FAMILIES of the Air India bombing victims will receive compensation and an apology after a special inquiry report blamed a turf war between the RCMP and Canada’s spy agency for failing to prevent the disaster.

Former Supreme Court of Canada justice John Major led a four-year inquiry into the June 23, 1985 explosions that killed 329 crew and passengers, and two baggage handlers at Tokyo’s Narita airport.
In a scathing report that delves into the investigative and prosecutorial failures in the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history, Major blasts a culture of “complacency” that still threatens air travellers. “I stress that this is a Canadian atrocity,” Major said, adding it is the federal government’s responsibility to see it doesn’t happen again.

Within two hours of the report’s release, Prime Minister Stephen Harper met privately with victims’ families and lawyers in his third-floor Centre Block office.The destruction of Air India Flight 182 remains the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history. It was a cowardly, despicable and senseless act.

Even so, Harper warned that “there would be pushback” on some of the recommendations and many would take time to phase in. But he said his government would seriously review the Major report. Harper also told the dozen or so family members—many of whom have been demanding answers for years—that the government would respond “positively” to a special fund being set up and Major’s observation that no government official has ever apologized.

Major said his report is so important the government should also establish an oversight or watchdog body to ensure his recommendations are implemented. Among the report’s many recommendations, Major called for a powerful national security boss to be appointed to resolve the “turf wars” that erupt over the conflicting interests of the RCMP and Canada’s spy agency, including disputes over whether secret intelligence should be used as evidence.

The report suggests better coordination between police and Canada’s security agencies, including the Communications Security Establishment, may well have prevented the bombings.
“A cascading series of errors contributed to the failure of our police and security forces to prevent this atrocity,” said Major.

“The government needs to take responsibility to avoid further failure and to prevent a return to a culture of complacency.”

Major lamented the abysmal treatment by government officials of the victims’ families, who were denied meetings with any government minister until 1995, and were rarely updated by the RCMP and CSIS on the progress of the investigation.

“The families, in some ways, have often been treated as adversaries, as if they had somehow brought calamity upon themselves,” he said. “The time to right that historical wrong is now.”
He slammed the RCMP and CSIS for giving inaccurate information to the Air India case review conducted by Bob Rae in 2005 and the RCMP for withholding a witness’s name from his commission.

Major and his team spent four years going through tens of thousands of documents and hearing more than 200 witnesses before completing the report into the 1985 bombing.

Major said the voluminous evidence showed that in 1985 Ottawa and its agencies were not prepared for a terrorist act.

“During the investigation that followed the bombing and is continuing to this day, CSIS and the RCMP were unable to co-operate effectively or sometimes at all,” he said.

Major highlighted the disastrous decision to destroy wiretap tapes by CSIS, which was “mesmerized by the mantra that ‘CSIS doesn’t collect evidence.’” It was a decision that “compromised” the Air India prosecution.

In addition to a beefed-up national security advisor, Major’s report offers dozens of recommendations over five volumes, including:

• Terrorism prosecutions at the federal level should be run by a Director of Terrorism Prosecutions, who would take a larger role in the pre-trial investigative stages as well as direct terrorism trials.
• CSIS should retain records and not destroy secret intelligence for a period of 25 years.
• A new national security witness protection program should be created that would coordinate protection and payments for witnesses at risk in investigations and prosecutions.
• Aviation security should remain with Transport Canada, but glaring gaps that continue to exist should be immediately addressed.
More vigorous screening and searching of cargo, vehicles and air terminals.
• A public warning system—until now rejected by the Canadian government—should be studied, so that threats to airlines of certain flights could be flagged to air travellers.
• The RCMP is “not properly structured” to deal with terrorism prosecutions, and should boost efforts to become more specialized. Major said the government should perhaps get the RCMP out of community policing in eight provinces where it is the contracted frontline policing force because it “reduces” the ability of the Mounties to be a true federal police force.
• The creation of an academic anti-terrorism and counter-terrorism centre to be named after the downed Air India plane, the Kanishka Centre.

Improved anti-terror financing efforts. Major noted the government has never revoked or deregistered any charity on grounds of terrorism financing.Inquiry lawyers said the changes would not necessarily incur “astronomical” costs. Lead commission counsel Mark Freiman said the proposals are not aimed at creating a new bureaucracy, but “we need to find a higher level of decision-making” when the legitimate interests of, say, CSIS and the RCMP collide. Freiman said a “lack of effective decision-making and information available” was key to the sequence of actions that failed to prevent the crash.
Only one man, the bomb maker Inderjit Singh Reyat, was ever convicted. He is also charged with perjury following his testimony at the trial that acquitted two Vancouver businessmen, Ripudaman Singh Malik and Ajaib Singh Bagri.

