Front Burner - What did Canadian peacekeepers accomplish in Mali?

Episode Date: July 15, 2019

“Organized crime, smuggling, drug trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism - you can sort of name it, and Mali is afflicted by it.” Swept up in part by Islamist extremism, the U.N’s peacekeeping mission in Mali is one of the deadliest in recent history. Canada has been part of this larger effort since last year. As it draws to a close, journalist Richard Poplak talks to guest host Michelle Shephard if it made good on Canada's promise to return to peacekeeping.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. In the fall of 1998, an elderly woman known as the Cat Lady went missing. In the fall of 1998, an elderly woman known as the Cat Lady went missing. She had a very distinctive silhouette and very recognizable when you'd see her walking into town. A handkerchief on her hair, long overcoat, like somebody that lived on the street.

All police could find were her 30 cats shot dead. I always knew something had happened to her, to just vanish like that. Uncover the Cat Lady Case from CBC Podcasts is available now. Hi, I'm Michelle Shepard, and I'll be your guest host for FrontBurner this week, giving Jamie Poisson a much-needed break. Like Jamie, I come from a background of the Toronto Star. I'm a writer and a filmmaker, and for the last 18 years, I covered terrorism and civil rights around the world. I also have a CBC podcast coming out in September. It's a six-part crime series for Uncover, so stay tuned

for that. I'm also not used to a desk job and going crazy being in a studio on a summer day, so I really, really appreciate you being here. Thank you for listening. This is FrontBurner. There's an image of Canada as a peacekeeping country. It's sewn into the fabric of our nation like Canadian flags on backpacks. We send troops around the world to help with difficult conflicts. Really though, we haven't been in the peacekeeping business for a long time. And under

Stephen Harper's government, operations went way down. But when Justin Trudeau took office, he made a promise. Canada was back. Canada has pledged to make available up to 600 Canadian Armed Forces personnel for possible deployment to a variety of UN peace operations and we are fulfilling that commitment over time through a series of smart pledges. Since Trudeau came to power, Canada's big contribution was sending 250 people to help the United Nations mission in Mali. That deployment started last year and it ends next month. So with Canadians

leaving Mali, what exactly did we accomplish? Can we say it was a win? Was it worth it? Today, I'm talking to Richard Poplik. He's a Canadian South African journalist who went to Mali, and he spent time with Canadians on the ground. Richard, thanks so much for joining us. I know Mali is a really complicated conflict, but can you give us a general sense of what's going on there and why the UN mission began? Yeah, look, Mali is actually ridiculously complicated. Effectively, what you're talking about is a country that's split in two. The south, which is where the government is seated in Bamako, is effectively a different country from the north.

The north is, you know, wide open expanses of the Sahel and of the desert. You're talking about a country that is largely ungoverned. Mix into that a bunch, a sort of grab bag of different ethnicities, organized crime, smuggling, drug trafficking, human trafficking, terrorism. An ethnic separatist movement dominant in the north then joined forces with Islamists, some reputedly with links to al-Qaeda. And flush with Libyan weapons, they captured half the country. You could sort of name it, and Mali is afflicted by it, including, of course, the resource curse. Like many African countries, its economy is largely rooted in

mining. In the best case scenario, what could a UN mission do there? Why were they deployed in, I guess they've been there since 2013? Yeah, so effectively what happened was there was a coup in 2012 and there was pressure from the north which sent a sort of coalition of effectively insurgents and separatists down towards Bamako. Soldiers surround the presidential palace in the capital. The plot began because of military anger about a lack of resources to fight an insurgency in the north of the country. In light of the government's failure to combat terrorism and prevent the killing of our people,

in order to protect the constitution, we, the guards of the Republic, have decided to put an end to this failed regime. The international community quite rightly flipped out, and the French, who do not tolerate terrorist insurgencies in their former colonies, effectively organized a pushback, which was successful to an extent. Many people were coming out waving and cheering, Vive la France, vive les Français, thank you to France,

for driving the Islamist rebels who had come in and taken over so much of this country out of the cities... And into the gap flooded a bunch of UN aid, in particular a large UN stabilization mission called MINUSMA. And this is 56 countries with over 16,000 personnel. But I understand it's been a pretty, pretty deadly mission, too. At least 10 UN peacekeepers were killed and dozens more injured. Peacekeepers have been killed in a car bomb blast.

