LENIN'S TOMB: Britain, New Labour & Support for Terrorism.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Britain, New Labour & Support for Terrorism. posted by Richard Seymour

Mendacity, the Media and the Ministry of Defence

There are some things that shouldn't be mentioned in polite society. Among them are the continuing efforts by the British government to back terror programmes being conducted by Russia, Colombia, Indonesia and Israel, and sordid regimes such as those in Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. One would no more expect such a discussion to appear on the BBC News at One O' Clock than one would a meditation on the Queen's lavatorial habits. This could in part be because, as Richard Sambrooke once suggested, the BBC foreign affairs department has too often been little more than a mouthpiece for the Ministry of Defence. Whatever the reason, the aggregated evidence suggests that UK support for thug regimes and terror states persists unabated.

Let's take the case of Colombia. Britain insists that such aid as it is giving to Colombia is directed at combatting terrorism and reducing drug trafficking. It so happens that the people who receive this aid - the Uribe government and its right-wing paramiliary arm - are responsible for most of the terrorism and drug trafficking that takes place in Colombia. For a government so concerned of late with drug use and violent crime (Tom Watson MP's calls to lock up 'crackheads and junkies'), this would seem a shocking deviation of policy. But it is not. As we look at the details it becomes evident that this is part of a consistent UK policy in the world.

The Colombian regime has, for some 55 years, been waging a struggle against internal dissent, trade unionists, peasant activists and human rights organisations. It has used the pretext of suppressing an insurgency mounted by the Farc guerilla outfit. During this time, there have been nine attempts at a peace process - each time, a guerilla faction has agreed to disband. Its leaders, agreeing to re-enter civil society, have in every case been assassinated. In recent years, there has been an upswing in human rights abuses, particularly following the election of Uribe. Examples include the kidnapping of trade unionists, the assassination of dissidents and the 'disappearances' so familiar on that continent. Last year, over 70 trade unionists were murdered by the paramilitaries, according to Amnesty International, who also note that "the military and their paramilitary allies have sought to keep the population under control by instilling fear, through massacres, 'disappearances', torture and mass detentions". 7000 people were killed last year in Colombia, according to the Colombian Commission of Jurists - again, mostly at the hands of the army and its paramilitary allies (according to War on Want , 86% of human rights violations are carried out by "paramilitary death squads which have links with the official armed forces", a "fact well documented by the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and countless others" but which is "not reflected in UK government statements or reports"). On average, 300,000 new refugees are created each year.

The security laws imposed by the Uribe government have played an important part in exacerbating these trends. The Defence and National Security Law, labelled unconstitutional by Colombia's Constitutional Court, was an attempt to give the army special judicial powers, while Decree 2002 - also unconstitutional - was designed to enhance military powers, limit rights in certain areas, and prevent foreign observers from entering particular zones. As a result, many human rights activists were deported. The Colombian army and its paramilitary adjuvants have been greatly strengthened by "Plan Colombia", the US-sponsored policy allegedly designed to reduce drug trafficking. Amnesty notes US military aid as a key factor in the recent waves of violence and state repression, but what is less well known is that Britain has been an active participant in Uribe's terror campaign, and has supported state oppression in Colombia for some time.

UK aid to Colombia is alleged to be aimed at helping pacify Colombia's war and reducing the production of class A drugs, but it is contiguous with an ongoing programme of support for Colombia's military. As Martin Arostegui reported for UPI and the Washington Post on 23rd October 2003:

"Instructors from the counter-terrorist wing of Britain's Special Air Service are also reported to be polishing up Colombian commando skills in surveillance, ambush and close-quarter combat."

The SAS have been operating in Colombia since 1989, although their role has rarely been reported so candidly. The government claims that the human rights situation in Colombia has seen a "vast improvement" and that this is a result of continued military aid and "engagement". If anything, however, the situation has gotten markedly worse in the past years. While some kinds of abuse have declined, there has been a rise in forced "disappearances", targeted killings and human rights violations carried out by the paramilitaries in association with the army. As the UN Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights, Bernard Ramcharan, put it in April 2004:

"An increase in the number of allegations was received regarding extra-judicial executions, forced disappearances, torture or degrading treatment, arbitrary or illegal detention".

This, however, doesn't stop the UK government supporting and praising a government and army which has the worst human rights record in the Western hemisphere.

From Britain, With Love...

In 1999, a series of explosions in Moscow killed 246 people, and provided the new President Vladimir Putin with a pretext for re-invading Chechnya. Grozny was flattened and thousands have since been slaughtered. According to former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko, the bombings were in fact staged by the FSB in order to provide the pretext for the invasion.

