by Conflict Armament Research confirms that huge numbers of weapons have been smuggled into Mali from the vast arsenals of Moammar Gadhafi, the Libyan dictator who was killed in 2011 after a military intervention by Western countries, including Canada. Those arsenals were “one of the largest and most diverse conventional weapon stockpiles of any African country,” the report says.

Weapons from the Gadhafi stockpiles fuelled the 2012 insurgencies in northern Mali and later spread to several other countries in West Africa, even reaching Syria, where they were used by Islamic State forces, the report says.

Among the Libyan weapons obtained by rebels in Mali and neighbouring countries were Russian-made MANPADS (man-portable air defence systems), a shoulder-fired missile that can destroy helicopters and other aircraft. These would be of particular concern to Ottawa, since Canadian tactical helicopters could be deployed in Mali if there is a Canadian peacekeeping mission there.

Sending Canadian Peacekeepers to Mali should be an obvious choice

By: Campbell Clark, Globe and Mail 

A month ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knew that a return to UN peacekeeping would automatically be seen as a useful global contribution by Canada’s major ally in Washington. Donald Trump’s election changed that.

That’s why sending Canadian peacekeepers to Mali should now be an obvious political choice for the government, which has pledged to announce a deployment of up to 600 peacekeepers within weeks.

It’s not that the African country matters to Mr. Trump. It seems likely the president-elect couldn’t find Mali on a map and that his national-security staff might not bother pointing to it in his early briefings. But Mr. Trump’s priority is combatting the spread of Islamist terror, and that’s key to the mission in Mali.

That makes sending peacekeepers to Mali just the sort of international security initiative that fits a Canadian Liberal prime minister.

“It has both the realpolitik as well as the more idealistic liberal international justifications,” said Walter Dorn, an expert in peacekeeping and professor at the Royal Military College and the Canadian Forces College.

Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals want to embrace do-gooding internationalism that makes peacekeeping popular with Canadians. It was also something U.S. President Barack Obama urged allies to do.

Mr. Trump, however, doesn’t appear to have any interest in UN peacekeeping. But that still might suit Mr. Trudeau in one way: When the U.S. president is unpopular in Canada, Liberal prime ministers like to be perceived as pursuing an “independent” foreign policy.

Even so, it’s still valuable to be seen as a useful ally in Washington. Canada depends on U.S. co-operation. When the U.S. and other allies complain Canada’s military spending is half its expected NATO obligation, Ottawa likes to point to an active role in missions. Canada has troops advising Kurdish peshmerga forces in Iraq and joined efforts to bolster NATO presence in Eastern Europe, but Ottawa will also hope its peacekeeping mission will be seen in Washington as helpful.

Mali means sharp-ended UN peacekeeping. It operates alongside a French-led counterterrorism mission fighting insurgents in northern Mali and across the Sahel-Sahara region. The peacekeepers are trying to stabilize the country, including the vast north that still suffers disaffection from the government in Bamako – the same vacuum that helped fuel insurgents who were on the verge of taking the capital in 2013, until French troops intervened.

Mr. Trudeau’s government hasn’t yet said where in Africa it will deploy peacekeepers. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan visited Mali earlier this month, but the Liberals have also considered UN missions in Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo. There are arguments for going to a less-dangerous place. Former senator and retired lieutenant-general Roméo Dallaire has suggested Canada should send troops to CAR, where peacekeepers are tasked with tamping down sectarian violence. Ottawa is likely to choose one main mission but could send a handful of troops to others.

But there are also calls for Canada to send its peacekeepers to Mali precisely because it is dangerous. The UN’s under-secretary-general for peacekeeping field support, Atul Khare, said this weekend the Mali mission needs critical elements like helicopters.

“I think the most important contributions currently would be devoted to Mali,” he said in Halifax after meeting Mr. Sajjan and his British counterpart, Michael Fallon.

Mr. Dorn thinks Canadian troops would be more useful in Mali. They have Afghanistan experience, can offer equipment such as Chinook helicopters and expertise such as engineering, communications and possibly intelligence – the Mali mission has more intelligence personnel than any UN mission before it.

