OTTAWA—The federal cabinet will decide soon where to send Canadian soldiers in Africa, with Mali emerging the most likely prospect for the military peace support operation, the Star has learned.

The range of options, prepared by Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion, may be brought to cabinet by as early as Tuesday or the following week, sources said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who campaigned on a promise to re-engage Canadian soldiers in United Nations peacekeeping, is said not to have made up his mind yet, despite obvious pressure building from French and UN diplomats to choose Mali.

Any military mission to Mali in West Africa is expected to engage Canadian ground and air forces along with an intensive Canadian development effort to support the ongoing UN mission headquartered in the capital, Bamako.

The government has pledged up to 600 soldiers and 150 police officers for its Africa peace mission. The options being prepared for cabinet suggest that a deployment at the upper range of those numbers would have the greatest impact and offer the best chance of success, sources said.

It’s likely the government will also deploy helicopters as part of the mission — the air force has Griffons and larger Chinook transport choppers. That would respond to a direct appeal by the United Nations for the Mali mission.

It would also help ensure that deployed troops have their own means of moving around and a dedicated lifeline in the event of an emergency.

The Canadian deployment would support a separate French-led military operation across the broader region, known as the Sahel, which is targeting Islamist terrorist groups operating in the northern part of Mali. Known as Operation Barkhane, the French-led counter-insurgency mission is on front lines that span the borders of Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger.

Canadian soldiers could well face the very grim prospect of dealing with determined and hardened fighters, including child soldiers, in a way that could become challenging for the military and for a Canadian public.

Children, while often recruited by armies across Africa to act as fighters, intelligence gatherers, sex slaves or domestic labour, have been used by Islamist groups in Mali as suicide bombers, said Shelly Whitman, executive director of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative.

“It’s a huge issue for Mali,” Whitman said in an interview. “One of the things we’ve been saying to the minister of national defence, as well as to Dion, is (that) if you are going to send the guys in there you better make sure they’re prepared for this issue.”

It could mean engaging in firefights with children, trying to remove them from conflict zones in order to demobilize them, and working to prevent radicalization and recruitment in the first place.

The Dallaire Initiative, a global partnership housed at Dalhousie University, works to prevent the use of child soldiers worldwide. It has developed a handbook and training resources to help military forces deal with the moral dilemmas associated with confronting a child soldier, the risks associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, and teaches ways to improve how they deal with child soldiers in “non-lethal interactions.”

Its advisers have consulted closely with the Canadian Forces, and retired Lt.-Gen. Roméo Dallaire, a former senator, travelled in August to Africa with Sajjan on the minister’s five-country tour, to Uganda, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania and Kenya.

Whitman said she advised the government against going to Mali, saying it must weigh the impact on Canadian soldiers “and the ability of us to have success.” She believes Canadian troops could make a greater and more tangible difference if they went instead to Central African Republic, the Congo or South Sudan, and played a larger mentorship role with African troops already on the ground.

How to engage with child soldiers is just one challenge among many that await the Canadians in country beset by violence and a breakdown in government institutions.

The UN mission in Mali was established in April 2013 after Islamist groups and extremist elements overran towns in the north. French forces deployed to assist Malian troops regain control and the UN force was brought in later to help stabilize the situation.

But the violence has continued to take a toll on daily life, with delayed elections, the displacement of some 130,000 Malians and violations of the 2015 ceasefire agreement meant to bring peace between warring factions.

The UN mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA — which includes troops from Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Niger, Togo and Chad — has been assisting Malian forces with training, logistics, intelligence and co-ordinating operations.

But the operation, with 10,635 military personnel and another 1,264 police officers on the ground, is short of troops, police and equipment.

“We do have very pressing needs in Mali,” Hervé Ladsous, the UN’s undersecretary general for Peacekeeping Operations said in an interview with CBC’s The House.

He said Canada could bring many assets to a Mali mission, citing its “professional” army with a francophone background, making it able to communicate with local residents, and one that has integrated women throughout its ranks.

He singled out the UN’s request for additional helicopters, saying the aircraft are “absolutely critical” in northern Mali.

In 2014 report Amnesty International said children as young as 16 were being recruited by armed groups in Mali. It raised concerns after finding child soldiers locked up in adult jails, denied access to family members and legal advice.

“At the same time there were pro-government militias who were recruiting child soldiers,” said Gaëtan Mootoo, Amnesty International’s researcher for West Africa.

In the north, there has been a breakdown of civil society with no one to run the schools, leaving children susceptible to be pulled into the ranks of the armed groups, he said.

“The kids are on their own,” Mootoo told the Star in an interview from Paris, where he is based.

“When the state fails to look after the population, including the kids, there is the risk of an increase in the recruitment of child soldiers,” he said.

Mootoo said the training and discipline of Canadian soldiers would bring an important contribution to Mali, in the wake of abuses catalogued by the UN by troops already on the ground, including illegal detentions and excessive use of force.

Jake Bell, a retired Canadian forces colonel previously posted to Bosnia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Congo who does consulting work for the Dallaire Initiative, said wherever it deploys, the Canadian mission should take a broad and long-term approach.

“The reality is prevention is the key, and that is dealing with the long-term development issues that create the conditions that are ripe for the recruitment of children,” he said.

“I think you’ll find — and most of the people that I know that ever wore a uniform, that were ever involved in conflict zones, will tell you — that violence will never solve anything. The best you can hope for with violence, with force, is to create the conditions that will get the people to solve the problem on their own.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

The latest UN assessment of Mali paints a picture of the dire situation in the country and the violence that puts peacekeepers in the crosshairs of “complex” attacks involving rockets, mortars, mines and even remote-controlled bombs.

Over the summer, there was a “significant” increase in attacks aimed at Malian troops and the UN forces that now often accompany them on patrols — 66 in total in the three months leading up to the end of September. Those attacks left 13 peacekeepers dead and 32 injured.

“The attacks have become increasingly frequent, bold and well co-ordinated,” the UN report states.

In one July incident, attackers used 18 vehicles and several motorbikes to assault a Malian military camp, killing 15 soldiers and injuring 34 others. In May, an attack on a UN military convoy left five peacekeepers dead.

In response, the UN mission has become more “proactive and robust,” launching operations in concert with Malian troops and French forces to root out terrorists, the report says.

But Ladsous says that the UN mission is not meant to be a counter-insurgency operation, saying that role is filled by the French in Mali.

He said the UN mission aims to support the political process, the disarmament of combatants, training local forces and protecting local civilians.

“Very clearly, we are not designed and cannot be the anti-terrorist tool of choice,” he told CBC.

The UN in Mali

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has been in Mali since April 2013, and boasts 13,083 personnel in total, including:

Uniformed personnel: 11,883

Troops: 10,579

Military observers: 40

Police: 1,264

Civilian personnel: 1,246

International civilians: 585

Local civilians: 661

UN Volunteers: 146

Fatalities: 106

Approved 2016-17: $933,411,000

Read more about: