H
Harry
Guest
Saturday 24 February 2001
J. Tuyet Nguyen
CP
Canada can‘t offer more troops, money, Manley tells UN
Canada won‘t contribute any more troops or money to new UN peacekeeping missions, Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley said on Friday.
Manley said Canada‘s resources are stretched to the maximum by its current peacekeeping commitments and cannot manage more. "We do not have the military capacity at the present time to offer more troops to peacekeeping operations," he said.
"I think we have pushed to the limits."
Manley, in his first visit to UN headquarters in New York since assuming the foreign affairs portfolio in October, met with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "to assess Canada‘s balance sheets" with the organization.
Since stepping out of the UN Security Council last December after a two-year term, Canada has kept a low profile. It has maintained its participation in peacekeeping operations, but there is no plan to send fresh Canadians or give more funds to UN peace missions.
Several thousand Canadians are currently participating in peace missions, including 1,700 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, about 500 at the Ethiopia-Eritrea border and a handful of military observers in Congo.
Manley said providing any more Canadian UN troops would require an increase in the defence budget even though Canada has well-trained soldiers for peace missions.
But he added that the defence budget is not one of the government‘s top priorities.
The government has had drastic budget cuts in several areas in recent years, and it would not be appropriate now to increase the defence budget, Manley said.
However, retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie told a Canadian Club luncheon earlier this week in North Bay, Ont., that budget cuts have weakened the Canadian military to the point where it is no longer an effective fighting force.
"Our army cannot be deployed nor fight in a meaningful way alongside our allies, and our air force and navy, which were tiny to begin with, are now minuscule," said MacKenzie, who was chief of staff for the 14,000-member United Nations peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia. "I just think it‘s a tragedy."
Manley said Friday he discussed with Annan an array of issues involving Canada‘s UN participation, citing such topics as human security, protection for peacekeepers, poverty reduction and the HIV-AIDS epidemic.
Manley also reiterated Canada‘s support for recent U.S. and British air strikes against Iraqi military targets and a resumption of UN inspections of Iraq‘s weapons sites.
The latest strikes were made by by U.S. and British planes patrolling no-fly zones set up after the 1990 Gulf War to protect Iraqi dissident minorities in the north and south of the country.
In protest , Iraq said it would stop importing Canadian goods, most notably wheat.
Exporters such as the Canadian Wheat Board were informed on Tuesday that Iraq will no longer accept Canadian goods, following an announcement in Baghdad by Iraq‘s trade minister.
Canada and Poland have been selected, Mohammed Mehdi Saleh told the official Iraqi News Agency, because "those two countries have supported the American and British warplanes during the latest aggression on Iraq." Manley shrugged off the trade embargo in Ottawa on Tuesday, saying it was "unfortunate, but it‘s the way it is."
Copyright 2001 Edmonton Journal Group Inc.
J. Tuyet Nguyen
CP
Canada can‘t offer more troops, money, Manley tells UN
Canada won‘t contribute any more troops or money to new UN peacekeeping missions, Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley said on Friday.
Manley said Canada‘s resources are stretched to the maximum by its current peacekeeping commitments and cannot manage more. "We do not have the military capacity at the present time to offer more troops to peacekeeping operations," he said.
"I think we have pushed to the limits."
Manley, in his first visit to UN headquarters in New York since assuming the foreign affairs portfolio in October, met with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "to assess Canada‘s balance sheets" with the organization.
Since stepping out of the UN Security Council last December after a two-year term, Canada has kept a low profile. It has maintained its participation in peacekeeping operations, but there is no plan to send fresh Canadians or give more funds to UN peace missions.
Several thousand Canadians are currently participating in peace missions, including 1,700 in Bosnia-Herzegovina, about 500 at the Ethiopia-Eritrea border and a handful of military observers in Congo.
Manley said providing any more Canadian UN troops would require an increase in the defence budget even though Canada has well-trained soldiers for peace missions.
But he added that the defence budget is not one of the government‘s top priorities.
The government has had drastic budget cuts in several areas in recent years, and it would not be appropriate now to increase the defence budget, Manley said.
However, retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie told a Canadian Club luncheon earlier this week in North Bay, Ont., that budget cuts have weakened the Canadian military to the point where it is no longer an effective fighting force.
"Our army cannot be deployed nor fight in a meaningful way alongside our allies, and our air force and navy, which were tiny to begin with, are now minuscule," said MacKenzie, who was chief of staff for the 14,000-member United Nations peacekeeping force in the former Yugoslavia. "I just think it‘s a tragedy."
Manley said Friday he discussed with Annan an array of issues involving Canada‘s UN participation, citing such topics as human security, protection for peacekeepers, poverty reduction and the HIV-AIDS epidemic.
Manley also reiterated Canada‘s support for recent U.S. and British air strikes against Iraqi military targets and a resumption of UN inspections of Iraq‘s weapons sites.
The latest strikes were made by by U.S. and British planes patrolling no-fly zones set up after the 1990 Gulf War to protect Iraqi dissident minorities in the north and south of the country.
In protest , Iraq said it would stop importing Canadian goods, most notably wheat.
Exporters such as the Canadian Wheat Board were informed on Tuesday that Iraq will no longer accept Canadian goods, following an announcement in Baghdad by Iraq‘s trade minister.
Canada and Poland have been selected, Mohammed Mehdi Saleh told the official Iraqi News Agency, because "those two countries have supported the American and British warplanes during the latest aggression on Iraq." Manley shrugged off the trade embargo in Ottawa on Tuesday, saying it was "unfortunate, but it‘s the way it is."
Copyright 2001 Edmonton Journal Group Inc.
