Taliban prisoners will still face torture and death

March 15, 2007

Both Defence Minister O’Connor and head of the military General Rick Hillier have been in Afghanistan trying to do damage control on the issue of the treatment of Taliban prisoners handed over by Canada to the Afghan policy and army. The media have been absolutely irresponsible in the reporting of this “spin” trip and it is important that at least in the letters pages we call this for what it is - a whitewash of the hideous reality that is Canada’s role in Afghanistan.

Write a short letter welcoming O’Connor and Hillier home with the criticism they deserve - and take a crack at the media’s complicity in covering up the real story - that is, that we are mired in an unwinable and illegal war whose only possible outcome is more innocent Afghan citizens killed and more Canadian soldiers killed or wounded.

FRAMING:

1. What we have in both these men is not just un unjustifiable commitment to transforming the Canadian military from a peacekeeping force to a war-fighting machine, but two complete incompetents who do not understand what they are doing or where they are

2. The federal government, through these two senior figures, supports an Afghan government that every neutral analysis has declared irretrievably corrupt.

3. Specifically, we need to expose the farce of this new agreement with the Afghan Human Rights group - not because the group is illegitimate but because it can have no influence on the abuse, torture, and extra-judicial murder that takes place in Afghan facilities. Nothing will change.

Here are some points you can use in your letters:

• How can we have any confidence that Canadian [prisoners turned over to the Afghan authorities will be treated according to the Geneva Convention standards (as promised by O’Connor when according to the latest human-rights assessment by the US State Department.

• "Security and factional forces committed extrajudicial killings and torture," the US report says. Broader "human-rights problems included: extrajudicial killings; torture; poor prison conditions; official impunity; prolonged pretrial detention; abuse of authority by regional commanders;

• Local authorities "routinely torture and abuse detainees," the report says. "Torture and abuse consisted of pulling out fingernails and toenails, burning with hot oil, beatings, sexual humiliation, and sodomy."

• Canadian troops usually turn detainees over to the Afghan National Police. The State Department said, "The ANP . . . was the predominant government institution responsible for security in the country. Its performance engendered mistrust among the local population, and reports of corruption and mistreatment of citizens in custody were widespread."

[all quotes re: torture come from a March 8, 2007 Globe and Mail story by Paul Koring]

• According to the G&M of 23/09/06, reporting on Operation Medusa last fall, “Farmers say gangs of policemen, often their tribal rivals, have swept into Panjwai behind the Canadian troops to search for valuables. They have been described ransacking homes, burning shops and conducting shakedowns at checkpoints.”

• Minister O’Connor misled the House of Commons when he stated that the Red cross reported to Canada on any mistreatment of Canadian prisoners turned over to Afghan authorities. After repeating this falsehood several times, O’Connor was finally confronted with the truth by the ICRC - the International Committee of Red Cross (whose credibility he was damaging and in very dangerous circumstances) who repeated its well known position: that it never reveals such information to third parties, but only to host countries. O’Connor, a military man with decades of experience either knew this and misled Parliament or didn’t and is utterly incompetent - either way he should be fired.

• Canada continues to put forward the farcical notion that we are building democracy in Afghanistan when report after report reveals that the government it is co-operating with is rife with corruption and incompetence. Many of the elected MPs stand accused of carrying out massacres, mass rape, torture and other war crimes. A lengthy 2005 UN report (leaked to the Guardian newspaper) documents these atrocities and names those responsible. According to Afghani MP Malalai Joya, one of a handful of Afghan women legislators, Karzai has also "appointed 13 former commanders with links to drug smuggling, organized crime and illegal militias to senior positions in the police force."

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