Lithuania to investigate secret CIA prison
Published: 22 October, 2009, 12:23
Edited: 23 February, 2010, 21:24
The President of Lithuania has called for an official investigation into an alleged secret CIA prison in a residential area of the capital Vilnius. The Lithuanian Parliament will consider the probe next week.
Also, American ABC News.com has reported flight details and the location thought to have been used to interrogate prisoners. These prisoners are claimed to be top level Al-Qaeda leaders captured after 9/11.
The country’s leadership has repeatedly denied any involvement in the detention of Al-Qaeda suspects. However, earlier this week President Dalia Grybauskaite said she had “indirect suspicions” about the presence of such detention camps in Lithuania.
On Tuesday, she went on to say: “If this is true, Lithuania has to clean up, accept responsibility, apologize, and promise that it will never happen again,” the Lithuanian president said.
This August, the TV network ABC published on its website a report claiming a prison for Al-Qaeda suspects operated in Lithuania for more than a year from 2004 through 2005.
Until this year, Lithuania remained the only unknown European country hosting the so-called “black sites”. Four years ago, a scandal broke out when American media reported that Poland and Romania housed secret prisons on their territories. According to ABC, this prompted the CIA to close the Lithuanian site.
When, back in 2005, the Council of Europe launched an investigation into Poland’s and Romania’s involvement into the CIA program, Lithuania managed to escape any accusations.
In a new twist, the European body has reopened the investigation into Lithuania’s role in the matter.
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I say we bring these camps to the United States. That way, we can end the illusion that we're wearing white at a wedding and just be the way we are to everyone, equally. Great leaders are born from these camps, don't they know? They get great networking skills, social understandings and free agendas. We need one. Stalin did great things and was real humanitarian. I can only imagine what they're breeding by doing the things they do. For being an intelligence agency, they seem to lack some insight into their illness.
This is a familiar story of small, weak and dependent countries trying to survive in the world of big interests. It is not a shocker that the Eastern Europe and the Baltics became the currency for the tough bargain between EU and US, and their respective influence in European future. I would first put the blame on those who shoved these mini conc camps on the helpless states. Then I would put the blame on strong European nations that knew what is going on, but chose not to offend the big cousin accross the pond. But last, I would like to ask these countries, clearly in a weak position, to consider the only tool available to the weak, justice. When the Eastern Europe and Baltics allow themselves to become sucked into the power games, and fancy themselves being important to the "international community", let them firmly check their moral compass. And if it is illegal and immoral, it would be better to say "no". For sooner then later, the EU will "discover" its morality, and act all this superior towards the East Europeans and Baltics, while all along they acquiesced. Now that the big cousin is having some financial problems, and a new government is changing the tune, sure enough, nobody is going to be so eloquent, so upright and upbraiding as the Europan "values" commisars. And East Europeans and Baltics are dutifuly supposed to bow their heads in shame! No, the shame is on those who forced them into this, and on EU, that was the silent partner. East European and Baltics just need to learn from this. Just read Sun Tzu, and the millenia old advice: "Do not befriend afar, and anger those near you".