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Author Topic: Spotlight falls on UK colonialism and complicity in torture
M. Spector
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posted 20 October 2007 04:43 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Diego Garcia is a 60-km-long coral atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean, some 1600 km south of Sri Lanka. It is the largest island in the Chagos Archipelago, which "belongs" to the United Kingdom as part of the British Indian Ocean Territory (which, prior to 1965, was part of the former British Colony of Mauritius). The islands were among the spoils of the Napoleonic Wars, falling to the British in 1810.

The 2,000 residents of the archipelago, some of them descendants of slaves imported by the French from Mauritius, were forcibly and illegally removed from their homes by the British between 1967 and 1973 and sent to live in Mauritius, some 1900 km away. The former residents are still involved in a legal battle for compensation and the right to return to their archipelago, and the UK government is fighting them tooth and nail in court.

The reason for this forced depopulation was to allow the United States to build a huge naval and air base on Diego Garcia. Although a few dozen British troops are still present on the island, it is under lease to the USA until 2016. The U.S. formally pays no rent, but has given secret "discounts" to the UK for its Polaris nuclear missile system.

The island is of great strategic importance to Anglo-US imperialism. Some 3,200 US military, civilian, and CIA personnel are stationed on Diego Garcia. Stripped of its native population, the island is essentially a giant aircraft carrier, naval base, and communications centre rolled into one. It allows the US rapid deployment of ships and aircraft (B-52 and "stealth" bombers) with access to the Persian Gulf and the Pacific Rim, a secure base for monitoring sea traffic and telecommunications, and a major triangulation point for the GPS satellite system that is so vital to western military operations around the world. It sports a 12,000-foot runway. Strategic bombers from Diego Garcia played major roles in the first Gulf War and in the bombing attacks on Afghanistan in 2001-02.

quote:
The U.S. guards this strategic jewel closely. Aside from a brief tour allowed in 1976 while Carter made noises about "demilitarizing" the region, nary a journalist has set foot on the island -- a Newsweek writer's dateline from that trip was wryly datelined "Somewhere East of Suez." Construction and maintenance of the base's communications equipment, fuel facilities and military hardware is done strictly by military contractors, and inventories of that weaponry is classified. With no civilians allowed, Diego Garcia remains the loneliest military outpost in the world. Time magazine, 1998

Since at least 1983, the US has maintained a "detention facility" on Diego Garcia. In December, 2001, British officials re-designated a building on the island as a prison. For years the CIA there has operated a Guantanamo-style "black site", where "enemy combatant" detainees are held incommunicado and tortured. They have also used the island as a stopover point for the notorious Gulfstream jets used in the "extraordinary rendition" program, shuttling prisoners to and from secret torture stations throughout Europe and Asia.

The UK, meanwhile, has maintained a discreet silence about the activities of its "tenant" on Diego Garcia. The British public has known very little about the island's horrific history of brutal colonialism, war, and war crimes, or its government's ongoing complicity in the operation of a CIA torture station.

But now the Parliamentary committee on foreign affairs is set to investigate the Labour government's role in abetting the operation of the Diego Garcia torture station. According to the Guardian:

quote:
A member of the foreign affairs committee said the committee would pursue the allegations as part of its inquiry into Britain's overseas territories. Although Diego Garcia is part of the British Indian Ocean Territory, it is unclear whether the British government knows whether the CIA has detained prisoners there or not.

UK officials are known to have questioned their American counterparts about the allegation several times over a period of more than three years, most recently last month. Whenever MPs have attempted to press ministers in the Commons, they have met with the same response: that the US authorities "have repeatedly given us assurances" that no terrorism suspects have been held there.


Notwithstanding the government's wilful blindness and disingenuous acceptance of the lies of US authorities, the UK is arguably liable under international law for war crimes committed on "its" territory. In any event they can't pretend they didn't know what was going on, when so many others knew, and urged Tony Blair to take action, as long ago as 2002.
quote:
The suspicion, which the foreign affairs committee has pledged to investigate, is that on Diego Garcia the Americans found a far more compliant partner in torture -- the British government -- than they found in most other locations chosen for secret CIA prisons. According to various reports over the years, the Americans' other partners in the offshore torture game -- Thailand, Poland and Rumania, for example -- were only prepared to be paid off for a while before they got cold feet and sent the CIA packing.

