Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 7th, 2013

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

No, I'm afraid we'll have to catch you on the next round. Thank you, Mr. Dechert.

Mr. McKay, seven minutes, please.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you both for being here this morning.

My first question is to Ambassador Zeller.

France is faced with a very difficult enemy. The Islamists are difficult to fight at the best of times, have a different concept of what this conflict is all about, and it's clear to everyone that France would prefer to withdraw and hand this matter over to the African-led International Support Mission to Mali, AFISMA, folks sooner rather than later, which is a goal with which we all agree.

Has France asked Canada to contribute to AFISMA?

[H.E. Philippe Zeller]

France has not exactly asked Canada to contribute to AFISMA. AFISMA is implemented pursuant to a UN resolution. I am talking about the famous resolution 2085. So an appeal was launched to all UN members in the context of that resolution. Those who could and were willing to participate were invited to help AFISMA.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

May I assume that it's in France's best interests that the AFISMA-led operations begin sooner rather than later, and that the more robust AFISMA might be via financing, training, equipment, or whatever, the sooner France can withdraw?

[H.E. Philippe Zeller]

I am not sure I have understood your question, but if you are saying that France would prefer to withdraw, allow me to correct that statement. The President of the French Republic was very clear: France will not withdraw until Malians have fully recovered the integrity and sovereignty of their country. That is why our French military effort is ongoing and will continue until that objective has been reached.

However, our country is allowing sufficient room for AFISMA's deployment, of course. AFISMA will be able to develop, probably even more significantly, over the next few weeks and months. Consultations will begin at the United Nations. Let's not forget that, in this area, we are operating under the UN umbrella.

Finally, AFISMA has been in effect for a few days. About 4,000 African soldiers are now on Malian soil. So there is an effectiveness and presence there. Obviously, any support of the international community is especially useful, given the additional costs of those operations for African forces. That was actually the objective of the Addis Ababa conference, which helped raise the funds I mentioned earlier.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

We have very limited time and so could you abbreviate the answers as best as possible?

What is France's definition of military success?

[H.E. Philippe Zeller]

Military success consists in enabling Malians to recover their country's territorial integrity and eventually helping them, through the road map, to engage in the democratic process my colleague mentioned earlier.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Thank you.

Ambassador Diallo, the government, and indeed you, have spoken about this road map to democracy, and certainly it's a welcome initiative. It seems to me, however, that this road map to democracy is filled with potholes. Your own government had coup and counter-coup lately. There's a rather shadowy Captain Sanogo, who seems to be calling a disproportionate share of the shots. You have the Tuaregs, who at the best of times have a very strained relationship with Bamako, and you have three or four Islamist groups active in the north and who were on the way to the south. Even in the best of circumstances a return to democracy would be extraordinary. Is it your view that to return to democracy by July is ambitious?

[H.E. Traoré Diallo]

Thank you.

With the help of God and all our friends, that can be done. You see how easy it was to recapture all the regions that had fallen into the hands of terrorists. Since January 11, practically all the regions aside from the Kidal region, have been brought back under Mali's protection. And it is only February. The Malian government has set July 31 as the deadline. Since everything that has been accomplished so far took less than a month, we hope that, in less than two months, Mali will have recovered its territorial integrity. That's all.

The coup d'état you are talking about is what interrupted the election. The election was planned for April 29, 2012, but the coup d'état was carried out. All the elements needed for the election are already in place. However, we cannot have an election if even an inch of our territory is in the hands of terrorists. We have to wait for the whole territory to be liberated, so that all Malians can participate in the election and choose their leaders.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sorry, Mr. McKay, that's all the time you have.

We have to move to the last round. We have time for one more intervention from both the opposition and the government.

Mr. Dechert has a quick question before he turns it over to Ms. Brown for five minutes, and then we'll finish with Mr. Harris.

[Bob Dechert, Conservative, Mississauga—Erindale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Excellency Zeller, thank you very much for being here today and for bringing this information to us. I want to express Canada's gratitude, through you, to your government and the people of France for taking the initiative, and to the French armed forces for moving so quickly to come to the aid of our friends in Mali and doing what I understand to be a superlative job in pushing back the rebels in the north.

Could you give us an update on the current situation with the rebels in northern Mali and share with us what the status of those rebels is? And what more do you think needs to be done in order to restore peace in northern Mali?

[H.E. Philippe Zeller]

I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for his comments.

I'll say it again: we greatly appreciate Canada's support during this time, with the deployment of the aircraft, the announcement in Addis Ababa and the numerous telephone calls between the most senior officials of our two countries during this time.

As I just said, the operation, which we have named "Operation Serval", continues. First, there are air strikes, with targets like logistics depots, gas depots and training centres for the various terrorists that have been identified. This is particularly the case in the Kidal and north of Kidal, in the Aguelhok region and Tessalit region, where the tragic events my colleague just mentioned took place.

There are also patrols organized by our French and Malian troops around the various cities that have been liberated, because it hasn't been ruled out that certain terrorists are continuing to hide. For example, in those areas, there has been hostile firing of rocket launchers by residual groups in the Gao region. As the president of France said, operations must be pursued up to the northern mountains, so to Adrar des Ifoghas.

