Taking liberties
December 22, 2004
With my eyes half closed in a debate on matters to do with the Home Office, I seem to be in a time warp as the words since 9/11 drift overhead. Reality returns with a start as another hallowed value of justice disappears. Taking liberties seems to be the order of the day.
David Blunkett was fond of saying in the autumn of 2001 that Britain was not rushing to bring in new measures of security. True, he waited 12 weeks before introducing the Terrorism, Crime and Disorder Act and then insisted on it being voted through before the end of the year.
Less than a score of honourable members were prepared to vote against indefinite imprisonment without trial. Some of the Bill’s supporters claimed that, since it only affected foreign nationals, it was alright. And I thought that the UN declaration on human rights was universal! From this, Belmarsh was reborn from a maximum, maximum-security prison and foreigners were incarcerated there on the evidence of the security services without knowing why they were there or the case against them not so different from Henry VIII’s Court of Star Chamber, which met all of 20 yards from the existing Commons chamber. Home Office ministers get very annoyed when anyone refers to Belmarsh as our Guantanamo, because we in liberal Britain could not do anything so crass as to imprison people without trial in those conditions. In Britain, we do things differently. Or do we?
Three years and 16 suspects later, we only differ a tiny bit from the US and this is mainly on the preparedness of organisations to speak and campaign, sometimes from surprising quarters. The Newton committee found problems in the system, others have slammed the treatment, and almost every decent lawyer has attacked the law itself. Hats off to the lawyers who led the way and took the case all the way to the House of Lords, where they received last week’s historic judgement that the policy was illegal. How ironic that this was delivered the morning after Blunkett had resigned over complications in his office administration.
It also came as Parliament was being invited to approve the massively expensive new identity card system which is, apparently, guaranteed to be tamper-proof and solves all problems of crime, fraud, terrorism and immigration controls. For ¬£3 billion, it ought to. As with all legislative plans of this magnitude, they are accompanied with an enormous dollop of soft soap. The words trip easily from ministerial tongues first stage, not compulsory, subject to regulation, open to scrutiny, essential part of our security and so on. Parliamentary rebellions are always exaggerated by the business managers of political parties so that, when the vote finally takes place, the media comfortingly recall that the rebellion was smaller than expected. So that’s alright then.
In reality, the house voted not for ID cards, but for a national identification register, which will require everyone to register where they live and when they move, and new passport checks when people travel. Big Brother has been here for a while. Now, he¬πll be given more work to do. There is no doubt in my mind that the very existence of the cards will lead to profiling of suspects for stop and search and that it will lead to the further marginalisation and disaffection of those with an itinerant lifestyle. In the immortal words of the excellent briefing sent to all MPs by Liberty, it will lead to “function creep” as the various arms of the state think of things for the register and the cards to do. It truly is a solution looking for a problem to solve. The house voted with 93 MPs against and nearly 200 members absent presumably all of the latter were on late-night shopping sprees in the West End to endorse the plan and to try and rush it back to the Commons by the end of January after less than three weeks examination by a Westminster committee. After that, the House of Lords will have its turn. Hopefully, its more relaxed style will at least delay the plan and allow us to show that it will not be just an ID card system like other countries have, but something wholly more intrusive and bigger.
However, the Law Lords dealt a major blow last week to those in Britain who have been pushing for the erosion of civil liberties. Its astonishing judgement on the treatment of those people who are being held in Belmarsh said essentially that there was clear discrimination in selecting foreign nationals for this treatment and that it was incompatible with the human rights legislation which Parliament had passed, before voting later to bypass. Last Thursday, the new Home Secretary Charles Clarke could only manage a short written statement which was read to us by house leader Peter Hain. On Monday, Clarke himself was forced to answer an urgent notice question on the issue. He promised us that there would be a period of reflection and thought and was looking for consensus on this matter a sure sign that the Home Office is in trouble before proceeding.
The Home Office has a small problem. The detainees are still detainees and there is no higher court for the Home Office to appeal to, so something must be done. Either the legislation will have to be reworked to cover anybody in Britain or we revert to criminal law, ending the sinister process of detention without trial with the signature of a politician. The Law Lords’ use of language was interesting, none more so than Lord Hoffman, who, in seven paragraphs, outlined the freedoms that we have, which have been curtailed during the Napoleonic and world wars. His concluding words were: The real threat to the life of our nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism, but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory. In a week when ID cards took liberties and the Law Lords tried to defend them, it is time to think and applaud those who protest for justice. It can work.
