1994 (Part 1) - Somalia had been a tough go for the Canadian Forces, but it had been that way for everybody else. It didn't take long for the Americans to realize the disaster they had caused killing many of the clan elders in Mogadishu, and made it clear that they would never have that happen again.
On January 1, 1994, the Canadian Marine Corps and Canadian Special Operations Regiment were formed on paper, though the units were not yet ready to be deployed and training continued. The British SAS were instrumental in the training of the Special Operations Division, which led to the unit being known as the 'Canadian SAS' among its members, something which grew to the media, many outlets of which quite openly liked the idea of Canada's most elite military troopers being compared to the legendary Special Air Service. Britain's trainers pointed out that Canada's First Special Service Force had quite a record in World War II and that there had been a Canadian SAS in the late 1940s as Canada's Airborne Regiment got going. The 1st Canadian Marine Regiment was activated as an active combat unit on May 1, 1994, based at CFB Kawartha Lakes, a new base built specifically for the Marines on Sturgeon Lake near Bobcaygeon, Ontario.
But even before that all happened, The tiny nation of Rwanda released one of the worst bouts of violence anyone had ever seen......
Operation Messiah - The Intervention in Rwanda (April 17, 1994 - June 25, 1994) - Rwanda, a tiny nation once controlled by Belgium, had been the scene of decades of violence and animosity. This had started under the Belgians, who had quite openly used a divide and conquer strategy in Rwanda. The Belgians had favored the smaller Tutsi minority, knowing that the larger Hutu tribes would overrun them if they didn't work with the Belgians. After independence, violence had flared repeatedly in Rwanda and neighboring Burundi, costing many lives on several occasions.
A long, bitter civil war had ended in Rwanda in late 1993, but the hatred towards Tutsi Rwandans had been fueled for years before. The hatred towards the Tutsis was not unknown to them, but the massive Rwandan militia and Army did concern the UN peacekeepers. First deployed in August 1993, Dallaire's forces consisted of 2,550 military personnel and 60 civilian police, enough to handle the situation as it was. With the situation tensing up, Dallaire made plans to seize weapons caches held by the Intrahamwe militia, but the UN turned down that request, along with one to investigate the murder of the Minister of Public Works in Kigali in February.
But on April 6, 1994, a surface to air missile shot down a jet carrying both the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi. This was the spark that set off the firestorm. Dallaire's forces initially tried to control things, but the Rwandan Armed Forces refused to work with Dallaire. The UN force tried to escort the Prime Minister to assist in her duties, but the Rwandan Presidential Guard instead fired on the UN soldiers, killing ten Belgian troops, three Canadians and a number of Rwandans. Within hours, the genocide was real.
Dallaire, himself wounded in the attack, sent a distress call to the UN for help, but the UN states initially didn't respond. When word of this hit Ottawa on April 10, the Canadian Forces, knowing the extremism and needing to fix the situation now before hundreds of thousands died, openly asked Prime Minister Charest for a go on the mission. The brutality of the situation soon reached the media, which turned the public opinion.
US President Bill Clinton, still smarting from the failures in Somalia, made it clear that the US would not intervene and actually called for the removal of UN forces from Rwanda. This hit Ottawa on April 15, and it caused one of the biggest gambles anybody had ever seen.
On the night of August 16, Prime Minister Charest addressed the nation, asking for support to intervene in Rwanda. "One of the primary goals we have as humans is to help one another, and one of Canada's goals through its modern history has been the idea of peacekeeping, stopping conflict and saving innocents from the brutality of war. In the African nation of Rwanda, a Canadian general and his forces are trying to contain what could end up being the worst genocide since Hitler, and he's asked for our help. I think that we as Canadians, as humans, should go and help him as best we can. We all said to ourselves in 1945 'Never Again', and now we must make good that promise."
The next morning, Charest announced the dpeloyment orders. Dallaire would get 3,500 troops, mostly from the Canadian Airborne Regiment and the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, to stop the violence as best they could. When asked by a Reuters reporter whether the Canadians would stop if the Americans didn't move, Charest bravely responded "We do not care what President Clinton decides to do. We're going. We have to."
