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Guantanamo Express Route to Torture
 international |
crime and justice |
opinion/analysis
 Monday December 04, 2006 00:20 by Edward Horgan
Insulting the Knock Shrine and victims of torture
Bengemin Disraeli said that there were three kinds of statistics- Lies, Lies, and damn Lies. The Irish Government has been manipulating statistics of late. So now we are told there were only 6 complaints made by peace activists about suspicious US aircraft at Shannon? There were at least 60 such complaints, many in writing and many more verbal. Shannon Gardai now claim that it is necessary to come to Shannon Garda station to make a complaint, otherwise they refuse to acknowledge it. So if your neighbout is being murdered, or raped, and you ring up to inform the gardai at Shannon will they ignore your call. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are our neighbours.
 CIA Rendition Plane at Shannon 8th July 2006 The announcement by the Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern, or his spokespersons, in response to his ‘interrogation’ by the EU Parliament TDIP committee, that he has banned the aircraft known as the Guantanamo Express from Irish airports is cynical and inappropriate. The aircraft identified specifically as the ‘Guantanamo Express’ in the EU report was the Gulfstream V, N379P, has been privately owned since late 2005 and now has no known connection with the CIA since the end of 2005.
The EU report states: “It was registered N379P in February 2000 by Premier Executive Transport Services, … Premier Executive's aircraft were permitted to land on US bases worldwide (expiration 15 October 2005). … The Gulfstream V was re-registered as N8068V at the beginning of 2004; again reregistered as N44982 in December 2004 by Bayard Foreign Marketing, a phantom company registered in Oregon State since August 2003. … The aircraft was put up for sale in late 2005, and is now the property of a company based in Miami, Florida.”
The Minister’s banning or this aircraft from Irish airspace, if indeed he has actually done so, would be unlawful under international air travel regulations, because it is not now been used for any known unlawful purpose. However, his decision not to ban the other 13 CIA connected aircraft may be in contravention of the UN Convention Against Torture, because it amounts to facilitating the US rendition for torture programme. The CIA and the US government have been issues ‘blank cheques’ to use and abuse Shannon Airport, as they will. In particular, his decision not to ban Boeing 737 registration number N368CE, photographed by Edward Horgan at Shannon airport on 8th July 2006, and listed by the EU report, as being used extensively by the CIA for torture rendition, is also inexplicable.
The minister and his spokespersons made ‘apparition’ jokes about the use of Knock and use of the Boston Red Sox executive jet on loan, or lease, to the CIA. These are no joking matters. The Red Sox jet was used to take prisoners for torture, and we know that a CIA aircraft did land at Knock airport, but we do not yet know if it had prisoners on board. The Minister’s remarks about the Knock ‘apparition’ are very insulting to those in Ireland who believe that the Blessed Virgin did appear at the Knock Shrine. His efforts to make little of Ireland’s complicity in the rendition for torture programme must also be very hurtful to all those prisoners who have been tortured and unlawfully detained under the US extraordinary programme.
Confusion, bluster, and indignation were all part of the Irish Government's response to the revelations by the EU committee that at least 14 CIA controlled aircraft had landed at Irish airports, mainly Shannon, at least 147 separate occasions. Military aircraft that might have been carrying prisoners were not included.
The Minister stated that "the United States has stated authoritatively to us that prisoners have not been transferred through Irish territory, nor would they be without our permission" and that these “repeated assurances are comprehensive, factual and not open to differing interpretations.”
These assurance are open to different interpretations - that is - that the US Government at the highest levels were lying when they gave these assurances, and that the Irish Government knows that they were lying. The list of lies by the US administration over its war in Iraq and its so-called war on terror, includes many lies told over its torture rendition programme.
