Below: Three must-read books to get to the truth about Air India Flight 182.
1984
Air India 182:
A Nest of Spies
by GEORGE ABRAHAM
Call it a collective Canadian catharsis. Last week was replete with a series of signpost events that confirm Canada's ability to come to terms with its past, including episodes that raise the spectre of overt racism.
On Wednesday, June 16, 2010, it was the launch of national hearings to enable
thousands of former students of residential schools for aboriginals to
come forward to tell their harrowing stories of abuse.
The abuse
took place over a span of 150 years until the schools were finally
closed in the 1970s, but it took Ottawa another 40 years to set up a
Truth and Reconciliation Commission and to acknowledge the enormous
wrong that was done to the First Nations people.
'TROUBLE-MAKERS'
Another commission of inquiry into the
Air India bombing released its scathing report on Thursday, June 17, 2010, a full 25
years after the fact.
The downing of the Indian airliner off the
Irish coast would have been seared in world memory - alongside the PanAm
tragedy over Lockerbie three years later - but for the ambivalent
heritage of the passengers on board. The majority of the 329 people
killed were Indian immigrants who had come to Canada [or their descendants], become Canadian
citizens and were flying to India on holiday. Most of them were not
Caucasian.
Despite a rather sweeping report that took no prisoners, the findings
of the commission led by former supreme court justice John Major are
little solace to those who still grieve wives, husbands and children who
were on the downed plane.
Bal Gupta, who has been an articulate
champion for the families, said it best on Thursday when he pointed to
the disdain with which he and others were treated.
"We were not
allowed to meet any government minister for almost 10 years. The first
time we met with the government was in 1995. We were treated like
trouble-makers."
The same condescension can be gleaned from another key finding in the
report: That Canadian officials dismissed Air India's requests - they
called it "crying wolf" - for added security precautions at Toronto's
Pearson airport, surmising that all the airline really wanted was added
protection on the cheap.
A PREVENTABLE TRAGEDY
Characterising Canada's intelligence and federal police agencies as
no better than bumbling Keystone cops, Major came to the conclusion that
had all the dots been connected, the tragedy was preventable.
"Taken
together, [the information] would have led a competent analyst to
conclude that Flight 182 was at high risk of being bombed by known Sikh
terrorists in June 1985."
Even though Sikhs were among the first
Indians to migrate to Canada at the turn of the last century, the agents
had a tough time differentiating one turbaned individual from another -
to the agents, all of them looked alike.
It is this lack of basic aptitude that probably led Stephen Harper,
the Canadian prime minister, to call the Major report a "damning
indictment". Cynics will argue that Harper's strong words are part of
some grand strategy to woo immigrant voters -roughly a fifth of the
population - and thereby tip the scale in favour of winning a majority
government on the hustings at the next elections.
Whatever the
motivations, the prime minister can take credit for at least trying to
right a historical wrong for a group of families that so desperately
wanted to be treated as Canadians.
FINDING THE CULPRITS
Of course, the report has recommendations about airplane and airport
security, the creation of a national security czar like the Americans,
and a more integrated approach to making aviation more secure, but these
were givens right from the very start.
But what the report did
not attempt was to find the culprits: who did this and how did it
happen? As every Canadian is aware, millions of dollars have been spent
on prosecuting two Sikh individuals in British Columbia only to be
discharged for lack of evidence. There is no closure.
But perhaps the most intriguing finding is the credibility Major attaches to specific threats aimed at Flight 182. There was a gathering storm and lots of people were asleep at the switch, except seemingly a former top diplomat James Bartleman. He claimed to have seen a specific intelligence intercept, an assertion that led some in Canada to question his sanity. The judge found him "credible", confirming what Indian agents have said all along.
Maloy Krishna Dhar, a former Indian diplomat posted to Ottawa in the
1980s, is on the record as saying that his mission routinely tracked
Sikh extremists in Canada and that he had "stumbled against (sic) a
piece of uncorroborated information" pointing to a "spectacular" attack
against an Indian airliner flying from Canada.
"The information
was shared with Delhi, and the [Indian] high commissioner personally
briefed the Canadian foreign office," he said.
'NEGOTIATING MORAL RELATIONSHIPS'
More recently, a seasoned Canadian intelligence operative Michel
Juneau-Katsuya wrote a book titled Nest of Spies (2009) about
the hive of foreign agents who work in Canada.
In the context of
Air India, Juneau-Katsuya, says: "This is a case in which there is
troubling evidence of that country's [India's] undercover agents infiltrating
Canada's Sikh community and being in contact with the principal suspects
of the crime. The agents operated secretly out of India's embassy in
Ottawa."
Given the murky world of spies and intelligence gathering, it was
probably too much to expect the Major commission to spook the spies. To
make matters worse, India and Canada were at odds diplomatically for
most of the 1980s and 1990s.
Unfortunately for the families,
half of the answer about what happened on June 23, 1985, lies in India.
With a government apology on its way and perhaps some financial
compensation to the surviving family members, the temptation would be to
treat this sad chapter as closed. That would be a terrible mistake.
As
philosophy professor Alice MacLachlan of York University in Toronto,
said: "The wrongs of the past, whether it's Air India, or Bloody Sunday
[in Northern Ireland] or the residential schools, can't always be
measured out materially or legally ... Part of dealing with the past
means negotiating our moral and political relationships with each
other."
George Abraham is contributing editor of Diplomat and International Canada.
June 24, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Irvinder Singh Babra (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), June 24, 2010, 12:14 PM.
Canada is a great, beautiful country, but is getting raped daily by the nest of spies, foreign foes, agents of provocation, and so on. Are both the RCMP and CSIS capable of handling the onslaught?
