We need truth
September 1, 2003
This week Parliament returned from summer recess to exactly the same debates as were being held in July.
In this amazing eight week period the whole notion of Government secrecy has been stood on its head. I am very certain that in the fevered atmosphere of 10 Downing Street during the inquiries into the Iraq policy undertaken by the Foreign Affairs Committee and then after the tragedy of Dr Kelly’s death nobody expected their e mails to be public before summer was out.
Normally we have to wait thirty years for the Public Records Office in Kew to publish the innermost workings of Government – thanks to Lord Hutton’s Inquiry they are now public.
Tragic as the death of Dr Kelly is and vital as it is to know the truth surrounding the circumstances of his death, there is a wider and vital picture to be observed.
A year ago Parliament was recalled to listen to arguments on the “need” to go to war with Iraq. We were presented with a dossier which was supposed to make the case for war as Iraq was a current and real threat. This dossier’s respect was somewhat dented when it emerged some of it was culled from the internet. It also made the strange claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa.
As Britain and USA built up for war, the anti war momentum gathered pace even faster. Only seven months ago the largest ever demonstration in British history took place. Over a million people packed Hyde Park to show how they felt. Three weeks later Parliament voted for war, after being told that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction and that there was a threat of their use in forty five minutes.
The war has cost the lives of thousands of people – British, American and Iraqi. Indeed some independent observers think up to ten thousand have died as a direct consequence of the war. How many more will die for lack of medicine, water and the effects of cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons it is hard to know.
Far from bringing peace the conflict has brought chaos, and far from ending war and its threat has brought instability and more threats of conflict with North Korea being next on the list.
The issue is that George Bush is not just another US President who is a bit military happy; it is that he is a US President whose administration is driven by the “Project for a New American Century”; full spectrum dominance of the globe to ensure that economic power and advantage lie with the corporate America that he represents.
After September 11th Tony Blair said we should stand “shoulder to shoulder” with the USA. Yes the attacks on New York and Washington were awful and deserve to be totally condemned, but two years and two wars later is the world not infinitely more dangerous, are our civil liberties more threatened and are the threats not now much greater?
I voted against the war in March and have voted for a full independent judicial inquiry into the policy that took us into this awful conflict with all the human and financial costs now being borne.
On September 27th I will be in Hyde Park at midday to join a march through London to Trafalgar Square to call for an end to British and American occupation of Iraq. We were dragged into a unilateral war waged by the Bush administration. British troops are being sent in increased numbers to a place of danger and hostility. Surely the time has come for a complete re-think; a recognition that peace in the world comes from respecting cultural differences, from sharing resources and dealing with the causes of conflict.
I am very sure that being tied to the Bush world plan can only lead to more wars and disaster.
The last two years have changed politics completely and the sense of understanding of the fragility of the world is greater than ever. Whilst Parliament did ignore the protests last February, the panic in the heart of Government shows the importance of ordinary people raising their voices. I hope that the new round of protests will have more effect, and end the occupation of Iraq.
Peace, war and trade
September 1, 2003
Anyone observing the international scene has had an interesting week.
The United Nations “big five” met in Geneva in a vain attempt to gain agreement on how the US and British occupation of Iraq should gain a degree of international respectability.
A few thousand miles away, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, the world trade talks ground to a halt because the USA and Europe could not persuade the rest of the world that the new WTO agreement was anything but a further strengthening of US power.
Meanwhile two versions of September 11th were being commemorated.
The relatives of the dead of New York and Washington grieved for those brutally killed in 2001 and as ever George Bush pledged wars and more carnage. As if the 8000 dead in Afghanistan and 10000 in Iraq have made the world a safer place.
For the people of Chile September 11th is, for ever, a memory of the bombing of the Moneda Palace in Santiago and the death of Dr Salvador Allende. Over 7000 Chileans subsequently died at the hands of the military and a reign of terror that was to last for seventeen years was ushered in at bayonet point.
The coup in Chile was not because of a military threat to anyone. The threat was a bigger one for the money and vested interests behind the coup. The threat of an example. If Chile could nationalise copper and banks, redistribute land and feed the hungry so could any other country under the US influence in the hemisphere.
The United States has 140,000 troops in Iraq who are constantly under threat.
