Canada on torture : We're buying if you're selling

Canada's collateral fallout from Tuesday's Senate Intelligence Committee summary on the torture of prisoners at CIA “black site” prisons around the world.

"A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney’s office said Wednesday that Canada does not engage in, or condone, torture by national security agencies but ...  Canada will act on “a tip from any source” if Canadians’ lives are in danger."

This is our usual "we're buying if you're selling" approach to torture.

Feb. 2012 : "The latest directive says in "exceptional circumstances" where there is a threat to human life or public safety, urgency may require CSIS to "share the most complete information available at the time with relevant authorities, including information based on intelligence provided by foreign agencies that may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment."

April 2010 :  Day One of Omar Khadr's trial at Guantanamo. Confessions elicited via sleep deprivation, denial of pain medication, stress positions, being forced to urinate on himself and being used as a human mop, being terrorized by barking dogs, and being threatened with rape and torture. Khadr's defence team was only allowed to interview three of Khadr's 30 interrogators at Bagram and Gitmo, two of whom admit the 15 year old Khadr was threatened with rape.

FBI agent Robert Fuller

"... elicited from Khadr the identification of another Canadian, Maher Arar, who Khadr during interviews by Fuller claimed was training with al Qaeda operatives at a training camp at a time that, it later turned out, Arar was actually at home in Canada.

"In contrast to testimony he gave Monday, [FBI]special agent Robert Fuller told Khadr's war-crimes hearing that the young Canadian was not immediately able to name Arar, but did say he looked familiar." 

Shortly after Fuller reported the identification of Arar to the government, Arar was apprehended at JFK airport and rendered to Syria for interrogation there.

FBI agent Fuller also got Khadr to confess to throwing a grenade at US forces."

December 2009 : Harper shuts down parliament for two months in what turned out to be a successful strategy to muzzle parliamentarians regarding Richard Colvin's testimony about the torture of random Afghan farmers and taxi drivers under Canadian watch. 

Harper hired Bruce Carson to "stickhandle" the Afghan file "on a daily basis, involving senior officials from departments such as foreign affairs, defence, RCMP, justice and corrections". In 2007 a requisition for special boots to allow Correctional Services Canada inspection teams to wade through blood and shit in Afghan prisons was made public.

I think it's fair to say any report similar to the US Senate summary made partially public on Tuesday would never see the light of day in Canada.

April 2009 : "More than 16 months after Canada's security agencies cleared Abousfian Abdelrazik, government lawyers are now pressing him to admit to being a senior al-Qaeda operative, echoing American accusations extracted from Abu Zubaydah, water boarded more than 80 times under the Bush administration."

As noted by POGGE at the time : 

"While the rest of the world is coming to terms with the fact that the Bush administration was actually using torture to elicit false confessions in an effort to justify their invasion of Iraq, the Hapless Government™ is trying to use statements from a man who was waterboarded 83 times to prove that Abdelrazik is a terrorist."

March 2009 : The same day that CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian told the public safety committee there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture, RCMP spokesman Gilles Michaud tells the same committee :

"I want to be clear here - there is no absolute ban on the use of any information by the RCMP."

November 2006 : CSIS director Jim Judd said it had done nothing wrong by accepting as genuine the confession of Maher Arar, who was secretly and illegally bundled off by extraordinary rendition to a prison in Syria where he was held and tortured for a year.

"It does not necessarily follow that because a country has a poor human rights record that any information received from it was the product of torture," Judd told Parliament's public safety committee.

G&M : "In an Oct. 16, 2003 e-mail marked “secret,” officials of the intelligence unit of Foreign Affairs note that CSIS agents will pass on details of their then just-completed interrogation of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo and planned to “send two officers to Sudan next week to interview Abdelrazik.” 

Dec. 9, 2014 CBC : "This is a report of the United States Senate," Harper told the House of Commons on Tuesday. "It has nothing to do whatsoever with the government of Canada."
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Update : Tom Tomorrow
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Gutter politics, you say?

So the government which used the private medical records of Vets activist Sean Bruyea and Vets Review Board member Harold Leduc to smear them, and the private government correspondence of diplomat Richard Colvin to smear him - the same government which defended its dirty phone tricks campaign as "vital free speech" according to Conservative House Leader Peter Van Loan - is now going all Angry Baird that someone twittered already publicly available info about Toews in response to his Awful Access internet spying Act.

