Mr. Chair, nothing that I said was intended to diminish or in any way undercut the role and the importance of the African Union which has been valiantly seeking to undertake the peacekeeping mission.
The African Union itself has acknowledged that what is needed at this point is a more robust chapter 7 UN mandated civilian protection mandate, number one, and number two, that what is necessary are increased numbers, resources and capacity for the purposes of actually implementing a chapter 7 civilian protection mandate.
I might add that Canada itself can take the lead. We have a particular leverage that we can exercise. We have no colonialist legacy in Africa. We are respected among a large group of nations. We can take a lead morally, diplomatically, and politically with respect to these objectives. Even with regard to that more robust multinational civilian protection force, we can provide, in my view, as General Dallaire and others have said, a headquarters, brigades of 300 or 400 forces without diminishing anything in Afghanistan. We can provide CF-18 planes without diminishing anything we are doing in Afghanistan. We can make, even on that level, an important symbolic and substantive contribution, along with everything else in the 10 point plan.
With regard to the peace process in Abuja, and this is crucial, while we support that peace process and we have made an important contribution to it, it is now in its seventh round. It has dragged on for more than two years. There does not appear to be a resolution and even if there were, whether it could hold, because some of the Darfurian communities are not represented. Janjaweed is not represented. We could have a situation where that would unravel even if an agreement was reached. It should not detract at all from any of the other things that need to be done in order to save Darfur. That is why we are here this evening, to sound the alarm, to break the silence, to have an action plan to save Darfur.