COMMENT - The real elitist face of New Labour, the face of The City.
(GUARDIAN UK) Blair urges Labour not to wrap itself in a Jeremy Corbyn comfort blanket
Patrick Wintour and Frances Perraudin
Wednesday 22 July 2015 12.11 BST
Last modified on Wednesday 12 August 2015 18.55 BST
Former party leader and prime minister says there is no logic in party moving back to tax-and-spend policies of 1980s
Tony Blair has issued his most impassioned appeal for Labour not to repeat the mistakes of the 1980s by adopting a traditional leftist platform, saying the party could suffer four successive election defeats if it does so.
In his first intervention in the Labour leadership election, the former prime minister said a shift to the left after the party’s crushing general election defeat would be to treat voters as if they were stupid.
Blair urged Labour members not to wrap themselves in a Jeremy Corbyn comfort blanket, saying that people whose heart was with the leftwing candidate should “get a transplant”.
He added: “We lost in 2010 because we stepped somewhat from that modernising platform. We lost in 2015 with an election out of the playback from the 1980s, from the period of Star Trek, when we stepped even further away from it and lost even worse. I don’t understand the logic of stepping entirely away from it.”
His comments, to the centre-left Progress thinktank, came as the first public opinion poll in the Labour leadership contest suggested Corbyn was on course for a shock victory. Polls of political party electorates are known to be hard to gather a reliable sample size.
Blair described the veteran backbencher as the “Tory preference” and said the party could not regain power if it was simply a “platform for protest” against cuts.
Corbyn dismissed claims that he would split the party and hit back at Blair’s suggestion that he was the Tory preference.
“I would have thought he could manage something more serious than those very silly remarks,” he said. “Surely we should be talking about the situation facing Britain today, the situation facing many of the poorest people in this country today, and maybe think if our policies are relevant.”
He added Blair had a problem until the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war is published. Corbyn believes the war was illegal.
In a keynote speech setting out his economic policy, Corbyn said austerity was a “political choice not an economic necessity”. He said he wanted to see quantitive easing – a form of printing money to create bonds to fund infrastructure projects. He also called or a return to progressive taxation and a clampdown on business tax evasion.
Blair warned the party could not win on an “old- fashioned leftist platform”. He compared the situation Labour found itself in following its 7 May election defeat with the position it faced in the 1980s, when the party swung to the left under Michael Foot, paving the way for 18 years of Conservative rule.
“After the 1979 election the Labour party persuaded itself of something absolutely extraordinary,” Blair said. “Jim Callaghan had been prime minister and the Labour party was put out of power by Margaret Thatcher and the Labour party persuaded itself that the reason why the country had voted for Margaret Thatcher was because they wanted a really leftwing Labour party.
“This is what I call the theory that the electorate is stupid, that somehow they haven’t noticed that Margaret Thatcher was somewhat to the right of Jim Callaghan.”
Blair said he would not be endorsing any candidate in the race as he had not done so in 2010. He also said he doubted if his endorsement would help.
Tony Blair leaves the Institute of Chartered Accountants in the City of London, where he spoke at a Progress event about the Labour leadership contest.
A poll by YouGov for The Times found Corbyn was the first preference for 43% of party supporters – way ahead of bookies’ favourite Andy Burnham on 26%. The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, was on 20% and Liz Kendall on 11%.
The poll said that when Kendall and Cooper were eliminated and their second preferences redistributed under the preferential vote system, Corbyn would beat Burnham by 53% to 47% in the final round.
Corbyn’s success led Margaret Beckett, one of the senior MPs that put Corbyn on the ballot paper, to admit she had made a mistake.
“I was concerned that people would feel that they had been deprived of the opportunity for that point of view to be aired,” she said. “I am beginning to wish that I hadn’t.”
The shadow education secretary, Tristram Hunt, warned that Labour could be reduced to a “pressure group” that would not have “broad reach into all parts of the United Kingdom”.
Lord Hattersley, the former Labour deputy leader, dismissed the poll as a 24-hour sensation and said Corbyn had no chance of winning the leadership.
John McTernan, a former special adviser to Blair in Downing Street, said those Labour MPs who had “lent” their nominations to Corbyn to broaden the debate, had behaved like “morons”.
Blair also called for the party to take up a tougher stance combating Scottish nationalism. “You have to take the ideology of nationalism head on,” he said. “Nationalism is not a phenomenon when they talk about a new politics, it is the oldest politics in the world. It is the politics of the first caveman council where the caveman came out from the council where there had been difficult decisions and pointed with his club across the forest and said: ‘There, over there. they are the problem.’ It’s blame someone else. However you dress it up it is a reactionary political philosophy.”
He added: “I personally don’t think we will win by saying we are more Scottish or by engaging in this ridiculous thing where a lot of power in Brussels is fine but power in London is absolutely terrible.”
He continued: “The SNP have achieved this remarkable feat, they are a government that is allowed to behave like an opposition.”
Labels: JEREMY CORBYN, NEOLIBERALISM, NEW LABOUR, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
(NEWZIMBABWE, NEWS24) Blair quits as advisor to Malawi leader
06/01/2014 00:00:00
by News24
FORMER British prime minister Tony Blair has reportedly quit as an adviser to Malawi’s president Joyce Banda, amid a corruption scandal rocking the southern African country. UK media reported that Blair and his team had been working in Banda’s office, advising her on how to run the country.
According to the reports, Banda’s spokesperson admitted that the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) was calling it quits, but maintained the development was not linked to the corruption scandal.
The British government froze aid payments to Malawi in November in response to the multi-million pound corruption which involved dozens of officials.
The move by Britain was likely to have a catastrophic effect on Malawi’s ability to provide basic services.
The European Union and Norway have also withdrawn their support for Malawi.
Banda has in the past been quoted as saying she would not cry over the freezing of aid, although she understood the need for British politicians and taxpayers to have confidence in her government.
Labels: JOYCE BANDA, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
(NYASATIMES) Blair’s governance group withdrawing work in Malawi
December 20, 2013 Nyasa Times Featured, National 28 comments
Former British Prime Minister Tonly Blair is considering to withdraw its services of his Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) for Malawi’s President Joyce Banda from early next year, Nyasa Times understands.
The charity has been working closely with the Malawi’s president since August last year.
“Three officials of the AGI who were working at State House have been communicated that they are packing up,” said a government insider.
Sources say the AGI staff in Lilongwe has reportedly flown to London to discuss with Blair their future.
AGI began working in Malawi following a visit from Blair who said he wanted to “put on record” his “admiration and respect” for Banda’s leadership and Malawi’s “exciting possibilities”.
The AGI’s team work directly with President Banda’s office to strengthen systems of government in the President’s office: focusing on building processes in the President’s Private Office and enhancing the office’s communications function.
President Banda has had the help of Blair’s AGI
Blair set up his African charity after leaving Downing Street in 2007. It offers governance advice to seven African countries including oil-rich Nigeria and Rwanda.
Recently, Blair’s role as adviser to President Banda raised questions after the British government froze aid to the country amid a growing corruption. That has seen billions of public funds looted in what has been christened as cash-gate.
A spokesman for Blair said that neither the former UK prime minister nor AGI had any idea of the corruption before it was made public in September.
“AGI focuses on government delivery – this is what we mean by governance,” he said in a statement.
“Our role is not political. We work on building the systems and structures to support better policy delivery. Like any other charity or organisation working on technical support, we are not party to everything that happens within the governments we work with.”
Labels: AFRICA GOVERNANCE INITIATIVE, JOYCE BANDA, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
(NEWZIMBABWE) Tony Blair could have invaded who?
05/12/2013 00:00:00
by Bernard Bwoni
ALL the devious and dishonest denials and the deceitful negation from the architects of the flagitious sanctions and invasion plots, with their local collaborators deceiving the nation into believing these were travel bans, restrictive measures and genuine engagements. Some called the sanctions a myth and a make-believe story forged by Zanu PF. The conniving, the concoction and the cunningness of the duplicitous designers of the sanctions and their local partners, some dubiously dubbed them prohibitive measures against the regime.