But it is more dangerous. So far, 109 peacekeepers have died, including a Togolese soldier two weeks ago. Statistically, Mr. Dorn said, peacekeepers in Mali have a 0.3-per-cent chance of fatality, compared with 1 per cent for Canadian troops in Afghanistan. That’s the biggest risk Mr. Trudeau’s Liberals must weigh. But the Mali mission has a purpose, protecting civilians in a fragile country threatened by insurgents, and it’s one that can be clearly explained to left and right, around the world, in Washington and at home.

Canadian troops and helicopters needed in Mali, says UN official

By: The Canadian Press

Canada’s troops and helicopters are urgently needed to protect and ferry peacekeepers at risk of ambush from Islamist militant forces as they travel through war-torn Mali, a top United Nations official told the Canadian Press.

Here is the rest of the Canadian Press article:

Atul Khare, the under secretary general of the UN’s department of field support, said he’s looking for Canadian help during an interview at the Halifax International Security Forum Friday.

“I think the most important contributions currently would be devoted to Mali,” he said after meeting with the Canadian and United Kingdom defence ministers.

He specified there is a shortage of both armed helicopters and military utility helicopters, adding “these challenges are quite critical and they need to be overcome.”


Khare said he’s also looking for Canada to help with combat logistical companies that escort military convoys as they make perilous journeys to the north of the West African nation.

“The logistical convoys … are frequently ambushed and we face many challenges there,” he said.

With a string of recent deaths along the roadways of the nation, Khare said he’s hoping Canada makes its decision quickly.

“The needs were yesterday. We are searching for them today because we have not yet fulfilled those needs,” he said.

The United Nations established an operation in Mali called MINUSMA in April 2013 after French and African Union forces pushed back rebel and Islamist militant forces that had taken control in the north of the country.

Islamist militants recently launched attacks on both a UN peacekeeping convoy and a Malian military camp in the country’s north, killing at least three people.

Khare says he would also appreciate Canada’s assistance with a regional protection force in the South Sudan.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan hasn’t yet committed to a specific mission, but he recently visited Mali.

“Canadians can be proud of the leadership role we’ve taken,” he said, adding final decisions on priorities for spending will come from a defence policy review the Liberals are finishing up.

But a spokesman for Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose, who arrived at the conference on Friday, said the Opposition wants to know more about what risks the “potentially dangerous” mission might pose for the Canadian military.

Jake Enright said that Ambrose is scheduled to meet with French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and “is hoping the minister can provide her with details about peacekeeping operations in Africa, given that Justin Trudeau has refused to share details with Canadians.”

“Specifically, Ms. Ambrose would like to ask the minister about the French experience in Mali — what challenges exist in such a dangerous region and what types of threats face troops operating in the country.”

Canada Committed to 3-Year deployment in Africa: Sajjan

By TONDA MACCHARLES, Toronto Star

OTTAWA—Canadian troops headed to Africa will operate in dangerous territory where peacekeepers have been killed, says Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.

In an exclusive interview with the Star from Vancouver Sajjan said Canada has committed to a three-year deployment that will be reassessed each year to ensure it has an “enduring” impact.

It will be spread among a number of unspecified African countries, have a major focus on training and increasing “capacity” of the host nation as well as other countries’ troops, and build on existing social, economic and deradicalization programs on the ground.

“These missions, all of them, have the level of risk where peacekeepers have been hurt, they have been killed. And we’ve been looking at the risk factor in a very serious way,” said Sajjan.

Asked about his approach to deploying Canadian forces to conduct counter-insurgency operations — something the previous Conservative government was keen to avoid in Africa when it turned down requests to deploy soldiers to Congo and Mali — Sajjan said “some of it is going to be the reduction of radicalization in certain areas, in other parts it will be developing the capacity of the host nation.”

Just back from Mali, which hosts the deadliest United Nations mission in the world right now, Sajjan says it’s clear there are risks there. He said the same risks exist in the other African missions under consideration by the Liberal government.

But, he added, there are also risks to Canada of doing nothing to counter insurgent groups that are terrorizing populations and radicalizing new recruits, and suggested he and the Liberal government have made this clear to Canadians from “day one.”

“This is not the peacekeeping of the past — we need to look at what the challenges are of today and develop the peace operations for today’s challenges.”

