1984
Air India Report: Intelligence Agencies Responsible
by JOHN CORBETT
Editor: Justice John Major's Report is out! It was released yesterday. Within hours, its findings were deftly and conveniently moved away from the front page of Canadian newspapers. Why? Did they say too much, without saying too much? Was it too embarassing for the Canadian media which seems to have sold its own soul on this whole mess?
Because, though Major carefully stayed away from analyzing in necessary detail the involvement of either the Indian or the Canadian "intelligence" agencies, it did indict the Canadian equivalent of the CIA - the "CSIS" - and Canada's leading police agency, the RCMP, as being responsible for the tragedy.
Oddly, with lightening speed, Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, anounced that his government would further compensate the victims immediately with large amounts of money!
Remember, governments don't pay victims money unless they simply HAVE to! That's what the legion of lawyers that infest the halls of government are meant to do: obfuscate, delay, muddy ... anything but deal with the full truth or anything resembling justice! That is, unless they have no other options available, unless there is glaring evidence heading their way with the single-mindedness of a runaway train! Then ... you pay quickly and try and bury the story as soon as humanly possible!
We won't find out ... at least not for a while ... what trade-off Canada has made with India for this white-wash; or how much of the pay-off will be dished out by India; and what India will give Canada in return. [It never does ... Canada has yet to ingest the adage that beggars never get anything from beggars!]
But one thing is clear from all the actions and omissions of the key players, and from reading between the lines: that even though John Major has managed to skate deftly over thin ice, the culpability of the very people who should have been looking after the best interests of the people of their respective nations, is unequivocal.
We offer the following analysis - first published while the John Major enquiry was underway - from one of the world's most prestigious intelligence commentators. You be the judge!
On June 23, 1985, a bomb planted aboard Air India Flight 182 exploded as it made its way from Toronto to London Heathrow, killing all 329 aboard.
The bombing still stands as Canada's deadliest instance of mass murder, and was the deadliest act of terrorism involving airplanes before the events of September 11, 2001. In 2005, some two decades after the original disaster, the only two suspects to be put on trial for the bombing were acquitted due to a total lack of evidence pointing to them.
The verdict created an uproar in Canada, and the government duly set up an inquiry, headed by John Major [whose report was finally released yesterday.]
But witnesses testifying before the commission over the last weeks out of the Canadian inquiry into the Air India Flight 182 disaster have started painting a picture of government foreknowledge which is confirming suspicions that the Canadian CIA - the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) - were complicit in the bombing and its coverup.
On May 17, two former government lawyers, Graham Pinos and Michael Anne MacDonald, testified to the inquiry that they were attending international hearings on terrorism in Los Angeles during the week preceding the bombing. Each of them claims to have had separate conversations with a Mr. Mel Deschesnes of CSIS in which he stated there was a problem with Sikh extremists in Vancouver who were seeking to bring down an airplane.
He left the conference unexpectedly on June 20, telling Ms. MacDonald that there was an urgent problem with the extremists in Vancouver. The bombing took place three days later. Mr. Pinos testified that when the bombing took place, his reaction was to say to himself: "Holy (expletive), they knew, they knew!"
This clear evidence of fore-knowledge further corroborates the idea that CSIS had a part to play in the bombing itself.
The trail of CSIS involvement leads back to one Surjan Singh Gill. Immediately in the wake of the bombings, suspicion quickly came to bear on a group calling itself Babbar Khalsa, a Sikh religious society that was seeking to establish a Sikh homeland in the Punjab.
According to the government citation against the only two to be brought to court for the bombing, Surjan Singh Gill was on the incorporation documents that created the society. A Globe & Mail article from 2003 details how Gill delivered the bombs that were used in the attack. Just days before the bombing, however, Gill pulled out of the plot. Although always under suspicion for his part in the bombing, he was not brought in by the police.
The Globe and Mail article details how Gill "move[d] to England in 2000, shortly before two other men were charged in the case. Before he left Canada, the RCMP had identified Mr. Gill as one of six main suspects in the Air-India case, recently released RCMP documents show. Mr. Gill was never charged in the bombings."
