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The Current Transcript for July 18, 2018

Host: Duncan McCue

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

Why 'treason' doesn't quite describe Trump's actions in Helsinki

Guests: David Corn, Carlton Larson

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Former CIA Director John Brennan just tweeted and I quote "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. It was nothing short of treasonous."

DUNCAN MCCUE: Treason. It's a popular word these days. After U.S. President Donald Trump implied that he sided with Russia, over his own intelligence officials at Monday's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he backtracked yesterday and now says he accepts that Russia may have meddled in the 2016 U.S. election. But then he muddied the waters more. The fallout from Trump's comments in Helsinki continues. But should Donald Trump be lumped in with the likes of Benedict Arnold? And is there a danger when the "T" word gets bandied about in political discourse? Tackling Trump and treason is first up. Then...

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VOICE 1: We were chained to the floor and exposed to the sun, rain, and sea water. We couldn't sleep because we were cold.

VOICE 2: And with each passing day our worries grew, because we didn't know what happened to us.

DM: That's how men accused of drug smuggling described their treatment aboard U.S. Coast Guard vessels, after being detained at high seas. Allegations of mistreatment so brutal that some call the anti-smuggling vessels "Floating Guantanamo's" and Canada may be complicit. In half an hour, we'll revisit an investigation by journalists at the Investigative Fund and The Current, that revealed Canadian military officials knew about allegations of detainee abuse aboard Coast Guard cutters. As a result of our documentary, Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association are calling on Canada's defense minister for answers.

SOUNDCLIP

We've raised these concerns because it is troubling to see the reports of how people have been treated and the likelihood that there is some degree of Canadian involvement.

DM: We'll explain how the Canadian Navy and Air force played a role intercepting drug smugglers at sea in our documentary, The Catch. I am Duncan McCue and this is the summer edition of The Current.

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VOICE 1: You had a one word reaction to what you saw yesterday, Treason.

VOICE 2: Treason, yeah.

GROUP: Traitor, traitor, traitor.

VOICE 3: Tonight in San Francisco some protestors are calling the President, a traitor.

VOICE 4: But it almost feels like treason, is too weak a word, because the whole thing has taken on an air of such unreality.

VOICE 5: If you're wondering whether or not Vladimir Putin has an incriminating video of Donald Trump, we now know beyond a treasonable doubt, that he does.

DM: From protest to punchlines, Americans were using a remarkable word this week in reference to their President, treason. In fact according to dictionary maker Merriam Webster, treason and traitor, were the most looked up words online in the hours after U.S. President Donald Trump's extraordinary press conference in Helsinki, Finland on Monday. Standing beside Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Mr. Trump seemed to side with Russia, over his own intelligence agencies on the question of meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Well he has since backtracked somewhat, saying that he misspoke. The president's critics and members of his own Republican Party say the Commander in Chief has betrayed his own country. When it comes to treason, Donald Trump is not unfamiliar with the word. He invoked it against Democrats in Congress who didn't applaud his State of the Union address.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Somebody said treasonous. I mean, yeah I guess why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean they certainly didn't seem to love our country very much.

DM: But treason of course is a very serious allegation. Joining us to talk about whether it is appropriate to use is David Corn. He is the co-author of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. He is also Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones magazine. We have reached him there. Hello.

DAVID CORN: Good morning.

DM: Traitorous. Treacherous. Treasonous. How would you describe the President's behavior?

DAVID CORN: Well I've said it has been an act of betrayal since the campaign, when he started colluding with Russia. Now I am not saying colluding in the attack itself, but he began colluding by denying it was happening, even after it was clear it was, even after he had been briefed by U.S. intelligence during the summer of 2016 that Russia was behind the operation targeting Democrats. So he sort of got into bed that way by accepting and spreading Russian disinformation. Disinformation, was that we are not doing this, and thereby helping Putin attack the United States. So that certainly is betraying your country's interests. You know whether you call it treason or not, which to me is a more loaded word.

DM: Well there are an awful lot of people that are using that word now though. So why do you think more commentators are using it?

DAVID CORN: Because I think what they saw this week was a shocking event. Particularly for people who have not been paying close attention or Republicans who have been trying to deny, this is going on. They saw the President of United States standing next to the man who ordered, according to his own government, order an attack on the United States, and he was basically providing cover for him. It wasn't just that he said he tells me he did not do it. Maybe he's right. He was out there providing cover for this.

DM: What did you think of President Trump's clarification yesterday? He said he misspoke, when he said there was no reason to think Russia was interfering in the U.S. election.

DAVID CORN: Well that was an absurd response. He meant to say "wouldn't" when he said "would." But that makes no sense with the rest of the statement he made. Middle of the road commentators now calling that perhaps the biggest lie of his presidency. No one buys that unless you are point of the Trump cult or you have a reason to buy it. So I don't think that really does anything. And he still could not really walk this back because he said I accept this but it could had been other people too. So he can't bring himself to say that Putin did this, because that wasn't part of the statement either. And to say it's clear this is what happened. And not to criticize you or others who use the word "meddling" but it's not meddling. This was intervention. This was information warfare. In the book that I wrote with Michael Isikoff, we described how for years Putin had basically come up with a strategy of asymmetrical warfare against the West that included information operations and cyber-attacks. So Trump has never fully acknowledged what happened and who is behind it. And I think this week was a clarifying moment. He didn't say anything that he hadn't said before. But in that environment, in that setting, I think it did shock many Americans, even members of his own party.

DM: I mean it shocked folks around the world. I mean headlines around the world were using these words: Traitor. Treachery. Treason. How does it feel as an American to have that said about your head of state?

DAVID CORN: Well from my perspective you know I've been saying this or something like this for almost two years now. It's an extreme situation. It doesn't feel stable. It doesn't feel secure. How does it feel to be a Canadian and look at what he has said about Justin Trudeau? And about our alliance? I mean I think Americans look at Canada as our closest ally, but he does not behave that way. So I think there is profound issues and challenges and problems now, that involving national security with this man running the U.S. government. And it's very hard to escape that. It sounds hyperbolic. You have people out there you know like John Brennan and other members of the intelligence community, who have spent decades being trained not to say much in public. You know to be very moderate. And now they're talking about the President of the United States as if he is an asset of a former foreign government and raising very serious insignificant questions. It does not feel good.

DM: As we heard in our intro though. I mean Trump doesn't shy from the word treason either.

