BY GEORGE ROSE
TORONTO - The image of the Canadian military as
"humanitarian peacekeepers" is fraying as new evidence comes
to light that racist abuse of Somali civilians was directed
and approved by the top command of Canadian troops, who were
in Somalia from 1992-93. The main concern of the army brass
and Defense Department officials was to cover up - or
failing that, to downplay and justify - the beatings and
shootings of unarmed Somalis by the Canadian military.
It proved impossible, however, to suppress the fact that Shidane Arone, a Somali teenager, was tortured and beaten to death by soldiers of the Canadian Airborne Regiment in Belet Huen on March 16, 1993. Arone's killers took "trophy" pictures of themselves shoving a club into the mouth of the bound Somali youth and holding guns to his head, as blood dripped from his face. These photos were later printed on the front pages of Canadian newspapers, sparking widespread outrage.
Several soldiers were court-martialed, but only enlisted men were held responsible for Arone's murder. Officers of the Airborne were exonerated or given slaps on the wrist. The Defense Department later decided to disband the regiment after homemade videos were shown on television of brutal and racist "hazing" rituals at its home base in Ontario.
Now some 1,200 pages of internal military documents have been released as a public inquiry gets under way into the Airborne's actions in Somalia.
The documents reveal that the initial military police investigation into Arone's torture and murder reported evidence of "a deliberate cover-up" by top officers of the Airborne's 2 Commando unit. But the final military police report merely said that the officers denied any conspiracy and that the investigation was closed.
Racist abuse of Somali citizens
As summarized by the October 6 Toronto Star, the new
documents show "soldiers beat, abused, humiliated and took
trophy photographs of numerous Somali civilian captives."
Their commander, Col. Serge Labbé, is reported to have told
soldiers, "I'm looking forward to my first dead Somali," and
"A case of champagne to the first person ... who gets or
kills a Somali."
Censored files from an earlier military inquiry in 1993 reported that a Canadian soldier, possibly an officer, bragged that he went to Somalia "to shoot me a nigger," and that troops talked about "beating up niggers" and sported white supremacist tattoos. The 1993 report asserted that racists were a "tiny minority" in the regiment. But the latest revelations make that claim hard to swallow.
The Toronto Star listed several other incidents that were internally investigated but kept secret until now:
Throughout their six-month deployment, soldiers put urine and Tabasco sauce in water bottles that were then given to Somalis.
On Jan. 27, 1993, five Somalis were tied up, photographed, and put on public display with signs saying "thieves" around their necks. Another Somali was captured and photographed with a knife and a gun to his head. The next day a senior officer ordered the destruction of photos of the abuse.
On an unknown date in 1993, other Somalis were captured and beaten. One corporal told investigators he heard a soldier kicking a detainee and telling him, "Shut up, you f- --- n----, go ahead, pray to Allah."
The internal reports show that some photos of Somalis being abused were viewed at defense headquarters in Ottawa as early as February 1993, a month before Arone was murdered. Brig.-Gen. Ernie Beno merely warned Labbé that "if such photographs were shown to the press, it could disturb the Canadian population."
No charges ever laid
No charges were ever laid for these incidents.
On March 4, 1993, two unarmed Somalis were shot in the
back, one fatally, as they fled from the perimeter of the
Canadian forces compound. Major Barry Armstrong, a doctor in
the Canadian regiment who has played a big role in exposing
Arone's murder and other killings in Somalia, told his
superiors that "it was a criminal shooting in the back of
two unarmed Somalis by our soldiers." But on March 5, the
Airborne commander wired Ottawa that the shootings were
justified to stop possible looters.
In a recent television interview, Matt McKay, a former corporal in the Airborne, stated that Canadian soldiers actually set out to entrap Somalis by leaving the outside gates of their compound open. McKay said soldiers were hiding in the sand when Shidane Arone entered the area. They jumped him, then threw him across some razor wire and into the camp, where he was tortured and murdered.
Meanwhile top Canadian politicians are scrambling to avoid responsibility for the multiple cover-ups. Former Conservative prime minister Kim Campbell, who was defense minister at the time of the killings in Somalia, insists that "I was not being properly briefed," and that her deputy minister, Robert Fowler, "tended to downplay" the seriousness of events. Fowler, who is now Canadian ambassador to the United Nations, refuses to comment. And top military staff directly contradict Campbell, saying that she was kept fully informed.
The newly released documents also show that Col. Peter Kenward, the last commander of the Airborne, ordered the destruction of two videotapes showing a brutal Airborne "initiation ceremony" in 1994, hoping to keep them out of the news media. (He was unsuccessful - there was a third copy.) His order came in the midst of an investigation into a 1992 hazing video. Nevertheless, Kenward was later promoted by Chief of Defense Staff Gen. John de Chastelain, with the agreement of David Collenette, defense minister in the current Liberal Party government.