UNITED NATIONS -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is
sending a Canadian to help break an impasse over the formation of a new
Congolese army, and called yesterday for political and military action to
get the peace process in Congo moving.
Mr. Annan said he is sending retired General Maurice Baril, who was
chief of staff of the Canadian Armed Forces, to Congo "to work with the
government on the formation" along with his special representative,
Mustapha Niasse.
Gen. Baril, a 60-year-old francophone Quebecker, wrote a report for the
Canadian investigation into last year's friendly-fire incident in
Afghanistan in which four Canadians were killed and eight wounded by U.S.
aircraft.
He has much experience with peacekeeping, both its successes and its
failures. He was deputy zone commander in Cyprus earlier in his career and
later took over as chief of staff as the Armed Forces were recovering from
a series of scandals that began in 1993 when Canadian soldiers on a
mission in Somalia beat a teenager to death.
In 1994, he was a military adviser to Boutros Boutros-Ghali, then
United Nations secretary-general, when calls from Canadian
Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire for more troops to avert genocide in
Rwanda went unheeded. Gen. Dallaire's pleas included a cable to Gen.
Baril. More than 800,000 people were slaughtered.
In a report to the Security Council this week, Mr. Annan called for
nearly tripling the number of peacekeeping troops in northeastern Congo to
help end tribal fighting that has left hundreds dead near the town of
Bunia.