Whether the committee will probe deeply or not remains to be seen. The British-based legal charity Reprieve, which has called for such an investigation for some time, has already told the committee in a submission that it believes that the British government is "potentially systematically complicit in the most serious crimes against humanity of disappearance, torture and prolonged incommunicado detention." Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, told the Guardian that he is "absolutely and categorically certain" that prisoners have been held on the island. Andy Worthington


Even if the government escapes this scandal, it is to be hoped that the unwanted publicity will at least encourage it not to renew the US lease on Diego Garcia in nine years' time.

[ 07 May 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Bubbles
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posted 20 October 2007 07:25 PM      Profile for Bubbles        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We could rent Sable Island to the Russians for as long as the Americans are on Diego Garcia, as Canada's contribution towards returning Diego Garcia to its rightfull inhabitants.
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Bubbles
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posted 23 October 2007 08:24 PM      Profile for Bubbles        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Looks like the same thing is happening to Ascension Island.
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M. Spector
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posted 13 November 2007 05:08 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Almost four decades have elapsed but Dervillie Permal remembers clearly the summer day in 1971 when the British Government evicted him from the Chagos Islands, the tropical idyll in the heart of the Indian Ocean that was his home.

Now 73, his face contorts with anguish as he recalls in his native Creole how he had just left work at a coconut plantation when armed soldiers stopped him, told him he had to leave immediately and escorted him to a ship that was packed with weeping islanders. He was not permitted a final visit to his home. He was allowed to take only the possessions he had with him. His dog and livestock were killed.

A week later the Nordvaer deposited its wretched human cargo 1,200 miles away in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, a British colony at the time. There he was reunited with his wife Marie Aimee, who had taken their two children to Port Louis for medical treatment two years earlier and had been barred from returning to the sun-blessed archipelago.


The Times

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M. Spector
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posted 02 February 2008 07:26 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
"Cover-up and obfuscation by the UK government have hampered efforts to discover the truth about British involvement in the US rendition programme from day one," [British MP Andrew Tyrie] says. "There have been repeated allegations that the US has used the British territory of Diego Garcia in its rendition programme. Yet the Government has done next to nothing to investigate them, and continues to rely on US assurances which have been called into question by the Intelligence and Security Committee."

The Government has been careful to say as little as possible about what it does or doesn't know about US "ghost flights" in which suspects are flown from secret prisons to third party state detention centres. In the past it has relied on US assurances that no British territory loaned to the Americans has or is being used to facilitate this illegal activity.

But the UK human rights charity Reprieve has uncovered credible evidence which it believes casts doubt on these assurances. In its report on rendition published last year it says that Diego Garcia has been the subject of repeated, credible and concurrent claims that the island has played a major role in the US system of renditions and secret detention.

Reprieve submits that the UK's failure to conduct a prompt, independent and effective inquiry into these claims is a further clear breach of its duties under international and domestic law....


The Independent Feb. 1/08

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Fleabitn
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posted 03 February 2008 12:59 AM      Profile for Fleabitn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We might expect with the next US administration a big show of closing down Gitmo, a few show trials, a few releases of the men they have mentally incapacitated with six years of humiliation and hopelessness, degradation and deprivation, enough to be rendered harmless. But the majority will find themselves once again on rendition flights, to places like Diego Garcia or other secret detention centers scattered around the Empire.
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M. Spector
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posted 21 February 2008 08:10 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Britain said for the first time on Thursday that the United States had used its territory to transfer terrorism suspects, and apologised for having to correct previous denials.

Britain, after maintaining for years it was unaware of a British link to such "rendition" flights, said Washington had now told it two planes with detainees refuelled at a U.S. base on the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia in 2002.

Allegations of covert U.S. activities as part of the "war on terror" have circulated for years. A European investigator said last year he had proof Poland and Romania hosted secret prisons for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

"Contrary to earlier explicit assurances that Diego Garcia had not been used for rendition flights, recent U.S. investigations have now revealed two occasions, both in 2002, when this had in fact occurred," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told parliament.
...
Miliband agreed it was serious but said Britain would continue to have "the strongest possible intelligence and counter-terrorism relationship with the U.S."


