Foreign Affairs Committee on June 7th, 2006

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Hence, my “Haitianization”, if you will, question in terms of empowering those on the ground.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Wilfert.

We go to Mr. Goldring again.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Colonel, you mentioned that police officers would be preferred to soldiers but that the reality of the situation is it will be a long time before you can remove all of your forces from Haiti. Because once again, your police, unless they have very special tools to be able to deal with scenarios like the riot at the prison and other civil strife and disturbances that can happen from disaster to disaster....

Do you have an exit strategy for this overall timeframe, timetable? You have some 7,500 troops there now. Are you going to have a progressive reduction? And if you do have a progressive reduction, will it be keyed in or tied in to what I would say is a progressive increasing of the authority and responsibility of your police forces that would be there? It's my understanding that they have a very limited authority in actual policing and charging, and I would think you would need to have one in balance with the other.

So is there an exit strategy, a long-term strategy for gradual reduction and at the same time a strategy for increasing the policing level, keeping in mind that our commitment--100 police officers--has seldom been made? I think there are 60 or 70 there now. It's always a problem to be able to supply police officers.

[Col Denis Thompson]

Again, you're asking me to speculate or comment on the work of the United Nations, and I'm a representative of our department. I'm happy to tell you how the process works, but I can't give you any insights into the inner workings of the mission planning service, because I'm not part of it.

But as I think you know, the UN has a Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and subordinate to it are a number of services. One is the mission planning service. Another one is the force generation service, and then there is a training and evaluation service. That mission planning service is the one that does the long-term strategic outlooks that generate the plans you're referring to.

The fact is that MINUSTAH itself is called an integrated mission, so everybody is under this special representative of the Secretary General. Everybody works for him, including the military forces, the police forces, and the civilian agencies of the United Nations. By doing that, instead of working in stovepipes, you're able to make more progress and have a more joined-up approach. What that should mean in terms of the drawdown of UN forces and the rising up of the Haitian forces is that it's done in a synchronized manner.

With respect to the police mandate--and again, it's a police matter--the UN civil police don't have an executive mandate; you're right. They have a training and mentoring role. Then there are the foreign police units that are meant to do public order duties in case there's a breakdown in public order. But it's not a mission where the Security Council has given the UN police an executive mandate such as in East Timor or Kosovo.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Have the troops that are brought in by the United Nations been sourced from countries where the police do actual civil crowd-control training? I understand that our Canadian military have better training along this line too. One of the comments that was made was that some of the countries provide soldiers who are trained just to shoot and I suppose ask questions later, that some are more just hardened military than soldiers who have been given some civilian training for riot control, crowd control, and whatever.

Is there an active request to try to bring troops in who do have some training in civilian interaction?

[Col Denis Thompson]

When we talked in Canada, the term was crowd confrontation operations. So if we're talking about public order, which I think is the police terminology, generally speaking militaries are reluctant to get engaged in crowd confrontation operations, because again that's not our part. It's police stuff.

In the case of MINUSTAH, there are foreign police units. I believe there are six foreign police units of 125 policemen, but I'm going to turn to Michel Lavigne to explain the general composition—reminding you again that we're talking about a police component and not something that's necessarily our field of expertise.

[Maj Michel Lavigne]

Mr. Chairman, the United Nations police contingent is essentially made up of two groups. There are police officers who are training and mentoring the Haitian police, and there are also the groups we call the foreign police unit. That is essentially a police unit of approximately 125 officers that resembles an infantry company. These police officers play a slightly more technical and elaborate role, and they have a bit more equipment. There are more possibilities of them conducting

crowd control operations of that nature. Obviously the issue is how they are employed on the ground, which is up to the force commander, and how they're employed in what situation, which I'm not an expert on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Madam Bourgeois.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Colonel Thompson, Major Lavigne, good afternoon.

If I understood correctly, Colonel Thompson, you seem almost certain that the MINUSTAH mandate will be renewed in August. And if I have also understood correctly, the Canadian Forces are filling five permanent positions in Haiti. Is that correct? Are the five people assigned to the MINUSTAH headquarters? What exactly do these five CF members do at the MINUSTAH headquarters?

[Col Denis Thompson]

There are two colonels with the same rank as me, and three majors like...

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

And what does a colonel do?

[Col Denis Thompson]

One is the chief of staff. He organizes everything. It is like a chief of staff in a civilian environment.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

In politics.

[Col Denis Thompson]

There is a colonel who does that for the military component of MINUSTAH. That colonel is third in command. There is the commander, the deputy and the chief of staff. Colonel Michel Duhamel is the one who is there now. He is the first colonel. The second colonel is Barry MacLeod. He is working at the electoral commission, also as chief of staff.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

These five people have key positions, positions of command that have an impact on the way in which MINUSTAH works. Is that correct?

[Col Denis Thompson]

Yes, absolutely.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

The committee heard from a research associate who works at Amnesty International's International Secretariat. He told us that despite the presence of MINUSTAH, the climate in Haiti is still one of anarchy, violence, rape, death threats, intimidation, and corrupt police officers. He also told us that members of the Haitian national police force are committing terrible crimes, that the very presence of MINUSTAH in Haiti has been called into question, and that connivance between the Haitian national police and MINUSTAH is apparent. I have been listening to you speak since you began, and I know that the Canadian Forces are highly respected abroad. So how is it that there are five soldiers in positions who give orders to MINUSTAH, and that you have not yet attempted to eradicate this problem? I am simply asking the question.

[Col Denis Thompson]

It's a very good question yet again.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

My questions are always good ones.

[Col Denis Thompson]

So I hear, Madame.

When we speak to these things we need to understand that these officers are working in a headquarters. They're staff officers, des officiers d'état-major. While they write orders, they're not the ones on the ground executing them. They're not directly supervising the actions of other soldiers on the ground. So they're at an operational level.

The conditions you're describing are conditions that are best addressed by police forces. So I'll go back to the earlier part of this discussion. We need to keep enough of a force on the ground to keep a lid on things, because militaries are not the instruments that are going to prevent the crimes you are referring to; there has to be an active police force on the ground. Until that's developed we're not going to solve the problems of impunity, of rape, of assaults, of murders. It's just not going to stop until we've managed to train an indigenous police force that can make it happen.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

So you are asking for more police officers. As you did with my colleague earlier, you are trying to convince me that there are not enough people on the ground.

[Col Denis Thompson]

Precisely. More Haitian police officers need to be trained.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

But the Haitian police service is already corrupt. You are telling me that it will need to be cleaned up, are you not?

[Col Denis Thompson]

That is why in English, we talk about security sector reform. There must be a period of reform. Regardless, we are talking about police work.

[Diane Bourgeois, Bloc, Terrebonne—Blainville, QC]

Thank you very much.