Revealed: victims of UK's cold war torture camp

[Omaha Steve]

Revealed: victims of UK's cold war torture camp

Ian Cobain
Monday April 3, 2006
The Guardian



Archive pictures of German prisoners held by the British following the second world war. Photographs: Martin Argles


Photographs of victims of a secret torture programme operated by British authorities during the early days of the cold war are published for the first time today after being concealed for almost 60 years.

The pictures show men who had suffered months of starvation, sleep deprivation, beatings and extreme cold at one of a number of interrogation centres run by the War Office in postwar Germany.

A few were starved or beaten to death, while British soldiers are alleged to have tortured some victims with thumb screws and shin screws recovered from a gestapo prison. The men in the photographs are not Nazis, however, but suspected communists, arrested in 1946 because they were thought to support the Soviet Union, an ally 18 months earlier.

Article continues
Apparently believing that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable, the War Office was seeking information about Russian military and intelligence methods. Dozens of women were also detained and tortured, as were a number of genuine Soviet agents, scores of suspected Nazis, and former members of the SS.

Yesterday there were calls for the Ministry of Defence to acknowledge what had happened and apologise. Nick Harvey, the Liberal Democrats' defence spokesman, said: "It's too late for anyone to be held personally responsible, or held politically to account, but it's not too late for the MoD to acknowledge what has happened."

Sherman Carroll, of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, said British authorities should also apologise and pay compensation to survivors. "The suggestion that Britain did not use torture during world war two and in the immediate aftermath, because it was regarded as 'ineffective', is a mythology that has been successfully propagated for decades," he said. "The fact that it took place should be acknowledged."

full story:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1745711,00.html

[Tiggeroshii]

1. This whole idea of

"we are good, because the other side was worse" is a bunch of crap. In the end we're probably all a bunch of sadistic, twisted pricks.

[ThomCat]

2. Put on your flame resistant underwear.

Didn't you know that only Nazi's an be accused of attrocities?

Nobody else has EVER done anything even remotely resembling what the Nazis did. Certainly not us or any of our Allies. Our goverments are good and wholesome. And anyone who says otherwise is evil.

:sarcasm:

[tocqueville]

4. there are differences though

the number of tortured people by the Allies (400 in the UK case) and the methods used (even the harshest) are not comparable with the stuff the Nazis did, even if one is one to much. It lasted only two years (see joined article in the Guardian link) and created outrage among some UK officers. Today reparation is sought to be made. The same can be said about the French in Algeria and the revelations were one of the major causes of the end of the war. Torture in Vietnam; Cambodia and Latin-America caused outrage in the whole Western world and contributed to the end of conflicts and the fall of governments there. Today even some of the tortured are Presidents like in Chile, and torturers have been brought to justice.

That makes the MAJOR difference with the mere core of fascist or other dictatorial regimes. That's why the actual case with the current US administration is so bad : to the difference from other democratic regimes there is an attempt of justification and even legalisation. What was after all an ephemere bad chapter in some democracies history is today DISMISSED as weakness and put into system again. That puts the Guantanamo, Abu-Grahib, rendition story to a very different LEVEL compared with previous atrocities commited by the Allies.

[villager]

3. " I have a problem, too. I'm not sure which side is running this village"

[coolslasher]

5. gross pics

damn those are some gross pics

[nodehopper]

6. V for Vendetta couldn't be more timely

[Up2Late]

7. Shocking, but think about this for a minute, what are the GTMO prisoners

.../hungerstrickers, who are being tortured by having tubes shoved down their throats to force feed them, which according to what I've read, most of the time they vomit it all back up, what are they going to look like when (if) they are ever released?

I really don't understand how they can ever be released without Rummy, Dick and Dim-son fleeing to some secret hideout.

[LynnTheDem]

8. So bodycount is really the only difference then.

What a fucking disgrace.

[LynnTheDem]

9. dupe

[corporatemedia]

10. "There are no Commies and there are no Yanks...

just Comrade Criminals playing with tanks."