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Guardian on Manningham Buller

 in Rendition by | View Comments

There is a good article in the Guardian by Vikram Dodd on Eliza Manningham Buller’s professed ignorance. Some kind people in the comments thread have pointed out that my testimony and documentary evidence directly contradicts Manningham Buller.

Some commenters then bemoaned the fact that the Guardian no longer invites me to write on these issues, which provoked a response from Matt Seaton of the Guardian that it is I who refuses to write for them. That is untrue and I have posted this comment, which I repeat here as the dreaded moderators will probably get it.

It is certainly true that I formally warned in a diplomatic telegram as early as November 2002 that we were receiving intelligence from torture from the CIA, and this was illegal. I was called back to a meeting in March 2003 to be told it was legal and policy, as decided by Jack Straw. Documents on my webiste.

Matt, for the record I should be delighted to write for Guardian cif. Sadly the Michael White Jack Straw fan club at the Guardian have blackballed me – as I am sure you know.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/10/manningham-buller-torture-mi5-terror?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments

I remain attracted to the idea – which I believe genuinely ought to work – of taking the trustees of the C P Scott trust to court for acting ultra vires. The trust stipulates that the Guardian must support liberal values. But New Labour have been the most illiberal government since Castlereagh, and the Guardian has cheerled for them. It would be a wonderful opportunity for a discussion in a court of law of New Labour’s attacks on civil liberties and the legality of New Labour’s wars.

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E-liar Manningham Buller

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Eliza Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, is engaged in an outrageous attempt to rewrite history, by claiming we were unaware that the CIA was getting intelligence from torture.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/exmi5-head-us-hid-torture-tactics-from-uk-1918945.html

The government knew the CIA was sending us intelligence from torture from at least November 2002, when I sent a diplomatic telegram to Jack Straw and others – including MI5 – informing them so. I repeated it in February 2003, and was called back to a meeting on March 7 2003 where I was told that, as a matter of policy in the War on Terror, we were using intelligence from torture. Sir Michael Wood said at the meeting that in his opinion this policy was not contrary to international law.

I have made available indisputable documentary evidence of this, and that the policy of using intelligence from torture was sanctioned by Jack Straw:

Download file“>Download file

Download file“>Download file

Download file“>Download file

The redactions were made by the government.

I am astounded that, having obtained the first two documents under the Freedom of Information Act last November, no mainstream media outlet will mention them and refer to them, despite acres of reporting on whether Ministers had an intelligence from torture policy.

Plainly these documents disprove entirely the Eliza Mannigham Buller claims that we did not know. But don’t expect to see them referred to in the media.

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The Election – What’s The Point?

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Now that politics have focused down on the election, I find myself thoroughly demotivated.

There is a substantial percentage of the population who wish to see a very early withdrawal from the occupation of Afghanistan, who want genuinely firm measures against the casino banking economy, who are very sceptical about the direction the European Union has gone, and who do not want to waste many scores of billions of dollars on a nuclear submarine system which can wipe out half the world’s population instantaneously and the rest shortly thereafter.

Yet the great “leader’s debate” will be between three people who all follow the same pro-bank bailout, pro-Afghan war, pro-EU and pro-Trident consensus. The political differences between them are insignificant – they are engaged in a Mr Smarm contest. They are not even good at that – Brown is an aggressive churl, Cameron is comfortable only working alongside his team of fellow toffs, Nick Clegg seeks to avoid offending the establishment consensus at all costs.

Only in Wales and Scotland do any significant number of people have a hope of electing anybody who stands outside the cosy Westmnister consensus on key issues.

To work, democracy must present the electorate with real choices.

Our democracy does not work.

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Brown at Chilcot

 in War in Iraq by | View Comments

I can’t be bothered watching Brown at Chilcot any more. Mildly interesting but unsurprising that Blair kept him out of the loop on dealings with Bush,

Brown’s primary concern is to deny that Treasury constraints cost British soldiers’ lives. He has therefore said six times in the first half hour that, as far as the Treasury were concerned, cost was never an issue.

It bloody well should have been. To all those unemployed and steeped in debt, does this feel like a country that had £100 billion to throw away on a totally needless aggressive war?

Gordon Brown. Unquestioning writer of cheques for a psychotic warmongerer.