How did Surjan Singh Gill have the ability to found the group that carried out the bombing, deliver the bombs, pull out of the plot just before it took place, get on the RCMP list of main suspects, and avoid even being brought before a court of justice?
According to transcripts of RCMP interrogations obtained by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Gill was a CSIS mole who was ordered to pull out of the group just before the bombings so that CSIS could not be directly implicated. The transcripts also detail the destruction of wiretaps that took place in the wake of the bombings in order to hide CSIS' involvement in the attack.
These stunning revelations are being downplayed in the mainstream media, as usual, but the fact remains that a mole of the Canadian intelligence service founded the group that ran the bombing, helped organize and pull off the bombing, and escaped without charge. Canadian citizens who find this unacceptable should contact their Member of Parliament to demand that Canada request Surjan Singh Gill's extradition from England in order that he may be brought before the inquiry to answer for his role with CSIS and his role in the bombings.
[Source: The Corbett Report - Open Source Intelligence News]
June 18, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Harpreet (Texas, U.S.A.), June 18, 2010, 1:00 PM.
I am saddened that we have got our community either adulterated or some have been back stabbing for the money or the majority's (be it Hindus in India or combo of Hindus + Whites in Canada) foxy love. By name, Raveena Aulakh seems Sikh, but she wouldn't bother to authenticate the story before putting it to please the majority (http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/825289--community-leaders-worry-extremist-views-affecting-young-sikhs). These are her sarcastic and indicting quotes: "Long live Khalistan - in Canada", and "Sikh terrorists bombed Air India Flight 182" respectively. I have to say just let them shout and voice their hypocritical anger, we should and must stand by our ethos and what is right for community. Remember one thing, that no religion has ever been able to sustain if it didn't rule on its own land. There is no religion without a kingdom for the religion to thrive. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists all have their kingdoms where their religion is state-declared. Check if you don't know.
2: Irvinder Singh Babra (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), June 18, 2010, 2:10 PM.
Justice John Major's report should be the full and final chapter on the very sad, tragic tale of Air India's Kaniksha plane blast. The report has freed all Canadian Sikhs, the falsely accused and the perceived accused both, of any stigma against them.
3: Gurteg Singh (New York, U.S.A.), June 18, 2010, 2:29 PM.
It is a shame and a disgrace that some one with a Sikh sounding name like Raveena Aulukh would be so ignorant and spread lies, disinformation and outright propaganda of the Indian government and its agents in Canada. Under the garb of "Community leaders worrying about young Sikhs", she paddled the lies of Dave Hayer who said that the second generation Sikhs are a getting distorted view of what happened in Punjab years ago. So the truth about Operation BlueStar, killing, torture, rape and burning of hundreds of thousands of innocent Sikhs, is a distorted view? But a sanitized version of the Indian Government;s shenanigans and calling Sikhs terrorists is the right view?
4: Gurmeet Kaur (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.), June 18, 2010, 4:39 PM.
Raveena Aulakh seems to be on a journey to malign Sikhs in her last few articles. I just read her article and lodged a complaint with The Star. I urge you to do the same. There are many factual errors in her report that one could point to. Please write.
5: T. Sher Singh (Mount Forest, Ontario, Canada), June 18, 2010, 7:33 PM.
I have good news and bad news to share with you. First, the good news - Our police here in Canada are amongst the best in the world. Now, the bad news - Our police here in Canada are amongst the best in the world. It doesn't get any better - and remember, India lies at the bottom of the heap. Yes, our police lie and distort and stretch and even make up stories. No, this is not my opinion. Today, a day after the John Major Report was released on the Air India crime(s), another Inquiry Report was released here in Canada. And, Commissioner Thomas Braidwood did not mince words, unlike his counterparts who have been pussy-footing around the real issues vis-a-vis India's hand behind the Air India bombing. Braidwood said the following about the RCMP with respect to another crime they had committed - yes, our world famous and so-called elite police force - and I quote verbatim: a) "...the officers, in their testimony before the inquiry, offered unbelievable after-the-fact rationalizations." b) The four police officers made "deliberate misrepresentations for the purpose of justifying their action." The four officers were found by the Commissioner to have brutally killed an innocent Canadian citizen without any justification whatsoever! Well, you know, it's the same bunch of "law and order" guys who were messing around with their CSIS and Indian counterparts when the Air India bombing was being planned. Who says this? Witnesses with the most impeccable credentials! Yet, their testimony has not even been mentioned anywhere by John Major! As I said, if the RCMP behave this way, you don't need to imagine much as to how the desis behaved when they were allowed into the chicken coop!
