SECRET PRISONS OF CIA IN EASTERN EUROPE: POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES

It all started with Dana Priest’s article in Washington Post on Nov 2, 2005, which was entitled “CIA holds terror suspects in secret prisons”. The states, where the prisons itself were located were dubbed “Eastern European”, without disclosing the specific names at the White House request.

The next day New York Human Rights Watch branch reported that these prisons are supposedly located in Poland and Romania. On Nov 4 René van der Linden, the former President of the Parliament Assembly of the Council of Europe, reported that Assembly would see into the details of the case. On Nov 7 Swiss Senator and former Attorney General Dick Marty was appointed the head of Assembly investigation committee for the inquiry into Washington Post accusations. On Nov 25 Marty stood up with a statement about the surmised methods of checking the information on the CIA secret prisons. An experienced Attorney General, he analyzed the satellite data from European flight control agency. As soon as on Jan 24, 2006 Marty’s committee published its first report. It claimed that, according to Eurocontrol data, they have deemed it impossible for European governments to stay in the dark about the CIA illegal activity in Europe. Final committee report, published in Jun 7, 2006, stated that the committee managed to expose a global network that served for undercover and illegal transition of CIA terrorism suspects all over the globe — according to the report, 14 member-states of the Council of Europe were involved into it. On Jun 27, 2007 Assembly approved the final version of report, reaffirming the presence of secret CIA prisons in Poland and Romania. It has gone as far as recommending the PACE Committee of Ministers to draw out the guidelines on the matter in order to exclude the information concerning civilian, criminal or political responsibility from the list of subjects protected with a state secret clearance. Complete text of PACE recommendations on the matter is available here.

Apart from Poland and Romania, Lithuania has also found itself suspected of illicit cooperation with the CIA. Romanian authorities have flatly refused to investigate the matter, while Lithuania has fetched itself in a stickier situation yet. In 2009 American ABC News TV-channel reported that eight Al-Qaeda terrorists had been contained in Lithuanian prison. In December, 2009 Parliament committee for defense and security matters of Lithuania Seim reaffirmed that such prisons have indeed existed at Lithuania soil and that planes that CIA chartered, did land there, committee Chair Arvydas Anušauskas reported. The first prison was established in 2002, the second one — in 2004–2005. It was discovered that Americans have addressed the Lithuanian Defense Department with a request to prepare appropriate quarters for containing terrorism suspects. Lithuanian top brass allegedly haven’t informed the state authorities of that. In January, 2011 Lithuanian Attorney General’s Office dropped the investigation of the case due to the lapse of time for making the convicts answerable for their crimes. Ex-President Valdas Adamkus and ex-Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas have denied everything — and so did the Lithuanian military. In March, 2010 current President Dalia Grybauskaitė told Irish Times that Lithuania had done everything it could to aid the investigation and only CIA knows more. However, the circumstances of the case allow us to challenge the sincerity of Lithuanian President. Last September Amnesty International published the data about a flight of CIA-chartered plane from Morocco capital Rabat to Vilnius in 2005. A good acquaintance of ours, Abu Zubaydah was aboard that plane. By the way, after the denial of Lithuanian Attorney General’s Office to investigate the case of the CIA prison, Zubaydah filed a claim to the European Commission of Human Rights against Lithuania.

Romania also fetched itself in an awkward situation, having refused to investigate the presence of CIA prison on its soil. In 2009 New York Times described in details the way CIA established a secret prison beside the centre of Bucharest. Kyle D. Foggo, head of the main European supply base of CIA was responsible for the operation. The prison was designed for containing six prisoners, although it had never hosted more than four at once. Foggo told New York Times: “The operation was too delicate to be guided from Langley. I was grateful for an opportunity to help my country’s fight against terrorism”.

