Human Rights

AFTER FAST FOOD AND STREET GANGS, NOW US FRANCHISED TORTURE
 
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," has been a popular Ms Condi Rice refrain this week about US rendition of terrorism suspects. For many, she has been everything but clear. [From Der Spiegel]
 
Secretary of State Ms Condeleeza Rice, once caught shopping for expensive shoes to match her model like slim legs, at the height of the Katrina catastrophe, failed to convince European allies by cosmetic obfuscation of ‘rendition’ of terrorism suspects including many innocents, ferried by CIA planes to secret “black holes” in Europe and elsewhere for torture , specially in the compliant and  enthusiastic states  in “new Europe “, in contravention of international law and even the laws of the receiving countries.
 
At the end of her 4 day, European safari Rice reached Brussels for a meeting with NATO foreign ministers to explain the US position on torture .But she dodged questions on secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. At the dinner, according to German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, she reiterated, "in the United States, international obligations are not interpreted differently than in Europe." NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said the next day, "it is my impression that Secretary Rice ... cleared the air. You will not see this discussion continuing" at the NATO headquarters.
 
The revelations of CIA franchised torture centers in east Europe and elsewhere, worse than Abu Gharib and Guantanamo has exposed the lawlessness permeating the Bush Administration, whether on the legality of US led invasion of Iraq ,violation of Human Rights and Geneva conventions . Or for that matter other international Treaties.
 
Ms Rice and the Bush administration were hoping for a fresh start with Germany after an acrimonious relationship with the previous government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, which had vociferously opposed the illegal US invasion of Iraq .In the new broad based German coalition led by US friendly right wing leader Chancellor Angela Merkel there was a hope of making up, but the visit ended in confusion and Merkel was put on the defensive.
 
Gerhard Schröder's Socialists are part of the coalition and the German media and people had questions about covert prisons and secret arrests including of an innocent German citizen, who overshadowed Rice's talks with Merkel at the start of the visits in Berlin on 6 December, and then to Bucharest and Kiev, ending with discussions in Brussels.
 
In Berlin Rice declined to answer most questions, even after Merkel called for "a certain degree of transparency" on the issue regarding any possible knowledge by the previous government of CIA activities in Germany involving German citizens.
 
These questions have erupted following a cascade of media reports led by the Washington Post and Der Spiegel about US use of airports in Europe for CIA flights to transport terror suspects to a network of secret jails for questioning. Khaled Masri a German citizen on holiday in Macedonia was picked up for questioning as a suspected terrorist and tortured in Afghanistan for five months last year before being released on grounds of mistaken identity. Merkel said that the United States had acknowledged responsibility.
 
"The American government admitted its mistake," Merkel said. 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."
 
Facing an angry Parliament, Merkel said her foreign minister, Steinmeier, an ex- top aide of Schröder, would face a special parliamentary committee to answer questions about how much he knew about the covert prisons and the practice called rendition, in which terrorist suspects captured by the United States were sent to other countries, some of which with records of torturing prisoners. Steinmeier reportedly had access to all intelligence dossiers and cases including those with the interior minister Otto Schily, who was reportedly told about the Masri case but has remained silent.

It may be recalled that in May 2004, the White House had dispatched US Ambassador Daniel R. Coats to Schily 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 designed to capture terror suspects abroad on thin or speculative evidence and transfer them to countries with secret bases would have serious ramifications .The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3,000 people, including several key leaders of al Qaida, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks. It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made.

Masri says 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.

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.

On Friday, Adam Ereli, the State Department's deputy spokesman, 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 Qaida 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 is likely to increase 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 after the US invasion of 2003, is also guilty of major human rights abuses, including holding people without charge in secret jails "littered" across the country, John Pace added. 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." 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 UN Security Council Resolution 1546, their mandate for occupying Iraq.

But Pace said that the system, including the pattern, duration and conditions of detention, were "not consistent with what is foreseen in 1546" and complained of “total breakdown” in individuals’ rights.
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." U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's spokesman said that Annan wants to take the matter up with Bolton as soon as possible.

Rice’s Pre-Tour Pep talk;

Ms Rice’s boss President Bush might find her an eloquent and an erudite teacher, but the visit was not successful in allaying widespread fears, with the fortunes of US Administration in a nose dive at home .Even her last February trip to prepare for President Bush’s visit to Europe after her taking over the Secretary of State, had not impressed European diplomats and intellectuals.

Before her departure for Europe this time 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."
She added that information gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies from a "very small number of extremely dangerous detainees," has helped prevent terrorist attacks and saved lives "in Europe as well as in the United States and other countries."

Reports of the existence of the secret prisons have caused a trans-Atlantic uproar. The European Union has asked the Bush administration about these reports.  Britain, the current EU president, sent a two-paragraph letter to Washington late last month 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.

US admit policy of renditions;

Ms Rice's successor as National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, 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".