CIA Prison: Systematic Use of Torture in Diego Garcia Island

By Masood Haider*

NEW YORK, Aug 1: The Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) on Friday called for investigations by the US Congress and British parliament into allegations made in a Time magazine report that the Bush administration had covertly used a facility in Diego Garcia, a British island off the coast of India, as a secret CIA detention centre.

In a statement, the Boston-based organisation of doctors demanded that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) be given immediate access to all detainees who might still be held at Diego Garcia and other “black site” locations.

“The US and the UK must at last come clean about the scope of extraordinary rendition and secret detention — a violation of American and British laws, human rights standards and the rules and regulations of the Nato,” remarked Frank Donaghue, the chief executive officer of PHR.

“Both Congress and (British) parliament must set the record straight about what happened at Diego Garcia. PHR knows from (its) twenty-one-year history of documenting torture around the world that secret detention opens the floodgates to torture and other gross human rights abuses.”

If the Diego Garcia facility indeed held ‘ghost’ detainees — such as Riduan Isamuddin, commonly known as ‘Hambali’ — then the director of CIA, Gen Michael Hayden, provided false information to senior members of the British government when he claimed earlier this year that only two ‘rendition flights’ had been refuelled on the island.

The Time report said that senior Bush administration officials had been informed previously about the existence and use of the facility in highly classified briefings in the White House situation room.

“The Bush administration’s detainee treatment and interrogation policies have damaged our nation’s reputation as human rights leader,” said Mr Donaghue. “Seven years of secrets whispered in secret rooms must give way to on-the-record testimony and open hearings.”

The PHR called on the US House and Senate committees on intelligence and armed services to hold CIA director Gen Hayden and senior Bush administration officials accountable for the episode. It also urged the British parliament to determine what Prime Minister Gordon Brown, former prime minister Tony Blair, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and former foreign secretary Jack Straw knew about American activities on the island.

Since the publication of a report in 2005 — which was entitled “Break Them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces” and documented the use of controversial techniques against Guantanamo Bay detainees — the PHR has been a leading voice in efforts to end the use of abusive methods during interrogations of detainees held by the US military and intelligence services.

*Correspondent to "The Dawn", Pakistan