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Will Zuzak; DESCHENE.001 = 1993-01-04 letter to Kim Campbell; 1993-09-28
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Dear Subscribers:
The following letter was sent to then Justice Minister Kim Campbell concerning war crimes issues, Deschenes Commission and the Demjanjuk case:
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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.

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