Canadian senator urges government to send troops to Darfur

May 21, 2006 (SPRUCE GROVE, Alta) — Ottawa needs to stop its political “fiddling” with the military mission in Afghanistan and must also “get off its butt” to send troops into Darfur, says Senator Romeo Dallaire.

Lt. Gen Roméo Dallaire served for 35 years with the Canadian Armed Forces. He was the Force Commander of the United Nations Mission to Rwanda.

The Liberal-appointed Senator accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper of risking soldiers’ lives by unnecessarily seeking support last week in the House of Commons to extend Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan.

“We’ve got troops who have already been bloodied in the field and we’ve got a prime minister who’s fiddling back home, trying to maneuver himself at their expense. If the opposition forces, the troops face, realize that maybe we are not committed politically to this mission, then they could use Canadians as a target to ultimately undermine the whole mission,” said Dallaire, who delivered a speech to the Rotary Club in nearby Spruce Grove Saturday.

Canada has about 2,300 troops in Afghanistan, and Parliament voted 149-145 Wednesday night to extend the mission to 2009.

But that vote wasn’t binding on the government, which has the right to conduct foreign policy at it sees fit.

Harper had vowed before the vote to extend the mission by a year even without approval from the House of Commons, and angry MPs suggested he was playing politics with soldiers’ lives by forcing the vote on two days’ notice.

“I think you’ve got an incredible, callous exercise that went on (last) week,” said Dallaire.

But the former commander of a poorly supported United Nations peacekeeping mission during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 did praise the prime minister for visiting troops in Afghanistan in March.

The move was “absolutely magnificent and of first class,” he said.

In his speech, Dallaire argued Canada must send its military into war-torn regions to support citizens who are fending off extremists while struggling to set up stable democratic systems.

The federal government should also send 1,500 troops into Darfur, or at least contribute 500 soldiers to a UN rapid-reaction brigade already operating in Sudan, Dallaire told media. “Canada’s role is to get off its butt and to do something and continue the effort that Prime Minister Paul Martin started when we went over and we decided to reinforce the African Union.”

A shaky peace treaty was signed on May 5 to end Darfur’s three-year civil war, which has killed at least 180,000 and displaced about two million people.

(CP/ST)