Cock ‘n’ Kabul Story14 Jun 2008How the plan to devastate and then ‘reconstruct’ Afghanistan is paying dividends This week the 100th soldier was killed since (illegal) British operations began in Afghanistan more than six years ago.?They have paid the ultimate price? said Gordon Brown, ?but they have achieved something of lasting value.? Shareholder value that is – with most of the ?aid? / reconstruction cash going to a small number of corporate contractors for overpriced and shoddy work. It?s considered legitimate for a corporation to make huge profits if its prepared to invest in a warzone. Its all about ?rewarding risk? and entrepreneurial prowess ? War is an attractive proposition for right-wing money men and ex-army / militia thug types. 8bn in reconstruction money (almost all of it from the U.S) has been spent so far and, on average, each contract awarded to the private sector costs four times more than if it was run by the Afghan government. It costs, for example, 6,000 to build a classroom under a government run contract – but US corporations are building the same schools with the same sub contractors for more than 25 grand a piece. Half of all aid is actually spent outside of the country. At the same time the average resident of Kabul will be lucky to get more than six hours of electricity a day. Most of the loot is being sucked up by reconstruction which runs over-budget. And since there?s no one?s checking the cashflow that comes as hardly a surprise. On average international ?donors? are spending three quarters of their ?aid? on privately run projects with no government oversight. Although the State Department does not gather the statistics because (says a spokesman) the figures are ?not important to us? ? it is estimated that only 3% of US aid is given to the Afghan government. The rest goes to the corporations that are so closely tied to (and sponsor) the Bush administration. It was never the invading powers? intention for their governments to pay for the reconstruction themselves – they?d be leaving that to the US and UK taxpayers. Using their leverage and influence to snap up lucrative investments and non-exec positions with the same companies bankrolling the political class help them all pick up this bountiful tax income through reconstruction, security and ?advice? contracts. Any shares in the corporations that win contracts can be packaged in a variety of ?financial instruments? (e.g. offshore trust funds) so the voter need never know that their political representative is making a fortune. And if you?re vice President and former Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton, like Dick Cheney, then you can simply operate under a subsidiary name – Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) in this case. And what a nice little earner that?s turning out to be. KBR picked up a 50 million contract from the State Department back in 2002 to build a new embassy in Kabul. The company has since been awarded further contracts worth 115 million. Mindful of all the bad PR, Cheney left Halliburton in August 2000, promising to sever all financial ties to the company. A few stock options later and Dick was 20 million better off. But he still pockets anything between 100,000 and 1/2 million each year in ?deferred compensation? showing that he continues to profit from the war he made the decision to wage. Afghanistan?s Rebuilding Agricultural Markets Program has been bankrolled by USAID (the government agency awarding contracts), with more than 25 million a year going to Chemonics International to persuade Afghanis to adopt the more profitable western approach to growing food. Chemonics is the the knowledge economy game where it receives hefty fees to ?advise? governments. Ninety percent of its cash comes through USAID – where its controlling owner, Scott Spangler, used to work as director under papa Bush. The Price is Right To help make the loot flow in the right direction, between 1990 and 2003 the Spangler family gave the republican party 50,000 ? and now they want to see a return for their investment. Despite Chemonics best efforts a country once more than self sufficient in food now sees half the population go hungry. Another option is to obtain a valuable contract ? in security for example ? and sub contract it out to the locals for a nice fee. Private security firm, United States Protection and Investigations, charges 2,500 a month for a security team of six. But when western security forces charge more than 1,000 a day, its so much cheaper to pay an Afghani security worker who only commands 60 a month. With six employees costing just 360 ? 80% of the money is straight profit. In fact even the World Bank director in Kabul, Jean Mazurelle, estimates that 35 to 40 percent of all international aid sent to Afghanistan is ?badly spent.? The consequences of inaction on locally-led development are clear. While Brown talks of an ?historic mission?, Afghanis are wondering where all the promised assistance has gone. Corruption in government and blatant profiteering by western corporations is only serving to alienate a population which then turns against those responsible for the abuses ? be they warlords, government officials or the international forces that support them. For more info on the recent rise of private military companies, check out Jeremy Scahill www.alternet.org/authors/5434 More than one in five of the 100 soldiers killed since November 2001 were not caused by enemy fire ? but accidents. The statistics are a little skewed when the crash of an aging Nimrod spy plane killed all 14 crew. Nevertheless of the 201 British soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan more than 80 died because of accidents. Oops.
The Resistible Rise of the BNP13 Jun 2008One of the most shocking results last month was the election of Nazi British National Party (BNP) member Richard Barnbrook to London’s assembly. This was on top of 13 seats the fascist organisation won in councils in England. It also lost three seats, so its net gain was ten, bringing a total of 57 seats. The BNP often quotes a figure of over 100 seats, but this includes parish councils where it often stands unopposed or without its candidates identifying themselves as BNP members. In ten of its 13 seats the BNP replaced a Labour councillor, showing it can capture seats outside the inner cities where Labour’s base has collapsed. The BNP has also been given a massive boost with programmes like those featured in the BBC’s White Season and the endless flow of media attacks on immigrants. In many cases, far from challenging such ideas, Labour has been seen to go along with them, most recently in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election. The BNP won its first seats in South Yorkshire – two in Rotherham; two in Amber Valley and two in Nuneaton and Bedworth, both in the East Midlands; and one in the Three Rivers borough in the Eastern Region. It also came very near to winning a number of seats, including Amber Valley where it lost winning a third seat by just one vote. Nine of the top 20 wards it just missed were in South Yorkshire. The North East also saw some worrying results, when the BNP came within 60 votes of winning in Hartlepool, and polled over 25 percent in Newcastle. In the 2004 European elections the BNP won 4.91 percent of the vote with 808,200 votes. On the basis of the votes gained this May, it has the potential to win seats in Yorkshire and Humberside, the North West and the Midlands in next year’s Euro election. But the disturbing headlines about the BNP’s victories are just one part of the story. It’s important to put these votes in perspective. The percentage of the BNP vote rose by only 0.6 percent from 2004 in the London Assembly election. Yet this was enough to push it over the critical 5 percent barrier and win a seat. However, because of the high turnout of 45.3 percent (up by 8.3 percent from 2004) it meant it won 130,714 votes. It’s worth noting that the total Conservative, BNP and UK Independence Party (UKIP) vote is almost the same as it was in 2004 – around 42 percent. UKIP’s vote collapsed from 8.2 percent to 1.9 percent, with their votes being distributed to the Tories and the BNP. But the BNP also faces problems. Nationally it is still finding it hard to break into inner city areas – but it is trying. Also its Eurofascist strategy – putting itself across as a respectable political party – is succeeding in winning it seats but also has limitations. As is the case with all fascist parties, the BNP is pulled in two different directions. One is towards elections, and another to taking to the streets in order to break up and terrorise progressive movements and immigrant areas. This creates tensions in its own ranks. We have seen several cases of this inside the BNP, most recently in Colwyn Bay, Wales. In May three BNP town councillors resigned before even attending a council meeting. One said he did not realise the BNP was a fascist party and didn’t like the fact that he was attacked by the party for helping an Asian family. On the other hand, we have also seen a section of the party frustrated by the restraints imposed in the quest for respectability, wanting to break out of the straitjacket of elections. That is why we have seen convictions of a number of BNP members for violence. For the BNP to carry out its aim of creating a fascist state, elections will not be enough and it will have to take to the streets. This is what all classic fascist movements have done in the past. The BNP has made several forays in recent years but has been pushed back by the anti-fascist movement. With its electoral success the pressure will grow for the BNP to capitalise on its gains and take to the streets in the near future. All this shows the urgency of building against the fascists on many fronts in the coming months. The success of the Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) carnival was proof that there is a real mood to build opposition. The next step is building the biggest possible turnout on 21 June for the demonstration called in London by LMHR and Unite Against Fascism (UAF). UAF will be calling a series of rallies all over the country, targeting particular places where the BNP has done well. The rallies alone will not be enough to challenge the growth of the BNP. In every city and region it will need local UAF groups involving trade unionists, students and other activists who can build roots to undercut the BNP at a local level. Next year there will be a Northern carnival, on the same scale as this year’s carnival in London. At the same time LMHR will be trying to reach out to young people and will be holding a series of concerts in Hull, Rotherham, Stoke, Barking and Dagenham. LMHR will also be creating, alongside teachers’ unions, an educational pack for schools to use in developing anti-racist education. This year’s election results shows there can be no complacency surrounding the BNP. Those who say we can just ignore the BNP and it will go away are playing a dangerous game. This strategy failed in France, as the growth of the fascist National Front shows. What is needed is a broad based movement that can undermine the BNP at both a national and local level. But that leaves open one important question: how can we build a socialist current that offers people an alternative?
New Labour Push Through 42 Days’ Detention13 Jun 2008The Brown government managed to pass its new anti-terror bill through parliament on Wednesday by a majority of just nine. By 315 to 306, it was agreed to extend the period in which a person can be detained without charge from 28 days to 42. Little now remains of habeas corpus, on which Britain?s international reputation as the home of personal liberty rested. The UK now has one of the most undemocratic terms on detention without charge in the world?worse even than Robert Mugabe?s Zimbabwe, which the British government routinely condemns as dictatorial and authoritarian. There had been speculation that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would lose the vote. Some 47 sitting MPs had voted against then Prime Minister Tony Blair?s plan to extend the period of detention without charge to 90 days and both the former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer and former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had spoken out against the 42-day measure. Virtually the entire media, with the exception of Rupert Murdoch?s Sun newspaper, had also denounced it, as had the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and human rights organisation Liberty. In the event, just 36 Labour MPs voted against the 42-day extension. That still would have been enough to defeat the measure, but it was salvaged by the nine votes of Northern Ireland?s Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP claimed that it had voted out of principle, in order to safeguard national security. But principle was the last thing that was involved in the debate. Afterwards, it emerged that democratic safeguards had been horse-traded for the sum of 1.2 billion?the financial aid package Brown reportedly offered Northern Ireland in return for DUP support. Labour discussions with the DUP continued up to the last hours before the vote. Reports indicate that the government has agreed that Northern Ireland will be able to keep the proceeds from the sale of army bases, worth 1 billion, and will gain a further 200 million through the relaxation of Treasury rules on the proceeds of new water charges. The government has also apparently pledged that Britain?s liberal abortion laws will not be extended to Northern Ireland. It took even less to buy off some potential Labour ?rebels,? some of whom were apparently persuaded to support the government by vague promises on compensation to miners with lung disease and that the UK would back a relaxation of sanctions on Cuba. The more fundamental concern for many of the putative rebel Labour MPs in switching to backing the government was the political implications of a defeat of the 42-day extension. Labour MP Austin Mitchell said that he had changed to supporting the extension in order to ?save Gordon Brown for the nation. I support him and I think he would be on his way out if he had been defeated on this.? After a series of electoral losses for Labour, and with opinion polls showing that the party?s supporters are leaving it in droves, the government feared that the bill?s loss would leave Brown fatally wounded. That only intensified accusations that Brown was proceeding recklessly in forcing the matter to a vote?utilizing the ?war on terror? for political posturing in the manner of his predecessor, and further discrediting Parliament in the process. Likewise, Liberty charged that Brown had ?sexed up? the case for extending the period of detention?the charge made against Blair over Iraq?s supposed weapons of mass destruction. Brown countered that his refusal to back down on the extension was motivated solely by ?national security? concerns, and made necessary by the fact that it took far longer for police to trawl through computers and decrypt potential terror plots. According to the latest figures available, however, 1,113 people had been arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 between September 11, 2001 and September 30, 2006, of which just 104 were charged with specific terror-related offences. Moreover, since the limit was raised to 28 days in 2006, only 11 suspects have been held without charge for longer than 14 days. Writing in the Times, Philippe Sands QC said that the prime minister had ?plucked a detention number from the air with no evidence to back it up.? ?What seems to have happened is that early on in his premiership Mr. Brown took a punt on a number?an arbitrary 42 days?and is now stuck with it. The policy was fixed on the basis of an ill-conceived political objective?tough on terror?and not on the basis of the evidence or any proper consultation.? Powers already exist to extend the period of detention beyond 28 days. The Civil Contingencies Act allows for an additional 30 days, but the government argued that it wanted the police to be given the extra time without having to declare a state of national emergency. In the end, Brown agreed a number of supposed safeguards on the 42-day extension. These are that a chief constable and the Director of Public Prosecutions must request the extension from the Home Secretary only in the context of a ?grave exceptional terrorist threat.? Parliament must then debate and vote in favour of this extension within one week of the request being made. If it is passed, police will have 30 days to exercise their powers. But the government claims that the principle of habeas corpus will be upheld by judges having to regularly scrutinize such detentions. It has also said that those held beyond 28 days and then released without charge will be liable for compensation of up to 3,000 for each day they are held. None of these ?protections? are viable. As the Times newspaper editorialized, the security services would likely refuse to release details of the evidence on which they were applying for the extension to parliament, on the grounds that it would compromise national security. ?But if they did, and Parliament upheld a request, it would have voted on the evidence and thereby jeopardised the suspect?s chances of a fair trial. And if they did not, this vaunted parliamentary scrutiny would be little more than a charade.? More importantly, 42-day detention without charge (and 28, 14 and 7 days for that matter) is a flagrant abuse of democratic safeguards. Once again, the state has been given extraordinary powers to lock people up and interrogate them without those held having any legal recourse, or even knowing the grounds on which they are being imprisoned. And, as Liberty has pointed out, the Home Secretary?s decision to invoke ?grave and exceptional? circumstances is not subject to any legal requirement that he cite his evidence and can be taken in response to a supposed threat emanating from anywhere in the world. Political commentary following the vote was generally in agreement that the result would do nothing to win Brown popular support. The Guardian said it was a ?hollow victory? in which ?the prime minister has squandered parliamentary time, goodwill and his reputation as a man of principle on a symbolic sacrifice of liberty.? The Times wrote that Brown was ?still fighting for his political life.? Only the Sun lauded the result as ?a major victory for the PM after a torrid six months. He passed it with credit.? Such supposed ?credit? was immediately spent when it was revealed, within moments of the vote, that top-secret documents containing the government?s latest intelligence on Al Qaeda had been left on a London subway train. One document, commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, reportedly contains ?damning? information on Iraq?s security forces. The other document, reportedly entitled ?Al-Qaeda Vulnerabilities,? was commissioned jointly by the Foreign Office and the Home Office and marked ?UK Top Secret? and ?for UK/US/Canadian and Australian eyes only.? The revelation that an intelligence official had apparently forgotten the documents made a farce of Brown?s earlier insistence that his government would ?take no risks with security.? Brown no doubt was determined to see through the 42-day extension and prove himself ?tough? on national security to the likes of the Sun. He has been ridiculed as a ?coward? and a ?ditherer? after backing down on a range of issues, including calling an early general election immediately after he assumed leadership of the Labour Party. But focusing exclusively on the political crisis surrounding Brown serves to dull the political faculties of working people as to the consequences of Parliament?s decision. Numerous commentators claim that the government is in such a mess, and so weakened, that the bill will not make it onto the statute books. Former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, for example, said the ?thinness of the Commons majority? justified the House of Lords blocking the bill. And the Equality and Human Rights Commission established by the government under its chairman Trevor Phillips had already announced before the vote that it would launch a legal challenge to the extension if it were passed, on the grounds that it violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The Guardian editorialized that the law ?quite possibly, will never come into force.? Willem Buiter in the Financial Times gave voice as to what really had been agreed. The ?UK?s gutless House of Commons? had taken a ?major step on the road to a police state in the UK?a horrifying encroachment on human rights,? he wrote. ?This introduction of state-of-emergency-instruments and powers during ?normal? times is a constitutional outrage.? The correctness of the police-state analogy is further underscored by the fact that it was the police and security services which have been the prime advocates and movers of the extended powers?and no doubt insisted that Brown bite the bullet. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland Sir Hugh Orde, and former Metropolitan police head of anti-terrorist operations Peter Clarke were amongst those members of the security apparatus who made their insistence on the extension known. The implications of such draconian and arbitrary powers have already been seen in the arrests of Nottingham University student Rizwaan Sabir and university staff member Hicham Yezza. Both are high-profile political campaigners at the university and have been particularly active in anti-war protests. Sabir?s ?crime? was to download, from a US government web site, a copy of an Al Qaeda training manual, which he was using to research his dissertation on ?the American approach to Al Qaeda in Iraq.? After he emailed the document to Yezza to print it for him, the pair were arrested and held without charge for six days. Released on May 20 without charge, Yezza was rearrested on immigration matters and is currently facing deportation from the country. In an unprecedented move, Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5, released a public statement on the 42-day extension. While maintaining the secret service?s guise of political neutrality, the purpose of the statement was to refute claims that MI5 was opposed to the extension. MI5 ?are not, and never have been, the appropriate body to advise the government on pre-charge detention time limits,? Evans wrote, continuing ?except to say that we recognise the challenge posed for the police service by the increasingly complex and international character of some recent terrorist cases.? Two leading former spies with MI6, responsible for international espionage, also made rare public statements in favour of 42 days. Baroness Park stated that ?MPs will be very irresponsible if they take out the 42 days,? and would put spies? ?lives at risk,? while Lady Ramsay, a former member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said, ?Voting against 42 days increases the odds in favour of the terrorists.? See Also:
