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May 21, 2016 - No. 21 Prime Minister's Apology for "Komagata Maru Incident" Liberal Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds
• Pertinent
Facts to Consider when Evaluating the Trudeau Prime Minister's Apology for "Komagata Maru Incident" Liberal Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, made a formal apology on May 18 in the House of Commons for the "Komagata Maru incident" which took place 102 years ago.[1] On May 23, 1914, 376 passengers of Indian origin arrived at Burrard Inlet in Vancouver on the Komagata Maru and were refused entry into Canada. The passengers were British subjects, many in fact decorated soldiers having been conscripted to fight for the British Empire. Despite this, they were prohibited from travelling within the Empire like other British subjects. They were kept on board for 32 days, denied food, water, provisions and services of any kind. The navy ship HMCS Rainbow as well as police boats were deployed to enforce the inhuman conditions. To keep out British subjects of Indian origin, laws
enacted by
Parliament in 1909 required
that anyone seeking residence in Canada must arrive by continuous
passage from their country
of origin. This was at a time when there were no continuous
sailings from Indian ports
to Canada. When the passengers chartered the Komagata Maru so
as to make a direct
voyage, they were nonetheless denied entry in violation of the law. The ship then headed for Calcutta but was forced by a
gunboat
of the British occupying army to drop anchor at the railway port
of Budge Budge, 27 kilometres south of Calcutta along the Hooghly
River. British officers with guns drawn attempted to arrest
Gurdit Singh, leader of the expedition and force the passengers
onto a train to return them to their villages of origin in
Punjab. The passengers refused to hand over Singh and other
leaders and the British troops began firing on the crowd,
massacring 20. Following this atrocity, most other passengers
were arrested and imprisoned or forcibly confined to their homes
for the duration of World War I, which broke out during their voyage.
Gurdit Singh escaped and lived free until 1922 but was
persuaded by Mahatma Gandhi to turn himself in to the British
occupiers in 1922 and served five years in their prisons.
The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) thinks that when talking about the Komagata Maru incident it is important to properly discuss the conditions at that time, which cannot be reduced to a "Keep Canada White" policy that led to "injustice against the Sikh community," as Prime Minister Trudeau puts it. At that time Canada was part of the British Empire, as was India. Canada collaborated with the British to suppress the Indian peoples' war of independence. The period at the turn of the 20th century was marked by the struggles of the people of Indian origin in Canada for their rights within Canada and to liberate India as well. In fact the Hindustani Ghadar Party was founded among people of Indian origin in Canada and the U.S. in December 1913, with the express mission of overcoming the British policy of Divide and Rule and liberating India from British rule. The Komagata Maru incident thus took place at a time the people of Indian origin in India and abroad, including Canada and the U.S., were unifying the peoples of India, no matter what their nationality, religion or belief, for a common cause. One of their grievances at that time was their conscription into the British army where they had to fight to safeguard the Empire but received no recognition of rights in return.[2] Most importantly however, Trudeau detaches the apology from the context of the present in which he likes to speak about Canada as "a country strong, not in spite of our differences, but because of them" and as a "land of refuge." This is to divert attention from the fact that the racist policy of the government of Canada is not a thing of the past but of the present. What is meant by "strength in diversity" is the strength of the government to keep people divided on the basis of ethnicity, language, national origin, race, religion and all kinds of other divisions. It is the "ABC" policy of neo-liberal governments -- Anything But Class. Even talk about "the middle class" is for purposes of denying the fact that the majority of Canadians form a working class upon which the society depends for its existence and well-being. It denies that a modern society is duty-bound to uphold the rights of all in all spheres -- human, economic, cultural, social and political -- irrespective of any considerations whatsoever that may be used to limit those rights in a self-serving manner. This includes recognizing past injuries committed against people so as to deny their rights today, all the while currying favour with those considered to be nothing more than vote-banks to further the illusions that the state is democratic. In announcing his apology on April 18, Trudeau said: "The passengers of the Komagata Maru, like millions of immigrants to Canada since, were seeking refuge and better lives for their families. With so much to contribute to their new home, they chose Canada and we failed them utterly. As a nation we should never forget the prejudice suffered by the Sikh community [sic] at the hands of the Canadian government of the day. We should not and we will not. An apology made in the House of Commons will not erase the pain and suffering of those who lived through that shameful experience. But an apology is not only the appropriate action to take, it's the right action to take and the House is the appropriate place for it to happen."[3] A statement provided by the Canadian consul general in
Hong
Kong to the South China Morning Post Magazine repeated the
above adding, "[Canada] needs to acknowledge that our history
includes darker moments." Without compunction, Trudeau covers up the
