13. A Sordid Tale

 

While the official story about Rwanda has been used by people in power to justify Western military intervention, Somalia is a place some powerful Canadians would prefer us to ignore. Taking place at the same time as Romeo Dallaire’s mission in Rwanda, events in Somalia became the most infamous example of bad behaviour by the Canadian Armed Forces.

Following the collapse of Siad Barre’s government in 1992 much of Somalia was gripped by civil war and famine. Ostensibly to alleviate the suffering, Canada deployed 900 military personnel as well as a naval vessel and transport aircraft as part of a US-led humanitarian intervention, which later came under UN command.

When Somalis failed to rejoice at the foreign intervention, it turned violent. On March 4, 1993, Canadian troops fired into a crowd of between 50 and 300 demonstrators, killing one of the protesters and disabling at least two.1 Later that day, Canadian soldiers lured two Somalis near a Canadian base and shot them in the back, one fatally. The survivor claimed “instantly my companion was shot and he fell to the ground on the spot and as I looked at him I was shot too. My companion managed to move before me. At that time an armed man, you know, from the Canadian forces came out of the camp. Luckily, I fell under a shallow cliff and he could not see me. … he followed the other man and shot him on that spot, the face. … I saw the shot clearly. Some other forces ran out of the camp after him, and when he started to come running after me, the other forces held him by the hand and stopped him.”2

The most disturbing incident of Canadian abuse in Somalia took place two weeks later. Sixteen-year-old Shidane Abukar Arone was tortured to death by a number of Canadian soldiers with dozens of other members of the Airborne Regiment in the know.3 As many as 80 soldiers heard Arone’s screams, which lasted for hours.4 In Dark Threats and White Knights, Sherene Razack writes: “What is evident more than anything else is how absolutely unremarkable the violence seemed to be to the men who enacted it, witnessed it, or simply heard that it was happening.”5

The Somali mission brought to light disturbing levels of overt racism within the military. Corporal Matt Mackay, a self-confessed neo-Nazi who declared he’d quit the white supremacist movement two years before going to Somalia, gleefully reported “we haven’t killed enough N– yet.”6 Another Canadian soldier was caught on camera saying the Somalia intervention was called, “Operation Snatch Nig-nog.” Yet another soldier explained how Somalis were not starving; “they never were, they’re lazy, they’re slobs, and they stink.”7

Canadian military leaders in Somalia believed the natives had to be kept in line, often through violence.8 The problem for the US and its allies was that many (if not most) Somalis did not see the UN intervention, which was sanctioned as a peace enforcement rather than peacekeeping mission, as a humanitarian endeavour.9 At the time of the intervention The Nation referred to Somalia as “one of the most strategically sensitive spots in the world today: astride the Horn of Africa, where oil, Islamic fundamentalism and Israeli, Iranian and Arab ambitions and arms are apt to crash and collide.”10

In 1993 Project Censored Canada found the prospects for extracting oil in Somalia the most under-reported Canadian news item that year.11 A 1991 World Bank/United Nations Development Program study pointed to significant hydrocarbons in the north and in January 1993 the Los Angeles Times reported that it had obtained documents revealing that Siad Barre had given four major US oil companies — Chevron, Amoco, Conoco, and Phillips — exploration rights over two-thirds of the country. “Far beneath the surface of the tragic drama of Somalia, four major U.S. oil companies are quietly sitting on a prospective fortune in exclusive concessions to explore and exploit tens of millions of acres of the Somali countryside. That land, in the opinion of geologists and industry sources, could yield significant amounts of oil and natural gas if the U.S.-led military mission can restore peace to the impoverished east African nation.”12

Somalia became a scandal for the Canadian military. Details of the cruel training rituals and racism within the force were widely derided, leading to the disbandment of the Airborne Regiment.

Yet few individuals in positions of authority were punished. The Canadian forces commander in Somalia, Serge Labbé, was found to have “failed as a commander” by a public inquiry into the mission.13 He claimed, without evidence, that the two victims shot in the back by Canadian troops were “trained saboteurs.” At the Somalia inquiry it was alleged “that he offered a case of champagne to the first soldier who killed a Somali.”14

Despite his actions in the Horn of Africa, Labbé’s career flourished. He went on to receive important NATO positions in the Balkans and Turkey and commanded Canada’s 15-officer Strategic Advisory Team in Kabul. General Rick Hillier’s last act as chief of defence staff in mid-2008 was to quietly promote Labbé to brigadier general, which was backdated seven years to top up his salary and pension.15

After their failed invasion in the early 1990s, US forces attacked Somalia once again in December 2006. When the Islamic Courts Union captured control of Mogadishu and the south of the country from an assortment of CIA-backed warlords, American forces launched air attacks and 50,000 Ethiopian troops invaded.