All the malevolent protagonists denied their existence, the US vehemently denied, the EU washed their hands and the local opposition uxoriously laughed off the sanctions as mere restrictions on the ‘oppressive regime’. We were fooled into believing these were mere visa bans on President Mugabe and his ‘cronies’, to prohibit them from travelling to Europe and America. The local opposition in Zimbabwe was disingenuously boisterous, artlessly dismissive and naively opinionated about the existence of economic sanctions against Zimbabwe.
The dogmatically goofy Tendai Biti used to front these crooked disclaimers. They brushed off Zanu PF’s incessant cries of the ravaging effects of the mercilessly criminal sanctions. None of the architects of the sanctions was morally upright or honourable. Those who callously crafted the illegal sanctions blocked their ears, covered their eyes and filled their western-funded bellies to the nation’s sanction-induced poverty-stricken commotion.
The sanctions were and are still as real as life itself, an austere life inflicted on an innocent nation and its people by a counterfeit local opposition which spuriously claimed to be brokers of democracy and liberators of the people. The small print is what legitimised these deceitful designs and muddled the whole nation. The documents are written in such a way as to mesmerise, to suffocate and armed the credulous local opposition with immoral means for national onslaught and destruction.
As Chester Crocker beautifully and chillingly put it, “In order to separate people from Zanu-PF we must make their economy scream and I hope you senators have the stomach for what we about to do”. The US former Secretary for African Affairs and this statement he made in his testimony to the US Senate hearing in 2003. And he was right; boy oh boy did the Zimbabwean economy scream! However it was the sanction-busting Zimbabwean spirit that triumphed over the adversity, that resilience that lifted the amazing people of Zimbabwe from the depth of despair to the summit of hope. The sanctions failed to break that Zimbabwean spirit, the western handlers and those they handheld failed in their sinister quest to break that Zimbabwean spirit. The only other option was a callous plot to invade Zimbabwe which was entertained by the naïve ones; the Tony Blair project and Thabo Mbeki has an honorary place at the Heroes Acres!
In the eyes of those resolved on subverting national sovereignty, those with peculiar concerns on Zimbabwe in the time period and socio-political climate, re-colonisation was served with cheap wine for the local opposition. There is no doubt that democracy is one of the best things to ever happen to mankind. However it is just too vague a term if misunderstood, misinterpreted or misrepresented deliberately or naively. Deliberately misinterpreted and misrepresented by those with a delitescent inducement and genuinely misunderstood by some who were founded and funded by those who deliberately misinterpreted the process as a means to their own end.
Yes I have said it! It is very easy to fabricate and contrive allegations of human rights violations, lack of rule of law and civil liberties. The fabrication as a means to an end, the deceitful forgery as justification to disparage Zanu PF, the devious concoction as an excuse to intervene militarily and the contriving as a blueprint for sanctions; Uncle Tony to the rescue! It is Zanu PF’s contumacious attitude to the neoliberal ethos that is the sole reason for the economic and political sabotage that befell Zimbabwe and the MDC’s dutiful embrace of the same is the reason for the continuation of the sabotage. The Tony Blair project! Political and economic warfare is used as a means of subverting a nation. There is no way of correcting this crude political caricature.
The journey towards political legendary is not a haphazardly and hastily walked one. It entails having a cause, a just cause, a dedication and commitment to national course and national cause, an unshakeable belief in the cause. No lubricant required to make hasty the process; it does not require one to inflict sanctions and stealth bombers against own people to hasten their peregrination towards political glory. Even Uncle Tony’s invasion would not do it! A genuine cause not one manufactured for own selfish self-serving ends, for the purposes of illegal regime change. The destitution and economic hardship that has been inflicted upon us is the price we might have to pay to safeguard our political and economic independence. We might have to develop even higher-tolerance thresholds in the face of the distress and privation induced by these specific economic sanctions and future threats of Tony-inspired invasion plots.
Bernard Bwoni (Disappointed citizen).
Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
(HERALD ZW) UK invasion plot: Nujoma speaks out
December 4, 2013
Mabasa Sasa in ETUNDA VILLAGE, Namibia
Namibia’s founding President Cde Sam Nujoma chats to Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Namibia Ms Chipo Zindoga at his residence in Etunda Village, Namibia
Any attack on Zimbabwe is an attack on the entire SADC region and will warrant a military response from the bloc, Namibia’s founding president, Dr Sam Nujoma, has said. The Father of the Namibian Nation spoke in the wake of revelations that Britain, under former premier Tony Blair, approached South Africa seeking co-operation in a military invasion of Zimbabwe during Thabo Mbeki’s presidency. South Africa rejected the overtures.
Diplomatic sources also told this paper that Britain had approached at least two other southern African countries to provide land and airspace for a possible invasion of Zimbabwe at the turn of the millennium.
This was when Zimbabwe had embarked on its revolutionary Fast-track Land Reform Programme.
It is understood that one of the countries (named) actually agreed but backtracked when Zimbabwe sent an envoy to ask the leadership of that nation why it wanted to assist in an invasion of a fellow Sadc member state.
The source said, “At least three countries were approached. One of them rejected the idea flatly, one listened to the proposal and then rejected it, and another went along and only stopped when Harare made it clear it was aware of the plot. That is where it crumbled, but this tells Zimbabwe to remain vigilant as such threats can never be consigned to history.”
In an interview in his home village of Etunda in Northern Namibia earlier this week, Dr Nujoma — who was president from Namibia’s independence in 1990 until 2005 — said while he had not been approached to assist in an invasion of Zimbabwe, it should be made clear to the whole world that such an action would never be tolerated by the region.
He said, “Namibia will never betray an African country to allow an imperialist country to use our territory as a base for aggression against any member of the African Union.
“If anyone attacks any Sadc member we will be there. These imperialists understand nothing, but the language of force. We are ready for them.
“Why all of a sudden is Renamo causing problems in Mozambique? Sadc should raise an army and wipe out the rebels who try and destabilise the region, like we did in the DRC.”
This was in reference to renewed rebel activity by Mozambique’s Renamo after having first instigated a civil war that ran from 1975 to 1992 and cost more than one million lives and affected its neighbour to the west, Zimbabwe.
Dr Nujoma said Africa must be prepared to confront the European Union and NATO in battle if need be.
“Member-states of the African Union must contribute to the Standing Force to defend the continent of Africa. What happened in Libya and now in Egypt should not be allowed anywhere else. No African country should be used to harbor foreign troops on its territory, including the American AFRICOM.
“We know they are stationed in Stuttgart, Germany and they have been there since the Second World War. Now they want to come to Africa. Africa should be prepared to fight them…
“It should be clearly stated that any attack on Zimbabwe is an attack on Sadc. I can be commander myself, we are already fighters and we don’t need guns or training from anyone.”
Dr Nujoma added: “We congratulate Zanu-PF and President Mugabe for fighting the machinations of the British and neo-colonialists in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is a shining example on the African continent…
“We say no to the return of imperialists in our lifetime and we follow in the footsteps of Robert Gabriel Mugabe,” he said.
Dr Nujoma urged the youth of Africa to follow in the example of the liberation movement generation that sacrificed much to achieve political independence.
Among sitting heads of state and government in the region, only Presidents Mugabe, Jose Eduardo dos Santos (Angola), Hifikepunye Pohamba (Namibia), and Jacob Zuma (South Africa) had a direct experience of the liberation struggle.
“The youth of Africa must follow in the footsteps of their forefathers. We must start fighting to liberate our economies.”
He said Africa had won many battles against the West before and it would draw from these experiences to continue resisting oppression as it strives towards economic independence.
Dr Nujoma said empowering African people was the next logical stage in the struggle for true independence, and this battle would be premised on improving education and building capacity in the citizenry to run economies and nations in the best interests of indigenes.
There was no reason why, he noted, Africa could not industrialise within the next 10 years and become self-sufficient.
“All resources of Africa must be used in the interests of the African people. Let us produce for ourselves… We are not poor, they (Europe) are the ones who are poor.”
Dr Nujoma said Europe was vulnerable at the moment and Africa must take advantage of this to surge forward economically and in asserting sovereignty over its resources.