Reuters

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 21 February 2008 02:50 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
In fact, no less than 12 times did government ministers stand before Parliament and declare Diego Garcia was free and clear of any CIA taint. Tony Blair personally assured Parliament of the same. All based on US claims. All untrue.

Sadly, the lesson of the past six years is that US claims regarding the war on terror cannot be taken at face value....

The British government ignored statements by US general Barry McCaffrey in 2004 and 2006 that prisoners were held in Diego Garcia. They ignored the flight log made public by Reprieve in October 2007 showing a CIA plane landing in Diego Garcia - the same CIA plane that has been used in numerous documented renditions. They just kept repeating the same tired line: nothing happened.


Source
quote:
In 2006, the Government admitted for the first time that aircraft chartered by the CIA had landed 14 times at Northolt and RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire, between October 2003 and May 2004....

A Gulfstream IV private jet, which has been identified by Amnesty International as a CIA-linked plane implicated in so-called "rendition," arrived at RAF Northolt in West London [on February 20, 2008] just hours before the Government was forced into a humiliating U-turn on the practice. Daily Mail


[ 29 February 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 22 February 2008 01:57 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Britain is "deeply involved" in the US practice of rendition, a former special forces soldier who quit the military in protest at what he said were US abuses in Iraq said Friday.

Ben Griffin, who quit the elite Special Air Service (SAS) in 2005 after taking part in operations in the Gulf, said British soldiers detained suspected extremists and interrogated them before handing them over to the US military.

"We were under no illusion as to what awaited the individuals handed over by us," he said in a statement issued by Stop the War Coalition, with which he is now involved....

Griffin, who worked in the SAS's counter-terrorism team, said it was "disingenuous" for Britain to claim that they only became aware of the use of British territory to transfer suspected extremists several days ago.

"UKSF (United Kingdom Special Forces) are being used at the 'coalface' to mine these individuals," he added.

"The use of British territory as a stop-off during the rendition process pales into insignificance in light of the fact that it is often British soldiers detaining these individuals in the first place.

"The UK government is deeply involved in the whole process of rendition."

Griffin said he had details of dates of operations in which he was involved and a letter from one British interrogator "upset at what he has been part of".


Source

ETA: Griffin has since been hit with an injunction:

quote:
"As of 1940 hrs 29/02/08 I have been placed under an injunction preventing me from speaking publicly and publishing material gained as a result of my service in UKSF (SAS).

I will be continuing to collect evidence and opinion on British Involvement in extraordinary rendition, torture, secret detentions, extra judicial detention, use of evidence gained through torture, breaches of the Geneva Conventions, breaches of International Law and failure to abide by our obligations as per UN Convention Against Torture. I am carrying on regardless."


[ 29 February 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 02 March 2008 07:32 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Britain's denials that its territories have been used for 'extraordinary rendition' were dramatically undermined last night after the United Nations claimed that Diego Garcia has been used as a detention centre to hold US suspects.

Manfred Novak, the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, who is charged with investigating human rights abuses, said he had received credible evidence from well-placed sources familiar with the situation on the island that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003.


The Guardian

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Toby Fourre
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posted 03 March 2008 07:50 AM      Profile for Toby Fourre        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
M. Spector, thanks for posting all this. Diego Garcia is pretty much hidden from the world. I strongly suspect that the US maintains a torture camp there, out of sight from prying eyes.
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M. Spector
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posted 12 March 2008 05:10 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Two British human rights campaigners have been arrested at sea off Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean after protesting against the island's use in British and US military operations. The two men were demonstrating against the island's admitted use by the US for rendition flights and the historic removal of the Chagos islanders from their homes nearly 40 years ago.

Peter Bouquet, 59, originally from Devon, and Jon Castle, 56, originally from Guernsey, were detained by UK authorities after allegedly failing to leave the waters around Diego Garcia on board their vessel, Musichana. Both men are former captains of Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior and veterans of environmental and human rights direct actions around the world.

