Building
Sustainable Peace
Notes spoken to
by Hon. David Kilgour, P.C., M.P.
Secretary of
State (Asia-Pacific) & M.P. (Edmonton-Southeast) at the 7th Annual
Peacebuilding and Human Security Consultations
Lester B.
Pearson Building
Ottawa, ON
23 October 2003
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against delivery
The more cynical among us might argue that we are all
getting ahead ourselves with the question, "What kind of peace is being
built?" They might
ask whether peace in our world really exists at all? They could point to armed conflicts - some simmering, some
full-blown - on every continent. They
could point to future conflicts emerging over resources that are taken for
granted, like water. They could
point to growing gaps between rich and poor, endemic famines, small arms,
inhuman slums, global warming and the HIV/AIDS catastrophe, which is already
killing about 8,000 people a day and is now hitting Eurasia very hard.
They could point to all these things and more as signs that real peace is
still a pipe dream.
La consolidation de la paix pose des défis de taille
dans le monde d'aujourd'hui, mais les perspectives de la paix que nous avons
consolidée et dont certains de nous jouissons augmentent de jour en jour. À
mon avis, c'est principalement en raison du fait que l'idée de la démocratie -
bien que certainement pas endémique dans toutes les cultures - est lentement
mais sûrement considérée comme la seule façon légitime de gouverner les
sociétés, en ce sens qu'elle permet aux gens de tous les milieux d'exprimer
pacifiquement leurs points de vue.
The Growth of
Democracy
Democracy
is generally flourishing. At the
last Community of Democracies Conference in November 2002, then President Kim
Dae-Jung of South Korea commented that the greatest achievement of the 20th
century was helping democracy to take root and spread across the planet. He
noted, "Out of 200-odd countries in the world, 140 have adopted a
multi-party system." This
is compared with probably less than 35 at the beginning of the 1970s.
I realize that democracy alone is not enough.
About
a month ago in Mongolia, the 5th International Conference on New or Restored
Democracies convened representatives from about 120 nations, including 73
parliamentarians. More than 200 leaders from a range of non-government
organizations met in parallel meetings to discuss the prospects and challenges
for democracy worldwide.
De toute évidence, personne ne soutient que la démocratie
a été perfectionnée ni qu'une forme parfaite existe nécessairement. Ce sont
la diversité, l'inclusion, la dissidence pacifique et l'éducation pour tous,
une société civile dynamique, et l'accès du plus grand nombre au logement,
aux terres cultivables et à la propriété d'entreprises, y compris aux médias,
qui favorisent l'épanouissement d'une véritable culture démocratique.
What
kind of peace does it need to be? Above
all else, it must be sustainable.
How can we build more sustainable peace?
From Canada's point of view, sustainable peace is more likely when
undertaken in a multi-lateral context, in real partnership with local actors.
Working multi-laterally and obtaining broad-based local support lends
legitimacy and credibility to any peace building efforts.
Changing
landscape
We've
arrived at this conclusion through lessons learned in a long history of over 72
missions around the world. Of course 'long history' is a relative term when it
comes to peacekeeping. Wars have
been fought since the beginning of time, but Lester Pearson helped create the
first dedicated force only just fifty years ago.
Nous avons parcouru un long chemin depuis Suez, et
encore plus depuis la Somalie. Cela devient toutefois de plus en plus difficile,
car alors que nous essayons d'appliquer les leçons apprises à plus grande échelle,
les circonstances dans lesquelles nous les appliquons changent rapidement. Les
troupes canadiennes font rarement face à des situations " classiques
" dans lesquelles deux parties assez bien définies, qui se faisaient la
guerre seulement l'une contre l'autre, parviennent à un cessez-le-feu et
conviennent qu'un tiers s'interpose entre elles.
We're
entering situations where the war hasn't even ended; where we're trying to
separate combatants who sometimes can't - and most often don't want to - be
identified (think: al Qaeda), and where humanitarian intervention is a primary
driver. Plus, while there are
always spillover effects to a conflict, including regional de-stabilization and
that horrible term, 'collateral damage', never before have we dealt with so many
threats to global stability.
Canadians
have been involved in more peacekeeping missions in the past ten years than in
the previous fifty. Indeed, shifts
in terminology from 'peacekeeping' to 'peacebuilding' become more relevant every
day. Two examples that shed some
light on this shift, and where Canadians were very involved, are East Timor and
Afghanistan.
East Timor
From
the moment we first committed troops to Interfet (the Australian-led
International Force for East Timor), we immediately established a reputation as
one of few nations striving for an evolved notion of peacebuilding based not on
pointing guns and instilling fear, but on building trust with local populations.
