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US Franchised
Torture Refuses To Go Away
By
Gajendra Singh
01/18/06 "ICH" -- -- The ramifications of US franchised
torture and street revolutions in Serbia, Georgia ,Ukraine ,
Kyrgyzstan et al are not going to go away . The recent fence-mending
visit to Washington by the newly sworn in right wing German
Chancellor Angela Merkel was overshadowed by human right violations
and torture at US base in Guantanamo and rendition of terrorism
suspects to prisons in Europe and elsewhere by CIA.
To it were added reports that German intelligence had fed America
key information about military targets in Iraq before the US led
2003 illegal invasion of Iraq. The Iraq war was vehemently opposed
by the government of Merkel's predecessor Gerhard Schröder of Social
Democrat party, which is now in "grand coalition" with her party.
The question of torture at secret prisons specially in East
Europe had erupted following a clutch of media reports led by the
Washington Post and Der Spiegel which reported US use of airports
in Europe for CIA flights to transport terror suspects to a network
of secret jails for questioning.
One of the
persons picked up for questioning as a suspected terrorist was a
German citizen Khaled Masri , who was on holiday in Macedonia. He
was flown out and tortured in Afghanistan for five months before
being released on grounds of mistaken identity in 2004. During the
last December visit of Ms Condoleeza Rice to Europe , Merkel had
said that the United States had acknowledged responsibility.
"The American government admitted its mistake," Merkel said. But
Rice said she could not talk about the case specifically but added,
"Any policy will sometimes result in errors, and when it happens we
will do everything we can to rectify it." This had led to some
confusion in Washington.
Angela
Merkel's visit to Washington;
George W. Bush
spent 45 minutes with Angela Merkel signaling a "new chapter" in
U.S.-German relations . But it was admitted that there was a
"spirited" but respectful one-on-one Oval Office session where she
challenged U.S. treatment of terror suspects but lent strong support
to joint diplomatic efforts to defuse the nuclear standoff with
Iran. Merkel, raised the question of detainee treatment at
Guantánamo Bay, but she was non-confrontational stating that
Europeans critical of such treatment needed to suggest reasonable
alternatives for dealing with lawless terrorists.
Bush described
his first impressions of Merkel "incredibly positive." "She's
smart," he said. "She's plenty capable. She's got kind of a spirit
to her that is appealing. She loves freedom." Some years ago he had
looked into the soul of another visitor , Russian President Vladimir
Putin, and was equally effusive.
But Merkel's visit was further blighted by a growing scandal
reported by Germany's ARD television channel that Germans had fed
USA key information about military targets in Iraq. Citing a US
government source the TV channel said German intelligence officers
in Baghdad passed information about a restaurant in the Mansur
district of the city which the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was
likely to visit on the eve of the US-led invasion. The US military
bombed the building killing 12 people.
German MPs have called for a full inquiry into the allegations
putting under cloud future of Franz Walter Steinmeyer, Merkel's
Social Democrat Foreign Minister, who was a close aide of Schröder
during the Iraq war. The allegations were reportedly confirmed by
Berlin government sources and were perhaps made to embarrass the
Schröder government and his party.
From such reports it is clear that many segments of western
establishments in contravention of officially stated policies help
each other against eastern nations. During the 1990-91 Gulf Crisis
and War , many sections of former communist states in East Europe
and good friends of Iraq ,had helped US-led coalition forces . Both
in USA and West Europe there are leaks galore now a days .While
there are many sincere and righteous people angered and worried by
immoral and illegal policies and acts of their governments, there
are many who remained silent when Iraq was being invaded and
destroyed.They are now croaking and singing a new tune to earn
brownie points , specially senior Foreign officials and some think
tanks in UK and USA. This is fooling no one.
