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Willing to take wounds for peace?

Posted in Featured, View Point

Published on September 01, 2016 with No Comments

Elections are known to create a forum where promises are made. Some realistic, some idealistic, some practical, some out of reach, some workable and some naïve. Performance of a government is judged by the promises it’s able to meet. Effectiveness of a government is measured with intent to fulfill those promises and the consequences of the same.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a Liberal Prime Ministerial candidate last year made a clear promise to the Canadians, “We will renew Canada’s commitment to peacekeeping operations.” Last week the Federal government announced it will step up its contribution to UN peacekeeping operations.  The government has said it will commit 600 troops and $450 million over three years to United Nations peacekeeping operations around the world.The additional soldiers represent an increase over the 19 Canadian troops deployed on peacekeeping missions, bringing the total more in line with the number of Canadian peacekeepers deployed in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Canada has a good record in peacekeeping activities.

The announcement has been a stark departure from the stand maintained by the previous governments. Prime Minister himself acknowledged this as an “unprecedented move.” Unprecedented mainly that it’s a deviation from the earlier stand? Or the Prime Minister knows the consequences of the move!

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said “the unprecedented contribution was only the “first part” of Canada’s re-engagement with multilateral peace operations”. The committed 600 personnel will include ground troops and commanders with engineering and medical expertise and military and police training. Prime Minister was forthright in assuring, “It’s recognition of the fact that Canada has a duty to be engaged and to be a positive player in the world in the coming years.”

While announcing so, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must have analyzed the changes that the process of peace keeping has undergone.  Peace keeping is required where conflicts are and over the years the conflicts have become more complicated. It’s no longer the tussle between the nations. It’s no longer a dispute over border. Conflicts today are more often internal involving ethnic factions. The disputesare over ideologies, over territories within a nation.  The modern day conflicts only go to say that peace can’t be kept by forces, it can only be achieved by understanding.

Peace keeping no longer is and will not be standing guard on an international boundary and will call for getting inside a country. Going by present scenario in certain countries that are facing conflict, and the nature of the conflict they are involved in; the process of peace keeping could turn hot while the forces would be hoping to do otherwise.

The experience that our Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan has had at Afghanistan when he served in the Army, where 159 Canadians in uniform were killed; prompted him to say that the “terminology of peacekeeping is not valid at this time.”  He does have a point and the Federal government in the masquerade of peace keeping opted for a new Peace and Stabilization Operations Program. Considering the complexities of Peace Keeping in present scenario, the government didn’t say where the troops will be deployed. Since Defense Minister HarjeetSajjan recently returned from Africa there are speculations. Working with the United Nations by deploying up to 600 Armed forces to spots in Africa and elsewhere are being projected as an option –not by the government but by a section of mainstream media. However, the government has given an indication that these men and women will serve as ground troops, provide police training, and offer medical and engineering expertise.

“Canada is back,” the government announced last week. But peacekeeping may not be in its true form. Canada is set to embark on an undertaking that may put the Canadian soldiers’ lives at risk in some of most dangerous places in the world with Canadian national interest not at stake.

Prime Minister will certainly have to evaluate the move. Prime Minister will have to ask Canadians if they are ready for it and if they ever want it. Perhaps the answer that would echo -“Yes, we love peace, but we are not willing to take wounds for it, with nothing at stake”.

 

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