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Robert Fisk puzzles me. He can write observant pieces such as this but on other occasions he seems to miss out the blatant provocation and involvement of Israel in Middle East affairs. British crimes in Ireland have thus far been largely conveniently forgotten but how can we keep ignoring them whilst the high profile arrest of Adams and other Republicans takes place? We either investigate all sides of the conflict or draw a line under it and that includes British Secret Service suspicions. In the interests of (albeit) an uneasy peace, I suggest the latter. A pattern seems to be emerging quite recently of these 'enemies of the state' actually working for MI5 . Strange old world, eh?
what can we do? the rich and powerful haven't left the planet yet and we cannot kick them out; so, exploitation, abuse, torture, genocides to continue...
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. Harold Pinter 2008
Thank you Mr. Fisk for this most enlightening piece. It's been long in coming but we are getting there steadily. The menace of white Jewish supremacists with their genocidal impulses has to be resisted before it is too late. These psychopaths and their soulless offspring…...
It's a pity that most commentators on Israel seem to be still unaware that the evil, hypocritical and cowardly nature of the Beast of the Middle East has been very evident right from its birth in 1919, when it arrived in Palestine, cowardly cowering behind the shorts and kilts of the English Establishment's military mercenaries.
It's influence on British politics is the prime reason for that country's current decline into the destitution among its working class that existed back in 1919.
Its influence on American politics was widely exposed 65 years ago, particularly by the well-known political commentator, Douglas Reed in his book Far and Wide.
It is very appropriate that Mr. Fisk reminds the Beast that their Lord and Messiah displayed his feelings about hypocrisy in a particularly emphatic manner
To be precise Winston Churchill wrote: “The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
by Shenali D Waduge ( November 16, 2013, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) David Cameron has asked Sri Lanka’s President to act like Winston Churchill. That really isn’t the best of examples to give because in looking up Winston Churchill his policies is nothing that Sri Lanka or any of its leaders adopted or would care to adopt just because Churchill said ‘victory in magnanimity’ – he said a lot more horrible things too. Even Germany called Churchill a war criminal. Next, David Cameron wants us to draw parallels with Northern Ireland. That too is not a good idea either. Lastly, David Cameron again uses an often flogged word – ‘reconciliation’. We need to again remind UK that Sri Lanka defeated Terrorists, and we do not need to reconcile with terrorists. Cameron says be like Churchill. So we found out what Churchill’s record has been though much of these details are often hidden even from his biographies. Naturally, not many in the West in particular the UK would like to be told exactly what their hero did to the ‘animals’ that they colonized. Since these ‘animals’ are now hosting Britain as head of the Commonwealth we would like to place some of these facts before readers. Churchill’s atrocities in India · In WW2 Churchill deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death – Sri Lankan Government continued to send food and essentials to the North even while it was under LTTE rule. Sri Lanka Government took loans that are being paid by the taxpayers to feed, look after and resettle all Tamils that had been displaced by the LTTE and not the Sri Lankan Government or the Army. · British Indian Holocaust (1.8 billion excess deaths, 1757-1947; 10 million killed in post-1857 Indian Mutiny reprisals; 1 million starved, 1895-1897 Indian Famine; 6-9 million starved, 1899-1900 Indian Famine; 6-7 million starved under Churchill, Bengali Holocaust 1943-1945 · Churchill acknowledged the crucial importance of maintaining Hindu-Muslim antipathy to preserve British rule [1 million dead and 18 million Muslim and Hindu refugees associated with India-Pakistan Partition in 1947]. Churchill’s atrocities in Germany WHAT NEEDS TO BE ALSO SAID THAT IT WAS CHURCHILLS IDEA TO BOMB CIVILIAN TARGETS FROM THE OUTSET OF WAR AND NOT HITLERS. Winston Churchill was effectively a war criminal who sanctioned the extermination of Germany's civilian population through indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities. The British, led by Sir Arthur Harris, C-in-C Bomber Command, were the leading proponents of "night area bombing", involving the systematic destruction of German industrial capacity and housing. The policy resulted in the laying to waste of city after city, including Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden, and the deaths of some 635,000 Germans. In a secret wartime memorandum, Winston Churchill told his advisers that he wanted to “drench” Germany with poison gas. Churchill’s July 1944 memo to his chief of staff Gen. Hastings Ismay was reproduced in the