USA with almost
total bi-partisan support, with co-operation from its willing and
supine corporate media , sought to sell " Operation Iraqi Freedom "
to the American public as a bedside story with a happy ending .Ahmed
Chalabi, in exile since decades and a longtime CIA agent , now
Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq , but a convicted embezzler in Jordan
, cheer led the invasion saying that Iraqis would welcome US[
invading?] forces with flowers .Among others ,he also conveniently
produced an Iraqi defector named " curve ball " to mislead the
Administration and the media ,about weapons of mass destruction
(WMDs) , not that it was needed , with the Neo-Cons in the Bush
administration having already made up their minds for an invasion.
But the 'Operation' has turned out to be a night mare for the
Administration.
Swiss paper uncovers Ugly truth
about CIA torture centers in Europe ;
Swiss newspaper Sonntags Blick better known
for its light reading material said that it had hard evidence of CIA
operated secret prisons in Europe, where al-Qaeda sympathizers were
detained and interrogated. It said that the Swiss Intelligence had
intercepted a message from the Egyptian
Foreign Office to its Embassy in London in the middle of November,
2005 by the Swiss "Big Ears" , its Onyx system .Since 2000 it has
enabled the Swiss to keep watch over civil and military satellite
communications around the world . Onyx is a miniature Echelon system
which the Americans use for eavesdropping and information around the
world including Europe , even on commercial matters which is then
passsed on to US companies to give them undue advantage.It has led
to debates in European Parliaments.
This interception would constitute the first
proof of the existence of secret CIA prisons in Europe.
Leakage of this secret according to France's Le Monde, has
caused embarrassment and confusion in Switzerland. The
Federal Department of Defense (DDPS), which refused to make any
comment did admit that a secret document had leaked. It announced
the opening of an administrative investigation which will be led by
a Parliamentary Commission in charge of activities linked to
national security.
Ironically , Swiss Senator Dick Marty, appointed
by the Council of Europe to investigate on the "secret CIA prisons"
in Europe, said he couldn't confirm the authenticity of the Egyptian
message. Quoted by SwissInfo, he pointed out that this document used
"information that confirms clues which was already suspected."
In Romania, the SonntagsBlick article reopens the
scandal that broke in November 2005, triggered by Human Rights Watch
accusations. At that time, Bucharest denied everything. The site of
Mihail Kogalniceanu - a base used by the American army during the
Iraq war - was mentioned as the airport where a CIA plane, coming
from Kabul and going to Guantanamo, had stopped on September 23,
2005. This base was enthusiastically offered to USA by the Romanian
government , after Turkey had refused use of its military bases for
attacks against Iraq in 2003.
In the intercepted message the Egyptian Foreign
Ministry claimed to have discovered, "through its own sources," that
Romania allowed the CIA to interrogate 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens
at a interrogation centre at the Mihail Kogalniceanu military base
near its major Black Sea port Constantza.
The ugly truth about the doings of the US administration is now
becoming fully public even in USA .The American Civil Liberties
Union (ACL) recently released new documents obtained from the
Defense Department detailing abuse at U.S. facilities in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay. Included in the release is the first
publicly available government document confirming the existence of a
secret "Special Access Program" involving a special ops unit, Task
Force 6-26, which has been implicated in numerous detainee abuse
incidents in Iraq, and whose operatives used fake names to thwart an
Army investigation.
"These documents confirm that the torture of detainees and its
subsequent cover-up was part of a larger clandestine operation, in
all likelihood, authorized by senior government officials," said
ACLU attorney Amrit Singh. "Despite mounting evidence of systemic
abuse authorized or endorsed from above, however, not a single high
level official has thus far been brought to justice."
Rendition of Khaled Masri;
It may be recalled that in May 2004, the White House had
dispatched US Ambassador Daniel R. Coats to Berlin to tell that the
CIA had wrongfully imprisoned Khaled Masri, for five months, and
would soon release him, with a request that the German government
not disclose what it was told even if Masri went public. The U.S.
officials feared exposure of covert action programs on thin or
speculative evidence and transfer of the suspects to countries with
secret bases would have serious repercussions .The CIA, working with
other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people,
including several key leaders of Al Qaeda, in its campaign to
dismantle terrorist networks. But it is impossible to know how many
mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.