The minister stated that "It is well known also that the United States military personnel have for over 50 years been flown through Shannon Airport, and that this continues to-day in relation to the transport of troops to and from UN mandated operations in Iraq and Afghanistan." The minister knows that this statement is disingenuous. It ignores that inconvenient facts that the US led war against Iraq was in gross breach of the UN Charter, and was not approved by any part of the UN especially the UN Security Council, when Ireland allowed US troops to use Shannon in March 2003. It ignores the fact that the UN Security Council is on ongoing breach of its own UN Charter, and of a UN General Assembly resolution passed in 1970 that makes it a principle of the United Nations that any occupation of another state's territory that is achieved unlawfully, cannot be legitimised after the event. Therefore the occupation of Iraq by US and UK troops is still an illegal occupation. Furthermore, Ireland as a declared sovereign and neutral state, has no obligations to participate in supporting such occupations or wars, whether they are legal or not. The UN Charter and the Irish Constitution both oblige Ireland to promote international peace by peaceful means, not by making war.
The minister goes on to state that: "secondly, the patterns of activity which have been alleged are based on the retrospective study months or years after the fact of a mass of material which simply could not have been known at the time of the flights in question".
This is not correct. The Irish aviation authority, the air traffic control personnel at Shannon, the Shannon airport authorities all have immediate and detailed records of all aircraft that are passing through Shannon on a daily basis. All complaints that were made by peace activists about specific planes were made only while those planes were still on the tarmac at Shannon, not years later. Why were the Gardai and the Irish Defence forces protecting these aircraft if they did not know "the patterns of activity" that these aircraft were engaged in? The dogs in the street, and cleaners at Shannon airport, knew what was going on at Shannon all along.
The Minister told the EU TDIP Committee that investigations into extraordinary rendition “involved, among others, the responsible Government Departments, the Garda Síochána, the Irish Prison Service, Prison Governors, the Inspector of Prisons and Places of Detention, the Chairpersons of all the Prison Visiting Committees, the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, the Army Director of Legal Services and the Army Director of Intelligence.” This is a shrewd attempt to spread the blame for the time when it will be revealed that many prisoners did indeed pass through Shannon. The Inspector of Prisons has not inspected any “places of detention”, that is CIA aircraft at Shannon airport, even though he has been informed by me that CIA aircraft are likely to have been used as “places of detention” at Shannon airport. The minister is suggesting with the benefit of foresight that the Gardai and “the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, the Army Director of Legal Services and the Army Director of Intelligence” have all been guilty of serious negligence in failing to adequately perform their respective duties with regard to the misuse of Shannon airport to commit or facilitate serious abuses of human rights.
Minister McDowell stated in the Dail that there was no smoking gun in the rendition for torture issue at Shannon. There may not yet be solid proof that prisoners were taken through Shannon, but there have been plenty of smoking trousers over the past week. The Irish Government have behaved dishonourably, and with gross criminal negligence, if not also with criminal intent, towards our fellow human beings in Afghanistan and Iraq, who have been unlawfully killed and tortured in very large numbers. All the lies they have told us are the least part of this web of iniquity.
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Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7Imagine being accused of murder, and your only defence and alibi is that you gave assurances that you were innocent.
"Ah come on Garda... The gun might have been smoking when you took it off me - but it had no bullets in it. I assure you that I did not discharge the alleged contents of this alleged weapon into the former living entity we are both standing over currently."
And:
"I assure you Judge, that I didn't murder the victim - he was that way when I got there. And there was no evidence gathered, to prove otherwise"
Now imagine the Garda ignoring this assurance and not bothering to collect or note evidence. And subsequently in the resulting court case that wouldn't happen, the Judge ignoring evidence because of an assurance, lodged by the accused. Daft isn't it. But this is what's happening nonetheless.
The Government in this country are acting disgracefully, and those who are supposed to counter-balance this, are in turn, facilitating it.
When the truth is finally accepted - and it will be - our courts and foreign courts will be clogged with those who issue and accept assurances in the face of blatant and unremitting genocide and war crimes.
"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied," foreign correspondent Claud Cockburn advised journalists.
