:
I call the meeting to order.
Good afternoon, colleagues. This is meeting number 6 of the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan, on Wednesday, April 21, 2010.
Again I will remind everyone that we are televised, so you may want to adjust your cellphone and your BlackBerry so they aren't ringing in the middle of today's testimony.
Towards the end of today's meeting we are going to have time for committee business; the first portion will be public and we may consider having two minutes of in camera after that. But for certain the first portion of the meeting will be public.
We're going to continue our study on the transfer of Afghan detainees. We have a panel of witnesses this afternoon.
I'm pleased to welcome, from the Embassy of Canada, Ron Hoffmann, Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand.
Welcome to our committee.
From the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, we have Arif Lalani, director general, policy planning bureau, and David Sproule, deputy legal adviser and director general of the department's legal affairs bureau.
Welcome.
I understand that each of you will have a few comments to make. Then we'll go into a couple of rounds of questioning. We thank you for being here today.
I believe Mr. Sproule is going to start this afternoon.
We look forward to your comments.
My name is David Sproule. I am the deputy legal adviser and director general of the legal affairs bureau in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I served as Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from October 6, 2005, until April 17, 2007. Immediately prior to this assignment, I was Canadian High Commissioner to Bangladesh.
Let me begin by noting that an overriding consideration for Canada and the more than 60 partner countries present in Afghanistan is to ensure that the impact of our assistance endures. We do this by helping develop strong and democratic institutions, thus equipping Afghanistan to assume full responsibility for its own long-term governance and security needs.
When I began my assignment in Afghanistan in 2005, our diplomatic personnel at the embassy consisted of five staff--me, one political officer, and three development officers--and three administrative staff, 10 security staff, and Glyn Berry at our PRT in Kandahar. Our objective was to transform our tiny operation into a full-fledged embassy and PRT, with the necessary personnel, infrastructure, communication systems, financial controls, and security protections to operate effectively in an austere and dangerous environment.
Our embassy and the PRT staff focused on diplomatic and development work designed to support our armed forces security operations.
We reported on our meetings and program work with President Karzai and key cabinet ministers; officials in government ministries and agencies; the Kandahar provincial administration; assembly and development councils; the Afghan army, police, and judiciary, a large number of UN and international organizations; other embassies; human rights organizations; and NGOs.
We also organized visits for numerous Canadian ministers, members of Parliament, government officials, the , the Governor General, and private sector experts from Canada.
A number of issues dominated our work, including: making the case for more NATO soldiers and Afghan army and police to assist Canadian Forces in Kandahar; enhancing training programs for the Afghan army and police; developing a bilateral aid program to meet Afghanistan's long-term development needs, such as education, micro-credit for women, and health, as well as some of the immediate requirements in Kandahar, including roads, wells, and police stations; strengthening Afghan institutions such as Parliament and the judiciary; addressing the problems of corruption and narcotics trafficking; negotiating formal and informal arrangements with the Afghanistan government; protecting our civilian personnel; preparing human rights reports; and supporting the detainee file.
A number of factors informed our efforts during this period with regard to the detainee issue, the key ones being: our presence in Afghanistan is based on relevant UN Security Council resolutions and a recognition that we are there at the invitation of the Afghan government and in support of its sovereignty; the need to facilitate the detention of enemy personnel to prevent them from returning to the battlefield and again threatening the lives of Canadian soldiers and diplomats; and, the importance of ensuring that persons captured by Canadian Forces are afforded proper standards of treatment and humane living conditions.
In this regard, let me add that we have never been under any illusion about the human rights situation in Afghanistan; it is part of the reason we are there.
To ensure appropriate treatment of detainees transferred to Afghan authorities, we needed to be satisfied that they were going to treat them in accordance with the international legal standards to which Afghanistan was committed. We obtained assurances from the highest levels of the Afghan government through the December 2005 arrangement. We made sure there was a firm understanding by Afghan authorities of both the importance Canada attached to this issue and the essential role we were playing in their country.
