In a moving column published in Taraf, Kurdish journalist and activist Orhan Miroğlu spoke of his emotions when he heard Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's recent speech in Parliament, which marked a major departure from the official policies of the past. But as a former inmate of Diyarbakır Prison, Miroğlu, as well as several other former prisoners, object to government plans to open a school on the spot where many prisoners suffered ill-treatment and, in several cases, died under torture. They argue that moving forward should not mean glossing over the past and forgetting about it. On the contrary, they advocate confronting it and turning the prison into a museum of human rights, which would serve as a warning to future generations.Can a country move forward without first examining its past and acknowledging what went wrong? A similar debate, albeit in a very different context, is currently taking place across the Atlantic in the United States.
US President Barack Obama, who distanced himself from the poisonous legacy of his predecessor as soon as he took power, has already rescinded several of George W. Bush's executive orders and taken steps to prevent further abuse of terrorism suspects. But keen to avoid confrontation with the Republicans, particularly at a time when he is already battling on several fronts, including health care, the US president is reluctant to delve too deeply into the abuses of the past.
Instead he advocates a “looking forward not backward” approach, which has disappointed many human rights activists who hoped some of the most egregious violations committed during the Bush administration would lead to charges, not just against the perpetrators themselves, but also against the policy makers who had authorized them.
US Attorney General Eric Holder, against the wishes of the White House, has just released a heavily edited version of a report prepared by the inspector general of the CIA, examining some of the interrogation methods used against terror suspects.
Some of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” had already been revealed in leaked memos in recent years. This report suggests, however, that in several cases the interrogators went beyond the already controversial guidelines they were given. Mock executions, the use of an electric drill to frighten a prisoner, threats of sexual assault against relatives and choking were among the methods used to coerce suspected al-Qaeda members into revealing information. Nothing in the report supports claims by the likes of Dick Cheney that these extreme methods were successful.
Standard and enhanced interrogation techniques were outlined in comprehensive memos written by the Bush administration's legal team. The dispassionate bureaucratic language used in these documents is particularly chilling. The devil, it seems, is in the details and precision is key: if the cold water used to douse prisoners is at 5 degrees Celsius, they must be dried and rewarmed after 20 minutes. With water at 10 degrees, exposure can be extended to 40 minutes. In stress positions, inmates are expected to kneel with their bodies leaning back exactly 45 degrees. The memos went on in a similar vein.
The release of the CIA inspector general's report has reopened the debate in the US about confronting the past. The report recommends investigating a few cases where interrogators, many of them outside contractors, had exceeded the legal authority granted by the administration. Prosecution of the authors of the memos, who justified abuse in defiance of international law, is currently not on the cards, but it is clear that much as President Obama would like to move forward, he is finding it difficult to shake off his country's recent past.
