News Release

Surrey Resident Receives Governor General Award

Commissionaire recognized for humanitarian aid mission in Sarajevo

April 26, 2010, Vancouver BC - Former member of the Canadian Forces, Carl Huggins, received the Governor General’s Commander-in-Chief's Unit Commendation on Friday, April 23, 2010, at a special awards ceremony held at the Seaforth Armoury in Vancouver. Mr. Huggins received the citation for the work he did as a soldier in July 1992, when he helped to reopen the besieged Sarajevo airport amidst Serbian sniper fire and shelling, in order to deliver humanitarian aid to the city and the surrounding area.

The Commander-in-Chief's Unit Commendation was created in July 2002 by the Governor General to recognize the outstanding service of Canadian Forces units in times of conflict under direct enemy fire.

In 1992, Huggins was a member of November Company, 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, which was attached to the Royal 22nd (VanDoos) Battle Group and sent to what was then the Republic of Yugoslavia as part of Operation Harmony–a peace keeping mission.

Carl says he is proud and honoured to receive the citation, but admits the recognition has challenged him to deal with it all anew. “The part that you feel good about is being in Sarajevo and opening up the airport for the humanitarian aid to start flowing in so that people could eat and get some warm blankets.”
 
But Carl has bad memories too, and recalls helping to deliver a baby whose mother was shot by a sniper and died shortly after the delivery. He uncovered a concentration camp filled with males of all ages, including young children and the very elderly, who were so malnourished that he wasn’t sure he should share his rations for fear of causing more harm than good. He witnessed friends become injured and killed, and was shot himself.

Though Carl has seen enough of the dark side of things to make even the most positive person jaded, his favourable view of the world remains unchanged. “We have a wonderful world,” he says, and for him, it all comes down to family. “Until somebody experiences either mental or physical trauma in their life they don’t seem to appreciate friends and family as much as they should.” Carl explains, “you need everybody in your life. Whether they are negative or positive, they give you a different perspective.”

Carl was raised in Richmond BC, and only hours after his graduation party from Richmond Secondary School; he presented himself at the Canadian Forces recruiting office and signed up. “At the time I had never been east of Manitoba,” says Carl. “I wanted to see more of Canada, and the world, and I wanted to work at something that would improve people’s lives.”

This award was scheduled to be presented to Carl in 2009 in Ottawa by the Governor General of Canada, Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean. At that time Carl was busy with the arrival of his new daughter and instead chose to have his award presented to him by CEO Allen Batchelar at Commissionaires BC’s Annual Awards dinner. Allen Batchelar says, “Carl performed a very difficult job under extremely difficult circumstances, beyond anything most of us can imagine. Carl has made a life out of helping others despite personal risk, and we are very fortunate to have someone like him as a member of our team.”

Carl joined Commissionaires in 1993, and today works as a parking enforcement officer under contract to the municipality of Surrey. Commissionaires is a not-for-profit organization whose mandate is to provide meaningful work to ex-military and RCMP personnel. Huggins says that Commissionaires was a natural progression. “I still wanted to wear a uniform, I still wanted to do something for my country. So for somebody who comes from a front line infantry force or Special Forces like me, it’s the closest thing we have in the civilian life to try to stay in contact with our military roots.”

Background: Siege of Sarajevo, 1992 - 1996
The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serb forces of the self-proclaimed Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996 during the Bosnian War.

After Bosnia and Herzegovina had declared independence from Yugoslavia, the Serbs, whose strategic goal was to create a new Serbian State of Republika Srpska (RS) that would include part of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, encircled Sarajevo with a siege force of 18,000 stationed in the surrounding hills, from which they assaulted the city with weapons that included artillery, mortars, tanks, anti-aircraft guns, heavy machine-guns, multiple rocket launchers, rocket-launched aircraft bombs, and sniper rifles from May 2, 1992, the Serbs blockaded the city. The Bosnian government defence forces numbering roughly 40,000 inside the besieged city were poorly equipped and unable to break the siege.

It is estimated that nearly 10,000 people were killed or went missing in the city, including over 1,500 children. An additional 56,000 people were wounded, including nearly 15,000 children. By 1995, killings and forced migration had reduced the city’s population to 334,663 - 64% of its prewar size. After the war, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) convicted two Serb generals of numerous crimes against humanity in their conduct of the siege. Stanislav Galić and Dragomir Milošević were sentenced to life imprisonment and to 33 years imprisonment, respectively. One of the 11 indictments against former president of Repbulika Srpska Radovan Karadžić is for the siege. The prosecution alleged in an opening statement that:

"The siege of Sarajevo, as it came to be popularly known, was an episode of such notoriety in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia that one must go back to World War II to find a parallel in European history. Not since then had a professional army conducted a campaign of unrelenting violence against the inhabitants of a European city so as to reduce them to a state of medieval deprivation in which they were in constant fear of death. In the period covered in this Indictment, there was nowhere safe for a Sarajevan, not at home, at school, in a hospital, from deliberate attack." 
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Sarajevo

Sarajevo Airport during the Bosnian War
In the first weeks of the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina the Sarajevo airport was taken over by Serbian forces who seriously damaged and looted the airport.  From June 1992 until the end of the war the airport was under UN control which used it to fly in humanitarian aid when the besieging Serbs permitted it. The airport was the site of many tragedies during the war since the only way to leave the city was to cross the airport runway and reach government territory on the other side. Serb gunners on three sides of the airport killed around 800 people in the attempt, until a tunnel was dug under the runway.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarajevo_International_Airport

Commissionaires BC
Commissionaires BC is British Columbia’s largest security organization, with a team of more than 1,600 professionals covering more territory in BC than any other security company. Commissionaires is not an agency of the federal or provincial governments; it is a private, self-supporting, not-for-profit organization. By operating in this manner, the company is able to fulfill their mandate of providing meaningful work to ex-military and RCMP personnel. The organization also hires individuals without military or police experience.

Services include: security guarding, enforcement, identification services, training and security consulting. Commissionaires in BC protect air and seaports, border crossings and government facilities. They work in schools, commercial enterprises and residential complexes. More information at: www.commissionaires.bc.ca.

For more information, please contact:

Patricia Robitaille   
PR Strategies   
T 604 873 0080   
probitaille@shaw.ca

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