Effectively, right now, it's the most deadly UN mission anywhere in the world. And we're including places like South Sudan and the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. As one analyst said to me, the mission can't stabilize itself. How is it supposed to stabilize the rest of Mali? Once you get up close to a big machine like Minusmet, it gets more and more farcical by the minute. What do you mean by that? What they're tasked with is effectively stabilizing a piece of ground, very hot, very sandy, not a lot going on there until there is something going on there. And that tends to shoot back very, very quickly and with intent. Figuring out what the ethnic relationships are there, figuring out what is organized crime and trying to differentiate

that from terrorism, understanding that when you come in as a UN mission, you are effectively the governance on the ground, because the government in the south, in Bamako, has abnegated its responsibilities in the north to a large extent. We have Adam Cham, who's a columnist for the Republican newspaper. Beyond 50 kilometres from Timbuktu, you will never meet the state. There are people in this community who have never seen a Malian doctor, a Malian teacher, a Malian soldier. The groups, the ethnic groups have told me

that our problem is not the jihadists, our problem is the Malian state, which we never see. So you all of a sudden have to figure out how to govern a plot of desert-like territory, half the size of Ontario, in very, very difficult and oftentimes dangerous conditions. That's your brief. Doesn't sound so easy. There did seem to be a little bit of optimism around 2015 when the rebel group signed a peace agreement with the government. Did that achieve anything? something that was signed in Algiers, which was a peace agreement that effectively allowed many of the separatist groups in the north more autonomy over their own governance. It was a deal that

really favored the separatist groups up north, in particular a movement called the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, or the MNLA. They've repeatedly said their goal is an independent state. Now they're here to try to convince their people to accept much less than that. We think this is the most we can get in the current context and with the world community's level of readiness to accept our demands. So I think this is what's available to us for now. But the peace agreement hasn't really been honoured by the government. So, you know, there's always this sort of burst of optimism that comes after a piece of paper is signed. But the piece of paper is only as

good as its signatories are willing to, you know, follow its terms. That really hasn't happened in Mali. So the discontent is bubbling up again. You mentioned the MNLA, the rebel group. You also mentioned the terrorist groups. You wrote in a recent piece in Walrus Magazine that some of the rebel and terrorist groups in Mali both have been starting protection rackets. So basically, they're saying, hey, the government is killing you while they're trying to kill us. Only we can protect you. And I think this has been a real terrorism tactic in other conflicts. I remember seeing that in Somalia. Describe a little bit of what that is and how you can overcome it. Well, Michelle, I think you've seen this as many, if not more times

than I have. And that is when there's a vacuum, something will fill it. Very often, it's difficult to discern what your average Canadian punter would call a terrorist group from a mafia, from organized criminal activity. And increasingly in Central and North Africa, it's becoming more and more difficult to discern the two. And in fact, they are one in the same. So what do you do? You fill the vacuum. What do you fill it with? You fill it with legitimate governance. The government in the South and Bamako has been unwilling to do that for decades. So it's sort of a non-starter asking, how do you deal with something like that when you haven't tried to deal with it in the first place?

So why would Canada choose Mali? I remember reporting from the Central African Republic back in 2014-2015. It was at a time when the country was desperate for Canadian peacekeepers. And back then, my impression was that this conflict was much simpler than Mali in a lot of ways, and maybe would have been better suited for the Canadians. And at the time, retired Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire was really pushing for this. Drawing parallels between the genocide in Rwanda

and the growing crisis in Central African Republic. We're going to be facing another conflict where child soldiers will be the primary weapon and also will be the primary victims. So when Canada chose Mali, I wasn't sure why. I mean, why do you think they chose Mali over other countries? That's the $500 million question. It has a large part to do, I think, with how effectively the UN was lobbying for a

contingent to go into Mali. The MINUSMA program was missing, effectively, a medic component. effectively a medic component. So that was sort of desperately needed. And Canada has the CH-147 Chinooks, which are immensely capable helicopters that can do just about anything, including act as airborne ambulances. So there was this sort of mixture between capability, between need, but also I think

the Canadian Foreign Office feels relatively comfortable with Mali. And it's a French-speaking country. There's been some kinship there. I think there's people in the Canadian Foreign Service who feel like the country's put a lot of time and a lot of money in there. Tens of millions of dollars spent trying to get this country stable and healthy again. And there's a lot of Canadians that do business in Mali, a lot of Canadian mining. So there's all these sort of intersecting notions that went into going to Mali. But the cynic might argue that

