On The long road to defeat

by Ken Ferguson

Like a slowly unfolding drama the British engagement as junior partner in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is moving towards defeat.
All summer our TV screens have been filled with dramatic images of British soldiers fighting in the most violent conflict since Korea in the heat and dust of Afghanistan.
Their comrades in Iraq have also been in the media spotlight as they pulled out of Basra en masse in what the army spin doctors called a planned operation but was actually a defeat.
It recalls the famous remark by Karl Marx about history repeating itself first as tragedy and then as farce.
Yet despite a widespread recognition that both wars are a disaster there are only limited signs that this reality has reached the commanders responsible.
One such was the admission from Helmand NATO commander General Dan McNeil who told BBC journalists that British troops are struggling to retain territories that they had gained there.
And he went on to say that the Taliban are likely to retake the ground gains - with heavy losses -once winter sets in.
In what must be a classic of military understatement General McNeil went on:
“The Afghan national security forces have not been as successful in holding as we would like them to be.
“It would nice if the Afghan national security force could hold it, then there’s less of a chance we’ll have to do it again.”
So there - pity about all the blood and gore chaps but the locals we are defending will lose the ground won so be prepared to do it again in the spring.
Not discussed are the reasons why the fighting has been so tough and the Afghan army so unenthusiastic about the war that they probably wonít put up much of a fight.
In reality the policy of bombing villages and killing civilians has severely dented support for the NATO liberators and the puppet government in Kabul.
Meanwhile in that other war in Iraq the impression has been created that, under Gordon (GB) Brown, UK troops are busily packing the souvenirs and heading for the airport.
Not so.
With little publicity British troops fresh from being ëredeployedí from Basra Palace, their last remaining base inside Basra city have been sent - at US request - to the highly volatile Iranian border
Brigadier James Bashall, commander of 1 Mechanised Brigade, diplomatically said:
“We have been asked to help at the Iranian border to stop the flow of weapons and I am willing to do so. We know the points of entry and I am sure we can do what needs to be done. The US forces are, as we know, engaged in the ‘surge’ and the border is of particular concern to them.”
Translated this means the Yanks have their hands full up north and have told us to get to the border and guard their backs
The unenviable task falls to the King’s Royal Hussars battle group, 250 of whom had already been told that they would be returning to the UK as part of a drawdown of forces in Iraq.
There are fears that the high - risk strategy which could spark clashes with Iranian-backed Shia militias or even Iranian regular forces.
There is a real the possibility of Iranian retaliation in the form of attacks against British forces at the Basra air base or inciting violence to draw them back into Basra city.
Bushís pin up soldier, Gen Petraeus, is said to have personally requested the Brits on the border.
The move comes as the surge salesman stepped up the war of words on Iran accusing Teheran of fighting a ‘proxy war’ with the Coalition in Iraq which ,he threatened ,could spill into Iran.
Amidst rising fears that the US plans to manufacture a pretext for attacking Iran by provoking border skirmishes, the positioning of the British troops there provides useful cover for plans for a premeditated war against Iran.
War fears are being heightened as the US, supported by the UK and France, persists with the demand that Iran suspends uranium enrichment or face another round of Security Council sanctions, which could pave the path to a military attack on Iran.
This approach is in sharp contrast to the latest statement from the International Atomic Energy Authority which is negotiating a peaceful solution to the crisis.
As part of the process to achieve this the IAEA said of the Iranian nuclear materials that they observed ìthe non-diversion of the declared nuclear materials at the enrichment facilities in Iran and therefore concluded that they remain in peaceful useî
In other words they havenít been put to use in Iranian WMDs - does that ring any bells?

