British island 'used by US for rendition'

David Miliband has already been forced to apologise to the House of Commons once before for misleading it regarding American activities on the British territory of Diego Garcia. Now it looks like the government might have to fess up a second time as the information they have been telling the House is once again under question.

This time the questions being raised are to whether or not Diego Garcia has ever been used to hold detainees.

The British government continues to deny allegations that the island has been used to hold terrorist suspects, saying it has been given reassurances by the US authorities that this was not the case. 'As the Foreign Secretary set out in his statement to parliament on 21 February, the US have told us that no US detainees have ever been held on Diego Garcia,' a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said.

However, the United Nations have now said that they have "credible evidence" that detainees were held on Diego Garcia between 2002 and 2003.

If this is true it would further undermine the faith that the British government are putting in the reassurances being offered by their American counterparts. One of the things Miliband said that he made very clear to the Americans was just how serious misleading parliament is considered in this country.

However, Manfred Novak, the United Nations' special rapporteur on torture, now says that he has information which would undermine both the American reassurances and the British statements based on them.

Novak pledged he would consider a request by the UK government to share his information. 'I spoke to my sources on condition of anonymity and it would take time to trace them; I couldn't do it [brief the UK government] without the explicit authorisation of these people,' Novak said. 'But under this caveat, I could share more information.'

Novak said he had spoken to people who had been held on the atoll, situated in the Indian Ocean and home to a large US naval base. They had been treated well in comparison with the regime some endured at places such as Guantánamo Bay. 'There were only a few of them and they were not held for a long time,' he said.

The revelations raise fresh questions about the island's role in the process of extraordinary rendition - moving suspects to interrogation centres in third-party countries where they are held outside the law - and why the UK government was apparently unaware that its ally was operating a prison on Diego Garcia to house so-called 'high-value detainees'.

If this information turns out to be true then the British government are either the most incompetent government in our history or they have been deliberately turning a blind eye to the US's rendition policy.

In 2004, the then Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, confirmed to parliament that there was a detention centre on Diego Garcia. Planning documents show it was 'upgraded' in December 2001.

Why did the government, at a time when the American policy of rendition was much in the news, not make any link between the Americans upgrading detention centres in Diego Garcia and that controversial policy?

And why has Britain never investigated claims that the island was being used to service floating prisons a few miles from the Diego Garcia coastline?

Evidence has also emerged that the US has held prisoners on ships operating outside the three-mile zone around the island that defines Britain's territorial waters. It is believed that the ships are serviced by craft from the atoll. Novak said he was told that some detainees had in the past been held for up to four months. 'There is an obligation on member states to carry out extensive investigations into what happened,' he said.

Human rights groups have long suspected that the seas around the island have been used to facilitate rendition. 'If it turns out any [rendition] boat is being supported by Diego Garcia, Britain would have a duty to investigate what is going on on those boats,' said Clara Gutteridge, an investigator with human rights group Reprieve.

Evidence supplied to Reprieve confirms that prisoners have been held on US-operated vessels serviced by Diego Garcia. The US authorities have admitted holding eight detainees, including John Walker Lindh, the American who was captured in Afghanistan fighting for the Taliban, on board the USS Bataan.

Another US naval vessel that has operated in the waters off Diego Garcia, the USNS Stockham, is also suspected of housing prisoners. 'We have heard from very reliable sources that this boat was used as a floating prison for high-profile prisoners while it was in the vicinity of Diego Garcia,' Gutteridge said.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that the government really are in such a state of ignorance about what is happening around one of it's territories, without such ignorance being wilful.

Should Miliband have to apologise to the House for a second time concerning this matter it will be very hard to accept his word that the Americans have misled the Brits yet again without considering the fact that the Brits were more than willing to be misled.

For example, here's how ‘TIME’ journalist Massimo Calabresi described a visit to Diego Garcia on board Air Force One with President Bush in September of last year:

Here’s mental exercise for you: picture a tropical paradise lost in an endless expanse of cerulean ocean. Glossy palm fronds twist gently in the temperate wind, as islanders harvest coconuts along the immaculate powder-white beaches. Leathery sea turtles bob lazily off shore and the light cacophony of birdsong accents the ambient sound of wind and waves.

Now add concrete. Lots and lots of concrete. And B-2 bombers. Toss in a few high-value terrorists, deplaning from an unmarked CIA jet, hooded, shackled and headed for days and nights of the closest thing to torture that American interrogators can come up with while still claiming not to have violated the Geneva Conventions.

He doesn't seem to be under any doubt what the island is being used for and he's a day tripper. Is is feasible that the owners of the island know less about what is going on there than a journalist accompanying Bush on a flying visit?

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Tags: Diego Garcia, rendition, war on terror, David Miliband, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair