Criminal
04-23-2004, 12:14 PM
http://temagami.carleton.ca/jmc/cnews/27092002/n5.shtml
By Nathan Wilson
OTTAWA | Sept. 27, 2002 — Recent admissions by ex-members of a notorious Soviet organization have led to renewed calls for an inquiry into communist-era war criminals.
The inquiry was launched by the lobby group, the Ukrainian-Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
The UCCLA says Resistance and Revenge and this Montreal Gazette article show how little is being done about Soviet-era war criminals.
"It's very clear that there are individuals in Canada who, by their own writing or by their own public statement have indicated that they were members of various Soviet and communist organizations that were engaged in crimes against humanity and war crimes," says Lubomyr Luciuk.
Luciuk is a politics and economics professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston and the research director for UCCLA. He also worked for the immigration and refugee board for two years.
Public statements
In Resistance and Revenge, a memoir by Joseph Riwash, a former officer in the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, wrote about things he did as an NKVD officer that could be considered criminal activity, Luciuk says. Riwash lives in Montreal.
Six years ago, Nadejda Otsep immigrated to Montreal. She says she was not asked any questions regarding her activities during the Second World War.
For most of the war, she was commander and medical surgeon with the 55th Division of the Red Army, a sniper unit. In the summer of 1943, Otsep was assigned to SMERSH. An acronym for Smyert Shpionem, SMERSH literally means "death to spies."
SMERSH was founded on Apr. 14, 1943, and disbanded in 1946. Its purpose was to create favourable conditions for communism in newly acquired territory; this included executing anti-Soviets. SMERSH would follow the infantry during an offensive, Otsep says.
In May 2002, Otsep told the Montreal Gazette that her job was to check graves to ensure that victims were dead.
'. . .if the work someone did made it possible for other guys to go around shooting people, because they didn't have to worry about cooking, cleaning, etc., than he is part of the system of persecution. He is not welcome in Canada.'
"The fact is a firing squad shooting people, who are deemed to be cowards, collaborators, or anti-Soviet are participating in and committing war crimes," Luciuk says. "If the argument is she's a small cog in the system, i.e. all she's doing is jumping in and making sure they're dead, what happens if somebody was alive?"
Definition of a war criminal
Terry Beitner is director and general counsel of the federal justice department's War Crimes section. He says, "If you have a situation where someone is said to go into a pit and check if people are dead and says, 'No, this one's not dead,' and pulls out a gun and shoots them, that person is committing murder. Or if a person yells out, 'Hey, we got a live one here, could you please take care of it,' that person is involved in murder."
In reference to his time with the refugee and immigration board, Luciuk says, "We were told that if the work someone did made it possible for other guys to go around shooting people, because they didn't have to worry about cooking, cleaning, etc., then he is part of the system of persecution. He is not welcome in Canada."
The 2001 annual report of Canada's War Crimes Program states: "if the person contributes, directly or indirectly, to [a war crime] occurrence" they are complicit in that crime. The report goes on to state that "[m]embership in an organization responsible for committing the atrocities can be sufficient for complicity if the organization in question is one with a single, brutal purpose, e.g. a death squad."
The cases of Otsep and Riwash are two instances where individuals have published accounts of their involvement with groups that would fit the government's specifications, Luciuk says.
Canadian Alliance MP Peter Goldring criticizes this clause.
By Nathan Wilson
OTTAWA | Sept. 27, 2002 — Recent admissions by ex-members of a notorious Soviet organization have led to renewed calls for an inquiry into communist-era war criminals.
The inquiry was launched by the lobby group, the Ukrainian-Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
The UCCLA says Resistance and Revenge and this Montreal Gazette article show how little is being done about Soviet-era war criminals.
"It's very clear that there are individuals in Canada who, by their own writing or by their own public statement have indicated that they were members of various Soviet and communist organizations that were engaged in crimes against humanity and war crimes," says Lubomyr Luciuk.
Luciuk is a politics and economics professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston and the research director for UCCLA. He also worked for the immigration and refugee board for two years.
Public statements
In Resistance and Revenge, a memoir by Joseph Riwash, a former officer in the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, wrote about things he did as an NKVD officer that could be considered criminal activity, Luciuk says. Riwash lives in Montreal.
Six years ago, Nadejda Otsep immigrated to Montreal. She says she was not asked any questions regarding her activities during the Second World War.
For most of the war, she was commander and medical surgeon with the 55th Division of the Red Army, a sniper unit. In the summer of 1943, Otsep was assigned to SMERSH. An acronym for Smyert Shpionem, SMERSH literally means "death to spies."
SMERSH was founded on Apr. 14, 1943, and disbanded in 1946. Its purpose was to create favourable conditions for communism in newly acquired territory; this included executing anti-Soviets. SMERSH would follow the infantry during an offensive, Otsep says.
In May 2002, Otsep told the Montreal Gazette that her job was to check graves to ensure that victims were dead.
'. . .if the work someone did made it possible for other guys to go around shooting people, because they didn't have to worry about cooking, cleaning, etc., than he is part of the system of persecution. He is not welcome in Canada.'
"The fact is a firing squad shooting people, who are deemed to be cowards, collaborators, or anti-Soviet are participating in and committing war crimes," Luciuk says. "If the argument is she's a small cog in the system, i.e. all she's doing is jumping in and making sure they're dead, what happens if somebody was alive?"
Definition of a war criminal
Terry Beitner is director and general counsel of the federal justice department's War Crimes section. He says, "If you have a situation where someone is said to go into a pit and check if people are dead and says, 'No, this one's not dead,' and pulls out a gun and shoots them, that person is committing murder. Or if a person yells out, 'Hey, we got a live one here, could you please take care of it,' that person is involved in murder."
In reference to his time with the refugee and immigration board, Luciuk says, "We were told that if the work someone did made it possible for other guys to go around shooting people, because they didn't have to worry about cooking, cleaning, etc., then he is part of the system of persecution. He is not welcome in Canada."
The 2001 annual report of Canada's War Crimes Program states: "if the person contributes, directly or indirectly, to [a war crime] occurrence" they are complicit in that crime. The report goes on to state that "[m]embership in an organization responsible for committing the atrocities can be sufficient for complicity if the organization in question is one with a single, brutal purpose, e.g. a death squad."
The cases of Otsep and Riwash are two instances where individuals have published accounts of their involvement with groups that would fit the government's specifications, Luciuk says.
Canadian Alliance MP Peter Goldring criticizes this clause.