Who’s the warmonger in the box?

by Wullie McGartland

The announcement that Labour MP John Reid is to become the new Chairman of Celtic Football Club has met with opposition from fans of the Club.
Web pages have been set up, an online petition against the appointment has been started and a demonstration of fans organised before the Champions League game against AC Milan.
The former New Labour warmonger and Blair attack dog is due to take over from outgoing Chair Brian Quinn.
It comes as no surprise that Reid has been elevated to his new post, especially when you look at who he can count amongst his friends.
The main one being Dermot Desmond, the real power at Celtic and the puller of the Chairmanís strings, the Irish multi-millionaire with more than a passing interest in New Labour.
Desmond’s companies have done quite well out of Reid and his cronies in the UK government.
The government’s Private Finance Initiative policies have been quite a wee windfall for Dermot, his companies have been given lucrative contracts with Nottingham Police, Merseyside Fire Service and the East Anglia Ambulance Fund.
In return Desmond bunged £35,000 to the Labour Party coffers. Reid himself was treated to an all expenses paid trip to the UEFA Cup Final in Seville in 2003 and was flown up from London for last seasons Scottish Cup Final.
Reidís links with Desmond don’t stop there. Before leaving the government Reidís last post was that of Home Secretary, a position he used to push for tighter security measures such as ID cards.
The same sort of ID cards being punted by a company called Daon, who specialise in airport security and have recently linked up with the American Association of Airport Executives to develop tamperproof ID cards, who just happen to be part of Dermot Desmond’s investment portfolio.
Reid is also being tipped a future member of the board of Daon. If only to get access to his wee black book, which includes people such as America’s head of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, as well as those at the top of the Labour Party.
His appointment to the top post at Parkhead is just the latest instalment in his somewhat chequered history.
He started out as a member of the Communist Party, soon dumping that for a more lucrative career in the Labour Party.
He wormed his way through Labour’s ranks, having spells as a parliamentary researcher and speech writer for the likes of Neil Kinnock, before becoming an MP in 1987.
While at Westminster he quickly established a reputation as a bully and sex pest.
The latter relating to his sexual harassment of fellow Labour MP Dawn Primarlolo, who he is reported to have carried out concerted lecherous advances towards for years.
Reid tried to put this down to his drink problem (something he now claims to have dealt with).
Reidís big break came after the Blair election victory of 1997 ñ holding several Ministerial posts including Defence, Health and laterally Home Secretary.
During his time in the Cabinet he could be relied on to obey whatever his master Tony told him.
He was one of the most vociferous supporters of Blair and Bush’s murderous illegal wars.
Celtic drawing AC Milan in the Champions League gives Reid a chance to link up with fellow warmonger Silvio Berlusconi, the former right wing Italian President and owner of AC, they can have a good old natter about killing innocent people.
It has also been reported that Reid will be bringing guests with him to future Celtic games in the shape of armed guards.
These guards sit amongst ordinary fans while armed to the teeth ñ any slightly dark skinned Celtic fans should beware.
The likelihood is that Reid will be crowned the new Chairman at Parkhead, but ordinary Celtic fans will keep up the campaign against the murderous war criminal.
Get the message John - YOU’RE NOT WELCOME AT PARADISE.

