Private Members Motion - Use of Irish Airports - 14th June 2006

Private Members Motion – Use of Irish Airports – 14th June 2006
Mr. Norris: I move:
That Seanad Éireann, in light of:
- developments in Iraq;
- the recent publication of the Council of Europe Report on CIA Rendition Flights; and
- the confusion surrounding the legal status of any Garda attempt to investigate the nature of these flights,
hereby calls for the establishment of the select committee on the use of Irish airports to investigate the use of Shannon by American military authorities, especially the CIA, for which preliminary preparatory meetings have already been held.
This is an important motion. It is a subject I have pursued for a considerable time. I was probably the first person in either House to raise this issue. I have with me a selection of what I stated on the matter during the past few years. I am sorry to state they have been proved right. I am particularly pleased my colleague, Senator Henry, will second the motion because on a notable occasion she extracted from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform a clear statement about what the attitude of the Government is on any process akin to extraordinary rendition.
One of the horrifying things that has happened during the course of the Iraq war is the constant debasement of language, such as the phrase "extraordinary rendition", "shake and bake attacks" in which people are incinerated by illegal phosphorus bombing and suicides in Guantanamo Bay described as a "publicity stunt". This is unconscionable. Language has been devalued by the American Administration by removing from it all its moral content.
I put down this motion in light of the report by Senator Dick Marty, which made the subject topical. It has been rendered even more topical by the admission by the United States authorities that they transferred a chained and shackled prisoner through Shannon Airport in a civilian aircraft last Sunday without the required notification to the Irish authorities. This places a grave question mark over the assurances given to the Irish Government by the US authorities concerning their use of Shannon. These assurances were never legally binding anyway. It is a requirement of international law that they should be legally binding. They never have been and the Government knows this.
However, even if one accepted their assurances, one must look beneath these legally meaningless forms of words and understand this American Administration has departed drastically from the norms of international law. Torture has been redefined to the point where apparently the only proof a subject has been tortured is if it results in death or permanent injury. Practices such as waterboarding, in which the victim is half-drowned, revived under medical supervision and subsequently subjected to interrogation, a technique initiated by the Gestapo, is defined as not constituting torture.
No doubt, the piratical practice of kidnapping persons who may be either citizens of the US or third countries and transporting them to regimes which the Bush Administration publically holds in distaste so they may be tortured in the presence of CIA agents is regarded by the current incumbent at the White House and his associates as being perfectly legal.
Regrettably, spokespersons for the Government appear to have been infected by the linguistic practices of our American cousins. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, in a statement issued no later than yesterday, stated we will not facilitate and have not facilitated extraordinary renditions and that is and remains our policy. Perhaps it remains a publicly-stated policy but it is and will remain totally untrue. I call on the Minister to withdraw it.
It has been demonstrated beyond any possibility of doubt that by refuelling aircraft such as the notorious "Guantanamo express" we have incontrovertibly facilitated the noxious practice of extraordinary rendition. We in old Europe and many in the United States know this degradation of international standards of decency does not, and should not, be allowed represent the typical values of the democratic world.
Throughout this debate there has been constant obfuscation and indulgence in what the Taoiseach would no doubt describe as "waffle". Serious questions have been asked but never answered. The Minister for Foreign Affairs confines himself to answering questions which have not been asked but for which he believes he has a mollifying answer. He defends the Government against accusations which have never been made while never replying to those which have.
There has been a tendency in Government circles to dismiss the Marty report. The language, we are told, is emotional. I would not have respect for anyone who did not become emotional at the prospect of human beings, in some cases subsequently proved totally innocent, snatched off the streets or intercepted in airports, their clothes surgically shorn from their bodies, drug suppositories inserted in their anus, unceremoniously clothed in nappies, then shackled to the inside of a CIA plane disguised as a civilian aircraft and transported to destinations they know not where for the purposes of being tortured.
