“ALLIANCE!”
MARXIST-LENINIST
SUMMER 2006
Confronting
the CIA’s International System of Kidnapping and Torture
Last fall a large protest kicked off a
national
campaign to stop Aero
Contractors Ltd., a North Carolina-based company accused
of being the leading Central Intelligence Agency front company for the
rendition of disappeared, or kidnapped, people.
“Extraordinary rendition” is the policy of sending captives to other countries where they can be tortured or killed, keeping American hands clean. According to Robert Baer, a CIA case officer active in the Middle East until 1997:
“If you want a good
interrogation, you send them to Jordan.
If you want them killed, you send them to Egypt or Syria. Either way, the US cannot be blamed as it is
not doing the heavy work”
(Guardian/UK “Afghanistan: ‘One Huge US
Jail,’” online at www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0319-07.htm).
Rendition is happening in Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Egypt, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Diego
Garcia (a British colony in the western Indian Ocean) and elsewhere. US and UK military sources say there are
10,000 “ghost detainees,” people kept secretly, probably along with a
larger
number who are detained less covertly.
After September 11th, eight secret prisons were
created,
according to the Washington Post (WP, November 2, 2005). Increased judicial oversight of the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba prison makes rendition an
appealing
alternative for the government. This practice started in the 1970’s
when South
Americans were captured and returned by the CIA to their countries of
origin
for punishment. The US isn’t alone in
practicing rendition.
The US indirectly uses torture through
rendition
(which also involves inhumane treatment or torture itself). The US also tortures people directly, as a
policy, and Aero Contractors is part of this.
In Afghanistan there is ample evidence that torture techniques,
including those from Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, are being used:
shackling, hooding, electrical shocks, whipping, mock
executions, sexual
humiliation, and starvation (according to the Guardian/UK article).
November 18, 2005 ABC News (see also abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1322866)
reported that the CIA also uses waterboarding,
torture in which a wet cloth is used to suffocate a victim or the
victim is
placed on an inclined board with plastic wrapped over their mouth while
water
is dumped on them (similar to feudal Europe’s method).
The Origins of Aero
Contractors
Aero Contractors, Ltd. is an actual
company, and
allegedly a major part of the rendition network, which includes the Camp Pearl
Military Reservation (“The Farm”), in Virginia close to
Williamsburg; Florida’s
Bob Sikes Field (run by CIA associated Tepper
Aviation); and Dulles International Airport in Washington.
The Company doesn’t advertise and allegedly
gets all of its business from the CIA, the military, and maybe from
other
departments. Aero told the Global TransPark,
a North Carolina state operated airport, that it
serves Federal “security agencies.” Aero
Assistant General Manager Robert W. Blowers told
the New York Times (NYT)
that “We’ve been doing business with the government for a long
time, and
one of the reasons is, we don’t talk about
it.”
According to the NYT Aero carried
CIA officers who parachuted into
Afghanistan in 2001 and it flew a team to Karachi, Pakistan after its
American
embassy was bombed in 2002. An Aero
plane flew from Libya to Guantánamo in
2004 the day
before Libyan detainee Omar Deghayes said
he was
questioned by four Libyan intelligence officers (NYT, May 31,
2005). Aero told a North Carolina CBS
station that it has one classified government contract, involving Ft.
Bragg,
but leases the alleged planes only for domestic flights.
The Company says the activist group Stop
Torture Now (STN) is ill-informed, but Aero cannot reveal its
work (www.wral.com/news/5355295/detail.html
and www.wral.com/news/4265910/detail.html).
Aero’s main hangar, at the Johnston County
Airport (JNX),
in eastern North Carolina, is secluded at the end of Charlie Day Street
(named
for a mechanic who worked on covert flights to Laos during the Vietnam
War). Its business address is 3463 Swift
Creek Rd. Smithfield, NC 27577. The
Company has operated at the Airport since leasing eight acres in 1979. The NYT (May 31, 2005) alleges that
Aero operates at this airport because it does not have a tower from
which Aero
could be spied upon. Officially Aero
provides “aircraft rental with pilot” (NYT, May 31 2005). Aero is able to modify the planes’ equipment,
make repairs, and it provides pilots.
Reportedly it is the main operator of CIA airplanes. It got the planes in question from five
companies that were allegedly CIA fronts.
Aero claims that it no longer leases the planes anti-rendition
activists
referred to, and those companies no longer exist.
