Military seeks porta-jails for use overseas
The Canadian military is looking for a portable prison so it can hold detainees during overseas missions.
Called the Joint Deployable Detained Persons Holding Facility, the proposed purchase is budgeted at under $20 million and is included in the Department of National Defence’s newly released acquisition guide.
The transportable facility will improve the military’s capability for handling detainees, DND notes in the guide.
The guide was developed to tell the defence and security industry of upcoming projects it can prepare to bid on.
Projects can be added or cancelled from the guide, depending on the future needs of DND and military.
The department declined an interview request. But DND spokesman Dan Blouin said in an email that the proposed acquisition would look at acquiring “a handling facility that can be set up quickly and would also include all elements required to detain individuals in accordance with the (Geneva) Conventions.” The Geneva Conventions cover prisoners’ right to humane treatment.
The department expects to look at options for the portable prison starting in 2017, then go to industry for bids two years later. A contract would be awarded in 2020 with deliveries starting the next year.
Canada had its own detention facilities at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan for short-term holding of detainees.
A number of firms make portable detention facilities for the military and civilian prison system. For instance, a Belgian company offers detention units made out of heavy welded steel. Each unit includes three individual cells equipped with seating, lighting, heating and ventilation. Air-conditioning is optional.
At Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. government has installed portable cells at a cost of $40,00 to temporarily hold detainees. Each cell is equipped with a bench and a toilet.
The issue of how to treat detainees dogged the Conservative government and military for several years during the Afghan war. Among the allegations were that Canadian military personnel were transferring prisoners to Afghan authorities who then tortured them.
The Afghan detainee issue threatened to topple the minority Conservative government in 2009. But Prime Minister Stephen Harper defused the potential crisis for his government by suspending Parliament in December 2009, saying he wanted to consult Canadians about the economy.
The Military Police Complaints Commission was brought in to look at some of the allegations. In 2012, it determined that military police officers couldn’t be held responsible for failing to investigate allegations of torture. The commission found that those police officers were deliberately kept in the dark by military leaders and senior Foreign Affairs bureaucrats and could not be expected to have known the prisoners they were transferring were facing abuse and torture.
In addition, the government limited what the police complaints commission could report on.
Figures vary on how many Afghans were detained by Canada. Foreign Affairs has put that number at 1,023, and the Canadian Forces puts the figure at 1,069. The numbers cover 2001 to 2011.
Blouin noted that the Conservative government’s defence strategy calls on the department to strengthen the military’s ability to deploy overseas.
“As part of its preparation for contingencies that may be associated with expeditionary operations, the (military) must be prepared to deal with detained individuals in a manner that is consistent with the applicable Protocols of the Geneva Conventions,” he wrote in his email.