Really?

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews wants an investigation into someone repeating stuff about him that was already published in the MSM nearly four years ago?

What an absolutely awesome example of how they would use their Awful Access Act.
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Saturday. Updates from my betters :
CBC : Online surveillance bill opens door for Big Brother
Canadian Privacy Law Blog : The hidden gag order of Bill C-30

The very funny Tabatha Southey : If only Tory caucus walls could talk 

Jeff Jedras : Vikileaks and the death of the journalist as news gatekeeper

Not Quite Unhinged : Stop This Amateur IP Tracing Bullshit Now 

404 System Error : #OpKillBillz C-30


Dave and Boris , Dr. Dawg , Montreal Simon, Jeff Jedras , Dammit Janet!, Jymn, and Jymn 

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Over at the Afghan Committee, things are very "robust"

In fact Wednesday's testimony by three former Canadian ambassadors to Afghanistan on the Afghan detainee transfer-and-abuse system marks perhaps the single most frequent use of the word "robust" - eleven times in two hours by my count - evah.

Globe and Mail :

"The court Tuesday heard of documentation, drawn from military files, relating to six known cases in which Afghan captives handed to the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) prisons, including one in Canada’s military jurisdiction in Kandahar, are said to have been tortured using electric shocks, beatings with wires, whips and metal rods, sleep deprivation and cuts, between early 2007 and late 2008."

Oh sorry, that was in Britain on Tuesday.

In Canada on Wednesday, our ambassador to Afghanistan in 2008, Ron Hoffmann, told the Afghan committee :

"There were no allegations of abuse in 2008"

while Dept of Foreign Affairs' David Sproule, ambassador from Oct 2005 to April 2007, said although "they were under no illusions about the treatment of detainees" :

"We never transferred detainees from Canadian forces if there was any risk of torture . We exceeded our international obligations. ... There was not a single incidence of detainee abuse during my tenure."

Not a single incidence from Oct 2005 to April 2007?
And Arif Lalani, ambassador from April 2007 to Aug 2008?

Paul Dewar, NDP :

"With regards to the NDS, Mr Lalani, one of the questions we had as to the new agreement, is that it's become evident to me through evidence that has been given and what I've heard today - when an allegation was made, that the responsible entity at the NDS facility to look into that allegation and investigate it was the NDS. Is that your understanding as well?

Lalani :

"Point #1, I think we had a number of allegations that were made as a result of our monitoring.

Point #2, the agreement that we signed had clearly in it that the Afghans would exercise their obligations and their sovereignty by investigating allegations, and so that was done.

Point #3 as has been made very clear in all of the reporting that you may have seen and that others have seen, we also inform the ICRC who undertook whatever action they wanted to take and I want to be very careful about saying more about their work.

Dewar :

"Will you then confirm then that when an allegation was made, from a detainee or from another source about torture, that it was the NDS who investigated that?"

Lalani : "I think from my other ..."

Dewar :

"Sorry to interrupt but I know the ICRC was involved and I understand their mandate, but according to the agreement - I mean Ms Buck made this statement in Federal Court as well - was it the NDS that was responsible for following it up?"

Lalani :

"From my recollection of the cases that involved the NDS, they most likely made the investigation."

Dewar :

"And do you understand why I would have concerns - and many others - that in the case of Mr Colvin's claim that there was torture going on and that there was concerns that had to be removed from the report and wasn't giving the full picture, and the fact of the matter is what we've heard is - and I think you halted transfers of detainees because you had concerns about the NDS - that it really isn't a strong enough agreement to have the NDS investigate itself."

The NDS investigating itself might go some distance in explaining why, according to Hoffmann earlier, there were no further allegations of abuse in 2008, supposing that is indeed the case.

Meanwhile, over in unredacted Britain, internal memos from named British officers outline the continuing impossibility of monitoring detainees disappeared by the NDS, along with all the gruesome unredacted details of their torture.

Fed up with two year's of government obstruction in delivering of our detainee documents, the Military Police Complaints Commission has summoned the military and foreign affairs officials responsible for the documents to testify next Tuesday.

