[ad_1]
Each year we take time to remember and honor the heroes past and present who fought courageously to defend our way of life, many of them giving up their own. This act of remembrance is even more important this year, at a time when the world sorely needs peace. It is for this reason that we are dedicating this year’s note of Remembrance to our Canadian peacekeepers.
The “Blue Helmets”
United Nations military personnel, also known as peacekeepers, include more than 70,000 military personnel contributed by national armies around the world. They work alongside United Nations police and civilian authorities to promote stability, security and peace in the world’s most troubled regions.
The protection of civilian lives is at the heart of the peacekeeping mandate. To achieve this goal, peacekeepers are often deployed to inhospitable, isolated and dangerous areas where they face challenges of incalculable magnitude, particularly when it comes to protecting civilians subject to asymmetric threats. . Modern peacekeeping operations are increasingly complex and dangerous, placing immense demands on deployed personnel and their families.
While most peacekeepers are infantry soldiers, today’s missions require increasingly specialized soldiers, including engineers, pilots, logistics and armor personnel and, not least, mention that a group close to my heart, transmission operators who provide reliable and secure communications and information systems using radio and satellite equipment.
Canada leads peacekeeping missions
In the early morning hours of November 2, 1956, as the world faced a looming international militarized crisis over control of the Suez Canal, Lester Pearson (then Secretary of State for External Affairs) stood before the United States General Assembly. United Nations and told the public that the world needed to act, “not only to end the fighting but also to bring peace.” He then argued for the creation of an international peace and police force that Canada would help provide with troops and equipment. When the resolution calling for the creation of the “United Nations Emergency Force” was adopted unanimously, Pearson’s diplomatic act became a tangible and effective tool for peace.
For his leadership in establishing what would become the UN Peacekeepers, Lester Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957. The Nobel Prize committee called Pearson “the man who contributed more than anyone to save the world.
Few people, including Pearson, would have guessed the extent to which Canadians would come to align their national identity with peacekeeping in the decades that followed. Indeed, Canada has a long and proud history of peacekeeping, with Canadians having served in almost every UN peacekeeping mission since the creation of that force.
In total, more than 125,000 Canadians have served under the blue flag of the United Nations in the quest for peace. Some did it at a terrible cost, with 130 Canadians having lost their lives in peace operations and many others having been injured.
This year’s mother of the Silver Cross
Each year, a Silver Cross mother is chosen by the Royal Canadian Legion to lay a wreath at the National War Memorial during the Remembrance Day ceremony on behalf of all mothers who have lost children in service from their country. This year, this painful honor goes to Gloria Hooper, the mother of Sapper Chris Holopina, a combat engineer who died during a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia in 1996.
Sapper Holopina was not new to peacekeeping missions. As a young reservist, he had already accepted two overseas assignments, including in Cyprus from 1992 to 1993 and Croatia from 1993 to 1994. Bosnia was his third deployment. Holopina’s pride in his service was contagious and motivated him to go above and beyond the call of duty. While deployed, Holopina organized clothing and toy drives, collecting donations across Manitoba to help families with young children affected by the Balkan War.
On July 4, 1996, Holopina was killed when the Canadian armored vehicle he was traveling in crashed into a ravine while en route to rescuing a group of British soldiers stranded in a minefield. The armored vehicle left the road to avoid an accident, but then rolled down a ravine and overturned, killing Holopina. He was only 22 years old.
If Holopina was the first to lose his life in this peacekeeping mission, he is unfortunately not the last. Indeed, the Balkan War and associated peacekeeping missions were particularly difficult, with peacekeepers even being taken hostage and used as human shields against NATO operations. In total, 23 Canadians lost their lives during this mission in search of world peace.
Give peace a chance
The importance of peace in our world cannot be overstated. It serves as the foundation for social stability, human rights and the well-being of individuals and communities across the world. In today’s very troubled times, it is perhaps illuminating to reproduce here some of the words uttered by Lester Pearson when accepting his Nobel Peace Prize:
“Today we are arriving at a time when different civilizations will have to learn to live side by side in peaceful exchange, learning from each other, studying each other’s history and ideals, art and culture, and mutually enriching. The only alternative in this small, crowded world is misunderstanding, tension, conflict and – catastrophe.
The fact is that for every challenge posed by the threat of death and destruction, there has always been one response from free men: it will not happen. By these responses, man not only saved himself, but assured his future.”
Let us not forget those who fight for peace.
With great admiration, this CondoGeek dedicates this post to those with whom he served in Haiti in 1995.
[ad_2]
Source link