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The Somalia Affair was a Canadian military scandal in the mid-1990s. It peaked with the brutal 1993 beating death of a Somali teenager at the hands of two Canadian soldiers participating in the United Nations humanitarian efforts in Somalia. The crime, documented by grisly photos, shocked the Canadian public and brought to light internal problems in the Canadian Airborne Regiment that went beyond the two soldiers directly involved. Canadian military leadership came into sharp rebuke after accusations of covering up the event surfaced when a CBC reporter received altered documents.

Eventually a public inquiry was called. Despite being controversially cut short by the government, the Somalia Inquiry found deep problems in the leadership of the Canadian Forces. The affair led to the disbanding of Canada's elite Canadian Airborne Regiment, greatly damaged the morale of the Canadian Forces, and damaged both the domestic and international reputation of Canadian soldiers.

It has been compared to "a Canadian version of...the Pentagon Papers", or My Lai, but critics noted that while My Lai had occurred in a hostile environment where American soldiers were being killed by an invisible enemy every day, the Canadian troops in Somalia had not suffered any casualties or extreme stress, and the only provocation that Canadians faced was petty theft from their base.

Background

Canadian forces were sent to Somalia to participate in Operation Deliverance, part of the American-initiated Operation Restore Hope supported by the United Nations.

In March 1993, the operation was to come under UN command and was renamed UNOSOM II. Its goal was to deliver humanitarian aid and restore order to the African nation of Somalia which was suffering from a severe famine, general anarchy, and domination by warlords following the collapse of Siad Barre's Marxist government.

In 1992, Somalia was in chaos. Its people had suffered a long famine and vicious civil war. Intermittent civil war had been a fact of life since 1977 and the country was lawless and without government. Government had dissolved into rival factions of tribally oriented warlords. Relief workers attempting to deliver food and medical supplies were in constant danger of attack by armed gangs, who would hold the goods hostage for the loyalty of the people. The aid was stolen by the warlords and bartered for weapons, the famine becoming more severe as a result. As a result, the UN requested armed peacekeepers to assist the relief operations. The mission of Operation Deliverance was to provide a secure enough environment to ensure that aid reached the people of Somalia.

In January 1993, commander Carol Mathieu gave verbal orders allowing Canadian soldiers to shoot thieves under certain conditions; and on February 10 they fired on a crowd approaching a Red Cross distribution centre. Seven days later, they fired at a Somali demonstration killing one and wounding two others.

Deployment to Somalia

Canada, with a long history of participation in international peace and security missions, was one of several nations that agreed to send forces. Canadian forces at that time were stretched, however, with a number of other deployments, most notably in the former Yugoslavia. The Minister of External Affairs Barbara McDougall noted that the mandate would be to "shoot first, ask questions later" to try and bring peace to the country where it was noted that food aid was being stolen by militias and warlords.

The Canadian military leadership, under the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, selected the Canadian Airborne Regiment (CAR), as Canada's contribution to this peace-restoration operation. The Airborne had long been seen as the elite of the Canadian Forces, and in 1974 had performed admirably in combat operations in Cyprus as well as later peacekeeping tours there. However, General Beno informed General Lewis MacKenzie that training in the CAR was a "critical" problem due to Paul Morneault's leadership. It was debated whether to substitute another regiment, or cancel the mission entirely, but it was finally decided that to admit that the "elite" Canadian forces were incapable of handling a routine mission would have been a "national disgrace".

Canadian Airborne Regiment

We promised them peacekeepers, and...we sent them thugs.

— Rex Murphy

Only recently deemed a light infantry battalion, some leaders expressed concern that it the Somalia mission did not fit the Regiment's mandate or abilities. The Airborne consisted of multiple sub-units drawn from each of Canada's regular infantry regiments. Later, Lt. Col. Kenward suggested that the line regiments had offloaded some of their "bad apples" into the CAR. The commanding officer of the CAR, Lt. Col. Paul Morneault, declared this "rogue commando" unit unfit for service abroad and sought to have it remain in Canada. Instead, he was relieved of his command and replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Carol Mathieu.

There had been recurring discipline problems, and an ongoing investigation into their base of CFB Petawawa as a hotbed of white supremacist activity in 2 Commando. This included the adoption of the Rebel flag as the commando's barracks-room decoration. The flag had initially been presented as a gift from American soldiers, and gradually became an unofficial symbol, although successive commanding officers had tried to ban its usage.

The CAR was accompanied by a helicopter squadron and a squadron of the Royal Canadian Dragoons. These forces were deployed to Somalia in January 1993, setting up its tented patrol-base outside the town of Belet Huen. Their mission was to secure and bring order to the town and a 30,000 square kilometer area around it, where much of the humanitarian aid was still being siphoned by local warlords. There was a constant stream of locals pilfering from the Canadian camp. At least one commanding officer had tacitly encouraged abuse of any thieves who were caught.

Footage depicting racist actions of Cpl. McKay and Pte. Brocklebank was later brought forward by Scott Taylor, who hoped to expose systematic problems in the military and exonerate his friend Kyle Brown. In the video, McKay stated that "we ain't killed enough niggers yet", and pre-deployment photographs showed him wearing a Hitler shirt in front of a Swastika. Brocklebank was seen "uttering racist and violent epithets on a video taken by soldiers".

Video of brutal hazing rituals also came to light, including a video from the summer of 1992 which showed 1er Commando engaging in "hijinks" ranging from smearing faeces on each other, to bestiality; the black soldier Christopher Robin was shown on all fours with a leash, led around like a dog, with the phrase "I Love KKK" written on his back, while surrounding soldiers screamed about White Power and jeered at the "nigger".

Mike Abel, the only Canadian to die in the Somali operation, was alleged a member of the KKK; although colleagues disputed the evidence that racist literature had been found in his belongings, pointing out that it just floated around the camp and everybody read it.

March 4th killing

On March 4, two unarmed Somalis were shot in the back, one fatally, after Canadian troops laid an ambush to try and catch petty thieves stealing from the military base in Belet Huen. This followed from a decision by Captain Michel Rainville to re-label petty theft by Somalians as "sabotage", a distinction that meant deadly force could be used to defend the base. Rainville relied on the argument that a fuel pump used to service American MedEvac helicopters had been stolen deliberately to hinder the military effort, while critics pointed out that any saboteurs likely would have ignited the thousands of gallons of fuel surrounding it.

Rainville enlisted Corpoal Ben Klick of the PPCLI to lay in a truckbed at night, awaiting potential "saboteurs" with a rifle. From his position, he watched two infiltrators approach bread and water that the Canadians had laid out as bait. Fifteen minutes after first noticing the pair, other soldiers opened fire at them. In the end, 29-year old Ahmed Arush was killed, and Abdi Hunde Bei Sabrie was wounded.

It was noted that one of the two Somalis had been carrying a ceremonial dagger in his clothing, and the body of Arush was loaded into a body bag and placed inside a Bison personnel carrier. There, a medical technician re-opened the bag and took Polaroid photographs for an unknown reason, some suggest to document the shooting, others suggest as a "trophy". The photos showed gaping wounds in Arush's neck and the side of his face, with his skull twisted out of shape by the force of the gunblast. His intestines protruded from his stomach, and his right eye is missing.

An Air Force flight surgeon, Major Barry Armstrong, examined the body and judged the death "suspicious", suggesting that Arush had been lying prone on the ground when he was killed. He also noted that the amount of omentum which had passed through the first wounds suggested the 29-year old Arush had been breathing for at least 2 or 3 minutes before the final gunshots to his head were fired.

After the examination, Arush's body was then used for medical practice for soldiers, demonstrating how to stab a tracheotomy into a wounded man's throat to allow him to breathe, and then used to demonstrate the proper preparation of a body for transportation. The body was then returned to the body bag, and sent into town. For the next two weeks, Colonel Allan Wells approached Vice-Admiral Larry Murray asking to send military police to Somalia to investigate the shooting, but was rebuffed. When Chief of Defence Staff John Rogers Anderson visited the military base on March 8-9, he visited the wounded Somali recovering in the Canadian hospital.

