"In the Service of Peace"

We need action not only to end the fighting but to make the peace... My own government would be glad to recommend Canadian participation in such a United Nations force, a truly international peace and police force.

Every generation hopes to see peace. And every generation learns that peace comes with a heavy price. Today's generation of Canadians learned this lesson on September 11, 2001. Those of the last century learned this lesson in ways that previous generations never had.

For Canada, and for much of the world, history will remember the 20th century as a time of unprecedented conflict. When the century began, there were already Canadians fighting in the South African War. Then came eleven relentless years of World Wars.

Between 1914 and 1919, and from 1939 to 1945, Canada despatched large contingents to Europe, North Africa, and Asia in a quest for lasting peace. More than 1.7 million men and women served in the Navy, Army, Air Force, and "fourth" service, the Merchant Marine. Canadians won renown in far-flung battles and campaigns, helping to make their country the sovereign nation that it is today. But the cost of peace was high: 115,000 Canadians never returned to their home and native land. Their final resting-places are located in 74 countries, a testament to the scope of their quest.

The bitter experience of two World Wars led Canada to join with others in the international community to establish the United Nations in 1945. But the United Nations and its hopeful charters did not eliminate conflict and war.

Since 1947, there has not been a single year when Canadian sailors, soldiers, and aviators have not been overseas, supervising truces, positioning themselves between enemies, removing mines, offering humanitarian aid or standing distant watch. Sometimes, too, they are engaged in hostilities, as in Korea, the Arabian Gulf, Kosovo, and periodically, during "peacekeeping". Regardless of the form it takes, contemporary peacekeeping is a natural extension of Canada's longstanding commitment to the principles of peace and freedom.

These missions — well over seventy to date — have found Canadians serving in locations the world over: from India/Pakistan to the Middle East, Africa to the Americas, South-East Asia to the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Their aim has been to bring stability and give peace a chance.

Canada first became involved in this new kind of activity during military observer missions in the late 1940s, particularly during the Arab-Israeli and the India-Pakistan conflicts. It was during such a mission that Canada first suffered the loss of a peacekeeper. On July 17, 1950, Brigadier General Henry H. Angle, a Canadian reservist, was killed in a plane crash while serving with the United Nations Military Observation Group in India and Pakistan.

A serious challenge to international peace was posed by North Korea's invasion of South Korea in 1950. Between 1950 and 1953, Canada and 16 other nations joined under the United Nations flag, to resist aggression during the Korean War. Nearly 27,000 Canadians served in Korea, suffering more than1,600 casualties, including 516 deaths.

When the Korean armistice was signed, the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission was created to work towards a peace treaty. Canada joined the Commission, and remains a member nearly half a century later.

It was in 1956 that the term "peacekeeping" entered into the popular vocabulary, thanks to a Canadian. The Suez Crisis erupted in July 1956 when President Nasser of Egypt suddenly nationalized the Suez Canal. Amidst growing international tensions, Secretary of State for External Affairs Lester B. Pearson - later Canada's 14th Prime Minister - proposed that a multinational United Nations peacekeeping force be sent to the Suez to separate the warring parties.

With the approval of Prime Minister St. Laurent, Pearson went to the United Nations headquarters in New York and convinced Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and key countries like Britain, France and the United States, to support a Canadian resolution proposing the creation of a United Nations intervention force. The General Assembly passed the resolution on November 4, 1956. The United Nations Emergency Force was created on November 6, 1956 and deployed two weeks later.

The first-ever United Nations peacekeeping mission was born and it included Canadian forces. That forever identified Canada with United Nations peacekeeping activities and earned Pearson the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize.

Canada has since taken a leading role in peacekeeping. Canadian troops helped secure peace in the Congo (1960-64). They have served in such places as West New Guinea (1962-63), and Yemen (1963-64). In 1964, Canada helped establish a peacekeeping force to help contain ethnic violence in Cyprus. Over 33,000 Canadians have subsequently served there, 27 of them losing their lives in the process. When Canadians were called upon to stand between Egyptians and Israelis in the Sinai (1973-79), more than 11,000 members of the Canadian Forces deployed and 15 more Canadians died to preserve a fragile peace.

Although the vast majority of Canadian peacekeeping missions have been carried out under United Nations auspices, not all have. Canada joined two non-United Nations peacekeeping missions in Indochina (1954-74 and 1973), and another, the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai, of which it has been a member since 1986.

During the last 20 years, Canadian participation in United Nations operations has been as varied as the geography involved. Canadian peacekeepers monitored the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the voluntary return of refugees in Afghanistan (1988-90) and observed the cease-fire that ended an eight-year war between Iran and Iraq (1988-91). In Africa, they assisted Namibia's transition to independence (1989-90) and supervised the withdrawal of South African and Cuban troops from Angola (1991-97). Within the Americas, they have helped bring an end civil war in Nicaragua (1989-92) and El Salvador (1992-94) and observed elections that restored democracy to Haiti (1990-91). In the Asia- Pacific, they have helped contain violence and offer humanitarian assistance in East Timor (1999-2001) and worked to help establish stable government and clear mines in Cambodia (1991-93 and 1993-2000). Canadians have also worked to clear mines from war-torn regions of Pakistan (1989-90), Bosnia-Herzegovina (1997-present) and Kosovo (1999-present).

On the night of August 1, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, reminding the world of just how elusive peace can be. Within days, Canada joined a United Nations-backed coalition aimed at expelling Iraq from Kuwait. Some 4,500 Canadians would eventually serve in the Gulf War, mercifully without battle casualties. In the war's aftermath, Canadians — once again assuming the role of peacekeepers — joined missions to monitor Iraq's compliance with United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Many of Canada's recent peacekeepers have served in the former Yugoslavia and neighbouring areas in the Balkans. Thousands of Canadians served with the United Nations Protection Force in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995), a mission which cost nine Canadian lives. Their successors have joined a wide variety of subsequent missions in the region.

Reflecting the ever-widening nature of the peacekeeping partnership, other Canadians have served with the European Community Monitoring Mission in the former Yugoslavia (1991-94). Many recent operations in the Balkans and the waters of the adjacent Adriatic Sea have been carried out under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of which Canada is a founding member. Among these, the NATO Implementation Force (1995-99), Stabilization Force in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1996-present) and Multinational Peace Force — Kosovo (1999-2000) have involved especially large numbers of Canadian soldiers, sailors and air force personnel.

As Canada embarks on a new century and a new millennium, her legion of peacekeeping veterans has grown to almost 100,000. Of them, more than 100 hundred died in the line of duty, while hundreds more suffered serious injury.

In 1988, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded collectively to United Nations peacekeepers, in recognition of their historic efforts to limit violence and promote peace. A Canadian invented peacekeeping and Canada has always been one of the world's most committed peacekeeping nations. In a small way, every Canadian can share in the honour the Nobel Prize confers on the peacekeepers of the world, including Canada's peacekeepers.

New centuries, and even more so, new millennia, are symbolic moments. But their passage does not change the nature of people. There is still conflict and peace remains a distant ideal.

Veterans' Week and Remembrance Day are a time to reflect on the cost of peace: on what Canadians have done, and continue to do, "In the Service of Peace".