reality of Canada's immigration system today, in terms of who is denied
entry and refugee, residence and citizenship status.[4] Amongst other things Trudeau's assertion that the proper place to make this apology is the House of Commons is misleading at best. In announcing his apology Trudeau said, "It was in the House of Commons that the laws that prevented the passengers from disembarking were first passed." During the apology itself he said, "Canada's government was, without question, responsible for the laws that prevented these passengers from immigrating peacefully and securely." This covers up that in 1909 the Dominion of Canada was part of the British Empire and had no independent decision-making power. The decisions permitted in the House of Commons were those authorized by and favouring Empire. Trudeau's narrative deliberately ignores the conditions prevailing in 1914 to deny the material conditions today. In particular, it denies the Canadian state's current brutal treatment of migrants and refugees, the negation of the right to conscience of people of all origins and the rights of those whose values the government deems unfit, including the peoples of other countries. Contributing to this is Trudeau's reference to his Minister of Defence of Punjabi origin, Harjit Singh Sajjan, whom he calls a Sikh and says that a century ago his family "might well have been turned away from Canada." In his apology Trudeau points out that it was Sajjan's former regiment, the British Columbia Regiment (Duke of Connaught's Own) which was tasked with turning the Komagata Maru away. This is to suggest that today this regiment would do no such thing. What this regiment does or does not do today he did not say. In fact, its mission today is essentially no different than the one it carried out in 1914. Its troops were among the first regular forces deployed to Afghanistan in 2002 to safeguard U.S. imperialist interests in that country. Harjit Sajjan was credited as the "best single Canadian intelligence asset" and was recruited in 2010 by U.S. Major-General James Terry to join the U.S. Command Team as his Special Assistant. These are not democratic credentials by any stretch of the imagination. But Trudeau's rhetoric is designed to make them appear so. This is done to further the agenda of the Trudeau government, which persists in pursuing racist policies and empire-building today just as its predecessors did in the past. At that time it was in pursuit of the goals of the British Empire while today it is primarily those of the U.S. Empire and the global monopolies that dominate the U.S.-led imperialist system of states. At the time of the Komagata Maru incident, the goals of the imperialist powers were pursued in the name of "the high ideal" to "Keep Canada White" and to keep the peoples of India enslaved by the British Empire which was "civilized." Today new "high ideals" are touted, such as "Strength in Diversity,""opposing terrorism," "protecting women," "peace," "freedom" and the like. Trudeau's apology for the Komagata Maru incident is done in a way that portrays Canada's "darker moments" as incidents, aberrations from the "brighter moments," which are the norm. Those "darker moments" led to bad things being done to people from "diverse" backgrounds while now Canada says "diversity is strength" and that is that. This narrative denies the unity of the working class and its allies amongst all the people, which has been forged in their fight for rights stretching back many years including to the time of the Komagata Maru. His attempt to ingratiate himself with those he identifies as Sikhs appears as a thinly-veiled attempt to say that those who espouse his "modern" values "prove" their democratic credentials and that they are worthy of citizenship, promotion, political consideration and so on. He often makes the mistake of referring to all Indians of Punjabi origin as Sikhs even though many are Hindus and Muslims or practice no religion at all. The government's comments are not unlike those made recently by former Prime Minister Paul Martin regarding the situation facing Indigenous peoples: "I do not believe Canadians are racist [but] the whole issue that we are talking about is invisible to so many Canadians." According to Martin this "invisible" thing "we are talking about" is the cause of the suffering of Indigenous peoples, not the state-organized deprivation of their rights against which Indigenous peoples and Canadians of all origins are waging a unified fight for the recognition of the rights of all. It bears repeating: In the early 20th century when the Komagata Maru incident took place, the problem the people of Indian origin faced with refusal of entry into Canada was not an isolated affair. It was a time when the peoples throughout India were fighting for independence against the brutal rule of the British Raj. At that time, Canada joined forces with British intelligence services to send Indians to the gallows, shoot them in cold blood, spy on their organizations, criminalize and imprison freedom fighters and commit other crimes against them. The people of Vancouver were also engaged in the fight to defend themselves against the racist, anti-worker practices of the ruling British elite in their province. The fight against state-organized racist attacks was raging not only for the rights of the people of Indian origin, but also others called "Orientals," especially people of Chinese and Japanese origin, while the Indigenous peoples were not even considered persons but "fair game" to be exterminated. It was under Liberal rule that Canada's policy which
divides
Canadians on the basis of
race, ethnicity, superior and inferior values and cultures practiced
since Canada's beginnings
was adopted as official policy and enshrined in the Immigration Act.
Special
status
is
given
to
people
called
"English"
or
"French."