At the subsequent inquiry, Klick defended Rainville, heavily criticising his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Carol Mathieu, and testified that an American Special Forces NCO had interrogated the wounded Somali who confessed to being a saboteur; although this contradicted all other evidence, including the statements of the American soldier who never mentioned any interrogation. In 1994, the Ministry of Defence engaged in an undercover attempt to discredit Armstrong's findings, phoning Allan Thompson of the Toronto Star and offering to leak to him the pathology report by James Ferris conducted two months after the killing, which found the decomposing body showed none of the signs Armstrong had suggested. Thompson took his evidence of a preconceived "leak" from the Ministry to the subsequent inquiry, where they added weight to Armstrong's findings. While his commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Carol Mathieu described Armstrong as bordering on insanity at the inquiry, the only evidence he produced was that he liked to climb onto the roof of the hospital at night in Somalia and watch the stars.

Death of Shidane Arone

On March 16 1993, Michael Sox found Shidane Abukar Arone hiding in a portable toilet in an abandoned American base across from the Canadian base and, believing he was attempting to sneak into the Canadian base to steal supplies, turned him over to another soldier, who led the teenager to a bunker being used to house munitions. Arone protested, claiming he had simply been trying to find a lost child.

At 21:00, Sgt. Boland replaced Master Corporal Clayton Matchee as guard of the prisoner, and ordered that his foot bindings be removed, and replaced with fetters as the ropes were too tight. Warrant Officer Murphy took the opportunity to kick Arone "savagely", which was later claimed to be implicit permission to abuse the prisoner. At this time, Matchee began his abuse of Arone by removing the captive's clothing and using it to crudely waterboard the youth until Boland objected, and Matchee left the bunker.

At 22:00, Trooper Kyle Brown took over guard duty, and brought Matchee back with him. Brown punched Arone in the jaw, and was told by Boland "I don't care what you do, just don't kill the guy", to which Brown replied that he wanted to "kill this fucker". Boland then joined Matchee and Matt McKay for beers in the mess hall, where Matchee spoke about what he wanted to do to Arone, and suggested he might put out cigarette butts on his feet. McKay suggested that Matchee might use a ration pack or phone book to beat the youth, as it would not leave any traces.

Matchee and Brown, both members of 2 Commando, then proceeded to beat Arone. Matchee used a ration pack to beat the youth, as well as a broomstick, and according to some accounts, sodomised the teenager with it. Brown participated in the abuse, but was primarily an observer and took sixteen "trophy photos" of the beating, including one of Matchee forcing Arone's mouth open with a baton, and one of himself holding Pte. David Brocklebank's loaded pistol to Arone's head. At approximately 23:20, Master Cpl. Giasson entered the bunker, Matchee showed him Arone, who was now semi-conscious and bleeding, and boasted that "in Canada we cannot do that, and here they let us do it".

Estimates have ranged from 15-80 other soldiers could hear or observe the beating, but did not intervene. Corporal MacDonald, acting as duty signaller that night, was asked by Sgt. Major Mills about "a long dragged out howl" heard from the vicinity of the bunker, but MacDonald refused to stop playing Game Boy to investigate. Later, Matchee came by to borrow a cigarette from MacDonald and mentioned that "now the Black man would fear the Indian as he did the white man", and MacDonald went outside to check on Arone's status. He saw Matchee hitting him in the face with the baton, and reported that the prisoner was "getting a good shit-kicking" to Sgt. Gresty, before retiring to bed for the night.

Arone fell unconscious after several hours of beatings, after shouting "Canada! Canada! Canada!" as his last words. When Brown mentioned the event to Captain Hillier, the officer noted there "would be trouble" if the prisoner died, and went to check on the youth whom he found had no pulse, and base medics confirmed that the boy was dead. It was later discovered that Arone had burn marks on his penis, and that he had been anally raped with a broom handle.

