Mr. Speaker, I do thank you for recognizing me and for the opportunity to speak for a few moments perhaps on a little different angle on this take note debate on the desperate situation in Rwanda and Zaire. I would just like to raise a few issues here in the time allotted to me.
Our common humanity or our love of humanity requires us in one way to go to Africa, whether we want to or not. We see the pictures and the problems and we want to help. That is a common Canadian response and it is something that on one level is to be respected.
However, our own safety and our own cognizance of the difficulties also requires us to be wise about the form that this assistance should take in this difficult area. I do not question the principle of helping nations and I do not question the need to help the helpless and especially the poorest of the poor and so on. They are good phrases. They sound good over here where we are well fed, safe and warm. On the broader level I accept that.
However, I do have many questions about how we decide who to help and where we should go. Two years ago, in the wake of the holocaust in Rwanda, while sitting on the foreign affairs committee I called publicly for some sort of a rapid reaction force to make sure we had some capacity to respond in a more effective way; not a UN rapid reaction force but some sort of team in Canada so we could say "we need to send some help, we have the facilities and we have it in place".
I am pleased to see that this spring the government set up DART, the disaster assistance response team, which has improved our capacity to respond quickly to difficult situations.
In 1995 the House of Commons voted on my bill, the peacekeeping bill, in which I argued that Parliament should have the right to pass a resolution and have a debate such as this on each and every peacekeeping mission. My bill would not have stopped the Prime Minister from sending a reconnaissance team to the area in advance of any parliamentary approval, since the bill made allocations for a short term intervention such as this to take place without calling Parliament together just for that reason.
The resolution that I think should have come before the House would have laid out the parameters of the mission beforehand, the size, the cost and duration of the mission and the rules of engagement. The criteria for peacekeeping missions are important. For instance, on the rules of engagement, think back two short years ago. United Nations troops had to stand by and we all saw pictures of it on TV where they had to stand by and watch people being butchered with machetes because the terms of engagement were not to intervene.
I can think of nothing worse than to be told to stand back and not intervene when women and children are being slaughtered in front of you. That must have been a horrible thing for those troops. The question still arises for me. Will the same thing happen again?
There are problems too with the overall priorities of the government. I note that today in Bosnia NATO announced that it needs 30,000 troops to keep the peace in Bosnia. Our current commitment is 1,000 troops in Bosnia right now. I am not sure what the request will be of Canada in the days ahead. It may be more than 1,000. It may be 2,000 or maybe none. We are not sure because there is no organized overall effort to know where we should send our troops and where the priorities should be.
There are other peacekeeping missions ongoing at the moment. We are stretched thin in Bosnia, in Haiti, in the Golan, the Sinai, Mozambique, Angola and Cambodia. We are here, there and everywhere.
As for priorities there are other crises in the world as well. There are refugees from Afghanistan and Iraq. The problems in the entire Sudan are enormous. They are tragic and they are longstanding.
Why do we decide now to help Rwanda? Why is Rwanda and the crisis there, a crisis which appears to be thankfully abating somewhat, suddenly at the top of the list? I am not sure of the answer but I will let people read into it what they will.
I am here to make a case for a more orderly approach to important overseas commitments on behalf of Canada. On the weekend we saw the situation change drastically. The Rwandan government says it no longer wants help, it no longer wants the intervention of Canadians on its soil.
Of course, the job of feeding people and saving lives, giving medical assistance in the area continues to haunt us, so we want to participate. Again though, the question is do we participate best with troops. Is the $100 million that it will cost us in troops allocation the best $100 million or could it be best channelled through NGOs or other agencies? I hope those other options are still being investigated even at this late hour.
I would like to suggest a few principles by which we should conduct ourselves in Africa. This is where I would like to take a little different tact perhaps. The hon. member from Maple Creek went through some of the longstanding problems, but in the solutions to Africa the first principle should be that we need a long term solution. Four to six months is not going to fix anything in Africa, I do not believe. The solution must be long term.
All other problems pale in the shadow of the great problem that still exists in Africa. The genocide that occurred in Rwanda and which still threatens millions today in the sub-Saharan area is as a result of a much deeper problem. In a sense Africa is still the dark continent today when it comes to this deep problem of tribalism. In Rwanda, the crisis we are talking about today, one's loyalty is primarily to one's own tribe or ethnic group. The loyalty to the principles of truth, love, justice or any of the things that we have come to accept as due course in Canada, there is not that loyalty there.
