NCO POISONED BY OWN TROOPS GETS SHAFT AGAIN FROM DEFENCE, WRITES PETER WORTHINGTON

REMEMBER MATT Stopford -- the Princess Pat's warrant officer who was being poisoned by his own troops in Croatia in 1993 and is now blind in one eye and wracked with crippling internal injuries? When he was defence minister, John McCallum intervened and sent Stopford to the Mayo Clinic for analysis and treatment, and ordered department of national defence lawyers to settle the case to avoid Stopford's legal case.

The June 28 election changed everything. . . .

"a Federal Court judge ruled on January 20, 2000 that Canada does have the right to deport terrorists even if they claim they will be tortured if returned home."

Introduction

In 1998, following his testimony to a Canadian Senate inquiry into terrorism and public safety, the Director General of the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) alleged that representatives of some 60 terrorist organizations were present in Canada.

Without providing an exhaustive survey of terrorism within Canada, recent events have graphically demonstrated that Islamic Fundamentalists are present. [. . . . ]

A Canadian police report was cited in the prosecution of a Vermont gun dealer who had diverted approximately 1,000 handguns into the black market. It listed details of 102 weapons that had been recovered in Canada. Canadian Suspects associated with these weapons included members of Russian Mafiya [sic], Armenian thieves, Mohawk Warriors, the Franco-Irish underworld, Jamaican Posses, Colombians, Vietnamese gangsters, sundry street gangs, Bikers and at least two Mafia families.

In sum, organized crime in Canada is as cosmopolitan as the rest of Canadian society. However, traditional criminal organizations have been joined by numerous new groups.

A characteristic of terrorists and other insurgent groups in the 1990s is that most have had to become self-supporting, usually by participating in organized crime. Some groups, such as the Tamil Tigers or FARC in Colombia, have perfectly fused both activities into a single organization. Most of the terrorist groups that are present in Canada, are there to make money and garner support. Few international groups have ever directed violence against Canada itself. As an example, the Tamil Tigers in Canada engage in fraud, extortion(within the Tamil expatriate community), heroin trafficking and prostitution to fund their war effort in Sri Lanka. A handsome share of the profits of the cocaine market in Canada must be assumed to be in FARC’s pockets.

The effects of this hybrid relationship between support for insurgency and organized crime cannot be understated. It is not a new phenomenon, but was largely absent in the Cold War Era. However, those groups that evolve into this pattern have the potential to become extremely powerful. The Tamil Tigers own their own merchant ships and FARC now controls some 40% of Colombia. Historical examples of insurgents who drifted into organized crime include the Mafia and the Chinese Triads – both of which may have more influence than is generally understood.

Most modern organized criminal societies and insurgent support networks are ethnic in character. Criminal societies as diverse as the Mafiya, the Posses and Triads tend to have a core membership based on common experience from a narrow ethnic base. The same is also true of Biker gangs who tend to have a strong white supremacist element. Insurgents around the world tend to belong to a sub-national minority or a particular religious faction. In a cosmopolitan society, this characteristic can add considerable complications for law enforcement agencies – this is certainly true in Canada.

Support for insurgency and organized crime within immigrant communities is an old story. [. . . . ]

[After 1967] the Immigration Act was changed to reflect three basic goals:

1. To foster the development of a strong national economy in all regions;
2. To facilitate the reunion of Canadian residents with family members from abroad;
3. To uphold Canada’s humanitarian tradition.

The Act states that the immigration program should protect the health and safety of all Canadians, and prevent the entry of criminals, spies, terrorists and subversives. However, sorting out the occasional bad apple in all the new barrels is not easy at the best of times. A Supreme Court of Canada interpretation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (written by Justice Bertha Wilson in 1985) presented a major handicap to enforcing this part of the Act. The interpretation of the Charter held that all non-Citizens were fully entitled to all the same legal protections as citizens from the very moment they set foot in the country.

