Via Impolitical, in yesterday's Globe and Mail Paul Koring had the latest installment on a story I've been watching since March of last year. That's when Peter Tinsley, the chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission, announced that the MPCC intended to hold public hearings into the handling of Afghan detainees by Canadian forces. Tinsley was quite clear that the principal reason for doing so was the government's unwillingness to provide his people with access to the information they needed in the course of the investigations they had already tried to conduct.
Since that announcement the federal government has made every effort to block those hearings and while Tinsley has vowed to push ahead with them and even to widen their scope, the last report we had was that a government motion had resulted in their indefinite adjournment. That was earlier this month. Today's story may help explain why Tinsley has been so determined.
In the spring of 2007 The Globe and Mail published "detailed accounts of torture and abuse in Afghan prisons." That prompted opposition MPs to call on Harper's government to order Canadian forces to stop turning prisoners over to Afghan authorities until the humane treatment of those prisoners could be assured. And that prompted Harper to question the patriotism of the opposition for even making the suggestion.
But according to witness accounts from Canadian military police who were on the ground at the time, the Canadian forces did just that: stopped turning prisoners over to Afghan authorities until after a new transfer agreement was in place. The government concedes that there was a suspension of the transfers but claims that it had nothing to do with the allegations of mistreatment and took place after the new transfer agreement was signed. Of course the sources for the government's position, both civilian authorities and senior military officers, decline to give the actual dates for that suspension as they decline to say anything else if they can help it.
The military police officers are a little more forthcoming.
"We were ordered not to actually do any transfers because we were waiting for the new agreement," said Major Bernie Hudson, who commanded the Canadian military police contingent in Kandahar in the spring of 2007. He recalled at least one detainee who "was caught in sort of a loop and we ended up keeping him about xxx." The length of time is blacked out.
Major Hudson recalled participating in a conference call dealing with the new arrangements on May 1, which would put the halt in transfers in April. The new agreement, which allowed for follow-up inspections of detainees placed in Afghan custody, was signed on May 3.
It's clear from the story that there are more witness accounts than just Major Hudson's. In Koring's words:
The reason for the halt matters because if, as the military police interviews suggest, transfers were halted pending new, more intrusive follow-up inspections, it would indicate the government was far more concerned about transferring to torture than the public statements of ministers indicated at the time.
Despite any and all suggestion to the contrary, Harper and his ministers had consistently denied any possibility that detainees captured by Canadians and turned over to the Afghan authorities could have been mistreated. They assured us that all the necessary precautions were being taken and all the necessary steps were being followed. After all, the transfer of detainees to torture would be a violation of the Geneva Conventions. But if the accounts of the witnesses on the ground are true and action was taken to suspend the transfers before a new transfer agreement could be signed and if transfers only resumed once that new agreement was in place, it would suggest that those at the hightest levels weren't in a position to provide those assurances and knew it.
Koring's story makes it quite clear that the Canadian forces in Afghanistan were far more concerned about the proper treatment of prisoners than anyone back home in Canada, including their commanding officers.
When the Canadian battle group originally deployed to Kandahar in early 2006, no prison facility had been built. When it became clear that Canadian soldiers were capturing prisoners, one was hastily constructed. It was little more than a barbed wire cage around a tent.
The documents also show that while ordinary soldiers and military police in Kandahar were deeply concerned about the treatment of detainees and the conditions in which they were held, there was relentless pressure from the generals and political masters in Ottawa to get them out of Canadian hands as soon as possible.
Earlier this month government lawyers were arguing that their attempts to block the proposed hearings were part of an effort to protect the reputations of Canadians who had served in Afghanistan. That claim doesn't hold much water when you discover that the handling of detainees, and the protection of our forces from any legal liability that would follow from the mistreatment of those detainees, was a complete afterthought on the part of those in charge. To the extent that arrangements are now in place to deal with the issue properly it has only happened because evidence and allegations of torture surfaced.
It appears to be Peter Tinsley who's actually concerned with the welfare of the troops on the line. By getting at the truth and getting it on the record, he would at least ensure that if there are future accusations of violations of the Geneva Conventions, the higher-ups can't just blame "a few bad apples" and call it a day. If those higher-ups know that their own necks are on the line, maybe they'll pay a little more attention to these issues as the mission continues and others are considered. Here's hoping those hearings happen.
With all due respect, the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities is a bit of a distraction from the considerably more sinister matter of having transferred prisoners to the custody or control of the United States, often through an initial transfer to Afghan authorities to favourably paper the record.
From what I've gathered, the abuse of prisoners in Afghan custody is primarily intended to extract bribes that secure the prisoner's swift release from custody. There are also known cases of serious abuse and torture whose gravity must not be diminished, but they appear to be ad hoc events rather than part of a system that inflicts serious suffering as a matter of government policy.
