War Dept. Drones on With Summer Splurge

War Dept. Drones on With Summer Splurge

By Matthew Behrens

With student activists away for summer vacation, it was the perfect occasion in late July for Carleton University to celebrate a new $40 million war training contract. In partnership with war manufacturer CAE, Carleton’s Visualization and Simulation Centre will enable Canadian Forces to better practice, in the coarse but memorable phrase of former Canadian warlord Rick Hillier, the fine art of killing people.

         In a moment that would have done Orwell proud, Carleton President Roseann O’Reilly Runte gushed: “This is about saving lives. This is about saving money.” On hand for the announcement was foreign affairs minister John Baird, who boasted this war training partnership will advance  “Canada’s security interests and…Canadian values around the world.”

         If such values are so great, one wonders why they need to come out of the barrel of a gun. But that’s a non-issue in a national security state: when everything comes down to the rhetoric of “saving our way of life” from some unknown threat, and protecting “our soldiers” from the threats we often arm to begin with, everything becomes justified, from transfers to torture to starving the poor of billions to pay for the War Dept.’s high-tech toys.

         Such announcements regularly occur on Canadian university campuses, but hopefully it will spur at Carleton the kind of protest that shut down similar attempts to exploit bright young minds for nefarious purposes (such victories occurred at OISE and the University of Toronto (http://www.homesnotbombs.ca/battellebooted.htm.)

         The Carleton University contract was one of numerous  boondoggles announced during summer break by a Canadian War Department that’s busily seeking our new enemies and new rationales to shield the lion’s share of a $23 billion budget that is unquestioned by all major political parties. The military is so awash in funds that last March, their expenditures jumped 14% and no one could explain why.

         In May, Canada’s Parliamentary budget watchdog remarked that the Harper government had deliberately misled the public on the costs of the F-35 stealth bombers (a deception built upon bureaucrats within the War Dept. also ignoring their own internal warnings that the bomber project was  plagued by serious troubles).

         Shortly after, we also learned that War Minister Peter MacKay had also low-balled government figures by almost seven times when he discussed how much it cost to drop bombs on the people of Libya (over $350 million at last count). Needless to say, the Libyan “mission,” as it was delicately called, was an important benchmark for MacKay and the generals, who got to play with new equipment and push for new weapons programs as a result.

         Meanwhile, the drawdown in Afghanistan – where Canadians fired off almost 5 million bullets in one 20-month period – is making some Canadian soldiers itchy. In one Ottawa Citizen interview, a Kingston sergeant explained that garrison life on the home base “really discourages a lot of guys. The question becomes, ‘When do we go next?’ Adrenalin is a drug and they need the heart-pumping excitement and that level of unknown to keep them happy now.”  (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Just+what+next+Canada+warrior+spirit/6681564/story.html). Thus, war is an experience we must incessantly provide to those trained to be warriors, finding new enemies and places to bomb so we can keep our soldiers happy.

         Some of the boys apparently got what they wanted when millions were wasted last month as a Canadian contingent of 1400 soldiers were shipped off to Hawaii to take part in the U.S.-led Rim of Pacific war exercises, an attempt to remind China of who’s boss on the world stage (and perhaps to reassure Canadian mining firms that help is not far away when Asian locals agitate over poor working conditions, toxic spills, or the murder of their union leaders).

         The irony here is that at the same time we are preparing for war – if necessary – with China –  the busy Mr. Baird signed a deal to export increasing amounts of Canadian uranium to the nuclear weapons-holding government of Beijing, a slap in the face to nuclear non-proliferation.

         And while the Pacific was being pounded with ordnance, we also learned the Canadian Forces are working to establish bases in the Caribbean, East Africa, Europe and Southeast Asia. This allows Canada’s military to “project combat power/security assistance and Canadian influence rapidly and flexibly anywhere in the world,” according to a memo signed by Canada’s top soldier, Walter Natynczyk. (July 20, Ottawa Citizen)

         Part of that power projection will be done not so much with  human beings who – despite thorough indoctrination in home-grown training camps to eliminate their sense of empathy with those they are commanded to kill or transfer to torture – remain vulnerable to the twinges of humanity that lead to afflictions like post traumatic stress, depression, and suicide. Rather, the path forward is the remote control warfare that has become de rigeur over the past decade.

         Indeed, the eagerness of War Minister Peter MacKay and his cronies to grab their joysticks and bomb from the safety of five thousand miles away in Playstation fashion is clearly palpable. The U.S. and Israel have long dominated in the global use of drones (unmanned aerial vehicles), but now most countries are getting in on the act because of cost savings (especially relative to multi-billion contracts like the F-35 stealth bomber) and the relatively lower political costs (no troop deployments, no body bags from “our side,” no embedded media who might step outside the boundaries and inspect the “collateral damage” on the ground).

         And so we have also learned that Canada’s poor will have to sacrifice an additional $1 billion so that armed Predator drones and their Hellfire missiles will be part of Canada’s growing arsenal.

