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More Right Wing Guardian Propaganda

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In the light of three men under control orders apparently absconding, the right wing media are having a field day.

Michael White, sole living member of the Jack Straw fan club and spiritual leader of the Guardian New Labour hacks, has written a “right-wing bigot in the lounge bar” piece to explain that that this terrorism is all the fault of human rights and judges.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_white/2007/05/losing_control.html

He fails to note that the men have never been convicted of anything. If the evidence is “Solid” that they were plotting acts of terrorism, then charge them.

It is also rather strange to bluster on about the need to be able to deport people, and then complain because they may have left the country. Finally, of course, there is the strange logic that it is fine for British soldiers to invade Iraq and kill people, and it is fine for many thousands of British mercenaries to go to Iraq and kill people, but very wrong for our abscondees to want to go and kill people. A more logical position might be to oppose anybody heading off to Iraq to deal in death. Or put another way, accepting as a hypothesis (with no evidence ever produced) that these men do want to kill British troops in Iraq, there is an unavoidable prior question of what on Earth our troops are doing there in the first place. That question doesn’t seem to occur to Mr White.

Finally, a thought on communications intercepts. The government remain deeply opposed to the use of these in court. I am in favour. If surveillance has been properly and legally carried out, it should be admissible. The truth of the matter is that the Government does not want revealed how weak its so-called intelligence often is.

I can give one example. According to the US intercept agency the NSA, Al-Qaida frequently use the word “Wedding” as code for a suicide bombing. I recall as Ambassador being deluged with intercepts of “suspicious” conversations like “We’re going to a wedding in Bokhara.” Of such flimsy stuff is most of the material. If they keep it from court scrutiny, they can persuade natural authoritarian brown-nosers like Michael White to publish that it is “Solid”.

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Letter to the Guardian

 in War and Iran? by | View Comments

I have just sent this letter to the Editor of the Guardian, not for publication:

Alan,

We have never met, although the Guardian was good enough to give me a column during the general election campaign, and I have written several comment pieces for you since.

I admit there are people in this country, a minority, who still support the Iraq war. Tony Blair did succeed in capturing the Labour movement, and so it is understandable (though to me regrettable) that a newspaper with ties to the broad left would contain a strong element which supports Blair. I have lived with that and never quite broken my 35 year old Guardian reading habit.

But I do think that Simon Tisdall’s unquestioning purveyance of US anti-Iranian propaganda just goes too far. For one thing, you would have completely to shut off your critical faculties to accept some of the scenarios he was fed by the US as plausible. And Tisdall was not retailing the story as “Isn’t it interesting, the US is saying this”, he was relating their wild surmise as plausible fact.

Juan Cole’s blog Informed Comment – which is always superb – has an excellent comment on the piece, which I think well sums up the baffled bemusement of the intelligentsia.

I was rather hoping Tisdall was giving us another San Serife, but the date was wrong.

Get a grip! You are supposed to be an Editor. I was, genuinely, a great fan of your writing as a reporter. Of course, some brilliant footballers make lousy managers.

Craig Murray

I’ll post a reply if I get one.

(more…)

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A Mighty Heart

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I have been more than usually attentive to the reception given to Michael Winterbottom’s film “A Mighty Heart” at Cannes. This has exactly the same team of producers and director as the film of my memoir Murder in Samarkand, on which the cameras are set to start rolling in February, so plainly I have a major interest in the team’s success.

The papers today all carry an account of yesterday’s press conference at the premiere, based on the Pitt/Jolie celeb power. As far as I can gather, none of these reports were written after actually seeing the film itself. The only real film review I can find so far is this rather gushing one from Fox News.

Angelina Jolie Film About Slain Reporter Daniel Pearl Filmmaking of Highest Order

Monday, May 21, 2007

By Roger Friedman

“A Mighty Heart,” Angelina Jolie’s film about the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, had its first screening Monday morning at the Cannes Film Festival.

Simply put, the Michael Winterbottom film is an exceptional piece of work, deeply affecting and filmmaking of the highest order.

In purely Hollywood terms, the film is a certain Oscar nominee. Everyone involved in “A Mighty Heart” ‘ from Winterbottom to Jolie as Pearl’s widow, Mariane, to Dan Futterman as Daniel Pearl ‘ can be proud of a job very well done.

Based on the book by Mariane Pearl, the film follows the pregnant Mariane as she searches for her husband following his disappearance in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002. At the time, Daniel Pearl was writing a story about shoe bomber Richard Reid.

Winterbottom’s cinema verit’-style only adds to the immediacy of the Pearl tragedy. This director has done a remarkable job.

And it’s not just Jolie and Futterman who shine. The entire supporting cast including Irfan Khan, who has already had a hit this year with “The Namesake,” and the always reliable Will Patton as a CIA agent, makes the back-stories of the film eminently watchable, too.

But ultimately it’s Winterbottom’s achievement with screenwriter John Orloff (‘Band of Brothers’) in making ‘Mighty Heart’ an ensemble piece.

Jolie, who’s probably the hottest celebrity right now and covered by every tabloid in the world, could easily have become outsized in a story with many elements. Instead, she is quite tempered here, and becomes a team player whether she likes it or not.

It’s easy to forget what a fine actress she can be. But her understanding of Mariane Pearl is unusually touching. For most of the movie, Mariane seems a little cool, distant and brittle as she absorbs the news that her husband has been kidnapped.

Jolie, however, finally shows the human side of this strong woman when she learns that her husband is actually dead. She lets loose with shrieks of anguish that are all too real. They are almost like animal cries, and I guarantee you, audiences will be pulling out the Kleenex at this moment.