August-September 1985 issue of American Heritage magazine. “I want you to think very seriously over this question of poison gas,” the four-page note began. Britain’s wartime leader continued: “It is absurd to consider morality on this topic when everybody used it [gas] in the last war without a word of complaint from the moralists or the Church. On the other hand, in the last war the bombing of open cities was regarded as forbidden. Now everybody does it as a matter of course. It is simply a question of fashion changing as she does between long and short skirts for women.” Churchill’s directive bluntly stated: “I want a cold-blooded calculation made as to how it would pay to use poison gas … One really must not be bound within silly conventions of the mind whether they be those that ruled in the last war or those in reverse which rule in this.” Specifically he proposed: “We could drench the cities of the Ruhr and many other cities in Germany in such a way that most of the population would be requiring constant medical attention … It may be several weeks or even months before I shall ask you to drench Germany with poison gas, and if we do it, let us do it one hundred per cent. In the meantime, I want the matter studied in cold blood by sensible people and not by the particular set of psalm-singing uniformed defeatists which one runs across now here now here now there.” Churchill atrocities elsewhere · Sudan atrocities [horrendous British atrocities after the Battle of Obdurman 1898]. · Boer (Afrikaaner) Genocide [28,000 Afrikaaner women and children died in British concentration camps, 1899-1902] – Concept of concentration camps began with the British and not Hitler. · 1944 UK War Cabinet decision Partition of Palestine [in 1878, Jews were 5% of the Palestine population; in 1948 Jews were 1/3 of the population; there are now over 7 million Palestinian refugees; post-1967 Occupied Palestinian excess deaths 0.3 million, post-1967 under-5 infant deaths 0.2 million; excess deaths in countries partially or completely occupied by Apartheid Israel now total about 24 million; 4 million Occupied Palestinians are still illegally and abusively imprisoned by racist Zionists in their own country]. · UK rejection of 1944 Brand plan to save Hungarian Jews [0.2-0.4 million killed by Nazis and Arrow Cross fascists out of 0.7 million; Zionists also opposed the Brand plan] · British, American, Zionist, Australian and European adoption of Churchill's holocaust commission and holocaust denying legacy, with post-war atrocities involving invasion, occupation, devastation and genocide [in relation to Occupiers (in parenthesis) 1950-2005 excess deaths in post-1945 occupied countries total 2 million (white Australia), 36 million (Belgium), 142 million (France), 24 million (Apartheid Israel), 0.7 million (Apartheid South Africa), 23 million (Portugal), 37 million (Russia), 9 million (Spain), 727 million (the UK) and 82 million (the US); 25 million Indigenous excess deaths in post-1950 US Asian Wars; 9-11 million excess deaths associated with 1990-2008 Bush Wars; post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq 2 million, refugees 6 million; post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Afghanistan 4-6 million, refugees 4 million]. Churchills atrocities in World War 1 · World War I - Allied military and civilian dead 5.7 million and 3.7 million, respectively; German-allied (Central Powers) military and civilian deaths 4.0 million and 5.2 million; troop movement-exacerbated Spanish Flu Epidemic killed 20-100 million people world wide. 1918-1922]. · WW1 Dardanelles Campaign in Turkey [0.2 million Allied and Turkish soldiers killed, 1915; precipitated 1915-1923 Turkish Armenian Genocide, 1.5 million Armenians killed]. · UK and US invasion of Russia 1917-1919 [millions died in the Russian Civil War and the subsequent Russian Famine; 7 million died in the circa 1930 Ukrainian Famine; and perhaps up to 20 million died overall in Stalinist atrocities]. · British suppression of the Arab revolt in Iraq (invaded by Britain in 1914) [bombing of Kurds, poison gas use (1920s); violent UK involvement on and off , 1914-2009; 1990-2008 Iraqi excess deaths 4 million; under-5 infant deaths 1.8 million; refugees currently 6 million]. · Support for British Occupation and opposition to Indian self-determination [1757-1947 excess deaths, 1.8 billion; 1895-1897 famine deaths1 million; 1899-1900 Indian Famine, deaths6-9 million deaths; 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust deaths 6-7 million]. Churchill’s atrocities in World War 2 · World War 2 promotion [World War 2 military deaths 25 million and civilian deaths about 67 million]. · Promotion of Japan entry into World War 2 in order to involve the US and hence ensure victory [35 million Chinese avoidable deaths, 1937-1945; 6-7 million Indians starved, Bengal 1943-1945; millions more died in the WW2 Eastern Theatre]. · Churchill knew Singapore was indefensible [8,000-15,000 killed, 130,000 captured in the 1941 Malaya campaign; 14,000 Australian, 16,000 British and 32,000 Indian troops surrendered in Singapore]. · Churchill deliberately did not warn Americans