2: R. Singh (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), June 24, 2010, 2:57 PM.
A similar inquiry is needed about foreign spies operating and creating trouble in Canada. It is too bad the politicians are jumping at Mr Fadden, the CSIS head, for pointing out something we all suspect, that many Canadian politicians are aligned to and subservient to foreign interests. From the ethnic media to the local functions being interfered with, and in-your-face attitudes, it does not seem too unrealistic to see the undermining of local immigrant communities, with self-serving politicians promoting self and business interests above that of the country or their respective constituencies
3: Gurteg Singh (New York, U.S.A.), June 24, 2010, 4:24 PM.
The Canadian government knows very well who brought down Air India but trade considerations and the lure of some greenbacks is preventing it from telling the truth and following the laws of the land. The turmoil in the Sikh community in Canada will never cease as long as agent provocateurs continue to operate out of the Indian High Commissions, embassies and consular offices across North America. It is most unfortunate that the Canadian media, instead of doing its job, is repeating verbatim the disinformation and bold faced lies of the Indian Government. [Editor: Media outlets need access to India. Indian authorities use this fact to their advantage in blackmailing the weaker media outlets into submission. The Canadian media has never been known for its courage, daring, independence or insight. It'll merely follow what the rest of the world will do ... just as the Canadian government does. This is a backwater in every sense of the word.]
4: N. Singh (Canada), June 24, 2010, 8:53 PM.
Here are Manmohan Singh's comments on the Air India tragedy: In India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the 1985 attack "shook the world's conscience". "No religion, faith or cause can justify such violence or inhumanity. On this solemn occasion, we must rededicate ourselves to fighting and eliminating terrorism with determination and joint action," he said (Source: BBC World News). I wonder how he feels the Nov 1984 pogroms were justified?
5: Raj (Canada), June 24, 2010, 11:48 PM.
Get real, who is going to protect the cause of slaves?
6: Parkash Singh (New Delhi, India), June 25, 2010, 2:57 AM.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the victim families at a memorial service in Toronto: "We are sorry ... your pain is our pain ... as you grieve so we grieve. This was not an act of foreign violence. This atrocity was conceived in Canada, executed in Canada by Canadian citizens and its victims were themselves mostly citizens of Canada." He added: "It is incumbent upon us all not to reach out to, but marginalize those extremists who seek to import the battles of India's past here and then to export them back to that great and forward-looking nation (India). We must have none of it." [Looks like India and and Stephen Harper's Canada are together in all of this for the long run - but as long as Harper is in power!]
7: H. Singh (San Diego, California, U.S.A.), June 25, 2010, 3:13 AM.
If the Canadian Parliament passes a resolution to label the 1984 pogroms as genocide, it would be a great victory for Sikhs fighting for justice, which has not been given for more than 25 years. What are the positions of the Sikh/ Punjabi MPs in Canada on this?
8: Sunny (London, England), June 25, 2010, 7:43 AM.
Out of curiousity, why didn't the defendants/ defense counsel (in reference to the Air India bombing trial) try to point the finger in the direction of the 'Intelligence; Agencies (Canadian or Indian)?
9: R. Singh (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), June 25, 2010, 11:51 AM.
Should Mr. Harper not have also acknwoledged the pain of those Sikh-Canadians who lost their loved ones to the well-organized genocidal governmental machinery unleashed against them in 1984? "Terrorism" comes in many shapes and forms - the worst is state terrorism! This from the same Prime Minister who spares no effort to remember the holocaust! How is selective acknowledgemnt going to bring about closure? Or does the pain of some Canadians supercede those of others in direct proportion to business interests?
10: Irvinder Singh Babra (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), June 25, 2010, 12:40 PM.
How many more apologies do the East Indians want from Stephen Harper? Will the apologies - extracted like teeth - satisfy the victims and their family members? Get real, fellows! Harper needs your votes and he'll sell his soul - over and over again - to get them. At the very least, you should demand that he appoint a real inquiry to find out the true criminals behind the crime!
11: Harpreet (U.S.A.), June 25, 2010, 2:28 PM.
" ...carefully and systematically marginalize those extremists who seek to import the battles of India's past." While saying this, it shows how genuine Mr. Harper feels about the content of this sentence. While apologizing to those Air India victims, I guess he himself was also importing the past. Worst of all, he couldn't even acknowledge, leave aside apologize, for the Sikh genocide and systematic elimination of innocent thousands in 1984. We are living in such a wonderful world! My advice to all the Sikhs: don't expect anything from anyone. We will do it ourselves whatever we want to justify and achieve.
12: Tarlochan Singh Kular (London, U.K.), July 06, 2010, 4:56 AM.
We Sikhs never learn. Once a British officer in 1920's said: "The Sikhs are lions, but unfortunately they're led by jackals!". This was said over 90 years ago. After all this time, we still haven't addressed this challenge. There is saying that a person should learn from the mistakes of others, we haven't even learned from our own. The Air India bombing was a great tragedy and we should sympathize with the victims and their families. But we should not forget our own, since the infamous words of Nehru proclaiming that the Sikhs are a race of criminals ... If we look at the recent history since 1947, Skhs have taken the brunt of injustices thrown at them by the Indian government. In the 1980's and 90's the government let loose its police and military to inflict casualties upon the Sikhs of Punjab and other states without any consequences, regardless of the outcome of their actions - which the police obeyed with zeal. The results are there for all the world to see and read. Being a Sikh, I would like to see that we have learned from the past and move on from one of the worst chapters of our history to begin building a stronger community for our kids and become a force to be reckoned with. A saying from our past should give us strength: "Mannu sadi datree/ asee mannu de soye,/ jayon jayon mannu vad da/ asee doon savye hoe."