This is all done in the name of realpolitik to maintain American investment in Ireland. This is a short-sighted and mercenary view of morality and never served the Government well in the past. Senator Mansergh in this House last Thursday, if one unpicks the diplomatic language, was surprisingly frank on this issue, stating the conduct of foreign policy and our relations with other countries often involves striking difficult balances, taking into account both our values and interests.
Striking that balance wrongly can have serious long-term consequences. This is virtually what I was told by the Fianna Fáil benches when I was a lone voice opposing Irish beef deals with the Iraqi army. I well remember the phrase which emerged from the foreign affairs spokesperson on the other side, when I was told what I advocated might well be the moral position, but could Ireland afford it. We still have not resolved the question as to whether Ireland can afford to act morally in international relations.
I have some direct questions for the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and I would appreciate some direct answers. If, as the spokesperson suggested, there is nothing new in the Marty report, why has comment not been made on the clearly proven fact that Ireland has been involved in facilitating rendition? The Minister of State is shaking his head but it is perfectly clear. A man was snatched off the street, he was taken to Egypt, he was tortured and we refuelled that aeroplane on the way back. That facilitates rendition. At least, I know what the meaning of language is, does the Minister of State?
Does he accept that, as I stated, the flight in June 2003, almost exactly three years ago, in which Abu Omar was abducted in Milan, illegally flown to Egypt where he was tortured, was refuelled at Shannon Airport with the consent of the Irish Government on its return journey during the same flight schedule? Does he accept this is clear evidence, and would so be accepted by an international criminal court, of Ireland's collusion with the United States in the practice of extraordinary rendition?
Does he accept that only for the action of cleaning staff, who boarded the aircraft at Shannon last Sunday, a blind eye would have been turned to this incident also? Does he accept that had the aeroplane, which had just dumped Abu Omar in Egypt for the purposes of torture, been inspected in Shannon the modifications made to that plane for the purpose of transferring prisoners would have been noticed and reported?
I was one of three people who made a complaint to the Garda Commissioner concerning these flights. In response, he appointed two detective inspectors to interview me. I arranged to be accompanied at that interview by Deputy Michael D. Higgins. We checked our recollections of that meeting and we can both state independently that we were told on that occasion by these senior representatives of the Garda Síochána that because of the way in which international treaties were incorporated into Irish law, they lacked the power to make the type of investigations sought at that time.
This is in clear and direct contradiction of what both the Taoiseach and Minister for Foreign Affairs told the Dáil and the public. In reply to a question by Deputy Sargent in the Dáil yesterday, the Taoiseach retorted that Deputy Sargent was not a garda. This is quite true but neither is the Taoiseach. I, at least, have the advantage of having spoken to the representatives of the Garda Commissioner. Will the Minister of State outline precisely the legal status concerning such investigations? This is exactly the kind of area that the abortive committee, whose terms of reference had already been agreed by an all-party committee of the Oireachtas, could have investigated had it not been squashed by a combination of interest groups operating in the undergrowth of Leinster House.
Arguments were made that Senators were lobbied by local councillors from the area around Shannon Airport. It is a sad day that Seanad Éireann should be ruled from Clare County Council. I would have thought councillors would have learned by now that it can be dangerous to mix money and morality. In any case, American business is peculiarly hard-headed. Despite all the obsequious lickspittling, it was announced a week ago in the newspapers that a large proportion of these commercial military flights is being transferred to other European destinations which are more convenient. Shannon Airport will and must survive but it should not and must not survive on blood money.
There have been attacks on the Marty report, on its use of language and its reference to a "spider's web". However, I have a map showing the flight paths and if it were shown to any child, he or she would describe it as a spider's web. Shannon Airport is right at the centre of this network of shame.

