Arar, abuse and secrecy

Arar, abuse and secrecy

Posted 26 days ago

Few people have read the official report on the torture of Canadian Maher Arar. But if they've seen the recent film Rendition, they have a sense of what happened to him and others during the War On Terror. A desire to protect U.S. citizens became twisted by American authorities into reckless disregard for individuals. People were sent to countries in which brutality is a normal means of extracting information. Arar was among them.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has obviously never seen Rendition. She has also clearly never read the words of Justice Dennis O'Connor, whose commission meticulously investigated Arar's situation. Otherwise, she would not have delivered the rather daft remarks that spilled from her lips last week.

Rice, answering questions from a congressional committee, referred to the fact that Arar was tortured in Syria as mere "claims that were made." Then, in a show of breathtaking understatement, she said "we have told the Canadian government that we did not think this was handled particularly well in terms of our own relationship and that we will try to do better in future." She also noted that American authorities were not prepared to let Arar, who is still on a U.S. "no-fly" list as a possible terrorist, travel to their country. This despite the fact that U.S. politicians, including Republicans, who have seen the Arar file say it's clear he's no danger.

At first, Rice's words were construed as suggesting that the Bush administration was, perhaps, conceding that it had wrongly sent Arar off to the Middle East. However, U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins moved quickly to explain that Rice's remarks were a simple reiteration of a previous pledge that the Americans would try to communicate better if a Canadian citizen were implicated in terror threats south of the border. In fact, there has been little shifting of position.

A pity. Canada has already apologized to Arar for the part our government played in the nightmare that sent him to Syria via New York in 2002, where he was held for 10 months in a cell more akin to a grave than a prison, and repeatedly beaten and threatened. The Canadian government has also paid him $10.2 million.

Arar acknowledges that he is still unwell. There are physical aches and pains from his torture, but mostly what he faces are psychological tremors. He is, for instance, afraid of flying. And hearing, as he often has, reports that he "claimed" to be "mistreated" upset him enormously.

The American administration can do better than simply mewl about better communication. Not that Maher Arar will ever want to go near the United States again, but that nation can surely remove him from its "no-fly" list. An apology would also be nice.

Canada, meanwhile, can also go further. While Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has written to the Americans asking that Arar be removed from U.S. watchlists, his own government can help prevent future such cases: It could agree that a second inquiry currently underway, into the detention and alleged torture of three other Canadians in Syria, should be an open process. Currently, the federal government is arguing to keep that inquiry behind closed doors.

In secrecy, abuse and brutality fester. That's what happened to Arar. Both Rice and our own government should learn lessons from that.

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