Winterbottom also punctuates the film with lots of jump-cutting, nonlinear plotting and flashback, all of which help add to the tension. He and Orloff flesh out Daniel Pearl, too, a hard task since he could have vanished after the kidnapping. But working with Futterman they create a very real man who met a tragic and untimely death.

And what a strange press conference at Cannes Monday after the first screening of “A Mighty Heart.” How things have changed! There was more interest in Brangelina’s celebrity life than in the Pearl tragedy or the politics that instigated it.

I could only wonder what Mariane Pearl, who was there on the dais with the cast, producers and director, thought of this episode. It was embarrassing. One woman even managed to jump on the stage at the end and kiss Brad Pitt. Oy vey!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,274172,00.html

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Someone Thinks I am A Hero

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Which is rather nice. I do hope they go on to discover Murder in Samarkand, which may disillusion them a bit.

Time for change’s Journal

Tribute to a Hero: Craig Murray

Posted by Time for change in General Discussion

Mon May 21st 2007, 11:00 PM

Our world is in desperate need of heroism today ‘ and no kind of heroic action is in greater demand today, in my opinion, than speaking out against the numerous abuses and crimes of the presidential administration of George W. Bush, which poses the greatest threat to world peace and world civilization of our current era.

Of the numerous crimes against the American people, the American Constitution, and international law committed by the Bush administration, the one that scares me the most, with the possible exception of his illegal preemptive invasion of Iraq, is its treatment of its prisoners. I’ve discussed my opinions on this issue numerous times, but that is not the purpose of this post. Suffice it to say here that I consider the Bush administration’s treatment of its prisoners to represent one of the darkest chapters, if not the darkest chapter in the history of our nation. Indeed, I consider it to be a manifestation of evil. And that is why I feel the need to pay tribute to a man whose heroic efforts perhaps did as much or more to expose these abominable medieval horrors than any other.

Craig Murray was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from the summer of 2002 until October 15, 2004, when he was suspended from his post for his heroism ‘ that is, for speaking out and fighting against the horrors that he witnessed in his capacity as ambassador, as well as for exposing the role of the United States in perpetrating those horrors.

Stephen Grey, of Amnesty International, who himself was instrumental in exposing the CIA’s rendition program, describes how Craig Murray did something very similar, in his book, ‘Ghost Plane ‘ The True Story of the CIA Torture Program’. I’ll begin my description of Murray’s heroism by providing some background on the country that he was assigned to.

21st Century Uzbekistan

Islam Karimov had been the dictator of Uzbekistan since prior to the break-up of the Soviet Union. Grey describes the repressiveness of his rule:

Karimov’ still boiled some of his prisoners alive’ He was also proudly repressive. Back in 1999, he said: ‘I am prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and to have calm in the republic.’ He boasted of executing about a hundred people a year. More than six thousand political opponents were locked in his jails. Threatened by the revival of Islam, he ordered a huge crackdown on religion’ Tortures were said to include ripping out fingernails, pulling teeth, electric shocks, suffocation, and rape.

U.S. Collaboration

Because of the severe religious repression many Muslims fled Uzbekistan and ended up in Afghanistan, where they resided by 9-11-01. That set the stage for collaboration between Uzbekistan and the United States in pursuit of its ‘War on Terror’: The U.S. paid tens of millions of dollars to Uzbekistan in aid. American forces in Afghanistan would capture the displaced Muslims, who may or may not have been fighting for the Taliban, or they would simply take Muslims into custody after being handed them by bounty hunters; the U.S. would then ‘render’ their prisoners back to Uzbekistan or send them to Guantanamo Bay; Uzbekistan would either force their prisoners to confess to various al Qaeda plots or torture them; and they would turn over the ‘intelligence’ thus received to the CIA.

What did Uzbekistan and the U.S. have to gain from this relationship? Who can say exactly what motives lurk in the minds of torturers like Karimov, Bush and Cheney. I can only speculate: Karimov received lots of money and the legitimacy of U.S. support and was aided in his goal of having more prisoners to torture ‘ I suppose as an example to his population to help maintain his stranglehold over them. And we got more ‘intelligence’ for our ‘War on Terror’, as well as use of Uzbekistan for military strategic purposes.

Craig Murray blows the whistle

In his role as ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray saw continual evidence of the horrors that were perpetrated there. At first it was in the form of accusations of those who had been tortured ‘ and one had to consider the possibility that the accusers were not being truthful. But then Murray began to see more tangible evidence, such as photos. On September 16, 2002, Murray sent a telegram to his superiors:

“U.S. plays down human rights situation in Uzbekistan. A dangerous policy: Increasing repression combined with poverty will promote Islamic terrorism. Support to Karimov regime a bankrupt and cynical policy.”

Read whole article:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Time%20for%20change/182

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Putin’s Russia

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I have been both snowed under and travelling like a madman lately, and therefore rather absent from this blog. Apologies.

The piece by me below appeared in The Mail on Sunday two days ago.

I would like to introduce it with the following thought. There are those who denounce any criticism of Russia, particularly over human rights, as a neo-con plot. That is plainly stupid.

On the blogosphere it is not hard to bump into the view that, on the international stage, anyone opposed to George Bush must be a good man, and any attack on anyone opposed to George Bush must be malicious. A much more probable scenario is that George Bush is a powerful and bad man, perhaps primus inter pares but nonetheless among many other powerful and bad men. Russia is in fact in the grip of vicious gangsters, ripping off the country with a freedom even the most ardent deregulatory neo-con in Washington could not conceive.