Their
"ethnic
origins"
are recognized. Besides
establishing these cultures as superior, they are the ones to be
adopted by everyone else to
prove their loyalty to "shared values." This categorization also
specifically denies the existence
of the nation of Quebec. Other "categories" were given official names
such as "people of
colour" and "visible minorities." They presumably have no national nor
ethnic origins. The
Indigenous peoples were lumped together as "Aboriginals" or "Indians"
who for much of the
past three centuries to this day have not even been recognized as
specific nations with
economies, languages and cultural, social and political practices and
laws specific to their
nation. While an apology is to be issued for the Komagata Maru incident, Trudeau's apology does not acknowledge the state-organized racist attacks against the Indian community in the 1970s in British Columbia. At that time, besides floating white supremacist activities directed against the community, state agencies tried to mobilize Indians to oppose the Indigenous peoples in the forestry industry and incite racist divisions amongst them. Other such things were done to divide the people and suppress their struggles for their rights. The East Indian Defence Committee/People's Front (EIDC) was founded at the time in response to the state-organized racist attacks. Under the leadership of Hardial Bains and the Marxist-Leninist Party, the aim of the EIDC/People's Front was to unite the community and directly confront and defeat the state-organized attacks and further the struggle of the peoples for empowerment and in defence of their rights. In the opinion of CPC(M-L), the naming to the Trudeau Cabinet of those referred to as "Sikhs" is one way of ensuring that no light is shed on crimes committed by the Canadian state past and present. All Cabinet Ministers swear an oath to the Queen of England whereby they are entrusted with "[keeping] secret all matters committed and revealed [as ministers] or that shall be secretly treated of in Council." So long as perpetuating the state that is behind the constant crimes against the people, such as the crimes committed against the passengers of the Komagata Maru in 1914, is the be-all and end-all of government policy, the crimes in different forms and against the people will continue. The prerogative powers that define rights based on privilege and the values of empire-building have permitted the commission of state-organized crimes throughout Canada's history. Those prerogative powers have not been renounced and on the contrary are being reinforced in the current neo-liberal global regime of empire-building. Trudeau's apology seeks to divert attention from this fact and disarm the people from strengthening their organizations and struggles in defence of the rights of all. The mission of the new Trudeau government is to bring in the present historical context a definition of rights that permits and extends crimes against the peoples and their rights. The opinion of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) clearly differs from those who believe that this apology is a "good beginning." Far from it, the material facts of today's conditions and attacks on the rights of migrants and others offer concrete proof that Liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds. CPC(M-L) calls on Canadians to discuss the Trudeau policy of "Strength in Diversity" and reject its attempt to breathe new life into the old Divide and Rule policies. The time to unite the people as one in mighty modern nation-building projects is now. We are inspired by those who have come before us, including the Ghadari Babas who fought for Indian independence and sacrificed their lives fighting the brutal British rule, whether in Canada, India or other countries. We are inspired by those who have come before us throughout the 19th and 20th centuries and today who fought and continue to fight to complete the cause of liberation for which humankind has sacrificed so much.
Notes1. The Komagata Maru was a ship hired by Gurdit Singh, a Hong Kong/Singapore-based businessman and a follower of the Ghadar Party who wanted to circumvent Canadian laws which prohibited entry to Canada except by direct passage. The journey of 376 Indians, 340 of them Sikhs, began from Hong Kong. The Indian community and justice-seeking people in BC waged legal battles and protest meetings to allow the passengers to come ashore and seek refuge. Passengers resisted their conditions, mounting an attack on the police by showering them with lumps of coal and bricks on July 19. 2. This policy led to the sacrifice of thousands of British subjects including some 160,000 Indians in the first and second World Wars, while millions more died in the British-imposed Bengal famine during the war in 1943-44 and hundreds of thousands were slaughtered in the course of repeated uprisings against British rule dating back to 1857. 3. When he delivered the apology in the House of Commons Trudeau did acknowledge that not only Sikhs were on the boat and harmed but others as well. He said: "On May 23, 1914, a steamship sailed into Burrard Inlet in Vancouver. On board were 376 passengers of Sikh, Muslim and Hindu origin." 4. Azeezah Kanji, a legal scholar based in Toronto, authored a most pertinent article in the Toronto Star asking the following question: "Will Canada's Prime Minister 100 years from now find herself apologizing to the descendants of migrants kept out and locked away in the name of preserving the border? Or will our current Prime Minister reform immigration law and policy to protect all those 'seeking refuge, and better lives for their families'" forestalling future shame and remorse?" Kanji provides information on the situation facing migrants today, 102 years later. "Apologies can be a balm for injuries still felt many years after infliction. But apologies can also misleadingly relegate the source of injury to the past, disguising continuities with the present. While the goal of a 'white Canada' has officially been abandoned, the treatment of many migrants as dangerous 'invaders' persists. "Migrants are the only population in Canada that can be incarcerated for long periods of time, without being charged or convicted of any crime; thousands are detained every year, including hundreds of children." Between 2001 and 2012, Canada intercepted over 73,000 migrants offshore, many of whom were likely refugees, Kanji explains. "Many migrants are still treated as dangerous 'invaders,'" Azeezah Kanji, Toronto Star, April 17, 2016. See Renewal Update, May 18, 2016 for more information. Pertinent Facts to Consider when Evaluating the Trudeau Apology for the Komagata Maru Incident1. The apology of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the 1914 Komagata Maru incident follows an apology made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a Surrey park in front of a crowd of 8,000 people, mainly of Punjabi origin on August 3, 2008. Harper was immediately accosted by several activists in the community for not making the apology in the House of Commons. Earlier in May 2008, Harper had made an apology to Canada's Indigenous peoples in the House of Commons saying it was "an important evolution in Canada's relationship with our first peoples." On June 22, 2006 the Harper government gave a "full apology" in the House of Commons for the head tax imposed on Chinese immigrants along with a symbolic repayment of the tax to those who paid it or their widows. Both Harper and Trudeau made their apology or announcement of a pending apology at Vaisakhi