From an array of Iraqi opposition forces. The British presence of 10,000 has been increased by the arrival of a further 1200. Other countries, principally European Union applicant nations, have added a further15000 to the total. Thus a total force of over 166,000 are now in Iraq. In desperation at the lack of security and support the USA is now trying to cover its activities with some sort of United Nations endorsement.
In defending the troop increases in Parliament last week the Government claimed that they were needed to protect the troops already there. I listened with incredulity to this argument. In the 1960’s the US Generals in Vietnam regularly deployed the same argument until they had 500,000 troops fighting an brutal and un-winnable war. The more we listen to US and British strategists one can see the same thing developing in Iraq.
This is not working as the reasons for going to war were so dishonest, the lack of any evidence of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and the alacrity of handing contracts out to US companies like war prizes.
The Stop the War Coalition in Britain, like counterparts elsewhere, want to see British troops withdrawn from occupation and an accountable Government formed by the Iraqi people. The sticking point is control. Britain and the USA want the UN to emerge as convenient fig leaf to give a seal of approval to what has already happened; other nations who did not support the invasion do not want the UN to be sucked into the morass of American making.
These are not details to be debated in obscurity but fundamental to the whole future of the United Nations machinery. A world based on law and structures would not unilaterally be at war with a UN member state. Neither would occupying powers be allowed to remove oil and natural resources at will. History will record that cluster bombs and depleted uranium weapons cause loss of life, looting and insecurity also cause death and danger. Yet the oil is pumped and already preparatory work is underway for the Mosul to Haifa pipeline to enable Israel to evade any Arab oil sanctions whilst illegally occupying Palestine, and provide a shorter sea route for super-tankers to take oil to the USA.
As if one war is not enough the Bush administration wants to continue the policy of providing huge subsidies to US farmers who in turn are subsidised to sell food to USAID which is then dumped on markets in Latin America and Africa driving farmers to desperation and poverty and land prices to near zero. After this chaotic situation has been created any (American) big business can move in and establish their own agri business. Colonialism has lots of forms and the trade power of the West, protected by the World Trade Organisation is one of them.
The difficulties encountered by the USA and EU in Cancun have not happened by accident. A growing sense of unity amongst the poorer nations led by Brazil and India have made a huge difference, and the Trade Justice lobbies throughout Europe and North America have increased the awareness of the western public. In turn this has created a different climate of debate and reporting.
A world at peace has to be a world of justice. What is happening in Iraq and the debates in Cancun are a major factor in this. Both the anti war movement and the Trade Justice Movements how isolated the arguments for global control and order actually are; the US administration of George Bush is a mouthpiece for the New American century project. Hard cop is Iraq, slightly more subtle cop is Cancun.
The mystery in all this is the support that Tony Blair has given to the administration over the war, and the general support to the principles behind the WTO thinking.
The World Social Forum in Brazil earlier this year, and that planned for India next show a new alliance of progressive though from north and south, rich and poor countries is both possible and effective.
Justice for pensioners
September 1, 2003
Today there will be yet another lobby of parliament by the Pensioners Movement in an effort to obtain justice.
As ever MP’s should listen carefully to what is said. Labour MP’s might reflect that with falling participation rates in all elections and the loss of confidence in the Government over the War in Iraq they can ill afford to offend such a crucial constituency.
The Government eternally claims it is doing its best for pensioners and whilst worthy statements are welcome, an appreciation of the reality of life for many pensioners would be far better.
To understand the present crisis, when pensioners are in the thrall of stock market speculation we must have an appreciation of the whole policy.
Last week I attended the South East Region of the TUC Pensioners Group and took part in a lively discussion about how the issue must be taken forward. The Unions have a vital role in this; pensions are not just an issue for the over 60’s but a test of the determination of the Labour Movement to hold to the principles of a universal welfare state.
In its modern form the state pension owes its origins to the campaigns to end the humiliation of the poor law on the elderly in the nineteenth century. A movement for justice coincided with the rising strength of Trade Unions and the radicalism of some sections of the Christian Church. There were also examples to be followed from New Zealand and Bismarck’s Germany where forms of national insurance funded welfare states were established well before Britain. Thus the 1908 Lloyd George Budget which established the principle that the state must be involved in welfare issues was hardly a triumph of Liberal far sightedness; more a case of the Liberals try to hang on to an electorate that was moving leftwards heavily influenced by socialist values and massive radical movements.
