Afghanistan Committee on Nov. 26th, 2009

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

I'd have to see it.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

What is the procedure here? Can I give him the report?

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

Give him the document that we can't see so that he can't see it either.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

I did see that document.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

You did see it?

If you saw this document, then why is the Prime Minister telling us that no one was tortured, that nothing happened and that there were never any cases where the allegations were proven? You now have a report from two people you know very well. They sent this report to everyone I mentioned earlier, including yourself.

So please explain to me how you can argue that no one is being tortured in Afghan prisons and that no one was being tortured at that time?

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

With your permission, I will answer in English. I apologize.

This is reporting on a visit that Richard paid to a prison in Kabul, not to the NDS facility in Kandahar. He talked to people who made allegations of abuse, which we reported to the authorities. But what is important to note in this is that these were not, to our knowledge, Canadian-transferred detainees, and our primary focus has been whether there were any credible allegations of mistreatment of Canadian-transferred detainees. Our ability to make that determination improved enormously with the signing of the May agreement: our databases were improved; we tracked them through the system.

So the fact that there were allegations of mistreatment in Afghan prisons was known to us, and it was reported in international human rights journals, etc. What we were looking at was to create a system that would provide sufficient protection for Canadian-transferred detainees through the system, to ensure that Afghans met the obligations we expected of them.

This precedes the May arrangement. We did the May arrangement to deal with allegations and concerns of this sort.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Yes, but people were being tortured at that time, that's obvious.

Here is another piece of evidence. In Attaran vs Canada (Foreign Affairs), it says that in the 2006 report on human rights in Afghanistan—you read this report, you were the one in charge—there is a sentence that you tried to have removed...

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

In 2006 I was at the PCO; I wasn't in Afghanistan.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

But you definitely read the report.

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

Yes.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

It was written by Mr. Colvin and sent to Mr. Mulroney, that is, yourself. It says:

“Extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial are all too common.”

Mr. Mulroney, the question is not whether Canadian solders transferred these prisoners; it is clear that they were everywhere. You should have told the Prime Minister at the time.

I personally think that you did. Did you speak to him about the conclusions drawn by these reports?

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

There was no doubt in anybody's mind that the Afghan system was riddled with problems. It was a developing country that had been devastated by 30 years of war. We knew that.

We had a problem, in that we had people captured on the battlefield who were a threat to Afghans and Canadians. We could either let them go or put them into the Afghan justice system. To do that, we would have to take steps to improve the Afghan justice system, and specifically the prisons. We worked interdepartmentally to come up with a program that would allow us to do that with a degree of confidence.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Thank you, Mr. Bachand.

We'll go to the government side for seven minutes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ambassador Mulroney, for joining us.

To continue a point about the piece of paper that Mr. Bachand had, if that piece of paper was approved by Ambassador Lalani, then it must have been after April 2007, because that's when Ambassador Lalani arrived. So to suggest that it refers to something that happened in 2006 is patently false.

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

It is, if we have Ambassador Lalani's name on this. Actually, he arrived at the very end of April and within a week had negotiated the new arrangement.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you.

After Glyn Berry was unfortunately killed, was it very tough for the PRT—for civilian employees—to get outside the wire after that point, for the first period?

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

This was one of the big issues we struggled with, how to deploy civilians from the PRT or from Kandahar airfield into the Afghan prisons. That's one of the reasons I went to the NDS. I wanted to see for myself what it was like. These visits are unannounced; what they normally do is roll up to the prison in a convoy. There is a time limit for how long they can stay, because the longer those vehicles stay out there, the longer the insurgents have to plan attacks on the route back. The prisons themselves are dangerous; we had people in Sarposa hours before it was blown up.

We thought a lot about how to do this safely and carefully.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So initially, after Glyn Berry's death, there were not many visits outside the wire by civilians.

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

There were not many visits. It took time to build up those—

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So any information would have been at least second-hand.

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

Yes.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

In 2006 there were some questions concerning inputs from the ICRC about concerns that the ICRC raised. Were those concerns about actual torture or allegations of torture, or were they more about process—record keeping, reporting, that sort of thing?

[His Excellency David Mulroney]

The concerns were primarily about notifications to the ICRC in Geneva. They felt that the system the forces had set up took too long to get the information to them. I know, and General Fraser I think referred to this, that people sat down after that report was received, and it was acted upon. We developed a system eventually whereby the Department of Foreign Affairs, through the PRT, the embassy in Kabul, and our embassy in Geneva, were reporting on those. I would see those notifications go out, and it was just a matter of a very few days. So that was corrected.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

It went from whatever—a month or two—to hours, to days.