The first Canadian Forces troops were flown in, and arrived at the Kigali airport on April 23, with only light weapons. Eighteen Air Canada airliners are used for this mission, and the Canadian peacekeepers already there assisted with the unloading of aircraft. The Forces leased five Ukrainian Antonov An-124 airlifters to get their vehicles, including sixteen M113 APCs and four Leopard C1 tanks. The first An-124 carried just paratroopers, worried that the UN force could not hold the airport in Kigali until the reinforcements arrived and that they would have to jump out, but this did not turn out to be neccessary. The Canadians' arrival in Kigali had made an impact in the UN - Belgium's UN contingent never left as the government had thought about doing, and Clinton, now ashamed by the decision of Charest and the Canadians to go it alone, ordered the USAF to fly in the Canadians' heavy equipment, which included 90 M113 armored personnel carriers and twelve Leopard C1 tanks. The first Canadian actions included shooting down four Rwandan helicopters carrying armed militiamen into Butare province, where relative calm existed. The Canadians took fifteen casualties (including nine dead) in the first week, but their efforts dramatically began to reduce the violence. Dallaire was relieved by Lieutenant-General Rick Hillier, who had commanded the operation in Somalia and practically begged to take over the mission, on May 5. By the end of May, the situation was getting under control.
UNAMIR re-established peace officially on June 25, 1994. The genocide had taken some 175,000 lives, but the efforts of the Canadians, followed rapidly by the Belgians, Americans, British and others, saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Dallaire's brave efforts and personal command of missions - including one where he was hit twice by gunfire - earned him the Canadian Victoria Cross, which was also awarded to four other Canadian Forces members, three of them posthumously. 29 Canadians died in the intervention and 76 were wounded, nine of them being permanently disabled. But the intervention had saved many lives, and between that and Canada's honest, earnest efforts in South Africa at Somalia earned them the reputation as being one of the countries that people could rely on to be there and to do the right thing. Hillier would go on to command UNAMIR until late 1997, when he cycled home. Dallaire would become the Forces' Chief of Staff in 1998, a position he held until 2003.
The intervention drove support for the Forces in Canada into the sky and also powered forth Charest's approval rating, which reached as high as 82% in the summer of 1994. The PPCLI and Airborne Regiment were relieved in July by the Canadian Marine Corps and the Royal 22e Regiment allowed the Pats and the Airborne Troops to go home, for the former being their first operational deployment. The USAF, at Clinton's orders, supported the Canadians' efforts lavishly, including moving Canadian equipment and supplies at no cost to them. Clinton's would go on to say that Charest's decision to go regardless was astoudingly brave, but that it was the right thing to do. It was the first operation where the Canucks did exactly the right thing at the right thing, but it would not be the last.
1994 (Part 2) - Rwanda now stabilized, the Forces' image soared yet again. This on the home front shut up vitually all opposition to the plans for the Canadian Forces, because the public perception was that in the times after the Cold War, a strong military was needed to ensure both Canada's security and its place in the world.
On September 25, 1994, the MARCOM formally placed requests for a vessel which could deploy 2500 troops anywhere they were needed. The United States offered Canada a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship and a Harpers Ferry class dock landing ship, while the Europeans countered by offering to make Canada a full partner in their amphibious assault projects, allowing them to build as many as they wished in Canada, in return to assiting the development of them. France and the UK, both working on such projects, agreed to join forces for the Canadian offer. The British LPD(R) project was soon extended to Canada, and the Canadians rather liked the design of Britain's Albion class Landing Platform Docks.
On May 28, 1995, the Canadian Forces announced they would build two Albion class LPDs in Canada, with over 80% of the construction work being done in Canada and many Canadian components being integrated into the vessels. The amphibious assault duties were sorted out by this. The US made a last-ditch offer to donate two Iwo Jima-class helicopter assault ships, but the Canadians stayed with their fleet.
