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Via JohnPilger.com, 26 May 2011
When Britain lost control of Egypt in 1956, Prime Minister Anthony Eden said he wanted the nationalist president Gamal Abdel Nasser “destroyed … murdered … I don’t give a damn if there’s anarchy and chaos in Egypt”. Those insolent Arabs, Winston Churchill had urged in 1951, should be driven “into the gutter from which they should never have emerged”.
The language of colonialism may have been modified; the spirit and the hypocrisy are unchanged. A new imperial phase is unfolding in direct response to the Arab uprising that began in January and has shocked Washington and Europe, causing an Eden-style panic.
The loss of the Egyptian tyrant Mubarak was grievous, though not irretrievable; an American-backed counter-revolution is under way as the military regime in Cairo is seduced with new bribes and power shifting from the street to political groups that did not initiate the revolution. The western aim, as ever, is to stop authentic democracy and reclaim control.
Libya is the immediate opportunity. The Nato attack on Libya, with the UN Security Council assigned to mandate a bogus ‘no-fly zone’ to ‘protect civilians’, is strikingly similar to the final destruction of Yugoslavia in 1999. There was no UN cover for the bombing of Serbia and the ‘rescue’ of Kosovo, yet the propaganda echoes today.
Like Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar Gaddafi is a ‘new Hitler’, plotting ‘genocide’ against his people. There is no evidence of this, as there was no genocide in Kosovo. In Libya there is a tribal civil war; and the armed uprising against Gaddafi has long been appropriated by the Americans, French and British, their planes attacking residential Tripoli with uranium-tipped missiles and the submarine HMS Triumph firing Tomahawk missiles, a repeat of the ‘shock and awe’ in Iraq that left thousands of civilians dead and maimed. As in Iraq, the victims, which include countless incinerated Libyan army conscripts, are media unpeople.
In the ‘rebel’ east, the terrorising and killing of black African immigrants is not news. On 22 May, a rare piece in the Washington Post described the repression, lawlessness and death squads in the ‘liberated zones’ just as visiting EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, declared she had found only “great aspirations” and “leadership qualities”.
In demonstrating these qualities, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the ‘rebel leader’ and Gaddafi’s justice minister until February, pledged, “Our friends … will have the best opportunity in future contracts with Libya.”
The east holds most of Libya’s oil, the greatest reserves in Africa. In March the rebels, with expert foreign guidance, “transferred” to Benghazi the Libyan Central Bank, a wholly owned state institution. This is unprecedented. Meanwhile, the US and the EU “froze” almost US$100 billion in Libyan funds, “the largest sum ever blocked”, according to official statements. It is the biggest bank robbery in history.
The French elite are enthusiastic robbers and bombers. Nicholas Sarkozy’s imperial design is for a French-dominated Mediterranean Union (UM), which would allow France to ‘return’ to its former colonies in North Africa and profit from privileged investment and cheap labour.
Gaddafi described the Sarkozy plan as “an insult” that was “taking us for fools”. The Merkel government in Berlin agreed, fearing its old foe would diminish Germany in the EU, and abstained in the Security Council vote on Libya.
Like the attack on Yugoslavia and the charade of Milosevic’s trial, the International Criminal Court is being used by the US, France and Britain to prosecute Gaddafi while his repeated offers of a ceasefire are ignored.
Gaddafi is a Bad Arab. David Cameron’s government and its verbose top general want to eliminate this Bad Arab, like the Obama administration killed a famously Bad Arab in Pakistan recently.
The crown prince of Bahrain, on the other hand, is a Good Arab. On 19 May, he was warmly welcomed to Britain by Cameron with a photo-call on the steps of 10 Downing Street. In March, the same crown prince slaughtered unarmed protestors and allowed Saudi forces to crush his country’s democracy movement.
The Obama administration has rewarded Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive regimes on earth, with a $US60 billion arms deal, the biggest in US history. The Saudis have the most oil. They are the Best Arabs.
The assault on Libya, a crime under the Nuremberg standard, is Britain’s 46th military ‘intervention’ in the Middle East since 1945. Like its imperial partners, Britain’s goal is to control Africa’s oil.
Cameron is not Anthony Eden, but almost. Same school. Same values. In the media-pack, the words colonialism and imperialism are no longer used, so that the cynical and the credulous can celebrate state violence in its more palatable form.
And as ‘Mr Hopey Changey’ (the name that Ted Rall, the great American cartoonist, gives Barack Obama), is fawned upon by the British elite and launches another insufferable presidential campaign, the Anglo-American reign of terror proceeds in Afghanistan and elsewhere, with the murder of people by unmanned drones – a US/Israel innovation, embraced by Obama.
For the record, on a scorecard of imposed misery, from secret trials and prisons and the hounding of whistleblowers and the criminalising of dissent to the incarceration and impoverishment of his own people, mostly black people, Obama is as bad as George W Bush.
The Palestinians understand all this. As their young people courageously face the violence of Israel’s blood-racism, carrying the keys of their grandparents’ stolen homes, they are not even included in Mr Hopey Changey’s list of peoples in the Middle East whose liberation is long overdue.
What the oppressed need, he said on 19 May, is a dose of “America’s interests [that] are essential to them”. He insults us all.
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A letter from Bristol comrades, 9 May 2011
The sickest joke to come out of Stop the War’s reactionary stance on Libya has been the accusation that members of StW who stand in solidarity with the Gaddafi-led Libyan revolution are a divisive influence within the anti-war movement and should pipe down at public meetings, reserving their distasteful minority opinions for under-the-counter retail (or preferably shut up all together).
Yet what has truly divided and weakened the anti-war movement, indexed by the dwindling of national anti-war demonstrations from millions to hundreds, has been the perennial reluctance of the leadership to consistently call for victory to the Afghan and Iraqi resistance, a stance that has finally degenerated into John Rees’s open support for the imperialist-backed Benghazi rebellion.
Rees and co have since scrambled back to a stance that they hope will rescue their ‘progressive’ reputations (basically ‘stop bombing Libya, you’ll only make it harder to get rid of Gaddafi’), a clumsy and hypocritical manoeuvre which will fool few and inspire none.
It is this misleadership, and StW’s resulting failure to give an anti-imperialist lead as capitalist crisis breeds fresh wars, which undermines and weakens the movement.
We are constantly told that our anti-imperialist stance risks alienating some supporters of StW’s (somewhat narrow) broad front. It is not impossible that some overly sensitive petty-bourgeois liberals might find the atmosphere uncongenial in an anti-war movement which had learned to outgrow its social-democratic prejudices, however many times it was spelt out to such individuals that their presence within the broad movement remained welcome.