They are currently part of a group called the People's Navy which has been seeking to highlight the plight of the Chagossians and to protest against the military use of the islands, which form part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. In a statement before their arrest, the men said that they wanted to show "the serious nature of our concerns about the plight of the Chagossians and about ... military activities on Diego Garcia".


The Guardian

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M. Spector
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posted 06 April 2008 02:05 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The Other Guantanamo
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
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posted 06 April 2008 02:06 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Looks as if the Brits are not just complicit in torture, but actively participating.
quote:
The British Army faces new allegations of torture and abuse over the arrest and detention of a Shia tribal leader and his family who claim they were hooded and beaten by soldiers based at Basra airport last year.

The allegations could prove highly damaging as they come just days after the Government said that abuses committed by British soldiers had been limited to 2003 and 2004 and involved only a "very small minority" of servicemen.

In the new claims, which are being prepared for legal action in the UK courts, Jabbir Hmoud Kammash, 70, the leader of a sub-division of the Albu-Darraj tribe in southern Iraq, alleges that a group of 20 soldiers raided his home in Al-Gzaizah, Basra, in the early hours of the morning in April last year.

Mr Kammash, a former Iraq national wrestling champion, says that on the day of the raid, his family were celebrating the birth of his grandchild: "There were over 20 soldiers. They broke into the house through the door and came down from the roof. My wife, daughters and their kids were all screaming in horror. I was very scared for their safety."

The Iraqis claim that money and computers were taken during the raid and furniture destroyed. Mr Kammash says he, his two sons and three male house guests were hooded, handcuffed and then driven off to the British military base at Basra airport.

"Two soldiers sat on my back while I was kneeling, which caused me great pain. I felt I was going to suffocate," says Mr Kammash in his statement. "I pushed my back up, which made the two soldiers hit the car's roof. The soldiers started punishing me for it by hitting my head with rifle butts – they only stopped when they noticed blood was gushing out of my head. Then they started beating me heavily in the ribs."

Mr Kammash says his head injury later required six stitches at a British military hospital.

His statement continues: "I was in severe pain and could not walk when they ordered me out of the jeep, so they started kicking and hitting me all over my body till I dropped to the floor.

"They brought a stretcher and took me to the army clinic in the airport, where I stayed for about four hours.

"I woke up to see an oxygen mask on my nose. Someone placed a pencil between my fingers and squeezed strongly, which made me scream, then asked whether I agreed to them stitching up my head – I agreed to that."

The respected Shia elder, who was still hooded, says he was dragged by two soldiers from the hospital for interrogation.

The use of hoods, if proven, would be particularly damning. Their use was outlawed by the British government in 1972, but reintroduced in Iraq without any seeming official sanction. When it emerged that prisoners were being hooded in 2004, troops were told formally that the practice should cease.


The report continues here

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 08 April 2008 05:13 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The British held jury-less trials over the last 3 decades in courts called Diplock Courts. Evidence extracted under torture was admissible in those courts. So it's not as if the Brits started this complicity in torture; they had a rich tradition of torture for which they were, rightly, thoroughly denounced by the European Court of Human Rights.

link

The link has an interesting satirical story by the author of Alice in Wonderland:

quote:

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Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland, Ch. 3.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 10 April 2008 11:50 AM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The study of the Diplock courts which is reviewed and linked says this:

quote:
Jackson and Doran conclude that the Diplock courts are a realistic solution given Northern Ireland's long-standing and intractable Troubles, arguing that despite the absence of a jury, the Diplock system attempts to provide defendants with a fair and impartial forum by providing additional procedural safeguards, such as the requirement for written opinions, and the provision of appeals as of right, to compensate for the absence of the jury.

While that would NOT be my view, it is realistically true that a jury system in Northern Ireland might get nowhere if Protestant and Catholic jurors cannot agree on the guilt of Catholic/Protestant defendants.

There are many countries in which juries are not available at all, such as Cuba, Chile, or Germany, and others, such as Canada, where juries are not available for most trials.

One area of concern also occurs where jurors live in areas controlled in substantial part by a militia opposed to the government.