He said he could not understand why Europe and America were busying themselves with developments in Africa and yet they were facing immense problems of their own back home.
“In Greece, in Italy, in Portugal and all over Europe, their people are dying of hunger. They are poor, they are suffering. Why should they bother us?
“Europe and America must concentrate on supporting their own people who are dying from hunger over there.”
A fortnight ago, Cde Mbeki said Blair’s regime put pressure on Tshwane to abet an invasion of Zimbabwe.
The British wanted to depose President Mugabe unconstitutionally and impose MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai in his stead.
Interestingly, around the time of these invasion plots, Tsvangirai told a rally in Harare that he was prepared to remove President Mugabe from office “violently”.
Before Cde Mbeki’s revelation, a senior officer in Blair’s uniformed service had also said the military option had been strongly considered.
Lord (General) Charles Guthrie, Chief of the General Staff of the British Army from 1997 to 2001, said Blair had asked him to look at an invasion of Zimbabwe. Lord Guthrie said his response was, “Hold hard, you’ll make it worse.”
Labelled Blair’s favourite general, Lord Guthrie is credited with conniving with the then Prime Minister to send troops to Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In his memoirs (“A Journey: My Political Life”), Blair said, “People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, Milosevic, the Taliban and Saddam, why can’t you get rid of Mugabe? The answer is: I would have loved to; but it wasn’t practical (since in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously).”
A number of factors are said to have weighed against an invasion of Zimbabwe.
Firstly, the Zimbabwean military is battle-hardened, having been involved in frontline action almost every year from the start of the liberation struggle in 1996 up until the deployment in the DRC war that ended in 2003. The British Military Advisory and Training Team was in Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2000 and knew of the Zimbabwe Defence Force’s capacity.
Secondly, there were some 100 000 British white citizens in Zimbabwe at the time and London knew they would be affected by any invasion.
Thirdly, Britain was at the time over-stretched in Afghanistan and then afterwards in Iraq.
Another factor was that at the time the United States – Britain’s largest ally – appeared unconvinced about the efficacy of an invasion, especially after the experience of Somalia in the early 1990s when Zimbabwean troops essentially rescued American troops from a quagmire they had sunk themselves in.
Labels: LIBERATION, NAMIBIA, SAM NUJOMA, SWAPO, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
(NEWZIMBABWE, THE GUARDIAN UK) Blair ‘plot’ drove military to back Mugabe
03/12/2013 00:00:00
by Blessing-Miles Tendi
I
Guardian.co.uk
FORMER South African President Thabo Mbeki claimed in an interview with Al Jazeera recently that he once came under pressure from Tony Blair to assist in a military invasion of Zimbabwe to remove Robert Mugabe from power. Blair's office has denied Mbeki's allegation. Mbeki, however, remained adamant.
Mbeki's accusation has sparked furious debate, with disagreement about which of the two former leaders is telling the truth. For instance,
Ian Birrel writes in the Independent that "it is impossible to determine whether the whisky-drinking president's [Mbeki] recollection is accurate given the emphatic denial by Blair – not that the former Labour leader has always proved the most reliable witness in history". Birrell also asks us to consider whether a military invasion of Zimbabwe "would really have been such a bad idea" – a consideration that critics of Mugabe may find palatable.
Mbeki is a politician who divides opinion in South Africa and Zimbabwe, so while his claim has drawn the critical attention of some, others have simply dismissed it because they regard him as complicit in the political and economic crisis that affected Zimbabwe for much of the last decade. Opinion on Blair, particularly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, is equally polarised.
However, these debates reveal more about the various commentators' predispositions towards Blair, Mbeki and Mugabe, than they do the full meaning of Mbeki's disclosure. It also matters less which one is telling the truth, although it bears mentioning that this is not the first time Mbeki has spoken about this alleged British invasion plot.
When I interviewed him in 2011 he talked at length about the purported invasion scheme, which had South Africa as the intended military base. Mbeki smoked his tobacco pipe throughout our discussion, but there was no whisky in sight. Mbeki was as lucid as a tea drinker – just as he was in his interview with Al Jazeera.
Blair, in his autobiography A Journey, revealed a frustrated desire to topple Mugabe. John Kampfner’s book Blair Wars also records that "on one trip Blair found himself in the company of (former international development secretary) Clare Short. They talked for long periods about intervention. Blair confided in her that "if it were down to me, I'd do Zimbabwe as well' - that is send troops".
Crucially, in 2012 I interviewed Field Marshal Charles Guthrie, who served as chief of general staff from 1994 to 97, the professional head of the British army, and chief of defence staff from 1997 to 2001. Guthrie did not name Blair, but was adamant that in 2000 he advised figures in the government against an invasion of Zimbabwe because, as he said, "it is a very difficult military operation. My strong recommendation was do not touch Zimbabwe".
A military invasion of Zimbabwe was therefore contemplated in sections of the British government, but what is more important to consider is whether the Zimbabwean leadership was at the time aware that an armed intervention idea had been floated by some in Britain, and what the consequences of this would be.
In 2000, the Zimbabwean intelligence organisation violated diplomatic law enshrined in the Vienna Convention (1961) when it compulsorily unlocked a freight delivery, which was destined for the British embassy in Harare, on suspicion that it included military equipment for the purpose of overthrowing Mugabe.
No military equipment was discovered but the incident revealed the insecurity permeating the country's intelligence services in this period. Reflecting on this 2000 diplomatic bag incident, Didymus Mutasa, the Zimbabwean minister for state security between 2005 and 2009, said in 2005 that the fear Britain was planning to stage a military operation in Zimbabwe was "very real" in Zimbabwean military and intelligence circles at the time. No doubt, Mbeki had shared Britain's armed invasion plan with the Zimbabwean government.
Experts on Zimbabwean politics have in recent years been attempting to explain how and why the country's military became increasingly involved in politics from 2000. Zimbabwean opposition politicians have also been concerned with this development. The opposition leader and former prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai went as far as saying that the choice between him and Mugabe in the July 2013 presidential election was an option between democratic and military rule, because Mugabe was now a "puppet" of the military.
Indeed, many commentators and opposition politicians believe that Zimbabwe's military generals, who all fought in the country's 1970s liberation war, have sided with Mugabe against the opposition or, as Tsvangirai would have it, they have usurped Mugabe's power in order to ensure that no leader lacking liberation war credentials comes to power in their lifetime.
I have interviewed many of these military generals. Several of them certainly are opposed to Tsvangirai because he did not participate in the liberation war. But they also say how foreign factors have influenced their behaviour since 2000. These external influences include their knowledge of Britain's furtive campaign for military intervention in Zimbabwe in 2000, the imposition of European Union sanctions on Zimbabwean generals in 2002 and former British foreign secretary Robin Cook's abrupt severing of Britain's military relationship with Zimbabwe in 2001.
These foreign influences helped forge a siege mentality in the Zimbabwean military, and partly shaped the Zimbabwean generals' decision to side with Mugabe against internal opposition they regarded as in cahoots with Britain - read more about this in the forthcoming Journal of Southern African Studies article. Whether Blair actually considered military intervention or not is beside the point. What is significant is who in Zimbabwe believed that he considered it, why and with what consequences for Zimbabwean civil-military relations.
Blessing-Miles Tendi teaches African politics in the University of Oxford's Department of International Development and is the author of Making History in Mugabe's Zimbabwe: Politics, Intellectuals and the Media
Labels: NEOCOLONIALSM, THABO MBEKI, TONY BLAIR, WAR CRIMES
Read more...
Lord Guthrie: 'Tony's General' turns defence into an attack
The former head of the armed forces is candid about his mistakes. But he is also distressed by the cash crisis in the Army that "will cost lives". And he blames one man above all: Gordon Brown
Interview by Cole Moreton
Sunday 11 November 2007
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake. It was wrong to say that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Tony Blair was selective about the intelligence reports, preferring those that told him what he already believed. These things may seem self-evident, four years into a violent and chaotic war, but coming from Lord Guthrie they have an impact approaching shock and awe.