But right now, we need to understand why the ‘broad’ front in reality remains so very narrow; how it is that the mass of working people do not actively embrace the cause of peace and withdraw their cooperation with imperialism’s wars. What is it about StW’s approach that so severely limits its scope?
The fact is that, so long as those leading the anti-war movement refuse to give solidarity to the forces that are resisting imperialist aggression on the ground, they will be keeping British workers divided from their real allies in the fight against monopoly capitalism and its wars, hindering them in the indivisible struggle for socialism and peace.
As Karl Marx wrote, no nation that enslaves another can itself be free. The failure to give consistent and wholehearted support to those defending Libya’s sovereignty with arms in hand can only weaken and divide the anti-war movement.
It is not the CPGB-ML and fellow internationalists who pose a threat to the unity and progress of the anti-war movement, but the rotten Trotskyite and revisionist politics that infect the upper echelons of StW and wash back into its branches, rendering the movement vulnerable to being shoved off course by every new wave of imperialist propaganda.
Whilst we have never taken a sectarian approach in our work with StW, cultivating good personal relations with fellow coalitionists from all backgrounds, we cannot shirk the responsibility of identifying the destructive and divisive influence of those political agendas behind which some remain trapped.
Particularly damaging is the Trotskyite combination of deep historical pessimism (‘the Soviet Union was a disaster; the working class has nowhere taken and held power and gone on to build socialism’) with the most light-minded optimism over the probability of finding some ‘progressive’ needle in the stinking reactionary Benghazi haystack, some (as yet undocumented) perfect Trotskyite strand within the (very well-documented) hotch-potch of monarchists, veteran opponents of the revolution, paid assassins and mercenaries.
Whilst one might think that their own historical pessimism should instil in them a degree of caution, the reverse is the case. In fact, the phony optimism is about as healthy as the hectic flush on the face of a fever patient, and serves one purpose alone: to make it easier to abdicate political responsibility.
Why endure the unpopularity of standing by the Gaddafi revolution when you can have your cake and eat it, standing shoulder to shoulder with the BBC cheering on the rebels, whilst simultaneously posturing as ‘anti-imperialists’?
With the same glad heart, the same gentry lined up with Thatcher to cheer on Solidarnosc (or ‘progressive elements’ supposedly lurking within that anti-communist lynch mob) against the Polish workers’ state, helping prepare the ground for the subsequent liquidation of socialism.
‘Neither Washington nor Moscow’ was their mantra then, ‘Neither Gaddafi nor Nato’ is their mantra now. Will we wake next week or next month to ‘Neither Damascus nor Nato’, ‘Neither Teheran nor Nato’ or ‘Neither Pyongyang nor Nato’? What about ‘Neither Beijing nor Nato’?
The anti-war movement faces stormy times ahead, where the warmongering scenarios will be getting ever messier and more complex and the choices to be made ever more knotty. (By comparison, Libya should have been a no brainer.) The movement’s ability to weather these storms will increasingly depend upon its ability to grow up politically and develop a consistent anti-imperialist perspective.
We in the CPGB-ML stand ready to assist in this endeavour.
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(Post updated on 11 Feb 2011)
The following resolution was vociferously opposed by the Executive Committee of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign at its AGM on 22 January. Since a resolution containing many of the same points had been passed virtually unanimously at the Stop the War conference last year, this came as rather a surprise to the comrade who moved the motion.
We will be writing in more detail about this soon, but in the meantime, a few of the arguments posed against the resolution went like this:
– The list of actions is ‘too prescriptive’; we can’t agree to it.
Rather strange given that most of the other resolutions also had lists of actions attached, which related to the specific spheres of action they were looking at (ie, boycott and divestment, trade-union work, student work etc). In fact, resolutions are by their nature prescriptive. That doesn’t mean the movers expect the actions suggested in it to be carried out exclusively.
Quite clearly, in this case, the idea here was to be complementary to other work being done by the PSC. Equally clearly, this argument is just a cover – perhaps for reasons that the opposers don’t feel comfortable sharing with the rest of us!
– We can’t put resources into campaigning/fundraising for the Gaza protestors; it’s a diversion from what we do.
Unbelievable, considering that it was PSC who called the demo at which these young people were arrested. And crazy, given that if we launched a big campaign to have the sentences overturned, we could really draw attention to the British state’s role in supporting Israel. Not to mention highlighting islamophobia, bringing many more young people and muslims towards the PSC and generally highlighting the issue that people have been criminalised for merely objecting to war crimes!
– We can’t promise to support all those arrested for opposing Israel’s war crimes (including the Gaza protestors); we don’t know who they might be.
The clear implication here was that some of the people being targetted for their principled stand, whether direct action activists or newly politicised young muslims, might somehow be ‘asking for it’!
– We can’t ask workers to refuse to cooperate with war crimes in the current climate, when they’re worried about losing their jobs.
Not sure we really need to comment on this, except to say that you could make the same argument about concentration camp guards! Either it’s a crime or it isn’t. Either we’re against the British state assisting in Israel’s crimes or we’re not. The fact is that we can’t force anyone to do anything they don’t want to – but surely it’s our job to take the arguments to them and help them to make informed decisions? Why is it ok to campaign amongst union members as individuals around the boycott demands, but not to try to mobilise them collectively?
It’s also worth bearing the student example in mind. Two years ago, students were occupying their universities in support of the people of Gaza. The confidence and experience they gained in these actions no doubt contributed to the militancy we’re seeing today in the anti-fees movement and occupations. Far from making working people nervous, encouraging them to use their power to stop crimes against Palestinians might actually help them to get more militant in using their power against the current cuts in benefits, pensions, wages and public services!
It’s clear the above arguments don’t add up, so we have to ask ourselves, just what is it that the PSC national executive is really afraid of? If we want to build a MASS movement in support of Palestine, why are we afraid to try to mobilise broad sections of the working class or muslim communities? And why are we avoiding the question of REAL, CONCRETE solidarity with Palestine?
Jeremy Corbyn’s closing statement blethering on about Early Day Motions in Parliament was a joke. Anyone who knows anything about how the House of Commons works can tell you that EDMs aren’t even relevant within its walls, never mind outside of them. They don’t even get debated!
We were sad to see that not only Betty Hunter, but also PSC deputy chair Kamel Hawwash spoke most shamefully against the resolution, causing much confusion amongst those present as to what could be the reason for so much opposition to something so seemingly innocuous, and so obviously fundamental to our work as actively opposing Israel’s war crimes.
