March 9 event, Ottawa: "Canada and Afghanistan. Keeping Our Promises"

Further to this post,

Canada, Afstan and UN peacekeeping: Events in Ottawa--the good and...

more from the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee:

Our government has told us that “the mission as we know it” in Afghanistan will end in 2011—but what comes after that [more here on one issue]?

The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee (CASC) will unveil its Vision for Canada’s Role in Afghanistan Post-2011 on March 9 at the National Archives Hall in Ottawa. The event, called “Canada and Afghanistan: Keeping Our Promises”, is hosted by the Free Thinking Film Society of Ottawa and is also a fundraiser for the Afghan School Project.

This Vision document will outline recommendations for how Canadians can best remain involved in Afghanistan, in terms of both civilian aid and the security that is essential for providing that aid. Abandoning Afghanistan is not an option: “The threat of abandonment by Canada, the U.S., Britain, and other major NATO countries is not just causing fear and dismay among our Afghan friends,” says CASC senior adviser Lauryn Oates. “It is encouraging the Taliban, and it is encouraging the worst kind of corruption. It is making things worse for ordinary Afghans, whose rights our soldiers have been fighting and dying for.”

CASC’s Vision is based on unprecedented and far-ranging consultations carried out with participation from Canada’s Afghan immigrant community as well as a cross-section of the Afghanistan population. The consultation includes feedback from ordinary citizens as well as politicians, human rights workers, elders, community leaders and experienced analysts.

This event will raise funds for the Afghan School Project (ASP), a Canada-based grassroots initiative, established by the Canadian International Learning Foundation. The ASP provides financial and administrative support to an educational institution in Kandahar, Afghanistan, which provides more than 700 women and men with the opportunity to receive education, while providing members of the community with access to the Internet and online classes from Canadian and international institutions.

Speakers at this event include:

• Major-General (Ret’d) Lewis MacKenzie. Served in the Canadian Forces for 35 years, including a UN peacekeeping command in Yugoslavia in 1992. Awarded the Order of Canada in 2006

• Ehsanullah Ehsan, Director of the Afghan-Canadian Community Centre in Kandahar City [more here]

• Nasrine Gross, Afghan-American writer and human rights activist

• Dr. Nipa Banerjee, currently a professor of international development at the University of Ottawa, served as Canada's head of aid in Kabul for three years.

• Dr. Douglas Bland, Chair of the Defence Management Studies Program at the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University

• Lauryn Oates, Human rights and gender equity activist; CASC senior advisor

• Terry Glavin, Award-winning author and journalist. One of Canada’s leading voices in support of our Afghanistan campaign.

Event Details

March 9, 2010, 7:00 pm

National Archives/Library of Canada, 395 Wellington St., Ottawa

Tickets: $30 regular admission, $15 students

• Purchase tickets online:

Online at http://www.canilf.org/news/

• Purchase tickets in person:

Ottawa Folklore Centre (1111 Bank Street, Ottawa)

Compact Music (190 Bank; 7851 ½ Bank Street, Ottawa)

Update: A perceptive comment by E.R. Campbell at a Milnet.ca topic thread:

I wonder who the 'target' might be.

As far as I can tell no one, not one soul, amongst the grey suited, grey haired, grey faced Mandarins in Official Ottawa wants to hear another word about Afghanistan. As far as I can tell none of them want anything "after the military mission." My guesstimate is that, between now an early 2011 we will hear more and more Canadians generals and Canadian officials and Canadian politicians and Canadian journalists, regurgitating press releases prepared by the government's spin doctors, telling us that the Afghan National Army is now ready to take over - not really good, but (just) good enough - and on that happy note we have achieved our aim and can come home, heads held high, not having "cut and run" after all.

What's after the military mission in Afghanistan? For us? Nothing. And who cares, anyway? We did our bit. Let's feel good about sending good money after bad to Haiti.

There are a couple of really credible people on that panel - legitimate "thinkers" with big ideas about big issues but no one in Official Ottawa is listening.