The federal government paid more than $20 million in out-of-court settlements reached in 1990 with families who had launched civil suits, but there have long been complaints that some people were left out and others didn’t get all they deserved.

BACK

Canada hears cries of Sikhs

Dr Amrik Singh

CANADIAN Parliament has recorded a unique petition on June 9th 2010 . It is about several thousand Sikhs killed in a planned manner after the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi in 1984. The government machinery was allegedly used to identify Sikhs’ houses from the voters’ lists. Delhi police first disarmed some Sikhs by confiscating licensed weapons from their possession, and then collaborated with mobs to kill turbaned citizens of India.

 The ruling Congress leaders allegedly decided the mode of killing and made available all apparatus for committing crimes. People were targeted on the basis of their appearance. They had no connection whatsoever with the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Despite about a dozen commissions appointed in the last 25 years to apprehend perpetrators of crimes, India failed to punish the guilty.

More than 3000 Sikhs lost their lives alone in Delhi . The law of the land became redundant. The ruling party immediately after the Sikh carnage and Bhopal gas tragedy, created a history by winning 411 seats out of 530 in the 1985 parliamentary election. Massive mandate appeared to have ratified the murders of Sikhs. A new definition of the Nation underpinned the collective consciousness. Sikhs as a people had no place in it. Sikhs vaguely characterized as Indians or Hindus however had every chance to shine in the Indian firmament. Those who subscribed to it prospered, those who didn’t, risked there reputations as terrorists and separatists. Punishing the guilty was always interpreted as encouraging Sikh separatism. To discourage it became a new passion for the neo- nationalists. No where it turned out to be as evident as it is in the case of Canadian Sikhs’ audacity to move a petition in the court of people in spite of the heavy odds in its way.

On June 9th the first matter to be taken up on the floor of the Canadian House of Commons was the petition about 1984 Sikh genocide. Two Canadian MP’s Mr. Andrew Kania and Mr. Sukh Dhaliwal read the contents. No objection from any quarters was raised to the motion. The petition is based on the premise that United Nation’s protocol on genocide is very defining and unambiguous. Since Canada has emerged as a multicultural society championing human rights of minorities, the petition seeks to secure justice for victims of 1984 violence. Prominent among those who supported the motion were Gurbax Malhi, Navdeep Bains, Bonnie Crombie and Kristy Duncan. Bains described 25 years of apathy as a “blot on India ’s legal system.”

On the other hand, Tory MP Deepak Oberoi worked very hard to defeat the petition by terming it as mischievous and divisive. He lamented “These guys want to use Canada to divide India .” Consulate General of India allegedly coordinated with other organizations to support a consistent drive to influence Canadian lawmakers’ opinion. Canada India Foundation, an advocacy group jointly with Consulate office devised strategies to block the petition.

Canada India Foundation was established in 2007 by high profile Indo-Canadians to promote business and good relations. It actively sought to dismiss the petition on the grounds that it would divide Sikh Community and alienate them from other Indians. The foundation warned Canadian Parliament of dangers in taking up the cause of militant Sikhs.

In a letter written to MP’s the CIF reminded that they should take notice of $12 billion Indian money in Canadian business as compared to Canada ’s only 500 millions in India . Aditya Jha, National Convener of CIF tried to emphasize the corporate profiteering over human rights concerns. Jha asserted that Manmohan Singh and Montek Singh Alhuwalia are excellent examples of Sikhs enjoying preeminent positions in the Indian society. Manoj Pandit, spokesman for the Foundation, said that the petition was “ill-advised and ill- intentioned since there is no justification for Canada to take the position that the petition demands.” It will damage stronger Indo Canada bilateral relations.

Mr. Jha in his article for the National Post “Rejecting the Message of the Militant Sikhs” writes that the petition by Liberal MP Andrew Kania and Sukh Dhaliwal is to inflame anti-India sentiments among Sikhs. He impressed on the Canadian lawmakers to ignore the petition as it was the internal matter of India . The resulting damage to Indo-Canadian business ventures would affect both countries. National Post carried out another article on June 9th, asserting that the petition in the House of Commons was Anti-India.

Jha had many supporters in people like Balraj Deol, a Punjabi journalist who expressed that the petition would be a memorial to terrorists. “Elements in the Sikh separatist movement pressurized to move the agenda forward.” Editor of the “Canadian Post”, Jagdish Grewal also condemned the petition as not reflecting Sikhs’ majority opinion.