We were also sad at the way the whole debate was handled. It was clear from the inconsistency and illogicality of the opposing arguments that the reasons being put forward in such a hysterial fashion weren’t the actual reasons for the executive opposing the resolution. Several speakers said that ‘while there were many good things in the motion, it was impossible to support it all because of [insert spurious objection to half a sentence here]’.
But if that was truly the case, why not contact the movers of the resolution about changing it, so as to let the good stuff through? Why not put forward amendments that we would all have had time to read and think about before the conference? Why wait and hijack everybody with an unexpected and baffling ‘controversy’ that many present were simply unable to unravel in the time available?
One possible answer is that the executive is afraid of attracting too much negative attention from the state if it openly supports either the Gaza protestors or the various direct-action anti-war-crimes activists, despite the fact that well publicised campaigns along these lines could do much to broaden the appeal of PSC and to extend the reach of our solidarity message (all of which could make a direct difference to Palestinians).
Another possibility is that the executive is afraid to upset the cosy relationship it has built with various Labour party and trade-union officials by raising the question of direct participation in war crimes by British workers – and their power to withhold that participation – within the unions, many of which spend their time trying to squash the notion of collective power, substituting instead the idea of individual pleas to the better judgement of managers and employers.
This fits with the current PSC strategy of spending much time and resource on ‘lobbying’ to ‘change the minds’ of MPs and MEPs, who are then allocated ‘good’ or ‘bad’ status according to whether they’re happy to sign up to one of the aforementioned Early Day Motions or similar. Instead of mobilising the real power of the British people from the street and demanding that the British state withdraw its support from Israel, many in the PSC leadership would like us to confine ourselves to going cap in hand to parliamentarians and asking them to be nicer.
And if nasty MPs, like those unreasonable employers who say no to trade unionists, decline to sign up to a ‘please be nicer to the poor Palestinians’ request? Well, we tried. Come back next year!
On a more optimistic note, despite the bullocking from the Executive Committee and their trade-union and Labour party friends, around a third of those present voted in favour of the resolution, and many members went away determined to discuss the issue in their branches. We hope they will make the arguments in favour there and come back determined to change the organisation’s policy next year.
Full text of the resolution follows.
No cooperation with war crimes: step up the campaign
In the last year, many important developments have taken place, which on the one hand make the work of actively opposing Israel’s war crimes more urgent, and on the other have created an atmosphere that is more receptive to our message.
In this context, conference notes the passing at the Stop the War conference of a motion calling on the coalition to “take the line of non-cooperation into as many arenas as possible”. This resolution included a detailed programme of activities that could take this work forward, some of which the PSC has already been taking the lead in.
Conference notes the attack on those condemning war crimes that was embodied in the draconian sentences handed down to the Gaza protestors. Congress further notes that these sentences were aimed not only at discouraging muslim youth from political activism, but also at dividing the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements along racial lines, and branding Palestine solidarity as a ‘muslim’, rather than a human rights or anti-imperialist issue.
Conference condemns the murder by Israeli commandos of ten solidarity activists (nine at the time and one who died later) aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in May, despite the fact that the UN had called for the ships to be allowed to pass. Conference notes the UN’s recent findings that these murders were illegal – another war crime to add to the many being committed daily against the Palestinian people.
Conference commends the excellent work done by PSC in getting an enhanced boycott motion passed at the TUC following the flotilla attack, and notes that the acceptance of much stronger language than previously used reflects the sea change in the attitude of many ordinary British workers towards Israel.
Conference further notes that in the atmosphere of international outrage that followed the flotilla murders, even Israeli-friendly politicians such as Cameron and Hague were forced to make statements condemning both the murders and the siege on Gaza.
Conference reaffirms its support for all those who have taken the lead in active non-cooperation over the past year, in particular for the EDO Decommissioners, for the Gaza protestors, and for the many British participants in siege-busting missions by land and sea to Gaza.
Conference notes that the landmark acquittal in the case of the Decommissioners can only facilitate more actions of this kind, since it not only sets a legal precedent, but is a reflection of the general sense of disgust against Israeli war crimes.
Conference reaffirms its belief that the majority of people in Britain are opposed to British imperialism’s support for the criminal Israeli state, and considers that the time is ripe to make active non-cooperation a central theme of our work. Conference therefore calls on the incoming steering committee to work with Stop the War and any other organisations that are willing in taking the line of non-cooperation into as many arenas as possible, including:
- Putting on a fundraising concert to draw attention to the Gaza prisoners’ plight and to raise money towards a campaign to overturn their convictions.
- Giving full backing, including maximum possible publicity, to all those groups or individuals, whether affiliated to PSC or not, who, like the EDO Decommissioners and the Raytheon activists, are targeted by the state for refusing to cooperate with, or for actively attempting to prevent the many crimes of the occupation, including: the frequent bombings and shootings of civilians; the destruction of Palestinian homes, farms, schools, hospitals, mosques and churches; the crippling siege of Gaza; the building of the apartheid wall, and the seizure of ever more land in Jerusalem and the West Bank for jewish-only settlement construction.
- Building on our existing campaign inside the unions to draw attention to Israeli war crimes, and the complicity of the British government and corporations in those crimes, with the aim of passing in each of them, and then at the TUC, motions condemning those crimes and calling on workers to refuse to cooperate in their commission, whether it be by making or moving munitions or other equipment, writing or broadcasting propaganda, or helping in any other way to smooth the path of Israel’s war machine.
- Building on the excellent PSC campaign to draw attention to pro-Israeli propaganda in Panorama and working with such groups as Media Lens (see, for example, their recent alert drawing attention to the media’s total bypassing of evidence revealing Israel’s starvation policy in Gaza) and others to draw in as many members and supporters as possible to an ongoing campaign to hold the media to account for their pivotal role in apologising for, covering up and normalising Israeli war crimes.
- Continuing and increasing the work already done to make Britain a place where Israeli war criminals can get no peace, through the campaign on universal jurisdiction, through holding protests, through citizens’ arrests and through all other available channels, including using local, national and international courts to file charges and draw attention to the crimes of Israeli military, government and corporate leaders – and those in Britain who back them politically or financially.
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Relatives of the miners trapped in the San Jose mine wait in a camp near the mine in Copiapo, Chile, 11 October 2010.
Deeply moved, nearly a billion of us looked on. A whole nation – managers and workers, rich and poor – united in a common effort to save 33 Chilean miners, with their president leading from the front. Emotion, suspense, ratings, huge advertising revenues. But what did this TV extravaganza conceal?
By Michel Colon, via michelcollon.info
That the ‘saviours’ were in fact the culprits. Three hours before the landslide, the San José miners had requested permission to leave after hearing suspect noises. Their bosses’ refusal imprisoned them under several tons of earth. Is this surprising? No. On 30 July, a Ministry of Labour report had already flagged up important safety problems at the San José mine, but no action was taken, and the Ministry kept silent.