about Pearl Harbor attack [Eastern Theatre WW2 deaths 45 million]. · WW2 Bengal Holocaust, Bengal Famine [deliberate starving to death of of 6-7 million Indians; confessed by Churchill in a letter to Roosevelt]. · Churchill rejected top scientific advice and supported bombing of German cities instead of protecting Atlantic convoys [0.16 million allied airmen killed; 0.6 million German civilians killed; Battle of the Atlantic almost lost; 7 million dead from famine in the Indian Ocean region related to halving of Allied shipping in 1943]. To paraphrase mathematician satirist Tom Lehrer’s song “The Elements”, “These are the only Churchill crimes currently known to Harvard/But there may be many others that haven’t been discovered”. The UK does not wish to acknowledge Churchill’s crimes which is why in the biography of Winston Churchill by Prof. Sir Martin Gilbert there is no mention of the 1943-45 Bengali Holocaust. General Wavell’s diaries repeatedly makes it clear that Churchill hated the Indians and refused assistance for the Bengal Famine. (the Viceroy’s Journal). Churchill said that Indians ‘breed like rabbits’ and policy of starvation was the answer. An account of this is given in History of Britain by Simon Schama though he too omits mention of the Bengal Famine. Colin Mason said ‘the famine, little publicized at the time because of war-time censorship, and inexplicably, still ignored by many modern histories of India and most standard reference works…’ (A short history of Asia). If it is a crime to deny or minimize the Jewish Holocaust where in some countries like Austria one can face upto 10 years in prison for doing so all of the colonial crimes purposely premeditated and calculated must receive equal punishment. Indians may well like to remember that the British throughout its 200 year rule of India killed 1.8BILLION INDIANS. Only a handful of historians have been bold enough to make these facts known. From the mouth of Winston Churchill · "Perhaps the next time round the way to do it will be to kill women, children and the civilian population." This is why we think Cameron either does not know what Churchill did or pretends not to know and having read these accounts Sri Lanka should not act like Churchill for even Germans think him a war criminal. Next are parallels with Ireland. Religion played a key role in Ireland’s problem (Protestants vs Catholics). There was no such religious issue in Sri Lanka. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish Catholics had been prohibited by the penal laws from owning land, from leasing land; from voting, from holding political office; from living in a corporate town or within 5 mi (8.0 km) of a corporate town, from obtaining education, from entering a profession, and from doing many other things necessary for a person to succeed and prosper in Irish society at the time – there was never such restrictions in Sri Lanka. In fact it is the Sinhalese who cannot buy land in the North and now the Chief Minister who had been living virtually all his life in Colombo and is now in the North is asking the Sinhalese to evict no different to what the LTTE did with gun. No different to the Bengal Famine policy in India, the British adopted the same to Ireland during the years 1845 and 1850. This policy by the British Government was one of mass starvation and is known as the Great Famine / Potato Famine. The goal was to subdue the Irish to British will. Over a million Irish died in the famine. Out of a population of 8million before the famine, 1.5million emigrated many boarding ships that were unsafe and many died en route to America and Canada. It is estimated that at least 100,000 died. The famine left a legacy of emigration that continues where as many as 70million worldwide trace their origins to Irish descent but this emigration was far different to the human smuggling racket taking place where Tamils prefer not to go to Tamil Nadu where the politicians are wailing on behalf of them but take boats to Western nations of Australia, Europe and Canada which is why they are now being referred to as ‘economic refugees’. Tony Blair apologized for Britain’s negligence primarily because he wanted to push peace talks between the Catholics and Protestants. There was never rivalry between the Buddhists or Hindus in Sri Lanka. In fact both are today victims of Abrahamic religious conversions. Cameron may have seen parallels in the fact that because a handful of Tamil politicians claim to espouse for a separate Tamil Homeland with the fact that Ireland ran its own parliament before the Act of Union was passed in 1801 and Ireland became integrated with UK. There was never historically a separately run independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka to think of drawing parallels. In Ireland what happened after the Union was that ministers and administers were all in England and ruling from there. Funnily enough all the TNA politicians even throughout LTTE rule were living in Colombo and outskirts and then crying on behalf of the Tamils from Colombo and many of them still continue to do so. Since Mr. Cameron has brought up parallels with Ireland. He may