Contents
(1) LAWYER GAIL DAVIDSON LETTER-TO-EDITOR, GLOBE & MAIL (RE WENTE ARTICLE)
(2) MARGARET WENTE, “AMNESTY’S MISPLACED HAND-WRINGING”, G&M
(3) AMNESTY’S REBUTTAL TO WENTE
(4) I HAD TO TAKE A KICK AT THE CAN: crack-down on allowing suspected war criminals to enter Canada?? No. George Bush is the worst of the lot. He enters freely.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
- LAWYER GAIL DAVIDSON LETTER-TO-EDITOR, GLOBE & MAIL (RE WENTE ARTICLE)
Dear Editor;
Re: “Amnesty should find some real victims to defend.”
Both Ms Wente and Minister Kenney are wrong. There is no government crack-down on allowing suspected war criminals to enter Canada: Amnesty’s open letter does not, as suggested, oppose the “legal” removal from Canada of people suspected of war crimes, against humanity or other serious human rights violators. Amnesty calls on Minister Kenney to comply with the law.
The law: Canada’s has adopted laws and has a legal obligation to prevent and punish certain crimes seen as threats to global peace (genocide, torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity). The duty to deny suspects a safe haven referred to by Wente and Kenney has two components. Firstly Canada must take steps to bar suspects from entering Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, s. 35. Once a suspect enters Canada, the legal obligation is to ensure prosecution either by commencing a prosecution in Canada or extraditing the suspect to a jurisdiction willing and able to prosecute. (“…it is the duty of every state to exercise its criminal jurisdiction over those responsible for international crimes.” Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
The Facts:
In violation of the letter and spirit of the law Canada continues to provide safe haven to suspects considered friends and to arbitrarily apply the law to others. For example George W. Bush, accused of torture and other war crimes and crimes against humanity has not only been allowed entry Canada on several occasions, in November of 2004 he was invited to speak to Parliament and dine with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. Public money has been lavished on protecting him from peaceful protesters and from prosecution. The evidence against Bush for torture and other crimes was then and is now, overwhelming. As stated by U.S. Maj. General Taguba, “…there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current [Bush] administration has committed war crimes.” G.W. Bush is scheduled to come to Canada again in October, this time at the invitation of the mayor of Surrey BC. It remains to be seen whether Mr. Kenney will welcome Bush this time or abide by the law and refuse him entry.
Ms Wente should hold her applause until then.
= = = = = = = = = =
2. MARGARET WENTE, “AMNESTY’S MISPLACED HAND-WRINGING”, G&M
Amnesty’s misplaced hand-wringing
From Thursday’s Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011 1:30AM EDT
Last updated Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011 11:49AM EDT
Cristobal Gonzalez-Ramirez is not exactly what you’d call a stand-up guy. He arrived in Canada from Honduras in 2006 and promptly filed an application for refugee status. In January – more than four years after he got here – his refugee claim was rejected. The Immigration and Refugee Board determined he was a war criminal, responsible for creating an army battalion that executed more than 100 Hondurans in the early 1980s. After being scheduled for deportation, he disappeared.
Then there’s Manuel De La Torre Herrera, who claimed refugee status after he arrived from Peru in 2000 to perform in a music festival. The refugee board determined he had once been active in a state-backed death squad. He went underground when his claim was denied. And how about Abraham Bahaty Bayavuge, who was turned down for refugee status in 2004 after the board found he had served murderous regimes in Congo? He disappeared, too.
All three characters figured on a most-wanted list of fugitives released by the government last month, complete with mug shots. All three were rounded up, and two of them have been deported. The third one, Mr. Bayavuge, is set to be deported, but not before a further round of due process that includes a detention review and a preremoval risk assessment to determine whether he’ll be endangered if he’s sent back.
Canada has become notorious as a haven for war criminals and phony refugees. Some have lived here for years, even decades, with impunity. So this belated government crackdown should come as welcome news. But not everyone thinks so. In fact, many people suspect that the government’s decision to publish the identities of these sketchy characters is a stunt meant to pander to the baser elements of the electorate.