For some 69 of the last 100 years, Canada has been governed by the Liberal Party. The Liberals, especially since the Second World War, have become adept at garnering the votes of new Canadians (most of whom were admitted into the country and granted citizenship under Liberal government). In 1972, the Liberals also introduced a new policy to support multiculturalism; and this has generally strengthened their support among new Canadians.

foreign students, temporary workers and others to get permanent status without having to return to their home countries to apply. To accomplish this, decision making may be decentralized, and it will be easier for foreign students, temporary workers and others to get permanent status without having to return to their home countries to apply.

Canada is also extremely accommodating to refugee claimants. Pending a hearing to allow landed immigrant status, a refugee will be awarded a series of welfare benefits.[. . . .]

Some refugee claimants arrive with a full knowledge of Canada’s welfare system – general welfare, family benefits, subsidized housing and an allowance to purchase furniture and household effects. Social workers in the Etobicoke area of Toronto were sometimes startled to find that many Somali refugees had precise knowledge of all their entitlements. Some made multiple claims under different names. Perhaps just as disturbing to police in British Colombia are teenage boys from Central American nations who also land with a detailed knowledge of expected benefits, and a clear idea of their legal protections under the Young Offenders Act. Some have been picked up as drug dealers within two days of landing in Canada.

Many of these entered on expired visitor or student visas. Others have been smuggled into the country, often with false documentation. . . .

Among other trends and examples:

* Over 50% of new arrivals take up residence in Southern Ontario – mostly around the Toronto area. Vancouver and Montreal form two lesser areas of residence. . . .this extreme concentration allows for more of a ‘critical mass’ of active or potential security risks to form in a single area. As insurgent or criminal organizations first prey on their own ethnic community, this degree of concentration can accelerate their growth.

* By 1996, some 219,425 Canadian citizens and residents were from Middle Eastern nations that have manifested Islamic Fundamentalist violence. This is up from 178,205 in 1991. . . .

the IRA and its Protestant counterparts; Armenian terrorists, Somali clans, militant Croats and Serbs. There is some internal terrorism in Canada coming out of a minuscule radical right and an equally irritating radical left (this last includes members of the Animal Liberation Front and "Ecotagers") . . . .

Shrinking Security Capacities

It would be wrong to demean the professionalism or skill of most members of Canada’s police and security services. The same is true for the officers at Canada’s Customs and Immigration desks. Many of them are far better people than Canada deserves.

However, it is difficult to maintain professionalism when efforts go unappreciated. Immigration officers, for instance, are too aware of their limitations. Police officers throughout Canada often lack the resources to battle organized crime or insurgent’s fundraising activities. It frequently happens that significant intelligence is acquired on criminals or potential terrorists, but there is no money for prosecutions. This leaves many officers in the frustrating situation where they know what is going on, but are unable to act upon it.

[. . . .] The Royal Canadian Mounted Police operate as a National Police force, as police for federal property and on contract to most provinces as a provincial force. According to the Canadian journalist Paul Palango in his 1998 book [The Last Guardians: The Crisis in the RCMP--And in Canada ], the force has increasingly been expected to run along business lines. In a process that paralleled much of the decline in the Canadian military, senior RCMP officers became increasingly drawn into the civil service culture instead of remaining as a quasi-independent service under the Solicitor General of Canada.

The process described by Palango was recently echoed by Robert Head, a former assistant commissioner and 30-year veteran of the RCMP, in his November 1999 report The Politicization of the RCMP. Since the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney in the 1980s, the RCMP has been increasingly expected to work on "community policing" and "client relationships". Mounties have also been expected to volunteer for peacekeeping missions in Cambodia, Haiti, Africa and the Balkans – this during a time in which their budget has been shrinking. Both critics also claim that heavy political interference exists within the Force, particularly on cases involving commercial or "White Collar" crime.

In the autumn of 1998, a fundamentalist cult leader in northern Alberta, was (and remains) the leading suspect in a series of hundreds of incidents of vandalism aimed at nearby logging and gas activities. [. . . .] The local detachment (for an area that had some 50,000 residents spread over 6,500 square kilometres) consisted of eight officers.

[. . . . ] It is also revealing that the detachment commander had been, before his posting to a remote rural corner of Alberta, a leading expert in "Proceeds of Crime" – following the money trail behind white collar and organized crime.

