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Air
India families felt ‘isolated’ by Canadian government: inquiry report
Grief-stricken
families who lost loved ones in the Air India bombing felt the
Canadian government did little to help them after the 1985 tragedy, an
interim report from the Air India inquiry finds.
The
211-page report focuses on the emotional impact of the bombing of Air
India Flight 182, which exploded
over the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Ireland while en route
from Canada to India. Of the 329 passengers, 280 were Canadian
citizens, making it the worst mass murder in Canadian history.
The interim report from the Air India inquiry
released on December 11 by Commissioner John Major points out that Canadians
in general were slow to grasp the enormity of the tragedy.
It states: "In spite of the obvious magnitude
of the catastrophe, Canada and Canadians in general did not immediately
recognize it as a terrorist attack against Canadians. That acceptance
was long in coming. Indeed, the first public appearance by a Canadian
prime minister at the memorial service in Ireland did not occur until
2005."
The report also notes: "It is evident and
admitted that the Canadian officials arrived on the scene ill-equipped
and too few in numbers to adequately aid the grieving families. Although
compassionate and well-intentioned, the officials had limited means and
no formal plan of action."
“A
question that lingers among the families and other Canadians is, ‘If
Air India Flight 182 had been an Air Canada flight with all
fair-skinned Canadians, would the government response have been
different?’” wrote John Major, the head of the Air India
inquiry, in the introduction of his report.
“It
was evident that the families felt isolated from the government,” he
noted later in the report.
“They
often said that they felt they were not viewed as ‘real Canadians’
and that this was somehow not a Canadian tragedy.”
A
related bomb killed two baggage handlers at a Tokyo airport.
The
interim report is based on the testimony of family members and emergency
workers at the Air India inquiry, which began in Ottawa on June 21, 2006,
with a mandate to look at how the RCMP and the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service dealt with the attack.
The
report does not provide conclusions or policy recommendations —
those will be contained in a final report to be released sometime next
year.
Family
members, whose emotional stories and personal pictures are woven through
the report, felt the government offered them little support after the
bombing, the report says.
Not
caring about ‘lives of Canadians of Indian origin’
The
report quotes family members who said that Canadian officials did not
arrive in Ireland until six days after the bombing to help them
identify bodies. In the days and months that ensued, officials never
called to offer condolences and never made grief counselling and other
services available, families contend.
Some
families received compensation, but it only came after “prolonged civil
litigation” and was usually “very modest,” the report notes.
“We
thought at that time, and I think it may be true today too, that it is not
taken as a Canadian problem, and nobody cares about the lives of Canadians
of Indian origin,” Dr. Ramji Khandelwal, who lost two daughters in the bombing,
is quoted saying in the report.
The
report notes that Canadian officials were dispatched to Ireland to help
relatives identify and repatriate bodies, but were limited by Irish law,
which did not allow family members to see bodies until autopsies were
performed, which took several days.
Canadian
officials were also hindered by their small numbers — at first
there were only four officials, but that number was eventually boosted to
seven.
“We
felt quite bad because there was little you could do to help them in that
initial stage,” said Scott Heatherington, a diplomat sent to Ireland.
Officials
‘ill-equipped’
Daniel
Molgat, another official, said officials’ work was not compromised
by “latent discrimination,” according to the report.
The
report doesn’t dispute that the officials meant well.
“They
were well-meaning and well-intended, but unprepared and ill-equipped for
what was expected of them,” the report states. “Their numbers and
resources were inadequate for what was needed to respond to a terrorist
attack of the magnitude of the Air India bombing.”
The
interim report was released in what is expected to be the last week
of oral testimony at the inquiry. Lawyers will then make their final
written submissions in January.
Families’
lawyer welcomes report
Jacques
Shore, a lawyer for the families, applauded the interim report and
described it as “very powerful” in getting its message across to
the public.
For
the first time, he said, many family members feel “someone is listening
and they are being heard.”
Much
of the report told the families’ stories in their own words, with a
section on each of the victims.
In
one passage, Haran Radhakrishna recalled how it felt to return to his
Toronto home after his wife, 14-year-old daughter, and eight-year-old son
died in the bombing.
“Some
days after work I would drive to the ice hockey arena where my daughter
used to go for practice, only to realize that she was not there
anymore,” Radhakrishna said, according to the report.
“My
life was empty.”
A
single conviction
The
explosives that blew up Air India were allegedly planted by Sikh
extremists in luggage that was loaded in Vancouver, but only one person
has ever been convicted in relation to the tragedy.
Inderjit
Singh Reyat pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 2003 and received a
five-year sentence. The suspected ringleader, Talwinder Singh Parmar, died
in India in 1992 and the RCMP’s two main surviving suspects were both
acquitted in March 2005 after a 19-month trial.
Criticism of the government
Over the years, there has been an underlying
criticism of the government of that time, and a common expression of
disappointment from family members that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney
was quick to send a letter of condolence to the Prime Minister of India,
Rajiv Gandhi, on Sunday, June 23rd, the day of the attack. The
implication was that Prime Minister Mulroney and his government had
dismissed this matter as an "Indian tragedy" and by extension
minimized Canadian ownership. The Commission heard evidence to the
contrary during the hearing.
Testimony during the hearings clarified the
sequence of events as follows: Canada's prime minister telephoned his
Indian counterpart soon after the tragedy and a letter came from Rajiv
Gandhi to Brian Mulroney on June 26, 1985. Prime Minister Mulroney did
not write his letter until July 18, 1985. The date of that letter and
its filing as evidence before this Commission were confirmed by the
Department of the Attorney General and recorded during testimony on May
8, 2007.
In essence, Prime Minister Mulroney noted Canada's
grief for the many citizens of both countries who lost their lives in
the crash. The bombing had not yet been confirmed. Prime Minister
Mulroney went on to say that if this were to be identified as an act of
sabotage, Canadian police were fully engaged in identifying and
prosecuting the perpetrators. He assured the Indian Prime Minister of
full Canadian cooperation in tracking down terrorists within this
country and pledged cooperation between the two countries. In closing,
the Prime Minister conveyed his own sympathy and that of the Government
for the "grievous loss that our two countries have shared."
This information clarifies both the timing and
intent of the Prime Minister's letter.
[Source:
Agencies]
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