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.

Back in 2007 the Cons claimed that the Geneva Conventions do not apply in Afghanistan because we are not officially at war with Afghanistan. On Tuesday in the Afghan parliamentary committee, Con MP Jim Abbott attempted to resuscitate that position.

Appearing as a witness before the committee, Paul Champ, human rights lawyer for Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties Association, advised that the UK suspended detainee transfers in June, 2009.

If the Brits still think the risk of torture is too great, he asked, why does Canada think it’s safe — particularly in light of the 2009 report from the US State Dept., dated March 11, 2010, regarding continuing reports of detainees being beaten, subjected to elecric shocks, etc?

Hawn asked whether it is appropriate to impose Canadian standards on Afganistan.

Champ : “Prisoners in Canadian corrections facilities are not subjected to electric shocks or beaten with electrical cables or hung up for days.”

Dosanjh : “Are you suggesting that we as Canadians, the Canadian government in particular, with the evidence before us, are in breach of our obligations vis a vis the Geneva conventions?”

Champ : “Yes and also the convention against torture and human rights.”

Dosanjh : “Is it your view that the government of Canada today, if taken to court, would be likely to be found in breach of international obligations?

Champ : “I do . . . Prohibition against torture is a non derogable duty.”

Abbott : “Dosanjh’s question is irresponsible. Would you agree with me that the Geneva convention does not apply in Afghanistan because it is not a state-to-state conflict, and would you further agree you were worried that we could be, or soldiers could be, subject to laws under the Geneva convention. And considering that it doesn’t apply, would you agree, why would you answer that irresponsible question with an irresponsible answer?

Champ : “I would disagree with you that the Geneva convention does not apply to the armed conflict in Afghanistan.”

Abbott : “Who was the other state?”

Champ : “You are quite right there’s some dispute whether it’s an international armed conflict or not, but, regardless, Common Article 3 — which is the duty not to subject individuals to inhumane or cruel treatment — that applies both in internal civil armed conflicts or international armed conflicts. So that applies regardless, and I think almost any lawyer would agree with me on that.”

Abbott : “Are you cherry-picking the Geneva convention?”

Champ : “No, I don’t think so. Common Article 3 applies in all conventions, 1,2, 3 and 4 . It’s the prohibition against cruel and inhumane treatment and I think any lawyer would agree with me that it applies in this conflict.”

There was more showboating from Abbott about docs leaked in the US “sending Osama bin Laden back to his caves” and “damage to soldiers from the complete public release of all docs” — which the unflappable Champ responded to by explaining that what is needed is a functioning system for dealing with all this and no one has suggested full scale public release of the docs and, for instance, he for one does not expect to see them.

Hawn opined that Champ is an employee of two orgs that are fighting our government, so it’s all just a partisan political witch hunt and we should move on to other matters.

Bachand reminded Hawn that the Cons boycotted the committee before Xmas and then prorogued for a month, so it’s pretty rich they now just want to move on, at which they all went “in camera” for a fight.

I do not see how we can “move on” as long as we have a government that does not believe in prohibitions against torture.

UPDATE : http://thegallopingbeaver.blogspot.com/2010/03/harper-conservative-jim-abbott-believes.html

Dave explains yet again why the Cons fiddling around with definitions of torture endangers the very troops they purport to champion as they hide behind them.

On Airshow Peter MacKay’s attempt to discredit Canadian diplomat Richard 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 this week, he is not a whistleblower.

His 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.

Among the many fakeries and falsehoods foisted on the House on Thursday by the Cons, in their bid to maintain the most secretive and unaccountable government evah, usual frontrunners Laurie Goldie Hawn and Cheryl Gallant got beat out by Gary Goodyear, Minister of Creationism, Science, and Technology. Here he is explaining why the motion to release documents the government had already supplied to Christie Blatchford and friendly Afghan committee witnesses but not to the Afghan committee members or Richard Colvin, who wrote some of them, would be a very. very. bad. thing.