Masri said that he underwent coercive interrogation and
confinement for five months before being released, two months after
the CIA concluded it was a case of mistaken identity. He is suing
former CIA director George Tenet with the help of the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU). In filing the suit in Washington, the ACLU
said it was seeking to "reaffirm that the rule of law is central to
our identity as a nation".
In another instance, according to the Washington Post, the CIA
seized Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasir, an Egyptian refugee known as Abu
Omar, from a street in Milan. The agency then told Italian
anti-terrorism police that he had fled to the Balkans - a piece of
disinformation. The deception worked for more than a year, until the
Italians discovered that the CIA had whisked Nasir off to Egypt,
where he was reportedly interrogated and tortured. The Italian
courts are investigating the case.
Clive Stafford Smith
of UK based Charity 'Reprieve', fighting against the death penalty
and other human rights abuses who represented 40 of the prisoners in
Guantánamo Bay feels that Rumsfeld operates an archipelago of
Gulags, and Guantanamo is now just a decoy. Many of the media
reported captured associates of Osama bin Laden like Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi, Abdul Rahim al-Sharqawi,
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mohammed Omar
Abdel-Rahman, Waleed Mohammed bin Attash, Hassan Ghul, Ahmed Khalfan
Ghailani, and Abu Faraj al-Libbi are not in Guantanamo. They were
perhaps removed form there in the summer of 2004, when the US
Supreme Court ruled that the writ of habeas corpus should be
available to prisoners in Guantánamo. Apart from East Europe , Arab
countries like Morocco and Jordan appear to be good candidates for
secret prisons.
US claims that Gulag prisoners were captured on the Afghan
battlefield is false . Many of prisoners were not captured in
Afghanistan at all, but purchased in Pakistan for the bounties
offered by the US – starting at US$5,000, a fortune for many
locals.Two of Smith's
clients, Bisher al Rawi and Jamil el Banna, both
British residents, were captured in the Gambia ( a winter holiday
resort of the British ,where the author was concurrent High
Commissioner from Senegal in 1978-81 ) far from Kabul or London.
US refused the Red Cross
access to all detainees;
The state department's top legal adviser, John Bellinger admitted
for the first time in Geneva that the US has not given the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to all
detainees in its custody. But he gave no details about where such
prisoners were held. He said ICRC had access to "absolutely
everybody" at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which holds
suspects detained during the US war on terror.
Adam Ereli, the State Department's deputy spokesman, had said the
United States would not alter its position after the ICRC president
said in Geneva that his organization was holding discussions to gain
access to all detainees, including those held in secret locations.
Ereli said that the Geneva Conventions requiring humane treatment
of prisoners of war did not apply to certain terrorism suspects
seized as "unlawful enemy combatants," but that, in any case, the
United States treats most of them as prisoners of war. "We're going
the extra mile here," Ereli said, by allowing the Red Cross access
to Al Qaeda suspects and others held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in
Afghanistan. The Red Cross also has access to prisoners held in
Iraq.
Commentators said that this has confirmed suspicions that the CIA
has been operating secret prisons outside international oversight.
UN against US led
detentions in Iraq;
John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance
Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), said that the US military is abusing its
United Nations mandate in Iraq by detaining thousands of people
without due process of law. The Iraqi Government, installed by the
US led Occupation Forces , is also guilty of major human rights
abuses, including holding people without charge in secret jails
"littered" across the country. Referring to accusations of
corruption among Iraqi justice officials and police, Pace said
illegal detentions were fuelling rather than curbing revolt.
