UK government attempts to conceal its involvement in rendition and torture
By Robert Stevens
9 August 2014
The British government is seeking to cover up its role in the illegal “extraordinary rendition”—kidnappings and torture—programme run by the United States.
Ahead of the delayed release of a US Senate report on the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) torture system, in place under the previous George W. Bush administration, the Observer revealed that the UK government has approached its US counterparts to censor information regarding Britain’s involvement in rendition and torture through the use of the Indian Ocean air base of Diego Garcia.
Diego Garcia, a tiny atoll, is a British Overseas Territory that has been leased to the US for decades. It became a strategic base for the US military during the Cold War and was used to supply its forces in the Red Sea and Vietnam. It was also the only base used for air strikes against Iraq during the first Gulf War in 1991. It was used again by the US military for the “shock and awe” bombardment of Iraq in 2003 as well as the heavy bombardment of Afghanistan in 2001.
The Observer cites a letter from former UK Foreign Secretary William Hague to the human rights organisation Reprieve. Hague was Foreign Secretary for four years in the government of Prime Minister David Cameron until last month’s cabinet reshuffle.
Hague informed Reprieve that, “We have made representations to seek assurances that ordinary procedures for clearance of UK material will be followed in the event that UK material provide[d] to the Senate committee were to be disclosed.”
The meaning is clear: the UK government is insistent that details of its active participation in an illegal global kidnapping and torture network, in close collaboration with the US, remain under lock and key.
The censoring being demanded by the British is just part of an overall mass of redactions being put in place by the US military-intelligence apparatus prior to the report’s release. Last Friday, Senator Dianne Feinstein said the Senate Intelligence Committee would delay the release of the declassified summary of its voluminous report on the CIA torture system, due to the scale of redactions being made.
Successive UK governments have denied accusations that Diego Garcia was used as a “black site” prison and that rendition flights landed there. As far back as 2002, the Washington Post reported that Diego Garcia was “one of a number of secret detention centers overseas.”
In 2008 then British Home Secretary David Miliband told parliament that two US flights each containing a prisoner did refuel on the island in 2002, but claimed those detained remained on board and that the “US Government has assured us that no US detainees have ever been held on Diego Garcia.”
Andrew Tyrie, a Conservative MP, is the founder and chairman of Parliaments all-party group on rendition. [...]
Tyrie has called for an inquiry in Britain’s involvement in rendition and torture on the basis that without this happening, the UK’s ability to portray itself as an upholder of democracy on the international stage is vastly undermined. “With the truth established, Britain can draw a line under these allegations and demonstrate that we abide by the values that we expect of others.”
The lies that Diego Garcia has played no role in rendition and torture continue to unravel. An account by freelance investigative journalist Andy Worthington, published on Al-Jazeera last month noted, “In October 2003, Time reported that ‘a regional intelligence official’ had stated that Hambali, a ‘high-value detainee’ seized in Thailand two months earlier, was being held and interrogated on Diego Garcia, and in the years that followed, other claims were made, both by journalists and by retired US general Barry McCaffrey, who, in May 2004 and December 2006, referred to prisoners being held on Diego Garcia.”
[...] continued @ source link
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/08/09/rend-a09.html
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Feinstein's report's been delayed because they're whiting out the British, huh?
Wasn't democracy supposed to be transparent?
Kidnapping and torture ... lawlessness ... even terrorism ... isn't that what the powers that be supposedly stand 'against'. LOL
Hypocrisy, inscrutability and lawlessness is how you maintain an empire.
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