CIA Prison in Poland: Silence Is Not Always Golden

[unhappycamper]

http://watchingamerica.com/News/232383/cia-prison-in-poland-silence-is-not-always-golden/

By allowing U.S. prisoners to be detained and “interrogated” on Polish territory, our government has joined the ranks of such models of democracy and respect for human rights as Algeria, Morocco or Uzbekistan. For this very reason, it is so important to draw the right conclusions from this situation.

CIA Prison in Poland: Silence Is Not Always Golden
Polityka Globalna, Poland
By Piotr Wołejko
Translated By Dariusz Koźbiał
3 February 2014
Edited by Gillian Palmer

The past week was marked by two stories: the Euromaidan in Ukraine and the CIA prison in Poland. The second story touches upon the fundamental issues of human rights, respect for law and state sovereignty. The officials of another state committed a series of grave violations of the law which is in force on the territory of Poland.

Silence Is the Wrong Way

The basic question, therefore, is: Did our officials, who agreed to lend Americans the real estate in Stare Kiejkuty, know what would be happening there? Had they been informed about or could they have had any idea that Americans would employ “enhanced interrogation techniques,” that is — to put it bluntly — torture the detained and interrogate prisoners? Did Polish decision-makers knowingly agree to suspend the Polish law, including the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, on the estate lent to Americans? If the answers to these questions are positive, then the mass “amnesia” of decision-makers is not surprising, for the criminal law involves very serious consequences.

In a situation in which Americans themselves have come to the conclusion that disclosing some of the information on the topic of “extrajudicial renditions” is in the interest of democracy and the U.S., in Poland the opposite view is dominant. However, it is visibly less strongly expressed over that coffin or rather that skeleton in the closet, which is the existence of the CIA prison on our territory — that is what politicians, journalists and experts seem to speak. Of course, not all of them, but still many. Security and services prefer silence. However, does it justify turning a blind eye to the torturing of prisoners of a third country on the territory of the Republic of Poland? Maybe it is not worth it to agree to Poland being viewed in the same way as Uzbekistan, Algeria, Egypt, Thailand or Morocco? Americans used to transport their prisoners to these countries, in order to detain and “interrogate” them. These countries are not regarded as role models of democracy and respect for human rights.

It is worth noting that “CIA prisons” have been located in Poland, Lithuania and Romania, but not in France, Italy or Germany. The three former states of the Eastern Bloc — the countries of the “New Europe” — were chosen, the way the Old Continent was divided by former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The authorities of these countries had certainly not overly zealously asked why the Americans needed villas located in secluded places, or old military airports, on which unmarked airplanes used to land. The combination of geopolitical conditions, foreign and domestic policy made it possible that Poland, Lithuania and Romania were asked to do their ally a favor.