         The drones are also touted as vehicles by which Canada somehow “saves lives,” but this equation always leaves out the lives at risk on the ground. Over 3,000 souls have been slaughtered from the skies in the not-so-secret and clearly illegal drone war waged by Obama and his minions in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the rapidly evolving technology is also being used to prevent refugees from finding asylum and to target political demonstrations. Drones represent the ultimate tool in a 24/7 surveillance and punishment society: the forces of control can always monitor us and, when convenient, vaporize us, without any sense of transparency or accountability.

         They’ve been used extensively by Obama in his targeted assassination program, and are increasingly privatized to take them out of the already limited loop that would provide any measure of accountability. Indeed, private mercenary firms like Blackwater are deeply involved in arming and conducting drone strikes, thus privatizing larger portions of what’s known as the “kill chain.” Ironically, by the rules the Pentagon plays, such use of private mercenaries creates a whole new army of “unlawful combatants” who, if captured by the Taliban, would have no rights under the Geneva Convention. But such a scenario is unlikely, since the Taliban cannot invade the safe sanctuaries in New York and Nevada in which drone “pilots” sit in air conditioned comfort and fire the missiles.

         The usual rationale for anything military these days is being touted in the drone PR: it is to protect “our Arctic” (and the precious resources that we stole from First Nations) from anyone who’d steal them from us. But even the War Dept. knows this is a red herring, as an internal assessment revealed in late June concluded Russia poses no threat to the region (http://www.canada.com/news/Russia+move+protect+Arctic+interests+threat+Canada/6831454/story.html)

         But corporations like Northrup Grumman are not letting logic or the facts get in the way of a good profit, and so in June pitched the Canadian government at the annual Ottawa weapons bazaar, CANSEC. War merchants have until September 28 to submit their tenders to provide the Canadian War Dept. with a fleet of Hellfire-armed Predators.

         In addition to the direct damage caused by drone strikes, they play a huge role in projecting psychological torture on those who live beneath them.

            Last year, Pakistan’s Foundation for Fundamental Rights, in conjunction with UK human rights group Reprieve, brought together 350 people to discuss the traumas of life under the drones, which many reported seeing ten to 15 times a day. The anxiety of never knowing when the hovering drones will strike is unimaginable: war by drone is a form of torture, an indefinite death sentence hanging over the heads of villagers that can be executed at any time of the day and night. And the victims never know what hit them, as Hellfire missiles travel faster than the speed of sound. In addition, after a drone strike, villagers often face death squads who believe someone in the village provided targetting data. Kidnappings and torture ensue, a convenient extension of the “kill chain” that begins back in a Nevada bunker.

         The social justice group Homes not Bombs has long protested at the site of Canada’s largest drone profiteer, L-3 Wescam, located right next door to a private elementary school in Burlington, Ontario. The group conducted their first attempted weapons inspection of the plant in late 2002 and numerous direct actions have followed, but such challenges have, unfortunately not slowed the relentless search for newer targetting systems (though one employee informed the group of a resignation, spurred to leave when s/he discovered the true nature of their work).
         L-3 Wescam announced last month at the UK’s annual Farnborough weapons show the launch of its MX™-10D electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) imaging and designating turret, with their equipment showing, in the lifeless language of murder, “exceptional performance in all modes of flight throughout the HELLFIRE operational envelope.”
         Canadians concerned about remote control murder, the rights of refugees, and freedom to associate would do well to resist Canada’s new generation of drone warfare: with this technology, the wars have truly come home.

                 

Ramadan Solidarity Fast With Benamar Benatta

An appeal from Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture (please share and distribute widely)

Friends,

As Ramadan is set to begin on July 20, we invite you to consider signing a public declaration in support of Benamar Benatta, Canada's first post-9/11 rendition to torture (September 12, 2001). While you can read more on Benamar's case at www.benamarbenatta.com, in essence. Mr. Benatta spent five years behind bars in the United States, often under conditions amounting to torture, simply because the Canadian government falsely labelled him a threat to national security and turned him over to the U.S. as a 9/11 suspect.

As Mr. Benatta continues his often lonely struggle for justice (a struggle mirrored in many cases across Canada and the rest of the globe), we invite you to consider joining a solidarity fast with Mr. Benatta and all others seeking accountability for the crimes committed by the Canadian and related governments.

We invite those of the Muslim faith to sign their names to the document below as a statement of solidarity with fellow Muslim Benamar Benatta. We also invite those who are not necessarily Muslim to join in a solidarity Ramadan fast in support of Mr. Benatta as well as all those who continue to be unjustly, and illegally, targetted for persecution, torture, and exile in the name of "security." (If you can only fast for certain periods, please indicate that in signing the statement, i.e, fasting for this week, these days, etc.)

The statement will be publicly announced, with names affixed, on July 19, 2012. Please send your name as a signatory to tasc@web.ca



A FAST OF SOLIDARITY
A central tenet of the Muslim faith is the idea that one is called upon to assist those less fortunate than oneself. That expression of solidarity with the poor, the persecuted, the disadvantaged, takes on added meaning during the month-long fast of Ramadan. It is during this time when Muslims, in order to feel both closer to God and to better feel empathy for those they are called to assist the rest of the year, experience the self-restraint of a sun-up to sun-down fast every day, for a month.