DAVID CORN: Oh no no no. He is the bully. We've all grown up with people like this. Who says whatever he wants. He encouraged violence at his campaign rally. He calls everybody else names. Made fun of what candidates looked like. And says everybody else has a low IQ. But as soon as someone challenges him, he says that's unfair.

DM: You've been digging into the issue of collusion with Russia for a long time. How convincing is the evidence that Donald Trump is working in conjunction with a foreign power in your view?

DAVID CORN: Well I think in terms of working with Putin, to make this go away, the evidence is strong. He has been doing this since the beginning. I don't think anyone believes that Donald Trump sat down with the 12 indicted Russian military intelligence officers and told them how to hack the Democratic Party computer servers and what information to release. But we do know, his top advisers, his son, his son in law and his campaign manager who is now in jail, Paul Manafort, met with a Russian after being told it was part of a Kremlin plot to help Trump. So he also throughout the campaign with actions like that and trying to set up a backchannel communication with Putin's office, which his campaign tried to do, sent a signal to Moscow that they did not mind that Russia was attacking and hacking the election to his benefit. And of course he publicly called for Russia to hack Hillary Clinton to try to find emails she had destroyed years ago. So there is that degree of collusion. It's not sitting down and plotting out the details, but it's telling Russia, we don't mind you are doing this and even encouraging Russia to do it and then covering up for Russia when it happens.

DM: Yesterday he offered a sort of a clarification. One of the rare instances that he's actually admitted that he made a mistake. Is there any indication that his supporters are starting to turn on him given what happened in Helsinki?

DAVID CORN: Well it's too early to see if voters out there will really respond to this and change their mind. Trump voters that is. You do see a lot of unease amongst Republicans in Washington who were more vociferous in their criticism of his performance than others. But then as soon as he made that kind of phony statement yesterday, a few came rushing back and saying we accept his clarification. So we don't know yet whether this week, is an inflection point. Whether it really changes something. We have an election coming up in November for Congressional and Senate seats. Right now it doesn't look good for Republicans. And the wind is against them. An issue is whether the events of the past few days makes that wind a bit stronger.

DM: Thank you for joining us.

DAVID CORN: My pleasure.

DM: David Corn, is the Washington bureau chief with Mother Jones. We reached him in Washington D.C. Treason may have been on the lips of many commentators and pundits, but as you heard from David Corn its legal definition is quite narrow. Carlton Larson, is one of America's leading experts on treason. He's a professor of constitutional law and legal history at the University of California, Davis. And he's currently working on a book about treason. He joins us from Davis, California. Hello.

CARLTON LARSON: Good morning.

DM: What do you make of my previous guest David Corn's argument that Trump's behaviour may not have reached the legal threshold for treason, but it's still fair to call him a traitor.

CARLTON LARSON: I think that's largely right. I would probably use a term, a person who has betrayed the country. One of the problems is that treason is both a colloquial meaning, in the sense that a person who betrays a country, and then a very precise legal meaning at least under American law. So it's quite possible to betray the country, to put other country's interests ahead of our own, and to do things that severely undermine the country without technically being a traitor.

DM: How is treason defined in U.S. law?

CARLTON LARSON: So it's actually written into our constitution. It's in Article 3. It's the only crime defined in the constitution itself and it's limited to levying war against the United States or adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. And those terms I think are also in Canadian law because they ultimately derive from the English statute of treason of 1351.

DM: Why was the definition of treason so narrowly defined?

CARLTON LARSON: Well I think the founders of our constitution were familiar with the abuse of treason law as a tool of oppression by governments. There's a phrase from one of the founders about that the fighters for liberty are the chief martyrs of treason all throughout the world. And as people who had committed acts of treason against Great Britain themselves. You know the revolution itself was an act of treason. You know they were fully aware of the consequences of certain types of actions.

DM: So what do you make of the fact that people like John Brennan, I mean the former director of the CIA, has been describing Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin as treasonous.

CARLTON LARSON: Yeah, so I mean I think it's perfectly understandable given the lack of a good word to describe behavior like Trump's. That the most natural word to fall on, when you see the president doing what he did, is treason. In its sort of colloquial sense. So I understand why Brennan said that. It was so outrageous, so completely out of the norm of American presidency, that this is the word that comes most naturally to mind. I am not sure Brennan necessarily meant it as a specific criminal charge that Trump had committed. A treasonous offense. He said it in an context partially of high crimes and misdemeanors, which is the standard for impeachment. And I think there is a strong argument to what Trump did is impeachable, even if it's not a crime.

DM: If special counsel Robert Mueller, does show that President Trump or those in his campaign worked with Russia to influence the election, would that be treason?

CARLTON LARSON: No. So the standard for dealing with a foreign country is adhering to an enemy. Giving them aid and comfort. And we have filed 400 years of judicial interpretations of the term enemy under treason law, and they all consistently say that for a foreign country to be an enemy there has to be a state of open war between the two countries. There's simply no state of open war between the United States and Russia, even if they are messing with us. As they appear to have done. We're just not at war with Russia.

DM: Are there some actual cases of treason in United States history that would help give us some context here?

CARLTON LARSON: Well the only cases that have arisen, where there have been actual charges of aiding the enemy, have been situations where the war is very clear. So there were cases out of World War Two. Out of World War One. I think there is some charges brought during the War of 1812. Before the constitution of course, during the American Revolution. And most recently the only person indicted for treason in the last 50 years, in the United States, was Adam Gadahn, who was indicted for serving as an al-Qaeda spokesperson. And the argument there was, we're clearly at war with al-Qaeda even though they are not a nation state, there are still an enemy for purposes of treason law.

DM: President Trump has accused the US media of being enemies of the people. He has accused Democrats of being disloyal to the United States. In that sense, I wonder has the president himself made it easier for his opponents to start using the term treason?

CARLTON LARSON: Oh sure I mean when the president says things like that, it's utterly inappropriate. It is beneath a president of the United States. And it sort of pollutes our political dialogue. To call political opponents traitors, that's sort of just a standard move where you think that because they have a different view of what the country should be, they therefore must somehow be an enemy of the country and that is simply false. And one would hope their president would understand that.

DM: What's the danger of accusing someone of treason? If the label doesn't actually fit in a strict legal definition.

CARLTON LARSON: Well I mean if you are using it and you sort of mean it as a crime, you're saying that they have committed the worst crime known to the law. Formally treason is considered even worse than murder, because it means that you're bringing destruction on your entire country. The capital offense in the United States is you get a death penalty for this. So when you say that somebody has committed that extraordinarily odious offence, you are really tarring them as a person utterly beneath contempt. You probably have to die and I don't think that's healthy.

