Tagged: Kandahar
Blatchford resorts to the bucket defence
In a follow-up to her screed against diplomat Richard Colvin, Globe and Mail columnist Christie Blatchford resorts to a full-blown bucket defence. According to Blatchford:
- There is no evidence Afghan security forces abused prisoners Canada turned over to them: “This is not akin to officials knowing that Afghans were being tortured.”
- Everyone knew Afghan security forces abused prisoners Canada turned over to them: “[It's] obvious that Afghanistan is a brutal country where cruelty, hardship and physical violence are a way of life. No one with a lick of sense would expect that Afghan prisoners would live in comfort or ease.”
- Colvin never actually complained about torture: “If Mr. Colvin had been shouting TORTURE at the top of his lungs… word would not have leaked out” and, quoting retired lieutenant-general Michel Gauthier, “There was nothing in [Colvin's] reports that caused me or my staff to see in them serious, imminent or alarming new warnings of torture … and to suggest that senior officials or commanders ignored these or covered them up is wrong.”
- Colvin’s complained about torture in a manner so shrill as to be hysterical: “Mr. Colvin… spun himself into a hyperbolic fury over it.”
- Colvin only discovered the torture problem in April, 2007, after Globe and Mail reporter Graeme Smith blew the lid off the issue. “Within days of [Smith's] first story… Mr. Colvin had found his issue and was off to the races” and “Mr. Colvin discovered the abuse story shortly after or as this newspaper did.”
- By early 2007, everyone in Kandahar knew about the torture problem: “In other words, by early 2007, it was clear to just about every senior Canadian military and Foreign Affairs official in Afghanistan that there were serious questions with the monitoring of how Afghan prisoners taken by Canadian troops were being treated. From early 2007 on, recognition of the problem wasn’t the problem; figuring out how to fix it, and winning political approval for the fix, was.”
In other words, there was no torture; everyone knew there was torture. Colvin never complained about torture; Colvin was hysterical about torture. Colvin only discovered the torture problem in April 2007; by April 2007, everyone and his dog knew there was a torture problem.
Or, to put it another way, “I never borrowed your bucket. It was in perfect shape when I gave it back to you. I wish I had never borrowed the bucket anyway because the damed thing has a hole in it.”
One can scarcely imagine the embarrassment in the Globe newsroom at this meretricious imitation of journalism, especially in light of the excellent work Smith and other Globe reporters have done on this story.
In a world where bloggers often deride their mainstream counterparts, it’s important to note that Blatchford is an exception to the many mainstream reporters (Smith, Murray Brewster, Paul Koring, Steve Maher, and others) who have done solid reporting on the torture scandal.
Colvin’s torture testimony – #6 (link fixed)
Unfortunately, the officials House of Commons recording of Richard Colvin’s testimony is not in an audio format I know how to embed. Readers can listen to by clicking here [Link Fixed].
I have transcribed some excerpts below, but everyone should listen to the whole recording. Colvin describes shameful behaviour on the part of senior Canadian military officials and their civilian overseers. The acts and omissions he describes are a disgrace to Canada that must be corrected. The first step in correcting them is for Canadians to fully appreciate what took place.
Colvin explained that Canada did not monitor detainees after it turned them over to the Afghan security forces (known as the National Directorate of Security, or NDS). Instead, our forces relied on two human rights groups, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and the International Red Cross.
Unfortunately, the AIHRC had very limited capacity, and in Kandahar, were not allowed into the NDS prisons. So for the purposes of monitoring our detainees, they unfortunately were quite useless. The Red Cross is a very professional and effective organization. However, they were also no good for us as monitors. Once a detainee had been transferred to Afghan custody, the Red Cross, under their rules, could only inform the Afghan authorities about abuse. Under those strict rules, they are not permitted to tell Canada.
Colvin said that, unlike the Dutch and British forces who fought along side our soldiers, Canada was “extremely slow to inform the Red Cross when we had transferred a detainee to the Afghans.”
The Canadian Forces leadership created a very peculiar six-step process. Canadian military police in Kandahar had to inform the Canadian Command Element at Kandahar Airfield, who in turn informed Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command, or CEFCOM, in Ottawa. CEFCOM would eventually inform the Canadian Embassy in Geneva, who then informed Red Cross headquarters in Geneva, which finally was able to inform the Red Cross mission in Kandahar.
This process took days, weeks, or in some cases, up to two months. The Dutch and British military, by contract, had a one-step process. They simply notified the Red Cross office in Kandahar directly. The Dutch did so immediately upon detaining an Afghan, and the British within 24 hours.
In other words, during the critical days after a [Canadian-held] detainee was first transferred to the Afghan Intelligence Service, nobody was able to monitor them. Canada had decided that Canadians would not monitor. The AIHRC could not do so because they had very weak capacity and were not allowed into NDS jails. And the Red Cross in practice could not do so either because we did not inform them until days, weeks, or months after we had handed over the detainee.
During those first crucial days, what happened to our detainees? According to a number of reliable sources, they were tortured.
The most common forms of torture were beatings, whipping with power cables, and finally use of electricity. Also common were sleep deprivation, use of temperature extremes, use of knives and open flames, and sexual abuse, that is, rape.
Ttorture might be limited to the first days, or it could go on for months. According to our information, the likelihood is that all the Afghans we handed over were tortured. For interrogators in Kandahar, it was a standard operating procedure.
Canadian record keeping, again unlike the UK and the Netherlands,was so poor that once we finally got around to letting the Red Cross know we had turned a detainee over, they were often unable to locate the prisoner.
Canada, unlike the UK and the Netherlands, cloaked our detainee practices in extreme secrecy. The Dutch Government immediately informed the Dutch Parliament as soon as a detainee had been taken. The Dutch also provided their Parliament with extremely detailed reporting on every stage of detention and transfer, and on the results of monitoring after transfer. The UK has also announced publicly the number of their detainees.
The Canadian Forces by contrast have refused to reveal even the number of detainees they have taken, claiming this would violate operational security. When the Red Cross wanted to engage on detainee issues, for three months the Canadian Forces in Kandahar wouldn’t even take their phone calls. The same thing happened to the NATO ISAF Command in Kabul, which has responsibility to report detainnee numbes to Brussels, but was told, “We know what you want, but we won’t tell you.”
Frankly, the operational security argument makes no sense to me. If we go into a village and take away three Afghans, everyone in the village knows exactly who we have taken. In practice, the information was being concealed, not from the Taliban, but from the Canadian public.
A suggestion: School teachers and university professors may want to play Mr. Colvin’s courageous testimony to their classes.