New Labour might care to reflect on this as they vainly try to convince the elderly that their best interests are served by encouraging private pension schemes and self provision.
From its inception the state pension was never enough to survive on but did enable the poorest elderly people to have some independent income.
The post World War II Labour Government established the welfare state – a principle that the community would ensure everyone against poverty, ill health, homelessness and provide universal free education.
All the welfare provisions are constantly under attack as those who should proudly defend the principle that it is the duty of all to provide for that in need instead retreat into a miasma of charges and means testing.
Nowhere is this truer than with pensions. In 1975 when there was an economic crisis, when the Government had a Parliamentary majority in single figures the best pension provision ever was made. Barbara Castle’s seminal 1975 Act recognised that the state pension was insufficient, women were poorer than men and that low paid and part time workers always lost out when occupational pension schemes were established.
The Act linked pensions to an index of earnings or prices depending on which rose the faster, established the State Earnings Related Pension Scheme for all those not in an occupational scheme and gave hope and respect to the elderly. A truly remarkable achievement.
In his rather odd memoirs of his time in Government, Geoffrey Howe (Thatcher’s obedient Chancellor) described the 1980 budget as his greatest achievement, in particular the throw away line of ending the link of pensions to earnings or prices. In its place came the link only to prices – somehow trying to blame pension profligacy for inflation!
As if this was not bad enough a very junior Social Security Minister, John Major, spent much of 1986 piloting a Social Security Bill through Parliament. This Bill took the whole Tory strategy a few notches further down the road. Pleading that SERPS was “unsustainable” because it was too expensive/the elderly were living too long/was unrealistic depending on which Thatcherism clone one listened to, it was destroyed.
In its place came one of those 1980’s inventions - the personal portable pension scheme. Manna from heaven for the private insurance industry who had lobbied hard in favour of the Bill. The gross mis-selling of pensions lead to scandals galore and eventually some re-payments to the victims of the sharks.
In opposition Labour opposed this until New Labour’s arrival with Tony Blair in 1993 the commitment was to restore the link and re-instate SERPS. New Labour dropped all this and set off down the road of means tested supplementary pensions to those whose income was insufficient, hence Minimum Income Guarantee was introduced.
The loss of the link costs pensioners about thirty pounds per week; the single state pension ought to be £104 per week, MIG (minimum income guarantee) slightly less. The problems with MIG are that it is expensive to administer and has take up rate well below the numbers of those that are believed to be eligible.
However the problem for the pensioners lies in the number of private schemes that are not delivering and the ways in which companies that have final salary schemes are excluding new employees from joining. There is a looming crisis for the whole generation, particularly those who have frequently changed jobs and have never joined any scheme, and this is what the Pensioners lobby is really all about.
We need real solidarity between generations. The Pension is a vital part of the welfare state. The Government’s insistence that the pension arrangements demanded are too expensive is a deeply flawed argument.
In his first white paper on pension policy Gordon Brown envisaged a long term reduction from sixty to forty percent of total pension costs being born by the state. The gap to be made up in self provision, or poverty.
Forcing people into private, expensive and unreliable schemes is a form of taxation and delivers an unsatisfactory and unreliable future.
The campaign to restore the link, and restore SERPS to the system envisaged by Barbra Castle will not go away.
The pensioner’s movement shamed the Government into a larger rise after the debacle of 75p three years ago; now is the time to push for security and an end to pensioner poverty, something a comprehensive state provision is capable of doing.
Time to end this deadly trade
September 1, 2003
Next week, 25,000 arms buyers from 55 countries will descend on London’s Docklands for the Defence Systems Equipment International trade fair.
Hopefully, they will be met with a large number of people who want to see something different.
The Campaign Against the Arms Trade, which is based in Finsbury Park, north London, has a long and honourable tradition of pointing out the real issues surrounding the arms trade.
The trade’s defenders argue that it provides jobs and that, as one of the biggest arms exporters, Britain has to expand to ensure that we compete in world markets.
Any argument for an arms embargo at any time is met with the response that, if “we” did not sell the arms, somebody else would.
This has been used to justify sales to the most odious regimes, including Chile under Pinochet and the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The sale of arms to Indonesia while it was occupying East Timor or, indeed, during the current conflicts in Aceh and West Papua is a continuation of this inglorious tradition.