In 1979 Aero was created by former CIA
officer and
Air America primary pilot Jim “Peg Leg” Rhyne
(he
died in 2001). Rhyne
lost his leg to anti-aircraft fire in Laos.
Air America was the CIA’s airline during the Vietnam War and was
linked
to illegal drug transport. In 1976 Air
America was dismantled and replaced by at least 12 companies. The NYT calls Aero “a direct
descendant” of Air America (May 31, 2005).
Aero’s president is Stormin’
Norman Richardson, who is primarily involved with the Stormin’
Norman chicken-and-ribs business in Kelly, North Carolina.
Assistant Manager Blowers is Aero’s contact person and appears to be the main
operator.
The Company has actual board members who
have meetings. Former Navy pilot and
American Legion
national commander William J. Rodgers of Maine is an example. According to an ex-CIA and
Air America employee, “It was very, very easy to find patriotic
Americans who
were willing to help” by pretending to be in charge of front companies (NYT,
May 31, 2005).
Aero’s role after 9/11
According to the recent Guardian/UK
article
(March 19, 2006), Massachusetts based Premier Executive
Transport Services
(later renamed Bayard Foreign Marketing, LLC) was a Delaware
incorporated CIA
front operating at the Johnston County Airport.
According to a St. Louis Indymedia
article
(November 19, 2005), Premier has long been identified as a front. A Gulf Stream V Turbo Executive jet Aero
leased from Premier has flown from Johnston County to pick up and
render
disappeared persons from Gambia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sweden, Italy,
Germany,
Ireland, and Spain (WP, November 16, 2005, and NYT, May
31,
2005). It is thought that no CIA
prisoners are kept in Johnston County.
As of March 2006, the jet had been used at least 75 times, which
is
known from observations at airports and a senior official in Pakistan’s
Inter
Services Intelligence Directorate.
According to St. Louis Indymedia
the plane’s
tail has been labeled N44982, N379P, and N8068V at different times. Its serial number is 581.
This plane was first noticed October 23,
2001 when it
stopped in Karachi, Pakistan at 2:40am to pick up Yemeni microbiologist
Jamil Qasim Saeed
Mohammed, arrested by the Inter Services Intelligence
Directorate for alleged
involvement in the attack on the USS Cole.
December 18, 2001 the plane picked up two
men at Bromma Airport in Stockholm, Sweden. One was Ahmed Agiza,
an Egyptian asylum seeker who had been living with his wife and
children in
Sweden for three years. The other
detainee was Mohammed
al-Zeri, also an Egyptian. Agiza
was able to tell his family that he had been
arrested, but no more than that. The two
men were shackled and blindfolded for the drive to the airport. There their clothes were cut off and they
were handcuffed. They were given
sedative suppositories and put in plastic diapers.
By 3am they were in Cairo where they were
kept alone in underground cells. The
Human Rights
Center for the Assistance of Prisoners in Cairo says “Agiza was repeatedly shocked, hung upside down,
whipped
with an electrical flex, and hospitalized” after being forced “to lick
his cell
floor clean,” reports the Guardian/UK. As of March 2006 Agiza was still in an Egyptian prison and al-Zeri was in Egypt under house arrest.
January 10, 2002 the jet was in Halim
Airport in Jakarta, Indonesia to pick up Egyptian Mohammed Saeed
IqbalMadni, allegedly
an
accomplice of shoe bomber Richard Reid.
The Human Rights Center says he died under interrogation in
Cairo. In June 2002 German citizen Mohammed Zahar
was taken from Morocco to Syria, and has not been
heard from since.
The CIA’s archipelago of fronts for
rendition
Aero also operated a leased a Boeing
Business 737 jet
(N4476S, serial number 33010), supposedly given up recently. Nonetheless, Aero still spent $2 million
dollars to build a 20,000 square foot hangar at the Kinston Regional
Jetport
(airport code ISO), which has the 11,500 foot runway needed for the 737
the
hangar was built to house, according to the Kinston Free Press and
the
Goldsboro News Argus newspapers. The
737 was kept in the open at the Global TransPark,
next to Kinston Regional, prior to the construction of the hangar.
According to
the November 19 St. Louis Indymedia
article (see
www.stlimc.org/newswire/display/947/index.php), the jet is probably the
one
(serial number 33010, N4476S) formerly owned by Keeler and Tate
Management,
LLC, an alleged front company based in Nevada.
