Corporal Daniel Gunther (January 13, 1969 – June 18, 1993) was a Canadian soldier serving with the Royal 22<sup>e</sup> Régiment as part of the UN Protection Force in Bosnia.

His death while on the UN mission in Bosnia led to multiple discussions both in Canada and abroad:

  • caused concern about a ceasefire between Croatian and Bosnian forces
  • contributed to a series of debates by parliamentarians and Kim Campbell, Canada's minister of national defence and (eventually successful) candidate for prime minister, about the country's involvement in increasingly violent peacekeeping missions
  • and was the source of a controversy about the lack of public transparency by the Canadian Forces.

Gunther was the third Canadian fatality in the Yugoslavia peacekeeping mission, and also the only Canadian soldier killed by hostile fire for the decade between 1993 and 2004 when Corporal Jamie Murphy was killed in Afghanistan in 2004.

Context

1993 was a dark year for Canadian Forces. The public image of Canada's armed forces took a "severe beating" in 1993. Canadian historian, and former head of the Canadian War Museum, Jack Granatstein has cited Gunther's death as an example of a general policy by defense headquarters to limit publicizing details.

June 18 death

About a month after being assigned to Bosnia, Gunther was driving a UN-marked M113 armored personnel carrier (APC) in Buci, a village with high tension between Muslims and Croats that was about 20 kilometres northwest of Sarajevo on June 18, 1993.

At 12:40, just 40 minutes after a ceasefire was supposed to start at noon, Gunther stood up to look out the front of his APC, with his captain and sergeant at the back. The sun was directly overhead as he surveyed the land through binoculars. He saw a line of tracer fire arcing across the sky and when he turned to call out his report, a shot sounded from a nearby building. An anti-tank rocket, most probably an 82-millimeter Recoilless rifle,

Ceasefire concerns

A ceasefire between the Serbian, Croatian and Muslim forces was agreed upon to start at noon on June 18. The killing of Gunther occurred 40 minutes after the ceasefire began. The Bosnian army claimed he was killed by a Serb mortar round. The United Nations would not comment on the details of the killing or which side was responsible, which led to questions whether they were limiting public comments in order to avoid disrupting negotiations between the parties.

Canadian officials also did not identify which group was responsible for the killing. Eventually, the rocket was attributed to Muslim militiamen.

Cover-up controversy

The manner of his killing was inaccurately reported by the military to the public and Gunther's family which eventually caused a controversy in Canada.

Immediately following his death, an incident report stating that he was the victim of a "deliberate attack by an anti-tank rocket" was sent to the National Defense Headquarters in Ottawa.

Taylor fed the tips to Peter Worthington of the Toronto Sun to bring the soldiers' accounts into the public eye.

The Ministry of National Defence attributed the error to initial information provided from the war zone.

Family relations

Gunther belonged to a military family. His father Peter Gunther was a Captain (who eventually spent 37 years in the military) and his maternal grandfather retired as a Sergeant. Daniel Gunther was born in Germany while his father was assigned to a military base there. In 1987, the year after he and his parents moved back to Montreal in the suburb of Brossard, Daniel Gunther enlisted in the army. leaving his wife Marie-Josée Vincent and his ten-month-old son Alexandre in Quebec. When Gunther's mother went to the following year's Remembrance Day ceremony in Quebec City to lay a bouquet of flowers in her son's honour, she was denied access until after the ceremony had ended.

Gunther was posthumously awarded the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal and was mentioned in Roméo Dallaire's award-winning novel Shake Hands with the Devil.

Archives

Canadian Forces documents about circumstances surrounding his death are preserved in the National Defence Headquarters Directorate of History and Heritage.

References

  • Daniel Gunther Canadian Virtual War Memorial