In order to further strengthen Afghan assurances, the 2005 arrangement recalled the existing entitlement of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC, to oversee detainees and the explicit recognition of the constitutional role and responsibility of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the AIHRC, in monitoring the treatment of detainees. We then began to make significant investments in Afghan institutions to build their capacity in the judicial system, policing, and corrections fields.
The first detainee issue that arose during my tenure was the operational delays in notifying the ICRC of those turned over to Afghan authorities by our forces and the insufficient detail provided to allow individuals to be properly tracked within the Afghan detention system by the ICRC. We sought to address these issues in mid-2006 by providing more detail on each individual turned over and putting in place a system to facilitate the direct notification of ICRC offices in Geneva and Kabul.
We also focused on the poor conditions in Afghan detention facilities and the inadequate training of prison personnel. We responded by mounting a Corrections Canada assessment visit to detention facilities in Kandahar to determine how facilities could be improved and the training of prison staff upgraded, and we funded initiatives in both these areas. Two CSC personnel and additional RCMP officers were assigned to our PRT in Kandahar to establish training and mentoring programs in prisons and for police. Visits were conducted by Corrections officials to Sarposa prison and to the NDS facility in the province.
Let me emphasize that while we were under no illusion about the possibility of mistreatment within Afghan detention facilities, we made crystal clear to the most senior Afghan government officials the importance Canada attaches to the proper treatment of detainees that we turned over to their authorities. We had received strong assurances that the Government of Afghanistan took its human rights obligations seriously.
Nevertheless, to further enhance protections against the potential for abuse or mistreatment in Afghan detention facilities, we improved the access and funding for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission staff. We began developing a diplomatic contingency plan outlining steps to take vis-à-vis the Afghan authorities in the event allegations of abuse were brought to our attention. In conjunction with this, we refined our standing operating procedures on the handling of detainees.
The initiation of these measures coincided with the decision to significantly increase the number of diplomatic personnel in Kabul and Kandahar to facilitate support and programming along these lines of effort, including on detainee issues. Full implementation of these plans took place during the tenure of my successor, Arif Lalani, who will now describe these measures in more detail.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon.
My name is Arif Lalani. I am currently the director general for policy planning at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
I served as the Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from April 2007 to August 2008. Immediately prior to that, I was ambassador to Jordan and to Iraq.
[Translation]
You have heard from my colleague David Sproule and from others about the complexities of the mission—civilian and military—in Afghanistan, over the entire period of Canada's approximately 10-year engagement there.
I would like to speak to you today briefly about the objectives during my time in Afghanistan, and specifically about the detainee transfer file. My predecessor, and officers from the embassy and headquarters, had been developing a number of aspects of the file. David has outlined those to you.
[English]
I arrived in Kabul on April 27, 2007. The detainee file was a priority from day one. On my first day in the embassy, on April 28, instructions were sent by headquarters to negotiate a supplemental arrangement to the 2005 detainee transfer agreement using guidelines that had been drafted between the post and headquarters over a period of months. The embassy completed negotiations within six days--by May 3. The conclusion of the supplemental arrangement and other actions Canada took allowed us to address some key aspects of the file.
The detainee transfer arrangements up to that point had three main challenges: notification to the ICRC and other authorities, despite improvements, remained convoluted; we did not have in place a monitoring regime by Canadian personnel for detainees transferred by Canadian Forces; and, record-keeping, by all concerned, needed to improve.
In the month following the arrangement, Canada had begun to implement an increasingly robust monitoring regime, with Canadian civilian personnel, to augment the work of others, such as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and the ICRC. We had changed our notification process to the ICRC so that officials in Kandahar notified the Kandahar ICRC office immediately, in addition to the notifications to Kabul and Geneva. We had developed and began to implement standard operating procedures for the transfer of detainees and for their monitoring. And we had dispatched a technical assistance mission of Canadian experts to examine further options for training, and the provision of equipment to assist Afghans with the management of detainees in Afghan facilities.
Over the course of the year, Canada focused on implementing the transfer regime, including identifying key people accountable for the file, and the creation of a database of detainees transferred by the Canadian Forces.