After having travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia in late summer, and Senegal and Mali in the past week — Sajjan said he believes the UN mandate for and rules of engagement with hostile forces are “robust” enough to address the risks, particularly in Mali. The UN mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, has seen 106 casualties since it was established in 2013, including 69 from “malicious acts.”

“One thing I did learn, the mandate for the mission is robust so there no concern that our troops would be limited in any way,” said Sajjan. “I had a very direct conversation with the political leadership of the UN and the force commander about that, and the safety of our troops is always paramount.”

The defence minister, a Canadian Armed Forces veteran of the Afghanistan combat mission, suggested the risk to soldiers’ lives, however, does not justify inaction.

“It can’t just be one factor that we look at. That’s one; that’s an important factor that needs to be addressed. We have looked at that and the question always comes: how do you mitigate some of these challenges,” he said.

“But at the end of the day just because you see a problem ahead of you, you can’t just ignore it, you have to look at, can we look at addressing it.”

He insisted Canada “can play a huge role where we can reduce conflict and get into areas where we can start preventing conflict by addressing certain root causes at an early stage.”

Sajjan said there are ways to “mitigate” risk, just as he says the Liberal government did when it overhauled Canada’s combat mission to Iraq, “and making sure that we put the right type of troops, the right equipment with the right mandate for that mission.”

The Liberals pulled out Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets and refocused Canada’s military contribution to the fight against Daesh on training Iraqi and Kurdish peshmerga forces to fight the Islamist rebel forces.

Sajjan stressed that a big part of the federal analysis underway — as he, two other federal ministers, and military and civilian fact-finders have travelled to Africa — is examining how Canada’s contribution of some 600 soldiers and up to 150 police can have a maximum impact, whether it’s through military training, building on economic development programs and opportunities like on the “agriculture side” in Mali, or combating sexual violence, including by UN peacekeeping troops.

“What we do provide will be enduring. We committed for three years, but the thinking is to have the impact, we always need to assess,” said Sajjan.

Asked how Canada avoids sending troops to be injured or killed in a mission where there is no end in sight, Sajjan stressed Canada’s intention is to effect measurable change.

“I wouldn’t want to put troops in any place where there is no end,” he said, suggesting the plan is to provide “innovative” solutions, to help UN or African Union troops be better able to do their jobs, “so we don’t have to look at a very long, protracted deployment that will not have an impact.”

Sajjan said Canada is looking at spreading its various contributions — military, police and civilian — among a number of UN missions, not African Union-led missions, in Africa. But it will support African Union efforts at the same time.

Right now, he said, much of the public attention is on exactly where soldiers will be sent.

But he said Canadians should expect a broader mission that could see troops sent to one end of Africa while other elements of Canada’s contribution will be sent to a different part. He said there are troop and police training centres across Africa, and “a small number of troops or even RCMP can have significant impact in other areas, to make a training centre far more effective.”

“We will be assisting in capacity-building in many of the training centres and that will be . . . regardless of where we go.”

Much has been made of the fact Canada has French-speaking troops and no colonial baggage, an asset from the perspective of many francophone African nations and the UN. Sajjan said it doesn’t mean soldiers from Quebec or New Brunswick would be the only ones to deploy, rather he said that across the armed forces, the leadership in officer ranks are bilingual, as are many in the non-commissioned ranks.

Sajjan said the government has “narrowed” the ultimate destinations for its Canadian mission, but did not tip his hand on his preference.

He said there is nothing to be read into the countries he’s travelled to, nor the fact that he recently went to Mali, saying he couldn’t fit it into the earlier trip to central and East Africa. Although he has not travelled to the Central African Republic, Darfur, or South Sudan, Sajjan said he has addressed the same questions around those missions at meetings in Ethiopia late summer.

He said the decision on where to dispatch Canada’s peace support mission is expected to be finalized by the federal cabinet before end of year.

“I think when Canadians see the level of work that’s gone into this it’s not just the location that’s going to be the main news, it’s how we’re going to be deployed.”

Sajjan’s comments flesh out the “layered approach” that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canadians should expect to its upcoming Africa “peace support” operation.

Several ministers and government departments are working up options to make good on the Liberal election pledge to re-engage with the United Nations.

