Blair, Labour and Extraordinary Rendition
As we suggested last night, Dick Marty's CoE Report on Extraordinary Rendition is indeed damming.
We must be clear, it is not the conclusive proof that could be used to mount a prosecution in a court of law, but it draws together all the available evidence, and paints a disturbing picture of how 14 European governments have supported one of the more repugnant aspects of The War Against Terror.
Including our government.
280. Our analysis of the CIA 'rendition' programme has revealed a network that resembles a 'spider's web' spun across the globe. The analysis is based on official information provided by national and international air traffic control authorities, as well as on other information including from sources inside intelligence services, in particular the American. This 'web', shown in the graphic239, is composed of several landing points, which we have subdivided into different categories, and which are linked up among themselves by civilian planes used by the CIA or military aircraft.
281. These landing points are used for various purposes that range from aircraft stopovers to refuel during a mission to staging points used for the connection of different 'rendition circuits' that we have identified and where "rendition units" can rest and prepare missions. We have also marked the points where there are known detention centres (Guantanamo Bay, Kabul and Baghdad…) as well as points where we believe we have been able to establish that pick-ups of rendition victims took place.
282. In two European countries only (Romania and Poland), there are two other landing points that remain to be explained. Whilst these do not fall into any of the categories described above, several indications have us believe that they are likely to form part of the 'rendition circuits'240. These landings therefore do not form part of the 98% of CIA flights that are used solely for logistical purposes241, but rather belong to the 2% of flights that concern us the most. These corroborated facts strengthen the presumption - already based on other elements - that these landings are detainee drop-off points that are near to secret detention centres.
So one might expect that Blair might reconsider his blanket dismissal of any concerns about our being involved in State Sanctioned kidnap and torture at the behest of the United States. One might also expect that the weight of evidence for such serious allegations presented in the report would motivate any reasonable government to investigate further...
Yeah right, not in this world. Blair's response was pretty standard at PMQ today. That is, he ignored the question, and told us all to mind our own business.
Blair - We have said absolutely all we have to say on this. There is nothing more to add to it, and I have to say, the Council of Europe report, adds absolutely nothing new whatever to the information we have.
Ming Campbell - I think the Prime Minister might find careful reading of the Council of Europe report particularly rewarding. Because the Council of Europe report says rendition involves disappearances, it involves secret detention, it involves unlawful transfers to countries that practice torture.
On the 7th of December the Prime Minister told the house that he fully endorsed Rendition, does he still do so now?
Blair - I think what I actually said was that Rendition had been the policy of the American government for a long period of time, including under the last administration as well as under this administration. We have kept parliament informed of all the requests we are aware of 4 in 1998, 2 of which were granted, two of which were declined.
As for the rest of what is in the CoeE report, it concerns other countries so obviously I am not in a position to speak about them.
ie "You've got no proof, so go away because untill you catch us applying the electrodes ourselves, we can do what we damm well want. And if you think we are going to make the slightest effort to find out what's going on so you can catch us, you've got a long wait."
For our Prime Minister to so casually dismiss allegations of our involvement or complicity in state sanctioned kidnap and torture is predictable.
For the Labour Party he leads and represents to be so supine in accepting this is unforgivable.
As pointed out by Geoffrey Wheatcroft and followed up by Bob Piper:
"Blair is only as guilty as the party that puts up with him."
Read his words
Read his words carefully...
"the Council of Europe report, adds absolutely nothing new whatever to the information we have."
That "we" to my mind is telling, ie that the government has full information on the saga with the implicit "go f*ck yourselves, we're not letting you know any of it".
Nobody, as far as I know, has looked at what goes on in my part of the world. The story so far is all transatlantic/European. I have a nasty suspicion that the same thing has been going on trans-Pacific.
Indeed his words were
Indeed his words were carefully chosen - if you watch the video, he read them out...
[ming gets to his feet 7 mins 20 secs into the clip.]
Amnesty International, Human
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a few other NGOs, have designated June Torture Awareness Month. We've created a blogroll you can join if you're interested. You can find it here. The idea is that everyone is linked to from the blogroll, and in exchange, you discuss torture (as you already do), and link to the Torture Awareness site to help support the NGOs.
There's a lot of bloggers concerned about human rights abuse in the War on Terror. If we coordinate, we can show our support and help Amnesty and HRW make Torture Awareness Month a success.
If we had known three years
If we had known three years ago that we would be here now, I for one would have found it hard to believe. The moral bar has been lowered to the ground by Tony the Torturer and his grotesques.