According to a cable released by WikiLeaks, US Undersecretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer pressed Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to intervene.16 Washington-based Foreign Policy in Focus notes: “The cable suggests that Ethiopia had no intention of invading Somalia in 2006 but was encouraged/pressured to do so by the United States which pushed Ethiopia behind the scenes.”17

The US literally fuelled the invasion, providing gasoline, arms and strategic guidance for the Ethiopian assault.18 On December 4, 2006, CENTCOM Commander General John Abizaid made “a courtesy call” to meet Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa to finalize plans for the invasion.19 Three weeks later, Ethiopian forces invaded. “The meeting was just the final handshake,” said a former intelligence officer familiar with the region.20

The fighting included some US ground forces. Stars and Stripes described a contingent of US forces who came under fire in the northeast of the country on June 1, 2007, and were then bailed out by a destroyer patrolling off the coast. The US naval vessel fired more than a dozen rounds from its 5-inch gun.21

Ottawa supported the US-Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in which about 6,000 civilians were killed and 335,000 fled the country.22 Amnesty International reported that Ethiopian soldiers were widely accused of “slaughtering” men, women and children “like goats” — slitting their throats.23 The US Air Force also killed numerous civilians. In one incident an AC 130 ground-attack aircraft, reported Oxfam, killed as many as 70 innocent Somali herders and their families.24

As Ethiopian troops occupied Somalia and the US launched periodic air strikes, Ottawa added its military presence. HMCS Calgary, HMCS Iroquois, HMCS Charlottetown, HMCS Protecteur, HMCS Toronto and HMCS Ville de Québec all patrolled off the coast of Somalia during this period and in the summer of 2008 Canada took command of NATO’s Task Force 150 that also worked in the region.25

The Canadian government’s public comments regarding Somalia broadly supported Ethiopian-US actions. Two months before the invasion, Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said he was “concerned” the Islamic Courts Union could seize control of Mogadishu from the warlords. “We know that the ICU has made considerable gains, certainly in Mogadishu and the south. That’s a concern.”26

Ottawa made no criticism of the US bombings so when members of Toronto’s Somali community protested the Ethiopian invasion they called on Ottawa to “join the international community in denouncing this illegal aggression against Somalia.”27 After prominent Somali-Canadian journalist Ali Iman Sharmarke was assassinated in Mogadishu in August 2007, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Mackay only condemned “the violence” in the country. He never mentioned that the assassins were pro-government militia members with ties to Ethiopian troops.

Ottawa publicly backed a February 2007 UN Security Council resolution that “authorized the establishment of an AU Mission to Somalia (AMISOM).”28 According to the East African, Canadian officials immediately “pledged logistical support and some funding for the Uganda-led force” that was dispatched to Somalia.29 Official Canada also endorsed the Ethiopia-installed Somali government, which had operated in exile. A February 2007 Foreign Affairs release noted: “We welcome Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed’s announcement to urgently convene a national reconciliation congress involving all stakeholders, including political, clan and religious leaders, and representatives of civil society.”30 In April 2009 the Somali transitional government’s minister of diaspora affairs and ambassador to Kenya were feted in Ottawa.31

Supported by outsiders, the transitional government had little backing among Somalis. An Oxfam report explained: “The TFG [Transitional Federal Government] is not accepted as legitimate by much of the population. Unelected and widely perceived as externally imposed through a process that sidelined sub-national authorities and wider civil society, the transitional federal institutions face strong allegations of corruption and aid diversion.”32

Canadian officials saw little problem working with their Ethiopian counterparts on Somalia. A US government cable released by WikiLeaks suggests that Canada’s ambassador in Addis Ababa, Yves Boulanger, discussed the issue prior to the invasion.33 At the 2013 G8 meeting Prime Minister Harper discussed Somalia with his Ethiopian counterpart. The Ethiopia Reporter noted: “The two Prime Ministers exchanged views … on ways to consolidate the relative peace and stability in Somalia. Harper underlined Somalia’s need for a military training center to build up the capacity of its security forces and affirmed that Canada would support such an initiative.”34

