Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much. There have been religious tensions, but they were exacerbated—and that's a mild word. They were really brought to a point last year when we had Islamist extremist groups, many of whom come from outside Mali, coming in and bringing a very extreme form of Isla

Foreign Affairs committee  Thank you very much for your question. The French push has not been a push alone by the French army. They've been working alongside the Malian army, with AFISMA troops coming in behind to control and keep those towns that have been liberated by the French and Malian forces. Righ

Foreign Affairs committee  The French and the Malian troops stepped up to the plate immediately. The first military push by the Islamist extremists was on January 7. On January 10 they moved down to what is sort of the dividing line between north and south in Mali and started to take over cities there. On

Foreign Affairs committee  As I said to Mr. Dewar, the government will continue to reflect on the contributions Canada can and should make to address the situation in Mali. We are looking at where other contributors are directing their resources and where Canada can make an effort, but we're also continuin

Foreign Affairs committee  As General Vance said, there are many different tools the international community uses to respond to a complex crisis. We have continued on the humanitarian front. We're continuing on development assistance. We're still doing security programming across the Sahel. We are training

Foreign Affairs committee  We have advised Canadians to leave the country because of the unrest and have been doing that for a while.

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm afraid we don't have that statistic handy. We can get back to you on that.

Foreign Affairs committee  The March 2012 coup came on very, very quickly. There has been a history of unrest, as I mentioned, by the Tuareg in the north, but it was different in March because of the presence of the extremist groups from outside. It was like a force multiplier in March, and the internation

Foreign Affairs committee  As I said, the situation is changing hourly. It's changing daily. We'll have to take decisions and make recommendations on programming going forward in a very flexible manner, but if you look back to what we have done in the past, I think we have some of the main elements right.

Foreign Affairs committee  We just received the invitation to the Brussels meeting. I can say that Canada will be participating in the Brussels meeting, but we haven't decided at what level yet.

Foreign Affairs committee  As I said, we have been consistently pressing for a return to democratic and constitutional rule, and part of the reason the road map came out when it did is pressure from the international community. I think the Malian government has made sure there are some strong elements in t

Foreign Affairs committee  Before I pass this to my colleague, Pat Malikail, I will just say it's absolutely crucial that there be an African response to an African crisis. The African Union and ECOWAS have taken a leadership role, not only in supplying many more troops than originally had been envisaged b

Foreign Affairs committee  The Malian government was part of discussions about what ECOWAS would be contributing. It's already happening that the French and the Malian troops are pushing forward, and coming in behind are AFISMA and troops from Chad. Chad is not technically part of AFISMA, but they have sig

Foreign Affairs committee  I'll answer on the reports we have. We regularly look at a number of sources of reports when there are human rights concerns being raised. We have reports on human rights issues, obviously, from our embassies in the region, in Bamako, but we also look at reports by Human Rights

Foreign Affairs committee  As I said, we have spoken out about our concern about human rights abuses and will continue to do so. We'll continue to monitor the situation very, very closely. If your specific question is about the human rights monitors as called for by the French, we are currently considerin