National Defence Committee on May 11th, 2010

[Mia Vukojevic]

I'll start with Haiti, but I would also like to reflect on Sri Lanka, for example, and Pakistan, because those are the three cases I know of.

The Haiti earthquake is exactly the situation where involvement of militaries other than the host country military can be justified. We have no problem with that. The scale of the crisis in Haiti was so great that it was clear that the Government of Haiti, United Nations, and all of the NGOs that were already there didn't have the capacity to respond quickly enough and at the scale that was required immediately. However, where we had a problem with the engagement of the militaries, especially the army of the United States, is in the form of their engagement. I will elaborate and then compare it to Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

Instead of using the military, the only one that has a capacity to potentially fix the airport, on day one the airport got clogged by the U.S. military, for weeks. Oxfam had three planes that were supposed to land. There were a number of them over a number of days. They were diverted from landing on the Saturday after the earthquake as they were approaching Port-au-Prince airport and they were sent to Santo Domingo. I know we were not the only ones. I know MSF was the same, and so on.

The airport was basically useless for the usual humanitarian actors, who were prevented from doing their work for about two weeks, while the same United States army, which has fantastic capacities, could have used those same people and the same capacity to fix the airport. They did eventually expand the airport, create the things that the Government of Haiti didn't have capacity for--the United Nations on the ground were decimated--and NGOs never have the capacity for.

The lift brings staff in, the way that the ships were used post-tsunami in Indonesia--helicopters as well. In Pakistan, the Pakistani army was doing most of the lifting capacities, and then some of the other governments provided helicopters and lifting equipment.

In terms of Canadian engagement, I haven't been to Haiti yet--I'm going on Tuesday--so I only know what I have been told by colleagues on the ground. But given the scale and my experiences from elsewhere, I would say that water purification was justifiably needed. Oxfam is heavily involved in provision of water in emergencies. For example, the DART team coordination following the Pakistan earthquake was excellent. Because the civilian organizations, the government, and all of the NGOs didn't have capacity to provide water for everybody immediately, DART was providing water in one town, while Oxfam was fixing the water system and providing emergency water in another one. Then as DART had to leave after 40 days, there was an orderly handover. It was all coordinated really well.

I would say that using certain rescue operations like lift capacity and so on.... For example, no country in itself has enough capacity to do search and rescue at the speed that's required after a crisis like Haiti, and no civilian organizations do. Those are the areas where I think strategically using the military capacities and developing them in that way is very justified.

I have also heard that as the DART team arrived in either Jacmel or Léogâne, there was a news report that there was a shortage of medical assistance. There was only a small MSF clinic, and because there was a news report that went around the world, the next week there were five health clinics in a small town. The militaries and the governments of the donor countries behaved very much in the way that NGOs have a reputation for: running after the media's attention. They all flocked there and then MSF picked up on that. There was no need for five hospitals.

I'm saying there are instances when it's needed, and it should be very strategic, not led by the media pressures but the needs and using the advantages the military has.

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

Can I ask you to comment on the relationship between the military actions and the humanitarian aid? I'd use Afghanistan as an example. The Canadian government is active in building schools, for example, in the same area in which it's conducting combat operations or securing the territory.

Is it really possible to do humanitarian work, a development work of that nature in what is tantamount to be a war zone? I think we've had the schools themselves becoming targets. Is that something you see as a problem for all NGOs, or is this again something that's limited to Afghanistan?

[Mia Vukojevic]

Afghanistan, and I would say Iraq. They're highly politicized environments.

There isn't enough evidence, actually, of what the effects are of these operations. I've just spoken with Peter Walker, who is from Tufts University, and they've recently done research where $1.2 billion has gone for the commanders' exercises, the commanders' humanitarian operations—I'm not sure what they're called—in Afghanistan, with not a shred of figuring out what is the evidence that it actually works, that it's doing whatever it's supposed to be doing.

For a humanitarian agency, the sole purpose of humanitarian operations should be providing the basic protection and assistance to civilians. No other agenda should be involved there. It's very different for my organization's development work because there we have a different agenda. But humanitarian work should only be about saving lives and alleviating poverty. And I don't know that Canada's army or any other army that's currently fighting the war in Afghanistan can be doing humanitarian work according to humanitarian principles.

