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Search continues for illegal detention centers
November 25th, 2005 at 21:08 Björn Hallberg
But things are moving slow (Reuters). So slow in fact that a longitudinal study of satellite imagery was suggested. The US obviously didn’t have the common decency to come clean about the issue. Which in itself is as good as an admission of guilt.
Interestingly, Alvaro Gil Robles visited a known detention center, Camp Bondsteel, in Kosovo in 2002, and was “shocked” by the conditions there, yet this is the first I hear of this. You’d think he would have made a little more noise then and during all this time.
The simple bottom line is that the only way to make sure these practises are ended is to force the US to retract any and all personnel stationed outside of its territory. And making sure that the US no longer is able to wield any sort of subversive power, to train or equip foreign armies with which they have struck bargains. All connections with the US must be treated as suspect and severed. No foreign bases and no non-civilian liaisons with foreign nations, especially not former 2nd and 3rd world entities. While we cannot influence the entire world, we should exert whatever power necessary to cleanse Europe and our corner of the planet of this foul presence.
Entry 341 filed under: Europe. This entry was posted 3 years, 1 month ago. RSS feed for comments on this post.
See the news article below. (Also, Camp Bondsteel is in Kosovo, not Bosnia)
Former KFOR Commander: No Secret Prison at NATO Base in Kosovo
EUP20051129029009 Paris Le Monde 29 Nov 05
France’s General Valentin, who commanded NATO’s multinational force in Kosovo (KFOR) from October 2001 through October and 2002, countered the charges leveled by Alvaro Gil Robles, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, who gave to understand that the United States’ Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo could be a replica of Guantanamo. In a 27 November interview with Le Monde, General Valentin was forthright: “I was never shocked by conditions of detention. It was a military prison like many others. Amnesty International and the Red Cross had no complaint about conditions of detention. Of course people were imprisoned there under emergency conditions, and I had emergency powers: in Kosovo there was no judiciary, no police, and no prison service. So prisoners had no attorneys. They were under extended arrest without charge.”
General Valentin explained that he met with Mr Gil Robles 7 September 2002. He took the latter to the camp, but did not accompany him inside. On his return, Mr Gil Robles “told me that he was very happy with what he had seen and praised the professionalism displayed by the Americans in managing the detention center,” the general recalled. At that time the center held, among others, five Algerian nationals. “They were members of an Algerian NGO accused of photographing NATO facilities. I had them arrested at the end of July, and they were released in September, for lack of evidence.”
The former commander of NATO’s forces in Kosovo explained that, though the detention center was under his responsibility, its management was entrusted to KFOR’s US forces. “Unless I was deaf and blind, this detention center only ever held persons that KFOR was tasked with arresting and detaining, in accordance with UN Resolution 1244,” he said. On his arrival, General Valentin found 75 prisoners at the detention center, and they had all left it by the time of his departure.
General Valentin nevertheless admitted that he could not say anything about the rest of this 300-hectare military camp. “All aircraft landing in Pristina were extraterritorial; they were NATO aircraft and nobody checked what they were carrying,” he specified. Mr Gil Robles’ point that prisoners wore “orange fatigues like those of the prisoners at Guantanamo” made General Valentin smile: “Prisoners in all US prisons wear orange fatigues. As for distinguishing a bearded Albanian from a Taliban… I think that Mr Gil Robles was misled by drawing a certain parallel,” he said.
In Pristina, KFOR said that it had never been notified of any use of the Bondsteel detention center beyond that relating to KFOR’s mission, and the spokesman for the US troops denied that there is a “secret prison” at Bondsteel.
However, the controversy over secret CIA prisons in Europe is not abating: Switzerland has demanded explanations from Washington concerning the overflight of its territory by US aircraft, while German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier has declared himself “concerned” about reports that aircraft carrying arrested Islamists stopped over in Germany.
Corrected the geographic anomaly. Absentmindedness on my part.
Puzzling information. Obviously they can’t both be right. Valentin sounds a little evasive though on the issue of whether he really could know what was going on at the center. I guess that if one approves the emergency conditions Valentin mentions, then the detainment would seem reasonable in theory. I still am not content with NATO holding prisoners in a military context though regardless of whether they are enemy soldiers or not.
Some have do doubt re-evaluated their position since 2002, after learning that “emergency” detainment was the new permanent detainment everywhere.
Predictably perhaps, I’m no big fan of NATO either regardless of how many Valentins there are. NATO is a problem since it enforces and cleans up US policy, but deceitfully so under a banner of multilateralism. On occasion it even commands the respect of the UN out of tradition or obligation. Either the US needs to roll back its involvement in the organization or Europe needs to form its own mobile core “defense,” Battle Groups as it were. In a perfect world I’d like to see the military removed from civil society, but unfortunately, a joint EU defense will have to do in the meantime to ensure that we at least distance ourselves from NATO.