(The
following article is from
the December 1-31,
2007
issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles
can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in
Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per
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Hamilton,
ON, L8P 2H3. By
Kimball Cariou
A spate of recent
news reports
indicates that the NATO occupation of Afghanistan is becoming a deeper
disaster.
It has been
revealed that many
victims of the Nov. 6 bombing in northern Baghlan province were
children shot by government bodyguards. About 77 people died (including
four members of the Afghan parliament), and another 100 were injured.
According to an internal United Nations security report obtained on
Nov. 19, bodyguards for the politicians shot at least 100 rounds of
gunfire "deliberately and indiscriminately" into the crowd after the
suicide bombing, and that schoolchildren bore "the brunt of the
onslaught at close range."
The gunshots
could account for
as many as two-thirds of the casualties, the report said. "Regardless
of what the exact breakdown of numbers may be, the fact remains that a
number of armed men deliberately and indiscriminately fired into a
crowd of unarmed civilians that posed no threat to them, causing
multiple deaths and injuries."
The UN
spokesperson in
Afghanistan, Adrian Edwards, confirmed the validity of the internal
report, but said it was one of "several conflicting views."
The bombing
has yet to be
explained, since it took place in an area considered "friendly" to the
NATO occupation. But the response of the bodyguards is further proof
that after five years in power, and despite massive NATO support, the
warlord-dominated Karzai government remains utterly incapable of
providing security for the population.
In another
development, a
lawsuit launched by Amnesty International and the BC Civil Liberties
Association accuses the Canadian government of handing over prisoners
to Afghan authorities despite widespread torture in Afghan prisons.
When the
Canadian military first
entered Afghanistan, it handed over all prisoners over to U.S. forces.
Serious concerns were raised that many of those prisoners would end up
at Guantanamo Bay, and the practice was finally changed, but not for
the better. Since late 2005, Canada's practice has turned over
prisoners to corrupt Afghan authorities, into prisons where torture is
rampant and systematic.
"If the risk
of torture is a
real one, which Amnesty believes it is," says Alex Neve of AI, "it's a
matter of international legal obligation not to hand the prisoners over
and to instead adopt some other
approach, some other way of
keeping those prisoners in custody that corresponds with international
law."
Instead of
responding to
questions in the House of Commons about the scandal, the Harper
government has dismissed the torture allegations, saying these come
from "Taliban fighters" and aren't worthy of consideration.
As Neve
says, "When it comes to
torture it doesn't matter if you are a Taliban fighter or a
humanitarian worker, you should not be tortured and allegations made
that you have been tortured should be fairly and impartially
investigated and that's where Canada is falling short."
Canada's
alliance with the
warlords has come under closer scrutiny in recent weeks, in part due to
the cross-Canada speaking tour by Afghan MP Malalai Joya. Suspended
from parliament for her outspoken criticisms, Joya spoke directly to
thousands of Canadians and appeared in several media interviews. She
bluntly condemned the Karzai government as a body controlled by the
former Northern Alliance warlords, comparing them to the Taliban but
wearing business suits.
Joya's
criticism was vindicated in mid-November with revelations of lucrative
Canadian military contracts in Afghanistan.
The CanWest
News Service, which
has been strongly pro-war in its coverage of the conflict, reported
that the Defence Department is keeping secret the names of dozens of
companies which received almost $42 million worth of contracts in
Afghanistan.
This
includes $1,140,000 in
business awarded to an Afghan company known as "Sherzai." The military
refuses to say whether the company is owned by Gul Agha Sherzai, a
powerful warlord and former governor of Kandahar who was a key backer
of Hamid Karzai during the struggles against the Taliban in late 2001.
As CanWest reports, "Sherzai immediately filled the power vacuum
following the Taliban's ouster, establishing a fiefdom with the backing
of his own private militia before he was appointed governor" of
Kandahar province.
A book by
U.S. journalist Sarah Chayes, The
Punishment of Virtue,
describes how Sherzai provided the U.S. army with fleets of trucks,
loads of gravel, and other assorted labour, all at inflated prices.
Chayes says that Sherzai extorted kickbacks amounting to one-quarter of
the daily wages of his workers for the work his company provided at
Kandahar Airfield. He was replaced as governor in 2005 under a cloud of
corruption charges.
The Canadian
military has paid
the company Sherzai $900,000 for transportation services, and another
$240,000 for services described as "defence" or "research and
development."
A CanWest
article on the matter
says that this "censorship is only one example of the growing trend
toward secrecy that appears to be enveloping the Canadian Forces as it
expands its use of civilian contractors. This persists despite pledges
by the Harper government to improve accountability and transparency, a
key plank of the platform that brought the Conservative party to power
nearly two years ago."
In another
corruption scandal,
the CanWest series revealed that it cost Canadian taxpayers over $4
million to open the Tim Hortons doughnut shop at Kandahar Airfield.
Early in
2006, five days after
top Canadian officer Rick Hillier said that Tim Hortons would set up
shop, Canada's Afghanistan commander, Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, told a
CTV reporter: "Tim Hortons better get its ass over here."
Despite
legal concerns that this
arbitrary decision could be seen as favouritism towards one
corporation, or that the "Timmy in the Stan" logistics might displace
important military shipments, the operation was driven full speed
ahead. In a classic example of mutual back-scratching, Tim Hortons has
received enormous free publicity, and the company re-invests profits
from the Kandahar venture into programs to "boost military morale".
Found at:
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/articleprint08/15__CORRUPTION_AND_TORTURE_CONTINUE_IN.html