Community | November 04, 2009 | 48 comments

Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’

source: http://rawstory.com/2009/11/ambassador-cia-people-tortured/

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RFIDemocracy
The CIA relied on intelligence based on torture in prisons in Uzbekistan, a place where widespread torture practices include raping suspects with broken bottles and boiling them alive, says a former British ambassador to the central Asian country.

Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK's ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.

"I'm talking of people being raped with broken bottles," he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. "I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I'm talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on."

Human rights groups have long been raising the alarm about the legal system in Uzbekistan. In 2007, Human Rights Watch declared that torture is "endemic" to the country's justice system.

Murray said he only realized after his stint as ambassador that the CIA was sending people to be tortured in Uzbekistan, country he describes as a "totalitarian" state that has never moved on from its communist era, when it was a part of the Soviet Union.
Suspects in Uzbekistan's gulags "were being told to confess to membership in Al Qaeda. They were told to confess they'd been in training camps in Afghanistan. They were told to confess they had met Osama bin Laden in person. And the CIA intelligence constantly echoed these themes."

"I was absolutely stunned -- it changed my whole world view in an instant -- to be told that London knew [the intelligence] coming from torture, that it was not illegal because our legal advisers had decided that under the United Nations convention against torture, it is not illegal to obtain or use intelligence gained from torture as long as we didn't do the torture ourselves," Murray said.

IT'S THE PIPELINE, STUPID

Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.

Murray alleged that in the late 1990s the Uzbek ambassador to the US met with then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to discuss a pipeline for the region, and out of that meeting came agreements that would see Texas-based Enron gain the rights to Uzbekistan's natural gas deposits, while oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline.

"The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted.

Murray said part of the motive in hyping up the threat of Islamic terrorism in Uzbekistan through forced confessions was to ensure the country remained on-side in the war on terror, so that the pipeline could be built.

"There are designs of this pipeline, and if you look at the deployment of US forces in Afghanistan, as against other NATO country forces in Afghanistan, you'll see that undoubtedly the US forces are positioned to guard the pipeline route. It's what it's about. It's about money, it's about oil, it's not about democracy."

The Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline is slated to be completed in 2014, with $7.6 billion in funding from the Asian Development Bank.

Murray was dismissed from his position as ambassador in 2004, following his first public allegations that the British government relied on torture in Uzbekistan for intelligence.

The following videos were posted to YouTube by the Real News Network on Oct. 26 and Nov. 4, 2009.

Video at link
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48 comments // Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’

  • Atalanda_Cameron
  • bombastinator
  • calm_incense
    • 0
      calm_incense  
    • Atalanda_Cameron:

      Uh...it says in the article:

      [quote]

      Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK's ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.

      "I'm talking of people being raped with broken bottles," he said at a lecture late last month that was re-broadcast by the Real News Network. "I'm talking of people having their children tortured in front of them until they sign a confession. I'm talking of people being boiled alive. And the intelligence from these torture sessions was being received by the CIA, and was being passed on."

      [/unquote]

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • bombastinator
  • ksutherland27
  • s0uthc0ast
  • RFIDemocracy
  • calm_incense
    • 0
      calm_incense  

    • 1. Interesting how the British government isn't included in the title or really even the article, although Murray stated that it, too, is responsible for obtaining such information.

      2. This article doesn't even give a time period for when this happened. The CIA before the Church Committee was very different from the CIA after the Church Committee. You might as well release an article on Current stating, "Group of white Americans sent blacks to be 'hung from trees'" in reference to some event that took place a century ago.

    • 2 years ago
  • samthesixth
  • Orkhaic
    • 0
      Orkhaic  

    • Americas corrupt fucked up nation disgusts me more and more every day. As much as a virus that we are as human kind to this planet there are some who deserve to die first and soon. I personally don't think any trials should be held if they were stopped / caught. There is enough evidence for them to just be all shot in a line. This is some messy world we live in. Go America.. if you like it or not you're supporting terrorism by being in that damn country.