We had other urgent work at the embassy and in the country, of course.
There were two strategic objectives.
[Translation]
First of all, we were trying to help develop and implement a whole-of-government engagement in Afghanistan, one that saw our military and civilian effort managed in a coherent fashion, and in the midst of a counter-insurgency campaign.
[English]
We needed to ensure that a civilian engagement could occupy the space secured by the military so that we could concentrate on the governance, development, and stabilization efforts that were required.
That's why we doubled the civilian presence in Kandahar and Kabul, including officers to monitor detainees.
Second, we needed to have influence commensurate with our investment. Canada was one of the top donors to Afghanistan. On any given file--education, police reform, micro-finance loans for women--Canada was among the top three donors. It was my job, on a daily basis, to ensure that we had voice on these issues, that we were developing policy with headquarters and in Kandahar that would have an impact in a way that would help Afghans build governance institutions, strengthen economic development, and provide for their own security.
Ron Hoffmann joined the embassy in August 2007 as deputy head of mission. His position was created so that we could operate at a fundamentally different level--as a major actor across a number of priority files--with the deputy helping to run the embassy and its operations, including the Kandahar civilian component, and the head of mission focused on influencing the outcome of the files in which we were so heavily invested.
To summarize my time there, Mr. Chairman, Canada was in the process of strengthening its civilian presence in Kabul and Kandahar in order to achieve our national objectives. The detainee transfer file was an important component of a highly charged and important set of issues that the embassy team and I managed.
With regard to detainees, by the time I arrived at the embassy, the reporting had done its job. The issues had been acknowledged. Decisions had been made. Within a week, there was a formalized agreement in place.
Then came the work of ensuring that everyone involved--both the Afghan authorities and all Canadian personnel--fully understood the new system and were working together towards the goal of the agreement. That work was carried out in an outstanding manner by my successor, Ron Hoffmann, and all of the dedicated Canadians who risked their lives to serve in Afghanistan.
Thank you very much.
My name is Ron Hoffmann. As I have already explained it, I am currently Canada's Ambassador to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and I am Canada's Ambassador designate to Myanmar (Burma).
I arrived in Kabul in early August 2007 to establish the new position of deputy head of mission. I was later appointed ambassador, ultimately serving two years in Kabul. As Arif already explained, my arrival coincided with a significant transformation of the Canadian engagement in Afghanistan.
[English]
In the deputy role, I was considered head of chancery, responsible for infrastructure, staffing, services, health and safety, security policy, quality of life, and oversight of mission administration generally. This was in the context in a dramatic growth in civilian resources. One of my key functions was to help foster mission cohesion, to ensure an effective whole-of-government approach, but also to effect stronger integration and coordination of our Kabul and Kandahar operations.
I was also asked to contribute to our detainee management strategy. My role was to ensure that we had the right people doing the right things in monitoring; that we were analyzing and communicating issues clearly and thoroughly; that we were reacting effectively and appropriately to new issues and developments as they arose; that our military and civilians were working in concert; that our support and investments in Afghan institutions were appropriate to their needs; and that our engagement with other parties, including--and perhaps especially--the Afghan government, was active and effective.
When I arrived in Afghanistan in the summer of 2007, the security situation was an increasing concern, in Kabul and elsewhere.
[Translation]
Our duty of care obligations to our personnel were taken seriously and overseeing stepped-up mission security in the capital became a major preoccupation.
[English]
Given the influx of additional personnel, we also worked to address seemingly mundane but critical issues like embassy overcrowding, the need to upgrade the chancery and staff quarters, and the strengthening of internal operations and accountabilities.
I was appointed ambassador on the departure of Arif in the summer of 2008. This assured continuity of leadership in the programming we were delivering. It also meant familiarity with key issues we were contending with, and it enabled us to capitalize on the high-level relationships that we already had in place.
I travelled to Kandahar more than 20 times, many of them with Afghan ministers or heads of agencies to support the leadership role of the country's own government. In my last six months alone, I travelled with ministers of defence, interior, education, transport, and health, and the head of the NDS respectively.