public events in Surrey and Ottawa respectively. Media and government identify Vaisakhi as a "Sikh religious holiday." This is not the case. Vaisakhi is marked throughout India by different religions as New Year's Day, which was originally established on the spring equinox in March but evolved through a mixture of calendars to April. The holiday is directly associated with a celebration of harvests and is rooted in the ancient agricultural traditions of the peoples of South Asia. The emphasis of Canadian authorities on religion is a continuation of the British colonial policy of dividing India on a communal, i.e. religious basis. This is worth considering, as the Indian state continues to use communal violence, most often state-incited, to divide the Indian polity and divert the people from uniting to sort out and settle the enormous economic, political and social problems confronting the country. Those problems are deepening as a result of monopoly capitalism and the continued domination of foreign imperialist finance capital on the sub-continent. In addition to those of the Sikh faith aboard the Komagata Maru were Hindu and Moslem pilgrims and importantly Ghadarites fighting for India's freedom from British colonialism. Trudeau's emphasis on Sikhism and wrongs against Sikhs is deliberate and offensive because it represents a continuation of the hated and deadly strategy of imperialism to divide societies on a communal basis to dominate and rob them and keep them enthralled under the rule of finance capital. The emphasis of the ruling elite on a particular religion of those who were victimized on the Komagata Maru is important to think about. The contemporary events and problems in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in Central and West Asia and North Africa are wrongly defined as stemming from "long standing religious differences." In fact, the sectarian divisions in the region are incited, financed and organized by U.S. imperialism and its allies consciously to divide and rule the peoples just as British colonialism did throughout South Asia. The heinous violence of endless war, armed occupation, drone warfare, and indiscriminate bombing etc., which the U.S. imperialists have made commonplace in the targeted countries, is routinely blamed on sectarian "terrorists" of this or that communal group. This divide and rule scenario to excuse war and occupation reached perfidious heights in South Asia by British colonialism, specifically at the end of Lord Mountbatten's rule there, when British police and military forces carried out mass murders to incite the horrific communal bloodshed that occurred in conjunction with dividing the Punjabi and Bengali nations into India and Pakistan. Forced migration accompanied the division with horrible loss of life and property. The British colonialists viewed the slaughter as necessary to preserve "British property rights and influence" in India and divert the peoples from combining their just struggle against colonialism with a broad social-economic revolution to build a new Indian sub-continent to guarantee the rights of all. The hand wringing and the blaming of Canadians for being indifferent or racist are to hide the powerful private interests embedded in government who want the Indigenous communities moved and disappeared from their national territories and dispersed and assimilated elsewhere, so that the mining, forestry and other monopolies can engorge themselves on the natural resources and exploit the territory without restriction. 4. Certain individuals of Punjabi national background have entered the ruling elite occupying leading positions in the state including several cabinet posts in Trudeau's government. This involvement in the Canadian government is a result of the long-standing colonial policy of elite accommodation to undermine the struggle of national minorities for their rights. In the context of geopolitics, it signifies a broadening of the Anglo-U.S. imperialist front to include India as a junior partner. This imperialist alliance forms part of Obama's geopolitical pivot to Asia where the U.S. is moving 60 per cent of its overseas deployed military forces to isolate and impose regime change on China and the DPRK and also to drive a wedge between India and Russia. 5. Canadian workers of Punjabi national origin face the same crises as all workers during the anti-social offensive. The liquidation of manufacturing especially in the BC wood industry has seen thousands of Punjabi and their fellow workers forced out of Canadian-standard unionized jobs into low paying service jobs. Service workers themselves, such as in the taxi industry, face unemployment and competition to drive down their wages in the so-called "shared economy." Workers of Asian origin still find themselves economically segregated in the lowest paying menial jobs, especially women workers relegated to domestic work, the hospitality industry, hospital, office and airport cleaning jobs, senior's care and so forth. 6. The apology and theory behind it, which claims that Canada is now a diversified "post-national" society where everyone feels comfortable with their identity, described mainly as religious and gender identity, is actually an ideology to entrench a highly segregated ghettoized Canada with clear demarcations of class privilege, where rights including the broad public right to have a say and control over those matters that affect people's lives are under siege from the wealth, power and domination of monopoly right. The entire working class is under assault, with living standards constantly under attack and economic security undermined. The old communal and sectarian definitions of rights based on considerations of race, wealth and privilege are finished in modern Canada and must not define what people can and cannot do. The people possess rights by virtue of being human and institutions must be established to provide their rights with a guarantee. Apologies for past wrongdoings that do not lead to modern definitions in practice are deceitful and a fraud. 8. Acknowledging the crimes against the people on the Komagata Maru and the Canadian South Asian community of August 1914, means acknowledging the tasks ahead for their descendants, allies, supporters and broad working class. Together, Canadians can stand together to build a workers' movement around its own agenda and politics, which resolutely upholds modern definitions and the rights of all. The communalist and racist politics of the past cannot be swept under the carpet with hypocrisy and deceit to prettify crimes against the people today. Let Canadians remember the brave participants on the Komagata Maru and emulate their courage and determination by fighting to defend the rights of all and organizing to bring into being a modern Canada based on modern definitions.
Canada's War Government Holds Weapons Fair Close the CANSEC Killer Weapons Bazaar!
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This fight against
state-organized racism continued
throughout the 20th century and marks the development of Canada.
It includes the struggle against the dispossession of the
Japanese through internment in World War II and in the 1960s and
'70s against the racist Indian Act and the Liberals'
racist Green Paper on Immigration. This fight has also been
directed against the state-organized promotion of white
supremacist groups and attempts to "Keep Canada White" by
enforcing the superiority of "European values" and culture, while
"tolerating" and even welcoming "folkloric" and "moderate"
contributions of "others."