What a tosser.

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African Corruption: Tony Baldry MP Unleashes the Libel Lawyers

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Tony Baldry MP has set libel lawyers Olswang on British bloggers who have had the temerity to refer to this extremely interesting article from Sahara Reporters

http://www.saharareporters.com/real-news/hot-topic/4594-nlf-decries-british-mp-tony-baldry-interference-in-iboris-case-in-london-.html

Olswang state that Baldry has been hired as a QC to defend the truly horrible James Ibori on charges of money laundering. Ibori was Governor of Delta State in Nigeria, scene of appalling environmental devastation, dreadful human rights abuse, and massive corruption from the oil industry. Ibori chose to launder millions of pounds of his looted wealth through London. The Nigerian government refused to extradite him to the UK, but family and associates of his in London face money laundering charges.

There are two important points here. Olswang state that Baldry was not acting as an MP, but as a QC. That would certainly be true if he were on his hind legs arguing to a jury in court (though why any jury might be swayed by Baldry is beyond me).

But to write to a Minister saying that as a matter of policy, it is not in the public interest to prosecute corrupt foreign officials who launder their money through London, particularly Mr Ibori, is quite a different thing. How can the roles of MP and QC be separated in such policy lobbying of a Minister on behalf of a paying client – and remember Mr Ibori was in a position to pay extremely well?

The separation of Baldry’s MP and QC hats in carrying out this special pleading to Ministers is a vulgar fiction. Not to mention the moral vacuity of the argument: “We can’t turn up our noses at money looted from the African people, old boy. Think of the effect on the City.”

This case raises, yet again, serious questions about the compatibility of MPs highly paid outside interests with what is supposed to be their main job, as impartial legislators on behalf of the British people.

Which leads me to my second point. Did Baldry or his companies have any connection with James Ibori before he was hired as his QC? The Sahara Reporters article lists extensive business interests of Baldry in West Africa, including in oil and gas.

The Nigerian Liberty Forum knows that Mr Baldry, who was the Chairman of the House of Commons International Development Select Committee from January 2001 to May 2005, has extensive interests in the extractive industries of several emerging economies especially in West Africa. For example, he is the Chairman of Westminster Oil Limited (a British Virgin Islands registered company involved in the development of oil licences and exploration) and the Deputy Chairman of Woburn Energy plc (a UK AIM listed company specialising in oil exploration and recovery). He is also a director of West African Investments Ltd (a company that invests in “infrastructure and natural resource projects in Sierra Leone and elsewhere in West Africa”) and a shareholder in Target Resources plc (a company involved in gold and diamond mining in Sierra Leone). Mr Baldry is also the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of Curve Capital Ventures Ltd (“a sector neutral investment company that predominantly invests in India; China and Africa and advises companies on strategic growth and global expansion”).

I know of Westminster Oil Ltd, who are particularly dodgy. More revelations will follow.

UPDATE

I have got hold of a copy of Olswang’s threatening letter, amusingly headed “Not for publication”.

Download file“>Download file

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Michael Foot – An Appreciation

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I wrote this appreciation of Michael Foot last year. The media ridicule of this good man was a key waymark in this nation’s journey to despising integrity and honesty in politicians, and instead worshipping only slick media presentation.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/05/michael_foot.html

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Rare TV Appearance

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Even the coincidence of the broadcast of Murder in Samarkand with renewed national debate on our collusion with torture, did not break through the UK media’s blacklisting of me and my eye witness and documentary evidence that the policy of intelligence from torture had direct ministerial direction from Jack Straw.

Here is Russia Today showing what the UK media will not allow you to see:

http://rt.com/Politics/2010-03-03/uk-torture-citixens-guantanamo.html

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Fast Tracked To Death?

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alisher.jpg

At 2pm today Alisher Khakimjanov faces a fast track asylum hearing and possible immediate deportation to Uzbekistan. Alisher’s father was arrested by police following the Andijan massacre by Uzbek troops of anti-regime demonstrators. The family’s home was confiscated by the State and militia have been looking for Alisher, who was a student in the UK.

Under the “Fast track” system there is no right of appeal. When the government introduced “fast track” it was represented as a way of dealing with vexatious applicants from “safe” countries where there was unlikely to be a need for asylum.

