Despite the fact that Canadians knew that one of the main reasons Harper took a 2 1/2 month vacation, costing taxpayers an estimated 130 million dollars; Dean Del Mastro says otherwise.
He has suggested that Canada's top general, Walter Natynczyk is lying or distorting the truth, because clearly Dean has all the answers.
The Afghan detainees issue has nothing to do with the prorogation of Parliament, Del Mastro said. The opposition parties are twisting the facts on the Afghan detainees issue, he said.
"The opposition is way off base on where Canadians are at on that," he said, adding it's about "potentially, alleged abuse which may have occurred between Afghans (officials) and Afghans (detainees) ... that may have been turned over by Canadian Forces."
Now I know that most of Del Mastro's time in Parliament is spent whining over some nonsense, but last time I checked; the military police, Amnesty International, Oxfam, The International Red Cross, the U.S. State Department and Nato, weren't part of the opposition, nor is Richard Colvin.
Because they are the ones sounding the alarm over this issue and have been for more than two years. Parliament got involved because if we don't hold a full public inquiry, the International Courts will take over and Canada could be charged with war crimes.
Not our soldiers, because they were just acting on orders. But members of our own military and government. However, because cowards like Harper and Del Mastro won't put our men and women in uniform above partisan politics, it will be our soldiers forced to wear the shame.
"We will effectively take a majority position in the Senate in the coming weeks which will allow us to take ... bills that have been blocked by the Liberal senators," he said, pointing to Senate reform bills.
It has been proven that it was not the Liberal senators who have been blocking the bills, but Stephen Harper himself, by continually shutting down the House.
IS THIS REALLY YOUR CANADA? IS DEAN DEL MASTRO REALLY THE BEST CHOICE FOR PETERBOROUGH?
We now know that the Reformers have been working behind the scenes to tie the hands of the committee, adding a few pages to their book on how to obstruct progress.
But if they do drop the order to produce documents, it must be with conditions.
This is a list from WE the people of Canada who are sick to death of Harper's nonsense:
1. WE want the committee to be able to pick up where they left off, and not have to start from scratch.
2. WE want unredacted memos pertaining to what our government knew and when, handed over. When we voted for our Member of Parliament, we trusted them with our secrets.
4. WE want Peter Tinsley to be reinstated, because as he says ' ... pushing him out of the job will effectively kneecap the already crippled inquiry into claims that Afghans tortured prisoners.'
5.WE want Jason Kenney to stop his rampage on our NGOs (and maybe see a shrink because that's guys got a few too many bats in the belfry)
6. WE want Ari Fleisher to be fired and not given anymore 'secret' contracts, that we only learn about by reading U.S. newspapers.
7. WE want the Conservatives to start taking this seriously. No more lies and no more nonsense.
8. WE want an end to the ridiculous photo-ops with our military. They are just as ashamed of our government as we are over this issue. Fight your own damn battles and leave them out of this.
9. WE want an end to the ridiculous ten per centers, especially the ones suggesting that the opposition believes that our soldiers are guilty of war crimes. It's a lie and the Reformers know it.
10. WE want a public apology to everyone who has been hurt by this government's decisions. That includes the people of Afghanistan, the opposition and our troops who have been forced to wear the shame because Stephen Harper refuses to.
So the Conservative government will meet all of these demands, or WEwill want an election, no matter what Tim Naumetz of the Hill Times says.
Because if this ends up in the International Courts, and Canada is charged with war crimes, our protests over the abuse of prorogation will be nothing compared to the grief WE will give you over that!
I'm showing the above video of Luis Moreno Ocampo, just to give you a visual in case you've never heard of him. Stephen Harper has no doubt heard of him. As have Peter Mackay, Lawrence Cannon, Gordon O'Connor, Rick Hillier and others.
Ocampo is the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and has been conducting a "preliminary examination" into human rights abuses committed in Afghanistan by Taliban and ISAF forces alike."
He recently told the Wall Street Journal that "he will not back down from prosecuting Western governments that are not holding their officials accountable for their actions."
And that's exactly what the Canadian government is doing. They are not holding their officials to account, and as a result we could very well see our name being dragged in the mud at the Hague, because Stephen Harper would rather prorogue Parliament, then allow an investigation into who knew what and when. He is only prolonging the inevitable.
Someone shared this article from Embassy magazine, that gives us some idea of how serious this matter is. Not even Ari Fleischer can get Harper out of this one. We can only assume that there was something pretty damning in those memos for him to go to these lengths to keep them from public view.
With the government refusing to start a public inquiry and the International Criminal Court having launched a "preliminary" investigation into the Afghan detainee issue, law experts say there is a very real chance Canadian officials could be charged with war crimes. Until last week, the government and senior officials had been saying they had no credible reports that people detained by the Canadian Forces and transferred to Afghan authorities were being tortured.
While Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk revealed on Dec. 9 that such torture had, in fact, occurred in the past, government ministers say they were not aware of the reports. Further, they have not acknowledged they heard the widespread reports that Afghan authorities were abusing detainees. Last week's charged Commons' Afghanistan Committee meeting saw Defence Minister Peter MacKay, Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon and former defence minister Gordon O'Connor testify on the issue. During the meeting, Liberal Defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh noted that in international law, the legal threshold for the war crime of transferring into torture hangs on circumstantial evidence....
The dramatic increases in U.S. military budgets in the [Ronald] Reagan years fuelled aspirations north of the border in both the military and the defence industries. The title of a 1983 cover story in Canadian Business reflected that excitement: "Hail to the Hawks: Ronald Reagan's $200 billion-plus defence budget is good news for Canadian business." Increasingly, a Canadian defence lobby began to emerge as a potent force in Canadian politics.