Incidentally, the address and phone number of that company was
that of
former Senator
Paul Laxalt, Reagan “First
Friend.” The jet was seen in Prague in
2005 and it left from Spain the day after the Madrid train attacks in
March
2005.
STN member Stephanie
Eriksen’s
says that the Boeing has flown 9 times to Kabul,
13 times to Jordan, 3 times to Kuwait, 7 times to Morocco, 5 times to
Pakistan,
11 times to Libya, and 10 times to Baghdad.
These and other CIA planes have flown many times from Dulles
International Airport in Washington DC to several Middle Eastern
locations, for
example after the capture of Saddam Hussein and the capture or
assassination of
al-Qaeda officials (NYT, May 31,
2005).
Allegedly the Boeing and the Gulf Stream
had been
given up by November 2005 (WP).
Reportedly they were leased for about a year in 2002 or 2003 and
given
up in March 2004, to be replaced by turboprop airplanes.
Aero allegedly has or had about 20 planes,
possibly obtained from some 27 CIA owned planes (including the Boston Red Sox’s
executive jet, which is heavily involved in rendition), and another 26
or so Cessnas - small turboprop airplanes. In 2005 the NYT said Aero owned at
least 26 aircraft, 10 bought since the beginning of the “War on Terror”
in 2001
(May 31 article).
The NYT says the CIA uses seven
fronts that
apparently have no management or staff, and exist only to own aircraft. Other planes are chartered from apparently
real companies that are CIA connected, such as Aero, Pegasus
Technologies, and Tepper Aviation of
Florida.
Most of the fronts are permitted to land at military bases and
at least
eleven of these shady aircraft have landed at Camp Peary,
the home of a CIA training facility, the Farm.
Most CIA traffic goes to and from Johnston County.
Allegedly many of the CIA’s planes are based in
the coastal plain of North Carolina and Virginia. Alleged
front companies Aviation
Specialties,
Inc, Stevens Express Leasing, Inc, Devon Holding and Leasing, Inc, and
CIA
contractor Aviation Worldwide Services/Presidential Aviation
frequently fly to
Johnston County. For more information
see chapelhill.indymedia.org/news/2005/11/17197.php.
Aero leased aircraft from Premier, Stevens
Express Leasing, Inc., Devon Holding and Leasing, and Keeler & Tate
Management, LLC.
Stephanie
Eriksen points out that CIA fronts can be
tracked by
looking an records of companies allowed to
land on
military bases (see http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAMR510512006
). Planes can
be tracked by seeing what company
buys them before their identification numbers are changed.
The CIA has apparently been sloppy with
some of its
apparently non-existent executives. For
example the NYT found that Premier officer
Philip P. Quincannon is also an
executive of Crowell
Aviation Technologies, which shares the same Massachusetts
address as Premier,
and Stevens Express Leasing, based in Tennessee. Quincannon’s only
records are PO boxes in Washington and Dunn Loring,
Virginia, and a social security number incongruously created in
Washington in
the mid-90’s, though he was supposedly born in 1949 (May 31, 2005).
You too can spy on the CIA
It is possible to observe these planes and
listen to
their communications with traffic controllers.
It is legal to listen in with a regular receiver, but not to
report the
contents of the conversations. The
Johnston County Airport radio frequency is 122.8 MHz and the Raleigh
controllers are on 125.8 and 125.3 MHz.
Aircraft at the Kinston Jetport might use the 120.6, 122.95,
121.9,
120.6, 127.33, 127.3, 122.15, 135.5, and 272.75 MHz channels (St. Louis
Indymedia). Most
airport frequencies are listed at www.airnav.com). The N serial numbers on CIA planes are
changed often to confuse observers. A
former CIA pilot told the NYT that “Sometimes a plane
would go in
the hangar with one tail number and come out in the middle of the night
with
another (May 31, 2005). Still, these
companies apparently can’t be kept very secret.
1970’s CIA general counsel Lawrence R. Houston
said that in the airlines:
“everybody knows what everybody is doing, and something new
coming along is
immediately the focus of a thousand eyes and prying questions. I don’t think you can do a real cover
operation”
(NYT, May 31, 2005).