Some of us remember the following official denial all to clearly:
*****
Posted 11/7/2005
Bush defends interrogation practices: 'We do not torture'
By Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY
PANAMA CITY — President Bush strongly defended U.S. interrogation practices for detainees held in the war on terrorism Monday, insisting, "We do not torture."
*****
Perhaps he thought waterboarding was a new Olympic water sport? Meanwhile, here's a very telling excerpt from the White House's transcript of an interview with Dick Cheney:
Q: Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: It's a no-brainer for me ...
It must be about time that all those people who, Dermot Ahern alleges, have investigated the rendition flights got busy and blew the whistle so that they don't get scapegoated when the truth comes out? I mean these people:
"... among others, the responsible Government Departments, the Garda Síochána, the Irish Prison Service, Prison Governors, the Inspector of Prisons and Places of Detention, the Chairpersons of all the Prison Visiting Committees, the Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, the Army Director of Legal Services and the Army Director of Intelligence.”
Request permission to conduct investigations (if you have not already done so), report back with your findings, request replies in writing and talk to lawyers, NGO's such as Amnesty and Spirasi, opposition politicians and journalists if anybody interferes with your efforts to intervene to safeguard victims of abduction and torture.
Best,
Coilín.
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/80032
http://www.ghostplane.net/flightlog?page=0&sort=date_de...y=all
Above link lists planes arriving at Shannon
http://www.ghostplane.net/flightlog?page=0&sort=date_de...ANNON
Above link lists planes departing Shannon
Ghost Plane writer, Stephen Gray may need a Geography lesson. He has been stating on Irish media, (for the benefit of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs?) that it would not be logical for the US And CIA to bring prisoners through Shannon airport. One look at a map of the world shows that Shannon is half way between the Middle East and Guantanamo. A detailed examination of all the reports on extraordinary rendition including media reports and special investigations by the EU Parliament, Council of Europe, and the United Nations clearly show that Shannon was the second most used European airport after Frankfurt. Maps of the torture rendition spiders web also show that there was an eliptical shaped route for these rendition flights with a southern route from Guantanamo via the Eastern US to Portugal and Spain North Africa to the Middle East and Afghanitan in both directions and The Norhern route was from Guantanamo via Eastern US through Shannon or Prestwick, sometimes Germany and on the Middle East. The flight plans sometimes completed this circular or eliptical route.
If some of the 147 landings of CIA planes were not carrying prisoners or involved in the rendition process then what were they up to? Stephen Gray seems to go out of his way to play down the role of Shannon in the torture rendition process for some reason.
The key periods for transfer of prisoners from Afghanistan and Iraq were the months immediatly after the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq began in late 2001and early 2002, and then after March 2003. These were also periods when large numbers of US military Hercules 130 airdraft were passing through Shannon. Some good investigative reporting is needed into the role of the US military in the Torture rendition process also. In time it may be revealed that the US military role exceded that of the CIA. Where would one find a good investigative reporter these days in Ireland? In RTE perhaps????
Other relevant comments below.
N85VM
Part-owned by a partner in the Boston Red Sox
But Federal Aviation Administration records obtained by the Chicago Tribune show that Gulfstream N85VM has been many places around the world that the Red Sox have almost certainly never gone.
Between June 2002 and January of this year, the Gulfstream made 51 visits to Guantanamo, Cuba, site of the U.S. naval base where more than 500 terrorism suspects are behind bars.
During the same period, the plane recorded 82 visits to Washington's Dulles International Airport as well as landings at Andrews Air Force Base outside the capital and the U.S. air bases at Ramstein and Rhein-Main in Germany.
The plane's flight log also shows visits to Afghanistan, Morocco, Dubai, Jordan, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Azerbaijan and the Czech Republic.
The plane had been used to render Abu Omar, who had been abducted in Italy and kidnapped to Cairo where he was imprisoned by the Egyptians and, by his claims "brutally tortured".
The "spokesman" said the route of this plane was more like a golfing holiday than anything else - who plays golf in Afghanistan?
