Canada’s contribution to peacekeeping force: six: Deploying to sudan
By Chris Wattie
ONTARIO, June 25, 2004 (National Post) — A United Nations peacekeeping force is headed for Sudan this summer to enforce a ceasefire in the North African nation’s long and vicious civil war, but because of budget shortfalls and manpower shortages, Canada’s contribution will amount to only six soldiers.
A Canadian general will be deputy commander of the force, which will be drawn from the UN Standby High Readiness Brigade, but only a handful of Canadian staff officers will join him.
Lieutenant-Commander Albert Wong, a spokesman for the UN force, said it is not yet clear how many troops will eventually be sent to Sudan, or from which nation they will be drawn, but said it was certain that hardly any will be Canadian.
He said the UN brigade could field up to 5,000 troops for peacekeeping or ceasefire monitoring duties in Sudan, which would make it one of the largest UN missions in recent years. “How big the force will be is still an open question,” Lt.-Cmdr. Wong said. “But it will be a significant contribution.”
Military experts said Canada’s minimalist contribution to the deployment, code-named Operation Safari by the Canadian Forces, shows the reality behind government commitments to our military’s peacekeeping capability.
“This should show people that the propaganda from successive governments … about our peacekeeping myth is badly out of date,” said Lewis MacKenzie, a retired major general who commanded peacekeepers in the former Yugoslavia.
Canada was supposed to have provided a battalion of mechanized infantry, about 800 soldiers mounted in LAV III armoured vehicles and a squadron of helicopters to the UN high-readiness force, but was forced to cut its contribution due to personnel and budget shortages.
The army reported earlier this year that it was understrength to the tune of 677 trained soldiers — almost a full battalion — and had a budgetary shortfall of $335-million.
Canadian Forces spokesmen confirmed yesterday that advance parties — including two of the Canadians — have been put on official notice to be ready to move and could be in Sudan within weeks.
One of the six Canadians will be Brigadier-General Greg Mitchell, who will serve as deputy commander of the peacekeeping force.
Canada’s contributions to UN peacekeeping missions has fallen off sharply in the past 10 years, to the point where only 5% of the Canadian troops now deployed overseas are under UN mandates.