August activities
August 18, 2004
August in London is seen by most of the media as dead time; once Parliament has risen for the recess and the Prime Minister gone for his strange holidays at Cliff Richard’s mansion in Barbados, and then to the even tackier Berlusconi villa, the assumption is that politics has stopped.
But away from the European and North American assumptions on holiday times, the rest of the world does not stop; the crisis in Darfur continues, the war in Iraq intensifies, and for millions, the unremitting grind of work and poverty is the annual norm, irrespective of the time of year.
On Saturday a group of cyclists assembled in Hyde Park. Cyclists with a purpose and a difference.
Two years in planning, the Cyclists for Peace in Palestine met and prepared to ride all across Europe and the Middle East to Jerusalem. A peace ride to gather support on the way at the injustice of the treatment of the Palestinian people, and to call on Israel to end the occupation and abide by international law, and tear down the illegal wall.
Gestures and actions alone do not change injustice into justice. But they do help to create an atmosphere of public support for justice, and isolation for the likes of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli leadership, who see nothing except the continuation of war and oppression.
Afif Safia, the Official Palestinian delegate to the UK, pointed out that public opinion throughout Europe was now supportive of Palestine and a wish for peace, with justice and honour.
The Cycle Ride is supported by Jews for Justice for Palestine, some of whom joined the ride as it set off down Park Lane and a grinding fifty days of riding ahead. All along the route they will be gathering support and understanding for the cause of Palestinian people and the realisation that F16’s, helicopter gun ships and security walls do not bring peace. Justice and equity remove the causes of war.
On Sunday a group met in Whitehall, opposite Downing Street. Organised by Iraq Occupation Focus and Voices in the Wilderness to protest against the continued occupation of Iraq and to draw attention to the reality of US and British military activities.
In March 2003, Parliament voted for war. It started straight away and in the ensuing seventeen months a thousand coalition forces have died, as have about fifteen thousand Iraqi’s and an unknown number of conscripted soldiers. Cluster bombs and depleted uranium will take lives for years to come and the violence is far from over. The battle of Najaf seems to be a repeat of Faluja and all the other city conflicts. Far from winning the peace, the Iraqi Government “ordering” US troops into action makes it look more like the tool of the occupying powers than a sovereign body.
Spain and the Philippines have withdrawn their forces. How long will it be before the political and human price of the occupation becomes too great. Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the former UN Ambassador and Deputy to Paul Bremmer in Baghdad, told BBC News 24 that forces had to stay to protect the peace, and should only withdraw when the time was right. And we could not possibly know when the time was right until it had come.
He might wish to sound like a modern diplomat. He might do well to read the speeches and statements of previous British attempts to occupy Iraq. They all claimed, in the manner of British superiority, that the country could not govern itself without the munificence of the west.
Across the oceans, another area of American claims to be “needed” was playing out another drama.
Ever since his election, Hugo Chavez has been denounced as a populist, dictator and abuser of his people. Most of the print media and all of the rich in Venezuela have opposed his presidency since day one. They have sought to destroy him in a coup which despite only lasting three days, was enough time for the US to recognise the conspirators and for the Foreign Office Minister Dennis McShane to welcome the “changes”.
The coup only lasted three days because of massive demonstrations by poor people who seemed to like having a President who thought oil revenues should be used to pay for health, housing and education for the poor. They also liked having a President who believed unused agricultural land should be handed to the landless to cultivate. They also liked having a President who was supportive of amending the constitution to allow a recall vote.
The campaign against Chavez, led by the US and the media moguls has been expensive and intensive. This makes the result of the recall ballot all the more remarkable.
The “no” vote, to retain Chavez, was one and a half million more than originally voted for him, and at fifty eight per cent gives him a popular mandate far greater than anything any US President has been elected by, and infinitely greater than Bush’s non existent majority in 2000.
Venezuela has spoken and the result is one of the great turning points in Latin American history. People don’t have to be poor, or denied health care and education in a continent and world of such riches.
Retribution for this vote will come from the rich in Venezuela, and the powerful in the USA. This is an occasion when international support and solidarity can mean a lot.
Bush has obviously decided that his global war on “terror” needs some new form of mobility. He has announced 60,000 troops being withdrawn from Europe and sent home, for future deployment.
In the longer view of all his statements and philosophy over the past four years we should be worried. He has shown contempt for international law, and asserted the US right to go anywhere at any time in pursuit of its aims.
None of this has made the world a safer or more equitable place. People taking action for Palestine, against the occupation of Iraq and for the fair use of oil resources create security and safety.