RCMP officers have complained to the author that political will is absent for many major investigations. One investigator went so far as to say in 1995 that if the potential value of seized assets might not exceed the costs of an investigation, it might not be undertaken. [. . . .]

Throughout the 1990s, the Federal government has been parsimonious. [. . . .]

Another problem for the RCMP comes with the Federal Government’s gun control bill. [. . . .] Moreover, the equivalent of some 391 RCMP officers has been diverted from other duties to help manage what is turning out to be an unmanageable program.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service [CSIS], like the RCMP, belongs to the Solicitor General of Canada. It is an intelligence gathering organization primarily concerned with counter-espionage, counter-terrorism, and similar issues. The service is also expected to conduct all security screening for the federal government. Its officers are not police officers, do not carry arms and may not make their own arrests. However, its officers have greater powers of investigation than do those of the RCMP.

CSIS was formed in the early 1980s and by 1990 had something like 2,700 full-time equivalent personnel working for it. Currently, it has some 2,050 personnel -- including transfers from the Department of National Defence who were brought in to help cope with a severe backlog in security screening. Funding has dropped. The annual budget for CSIS was $244 million in 1993-94, and is $168 million for the current fiscal year. Details of CSIS activities are rarely forthcoming and the organization’s annual reports are a marvel of brevity. Secrecy is invoked for most of its operations.

Morale is reported to be low in CSIS. Most of the members that the author knows have left for other employment in recent years. The quality of the group’s reports also seems to have fallen off. When first created, CSIS was staffed with many veteran RCMP officers from the Security Service. These were seasoned investigators with long experience in recruiting and running informers and confidential sources. Recruitment since 1985 has tended to focus in more of an academic direction, to the detriment of street experience.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service frequently finds itself short of members with the language and cultural skills to operate in some communities. [. . . .]

Customs and Immigration Officers have endured considerable reorganization in the last decade. Immigration officers now come under the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration (after splitting off some functions to Human Resources). Customs officers now work for Revenue Canada. Moreover, the fiscal austerity programs have also had an effect. During the reorganizations under the Liberal government in their 1993-97 term, some important capabilities were discarded.

Immigration used to have an orthodox but highly gifted set of investigators known, informally, as the Trackers. This group specialized in hunting down criminals who had evaded deportation, and potentially dangerous illegal aliens. [. . . . ]The Trackers were entirely disbanded within days of the 1993 appointment of Sergio Marchi as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. (As the minister, Marchi favoured the appointment of refugee claimant advocates and immigration lawyers to the Immigration and Refugee Board – with predictable results.)

[. . . . ] Another front-line organization that was disbanded in recent years was the Ports Police. Major ports can be a nightmare of overlapping jurisdictions and regulations, but the Federal Ports Police were designed to work in this environment. They also had extensive experience in coping with smuggling – especially in catching shipments of narcotics and illegal aliens. This experience is no longer available to the law enforcement community.

Hiring policies for both Customs and Immigration now appear to place the appearance of diversity over experience and education. Many new Canadians, often with questionable communications skills in either official language, now staff front-line desks. Whatever the merits in equal opportunity policies, this must represent an aggregate loss in capability.

[. . . . ] Customs officers have finally received body-armour. These used sets from Canadian and American police forces that adopted better protective gear. Canada does not arm its Customs officers lest visitors receive the wrong impression about the country. What visitors might think about the bullet scars on the Customs buildings at Walpole Island and near Akwesasne is not recorded.

The Canadian Armed Forces have some role in internal security. Like the American NSA, the Canadian Signals Establishment (CSE) plays a role in communications security and the development of electronic intelligence. The organization is shrouded in secrecy [as is the budget, etc. . . . . ]

Canadian military assets, such as helicopters, logistics support, and extra manpower have been available to support the RCMP and other police forces in the past. However, the budgetary axe has fallen hardest and most frequently on the Department of National Defence. [. . . .] JTF-II has the resources it requires. However, the force lacks much of the experience in "Black Ops" (counter-terrorism and the like) that attends the SAS. Worse, the troops that it does have are becoming heavily tasked.

