Editorials

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Unfetter torture inquiry

By: Editorial

Posted: 11/20/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

FORMER diplomat Richard Colvin found fertile ground at a parliamentary committee for his allegations that prisoners the Canadian forces handed to Afghan officials in 2006 were routinely tortured. Senior managers ignored the warnings and then told him and others not to put their concerns in writing.

The revelations expand on details contained in Mr. Colvin's affidavit, filed with the on-again/off-again Military Police Complaints Commission. To date, the federal government has prevented him from testifying at the independent inquiry into torture allegations.

Opposition MPs claimed the details as proof of a nefarious agenda that damaged the work of the Canadian Forces in Afghanistan. Defence Minister Peter MacKay dismissed Mr. Colvin as a Taliban dupe, passing on incredible hearsay. But at the committee Mr. Colvin was both circumspect and precise, avoiding speculation and reciting the facts he held.

Mr. Colvin, the diplomatic second in command in Afghanistan in 2006, testified that Forces officials for months refused to take the calls of Red Cross officials, whom Canada relied on for monitoring prisoners post-transfer. At the time, then-defence minister Gordon O'Connor rebuffed reports of mistreatment, insisting anything amiss would be caught by the Red Cross.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, at President Hamid Karzai's inauguration Thursday, noted that in 2007 strict conditions were imposed on transferring detainees, who are now visited by Canadian Corrections officials. But Mr. Colvin's evidence suggests the early warnings of the Red Cross were right, yet ignored by official indifference.

Such information is critical to catching weaknesses that might undo Canada's pledge to ensure the safety of detainees. Mr. Colvin's evidence should not have become a bone in the partisan, parliamentary dog fight, but Ottawa fought to keep him, and others, from appearing at the military commission. The Harper government must let the independent inquiry to proceed unobstructed so the evidence can be tested vigorously under oath.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 20, 2009 A14

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