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.

Canadian Officials Still Assessing Mali Peace-Support Missing Possibilities

German armed forces members check their vehicles at Camp Castor as part of the UN-led MINUSMA enforcement mission in Gao, Mali. (ALEXANDER KOERNER / GETTY IMAGES)

By: Bruce Champion-Smith, Toronto Star 

OTTAWA—Canadian aid and foreign affairs officials have made repeated visits to Mali — including one visit just last week — as politicians continue to consider a long-awaited peace operation, the Star has learned.

While cabinet ministers insist that no location has been picked for the coming deployment, Mali has been the destination of choice for bureaucrats attempting to scout locations and determine how personnel, combined with millions of dollars in aid and development funding, can be best put to use.

Those “non-stop” visits to the African country over recent months have involved personnel from the Defence Department, Foreign Affairs, Aid and Development, a source told the Star.

The most recent visit came last week when officials attached to the newly formed Peace and Stabilization Operations Program in Global Affairs Canada spent several days in the Malian capital of Bamako.

Another team had travelled to the country just a few weeks before that. “There’s been so many assessment missions,” the source said.


Details of the visits were provided by an official familiar with the government’s work on the file, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Seven months after first pledging personnel for the peace mission, the federal cabinet has yet to take a formal decision on the deployment and the ongoing visits suggest that the government is still scoping out the exact role.

But the harsh realities and potential dangers of a mission in Mali could be one reason for the protracted decision amidst fears that Canada could get stuck in a “quagmire.”

“It’s not a peacekeeping mission. It’s a counter-insurgency mission,” the source said.

Indeed, the peace mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, is the UN’s most dangerous: 114 soldiers have died, 72 the result of “malicious” acts. Their foes are Islamist radicals tied to Al Qaeda who have put UN forces in the crosshairs of direct attacks, roadside bombs and deadly ambushes.

The Liberal government came into office in November, 2015 and committed a swift return to peacekeeping, a role Trudeau has said was neglected during 10 years of Conservative rule. Last August, the Liberals announced that they would commit 600 soldiers and 150 police officers to the initiative.

At the same time, they also announced the creation of the peace and stabilization operations program, backed by the promise of $450 million over three years, to fund projects that “help to promote peace and security,” according to the government.

But launching that peace mission has taken longer than expected. The Liberals have publicized the fact-finding visits by cabinet ministers. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau and then-Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion all made fact-finding trips to Africa last year.

A January cabinet shuffle that saw Chrystia Freeland take over as Foreign Affairs minister and the election of Donald Trump have also contributed to the drawn-out decision-making.

The government has not revealed the more frequent travels of bureaucrats who have been doing their own fact-finding.

While Canada’s delayed peace mission may ultimately be deployed to several spots, Mali has been a site of great interest for federal officials, the source told the Star.

The Foreign Affairs department did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday on whether these visits are tied to the peace mission or related to a different project altogether.

But the growing delay in deciding where and how the Liberals will make good on the peacekeeping pledges is causing frustration. A decision was expected before Christmas but weeks have passed since then with no word of an announcement.

Trudeau and his cabinet ministers have given no reason for the delay, saying only that the government is taking the time it needs. “We know we have to make the right decision for Canada,” Trudeau said last week.

This week, Sajjan and Freeland justified the lengthy deliberations.

“It is a very big decision for Canada and for our government, and I think all Canadians understand that it is important for us to work together, to work with all our allies to make the right decision,” Freeland told reporters.

But NDP MP Hélène Laverdière, her party’s foreign affairs critics, said it’s been months and “still nothing has come out.”

“It’s not only that it hasn’t been decided. It’s that we have no information. There’s been no debate . . . We’re completely in the dark about where the government wants to go, and sometimes it gives the impression that the government itself is in the dark,” said Laverdière, herself a former Canadian foreign service officer with postings that included Dakar and Washington.

But the delay has apparently cost Canada a chance to lead the mission. Several days ago, the United Nations announced that Maj.-Gen. Jean-Paul Deconinck of Belgium would take command of the stabilization mission, a post that was being held for a Canadian.

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.