Mr. Dooley: It is not at the centre.

Mr. Norris: We have been named and shamed in the Marty report as being in "category A". We have been asked to do something about this by the human rights section of the United Nations, the Irish Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International - I could go on and on.
The practices to which I have referred are gross in the extreme and I would like to put them, as determined by the Marty report, on the record. Reference was made to the lack of evidence but there is plenty of clear, cogent, factual evidence, itemised point by point in the report. Detailed observations, flight patterns and climatic conditions are all included. The report makes an absolutely cast-iron case about rendition and it describes what is known as the "security check" as follows:
i. it generally takes place in a small room (a locker room, a police reception area) at the airport, or at a transit facility nearby.
ii. the man is sometimes already blindfolded when the operation begins, or will be blindfolded quickly and remain so throughout most of the operation.
iii. four to six CIA agents perform the operation in a highly-disciplined, consistent fashion– They are dressed in black (either civilian clothes or special 'uniforms'), wearing black gloves, with their full faces covered. Testimonies speak, variously, of "big people in black balaclavas", people "dressed in black like ninjas", or people wearing "ordinary clothes, but hooded".
iv. the CIA agents "don’t utter a word when they communicate with one another", using only hand signals ...
v. some men speak of being punched or shoved by the agents at the beginning of the operation in a rough or brutal fashion; others talked about being gripped firmly from several sides.
vi. the man's hands and feet are shackled.
vii. the man has all his clothes (including his underwear) cut from his body using knives or scissors in a careful, methodical fashion; an eye-witness described how "someone was taking these clothes and feeling every part, you know, as if there was something inside the clothes, and then putting them in a bag".
viii. the man is subjected to a full-body cavity search, which also entails a close examination of his hair, ears, mouth and lips.
ix. the man is photographed with a flash camera ...
x. some accounts speak of a foreign object being forcibly inserted into the man's anus; some accounts speak more specifically of a tranquiliser or suppository being administered per rectum - in each description this practice has been perceived as a grossly violating act that affronts the man's dignity.
I do not have time to read the full description into the record but I hope I have read enough to shame all of us in this House. Deputy Michael D. Higgins stated in the Dáil last night that these practices are "in breach of every single principle of international law, namely, the manner of apprehension, the manner of transporting, the issue of habeas corpus, the right to legal protection, delivering a person inhuman treatment and the delivery of a person through enforced disappearance into an ill-defined and indeterminate place of detention".
This is the mess we have gotten ourselves into. If only the Government had listened several years ago when I and my colleagues on this side of the House, and many decent Members of Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats, referred to these practices and tried to stop it from averting its eyes from the horror in which it was rapidly enmeshing itself and becoming complicit, we would not be in this mess tonight.

Mr. Norris: That is one of the most shabby and disgraceful performances I have ever witnessed a Minister of State come out with in this House. I am astonished it has come from this man. I did not think the Minister of State would sink so low. I wish to correct some of his comments.
How dare the Minister of State suggest that I deliberately highlighted and stated that category A was the most serious category. Show me the record where it states that.

Mr. Treacy: We should examine it.

Mr. Norris: If the Minister of State cannot read, it is his problem and it is certainly not mine.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach: The Senator, without interruption.

