For Your Information
Canada Withdraws from UN Peacekeeping on
the Golan Heights
On March 24, after 32 years of UN
"peacekeeping" in the demilitarized zone on the Golan Heights between
Israel and Syria, the Canadian government withdrew the 189 military personnel
assigned to the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). After July, two Canadian
officers will remain - one to serve as a military aide to the UNDOF commander,
a second as senior staff officer to the continuing UNDOF mission.
Although part of Syria, the Golan Heights has
been under Israeli military occupation since it was captured in 1967. Israel
unilaterally annexed the part of the Golan under its control in 1981. More than
12,000 Canadian troops have served in the UN Disengagement Observer Force
buffer zone since the 1970's. The UNDOG was the last remaining significant
involvement of Canada in UN "peacekeeping", reducing Canada's
contribution to UN missions around the world to 59 military personnel - 18
troops and 41 military observers.
A report issued by the Polaris Institute on May 17 found that there are currently 64,322 military personnel
participating in UN missions around the world. Canada currently contributes
one-tenth of one percent of these military personnel. It ranks 50th out of the
95 countries currently contributing military personnel to UN missions, just
behind Romania with 63 personnel and just ahead of Mali with 54 personnel. In
2005, Canada ranked 35th out of 96 countries then contributing. Before the
mid-1990s, Canada was consistently among the top 10 contributors to UN
peacekeeping missions.
The report stated that "Canada is not
alone in having virtually abandoned UN peacekeeping. In fact, most of the Western-aligned
middle-power states now contribute very little to UN missions. The 26 members
of NATO contribute in total only 2,173 military personnel (or 3.4 percent of the
UN total), despite the fact that NATO militaries together account for 70
percent of the world's military spending."
The report also points out that since
September 11, 2001 Canada has spent $4.146 billion on military operations in or
related to Afghanistan, or 68 percent of the $6.132 billion spent on
international missions between the fall of 2001 and the end of March 2006.
During the same period, Canada devoted only $214.2 million, or 3 percent of
spending on United Nations military operations.