One law for the west, another for the rest

So now we know. When European governments urge others to respect human rights and observe international laws they mean everybody but themselves.

In the celebrated words of Samuel Goldwyn they include themselves out, not only of international commitments but their own such as the European Human Rights Convention.

The west has the right to violate human rights but not the rest. Otherwise how does one account for the collusion of several European governments with the CIA to allow what Washington euphemistically calls "rendition" flights?

These so-called rendition flights use European air space and even European airfields and airports to fly terrorist suspects to a third country where US law does not apply and hold them in detention and possibly subject them to torture.

Freedom from torture is an absolute right -- there are no caveats, no reservations -- such as the right to free expression often quoted by western media to justify any offensive broadcast or publication.

Yet European governments that have allowed such rendition over-flights or touchdowns at their airports have at best turned a blind eye to the transfer of terror suspects, some of them abducted by CIA agents, knowing fully well there was the chance of the suspects being tortured.

Evidence of the deplorable conduct of European governments including those of Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland and seven other countries is contained in a report produced by a European Parliament committee and approved by the European Parliament last week.

The year-long investigation by the committee set up to investigate CIA activities and claims of European collusion interviewed a large number of witnesses and elicited information from Eurocontrol, the European Union's air safety agency, in the course of which it gathered that more than 1200 undeclared CIA flights entered European airspace following the 9/11 terrorist attack in the United States.

"It is implausible," concludes the committee, "on the basis of the testimonies and documents received, that certain European governments were not aware of the activities linked to extraordinary rendition on their territory."

It was also implausible, said the committee that "many hundreds of flights…..could have taken place without the knowledge of either the security services or the intelligence services."

So what does that mean? Some European governments have actually colluded in the transfer of terror suspects via their territories to detention camps in third countries which were beyond the jurisdiction of the US courts and were possibly tortured to obtain information, denying the suspects their human rights.

The report put together by Giovanni Fava, the Italian Socialist member of the European Parliament concluded that "in some cases, temporary secret detention facilities in European countries may have been located in US military bases."

This, of course, is not the only investigation to lay bare the deplorable conduct of several European governments, some of which even allowed their own citizens to be "lifted" by the CIA.

Following an investigation begun in November 2005 by Dick Marty, chairman of the Council of Europe's legal affairs and human rights committee, arguably the most authoritative human rights body in Europe, a report released last June confirms what was later reported by the European Parliament investigation.

In fact the Dick Marty report is even more critical of some European governments than that of the European Parliament.

The Marty report says that several states had allowed the CIA to snatch their own residents while others have offered extensive logistical support while many others simply turned a blind eye as the CIA continued with its dirty tricks.

Compare this European silence while basic human rights were being violated with the cacophonous protests over abductions in Sri Lanka and the condemnation of the Sri Lankan government for not investigating these abductions, disappearances and killings.

One of those criticised by the European Parliament report released last week is the then British minister for defence Geoffrey Hoon for what is called his "deplorable" lack of cooperation with the committee.

Hoon's uncooperative attitude is understandable in that Britain was one of the countries that allowed a substantial number of CIA flights to use its airspace and failed to assist British citizens who were abducted in other countries by US security agencies, probably to please the Bush administration to which Prime Minister Tony Blair was paying regular pooja.

In fact the authors of the report say they were outraged by the legal opinion offered by Michael Wood, British Foreign Office adviser "according to which receiving or possessing information extracted under torture, as long as there is no direct participation in the torture, is not prohibited."

Though torture itself is banned by the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Conventions that followed, it is permissible to use information obtained from torture victims, according to British opinion.

So the British government's position appears to be that it will not participate in torture; if somebody else does it and passes on any information to the Brits, they'll gladly accept it, thank you very much.

This is the kind of hypocrisy the world is asked to swallow in the 21st century from those who have not only engaged in torture previously as in Northern Ireland and elsewhere in the days before and after empire, but have never stopped hectoring others on the need to observe human rights.

One of the sharpest criticisms levelled against the British government in the Dick Marty report of last year concerns information handed over that has led to residents and former residents being tortured.

The report mentions how information about a former London student, Benyam Mohammed, 27, is alleged to have been used during his torture in Morocco where he was taken after he was arrested in Pakistan.

Marty also points the finger at Romania and its involvement in the "rendition circuit" and how a CIA Boeing 737 which began its journey in Cyprus did the rounds. The plane and its CIA team on board travelled from Cyprus to Morocco to pick up Benyam Mohammed and take him to Afghanistan. The plane returned to Europe to render el-Masri the next day also to Afghanistan. It then transferred another suspect from Afghanistan to a secret detention place in Romania.

It would indeed be interesting to see what transpires when the European Parliament report goes before the assembly for a vote next month.