    • 2 years ago
  • FlexSF
    • 0
      FlexSF  

    • How can we stop this, and how can we round up everyone responsible for this disgusting program, and hold them responsible?

    • 2 years ago
  • zphoenixdownz
  • artemis6
    • 0
      artemis6  
    • zphoenixdownz:

      Information gleaned from torture is far less reliable that any other means . It is how they got women to confess they were witches . It is no good . An empty justification for sadists .

    • 2 years ago
  • partyrager
  • dondonyen
    • 0
      dondonyen  

    • Wow can we all take a moment of silence and think about what it's like to be raped with a broken bottle. Like seriously imagine it. With your eyes closed. Yeaaah i just raped you with a broken bottle over the internet.

    • 2 years ago
  • HeroMAY
  • Vierotchka
    • 0
      Vierotchka  

    • The first thing Karzai did when he was placed (by the USA) as "President" of Afghanistan was to sign the pipeline deal which the Taliban had refused. The Taliban had been received in Texas (in Sugarland, by Big Oil) with full honours, as if they were royalty, plied with presents and promises of great profit. They were told that "We will either give you a carpet of gold, if you accept, or a carpet of bombs, if you refuse." The Taliban refused, and the US planned to attack and invade Afghanistan by mid-October 2001 - this was in June or July 2001, months before 9/11. Much of the US military logistics and infrastructures were already in the neighborhood of Afghanistan when 9/11 so conveniently occurred.

    • 2 years ago
  • samthesixth
  • WhiteNoise
    • 0
      WhiteNoise  

    • May I suggest that short of taking this child chewing monster head on; the alternative might turn out to be a tad less classy ;)

      “It’s here that the American dream decided it liked the taste of the vomit it was chocking on. Just rolled over on its back and screamed for more drugs. it didn't die.“ - Warren Ellis

    • 2 years ago
  • Marbled_Godwit
  • panichead
    • 0
      panichead  

    • This is exactly why Americans need to know the answers to who, what, where, when and why concerning those private energy meetings that were held in the White House at the beginning of the Bush Adm. I believe, if we can get the answers to them questions and ask some follow-ups the truth will come out. Dick Cheney must be forced to fess up to crimes against the American public. " We have ways to make you talk old man ". This evil bastard will just reply that "I don't recall" unless we put him in a 15ft X 15ft and use a little "inhanced interrogations" to get to the truth.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • samthesixth
  • frank_runyeon
    • 0
      frank_runyeon  

    • This is just one more disturbing chapter in the rendition practices of our country's intelligence agencies. Perhaps more twisted are the legal advisers that go out of their way to justify using such tainted "evidence".

    • 2 years ago
  • Incredulous
  • samthesixth
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  
    • samthesixth:

      The CIA handed them over to the torturers in full knowledge of the consequences of their actions. Really just a footnote to the larger story which is that Bush and his co-conspirators clearly planned the invasion of Afghanistan before he was 'elected' (which he was not).
      What's more there is ample evidence of a brutal torture regime within the CIA's own program. Very well documented facts, those, and all sourced from whistle-blowers within the ranks of the CIA itself.

    • 2 years ago
  • samthesixth
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  
    • samthesixth:

      "With the judgment against him now final, former Salvadoran Minister of Defense Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova has been forced to relinquish over $300,000 of his own funds for his responsibility in the torture of three civilians in El Salvador during the 1980s. While the amount actually collected is only a small fraction of the damages to which the plaintiffs are entitled, this represents one of the first human rights cases in U.S. history in which victims have recovered money from those found responsible for abuses.

      In May 1999, the San Francisco-based Center for Justice & Accountability (CJA) filed a lawsuit against Vides Casanova and another former Minister of Defense, General Jose Guillermo Garcia, under two federal laws, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). In 2002, after a four week trial, a West Palm Beach jury found the generals responsible for the torture of Juan Romagoza, Neris Gonzalez and Carlos Mauricio, and ordered them to pay significant damages.