Muslim detainees fill the jails of the world, persecuted on the basis of their faith. Many people of Arabic, Middle Eastern and South Asian heritage and Muslim faith find themselves in U.S., U.K., and Canadian jails, often without charge or bail, on secret allegations neither they nor their lawyers are allowed to see.

In addition, survivors of torture in which those governments are clearly complicit continue seeking accountability, apologies, and compensation for the decisions of governments that have led to their torture.

This year, we join with the call from Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture to join a solidarity fast with Benamar Benatta, a refugee from Algeria who was rendered to torture by Canada to the U.S. on September 12, 2001. Mr. Benatta was subjected to torture in the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, New York (as documented by the United Nations and the U.S. Department of Justice) and lost five years of his life behind bars, despite the fact the FBI knew in November, 2001, that there was nothing against him.

Mr. Benatta had been racially and religiously "profiled" by the Canadian government, falsely naming him a 9/11 suspect before turning him over to the Americans, with entirely predictable consequences.

On July 20, 2006, Mr. Benatta was finally released from prison and allowed back into Canada, still wearing his prison uniform, to continue with his refugee case and to try and piece his shattered life back together.

July 20, 2012, the 6th anniversary of Benatta's return to Canada, is the start of Ramadan. As Mr. Benatta struggles to find work in his field of aeronautical engineering and continues to fight the demons of post traumatic stress disorder, he seeks an apology from a Canadian government whose own internal documents admit they are legally culpable for the decision that led to his illegal deportation and torture.

Mr. Benatta is not alone seeking such justice: numerous others who were racially and religiously profiled by Canadian "security" agencies continue their struggle for accountability as well.

During this month of Ramadan, 2012, (July 20-August 18), we the undersigned will join in sun-up to sun-down fasting in solidarity with Mr. Benatta and all those continuing to seek justice from governments that have made the conscious choice to make expendable the lives of those they illegally, and immorally, deem "suspect," and thereby condemn to the most unimaginable cruelty.

NAME, CITY



WHAT YOU CAN DO IN ADDITION TO FASTING
1. Write a letter to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (Toews.V@parl.gc.ca) and Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca) calling for an apology and compensation for Mr. Benatta.
2. Contribute to the costs of Benamar's struggle. Cheques can be made out to Toronto Action for Social Change  (put "Benatta" in the memo portion of the cheque) and mailed to TASC, PO Box 2121, 57 Foster Street Perth, ON, K7H 1R0.
3. Offer Benamar Benatta a job if you are in the Greater Toronto Area.

More info: Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, (613) 267-3998, tasc@web.ca

UN Report Documents Canadian Complicity in Torture

UN Report Documents Canadian Complicity in Torture

By Matthew Behrens

            As the world marked the International Day Against Torture on June 26, official pronouncements from Canada were blaringly silent. Perhaps that failure to mark one of the more important days of the calendar speaks volumes about the government’s ongoing involvement in torture, an uncomfortable reality that most Canadians are unaware of, even with the filing earlier in the month of a stinging United Nations report laying out in fine detail Canada’s complicity.

            The report from the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) came on the heels of another UN report from the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, who not only expressed concern about the growing inequality gap in this country, but also took Canada to task for what he called its “appallingly poor” record of respecting and implementing the recommendations of UN human rights organizations.

            De Schutter told Postmedia that “this sort of self-righteousness about the situation being good in Canada is not corresponding to what I saw on the ground, not at all.” His blunt statements, while drawing ire from the Harper government, also reflect the government’s record on the issue of torture.

            The CAT report points out that Canada has yet to make good on recommendations made in successive reports over the past decade that have called on this country to bring itself in line with its international law and treaty obligations. While Conservative MPs loudly protested that the UN had no right to be making such pronouncements (despite the fact that a key part of UN membership includes submitting to such reviews), the findings ultimately fell victim to the vagaries of the 24-hour news cycle.

            While relatively short, the report nonetheless provides a very good summary of key human rights issues affecting all people in Canada.            The CAT made special note of the fact that Canada has yet to implement the Convention Against Torture “in full at the domestic level”, noting that implementation is essential since “it would allow people to invoke it directly in courts…as well as to raise awareness of its provisions among the judiciary and the public at large.”

            The report is certainly not comprehensive (among those absent from it were numerous individuals seeking justice, apologies, and compensation for Canadian complicity in their torture, from Abousfian Abdelrazik – tortured in Sudan, prevented from returning home, and subject to a wholly unwarranted assets freeze –  to Benamar Benatta, rendered to torture in the US on September 12, 2011). Nonetheless, it remains a disturbing laundry list of what are clearly legal violations with serious human consequences, including within it a reminder that Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin, all tortured with Canadian complicity, have yet to receive an apology, compensation, and the systemic changes needed to ensure such acts never again take place.

            For instance, Canada was hauled on the carpet for its ongoing refusal to close the door on deportation to torture. While the government insists that its “right” to conduct such deportations is merely “theoretical,” there have been numerous documented cases of individuals showing up in prison, tortured, or murdered following their forced removal from Canada. The CAT also expressed its concern that Canada does not respect the UN’s conclusions when individuals apply to the international body for “interim measures of protection,” which would put on hold such deportations until the UN could hear in full the case at hand. The fact that Canada has ratified the Convention and thereby undertook to cooperate with the Committee is not reflected in reality, and “by deporting complainants despite the Committee’s requests for interim measures…[Canada] has committed a breach of its obligations.”

