Britain?s rich get richer even as recession begins to bite14 May 2008The choice of headline to mark 20th aniversary of the Sunday Times Rich List will hardly have given the newspaper?s editor sleepness nights: ?Rich Get Richer under New Labour.? The same headline would suffice for each of the past 10 years. But this time the uninterupted growth of wealth amongst the already super-rich takes place amidst a period of extreme economic turbulence, during which the living standards of working people have fallen sharply. As Sunday Times journalist Philip Beresford?s opening gambit illustrates: ?Even as the storm clouds gather, Britiain?s super-rich have never been richer.? Not only are the super-rich utterly impervious to the extortionate recent rises in the cost of living, but their wealth grows whether economic conditions are favourable or not. While house prices in the UK have begun to fall, reports in the media detail how the rarified West London housing market of the international super-rich is insulated from such downward pressures and continues to climb?albeit at a slightly slower rate. The accumulated wealth of those on the rich list has grown to 412.8 billion, an increase of almost 53 billion from last year. Growth has fallen by more than a quarter, from last year?s rate of 20 percent, to 14.7 percent. Of this year?s top 10, only three were born in Britain. Indian-born number one Lakshmi Mittal?s wealth grew by an astonishing 44 percent, mainly by virtue of swallowing up more international steel producing facilities through mergers. Such business manoevres usually result in consolidation and redundency notices for staff who find their jobs duplicated. In his new book on international elites David Rothkopf observes, ?The rise of nation states produced national ruling classes. It would be odd if the current integration of the world economy did not produce new global elites?business people and financiers who run global companies.? Writing in his Observer column about Rothkopf?s new publication, Will Hutton noted how Prime Minister Gordon Brown has surrounded himself with former employees of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. Jonathan Powell, former premier Tony Blair?s chief of staff, has joined Morgan Stanley and Blair himself receives a large stipend from Goldman Sachs. The Sunday Times then addresses itself to the relatively tragic fate of British-based billionaires. Whilst the international super-rich are, in the words of the Sunday Times, ?getting richer quicker,? by contrast British-born billionaires with substantial UK investments suffered from the economic slowdown far more than their international counterparts. Falls were expected in fortunes reliant upon British retail, property and investment. British-born Sir Philip Green, who owns BHS and TopShop, saw his wealth decline by 10 percent?losing 570 million in one year. Richard Branson lost 400 million off a previous 2.7 billion due in no small measure to the drop in Virgin Media?s share value. Vincent Tchenguiz, a British investor and property dealer, suffered a 76 percent fall in his wealth. Rupert Murdoch?s flagship newspaper complains (in what will be seen as a warning by the Brown government) that ?whereas we used to lead the field with the near-20 percent growth rates, our 14.7 percent increase this year seems positvely pedestrian.? Rich list lead writer Beresford points to contemporary increase of 22.6 percent in the wealth of the world?s super-rich and of a staggering 26.6 percent increase amongst Europe?s super-rich over the last year. Beresford then complains about the new single payment of 30,000 annual tax levied on those deemed to be non-domicile (not resident) in Britain?irrespective of their actual wealth?despite this being little more than loose change for those on its list. The UK?s non-domicile rule in fact still allows the international super-rich to make London their home without paying taxes on earnings from abroad. And they pay very little or nothing on their British-based profits. But Beresford is worried about bigger things to come. He notes that the storm clouds are gathering and worries that the super-rich have become a ?convenient target,? writing, ?In times of economic uncertainty, the gulf between rich and poor is rarely ignored by those looking for a convenient scapegoat.? By way of defence, the Sunday Times hails the money donated by a few of the super-rich to charity. The degree of wealth disparity in the UK is astounding and Beresford is not the only commentator to note the increasing hostility towards the super-rich. A couple of days after the publication of the list, Dominic Lawson opened his weekly column in the Independent newspaper by stating, ?If there is a bloody Bolshevik revolution in this country, I think I can guess the inflamatory pamphlet which will be waved by the people putting the wealthy up against the walls and shooting them. It will not be the Communist Manifesto. It will be the Sunday Times Rich List.? Though decrying what he described as the ?politics of envy,? Lawson states that ?The 2008 edition, published just a couple of days ago, was more eye poppingly voyeuristic than ever: 110 pages of non-stop salivation over fortunes which the rest of us could only dream about.? He then notes that the Archbishop of Cantebury, Rowan Williams, was interviewed only days prior to the rich list publication, telling BBC interviewer John Humphreys, ?The more you have a disproportion between what people are earning and what they are worth, the more we have astronomical sums with no clear rationale behind them, the less credibility the whole thing has.? Williams added that the enormous disparities between the super-rich and ordinary working people brings about ?a degree of envy and cynicism … that leads people to feel alienated from the rest of society.? Lawson?s derision is not directed against inequality, but at those like Williams who presume to draw attention to the elephant in the room. The Archbishop?s sin is to make the obvious connection between the gargantuan wealth accumulated at the one pole of society with the increasing immiseration and insecurity at the other. Willliams, writes Lawson, ?is one of those who believes that over the past decade under New Labour the least well off have got poorer as the rich got richer, and that the latter fact is in some way responsible for the former.? Lawson spends the rest of his column arguing that inequality, regardless of repeated academic research findings, is not really growing. And besides, he pleads, any attempt to redistribute wealth through taxation is self-defeating. But such statements?the mantra of Thatcher, Blair and Brown?ring increasingly hollow. In the UK millions of working people live a life of perpetual financial insecurity and crippling debts. They suffer the daily ignonimy of waiting nervously for the latest bank or mortgage statement, or looking on as petrol gauges and pay-as-you go utility meters tick over. Newpapers, even the upmarket broadsheets, are full of advice for readers about how to tighten their belts, how to reduce debt and avoid bankruptcy or how to save money on household shopping and utility bills. While house prices rose and credit was readily available, the Labour government and a supportive media was able to dazzle sufficicent numbers of people with the illusion of rising living standards. No longer. Gordon Brown has constructed an economy built on unsustainable levels of debt. Not for nothing did Guardian economics editor Larry Elliott call his book on Blair and Brown?s economic policies Fantasy Island. That some commentators are now worried by the vulgar worshiping of money represented by the Sunday Times Rich List is out of fear of the social and political struggles that will inevitably be provoked by the onset of recession.
The Iran risk, again14 May 2008The risk of a conflict between the United States and Iran is, unexpectedly and in a new context, acquiring fresh force. True, the current scenario has elements of the familiar – the recent deployment of two US carrier-battle groups in the Gulf, a pointed reminder to the Tehran government of the extent of Washington’s naval power; and a continuation of arguments over Iranian nuclear ambitions, including inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the imposition of a third layer of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council. What makes the latest phase of tension between Washington and Tehran different, however, is the influence on US calculations of its predicament in Iraq and Afghanistan – and, in particular, of the upsurge in violence in March-April 2008 in Basra and Baghdad. Several columns in this series have discussed the possibility of a US-Iran confrontation being sparked by a minor incident, possibly a provocation by either side or by Israel (see “Israel, the United States and Iran: the tipping-point” [13 March 2008]). Such fears seemed to recede with the publication on 3 December 2007 of the US’s national-intelligence estimate NIE) – Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities [1] – which gave a more cautious assessment of the state of Iran’s nuclear expertise and ambitions. The widespread conclusion was that the report made US military action against Iran less likely, though the potential for provocation or unintended escalations clearly remained. Now, however, the systematic planning for US air-strikes that was prominently discussed is again on the agenda – and the target this time is not Iran’s nuclear facilities, but Pasdaran-e Inqilab (Revolutionary Guard [2]) forces that are accused of supporting insurgents in Iraq (see Michael Smith, “United States is Drawing Up Plans To Strike on Iranian Insurgency Camp [3]”, Sunday Times, 4 May 2008). What has brought the United States political and military leadership back [3] to this point, as in another part of its universe the presidential-election race consumes so much of the media’s attention? The cost of failure The answer begins with the apparent success of the US military “surge” in Iraq, announced by George W Bush in the wake of his rejection of the Iraq Study Group report of December 2006. The surge, entailing the phased deployment of additional contingents of American troops over the period February-July 2007, had (in combination with other factors and measures) some effect in reducing insecurity in certain parts of Iraq. This was generalised by a number of analysts and commentators into an argument that the entire dynamics of the conflict in Iraq were being reshaped in favour of peace and security (to be followed, it was hoped, by an internal political settlement). This evolving argument was always open to challenge on the basis of a closer inspection of what was happening on the ground in Iraq – and the assessments of senior US officials in the country tended in any case always to be more cautious than the surge’s neo-conservative cheerleaders at home. But the events of spring 2008 is making the case for progress in Iraq look ever more threadbare. The attempt by forces loyal to the Nouri al-Maliki government to take control of the port city of Basra had a drastic effect in this regard. The Saulat al-Fursan (Operation Knights Charge) campaign of 25-31 March 2008, backed by US forces, was designed to oust the Mahdi army militias around the radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. A period of intense fighting largely failed to secure this objective, and in turn provoked armed combat in Baghdad too; these included repeated attacks on the highly fortified “green zone”, many of them originating from the fringes of the Shi’a stronghold of Sadr City. In response, US and Iraqi government forces have been engaged in sustained assaults on parts of Sadr City in a major operation that began in the third week of April 2008 and is still unfinished. These assaults have involved the use by US forces of air-strikes, helicopter gunships and even surface-to-surface missiles in efforts to force supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr to retreat from the areas they control that are closest to the green zone. Hundreds of Iraqis, many of them civilians, have been killed; many more have been forced to flee [6] the area. As a result of these and other operations, the US military death-toll [6]in Iraq has also been rising. The number of soldiers killed in February-April 2008 was greater than for equivalent period since mid-2007, and much higher than in the period when the surge seemed to be having its greatest effect. The Mahdi army militias that support Muqtada al-Sadr have mounted strong resistance to the combined US-Iraqi government assault; the sandstorms of 3-4 May in Baghdad provided them with the cover needed to launch further mortar-attacks on the green zone. To complicate matters worse for the US, Sunni militias have also been active. A double suicide-bombing near Baghdad on 1 May killed thirty