Ottawa greenlit funding for Dallaire Institute despite memo raising concerns about ties to Rwandan military

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The federal government has approved up to $19.1-million in new funding for a Canadian institute to combat the use of child soldiers in Africa, despite internal concerns about the institute’s close relationship with an army that itself is allegedly supporting a militia with links to child soldiers.

Global Affairs Canada said in a departmental memo that there are “significant risks” to the project because the Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security has a “close partnership” with the Rwandan military, which is widely reported to be backing a rebel militia that recruits children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The memo was signed by Christopher MacLennan, a deputy minister.

The funding has not been publicly announced, although it received ministerial approval in early July, according to the internal memo.

In response to questions from The Globe and Mail, neither Global Affairs nor the Dallaire Institute would comment on the concerns expressed in the memo. Global Affairs confirmed, however, that it would provide up to $19.1-million to the institute.

Its main African training centre – the African Centre of Excellence for Children, Peace and Security – is based in Rwanda, and the institute has training agreements with the country’s military. Based at Dalhousie University, the institute has already received more than $5.6-million from federal departments for its child-soldier work in Africa in recent years.

The federal memo voices concerns about the Rwandan military’s support for the M23 rebel group in the DRC. It cites UN evidence that M23 has engaged in the “targeting of youth and children” in its recruitment efforts.

Those allegations have been echoed by the Congolese government and others, such as Congolese doctor and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Denis Mukwege. “We call on the community of states to sanction Rwanda and Uganda for their support for the M23, which recruits and uses children as soldiers in DRC,” Dr. Mukwege said earlier this year.

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The federal memo points to reporting by the UN Group of Experts on Congo, which has documented Rwanda’s links to M23 and the Rwandan army’s cross-border operations in the DRC. The M23 insurgency has triggered a humanitarian disaster in eastern Congo, forcing almost a million people to flee their homes. Several UN reports have documented the militia’s role in massacres of civilians, sexual assaults and other atrocities.

In a report last December, the UN experts said they had interviewed 15 captured or surrendered M23 combatants of Congolese origin. Most were “very young” – including several children – and were lured into M23 with payments of US$50 to US$100, the report said.

After the UN group’s final report in June, the United States and the European Union condemned Rwanda’s support for M23 and criticized its military presence in Congo. The U.S. State Department said Rwanda should immediately cease its support for the militia and added that the UN has documented M23′s multiple violations of international law, “including rapes and summary executions of civilians.” Canada, however, did not issue a public statement after that final report.

The federal memo, issued in late June, also raised concerns about the “absorptive capacity” of the Dallaire Institute, since $19.1-million would be more than double its annual budget. Its African centre is still in the early stages of development, and the institute could be “overwhelmed by a project of this size and complexity,” the memo said.

In the memo, after describing the project’s risks, Global Affairs recommended that Ottawa approve a smaller funding amount: $12-million. But the larger amount was approved a few days later by Harjit Sajjan, who was Minister of International Development at the time. (He was moved to a different portfolio in a cabinet shuffle in late July.)

Mr. Sajjan announced last year that the government would help the Dallaire Institute “promote and operationalize” the Vancouver Principles, a set of international commitments against the use of child soldiers, but did not disclose any details or funding amounts at the time.

When The Globe contacted Mr. Sajjan’s office to ask why he had approved the larger amount despite the department’s advice, his office responded with a statement that praised the Dallaire Institute and its child-soldier initiative. “The expanded funding signed off on will give the program a wider reach and bring concrete results for individuals across the continent,” said Geneviève Lemaire, a communications adviser to Mr. Sajjan.

“This partnership is the result of careful assessments and considerations and a strong belief in the expertise of the Dallaire Institute and the work the organization has been doing for several years now in Rwanda and around the world.”

Shelly Whitman, executive director of the Dallaire Institute, said she could not comment on the new project because there is still no signed agreement between Ottawa and the institute. She also declined to comment on the internal memo.

The Dallaire Institute was founded by retired Canadian lieutenant-general Roméo Dallaire, famed for his role as the UN force commander in Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. In 2017 the institute helped develop the Vancouver Principles, which became a central pillar of the Canadian child-soldier initiative.

Two weeks after approving the institute’s funding, Mr. Sajjan travelled to Rwanda for a conference and held a meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame. He said they had “agreed to stay in close contact to examine ways to advance development goals in Africa.”

A federal official said Global Affairs had suggested that Mr. Sajjan should refrain from meeting with Mr. Kagame, as a sign of Canadian concern over the UN report and Rwanda’s support for the M23 rebels, but the minister went ahead with the meeting anyway. (The Globe is not identifying the official because they were not authorized to speak to the media.)

Some diplomats in Global Affairs have been perplexed by the federal government’s strong support for the Kagame government, which contradicts Canada’s human-rights principles, the official said, adding that the diplomats would prefer a more balanced approach to Rwanda and the DRC.

When asked why Canada had not commented publicly on the UN report, Global Affairs spokesperson Charlotte MacLeod told The Globe in late August that the government was “deeply troubled” by the report. She said Ottawa is calling on Rwanda to end its support for M23 while also demanding that Congo stop supporting another militia, the FDLR, which has clashed with M23 and Rwandan forces.