Whatever is in those documents, Steve seems desperate to hide them at any cost but he can't rely on the self-inflicted Jaffer/Guergis misdirection scandal continuing to distract the public once the unredacted details of Britain's apparently identical detainee problems start heavy rotation in the national media.
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Colvin, Kafka, and Catch-22

Over at the Military Police Complaints Commission, Department of Justice lawyer Alain Préfontaine is trying to prove that diplomat Richard Colvin's emails flagging abuse of Afghan prisoners were so vaguely worded that the government could not possibly be held responsible for failing to understand what he was talking about.

Colvin and MPCC chair Glenn Stannard have the blacked out versions to work from. Colvin is not allowed to divulge what he remembers is under all that black ink.

If we could just all see the unredacted versions, says Colvin, they would reveal the crucial information.

Well I have seen the unredacted versions, says Préfontaine, representing the government that blacked out the emails, and I can tell you there's nothing of importance there.

Then why can't we see them? asks MPCC chair Stannard, who apparently doesn't have the clearance to see the very emails he's holding hearings about.

"Because," Préfontaine answered, "disclosure would be injurious to either national defence, international relations or national security."

I do hope you're keeping up here. Colvin's emails are apparently so sensitive they must be blacked out while simultaneously being so unimportant there's no need to see them.
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Security theatre of the absurd

Given that the Cons blocked the Military Police Complaints Commission from receiving documents on the Afghan detainees :

"Canada's former top military police officer, retired navy captain Steve Moore, advised he had documents that he wanted to turn over to the inquiry, however Mr. Moore and his lawyer had to sign a pledge preventing them from passing the documents to the inquiry."

and redacted the docs they did allow :

"This is what the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group sergeant wrote in June 2006 about the Afghan detainee who was beaten up:

"We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over, to ensure that if the ANP did assault him, as has happened in the past, we would have a visual record of his condition."

but this is what the government sent to the Military Police Complaints Commission:

"We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over (redacted)."

and also sandbagged the Parliamentary Afghan committee by threatening and muzzling witnesses:

"The federal government is blocking diplomat Richard Colvin from giving documents to a special House of Commons committee investigating Afghan torture.
Justice Department lawyers have told Colvin - through the Foreign Affairs department - that they do not accept the view that testimony before Parliament is exempt from national security provisions of the Canada Evidence Act.
Violating Section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act can be punishable by five years in prison."

before finally shutting parliament down altogether to shut everyone up about it ....

who could possibly pretend to believe they will now freely hand over those very same docs to retired Justice Iacobucci?

Answer : The Libs.
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Richard Colvin's devastating letter of rebuttal

On Airshow MacKay's attempt to discredit Colvin by accusing him of not having brought up detainee abuse the one time MacKay met with Colvin in Afghanistan :
He, Colvin, had only been on the job for 10 days and had not met with any detainees yet.
And even if he had, protocol was to report to DFAIT, not the minister.

On Christie Blatchford's Con-fed column that Colvin had only been outside the wire once :
Colvin : 'Outside the wire' in Kandahar at least 11 times, in Kabul over 500 times.

On the claim his reports in 2006 did not use the word 'torture' :
Colvin : Six reports, one including the phrase " rife with torture"

On the government claim it heard no allegations of "torture" prior to April 2007:
Colvin : "... in early March 2007, I informed an interagency meeting of some 12 to 15 officials in Ottawa that, 'The NDS tortures people, that's what they do, and if we don't want our detainees tortured, we shouldn't give them to the NDS.' ... The response from the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) note-taker was to stop writing and put down her pen."

On the claim that it was only insurgents and Taliban who were detained:
Colvin : "... it was the NDS that told us that many or most of our detainees were unconnected to the insurgency. This assessment was reported to Ottawa. The NDS also told us that, because the intelligence value of Canadian-transferred detainees was so low, it did not want them."

On the government claim that it took action as soon as it was informed of abuse :
They were informed repeatedly of the risk of torture, the deficiencies of Canada's monitoring system, and delays in reports to the ICRC in 2006 in reports from the Provincial Reconstruction Team, the US State Department, and the US Secretary General. They finally sent someone in October 2007 who immediately confirmed torture.
The government also twice intervened to keep a torturer named by the PRT in place.

