Jack Harris

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DECEMBER 8, 2009

MACKAY MISLEADING CANADIANS ON AFGHAN DETAINEES
New Democrats call for Defence Minister’s resignation

OTTAWA – Defence Minister Peter MacKay has repeatedly misled Canadians about detainee abuse in Afghanistan and must resign, say New Democrats.

“Every day new revelations contradict what MacKay has told Parliament,” said New Democrat Defence Critic Jack Harris (St. John’s East). “Canadians have no confidence in this minister and we call for his resignation.”

Since Richard Colvin’s explosive testimony at the Afghanistan committee, MacKay has called the senior diplomat a Taliban dupe, misrepresented the facts, intimidated committee witnesses and undermined parliamentary access to uncensored documents.

MacKay claimed that he had never seen Richard Colvin’s memos, but evidence shows he had been copied on some of the memos and received others in his briefing book.

He claimed that the Red Cross never warned Canada about the prison conditions in Afghanistan, but documents reveal that at two meetings in Kandahar the ICRC took unprecedented steps to warn Canada about abuse in Afghan prisons.

He claimed that detainee transfers were halted by Canada because Afghans were not respecting an agreement on transfers that it signed with Canada, but internal government memos showed that Afghans themselves halted transfers because of lack of evidence of wrongdoing by those detained.

“MacKay has zero credibility. First he misleads Canadians and when he’s caught he blames Canadian Forces officials and diplomats,” said New Democrat Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar (Ottawa-Centre). “But the buck stops with MacKay and he has to go, and the Prime Minister must call a public inquiry into this cover-up.”

OTTAWA – The government has abused redactions in the past to cover-up knowledge of torture. Any blacking-out of documents requested by the committee will undermine the committee’s ability to uncover the truth about the detainee torture issue, says New Democrat Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar.

“We hear the government will be dumping redacted documents on the committee today but New Democrats want access to uncensored documents,” says Dewar.

Dewar pointed to the example of the Foreign Affairs 2006 report on human rights in Afghanistan, approved by Richard Colvin, where redactions were used to cover-up all passages related to torture.

The version released by government through an Access to Information request was so heavily redacted that it included absolutely no mention of torture and abuse in Afghan prisons. A version of the document later obtained through the federal court, however, indicated that just on the first page of the report officials warned that “extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common.”

“By redacting just that one sentence, the government was able to cover-up knowledge of extrajudicial killings and torture in Afghanistan,” says Dewar. “This is precisely why Canadians can’t trust any documents with redactions from this government”.

OTTAWA – New Democrats have submitted a motion at the Afghanistan special committee to demand all government documents relevant to the torture of Afghan detainees, including Richard Colvin’s reports.
“The government is hiding the truth, and making a mockery of this committee, by refusing to release the documents it has in its possession,” said New Democrat Foreign Affairs Critic Paul Dewar.

The government has indicated to the media they do not agree that the committee has a right to these reports and that they will continue to withhold them under the guise of national security.
“Conservatives have quashed access to information on this file since day one,” said Dewar. “The committee has clear powers to shed light on these documents and we fully intend to exercise our right to know the facts.”

In 2007 the government established the “Tiger Team” in the Department of National Defence as an extra layer to veto the release of documents related to the treatment of Afghan detainees. Recent reports also indicate that the Prime Minister’s Office was directly involved in censoring messages.

The NDP motion is requesting the production of:

• All documents referred to in the Affidavit of Richard Colvin, dated October 5, 2009;
• All documents within the Department of Foreign Affairs written in response to the documents referred to in the Affidavit of Richard Colvin, dated October 5, 2009;
• All memoranda for information or memoranda for decision sent to the Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning detainees from December 18, 2005 to the present;
• All documents produced pursuant to the all orders of the Federal Court in Amnesty International and British Columbia Civil Liberties Association v. Chief of the Defence Staff for the Canadian Forces, Minister of National Defence and Attorney General of Canada;
• All documents produced to the Military Police Complaints Commission in the Afghanistan Public Interest Hearings;
• All annual human rights reports by DFAIT on Afghanistan.
New Democrats were first to call for a full, independent public inquiry on the issue.