Today, as the child soldier endures his seventh year
of illegal incarceration at the infamous Guantanamo Bay, Cuba prison,
Harper still refuses to consider petitioning on Khadr's behalf when new
American president, Barack Obama visits Canada next week.
Khadr: Canadian Supreme Court
Unanimous on Disclosure
by C. L. Cook
Almost six years imprisoned in the American
gulags and Omar Khadr, the fifteen year old Canadian and sole survivor
of an American military assault on a village in Afghanistan on July 27,
2002, is finally getting his day in "court."
Of course it is not a court that any living in pre-Bushian times would
recognize as such: there are no rights granted the "detainee" the rest
of us have come to take as granted, like: the right to face your
accuser(s); the right to see the evidence against you; the right to
security of the person (habeas corpus); the right to lawyer/ advocate/
council -client confidentiality; the right to an open trial; the right
to be judged by a jury of your peers.
But, there may be a small ray of hope for the young "terrorist" in the
form of a newly handed down ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada. The
problem is: the Canadian government is fighting the nation's highest
court, and there is no indication the American authorities holding
Khadr these last six years will pay a good God-damned bit of notice to
anything the Supreme Court says.
State media organ, the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC)
reports below on the new turn in the Khadr case, after a fashion. The
CBC says Khadr is on trial for murder. In fact, Omar Khadr is,
ironically enough, charged with "war crimes" in what the U.S. military
terms the wrongful killing of one of their shock troops during the
attack against the village the child was living in on July 27, 2002.
The essence of the U.S. case rests primarily on the fact Khadr was the
last "man" standing when the smoke and dust cleared, (a fact true
today, but apparently not so on the day of his "arrest"). What is known
is: an American soldier, army sergeant Chris Speer was killed by a
hand-grenade, thrown by someone in the compound where Khadr's
bullet-ridden body was discovered.
There is very little clear about this case, save the fact Omar Khadr
was, at the time of his taking, by all definitions but America's new
understanding, a child-soldier, compelled into service by his allegedly
al Qaida-connected father and older brothers, and he was the only
living non-American to be seen.
Today, with more than a quarter of his short life spent behind the bars
of a system where America claims, and practices, the "right" to
torture, Khadr could witness, (if such things were allowed in such a
place as he finds himself) his Canadian government argue with the
Supreme Court's findings. The Harper government claims, turning over
the documents they hold (mostly Khadr's statements taken from him while
under torture) pose a possible risk to the nation's security.
And, for good measure, the Canadian government is defying too the law
and conscience of humanity to mewl against justice saying, to stand
against the apparent wishes of the American military court could
"jeopardize international relations."
In what sounds like a tacit recognition of the desired American results
in this case, the New Canadian government cedes Omar Khadr's right to a
fair trial and the protection of citizenship because America wants him
guilty of a war crime, and Canada doesn't want to deny anything America
might want for fear of upsetting "relations."
That the most profligate violator of human rights on the planet, a
nation that is party to each and every of the crimes outlined in the
Nuremberg trials that followed the fall of Hitler's Nazi regime,
(rulings that hung many of the Nazi survivors) could utter the charge
of "war crimes" against the barely pubescent Khadr is more than an
outrage, it is laugh-out-loud ludicrous. That Canada could play along
with this charade is criminal.
The CBC's account follows, but reader be aware; the Canadian Broadcast
Corporation has defied all journalistic pretense both during, and in
the run-up to America's wars of aggression. It is a part of the same
state apparatus that implicitly supports America's illegal war and
occupation in Iraq, and supplies "men" and treasure to abet that
nation's crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, and the ubiquitous
elsewheres of its 'Global War on Terror.'
Click the link for a
Pacific Free Press backgrounder on the SCC hearing, and Canada's
Globe and Mail newspaper has more on this too.
