Canadian colonel tainted by Somalia scandal promoted.

(Ottawa Canada, July 25,  2008 Ceegaag Online)

Canada's military leadership has quietly promoted to general the soldier who led the ill-fated Somalia mission, and who was subsequently found to have failed as a commander.

The military has not publicized the July 2 promotion of Col. Serge Labbe to the rank of brigadier-general. But sources contacted by the Ottawa Citizen about the promotion on Thursday confirmed that the new rank for the officer will be retroactive to the year 2000.

Dan Dugas, the communications director for Defense Minister Peter MacKay, said the minister signed off on the promotion based on the recommendation of Gen. Rick Hillier, who recently retired as chief of the defense staff. "Mr. MacKay takes the advice of the chief of the defense staff on staffing issues," Dugas said.

Hillier and Labbe worked together in Kabul in 2004, and the colonel has been a key player at NATO and in the Afghanistan mission.

Labbe was considered a rising star in the Canadian Forces when he was selected to lead the 1992-1993 missions to Somalia. During that deployment Canadian paratroopers tortured to death 16-year-old Shidane Arone, documenting the brutal beating of the Somali with a series of photographs.

Also during the mission, two Somalis were shot in the back after they entered a Canadian camp. It was later revealed that paratroopers put out food and water as "bait" and it was alleged by a military doctor that one of the Somalis was killed "execution-style" by a soldier.

The Somalia inquiry, set up to investigate problems with the mission, also heard allegations that Labbe offered a case of champagne to the first soldier who killed a Somali. Another officer testified the colonel said he was "looking forward to my first dead Somali."

Labbe, who was never charged in connection with any incidents in Somalia, has vehemently denied making the champagne statement and has said other comments attributed to him were misinterpreted.

In 1997, the Somalia inquiry concluded Labbe exercised poor and inappropriate leadership by failing to ensure Canadian troops were adequately trained and tested on the Geneva Conventions, and that he failed in his duty as a commander.

Labbe was denied his promotion to brigadier-general twice before by military review boards. But earlier this year, Hillier ordered a review of the officer's file as "he believed that the situation merited a closer look because there may have been an oversight in the years following 1998," the Defence Department stated in an e-mail.

"In Feb 2008, the CDS directed a review of promotion board reports that ascertained that (Labbe's) file was not given due consideration for promotion during the period 2000-2003," the Defence Department e-mail stated. "The rationale for the promotion was based on an overall assessment of performance of the individual in his rank, relative to that of his peers."

Labbe declined, through a Defence Department spokesman, to be interviewed.

A colleague of Labbe said the officer is currently in Kabul as head of the Strategic Advisory Team, which provides support to Afghan government ministries. He is expected back in Canada in August and is expected to retire after that, according to the general's colleague.

In 2005, then-governor general Adrienne Clarkson awarded both Hillier and Labbe the meritorious service cross for their work in Afghanistan. Hillier was honoured for his contribution as commander of the international force in Kabul, and Labbe was cited for his work there as the deputy chief of staff during the same period in 2004.

In 2001, Labbe also was credited with helping in the release of six Serb hostages held by an Albanian rebel commander in a buffer zone between Kosovo and Serbia.

But the colonel's appointment as a key NATO negotiator in the Kosovo region drew criticism at the time. Then-Canadian Alliance MP Art Hanger said Labbe should not be representing Canada overseas because of the findings of the Somalia inquiry.

Hanger, then the Alliance's Defence critic, said the case of Labbe, more than anything else, was a reflection of the then-Liberal government and a Defence minister "unwilling to make hard decisions."

Details of serious disciplinary problems in the Canadian Airborne Regiment before and during its mission to Somalia, allegations of racism within the ranks, as well as the release of disturbing video footage showing Airborne soldiers undergoing a drunken initiation would eventually prompt the Chretien government to disband the unit. The years after the Somalia mission are seen by many in the Canadian Forces as a low point for the military.

But contrary to those who have claimed the Somalia mission was a failure, Labbe said the operation was "highly satisfactory" and said the actual deployment to the African country was a textbook operation.

Peter Desbarats, one of the Somalia inquiry commissioners, questions whether the mission was successful, noting the African country continues to slide into chaos. "I don't know which textbook they're referring to," Desbarats said Thursday. "They accomplished over the long-term absolutely nothing."

By: David Pugliese,

Canwest News Service

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