Here’s what Canada is making amends for
Omar Khadr’s rights were violated and his government ignored it, writes Alex Neve.
Stephen Harper and several of his ministers fuelled the vilification that branded Omar Khadr as a hardened terrorist, cold-blooded murderer ...
April 2010, my first trip of several to Guantánamo Bay. I was there to observe the military commission trial against Omar Khadr. The courtroom was filled with military uniforms: the judge, the several officers at the prosecutor’s table and the bulk of Omar’s defence team. The jury, also all military, had not yet been chosen.
I looked around that room and wondered how this could possibly be seen to be fair; of course it was not.
An issue arose with defence complaints about Omar’s treatment by guards, who insisted that during transport to the courthouse he wear his tightfitting blackout goggles and earpieces, which were causing considerable pain for his eye, badly injured in the July 2002 firefight that led to his capture. The judge was curt and dismissive, refusing to hear from the medical witness Omar’s lawyers wished to call. He simply ruled that it was not his job to “second-guess” the approach taken to security.
It was a small skirmish in the bigger scheme of things. But I remember asking myself: If not you — the judge — then who? Whose job is it to second-guess and ensure that rights are protected?
Omar Khadr certainly needed his own government to secondguess the Guantánamo detention regime and stand up for his rights. Instead, he endured a full decade of human rights violations and a Canadian government indifferent to his fate.
That is what news of the settlement, involving an amount of compensation and an official government apology, is all about. We’re making up for failing to second-guess and, more to the point, we’re admitting that we were part of the problem.
Canada was complicit in the rights violations Omar Khadr experienced; most notoriously by allowing our intelligence officers to interview him knowing he had been softened up by his U.S. captors through their notorious “frequent flyer” sleep deprivation program, a particularly cruel form of mental and physical torture. That was unanimously condemned as a charter violation in a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling.
It is not that Canada simply did not do enough after that ignominious flirtation with torture, to then extricate Omar Khadr from the Guántanamo nightmare. Under the previous government there was a defiant determination to not even try. Other western governments went to bat for their nationals. We remained silent.
No, that is not correct. We did not remain silent. Former prime minister Stephen Harper and several of his ministers fuelled the vilification that branded Omar Khadr as a hardened terrorist, cold-blooded murderer and war criminal. They made things worse.
They did so while adamantly refusing to recognize that Omar Khadr, in July 2002, had been a 15-year-old child soldier, propelled onto a battlefield on which he should never have been allowed to set foot.
At the time, Canada was a global champion for new international standards for protecting child soldiers. Yet when one of our own children needed that protection, we deliberately turned away. It was a disgrace. The bottom line? Having contributed significantly to serious human rights violations that have gone on for 15 years, Canada must make amends.
Omar Khadr has endured unrelenting pain, suffering, abuse and torment. This settlement does not undo that, but helps make it right. Omar has emerged from this ordeal with remarkable and inspiring resilience and is determined to contribute to society. Compensation helps make that possible.
Redress also matters more broadly. It sends a crucial message that Canada will not tolerate disregard for human rights in our approach to national security; and there will be consequences for breaches. That message cannot be heard frequently enough.
There has, unsurprisingly, been mixed reaction to the settlement.
The settlement has been pilloried by many, including Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer who calls it “disgusting.” That retread rhetoric misses the mark entirely. It is the years of callous abandonment that were disgusting. The settlement is commendable and necessary.
Others worry that Omar Khadr is being rewarded for killing a U.S. soldier, Sgt. Christopher Speer, whose widow and children are the ones deserving compensation.
Putting aside the fact that the soundness of Omar’s conviction is at best uncertain, and is the subject of an appeal in the U.S. with a strong chance of success, the bottom line is that the avenue for easing the Speers family’s loss cannot lie through deepening injustice and wronging a child soldier.
It is not a happy thing that Omar Khadr is being compensated. Happy would be if his rights had been respected from the outset.
But it does reflect Canada owning up to a terrible wrong; and in doing so, offering some measure of assurance that we will not let this happen again.
Alex Neve is Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada’s English Branch.