In what was perhaps the strongest signal of Canadian support for the outside intervention, Ottawa didn’t make its aid to Ethiopia contingent on withdrawing from Somalia. Instead they increased assistance to this strategic US ally that borders Sudan and Somalia. In 2009 Ethiopia was selected as a “country of focus” for Canadian aid and this status was reaffirmed in 2014. Canada is the third biggest donor to Ethiopia, and gave over $150 million annually from 2008 to 2014.35

Providing aid to Ethiopia was a controversial move — and not only because of the invasion and occupation of its neighbour. An October 2010 Globe and Mail headline noted: “Ethiopia using Canadian aid as a political weapon, rights group says.” Human Rights Watch researcher Felix Horne claimed Ottawa contravened its Official Development Assistance Accountability Act by continuing to pump aid into Ethiopia despite its failure to meet international human-rights standards. In addition to arbitrary detentions, widespread torture and attacks on political opponents, the Ethiopian government systematically forced rural inhabitants off their land. This “villagization” program cut many off from food and health services.36

Canadian aid to Ethiopia faced another challenge. In February 2012 the family of a Somali-Canadian businessman sued Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to prevent them from sending aid to Ethiopia until Bashir Makhtal was released from prison. In January 2007 Makhtal was “rendered” illegally from Kenya to Ethiopia, imprisoned without access to a lawyer or consular official for 18 months and then given a life sentence.37 The lawsuit was a last ditch effort by the Makhtal family to force Ottawa’s hand.

The NDP claimed the government was indifferent to the plight of non-white Canadians imprisoned in foreign countries. While this may partly explain the Conservatives’ indifference towards Makhtal, they were also wary of conflict with Ethiopia, a strategic Western ally. Makhtal’s grandfather was co-founder of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, a rebel group that continues to fight for the independence of the south-eastern portion of the Somali Regional State that is currently part of Ethiopia. For the Ethiopian government, imprisoning Makhtal was a way to deliver a message to its opponents. In the eyes of the paranoid Ethiopian state, Makhtal’s departure from Somalia when the Islamic Courts Union collapsed proved he’d collaborated with Al Shabaab.

In early 2009 Ethiopian troops withdrew from Somalia. They reinvaded in late 2011 and in 2014 about 4,400 Ethiopian troops were integrated into the AMISOM mission.

As previously mentioned, Ottawa immediately backed the AU force deployed to Somalia. “Canada is an active observer in the (African Union) and provides both direct and indirect support to the [Somalia] mission,” explained a heavily censored June 2012 government briefing obtained by Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act. “Indirectly, Canada is engaged in training initiatives through (Directorate of Military Training and Co-operation) to enable (African Union) troop contributing nations through the provision of staff and peace support operations,” noted the above-mentioned internal briefing.38 Between 2011 and 2014 Ottawa gave over $20 million to AMISOM.39

The United States spent upwards of $1 billion on the mission to train and arm AMISOM.40 In July 2012 the Los Angeles Times reported: “The U.S. has been quietly equipping and training thousands of African soldiers to wage a widening proxy war against the Shabaab. … Officially, the troops are under the auspices of the African Union. But in truth … the 15,000-strong force pulled from five African countries is largely a creation of the State Department and Pentagon, trained and supplied by the U.S. government and guided by dozens of retired foreign military personnel hired through private contractors.”41

Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force trained Ugandan, Burundian and Sierra Leonean military for Somalia.42 In June 2012 US Army Africa Commander General David Hogg told Sierra Leone forces that “you will join the Kenyan forces in southern Somalia to continue to push al Shabaab and other miscreants from Somalia so it can be free of tyranny and terrorism and all the evil that comes with it.”43 Given its role in training and equipping African soldiers, the LA Times described the US as “the driving force behind the fighting in Somalia.”44

Over a hundred US special forces were also on the ground in Somalia. In July 2014 Reuters reported that “US military advisors have secretly operated in Somalia since around 2007 and Washington plans to deepen its security assistance to help the country fend off threats by Islamist militant group al Shabaab.”45

Since the late 2006 Ethiopia-US Invasion, al Shabaab has waged a violent campaign against the foreign forces in the country and Somalia’s transitional government. During this period, al Shabaab grew from the relatively small youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union to the leading oppositional force in the country. It also radicalized. Rob Wise, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, notes that Ethiopia’s occupation of Somalia transformed al Shabaab into “the most powerful and radical armed faction in the country.”46