people and injured sixty-five; and Sunni insurgents killed ten Iraqi soldiers on 5 May (Sholnn Freeman, “10 Iraqi Soldiers Die in Drive-By Attack [7]”, Washington Post, 6 May 2008). More broadly, US military sources cite recent evidence that the al-Qaida movement in Iraq is undergoing a revival following its reversals of late 2007; they conclude that it is planning a new series of bomb-attacks, especially in Baghdad (see Liz Sly, “Al Qaeda Revival in Iraq Feared [8]”, Chicago Tribune, 20 April 2008). This compounds the problems for a US military already facing combat with a freshly active network of Sadrist militias and with renewed operations by Sunni insurgents. This is a delicate situation for the US, and some distance from the fleeting optimism of the postsurge period. It means that there is now very little likelihood that the Pentagon will be able to withdraw any further troops from Iraq after summer 2008, by when the surge’s full effects will have been allowed to run their course. This is a severe problem for an overstretched US military, since such withdrawals are seen as a prerequisite of sending reinforcements to Afghanistan to fight a resurgent Taliban (see “No US Troop Increase in Afghanistan Without Deeper Cuts in Iraq: Pentagon [9]”, AFP, 7 May 2008). Indeed, Afghanistan itself continues to present great difficulties for the US and its Nato allies in the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf). The attempted [10] assassination of Hamid Karzai in the heart of Kabul on 27 April – the fourth such attempt on the life of the Afghan president – reflects the change of Taliban strategy towards a different style of asymmetrical warfare (see “Afghanistan’s Vietnam portent [10]”, 17 April 2008). This incident was followed on 29 April by a suicide-bombing in Jalalabad, to the east of the capital, aimed [11] at an opiumeradication team; it killed nineteen people and injured dozens more. In response to a range of challenges in Afghanistan – including the proliferating opium-poppy crop, now being harvested by farmers in many of the Taliban-controlled districts – many Nato contingents are constrained by national rules of engagement. As a result, Washington is exerting strong pressure for US military forces to take over the leadership of Isaf across the south of the country (see Gordon Lubold, “U.S. To Heighten Afghan Role? [12]”, Christian Science Monitor, 25 April 2008). The Pentagon thus has a clear idea of the necessity of its taking charge in Afghanistan. But from the US’s own perspective, little progress there will be possible unless it can reinforce its troops there. There may now be around 61,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan, the majority of them American, which represents a significant expansion since autumn 2006; but even this has failed to halt or reverse the Taliban’s spreading influence. For a George W Bush administration in its last months in office, surveying a bleak international landscape in which the grand ambitions of the “war on terror” are very far from achieved, the accumulated result of this unsettlement and pressure is intense frustration that it is not in control. The vaunted success of the surge in Iraq is being reversed; the security situation in Afghanistan is deterioriating; and both trends are happening just as the presidential-election campaign is approaching top gear. The signs of war This, by a roundabout but remorseless route, is the heart of the answer to the “why Iran again, and why Iran now?” question. The default American establishment position when faced with problems in Iraq is often in any case to blame Iran. The pattern has been repeated in the past week, with a litany of complaints that Iran is involved in supporting the Shi’a militias. Iran undoubtedly does provide backing to some of the militias. But it is equally notable that Muqtada al-Sadr and the Mahdi army have tended to distance themselves from Tehran, and that the Nouri al-Maliki government itself maintains strong political links – reflected in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [13]‘s visit to (and warm welcome [14] in) Baghdad in March 2008. Moreover, the Iraqi government is cautious about making strong claims for the closeness of the Iran connection (see Leila Fadel & Shashank Bengali, “Iraq Backs Off Allegations that Iran is Behind Violence [15]”, McClatchy Newspapers, 4 May 2008). Washington, however, often seems impervious to such important complexities (see Patrick Cockburn, “Who is Iraq’s ?Firebrand Cleric’? [16]”, Mother Jones, 31 March 2008). So there have been repeated allegations that Iran is fomenting conflict in Iraq, extending now to reports that Hizbollah instructors are training Iraqi insurgents (see Michael R Gordon, “Hezbollah Trains Iraqis in Iran, Officials Say [17]”, New York Times, 5 May 2008). The Iranians have reacted by withdrawing from discussions with the Americans on security in Iraq. This is at the very time when the chair of the US joint chiefs-of-staff, Admiral Michael Mullen, has gone on record that military options are being considered because of Tehran’s “increasingly lethal and malign influence” in Iraq (see Ann Scott Tyson, “U.S. Weighing Readiness for Military Action Against Iran [18]”, Washington Post, 26 April 2008). These developments do not make a conflict with Iran inevitable. They do, however, suggest that “something” is being considered. The most likely action might be some kind of “demonstration” air-strike against a Revolutionary Guard base close to the Iraqi border. This need not be imminent; it might well be deliberately timed for late summer. A US decision to launch such a high-profile, symbolic and calculated attack would also explode into the middle of the campaign for the presidency. The more likely beneficiary would be John McCain rather than his Democratic challenger, since any escalation of tensions with Iran tends to mobilise public and media sentiment behind the Republican, establishment and military currents in American politics. A military confrontation with Iran, however limited in Washington’s design, will have incalculable consequences in the region (see “America and Iran: the spark of war [18]”, 20 September 2007). Iran – as earlier columns in this series have suggested – is an agent in this overall situation, and will respond in accordance with its own perceived interests by using the range of possibilities at its command (see “The United States and Iran: the logic of war [18]”, 1 February 2007). The attack will also reinforce the position of Iran’s hardliners. In January 2009, the new US president will be obliged to pick up the pieces of a complex conflict that American action against Iran will have exacerbated But the desired domestic political effect will be secured, in the prolongation of Republican control of the White House. And the “long war” will have entered a new and even more dangerous phase. Links: [1] http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2007/nie_iran-nucle…
[2] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iran/pasdaran.htm
[3] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3868063.e…
[4] http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/paulrogers.htm
[5] http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745641966
[6] http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/05/08/iraq.main/
[7] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/05/AR200805…
[8] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-iraq-qaeda_slyapr20,1…
[9] http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080506/pl_afp/usafghanistanmilitary_080506…
[10] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3828536.ece
[11] http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-29-voa66.cfm
[12] http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0425/p01s03-wosc.html
[13] http://www.president.ir/eng/
[14] http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/03/africa/iran.php
[15] http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/35794.html
[16] http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2008/03/who-is-iraqs-firebrand-cler…
[17] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/world/middleeast/05iran.html
[18] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/04/25/ST20080425…
Behind the BBC’s Good News from Basra14 May 2008The Today programme?s reporting of the assault on Basra and Baghdad’s Sadr City by the Iraqi government, backed by US and British troops, tanks and warplanes, has descended to the base assertion that our side is good, their side is bad. Evan Davis, Today’s new presenter, introduced a section on Basra on May 2 which opened with an resident of Basra describing Moqtada Sadr’s Mahdi Army as “very ill-educated, basically criminals” and welcoming the renewed invasion by western forces. Davis then turned to Major General Barney White-Spunner, the UK?s senior officer in Iraq: “So it sounds like fairly good news from Basra?” “That’s certainly our view,” White-Spunner replied. Davis pressed for more good news: “Are the gains sustainable, I suppose is the question isn’t it? Or do you think if you don’t get to mend the sewers very well people are going to become discontented again and we’ll start getting back to more street disorder?” White-Spunner took his cue and talked unchallenged about the ?excellent work? UK troops were doing, about ?development?, ?aid distribution?, ?humanitarian work?, ?sensitivity? to local needs and so on. The interview was almost as cosy as editorial meetings of The Field magazine or Baily’s Hunting Directory, where White-Spunner works when not occupying foreign lands. Meanwhile, Iraqi government troops were parading the bodies of dead Mahdi fighters like trophies and beating up prisoners. On the same day as White-Spunner?s Radio 4 interview a huge crowd of Shia Muslims protested against Iraq?s US-backed prime minister al-Maliki in Baghdad’s Sadr City, urging him to end the bloody confrontation with the Mahdi Army. The British media routinely portrays supporters of Moqtada Sadr as ?militia?, ?extremists?, ?men in black?, ?rogue gunmen? and ?death squads?. Yet, up until last September, Moqtada Sadr’s group was part of the Iraqi government. The US offensive has relied heavily on the Iran-backed Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, many members of the armed wing of which, the Badr Organisation, have been battling the Sadr-led resistance. The US demonises the Mahdi Army because Sadr is resolutely opposed to the occupation. Moreover, many Shia view the Mahdi in part as a charitable organisation and are often grateful for the security it provides. Sadr’s organisation gives money to families of Shia dead and injured, resettles displaced families and offers funds for any victim of American weapons in Sadr City. Evoking comparisons with Hezbollah, Sadr’s movement “has established itself as the main service provider in the country,” says a recent report by Refugees International. Every month the Mahdi army distributes rations of rice, cooking oil, sugar, tea and other staples, much of it provided by the Iraqi Red Crescent, to thousands of Baghdad’s poorest families. As the Financial Times put it last month, the clashes between the government and the Mahdi army reveal a class division at the heart of the Shia community. Sadr represents the angry, dispossessed Shia masses of Iraq who suffered under Saddam. ?What we?ve seen over the past few weeks is a real class struggle open up with no political means for bridging the gap,? the International Crisis Group told the FT. ?Sadr?s followers don?t care if he?s an ayatollah or not. They just want him to win for them the wealth and prosperity they feel should be theirs,? a US official told the paper. The British media’s last line of attack is that British troops are defending women’s rights. But abuse of women was widespread in Basra before the British were driven out of the city last autumn. The US-backed government has brought right-wing Islamists to power, unleashing attacks against women. The resistance in battling the occupation. But for the BBC’s flagship news programme our boys are just doing good, building sewers and helping reconstruction. This is far from the case ? the British and US armies are building a sewer of bloodshed and sectarian hatred in Iraq.
The Guardian Covers (Up) Colombia?s Reality14 May 2008Colombia received more detailed attention than usual from the daily Guardian of the UK during the months of March and April of this year for many reasons: 1) On March 1 Colombia’s military violated Ecuadorian sovereignty to kill Raul Reyes, a leftist (FARC) guerrilla leader, and thereby provoked a regional crisis.
2) In mid March a minor scandal erupted due to UK Foreign Minister Kim Howells’ aggressive support for UK arms exports to Colombia
3) Rumors were reported in late March that a high profile hostage of the FARC rebels, Ingrid Betancourt, was gravely ill.