Of course, everyone was overjoyed at the happy ending. But the rescue show masked the extent of the problem: 400 Chilean miners have died in the last decade. And more importantly, it masked the causes.
“Poor investment and safety standards” said Marco-Enriquez-Ominami, Sebastián Piñera’s opponent in the last presidential elections. In fact, in 2009 alone, 191,000 work accidents were recorded in Chile, in which 443 workers died. And the Chilean government is directly responsible, as, it has refused for the last 12 years to ratify the International Labour Organisation Convention C176 on health and safety in mines. Business enjoys unrestricted freedom, while the workers have no rights.
Behind the saviour hides a billionaire
His face appeared constantly on every screen: the head of state – smiling, focused, concerned for his fellow citizens. But was this idealised image perhaps a little too smooth? Who is the real Sebastián Piñera, elected President in 2009 with 51.61 percent of the vote?
At 61, he is worth $1.2bn, which according to Forbes magazine makes him the 701st richest man in the world – a fortune he amassed thanks to measures implemented during the blood-soaked Pinochet dictatorship years (1973-1990). At the time, Chile was the testing ground for the neoliberalism of the extremist economists who came to be known as the Chicago Boys. Piñera was able to profit from these privatisations by helping himself to the credit-card sector.
Nicknamed the ‘Silvio Berlusconi of Latin America’, Piñera now owns Chilevision, one of the country’s largest TV networks, and Colo Colo, one of the biggest football teams and is also involved in distribution, the mining industry and pharmaceuticals. On becoming president, he was obliged to sell his shares in the Lan Chile airline (where he was the majority shareholder). He therefore wears two hats : head of state and powerful businessman. When asked by the Argentinean newspaper Clarín about this ambiguous status, he responded: “Only the dead and saints have no conflicts of interest.”
Piñera is certainly no saint. Monica Madariaga, Minister of Justice during the military dictatorship, has admitted to putting pressure on judges, at the time when Piñera was a bank manager. The level of fraud rose to nearly $240m. In 2007, Piñera was also condemned for insider dealing by the financial markets authority following his acquisition of shares in Lan Chile. As the great French writer Honoré de Balzac said, “Behind every great fortune hides a crime.” That of Piñera is the colour of the blood of the dictatorship’s victims.
By hiding his past, and presenting him as a friend of the people, the TV spectacle at the San José mine handed the yellow-helmeted Piñera a real political opportunity. As a result, he rose in the opinion polls. The Chilean right, which dared not show its face after the dictatorship, has regained its prestige.
Piñera, the posthumous victory of Pinochet and the USA
Despite the scandals, Sebastián Piñera knows how to present himself to best advantage. His electoral campaign stressed his ‘love of democracy’ and the fact that he voted against Pinochet remaining in power during the 1988 referendum. His election thus owes much to his image as ‘the success man’ – as if making a personal fortune implied the ability to govern a country. Quite the contrary, his fortune was built precisely on undermining the community.
And he’s getting ready to carry on doing so. This admirer of Nicholas Sarkozy intends to privatise state assets, under the pretext of covering the losses incurred as a result of the great earthquake of February 2010. It would mean selling 40 percent of Codelco (the number one copper company) as well as another mining company – Cimm T&S – into private hands. This makes perfect sense, given that Chile is the world’s biggest exporter of copper. Remember that certain US multinationals committed the most heinous crimes in order to keep control of this wealth.
In 1970, a progressive government led by Salvador Allende undertook to develop Chile and free its people from poverty. To do this, it had to regain control of the primary source of national wealth – copper – obtaining a fairer price and allocating the revenues to the pressing needs of the population. The United States let fly immediately: a financial embargo, destabilisation by the CIA, terrorist activities, every kind of blackmail … until the military coup d’état and the installation of the fascist dictator Augusto Pinochet. There were thousands of victims, and a whole progressive generation was massacred or exiled.
In his speech to the UN in December 1972, a few months before his assassination, President Allende described the looting of his country by the US copper multinationals, the Anaconda Company and Kennecott Copper Corporation:
“The same corporations which have exploited Chilean copper for so many years have made over $4bn in profits in the course of the last 42 years, although their initial investments amounted to less than $30m. Take a simple, painful example and a flagrant contrast: in my country, there are 600,000 children who will never be able to experience normal human lives because, in their first eight months, they were deprived of essential quantities of protein. My country, Chile, would have been totally transformed by these four billion dollars. A tiny fraction of this amount would have provided all these children from my country with enough protein once and for all.”
Piñera’s electoral victory is essentially a posthumous victory for the dictator, the return to power of the United States.
Besides, Piñera is planning to borrow from the Inter-American Development Bank, dominated by the USA – a loan which will also result in new anti-social cutbacks. This general offensive of the private against the public is hardly surprising now that there is a billionaire at the country’s helm. All semblance of independence between the two spheres has vanished: the Minister of Foreign Affairs used to run the Falabella department store chain, while his counterpart at the Ministry of Health was head of Las Condes private clinic, the country’s biggest. Even though they have temporarily abandoned these posts, they continue to take decisions which have a major bearing on their companies’ futures.
With such billionaires in power, it’s hardly surprising that business tax is ridiculously low – 3 percent in 2011 and 1.5 percent in 2012 – all still under the pretext of the earthquake! In fact, Chile occupies 21st place worldwide in terms of countries which tax capital the least – and first place in Latin America (source: Pricewaterhouse Coopers). The TV said nothing about the links between the dictatorship and Piñera, or about these anti-social projects.
Also covered up was the miners’ anger
In the country where the CEO is King, Piñera was still nevertheless obliged to set up a commission on work safety following the drama of San José – due to deliver its findings on 22 November. He also set up a Mines Control Authority and ordered a review of mining safety regulations.
This is no gift from a big-hearted billionaire, merely a retreat in the face of popular discontent. Just after the miners were rescued, their colleagues demonstrated for their unpaid salary and bonuses, the continuous training of the young workers, the approval of their benefits, retirement for the elderly and redundancy money. Then, on 7 September, Chilean unions demanded the ratification of health and safety agreements not only in mines, but also in the construction and agricultural sectors.
But what the TV failed to point out was that these violations of workers’ rights are the result of the reforms implemented during the dictatorship. The Pinochet years turned health, education and social security into mere commodities – jobs became much more vulnerable and flexible. And these neoliberal reforms have remained virtually intact, as they remained unchallenged by the coalition governments (alliances of Christian Democrats and Socialists) which followed one another in the 20 years after Pinochet. Flouting workers’ rights – even human rights – is still legal in Chile.