Taking on the Global “Torture Taxi” Hub in
North
Carolina
Friday, November 18, 2005, around 6am more
than 60
people gathered for the first protests of the anti-rendition campaign. There were three protests that day, two
around the Johnston County Airport and one at the Johnston County
Courthouse. One group performed street
theatre all morning on Business Highway 70 about half a mile from the
Airport. Another group went up to Aero’s
huge blue hangar and put up a sign reading “Aero Contractors: CIA Torture Taxis” over Aero’s
sign. They wanted to lower its US flag
to half staff, but it was locked in place.
Some protesters wore orange prison jump suits with black hoods. Chapel Hill activist Peggy Misch
says “Burma-Shave type” sequential signs were placed
along Business 70 to condemn torture.
“This Way To CIA Torture Flights”
was another
sign. Protesters came from Selma (in
Johnston County), Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Charlotte,
Fayetteville, and from St. Louis, Chicago, and elsewhere.
The Aero protests were covered briefly in the
Raleigh News & Observer (N&O) and on ABC’s local news.
Fourteen people were arrested for
trespassing at the
hangar. Johnston Co. Sheriff’s Deputies
arrived in force just after the protest began, having been notified of
the
protest in advance. Josh McIntyre
tried
to deliver a nine-page citizen’s indictment for international and US
law,
Geneva Convention, and UN Convention Against
Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
violations. He was met at the door by a
“jittery” man in
a uniform brandishing a taser stun gun (Independent
Weekly, November 23, 2005, online at
www.indyweek.com/durham/2005-11-23/first.html).
The man refused to take the indictment, so it was left on Aero’s doorstep.
Before being arrested around 6:30am, the protestors sat in a
circle and
prayed. The activists also read from
social justice texts, mainly religion based, including a quote from Dorothy
Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker
movement: “Our problems stem from our
acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”
People outside of the property sang “We Shall Overcome.”
Those arrested included eight from the
Triangle
(Raleigh and west), five from St. Louis, and one from Chicago and are
aged 17
to 66. Kathleen Kelly
(founder of Voices
in the Wilderness) of
Chicago,
Marty King, Mark Chmiel,
Bill Ramsey, Andrew Wimmer, and Diane Lee of
Missouri,
and Scott Langley, Gerald Surh, Josh
McIntyre, Dante Strobino, and Stephanie Eriksen of Raleigh, Deborah Biesack
of Fuquay-Varina, and Patrick and Bernadette O’Neill of Garner
were the
defendants. The bail was set at $500
dollars for local defendants and $1000 dollars for those from outside
the
State, which Patrick
O’Neill calls “absurdly high bonds for second-degree
trespass, a very minor charge” (November 23rd Independent). Local ACLU lawyer Michael J. Reece,
working
free of charge, got the bails halved and the Aero 14 were freed by 5pm
that
day.
On November 18th citizen’s
indictments of
Aero were also presented to the Johnston County Commissioners. Chairwoman Cookie Pope
said the Commissioners
would examine the issue but would probably leave it alone.
She told the N&O that “When you
talk about the CIA, I leave that to the CIA” and “I don’t try to tell
anyone
how to run their business.” Sheriff
Steve Bizzell
and County Manager Rick Hester
met with
the group, the Sheriff escorting the activists inside the Courthouse.
The
Sheriff acknowledged that it was a peaceful demonstration - “But I
would not
sit idly by and let any group intimidate our citizens or trespass on
our
businesses.” About 50 people took part
in that demonstration.
Some are supportive of Aero because it
employs 100
people and pays the airport about $300,000 dollars a year in rent and
fuel fees
(filling about a third of the airport’s budget, though CBS says Aero
has an
independent fuel source). Airport
manager Ray
Blackmon, who was in the military for 27 years and Airport
manager
for 16 months at the time, said “They’re [Aero] good tenants, I hope
they’re
here for a long, long time” (N&O, November 19, 2005). Citizen’s indictments were also delivered to
the Airport Authority and Aero’s Board of
Directors. These downtown activists also
stayed in solidarity until the arrested “Aero 14” were
released.
According to the N&O (November
19, 2005),
locals the reporters spoke to were
sympathetic to the
CIA. Reporters spoke to a woman cook,
age 50, at a Citgo station near the first
vigil, who
said “I just think they should keep the media out of the war and let
the boys
do what they need to do and come home” and a 58 year old man in
camouflage who
said “I don’t think the CIA is doing anything worse than al-Qaida
is doing, cutting off heads and putting it on television, walking into
hotels
with bombs strapped to them.” Aero
Assistant General Manager Robert Blowers,
on staff since 1994, dismissed the
allegations: “It’s an old story, and
it’s been beat to death” (N&O).