4) Mark Penn resigned on April 6 from Hillary Clinton’s campaign because of his lobbying work on behalf of Colombia in support of a trade agreement with the US. During these two months the Guardian published 38 articles that discussed Colombia in significant detail. It is a very revealing exercise to scan these articles for information that is readily available on the website of Human Rights Watch (HRW).? HRW is a prominent organization with a track record of being disproportionately hard on US enemies (Hizbullah, Hamas, Venezuela) and soft on the US allies (Israel, Haiti under Gerard Latortue). [1] It is not a group likely to exaggerate the crimes of a US and UK ally. One might expect that a supposedly left leaning newspaper like the Guardian would, at the very least, tell readers what HRW has been reporting. In February of 2008, in an article for the Progressive magazine, two senior HRW officials wrote: “For years, the Bush administration in the United States has stood by the government of President lvaro Uribe in Colombia unconditionally, turning a blind eye to Colombia’s serious human rights problems. The Blair government in the UK, for the most part, quietly followed suit, providing substantial assistance to Colombia’s military with no strings attached. Colombia presents one of the worst human rights records in the world. At nearly three million, Colombia’s population of internally displaced persons is second only to that of Sudan.”[2] In the 38 articles examined, not a single word (out of roughly 25,000) appeared about Colombia’s internally displaced people. No doubt, unconditional support for Colombia is easier to maintain when the magnitude of its human rights disaster is completely hidden by the Liberal media, but the Guardian did not just bury the scale of the crimes. It kept the leading perpetrators mostly out of sight. HRW’s summary reports about Colombia from 1989-2002 frequently pointed out that the vast majority of political murders have been perpetrated by the military and rightwing paramilitary groups that operate with the tolerance and even direct support of the military. In 2002, HRW reported that the largest paramilitary death squad (AUC) was responsible for 50% of political killings compared to 8% for the FARC, the largest of the leftist rebel groups.[3] In more recent years, HRW has shied away from identifying the leading perpetrators of political murders. Instead it has reported qualitative conclusions regarding a limited subset of crimes. For example, it has reported that leftist rebels are responsible for most recruitment of child soldiers while paramilitaries are usually responsible for murdering trade unionists.[4] However, according to the Jesuit-run Center for Research and Popular Education (CINEP), whom HRW has cited in past reports, as of 2006 the majority of human rights abuses continued to be perpetrated by the Colombian military and the paramilitaries. [5] HRW’s recent reports give no reason to doubt CINEP’s conclusions. In 2005 HRW produced an extensive report exposing the fraudulence of the Colombian government’s “demobilization” of the paramilitaries. The report, entitled “Smoke and Mirrors: Colombia’s demobilization of paramilitary groups” summarized the situation of the paramilitaries as follows: “Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary groups are immeasurably powerful. Through drug trafficking and other illegal businesses, they have amassed enormous wealth. They have taken over vast expanses of the country’s territory to use for coca cultivation or as strategic corridors through which they can move drugs and weapons. In recent years, they have succeeded in expelling left-wing guerrillas and strengthening their own control of many parts of the country. And thanks to this power, they now exert a very high degree of political influence, both locally and nationally…..paramilitaries have historically enjoyed the collaboration, support, and toleration of units of the Colombian security forces, a fact that has led many to refer to the paramilitaries as a ?sixth division’ of the army. Today, paramilitaries have made major gains in consolidating this impunity, along with their economic and political power, with the collusion of the Colombian government.” [6] To what extent did the Guardian convey any of this during the months of increased attention on Colombia? In the 38 Guardian articles the word “FARC” appears 135 times; only 17 times do the words “paramilitary” or “paramilitaries” appear. There were 13 articles that mentioned Colombia’s baseless allegations of Venezuelan collaboration with the FARC [7] – only five articles that mentioned the well documented collaboration between the Colombian government and the paramilitaries. But even these lopsided numbers understate the extent to which the Guardian covered up Colombia’s human rights record. On March 26, HRW, along with 22 other international human rights organizations that included Amnesty International, signed an open letter to Colombian President Alvaro Uribe after four unionists were murdered who were involved with protests against paramilitary violence that took place on March 6. Many other protest organizers were attacked and received death threats. The open letter stated: “Shortly before the attacks, presidential adviser Jos Obdulio Gaviria made a series of statements on national radio linking renowned victims’ representative Ivan Cepeda and other organizers of the March 6 protest to the notoriously abusive guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). On February 11, one day after Gaviria first made the statements, the supposedly demobilized United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) paramilitary group released a statement echoing Gaviria’s allegations.” [8] The letter called on Uribe to denounce the baseless allegations and break the links between the paramilitaries and his government. Neither the open letter nor the March 6 protests were reported by the Guardian. It is worth looking closely at one of the five Guardian articles that did actually mention collaboration between the government and rightwing paramilitaries. The article, “Colombia’s ?parapolitics’ scandal casts shadow over president”, by Sibylla Brodzinsky was published April 23. Brodzinsky wrote: “Mario Uribe was the latest in a string of more than 30 politicians elected to Congress in 2006 who have been arrested on charges related to conspiracy with the paramilitary death squads that controlled huge swathes of the nation before they began demobilizing in 2003.” This neglects to mention that most of the politicians are from Uribe’s coalition and that the paramilitary power has been left untouched by the “demobilization”. A week before Brodzinsky’s article appeared HRW had reported: “Nearly all the 30,000 ?demobilized’ paramilitaries are free and have never been investigated” and that “scores of ?new’ groups closely linked to the paramilitaries are operating all over the country, engaging in extortion, killings, forced displacement, and drug trafficking. “ [9] Brodzinsky also wrote: “President Uribe has said that it is thanks to his policies that Colombia has been able to go through the collective catharsis.” This argument stood unchallenged even though HRW had recently provided a strong counter argument: “....these investigations are the result of an initiative by the Colombian Supreme Court – not the Uribe Administration. While Uribe has funded the court, he has often taken steps that could undermine the investigations, lashing out against Supreme Court Justices and even, at one point, floating a proposal to let the politicians avoid prison.” [10] Brodzinsky then made the following outlandish claim: “Despite repeated journalistic and judicial investigations into alleged links between the president and paramilitary groups, no evidence has ever come forth.” There is, of course, overwhelming evidence of very strong links between the Colombian government (which has been run by Uribe for several years) and the paramilitaries. Some of the evidence is even reported in Brodzinsky’s article. The Guardian appears to employ an unique definition of the word “evidence” for politicians supported by Washington. Brodzinsky’s article also cited Urine’s 84% approval rating, but failed to convey the risks that journalists, activists and politicians take with their lives if they challenge Uribe. It would be wrong to deny that Uribe has significant popular support, but it would also be wrong to deny that his government makes eroding that support through peaceful means is a very dangerous task. Moreover, there is good reason to believe Urine’s approval rating exaggerates his level of support. In presidential elections Uribe has captured the vote of roughly 25 percent of the eligible voters. In 2003, Uribe campaigned very aggressively for the passage of a “yes” vote on a referendum that made fifteen sweeping proposals. He failed to convince 25 percent of the electorate to turn out for it – the minimum turnout required for it to pass – despite having a 75 percent approval rating at the time.[11] The Guardian’s coverage of Colombia explains why UK Foreign Minister Kim Howells dared to be photographed with Colombian soldiers (in fact, with a unit accused of murdering trade unionists), and why Howells had the audacity to lash out maliciously at Justice For Colombia, a UK based solidarity group. [12] If newspapers like the Guardian do not even report much of what establishment friendly groups like HRW have to say then it should come as no surprise that backing Colombia’s worst criminals comes with negligible consequences. SUGGESTED ACTION Write to the Guardian readers editor Siobhain Butterworth
reader@guardian.co.uk
Siobhain.Butterworth@guardian.co.uk Write to Guardian Journalists Sibylla Brodzinsky and Rory Carroll (Latin America Correspondent)
sibylla.brodzinsky@guardian.co.uk
rory.carroll@guardian.co.uk NOTES [1] http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/emersberger240208.html
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/4131
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mwherold/Herman_Peterson_Szmaely2007.pdf
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook09252006.html
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=705 [2] http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/02/01/colomb17975.htm [3] http://www.hrw.org/doc?t=americas&c=colomb&document_limit=120,20 [4] http://hrw.org/englishwr2k7/docs/2007/01/11/colomb14884.htm
http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/04/15/colomb18551.htm [5] http://www.cipcol.org/?p=580 [6] http://www.hrw.org/reports/2005/colombia0805/ [7] http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/04/16/colomb18630.htm [8] http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/04/16/colomb18630.htm [9] see note 8 [10] http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008/04/16/colomb18630.htm
Also, for a great summary of the “parapolitics” scandal see: http://www.cipcol.org/?p=542 [11] The referendum results are here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/17/foreignpolicy.tradeunions [12] http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/17/foreignpolicy.tradeunions
The Insanity of Biofuels12 May 2008There is something obscenely ironic that whilst the poor starve and struggle over soaring food prices, the rich convert food into fuel so they can carry on driving in their large gas-guzzling vehicles. The rich world is rushing to invest in biofuels as one of the solutions to climate change. Fuels made from corn, sugar, or maize are seen as producing less carbon dioxide than conventional fuels from oil. As Western nations belatedly struggle to come to grips with the daunting challenge of radical reductions in climate changing gases, biofuels offer a theoretical solution. What biofuels conveniently mean for America and Europe is that they can carry on driving and flying, thinking they have a clean conscience over climate change. Such is their appeal that last year the US Congress mandated a fivefold increase in their use. Europe, too, is committed to raising the share of biofuels in transport from current levels of around 2% to at least 10% by 2020. The only problem for those who support biofuels is that despite this rush, never a week goes past without further evidence of their harmful effects. These range from rainforest destruction to being partly to blame for rising food costs. In March, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and chair of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri was the latest in a long line of people who warned of the problems of biofuels. Speaking at the European Parliament, he said ?We should be very, very careful about coming up with biofuel solutions that have major impact on production of food grains and may have an implication for overall food security.? Pachauri warned that the rush to convert corn to ethanol in the US was having an adverse knock-on effect on the agricultural sector. A fifth of the US?s corn crop is now used to brew ethanol for motor fuel. As farmers rush to plant corn, the acreage of other crops, particularly soybeans, has been cut. The rocketing demand for corn has also meant the price has gone up. Ironically other critics argue that the process of converting corn into ethanol actually releases more carbon dioxide per gallon than simply burning conventional fuels. Then last month, Pachauri?s warning was followed by both the Bolivian President Evo Morales and President of Peru, Alan Garcia, who said using land for biofuels was putting food out of reach for the poor. They were responding to Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who had tried to dismiss claims that biofuels are responsible for the recent rise in global food prices. Also last month, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, did not mince his words when blaming biofuels for making the poor starve. “This is silent mass murder,? he said. Last year he said biofuels were ?a crime against humanity.? As the politicians squabble over whether biofuels are to blame for rising food prices, the poor continue to starve and the price of food becomes ever more expensive. Global food prices have increased by 83 percent in the last three years, according to the World Bank. As basic food staples become too expensive to buy for millions, anger has spread rapidly. At least six people were killed in riots over food prices that contributed to the dismissal of Haiti?s prime minister last month. Millions are struggling to survive on the island after food prices have increased 45 percent since the end of 2006. In Africa, there have been riots in Ivory Coast, and Senegal and Egypt where the military is assisting baking bread. In Mozambique some six people were killed and in Cameroon an estimated 100 killed in protests linked to the food prices. In Burkina Faso, where there were also riots in February over food, the unions have now called for a general strike. In South Africa, there have been protest marches. Meanwhile in Asia, fifty people were injured after factory workers protested against the food rises near Dhaka. Indonesia has also seen protests, whereas Vietnam has seen panic buying. Pakistan has reintroduced some rationing, while India has banned the export of most rice. The ruling coalition in Malaysia was very nearly ousted by voters who cited food as one of their major concerns. Last week, the Philippine government said it was introducing ?rice access cards? for help the poor buy grain. In Latin America, there have been riots in Mexico, whilst farmers went on strike for three weeks in Argentina. In Peru, farmers blocked key road links. In Europe, Russia, which has seen a six per cent increase in food prices since the beginning of the year, has been forced to freeze the price of milk, bread, eggs and cooking oil. Coupled with rising oil prices, rising food prices are creating global tension. ?This is a perfect storm,? President Elas Antonio Saca of El Salvador told the World Economic Forum on Latin America in Cancn, Mexico last month. ?How long can we withstand the situation? We have to feed our people, and commodities are becoming scarce. This scandalous storm might become a hurricane that could upset not only our economies but also the stability of our countries.? Other voices agree the situation is getting critical. Earlier this month, Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary General warned that the global food crisis could have grave implications for international security, economic growth and social progress. ?If not handled properly, this crisis could result in a cascade of others and become a multidimensional problem affecting economic growth, social progress and even political security around the world,? Ban told a conference in Ghana. Last week, Ban Ki-Moon went further, saying that the UN was setting up a special task-force to address the food shortages, which was designed to avert ?social unrest on an unprecedented scale?. Ban said ?The first and immediate priority, that we all agree, is that we must feed the hungry?. A second priority should be to ban biofuels that could be used for food crops. The inescapable fact is that biofuels are partly to blame for the rising food costs. The International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington argues that biofuel production accounts for a quarter to a third of the recent increase in global commodity prices. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations comes up with a slightly smaller figure of biofuels being responsible for between 10 to 15 percent rise in food. So concerned was it over biofuels impacts that last month, the European Environment advisory panel urged the EU to suspend its 10 per cent goal by 2020. The panel, made up of some of Europe’s most prestigious climate scientists, called the 10 percent target ?overambitious? whose ?unintended effects are difficult to predict and difficult to control.? Laszlo Somlyody, the panel’s chairman and a professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics said: ?The idea was that we felt we needed to slow down, to analyze the issue carefully and then come back at the problem.? Rather than slow down, countries in the EU are speeding up. In Britain, new legislation passed last month means that all gasoline must contain at least 2.5 per cent biofuel. The same day that the legislation was passed, one of Britian?s most respected conservation charities, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, condemned the law as ?over-hasty? and ?utter folly?. The situation is now getting even more ironic. As many simply cannot afford to eat, the rich world is now squabbling over the huge subsidies it gives its biofuel producers to produce more biofuels. Last week, European biodiesel producers triggered the prospect of a new transatlantic trade war by urging the EU to impose penalties on ?unfair? biofuel subsidies from the US. The subsidy allows US exporters to undercut European rivals by up to a quarter. The subsidy system is also being exploited by ruthless commodity traders, who are actually adding to climate change. Known as ?splash and dash? within the industry, the legal trick makes a mockery of the purpose of biofuels, which are meant to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide. The biofuel is being needlessly shipped from Europe to the US and then back again. The traders buy biodiesel on the European market and then ship it to the US. There it is ?splashed? with gasoline which means that conventional gasoline is added to the biodiesel so that traders can qualify for the export subsidy. Then the cargo is ?dashed? or shipped back to Europe and resold at a subsidized price which then undercuts European producers. Peter Power, a spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, said “We will not under any circumstances tolerate unfair trade.” The EU and US are now threatening to take their argument to the World Trade Organisation. It is also beyond irony that as they say they will not tolerate trade that is unfair to their own industries, they seem content to tolerate the fact that millions of people are slowly dying of hunger?.
