T
the patriot
Guest
February 25, 2001
Mission renewal
Canadian peacekeepers return to Africa eight years after Somalia
By MATTHEW FISHER -- Sun‘s Columnist at Large
TSORENA, Ethiopian-Occupied Eritrea -- Eight years after the Somalia debacle, Canada has returned to the Horn of Africa to try to reclaim its reputation as one of the world‘s premier peacekeeping nations.
The objective of the Royal Canadian Regiment‘s Hotel Company: To ensure Eritrea and Ethiopia don‘t go to war again in a bleak 2,400 square km of mountain and desert. That is where the heaviest fighting took place in the two-year war that ended last summer, leaving as many as 100,000 soldiers and civilians dead and 650,000 people homeless.
One of the leaders of Canada‘s highly sensitive rehabilitation project in this dusty, isolated and land mine-infested corner of Eritrea is Sgt. Craig Turcotte.
"The weather and the health threats may be similar but there were different tensions in Somalia," Turcotte says as he escapes the searing midday sun by folding himself inside his new, Canadian-built LAV III light-armoured vehicle, after walking some of the trenches on the frontline. "Somalia was nothing but a quagmire. You just couldn‘t deal with the people there. There was no one we could trust. Both sides here are happy to see us. You can plainly see that in how often they wave to us."
Turcotte has come to know a lot about the Dark Continent.
Of the 58,000 members of the Canadian Forces, the infantryman from CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick is the only one who has been part of Canada‘s three recent peacekeeping missions in Africa.
GHOST TOWN
The 32-year-old father of five served in Somalia as a private with the elite Canadian Airborne Regiment, under the command of Col. Serge Labbe. After that, Turcotte did another UN tour under Gen. Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda while on attachment to a signals regiment from Kingston.
This time the square-jawed sergeant is based with 50 other Canadian troops in a ghost town -- hours from anywhere else by road -- that was razed by Ethiopian forces after its 32,000 residents fled. Turcotte commands a patrol responsible for keeping the peace at the scene of one of the bloodiest killing fields in the grossly under-reported war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Like thousands of other Canadian soldiers, Turcotte has also done a UN tour in the Balkans.
"We were not sent here to appease the Canadian public but it would not be a bad thing if this was the reason," he said. "Our coming here was just a responsibility that came with being part of SHIRBRIG," the UN‘s new standby high readiness brigade, which is meant to deploy quickly to hotspots.
Lt.-Cmdr. Al Wong, the UN‘s military spokesman for Eritrea and Ethiopia, was the Canadian Forces point man for public information during the two inquiries and the courts martial that followed the airborne regiment‘‘s controversial tour in Somalia, when several paratroopers beat a civilian to death.
"I don‘t think Canada is here to cleanse its soul. We‘ve been doing that ever since 1993 in the Balkans, the Golan Heights and East Timor," Wong says in an interview in Asmara, the Eritrean capital.
"The difference this time is that we have returned to the Horn of Africa. But Eritrea and Ethiopia are not Somalia. There is a strong desire for peace here and we are working with two strong governments with well-disciplined armed forces and civilian authorities. We are not dealing with militia groups, warlords and a general lack of governance like we did in Somalia."
Kids routinely stoned Canadian troops in Somalia. When not gunning for each other in clan and sub-clan wars, many of these kids‘ fathers constantly tried to penetrate the perimeter of the Canadian base to steal whatever they could.
The security situation is totally different this time. Two months into this six-month peacekeeping tour, Sgt. Wade Crocker has spent an outrageous amount of time shaking hands with little children while on patrol with his platoon in this half-deserted town of Senafe, which is at an altitude of about 3,000 metres and about 40 km from Tsorena. When not showing the Canadian and UN flags in Senafe, Crocker‘s platoon has spent hours quietly observing the two armies closely along the front line.
"There just hasn‘t been a bit of hostile movement," Crocker says, pointing toward mountains where the two sides are dug in.