n You can sign the anti-Reid petition at www.gopetition.com/online/14473.html

Cameron and Brown suck up to super rich

by Ken Ferguson

As the Voice goes to press Premier Brown is still engaged in his dance of the seven veils teasing both voters and opponents with his ìwill he, wont heî election call.
However tearing themselves away from the cabaret voters could be forgiven for asking the simple questionówhat has this got to do with me?
Stripped of the spin and hype it is increasingly clear that, for the vast majority of people, the supposed titanic battle between Brown and Cameron is largely phoney.
What is at stake should an election be called will not be any great matters of principle about the direction of policy or the kind of country on offer.
Expect plenty of warm words about’ìopportunity’, ‘fairness’, ‘stability’ and other soft focus ideas as the big two aim to convince that both their leaders are nice family men you can trust.
Donít expect and serious moves away from the Neo Liberal script which says the present market led set up is the pinnacle of human achievement and only capable of a little fine tuning.
Yes we will be treated to concerns about security, global warming, housing and health but will not be offered any solutions which arenít based on a pro capitalist big business friendly solution.
So, for example, despite the supposed greening of the Tories led by super rich green Zac Goldsmith they will still back expanded airports and free supermarket parking.
New Labour will paint the Tories as extremist opponents the NHS and the workers but remain happy to pose with the iconic symbol of ant working class politics, Thatcher, on the steps of Downing Street.
Brown will stress his determination to keep the city super rich bankers safe from their own self created losses on the money markets but ignore vast losses sustained by workers with worthless pensions caused by the same speculators.
Both will back war and imperialism in the name of the spurious ëwar on terrorí which is largely a smoke screen for keeping the world safe for big business and its profit margins and both lust after bigger and better nuclear weapons.
This tragedy is that this Punch and Judy show is taking place in a world of war, poverty and crisis which is a million miles away from the smug spin projections of those politicians who inhabit the green benches of Westminster.
Thousands are now struggling to pay rising food a fuel prices and face major hikes in heating as oil prices reach record levels. They will also have to pick up the tab for the city moneylenders blunders in the shape of rising mortgage rates.
Thousands more without any serious prospect of buying a home face a housing black hole as both major party tinker with wheezes to get people on the infamous ëhousing ladderí while stubbornly refusing to build new council houses.
The list goes on but at its heart is the fact that both Tory and New Labour parties are now so similar that they largely ignore the concerns of all voters other than those in supposed marginal seats.
In turn this is one of the key factors behind low voter turnout ñ a problem which is most serious in the poorest parts of the country as the Westminster circus has less and less apparent connection with voters.
Certainly there is urgent work to do in tackling the environmental crisis, providing decent well paid secure jobs, peace and an end to UK poodling to Bushís wars.
However a combination of the hopelessly undemocratic electoral system, the high cost of standing and the media fixation on the big two realistically means that alternative voices will have to fight hard for a hearing.
Nevertheless an election campaign will mean that politics are being discussed much more widely than normal and it will be vital that the policies of the SSP on such matters as free public transport, ending war, independence, scrapping PFI and free school meals are put before as many voters as possible.

Support the Hate Crime Bill

by Nick Henderson

Finally, there is a bill in the Scottish Parliament to introduce Hate Crime laws to protect Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Disabled people. Typically, it was the ‘gay’ MSP who introduced the bill, Patrick Harvie; not the Scottish Government of course, because otherwise Mr Salmond might not get his half million from Mr Souter next time round. Or will the SNP even support it?
Labour doesn’t like it, and surprise, surprise; the Conservative Party decided that they are quite happy to see LGBT and disabled Scots beaten to a pulp while their assailants get away with it. In fact, according to Tory shadow justice secretary Bill Aitken:
“The problem now is that there are too many aggravations, racial or sectarian. It has created a situation whereby the only people who do not enjoy the full protection of the court are heterosexual white males.”
In the United States, gay rights organisations such as HRC, the Human Rights Campaign, have spent years trying to pass ENDA, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which would protect LGBT people from being sacked from their jobs just for being LGBT. In the last few days, they got so close.
The bill was co sponsored by one of only two openly gay members of congress, Barney Frank, and the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Gay groups were so close to passing this bill; millions of Americans were literally hours from finally having their jobs protected from homophobic employers. But ENDA was gutted. The provisions protecting transgendered and transsexuals were disregarded, and then the provisions covering gender expression were dropped too.
This means that bosses could still fire those employees who do not conform to their belief of how a man or woman should act.
Gay rights groups from the HRC to the American Civil Liberties Union were forced to pull their support for the bill that had such great intentions. The LGBT community in the US overwhelmingly decided to stand in solidarity with all members of the community.
With this coming Hate Crimes bill in Scotland, and others in the future, we have to remember to ensure that these laws and rights are given to the entire community.
The general image of the LGBT community that Scotland has is as stereotypical as it is homophobic.
On the Reporting Scotland piece on Patrick Harvie’s proposals, the majority of the images of LGBT people were of hunky men in nothing but pants dancing on a parade float blowing whistles, lesbians dressed in leather and transsexuals in shiny boots and polyester wigs.
Now that’s all very well, but to show that as the main image of the LGBT community in Scotland, while talking about such a serious issue as Hate Crimes, gives a shockingly skewed view of this community.
The Scottish Socialist Party puts our full and unequivocal support behind this bill to expand Hate Crimes to cover LGBT and Disabled people, and sees it as an important and necessary step in bringing real equality to Scotland.
We also demand that the media begin to represent the LGBT community for what it is, a large section of this country that faces discrimination and hatred on a massive scale, and only today with the introducing of this bill, is that beginning to be redressed.