DM: You spoke earlier about the legal definition of treason, but times have changed since that definition was drafted. I mean in an era of electronic hacking and online influence campaigns that can penetrate borders virtually rather than with an army. What about the argument that the definition of treason needs to be updated?

CARLTON LARSON: Well I've heard that argument quite a bit. One of the problems is because it's actually written into our Constitution, the only way to really update it is to amend the U.S. Constitution and that is quite hard because it requires a two thirds vote of both houses of Congress. And a vote of three quarters of the state legislatures. So amendments have actually been very rare in the United States history, there have only been 27 of them since 1789. 10 of them were our first Bill of Rights. Three of them took us to the war. And many of the other are sort of minor technical amendments. So the likelihood of that happening is fairly low. The good thing is that just because something can't be punished as treason, doesn't mean that they can't be punished for something else. So usually we have a whole array of other laws including laws that prohibit foreign countries from interfering with our elections and those laws can be readily enforced against people who commit those types of violations.

DM: It does seem that the fall out is continuing about Donald Trump's comments this week. What would you say to the next pundit or politician who uses the term treason to make a political point?

CARLTON LARSON: I think they should be somewhat careful in what you say. If you want to say that Trump is morally a traitor. I think that's fine. I'll just make it clear that he is not probably legally a traitor.

DM: Well thank you for your analysis on this.

CARLTON LARSON: Sure.

DM: Carlton Larson is a professor of constitutional law and legal history at the University of California, Davis. And we reached him in Davis, California. The CBC News is next and then U.S. Coast Guard ships have been described as "Floating Guantanamo's." For the way they catch and detain suspected drug smugglers at sea. Our documentary, The Catch, raise questions about Canadian complicity in their abusive practices and has prompted the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and Amnesty International Canada to demand answers from the minister of defense. We're revisiting that documentary in our next half hour. I am Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Human rights groups want Canada to respond to alleged mistreatment of drug smugglers at sea

Guests: Alex Neve

DM: I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

The haul is impressive though that it's setting the year to be a record breaking one. The demand for drugs in the U.S. is strong and the available resources being dedicated to fight it is growing.

DM: In 2017 the U.S. Coast Guard set a record for the amount of drugs seized at sea nearly 223 tons of cocaine. For decades U.S. military and law enforcement have been pushing further into international waters in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean sometimes thousands of kilometers from the United States. They're looking for boats carrying drugs and detaining suspected smugglers on board. Even if there's no evidence they're bound for the United States. And to that end in recent years the Americans have enlisted numerous allies including Canada to help. Last November, The New York Times Magazine published a striking exposé that raised serious questions about the conditions under which these suspected smugglers are detained on Coast Guard cutters. The article was headlined the Coast Guard's Floating Guantanamo. The author of that story Seth Freed Wessler is a New York based journalist with The Investigative Fund. He teamed up with The Current's Kristin Nelson to investigate what role Canada plays in intercepting drug smugglers at sea. In June we brought you their documentary, The Catch. As a result of our documentary Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association have issued an open letter asking the Canadian government for answers.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEX NEVE: It was through the reporting that was done by The Current and The Investigative Fund in the United States that this came to our attention. We certainly weren't aware of it before hearing and reading those reports and so we were troubled.

DM: Alex Neve, is the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada and co-author of the open letter calling on Canada's minister of national defense to provide further information about Canada's role in these joint operations at sea.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEX NEVE: We've raised these concerns both because it's troubling to see the reports of how people have been treated and the likelihood that there is some degree of Canadian involvement. But secondly I think it's very important to keep in mind the bigger picture here, the fact that we've been down this road before in concerns about Canadian complicity in how prisoners were being treated in co-operative operations in Afghanistan and we may be down this road again. You know it's the world in which we live quite appropriately. Canada will often find itself in collaborative co-operative military, police, other security operations in all corners of the world and we have to develop stronger policy and safeguards to ensure that wherever that happens whether it's on land, whether it's on the high seas, whether it's in the skies. We are not being drawn in directly or indirectly into violations of international human rights law or I would add international humanitarian law.

DM: We'll hear more specifics of Amnesty International's concerns but first this is the documentary that prompted its action. The Catch was produced by The Current's Kristin Nelson, and Seth Freed Wessler of The Investigative Fund.

SOUNDCLIP

NEWS CASTER: The coast guards today shown off tons of the illegal drugs that were seized at sea.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Six Years ago, the US government launched a campaign called Operation Martillo, Spanish for hammer. It was the latest iteration of the war on drugs and it meant pushing further and further into international waters.

VOICE 1: People are really appreciating the work you're doing on stopping drugs pouring into this country and we are behind you all the way.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Under Martillo, United States has made agreements with more than a dozen countries to expand this counter narcotics effort. These countries share law enforcement intelligence, allow the use of their ports or provide ships and airplanes.

VOICE 2: The crew of the Coast Guard cutter Legare worked alongside the Canadian navy in an operation of the waters off Mexico Central and South America.

KRISTIN NELSON: Since 2010, as part of a program called Operation Caribe, Canada has allowed U.S. Coast Guard teams to ride on Canadian vessels.

VOICE 4: And this was no small find, we are talking about thirty six thousand pounds of pure cocaine...

KRISTIN NELSON: After every deployment the drugs were delivered to land. Often U.S. Coast Guard crews line up for photo ops, and the narrative: celebratory.

VOICE 5: In all 17 drug smuggling vessels were stopped ever-loving smugglers were detained.

KRISTIN NELSON: But what the reports tend to leave out who these people are, these alleged drug smugglers and how they're being treated in international waters.

SETH FREED WESSLER: In November I wrote a report for the New York Times Magazine exposing alleged mistreatment of suspected smugglers detained on Coast Guard Cutters. Detainees were held for weeks on board ships, sometimes for months. Two dozen men described being shackled all day by their ankles to the decks of ships. In letters from prison, some detail what they experienced.

KRISTIN NELSON: They wrote in Spanish. And these are actors voicing their words in translation.

DETAINEE 1: We were chained to the floor and exposed to the sun, rain and sea water. We couldn't sleep because we were cold.

SETH FREED WESSLER: They slept on the deck floor or hard rubber mats.

DETAINEE 2: And with each bus and their worries grew because they know what will happen to us.