Uzbekistan is most certainly not a safe country. That Uzbeks are now being put into the fast track system is a disgrace, and yet further evidence of the government’s willingness to be complcit with human rights abuse by the Karimov regime.

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Billions of Dollars in Cash Leave Afghanistan

 in Afghanistan by | View Comments

Plainly our occupation of Afghanistan is so succesful in promoting the country’s economy that there is too much money around. As the Washington Post reports, in a two month period 180 million dollars in cash was declared as it was carried out through Kabul airport, mostly to Dubai.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/24/AR2010022404914.html

What is strange is the Washington Post’s estimate of the outflow as “Over 1 billion dollars per year”. 180 milion dollars in two months is already a rate of over 2 billion dollars per year. As the Washington Post report does acknowledge, that is the tip of the iceberg. Much exported cash is undeclared or under-declared, and the regime insiders send out their cash unchecked and undeclared through the VIP lounge. The real figure is certainly much higher than 2 billion dollars.

That is not including money sent out through swiss banks or by wire transfer.

Nice to know that our soldiers are dying, and our taxes being spent, to protect such a thriving and active government.

UPDATE

A sensible comment from Strategist leads me to explain something. Very little of this money will be drug money. The idea that Afghanistan is awash in drugs money is a myth. The large drugs warlords – mostly Karzai government members or affiliates – export the heroin and are paid OFFSHORE.

Very little of the narcotics money ever enters Afghanistan – only the cash which is needed to pay local farmers and meet costs of conversion to heroin. I would estimate that only some 2 billion dollars per year from the heroin trade actually enters the Afghan economy, and that is widely dispersed.

If, as the American official quoted comments, they don’t really know what is going on, it is because they don’t want to know what is going on.

That is true in two senses – The USA is more than ever sheltering behind the figleaf of the puppet Karzai regime, so the extent of that regime’s looting must be kept quiet. Karzai won’t wait for the last US helicopter before leaving to spend more time with his money. But also the absence of any exchange controls is part of the neo-liberal economic policies inappropriately imposed on Afghanistan by the invading West.

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Muslims Found In Mosque Shock

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Channel 4 Dispatches used to be a haven of serious documentary, but has degenerated into a stream of Islamophobia. It touched rock bottom today with a truly pathetic effort by Andrew Gilligan which found – shock horror – Muslims in the East London mosque!

These Muslims actually wanted society to be ordered in an Islamic way on Islamic principles. To try to achieve this they were – shock horror – undertaking political activity and joining political parties!

Gilligan’s piece turned on the Daily Express trick of attempting to inculcate fear that suddenly you and I will wake up under sharia law. The fact is of course that no matter how much devout Muslims may want to campaign to ban alcohol and push-up bras in the UK, they have not a hope in hell of succeeding.

But surely they have a right to their beliefs and ideology and a right to espouse it? Surely we should be delighted that these Muslims are seeking to advance their views through participation in the democratic process and not through violence? In fact, is this not the sort of activity we should be encouraging?

Apparently not. Apparently you only should be allowed to participate in politics if the ideology you are offering to the electorate is broadly the same as Andrew Gilligan’s. We were apparently supposed especially to be shocked by Gilligan’s revelation that Muslim activists campaigned for George Galloway because of his opposition to the Iraq war and support for the Palestinians. Wow! Whatever next?

Gilligan went on to introduce a number of neo-conservative nutters from wild eyed groups such as the Centre for Social Cohesion, to condemn all this “extremist” activity, without giving any context to explain where his “Independent” commentators were dredged up from.

Gilligan’s only useful point was about the waste of taxpayers’ money being pumped in to various Muslim groupings. Sadly he confined his criticism on this point only to financial support for those Muslim groups who did not wholeheartedly support the Bush/Blair foreign policy, when in fact twenty times more public money has been wasted on tiny but grasping Muslim groups who proselytise Blairism.

All in all, the most risible piece of half-baked Islamophobia I can recall. Gilligan – a man for whom I have had respect – should be ashamed of himself.

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Or I Might Have a Huge Penis, Persephone

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Or be a hypnotist. Or be able to “talk away my face” like the great John Wilkes.