On Interdepartmental Coordinator for Afghanistan David Mulroney's statement that the only reason reports were edited was to remove 'opinion' or 'non‐fact based' information.

Colvin : Embassy staffers were told that they should not report information, however accurate, that conflicted with the government's public messaging. Ambassador Lalani instructed that we not report that the security situation was deteriorating.

In September 2007, an embassy staffer, in response to a written request from DFAIT's Afghanistan Taskforce to contribute to a security assessment by one of our NATO allies, sent a report that security in Kandahar had got worse and was likely to further deteriorate. Mr. Mulroney severely rebuked the officer in writing.

On Assistant Deputy Minister Colleen Swords' testimony that she told Colvin to phone first, write later :
Colvin : "Her message to me was that I should use the phone instead of writing..."

On the claim from Goldie, Gallant, MacKay, Abbott that "Afghan detainees are trained to claim torture."
Colvin : They are not Al Qaeda; they are peasants. We arrest them and turn them over to torturers. Why would they make any claims of torture, false or otherwise, to us? They don't trust us. Besides, reports of torture based on physical exams, not testimony.

And so on and so on. Absolutely devastating.

When Colvin originally testified at the Afghan Committee, he was just doing his job - appearing as summoned. As he stated today - he is not a whistleblower.
Today's letter, on what he politely termed the "inaccuracies" of the government's witnesses and MPs and camp followers, is even more damaging than his original testimony.

Government response?
Fucking idiot Goldie Hawn : "Now is not the time to accuse our troops of war crimes."
Peter MacKay's spokesweasel, Dan Dugas : "We reject all assertions that Canadian troops have committed war crimes."

Which is interesting in light of Colvin's letter. Note that he does not even obliquely lay blame on the military brass, never mind the troops.
Nope, it's all on MacKay, DFAIT and the Privy Council Office.
And this is why Harper has refused to release the docs to Peter Tinsley's Military Police Complaints Committee and the Afghan Committee, has fired Peter Tinsley, has intimidated witnesses from appearing before the Afghan committee, has refused to allow the Afghan Committee to continue their investigation, and has refused to call a public inquiry as voted on by the House.

All because one civil servant insisted on doing his job.
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Con coverup - the smoking gun

Richard Colvin sent Peter Mackay reports warning of torture until Peter MacKay's department told him to stop.
Peter MacKay denied receiving Colvin's reports until it was proven his department did indeed receive them. Ah but he did not see them himself claimed Pete six separate times in the House.

On Tuesday General Natynczyk announced that the beaten detainee was in fact a Canadian detainee and thus a Canadian responsibility.
Peter MacKay said the General's surprise statement was the first time he had heard of it.

Unfortunately for Pete, on Thursday in the House, Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded to questions about General Natynzyk's announcement thusly :

"... that particular incident has been public knowledge for a long time now"
"... the leader of the NDP speaks of facts that have been on the public record for a couple of years."

About that 'public record' ...
This is what the Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry Battle Group sergeant wrote in June 2006 about the Afghan detainee who was beaten up:

"We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over, to ensure that if the ANP did assault him, as has happened in the past, we would have a visual record of his condition."

but this is what the government sent to the Military Police Complaints Commission:

"We then photographed the individual prior to handing him over (redacted)."

The redacted portion states that the Afghan National Police has a history of assaulting Canadian detainees. This is not a matter of national security. This is not a matter of defending the actions of the troops. This is a matter of covering up complicity in detainee abuse by those who knew, in Steve's happy phrase, about "facts that have been on the public record for a couple of years."

Steve will let Pete hold that smoking gun for a while.
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Peter MacKay vs the evidence

Paul Koring :

"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."

Peter MacKay :
"There has never been a single, solitary, proven allegation of abuse of a detainee, a Taliban prisoner, transferred by Canadian Forces.” Dec. 2 in the House of Commons

“Mr. Speaker, there has not been a single, solitary, proven allegation of a prisoner being abused that was transferred from the Canadian Forces.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

“We do want to hear from individuals who can bring forward credible, proven allegations, not just recitations of what was heard, what was passed on, what was read in reports, or what was disclosed by Taliban prisoners themselves. That is what the evidence is so far. We have not seen a single scintilla of proof.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

“There has never been a single proven allegation of abuse involving a prisoner transferred by the Canadian Forces, not one.” Nov. 23 in the House of Commons

What next, Pete? You were sadly misinformed by your generals? Your base doesn't give a shit about the Geneva conventions? What? I'm guessing Pete will go with blaming the generals.
MacKay's spokesweasel Dan Dugas lays the groundwork :

The minister's spokesman said Sunday that Mr. MacKay was standing by his repeated denials.
“He has said what he has said based on the advice of generals and senior officials in the department."

