blessed britons

We must become the owners, or at any rate the controllers at the source, of at least a proportion of the supply (of oil) which we require....and obtain our oil supply, so far as possible, from sources under British control, or British influence.

— Winston Churchill

mad world

China is increasingly blamed for its levels of pollution in general, and its rising greenhouse gas emissions in particular. But it is demand from countries like the UK which leads to smoke from Chinese factories and power plants entering the atmosphere. Because China's energy mix is more fossil-fuel intensive than those of Europe, Japan or the USA, it also means that outsourcing to China creates more greenhouse gas emissions for each product made.

"As China is increasingly attacked because of its rising pollution levels, people overlook two important issues. First, per person, China's greenhouse gas emissions are a fraction of those in Europe and the United States. Second, a closer look at trade flows reveals that a large share of China's rising emissions is due to the dependence of the rest of the world on exports from China - a Chinadependence," adds nef policy director, Andrew Simms.

"There is also the fact that a lot of heavy industry has simply relocated to China from apparently cleaner, richer nations - when our major retailers scour the world for the cheapest production costs, the result is that more greenhouse gases get pumped into the atmosphere for every product we buy."

— New Economics Foundation

neo-colonialism

CYPRUS

Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 12:15.

For Britain, Cyprus was a Mediterranean stronghold it had not the slightest intention of relinquishing. Indeed, upgrading its strategic role as soon as British garrisons in the Canal Zone were judged insufficiently secure, the High Command in the Middle East was transferred to the island in 1954. A year later, the colonial secretary – now Conservative – told the Commons that possessions like Cyprus could never expect self-determination. Nor, since London refused to allow any legislative assembly in which the four-fifths of the population in favour of Enosis would enjoy a majority, was there any question even of self-government.
Perry Anderson in The Divisions of Cyprus

britain's role in the iraqi oil law

Submitted by antarchi on August 25, 2007 - 02:10.

'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'

The Iraqi oil sector, privatisation and the UK’s role, by PLATFORM, June 2007.

* * *

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)

...some answers?

Submitted by antarchi on May 23, 2007 - 01:34.

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.

abstaining on territorial integrity

Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 12:34.

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.

antarchi's quotes

free passage to attila

Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 12:29.

The reality is that Britain had both the means and the obligation to stop the Turkish assault on Cyprus. After first ensuring Turkish hostility to the Greek majority, it had imposed a Treaty of Guarantee on the island, depriving it of true independence, for its own selfish ends: the retention of large military enclaves at its sovereign disposal. Now, when called on to abide by the treaty, it crossed its arms and gave free passage to the modern Attila, claiming that it was helpless – a nuclear power – to do otherwise.

antarchi's quotes

we should open our mouths wide

Submitted by antarchi on April 27, 2008 - 12:26.

It only remained for the British... to name their price for putting the seal of the proprietor on a transaction so satisfactory to them. What London required were sovereign military enclaves on Cyprus – little ‘Gibraltars’, as Macmillan put it. There was less euphemism on the ground. ‘We should open our mouths wide,’ wrote the key British official in Nicosia. The area gulped down was forty times the size of Gibraltar, and when the final treaties establishing the new state and its constitution were signed, more pages were devoted to British bases in Cyprus than to all its other provisions combined – a juridical unicum.

antarchi's quotes