Veterans groups and military institutes had long exerted pressure on behalf of the military, but these organizations became more active and effective in the 1980s. The most important of these is the Conference on Defence Associations (CDA), an umbrella group representing military and retired military personnel as well as business, academic and professional types with military interests. The CDA enjoys access at the highest levels, including direct access to the prime minister.
While ostensibly an outside, non-governmental group, the CDA receives funding and organizational support from the Department of National Defence. In effect, then, the Defence Department is subsidizing a group to lobby the government to maintain the Defence Department's budget." (HOLDING THE BULLY'S COAT, Canada and the U.S. Empire, Linda McQuaig, Doubleday Canada, ISBN 978-0-385-66012-9, pg. 168)
But how could they justify continued increases in their budget to build up our military, without a chance to show off their prowess and toys? They just had to find themselves a good war.
In an attempt to clean up and organize my blog, I'm using this as a starting point for all postings on military contracts, and those 'lucky' enough to get them. Clearly they are the only ones winning in this so-called "War on Terror".
"He was involved in construction projects for the Japanese: for the war effort, against his will, and against the Geneva Convention. His body, gradually weakened through beatings, forced exercise, bitter cold, poor diet and debilitating disease, could no longer take it, and he succumbed, like many others before him, and many others after him."
The above story is about an American soldier held in a Japanese POW camp during WWII; a camp from which he never returned.
Stories like this were all too familiar, and while most wartime prisoners were treated fairly, there were a great many who were not, from both sides of the conflict.
Similar tales arose from the Vietnam prisoner camps, as senator and former presidential candidate, John McCain, can attest to. After the news broke about the atrocities at Bagram prison in Afghanistan, he introduced the McCain Amendment 1977, which prohibited the inhumane treatment of prisoners. It was at about that time that Rick Hillier signed a new deal with regards to Afghan detainees ... a deal with little or no oversight.
It was inked during an election campaign, so no one was really paying attention.
When the Globe and Mail first broke the story of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan, and Canada's role in handing over prisoners for such abuse, in 2007; there was immediate outrage. But the Reformers stood their ground, and an aggressive PR campaign deflected the criticisms. Defense Minister Gordon O'Connor was replaced with Peter Mackay, and the whole thing was put on the back burner.
Enter Richard Colvin. A well respected diplomat, who blew the lid off the whole nasty affair.
In an attempt to clean up my blog and organize archived posts, I'm using this page to link articles and show a chronology of Canada's role in the Detainee issue. Remember, I am not criticizing our soldiers. They are doing a job and doing it well. But some military leaders and members of our current government, must be held accountable, because they did this in our name.
A new report has shown that Peter MacKay lied about when he learned of the torture of Afghan detainees. In fact this also involved both Stockwell Day, who I mentioned before, and Gordon O'Connor.
His story keeps changing, but so far not one single truth has been told.
OTTAWA–Three federal cabinet ministers and a senior government official met the head of the International Red Cross in the fall of 2006 as the humanitarian organization tried to focus Canada's attention on alleged abuses in Afghan prisons, The Canadian Press has learned. Precisely what Jakob Kellenberger told Peter MacKay, Gordon O'Connor, Stockwell Day and Robert Greenhill, then the president of the Canadian International Development Agency, in the Sept. 26, 2006 meetings is blanketed by diplomatic secrecy.
McKay was then Foreign Affairs minister, O'Connor was at Defence and Day was Public Safety minister overseeing Corrections Canada officers in Kandahar.
While the details of the meeting are secret, enough was said about Afghanistan to generate a report from MacKay's office a month later which flagged the Red Cross president's concerns.
The contents of the report, one of thousands of documents filed in the Military Police Complaints Commission investigation of torture allegations, are censored.
The email was titled: "Re: meeting with ICRC president re detention issues."
The Conservative government has insisted it never received direct warnings about possible Afghan torture of Canadian-transferred prisoners, although MacKay has conceded that general concerns were heard almost from the moment the government took office in early 2006.
The fact the Red Cross meetings took place raises further questions about what the federal government knew and the kind of warnings they received in those critical early months.
Officially, the Red Cross would only say the talks focused on topics including Afghanistan, humanitarian law in modern conflicts and co-operation with Canada.
Unofficially, sources in Geneva said the international agency, whose functions include monitoring the treatment of prisoners, was growing frustrated over Canada's tardy notification of its handover of captured suspected Taliban to Afghan authorities.
The delay could often be as much as 34 days, making it difficult to track the detainees.
A spokesman for MacKay referred questions to the foreign affairs department, which declined to comment.
"Recognizing the confidential nature of the relationship between the ICRC and the (government of Canada), we are not in a position to comment on any meetings between the two parties," Katherine Heath-Eves wrote in an email on Saturday.
Liberal critic Bob Rae said these revelations speak again to the government's credibility. "It confirms that the ministers involved were front and centre and their continuing denials that they were unaware of any issues becomes less and less credible," he said.
He said the government has to come out with uncensored documents, to clear the air.
"Everybody's arguing in the dark right now."
The Red Cross is bound by international convention not to discuss with other countries what it saw in Afghan prisons. But it could drop broad hints, as officials did at two meetings with Canadian military and civilian officials in Kandahar in May and June 2006.
During those meetings, which took place a year before the federal government acted to protect detainees, officials issued veiled but insistent warnings about torture in Afghan jails.
There were at least two other meetings between Red Cross officials – one in Ottawa, the other in Geneva – to discuss Afghan prisoners.
Diplomat-whistleblower Richard Colvin was also sounding an alarm at the time, although the government has dismissed his reports as vague and based on hearsay.
But the meeting in Ottawa at the end of September would – at the very least – have focused the attention of government ministers on the issue of prisoners, if not the actual jail conditions.
It is evident that what was said caught the attention of government officials because it generated not only the followup report from MacKay's office, but in a November 2006 meeting with the Red Cross there was a clear change in messaging. Uncensored talking points viewed on a confidential basis by The Canadian Press say the humanitarian agency was told that Canada was ``reflecting on how to engage more pro-actively" with the Afghans over prisoners.
