Afghanistan Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2009

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

But we weren't acting on those, is what you're saying.

[Colleen Swords]

The human rights report that we had from our embassy made recommendations at the end. The recommendations at that time all related to more capacity-building and more dialogue with the Afghan government.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Wait a minute, here. We had all these recommendations. What was the action? What I'm hearing from everyone here is that we didn't know where the detainees were going and we couldn't track them. I still have concerns about that. When I asked Minister Day at committee where the detainees went when they were released and whether we knew that--which is in our new agreement--he couldn't give me an answer, and he still hasn't to this day, by the way.

There is this phenomenon that we're sending people in and we're monitoring, but we're not investigating. We're hearing from the Red Cross, the UN, and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission that they have concerns about torture, and we're making recommendations? Who's acting here? Who was responsible for acting? That's my question.

[Colleen Swords]

I think the approach is that the Afghan government is responsible for human rights in their own country.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

But they were complicit in the torture.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Dewar, let her respond—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I'm sorry, my apologies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Go ahead.

[Colleen Swords]

I find it hard to respond, because I'm not quite sure what the question was.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Who's accountable? That's all.

[Colleen Swords]

The Afghan government is accountable for the human rights in its own country. We're accountable for making sure that we do everything we can to minimize risk for any Canadian-transferred detainees.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

But under international law, we're responsible—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Dewar.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

—for what happens to whoever we're handing over, no?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rick Casson]

Mr. Dewar, that's it. Your time is up. We have to move on.

We have enough time to go into two spots in the third round. So it's over to the government and then over to the official opposition.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to continue on that, but in a calmer tone.

With respect to the responsibilities that Canada had, or Afghanistan had, from December 2005 until the enhanced arrangement was brought into place, is it fair to say that we were operating--obviously under the old arrangement the Government of Afghanistan was responsible for human rights--under the honest belief that the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission were going to be reporting to us if there was anything Canada would be responsible for fixing or doing something about?

[Colleen Swords]

As I tried to explain in my statement, we were kind of evolving and ramping up and doing more and more as time passed. In the fall of 2006, the biggest concern that was ever drawn to my attention related to the infrastructure and the lack of training in the Afghan prisons. That was really pretty basic.

It's really important to build that up, because you can't be in a prison 24 hours a day. If you have better facilities and more training, you are really contributing to a more humane treatment of the prisoners themselves.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

There was an article today by Murray Brewster talking about some meetings that were supposedly held between the International Committee of the Red Cross and people like Mr. Colvin. A member of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Bernard Barrett, who was their spokesman in Washington, D.C., said that the agency would “never share confidential information”, and that Mr. Colvin's memo and comments by Mr. Mendes, who I believe is a professor, are “someone's interpretation of the meeting”.

Does that go back to what you said earlier about how the Red Cross in fact operates, that if they had serious concerns they would not be sharing them with someone at Mr. Colvin's level?

[Colleen Swords]

That's correct, and in fact they've made it quite clear to us that they will not share information with us about detainees that we transfer unless it relates to the period of time before we transfer them.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Okay.

[Colleen Swords]

They deal with the detaining power.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

With respect to the enhanced agreement that came in in 2007, I want to confirm that we followed up very quickly on any concerns that were forwarded to us.

[Colleen Swords]

Anytime there was an allegation of torture, mistreatment, or abuse, we immediately contacted the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Afghan authorities at various levels to raise this with them and insist that they investigate.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Given that Afghanistan will never be like Canada in respect of democracy or prison systems, how much confidence do you have that we can continue to make progress in terms of elevating their level of capability and understanding in those areas?

[Colleen Swords]

I think we have already made some progress. Particularly in the Sarposa Prison, where our colleagues from Correctional Service Canada are spending a lot of time, you realize there's a big difference.