As with many other institutions, a minimum of civil peace is required for the institution to work adequately.


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Cueball
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posted 10 April 2008 11:54 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I am glad you made this last point. I will be bookmarking this web page. Thanks.
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 10 April 2008 11:58 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jury-less trials are used all over the world. Although, I can't help but point out that you and I have argued about the use of them in Cuba ... where you've denounced them as barbaric, if I recall correctly.

However, the main problem with Diplock Courts wasn't necessarily the lack of juries. It was the use of confessions extracted under torture (what the Americans now call enhanced interrogation techniques) as evidence to convict people of crimes. That's rather more important in my humble view.


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jeff house
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posted 10 April 2008 12:08 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I agree that "enhanced interrogation techniques" make the Diplock experience unacceptable.

I would never say that it is "barbaric" not to have jury trials, whether in Cuba or elsewhere.

The problem with Cuban criminal procedure isn't that they don't have juries (even though I would prefer it).

The problem is that they never acquit anyone, perhaps because the judges do not have security of tenure. So, a judge who doesn't follow police direction will have a short career.

I don't have any evidence that "enhanced interrogation techniques" are used in Cuba. But the police don't need confessions to get convictions there, so why bother?


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N.Beltov
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posted 10 April 2008 12:29 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So, you don't object in principle to the abolition of the private practice of law in that country? I thought that was your big gripe wrt Cuban criminal procedure.

PS.

quote:
JHouse: I don't have any evidence that "enhanced interrogation techniques" are used in Cuba.

Outside of the US military base nicknamed Git-mo, you mean?


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jeff house
rabble-rouser
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posted 10 April 2008 01:15 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I thought that was your big gripe wrt Cuban criminal procedure.

No, my big gripe is that there is no independent judicial system in Cuba. The lawyers are not independent, and the judges are not independent.

People do not have a right to a public trial, and they do not have the right to know the case against them.

Since there are no real rights in Cuba, and no method of enforcing them, the police can do pretty much whatever they like to people they arrest.

I am glad that, as far as I know, the Cuban police do not torture people. Their legal system is better than GITMO. Congratulations.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140

posted 10 April 2008 02:32 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
jeff house:No, my big gripe is that there is no independent judicial system in Cuba. The lawyers are not independent, and the judges are not independent.

What does this mean? It's a socialist country. They don't have any private lawyers than I'm aware of. How are the lawyers, especially given their non-adversarial system, supposed to be independent? Who else is supposed to pay their salaries for example? The US Embassy?


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 10 April 2008 03:05 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
...the police can do pretty much whatever they like to people they arrest....the Cuban police do not torture people.
Funny, we and the USA have laws against police torturing people, and yet our cops do it anyway.

Maybe if we allowed our police to do "pretty much whatever they like to people" the torture would stop?


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
sirhc542
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15134

posted 15 April 2008 10:52 AM      Profile for sirhc542   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
if it wasnt for places like rabble alot of people wouldnt have even heard of this. im not as informed as one could/should be...but thats some scary stuff...when will mans quest for power and dominance ever end? those poor islanders..that stuff is another example why im not proud to be an american.. thanks oldgoat...ive been a rabble rouser for a week and my brain is swelling!!!!!!!!!!
From: hell {the midwest} | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 10 July 2008 06:50 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Reuters, July 3, 2008:
quote:
Britain has received new U.S. assurances that the CIA did not secretly smuggle terrorist suspects through its territory, but critics said on Thursday the government had failed to ask Washington the right questions.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband sought the assurances after being embarrassed in February by revelations that two U.S. planes carrying terrorism suspects on so-called rendition flights had landed and refueled in 2002 at a U.S. base on the British Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.

Miliband said on Thursday Britain had asked the United States to check nearly 400 other flights about which members of parliament, rights campaigners and others had raised concerns.

"The United States government confirmed that, with the exception of two cases related to Diego Garcia in 2002, there have been no other instances in which U.S. intelligence flights landed in the United Kingdom, our Overseas Territories, or the Crown Dependencies, with a detainee on board since 11 September 2001," Miliband said in a written statement to parliament.