The consideration included "asking the government of Afghanistan for permission to visit the prisons" and to discuss the entire process of handling detainees, said the Nov. 20, 2006 document.
The suggestion of an ad-hoc monitoring regime was at the time welcome news to the Red Cross, which had 2005 and 2006 delivered a handful of diplomatic notes to the Canadian embassy in Kabul related to prisoner concerns.
Instead of following up on the promise made to the Red Cross, federal officials continued to resist establishing a monitoring regime. It was only on May 3, 2007 that Ottawa signed a new deal with the Afghan government, giving Canadians the right to check on the prisoners they captured.
The county's former top man on the Afghan file conceded in testimony before a House of Commons committee that officials were aware of the abuse allegations, but made a distinction between Canadian-captured prisoners and others in the system.
"The fact that there were allegations of mistreatment in Afghan prisons was known to us," said David Mulroney, who led the Privy Council's Afghanistan task force. "There was no mention specifically of Canadian-transferred prisoners – that was a deficiency that we later cleared up."
He also acknowledged there was no way to get credible evidence about abuse of Canadian transferees because there was no proper monitoring of prisoners prior to 2007.
The Christmas season has always been a time when we reflect on the possibility of peace on earth. I've accepted that it probably won't be achieved in my lifetime.
However, while I will admit that sometimes war is necessary if it is the only way to deliver humanitarian aid, or keep our own nation safe; I take comfort in the fact that we are not like the terrorists. We have safeguards in place, like the Geneva Convention, to make sure that we don't allow our need for revenge to overshadow our good judgement.
But when our own government appears to have ignored the rules of engagement, and possibly were complicit in torture, it's time to rethink our goals.
And when that same government refuses to address the situation and instead attempts to cover up the evidence; it's time to rethink the government.
Prime Minister vs. Parliament Fresh talk of prorogation only feeds suspicion that the government has something to hide Reg Whitaker Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at York University December 18, 2009
While Canadians take time off to celebrate the holiday season, there is another potential constitutional crisis looming in Ottawa. The House of Commons has passed a motion requiring the release of unredacted documents concerning the Afghan detainees to the committee hearing the issue. The government has refused, setting up the possibility that it could be found in contempt of Parliament. If the executive and legislative branches of government were to come to deadlock, an unprecedented constitutional crisis could be precipitated.
It is only a year since the last constitutional crisis, when the Liberals and the NDP tried to form a coalition government, and the Governor General granted Prime Minister Stephen Harper's request to prorogue Parliament to stave off the defeat of his minority government.
Already Ottawa is rife with rumours of yet another prorogation, with no return until after the Olympics. How many times can Harper get away with closing down Parliament whenever his government is threatened?
The government can avoid this crisis quite simply. It can comply with the request of the House. Yet it seems unwilling to do so.
Government ministers have asserted that they are bound by the Access to Information Act.
Section 15(1) states: "The head of a government institution may refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to be injurious to the conduct of international affairs, the defence of Canada or any state allied or associated with Canada or the detection, prevention or suppression of subversive or hostile activities." They argue that material redacted from the documents would cause harm to Canadian military and diplomatic interests if disclosed.
It is no wonder that the Conservatives are taking this tack. It pictures MPs endangering the safety of Canadian troops. Indeed, the Conservatives have not shrunk from impugning the patriotism of their opponents. Polls indicate that the public is largely skeptical of the government's position. They should be.
There is a parliamentary precedent for handling just such a situation without precipitating a crisis. In 1990, the House of Commons, on behalf of the justice committee, asked the solicitor general to produce unredacted reports provided to Correctional Services Canada concerning the escape of two inmates from federal prisons (one of whom was the notorious murderer Allan Legere). This was initially refused on the grounds that the minister was prevented by the Privacy Act from complying.
The standing committee on privileges and elections advised that Parliament has the power to call for "people, papers and records"; that the House could issue an enforceable order; and that anyone disregarding that order could be cited for contempt of Parliament. The House unanimously called upon the minister to provide the unredacted reports to be received by the committee in an in camera session, under terms including a ban on publication of any information protected from disclosure under either the Privacy Act or Access acts. The minister complied and, as it turned out, the committee concluded that the government had not, as first feared, been trying to cover up any impropriety.
In the present case, the government could provide unredacted documents to the MPs under a similar condition of confidentiality. National security would not be compromised.
Committee members would no longer be at the absurd disadvantage of not having access to the documents that were contested before it by diplomat Richard Colvin and the public servants and generals who were called by the government to undermine his credibility. After all, the retired generals are no longer in government service, yet they were given full access to the documents, on the basis of which Gen. Rick Hillier termed Colvin's claims "ludicrous." Why should the elected representatives of the people be kept in the dark while trying to assess these conflicting claims?
There is another aspect to consider: Just because the government claims information disclosure would harm national security does not make it so. The law provides for review of access decisions by the Federal Court. Justice Dennis O'Connor's inquiry into the Maher Arar affair ran into disputes with the government over what could be published in its report.
Material was withheld from publication on grounds of national security confidentiality, but the commission appealed to the Federal Court. Federal Court Justice Simon Noël reviewed the redactions and ordered the release of much of the excluded material, with no harm to national security. In fact, it became apparent that some of the redactions had no basis other than preventing embarrassment to government agencies.
If the parliamentary committee were to receive complete documents in camera, it might decide to refer redactions it found questionable to the Federal Court. In this way, the public might eventually gain a better appreciation of the facts.
The government's refusal to consider a reasonable accommodation with the parliamentarians is highly suspicious. Suspicions grow when we consider that it has stonewalled requests for documents from the Military Police Complaints Commission, whose investigation of the Afghan detainee issue actually led to the calling of the parliamentary inquiry. Yet the members of the commission are fully security cleared. Worse, the government has refused to renew the term of the MPCC's chair, who had initiated the inquiry.