Piñera is implicated in this too – his brother José was Minister of Labour in the 1980s, during the dictatorship. It was he who applied the no-holds-barred neoliberalism of the Chicago Boys, insisting that pensions should be ‘capitalised’, ie, privatised. This disaster brings us back to CampEsperanza. One of the 33, Mario Gomez, began working in the mines aged 12 and is still there today, aged 63! Why? Because his pension amounts to a pittance – thanks to José Piñera! Nothing of this was said on TV.
One of the world’s most unjust countries
Although ‘an economic miracle’ in Washington’s eyes, Chile is in fact one of the world’s most unjust countries. CASEN (Centre for Research on the National Socio-Economic Situation) statistics show that poverty is rising at the same speed as GDP (the country’s overall production). GDP is indeed on the up, but only benefits a sector of the population, thereby further exacerbating inequalities. Poverty rose by 15 percent in 2009, affecting the under-3s in particular. One in four of the population is poor according to CASEN.
But these official figures underestimate the reality, based as they are on 1988 calculations, labelling the poor as those earning under 2,000 pesos a day – in a country where a single bus ticket costs 500 pesos! The cost of living is not therefore factored in. A more realistic estimate would list 8 million poor, ie, half the population. Faced with this, UN Human Rights organisations remain silent.
Meanwhile, the United States – grand defender of democracy – considers the country an ally and even an example. Is it purely by chance that Chile is moving closer to Columbia, considered a US agent in Latin America?
In short, Chilean society has been divided, stripped of its rights, misinformed and reduced to submission by the uniformity of the media. The aim of the right, and even of the coalition, has been the continuation of the military regime. The country is increasingly becoming a business paradise, repressing workers and unions alike. Sebastián Piñera ensures the model of the constitution put in place by Pinochet in 1980 is preserved and is likely to take things even further. TV said nothing of this.
What is a TV show for?
To summarise (and learn some lessons, as we will be treated to more such shows in future). For days and days, the major international media kept trotting out the same fairy tale: the big-hearted billionaire so concerned about the poor! For days and days, the TV ignored the misdeeds and selfish plans of this same billionaire – his links to the heinous dictatorship, his servility towards the United States.
Chilean and international cameras were all trained on this spectacle. Nothing, for example, on the impressive hunger strike of the Mapuche aborigines. Harshly repressed, treated like terrorists, their struggle was wiped out.
On the other hand, the TV spared no detail about the miners, down to their most intimate secrets. We learned of the double lives led by some, the hidden children and the mistresses. You’d think you’d switched on to pure reality TV. No information, just buckets of emotion. Producers and publishers are already talking about a film, a TV film and a book – the perfect opportunity to make a killing! In a quest for the poignant details, the log book of one of the survivors is coveted by all and sundry. It is estimated that potential buyers are ready to pay out up to $50,000. These 33 stories will thus be exploited to the maximum, totally exposing the private lives of the protagonists.
The whole TV ‘show’ was designed to pre-empt reflection, working the emotional angles with carefully honed techniques, transfixing viewers and bumping up advertising revenues. The emotional side has been systematically exploited so as to hide the absence of any real inquiry into the causes of the problems. Work accidents, for example, are almost always the result of a conflict of opposing interests: profits versus safety.
No enquiry therefore into the responsibility of the ‘saviours’ and the Chilean government. No inquest into our western governments which acted as Pinochet’s accomplices and refused to bring this criminal to judgement. No enquiry into fundamental topical questions – why it is that one Latin American in two is poor while the continent abounds in riches and multinationals make enormous profits? Why do our western governments oppose all those who attempt to fight against poverty? Why did these governments do nothing when the CIA attempted coups d’état to eliminate Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales and Rafael Correa? Why did they do nothing to counter the successful military coup d’état in Honduras ? Journalists, union members and human rights workers are systematically killed and this provokes no international media campaign?
Instead of genuine enquiries, TV brainwashes us with messages along the lines of “billionaires and workers, all in the same boat”. For real information, look elsewhere.
Translated from french by Andrew Morris
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The following motion is being submitted by the CPGB-ML to the upcoming Stop the War national conference.
We believe that the proposed programme of action is both necessary and achieveable. We therefore call on all anti-imperialists and anti-war campaigners to give it the widest possible circulation in order to generate discussion and to mobilise support for this important work.
Individually, we may be powerless, but together, we do have the power to stop imperialism’s criminal wars.
CPGB-ML resolution to StW conference, October 2010
This conference notes the passing last year of a motion calling on the coalition “to do all in its power to promote a movement of industrial, political and military non-cooperation with all of imperialism’s aggressive war preparations and activities among British working people“.
Since that resolution was passed, many important developments have taken place, which on the one hand make this work more urgent, and on the other have created an atmosphere that is more receptive to our message.
Conference notes the attack on those condemning war crimes that was embodied in the draconian sentences handed down to the Gaza protestors. Congress further notes that these sentences were aimed not only at discouraging muslim youth from political activism, but also at dividing the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements along racial lines, and branding Palestine solidarity as a ‘muslim’ issue.
Conference condemns the murder by Israeli commandos of nine solidarity activists aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in May, despite the fact that the UN had called for the ships to be allowed to pass. Conference notes the UN’s recent findings that these murders were illegal – another war crime to add to the many being committed daily against the Palestinian people.
Conference further notes that in the atmosphere of international outrage that followed these murders, even Israeli-friendly politicians such as Cameron and Hague were forced to make statements condemning both the murders and the siege on Gaza.
Conference reaffirms its support for all those who have taken the lead in active non-cooperation over the past year, in particular for Joe Glenton, for the EDO Decommissioners, for the Gaza protestors, and for the many British participants in siege-busting missions by land and sea to Gaza.
Conference notes that the landmark acquittal in the case of the Decommissioners can only facilitate more actions of this kind, since it not only sets a legal precedent, but is a reflection of the general sense of disgust against Israeli war crimes in particular.
Conference reaffirms its belief that the majority of people in Britain are opposed to British imperialism’s wars, and considers that the time is ripe to make active non-cooperation a central theme of our work. Conference therefore calls on the incoming steering committee to take the line of non-cooperation into as many arenas as possible, including:
- Putting on a fundraising concert to draw attention to the Gaza prisoners’ plight and to raise money towards a campaign to overturn their convictions.
- Approaching Joe Glenton to take part in a national speaking tour against cooperation with the Afghan war.