Looming credit crisis underpins election fever

by Ken Ferguson

If you are reading this in the midst of continuing election fever and wonder why then its time to take that the old reliable socialist advice: follow the money.
For the truth is that, despite the earnest assurances that all is well from our ex-socialist Chancellor the pallid Alistair Darling, the facts tell another story.
The run on Northern Rock was the first UK bank crisis with a spooked public demanding their cash since Victorian times over 150 years ago and forced New Labour to intervene and effectively nationalise it.
More importantly it exposed the Alice in Wonderland world of so called ‘financial services’ for what it is - a bookies shop with slightly better dressed staff.
However readers should guard against attempts by sleek money experts, so called think tank experts and politicians to convince them that only they know how to put things right.
Indeed the polar opposite is the case for it is the tribe of city moneylenders, pro market academics and spineless politicians who between them created the now rampaging Frankenstein monster of globalised capital.
And despite claims to the contrary the Tory and New Labour politicians are united in their blind adulation of globalised money and its supposed benefits for us all.
What benefits?
Anyone fondly imagining that this is about them and not us better think again.
The latest information indicates that personal loan interest rates have risen 4 per cent and mortgages are going the same way making house buying even more expensive and keeping up payments a growing burden.
Darling broke with his customary low profile and, in press interviews, blamed the banks for being irresponsible and called for a return to “good old fashioned banking”.
He might as well ask them to adopt Zen Buddhism or Bolshevism for this is one Super Casino that they cannot and will not block and itís the bankers who call the shots.
One important effect has been to expose the hype around discussions - brought to us each month - of Bank of England experts setting interest rates.
As rates soar despite the efforts of central banks such as the Bank of England and the Fed the lesson is well and truly driven home - the money lenders will set their own prices and the public will pay them.
Given that Prime Minister Brown spent ten years overseeing the economy it is a safe bet that he is very well informed about the depth and gravity of the gathering crisis and what its political impact could be.
It is this knowledge alongside soaring oil prices and worsening wars that is leading him to reverse New Labour famous theme tune and whistle Things Can Only Get Worse.
All the froth about opinion polls, Ming’s age, Cameron’s quiff, Gordon’s tie etc is purely mood music.
The tune is being called in Wall Street and the City not Downing Street or even the White House and it is this that is tempting Brown to go while the going is relatively good.

The worst place in the world?