KRISTIN NELSON: Many say they were fed only small portions of rice and beans. Some lost five, 10, even 15 kilos.

DETAINEE 2: We felt scared in this period, waiting for them to drop us off onshore.

SETH FREED WESSLER: They weren't told where they were being taken nor allowed to contact their families or consulates.

DETAINEE 3: We were unable to ask anyone for help to get us out of that hell.

KRISTIN NELSON: Given Canada's cooperation with the U.S. Coast Guard, these stories raised some serious questions; were Canadian officials aware of these allegations, and if so what's the significance of that?

SETH FREED WESSLER: We began to call through a U.S. federal court cases for evidence of Canadian involvement. In the troves of these records, we identified thirty eight alleged or convicted smugglers locked up in the US whose court papers mention a Canadian ship being involved in their interception.

KRISTIN NELSON: We wrote dozens of these men asking what happened to them and what role Canadians played. Seven of them replied with letters or calls from prison.

[Sound: GPS directions]

KRISTIN NELSON: Seth and I are driving through northwestern Florida on our way to meet a man who pleaded guilty to smuggling cocaine, and who is now waiting to be sentenced.

KRISTIN NELSON: Alvia is short and stocky with closely cropped dark hair and a thin mustache. He's wearing an oversized prison jumpsuit with the word 'inmate' on the back.

SETH FREED WESSLER: He's from Ecuador and he tells his story when he repeats again, a few days later, when he calls from the jail he says he's a fisherman.

OSCAR ALVIA ACHUNDIA: Sometimes you make some money with fish and sometimes you make nothing and you have needs. You go hungry because of that sometimes. And that is why I made a mistake.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Alvia is from the small village of Anconcito on Ecuador southern coast. He says he's been fishing since he was about 11 years old, never went to school, can't read or write and has always been poor. And he says he was worried he wouldn't be able to support his wife and their three children.

KRISTIN NELSON: One day last October after a night of fishing he says a stranger approached him.

OSCAR ALVIA ACHUNDIA: This guy is asking around which of us, fishermen, would be interested in a side job. I was desperate because I needed money. He said, it was to take a trip, 'una vuelta' as equadorians call it.

SETH FREED WESSLER: He told him it would be easy. For 2500 dollars upfront and more cash upon delivery of yet and two other recruits would smuggle cocaine in a small speed boat from Ecuador to a designated cornet point off Central America. Alvia barely part twice before accepting.

KRISTIN NELSON: They traveled more than 2000 kilometres north before arriving at the drop off point.

SETH FREED WESSLER: They waited for a boat to hand off the drugs.

OSCAR ALVIA ACHUNDIA: We called out to them and we heard some sounds, some sounds we heard then we thought they were the people who were to receive us and we started to make signs with our lanterns, flashing our flashlights.

KRISTIN NELSON: The night sky was dark. The wind was strong and the sea choppy. A blinding light illuminated their boat. Alvia realized the approaching vessel was not the other smuggling boat. It was like enforcement. A Canadian naval vessel was on a counter narcotics patrol nearby. American officials contacted it to intercept the speedboat.

OSCAR ALVIA ACHUNDIA: Yes we stayed on our boat from 2 p.m. until 9. It was raining. We were where in a little boat.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Alvia couldn't see anything. He could only hear the molder of a boat approaching and he heard voices commands not to move. Then officers boarded the smuggling boat and discovered cocaine. The Coast Guard says 478 kilos of it.

KRISTIN NELSON: Several hours later a storm was rolling in. The officers ordered the three men into a small Canadian patrol boat. They were then delivered to a 55 metre vessel; Her Majesty's Canadian ship Nanaimo. Alvia says conditions were quite good on the Canadian vessel.

OSCAR ALVIA ACHUNDIA: They took us into their ship. We remained there for only one day. They treated us well, they let us walk around. They gave us good food. They gave us some cover so we couldn't get wet.

KRISTIN NELSON: Though it was a Canadian ship, the team detainee now the air was American as part of Operation Caribe, U.S. Coast Guard law enforcement teams groups of about eight or 10 officials ride aboard Canadian ships.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Officially, Alvia was an American detainee. A day later an officer ordered of you and the others back onto the patrol boat in the distance he could see another large military ship. They sped toward it. It was a U.S. Coast Guard cutter a 64 metre long ship called the vigorous.

KRISTIN NELSON: After he was loaded onto that vessel. Alvia says things took a sharp turn for the worse.

OSCAR ALVIA ACHUNDIA: They put it on the cuffs on us, chained us up. Our fear was to remain chained up.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Court documents show that he was held at sea for 17 days. He recalls being chained to pegs and cables on the decks of three Coast Guard cutters. On two of these boats, he and other suspects, picked up by the Coast Guards, slept outside shackled by their ankles to a cable.

OSCAR ALVIA ACHUNDIA: When it rained we were all soaked up. Do you understand?

KRISTIN NELSON: Alvia told us that the Coast Guard vessels the bathroom was just a plastic bucket and a hose to wash it out.

KRISTIN NELSON: No one told him where he was going nor was he allowed to contact his consulate, a lawyer or his family.

OSCAR ALVIA ACHUNDIA: Our fear was that all of us would die.

KRISTIN NELSON: Oscar Alvia's story is not unique.

SETH FREED WESSLER: We've heard from seven men who report experiencing similar really abusive conditions on U.S. Coast Guard boats, after they were stopped in international waters, with the help of Canadian Forces.

ALFREDO HERRERA VILARREAL: We were taken aboard an American Coast Guard vessel and placed [unintelligible] on deck and shackled to each other by the feet.

SETH FREED WESSLER: This is a translation of a letter we received from a 61 year old man from Cartagena Colombia. Alfredo Herrera Villarreal was chained on the decks of a series of American cutters in 2015.

SETH FREED WESSLER: There on the deck. We were exposed to rain, sun, for over 40 days.

KRISTIN NELSON: The 40 days that he and seven others were shackled onboard constituted the longest maritime detention of all the cases we found involving Canadian ships. And the conditions they experienced when they were on the U.S. Coast Guard cutters are consistent with other reports.

ALFREDO HERRERA VILARREAL: When we defecated we had to do it on top of other feces. Every two or three days the buckets were dumped out in the sea. He was simply inhumane. Even a phone call to our families was denied. To this day have nightmares because of the experience I went through on those boats.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Hoover Portocarrero and Willintong Ramirez, both Colombians, were captured together in 2017 in the Pacific by a U.S. Coast Guard team riding on a Canadian Navy ship.

