Earlier this week, Canadian diplomat Richard Colvin set off a series of political bombs that suggested that senior Canadian government officials ‘knew about’, ‘ignored’, or generally ‘dismissed’ his reports regarding Canadian complicity in the torture of Afghan citizens by their own government.
The next day, various current and forumer government officials including Peter McKay, Rick Hillier and others denied knowing anything and disputed the truth of the reports.
‘Cover up’, the Liberals said. ‘Conspiracy’, said the NDP. ‘Shocking and shameful’, said the Bloc. ‘Only butt-covering’, they all agreed.
OK, maybe, but what do you expect?
Setting aside the major human rights questions around enabling torture (which I don’t want to trivialize).
It is a fact that complicity, awareness, etc. of the torture of people who have been detained and are supposed to be under the protection of a foreign government is a WAR CRIME, punishable by the International War Crimes Tribunal.
This is the same tribunal that seizes foreign government leaders and imprisons them in the Hague. The same tribunal that Canada recognizes, but the United States does not, because they are afraid that their own government officials might be arrested and charged if they travel to Europe.
Richard Colvin probably had a lot of reasons for going public with his claims, but one of them was surely to protect HIMSELF from possible charges.
Even if they did know – and having been in government I think it IS possible they never saw anything – General Hillier and Minister MacKay can’t say that they did or they would be admitting guilt. And who wants to go through that kind of experience.
Should the problem be fixed? Should we be embarrased? Would it be better if it had never happened?
Yes. Yes. YES!
But let’s not pretend it was a grand conspiracy or a malicious cover-up by a ‘bad government’. It’s typical human butt-covering at all levels.
And I suspect that it would be hard to find anyone… even in the NDP… who would have been prepared to expose themselves if they were in the same position.