Suspicions grow further when the government adamantly refuses to consider calling a public inquiry into the affair.
If the Prime Minister is actually considering proroguing Parliament in a desperate attempt to keep the lid on, suspicion will turn into certainty: This must represent a cover-up of serious wrongdoing.
There is no reasonable explanation of why the Harper government has gone to such lengths to suppress these documents, other than fear for its own political well-being. If it wishes to allay such suspicions, it can take up any of the available opportunities to provide transparency without endangering national security. If it does not, the public will have to draw its own conclusions.
(Reg Whitaker is the co-author with Stuart Farson of Accountability in and for National Security, a study for the Institute for Research in Public Policy.)
The Reformers are making a big mistake if they think they can just shun the committee and this whole thing will go away.
These are very serious allegations, that get more damning every day.
I can understand the mindset in 2006 and 2007. George Bush was in power and he had already given the finger to the Geneva Convention. This empowered Stephen Harper, who had aligned himself with the Bush Administration.
But they are gone now and there is a new sheriff in town. I suspect this is one of the reasons why Obama kept Harper out of the loop in his new strategy for this conflict. He is already trying to live down the war crimes of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. He doesn't need more trouble.
It is an odd strategy that Conservative MPs have chosen in boycotting, and thereby shutting down, a House committee examining the alleged torture of Afghan detainees. That strategy only reinforces the impression that the government is trying to obstruct efforts to get at the truth.
And the reports keep getting worse. Canada propped up a notorious Kandahar governor, Asadullah Khalid, diplomat Richard Colvin alleged yesterday in a letter to that House committee. The fudging of the truth went beyond the detainee issue, he said. Officials in Ottawa tried to conceal the deterioration of the security situation. The senior bureaucrat David Mulroney told Canada's ambassador to Afghanistan, Arif Lalani, not to mention the deterioration of security in his reports to Ottawa. “The ambassador accordingly sent a report in which he said security was improving,” Mr. Colvin says ....
I don't know how many people have to speak out about this government's handling of the detainee issue before a full public inquiry is launched. Harper hopes to prorogue Parliament for three months, to sweep it under the rug, and we must convince the Governor General not to allow this.
Our international reputation has been tarnished enough. It's time to lay it bare so we can hold our heads up again.
If it's true that the Afghan people don't like Canadians because of our fierce loyalty to their corrupt government, and the fact that prisoners our troops turned over were tortured or completely disappeared, this may put our soldiers in unnecessary danger. We already have a disproportionate number of casualties, and some are suggesting it's because of our reputation.
Our men and women in uniform deserve better than this. They know about the Geneva Convention and tried their best to follow it.
Canada was faulted by military allies in Afghanistan over the secretive manner with which it handled detainees in the early months of its Kandahar mission, The Globe and Mail has learned.
Reports from the Canadian embassy in Kabul in September of 2006 reveal there was unease within the military alliance about how Canada was handling suspects it rounded up and transferred to Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service.
One of the complainants was British Colonel Dudley Giles, a senior military police officer with NATO's International Security Assistance Force the 40-plus nation coalition fighting insurgents in Afghanistan. In August of 2006 he brought his concerns to the Canadian embassy in Kabul, saying Canada was stonewalling on providing basic information on the Afghans it was capturing.
"Col. Giles made what can only be described as strong criticisms of the Canadian approach on detainee issues," Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin wrote in a Sept. 28, 2006, memo that was sent to more than 30 Canadian government e-mail addresses - most of them in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
"There are 'issues of trust and openness,' " Mr. Colvin quoted Col. Giles as saying. "According to Giles, when he contacts Canadian [officials] in Kandahar, 'their first response to requests is 'Why do you want to know?' followed by 'We know what you want, but we won't give it to you.' " The memos add to the weight of concerns already raised by Mr. Colvin, the International Committee of the Red Cross and human-rights groups about Canada's practices in transferring prisoners to Afghan authorities.
Diplomatic reports from the same period show that Mr. Colvin wasn't the only foreign service officer relaying criticisms about detainee transfers to Ottawa. A Sept. 11, 2006, memo from a Canadian NATO staffer alerted the government to the fact that the ICRC had singled out Canada's practice of handing over prisoners to the Afghans on the battlefield, a practice it feared could result in human-rights monitors losing track of detainees.
Mr. Colvin is the foreign service officer who reignited the long-simmering controversy about prisoners transferred by Canadian soldiers to Afghan control. In mid-November, he testified that all such prisoners likely faced torture. Mr. Colvin alleged the Afghans typically torture prisoners within the first few days of obtaining them, and said his 2006 warnings on the issue were ignored and later suppressed.
Back then, however, Canada wasn't providing details even to its allies on what happened to the suspects it picked up. That is despite the fact that ISAF, the command structure for the war in Afghanistan, imposes legal and operational requirements aimed at ensuring detainees are looked after, transferred and held in accordance with international law.
Canada's refusal to co-operate with its military allies on the prisoner issue originated at the top of the Canadian defence establishment, according to a Sept. 19, 2006, memo from Mr. Colvin. The diplomat recounted for Ottawa how ISAF political adviser Paul Wyatt told the Canadian embassy that Canada's senior military-police officer in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar fingered his Ottawa superiors as the obstructionists.
"The Canadian provost marshal in Kandahar has told ISAF that he would be pleased to provide the information but that he has received explicit instructions from National Defence Headquarters ... not to do so," Mr. Colvin's memo says.
At the same time, NATO was getting an earful from the Red Cross over Canada's handover policy. "One practice that was particularly criticized was that of the turning over of detainees by international forces directly to Afghan security forces when on joint patrol, as this could result in a circumventing of the requirement to notify the ICRC," Anne Burgess, a Canadian official stationed at NATO, wrote in a Sept. 11, 2006, e-mail distributed widely throughout Foreign Affairs. "Apparently Canadian forces were particularly identified with this practice."