In 2011 German Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the Associated Press agency published new pungent details of Romanian incident. According to them, the prison operated as far back as in 2003–2006 at the ORNISS building, official Romanian vault of secret information. Six cells were arranged in the basement of the building — each one had a clock and a sign pointing to Mecca, so that the Muslim prisoners knew that it was the time for prayer and were able to bow towards the sacred Islamic place as Quran demands it. Indeed, according to Associated Press report, prisoners were treated much better than at any other CIA prison — they have “just” been deprived of sleep, poured with cold water and forced to stand in awkward poses for hours. Civilized Romania has never fallen so low as to water-board its prisoners.

Polish investigation and the public debates that surround it

We have to give Polish Attorney General’s Office due credit — it has overcome great many obstacles in order to bring charges against the former chief of Polish intelligence. Criminal case, filed as far back as in 2008, was skidding until the personal decree of Stanislaw Dombrowski, Polish Supreme Court Chair, for the Intelligence Agency to pass the documents about Stare Kiejkuty to investigators wasn’t paid the due heed. Even General Maciej Hunia, successor of the accused Zbigniew Siemiątkowski had to bow his head before this document. Polish intelligence officer, who preferred not to disclose his identity, told the press media that Poles received an unequivocal message from across the Atlantic, giving the evidence of discontent with the achievement of Polish investigation. Langley let Poles understand that they should have better followed Lithuanian and Romanian examples, which were more careful about passing the information to investigatory bodies. Anonymous officer also pitied the fact that the disclosure of a top-level secret will inevitably influence the relationship with transatlantic allies.

Since the moment Washington Post, the Council of Europe and the PACE published the proof of existence of secret CIA prison in Poland, ex-Prime Minister Leszek Miller and ex-President Aleksander Kwasniewski, who headed the country in 2001–2004, have repeatedly claimed that Polish intelligence had cooperated with CIA indeed, but that there were no prisons in Poland. Now, though, the investigators dispose the proof that two Saudi citizens suspected of terrorism (Abd al Rakhim al-Nasiri and Abu Zubaydah), both of whom are still held in Guantanamo, had been contained at the Stare Kiejkuty secret prison. General Attorney’s Office qualifies this as a crime, described by article 189 of Polish Criminal Code — “illegal imprisonment and use of tortures”. The attitude of the EU, which decisively bashes American actions, is not the least important factor in this ignominious case either. Recently Brussels hosted a sitting of the European Parliament Commission for Civil Freedom and Justice. French deputy Ellen Flutr presented her report as well. She stated that her work on the new draft bill for CIA prisons in Europe is in progress and that she is going to raise the issue of NATO role in this case. She believes that classified documents of the North-Atlantic Treaty may contain relevant information on the matter and even direct the NATO member-states to aid each other in the situations like that.

However, Romanian, Lithuanian and Polish officials refused to visit Brussels. Poland was represented only by a Vice-President of Helsinki Group Adam Bodnar. Results of the sitting have not been disclosed as of yet. Quite naturally, the inquiry into matters of such great importance for the country triggered a heated series of public debates. It was initiated by a well-known right-conservative columnist Piotr Skwieciński, whom the late President Lech Kaczyński decorated with an Order of Polish Restoration. Rzeczpospolita published his article entitled “Do not punish for Kiejkuty”. He wrote the following:

“Should Leszek Miller and Aleksander Kwasniewski be convicted for granting Americans the quarters for containing terrorism suspects? I think they should not. Their punishment for acting in accordance with national interests would make a nasty marker. An enemy encroached upon the West itself, i.e. upon us as well. It is the same West, which we have recently become a part of, defying the skepticism of many. That is the reason why we must emphasize our unity with the leader of the Western world. Miller and Kwasniewski, former PZPR members are not the typical heroes of mine, but it is very important that they have broken up with the submission to Moscow, making their mind for the West. Even the use of tortures at Kiejkuty won’t change my mind. These methods have always been used during the wartime and always will be. When it is lives of our fellow citizens at one scale pan and the torments of our enemies at the other one, the choice is, unfortunately, obvious”.

