Proof of detainee abuse exists, despite MacKay's denials
Sworn testimony by senior Canadian officers and rare uncensored documentary evidence contradict Defence Minister Peter MacKay's repeated assertions that no proof exists of even a single case of a Canadian-transferred detainee abused by Afghan security forces.
In one well-documented case in the summer of 2006, Canadian soldiers captured and handed over a detainee who was so severely beaten by Afghan police that the Canadians intervened and took the detainee back. Canadian medics then treated the man's injuries. The incident is documented in the field notes of Canadian troops, recounted in a sworn affidavit by a senior officer and confirmed in cross-examination by a general.
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The incident - and another in which Canadians refused to transfer prisoners threatened with death - suggest Canadian soldiers were well aware of their obligations under the Geneva Convention.
The rescue incident dates from June of 2006, during the period when ministers and senior officers now insist they were completely unaware of repeated warnings of the risks of abuse and torture being filed by diplomat Richard Colvin.
The story includes a link to a pdf of an affidavit if you care to see the primary source.
Since it has now been established that Peter MacKay has been misleading parliament, I trust we'll see him submit his resignation at his earliest opportunity. Right?
H/t to Toedancer at Bread and Roses.
While we're at it, could we have a few words with General Natynczyk, now CDS, who lied to the public about the prisoner who was beaten?
As I mentioned over at Scott's Diatribe, the issue brings a 1960's Tom Paxton song to mind:
We Didn’t Know
Words and Music by Tom Paxton
We didn’t know said the Burgomeister,
About the camps on the edge of town.
It was Hitler and his crew,
That tore the German nation down.
We saw the cattle cars it’s true,
And maybe they carried a Jew or two.
They woke us up as they rattled through,
But what did you expect me to do?
We didn’t know said the congregation,
Singing a hymn in a church of white.
The Press was full lf lies about us,
Preacher told us we were right.
The outside agitators came.
They burned some churches and put the blame,
On decent southern people’s names,
To set our colored people aflame.
And maybe some of our boys got hot,
And a couple of n**gers and reds got shot,
They should have stayed where they belong,
And preacher would’ve told us if we’d done wrong.
[Cho:]
We didn’t know said the puzzled voter,
Watching the President on TV.
I guess we’ve got to drop those bombs,
If we’re gonna keep South Asia free.
The President’s such a peaceful man,
I guess he’s got some kind of plan.
They say we’re torturing prisoners of war,
But I don’t believe that stuff no more.
Torturing prisoners is a communist game,
And You can bet they’re doing the same.
I wish this war was over and through,
But what do you expect me to do?
[Cho:]
Methinks Sneaky Pete has some 'splaining to do and maybe Blatchford and DiManno can sit down to a nice plate of crow.
Let's be sure to keep ignoring the other elephant in the room: Canada's persistent transfer of POWs to *American custody* (whether directly or through Afghan intermediaries), which has been publicly reported since 2003 to systematically torture, disappear, and occasionally murder prisoners, entirely in the absence of due process or public accountability.
Jimbo, I don't doubt that that is true -- I've heard the odd rumour -- but I would really appreciate some reliable sources for such claims.
Dear Skdadl,
The following facts are beyond credible dispute:
(1) Canada's military began taking prisoners in Afghanistan and transferring them to US custody in January 2002 (see Hansard at http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=1032102&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=37&Ses=1&File=9)
(2) Canada has never built or operated a prison of its own in Afghanistan: instead, our military either quickly transfers prisoners to another country's custody or else releases them (see affidavit of Col. Noonan, former commander of Canada's Battle Group in Afghanistan, at http://www.bccla.org/antiterrorissue/noonanaffidavit.pdf )
(3) The systematic criminality of America's offshore prisons has been extensively documented in the public domain since the story first broke in 2002 (see for example http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/09/AR2006060901356.html and dozens of additional reports from many credible sources during the years since then)
(4) Canada in 2005 entered into a prisoner transfer agreement with the recently formed Afghan government, in which Canada remarkably excluded a crucial clause. That clause - which was in the preceding Dutch and British equivalents - allows the transferring power (a) unfettered access to monitor the condition of transferred prisoners, and (b) veto power over the continued detention, or subsequent transfer to a third party, by the receiving power of any transferred prisoner (that transfer agreement was reportedly available online at http://www.afghanistan.gc.ca/canada-afghanistan/documents/ as recently as February this year, but has unfortunately been removed since then - undoubtedly for suddenly exigent "national security" reasons)
(5) Canada's government has since 2006 repeatedly and aggressively misled the public about Canada's role in the grave mistreatment of transferred prisoners by Afghan authorities (see for example http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/proof-of-detainee-abuse-exists-despite-mackays-denials/article1390782/ and a blast from the past at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/article746018.ece)
(6) Canada's government has since at least 2005 been complicit with the US government in secretly abducting, forcibly disappearing, and transferring to torture (a.k.a. "extraordinary rendition") suspected criminals including Canadian citizens, and has sought to establish a legal defence for its conduct (see http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20061211/arar_rendition_061211/20061211?hub=Politics)
With all due respect Skdadl (and certainly much is due), what is there about the above set of facts that leads you to entertain even for a moment the flight of fancy that Canada's government has NOT knowingly transferred prisoners to a material risk of torture at American hands, whether in US or Afghan custody?