Canadian business interests and Canadian mining interests had a lot to do with it. I, of course, am not a cynic. Although in your piece, you hinted at that rather strongly, that perhaps that was a suspicion of why Mali over some of the other countries. I apologize for seeming circumspect. What happened again? So tell us what they're doing. What are they doing on the grounds there?

You spent time with the Canadians. What was their mission? It's a hell of a thing to see, I will say that much. So effectively, they have nine helicopters there. The CH-147F Chinooks and the CH-146 Griffins, which are smaller gunships carrying very, very big caliber weapons. which are smaller gunships carrying very, very big caliber weapons. And what they effectively do is three times a day, they go up in the air to the Sahel and either pull injured parties out if there's been some sort of conflagration on the ground,

or they do these training exercises. And the Chinooks are effectively airborne ambulances. It's incredible. There's triage surgeons on there. There's triage nurses. I mean, we're talking about the best in the business. Everyone's a medic and everyone has a gun. It is both stressful and exhilarating for Lieutenant Jennifer Loy, a critical care nurse from Vancouver. We've been working really hard for a long time on this capability.

It's new. It's the first time that Canada has ever put doctors and nurses to the front lines. All of a sudden, the things that I'm doing there, I have to do in a very small space with a lot of kit on. So these are remarkably well-trained soldiers, remarkably well-trained battlefield surgeons. We've learned a lot from the Canadian experiences in both Iraq, but to a much greater extent in Afghanistan. It's the latest in battlefield triage tech. And to witness that up close is an incredible thing. That sounds incredible and something that would be desperately needed there.

But in your reporting on the mission, I think you said one person told you we sent more desks than choppers, that despite it being impressive, there was something missing there. Look, the Canadian military at this stage is enormously professional. What that does not link up with is a considered mission from home canada's near absence of foreign policy it has a real disconnect from the capability of these sort of plug and play missions can do there's no question about the capability of uh of the um the chinooks the griffins and the men and women who work those machines and are doing very, very, you know, incredible work over there.

But there's a lot of bureaucracy that goes with this. Way more desks than guns. There's a lot of bureaucracy that goes into MINUSMA itself. Effectively, MINUSMA is one big desk. Right. Right. And what this mission is merely supposed to do is help the stabilization mission from bleeding out on the ground. Why that is, no one has any real idea.

There hasn't been enough conflict really to justify the expense, certainly in my opinion and in the opinion of many others. So it's this sort of weird disconnect between capability, which is incredible, and the thinking behind all of this capability. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted it is a meaningful contribution, yet refuses to extend the one-year mission timeline as requested by the UN. Part of that way Canada can best help involves coming, taking on an operation, demonstrating how it could be done in the absolute best possible way. How did the peacekeepers that you met on the ground,

how did they feel about this and about the bureaucracy? the peacekeepers that you met on the ground how did they feel about this and about the bureaucracy um i want to just before we get there i love that term peacekeeper because it's it seems like it comes out of a different age i just think of like 16 millimeter film with pietro doe in it you know shaking the hands of someone with a blue helmet um these big new plug-and-play missions are far more complicated than peacekeeping. And it seems a little weird calling the Canadians their peacekeepers because they are, again, disconnected by even greater degrees from the large mission that's happening there. All they are is the ambulance.

They get a call out, out they go. I'm Jackie. I'm a Chinook helicopter pilot. It's kind of a moral dilemma because when I get to fly and do what I love, it means that it was a terrible day for someone else. The thing that kind of helps is that on the worst day of someone's life, my team and I, we get to bring them help. They don't see the city in which they're located. It's a city called Gao. They come into the airport in full closed armored vehicles. So they don't really know where they are. They could be anywhere. They could effectively be playing a video game in the desert. So again, you know, I think of

peacekeeping as real engagement. And that's not entirely what the Canadians are doing there. But that must be what they feel it should be too. I mean, there must be a level of frustration in the way that you describe it. I certainly got the sense that there was some frustration with the mission. And, you know, a number of people on the ground did say that much to me, that it felt weirdly disconnected and weirdly headless, and also excessive for what the need was. And of course, you know, every life counts. But, you know, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. And I'm not sure the two things really, really connect.