Al Shabaab was conceived as a national organization, but with time it began forging increasing ties to Al Qaeda. (The upper echelon of Al Shabaab was connected to and inspired by global jihad while the bulk of the group’s foot soldiers were motivated by nationalism and local injustices.) They killed 74 people seated in a bar watching the 2010 World Cup final in Kampala and ended the lives of 67 shoppers at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall in 2013. In the spring of 2015 they killed 147 students at a university in northern Kenya. The group said these attacks were retaliation for Uganda and Kenya’s invasion and occupation of Somalia.

Canada’s support for foreign intervention in Somalia did not go unnoticed. In April 2014, Embassy reported that after the Westgate Mall assault, Canadian special forces in Kenya found it necessary to upgrade security at the High Commission.47 The story explained that Canada’s counter-terrorism strategy included a concern that al Shabaab “explicitly identified Canada as a legitimate target.” And in October 2008, when a group calling themselves Mujahedin of Somalia abducted a Canadian and Australian, they accused Canada and Australia of “taking part in the destruction of Somalia.”48

Washington and Ottawa portrayed their intervention in Somalia as a simple struggle against Islamic terrorism, but the mission was also driven by geopolitical and economic considerations. Somalia’s 1,600-kilometre coastline is “near two important oil choke points; Babel-Mandeb between Yemen and Djibouti, and the Strait of Hormuz between the most northern part of UAE and Iran,” notes Patrick Lennox, at Dalhousie’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies. “This has made the Arabian Sea some of the most important maritime real-estate on the planet.”49 In addition to its strategic location, Somalia possesses oil. As noted, World Bank geologists found hydrocarbons at the beginning of the 1990s and more recent exploration suggests significant offshore oil deposits. A February 2012 UK Observer headline read: “Why defeat of Al Shabaab could mean an oil bonanza for western firms in Somalia.”50

After years of exploration, Vancouver-based Africa Oil commenced drilling in northern Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region in 2012. As the first major oil operation in the region in two decades, the project was controversial. Control over the area’s resources is contested between regional authorities in Puntland and Somaliland as well as the government in Mogadishu. Threatening to revoke the licenses of Western oil companies, the federal government claimed “exclusive responsibility” over Somalia’s natural resources.51 The Somali Petroleum Ministry claimed resource agreements with regional governments were “destabilizing the country” and “adding fire to conflicts”.52

Echoing government concerns in Mogadishu, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea, warned that competition over oil would undermine efforts to rebuild. In 2013, the UN Monitoring Group voiced fears about Africa Oil’s exploration licenses being in the same area as licenses Somaliland awarded to Norwegian firm DNO and that both regions and companies were building up security forces. “Potentially, it means that exploration operations in these blocks, conducted by both DNO and Africa Oil under the protection of regional security forces, its allied militia or private forces, could generate new conflict between Somaliland and Puntland,” the UN report stated.53 “It is alarming that regional security forces and armed groups may clash to protect and further Western-backed oil companies’ interests.”54

In 2012 Africa Oil CEO Keith Hill acknowledged that “security costs are significant” for their operations in Puntland but noted the rarity of a “billion-barrel oil field.”55 Since the mid-2000s, Africa Oil has employed private security in Puntland. In 2008 Garowe Online reported: “Africa Oil and its partners in the government of Puntland have established a private militia force to safeguard the Canadian company’s operations in Somalia.”56 But, in October 2008, members of its security team kidnapped company employees, prompting Africa Oil to bolster its force with heavily armed Australian and American soldiers.57

In mid-2011 the Vancouver company hired South African security firm Pathfinder to protect its interests in Puntland. In doing so, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea claimed it violated the arms embargo on the country. “Africa Oil, through its subsidiaries and affiliates, has engaged in a mutually beneficial relationship with a Somali security sector institution, namely the Puntland Exploration Security Unit (ESU). For this purpose, the company has contracted the services of a private security company, Pathfinder Corporation. … in the assessment of the Monitoring Group, the company’s ‘temporary issue’ of military equipment to the ESU, as well as Africa Oil’s payment of ESU salaries (through its subsidiary, Canmex) constitute violations of the general and complete arms embargo on Somalia imposed by Security Council resolution 733 (1992) and elaborated by subsequent resolutions.”58