... all of which would carry slightly more weight had we not already heard from foreign affairs and defence officials via Murray Brewster that they had been instructed by "senior officials in the Privy Council Office (and reinforced in follow-up conferences between Ottawa and Kabul, as well Ottawa and Kandahar) to "hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners" that didn't promote "a happy face".
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I reckon we've had just about enough of this bullshit

Shorter Harper : If you point the war crimes finger at me, I'll deflect it at the troops.

Faced with mounting condemnation for government ass-covering over Richard Colvin's testimony about Afghan detainees, Harper resorts to an oblique slight-of-tongue blackmail :

"There were allegations of Canadian troops involved in torture. We’ve been very clear that's not the case."

So who is pointing fingers at the troops?

No one. No. One. But. Steve.

Least of all Richard Colvin, as he made abundantly clear right away at the beginning of his Nov. 18th testimony before the Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan :

"I was very proud to have served in Afghanistan alongside the courageous and professional men and women of the Canadian Forces, including Canada's military police. The focus of our attention, in my view, should not be on those who obeyed their chain of command, which soldiers are obliged to do. Instead, any responsibility for Canada's practices toward detainees lies, in my view, with the senior military officers, senior civilian officials, and the lawyers who developed the legal framework, designed the policies and practices, and then ordered that they be implemented."

Well that seems clear enough.

Evidently not clear enough though for warporner Christie Blatchford :

In condemning with the same brush highly professional Canadian soldiers, and to complain that they were complicit in breaches of the law of armed conflict and knowingly buried his reports, it is Mr. Colvin who has some explaining left to do.

but certainly clear enough for anyone not looking to turn Colvin's words upside down and pretend that any criticism of the HarperCons and their public service camp followers equals a danger to the troops and military police, as Harper does here today:

"... in a time when some in the political arena do not hesitate before throwing the most serious of allegations at our men and women in uniform, based on the most flimsy of evidence, remember that Canadians from coast to coast to coast are proud of you and stand behind you, and I am proud of you, and I stand beside you."

Steve bravely champions the troops by hiding behind them and pointing a finger at them.

Are people gonna fall for this bs?

Impolitical handily deconstructs Harper's nonsense

while Contrarian takes down Blatchford.
And yes, why was Christie Blatchford leaked information deemed too sensitive for the Parliamentary Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan?

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How's that CBC poll on Colvin's credibility doing?

Hmmm ... 94% to 6% in favour of Colvin's testimony on an unfreepable one-vote-per-IP poll.

Ok, just checking.

I was wondering how that parade of generals appearing before the Afghan parliamentary committee was going over.

Everyone impressed the generals had access to Richard Colvin's reports but the committee members doing the investigation are denied the same access?

Hell, it's just one more Con puppet-head show now.

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Watch Peter MacKay's one minute smirking response about it here :

Minister MacKay on how the generals got the documents. (h/t Scott)

and then sign this letter demanding a public inquiry.

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Dragging the goalposts right off the field

Then : October 19, 2009

MacKay seeks answers on torture memos

"MacKay said Monday that neither he nor his deputy minister ever saw diplomat Richard Colvin's reports, which were circulated widely within the Foreign Affairs and National Defence departments, as well as among senior military commanders."

.October 16, 2009

MacKay denies seeing Afghan torture reports

"Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he never saw a former diplomat's reports containing allegations of torture of detainees transferred by Canadians to Afghan prisons. MacKay, who was foreign minister at the time, insisted Thursday that he knew nothing of the documents.

"I have not seen those reports in either my capacity as minister of National Defence or previously as minister of Foreign Affairs."

Today : MacKay's office got Red Cross warnings about Afghan treatment

"I received briefings from the deputy minister and there were attachments to which Mr. Colvin was a contributor but I have not received direct reports from Mr. Colvin," MacKay said."

