Canada’s government has found itself embroiled in a scandal that endangers its international credibility and possibly implicates the country in a war crime.
On November 18, Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin told a parliamentary committee that Canadian forces transferred captured Afghans to local authorities, knowing that they would be tortured. Colvin, who served seventeen months in Afghanistan, said that many of the detainees were “just local people: farmers, truck drivers, tailors, peasants – random human beings in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Methods of torture used are said to have included electric shocks, beatings, open flames, sleep deprivation and other brutal methods that would sometimes go on for months. The diplomat claims to have witnessed evidence of torture himself when he visited the jails where transferred detainees were held.
Colvin’s testimony implied that the Canadian Forces’ framework for prison transfer was “alarmingly loose” and without any semblance of accountability. He pointed out that Canada handed over six times more detainees than Britain, and twenty times more than the Netherlands over an eighteen-month period in 2006 and 2007. At this time it was common knowledge that torture was widely favoured by local authorities, but efforts by the Red Cross to warn Canadian officials about the torture of detainees were ignored. Both Britain and the Netherlands reported detainee transfers to their national legislature, while Canada kept the information under wraps in order to preserve “national security.”
Perhaps more shocking is that efforts to raise a red flag on the issue were silenced. Colvin, who formerly served as the diplomatic head of the Canadian reconstruction team in Afghanistan, first began to raise concerns in April 2006. As the prisoner abuse allegations scandal loomed large, senior cabinet ministers in the House of Commons were denying any credible reports of torture had been received. Colvin was instructed by his Ottawa bosses not to leave a paper trail of his concerns, but to use the telephone instead.
In Ottawa, the Conservative government is on damage control. Defence Minister Peter MacKay dismissed Colvin’s allegations as “nothing short of hearsay, second- or third-hand information, or that which came directly from the Taliban.” These rebuffs directly contradict the diplomat’s claims that his repeated warnings to his superiors of the torture taking place were ignored.
The scandal has serious implications for Canada. Stephen Harper’s impending visit to China will be affected; headlines across the country blazed with the news, and any attempt by the Prime Minister to bring up China’s alleged human rights abuses during the visit could be shot down as hypocritical. International law requires the Canadian state to investigate the torture allegations and prosecute all those involved, regardless of their level of government. However, some believe this is unlikely to take place as it would implicate very high ranking military officials and politicians.
Regardless of who eventually shoulders the blame, the situation exposes a raw and inconvenient truth about Canada’s international missions.
“One can only hope that these crimes will serve as a wake-up call to people both at home and abroad who believe that Canadian foreign policy presently constitutes a 'force for good' internationally,” commented Mount Allison International Relations professor Dr. Dave Thomas.
Canadians seem to have found a brash and convincing wake-up call indeed.