Britain: Campus meeting discusses arrest of Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza
[11 June 2008]
Britain: Two imprisoned for violating Official Secrets Act
Punished for exposing Bush and Blair?s crimes in Iraq
[17 May 2007]
Britain: Parliament approves police state measures in Terrorism Bill
[17 February 2006]
New Labour Push Through 42 Days13 Jun 2008The Brown government managed to pass its new anti-terror bill through parliament on Wednesday by a majority of just nine. By 315 to 306, it was agreed to extend the period in which a person can be detained without charge from 28 days to 42. Little now remains of habeas corpus, on which Britain?s international reputation as the home of personal liberty rested. The UK now has one of the most undemocratic terms on detention without charge in the world?worse even than Robert Mugabe?s Zimbabwe, which the British government routinely condemns as dictatorial and authoritarian. There had been speculation that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would lose the vote. Some 47 sitting MPs had voted against then Prime Minister Tony Blair?s plan to extend the period of detention without charge to 90 days and both the former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer and former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had spoken out against the 42-day measure. Virtually the entire media, with the exception of Rupert Murdoch?s Sun newspaper, had also denounced it, as had the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and human rights organisation Liberty. In the event, just 36 Labour MPs voted against the 42-day extension. That still would have been enough to defeat the measure, but it was salvaged by the nine votes of Northern Ireland?s Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP claimed that it had voted out of principle, in order to safeguard national security. But principle was the last thing that was involved in the debate. Afterwards, it emerged that democratic safeguards had been horse-traded for the sum of 1.2 billion?the financial aid package Brown reportedly offered Northern Ireland in return for DUP support. Labour discussions with the DUP continued up to the last hours before the vote. Reports indicate that the government has agreed that Northern Ireland will be able to keep the proceeds from the sale of army bases, worth 1 billion, and will gain a further 200 million through the relaxation of Treasury rules on the proceeds of new water charges. The government has also apparently pledged that Britain?s liberal abortion laws will not be extended to Northern Ireland. It took even less to buy off some potential Labour ?rebels,? some of whom were apparently persuaded to support the government by vague promises on compensation to miners with lung disease and that the UK would back a relaxation of sanctions on Cuba. The more fundamental concern for many of the putative rebel Labour MPs in switching to backing the government was the political implications of a defeat of the 42-day extension. Labour MP Austin Mitchell said that he had changed to supporting the extension in order to ?save Gordon Brown for the nation. I support him and I think he would be on his way out if he had been defeated on this.? After a series of electoral losses for Labour, and with opinion polls showing that the party?s supporters are leaving it in droves, the government feared that the bill?s loss would leave Brown fatally wounded. That only intensified accusations that Brown was proceeding recklessly in forcing the matter to a vote?utilizing the ?war on terror? for political posturing in the manner of his predecessor, and further discrediting Parliament in the process. Likewise, Liberty charged that Brown had ?sexed up? the case for extending the period of detention?the charge made against Blair over Iraq?s supposed weapons of mass destruction. Brown countered that his refusal to back down on the extension was motivated solely by ?national security? concerns, and made necessary by the fact that it took far longer for police to trawl through computers and decrypt potential terror plots. According to the latest figures available, however, 1,113 people had been arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 between September 11, 2001 and September 30, 2006, of which just 104 were charged with specific terror-related offences. Moreover, since the limit was raised to 28 days in 2006, only 11 suspects have been held without charge for longer than 14 days. Writing in the Times, Philippe Sands QC said that the prime minister had ?plucked a detention number from the air with no evidence to back it up.? ?What seems to have happened is that early on in his premiership Mr. Brown took a punt on a number?an arbitrary 42 days?and is now stuck with it. The policy was fixed on the basis of an ill-conceived political objective?tough on terror?and not on the basis of the evidence or any proper consultation.? Powers already exist to extend the period of detention beyond 28 days. The Civil Contingencies Act allows for an additional 30 days, but the government argued that it wanted the police to be given the extra time without having to declare a state of national emergency. In the end, Brown agreed a number of supposed safeguards on the 42-day extension. These are that a chief constable and the Director of Public Prosecutions must request the extension from the Home Secretary only in the context of a ?grave exceptional terrorist threat.? Parliament must then debate and vote in favour of this extension within one week of the request being made. If it is passed, police will have 30 days to exercise their powers. But the government claims that the principle of habeas corpus will be upheld by judges having to regularly scrutinize such detentions. It has also said that those held beyond 28 days and then released without charge will be liable for compensation of up to 3,000 for each day they are held. None of these ?protections? are viable. As the Times newspaper editorialized, the security services would likely refuse to release details of the evidence on which they were applying for the extension to parliament, on the grounds that it would compromise national security. ?But if they did, and Parliament upheld a request, it would have voted on the evidence and thereby jeopardised the suspect?s chances of a fair trial. And if they did not, this vaunted parliamentary scrutiny would be little more than a charade.? More importantly, 42-day detention without charge (and 28, 14 and 7 days for that matter) is a flagrant abuse of democratic safeguards. Once again, the state has been given extraordinary powers to lock people up and interrogate them without those held having any legal recourse, or even knowing the grounds on which they are being imprisoned. And, as Liberty has pointed out, the Home Secretary?s decision to invoke ?grave and exceptional? circumstances is not subject to any legal requirement that he cite his evidence and can be taken in response to a supposed threat emanating from anywhere in the world. Political commentary following the vote was generally in agreement that the result would do nothing to win Brown popular support. The Guardian said it was a ?hollow victory? in which ?the prime minister has squandered parliamentary time, goodwill and his reputation as a man of principle on a symbolic sacrifice of liberty.? The Times wrote that Brown was ?still fighting for his political life.? Only the Sun lauded the result as ?a major victory for the PM after a torrid six months. He passed it with credit.? Such supposed ?credit? was immediately spent when it was revealed, within moments of the vote, that top-secret documents containing the government?s latest intelligence on Al Qaeda had been left on a London subway train. One document, commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, reportedly contains ?damning? information on Iraq?s security forces. The other document, reportedly entitled ?Al-Qaeda Vulnerabilities,? was commissioned jointly by the Foreign Office and the Home Office and marked ?UK Top Secret? and ?for UK/US/Canadian and Australian eyes only.? The revelation that an intelligence official had apparently forgotten the documents made a farce of Brown?s earlier insistence that his government would ?take no risks with security.? Brown no doubt was determined to see through the 42-day extension and prove himself ?tough? on national security to the likes of the Sun. He has been ridiculed as a ?coward? and a ?ditherer? after backing down on a range of issues, including calling an early general election immediately after he assumed leadership of the Labour Party. But focusing exclusively on the political crisis surrounding Brown serves to dull the political faculties of working people as to the consequences of Parliament?s decision. Numerous commentators claim that the government is in such a mess, and so weakened, that the bill will not make it onto the statute books. Former Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, for example, said the ?thinness of the Commons majority? justified the House of Lords blocking the bill. And the Equality and Human Rights Commission established by the government under its chairman Trevor Phillips had already announced before the vote that it would launch a legal challenge to the extension if it were passed, on the grounds that it violates the European Convention on Human Rights. The Guardian editorialized that the law ?quite possibly, will never come into force.? Willem Buiter in the Financial Times gave voice as to what really had been agreed. The ?UK?s gutless House of Commons? had taken a ?major step on the road to a police state in the UK?a horrifying encroachment on human rights,? he wrote. ?This introduction of state-of-emergency-instruments and powers during ?normal? times is a constitutional outrage.? The correctness of the police-state analogy is further underscored by the fact that it was the police and security services which have been the prime advocates and movers of the extended powers?and no doubt insisted that Brown bite the bullet. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair, the Chief Constable of Northern Ireland Sir Hugh Orde, and former Metropolitan police head of anti-terrorist operations Peter Clarke were amongst those members of the security apparatus who made their insistence on the extension known. The implications of such draconian and arbitrary powers have already been seen in the arrests of Nottingham University student Rizwaan Sabir and university staff member Hicham Yezza. Both are high-profile political campaigners at the university and have been particularly active in anti-war protests. Sabir?s ?crime? was to download, from a US government web site, a copy of an Al Qaeda training manual, which he was using to research his dissertation on ?the American approach to Al Qaeda in Iraq.? After he emailed the document to Yezza to print it for him, the pair were arrested and held without charge for six days. Released on May 20 without charge, Yezza was rearrested on immigration matters and is currently facing deportation from the country. In an unprecedented move, Jonathan Evans, director general of MI5, released a public statement on the 42-day extension. While maintaining the secret service?s guise of political neutrality, the purpose of the statement was to refute claims that MI5 was opposed to the extension. MI5 ?are not, and never have been, the appropriate body to advise the government on pre-charge detention time limits,? Evans wrote, continuing ?except to say that we recognise the challenge posed for the police service by the increasingly complex and international character of some recent terrorist cases.? Two leading former spies with MI6, responsible for international espionage, also made rare public statements in favour of 42 days. Baroness Park stated that ?MPs will be very irresponsible if they take out the 42 days,? and would put spies? ?lives at risk,? while Lady Ramsay, a former member of the Intelligence and Security Committee, said, ?Voting against 42 days increases the odds in favour of the terrorists.? See Also:
Britain: Campus meeting discusses arrest of Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza
[11 June 2008]
Britain: Two imprisoned for violating Official Secrets Act
Punished for exposing Bush and Blair?s crimes in Iraq
[17 May 2007]
Britain: Parliament approves police state measures in Terrorism Bill
[17 February 2006]
The Story of Modern Corporate Britain13 Jun 2008The government, the opposition and the bulk of the media are back in bed together again denouncing workers for striking in defence of their living standards. The hardline Blairite business secretary John Hutton declares today’s walkout by Shell tanker drivers over pay “cannot be justified“ (what strike ever could be in the eyes of Hutton and his friends?). His Tory shadow, Alan Duncan, accuses the Unite union that called the four-day stoppage of being “utterly irresponsible“. The Independent today raised the hoary old spectre of Britain being “held hostage by the labour unions“. None of this will wash. In parallel with millions of other employees, the tanker drivers have seen their wages and conditions drastically squeezed since Shell contracted out fuel deliveries 15 years ago. In 1992, when they were directly employed by the oil giant, their basic pay was around 32,000 for a 37-hour week. Today, it is still about 32,000 for a 48-hour week ? in other words, a drastic real pay cut ? while pensions have eroded, facilities deteriorated, hyper-flexibility and insecurity intensified. In other words, it’s the story of modern corporate Britain ? and the context for a 13% pay claim that would still leave the drivers earning substantially less in real terms than in the early days of John Major’s premiership. Meanwhile, on the back of soaring oil prices, Shell is now making 1.3bn profit a month as its executives enthusiastically stuff their pockets on the back of it. Shell’s chief executive was paid 4.5m last year as average boardroom salaries increased 16%. The drivers, on the other hand, have been offered 7% by the two Shell contractors, Hoyer and Suckling Transport. If New Labour’s leaders had taken steps to rein in corporate greed and used the tax system to counter ballooning inequality, politicians like Duncan and Hutton ? who instead recently demanded that Labour celebrate “huge salaries” ? might have more credibility. As it is, workers in both the private and public sectors are increasingly taking action themselves wherever they can. The response of tanker drivers working for other companies, who have refused to cross Shell workers’ picket lines this morning, is a demonstration of the breadth of support for the strike throughout the workforce. It also means the impact of the action is likely to go well beyond Shell garages, which account for about 10% of all filling stations. The two sides in the dispute are now probably only a couple of hundred thousand pounds apart, but behind the scenes both the government and the CBI have been putting pressure on Shell not to settle. After the success of the Grangemouth pensions strike in April and growing industrial action over real terms pay cuts in the public sector, they’re worried about the impact of another high profile strike victory on the rest of the workforce. A bit late for that, you might think.
Climate chaos is inevitable – we can only avert oblivion13 Jun 2008Sometimes we need to think the unthinkable, particularly when dealing with a problem as dangerous as climate change ? there is no room for dogma when considering the future habitability of our planet. It was in this spirit that I and a panel of other specialists in climate, economics and policy-making met under the aegis of the Stockholm Network thinktank to map out future scenarios for how international policy might evolve ? and what the eventual impact might be on the earth?s climate. We came up with three alternative visions of the future, and asked experts at the Met Office Hadley Centre to run them through its climate models to give each a projected temperature rise. The results were both surprising, and profoundly disturbing. We gave each scenario a name. The most pessimistic was labelled ?agree and ignore? ? a world where governments meet to make commitments on climate change, but then backtrack or fail to comply with them. Sound familiar? It should: this scenario most closely resembles the past 10 years, and it projects emissions on an upward trend until 2045. A more optimistic scenario was termed ?Kyoto plus?: here governments make a strong agreement in Copenhagen in 2009, binding industrialised countries into a new round of Kyoto-style targets, with developing countries joining successively as they achieve ?first world? status. This scenario represents the best outcome that can plausibly result from the current process ? but ominously, it still sees emissions rising until 2030. The third scenario ? called ?step change? ? is worth a closer look. Here we envisaged massive climate disasters around the world in 2010 and 2011 causing a sudden increase in the sense of urgency surrounding global warming. Energised, world leaders ditch Kyoto, abandoning efforts to regulate emissions at a national level. Instead, they focus on the companies that produce fossil fuels in the first place ? from oil and gas wells and coal mines ? with the UN setting a global ?upstream? production cap and auctioning tradable permits to carbon producers. Instead of all the complexity of regulating squabbling nations and billions of people, the price mechanism does the work: companies simply pass on their increased costs to consumers, and demand for carbon-intensive products begins to fall. The auctioning of permits raises trillions of dollars to be spent smoothing the transition to a low-carbon economy and offsetting the impact of price rises on the poor. A clear long-term framework puts a price on carbon, giving business a strong incentive to shift investment into renewable energy and low-carbon manufacturing. Most importantly, a strong carbon cap means that global emissions peak as early as 2017. This ?upstream cap? approach is not a new idea, and our approach draws in particular on a forthcoming book by the environmental writer Oliver Tickell. However, conventional wisdom from governments and environmental groups alike insists that ?Kyoto is the only game in town?, and that proposing any alternative is dangerous heresy. But let?s look at the modelled temperature increases associated with each scenario. ?Agree and ignore? sees temperatures rise by 4.85C by 2100 (with a 90% probability); for ?Kyoto plus?, it?s 3.31C; and ?step change? 2.89C. This is the depressing bit: no politically plausible scenario we could envisage will now keep the world below the danger threshold of two degrees, the official target of both the EU and UK. This means that all scenarios see the total disappearance of Arctic sea ice; spreading deserts and water stress in the sub-tropics; extreme weather and floods; and melting glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas. Hence the need to focus far more on adaptation: these are impacts that humanity is going to have to deal with whatever now happens at the policy level. But the other great lesson is that sticking with current policy is actually a very risky option, rather than a safe bet. Betting on Kyoto could mean triggering the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet and crossing thresholds that involve massive methane release from melting Siberian permafrost. If current policy continues to fail ? along the lines of the ?agree and ignore? scenario ? then 50% to 80% of all species on earth could be driven to extinction by the magnitude and rapidity of warming, and much of the planet?s surface left uninhabitable to humans. Billions, not millions, of people would be displaced. So which way will it go? Ultimately the difference between the scenarios is one of political will: the question now is whether humanity can summon up the courage and foresight to save itself, or whether business as usual ? on climate policy as much as economics ? will condemn us all to climatic oblivion.