            And as seriously repressive immigration legislation has been passed, it appears those supporting the new bills failed to heed the CAT’s critique with respect to restrictions on the rights of refugees. Indeed, mandatory one-year detention without bail for individuals who arrive via an “irregular” fashion (as if refugees often have a choice of travel), along with the Immigration Minister’s discretion to designate certain countries as “safe” seriously limits the rights of whole classes of asylum seekers.

            Perhaps the most draconian of immigration measures in Canada, the secret trial security certificate process, continued to be a target of the CAT as well, especially federal efforts to rely on “diplomatic assurances” from torturing countries that torture would not be inflicted on deportees from Canada.

            While two of the five Muslim men subject to the process have had their cases thrown out – both Hassan Almrei and Adil Charkoaui have since launched lawsuits against the federal government – three cases remain, with Ottawa’s Mohamed Harkat now appealing to have his case heard at the Supreme Court in order to end his decade-long struggle to stop deportation to torture in Algeria. In Toronto, Mohammad Mahjoub and Mahmoud Jaballah, both facing judicially-sanctioned rendition to Egypt, continue to face the excruciatingly long process before the Federal Court.

            In the Mahjoub case, significantly, it came to light in December of last year that CSIS knew  most of his case was derived from information obtained by torture. Remarkably, that revelation did not put a stop to the proceedings, nor have ongoing revelations that CSIS refuses to discard information gleaned from torture. (Notably, the Committee did err in stating that Almrei’s case was based on torture). The CAT reiterated the findings of similar UN reports calling on Ottawa to use criminal law proceedings and safeguards in such cases, recommendations that remain ignored.

            Objective readers of the report might find it surprising that in the 21^st century, a country such as Canada needs to be reminded, for example, never to transfer prisoners from military operations to another country where there are substantial grounds for believing the detainee would be subjected to torture.

            Among other significant findings of the CAT were Canada’s failure to exercise universal jurisdiction when it comes to apprehending those alleged to have perpetrated war crimes (readers may recall the ease with which former President George W. Bush waltzes into and out of Canada, despite legal objections filed with the Dept. of Justice). They also issue a call to repatriate Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay, especially given the acknowledgement by the Supreme Court of Canada that his rights had been violated by Canadian officials while at the notorious detention and torture centre. The CAT also criticized Canada for continuing to honour state immunity, preventing victims of torture from suing overseas governments.

            Importantly, the committee also took note of a number of areas not commonly associated in most people’s minds with torture: the treatment of the mentally ill in Canadian prisons, the continued use of extended periods of solitary confinement, and police use of lethal conducted energy weapons.

            And while the Canadian government argued another issue should not even be discussed, the CAT disagreed, pointing out that  Aboriginal women continue to face “disproportionately high levels of life-threatening forms of violence, spousal homicides and enforced disappearances.

            In a theme that seems to run through much of the Harper government’s conduct, mention was also made of the government’s failure to fully cooperate with the committee by submitting its replies to questions three months late. Such delay and obstruction is typical of Canadian government responses to such inquiries, and has more recently formed the backdrop to a number of military investigations. Indeed, while the family of the late soldier Stuart Langridge continues seeking answers from a stonewalling military that refuses to divulge key documents regarding the suicide of the Afghanistan war veteran, the Military Police Complaints Commission released a late June report on Canadian transfers of Afghan detainees to torture also criticized the government for its refusal to cooperate. When it came to the federal government providing information to the commission, the report concluded, “the doors were basically slammed shut on document disclosure.”

            Their refusal to allow full disclosure about torture and related issues shows the extent to which the government is ultimately afraid of democratic processes and exposure of its own seedy practices. It’s also a sign of how much governments fear popular resistance and understand that an informed public is one that is likely to resist such policies and seek substantive change.

            Among those who will be doing just that come October will be members of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, currently organizing a national day of speakouts and town square readings of documents such as the UN report and other findings about Canadian complicity in torture.

            In addition, a Ramadan solidarity fast with Benamar Benatta, still seeking an apology a decade after he was rendered to the US, will also be taking place.

REFUSING A CULTURE OF AMNESIA: REPORT FROM THE TOUR TO END CANADIAN INVOLVEMENT TORTURE

Like most governments complicit in torture, Canada’s rulers, spy agencies, and federal lawyers promote a culture of enforced forgetfulness. Even though two judicial inquiries, numerous Federal and Supreme Court rulings, and scads of human rights reports confirm Canadian complicity in torture, the party line is to spout “there may have been one or two aberrations, but, as Obama preaches stateside, it’s best to look forward and forget about the past.”

As Judith Herman eloquently states in her landmark study Trauma and Recovery, “In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of the victim…After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it on herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail.”

