HomeMy WebLinkAboutRES-2016-081 Resolution in Support of the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture RES-2016-081 89F
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ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF THE NORTH CAROLINA
COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON TORTURE
WHEREAS, the non-governmental North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture (NCCIT) is being established to
examine the role of North Carolina in the United States' secret,global torture program launched soon after 9/11/2001;and
WHEREAS, it is documented in the declassified executive findings and conclusions summary of the Study of the Central
Intelligence Agency's Detention and Interrogation Program by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that at least 119
human beings were secretly transferred for torture in CIA-run facilities, while many others were rendered to allied foreign
custody for torture;and
WHEREAS, most of those rendered and tortured were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had names similar to
those of suspects,and have been released without criminal charges;and
WHEREAS, it is further documented in the report titled "The North Carolina Connection To Extraordinary Rendition and
Torture" (Weissman, et. al., UNC School of Law, January 2012) that North Carolina played a significant role in the torture
program through the operations of Aero Contractors,an aviation front company established by the CIA in 1979 at the Johnston
County Airport in Smithfield which,after 9/11/2001, undertook a leading role in kidnapping suspects, including from a hangar
it built and operated at the state-run Global TransPark in Kinston;and
WHEREAS,that Aero transported at least 34 detainees to secret detention and torture, 18 of which cases appear in the heavily
redacted executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee's 6,900-page report on CIA torture, most of which is still
kept from the public;and
WHEREAS, the NCCIT will address the harms that torture causes, such as serving as a recruitment tool for extremist and
terrorist organizations, endangering U.S. troops abroad, reducing our security here at home, and providing dangerously
misleading information,and
WHEREAS, torture is illegal, and violates faith and ethical traditions, and the trauma inflicted on torture survivors affects
them for the remainder of their lives,causes lasting psychological injury to those ordered to perpetrate it,and
WHEREAS, the U.S. government, the State of North Carolina, and political subdivisions of this state have ignored their
obligations to acknowledge and repair the harms created by the secret detention and torture program, even though impunity
compounds those harms and allows their repetition;and
WHEREAS, when governments fail to act, citizens have both a duty and an opportunity to do so, and citizen-led inquiries
have a long and honorable history,in North Carolina and beyond,of exposing human rights abuses and creating momentum for
accountability and redress;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Orange County Board of Commissioners hereby supports the North
Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture, a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization described at www.nccit.org, created to
address the issue of North Carolina's role in secret detention and torture,and to craft a model of accountability that can inspire
similar efforts elsewhere.
This the 13d'day of December 2016
Mark Dorosin,Chair
Orange County Board of Commissioners