The ‘enfant terrible’ of British neoconservatism12 May 2008Douglas Murray could justly be described as the enfant terrible of British neoconservatism. He has been a prominent advocate of the application of neoconservative ideas to Europe. Influenced by the authoritarian philosophy of Leo Strauss, and the concept of ?dhimmitude? put forward by Baat Ye?or, Murray has argued that the ?innate flaws of liberal democracy? leave Europe vulnerable to domination by Muslim immigrants. As head of the Centre for Social Cohesion, he has been a central figure in a wider neoconservative propaganda offensive against Islamist movements in Britain. He claims to have influenced Government policy, and his ideas have been influential in some NATO circles. Early career Murray began his literary career as a 16-year-old Etonian, when he persuaded the Home Office to give him access to papers relating to Lord Alfred Douglas, which had been embargoed until 2043.[1] He reportedly completed his biography of Douglas, Oscar Wilde?s lover, before progressing to Magdalen College, Oxford where he read English. The book was published to critical acclaim in 2000 when he was still an undergraduate.[2] Murray also began writing for The Spectator during this period, initially concentrating on reviews related to his literary interests. He has said that the attacks on the World Trade Center, which he visited in 2000, contributed to his increasing political focus.[3] Murray?s strong neo-conservative views became evident in his subsequent early writings as a freelance journalist. In a September 2002 piece for openDemocracy, he criticised CND and the Stop the War Coalition for organising an anti-war march together with the Muslim Association of Britain, An early example of one of the most persistent themes of British neo-conservatism.[4] In February 2003, he described the many first-time demonstrators who had joined the anti-war marches as ?mainly ignorant (by choice or chance) of the machinations of international weapons inspections, oil and the rest of it?.[5] Murray spent much of that year attending the Saville Inquiry into the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre, which had moved to London from Derry to hear the evidence of military witnesses.[6] He condemned Richard Norton Taylor?s play based on the hearings as ?no-strings-attached, neatly packaged, moral tourism.? He intends to publish a book on the inquiry once it reports.[7] In 2004, Murray attended the Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. He suggested that a full inquiry into the Iraq War was impossible because it would impinge upon the work of the intelligence services. The security services are answerable to the government, but they must not be compromised and agents? lives put at risk to satiate public appetite, nor must they (as I trust the Blair government has now learnt) ever be politicised. National security in Britain, as in all nations, goes beyond today or tomorrow?s government.[8] Social Affairs Unit Murray joined the Social Affairs Unit as a regular contributor in 2004.[9] In 2005, the Unit published his book, Neoconservatism: Why We Need It, which argued for the introduction of neoconservative ideas into British politics. In October that year, he outlined his philosophy in a talk to the Manhattan Institute The practice of equivalence in our national politics leads governments not to listen to, but to fear minority opinion, concerned lest anyone get the impression that the government knows what’s right for the majority who have elected it. Not only does it make politics a glorified (though not glorious) pursuit of the personal ? it makes the notion of fixed or natural right a nonsense. Because of course if everything is equal then everything is right: which means nothing is good or true.[10] This ambiguous approach to equality may owe something to the authoritarian philosopher Leo Strauss, of whom Murray is a professed admirer.[11] Strauss?s critics argue that his idea of ‘natural right’ meant the right of the superior to dominate the inferior.[12] Murray went on to present a picture of Europe on the verge of being outbred by Muslims, a common neoconservative trope reminiscent of the fears of early Twentieth Century eugenicists. Europe has used up its peace dividend. The holiday from reality it had for half a century during which it spent money on welfare whilst America protected its security, is now over ? comprehensively so. Europe not only has unsustainable demographic issues which ? if un-addressed – will eradicate the continent as we know it within three or four generations. It also has security issues, not least those associated with its unameliorated populations and its increasingly inefficient armies. Murray developed this idea further in a February 2006 speech to the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference on Europe and Islam, which embraced Baat Ye?or?s concept of Dhimmitude: It is late in the day, but Europe still has time to turn around the demographic time-bomb which will soon see a number of our largest cities fall to Muslim majorities. It has to. All immigration into Europe from Muslim countries must stop. In the case of a further genocide such as that in the Balkans, sanctuary would be given on a strictly temporary basis. This should also be enacted retrospectively? Conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board: Europe must look like a less attractive proposition.[13] The Hague speech also revisited Straussian themes: Our enemies are aware of these weaknesses in our set-up ? weaknesses which Leo Strauss, like Tocqueville would have pointed out as among the innate flaws of liberal democracy on which we must keep a concerned and wary eye? We must remind the malignant that this war and this era will be dictated on our terms – on the terms of the strong and the right, not the weak and the wrong. Murray returned to these twin themes, suspicion of democracy and fear of Muslim population growth, when he and Daniel Pipes debated Ken Livingstone in January 2007: just a few months ago, the Justice Minister of the Netherlands Piet Hein Donner announced that, when a majority of people wanted it, he was willing to institute Sharia law across the Netherlands. Now, on current demographics, that majority isn?t too far away. What will the Netherlands look like when that happens?[14] Centre for Social Cohesion Murray was appointed director the Centre for Social Cohesion when it was founded by the conservative think-tank Civitas in 2007. [15] The centre shares a Westminster building with Policy Exchange, the think-tank accused by the BBC of using fabricated evidence in a report on extremism in British mosques.[16] The author of that report, Denis MacEoin, is a member of the centre?s advisory council.[17] Like Policy Exchange, the Centre for Social Cohesion has claimed success in influencing British Government policy towards Muslims. If anything, its focus has been even more single-minded. In July 2007, the Centre issued its first published work, an A-Z of Muslim Organisations in Britain, which claimed to be the fullest analysis yet published of the major Muslim organisations in Britain.[18] In August 2007 Murray and James Brandon co-authored the Centre’s first pamphlet, Hate on the State, How British Libraries Encourage Islamic Extremism.[19] The Centre later claimed credit when the Prime Minister announced that the “Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is working with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council to agree a common approach to deal with the inflammatory and extremist material that some seek to distribute through public libraries, while also of course protecting freedom of speech.”[20] Murray has been a frequent guest on BBC current affairs programmes such as Hardtalk, Question Time and Newsnight.[21] NATO Murray ‘assisted in the writing process’ for the 2007 pamphlet Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership.[22] Written by five former NATO generals, the paper clearly owed much to Murray?s distinctive philosophy: In every country, and at all times, we like to rely on certainty. Certainty about the past, the present and even the future. Yet certainty is based not on inevitability, but rather on social and intellectual needs. We seek to uphold a common and stable experience, shunning the arbitrary in favour of closure in debate. The pamphlet proposed a new UN/EU/NATO directorate to ‘co-ordinate all co-operation in the transatlantic sphere of interest.? It suggested that if this prescription were followed ?we might, in the medium to long term, thus be capable of restoring certainty ?something which we see as the most important prerequisite for functioning societies.? The plan was reportedly a topic for discussion at the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008.[23] However, according to one senior NATO figure the paper?s call for the alliance to develop a first-strike nuclear capability had ?no traction whatsoever.?[24] Notes [1] Amazon.com: Bosie: The Man, The Poet, The Lover of Oscar Wilde: Douglas Murray: Books, accessed 24 March 2008. [2] Knitting Circle Alfred Douglas, accessed 21 March 2008. [3] Neoconservatism: why we need it – a talk to the Manhattan Institute by Douglas Murray, Social Affairs Unit, 26 October 2005 [4] An Unholy Alliance, by Douglas Murray, openDemocracy, 22 October 2002. [5] Marching to hell, by Douglas Murray, openDemocracy 20 February 2003. [6] Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (Hardcover), Amazon.co.uk, accessed 21 March 2008 [7] Bloody Sunday, or the theatre of moral corruption,by Douglas Murray, openDemocracy, 11 May 2005. [8] Hutton – the wrong inquiry, by Douglas Murray, openDemocracy, 29 January 2004.. [9] Neoconservatism: Why We Need It (Hardcover), Amazon.co.uk, accessed 21 March 2008. [10] Neoconservatism: why we need it – a talk to the Manhattan Institute by Douglas Murray, Social Affairs Unit, 26 October 2005 [11] Profound insights of Leo Strauss, Douglas Murray, The Guardian, 30 December 2005. [12] Leo Strauss’ Philosophy of Deception, by Jim Lobe, Alternet, 19 May 2003. [13] What are we to do about Islam? A speech to the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference on Europe and Islam, by Douglas Murray, Social Affairs Unit, 3 March 2006. [14] Douglas Murray?s speech, Conference: A World Civilization or a Clash of Civilisations, Greater London Authority, 20 January 2007. [15] Centre for Social Cohesion: Press Release, accessed 22 March 2008. [16] Clutha House, 10 Storey?s Gate, Westminster, London, SW1, Keningtons Chartered Surveyors, accessed 5 April 2008. BBC News, Talk about Newsnight, BBC Response to Policy Exchange statement, 14 December 2007. [17] The Centre for Social Cohesion, About Us, accessed 5 April 2008. [18] Centre for Social Cohesion: Press Release, 1 July 2007, accessed 22 March 2008. [19] Hate on the State, How British Libraries Encourage Islamic Extremism, Centre for Social Cohesion, August 2007, accessed 22 March 2008 [20] PM uses Centre’s ‘Hate on the State’ report to tackle stocking of pro-jihadist books by libraries, Blog, The Centre for Social Cohesion, 28 November 2007. [21] BBC search results for ?Douglas Murray?, accessed 6 April 2008. [22] Towards a Grand Strategy for an Uncertain World: Renewing Transatlantic Partnership, Noaber Foundation, 2007 [23] Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option NATO told, by Ian Traynor, The Guardian, 22 January 2008. [24] Russia?s problems nudge Afghanistan off the map, by Doug Saunders, Globe and Mail, 2 April 2008.
Iran, International Peace and Security12 May 2008In a joint press conference held this week with the head of the European Commission, Mohamed ElBaradei, Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the talks with Iran that began on April 21 to “clarify” certain “alleged studies of weaponization” have resulted in “good progress.” What “alleged studies” is ElBaradei talking about? Well, scroll back to the summer of 2005. Since February, 2003, ElBaradei and his IAEA inspectors had been conducting intrusive investigations into Iran?s Safeguarded nuclear programs. And since December, 2003, Iran had been voluntarily adhering to an (as yet) unratified Additional Protocol to its Safeguards Agreement. Iran had searched for and provided ElBaradei documentation of its past procurement activities for nuclear programs, going back two decades ? documentation that Iran had been under no obligation to provide the IAEA at the time, much less obligated to preserve for later inspection. In that summer of 2005, ElBaradei again reported that he had found no indication that (a) there were any undeclared “source or special nuclear materials” in Iran nor that (b) “source or special nuclear materials” were being or had ever been “used in furtherance of a military purpose.” Hence, Iran was in compliance with the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. However, ElBaradei, personally, still had some “concerns” that Iran had been unwilling to address. So, in mid-July, our intelligence officials rushed to Vienna to brief ElBaradei and senior staff on some of the sensitive “intelligence” they had gleaned from a laptop computer, allegedly stolen from a deceased Iranian engineer and obtained by our intelligence agencies from another intelligence agency sometime in 2004. ElBaradei and staff were reportedly “unimpressed” with the documents contained on the “smoking laptop,” most of which were about “studies” involving missiles and high-explosives, which were unrelated to ElBaradei?s mission and, hence, unrelated to his “concerns.” Nevertheless, Bonkers Bolton, the Likudniks and other neo-crazies ? in and out of government ? kept up the pressure on the IAEA Board of Governors and upon the UN Security Council, with the result that both passed resolutions demanding that Iran explain any and everything to ElBaradei?s satisfaction, including all the alleged “studies.” Well, on 25 February, 2008, Olli Heinonen, IAEA Deputy Director-General for Safeguards, finally got around to showing the Iranian Ambassador to the IAEA (as well as other IAEA Ambassadors assembled) for the first time exactly what it was the Iranians were being required to explain! It was supposed to be a confidential briefing, not to be discussed outside the IAEA, but several brief-ees promptly gave their versions of the Heinonen briefing to neo-crazy media sycophants. According to nuclear fuel-cycle student David Albright, who had been shown the smoking laptop documents years before, the Iranians were being asked to explain four projects which were alleged to have been pursued as part of a secret military program directed an Iranian General named Mohsen Fakrizadeh. Only one of the alleged four projects would clearly have been within the IAEA?s purview; the activities of a small Iranian private sector firm, Kimeya Madon, who, beginning in the spring of 2001 and ending in May 2003, allegedly developed a set of technical drawings for a small “bench scale” plant for converting Uranium Oxide “yellowcake” to Uranium Tetrafluoride “green salt.” The Iranians deny that Kimeya Madon had been involved in a uranium-conversion design project. But even if it was, Iran would not have been required under its existing Safeguards Agreement to have informed the IAEA about it until six months before the plant actually began operations. Hence, as far as ElBaradei is concerned, the real issue is whether the Iranians are truth-tellers or inveterate liars ? liars who lie when there is no reason to lie. ElBaradei already knows that virtually all intelligence provided the IAEA by our “intelligence community” has been ? to put it politely ? wrong. At Deputy Heinonen?s February 2008 briefing, the Iranians were reportedly excitedly photographing everything being presented with camera phones. And a few weeks later the Iranians sent a Note Verbale to ElBaradei, incorporating a letter sent the day before to UN Secretary General regarding the Security Council?s Resolution 1803 of March 3, 2008. UNSCR 1803 begins with the Security Council ? “Reaffirming its commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the need for all States Party to that Treaty to comply fully with all their obligations, and recalling the right of States Party, in conformity with Articles I and II of that Treaty, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination.” The Security Council then proceeds to discriminate, to deny Iran the “inalienable rights” it has just “reaffirmed.” So, Iran?s letter to Secretary General begins by noting ? correctly ? that Iran “has consistently complied with its obligations” under the NPT and the IAEA Statute. It then notes the “irrational opposition” of the United States and the Brits-Germans-French to Iran?s exercising its “inalienable rights” as affirmed in the NPT and IAEA Statute, and charges that their “instrumental manipulation” of the IAEA Board and Security Council have resulted in international law and the UN Charter being “seriously violated.” Iran goes on to charge that the U.S.-Brits-Germans-French have provided “erroneous information” with the result that the IAEA has been prevented from fulfilling “its real tasks on important issues such as the prevention of actual [nuke] proliferation, disarmament and developing a mechanism to effectively verify the nuclear activities of the non-parties to the NPT, particularly the Zionist regime that is continuing to develop nuclear weapons in the [Mid-East] region.” Iran then reminds the Secretary General of the substantive and procedural legal requirements set out in the IAEA Safeguards Agreements, the IAEA Statute and the UN Charter for involving the Security Council in issues related to Iran?s Safeguarded nuclear programs. In particular, Iran correctly notes that “there has never been any reference in the Agency?s reports to any non-compliance by Iran or and diversion in its peaceful nuclear activities. On the contrary, “the IAEA Director-General has repeatedly stressed that there has been no diversion of the declared nuclear materials.” And the IAEA Statute requires the IAEA Board to “find” that the Director-General has not been able to verify there has been no diversion before referring the matter to the Security Council. Hence, Iran finds it “necessary to stress that the engagement of the Security Council in this issue ? and also the resolutions adopted in this regard ? have been unlawful.” In conclusion, Iran notes that “the maintenance and strengthening of international peace and security requires, as a first step, our endeavor to ensure a safer world through developing equitable international rules, and through their evenhanded implementation.” And so say all of us.
Nigerians in the UK urge boycott of British Airways10 May 2008British Airways has been criticised over its handling of a forced deportation and its treatment of Nigerian passengers on a flight from Heathrow airport. Passengers on board the 27 March BA flight to Lagos began to protest about the manhandling of Augustine Eme, a Biafran independence activist, who was allegedly being restrained by up to five police officers while pleading not to be sent back to Nigeria where he feared he would be killed. (Eme’s brother has already been killed and his wife and children are missing.) The police promptly removed Eme from the flight, but returned to arrest another passenger, Ayodeji Omotade. This prompted other passengers to complain about his detention, which resulted in the pilot ordering all 136 economy class passengers off the flight. Omotade, who is from Kent, was on the flight to attend his brother’s wedding in Nigeria but was detained by police for ten hours following his arrest. In that time police confiscated 1,603 that Omotade had on him, stating that they had strong reason to believe the money came from criminal activities. Omotade was then returned to Heathrow without any money and having missed his brother’s wedding. He has also been banned for life from travelling with British Airways. The flight did eventually go to Lagos, but with only Eme and first class passengers on board. British Airways defended its removal of the economy passengers, on the basis that their behaviour constituted a security threat to staff. The incident has prompted calls for a boycott of BA from within the Nigerian community in the UK. Over one thousand people signed a petition sent to the Nigerian government demanding a written apology to all the passengers. The petition also called on BA to compensate Omotade and lift the lifetime ban against him, as well as lifting any criminal charges against him. The Nigerian president, Umaru Yar’Adua, has ordered an investigation into the incident at Heathrow. British Airways recently came under fire from one of its own pilots for ignoring racism amongst its staff. Captain Doug Maughan, who has worked for BA for fifteen years, recently accused management of failing to deal with his complaints about frequent racist remarks made by senior BA employees.
Oppose Unjust Proposals of the Counter Terrorism Bill10 May 2008Yet another Counter-Terrorism Bill is now before Parliament. These proposals would extend the injustice of current ?anti-terror powers?, which make exceptions to the normal criminal law, especially its protection of suspects through the right to a fair trial. The proposed powers are based on the Terrorism Act 2000, which defined terrorism so broadly as to include simply the threat of violence to property in an attempt to influence a government, anywhere in the world. Such a broad definition could include many normal political activities in this country and any resistance to oppressive regimes abroad. That Act also created ?terrorist? offences of associating with particular organizations, sharing a platform with their members, and helping them financially, e.g. simply by selling publications. Since the Terrorism Act of 2000, ?anti-terrorism? measures have imposed much injustice, particularly on Muslim and migrant communities. Of over 1200 people arrested under anti-terrorism laws, less than 5% have been convicted of ?terrorism? offences, few of these involving any plans for violent activities. A key effect has been to create a climate of fear ? fear that political activity, or simply talking to the wrong people, will bring arrest or house raids. The proposed new powers would extend current injustices, especially punishment without trial, in several ways: Detention without charge would be extended from 28 days to 42 days ?Terrorism suspects? could be detained without charge for six weeks. Before 2000 it was 4 days. Neither government nor police have given any convincing reason why so long is needed. Post-charge questioning of ?terror suspects? ? presumed guilty? ?Terror suspects? could be subjected to further questioning after a criminal charge, even up to the trial date. Saying nothing could count against them at trial. At present, people once charged can refuse to answer until their trial, without their silence being interpreted as a sign of guilt or deception. ?Terrorist connection? would justify a heavier sentence Judges could give people longer sentences for ?ordinary? offences if they had a ?terrorism connection? ? for example, allegedly supporting a banned ?terrorist? organization. Confiscation of property without trial Convicted ?terrorists? could have their property confiscated ? such as bank accounts, vehicles, computers or even a house. The special procedure would not be a normal trial; it could involve secret evidence. Extra punishment without trial beyond the original sentence Convicted ?terrorists? could face a ban on foreign travel once released from jail. This would be done by a special order, not a trial. Those convicted could also face a requirement to tell the police where they go whenever they sleep away from home, in some cases for life. New offence for volunteers of not giving information to police Volunteer workers, for example in a youth project or charity, could be prosecuted for not telling police about suspected ?terrorist? activities. People might be over-suspicious and report imagined activities because they are afraid of being criminalised for concealment. New offence of providing information about the armed forces The Bill would make it an offence to seek or communicate information about the armed forces which could be useful to terrorism. This could apply simply to peace protestors telling each other, for example, what happens at a military base. Hiding evidence about police killings Some inquests could be held in secret, without juries. Sensitive material about how and why a person was killed by the police or army would be hidden away; they would never be held properly to account. Ask your MP to oppose those proposals of the Counter-Terrorism Bill. Support the due process rights of all ?suspects?. Model letter to send your MP can be downloaded at http://www.campacc.org.uk/Library/MP_letterCTB08_260208.doc DEMONSTRATE against the Counter-Terrorism Bill on Monday 12 May 2008, 5-7pm 10 Downing Street. Details available at www.cacc.org.uk
Fuel For Thought10 May 2008As of 15 April, all petrol and diesel sold at British filling stations has to be blended with biofuels. The British government, through the Renewable Fuel Transport Obligation (RFTO), and the European Union have continued to push ahead with biofuel expansion despite scientific studies which show that this is one of the quickest ways of heating the planet, and despite United Nations (UN) agencies warning that biofuels are fuelling a catastrophic food crisis. In February this year two peer-reviewed studies on biofuels were published in the journal Science. These studies showed that converting land for biofuels releases vastly more carbon than is “saved” by burning less fossil fuels. They confirm that for every hectare of land used for bioenergy crops, another hectare of natural land will be converted for biofuel or food production. The “carbon debt” from putting more land under intensive agriculture will take at least decades, but in many cases centuries, to repay. Right now people in Argentina’s Buenos Aires are choking from smoke produced by some 300 fires burning across 70,000 hectares of what used to be biodiverse farmland and ecosystems. Farmers are burning land in order to create new pastures for cattle as previously grazed fields are now devoted to the more profitable production of soya. Just six months ago Paraguay experienced its worst ever fires, and earlier this year the Brazilian government admitted that deforestation and forest fires in the Amazon basin were rising again – all because of high soya prices. While tens of millions of hectares of forests are facing destruction, biofuels are now widely acknowledged to have triggered, or at least worsened, the worst global food crisis in decades. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, global food prices have risen by 57 percent in the past year. However, staple food prices in many countries of the global south have doubled or even trebled, causing millions more people to go without enough food. Agrofuels are helping to push up prices in at least three ways: they are rapidly pushing up the demand for food, they are tying the price of food to the rapidly increasing price of oil and they are giving agribusiness, in alliance with energy companies, even greater control over food markets and prices. Nonetheless the EU, with the apparent consent of the British government, is set to approve a new Fuel Quality Directive this summer. The British government has warned privately that this will create a biofuel target of more than 25 percent by 2020. Further legislation for a different 10 percent mandatory biofuel target has also been announced. Governments will not cease to support the agrofuel industry regardless of the cost to people, the environment and the climate, without strong popular opposition. We are seeing the beginning of a protest movement in Britain and elsewhere, with demonstrations outside Downing Street and some ten other places when the RFTO was introduced. More such protests will and need to follow – including a Day of Action Against Agrofuels, organised as part of this year’s Climate Camp, on 6 August. (www.climatecamp.org.uk).