BBC’s Pro-Israeli Bias13 Jun 2008In its near 86 year history, BBC has a long, unbroken and dubious distinction. Today it’s little different from its corporate-run counterparts in America, Britain and throughout the world. In fact, on its tailored for a US BBC America audience, what passes for news matches stride for stride what people here see every day – mind-numbing commercialism, shoddy reporting, pseudo-journalism, celebrity and sports features, and other diverting and distracting non-news that should embarrass correspondents and presenters delivering it. It offends viewers and treats them like mushrooms – well-watered, in the dark, and uninformed about the most important world and national issues affecting their lives and welfare. That’s the idea, of course, and has been since BBC’s inception. John Reith was its founder and first general manager. Reassuring the powerful, he set the standard adhered to thereafter: “(You) know (you) can trust us not to be really impartial.” BBC never was and never is. Impartiality has no place on BBC nor does its claim about “honesty, integrity, (and being) free from political influence and commercial pressure.” How can it? Its Director-General, Executive Board Chairman, BBC Trust Chairman and senior managers are government-appointed and charged with a singular task - to function as a “propaganda system for elite interests.” On all vital issues – war and peace, state and corporate corruption, human rights, social justice, or coverage of the Middle East’s longest and most intractable conflict, Westminster and the establishment rest easy. They know BBC is “reliable” – pro-government, pro-business and dismissive of the public trust it disdains. Now more than ever. This article covers one example among many – BBC’s distorted, one-sided support for Israel and its antipathy toward Palestinians. In this respect, it’s fully in step with its American and European counterparts – Israeli interests matter; Palestinian ones don’t; as long as that holds, conflict resolution is impossible. Therein lies the problem. With its reputation, world reach, and influence, BBC’s coverage exacerbates it. Key BBC Terms In Its Israeli – Palestinian Coverage In October 2006, Electronic Intifada.net listed BBC’s “key terms” in its conflict coverage – to “find a balance” that, in fact, tilts strongly toward Israel. For example: — pre-meditated assassinations are called “killings” or occasionally “targeted killings” if Israeli sources say it; — the separation or apartheid wall is called a “barrier, separation barrier, West Bank barrier, (or simply) this wall;” sometimes “fence” is used as well; no hint of its real purpose or that the World Court ruled it illegal; no mention either that it’s unrelated to security and simply a land-grab scheme and effort to heighten Palestinian isolation; — East Jerusalem – BBC recognizes West Jerusalem as part of Israel; East Jerusalem is considered occupied with its status “still to be determined in permanent status negotiations between the parties….We recognize no sovereignty over the city;” The phrase “Arab East Jerusalem” is avoided; so is any mention that Israeli settlements encroach on it and aim to annex it entirely; Palestinians want the city for their capital; it belongs to them; Israel won’t allow it; BBC won’t explain it; — Gaza – Israel nominally disengaged in summer 2005; in fact, it never did; it merely redeployed its forces, and maintains rigid control over the territory’s land, coast and airspace; it invades and attacks at will and maintains a brutish mediaeval siege; all movement in and out of Gaza is restricted; so are Gazans’ access to food, water, health care, fuel, electricity and other life essentials; the result is a deep humanitarian crisis; BBC ignores it; instead it merely refers to an “end to Israel’s permanent military presence,” not an end to its occupation, repression, continued incursions, mass killings, targeted assassinations, and systemic use of torture; — The Green Line – it separates Israel from the West Bank, but BBC reporting blurs it; it doesn’t call it a border because that implies internationally recognized status; instead it fudges by calling it “the generally recognised boundary between Israel and the West Bank;” — Intifada – more fudging when referring to causes; value judgments are avoided; so is truth; don’t say Ariel Sharon’s September 29, 2000 Haram al-Sharif provocation incited a popular uprising; package his visit with Palestinian frustration over a failed peace process and say it “sparked the (second) intifada (rather than it) led (to it or) started (it);” — Jewish – distinguish between “Israeli” or “Jewish” to avoid religious or racial connotations; stress political ones instead; ignore how Israelis stress Jewishness by relating to “the promised land,” one “without people for a people without a land,” a Jewish homeland, Israel’s biblical connection, and raising the issue of anti-semitism against harsh Israeli critics; when they’re Jewish call them self-hating; — Occupied Territories or Occupation – BBC refers to East Jerusalem and the West Bank, not the Golan Heights; after Israel “disengaged,” Gaza is in political limbo; BBC distinguishes between the “occupied territories” and Palestinian Land or Palestinian Territories; calling Gaza and the West Bank “disputed territories” is preferred; in fact, there’s no dispute; they’re both Israeli occupied Palestinian land; — settlements and outposts – BBC distinguishes between them when, in fact, they vary only in size; BBC avoids calling them illegal; they’re all illegal but adjectives aren’t used unless they’re vital to a story; in all reports, BBC is one-sided; it stresses that Israel disputes international law; anti-Israeli value judgments aren’t made; the rule of law is dismissed; Palestinian rights are ignored; the growing number of Israeli settlers is fudged, downplayed and generally not mentioned; — Palestine – BBC acknowledges that no independent state exists but the “peace process” aims to create one; unmentioned is that negotiations are fake and their reports try to hide it; so do deceptive words to appease pro-Israel critics; BBC obliges them; — “relative calm” or “quiet” periods – it refers to quiescent Palestinian resistance, no Israeli deaths, but not ongoing Israeli attacks and killings; — right of return – BBC ignores international law and UN Resolution 194; it promotes the Israeli position instead; and — “terrorists” – a loaded term applying only to Palestinians; never Israelis; most often other words are used like “bomber, attacker, gunman, kidnapper, insurgent (or) militant;” Palestinian self-defense is never called resistance, and Israeli incursions aren’t ever called aggression. Media “Rules of Engagement” in Covering the Middle East In June 2002, Robin Miller listed “The Media’s Middle East Rules of Engagement.” BBC’s Israeli-Palestinian coverage adheres to them rigidly: Rule 1 – “View the Middle East (ME) through Israeli eyes;” Palestinians are terrorists and aggressors; Israelis are victims who retaliate; self-defense is their motive; so is avoiding the truth; Rule 2 – “Treat American and Israeli governmental statements as (truthful) hard news;” avoid any information that contradicts them; Rule 3 – “Ignore the historical context;” avoid mentioning six decades of dispossession, occupation, and hundreds of preceding years during which Palestine was the Palestinian homeland; also suppress the idea that a Jewish homeland first originated with Zionism’s late 19th century’s founding and didn’t exist prior to that; Rule 4 – “Avoid the fundamental legal and moral issues posed by the Israeli occupation;” say nothing about Geneva, UN Resolution 194, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and all other recognized international human rights laws; Rule 5 – “Suppress or minimize news unfavorable to the Israelis;” this rule is ironclad and unforgiving; open debate isn’t tolerated; facts are suppressed; aggressors are called victims; self-defense is called terrorism; news is carefully “filtered,” minds manipulated, and truth conspicuously absent; BBC excels at it and lets Israel get away with murder; Rule 6 – “Muddy the waters when necessary;” major US media do it; so do human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch; they tread lightly on Israeli-Palestinian issues and slant their views accordingly; so does BBC; Rule 7 – “Credit all Israeli claims (as fact), even if wholly unfounded;” if Israelis say it, it’s true; BBC approves; Rule 8 – “Doubt all Palestinian assertions, no matter how self-evident;” if Palestinians say it, it’s false or at best an unsubstantiated claim; most often ignore, downplay or fudge it; Rule 9 – “Condemn only Palestinian violence;” treat it as a crime against innocent Israeli victims; ignore any reference to self-defense against Israeli aggression and rule of law violations; and Rule 10 – “Disparage the international consensus supporting Palestinian rights;” better still – ignore it or condemn it as biased or anti-semitic. Add one more rule for good measure. Repeat any lie often enough and most people will believe it. It’s foolproof and works every time. Independent Analysis of BBC’s Israel – Palestine Coverage In 2005, the BBC commissioned a study to review the impartiality of its Israeli – Palestinian coverage. It consisted of an independent panel, the Communications Research Centre at Loughborough University, and British – Israeli international lawyer Noam Lubell. Their published April 2006 findings weren’t what the broadcaster wished. Highlights from them showed BBC coverage: — rarely covered daily Palestinian hardships and repression under occupation; — was incomplete, misleading, and failed to consistently provide a full and fair account of the conflict; — overlooked important themes; in the study period it most notably ignored Israeli annexation of land in and around East Jerusalem; — omitted a substantial amount of important news vital to Palestinian concerns; — failed to convey the disparity in the Israeli and Palestinian experience; specifically that one side is dominant and the other under occupation and forced to endure dependence indignities and hard line repression; — seldom used the term occupation; mentioned military occupation only once during the study period; — reported nothing about nearly four decades of occupation and repression; — misportrayed Israel’s Gaza disengagement as a positive step; failed to clarify it as a ruse and that Gaza remains occupied, invaded and attacked at will; — failed to report Israeli assertions that relocating Gaza settlers would strengthen Israel’s control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem; — never clarified that Gaza settlements were illegal; that Gazans face ongoing hardships and stressed instead the “controversy” of withdrawing among Israelis; — misused or misportrayed the term “terrorism” and only applied it to Palestinians; — omitted any reference to historical background and failed to put stories in proper context; — provided inadequate analysis and interpretation of key events and issues; — failed to explain the meaning of Zionism; — failed to provide background of the 1967 and 1973 wars; — consistently misportrayed Hamas; described it as formally committed to Israel’s destruction; ignored Hamas’ acceptance of the Arab peace proposal and its willingness to recognize Israel in return for an end to the occupation; — mischaracterized the Oslo Accords as positive; ignored its deficiencies and betrayal; — mentioned the Intifada with no explanation of cause or justification; — failed to cite international law and UN resolutions; their call for an end to Israel’s occupation; and the fact that Israel ignores international rulings contrary to its interests; — ignored Palestinians’ legal right to return or restitution if they choose not to; — ignored humanitarian and human rights laws; — failed to explain extrajudicial executions are illegal; — mischaracterized the Separation Wall that the World Court ruled illegal; — misrepresented the status of Jerusalem; — gave unequal access to Israeli officials and spokespersons; stations none of its correspondents in Occupied Palestine; has them all inside Israel; results in a huge disparity in reports favoring Israel while disparaging Palestinians; — misportrayed Israelis as peace-seeking and Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as aggressors; — stressed Israeli victimhood, the importance of Israeli deaths and injuries, and relative unimportance of a disproportionate number of Palestinian ones; — responded to criticism defensively; continued to repeat past errors cited; showed deference to Israeli issues and the pro-Israeli Lobby; — ignored its own established editorial standards, including on terminology; as a result, consistently showed bias, a lack of clarity and precision and did little to improve comprehension and understanding; — overall – BBC falls far short of fair and impartial reporting and has done little to redress pointed out deficiencies; one positive note – the analysis found no evidence linking anti-Semitic behavior to BBC reports; it also found none dispelling it. Glasgow University Media Group Study of Middle East News Coverage – It’s “Bad News from Israel” and BBC Researchers Greg Philo and Mike Berry conducted the study between 2000 and 2002, and their above quoted 2004 book title discusses it. Little has changed from then to now, BBC’s reporting highlights it, and it’s “bad news” for kept-in-the-dark viewers of major UK news and current affairs coverage. Former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn agrees and explained in his unsparing comments about his former employer. He called it “dishonest – in concept, approach and execution….(it) favours the occupying soldiers over the occupied Arabs, depicting the latter, essentially, as alien tribes threatening the survival of Israel, rather than vice versa.” It depicts the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “as a battle of two (equal) forces (with equally) right and wrong responsibility. It is the tyranny of spurious equivalence.” As the UK and world’s leading broadcaster, BBC is justifiably blamed. “Bad News from Israel” explains how – by consistently showing pro-Israel bias in virtually all its reporting and at times in the extreme. Beyond the book’s timeline, correspondent Chris Morris’ January 2004 “Lost hope in Mid-East conflict” report is a case in point. It’s about an expectant Palestinian woman confronted at a checkpoint. Prevented from passing, she gives birth and miscarries. Morris is sympathetic but sides with the soldiers. “You can’t blame (them, he says) for being jumpy at checkpoints….because there are Israeli victims too, children among them, killed by snipers and suicide bombers from the West Bank. What would you have done? Would you have taken the risk? Or would you have played it safe, fearful of a trap? And so it goes on – another week in the Middle East.” Even worse, the greater issue is ignored – an instance reflecting daily life in Occupied Palestine plus regular killings and abuse. Morris turns a blind eye. He highlights suicide bombings instead – “A Palestinian mother in her early 20s blows herself to bits and takes the lives of four young Israelis, after tricking them into believing she was ill.” He continues – “A Jewish settler is killed on the West Bank, leaving five children without a father, including triplets just three months old.” Reports like his are commonplace on BBC. Israeli lives matter. Palestinian ones don’t. Philo and Berry document the evidence. Their study covers what media should report, a content analysis of their coverage, and how focus group interviews show how viewers are ill-served and left uninformed. Below are some results that apply to today: — little or no historical context was provided; origins of the conflict were omitted; in the 2000 timeframe covered, BBC (and ITN) devoted 3500 lines of text to the Intifada, but a scant 17 to context or history; — reporting consistently was pro-Israel and justified the most extreme actions and lawlessness; at the same time, Palestinian resistance was highlighted and condemned as terrorism; — in the authors’ words: “There (was) no evidence from our analysis to suggest that Palestinian views were given preferential treatment on the BBC. The opposite (was) in reality the case;” — BBC justified Israeli violence as “response” or “retaliation;” in contrast, Palestinian resistance was called “horrific,” an “atrocity,” “terrorism,” or even “mass murder;” — some BBC reports were rife with errors whether intentionally or from ignorance; — reports focused on Israeli security and right to exist; comparable Palestinian rights got little mention; nor did their impoverishment, deplorable daily existence, or a brutish four-decade military occupation; — Israeli deaths were highlighted; Palestinian ones played down or ignored; regular Israeli incursions got little mention or weren’t reported; — as a result, only 4% of focus group respondents knew Palestinians were driven from their homeland; only 10% that Israel occupied Palestine; some believed Palestinians were the occupiers; some viewed the conflict as a border dispute; 80% didn’t know the origin of Palestinian refugees or that they were dispossessed; two-thirds didn’t know Palestinian casualties exceeded Israeli ones; more knowledgeable respondents had access to books and other material that dispel BBC bias and inaccuracies; — senior BBC journalists interviewed told researchers that they were instructed not to give explanations; to dumb-down the news for easy listening and do it in “20-second attention span” segments; researchers believe BBC has it backwards; this type reporting alienates viewers; accuracy and more context enhances viewership; under heavy Israeli Lobby pressure, BBC and other major media report propaganda; truth is the first casualty, and viewers remain uninformed; today it’s worse than ever. BBC’s Coverage of Gaza Under Siege BBC reports little about Gaza under siege and the humanitarian crisis it caused. Instead, accounts like its January 2008 one are common. It’s headlined “Gaza’s rocket threat to Israel” and highlights homemade Qassams “fired by Hamas and other Palestinian militants at Israeli population centres near the Gaza Strip.” They’ve “killed 13 people inside Israel, including three children. In some months, more than 100 launches have been recorded by the Israelis.” No mention is made of Israeli incursions, their frequency, the use of F-16 air-to-surface missiles, their accuracy and destructive power, high-tech battle tanks in civilian neighborhoods, and other sophisticated weapons freely used, including illegal ones. Nor is there mention of hundreds of Palestinian deaths, injuries, inflicted Israeli destruction, and use of Palestinians as human shields. Instead, the Israeli town of Sderot is highlighted because it’s “the only large Israeli population centre within the original Qassam’s range.” BBC describes them in detail to over-hype their destructive potential. In fact, they’re crude, inaccurate and limited in range. They hardly compare to Israel’s high-tech weapons that when unleashed against a civilian population are devastating. Later in BBC’s report, it admits “Qassams are very primitive missiles and their main effect on Israelis in the area is psychological torment (and that) Israeli casualties have been relatively light.” In contrast, Israeli attacks on Palestinians kill and injure many hundreds and inflict immense psychological terror against a civilian population. It’s gone on for six decades, shows no signs of ebbing, but BBC won’t explain it. Nor does it report on Gaza under siege, the collective punishment of its people, the humanitarian crisis it caused, and Israel’s lawless act that BBC should expose and denounce. Instead it features reports like a May 10 one about a “Gaza mortar attack kill(ing an) Israeli.” Israeli air strikes followed, five Hamas members were killed and four others injured. BBC featured an Israeli government spokesperson saying “We hold (Hamas) accountable for today’s attack and the murder of civilians.” No Palestinian response was aired, and BBC merely ended saying that “The Gaza Strip has been controlled by Hamas since last June when they ousted their rivals from the Fatah movement.” No context, no background, no fair and impartial reporting, no truth, and no possible way for viewers to understand. BBC suggests that Palestinians are responsible for their own condition, that a humanitarian catastrophe is their fault, and that Israel has every right to terrorize and starve them to submission for its own security and self-interest. By BBC’s standards, Israel may rightfully lock down 1.5 million people, collectively punish them, continue a repressive occupation, and refuse to negotiate in good faith, or at all. BBC is dismissive. Palestinian suffering is inconsequential, yet consider its outrage from a single Israeli death. It’s also contemptuous of Hamas, ignored its months-long unilateral ceasefire, and refuses to report its willingness to recognize Israel in return for a Palestinian state inside pre-1967 borders. BBC views the conflict from an Israeli perspective. It features government officials to explain it, and reports whatever they say as fact. This turns reality on its head, makes lawless actions justifiable, results in double standard journalism, and lets Palestinians suffer the consequences. Why not and who cares. They’re just Arab Muslims in the land of Israel where Jews alone matter and not a hint of even-handed reporting exists. Now more than ever in the conflict’s seventh decade, and BBC’s reporting exacerbates it. Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at www.sjlendman.blogspot.com
Lisbon Treaty ? dumping social Europe12 Jun 2008The Irish referendum on the European Union Lisbon Treaty will take place on June 12. The Dublin government, media and all the major political parties, with the exception of Sinn Fein, are calling for a ?Yes? vote for ?jobs, the economy and Ireland?s future in Europe?. The Lisbon Treaty is virtually identical to the proposed EU constitution rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, containing 96% of its articles. The treaty, if ratified, would consolidate and centralise the power of unelected EU institutions, further the militarisation of Europe in the framework of the NATO alliance and open the way for the accelerated privatisation of Europe?s public services. The process of the drafting and ratification of the renamed constitution demonstrates its thoroughly undemocratic nature. The 500 million citizens of the EU have been excluded from having input into the content of the constitution, as well as being denied their right to approve or reject it through referenda. Treaty?s fate in Irish hands The southern Irish state is constitutionally bound to hold a referendum on the treaty ? so those Irish people living in the 26 counties making up the Republic of Ireland are now in the ridiculous situation of having their vote count for all the people of Europe. The treaty must be endorsed unanimously by all member states in order to come into effect in 2009. The EU?s other 26 member states plan to ratify the treaty by votes in their respective national parliaments. On May 21, the executive council of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which represents more than 600,000 workers, voted to support the campaign for a ?Yes? vote, claiming that the treaty will be a step forward for workers? rights as the ?Charter of Fundamental Rights? seemingly enshrines the right to strike. However, some of the individual unions affiliated to the ICTU are calling for a ?No? vote, including Unite, one of the ICTU?s largest affiliates. The Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union is recommending its 45,000 members vote no, and the Services, Industrial, Professional and Technical Union ? representing more than 200,000 workers ? has yet to make a decision. It is unclear which way the vote will go, as a recent poll found only 6% of respondents indicated they understood what the referendum was about, with 30% ?vaguely aware? of its contents. Around 35% say will vote ?Yes?, 18% ?No? with 47% undecided. The claim that the treaty provides new protection for workers? rights is false. While article 28 states that workers may ?take collective action to defend their interests, including strike action?, it immediately qualifies this ?fundamental right? by explaining that ?the limits for the exercise of collective action, including strike action, come under national laws and practices?. The British Trade Unionists Against the EU Constitution pamphlet, The Big EU Con Trick, quotes a British foreign office spokesperson as saying explicitly: ?The Charter doesn?t create any new rights. We spent a very long time looking at this, in particular the disputed article. It does not create the right to strike.? Lisbon pits the ?fundamental right? of workers to take collective action against the apparently more fundamental right of capital to unrestricted movement, unbound by national industrial laws and agreements. Race to the bottom Conflicts between employers and workers will be ruled on by a strengthened European Court of Justice. The European Trade Union Confederation has described several recent ECJ rulings as an ?open invitation to social dumping?, launching a race to the bottom for workers? wages, conditions and rights. Some of the recent ECJ rulings on disputes include the case of the German company Objekt und Bauregie, which employed a Polish subcontractor to employ Polish building workers posted to Germany, on less than half the minimum wage agreed by German trade unions and employer associations. On April 3, the ECJ ruled that O&B should not be bound by the local law that states public building contractors must abide by the existing collective agreements. The court found that while member states may impose minimum pay on foreign companies posting workers in their state, the Lower Saxony law restricted the ?freedom to provide services?. In essence, this ruling outlaws a minimum wage and base conditions being included in public tender contracts. In 2004, Latvian firm Laval posted Latvian construction workers to Sweden and refused to acknowledge the existing collective agreement with the Swedish Building Workers? Union. Laval claimed that it was not obliged to pay the rates collectively agreed on in the building sector. The union took collective action and Laval claimed to the ECJ that it was being discriminated against on the grounds of nationality, with the Swedish union infringing upon its right to provide services. The court found that while ?service providers? from another EU state are obliged to abide by the host agreement, collective action must be ?proportional?. This means that the ECJ believes workers have the right to take industrial action only when the minimum wage or conditions of the host country, or the minimum working conditions set out in the EU?s Posting of Workers Directive, are being breached by the employer. In order to cut costs, the Finnish shipping company, Viking Line, attempted to re-flag its ships as Estonian and operate out of Estonia. When two Finnish maritime unions organised a blockade of Viking Line, it took its case to the ECJ. Again, the claim was that the company?s right to freedom of movement was being restricted by the industrial action of the workers. And again, in December, the court ruled that the unions had restricted Viking Line?s right of establishment. ?Rights? of capital Three things are clear from these cases and from the text of the Lisbon Treaty. Firstly, the universal right to take collective industrial action is not guaranteed as it is subject to member states? national laws. Secondly, the right to take collective action to prevent the exploitation of posted workers by foreign service-providers is subject to the company?s right to freedom of movement and establishment under the EU Services Directive ? a right that the ECJ has consistently upheld as being superior to workers? rights. Thirdly, the collective action of workers and unions taken against foreign service-providers is only deemed legitimate if it is in defence of the most basic minimum conditions agreed on by EU bodies or set in law by the host country. What happens if workers want to take collective action in order to improve their conditions? These ECJ rulings, combined with the provisions for privatisation and the removal of ?distortions? from the market contained in Lisbon, are a recipe for the ?equalisation? downwards of the conditions for working people of Europe ? while the corporations that played a key role in drafting the treaty increase their profit-making capacity. The result will be the growing severe exploitation of eastern European workers, increased job displacement, de-unionisation and falling conditions in the West ? with public services fought for and won through generations of struggle being put up for sale across the continent. It?s in the interests of all the working people of Europe for the ?No? vote to win in the Irish referendum.
