By SCOTT TAYLOR On Target
Mon. May 5 - 6:05 AM
IN MY COLUMN last week, I noted that with the announcement of Gen. Rick Hillier’s retirement in July, the race had begun in earnest to choose his successor. One of those candidates I touted for a shot at the top post was army commander Andrew Leslie.
In outlining his impressive resume I apparently overstated things a little by stating that the army commander had just completed his PhD in Afghan studies. Shortly after publication, I was called by a public affairs officer at National Defence headquarters who wished to set the record straight. Apparently Lt.-Gen. Leslie is still working on finishing that doctorate, and his subject of study is "history with a focus on Afghanistan." While my mistake was not of a stop-the-presses magnitude, I did understand that in view of some recent developments regarding Lt.-Gen. Leslie, his people were keen to make sure the record was corrected.
The previous week, Lt.-Gen. Leslie had taken the witness stand at the Hague Tribunal to testify against a Croatian general accused of war crimes. The incident to which Leslie was an eyewitness occurred in August 1995 during the most violent episode of ethnic cleansing during the civil wars that heralded the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. At that juncture, a Canadian battalion and a large number of Canadian UN observers were located in the Krajina, an ethnic Serbian enclave in the newly declared independent republic of Croatia.
When the Croats seceded from Yugoslavia, the Krajina Serbs declared their own independence from Croatia. An armed standoff over this territory had existed from 1991 until the summer of 1995. When Croatian forces launched a major offensive to eliminate the Krajina pocket, the Canadian peacekeepers did not resist the Croatian attack, and the tiny Serbian army in the Krajina fled without much of a fight. Having already experienced the Croatian brand of ethnic cleansing, in particular the infamous massacre and rape of innocent Serbs in the Medak Pocket in 1993, the Serb civilians also fled the advancing Croats.
As the Serb soldiers fled into Bosnia, hundreds of thousands of Serbian refugees streamed into the Krajina capital of Knin. It was here that then-colonel Leslie was based with the UN mission. As the offensive approached Knin, the UN advised the Croatian troops that the city was devoid of Serbian military targets and should be regarded as an "open city." Despite the UN warnings, the Croatian gunners launched a devastating barrage that killed hundreds of defenceless Serb civilians. At that time, Leslie and other senior Canadian officers angrily denounced this as a war crime.
To his credit, Leslie, now army commander, was not dissuaded from testifying at the Hague by domestic political pressure or the threat of cross-examination by the accused Croatian general’s defence counsel. Predictably, the Croatian defendant, Gen. Ante Gotovina, wasted little time before unleashing his lawyers on a smear campaign against Leslie.
In attacking a potential discrepancy in the wording of the commendation on Leslie’s Meritorious Service Medal, Gotovina’s legal team is now trying to imply that the Canadian general exaggerated the events in 1995 in order to earn himself a medal.
Last September a similar case occurred when two Croatian generals accused of war crimes in the Medak Pocket incident blamed the Canadian peacekeepers of having killed the innocent Serbs and committing the atrocities. On that occasion retired colonel Jim Calvin, the former commander of the unit being slandered — the Second Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry — publicly spoke out to defend his troops.
In Leslie’s defence, both the chief of defence staff and vice-chief of defence staff have issued statements that validate the circumstances under which the army commander earned his medal. What is noticeably absent on these occasions is any sort of supporting fire from the Canadian government.
In 2000, when British Gen. Hew Pike expressed some doubts about the fighting ability of Canada’s army, Liberal Defence Minister Art Eggleton stood in the House of Commons, shook his little fist and shouted: "Take a hike, Pike!"
Therefore, when Croatian war criminals accuse our soldiers of committing these atrocities and cast aspersions on our decorated generals, one would expect to see a purple-headed Peter MacKay kicking over garbage cans and demanding apologies on behalf of our maligned soldiers. Instead of meekly accepting Croatia’s membership into NATO last month, Canada should have demanded justice be brought upon the perpetrators of these heinous crimes as a prerequisite to Croatia’s entry into the alliance.
That is the kind of political support our soldiers deserve — not just red sweatshirts on Fridays and flag-waving rallies.
(staylor@herald.ca)
Scott Taylor is editor-in-chief of Esprit de Corps magazine.