KRISTIN NELSON: The men say they remained on their smuggling boat for two days as they were told by the Canadian ship.

HOOVER PORTOCARRERO: We asked them why do they take us with them to the big ship as the sun was scorching the nights were freezing but they say they are Canadians and they did not have the authority to do that.

SETH FREED WESSLER: They waited until a U.S. boat called the Mohawk arrived and they were loaded onboard.

HOOVER PORTOCARRERO: We would sit, the three of us, right on the deck of the ship be not been in. There was a tropical storm. We have to stand because the floor will get wet all the while chained by one foot.

WELLINTONG RAMIREZ: That's how I spent 19 days I thought not even a duck will be treated like that.

HOOVER PORTOCARRERO: The food was very, just a lump of rice and beans served cold three times a day.

WELLINTONG RAMIREZ: The worst was when you had to do your body's needs and you had to joining your pain in front of anybody who was around.

HOOVER PORTOCARRERO: We were always shackled to chore the rainy night with which sheets. We could not sleep at all under those conditions.

KRISTIN NELSON: The men were eventually delivered to Guantanamo Bay and quickly put on a plane to Florida. Only when they arrived on land nearly three weeks after they were first detained, did Portocarrero and Ramirez learned that they would be facing charges in the U.S.

CYNTHIA BOYD: Cynthia Boyd, I am a forensic neuro psychologist and practice in San Diego.

SETH FREED WESSLER: On a trip to California in April I met with Dr. Cynthia Boyd. The last three years she's been asked by defense attorneys to evaluate the mental health of more than half a dozen men who were detained by the Coast Guard. She still can't shake the memory of the first detainee she spoke with in 2015.

CYNTHIA BOYD: Well he was arrested for importing drugs. The mental illness that he then sustained was really from his capture, his arrest and his subsequent incarceration.

KRISTIN NELSON: This man Winston Valdez is from Ecuador. He gave Boyd permission to speak with us about his experience. His case did not involve Canadians but closely echo the experiences of detainees captured with Canadian involvement.

CYNTHIA BOYD: So Mr. Valdez and the other fishermen were taken aboard a Coast Guard vessel and they were on board this vessel and various vessels for twenty seven days. They were held under inhumane conditions. I confirmed the conditions by the photographs that I receive from the attorney and these photographs showed ankle chains and the vessels stack. He told me that there were several times when he thought he would die. He wondered if they would kill him aboard the ship. He's had several flashbacks of events and the ship he made attempts to put on a brave face but in my opinion one cannot under estimate the emotional effects of this ordeal on him or the other detainees. He was subjected to circumstances that led to utter helplessness and the complete loss of personal control. Mr. Valdez and the other detainees sustained this trauma 24/7 for twenty seven days. I determined that Mr. Valdez suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Before Boyd started taking these cases she worked as a contractor for the U.S. military. For 11 years she evaluated soldiers returning from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. She understood that because they were coming from battlefields she had to anticipate trauma. But this was different. It took her by surprise.

CYNTHIA BOYD: I left the jail and I looked at the translator and I said this is unbelievable to me. I've never been with anyone like this before. Mr. Veldaz wasn't the perpetrator. He was arrested and he was detained but the perpetrator was the Coast Guard. And I couldn't get my head around it because I love the military but it was very very hard for me to understand and that service members would treat these detainees in this way, that there wasn't one human being on board in uniform that didn't have empathy.

COAST GUARD MEMBER: I think there's almost a code of silence amongst the individuals who are doing this mission and I think there is maybe a little bit of fear of retaliation from the commands about this, about speaking up, but I also feel that it's a blemish on our service.

KRISTIN NELSON: Those are the words of a Coast Guard member with years of experience. He's been on a number of drug interdiction missions and he spoke with us in April and the condition that we dont identify him.

SETH FREED WESSLER: To best protect his identity. We have had an actor read his exact words.

COAST GUARD MEMBER: You know I knew doing drug interdiction was always going to be a mission of the Coast Guard. I was under the impression when I joined that a drug interdiction case was an immediate transfer of the suspects to the shore for prosecution.

KRISTIN NELSON: But that's not what he witnessed. The Coast Guard member confirmed the allegations that we heard from detainees about protracted detentions, scant rations, the shackles and exposure to the elements.

COAST GUARD MEMBER: You can get rain and sea spray at the exact same time if the weather is bad enough. It's awful when we're out there. We are miserable and we're out there for our watchers. So imagine being out there for days on end.

SETH FREED WESSLER: The Coast Guard member agreed to speak with us despite the risk because he says something needs to change.

COAST GUARD MEMBER: The Coast Guard is an honorable service and we have some of the best people that I've ever met in my entire life working in it, with good intentions to stop drugs from coming to the streets and to save lives. And I think that were put in a compromising position due to government policy.

SETH FREED WESSLER: He told us that he dislikes having detainees on board something that we've heard from other Coast Guard officials before.

COAST GUARD MEMBER: We want these guys off the decks. We don't like seeing them in pain or hungry hurrying you know. We want them to be prosecuted but we also just want them to be treated like basic human beings. We really need to treat them within the confines of our law. They have a right to be seen in front of a federal magistrate in a quick amount of time and cannot think three weeks is doing that.

KRISTIN NELSON: We asked the Coast Guard to comment for this story. They did not respond.

SETH FREED WESSLER: But after my story in The New York Times Magazine The head of the Coast Guard was quoted on the website military.com saying that detainees are "peddling poison". These aren't just down on their luck fishermen. They have a choice. You can eat fish or you can be a criminal.

KRISTIN NELSON: He then added that the U.S. Coast Guard was considering leasing a commercial armed to detain suspects one that "might have better accommodations than we have on ships with light decks and helicopter hangers to at least get people out of the elements".

COAST GUARD MEMBER: As best intentioned as the Coast Guard is we are ill equipped to hold detainees on deck for the amount of time they were holding on to them. We don't have the space to properly hold them. I think the detainees are being given food to generally be comfortable for that prolonged amount of time, and I think that overall being shackled for weeks on end is inhumane.

DM: We're listening to The Catch by The Current's Kristin Nelson, and The Investigative Fund's Seth Freed Wessler. We first broadcast this documentary in June. In response to the investigation, Amnesty International Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association are calling on Canada's Minister of Defense to respond. Here again is Alex Neve the secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEX NEVE: Firstly we would like to know more details about what kind of investigations have been carried out to look into what Canada's role has been. And then we pose a number of questions that I would term more as policy issues. We would like to know what the Canadian Armed Forces position is with respect to the human rights obligations that Canadian naval personnel carry out in the midst of a collaborative operation like that. And what safeguards are being put in place to scrupulously guard against the possibility that in any way directly or indirectly Canadian naval personnel are drawn into complicity in human rights violations.

