1st Airborne Regiment ..... accountability issue

[R935]

To make my story as short as possible I will try only to give you main points. Canada’s 1st Airborne Regiment was an elite rapid response paratroop force. In late 1992, due to the shortage of other trained personnel (today Canada has only 60.000 regular forces); the government of Canada decided to send the CAR to a peacekeeping mission in Somalia. During their mission in Somalia commandos experienced increased problem of stealing on the base (partially due to the fact that there were 3 units in 3 different camps) which eventually escalated and led to killing of 16 year-old Somali Shidane Arone.This became a public issue.
With elections soon coming government established public enquiry into Somalia mission. However the issue became a hot political potato. The results: The CAR is disbanded leaving Canadian Forces without one of its biggest assets. Canada lost its rapid response force (no JTF2 can’t replace it). Not only that but the public inquiry is ordered a premature end before it has time to question the key players, the Ottawa’s top officials. The top officials of the Department of National Defence (DND), both civilian and military, escape the responsibility.
My question to you: Should they (The heads of DND) be held more accountable and is the murder of single civilian by two members of the unit reason enough to disband the whole CAR.

For people more interested in this topic I recommend to read SOMALIA COVER-UP: A COMMISSIONER'S JOURNAL and also to see the documentary “Fall Out!” which was documented by former Airborne soldier, Mike Smith.
http://www.commando.org/gallery/disband/aab[/img]

[WestCoastG's]

They shouldnt have had CAR disbanded. An inquiry into this should have been launched to see if this was a couple of soldiers fooling around or if it was ordered by their commanders. The head honchos of the DND should only be held partially accountable if there was something that was reasonable that they could have done. This incident is sorta like Abu Gharib. It could be a couple soldiers fooling around or it could have been orders or procedures in interrogation. Rumsfeld should be responsible only if it was procedures. But dumb ole Rumy said he was responsible.

[R935]

They shouldnt have had CAR disbanded. An inquiry into this should have been launched to see if this was a couple of soldiers fooling around or if it was ordered by their commanders. The head honchos of the DND should only be held partially accountable if there was something that was reasonable that they could have done. This incident is sorta like Abu Gharib. It could be a couple soldiers fooling around or it could have been orders or procedures in interrogation. Rumsfeld should be responsible only if it was procedures. But dumb ole Rumy said he was responsible.

The inquiry has been launched, but due to political reasons it ended prematurly without conclusive loking into the murder case. The reason why i'm bringing this topic back is because the documentary left big impact on me. In it memebers of the Airborne talked about how they felt left out by their CO's and how all the responsability was tyransfered to them.

[WestCoastG's]

I not to long ago saw photos of Belgium blue berets in somalia swinging a kid over a campfire.

[ArmedPacifist]

this topic has been discussed to death.

[4CDO PARA]

Maybe so, but the problem has yet to be remedied so... keep it alive until there is enough interest to generate positive change. The majority of Canadians still don't fully understand what happened, I am certain there are people on this forum that don't either.

Ex Coelis,
AIRBORNE!