Our ambassador to Syria betrayed Canada to the US

June 16, 2005

I am sure most of you have witnessed the appalling testimony from the former Canadian ambassador to Syria, Franco Pillarella, in the hearings into the Maher Arar case. It is clear from his testimony that his principal concern was doing America's dirty work - focussing his attention not on getting Mr Arar released but on letting the Syrian authorities know that Canada wanted any information they could get from Arar. In other words, a green light for the Syrians to do what they are known to do: torture prisoners.

This goes beyond the disgusting behaviour of an arrogant and patrician ambassador. He would never have done this without orders from Canada. This goes to the heart of what "deep integration" would mean and already does mean. Our "harmonizing" of security, refugee and immigration policies with the US means the suppression of human rights and civil liberties in the interests of the US phony war on terror.

The almost universal revulsion over the ambassador's remarks (see the G&M editorial below) gives us an excellent opportunity to point out the consequences of further integration with the US.

A couple of paragraphs are all that is necessary to engage Canadian on this issue in the letters pages. Some points of fact (just use a couple): [COPY THE GLOBE AND MAIL ON THIS AND ADD A LINE REFERRING POSITIVELY TO THE EDITORIAL THEY WROTE.]

• The ambassador testified that he was not aware of any human rights abuses in Syria. He may be the only literate person on the planet to make such a claim - many reports of Amnesty International and the London-based Syrian Human Rights Organization have given extremely detailed reports of torture. He had to know of these reports.
  
  
• The ambassador chose to believe a Syrian General that Arar had only been in jail for 24 hours even though Arar told him he had been there for two weeks.
  
  
• Another embassy official, Canadian consul Leo Martel, raised the alarm after the first visit with Arar - pointing out that Arar's answers and his body language and eye signals indicated he could not speak freely. Pillarella ignored the red flag.
  
  
• Syria offered to have a CSIS intelligence officer attend questioning sessions. While such attendance would not have prevented torture in other sessions, by declining the offer the Ambassador was giving an implicit green light to the Syrians to torture Arar.
  
  
• Documents released previously by the inquiry show Canada waited 10 months after Mr. Arar's arrival before expressing concern to the Syrians.

Analysis:

• Why would Mr. Pillarella ignore the well-known record of Syria regarding torture and focus on getting information from Arar instead of getting him released? Because Canada now does the dirty work of the US government in its ill-considered war on terror.
  
  
• This is no rogue diplomat. A consummate professional diplomat, Pillarella would never have done this without absolutely clear orders from Canada.
  
  
• This willingness to sacrifice the freedom of Canadian citizens to curry favour with the US is a flagrant abandonment of our own sovereignty.
  
  
• We are complicit in this (paranoid/racist/jingoistic/unilateral) initiative that has virtually destroyed the reputation of the US in nearly every country in the world. And each time we are complicit in such efforts we put our reputation as a country supporting human rights at risk.
  
  
• The testimony of Mr. Pillarella should serve as a stark warning about the consequences of getting too close to the US in terms of foreign policy, security initiatives, and how we conduct the fight against terrorism. A new initiative by big business in Canada - called "deep integration" - calls for "harmonizing" all these policies. Such harmonization clearly means simply adopting US policies and abandoning Canadian sovereignty, independence and values.
  
  
• The Liberal govt accepts the notion that we need to protect North America from terror attacks. But it is the US that is the target because of its mid-East policies - not Canada. By implicitly adopting the US approach to fighting terror we could be inviting terrorist attacks against Canada.

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