By
Kenneth J. Theisen, 6/7/07
Today,
June 7, 2007, six human rights organizations (Amnesty International,
Cageprisoners, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Center for
Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University School of Law,
Human Rights Watch, and Reprieve) released a report entitled, “Off
the Record: U.S. Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the
“War on Terror”.” The report publishes the
names and details of thirty-nine people who the six groups believe
have been held in secret U.S. custody and whose current locations (if
they are still alive) are unknown. The report also names relatives of
suspects who were themselves detained in secret prisons, including
children as young as seven.
The
list of secret prisoners includes citizens from Egypt, Kenya, Libya,
Morocco, Pakistan, and Spain who were kidnapped in countries
including Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, and Sudan, and then
transferred to secret U.S. detention centers around the world. The
U.S. government contends that these people were legally arrested and
detained. CIA
spokesman Paul Gimigliano stated to the media, “The plain truth
is that we act in strict accord with American law, and that our
counterterror initiatives – which are subject to careful review and
oversight – have been very effective in disrupting plots and saving
lives. The United States does not conduct or condone torture.”
But
since when is it legal to deprive people of lawyers, keep their
locations secret, fail to charge the prisoners, and even deny that
the people are prisoners? (The practice of “disappearing”
prisoners is a practice reminiscent of former dictatorships in Latin
America. But then many of these dictatorships were advised about
torture and other practices by the CIA.) These are just a few of the
legal abuses that the U.S. government has committed against these
people. Only the Bush regime which regularly commits such outrages
would even pretend that such conduct is legal.
The
list of “ghost detainees” was compiled by the six groups based on
information from government and media sources, as well as from
interviews with former prisoners and other witnesses. This report is
significant in that it details aspects of the CIA detention program
that the Bush administration has actively tried to conceal, such as
the locations where prisoners may have been held, the abuse they have
endured, and the nations where they may have been transferred.
It
reveals how suspects’ relatives, including wives and children as
young as seven, have been held in secret detention centers. In
September 2002, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (a high-value terrorist
according to the Bush regime) two young boys, aged 7 and 9, were
arrested. According to eyewitnesses, the two were held in an adult
detention center for at least four months while U.S. agents
questioned the children about their father’s whereabouts. Were these
kids subject to waterboarding or other forms of torture used by the
Bush regime? And even if the children were not “tortured,” what
kind of government would hold children in a prison for four months
because their father is a suspect? Can we afford to sit by while such
abuses occur?
In
another case detailed in the report, in July 2004 Tanzanian national
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani was seized in Pakistan. His wife was also
detained in order to pressure him to reveal information even though
she was not an alleged terrorist.
In
September 2006 President Bush finally admitted the existence of
secret detention centers. But at the time of his announcement he
claimed that the prisons were then empty. If this is true, what
happened to these 39 prisoners listed in this report? Were they
subject to rendition, a practice where they are sent to other nations
for torture and maybe death by the Bush regime? When Bush made his
announcement 14 prisoners held by the CIA in secret CIA prisons were
transferred to the notorious hellhole in Guantanamo Bay. But these
39 people were not among the 14. The Bush regime must be held
accountable for all these prisoners.
“Off
the Record: US Responsibility for Enforced Disappearances in the “War
on Terror'” is available at:
http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/ct0607.