May 12, 2005
Ottawa, Ontario

NEWS RELEASE

Prime Minister Paul Martin today announced that Canada is significantly increasing its contribution in Darfur to support international efforts toward peace and stability in Sudan. This pledge includes up to $198 million for more humanitarian aid and increased support for the African Union (AU) Mission in Sudan (AMIS), as well as the creation of a special advisory team to coordinate and promote Canada’s initiatives on the ground.

“I remain deeply and personally concerned about the situation in southern Sudan and the crisis in Darfur. I have been to Sudan. I have talked with displaced persons. I have met children who have never even seen their parents’ home villages. We must not let the humanitarian crisis in Darfur mirror the 50-year-long civil war in the south that has only recently ended,” said the Prime Minister. “I believe that enhanced Canadian support for the African Union will help promote long-term peace throughout Sudan.”

Canada intends to increase its engagement in three areas:

• Nearly $170 million in military and technical assistance to the AU to strengthen its capacity to fulfill its mandate. The contribution includes a renewed commitment and expansion of Canada’s helicopter support, other leased aircraft and a variety of additional Canadian military support, including strategic planning experts, in response to specific needs identified by the AU.

• $28 million out of the total $90 million announced at the April 2005 Oslo Donors' Conference, in further humanitarian and peace support in Darfur and Chad through UN agencies.

• Enhanced diplomatic support for the AU-led mediation, to achieve a peaceful solution to the conflict in Darfur.

Prime Minister Martin has asked the Prime Minister’s Personal Representative for Africa Ambassador Robert Fowler, Canada’s Special Envoy for Peace in Sudan Senator Mobina Jaffer, and Senator Roméo Dallaire to focus Canada’s efforts and resources in Darfur.

“The advisory team, led by Ambassador Fowler, will report directly to me, and will work with the Sudanese government, the AU and the international community to support the peace process in Darfur,” added the Prime Minister.

The enhanced AMIS is designed to increase stability in Darfur and to protect civilians, while assisting international efforts to encourage Darfuri rebels to return to the AU-sponsored peace talks.

Protecting civilians in armed conflict and ensuring that the international community is equipped to deliver effectively on its responsibility to protect are top priorities of Canada’s foreign policy. The enhanced Canadian contribution being announced today will help the AU bring more stability to the Darfur region, protect civilians and help them restart the Darfur peace talks.

AMIS is separate from the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), which is supervising the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed by representatives of the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army on January 9, 2005. That agreement resolved the separate, long-running conflict in southern Sudan. Canada, as part of its holistic approach to Sudan, already participates in UNMIS. The mission includes 31 Canadian Forces personnel and its Deputy Force Commander is Canadian Brigadier-General Greg Mitchell.

This announcement demonstrates the government’s commitment, as identified in Canada’s International Policy Statement, to providing a relevant response in the event of threats to international security and stability.

For more information about Canada’s contributions to stabilization efforts in Sudan, see the accompanying backgrounder or visit http://canadasudan.gc.ca.


Backgrounder

CANADA CREATES SPECIAL ADVISORY TEAM AND EXPANDS CONTRIBUTION TO HELP RESOLVE HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN DARFUR

Background

For much of its history, since its independence in 1956, Sudan has been embroiled in internal civil conflicts. Most notable have been the long-running southern civil war—resolved with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) on January 9, 2005—and the separate conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region, which began in February 2003. Each of these conflicts has been fought by different parties, with varying aims, although the root causes of these separate conflicts are similar: political and economic marginalization, and massive human rights violations.

Southern Civil War

Conflict in southern Sudan predates independence, although the latest war began in 1983. Since the early 1980s an estimated two million people have died, due to both the direct and indirect effects of the war, and over four million people have been displaced from their communities.

Canada’s engagement in helping to resolve the conflict in southern Sudan has been long-standing, and includes diplomatic, political and material support for the peace process, as well as significant humanitarian and peacebuilding assistance. The conflict formally ended in January 2005, with the signing of the CPA by the two major parties to the conflict, the Government of Sudan and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement/Army.

As part of Canada’s support for the successful implementation of the CPA, Canada recently pledged $90 million over two years at a donors’ conference in Oslo held from April 11 to 12, 2005. ($28 million of these funds will go to address the crisis in Darfur.) These resources will, among other things, assist with the sustainable return of displaced persons and help consolidate and promote peacebuilding efforts.

To date, up to 31 Canadian Forces (CF) personnel had been committed as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Sudan (UNMIS), established by the UN Security Council on March 24, 2005. Canadian Brigadier-General Greg Mitchell is the UNMIS Deputy Force Commander, while other CF personnel will serve at mission headquarters in Khartoum, and as United Nations Military Observers, monitoring activities to verify compliance with the CPA. This CF deployment is known as Operation SAFARI.

This operation is distinct from the financial and technical support that Canada is providing, at the request of the African Union (AU), for the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which is monitoring the security situation in Darfur.

Darfur Conflict

In February 2003, two rebel groups—the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement—attacked government installations in Darfur, western Sudan, a region that had been subject to low-level conflict and unrest for years, and that was economically and politically marginalized by the central government. The Government of Sudan, often in conjunction with its Popular Defence Force militia and the so-called Janjawid, irregular armed militias, responded to the escalation in violence with a campaign of aerial bombings and attacks on communities it suspected of harbouring rebels.

The conflict in Darfur has caused the death and displacement of a significant number of civilians. Over two million Sudanese have been displaced from their homes, including more than 200,000 who have fled to neighbouring Chad. Peace talks, brokered by the AU and supported by Canada and other donors, were adjourned in late December 2004; it is expected that they will reconvene shortly. The AU is also leading a cease-fire monitoring mission in the region, AMIS.

