After years of secrecy, we're finally getting facts on Air India bombing But a recent B.C. parade that displayed Sikh terrorist logos is worrisome http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/opinion/story.html?id=27b85df4-98 eb-41cb-943e-db73b59c59fc Sunday, May 20, 2007
Late one Friday afternoon in February 1985, a young Vancouver lawyer, an overstuffed brief case in each hand, stepped out of his office and headed home. Ujjal Dosanjh got as far as the parking lot when a man armed with an iron bar attacked him and beat him senseless. Dosanjh, now a Liberal MP and a former premier and attorney general in B.C., was at the time one of the few voices of moderation speaking out against violent extremist Sikhs operating in the Indo-Canadian community in Vancouver. The beating was intended to send a message about what happens to those who dared to step forward and oppose them. Four months later, Sikh terrorists planted a bomb on Air India flight 182, killing 329 people, mostly Canadian citizens, in the battle for a Sikh homeland in India. After 22 years, Canadians are finally getting a public account of the events leading up to the bombing on June 23, 1985. The inquiry by former Supreme Court justice John Major has come up with some startling revelations -- outrageous failures of basic security measures that might well have averted the tragedy. The plane took off 15 minutes before a bomb-sniffing dog arrived for a search; the X-ray machines to check the luggage were out of order; a hand-held device substituted to do that job was deemed ineffective by the RCMP six months earlier. There is also evidence the RCMP had far more information about specific threats than they have let on. This is not just a story about the failure and bungling by security agencies, though there's plenty of that in this sorry tale. It's also a failure of Canada's multiculturalism. Mainstream Canada looked the other way as the bitter rift in the Sikh community became increasingly violent, and left the moderates without much support in their effort to contain the violence. "We were struggling to deal with the violence in the community -- and the community was in total anguish with this," said Dosanjh in an interview. "It appeared to me that a large part of the security establishment and political establishment felt that what was happening on the ground in B.C wasn't really happening to Canada. "People were beaten and threatened and I didn't see any politician come to the aid of the community." Around the time he was attacked, Dosanjh wrote then prime minister Brian Mulroney to warn him of the potential for violence in the community, but he got no reply. Cabinet ministers and politicians routinely appeared at events with Sikh extremists. "Joe Clark was the first politician to speak out in 1986 and he warned that nobody should associate with Babbar Khalsa (Sikh extremists) organization." When Dosanjh arrived in Vancouver in 1968, the Indo-Canadian community was smaller and taught newcomers the political norms of Canadian democracy. As the Indo-Canadian community got larger in the 1980s, it became harder to integrate immigrants into mainstream political culture, Dosanjh says. "It won't happen by osmosis." "If a community's political culture tells me that I can be violent, that should not be allowed. It's our obligation to ensure people understand the political culture of freedom of expression and peace." Last month, Dosanjh found himself alone speaking out against a Sikh parade in Surrey that included floats with photographs of leaders from two banned terrorists organizations, Babbar Khalsa and the International Sikh Youth Federation. Air India bombing mastermind Talwinder Singh Parmar was among those honoured. Politicians of all levels were at the parade where people wore T-shirts with logos of the banned organizations, he noted. "We can't turn a blind eye to the celebration of terrorism." These are difficult issues, but Dosanjh is right. Simply avoiding a discussion about them is no solution. But if the Air India story is a cautionary tale about what happens when multiculturalism goes awry, it's also a wake-up call about the competence of security agencies in Canada. The investigation into the Air India bombing has not been well handled for years. Yes, it's partly because CSIS was new and struggling to get on its feet and had few contacts in the Sikh community in the 1980s. There's also a measure of naivete -- Canadians couldn't believe such bad things could happen in their peaceful, good-hearted, Boy Scout of a country. And hindsight is of course perfect. But the litany of bungling is breathtaking. Even the case against Dosanjh's alleged parking-lot attacker was sunk by a technicality because of police mishandling. Most disturbing, however, is the fact that Canadians have been misled about some crucial details. The RCMP, for instance, have always insisted a bomb-sniffing dog had been sent to Mirabel airport before Flight 182 departed. In fact, all the RCMP dogs and trainers were at a training session that week and a Quebec police dog arrived too late to search the plane -- though three suspicious bags had been identified. It should never have taken this long to get a full public accounting of Canada's worst mass murder, a crime for which no one has been brought to justice. If there's any silver lining in this dark cloud, it's that even after 22 years of government stalling, determined people were able to make the federal government carry out its obvious duty to give Canadians the full story. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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