remember the Bloody Sunday massacre for he and others love to use the word ‘accountability’. Sadly, Cameron and Britain think that accountability is only meant for Third World nations for a massacre that took place in 1972 which underwent 2 British inquiries took 38 years to reveal that it was the British troops who were wrong and not the other way round. The inquiry appointed in 1998 took 12 years to conclude this injustice. Finally, we come to the favored word of RECONCILIATION parroted by one and all without looking at the ground realities. What needs to be clearly reiterated to all including the Government of Sri Lanka is that Sri Lanka suffered 30 years of Terrorism, 32 countries had banned LTTE terrorists, LTTE terrorists took the lives of Sinhalese, Muslims and even Tamils (virtually wiping out all learned Tamils from society leaving the handful of those that speak on behalf of the LTTE because of their connections with the LTTE). Thus, Sri Lanka’s Armed forces ended TERROR in May 2009 and Sri Lanka did not fight against Tamils but Terrorists. People seem to get mixed up with the ‘T’ factor. We ended Terror not Tamils, we defeated Terrorists not Tamils. So on what grounds do we reconcile with Terrorists. We next come to the contentious question of Tamil Homeland. It is no better time than now for the Government to not simply say that they will not allow the country to be divided but to clear put the picture that Eelam if at all for Tamils is nowhere else but in Tamil Nadu it is from where the Sri Lankan Tamils came. We next come to another confusing element of grievances vs aspirations. People can have aspirations but no government can give all that people aspire. However, where grievances are concerned the Tamils need to put down where legally, constitutionally and legislatively Tamils are exclusively denied rights and freedoms which ONLY Sinhalese enjoy. Tamil is used on par with Sinhalese in nameboards, currency, state documents, forms, events are jointly done by both Sinhalese and Tamil presenters, tv programs also are done jointly – the list is a long one. In a very unusual method instead of minorities having to learn the majority Sinhalese language the majority has to now learn Tamil. Rightfully, it is the minorities that should be learning Sinhalese given that 7 out of 10 people are Sinhalese. When Sinhalese are told they cannot live or own property in the North and even after the defeat of the LTTE are now being told democratically to evict from the North, is it not the Sinhalese who now have a grievance? What would Cameron say to this right of movement and ownership of land being denied to the Sinhalese? Mr. Cameron from your body language on arrival and the manner you behaved throughout it is disappointing that you are carrying on the legacy of colonial mentality and think that simply because you come from the country that ruled the world with might you can continue to do so. We hope that in darting to see the North though it has nothing to do with why you are in Sri Lanka, you saw for yourself what the North Tamils now enjoy. It is a pity that you did not make the similar efforts to see the crimes committed by the LTTE or visit any of the families of the dead and wounded by the LTTE and they number far more than the ghost numbers flying from the sky. Mr. Cameron came to Sri Lanka after taking 6 years to launch a proper inquiry into UK’s role in Iraq after 4 other inquiries did not satisfy the British public and now you are attempting to block its release, so please don’t come preaching to us. Yet again, we remind Cameron of his links to C4 and LTTE and to keep in mind that Rajiv Gandhi and President Premadasa were both killed by LTTE though they too were 'friends' of LTTE. The crimes of the British one by one should realistically humble British leaders and not make you act as another Viceroy as you currently seem to think you can do. About the Author Posted by Sri Lanka Guardian on 11:40. Filed under feature, History, ShenaliWaduge . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Feel free to leave a response By Sri Lanka Guardian on 11:40. Filed underfeature , History , ShenaliWaduge . Follow any responses to the RSS 2.0. Leave a response
Nobody is safe in a scum state, where there is no rule of law, where a person can be locked up, without an open and transparent trial, on the expensive, paid, secret, evidence of the spooky, unaccountable, intelligence of a foreign, SS Secret Service such as MI5.
Bearing in mind we are constantly being told, that we are in a Peace Process, not wartime Ireland, those supremacist bigoted Tories in London or sectarian Orange Order Loyalists in Belfast, who dismiss Martin Corey’s political internment, as relevant only to traditional Irish Republicans’ or just to the scum state of British Occupied Ireland, would do well to remember the words of their great Tory leader Winston Churchill who wrote;
Habeas corpus and trial by jury are the supreme protection of ordinary people from the state. The power of the state casting a man into prison without formulating charge or deny him judgment by his peers is the odious foundation of totalitarian governments.
