By Murray Brewster, The Canadian Press, published in the Globe and Mail, Nov 2, 2015
Two human-rights groups have teamed up to oppose a plan by the outgoing Conservative government to allow the sale of so-called prohibited weapons to Ukraine, including automatic assault rifles and armoured vehicles. Amnesty International Canada and Project Ploughshares have written to the Department of Foreign Affairs expressing concern about the potential consequences of adding the embattled eastern European government to the list of countries to which Canada can sell automatic firearms.
There are 39 countries on Canada’s automatic firearms country control list, including Saudi Arabia, to whom General Dynamics Land Systems in London, Ont., recently sold $13-billion in armoured vehicles despite the opposition of human-rights groups.
Foreign Affairs has been in the process of consulting on the Ukraine proposal since it was introduced last summer, around the time Prime Minister Stephen Harper signed a free trade agreement with the country’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. The move was seen at the time as opening the door for Canada to expand its support for Ukraine, which to this point has only received non-lethal defensive equipment and medical supplies to offset its losses in the ongoing conflict with Russian-backed rebels.
Both Amnesty and Project Ploughshares say exporting weapons should be withdrawn until the human rights situation in the country improves, citing brutal police tactics used to suppress the anti-government protests in the fall of 2013 – something that led to the overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych’s government the following year.
Despite the change in government and police reforms undertaken by the international community, the groups say there is still the threat of possible human rights abuses.
“We recommend that until they have mitigated these risks, Ukraine should not be added to the AFCCL,” said a letter to the Foreign Affairs Department, obtained recently by The Canadian Press.
Getting on to the list is the first step in approving the export of arms to the country. Each sale would still require federal government approval; it is unclear what Justin Trudeau’s incoming Liberal government will do about the Ukraine proposal.
Both human rights groups also question whether Canadian-made weapons would be used against civilians in the conflict against Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country. “Both sides have repeatedly violated the laws of war,” said the letter, dated July 10, 2015.
“Individuals have been abducted, and prisoners have been brutally beaten and subjected to mock executions. Civilians who have not committed any crime, but who sympathize with the opposing side, have been held arbitrarily. Both sides have failed to take reasonable precautions to protect civilians during fighting.”
The Ukraine embassy in Ottawa was asked for comment, but no one was immediately available.
The new government in Ukraine, led by President Petro Poroshenko, has been outspoken in its plea to Ottawa, Washington and other western capitals for advanced weapons to counter Russian-backed separatists.
But the Obama administration, and to a lesser extent the outgoing Conservative government, have resisted the calls. U.S. lawmakers and military commanders were in favour last spring, but the White House has only authorized the delivery of Humvees and unarmed drones.
Congress slipped a provision into the recent defence budget to authorize lethal aid to Ukraine, but the president vetoed it.
Selected comments from the Globe and Mail online publishing of the above article:
1. It’s still unclear whether the IMF stooges or the neo-fascist, ethnic-cleanser-wannabes will win out in Kiev. We should not be assisting this regime.
2. TDM: I’ll have to disagree with my friends at AI and Project Ploughshares on this one. Ukraine, trying to expand its democratic governance on the Western model, is being destabilized by armed intervention from the much larger, richer and better armed aggressive dictatorship next door, to the point where Russia has annexed part of Ukraine’s territory and is occupying another part. Ukrainians deserve the opportunity to defend themselves against this invader and supplying them with small arms is a positive step.
Certainly Ukraine is the model for a state that we should be helping in this way whereas Saudi Arabia is the antithesis. {Referring to the Canadian government approval of sales of arms manufactured in Canada to Saudi Arabia.]
– And Crimeans who wanted to overwhelmingly join Russia have rights as well, TDM.
– Don’t tell me, you threw that part in at the end about Saudi Arabia to generate some thumbs up didn’t you?
– MMackinnon: It’s tough to say, TDM. As you know from my posting history here, I’m the first to say that Russia’s intervention has been the key factor behind the civil war in East Ukraine. At the same time, it’s pretty clear that no amount of arms we send will enable the Ukrainian Army to stand solo against the Russian Army, if Russia chose to intervene more directly.
Ukraine needs to last long enough for the economic sanctions to have a domestic impact on Putin (since this is ultimately for domestic reasons). Giving them more weapons may just trigger a corresponding escalation from the other side. And in the meantime, given that it’s a civil war with multiple players, there’s a risk of Canadian arms being used by someone nasty to do something nasty. So, not so sure that sending Ukraine more weapons (as opposed to strengthening sanctions) is the way out.
… Saudi Arabia, now, there’s a country (undemocratic, theocratic, intervening in several neighbouring states) that we really shouldn’t be selling weapons to….
3. Ukraine is the Israel of eastern Europe. It needs our support.
4. Roger Annis: There is a right-wing government in power in Kyiv, in alliance with the armed, extreme right-wing of the country. The two have taken a civil war to the east of Ukraine. They would have taken war to Crimea, as well, except the elected and representative legislature there took decisive steps to avert that.
There is an ongoing economic blockade against the east by Kyiv and a refusal by it to negotiate with the elected leaders of Donetsk and Lugansk, all in violation of the terms of Minsk-2 ceasefire of Feb 12, 2015 (remember that?), including the UN Security Council endorsation of Minsk-2 on Feb 17 (utterly overlooked in Western media reporting). Since Sept 20, the extreme-right has mounted a rogue food transport blockade at the Ukraine-Crimea border, added to official Ukraine’s blockade of water supply (!) and electricity to Crimea.
Commenter MMackinnon asks what might happen “if Russia chose to intervene more directly”. But have we not been told for the past 20 months of a large Russian intervention that is the source of all the problems in Ukraine? Hence the harsh, punitive sanctions against Russia which MMckinnon wishes to see continued? What about Germany, then, whose political leaders recently visited Moscow calling for calm and whose business leaders recently signed agreements to expand the Nord Stream gas pipeline which will free the transport of Russia gas to Europe from Ukraine territory? Should German leaders now be added to the sanctions list? Or so they know something we do not? Are sanctions and the entire story of Ukraine in Western media built upon a foundation of deception?
President Poroshenko told the UN General Assembly on September 28 that his country is suffering a full-blown Russian invasion. Was he lying?