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Понедельник 13-ое июля 2008
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Andy Worthington | Это была плохая неделя для британского правительства, по отношению к 2 из идущих болячек своего международной политики, обоих центризованных на заморской территории Diego Garcia в indian ocean.

 

Diego Garcia и окружающие острова - известные собирательно как острова Chagos - было стыдно освобожено их existing населенности in the late 1960s, сделать дорогу для аэробазы США на Diego Garcia самом. Это была выраженность «специального отношения» между Великобританией и США, которая включили старую империю облегчая достигаемость своего продолжателя глобальную, in exchange for значительно рабат на программе ядерная ракета Trident Великобритании.

 

Ever since, exiled Chagossians пытайте возвратить доступ к их родовым землям, но с лимитированным успехом. Хотя последовательные британские правительства тонизировали - вниз с расистской риторики используемой во время удаление островитянин', котор принудили - когда служебные документы refer to они как «Tarzans или люди пятницы» - Diego Garcia и острова Chagos оставало на forefront колониального mindset никогда довольно extirpated от mentality Форина Оффиса.

 

Хотя островитянин выиграли оглушать победу в высшей инстанции в 2000, которое управляло что их вытеснение было противозаконн, правительство воевало назад в 2003, когда основное Minster Тони Блэр invoked стародедовская и архаическая «королевская прерогатива» для того чтобы поразить вниз с их заявок once more. Хотя апелляционная инстанция обратила это решение в мае 2006, управляющ что драка Chagossians островитянин' право для того чтобы возвратить был «одной из самых основных вольностей известных к людским существованиям,» оно был ясн что, в схватке между группой в составе жестокосердно размещанные островитянин on the one hand, и комплексе США воинск-промышленном на другом,' была far from над.

 

Последняя неделя, сразу после партия Chagossians посетила лондон для того чтобы услышать законоведов для Форина Оффиса апеллируя в доме лордов против вердикта 2006 и требуя, как Радетель put it, that “[a]llowing the Chagossian islanders to go back to their Indian Ocean homes would be a ‘precarious and costly’ operation,” and that “the United States had said that it would also present an ‘unacceptable risk’ to its base on Diego Garcia,” David Miliband, the foreign secretary, delivered a short statement relating to the other scandal of Diego Garcia: its use for “extraordinary rendition” flights in the “War on Terror.”

 

After years of denials by the British government that rendition flights had passed through Diego Garcia, David Miliband admitted in February that he had just been informed by his US counterparts that, upon searching their records, they had discovered that two flights had stopped on Diego Garcia in 2002. “In both cases a US plane with a single detainee on board refuelled at the US facility in Diego Garcia,” Miliband said. “The detainees did not leave the plane, and the US Government has assured us that no US detainees have ever been held on Diego Garcia. US investigations show no record of any other rendition through Diego Garcia or any other Overseas Territory or through the UK itself since then.”

At the time, I noted that this appeared to be a sly form of damage limitation, as there was compelling evidence that, far from being used on just two occasions as a transit point, the island had actually housed a secret prison. Three examples will suffice for now, although it’s a safe bet that more revelations are forthcoming.

In October 2003, Time magazine ran an exclusive feature by Simon Elegant focusing on the imprisonment of Hambali, a “high-value detainee,” who spent years in various secret CIA prisons — including Diego Garcia — until he was transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006. Other evidence came from Council of Europe investigator (and Swiss senator) Dick Marty, who reported in June 2006 that, having spoken to senior CIA officers during his research, he had “received concurring confirmations that United States agencies have used Diego Garcia, which is the international legal responsibility of the UK, in the ‘processing’ of high-value detainees.’”

 

The final piece of evidence came from inside the US administration itself, when Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star US general, and currently a professor of international security studies at the West Point military academy, let slip on two occasions that Diego Garcia had housed a secret prison. In May 2004, he blithely declared, “We’re probably holding around 3,000 people, you know, Bagram air field, Diego Garcia, Guantánamo, 16 camps throughout Iraq,” and in December 2006 he slipped the leash again, saying, “They’re behind bars … we’ve got them on Diego Garcia, in Bagram air field, in Guantánamo.”

 

David Miliband’s statement last Thursday did nothing to suggest that the British government had any intention of pushing the matter further with its US allies, even though, as the sovereign power in charge of the islands, the ministers are unable to evade responsibility for what has taken place on Diego Garcia.

 

Rather feebly, the foreign secretary stated that, after sending a list of possible rendition flights that may have passed through British territory to the US authorities, “The United States Government confirmed that, with the exception of two cases related to Diego Garcia in 2002, there have been no other instances in which US intelligence flights landed in the United Kingdom, our Overseas Territories, or the Crown Dependencies, with a detainee on board since 11 September 2001.”

 

Reprieve, the legal action charity that has spent several years investigating “extraordinary rendition” and secret prisons, responded by pointing out that the British government “intentionally failed to ask the right questions of the US, and accepted implausible US assurances at face value,” noting that the Foreign Office had declined to ask the US government for the names of the prisoners transported via Diego Garcia in 2002, that it had failed to ask if any other rendition flights had passed through Diego Garcia, even if, as the US asserted, no other planes landed there, and had also failed to ask whether any other flights passed through UK territory en route to engaging in “extraordinary rendition,” which would make the UK complicit in the crime.

 

The British government faced a fresh barrage of criticism just three days later, when the Foreign Affairs Select Committee published its latest report (PDF) on the Overseas Territories. With reference to Diego Garcia, the Committee declared that “it is deplorable that previous US assurances about rendition flights have turned out to be false. The failure of the United States Administration to tell the truth resulted in the UK Government inadvertently misleading our Select Committee and the House of Commons. We intend to examine further the extent of UK supervision of US activities on Diego Garcia, including all flights and ships serviced from Diego Garcia.”

 

For good measure, the Committee also had harsh words about the government’s treatment of the Chagossians, noting, “We conclude that there is a strong moral case for the UK permitting and supporting a return … for the Chagossians. The FCO (Foreign Office) has argued that such a return would be unsustainable, but we find these arguments less than convincing.”

 

Under pressure on two fronts over Diego Garcia, it remains to be seen whether the government can once more worm its way out of trouble. Tory MP Andrew Tyrie, who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on extraordinary rendition, is keen not to let this happen. Speaking after the report was published, he chastised the foreign secretary for dismissing his concerns about “extraordinary rendition” when he first raised the issue last October. “The Foreign Secretary persistently gave me the brush-off. He said we could rely on US assurances,” Tyrie said, adding, “My allegations were correct. The Foreign Secretary’s brush-off was not just misplaced, it was a disgrace.”

Reprieve was even more blunt, stating, “This remains a transatlantic cover-up of epic proportions. While the British government seems content to accept whatever nonsense it is fed by its US allies, the sordid truth about Diego Garcia’s central role in the unjust rendition and detention of prisoners in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ cannot be hidden forever.”

 

Andy is the author of The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press/the University of Michigan Press).

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