As part of its ongoing efforts to counter the silencing and attempts to discredit those tortured with Canadian complicity, Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture organized on March 8 a Torture Tour of Toronto, publicly naming sites of governmental and corporate complicity in torture in the city’s northwest end. Over 50 people, about a third of them high school students, made a collective statement that no amount of coercive amnesia can erase the traumatic experiences still lived by numerous survivors of Canadian involvement in torture. Their names include Abousfian Abdelrazik, Abdullah Almalki, Benamar Benatta, Adel Benhmuda, Maher Arar, Ahmad El Maati, Mourad Ikhlef, Omar Khadr, Muayyed Nureddin, Sogi Singh, Ivan Apaolaza Sancho, among many others.

The Torture Tour began shortly after the release of a series of formerly classified government documents that clearly showed that the Canadian government and numerous of its agencies, including CSIS, continue as a normal practice to trade in the torture of human beings. These included the frank CSIS admission that the secret hearing security certificate proceedings are built almost wholly on torture as well as two directives from “Public Safety” Minister Vic Toews instructing CSIS to continue using information gleaned from torture and sharing information even if there is a substantial likelihood that would lead to torture.

(Notably for those who mistakenly believe that blood is only on the hands of Harper’s gang, two days after the tour was complete, a new memo surfaced courtesy of Wikileaks that illustrated the extent to which the Liberal government of Paul Martin, Bill Graham et al. worked furiously behind the scenes with the U.S. to ensure any findings and recommendations arising from the inquiry into Maher Arar’s torture would not impede the ongoing “intelligence sharing” that led to the torture of Mr. Arar. The memo, written by then U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins, praised then “Public Safety” Minister Anne McLellan for her participation in what the U.S. was requiring of its northern ally to deflect from the focus on Canadian complicity in torture: “an aggressive public diplomacy campaign” hyping alleged terror threats.

THE TOUR

Despite fierce gales and rain, the tour got off to a start at the office of Conservative MP Bal Gosal. Following an acknowledgement that Canada’s first rendition program targeted First Nations children – the kidnapping and forced captivity, accompanied by brutal physical and emotional abuse, of countless thousands of children – speakers provided an overview of the Harper government’s current complicity.

Gosal’s office manager politely listened to the concerns of the demonstrators who walked into his office. But it was strange, however, to be talking about judicial inquiries, court decisions, and declassified documents pointing out Canadian complicity in torture, and to have the office manager nod and smile slightly, behaving as if he were listening to someone recite items on a grocery list, not the horrors they were discussing.

“Are you not concerned, perhaps shocked, that your government is involved in these crimes?” the group asked.

He never answered the question. A petition was presented, calling on the government to respect the 2009 vote of a majority of the House of Commons demanding an apology, compensation, and systemic changes with respect to the torture of Mssrs. Almalki, El Maati, and Nureddin. The manager promised to pass along petitions and inform the group when they would be tabled in the House; two weeks later, we have heard nothing.

THE DAILY TORTURE OF WOMEN

From there, the group headed down to the Airport Strip Lounge, a closed “entertainment” centre to focus on crimes of violence against women. The group chose to go there when it was empty so as not to be seen to be condemning women who work there. They also chose the spot given the club’s website, which advertises itself as a place of “nothing but elegance, superiority, equality and respect” for women. Teacher and social justice organizer Jozef Konyari called these “a few strategic words used to mask the social and economic realities of a society still learning how to be fair, equal and just, not only in theory, but more importantly, in practice.

Some felt the symbol was inappropriate, and Tracey Tief spoke to the larger web of violence against women as exemplified by a brutal economic regime that blocks women’s access and participation at all levels, noting that one could easily show that the act of buying flowers for a loved one is equally symbolic of violence against women if one followed the production chain back the starvation wages of women harvesting those flowers in a pesticide-ridden African greenhouse.

Konyari read out a powerful reflection on the war against women which, he said, remains largely hidden and silent. He quoted from Brian Vallee’s book The War Against Women, noting: “In the same seven-year period when 4,588 U.S. soldiers and policemen were killed by hostiles or by accident, more than 8,000 women – nearly twice as many – were shot, stabbed, strangled, or beaten to death by the intimate males in their lives. In Canada, compared to the 101 Canadian soldiers and police officers killed, more than 500 women – nearly five times as many – met the same fate”

Konyari also pointed out that according to the United Nations Convention against Torture, Cruel and Inhumane Treatment, “torture consists of ANY act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental is inflicted on a person,” adding “this describes the treatment of countless women within the GTA area and beyond.” He recalled the stories of two of the hundreds of Toronto targets of such violence, and then asked the question posed by Rhonda Copelon: “How are these stories, which take place within our homes and communities, less damaging than violence of official prisons and interrogation ‘booths’? The tortures authorized by U.S. officials against male detainees in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, including methods of sexualized humiliation and fear-induction, bear strong resemblance to what is tolerated as ‘domestic’ violence”

“Does the government of Canada inflict severe pain or suffering when it chooses to increase military spending by 54% (22.3 billion 2010 - 2011) since 9/11 – an increase that makes Canada the 13^th largest military spender in the world – instead of choosing to properly fund Canada’s 593 women’s shelters? Does the government of Canada inflict severe pain or suffering when it fails to provide services for the over 100,000 women and children that seek safety in shelters each year?”