That was long before The Globe and Mail published harrowing accounts of torture and abuse. Those stories, the government has since claimed, were its first inkling that anything was amiss with its transfer policy.
Yet the Burgess e-mail in the summer of 2006 matched the battlefield reality. On at least one occasion that summer, Canadian soldiers intervened to rescue a detainee who had been beaten in the face with shoes by Afghan police after being handed over.
Government ministers and Canada's Chief of the Defence Staff, General Walter Natynczyk, initially denied The Globe and Mail's detailed account of that June, 2006, incident and claimed the detainee had never been transferred by Canada. However, Gen. Natynczyk subsequently acknowledged that the newspaper's version was accurate, saying he had been misinformed and had ordered an inquiry.
"Canadians have had enough stalling and stonewalling from this government," Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh said yesterday. "We're calling on [Defence Minister Peter] MacKay to be as open and honourable as Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk."
Opposition MPs are demanding the government release thousands of pages of heavily redacted documents detailing what was known about the risk that prisoners transferred to Afghan control would be tortured. Turning over a prisoner captured in battle to those who abuse or torture is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions, and rights groups claim Ottawa was turning a blind eye to widely known and detailed evidence that torture was endemic in Afghan prisons.
I would suspect in light of the recent allegations of complicity in torture, that many Canadians, like myself; will once again start to question our role in Afghanistan.
I have been posting many videos lately, questioning the motives of this war; but also try to pull myself back from being overly critical, out of respect to our soldiers. They did not make the decisions to enter into this. They have a job to do and are doing it admirably.
We must never equate these potential war crimes with them, and I find it despicable that the Harper government is trying to hide behind our troops. Our men and women in uniform have always done the right thing, and have worked within the guidelines set forth by the Geneva Convention.
I Support the Troops. I don't support this war and I don't support this government.
(Robin Rowland, a producer and photo editor with CBC News, has an interdisciplinary master's degree in the law and history of war crimes from York University and Osgoode Hall Law School. His thesis was on command ability and command responsibility, and he is the author of A River Kwai Story - The Sonkrai Tribunal, a book on Japanese war crimes.)
Knowing about war crimes The history of law surrounding torture November 23, 2009 By Robin Rowland CBC News There was one problem when senior ministers and officials of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government said they were unaware of reports that prisoners were being tortured in Afghan jails, including prisoners handed over to Afghan authorities by Canadian soldiers.
Both international and Canadian law require officials in a position of "superior responsibility" to know or try to find out what is happening if they are told or suspect that a war crime or crime against humanity is being committed or about to be committed.
The best known principle of international law that resulted from the Second World War came out of the trials of the German defendants: "I was just obeying orders" is not a defence.
A second, lesser known, defence is also not permitted. This came largely from the trials of senior Japanese officials after the Second World War. For someone in a position of responsibility, "I didn't know" is not a defence against an accusation of war crimes or crimes against humanity.
That second principle was largely a result of the inhuman treatment by the Japanese of Allied prisoners of war in the camps, including Canadians held by the Japanese in Hong Kong.
Ignorance no defence
The first post-war trial of Japanese commanders held by the Americans was the case of Japanese Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, who was governor general and commander-in-chief in the Philippines at the time U.S. forces recaptured the country. Gen. Douglas MacArthur had Yamashita tried for war crimes on the grounds that "he knew or should have known" of the crimes committed by his soldiers.
One of the charges against Yamashita involved a camp holding American prisoners of war that was just steps from Yamashita's headquarters. Yamashita claimed he didn't know what was happening in that POW camp.
Later investigations of Japanese war crimes showed that junior and mid-level officers, constrained by Japanese culture, often did not report atrocities to their commanding officers.
While civilian officials, including Japanese cabinet members, claimed that they did not know what was happening in the POW camps, evidence at the Tokyo war crimes trial showed that the highest levels of Japanese civilian and military officials had meetings where the ill treatment of prisoners of war was discussed and approved.
It was acknowledged even in the Second World War trials that an operational military commander couldn't be fully aware of everything happening in the zone of command and control. In the years since the Second World War, the "should have known" has been tested in various situations in the Middle East, the "Dirty War" in Argentina and the civil wars in the former Yugoslavia.
It is now generally acknowledged that the "should have known" standard applies to war crimes, as in the charge against Yamashita, that "were extensive and widespread, both as to time and area."
Had reason to know
There is also a standard of "had reason to know," which compels officials to thoroughly investigate allegations (of not as "wide spread") war crimes once they are reported.
The 1977 Protocol I, which is an addendum of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, holds superiors liable if they "had information enabling them to conclude" that war crimes were being committed.
The statute establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia held officials responsible if they failed to act on information they had "reason to know" about.
The Yugoslavia war crimes trials have established that superiors, whether civilian or military, who have sufficient information that criminal activity is happening cannot escape liability.
Quoting from a key case on the treatment of prisoners in the Bosnian-run Celebici prison camp, the trial concluded, "A superior must not remain wilfully blind to criminal acts, nor ignore information concerning offences that have been committed or are about to be committed."
Colvin reports
Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin filed reports between April 2006 and October 2007 outlining his concerns about the torture of detainees by Afghan authorities. Colvin said he copied his emails to about 70 high-ranking Canadian military and civilian officials.
At about the same time, in April 2007, the Globe and Mail newspaper published its own investigation into torture in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded, "We are not at the moment told of the problems are being reported in the papers today."
The Conservative government has dismissed Colvin's reports. Colvin's recent testimony to a parliamentary subcommittee "seemed dramatic, but under questioning it was revealed to be flimsy, inconsistent, unreliable," Laurie Hawn, parliamentary secretary to Defence Minister Peter MacKay told CBC News on Nov. 18. "[He] did not come across as credible."