Since then, however, the Blair government has stood shoulder to shoulder with the Putin regime, insisting on its right to defend itself. In justifying a 2000 trip to St Petersburg, the Prime Minister told the press :

"We have always made clear our concerns over Chechnya and any question of human rights abuses there, though it is important to realise that Chechnya isn't Kosovo. The Russians have been subjected to really severe terrorist attacks."

Just months afterward, Amnesty International reported that the Russian Federation was continuing a pattern of torture and rape in Chechnya. In 2001, Amnesty International, Memorial, FIDH and Human Rights Watch issued a joint statement suggesting that:

Russian forces are responsible for the overwhelming majority of physical harm and material damage suffered by civilians. Russian and international human rights organizations active in the region continue to document violations of the European Convention on Human Rights by Russian forces, including: the arbitrary detention, torture, extortion, ''disappearance'', and harassment of civilians.

...

Russian forces on sweep (in Russian, zachistka, or "cleansing") operations in towns and villages continue to arbitrarily arrest, loot, and use disproportionate force against civilians. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, by the end of the summer 15,000 people in Chechnya had been detained in relation to the conflict; in fact, this number is likely to be higher. Most are reportedly beaten or subjected to torture; their relatives are almost always extorted for bribes in exchange for their release. Hundreds of others simply "disappear" in custody. Russian forces manning checkpoints throughout Chechnya routinely extort civilians for bribes.

If anything, the order of atrocity continuing in Chechnya meant that "catalogued objectively, the crimes for which Yeltsin and Putin bear ultimate responsibility mean that when Major and Blair supped with them, they dined with men very like Slobodan Milosevic.", according to James Meeks of The Guardian. Blair remained instransigent, telling the House of Commons that although he had "concerns" over Chechnya, “it's also important that we support Russia in her action against terrorism.”

The partnership between Blair and Putin has continued with the only let-up being the brief tiff over Iraq. Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch records the mounting wreck of atrocities as the situation in Chechnya once again deteriorates. And Mecidin Sans Frontieres describes how refugees are being forced back into war zones, out of the reach of international aid, so that the Russian Federation may present an image of growing normality. In June 2003, Blair invited Putin for a state visit to London, taking the same walk of shame through the Mall that Mugabe, Ceausescu, Mobuto Suharto and Jiang Zemin have taken before, and Blair complimented President Putin for his "anti-terror efforts". Undoubtedly, one of Blair's chief considerations is the fact that BP and Shell have huge oil exploration contracts in Russia, making the UK the world's largest single investor in Russia. Alexander Yakovenko, a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, recently boasted after a meeting between Jack Straw and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that:

"Britain doubled the amount of current investments in Russia in 2003 and they ran at 4,600 million US dollars," Yakovenko said. "The cumulated British investments in the Russian economy amounted to 7,2000 million USD, growing by 43 percent within a year. They may grow still further if the BP and Shell projects are implemented. In that case, Britain will enhance its positions as the main foreign investor in Russia".

Jack Straw remarked after the meeting, held in July, that Britain supported Russia's "reform process" and expected them to be admitted to the World Trade Organisation soon. Whatever the reason, at every step Mr Blair has apologised for, encouraged and supported the terror reign being imposed on the people of Chechnya. In doing so, he has further undermined any credibility he might have as an opponent of terrorism or terror regimes.

Arming The World

We can conclude with a brief summary of other terror regimes with which the UK has been and remains complicit. Indonesia, for instance. It is no secret that New Labour helpfully supplied the Suharto regime with hawk air jets so that it could butcher its internal opponents and the East Timorese. What is less well known is that the UK continues to support Indonesian terror, this time in Aceh. As is customary, the massive increase in the scale of repression has been accompanied by a corresponding rise in the level of arms sales to the regime. Saudi Arabia remains the number one recipient of UK arms . In 2002, Britain broke its own embargo to supply arms to Israel as it pummelled Palestinian homes and conducted assaults on heavily populated, urban areas. In January 2000, the UK government invited the Chinese Foreign Minister, General Chi Haotian, to "explore military cooperation" in defiance of an EU arms embargo. Haotian had been the commander involved in the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacres. In 2002, Britain supplied £3 million in aid to the Nepalese government, whose armed forces are responsible for vast numbers of civilian deaths in its war with insurgents.

This is the government which dares to platitudinise about democracy, freedom and human rights, even as it colludes in murder and terror of epic proportions. It is a government led by a man whose vocabulary is littered with apocalyptic language about good and evil, even as he covers for some of the worst evils being perpetrated under the firmament. There isn't enough vomit in the world.