WORST TRIP TO TUNISIA EVER: RENDITION AND OUR ALLIES IN THE WAR ON TERROR

BY DAVID ZLUTNICK, PROJECT COLLECTIVE

So, holy shit, I was reading up on this process the U$ currently has called “extraordinary rendition,� also known among the Bush administration as the “New Paradigm,� which extradites terrorist suspects from one foreign state to another for interrogation and prosecution, and I’ve come to the conclusion it’s extremely fucked. The real purpose, opponents argue, is to subject suspects (ruled as “illegal enemy combatants� to avoid being restricted under the Geneva Convention classifications of either “civilian� or “prisoner of war�) to interrogation methods illegal under U$ law, such as torture.

Rendition began under the Clinton administration, but after 9/11 and beginning of the “War on Terror� the program was expanded “beyond recognition� and is now “an abomination� according to a former CIA official. The New Paradigm “places a high premium on . . . the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians,� wrote Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, at the time White House council, but gives little rights to suspects.

These suspects have often been seized by masked American agents in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, forced onto jets (registered to multiple dummy American corporations and given clearance to land at U$ military bases), then sent off to foreign countries where, more often than not, they vanish. No records of the suspects are kept to avoid scrutiny by humanitarian groups. Donald Rumsfeld has been found to have personally ordered at least one prisoner in Iraq to be hidden from Red Cross officials and in a congressional hearing Army General Paul Kern said that the CIA has possibly hidden up to a hundred detainees. Reports have also suggested that the CIA has been operating secret prisons in Thailand, Qatar, and Afghanistan.


Dan Coleman, an ex-FBI agent specializing in counter-terrorism who worked closely with the CIA, has said that since 9/11 the CIA “has seemed to think it’s operating under different rules, that it has extralegal abilities outside the U$.� He says CIA agents have told him “that they have their own enormous office of general counsel that rarely tells them no. Whatever they do is all right. It all takes place overseas.�

One extremely disturbing case of rendition took place on September 26, 2002 at JFK Airport in New York. Maher Arar, a Canadian engineer born in Syria, had taken his wife and children on vacation to Tunisia but returned early by himself for work. He was detained while changing planes because his name was on an immigration watch list for suspected terrorists.

Arar was held for the next thirteen days in Brooklyn before being transferred by federal agents in the middle of the night. As he recalls, “They read me the document. They say, ‘The INS director decided to deport you to Syria.’ And of course, the first thing I did was I started crying, because everyone knows that Syria practices torture.� Bush had even condemned Syria, along with Iraq, for the country’s “legacy of torture and oppression.� But that didn’t stop Arar’s deportation by a group he heard identify themselves as the “Special Removal Unit.� Once in Syria he said he was first only threatened with physical harm, but soon they “just began beating on me.� They beat him with two-inch electrical cables and kept him in an underground cell 3 feet wide, 6 feet long, and 7 feet high, his home for ten months. “It’s a grave. It’s the same size of a grave. It’s a dark place. It’s underground,� says Arar.

He was accused of attending a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, a charge he initially denied. After the beatings started, however, he said he signed a confession because he was “ready to do anything to stop the torture. Just one hit of this cable, it’s like you just forget everything in your life. Everything.�


Finally in October of 2003 he was released without charges. Arar has brought charges against the U$ government but the government has invoked “state secrets privilege� saying that to hear the case in open court would jeopardize the “intelligence, foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.� The government lawyers “are saying this case can’t be tried, and the classified information on which they’re basing this argument can’t even be shared with the opposing lawyers,� says Barbara Olshansky, the assistant legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who is representing Arar. “It’s the height of arrogance—they think they can do anything they want in the name of the global war on terrorism.�

The U$ has rendered suspects to at least Syria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan, all of which the State Department has cited for human rights abuses and are known to use torture. Another country has been added to this list, one that has made the news a lot rather recently: Uzbekistan.

In February of 2001 the State Department issued a human rights report on Uzbekistan, calling it “an authoritarian state with limited civil rights,� where “beating, often with blunt weapons, and asphyxiation with a gas mask,� were common methods of interrogation. Human rights groups have said that torture practiced in Uzbekistan includes the boiling of body parts, using electroshock on genitals and plucking off fingernails and toenails with pliers. Two prisoners have been boiled to death, the groups reported.

But after 9/11 the U$ turned to Uzbekistan as an ally in the fight against terrorism. A military base was handed over to the American military to use in the invasion of Afghanistan. Bush has given Uzbekistan more than $500 million for border control and other security measures, and President Islam Karimov was very well received at the White House. And now the New Paradigm is being extended to this country, as well.

Uzbekistan’s role in the rendition program has been confirmed by at least six current and former intelligence officials. One source estimated the number of suspects sent there is in the dozens. Allison Gill, who is currently working inside Uzbekistan for Human Rights Watch, commented, “If you talk to anyone there, Uzbeks know that torture is used—it’s common even in run-of-the-mill criminal cases. “Anyone in the United States or Europe who does not know the extent of the torture problem in Uzbekistan is being willfully ignorant.�

As I said earlier, Uzbekistan has been in the news a lot lately. This is because of its slaughter of protesters at an anti-government rally. On May 13, about 2,000 demonstrators stormed government buildings and liberated prisoners in a jail in Andijan in response to the government’s prosecution of 23 businessmen accused of being Islamist extremists. Government troops then opened fire on the largely peaceful crowds killing hundreds. It has recently come to light that the troops were trained by the U$ military.

While Uzbek officials claim only 173 were killed, human rights organizations as well as international reporters say the numbers were far greater. Gulbakhor Turayeva, a former doctor turned civil rights activist, recently held a press conference saying she counted 400 bodies lying in the yard of Andijan’s School No. 15 the day after the massacre. She saw about 100 more but was forced out by troops before she could make an exact count.

Why is Uzbekistan an ally of ours in the War on Terror? Why are we sending suspected terrorists, who have not even been charged with a crime, to be interrogated in countries known to use torture? What the fuck is wrong with our government? And what the fuck are we gonna do about it? All of these are very important questions to ask ourselves as the U$ continues to limit civil liberties at home and abroad, continues to break international laws, and continues to cause terror in the name of fighting it. So how are we gonna deal with these renegade politicians and intelligence officials? C’mon, let’s go break their arms.



Sources:
“Outsourcing Torture� by Jane Meyer, from The New Yorker, Feb. 7, 2005

“His Year in Hell� from CBS News, transcript of 60 Minutes II segment by Correspondent Vicki Mabrey, March 30, 2004

“Growing Evidence US Sending Prisoners to Torture Capital: Despite Bad Record On Human Rights, Uzbekistan is Ally� by Don Van Natta, from the SF Chronicle, May 1 2005,

“Uzbek Forces Present in Andijan Crackdown,� by Burt Herman, from the SF Chronicle, May 28, 2005