Fw: ZNet Commentary: The Camp X-ray Concentration Camp March 03, 2002

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

 ZNet Commentary
 The Camp X-ray Concentration Camp March 03, 2002
 By John Pilger

 THE conditions in which prisoners are being held brutally and illegally in
an American concentration camp on Cuba go to the heart of the "war on
 terrorism", and mark the Blair government for its betrayal of the basic
rights of
 British citizens to the interests of a foreign power.

 Shafiq Rasul, from Tipton, near Birmingham, is one of five Britons being
 held without charge and in contravention of every international convention
at
 Camp X-Ray.

A man well over 6ft in height, with a thin frame and a normal weight of less
 than 11st, he has lost 3st and is described by his brother as "seriously
 emaciated". His family believes they glimpsed him on television, on
February
 21, shackled to a stretcher.

 In this state, he was interrogated by agents of the British security
 service, MI5 - which itself contravenes the Geneva Convention on
prisoners-of-war. At
 the same time, the Foreign Office claims it does not know the circumstances
of
the five men's arrests.

 This brings to mind the evidence of a British official, Mark Higson, at the
arms-to-Iraq scandal inquiry in 1994. Higson described a "culture of lying"
 pervading the Foreign Office.

 All 194 prisoners on Cuba, it is now becoming clear, have committed no
 crime. That is true of all but a handful of the 400 captured in Afghanistan
many of
 whom do not belong to al-Qaeda.

 In three months of investigation by an army of FBI and other police
 officers, not a shred of evidence has been produced linking them to the
attacks of
 September 11 or identifying them as "terrorists fighting America".

 Yet, in the House of Commons, ministers have defamed them as "among the
most
 dangerous men in the world", echoing almost word for word the statements of
 Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of Defence.

 This is the man who has admitted setting up an office in the Pentagon with
 the sole function of lying to foreign governments and foreign media about
the
 "war on terrorism".

 Acting for the family of Shafiq Rasul is Gareth Peirce, the solicitor and
 fighter against miscarriages of justice who was portrayed in the film In
The
 Name Of The Father.

 She says: "Given that [Shafiq] was so clearly emaciated, it means that we
 are letting loose our agents on to those detainees for the purpose of
interrogating
 them in wholly unsafe circumstances and acting parasitically on the backs
of
 wholly unlawful detentions by the Americans."

 Another British solicitor and human rights campaigner, Louise Christian,
 represents 22-year-old Feroz Abassi. She is threatening the British
 Government with legal action for collaborating with the US in Feroz's
"illegal
 interrogation".

 She has been told by the government solicitor to delay her application for
a
 judicial review by the High Court because Tony Blair and his ministers have
 yet to decide what to do.

 IN other words, they are asking the Americans how they should act on the
 human rights of British citizens against whom there is clearly no case.
Recently,
 an Algerian pilot, Lotfi Raissi, was released from Belmarsh prison after
five
 months on remand and without any terrorism charge being laid against him.

 The bogus reasons for the "war on terrorism" are unravelling by the day, as
 is Blair's complicity with its crimes of violence in Afghanistan and denial
of
 rights. The original purpose of Camp X-Ray was as a piece of grotesque
 theatre for the ever-manipulated American public.

 In releasing deliberately provocative photographs of cowed men in chains,
 the Bush regime believed it could distract public opinion from the debacle
of
 its "war" in Afghanistan, in which its war machine failed to capture or
kill
 Osama bin Laden or a single senior member of al-Qaeda.

 Even the Taliban leader Mullah Omar got away. All they got was the
Taliban's
 ambassador to Pakistan, a relatively minor functionary.

 The price of this American disaster for the people of Afghanistan was,
 according to a recent study at the University of New Hampshire, at least
5,000
 civilian lives.

 For all the posed photographs of American troops against desert landscapes,
 hardly any of them have seen combat. Instead, impoverished people in dusty
 villages are killed from the sky.

 Not even the cost of an American B52 bomber has reached the Afghan people
in
 aid - in spite of "pledges" by America and Europe and the
 "we-shall-never-desert-Afghanistan-again" windbaggery of Blair.

 In spite of a public relations drive to prove that the American-installed
 regime in Kabul is radically different from that of the Taliban, the main
changes
 are a return to a bloody civil war and feudalism and the renewal of the
heroin
 trade.

 As for the human rights of the long-suffering population, the new
government
 will, like the Taliban, impose sharia Islamic law on its people. Judge
 Ahamat Ullha Zarif says that public executions and amputations will
continue, but
 there will be one variation: "For example, the Taliban used to hang the
victim's
 body in public for four days. We will only hang the body for a short time,
say 15
 minutes."

Judge Zarif made clear that the ultimate penalty would remain in force for
 adulterers, both male and female. They would still be stoned to death, "but
 we will use only small stones".

 This is the regime whose leaders have a bodyguard of British soldiers. And
 still the Americans bomb - while famine sweeps the north and west of
Afghanistan
 in the wake of the American attacks.

 On February 12, a World Vision Health and Nutrition Team reported from the
 North West that "numerous groups of women and children are scavenging the
valley
 fields for weeds, roots and grass to eat".

 The French aid agency Medecins sans Frontieres says that more and more
 people are becoming malnourished. "The food system is not working," said a
nurse,
 Jenny Andersson. "Although the World Food Programme has been providing food
for
 more than 300,000 people, it simply isn't reaching the people that need
it."

 NONE of these horrors has been addressed by the American or British
governments,
 the principal partners in the Washington-bribed "coalition" claiming
 responsibility for the Afghanistan disaster, which Jack Straw calls "our
 vindication".

 It is not surprising that, even as ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic
 stands trial in The Hague, the Americans are pressing for an end to war
crimes
 trials altogether. This means that the Bush administration is afraid that
the
 process might slip out of its control and become a permanent fixture,
encouraging
 the setting up of an International Criminal Court, which Washington
opposes.

 It fears that such a body might act truly judicially and order the arrest
of
 "our" war criminals - that is, American and British politicians and
officials
 who have ordered, or aided and abetted the bombing to death of thousands of
 innocent men, women and children and have run or collaborated in the
running
 of a concentration camp like that in which emaciated men who are held and
 interrogated in breach of international law.

 In his play Ashes To Ashes, Harold Pinter uses the images of Nazism and the
 Holocaust, while interpreting them as a warning that the totalitarian
 actions of western politicians seeking dominance over other human beings
are no
 different, in principle and effect, from those of fascists - and
terrorists.

 The reality behind the Prime Minister's pretensions as a "war leader"
become
 clearer every day.





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