Investigative report: The Kremlin Killings

19.05.07

After a series of brutal murders of dissident journalists in Russia, Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, went to investigate.

His disturbing report reveals how deeply the cancer of criminality has infected Putin’s society

One Friday two months ago, Ivan Safronov, defence correspondent of the authoritative Kommersant newspaper in Moscow, made his way home from work.

After a mild winter, Moscow had turned cold in March and Safronov held a bag of groceries in one hand while keeping his coat closed against the snow with his other.

Arriving at the entrance to his grim Soviet-era apartment block, Safronov punched in the security code which opened the grey metal door at the entrance to the gloomy hallway.

So far this is a perfectly normal Moscow scene. But then ‘ and this is the official version of events ‘ Ivan Safronov apparently did something extraordinary.

He walked up the communal stairs, past his second-floor apartment to the top landing between the third and fourth floors.

Then, placing his groceries on the floor, he opened a window, climbed on to the sill and leapt to his death, becoming around the 160th (nobody can be certain of precise numbers) journalist to meet a violent end in post-communist Russia.

In the West, the cases of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead in her apartment block, and ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned by polonium in London last year, hit the headlines.

But in Russia, there was nothing exceptional about those killings. It’s long been understood that if you publish material that embarrasses or annoys those in power, you’re likely to come to a sticky end.

Continue reading

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23397248-details/Investigative+report:+The+Kremlin+Killings/article.do

As always, the unedited original was rather better; I may post it if I can work out how to prevent its length taking over the entire page. A follow-up article will appear this Sunday.

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Official Secrets Act Convictions

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From Richard Norton Taylor in the Guardian:

An Old Bailey judge has imposed unprecedented gagging orders preventing the British media from reporting information which is published today in newspapers and websites around the world.

The orders were imposed by Mr Justice Aikens during discussions in the court which Lewis Carroll would have delighted in hearing. At times, we were truly living in Wonderland. The discussions took place after David Keogh, a Whitehall communications officer, and Leo O’Connor, researcher to a former Labour MP, were found guilty of breaching the Official Secrets Act and jailed.

Their crime was to disclose the contents of an official minute of a meeting between Tony Blair and George Bush in the White House on April 16 2004. Keogh disclosed the document to O’Connor who passed it on to Tony Clarke, his boss who was MP for Northampton South at the time.

We cannot report allegations about what the document contains even though they have been reported time and time again – “recycled” was the word the judges preferred – by the media, including British newspapers.

That’s not strictly true. The judge said we can repeat those allegations but only if they appear on a different page of a newspaper than any reference to the trial or the document which was at the centre of it. We can also report, since it was said in open court, that the Guardian’s counsel, Anthony Hudson, argued that it would be inappropriate to restrain publication of the allegation already in the public domain claiming that President Bush suggested that the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera should be bombed.

Whenever the document and its contents were discussed, the media and the public were barred from the court. The trial then continued behind closed doors.

The judge imposed his contempt of court – gagging – orders after the prosecution stressed the importance the attorney general (AG), Lord Goldsmith, was personally attaching to the case. Official Secrets Act prosecutions always require the consent of the AG.

He, and the government as a whole, seemed particularly concerned about the need to protect Bush from embarrassment, (the prosecution conceded that no “actual damage” had been caused by the leak) and to show the White House that Whitehall is determined to try and keep secrets even though Washington cannot.

But the judge did more. Not only did he prevent the media from repeating allegations already well and truly in the public domain; he imposed a gagging order on a remark made by Keogh during his evidence in open court when he was asked why the contents of the document preyed on his mind so much.

This is an unprecedented attempt to use the contempt of court act to impose secrecy on something said in the open.

The Guardian, Time, BBC, and Index on Censorship, will appeal against these orders next week.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_nortontaylor/2007/05/an_old_bailey_judge_has.html

This savage sentencing of good men to prison – for being good men – underlines just how illiberal the Blair/Brown Britain is. The farcical attempts by the court to continue to hush up the fact that Bush suggested bombing Al Jazeera, simply underline this.

The judge, Mr Justice Aikens, is clearly a complete wanker. Let me say that again just in case anybody misses this opportunity to jail me. Mr Justice Aikens is a complete wanker. In sentencing, he said that by leaking the document, Keogh had put British lives at risk. The argument apparently being that, if Iraqis knew just how violent and unprincipled George Bush is, they might fight still harder.

One worrying aspect of this case is that the jury convicted. There has been a historic reluctance of juries to convict in OSA cases, because they tend to sympathise with the defendants and not with the draconian legislation. This conviction might encourage the government to make more OSA prosecutions. It did not dare prosecute me, even though I very openly released many classified documents related to our policy of using intelligence from torture. There remains, of course, the stinking fact that “Top Secret” intelligence is regularly leaked by the ministers and special advisers in the Home Office to the media whenever they wish to start a new terror scare.

Finally, what a terrible shame that the would-be leakers decided to try to use the newspapers rather than the Net. Our pusillanimous newspapers are still controllable by the courts. Despite Norton Taylor’s huffing and puffing, the Guardian will obey Justice Aikens (did I mention he is a wanker) ? The Net, however, is unstoppable. The documents we leaked are on hundreds of sites all over the World.

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“Uzbekistan is Off the Radar to Almost Everyone”

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Germany – which has a historical weakness on human rights – prepares to push EU foreign ministers to drop sanctions against Uzbekistan on Monday. This comprehensive report is from IWPR.