These are the objectives that the French forces are currently targeting. Where we are at now, we are in the air because there are still hostile groups that have been seen there. This remaining phase is delicate and difficult because the terrain is mountainous and there are still hostile elements in the area. The sooner this area is controlled and secure, the better it will be, but we aren't done yet.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Ambassador Diallo, thank you very much for being here.

Canada for many years has had a connection with Mali. We announced in 2009 that Mali would continue to be a country of focus for us and we have been contributing substantial amounts of money to Mali to ensure success and progress.

I have a personal connection. I have sponsored a child through World Vision for the last 10 years. I've taken an active and personal interest in how Mali has been moving forward.

I wonder if you could speak to the historic investment that Canada has made, if you could talk about some of the governance strategies that have been brought forward, how they've developed, and if you could talk about capacity building and education, in a minute.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Could you do that in a minute, please?

[H.E. Traoré Diallo]

Thank you.

Congratulations, Ms. Brown. Since you are sponsoring a Malian child, you are considered a Malian, as if you were part of Mali. That is the way it is in Mali: it's a brotherhood.

As I said earlier, the areas in which Canada intervenes affects other areas, including the ones you mentioned: mother and child health, good governance and democracy. Canada is very sensitive to that; everyone knows it. It is the largest project that Canada funds in Mali.

I am not the best person to answer your question. As I said, Canada is the one to say if it is satisfied. When a project is funded by a partner, the progress of the project's implementation with that partner is monitored. If the projects continue and Mali continues to be in Canada's aid concentration zone, it is because all these projects carried out between Canada and Mali are continuing to the satisfaction of both countries. I can tell you that. Canada is Mali's preferred partner. We are very appreciative and all Malians are very proud of this cooperation.

One day, I did a tour of all the departments in Mali that have projects under Canada's guardianship. All these people spoke about their complete satisfaction with Canada's contribution to Mali. I cannot tell you any more. If you want an update, it will certainly have to be with the Canadian authorities. From the Malian perspective, we are quite satisfied with this cooperation, which we find exemplary.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much. I almost hate to cut that off, but we'll have to move across to the opposition for five minutes.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to both ambassadors for joining us this morning. I appreciate it very much.

I want to say to Ambassador Traoré Ami Diallo that we certainly appreciate what your country has been going through and have grave concerns about it, and we hope you can overcome this difficulty and crisis. We would like to provide what assistance we are able to in that effort.

First of all, let me quickly ask you two questions. How realistic is the prospect of dialogue with the Tuareg and the northern elements, given the history? What does your country have to do now that it hasn't done in the past 20 years, say, to effect this change?

Second, looking forward to an election sometime this year, do you require or do you seek the assistance of the international community in showing that the elections are recognized as being real, fair, and free?

[H.E. Traoré Diallo]

Thank you for your kind words.

What must we do that has not yet been done? We have done a lot. But what's unfortunate in the north is that it is a desert. Billions of CFA francs have been injected into developing this region of Mali. However, these projects were managed by the Touareg themselves. In that area, there are more black people than Touareg, but it's the Touareg who entrusted with managing all these development projects that were carried out with the assistance of our financial and technical partners.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I don't mean to cut you off. We know that there's a long history of work being done, but we're talking about a dialogue that's supposed to solve a crisis right now. How realistic is that right now?

[H.E. Traoré Diallo]

The dialogue is very realistic because almost everyone in the north, even the Touareg, are with the Malian government. We're talking here about separatists. These people only represent themselves. But I want to talk about these people whose hands are stained with blood, people who have slit the throats of our soldiers, people whose files we've sent to the International Criminal Court. There cannot be a dialogue with those people until the International Criminal Court renders a decision in their case. But there is a dialogue with the majority of Touareg who remain and who consider themselves Malian, who are in the army and who are heads of all these Mali institutions. In fact, they help the dialogue.

The other day, I was very happy to hear the speech of the Nigerian president and his minister of foreign affairs on France Inter. They said that the MNLA was in no way representative of all Touareg, not even the Touareg of the north. I don't know how, but I will try to find the recording in Mali and send it to you one day.

The MNLA Touareg, the separatists, are a small minority of Touareg. The Mali government said that it was going to speak with those people if they did anything. Mali is willing to speak with the separatists. If we want to be democratic, we need to take into account everyone's point of view. A real democracy should not just make do with its own point of view. All points of view are welcome when we come to the table.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you.

Ambassador, can you tell me whether the elections need international assistance or is that something that you feel will happen without any requirement of international observers or support?

[H.E. Traoré Diallo]

I did not understand your question.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

The question is about elections. You've been proposing to have an election. Is it something that you would expect or would you like to have international observers, support, or assistance to ensure acceptance of it as being legitimate, fair, and free?

[H.E. Traoré Diallo]

Thank you.

We have always had observers during elections in Africa. Independent observers from all walks of life are necessary to ensure the elections are transparent and credible. We have always asked for that in Mali. That has always been the case. It was like that even before these incidents. All elections in Mali have been covered by international observers.

All support will be welcome. We want the elections to be clear, transparent, to everyone's satisfaction, and that everyone acknowledges that the winner is really the person who won.

There is no plan. All support will be welcome.