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OTTAWA - In another blow to the military, a senior commanding officer with the Canadian contingent in Kosovo has been relieved of duty and sent home over an alcohol-related incident.
Lt.-Col. Steve Bryan, effectively the number two in the Canadian contingent in Kosovo, is being investigated by military police, the defence department announced late yesterday.
A terse, three-paragraph press release said that Bryan, commanding officer of the Canadian infantry battle group, had been relieved of command following a ``recent alcohol-related incident in Kosovo.''
A spokesperson for the defence department, Lt.-Cmdr. Denise LaViolette, said no more details of the incident are being released because of privacy considerations and possible administrative or disciplinary action.
Bryan is accused of being drunk, but it is not clear whether he was on duty at the time.
Another officer, Maj. Cliff Reeves, was also relieved of his duties at the same time, the press release said.
LaViolette said because of the special powers conferred upon a commanding officer, Bryan had to be relieved of duty because he is being investigated for wrongdoing, and therefore was in no position to be in charge of disciplining his juniors.
Another officer already serving in theatre, Lt.-Col. Shane Brennan, has assumed command of the battle group.
The latest incident is just one of a number of embarrassing alcohol-related events to tarnish the reputation of the Canadian Forces.
The straw that broke the back of the Canadian Airborne Regiment, disbanded in 1995, was a video that showed drunken soldiers urinating on each other and vomiting during an initiation party.
In Bosnia, drunken Canadian soldiers were accused in 1993-94 of mistreating patients and cavorting with nurses during wild parties at the Bakovici mental hospital, which they were guarding.
A January, 1997, military report revealed that 47 Canadian peacekeepers were involved and that one of them committed sexual misconduct with a patient at the hospital.
In Rwanda, in 1994, several soldiers were disciplined after getting drunk and firing off their rifles into the night.
And in Haiti, after a New Year's Eve party in 1996, the commander of the Canadian battalion, Lt.-Col. Roch Lacroix, was relieved of duty and flown home in disgrace after he had too many drinks and waved his pistol at a crowd.
The Somalia inquiry also heard abundant evidence of some soldiers routinely getting drunk while on a dangerous peacekeeping missions abroad.
There was even testimony about senior officers being drunk in the field in Somalia and commandeering cases of beer, despite a policy of two drinks per day.
The problems with alcohol are so prevalent that Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Maurice Baril threatened at one point to completely ban booze in the field.
Baril has often stated that operations and alcohol don't mix and indeed, when Baril commanded the international force that entered Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in 1996, the mission was dry at his request.
But the military still allows commanding officers in the field to set their own policy on alcohol, with approval from headquarters.
In the case of Kosovo, soldiers are allowed to consume two 350 millilitre containers of beer per day.
About 800 soldiers in the battle group are affected by the change in command.
They arrived in Kosovo in June for six months of peacekeeping.
Other incidents in the falling fortunes of the Canadian military include:
Allegations also surfaced that former peacekeeper Matt Stopford may have been poisoned by his own troops during a 1993 stint in Croatia.
Stopford is now blind in one eye.
He also suffers from a range of ailments - intestinal bleeding, aching joints and severe headaches - that he blames on his time in Croatia.
Several other peacekeepers have complained of similar symptoms.
A military board of inquiry is studying whether soldiers got sick because of exposure to toxins on duty in Croatia.
She was tied to a tree and interrogated for four hours, then blindfolded and subjected to a mock execution during which a shot was fired.
Boyle blamed document alterations on his subordinates, though he signed them, and said his subordinates have no moral fibre.
He was followed by Boyle, who resigned to take a job in the private sector.
One died.
That same month, Shidane Arone, 16, was caught sneaking into an army compound at Belet Huen in Somalia. He was tortured to death.
Nine Canadian soldiers were eventually charged.