empire

A horrible, shocking documentary:

Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

How on earth can we pull back from where we are, and how did we manage to get so far. By turning away, compartmentalising what is happening, by allocating it to 'politics' or 'war' or something else towards which we can look or not look and for which we bear no share of blame - by doing all of that we let it happen, on and on, worse and worse, and more and more impossible to halt.

'The UK government has played a key role in developing the oil law, alongside the US government. There are serious questions regarding the appropriateness of the UK, as an occupation power, participating in policy discussions on the future of Iraq’s natural resources. While attempts have been made to describe the British role as “advice”, it is highly unlikely that Iraqi officials would treat it as neutral advice, to be taken or left, given the UK’s military position'

See this post for some of the details of the oil law, still being forced down the the Iraqi's throats. British citizens can - and should - urge their MP to sign EDM 1180, which 'calls on the Government to disclose to the House all representations it has made in relation to the oil law'. It appears they have been many.

Here are some of the more brazen attempts by the oil companies and the British government to bludgeon the Iraqis into submission:

• Passage of the law was made a condition of relief of the foreign debts accumulated by the Saddam Hussein dictatorship, during his wars, and through his personal enrichment. In November 2004, the Paris Club of wealthy creditor nations agreed to conditionally cancel 80% of Iraq’s debts to them in three stages: 30% immediately, 30% when Iraq entered into an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme, and 20% following a satisfactory review by the IMF after three years of the programme. Iraq entered an agreement with the IMF in December 2005. The conditions included the passage of a law opening Iraqi oil to foreign investment, by the end of 2006.
• Future Iraqi oil policy was further developed under the Coalition Provisional Authority. During that time, former executives of multinational oil companies were appointed as senior oil advisers. Two of these advisers were paid by the UK taxpayer, and reported to the UK authorities in Iraq.
• Six oil companies collectively appointed lobbyists, the International Tax & Investment Centre (ITIC), to push for Iraq to offer long-term oil production contracts known as production sharing agreements. ITIC was advised by officials of the FCO and HM Treasury on their strategy for influencing Iraqi decision-makers.
• ITIC’s primary lobbying document, entitled Petroleum and Iraq’s Future, was sent to the Iraqi Minister of Finance in late 2004 by the British Ambassador to Iraq. According to ITIC, he “formally” submitted it to the Minister, implying UK endorsement of its contents...
• Since the completion of the first draft of the oil law in July 2006, British officials in both Whitehall and Baghdad have actively worked on the law. It was first seen by British officials in July, eight months before it was seen by members of the Iraqi parliament, who first saw it in March 2007.

(emphasis mine)

Many resistance movements in poor countries which are fighting huge injustice and questioning the underlying principles of what constitutes "liberation" and "development" view human rights non-government organizations as modern-day missionaries who have come to take the ugly edge off imperialism - to defuse political anger and to maintain the status quo.

Arundhati Roy, in Peace Without Justice is Capitulation to Corporate Coups

I worry that she is right not only in perceiving that to be the way 'we' are perceived; but even that she is right that that is all we are. Her nuggets are littered all over this site, they are so golden.

Perhaps most importantly, and a clear message for the international HRE missionaries: "talking of justice without unmasking the institutions and the systems that perpetrate injustice is beyond hypocritical." So let us not aim to be 'neutral' and 'non-political' - unless we are aiming to be hypocritical.