"I felt it was right at the time," the former head of the armed forces says of the decision to attack Saddam to stop him attacking us. "Now I'm not so sure. In fact I think it was probably wrong."
The occupation has been a disaster, he says. But this is the man widely credited – or blamed – for encouraging fresh-faced new PM Tony Blair to become a hawk willing to send British troops to die in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. As Chief of the Defence Staff from 1997 to 2001, Charles Guthrie struck up a close relationship with the then Prime Minister and became known as Mr Blair's favourite general. Even after retirement he was close to the PM, acting as his envoy to Pakistan. So what is he up to now, publicly admitting doubts and regrets in a way that would have been impossible back then?
The old boss is gone, of course. He can speak frankly because there is no more need for loyalty to No 10. Quite the opposite: Lord Guthrie blames Gordon Brown for what he sees as the distressing state of the armed forces. They are underfunded and "very, very stretched" by fighting two wars, he says. They need more money, urgently. "Lives will be lost if we go on doing what we're doing."
That is already happening. On this Remembrance Day The Independent on Sunday identifies more than 80 cases in which service personnel have died due to shortages, failures or mistakes caused by overstretch. Even as this interview takes place in the City of London, the inquest into the death of Fusilier Gordon Gentle is finishing in Oxford. The death of the 19-year-old in Basra in 2004 was due to "chaos" in the Army's supply chain, according to the coroner. His vehicle was not fitted with a device that could have saved him. Lord Guthrie says some parts of the armed services are "marvellously equipped", but in others the strain on the system is causing mistakes that can lead to death. "Undoubtedly," he says, "that will happen more and more."
Lord Guthrie is clear that the services are in this state largely because of the man who was Chancellor for a decade. "I certainly viewed Brown as unsympathetic to defence," says the retired soldier tersely. "He didn't make much effort to educate himself about defence." Is he saying that the spending he thought vital was approved of by the PM but blocked by the Chancellor? "That is exactly right."
Wasn't the time to say this when he was in power? "I did," insists Lord Guthrie, who recalls "huge rows". And he reveals, for example, that feelings ran so high he came close to resigning during the Strategic Defence Review of 1998. That would have been a huge blow for Mr Blair.
"We had taken the Treasury by the hand through it all and thought we were home and dry," he says. "Then at the last moment Brown tried to take a lot more money out of it. If he had, the whole thing would have unravelled."
How close did he come to resigning, exactly? "Couple of hours, I suppose." And how was he persuaded not to do it? "I didn't get as much money as I wanted, but I got enough to stop me resigning."
Lord Guthrie, a white-haired 68-year-old in a navy blue suit, is in a meeting room at the City financier NM Rothschild, which employs him as a non-executive director. Pale and seeming slightly weary, he speaks with a slight lisp, and rarely raises his voice. But he is also Colonel Commandant of both the Life Guards and the Special Air Service, honours that can only be earned by being tougher than a rhino wearing body armour.
He knows the power of understatement, when he says of Mr Brown: "I hope that he understands better now than he did then." The new Prime Minister has visited troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. "I hope that, because he has seen more and realises what they're up against, he will now be more sympathetic."
Lord Guthrie is a patron of the new UK National Defence Association, a group of former military leaders who want defence spending raised to 3 per cent of GDP, or £44bn a year. That is £10bn more than now.
The association wants to create a mass movement that will demand we treat our soldiers, sailors and airmen properly – but one already exists. The IoS is one of those calling for the repair of the Military Covenant, the debt of care owed to those who serve. The British Legion has also mobilised huge support.
"When you become a soldier, a sailor or an airman you do take tremendous risks," Lord Guthrie says. "You have to make personal sacrifices, perhaps a supreme sacrifice. The Military Covenant says that if you are willing to do that, really, it's up to the Government to look after your interests, your family, make sure they're housed properly, make sure you're equipped properly and not taken for granted."
Every government insists the security of the nation is a priority, he says. "Well, you've got to do a bit more than talk about it. A lot of servicemen feel they're rather taken for granted while being asked to do really terrible, dangerous things which other people don't want to do."
Underfunding started with the Conservatives but has never been addressed seriously by Labour, he says. "As a result you have houses for families to live in which are slums." Soldiers will leave in even greater numbers if nothing is done, he says. "The Army is too small for what it's being asked to do. Eventually, and we've already seen signs of this, they won't want to stay."
General Charles Guthrie, Baron Guthrie of Craigiebank, was in the Army all his adult life. Born in November 1938, he was educated at Harrow before Sandhurst. His active service was divided between the Guards and the SAS, including tours of duty in the Gulf, East Africa and Northern Ireland. Married with two grown-up sons, he is now on the boards of several firms, including that of the arms manufacturer Colt Defense LLC.
He has also just written a book called Just War with the defence expert (and fellow Catholic) Sir Michael Quinlan. Mainly exploring that Christian tradition, it sets out the tests historically used to decide whether war was just. "They battled with questions in exactly the same way as we do," he says. "You have to think, are you going to make things worse? What is your plan to put things right after war? There are certain things you don't do in war, like kill women and children."
Afghanistan passed the old tests, he insists. "They were training people to kill us and to kill the Americans. Attacking the training camps was just." But what about Iraq? He has a problem with that question. "I'm Colonel [Commandant] of the SAS and the Life Guards. They're both in Iraq. For the Colonel to be saying he thinks the whole thing is a great mistake is not a good idea."
But while the invasion was brilliant, militarily, he says, the occupation was catastrophic. "Disbanding the Iraqi army was crazy. We should have taken them to our bosom and said, 'This is your country, we're going to help you rebuild it.' There was no real plan."
Was there just cause? Lord Guthrie, still close to Tony Blair, told the House of Lords in 2002 that Saddam posed "a serious threat" that would endanger "the security of our own citizens". That wasn't true, was it? "It's very easy to be wise after the event but everybody – the Americans the British, even the French – believed he had weapons of mass destruction."
Not everybody. Not the million or so people who marched through the streets of London. "He behaved as though he had weapons of mass destruction," insists Lord Guthrie. "Now whether that was a good enough reason to try to remove him, I don't know."
He believed Saddam had nuclear weapons and action was needed to prevent an attack. "What I was told, and all the intelligence agencies were saying, was exactly what I have just said. I felt it was right at the time. Now I'm not so sure. In fact I think it was probably wrong."
That is quite an admission. There is, he acknowledges, a big problem with the sheer size of those intelligence reports. "You tend to select – maybe this is human frailty – the intelligence which rather supports what you want to do." But who exactly was selective in this case? "I think the Cabinet. I think the overseas policy committee. I think the Prime Minister."
How close was he to Mr Blair? "We used to talk about things," he says, almost tenderly. "I could say anything to him, because he knew I wasn't going to spill the beans." Astonishingly, the subjects discussed included invading Zimbabwe, "which people were always trying to get me to look at. My advice was, 'Hold hard, you'll make it worse.'"
Did these two Christians ever discuss their shared faith? "No," says Lord Guthrie, rattled. "Never talked to him about it." That seems extraordinary. "I never ever talked to him about it." OK. Moving on... "I really have never talked to him about it."
Right. There may be a reason why Lord Guthrie is cagey about faith. He is vice president of the Sovereign Order of Malta, a humanitarian organisation with an image problem, having been founded in Jerusalem in 1050. The order says it "had to become military to protect the pilgrims and the sick and to defend the Christian territories in the Holy Land". That stopped 200 years ago, but it still requires those who become knights – by invitation only – to swear to defend the faith. So he's a knight in the order. And he's written a book about just war. And he was head of the armed forces. How does he think that sounds to Muslims who accuse Britain of being drawn into a new crusade?
"Well," says Lord Guthrie, "I... I suppose you could interpret it that way. I've never noticed it or... I've never really thought about it, really." He thinks for a moment. "I've never discussed having more crusades, or anything like that."
That is, perhaps, a joke. Or at least a way of shrugging off the awkward question. Military commanders are never at ease with those, even in retirement. But Lord Guthrie rises to leave with the air of someone who knows himself unchallengeable. He has said his piece. Gordon Brown has been given his orders: pay up, if you want the boys to go on fighting. As far as the general is concerned, that is really all that matters.