Heckler at the Back10 May 2008NO KOCH JOKES PLEASE AS PROTESTERS TARGET GUN FIRM HECKLER & KOCH... Campaigners in Nottingham have the world’s second largest seller of small-arms, Heckler and Koch, firmly in their sights. One would have thought that a city infamous for its gun crime would be a poor location for a warehouse full of guns. Not according to H&K, who do great business equipping war-mongers on any side. Proud owners of H&K weaponry include the brutal militias of Darfur – the Janjaweed. Funnily enough, despite the outcry against the massacres in Darfur, they obviously weren’t quite bad enough to stop selling weapons to the perpetrators. Even a recent arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against a senior Sudanese politician accused of selling H&K weapons to the Janjaweed hasn’t seemed to stem the flow of H&K guns to a militia accused by everyone including the US of committing genocide. (H&K guns also fill the arsenals of the US Dept of Homeland Security, US Navy Seals & the FBI amongst others). H&K have a ‘strategic partnership’ with the world’s largest mercenary company Blackwater (see SchNEWS 572). H&K supply the guns to the Iraqi and Afghan puppet governments, and Blackwater provide the training (perhaps they also supply child-sized targets for their students). There was a plan for H&K to produce special edition ‘Blackwater’ weapons – complete with the Blackwater logo on them. However, after Blackwater made the headlines for killing 17 innocent Iraqis (not the first time that Blackwater have killed innocent Iraqis, but the first time that it made the news in a major way), the plan was shelved. Nearly 100 people showed up this Tuesday (6th) to march against H&K at their Nottingham facility, accompanied by large numbers of police who, in the words of one protester were ‘their usual sinister selves’. The FIT Team (See www.fitwatch.blogspot.com) made their (always unwelcome presence) and did what they do best – blatantly intimidate people all day with video cameras; following some people home. Interestingly, local media also came under pressure; Trent FM, who had shown some enthusiasm about reporting the demo, received a word in their ear from both H&K’s press office as well as the police, warning hacks that it would be ‘irresponsible’ to publish the fact that H&K has a warehouse full of weapons in Nottingham, as it may prompt criminals to try and steal them. In response the campaigners pointed out to the radio station that H&K’s address was published at Company House, as well as in several business directories. About the radio station being leaned on, the campaigners said that “If the security policy of H&K and Notts police relies on no-one finding out the company’s location, then clearly it is they who are irresponsible, not our campaign and not the media. A large warehouse stocked with high-power assault rifles and submachine guns with inadequate security to prevent a robbery is clearly a significant danger to the public, and publicisng such a danger is very much in the public interest.” The H&K warehouse, located at Easter Park, Lenton Lane, Nottingham, is next to the ‘Trent Vineyard’, an evangelist church that held the funeral of Danielle Beccan, a 14 year old girl who was killed in a drive-by shooting. At her funeral service the then mayor of Nottingham said, “Guns have no place at all in our community – not in Nottingham, not in my city nor any other city in Britain.” One campaigner told us “The arms trade relies on secrecy. Most people abhor the idea of factories and warehouse making and selling weapons around the world, and arms companies know this. By lifting the lid on the business, anti-arms protesters can make a put the pressure on the government/corporate killing machine to stop killing for profit.” * http://nottsantimilitarism.wordpress.com
Out-thought by the Tories10 May 2008We could be at a turning point in the political life of the country. The electoral alliance that brought New Labour to power is disintegrating. Popular indifference towards the government is hardening into outright dislike. While the government pretends nothing is wrong, David Cameron’s new Conservatives are staking out ground that once belonged to the left, talking about a social recession, taking the ideological initiative, hungry to win. Look at some of the rightwing thinktanks and you discover a profound shift in Tory thinking. It seeks a break from Thatcher and Hayek. The project is significant: to build a basic emotional connection with the people. Last week’s results suggest it is beginning to work. This new pro-social, compassionate Conservatism is intellectually backed up by a focus on fraternity. The left, they argue, is wrong to think fraternity is another word for equality. And the Thatcherites are wrong to think that liberty will take care of fraternity. Fraternity is about society, wellbeing, and relationships. The Labour government, it argues, has failed because it has abandoned the fraternity of ethical socialism in favour of state management. The government’s response has been woefully inadequate: it argues that the Tories have no policies, or they’re old Etonians with a financial black hole in their plans. They’re copying us. We’ll scrutinise their policies, expose their elitism. We’re for the many, they’re for the few. But these arguments miss the point. James Purnell has come out fighting: “We have a vision of the good society that the Conservatives cannot match.” Yet this is precisely what the Labour government lacks. Rather than dismiss Cameron and Boris as Eton toffs, we should ask why is it that they are connecting with people. This government has lost the language of ethical politics – relationships, values, even social justice. It does not discuss fraternity or a culture of care and empathy. It doesn’t know how to speak to people’s insecurities. Its silence over the super-rich is matched by the harsh language deployed against migrants or welfare recipients. It has no vision of a more democratic way of governing. The joys, pleasures and frustrations of everyday life pass it by. Faced with a crisis it triangulates rightward. Initiative after initiative blurs into a white noise. It offers to listen. The danger is it hears only the echo of its own jargon. And yet Cameron’s Conservatism is built on a major contradiction. It believes in social justice but thinks the state is the problem. Markets are the solution to social recession, economic development and the ecological crisis. But as the credit crunch leads us towards recession, markets won’t deliver security, let alone social justice. Yet the government can’t exploit this contradiction, owing to its own blind faith in markets. Its time to take on the new Conservatism. We have to expose its own tensions and weaknesses. We must also spell out our own version of the good society. First, we need to reclaim fraternity – it’s not about brothers, it’s about togetherness in adversity and in joy. It goes to the heart of the question of what being human means. Fraternity is about living with and for others, building unity out of people’s differences. Labour must re-establish its belief in equality. Equality is the moral standard of fraternity. It is the ethical core of social justice. It holds that each person is irreplaceable and of equal worth. As the dust settles on these elections, Labour needs to rediscover its soul. Jon Cruddas is Labour MP for Dagenham. Jonathan Rutherford is editor of Soundings journal and professor of cultural studies at Middlesex University cruddasj@parliament.uk
Welfare Reform Act to force sick and vulnerable into work10 May 2008The draconian measures laid out in the Welfare Reform Act 2007 are now being implemented in Britain by the Labour government of Prime Minster Gordon Brown. The Act represents a wide-ranging attack on millions of the poorest and most vulnerable people who rely on Incapacity Benefit (IB). Recipients of the benefit are deemed unable to work due to poor physical or mental health. Under the new legislation, their entitlement to financial support is being replaced with new, conditional Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). From November, those registering for the first time as too sick or unable to work will only be entitled to ESA, whereby payments are determined by national insurance contributions, and are subject to means testing. All existing IB claimants will then be transferred to the ESA. The main aim is to force people into work under threat of poverty. The government has stated it intends to cut the number of Incapacity Benefit claimants by 20,000 each year. Attacks on welfare have been a central plank of Labour?s policies since coming to power in 1997. Unemployment benefit has been restricted and Lone Parent Benefit reduced. The government has stated that 2.4 million people currently receive Incapacity Benefit and that up to one million should not be entitled to it. This figure is actually a distortion as statistics from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that only 1.4 million of the 2.4 million unable to work due to illness actually receive any additional payment. The rest receive standard national insurance credits only. Since the measures were first mooted in 2006, a campaign based on demonising Incapacity Benefit claimants has swung into operation. This has been fuelled by incessant media scare stories about Incapacity Benefit ?scroungers?, ?spongers? and ?cheats? who claim the benefit ?fraudulently? instead of working. According to recently published research, the number of cases of Incapacity Benefit ?fraud? is so low it is almost impossible to measure accurately. It is estimated to account for less than 0.3 percent of total Incapacity Benefit payments. The tabloid press would have us believe that recipients of ?generous? Incapacity Benefit live a life of luxury. But those who are on the benefit are among the poorest people in society. Basic Incapacity Benefit payment ranges from 63.75 on the ?short-term lower late? to 84.50 on the ?long-term higher rate.? Research conducted by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2004 found that claimants on Incapacity Benefit and or Disability Living Allowance/Income Support met only 28 percent of the costs of people with low-medium needs, 30 percent of the costs of people with intermittent/fluctuating needs, 35 percent of the costs of deaf people and people with visual impairments and 50 percent of the costs of people with high-medium support needs. On April 4, the Daily Express ran a sensationalist headline ?Outrage At 8.5m A Week For Jobless Junkies And Winos,? claiming that ?Taxpayers are forking out 8.5million a week in benefits to support jobless drink and drug addicts.? The article cited statistics from the DWP revealing that 51,410 people whose medical record included a diagnosis of alcoholism received long-term Incapacity Benefits. The figures also showed that a further 49,890 on Incapacity Benefit were drug addicts. That so many people, including young people, are victims of alcoholism and drug addiction is a societal problem?not only an issue of dependency, which constitutes a genuine illness that causes untold suffering. The turn to alcohol and drugs is exacerbated by the steady erosion of stable job opportunities, the decline of many industries, and decreasing access to quality education, health care, and to drug treatment programmes. Most of those in receipt of Incapacity Benefit reside in inner city areas in London, the North-West, the North-East, Scotland and Wales. Many of these workers would have previously been in secure, relatively stable jobs in industries like mining, steel and shipbuilding. Over the past 25 years these jobs have been decimated, with millions forced into lives of poverty and the attendant problems such as debt and ill health. Currently claimants have to pass a rigorous ?personal capability assessment? (PCA) in order to quality for IB. A new ?work capability assessment? is to target all Incapacity Benefit claimants, with only the terminally ill excluded from the requirement. Under the remit to ?focus on what people can do, not what they can not,? a distinction will be drawn between ?being eligible for benefit and being capable for work.? If it is found that the claimant is capable of doing some sort of work, they can receive benefit only on the condition that they retrain and look for work. The penalty for not doing so will be the loss of benefit. Under the new rules, eligibility for benefit will be decided on a DWP doctor?s evidence and ?capability for work? could be assessed by other unspecified ?health professionals?. At present, the severely mentally impaired are exempt from being assessed. Under the new measures, these claimants are required to be assessed and have to agree to look for work in order to qualify for ESA. They are also obliged to attend courses to improve ?employability.? They will also be compelled to ?manage their health? in work and undertake therapy for their mental health problems. In order to speed up the number of claimants denied benefit payments, doctors and ?care teams? will be directly involved in ensuring that their patients are removed from IB and forced into employment. The Welfare Reform Act follows proposals made in 2005 to allow ?employment advisors? from Job Centres to be based in doctors? surgeries. The pilot schemes began in 2006 in six areas of the UK. ?A revolution in our welfare state? The Conservative Party has proposed its own assault on Incapacity Benefit. In January, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Chris Grayling announced what he termed ?revolutionary? welfare proposals. Under a Tory government, anyone who failed a ?work capability? test would automatically lose their entitlement to Incapacity Benefit. They would then be placed on Job Seekers Allowance, immediately resulting in a welfare payment cut of 20 a week. The plans also specify that those on IB with the ?potential to work? would be referred to ?welfare to work? providers. These would include private-sector companies. In preparation for their welfare announcement, the Tories studied welfare systems in a number of countries, and were particularly praiseworthy of measures taken in the American state of Wisconsin, which had cut the number of people on benefit rolls by 82 percent in three years. Grayling said of the proposals, ?For Britain such an approach marks a revolution in our welfare state. It marks an end to a situation where the receipt of incapacity benefit is an unconditional entitlement. In the future, it will carry with it the responsibility to do everything that you can to get back into work and help lift yourself out of the poverty trap that the benefit can represent for so many people.? The response from the government was merely to complain that the Tory proposal would cost too much to implement. Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said, ?The Conservative proposals could cost an extra 3 billion to 4 billion on top of planned spending in this area.? Labour and the Tories agree that public spending must be slashed in order to make the British economy more competitive with its European and world rivals. When the initial bill was first proposed in 2006, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions John Hutton said the welfare state ?must help UK companies succeed in the global economy.? As well as forcing IB claimants into work, the government is also targeting 300,000 more lone parents and one million additional older workers, including those over retirement age. Welfare and health provision and the private sector A critical element in slashing access to benefits such as IB is to facilitate the privatisation of both welfare and employment service. Over the past decade, the private sector has been utilised to step up attacks on the welfare state and to profit from providing services. A prime example is Atos Healthcare, a subsidiary of a French-based computer firm, which employs 50,000 people worldwide and has annual revenues of 5.4 billion euros. The new Employment and Support Allowance medical assessment system is to be run by Atos Healthcare. Atos Healthcare was awarded a 500 million seven-year contract by the DWP in 2005 to provide medical advice and assessment services. These include Incapacity Benefit, Disability Living Allowance, and Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefits. Employees of the company were recruited to be on the technical working groups which drew up the new harsher, Work Capability Assessment. The increased cost of examinations is expected to be in the region of 200 million up to August 2015. The company also plays a direct role in the provision of medical services. Then known as Atos Origin, the firm won an 8 million contract to operate the first privately run walk-in NHS clinic for local residents and commuters near Manchester?s Piccadilly railway station in 2005. In January this year, Atos won a 10-year contract to run St Paul?s Way Medical Centre in Tower Hamlets, East London. The former state-run surgery was one of the first to be taken over by a private company. The Tower Hamlets takeover prompted a demonstration by dozens of doctors, nurses and local residents. One doctor who has worked in the area since 1983 told the BBC, ?This practice is in one of the poorest areas in the country. There is overcrowding, poverty and a lot of people who are having difficulties with English. There is a huge amount of ill health. The residents are very angry that their health care is going to be sold for profit rather than for personal care.? In London alone, the government has identified a further 150 GP surgeries that could be taken over and run by private firms.