"There are a lot of weapons back there. Soviet T-54 and T-55 tanks, you name it. But most of the soldiers on both sides just want to go home. One guy told me he had lived in the same trench for 32 months. He was studying to be a lawyer before the war and wants very badly to get back to it."
Sgt. Major Doug Hall, whose peacekeeping days began during the fighting between Greeks and Turks in Cyprus 27 years ago, described the mission along the Eritrean and Ethiopian border as a "perfect situation" for Canada.
"By doing this we are making a statement about our commitment to Africa and to the UN‘s rapid reaction force," Hall said. "The UN needs to show a positive posture in Africa. The UN needs a fire brigade and it is important that Canada, which has so much experience in peacekeeping, is part of it. Overall, we‘re pretty good at this stuff, so maybe we can now dispel some of the opinions created by Somalia."
Until now the mission, which also involves troops from Holland, Jordan, India and Kenya, has been a spectacular success. The Ethiopians and Eritreans have kept to the letter of an agreement they made three months ago to stage a phased withdrawal of all 90,000 of their troops out of a 25-km- wide security zone where most of the fighting in 1999 and 2000 took place.
"This is a crucial time with the armies pulling back," said Lt.-Col. Ray Baker, the Canadian liaison officer in Ethiopia, who came to the Eritrean town of Senafe to observe the withdrawal of some Ethiopian tanks and infantry battalions.
VITAL DUTY
"I know the Ethiopians are looking at the UN‘s manning of the Temporary Security Zone as a final peace and I expect the Eritreans are thinking the same way. The next step will be to open an air corridor between the countries. As it is even UN airplanes have to make a two-hour detour through Djibouti airspace."
Once the withdrawal is completed in early March, peacekeepers will help more than 100,000 internal refugees return to the Canadian sector. Another vital duty is to help identify mine fields in order to protect the refugees and their herds of camels, donkeys, goats and cattle. Thousands of mines have been lifted by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces in recent weeks, but many more than that are thought to remain buried.
Eritrean and Ethiopian officers and civilians interviewed on the front lines praise Canada‘s involvement while warning they are still prepared to respond if their neighbours cause trouble.
"Of course war is bad, but if someone takes your land you fight back," says Lt.-Col. Haile Fekade of the Ethiopian army. "Everything is going smoothly now and I hope that we can solve all of this as soon as possible."
About a kilometre away, on the Eritrean side of the front, liaison officer George Tesfay Asbu says he grew up with Ethiopians and could live with them in peace "if they do not oblige us to defend our country again."
Canada‘s area of responsibility is a mountainous swathe of rock and sand in the middle of the 900-km border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has also sent a reconnaissance platoon to establish a small UN presence in the stifling Red Sea border town of Asab, where the climate and topography is most like that which the Canadians encountered nine years ago in Somalia.
The spectre of that UN tour continues to make life difficult for Canada‘s in-uniform back home. Sgt. Turcotte said he had mostly managed to avoid getting drawn into a defence of the airborne regiment‘s Somalia tour in 1993, but on one occasion "I had to set my family straight" after criticism from a sister.
"It has pissed me off what the Canadian public thinks of Somalia," he says as he wipes sweat from his brow caused by temperatures that routinely reach climb beyond 50C. "It is so frustrating because from where I was, I thought we did a good job, but the public only focused on the bad. They call our Somalia mission a failure, which I find hard to understand."
DAMAGED REPUTATION
As damaging as Somalia has been to the Canadian Forces‘ reputation, it was not much more than a newspaper headline to most of the younger troops currently serving in Eritrea. Whether they know it or not, they appear to have benefited from much more mission-specific training than the paratroopers got before heading for Belet Huen in the Somali desert in December 1992.
Ten Eritreans and 10 Ethiopians living in Canada visited the regiment‘s base in New Brunswick for two weeks last fall to discuss their cultures, which share many similarities, and to help the soldiers play-act their way through some of the situations they might expect to find here. The soldiers also attended lectures on the history and customs of the region given by diplomats and officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
As a result of Canada‘s experience in Somalia, a military psychologist with special combat stress training has been assigned to the new mission here. To try to make soldiers‘ lives a little more bearable in the desert, a lot of money has also been spent on better medical care and much improved temporary barracks, television and Internet connections.