On top of that, they insist, the government is violating their human rights. After all, how do we really, really know they’re all that bad? And even if they are, deporting them is wrong. Instead, these critics say, it’s our duty to put them on trial, at a cost of millions, so justice will be done.
Leading this crusade is Amnesty International, a prominent human-rights group that’s gained a reputation as the scourge of dictators and tyrants. Today, it gets more mileage out of scolding Canada. In an open letter this month, it rebuked the government for violating the human rights of the human-rights violators by trying to enforce the Immigration Act. In effect, it wants these people treated as if they were citizens, instead of illegal residents who lied their way into Canada, flunked their refugee-board hearings, and went on the lam.
In response to Amnesty’s scolding, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney popped his cork. He posted an open letter of his own on his constituency website. In it, he accused Amnesty of “self-congratulatory moral preening” and said the group had lost its way. “As a former AI member, may I suggest that ostentatious hand-wringing over the good name of war criminals and human rights violators may sit uneasily with those AI members who, perhaps naively, believe your compassion should be reserved for their victims.”
Not surprisingly, Amnesty (cheered on by the noisy immigration-lawyer lobby) has now issued an indignant response. Also not surprisingly, various members of the liberal punditocracy have denounced Mr. Kenney for his bizarre and irresponsible tirade. Cabinet ministers, after all, should not descend to low partisan attacks.
Maybe not. But the minister is right. Amnesty should find some real victims to defend.
= = = = = = = = = == == = = = = =
3. AMNESTY’S REBUTTAL TO WENTE
MP3
9:09 AM on August 18, 2011
Facts getting in the way of hyperbole. Here is the actual text of the Amnesty letter
http://www.amnesty.ca/media2010.php?DocID=814
Their problems with our government using immigration law to deport suspected war criminals are valid:
1 – if they are indeed war criminals then they should be tried, convicted and jailed, not deported to become someone else’s problem. If not in their home country, we certainly have the laws that allow us to do that – with a recent case of someone involved in the Rwandan genocide being tried in Montreal.
2 – that we as a country have international human rights obligations, in particular not to send someone back to a country where they face risk of torture or execution or becoming “disappeared” – if so, then see number 1.
These are valid concerns, and AI has a right to express the concerns. Kenny, as a Minister of the Crown, responded carelessly for someone in his position, but given the support I see for his response and the negative tone from posters of AI’s legitimate concerns, I gather that many Canadians don’t care much for our international human rights obligations, are fine with using deportation instead of the criminal justice system to bring suspected war criminals to justice, and don’t particularly care there may be people on the list (I recall Haiti human rights advocates being mystified by one Haitian on the list that they’ve never heard of) who aren’t war criminals at all.
= = = == = = = = = = = == = = = = =
- I HAD TO TAKE A KICK AT THE CAN: crack-down on allowing suspected war criminals to enter Canada?? No. George Bush is the worst of the lot. He enters freely.
Sandra1007
6:23 PM on August 19, 2011 (But they chose not to publish on-line because of some reason that I do not understand.)
Ms Wente is selective in the criminals she selects as example.
I can think of one who is responsible for war crimes far worse than the ones she profiles. There is no crack-down on him. His name is George Bush. He came to Saskatoon in October 2009. People here presented the Laws and the Evidence of his culpability to all the responsible authorities, more than a month in advance of his arrival. He was not denied entry into Canada and he was not arrested. Instead he was paid a lot of money and tax-payers paid handsomely for police protection for him.
Bush is to speak in Vancouver (Surrey) on Oct 20, 2011. Jason Kenney with help from Ms Wente needs to ensure that George Bush is denied entry to Canada, or that he is arrested in Vancouver on October 20.
When officials do not carry out their responsibilities, it is up to citizens to see that they do. It is, afterall, OUR democracy. We do not have democracy if the laws do not apply equally to everyone.