The Russian town wrecked by nuclear power

by Roz Paterson

Nuclear power is still being touted as the clean, green solution to environmental crisis - mostly by people with a vested interest in the nuclear industry, of course.
The big lie being that nuclear energy is an incredibly carbon-intensive business.
Those nuclear reactors don’t just spring up naturally, you know; they take years and millions of tonnes of energy to build.
Then there’s the carbon cost of mining and shipping the earth’s dwindling supply of uranium halfway across the planet.
And then there’s the other cost that nuclear apologists choose to ignore. The human cost.
Nuclear power is deadly to those who live in its shadow.
Chernobyl is always cited as an example of just how deadly, yet much less is heard about the world’s second biggest nuclear catastrophe, which occurred in the Soviet Union 50 years ago.
On 28 September 1957, a storage tank containing highly radioactive liquid waste exploded at the Mayak Chemical Nuclear Complex in the Southern Urals.
Mayak was one of three ‘closed cities’ established by Stalin in the 1940s in the far-flung Ural Mountains and Siberia, in response to the US development of the atom bomb.
Here in these ‘nuclear gulags’, uranium was enriched and turned into nuclear energy, and deadly leakages and blasts occurred again and again without a whisper to the outside world.
Until very recently, Mayak could not be found on any map.
The 1957 explosion, which raised a plume 50 km wide and 1000 km long, released almost half as much radioactive waste into the atmosphere as was expelled by the Chernobyl blast.
Some 217 towns and over a quarter of a million people were exposed to potentially lethal levels of radiation, yet only a handful of locals were evacuated.
But then, the authorities had allowed these people to be slowly poisoned for nearly a decade anyway.
Between 1948 and 1957, radioactive waste was poured straight into the Techa River, an important local source of drinking water, exposing 124,000 people to hazardous levels of radioactivity.
The subsequent diseases and deformities came to be known as ‘river disease’, though everyone knew the source was not the water but the nuclear complex that spewed its guts into it.
On top of which, nuclear waste was dumped into the lakes of West Siberia, from whence nuclear dust was blown by high winds across vast regions.
Today, Mayak remains one of the most contaminated places on earth, if not the most, yet many people have never been evacuated, although some eventually just abandoned their homes, unable to endure this godforsaken place any longer.
The town of Muslumovo, for example, is almost entirely abandoned now. Its main street is a water-logged ruin of collapsed houses and weeds, its main square a bare plateau across which the wind howls endlessly.
The Techa flows through here, but drinking from it and swimming in it is now forbidden. Not that anyone heeds the warnings; they all left, most of them ill with radioactive poisoning.
The Mayak legacy is spelled out in birth defects and cancers. Muslumovo records genetic abnormalities at 25 times the rate of other areas of Russia.
Cancer statistics are even more disproportionate.
It’s not just those, like Gumanov, a local agricultural worker who was forcibly drafted into help with the clean-up operation in 1957, who are stricken. Children born today are still sickening from Mayak.
In 1974, Gumanov found his bones begin to become bendy and twisted. Today he walks propped up on crutches.
At a local kindergarten, children are regularly absent, through diseases they contracted long before they were even conceived. They have nerve diseases, faulty hearts, blood disorders, cancers. And their parents are too poor, and too isolated geographically, to access the kind of specialist medical care they need.
Yet, and here’s the killer, Mayak’s problems did not end with the 1957 disaster.
It remains the biggest nuclear complex in the world. That’s right; it’s still working.
And recently, the Russian Duma brought through legislation allowing Mayak to receive nuclear waste from other countries.
Once here, some will be reprocessed, but most will just lie, sinking into the ground, pretty much forever.
So, when politicians blithely tell you that nuclear waste is a problem that only future generations need to worry about, don’t believe a word of it.
Like all cases of environmental injustice, this one is visited upon people too poor and powerless to resist.
Thus far, 3million cubic metres of radioactive liquid has been dumped in Mayak and released into the environment, and 1540 tons of spent nuclear fuel has been reprocessed, brought here from such clean, green nations as Germany, Finland, Hungary, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.
Russia is currently touting for trade with Switzerland, Spain, South Korea, Slovenia, Italy and Belgium.
The world has lived with the headache of nuclear leakage and waste for over half a century, and no solution has been found.
Nuclear energy is an experiment that has failed, disastrously, over and over again. It’s time we sealed the lid on it, and mended our ways.
We will not find an endless, cheap, clean source of energy, so we must learn to use less, or the world will fill up with poisoned hollows like Mayak and there will be nothing left.
www.greenpeace.org/russia

“We are living in hell - Please help us”

“Everyone is so afraid. People are scared to go out into the streets, most shops are shut. The world must know what is going on, we need international pressure. If the pressure continues the regime can’t survive. Maybe a few months, but it can’t survive if the pressure continues.”