Further reading: 'Just War' by Charles Guthrie and Michael Quinlan is published by Bloomsbury, price £10
Labels: FIELD MARSHAL THE LORD GUTHRIE OF CRAIGIEBANK, NEOCOLONIALISM, ROBERT MUGABE, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
(HERALD ZW) Mr B-liar, we presume?
November 29, 2013 Shingirai Huni Local News
Herald Reporter
ALTHOUGH former British premier Tony Blair, a certified war criminal was at pains trying to deny revelations by former South African president Cde Thabo Mbeki that he had approached South Africa seeking support for a military invasion of Zimbabwe;
innuendos in his memoirs, “Journey: My Political Life”, and
revelations by former British chief of staff Lord Charles Guthrie prove
Mr Blair was being economic with the truth in the same manner he lied about Iraq.
In an interview published in the Independent UK on November 11 2007, former head of the British armed forces Lord Charles Guthrie revealed that an invasion of Zimbabwe had been discussed during Blair’s premiership.
“We used to talk about things,” Lord Guthrie said in response to question on his relationship with Mr Blair, “I could say anything to him, because he knew I wasn’t going to spill the beans.” Astonishingly, the subjects discussed included invading Zimbabwe, “which people were always trying to get me to look at. My advice was, ‘Hold hard, you’ll make it worse.’”
Speaking on the programme “Talk to Al Jazeera”, Cde Mbeki revealed that South Africa had been under pressure from Blair’s Labour regime to co-operate in a military invasion of Zimbabwe to depose President Mugabe and Zanu-PF but dug in, insisting the problems in Zimbabwe could only be solved by Zimbabweans and President Mugabe was part of the solution.
Mr Blair wanted to replace President Mugabe with MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, whom he — along with the Tories and Liberal Democrats — had thrust to the leadership of the MDC.
“There is a retired chief of the British Armed Forces (Lord Charles Guthrie) who said he had to withstand pressure from then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair who was saying to the chief of the British Armed Forces you must work out a military plan so that we can physically remove Robert Mugabe.
“We knew that because we had come under the same pressure that we needed to co-operate in some scheme. It was a regime change scheme, even to the point of using military force and we were saying no,” Cde Mbeki told Al Jazeera over the weekend.
A spokesman for Mr Blair responded to Cde Mbeki’s revelations, saying:
“Tony Blair has long believed Zimbabwe would be much better off without Robert Mugabe and always argued for a tougher stance against him, but he never asked anyone to plan or take part in any military intervention.”
The record will, however, show that the Blair regime approached South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Botswana with the invasion plans but found no takers, a fact Blair alludes to on page 229 of his memoirs, “A Journey: My Political Life”, where he says in part:
“People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, Milosevic, the Taliban and Saddam, why can’t you get rid of Mugabe? The answer is: I would have loved to; but it wasn’t practical (since in his (Mugabe’s) case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously)”.
The memoirs were released in 2010, three years after Blair’s unceremonious departure from office and a year into the inclusive Government that brought together Zanu-PF, MDC-T and the MDC.
Political analysts yesterday criticised former British prime minister Mr Tony Blair for his dishonesty following his attempt to disown revelations by former South African president Mr Thabo Mbeki on Aljazeera television that he pressurised him to assist removing President Mugabe from power militarily.
In an interview yesterday, war veteran Mrs Margaret Dongo applauded Cde Mbeki for his resolute defence of Zimbabwe.
“Mr Blair realised he fought a losing battle and that it was embarrassing for him and his kinsmen to accept defeat. Thabo Mbeki has remained resolute in his defence of Zimbabwe. I salute him for being a principled revolutionary. He has remained committed to the goals of the liberation struggle.
“In fact, he understood the nature of the fight — it was the imperialists’ way of trying to dismantle Sadc. Had he given in to Blair’s demands, that would have been the demise of Sadc. It’s a victory for Sadc. Losers never give up,” she said. Mrs Dongo said the revelations about the push for military intervention by Mr Blair and the subsequent defeat of the MDC-T in the July 31 harmonised elections should be a lesson to Zimbabwe’s detractors.
“If you are fighting a battle with preconceived ideas, you never get anywhere.
“Bob is not Zimbabwe, he is only the current leader who has been mandated by Zimbabweans to lead them, even though there are some who think he shouldn’t.
“Blair left a festering wound on the country — these sanctions. Ten years of sanctions, but we still have a country to talk about.
“Zimbabwe’s detractors should be ashamed. Zimbabwe will never accept these sanctions. Zimbabweans refused to be used as guinea pigs, puppets.
“The Blair saga failed to get results. It’s a shame to those whom he supported. President Mugabe is still in office, but where is Blair? Where is Tsvangirai?
“Ndookunonzi kutsamira tsanga iri mumvura, inodonha mukaerera mese nemvura.
“Had there been that war, women and children would have suffered.”
Another political analyst Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri of the Midlands State University said it was unfair for Mr Blair to portray Mr Mbeki as a liar.
“These are two former leaders of countries — one renowned for promoting African interests and another for wanting to influence opinion in the region,” he said.
“When Blair disputes something he said at a diplomatic level, he is denigrating us as Africans and despises our moral aptitude. To say Mbeki is a liar, is saying that we can’t be relied upon. That is serious colonial attitude.
“Britain and America are known to use the policy of ‘by all means necessary’ to achieve what they want,” said Dr Mhiripiri.
Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, TONY BLAIR, WAR CRIMES
Read more...
(NEWZIMBABWE, AFP) Blair denies plotting Mugabe military ouster
27/11/2013 00:00:00
by AFP
FORMER British prime minister Tony Blair denied Wednesday putting pressure on South Africa while he was in office to help remove Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe in a military operation.
South Africa's ex-president Thabo Mbeki claimed in an interview that Britain had urged it to topple Mugabe when a political and economic crisis escalated in the late 2000s.
But Blair's spokesman denied this had happened.
"Tony Blair has long believed that Zimbabwe would be much better off without Robert Mugabe and always argued for a tougher stance against him, but he never asked anyone to plan or take part in any such military intervention," he told AFP in London.
The statement contradicted the account Mbeki gave to Al-Jazeera news channel.
"Tony Blair... was saying to the chief of the British armed forces: 'You must work out a military plan so that we can physically remove Robert Mugabe,'" Mbeki said in the interview published on November 23.
"We knew that because we had come under the same pressure, that we need to cooperate in some scheme. It was a regime-change scheme even to the point of using military force," he added.
Mbeki's spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga told AFP the statesman stood by his words.
Mbeki, who led South Africa from 1999 to 2008, was the head mediator between Mugabe and his arch-rival Morgan Tsvangirai after violent attacks followed disputed polls in 2008.
The pair formed a power-sharing government which ended with Mugabe's election victory on July 31 this year.
Mbeki had always called for a negotiated solution, resisting in particular Western interference in African affairs.
"Why does it become a British responsibility to decide who leads the people of Zimbabwe?" he told Al-Jazeera.
In November 2007 Zimbabwe put its military on high alert after retired UK army chief Lord Charles Guthrie said London had discussed invading its former colony during Tony Blair's premiership.
Blair stepped down in 2007.
That year, when Tsvangirai was assaulted and imprisoned, Foreign Office Minister Lord David Triesman told the British parliament's upper house an invasion was not on the cards.
"I don't think there is a prospect of the invasion of Zimbabwe and I don't want to encourage the thought," Triesman said in the House of Lords at the time.
Mugabe, 89, has governed since Zimbabwe won its independence in 1980.
Relations with Britain soured after he launched controversial land reforms in 2000, seizing farms from white farmers - the majority of them of British descent - to give to black farmers.
The two leaders often had strong words for each other. Mugabe frequently accused Blair of trying to force regime change and once told him to "keep his pink nose" out of Zimbabwe's internal politics.
