From the Globe: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20050519/COLEW19/TPComment/TopStories
Wasn't The Four Feathers about the Sudan?
Roméo, Roméo, wherefore art thou partisan?It's hard to watch someone whose name is linked to our failure in Rwanda argue that Canada's response in Darfur is just fine, says retired major-general LEWIS MacKENZIEBy LEWIS MACKENZIE
Thursday, May 19, 2005 Page A19
It's no secret that Roméo Dallaire and I have some profound differences of opinion regarding the role and capabilities -- or lack thereof -- of the United Nations when it comes to fulfilling its primary responsibility: to enhance international peace and security. After his experience in Rwanda, I wasn't prepared to debate our differences in public, lest it exacerbate his fragile state of mind. Now that he has eagerly accepted a partisan appointment as a Liberal senator, however, one can reasonably assume that he will be able to cope with deserved criticism.
In the past few days, we have witnessed the sad spectacle of Senator Dallaire arguing with his own oft-stated previous position regarding the appropriate action to be taken in the Sudanese region of Darfur. It has been widely reported that Mr. Dallaire met independent MP David Kilgour in an attempt to convince him that the government's plan to dispatch a mere 100 unarmed Canadian observers and advisers to the area would be not only adequate but the best policy for Canada. The senator opined that any attempt to dispatch thousands of white troops from NATO countries (as Mr. Kilgour wisely suggested) would exacerbate the situation in Darfur, because the Khartoum government would not be happy to see such troops cross their borders.
This flies directly in the face of Mr. Dallaire's own pronouncements made over the decade since his return from Rwanda -- namely, that a mere 2,500 well-trained NATO troops would have prevented the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans! Now that Prime Minister Paul Martin has offered up a token Canadian military contingent for Sudan, Mr. Dallaire has done an about-face: He has decided that a tough, disciplined and well-led force protecting Darfur's innocent victims would be a bad idea! Go figure.
Mr. Dallaire has suggested on numerous occasions that the West did not respond to the genocide in Rwanda because of underlying racism. This inflammatory comment is blatantly untrue. Since 1956, the United Nations has conducted more peacekeeping missions in Africa than on all the other continents combined. Further evidence that the UN has paid close attention to Africa is the fact that more UN peacekeepers have been killed in Africa than on any other continent.
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Distasteful as it is to admit, the members of the UN, including Canada, turned their backs on Rwanda because there were no perceived national self-interests at stake. The Security Council has been sitting on its hands for years regarding the situation in Darfur because of the national self-interests (oil) of at least two, and perhaps three, of the Security Council's veto-holding permanent five members (France, China and Russia).
Recently, from stage left, we've seen the entrance of the Canadian Responsibility to Protect (R2P) initiative. For all intents and purposes, this initiative, recommended by a committee of eminent international statesmen reporting to the UN Secretary-General, has been accepted by the UN and will be formally adopted in September. R2P addresses the long-standing conflict between two principles: respect for a nation's sovereignty and the need to act when that nation's government is not prepared or is unwilling to protect its own citizens. After other options have been exhausted, R2P not only authorizes intervention over sovereign borders, it encourages such action to protect the innocents.
The situation in Darfur easily qualifies for such intervention. But because the Security Council chronically prefers debate over action, it behooves other multinational organizations to take the lead in stopping the genocide.
Mr. Dallaire has tried to convince Mr. Kilgour that should outside intervention (i.e., NATO) take place without the "invitation" of the Khartoum government, it will result in a bloodbath and only make Darfur's situation worse. This opinion, from someone whose only operational experience was less than a year commanding the UN's most colossal failure in its history, smacks of appeasement. To suggest, as Mr. Dallaire has done, that the African Union's modest and ill-equipped force can successfully operate in an area the size of France and bring deadly force to bear to stop the killing in Darfur -- and that a few unarmed Canadian observers and advisers will make them even more effective -- is naive in the extreme.
On my visit to the area less than a year ago, it was clear that the African Union contingents needed considerable time and much more support than has been offered to date to mature into an effective and mobile fighting force.
The situation cries out now (as it has for years) for rough, tough, professional soldiers to take on the goons, cowards, rebels and militias who are doing the raping and murder. The two sides in the conflict, the Darfur rebels and the government-supported militias, who share the blame for the chaos, don't have to be defeated -- at this time. But if they attack the innocents, the elderly, the young and the women in and around the displaced persons camps, they should be killed.
Only then, when the killing of innocents has stopped, can the diplomatic process have a chance and the NGOs return to help rebuild the society. The West could have saved Rwanda. It should move now to save what is left of Darfur's innocents. It was hard to watch Mr. Dallaire standing behind the Prime Minister during a press scrum waiting for the cue to leap to the microphone -- swallowing his pride and endorsing Canada's pathetic response to the genocide in Darfur as the "best solution." If he really believes this, I have some waterfront property by the Sydney tar ponds that I'll sell him.
David Kilgour is right. Intervention in Darfur by disciplined, well-trained troops who can stop the killing is long overdue. As for Mr. Dallaire, it can't be easy as an ex-general to become partisan when 30-plus years in the profession of arms and the screams he says he hears from Rwanda tells his conscience that Canada must do more than pontificate and send cash.
Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie was the first commander of UN peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo.
