Afghanistan Committee on April 21st, 2010

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

You mentioned that a more robust system came about. In Ambassador Hoffmann's testimony, he made a point that I want this committee to know about.

As you mentioned, following this incident in 2008, there were not any more serious complaints, the number of complaints of that nature was going down. Is that right, Ambassador Hoffmann? Is that what you said at the time?

[His Excellency Ron Hoffmann]

I did, Mr. Obhrai. As our monitoring regime gained traction, it really began to gain traction during this November period when we had a number of visits to answer allegations, which kicked off our diplomatic engagement efforts and political involvement and stepped up further monitoring to react as Mr. Lalani has stated.

It certainly demonstrated to me, as someone closely involved with it, that our monitoring regime was one that really had an impact well beyond theory and well beyond a paper process. It was one that involved real people who were trained and supported and who risked their lives to go to these facilities to do everything Canada practically could do to ensure the detainees who were handed over were protected.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

Thank you, Ambassador.

I want to finish by saying thank you to all of you, but I want to support one statement made by Ambassador Hoffmann that our civilians, those guys who have been going out to monitor have been monitoring at their own risk, a risk to their own lives; they are going out for NDS and all these things. I want to make sure everybody understands that while we say the monitoring factor was taking place, it was at a considerable risk to our own people and our own monitors who were going out there to do this business.

Would you like to say a word about the bravery of our own officials who are going out to check on the detainees?

[His Excellency Ron Hoffmann]

Thank you, Mr. Obhrai.

As I mentioned earlier, Canada felt that risk was necessary because we had international obligations that we felt must be respected.

The roads that our officials travelled on--as I said, over 200 times--to fulfill these obligations were roads that saw civilians killed on multiple occasions by attacks and IEDs. The facilities they went to, whether it was Sarposa prison, the justice ministry prison, or the NDS facility, those institutions were attacked in a very serious way on multiple occasions, involving massive loss of life.

We knew those risks. The individuals who went knew the risks. The significant numbers of soldiers who provided the transport and close protection knew those risks. But these were risks, as I said earlier, that we felt we had to take to be able to be in compliance with our international legal obligations, and they were ones that those taking those risks were professionally committed to doing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Mr. Harris, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here today.

First of all, Mr. Lalani, you said that of course there were “shortcomings”. I would find that a rather soft euphemism for the concerns that have been raised before our committee in terms of the NDS with its culture of torture and abuse of prisoners, going back to the evidence we heard from Eileen Olexiuk, who produced several human rights reports; from what we heard from Mr. Colvin; and from what we heard from Cory Anderson, who was telling us three weeks ago that the NDS was not a viable partner in terms of operations in Afghanistan.

I'm concerned about two things that we heard. For example, David Mulroney told us that after we signed the second agreement in approximately May 2007, we started to develop a database, essentially indicating what you said, Mr. Sproule, which was that we didn't know very much before then.

Mr. Anderson told us three weeks ago, in terms of specific allegations of abuse, that “the reason there were no specific allegations of abuse prior to May of 2007 is that we didn't have an instrument in place that would allow us the ability to find out, and we weren't doing any monitoring”.

Would you agree, Mr. Sproule, that prior to the new agreement, at least, when you started a process of monitoring--we that know the ICRC, for example, wasn't reporting anything back to Canada; they were only reporting to Afghanistan--there's really kind of a black hole about what happened prior to May of 2007 in terms of who we passed over, what happened to them, whether they disappeared, and whether they were maltreated? Is that fair to say?

[David Sproule]

No, I don't think it's fair to say.

I think it's.... Keep in mind that the numbers of detainees started to increase significantly in the fall of 2006 with our Operation Medusa in the Panjwai valley. With that, numbers started to increase significantly. Reporting was done on that by our embassy, some of which was done by Mr. Colvin. That prompted very serious planning to be going on at headquarters. In that planning, we developed, for example, a more robust monitoring system where we asked the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission to track our detainees to ensure that they were being treated properly.

At the same time, we put in a whole number of initiatives, which I described in my statement, to upgrade the Afghan capacity to treat detainees to the standards they had committed themselves to, both in terms of corrections personnel, facilities, and training, but also from the RCMP side.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

But these are all generalities, Mr. Sproule, with respect. We were told that the AIHRC was complaining about the fact that they didn't get access to the prisons. We have reports coming out of Britain to the same effect: that they couldn't get into the prisons. This is an ongoing problem that certainly went well beyond May of 2007. We're being told by officials who were in Afghanistan on behalf of DFAIT that we didn't really know what was going on prior to 2007, and I have to accept that this is the case. Apparently, you don't.

Let me ask you another question. We've also seen coming out of Britain--and I have a copy here today, but I'm not going to show it to you because it's only in English--a seven-page document, which is essentially about the detention policy in Afghanistan and was prepared for the minister responsible for Afghanistan in the British government. It goes back to March of 2006 when they did a very elaborate analysis of their responsibilities and applied a policy that was expected to be approved by the minister.

Can I ask any of you gentlemen whether you've ever seen such a document prepared for our use, the use of the Canadian government in Afghanistan, which sets out the obligations of the government and a recommended detention policy?

