Delegates to the recent Labour Party conference in the English seaside town of Brighton seemed not to notice a video playing in the main entrance. The world’s third biggest arms manufacturer, BAe Systems, supplier to Saudi Arabia, was promoting its guns, bombs, missiles, naval ships and fighter aircraft.
Ew sembolek xapînok a partiyek xuya bû ku bi mîlyonan Brîtanî niha hêviyên xwe yên siyasî razandine. Berê parastina Tony Blair, niha ji hêla Jeremy Corbyn ve tê rêvebirin, ku kariyera wî pir cûda bû û di siyaseta sazûmanên Brîtanî de kêm e.
Di axaftina konferansê de, kampanyaker Naomi Klein bilindbûna Corbyn wekî "beşek ji fenomenek gerdûnî" binav kir. Me ew di kampanyaya dîrokî ya Bernie Sanders de di hilbijartinên seretayî yên Dewletên Yekbûyî de dît, ku ji hêla hezarsalan ve hatî hêz kirin ku dizanin ku siyaseta navendparêz a ewle tu pêşerojek ewle pêşkêşî wan nake.
In fact, at the end of the US primary elections last year, Sanders led his followers into the arms of Hillary Clinton, a liberal warmonger from a long tradition in the Democratic Party.
As President Obama’s Secretary of State, Clinton presided over the invasion of Libya in 2011, which led to a stampede of refugees to Europe. She gloated at the gruesome murder of Libya’s president. Two years earlier, Clinton signed off on a coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras. That she has been invited to Wales on 14 October to be given an honorary doctorate by the University of Swansea because she is “synonymous with human rights” is unfathomable.
Like Clinton, Sanders is a cold-warrior and “anti-communist” obsessive with a proprietorial view of the world beyond the United States. He supported Bill Clinton’s and Tony Blair’s illegal assault on Yugoslavia in 1998 and the invasions of Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, as well as Barack Obama’s campaign of terrorism by drone. He backs the provocation of Russia and agrees that the whistleblower Edward Snowden should stand trial. He has called the late Hugo Chavez – a social democrat who won multiple elections – “a dead communist dictator”.
Dema ku Sanders siyasetmedarek lîberal a Amerîkî naskirî ye, Corbyn dibe ku fenomenek be, bi piştgirîya xwe ya bêwestan ji bo qurbaniyên serpêhatiyên emperyal ên Amerîkî û Brîtanî û ji bo tevgerên berxwedana gel.
For example, in the 1960s and 70s, the Chagos islanders were expelled from their homeland, a British colony in the Indian Ocean, by a Labour government. An entire population was kidnapped. The aim was to make way for a US military base on the main island of Diego Garcia: a secret deal for which the British were “compensated” with a discount of $14 million off the price of a Polaris nuclear submarine.
I have had much to do with the Chagos islanders and have filmed them in exile in Mauritius and the Seychelles, where they suffered and some of them “died from sadness”, as I was told. They found a political champion in a Labour Member of Parliament, Jeremy Corbyn.
So did the Palestinians. So did Iraqis terrorised by a Labour prime minister’s invasion of their country in 2003. So did others struggling to break free from the web of western power. Corbyn supported the likes of Hugo Chavez, who brought more than hope to societies subverted by the US behemoth.
And yet, now Corbyn is closer to power than he might have ever imagined, his foreign policy remains a secret.
By secret, I mean there has been rhetoric and little else. “We must put our values at the heart of our foreign policy,” he said at the Labour conference. But what are these “values”?
Since 1945, like the Tories, British Labour has been an imperial party, obsequious to Washington: a record exemplified by the crime in the Chagos islands.
What has changed? Is Corbyn saying Labour will uncouple itself from the US war machine, and the US spying apparatus and US economic blockades that scar humanity?
His shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry, says a Corbyn government “will put human rights back at the heart of Britain’s foreign policy”. But human rights have never been at the heart of British foreign policy — only “interests”, as Lord Palmerston declared in the 19th century: the interests of those at the apex of British society.
Thornberry quoted the late Robin Cook who, as Tony Blair’s first Foreign Secretary in 1997, pledged an “ethical foreign policy” that would “make Britain once again a force for good in the world”.
Dîrok ji nostaljîya emperyal re ne dilovan e. Parçebûna Hindistanê ya herî dawî ji hêla hukûmetek Karker ve di sala 1947-an de hate bibîranîn - bi sînorek ku bi lez û bez ji hêla parêzgerê Londonê, Gordon Radcliffe, ku çu carî neçûbû Hindistanê û çu carî venegeriyabû hate danîn - bû sedema rijandina xwînê di astek qirkirinê de.