- Giving full backing, including maximum possible publicity, to all those groups or individuals, whether affiliated to the Coalition or not, who, like the EDO Decommissioners, the Raytheon activists and Joe Glenton, are targeted by the state for refusing to cooperate with, or for actively attempting to prevent, the illegal wars and bombings waged and backed by British imperialism.
- Stepping up the campaign outside army recruitment centres and at army recruitment stalls in schools, colleges and universities, drawing attention to the war crimes committed by the British armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
- Launching a full campaign inside the unions to draw attention to British, US and Israeli war crimes, with the aim of passing in each of them, and then at the TUC, motions condemning those crimes and calling on workers to refuse to cooperate in their commission, whether it be by making or moving munitions or other equipment, writing or broadcasting propaganda, or helping in any other way to smooth the path of the war machine.
- Following the excellent example set by PSC (eg, the campaign to draw attention to pro-Israeli propaganda in Panorama) and Media Lens (eg, alerts drawing attention to the media’s cover-up of war crimes committed in Fallujah) and working with these and others to draw in as many members and supporters as possible to an ongoing campaign to hold the media to account for their pivotal role in apologising for, covering up and normalising British, US and Israeli war crimes.
- Continuing and increasing the work already done to make Britain a place where war criminals, whether US, British or Israeli, can get no peace, through holding protests, through citizens’ arrests and through all other available channels, including using local, national and international courts to file charges and draw attention to their crimes.
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Via KCNA
Talks between WPK and CPGB-ML held
Pyongyang, 23 September 23 (KCNA)
Talks between the delegations of the Workers’ Party of Korea and the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) were held in Pyongyang on Thursday.
Present at the talks from the WPK side were Department Director Kim Yong Il and officials of the Central Committee of the WPK and the CPGB-ML side members of the delegation of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) led by General Secretary Zane Carpenter.
At the talks, both sides informed each other of the activities of their parties and exchanged views on further developing the relations between the two parties and matters of mutual concern.
Gift from CPGB-ML Delegation
Pyongyang, 23 September 23 (KCNA)
General Secretary Kim Jong Il was presented with a gift by the visiting delegation of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
The gift was handed to Department Director of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea Kim Yong Il by General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) Zane Carpenter who is heading the delegation on Thursday.
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CPGB-ML members were in Manchester on Sunday (12 September) for the National Shop Stewards Network rally outside the TUC conference, and attended a NSSN fringe meeting held afterwards.
The rally called on the TUC to get serious about organising a fight-back against public-sector cuts, pay and pensions attacks, privatisation etc. So far, Brendan Barber’s laughable response to the proposed all-out assault on British workers’ pay, pensions and public services has been to call for a demonstration (not any industrial action) to be organised for … next March! Thus politely giving the government time to implement its cuts, slash pay and pensions and lay off thousands of public-sector workers.
‘Fair’ cuts? NO cuts! Take the fight to capitalism. (CPGB-ML leaflet)
Bob Crow and several other speakers at the rally made the point that blaming the Tories for the cuts, or putting hopes in electing a Labour government as the solution, was a total waste of time. The unions have been spinning that yarn for 50-60 years, he said, and this is where we’ve ended up as a result. He called for the unions not to get sidetracked into a pointless campaign to get Labour re-elected, but to work together now to coordinate strike action right across the public sector.
At the meeting later, many reps spoke about their experiences in trying to carry out useful work in the teeth of union leadership opposition. One of our party members pointed out that most of the union leaders aren’t interested in giving the leadership their members expect and deserve, but instead excuse their own inaction on the basis of ‘member apathy’.
She pointed to the leaders of her own union, Bectu, as a prime example of this – in particular how they fail to educate members about what the issues really are that face them and how attacks on their pay and pensions in particular might be combatted. Instead, the leadership tell members that they don’t have an interest in fighting against the introduction of the divided conditions that management continually use to erode the pay and pension position of all staff.
She called for the public-sector unions to take the lead in launching a massive campaign to mobilise public awareness and support for their actions in defence of conditions and services, since these actions are in the interest of all of us. This is particularly important given the current stranglehold of the corporate media on people’s consciousness, since those media are universally hostile to attempts by the working class to resist attacks – constantly seeking to demonise and divide workers and brand them as lazy, greedy etc.
Our member also made the point that as well as coordinating action (something that many reps there were calling for) between unions, so we strike together as much as possible, we should be breaking the anti-union laws en masse – since the current legal framework is explicitly designed to render industrial action useless in achieving its aim of defending workers’ conditions and protecting public services.
Judging by the applause that greeted this point in a packed meeting of union reps from all over the country, this isn’t an unpopular position as far as many rank-and-file members are concerned. It’s the union leaderships who are terrified of losing control of their asset portfolios, or losing their respectable status as important members of the establishment.
Meanwhile, at the TUC yesterday (14 September), a limited motion was passed against the anti-union laws. It was a composite of several, and was supported by Bectu, among others, following the adoption at the last Bectu congress of a motion calling on the NEC to work with other unions to build a mass campaign to DEFY the anti-union laws.
Typically, the resulting joint unions motion to the TUC was totally toothless. Its main substance merely being to call on MPs to back a bill in parliament that might stop the courts from being quite so harsh in how they interpret the current legal framework.
About the need to dismantle that framework completely there was nothing but a ritual reference. About the need to defy the laws in the meantime, there was not a dicky-bird, although there was a slightly coded call from Bob Crow for the unions to do just that.
Calling for consistency in industrial strategy Mr Crow added to rapturous applause: “It’s no good walking down to Tolpuddle and then next week debating whether to engage in civil disobedience to oppose the cuts.
“If it’s good enough for the Tolpuddle Martyrs 160 years ago it should be good enough for us today.”
We would add the following points:
In order for our unions to put up any kind of a fight in defence of pay, pensions and services, workers are going to have to radically transform these currently ineffectual institutions. Either pressure from below will see new, militant leaderships emerge, or the current leaders will find their members deserting in droves to set up new fighting organisations, willing and able to take on the employers head-on.
A vital part of this campaign to transform our unions is the campaign to break the link with the imperialist Labour party, whose suffocating control of most career trade unionists is responsible for their complete inability to act in their members’ best interests. Instead, they act as one more layer of policemen for the ruling class – controlling, diverting and dampening down the growing anger and militancy of workers on the shop floor.
Most of all, workers in Britain need to belatedly wake up and realise that while we continue to confine our struggle to aiming after the best possible conditions for selling our labour power under capitalism, we will never achieve job, housing, health, education or pension security.
All the concessions won when the welfare state was set up 60 years ago are being taken away; it will take a massive, coordinated and extremely militant fight just to get back to where we were then – and as soon as we are there, the whole process of attacking them will start again.
