Torture touchdown: Shannon is a source of shame

AFTER the recent Amnesty International report, there can be no doubt Shannon is being used by those involved in kidnapping and torture as part of the so-called war on terror.

In the report, Khaled al Maqtari, who was held without charge in secret CIA prisons for more than two-and-a-half years, describes a regime of beatings, sleep deprivation, upside-down suspension, intimidation by dogs, induced hypothermia and other forms of torture. Shannon airport was used as a refuelling stop by the plane that took him from Baghdad, where he was initially arrested, to Kabul where he was incarcerated in a CIA ‘black site’ prison.

Amnesty believes that at least 36 prisoners are still held in the secret prison network. And the planes still go through Shannon, possibly transporting these or others to the torture bases.

There were at least five refuelling stops over the course of a week recently and, despite repeated requests to have these planes searched, the Government and the agents of the State conveniently ignore them. Instead they spend their time — and our money — trying to make peaceful objectors feel like law-breakers.

On St Patrick’s Day Taoiseach Bertie Ahern was in Washington to be photographed giving the US president shamrock — “symbolising the deep cultural roots and close ties of friendship between the United States and Ireland”, according to a White House spokesperson.

Did these close ties permit our leader to tell his ‘friend’ he is engaged in activities that contravene international human rights law? Sadly, we can assume they did not.

The evidence suggests the “close ties of friendship” make us complicit in gross violations of international law and that we are now a nation that can ignore basic human rights.

In February the British government admitted that two rendition flights had landed in British territory despite repeated assurances to the contrary from the US. Our Government was given the same assurances — most probably these were also lies, but we still accept them. All the while our airport is also being used openly to transport US soldiers to Iraq, five years after an unnecessary and unprovoked invasion. Nobody knows exactly how many people have been killed as a result of the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, but according to a survey carried out by the WHO and the Iraqi government, more than 150,000 people had been killed by June 2006.

From the start, we in ‘neutral’ Ireland have played our part in their deaths.

The handover of our airport to the US military and the CIA, to be used without question for whatever purposes they require, is something we the Irish people should be ashamed of.

As a nation we have allowed our values, our principles and our constitution to be undermined. As individuals we should not allow the same to happen.

John Lannon

Raheen

Ballyneety

Co Limerick