Posted on 11/02/2005 6:15:31 PM PST by NZerFromHK
The late Simon Wiesenthal denounced Canada years ago for failing to bring war criminals to justice. Our record has only gotten worse
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When Simon Wiesenthal died on Sept. 20, the world mourned the loss of a man known for his tenacious passion for refusing to let the war criminals who orchestrated the Holocaust live out their days in peace. The survivor of 12 concentration camps is estimated to have aided in the capture of 1,100 Nazis worldwide. But for all his inspiring conviction, Wiesenthal refused since the early eighties to set foot in Canada. "He simply said he wasn't going to return to Canada because he felt there wasn't the political will to deal with the issue of Nazi war criminals and their collaborators," Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, told reporters the week of Wiesenthal's death. But while Canada may have been famously condemned by the man who was known as the "conscience of the world," it does not seem to have made Ottawa any more anxious to bring the perpetrators of the Holocaust to justice. Rather, politicians in this country continue to send a dangerous message to more contemporary war criminals around the world looking for a nice place to retire.
With 60 years having elapsed since the liberation of the death camps, time is running out for Canada to redeem itself on the World War II file, says Bernie Farber, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. "These guys are no spring chickens anymore," he says. But the prosecution of those Nazis who are still alive is more significant than just putting doddering old murderers behind bars, says Farber. By demonstrating, as Wiesenthal did, that war criminals cannot ever count on outrunning justice, Canada could, by continuing to hound old Nazis, demonstrate to other murderers that this country is no safe haven for them, either.
That's certainly not the message Ottawa is sending right now. According to documents obtained by the Western Standard last year from the federal Justice Department through an access to information request, as many as 1,690 alleged Second World War criminals had made their home in Canada as of Oct. 27, 2004. By last fall, roughly 25 per cent had died. And of the more than 1,000 of those still alive, only 56 are being pursued, with another seven in active litigation. No wonder the number of suspected war criminals of all varieties--from Austria, Germany, Ukraine, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and more--has soared in recent years, according to official government estimates. In 1997, the Justice Ministry estimated there were 477 such people living in Canada. In 2002, there were at least 2,406.
The reality is that Canadian officials lack the political will to hunt down and extradite war criminals, says John Thompson, president of the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based security think-tank. Often, he says, Ottawa is too fearful of upsetting ethnic groups (read Liberal voters) to bother with administering justice. In January, federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler admitted as much when he told the editorial board of a national newspaper that Ottawa's refusal to prosecute criminals from the Sri Lankan/Tamil conflict who are living in Canada was the result of a need for his government to remain on good terms with the Tamil community. Liberal cabinet ministers have even been caught attending fundraising events for the Tamil Tigers terrorist group. "The Sri Lankans who are living in Canada are . . . Tamils, for the most part," Cotler said. "And you know, Toronto, I think, has the largest number of Tamils in the Tamil diaspora than anywhere else outside of Sri Lanka, so we've got to be very careful just in terms of our own relationships."
Playing politics is certainly easier than going to the trouble of investigating and trying war criminals. Lynn Lovett, counsel for Canada's Justice Ministry, says that those sorts of prosecutions fall under the joint jurisdiction of no fewer than three different government departments: Justice, Citizenship and Immigration, and the RCMP. After trying to lay charges under the Criminal Code against suspected Nazis in the eighties and nineties, Ottawa found that the process led to lengthy and expensive trials, which often failed to meet criminal trial standards for proof. The result was a string of acquittals. So, rather than press criminal charges, Canada focused on trying to deport war criminals--with only marginally better luck. Michael Baumgartner, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who lied to get into Canada after the war, was awaiting deportation orders when he died this past June.
With Nazis, Canada had the perfect opportunity to demonstrate it was capable of dealing with these sorts of criminals, says Thompson. With the hard work of people at the Wiesenthal Center and in the Israeli government, former SS guards and the like were much easier to locate than most war criminals. Sometimes, all it took was a little effort. In the eighties, Sol Littman, a Toronto spokesman for the Wiesenthal Center, embarrassed Ottawa by tracking down nearly 30 suspected war criminals that justice officials claimed they could not locate, by looking them up in the Toronto phone book and checking their social insurance numbers.
"CSIS had hunting orders for Nazis they've almost never had since," says Thompson. "To go after those guys was really easy. Everybody was doing it." To Ottawa, it seems, leaving the majority of criminals to die peacefully in Canada was even easier. But with a growing community of war criminals in this country, it seems inevitable that, one of these days, Ottawa won't have any choice but to face up to what has become a terribly difficult problem.
Ping!
but, but, but they have free health care.
Let me guess, as long as they vote Martin and liberals?
Somehow, I think Canadians will continue to cling to their pretension of moral superiority.
Oy.
Sweden or Argentina would have been better, but for a Nazi, Canada was a good choice. Time passes, live and let live, why punish old killers, all that good stuff.
Full marks.
Now you know that Canada's mission is to save the world. Besides, if you want to be truly multicultural, you have to accept all types.
Canada might become pathetic if it can just rise above to the level of some significance.
Is there really any need for this? It's turning into a childish vendetta and NOT the way Christians and Conservatives should treat one another.
So all of these people are uniquely guilty, you think. Let me ask you whether the Americans who sent Russians to their deaths in Operation Keelhaul should be hunted down as war criminals today? Some of them witnessed Russians committing suicide on the trains they were packing them in and thus they knew their fate was very bleak. How are they all that different from these people? Yes, the Nazi regime is one of the worst the world has ever seen. But war crimes of a horrendous sort were committed by our side and even more by the Soviets in WWII. Victors' justice and incredibly stupid for the most part is how I see this.
OH CANADA....
Quite a few of them settled near Edmonton. Most of the Nazis who still live there are first-generation descendents, who are in their 60s and 70s.
How many former KGB and GRU murderers have beenbrought to justice? None?
I don't think any comments are intended for Christian and Conservative Canadians. Just those Canadians who excuse events like 9/11, Bali etc. If you take the trouble to read today's papers you will find Canucks criticising the Australian Government for adopting anti-terrorism laws. Terrorists have blown up Australians and 74% of Australians want that protection. The low-life that criticises a country for protecting its citizens deserves whatever is thrown at it.
But how many of those types of Canadians are likely to be on here, FRiend?
Maybe I'm being over-sensitive but there just seems to be an awful lot of squabbling between Brits, Aussies, Canucks, Indians on FR at the moment.
Make no mistake. They may not post but they do read.
LOL.
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