Peacekeeper: The Road to Sarajevo

J.L. Granatstein is a history professor at York University and co-author
of the Dictionary of Canadian Military History and Shadows of War, Faces
of Peace: Canada’s Peacekeepers.

General Lewis MacKenzie for a time became the single best-known Canadian
soldier since World War II. From his position in command of the UN
peacekeepers in Sarajevo in 1992, he demonstrated a quite extraordinary
flair for public reactions, speaking bluntly to the world’s TV and
press journalists, talking toughly to all sides in the appalling Bosnian
civil war, and trying to carry out the UN’s weak and uncertain mandate
with too few resources to do the job successfully. MacKenzie may not be
the typical Canadian senior officer, but his career is hardly unusual.
He served in the Middle East, Cyprus, Vietnam, and Central America in
his three decades of service, and in that respect he is entirely typical
of Canada’s highly skilled military, the world’s peacekeepers sine
qua non. Nothing had prepared him for Sarajevo, however, where all sides
used the media as a weapon, trying to mobilize public opinion while they
slaughtered each other with abandon. MacKenzie’s very-well-written
memoir is based on his diaries, and he plays no favorites. The UN takes
its lickings here, as do Serbs, Croats, and Bosnian Muslims; only the
poor bloody infantry of the various contributing nations win
MacKenzie’s praise, for he recognizes that the soldier had the most
unenviable task of all. This is a fine book.