In spring 2006 there were deadly clashes in an area where Africa Oil and its partners were collecting mineral samples. The Puntland government allowed the companies to explore the Sanaag region without approval of local inhabitants, the Warsangeli clan. Many people were killed and hundreds more were wounded.59

Though the details are murky, the former president of Puntland, General Mohamud Muse Hirsi, a Canadian citizen, signed a favourable agreement with Range Resources, Africa Oil’s Australian partner. Apparently, Hirsi and other members of his government owned shares in Range. After a company-sponsored tour of its operations Derek Brower wrote in Britain’s Prospect Magazine: “President Hirsi told me that Range had helped to draw up the laws governing its own operations there. Any company that wanted to explore in the region, he added, must speak to Range first.”60

Africa Oil was also accused of feeding instability in Ethiopia. Addis Ababa granted the Vancouver company rights to explore 50,000 km² of territory mainly in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, an area contested by Somali Ethiopians and the Somali government.61

The Ogaden National Liberation Front challenged the TSX listed company. A statement from the separatist group said “ONLF calls upon African Oil to desist from paying blood money to Ethiopia until a just settlement of the conflict is achieved and the people of the Ogaden are in a position to be masters of their wealth and interest.”62 In a follow-up December 2013 release the group stated: “The Ethiopian regime has ordered its army in Ogaden to displace the rural population from large tracts of the Ogaden grassland by burning traditional pasture rich areas in order to clear the land for oil exploration.”63 The ONLF statement went on to name a dozen towns it claimed were displaced.

Ethiopian authorities blocked international aid workers and media from entering the Ogaden during the struggle. Amnesty International expressed concerns about Addis Ababa obstructing NGOs from providing much needed humanitarian aid in the region and when two Swedish journalists crossed into the Ogaden from Somalia to investigate Africa Oil’s alleged complicity in human rights violations, they were arrested by Ethiopian authorities.64 (Africa Oil is also listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and is part of the Swedish-Canadian Lundin Group of Companies.) Martin Schibbye and Johan Persson were imprisoned from July 2011 to September 2012 on “terrorism” charges and their detention was widely publicized in Sweden.65

Some criticisms of Africa Oil were virulent. One online article was headlined: “How Foreign Oil Companies annihilated the lives of ordinary African population in Ogaden Region” and another read “Africa Oil Bleeding Ethiopia.”66

Ethiopia’s regional competitor Sudan has long been in the crosshairs of Washington. At odds with the IMF and international creditors since it failed to pay debt obligations in the 1980s, Sudan has also been offside with US policy in the region. The Omar al-Bashir regime backed Iraq during its 1991 invasion of Kuwait and provided support for a variety of Islamic militant groups such as Hamas, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.67 Khartoum also has close ties to China.

Clashing geopolitical, business and security interests resulted in a schizophrenic Canadian policy. In the late 1990s Ottawa claimed the US had the right to bomb the “terrorist” enabling country and then defended a Canadian company under criticism for abuses in Sudan. Similarly, during much of the 2000s the federal government accused Khartoum of horrendous acts while asking it to detain a Canadian citizen.

Canadian officials even defended the illegal US bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical facility in August 1998. Washington claimed the plant produced the deadly nerve agent VX. It didn’t.

In a rare move CIA analyst Mary O’Neil McCarthy sent a letter to President Bill Clinton expressing doubts about the factory’s ties to chemical weapons production or Al Qaeda. “Eventually,” reported the New York Times, “Clinton administration officials conceded that the hardest evidence used to justify striking the plant was a single soil sample that seemed to indicate the presence of a chemical used in making VX gas.”68

One employee was killed and 11 were wounded when US cruise missiles blasted through the factory. The Al-Shifa plant produced half of Sudan’s medicines and most of the country’s supplies of chloroquine, the standard treatment for malaria. The resulting lack of medicines is believed to have led to tens of thousands of preventable deaths.69

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy immediately defended the US bombing, an act later condemned by the Non-Aligned Movement, Arab League and Organization of African Unity.70 Echoing US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s statement that “we have a legal right to self-defense,” Axworthy said: “When you come into this very murky and very dangerous area of dealing with terrorism, nations have a right to defend themselves.”71

Arguing he was “not privy to the private information they have”, Chrétien insisted “the Americans had to do something. They decided to use cruise missiles to attack the people who are responsible for the terrorism.”72 The US strike in Sudan was purportedly a response to Al Qaeda’s bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam two weeks earlier.