British historian Andy Worthington, July 8, 2008:

quote:
Reprieve, the legal action charity that has spent several years investigating “extraordinary rendition” and secret prisons, responded by pointing out that the British government “intentionally failed to ask the right questions of the US, and accepted implausible US assurances at face value,” noting that the Foreign Office had declined to ask the US government for the names of the prisoners transported via Diego Garcia in 2002, that it had failed to ask if any other rendition flights had passed through Diego Garcia, even if, as the US asserted, no other planes landed there, and had also failed to ask whether any other flights passed through UK territory en route to engaging in “extraordinary rendition,” which would make the UK complicit in the crime.

The British government faced a fresh barrage of criticism just three days later, when the Foreign Affairs Select Committee published its latest report on the Overseas Territories. With reference to Diego Garcia, the Committee declared that “it is deplorable that previous US assurances about rendition flights have turned out to be false. The failure of the United States Administration to tell the truth resulted in the UK Government inadvertently misleading our Select Committee and the House of Commons. We intend to examine further the extent of UK supervision of US activities on Diego Garcia, including all flights and ships serviced from Diego Garcia.”

For good measure, the Committee also had harsh words about the government’s treatment of the Chagossians, noting, “We conclude that there is a strong moral case for the UK permitting and supporting a return ... for the Chagossians. The FCO (Foreign Office) has argued that such a return would be unsustainable, but we find these arguments less than convincing.”

Under pressure on two fronts over Diego Garcia, it remains to be seen whether the government can once more worm its way out of trouble. Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, is keen not to let this happen. Speaking after the report was published, he chastised the foreign secretary for dismissing his concerns about “extraordinary rendition” when he first raised the issue last October. “The Foreign Secretary persistently gave me the brush-off. He said we could rely on US assurances,” Tyrie said, adding, “My allegations were correct. The Foreign Secretary's brush-off was not just misplaced, it was a disgrace.”

Reprieve was even more blunt, stating, “This remains a transatlantic cover-up of epic proportions. While the British government seems content to accept whatever nonsense it is fed by its US allies, the sordid truth about Diego Garcia’s central role in the unjust rendition and detention of prisoners in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ cannot be hidden forever.”



From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 11 July 2008 11:06 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
Since there are no real rights in Cuba, and no method of enforcing them, the police can do pretty much whatever they like to people they arrest.

Every Cuban has a right to food, shelter, to see a doctor, and right to an education.

With thine eyes wide open, travel to Cuba, and then maybe to Haiti/DR, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico. Make some notes. Compare and contrast, draw a few more conclusions than you're able to express at this point in time.

quote:
I am glad that, as far as I know, the Cuban police do not torture people. Their legal system is better than GITMO. Congratulations.

Better than Gitmo, Abu, Karzai's secret police - the Blackwater Gestapo and death squad Gladios running around Iraq and executing people with impunity - and several gulags for torture in Eastern Europe. Better than a U.S.-backed death squad government in Bogota.

[ 11 July 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 11 July 2008 11:26 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:

What does this mean? It's a socialist country.


That, of course, is the problem.


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 03 August 2008 11:27 AM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
The existence of a secret, CIA-run prison on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean has long been a leaky secret in the “War on Terror,” and yesterday’s revelations in TIME -- based on disclosures by a “senior American official” (now retired), who was “a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings” after the 9/11 attacks, and who reported that “a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said that a high-value prisoner or prisoners were being interrogated on the island” -- will come as no surprise to those who have been studying the story closely.

The news will, however, be an embarrassment to the U.S. government, which has persistently denied claims that it operated a secret “War on Terror” prison on Diego Garcia, and will be a source of even more consternation to the British government, which is more closely bound than its law-shredding Transatlantic neighbor to international laws and treaties preventing any kind of involvement whatsoever in kidnapping, “extraordinary rendition” and the practice of torture.

