Canada: Not the Oasis It Once Was.

May 3, 2007 TORONTO -- One morning in late February, Canadian police arrived at a house in the small town of Nelson, British Columbia, and arrested Kyle Snyder, a U.S. soldier who had gone AWOL from the Army. Snyder, a former combat engineer who left the United States in
April 2005 to avoid deployment for a second tour in Iraq, was detained for several hours but never charged with a crime. It remains unclear why he was arrested.

The local police said they were told to detain Snyder by the Canadian Border Services Agency but acknowledged that the immigration agency was not their "original source" for information on Snyder. In fact, Snyder was released after a Canadian immigration official contacted the local police and informed them there was no basis for Snyder's detention. After he was back home, Snyder said he was told by Josie Perry, the Canadian immigration official who ordered his release, that his arrest had come at the behest of officials from the U.S. Army.

A few weeks later, in Toronto, three men wearing trench coats knocked at the home of Winnie Ng, a Canadian resident who harbored an American soldier named Joshua Key. Key, who'd also been a combat engineer, went AWOL from the Army in 2003 after serving in Iraq. According to Ng, one of the men announced they were Toronto police officers and told her they wanted to speak to Key, though Ng was suspicious about their identities. One of the three was in fact a local police officer, but according to a local news report, a spokesperson for the Toronto police department acknowledged that at least one of the other two men was an official from the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigation Command, or CID.

The incidents have sparked allegations that Canadian law enforcement has been collaborating with U.S. officials to help track down American soldiers who have fled to Canada. Some critics, including a left-leaning member of Parliament who represents Nelson, say they believe it is a campaign of intimidation.

"Our concern is that there could be other Kyle Snyders in Canada," Alex Atamanenko, the parliamentarian, said following Snyder's arrest on Feb. 23. "Are there those that are being apprehended now?"

In a formal letter of complaint to the Conservative Party Cabinet ministers responsible for public safety and immigration, Atamanenko noted that Snyder was apprehended without a search warrant or permission to enter the residence. "Has Canada ever raised official objection to the U.S. about the operation of U.S. police, security, intelligence or military officials in Canada?" Atamanenko asked, adding, "It is important for Canadian citizens and visitors to our country to know that our Canadian sovereignty is respected."

With the Iraq war in its fifth year, an increasing number of American soldiers have been going AWOL and fleeing to Canada, particularly over the last six months. One lawyer who works on their behalf puts the number of American war resisters currently living in Canada at 250 or more. Advocates for them here talk of a kind of "underground railroad" that has developed south of the border to help war resisters make their way north.

Ever since the Vietnam War, many Americans have viewed Canada as a liberal oasis, ready to welcome those who no longer want to take part in Uncle Sam's wars. But the reality is more complicated these days, especially with the conservative Harper government in power since 2006. Although the Canadian people are still largely welcoming, some war resisters say they have faced hostility here. And all of them who are seeking refugee status to remain in the country face complex legal obstacles, according to experts on Canada's refugee laws. Meanwhile, the alleged cooperation between Canadian and U.S. law enforcement authorities to track them down raises thorny legal questions of its own.

Speaking by phone recently from an undisclosed location in the Canadian prairies, Key told Salon that he generally feels safe in Canada, although he said one person threatened to "put him on a boat and take him back to the U.S." and another told him that his daughter "deserved to be shot in the head." He said that he was unnerved after he heard about Snyder's arrest in B.C. in February. "After what I saw in Iraq," he said, "I know that a snatch-and-grab operation doesn't take long."

It would be illegal under Canadian law for U.S. officials to make an arrest on Canadian soil, according to Audrey Macklin, a professor at the University of Toronto Law School. "U.S. law enforcement officers have no jurisdiction here," she said. The picture gets murkier, however, with the prospect of Canadian police working on behalf of U.S. officials. "Sometimes officials cooperate in cross-border criminal investigations," Macklin said. But the incidents involving Snyder and Key, she said, didn't strike her as typical cross-border cooperation. "It's sheer conjecture on my part, but I do wonder if it is more about intimidation."

While the Canadian police have publicly acknowledged cooperating with Army CID on the search for Key -- who has not committed a crime in Canada -- U.S. officials have remained circumspect.

In a recent report in the Globe and Mail, a spokesperson for the CID, which investigates criminal matters for the military, acknowledged only that they were "interested" in talking with Key because of allegations he has made about the conduct of American soldiers in Iraq. Key recently wrote a book called "The Deserter's Tale," published in February by Grove/Atlantic, in which he alleges war crimes by his fellow soldiers.

Key wrote, among other things, that he believes American soldiers raped Iraqi women and that he watched soldiers from the 124th Infantry Division playing soccer with the heads of dead Iraqi civilians. (Key also notes in the book that when torture at Abu Ghraib became public in spring 2004, he was not surprised, because it struck him as consistent with the brutality he had witnessed.) Key says he refused to participate in such acts and is now seeking refugee status in Canada.

Requests to CID by Salon for further details about the Army agency's pursuit of Key were not answered.

Next page: "They used lies and plays on words to get us over there, and ordered us to commit crimes against another country"


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