Surveys conducted this spring by activists found that Johnston
County
residents are opposed to rendition and torture.
The action was organized by the Center for
Theology
and Social Analysis, Stop Torture Now (formed in St. Louis, but now
also
organized in NC, website: www.stoptorturenow.org), CodePink, Voices in the Wilderness, the Durham
and Orange
County Bill of Rights Defense Committees (BORDCs),
the NC Council of Churches (NCCC), and others.
It was originally suggested by St. Louis activists at the annual
Southern Life Community Retreat, a meeting of religious social
activists in
North Carolina.
The protest was planned to be a day before
the annual
protest of the School
of the Americas (now called the Western Hemispheric Institute
for Security Cooperation) at Ft. Benning,
Georgia. WHISC trains Latin American
soldiers and many of its graduates have committed human rights
violations and
crimes against civilians in their home countries (see www.soawatch.org for more
information).
The Trial of the Aero 14
January 5th the Aero 14 were tried before Judge
Robert Ethridge, a black Republican who reportedly
rarely acquits. The defendants appealed
to necessity - the concept of breaking the law to prevent a greater
crime. Josh McIntyre
said “I entered the property
for the sole purpose of preventing a larger and more serious crime. We were all there to expose to the greater
community a violation of international and national law.”
Bernadette
O’Neill (age 17) said “As a
Christian, my faith requires that I take a moral stand when I see
injustice
happening. We had to risk arrest in
order to expose the crimes of our government and the shameful role that
a
Johnston County business is playing in this criminal activity.”
Stephanie Eriksen
said “You have to stand up to voice what the victims of torture
are
denied. After all, they are often denied
due process. I am obligated to speak up
for them; it is my duty as a citizen. It
would be dishonest and unjust for me not to do so.”
UNC Law School professor emeritus and
president of
the ACLU in the 60’s Daniel Pollitt
and civil rights
activist, theologian, and Baptist Rev. W. W. Finlator
testified as experts. Pollitt
has argued a necessity defense before the Supreme
Court and lower courts many times. Eriksen says “The prosecutor was prepared but no
match to
our two witnesses.” The Judge did not
see the applicability to this case of opposition to the segregationist
Jim Crow
laws. He said the defendants could have
merely written letters in opposition.
Scott Langley,
a Catholic Worker who protested at Guantánamo
with his wife before the trial questioned Detective Brandon Harris
at the
trial:
“In general, as an officer
of the law,
would you pursue investigations if allegations of a crime were made?”
“Yes sir.”
“Is there and investigation
underway of
Aero Contractors based on our allegations?”
“No sir.”
“Are you aware torture is a
crime and is
illegal under our constitution and international law?”
“Yes sir.”
The defense argued in part from the Bible,
Rev. Finlator arguing that it “has a bias
in favor of justice,”
but the judge then cited Scripture in sentencing. Ethridge said that
he believed in the Bible and Jesus, but that the Bible says to obey the
law and
does not “excuse criminal activity” (November 25 Independent). Eriksen said Ethridge seemed to consider finding them
innocent but
instead repeated his points and found the fourteen guilty under State
law. He
said it was not a crime of necessity. Eriksen reports that the judge said “I am not
going to tell
you what this means, you are going to have to ask, I am going to
continue your
judgment and assess your court cost.”
All were sentenced
to suspended sentences, 10 days
probation and fined $50 dollars and $110 dollars for court costs, but
their
appeal vacates their sentences. Patrick
O’Neill has more than 5 prior convictions (level three, more than four
prior
arrests), so he also received a 20-day prison term, a fine, and a year
on
probation. Eriksen
was sentenced to a 10 day jail sentence and one year probation (level
two, more
than one prior arrest). O’Neill and Eriksen risked incarcerating if the 14 had lost
their
appeal. A new jury trial, possibly
before the Superior Court, was scheduled for July 31st, but
it has
been cancelled, so the protestors will not be punished.
The State might not have wanted to pay for it
or give the defendants further publicity.
Eriksen calls the action “a truly rewarding and
enlightening
experience” and is hopeful that Aero can be stopped.
She says police were all “cordial and
respectful” and “They were fascinated with our charges.
They were so different from anything they had
seen, a far cry from the drunks and murderers that they are used to.
