Her warnings were confirmed the following year, when the US State Department admitted that torture was widely used in Afghan prisons. The Liberal government of Paul Martin negotiated in 2005 an agreement with the Afghan government to transfer prisoners to its control, ignoring warnings raised by former diplomat Eileen Olexiuk that they would be at risk of torture. The CAF routinely and wilfully handed over Afghan detainees to the Afghanistan National Directorate of Security (NDS), the national secret service, although top-ranking Canadian military and government officials knew that it systematically employed torture. Extensive evidence of Canadian war crimesĭuring the Canadian military’s Afghan intervention, evidence repeatedly surfaced of CAF complicity in torture. Its goal is to gloss over Canada’s long-and well-documented record of complicity in torture and abuses during its decade-long (2001-2011) direct role in the neocolonial Afghan war. The CAF’s attempt to whitewash Canada’s role in the military occupation of Afghanistan enjoys the full backing of the state and all parliamentary parties. “CANSOFCOM was not aware of these allegations until this inquiry was launched,” Major Amber Bineau told Global News. But it insisted that “no concerns were raised” by CAF personnel about the conduct of their Australian colleagues.
When pressed by the media on the nature of its collaboration and joint actions with Australian Special Forces units mentioned in the report, the CAF Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM) conceded that its members did conduct missions with Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan-some of whom are now accused of war crimes. Upon the report’s public release, the Canadian military immediately sought to distance itself from its Australian allies. At the same time, it absurdly claims that nothing was known about the systematic war crimes they carried out in Afghanistan above the unit commander level.
The report also points to a history of military atrocities and coverups committed by the Australian Special Forces, from the Boer War at the beginning of the 20th century to the Vietnam War. While the report was heavily redacted to cover up the details of these crimes, it did emerge that Special Forces units had a “blooding ritual,” in which newly deployed members shot and killed prisoners, then planted weapons on them to make it look like the victim was an enemy combatant. Released in mid-November by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the report found there is “credible evidence” that Australian Special Forces murdered at least 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners between 20, and committed torture and other abuses, such as desecrating victims’ bodies. In response to the release of a report exposing Australian military atrocities in Afghanistan, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) has doubled down on its long-running efforts to cover up its own war crimes in the region.
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