Diplomat: Canada Complicit in Torture of Innocent Afghans

[Roy G Biv]

This is truly shocking. Unfortunately Afghan prisioner rights isn't a wedge issue here, and most potential CPC voters won't care. The cover-up is disgusting.

Most of the detainees Canada collected were not what Afghan intelligence services would call “high value targets” such as Taliban commanders, al-Qaeda terrorists or bomb makers, Mr. Colvin told MPs in testimony Wednesday.

“Many were just local people: farmers; truck drivers; tailors, peasants – random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Yet, he said, they all faced the same fate. “According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured. For interrogators in Kandahar, it was standard operating procedure,” Mr. Colvin said.

“In other words, we detained, and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people.”

The diplomat said the Canadian government responded to his frequent warnings by telling him to stop writing these concerns into reports. He said those asking him to censor himself included David Mulroney, then the senior point man on Afghanistan, as well as Colleen Swords, a senior official at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT).

At first, we were mostly ignored. However by April 2007 we were receiving written messages from the senior Canadian government co-ordinator for Afghanistan to the effect that I should be quiet and do what I was told, and also phone messages from a DFAIT assistant deputy minister suggesting that, in future, we should not put things on paper, but instead use the telephone,” Mr. Colvin told MPs.

He said censorship expanded with the arrival of Arif Lalani as Canada's new ambassador to Afghanistan in May 2007.

“Immediately, thereafter, the paper trail on detainees was reduced,” he said. “Reports on detainees began sometimes to be censored with crucial information removed.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...nnocent-afghans-diplomat-says/article1369069/

 

[jade_lee]

Government response: WE DENY, DENY, DENY!

 

[Admiral Beez]

Unless Canada and NATO are willing to set up POW camps, or simply release everyone they capture or detain, then the Afghan authorities are going to get their hands on them. And, since in Afghanistan they torture prisoners, well, then that's what going to happen.

 

[kEiThZ]

There's more to this story than meets the eye. It's no secret in Ottawa that he didn't get on with Lalani, a talented diplomat himself. And the allegations of cover-up are certainly overblown. The government and military was so concerned they deployed Corrections Canada personnel to Kandahar to monitor the prison conditions. It's a legit question to ask who knew what and when. But a cover-up? And a lot of this happened on Liberal watch too. They should be careful with that smear brush. It could come back to haunt them. Their current reluctance to let Mulroney testify is an indicator. All of a sudden the idea that Martin era policies (which were not different) could be examined doesn't make the topic all that appealing.

 

[Roy G Biv]

Unless Canada and NATO are willing to set up POW camps, or simply release everyone they capture or detain, then the Afghan authorities are going to get their hands on them. And, since in Afghanistan they torture prisoners, well, then that's what going to happen.

So we shouldn't be there at all. Agreed.

 

[doady]

I thought this government was all about justice. I guess all they care about is harsher punishment.

 

[kEiThZ]

So we shouldn't be there at all. Agreed.

Are you suggesting that we should never, ever deploy to any country where there might a potential conflict between our values and laws and those of the locals? If that's the case, you can also exclude many of the peacekeeping missions we undertake (where we work with some unsavoury locals or less than competent forces from other countries) and many of the missions we could undertake in the future (which are more and more likely to be in failed states). It's a complex world out there. Black and white is not going to work.

 

[Admiral Beez]

So we shouldn't be there at all. Agreed.

I'm not suggesting that. What I am saying is that in Afghanistan torture of prisoners by the authorities is a given. This is a brutal place, where death and despair visit often and everywhere.

We did not go to Afghanistan to reform then into nice Canadian-type, human rights respecting people. We went there to crush Al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts, and to prop up a political system that will hinder their return. If in the process of these goals we are able to send Afghan girls to school, and bring a sense of security to the populace, that's great, but that's not why we're there.

 

[jade_lee]

This issue is all about Canadian values. Stay tuned because this issue is not going anywhere, it's about time we look closer at what is/was going on in Afghanistan and who knew what when. If we are going to fight wars we better be prepared to follow the rules of war. Makes me wonder who the real scumbags actually are.

 

[toraerach]

We did not go to Afghanistan to reform then into nice Canadian-type, human rights respecting people. We went there to crush Al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts, and to prop up a political system that will hinder their return. If in the process of these goals we are able to send Afghan girls to school, and bring a sense of security to the populace, that's great, but that's not why we're there.

True as that might be, the government of the day and successive governments since have justified our continued presence there with promises of a human rights respecting democracy. When we find out that there's a possibility that our government knowingly turned over prisoners (possibly innocent prisoners at that) to torture, we have a right to feel betrayed. If the Afghan government wants our continued support, they have to realize it comes with a price - upholding international law. We should demand no less considering the price tag we're all paying for this.

Not to mention the fact that knowingly turning prisoners over to be tortured by an ally is a huge international embarassment and undermines our efforts to promote human rights around the world.

 

[AGTO]

Not to mention the fact that knowingly turning prisoners over to be tortured by an ally is a huge international embarassment and undermines our efforts to promote human rights around the world.

Are you referring to the U.S. and Maher Arrar ?

 

[Tewder]

This issue is all about Canadian values. Stay tuned because this issue is not going anywhere, it's about time we look closer at what is/was going on in Afghanistan and who knew what when. If we are going to fight wars we better be prepared to follow the rules of war. Makes me wonder who the real scumbags actually are.

How coy. I think it's clear to all of us who 'you' think the scumbags are

 

[Admiral Beez]

True as that might be, the government of the day and successive governments since have justified our continued presence there with promises of a human rights respecting democracy.

That's just sales talk to continue to justify the mission, and we should all know that. There isn't a single country in the region that is a human rights respecting democracy, and we expect it to turn up in Afghanistan of all places? The West has thirty-odd thousand soldiers on the ground in a country of over 28 million where "traditional" and brutal Islamic and tribal justice and dictatorial rule has been the way for hundreds of years, and we're expected to change that into a democratic human rights protecting nation? Ridiculous.

 

[Roy G Biv]

Are you suggesting that we should never, ever deploy to any country where there might a potential conflict between our values and laws and those of the locals?

No, I supported the mission, but it has since lost my support. I'm glad we're leaving in 2011. When we leave, are we being complicit to the actions and potential atrocities that fill the vacuum? Perhaps, but at least we're not being hypocrites.

The West has thirty-odd thousand soldiers on the ground in a country of over 28 million where "traditional" and brutal Islamic and tribal justice and dictatorial rule has been the way for hundreds of years, and we're expected to change that into a democratic human rights protecting nation? Ridiculous.

That's how it's being sold. And unlike your description, Afghanistan was once a relatively modern and progressive country. The problem is that every few years, someone rides in on a tank and blows the place to shit, effectively pressing the "reset" button.

If the mandate was actually to go in and simply eradicate Al-Q and the Taliban, then anyone with an IQ over 80 could have predicted failure.

 

[Roy G Biv]

Also, if it's fairly obvious to us plebs that a police force in a country like Afghanistan is going to torture their detainees, how can you argue that it wasn't fairly obvious to our government?