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Amnesty joins
search for missing man |
Former
Toronto resident missing three weeks; family
fears he's at risk of torture in Ethiopia
Feb 14, 2007 04:30 AM
Debra Black
Staff Reporter
To friends in
Toronto, Bashir Makhtal is a beloved member
of the Ogaden Somali community – a mentor,
pal and hardworking computer programmer who
routinely sent money home to support his
mother and siblings.
For Amnesty International, he's now the
subject of an urgent appeal, along with six
others all believed to be detained
incommunicado somewhere in Ethiopia, and at
risk of torture. The human rights
organization yesterday began asking members
to bombard the governments of Ethiopia,
Somalia and Kenya with emails and letters.
The Canadian citizen has been missing more
than three weeks, since his forced
deportation in mid-January from Kenya.
No one – including the Canadian government
and his lawyer in Nairobi – has been able to
locate Makhtal. Friends, family and some
politicians are raising alarm about how
Ottawa has dealt with his case and that of
other citizens in trouble abroad.
"It's just another dimension of several
problems that keep cropping up at the
consular level," said Dan McTeague, federal
Liberal critic for consular affairs. "No one
takes responsibility. These cases seem to
have no ownership. Has Peter McKay picked up
the phone and spoken to the Kenyan
ambassador?"
McTeague says that the way Makhtal was
shipped from Nairobi to Mogadishu and, as
believed, on to Ethiopia "constitutes an act
of extraordinary rendition.
"We have a duty of care. Kenya has to be
accountable for why it shipped off a
Canadian to another country," McTeague said.
"As far as I know, Bashir has not committed
any crime against Kenya or Canada or any
other country," said Makhtal's friend
Mohamed Hassan, a 34-year-old Toronto IT
specialist. "The only crime he seems to have
committed is being from the Ogaden (region
of Ethiopia). So I'm questioning, why is the
Canadian government going so slow?"
Bashir Makhtal seems to have disappeared
into a black hole in the Horn of Africa,
amid allegations he was either part of the
Ogaden National Liberation Front, a
separatist organization his grandfather
helped found, or perhaps a financier for the
Islamic Courts Union, the Islamist group
that held Mogadishu until its recent ouster
by Ethiopian-backed troops representing the
UN-approved Somalian government.
CSIS has paid visits to Makhtal's cousin
here, as well as the Ogaden Somali Community
Association of Ontario, which first alerted
Ottawa to Bashir's arrest and detention in
Nairobi.
Just before his arrest, Makhtal had been
living in Nairobi with his wife, selling
used clothes throughout the Horn of Africa.
A citizen since 1994, he had lived in
Toronto's Riverdale neighbourhood for almost
11 years before leaving Canada in 2002.
He studied and worked hard, say friends.
After earning a computer programming degree
from DeVry Institute, he focused on work and
sending money back to his mother, six
siblings and their children in the Ogaden
region. His eldest brother was still in
Ethiopia but couldn't support the whole clan
on his income from camels.
When Makhtal had a little time off, he spent
it enjoying dinners of rice, lamb and anjera
with his Waterloo-area cousin Said Maktal,
or going to movies and Somalian restaurants
with friends Abdi and Hassan.
"When he was working at CIBC sometimes he
worked six or seven days a week," recalls
Abdi, who asked that his last name not be
used out of fear for his family in Ethiopia.
"They used to call him from work on his cell
... he was a friendly guy. He was very
helpful to everyone he met."
"He was my role model," said Hassan, then a
Brock University student. "At the time I was
struggling and adapting to a new country, a
new education system, my course work. He was
someone I looked up to." Occasionally,
Makhtal joined Hassan and his wife for
dinner.
"He wanted people to become something," said
Hassan, recalling that Makhtal urged fellow
Somalians to go to school. "He talked about
how we could contribute to the Canadian
community."
In the little spare time he had, Makhtal
watched soccer or the odd international
hockey game, always cheering for Canada, his
friends say. Or he would offer help
translating or doing errands for others in
the Ogadeni community. He was, Abdi said,
simply a good guy.
From his youth, when he was sent to
Mogadishu to live with an uncle and aunt,
Bashir Makhtal knew his chief responsibility
was to look after his family. He studied at
the Sheikh Sufi Secondary School, the same
school attended by the man who would come to
lead the Islamic Courts Union, according to
a biography of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed
posted on qaranimo.com.
His sense of responsibility brought Makhtal
to Canada and eventually prompted him to
return to the region, with the idea of
starting a used-clothing business – a
lucrative trade in Africa, Hassan explained.
He moved to Nairobi, married and started
selling clothes he bought in Dubai around
the Horn – a region comprising Djibouti,
Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia. And that's
how, his friends say, he found himself in
Mogadishu when the battle for the capital
broke out late last year.
It appears the Canadian government has done
little to find Makhtal or provide consular
access for him, other than sending
diplomatic notes to Ethiopia and Somalia,
said Said Maktal.
"To me, they're ignoring my cousin," he
said, adding that it's time for the Prime
Minister to make good on his recent
statements about defending the rights of
Canadians abroad.
The foreign affairs department said
yesterday it has no new information.
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