We witnessed tangible successes, but it was nevertheless a difficult and a costly time. The security situation remained dire in parts of the country and was worsening in some areas.
There were daily reminders that we were in a country at war, a country fighting for its survival and for its future. For instance, as ambassador, I led Canada's in-country efforts to secure the safe release of CBC journalist Mellissa Fung, kidnapped in the early fall of 2008. I worked closely with senior Afghan authorities, with whom I engaged in person or by phone about 20 times during the final frenetic week of Mellissa's captivity, before she was freed by the Afghan government.
And, during my time in theatre, it was with great sadness that I bid farewell to a Canadian man or woman in uniform at an average rate of one every 12 days. We lost Canadian civilian humanitarian workers in this period too.
We were fully aware, Mr. Chairman, that the Afghan state and Afghan society in general suffered from the profound consequences of two generations of war. This reality touched every aspect of life in Afghanistan. While conditions were improving and the state was modernizing and gaining in capacity, progress was slow and it was uneven.
We were well aware that the justice and security institutions suffered from deep systemic challenges. The Government of Afghanistan had a clear official policy prohibiting torture and abuse of prisoners, but we were also aware, Mr. Chairman, of gaps in human capacity, insufficient training, poor infrastructure, and some very crude conditions. I was personally confident, however, that the measures Canada had in place during my time in Afghanistan meant that the risk of mistreatment faced by detainees the Canadian Forces transferred to Afghan authorities was minimized.
Like my predecessors before me, as ambassador and as a deputy closely involved with the issues, I was frequently in discussion with Afghan authorities at multiple levels across government, including ministers and, regularly, the Afghan president, to reaffirm Canada's expectations and to discuss Afghanistan's detainee management obligations. They understood the importance we attached to the issue and they understood their commitments in this regard.
Our monitoring system and our steadfast demands for humane treatment of detainees were respected and applauded by allies, by independent groups, and by Afghan senior level authorities. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission articulated this view to me, as did NATO ISAF, the UN, and key international organizations.
In addition to our robust system of monitoring and our ongoing advocacy and senior level engagement, Canada invested in improvements in Afghan prison capacity and infrastructure. We provided training, equipment,and improvements in physical conditions in facilities both in Kandahar and in Kabul.
Mr. Chairman, I believe that Canadians had and have much to be proud of. It wasn't easy in Afghanistan, and we weren't perfect. We learned lessons continually and we regularly adjusted. But Canada's military, our diplomats, development workers, and police and corrections staff worked increasingly in unison, and they did their best to fulfill their mandates and their responsibilities.
[Translation]
I look forward to trying to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.
Ambassadors, welcome. It's good to hear from you, and if I may so, it's good to see all of you. I've had the opportunity of working with you and with your staffs in Kabul and in Canada, I very much appreciate your being here.
I don't want to be unfair, and I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but it seems to me that sort of the thrust of your testimony is that there was a policy decision.
Ambassador Sproule, you referred to it in the second paragraph of your statement, I think, where you talk about the fact that the building up of the capacity of the Afghan government and Afghan institutions was a pre-eminent goal, and therefore, the decision was made that the transfers would take place, and every step would be taken--and successive steps were taken--on the basis of hard experience to deal with the problems that happened as a result of the initial decision to make transfer the policy. Is that a fair summary?
:
Mr. Rae, I'd say that some of this information on these developments came to light not in spite of our program, but because of our program, and there are a number of lessons from our experience.
As we geared up this new system of monitoring, which was a robust one and a complex one and required enormous resources from and risk to Canadian personnel to implement, we thought that risk was worth it, because it was important to deliver those obligations; they didn't cover a range of allegations over the course of us stepping up that program. As that monitoring program matured, was refined, and became more and more robust, the number of allegations actually declined. In 2008 we had none, and I think that was a demonstration of the positive outcome of what we were doing.