Canada India Foundation lobbied vehemently to convince MP’s that the petition was designed to appease terrorists and divide those Sikhs who want to live as peaceful citizens of India . CIF brought many lawmakers and Indo Americans to its apprehension of fears of militant Sikhs. CIF successfully persuaded Liberal Chief Michael Ignatieff to denounce the petition publicly. The leader said “It is used here to provoke a changed visceral response which will not bring closer to mutual understanding. His party never stands with those who polarize communities or aggravate the tensions around long standing conflicts that divide us in other lands.” The activists of CIF were sure of the success of their aggressive struggle and defeat of the petition on the floor of the House of Commons. But to their utter shock and dismay, no objections were raised by any member in the house.

According to the Foundation website “Canada India Foundation is a national, non-profit, non-partisan, non-governmental organization (NGO) established in 2007 to foster support for stronger bi-lateral relations between Canada and India; to educate Canadians on the changing face of India; and To increase the participation of Indo-Canadians in the public policy process in Canada. CIF's founding members include industrialists, senior Canadian business executives and top tier professionals.”

The foundation’s claim of being non-partisan compels scrutiny. In the above case it has not only played a partisan role, but also tried to use its clout to defend criminals responsible for a spate of murders. The petition only highlighted how culprits have been given shelter by the government that claims to be fighting terrorism. Punishing them would have strengthened such a fight and made India stronger. But interpreting the demand for justice as anti-India is rather devious and preposterous. It only implies that such killings are pro-India or a nationalist cause. The Foundation needs to do introspection as to how it got the right to speak for all Indians? When its membership is restricted only to a few top tier industrialists and professionals, how it got the right to speak for the second most populated nation in the world?

The scope of the petition after a quarter century of the bloodshed is to explore peaceful solution to wounds of the psyche. It is a step to unite people and share their pain. When there is a true sharing, a lot of anger disappears automatically. On the contrary, the action of leaders of the Canada India Foundation is partisan, divisive and anti-India in the literal sense.

The petition will go down in Indo-Canadian history as a new chapter of solving global issues. A spirit of dialog and deliberation can solve most intricate issues if taken up in good faith. Ironically it is a method that India most recommends to others but follows least in her own case.

BACK

Slouching toward fascism

Dr Sawraj Singh

AMERICA is slowly moving towards fascism under the guise of populism. The new right is a populist movement. Populism is on the rise. Fox TV, Rush Limbaugh Radio, Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin and Jan Brewer, the populist leaders are everywhere. I have always heard the whites accusing the minorities of playing the race card. This time it is the opposite, the populists are using the race card. They are playing on the fears of the white people that the minorities are going to take over the country. This is the real race card.

The anti immigrant feeling in essence is anti minority feeling. If we can stop the Hispanics from crossing the borders then we can prevent the country being taken over by them. This is a very wide spread sentiment among the vast majority of the white people. Some people claim that they are only against illegal immigration, but their sentiment can easily be transformed into an anti minority sentiment in general. This can become the basis for fascism which needs a scapegoat.

The Jews became scapegoats for fascism in Europe. People had anti capitalist feeling, which was converted into anti Jewish feeling. Today, because of the deep crisis of capitalism, many people are frustrated with the system but the populists can convert the anti capitalist feeling into an anti minority feeling. There lies the danger of fascism.

The minorities can sense the danger of fascism but the liberals and progressives do not clearly see the danger of fascism. The attacks on Obama which demonize him are actually attacks on the minorities. At this time the progressives and liberals should come together and join the minorities and defend Obama. They should realize that the only way to prevent fascism is to make a broadest united front of the minorities, progressives and liberals.

The progressives and liberals should not attack Obama from the left while he is being attacked from the right. They may feel that he is not going far enough to the left. However, the principal danger at this time is coming from the new right. People are frustrated with the present state of American capitalism. However, the question is in which direction it should change. Should we move to the right under the guise of American exceptionable or learn from the experience of the other countries which have made changes in their capitalist system. For example, we should seriously think why Canada was not as badly affected by the recession as we have been affected.

Another serious question we should try to answer is that why in a recent quality of life ratings of the cities, the European and Canadian cities made to be the top where as none of the American cities could come in the top 30? Why does not rest of the World agree with us that America is the greatest place to live? Nobody can disagree that America is a great country. However, it cannot become the greatest by moving to the extreme right and suppress multi culturalism and diversity. America can be the greatest country if it treats its multiculturalism and diversity as its greatest assets rather than liabilities.

[The writer is Chairman Washington State Network for Human Rights]

BACK