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For Immediate Release!
C-FAR Slams Canadian Intervention in Zaire as “Folly”
Canada’s leading foreign aid critic, Citizens for Foreign Aid Reform Inc. (C-FAR) has attacked plans to send 1,500 Canadian troops to Zaire as a costly disaster in the making. C-FAR Research Director Paul Fromm said in Toronto today: “The announcement by Prime Minister Chretien that Canda is eager to head up an international peacekeeping force to try to sort out the warring parties in eastern Zaire and to deliver food and other supplies is dangerous folly.
Our pledge of 1,500 Canadian soldiers is expensive madness.” “Have we learned nothing from the Somalia debacle which cost us our Airborne Regiment?” Fromm asked. “Despite these politically correct times, I get the feeling that the old days of the White man’s burden are back. Africa is made up of sovereign and independent countries.
The Prime Minister and his advisors must resist the temptation to meddle. Let Africans sort out the tribal hatreds and animosities. Many African lands have respectablylarge armies and could assist with this task.” Fromm added: “There is no peace for our troops to keep. They enter a snakepit of hatreds and conflicting interests. There is no reason for debt-ridden Canada to commit blood or money to intervening in Zaire.” Fromm further argued: ” Armed interference can only be justified if Canadian lives or business interests or those of our allies were menaced. That is not the case.” “The ingratitude and turmoil that resulted from our intervention in Somalia should be a lesson,” he added. ” It would be far better to keep Canadian forces at home and upgrade them and train them to interdict the foreign marauders who have raped our fisheries on both coasts.” C-FAR, founded an a non-profit educational organization in 1979, publishes a monthly critique of foreign aid spending The C-FAR Newsletter. ($16).