The Canadian state escalated its
attacks by joining forces with the Indian state in committing untold
crimes against the youth and people of Punjab in the 1980s. Under the
guise that they were Sikh fundamentalists and terrorists, they were
attacked using fake "encounters" and imprisoned using what came to be
known as "black laws." A massacre of the people took place when Indira
Gandhi invaded the Golden Temple in Amritsar in "Operation Blue Star"
in 1984, and, in 1985, many suffered irreparable losses of family
members when Air India Flight 182 was blown up off the coast of Ireland
(under circumstances that connected spy agencies to the dirty deed). 
2. When Trudeau announced
the apology for the Komagata Maru incident he said he would
make the apology in the House of Commons to the "Sikh" community. He
said
it
was
"not
only
the appropriate action to take, it's the right
action to take, and the House is the appropriate place for it to
happen." This reference as to whom the apology was directed was
corrected in the apology itself.
3. How do the Harper and
Trudeau apologies assist to solve
the problems facing the communities they are addressed to, or
unify the Canadian polity to sort out and solve the problems
facing society? The example of the apology to the Indigenous
community is a most salient example of fraud. Today, the ruling
elite in the state wring their hands at the youth suicides in
Attawapiskat and send in counselors, when the young people
themselves have stated they need sports facilities, schools,
decent housing, and an economy that provides jobs and allows
themselves and their culture to flourish on their national
territory.
7. As Canada approaches the
eve of the 150th anniversary of
Confederation, raising the banner of modern nation-building has
become an essential task. The working class must constitute the
nation and vest sovereignty in the people. The prerogative
arbitrary police powers of the so-called supranational state
dominated by free trade and global monopolies must not be
permitted to define rights, especially in the discredited form of
privileges that can be trampled in the mud without redress.
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The annual CANSEC arms fair hosted by the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries is taking place in Ottawa, May 25 to 26. Demonstrations are being held over three days in Ottawa and on May 25 in Montreal to oppose the war show and express the anti-war stand of Canadians.
CANSEC is one of the largest
weapons fairs in North America and
will host U.S., Canadian and other arms monopolies as well as
representatives of warmongering states. These
include the U.S., UK, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel as well as other
countries infamous for repression against the people including India,
Egypt and Colombia. CANSEC also features
private "meal events featuring senior government and Ministerial-level
speakers." This includes a breakfast on May 26 with a keynote address
by Minister of Defence Harjit Sajjan and a
lunch later that day addressed by Minister of Public Services and
Procurement Judy Foote.
In a communique, Échec à la guerre states, "CANSEC16 will have more than 700 kiosks of the most important arms and 'security' companies in the world, offering their wares of destruction, death, intimidation and surveillance to more than 11,000 delegates and 61 foreign delegations. The major sponsors of the trade show include CAE and Bombardier, as well as the Canadian Commercial Corporation which brokered the sale of 'light armoured vehicles' to Saudi Arabia." Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion has signed off on export permits to ship $11 billion worth of the $15 billion vehicle sale to Saudi Arabia negotiated by the Harper government in 2014.
Homes not Bombs, one of the organizers of the actions of the people against CANSEC points out:
"In addition to welcoming the world's leading weapons manufacturers, CANSEC will also host companies that profit from border controls, militarization of police forces, refugee interdiction, the prison-industrial complex, and mass surveillance. It's a toxic gathering celebrating repression, racism, and war."
Participating this year will be 331 exhibitors, close to 400 participants from the Canadian government and armed forces, six cabinet ministers and 76 representatives of foreign states. CANSEC says that 846 "business development" meetings are expected to take place over the two days.
The Trudeau war government will send representatives from the Canadian Commercial Corporation; Global Affairs Canada; the Department of National Defence; Defence Research and Development Canada; Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (formerly Industry Canada); and Public Works and Government Services Canada. The "Government of Canada Pavilion" is divided into three sections: the "Defence Research and Development Zone," the "Selling to Canada Zone" and the "Defence Export Zone."
Homes not Bombs notes:
"Despite a change in government, the Canadian warfare state continues undisturbed, and even better served by the Liberals, who have signed off on a $15 billion sale of killer armoured brigade vehicles to the leading beheading regime of the world, Saudi Arabia (which is also committing horrific war crimes against the people of Yemen). Meantime, the Canadian weapons industry continues to supply the world's leading sponsor of state terrorism, the U.S., to the tune of billions annually. Justin Trudeau and Stéphane Dion have sent a clear message to the death merchants of Canada: carry on as you did under Harper, and don't mind our occasional human rights rhetoric. It won't apply to Canadian weapons dealers whose bottom line relies on the overseas market of supplying the tools of torture and terrorism to dictatorships and juntas, as well as those 'democracies' that support them.
"And so it falls once again to people like us to say NO to the weapons trade. That NO must NOT be a call for 'export controls' or 'arms control' or 'weapons limitations,' but a clear and precise demand for the only thing that makes sense: disarmament. One way to stop mass murder, carpet bombing, and other atrocities is for Canada to stop producing the tools of terrorism. In addition, anyone concerned with climate change recognizes that one of the world's worst emissions producers are global military forces, which remain exempt from climate change agreements."
The Unbearable Lightness of Stéphane Dion
At the end of May, the Trudeau team and, specifically, its piffle of a global affairs minister, Stéphane Dion, will likely fail two significant foreign policy tests that will challenge their ability to comply with domestic and international law. One deals with an individual war criminal, while the other is a massive terrorism and torture trade show coming to Ottawa.