Life in the UN
December 15, 2004
It cannot be easy being General Secretary of the United Nations. The world’s first citizen and head of an organisation that is vast and cumbersome, has massive expectations thrown at it, and controlled, in effect, by five nuclear powers whose idea of reform is not about democracy, more about control.
Kofi Annan’s period as general secretary has been harder than most General Secretaries. For the first time since the end of the cold war the Security Council failed to reach agreement on a major issue of military conflict. The threat of a veto by France meant that the US and Britain went to war in Iraq without the legal sanction they wanted.
Annan’s later admission that the war was illegal riled the United States and Britain. Ever since then there have been rumours and counter rumours about his position.
The allegations concerning his son and payments by the Oil for Food programme in Iraq between the two wars of 1991 and 2003 were seized upon by the Bush administration who suddenly wanted inquiries.
Strange coming from an administration that is involved in an illegal war and whose financial beneficiaries are all the corporations close to the Republican right in the USA.
It is interesting that this round of UN baiting came hot on the heels of the report of the high level panel on “Threats and Challenges” to the United Nations in the aftermath of the Iraq conflict.
Since the United States has a schizophrenic attitude towards the UN at the best of times, the last thing it wants is a serious debate about reform and restructuring. Who can forget the standing ovation at the Republican Convention when Dick Cheney accused Kerry of wanting to go the United Nations before going to war.
So the administration has not engaged in the debate so well described by Jim Addington in last Saturday’s Morning Star, preferring instead the preemptive rubbishing of individuals.
Sunday’s Washington Post carried a substantial piece by Dafna Linzer about the undermining of the atomic weapons inspector, Mohamed El Baradei.
El Baradei has run the Agency since 1997 and has been assiduous in his work in Iraq and Iran. He had been successful in Iraq and his efforts have brought about the possibility of a longer term peace with Iran.
It seems that the elephant symbol of the Republicans is apt. They forget nothing and ordered wire taps on El Baradei. Now they brazenly claim that this proves his lack of partiality in the negotiations over Iran.
More likely they were angry that he had made the build up to an outright attack on Iraq, based on faulty intelligence and information from willing hands in the American pay, more difficult and therefore less likely. To oust him from office by preventing him serving a third term they will need the support of at least a third of the Agency’s Board. Whether or not they get this will show just how seriously the US sees this project.
If anyone is in any doubt they should listen to the on the record official US position; “the plan is to keep the spotlight on El Baradei and raise the heat”. This is not a new tactic by the USA.
In 2002 whilst the world was being prepared for a war in Iraq, the Administration mounted a huge attack on Jose M Bustani, the head of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. Since the allegations of such weapons being still held by Iraq were rife, he (not surprisingly) thought this should be investigated. He was forced out, a more pliant successor found, and this arena for objective research was neutralised. Others have been similarly treated by the US, the most notable being Boutros Boutros Ghali.
There are very serious issues to be debated about the future of the UN as a world body for peace and justice. There is a serious debate to be had on the role of international law on intervention by UN forces. However, there is a more pressing debate on the dangerous philosophy of the Bush administration on the doctrine of preemptive strikes.
Developed from the “Axis of Evil” speech in 2002, the concept of a “just strike” by the USA is quite simply that if they feel any regime is a potential threat to their interests, they have the “right” to intervene by military force.
Tony Blair’s Sedgefield address on directions of foreign policy was better written and presented, but essentially it argued the moral right of the West to intervene as a cause for good in the world. Both Bush and Blair seem to be strangely ignorant of the concept of Western “good” and its effects.
From The Crusades to the Conquistadores, the arrival of the West has meant bloodshed and an attempt to impose a different order of society. The brutality of the “winning of the West” in the USA was actually genocide on a grand scale. Western imperialism has hardly been a peaceful force.
If Blair and Bush are right and win the argument by using the threat of terrorism as its justification, then the future is very grim, and indeed, very dangerous. Jack Straw was quick to point out that the results of the UN panel actually endorsed his view of the world and the Iraq war. Well actually they did not.
There is a case for UN reform, a very strong one about democracy, the power of the Security Council, and that of the General Assembly and the effectiveness of its Agencies.
Next year will be a very big test for the UN when the Non Proliferation Treaty comes up for Review in New York. The 1970 Treaty signatories pledged themselves to non proliferation and long term disarmament. Since then five other countries have become holders of nuclear weapons with only South Africa renouncing them. At the end of the review we should be entitled to expect real moves towards disarmament, but nobody is holding their breath.
It is easy to be cynical about the UN and its ability to influence change in the world. It is the only world body available that can be an assertion of international law and therefore at least provide an opportunity for a different view of the planet to that of the neocons in the USA.
Iran – WMD again?