Lack of Coordination

Among the many Canadian traits that may require explanation to an American audience are an emphasis on government secrecy and a respect for privacy.

[. . . .]. In practice, if not necessarily in regulation, it is difficult to acquire court records, individual service records or welfare records in Canada

These traits have had some effect on Canadian security. For example, Canadian police have access to a national criminal data bank known as CPIC. [. . . .] American police officers can access CPIC records, just as Canadian police officers can use American records. American agencies tend to share access to information in a way that Canadians rarely do, with the net effect that – for example – an American customs officer can access CPIC files. As late as 1998, Canadian customs officers were still barred from CPIC access.

Outside of police circles, the routine sharing of information is less than it could be. The CSE, for example, is an extraordinary source of information, but only reports to the Privy Council Office (the small body of elite senior civil servants who support the Cabinet). When intelligence is passed on to other agencies, it has already moved – often slowly – through a set of politicized filters. Delays of this sort often damage intelligence work; the classic failure of intelligence is when the "client" refuses to believe what his officers are reporting. Inserting a political speed bump into the flow degrades the quality of information, adds a time delay, and may well block some material altogether.

The sharing of information inside some Ministries is worse. Citizenship and Immigration is divided into three regions that are very slow to share information with each other. [. . . .]

When CSIS was first created out of the RCMP’s Security Service, it was intended that the group would work closely with the Mounties. In 15 years of practice, the relationship has not been harmonious -- even through both report to the Solicitor General.

[. . . . Many] Canadian agencies work better with their US counterparts than they do with other Canadian bodies. Immigration officers were able to identify a large number of Chinese Triad leaders entering Canada in 1994, apparently with the help of American authorities. It is also possible that the Canadian interception of Chinese boat people off British Colombia in the summer of 1999 was facilitated by US intelligence and surveillance resources. [. . . . ]

[. . . . ] Without ever experiencing a personal confrontation with a dangerous individual, it is then easy to believe that all intelligent people must be likewise reasonable and compassionate. This fallacy is deeply entrenched in the Canadian psyche. It might almost be construed as a political ideology when it comes to diplomacy and defence policy, especially in recent decades.

[. . . . When political (or quasi-political) violence occurs in Canada, it is often quickly forgotten – or readily forgiven. The Air India bombing, . . . . The Armenian takeover of the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa in 1985 has almost been entirely forgotten. . . . . in 1985, when an Air Canada office was bombed in Los Angeles by an Armenian. [. . . . ]

In a modern cosmopolitan society, most citizens feel it is – at least – impolite to discuss issues relating to ethnic identity. The Liberal encouragement of multiculturalism has made political figures even more sensitive to this issue. Organized criminals and members of insurgent support networks are only too ready to exploit this weakness.

When Khagida Gurkhan [the wife of Somali warlord, "refugee" and "welfare client", Mohammed Farah Aideed] was criticized by the media for misusing the welfare and refugee system, her first reaction was to label the critics as racists. Toronto’s Black Action Defence Committee (a handful of activists who purported to speak for the entire black community), was silent on the issue of violence from the Jamaican Posses, but equally quick to denounce any police interest in the gangs. Strangely enough, BADC leaders attended the funerals of Posse members – but not those of their many innocent black victims. [. . . . ]

Interestingly, a Federal Court judge ruled on January 20, 2000 that Canada does have the right to deport terrorists even if they claim they will be tortured if returned home. [. . . . ]

Ached Ressam and Mohtar Haouri. . . via France in 1993. . . refugee claims; and both failed. . . claimed they would be tortured if returned to Algeria. . . Both remained at large. Ressam became involved in an automobile theft ring organized by Algerian expatriates, many of whom were known to be sympathizers of the Fundamentalist uprising against the Algerian Junta. This in itself should have been a warning flag. Haouri’s suspected involvement in weapons smuggling should have been another warning.

Canadian police were aware of the implications of these activities but were not in a position to take further action. Immigration Canada and various police forces were not in a position to share intelligence with each other and to draw reasonable conclusions from it. The regulatory environment prohibited taking any other action. [. . . .]