I was much amused by the comments on this entry in the always interesting einekleinenachtmusik blog.

http://einekleinenichtmusik.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-kind-of-world-are-we-creating.html

If Persephone were to read Murder in Samarkand, she would find I do in fact consider and answer her question.

UPDATE

Oops, I forgot the link, without which this post seemed even weirder. No, Arsalan, I haven’t gone nuts, just was tickled by Persephone’s coments and feeling the need for some light relief. And no, technicolour, I was not seriously positing that possession of a huge penis or hypnosis is the way to attract women. Nor was I actually claiming to have one. I just thought charm, money and alcohol was an unimaginative list, and could be added to.

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The Cancer of Corruption: What $150million Gets You In Ghana.

 in Ghana by | View Comments

zakem%20site.jpg

This is the Zakhem power station site at Kpone. The particularly distincitive feature is the lack of any power station.

I am grateful to CitiFM in Accra. Having been misled into publishing photos of a completely different power station, they have had the grace to apologise and publish a corrected story.

http://www.citifmonline.com/site/news/news/view/3556/1

Unfortunately their original photos of a completely different site, nothing to do with Zakhem, were seized on and re-used by almost the entire Ghanaian media as evidence that I was talking nonsense.

My favourite recent news headline was “Craig Murray is Not In His Right State of Mind”.

http://elections.peacefmonline.com/politics/201002/38966.php

Zakhem are loudly threatening to sue me. They make the following key points:

– Zakhem Construction Ghana is a separate company from Zakhem International Construction Ltd of London

– They have received only 39.5 million dollars to date towards the turbine installation

– They have carried out a good deal of work including engineering design, land clearance, construction of perimeter wall, and 40% of the procurement of balance of plant

– Work was delayed by a change of site

My information on some of these points differs. But none of that alters the fundamentals. The Government of Ghana bought the turbines direct from Alsthom. Zakhem were to install them and provide the balance of plant. They have been paid tens of millions of dollars upfront, starting over three years ago, but have never even started digging the foundations, nor supplied the key components they were paid to procure, including transformers and fuel tanks.

Ordinary people, some of them struggling below the poverty line, pay taxes in Ghana, particularly through VAT. Over a hundred million dollars of their tax has already gone forever into the power station pictured above. There is no sign of them getting any benefit for their money. Meanwhile Zakhem and former government functionary Paul Afoko have pocketed millions.

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Control Orders

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Control Orders remain a cruel act of degradation of people who have never been convicted of anything, utterly incompatible with human rights. Parliament will today vote to renew them again – expect the parties to compete in their gravitas as they underline the threat to our very existence and way of life (sic) from terrorism.

In fact, as has been so roundly denounced by our most senior judges recently, the real threat to our way of life comes from politicians and the security services.

The arguments in this letter are extremely strong:

Open letter to Home Secretary Alan Johnson MP

Dear Home Secretary,

We write to urge you not to renew the control order provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, introduced in haste in March 2005 following the House of Lords Judicial Committee’s condemnation of indefinite detention of foreign terrorist suspects. In the five years of their operation, control orders have attracted criticism from national bodies including the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Justice, Liberty and Amnesty International UK, and eminent international bodies including the International Commission of Jurists, the UN Human Rights Committee and Human Rights Watch. This has focussed on the inherent unfairness of the orders, their reliance on secret evidence, and the devastating impact they have on those subject to them.

Impact

You will be aware (through reports presented during litigation and press coverage) of the severe impact of the orders on family and private life, and on the mental health of those subjected to them. This is acknowledged by Lord Carlile in his fifth annual review of control orders [PDF]. Partial house arrest, confinement to a restricted geographical area, wearing a tag, and the constant need to report, to seek permission, to have visitors (even medical visitors) vetted, and the stigma associated with being targeted in this way, takes a severe toll not only on controlled persons but on their families. Children’s school performance is badly affected by denial of internet access (making homework very difficult), by restriction of visitors, by fathers being unable to take their children out freely, by the disruption and fear caused by frequent house searches, and by children witnessing the humiliation and despair caused to their parents by these measures. The detrimental impact of the orders is even worse since, although in theory time-limited to a year, in reality, renewal of orders means that subjection to these draconian restrictions is endless.