To whom do you suppose Canada transferred all its captives throughout the period 2002-2005, while America's hell-holes at Bagram, Guantanamo Bay and secret prisons elsewhere were being rapidly filled?
My point is that all the attention being directed at Canada's evident complicity in torture by Afghan custodians is to Harper & Co. a welcome distraction from the much more explosive and consequential issue of Canada's longstanding complicity in torture by American custodians. Jesus, that's a long sentence.
Keep up the great work Skadl, and perhaps give more due to your inner paranoiac to suit our genuinely nightmarish times. We can't afford to give these fuckers an inch, especially not while they operate in our name.
Well, yes, Jimbo, I wasn't in any doubt about much of that. I remember fine, eg, photos on the front page of the G&M in 2001 showing Canadian soldiers running prisoners across a tarmac to American detention -- that that happened directly during the initial assault is well documented.
I also agree with you that we have known for some time of serious cases of direct complicity in torture and other violations of international law, beginning but certainly not ending with Omar Khadr and Maher Arar. That those cases are so much more damning is one of the reasons I'm still surprised that the Harper government has gone to such lengths to get itself in trouble with prisoner transfers, since they could have dealt with that issue, even with their own early errors/negligence, in exculpatory ways.
However, our current topic is prisoner transfers in Afghanistan, and the focus has been on Canada's transfers of Afghan prisoners to Afghan authorities. As I say, I suspect that some of those prisoners are sent on to the Americans, and that our government even knows that, may even be making some surreptitious direct transfers to the Americans, but I can't document that, and I'd like to know whether anyone can. That's all I was asking.
War criminals in Canada? Start with CSIS and DFAIT, and work up from there.
For the restorative effect it would have on our political system as a whole, I would agree to put off going after the Liberals, in order to destroy the harpercons.
Then, when the political dynamic is changed (perhaps by convincing the electorate as to the significance of the issue of torture, and how it has disgraced Canada [re: the electorate and us included] then we can transfer that outrage to the equally-culpable Liberals.
We as a people have to change our political culture. The politicians just do what they think they can get away with. Very few of them are principled.
"However, our... focus has been on Canada's transfers of Afghan prisoners to Afghan authorities."
Precisely the problem.
It's no different in the US, where the media (including left-leaning bloggers) remains fixated on closing Gitmo while maintaining willful blindness to America's vast array of secret prisons that hold over a hundred times the number of captives in far worse conditions with less oversight and accountability (see for example http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/02/usa.humanrights - and in case you believe that's changed under Obama's reign, read the sources cited and linked to in the comments at http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/black-sites-shut-down/closed-for-business/ )
In Canada no less than in the US, it's the magician's hand that's NOT currently in plain view that bears the most scrutiny. Or, paraphrasing The Great One, go not where the puck already is but where it can reasonably be expected to appear next.
Please accept this feedback as a challenge worthy of your enviable talents rather than as a personal attack or unwarranted criticism.
All the best Skdadl.
"Canadian soldiers were well aware of their obligations under the Geneva Convention."
At least they were when my brother served. Today, betrayed by a government that put them all in harm's way for no good reason, the blue beret my bro so proudly wore (earned in the Sinai and Cyprus) is all but buried. It seems we do it a l'american these days.
I'm with Jimbo - I think the proof is there, see his citations...