In the past year, both Prime Minister Paul Martin and Canada’s Special Envoy for Peace in Sudan Senator Mobina Jaffer have travelled to Sudan to underline Canada’s concerns regarding the conflict, and to seek ways to help alleviate the suffering of civilians and achieve a political resolution to the conflict. In addition, International Cooperation Minister Aileen Carroll, the Prime Minister’s Personal Representative for Africa Ambassador Robert Fowler, and Chief of the Defence Staff General Rick Hillier have travelled to the region to assess how Canada can further contribute to improving the situation. These activities in Sudan have complemented Canada’s international diplomatic efforts with the United Nations, the African Union and such key countries as the United States, the United Kingdom and Nigeria.

Canada has worked actively with other key countries at the United Nations to ensure that the Security Council fulfills its responsibilities in addressing the conflict in Darfur, consistent with the Council’s own resolutions on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, women, peace and security, and children and armed conflict. Canada has been at the forefront of the development of these texts and in pushing to ensure their effective implementation. Canada’s Ambassador to the United Nations in New York Alan Rock has played an important advocacy role with Council members, including encouraging the development of a targeted sanctions regime aimed at ending the violence in Darfur, and making sure that all relevant parties in Sudan are held accountable.

Specifically, Canada pushed for UN Security Council 1591, passed on March 29, which monitors an arms embargo in the region and applies travel bans and asset freezes on key individuals in the Darfur conflict. As well, on March 31, 2005, the Security Council referred the situation in Darfur to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). On April 4, Canada announced a voluntary contribution of $500,000 from Foreign Affairs Canada’s (FAC) Human Security Program to support the ICC’s activities in Darfur. Canada was the first country to make such a pledge.

Canada’s response to the situation in Darfur has included humanitarian assistance, support for protection and human rights activities to safeguard civilians, and peacebuilding efforts. Canada has also provided $20 million specifically to support AMIS; these funds have been used to provide helicopters, and both military and policing expertise to the mission. This last element includes two CF personnel to assist with command and control, air movements planning, and the training of military observers, and one RCMP officer for the police component of the AU’s Darfur Integrated Task Force to assist and advise on mission organization, planning and conduct, and police training.

Political and Diplomatic Engagement

Prime Minister Martin, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, and senior officials have all been engaging their counterparts in the United Nations, the African Union, Sudan and various other African, G8 and other governments to help galvanize support for the AU’s efforts both to achieve a political solution to the conflict and establish security on the ground.

A major element of Canada’s expanded engagement will be the creation of the Prime Minister’s special advisory team on Darfur. The team will be led by the Prime Minister’s Personal Representative for Africa Ambassador Robert Fowler, and will include Canada’s Special Envoy for Peace in Sudan Senator Mobina Jaffer and Senator Roméo Dallaire. The advisory team, supported by a task force at FAC, will lead the implementation of Canada’s strategy and focus on three areas:

• diplomatic support for the African Union-led efforts to achieve peace in Darfur;
• peacebuilding and peace operations support to the African Union mission in Darfur; and
• humanitarian assistance to Darfur.

Humanitarian Assistance and Protection

Since 2000, Canada has committed close to $200 million for food and humanitarian aid, as well as support for the peace process and peacebuilding, to alleviate the ongoing suffering in Sudan. The most recent contributions were announced at the Oslo conference in April 2005, of which:

• $40 million has been allocated for food and non-food aid to assist drought- and war-affected populations in Sudan. Of this $24 million is being directed toward Darfur for food and non-food aid;
• $40 million has been allocated for the Joint Assessment Mission, an effort led by the United Nations and the World Bank with the endorsement of the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army, to support the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and reduce poverty in areas covered by the CPA; and
• $10 million has been allocated for peacebuilding and good governance initiatives, of which $4 million is being directed toward Darfur.

Canadian humanitarian assistance is channelled through organizations, such as the United Nations World Food Programme, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), as well as such non-governmental organizations as the Canadian Red Cross, Save the Children, the International Committee of the Red Cross, Oxfam, CARE, Doctors Without Borders. The Canadian Food Grains Bank ships food and other humanitarian material by sea to Port Sudan, where the World Food Programme assumes responsibility for trucking or airlifting the shipment into the Darfur region.

Canada’s contribution to AMIS activities in Darfur

Canada has been supporting the AU’s efforts to help with the situation in Darfur, through the provision of material and advisory staff to the AU. Of the $20 million provided in 2004, $16 million was directed towards the leasing of 15 medium-lift helicopters through the Canadian firm Skylink, to provide tactical and logistical airlift support, allowing AMIS personnel to conduct peace monitoring operations throughout Darfur. Other support for AMIS has included $1.4 million in basic army equipment, including helmets and protective vests, and two CF and one RCMP planners (with the agreement of the AU).

The AU is expanding its complex and challenging mission in Darfur. On April 29, 2005, the AU Peace and Security Council announced an increase in the size of the AU Mission from 3,200 to 7,700 personnel. Canadian expertise, along with financial and material support, will help the AU achieve success in this important mission.

As announced today, Canada will make a significant contribution to stabilization efforts in Darfur, by increasing its helicopter support for AMIS and providing for fixed-wing airlift, as well as much-needed equipment and materiel, and additional planning experts and other specialized staff to help the AU forces conduct their operations. CF personnel will deploy on the request of the AU and could be ready within the next three months. The specific details of Canada’s support to AMIS will be worked out with the AU in accordance with their needs.



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