"There is no question that terrorism has to be addressed. But we
are equally sure that the remedies being applied … are not the best
ways of eliminating terrorism," he said. "More terrorists are being
created than are being eliminated." Pace added that the system,
including the pattern, duration and conditions of detention, were
"not consistent with what is foreseen in the UN Security Council
Resolution 1546" and complained of "total breakdown" in individuals'
rights.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also voiced concern about
mass detentions without charge, which US commanders say are a
legitimate response to security threats under the Resolution 1546,
their mandate for occupying Iraq.
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour
said that the U.S.-led war on terror has undermined the global ban
on torture. This did not please U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John
Bolton, appointed by Bush against the wishes of the US Congress.
Bolton called Arbour's statement "inappropriate and illegitimate."
Rice's December tour of
Europe;
Tell us about the CIA flights.
The US does not torture.
Tell us about the black sites.
The US does not torture.
"Let me be clear," was a popular refrain of Secretary State Ms Condi
Rice about US rendition of terrorism suspects, when she visited
Europe last month. But for many, she was everything but clear. [From
Der Spiegel]
Before her departure for Europe in a pep talk for US audience at
Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, Ms Rice told critics of tough
U.S. tactics in the war on terror that the intelligence gathered by
the CIA had saved European lives. Responding to the outcry over
detailed reports of secret CIA run prisons in Europe. Rice said the
United States "will use every lawful weapon to defeat these
terrorists."
But Ms Rice steadfastly refused to respond to the question if the
United States had CIA-operated secret prisons there. "We cannot
discuss information that would compromise the success of
intelligence, law enforcement, and military operations. We expect
other nations share this view."
Reports of the existence of the secret prisons did cause a
trans-Atlantic uproar. The European Union asked the Bush
administration about these reports. Britain, the current EU
president, sent a two-paragraph letter to Washington for
clarifications.
Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said Rice's comments about secret
CIA flights and detention centers for terrorist suspects outside the
United States were "unsatisfactory," Bot told MPs that "rendition"
was not kidnapping as some critics claimed but a speedy process of
extraditing suspects to the US. Normal extraditions through the
courts can last for years, he said. Media reported that the CIA
regularly made use of Dutch airports for secret flights.
The European Union (EU) has threatened to sanction any EU member
countries, which had such prisons on their territories. Let us see !
US admits policy of
renditions;
National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, Ms Rice's successor
told CNN that "we do not move people around the world so they can be
tortured". Thus dittoing the official line. But Hadley added that
the policy of renditions "has been a practice before 9/11, before
this Administration", as well as "a practice engaged in by a number
of countries".
What is 'rendition'?
Rendition is an old western practice beginning perhaps from the
days of the Spanish inquisitions if not earlier. In his memoirs,
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel wrote that during the World War II the
secret abduction and 'rendition' from Third Reich occupied
countries to Germany of suspected Resistance members - otherwise
known as the Nacht und Nebel (Night and Fog) Decree - was the worst
of all of the orders issued by Adolf Hitler . Nacht und Nebel-type
practices were used by the French to suppress successive uprisings
by Algerian freedom fighters in the 1950s. Since then the practice
of "disappearances" has spread around the globe - according to Human
Rights Watch. Iraq and Sri Lanka accounted for the most cases
between 1980 and 2003.
In Latin America, the technique was successfully
internationalized under "Operation Condor". The operation, conceived
and effectively implemented under Chilean president Augusto
Pinochet, brought together the intelligence agencies of Argentina,
Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay, as well as Pinochet's own secret
police chief, Manuel Contreras, in 1975. The objective was to
"enhance communications among each other and integrate tactical
operations in tracking down, secretly detaining, torturing and
terminating [the lives of] critics or suspected militants, who were
often referred to as 'terrorists'," according to Peter Kornbluh, a
senior analyst at the Washington-based National Security Archive (NSA).
