By Alison@Creekside
CBC: “The Canadian Forces have for years arrested children suspected of working with the Taliban and handed them over to an Afghan security unit accused of torture.
The document, obtained under an Access to Information request and marked ‘secret,’ shows that Defence Minister Peter MacKay was briefed on the topic of juvenile detainees in Afghanistan March 30.”
UN General Assembly Security Council, Children and Armed Conflict, April 10, 2010:
“Approximately 110 children have been detained by the Afghan National Directorate of Security and international military forces on charges related to national security, including their alleged involvement or association with the Taliban or other armed groups. Access to detention facilities continues to be difficult and information on children detained by pro-Government forces remains limited.
The use of harsh interrogation techniques and forced confession of guilt by the Afghan Police and NDS was documented, including the use of electric shocks and beating . . . . Available information points to sexual violence as a widespread phenomenon.”
Electric shocks, beating, forced confessions, sexual violence.
You can see how the Con/Lib/Bloc Afghan detainee panel — all sworn to secrecy and finally convened in July seven months after it was ordered in the House and charged with going through all those binders on detainees that Laurie Hawn is leaning on — is going to take a really really long time to get around to releasing any hint of this, if ever.
At which point, MacKay will probably issue one of his “there was a problem but we already fixed it” missives and point out that Afghanistan is a sovereign country whose torture facilities are solely responsible for the treatment of the children we hand over to them. Especially as we now apparently actively solicit Canadian industry support for the CIA-backed NDS.
In the Afghan Committee on Oct 20, 2010, Parliamentary Secretary for National Defence Laurie Hawn remarked the NDS is “probably one of the better institutions in Afghanistan” and asked the Afghan ambassador if there was anything Canadian private industry could do to help them out.
What troubles me most about all such news is the fact that fighting terrorism could easily be kept on a black and white scale – evil fundamentalists vs. our fair forces. However, in war no side of the conflict can remain clean and all the info being revealed every now and then about coalition forces just proves the point. The question is how we can claim any legitimacy whatsoever knowing about all the terrible things that are happening….
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Taliban was using kids. The best thing for them is probably to be sent to a stable, moderate Islamic country for some culturally sensitive deprogramming. But how can that be done without violating Afghan sovereignty, or even the pretence of it?
If there is no good solution, and since we cannot be complicit in child torture and rape, then the only thing to do when these Taliban kids are captured is to quietly send them back to their parents. If that’s sending them back to the Taliban, then so be it. Yes, that’s sub-optimal, and calls into question how effective we can be there.
It may be time to return to Clinton era policy with regard to Afghanistan — spot a terrorist training camp, take it out, but don’t get mired down in the country itself. It is poison to occupiers, even those with the best of intentions.