There have been other reports in the media regarding torture by Afghan authorities, from non-government organizations and from other governments.
Colvin has said that his superior, David Mulroney, ordered Canadian diplomats not to file reports on paper regarding allegations of torture. Instead, the allegations were discussed over the telephone and apparently records were not taken.
So where does this leave the prime minister, his cabinet, David Mulroney and roughly 70 officials to whom Richard Colvin sent his reports.
Under international and Canadian law, it doesn't matter whether or not the senior levels of government thought Colvin's reports were "not credible." They were obliged to investigate the report and find out if it was credible.
Those officials, if not directly involved in the Afghanistan file, were still obliged by international and Canadian law to pass that information on to officials who could investigate and confirm whether or not that information was credible — and if it was credible, to act on it.
In addition, it appears that some of the information provided to the highest levels of the Canadian Forces and the government was found to be credible. As Gen. Walter Natynczyk noted when questioned after a security conference in Halifax on Nov. 22, 2009, Canadian officials have halted the transfer of prisoners to Afghanistan's intelligence service "more than one time" because of the possibility of torture.
The question now before the parliamentary subcommittee is whether Canadian officials acted when they should have, and if they acted on any subsequent reports that may have been filed.
It is clear that Colvin followed the letter and spirit of international and Canadian law in reporting his allegations of torture. Once those reports were filed, the Canadian officials were legally obliged to act on those reports.
As for looking the other way when the reports were filed, there is ample legal precedent over the past 60 years that shows those officials were obliged to read and act on the reports. If the officials say they were not aware of their obligations under Canadian and international law, then a principle older than the Second World War comes into play: "Ignorance of the law is no excuse."
At the same time, the media has reported that many members of the cabinet said they had not read the 2006 report from the Canadian embassy in Kabul that outlined widespread torture in Afghan prisons, even though international law requires them to read it.
Despite the letter of international law, it is highly unlikely that Canadian officials would ever be brought before a war crimes tribunal, where it could be alleged they had "reason to know" that prisoners transferred from Canadian to Afghan jurisdiction were being tortured. The Japanese complaint that tribunals are "victor's justice" still holds true. (More recent evidence reveals that many did in fact know and I suspect that's why they are fighting so hard to not release the documents)
Superior responsibility in Canadian law
The Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, proclaimed in 2000, makes it clear that someone in a position of authority has an obligation to investigate any report of an alleged war crime.
Canadian law defines two areas of responsibility:
Military Commander: includes a person effectively acting as military commander and person who commands police with a degree of authority and control comparable to a police commander.
Superior: means a person in authority, other than a military commander.
The language of the law is identical for people acting inside Canada and elsewhere. The act says any superior breaches their responsibility and commits an indictable offence if someone is carrying out a war crime and:
The superior, outside Canada, knows that the person is about to commit or is committing such an offence, or consciously disregards information that clearly indicates that such offence is about to be committed or is being committed by that person.
The superior must have "effective responsibility and control" and is liable if that superior subsequently:
Fails to take, as soon as practicable, all necessary and reasonable measures within their power to prevent or repress the commission of the offence or the further commission of the offences or;
Fails to take, as soon as practicable, all necessary and reasonable measures within their power to submit the matter to the competent authorities for investigation and prosecution.
Canadian law does not permit what might be called a "bad guy" defence.
As is common in all humanitarian law, the "I was just obeying orders" is not a defence under Canadian law. That section of the Canadian Act goes on to say.
"An accused cannot base their defence … on a belief that an order was lawful if the belief was based on information about a civilian population or an identifiable group of persons that encouraged, was likely to encourage or attempted to justify the commission of inhumane acts or omissions against the population or group."
When we first went into Afghanistan, it was soon after 9/11, and I supported the initiative. We were going after the guys who did this horrible thing, and like most people at the time, I really wanted to make someone pay.
However, the glow soon wore off for me, and I began to question our real purpose. By then the US had invaded Iraq, and knowing that was wrong, I quickly became opposed to the so-called "War on Terror".
I never voted for Jean Chretien, but applauded his decision to keep Canada out of it. Afghanistan continued but was put on the back burner.
However, soon after the 2006 election, Stephen Harper brought the war to the forefront again. He was going to make this his and was determined to put his signature on it. His first official visit was to Afghanistan, and even though he recited a watered down George Bush "cut and run" speech, he seemed to earn the respect of the troops. He was going to lead an army (figuratively). Afghanistan was his.
Almost immediately it was no longer a war, but a 'mission'. He would hear no protests, but demand that we 'support the troops'. That became the nation's battle cry, and despite increasing casualties he soldiered on.
But soon after the realities of being a 'war prime minister' took hold. Things he hadn't anticipated began to arise that threatened to put a damper on our renewed patriotism. Suggestions that Canada may be complicit in the torture of detainees.
However, fueled by George Bush's proclamations and borrowing from his rhetoric, he would not falter. They were all terrorists who got what they deserved. If you questioned his judgement you supported the Taliban. There was no grey area. You were with our troops or against them. End of.
So instead of dealing with the allegations, he swept them under the rug. Taking control of all press releases, Canadians were put on a need to know basis, and according to the Harper government, we didn't need to know much. Just wear our yellow ribbons and shut our mouths and they would handle the rest.
And when the Globe and Mail first broke the story in 2007, the PMO went into overdrive. Deny, bully, intimidate and accuse the opposition of demonizing our men and women in uniform. When Gordon O'Connor was forced to admit that he had erred in judgement, Harper demoted him and the whole thing went away. Not a dead issue, but barely breathing.
Then along came Richard Colvin, who blew the whole thing wide open. How this will end is any one's guess. Hopefully, the Harper government will do the right thing and allow a full public inquiry this time, but I'm not holding my breath.
