***************************************************************************
Will Zuzak; DESCHENE.001 = 1993-01-04 letter to Kim Campbell; 1993-09-28
***************************************************************************
Dear Subscribers:
The following letter was sent to then Justice Minister Kim Campbell
concerning war crimes issues, Deschenes Commission and the Demjanjuk case:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
1993-01-04
The Honourable Kim Campbell
Minister of Justice
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0H8
Fax:(613)992-6106
Dear Ms. Campbell:
I would like to publicly express my extreme displeasure with
your two responses (stamped Sept. 2 and Dec. 18, 1992) to my
requests (dated June 1, August 13 and October 9, 1992) for
information concerning war crimes investigations. Your
platitudes, imparting absolutely no information, can, at best, be
described as "stonewalling" and are a perfect example of why
Canadians have lost confidence in their elected representatives,
in general, and the judicial system, in particular.
I find it galling that within three days after your latest
reply to me (postmarked Dec. 21, 1992) the War Crimes Unit gave a
two hour interview to David Vienneau of the Toronto Star which
was reported in the Dec. 27, 1992 issue of the Montreal Gazette.
My worst fears have been realized.
1. My overall views on Canada's war crimes legislation can be
best summarized by the following section from a letter to Justice
Jules Deschenes dated February 17, 1988:
An examination of the evolution of Bill C-71 from conception
to birth is not reassuring to Canadians interested in the
health and well-being of their democratic ideals and system
of jurisprudence:
(a) As so well documented in the Deschenes Commission
Report, Order-in-Council #1985-348 was conceived in the
deceit of the "Mengele Affair" perpetrated with the
connivance of the sensation-seeking mass media.
(b) The ability of the people drafting the Order-in-Council
to limit its mandate to discriminate against a select
minority of Canadians points to some very serious
shortcomings of our political system.
(c) The failure of a Superior Court judge to reject the
blatantly discriminatory terms of reference brings into
question the independence of the judiciary from political
pressure.
(d) The unnecessarily convoluted construction of Bill C-71
appears to be specifically designed to limit the
applicability of the legislation to a select clientele so as
to avoid prosecution of criminals and crimes not covered by
the Deschenes Commission Inquiry. It also implies a
dangerous politicization and bureaucratization of our
judicial system.
(e) Collusion among the three federal political parties to
hurriedly pass Bill C-71 without allowing for public
scrutiny and discussion as well as appropriate parliamentary
debate will surely be recorded in history as a low point in
Canadian parliamentary democracy.
2. Your claim that the accused's rights are guaranteed by the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a joke. On page 827 of
his Report, Justice Deschenes admits that:
"In 96 percent of the cases which the Commission has
investigated it has not communicated with the suspects."
It is perfectly clear that the rights of thousands of innocent
Canadian citizens have been compromised by Mr. Deschenes and I
must conclude that the War Crimes Unit continues to do so at the
present time.
3. Your statement that the government's commitment in this area
is not restricted to "Nazi" crimes is also misleading. In a
letter to Mssrs. Mulroney, Turner and Broadbent dated August 9,
1987, I stated:
I was even more shocked when I obtained a copy of Bill C-71
and realized that it was even more narrow and discriminatory
than the recommendations of the Deschenes Commission.The
contents do not correspond to the public pronouncements of
the government. One can only conclude that the lawyers in
the Justice Department were acting in bad faith and/or
perhaps had developed a too-cosy relationship with their
counterparts in the OSI.
Whereas I expected that Bill C-71 would apply to all
extraterritorial crimes (past, present or future) committed
by Canadian citizens or residents of Canada, Clause (191)(a)
of Bill C-71 in reality restricts its application to:
(i) born-in-Canada Canadian citizens,
(ii) so-called "Nazi war criminals" of World War II vintage
as defined in the Deschenes Report,
(iii)immigrants from countries now behind the Iron Curtain
who fought against Communist tyranny during World War II.
It does not apply to terrorists of any persuasion.
It does not apply to war criminals functioning in the
ongoing Middle East conflicts.
It does not apply to Soviet war crimes and crimes against
humanity perpetrated since 1917.
It does not apply to the many tyrannical dictatorships
flourishing throughout the world.
The deliberate convoluted wording of Bill C-71 precludes its
application to "modern crimes committed in current conflicts
around the world" as you claim. Our present war crimes
legislation has no general validity whatsoever!
