Canadians handed children over to notorious Afghan security, CBC reports

[CHIMO]

Source: Globe and Mail Update

The Canadian Forces in Afghanistan have for at least four years captured children accused of co-operating with the Taliban and transferred them to a local security unit suspected of torture, according to CBC News.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay was alerted to the issue by a secret briefing note, which the CBC obtained through access-to-information laws.

Dated March 30, 2010, the document is marked secret (for Canadian eyes only) and explains the pending addition of a fifth facility, this time for children, to the public list of prisons where Canadian-transferred detainees might be held.

It says the Canadian Forces have been arresting Afghan children since at least 2006 and that some of those children were transferred to Afghan custody. The number of juveniles detained and transferred and the number eventually released have all been blacked out.



Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/canadians-handed-children-over-to-notorious-afghan-security-cbc-reports/article1816750/

[PSPS]

1. "the pending addition of a fifth facility, this time for children"

Dated March 30, 2010, the document is marked secret (for Canadian eyes only) and explains the pending addition of a fifth facility, this time for children, to the public list of prisons where Canadian-transferred detainees might be held.

Well, isn't that just fucking lovely.

[daleo]

2. Maybe Laureen Harper can take up the cause of these children

And get her husband to drop this policy.

[dixiegrrrrl]

3. Who else besides Canadians are doing this, I wonder?

Who is paying for those prisons to be built?
Who is making the decisions to kill civilians, kidnap and imprison children?
Have they done this to the Iraqi children also?

Reminds me of the Government policy in the late 1800's to steal American Indian children and force them to attend BLA schools.

I swear, we are perpetuating a form of genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[provis99]

4. so what the heck are the Canadians supposed to do?

If they don't turn over these people to their sovereign government, they are essentially kidnapping them, where they can presumably be tortured and shot by Canadian soldiers, rather than Afghan government forces. If the Canadians leave Afghanistan entirely, then the Afghan government will get them anyways. If they simply cut these Afghan prisoners loose, then the Afghan government will get them anyways. It's impossible trying to protect people from their own sovereign government.

This is a no win situation.

[CHIMO]

5. Handling of young Afghan detainees defended

Canada's foreign affairs minister is refusing to disclose whether Canadian soldiers transferred children suspected of working with the Taliban to an Afghan security unit accused of torture.

Lawrence Cannon says Canadian soldiers use special measures to deal with young detainees, but said sometimes "you can't tell an age."

Questions about young detainees were raised in the House of Commons on Monday after a document obtained by the CBC's investigative unit showed that the Canadian military captured children in the fight against the Taliban, and that many of them were transferred to the custody of Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security, or NDS.

Opposition members peppered Cannon about juvenile detainees, and the minister insisted that the Canadian Forces has "replaced inadequate protocol for prisoner transfer" with new measures.
http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/11/29/politics-juvenile-detainee-policy.html

If you don't know what you are getting into, then don't start!

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[marasinghe]

7. it's not like they didn't have the experience

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/27/world/torture-by-army-peacekeepers-in-somalia-shocks-canada.html

snip/....
The New York Times
Torture by Army Peacekeepers in Somalia Shocks Canada
By CLYDE H. FARNSWORTH
Published: November 27, 1994

TORONTO, Nov. 26 — The snapshots, entered as exhibits in court-martial proceedings, show Canadian soldiers at a desert outpost in Somalia posing with a blindfolded, bruised and bloodied Somali teen-ager, who was tortured until he died a few hours later
..../snip

though not detailed in the linked 1994 NY Times article, one of the incidents concerned a teenage kid, who was scavenging the trash dump of the Canadian peacekeeping forces camp, for discarded food. the kid was shut up in a metal drum & a fire lit under it.

an obvious outcome of soldiers trained & programmed to kill, being used for policing.

[CHIMO]

8. You Are

Entirely correct.

They went as peace makers and they acted as if it was a war.

This is a war. They should be acting under rules.