In the video above, we can see our soldiers doing their best to engage the Afghan people. In their minds they are doing a noble thing, and regardless of how I feel about the war as a whole, I have the utmost respect for these people. They are handling themselves with dignity and honour. When they saw a prisoner being beaten they took him back. Fearing that others were being tortured they took pictures before handing them over.
They know about the Geneva Convention and would not compromise their integrity as soldiers. We need to do the right thing for them.
I think many in the media are starting to see this. I got a little angry with Craig Oliver on CTV news tonight, focusing on the political, rather than the criminal, and suggesting that Harper was still well ahead in the polls so it wouldn't hurt him. Of course he was wrong. The latest EKOS had him at 33% and he is losing the battle of public opinion.
I was also annoyed, after reading James Travers column on the subject. (Greg Weston spun the same nonsense) Most of it was factual and on the money, but I took exception with his statement that "Conservatives who inherited the detainee transfer problem from Liberals are now struggling to control the damage from the original miscalculations... "
You don't inherit the Geneva Convention. Every single soldier in the field knows what it is. Their honour depends on knowing what it is and living by it. You don't control the damage, you make sure that the damage does not occur. The military is responsible for this and while they know that a change in government can affect things for them, the war continues.
It is not a Liberal war or a Conservative war, it is a Canadian war.
The Canadian military originally signed a deal to hand over prisoners to the Americans in 2002. This seemed like the most logical thing to do, since they were running the show. However, when 15 US soldiers were charged under the criminal code for horrendous torture, including deaths, at Bagram in Afghanistan; Hillier needed a change of plans.
It was in the middle of an election campaign, and Paul Martin signed off on his deal to hand detainees over to the Afghan authorities. According to Amnesty International, General Hillier indicated that he didn't care what happened to them once he caught them, so long as he was privy to any information obtained. As such he made Canada the only NATO country that did not demand to know what happened to it's captures.
Not long after, the reports started to arrive and the rest is making history.
Mr. Travers does redeem himself, somewhat. However, we have to remember that this is not a partisan issue. Mr. Ignatieff wants all reports from day one, including those from when the Liberals were in government, though I suspect if there was anything damning there, Harper would have already 'leaked' them.
Travers concludes;
Soldiers did their duty when those shortcomings became obvious on the ground; Colvin did his job by reporting what he saw and learned, mostly from the Red Cross. After that, the trail disappears in documents that bureaucrats say privately are being blacked out more to protect political skins than national security and are now at the centre of the constitutional conflict between hide-all Conservatives and show-all opposition parties.
There's a certain symmetry in that confrontation – a year after Harper successfully saved his government by suspending Parliament, MPs are pushing back in an effort to re-establish the principle that elected representatives, not the executive, are supreme. Important, complex and perhaps headed for the Supreme Court, that struggle also marks the transition of a controversy about the treatment of prisoners into a much more politically fraught debate over the shattered Conservative election promise to be open, transparent and accountable.
What began as a military effort to manage an inconvenience is now a priority problem for Conservatives trying to control inconvenient truths.
More from our Canadian soldiers, who are doing an incredible job. I salute them.
But it is still a war. And we need to bring our soldiers home.
The general changing his story yesterday has shed new light on claims made by the the Harper government, that there was no proof that torture took place.
Some of the columnists are also changing their tune, as even more diplomats step forward to support Richard Colvin.
OTTAWA–Tug one thread, the worn adage advises, and the whole sweater unravels. Just weeks after Richard Colvin pulled the single strand of Afghan prisoner abuse, Peter MacKay's defence is in tatters, torn apart by the admission that a Canada detainee was beaten.
Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Walter Natynczyk's stunning reversal Wednesday proves the wisdom of another political maxim: The cover-up is always more damaging than the original fault. By bobbing and weaving around torture allegations, Conservatives exposed the more threatening problem of the badly strained relationship between civil servants and their political masters.
Colvin did his duty by speaking truth to power. MacKay responded by tarring the diplomat ....
--------------------------------
Protest grows against Tory government's attack on Colvin The Canadian Press More than 35 top diplomats add names to list as MacKay faces mounting pressure in detainee-abuse case Paul Koring and Steven Chase Globe and Mail December 09, 2009
The number of former ambassadors protesting the Conservative government's attacks on diplomat Richard Colvin is snowballing, with organizers saying the list will exceed 35 today and is headed for 50.
The initiative began days ago after more than 20 former diplomatic heads of mission banded together to speak out against Ottawa's response to Mr. Colvin's testimony on Afghan-detainee abuse. They warned that it threatens to cast a chill over the foreign service and they singled out Defence Minister Peter MacKay for having "savaged" the diplomat in public.
"It's quite amazing," organizer and ex-Canadian ambassador Gar Pardy said of the growing response from former top diplomats. "People just want to be part of it." ...
There was a call for Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s head in Question Period today – the first demand for his resignation from the opposition since allegations of torture and abuse of Afghan detainees blew up on the Conservative government. There were more calls for a public inquiry and one profanity was uttered – “bullshit” mouthed Laurie Hawn, the parliamentary secretary to the Defence Minister – as the Bloc asked more questions about the alleged torture of prisoners transferred by Canadian soldiers.
It is clear this story is not going away.
“The minister has on nine separate occasions told the House there is not a scintilla of evidence of mistreatment event as the entire country was shown evidence that torture did take place,” NDP defence critic Jack Harris charged. “Canadians no longer have confidence in this minister. … will he resign?”
Mr. MacKay ignored the call. Rather, he defended himself saying, “I have been clear, I have been consistent.”
The minister noted that several senior officials as well as three senior military officers, including former chief of defence staff Rick Hillier, have all testified before the special parliamentary committee examining the allegations. Their evidence has been consistent with that of the government.