If the Canadian military is building schools for some other reasons, then it should be called whatever it is. I don't know whether it's peace-building or development, if you know what I mean, because creating the confusion about what is humanitarian and what is not is not beneficial for anybody, I think, in that environment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

Now I will give the floor to Mr. Braid.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for your presentation this morning.

In your opening remarks you spoke about, within the context of a mission, the importance of providing protection and the importance of providing assistance, and that the record within a mission of providing assistance is relatively good, and with respect to providing protection, not so good. Could you elaborate on what some of the reasons are for the fact that the provision of protection has not been successful, and how we can fix that, how we can improve that?

[Mia Vukojevic]

I can try.

There are several reasons, of course. I think one of the reasons is that protection of civilians has often been left to the United Nations civilian organizations and humanitarian organizations, which are not equipped in many of those cases to do so. A good example is the Balkans. Initially, the only organizations that had protection of civilians as a distinct mandate in their organizations were the United Nations High Commission for Refugees--that has protection as a mandate--and the International Committee of the Red Cross. That's it.

Even the NGOs who speak about protection are very limited in what we can do. We can make sure that our activities don't endanger the people, and sometimes they do. We can use our presence as a deterrence, especially in terms of criminal activities and attacks on people in camps and so on, when we are there. When international NGOs are there, it is less likely to happen. And we can expose the perpetrators. But that's basically what we can do.

I think having an International Criminal Court has helped, because there is now an understanding that if you attack civilians, perpetrate war crimes and so on, you may end up being prosecuted for it. So that has been helpful, but it needs to be strengthened, because as good as ICC is, there are no mechanisms for finding those people and ensuring they actually end up being in court. There are still elements missing in that respect.

The sovereignty issue is a big, big problem, because it centres everything on the state, and the state is responsible for protecting its civilians. But in more and more cases where we have internal conflicts, the state is the perpetrator. The state itself is allowing the violation of human rights and war crimes, or the state itself is perpetrating crimes. And because of the nature of the conflict as internal within the states, you have non-state actors that basically are not bound by international norms, international humanitarian law, and cannot have sanctions put on them by the United Nations Security Council, or be even engaged by the international community very often.

The United Nations mission in Croatia in 1991 was called the United Nations protection force. They had no protection mandate. They were not allowed to intervene. In 1995, when Croatian forces entered the area that was held by the Serbs, I think it was a Canadian general who allowed civilians to enter the UN barracks, against the rules of the United Nations and against what New York was telling them.

So the people who maybe had the power to protect civilians didn't have the mandate and still don't have the tools and resources and so on to do so. This is why we think you think the military, like the Canadian military, which does have respect.... In the Balkans, you would always trust a Canadian soldier more than you would a local policeman. There was no question about that. You think that for them to distribute food parcels is a waste of credibility, experience, expertise, and capabilities.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

In your response now and in your presentation earlier you spoke about previous examples where UN peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia or Rwanda had failures of proper mandate, of communications, channels of authority, of proper tools and resources. Is that still an issue?

You mentioned some reforms, some review of process and procedures within the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations. Have many of those issues been addressed, to your mind?

[Mia Vukojevic]

Some of them have been addressed. And they are currently working on trying to address some of the other ones. Even if they address all of them, there is still a problem of politics, because the UN missions are mandated by the United Nations Security Council, which is all about politics. So you can still have a problem with that.

But I think it has become a norm, and partly also because of responsibility to protect being built into the UN document of 2005. Almost every United Nations peace operation now includes a protection of civilians mandate. So I think that creates an opening, and it can be further influenced by governments like the Government of Canada and the other governments that have credibility across the board within the United Nations, and not only in one segment of the community of the United Nations.

Lots more work needs to be done through the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. But if you only have Bangladeshis and Indians engaging with them, and you don't have the governments like Canada and the military like the Canadian military, which has so much experience and so much training to offer and so on, I'm not sure how well these issues will be addressed.

[Peter Braid, Conservative, Kitchener—Waterloo, ON]

In what types of missions should a military force--Canadian Forces, in this case--be involved and working alongside NGOs, and in what types of missions should there not be a military presence, and NGOs should be working on their own? What's the distinction there?

