Over fifty years ago, Lester B. Pearson, Canada's leading diplomat and later our Prime Minister, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his epochal plan to send troops from UN Member States to get between warring factions in international trouble spots. The legacy of that contribution is being implicitly honoured in several provinces and cities across Canada.
While Peacekeepers' Day in Canada falls on 9 August, specifically to commemorate the deaths of nine Canadian UN peacekeepers whose aircraft was shot down over Lebanon on that date in 1974, it also more contemporaneously remembers the 110 peacekeepers killed so far in far-flung places where the United Nations has intervened to save lives.
Canada's involvement in United Nations peacekeeping dates back to 1948, when it contributed to the force sent to the Middle East to monitor a ceasefire between Israeli and Arab armies. Over the years, Canadian peacekeepers have participated in 66 missions in the Middle East, the Balkans, India-Pakistan, Africa and Central America.
Lester B. Pearson assisted in the formation of the UN Charter in 1945 and was President of the seventh UN General Assembly in 1952. He was an initiator of the idea of peacekeeping as a meaningful UN role and recommended that UN troops be sent to Egypt to restore peace during the 1956 Suez crisis, for which he was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize. He was Canada's Prime Minister from 1963 to 1968.
Peace to all our fallen heros.
Later,
Kenaz