Another interesting change is the Canadian army has put a female infantryman in the front lines. That would not have happened with the Airborne Regiment, which was an all-male bastion.
"When I first came up here, the Ethiopians and Eritreans thought I was joking," said Lt. Sarah McIntee, 21, of Toronto. "I had to say, ‘Really, I am the platoon commander,‘ and after that they were very nice."
McIntee‘s unit mans a checkpoint in a narrow no-man‘s land between the warring armies. "I guess we thought it was going to be like a UNICEF commercial with lots of kids. That‘s part of it, but it is, of course, much more complicated than that. Africa is a lot different than Canada and I think we got the training we needed to deal with this."
Col. Jim Simms, who commands the 450 Canadians in southern Eritrea, describes the mission as significant not only for the UN and the countries involved, but for the Canadian Forces.
"This demonstrates that we can operate 15,000 km from home and not only respond to the challenges of Africa, but lead the way," Simms says.
"We, like any other part of the government, are very subject to what the media says about us. We hope Canadians will be proud and happy about the work we do here, but we must always remember that we have a mission which we must try to carry out successfully.
"Our training was not just about Africa, but to teach our soldiers about how they are part of a society that is changing."
NEW THINKING
Turcotte is a proponent of the new way of thinking.
"How could you get in trouble on this mission with all the money they are throwing at it to make our lives better?" he asks. "The only thing that could be better is if we got more access to telephone calls from home. That would help our families, who are often forgotten. It is my wife, Melanie, who should get my medals, not me. She is a saint.
"Except for missing my family, I love Africa. It‘s a difficult place, but that‘s the only kind of place they send us.
"Coming to Eritrea is like a six-month field trip. You gain a lot of experience trying to make sense of how others live. The best thing about African tours is that they are so original.
"I can tell you there is nothing new to peacekeeping in the Balkans."
**********************************************************************
-the patriot-
Mission renewal
Canadian peacekeepers return to Africa eight years after Somalia
By MATTHEW FISHER -- Sun‘s Columnist at Large
TSORENA, Ethiopian-Occupied Eritrea -- Eight years after the Somalia debacle, Canada has returned to the Horn of Africa to try to reclaim its reputation as one of the world‘s premier peacekeeping nations.
The objective of the Royal Canadian Regiment‘s Hotel Company: To ensure Eritrea and Ethiopia don‘t go to war again in a bleak 2,400 square km of mountain and desert. That is where the heaviest fighting took place in the two-year war that ended last summer, leaving as many as 100,000 soldiers and civilians dead and 650,000 people homeless.
One of the leaders of Canada‘s highly sensitive rehabilitation project in this dusty, isolated and land mine-infested corner of Eritrea is Sgt. Craig Turcotte.
"The weather and the health threats may be similar but there were different tensions in Somalia," Turcotte says as he escapes the searing midday sun by folding himself inside his new, Canadian-built LAV III light-armoured vehicle, after walking some of the trenches on the frontline. "Somalia was nothing but a quagmire. You just couldn‘t deal with the people there. There was no one we could trust. Both sides here are happy to see us. You can plainly see that in how often they wave to us."
Turcotte has come to know a lot about the Dark Continent.
Of the 58,000 members of the Canadian Forces, the infantryman from CFB Gagetown in New Brunswick is the only one who has been part of Canada‘s three recent peacekeeping missions in Africa.
GHOST TOWN
The 32-year-old father of five served in Somalia as a private with the elite Canadian Airborne Regiment, under the command of Col. Serge Labbe. After that, Turcotte did another UN tour under Gen. Romeo Dallaire in Rwanda while on attachment to a signals regiment from Kingston.
This time the square-jawed sergeant is based with 50 other Canadian troops in a ghost town -- hours from anywhere else by road -- that was razed by Ethiopian forces after its 32,000 residents fled. Turcotte commands a patrol responsible for keeping the peace at the scene of one of the bloodiest killing fields in the grossly under-reported war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Like thousands of other Canadian soldiers, Turcotte has also done a UN tour in the Balkans.