New Labour plc?12 Jun 2008Recently support for New Labour registered at 23% nationally, the lowest since opinion polling began back in 1938. The party has lost 53% of its membership between 1997 and 2006 and will undoubtedly have lost considerably more since. It is struggling to pay off loans which with interest amounts to an estimate of between 24 to 28 million. Annual running costs amount to 25 million and private donors are understandably refusing to step up to the plate. And why would they? It?s not as if New Labour will do something for them that the Tories won?t. As for the unions, calls to hold a vote on whether to disaffiliate are becoming more frequent. The GMB have threatened to withdraw funding from 30 Labour MP?s. Stephen Ladyman, vice-chairman of the party described the move as ?tokenistic and hard-left?. That the kind of response is not likely to help mend bridges. Meanwhile senior officials in the Labour party, including Gordon Brown, could become personally liable for millions of pounds in debt unless new donors can be found within weeks. Almost unbelievably the New Labour response is to consider changing its status to a company – so that it would limited liability! Which is apt as they are set on privatising everything else. The party has four weeks to find 7.45m to pay off loans to banks and wealthy donors recruited by Lord Levy, Tony Blair?s former chief fundraiser, or become insolvent. A further 6.2m will have to be repaid by Christmas – making 13.65m in all. The sum amounts to two-thirds of the party?s annual income from donations. The figures are a conservative estimate as they do not include interest that will also have to be paid. A Labour source said that although the total debt was listed as 17.8m on the Electoral Commission website, the true level, with interest, was nearer to 24m. The possibility that party officials and members of its national executive committee could become liable is being taken seriously by union leaders, and has been underlined by the decision of equity fund chairman David Pitt-Watson not to accept the post as Labour?s general secretary. Though he was Brown?s candidate for the post, he declined the offer after receiving independent legal advice that he would be personally liable for repaying the loans and could be bankrupted if Labour?s finances collapsed. The advice from City solicitors Slaughter and May said unequivocally that leading party officials and members of the NEC would be ? jointly and severally? responsible for the party?s debt. The reason is that the Labour party constitution is framed like a local club or society, and has no provisionfor limiting the liability of its officials or managers. A Labour source said: ?The party?s constitution is like a five-a-side football club, or the local cricket club. The big difference is that the most club officials and managers could expect to have to fork out is an unpaid bill for hiring the pitch. In Labour?s case, it?s tens of millions of pounds.? The advice was the sole reason why Pitt-Watson, a committed Labour supporter and former Westminster City councillor, turned down the job this month. But the reverberations inside the party have been enormous. Earlier this month the GMB union?s executive decided to indemnify its two members on the NEC – Debbie Coulter, the union?s deputy general secretary and a former Labour party conference chairwoman, and Mary Turner, GMB?s president – to protect their homes and savings. A GMB spokesman told the Guardian: ?They told the executive they would not continue to sit on the NEC unless they were indemnified. It?s too much a risk for them.? As leader of the party and a member of the NEC, Brown is also potentially vulnerable. Other prominent members of the committee are Harriet Harman, the deputy leader; her husband, Jack Dromey, the party treasurer; Pat McFadden, minister of state at the department for business; Angela Eagle, exchequer secretary at the Treasury; Dawn Primarolo, public health minister; and former ministers Keith Vaz and Janet Anderson. Anderson said last night: ?I am very concerned and we should look into the situation immediately. If this is the case, I can?t see how anyone, unless they are very wealthy or are indemnified, like in the case of the GMB, can serve on the NEC. I can?t see who would want to be general secretary following this advice.? The party?s financial plight can be shown by the current negotiations taking place with banks and donors. The Co-operative bank, whose 2.61m loan is due to be repaid on June 30, has told the party it wants its money back, even though it is getting 7% interest. The bank has asked the unions to offer loans to Labour so the party can pay its debt, but some are refusing to do this. Paul Kenny, the GMB?s general secretary, has told the Co-operative bank it will refuse to help unless the bank withdraws its de-recognition of the union, which represents staff at Co-operative Funeral Services. Three other loans are due to be repaid on June 30 and July 1. They are a 1.54m loan from Unity Trust bank, also at 7%; a 1m loan at 6.75% from Nigel Morris, founder of the Capital One financial group, and 2.3m from Sir David Garrard, a property developer. He had already extended the loan by 15 months from April 2007. Labour is hoping that the donors can be persuaded to extend the loan period. Sir Richard Caring, owner of the Ivy and Caprice restaurants, has agreed an indefinite extension of his 2m loan, due to be repaid last March. He has agreed to give 180 days notice if he wants it repaid.
The party?s financial crisis could be compounded this autumn. Three of the biggest unions, Unison, the Communications Workers Union and the GMB have tabled motions at their annual conferences this month calling for members to disaffiliate from Labour. If this goes ahead, Labour would lose 4m of its 19m a year in donations. The Labour party is said to be investigating whether it can change its status to a limited liability company to protect its officials and NEC members – but such a move could be open to legal challenge until it clears its debts.
Discontent Rising12 Jun 2008The prospect of a four-day strike over pay by the tanker drivers that supply Shell petrol stations has begun to generate near apocalyptic newspaper headlines. Primed by the government invoking emergency procedures last Friday and the panic buying response of motorists after the refinery workers’ strike at Grangemouth in April, the message the media is peddling is “oh no, here we go again”. But given that Shell has only one in every 10 filling stations across the country and that these are concentrated in the south-east, the north-west, central Scotland and parts of the Midlands, the headlines are over-egging the pudding. But what is giving rise to the overreaction is an emerging sense (pdf) of “feel-bad Britain”, where issue after issue adds to a sense of gloom, hopelessness and powerlessness as standards of living for the majority of people begin to plummet. The rising cost of fuel and food, the credit crunch, the fall in house prices and the tailing off of demand in the housing market have all come thick and fast. Wages are not keeping pace and a small minority of wealthy individuals as well as many companies seem immune to and unmoved by what is happening to the majority of people. And on top of this, our public services are not improving despite the money ploughed into them. In the case of the threatened fuel strike, the workers are demanding a 13% rise but are being offered 6.8% when their bosses got a 15% rise plus bonuses and the company is benefiting as the price of a barrel of oil climbs inexorably to $200. But the other side to the story of feel-bad Britain is that there is no sense that the government is exercising any control over events. Brown made pleas to both the banks to pass on cuts in interest rates to the customers and to the oil companies to cap prices. They either said no or politely ignored him as nothing has changed. Then Brown tells us he is listening and that he “feels our pain”, but still nothing seems to change. The sense of a government on the slide (but nonetheless immovable until May 2010) adds to this despair. What may bring things to a head ? over fuel at least ? is if hauliers start to exercise their collective disruptive power as they did back in late 2000 by stopping fuel leaving the refineries and organising go-slows on the motorways. Already, there have been small signs of this in Scotland and Wales. If the reaction of the Spanish hauliers is anything to go by, our reliance on private road transport to move goods and products about will be cruelly revealed. In Spain, where mostly small owner-employer operators are protesting over rising fuel costs, the supermarket shelves have started to go bare within just three days. The general sense of malaise would also become even more apparent if the owners and operators of fishing boats started to blockade ports, as they have done in Spain and Portugal in recent weeks, over the cost of fuel. For all the headlines that talk of a return to the “dark days” of the 1970s in Britain, only if the hauliers acted en masse would we come close to a replay of those times.
Privatised Disasters12 Jun 2008BACK in 1995, in the days of hope and expectation that a Labour government would represent a qualitative change from the Tories, Labour leader Tony Blair gave a solemn pledge. He promised that, under Labour, there would be a “publicly owned and publicly accountable railway.” Not only did Labour renege on that pledge but, these days, despite the obvious failure of the railways sell-off and the overwhelming popular opposition to privatisation, it has become a champion of this shabby Tory policy. Rail Minister Tom Harris told a BBC Wales programme on Tuesday night: “Ideologically and practically speaking, a private railway has provided a level of investment, innovation and imagination that wouldn’t have happened if British Rail had stayed as it was.” He seems unaware that the privatised railways attract around four times the subsidy that British Rail received and one of the touted benefits of privatisation was that the privateers would profit from their efficiencies and phase out subsidies. We were fed lies then and we are still being fed lies. Privatisation is not a policy based on sober assessment of its benefits. It is a matter of neoliberal dogma. No Labour government has ever announced its intention of abolishing council housing. Neither has Labour conference voted for such a benighted policy. But that is, in reality, the government’s policy, from which it will not be diverted. It uses public finance to draw up plans for stock transfers of entire housing estates to the private sector, authorises public funds to put out slanted pro-private propaganda and refuses to allow refurbishment of local authority properties if tenants vote to remain with the council. Nor has any Labour government ever announced its intention of privatising the NHS. But the Gordon Brown government, like that of Tony Blair before him, is carving the heart out of the NHS, once again deploying public funds to make health care a commodity out of which the privateers can gouge profit. Mr Brown’s flawed private finance initiative obsession is still used to replace NHS hospitals and clinics with new facilities that are privately owned and leased back to the NHS at extortionate rates. Similar developments are taking place in other public services such as state education and the Prison Service, where the efficient, economic and democratically accountable public alternative is systematically undermined and discarded in favour of the sleazy, expensive but hugely profitable private option. And that’s without taking account of the plunder of the previously public utilities such as water, electricity and gas, which were milked of their assets for overseas investment. Barely a week passes without another scandal in the private sector, with sky-high profits for banks, oil companies and other sectors and directors touching for multimillion-pound pay-offs for either success or failure. The new TUC Touchstone pamphlet will add to public awareness of the scandals associated with privatisation, but we should not expect any acceptance by new Labour that it is wrong and that it will change course. The case for public ownership has never been more pressing. It must become a major labour movement campaigning issue now, because our entire post-World War II gains are at risk.
Report: UK children’s rights systematically violated11 Jun 2008You can hardly have failed to notice that the children?s commissioners for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have combined forces in a joint report to the United Nations to condemn the treatment of children in the United Kingdom. But you may not have taken on board their central message, and you very likely missed an equally significant report last week on the effects of poverty on education and social mobility in the UK. The point of this unprecedented initiative is to insist that children have human rights, separate from the family, and that their rights are being systematically abused. The commissioners have presented a dossier of human rights abuses of British children in violation of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) that, in the words of the Guardian report (Monday, 9 June) have ?denied hope and opportunity to many of Britain?s 14 million children and adolescents?. The report is to the UN committee set up to review compliance with the Convention; in its last review of the UK, in 2002, the Committee found ?serious violations? of the Convention. An additional report from the Children?s Rights Alliance for England, a coalition of more than 100 civil society organisations, says that the government has passed 30 laws that breach the Convention since then. The biggest complaints centre on the punitive juvenile justice system and public attitudes that demonise adolescents. But there is a deeper-lying cause for complaint and concern. At a Sutton Trust conference on social mobility in New York last week Ed Miliband, the Cabinet Office minister, and UK educationists, heard the results of a massive study of children born in the UK and US in 2000 and 2001. The study found that the damaging effect of being in a low-income home was more pronounced in the UK than in the US and that ?there is a stronger income differential in the UK than in the US,? meaning that (as a US academic told the conference) ?there are more behavioural problems among low-income children in the UK?, and that the transition from home to school was harder, especially for boys. (The gap between the UK and the US would be even wider were it not for Britain?s childcare provision.) Meanwhile, the Department of Work and Pensions is said to be releasing figures on Tuesday (10 June) that show that the government is nowhere near meeting the target of halving child poverty by 2010; and that 200,000 more children fell into poverty in 2005-06, measured after housing costs. For me these reports reinforce the need for us in Britain to press for a ?rights-based democracy?. The UNCRC provides for a five-yearly review of the rights of children in the UK. The UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights similarly involves a five-yearly review of such rights here. Britain has signed up to both these UN instruments without taking seriously the commitments that they entail. Neither of course is written into UK law; and there is no domestic equivalent. If Gordon Brown?s pledge to consult on a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities is to command any credibility, then he must rescind his ban on consideration of economic, social and cultural rights in any consultations that may yet occur. Not that much good would come of it. Brown made a great fuss about consulting on the extension of detention without charge, but he and his Home Secretary have set that process and all informed opinion aside in a blind and obstinate offensive that is now reduced to arm-twisting Labour MPs and apparently concluding dirty deals with the Ulster Unionists. One of the Labour whips? argument is said to be that Labour MPs who vote against 42 days could put David Miliband in No. 10. Well, I don?t know about that, but I have very reluctantly come to the conclusion that Gordon Brown is no more fit to be there than his immediate predecessor.