As has been stated on many occasions, the origins of the war in Iraq include the huge arms sales made in the 1970s and ‘80s to fuel its conflict with Iran.
Scant regard was shown to human rights abuses by the Ba’athist regime as, a year after the gas attacks on Halabja, Britain was happily participating in the Baghdad arms fair in summer 1989.
The British government is very quick to claim that it applies all the necessary ground rules on the sale of arms, that they can only be used for defence against external aggression and that they must not be sold on without the consent of the original vendor - the “end of user” certificate system.
Notoriously difficult to police, this system is open to abuse, as are the undertakings given by various governments before arms are purchased on their intended use.
There has been a subtle change in the answers that I have received from the Department of Trade and the Ministry of Defence.
This year, the “external defence” argument has been superseded by an undertaking that the weapons will not be used to abuse human rights.
This means that weapons can and are used in suppressing internal conflicts, as in Indonesia in Aceh at present.
Sales of defensive systems and ships to countries where there is no threat of external aggression of any sort do enable regimes to be heavily armed for internal struggles.
While British arms sales to Colombia are very small, British troops are stationed there and training is given to some officers. There is no obvious external threat, so the use is clearly to deal with the internal issues of drugs and “insurgency.”
Or, more realistically, the way in which many of the poorest indigenous people are forced off their land to make way for mining and oil companies to suck the natural resources out of Colombia.
The scale of British arms sales is truly astounding. The last full year for which figures are available, Britain sold £4,216 million - about half the figure for the US and on a par with Russia. The nearest other big seller was France, with far less than Britain.
The purchasers vary and, of the approved licences for 2002, the US tops the league with purchases of £256 million. The next biggest buyer was India, which spent £118 million, while neighbour Pakistan spent £15 million.
While on a visit to India and Pakistan earlier this year, Tony Blair’s entourage was accompanied by salespersons from Bali systems and others and spent time encouraging both sides to buy arms. The much vaunted sales of the Euro fighter to India were seen as a success.
Sales of arms are represented as a success for the private sector. These claims need to be treated with some caution, as the Ministry of Defence is the major initial buyer of all products and, due to the pricing structure in effect, meets most of the research and development costs.
The support for sales efforts and the use of export credit guarantee funds means that the risk to the vendor is very slight indeed. It is an industry that relies heavily on public purchasing and investment.
But there is another side to all this. Fanning the Flames is a new campaign by CAAT to reduce the sales of arms to poor countries and, particularly, those engaged in internal conflict. It calls for the closure of the Defence Export Organisation as a contribution towards this.
In societies where the cause of war and internal conflict is essentially poverty and economics-driven, the sight of expensive military vehicles rampaging through poor villages where there is little food or clean water and medicines are prohibitively expensive is a poignant one.
The cost of individual weapons is huge. At the top of the range, a US B-2 Stealth bomber costs $1,000 million, a Hercules transport plane $55 million and a Hawk trainer $21 million. Even a Scorpion light tank is £1.6 million.
The missiles that have rained down on the victims of sanctions in Iraq range from $1.8 million for a Tomahawk cruise missile to a mere £8,660 for a cluster bomb. The children of Iraq who are being maimed by unexploded bomblets might be shocked that this is the cheapest bomb in the bazaar.
When confronted by the arguments for peace, the arms buyers and manufacturers unite as one and claim that they are protecting people and providing jobs.
To a point, employment is created by the arms trade - but at what cost, at what moral value and at what long-term damage to people the world over, those far away from the plush West End offices of the companies?
Thirty years ago, Mike Cooley and the Lucas Aerospace shop stewards produced a seminal pamphlet and plan for their industry in which they outlined the massive level of research ability that was eaten up by the arms industry when it could be making socially useful products.
Up until the arrival of new Labour, the case for an arms conversion agency was strongly put by the Labour Party, which wanted to reduce the dependence on arms exports.
Under Blair, there has been resolute promotion of arms sales, an increase in British arms expenditure and obstruction of parliamentary control on the granting export licences.
The peace movement sees the promotion of the arms industry as the problem, not those who are employed by it. Now that the Iraq conflict has laid bare the brutality of war, we need a clear lead for arms conversion. Let the brilliance and skill of those in the arms industry be converted for peaceful purposes.
There is something wrong with seeing children die for want of clean water while their governments are encouraged to spend on weapons of destruction.
