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.