Thanks to the Mulroney government's desire to improve conflict resolution mechanisms and for its natural interest in multilateralism and peacekeeping, Canada found the Somali Civil War to fit its foreign policy priorities.
[5] Canadian diplomat Geoffrey Pearson argued that "effective multilateral arrangements provide a means to exert influence on major allies and powerful neighbours as well as help maintain peace".
[15][7][16] Mike Abel, the only Canadian to die in the Somali operation, was allegedly a member of the Ku Klux Klan; colleagues disputed the evidence that racist literature had been found in his belongings, and asserted that it just floated around the camp and everybody read it.
Although they were planning to deploy to the comparatively quiet port city of Bosaso, four days after arriving in Somalia commander Serge Labbé informed them that consultation with the Americans meant they would be moving to the southern town of Belet Huen, considered one of the more difficult areas to patrol.
[20] On January 2, Canadian forces seized an AK-47 from a local Somali who returned the following day with a machete to threaten the troops to give him back his gun; a warning shot was fired and ricocheted, hitting him in the foot.
[7][15][20][21] By the end of the mission, no Canadian troops had been killed or wounded by enemy forces, the sole casualties arising when a soldier shot himself in the arm while cleaning his sidearm on January 11,[20] and when MCpl.
[22] On March 4, two unarmed Somalis were shot in the back,[23] one fatally, after Canadian troops laid an ambush to try to catch petty thieves stealing from the military base in Belet Huen.
This followed from a decision by Captain Michel Rainville to re-label petty theft by Somalis as "sabotage", a distinction that meant deadly force could be used to defend the base.
[7] After Warrant Officer Marsh discovered the missing fuel pump, he suggested installing a large searchlight atop a tower to deter thieves.
[7] An Air Force flight surgeon, Major Barry Armstrong, examined the body and judged the death "suspicious", suggesting that Arush had been lying prone on the ground when he was killed.
[7][20] For the next two weeks, Colonel Allan Wells approached Vice-Admiral Larry Murray to send military police to Somalia to investigate the shooting, but was rebuffed.
[7] The event would not have been reported, except that Member of Parliament John Brewin read out an anonymous letter he had received from a soldier about witnessing the "execution" of a Somali civilian on March 4.
[7] While his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Carol Mathieu described Armstrong as bordering on insanity at the inquiry, the only evidence he produced was that he liked to climb onto the roof of the hospital at night in Somalia and watch the stars.
Believing he was attempting to sneak into the Canadian base to steal supplies,[25] Sox turned him over to another soldier, who led the teenager to a bunker being used to house munitions.
[15][27] Brown participated in the abuse, but was primarily an observer and took sixteen "trophy photos" of the beating, including one of Matchee forcing Arone's mouth open with a baton, and one of himself holding Pte.
Major Mills about "a long dragged out howl" heard from the vicinity of the bunker, but MacDonald refused to stop playing with his Game Boy to investigate.
[26] When Brown mentioned the event to Sergeant J. K. Hillier, the non-commissioned member noted there "would be trouble" if the prisoner died, and went to check on the youth who he found had no pulse, and base medics confirmed that the boy was dead.
[3] The Canadian military seems to have blind confidence in mefloquine, even though it carries warnings that those with judgment jobs, like neurosurgeons or airline pilots, shouldn't use it.
Some, including Member of Parliament John Cummins, quickly pointed out that three of the four men facing the most serious charges had been given experimental injections of Lariam, a brand-name of mefloquine, to test its effects on combatting malaria in a controlled study group.
[17] Once again, history repeats itself; only the lower ranks have been made to account for the marked failures of their leadersA death in custody automatically triggered an investigation, and two days later Matchee and Brown were arrested and charged and National Defence Headquarters was advised.
Matchee later attempted to hang himself in his cell; the attempt failed but caused massive brain damage, making him unfit to stand trial.In September 1995, CBC reporter Michael McAuliffe requested access to 68 Response to Query forms to supplement his earlier informal gleanings about the Canadian military operation, but the documents were altered before being released to him to make them agree with the information he had been given earlier.
[7] The question quickly emerged of whether Chief of Defence Staff Jean Boyle had known about the altering, and if he bore responsibility for it even if he were ignorant of his underlings' doings.
The reflex to say "yes sir" rather than to question the appropriateness of a command or policy obviously runs against the grain of free and open discussion, but it is ingrained in military discipline and culture.
With the continued accumulation of such politically damaging visibility, the Minister of National Defence advised Governor General Roméo LeBlanc to disband the Canadian Airborne Regiment in 1995.
On April 8, 1996, Boyle called a halt to all normal duties and announced the entire Canadian military would begin searching for documents relating to Somalia.
While it is difficult to separate the effects of the affair on Canadian Forces morale from those of the concurrent defence spending cut, it did exacerbate feelings of distrust towards the media and politicians among many CF members.
[clarification needed] Many of the report's comments, along with the sustained media criticism of the military, led to the imposition of policies designed to ensure nothing similar to the Somalia Affair could happen again.
Since the events in Somalia, Canada focused on implementing more educational requirements (including ethics, tactical, and strategic planning), oversight processes, and setting new standards and policies for senior officers.
The Somalia Affair and the ensuing commission of inquiry has become the subject of intense criticism and has given rise to a great deal of comparative theoretical work on humanitarian intervention and peacekeeping.
In her book Sherene Razack asks if it was just a case of "a few bad apples" in the Canadian forces, or if the Somalia affair speaks to a larger issue on the complex nature of peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention.