Mr. Speaker, on May 9, 1994 I asked the Minister of Foreign Affairs a question regarding the role of the United Nations in the continuing tragedy in Rwanda.
My question then was directed to chapter 6 of the United Nations charter which clusters together the UN processes for peaceful settlement of international disputes.
In its best known manifestation chapter 6 connotes peacekeeping in the classical form first suggested by Lester Pearson who resolved the Suez crisis of 1956 and for which he later received the Nobel Peace Prize.
That is the interposition of an unarmed international peace force between combatants who have been in direct armed conflict in order to separate them and allow a necessary cooling off period preparatory to elaboration of a formal peace accord or other formalized truce.
Peacekeeping under chapter 6 of the charter is to be distinguished from peacemaking under chapter 7 which connotes the direct interposition in military force through the medium of UN military contingents under UN command and authority and which is specifically empowered to use armed force to resolve conflicts.
It is to be noted, however, there is an increasing reluctance of UN member states to utilize the chapter 7 processes in part because of recent unhappy experiences in problem areas like Bosnia-Hercegovina and Somalia where the line between classical peacekeeping and peacemaking became increasingly blurred and confused.
It may, however, be suggested that the problems there have arisen more from lack of a clear advance definition or instructions as to the UN roles and missions in the particular cases than from any defects inherent in the chapter 6 and chapter 7 processes as such.
In the context of Rwanda my suggestion is directed to the fact that once the internal ethnic strife had transcended national frontiers with the waves of refugees from Rwanda escaping to neighbouring states and thereby imposing severe burdens on those neighbouring states' economy and health and social welfare resources and personnel, the Rwanda conflicts had ceased to be purely internal or national, if they ever were, and had taken on a larger international dimension, with major implications in the new humanitarian international law.
For this reason while noting the considerable humanitarian aid already given within Rwanda by Canadian emergency relief personnel, both civil and military, to relieve the human suffering involved in the ethnic conflicts, I would ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs what further steps, within the ambit of chapter 6 of the charter and under the UN aegis, the Canadian government might recommend to the United Nations for purposes of collective, world community action, or what action we might be prepared to take on our own initiative to save human lives and to alleviate further human suffering in Rwanda.