Arrest of Rizwaan Sabir and Hicham Yezza11 Jun 2008Hicham Yezza, a University of Nottingham member of staff, faces the threat of deportation to Algeria. On June 2, he was forcibly moved to the Citadel detention centre at Western Heights, near Dover. Yezza and Nottingham student Rizwaan Sabir were both arrested on May 14 under the Terrorism Act 2000. Sabir is a master?s student in politics and was researching his dissertation on ?the American approach to Al Qaeda in Iraq.? As part of his preparation, he downloaded, from a US government web site, a copy of an Al Qaeda training manual. He e-mailed the document to his friend, Yezza, and asked if he could print it for him. Sometime after this, a university employee contacted the police stating that the manual had been seen on Yezza?s computer. The two were held for six days and then released without charge on May 20. Subsequently, Yezza was rearrested on immigration legislation. He was denied the right to attend a scheduled hearing, and, on May 23, the Home Office issued an order to deport him to Algeria. The planned deportation was cancelled on May 30, due to an application to the High Court that same day, seeking a judicial review of the Home Office?s decision. On June 2, Yezza?s solicitor, David Smith of Cartwright King of Nottingham, said, ?Following the issue of our client?s Judicial review last Friday, the case is now with the Home Office?s legal advisers (the Treasury Solicitor), to whom we have put detailed representations about certain aspects of the case. We very much hope that this will shortly lead to our client?s release, if necessary on restrictions, while the case is thoroughly and properly reviewed at the most senior level.? Students and academics in Britain and internationally have stated their opposition both to the arrests of Sabir and Yezza and to the attempt to deport Yezza, despite the University of Nottingham continuing to justify the decision to call the police on to the campus. Previous arrests at Nottingham What makes the arrests of Sabir and Yezza even more disturbing is the fact that both have been high-profile political campaigners at the university. During his time as a student, Yezza served as a member of the Students? Union Executive Committee and on the University Senate. He was the president of the Arabic Society and the editor of Voice magazine, a journal for international students. For the past five years, he has been the editor of Ceasefire, the political journal of the Nottingham Student Peace Movement. On November 29 last year, Sabir was involved in a protest, organised by the Palestinian Society, against the construction of the Israeli West Bank wall. The protest included erecting a mock ?wall? outside the campus library that was painted with slogans and images. After the students were approached by University of Nottingham security, the police arrived. According to the Indymedia website, ?This resulted in the threat of arrest to a number of students. For ?breach of the peace?, ?assaulting a police officer,? ?filming a police officer? (!), obstructing a police officer and obstruction of the highway. One student was arrested to ?apprehend a breach of the peace.? ? Sabir was the student who was arrested for a ?breach of the peace.? Following his arrest, he said, ?A University campus is meant to be a place where an exchange of ideas and beliefs through peaceful means is encouraged. The University?s clamping down on this fundamental right highlights the restrictions that peaceful protestors face when undertaking peaceful protests on issues such as Israel, which it seems to me is becoming taboo to even talk about.? Students at the university mounted a further protest on February 19 to demand ?Freedom of Speech? and to oppose the November arrest of Sabir. Among the demands of the demonstration were: * The right to free speech on campus and the official recognition of students? right to engage in protest, demonstration or campaign on university property. * The right to engage in a peaceful protest without the fear or threat of having police called on campus to break up non-violent demonstrations. * The right not to fear intimidation or arrest by university authorities, university security or the police when engaging in a peaceful demonstration. * The right not to be fined for or prohibited from having or distributing a petition or having or holding a peaceful demonstration. * The right to engage in the aforementioned activities without having to request prior permission. Sabir spoke at the demonstration. These events were the immediate background leading up to the arrests of Yezza and Sabir on May 14, when the university authorities called in the police once again. These events have rightly caused widespread concerns amongst students and staff members at the university. On June 5, dozens attended a roundtable discussion called by the Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice (Politics) and the Centre for Research on Identities, Citizenship and Migration (Sociology & Social Policy). The remit of the meeting was to ?foster debate among staff and students on the important questions arising from the Nottingham arrests under the antiterrorism legislation. It seeks to discuss critically but constructively the Nottingham arrests and their ramifications for academic life and community relations.? The main speakers were Vanessa Pupavac, a lecturer in international relations, and Sofia Mason, a postgraduate student involved in the campaign to defend Yezza. Julia O?Connell Davidson, professor of sociology at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, chaired the event. The registrar of the university was invited to attend the meeting as was the university spokesman Jonathan Ray. Both declined. The university stated that it had set up a committee that was looking into the matter but gave no further details. Mason said there was a real threat that guidelines would be issued by the university detailing what activities students could undertake. She raised the danger that these guidelines may be particularly aimed at political activists and groups on the campus. There was a general concern both from the platform and from the floor as to the implications of the arrests. One member of the audience said that some students have already said they will be careful now as to what they research. Another said that they feared that peace activists might be brought in for questioning. One member of the audience said it was important to find out what measures are in place at the university for calling the police onto campus. He said in the case of Sabir and Yezza, the police had arrived in about two minutes. Some of the students and academics at the meeting said that more was at stake than the particular events at the University of Nottingham. What was the role of the university in the arrests? A speaker from the International Students for Social Equality spoke in the discussion and said, ?What has been discussed today is very important, particularly the discussion on the role of the university. The fact that the university has refused to speak here today is indicative. It is not able to speak to students and academics about arrests that took place on its own campus.? ?It is necessary to look at the wider political dimensions of this case. Both Rizwaan and Hicham were politically active people on the campus. For several years now, there has been increasing state surveillance, and in the last few years, this has increasingly included university campuses. At Brunel University in London, guidance was drawn up by one of its departments advising the government to increase surveillance of activists on campus.? He said that it was very important to establish what role the universities are playing in monitoring political activists. ?If it is the case that the police arrived in two minutes after being contacted by the university, it is important that questions are asked. Were Rizwaan and Hicham being monitored, and, if so, for how long?? A member of the audience said he ?did not think it was helpful? to bring up the question of ?surveillance and conspiracies? in the meeting. In reply, Bettina Renz, the tutor of Rizwaan Sabir, said, ?You could not rule out a link to political activism.? She said that when she was interviewed by the police following the arrests, they constantly asked about Sabir?s political activities. Sofia Mason also addressed these questions in her summing up. Speaking about the arrests, she stated that ?it would be naive to see these arrests as not politically motivated.? One had only to look at the amount of time the police spent on asking about the political views of Yezza and Sabir and about politics on the campus. Professor Pupavac said that the campaign had won a lot of sympathy and that these questions were also close to the hearts of journalists and those who work in the media. Sometimes, journalists had of necessity to undertake research that some may find offensive. The ISSE urges all our readers to demand the release of Hicham Yezza. Letters of protest can be addressed to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith below: E-mail: indpublicenquiries@ind.homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk Fax: 0208 760 3132 The web site set up by the Stop the Deportation of Hicham Yezza campaign can be accessed at the link below: http://freehichamyezza.wordpress.com/ See Also:
Britain: Demand the release of Hicham Yezza
[2 June 2008]
Britain: Oppose deportation of Hicham Yezza
[30 May 2008]
Britain: An interview with the manager of Hicham Yezza?s defence campaign
?The Home Office acts like a faceless machine?
[30 May 2008]
“Complicit Enablers”: UK Media Ignore US Whistleblowers11 Jun 2008In April 2006, George Bush bade farewell to his outgoing White House press secretary, Scott McClellan: ?One day he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas talking about the good old days and his time as press secretary.” (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/bushs-fury-as-exspokesman-twists-the-knife-837678.html) The rocking chair plans will have been shelved for good after the publication of McClellan?s new memoir, ?What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception.? McClellan describes how Bush relied on a “political propaganda campaign” rather than the truth to sell the Iraq war to the American public. The invasion was “unnecessary”, he suggests, a “strategic blunder”, with Bush having made up his mind early on to attack Saddam Hussein. (Ibid) The way Bush managed the issue “almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option.” (http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5guUtnrUWgvNv66lQY1EVplm1xBqwD90UNQ2O1) McClellan adds: “In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president’s advantage.? (Ibid)) The claim that Bush decided early in his presidency to attack Iraq is supported by earlier exposs. The leaked minutes of a highly confidential Downing Street memo dated July 23, 2002 records the words of Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of the British intelligence service MI6. Dearlove commented on a recent visit to Washington where he had held talks with George Tenet, director of the CIA: “Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.? (Michael Smith, ‘Blair planned Iraq war from start,’ Sunday Times, May 1, 2005) This was eight months before the invasion, but the decision to attack had been taken much earlier. In January 2004, former US Treasury secretary Paul O’Neill revealed that the Bush administration had come to office determined to topple Saddam Hussein: “It was all about finding a way to do it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this’... From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go.” (Julian Borger, ‘Bush decided to remove Saddam “on day one“?, The Guardian, January 12, 2004) O’Neill reported seeing one memorandum preparing for war dating from the first days of the administration. Another, marked “secret” was titled, “Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq.? (Ibid) According to McClellan, Bush has little time for policy detail. He prefers to follow his gut feelings on foreign affairs, about which he knew next to nothing when he took office. Since then, he has lived in a kind of ?bubble” that isolates him from the real world. As McClellan put it in a recent interview, “only as you leave the White House bubble, can you take off your partisan hat and take a clear-eyed view of things”. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/05/28/ST2008052803135.html) Squashing Dissent McClellan has also rounded on the media, calling them “complicit enablers” in Bush?s campaign to manipulate public opinion. (Jennifer Loven, ?White House calls McClellan’s book sour grapes,? Associated Press, May 28, 2008; http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080528/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_mcclellan_book) Several journalists have backed his criticisms. CBS news anchor, Katie Couric, said last month that the lack of media scepticism ahead of the war was ?one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism.? Couric disclosed that, while working as a host of ?Today? on NBC, she had felt pressure from ?the corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it.? (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0805/28/sitroom.01.html) Howard Kurtz, the host of CNN’s ?Reliable Sources? commented: ?Couric has told me that while she was at NBC... she got what she described as complaints from network executives when she challenged the Bush administration.? (Ibid) Jessica Yellin, who worked for MSNBC in 2003 and now reports for CNN, said last month that journalists had been ?under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation.? (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/29/yellin/) Yellin added: ?And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president’s approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives… the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president.? (Ibid) She explained that media bosses ?would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes. That was my experience.? (Ibid) As we reported in March, pieces critical of Bush-Blair claims on Iraq were also rejected in the British media. (See http://www.medialens.org/alerts/08/080305_flat_earth_news.php) Phil Donahue was host of ?Donohue? on MSNBC from 2002-2003. Despite having the highest ratings of any show on MSNBC, the programme was cancelled on February 25, 2003. A leaked NBC memo described how the show presented a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war… He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration’s motives.” (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/29/yellin/) Bill Moyers interviewed Donahue in 2007: Moyers: ?You had Scott Ritter, former weapons inspector. Who was saying that if we invade, it will be a historic blunder.? Donahue: ?You didn’t have him alone. He had to be there with someone else who supported the war. In other words, you couldn’t have Scott Ritter alone. You could have Richard Perle alone.? Moyers: ?You could have the conservative.? Donahue: ?You could have the supporters of the President alone. And they would say why this war is important. You couldn’t have a dissenter alone. Our producers were instructed to feature two conservatives for every liberal.? Moyers: ?You’re kidding.? Donahue: ?No this is absolutely true.? Moyers: ?Instructed from above?? Donahue: ?Yes. I was counted as two liberals.? (Ibid) Senior journalists very rarely admit that their employers pressure them to follow a political line; it is a pressure that is supposed not to exist. And yet there has been only one mention of Yellin?s comment (in the Independent), and none of Couric?s, in the entire UK press. Smearing the Whistleblower – It’s All Cisterns Go! As was the case with Paul O?Neill before him, references to McClellan?s whistleblowing have tended to focus on abuse directed at him by critics, mostly former colleagues. Tom Baldwin of The Times, for example, published a classic smear: ?Scott McClellan sought yesterday to justify writing a excoriating tell-tale account of his time as one of President Bush?s closest aides, saying that he had been guided by a ?higher loyalty?. ?Critics, including close colleagues and friends, have accused the former White House press secretary of betraying Mr Bush. Others have described his book as ?pathetic? or a desperate effort to make some money having become virtually unemployable since leaving his post.? (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4029640.ece) Trent Duffy, who worked as McClellan’s deputy, was quoted: “Here’s a man who owes his whole career to George W. Bush, and here he’s stabbing him in the back. He appears to be dancing on his political grave for cash.” Baldwin could have quoted any number of anti-war commentators who would have been happy to praise McClellan for his honesty. Media Channel?s Danny Schechter, for example, wrote: ?It?s easy to put McClellan down… but, at least, he had the courage, these many years later, to confirm what I and others have been saying for years.? (http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/06/02/mcclellan-missile-media-crimes-as-war-crimes/) Not one comment of this kind has been cited anywhere in the UK press praising McClellan. The Guardian and the Daily Telegraph, for example, also focused solely on critics heaping opprobrium on McClellan. Christopher Hitchens wrote in the Sunday Express: ?When President Bush’s Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill defected from the Cabinet in 2002… Michael Kinsley observed that the President deserved all he got from the book. Anyone dumb enough to hire a fool like O’Neill in the first place ought to have known what to expect. ?So it goes with the ludicrous figure of Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary. I used to watch this mooncalf blunder his way through press conferences and think: ?Exactly where do we find such men? ??For the job of swabbing out the White House stables, yes. But for any task involving the weighing of words? Hah!?” (Hitchens, ?Bush is brought to book,? Sunday Express, June 8, 2008) In discussing the story, the Guardian, the Independent, the Times, the Daily Telegraph, the Mirror, the Evening Standard and the Sunday Express all failed to mention McClellan?s key reference to the media as ?complicit enablers?. This silence links to one of the great pillars of modern thought control: namely, that the media?s claim to impartiality must not be subject to serious discussion. The public is to understand that the media offer neutral windows on the world. The idea that these windows might all be framed, structured and oriented to present essentially the same view of the world favouring the same powerful interests is a thought too far. The fact of totalitarian levels of thought control in our society is clear – the precise mechanism by which that control is achieved in an ostensibly free society, is complex and interesting, but of secondary importance. 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Small Is Bountiful10 Jun 2008I suggest you sit down before you read this. Robert Mugabe is right. At last week?s global food summit he was the only leader to speak of ?the importance ? of land in agricultural production and food security?.(1) Countries should follow Zimbabwe?s lead, he said, in democratising ownership. Of course the old bastard has done just the opposite. He has evicted his opponents and given land to his supporters. He has failed to support the new settlements with credit or expertise, with the result that farming in Zimbabwe has collapsed. The country was in desperate need of land reform when Mugabe became president. It remains in desperate need of land reform today. But he is right in theory. Though the rich world?s governments won?t hear it, the issue of whether or not the world will be fed is partly a function of ownership. This reflects an unexpected discovery. It was first made in 1962 by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen(2), and has since been confirmed by dozens of further studies. There is an inverse relationship between the size of farms and the amount of crops they produce per hectare. The smaller they are, the greater the yield. In some cases, the difference is enormous. A recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are twenty times as productive as farms of over ten hectares(3). Sen?s observation has been tested in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Java, the Phillippines, Brazil, Colombia and Paraguay. It appears to hold almost everywhere. The finding would be surprising in any industry, as we have come to associate efficiency with scale. In farming, it seems particularly odd, because small producers are less likely to own machinery, less likely to have capital or access to credit, and less likely to know about the latest techniques. There?s a good deal of controversy about why this relationship exists. Some researchers argued that it was the result of a statistical artefact: fertile soils support higher populations than barren lands, so farm size could be a result of productivity, rather than the other way around. But further studies have shown that the inverse relationship holds across an area of fertile land. Moreover, it works even in countries like Brazil, where the biggest farmers have grabbed the best land(4). The most plausible explanation is that small farmers use more labour per hectare than big farmers(5). Their workforce largely consists of members of their own families, which means that labour costs are lower than on large farms (they don?t have to spend money recruiting or supervising workers), while the quality of the work is higher. With more labour, farmers can cultivate their land more intensively: they spend more time terracing and building irrigation systems; they sow again immediately after the harvest; they might grow several different crops in the same field. In the early days of the Green Revolution, this relationship seemed to go into reverse: the bigger farms, with access to credit, were able to invest in new varieties and boost their yields. But as the new varieties have spread to smaller farmers, the inverse relationship has reasserted itself(6). If governments are serious about feeding the world, they should be breaking up large landholdings, redistributing them to the poor and concentrating their research and their funding on supporting small farms. There are plenty of other reasons for defending small farmers in poor countries. The economic miracles in South Korea, Taiwan and Japan arose from their land reform programmes. Peasant farmers used the cash they made to build small businesses. The same thing seems to have happened in China, though it was delayed for 40 years by collectivisation and the Great Leap Backwards: the economic benefits of the redistribution that began in 1949 were not felt until the early 80s(7). Growth based on small farms tends to be more equitable than growth built around capital-intensive industries(8). Though their land is used intensively, the total ecological impact of smallholdings is lower. When small farms are bought up by big ones, the displaced workers move into new land to try to scratch out a living. I once followed evicted peasants from the Brazilian state of Maranhao 2000 miles across the Amazon to the land of the Yanomami Indians, then watched them rip it apart. But the prejudice against small farmers is unshakeable. It gives rise to the oddest insult in the English language: when you call someone a peasant, you are accusing them of being self-reliant and productive. Peasants are detested by capitalists and communists alike. Both have sought to seize their land, and have a powerful vested interest in demeaning and demonising them. In its profile of Turkey, the country whose small farmers are 20 times more productive than its large ones, the UN?s Food and Agriculture Organisation states that, as a result of small landholdings, ?farm output ? remains low.?(9) The OECD states that ?stopping land fragmentation? in Turkey ?and consolidating the highly fragmented land is indispensable for raising agricultural productivity.?(10) Neither body provides any supporting evidence. A rootless, half-starved labouring class suits capital very well. Like Mugabe, the donor countries and the big international bodies loudly demand that small farmers be supported, while quietly shafting them. Last week?s food summit agreed ?to help farmers, particularly small-scale producers, increase production and integrate with local, regional, and international markets.?(11) But when, earlier this year, the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge proposed a means of doing just this, the US, Australia and Canada refused to endorse it as it offended big business(12), while the United Kingdom remains the only country that won?t reveal whether or not it supports the study(13). Big business is killing small farming. By extending intellectual property rights over every aspect of production; by developing plants which either won?t breed true or which don?t reproduce at all(14), it ensures that only those with access to capital can cultivate. As it captures both the wholesale and retail markets, it seeks to reduce its transaction costs by engaging only with major sellers. If you think that supermarkets are giving farmers in the UK a hard time, you should see what they are doing to growers in the poor world. As developing countries sweep away street markets and hawkers? stalls and replace them with superstores and glossy malls, the most productive farmers lose their customers and are forced to sell up. The rich nations support this process by demanding access for their companies. Their agricultural subsidies still help their own, large farmers to compete unfairly with the small producers of the poor world. This leads to an interesting conclusion. For many years, well-meaning liberals have supported the fair trade movement because of the benefits it delivers directly to the people it buys from. But the structure of the global food market is changing so rapidly that fair trade is now becoming one of the few means by which small farmers in poor nations might survive. A shift from small to large farms will cause a major decline in global production, just as food supplies become tight. Fair trade might now be necessary not only as a means of redistributing income, but also to feed the world. www.monbiot.com References: 1. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/foodclimate/statements/zwe_muga… 2. Amartya Sen, 1962. An Aspect of Indian Agriculture. Economic Weekly, Vol. 14. 3. Fatma Gl nal, October 2006. Small Is Beautiful: Evidence Of Inverse Size Yield
Relationship In Rural Turkey. Policy Innovations. http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/policy_library/data/01382 4. Giovanni Cornia, 1985. Farm Size, Land Yields and the Agricultural Production function: an
analysis for fifteen Developing Countries. World Development. Vol. 13, pp. 513-34. 5. Eg Peter Hazell, January 2005. Is there a future for small farms? Agricultural Economics, Vol. 32, pp93-101. doi:10.1111/j.0169-5150.2004.00016.x 6. Rasmus Heltberg, October 1998. Rural market imperfections and the farm size? productivity relationship: Evidence from Pakistan. World Development. Vol 26, pp 1807-1826. doi:10.1016/S0305-750X(98)00084-9 7. See Shenggen Fan and Connie Chan-Kang , 2005. Is Small Beautiful?: Farm Size, Productivity and Poverty in Asian Agriculture. Agricultural Economics, Vol. 32, pp135-146. 8. Peter Hazell, ibid. 9. http://www.new-agri.co.uk/00-3/countryp.html 10. OECD Economic Surveys: Turkey – Volume 2006 Issue 15, p186.
