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August 22, 2008
Has any media discussed Canada’s decades-long support of British
imperialism in China? Opium War anyone? Dividing the country up among
European powers?
How about Canadian business, missionary and diplomatic support for
Japan’s brutal invasion of China in the 1930s? What about the weapons
and $60 million Ottawa sent to aid Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang
fighting Mao’s forces after World War II? Certainly one of the outraged
Canadian columnists could have found room to mention Ottawa’s refusal
to recognize the Chinese Communist government for 21 years?
For many years this refusal to recognize the new government was
justified by citing Chinese "aggression" in the Korean War that left
four million dead. During that war Canada sent 27,000 troops halfway
across the world, partly in response to China’s revolution the previous
year. China, on the other hand, only intervened after 500,000 hostile
troops approached its border with northern Korea.
From historical amnesia concerning Canada-China relations through Tibet and Sudan the media’s double standard is glaring.
Does anyone believe that prior to Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics we will see
a media barrage about the British Columbia land stolen from First
Nations? Interviews on all the TV networks with spiritual leaders of
the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh? Does it take a
graduate degree in history to see the parallels between the actions of
the Chinese government in Tibet and the European settlement of Canada?
Or, how about comparing Canada’s role in the Congo to China’s role in Sudan?
A few days ago Liberal MP Irwin Cotler complained to the Montréal Gazette:
"China is Sudan’s largest trading partner. It buys Sudanese oil, Sudan
uses the revenue to buy Chinese arms, and the arms are then used to
kill Darfuris … this complicity risks turning the Beijing Olympics in
to the ‘Genocide Olympics.’"
By UN estimates, there have been 300,000 killed in Darfur since 2003,
while in the Congo The International Rescue Committee estimates there
have been 5.4 million killed since 1998. In the latter conflict
Canadian mining companies, diplomacy and military all played a role.
Yet in what mainstream media did you see the following reported?
With the end of the Cold War and weakening of Russian influence,
Washington decided it would no longer allow the French to dominate
large parts of Africa. Rwanda was viewed as an important staging ground
for control over central Africa’s big prize: the Congo’s mineral
resources.
Ottawa, with many French-speaking individuals at its disposal, played
its part in bringing the formerly Francophone-dominated Rwanda into the
U.S. orbit. The Canadian government helped Paul Kagame’s Rwandan
Patriotic Front (RPF) take power in 1994 after they invaded Rwanda from
neighbouring Uganda in 1990 (Kagame, who was head of intelligence for
the Ugandan ruling party, was trained by the U.S. military at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas).
Taking direction from Washington, Canadian General [now Senator] Romeo
Dallaire commanded the UN military force for Rwanda. According to
numerous accounts, including his civilian commander on the UN mission,
Jacques-Roger Boohbooh, Dallaire aided the RPF. In his book, Le Patron de Dallaire Parle,
Boohbooh claims that Dallaire probably provided the RPF with military
intelligence and turned a blind eye to their weapons coming in from
Uganda.
Dallaire, Boohbooh concludes, "abandoned his role as head of the
military to play a political role: he violated the neutrality principle
of MINUAR [UN mission to Rwanda] by becoming an objective ally of one
of the parties in the conflict."
In his own book, Shake Hands with the Devil,
Dallaire writes, "It had been amazing to see Kagame with his guard down
for a couple of hours, to glimpse the passion that drove this
extraordinary man." This was published six years after Kagame unleashed
a horror in the Congo.
Dallaire was not supporting the RPF on some personal whim. During the
worst of the Rwandan conflict, Canadian military aircraft continued to
fly into Rwanda from neighboring Uganda, the country that sponsored the
RPF. Were they bringing weapons?
The book Tested Mettle
notes: "A sizable contingent of JTF II [Canadian special forces] had
been deployed into Africa. To provide additional ‘security’ for the UN
mission in Rwanda, MacLean and his team had set up an ‘advanced
operational base’ in Uganda. From there they would launch long-range,
covert intelligence patrols deep into Rwandan territory."
After the Canadian-backed RPF took power they helped launch a rebel
attack led by Joseph Kabila into Zaire, now the Congo. In early 1997, a
few months after launching his invasion from neighbouring Uganda and
Rwanda, "Kabila sent a representative to Toronto to speak to mining
companies about ‘investment opportunities.’ According to Dale Grant,
editor of "Defence Policy Review," this trip "may have raised as much
as $50 million to support Kabila’s march on the capital of Kinshasa."
A number of Canadian companies signed deals with Kabila before he took
power. First Quantum Minerals, with former Prime Minister Joe Clark as
its Special Advisor on Africa Affairs, signed three contracts worth
nearly $1 billion. With Brian Mulroney and George Bush on its board,
Barrick signed a gold concession in northeast Congo with Kabila’s
forces. Heritage Oil also made an agreement with Kabila over a
concession in the east of the country that Kabila’s army didn’t yet
control.
The Canadian military gave substantial support to Kabila’s incursion
into the Congo. Ottawa organized a short-lived UN force into eastern
Zaire that was opposed by that country and welcomed by Uganda, Rwanda
and Kabila’s rebels. Much to the dismay of the government of Zaire,
General Maurice Baril, the Canadian multinational force commander, met
Laurent Desire Kabila in eastern Zaire during the guerrilla war.
The book Nous étions invincibles
provides a harrowing account of a JTF II operation to bring Baril to
meet Kabila. Their convoy came under attack and was only bailed out
when U.S. Apache and Blackhawk helicopters attacked the Congolese. Some
thirty Congolese were killed by a combination of helicopter and JTF2
fire.
After successfully taking control of the Congo in mid-1997 Kabila
demanded his Rwandese allies leave the country. This prompted a
full-scale invasion by Rwanda, which unleashed an eight-nation war. To
this day, Canada provides assistance and diplomatic support to the RPF
despite the millions killed in the Congo and a terrible domestic human
rights record. RPF proxies continue to fight in the Congo.
Canadian companies also continue to feed the fighting, largely based
upon securing the Congo’s immense natural resources. There are more
than a dozen Canadian mining companies active in the Congo today. In
2004 Anvil Mining was accused of providing logistics to troops that
massacred between 70 and 100.
Ten Canadian companies were implicated in a UN report titled "Report on
the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth
in the Congo," published in 2002. Ottawa responded to the report by
defending the Canadian companies cited for complicity in Congolese
human rights violations.
Let’s hold Canada to the same standards that we set for China.
Yves Engler is currently finishing a book on Canadian foreign policy tentatively titled Uncle Sam's nephew: tales of Canadian imperialism. He is the author of two books: Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority (with Anthony Fenton) and Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical.
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