CANADA’S TORTURE TAXI

The group proceeded to protest across the street from the hangar for Skyservice Business Aviation, the Canadian Torture Taxi that not only awaits word from Ottawa when it can deport to torture secret trial detainees bound for dungeons in Egypt and Algeria, but has also increased its regular deportation business to a range of other human rights abusing countries such as Somalia.

The tour continued to the place that rounds up the human materiel for deportations, the Canadian Border Services Agency. Group members read out a statement condemning the agency’s role in the detention and deportation of tens of thousands of women, children and men who come to Canada seeking safety but who are rejected by an unfair system that still fails to grant a proper appeal. They noted the trauma that is experienced by the thousands arbitrarily detained without charge by CBSA, and the shackling of detainees who require medical attention, including pregnant women.

While some spoke with the refugee claimants who have to make the long trek to this faraway office from all parts of the Greater Toronto Area for weekly check-ins, others were confronted by an angry parking lot representative who objected to the crime scene tape that had sprung up around the entrance to the building, and insisted organizers take it down. When he was informed that this was a crime scene and that we could not take it down, he said he could not do it—was he afraid to interfere with a legal naming of this place?

CORPORATE CONNECTIONS

The group headed to SNC-Lavalin, which had been busy last year building a prison for the torturing Gaddafi regime that, it laughably claimed, would be built to international human rights standards. In any event, the group stated, no prison can respect human rights since prisons as a concept are anti-human, and the replacement crew for Gaddafi, likely to inherit the prison, has been implicated in torture and extrajudicial executions as well. We also noted that SNC had been the focus of a campaign to divest itself of a factory in Quebec that pumped out almost 700 million bullets a year for the U.S. military, a campaign that ultimately proved successful.

This message was repeated at Metro West Detention Centre, where the group discussed dismissing the notion of good guys and bad guys, and the perverse idea that this is where “bad people” end up. We have bad institutions, not bad people, and the people who create inhuman conditions never end up here: places like this only continue the spiral of violence. The group also recalled that this is where secret trial detainees Hassan Almrei, Mahmoud Jaballah, and Mohammad Mahjoub had spent years suffering in solitary confinement without charge or bail based on information gleaned from torture. Almrei spent four and a half years in one solitary cell, without heat for the first two winters, and all the men endured lengthy hunger strikes as long as 80 days in an effort to slightly improve conditions.

Metro West guards were unnerved and, when they saw Crime Scene tape on their front sign, called the police with a complaint of property damage,. About 20 minutes later, 9 squads cars showed up, some stopping in the middle of the street and accosting young high school students taking part in the tour.

Meanwhile, the group stood vigil at Caterpillar, where grandmother Beth Guthrie, a longtime social justice activist, talked about the corporation’s role in the repression of Palestinians. Just as General Motors is slated soon to pay symbolic reparations to the victims of apartheid South Africa who were brutalized by officials using GM vehicles, so Caterpillar may one day face a court hearing for similar crimes.

“Most of us enjoy watching those great big Caterpillar construction machines,” Guthrie said. “When my sons were little I used to take them to construction sites where they could watch them dig holes and break things. Then they went home to the sandbox to play with their toy versions of the same machine. In our town the bulldozers and diggers seemed to be employed in building things and making a better world.

THE TORTURE OF OCCUPATION

“Then in March 2003 Rachel Corrie was killed by a Caterpillar bulldozer. She was a young American peace activist trying to stop it from destroying the home of a Palestinian family in Gaza and it deliberately drove right over her. I had just begun learning about what was happening in Palestine and one of my friends knew Rachel, so it felt very close to me.”

The United States buys the bulldozers from CAT and then sells them to the Israeli army through the Israel Tractor Equipment (ETI) company. The bulldozers are subsequently militarized by Inrob Tech, an American company based in Israel. …. In addition to destroying land and homes, CAT equipment is also used to kill civilians who do not have time to evacuate their homes, since the demolition is often done at night and without advance notice. The Israeli army has, in fact, pursued the destruction of homes while being fully aware that some residents were still inside.

Since 1967, CAT bulldozers have destroyed more than 12,000 homes and businesses in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, affecting more than 50, 000 Palestinian who were left homeless. Of these, more than 3,000 homes have been destroyed since 2003, evidence of the intensification of the destruction during the last decade.

“All this means that I urge you to boycott Caterpillar equipment, even if it just means not buying your kid that toy bulldozer or renting that lawn tractor,” she concluded. “Israel is using Caterpillar equipment to help it to take over Palestinian land. By selling equipment to the Israeli Forces, the Caterpillar corporation is directly involved in serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law perpetrated by Israel. The importance of these bulldozers in Israel’s military strategy is crucial. The commander of the Israeli army qualified Caterpillar equipment as ‘key weapons’ in maintaining the occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.”

The group then headed to the RCMP. As the nine squad cars lined up and officers lined up, tour members realized there were far too many RCMP crimes to be list6ed, and so decided to go directly into the building and confront those inside. We’d been here before, demanding answers, but were given none. Perhaps this time it would be different?