Labels: ROBERT MUGABE, THABO MBEKI, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
(HERALD ZW) UK invasion plot exposed
November 27, 2013
Takunda Maodza Assistant News Editor
SOUTH Africa was under pressure from the Labour regime of British premier Tony Blair to co-operate in a military invasion of Zimbabwe to depose President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, but Pretoria refused, former South African president Cde Thabo Mbeki has revealed.
Cde Mbeki made the revelations in an interview with Aljazeera on Saturday, saying the British wanted to replace President Mugabe with their cat’s paw, MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, who is on record pledging to violently unseat President Mugabe.
The three main British political parties – Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats – mooted the MDC under the ambit of the Westminster Foundation, and have been sponsoring the party since its launch on September 11 1999 in a bid to effect regime change in Zimbabwe, but the move has failed with Zanu-PF’s resounding victory in the harmonised elections touted by executive director of the Royal African Society Richard Dowden as the heaviest defeat for Britain’s Africa policy in 60 years.
Speaking on the programme “Talk to Al Jazeera”, Cde Mbeki said: “There is a retired chief of the British Armed Forces (Lord Charles Guthrie) who said he had to withstand pressure from then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair who was saying to the chief of the British Armed Forces you must work out a military plan so that we can physically remove Robert Mugabe.
“We knew that because we had come under the same pressure that we needed to cooperate in some scheme. It was a regime change scheme, even to the point of using military force and we were saying no.”
Lord Charles Guthrie was quoted in some sections of the British media as saying he had warned the blundering Blair that it would be suicidal to pit British troops against ‘‘the tried and tested veterans of the Congo,” in apparent reference to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces’ exploits during Operation Sovereign Legitimacy in the DRC that helped repel US-backed Ugandan and Rwandan rebels to usher peace that enabled the DRC to hold its first elections in 45 years.
Cde Mbeki, who facilitated inter-party talks that led to the formation of the now defunct inclusive Government made up of Zanu-PF and the MDC formations in 2008, took a swipe at the West for interfering in the domestic affairs of sovereign nations, particularly in Africa and the Middle East in a veiled bid to effect illegal regime change.
“Then we said no. You are coming from London you say you don’t like Robert Mugabe for whatever reason, people in London don’t like him we are going to remove him then you are going to put someone else in his place. Why does it become a British responsibility to decide who leads Zimbabwe?” he asked.
“We were saying no. Let Zimbabweans sit down. Let them agree what they do with their country. Our task is to make sure we stay with them. We work with them. So, the GPA they signed in 2008 was negotiated by the Zimbabweans. We facilitated. We chaired the meeting and so on, but it was them who negotiated the agreement.”
Cde Mbeki said the Syrian crisis and other similar global conflicts could only be resolved through negotiated settlements as opposed to the West’s regime change template.
He said the West believes that the Syrian crisis could only be resolved by removing the government of president Bashar al-Assad and warned such an approach was bound to fail.
“Let the Syrians get together,” said Mr Mbeki. “We will assist them to get to a solution which sorts out the Syrian thing, no different to a position we took with regards to Zimbabwe. Let Zimbabweans sort out their problem. Let Syrians do the same.”
Retired Lieutenant-General Mike Nyambuya described Tony Blair’s military ploy as naive.
“It just shows how naive the British are. Zimbabwe is a very unique country that has a crop of soldiers which is very seasoned, well trained and well experienced in fighting wars. Not only do we have people who participated in the liberation struggle, even after independence we fought in Mozambique and participated in peace operations in Somalia and the DRC, among other countries. We have shown that the country does not have a rag-tag army but a professional army that can stand up to anyone including the British. It could have been a miscalculation by the British,” he said.
Zimbabwe National War Veterans Association leader Cde Jabulani Sibanda said the British still habour those intentions even today and urged the nation to remain vigilant.
“What Mbeki is saying is true. What is happening in North Africa and the Middle East is the same strategy that they want to employ in southern Africa. The only difference is that the strategy has worked in the northern side of the equator judging by the history of coups in North Africa, on the southern side of the equator they have a problem with the strategy because most of the parties that are running governments are former liberation movements and they have been resisting such moves,” he said.
Cde Sibanda said Zimbabweans must remain on high alert politically and militarily as the enemy was not giving up on his intentions.
Political analyst and Midlands State University lecturer Mr Christopher Gwatidzo yesterday said Mr Mbeki must be applauded by all Zimbabweans for his Pan Africanist values and urged the country to remain vigilant as the West still habours intentions to effect illegal regime change.
“He is an example of a Pan Africanist. We must also awaken to reality, the Western world still habours regime change intentions and as we engage them through our foreign policy or through tourism or any other forum, we must always doubt their sincerity. We must not trust them. When on the table with them, we must use a long fork because anything is possible with them.”
University of Zimbabwe political scientist Dr Charity Manyeruke slammed the British government for trying to install a puppet regime in Zimbabwe.
“Behind the closed doors are big regime change agendas. We are Africans and even if you become friends with the British prime minister you will never become a British. We appreciate a lot of what Mr Mbeki has done.”
Labels: TONY BLAIR, WAR CRIMES
Read more...
(HERALD ZW, NYASATIMES) Tony Blair faces questions over Malawi cash scandal
November 25, 2013 Costa Mano International
BLANTYRE – A British newspaper, The Telegraph on Sunday reported that UK former Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing questions over his role as adviser to Malawi President Joyce Banda following the corruption scandal dubbed as ‘cashgate’ which has forced Britain and other Western donors to withhold budgetary aid.
Blair and his charity the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) has been working closely with President Banda since August last year. According to the newspaper report, Conservative MPs and campaigners in Malawi are now demanding to know whether Blair and his team were aware of the corruption allegations.
It said they want to know whether Blair was warned about corruption, and if so what he did about it. If his team was ignorant, then it raises potentially embarrassing questions about what AGI’s “governance” programme meant to achieve.
The said among the officials arrested were some working directly with AGI but noted that there is no evidence that President Banda is involved in embezzlement.
“This is potentially very embarrassing for Tony Blair. He needs to explain what his people were doing there,” The Telegraph quoted Richard Bacon, a Conservative MP and member of the public accounts committee.
“What did they know given they were there for more than a year? If they didn’t know anything, then why not? If they are in the president’s office what does that say about the quality of the governance?”
Rafiq Hajat, director for the Institute for Policy Interaction in Malawi, is also quoted by the UK paper that he had mistrusted Blair’s arrival.
“I would certainly take these people (Blair’s team) to task to find out what exactly they had done or not done,” said Hajat. “I have seen many well-intentioned Brits come here to help the government with this or that and they find themselves deliberately blocked every step of the way. They end up throwing their hands in despair and serving out their time, waiting for the day they go back home.”
AGI began working in Malawi following a visit from Blair who said he wanted to “put on record” his “admiration and respect” for Banda’s leadership, and Malawi’s “exciting possibilities”.
But a spokesman for Blair said that neither the former prime minister nor AGI had any idea of the corruption before it was made public in September.
“AGI focuses on government delivery – this is what we mean by governance,” he said in a statement.
“Our role is not political. We work on building the systems and structures to support better policy delivery. Like any other charity or organisation working on technical support, we are not party to everything that happens within the governments we work with.”
Blair set up his African charity after leaving Downing Street in 2007. It offers governance advice to seven African countries including oil-rich Nigeria and Rwanda. – Nyasa Times.
Labels: CORRUPTION, JOYCE BANDA, MALAWI, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
(HERALD ZW) Tony Blair faces questions over Malawi cash scandal
November 25, 2013 Costa Mano International
Caption: FLASHBACK ... President Joyce Banda presents a gift to former British premier Tony Blair at the Sanjika Palace in Blanytyre in 2012. - AFP.
Caption: FLASHBACK … President Joyce Banda presents a gift to former British premier Tony Blair at the Sanjika Palace in Blanytyre in 2012. – AFP.
BLANTYRE – A British newspaper, The Telegraph on Sunday reported that
UK former Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing questions over his role as adviser to Malawi President Joyce Banda following the corruption scandal dubbed as ‘cashgate’ which has forced Britain and other Western donors to withhold budgetary aid.
Blair and his charity the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) has been working closely with President Banda since August last year.