[David Sproule]

We have done extensive work in the legal area in terms of pinpointing and making sure that our military staff, our civilian staff, are well aware of obligations under human rights instruments as well as international humanitarian law instruments. As I mentioned in my statement, we also have developed standard operating procedures, adjustments, to take into account how to upgrade and improve our response--

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I understand that you did certain things. What I asked you was this: was there a document that set out Canadian policy? If there isn't one, that's fine.

Let me ask you another question. Was it part of the policy of our government in Afghanistan to transfer prisoners to the NDS “for further questioning”? I ask that question because we had an individual testify at this time last week with a suggestion that as a translator he had translated some 40 or 50 documents that contained just this phrase. It was contained in a transfer document that was to be passed over.

This was done by the military, so I guess that maybe it's a two-part question. The military seemed to be operating in a particular vein over there, and I get the impression from General Hillier and other witnesses that the military didn't see any role for themselves after they passed people over, that it was up to DFAIT to look after these sorts of things. But I ask you, are you aware that such a practice took place? Was this part of Canada's policy to do that? Or what can you tell us about it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Sproule.

[David Sproule]

No, it was not government policy. It was not the policy of our department of defence. It was not the policy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lalani, I thought maybe you and Mr. Sproule were both prepared to answer a question Mr. Harris posed earlier, so I'll give you a brief few moments if you want to respond as well.

[Arif Lalani]

I did, but I think David has answered most of it, and it's a little difficult without having seen the document.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Thank you very much.

We'll come back to the government side, with Mr. Hawn, please.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of you for being here.

Through you, Mr. Chair, to Mr. Sproule, you had a number of people on the ground in Kabul, Kandahar Airfield, and Kandahar city, Mr. Sproule, in addition to Mr. Colvin, who were your eyes and ears on the ground with respect to all matters, including treatment of Canadian-transferred detainees. Were you confident the reports received from them were complete, factual, objective, and rigorously assessed?

[David Sproule]

Yes. Mr. Colvin was a very conscientious and extensive reporter. When I was present, his reports were reviewed carefully by me. They were sent along. His reporting, as well as the reporting we were getting from our PRT and our officer who was posted to the Kandahar air base and also other members of the embassy, was transmitted to Ottawa. Those reports were what prompted the development of the system that was put in place and implemented by the time Ambassador Lalani arrived.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

So you had reports from a variety of other people besides Mr. Colvin, for all of which you put some faith in the quality of those reports.

[David Sproule]

Well, yes. Indeed, one of my roles as ambassador was to ensure there was a coherent message going back to Ottawa. Sometimes that involved discussing with our PRT their perspective, our perspective in Kabul, and making sure that we had as much information as possible and that it was conveyed in a clear manner to facilitate policy-making in headquarters.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Were there any of those particular reports from those deployed around the area that would have sounded alarm bells for you about Canadian-transferred detainees and mistreatment?

[David Sproule]

The concern we had during my tenure was weaknesses in terms of the notification process--delays--which we addressed by trying to short-circuit the communication through Ottawa and Geneva by sending information simultaneously and directly to Kabul. Later, this was improved by sending information from the military, when they had a detainee to transfer, directly to the Kandahar ICRC officials there.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Mr. Lalani, obviously we've all talked about general concerns; it's a rough place. Did you talk about issues of concern with the Afghan government officials, with our allies? What kinds of discussions did you have with them?

[Arif Lalani]

We had those discussions all the time, at the highest levels. It was something that I think all three ambassadors did. We discussed it with the president. We discussed it with the head of the National Directorate of Security. We discussed it with our allies.

I think there were about five or six other countries that had signed arrangements similar to ours. We discussed it, and I discussed it regularly with international organizations, some of which need for their work to be discreet so they can do the work that is required.

We absolutely did discuss it. We took it very seriously. It occupied a big part of my time.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you.

Ambassador Hoffmann, you were last in the line of succession, if you will. The government policies and procedures evolved over time, obviously in a very complex situation. In fact, Cory Anderson, when he was here, said there was no problem with the new arrangement; it was a good arrangement and people were doing their best to abide by it, on all sides.

Were you satisfied with that whole-of-government approach, that DFAIT, the Department of Defence, Corrections Canada, the RCMP, and so on, were able to work together to respond to the challenges that arose and address those problems to help the situation evolve?

[His Excellency Ron Hoffmann]

By the time I arrived in Afghanistan in early August 2007, a great deal of work had been done by many people—you will have heard from some of them in this committee—to ensure that the approach by the different arms of the Canadian government was increasingly integrated and they were working towards one goal. Over the 24 months that I spent in Afghanistan, there is no doubt that the process deepened further.

We had the independent commission on Afghanistan, led by John Manley, which made recommendations, of course, to the government and Parliament. That took it to a much more integrated level still; it really covered all aspects of Canada's engagement. It was vital on the matter of detainees, where we were completely aligned and ensuring that our respective roles and responsibilities that we had identified were implemented quickly and effectively.

But it's also true that all aspects of our engagement involved an integrated approach, where our government policy was clear in terms of why we were there and what we were trying to achieve. All arms of the Government of Canada were working towards those same goals.

It's one of the reasons why, when I left Afghanistan, I said publicly on many occasions that Canadians have much to be proud of. I think we performed in an integrated way, and by the time I left, probably better than any other nation of the 60 that were involved in Afghanistan.