Canada turned down a United Nations request to take command of the peacekeeping mission in Congo and will instead devote its resources to Afghanistan.
"Finding a lieutenant-general at this time can be a challenge, especially with Afghanistan going on," said Maj. Denys Guay, deputy military attaché at Canada's permanent mission to the UN in New York.
Guay confirmed in an interview that Canada was approached by the UN secretariat's department of peacekeeping operations about six weeks ago to submit a candidate to take charge of the massive UN force in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Canada was asked for a two-star general and limited support staff, not a contingent of troops.
The request was forwarded to the department of foreign affairs and defence department for review, Guay said, but Canada opted to contribute to Afghanistan instead of the mission in Congo.
Canada's former ambassador to the UN, Robert Fowler, said the decision signals Ottawa has all but given up on traditional peacekeeping.
"It is such a pity that we have withdrawn from UN peacekeeping to this extent when this used to be a signature for us, a Canadian brand," said Fowler, who was a special adviser on Africa to both Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin and is now a senior fellow at the University of Ottawa.
Canada is now tied with Malawi as the 53rd largest UN peacekeeping contributor, Fowler noted.
The Congo force, known by the acronym MONUC, has nearly 17,000 troops from more than a dozen countries and at a price tag exceeding $1 billion a year is the biggest UN mission ever.
More than 5.4 million people died in Congo's five-year civil war and its aftermath, mainly from disease and starvation. The conflict officially ended with a peace deal in 2002.
One Canadian military insider who asked not to be identified said Canada's decision makes clear that we have all but abandoned traditional peacekeeping in places like Africa in favour of "playing with the big boys" in Afghanistan.
The Congo mission is huge but has been relatively ineffectual, the military insider said, in part because of a fractured leadership structure that pits divisional commanders against the force commander. The UN is finally moving to fix the command structure and had hoped for Canada to take charge.
The current commander, Senegalese Gen. Babacar Gaye, is nearing the end of his term and the UN is keen to replace him. The UN turned to Canada after several other nations declined the invitation.
"What they wanted was a francophone, from a country with no colonial or political baggage," said the military insider. "Canada could have made a real difference here."
This is not the first time Canada has turned down a UN request to take charge of the Congo mission. In February 2003 – at the start of its involvement in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan – Canada rejected a UN plea to lead the fragile peacekeeping force in Congo.
At the time, retired Canadian Gen. Roméo Dallaire, who commanded the ill-fated peacekeeping force in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, said Canada should have pounced on the request to go to Congo as an opportunity to save thousands of lives and promote human rights.
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