The fact that there have been so few control orders in the five years of their operation ?” 44 in total according to Lord Carlile ?” gives the misleading impression that those controlled must be truly dangerous. But the small number of orders does not necessarily mean that the intelligence behind them is accurate. Not many people were hanged for murder when the UK had capital punishment ?” but a significant proportion turn out to have been innocent.

Unfairness

Major sources of unfairness are the use of secret evidence and the lack of real advance judicial scrutiny. Permission to make a non-derogating order can only be denied by a High Court judge if the decision to make the order, or the grounds for making it, are ‘obviously flawed’. This, and the lack of input from the proposed subject of the order, would not be such a problem if the review process was not subject to such delays, but at present the full review hearing rarely takes place within 12 months. During all this time, of course, the controlled person is subject to the full rigours of the control order.

The judge may quash the order at the full review stage, but only if there is no reasonable suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities. It is a very low threshold for the Home Office, and is frequently satisfied by evidence that neither the controlled person nor his advocate has had an opportunity to test in cross-examination. This remains the case despite the Judicial Committee’s ruling in June 2009 (in AF and another v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] UKHL 28) that the controlled person is entitled to enough disclosure to be able to answer allegations [this is the Law Lords’ ruling from June 2008, referred to above]; the Committee was referring to the amount of detail in the allegation, and not to the evidential foundation for the allegations, which generally remains closed. As Human Rights Watch has observed, the control order regime undermines the right to an effective defence, the principle of equality of arms, and the presumption of innocence.

Cost

Although it would be inappropriate to judge the control order regime by its cost-effectiveness as a principal criterion, it is reasonable to note that implementation of the orders has cost a fortune in litigation; the Joint Committee on Human Rights has calculated that total legal costs from 2006 to date are likely to exceed £20 million (taking into account the costs of legal aid and judicial sitting time), which is almost half a million pounds for each controlled person. Litigation has also seriously diminished the utility of the orders as a tool for controlling and disrupting terrorist activity, to the point where there must be very serious doubts as to their cost-effectiveness (compared with more targeted surveillance and effective use of the criminal justice system).

Reputation

The fact that British citizens and residents can be subjected indefinitely to such extraordinary measures, with no effective means of challenge, contravening in important respects common-law guarantees of fairness as well as Article 6 of the ECHR, has damaged the reputation of the United Kingdom and done irreparable harm to the fabric of justice in this country. In addition, public trust in the security services and the government is eroded, and communities whose co-operation is vital in the fight against terrorism are intimidated and alienated. In the words of solicitor Gareth Peirce, ‘This may affect only a small group of people but in terms of its contribution to what one might call the folklore of injustice it is colossal.’

For these reasons we urge you not to renew this legislation.

Yours sincerely

Mike Mansfield QC, criminal defence barrister, Tooks Chambers

Craig Murray, writer, broadcaster, human rights activist, former British Ambassador

Sir Geoffrey Bindman, solicitor

Lord Rea

Clare Short MP

John McDonnell MP

Victoria Brittain, writer and journalist

Dafydd Iwan, LL.D., President of Plaid Cymru, Party of Wales

Bruce Kent, Vice-President, Pax Christi

Louise Christian, human rights lawyer

Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP

Caroline Lucas MEP

Jean Lambert MEP

Frances Webber, human rights lawyer

Liz Fekete, Institute of Race Relation (IRR)

Carla Ferstman, Director, Redress

Ben Hayes, Statewatch

Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner

Prof. Chris Frost, Head of Journalism, Liverpool John Moores University

Hilary Wainright, Co-editor, Red Pepper

Cori Crider, Legal Director, Reprieve

Paddy Hillyard, Emeritus Professor, QUB

Bob Jeffrey, University of Salford

Amrit Wilson, writer

Dr Richard Wild, University of Greenwich

Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Executive Director, Institute of Public Policy Research.