Where is all this heading?
August 11, 2004
On Sunday the US appointed Prime Minister of Iraq went to Najaaf to perform a publicity stunt and try and buy off the ‘insurgent’ opposition to his Government, or more accurately, the US/UK presence in Iraq. As a stunt it worked well, with the world’s media, although most seem to report the goings on in Najaf from the relative safety of the green compound in Baghdad.
As a political tactic it appears to have had a negative effect, with his threats to the ‘insurgents’ merely strengthening their resolve to fight on. The performance of his Government looks eerily similar to the Bani Sadr administration in Iran in 1979 which was eventually replaced by Khomeni and his friends.
On the same day as his trip out of Baghdad, the Government made two important announcements that will have far reaching consequences. Firstly they have re-instated the death penalty, and secondly banned Al Jazeera for one month from being present in Iraq.
The return of the death penalty is interesting as there is no parliament to enact legislation, and this is supposed to be an interim Government without powers to fix the long term for Iraq. In reality, the death penalty was suspended after the invasion as all countries involved, except the USA specifically, do not have a death penalty. Once the ‘handover’ had occurred on June 28th the new administration reverted to type.
I am looking forward to a protest from the UK Government about this breach of human rights, and of course a strong objection to the imposition of martial law in some areas. I am, however, not holding my breath in expectation of Tony Blair breaking into his holiday in Barbados to make such a bold move. After all, it took over a year before any serious pressure was put on Washington to release British detainees in Guantanamo Bay.
On Sunday, the administration in Baghdad announced that it was closing the Al Jazeera office because it had been giving too much publicity to opponents of the occupation. Again, this was met with silence in London and Washington, where obviously, it is believed that if one is immunized from bad news it will go away.
Al Jazeera is both powerful and vulnerable at the same time. It provides an amazing depth of discussion programs and news reporting and has a huge audience throughout the Middle East and North Africa. It has been directly hit before when a US bomb mysteriously made a direct strike on it in Baghdad in 2003.
It is important that everyone who cares about the dissemination of information supports Al Jazeera. If it is prevented from reporting in Iraq, who is next?
The situation in Iraq is going from bad to worse, with more deaths reported and the US and Britain continually claiming the whole operation as a success. As the administration in Iraq desperately sends US helicopter gunships in against local people, and its forces fight alongside the US against the insurgents, it is hard to see where the political dialogue is going to take place.
Meanwhile at home, David Blunkett said he would not share security information with the public as he did not wish to be held up to ridicule! This is all very interesting, and David earnestly told the cameras on Sunday morning that he would tell the public what it needed to know. If this is really the case I have a couple of suggestions for him.
Could he tell us, for the historical record of course, what threat required tanks to be deployed around Heathrow Airport on February 13 and 14th 2003. If the threat was the impending mass march, it did not work, if it was something else then we should know.
Since he has the power to detain any foreign national indefinitely, I think we have a right to know why some people are being held in Belmarsh, and if he has any plans to extend this power to UK nationals. If we believe in the right of a presumption of innocence, and of appearance in an open court, then are these limited to nationality? Arrests happened last week in the UK amid much hype, but like most terrorist related Police actions, very few actual prosecutions emerge.
In the USA Bush turns the fear of attack on and off like a tap. As with Britain, huge powers are held by the Administration and under Homeland Security the rules of evidence are missing. Profiling of people of Middle Eastern decent seems more important.
The Presidential debate is on with an intensity rarely seen until late October, with Bush obviously floundering. Whilst the whole of the world who detest war and injustice must want his defeat, one hopes that Kerry will do a bit more than promising a ‘better’ war on terror. Surely the lesson of the past three years has been that there are many tens of millions of people around the world who want a world of peace and justice.
Last Thursday Gene Bruskin, of US Labor Against the War, gave an inspiring talk at Friends House in London when he reminded us of another American tradition; that of Joe Hill and the Unions, of the anti war movement from 1914 onwards, and of the constant fight for public services for health and education, against the interests of corporate America personified by Bush.
Iraq has the news today, and remarkably, has retained the intensity of media coverage sadly lacking in Afghanistan, Colombia or the Congo. It is a duty on all who want peace, to ensure the spotlight remains. I hope the removal of Al Jazeera will have the opposite of the effect the coalition wants, and increase the intensity of the light - that way an invasion of Iran may be prevented, or of anywhere else.
Never forget nuclear threats
August 4, 2004
On Friday morning there will be a gathering in Tavistock Square in London in quiet memory of August 6th 1945. There will be similar gatherings in other parts of the country and the world, and in Japan there will be an enormous memorial event.