Should EU End Sanctions Against Uzbekistan?

Reports from Uzbekistan suggest there is little evidence of human rights improvements that would warrant the removal of sanctions.

By Caroline Tosh in London and IWPR staff in Central Asia (RCA No. 492, 11-May-07)

As the European Union prepares to vote on whether to lift the sanctions it imposed on Uzbekistan in the wake of the Andijan violence two years ago, human rights activists and journalists in the country as well as international experts warn that any relaxation of the measures will send the wrong message to Tashkent.

Germany, which currently holds the EU presidency, appears to be pushing for awkward human rights concerns to be quietly dropped from the agenda in pursuit of a new EU strategy for engaging with Central Asia. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, RFE/RL, reported on May 11 that EU ambassadors were deadlocked on whether sanctions should be renewed, softened or dropped.

Uzbek officials have sensed the new mood over recent months, and have in turn sought a rapprochement with Europe on their terms.

If Tashkent gets a clean bill of health when EU foreign ministers meet on May 14, it will have achieved this without addressing fundamental human rights concerns, and specifically without instituting the international inquiry requested by the EU, the United Nations, and countries such as the United States.

Government soldiers opened fire on unarmed civilians in the eastern town almost exactly two years ago, on May 13, as people gathered in protest over the trial of 23 local businessmen accused of Islamic extremism ‘ said by their families to be innocent.

The massacre is widely thought to be the worst atrocity committed by a government against demonstrators since the Chinese army killed several hundred protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The Uzbek authorities say 187 were killed, but human rights organisations put the figure closer to 800, and argue that a determined effort by the Uzbek authorities to shut down non-government organisations, NGOs, and independent media has meant the truth behind events has never emerged.

Human rights groups are urging the EU to maintain the sanctions, and are calling for them to press for an international inquiry into Andijan and raise other human rights concerns.

See full article here

http://www.iwpr.net:80/?p=rca&s=f&o=335486&apc_state=henh

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Disgruntled Radical’s Review of Murder in Samarkand

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I have just finished reading Murder in Samarkand by Craig Murray, former British ambassador who refused to lie for or to his country. The author’s account of torture and oppression in Uzbekistan , sustained and supported by the USA, his denunciation of the regime of President Karimov and the attempts of the FCO to silence him has moved me to rage and tears. I urge everyone to read it. The Uzbek government is terrible, the American connivance is awful and the attitude of the Blair government, of Jack Straw and of the mandarins who manage our country’s foreign policy is despicable.

http://disgruntledradical.blogspot.com:80/

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Iraq Prognosis

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Juan Cole’s Informed Comment is probably my favourite blog. I had the privilege to meet Juan over dinner last year. I have a healthy regard for my own powers of reasoning, but I came away from meeting Juan with the thought: “Wow! I wish I was as smart as him”.

So it is perhaps strange that (I think) this is the first time I have linked to his blog, and it’s to a piece not by him but that somebody has sent him. It seems to me such a good prognosis of the military situation in Iraq I thought it was worth calling your attention to it.

Saturday, May 05, 2007

Guest Comment: Iraq Prognosis

A canny Vietnam veteran wrote me the below but requested that it be posted without attribution. I thought it well worth sharing.

As I see it, these are some of the things we can expect in the next seven months in Iraq:

1. The last of the “surge” forces (American), will arrive by mid June;

2. About 1400 British soldiers, well trained and adept at urban conflict, will leave the South of Iraq. As one can see by reviewing icasualties.org’s latest listings, 13 (at least), British and/or Polish troops stationed in the South have been killed, almost all by hostile fire. Ths is a increase in British hostile fire losses, and comes when the prospect of Iraqi or American troops entering the fray in the south would pose a dilution of the surge forces. No Americans have really ever been stationed in the south of Iraq, among predominantly Shia populations. The methodology the UK forces have used has been learned in Northern Ireland, and is much more sophisticated than any approach Americans have used. As a result, units which may have been in Iraq previously, but are now peopled by a fair number of new grunts, will cut their teeth in the southern Iraq. Because of much more heavy handed approaches, lack of sophisticated skills in urban war, and an increase in various Shia militia more radical than Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army, the Americans will cause one incident of cause cel’bre in the South;

Continue reading here: http://www.juancole.com:80/2007/05/guest-comment-iraq-prognosis-canny.html

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Brutality in Iraq

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Thanks to Information Clearing House for this article, which does much to explain the escalating spiral of violence in Iraq. Anyone who still believes that the presence of US and British forces in Iraq is making life better for Iraqi civilians should read this intently, and think through the obvious consequences.

U.S. Examines Iraq Battlefield Ethics

By PAULINE JELINEK

Associated Press Writer

05/04/07 – — WASHINGTON (AP) — A new Pentagon survey of troops in Iraq found that only 40 percent of Marines and 55 percent of Army soldiers would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.

In the first internal military study of battlefield ethics in Iraq, officials said Friday they also found that only a third of Marines and roughly half of soldiers said they believed that noncombatants should be treated with dignity.

The study also found that long and repeated deployments were increasing troop mental health problems. And it showed that more than 40 percent of Marines and soldiers said torture should be allowed to save the lives of troops.

The study was the fourth since 2003. Previous studies were more generally aimed at assessing the mental health and well-being of forces deployed in the war.

In the latest study, a mental health team visited Iraq last fall and surveyed troops, health care providers and chaplains.