      The generals filed lengthy appeals. On January 6, 2006, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta upheld the verdict against them. The deadline to file an appeal of that decision to the United States Supreme Court has now passed."

      http://maryknollogc.org/regional/latinamerica/elsalv7-17-06.htm

      ...Just so we're clear, causing persons to be tortured by a third party is a distinctly verifiable violation of US law supported by legal precedence. Frankly, I don't care if it was the CIA, the Uzzies, the Swedes or Santa's helpers. The law views the CIA as the de facto torturers.
      If you were to counsel someone to murder or torture inside or outside the country, you would by law be guilty of conspirtring to murder or torture. So your wishful technicality is anything but. The same laws apply whether or not you work for the government at any level.

    • 2 years ago
  • samthesixth
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  
    • samthesixth:

      On the other hand if the US suborns torture as is the case here, and in many other known and provable cases worldwide, it is in contravention of its own laws and international conventions to which it is a signator, and therefore guilty of war crimes as clearly established in legal precedent such us the one example I have provided, as well as numerous others in which the outcome was prison sentences.

      One can equivocate all the live-long day but knowingly renditioning an individual to a country where it is not only known for certain torture will occur based on that countiry's record and even providing a list of questions,as in this case, to be included in those very same proceedings (participation) is a crime and a serious one. What's more, in many such cases it is shown that agents of the US government were actually present for and witnessed the activities described.

      Domestic and international law is established and very clear and I think most reasonable people would agree that the moral element is very clear as well.

    • 2 years ago
  • WhiteNoise
  • money214
  • artemis6
  • Vierotchka
  • artemis6
  • sidewaysclyde
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  
    • Image

    • From EurasiaNet, on Sting’s visit with the daughter of Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, whose regime killed one prisoner by immersion in boiling water:

      Tickets to see British singer Sting perform in Tashkent will cost between $1,000 and $2,000 dollars, organizers say. The former Police front man will play at the Alisher Navoi Theater on October 18 as part of Art Week Style, a fashion and art event masterminded by Gulnara Karimova, President Islam Karimov’s daughter. Even the cheapest ticket will cost more than 45 times the average monthly salary in Uzbekistan, the report notes. Previous entertainers at Karimova’s showcase include Rod Stewart and Julio Iglesias.

      From Fashion Week Daily:

      Sting made it all way to Uzbekistan for the event, where he joined beautiful Dr. Gulnara Karimova at fashion shows and beyond. The superstar closed the week with a concert at the Tashkent Sate Opera and two giant screens were positioned in the square outside the State Theater to accommodate all of those who couldn’t get tickets to the charity performance. And believe it or not, the entire city knew every word to nearly all the songs in the set.

      http://harpers.org/archive/2009/11/hbc-90006016

    • 2 years ago
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  

    • I'd say after listening to this man speak that President Obama has zero chance of ending the occupation of either Afghanistan nor Iraq, assuming for the moment that he honestly desires to do so.

    • 2 years ago
  • KSirys
  • CalPal
  • money214
  • RFIDemocracy
    • 0
      RFIDemocracy  

    • More than 50% of all the heroin trade out of Afghanistan is the Karzais. Less than 10% is the Taliban. We are being lied to by the government and the media.
      Afghanistan is a completely fake war that was planned in the 1990s by the Bush's and Enron. Yeah, Kenny boy.

    • 2 years ago
  • rodstradamus
    • 0
      rodstradamus  
    • RFIDemocracy:

      Actually, it was planned in the late 70s by Zbignew Brzezinsky. Ken Lay was too busy creating the Global Climate Scam with Al Gore in the 90s. Zbig works in 50 year geopolitical cycles. He's worked for every president since Carter, manipulating this country into a global government, before that it was Kissinger. That is what the Council on Foreign Relations does; that is their job. Richard Haas is now the president, his book, 'War of Necessity, War of Choice' creates the false paradigm talking points that the administration, left or right follows. 9/11 was totally planned as a false-flag terror attack to incite these wars and patriot act. All these people are sick, sadistic criminals and will be prosecuted. Great article.

    • 2 years ago
  • RFIDemocracy
  • Progresshiv
  • RFIDemocracy
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