Ottawa obstructed Sudan’s effort to have the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) condemn the US violation of its airspace during the bombing. Canadian officials refused to grant a Sudanese delegation visas to attend an ICAO General Assembly. As a result, their chargé d’affaires in Canada presented Sudan’s case at the Montréal-based ICAO.73

At the same time as it supported the US bombing of Sudan, Ottawa backed a Canadian company widely criticized for exacerbating southern Sudan’s civil war. To mollify growing protests against Calgary-based Talisman Oil’s operations in Sudan, Lloyd Axworthy sent a senior foreign policy advisor on Africa, John Harker, to investigate “the alleged link between oil development and human rights violations, particularly with respect to the forced removal of populations around oilfields and oil related development.”74

The October 1999 federal government-sponsored investigation found that “Talisman was clearly adding to the suffering of the Sudanese people.”75 The government report continued: “There has been and probably still is, major displacement of civilian populations related to oil extraction. Sudan is a place of extraordinary suffering and continuing human rights violations, even though some forward progress can be recorded, and the oil operations in which a Canadian company is involved add more suffering.”76

Talisman and other oil companies built an airstrip owned by the Sudanese government, which was used as a base for bombing raids on the southern Sudanese.77 Talisman also serviced broken military trucks, provided electricity lines to the army’s barracks and piped water to army camps. According to Madelaine Drohan, “Talisman provided expertise, China provided manpower, and Sudan provided army and loyal militias who not only protected the pipeline and facilities, but also aggressively cleansed the oil fields of people.”78 Beyond providing direct support to the Sudanese government’s military campaign, Talisman officials justified the army’s actions. After the government bombed a Norwegian relief agency in the south, the head of Talisman claimed “the SPLA [Southern guerrillas] puts its camps next to Norwegian hospitals.”79

As domestic pressure mounted on the Liberal government to take action against Talisman, the corporation played the nationalist card. The Calgary-based company argued that it offered important opportunities for Canadians to work in a major head office and that if Ottawa refused to support them, they would relocate.80 Axworthy buckled under corporate pressure. Even after the Harker report found Talisman guilty of supporting the Sudanese government’s brutal tactics, Axworthy described Talisman as “a positive force for change in Sudan.”81 Soon after, with prodding from Talisman, Canada opened an embassy in Khartoum.82

But, in 2003 Talisman finally pulled out of Sudan. The decision was sparked by mounting criticism from humanitarian groups as well as moves by the US Congress to block investments in Sudan and a US court case against Talisman for complicity with human rights abuses.83 In 2001 the Presbyterian Church of Sudan filed a $12-billion suit, alleging that Talisman assisted the Sudanese military in attacks against local populations as part of an effort to depopulate areas for oil exploration.

Despite Talisman’s questionable record in Sudan, Ottawa backed the company in its US court case. In June 2007 the Canadian government sent a letter to the US Federal District Court defending the company.84

In the mid-2000s Canadian officials repeatedly condemned Sudan’s human rights violations in the northeast province of Darfur. Since 2004 Canada has spent $250 million to train and equip African troops and police for the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS), which later morphed into the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).85 Canada co-chaired UNAMID with the US and on a couple of occasions Ottawa called on the AU to deploy more troops to Darfur.86

But, Ottawa was inconsistent in its engagement with Sudan. A blog titled “Canada, Sudan and the Stench of Hypocrisy” pointed out how Stephen Harper’s government applauded the International Criminal Court’s indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir while simultaneously making “use of Sudan’s crappy human rights record to detain and torture a Canadian citizen, Abousfian Abdelrazik.”87

When Abdelrazik visited the country of his birth in 2003 the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) asked Sudanese authorities to arrest him.88 After torturing Abdelrazik and allowing CSIS officials to interrogate him, Sudan eventually let him go. Still, Ottawa refused to provide Abdelrazik with a passport to return home, leaving him stuck in Sudan for six years. He spent more than a year of this nightmare living in the Canadian embassy.

The Globe and Mail uncovered government documents revealing that Canadian intelligence officials warned Transport Canada that allowing Abdelrazik to return from Sudan could upset the George W. Bush administration. The memo stated, “senior government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik’s return to Canada as he is on the U.S. no-fly list.”89