Foreign Affairs Committee on March 13th, 2008

[Surendrini Wijeyaratne]

I'll answer in English.

First of all, in terms of how the people I spoke to perceived Canada's assistance, the Afghans I spoke to work in civil society organizations or in non-governmental organizations. So these are people who work within the aid sector in Afghanistan, who do aid themselves. They are often in the position of doing the front-line service delivery in very difficult circumstances. They certainly welcome Canada's development assistance, but our conversations were focused on peace efforts and development assistance. While they welcome our development assistance, one of the things they said was that they require further support, and we don't directly support Afghan civil society organizations, for example. One thing we could be doing in parallel with our support for the Afghan government is support the development of Afghan civil society.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

We'll go to the Honourable Flora MacDonald, on Mr. Goldring's question.

[Flora MacDonald]

Right. I just want to say that one of the problems for Canadians is that we are given, through our media, a very unbalanced view of Afghanistan. When you talk about the way women or people are treated or whatever, you refer primarily, in your own minds, to the people you see in Kabul--the Pashtuns. If you were to go further, out to where I go, and you ran into the Hazara, they live an entirely different kind of life. Then if you went somewhere else to another ethnic group, you again would see that their lifestyle is quite different.

This is one of the things I think we really do need to get a handle on in this country. The ethnicities, the religious views, and so on are really quite different in all these places. And we can't just take it from the point of view of what the CBC tells us, which is why two of them are coming with me on my next trip, so they can go beyond the places they usually go to and see something of what the rest of the country is like.

On March 23, the CBC is doing a two-hour special on Newsworld at eight o'clock, and it's going to show a much broader view than they normally do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. MacDonald, for that advertisement for the CBC. We appreciate that.

[Flora MacDonald]

It's good for all of you to be able to see it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

I'm going to go to Mr. Dewar very quickly. We were supposed to quit at five o'clock because we had half an hour for committee business, so unfortunately, Mr. Dewar, we want to hurry along.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

A balanced mission and a balanced opinion there.

Thank you to our panel.

I just want to clarify something that seems to be out there, that we don't support committing to Afghanistan as a party. Contrary to what you might hear, we do. It's just about how we do it. It's not about aiding Afghanistan; it's about how you aid Afghanistan. Of course, our concern is the method that's being used right now—and we're about to vote on the war, and we'll continue it for another three years—and that is to fight with a counter-insurgency method. That's what's deeply concerning. I think we haven't really understood that, and I think this vote is something we'll look back on and say, “Do you remember when...?” People will say, “You know, we thought we were doing the right thing.”

I fundamentally believe we're going in the wrong direction with the counter-insurgency approach, and I just state that for the record. I believe the UN needs to take more of a role. I believe it's interesting that we have something called the UN Peacebuilding Commission, headed by a Canadian. We don't even have a membership on that commission. Do you know why? It's because we don't presently contribute enough troops to UN peacekeeping. That's why we're not allowed on. The second criterion is that we do not contribute enough to the UN. So guess what? We're not on the UN Peacebuilding Commission, which talks about having integrated strategies for building peace.

I guess I just have time for one question. I respect Ms. Armstrong's and Ms. MacDonald's comments, and actually, I read in the late nineties some of the things you were saying, and I was among a number of activists who were saying, “Please pay attention to what's going on in Afghanistan.” So I thank you for that.

Surendrini, I wanted to ask you about the grassroots approach to peacebuilding and how that can work with what Mr. Heinbecker said in terms of this compact arrangement. That interests me quite a bit, because we're going to have a vote, it's going to go ahead, and we'll have the war part figured out, or at least some people will. I'm interested in the peacebuilding, so I'd like to know about these two components, how a grassroots kind of approach fits in with this idea of regional partners, if you have any ideas on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, given the exceptional witnesses we have here today—and some have come very far, like Professor Jackson—may I submit to the committee, as a friendly motion, that we forgo committee business today and allow our witnesses to engage the committee members right to the time the bells begin, so we can have the benefit of their expertise?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Unfortunately, Mr. Martin, I'm going to have to think on this one. That's not a point of order. That's the first thing. That's a motion you're moving. Whether or not the motion is in order, I really....

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mrs. Angela Crandall]

It is in order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Is it a debatable motion? That takes away from our time. Do we have unanimous consent to do this?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right, it seems unanimous, so we will go until.... We still want some committee business, do we, so not right to the end? Your motion said what?

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Right to the bells.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right, then we had unanimous consent.

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I've posed my question for a response. Thank you.

[Surendrini Wijeyaratne]

In terms of the question on how grassroots peacebuilding works with higher-level diplomacy, what I found in the interviews I had with international diplomats, as well as Afghan organizations and international organizations working on these issues in Afghanistan, is that most people suggested sort of a parallel top-down/bottom-up approach. They said there needs to be work with the central government right now to build its capacity to engage in talks with opposition groups in order to resolve issues of internal governance and internal fighting within the government. That needs to be a top priority, so the government is more functional.

There also needs to be grassroots community peacebuilding. The reason for that is that a large number of disputes that happen in Afghanistan are not necessarily insurgency-related. These are disputes over land, water, marriage, the regular old things, that are sometimes mono-ethnic, mono-tribal. Sometimes it's between tribes, between ethnicities, between different communities. There has been a lot of work actually done among Afghan organizations. Oxfam International, for example, just put out a report saying that grassroots peacebuilding—working on local-level disputes, strengthening relationships within communities and between communities, as well as with communities and the central government—can help build foundations for peace, and it also can help build the government's legitimacy in some of these communities as well.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

I was just asking Mr. Heinbecker about the other piece--

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'm going to give you more time.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[Paul Heinbecker]

Well, there are two things.

One is that when we and the international community and the UN started in Afghanistan and we had Mr. Brahimi as the head of the operation, we had a truly exceptional man running the operation. Even at that time, when we in Canada were trying to say that all of the authority should be invested in this person so that all the different countries would not be competing with each other and the different aid organizations would not be competing and conflicting and asking contradictory things of people, we weren't able to achieve that, and I would say that subsequently it's become only more difficult to do it.

One of the recommendations in the Manley commission was that there should be a senior UN person appointed. Of course there was talk of Paddy Ashdown being such a person. The Karzai government seemed to be the one that said they didn't want to do that. I'm not sure that should be their call, in fact. I think it would make a lot of sense to have such a person, a person invested with the authority of the international community. At the same time, while the job is not to contradict the local government and to enter into a conflict with it, it is to make sure the interests of the international community are also looked after.

On the issue of peacebuilding, that's one of the innovations the UN is carrying out, and it's one of the good things. It is still nascent, though, I'd have to say. Carolyn McAskie, who used to work for CIDA, is running that. It is not easy work to be doing, because a lot of countries don't think they need that kind of help. It's also very difficult to get the resources attributed to it that need to be there; I suppose that's where more of the diplomacy I was talking about should come in.

As for the number of troops we contribute to UN missions, I don't know where we stand now. The last time I looked, we were around 57th. I have my own view of that. If you included our 2,500 that are not included in that calculation, it would put us in the top 15, but it still wouldn't put us in the top 10. We are not in the business anymore of being a major troop contributor to UN activities. Although we have a monument to ourselves over by the National Gallery, I think those days seem to be over.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Heinbecker.

I'm going to ask Ms. Armstrong if she wants to comment on that. I realize Ms. Armstrong has to leave fairly soon. You have to be at Centre Block at 5:30, do you not?

[Sally Armstrong]

That's right. Does it take long to get there?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I'm going to have one of my assistants help you get over there.