Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Dewdney—Alouette.
I rise in the early hours of this day to speak to the growing troubles that we now see in Kosovo. The subject of war troubles me very deeply. This is not a topic that I nor I am sure anyone else in the House takes very lightly. Not only are the lives of people in those countries on the line, but indeed Canadian lives are also on the line.
I wish to begin by paying tribute to our troops who are over there. I wish for their personal safety and their safe return home to their loved ones as soon as possible. It is perhaps unfortunate that the government motion did not also include the phrase “the safe return of our Canadian forces personnel”. We ought not to forget them at this particular time.
It bothers me greatly, and the Liberal government should be ashamed, that it has taken Canada so far down this path of aggression without any authority from the House of Commons. We are at war and until now have not even debated the issue.
I must ask the simple question: What is our intention in Kosovo? Are we going to attempt to make peace or are we going to be peacemakers when the opportunity arises? Obviously, there is no peace at this time.
Canada has placed the lives of Canadian men and women at great risk. These men and women are prepared to go where we, as the elected officials of their country, ask them to go. Again I must ask the question: What is our intention in Kosovo? What are we asking our men and women to do? When we ask them to do something, are we ensuring that they have the tools to do the job?
The motion that we are debating states:
That this House take note of the continuing human tragedy in Kosovo—
I have no difficulty in adding my voice of support in the recognition of this terrible situation, but what does take note mean? Are we being asked to recognize the plight of the refugees by assisting them through the provision of food and other basic necessities? If so, then of course the government has my full support.
Are we being asked to right the terrible wrongs that are being forced upon the refugees? I have concerns as to how to go about this and, therefore, whether we should go about this or not. In a region that has known hostilities for over 500 years, is it possible for any of us sitting very safely in this House of parliament to fully understand, know and determine the rights and the wrongs of the situation?
The forceful removal of people from their homes is of course never right. Depriving people of their identification and property is never right. The murder of innocent people is never right.
The motion continues to state:
—and the government's determination to work with the international community in order to resolve the conflict and promote a just political settlement for Kosovo—
Like many government motions, this is sufficiently vague enough to mean a lot of different things. If this means sending in ground troops, I am opposed and I have strong concerns. If this means that the Canadian forces will play a role in maintaining the peace, I am willing to support it.
The motion concludes “that leads to the safe return of the refugees”. I am also in support of this. I think one of the biggest questions that must be considered with this is what are the refugees going home to. When will we know that the NATO forces have fully achieved their objective and that it is sustainable? How long do we expect our troops to be in Kosovo?
There was a time when Canadians generally were very proud of our international role in peacekeeping. We sent our troops to some of the most difficult places in the world and we did a good job of keeping warring factions apart; places like Cyprus and the Middle East. We were not involved then in the invasion of a sovereign nation.
However, in the last few years Canadians have begun to view our Canadian Armed Forces in a different light. That is partially due to the inability of the government to clearly articulate to the Canadian people what it believes the military role is.
Because of this indecisiveness, our troops have been underpaid, undermanned and underequipped. They have had to work with obsolete equipment, live in substandard housing and moonlight at other jobs in order to make financial ends meet. Couple this with scandals like the Somalia affair, the treatment of women in the forces and moral is at an all time low.
Throughout this decade and in the midst of all of these circumstances, we persist in sending our troops into no win international situations. Instead of being the peacekeepers of which we can be proud, we are forcing them to be aggressors tainted with the results of killing and wounding innocent civilians.
Let us look at the record. We are part of NATO. In order to fulfill our commitment to this organization, we have been dragged into international conflicts on the coattails of American foreign policy. Let us not make any mistake about it; the Americans are the ones who are pushing these international war operations today. The record is not good.
In the early years of this decade, we sent our airplanes into Kuwait and Iraq as part of the desert storm operation. The goal was to stop Saddam Hussein in his mad long rush to conquer Kuwait and its oil rich territory. However, what really happened? We unleashed all the power of modern warfare against him and when victory was in our grasp and it was possible to eliminate this awful dictator, we stopped on his doorstep, turned our backs and hightailed it home. Now we wait until he builds up his war machine to continue his terror and seven years later go back in and do it all over again. It does not seem to make any sense.
Either these operations must have clearer objectives that will once and for all destroy the war machines of these madmen dictators, or we do not go in at all and we let history take its course.
We now have a similar situation with Serbia and the madman Milosevic. No one condones his ethnic cleansing of Albanians, but this hatred between the races has been going on for centuries. It will not be changed by the dropping of bombs but by a dramatic change in human hearts.
Once again, what is the objective here? Is it to get rid of Milosevic and his henchmen in order to stop the ethnic cleansing? Do we really think this war against a sovereign nation will change anything? Has U.S. foreign policy determined that it will use the NATO disguise to go so far and then back off only to come in another day or year to flex its muscles again? Are Canadian troops being used as pawns in the hands of the Americans in a war exercise that does not seem to have a clear objective?
What exactly is it that we are trying to achieve? I believe these are importance questions that are being asked by many Canadians. We in this parliament deserve to give them an answer.
In the meantime, Canadians are killing innocent civilians, children and young people. We are bombing non-military targets. I know it is unintentional but it still is happening. War is hell and these things will always happen when we engage our troops in it.
We are committing our sometimes under strength, underpaid, ill-equipped troops to a war that I do not think we can win unless we are prepared to pull out all the stops. We all know the risks of that today. In the nuclear age, we are only just one button push away from world war III, its horrors and the possibility of the end of the human race that this would bring.
Is that what we want our Canadians troops involved in? Not this Canadian. Keep our troops for the time-honoured and world respected role of peacekeepers. Do not turn them into aggressors waging war against civilians. Do not send our army or any ground troops for that matter into this conflict in Kosovo. This is not Kuwait. It is a mountainous country where armies can hole up in the hills for ages fighting guerrilla warfare. The second world war proved this. This conflict would be protracted, ugly and covered with blood and could well take us into world war III.
There has to be a better way. Are there no decent Serbians who know the truth about Milosevic? They cannot tolerate him forever. Could we not expect that they would somehow get rid of him and his henchmen; that truth would prevail and that right would win out? There has to be another option.
I do not believe that what we are doing is the answer. Canadians should not be there in their present role. We are not the policemen of the world. Let us always be known as peacekeepers and peacemakers. Our military reputation is already tarnished in the world community.
Along with many Canadians, I long for the day that is described in the Bible, a day when the lamb lies down with the lion, a day when we shall beat our swords into ploughshares and man will know war no more. Until that day comes, we must work for peace. We must be viewed by the world as peacemakers and not aggressors.