Bi şev û roj bi polîsan re li xaniyek bêkes girtî
Li baxçeyan geriyan da ku qatilan dûr bixin,
Destê xwe da ser karê xwe, ji bo çareserkirina qederê
Ji mîlyonan. Nexşeyên ku di destê wî de bûn kevn bûn
Û Serjimar Vedigere hema bê guman xelet,
Lê ne wextê kontrolkirina wan, ne jî wextê kontrolê hebû
Herêmên nakok. Hewa pir germ bû,
Û pêleka dîzenteriyê ew bi berdewamî li ser trotê dihişt,
Lebê in seven weeks it was done, the frontiers decided,
Parzemînek ji bo baştir an xirabtir hatî dabeş kirin.
W.H. Auden, ‘Partition'.
It was the same Labour government (1945-51), led by Prime Minister Clement Attlee – “radical” by today’s standards — that dispatched General Douglas Gracey’s British imperial army to Saigon with orders to re-arm the defeated Japanese in order to prevent Vietnamese nationalists from liberating their own country. Thus, the longest war of the century was ignited.
Wezîrê Karê Derve yê Karê Ernest Bevin bû, ku siyaseta wî ya "hevalîtî" û "hevkarî" bi hin despotên herî xerab ên cîhanê re, nemaze li Rojhilata Navîn, têkiliyên ku îro dom dikin, pir caran mafên mirovan ên tevahiyê li alîkî û pelçiqandin. civak û civakan. Sedem "berjewendiyên" Brîtanî bû - neft, hêz û dewlemendî.
Di salên 1960-î yên "radîkal" de, Wezîrê Parastinê yê Kedê, Denis Healey, Rêxistina Firotina Parastinê (DSO) bi taybetî damezrand da ku bazirganiya çekan geş bike û ji firotina çekên kujer ji cîhanê re pere qezenc bike. Healey ji parlamenê re got, "Her çend em girîngiyê didin pêşkeftina di warê kontrolkirina çekan û bêçekkirinê de, divê em çi gavên pratîkî jî bavêjin da ku ev welat nekare para xwe ya rast ji vê bazara giranbiha misoger bike. ”
The doublethink was quintessentially Labour. When I later asked Healey about this “valuable market”, he claimed his decision made no difference to the volume of military exports. In fact, it led to an almost doubling of Britain’s share of the arms market. Today, Britain is the second biggest arms dealer on earth, selling arms and fighter planes, machine guns and “riot control” vehicles, to 22 of the 30 countries on the British Government’s own list of human rights violators.
Will this stop under a Corbyn government? The preferred model – Robin Cook’s “ethical foreign policy” – is revealing. Like Jeremy Corbyn, Cook made his name as a backbencher and critic of the arms trade. “Wherever weapons are sold,” wrote Cook, “there is a tacit conspiracy to conceal the reality of war” and “it is a truism that every war for the past two decades has been fought by poor countries with weapons supplied by rich countries”.
Cook singled out the sale of British Hawk fighters to Indonesia as “particularly disturbing”. Indonesia “is not only repressive but actually at war on two fronts: in East Timor, where perhaps a sixth of the population has been slaughtered … and in West Papua, where it confronts an indigenous liberation movement”.
As Foreign Secretary, Cook promised “a thorough review of arms sales”. The then Nobel Peace Laureate, Bishop Carlos Belo of East Timor, appealed directly to Cook: “Please, I beg you, do not sustain any longer a conflict which without these arms sales could never have been pursued in the first place and not for so very long.”
He was referring to Indonesia’s bombing of East Timor with British Hawks and the slaughter of his people with British machine guns. He received no reply.
The following week Cook called journalists to the Foreign Office to announce his “mission statement” for “human rights in a new century”. This PR event included the usual private briefings for selected journalists, including the BBC, in which Foreign Office officials lied that there was “no evidence” that British Hawk aircraft were deployed in East Timor.
A few days later, the Foreign Office issued the results of Cook’s “thorough review” of arms sales policy. “It was not realistic or practical,” wrote Cook, “to revoke licences which were valid and in force at the time of Labour’s election victory”. Suharto’s Minister for Defence, Edi Sudradjat, said that talks were already under way with Britain for the purchase of 18 more Hawk fighters. “The political change in Britain will not affect our negotiations,” he said. He was right.