DM: I'm Duncan McCue and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. The second part of our documentary explores what Canadian officials knew about these accusations and Canada's responsibilities when it comes to detainees, Canada helped capture at sea. Here's the conclusion of, The Catch.

SOUNDCLIP

ROBIN LOWE: When you're tracking someone down and then everyone on the verge has their night vision goggles on their eyes [unintelligible] scanning the horizon. It's very- it's really intense.

KRISTIN NELSON: Robin Lowe was deployed to the Pacific in 2016 aboard the HMCS Edmonton.

ROBIN LOWE: I am a Master Seaman naval communicator and the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve. My home unit is HMCS Unicorn in Saskatoon Saskatchewan.

KRISTIN NELSON: Lowe is 28 years old and has been in the Navy for nearly a decade. He says he's been part of interdictions in international waters.

ROBIN LOWE: It feels really kind of exhilarating because we're basically sneaking up on people.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Interdictions generally happen after nightfall he says.

ROBIN LOWE: And all the upper deck lighting is off. We're basically invisible.

SETH FREED WESSLER: They wait track the boat and eventually pursue it.

ROBIN LOWE: Once we're close enough were allowed to shine bright lights in their face so they can't really see anything and all they see is very light coming from like 10 feet in the air.

KRISTIN NELSON: Lowe is proud of Operation Caribe, Canada's contribution to the American led effort to stop drug trafficking; operation Martillo.

ROBIN LOWE: It has a big impact on the operation of the hall. We are making a big difference to what's on the streets in Canada and America even.

KRISTIN NELSON: As far as you know how are the detainees treated on the Coast Guard boats?

ROBIN LOWE: Honestly I couldn't tell you. I have never seen it personally so I can't tell. We wouldn't really see how they interact with sea detainees, but I imagine they are very professional in what they do.

KRISTIN NELSON: Robin Lowe may not have known about the conditions under which the Coast Guard was holding detainees when he was deployed in 2016, but senior ranking members of the Canadian Armed Forces have known since at least the end of 2017.

SETH FREED WESSLER: We've learned that after my report on detainee abuse appeared last November. Senior military officials in the Canadian forces began communicating with each other about allegations of mistreatment of detainees by the Coast Guard.

KRISTIN NELSON: We've seen internal communications that show Canadian officials, up to the level of brigadier generals, were in touch about that article weeks after it was published. The communications mentioned an effort to look into the allegations and the question is raised about whether the allegations would affect Canada's forthcoming participation in operation Martillo. The communications also indicate that the Chief of Defence Staff and Deputy Minister were aware of the allegations.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Months after these concerns were raised at the highest levels the Canadian forces deployed again to assist the U.S. Coast Guard drug patrols. Court records show that four suspected traffickers were picked up with the assistance of the Canadian Forces during that deployment. They were held by the Coast Guard for three weeks before they were brought to a U.S. court.

KRISTIN NELSON: In response to our questions the Canadian Forces sent us a statement. In it they acknowledged they were aware of the allegations of mistreatment that had appeared in The New York Times and called them "of grave concern to us". It continues "although none of these claims pertain to Canada's participation in international anti-smuggling operations. We take those allegations extremely seriously".

SETH FREED WESSLER: The force has told us it quickly took several steps. "We reviewed warship logbook entries post deployment reports and significant incident report for any indications of wrongdoing in relation to all relevant Canadian Armed Forces operations. We conferred with their American counterparts and reconfirmed our respective roles and responsibilities and our expectations regarding the treatment of suspected drug smugglers".

KRISTIN NELSON: Having taken these steps. We are confident that no Canadian armed forces members participating in US carry you have witnessed or been involved in the mistreatment of suspected criminals, either on board Canadian vessels or those of our allies.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Since we began investigating this story. We've been trying to find out what rules and laws governing Canada's operations in support of the United States.

KRISTIN NELSON: At the beginning of the year. We started filing access to information request to the armed forces asking for any and all agreements memorandums of understanding and directives about Operation Caribe. Last week we received notification that our request for these agreements was denied pending consultation with the American government.

SETH FREED WESSLER: But in April we spoke with a Canadian who did obtain some of these documents.

SARAH PELOQUIN: My name is Sarah Peloquin you and I was born in Winnipeg Manitoba and I grew up there.

SETH FREED WESSLER: She moved to the United States to go to law school and has been practicing criminal defense for 11 years.

SARAH PELOQUIN: I am a federal public defender in the Southern District of California in San Diego. I represent individuals who are charged with federal criminal offenses who cant afford their own attorneys.

KRISTIN NELSON: Her office has handled dozens of boat cases some of them involving Canadian Forces. As a Canadian Sarah Peloquin wanted to know what Seth and I wanted to know.

SARAH PELOQUIN: I had questions about whether or not the Canadian government and the US Coast Guard were on the same page about the way they detainees would be treated, whether there was a consensus document or a policy about what the treatment would be.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Sarah Peloquin got back 80 pages from the Canadian Forces and 2016 which she shared with us.

SETH FREED WESSLER: [To Sarah] We will just read. This is S1...

SETH FREED WESSLER: Among the records is a directive issued by former chief of the Defence Staff Tom Lawson about how the forces should conduct itself under Operation Caribe.

KRISTIN NELSON: The 2015 directive is marked secret. It states that if Canadians ever detain someone they shall "act in strict compliance with Canada's domestic and international legal obligations".

SETH FREED WESSLER: And it outlines the rules under which a detainee can be transferred saying "detainees will not be transferred from Canadian Armed Forces care, custody or control without the express permission of the chief of a defense staff". And it goes on "to lay out something called the transfer test according to the document, any transfer of detainees requires of the chief of staff...

SARAH PELOQUIN: ...Be satisfied that there are no substantial grounds for believing that there exists a real risk that the detainees would be in danger of being subjected to torture or other forms of mistreatment at the hands of the authorities to whom they are transferred.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Forms of mistreatment. The language in the directive is clear.

