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business as usual in chile

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on May 29, 2008 - 18:52.
in

The files clearly show that British planners in Santiago and London totally welcomed the coup [in Chile] and immediately set about conducting good relations with the military rulers as repression increased, even secretly conniving with the junta to mislead the British public.

British officials were completely aware of the scale of atrocities. Three days after the coup, Ambassador Seconde reported to the Foreign Office that ‘it is likely that casualties run into the thousands, certainly it has been far from a bloodless coup’. Six days after, he noted that ‘stories of military excesses and mounting casualties have begun increasingly to circulate. The extent of the bloodshed has shocked people’.

— Mark Curtis, in Unpeople

welcoming the baath party

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on May 29, 2008 - 18:24.
in
The Baath party regime of 1968 was also immediately welcomed by Britain: ‘The new regime may look to the United Kingdom for military training and equipment and we should lose no time in appointing a defence attache’, the ambassador in Baghdad wrote. The regime’s new Defence Minister, General Tikriti, was invited to the Farnborough Air Show and was told by the ambassador that ‘it seemed to me we now had an opportunity to restore Anglo/Iraqi relations to something of their former intimacy’. In reply, ‘General Tikriti said that during the Ba’athist regime of 1963 he had greatly appreciated the cooperative attitude of HMG’.

hedging his bets

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on May 29, 2008 - 17:30.
in

The language of resolution 1441 leaves the position unclear ...Arguments can be made on both sides... I accept that a reasonable case can be made that resolution 1441 is capable in principle of reviving the authorisation in 678 without a further resolution... but a "reasonable case" does not mean that if the matter ever came before a court I would be confident that the court would agree with this view.

I judge that, having regard to the arguments on both sides, and considering the resolution as a whole in the light of the statements made on adoption and subsequently, a court might well conclude that OPs 4 and 12 do require a further Council decision in order to revive the authorisation in resolution 678. But equally I consider that the counter view can be reasonably maintained.'

— Lord Goldsmith, former Attorney General, in his advice to Blair on the legality of the Iraq war. (March 2003)

no recycling

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on May 24, 2008 - 18:37.
in
One Wrexham woman found herself on the wrong side of the law when she helped herself to four plastic garden chairs from a privatised council tip. The Waste Recycling Group - instead of lending her a hand for helping push towards their target of 65% of all rubbish being recycled - phoned the cops. One house search later and the chairs have been returned to their rightful place: a landfill, and the would-be Womble is waiting to see if the CPS is going charge her under the Theft Act.

worst low pay rate in Europe

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on May 5, 2008 - 11:12.
in
Low pay is not just a problem of an extreme underclass or of migrants; it is endemic across the country. One in seven of all working households are poor; one fifth of all workers, 5.3 million people, are paid less than £6.67 an hour (two thirds of the median), the worst low-pay rate of any in Europe. It works out at less than a £12,000 salary. In some regions, the proportion of low-paid is well over 25%, while in some constituencies (in Wales, Birmingham, the West Midlands, even the rural West Country) it is comfortably over 40%.

6-7 million people perished

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 16:24.
in
Over 60 years ago 6-7 million people perished in Bengal and in the neighboring provinces of Bihar, Orissa and Assam in 1943-1945 when the price of rice doubled and then finally quadrupled - those living on the edge who could not afford to buy food simply perished under the merciless scorched earth policy of the racist British colonial administration of British-occupied India

the beastliest people in the world

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 16:21.
in
There was the general sense of callousness. Churchill permitted himself to make the remark that the Indian population bring it onto itself by breeding like rabbits. And there was another statement of his when he said that he was well aware that the Indian people were the beastliest in the world, next to the Germans. It cannot be said that the central government was full of sympathy.

food not essential for indians

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 16:17.
in
In the context of homeland Britain Churchill had argued that food supplies were vital for maintaining national morale. He told the War Cabinet on the thirty first of March 1941 that it was essential ‘to import sufficient to maintain the staying power of the people, even if this meant a somewhat slower development of our service programmes.’ But two years later the War Cabinet wasn’t prepared to divert shipping and food supplies to ease Indian hunger.

abstaining on territorial integrity

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Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 12:34.
in
In late 1965, the UN General Assembly formally called on all states to ‘respect the sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity of Cyprus’ – the high point of Makarios’s efforts to secure the international position of the republic, free from interference by outside powers. Embarrassed to vote openly against the resolution, as too brazen an indication of their intentions, Britain and America made their displeasure clear by abstaining, along with their numerous clientele.

moral obligation to intervene

antarchi's picture
Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 12:32.
in
Two years later, a Commons Select Committee would conclude: ‘Britain had a legal right to intervene [in the Turkish assault on Cyprus], she had a moral obligation to intervene, she had the military capacity to intervene. She did not intervene for reasons which the government refuses to give.’
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