It's a larger political question that this mission was supposed to signal the return to Canada's role as a peacekeeping nation. How do you feel the mission in Mali is squared with that goal? I would say not at all. Once again, I think this is too small to make a real statement about Canada's re-entry into the quote-unquote peacekeeping space. I think it accentuated the lack of the Trudeau government's foreign policy rationale. It doesn't connect with any other foreign policy goals that I can see. So again, it's sort of this weird headless chicken that's running around in the Central African Sahel, not doing much. So how this would square with the larger foreign policy campaign, I just have no idea.

And I guess it was 250 troops, whereas there'd been 600 that he had promised to, and that hasn't come through. Well, this is the thing. I mean, the original promises that were made when Trudeau was on the hustings was that... To this country's friends all around the world, many of you have worried that Canada has lost its compassionate and constructive voice in the world over the past 10 years.

I have a simple message for you. On behalf of 35 million Canadians, we're back. What effectively happened is that a year later, it's clear that Trump is going to be present. And basically, the Canadian government sits on its hands and waits to see what peacekeeping intent the Trump government would institute. So again, our former allies or major allies no longer really an ally. And there is nothing that suggests the Trudeau government has adjusted for that. No larger connected sort of sense of how conflicts are unfolding. No larger sophistication in the thinking of how things connect.

Yeah, no real larger mission that I can sense. So if this was just, in a sense, just for show, a mission just for show, you mentioned your possible cynicism about Mali being selected because of the Canadian interests there in terms of mining companies and other business interests. Do you think this also could have been to try and get that Security Council seat at the UN, that this was a way to signal that Canada was back in favour of the UN. I give the floor to the Minister of National Defence of Canada.

Now, in response to the UN's express need for critical high-end military capabilities, Canada quickly responded to UN's request for aviation capabilities with our deployment. 100%. I think a large part of this mission was what I'd call cheap real politic. Playing a geopolitical game, working for that Security Council seat, and signaling to the Malian government that Canada was serious

and that a Canadian interest in Mali should be prioritized, I guess you would say. If Canada pulls out next month, which it sounds like we will, did we accomplish anything by being there? Like I say, every life that was saved, every life counts. There's no question about that. But this was not worth it at all. I think it was a waste of money. Moreover, it was a waste of foreign policy intent. And I think what the Trudeau government really needs to do, or certainly the next Canadian government really needs to have a hard think of, is where the country stands in the larger scheme of things, and what to do about that. So there's a long, long way to go. Did you ever get a response from the Canadian government or reach out

about your observations and try to get them to comment on that? the Canadian government or reach out about your observations and try to get them to comment on that? You know, I have, you know, like you, I have a few quote unquote friends who I, within the government who I speak to every now and again. There's some really, really smart people in government and you just try to connect with those people. But for the most part, no, not a lot of, not a lot of quote unquote discourse. Richard, I really appreciate you speaking with us and for your reporting on the ground there. Thanks so much. Likewise, Michelle. It was a pleasure.

We reached out to Global Affairs Canada to get their perspective on Canada's peacekeeping mission in Mali. They said that the Task Force Mali had conducted 10 medical evacuation missions since the beginning of its deployment, and that they're extremely proud of the work done by men and women in uniform. With Canada leaving Mali at the end of August, the task force is now preparing for a transition with a team from Romania who are taking up operations. And Canada has offered the use of four C-17 aircraft flights to deploy their personnel and equipment.

That's it for today. I'm Michelle Shepherd, filling in for Jamie Poisson. Thanks for listening to Frontburner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. It's 2011 and the Arab Spring is raging. A lesbian activist in Syria starts a blog. She names it Gay Girl in Damascus. Am I crazy? Maybe.

As her profile grows, so does the danger. The object of the email was, please read this while sitting down. It's like a genie came out of the bottle and you can't put it back. Gay Girl Gone. Available now.