Australia took part, at short-arm’s length, in the CIA detention and torturing crimes after the 9/11 terror attacks. The proof is that the Australian Government paid Mamdouh Habib secretly, a never-to-be-revealed amount. But there’s been no compensation for David Hicks, also tortured, and as well locked in both US detention and an Australian prison for committing no crime in the USA, Australia or anywhere else in the world.
It’s not OK if we let others do the torturing
A new report has found that Australia participated in the CIA’s detention and torture of terrorist suspects after the attacks of 11 September 2001. This should come as no surprise. Australia was far from a disinterested bystander in these events, with Prime Minister John Howard for example consistently supporting US actions at Guantánamo Bay.
Evidence has also emerged that Australian officials failed to take action that might have prevented the torture of citizens. More generally, the report questions whether Australian governments have done enough to acknowledge and take responsibility for our role in these secret programs.
It is well-documented that the CIA used torture to gather intelligence in the wake of September 11. As the director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, Cofer Black, said: ‘After 9/11 the gloves come off’.
Government memos show that President George W Bush secretly approved the use of ten ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’. These included the use of insects, sleep deprivation and water boarding. The last involves holding a person on their back, head downward with a cloth placed over their face, while water is poured into their mouth and nose.
Guantánamo Bay was the well-known public face of these programs. However, the CIA also abducted people and held them in secret prisons outside of the US. Others were transferred by the CIA, under a process known as ‘extraordinary rendition’, for interrogation and torture by foreign governments.
Globalizing Torture
The US-based Open Society Justice Initiative undertook an exhaustive analysis of the CIA’s torture programs and their impact upon 136 known victims. Its report Globalizing Torture found that the US did not act alone. As many as 54 other nations also participated.
Poland for example permitted the CIA to build a secret prison on its territory. It also assisted with the transfer of secretly detained individuals, including to other secret detention sites, and permitted the use of its airspace and airports. Other nations, such as Syria, Jordan, Pakistan and Egypt, tortured suspects delivered to them by the US.
Democracies that denounce the use of torture were also complicit. For example, the UK and Canada provided intelligence that the CIA used to capture and interrogate suspects. Other nations such as Denmark and Iceland permitted the CIA to use their airports and airspace for extraordinary renditions.
The report is striking in demonstrating how quickly the barriers to torture fell after September 11. An unequivocal stance in international law against the use of torture was compromised as some nations looked the other way, and others actively supported the CIA’s work.
Australia was not as directly involved in the CIA’s programs as other nations. However, the report finds that we do bear a measure of responsibility. Not only did Australia fail to voice its opposition to torture by the CIA, we turned a blind eye to the mistreatment of two of our citizens.
Globalising Torture documents the case of Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib. Australian officials interrogated him soon after his capture in Pakistan in 2001, but failed to prevent his extraordinary rendition to Egypt, where he was tortured. He was then transferred to Guantánamo Bay, where he was held with fellow Australian detainee David Hicks. Habib was finally returned to Australia without charge in 2005.
Habib sued the Australian government on his return. However, the court did not have to decide the matter because the Gillard government paid Habib an undisclosed sum to drop the case. This occurred after evidence emerged that an Australian official was present during Habib’s detention in Egypt.
An inquiry by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security found that Australian officials were not involved in Habib’s transfer to Egypt, and that ‘no Australian official attended Mr Habib’s place of detention’ there. However, it was also found that the government did not safeguard his welfare through consular assistance, and that ASIO provided information that may have been used in Habib’s questioning in Egypt without determining how he was being treated.
The federal government has apparently accepted some responsibility for Habib’s mistreatment through the making of a confidential financial settlement. This is not sufficient. The matter is of such public importance that the community should be told how much money has been paid, and what role has been acknowledged by the government.
The case of David Hicks is even less satisfactory. His own allegations and those of third parties that he was mistreated and tortured have never been tested, nor adequately responded to. His case ought to be the subject of an independent inquiry to shed light on the circumstances of his detention and to determine what role, if any, Australian officials played.
Instead of opposing the use of torture, and protecting our own, Australia supported Guantánamo Bay and what was occurring there. We let inaction and acquiescence speak on our behalf. It is important that these mistakes be recognised publicly, and responsibility accepted, to avoid a future government following the same path.
- George Williams is the Anthony Mason Professor of law at the University of New South Wales, and a member of Civil Liberties Australia. This article appeared first in the SMH on 22 April 2013.