To be precise Winston Churchill wrote: “The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
To be further precise, Winston who defeated the Nazi's, I am sure would also agree, that whatever else, neither the Tories or the Orange order can be accused of being communists, so by the very own standards, of their greatest leader, they are most definitively NAZI.
Her Majesty's working class 'commoners' would do well also, to remember the words of the German anti-Nazi theologian Martin Niemöller: "First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. “Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me”
The action of the unelected British Viceroyal and the Government’s Office in overturning a decision of the Belfast High Court, to release veteran Republican Martin Corey, confirms the default position of the British, Peace Process or not, when dealing with Irish working class, as unadulterated, naked, bloody repression.
All the lofty talk of the rule of British law, upon which the British Monarchial state is supposedly based, counts for nothing, when it comes to dealing with those in British Occupied Ireland or elsewhere, whose only "crime’ is to seek self determination for their respective communities or nations.
In Martin Corey's case, the British state has dumped their 800 year old Magna Carta, their Habeas Corpus from the time of their own King John, and courts of a fair and transparent trial, in order to block the release of a traditional Irish Republican, without a shred of credible evidence for "the judgement of his peers" to quote Churchill again.
The political internment of Martin Corey has lifted the veil of secrecy, on the rotten nature, of the scum state of British Occupied Ireland by the standards of any objective, civilized, international observer.
The British repression and brutality visited on Martin Corey, constitutes not only an attack on Martin’s human rights, not only an attack on the human and civil rights of people in British Occupied Ireland but an attack on all ordinary people, referred to as commoners, by their medieval Monarchy, not modern day citizens.
The apologists for sectarian Stormont and the political power sharing arrangements, propagating the illusion, that everything is normal, speak of a new ‘human rights’ regime, with new policing and justice standards. On the day of the recent release, of the interned Marian Price, the President of Provisional Sinn Fein, a principal partner in the power sharing British regime, Gerry Adams himself said, “The logic of today’s release is that Martin Corey should also be freed.”
Now Mr Adams, with all due respect to the part your party played, in the release of Marian Price, after three long years of internment without public charge, reason or time frame, in the instance of 63 year old Martin Corey, there comes a time to walk the talk, to take responsibility as in even the most pretentious democracy.
You sold the Peace Process on a power sharing basis to your movement. I and others like me were willing to give you the benefit of considerable doubt, for the sake of peace. Your Nationalist predecessor the non republican SDLP, walked out of the Stormont parliament, with the introduction of internment without trial 40 years ago, while you own peace loving comrades are still being jailed, while the British are consistently breaking the terms of the peace process.
Enough is enough. You do have the power, mandated to you originally, by the hard work, hardship and commitment of FORMER political activists, like Martin Corey. You are obliged by principles of the 'Irish Republican Movement' from which you originate and derive your power originally, to use that power to dismantle what even the English Tory Churchill referred to as: “The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.”
Mr Adam's, strip away the spin and dross of the current Tory dismantled and discredited 'peace process', the reality of what remains, is the same discredited, sectarian, undemocratic, colonial scum state, with its speclal courts of repression, special laws of repression and a still colonial police force of the RUC/PSNI, to politically police the dictat of a Monarchial tin-pot dictator. Nothing has changed in terms of the repression of the British Crown towards the native Irish people of British Occupied Ireland ask Martin's neighbours.
With a heavy and reluctant heart, I have to report nothing has changed within the British Sectarian Stormont parliament, in the cozy relationship of Britain and it's well oiled middle class career politicians, despite the odd outburst of electioneering bluster, chasing the Queen's shilling, at the expense the of the people of no property, such as the politically interned Martin Corey.
As a former chairperson of Newry Sinn Fein, I'm calling you out Comrade Adams. Be a man, take responsibility, instruct you party to exercise their political mandate, like the SDLP did all those years ago, and inform the Tories of your party's intention, to withdraw from the British parliament of Stormont, until their odious internment without trial, of ordinary Irish people is finished once and for all.
A pattern seems to be emerging quite recently of these 'enemies of the state' actually working for MI5 . Strange old world, eh?
It's influence on British politics is the prime reason for that country's current decline into the destitution among its working class that existed back in 1919.
Its influence on American politics was widely exposed 65 years ago, particularly by the well-known political commentator, Douglas Reed in his book Far and Wide.
It is very appropriate that Mr. Fisk reminds the Beast that their Lord and Messiah displayed his feelings about hypocrisy in a particularly emphatic manner