On May 26, a man responsible
for complicity in horrific war
crimes, Henry Kissinger, will arrive in Toronto, along with
another similarly shady character, Shimon Peres, to speak at the
incredibly named Spirit of Hope gathering of the Friends of the
Simon Wiesenthal Centre. (Readers of this column may recall the
shameless selfies with Kissinger recently taken and promoted by
Liberal cabinet ministers Mélanie Joly and Navdeep Bains, which
proved hugely insulting to Kissinger's victims.)
Apparently, the folks at the Wiesenthal Centre -- who built a reputation on hunting down Nazis -- are willing to overlook Kissinger's bloody past, including collusion with ex-Nazis to discuss the potential overthrow of the West German government in the 1970s. The ball is now in Stéphane Dion's court: he has an opportunity to prevent Kissinger from entering the country given the very reasonable suspicion that the former U.S. Secretary of State is complicit in war crimes. But will he uphold the law, or continue the old line of Liberal pusillanimity?
The last time the Liberals faced the Kissinger test, in 1999, they failed. At the time, a Toronto-based group, Kissinger Out of Canada, implored then external affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy to exercise his powers under the Canada War Crimes Act to either keep Kissinger from entering the country or, preferably, to arrest him under the aid and abet section of the Act.
Axworthy Fails Legal Test
At the time, the always self-regarding Axworthy was bouncing about with his own ideas of "humanitarian interventionism" and "responsibility to protect" (two concepts that put a smiley face on carpet-bombing other countries), declaring: "Ultimately, the only way you are going to get people to stop committing atrocities is if they recognize that someday, somewhere, some place, they will be held accountable for them." But Axworthy refused to act. Members of Kissinger Out of Canada were thus left with no option but to attempt a citizen's arrest of the war criminal, but before they could complete their mission, Toronto police arrested four members of the group. It was only seven months after Kissinger came and went that Axworthy bothered to respond to the group's correspondence, commending the group for its concern about war crimes but scolding them that "Canada does not regard [Kissinger] as a war criminal."
At the time Axworthy was
dispensing with the Kissinger
matter, he was experiencing one of his many dissociative moments,
ignoring his high-fallutin' words about stopping atrocities by
refusing to cancel previously signed export permits for the
brutal Suharto regime in Indonesia, which was ramping up its
decades-long genocidal war against the people of East Timor. At a
time when even the U.S. and EU had stopped weapons shipments,
Axworthy soldiered on. It was another example of Liberal
obeisance to the war industry and militarism, whose long history
includes Lester Pearson campaigning to bring nuclear weapons to
Canada and Trudeau Senior paying for the construction and testing
of cruise missiles in Canada. More recently, it's been exhibited
by Dion's refusal to recognize clearly documented war crimes
being committed by the Saudi regime in Yemen. Dion assured
himself that the $15 billion in Canadian-produced war equipment
-- set to roll off the assembly line at London's General Dynamics
plant -- would not be used for war-like purposes, and signed the
export permits for the armoured brigade vehicles that are mounted
with 105 mm cannons.
While the Liberals (and, to their discredit, the NDP) campaigned on a refusal to cancel what they said was a done deal consummated by Harper's Conservatives, they clearly lied. The deal had not been signed off by Harper, and so there was, in fact, an opportunity for Dion to stop the sale in light of evidence that continues to show the Saudi regime not only commits gross human rights violations, but also supports the very forces Canada has publicly pledged to fight in Syria and Iraq. In what Prime Minister Trudeau said was a question of "principle," Dion put his own signature to the deal earlier this month, just two weeks after he broke bread at the Saudi embassy during a fundraiser for the United Way of Ottawa. It is not clear whether the United Way rejected the blood money or simply accepted it as the cost of doing business in a scary world.
Terrorism Trade Show
And so, while the London, Ontario plant will start rolling out its killer vehicles (which Trudeau calls "jeeps" and former foreign affairs minister John Manley names "fancy trucks,"), it is unlikely that Dion will do anything to put a halt to the massive terrorism and torture trade show called CANSEC16 taking place at Ottawa's EY Centre on May 25 and 26. This annual gathering of Canada's war industry, along with companies that profit from mass surveillance, border control, militarization of police forces, and refugee interdiction, expects over 11,000 visitors and 61 international delegations.
Given the nature of the times -- when sunny ways means we don't brag about our blood-stained hands, the way the Harper government might have done -- CANSEC has ceased boasting (as it has in past years) about the international heavyweights who will be perusing the latest technology of mass murder. The optics of welcoming the Saudis publicly will not play particularly well.
CANSEC annually hosts international
delegations in
co-operation with the Canadian Commercial Corporation, with the
beheading capital of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, heading the
list. Other regular violators of human rights who were officially
touted as 2015 guests included Bahrain (according to Amnesty
International, "Children are being routinely detained,
ill-treated and tortured in Bahrain"), Kuwait (repression of
women, torture), Israel (well documented by the Public Committee
Against Torture in Israel, as well as war crimes documented by
Amnesty International), Mexico (the use of torture has grown by
600 per cent in the last decade), Oman (Human Rights Watch
reports "rights routinely trampled" and where "Torture has become
the state's knee-jerk response to political expression"), United
Arab Emirates (where torture is commonplace with as many as 75
per cent of detainees experiencing abuse), United Kingdom
(intensely complicit in the rendition to torture program) and
United States (U.S. Senate reports on "ruthless" brutality in its
"war on terror").