Îro li şûna Endonezyayê Erebîstana Siûdî û Tîmora Rojhilat jî bi Yemenê re bi cih bikin. Balafirên leşkerî yên Brîtanî - bi erêkirina hukûmetên Tory û Kedê têne firotin û ji hêla fîrmaya ku vîdyoya danasîna wê di konferansa partiya Kedê ya 2017-an de cihê serbilindiyê bû hatî çêkirin - jiyana li derveyî Yemenê, ku yek ji welatên herî feqîr ê cîhanê ye, bombebaran dike. ku nîvê zarokan kêmxwarinê ne û di serdema nûjen de nexweşiya kolerayê ya herî mezin heye.
Hospitals and schools, weddings and funerals have been attacked. In Ryadh, British military personnel are reported to be training the Saudis in selecting targets.
Di manîfestoya niha ya Partiya Kar de, Jeremy Corbyn û hevalên wî yên partiyê soz dan ku "Kar dê daxwaza lêpirsînek berfireh, serbixwe, bi pêşengiya Neteweyên Yekbûyî li ser binpêkirinên îdiakirî ... li Yemenê, di nav de êrîşên asmanî yên li ser sivîlan ji aliyê koalîsyona bi pêşengiya Siûdî. Em ê yekser firotina çekan a ji bo bikaranîna di şer de bidin sekinandin heta ku ev lêpirsîn bi dawî bibe.”
Lê delîlên tawanên Erebistana Siûdî li Yemenê ji berê de ji hêla Amnesty û yên din ve hatine belge kirin, nemaze bi raporta wêrek a rojnamevana Brîtanî Iona Craig. Dosya girng e.
Karker soza rawestandina hinartina çekan bo Erebistana Siûdî nadin. Ew nabêje Brîtanya dê piştgiriya xwe ji hikûmetên ku ji hinardekirina cîhadîzma îslamî berpirsiyar in vekişîne. Ji bo hilweşandina bazirganiya çekan ti sozek nîne.
The manifesto describes a “special relationship [with the US] based on shared values … When the current Trump administration chooses to ignore them … we will not be afraid to disagree”.
As Jeremy Corbyn knows, dealing with the US is not about merely “disagreeing”. The US is a rapacious, rogue power that ought not to be regarded as a natural ally of any state championing human rights, irrespective of whether Trump or anyone else is President.
When Emily Thornberry , in her conference speech, linked Venezuela with the Philippines as “increasingly autocratic regimes” – slogans bereft of facts and ignoring the subversive US role in Venezuela — she was consciously playing to the enemy: a tactic with which Jeremy Corbyn will be familiar.
A Corbyn government will allow the Chagos islanders the right of return. But Labour says nothing about renegotiating the 50-year renewal agreement that Britain has just signed with the US allowing it to use the base on Diego Garcia from which it has bombed Afghanistan and Iraq.
A Corbyn government will “immediately recognise the state of Palestine”. There is silence on whether Britain will continue to arm Israel, continue to acquiesce in the illegal trade in Israel’s illegal “settlements” and treat Israel merely as a warring party, rather than as an historic oppressor given immunity by Washington and London.
On Britain’s support for Nato’s current war preparations, Labour boasts that the “last Labour government spent above the benchmark of 2 per cent of GDP” on Nato. It says, “Conservative spending cuts have put Britain’s security at risk” and promises to boost Britain’s military “obligations”.
In fact, most of the £40 billion Britain currently spends on the military is not for territorial defence of the UK but for offensive purposes to enhance British “interests” as defined by those who have tried to smear Jeremy Corbyn as unpatriotic.
If the polls are reliable, most Britons are well ahead of their politicians, Tory and Labour. They would accept higher taxes to pay for public services; they want the National Health Service restored to full health. They want decent jobs and wages and housing and schools; they do not hate foreigners but resent exploitative labour. They have no fond memory of an empire on which the sun never set.
They oppose the invasion of other countries and regard Blair as a liar. The rise of Donald Trump has reminded them what a menace the United States can be, especially with their own country in tow.
Partiya Karker sûdmendê vê helwêstê ye, lê gelek sozên wê - bê guman di siyaseta derve de - bi kalîte û lihevhatî ne, ji bo gelek Brîtaniyan, ji heman tiştî zêdetir pêşniyar dike.
Jeremy Corbyn is widely and properly recognised for his integrity; he opposes the renewal of Trident nuclear weapons; the Labour Party supports it. But he has given shadow cabinet positions to pro-war MPs who support Blairism, tried to get rid of him and abused him as “unelectable”.
“We are the political mainstream now,” says Corbyn. Yes, but at what price?
ZNetwork tenê bi comerdîtiya xwendevanên xwe ve tê fînanse kirin.
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Mr.Pilger truth teller.