On the transport aircraft front, the battle between the Boeing/Lockheed and Airbus/Bombardier factions raged, with the Canadians Forces deciding between them. The final offers from Boeing included leasing seven USAF tankers as an interim solution, allowing the aging CC-137s to be retired, while an equal number of KC-767 tankers were built. In addition, Boeing would rebuild five ex-Air Canada Boeing 747-200M aircraft, with four of them serving as long-distance transports for troops and a fifth as a VIP aircraft for high-ranking Canadian Government officials. In addition, Canada would get 28 new-build Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, but of the under development C-130J type, for delivery between 1998 and 2001. In addition, the KC-767s would be converted from white aircraft at a new facility to be built in Ontario, while the C-130CJ aircraft would use Pratt and Whitney Canada engines and Canadian electronics, and would be assembled in British Columbia.
Airbus countered by offering seven A330 tankers, along with converting four ex-Canadian Airlines A310s into the A310 MRTT for short-distance aircraft and three A340-300 airliners for long-distance transport usage, and Canada buying 21 examples of the Airbus A400M, the design of which was now under development. Airbus would have the A340 assembled and converted into tankers in Canada, and also offered to bring Canada into Airbus as a stakeholder and manufacture parts for civilian Airbus models in Canada. The Canadian involvement would also ensure that Pratt and Whitney's PW180, which was the preferred engine Airbus Military preferred for the A400M, would end up powering all A400M models sold outside France, which insisted on the usage of its SNECMA M138A2 turboprop.
The NDP supported the Airbus offer, pointing out that Canada stood to gain many thousands of civilian jobs after the military orders were filled, and that the usage of the PW180 engines by the A400M would provide thousands of jobs and would continue to provide them well after the aircraft were built. But the detractors, including the Liberals of the Airbus offer pointed out that Airbus' bid was $525 million more expensive than the Boeing/Lockheed offer, and that the A340 transporters, as good as they were, wouldn't match the immense Boeing 747s offered as part of Boeing's offer. The C-130J and A400M were both experimental offers, but the A400M was more of a technical risk, as the C-130J was based on a design that already existed and that Canadian pilots knew well.
Canadian Forces Chief of Staff John Rogers Anderson and the ruling Conservatives were torn. The A400M was a larger aircraft than the C-130J and more useful, and the idea of Airbus setting up shop in Canada was a big deal to the Canadian Government. Anderson, who had headed the project to buy nuclear submarines for the MARCOM, was also torn - he and the Air Command loved the C-130, but the A400M was more advanced and had a considerably longer range. Anderson proposed that the government go for the Airbus offer in November 1994, but as a consolation ask to not buy the A340 transporters, but instead buy a strategic airlifter from Boeing, proposing to buy four C-17 Globemaster IIIs as a consolation prize. Kim Campbell, now defense minister, asked Airbus if this was acceptable in January 1995, and Airbus replied that it was.
On March 15, 1995, the government announced its plan for the tanker and transport aircraft tenders. The plan would see six A330 tankers bought for the Canadian Forces, along with four A310s bought for shorter-range transport duties (Two aircraft, with a third bought later, would be set up as medical emergency aircraft), and 21 Airbus A400M tactical transport aircraft would be ordered. Canada also announced that they would order four C-17 Globemaster III strategic airlifters from Boeing, both for heavy transport duties and as a sort of consolation prize. At the time, the program was the largest single purchase in Canadian history, with a total order value estimated at $4.1 Billion Canadian dollars.
Airbus, true to form, announced the opening of a new facility in Mirabel, Quebec, in July 1995, at the Montreal-Mirabel airport, Canada's largest airport. The opening of the Airbus facility was a gift to the facility, which was siffering from falling traffic in comparison to Montreal's Dorval airport. A high-speed rail line, completed in 1997, would allow Mirabel to become an almost exclusively international airport, while domestic and some US flights used Dorval. In January 1996, the Pratt and Whitney Canada PW180 was selected as the engine for the A400M project.