International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau also travelled to Senegal (where many UN offices operating in West Africa are located) and Mali in August. And Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion travelled this week to Kenya, Nigeria and Ethiopia.

Dion, in a statement issued Thursday from Nairobi where he announced $21.5 million for development and security projects, said: “Kenya is an important partner for Canada in regional peace and security in Africa, but there is room for further growth.”

Dion said the money will “help provide youth with enhanced skills for employment and improve security and stability by countering terrorism, combating radicalization and violent extremism, and ensuring safety and security of borders within the region.”

Sajjan's Africa trip could be Logistics Planning for Mali Mission

By: Amanda Connolly, iPolitics

Senegal billed as key location to support for Mali operation

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan’s trip to Mali and Senegal next week could be a sign the government is trying to nail down logistics for a possible peacekeeping mission in Mali, two peace operation experts suggest.

“I think there’s two important components. One is that Senegal is a major contributor to the UN mission in Mali,” said Walter Dorn, a professor at the Royal Military College who focuses on peace operations and who has worked worked as an advisor with the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations.

“Secondly, Senegal is a major route for supply, it’s a major logistics component for support of a mission in Mali.”

Sajjan has said Canadian troops will take part in a UN peace support mission in Africa. He’s said he is making 600 troops and 150 military police available to the UN, but has yet to announce where Canadian troops will go.

The speculation in defence and foreign policy circles has focused largely on three locations: Mali, where a UN mission works in conjunction with a broader French counterterrorism operation to support a peace process; and the Central African Republic or the Democratic Republic of Congo — both engaged in bloody and long-standing civil wars.

iPolitics has confirmed the government is not looking at a mission in South Sudan, which is sometimes mentioned in speculation.

The Mali mission offers what some experts have described as a potential for both risk and reward. The mission there is currently the UN’s most deadly, having claimed the lives of 69 peacekeepers since it began in 2013.

However, it also faces specific gaps that match Canadian capabilities and the skill set the Canadian Forces developed during their nine-year deployment to Afghanistan: a shortage of expertise in dealing with improvised explosive devices and insurgent populations, and a looming, critical shortage of Chinook transport and Apache — or possibly Griffon — troop support helicopters.

The Dutch, citing operational strain, are pulling out their three helicopter units, leaving the mission with only two, which UN officials say is not nearly enough.

If the government is eyeing a possible mission to Mali, ensuring it has a reliable stream of supplies and a way of getting its gear into the country will be critical.

“If you wanted to have a relatively secure location to support a Canadian operation in Mali, Senegal fits the bill,” said Lewis MacKenzie, a retired major general with the Canadian Forces who has served on nine UN peace operations and led the mission in the Balkans in 1992.

Dorn and Mackenzie both cite the importance to any Mali mission of Senegal’s port on the Atlantic, its airfield and its history of playing a significant role as a contributor of troops to UN peace operations.

“It’s got a port and through Senegal you can get to Bamako … so you can see that would be a way to bring larger items by ship,” said Dorn. “That would make a lot of sense.”

Announced Tuesday evening, Sajjan’s office said his trip next week to Mali and Senegal will be aimed at gathering facts on the ground and isn’t necessarily an indication of a decision to deploy troops to either country.

It also comes on the heels of a “fact-finding” trip this summer to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda that saw Sajjan meet with NGOs, defence counterparts and other organizations involved in peace support operations.

“As with the last trip, I wouldn’t look too much into the countries he is visiting an an indication of a potential deployment,” said Jordan Owens, the minister’s press secretary. “This trip to West Africa will build upon his understanding of the ‘ground truth’ as Canada continues to investigate how we can contribute to international peace and security with a whole-of-government approach.”

When asked specifically whether the minister would be looking at possible logistical support for any future mission, Owens said that is something that the military — not the minister — would take care of and that this trip is more similar to the five-country trip he took this summer.

“That is more of a military planning issue, which [Sajjan] would leave up to the pros in the [Canadian Armed Forces], she said.

“The purpose of the minister’s trip is to get a better understanding of the political situation on the ground and see first-hand how Canada could contribute to peace support efforts on the continent. The East Africa trip was helpful in that way, and he would like to get a similar understanding of the situation in West Africa.”