Andy Worthington, journalist and author of The Guantanamo Files

Lord Gifford QC, barrister and Vice-President of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

Liz Davies, barrister and Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

Anna Morris, barrister and Vice-Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

Professor Bill Bowring, barrister and International Secretary, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

Dr Victoria Sentas, School of Law, King’s College London

Margaret Owen, Director WPD, international human rights lawyer

Phil Shiner, Public Interest Lawyers

Sam Jacobs, Public Interest Lawyers

Daniel Carey, Public Interest Lawyers

Tessa Gregory, Public Interest Lawyers

Moazzam Begg, Director, Cageprisoners

Massoud Shadjareh, Chair, Islamic Human Rights Commission

Aamer Anwar, human rights lawyer

Nick Hildyard, Sarah Sexton, Larry Lohmann, The Corner House

Desmond Fernandes, policy analyst and author

Dinah Livingstone, writer, translator, editor

Tim Gopsill, journalist, Editor of Free Press

Paul Donovan, journalist

Estelle du Boulay, The Newham Monitoring Project

Suresh Grover, Director of The Monitoring Group

George Binette, UNISON Camden

Arzu Pesmen, Kurdish Federation UK

David Morgan, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign

Alex Fitch, Peace in Kurdistan Campaign

Matt Foot, solicitor

Hugo Charlton, barrister

Dr Kalpana Wilson, London School of Economics

Jonathan Bloch, Lib Dem Councillor and author

Michael Seifert, solicitor and Vice-President of the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

Kat Craig, solicitor and Vice-Chair, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

Khatchatur I. Pilikian, Professor of Music & Art

Dr Alana Lentin, Senior Lecturer, Sociology, University of Sussex

Dr Christina Pantazis, University of Bristol

Professor Steve Tombs, Liverpool John Moore University

Claire Hamilton, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin

Professor Phil Scraton, School of Law, Queen’s University, Belfast

Dr Theodore Gabriel, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham

Dr Jan Gordon, University of Lincoln, Exeter

Dr Tina Patel, University of Salford

Professor Penny Green, Kings College, London

John Moore, University of West of England, Bristol

Professor Joe Sim, Liverpool John Moore University

Dr David Whyte, University of Liverpool

Dr Stephanie Petrie, University of Liverpool

Dr Dianne Frost, University of Liverpool

Martin Ralph, (UCU Committee), University of Liverpool

Dr Anandi Ramamurthy, University of Central Lancashire

Professor Jawed Siddiqui, Sheffield Hallam University

Dr Silvia Posocco, Birkbeck College, University of London

Dr Muzammil Quraishi, University of Salford

Dr Adi Kuntsman, University of Manchester

Professor Lynne Segal, Birkbeck College, University of London

Dr Joanne Milner, University of Salford

Dr Yasmeen Narayan, Birkbeck College, University of London

Professor Scott Poynting, Manchester Metropolitan University

Dr Liam McCann, University of Lincoln

Dr Pritam Singh, Oxford Brookes University

Sophie Khan, solicitor

Simon Behrman

Owen Greenhall

Martha Jean Baker

Russell Fraser

Ripon Ray

Stephen Marsh, barrister

Declan Owens

Rheian Davies, solicitor

Richard Harvey barrister

Deborah Smith, solicitor

Alastair Lyons, solicitor, Birnberg Peirce

Hossain Zahir , barrister

Chantal Refahi , barrister

Anna Mazzola, solicitor

Zareena Mustafa, solicitor

Lochlinn Parker, solicitor

Anne Gray, CAMPACC

Saleh Mamon, CAMPACC

Estella Schmid, CAMPACC

Dr Saleyha Ahsan, No More Secrets-Respect Article 5, film maker

Mohamed Nur, Kentish Town Community Organisation

Abshir Mohamed, Kentish Town Community Organisation

Samarendra Das, filmmaker and writer

Rebecca Oliner, artist

Rebekah Carrier, solicitor

Dr Smarajit Roy, PPC Green Party Candidate for Mitcham and Morden

PM Forbes, The Green Party, Sandhurst, Berkshire

Jayne Forbes, Chair, Green Party

Adrian Cruden, Green Party PPC Newsbury

Lesley Hedges, Green Party PPC Colne Valley

Sarah Cope, Green Party PPC Stroud Green

A Bragga, Green Party PPC for Stroud Green

Graham Wroe, lecturer, Sheffield Green Parry

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Child Slavery In Uzbekistan

 in Uzbekistan by | View Comments

More invaluable work from the Environmental Justice Foundation, in collaboration with Anti-Slavery International. Their latest thoroughly researched report estimates that one million children were subjected to slave labout during the 2009 cotton harvest in Uzbekistan.

