Fisking Michael Byers' bilge

The professor is one of the "experts" the media love to quote whom I love to loathe. Letters to the editor sent August 18 that were not printed:

1) To the Globe and Mail:

Prof. Michael Byers, in his interview with Michael Valpy ('This is Stephen Harper's war', August 18), is either terribly ill-informed about the role the United Nations, and German, troops have played in the Congo--or else he is being very economical with the truth. First Prof. Byers says that "A couple of years ago, a very large UN peacekeeping force brought relative peace to the Congo..." Not quite. The force, MONUC, has been in the Congo since Novermber 1999 and is still there. While there may be relative peace in the Congo the situation is still unstable so the force will likely stay for some time to come. And, by the way, MONUC has sustained 109 fatalities.

Prof. Byers then says "...there was a core, 2,000-soldier contribution from Germany." Wrong again. MONUC has had no German troops. There were German troops in the Congo but they were only there from July to November 2006 and they were not part of the UN force. Rather they were part of a separate European Union force that was authorized by the UN Security Council to deploy briefly to support MONUC during the period before and after Congo's July and October 2006 national elections. The EU force totalled some 2,400 personnel of which only 780 were German. Moreover not all the EU troops were actually in the Congo; many were stationed in neighbouring Gabon on standby.

Prof. Byers goes on to claim that the German troops played an important role in training developing country troops with the UN force and turning them into much better soldiers. That is simply false. The German troops with the EU force had no such role during their short presence in the Congo.

Given the complete inaccuracy of what Prof. Byers says about what the Germans did in the Congo, it is astounding that he should hold up that fictional role as a model for what he thinks Canada should be doing in Darfur. He also ignores the simple fact that the Sudanese government will not allow any large contingent of Western troops into the country as part of the UN force for Darfur that the UN Security Council recently authorized.

One cannot but be amazed that one so fast and loose with facts is employed as a professor of global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia.

References:
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpko/missions/monuc/facts.html
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=1091〈=EN
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/EVOD-6QQGL9?OpenDocument
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,2084630,00.html
http://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/diplo/en/Aussenpolitik/RegionaleSchwerpunkte/Afrika/Kongo-Einsatz.html
http://www.rbcinvest.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/PEstory/LAC/20070808/LETTERS08-1/Letters/commentLetters/commentLetters/6/6/10/

2) To the Toronto Star:

Thomas Walkom, in his column August 18, quotes Prof. Michael Byers as saying about Afghanistan that "The optimal solution would be a proper UN development operation. It wouldn't be perfect by a long shot; it could fail."

Prof. Byers appears unaware that the UN already has a very large development operation in the country, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) with some 1,000 staff--the great majority of whom are Afghans. The mission's headquarters are in Kabul and it has offices throughout the country. UNAMA is supported by the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations. What more does the good professor want?

Reference:
http://www.unama-afg.org/about/overview.htm