UK-USA: Government complicit in US kidnapping and torture
01 January 2008
The UK human rights organisation, Reprieve, has presented damning evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee showing that government ministers have covered-up the use of the British island territory of Diego Garcia to "support illegal interstate transfer, enforced disappearance and torture in the context of the "war on terror"". The case is presented in Reprieve's submission to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry into the Overseas Territories,
Enforced Disappearance, Illegal Interstate Transfer, and other Human Rights Abuses involving the UK Overseas Territories, which details the cases of three US "ghost prisoners", Khalid Sheikh, Abu Zubaydeh and Hambali. On 21 February the Foreign secretary, David Miliband, was forced to concede that - despite repeated denials in the face of convincing evidence over several years - Diego Garcia was indeed used to facilitate US abductions.
Along with other European states, the UK government has either carefully evaded answering questions over its knowledge of its US partner's policy of "extraordinary rendition" or flatly denied participating in it. When ministers have responded to inquiries about these gross violations of international law they have asserted that blanket denials by the US authorities are a more than adequate response. Their serial refusals to probe credible claims of abuse should be balanced against the actions of these same government departments behind the scenes where they are rather less lethargic. In a recent article in
The Independent (1.2.08) its law editor Robert Verkaik has drawn attention to how the government has blocked applications under the Freedom of Information Act, including those made by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, for detailed information on the US-UK arrangements.
In his statement, on 21 February, Miliband said that he was "very sorry" about previous denials, which had been made in "good faith" but were wrong. Earlier denials, no doubt in good faith also, had been made by former prime minister, Tony Blair, in 2005, 2006 and 2007, when he was emphatic that there was no evidence that US renditions had involved the island; the former Foreign secretary, Jack Straw, gave similar assurances to Parliament. Miliband added that the US Secretary of State, Condolezza Rice, had offered her "deep regret" about the "mistakes" which were due to oversights. However, Labour MP, Mike Gates, chairman of the foreign affairs select committee, was less charitable. He told the BBC that the US administration "has clearly misled or lied to our government, [which] has resulted in our government misleading...members of the House".
Later the prime minister, Gordon Brown, threw light on his knowledge of the situation in a tortuous statement that recalled Donald Rumsfeld's infamous "unknown knowns" speech. He said, "It is unfortunate that this was not known and it is unfortunate it happened without us knowing that it happened but its important to put in procedures [to ensure] this will not happen again". The Lib-Dem opposition was a little more forthright in its response to the UK's collaboration in torture with Edward Davey describing extraordinary rendition as "state-sponsored abduction" that Britain must not "facilitate". Former Lib-Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, added, "The truth is this is a gross embarrassment, in spite of its good faith, for the British government, involving as it does a breach of out moral obligations and possibly our legal responsibilities as well."
Interestingly, the three men named in the Reprieve submission do not appear to be the same as the two unnamed individuals referred to by Miliband, suggesting that more examples of US "oversights" and government ignorence are likely to unexpectedly come to light in the future. The two men referred to by Miliband "did not leave the plane" at Diego Garcia and therefore were not subject to torture. On the other hand the three men ci