Africa is no ‘Kumbaya’ mission: ex-officer
A soldier who served with Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire during the Rwandan genocide is deeply worried the Trudeau government is about to step into another UN peacekeeping quagmire that could have grave consequences for the mental health of troops.
“The Kumbaya thing will not work, especially in Africa,” said Stéphane Grenier, who founded Mental Health Innovations Consulting after retiring from the Canadian Forces four years ago as a lieutenant-colonel. This followed deployments to Rwanda, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Kuwait, Lebanon and Haiti.
“We have historically made the same mistakes again and again. History will repeat itself because people will not be properly prepared to go overseas.”
The African mission would also create unrealistic demands because discussions in Ottawa are taking place with a poor understanding of the true situation there, said the former armoured corps and public affairs officer.
“I don’t want to play with words such as peacekeeping, peacemaking or peace enforcing, but I think that it is very naive to think that the peacekeeping concept can be implemented in 2016 and going forward,” he said.
“The Kumbaya thing will not work, especially in Africa.”
Compounding the problem in past doomed missions was that the UN did not provide strong support for troops in the field.
“Is there any indication the UN is better equipped today to govern military forces trying to implement what are impossible mandates?,” he asked.
“I don’t think so. Until that is fixed, history will repeat itself.”
Grenier became a passionate advocate for mental health after witnessing shocking barbarism when more than one million Rwandans were slaughtered in the 1994 genocide.
What Canada was most lacking, he said, was training for soldiers, diplomats and other government workers to deal with what he called the moral conflicts that arise on such missions.
“Because our soldiers are Canadian, and mostly raised in Canada, they live their lives according to a moral compass that is calibrated to Canadian values, to a sense of what Canadians think is right or wrong. When you put them in another country which has a very different perception of what is right or wrong, there is an issue.
“There is no way right now to adjust our moral compass to that other reality. The principles that we establish for our missions don’t apply there. It becomes a real challenge to maintain your moral compass.”
Grenier spoke of standing beside a boy as the youngster was shot by Hutu paramilitaries in Rwanda and the mental anguish some Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan suffered after hearing the cries of boys being abused by local troops at their joint base.
“All the resiliency training and briefings in the world do not … help us to recalibrate our compass for things like that,” he said. “That is the starting point for understanding the challenge to successfully prosecute a mission in a place like Africa and to get everyone back home safe and sane, not only from the battlefield but the mental battlefield.”
Nor do governments calculate the true cost of these missions.
“We do the simple math of fuel, beans, boots and bullets, and are satisfied with that answer. The cost in the mental health of the troops only becomes obvious 20 years later. We have never grasped that.”
THE GOALTENDER SHOULD STRAIN TO AVOID BEING DISTRACTED BY THE QUESTION BEFORE THE COURT IN THIS APPEAL. — SUPREME COURT JUSTICE RUSSELL BROWN IT BECOMES A REAL CHALLENGE TO MAINTAIN YOUR MORAL COMPASS.
Grenier’s new battle space is mental health in the workplace. He works with police and paramedics to combat the on-the-job stresses they face daily.
Although Grenier has great respect for Dallaire, he feels the general’s fame sometimes diverts attention from the problems of other troops who witnessed murder and mayhem.
“Countries need heroes and he became one. But all the attention that he has had, had the perverse effect of taking attention from the issue,” he said.
“The mistake that is made is that people listen to Gen. Dallaire, when people like him have no trouble getting a psychiatrist to support and treat them. That is not the case for soldiers at the bottom of the chain …
“His experiences are not representative of what the masses experienced. That is not his fault. He has tried to include others and has invited them to speak in Ottawa, but people there would rather hear from a celebrity.”