So what is new !Yes , Western leaders and media keep on maligning
eastern governments for similar practices .In many cases the
techniques have been taught by western agencies to the agencies of
their allies e.g. CIA to Savak of Shah's Iran or to Pakistan's ISI
and Jihadis during the Afghan resistance against USSR. Israel's
Mossad almost openly implements rendition techniques and teaches it
to any takers.
An Important Rice visit to
Romania;
During her short December trip to Bucharest, Ms Rice signed with
the Romanian Foreign Minister Mihai Razvan Ungureanu a bilateral
agreement for use of Romanian military bases at Mikhail Kogalniceanu,
Babadag, Cincu and Smardan, with President Traian Basescu watching
over at the Cotroceni Palace. Ms Rice also had talks with President
Basescu on bilateral relations and cooperation within the Black Sea
region and in the Balkans, as well as the cooperation in Afghanistan
and Iraq. Romania announced that it would not withdraw troops from
Iraq.
"Romania will turn into a pylon of stability in the region
through the setting up of the American bases," declared Basescu.
"The location of the American facilities on the territory of Romania
represents a confirmation of the fact that the Romanian army has
reached a certain potential as partner of the USA", added Basescu.
He also said that the other security structures of Romania could
cooperate at the highest level with those of the US. "Washington's
decision means also political credibility from the point of view of
Romania," The acceptance by the Romanian people of the American
presence in Romania is considered a precious asset of the bilateral
relations, Basescu concluded.
Ms Rice replied that "Romania has become a strong ally for the
US." She recollected that when she was in Bucharest with President
Bush a rainbow appeared as a symbol of bilateral relations. She
added that the US and Romania are not just friends, but also brother
and sister in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Ms Rice thanked Romania for the sacrifices of their soldiers in
difficult and dangerous places, calling this a strong commitment for
the future of democracies like Iraq and Afghanistan. "We have a
great, committed partner in Romania, which is ready to make
sacrifices.
"Explaining why Washington chose Romania instead of Bulgaria,
Rice said this was because of Romania's progress in the fields of
defense and military training and that it was President Bush's
decision who also took into account the strategic position of
Romania.
In connection with the reported CIA detention centers, Ms Rice
said the agreement regarding the bases in Romania would be a
transparent one and up for discussion in the Parliament.
Asked about the risks following the signing, President Basescu
said the risk was neither big, nor small, but that this was "just a
leap forward for Romania in the global security system." "When I
decided to sign, I had already assessed the risks and I knew that
Romania was able to face the risks." He pledged commitment for
stability in Iraq. "Romania will not diminish her military
capabilities destined for this end in Iraq and will stay at the
disposal of the Iraqi Government under the UN resolution and close
to her allies," Basescu assured.
Ms Rice did not give a direct reply about the CIA prisons in
Romania, but Basescu reiterated that Romania did not have and does
not have such prisons on its territory, "My only appeal is that
those who say that Romania has allegedly hosted or is hosting
torture places assumed the responsibility of their declarations. It
was improper to state that secret prisons existed only subject to
the arrival of some planes. Romania is not willing to accept
accusations of infringement of the human rights based on mere
speculations," President Basescu said.
After 50 years under communism, a reluctant member of the Soviet
Camp (but not fully of the Warsaw pact) Romania has discovered and
assumed its European Christian identity as a full member of NATO and
hopes to join EU in 2007. For USA and EU, the Romanian location is
very important militarily and as a vantage point for trade with
Caspian basin and Central Asia across the Black Sea.
How ever ,as the author had pointed out last year to senior
Romanian leaders in meetings along with members of the foreign media
in Bucharest that Romania must avoid projecting too close an
affinity with US policies of torture .There are around 100,000
Muslims , mostly Tatars in Romania , which has a history of
anti-Semitism . A few hundred thousand Romanian Jews had migrated to
Israel. Tens of thousands of Israelis visit Romania for rest and
recreation. The November 2003 bombings of a Synagogue in Istanbul
was to punish it for the pro Israel policy . Turkey also receives
hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists every year. When President
Basescu, soon after his election, visited Iraq to show solidarity
with USA, the three journalists accompanying him were kidnapped. The
story of their capture and release remains a mystery.