I believe we cannot solve this problem in Rwanda with military force. After we go in with the guns, and after we go in with the protective unit of whatever kind, the moral problem will still exist. It will be the same thing all over again. It has been going on, as my hon. colleague mentioned, for 300 years. It bubbled up two years ago. It is still there. It will still be there two, three, four or five years down the road. Perhaps two months after we leave it will still be there unless the people in Rwanda have a change of heart. It is deeper than a military problem. It is actually a moral problem.
I do not want to pick exclusively on the Rwandans but they need more than just military intervention. They need a change of heart and a change of mind.
If it is a military mission alone that we are embarking on, military intervention alone is doomed to failure. So why should Canada be involved at all? We are involved because of our own commitment to those principles that I mentioned earlier.
Our belief in the principles of justice, of love, of esteeming your neighbour as yourself are principles that we gloss over in the House. We take it for granted that tonight when we go home we give vehicles that have the right of way the right of way. We hold the door for others. We understand that someone's home is to be respected and we do not intrude. We understand that someone's choice for an occupation or political party to belong to are choices that we respect.
We have a need to be involved because we take those principles without forcing any cultural principles, any cultural nuances on the Rwanda people. We need to try to somehow impart to them the need for these principles of love, justice, understanding and esteeming your neighbour as yourself. You do not have to get into the religious side of that to know that is the principle on which democracy rides. If we do not impart that somehow in our journeys in Rwanda, it will not be a lasting peace and we will be back. It will be another tragedy.
The second principle is to find a solution that involves justice in the whole sub-Saharan part of Africa. The renewal strategy in Rwanda must reflect Canada's own commitment to justice. If there is ever to be lasting peace in Rwanda, or Zaire, or the Sudan or any area that is undergoing these tragic ethnic wars, the world community must one day come to grips with the idea that there are murderers in Rwanda, there are people who practice genocide and ethnic cleansing and one day they must be brought to justice.
It is not enough just to feed people in a camp or even when they return to their villages. One day justice must be served and it must be seen to be served. To this day we are still trying to bring justice to those people who were involved in the holocaust. Fifty years after the war, we understand it is so important that justice be served and be seen to be served that if a murderer or someone involved in genocide is found, we as an international community and as a nation do not tolerate it.
If this short term intervention in Rwanda is just that and no justice is served then I fear in two, three, four or ten years from now it will erupt again in another holocaust. That is why justice must be served.
Over the last couple of years no one wanted to get involved. The groups who are involved in the refugee camps are known. It is known that they use the refugees as shelter and as a human shield. We all know it is happening. I am not saying it is an easy solution but unless justice is done one day that cancer will come back and
there will be another holocaust. You can count on it and 300 years of history show that to be true.
The third principle is that although we are there and the world is going there in some pretty good healthy numbers, well armed men and women are going to go over to Africa to help deliver aid. It must be a made in Africa solution to this made in Africa problem. The four to six month intervention is to give breathing room. That is a good idea. It has some value. Obviously we cannot allow another holocaust so we are trying to do our bit. However, in the long run it has to be a made in Africa solution.
In some ways I fear that we still have a bit of "this is the white man's burden" in Africa attitude. We are going over there and teach these guys how to do it. In the long term it will not work. We have to do more than that.
I think of the example of South Africa. I heard an interesting speaker a couple of weeks ago and I believe, Mr. Speaker, you did as well, talk about some of the principles that brought about the peaceful change from apartheid to a democratic, one person, one vote rule in South Africa.
The national committee for reconciliation was formed. That is a South African phrase which means that we have to come together and find a solution together because we have to live together. An all-party committee came together to write a new constitution. All parties, all ethnics, all colours, all groups came together to solve the problems in South Africa.
If I could encourage one last thing it would be a just and peaceful Rwanda. It would be a society where all ethnicities, all races are accepted in peaceful co-existence. But that must come from the Rwandan people themselves. While we are there I hope we work to bring about a national reconciliation or whatever name they want to call it so they too can experience what South Africa has, which is a modern day miracle. It is a peaceful solution to a seemingly impossible situation.