There is only one way to guarantee a peaceful, secure, civilised and sustainable existence for our children and grandchildren – and that is to get rid of this destructive, parasitic, polluting system and build a socialist society in its place.
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Members of the BBC pensions scheme called an urgent meeting of the scheme’s trustees on Tuesday night (14 September) in order to call them to account for not doing or saying anything about the BBC’s plans to dismantle the final salary pension scheme. (More on the BBC’s proposals here.)
It’s clear from the BBC’s approach that ‘solving the deficit’ is not its aim. Transferring the risk to pension scheme members and lowering the BBC’s pensions bill are the priorities. Along with helping the government by getting one major public-sector pension slashed before the main assault on all the others begins. There’s also a clear drive to get all current defined benefit schemes closed to new members before the BBC starts recruiting lots of new staff in Salford at the end of the year.
The meeting was dominated by a lot of hand-wringing from the Trustees, particularly Jeremy Peat, the Chair, who went on about how they’d been bypassed and couldn’t legally do anything about it. Yes, in retrospect, he said, maybe they could have been more vocal in defence of the scheme. Mark Thompson was aware they weren’t happy, he said, but there wasn’t anything they could do, since their legal advice was that the BBC was within its rights and there are precedents for this sort of underhand action.
One speaker from the floor pointed out that with the new proposed definition of ‘basic’ salary, BBC employees in the future could end up with a ‘salary supplement’ several times bigger than their ‘basic’ (ie, pensionsable) salary. Several people pointed out that Trustees are supposed to work in the best interests of the members and asked why hadn’t they done something – at the very least, a public statement condemning the move might have had a significant impact on the atmosphere surrounding the debate in the press.
The elected union-backed trustees had very little to say for themselves either. One talked about feeling ‘personally offended’ by the proposals, whilst the other merely ‘recognised’ that there really is an ‘enormous deficit’ about which ‘something’ would need to be done, etc. Much applause was received for the point that the defecit could be got rid of by staking BBC Worldwide (the commercial arm) and Television Centre as assets against the pensions scheme.
One very vocal campaigner made good points about the outrageous and underhand way the BBC is changing its definition of basic pay and asked the Trustees why they hadn’t taken a public position against that.
A Bectu branch rep pointed out that, in 2008, the BBC had signed an agreement with the Trustees (the Statement of Funding Principles, which remains in force) saying that if there was a deficit they would pay it off through increased contributions. This agreement is now being comprehensively broken. The Pension Trustees’ lawyer said that BBC management’s behaviour was not illegal. The Pension Trustees’ actuary and chairman refused to express an opinion when asked more than once whether BBC management’s behaviour was reasonable or ethical.
An NUJ rep gave an excellent speech based on detailed analysis of pensions regulation, in which he called on the Trustees to ‘fail to agree’ to the new ‘concession’ being offered by Mark Thompson in the hope of staving off a strike, which is a very poor Career Average proposal, but which, unlike the other changes being proposed, would have to be approved by the Trustees in order to be offered at all.
Before the debate closed, another Bectu branch rep made the following points:
- All the emphasis on the lack of legal avenues is just aimed at demoralising us.
- It’s not surprising that we are legally powerless, since it’s been clear for some time now that the courts are colluding with the government and employers in enforcing a concerted attack on pensions across the board.
- The BBC’s is not the first pension scheme to be attacked in this way, but we have found ourselves in the front line as far as the public sector is concerned.
- So the real question for the Trustees is: Are you going to help the employers/government to decimate the BBC scheme?? Will you need pensions yourselves one day? Do you think it’s ok for us to be denied ours?
- We don’t need you to be having a ‘strong word’ with Mark Thompson over a cup of tea or a glass of sherry; we need a public expression of support from you, denouncing the BBC’s attack and coming out strongly in our defence. (Much applause for this point!)
- You’ve complained about being ‘bypassed’ by the BBC; but it seems to us that you’ve LET YOURSELVES be bypassed. It’s not too late to do something; are you going to continue in the same way?
- No matter what the legal advice is, no matter what the BBC management says, WE are going to be fighting in defence of EVERYONE’S pensions; in defence of the right to a dignified old age.
- When we do that, the media will try to demonise us. They’ll ask the public to forget about £850bn to the banks and try to brand us as ‘greedy’ for upholding our right to a pension we can actually live off.
- So the real question is, are the Trustees going to help us in that fight or not? (More applause)
Overall, the feeling of the meeting was extremely clear, reflected in the unanimous vote calling on the Trustees to oppose BBC management’s proposals. Some of the Trustees (including the chairman) expressed their personal opposition to the proposals, and it’s at least possible that they may now be more forthright in expressing that opposition either publicly or privately – they have a meeting with Mark Thompson in the near future.
For reasons that are totally unclear, the members present were refused the right even to discuss an alternative/supplementary (and much more militant) resolution that over 100 members had signed in the days before the meeting. The Trustees claimed it was against the rules of the meeting to discuss it without prior notice (of some unspecified period). But in fact the rules of the meeting say nothing about this at all.
The motion that was passed at the meeting was as follows:
This meeting of members of the BBC Pension Scheme calls on the Trustees to perform their duties to protect the benefits of the members. Specifically, we call on them to oppose the BBC’s plan to reduce the eventual value of contributions already made to the Scheme.
But the tenor of the meeting overall was far stronger and the Trustees went away in no doubt as to how the members felt about their performance thus far.
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Banners bearing portraits of Bloody Sunday victims are carried to the Guildhall in Derry, where relatives were able to read the first copies of the Saville report, 15 June 2010
By Eammon McCann via Sunday Tribune
Derry is still dizzy from the eruption of joy which greeted the Saville report’s recognition on Tuesday that all of the Bloody Sunday wounded and dead were unarmed civilians gunned down by British paratroopers for no good or legitimate reason.
But the report is not flawless. When it comes to the allocation of blame to the soldiers, it follows a pattern of convicting the lower orders while exculpating the higher command, and dismissing the possibility of political leaders having been even passively complicit in the events.
The individual paras who fired the shots that killed or wounded civil rights marchers are damned for the roles they played.
Additionally, Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford, commander of the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, is singled out for obloquy. It was his disobedience of orders, says Saville, which put the paras into position to carry out the killing. Had he followed orders, the massacre would never have happened. Thus, an undisciplined battalion commander and a small squad of kill-crazy foot-soldiers did it all.
The effect is to insulate the rest of the British army from blame. The report was brilliant for the Bloody Sunday families. It wasn’t a bad result for the British army either.