That was the message from a Burmese activist, as the military junta continued efforts to smash resistance, having rounded up and detained an estimated 100,000 activists as the Voice went to press. On Saturday 6 October, a worldwide day of action intends to keep the focus on this country where army generals rule with blood-soaked terror.
The Voice has regularly covered the struggle of the Burmese pro-democracy movement, and this week we look again at the bravery and brutality that’s marked Burma’s history.

by Tony Iltis

What began on 15 August as protests against escalating fuel and transport prices and deteriorating economic conditions has developed into a mass uprising in Burma.
From 17 September, mobilisations by Buddhist monks and nuns emboldened thousands of Burmese to take to the streets in the largest protests since the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 that was brutally crushed, with over 3000 people killed, by the military regime that has ruled Burma since 1962.
The military was initially reluctant to attack the Buddhist clergy-led mobilisations, not wishing to undermine the regime’s claims to be the protector of the national religion.
However, by 26 September, with more than 100,000 people mobilising in Rangoon for several days running (300,000 on September 26 according to www.mizzima.com, website of the Delhi-based exile-Burmese Mizzima News Agency) the military began baton-charging, tear-gassing and firing on the protests. Pro-government militias have also been used against the protests.
The military also raided monasteries, arresting large numbers of monks. The official death toll stands at 13, although both internal and Western sources suggest it is probably significantly higher.
A Japanese photojournalist, Kenji Nagai, was shot dead on September 27, and there are reports that other foreigners may have been killed.
Since the crackdown started, protests have continued but numbering in tens of thousands rather than hundreds of thousands. The Buddhist clergy has been less visible, with monks and nuns either in detention or blockaded inside their monasteries by the military.
That the 15 August announcement of the lifting of fuel subsidies prompted such large numbers to confront a military regime notorious for its brutality towards dissent is an indication of the dire economic circumstances faced by ordinary Burmese.
Over 90 per cent of the population live on less than $1 a day and malnutrition is rife. The end of fuel subsidies meant that many people could no longer afford public transport to get to work.
“It’s either die of starvation or go out on the street and get shot by the government,” said Htay, a Burmese refugee living in Australia.
Centuries of British colonial exploitation meant that Burma was already impoverished when it won independence in 1948. The situation was worsened by civil war, the irrational economic policies of the isolationist Ne Win regime (1962-1988) and the wholesale plunder of the country by the junta that has ruled since 1988.
Burma’s independence was won by the struggles of the Anti-Fascist Peoples Freedom League against the Japanese and British. However, the assassination of its leader Aung San by conservatives on the eve of independence, the split of the movement between communists and anti-communists, and self-determination struggles by the more than 100 ethnic minorities who comprise 35 per cent of the country’s population meant that the ‘democratic’ period of Burma’s post-independence history was marked by civil war and instability.
Things got worse after General Ne Win’s 1962 military coup. Not only did the bulk of the country’s resources continue to go on the military’s efforts to crush the ethnic and communist insurgencies, but Ne Win’s policy of isolating Burma from the rest of the world increased economic stagnation.
Furthermore, the dictator’s predilection for numerology meant bizarre meddling in the currency that had the effect of making people’s life savings worthless. It was this that catalysed the protests that grew into the 1988 uprising, in which students were prominent.
While the military responded to the uprising by massacring protesters, they also dumped Ne Win and allowed elections to be held in 1990. These elections were won by the National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of independence leader Aung San.However, the junta that had taken power in 1988 (called the State Law and Order Restoration Council before adopting the less accurate name of State Peace and Development Council in 1997) refused to recognise the election’s results and has since held Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest (she was briefly released in the mid-90s and 2002-03).
Thousands of students and activists involved in the 1988 uprising went into exile. Others fled to the border bases of the ethnic insurgencies and took up armed struggle. Some, after serving long periods in prison, remained active in the underground democracy movement and have played a role in the current protests.
The post-1988 junta differed from the Ne Win regime in actively seeking foreign investment. The generals have become extremely wealthy through selling the country’s natural resources.
While the Western media has made much of China’s economic involvement in Burma, companies from the West, and its allies such as Thailand, have been major beneficiaries of the plunder of Burma. This is despite Western sanctions imposed due to public concern about human rights abuses.
Thai logging companies, having literally exhausted the teak forests of their own country, were quick to move into Burma. Furthermore, Western fossil fuel companies such as the French Total Oil and US Unocal and Chevron-Texaco have been involved in natural gas projects.
US Vice-President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton has been involved in the Yadana gas pipeline project. Both industries make extensive use of slave labour.
Burma’s main export remains heroin.
While Burma’s worst human rights abuses - mass killings, rape, abduction for slave labour and destruction of villages - are those committed as part of the counter-insurgency wars, extreme repression has also been aimed at preventing any dissent in government-controlled areas. Burma holds more than 1300 political prisoners and torture is routine. The level of surveillance is extreme.
Htay says that “every evening the government goes around people’s houses checking that there are no visitors”. Burmese house guests must be reported, foreign house guests are banned.
Any dissent is met with extreme measures. Htay went to Australia because her entire university was shut down after minor student protests.
It is in the context of this extreme repression that the role of the Buddhist clergy was significant: “The government was less likely to shoot them, so the people followed,” Htay explained.
There have been reports of mutinies in the army, with some troops refusing to fire on protesters and even fighting between pro- and anti-protest soldiers.
There have also been reports of a falling out between junta head Senior General Than Shwe and his second-in-command, Vice-Senior General Maung Aye. According to Newsdeskspecial.co.uk, the latter is opposed to the crackdown and has sent troops to guard Aung San Suu Kyi with whom he will be holding talks.
However, these reports come in an environment where the regime has cut-off internet and telecommunications links and rumour is easily confused with fact.
Whatever happens, the aspirations of the Burmese people will continue. “I hope one day the Burmese people will see freedom. They deserve it. They have been suffering for a long time,” Htay said.
Edited and reprinted from Green Left Weekly