KRISTIN NELSON: But the thing is the Canadian Forces asserted that none of these suspected smugglers are actually detained by Canadians. In an e-mail from February a public affairs officer wrote to us "The Canadian Armed Forces are not directly involved in law enforcement operations or the detention of vessels or persons. These detainees remain in the care custody and control of and are guarded by U.S. Coast Guard personnel".

SETH FREED WESSLER: We wanted to know what Canada's raw looks like at sea. We asked for ride along on both U.S. and Canadian ships. These were not arranged. Here's Robin Lowe again.

ROBIN LOWE: Once we get close then we send off our small boat with some other law enforcement detachment on board.

KRISTIN NELSON: He says during interdictions the Canadians will launch a small patrol boat which U.S. Coast Guard officials hop by and before they approach a suspect smuggling boat. Lowe says there are typically five people on board.

ROBIN LOWE: There is one Canadian [unintelligible]. They're the ones driving the boat and then the other four are American Coast Guard law enforcement that we have. So we switched the flag that's on the small boat to the American coast guard flag.

SETH FREED WESSLER: The Coast Guard is in control during the interdiction.

ROBIN LOWE: All that really happens from the Canadian side is you drive the b oat to the suspect boat and provide a platform for the one from law enforcement attachment to hop off and take control of the situation. They're really the ones that have all the authority and they're able to run the show.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Usually suspects are left on board their trafficking boat until an American Coast Guard ship can arrive on scene to collect them.

KRISTIN NELSON: Meanwhile the boats are often tethered to a Canadian vessel and dragged.

ROBIN LOWE: The detainees are on the small boat probably for hours at most. We give them water and we don't wear them sit there and burn.

KRISTIN NELSON: If the weather is bad or if there are concerns about the suspect's safety, the men may be brought aboard the Canadian ship. Lowe recalls one particular mission.

ROBIN LOWE: There is a point when there is a possibility that we were going to be bringing on detainees but then the American ship was close enough to take them. At that point we were considering setting up cots, giving them access to a toilet and providing a meal plan for them and making sure that they don't have any dietary restrictions or anything like that.

SETH FREED WESSLER: And those detainees were not brought on board. In that case we know what has happened.

KRISTIN NELSON: So even though detainees may be sitting on the decks of Canadian ships and provided food and shelter, as far as the forces are concerned they are not Canadian detainees.

MICHAEL BYERS: The United States is violating international law and Canada is doing so by complicities.

KRISTIN NELSON: Michael Byers is a professor of international politics and international law at University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He's been following Operation Caribe since its inception back in 2006. Here's how he describes what happens to alleged smugglers.

MICHAEL BYERS: There’s a fiction here that the suspects never actually cross into Canadian hands. Thats the fiction there. They’re detained by a U.S. officer, they’re arrested by a U.S. officer and fictionally they remain in the custody of the United States all the way through until then after they are transferred to a US vessel. Of course this has all happening on Canadian sovereign territory - A Canadian naval vessel is an extension of Canadian territory onto the high seas and that vessel can only be there because of the dozens or hundreds of Canadian Forces personnel who were operating the ship.

SETH FREED WESSLER: He says there are a range of treaties that set out the prohibition on cruel or inhumane treatment of detainees from the torture convention to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And the allegations of mistreatment may mean candidate is party of violating those treaties.

MICHAEL BYERS: Canada is providing a ship, a sovereign vessel, a Canadian Forces ship with Canadian personnel on board who are responsible to the Canadian government and ultimately to Canadian citizens and as part of that responsibility are bound by both Canadian and international law. And you know if we figured out a way to use those equipment and personnel to facilitate a US policy and the Unites States is then violating international rules, in using in Canada ships and personnel, we're complicit in that illegality. You can’t get round that.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Byers understand that the official position is that these maritime drug detainees are not in Canadian custody, but...

MICHAEL BYERS: We Sign up to treaties in order to promote human rights not to find loopholes and I would put the question to the Canadian Forces as to whether they want to be finding loopholes in laws that this country has led the creation of very proudly over the course of the last 70 years.

KRISTIN NELSON: Canada is good reason too sensitive about the treatment of detainees. It played a role, one that some say the country has not fully reckoned with in handing over Afghan suspects to authorities who later tortured the men. There have been numerous calls for an inquiry into the matter but in 2016 Justin Trudeau's government decided one was not needed. However last year the International Criminal Court made a formal request to investigate potential war crimes in Afghanistan committed by local and international forces. Some advocates have urged the court to consider candidates conduct.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Michael Byers one of the people who has called for the ICC to investigate whether Canada was complicit in alleged torture in Afghanistan. He believes there are parallels in this case. Now nobody is saying the Coast Guard is torturing detainees and no one is alleging war crimes. The war on drugs is not actually a war. But he says...

MICHAEL BYERS: The similarities are quite striking. First of all this is a mission in which Canada is partnering with the United States and the Canadian Forces are very keen to partner with the United States. But the other clear parallel is the use of legal fictions to somehow excuse Canada's behavior in Afghanistan the legal fiction was created that Canada would never formally detain people it came across on the field. If we came across someone who was suspect we would pretend that we hadn’t actually detained them until an American forces person our CIA agent came along and actually formally conducted the detention. So even though the person could not have been detained except for the presence of Canadian Forces personnel we fictionally didn’t actually detain them and therefore were fictionally didn't engage Canada's legal obligations. Again that argument is specious. It's laughable. But that's the argument that's put forward.

SETH FREED WESSLER: Now we know from those internal communications that Canadian brigadier generals raised a question; would the allegations of detainee mistreatment on American vessels in Canada's upcoming involvement in operation Martillo?

KRISTIN NELSON: When we first asked to speak with Canadian General Jonathan Vance the first instead set up an interview with the commander of the HMCS Whitehorse.

COMMANDER: Good morning, it's Lieutenant Commander Collin Forsberg.

KRISTIN NELSON: [To Commander] Hi how are you.

KRISTIN NELSON: The Whitehorse had just returned from Operation Caribe mission in eastern Pacific on May 3rd. We spoke to him on May 4th.

COMMANDER: Oh we got home yesterday afternoon. So it was actually a very successful deployment for Whitehorse. We had two drug busts. Our first was a disruption of approximately 875 kilograms. And our second was about an hour second was a seizure of fifteen hundred million pounds of cocaine. So it was a very good deployment for us.

SETH FREED WESSLER: There were also 20 suspected traffickers detained by the U.S. Coast Guard with the help of the Whitehorse according to a report on the Canadian Forces website. The first reiterated that it was the Coast Guard not the Royal Canadian Navy that had detained the suspects, and he told us he is proud of Canada's contribution to the American led counter narcotics mission.

