National Defence Committee on Oct. 25th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Bachand.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a number of questions that I'll try to ask briefly so you can answer them quickly and we can cover everything.

First, when you, the Senlis Council, are on the ground in Afghanistan, you do exactly what you want. You take orders from no one, you go where you want, when you want and you do what you want.

Is that correct?

[Norine MacDonald]

Yes. That's not to say I'm not afraid of anyone; it would be foolish in Afghanistan to take that approach.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

That leads me to my other question.

Madam, you also said that you were protected in the villages. You're not protected by the military forces. Perhaps you feel protected by people that the military forces are also hunting.

Is that possible?

[Norine MacDonald]

Certainly I am aware, when I'm in those villages, that there are people there who, for reasons we discuss with them, have chosen to allow the Taliban and those fighting forces to pass through those villages. I'm very interested, as a security policy analyst, to understand the motivations of the violent actors there. They will never admit it to me directly, but I believe after spending some time there you can have a feeling for it. The people in the mixed-control villages protect us because we're bringing food, and I think there is a political lesson to be learned there.

I have been in villages where I've been very concerned about some people who have been there.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay. So you're a political analyst.

I have another question.

The criticism that's often made of the 3D approach is that it operates in isolation, without others knowing what's going on. However, you've just confirmed that there's probably a fourth stakeholder in the field: the NGOs. That must cause a problem. We're more defence specialists. However, I know people who program, plan and command military operations. It's a bit difficult for them to conduct a military operation and to invade a village without knowing that the Senlis Council is in the middle of that village.

Is it possible for liaison officers between you and the military to be informed of what's going on in the next few days or hours? That would prevent the military from invading a village while you're distributing bread to people.

[Norine MacDonald]

No, we don't have regular contact with the military. But the fact is that the military have to keep their operations to themselves. However, we send reconnaissance trips to the villages before I go. Some of the guys who are with me are ex-military and Afghans and they go and check. If there are military operations there, we don't go there. If I see Canadian military guys, I stop and identify myself and say I want to go there, I'm doing food aid. They know that I'm there and they'll tell me if it's not a good idea.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Okay.

In your document, you contend that information gathering is very important. You, more than the military, must probably be in the middle of a major source of information, because you associate with those people closely. I know because, in Bosnia, we went into the cafés, had a drink or a coffee and talked with everybody. However, we needed translators.

Do you have any translators?

[Norine MacDonald]

I can understand a little bit of Pashto but very little. I'm getting better. I have Afghan colleagues who are with me all the time by my side, who work with me doing the translation.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

I see.

We've previously had surprises with translators who didn't translate exactly what we meant. I witnessed scenes where the translation was of no help. We learned that afterwards.

The following question may be a question of moral ethics. Let's say you learn that people that very evening are going to attack the Canadian Forces, which are at the base of the mountain, beside the road.

What would you do with that information? Would you share it or would you be quiet?

[Norine MacDonald]

I would contact the Canadian military and tell them that, of course. My concern is for the Canadian military and the Afghan people.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

The third point concerns the 3D approach. There's a lot of talk about defence and development, but never about diplomacy. And yet, with respect to the jirgas, the Department of Foreign Affairs should have specialists and very good translators in the field in an attempt to establish ties with political decision-makers and commanders.

You told me you've seen very little development. However, have you witnessed Canadian diplomacy in Afghanistan?

[Norine MacDonald]

The former Canadian ambassador, Chris Alexander, is no longer the ambassador but works as the deputy chief of UNAMA. I saw the results of his work often and I think he exemplified the best of the diplomacy in the three-Ds and set a really good example of exactly what we would want for Canada in Kandahar. I can't speak highly enough of his work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you.

Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

I'll take a little bit of a different route here with some questions.

You've shared with us your experiences of you being able to dress in customary clothing and everything and go there and be in relative safety. First of all, I'd like to ask if you ever felt you were in a situation where you weren't safe. Have there been occasions when you felt that your personal safety was threatened while you were delivering food or going out and doing your research?

[Norine MacDonald]

It's a war zone there. There's bombing and fighting all the time, and that's a regular occurrence. There's an Afghan code of hospitality, so if you're there they protect you, and if they can't protect you, they warn you and you have to leave. So if we were in a village, and people arrived that they were concerned about, they would say it's time for you to go, in a very polite way. If we received those warnings, we left and returned another time.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

How much food have you been delivering? Can you give me an indication? For example, is it just as much as you can get in the trunk? What are we talking about?

[Norine MacDonald]

I think we would appall any person who had a PhD in development, and I really have to apologize to them, but what happened the first time was that the men from the village in Arghandab made me promise to bring back food, so we simply bought a lot of bread and put it in the backs of vehicles. We bought rice, oil, we took advice from Afghan colleagues about what to take, what they could actually use, because they're cooking in a very primitive way. Now when we go we always take bread, because they can immediately eat it, because we want to talk to them. If they're hungry and we give them rice, they want to go off and cook some, so from a practical point of view we always take bread. I'm sure that's probably, as I said, appalling to anybody who knows anything about food aid and development, and I'm embarrassed to tell you that it was that basic.

We simply thought, if we found a bunch of people in Canada who were hungry and we could take them food, what would we do? So we went and bought food, nothing sophisticated.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Is the reality that they don't have food to purchase or that they don't have money to purchase food locally, or is it a combination of both?

[Norine MacDonald]

No, you can get food in Kandahar. There is food, mostly coming from Pakistan, but you can buy food in Kandahar. Normally in the villages, from which it's difficult for them to get to Kandahar, they were growing their food. But they've moved into these refugee camps, and there's no way for them to grow their own food.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Okay.

Have you shared your experiences with any other aid organizations, such as the Red Cross or any other organizations—NGOs—that would normally go in?

[Norine MacDonald]

Yes. Since we came out we've been talking to a lot of the Red Cross agencies about this: the British Red Cross, the Canadian Red Cross, the Italian Red Cross. We've talked to more of them as well about buying Afghan morphine. The Italian Red Cross has endorsed buying Afghan morphine, because there's a shortage of morphine in Italy.

With the Red Crescent organization in Afghanistan, we've started a relationship to run an addicts treatment centre in Kabul along with the Italian Red Cross. We are now telling everybody we can about the situation and offering to help in any way we can.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

On that line, then, I'm more concerned about the food delivery than I am.... My line of questioning is more about the food delivery, and if the starvation is what you claim, that's where I want to go with this.

Given that you have a model of delivering food that seems to work, are there any other NGOs right now that are using this model to deliver food?

[Norine MacDonald]

Not that I saw, because a lot of them that were originally in Kandahar left because of the security situation.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Enough said. Thank you.