Start in Senegal for new "peace and stabilization" operation

Globe and Mail Editorial 

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan continues to be very discreet about his plans to give content to Justin Trudeau’s 2015 election pledge to revive Canada peacekeeping – or rather, in contemporary terms, to “peace and stabilization operations.” The straightforward Pearsonian era of supervising an agreed-upon ceasefire lines is long past.

On a trip this week, Mr. Sajjan is going to Mali and Senegal. The federal government has already been considering Mali, the Central African Republic and the not so very Democratic Republic of the Congo. The government insists that any visit to a particular country does not signify an intention to undertake a military mission there.

But if a military mission in Africa there must be, Senegal may be a good way to start. Though hardly a utopia, it is much more stable than any other country that has hitherto been mentioned in this context. The prevalence of peaceable Sufism there does not provide much ripe ground for radical jihadism.

Nonetheless, there have been incursions into Senegal by Islamic extremists from time to time, unsuccessful so far, from neighbouring Mauritanian and Malian militias. (A Christian and animist uprising in Senegal ended with a unilateral ceasefire in 2014.)

Hypothetically, in any case, it’s worth looking at what a Canadian military contingent of 600 troops and 150 military police in Senegal (the number that Canada is thinking of) or some other African country might find itself dealing with.

On its face, a Canadian the new peacekeeping or “peace security operations” contribution in Senegal might be more like an allied presence, to share in the continuing defence of Senegal – perhaps a little like the Canadian forces in Germany in NATO before the end of the Cold War.

A counterinsurgency in a chaotic, arid country such as Mali or Mauritania would be outside the experience of most members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Mr. Sajjan has prudently said, “We need to go into this eyes wide open. So based on that, I have not set a deadline,” specifically, not the end of 2016, “as I want to make sure that we do all the necessary work, so that we can have [a] meaningful impact.”

Such a moderate initial objective may be a good start.

Should Canada do battle to keep peace in Africa?

By: KENNEDY JAWOKO, Toronto Star

The number of Canadian Forces troops and rules of engagement matter a great deal to the protection of civilians.

On June 6, 2014, a few hours after sunset, armed men opened fire on an outdoor church ceremony in Mutarule, a small village in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The assailants attacked the village with rifles and grenade launchers, shooting civilians at close range and then burning them alive.

An offensive use of force by Canada during its UN peacekeeping mission in Africa should reduce violence against civilians, writes Kennedy Jawoko. (ED JONES / ED JONES/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

A survivor described the experience to Human Rights Watch: “We heard bullets coming from all sides. We all got down on the ground. They came in by the door and were in camouflage military uniforms. There were many of them. The first one said: ‘Exterminate them.’ Then they started shooting.”

All told, the attackers killed 38 villagers in a few hours, including at least nine children. Many more were injured, stabbed with bayonets or burned past recognition.

That’s the picture Canadian peacekeepers are likely to come face-to-face with when Canada returns to peacekeeping in an era where the rules of engagement are non-existent.

The tragedy in Mutarule could have been avoided. A United Nations peacekeeping base, located just an eight-minute drive away, received frantic phone calls from villagers asking for help as the massacre began. Although the peacekeeping mission in the DRC has the authority to use force to protect civilians, UN soldiers stayed in their barracks.

This week the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sacked the commander of a peacekeeping force in South Sudan following a damning report that accused the blue helmets of failing to protect civilians during an outbreak of violence in July that killed dozens of people. Investigators concluded peacekeepers abandoned their posts and failed to respond to pleas for help from aid workers under attack.

These reports illustrate how peacekeepers’ choices — in particular the choice to use force — matter a great deal to the protection of civilians. For the past 15 years, UN peacekeepers have had robust mandates that require them to protect civilians and authorize them to use force beyond self-defence to achieve that goal. Despite these changes, long-standing debates on the offensive use of force in peacekeeping continue.

A Nanos Research survey conducted for CTV News last month found that nearly 70 per cent of Canadians support deploying Canadian Forces on UN peacekeeping missions in active fighting areas. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has committed to deploying 600 Canadian troops on UN peacekeeping missions. If Canadian peacekeepers were to use force beyond self-defence, then I believe four key factors should be taken into consideration.