British business profits from Burma

New Labour platitudes have been slow in coming where Burma is concerned. Labour had pledged to ban investment in Burma before they were elected in 1997, but then never implemented it.
In fact, between 1998 and 2004, British companies’ investments in the brutalised country quadrupled, making Britain their second biggest foreign investor. Labour wrung their hands and said there was nothing they could do.
As the new protests raged, Foreign Secretary David Miliband said on Newsnight that government pressure now meant that no “major” British companies were investing in Burma. As far as he knew.
The Burma Campaign UK responds that the government “always chooses its words carefully when defending its refusal to ban investment in Burma...
“The £1.2billion estimate of UK investment, which ranked it as the second largest investor in Burma, is a cumulative total from 1988 to approximately 2004.
“Given the significant investments made directly by companies such as Premier Oil, and by British subsidiary offices of foreign companies such as Total Oil, the figures do seem to be reasonable estimates...
“In January and March this year two Singaporean companies were reported to have used British Virgin Island subsidiaries to invest in Burma. There was no response from the British government.
“Britain’s ranking as the second largest investor in Burma is due in part because for years it has allowed foreign companies to use British territory to facilitate investment. The government’s refusal to close this loophole is inexplicable.”
The Burma Campaign publishes a ‘Dirty List’ of companies who continue to trade with or invest in Burma, predominantly made up of companies in the tourism, timber, and oil and gas sectors. The list still includes Rolls Royce, who have a contract with the airline owned by the vicious Burmese regime.
n You can see the full dirty list at www.burmacampaign.co.uk

