The beating death of a Somali boy at the hands of Canadian troops led to sweeping changes in the Canadian Forces, but according to some experts Canadians perception of peace-keeping also needs to change.
Twenty-five years ago, the Brian Mulroney government committed Canada to the United Nations Operation in Somalia I. At the time, Somalia was embroiled in a civil war and the operation was meant to monitor the UN-brokered ceasefire and secure humanitarian relief for the citizens.
The now-defunct Canadian Airborne Regiment arrived in Somalia in December 1992, and within a few months was marred by suspicious deaths culminating in the beating to death of 16-year-old, Shidane Arone on March 4, 1993. Dubbed the Somalia affair, what followed was an attempted cover-up and an inquiry into the operations of the regiment.
The inquiry concluded that there was an organizational breakdown in the support and leadership of the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defense. The Minister’s monitoring committee on change was created and implemented the recommendations of the inquiry which included 18 changes to the training and education.
“The main thing that came out of Somalia was the anti-intellectual nature of the armed forces,” said Dr. Sean Maloney, military historian and professor of history at the Royal Military College of Canada. “And over the past 25 years, that has paid off in spades.”
Maloney, who has written about Afghanistan says that he has witnessed the benefits of increased education in the way Canada conducts its operations today. He also says that peace-keeping has evolved so much, that the Canadian public needs an education of its current meaning.
“Canadians have a distorted view of what peace-keeping is,” said Maloney. “Peace-keeping [operations] are the operations we were engaged in during the cold war.”
While the UN refers to Somalia as a peace-keeping mission, Stuart Hendin, a UN consultant who delivers peace-keeping training, disagrees.
“There is a fundamental difference between peace-keeping and peace-making,” said Hendin. “We use the term peace-keeping, but in fact it’s the wrong acronym.”
According to Hendin, who also represented now-retired Brig.-Gen. Serge Labbe, one of the officers caught up in the Somalia affair, Somalia was originally envisioned to be a peace-enforcing mission, not a peace-keeping mission. There was virtually no peace to keep, so the main goal was to protect civilians which involved military forces.
Speaking to last year’s announcement by the Liberal government to commit funds and troops to UN peace-keeping missions, Maloney said it was “premature”.
“That obsolete view [of peace-keeping] does not apply to the 21st century in Mali. Those conditions don’t exist, so that’s putting a square peg into a round hole,” said Maloney. “You want to do a peace-keeping mission, well Mali is not a peace-keeping mission. Mali is a UN- led, UN- mandated mission that basically, under their terminology, would be support operations or stability operations.”
In fact, based on the UN fatalities statistics, the mission in Mali is considered the most dangerous current mission. Since the mission began in April 2013, there have been 114 fatalities.
Maloney added that the mission to Mali stalled once the government understood what peace-keeping operations look like today.
“They realized that the world has changed and the environment has changed and that terminology is obsolete,” said Maloney. “And you’ll note that we haven’t deployed anybody there, right?”
Though Canada committed up to 600 troops to UN peace-keeping missions last year, they have not been deployed.
Source documentation:
1. The Somalia Inquiry Report that was released on July 2, 1997. It was helpful because it gave a number of recommendations that included training and mission planning. It helped form the basis of my interviews.
2. Video from CBC digital archives: “Somalia debacle a high-level cover-up”. I chose to use the video instead of news clips because it provided more information.This video was helpful because it provided an overview of the inquiry findings and the reactions to the findings.
3. Interview with Stuart Hendin current UN Peacekeeping trainer and the lawyer who represented now-retired Brig.-Gen. Serge Labbe. The interview was helpful because Hendin was involved in the Somalia affair through his work representing now-retired Brig.-Gen. Serge Labbe, so he knew that operation and in his current capacity with the UN, he could speak about what peace-keeping operations mean today.
4. Interview with Dr. Sean Maloney, military historian and professor of history at the Royal Military College of Canada. This interview was helpful because even though Maloney was not involved in Somalia, through his experience and research into other operations, he was able to provide an understanding of the evolution of peace-keeping operations.