Why was the Egyptian Foreign Minister telling his Ambassador in London about the identity of the countries in eastern Europe where US government agencies were holding and interrogating, or planning to hold and interrogate, 23 Iraqi and Afghan prisoners?
To me, that is one of the most intriguing aspects of the “leak” that happened in Switzerland over the weekend, in which reporters from the Swiss weekly SonntagsBlick got hold of and wrote about intercepts that Swiss military intel had gotten from a fax that Egyptian FM Ahmed Abul-Gheit sent to his London embassy, last November 10.
What was the interest of the government of Egypt in the fate of these detainees, pray?
According to this English-language despatch from Swissinfo, which was quoting the SonntagsBlick article,
- The Egyptian fax stated that 23 Iraqi and Afghan citizens had been transferred to a Romanian military base near the port of Constanza for interrogation purposes. It added that similar detention centres had been set up in Ukraine, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria.
The simplest explanation for why the Egyptian government would be involved in this affair would be that these detainees were being hurriedly hustled out of Egypt. I suppose there are other explanations?
Another serious question is why any “Iraqi” detainees were among those being hustled around the Euro-Mediterranean area, at all. When the US forces invaded Iraq they assured the ICRC that they would comply there with the provisions of international humanitarian law that require, inter alia, that security detainees be kept in the occupied territory and not taken out of it. In Afghanistan, by contrast, the Bush administration always said it did not consider itself an “occupying power” under the terms of the Geneva Conventions, and therefore did not consider itself bound by those provisions.
Of course, there are many other ways– torture, etc– in which the US occupation authorities in Iraq have violated the Geneva Conventions. But to take Iraqis out of their country and shuffle them around the world in the CIA’s globe-girdling “black hole” prison system? That’s another very serious infraction, too.
I note, meanwnile, that the SonntagsBlock revelations have set off a flurry of related political activity in some of the European countries named, and elsewhere in Europe:
In Romania,
- Members of the team investigating the case of the alleged CIA prisons on Romanian territory have asked the Defense Ministry to make available all files on military airplanes that flew over, landed or took of from Romania starting in 2002.
The commission’s president, Liberal senator Norica Nicolai, said yesterday that similar requests have been made by the Civilian Aviation Authority and by the European Organization for Air Transport Safety.
In Brussels,
- The head of a European investigation into alleged CIA prisons in Europe said Tuesday the purported Egyptian government document naming countries where such prisons existed is a new lead which must be followed up.
… The Strasbourg, France-based Council of Europe began its investigation after allegations surfaced in November that U.S. agents interrogated key al-Qaida suspects at clandestine prisons in Eastern Europe and transported some suspects to other countries via Europe.
But in Switzerland– yes, Switzerland, longtime home of the ICRC and birthplace of the whole idea of “international humanitarian law”– the federal government earlier today,
- launched a probe … into the leak of an Egyptian diplomatic fax intercepted by its secret service that appeared to lend credence to allegations the CIA had secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
… The Swiss government, which defended the actions of its secret service in intercepting the message, said the federal prosecutor as well as military authorities had begun preliminary investigations over the leak.
“Somebody who acts like this is hurting the reputation and the credibility of our country. Moreover, they are punishable by law,” the government said in a statement.
But the bottom lines on this still, in my view, remain:
* Why is the US government holding prisoners quite illegally and “off the records” in a number of places around the world, and also transporting them across international borders?
* Who are these prisoners? Where are they being held currently? How can their situation be regularized so that they can receive the due protections to which they are entitled under law– whether international humanitarian law or the national law of the place where they are being held?
* And how can the US government and all its accomplices in the “black” detainees conspiracy be held to account for their shocking misdeeds on this issue continuously since October 2001?
(Hat-tip to Christiane for nudging me to write about this!)
2006-01-10 Boris Sokolov follows Novodvorskaya?
When the US forces invaded Iraq they assured the ICRC that they would comply there with the provisions of international humanitarian law that require, inter alia, that security detainees be kept in the occupied territory and not taken out of it.
Is this a jock Helena or what?
US from the day they took action of regime change in Iraq they broke the international laws, the worse coming after with all drama of bombing the water supplies, essentials humanitarian services like roads bridges and swage stations powers station. Most importantly using a band weapons and bombes then followed by prisoner humiliation in Abu Graib prison and so on so forth till now US still breaking all the laws.
Please enough and give us a break from International laws which used specially by the west as a stick to punish 3rd world nations and poor nations, isn’t it?
Three remarks here in complement :
1) The report of SwissInfo isn’t the best one, but it’s the only one I found in English. The best account of the events that I’ve read was issued in the German weekly “Der Spiegel”. Nur has a link to it in her blog.