Poland;
Romania and Poland are two very pro US countries, described by US
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as new Europe (an appellation the
countries rejected) which was chided by French President Jacque
Chirac when they had sided with USA on the question of US invasion
of Iraq, against the general EU policy of opposition or neutrality.
Poland appears to be the center of CIA's secret detention network
in Europe, with bases there holding a quarter of the 100 detainees
estimated in such camps worldwide.
"Poland was the main base for CIA interrogations in Europe, while
Romania played more of a role in the transfer of detained
prisoners," Marc Garlasco, a leading analyst at Human Rights Watch,
was quoted by Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
Garlasco said that the CIA maintained two detention centers in
Poland, which were closed only after the Washington Post broke the
story. He said the allegations were based on information from CIA
sources and other documents obtained by Human Rights Watch. "We have
leads, circumstantial evidence to check but it's too early to reveal
them," Garlasco added.
Polish authorities have repeatedly denied the existence of secret
jails of any form on Polish territory, with Prime Minister Kazimierz
Marcinkieicz saying this week he would fully cooperate in human
rights probes into the allegations. On 11 December, he ordered a
detailed probe to "check if there is any proof that such an event
took place in our country. It is necessary to finally close the
issue because it could be dangerous to Poland." Said Marcinkiewicz's
spokesman, Konrad Ciesiolkiewicz.
Rice in Ukraine of US
franchised revolution;
Ms Rice flew to Kiev from Bucharest to express solidarity with US
protégé President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine. US organizations
across the board had spent hundreds of millions of US dollars last
year to get him elected in a US franchised election organized
through street revolutions , a process which was begun with the
overthrow of Milosevich in Serbia and then perfected in Georgia .
Street revolutions failed dismally in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan with
Russia and China with central Asian states vociferously opposing US
led franchised revolutions.
The sheen has come off the so called Orange revolution with
Yushchenko's rich partner the Prime Minister quitting his company
.The Ukrainian masses are unhappy with the results of the revolution
with bribery and other scandals on increase. Russia on which Ukraine
is dependent for its energy needs is squeezing Kiev. Next year's
Parliament elections would be a litmus test for the Yushchenko
regime. Ukraine is feeling the pinch of moving away from Russia , as
Moscow is now charging market price for its gas , making the
government unpopular .Western media and leaders objected to the
market price .US and West use such tactics regularly .What is good
for the goose is not good for the gander!
Shift in US Policy?
By the time Ms Rice reached Kiev, there was apparent shift in her
position. She said that Washington now viewed its responsibilities
under a UN treaty as banning the cruel or inhumane treatment of
prisoners anywhere. She appeared to give the torture question a
clear and broad interpretation. Referring to the UN Convention
against Torture (CAT), ratified by USA in 1994, Rice said that "as a
matter of U.S. policy, the United States' obligations under the CAT,
which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment - those
obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they
are in the United States or outside of the United States."
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, described the new
approach by Rice as "existing policy." But when pressed repeatedly
by reporters, he would not say whether the United States took steps
to ensure that countries to which it transferred prisoners lived up
to promises against using torture.
Rice's shift produced some confusion in Washington, possibly
reflecting tensions among the State Department, White House,
Congress and the Pentagon on how narrowly to define some of the
tools available .These can include techniques known as water
boarding, in which a prisoner is strapped to a plank and dunked into
water to create a sense of being drowned. Rights groups say that
these methods have been used on prisoners at the U.S. base at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere.
No rendition for torture
–George Bush;
President Bush, referring to the process known as rendition, under
which the United States has turned detainees over to other countries
reiterated: "We do not render to countries that torture. That has
been our policy, and that policy will remain the same."