A death in custody automatically triggered an investigation, and two days later Matchee and Brown were arrested and charged with the murder and National Defence Headquarters was advised. Matchee later attempted to hang himself in his cell; the attempt failed but caused massive brain damage, making him unfit to stand trial. Brown was found guilty of manslaughter.

The Officer Commanding of 2 Commando, Major Anthony Seward, was also court-martialed under Article 124 of the National Defence Act (Negligent Performance of Duties). He was convicted and sentenced to 3 months imprisonment in the Canadian Forces Service Prison and Detention Barracks and dismissal with disgrace from the Canadian Forces.

Response

The debate over what led to the events came at a politically sensitive time in Canada, as the Minister of National Defence Kim Campbell was in the midst of a PC leadership campaign to become Prime Minister. Matters were made worse when Campbell tried to dismiss the allegations of racism in the Canadian military be referring to it as "youthful folly" and suggesting that it was commonplace.

The Canadian military seems to have blind confidence in mefloquine, even though it carries warnings that those with judgment jobs, like neurosurgeons or airline pilots, shouldn't use it. But it is apparently safe for young men with loaded weapons. Does that make sense?

— Peter Worthington

At first DND officials told the media, and also minister Campbell that Arone had likely died from natural causes. It took several weeks for the Canadian people to become aware of the actual events in Somalia. These reports, especially once Private Brown's picture became public created an outcry in Canada. The high regard the Canadian people had for their armed forces, especially the peacekeepers, was damaged. The reports also generated intense media interest, and how these investigations were dealt with would become the focus of public investigations. Highly placed members of the military leadership were accused of fraudulently altering documents prior to handing them over to journalists. The existence of other documents was denied, and some others were destroyed. Criticism also focused on the fact that it took five weeks to order a high-level investigation into the events in Somalia.

Some, including Member of Parliament John Cummins, quickly pointed out that three of the four men facing the most serious charges had been given Lariam, a brand-name of Mefloquine, injections to combat Malaria before deploying; as was standard with most other Canadian soldiers at the time. The drug was known to cause paranoia, lack of judgment, neurosis and other mental side effects, and some have suggested it bore some responsibility for the soldiers' actions.

Legal proceedings

Pte. Brocklebank was charged with negligent performance of military duty, as prosecutors alleged he was bound by the Fourth Geneva Convention to ensure the safety of civilian prisoners. He was acquitted because the court found that the Convention did not apply to the Somali peacekeeping mission since there "was no evidence of an armed conflict".

McAuliffe's request for documents

In September 1995, CBC reporter Michael McAuliffe requested access to 68 Response to Query forms to supplement his earlier informal gleanings about the Canadian military operation, but the documents were altered before being released to him, in order to make them agree with the information he'd been given earlier. In addition, invented financial charges were tagged onto his request, claiming that it had taken 413 man-hours and subsequently would cost McAuliffe $4,080, although the documents were in fact readily available.

While giving McAuliffe misinformation informally was not illegal, it was a crime for the government to release forged documents in response to an Access to Information request. The question quickly emerged of whether Chief of Defence Staff Jean Boyle had known about the altering, and if he bore responsibility for it even if he were ignorant of his underlings' doings. On September 5 1995, a clerk at the NDHQ was discovered collecting Somalia-related documents for a burn bag to be destroyed.

Somalia Inquiry

Also mitigating, to a certain extent, is the fact that these individuals must be viewed as products of a system that placed great store in the "can do" attitude. The reflex to say "yes sir" rather than to question the appropriateness of a command or policy obviously runs against the grain of free and open discussion, but it is ingrained in military discipline and culture. However, leaders properly exercising command responsibility must recognise and assert not only their right, but their duty, to advise against improper actions, of failing to do so means that professionalism is lost.