First, the deployment of a large number of peacekeepers will likely amplify the deterrent effect of the use of force. When they intervened, blue helmets in Congo simultaneously launched offensives and deployed in greater numbers to war-affected regions. This combination probably did more to change the calculus of rebels than the offensive use of force alone, which failed to quell rebel violence against civilians in other cases.

Second, Canadian Forces should also weigh the capacity of rebel groups, compared to peacekeepers and their allies, when contemplating the use of force. UN peacekeepers and the Congolese army failed to change the behaviour of sophisticated rebel groups. These large and well-trained forces, with external financial or military support, continued to target civilians during and after the offensive use of force.

Third, Canadian peacekeepers might not be able to protect civilians through the use of force when the national government allies with a rebel group that commits atrocities. In these situations, Canada might have to turn to other tools to persuade the government to reconsider the alliance or to otherwise protect civilians. These tools might include diplomatic pressure, use of media, or threatening to suspend certain forms of co-operation with the government.

Lastly, rebel groups that operate out of a vast and remote forest, employ hit-and-run tactics, and disappear into the local population might not often respond to the offensive use of force. These guerrilla tactics mean offensive use of force might not bring about a decrease in rebel violence against civilians.

Research shows that deploying large numbers of peacekeepers does reduce violence against civilians. I believe the offensive use of force amplifies that effect. When Canada takes the initiative, it should do so with a sufficient number of troops — both civilian and military — not just 600 pairs of boots on the ground.

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Kennedy Jawoko is a professor at Seneca College. He has conducted research on media and conflict in South Sudan.

Germans Tiger attack helicopters might provide cover for RCAF Chinooks in Mali

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

There are reports in the German media that the country’s military is looking at providing Tiger attack helicopters to accompany RCAF Chinooks for an upcoming mission in Mali.

But the Liberal government says it still has to decide on whether those Chinooks, based in Petawawa, Ontario, – or any other units for that matter – would be heading to a mission in Africa.

A German Eurocopter Tiger attack Helicopter. Germany is considering deploying these to Mali in the wake of the Dutch decision to withdraw its Apache Helicopters. 

Meanwhile, the Canadian Press is reporting that Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan will travel to Mali and Senegal later this week as the Liberal government considers where to send hundreds of Canadian peacekeepers. International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau visited Mali in September. Sajjan visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania.

In September, the Canadian government sent a team to Mali to do a reconnaissance mission for a potential UN operation in that country. The reconnaissance team included members of the Canadian military, Global Affairs Canada and the RCMP.

The UN mission currently involves around 10,000 military personnel taking part in an effort to stabilize Mali. Various armed groups, including Islamic insurgents, have been conducting sporadic attacks in that country. The UN plans to boost the mission by around 2,500 personnel.


The UN has also made it known it would like attack helicopters and transport helicopters to fill the void left by the withdraw of Dutch Chinooks and Apaches from Mali.

“We have decided to continue the Mali mission, but with a reduced capacity,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters Oct. 7. “Dutch helicopters will be withdrawn.”

Sajjan has said that by the end of the year the government expects to make its decision on the next peacekeeping mission. But in his interview with the Canadian Press, he appeared to retreat somewhat on his previous statements. “We need to go into this eyes wide open,” Sajjan said. “So based on that, I have not set a deadline as I want to make sure that we do all the necessary work, so that we can have the meaningful impact.”

Sajjan to visit West Africa as Liberals weigh Peacekeeping Mission

By: Bruce Champion-Smith, Toronto Star

SHOULD CANADA GO TO AFRICA?

Harjit Sajjan’s trip to Mali and Senegal next week comes as a senator warns of long-term risks posed by a planned peacekeeping mission to Africa.The Star examines our return to peacekeeping in a continuing series.

OTTAWA—Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan is headed to Mali and Senegal on a fact-finding mission next week as the federal government continues to make plans to deploy a military mission to Africa.

Sajjan’s five-day visit comes after an August trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, all against the backdrop of the Liberal pledge to commit troops to an African mission.