Resisting war crimes is not a crime10 May 2008Nine people in Derry in Northern Ireland have been charged under terrorism laws following an occupation of the local Raytheon plant during which, police claim, 350,000 damage was done to computer equipment. The US company Raytheon is one of the largest arms manufacturers in the world, supplying guidance systems for many of the missiles and bombs used by US and Israeli forces in the Middle East. Raytheon systems guided the Qana bomb to the bunker where it blasted and crushed at least 51 people, including many children, to death last month. Three of the arrested men, Colm Bryce, Kieran Gallagher and Eamonn McCann are members of the Derry branch of the Socialist Workers’ Party while another, Sean Heaton is a member of the Socialist Environmental Alliance. The five others, Eamonn O’Donnell, Gary Donnelly, Paddy McDaid, Jimmy Kelly and Micky Gallagher are Republicans, from the IRSP and the 32-Country Sovereignty Committee. After hours of questioning, all nine were charged with Aggravated Burglary and Unlawful Assembly. These are “scheduled” offences, meaning they would be heard before a Diplock, non-jury court. These charges also meant that the men couldn’t be given bail by the Magistrates’ Court but had to be remanded to prison before a bail application in the High Court. The only reason for the remand in prison and the severity of the charges is that the protestors live in Northern Ireland. This would not have happened in Britain or the South of Ireland. Despite the New Labour talk of a new NI, political dissent is still treated differently here. At the bail hearing, the Crown tried to raise Eamonn McCann’s convictions on public order offences going back to the civil rights movement 1968/69/70. However, the judge said that the “vintage” of these charges made them irrelevant. The arms merchants were brought to Derry in 1999 by SDLP and Ulster Unionist leaders John Hume and David Trimble: the announcement of the plant was made at the pair’s first joint public appearance following their receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize. It was part, they said, of “the peace dividend.” The savage irony was immediately apparent. An argument over Raytheon has continued in Derry since. However, all the local mainstream parties—-John Hume’s SDLP, Gerry Adams’s Sinn Fein and Ian Paisley’s DUP—-have backed the company’s presence, arguing that the Derry plant isn’t directly involved in arms manufacture and that driving Raytheon out would deter other investors in an area of high unemployment. Speaking from a window at the plant during the occupation, Eamonn McCann said: “We had to dramatise the argument so as to force the issue into the mainstream.” Documents and computers were hurled from windows and the computer mainframe and other equipment put out of action. The idea for the occupation emerged from a packed meeting of the Derry Anti War Coalition on August 2nd addressed by former Abu Ghraib interrogator Joshua Casteel of Iraqi Veterans Against War and Hani Lazim of Iraqi Democrates against the Occupation. Discussion from the floor focused on Raytheon, and the role it gave Derry in the arms trade. The activists knew that, despite the line of the main parties, there is real anger in the town at the idea of software developed in Derry helping to murder people in Lebanon and Gaza. On August 9th at 8am, protestors arrived at the building Raytheon shares with a call centre. The police were already in position. At about 8.30, an employee about to go into work hesitated for an instant and the anti-war activists rushed the door. Police started grabbing people by the scruff of the necks and literally throwing them back out. The nine now charged are those who made it into Raytheon’s premises. Once inside, the protestors erected barricades against the police and set about decommissioning the equipment. Many fliers thrown out the window gave the lie to the claims that the Derry plant had no connection with the arms trade. Once local radio started to report the occupation, others started to arrive to join the protest. In the course of the day, between 80 and 100 people kept the solidarity picket going. Cars on the main road honked their horns in support. Local residents brought coffee, sandwiches and cake. Armed police in riot gear stormed the buildinng after eight hours and carried the protestors out in handcuffs. Almost all were battered and bruised in the process. At the bail hearing, barrister Joe Brolly pointed out that Raytheon had had a turnover of $21.9 billion last year, and described them as “purveyors of death”. Bail was granted but the restrictions are draconian. Conditions include an exclusion zone around Raytheon, and also ban the protestors from attending any public meeting or any private meeting of Derry Anti War Coalition or the Irish Anti War Movement. They were told that a “private meeting” means any meeting of three or more people. A Raytheon 9 Defence Campaign is now being established across Ireland. Trial Update The trial of Derry Anti War Coalition activists, the Raytheon 9, is set to start on Monday May 19th. It is to be held in Belfast. The trial was moved to Belfast after the Prosecution Service applied to have it moved; it argued that the Derry jury pool is likely to know too much about the campaign against Raytheon, including the non-violent direct action taken on 9th August 2006 and that any jury from Derry may be too sympathetic to the action and/or intimidated by the level of support for the Raytheon 9 because of all the protests held outside the court over the almost two years since the nine were arrested. The Derry Anti War Coalition is confident that, wherever the trial is heard, there will be large demonstrations in support of the Nine and that any jury who hears the truth about what was happening in Lebanon when the action took place cannot but find that the Nine acted to stop war crimes and, therefore, committed no crime. Anyone wishing to support the Raytheon 9 can do so in several ways: Send a message of support to resistderry@aol.com (NB This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it). Organise a fundraiser for the defence fund Spread the word about the role of the arms trade in fuelling war. If there is an arms company in your town, organise a protest at it.
I wanted to report on where the silence was8 May 2008In the spring of 2003 Dahr Jamail, a fourth-generation Lebanese-American with a taste for adventure, was up a mountain in Alaska, climbing and earning a living by working as a guide. He was, though, following news of the invasion of Iraq, and what he read and heard made him so furious that he decided to leave the mountains – “my church”, as he calls them – and head for that newly subjugated land, armed only with a laptop and a digital recorder. In a world of gung-ho, embedded, flak-jacketed US reporters telling the tale from the military angle, he had decided to try to find out what was happening to the Iraqis, who seemed absent from the story, which was odd considering there were 29 million of them in the country, dodging the bombs and the bullets. Or not. “I wanted to report on where the silence was,” he says. “There’s this huge story going on and nobody’s talking about it. How are Iraqis getting by, what’s their daily life like?” Jamail, a spruce 39-year-old who is the author of a new book, Beyond the Green Zone, says the supine nature of the US media encouraged him to act. “With a few exceptions, most of the US mainstream was just stenography for the state,” he says. “It wasn’t journalism; it was writing down what the Bush administration was telling them. I was amazed and outraged. I felt that the lack of clear information was the biggest problem I could see in the US, so I decided I should go over and write about it.” It took him until November 2003 to get the money together – $2,000, everything he had – and make some contacts, via the internet, in Iraq. He flew to Amman in Jordan, found a driver and an interpreter – he spoke no Arabic – and took a car to Baghdad, accompanied by a young couple from the UK who intended to spend a few days there “for the experience”. The border was unguarded, US troops notable by their absence. The war had been fought at long range; now there was a vacuum. Jamail visited hospitals and went to the town of Samarra, 50km north of Baghdad, to check out a “firefight” in which the US military said they had been attacked and had killed 54 Iraqi fighters. Jamail found the locals telling a different story: two Iraqi fighters had attacked a detachment of US troops guarding a delivery to a bank, and the soldiers had responded by firing indiscriminately, killing and wounding many civilians. At first he had no intention of trying to compete with the mainstream media. “For the first two weeks [of a nine-week stay] I was just sending emails back home,” he says. “I had a list of a little over a hundred friends, mostly in Alaska. I would go out in the day with an interpreter – I found someone to work with me who was really cheap because I didn’t have much money – and interview people, take amateur photos, and then go back to the hotel and write it up. It was essentially blogging, but I didn’t know what blogging was and I didn’t have a blog, of course. I was just sending out two, three, four, five pages a night with a few photos attached to friends. “After about two weeks someone suggested, ‘Hey, you should post on this website electroniciraq.ne.’ They wanted posts from people on the ground. I did that for about a month and then towards the end of my trip, with about two weeks to go, I was contacted by the BBC to do a little bit of work with them. A start-up website in New York also contacted me to start doing some stories. I actually got paid to do some work, and that’s when it became clear I could actually come back and work as a journalist.” I try to probe why Jamail should have made this extraordinary gesture: was there something in his make-up that led him to take this stand? Born and raised in Texas, the son of a grocery store owner, he says that there is a streak of unpredictability in his family. He is the youngest of three: his sister is a pilot, his brother is a police officer. “My parents have always had their hands full and were broken in a bit, so I guess they weren’t completely shocked when I started to do my thing,” he says. He means climbing, but what about Iraq? How did they and others close to him react? “Most people thought I was crazy. My closer friends supported it. They felt, ‘If this is what you think, and you really want to do it, then all power to you.’ I decided, wrong or right, not to worry my parents about it until I got in there, so I waited and wrote [to] them after I reached Baghdad. Fortunately they were open to it; they were shocked, but they were open to it.” Before he headed for Alaska in 1996, Jamail had worked as a chemical technician on Johnston Island, an atoll in the Pacific where the US military had dumped parts of its obsolete stockpile of chemical weapons – no problem here finding weapons of mass destruction. Jamail was there to check air quality in a pilot plant designed for decommissioning the weapons, but became disillusioned when he thought results were being rigged and leaks covered up. It is tempting to see that disillusionment as the key to his later engagement, but he insists that it wasn’t. He just packed in the job and went climbing – in Central America, South America and Pakistan, as well as Alaska. His journey to Iraq, he says, was born of anger and frustration; it was not a calculatedly political act. “I did it for more personal reasons,” he explains. “I felt if I went and did this, I’d be able to come home and sleep a little bit better at night.” He was wrong about that. He had seen that first trip in the winter of 2003 as a one-off, but when he realised he could probably earn enough to live through his journalism he decided to go back. The fact that the security situation was deteriorating and that other journalists were pulling out increased the marketability of his on-the-spot reports, but also underlined the personal risks. Did he worry about the dangers? “By then I felt like I really wanted to stay in there and cover as much of the story as I could. You get into the story and you want to stay on it. It had its limits, though, and I didn’t feel like I’d be able to stay in indefinitely.” He entered Iraq for the second time in April 2004, on the very day that Falluja, the town 70km west of Baghdad that became the focal point of the battle between US forces and Iraqi fighters, was being sealed off. “We immediately started hearing these horrible stories of what was happening there,” he says. “I had a chance to go in and was really on the fence on whether I should do it or not, because I knew it was pretty crazy. But it seemed like we had a reasonable chance of going in safely, so I decided to take it. I ended up reporting for a couple of days from this makeshift clinic, and saw women, kids and some men being brought in who were all saying the same thing: the US pushed in [to Falluja] as far as they could and then just lined up snipers and started shooting into the city. There was no water, no electricity, medical workers were being targeted. It was a turning point for me.” By now, Jamail was filing his reports predominantly for the Inter Press Service, an agency based in Rome that sets out to “give a voice to the voiceless” and promote a new global order based on equality, democracy and justice. It is reporting, but reporting with a purpose, a clear agenda. So is it objective? Can someone who goes to Iraq convinced that the war is wrong and being fought for control of oil and strategic power offer unbiased reporting? “Objective journalism is a myth,” says Jamail. “Going into Iraq, I felt it was really important to read up on the history, find out what is the US security strategy, what is US foreign policy. Only then can you understand the facts and the nature of the US’s historical involvement in Iraq. If I’m guilty of something, I was guilty of going into it looking at it through that lens, as opposed to those who were looking at it through the lens of anonymous briefings from Bush administration officials. Any journalist going into a war zone is going to be looking through a certain type of lens. It’s a myth that you go in without opinions on the situation, or that you won’t feel emotions and that nothing that happens is going to affect how you report on it. I don’t buy that. I just don’t think it’s humanly possible.” He immediately qualifies that, however, by saying that he was not so blinkered that he made every fact and opinion he encountered fit his preconceived view. “When I came across Iraqis who were happy that Saddam was gone – and there were plenty, especially seven months into the occupation, before things had really