For days the media has been circulating a story run by British tabloid, The Sunday Times, and Belgian daily, Le Soir headlined: Revealed: the terror prison US is helping build in Morocco and Enquête sur la prison de la CIA , with Le Soir also running a page nine article La CIA interroge au Maroc.
Tony Walker, the Sunday Times reporter in Rabat, seemed very sure of his information. He described a new interrogation and detention facility for Al-Qaeda suspects near Rabat and quoted so-called western intelligence sources saying that building was under way at Ain Aouda, above a wooded gorge south of Rabat’s diplomatic district.
Locals said they had often seen American vehicles with diplomatic plates in the area.
According to Walker... "The construction of the new compound, run by the Direction de la Securité du Territoire (DST), the Moroccan secret police, adds to a substantial body of evidence that Morocco is one of America’s principal partners in the secret “rendition” programme in which the CIA flies prisoners to third countries for interrogation. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other groups critical of the policy have compiled dossiers detailing the detention and apparent torture of radical Islamists at the DST’s current headquarters, at Temara, near Rabat. A recent inquiry into rendition by the Council of Europe, led by Dick Marty, the Swiss MP, highlighted a pattern of flights between Washington, Guantanamo Bay and Rabat’s military airport at Sale."
Le Soir claims that "the military base of Ben Guerir, about 260 Km south of Rabat, would also be a detention center devoted to Al Qaida terrorists."
According to French intelligence and diplomatic sources, the most recent "CIA rendition flight" was in the first week in December, when four suspects were seen being led blindfolded and handcuffed from a Boeing 737 at Sale and transferred into a fleet of American vehicles.
These disclosures have the potential to create a huge problem for the Moroccan King. Mohammed VI has a lot of support, in Morocco and abroad, for his efforts to suppress Islamic fundamentalists in the Kingdom but the task is made difficult by Morocco’s membership of a so-called “coalition of the willing”. If the reports of a CIA prison in Morocco turn out to be true it will create much more support for the Islamists and undermine the King's authority.
"Sheer allegations"
Aware of the devastating consequences of the problem, Moroccan authorities have gone into damage control mode and categorically denied stories on the building of the CIA prison. Morocco has rejected the stories as "sheer allegations devoid of any grounds," said a communiqué of the ministry of the Interior.
Without corroborating their sayings by any evidence, the papers affirm that Morocco, assisted by the United States, would be building a "new detention and interrogation center," in the vicinity of the town of Ain Aouda, close to Rabat, said the communiqué. Le Soir claims that "the military base of Ben Guerir, about 260 Km south of Rabat, would also be a detention center devoted to Al Qaida terrorists," it said.
The release went on to say that the Moroccan authorities, which are profoundly shocked and outraged, "reserve the right to undertake all the measures to re-establish the full truth."
The Moroccan government will also have some work to do in the blogosphere where stories can take on a life of their own - even the most obviously sensational. As an example of the lurid headlines, check out the wildly unbalanced post in the Eternal Hope blog and the website Political Cortex, which attempt to link the rendition story with trafficking in women and children. While debunking the ravings of the ratbag rightwing and holding the American administration to account for Gunatanamo, Abu Graib and Fallujah, may be a commendable aim, it should be done with balance and good investigative reporting. Otherwise it lacks credibility and can undermine the positive work that the Moroccan government has been doing to curb extremism.
For a more balanced look at the history of the CIA rendition flights visit Gary Johnson in Reykjavik Transit
Link: Google Sat-image of Ain Aouda
Tags: Morocco, Fes, Maghreb, news
1 comment:
Thanks for responding to my comments. If what I posted was too sensationalist, then I would be glad to be proven wrong. If the London Times reporter or the people in question have been shown to be known liars, then I would like to know about it. I will be glad to post a retraction. I would like to think that we on the left admit mistakes and the Bush administration doesn't. Just show me the links and evidence.
But the reason I linked the trafficking of women and children to this issue is to expose the fallacy of Bush's claim that democracy is breaking out in the Middle East. Although there are many Democratic movements within the Middle East, the governments there, for the most part, are still authoritarian. I highlighted that as an example of the authoritarianism that the Moroccan government is guilty of.
But despite all this, the Bush administration is still sending high-level officials to Morocco. Now, the Moroccan government may have stopped some of the worst practices like you point out, but the fact is that their current record on this issue is still unacceptable.
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