By Mohsen Pakaein
The Canadian army is known among the armies of the world as an institution that intervenes in the internal affairs of other countries and is a partner in the crimes of the armed forces of the United States, Britain and the Zionist regime in different parts of the world.
The Canadian armed forces are divided into three main branches, including land, sea and air forces, and have 64,000 active military forces and about 26,000 reserve forces. Some of the criminal involvements of this army in other countries are as follows.
1. In 2001, the Canadian army accepted America’s invitation to war with Afghanistan and, under the guise of NATO’s international security forces, participated in the occupation of Afghanistan and caused the hatred and disgust of the Afghan people. A Canadian writer named Michael Keefer, a graduate of the Canadian Military College, who usually writes about crimes against humanity, in an article entitled Canada’s Shameful Legacy of Torture in Afghanistan, which was published for the first time on several Canadian websites in April 2011, acknowledged the involvement of the Canadian army in torturing the Afghan people and wrote: “In Afghanistan, Canadian soldiers and our military and political commanders are involved in torture.” In part of this article, we can read:
“I write out of anger; my anger is first because of Canada’s involvement in an illegal war and military occupation, and my deeper anger because of the way the war was waged, which was based on torture. Canadian soldiers and our military and political leaders were involved in torture. Prime Minister Harper was able to shut down the scandal of this dirty war by shutting down the Military Police Complaints Commission and suspending Parliament. Now, after a decade, the illegality and dirtiness of the war in Afghanistan, which led to the deaths of 350 Canadians between 2001 and 2014, has been revealed. Countless Afghans suffered, were injured, and died because of the presence of the Canadian military.”
Witness statements, notes and articles about Canada’s violent actions against the Afghan people, which are referred to as “crimes against humanity”, are abundant. In 2005, Eileen Oleksiuk, the second secretary of the Canadian Embassy in Kabul, conveyed her concerns about the torture and killing of detainees to the government of then-Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, but her messages were ignored. In December 2009, lawyers from the anti-war organization (LAW) wrote an open letter to the Special Committee of the National Assembly on the killing and torture by Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan, noting that torture included the pulling out of fingernails and toenails, burning with hot oil, and beatings. At that time, Asadullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar province, who was widely involved in terrorist acts, corruption, drug trafficking and direct torture, was supported by the Canadian military. He only retained his position thanks to the intervention of senior Canadian military officials.
2. The second British war with the Boers, that is the natives of South Africa between October 11, 1899 and May 31, 1902, led to the first official sending of the Canadian army to an overseas war. “Boer” literally means farmer, and the Dutch immigrants based in South Africa gave this nickname to the black “Boers”. After the discovery of gold in the Transvaal one of the cities of South Africa, thousands of British citizens entered this area to work in the gold mines. And they exploited the natives. The Boers, who saw this, made the conditions difficult for them by imposing taxes on foreign nationals and British companies, and this caused the British to attack the Boers. At this point, the Canadian army supported the British and entered the war against the Boers and committed war crimes.
According to the report of the Canadian War Museum, during the three years of the war, more than 7,000 Canadians fought alongside the British, and when they were not opposed to the Boer guerrillas, they attacked the civilians who were deprived of food, water and housing. Canadian soldiers burned the houses and farms of the Boers and captured the civilians and subjected them to torture and rape. In the dirty camps of the Canadians, about 28,000 prisoners died of disease. They lost themselves, most of them were women, children and black workers, and with this harsh approach, the Boers finally accepted the defeat. In this war, which was a clear example of genocide, 267 Canadians were also killed, and later many memories about the crimes were published.
3. In 1992, during the civil war in Somalia, the United Nations sent a part of NATO forces, including Canadian forces, to Somalia for the so-called “Operation Restore Hope”. After being stationed at the “CFB Petawawa” base, Canadian forces installed signs of white supremacy over blacks in their workplace in a racist act. This act, which was presented as a scandal in the media, caused the NATO inspectors to remove signs of racism and to retire several military officers. But this situation continued and the Canadian soldiers, with a racist approach, harassed the black natives and shot them for no reason; even strange bets were made by the Canadian soldiers on how to kill Somali blacks. The media reported many times that Australian soldiers have tortured civilians in Somalia. In one case, the images of which were widely published by the media, Canadian military forces harassed and tortured a 16-year-old teenager, killed him and took his body with him. They took pictures. According to the New York Times, these photos, which were also presented in the military court, confirmed that on March 16, 1993, Canadian soldiers arrested a young man named “Shidan Aaron”, took him to the military base and held him for several hours. They were brutally beaten and sexually assaulted. Sheedan’s story is the most brutal document of human rights abuses by the Canadian military to be published by the media, while most similar abuses are hidden from the media and not allowed to be traced.
Regarding the similar crimes of the Canadian army in the First and Second World Wars, the Korean War and the Gaza War, many evidences, documents and articles have been written, the description of which is beyond the scope of this article.
Now that the Canadian government, in a hostile act and contrary to international standards, has put the name of the largest anti-terrorist organization in the world, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), in the list of terrorism, it is appropriate to collect documents about the numerous crimes committed by the Canadian army in different regions of the world And put the name of this anti-human organization in the list of war criminals and terrorists and treat the Canadian army as terrorists are treated.