started to degrade rapidly – I said so. I did run into things that challenged my preconceptions. I would from time to time run into a soldier who really believed in the mission. Early on, I met plenty of Iraqis who were glad the Americans were here, were still hopeful and wanted to give them some time, and I wrote about that.” In the introduction to his book, he quotes the story of an indigenous Canadian hunter who was called to give evidence at an inquiry into a planned dam that would flood his homeland and destroy his traditional way of life. The hunter was asked to swear on the Bible that he would tell the truth, but he had never seen a Bible and wondered how this miraculous truth-telling instrument worked. “He spoke with the translator at length,” writes Jamail, “and finally the translator looked up at the judge. ‘He does not know whether he can tell the truth. He says he can tell only what he knows.’” I take it that is how Jamail sees his own role: to give his view, to write down what he sees, to filter what he discovers at first hand through the knowledge he has gained from reading official documents; to tell what he knows rather than claim to be relaying some almost metaphysical “truth”, arrived at by being perfectly objective. He sees the war in Iraq as the direct consequence of the stated national security strategy of building a worldwide network of US military bases and “projecting power”. Talk of withdrawal from Iraq, he says, is a case of “putting the cart before the horse”; the whole strategy has to be rethought first. Iraq, in his view, is just a symptom of an endemic illness. What this role as an avowedly anti-war journalist means, however, is that Jamail’s political opponents can write him off as a propagandist. American TV networks have largely ignored him and his book. Even as the public mood has turned against the war, the mainstream media have not been able to disengage themselves from their view that, in time of war, the commander-in-chief and the boys in the field should be supported. “I certainly get accused of being an activist, but I don’t consider myself an activist,” he says. “I’ve never done any kind of activism or organising. My response to my critics is to say, ‘Tell me which of my facts you dispute and I’ll give you my sources.’ I ask people, ‘Be specific.’ If you want to attack my personality that’s fine, but if you want to attack my work and my information, then tell me which of my stories you have a problem with and I’ll happily give you my sources. I give talks in the US and people accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist, but I say, ‘No, it’s very rational, read these documents.’” Jamail’s Lebanese name doesn’t help when he tries to argue that, while trying to fill the silence on the Iraqi side, he remains committed to reporting what he sees and telling what he knows. “One time I was on this rightwing radio programme, and the guy started out trying to describe me: ‘Dahr Jamail, you’re a Muslim, aren’t you?’ ‘No. Would it matter if I was? But no, I’m not.’ ‘Where are you from, Dahr?’ ‘Anchorage, Alaska.’ It didn’t go real well for him. I didn’t even have a Middle-Eastern accent.” Jamail made two further trips to Iraq, but hasn’t been back since early 2005. The danger was now too great, and he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. “Having never reported in a war zone before, I was ignorant about PTSD,” he says. “I assumed that journalists didn’t get it. I thought you had to be a combat soldier to get it. When I got home after my fourth trip, I started having trouble sleeping. I was constantly thinking about Iraq, getting random visions of the times when I would go into morgues, and feeling guilty that I could leave the country but the friends I had made there couldn’t. I just felt numb a lot of the time. All of that put together made me realise that this was not the same guy that went over there, and that I needed some help. I took counselling, and still do it off and on when necessary.” When he returned to the US after his fourth visit to Iraq, he decided it was time to digest his experiences. He attended a session of the World Tribunal on Iraq in Rome and, rather like the Canadian hunter, reported what he had seen in the eight months he had spent in the country. He told of Iraqis who had given him accounts of being tortured, of towns collectively punished by being deprived of electricity, water and essential medical supplies, and of ambulances being shot at by US soldiers. “With 70% unemployment, a growing resistance and an infrastructure in shambles,” he concluded, “the future for Iraq remains bleak as long as the failed occupation persists.” Jamail also embarked on his book – part reportage, part catharsis – and this summer plans to write another, this time on resistance to the war within the US military, based on the stories of soldiers he has met who engaged in sabotage and fake patrols (called “search and avoid” missions) to hamper the war effort. Then he plans to return to the Middle East and maybe even to Iraq, if the security situation allows him at least some degree of freedom to report. The return to the mountains will have to wait; his heart now is in the desert. · Beyond the Green Zone is published by Haymarket Books (£11.99).
Peak Food: Blaming the Victims8 May 2008I’ve already written about this in previous posts under the ‘hidden holocaust’ theme, but am prompted to re-address this issue given the way it’s been dealt with by mainstream media and associated ‘experts’. In today’s Independent we see an eye-opening article revealing that amidst what is described as a series of “global food shortages”, a new “government-backed report” shows that “the British public” annually throws away “4.4 million apples, 1.6 million bananas, 1.3 million yoghurt pots, 660,000 eggs, 550,000 chickens, 300,000 packs of crisps and 440,000 ready meals. And for the first time government researchers have established that most of the food waste is made up of completely untouched food products ? whole chickens and chocolate gateaux that lie uneaten in cupboards and fridges before being discarded” — adding up to “a record 10b” every year. And that’s just us Brits. Imagine what the totals are for the Western world combined: Scary and revealing stuff that makes the word “overconsumption” seem like a gross understatement. But despite the shock value of such important revelations, I’m increasingly concerned at the way in which the food crisis is being portrayed. The Independent goes on to explain the causes of the food crisis as follows: “... millions of the world’s poor face food shortages caused by rising populations, droughts and increased demand for land for biofuels, which have sparked riots and protests from Haiti to Mauritania, and from Yemen to the Philippines.” So the food crisis comes down to three things: 1) rising populations (presumably not us in the advanced West, but rather those Third World crazies breeding like rabbits despite being so poor) 2) droughts (which may be exacerbated by climate change but in any case often occur naturally and therefore we purportedly can’t do much about) 3) and the drive from energy corporations for investment in biofuels. Indeed, according to the British government’s new chief scientific adviser, Professor John Beddington speaking at a government conference two months ago: “price rises in staples such as rice, maize and wheat would continue because of increased demand caused by population growth and increasing wealth in developing nations. He also said that climate change would lead to pressure on food supplies because of decreased rainfall in many areas and crop failures related to climate. ‘The agriculture industry needs to
double its food production, using less water than today.’“ So again, population and economic growth in the ‘developing nations’, plus climate change, are to blame, and can only be addressed by doubling food production using less water (technologically impossible for all intents and purposes, but we’ll come back to that). It’s Them again — too many of Them, wanting More. As if to emphasise the point, we hear in the same piece that: “Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, said at the conference that the world’s population was expected to grow from 6.2bn today to 9.5bn in less than 50 years’ time. ‘How are we going to feed everybody?’ he asked.” Only a rhetorical question of course. Sorry to break it t’ya folks, but ‘feeding everybody’ has never really been one of the state’s major concerns. That’s why “Each tonne of wheat and sugar from the UK is sold on international markets at an average price of 40% and 60% below the cost of production respectively (ie, it is dumped)”, thus undercutting local farmers across the South, who thus lose any semblance of agricultural-independence they may have once had (i.e. the ability to feed their own people), thus becoming subject to the whims of the global food market, manipulated through speculation in the interests of Northern investors and consumers. But the important point for now is that as far as Hilary Benn is concerned, it’s clear that the cause of the problem is “their” population growth. Later in the article, Professor Beddington is cited pointing out that global grain stores are currently at the lowest levels ever, just 40 days from running out. He again emphasises the question of food production: “I am only nine weeks into the job, so don’t yet have all the answers, but it is clear that science and research to increase the efficiency of agricultural production per unit of land is critical.” According to Beddington, food security is the “elephant in the room” that politicians must face up to quickly. In reality, the “elephant in the room” goes far deeper than the surface issues scratched at lamely by the government, and sits in the heart of global food production. Some of Beddington’s observations show that he is dimly aware of this problem. He understands that production needs to be increased drastically. But his solution is a technological one, “science and research” in order to maximise “efficiency” so we can produce faster and better to meet escalating global demand. This is unlikely to happen. Beddington knows it. Benn knows it. The supermarket chains know it. From this conventional analysis of the food crisis, we are not left with many solutions. We may, however, pick among the following: 1) the proliferation and prolongation of droughts due to climate change means that we need to slow down our CO2 emissions by introducing ‘market incentives’ (i.e. big taxes) targeted largely at consumers, who are blamed for having no regard for the size of their individual carbon footprints. transfering to alternative renewable energies is, for some odd reason, irrelevant. 2) reducing population growth in developing countries to decrease demand for food (nothing at all to do with NSSM 200, of course). 3) go easy on the biofuels (but fail to propose investment in other viable alternative energy sources). 4) pray day and night that Science will somehow generate a technological miracle of agricultural production. Obviously, none of these ‘solutions’ seems to really offer a way out for the food crisis — and that’s because the analysis is fundamentally flawed. It’s not completely wrong, it just misses out half the picture, and so comes up with a false diagnosis of what’s actually gone wrong. The result is that the institutions that require urgent re-structuring are being absolved. The government, the state, and the network of giant multinational corporations that govern global agribusiness, are excused of any culpability. The cause of the crisis, we keep hearing is, WE, THE PEOPLE! It’s the developing nations, who just won’t stop breeding, dammit. It’s us Western consumers, who won’t stop eating and throwing a third of our food away. It’s everyone except the state-corporate complex that controls the food industry. I’m not suggesting for a moment that you and I are NOT culpable. Of course we are. We do throw away tonnes, literally, of food. We do, each of us, have large carbon footprints that we should try to reduce in our own ways. Populations are increasing. But the question is this: are these factors the fundamental causes of the current global food crisis? Or are they exacerbating factors that are accentuating and intensifying the impact of the food crisis? Following mainstream news coverage of food shortages, one would be forgiven for believing that rising food prices are all because of you and me, the public, the general consumer. We have been thoroughly pathologised. And the British government, with its eye-opening study of how much food the British consumer chucks away without thinking, is complicit in this pathologisation. Why is that the government-backed report discussed in today’s Independent, says nothing about the institutions who are primarily responsible for food wastage, the supermarkets, the multinational food chains? If the government is genuinely concerned about food wastage in this country, why won’t they do something about the fact reported by the same newspaper in February, that: “Retailers generate 1.6 million tonnes of food waste each year… An influential watchdog, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), will condemn targets set by the Government’s waste-reduction programme as ‘unambitious and lacking urgency’. It will also say multi-buy promotions are helping to fuel waste and obesity in Britain. Speaking to The Independent on Sunday ahead of the report’s publication on Saturday, Tim Lang, SDC commissioner, said it was ‘ludicrous’ that the Government had not pressured retailers into setting tougher targets to cut waste. Three years ago, the government-funded Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap) left it up to supermarkets to find voluntary ‘solutions to food waste’ in an agreement dubbed the Courtauld Commitment. ‘The Government is frankly not using its leverage adequately. It really should toughen up on Courtauld, which must be enforced because this is ludicrous,’ said Mr Lang, who is also professor of food policy at City University, London. The 18-month study, which found that ‘too many supermarket practices are still unhealthy, unjust and unsustainable’, said Wrap should adopt a ‘more aspirational approach to reducing waste in food retail by setting longer-term targets and [supporting] a culture of zero waste’...
A separate study by Imperial College for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, found that supermarkets preferred to throw away food that was approaching its sell-by date rather than mark it down in price.” So three months after being hit over the head by the Sustainable Development Commission, the government’s waste reduction programme completely ignores the warnings that supermarket profit-maxi
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