Thank you, Chairman.
My name is David Sproule. I am the deputy legal adviser and director general of the legal affairs bureau in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I served as Canadian ambassador to Afghanistan from October 6, 2005, until April 17, 2007. Immediately prior to this assignment, I was Canadian High Commissioner to Bangladesh.
Let me begin by noting that an overriding consideration for Canada and the more than 60 partner countries present in Afghanistan is to ensure that the impact of our assistance endures. We do this by helping develop strong and democratic institutions, thus equipping Afghanistan to assume full responsibility for its own long-term governance and security needs.
When I began my assignment in Afghanistan in 2005, our diplomatic personnel at the embassy consisted of five staff--me, one political officer, and three development officers--and three administrative staff, 10 security staff, and Glyn Berry at our PRT in Kandahar. Our objective was to transform our tiny operation into a full-fledged embassy and PRT, with the necessary personnel, infrastructure, communication systems, financial controls, and security protections to operate effectively in an austere and dangerous environment.
Our embassy and the PRT staff focused on diplomatic and development work designed to support our armed forces security operations.
We reported on our meetings and program work with President Karzai and key cabinet ministers; officials in government ministries and agencies; the Kandahar provincial administration; assembly and development councils; the Afghan army, police, and judiciary, a large number of UN and international organizations; other embassies; human rights organizations; and NGOs.
We also organized visits for numerous Canadian ministers, members of Parliament, government officials, the Prime Minister, the Governor General, and private sector experts from Canada.
A number of issues dominated our work, including: making the case for more NATO soldiers and Afghan army and police to assist Canadian Forces in Kandahar; enhancing training programs for the Afghan army and police; developing a bilateral aid program to meet Afghanistan's long-term development needs, such as education, micro-credit for women, and health, as well as some of the immediate requirements in Kandahar, including roads, wells, and police stations; strengthening Afghan institutions such as Parliament and the judiciary; addressing the problems of corruption and narcotics trafficking; negotiating formal and informal arrangements with the Afghanistan government; protecting our civilian personnel; preparing human rights reports; and supporting the detainee file.
A number of factors informed our efforts during this period with regard to the detainee issue, the key ones being: our presence in Afghanistan is based on relevant UN Security Council resolutions and a recognition that we are there at the invitation of the Afghan government and in support of its sovereignty; the need to facilitate the detention of enemy personnel to prevent them from returning to the battlefield and again threatening the lives of Canadian soldiers and diplomats; and, the importance of ensuring that persons captured by Canadian Forces are afforded proper standards of treatment and humane living conditions.
In this regard, let me add that we have never been under any illusion about the human rights situation in Afghanistan; it is part of the reason we are there.
To ensure appropriate treatment of detainees transferred to Afghan authorities, we needed to be satisfied that they were going to treat them in accordance with the international legal standards to which Afghanistan was committed. We obtained assurances from the highest levels of the Afghan government through the December 2005 arrangement. We made sure there was a firm understanding by Afghan authorities of both the importance Canada attached to this issue and the essential role we were playing in their country.
In order to further strengthen Afghan assurances, the 2005 arrangement recalled the existing entitlement of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the ICRC, to oversee detainees and the explicit recognition of the constitutional role and responsibility of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the AIHRC, in monitoring the treatment of detainees. We then began to make significant investments in Afghan institutions to build their capacity in the judicial system, policing, and corrections fields.
The first detainee issue that arose during my tenure was the operational delays in notifying the ICRC of those turned over to Afghan authorities by our forces and the insufficient detail provided to allow individuals to be properly tracked within the Afghan detention system by the ICRC. We sought to address these issues in mid-2006 by providing more detail on each individual turned over and putting in place a system to facilitate the direct notification of ICRC offices in Geneva and Kabul.
We also focused on the poor conditions in Afghan detention facilities and the inadequate training of prison personnel. We responded by mounting a Corrections Canada assessment visit to detention facilities in Kandahar to determine how facilities could be improved and the training of prison staff upgraded, and we funded initiatives in both these areas. Two CSC personnel and additional RCMP officers were assigned to our PRT in Kandahar to establish training and mentoring programs in prisons and for police. Visits were conducted by Corrections officials to Sarposa prison and to the NDS facility in the province.
Let me emphasize that while we were under no illusion about the possibility of mistreatment within Afghan detention facilities, we made crystal clear to the most senior Afghan government officials the importance Canada attaches to the proper treatment of detainees that we turned over to their authorities. We had received strong assurances that the Government of Afghanistan took its human rights obligations seriously.
Nevertheless, to further enhance protections against the potential for abuse or mistreatment in Afghan detention facilities, we improved the access and funding for the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission staff. We began developing a diplomatic contingency plan outlining steps to take vis-à-vis the Afghan authorities in the event allegations of abuse were brought to our attention. In conjunction with this, we refined our standing operating procedures on the handling of detainees.
The initiation of these measures coincided with the decision to significantly increase the number of diplomatic personnel in Kabul and Kandahar to facilitate support and programming along these lines of effort, including on detainee issues. Full implementation of these plans took place during the tenure of my successor, Arif Lalani, who will now describe these measures in more detail.
Thank you.