Children in war and in prison

By Michael Petrou - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 at 11:38 AM - 16 Comments

Anti-Taliban soldier Abdul Azam, 14, cleans his weapson in his barracks (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

The first soldiers I met in Afghanistan were teenagers who had been fighting since they were 15 or 16 years old. There were three of them. They manned a machinegun nest on a lonely hill a kilometre or two from where the Taliban were dug in a short horse ride away. This was in October 2001. The kids belonged to the Northern Alliance militia, which had been fighting the Taliban for years and were on the verge of defeat when the Taliban’s al-Qaeda guests bombed America and changed the course of the war.

Now it is that teenagers’ allies who ostensibly run the government in Kabul. I have no doubt that their ranks continue to include minors, as do those of the Taliban. Children fight and kill and die violently in Afghanistan. The world would be a better place were this not the case, but it is. And in the course of battling the Taliban Canadian soldiers encounter and capture such minors, and must figure out what to do with them.

It’s a difficult dilemma without easy answers. Those such as the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair, who implicitly accused Canadian soldiers of handing over children to be tortured, aren’t offering any. Continue…

'Further questioning'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at 7:00 PM - 13 Comments

In his letter to the Afghanistan committee late last week, Gen. Walter Natynczyk wrote that “Canadian Forces do not transfer individuals for the purposes of gathering information.” In a letter sent today, the NDP’s Paul Dewar and Jack Harris have asked Gen. Natynczyk to clarify this point.

Specifically, Messrs. Dewar and Harris want to know how to square the general’s statement with an October 2007 document they’ve obtained. The document is described as a transfer report and it reads, in part:

“During the interview conducted, it is believe (sic) that all the detainees were deceptive and they have a better knowledge on TB (Taliban) activity in their area. Based upon the above, it is recommended that [names of detainees] be transferred to the National Directorate of Security (NOS) for further questioning”.

The NDP is not making said document public as yet. But Mr. Dewar did raise it during committee hearings last week. He presented it to Malgarai Ahmadshah, a former translator for the Canadian Forces, and Mr. Ahmadshah explained the document as follows. Continue…

A serious allegation

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 5, 2010 at 10:35 PM - 238 Comments

The CBC led tonight’s National with a rather serious allegation: that detainees in Afghanistan were deliberately transferred so that torture could be used to extract information. The allegation is made by University of Ottawa law professor Amir Attaran, who claims to have seen uncensored documents that indicate this.

Here is Terry Milewski’s report. Make of it what you will.

'We have no worries about the possibility of prosecution'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 12:10 PM - 40 Comments

On May 31, 2006, two days before the Canadian Press reported an estimate that 30 percent of transferred detainees were tortured, the Globe published a story from Washington after an interview with Gen. Michel Gauthier. He explained, regarding the Geneva Conventions, that detainees are “are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status but they are entitled to prisoner-of-war treatment.” Gordon O’Connor, the defence minister at the time, seemed to split the same difference when asked in the House about Gen. Gauthier’s comments.

Perhaps most interesting, in the current context, is the observation at the very end of that piece.

Gen. Gauthier said there is no risk that ordinary soldiers or junior officers could face war-crimes charges, even if detainees handed over to the Afghans were tortured or killed. ”Our intention certainly isn’t to leave junior folks hanging out to dry at all on this,” he said. “We are on firm legal ground . . . we have no worries about the possibility of prosecution . . . or allegations of criminal wrongdoing for having transferred detainees.”

Full story after the jump. Continue…

'It would seem that some of the key lessons of the Somalia experience … have not been learned'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 20, 2009 at 12:20 PM - 5 Comments

Lost somewhat in all the discussion of Richard Colvin’s testimony, is the statement of Peter Tinsley, chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission, that immediately followed Colvin’s appearance.

Here is that statement. Continue…