The prosecutor
dragged this out more than it needed to be.”
Protesting Aero at the State Owned Global TransPark
The day after the trial many of the same
people and
others (about 30) protested at the Aero
hangar in the
Global TransPark, part of the Kinston
Regional
Jetport. The hangar was roped off with
yellow crime scene tape and the sheriff’s deputies were asked to
investigate. Activists examined the
area, leafleted, and tried to deliver an indictment to the Airport’s
director. The director was in his office
alone, but supposedly in a meeting. No one was arrested, since the
Sheriffs
Department was given notice beforehand and Aero allowed the protest. There were sharpshooters on the Airport roof
and in the parking lot. Eriksen was interviewed for the 6pm news on the
local NBC
station. The TransPark
is a State owned airport that was built to facilitate economic
development, but
has not lived up to expectations.
Indictments were also presented to the Governor’s office (Independent,
January 25, 2006).
The NC Stop Torture Now
group met April 5th for about
45 minutes with (Democratic) Governor Mike
Easley’s Chief of Staff, Franklin
Freeman. They were reportedly
stonewalled, though it was a “polite” meeting, according to Joan Walsh,
of the
Durham BORDC. The Executive Director of
the NCCC, George
Reed; Walsh; Johnston County Code Pink member Allyson Caison; Bill Towe and Christina Cowger, of Peace Action;
and lawyers Steve Edelstein and Vanessa Lucas,
of the firm Edelstein & Payne
were at the meeting for the
anti-torture group. This meeting was
arranged after many calls from STN members and with the help of State
House
member Paul Luebke.
They asked that the State Bureau of Investigation examine the
allegations against Aero Contractors and that Aero’s
lease to be cancelled if the allegations were proven.
Freeman said Aero has a lease for at least
twenty years, which the State might not be able to cancel, and that
Aero owns
its hangar. The group suggested that the
contract might be voided if Aero is acting illegally or immorally. Freeman again tried to divert the issue to
the Federal government, saying that Congress could stop funding the
project. He was asked to place Aero on
the GTP Board’s agenda, but said it might not be possible since Gov.
Easley is
only formally on the Board and does not participate.
The person in charge seems to be
Vice-Director Eugene
Conti. Freeman did
not comment on STN’s assertion that this
could be bad
for the Governor’s poll numbers. The
following Friday, April 7th, there was a protest by about 15
people
from 4-6pm at the Governor’s Mansion in Raleigh.
May 1st five members of the Durham and
Orange BORDCs met with Rep. David
Price (Democrat)
regarding Aero. Price is the only
representative from North Carolina to have co-sponsored Rep. Edward Mackey’s
February 2005 House Resolution 952, outlawing rendition “to countries
where
torture or otherwise inhuman treatment of persons occurs.”
Last year six NC
representatives voted
against torture: Democratic Reps Butterfield, Etheridge, McIntyre,
Miller,
Price, Watt, and Walter Jones, a Republican.
This is despite Etheridge’s role in the fall of 2005 in getting
the
Federal government to provide $650,000 dollars to help pay the $9
million dollar
cost of expanding the Johnston County Airport.
STN is also speaking to State legislators.
May 2 there was a daytime Global TransPark
Board of Directors meeting, which about 23 activists attended. Protesters carried signs such as “Stop
Torture. Investigate Aero” and “Stop CIA
Torture Flights.” A press conference was held outside.
Cowger said that
“Our tax dollars are being used to support an infrastructure that is
providing
for activities that are not supported by most of the American people.” Marine Iraq War vet Jacek
Teller said that the majority of soldiers want to act legally, can
handle
alleged terrorists lawfully, and that the soldiers are endangered by US
support
for torture. Demonstrators were allowed
into the meeting, where they unfurled a sign, which had to be put away. They then revealed t-shirts against Aero worn
under business clothes (www.wral.com/news/9148674/detail.html?taf=ral). After being refused early in the meeting,
three people were allowed to make a very short presentation to the
Board before
being stopped. No one answered the
demand that the Board end Aero’s lease if
it is found
to be acting illegally. Vice Director
Conti stated
to the Kinston Free Press diplomatically that: “We are not
investigators but we do appreciate the concern and comments of these
citizens.” During the Clinton
Administration Conti was a Department of Transportation Assistant
Secretary and
he was director of Erskine Bowles’ Senate
campaign in
2000. Reportedly some Board members
looked uncomfortable being confronted with these allegations. GTP Authority Director and former Kinston
City Council member told the paper that: “I didn’t like the way they
disrupted
our meeting. They didn’t come before us with any
facts” (Kinston
Free Press, May 3, 2006). STN
urges people to contact Governor Easley and the Board members (see
below or www.stoptorturenow.org
for
information; the Governor’s information is listed after the State
workers
article in this issue). At a later
meeting, TransPark Executive Director Darlene Waddell
argued that those protesting Aero would reduce employment in eastern
North
Carolina.