— Commission of Inquiry, 1997

The public outcry against Arone's death didn't occur until November 2004, when a publication ban was lifted against the 16 photographs Brown had taken of the torture session and they were widely published in Canadian media.

The new government of Jean Chrétien's Liberal Party initiated a highly visible Somalia Inquiry in 1994 under Federal Court Judge Gilles Létourneau. Officially known as the Somalia Commission of Inquiry, its hearings were broadcast daily in both languages, nationally.

As the inquiry unfolded, home videos of initiation rites in the CAR's French-speaking commando found their way into the media. The new Minister of National Defence David Collenette argued that the videos were disgusting, demeaning and racist. With the continued accumulation of such politically damaging visibility, the Minister of National Defence ordered the Canadian Airborne Regiment disbanded in 1995. It has been suggested that this move was as much driven by budget cuts to the Canadian Forces as by the Somalia Affair, but there is no question that the affair gave the Minister the public support needed to disband the regiment.

The Chief of the Defence Staff General John de Chastelain, who had not supported the minister's disbandment order of the Airborne, resigned under a cloud. His successor, Air Force General Jean Boyle was forced to resign only a few months after accepting the role when, in a gesture uncharacteristic of military tradition, he blamed his subordinates for previous wrong doing under his command. Minister of National Defence David Collenette was also forced to resign, partially due to the affair.

On April 8, 1996, Boyle called a halt to all normal duties and announced the entire Canadian military would begin searching for documents relating to Somalia.

The inquiry ran until 1997 when it was cut short by the government in the months before the 1997 election. The government was critical of the direction of the inquiry, noting that it was far exceeding its mandate. Eggleton suggested that the events had happened four years earlier, and it was time to "move on".

Indeed, the conduct of the new government after the Somalia affair and the search for documents now absorbed much of the inquiry's attention, as reflected in its report. The inquiry had run long over its allotted timeframe and budget. The decision to end the inquiry received visible media attention and may have contributed to the defeat of the new Defence Minister Doug Young in the 1997 election. The inquiry was never able to examine top level governmental decision-making, nor did it actually examine the alleged events in Somalia.

The final report of the inquiry was a striking attack on the procedures, support and leadership of the Canadian Forces and the Ministry of Defence. Many of the top officers in the Canadian Forces were excoriated, including three separate Chiefs of the Defence Staff. The CAR had been rushed into a war zone with inadequate preparation or legal support. Enquiry observer retired Brigadier-General Dan Loomis noted that the operation had changed, in December 1992, "from a peacekeeping operation, where arms are used only in self-defence, to one where arms could be used proactively to achieve politico-military objectives...In short the Canadian Forces were being put on active service and sent to war (as defined by Chapter 7 of the UN Charter)." Its deployment into "war" had never been debated in parliament and indeed the Canadian public had been led to believe by its government that the CAR was on a "peacekeeping" mission. After the events the leaders of the Canadian Forces had been far more concerned with self-preservation than in trying to find the truth. The inquiry report singled out Major-General Lewis MacKenzie as a major exception, as he took full responsibility for any errors he made.

Aftermath of the Affair

The affair had a number of long lasting effects. While it is difficult to separate the effects of the affair on Canadian Forces morale from those of the concurrent defence spending cut, it did exacerbate feelings of distrust towards the media and politicians among many CF members.

At the same time, public trust in the Canadian Forces suffered and recruitment became more difficult. Public revulsion provided support for the sharp cuts to military spending introduced by the Liberal government. Many of the report's comments, along with the sustained media criticism of the military, led to the hasty imposition of policies designed to ensure nothing similar to the Somalia Affair could happen again. It has been argued that many of these practices, such as the micro-management of training, operations and disciplinary processes from NDHQ and the resultant restrictions on commanding officers, hamper the flexibility of operational units. Since the events in Somalia, Canada has become far less ready to participate in United Nations Peacekeeping efforts. Once playing an important role in the majority of UN efforts, in subsequent years Canada has been more ready to simply provide indirect support.

