[Editorial] What's The Truth About Secret CIA Prisons?

More is being learned about secret prison camps the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been secretly operating in places like Eastern Europe. U.S. State Secretary Condoleezza Rice, traveling in Europe, said ''renditions are permissible under international law and bare consistent with the responsibilities of those governments to protect their citizens.'' With European Union pressure for an inquiry mounting, the U.S. has for the first time acknowledged the existence of the secret prisons when it had long neither confirmed nor denied them.

In addition, there continue to be reports that American intelligence agents have been illegally transporting terror suspects to those secret prisons with in some cases the active cooperation and in other the tacit approval of some European countries. The United Kingdom as well as Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and other nations permitted CIA flights to the secret prisons using their airspace or allowed flights to land for stopovers. It is surprising that even western European nations that have been critical of American unilateralism have secret arrangements with the American intelligence agency. It is only natural that people in those countries are calling for inquiries into who was responsible for the illegal activities and violations of sovereignty.

The U.S. is trying to turn the situation on its head. Denying that terror suspects are being tortured, Rice has argued that transporting and confining them overseas is a "lawful weapon." It appears the U.S. is trying to take the issue head on, since it had obtained the consent of the nations in question. Once again you get a taste of the logic of strength that relies on unilateralism. It would have to be serious for even American human rights groups to say they are going to file lawsuits against a high-ranking CIA official for violating universal human rights guidelines and domestic American law.

The American double standard regarding human rights and democracy is nothing new. It is an international disgrace that human rights infringements such as illegal arrests, transportation, detention, and torture are being neglected because of the war on terror. The United Nations and other international organizations need to take another look at the universal human rights standards they have long told developing nations to follow.

The Hankyoreh, 7 December 2005.

[Translations by Seoul Selection]