According to the newspaper report, Conservative MPs and campaigners in Malawi are now demanding to know whether Blair and his team were aware of the corruption allegations.
It said they want to know whether Blair was warned about corruption, and if so what he did about it. If his team was ignorant, then it raises potentially embarrassing questions about what AGI’s “governance” programme meant to achieve.
The said among the officials arrested were some working directly with AGI but noted that there is no evidence that President Banda is involved in embezzlement.
“This is potentially very embarrassing for Tony Blair. He needs to explain what his people were doing there,” The Telegraph quoted Richard Bacon, a Conservative MP and member of the public accounts committee.
“What did they know given they were there for more than a year? If they didn’t know anything, then why not? If they are in the president’s office what does that say about the quality of the governance?”
Rafiq Hajat, director for the Institute for Policy Interaction in Malawi, is also quoted by the UK paper that he had mistrusted Blair’s arrival.
“I would certainly take these people (Blair’s team) to task to find out what exactly they had done or not done,” said Hajat. “I have seen many well-intentioned Brits come here to help the government with this or that and they find themselves deliberately blocked every step of the way. They end up throwing their hands in despair and serving out their time, waiting for the day they go back home.”
AGI began working in Malawi following a visit from Blair who said he wanted to “put on record” his “admiration and respect” for Banda’s leadership, and Malawi’s “exciting possibilities”.
But a spokesman for Blair said that neither the former prime minister nor AGI had any idea of the corruption before it was made public in September.
“AGI focuses on government delivery – this is what we mean by governance,” he said in a statement.
“Our role is not political. We work on building the systems and structures to support better policy delivery. Like any other charity or organisation working on technical support, we are not party to everything that happens within the governments we work with.”
Blair set up his African charity after leaving Downing Street in 2007. It offers governance advice to seven African countries including oil-rich Nigeria and Rwanda. – Nyasa Times.
Labels: CORRUPTION, JOYCE BANDA, MALAWI, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
Anger grows over invite to Tony Blair
17 Aug 2012 09:00 - Fatima Asmal-Motala
A group of Durban-based organisations want to arrest Tony Blair on charges of war crimes when he arrives in South Africa later this month.
A protester in London epitomises the sentiment against the former British prime minister, who is accused of lying to the people to start the war in Iraq in 2003. (Leon Neal, AFP)
Blair will be in the country to participate in the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit.
"Various Muslim organisations are in talks about possible actions that will be carried out should Tony Blair visit South Africa," said Mustafa Darsot, a member of the South African Muslim Network executive committee. "This includes protest marches outside the summit venue, possible sit-ins and legal action against Mr Blair. We have also asked various legal professionals to look at the feasibility of having a warrant of arrest issued against him."
Blair will join several big names, including Nobel Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chess master Garry Kasparov and Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan at the annual event, which will take place in Sandton on August 30.
Darsot said the network and several other organisations had written to Discovery Group founder and chief executive officer Adrian Gore urging him to withdraw the invitation to Blair. They did not believe he was "fit to lecture on leadership" because of his key role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
"Mr Blair is complicit in the murder of thousands of people in Iraq and should be tried for war crimes," Darsot said. "He violated the trust and responsibility of his office and it was his cosy and illegitimate relationship with the [Rupert] Murdoch press that prevented much of the truth about his role in the invasion of Iraq and murder of its citizens from being revealed in the press."
Offence
But Iona Maclean, head of Discovery Life and Discovery Invest Marketing, said the invitation to Blair would not be withdrawn.
"The Discovery Invest Leadership Summit brings together a range of leaders to debate the challenges that face the world's economy, business, government and society," she said. "The event is not intended to reflect a political view or cause offence. Discovery Invest selected the speakers based on their experience as leaders from various spheres of society and we will not be withdrawing our invitation to any of the speakers."
Patrick Bond, director of the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said there was no question that Blair could be prosecuted for a "crime of aggression".
"The website arrestblair.org spells out Blair's role in recent mass murder from the Middle East to Central Asia," he said (See "Make a citizen's arrest and be rewarded").
"Since Pretoria politicians justifiably complain that the International Criminal Court mainly prosecutes African tyrants, leaving European and American war criminals to travel the world gathering huge speaking fees, some action by Foreign Minister Maite Nkoane-Mashabane would reduce the talk left, walk right accusation against South Africa. She might simply follow the recent lead of Malawian President Joyce Banda, who warned Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to stay away from Lilongwe on threat of arrest."
Bond said if Nkoane-Mashabane did not intervene, South Africans who viewed Blair as a war criminal could attempt a citizen's arrest.
Disproportionate obsession
A spokesperson for the department of international relations and co-operation refused to respond to Bond's comments.
Meanwhile, at a press briefing held earlier this week, Deputy Minister of International Relations Ebrahim Ebrahim again discouraged South Africans from visiting Israel.
His comments were condemned by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, which said in a joint statement with the office of the chief rabbi and the South African Zionist Federation that they were "indicative of a highly discriminatory and disproportionate obsession with the Jewish state".
But a group of prominent Jews, including Shereen Usdin, Alan Horwitz and Robert Freeman, distanced themselves from the statement and added that, "in fact, we strongly support the progressive position our government has taken".
"Trips organised by the Israeli lobby present a biased picture of Israel and seek to whitewash Israeli human rights abuses.
"As the South African government has already proposed, visits should only be undertaken if they are to genuinely pursue the peace process," they said in a statement.
Make a citizen's arrest and be rewarded
South Africans who attempt a "citizen's arrest" of Tony Blair could claim about R300 00 from the website arrestblair.org as a reward for their efforts. According to the site, donations it receives from supporters (the total is nearly £10 000) are used to pay bounties for attempts to arrest the former British prime minister.
Anyone attempting an arrest is entitled to one-quarter of the money collected at the time of his or her application. South Africans would certainly qualify, said the founder of the website, Guardian columnist George Monbiot.
"The same rules apply everywhere on Earth. Anyone who abides by the conditions we lay out on the website is entitled to one-quarter of the money in the kitty at the time of the claim." So what exactly are the conditions?
According to the rules listed on the site, the attempt should be non-violent and cause no injury to Blair and those around him. It should also be reported in at least one mainstream outlet as a way of ensuring that it has political consequences and the claimant, who needs to apply for the award within 28 days of the attempt, must provide proof that he or she is the subject of the report.
Arrest attempt
If several people are involved in a single arrest attempt, or if more than one person makes an attempt at the same event, one-quarter of the total pot is to be shared between them. Performing a citizen's arrest seems simple enough.
The method recommended by the site is "to calmly approach Mr Blair and in a gentle fashion to lay a hand on his shoulder or elbow, in such a way that he cannot have any cause to complain of being hurt or trapped by you, and announce loudly: 'Mr Blair, this is a citizen's arrest for a crime against peace, namely your decision to launch an unprovoked war against Iraq.
I am inviting you to accompany me to a police station to answer the charge.'" To date, three individuals have received awards from the site for trying to arrest Blair. In September 2010, Kate O' Sullivan was sent a cheque for £3129.02.
At a book signing in Ireland, she told Blair she was arresting him. More recently, Tom Grundy, a Briton living in Hong Kong, walked up to Blair during an address at a local university and said: "Mr Blair, under Hong Kong's Power 101 law, the law which allows for citizen's arrest here, I'll be arresting you for crimes against peace." It is not clear yet whether Grundy will receive arrestblair.org's fourth award.
Labels: TONY BLAIR, WAR CRIMES
Read more...
Tony Blair 'visited Libya to lobby for JP Morgan'
By Richard Spencer, Tripoli, Heidi Blake and Jon Swaine in New York
10:33PM BST 18 Sep 2011
A senior executive with the Libyan Investment Authority, the $70 billion fund used to invest the country's oil money abroad, said Mr Blair was one of three prominent western businessmen who regularly dealt with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the former leader.
Saif al-Islam and his close aides oversaw the activities of the fund, and often directed its officials on where they should make its investments, he said.
The executive, speaking on condition of anonymity, said officials were told the "ideas" they were ordered to pursue came from Mr Blair as well as one other British businessman and a former American diplomat.