Scrape ... scrape ... scrape...

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And then there's the Generals. Rather than bother dragging their goalposts off the field, they just declare them invisible. I posted this at The Beav earlier:

From Richard Colvin's reports beginning in May 2006 :

3. Of the XXX detainees we interviewed XXX said XXX had been whipped with cables, shocked with electricity and/or otherwise "hurt" while in NDS custody in Kandahar. This period of alleged abuse lasted from between XXX and XXX days, and was carried out in XXX and XXX.

XXX detainees still had XXX on XXX body; XXX seemed traumatized. This alleged abuse would have occurred before the new arrangement between the governments of Canada and Afghanistan was signed.

'Torture' not mentioned in Afghan detainee reports: Generals

"Three generals declared Wednesday that there was no mention of the word "torture" in reports from a senior diplomat who asserts that he repeatedly warned the government against surrendering Afghan detainees to local authorities because they would almost certainly be abused.

One of the recipients of the widely distributed reports, which Colvin says were copied to 76 government and military personnel in Ottawa and Afghanistan, was retired Lt.-Gen. Michel Gauthier, who was then the head of oversees deployment. Gauthier told the Commons committee that none of Colvin's 2006 reports, including his May document, mentioned anything about torture.

Retired Gen. Rick Hillier, Canada's top soldier during Colvin's posting in Afghanistan in 2006-07 : "There was simply nothing there."

So there you have it - because Richard Colvin neglected to include the word "torture" in his accounts of detainees allegedly being "whipped with cables and shocked with electricity", there was no torture and the generals apparently feel justified in having failed to read his reports in the first place.
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Meanwhile look for those reports under the goalposts.

Initially Harper promised to release Colvin's reports to the Afghan committee, a parliamentary committee, who so far are asking witnesses questions about reports they are barred from seeing. Wait for it...

Feds bar whistleblower diplomat from handing over torture documents to MPs

The federal government is blocking whistleblowing diplomat Richard Colvin from giving documents to a special House of Commons committee investigating Afghan torture.

Justice Department lawyers have told Colvin - through the Foreign Affairs Department - that they do not accept the view that testimony before Parliament is exempt from national security provisions of the Canada Evidence Act. Violating Section 38 of the Canada Evidence Act can be punishable by five years in prison.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay said the government intends to comply with the order to produce documents, but tempered expectations by saying the records will pass through several filters before they get to MPs.
"Anything we're legally required to hand over, we'll hand over," he said Wednesday.
"We have to, of course, respect the Canada Evidence Act, The National Defence Act and rules pertaining to disclosure. And of course anything having to do with national security will have to be vetted."

Those are the same arguments the government made to the Military Police Complaints Commission, whose public hearings into the same issue were derailed by legal wrangling. The government took a year to censor and hand over records to the watchdog agency and at one point stopped releasing documents entirely.

MacKay did not explain how the Justice Department could ignore Parliament's authority when it comes to providing evidence.

The committee will now hear more government witnesses free to spout the same crap as the generals because there will be no evidence to refute it -- and the press, barring actual reporters like Murray Brewster and Tonda MacCharles, will, in the absence of any other story, report it all faithfully.

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Winning hearts and minds in Afghanistan

MacKay :
"Not a single Taliban soldier turned over by Canadian forces can be proved to have been abused. That is the crux of the issue."

Ok, how about "farmers, truck drivers, and peasants" then?

Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission :
"Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment are common in the majority of law enforcement institutions, and at least 98.5 per cent of interviewed victims have been tortured."

The independent study, which tracked abuse claims between 2001 and early 2008, shows the vast majority of them - 243 - were levelled in 2006 and 2007.
That is the time frame when Colvin was in Afghanistan and warning the federal government about torture. "
(h/t Cathie)


"[Colvin] says all of the prisoners Canada handed to Afghanistan’s notorious intelligence service in 2006-07 were tortured — and many of them were likely innocent … farmers, truck drivers and peasants "in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"In other words, we detained and handed over for severe torture, a lot of innocent people."
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"The Conservative government was aware from the first day it took office in 2006 that Taliban suspects, rounded up by Canadian soldiers, might be tortured in Afghan prisons, says Defence Minister Peter MacKay.
The government then waited 15 months, until May 2007, before putting new safeguards in place to monitor the treatment of Afghan detainees."
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CBC Question of the Day

Commenter Stephen Phillips under this CBC poll has a question of his own :

"What kind of a question is this? Mr. Colvin is a distinguished career diplomat under attack by a Government that has misled Parliament and the country about prisoner transfers and is now systematically blocking the work of the Military Complaints Tribunal. The real question is this: why is the Government trying to smear a courageous whistle-blower who has put his career on the line?"