Many
of the lessons learned were brought to bear in East Timor, where our single
largest contribution, the Canadian Police Arrangement (CPA), has seen the
Canadian Police contingent serving as part of the CivPol operations of the
United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) since 1999.
The
kind of peace we wanted to build in East Timor is stable, viable in the
long-term and ultimately maintainable by the East Timorese themselves.
One of the key ways we tried to achieve it was through community
policing. Peter Miller, the
Canadian who headed the international police force, adapted many of this
country's most innovative approaches and focused on getting troops off vehicles
and into communities.
Police
officers actually lived in the communities they served, helping re-build schools
and hospitals, and trying - whenever possible - to deal with issues at a local
level instead of sending everything back to headquarters.
This past summer, two Canadian police officers helped raise thousands of
dollars for a young Timorese police officer who recently lost his leg in an
on-duty injury. Aside from getting the necessary funding, they enhanced the
reputation of Canada's entire contribution to the mission by bringing together
community and police.
While
we'll continue to commit police officers to East Timor, the current size of our
representation was reduced this year - as planned - as policing responsibilities
are handed over to the East Timorese Police Service.
Afghanistan
The
tragic deaths of Sgt. Robert Short and Cpl. Robbie Beerenfenger in Afghanistan
are jarring reminders that a similar approach is now being used in Afghanistan.
As Lt.-Col. Donald Denne sent his soldiers to patrol the streets of
Kabul, he explained that the most important part of the mission wouldn't be
fought with rifles. He explained,
"this battle is mostly about winning over the hearts and minds of the
Afghan people."
Indeed,
we're doing our best to ensure that lessons learned in East Timor and various
other recent operations are forming the basis of our engagement in Afghanistan.
Perhaps the most significant of these is our understanding that to simply
'fire and forget' is the ultimate recipe for long-term instability.
While there's no dispute that missions need to be well-funded, the
effectiveness of even the best-equipped military is limited when it operates
independently of our diplomatic and development initiatives.
Canada's
approach in Afghanistan is based on the military concept of a 'force multiplying
effect'; the notion that one plus one plus one doesn't equal three: it adds up
to much more. Our
engagement is both unprecedented and unique.
Unprecedented because the scale of our current engagement with
Afghanistan is quite extraordinary by Canadian standards. Unique because it
involves coordinated investments in the areas of defence, development and
diplomacy (the 3 "Ds"), as well as a high level of cooperation between
three primary government departments: DFAIT, CIDA and DND, and a host of other
government agencies.
Canadians in
Peacebuilding
Militarily,
over 2100 troops makes Afghanistan one of the largest deployments since the
Korean war. In terms of development
assistance, we have committed $250 million over two years for reconstruction.
We've just opened an embassy in Kabul to help coordinate our operations,
but also to engage Afghans and our partners in the international community.
The
most significant common denominator of our engagement in these and all other
missions is our focus on supporting multilateral efforts. I would be the last to
stand before you today and assert that the current UN system isn't in need of
sectoral reform. For all its
faults, the UN represents our best chance at achieving the sustainable peace we
want to build and is ultimately worth fighting for.
To
talk only about government roles is to miss a major component of Canada's
contributions to the UN community and the international system.
Canadian Nigel Fisher, for example, is serving as Deputy Special
Representative for Humanitarian and Reconstruction Affairs in Afghanistan and is
playing a major role in bringing together the different parts of the UN system.
In East Timor, Canadian Colin Stewart served as the UN transitional Government's
main political adviser. Scott Gilmore, now Deputy Director of DFAIT's South Asia
Division, served as Deputy National Security Advisor! These jobs are never risk-free.
Christopher Klein-Beekman, the UNICEF program co-ordinator for Iraq, and
Gillian Clark, who was under contract with the Christian Children's Fund both
died in the August bombing of the UN headquarters in Iraq.
Conclusion
In a
fifteen minute presentation, I would never be able to do justice to the
thousands of Canadians who give of themselves to build sustainable peace around
the world. Similarly, I have not
even yet begun to scratch the surface of peace-building and look forward to the
insights of my fellow panellists and all of you.
Perhaps,
as noted at the beginning of my talk, there are reasons to be cynical about
peace-building. Our Chair, for
instance, wrote a few months ago in a very interesting paper that peacebuilding
"golden years" of the 1990s are gone. He's right. But
there are reasons to be optimistic: democracy is slowly but surely consolidating
itself and we are learning valuable lessons as we go along. With continuous engagement from across civil society and
government, working multilaterally in close partnership with local actors, we
will succeed in building sustainable peace around the world.
Thank
you. Merci.
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