December 2, 2004
In his State of the Union address in January 2002 George Bush made his now infamous “axis of evil” reference to six states that would have to be dealt with.
We have seen what has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the case of two of them, namely North Korea and Iran, his strategy has come slightly unstuck.
Engagement by China and some Europeans has had the effect of moderating his attacks on North Korea.
In the case of Iran, the administration, egged on by the US media (or is it the other way round?) have kept up a continuous diatribe against Iran and alleging a threat of imminent nuclear attack …
Indeed the CIA website has a declassified document saying that throughout the latter part of 2003, Iran was vigorously pursuing a programme to produce nuclear weapons. On November 18, Colin Powell, told reporters en route for Latin America that he believed Iran was actively working on a delivery system for its weapons.
On that same day, the National Council of Resistance held press conferences in Paris and Vienna, and made similar statements about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, backing this up with assertion it had seen blue prints for both weapons and systems that had been obtained from Pakistan.
The two events and their timing could be a miraculous coincidence; or they could be part of a wider network preparing the more gullible sections of the media for a new round of WMD.
The world is a more sceptical place since the ludicrous claims of Powell to the United Nations in the autumn of 2002, regarding Iraq’s preparations and preparedness of its WMDs.
But there is something sinister about the whole timing and process.
Iran has been in negotiations with, and has been subject to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Authority over the inspection regime for its nuclear facilities. Iran insists that it has the right to develop civil nuclear power. It had been developing enriched uranium but after the EU led negotiations this was to cease. These were essentially a quid pro quo for increasing trade in return for a clear declaration by deed that weapons grade fissile material was not being developed.
Indeed on November 15th the IAEA report appeared, which stated that “All the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities”.
This statement was made after two years of investigation by the IAEA under its chief Mohamed El Baradei, who announced he would no longer issue three-monthly reports but would henceforth make pronouncements “as appropriate”. Two days later, Colin Powell made his statements, thus undermining the efforts of Mohamed El Baradei.
This is not the first time Colin Powell has done this.
After the State of the Union address, President Bush and the administration systematically developed a case against Iraq. The UN responded by sending in weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix and the IAEA led by El Baradei. They were ridiculed and undermined by the neocons and as it became apparent, were being both successful and effective when they were withdrawn. Famously, their request to return to Iraq in January 2003 was blocked by the US and Britain. War followed seven weeks later.
In the House of Commons last week, Foreign Office Minister Douglas Alexander confirmed that Britain was working with France and Germany and that he welcomed the Iranian agreement on non development of enriched uranium, but made no condemnation of the United States irresponsible utterances.
Whilst the public policy towards Iran is a welcome step away from the bellicose US strategy one wonders how long it will last. The morass of Iraq needs an antidote for the neo cons. What could provide a better or more convenient one that Iran?
Iran is a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty which comes up for its five yearly reviews next year. Under the Treaty, any signatory can develop nuclear power, but not weapons. The holding of weapons is reserved for the five declared states - USA, Russia, China, France and UK - who are not supposed to develop new weapons and indeed advance proposals for disarmament.
Quite simply, so long as the USA develops its weapons and Britain threatens to do the same, the temptation of other states to try and develop their own becomes strong.
So far Iran has shown itself capable of dialogue on this matter. No such capability is shown by its near neighbour, Israel, who not only illegally developed weapons, but imprisoned the whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu for telling the truth.
Next year the NPT review comes up with no signs that India and Pakistan are prepared to disarm as two of the other three non declared nuclear states. North Korea is in negotiation with the six nation team after withdrawing from the NPT in 2002. Two years of inconclusive talks have not achieved a breakthrough.
Indeed, Gareth Evans, the President of the International Crisis Group has published an eight point plan which includes re-entry to the NPT system. However, he points out that “What is necessary is for the USA, in consultation with its regional negotiating partners, puts a serious proposal on the table”.
Their failure to do so looks awfully like a parallel to Powell’s statements on Iran. It suits the Administration in Washington to portray the rest of the world as unreasonable in order to continue its huge military expansion.
The immediate danger is concerning Iran. The USA believes it has client states either side of Iran, and therefore is in a position to pressurise and exaggerate the threat. The manoeuvrings over the past two weeks are very ominous.
Next year is the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There can never be any justification for the holding, developing, testing or using nuclear weapons. The declared states must lead the way in disarmament - it is their failure to do so that has encouraged proliferation. It is also the new neo con doctrine of preemptive strike that makes universal adherence to international law impossible.
The lessons of the past bloody three and half years appear to be that cynical media manipulation followed by condemnation precedes invasion. I hope we are aware of the danger where Iran is concerned.