“The Marine Corps takes this issue of battlefield ethics very seriously,” said Lt. Col. Scott Fazekas, a Corps spokesman. “We are examining the study and its recommendations and we’ll find ways to improve our approach.”

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17648.htm

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Election Results

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I am rather pleased with my Scottish results prediction, and even more pleased with the result.

Even the BBC has stopped parroting the Labour “It wasn’t that bad” spin. So what do I make of the results, for the UK as well as Scotland?

Plainly, the Conservatives did very well indeed and David Cameron’s more liberal rhetoric, genuine or not, is a huge threat to the Lib Dems in the South of England. In these multi-party days, we saw in 2005 Labour get an overall general election majority with just 37%, so even allowing for mid-term protest gains the Tories should be very happy with 40%, a 13% lead over Labour and an 800 seat gain.

For Labour, perhaps the most disastrous thing is the loss of five hundred councillors from their already shattered activist base. Added to the disappearance of their dominance in Wales and Scotland, it is the blow to the morale of their troops, already shrivelled by Iraq, that is so dangerous. Labour now consists of an extraordinary mixture of trade unionists, ageing loyal but unhappy socialists, and aggressive young neo-conservatives. Look to see the latter leaving the sinking ship for the Tories in the next year or two.

The result is a real disaster for the Lib Dems. Menzies Campbell is very plainly not up to the job. I dislike the ageism being hawked around on this subject. There are plenty of dynamic, energetic, incisive people in their sixties. Campbell just isn’t one of them. He was lacklustre in his forties; it has nothing to do with age. A perfectly worthy MP, he just isn’t star material.

The Scot Nats, and Plaid Cymru, are the big winners. They are also the parties which campaigned most openly against Trident and the war in Iraq, which the Lib Dems downplayed. The Scot Nats need not push too hard for a referendum on independence; a compromise like a free vote in parliament on the referendum would be sensible. A SNP-led coalition in Holyrood, with a Conservative government in Westminster, will bring independence eventually. Alex Salmond needs a little patience.

Nicol Stephen, the Scottish Liberal leader, has about as much charisma as Menzies Campbell. His instincts are to keep the coalition with New Labour going at Holyrood. He is extremely comfortable with New Labour managerialism, and the Lib Dem campaign was marred by visceral hatred of the SNP and an irrational rejection of the very notion of an Independence referendum. I don’t rule out McConnell and Stephen arrogantly carrying on as though nothing had happened. That would lead to a massacre of the Scottish Lib Dems in the medium term.

The Greens were sadly squeezed in Scotland, while the socialist parties were victims of quite incredible levels of personal arrogance and idiocy. A shame that flawed personalities and in-fighting destroyed some of the more interesting diversity in British politics.

Finally, I tend to cock-up not conspiracy on the spoilt ballots debacle. The Labour Party probably suffered worse as their supporters are by definition more stupid. Indeed many of them apparently need someone else to fill in their postal ballots!

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Labour Punched on the Nose

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Hugely happy that Labour has lost Dundee West, the constituency of our University, and has almost certainly lost power in Dundee City Council for the first time in my lifetime. Perhaps every time I go to Dundee now I will no longer have taxi drivers telling me of examples of Council corruption.

Most amused by the Labour Party telling us all that this loss of many hundreds of councillors, dozens of councils and the nations of Scotland and Wales is “Not as bad as expected”.

I have been carefully through those results yet to declare. The regional list system makes prediction difficult, but I have been painstakingly through those too and I am going to stick my neck out and say that it looks to me the SNP will have two more seats than Labour.

Labour has also lost control of Blackburn with Darwen, where I stood as an independent against Jack Straw at the last election. Wonderful!!

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Iraq/Iran Maritime Boundaries

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I am very pleased that the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee have now asked me to give evidence on the question of the Iran/Iraq maritime boundary, for their inquiry into the Iran captives incident. That gives me hope this will be a real inquiry into what happened, and could be very interesting.

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Uzbekistan, and German Disgrace

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On 14 May the German Presidency of the EU will push hard again to persuade the EU to lift the limited sanctions imposed on Uzbekistan after the massacre of at least 700 demonstrators at Andijan two years ago.

Not only has Uzbekistan not agreed to the international inquiry the EU demanded, but since Andijan there have been thousands of new political arrests, including of many high profile human rights defenders I worked with. Here is a report from Human Rights Watch on the sentencing of their activist and interpreter Umida Niyazova.

Uzbekistan; Rights Defender Sentenced to Seven Years

EU Should Demand Release Before Sanctions Decision

(New York, May 1, 2007) ‘ The sentencing of Umida Niazova, an Uzbek human rights defender, should compel the European Union to make the release of rights defenders a necessary precondition for any further easing of sanctions against Uzbekistan, Human Rights Watch said today. Niazova is the translator for Human Rights Watch’s Tashkent office.

Niazova was sentenced on May 1 to seven years of imprisonment on politically-motivated charges by the Sergeli District Court in Tashkent. She was convicted of illegal border crossing, smuggling, and distributing material causing public disorder by using financial support from foreign governments (articles 223, part 1; 246, part 1 and 244/1, part 3 v of the Uzbek criminal code).

‘The Uzbek authorities are punishing Umida Niazova because she worked for groups that expose human rights abuses and they want to send a chilling message to others like her,’ said Holly Cartner, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. ‘Uzbekistan should immediately release Niazova and at least 14 other human rights activists wrongfully detained.’

Human Rights Watch also called on Uzbekistan’s other key partners, including Russia, to use their influence with the Uzbek government to insist on the release of imprisoned defenders.