“We need to go into this eyes wide open, making sure that … we look at the complexities of how (peace) operations have been done in the past and what we need to do,” Sajjan told reporters in Ottawa.

Sajjan offered no timeline of when a decision on the deployment could be made.

“I have not set a deadline,” he said. “I want to make sure that we have all the right information, so that we can have a comprehensive plan, a whole-of-government approach to peace operations that are going to bring added value to the United Nations and how they operate now,” Sajjan said.

As with his previous trip, officials in Sajjan’s office cautioned that his itinerary should not be taken as a signal of where the Canadian force may wind up.

“He’d like to get a better sense of the situation in West Africa,” Jordan Owens told the Star. “Don’t read too much into the location.”

Still, Mali — home to one of the deadliest peace missions in Africa — has emerged as one of the possible locations where Canada could dispatch soldiers.

Sen. Daniel Lang, chair of the Senate committee on national security and defence, said discussions at UN headquarters last week provided a sobering overview of the challenges that are certain to confront a Canadian peace mission in Africa.

In late August, the government sent a reconnaissance team of officials to scout the situation on the ground.

Sajjan’s trip comes as Sen. Daniel Lang, chair of the Senate committee on national security and defence, warns that the military mission to Africa could be risky and could ensnare Canada for the long term.

Lang said discussions at UN headquarters last week provided a sobering overview of the challenges that are certain to confront a Canadian peace mission.

And he said any commitment to dispatch troops on an African mission must involve a clear-eyed appraisal of the risks, the length of the deployment and how it serves the national interest.

“Canadians should be fully aware of what we’re getting involved with,” Lang said Monday.

The Liberal government is weighing options to deploy as many as 600 soldiers and 160 police officers somewhere in Africa on a peace mission.

Lang praised Sajjan for taking time to carefully consider the deployment, given the risks.

He said there is good reason such missions are known as “peace support” operations, rather than “peacekeeping,” in many of the locales where Canadians could wind up.

“There is no peace to keep. You are there to try and maintain some social order and stability and protect the civilian population because you have all these warring factions,” Lang said.

He cited Mali as one example of the dangerous terrain that might await Canadian troops. A UN peacekeeper from Chad was killed there and four others wounded in May when their vehicle struck a mine.

“It’s been described as one of the deadliest missions to be involved in,” Lang told the Star during an interview in his office across from Parliament Hill.

“Canada has to be clear, if they’re going into anything like this, what the rules of engagement will be for any of our troops … that we have the ability to ensure their security,” he said.

During their visit to the UN, Lang and several other members of the Senate committee met with representatives of a number of African nations as well as European countries, such as the Netherlands, that have troops deployed to Africa.

He said there was an “overwhelming” call for Canada to focus on training local soldiers, likely from the African Union, to better enable them to take on the duties of serving in a conflict zone.

“Canadians can bring a fair amount of expertise to the table,” he said. “That was definitely an area that was said over and over again.”

Equipment, such as armoured vehicles, helicopters and other airlift capabilities, was also cited as another area where Canada could help.

Yet the discussions at the UN also underscored the challenge that lies ahead and the fact that the scale of conflict demands long-term intervention.

“It was clearly put to us that these countries and these regions that are undergoing such terrible devastation and political turmoil and violence, (it’s) a 10- to 20-year commitment,” Lang said.

“Not that Canada would necessarily stay there that long, but the fact is these are not a situation for quick fixes,” he said.

But he said Canada must learn from its time in Afghanistan, a costly conflict that began as a short-term deployment and turned into the country’s longest military engagement, stretching to 12 years.

Some have charged that the Liberal government is keen to send troops to Africa as part of its campaign to win a seat on the UN Security Council.

But Lang said the driving consideration must be the “public security of Canada.”

“At the end of the day, we have to know why we are going to deploy to any parts of the world, and that includes Africa. Why is it in our national interest? I think that has to be fully explained to us as Canadians,” he said.

Lang said the rationale is clearer for Europeans and their struggle against extremist terrorism, since Africa is in their “backyard.”

Lang said he came away from the visit “a bit overwhelmed” at the magnitude of the challenges confronting some of the nations.

“But I also came away knowing that Canada has been pulling its weight,” he said. “We’re not taking a back seat to anyone.”