For the allegations that there were, we took every allegation seriously. Some people complained about the food, about the air conditioning, about the toilet paper, and then the range was much more serious. There was one very compelling allegation of all that we have had--the 10 or 12 over the entire time of our experience with 200 or so visits. There was one that we felt was materially much more significant than the rest, and we took the actions that we think are appropriate to that. That did involve a lengthy stop to the transfer of detainees while we implemented the program and the action plan that we had pre-established, which was to work with the AIHRC, the ICRC, and the Afghan government across the board to ensure that the measures that we expected were needed were actually implemented. And there were no transfers until we were fully satisfied.
My question is for Mr. Lalani.
Mr. Lalani, in his testimony, Mr. Colvin talked about you, not always in a very nice way, I must admit.
[English]
He said that censorship expanded with the arrival of Arif Lalani as Canada's new ambassador to Afghanistan in May 2007, and that “Immediately thereafter, the paper trail on detainees was reduced”. He also said, “Reports on detainees began sometimes to be censored, with crucial information removed”.
[Translation]
The Globe and Mail released a memo. Could you take a look, because, on the left, we can read the following: “Richard, you should go with my list.”? The names of the people he was supposed to send the report to were crossed out; they just put “Proudfoot, Buck” and a few names only. Could you look at that document? Do you recognize it?
:
I apologize, but I will be answering in English.
[English]
I'm happy to talk to you about this. I recognize the document. It's one page; there are more pages. But you want to talk about the distribution, so let me certainly do that.
One of the issues that had come out in previous reporting and previous discussions, and that was part of new standard operating procedures that we were trying to put in place to regularize the system of dealing with this file, was to make sure that we had identified certain people who were identified for this file and therefore accountable to respond to this file. In some ways, I think some of you might agree, the best way somebody could assure that I don't read something is to put me on a cc list of 100 people.
Mr. Claude Bachand: Okay--
Mr. Arif Lalani: If I might just finish, because I know this is an issue that has come up; if you look at who the distribution went to, I know that these are not familiar people or addresses of people. Basically, what I had said--keep in mind, also, that this was, I think, my fourth day on the job after having negotiated the agreement with Richard and with others—was that what we ought to do was send this thing to the people who are in a position to take a decision, which is the head of the task force in Ottawa at the foreign ministry, the director general there, the person at the Privy Council Office who's in charge of the file, and the two addresses in Kandahar, one at the base and one at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team. I also put in there that we'd leave further distribution to FTAG. It was just trying to kind of get the message to the right people.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Chair, I first would like to thank all three witnesses very much for coming today. Also, the three of them span the period of time from 2005 onward to 2009; that period was a very crucial one for Canada, because that is when we started moving into the country, started building the capacity, started having detainees.
As you have stated quite clearly, there was a process evolving throughout this time, and all three of you were involved in this process. One was the identification of the deficiencies of the first agreement that were coming up and that you noticed, which, as Ambassador Sproule pointed out, was during his campaign; then it went to Arif Lalani's, when the new agreement came into place, and then to Mr. Hoffmann, with the operation of this new agreement came through.
But very clearly and importantly, all three of your jobs underline one very serious thing that everybody must understand, which was how to meet our international obligations, as you rightly pointed out, under the Geneva Convention and this.
Because today we are talking about detainees, I will go to the question of the detainees. Very quickly, I will go to Ambassador Sproule.
Ambassador Sproule, during your time or during Arif Lalani's time, Mr. Richard Colvin wrote a lot of reports during his time, as Mr. Arif Lalani has said, but at no given time did he ever say--or do you know that he said it, or perhaps you could tell the committee whether he said--that we should stop the transfer of detainees.
:
I'm happy to--and it's still “Arif”.
We did have a serious incident in November after the agreement was in place and we were monitoring very regularly. I should point out that I'm also going to refer to Ron, who was my deputy; we were interchangeable. There was a period in November when I was out of the country and Ron was chargé. So we both acted on this particular case, but I think it's a good example.
So in November, in one of our monitoring missions, at the end of it, there were some allegations made. The allegations were very clearly--I think to everybody doing the inspection--probably of a different magnitude, because we could see some of the responses on the person. I think there were some things in the holding cell that were seen by people. So we moved very quickly. Our standard operating procedures were activated immediately. That meant notifying people in Ottawa. It meant notifying the ICRC. It meant notifying the Afghan human rights commission. It meant notifying Afghan authorities at the highest levels in Kabul.