Repression on an unimaginable scale

by Bill Bonnar

Amnesty International recently described Burma as one of the most wretched countries on earth. A brief look at the facts show why this is no exaggeration.
The country is ruled by a military dictatorship with the Orwellian sounding name; SLORC.
They preside over a system of oppression and brutality with few modern parallels. 
Detention without trial, torture, ethnic cleansing and executions carried out on a mass scale; a regime not so much oppressing its own people as waging all out war and mass terror against them.
This in turn props up an economic system in which almost all wealth is in the hands of a rich elite while the vast majority of the Burmese people live in poverty.
The economy in turn is an integral part of the global capitalist system with billions of dollars in foreign investments from multinational companies making super profits while helping to finance and maintain the entire system of brutality and exploitation.
Yet the Burmese people also have a proud record of struggle against this oppression which periodically shows itself in the kinds of street protests we have seen recently.
Burma became an independent state in 1948 shaking off more than a century of colonial rule and foreign intervention. For most of the early years the country was governed by an elected civilian government, although battered by economic crisis and ethnic conflict.
This created the conditions for a military coup in 1962 which brought the present regime to power. It started its life in bloody fashion with a campaign of mass terror against its opponents, and has continued in similar vein ever since.
Periodically it re-launches itself, putting on new sets of clothes whenever it deems it necessary. There have been times when it described itself in socialist terms others when it has taken on the mantel of nationalism.
Currently it is an enthusiastic champion of the free market. At its core however is a regime which has treated the country and its people as its personal property, to be disposed of as it sees fit.
The first major uprisings against the regime took place in the late 60s and early 70s with mass demonstrations by students and workers. These were brutally repressed but nothing on the scale of what happened in 1988.
In August of that year hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in a mass uprising demanding and end to economic crisis and the restoration of democracy. The regime responded with its usual ruthlessness, killing thousands of people by ordering the army to shoot into the crowds.
Panicked by the scale of the uprising the regime announced that elections would be held the following year.
Despite absolute control of the media and suppression of opponents, it was the opposition National League for Democracy who won a landslide victory, with the regime-sponsored party suffering a humiliating defeat. The response of the regime was to annul the elections and carry on as before.
Given its lack of popular support and an almost perpetual economic crisis, what is it that keeps the regime in power?
In part it is a system of repression on a scale which is almost unimaginable.
It is also its alliance with the forces of global capitalism. They might shed some crocodile tears about human rights but in reality multinational companies love the regime.
It guarantees them cheap, sometimes slave labour, unhindered access to raw materials, huge profits and keeps the Burmese workers in check.
Western governments, including the British government, might express concern when pressed but refuse to take any action which affects commercial interests or trade.
Yet these areas are also the Achilles heel of the regime. Instability in Burma makes it a less attractive place to invest.
This can be helped by campaigns which target specific companies demanding that they pull out of Burma.
The same campaigns can pressurise governments into adopting a tougher stance helping to further isolate the regime.
Ultimately though it will be the Burmese people who will overthrow this tyranny.
That after decades of intense repression they can still muster the kinds of mass action seen in recent times is testament to the fact that they will triumph in the end.

Refuge refused for Burmese dissidents

Hypocrisy is supposed to be the greatest luxury, and Gordon Brown wrapped himself in the most obscene version when he told his party conference that “human rights are universal”, singling out the regimes of Burma, Darfur and Zimbabwe as the “darkest corners” of the world.
Because when refugees arrive in Britain from these countries, as with anyone seeking asylum, they are treated with suspicion and contempt.
Currently, around 1,000 Zimbabweans face deportation to Mugabe’s prisons if the British government wins an appeal in court. Darfurians are regularly returned to Sudan.
Only a handful of people seek asylum in Britain from Burma, although that may change in the wake of the suppression of recent protests.
But, according to the Home Office, just because Burma’s human rights record is universally condemned as one of the worst in the world, “this does not mean everyone is at risk of persecution.”
Lay Naing fled Burma after spending several years in jail for his pro-democracy activities, where he was tortured and humiliated. “They were trying to break our minds and our souls,” he says.
Nevertheless, the Home Office has turned down his asylum application. Twice.
“I am very upset that the authorities in Britain don’t seem to believe my story,” says Lay. “If I was forced to go back I’m sure they would put me in prison or kill me.”

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