A Human Rights Watch representative who monitored the trial said that at the May 1 hearing Niazova told the court that she had worked for 10 years in human rights, and that it was normal to criticize the authorities.

‘This is the idea of a democracy,’ Niazova told the court. ‘If we want to build civil society, criticism of the authorities must be allowed.’

Niazova also expressed hope for a mild verdict because her 2-year-old son had just started to talk. Niazova remained calm during the sentencing.

Niazova’s family was allowed into the courtroom, but representatives of the German and US embassies were denied entry.

‘There is already a German present,’ said Judge Nizam Rustamov, referring to the Human Rights Watch representative, who is a German citizen.

Before her arrest, Niazova was a regular contributor to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other news agencies. She also worked with such international nongovernmental organizations as Freedom House and Internews.

Niazova is one of 15 human rights defenders imprisoned by Uzbek authorities on politically motivated charges as part of its brutal crackdown on civil society unleashed in the aftermath of the May 2005 massacre in Andijan, in which security forces killed hundreds of mostly unarmed protesters as they fled a demonstration.

EU sanctions on Uzbekistan ‘ put in place in November 2005 in response to the Uzbek government’s refusal to allow an independent, international inquiry into the massacre ‘ are to be reviewed on May 14 at a meeting of the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council. One of the assessment criteria for reconsidering the sanctions is ‘willingness to adhere to the principles of respect for human rights, rule of law and fundamental freedoms.’ But the European Union never made the release of Uzbekistan’s human rights defenders a condition for easing the sanctions, choosing instead to focus on establishing a ‘structured human rights dialogue’ with the Uzbek government.

The European Union, led by the German presidency, has also made no public statements about Niazova or any of the other imprisoned human rights defenders, nor has it called for their release.

‘Niazova’s sentence is first and foremost a disgrace for the Uzbek government, but it’s a disgrace for the EU too,’ said Cartner. ‘The EU now needs to make absolutely clear there will be no consideration of easing any sanctions until Niazova and the 14 other imprisoned defenders are released.’

Other imprisoned Uzbek human rights defenders are: Gulbahor Turaeva, Saidjahon Zainabitdinov, Mutabar Tojibaeva, Nosim Isakov, Norboi Kholjigitov, Abdusattor Irzaev, Habibulla Okpulatov, Azam Formonov, Alisher Karamatov, Mamarajab Nazarov, Dilmurad Mukhiddinov, Rasul Khudainasarov, Bobumurod Mavlanov, and Ulugbek Kattabekov.

I won’t here detail again the horrors of Uzbek jails, but I shudder at poor Umida spending years in one. Nor should we forget Sanjar Unmarov or any of the thousands of political prisoners also jailed.

Deutsche Welt has, like all foreign news organisations in Uzbekistan, been closed down and its Uzbek correspondent has fled the country. Germany maintains an airbase in Uzbekistan, at Termez, and maintains a close alliance with the Uzbek regime. The German Foreign Minister is a close protege of the “retired” ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Schroeder is the highly paid Chairman of Nord Stream, the 51% owned Gazprom subsidiary building a $8 billion pipeline to bring more Russian and Central Asian gas to Europe. Schroeder pushed the scheme through as Chancellor then moved instantly to head it on retirement. Schroeder is very close to Alisher Usmanov, chairman of Gazprom Invest Holdings. Usmanov, an Uzbek and major Russian oligarch, engineeered Gazprom’s takeover of the Uzbek gas reserves in the last two years. Usmanov is the closest political ally of Karimov and his daughter, Gulnara. Gulnara received a bribe of $88million from Gazprom Invest Holdings in return for the contacts.

The EU sanctions on Uzbekistan include a travel ban on senior Uzbek officials directly implicated in the Andijan massacre. Germany fought successfully to keep Karimov and his family off the list. The top name on the list was Almatov, then Uzbek Interior Minister. On the very first day of the ban, he was allowed in to Germany for medical treatment – which took place privately in a hospital in Gerhard Schroeder’s home town, under a doctor who is a personal friend of Schroeder.

Uzbekistan ranks with North Korea and Burma as the worst totalitarian state on earth. You would hope that Germans, with their history, would be wary of open support for a country maintaining death camps for thousands of political prisoners. But in fact the German government does not give a bollocks about human rights.

(more…)

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Murder in Samarkand Review

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A review of Murder in Samarkand has been written by NMJ on Velo-Gubbed Legs. Here is an extract:

At this time, the invasion of Iraq was unfolding (somehow, Saddam was a bad guy yet Karimov was a good guy). It’s not just the ‘dissident’ torture in Uzbekistan that horrifies, day to day life is grim. Uzbek children are forced by the state to work seventy hour weeks in the cotton fields in appalling conditions. Women set fire to themselves with cooking oil to escape their terrible lives. Innocent people are routinely beaten and raped by the police. The double standards and myopia of the British government in all of this is nausea-inducing. Craig couldn’t turn a blind eye to this sickening abuse of human rights – as our government appeared to be able to do without conscience – and was sacked after he blew the whistle on Uzbek intelligence being gained through torture. It’s depressing reading, but his style is light, he is funny and self-deprecating – at one point he irons a crumpled speech.

See full review here:

http://velo-gubbed-legs.blogspot.com/

She had blogged that the library had made her take back MinS before she finished it, so I sent her a copy.

I enjoy NMJ’s blog very much. She is a good writer and draws you in to her world, and I find it relaxing to go there. The attitudes to life and interests are similar to mine. It is good to remember that blogging can be used for good writing, not solely on politics. On the other hand, I find it all a bit worrying. If I am finding feelings of companionableness and relaxation on the Web, am I becoming deeply sad?