David Cameron might have found it more difficult to disown those involved in the atrocity so forthrightly had Saville included in his list of culprits, say, Major General Robert Ford, Commander of Land Forces, Northern Ireland, at the time, or General Sir Michael Jackson, second-in-command to Wilford on the day, later army chief of staff and Nato commander in Kosovo.
Ford, second in seniority in the North only to the General Officer Commanding, commissioned the Bloody Sunday battle plan, Operation Forecast, and ordered the paras to Derry to carry it out.
In the weeks before Bloody Sunday he had made plain his frustration at the failure of Derry-based regiments to bring the Bogside no-go area to heel.
In a document published by the inquiry dated 7 January 1972, Ford declared himself “disturbed” by the attitude of army and police chiefs in Derry, and added: “I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders amongst the DYH (Derry Young Hooligans).”
Ford took the decision to deploy the paras six days before Bloody Sunday, overruling a message the same day from Derry commander, Brigadier Pat MacLellan, indicating that he and local police chief Frank Lagan believed that any direct confrontation with the civil rights marchers should be avoided. Ford held to the plan in face of strongly-expressed opposition from other senior Derry-based officers.
On the day, although with no operational role, he travelled to Derry and took up position at the edge of the Bogside, shouting “Go on the paras!” as they ran past him through a barbed-wire barricade towards the Rossville Street killing ground.
Saville suggests that Wilford allowed his soldiers in the Bogside to exceed MacLellan’s orders “not to fight a running battle”.
But nowhere in the report is it considered whether Wilford and the paras might have believed or suspected that MacLellan’s orders need not be regarded in all the circumstances as binding. The possibility that Ford’s decisions in advance, and comportment on the day, played a part in the way matters developed is brusquely dismissed: Ford “neither knew nor had reason to know at any stage that his decision would or was likely to result in soldiers firing unjustifiably on that day,” Saville declares in chapter four of his report’s first volume.
In the same chapter, Saville insulates political and military leaders generally from blame: “It was also submitted that in dealing with the security situation in Northern Ireland generally, the authorities (the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland governments and the army) tolerated if not encouraged the use of unjustified lethal force; and that this was the cause or a contributory cause of what happened on Bloody Sunday. We found no evidence of such toleration or encouragement.”
This is remarkable. Numerous incidents over the previous year might have suggested toleration if not encouragement of unjustified force. The most egregious had happened six months before Bloody Sunday when the First Paras were involved in killing 11 unarmed civilians over three days in Ballymurphy in west Belfast.
Newspapers of the period, particularly nationalist newspapers, were carrying regular complaints, many of them plausible, of unjustified and sometimes lethal violence by soldiers against civilians.
Toleration of this behaviour might have been inferred from, for example, the fact that no inquiry had been held into the Ballymurphy massacre, nor any soldier disciplined, nor any statement issued expressing regret.
Saville’s dismissal of the suggestion of a “culture of tolerance” would be unremarkable if by “evidence” he meant testimony to the inquiry. He had at an early stage declined to examine prior events in the North on the reasonable ground that to subject the Ballymurphy incident, for example, to the same level of scrutiny as Bloody Sunday would have made the tribunal’s task impossible. But this makes the statement that, “We found no evidence…” puzzling: the tribunal had decided not to gather such evidence.
Many who read through the body of the report will be puzzled, too, by Saville’s acceptance of the explanation eventually offered by Jackson of his role in compiling the “shot-list” which formed the basis of the initial cover-up of the killings.
Jackson had provided the tribunal with a detailed account of his movements and involvement in the Bloody Sunday events and took the witness stand in London in April 2003.
Nowhere in his statement or his April evidence did he refer to compiling the shot-list or other documents giving a version of what had happened. His role emerged the following month during evidence from Major Ted Loden who described how, late in the afternoon of Bloody Sunday, he took statements from the shooters and plotted map references showing the trajectory of their shots.
However, when a number of documents including the original of the shot-list, were then produced, the list turned out to be not in Loden’s handwriting but in the handwriting of the now chief of staff of the British army.
Loden was asked how this could have come about. “Well, I cannot answer that question,” came the reply.
None of the shots described conformed to any of the shots which evidence indicated had actually been fired.
Some trajectories took bullets through buildings to hit their targets. All the targets were identified as gunmen or as nail or petrol bombers.
The other documents in the chief of staff’s hand were personal accounts of the day’s events by Wilford, the three para company commanders present and the battalion intelligence officer.
Recalled to the stand in October, Jackson explained that he had entirely forgotten these documents but had recovered a “vague memory” after they had been put to Loden.
It had earlier slipped his mind that he had produced, by his own hand, within hours of the massacre, a detailed version of Bloody Sunday in which no British soldier did anything wrong and their victims were all to blame for their own injuries or deaths.
Under questioning, Jackson was badly hampered by poor memory. More than 20 times he used phrases such as, “I cannot remember”, “do not recall”, “I have only a very vague memory”.
Saville resolves one contradiction by accepting both Loden’s original claim that he had written out the shot-list and Jackson’s subsequent explanation that he must have copied Loden’s script verbatim, although he could offer no explanation as to why he might have done this, nor could he recall who had asked or ordered him to do so. Loden’s own list has never been found.
In volume eight of the report, Saville rejects suggestions from the families’ lawyers that “the list played some part in a cover-up to conceal the emerging truth that some innocent civilians had been shot and killed by soldiers of 1 Para, although it is not explained exactly how this conspiracy is said to have worked”. He accepts Jackson’s claim that compiling the documents would simply have been standard operational procedure (which he’d forgotten about).
In their statements to the inquiry, none of the soldiers whose shots were included on the list recalled being interviewed by either Loden or Jackson about their firing.
Having suggested it was not clear how a cover-up based on the documents might have worked, Saville goes on to say that, “the list did play a role in the army’s explanations of what occurred on the day”.
He cites an interview on BBC radio at 1am the day after Bloody Sunday in which the army’s head of information policy in the North, Maurice Tugwell, used the list as his basis for explaining the “shooting engagements”.
Elsewhere, he finds that “information from the list was used by Lord Balniel, the Minister of State for Defence, in the House of Commons on 1 February 1972, when he defended the actions of the soldiers”.
Saville seems not to have considered the possibility that this was how a conspiracy might have worked.
Many in high positions in Britain will have been relieved to find that Jackson bore no blame for the Bloody Sunday events. The response of the families and their supporters to Saville’s report has been understandably and properly euphoric. Whether other finding of the tribunal will stand the test of time is less certain.
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News just in is that the last two defendants in the EDO decommissioners trial have been found not guilty at Hove crown court.
Congratulations to all those involved in the campaign to stop EDO. Let others learn from their example. No cooperation with British, US or Israeli war crimes! Free Palestine!