"We were not sent here to appease the Canadian public but it would not be a bad thing if this was the reason," he said. "Our coming here was just a responsibility that came with being part of SHIRBRIG," the UN‘s new standby high readiness brigade, which is meant to deploy quickly to hotspots.
Lt.-Cmdr. Al Wong, the UN‘s military spokesman for Eritrea and Ethiopia, was the Canadian Forces point man for public information during the two inquiries and the courts martial that followed the airborne regiment‘‘s controversial tour in Somalia, when several paratroopers beat a civilian to death.
"I don‘t think Canada is here to cleanse its soul. We‘ve been doing that ever since 1993 in the Balkans, the Golan Heights and East Timor," Wong says in an interview in Asmara, the Eritrean capital.
"The difference this time is that we have returned to the Horn of Africa. But Eritrea and Ethiopia are not Somalia. There is a strong desire for peace here and we are working with two strong governments with well-disciplined armed forces and civilian authorities. We are not dealing with militia groups, warlords and a general lack of governance like we did in Somalia."
Kids routinely stoned Canadian troops in Somalia. When not gunning for each other in clan and sub-clan wars, many of these kids‘ fathers constantly tried to penetrate the perimeter of the Canadian base to steal whatever they could.
The security situation is totally different this time. Two months into this six-month peacekeeping tour, Sgt. Wade Crocker has spent an outrageous amount of time shaking hands with little children while on patrol with his platoon in this half-deserted town of Senafe, which is at an altitude of about 3,000 metres and about 40 km from Tsorena. When not showing the Canadian and UN flags in Senafe, Crocker‘s platoon has spent hours quietly observing the two armies closely along the front line.
"There just hasn‘t been a bit of hostile movement," Crocker says, pointing toward mountains where the two sides are dug in.
"There are a lot of weapons back there. Soviet T-54 and T-55 tanks, you name it. But most of the soldiers on both sides just want to go home. One guy told me he had lived in the same trench for 32 months. He was studying to be a lawyer before the war and wants very badly to get back to it."
Sgt. Major Doug Hall, whose peacekeeping days began during the fighting between Greeks and Turks in Cyprus 27 years ago, described the mission along the Eritrean and Ethiopian border as a "perfect situation" for Canada.
"By doing this we are making a statement about our commitment to Africa and to the UN‘s rapid reaction force," Hall said. "The UN needs to show a positive posture in Africa. The UN needs a fire brigade and it is important that Canada, which has so much experience in peacekeeping, is part of it. Overall, we‘re pretty good at this stuff, so maybe we can now dispel some of the opinions created by Somalia."
Until now the mission, which also involves troops from Holland, Jordan, India and Kenya, has been a spectacular success. The Ethiopians and Eritreans have kept to the letter of an agreement they made three months ago to stage a phased withdrawal of all 90,000 of their troops out of a 25-km- wide security zone where most of the fighting in 1999 and 2000 took place.
"This is a crucial time with the armies pulling back," said Lt.-Col. Ray Baker, the Canadian liaison officer in Ethiopia, who came to the Eritrean town of Senafe to observe the withdrawal of some Ethiopian tanks and infantry battalions.
VITAL DUTY
"I know the Ethiopians are looking at the UN‘s manning of the Temporary Security Zone as a final peace and I expect the Eritreans are thinking the same way. The next step will be to open an air corridor between the countries. As it is even UN airplanes have to make a two-hour detour through Djibouti airspace."
Once the withdrawal is completed in early March, peacekeepers will help more than 100,000 internal refugees return to the Canadian sector. Another vital duty is to help identify mine fields in order to protect the refugees and their herds of camels, donkeys, goats and cattle. Thousands of mines have been lifted by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces in recent weeks, but many more than that are thought to remain buried.
Eritrean and Ethiopian officers and civilians interviewed on the front lines praise Canada‘s involvement while warning they are still prepared to respond if their neighbours cause trouble.