A number of things came about as a result of that. A decision was made by the commander on the ground to immediately suspend the transfers until we could resume confidence in the system. What resulted then was in fact an even more intense monitoring regime to continue to go back very regularly to that area.
One of the things we had to do was actually protect the people who might be making allegations. We had to be very careful about how we did the monitoring missions and how we continued to do them as we tried to bring things to light.
As I mentioned earlier, Canada felt that risk was necessary because we had international obligations that we felt must be respected.
The roads that our officials travelled on--as I said, over 200 times--to fulfill these obligations were roads that saw civilians killed on multiple occasions by attacks and IEDs. The facilities they went to, whether it was Sarposa prison, the justice ministry prison, or the NDS facility, those institutions were attacked in a very serious way on multiple occasions, involving massive loss of life.
We knew those risks. The individuals who went knew the risks. The significant numbers of soldiers who provided the transport and close protection knew those risks. But these were risks, as I said earlier, that we felt we had to take to be able to be in compliance with our international legal obligations, and they were ones that those taking those risks were professionally committed to doing.
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here today.
First of all, Mr. Lalani, you said that of course there were “shortcomings”. I would find that a rather soft euphemism for the concerns that have been raised before our committee in terms of the NDS with its culture of torture and abuse of prisoners, going back to the evidence we heard from Eileen Olexiuk, who produced several human rights reports; from what we heard from Mr. Colvin; and from what we heard from Cory Anderson, who was telling us three weeks ago that the NDS was not a viable partner in terms of operations in Afghanistan.
I'm concerned about two things that we heard. For example, David Mulroney told us that after we signed the second agreement in approximately May 2007, we started to develop a database, essentially indicating what you said, Mr. Sproule, which was that we didn't know very much before then.
Mr. Anderson told us three weeks ago, in terms of specific allegations of abuse, that “the reason there were no specific allegations of abuse prior to May of 2007 is that we didn't have an instrument in place that would allow us the ability to find out, and we weren't doing any monitoring”.
Would you agree, Mr. Sproule, that prior to the new agreement, at least, when you started a process of monitoring--we that know the ICRC, for example, wasn't reporting anything back to Canada; they were only reporting to Afghanistan--there's really kind of a black hole about what happened prior to May of 2007 in terms of who we passed over, what happened to them, whether they disappeared, and whether they were maltreated? Is that fair to say?
:
By the time I arrived in Afghanistan in early August 2007, a great deal of work had been done by many people—you will have heard from some of them in this committee—to ensure that the approach by the different arms of the Canadian government was increasingly integrated and they were working towards one goal. Over the 24 months that I spent in Afghanistan, there is no doubt that the process deepened further.
We had the independent commission on Afghanistan, led by John Manley, which made recommendations, of course, to the government and Parliament. That took it to a much more integrated level still; it really covered all aspects of Canada's engagement. It was vital on the matter of detainees, where we were completely aligned and ensuring that our respective roles and responsibilities that we had identified were implemented quickly and effectively.
But it's also true that all aspects of our engagement involved an integrated approach, where our government policy was clear in terms of why we were there and what we were trying to achieve. All arms of the Government of Canada were working towards those same goals.
It's one of the reasons why, when I left Afghanistan, I said publicly on many occasions that Canadians have much to be proud of. I think we performed in an integrated way, and by the time I left, probably better than any other nation of the 60 that were involved in Afghanistan.
Thank you, ambassadors.
I'm going to follow up on what my colleague, Bob Rae, started asking you. I'm going to set out the international legal standard in domestic and international law.
First of all, if there is a substantial risk of torture, my understanding is that you cannot transfer your legal responsibility for the detainees just because you think that Afghans may be doing a good job or a better job than before; you can't absolve yourself of that responsibility.
Secondly, you cannot transfer the detainees if there is a substantial risk of torture.