“The honourable member cannot accept the evidence of those who have testified before the committee who have rejected the one lone witness,” Mr. MacKay said, referring to senior Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin whose explosive testimony has reignited this story. Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh was equally tough on Mr. MacKay, saying he has “confidence in the military but I have no confidence in that minister right now.”
“The Conservatives refuse to tell the truth on detainees,” he said. “They censor documents. They intimidate public servants.”
Mr. Dosanjh demanded a public inquiry.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff stands in the House of Commons during Question on Tuesday, December 8, 2009.
Mr. MacKay again repeated that he and the government have been consistent in taking the advice of military officials, who are on the ground in Afghanistan.
“If we are acting on the evidence of a number of witnesses, from senior diplomats, senior military, acting on their advice, acting responsibly he cannot condemn what the government has done,” Mr. MacKay said.
Meanwhile, for the second consecutive day a front-page story in the Globe and Mail inspired more questions about the detainee issue.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff led off Question Period framing his question around the newspaper’s report that 23 former Canadian ambassadors have criticized the government’s attacks on Mr. Colvin. He charged the government is not listening to its diplomats nor is it listening to Canadian soldiers who report “credible accounts of detainee abuse … and for a year, the government does nothing about [it].”
“Why will the government not account for that year in which it did nothing?’’ Mr. Ignatieff demanded.
He was also referring to a report in yesterday’s Globe and Mail in which reporter Paul Koring wrote that sworn testimony by senior Canadian officers and uncensored documents contradict Mr. MacKay’s assertions that no Canadian-transferred detainee was abused. Transport Minister John Baird answered that Canadian military take action when they are presented with “credible information.”
“In the circumstances which the leader of the opposition described, it was not even a Canadian detainee, but they still did the right thing, they still acted,” he said.
As for Laurie Hawn and his profanity – he apologized, sort of:
“Mr. Speaker, the words were not spoken. The words were mouthed. I applaud the leader of the Bloc’s ability to lip-read in English. That is very commendable. I do apologize for mouthing inappropriate comments. The next time I will mouth something more appropriate like bovine scatology. Since the honourable member is so good at lip-reading, I assume he can read minds, so I would like to apologize for what I am thinking right now.”
Peter MacKay’s very bad day. The Defence Minister will be grilled later today when he testifies before the special parliamentary committee on Afghanistan. Mr. MacKay is appearing with former defence minister Gordon O’Connor, with Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon also expected to face MPs. Mr. MacKay, however, is the big target of the opposition. Here is a preview of the line of questioning from the New Democrats: “We want to find out why the minister accused Mr. Colvin [the senior Canadian diplomat whose explosive evidence about detainee torture has reignited this story] of being a Taliban dupe,” NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar says. “Why did the government ignore the concerns of the Red Cross and why did Mr. MacKay contradict himself about seeing Mr. Colvin’s reports?” The NDP has been very strong on this file of late. In fact, yesterday NDP defence critic Jack Harris publicly called for Mr. MacKay’s resignation. This, as a result of the rallying of support around Mr. Colvin by former Canadian ambassadors. Also, a report in The Globe and Mail earlier this week noted that sworn testimony by senior Canadian officers and uncensored documents contradict Mr. MacKay’s assertions that no Canadian-transferred detainee was abused. All of these reports, and the rocky history of the detainee file, have combined to increase the pressure on the Defence Minister. How is holding up? “He is a trooper and fighting his way through,” says a Tory strategist and friend of Mr. MacKay. “No sounds of discontent at this point (from his boss and his boss’s people) though I am sure he will be glad when the Christmas break comes this week."
Meanwhile, the Tory strategist says there have been the usual rumours of a cabinet shuffle but they began even before Mr. Colvin’s testimony. Interestingly, one of the more interesting rumours doesn’t involve Mr. MacKay at all. Rather, it concerns Manitoba MP Candice Hoeppner, whose private member’s bill to scrap the gun registry, has been successful. She may be in line for a promotion.
Gordon O'Connor was only demoted, but both he and Peter Mackay should be ousted.
One of the top generals who testified that there were no proven incidents of torture, has changed his story; and the evidence is mounting that MacKay was well aware of the torture allegations. O'Connor also knew as early as 2006.
In October of this year, Norman Spector reported in the Globe: " ... "Le Devoir is reporting that Conservative Ministers Gordon O'Connor and Peter MacKay knew in 2006 that prisoners in Afghanistan were at risk of torture. Rick Hillier says in a interview with reporter Alec Castonguay that Amnesty International wrote to O'Connor in 2006 to warn him that this would be in contravention of the Geneva Convention: "He consulted me before replying to the letter. We spoke about it often, in every briefing," Hillier said, adding that the situation worsened in 2007, which led to a halt in transfers for several months. "It was only in the autumn of 2007 that we concluded that we would have to change the way we did things."
But when did Stephen Harper know? Considering the way he controls everything, it's hard to believe that he wasn't briefed on this, but obviously he's hoping that Mackay will take the fall. We'll see.
I was glad that Michael Ignatieff is pushing for a full public inquiry, because as he says: "the honour of our country, the honour of our armed forces is at stake.”And our troops agree.
Canada’s top soldier has reversed himself on testimony he gave this week, with Chief of the Defence Staff Walter Natynczyk now admitting that a prisoner severely beaten in 2006 by Afghan interrogators had earlier been taken into custody by Canadian soldiers. “I want to correct my statement,” General Natynczyk announced at a hastily arranged news conference, saying he’d been misinformed. “I intend to investigate why it took so long to get to the Chief of the Defence Staff.”
He couldn’t say whether the man taken into Canadian custody was also formally processed as a detainee of Canada. Gen Natynczyk said he’s ordering an investigation into this. The question is important because it would contradict Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s repeated insistence that not a single case of torture of Canadian detainees could be proven ....