As host country of CANSEC, Canada is also complicit in the torture of its own citizens (as established by two separate judicial inquiries as well as Supreme Court and Federal Court decisions) as well as deportation to torture.
The show will be attended by War Minister Harjit Sajjan, who will no doubt speak to the Liberals' goal of a leaner, meaner military, while continuing to fund war to the tune of over $20 billion annually. Show participants will also likely discuss plans to bring more war training and development to the National Capital Region. Indeed, now under consideration is a move of weapons training facilities from Cold Lake, Alberta to areas north of Ottawa in traditional, unceded Algonquin territories. But in a classic case of undermining the respectful "nation to nation relationship" that Trudeau keeps promising to eventually deliver, Colonel Mike Barker of the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment, currently based in Alberta, enthuses that testing guided bombs and blowing up stuff just north of Ottawa would be perfect, because "You don't have to go very far north of Ottawa before there is a lot of nothing." Other than, of course, Indigenous people living on lands never ceded to the Crown. It's the colonial continuation of the historic Terra Nullius (the idea that these lands were empty when colonizers showed up on these shores).
Irresponsible Conviction
All this is justified under what Dion calls his policy of "responsible conviction," a twisted bit of illogic he defended in a truly bizarre March 29 speech. Dion speaks of Canada contributing to "a more peaceful and prosperous world," one that respects human rights, and specifically the rights of women and refugees (two groups disproportionately victimized by the manufacturers and purchasers of CANSEC war gear). Under Dion's mantra, it is good to stand for what is ethically right, except when the market dictates something else. Hence, Dion attacks pacifists in his doctrine, for these "advocates of non-violence at all times" do not show the kind of "responsibility" that Dion thinks world players should exercise.
In a fine example of his facile grasp on the events of world history, Dion opines in classic colonial style that "although Gandhi's pacifism delivered results in the face of a British democracy that doubted the legitimacy of its empire, it obviously would have had disastrous results in the face of Hitler's army." Here Dion plays the role of obfuscatory, insidious intellectual: what evidence does he have in hand that the British "doubted the legitimacy of its empire" when its proud global reign ("the sun never sets on the British empire") was so clearly relished by its colonial masters and beneficiaries? Then Dion has the gall to throw in the classic non-argument that Gandhi would not have succeeded if the Brits weren't such nice and noble fellows, thereby erasing the courage and ingenuity of the Indian people who won an end to British control through decades of organizing and sacrifice. Dion also ignores that the British committed mass atrocities against the people of India during the liberation campaign, most notably at Amritsar, when British troops opened fire on peaceful demonstrators, murdering over 1,000 people and wounding countless more.
As The Independent reports:
"When Mahatma Gandhi launched his campaign of peaceful resistance, [Winston] Churchill raged that he 'ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back.' As the resistance swelled, he announced: 'I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.' This hatred killed. To give just one, major, example, in 1943 a famine broke out in Bengal, caused -- as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved -- by the imperial policies of the British. Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for 'breeding like rabbits.' At other times, he said the plague was 'merrily' culling the population."
Churchill certainly never doubted the white supremacist legitimacy of the empire. But Dion's approach to the world is reminiscent of the country music song, "You Can Feel Bad If It Makes You Feel Better." Dion is a reluctant empire enthusiast, a white colonial saviour who feels qualms about it every once in a while. Indeed, his doctrine clearly states on numerous occasions that it shares "the same conviction as the previous government," but just uses different means of achieving the same brutal goals.
Dion Fails History
Dion is also wrong about the course of history. As has been documented time and again, in many instances where mass nonviolent resistance was employed against the Nazi regime, the peaceful approach in fact worked. As documented by the likes of Gene Sharp and Erica Chenoweth, nonviolence works equally well against dictators and democrats because it is about disarming power and removing the consent of the governed. Perhaps Dion is unfamiliar with the mass refusal of Norwegian teachers to introduce Nazi ideology or the remarkable story of the Berlin Wives who, in the middle of the war, stared down the Gestapo, occupying a major square until their Jewish husbands were returned to them.
But Dion and his Liberals are not going to be slaves to the facts when they are twisting themselves like pretzels to justify the unjustifiable. "Of course, I would like to live in a world without weapons," the guilty Dion moans, playing the role of innocent Canadian abroad in a world of malevolent actors. "But my peaceful conviction must take the real world into account if I want to be a responsible decision maker."
Dion feels badly about colluding with brutal killers, but being the responsible realist, he says one must hold one's nose and proceed thusly:
"We take no more joy than our conservative friends in keeping open channels with authoritarian regimes. Of course, we would like it if the world were made up of nothing but exemplary democracies. But our world is highly imperfect, and to improve it we must engage in it with our eyes open, not withdraw from it. The consequences of withdrawal are not good for anyone."
Again, Dion, who has for some reason acquired the reputation as a deep-thinking academic, ignores history. Apartheid in South Africa came to an end through a combination of the heroic resistance of its population as well as international isolation via trade sanctions. Would Dion have kept the weapons and oil flowing to the apartheid regime in South Africa, as Canada continues to do with the Israeli apartheid regime? Apparently so.