Thankfully, not all the Poles share this, utterly inhuman, approach of Polish order-bearer. Liberal Gazeta Wyborcza, which has actually lifted the curtain of silence over the total secrecy of this criminal case, has published the article of renowned female columnists Agata Nowakowska and Dominika Wielowieyska, who have demonstrated a truly civil attitude to this uneasy subject:

“I was indignant with the fact that our authorities have been attempting to sweep the crumbs of this case under the carpet. Their consent to establish a secret prison in our country may only be explained with an overly servile stance of our government towards the United States. We have just let them to use ourselves” — Nowakowska wrote.

“Those, who allowed the creation of this prison in our country — Leszek Miller and Aleksander Kwasniewski — must face the State Tribunal” — Dominika Wielowieyska echoes.

Numerous comments of Polish readers to the articles of Piotr Skwieciński, Agata Nowakowska and Dominika Wielowieyska are overwhelmed with an opinion about the violation of Polish Constitution and state sovereignty by the government and President of Poland, who permitted to establish an American torturing chamber with extraterritorial status. We may confidently claim that despite the utterly amicable Polish attitude to the USA, Polish society feels itself deeply insulted by an offhand use of Polish territory by the American allies, who had created a European field office of Guantanamo.

Political consequences of the “Prisongate”

Poland is a country of developed parliamentarian democracy. That is why it would be naïve to expect such a significant event that stirred the civil community, to go unnoticed by the major political parties, engaged in a sharp rivalry. One of the most popular views at the “Prisongate” was voiced in one of the comments to Skwieciński’s article:

“It is quite remarkable that the ‘leader of the Western world’ sought for a place to hold and torture prisoners outside of the USA. This fact itself casts a shadow at the decisions of Miller and Siemiątkowski. It is a different issue that Civil Platform attempts to take advantage of this problem in order to keep the SLD in leash on the matter of pension reform. Poland is a sovereign state, which should bare its head neither to Moscow, nor to Washington, while the attitude of the ruling party to Kiejkuty is actually conditioned by the political layout, rather than the indignation with the violated Polish sovereignty”.

Janusz Palikot — this newly-risen star of Polish politics, leader of the third greatest power in Polish Seim, philosopher-atheist and the former vodka tycoon — has voiced a peculiarly sharp attitude to the said “Prisongate”: “Poland must not be an international courtesan. We have not allowed to torture people in our country. We have always been the persecuted ones, and now we have sided Americans to become executioners ourselves. The community is to decide, whether people, who allowed turning our country into a torturing chamber, having the right to do politics”.

There is an apparent hint to the State Tribunal in Palikot’s statement — the only Polish body that may deprive the citizen of a right to be engaged in politics. Jarosław Kaczyński, an eternal opponent of Miller and a brother of the late President Lech Kaczyński, has chosen an outwardly paradoxical, yet rather predictable position: “Timing of Gazeta Wyborcza publication was anything but coincidental — it appeared at the very moment, when Civil Platform started losing public support due to its attempt to conceal the Smolensk catastrophe and the failing pension reform”.

The disguised support of Leszek Miller, the main contender for the title of a violator of Polish sovereignty, was not caused by an attack of tardy passion for neo-Communists, but rather the care for his own safety. SLD government was followed by the one led by no one else, but Jarosław Kaczyński himself, who has been routinely brushing all the questions about Kiejkuty prison aside as “mere gossips”. So, if Miller faces the State Tribunal, Kaczyński has all the chances to seat next to him in the dock.

66-year-old Leszek Miller himself, who only managed to regain control over the SLD (that he had once found) in last December, gives stingy comments about the accusations. Mimicking his opponent, he explains everything with the political commitment of the investigation. It is clear that Polish political field is to witness an out-of-turn shuffle of the scenery, while Miller’s career is seemingly declining. He has entered the pages of Polish political folklore with a phrase that a real man is remembered by how he finishes, not by how he starts. Well, it seems that the political demise of the former PZPR Central Committee ideology secretary is going to be blazingly remarkable.