In the intercepted fax there is apparently nothing proving that the Egyptians participated in the deportation of Iraqis or other muslims outside of their countries. It’s merely a statement that the Egyptians knows from their own sources that there were 23 Iraqis and Afghans interrogated in the Romanian bases and that there are other secrete interrogations centers in other East European countries. “Der Spiegel” thinks that the sources are probably Egyptians who have been detained and interrogated by the CIA and then released. May be the Egyptian authorities want to get more informations about other Egyptians citizen interrogated by the US/CIA ? (whether it’s because they want to defend these citizen or because they want to interrogate these prisonners themselves is another question).
2) The head of the European investigation into alleged CIA prisons in Europe happens to be Dick Marty, a Swiss politician who was fomerly a public attorney.
3) Swizterland’s actual government has shifted to the right at the last elections and the right wing is negotiating a free-trade agreement with the US (shame on us).
4) A usually insightful columnist of our daily press, Andreas Gross, put these two facts in perspective. In his opinion, whatever reason could explain this leak (internal fights in the Swiss intelligence currently under reorganization, employee having human rights at heart, mere greed, etc.) the leak itself comes in very handy for the Swiss governement who had a dilemna : 1) One one side, as the depositary of the ICRC conventions and given its traditional support of human rights, she couldn’t hide this information to Dick Marty; on the other side, she couldn’t take the risk to angry the US while negotiating the free-trade agreement.
5) Two days ago, there was the usual new year wishes meeting of the Swiss government with all the foreign envoys and ambassador present in Berne. The Swiss president made as if nothing had occurred. The Romanian ambassador when interviewed by journalist strongly denied that Romania had any secrete CIA jails anywhere in the country. The Egyptian ambassador declared he hadn’t received any instruction or information from his government concerning this whole story about which he only read in the newspaper.
Anyway, I hope that Dick Marty will be able to get more from his investigation for the European Council in Strasbourg.
Hi, Christiane. yes, re your #4 (out of “three”??) I had thought the leak might come in handy for some in the Swiss government, for the reason stated.
The government’s maintaining and using the new satellite-based spy system (Onyx?) is also really interesting. As we see in this case, the US doesn’t monopolize the pulling of other people’s communications out of the air!
Actually, I wonder what the relationship of this swiss satellite-spying system is to the US one? Do you think the US subcontracts some of the spying to the Swiss? (And, is the swiss one national or pan-European)? Worth finding out more about.
I’m Being Recruited by the Army?!
Every thing posibbile with US odds
http://fuzzilicious.blogspot.com/2006/01/im-being-recruited-by-army.html
Hi Helena,
Well I even managed to get further than #4. Was writing from work and in a hurry.
I’ve been doing some research concerning our intelligence agencies and their relationships to other countries. It’s a large subject requiring lot of readings, particularly concerning Onyx, Echelon etc. There has been a lot of reforms implemented recently with many investments in what they call COMINT (communication intelligence, in contrast to human intelligence). The various agencies are undergoing a fundamental reorganization, including important changes at he law level.
But there are two four points to underscore -let’s see how far I get with these numbers this evening 😉
1) Our national phone and telecommunication company was privatized during the nineties and became Swisscom. Swisscom then decided to concentrate on phone products, internet, etc. and to sell an important infrastructure of telecommunication by satellites. The three powerfull antennas located in Leuk (look at the large white infrastructures located slightly east of Leuk, between the two yellow roads; use the magnifier tool on the right)were sold to a US company along with other infrastructures in Geneva, Zurich and in a third place I don’t remember. That company “Verestar“, formerly “American Tower Teleport” is a subsidiary of the American Tower Corporation. They offer broadband, internet and all kind of communication services worldwide. The new acquisted swiss antennae allowed Verestar to extend its services in Europa, in India and Asia(aka in places where she wasn’t present before 2000). Veretas itself also owns a subsidiary MTN (Maritime Telecommunicaitons Network) and the US-Navy is listed among the MTN clients.
2) It is also worth saying that the Swiss military intelligence manage two other antennas at the same location.
3) The selling of the satellite services by Swisscom met controversy in the Swiss parliament, especially on the left banks. The government answered that Veretas is bound by a precise licence contract for the exploitation of these antennas, which only allows the passing of non classified information . (mmm how can that be checked ?)
4) We have recently achieved a round of important negotiations with the EU and now share criminal informations with other European police. I have to read more concerning the military monitoring. THey are allowed by the law to exchange COMINT information with other countries, but I’m not sure to be able to find out with which countries they maintain close ties and exchanges. More if I can find out.