Mr. Chair, I rise to contribute to our take note debate on the Central African Republic. I do it with very mixed emotions. Part of it is a lot of sadness and concern, and a bit of anger, frankly. I will explain that in a minute. However, there is also some hope that we can actually look at putting together some ideas tonight to recommend to the government.
The sadness is just what we have heard tonight. We heard of the horrific displacement of people, the disappearance of people, the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and the descent into chaos. What used to a place of some stability has become a place where people are now being questioned about their religious affiliation, which can lead to their death. That is why we hear today from Amnesty International its concerns about ethnic cleansing, as has been referenced a number of times, and that the seeds of genocide are there.
I was researching earlier and found that a female Nobel Prize laureate has documented over 1,100 confirmed cases of sexual violence, and I am sure there are many more. That is a very disturbing trend, where armed groups and people are using sexual violence as a weapon of war.
That obviously leads to sadness and, frankly, some anger at times. We have heard this stated in the House tonight and heard it before, where people talk about previous genocides. We talk about what happened 20 years ago. We will be commemorating what happened in Rwanda coming up in April, and there is Bosnia. We could go through a whole list. We look at the situation and ask why we are here again.
Someone I well respect, an expert on Africa and on genocide prevention, has claimed that if someone says “never again”, just look at them and say “prove it”. He goes so far as to say that if anyone tells us never again, walk away from them because they are frankly lying. It is because we see the history in front of us.
We have to take that seriously because we have the UN declarations that we have signed onto. We have the declaration on the prevention of genocide. We have tried to come up with systems to address this, yet what do we have? We have a situation in Central African Republic where the UN has stated its highest level of concern.
There is another thread to this that we have not really discussed tonight. It is the fact that this is in Africa and there seems to be a systemic, kind of racist approach to it. I do not accuse anyone in the House at all, of course. It is about the world's response often. I have found, and I am sure others feel the same way, that when it comes to the Congo, where we have seen 5.4 million die in that conflict since 1998, there seems to be disinterest from the world community. We have to wonder if it is just about the value of the lives of the people we are talking about. Is it because we do not value their lives as much as we do others'?
Therefore, I do find myself becoming angry, but that does not get us anywhere and it certainly does not help the people in the Central African Republic. What does help is looking at concrete solutions. I did acknowledge the government's aid to date, which is important to do. It is also important to acknowledge what other countries have done. I was just talking about the EU in my question to the parliamentary secretary. We were seeing before Christmas that something was going to happen at the United Nations to allow for some sort of stabilization force.
Let me recommend to the government the following, that we be actively engaged and offer our logistical support, as acknowledged by the government and the parliamentary secretary just minutes ago, and also our support in terms of people power, where we could help provide training, be it on the ground or adjacent, and help the African Union.
The parliamentary secretary was just talking about the Congo, where I was a number of years ago. There was a need there for some of our officer corps, who are trained in peacekeeping and conflict resolution. Of course, we had the language capability, which was incredibly important. When we see who is on the ground, we often find a lack of coherence because of communication issues. I put that to government as an idea to actively engage in this file, as well as by providing the support already mentioned.
Certainly with the EU and African Union, I am sure there would be a take on that and the need to provide more logistical and communications support and, if needed, some training for some of the people who are on the ground. I know that the Rwandans, for instance, are on the ground there. Can we help with training their peacekeepers?
It seems, after we hear reports from Amnesty and others, that the needed stabilization is not there.
The parliamentary secretary gave a fairly good resumé of the history. I would just like to go back about a year, when there was a peace accord. This is important to note. Of course, it did not hold, and we understand that.
At the time, there were warnings. This is very important for this debate tonight. There were warnings at the time of the peace accord and there were warnings from rebels who said that if it were not fulfilled, there would not be peace but conflict. Sure enough, that is what happened.
As has already been mentioned, we had, shall we say, an amalgam of the rebels at the time who were influenced by different countries. We often see these accords passed, and then everyone walks away and says “done”. We have to learn the lesson. Say yes to stabilization now. Say yes to pouring resources in now. Say yes to dealing with the conflict immediately to save lives, because we are talking about potential genocide.
Let us not forget, though, that Sudan as a case scenario. I think of Darfur is a case scenario. I think of what happened in Mali as a case scenario. Definitely in the CAR, though, a year ago in January, when people thought that the peace accord was done, there were warnings at the time of the potential for it to descend into chaos, as we now see. That is very important.
Another recommendation I have for the government is to do what other countries have done and assign someone to be a focal point on R2P. I say that as someone who understands how that could be a challenge for government, but it does not have to be.
In 2010, a number of countries, including Australia, Denmark and Costa Rica, came together to look at having a focal point for the idea of prevention of mass atrocities. Many other countries joined after that. We have a whole list. There is Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Botswana, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, the Czech Republic, the D.R.C., Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United States, the U.K. They have all appointed someone to be a focal point for R2P, basically for the prevention of mass atrocities.
We do not need someone who is just going to study things. We need to have someone who is going to look at these situations in real-time for prevention and to make sure that we understand the warning signs, which we saw a year ago, and what we need to do to further stabilize situations.
Let me finish by saying the following, which has not been mentioned. In the town of Yaloké , there were 30,000 Muslims. It was a bustling town that mainly dealt in the gold trade. That number has now been reduced to 500 Muslims. Where there were eight mosques, there is now one. When we talk about the seeds of genocide and ethnic cleansing, that is what we are talking about. People have either been removed or they have left.
We have to deal with this. We have to work together, regardless of our party. We must have our country do some of the things I just mentioned. I look forward to a discussion with other members of Parliament on this issue.
