My good friend Charlie Angus has written an extensive critique of the Harper Government’s handling of the Lebanon tragedy. Charlie is the MP for Timmins-James Bay. He is the MP who blew the whistle on the Liberal mishandling of fresh water supplies in native communities. In the past, Charlie was also member of the Greivous Angels and often wrote about the human situation in his songs.

Below is Charlie’s take on Canada’s “do nothing” approach to Lebanon. Charlie scolds our prime minister for damaging Canada’s reputation as a middle power, peace broker. But he goes further. He slams Harper for failing to understand the simple truth of what the United Nations does in places like Lebanon.

Canada needs more MP’s like Charlie, articulate, passionate and right on the mark. Give this article a read and then contact your MP to express your views on this situation.

Harper Undermining Canada’s Role in Lebanon

By Charlie Angus MP Timmins-James Bay

The death toll among the innocent continues to rise in the carnage that is Lebanon. Among those dead are nine Canadians including four children and a UN peacekeeper. The death of peacekeeper Major Hess-von Kruedener is a frightening example of how much the lines between combatants and non-combatants has been blurred or erased. Major Kruedener was one of four peacekeepers manning a well-established UN observation post. Despite their UN designation, they had come under increasing fire from advancing Israeli army. So much so, that the UN had placed 10 calls pleading with the Israeli army not to fire on the base. But it was to no avail. The four peacekeepers were killed in a rein of shells.

The killing of peacekeepers brought worldwide condemnation. Even China decried the attack as an attack on the United Nations. Notably absent from this outpouring of international outrage was Canada. Prime Minister Stephen Harper did little more than shrug off the bombing of the UN post. In fact, Harper went far as to ask why the UN mission was there in the first place.

The answer should be obvious — they were doing their job. Major Hess-von Kruedener was part of a longstanding United Nations presence in Lebanon.No doubt their presence was inconvenient for the Israeli advance. Such is the nature of UN missions. It is simply unacceptable, however, that our Prime Minister did not demand clear answers when public questions were being raised as to whether these soldiers were targeted.

This is not about taking sides. It is about Canada standing up for the principle that the primary obligation of the international community in any conflict is to stop the killing so negotiations can take place. For decades, Canada has championed the principle of using international pressure to end the fighting so that civilians can be treated and stability restored.

A Canadian peacekeeper was killed trying to carry out this function. And yet, while the ruins of the UN mission were still smoking, Harper’s officials were in Rome undermining the principles for which this soldier died. The Rome Conference was called to find an immediate end to the killing. Foreign Affairs Minister Peter McKay, however, dutifully lined up behind the U.S. as they blocked, stalled and undermined any
chance for a cease-fire.

McKay has taken the position that a ceasefire is desirable but only insofar as one side has the time it needs to beat the other. This message was not lost on the combatants. The day after the Rome Conference failed, Israel’s Justice Minister Haim Ramon proclaimed that the country had been given a green light to continue the destruction of Lebanon. Soon after, the world witnessed the bombing of civilians in the biblical community of Qana.

Few international leaders believe that the U.S. /Canada position has any real chance of bringing stability back to the region. The rockets have not stopped. Civilians continue to be killed and a stalemate of blood letting is the only likely outcome.

Time Magazine, for example, denounced Condoleezza Rice as living in a diplomatic “Disneyland” for pursuing a policy that is allowing maximum collateral damage on an innocent country. According to Time: “Her case was hardly helped when she explained that the violence that has already killed more than 400 Lebanese and turned more than a half million into refugees represents the “birth pangs of a new Middle East.”

“Birth pangs” is a perverse way of describing the slaughter Lebanon. Indeed it seems as if the only thing being birthed is more radicalism and chaos. It reminds me of Y.B. Yeats and his terribly prophetic poem: And what rough beast, its hour come round at last / Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Which leads us back to Harper. Since when has it been Canada’s tradition to shrug off the killing of civilians and wholesale destruction of national infrastructure? Since when has it been Canadian policy to drag our feet when the international community is pleading for ceasefire and negotiations? Regardless of the claims by Harper and company, the only victors out of a protracted war will be the hardliners on all sides.

If Lebanon cannot look to Canada as a model for multilateral engagement what hope can there be for this tortured region? Civilians and municipal infrastructure on either side of the conflict cannot be treated as irrelevant collateral damage. A Canadian peacekeeper died for this principle. Harper must do better.