The former commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Bosnia is criticizing Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s long-awaited peacekeeping policy as “condescending.”
Retired Major General Lewis MacKenzie told CTV News that the prime minister is “tap-dancing around the difficult issues.”
On Wednesday in Vancouver, Trudeau announced a three-fold peacekeeping strategy at a peacekeeping summit.
Although he promised Canada would support peacekeeping missions with helicopters, strategic airlift and a 200-person rapid response team, Trudeau could not find a peacekeeping mission that he could embrace. The move prompted the National Post to quip: “Even peacekeeping is now considered too dangerous for the Canadian Forces.”
He did find $21 million for a vague policy of promoting “gender equality” in peacekeeping missions by offering financial incentives to other countries who are willing to send more female military personnel to support peacekeeping operations.
MacKenzie, who often criticized the UN for confusing peacekeeping operations with more robust peacemaking requirements, also declared this week that peacekeeping no longer exists. He ridiculed Trudeau’s plan for Canada to seem engaged in peacekeeping while watching others to the hard work.
“We’re going to throw money at the training, we’re going to throw money at modest resources, but the rest of you do the heavy lifting’ … that’s pretty superior coming from people who aren’t doing much peacekeeping these days,” MacKenzie said.
MacKenzie also mocked the concept of having a rapid reaction force available for the UN since that international body is not in the habit of moving quickly. The former Canadian Army general also said that much of Canada’s peacekeeping expertise has retired and doesn’t reside in the contemporary armed forces that.
“There are some things that other people are probably in a position to teach us,” he said. “If they really want to have an impact on UN peace operations then it’s an opportunity lost.”
Although the reviews for Trudeau’s plan were largely negative, retired lieutenant-general Romeo Dallaire praised the initiative “very progressive.” Dallaire, who commanded the disastrous UN peacekeeping operation in Rwanda that failed stop a tribal massacre, served as a Liberal senator from Quebec for over a decade after he left the Canadian military. He called the government’s plan “very progressive.”