STN has begun a “listening project,” in
which
Johnston County residents are asked what they think about rendition,
torture,
and the alleged local connection. The
main purpose is to learn residents’ attitudes in order to lobby the
County
government. The first survey was April
17th and STN members interviewed 103 people, 10 of whom
wanted
further information. Another 33 people
were approached but refused to comment.
Another survey was May 20. Fewer people were questioned, but the
results
were similar. In both cases, about
2/3rds of the people surveyed, once they understood the questions, were
against
rendition and torture and felt that the County should not allow Aero to
lease
space if the charges are true.
Recently the State Democratic Party
passed, without
needing debate, a resolution against US torture, which mentioned Aero
Contractors. Previously anti-torture
resolutions were passed by several Democratic bodies in the State,
including
the Demoratic Party branches in Durham,
Orange, and
Wake Counties.
About 15-20 STN activists, mostly from the
Triangle
and Johnston County, have been demonstrating against Aero every second
Saturday
of the month since December. The site is
high-profile, in the wedge where US Highway 70 and Business 70 split,
about
four miles south of Clayton. The vigil
attracts a lot of attention and many drivers honk in support. On one rainy Saturday this spring a woman
stopped and gave the vigilers an umbrella. She thanked them for drawing attention to the
issue and said that she had relatives in the military.
There were about 15 people at the February
vigil, 22 in March, and 13 in April because many regulars were out of
town.
European investigation of, and complicity
in, US
rendition
Spain, Germany, and Italy are examining
whether their
airports are used in torture rendition.
Sweden, Norway, and the European Parliament began investigating
allegations of torture after public pressure (WP, November 16,
2005; on
the European Parliament investigation see www.statewatch.org/rendition/rendition.html).
Germany is investigating the case of
citizen Khaled el-Masri,
who was
allegedly disappeared while vacationing in Macedonia and tortured for
five
months in Afghanistan. El-Masri was taken from a bus at the
Serbia-Macedonia border
December 31, 2003 and held for 23 days before being drugged and beaten
for a
flight to Afghanistan. The day before his passport was given a
Macedonian exit
stamp Aero’s Boeing Business Jet landed in
the
Macedonian capital of Skopje, before
flying on to
Baghdad and Kabul. It was parked a
kilometer form the airport terminal and Macedonian security personnel
were not
allowed onboard the plane, which was considered US territory. At the time the jet was numbered N313P, but
later it was sold to Keeler and Tate Management and is now numbered N44765. El-Masri was later let go in the mountains of
Albania, on the
order of then national security Adviser Condolezza Rice,
because he was not the person wanted by the US. This
was after he started a hunger strike and
was force-fed nasally, after being told by his captors that they knew
he was
innocent but that only high officials could order his release. George Tenet,
then CIA Director, was aware of
his detention. Reportedly the German
government, if not others, knew what was going on and did nothing (Reuters article online at
www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1205-09.htm)
Italy tried twenty-two alleged CIA agents
for the
February 2003 kidnapping and torture in Egypt of fundamentalist Muslim
cleric
Abu Omar (Hassan Mustafa Osama
Nasr), of Milan.
Germany is investigating this same case because the cleric was
brought
to German’s Ramstein Air Base for
transport to
Egypt. It was seen as unlikely that the
CIA would be forthcoming, so convictions were unlikely.
Prosecutor Ebehard
Bayer told the Post that “If it is true that these are CIA
people, I can
hardly imagine that the CIA would allow its people to be extradited” (WP,
November 16, 2005). The Berlusconi government
most likely knew about the
kidnapping, and later excused it, although it hurt an Italian
investigation (Los
Angeles Times, online at www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1230-06.htm).
Omar was abducted off the street by
unknown men according
to an eyewitness. He was then
interrogated at an Italian air force base in Aviano
before being flown to Egypt where he was tortured.
