- Reaction score
- 4,402
- Points
- 1,160
This column, by Kate Heartsield, from today’s Ottawa Citizen (and reproduced here under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act) provides some food for discussion:
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.html?id=0acef2a2-29c2-46dd-8d92-a1d19a5b2b40
First: it provides a new (to me) and useful term: peacebuilding – to describe what should happen after the peacekeepers have been doing their job, successfully, for a while, which, in turn, can only happen after the peacemakers have done theirs.
Ms. Heartfield forgets (conveniently? out of typical Canadian journalistic ignorance?) that the Sierra Leone UN peacekeeping mission was on the road to disaster until the UK mounted a unilateral peacemaking mission and then reorganized the UN’s peacekeepers, etc.
That being noted, Sirre Leone might be a useful test-bed for some peacebuilding involving, inter alia:
• Civilian police, prosecutors and judges;
• School builders and teachers;
• Bureaucrats and institutional managers;
• Bankers and financiers … and so on.
There may, indeed, be a role for Canada here – not, under any circumstances, a military role*: any peacekeeping/security which is still required can, must, be done by Africans – training may require the South Africans.
Someone (DND? Army.ca?) has to educate Canadians about the progression from:
• Crisis; through
• Intervention – a political choice, rarely a choice Canada will make on its own;
• Military planning – normally, for Canada, as part of a combined (multinational) process;
• Deployment of peacemaking forces – combat forces ready, able and willing to kill and be killed in order to protect our national vital interests and provide peace and security for others so that they may decide, for themselves, how to organize their own societies to meet their own legitimate needs and aspirations;
• Deployment of peacekeeping forces, after the peacemakers have succeeded, to facilitate a proper, successful 3D programme; and
• Peacebuilding; to
• Withdrawal.
A few first world nations - including Canada, and only a handful of such nations, have the social, political, economic and military wherewithal to provide the peacemaking forces – this task is beyond the capabilities of e.g. Albania, Bangladesh, Chile and so on but they, and many other second and even third world nations will be able, and should be willing to provide peacekeeping forces. It is Canada’s duty to step up and assume the responsibility which nature, history and our own efforts have made it possible for us to accept.
While we should never, under any conceivable circumstance, allow the UN within 100 miles of any peacemaking mission – beyond having the UNSC ‘bless’ the mission with a robust mandate, the UN should have a major role in both peacekeeping and peacebuilding.
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* The Government of Canada needs to set three priorities for the Canadian ARMY:
1. Continue the mission in Afghanistan – this may be a 20 years task, as LGen Leslie suggested earlier this year;
2. Recruit, train and integrate thousands and thousands of new soldier; and, at a distant third
3. Everything else – beginning with retaining existing, serving soldiers and improving the Army’s training and equipment.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/columnists/story.html?id=0acef2a2-29c2-46dd-8d92-a1d19a5b2b40
First: it provides a new (to me) and useful term: peacebuilding – to describe what should happen after the peacekeepers have been doing their job, successfully, for a while, which, in turn, can only happen after the peacemakers have done theirs.
Ms. Heartfield forgets (conveniently? out of typical Canadian journalistic ignorance?) that the Sierra Leone UN peacekeeping mission was on the road to disaster until the UK mounted a unilateral peacemaking mission and then reorganized the UN’s peacekeepers, etc.
That being noted, Sirre Leone might be a useful test-bed for some peacebuilding involving, inter alia:
• Civilian police, prosecutors and judges;
• School builders and teachers;
• Bureaucrats and institutional managers;
• Bankers and financiers … and so on.
There may, indeed, be a role for Canada here – not, under any circumstances, a military role*: any peacekeeping/security which is still required can, must, be done by Africans – training may require the South Africans.
Someone (DND? Army.ca?) has to educate Canadians about the progression from:
• Crisis; through
• Intervention – a political choice, rarely a choice Canada will make on its own;
• Military planning – normally, for Canada, as part of a combined (multinational) process;
• Deployment of peacemaking forces – combat forces ready, able and willing to kill and be killed in order to protect our national vital interests and provide peace and security for others so that they may decide, for themselves, how to organize their own societies to meet their own legitimate needs and aspirations;
• Deployment of peacekeeping forces, after the peacemakers have succeeded, to facilitate a proper, successful 3D programme; and
• Peacebuilding; to
• Withdrawal.
A few first world nations - including Canada, and only a handful of such nations, have the social, political, economic and military wherewithal to provide the peacemaking forces – this task is beyond the capabilities of e.g. Albania, Bangladesh, Chile and so on but they, and many other second and even third world nations will be able, and should be willing to provide peacekeeping forces. It is Canada’s duty to step up and assume the responsibility which nature, history and our own efforts have made it possible for us to accept.
While we should never, under any conceivable circumstance, allow the UN within 100 miles of any peacemaking mission – beyond having the UNSC ‘bless’ the mission with a robust mandate, the UN should have a major role in both peacekeeping and peacebuilding.
----------
* The Government of Canada needs to set three priorities for the Canadian ARMY:
1. Continue the mission in Afghanistan – this may be a 20 years task, as LGen Leslie suggested earlier this year;
2. Recruit, train and integrate thousands and thousands of new soldier; and, at a distant third
3. Everything else – beginning with retaining existing, serving soldiers and improving the Army’s training and equipment.
No hard feelings from me if ya do.
