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Standing by detainee pact, Hillier concedes it lacks safeguards to prevent torture
Globe and Mail
May 3, 2007
By Graeme Smith and Campbell Clark
General Rick Hillier has distanced himself from the detainee deal he signed with his counterpart in Afghanistan, saying it may have lacked the safeguards necessary to prevent detainees from suffering torture in Afghan custody.
The Chief of Defence Staff also said he never saw any of the public reports or government documents that warned last year of detainee abuse. He first learned of such allegations in recent days, he said, as The Globe and Mail investigated stories of torture in Kandahar jails.
The government initially reacted to stories of abuse last week by defending the deal that Gen. Hillier signed in December of 2005, sending detainees into Afghan custody without Canadian monitoring.
Speaking to reporters last night at Kandahar Air Field, Gen. Hillier was less enthusiastic about the arrangement.
"Obviously we'd reassess that as allegations come out, that perhaps that [deal] was not sufficient," he said.
Even the fact his signature appears on the agreement was a matter of luck, Gen. Hillier added, responding to comments from government sources who told The Globe the military had pushed diplomats aside while making the deal.
The agreement would have been signed by the Canadian ambassador, except that Gen. Hillier happened to be visiting Afghanistan and he was invited to join the ceremony by an Afghan politician, he said.
"The minister for defence for Afghanistan, Minister [Abdul Rahim] Wardak, who knows me very well, asked that I participate and sit in," Gen. Hillier said. "So that's why I signed it. Foreign Affairs, of course, had the lead on that throughout."
The commander said he still does not consider the agreement a mistake, saying he feels no regret about it.
Gen. Hillier emphasized that the stories of abuse are still under investigation, and indicated that his Afghan allies tell him the allegations are false. His soldiers are "pissed off," he said, that the issue is distracting from the mission.
But he also hinted repeatedly that he would be receptive to a revised arrangement.
"Circumstances change, and perhaps you go on to do something else that's going to be better, more effective," Gen. Hillier said.
Later, he added: "We continue to learn lessons and improve each day. ... This is no different."
Gen. Hillier evaded a question about why the Canadian mission failed to find the problems earlier. In the year of bloody fighting that followed his signing ceremony, many leading voices on human rights expressed concern that detainees face mistreatment, torture or extra-judicial killings in Afghan custody. Such allegations were publicized by the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Louise Arbour, the Canadian who serves as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
In private, Canadian diplomats also sent detailed warnings to Ottawa describing the brutality of Afghan prisons.
"I was not aware of reports at that time, that there was any allegation of abuse of any detainees," Gen. Hillier said.
"Truly, at the time, we felt that was the right thing to do, that we were comfortable with our approach, and that the involvement of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Afghanistan government being required to live up to its commitments of course, all were sufficient," he said.
The Red Cross keeps its findings secret from everybody except the institution it investigates. Earlier this year, Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor was forced to apologize to Parliament for saying, erroneously, that Red Cross monitoring gives Canada a way of checking up on the treatment of detainees in Afghan custody.
Gen. Hillier's mention of Afghanistan's commitments refers to the fact that the country is a party to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid torture of war prisoners. The same convention also makes it illegal for Canada to transfer such prisoners to facilities where they face torture or abuse.
A helicopter took Gen. Hillier to Kandahar city yesterday for a meeting with Asadullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar. The two spoke about detainees, and Mr. Khalid said he repeated his assertion that the torture stories were fabricated by Taliban extremists.
But Gen. Hillier said he is leaving the latest round of talks about a strengthened detainee agreement to the diplomats.
"I have not had those discussions, because Foreign Affairs has the lead," he said.
The commander wasn't specific about how he would like to see the negotiations conclude.
"As in any agreement, nothing lasts forever," he said. "So if that gets amended or supplemented with anything else that makes it more effective, then that's excellent."
In Ottawa yesterday, Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe argued that Gen. Hillier was dodging his responsibility, and should not be complaining that the troops are "pissed off."
"Well, I know others who are pissed off, I can tell you. Because this dear general said, 'Listen, I signed an agreement. If it turns out it's no good, it will be up to the Foreign Affairs Department to handle,' " Mr. Duceppe said.
"Those undermining morale are people like Gen. Hillier and people like [Defence Minister Gordon] O'Connor not answering questions here. If you're supporting the soldiers, and we do support the soldiers, that doesn't mean you don't have any questions."
Opposition leaders charged that the government is in "chaos," with senior civil servants pointing fingers at each other.
But Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his ministers fought back by noting that the agreement on transferring prisoners to Afghanistan was signed while the previous Liberal government was in office, and accusing the Liberals of undermining Canadian troops.
"It's when you keep an incompetent minister in his job that you are not supporting the troops. It's when you see senior civil servants contradicting each other in the media and when you see the chaos that exists in this government that you are not supporting the troops," Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said in the Commons.
Mr. Harper also asserted that The Globe reported that Gen. Hillier signed the agreement without political approval, insisting that was wrong.
In fact, The Globe did not report that Gen. Hillier signed the agreement without ministerial approval. The Globe reported that senior government officials said that the Defence Department, pushing for the deal, shunted aside diplomats in the Foreign Affairs department, leaving them out of the decisions.
Then-defence-minister Bill Graham has said that he approved Canada's agreement with Afghanistan on the transfer of detainees before it was signed. Gen. Hillier signed the deal with Mr. Wardak, the Afghanistan Defence Minister, in Afghanistan during the 2005-06 election campaign.
© Copyright 2007 CTVglobemedia Publishing Inc.
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