But wrote Naomi Klein in the Guardian "It's [ torture] a history
exhaustively documented in an avalanche of books, declassified
documents, CIA training manuals, court records and truth
commissions. In his forthcoming book, A Question of Torture, Alfred
McCoy synthesizes this evidence, producing a riveting account of how
monstrous CIA-funded experiments on psychiatric patients and
prisoners in the 1950s turned into a template for what he calls
"no-touch torture", based on sensory deprivation and self-inflicted
pain. McCoy traces how these methods were field-tested by CIA agents
in Vietnam as part of the Phoenix program and then applied in Latin
America and Asia under the guise of police training.
"It is not only apologists for torture who ignore this history
when they blame abuses on "a few bad apples". A startling number of
torture's most prominent opponents keep telling us that the idea of
torturing prisoners first occurred to US officials on September 11
2001, at which point the methods used in Guantanamo apparently
emerged, fully formed, from the sadistic recesses of Dick Cheney's
and Donald Rumsfeld's brains. Up until that moment, we are told,
America fought its enemies while keeping its humanity intact."
David Luban, a Georgetown University law professor said that Rice
appeared to be marking a genuine shift. Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales had implied that such treatment was forbidden by the U.S.
Constitution - meaning within the United States. So the techniques
short of outright torture could legally be employed abroad. "But
this looks like it's different," Luban said, "and I think if Rice
meant what she said, that's a big change." He cautioned, however,
that only U.S. personnel were covered and perhaps not foreign police
or security personnel or even foreign contractors.
Opposition in UK to
rendition in CIA torture Prisons;
Resistance to wayward US ways has grown steadily in UK, where
assurances by Ms Rice that Washington did not send detainees abroad
for torture were dismissed as "beyond belief" by a group of MPs from
various parties.
The group was launched to investigate the "extraordinary
renditions" of prisoners by the CIA. It claimed that Ms Rice
confirmed that Britain had been informed about the nature of the
secret CIA flights to UK airports. Andrew Tyrie, the group's Tory
chairman, said: "There has been so much smoke on this issue; it's
very unlikely that there is not a fire somewhere. I think it's
likely they have been tortured."
Photographs were produced of CIA planes landing and taking off at
UK airports while the government denied that British airports were
used for torture flights, "so far as we aware". This did not satisfy
the MPs, and Mr. Mullin , a former Labor foreign affairs minister
said , "Some of the assurances in [Ms Rice's] statement defy belief
in a country where there has recently been a public discussion on
whether submerging prisoners in water to the point of drowning
constitutes torture or not."
Tyrie interpreted Rice's claim that the US respected the
sovereignty of other countries to mean that UK ministers knew about
the flights. "By implication, whatever has been going on, the
British authorities were informed," he said. He added that Ms Rice
chose her words carefully to avoid ruling out abuse of prisoners
that stopped short of torture. "She said torture is defined by law
and by implication there may be levels of duress that may be short
of torture," he clarified.
He warned Ms Rice that defending abuse of prisoners would be
counter-productive. "It's not just that people may have been
tortured. It is that using torture to combat terrorism is likely to
inflame Muslim opinion and leave us less secure, not more. We have
learnt that lesson the hard way in Northern Ireland; the French
learnt that lesson in Algeria."
Liberal Democrat MP Menzies Campbell described Ms Rice's
statement as "disingenuous". He said: "The volume of evidence of
transfers has become overwhelming but what possible purpose is
served by rendition other than to subject individuals to harsher
treatment than would otherwise be the case?
"Parliament and the public are entitled to expect the British
Government to show equivalent candor. But the question remains, what
did our government know and when did it know it? How high up the
political tree did such knowledge go?"
The Labor chairman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, Mike
Gapes pledged that his committee would also pursue ministers over
"extraordinary rendition" flights across UK airspace. Some member of
the committee privately said they were appalled after Ian Pearson, a
Foreign Office minister, who told a recent hearing that the
Government would use information gained from torture to protect
against attacks by terrorists.
