Iran just labeled the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) a terrorist organization. To the surprise of many, it may be justified.
In response to Ottawa designating Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization last year, that country’s government labeled the RCN a terrorist group. While Tuesday’s listing may appear extreme to most Canadians — because our imperial history is not well known — the RCN has bombed and blockaded countries during wars of aggression as well as participating in international patrols designed to pressure countries.
In recent years the RCN has participated in US-led naval operations to monitor Yemen and run provocative manoeuvres off Iran’s coast. Alongside US ships, Canadian vessels have also repeatedly been involved in belligerent “freedom of navigation” exercises through international waters that Beijing claims in the South China Sea, Strait of Taiwan and East China Sea.
In early 2011, 15 days before the UN Security Council authorized a no-fly zone over Libya, HMCS Charlottetown left Halifax for the North African country. Two rotations of Canadian warships enforced a naval blockade of Libya for six months with about 250 soldiers aboard each vessel. On May 19, 2011, HMCS Charlottetown joined an operation that destroyed eight Libyan naval vessels. The ship also repelled a number of fast, small boats and escaped unscathed after a dozen missiles were fired towards it from the port city of Misrata. After those hostilities the head of Canada’s navy, Paul Maddison, told Ottawa defence contractors that Charlottetown “played a key role in keeping the Port of Misrata open as a critical enabler of the anti-Gaddafi forces.”
On one occasion a Canadian warship, part of a 20-ship NATO flotilla purportedly enforcing the UN arms embargo on Libya, boarded a rebel vessel filled with ammunition. “There are loads of weapons and munitions, more than I thought,” a Canadian officer radioed Charlottetown commander Craig Skjerpen. “From small ammunition to 105 howitzer rounds and lots of explosives.” The commander’s response, reported the Ottawa Citizen, was to allow the rebel ship to sail through.
A month before the commencement of the illegal March 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Canada sent a command-and-control destroyer to the Persian Gulf to take charge of Taskforce 151 — the joint allied naval command. Opinion sought by the Liberal government concluded that taking command of Taskforce 151 could make Canada legally at war with Iraq.
In 1998 HMCS Toronto was deployed to support US airstrikes on Iraq and in subsequent years Canadian warships were part of US carrier battle groups enforcing brutal sanctions on Iraq. In the five years before the full-scale US invasion Canadian frigates often accompanied US warships used as platforms for bombing raids in Iraq.
During the First Iraq war at the start of the 1990s Canada dispatched destroyers HMCS Terra Nova and Athabaskan and supply vessel Protecteur to the Persian Gulf. About 1,000 soldiers were aboard the three vessels sent before a UN resolution was passed.
Immediately after US forces invaded Korea in 1950, Ottawa sent HMCS Athabascan, Cayuga and Sioux to the region. Ultimately eight RCN destroyers completed 21 tours in Korea between 1950 and 1955. During three years of fighting — July 1950 to July 1953 — 3,500 sailors were aboard the warships.
Canadian ships transported troops and bombed the enemy ashore. They hurled 130,000 rounds at Korean targets. According to a Canadian War Museum exhibit, “during the war, Canadians became especially good at ‘train busting.’ This meant running in close to shore, usually at night, and risking damage from Chinese and North Korean artillery in order to destroy trains or tunnels on Korea’s coastal railway. Of the 28 trains destroyed by United Nations warships in Korea, Canadian vessels claimed eight.” RCN attacks likely killed many civilians.
Since its creation the RCN has repeatedly flexed its muscles in the Western hemisphere. The first recorded instance of Canadian gunboat diplomacy was during the Mexican Revolution. In 1915 Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Rainbow was dispatched to protect British interests and the expatriate community in the Pacific port city of Mazatlán. Later that year, Ottawa sent HMCS Athabasca further south to Manzanillo.
A more brazen case of gunboat diplomacy occurred in Central America a few years later. In 1917 the Royal Bank loaned $200,000 to unpopular Costa Rican dictator Federico Tinoco just as he was about to flee the country. A new government refused to repay the money, saying the Canadian bank knew the public despised Tinoco and that he was likely to steal it. “In 1921,” Canadian Gunboat Diplomacy notes, “in Costa Rica, Aurora, Patriot and Patrician helped the Royal Bank of Canada satisfactorily settle an outstanding claim with the government of that country.”
In 1932 RCN destroyers Skeena and Vancouver provided support to a month-old military coup government that brutally suppressed a peasant and indigenous rebellion in El Salvador. With two vessels in the region, London informed Ottawa that a “communist” uprising was underway and there was “a possibility of danger to British Banks, railways and other British lives and property” as well as a Canadian-owned utility. Bolstered by the RCN’s presence, the military regime would commit “one of the worst massacres of civilians in the history of the Americas” with 10,000-40,000 killed in weeks.
In a chapter titled “Maple Leaf Over the Caribbean: Gunboat Diplomacy Canadian Style” Sean Maloney writes: “Since 1960, Canada has used its military forces at least 26 times in the Caribbean to support Canadian foreign policy. In addition, Canada planned three additional operations, including two unilateral interventions into Caribbean states.”
Unbeknownst to most of us, the Canadian navy participated in the 1962 US blockade of Cuba. A few years later when 23,000 US troops invaded the Dominican Republic in April 1965 a Canadian warship was sent to Santo Domingo, in the words of Defence Minister Paul Hellyer, “to stand by in case it is required.” Two Canadian gunboats were deployed to Barbados’ independence celebration the next year in a bizarre diplomatic maneuver designed to demonstrate Canada’s military prowess. Maloney writes, “we can only speculate at who the ‘signal’ was directed towards, but given the fact that tensions were running high in the Caribbean over the Dominican Republic Affair [US invasion], it is likely that the targets were any outside force, probably Cuban, which might be tempted to interfere with Barbadian independence.” Of course, Canadian naval vessels were considered no threat to Barbadian independence.
During the 1970s and 80s the RCN planned and exercised an invasion of Jamaica. Code-named NIMROD CAPPER “the objective of the operation revolved around securing and protecting the Alcan [bauxite] facilities from mob unrest and outright seizure or sabotage.”
In recent years the RCN has been assisting the US with drug interdiction in the Caribbean. As part of Operation Carribbe the Canadian navy has likely assisted the US strikes and blockade of Venezuela.
Now that readers know a little history, they can decide for themselves if they believe the Royal Canadian Navy should be designated a terrorist organization.
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