This is essential work because it gives the lie to false UK, US and EU claims that the human rights situation under the Karimov regime is “improving”, thus “justifying” their continued alliance with Uzbekistan as a logistics base and route for operations in Afghanistan.

Here is a selection of key facts from the report:

?? Children as young as 10 years old can be dispatched to the cotton fields for two months each year, missing out on their education and jeopardizing their future prospects.

?? Uzbekistan is the world’s 3rd largest cotton exporter and earns around US$1 billion

annually from the sale of its cotton to clothing factories primarily in Asia, which in turn

export garments to the west; and to cotton traders, many of which are based in Europe.

?? Reports in November 2009 estimated one million children working in the last harvest.

Cotton picking is arduous labour, with each child ascribed a daily cotton quota of several

kilos that they must fulfil.

?? Children may be compelled to stay in barrack-like accommodation during the harvest.

Living conditions are often squalid. In those places where food is provided to children, it is

inadequate, often lacking in basic nutrition and children can often only access water

from irrigation pipes, which carries health risks.

?? Children can be left in poor physical condition following the harvest; illnesses including hepatitis, injuries and even deaths are all reported. The harvest begins in the late summer, when temperatures in the fields remain high and can continue until the onset of the Uzbek winter. Children are not provided with any protective clothing whilst they work.

?? Children receive little or no reimbursement for their labour, perhaps a few US cents per kilo of cotton picked. However, payments are deducted to cover their travel to the fields and the food they are provided with during the cotton picking season, which can leave them in debt.

The full report can be downloaded from here:

http://www.ejfoundation.org/page93.html

Every year young children die during forced labour in the Uzbek cotton fields. Millions of adults are also conscripted into slave labour. Islam Karimov and Gulnara Karimova get ever wealthier.

It is a stunning fact that Wal-Mart, Tesco, Asda and C&A have been so sickened by Uzbek child slavery that they have voluntarily banned Uzbek cotton and set up, at their own expense, audit systems to ensure there is not Uzbek cotton in products they sell.

Yet no government has used available anti-slavery provisions in international trade agreements to ban Uzbek cotton. The EU has never even discussed the matter while, thanks to the influence of Western governments, UNICEF has never made any statement or taken any position on child slavery in Uzbekistan.

This is arguably the World’s most depraved single act of inter-governmental complicity.

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Disappearing Murder

 in UK Policy by | View Comments

I sometimes have to seriously query the competence of my publisher. They had a couple of months notice of the radio play of Murder in Samarkand, but Amazon were out of stock before the broadcast even started and now are showing 5 to 9 days dispatch, while I can’t find the book at all on Waterstone’s website.

There would be a good chance that some of the 2 million people who heard the play, casually coming across the book in a bookshop, might buy a copy. But a lady just contacted me having been to five different London bookshops – before she found a copy in Foyles.

Craig

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Gladstone Was Right

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My MA thesis was entitled “Midlothian and Gladstone”. Here is an extract from one of Gladstone’s Midlothian campaign speeches, in Dalkeith, while the Second Afghan War was raging.

Those hill tribes had committed no real offence against us. We, in the pursuit of our political objects, chose to establish military positions in their country. If they resisted, would not you have done the same? … The meaning of the burning of the village is, that the women and the children were driven forth to perish in the snows of winter … Is that not a fact ?” for such, I fear, it must be reckoned to be ?” which does appeal to your hearts as women … which does rouse in you a sentiment of horror and grief, to think that the name of England, under no political necessity, but for a war as frivolous as ever was waged in the history of man, should be associated with consequences such as these?

There could be no clearer indication of how far we have diminished as a nation. Remember, Gladstone was campaigning in opposition to become PM again, for a third time. No senior politician would ever dare today to say:

If they resisted, would not you have done the same?

Anyone who suggested today that the Afghans have a right to resist foreign occupation would be drowned out in screams of “Wooton Basset” and the false, flatulent patriotism of newspaper proprietors and editors sat on their well-padded arses in comfortable offices,

Gladstone won both Midlothian and the general election. But there are no politicians of anything approaching his stature today. Charlie Kennedy actually understood what Liberalism is; Nick Clegg has neither courage nor prinicple.