“Madam Speaker, perhaps I will just make a comment. The fact is that we are debating a motion here that is asking the government to release information that could in fact entail something as simple as a soldier’s name, middle name, address and perhaps phone number. It is information that the Taliban are hoping they can get their hands on, not just to attack that soldier but also potentially to put the family of the soldier at risk.”

And that, boys and girls, is why the dates and the word torture must be blacked out on Richard Colvin’s three year old reports.

Second prize goes to Goldie, who characterized a Canadian soldier’s reports of extrajudicial killings and torture as:

“one Taliban got hit with a shoe”

and for the following rhetorical flight of irrelevancy:

“When it comes to the big ticket items of national unity and doing the right thing on the international stage, Liberals and Conservatives have always spoken with the same voice. That is the voice of freedom, it is the voice of courage, it is the voice of doing the right thing for Canadian men and women here and abroad, people like the people of Holland in 1944-45…”

Gallant takes third place for her accusation on two separate occasions that personal info about soldiers would be twittered straight from the Afghan committee to the Taliban, a point seconded by Jim Abbott who is himself on the committee.

Honourable mention — Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Abandoning Canadians Overseas, for: “We are at war.”

Steve and Airshow MacKay had no new material –  just the same accusations that not supporting the Cons’ contempt for parliament is the same thing as attacking the troops.

High point: a brilliant speech by Paul Dewar.

The motion to release to the Afghan committee documents related to the care and detention of Afghan prisoners passed by 145 to 143. Steve has no intention of honouring that vote.

Wow. More of the smearing of witnesses we’ve come to expect from the Cons, this time at the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan.

- Cheryl Gallant. Although Richard Colvin took pains in his opening statement to the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan to make clear that he had nothing but admiration for the brave Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, none of whom to his knowledge had anything to do with torturing Afghans, Cheryl Gallant used her allotted time to lecture Colvin on how Canadian soldiers had nothing to do with torturing Afghans. She also chastised him for “fanning the flames of outrage” and lectured him on how “planting stories” is in the “Al Qaida handbook.” Wanker.

- Laurie Goldie Hawn, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence Peter MacKay. Colvin never witnessed torture first hand — so take that, Red Cross. Torture was probably self-inflicted and isn’t it suspicious that of all the public servants who were bullied out of testifying by the Cons, Colvin is the only one with the guts to torpedo his own career by coming forward. Yes, Goldie, obviously Colvin is up to something. Wanker.

- Peter Goldring. Ditto Goldie but more pompously. Wanker.

- Jim Abbott. Ditto Goldie, plus if our record-keeping and monitoring of prisoners was so bad, how do we know any of this even happened? As Kady O’Malley pointed out in her live-blogging, Abbott clearly thinks this is his “Columbo” moment on committee.

I don’t know how to explain their shocking behavior other than to guess they all saw the movie High Noon as kids and somehow thought Gary Cooper was the bad guy, taking the townspeople for their role models instead.

Will the rest of Canada stand up for Richard Colvin? He’s going to need it.

By the way, a month ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time Peter MacKay, and Minister of Defence at the time Gordon O’Connor all denied ever seeing any of the 16 reports “circulated widely throughout the Foreign Affairs and Defence departments and also shared with senior military commanders in Ottawa and Afghanistan” warning that Afghan authorities were abusing detainees handed over by Canadian forces.

How did they all manage to miss all those reports from Richard Colvin, the second in command of Afghan reconstruction at the time? we asked ourselves, somewhat rhetorically.

Murray Brewster, CP:

Canadian diplomats in Afghanistan were ordered in 2007 to hold back information in their reports to Ottawa about the handling of the prisoners, say defence and foreign affairs sources.

The instruction — issued soon after allegations of torture by Afghan authorities began appearing in public — was aimed at defusing the explosive human-rights controversy, said sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

There was a fear that graphic reports, even in censored form, could be uncovered by opposition parties and the media through access-to-information laws, leading to revelations that would further erode already-tenuous public support.

Yeah. Requests for boots to wade through blood and feces will do that.