life of the capital. Such a deployment has to be authorised by the government under the Emergency Powers Act and is inescapably a top-level political decision. The police stated there could be army security patrols in the capital". This prompted media speculation, in the days before 15th February, about tanks being deployed in Trafalgar Square. For many, the coincidence in time and place with a massive anti-war mobilisation said it
We have no way of knowing whether a major attack was imminent. But a number of questions suggest that the public was justified in its scepticism.
FIRST, if the threat was so serious and so definite to Heathrow -why keep the airport open at all?
SECOND, what use would tanks be against a suicide attack in an area densely packed with civilians?
THIRD, the various accounts of what the "intelligence" amounted to were highly inconsistent. On the 12th February The Guardian, citing "intelligence sources", referred to "credible" and "specific" intelli gence from domestic agencies of a missile attack on the airport.
The following day the same paper described the intelligence as "high quality", stating a surveillance operation has been launched and anti-terrorist investigators are hopeful of making arrests in the coming days".
By the 16th February The Observer was giving a detailed account, credited to similar "sources", suggesting the intelligence was not specific but a variety of jigsaw pieces - intercepts of coded conversations and the results of prisoner interrogations in Pakistan - all US-derived. Furthermore the intelligence anticipated an attack either in the US, UK, Europe or the Gulf - in other words virtually anywhere. A very different story.
The only arrests were of Muslims in the vicinity of the airports who unwittingly found themselves in flight paths and a Venezuelan with a grenade caught up in the Stevens put his reputation on the line in responding to the widely held belief that the whole episode was a politically inspired propaganda initiative. Citing his involvement in the investigation of security force collusion with the 1989 murder of Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane, he angrily claimed, "we would not go along with any
kind of pressure". This was a curious choice of argument from Britain's top cop. The very next day he was having to explain why, after 14 long years, there was still no end in sight to the Finucane investigation. He stated that, "I can categorically say that Patrick Finucane was ... not connected with any terrorist organisation whatsoever". Why have the authorities taken so long to admit what was known from the outset?
Twenty serving and retired police and soldiers could be prosecuted for conspiring with loyalist terrorist organisations. These include Brigadier Gordon Kerr, formerly head of the army's secret intelligence wing in Northern Ireland and now military attache in Beijing. Why haven't they been suspended?
Stevens might also have noticed the rambling Bloody Sunday Inquiry in London. Whatever else it establishes, most people will conclude that there has been a 30 year whitewash (based on mass perjury and a conspiracy at the highest levels) to cover up the murder of 14 innocent civilians by the army in Derry in 1972.
These are hardly advertisements for the integrity of the security establishment. No wonder people are cynical about the display of hardware at Heathrow.
The threat may have "scaled down", the intelligence may have "changed" but at the time of writing the tanks are still there. As the BBC's security correspondent commented, "more such alerts are likely in the future.... the so-called war on terror has no foreseeable end". This gives the anti-war movement a new task in combatting the militarisation of civil society. LOUISE CHRISTIAN is the solicitor representing the families of some of the unknown number of British citizens who are being held by the Americans without trial in the Guantanamo detention camp. She spoke about the plight of the prisoners to Karen O' Toole
am representing three of the families
of British detainees in Guantanamo
Bay because there's no contact with the detainees. There are now eight or possibly nine British detainees, but I only know the identities of eight of them. None of them have been charged with anything.
The US government classifies them as either unlawful or enemy combatants which means they deny they are entitled to prisoner of war status. But no tribunal has decided on that status which is one of the requirements of the Geneva Convention. That's a determination only of the US govCame u
The prisoners are not allowed any form of legal access. So far the US courts have said they have no jurisdiction because the detainees are non-US citizens in territory which, although is under the exclusive control of the US authorities in Guantanamo, is not sovereign US territory.
So they say therefore that there is no jurisdiction for a US court in respect of a writ of habeus corpus. That decision, which was originally a decision of the Columbia District Court, is being appealed to the Washington DC Court of Appeals. If it's again refused a judgement is due any day now) as is expected, it will then go to the US Supreme Court.
The British government has done very little in respect of the detainees. It sent consular officials, alongside MI5 to Guantanamo who questioned British detainees, and it made enquiries about welfare. It has not made any representations about their legal positions, and this is despite the fact that last November the British Court of Appeal used quite strong language describing the detentions as 'arbitrary, 'objectionable', and the detainees as being in 'a legal black hole'.
It is reported that the prisoners are being kept in cells eight foot by six foot six. They're being held there 24 hours a day
apart from two fifteen minute periods a week for exercise. There are bright lights on in the cells all day and all night. There have been over 30 suicide attempts at the camp. The minimum requirement on humanitarian grounds for exercise is supposed to be one hour a day, and instead of that they're getting 30 minutes a week. The cells are very small and Cuba is a very hot country, so conditions leave a ot to be desired.
If they had been given prisoner of war status, they would have been entitled to free association as in a prisoner of war camp. In this country Lord Carlisle recently recommended that prisoners being held indefinitely under our Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act should be given the right of free association.
We've asked the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for a meeting to discuss whether the UK government might be prepared to put in an Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court, which is a written document in which the government would be making representations.
We know that other governments such as Pakistan and Sweden have made diplomatic protests about their citizens being held arbitrarily, but the British government has not done that so far.
If there are further wars real problem will be whether more and more prisoners will be put in Guantanamo Bay and held indefinitely without trail. How that will look to the rest of the world, and the signals that the US sends when it breaks international human rights law to other countries. Its very difficult for the US to be in a position of advocating respect for human rights to omer countes
page 6 of the scan
soclalist resistance March 2003