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Peculiar Coincidence

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Stephen Fry and I both attended the Paston School in North Walsham, Norfolk, a local state Grammar. I gather from his autobiography, Moab is My Washpot, that he disliked it a lot, as did I.

It appears that we were not just at the same school, but in the same year and class. How astonishing that the same class from a small state school in Norfolk should produce two Rectors of the distant Dundee University.

The peculiar thing is that I have no recollection of Stephen Fry at all. He was apparently only there for a year, but at 16, presumably already enormous, and in the same class, I should have thought he would have been unmissable.

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The Complexity of Truth

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I have now returned from Russia to Shepherd’s Bush.

This post started as a response to a comment by Bridget Dunne on the post below, who was concerned there may have been a miscarriage of justice in the fertiliser bomb case. My own view is that the fertilser bomb, 7/7 and 21/7 cases deserve to be discussed in a much more penetrative and complex way than is being done at present. I have a strong feeling that few on any side will agree with this posting, which is probably why I need to make it.

Bridget has a good point in that certainly the Birmingham Six and the Guildford Four should make us very wary. I can now reveal that I went to the Old Bailey at the request of the defence to discuss giving expert evidence in the fertiliser bomb plot case.

In closed session, a representative of the security services had given evidence that, in no circumstances would we accept intelligence from the Pakistanti secret services if we thought it was obtained by torture. He was simply lying, which may be a point of appeal. In the event the defence did not call me.

My own view is that there was indeed a bomb plot here, but whether all five defendants were involved is another matter. I fear some might have been unfairly dragged into the net. There are also questions to be asked about apparent agent provocateur activity by the Pakistani ISI, a deeply complex organisation which contains its own jihadists, and its own anti-jihadists, either of which factions might have felt their interests served if an actual bomb had gone off in London.

But we should be wary of the attitude that there is no such thing as Islamic terrorism and that those convicted are always innocent. I think at least some of these were guilty, and MI5 and the police do indeed deserve a measure of congratulation.

I also accept that there is a great deal of truth in MI5’s defence on 7/7, that you simply can’t follow up on every lead. Bluntly, I would not want to live in the kind of Police State that could, and the logic of many of those posting on 7/7 failure would tend to lead us towards the kind of massive surveillance and intrusion of Karimov’s Uzbekistan. I have seen that, and believe me, we do not want more of it here.

The truth is also that it would require levels of pressure on the Muslim population that would lead to a still greater and justified feeling of oppression, and engender more terrorism in reaction. Let’s not head for vicious spiral country. On balance, MI5 and the police do a good job despite constant political spin, pressure and interference in their work. Hindsight is a wonderful thing; identifying cause is so much simpler once you actually have an effect.

But where the security services and police did go wrong was after 7/7, in repeated lies to the public, the media and parliament over how much they did know. It turns out not to have been true that these bombers “Came out of nowhere” and “Had not crossed the radar screen before”. This overly defensive reaction was perhaps understandable as a first instinct before all information could be collated from the files, but maintained far too long. Why? And how involved were the spin doctors?

There is material here which indeed needs public inquiry. But let it not be based on the notion that security must never “fail”. That is a false direction. Much more important is how to reduce the despair that drives young British people to contemplate desperate acts of violence. As has frequently been proven, the most important step that can be taken is to stop our blind support for the appalling Bush policy of aggression in the Middle East. In the bigger picture, the dead, maimed and bereaved of 7/7 should count as part of the Blair legacy.

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Dundee University a Tool for New Labour?

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I had been more than a little disconcerted by what I discovered of the administration of Dundee University since I became Rector two months ago. In particular, at my first University Court meeting, held the first working day after I took office, the University administration forced through the closure of undergraduate teaching in modern languages and in town planning, and adopted a five year framework of cuts. Accepting hypothetically that short term savings were necessary, I could not see the need for the immediate adoption of a five year programme before their Rector had even had time to read through the papers (which I received two hours before the meeting). Interestingly every academic and graduate representative on Court voted against the cuts, but they were rammed through by an array of co-opted members, who appeared without exception to be either businessmen or from the government’s educational administration establishment.

The atmosphere at the meeting really was an appalling bulldoze. I waited some time before catching the Chairman’s eye, and was astonished when, one minute into my first observation, the Chairman rudely interrupted me to allow the Principal to “Correct” me. This happened several times in the meeting, to me and to others. I wondered who this chairman could be – his name was John Milligan. More on that later.

In short, the Univeristy appeared to have come a long way from being the self-governing democratic community it is supposed to be. In the analysis given by the University administration of different academic departments, they were viewed solely in financial terms. Just what they cost and what they brought in. There was no mention of educational values or wider societal considerations.

It also was plain there was an inner group who were running things, and each subject was introduced with people primed to support. I was sitting close enough to the Chairman to note that while he acknowledged those wishing to speak and ostentiously was writing a list of names, he would vary the order of the list when he felt a need to influence the debate.

It was also plain, from numerous little indications, that this was not just a clique in charge, it was a New Labour clique. This became even more plain at my second Court meeting on Monday, when the Principal, Sir Alan Langlands, spoke of a recent visit to the Life Sciences Department by the vacuous Scottish First Minister, Jack McConell, in quite blatantly electoral terms.

(In Scottish parliamentary elections on 3 May the Labour Party looks set to lose political control of Scotland for the first time in fifty years).

