Canadian government quintuples funding for war crimes prosecution (08/02/98)

Canadian government quintuples funding for war crimes prosecution

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj
Toronto Press Bureau

TORONTO - Canada's Department of Justice (DOJ) and Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) issued the first of a series of annual joint public reports on the country's War Crimes Program on July 21 in Ottawa. That day, Justice Minister Ann McLellan announced that $46.8 million (approximately $31.3 million U.S.) has been allocated over the next three years "to strengthen Canada's ability to bring to justice those responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other reprehensible acts in times of war."

The allocated amount is a dramatic 480 percent increase over the previous funding levels, which had risen to about $3.25 million in the 1997-1998 fiscal year.

According to a news release issued concurrently with the 17-page joint report on the War Crimes Program, "funding ... announced today was provided for in the February 1998 budget and is, therefore, built into the existing fiscal framework."

The announcement came four days after Canadian officials joined a host of the world's nations in overriding technical statutory objections from the U.S., Israel, China and four other countries to the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) with jurisdiction to put individuals on trial for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.

The United Nations Diplomatic Conference on the ICC, held in Rome from June 15 to July 17, established the global tribunal by adopting the Rome Statute of the ICC by a vote of 120 in favor, seven against and 21 abstentions.

The DOJ/CIC press release mentions that the increased funding will enable the CIC "to substantially enhance its ability to process modern-day war crimes cases," while the public report mentions that "since the early 1990s, the CIC has identified nearly 440 individuals suspected of [modern-day] war crimes." The press item also relates that Minister McLellan, also the member of Parliament for Edmonton West, introduced amendments to Canada's Extradition Act on May 5, which "will facilitate extradition to another country or to an international tribunal."

An appended backgrounder also mentions that the mandate of the Justice Department's war crimes unit "will be improved and expanded to include modern-day cases."

Rehabilitating the program

The public report concentrates on rehabilitating the Canadian war crimes effort, underscoring Minister McLellan's assertion that "Canada is not a safe haven for war criminals. The actions of this government over the past three years have made this very plain."

Much is made of the Ramirez case of 1992, in which the Federal Court of Appeals suggested that "a person can be held accountable for crimes against humanity by participating in the shared acts of the group, although not in a particular act."

In keeping with the new focus on modern-day crimes, the backgrounder mentions that thanks to the 1997 Musegara case, which involved the deportation of a Rwandan national accused of incitement to commit genocide, "Canada has ... become a world leader in the detection and deportation of perpetrators of modern-day war crimes and crimes against humanity."

Money for coordination

The joint press statement indicates that the increased funding will "allow the government to set up a formal coordination process to ensure that all partners, whether dealing with intelligence-gathering, prosecution or deportations, are working more closely together than has been possible in the past."

According to the joint report, Canada's war crimes program draws upon the work of three investigative agencies. The Department of Justice, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police all have their own separate subdivisions that deal with war crimes; they have operated autonomously yet in loose cooperation.

The RCMP's War Crimes and Special Investigations Unit was "established in 1985 to assist the Dêschenes Commission of Inquiry and continues to conduct investigations of all suspected perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity."

The DOJ's War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Section was established in 1987, while the CIC's War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Unit was formed in its Case Management Branch in April 1996.

As spelled out in the report, the mandate of the CIC's unit is "to serve in a coordinating, reporting and liaison role to ensure that cases are processed as efficiently as possible through the immigration and judicial systems to the point of removal from Canada or denial of visas."

The CIC is said to have had a more contemporary focus, but responsibilities concerning cases from all eras will be shared more evenly across the board.

World War II era cases

According to the press backgrounder, "the new appropriation ... will be used to support the nine cases now before the court, develop a significant number of additional World War II cases, and bring to court some 14 new World War II cases over the next three years."

In January 1995, then Justice Minister Allan Rock announced that the Liberal government intended to initiate denaturalization and deportation cases against 12 individuals suspected of being involved in war crimes; by December 1997 14 cases were under way.

The report mentions the decision in the Bogutin case, handed down in February, in which government prosecutors convinced Justice William McKeown of the Federal Court that the citizenship of a former member of an German auxiliary police force in eastern Ukraine should be revoked.

Two of the first 14 defendants are said to have chosen to leave Canada to avoid deportation, and a decision is expected in the Vitols case.

More numbers and lists

An enduring feature of the war crimes debate has been the question of the varying numbers of individuals suspected of war crimes who are said to be in Canada at any one time. In the introduction to its report the CIC is said to have identified 440 such persons "since the 1990s," and under the CIC's mandate section of the report the claim is made that "currently, there are close to 320 suspects in Canada identified for examination and enforcement action where warranted."

According to the DOJ portion of the report, "the [War Crimes] Section's current workload consists of approximately 90 active files. In addition, initial checks are being undertaken on approximately 126 files."

These are drawn from the section's "Inventory of Suspects," based on the Dêschenes Commission's three lists of suspects: "a master list of 774 names, an addendum of 38 names and a list of 71 German scientists and technicians."

"Justice Dêschenes also identified 29 files from the master list as meriting special attention," the report reads, "of these investigations, eight have resulted in the commencement of proceedings. In the remaining 21, either the allegations could not be substantiated, or the subject died."

Most controversies skirted

Canada's war crimes effort has been under fire from the U.S. media (when CBS "60 Minutes" alleged that Canada was a haven for war criminals), the Jewish community in the U.S. and Canada, and the Ukrainian Canadian community, which continues to voice its difference in principle to the "denaturalization and deportation" approach to the issue.

No mention is made that former War Crimes Section Director William Kremer was cleared of charges of anti-Semitism by an independent inquiry this March after an 11-month investigation, or that the appointment of former U.S. Office of Special Investigations Director Near Sher as a special consultant was subject to review by the standing parliamentary Committee on Justice in April, or that the section's chief historian, Dr. Bettina Birn, was subjected to intense pressure from the Jewish community in U.S. and Canada after expressing her opinions in a scholarly review of Harvard Prof. Daniel Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" in late 1997.

Ukrainian community arguments rebutted

However, the report deals squarely with a contention, articulated by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association, that the use of civil proceedings is highly inappropriate. On page 8, the report's framers state flatly that "the laws governing revocation of citizenship and deportation provide appropriate procedures and sanctions."

Further, they contend that "no principle of law or fairness requires the government to use criminal against an individual in situations where other laws, procedures and remedies could also be invoked."

The report mentions that in the Tobiass case in 1997 a Federal Court judge "rejected the respondent's argument that [civil denaturalization proceedings] are a disguised means of mounting a war crimes prosecution.

A copy of the report may be obtained by contacting either the Department of Justice by phoning (613) 957-4222, or Citizenship and Immigration Canada, (613) 954-9019; or by visiting either ministry's website. The address of the CIC website is http://cicnet.ci.gc.ca; the DOJ site's address is http://canada.justice.gc.ca/News/index_en.html.