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NATO Bomb Kills 21 Civilians In Afghanistan

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Afghan civilians are being killed all the time by Nato; it only gets reported when they kill a lot at once, and even then it doesn’t exactly hit the front pages. In the latest incident 21 people have been wiped out from the air – families fleeing the NATO destruction of their homes

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61L1A920100222

Those who have just heard Murder in Samarkand will be sickened to hear that the United States is yet again being complicit with the Uzbeks in faking evidence of al-Qaeda presence in Uzbekistan to justofy the US/Uzbek alliance:

Al Qaeda aims to infiltrate Central Asia to train militants and turn the ex-Soviet region into a zone of unrest, a U.S. envoy said on Saturday.

…In Uzbekistan, the region’s most populous and ethnically diverse nation, President Islam Karimov told Holbrooke he was eager to work closer with the United States over Afghanistan.

“The leader of our nation … expressed Uzbekistan’s firm determination to further develop U.S.-Uzbek relations in a constructive way in light of efforts to bring lasting peace and stability to Afghanistan,” the official UzA news agency said.

Relations between Uzbekistan, long under fire over human rights violations, and the United States have improved in recent years as Washington has shifted focus more to security issues in its contacts with Tashkent, diplomats say.

Uzbekistan is now part of the new NATO supply route and Western nations rarely criticise its rights record. Last year the European Union angered international human rights groups by lifting sanctions it imposed on Uzbekistan after a violent crackdown by Uzbek troops on protesters in 2005.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/02/20/world/international-uk-usa-centralasia.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=uzbekistan&st=cse

The “violent crackdown” was the murder of at least 700 demonstrators in Andijan. There is no evidence of IMU fighters returning to Uzbekistan, but doubtless we will soon see another spate of flase flag “Bombings” like the ones I investigated in detail on the spot as British Ambassador and outline in Murder in Samarkand.

Hat tip to Mary

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The Independent – Review of Murder in Samarkand

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The only review I have seen of Murder in Samarkand on Radio 4 is from Chris Maume in The Independent. While he says some great things about the play:

The terrific Murder in Samarkand

David Hare’s superbly brisk, no-nonsense script

[David Tennant]

put in a fantastic performance

I really don’t agree with his balancing criticisms of David Tennant – I think David pulled off the huge emotional range required brilliantly.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/the-saturday-play-murder-in-samarkand-radio-4brthe-archers-radio-4-1905623.html

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Sting’s Defence

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hypocrite.bmp

Sting and the Glamorous Dictator’s Daughter Gulnara Karimova

Sting has come out with a spirited defence of his visit to Tashkent as the guest of Karimov’s daughter:

‘I supported wholeheartedly the cultural boycott of South Africa under the apartheid regime because it was a special case and specifically targeted the younger demographic of the ruling white middle class.

‘I am well aware of the Uzbek president’s appalling reputation in the field of human rights as well as the environment. I made the decision to play there in spite of that.

‘I have come to believe that cultural boycotts are not only pointless gestures, they are counter-productive, where proscribed states are further robbed of the open commerce of ideas and art and as a result become even more closed, paranoid and insular.

‘I seriously doubt whether the President of Uzbekistan cares in the slightest whether artists like myself come to play in his

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1252566/Sting-plays-concert-daughter-boil-enemies-dictator.html

But this really is transparent bollocks. He did not take a guitar and jam around the parks of Tashkent. He got paid over a million pounds to play an event specifically designed to glorify a barbarous regime. Is the man completely mad?

Why does he think it was worth over a million quid to the regime to hear him warble a few notes?

I agree with him that cultural isolation does not help. I am often asked about the morality of going to Uzbekistan, and I always answer – go, mix with ordinary people, tell them about other ways of life, avoid state owned establishments and official tours. What Sting did was the opposite. To invoke Unicef as a cover, sat next to a woman who has made hundreds of millions from state forced child labour in the cotton fields, is pretty sick.

Next time you see Sumner on television warbling on about his love for the rain forest, switch him off.

UPDATE

A commenter suggested a boycott of Sting’s music. I was going to agree, but on reflection it would take an enormous effort to track down someone who listens to it, before we could ask them to stop.

Evidently Sting could do with listening to David Tennant in Murder in Samarkand:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qs5x7/Saturday_Play_Murder_in_Samarkand/

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