Up until a little over a month ago the Canadian Minister of Defence, Gordon O'Connor, was assuring Canadians that prisoners of war that Canada handed over to the Afghanistan government were having their treatment monitored by the Red Cross. Unlike any of the other countries serving as part of the occupying force in Afghanistan Canada has no arrangement in place allowing them to monitor the well being of the detainees they turn over, so we have to rely on third party reports.
It turns out he was wrong about that one as neither the Red Cross or the Red Crescent societies were monitoring the conditions of any of the Prisoners Of War being held by the Afghan government. When Mr. O'Connor came clean about that in the Canadian Parliament last month, he said not to worry though because the Afghan Human Rights people would let the military know if anybody was being mistreated.
You see according to the Geneva Convention no nation is allowed to turn over a prisoner to another nation if it suspects it will be tortured. If it finds out the prisoner is being tortured it must intervene on his or her behalf to prevent the torture from continuing or demand that the prisoner be returned to their custody.
Of course in order to do this a government must have the means in place to be informed of the well being of anybody who they had handed over to an allied power. For reasons best known to themselves, Defence Minister O'Connor and Chief of Staff General Rick Hiller couldn't be bothered insuring that we had anyway of living up to our responsibilities under the convention.
The only reason I can think for not having that language in a prisoner transfer agreement is that they don't have it the one they've established with the United States, even though those detainees end up in Guantanamo Bay where they are tortured. Of course the United States circumvents that problem by claiming none of the people they are fighting in Afghanistan are eligible for status as Prisoners of War.
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Article comments
1 - Lumpy
You might want to read the good old geneva accords sometime. The status of these prisoners is unambiguously not that of POWs.
2 - pete
typical liberal crybaby traitor article, nothing surprising these days.
if this was WW2 youd be chucked in jail where you belong.
if you love the taliban so much, go live with them and see how much you like it, otherwise toughen up, once the terror attacks hit canada people like you will be outcasted.
3 - sd.green
This issue has nothing to do with Canada, nor Harper, Oconner or Hillier.
The Liberals made the agreement, which turns over Taliban POWs over to the sovereign government of Afghanistan. It is up to Afghanistan to follow the Geneva convention.
4 - Afghanai
Canada had no business palying puppy to Bush and Cheney and the dark US history. It has the obligation to stop the war and get out of Afghanistan.
5 - bill
Firstly, "The Government of Canada’s position is that those parts of the Geneva Conventions and additional Protocols related to Prisoners of War are reflective of customary international law, and will apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, even if they do not apply as a matter of treaty law."
Secondly, there is no problem with the original agreement to turn POWs over to the Afghanistan government. However if, at any time, it is believed that this would result in those persons' rights being violated, then the responsibility lies with the Canadian government and military commanders of the time to deal with that situation.