Dark history

Dark history Sunday, August 03, 2008: The demand by the Boston-based Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that the US Congress and British Parliament investigate a report in a leading US magazine that the CIA was maintaining a secret detention centre on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, where a key US base is located, once more highlights US abuses of basic rights. The PHR, which has documented torture for 21 years, warns that 'secret' imprisonment often leads to grave violations of human rights. The PHR, since 2005, has also spearheaded US civil society efforts against the use of torture at Guantanamo Bay and other detention centres. In its reports, it has detailed use of psychological terror and other 'sophisticated' techniques the CIA is said to employ. The suspicion that 'ghost' prisoners are being held at Diego Garcia is a disturbing one. Certainly, the fact that such prisoners exist is known. The harrowing accounts given recently of an unidentified Pakistani woman, apparently being held at Bagram for years on end, helped underscore this ugly reality. There is also a suspicion that the young scientist and mother, Dr Afia Siddiqui, who disappeared from Karachi in 2003 with her three small children, may have ended up at such a detention centre. All of us need to support the international effort to speak up for these people. No matter what their crime – if indeed they are involved in one – no one deserves to be shut up for years, in secret jails, without access to family, lawyers and a trial process. It is unclear how many Pakistanis may have met with such a fate, but certainly there are accusations a number of them were handed over to the US, possibly in exchange for 'head money'. Some may indeed have ended up at places like Diego Garcia. As the PHR has demanded, international humanitarian groups must be allowed access to prisons there.The report regarding the location of a secret centre on the island adds to their dark history. In the 1960s and 1970s, the native population of the Chagos islands, lying about 1600 kilometres off the Indian coast, were forced away from their homes and lands by the British, and a massive US and UK base established on the principal island, Diego Garcia. The islanders have for years fought a legal battle against this ethnic cleansing and demanded they be allowed to return. Their plea has been upheld by a London Court, with the British foreign office currently involved in an appeal against the ruling, citing security interests. It is time the darkness over the Chagos archipelago that fell with the brutal evictions carried out over three decades ago, be lifted. The accusations that Diego Garcia is being used by the CIA as a torture centre must be investigated. It is ironic such terrible deeds should take place on illegally seized islands once known as a kind of paradise. Any prisoners held there must be freed. The international community must join hands to ensure this and prevent another coverup being staged by the CIA, which today must rank as among the organizations that are most guilty of terrible violations of human rights and basic dignities.