In 1999, judge J. Douglas Cunningham dismissed an appeal for financial compensation by Arone's parents Abubakar Arone Rage and Dahabo Omar Samow, ruling that their use of a litigation guardian, Abdullahi Godah Barre, was inconsistent with the legal requirement, and they should have traveled to Canada to launch the suit themselves.

Brown later co-operated on a book in which it was suggested he had been made the scapegoat for the incident and the officers who had not intervened were not brought to justice.

Canada was not the only country to face problems in Somalia. There were severe casualties on all sides in the warlord-dominated chaos. The Battle of Mogadishu resulted in 500-1000 Somali militia and civilian deaths, as well as eighteen American and two Pakistani deaths, following which the US decided to leave the country. Soldiers of other countries also faced charges of misconduct: Italian troops were photographed appearing to rape a Somali woman and Belgian soldiers took photographs of themselves urinating on and burning Somalis.

Other long term effects on the Forces included the adoption of sensitivity training, including SHARP (Standard for Harassment and Racism Prevention) training, which became mandatory for every single member of the Forces, and was accompanied by a declaration of "zero tolerance" on racism and harassment of any kind, including hazing.

External links

• Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, Canada AM: Airborne Hazing, complaint brought by a viewer to CTV's decision to broadcast hazing footage she deemed "too explicit".
• CBC Archives - The Somalia Affair
• Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia
• Mock, Karen R. U.S. Department of Education, The Somalia Inquiry: What Does It Have to Do with Us?, 1996

References

1. ^ Desbarats, Peter. "Somalia cover-up: A commissioner's journal", 1997
2. ^ Swanenburg, Marten. "Accountability of Peace Support Operations", p. 265
3. Prouse, Robert. Somalia Journals
4. CBC: The National - Archives
5. Fisher, Luke. Macleans, Airborne's Hazing Exposed, January 30, 1995
6. ^ Whitworth, Sandra. "Men, Militarism and UN Peacekeeping", p. 92
7. ^ Bercuson, David "Significant Incident: Canada's Army, the Airborne, & the Murder in Somalia" 1997
8. ^ Armstrong, Martha. "A Tale of Two Videos: Media Event, Moral Panic and the Canadian Airborne Regiment" , December 1997
9. Leyton-Brown, David. "Canadian Annual Review of Politics and Public Affairs", 199. p. 120
10. ^ Sherene Razack. Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism. 2004
11. ^ Ogle, James & Darnell Bass. "What Manner of Man", p. 144 &163
12. Taylor, Scott R. Esprit de Corps, "Mysterious, suspicious and preventable deaths in the Canadian forces.", July 1, 1997
13. ^ CBC The National, Somalia debacle a high-level cover-up, July 2, 1997
14. ^ O'Reilly, Michael. CMAJ, MD at centre of Somalia controversy finds peace in Northern Ontario, 1998
15. ^ Coulon, Jocelyn. "Soldiers of Diplomacy", University of Toronto Press, p. 94
16. Sjolander, Claire Turenne. "Feminist Perspectives on Canadian Foreign Policy", 2003. p. 81
17. Dawson, Grant. "Here is Hell", 2006. p. 157
18. Born, Hans. "The Double Democractic Deficit", p. 94
19. ^ Worthington, Peter. "Scapegoat: How the Army Betrayed Kyle Brown", p. 112
20. Worthington, Peter. Edmonton Sun, "Did we poison our Somalia soldiers?", January 3, 1998
21. TMC Asser Institute, "Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law", p. 365
22. Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia, Document Book 103, tabs 12 & 13.
23. Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia, Testimony of Lt. Brayman, transcript pp. 12947-12948 & 13079-13080
24. Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia, Testimony of Nancy Fournier, Transcript pp. 12048-12050
25. Commission of Inquiry into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia, "Dishonoured Legacy: The Lessons of the Somalia Affair", pp. 953.
26. Scott, Craig. "Torture as Tort", p. 33

• History of Somalia
• Military history of Canada
• Military scandals