Peacekeepers arrive in Mali for UN mission

Advance team met by horrific dust storm

GAO, MALI • Canadian troops started to take up their positions in the world’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission on Sunday, as a dozen Forces members flew into an isolated United Nations’ base to begin work on Canada’s yearlong commitment to help bring peace and stability to this strife-riven African nation.

The sun beat down on the tarmac as defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance led the small contingent out of the Hercules transport plane that had carried them into the country and were met by a German convoy covered in the red dust that seems to be everywhere.

Vance and the 12-member advance team, whose task will be to lay the groundwork for the eventual arrival of the eight helicopters and 250 military members who comprise Canada’s mission in Mali, were scheduled to arrive the day before.

But a horrific dust storm, pictures of which showed a scene straight out of a movie, had forced Vance and the others to remain in Mali’s capital, Bamako, the previous night. It’s testament to one of the unpredictabilities of this mission — the weather.

The arrival of the advance party marked the culmination of years of promises by the Trudeau Liberals, which initially pledged in the 2015 election to take a leadership role in UN peacekeeping missions if elected to power. But with memories of the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda still fresh in many minds, the peacekeeping commitment has been politically divisive while some have questioned whether there is even a peace to keep in Mali.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Vance said both the UN and Canada have learned a great deal since the previous peacekeeping debacles of the 1990s, both in terms of reviews and lived experience in Afghanistan. “There was a time in the ’90s when we went on operations and we adopted their rules of engagement. We do not that with this mission. We’ve learned,” Vance said. Yet he was also candid in his assessment that, yes, the situation in Mali could get worse.

But that is why the UN is in the country and why Canada is supporting the UN — to keep that from happening, which many say would unleash a Pandora’s box in the region.

The Multi-dimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali — or MINUSMA, as the UN mission is known — has been criticized both for not doing enough to bring peace and stability to the country, and because of its dangers. More than 100 peacekeepers have died since MINUSMA was established in 2013, but the reality is that cost has been borne by developing countries such as Chad, rather than more advanced Western forces like Germany and Canada. The Canadians will fly primarily medical evacuation missions — at least one Chinook and two Griffons must be on standby at the expansive nearby helipad at all times — but Vance said they could also be called upon to do other tasks.

Those could include providing medical assistance to a joint counter-terrorism force established by Mali and four of its neighbours to fight Islamist jihadists and others, Vance said, as well as the actual defending of Malian civilians.

But it could also mean protecting convoys and giving fire support to fellow peacekeepers who find themselves in trouble, though Vance said those would only launched in extremis — if absolutely no other option was available. That could put Canadian helicopters and troops in harm’s way, but one senior UN official told The Canadian Press that the Germans “never fired a shot in anger,” and that there is no significant threat to helicopters from the ground. Despite the challenges facing the Canadians, the UN and Mali as a whole, Capt. Megan of Kingston, Ont., is unwavering in her assessment of the situation: “I think the Canadians are part of an important thing here.”