CANADA: Ottawa on the hook for harm to Afghans; Compensation for accidental deaths, injuries
Posted by warvictims on April 24, 2008
Ottawa on the hook for harm to Afghans; Compensation for accidental deaths, injuries
By: Tom Blackwell, National Post
The incidents range from accidental shooting deaths of civilians to deadly friendly fire mishaps, vehicle crashes and even lost cellphones.
The federal government has paid out tens of thousands of dollars in compensation to Afghans who have been hurt, killed or had property wrecked by Canadian troops in the past two years, internal documents obtained by the National Post indicate.
The list of reparations paid by the middle of last year includes five cases of civilians injured or killed at the hands of Canadian troops and three friendly-fire deaths of Afghan soldiers or police.
Compensation for deaths ranged from about $2,000 to almost $9,000, according to Justice Department claims reports, obtained under the Access to Information Act but censored of much personal and other information. None of the claims dealt with damage from air strikes called in by Canadian troops.
“Compensation claims are taken seriously,” said Sarah Cavanagh, a National Defence Department
spokeswoman. “Each request is fully and expeditiously investigated.”
Yet the papers underline a highly charged issue for the NATO mission in Afghanistan: the usually inadvertent but often inflammatory collateral damage inflicted by the foreign forces on an already shattered population.
The claims released by the government represent just the “tip of the iceberg” of civilian casualties triggered by the Canadian Forces’ actions, argues Norine MacDonald, a Canadian lawyer who heads the Senlis Council think-tank and has lived most of the past three years in Kandahar City.
Many civilian injuries or deaths during fighting against the Taliban are effectively ignored by the Canadians or simply unknown to them because the government has no system for tracking such casualties, Ms. MacDonald said. Only when an Afghan is sophisticated enough to make a claim is compensation considered, she said, an approach she calls “chintzy” for a mission that is spending $1-billion a year.
“There are uncounted numbers of civilian casualties that are never dealt with,” Ms. MacDonald said. “It’s like, ‘We’ll only pay if we’re put in a corner, we’ll only pay the smallest amount possible.’ … There is a lot of hostility about the deaths. There is a lot of hostility about [the Canadian] response, or lack of response.”
Omar Samad, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Canada, said he would not comment on this country’s efforts at redress, but said more could be done by NATO generally to lessen harm to civilians. “We understand that when there is damage inflicted, it is not intentional and is not part of policy,” he said. “[But] there are cases where it can be avoided.”
Canada signed an agreement with the Afghan government in 2005 waiving any liability for damage it caused there. However, it has made a number of ” ex-gratia” payments, compensation for “benevolent” reasons that are not an admission of legal liability, Ms. Cavanagh said.
The Justice Department, whose lawyers handle the claims, released brief reports to the National Post on 33 cases finalized in the two years that ended last October, with payouts totalling $89,000.
The largest involved an episode in August, 2006, in which Canadian troops fired on an unmarked truckload of Afghan National Police officers wearing plainclothes. Their vehicle had approached a Canadian convoy at high speed in Zhari district west of Kandahar city, even after the Canadians warned them repeatedly to stop, army representatives said at the time.
Families of the two Afghan officers killed received payments of just under $9,000, the documents indicate. Each of the four injured survivors received either $1,800 or $4,400. An average Afghan earns about $300 a year.
Four days earlier, an Afghan boy riding on a motorcycle that had ignored signals for it to stop had been shot and killed by Canadian Forces in Kandahar City. His family received just under $2,000, according to the claim report, which describes the incident as an “ROE (rules-of-engagement) escalation.”
In two separate incidents in September and December, three Afghan civilians were hit by ricochets after Canadian soldiers fired warning shots at people approaching their positions, despite warnings to stop. At least one died. Their compensation ranged from $1,120 to $1,981, the documents show.
Relatives of an Afghan National Army soldier killed inadvertently in February, 2007, during an ambush of Canadian troops received $8,500 in reparation, one of the claims documents indicates.
Almost $8,000 in compensation was paid out for an incident in May, 2006, when a Canadian vehicle carrying an unnamed Afghan was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
Many of the claims were for much less tragic incidents. In two cases, for instance, cell-phones were confiscated temporarily by Canadian troops, then lost.