As about 25 people crowded into the small lobby, two Mounties on their way out were caught in the middle, and had to listen to an explanation of the crimes of the RCMP as docu9mented by the O’Connor and Iacobucci judicial inquiries. The agents were questioned intensely about their responsibility and how they felt about the inquiries. How did they feel belonging to an organization implicated in torture? What would they do if they knew information they were gathering would result in someone being tortured?

As at the MP’s office, the glazed eye response was prominent. We were repeatedly told “no comment” when we asked questions. Could they find someone who would comment? They went inside to speak to a supervisor, but came out with the same response—there action had blood on its hands.

“If you were asked to follow someone based on nothing more than racial or religious profiling, which happened in all of these cases, would you refuse to do so?” we asked.

“I can’t comment on hypothetical situations,” came a reply.

“This isn’t a hypothetical, this is a daily occurrence, and your organization does this.”

“NO comment.”

The officers were given our contact information in the event they would like to become a whistleblower. We promised we would support anyone who had the courage to come forward with further evidence of malfeasance or secret files that have so far been denied to the men tortured with their complicity.

“You have a right to exercise your conscience and a responsibility to follow the law,” they were told as we left.

AFGHANISTAN

Given a shortage of time, the group had to skip two locations. One was L-3 Communications, the site which produced cruise missile guidance systems in the 1980s as well as other criminal weapons systems used against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, and whose subsidiary, L-3 Titan, is implicated in torture. The other location was Tim Horton’s, where the group planned to read the eloquent testimony of cultural and language advisor Ahmadshah Malgarai, who testified at the House of Commons about the fact that high level officials in Canada’s War Dept. knew that detainees transferred out of Canadian hands would be tortured, and who said Canadian Warlord Rick Hillier had lied to the committee. Read his full testimony at http://www.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?DocId=4426965&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=40&Ses=3

Throughout the tour, the group had discussed the human rights abuses inherent in new anti-refugee legislation proposed by Jason Kenney, Canada’s Deportation Minister. The final stop on the journey was a perfect place to reflect on what the new law will mean: more jail, more deportation, more misery, more complicity in torture. The refugee jail on Rexdale Blvd. is in fact expanding, an ominous sign of what’s to come.

THE REFUGEE JAIL

It is here that thousands of people are passed throughout the year, all detained without charge for indefinite periods of time, all frightened, despairing, hopeless. The energized response of those inside the jail, who waved frantically from their barred windows at the gathered crowd, some desperately trying to send messages to us on small bits of paper, was testimony to the desperation felt inside. Two rounds of barbed wire fence surrounded a small outdoor area where the children who are in the jail are sometimes, allegedly, allowed to go.

The crowd waved back to those inside and pledged solidarity and work towards ending the crime of refugee detention. They sang songs, formed human peace symbols, and called out to recognize the humanity of those who have been retraumatized with their detention.

A posse of private security kept close watch, and as the group made their way to the jail parking lot to express solidarity with those on the west side of the jail, the security manager threatened to start making arrests unless people moved.

“Are you telling us that we cannot be human and share a human moment with people inside the jail?” asked one participant.

The answer was no.

As the group packed up its banners and placards, it committed itself to further actions not only in the cases of torture survivors still seeking justice, but all those currently affected by repressive Canadian polices and the new legislation that will further add to Canada’s record of human rights abuses.

Toronto Torture Tour: March 8

Join the Torture Tour of Toronto, Thursday, March 8, 8:30 am-1:30 pm

Sponsored by Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture and Toronto Action for Social Change

WHAT IS A TORTURE TOUR?

The tour is an opportunity for people to publicly name andprotest at sites of Canadian complicity in torture and other forms of cruel, degrading treatment. These sites include government agencies found by judicial inquiries to be complicit in the torture of Canadian citizens, agencies that regularly deport refugees to torture and other grave fates, Canadian military facilities, and symbols of the ongoing war against women, who experience torture and other forms of alarming violence on a daily basis at the hands of men in Canada. The Torture Tour is yet another step in the years-long campaign of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture seeking accountability, apologies, compensation, and systemic changes to put an end to this country's growing complicity in human rights abuses both here and abroad.

GETTING INVOLVED:
1. To join the torture tour, email tasc@web.ca
2. Bring a bag lunch or snacks for the road. There will NOT be a lot of walking; rather, it will consist of mainly driving between spots and standing vigil for a few minutes at each location.
3. If you drive and can offer spaces to others who need a seat on the torture tour, please let us know.
4. Contributions to help with our expenses are greatly appreciated, and can be made out to Homes not Bombs and mailed to PO Box 2020, 57 Foster Street, Perth, ON K7H 1R0.

BACKGROUND
March will mark 3.5 years since a secretive federal inquiry found the government of Canada complicit in the torture of Canadians Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin. Yet the government refuses to accept the findings of its own inquiry, an inquiry in which only its side of the complicity in torture was heard, an inquiry in which none of those who were tortured, nor their lawyers, nor the public, nor the media were allowed to attend. And even with the cards stacked so much in favour of the government, the government was found to be complicit. Now that these three men seek an apology, compensation, and accountability, the government questions the fact that they have been tortured.

