The revelations in the US blogsphere about the CIA “rendering” suspects in the “war on terror” to prisons on European countries’ territories was a shock to some. Now Jack Staw, the British Foreign Secretary has asked the US to comment on the reports. He is acting on behalf of the whole EU and separately a Swiss senator is conducting and investigation on behalf of the Council of Europe.
Jack Straw asking a question must be a surprise for the Americans. After all, questions about British territory being used for holding suspects before onward rendition and more permanent detention were being asked in Parliament over two years ago. Baroness Amos, then a Foreign Office minister, made the response on behalf of the Government – “”The United States government would need to ask for our permission to bring any suspects to Diego Garcia. It has not done so.” This new version of “don’t ask, don’t tell” failed to convince many, especially in the light of comments in the US MSM!
Diego Garcia may not be in Europe but it is British territory, even if it is leased at no charge to the USA for a base, now rather ominously name “Camp Justice”. The inhabitants of the chain of islands it is part of were forced out of their homes and moved to Mauritius more than 30 years ago. The promised return never happened and will soon be the subject of another legal attempt to force the British Government to let them return. I intend to do a separate diary about this long history of Labour governments trampling on their rights.
More about Diego Garcia and what appears to be a satellite picture of the detention facilities below the fold..
Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean is one of those hang-overs from the British Empire. Ceded to Britain after Napoleon’s defeat, it was previously administered by Mauritius as the nearest large colony. After they became independent the “British Indian Ocean Territories” were established. Directly governed by the Brisih Foreign Office, the day to day administration is carried out by a small contingent of British Navy personnel. A tropical paradise, the ring of islands surrounding a large central lagoon makes it an idea place to pre-position ships but nowadays the huge airstrip that dominates the island is of more interest.
The tropical climate, alleviated by cooling winds, makes the place lush and idyllic. Prior to 1971 it provided huge quantities of coconut oils and copra. For personnel posted there it is hardly a paradise playground. Strict ecological conservation measure mean that they cannot explore the coral reefs. As a briefing on the US Navy Military Sealift Command site explains:
The British make every effort to maintain the ecological integrity of Diego Garcia. As a result, all life forms–other than swimming fish–are protected by British law. Violators may be taken before the British court and can be heavily fined.
It is a little difficult to see how the “ecological integrity” of the island has been maintained by building over a large proportion of it. The conditions for the US military are made worse by there being no married quarters and few medical facilities. Any serious illness or injury has to be treated in Singapore after first aid. American personnel may also find these restrictions somewhat alien to the base’s earlier description as a “footprint of freedom”
In accordance with current regulations, no type of attire with degrading or obscene comments may be worn on or brought to Diego Garcia. This includes pictures, phrases or slogans depicting drug paraphernalia, anti-war slogans, ethnic slurs or issues of a sexual nature. Biker, hippie-culture or mercenary magazines will be confiscated. All obscene or pornographic publications including pornographic videos will be confiscated. All videotapes brought to Diego Garcia will be retained by British Customs for screening. Tapes will be returned within 10 days. Prohibited material will be burned by British Customs.
In an article for the Independent in December 2003, Mark Seddon explained:
Time magazine has recently claimed that Riduan Isamuddin, otherwise known as Hambali, who is believed to be operations chief of Jemaah Isalmiyah – the group behind the Bali bombing – has or is still being held on Diego Garcia. Meanwhile, Mauritius-based campaigners Lindsey Collen and Ragini Kistnasamy, who seek the closure of the US military base on the island, had this message for campaigners in Britain: “Now there is the whole Guantano-isation of Diego Garcia, with people on terrorism charges and members of the Iraqi leadership being held there.”
Since then, there are suspicions that many of the senior former Iraqi government members, inducing Saddam Hussein, were held on Diego Garcia. This may provide the cover for the transfer of “reditees”from the airport to a detention facility under the noses of the British customs officials (AKA Royal Marines). You can imagine the scene- “What you go there gov? Oh just a couple of towelheads you are going to put in jail. Fair enough but you have got to leave those videos of Paris Hilton here.”
So once you have persuaded the British to keep those pesky islanders away and diverted the four dozen or so Brits on the island chasing snorkel divers or watching porn videos, you would think that you could make sure no-one knows where you are burying the bodies. That is until one of your friendly organisations, Global Security, gets to publish satellite photos. No real harm in that either until you stop to look at what they have published. One set from 2002 is referenced in the Mark Seddon article but since then there has been an increased need for facilities for the Iraqis presumed to be held there. Unfortunately Global Security has been gloating about how the December 2004 tsunami failed to affect the facilities and has published another set of pictures so you can directly compare the two. Conveniently these cover most of the main island.