In addition, Dion refuses to recognize the fact that, if the world is a scary place, it is partly due to the role played by this country's policies, from the export of weapons and the destruction wrought by the nation's mining industries on Indigenous lands at home and abroad, to the unceasing support for coups and dictatorships from Haiti and Honduras to Egypt and Syria (yes, Canada's state security agencies used Syria's dungeons as a convenient drop-off point for torturing Canadian citizens).
Canadian complicity in atrocities abroad was recently illustrated once more in the murder of Indigenous leader Berta Cáceres in Honduras. "Sunny ways" Canadian officials confirmed they were "troubled" by her murder and that of her colleague Nelson García, and offered their condolences. But Cáceres' family rejected those empty condolences, and as the indefatigable group Rights Action points out:
"Since supporting the coup in 2009, the Canadian government has maintained full political relations with the post-coup regimes, turning a blind eye to widely documented State repression, corruption and impunity, while working actively (including the signing of a "Free Trade" Agreement with the regime) to expand Canadian investments in Honduras in the areas of mining, hydro-electric dam construction, tourism, maquiladora sweatshops, etc."
Such details do not make it into Dion's world of responsible conviction. They are simply "real-world" conditions that idealists must accommodate to get along.
And so, as thousands of weapons buyers descend on CANSEC, it seems clear that Dion, who commits himself to the notion that "Canada must be a fair-minded and determined peace builder," will not be among the protesters gathered at the entrance to the arms bazaar. But you can be part of the protests that day if you live in the area, or you can organize one at one of the many hundreds of weapons companies across the land. Things will get underway in Ottawa on Tuesday, May 24 at 5 p.m. with a War Criminals Welcoming Walk that tours the hotels packing in CANSEC guests, to be followed by a 7:30 a.m. - 1 p.m. protest at the CANSEC gates on May 25. Details and more information are available from Homes not Bombs at tasc@web.ca.
Matthew Behrens is a freelance writer and social justice advocate who co-ordinates the Homes not Bombs non-violent direct action network. He has worked closely with the targets of Canadian and U.S. 'national security' profiling for many years.
(rabble.ca, April 28, 2016)
Canadians in Action in Defence of Rights at Home and Abroad
Commemoration of 68th Anniversary of Al-Nakba
Montreal, May 14, 2016
Canadians commemorated the 68th anniversary of Al-Nakba ("catastrophe") with rallies, vigils, discussions, film screenings and other events.
A militant march was held in
Montreal on May 14 to demand an
end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the right of return
of all those displaced since 1948 and the right of the
Palestinians to resist the criminal and brutal occupation.
Speakers at the action denounced Zionist organizations like B'nai
B'rith for attempting to cover up Israel's racism and state
terrorism against the Palestinians through the disinformation
that opposition to Zionism and the occupation is equivalent
to anti-Semitism.
In Mississauga, hundreds of people filled Celebration
Square,
where they unfurled a 68-metre Palestinian flag at an event
organized by the National Committee to Commemorate the Nakba 68
-- Toronto. Participants lifted it high, forming a chain on both
sides and marched around the Square chanting Viva Viva
Palestina!; Free Free Palestine!; Gaza, Gaza, don't
you cry, Palestine will never die! and other slogans. Youth and
students spoke out to contrast Israel's celebration of its
so-called independence day to Al-Nakba, when the Palestinian people
the world over mourn the loss of their homeland and reaffirm
their right of return. Speakers declared the people will never
give up their resistance to Israeli brutality nor give up their
just right of return. They called on everyone to continue to
retell the Palestinian narrative, ensuring that the message is
never diminished until their legitimate rights are achieved. They
concluded that the people will never stop until all Palestinian
refugees can return to their homeland.
Mississauga, May 15, 2016
Note
For more information about the Nakba, see TML Weekly, May 14, 2016 - No. 20.
Opposition to Coup d'Etat in Brazil
Toronto, May 16, 2016
Demonstrations have taken place in Canada to oppose the
coup against the government of President Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. An
emergency demonstration was
held at the Human Rights Monument in Ottawa on May 11, the day the
Brazilian Senate voted to continue impeachment proceedings
against Rousseff.
Ottawa, May 11, 2016
In Toronto, on May 16, a
militant demonstration was held in
front of the Brazilian consulate to condemn the fraudulent
suspension of Rousseff and the new coup government of Michel
Temer. Speaker after speaker exposed the fact that the
impeachment of President Rousseff on bogus charges was actually a
coup by parliamentary means and was in no way a democratic
process representing the will of the people. On the contrary,
they said, the forces behind the coup have no mandate from the
people to block the program of the elected government.
A woman from Brazil spoke about the harsh conditions during the 21-year dictatorship in Brazil that followed the 1964 military coup, and that Brazilians have tremendous pride in what they have achieved since that period ended to build their democracy and a society that meets their needs. She spoke with great conviction that the people will never return to the past and will fight to ensure that the coup does not pass. The organizers of the rally declared that the struggle is just beginning and encouraged everyone to continue to participate in actions to support the legitimate government of President Rousseff and the Brazilian people.
Monthly Pickets Demand End to
U.S. Blockade of Cuba
Toronto
April 16, 2016
Ottawa
April 17, 2016
May 17, 2016
Vancouver
April 17, 2016
May 17, 2016
(Photos: TML, A. Yerevani, Vancouver Communities in Solidarity with Cuba)
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Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca