Brief
Biography:
John de Chastelain was born in Romania, the son of a Scottish oil engineer and an American-born mother and educated in Scotland before emigrating with his parents to Canada at the age of eighteen. There his education continued at the Canadian Royal Military College and after graduating he continued in military service rising through the ranks to reach that of general. Then in 1993 de Chastelain was appointed Canada's ambassador to the United States (1993-94) and in 1994 returned to the country when he was made Chief of the Defence Staff (1994-95). His reputation later survived major criticism of his handling of the Canadian Army's involvement in peace keeping efforts in Somalia in the early 1990s.
In late 1995 he was invited by the British and Irish governments along with former US Senator George Mitchell, and former Finnish Prime Minister Harri Hokeri, to become involved in the 'Peace Process' in Northern Ireland. The three men were asked to address the question of the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons which had caused an impasse in the efforts to allow for the calling of all-party talks to discuss future political developments. The International Body on Arms on which the three men sat arrived in the region in December 1995 and soon became known as the 'Mitchell Commission'. In January 1996 its report was published and recommended that political talks and decommissioning should occur simultaneously. In addition they also proposed a range of other confidence-building bodies in order to encourage the early commencement of negotiations.
Following the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA) in April 1998 de Chasterlain was invited to remain as chairman of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD). In this role in May 1998 he produced a list of recommendations as how decommissioning could be achieved and in December 1998 administered the first act under these which was carried out by the small, fringe loyalist group, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). However, with the failure of the main republican and loyalist paramilitary groups to address the question in the face of the political stalemate over the full implementation of the GFA no other significant event was to occur for some time. As a result de Chastelain had little progress to report as the deadline for complete decommissioning approached in May 2000. However his remit was then extended by the British and Irish government as a breakthrough in the political negotiations allowed the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to begin to fully engage with the IICD. This led to the IICD issuing reports in June 2000 and October 2000 that two international inspectors had inspected PIRA arms dumps. In August 2001 he confirmed that a method of putting arms 'completely' and 'verifiably' beyond use had been agreed between the IICD and the IRA. De Chastelain announced that the IICD had witnessed two separate acts of decommissioning by the IRA in October 2001 and April 2002. Since then however further political stalemate has again resulted in the role of the IICD being sidelined and in October 2002 the IRA declared that it was breaking off contacts with de Chastelain.
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