Kanishka tragedy could have been prevented: Diplomat

The 1985 bombing the Air India aircraft could have been prevented if Canada had taken early action against Sikh ultras, a former diplomat said, recalling that India had complained for a year prior to the 1985 attack that Canadian officials were not doing enough to protect its diplomatic personnel and flights from repeated threats from extremists.

Testifying before the Air India inquiry commission, former Canadian High Commissioner to India William Warden said India was constantly protesting the inaction of Canadian authorities in prosecuting threats, assaults and vandalism against their diplomats.

He cited two attacks against Indian diplomats in Winnipeg and Toronto in the summer of 1984 and the fact no one was successfully prosecuted, something that infuriated the Indian government.

Warden laid out his concerns in an Aug. 2, 1984, telex to Ottawa in which he said India believes 'Canada was failing to take vigorous action against extremists.'

About the Winnipeg attack in July, 1984, the telex said, 'Police had scarcely exerted themselves to fend off assailants, let alone to provide effective protection to arrest those committing violence.'

Warden sent several similar telexes in the year before the bombing, which he said, 'should have created a greater sense of urgency, a greater appreciation for the threat that was building up.'

He said that in June-July 1984, he was called in about 18 times by Indian external affairs officials to hear their concerns about attacks on diplomatic staff in Canada.

After the Air India disaster one June 23, 1985 that killed 329 people, the Indian government response was essentially 'we told you so.'

In another testimony, Gordon Smith, the then deputy minister of external affairs, challenged Ontario Lieutenant Governor James Bartleman's testimony and said he would have been 'obligated 22 years ago to pass on to his superiors details of the specific threat against Air India Flight 182 that he said he saw days before the plane went down.'

Smith cast doubt on Bartleman startling testimony at the Air India inquiry last week that a warning against the flight on June 22, 1985, crossed his desk just a few days before.

"I think it is possible... that he has conflated several events and run them together and his memory in that sense is playing tricks on him," Smith told inquiry head Justice John Major.

Bartleman, who worked under Smith at the time, said he tried to raise the threat with an RCMP officer on June 18, 1985, but was brushed off and then never discussed it again for more than two decades.

But Smith said he knows Bartleman very well and cannot imagine he would not have told him or others about the threat either before or after the June 23, 1985, bombing.

"I would have thought he would have come forward immediately," Smith said of  Bartleman, adding, "That would have been a very relevant piece of information for a lot of us to have."

Smith said he watched Bartleman's testimony last week and could not believe he was hearing the information for the first time.

"It just does not add, it just does not make sense when you try to put all this together," said Smith, now a professor at the University of Victoria.  

Smith said if he had known about the specific warning Bartleman claims to have seen, he would have raced in to share it with his minister at the time, Joe Clark, within 'two minutes.'