"Of course war is bad, but if someone takes your land you fight back," says Lt.-Col. Haile Fekade of the Ethiopian army. "Everything is going smoothly now and I hope that we can solve all of this as soon as possible."
About a kilometre away, on the Eritrean side of the front, liaison officer George Tesfay Asbu says he grew up with Ethiopians and could live with them in peace "if they do not oblige us to defend our country again."
Canada‘s area of responsibility is a mountainous swathe of rock and sand in the middle of the 900-km border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. It has also sent a reconnaissance platoon to establish a small UN presence in the stifling Red Sea border town of Asab, where the climate and topography is most like that which the Canadians encountered nine years ago in Somalia.
The spectre of that UN tour continues to make life difficult for Canada‘s in-uniform back home. Sgt. Turcotte said he had mostly managed to avoid getting drawn into a defence of the airborne regiment‘s Somalia tour in 1993, but on one occasion "I had to set my family straight" after criticism from a sister.
"It has pissed me off what the Canadian public thinks of Somalia," he says as he wipes sweat from his brow caused by temperatures that routinely reach climb beyond 50C. "It is so frustrating because from where I was, I thought we did a good job, but the public only focused on the bad. They call our Somalia mission a failure, which I find hard to understand."
DAMAGED REPUTATION
As damaging as Somalia has been to the Canadian Forces‘ reputation, it was not much more than a newspaper headline to most of the younger troops currently serving in Eritrea. Whether they know it or not, they appear to have benefited from much more mission-specific training than the paratroopers got before heading for Belet Huen in the Somali desert in December 1992.
Ten Eritreans and 10 Ethiopians living in Canada visited the regiment‘s base in New Brunswick for two weeks last fall to discuss their cultures, which share many similarities, and to help the soldiers play-act their way through some of the situations they might expect to find here. The soldiers also attended lectures on the history and customs of the region given by diplomats and officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
As a result of Canada‘s experience in Somalia, a military psychologist with special combat stress training has been assigned to the new mission here. To try to make soldiers‘ lives a little more bearable in the desert, a lot of money has also been spent on better medical care and much improved temporary barracks, television and Internet connections.
Another interesting change is the Canadian army has put a female infantryman in the front lines. That would not have happened with the Airborne Regiment, which was an all-male bastion.
"When I first came up here, the Ethiopians and Eritreans thought I was joking," said Lt. Sarah McIntee, 21, of Toronto. "I had to say, ‘Really, I am the platoon commander,‘ and after that they were very nice."
McIntee‘s unit mans a checkpoint in a narrow no-man‘s land between the warring armies. "I guess we thought it was going to be like a UNICEF commercial with lots of kids. That‘s part of it, but it is, of course, much more complicated than that. Africa is a lot different than Canada and I think we got the training we needed to deal with this."
Col. Jim Simms, who commands the 450 Canadians in southern Eritrea, describes the mission as significant not only for the UN and the countries involved, but for the Canadian Forces.
"This demonstrates that we can operate 15,000 km from home and not only respond to the challenges of Africa, but lead the way," Simms says.
"We, like any other part of the government, are very subject to what the media says about us. We hope Canadians will be proud and happy about the work we do here, but we must always remember that we have a mission which we must try to carry out successfully.
"Our training was not just about Africa, but to teach our soldiers about how they are part of a society that is changing."
NEW THINKING
Turcotte is a proponent of the new way of thinking.
"How could you get in trouble on this mission with all the money they are throwing at it to make our lives better?" he asks. "The only thing that could be better is if we got more access to telephone calls from home. That would help our families, who are often forgotten. It is my wife, Melanie, who should get my medals, not me. She is a saint.
"Except for missing my family, I love Africa. It‘s a difficult place, but that‘s the only kind of place they send us.
"Coming to Eritrea is like a six-month field trip. You gain a lot of experience trying to make sense of how others live. The best thing about African tours is that they are so original.
"I can tell you there is nothing new to peacekeeping in the Balkans."
**********************************************************************
-the patriot-
