The way out of all of this sorrow and tragedy has been far too long in coming. It lies in the settlement that has been reached. And it rests in us, as a nation, collectively committing that, next time, we will respond with help and protection, not abandonment and insults, when faced with a child soldier in need
Lieutenant-General (retired) Roméo Dallaire is the founder of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. Alex Neve is secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada.
It is close to 15 years since the July 27, 2002, firefight in Afghanistan that killed a U.S. soldier, injured another, and left 15-year-old Canadian citizen Omar Khadr badly wounded and near death.
And thus began an agonizing and Kafkaesque years-long journey of injustice, suffering and abandonment for a teenager who was a child soldier and should never have been pushed into the middle of a war in the first place.
There is much blame to go around for the harm and wrongs done to Mr. Khadr. Clearly his father should never have put him in this situation in the first place. Undeniably, U.S. officials bear the bulk of responsibility for the endless human rights violations he endured – including torture, ill-treatment, arbitrary detention and an unfair trial – in both the notorious Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
But there is more. Canada is part of Mr. Khadr's story, very much part of that story. And it is by no means a source of pride.
Canada was complicit. The Supreme Court of Canada has made that abundantly – in fact unanimously – clear; most compellingly in its 2010 ruling condemning the willingness of Canadian intelligence officers to interview a teenager who had been subjected to days of sleep deprivation, an agonizing and insidious form of torture.
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