Evidence of meeting #15 for Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was detainees.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
It was mostly my colleagues and myself who did it.
4:45 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
There were very few of us, about four.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rick Casson
We're out of time.
How this is going to finish up, then, is over to the government, then back to the official opposition, then the government and the NDP.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
I'm going to start and then hand it off to my colleague Peter.
Mr. Colvin, are you a specialist in international law?
4:45 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
No, I'm not, sir.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you. So that's contrary to what Mr. Bachand said.
When did you first visit the prison? Do you remember the date?
4:45 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Yes, it was May 13th or 16th.
4:45 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Of 2006.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
How long had you been sending reports on conditions in prisons prior to that?
4:45 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
No, I'd never done that.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
November 18th, 2009 / 4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Colvin, you had mentioned or had said that you had no problem accessing the prisoners or gaining access to the prison to speak to the prisoners. When I look at the transfer of detainees agreement, the one that was dated May 2007, it states:
Representatives of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission...and Canadian Government personnel, including representatives of the Canadian Embassy in Kabul and others empowered to represent the Government of Canada will have full and unrestricted access to any persons transferred by the Canadian Forces to Afghan authorities while such persons are in custody. In addition to the International Committee of the Red Cross...relevant human rights institutions with the UN system will be allowed access to visit such persons.
That's very plain, as to having ready access by many groups and organizations to the prisoners. I find it incredulous, too, with all of those facilities having access to the prisoners, that some information hasn't come through in the reporting.
When I look at your comments here, in your reports you've been sending in, it talks of risk of torture or actual torture. But here we've just had the discussion that what it might possibly be.... As you say, it might not have been torture; it might have been other forms of injury. The suggestion was that we don't know whether they were in solitary confinement or in individual cells. If they're in the population as a whole, certainly there are hazards to that, too, from other prisoners.
All the way through in here you talk about first-hand reports of torture. Yet through the discussion here, it's really like second-hand or third-hand reports of torture. You have said yourself that you haven't specifically seen anybody being tortured, but you see the marks or signs that you believe might be torture. But then again they might not.
With all of these differences of opinion on here, I still have to go back to the basis that I find it difficult to understand why you are the only person who can see through all of this and no other organization has come down with like comments.
4:50 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Most of my information was from other institutions, who were the experts. Without naming names, there were some human rights organizations, but also some intelligence services we would meet with and discuss these questions with them. That's kind of how we do our job as diplomats. So the trick is to find the authoritative, most credible organizations and then find out what information they have and then you can develop a picture of events.
The one monitoring visit I made in Kabul is really just, for me, a small kind of anecdotal reinforcement of this bigger pattern.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Well, in your report here, as I said, it's mentioning treatment of detainees, treatment of detainees, and procedure, procedure, procedure. And when you have the opportunity to face up, to speak to the general directly, you don't mention it. So I'm really.... You know, in spite of having a relationship difficulty being able to communicate, I would think that would be the one common time that you could speak up, right then and there. And if you had these grave concerns for it, I would have thought that you would.
4:50 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Sure.
The principal way we're supposed to inform Ottawa is via more official channels rather than to a particular individual.
4:50 p.m.
First Secretary, Embassy of Canada to the United States of America
Relations with General Gauthier unfortunately were not very good. If it had been another general, it would have been different--for example, General Grant, a very easy relationship. Certainly with him I would have felt no compunction with raising it. So it was just kind of a personality issue.
The other disadvantage with the oral report is that there's no paper trail. Ultimately, it's the whole system, the whole system with many parts. I wrote the reports to try to reach different elements of the whole system.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