In spite of Tony Blair being in a state of denial that US-UK led
invasion of Iraq had any relation to last July bombings in London,
the people know better and are worried about implications of torture
by US and UK , with many British citizens being victims of such
torture in Guantanamo, in Iraq , Afghanistan and even UK itself .
British Lords ban "torture
evidence"
The Law Lords ruled in London that information gleaned from
torture anywhere in the world was unacceptable as evidence in
British courts. Rights groups immediately said the ruling sent a
clear signal to governments around the world who are wrestling with
accusations that they participated in, provided facilities for, or
used evidence in court extracted from people detained as part of a
CIA program known as "rendition". The decision by UK's highest court
to refuse evidence obtained under torture in third countries comes a
day after the United States explicitly banned its interrogators from
treating detainees inhumanely after widespread anger and pressure
from European governments and the U.S. Congress.
POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTED US SYSTEM
ABSOLUTELY
Louise Arbour, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, also
warned that the absolute ban on torture could become a casualty of
the "war on terror". Without naming the United States, she
criticized "governments in a number of countries" who were claiming
that the world had changed and that the old rules no longer applied.
No credible case for this had been made, she insisted.
With the growing opposition in USA and even reawakening of some
in the US media to Bush policies, there is hope. Even before the
March 2003 war more than 1,000 law professors and U.S. legal
institutions had organized opposition to the U.S. war crime of
launching an "aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter" against
Iraq. Violation of international law was also a central theme in
worldwide demonstrations by tens of millions against the war. The
illegality of the war was confirmed by the leak of the Downing
Street memo; 130 members of Congress joined Rep. John Conyers in
demanding that the Bush administration come clean about the invasion
,supported by a half million citizen signatures gathered in barely a
week. "Scootergate" is fundamentally about the cover-up of White
House lies justifying the war.
"Illegal detention and torture are also war crimes. Starting with
the exposure of prisoner abuse at Abu Gharib and Guantanamo,
cascading revelations have established that these cases exemplify a
pattern of abuse authorized at the highest levels of government.
Human rights groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights, the
American Civil Liberties Union, and Human Rights First have
suggested suing in U.S. and foreign courts Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and others for breaching the U.S. Constitution and the
Geneva Conventions.
Paul Craig Roberts, Hoover Institution senior fellow and
assistant secretary of the treasury under Ronald Reagan, has charged
Bush with "lies and an illegal war of aggression, with outing CIA
agents, with war crimes against Iraqi civilians, with the horrors of
the Abu Gharib and Guantanamo torture centers" and calls for the
president's impeachment. Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of the Woodrow
Wilson School at Princeton and former president of the American
Society of International Law, declares: "These policies make a
mockery of our claim to stand for the rule of law. [Americans]
should be marching on Washington to reject inhumane techniques
carried out in our name." Cindy Sheehan, mother of a soldier killed
in Iraq, whose single handed resistance to US policies, including
sit-ins near Bush's Texas ranch ,brought various opposition groups
together ,insists: "We cannot have these people pardoned. They need
to be tried on war crimes and go to jail."
Throughout the discourse on Iraq war , which now agitates USA and
Western Europe, the point made is that the US invasion could have
been carried out better and implemented better and successfully.
There is no realization or acknowledgement that time for
colonization is now gone. It is not the divine right of Christian
West to subjugate and rule the Middle East, Africa or Asia through
the power of its guns. The Iraqi resistance to U.S.-led occupation
from the very beginning has made it clear that the era of
colonization is over.
(Gajendra Singh., <
Gajendrak@hotmail.com
>served as Indian Ambassador to Turkey and Azerbaijan in 1992 -96.
Prior to that, he served as ambassador to Jordan (during the1990 -
91Gulf war), Romania and Senegal. He is currently chairman of the
Foundation for Indo-Turkic Studies, in Bucharest. The views
expressed here are his own
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