Staying the course with peacekeeping

Romeo Dallaire is the true definition of a hero. And we can claim him as ours!

Yesterday, I watched Shake Hands with the Devil, the 2007 Canadian movie about the genocide in Rwanda, starring Roy Dupuis (Barbarian Invasions, The Rocket) as Lieutenant-General Dallaire. If you haven't seen it, you should.

The movie portrayed Dallaire as a man of steely determination and compassion in a very Canadian way -- understated, but with enough graphic reality that discounted the use of shoot-em-up computer graphics and "to-scale" models constructed on some studio back lot. This was the real deal and felt like it. You couldn't mistake it for anything but genuine; one man, leading 450 rag-tag UN peacekeepers, working tirelessly against the odds in the worst possible conditions.

It cut close to the bone for me on many levels. The United Nations is filled with good people, but put them together at headquarters in New York, disconnected in many ways from the reality on the ground and you have nameless, faceless apparatchiks deciding on the fate of innocents half a world away. At the end of a day, the keyboards go silent, the lights go dim, and it's off to the opera, or an honourary dinner at the Ambassador's residence on Park Avenue, or just a quiet meal at home with the family in ignorant bliss. The next day, it starts all over.

It was at once painful and pleasing to see the Canadian flag and the United Nations flag together on Dallaire's uniform. Pleasing because it spoke to one of our country's fundamental contributions to international order and peace in the latter half of the 20th century. Painful because it was a reminder of just how weakened and poorly regarded peacekeeping has become. Where Canada was once a leader, we no longer are. Where peacekeeping was seen as a fundamental contribution of the United Nations to stability around the world, it is now underfunded and ineffectual. It would seem that the days of peacekeeping -- first modeled by Lester Pearson -- are numbered.

The CBC's Brian Stewart wrote a very interesting online op-ed on the subject back in April. With some authority, he said:

In 1990, fully 10 per cent of all UN missions were staffed by Canadians and the image of blue-helmeted Canadian soldiers policing the world's flashpoints — from Cyprus and Sinai to Kashmir — became almost as iconic as the beaver.

But those days are gone. It's time to face the harsh reality.

Stewart also provides a quick overview of the unraveling of peacekeeping and possible successor models. I've given the approaches in his article, and others, some thought. The issue for me -- whether it's sending NATO troops to do some type of modified "peacekeeping" or a pan-North American police force into a place like Haiti -- is the potential to fall into old traps of imperialism or gun boat diplomacy.

The "have" countries will always be able to send "professionals" into places where there is value. Areas where no value exists will either be forgotten or made into training grounds for troops or police -- in such cases, the actual value is in maintaining chaos. The world always loses out in such cases.

The dark cloud around peacekeeping in its current state -- and the manner in which it has come into disrepute -- stems directly from the fact that it doesn't have the support or leadership of strong world powers. Without that, it is bound to atrophy, which is what we are seeing. Peacekeeping is being left to die a slow, painful death, with the UN filling in the gaps as best it can with undisciplined, poorly trained troops.

The peacekeeping model introduced by Pearson -- internationally sanctioned and multi-lateral in composition -- is still valid. Perhaps not perfect, but surely relevant if there is to be any hope of survival for a multi-lateral approach to solving the world's problems. Furthermore, this is Canada's legacy to protect. We should not allow the efforts of great Canadians to be relegated to a forgotten chapter of international history.