4. The Vienneau article describes a "new strategy" involving
direct access to archives, Canadian lawyers and Mounties
interviewing witnesses, informal communication links with foreign
countries. This "new strategy" sounds suspiciously similar to the
infamous Ryan-Rudenko agreement in early 1980 between the OSI and
the KGB to facilitate framing John Demjanjuk. The "prepared"
archives are likely to yield documents of the same dubious
quality as the forged Trawniki ID card in the Demjanjuk case. Why
would Canadian lawyers and Mounties be any less susceptible to
corruption than OSI investigators such as prosecutor Norman
Moscowitz who suborned perjury from Otto Horn in the Demjanjuk
case? The "informal communications links with foreign countries"
is virtually certain to produce slipshod practices perfected by
the OSI resulting in unavailable records of interviews, misplaced
documents, disappearing memos, etc.
Justice Deschenes listed six basic precautions to be
enforced on Soviet-supplied evidence. In my April, 1987 CRITIQUE
of the Deschenes Report, I added three more:
(a) The defense must be fully represented at all hearings.
(b) The defense must have the right to search out witnesses and
information exonerating the suspect.
(c) All defence costs are to be borne by the Government.
Unless the defense is involved in all stages of the
investigation and is given financial resources equal to that of
the prosecution, it is impossible for the accused to defend
himself or herself effectively.
5. The Vienneau article states that 75 percent of the 300
suspects are from the following Eastern European countries:
Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Belarus,
Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (but not Russia). Between World
War II and the demise of the Soviet Union on Dec. 25, 1991, every
one of these nations suffered terribly under the domination of
the Bolshevik Russian Empire. In each of these countries,
democratic forces are fighting an uphill battle against the old
communist nomenklatura, who wish to re-establish the dictatorial
Stalinist system of the past. This nomenklatura has consistently
falsely accused the democratic forces who fought against
Bolshevik tyranny of being Nazi collaborators guilty of war
crimes. They themselves were responsible for over 65 million dead
during their reign of terror.
Once again, prosecution of criminals from this nomenklatura
who have emigrated to Canada is impossible under Bill C-71.
Rather than amending our war crimes legislation to ensure that
all such criminals who are present in Canada are prosecuted, the
Canadian government appears to have formed an alliance with them
against the democratic forces.
6. Luitjens case: In the spring of 1987 after the Deschenes
Report was released, then Justice Minister Ramon Hnatyshyn
publicly stated that the Canadian government had opted for a
made-in-Canada solution. There would be no denaturalizations,
deportations or extraditions. All cases would be treated in
Canada.
This obviously did not occur in the Luitjens case. I do not
know if Mr. Luitjens would have preferred to have his case
examined here in Canada rather than being deported to the
Netherlands. If so, then obviously his rights have been violated.
The Vienneau article states: "The government plans to try to
strip the others of their Canadian citizenship so they can be
deported." This is absolutely contrary to the stated policy at
the time Bill C-71 was passed and is completely unacceptable to
the vast majority of Canadians.
7. Demjanjuk case: It is now obvious to all who are familiar
with the John Demjanjuk case, that the Office of Special
Investigations (OSI) of the U.S. Department of Justice engaged in
"prosecutorial misconduct" and "obstruction of justice" to obtain
the denaturalization and extradition of Mr. Demjanjuk to Israel.
It is these very people in the OSI who were responsible for
providing disinformation and unduly influenced the Deschenes
Commission. The Deschenes Report itself is replete with
disinformation on the Demjanjuk and other cases perpetrated by
the OSI. Documents from the Demjanjuk case show conclusively that
the OSI deliberately and consciously attempted to influence the
Deschenes Commission.
I hope, my dear Ms. Campbell, that these seven points will
convince you that the whole war crimes issue in Canada since the
fall of 1984 has been mishandled from start to finish. I would
strongly suggest that the War Crimes Unit at the Department of
Justice be placed on hold until its mode of operation has been
carefully scrutinized by an independent body and until the
existing war crimes legislation, Bill C-71, can be repealed and
replaced with legislation capable of handling all
extra-territorial crimes (past, present and future) perpetrated
by citizens or residents of Canada or visitors to Canada.
Sincerely yours,
William Zuzak, Ph.D., P.Eng.
cc/CEC, UCC, news media, public at large
***************************************************************************
Will Zuzak; DESCHENE.001 = 1993-01-04 letter to Kim Campbell; 1993-09-28
***************************************************************************