IN MY COLUMN last week, I noted that with the announcement of Gen. Rick Hillier’s retirement in July, the race had begun in earnest to choose his successor. One of those candidates I touted for a shot at the top post was army commander Andrew Leslie.
In outlining his impressive resume I apparently overstated things a little by stating that the army commander had just completed his PhD in Afghan studies. Shortly after publication, I was called by a public affairs officer at National Defence headquarters who wished to set the record straight. Apparently Lt.-Gen. Leslie is still working on finishing that doctorate, and his subject of study is "history with a focus on Afghanistan." While my mistake was not of a stop-the-presses magnitude, I did understand that in view of some recent developments regarding Lt.-Gen. Leslie, his people were keen to make sure the record was corrected.
The previous week, Lt.-Gen. Leslie had taken the witness stand at the Hague Tribunal to testify against a Croatian general accused of war crimes. The incident to which Leslie was an eyewitness occurred in August 1995 during the most violent episode of ethnic cleansing during the civil wars that heralded the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. At that juncture, a Canadian battalion and a large number of Canadian UN observers were located in the Krajina, an ethnic Serbian enclave in the newly declared independent republic of Croatia.
When the Croats seceded from Yugoslavia, the Krajina Serbs declared their own independence from Croatia. An armed standoff over this territory had existed from 1991 until the summer of 1995. When Croatian forces launched a major offensive to eliminate the Krajina pocket, the Canadian peacekeepers did not resist the Croatian attack, and the tiny Serbian army in the Krajina fled without much of a fight. Having already experienced the Croatian brand of ethnic cleansing, in particular the infamous massacre and rape of innocent Serbs in the Medak Pocket in 1993, the Serb civilians also fled the advancing Croats.
As the Serb soldiers fled into Bosnia, hundreds of thousands of Serbian refugees streamed into the Krajina capital of Knin. It was here that then-colonel Leslie was based with the UN mission. As the offensive approached Knin, the UN advised the Croatian troops that the city was devoid of Serbian military targets and should be regarded as an "open city." Despite the UN warnings, the Croatian gunners launched a devastating barrage that killed hundreds of defenceless Serb civilians. At that time, Leslie and other senior Canadian officers angrily denounced this as a war crime.
To his credit, Leslie, now army commander, was not dissuaded from testifying at the Hague by domestic political pressure or the threat of cross-examination by the accused Croatian general’s defence counsel. Predictably, the Croatian defendant, Gen. Ante Gotovina, wasted little time before unleashing his lawyers on a smear campaign against Leslie.
In attacking a potential discrepancy in the wording of the commendation on Leslie’s Meritorious Service Medal, Gotovina’s legal team is now trying to imply that the Canadian general exaggerated the events in 1995 in order to earn himself a medal.
Last September a similar case occurred when two Croatian generals accused of war crimes in the Medak Pocket incident blamed the Canadian peacekeepers of having killed the innocent Serbs and committing the atrocities. On that occasion retired colonel Jim Calvin, the former commander of the unit being slandered — the Second Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry — publicly spoke out to defend his troops.
In Leslie’s defence, both the chief of defence staff and vice-chief of defence staff have issued statements that validate the circumstances under which the army commander earned his medal. What is noticeably absent on these occasions is any sort of supporting fire from the Canadian government.
In 2000, when British Gen. Hew Pike expressed some doubts about the fighting ability of Canada’s army, Liberal Defence Minister Art Eggleton stood in the House of Commons, shook his little fist and shouted: "Take a hike, Pike!"
Therefore, when Croatian war criminals accuse our soldiers of committing these atrocities and cast aspersions on our decorated generals, one would expect to see a purple-headed Peter MacKay kicking over garbage cans and demanding apologies on behalf of our maligned soldiers. Instead of meekly accepting Croatia’s membership into NATO last month, Canada should have demanded justice be brought upon the perpetrators of these heinous crimes as a prerequisite to Croatia’s entry into the alliance.
That is the kind of political support our soldiers deserve — not just red sweatshirts on Fridays and flag-waving rallies.
(staylor@herald.ca)
Scott Taylor is editor-in-chief of Esprit de Corps magazine.
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