This is available online as a Google book. I was led to refs 9 and 10 via Fatma Gl nal, ibid. 11. http://www.fao.org/fileadmin/user_upload/foodclimate/HLCdocs/declaration… 12. International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD), 2008. Global Summary for Decision Makers. www.agassessment.org 13. IAASTD, viewed 9th June 2008. Frequently Asked Questions. www.agassessment.org 14. Eg Terminator seeds.
Irish Euro Vote Comes Down to the Wire9 Jun 2008Dublin The more the Irish people know about the Lisbon Treaty, the less they like it. That?s the message of the opinion polls as we draw close to Ireland?s June 12th referendum, which is decisive for the future of European Union institutions. It?s going to be close. The media panic about the possibility of a No vote on Thursday hasn?t dwelled on such details as polling-margin-of-error and the huge body of undecided voters. But there?s no doubt that the momentum toward the No side has been real, and Ireland could well force the EU governments back to the old drawing board—for a second time, after the rejections of the similar EU Constitution by French and Dutch voters in 2005. The main problem faced by a virtually complete assortment of the Irish and EU powers-that-be is that there is no obvious positive reason to vote Yes. ?To Make EU Institutions Function More Efficiently? is not a slogan to stir the blood, especially when folks suspect those institutions are up to no good to begin with. What?s more, the ?reforms? envisioned by Lisbon—e.g. more majority voting instead of unanimity, fewer commissioners—were allegedly required after the expansion of the European Union to 25 countries in 2004 (it?s now 27). But no one has noticed Brussels and Strasbourg seizing up with legislative gridlock under the current arrangements—and again, most people think they wouldn?t much mind if they did. The underlying issues, and the reason that Ireland alone is holding a referendum on this treaty, have been dealt with previously in CounterPunch. What is notable as the voting approaches— it has actually started already on a few offshore islands—is that the Yes side has moved its argument forward from ?come on, we like Europe? to ?we?ll make a terrible mess if we vote No and this is no time to be getting Europe annoyed?. Ireland?s always fragile self-esteem has already taken a blow over the last year or two as the Celtic Tiger limps off the scene; and new Taoiseach (prime minister) Brian Cowen seems to be shouting breathlessly every time he comes on TV, all about the trouble we?ll be in if No emerges victorious. That shouting could yet work: if I were a betting man I?d stick a few euro on a narrow Yes victory. The main farmers? lobby has joined the Yes side, after strong-arming the government into a commitment to veto any WTO agreement that isn?t favorable. Moreoever, the prime opinion-forming media outlets are amplifying the elite?s panic. (A couple of British-owned papers backing the No side have kept the press wars interesting, if not honest or well balanced.) Ad hominem attacks on the No side have been stepped up. But the No side, which ranges right across the political spectrum, has kept throwing up objections to the Treaty and stayed on the offensive. Some of the objections are dubious—abortion will not be brought into Ireland thanks to Lisbon, however much this prospect seems to have engaged and enraged some conservative voters. And the fuss about keeping ?our? commissioner at the EU table and ensuring Ireland can continue to have the EU?s lowest corporation tax is neither very progressive nor based on a sound reading of how most Irish people?s interests have been served historically. Sinn Fein, which had a terrible election last year, has virtually led the No campaign and deftly plucked arguments from left and right alike. But it would be fair to say that it has kept its emphasis to the left, and the party has helped to boost the left?s No voices, raising objections relating to workers? rights, the possible privatization of public services and the militarization of the EU. It has made for an interesting month of debate: it?s rare, for instance, to hear so many, and contending, trade-union voices in the media. And the popular energy is on the No side. While establishment politicians use the referendum campaign, and the accompanying relaxation of the litter laws, to stick up photos of themselves on lampposts across the State, sometimes beside the tiniest of ?Yes? pleas, a motley assortment of No campaigners has plastered the island with slogans. That energy, and a decision by the electorate that the burden of proof should be on those who wish us to change existing political arrangements and power structures, could yet yield a No victory when votes are counted on Friday. Whoever wins, the arguments about who wields power in Europe and to what purpose have only just begun. Harry Browne lectures in Dublin Institute of Technology. His book, ?Hammered by the Irish: How the Pitstop Ploughshares disabled a US war-plane ? with Ireland?s blessing?, is forthcoming from Counterpunch Books. He can be reached at: harry.browne@gmail.com
In the Name of Efficiency9 Jun 2008Under New Labour, the public services have increasingly been subject to modernisation programmes as government policy has attempted to introduce private sector practice in order to gain supposed efficiency savings. A key facilitating instrument here have been so-called “new management techniques”. In civil service, the new management techniques have taken the form of Taylorist means of work organisation. Bespoke packages have been introduced following millions being spent on reports from management consultants. In Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the Lean technique – originally derived from the Toyota car company in Japan ? has been the result. It provoked a strike during its test pilot. Alongside Lean, and as part of the same overall neoliberal vision of modernisation in the HMRC, a new regime of hotdesking has been implemented. Hotdesking is predicated on no worker having their own, particular desk in order to maximise utilisation of desks and to reduce the existence of “surplus” desks. Cost-cutting and cost-saving have been the order of the day here. This has meant civil servants in the HMRC are barred from having tea, coffee, sweets, crisps and paraphernalia like photographs of family and teddy bears on their desks because these suggest ownership and desk rigidity. In one HRMC office in the north west of England, local management established what the workers there have labelled a “Guanteddymo Bay”. All staff’s teddy bears were removed, staff said, by “dawn raids” and “special rendition” from their desks and placed in a locked glass case so the workers can still see their teddy bears but not touch them. The local branch of the HRMC workers’ union, the PCS, highlighted the absurdity of the situation in its recent newsletter with photographic evidence of the practice. In another HMRC office in the north west, a worker was leaving late one night, having stayed on to finish some tax returns. Instead of showing concern for the worker being late getting home or congratulating the worker for their diligence, the manager at the office asked whether the desk that the worker had used had been cleared, adding the night shift was coming in. The worker responded: “But we don’t have a nightshift!” The manager told him: “No, but we’re twinned with another office and they do, so this means we have to do what they do.” In another civil service office, this time a much larger one in central London and nicknamed the village, hotdesking is also used. People who work there are referred to as “village people” but others have been turned into nomads as each morning they turn up for work, they have to roam the building looking for a desk to work at. It looks like a playground of small kids where there is competition to be first in line. Such unusual, if not bizarre, management practices highlight that the zealous search for efficiency savings has become a search at all costs. Management look for huge savings as a result of central government diktat. They are, thus, willing to pay consultants, as outside experts, huge fees to dream up new means of lean ways of working. And as we know to our cost, the chances of management consultants’ ideas working are not great. Quite apart from the dehumanising side to the experience of these examples of work, such new ways of working easily create inefficiencies themselves. They either stop work from being done at all, or slow down the existing rate of work because of plunging morale and ill-feeling by staff. But in an era of dogma about the superiority of market methods, this does not seem to matter. The competition for the political kudos of cutting the size and alleged waste of the public services remains king. And that is why the current government has established a risk assessment mechanism which implicitly recognises the craziness of these new works of working at the operation level. Thus, the civil service has a monitoring practice of what is called “looking for elephant traps”. Departments and offices are asked to centrally report on any instances or phenomenon that could lead to bad publicity. With this information sent in, monitors come round to carry out a risk assessment of whether remedial action needs to be taken. In the case of Guanteddymo its removal was ordered. The fear is that bad publicity, possibly instigated by the PCS union, could lead to public pressure to row back on the government’s modernisation programme.
NATO, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Pakistan8 Jun 2008What is NATO doing in Afghanistan? What are the true aims of NATO intervention in the region? These are the questions that I mean to address in this article. To understand what is happening in Afghanistan one has to go back to the attack on Yugoslavia by NATO forces in February 1999. After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, NATO lost its raison d’être given that Western Europe and the United States were no longer threatened by an invasion from Eastern Europe. NATO thus had the choice between disbanding itself or developing a new reason for its existence. This gave the opportunity to the United States to reshape NATO in ways that would serve its imperial interests. It is very important to remember that its founding documents clearly say that NATO was a defensive organisation, which would go into action only when one of its member states was attacked. The first step in the US strategy of changing the nature of NATO was the attack on Yugoslavia on the pretext of preventing ethnic cleansing. Clearly Yugoslavia had not attacked a NATO member state thus excluding a response from NATO. Whatever one can say about Kosovo, it was internationally recognised as an integral part of Yugoslavia (and is still internationally recognised as part of Serbia) and Yugoslavia did not attack or even threaten a NATO member state. As was clear right from the beginning of the Kosovo crisis in the 90s, and as was confirmed at the NATO 50th Anniversary Celebrations in Washington in April 1999, one of the aims of the United States in attacking Yugoslavia at that time on the pretext of preventing ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was to present to the European states a fait accompli as an example of the future role of NATO as an offensive organisation whose aim was to act as the world’s policeman, or more rightly thug, in the defence of perceived United States interests. It was clear that the US was intent on provoking a war with Yugoslavia and its subsequent bombardment. How was this achieved? One of the final steps in the American strategy in attacking a sovereign state, Yugoslavia, which had not attacked any NATO member state, was the proposed Rambouillet Accords, February 23 1999 (Full text available at http://www.kosovo.mod.uk/rambouillet_text.htm). These show clearly that the Americans had no intention of pursuing a peaceful settlement of the Kosovo problem and that they intended to push Milosevic into a situation that he could not accept. In the words of Lamberto Dini, the then Italian Foreign Minister, the Rambouillet Accords were made deliberately to "humiliate the Serbs" so that they could not accept them. Here I reproduce some of the worst points of the proposed Rambouillet Accords, Appendix B: Status of Multi-National Military Implementation Force: — 3. The Parties recognize the need for expeditious departure and entry procedures for NATO personnel. Such personnel shall be exempt from passport and visa regulations and the registration requirements applicable to aliens. At all entry and exit points to/from the FRY (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, F.H.), NATO personnel shall be permitted to enter/exit the FRY on production of a national identification (ID) card. NATO personnel shall carry identification which they may be requested to produce for the authorities in the FRY, but operations, training, and movement shall not be allowed to be impeded or delayed by such requests. — 6. a. NATO shall be immune from all legal process, whether civil, administrative, or criminal. b. NATO personnel, under all circumstances and at all times, shall be immune from the Parties, jurisdiction in respect of any civil, administrative, criminal, or disciplinary offenses (sic) which may be committed by them in the FRY. The Parties shall assist States participating in the operation in the exercise of their jurisdiction over their own nationals. — 7. NATO personnel shall be immune from any form of arrest, investigation, or detention by the authorities in the FRY. NATO personnel erroneously arrested or detained shall immediately be turned over to NATO authorities. 8. NATO personnel shall enjoy, together with their vehicles, vessels, aircraft, and equipment, free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters. This shall include, but not be limited to, the right of bivouac, maneuver (sic), billet, and utilization of any areas or facilities as required for support, training, and operations. 9. NATO shall be exempt from duties, taxes, and other charges and inspections and custom regulations including providing inventories or other routine customs documentation, for personnel, vehicles, vessels, aircraft, equipment, supplies, and provisions entering, exiting, or transiting the territory of the FRY in support of the Operation. 15. The Parties recognize that the use of communications channels is necessary for the Operation. NATO shall be allowed to operate its own internal mail services. The Parties shall, upon simple request, grant all telecommunications services, including broadcast services, needed for the Operation, as determined by NATO. This shall include the right to utilize such means and services as required to assure full ability to communicate, and the right to use all of the electromagnetic spectrum for this purpose, free of cost. In implementing this right, NATO shall make every reasonable effort to coordinate with and take into account the needs and requirements of appropriate authorities in the FRY. 17. NATO and NATO personnel shall be immune from claims of any sort which arise out of activities in pursuance of the operation; however, NATO will entertain claims on an ex gratia basis. —- 21. In carrying out its authorities under this Chapter, NATO is authorized to detain individuals and, as quickly as possible, turn them over to appropriate officials. I have here only given some of the articles of the infamous Appendix. The others are more of the same ilk. The whole appendix is worth reading. These are some of the privileges which are for example enjoyed by US troops in Italy. (The new secret agreements being proposed between the US government and the Maliki puppet government in Iraq go much further). It was clear that the Rambouillet Accords were attacks on the sovereignty of Yugoslavia and that NATO wanted to completely take over Yugoslavia. The above conditions were obviously entirely unacceptable to a sovereign state and it was clear that these conditions were put so that Milosevic could not accept them and that the bombing of Serbia could start. In fact that is exactly what happened. It should be clear and there is ample evidence of this, which I cannot reproduce here without making this article too long, that the attack on Yugoslavia had absolutely nothing to do with preventing ethnic cleansing and all to do with punishing a state that did not accept US diktat and was a crucial step towards reinventing the role of NATO. Attentive readers in Pakistan will note the uncanny similarities between the proposed Rambouillet Accords of 1999 preceding the 78 day NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia and what Shirin Mazari, a Pakistani defence analyst and former head of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI), revealed as a set of demands that the USA recently made to the Pakistan government (The News March 8, 2008). Although one can never be sure, I hope that the Musharraf government at that time and the present government have rejected these demands which negate Pakistani sovereignty. I wonder if the new "democratic" dispensation has given in to US pressure to remove Ms. Mazari from her position as head of the ISSI given her opposition to NATO presence in Afghanistan and her criticisms of US policy in the region. It is relevant to point out that although the Serbian Parliament had agreed to an accord a day before the bombardment was started, this was deliberately ignored. Also significant is the fact that the final accord sanctioning Yugoslav withdrawal from Kosovo after 78 days of bombing achieved much less than what was being pushed in the Rambouillet Accords. So what was the point of bombardment if much less was acceptable? It was clear then and it is clearer now that the main idea was to change the nature of NATO as part of a broader strategy to dominate the Eastern Mediterranean and the oil routes from Central Asia. The aim of reinventing the role of NATO into an aggressive arm of US foreign policy was achieved at the Washington meeting. The birth of the new NATO was sanctioned by the following words of the 19 heads of state and government on 24th April 1999: This new alliance will be bigger, more capable and more flexible, involved in collective defence and capable of undertaking new missions, among which is the active commitment in the management of crises, including the operations of responding to crises. (Washington Summit Communiqué, 24/4/1999) The newly born creature is the fruit of an operation of genetic engineering: from an alliance that, on the basis of Article 5 of the Treaty of 4 April 1949, authorised its member countries to assist (also with armed force) any member state that was attacked in the North Atlantic area, was transformed into an alliance that, on the basis of the new "strategic concept", commits the member countries also to conduct operations outside the territory of the Alliance (non-Article 5 operations). This was stressed several times in the document "The Alliance’s Strategic Concept" approved by the Heads of State and government on April 24, 1999. For example in Article 31 it says NATO will seek, in co-operation with other organisations, to prevent conflict, or should a crisis arise, to contribute to its effective management, consistent with international law, including through the possibility of conducting non-Article 5 crisis response operations. (The Alliance’s Strategic Concept, 24/4/1999; Defence Capabilities Initiative, 24/4/1999) Remove the fig leaf of respect for international law and here you have the real intentions of NATO, to conduct operations throughout the world as it pleases. To remove any doubt about the intentions of NATO, President Clinton clarified, during the press conference on 24 April 1999, that the North Atlantic Allies have reaffirmed their readiness to affront, in appropriate circumstances, regional conflicts beyond the territory of the members of NATO. (Transcript: Clinton Says NATO May Intervene Beyond Its Borders, 24/4/1999) To the question on what was the geographical area in which NATO was ready to intervene, "the President refused to specify to what distance NATO intended to project its force, saying that it was not a question of geography". In other words, NATO intended to project its military force beyond its borders not only in Europe, but also in other regions, like the Middle East, Africa and the Indian Ocean. NATO gave itself the right to intervene anywhere in the world whenever it feels its interests are threatened, without consulting the United Nations. Led by the biggest and most dangerous rogue state, the United States, NATO was set to become the gravest threat to peace throughout the world. One of the amazing and disgusting spectacles to watch in Europe in those days was that these so-called democracies accepted the new NATO without discussion in any of the European Parliaments. It is as if loyalty to NATO (which means in effect obedience to US diktat) has been put above all other considerations of national sovereignty and democracy. The Italian Prime Minister at that time, Massimo D’Alema, an ex-communist, said that Italy had to go to war because of its commitments and loyalty to NATO. He perhaps forgot that the principle of obeying orders while committing acts against humanity was not accepted at the Nuremberg trials as an attenuating circumstance. It is worth remembering in these times, when one tends to blame Bush and his gang for all US aggressive imperialist policies, that all the above took place under the falsely admired Clinton and his Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, famous for her remark that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children as a consequence of the then embargo on Iraq was a justified price to pay to remove Saddam. We tend to forget that all US presidents follow such policies. As was obvious Bush and his gang whole-heartedly accepted the new role of NATO. If fact this was reemphasised in the recent NATO heads of states meeting in Romania where Bush explicitly said that the role of NATO was that of a "global expeditionary force". These are terrible words that bode ill for the future of the world. Yugoslavia of course could not and did not accept the demands made in the Rambouillet Accords and was therefore subject to savage bombing. The bombing of Serbia sanctioned NATO out of area operations and was a prelude to NATO involvement in Afghanistan as the handmaiden of the USA. NATO should never have been in Afghanistan in the first place and it is good to see that many European countries are reluctant to send their troops to die there. What is happening in Afghanistan is tragic with hundreds of innocents dying at the hands of indiscriminate bombing by US and NATO forces and by the retaliatory Taliban and resistance bombings but one thing is clear and that is that NATO will lose the war in Afghanistan. This is good because, I hope, that it will lead NATO to rethink its role in the post-cold war world and perhaps, if we are lucky, it may even be disbanded in the future. A NATO victory in Afghanistan will be disastrous for the region and for the world. It will encourage it in its Bush-designated role of a global "expeditionary alliance". At the NATO summit in Bucarest in April Bush said about NATO: "It is now an expeditionary alliance that is sending its forces across the world to help secure a future of freedom and peace for millions." In other words to interfere in and invade other poor countries of the south with the pretext of the new white man’s burden: promoting freedom and peace. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan have enough of this so-called freedom and peace. It is therefore necessary that NATO loses in Afghanistan. A total withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan followed by a negotiated settlement between Afghan forces is the only way forward there. There are those who say that the withdrawal of NATO forces will lead to chaos, more deaths and re-talibanisation of Afghanistan. But the truth is that the presence of foreign troops is one of the major factors of violence there. What more chaos and destruction can there be in Afghanistan? All the touted aims of the USA and NATO are dead. There is no democracy there, Karzai is a US puppet, the warlords are in power and the level of insecurity is increasing, car bombs are becoming a norm. Pushtuns, as other peoples, never tolerate foreign occupation of their soil and to me it seems clear that the Taliban have mobilised Pushtun national sentiment in combating foreign troops. Following the failure of NATO to defeat Afghan insurgents, the US blames Pakistan for providing sanctuary and training camps for Taliban and Al-Qaeda in the border region of Pakistan. But we have heard this before. When they cannot control the insurgency in Iraq they blame Iran or Syria for providing training and weapons to Iraqi insurgents. But this is an even older story. Those with a long memory will remember that when the US could not defeat the Vietnamese revolutionaries they said that there were training camps and sanctuaries in neighbouring Laos and Cambodia. One remembers the savage bombing of Cambodia from 1969 to 1973. It did not help the US to defeat the Vietnamese nationalists but lead to over a 100,000 Cambodian deaths to add to the 3 million Vietnamese killed during the war. Now they are bombing so-called Al-Qaeda and Taliban in Waziristan on dubious "actionable intelligence" in which hundreds of innocents are killed and this without a word of protest, if not connivance, on the part of our elected representatives. It is a good sign that, in spite of continued US pressure, one of the first tasks that the new government in Islamabad has undertaken is a review of Pakistan’s involvement in America’s "war on terror". An involvement that has already caused death and destruction in the frontier, disillusionment in the army and suicide bombings in major cities. There are reports of secret deals, made in January, between the USA and Musharraf’s government providing Predator bases inside Pakistan and changing rules of engagement of these aircraft whose controllers are now authorised to fire on suspicion rather than "hard" intelligence. One would like to know from the elected government whether there were such secret deals and if there were does it intend to repudiate them. Already the CIA and the FBI operate freely inside Pakistan and the Americans are demanding that we now accept ground troops in the guise of trainers for the Army and militia. They want to teach the Pakistan Army about counterinsurgency. If it were not so ominous it would be really quite hilarious given the singular failure of the US army in fighting guerrillas in Vietnam and now in Iraq and Afghanistan. What methods are they going to teach the Pakistan Army? Massive bombing and collective punishment in the best traditions of Vietnam? Although the present government has taken some timid steps in distancing itself from the so-called "war on terror" and has rightly started to talk to the people of Waziristan, it has not gone far enough. It has to clearly tell the USA that its policies in Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s frontier are a failure. They have only led to death, destruction and the spread of terrorism. The only way out is for all foreign forces to get out of Afghanistan and for the US to stop interference in Pakistan. Once these forces are out of the region then and only then will one be able to come to a political solution, as there is no purely military solution neither to the problems of Afghanistan nor to the rising phenomena of Islamic militancy in Pakistan. Pushtuns have clearly voted against the mullahs and the militants but at the same time the rejection of Musharraf is also a sign that the people of Pakistan reject Pakistan’s forced marriage with the disastrous US policies in the region. It is time for a clean divorce.
Hands off our oil8 Jun 2008Unions lead fight against Western oil theft Five years into the war and occupation of Iraq, and following five missed deadlines, the proposed Iraqi Oil Law remains off the statute books, despite the best efforts of those whom it would benefit. The law would allow foreign oil companies to control the extraction, production and depletion of Iraq?s oil reserves for a generation. Furthermore, it would allow sectarian lites, who already enjoy both military and political power, to sign their own contracts with oil companies, thus reinforcing their long-term economic control. Dick Cheney, General Petraeus, Condoleeza Rice and the former supreme commander of US forces in the Middle East, Admiral Fallon, have all visited Baghdad in person to push for ratification of the law ? yet their diplomatic efforts, flanked by over 150,000 US troops, have failed. Iraqi civil society and embattled parliamentarians are winning. Inside Iraq, unions, still illegal and subject to Ba?athist anti-union legislation, are leading the fight against this resource theft. The Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) is on the frontline. The 26,000-member independent federation is active in 11 state oil and gas companies throughout the country and is the only union to have forced Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki to the negotiating table. The IFOU has held numerous protests, conferences and seminars about the Oil Law, popularizing the term ?Production Sharing Agreements? ? the contractual agreement which has become a by-word for ?oil theft?. Later drafts of the Oil Law had to drop the term due to ?media and popular fuss?, according to the Ministry of Oil. When Iraqi Pipeline Union workers took strike action last summer, Oil Minister Hussein Al Shahristani called the action ?economic sabotage? and arrest warrants were issued against the IFOU?s leadership. Iraqi troops occupied the oil fields as US helicopter gunships circled overhead. Despite death threats from both sectarian militias and Government allies, the union remains steadfast in the face of mounting repression. And they are not alone. Power, port, agriculture and steel sector unions have organized a co-ordinating committee in Basra, Iraq?s oil capital, to campaign for union rights and against public sector privatization. The Federation of Workers? Councils and the General Federation of Iraqi Workers are both involved in the committee and in similar initiatives around the country. Likewise, representatives from all unions are involved in the Iraq Freedom Congress?s ?Anti Oil Law Front?. Based mainly in Baghdad and connected to the Worker Communist Party of Iraq, it has held conferences and demonstrations in the capital against oil privatization. Last year over 100 technocrats, including senior former Oil Ministry and Iraqi National Oil Company directors and lawyers, signed a statement urging the Iraqi Government not to support a law which allows for long-term contracts to be signed while the country is still occupied. So far the law remains unpassable. Yet Oil Minister Shahristani is inviting oil companies to sign under existing Ba?athist legislation and to treat the Oil Law as passed, despite there being no democratic mandate for it or the economic occupation it represents. The issue of resource sovereignty is uniting Iraqis. A powerful alliance of grassroots civil society organizations and technocrats has been created and it is intent on keeping Iraq?s oil in the hands of the people. For further information see
www.basraoilunion.org
www.handsoffiraqioil.org
What we need is a new dawn8 Jun 2008Gordon Brown’s apparent decision to build more nuclear power stations because fuel prices are going through the roof is bizarre. It takes 15-20 years to build a nuclear power station. Hard-pressed hauliers and the fuel poor cannot wait that long. Nuclear power is irrelevant to addressing the present cost of fuel. And it can do next to nothing to ease the cost of heating homes. Rising oil prices are already significantly reducing car and plane use. For home heating, the sensible way to proceed is by a rapid shift to domestic renewable energy: solar, wind-power, air or ground heat pumps, biomass (wood-burning boilers) and micro-generation. Germany is already proving the huge success of this policy through feed-in tariffs which enable families to generate their own energy and sell on any excess to the national grid at a profit. Sadly, the British Government has turned its back on such ideas because it is committed to industrial vested interests. We hear a lot about empowering the consumer, but where this would really count ? with decentralised energy systems ? the fossil fuel and nuclear industries have the inside track. This is not the only example of Government prejudices holding back desperately needed changes. In the current turmoil in financial markets, as the crisis broke and it became clear that City trading in near-worthless financial derivatives or ?structured investment vehicles? had been a major ingredient in the collapse, it was decided there would be no change in light-touch regulation. No committee of inquiry would be set up to deal with the rottenness of the financial system. Despite the toxic mix of poor accounting transparency, risk-laden financial products, evasive offshore operations, weak banking regulation and a gross lack of public accountability, a return to business-as-usual (if that were possible) was judged better than cleaning out the Augean stables. As far as housing is concerned, the shortage of social, affordable housing has reached crisis levels. There are 1,634,000 households on the waiting list in 2004, according to the latest available data. The actual figure is probably nearer two million. In addition, nearly 100,000 households are registered homeless. Yet virtually no council houses have been built over the past 10 years. Local authorities get no grant from the Government for house-building and are forbidden to borrow on the open market against the security of their housing stock to fund the tens of thousands of affordable houses for rent that are needed. However, housing associations are permitted to borrow on the market, to an extent equal to their grant from the Government, so that their house-building is doubled. Making a political point against council housing because of an obsession with owner occupation is wholly unacceptable. If council tenants want their homes to be repaired and modernised, they have been required to vote in a ballot either to be transferred to a private landlord, a housing association or a so-called arm?s length management organisation. If they reject these options and opt to stay with the council, their homes have simply been left to deteriorate. This is about ideology, not meeting housing need. Are ministers oblivious to the needs of the quarter of the population with the lowest incomes who do not have the wage levels or the regularity of employment to afford owner-occupation when mortgage debt to income is now on a six-to-one ratio or even higher? Some people are rather better off. The chief executives of the FTSE 100 companies now take home on average more than 71,000 a week. Meanwhile, employees in their companies on the minimum wage take home 200 a week ? 350 times less. Like other bosses before him who brought down their companies, Adam Applegarth was able to walk away from Northern Rock with a golden goodbye (760,000 in his case), while hundreds of jobs could be lost in the north-East of England with little or no compensation. Non-domicile tax refugees, many of them millionaires, are untroubled by the Inland Revenue because taxing the rich is a reminder of the bad old days. The Treasury has even retreated from the minimalist proposals on non-doms. The fiasco over the abolition of the 10p tax band has still not been properly rectified. Alistair Darling?s compensation scheme, which still leaves 1.1 million of the 5.3 million losers worse off, comes to an end after one year. What is needed is not a bit more tax credit adjustment, but the re-introduction of the 10p tax rate with the 6.6 billion cost funded by redistribution from the richest 5 per cent in society with incomes over 150,000 whose wealth has quadrupled under this Government. The enthusiasm for the private sector in all things has led to more problems. Through 1997-2002, the public accounts were in surplus. However, instead of the huge public rebuilding programme being financed cheaply via the Public Works Loan Board, the decision was made to hand over the construction and management of new hospitals, schools, roads and prisons to Private Finance Initiative schemes. This is a distinctly ?unsound money? policy ? top-slicing public expenditure for 30-50 years ahead, pushing a number of health trusts into bankruptcy and opening up re-financing scams offering even bigger profit rake-offs. And it has been pushed through with future liabilities for the public purse of more than 100 billion, even though many surveys have found that the PFI does not generally offer the best value for money. The poorest in our society are probably more vulnerable now than at any time for a century and workers can still be arbitrarily dismissed in their first year of employment without any rights. Yet the Government continues to restrict trade union rights. Nor will it implement the European Union?s Charter of Fundamental Rights for all citizens, which all the other 26 EU member states have accepted without demur. The charter bans excessive working hours (British workers work longer hours per week than anyone else in Europe) and would allow secondary action in industrial disputes (which is not an issue anywhere else in Europe). It?s not Gordon Brown?s leadership that?s the problem. It?s the policies that have alienated Labour?s core vote. Changing the leader will alter little unless the policies are altered in a manner to convince those voters Labour is now fully on their side. Michael Meacher is Labour MP for Oldham West and Royton and a former environment minister
Profiting from Iraq’s occupation7 Jun 2008The British in Basra are unpopular and mostly ineffective. The last survey of Basra residents by BBC Newsnight indicated that 86 per cent believe British troops have had a negative effect on the Iraqi province since 2003. More than half felt the troops presence had actually increased the overall level of militia violence over the past four years. Twelve per cent believed that British troops had made no difference at all. Only two per cent believed British troops had had a positive effect. And 83 per cent said they wanted British troops to leave Iraq without delay. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the British role, carried out at great cost, including of many lives. Soon after becoming Prime Minister, Gordon Brown promised to reduce British troops in Iraq from 4,500 to 2,500. On 28 April, Defence Secretary Des Browne abandoned that promise in parliament. The troops were also supposed to be no longer involved in day to day operations in the province and confined to their Basra airport base. That implied non-engagement has been undermined, as the troops gave support to the forces of the Iraqi government in their offensive against the forces of Moqtadr al Sadr. Patrick Cockburn, The Independent?s well-respected, non-embedded, journalist in Iraq, pointed out that elections are due in about six months time and the Shias of Prime Minister Maliki?s faction are trying to gain advantage over the popular Shia faction of al Sadr. They are using force to do this and want to draw in the British in Basra. The US are also spoiling for a fight. They are in the middle of their ?surge? in troop numbers. Very sensibly, al Sadr calculated he could wait them out and called a cease-fire. He then extended it. The US would like to goad him into a fight and are using the Maliki forces to do it. US troops have moved into the Basra area and have goaded UK forces into taking part too. The weak British government has caved into this pressure, but even if for a short while they back up one faction over another, they will remain largely ineffective. Of course, the US has no respect for any of the Shias, or Sunnis either, and an understandable reading of their strategy since they replaced the secular government of Iraq with a religious-based Shia one, is to keep them at each others throats. The factions are well prepared to change alliances, at least temporarily according to circumstances. So the Sunnis too have quietened their opposition to the US. Also perhaps it is unfair to call the British completely ineffective. In March, in Kuwait, the Basra Development Commission was launched. This is a ?joint initiative? of the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Barham Saleh, and British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. At the launch the governor of Basra, Mohammed al-Wa?ili said ?Basra welcomes private sector investors?. As Basra province holds 80 per cent of Iraq?s oil reserves and is home to the country?s only deep sea port and trade routes to the Gulf, the private sector is likely to be primarily US or US allies and not Iraqi. The British helped with the drafting of the new oil law, and with this commission are moving along the take over of Iraq?s assets and the long-term expropriation of massive profits from them. In this way we are doing our bit for our US allies. Britain?s Labour government, in effect, has one last chance to get out with a modicum of reason. The United Nations mandate, which currently authorises the US and British presence in Iraq, runs out at the end of this year. That mandate does not really legitimise the occupation as the US and Britain were charged with ensuring the security of the Iraqi people and facilitating humanitarian aid and economic investment. The coalition has totally failed on both counts. The commitment to leave should be required of the Labour government at every opportunity, and not just by the end of the year. Our presence serves no national or international interest. We do not want to fight for one side in a civil war or to try to give advantage to one side in Iraqi elections. Those purposes are not worth the life or health of another British soldier. However the US has no intention of leaving when their UN mandate runs out. They are already negotiating a bilateral contract with their puppet, dependent government in Baghdad, to ?supply security?. The US will, in effect, turn itself into a mercenary army of occupation. They will be securing their pay out by robbing Iraq of its resources. No wonder Republican presidential candidate John McCain, in answering a question about whether US troops would be in Iraq for 50 years, replied ?make it a hundred?. Nobel Prize Winner for Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, recently published his new book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The true cost of the Iraq conflict. At a meeting in Parliament he described it as a ?war totally financed on the credit card?. It has been a factor in the current global economic crisis, he said. The high price of oil also owes its genesis to the Iraq war and its aftermath. The US has created this crisis and is calculating it will, over time, be in a powerful position by grabbing control of Iraq?s oil. This, though, is not just illegal by any recognised standard, but a formula for never-ending conflict in Iraq as its people fight a nationalist war of liberation. Iraqis are already victims. As well as the dead and maimed, there are approximately two million widows with very little economic means, according to one respected charity. The four million refugees are a scandal the west studiously ignores. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has just published its report Five Years Later: a Hidden Crisis. In their letter to MPs the IRC state ?The US led invasion of Iraq five years ago and its violent aftermath have produced one of the largest humanitarian crises of our time, yet the ?Coalition of the Willing? has been mostly unwilling to own up to it and provide aid for the innocent bystanders?. It is of fundamental importance to get this matter discussed in parliament.