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Le Devoir Answer of the Day

October 23, 2009:

Le Devoir : Rick Hillier - Torture in the Afghan prisons: Ottawa knew

"Federal ministers Gordon O' Connor and Peter MacKay knew as of 2006 that the prisoners captured in Afghanistan were likely to be tortured in the local prisons, said Rick Hillier, former chief of staff of the Canadian Forces.".

Poll updated Monday, 5 pm.

EU diplomat backs claims on torture

"Michael Semple, former deputy head of the European Union's mission in Afghanistan when Colvin was second-in-command of the Canadian embassy, said his own records from his time in Kabul are littered with the same findings that the senior Canadian envoy shared with a House of Commons committee this week."

Once newspaper reports in April 2007 brought the problems to light, Colvin said he was instructed to keep quiet by David Mulroney, a senior official who had responsibilities to report on Afghanistan to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, then foreign affairs minister Peter MacKay and Gordon O'Connor, who was the defence minister before he became the first political casualty of the detainee scandal."

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Peter MacKay vs the US State Dept.

Defensive Minister Peter MacKay :
"A top diplomat’s account of the rampant torture and rape of Afghan detainees is not credible, Defence Minister Peter MacKay said Thursday.
MacKay dismissed testimony from Richard Colvin [First Secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Washington] as second- and third-hand information from enemy sources :
"What we’re talking about here is not only hearsay, we’re talking about basing much of his evidence on what the Taliban have been specifically instructed to lie about if captured."

US State Department :
Afghanistan
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
2006
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
"Local authorities ... continued to routinely torture and abuse detainees. Torture and abuse consisted of pulling out fingernails and toenails, burning with hot oil, beatings, sexual humiliation, and sodomy."
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Afghan torture cover-up gets a hand from Peter MacKay

[updated below]
Defence Minister Peter MacKay says he never saw reports by Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin, then political director at the Canadian-run Afghan reconstruction base in 2006, warning in May, June, and December 2006 that Afghan authorities were abusing detainees handed over by Canadian forces.

"I have not seen those reports in either my capacity as minister of National Defence or previously as minister of Foreign Affairs," said Peter MacKay

about documents "circulated widely throughout the Foreign Affairs and Defence departments and also shared with senior military commanders in Ottawa and Afghanistan."


The Conservative government dismissed reports of abuse when they first came to light in early 2007, accusing oppositon MPs of sympathizing with the Taliban.

The Conservative government has not delivered any documents to the Military Police Complaints Commission inquiry investigating the abuse charges - not even redacted ones - since March 2008.

The government lead lawyer warned potential witnesses that if they comply with inquiry they could become 'collateral casualties'.

When Richard Colvin, now a Foreign Affairs intelligence officer at the Canadian embassy in Washington, decided to testify anyway, government lawyers attempted to have him stricken from the witness list, invoked anti-terrorism national security laws to prevent him from appearing before the inquiry, and attempted to curtail the jurisdiction of the inquiry to hear presentations.

Commission chair Peter Tinsley had to shut down the committee yesterday for six months due to the government's refusal to provide any documents and to allow lawyers to argue what the inquiry may investigate.
Tinsley will be let go as commission chair as of Dec 11.

The Afghan torture cover-up continues.

Friday update from CBC :

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday that he did not see reports in 2006 that suggested there was evidence detainees had been tortured after they were handed over to Afghan prisons by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan.
Harper said he didn't see the reports "at the time."
"There were allegations of Canadian troops involved in torture. We’ve been very clear that's not the case," the prime minister said.

"At the time." When exactly was "at the time"? Colvin sent 16 separate reports.
"Allegations Canadian troops involved". No. Not at all, you're weaselling. The "allegation" is that you put those troops in the appalling position of transferring their prisoners to certain abuse.
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The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, "at the time": "Torture continues to take place as a routine part of police procedures. The AIHRC has found torture to occur particularly at the investigation stage in order to extort confessions from detainees."