6: Dr. Birinder Singh Ahluwalia (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), June 18, 2010, 8:26 PM.
In my humble opinion, Justice John Major has done what could be done, considering the subject matter. By fully indicting CSIS and the RCMP - for whatever reasons (complacency, incompetence, communication breakdown, infighting, etc., etc.) to (inadvertently or otherwise) have let this terrible disaster happen - he has successfully laid blame right at the doorstep of Canada's most respected institutions. Most Canadians (including myself) are fully aware that these institutions (CSIS and RCMP) are extremely competent and for the most part do their job very well in protecting Canada and Canadians. How have they been found to be so wrong and incompetent in such an important matter, is beyond comprehension - this question will drive the emergence (and give credibility to) of sorts of alternative theories surrounding this ghastly incident (collusion with foreign agencies, rogue agents, foreign countries funding terrorists, etc.) By not indicting other culprits/ nations in this horrible criminal act against humanity, Justice Major has stayed away from causing any international embarrassment, and rightfully so. By recommending that it is Canadian institutions that should take all the blame and as such need to be re-tooled/ revamped/ reconfigured, etc., in order to provide better security to Canadian citizens, maybe Justice Major is indirectly conveying a subtle message to such agencies to rebuild their character/ honesty/ integrity and sense of keen duty and not succumb to nefarious agendas of other organizations around the world that do not have similar value systems as Canada has in terms of honesty, integrity and the trust(worthiness) that we explicitly put in and enjoy with (our) esteemed institutions. As regards to compensation to victims, there is never a better or a good time for it (early, quickly or later); no amount of money (paid at any moment) will lessen the pain and anguish that goes with the loss of loved ones. My sympathies will always be there for victims of not only this terrible tragedy but for victims of all crimes against humanity, including heartfelt sympathy for the Sikh families who suffered immensely during the 1984 pogroms in India - the latter still awaiting justice or the kind of impartial inquiry Justice Major has conducted on the Air India disaster. Canada has once again shown how it has become stronger by not fearing to blame itself for such a tragedy. Other countries should take a hint from Canada's fearless greatness in this regard. Most countries would simply lay blame on others or shove it under the rug or create incredibly false inquiry reports that defy all reason and logic. Let us all work together to root out the evil that causes such tragedies and not politicize this issue to secure some points or to gain upmanship by making it into a Sikh or a Hindu issue. Maybe I am wishing too much and should simply accept ... no, I don't think so, because to accept the unsaid is too disastrous and depressing ... PM Stephen Harper is right in embracing the findings of Justice Major's report and deciding to compensate the families of the victims of this enormous tragedy in the manner he has espoused - Thank you, (PM), for endorsing such swift action so as to hasten a closure on this heinous crime.
7: N. Singh (Canada), June 19, 2010, 11:50 AM.
In 1947, my grandfather was coming home from work and found two small children (boy and girl) sitting and crying besides the dead bodies of their Muslim parents. He brought them home and later adopted them, and ensured that they grew up as Muslims because he wanted to show the world that you could not eradicate another race! I am still waiting ... 25 years! and counting ... for the victims of the Air India tragedy to look beyond their own needs and pains to the innocent victims of 1984. Why am I not surprised it has not happened! I suspect they will continue, with the help of the likes of Hayer and Dosanjh, to blindly and ignorantly point fingers at the Sikh community, and refuse to look at the facts staring them in the face!
8: R. Singh (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), June 19, 2010, 6:33 PM.
Please do write into the Ombudsman, I know Toronto Star has one, against such a wide smear tactic. Will Ms. Aulakh be able to smear all Catholics for IRA and troubles in Ireland? What is surprising is the striking similarities between the write-ups in most newspapers. Perhaps they all use the same PR source for their information.