Mr. Norris: If the Minister of State did not bother to listen it is also his problem.
The Minister of State also made a comment which is deliberately, clearly and demonstrably untrue. Just five minutes ago he stated there was no single case in the Marty report which had any connection with Ireland. That is absolute tripe.
I present the case of Abu Omar. Senator Marty's explanatory memorandum to the report states:
At midday on 17 June 2003, Hassam Osama Mustafa Nasr, known as Abu Omar, an Egyptian citizen, was abducted in the middle of Milan. Thanks to an outstanding and tenacious investigation by the Milan judiciary and the DIGOS police services, Abu Omar's is undoubtedly one of the best-known and best-documented cases of "extraordinary rendition". Via the military airbases at Aviano (Italy) and Ramstein (Germany), Abu Omar was flown to Egypt, where he was tortured before being released and re-arrested. To my knowledge, no proceedings were brought against Abu Omar in Egypt. The Italian judicial investigation established beyond all reasonable doubt that the operation was carried out by the CIA (which has not issued any denials). The Italian investigators likewise established that the presumed leader of the abduction operation - who had also worked as the American consul in Milan - was in Egypt for two weeks immediately after Abu Omar was handed over to the Egyptian authorities. It may safely be inferred that he contributed, in one way or another, to Abu Omar's interrogation. The proceedings instituted in Milan concern 25 American agents, against 22 of whom the Italian judicial authorities have issued arrest warrants. Abu Omar was a political refugee. Suspected of Islamic militancy, he had been under surveillance by the Milan police and judicial authorities. As a result of the surveillance operation, the Italian police were probably on the verge of uncovering an activist network operating in northern Italy. Abu Omar's abduction, as the Milan judicial authorities expressly point out, sabotaged the Italian surveillance operation and thereby dealt a blow to the fight against terrorism. Is it conceivable or possible that an operation of that kind, with deployment of resources on that scale in a friendly country that was an ally (being a member of the coalition in Iraq), was carried out without the national authorities - or at least Italian opposite numbers - being informed? ... There has recently been a significant new development in the investigation by the Milan prosecuting authorities, however: an agent belonging to an elite Carabinieri unit has admitted taking part in Abu Omar's abduction as part of an operation co-ordinated by the SISMI, the military intelligence services.
That flight was refuelled at Shannon. Will the Minister of State listen to what has been said, and will he for once honestly respond?

Mr. Treacy: Was he on board?

Mr. Norris: I never stated I had any evidence that prisoners were being brought through Shannon Airport. I made the point, which has been clearly proved time and again in a number of cases, that the aircraft were refuelled. That constitutes collusion.
With regard to what was said about assurances, they are not worth a damn. Both the Minister of State and I know that. The Minister of State knows the definition of torture given by Condoleezza Rice, even with regard to the case of Guantanamo, where there is a degree of visibility, was that hooding, white noise and sleep deprivation were used. The Minister of State should be ashamed to sit there as a member of Fianna Fáil and a Government which took the United Kingdom Government to the European Court of Human Rights on those three grounds exactly and tried to defend it.
It is a shame on this House. I am disgusted. There is a case for reform of the Seanad. The reform should involve removing these rotten constituencies whose candidates are elected by fewer than 1,000 county councillors. We should have some real democracy, as is evident with the university seats. We are elected by a real number of real voters without vested interests.

Mr. Treacy: If everybody voted there would be a change of personnel straight away.

Mr. Norris: I will give a further comment. The Minister of State quoted the business of assurances which were given. It has been made expressly clear by the Venice Commission that those assurances are not worth anything unless they are legally enforceable against the country giving the assurances. Paragraph 233 of the explanatory memorandum states:
The principle of trust has been invoked by other governments. This is the case with Ireland, for example: the government has stated there was no reason to investigate the presence of American aircraft, since the United States had given assurances.
The Government conveniently neglected to mention or give any reference to the attitude of the Venice Commission.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach: The Senator has one minute.

Mr. Norris: The view of the European Union was that it was absolutely essential that there be legally enforceable guarantees.
It is not surprising, and we are not the only country involved, and certainly not the worst offender. I never stated that and I bitterly resent that such a lie was told in this House. I demand it to be withdrawn.

Mr. Treacy: I would never want to tell a lie about anybody. My interpretation was-----

An Leas-Chathaoirleach: The Minister of State cannot come in. Senator Norris should conclude.

Mr. Norris: I accept the Minister of State's withdrawal. Even the Swedes, neutral during the war and who did such wonderful work, collaborated in one of the worst examples of rendition.
There were many decent speeches on the Government side of the House. Even people whom I always thought were very much against what we say on this side of the House were reasonable to a certain point. Then there was a lack of logic. I was shocked and surprised by what Senator Minihan had to say. We are only allowed to take logic so far, and then it will be ignored. My old pal Senator Daly seemed to suggest that because there was an atrocity on 11 September 2001, the Americans could do what they liked as there was only a small number of people involved.

Mr. Daly: That is incorrect.

Mr. Norris: Perhaps we should look at the Official Report.

Mr. Treacy: The Senator is selective.