First there was Camp X-Ray on the American-owned base of
Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Now there is a Camp Justice in the Indian Ocean on the
British-owned island of Diego Garcia, which is leased to the Americans.
Camp Justice is officially a temporary home for US personnel
supporting Operation Enduring Freedom, but satellite pictures of the camp show
something rather more permanent and on a large scale. The island is home to
American B52 and Stealth bombers - and has been home to US support staff and
other military services since the early 1970s - but Camp Justice is new. The
question is: what is the camp's real purpose and how far does British
jurisdiction stretch?
The Liberal Democrats' Foreign Affairs spokesman, Menzies
Campbell, might be interested to look at these same satellite pictures of Camp
Justice. (They can be found on the website of a US-based security and risk
assessment company, Global Security, on www.global security.org.) Last week Mr
Campbell demanded to know whether information from "rendered" - in
other words, tortured - al-Qa'ida and other suspects could be acceptable as
evidence in a British court.
He did so in the knowledge that serious claims have been made
in The Washington Post that some suspects have been sent for
"rendering" in Yemen, Jordan and Syria, where unjustifiable
interrogation techniques are often used.
More significantly for our own government, The Washington
Post has claimed that prisoners are now being held on the island of Diego
Garcia for "rendering", before being transferred to Camp X-Ray. These
reports were strenuously denied by the then Foreign Office Minister, Baroness
Amos. Replying to the former Labour MEP and veteran peace and justice
campaigner, Professor Ken Coates, Baroness Amos had this to say: "The
United States government would need to ask for our permission to bring any
suspects to Diego Garcia. It has not done so."
However, Time magazine has recently claimed that
Riduan Isamuddin, otherwise known as Hambali, who is believed to be operations
chief of Jemaah Isalmiyah - the group behind the Bali bombing - has or is still
being held on Diego Garcia. Meanwhile, Mauritius-based campaigners Lindsey
Collen and Ragini Kistnasamy, who seek the closure of the US military base on
the island, had this message for campaigners in Britain: "Now there is the
whole Guantano-isation of Diego Garcia, with people on terrorism charges and
members of the Iraqi leadership being held there."
When it comes to obfuscation over Diego Garcia, successive
British governments have become past masters at doublespeak. It was a Labour
defence minister, Lord Chalfont, who bundled the original inhabitants of the
island to the slums of Port Louis in Mauritius, 30 years ago to make way for one
of America's largest military bases. Ever since ministers have sought to avoid
embarrassment over a sordid episode they - and the courts - would rather forget.
Barton Gelman, The Washington Post gumshoe, has this
to say of Baroness Amos's original denial: "Our experience with spokesmen
most likely mirrors yours. They persuade themselves sometimes that they avoid a
lie (while appearing to call something true, false) by using private definitions
of ordinary language. What we have from our sources is that some al-Qa'ida
suspects are indeed being held and questioned at Diego Garcia. The British
Government could go some way to clearing this up by permitting an unrestricted
visit."
Chance would be a fine thing, if the experience of the
original inhabitants were anything to go by. The islanders won their High Court
battle to be allowed to return home three years ago. A fortnight ago I came
across a group of them huddled in the rain in Parliament Square under their
national flag - a Union flag on a shield supported by two turtles. They told me
that they were still being prevented from returning because the US didn't want
them and the British say that the cost of restoring a basic infrastructure is
too much.
The island of Diego Garcia, some 17 square miles, is a
permanent floating aircraft carrier, where despite government denials, terrorist
suspects may be being "rendered" at a place called Camp Justice, a
camp where no journalist has been permitted entrance. There could be no
objections if terrorist suspects were brought to Diego Garcia and immediately
handed over to the judge and magistrate who, along with the "BritRep"
and 50 or so Marines, have responsibility for what is known as the British
Indian Ocean Territory, and of which Diego Garcia is part. There they could be
charged under British law on what remains British territory.
But The Washington Post, Time magazine and all
of us who have been campaigning over Diego Garcia for as long as we can remember
doubt that is what is happening and simply do not believe what we have been told
by Baroness Amos. And if it is the case that prisoners are being held on Diego
Garcia in contravention of British law, it might go some way to explaining the
lacklustre attempts by Tony Blair to persuade George Bush to budge on
British-born prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.
Campaigners Menzies Campbell, Helena Kennedy, Tam
Dalyell,
Ken Coates - all of them could demand open and unrestricted access to Camp
Justice on Diego Garcia. It is now the only way of establishing the truth.