The Crazy Politics of 42 days7 Jun 2008Who would be a Labour MP this week? After brutal whipping and endless spin about “toughing it out” while “offering concessions”, it still boils down to this. Is it right, or necessary, or productive to our safety, to detain a suspected person for six weeks without charge – without knowing what they are accused of? Some view this as a trial of political machismo. Liberty does not. Political parties play a part in democracy, but I respect the conscience, courage and conviction of individual parliamentarians more. I will always regret the crazy politics that “42 days” has become and our inability – despite endless efforts – to persuade the Brown government towards a break with the recent past. Liberty colleagues have had discussions with Labour MPs who have been thoughtful in their engagement. My confidence is such that I believe on a free vote in the Commons, the 42-day measure would be easily defeated. But at the fag end of the misnamed, misjudged “war on terror”, abortion time limits are left to the conscience and detention time limits are not. The margin will be tight. Some MPs have expressed fears that this issue might become a running sore for their party. As Europe split the Conservatives in the 1990s, so civil liberties might create a fault line through Labour. Government admissions that there is no need for an extension have left many angry about being forced to revisit this issue so soon after the vote in 2005. In democracies where people are presumed innocent, we arrest on suspicion, charge with evidence and convict after proof. These principles were built on centuries of struggle. Even this tradition risks hundreds or thousands of people being plucked from their beds and detained under terror laws. A smaller number will be charged with something, and some eventually convicted. Humans – including policemen – are imperfect. Hence the age-old wisdom of prompt charging following arrest, so even the most heinous murders must result in charge within four days. Hence the one-day limit in Canada, two in the US, and periods of a week or less all over the free world. Ministers have been quick to try to rubbish my organisation’s extensive research into comparisons but have produced none of their own. The Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, is in no doubt where the UK stands. He says the “British government’s suggestion to allow terrorism suspects to be detained for 42 days without charge would be way out of line with equivalent detention limits elsewhere in Europe”. After charge, innocents may still be held for months pending trial for a complex conspiracy, but at least they know why. At least they and their family and lawyers can prepare a defence in the hope of vindication in court. Contrast the nightmare of a thousand hours in custody followed by unceremonious release back into the community. How will that help social cohesion and national unity? Ministers claim to have consulted “senior Muslims”. My concern is with the junior ones who become alienated and radicalised. The security minister Admiral Lord West was both provocative and practical when he said people should “snitch” on those they suspect of involvement in terrorist activity. How much intelligence might be lost in the anxiety that providing information risks an innocent neighbour disappearing for six weeks? I debated this on the radio with a government loyalist. “Six weeks’ detention is not so long,” he said, “a school holiday”. Before I could react, the Irish-born broadcaster cut in: “I was detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act.” It clearly hadn’t felt like a holiday to him. So, on the government’s own case, there is no need for this power; but they wheel out selected policemen who say there may be a need one day. They are slow to explore a range of less sexy alternatives to the constant escalation of the detention arms race. Serving police officers have also told Liberty of their opposition to the government’s plans. But most fear recrimination if they go public. The former chief constable of the West Midlands, Lord Dear, is no stranger to terrorist threats. He was personally targeted by the IRA and yet calls extended detention a “propaganda coup for al-Qaida”. In his experience the “best course for a terrorist was to provoke a government to overreact to a threat by eroding civil liberties, increasing executive powers and diminishing due process by the denial of justice”. One week from the vote, we are told ministers can have their authoritarian cake and eat it with sugar-free “concessions”. The home secretary even says her last-minute amendments transform the 42-day power into a liberal enhancement of existing emergency powers. The joint parliamentary committee on human rights disagrees: “The safeguards in the bill, even after the potential government amendments, are inadequate to protect individuals against the risk of arbitrary detention.” Confidence tricks catch only those unwilling to look beyond the smoke and mirrors. First, the “grave and exceptional terror threat” is broad enough to catch any suspected terror plot anywhere in the world, rather than a genuine emergency in Britain. Second, the threat is a phrase for a statement to the Commons, not a legal precondition for detention. That means that the power to extend detention is still triggered by individual cases rather than general emergencies. Parliament becomes a farcical star chamber charged with discussing individual cases without prejudicing potential trials. Finally, there is no judicial review of the decision to turn on the power. The only role left to a judge would be to authorise detention week on week without evidence or charges to examine. On morning radio Jacqui Smith asked for our trust. Since when was trust in today’s home secretary a basis for suspending the rule of law? It is part of her job to plan for horrific scenarios. It is the job of her parliamentary colleagues to consider her proposals in future home secretaries’ hands. This is not a vote of confidence in this government, but about confidence in parliament’s ability to hold all governments to account. Who would be a Labour MP next week? Vote against this posture and face the whips in the morning. Or vote for it and face your grandchildren forever. Shami Chakrabarti is director of Liberty
New limbs for the left7 Jun 2008New Labour is now reaping what it has itself sown: a cumulative weakening of the values of social solidarity, public service and altruism, which provide the invisible bedrock on which the electoral fortunes of the Labour Party ultimately depend. From Peter Mandelson?s celebration of the ?filthy rich? and Tony Blair?s contempt for public sector workers, through to Gordon Brown?s present refusal properly to reward public servants and his insistence that ?public service reform? means contracting out these services to private business, self-seeking individualism has been valorised and public service ethics denigrated. Brown?s overarching strategy has been to make Britain a fast-growing economy competing on the terms set by finance-led global capitalism and to stealthily engineer a trickle down to the deserving poor. As we know this has meant being soft on the super rich, while achieving a micro redistribution from the better off to low-income families. This formula could more or less appear to work when the economy was buoyant. But as soon as this speculation-led growth began to falter New Labour?s uncritical attachment to the priorities of the City as the chosen instrument of economic expansion has become visibly paralysing. As growth slows the government has less money to spend on tackling poverty or investing in services; and it dare not borrow more or tax the wealthy because to do so would torpedo its Thatcherite economic model. New Labour is consequently disarmed by the new Tory rhetoric of fairness, combined with a strong anti-statism, because it has neither a strategy for social justice nor a confident vision of the positive role of the state ? and still less an overarching vision that brings them together. And the two do go together. Seriously redistributive and green taxation is only politically possible if the state has real legitimacy ? in other words, if there is a popular belief, grounded in experience, that the money paid in taxes is returned in responsive services that users feel are theirs. The British state won this legitimacy throughout the post-war decades of reconstruction, building the welfare state and enjoying its first benefits. The result was a 20-year or so social democratic consensus legitimating taxation and redistribution. The delivery of these social benefits, however, was via an unreformed mandarin state, whose most powerful links with civil society were predominantly with business. These administrative hierarchies were imitated throughout the pubic sector. The result was a daily experiences of state institutions, from universities and the education system through to local government and even the health service, that was contradictory and frustrating ? unresponsive to growing expectations and a new diversity of demand. The social and political movements of the 1960s and 1970s were one response. Arguably one reason for the significance and lasting memory of Ken Livingstone?s GLC was that it was one the few politically successful experiments in translating the diffuse but creative radicalism of the 1970s into a popular political programme. It was cut short in its prime. We all know what happened then. But perhaps now, after the May Day election debacle, the significance of what didn?t happen is coming home to roost for New Labour. The Labour Party didn?t grasp the importance of the GLC experiment, in all its messiness, in illustrating the possibility of transforming, opening up and democratising state institutions ? and translating this onto the national level. This ? and many similar experiences internationally ? could have been the basis of a direct challenge to Thatcher?s privatisation and her reverse, Hood Robin, approach to redistribution. Indeed, Norman Tebbit saw the threat when he remarked of the GLC on the eve of its abolition: ?This is modern socialism and we will kill it.? The belief in values of social solidarity and in the possibility of bringing state institutions, international as well as national and local, under active democratic control ? along with addressing the problem of corporate power ? is still there and generating new kinds of political initiatives on the ground. How can they be strengthened and built on? At times like this, when all the mainstream focus is on Westminster politics, the left (especially the English left) has to guard against attacks of ?phantom limb syndrome? ? the pervasive assumption that the old labour movement levers of power connecting local activists with national politics are still effective or could become so. It?s a syndrome reflected in the endless debates about what to do about Gordon Brown, the calls on the party to do this or that, and so on. The truth is that New Labour (and the global economy) has all but destroyed these traditional levers, weak as they already were. The left needs to attach new limbs by looking beyond its existing, inbred networks and engage in the variety of new (and often local) struggles and initiatives. These are organised through communities, geographical or otherwise, as well as (and more often than) workplaces. They relate to cultural symbols and identities more than narrowly political ones. Many socialists are already working in this way to considerable local or issue-specific effect. There is a need to strengthen the exchange between them to give innovative content to the long-term political vision of a new kind of political force ? and I consciously do not use the word ?party?, for now.
THE SmashEDO Carnival Against the Arms Trade7 Jun 2008It’s not rocket science… Nostrils still flaring from the stench of spray paint and pepper spray ….yer SchNEWS crew reports from the frontline of the anti-arms trade struggle, Brighton styleee. Yep its the event we?ve been relentlessly pushing for the last two months ? the Carnival against the Arms Trade. With red flags flying, three soundsystems, a cardboard tank and the inevitable samba band around 500 people were met by a surprisingly small number of police on the Level in Brighton. At around 1pm having confirmed the factory was open the march moved off towards EDO MBM, around a mile and a half away, chanting ?Smash, Smash EDO.? As soon as the crowd turned up the road leading to the weapons factory they were confronted with a pen constructed from crash barriers and a section 14 crowd control order. Police obviously planned to contain the demo well away from the site, but the masked up-for-it crowd of activists had other ideas. The cage was swiftly taken to bits and used to push against police lines. One soundsystem ended being used as a battering ram. One red bandanna sporting protester told SchNEWS ?We came here to fight the arms trade ? we?re not gonna be pushed into a playpen.? As the police resorted to wild baton strikes to hold the crowd back they were outflanked and pushed down the road. The carnival then staged a noisy demo fully occupying the road outside the factory. Although it looked as if most of the workers had been sent home early ? a few of the suits had hung around on the top floor perhaps to watch the action. Well they must have loved the bird?s eye view they got next… Someone tugged at one of EDO?s massive steel gates which suddenly and miraculously opened. Half a dozen gobsmacked protesters waved the main crowd over. Flag wielding activists piled onto the factory?s forecourt and a few plucky individuals literally smashed EDO, putting in their windows. Anti-war slogans were sprayed on the building and MD Paul Hill?s SUV copped a few bricks. Police eventually forced people out with batons, pepper spray and dogs. Eventually having made their point forcibly the crowd moved back into town before police re-reinforcements arrived. Ten arrests were made in total during the fighting, although many more were de-arrested in displays of crowd solidarity. Police violence hospitalised a number of others. On the way back into town the scuffling continued with one motorbike cop getting his Chips as he was covered head to toe in white paint. In a pathetic display of childish temper tantrum one gang of riot police smashed the cardboard tank to pieces. A Smash EDO spokesman said: ?Overall the day was a victory for the campaign ? in the face of police brutality we were able to show the massive disgust that exists at those who profit from death and misery. They might accuse us of being violent but anything that happened today pales in comparison to the damage inflicted by EDOs products in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan and Somalia. Congratulations to all who took part for their action and initiative and strength in refusing to be intimidated by the police aggression.? THE COMPANY EDO manufacture vital parts for ?smart? bombs, used extensively in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Somalia, but they?re only as smart as the person in charge ? ultimately the Commander in Chief, aka Dubya. EDO Corp were recently acquired by ITT in a multi-billion pound deal. ITT?s links to fascism go back to the 1930s. The founder Sosthenes Behn was the first foreign businessman received by Hitler after his seizure of power. After the Iraq War (not that it’s mission accomplished) there has been a four year relentless campaign against EDO in Brighton. Despite an injunction under the Protection of Harassment Act (which failed) and over fifty arrests the campaign is still going strong. Their avowed aim is to expose EDO?s complicity in war crimes and shut them down. There are regular Wednesday afternoon demos when workers leave the factory. For more info about the Smash EDO Campaign See www.smashedo.org.uk * For more coverage of the Carnival Against The Arms Trade with photos see www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2008/edo * Webpage for the Carnival www.smashedo.org.uk/carnival * ON THE VERGE – The Smash EDO Campaign Film, produced by SchMOVIES, the film police tried to ban, is available to buy for 6 incl p&p (profits to Smash EDO) or download – see www.schnews.org.uk/schmovies/on-the-verge
Binyam Mohamed embarks on hunger strike to protest Guantnamo charges6 Jun 2008This has been a disturbing week for British resident and Guantnamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed, who endured two and a half years of torture at the hands of Pakistani agents, the CIA, and the United States? proxy torturers in Morocco, before being transferred to Guantnamo in September 2004. Last Friday, it was revealed that he was to face a trial by Military Commission at Guantnamo — the ?terror courts? invented by Dick Cheney and his advisers in November 2001, which are empowered to conceal classified information from the defendants and, at the judge?s discretion, to accept ?evidence? obtained through coercion. This is, of course, particularly worrying in Binyam?s case, as every shred of the so-called evidence against him appears to have been extracted through torture, and would be inadmissible in a courtroom on the US mainland. There was some brighter news for Binyam on Tuesday, when a judge, Mr. Justice Saunders, responded positively to his lawyers? request for a judicial review, which, they hope, will require the British government to drop its claim that it is ?under no obligation under international law to assist foreign courts and tribunals in assuring that torture evidence is not admitted? and that ?it is HM Government?s position that ? evidence held by the UK Government that US and Moroccan authorities engaged in torture or rendition cannot be obtained? by Binyam?s lawyers. His lawyers also hope that a favourable decision in the judicial review will compel the government to reveal whatever information it has regarding British knowledge of Binyam?s rendition to torture in Morocco, and information regarding his life in London, which, Binyam says, was presented to him by his Moroccan torturers. Today, however, the Independent reports that Binyam is so distressed by the announcement of the charges against him that he has embarked on a hunger strike. In a letter to foreign secretary David Miliband, his lawyers at Reprieve, the legal action charity that provides legal assistance to over 30 Guantnamo prisoners, explain that Binyam ?began not eating food on May 2, 2008, when he was 146 lbs (10 stone 6 lbs),? but that this went unnoticed, because ?the US military does not count it as a ?hunger strike? if the prisoner does not actually refuse the tray.? On May 18, therefore, when his weight had already dropped to 128 lbs (9 stone 2 lbs), Binyam began refusing the trays. Binyam stopped his strike temporarily, when Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve?s director, and Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley, his military lawyer, persuaded him to eat during the three days of their visit, but announced that he would resume on May 24. Stafford Smith explained, ?Under the illegal procedures used by the US military in Guantnamo ? they will consider him a ?hunger striker? and start force-feeding him when he reaches about 120 lbs (8 stone 8 lbs). Stafford Smith thought that this might be on June 4 or 5. From almost the moment that Guantnamo opened, in January 2002, hunger strikes have been used by the prisoners as the only way to protest the lawless conditions of their confinement — held without charge, with no family contact, with little or no social interaction, and with no inkling of when, if ever, their imprisonment will come to an end. Persistent hunger strikers, however, are made to suffer even more, and are punished by being force-fed, a procedure that is monstrously cruel. Prisoners are strapped into a restraint chair using 16 separate straps — three across the head alone — and fed, twice a day, through a tube that is inserted into the stomach through the nose. As well as being shockingly painful — and frequently unhygienic, as the tubes are not always cleaned after each use — force-feeding is also illegal, as the World Medical Association made clear in its Declaration of Tokyo in 1975: ?Where a prisoner refuses nourishment and is considered by the physician as capable of forming an unimpaired and rational judgment concerning the consequences of such a voluntary refusal of nourishment, he or she shall not be fed artificially.? The US administration ignores this requirement, as it is unwilling to let prisoners secure what it would regard as a PR victory if they starved themselves to death. Perhaps as a result, four long-term hunger strikers – three in June 2006, and another last May — took the only other action that was available to them, and committed suicide. Binyam has not yet reached this state of desperation — although in a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, on May 22, he wrote, ?I have been next to committing suicide this past while. That would be one way to end it, I suppose.? Nevertheless, as Clive Stafford Smith points out, ?The need for humanitarian intervention on behalf of Mr. Mohamed grows ever more urgent. Because no US court will hear his case, I am powerless to secure him the humane treatment that he needs. The British government is not powerless. It is crucial that this be top of the government?s agenda.? Andy is the author of The Guantnamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America?s Illegal Prison.
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