COMMANDER: And I feel we have an excellent ongoing contribution to promote security within, not only in North America but also south and Central America to counter the efforts of the transnational criminal organizations.

KRISTIN NELSON: We asked Forsberg if he had heard about the alleged mistreatment of detainees held and Coast Guard vessels.

SETH FREED WESSLER: I have recorded in the past on concern about what happens to detainees after they are transferred to U.S. Coast Guard. Have you heard the confirmed allegations that people are held for a very very long period of time or shackled for weeks on and exposed to the elements when they're on these boats. Are these allegations [unintelligible] heard of that?

COMMANDER: I have heard of that but I've never seen that, and all I can say is, with a [unintelligible] saying that we have. So we stipulate that any personnel in the U.S. Coast Guard custody will be treated in a manner that is respectful to their lawful rights and human dignity in accordance with U.S. Coast Guard Policy and International law.

KRISTIN NELSON: So Commander Forsberg had heard of the allegations of mistreatment. We went back to the Canadian Armed Forces to ask again for an interview with Canada's top soldier General Jonathan Vance.

SETH FREED WESSLER: It was after this second request that the forces sent us their statement saying they found no indications of wrongdoing in relation to relevant Canadian Armed Forces operations.

KRISTIN NELSON: It went on to say "that said, there is no doubt that this is a matter that we take very seriously. We must and we will remain vigilant. In particular we will continue to review our operational practices and we will thoroughly investigate all credible allegations of Canadian Armed Forces involvement in mistreatment."

MICHAEL BYERS: Canada will apply high standards and will meet its international legal obligations in those unusual circumstances where Canadian personnel actually end up conduct a detention on their own. But if the U.S. is detaining someone these provisions don't apply and we look the other way.

SETH FREED WESSLER: UBC law professor Michael Byers says all of this raises deep questions about government accountability. He takes aim at Canada's top command.

MICHAEL BYERS: The leadership of the Canadian military is mandated to uphold the law. They are bound by both domestic and international law. And if the chief of the Defence Staff is knowingly allowing fundamental violations of human rights he should be fired. Now that's a really powerful thing to say. But these are really important rules and they go right to the core of decades of Canadian foreign policy. And again I have utmost respect for the abilities and the overall mandate and efforts of the Canadian Forces. My message to General Vance's 'you can do better. Please do better. You have to do better'.

DIONICO GARCIA: They tie a rope from our boat to the stern of their Canadian boat and they tow us for two and a half days.

KRISTIN NELSON: Dionico Garcia from prison.

DIONICO GARCIA: It started to rain very hard and the waves were very large and dangerous.

SETH FREED WESSLER: He was detained in March 2017 by a Coast Guard team riding aboard a Royal Canadian moving ship. Like many detainees he says he is a fisherman from a village in Ecuador. He has six children and he says he took the smuggling job because he was struggling to support his family.

KRISTIN NELSON: The Royal Canadian Navy had succeeded in helping its allies stalk first years boat from hitting land keeping its cargo- 660 kilos of cocaine - from reaching the streets.

DIONICO GARCIA: After two and a half day the Canadians handed us to an American ship.

SETH FREED WESSLER: He was taken to Florida where he was recently convicted and sentenced to seven years in federal prison. Garcia find it confounding he was prosecuted in the United States given that he was picked up so far from American territory. But mostly he struggles to comprehend how he was treated on board the U.S. Coast Guard boats.

DIONICO GARCIA: I remembered that my two companions and I were very happy to be transferred to the U.S. Coast Guard. We had heard back in our country that the United State is the land of the free and the most respectful country in the world. But what we did not know was that we were about to leave the most horrible experience of our lives.

DM: We've been listening to the documentary The Catch. It was produced by The Current's Kristin Nelson, and Seth Freed Wessler of the Investigative Fund based in New York. We first aired this documentary in June. I'll have more on the update to the story in a moment but first credits for the documentary. As part of this collaboration the editors on this project were Esther Kaplan from the investigative fund and The Current documentary editor Joan Webber. We would like to thank the following Vancouver actors for their help voicing over the words of the following individuals. The views of the unnamed Coast Guard were voiced by Patrick Sabongui. The men convicted of drug smuggling all spoke or wrote to us in Spanish... so we asked the following actors to read the English translations. Gustavo Febres voiced Oscar Manuel Alvia Anchundia's words. Rodolfo Funes spoke for Alfredo Herrera Villarreal. Steffan Chavarria did the same for Willintong Ramirez. Omar Gallegos voiced Hoover Portcarrera Ruiz's words. And in Ottawa, David Villarroel repeated in English what we were told by Dionico Garcia. Now we did reach out to Canada's Department of National Defence once again. It stands by its statement issued in May of this year which read in part quote, although none of these claims pertain to Canada's participation in international antismuggling operations we take those allegations extremely seriously. We reviewed warship logbook entries, post deployment reports, and significant incident reports for any indications of wrongdoing in relation to relevant Canadian Armed Forces operations. We're confident that no Canadian Armed Forces members participating in Operation Caribe have witnessed or been involved in the mistreatment of suspected criminals either on board Canadian vessels or those of our allies. End quote. Nonetheless after our documentary aired Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association issued an open letter calling on the minister to provide more information about Canada's role in these operations. Here again is Alex Neve secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEX NEVE: There's two things that we need to see happen. One is we need an assurance that there have been a thorough and probing investigations to look at what has happened here, so that we truly understand the facts and the evidence and what conclusions can be drawn from that. And then based on that it will be clear what kinds of policies and safeguards need to be put in place to address any of the concerns that arise.

DM: Alex Neve says these concerns have been outstanding for too long and the government must address them now.

SOUNDCLIP

ALEX NEVE: We are also very struck by how it resonated and had common issues with respect to concerns from a number of years ago regarding how Canada was handling prisoners apprehended on the battlefield in Afghanistan. And so we were troubled to see, here we go again. Obviously a very different context, but the same concerns about working together with the forces of another government in a collaborative military or security operation. Human rights concerns are arising with regard to how those prisoners are treated once fully in the custody of that other country. And what's Canada's role and responsibility in the middle of that. And so we felt it was important to come back to the government, signal that we still are concerned about the fact that we don't have strong policies and approaches in place in this area and that we want some scrutiny, investigations, answers, and reform.

DM: Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. I am Duncan McCue and thanks for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

Wednesday July 18, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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