While the Soviets did their best to classify documentation about the Gulag system, the CIA has not been able to cover up their use of secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
It has long been surmised that the CIA kept prisoners in secret locations around Europe. This "extraordinary rendition" has caused an uproar with human rights advocacy groups. Extreme interrogation tactics that amount to torture have been suspected. Now there are reports detailing the whereabouts of the secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
Romania and Poland are two countries identified as having been used by the CIA in their practice of extraordinary rendition. In Poland, a former Soviet military compound has been used for interrogation and imprisonment of "terror suspects." It was here that the most influential prisoners were said to have been taken and held - and maybe even members of their families, children as young as 7.
The CIA secret prison system is being likened to the Soviet Gulag. This loaded accusation has much significance. It may be a bit of an exaggeration, considering the extreme loss of life in connection with the Soviet Gulag (millions of innocent citizens). The Soviet Gulag was basically the system by which political prisoners were dealt with, mainly by sending them to "corrective labor camps." On a broader basis, "Gulag" has come to mean the unjust system of repression by the Soviet government - or other government characterized by totalitarian ideology that rules by fear (think of North Korea).
The Unknown Gulagis just one book that reveals the mistreatment of individuals who were imprisoned by the Gulag system. Most students of Eastern European history are familiar with the midnight disappearances of family members that took place during the Soviet era . . . this, too, is a part of the Gulag. People died or disappeared; to this day some sons and daughters of victims from that time still do not know the fate of parents forced into labor camps by the Gulag.
That the US was using facilities that are already connected to the history of the Gulag system, in a region of the world where so many people were victims of concentration camps and other human rights atrocities, seems to indicate that we are not learning from the mistakes of history.
The Soviet government made the children of political prisoners pay for the "sins of their fathers." If it is true that the CIA has "disappeared" children as young as 7 years old, then then calling the secret prisons of the CIA the "Gulag" comes with a warning. The US didn't step in and stop Stalin. Who will step in and stop the US?