What of course you do not want to do is build a completely new set of facilities or even the Brits might start to ask questions. Far better to expand an existing set of buildings as a cover. Has there been anything like this. Well one fits the bill, it’s the site destribed on this map as a “contractor camp”. This is the post-tsunami 2005 picture. What you are looking for is the set of white buildings in the centre of the picture about two thirds down.
In the 2002 picture, the site is slightly obscured by cloud but you can clearly see that most of the buildings now on the west of the site had not been guilt.
wow!!!! this is very interesting. what can the brits do with the us doing this thing on their soil, so to speak? I wonder what the human rights ppl would say to this?
with BushCo.
Which makes me wonder why Blair is still in power. Even if he stayed in No. 10, the U.S. would still insist on holding these people illegally on British soil–just on their idea of ‘principle.’
No doubt there is torturing going on even there.
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Diego Garcia: Paradise Isle or Britain’s shame?
Gordon Thomas, investigative journalist and author of Gideon’s Spies: the Secret History of the Mossad asserts that “high level leaders and operatives of Al Qaida and the Taliban are held there (on Diego Garcia)” and “none are being protected by the Geneva Conventions”.
Thomas claims: “the interrogation techniques used on Diego Garcia are contained in a secret CIA manual on coercive questioning. It contains sections headed ‘Threats and Fear’, ‘Pain’, ‘Narcosis’ and ‘Heightened Suggestibility and Hypnosis’.”
He further suggests “the presence of the prisoners on Diego Garcia is so secret that a counter-terrorism official in Washington said President Bush ‘had informed the CIA he did not want to know where they were’.”
A recent report by Human Rights First entitled “Ending Secret Detentions” cites Diego Garcia as a suspected site for the detention of individuals, including the leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah, Hambali, otherwise known as Riduan Isamuddin.
Thomas suggests that private Lear jets regularly fly into the island with a new batch of prisoners, which, he says, have included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh and Abu Zubaydah, kidnapped from Pakistan. He says this is done with the knowledge of US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld and often with the approval of the White House.
It seems that the US administration realises the Guantanamo experiment has failed. Rumsfeld has already admitted to “ghost” detainees who don’t show up in any official documents and who have no name. How many of these are being tortured on Paradise Isle, I wonder. According to various reports, others are being held on two US prison ships – the USS Bataan and the USS Peleliu.
Ibrahim Habaci and Arif Ulusam, both Turkish; Saudi citizen Faha al Bahli; Mahmud Sardar Issa from Sudan; and Kenyan national Khalifa Abdi
First there was Camp X-Ray on the American-owned base of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Now there is a Camp Justice in the Indian Ocean on the British- owned island of Diego Garcia, which is leased to the Americans.
Camp Justice is officially a temporary home for US personnel supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, but satellite pictures of the camp show something rather more permanent and on a large scale. The island is home to American B52 and Stealth bombers – and has been home to US support staff and other military services since the early 1970s – but Camp Justice is new.
My diary after tsunami disaster SE Asia ::
ALERT DIEGO GARCIA MISSING – Paradise Lost? ◊ by creve coeur @dKos
Sun Jan 02, 2005 at 03:38:41 PM PDT
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Camp Justice is situated on the top left corner of the picture, above the airstrip:
Here’s a link to today’s story in The Guardian about the allegations of UK involvement:
LINK: Guardian
And in a related story, here’s a quote to chill you:
. . .the CIA operated a network of secret prisons or “black sites” in eight countries at various times, including several in eastern Europe. . . . “It was the Camelot of counter-terrorism. We didn’t have to mess with others, and it was fun,” an official working in the CIA’s counter-terrorism centre told the Post.
I read this in an ABC article today… I was left slackjawed to see this mentioned as a mere aside at the end of the article.
I know this whole reply will be formatted wrong because this is my first post, but I think it applies to this thread and you can figure it out! Let me know what I did wrong with my HTML if this post looks anything like the preview.
[ABC News Article http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1375123/%5D
What has happened with the layout of this site? It’s too wide and I have to keep flipping from left to right and back to keep reading. Not so enjoyable. Fix it please.
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Beyond width 400 pixels ruins normal breadth
of the thread in this diary.
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Now it’s back to normal but yesterday I was confounded cause I could find no image in the thread that could’ve caused the problem. Mysterious.