CANADA'S beleaguered military has suffered another blow with the release of a report revealing that drunken Canadian soldiers abused patients at a mental hospital in Bosnia in 1993.
The report said soldiers physically abused patients at a mental hospital, were drunk on duty and solicited sex from nurses and interpreters by offering them cigarettes and alcohol. The investigation also found that drunken soldiers went on a rampage through the hospital, aimed a machine gun at one psychiatric patient and beat another.
Another soldier shaved the armpits and genital area of a 17 year old handicapped female patient for hygienic reasons without permission. The soldiers had been assigned to the hospital in Bakovici to protect the staff and patients.
However, as was the case on a previous peacekeeping mission to Somali, their ill disciplined and unruly behaviour has overshadowed their achievements and has badly tarnished Canada's reputation as one of the world's most effective peacekeeping nations.
During a mission to Somalia in 1993, Canadian soldiers tortured and killed a 16 year old Somali youth who had wandered onto the Canadian compound. Soldiers from Canada's elite Canadian Airborne Regiment also shot three other Somalis.
The government disbanded the poorly disciplined regiment in 1995 after an amateur videotape broadcast around the world showed drunken soldiers participating in violent and obscene initiation ceremonies. Canada's top army commander, Gen Jean Boyle, resigned last October shortly after testifying at a highly publicised inquiry into the scandals in Somalia.
The inquiry's report will be submitted to the government on June 1st. Despite their behaviour in Bosnia, the 47 soldiers and officers, who are still in the army, will not face a military court martial because the three year time limit on initiating military discipline, proceedings has expired. However, some of the soldiers could be discharged after they undergo a military review of their careers.
Canada's Prime Minister, Mr Jean Chretien, said he is ashamed of the soldiers' behaviour. "I feel terrible these things were done at that time - I am not very proud," said Mr Chretien, who was on a trade mission to Asia when the report was released on Friday.
Lieut Gen Maurice Baril, who heads the Canadian military, said:
he was considering banning alcohol for soldiers on future peacekeeping missions. He criticised the soldiers' conduct, but said Canadians had to understand that members of the military were under terrible stress when assigned overseas. "It will happen again," he said. "I'm not running a Boy Scout [troop]. I am running an army. Sometimes they react like savages.
The disclosures about misconduct in Bosnia were revealed two days after the army announced that a senior officer commanding Canadian soldiers on a peacekeeping mission to Haiti was relieved of his duties.