I might have let that go, but for what followed. The University has been in discussions with the Victoria and Albert Museum about the possibility of opening a branch museum in Dundee. It is a wonderful idea – the V & A has vastly more than it can display, and it would bring jobs and tourists to Dundee.

However Sir Alan Langlands said to the Court that a public announcement would be likely to be made by Jack McConnell in the context of an election promise.

That really is too much. This has nothing to do with New Labour – the discussions have been between the University and the V&A. To try to use this University initiative to New Labour advantage is completely illegitimate. The University of course sits in Dundee West, a key Labour/SNP marginal. I therefore said at Court that the University needed to be careful to avoid identification with any political party.

I was still wondering who this Chairman of Court, John Milligan, was and how he had got the job. I have been a member of the University since 1977, and had not come across him. He is not a man who exudes the mores of higher education.

Then today all became clear. As’I am currently in Ekaterinburg, I saw it several days late, but I came across reports that one John Milligan, ex-Chairman of Atlantic Power, on the Sunday Times rich list, and (wait for it…) a high profile donor to the Labour Party, had organised and paid for an advertisement attacking the idea of Scottish Independence, signed by a lot of rich people, some of them very unpleasant indeed.

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1352249.0.0.php

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=635452007

The move was widely reported to be inspired by Gordon Brown and timed to coincide with his electioneering breakfast in Edinburgh.

Among those who had signed for Milligan and Brown was the Principal of just one of Scotland’s thirteen universities. You guessed it, Milligan’s team-mate, Sir Alan Langlands of Dundee University.

As these two are so keen to help New Labour by entering into the hurly-burly of politics, let us treat them to some of the heat.

Alan Langlands has questions to answer. After retiring in August 2000 as Chief Executive of the NHS, in March 2001 he quickly reemerged as a Director of Patientline, the disgraced rip-off company which enjoys a monopoly of patient personal communications in the NHS. They charge the ill – who are disproportionately poor and elderly – 26p a minute to make a call and 49p a minute to recieve one. They also provide personal televisions at great cost, and, worst of all, have campaigned succesfully to have mobile phones, pay phones and communal TVs removed from hospitals. Langlands was a Director of Patientline when I was in Westminster Hospital for two months in Autumn 2003 and unable to talk to Nadira as Patientline phones won’t call, or receive from, Uzbekistan. He resigned in 2004.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/04/patientline_ups_charges/

Patientline is one of the most appalling examples of greed triumphing over the needs of ordinary people in Blair’s Britain. But for Langlands to move so quickly from heading the NHS which gave Patientline its monopoly, to the board of Patientline, is in my view of the world a disgrace which in a civilsed country ought to be be criminal. What do you think?

As for Milligan, we know the rewards that giving money to the Labour Party might bring. Who is to say that the chairmanship of a University is not that sort of carrot? The University is now sewn up very tight indeed, with all future appointments having to be initiated by a nomination committee of just six people, of whom Milligan and Langlands are two, and at least two others are from their “Trusty” circle. At the last committee it made two appointments – from amongst its six members.

This whole sorry tale of New Labour Croneyism is typical of much of Scotland, but relatively new in the University sector. I do hope that it causes a backlash of revulsion. I urge everybody with a vote to vote anything but Labour on May 3.

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Leaking Secrets

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I was dismissed as Ambassador to Uzbekistan when one of my diplomatic telegrams was leaked to the Sunday Times. The telegram complained of our continual receipt, via the CIA, of intelligence obtained by torture in Uzbekistan. It detailed London meetings which had approved this policy, referred to the CIA flying people to Uzbekistan and handing them over to the Uzbek intelligence services, and explained the illegality of this activity.

Interestingly the Financial Times decided to publish only a tiny fraction of this information, which was explosive back then in October 2003, as extraordinary rendition had not yet hit the headlines. But the leak was enough to get me sacked, and to institute a formal leak inquiry. Once it became plain that I was not the leaker, the inquiry was quietly stopped.

I have therefore been more sensitive than most to the Government’s continued habit of leaking “Intelligence” when it suits it. My objection has largely been that the government does this in order to exaggerate the threat of terrorism and instil fear, which they view as helpful in rallying popular support to the “War on Terror”.

I was therefore furious when I saw a headline “Al-Qaeda planning Big British Attack” in the Sunday Times of 22 April. So furious I have been carrying the cutting in my pocket all the way to Moscow, until I got the chance to blog about it. I see in the interim the opposition have started making a related point.

The Sunday Times journalist, Dipesh Gadher, claims to have seen a Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) report which justifies the terror stirring headline.

But JTAC reports are almost always Top Secret, and are always classified. Unless Gadher made it all up, he and whoever showed it to him, and his Editor, are all guilty of a serious criminal offence. They should be jailed for many years under the Official Secrets Act.

This is especially true as two gentlemen are currently being tried under precisely that draconian legislation, for possessing the minute of the meeting where George Bush proposed to Tony Blair the bombing of Al-Jazeera TV.

The truth is that both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service act in these matters in a way that is blatantly political. There is no even-handed administration of justice here. If a pro-war antagonist leaks information to whip up public opinion, no action is ever taken. Let me be plain – there is nothing in law that says that secret material can be leaked if it supports the government. Yet they do it all the time.

By what right was David Shayler jailed, but Dipesh Gadher and his informant not even looked at?

Government members and supporters do what they like. But should anyone else follow suit, the full wrath of the Establishment crashes on their head. Even, as in my case, when they didn’t actually do it.

The administration of justice is not impartial in the UK.

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