Thirdly, you say that you all knew there was torture but you took steps to deal with it. So there's no question of having no knowledge; you have actual knowledge. In any event, even if you didn't have actual knowledge, there is enough information widely known about torture that it would be deemed knowledge. Furthermore, we have a positive duty as Canadians to determine the extent of torture. If there continues to be a substantial risk of torture, we have an obligation to prevent transfers and not transfer.
Now, that's what I understand the international law and domestic law to be. There's a question that I have specifically for all three of you. Do you believe that we as a country and you as ambassadors have met that test under these circumstances, in view of what the U.S. State Department wrote, their report, in view of our own reports, and in view of what's happening before the British courts, where there are allegations about NDS torture? And there's the Colvin evidence, the Anderson evidence, and the Malgarai evidence. There's the Gosselin evidence of eight allegations of abuse that he investigated; he didn't know what happened to them.
All of that evidence has been in the public domain. In the context of that, can you tell me whether you believe that we as a country and you as ambassadors have met that test?
:
Let me start, if I may.
I do believe it. I wouldn't be here if I didn't.
I'm not a lawyer, so I'm not sure how I'd discuss with you the difference I see as a layperson between evidence and reporting. But let me say to you that in my mind--and I am the person on the ground who was responsible during my time there for the very clear objectives that you have set out--there was a difference to me between people making reports and accusations and allegations and finding out what the evidence was.
The best way for us to have evidence, to have confidence, was monitoring. During the time I was there, that is what we focused on. That was one of my key priorities. It was through the monitoring regime that we were able, in fact, to have the level of confidence that--I agree with you--you think we should have.
So yes, and it is obviously a difficult issue. I don't think that because perhaps we might have answered calmly that you should misunderstand how seriously and how personally we took that responsibility.
On the detainee issue, as I mentioned, much of our efforts were directed at improving the notification system. This required constant effort to ensure that, as soon as possible, ICRC authorities learned that a detainee had been transferred so they could oversee matters at the detention facilities.
But we also knew that it was important that we added more oversight, particularly with the increasing numbers of detainees, so starting in the fall, as a result of our reporting and in conjunction with our work with headquarters--both DND and Foreign Affairs--there developed an understanding and an agreement between our armed forces and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission to give them special access and provide them with information and the wherewithal and resources to undertake this monitoring for us. In addition, as I said, we thought it was important to supplement that with actual assistance to the Afghans so that their capacity was better and their facilities were better. Our RCMP's efforts with the police contributed to that.
During the early part of 2007, our headquarters was actively engaged in developing a yet more robust system, and that was put into place very soon after Mr. Lalani arrived as ambassador. That system is what we have now. We have perfected that in terms of our techniques and our procedures. As I think Ambassador Hoffmann mentioned, it has actually allowed us to identify where there are issues that we have to look at and, in some cases, where there are incidents we have to look into.
:
We had to remind ourselves every day in Afghanistan that we were in a different sovereign country, and as much as we'd have liked to try to solve our problems ourselves in any sector, we had to recognize of course that what we were doing had to reflect the sovereign needs and sensitivities of the country we were in.
In the case of detainee transfers, there was really only one organization that the Afghans asked us to transfer to; this was the organization that had their governmental responsibility for accepting these detainees detained under those circumstances.
With respect to capacity building, Mr. Hawn, because I think this is I think how you started the question, Canada did capacity building in part to support our international obligations, but we did much more than that. We did capacity building well beyond our international requirements. It was not a minimalist approach.
We did national training of managers in security institutions, whether that was the police, NDS, or military, but including NDS on management training, on human rights training, from institutions that were well beyond Kabul and Kandahar. Some of the infrastructure and equipment that we supplied were well beyond what we thought was the strict legal obligation. It was part of our commitment to build the Afghan state to be stronger and more independent.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Lalani, I want to get right to a question that I haven't quite figured out, just on the questions and responses, and it's in regard to Mr. Colvin.
Mr. Colvin provided evidence to committee--and I think you've probably read it--that there was a likelihood of detainees being abused and tortured when they were handed over. He told us that at committee. One of the other things he said was that there was some editing or censoring of his reports. Again, he said this, and I want to clarify it.
