Evidence of meeting #16 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 documents.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
And he would have been in a position to have some insight into that. Did any other Canadian civilian or military person raise with you concerns of torture or abuse during your nine or ten months' service in Afghanistan?
4:45 p.m.
MGen David Fraser
I never received any reports about abuse or torture from any Canadian.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Laurie Hawn Conservative Edmonton Centre, AB
Thank you very much.
I'll turn it over to my colleague Mr. Obhrai.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary East, AB
Thank you for coming. I want to say at the outset that we really appreciate what you've done in Afghanistan and what our soldiers are doing.
The question I want to come back to is General Hillier's question about the agreement in 2005—the question that Madame Lalonde asked about your involvement in there, in which you very specifically and very clearly stated that this was done by the political masters.
At that time, it was Minister Graham of the Liberal government in charge. I go back to what Mr. Dosanjh said about holding the army in charge of breaking international law. If you are saying to me correctly that this agreement was signed by the political masters, who all came out with that, and you just were a signer, would that mean—and they're really asking you—that those individuals themselves, the political.... You were just following an agreement.
Am I understanding right that the involvement of the political leaders was very crucial in signing this agreement?
4:45 p.m.
Gen Rick Hillier
Sir, what I would say is this. I wasn't in the habit either of negotiating agreements with foreign countries or then signing them of my own volition. I agreed to sign that thing, and I have to say in hindsight that it might have been a wise thing not to have agreed to that, because the ambassador could have easily signed it, as occurred in the supplementary agreement. But I agreed to sign it because Minister Wardak asked that I do that and because we had a joined-up Government of Canada approach to the agreement back in 2005.
So I'm not pointing a finger at individuals. I'm just saying this was a Government of Canada agreement between Canada and Afghanistan in 2005.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Deepak Obhrai Conservative Calgary East, AB
And you, the military, were just following the agreement?
4:45 p.m.
Gen Rick Hillier
And my job after that was to implement the front-end piece of that, unless I was uncomfortable--I think back to Mr. Dosanjh's question--that my command responsibilities could not be met. That's what we did, and when I got uncomfortable, we stopped transferring. We continued that stoppage until we got the capacity to oversee and train and build and investigate and improve.
So I think I met my responsibilities that were my part of that agreement.
4:45 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests.
I would like to conduct my questions the way Mr. Hawn did and I hope the answers will be similar, if that's possible. I guess it depends on the question.
Were any of you aware of these independent groups' assessments on torture in Afghan prisons from 2005, 2006, and onwards?I guess by 2006 everyone knew, so were you aware of the independent assessments by other groups? They've all been listed: the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, the Red Cross, the State Department, etc. Were you aware of those reports about torture in Afghan prisons?
4:45 p.m.
Gen Rick Hillier
How could you not be aware of individuals saying that everything was bad and the sky was falling? So yes, Mr. Dewar, absolutely. And then I'd just balance that against a comment I heard from somebody in the ICRC or read somewhere back in February 2007, saying there's no problem whatsoever with respect to detainees. So I tried to balance the specific against the generalities, which had no substance against specific--
4:45 p.m.
Gen Rick Hillier
So yes, absolutely. You could not not be aware.
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
And it was the same for everyone else? Okay.
Were there any site visits to NDS prison or to Sarposa Prison by Canadian officials during 2005 and 2006 to follow up as to what happened to the detainees at that point?
4:50 p.m.
Gen Rick Hillier
I think you need to ask Mr. Mulroney that, not me.
4:50 p.m.
Gen Rick Hillier
No, our part--
4:50 p.m.
NDP
4:50 p.m.
Gen Rick Hillier
That's correct. That was not part of our mandate in the agreement.
4:50 p.m.
LGen Michel Gauthier
Exactly right, and I made reference to that in my comments, that our soldiers weren't trained human rights monitors--
4:50 p.m.
LGen Michel Gauthier
We could not do that, but you could ask General Fraser if he's aware of others who went into--
4:50 p.m.
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
I just wanted to know if he had or had directed anyone to go into the prisons to investigate what was going on there at the time.
4:50 p.m.
MGen David Fraser
That wasn't part of our mandate to go and inspect prisons, but there was a Corrections Canada visit to Sarposa Prison in 2006. They wrote a report, and there was nothing in the report that raised any alarms or concerns.