Ireland criticised by Europe over CIA rendition flights
Jamie Smyth in Brussels and Miriam Donohoe, Political Staff.
Ireland is one of 11 EU states strongly criticised by a European Parliament committee investigating the transport and illegal detention of prisoners by the CIA.
The draft report expresses "serious concern" at the 147 stop-overs by CIA operated aircraft at Irish airports, many of which were coming from or directed to countries linked with extraordinary rendition. It highlights that several of the aircraft making stopovers in the Republic were involved in the rendition of seven people by the CIA as part of its "war on terror" after September 11th, 2001.
A spokesman for Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said last night that he was "livid" at the publication of the report two days before he is due to address the European Parliament committee on the issue.
The spokesman said Mr Ahern is "fuming" at the way the committee has conducted its business and said "at no stage" has any prisoner been rendered through Ireland. "It is absolutely bizarre that we would have the report of the findings of the committee about Ireland two days before the Minister is due to attend committee hearings. He will still go to the hearings and he will give a full and honest account of Ireland's position on this."
One of the 147 flights referred to in the EU report going back to 2001 detailed the movement of an aircraft owned by the Boston Red Sox baseball team. The route it took was more akin to a golfing holiday than anything more sinister, the spokesman said.
"This is more a case of extraordinary apparition rather than extraordinary rendition."
The EU report says aircraft that stopped off in Ireland were involved in the rendition of Agiza, El Zari, Al Rawi, El Banna, Britel, El Masri, Binyam. These individuals were secretly transported by the US secret service and some were later tortured in prisons outside Europe, such as Egypt. There is no evidence in the report to suggest they were ever transported through Irish airports but it says Germany, Italy, Sweden, Bosnia and Macedonia did facilitate rendition.
The draft report was presented to the committee after the appearance and testimony yesterday of the chairman of the Irish Human Rights Commission, Dr Maurice Manning. He told the committee that the Government was not complying with its legal obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights by failing to set up a random inspection regime to ensure rendition was not taking place.
He said the Government should not simply rely on US diplomatic assurances but instead should agree a legally enforceable agreement with the US and investigate the matter of renditions
I did think this point was interesting in S Grey's article, McDowell and Ahern refer to experts who have said that prisoners were not brought through Shannon, I think its Tom Clonnan who he is refering to who constantly tells us that he went to visit Guantanamo and had quite word about Ireland and the staff said they'd never use shannon( and Prison Camp was a fine place). and he said it again this weekend http://www.rte.ie/rams/radio/latest/rte-saturdayview-sv....smil
It was in early 2002, when the camp at Guantanamo Bay was opening up, that I heard from a source close to the CIA that most of the media were missing the point. As cameras showed images of chained prisoners being wheeled across the base on trolleys, there was predictable outrage. But the source described these images as "the press release".
http://www.newstatesman.com/200611200014
Remember Robert Fisk played down the importance of Shannon aswell, on the same basis that they could easily use another route so it makes no difference.
It was great to see Ahern catch some heat for something that would have in the past been dismissed as consipracy. Although it strange how he reckons too much importance has been placed on Ireland role yet reckons that the report was leaked early soley to damage him? as opposed to all the EU countries involved
http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DFindText.aspx?F=SEN200611...9.XML
Stephen Grey said that Ireland was not likely to be used to move people to the middle east from Europe, which is true, but he does seem to miss the point on Gitmo, although he did also say that we were facilitating it by allowing them to land on their way out to get people, which is also very true and the government and cops know it, and ignore it to their shame (if they knew the meaning of the word)
Fisk was downplaying the importance of Ireland's role in the invasion of Iraq, but I think Ed or Tim pointed out before that it would be more important to kick the feckers out than for them to leave of their own will. I'm sure someone has the link to that?
Ireland is not the be-all and end all of the American logistics chain, or the CIA rendition program, but it is quite a significant crime scene for troops and torturers, and perhaps, someday we might learn, for torture victims...