However, Canada's government has known since 2005 (when it was reported in considerable detail by the New York Times and then others) - and more likely since 2001, when Canada first began transferring prisoners to US custody - that US authorities have systematically disappeared countless people into secret prisons, indefinitely imprisoned them without charge or trial or outside communications, tortured many of them, and in dozens of known cases (which for obvious reasons can only be the tiniest portion of all such cases), killed them.
America admittedly operates a global network of completely unaccountable prisons whose locations and occupants it has withheld from the Red Cross among others who are responsible for overseeing the welfare of prisoners. Those secret prisons contain a population of prisoners estimated by Reprieve UK to at any time be in the tens of thousands. As we've discovered over the past few years, this prisoner treatment policy originates from the White House, directed by people who evidently have little to fear in the way of being brought to justice for their apparent crimes. Finally, the US government has made it abundantly clear by its actions related to Guantanamo Bay that it considers its prisoners a liability whose permanent disappearance is preferable to fair and open trials that could result in release from custody.
Given these facts, it's much more likely that serious war crimes and crimes against humanity have been, and continue to be, perpetrated against prisoners in American custody than those in Afghan custody. Yet Canada continues to transfer prisoners to US custody with nary a peep in Parliament or by the popular purveyors of "news". I'm not aware of a reference to this comparatively bigger problem even on this blog, which I highly respect and follow regularly.
I too very much hope that Peter Tinsley can prevail over our government's persistent obstruction of justice. However, and again with great respect, on this topic we all need to focus on the balls that are less visible to us - and by their deliberate obscurity are that much more likely to be foundationally important - in addition to the ones that occasionally appear in front of our faces. Otherwise we're very likely to hear our children ask, "What was it like to live in a democracy?"
Thanks for the opportunity to comment, and keep up the great work pogge.
"it's much more likely that serious war crimes and crimes against humanity have been, and continue to be, perpetrated against prisoners in American custody than those in Afghan custody."
I have talked with US soldiers who were part of the initial invasion of Afghanistan. I have no doubt that Bagram Air Force Base was the scene of policies of torture by US Forces. One soldier told me that he was ordered by his commanding officer to strike detainees with a pick handle while they were crouched on the tarmac: "Make sure you don't hit his skull, or he'll die and we'll have to write a report".
At the same time, absence of information from Afghan prisons shouldn't lead anyone to conclude that there isn't a vast amount of abuse there, too. Confident predictions of where abuse is "more likely" is based on the fact that we pay more attention to what the US does than what the Afghans do to their citizens. Canada shouldn't hand over anyone to Americans OR Afghans unless there are guarantees that they will remain in a location where the Red Cross has regular oversight. Better yet, Canada should GET OUT.
A very fine and important comment, John, although I would be surprised if we had never mentioned here the question of whether Canada was directly or indirectly transferring prisoners to U.S. custody. We know that that was happening in 2001-02, eg (there were photos on the front page of the G&M, as I recall).
A few of us write as much as we can to what we know of Canadian adventures on "the dark side," which adventures have unfortunately taken many forms, as I know you will know. I guess that would be my one quibble with you: I don't think that focusing on any of these particular issues is a "distraction" from working on the others, especially given that understanding any single one of them requires so much work from the volunteer amateur detectives here.
My ears perked up at your mention of Reprieve UK because I've been chewing away on Clive Stafford Smith's work on behalf of Binyam Mohamed, among other things, for two weeks now, still trying to put the issues into lay terms (after I grasp them myself) and to relate them to three other cases now before the courts in California. Sometimes we focus in on the particulars; sometimes we see the way the whole criminal regime was connected.
I agree with you that the problem is much bigger, eg, than simply "closing" GTMO; but at the same time, like a lot of other people, I believe it is important to get Omar Khadr out of there; to get Binyam Mohamed out of there; to get the Uighurs out of there; etc. And we can't tell all the stories all at once. And it is especially important to us to keep Canadian feet to the fire when we know that criminal things have been done in our name.
Nice to meet you. I hope you will write to us often.
the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities is a bit of a distraction from the considerably more sinister matter of having transferred prisoners to the custody or control of the United States, often through an initial transfer to Afghan authorities
The transfer agreement that was signed in May of 2007 is supposed to allow Canadian representatives to track detainees after they've been turned over. So if, in fact, detainees are being passed on to American authorites, those inspections should reveal it.
Yet Canada continues to transfer prisoners to US custody with nary a peep in Parliament or by the popular purveyors of "news".
I haven't seen any examples of this reported in several years. But if it's really the case then certainly we need some light shed on it. And for all we know that may be why the federal government continues to block the hearings that the MPCC proposes. All the more reason to have those hearings. The possibility of mistreatment of prisoners in Afghan custody has been the focus of the media reports but I've seen no indication that Tinsley and his people intend to limit their own investigations or the scope of the hearings. The last time I saw any reporting on Tinsley's intentions it was to say that he wanted to widen the scope of the hearings.