Louise Arbour, the Canadian UN rep who you summarily dismissed, and the U.S. State Department, "at the time": "Afghan local authorities "routinely" torture detainees".

Peter Van Loan, Con house leader "at the time", called them "allegations by the Taliban"

Me, "at the time" : "Canada is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. We simply don't have time to go back and re-fight and re-argue all the battles for some semblance of civilization that we have already won. And we certainly don't have time for any government that hasn't figured this out yet."
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The Afghan torture coverup is going well

It's funny the things that stick with you.

What I remember when Canada's treatment of Afghan prisoners comes up is not Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin's 2007 report on allegations of electrocution and beatings, or the entire households detained because someone got the address wrong. What I remember is this simple request for desert camel boots made by Stockwell Day's newly arrived leader of the Correctional Service Canada inspections team in February 2007 :

"They afford the appropriate ankle support when getting in and out of the LAV/Coyote/Nyala vehicles. Additionally the colour is more appropriate in the summer heat. On a Health and Safety level we will be walking through blood and fecal matter when either on patrol or in the prison and should not be wearing our personal footwear as it will track into our personal quarters."

As Skdadl said at the time :

"I think we call this the banality of evil. I have to walk through blood and fecal material, so I need better boots. This is the road to Nuremberg, folks. And this is being done in our name. Everyone happy to sit here quietly and be a "Good Canadian"? "

Richard Colvin wasn't. As political director at the Canadian-run provincial reconstruction base in 2006 when troops began handing over prisoners to Afghanistan's notorious intelligence agency, the National Security Directorate, he is one of the only government witnesses who wants to testify at the Military Police Complaints Commission inquiry into whether military police officers had a duty to investigate the transfer of detainees when there were allegations of torture in Afghan prisons.

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A week ago federal lawyers invoked a national security clause in Canada's Anti-terrorism Act that effectively prevents him from doing so.

They argue that on the one hand Colvin's testimony is not relevant, and on the other that his testimony would breach "national security considerations".

As we have seen previously with Arar, Abdelrazik, Almalki, Suaad Mohammud, Charkaoui, and Harkat, this is a government that flagrantly makes use of "national security considerations" to cover its own complicity in wrongdoing.

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Last Wednesday National Defence said some witnesses might be able to give some information, as long as the commission proves the testimony is relevant. This is impossible for the commission to do as Michel Gauthier, the retired lieutenant-general who was in charge of the country's overseas command until last spring, as well as three former ground commanders in Kandahar and members of Corrections Canada have all refused their subpoenas to meet with commission investigators.

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A week ago Canada's former top military police officer, retired navy captain Steve Moore, advised he had documents that he wanted to turn over to the inquiry, however Mr. Moore and his lawyer had to sign a pledge preventing them from passing the documents to the inquiry.
The documents first have to be reviewed to remove sensitive information– such as logs showing that Canadian military police opened investigations into whether detainees risked torture – but won't be declassified in time for the hearings.

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As if this wasn't sufficient obstruction, the chair of the inquiry, Peter Tinsley, has been let go on Dec 11, before his investigation can be completed and despite his request to be allowed to continue. Then on Monday public proceedings were postponed :

"after federal lawyers bombarded the agency with a series of motions demanding further delay and questioning, among other things, the jurisdiction of the commission".

MacKay told the House of Commons on Monday that "a search for a new chair is underway".

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Isn't this exactly what was done at Guantanamo? If the government didn't like the way a military investigation into the detainment of an individual prisoner was going, they just fired the presiding judge or lawyer and appointed another.

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Last word goes to Richard Colvin's lawyer on the use of Canada's Anti-terrorism Act to muzzle her client :

"The legislation was addressed at combatting terrorism-related activities. It was not intended to be used tactically to intimidate witnesses from giving evidence in administrative proceedings carried out by government-created bodies," the letter said.

"The interests of justice are not served when an ordinary witness such as Mr. Colvin is threatened by the Department of Justice with severe penalty for abiding by the terms of a subpoena served on him.".

Update : Good short history of a year's worth of sidelining the investigation : Dr. Dawg.

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