This is not the first time that TIME has exposed the existence of a secret prison on Diego Garcia. In 2003, the magazine broke the story that Hambali, one of 14 “high-value detainees” transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006, was being held there, and in the years since confirmation has also come from other sources. Twice, in 2004 and 2006, Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star US general, who is now professor of international security studies at the West Point military academy, revealed the prison’s existence. In May 2004, he blithely declared on MSNBC’s Deborah Norville Tonight, “We’re probably holding around 3,000 people, you know, Bagram air field, Diego Garcia, Guantánamo, 16 camps throughout Iraq,” and in December 2006 he spoke out again, saying, in an NPR interview with Robert Siegel, “They’re behind bars … we’ve got them on Diego Garcia, in Bagram air field, in Guantánamo.”

The prison’s existence was also confirmed by Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who produced a detailed report on “extraordinary rendition” for the Council of Europe in June 2007 (72-page .pdf) and by Manfred Novak, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, in March this year.


read more

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Toby Fourre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13409

posted 21 August 2008 11:40 AM      Profile for Toby Fourre        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Diego Garcia has hit the news again in England.
quote:
David Miliband is facing new claims that the US imprisoned and interrogated terrorist suspects on British territory.


The legal-action charity Reprieve said the Foreign Secretary was "duped by the US on a colossal scale", following allegations of interrogation on Diego Garcia, a UK-controlled island in the Indian Ocean.

A former senior US official told Time magazine that, in 2002 and possibly 2003, the US interrogated at least one suspect on the island. The UK leases it to the US as an air and naval base.

Mr Miliband has repeatedly denied claims the US has detained terror suspects on British territory. But the anonymous source, described as a frequent participant in White House Situation Room meetings, told Time that a CIA counter-terrorism official twice said "high-value prisoners" had been held and questioned on the UK territory.


Independent

quote:
The government has repeatedly accepted US assurances that Diego Garcia has not been used to hold high-ranking members of al-Qaeda who have been flown to secret interrogation centres around the world in 'ghost' planes hired by the CIA. Interrogation techniques used on suspects are said to include 'waterboarding', a simulated drowning that Amnesty International claims is a form of torture. But now the government's denials over Diego Garcia's role in extraordinary rendition are crumbling.
Guardian

The British organization, Reprive, is over here Reprieve It has been monitoring this issue.


From: Death Valley, BC | Registered: Oct 2006  |  IP: Logged
Toby Fourre
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13409

posted 04 October 2008 06:41 PM      Profile for Toby Fourre        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Stealing a Nation Utube has a 6 part series by John Pilger about the plight of the Chago Islanders, the original inhabitants of Diego Garcia. Well worth a watch. Bring some tissues.
From: Death Valley, BC | Registered: Oct 2006  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 30 October 2008 05:44 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
[L]ast week the House of Lords Appeal Committee decided, by a three-to-two majority, that the government did indeed have the right to ignore the islanders’ wishes.

Lord Hoffman, who wrote the majority opinion, said that there were wider interests to be considered than those of the islanders, and that “Her Majesty in Council is therefore entitled to legislate for a colony in the interests of the United Kingdom.” He also said that the government was entitled to take into account the interest of its ally, the United States -- which brings us to the heart of the matter.

The U.S.-UK agreement that created the Diego Garcia base in 1966 gave each party a veto on who is allowed on the islands, and it is the United States which has been exercising its veto behind the scenes throughout this whole ugly episode. Indeed, one of the dissenting judges, Lord Bingham, referred to “highly imaginative letters written by American officials” that had been placed before the court, although he personally doubted that Osama bin Laden was planning any attacks in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The French used to refer to Britain as “Perfidious Albion”, and the British Foreign Office is indeed steeped in perfidy. But latterly it has also learned servility, and it is the latter attribute that is driving its current behavior. Diego Garcia is an American base, and it is really the U.S. State Department that is denying the Chagossians the right to go home.


Gwynne Dyer
---
Text of the decision

[ 30 October 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
QatzelOk
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15680

posted 01 November 2008 10:24 AM      Profile for QatzelOk        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I was riding the train between Fort Kingston and Fort York, visiting a cousin from Fort William. And we looked at this article that M Spector wrote, and we were shocked.

Is the entire world just a patchwork of potential military bases?

Do all other cultures really have to disappear to make way for the most progressive one?

What about all the other species?

[ 01 November 2008: Message edited by: QatzelOk ]


From: Montréal | Registered: Oct 2008  |  IP: Logged

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