[Mia Vukojevic]

I think for most disasters there is no need for a military presence, other than in exceptional cases. For me, the exceptional ones since Hurricane Mitch would be the tsunami--where DART came in too late--the Pakistan earthquake, and Haiti. The rest can be handled by local governments, United Nations, humanitarian organizations, and NGOs.

We should be having less and less engagement in those repetitive ones. Mozambique has floods every year. There is no need, even, for us. We should be training local organizations to do so.

In terms of conflict, it's hard--

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Go ahead briefly.

[Mia Vukojevic]

--for me to say. There is currently a big debate within the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and there was a paper issued recently about preventative peacekeeping. Traditionally it meant dividing the roles, observation missions, and so on.

The peacekeeping is definitely easy when it's between the two states. I think Canada should be looking into operations where its credibility can bring value and where there is a clear issue with the protection of civilians. That's not always the case now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Maxime Bernier]

Thank you.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Martin.

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

Merci beaucoup, monsieur le président.

Thank you, Ms. Vukojevic.

In international law, as we know, the right of the individual to be free of abuse and violence trumps the right of the sovereign to do whatever they want.

Given the fact that so many aid workers are being tragically killed and targeted in unstable environments, in your view, what should be the rules of engagement on the part of peacekeeping operations within a conflict zone? Should it be shoot back when shot at, shoot to protect and defend aid workers, or to defend civilians? What ought to be the rules of engagement under those circumstances?

[Mia Vukojevic]

I'm not sure that I'm really qualified.

I would say they should shoot to protect civilians, but there should be very clear rules so that you don't have the abuses, if you know what I mean. There are peacekeepers from all sorts of countries and all sorts of places. I don't think the peacekeeper should be protecting aid workers. We--

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

They should not be protecting aid workers?

[Mia Vukojevic]

They shouldn't directly. If you protect the civilians, and if you secure the environment, it should be safe enough for us to work. That's our premise. That's how we think we can function. That's how we functioned for a long time until recently.

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

Aid workers, as you know better than I, are being targeted. The question we struggle with is how we protect you so you can engage in the work you're doing. What is the interface of the military with respect to enabling you to do your work and protecting you?

[Mia Vukojevic]

What we say to our military colleagues on the ground in an environment other than Afghanistan and Iraq is to coordinate through the coordination mechanism, and then they will know where the humanitarian operation is happening. We will know where their operations are, and we won't go there.

Exchange of information is really important. I honestly don't think direct protection of aid workers is advisable, because our protection is inclusion and acceptance. That's how we think we should be protecting ourselves in operations. We want to be accepted by the communities, by the civilians. For example, in Somalia now there are a lot of bad people running around, armed groups. I don't even want to call them what they should be called. They occasionally--more often than in lots of other countries--stop and abduct for ransom or for robbery or even attempt to kill aid workers.

We believe that our best protection other than arming ourselves and asking for armed protection is working with the communities, and the communities then negotiate with those armed groups. These armed groups are not legitimate armies. They eventually do come from the communities. Whenever in Somalia there is an incident, we suspend our activities, and we tell the communities we're working with that it's not safe for us.

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

Where that's feasible, that's good. You said Somalia would be an excellent example. I would argue that the DRC and Darfur, where aid workers are targeted.... I'm boring down because it's fundamental to any of the questions we're trying to struggle with. Is there a role for peacekeepers to defend your lives with force?

[Mia Vukojevic]

I don't think so.

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

Okay.

What is the best relationship between humanitarian aid workers and the military in a conflict zone where you have a good relationship with the locals, where you're working in areas of extreme instability--the eastern Congo, which was a possibility at one time, Somalia? Where you're working in failed states, what is the best relationship, in your view, between peacekeeping operations and humanitarian operations?

[Mia Vukojevic]

I would say coordinating through the United Nations mechanisms. When I say that, I mean not being coordinated by, because NGOs are very keen on preserving their independence and so on, but there is extreme value for us in exchanging information, and I guess for the militaries as well.

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

Should Canadian peacekeeping troops be going to the eastern DRC?

[Mia Vukojevic]

I don't know. I don't know that I can answer that question. I would say from the point of view of protecting civilians, they would be more justified to be in the DRC than in any other place.