He was flown to Egypt on a Gulfstream
model 4 jet, which is
also used by the Boston Red Sox’s manager.
The jet is owned by Albany, New York based Assembly Point
Aviation and
possibly based in Johnston County, NC (according to Stephanie Eriksen). Its
serial
number is 1172 and it has been identified as N85VM and N227SV. It has also flown to Germany, Afghanistan,
Ireland,
Morocco, Dubai, Jordan, Japan, Switzerland, Azerbaijan, the Czech
Republic, and
51 times to Guantánamo Bay (see
Knight-Ridder Tribune
Newspapers article online at
www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0320-04.htm).
After public pressure, Spain is trying to
find out
why CIA planes landed more than twelve times in the Canary Islands and
Majorca. A previous finding that no
prisoners were involved in the Majorcan flights is being re-examined. Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso
said that “If it is confirmed that this is true, we
would be facing very serious acts that would break the rules concerning
the
treatment of people in any democratic system.
They would be very serious and intolerable
acts” (Washington
Post, November 16, 2005).
Human Rights Watch says that countries
such as
Austria, Canada, Germany, Georgia, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the UK
also
attempt to send suspects to countries where they may be tortured.
Denmark (also Ireland) protested use of
their
airspace by the CIA. In March 2004 a CIA
plane stopped for 23 hours at Copenhagen’s airport for an unknown
reason,
leading the Foreign Ministry to ask that the CIA not use Danish
airspace for
secret renditions or “purposes that are not compatible with
international
conventions” (WP, November 16, 2005).
Swiss prosecutor Dick Marty
reported to the Council
of Europe January 22, 2006 that his investigation found that six
CIA aircraft
made 800 rendition trips (see www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=57336). Amnesty
International counts almost 1000
rendition flights plus another 600 using planes that are officially
acknowledged as having been used by the CIA at some point (www.oneworld.net, April 7, 2006). The CIA told the Post (November 16,
2006) that rendition only occurs in friendly countries and with the
permission
of the host country’s intelligence officials.
The Bush Administration and torture
It is illegal to torture and rendered
detainees often
disappear permanently (see also
http://www.allianceml.com/paper/july2005/alliance.htm).
Some people have apparently died while being
tortured with American involvement.
Rendered detainees are not able to contest their arrests in
court and
their whereabouts are unknown to the public.
It has been proven that many of these detainees are innocent of
involvement in terrorism. American use
of torture and rendition make the new revelation of the use of the
CIA’s secret
prison network an important issue. It
has already been revealed that the US operates several Guantánamo
sized prisons for detainees, for example in Haripur
and Kohat in Pakistan’s North West
Frontier
Province.
Only low ranking US soldiers have been
tried and
punished for torture, while forms of torture and inhumane practices are
official policy. Army Chief Warrant
Officer Lewis
E. Welshofer, Jr. was let
off lightly
after torturing Iraqi Major General Abed Hamed Mowhoush
to death.
In April, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that since late 2001
more
than 600 soldiers and civilians have been accused of involvement in the
mistreatment or torture of more than 460 prisoners.
HRW says that apparently only about half of
the charges have been fully investigated.
Only 40 have been sentenced to prison, and all but 10 to less
than a
year, which HRW calls light punishment for at least some of the crimes. Only three officers have been convicted for
prisoner abuse. Of about 20 civilians,
including CIA agents, reported to the Department of Justice, only a
contractor
has been indicted (www.commondreams.org/news2006/0426-03.htm).
The McCain “Torture Ban”
actually does not ban
torture and encourages it in some ways, and Bush in signing it claimed
that he
is not bound by Congress on this issue, under the “unitary executive”
theory (see
the above tomdispatch.com article).
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
has also opined that the Constitution
does not apply to US personnel operating outside of the country, so
treaties
and laws are moot.
Local Information:
The Aero vigils at the split of US 70 and
Business 70
are held at 2pm the second Saturday of every month.
There are carpools at 1pm from Brightleaf
Square in Durham, following the weekly anti-war
vigil, and from Falconbridge in Chapel
Hill. For more information call 403-2712
in Durham
and 942-2535 in Chapel Hill.
NC Stop Torture Now meets in Raleigh every
two to
four weeks, usually on a Sunday afternoon.
Call the above numbers for the time and place.
The July meeting will be on the 9th
at 2pm
For the contact information for the GTP
Board email southplumb at gmail dot com or
ask at the above phone numbers.