These are not maudlin or routine meetings done by rote from an invisible calendar but a declaration by ordinary people of the immoral and evil nature of nuclear weapons.
In 1945, as the war in the Pacific was coming to an end, and the surrender of Japan to the United States forces was imminent, the final attack took place.
Successfully tested only weeks before at Los Alamos in the USA the world’s first nuclear device to be detonated in war was launched on the people of Hiroshima and a few days later Nagasaki.
The power of the weapon was well known at the time and in the strange language of the super secretive military President Harry Truman had been handed a note during the Potsdam Conference which simply said “the baby is born”. A brutal use of happy symbolism to tell him that world was in a nuclear age.
The bombs dropped from high in the sky on a beautiful clear morning and killed at least 60,000 people, and tens of thousands more from the fallout effects.
The irony of this event was later described in a book, Brighter than 1000 suns, which recalled how the bombs were devised and detonated and the terrible fear on the population that followed.
The debate on their use has raged ever since. The United States had developed the bomb and wanted to show the world what it had whilst the war was still on, whilst at the same time claiming it saved lives by bringing forward Japanese surrender.
The years that followed were of hope and catastrophe. Hope in the establishment of the UN and its charter, of international agreements and a thirst for peace. Disaster as the European powers having got over the War joined the US to conduct a cold war against the Soviet Union and at the same time conduct colonial wars in Vietnam and Indonesia.
Five years later the world moved to the brink of nuclear war when in Korea the US General McArthur threatened its use and as the Soviet Union was rapidly developing its own devises the consequences would have been horrific for all.
Somehow political pressure and bravery from Truman in dismissing McArthur the day was saved. Twelve years later Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed on removing weapons from Cuba and from Turkey, although the US rarely acknowledged the latter, to save the world again.
All the while the madness of the Arms Race continued and each US election was fought on more weapons to beat the “threat”. Kennedy himself, now thought of as a force for peace was elected on a pledge to close the “missile gap” in 1960. The billions of dollars spent by the US on its weapons was mirrored by a huge effort by the Soviet Union, which poorer and war ravaged in a way the US never was, had a higher real price to pay for the weapons competition.
In Britain CND was formed in 1957 and has played an enormous role in peace politics ever since – simply pointing out that there could never be any winners in a nuclear war and that security came from a preparedness to live in peace, not a state of war won huge resonance.
Thus in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis came the Test Ban Treaty and later the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty and a series of disarmament proposals culminating in the Non Proliferation Treaty.
The latter was inevitable after France, China, Israel, India and Pakistan became nuclear powers but only the UN security council members accepted as being in the “club”.
So, some people say to me, are we still worried about Hiroshima.
My reply is that the weapons were used specifically against civilians and whilst “fireworks” compared to what is now available, killed and have killed for the past 59 years. Nuclear weapons have saved no lives, killed thousands and maimed many more and impoverished the poor nations who have them.
Efforts for peace have always met with rebuff. When Gorbachev offered, on behalf of the Soviet Union, the agreed disarmament that the USA claimed to want he was told by Reagan that he could not leave his country defenceless. The truth is that Reagan only wanted war, in the same way Bush only wants war.
Poignant as memorial events always are this years has a new significance.
The Non Proliferation Treaty is not just about halting the spread of Nuclear Weapons, it is also about global disarmament and next year’s five yearly review is rapidly approaching.
For Britain something else is approaching. Apparently the Trident Nuclear Missile Fleet is becoming too old and therefore not able to defend us. The long range thinkers in the Ministry of Defence are preparing the ground for a whole new generation of weapons and weaponry. Deftly involving Britain in the star wars experiment of National Missile Defence (for “national” read “USA” in this respect) at Fylingdales they are now into preparing for the replacement to Trident. Conveniently this decision will be made in the next Parliament after the General Election expected in 2005 and is closely tied to the Mutual Defence Agreement with the USA whose legality is now in serious question.
Next August will be sixty years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki and during the NPT Review Conference. It is not only the Ministry of Defence who can indulge in long range thinking.
For the anti nuclear peace movement we need the best possible links with peace movements in the USA and in South Asia. We need to harness the global peace movement that opposes the Iraq war. We need to show the world that non nuclear countries have done better than nuclear powers. We need a world without the scourge of immoral and illegal weapons of mass destruction.
Come to Tavistock Square at midday on Friday or any other local events that CND can advise on. Mourning the victims of nuclear war is a way to help save others from being victims.