REPORT BACK FROM CSI: OTTAWA, ENDING CANADIAN INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE

(apologies for the belated nature of this report; the issues, however, remain urgent, so see at the bottom what you can do to help)


REPORT BACK FROM CSI: OTTAWA, ENDING CANADIAN INVOLVEMENT IN TORTURE

In the early morning hours of October 26, an Ottawa communiqué was produced by the RCMP’s home-grown Crisis Management Cell (Al Qaeda is not the only disreputable and shady organization that organizes itself with cell structures). The communiqué warned of an impending evolving situation at the Prime Minister’s Office and called on Special Operations as well as Ottawa Police to attend to the scene.

The cause of the crisis, apparently, had to do with “anti-torture” protesters who were set to gather that morning at 9:30 am. While the special bulletin did not explain the whys and wherefores, it would have been obvious to anyone who had been in the city for the previous three days, during which copious amounts of crime scene tape had appeared, accompanied by evidence flags and hooded “detainees,” at a variety of Canadian government agencies and private corporations complicit in torture.

Members of the Crisis Management Cell were also concerned, no doubt, with the banner headline of that morning’s Ottawa Citizen, which revealed that just-released internal RCMP documents indicated that the Mounties knew that the alleged case against Ottawa engineer Abdullah Almalki was completely unfounded. Yet the Mounties nonetheless made up dangerously inflammatory allegations about him that resulted in 22 months of torture in a Syrian dungeon. No one in the institution has been held to account. (for more on those memos see http://rabble.ca/columnists/2011/11/taking-liberties-three-years-after-finding-canadian-complicity-torture-silence-li )

Indeed, October marked three years since the release of a report based on the highly secretive and biased Iacobucci Inquiry, which, despite its major structural faults (the three men at the inquiry’s focus were not allowed to attend the completely secret process), nonetheless found that Canada was complicit in the men’s torture. Despite a subsequent Parliamentary committee’s recommendations, and a vote by the majority of the House of Commons calling for an apology, compensation, and accountability, Prime Minister Harper, as well as the complicit institutions and individuals, have failed to comply with that vote and simply do the right thing.

Hence, public pressure to jump-start a process of accountability to mark that anniversary sprang into action, and for three days, members of Crime Scene Investigation: Ottawa (CSI Ottawa), a fully realized subsidiary of Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture, had been showing up at dozens of locations, reading aloud damning documents from federal inquiries, court decisions, and independent research that focused both on the cases of three Canadians targeted for torture – Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nereddin – as well as the larger pattern of complicity in torture that has ruined the lives of countless Canadian citizens, permanent residents, and refugees.

DAY ONE: CHURCH RENTS TO RCMP
And so individuals dressed in orange jumpsuits and black hoods, accompanied by others in CSI jackets and one booming sound system, set out to mark the city’s numerous shameful connections to torture. The first day began during the bitterly cold and damp morning rush hour on Monday, October 24 in the city’s east end where, after the group members parked their vehicles in the massive St. Laurent shopping centre parking lot, they headed out on the torture trail leading to the RCMP.

Canada’s Secret Trial Cases Built on Torture

(this story originally appeared at rabble.ca)

By Matthew Behrens

Four years after the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously found them unconstitutional, secret hearing “security certificates” are still in use, with a number of Muslim men fighting unseen allegations while under threat of deportation to torture.

Security certificates have long been used by Canada’s scandal-plagued spy agency CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) to tar refugees and permanent residents as national security threats without having to explain their alleged case. Those detained under the process are never charged, and subjected to lower standards than those applying to any citizen facing similar accusations. Indeed, the law governing the procedure allows for the introduction of any piece of information “even if it is inadmissible in a court of law.”

For the past decade, five Muslim men – dubbed the Secret Trial Five – have endured this Kafkaesque process both behind bars and under humiliating house arrest. Last month, the release of two formerly classified documents indicates that the national security secrecy claims that form the bedrock of these cases have in fact served as a cover for illegal and unethical acts by CSIS.

Indeed, the documents reveal the secret trial regime relies almost entirely on information gleaned from torture. A 2008 letter written by Jim Judd, then head of CSIS, bemoans legislative changes then being proposed that, in raising the bar on the admissibility of information possibly extracted under torture, “could render unsustainable the current security certificate proceedings.”

The CSIS memo does not comment on the ethics or legality of using information gleaned from torture; rather, it speaks to whether or not that information can somehow be corroborated. Judd claims that CSIS must maintain relations with countries that have poor human rights records as part of its so-called counter-terrorism efforts, and he shudders that with a proposed amendment on torture, “a Court could require CSIS to certify that all intelligence gathered in support of Certificates was done without resort to torture. This would almost certainly result in the Security Certificates regime falling into disuse as a consequence of its unworkability.”

Judd adds that a Court could render inadmissible “any and all information provided by agencies in countries whose human rights records are in question – of which there are many.” This scenario could arise, the memo continues, because “much” of the information put forward by CSIS in these cases “corroborates, or is corroborated, by [words blacked out, but clearly implying derived from torture], which under this interpretation of the amendment may no longer be admissible.”