In particular, we know this was an issue, and certainly it was with the embassy here in Ottawa, because there were questions in the House and so on after Graeme Smith's report in The Globe and Mail. I know that was the topic for a lot of people, because we responded to that report, and I think you did. I want to be very specific here. I want you to answer through the chair.
He wrote that a Red Cross official who read the report in The Globe and Mail said that “allegations of abuse made by those Afghans interviewed by...Graeme Smith fit a common pattern”. He put that in his report. I think context is important, because the claim was made by Mr. Colvin and by the Red Cross as well that a more rapid response—and we've heard that we needed to respond more quickly—was absolutely critical in the first days because of the concerns around torture immediately following handover.
My question is whether you asked him to remove that from his report.
That pretty well concludes our time. We were scheduled to go until 5:15.
I certainly want to thank you for your testimony today.
I think it was very well expressed by all parties and all members of this committee that we want to thank you for your service to your country. I can only imagine receiving a phone call that would say you're being transferred and you're going to Afghanistan.
On behalf of Canada and on behalf of the government, we want to thank you for your service in a very difficult part of the world. We thank you not only for your service to Canada, but for your contribution to peace and democracy building.
The other thing I would like to mention is that you sometimes may have felt you didn't get the chance to fully answer a question within the time that was allocated. If you ever want to submit another answer to supplement what you have already stated or to add other information, our committee would certainly welcome it.
Thank you very much.
We're going to suspend for one minute. We will then move to committee business, which will be in public, and we'll entertain a couple of motions from Mr. Hawn and Mr. Bachand.
:
I appreciate that, Chair.
For example, it lists in the document the names and dates for all the individuals who were arrested. It details the search and indicates the ammunition, weapons, etc., found in various places. I'm satisfied that would be regarded by the military as being of operational importance and they would not want it to be disclosed. It has other information that I'm satisfied would not be in the interests of this committee to have disclosed.
I have a suggestion. I'd be happy to hear what others have to say about this. As members well know, in my question of privilege, I put forth the notion that the committee should be instructed to develop a procedure to receive the type of evidence that we need to know about. When we have uncensored documents such as this one, I really don't want to table it here.
On the other hand, there are things in this document that I put to these witnesses today. There is a statement saying that “based on the above, it's recommended that” so-and-so, so-and-so, etc., “be transferred to the National Directorate of Security, NDS, for further questioning”. That's what it says. I think it's important for us to consider it.
The question is, how do we deal with this document? That's why I'm raising it.
:
Yes. I thank you very much, Mr. Harris.
When documents are referenced before our committee.... We received a document today from , finally, and I'm under the impression it is one that has been tabled in the past. But when a member is working off a document, it's fair for the committee to know what document it is they're working off.
In reference to the document that you bring forward, I look at the document I was given. I guess it would depend on one's definition of “document”, because I see a piece of paper with writing on it, and information on it, translated into our other official language, but there is no letterhead and there is nothing else that would give one to believe this was any official document.
And therein lies a problem. We're quoting from a piece of paper with accusations, allegations, with a bunch of writing, and we're holding it up as if it is some official type of document. You know, that's--
This actually came up last week. I wasn't disappointed or discouraged by it, but I did go and check the rules of order. It's very clear that if one is not signed in.... Because the NDP has one position on this committee, you can have any number sitting at the table, and indeed they can speak. They cannot vote. Only one position can vote, but they can speak, unless there is an objection raised by the committee. It doesn't suggest there--and I've asked our clerk to check it out--whether or not, then, there would be a vote or if the objection itself would be enough to stop it.
My question to the clerk last week was whether I should proceed and question the committee. The book says that they may participate in the public proceedings of any committee of which they are not a member “unless the House or the committee” in question “otherwise orders”. It would have had to be on a protest or on a point of order at that time, and it didn't happen.
And you know, I think that's good. We'll leave that for another time, but I think the committee was very generous to our New Democrats on that side. Hopefully it will continue, but there is not a chance that--