"Tony Blair's visits were purely lobby visits for banking deals with JP Morgan," he said.
He said that unlike some other deals - notably some investments run by the US bank Goldman Sachs - JP Morgan's had never turned "bad".
But he added: "Saif and his father played these people like musical chairs. At the end the reputation of the LIA was really damaged because of these interventions."
Documents found by The Sunday Telegraph published this weekend showed Mr Blair had made at least three visits to Tripoli, twice in the lead-up to the release of the alleged Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Megrahi in 2008 and 2009 and once last year. On the first two occasions he was flown to the country on planes arranged by Col Gaddafi.
A senior diplomat told The Daily Telegraph last night that the British embassy in Tripoli had arranged transport for Mr Blair and his entourage in Tripoli and ensured that representatives were there to “greet him and see him off” at the airport.
Mr Blair stayed overnight at the ambassador’s official residence in Tripoli and was accompanied by “several” British police officers for protection.
The documents show that among the people he was due to meet in 2009 was Mohammed Layas, head of the LIA.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said that the visits had largely been to discuss Africa, and categorically denied that he had lobbied Said al-Islam on behalf of JP Morgan.
The spokesman said last night: "As we have made clear many times before, Tony Blair has never had any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the Government of Libya and he does not and has never had any commercial relationship with any Libyan company or entity."
Mr Blair began work in January 2008 as a £2million-a-yearn adviser to JP Morgan. Last month, American officials told the New York Post newspaper that the bank managed more than half a billion US dollars on behalf of the LIA.
The executive said that he did not see Mr Blair at the LIA headquarters in the modern Tower of the Revolution overlooking the seafront. He said officials like himself were given their instructions by two senior Saif aides, including Mohammed Ismail, a Libyan with British nationality.
One of the letters arranging the 2008 visit, in which an aide to Mr Blair told the Libyan ambassador to Britain that the former prime minister was "delighted" that "The Leader" was likely to be able to see him, was on notepaper headed "Office of the Quartet Representative", his formal title as Middle East envoy.
The Quartet he represents is made up of the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States. A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, said: "It's up to him to explain why he did this."
The growing closeness of the Blair government to the Gaddafi regime has already come under fire. Abdulhakim Belhadj, former leader the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group and now head of the revolutionary Tripoli Military Council, is demanding an apology after papers showed MI6 arranged for his secret extradition from Malaysia back to Libya in 2004.
Many ordinary Libyans have also expressed surprise at the policy. After the latest revelations, Hoda Abuzeid, a British Libyan whose dissident father was murdered in London in 1995, accused Mr Blair of "selling out".
"People like Blair and those who had their eyes on the business opportunities that Gaddafi could provide sold out people like my family," said Miss Abuzeid, who has returned to the country for the first time since 1980.
"When he had tea in the desert with the 'Brother Leader' did he ever ask him who killed my father?"
Labels: LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
UK tribunal asks for disclosure of conversation between Blair and Bush on Iraq war
Tuesday, 22 May 2012
By Al Arabiya
The Foreign Office in the UK has lost an appeal against an order by an information commissioner demanding full disclosure of a phone conversation between the former British and U.S leaders a few days before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a newspaper reported on Monday.
“Accountability for the decision to take military action against another country is paramount,” The Guardian quoted the information commissioner, Christopher Graham, as saying in his original order.
Graham made the order in response to a freedom of information request by a private individual named Stephen Plowden who was asking for the disclosure of the entire record of the phone conversation between then British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George Bush in 2003.
Judge John Angel, president of the information tribunal, showed full support for Graham’s request. Judge Angel said that the foreign office witnesses had downplayed the importance of a decision to go to war and that view was “difficult to accept.”
“Also in our view, particularly from the evidence in this case, the circumstances surrounding a decision by a UK government to go to war with another country is always likely to be of very significant public interest, even more so with the consequences of this war,” the tribunal said.
The Foreign Office has expressed its disappointment at the tribunal’s decision. It has 30 days to disclose the information or appeal.
The French connection
According to the tribunal, Blair and Bush discussed U.N. resolutions on Iraq and a television interview given by Jacques Chirac, then French president, on March 10, 2003. Blair repeatedly blamed Chirac for the failure to get a second U.N. Security Council resolution backing an invasion of Iraq.
British proponents of the war against Iraq, who have long defended U.S.-British special relations, said that Chirac’s interview killed off all hope of a diplomatic solution and that they had to pursue the war without U.N. approval.
However, Clare Short, international development secretary at the time, accused Blair in the tribunal hearing of “clearly, deliberately misleading the French position.”
The war against Iraq that saw the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorial regime in 12 March 2003, killed at least 162,000 people, almost 80 percent of them civilians, Iraq Body Count (IBC), a British NGO, reported early this year.
Labels: GW BUSH, IRAQ, TONY BLAIR, WAR CRIMES
Read more...
Analysts hail war crimes verdict against Blair, Bush
Wednesday, 30 November 2011 00:00
Herald Reporters
ANALYSTS have hailed the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission verdict that found George W Bush and Tony Blair guilty of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and genocide as a result of their roles in the Iraq War.
The tribunal consists of five judges with judicial and academic backgrounds.
The tribunal called for the reform of the International Criminal Court, saying it was pursuing Western interests.
Former United States vice president Dick Cheney in August said he feared being tried by the ICC for crimes against humanity.
Cheney confided in former White House chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson that he feared being tried.
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal was founded by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed specifically to try Mr Bush and Mr Blair for the invasion of Iraq.
Though the verdict carries no legal force, analysts said it set good precedence for the two leaders to be tried at an international court.
The verdict was announced last week.
RELATED ARTICLES
* Court finds Bush, Blair guilty of war crimes
University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer Dr Charity Manyeruke said the judgment was symbolic and exposed the ICC's bias.
"The problem is international law isn't equal, it is controlled by a few states that are powerful and the court has become subjective and biased against developing countries," she said.
"Ordinarily, the ICC is supposed to show value and practices of the entire world but it's only in favour of the Americans and the European Union.
"However, this verdict shows that Bush and Blair are liable and should be tried in a fair court."
She said Western countries were using the ICC to intimidate developing countries that go against their (western countries) interests.
Dr Manyeruke said it was important for Mr Bush and Mr Blair to be tried for crimes against humanity.
Political Science and International Affairs lecturer at the Midlands State University Dr Mark Chingono said the tribunal's verdict was a major step in bringing the two to book.
"This verdict sets good precedence as it gives moral high ground to the third world countries and it somehow restrains these powerful countries not to invade other countries in future.
"The challenge we have is that in international politics, what matters is power and at the moment those countries hold so much power and the question now is can we be able to bring them before a fair court," Dr Chingono said.
He said it was common knowledge that the British and the Americans invaded Iraq to push for their interests because the invasion was not mandated by the United Nations.
Another political analyst Mr Godwine Mureriwa said the verdict by the tribunal had confirmed that the ICC had been discredited because of its bias towards Western interests.
"Now is the time for developing countries to send a clear message to the Western powers that the ICC has been discredited by its failure to apply the law equally.
"If the ICC was properly set up, Bush and Blair would have been tried for crimes against humanity a long time ago. It appears this court is only there to prosecute Africans and Asians who are victims themselves," he said.
The tribunal has since written to Mr Bush and Mr Blair and is yet to receive a response from the two former leaders.
Two high-profile French lawyers, Jacques Vergès and former Socialist Party minister Roland Dumas have demanded that French president Nicolas Sarkozy be charged with crimes against humanity committed in Libya - "a brutal aggression against a sovereign nation."
Experts have also argued that the NATO alliance that led the unprovoked armed attacks against Libya be declared war criminals against humanity.
"The leaders of the attacking countries, including United States President Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper should be declared war criminals under International Law", the statement said.
Labels: GEORGE BUSH, TONY BLAIR, WAR CRIMES
Read more...
Blair met Gaddafi before Lockerbie bomber was freed
Tuesday, 20 September 2011 02:00
LONDON - Tony Blair's spokesman confirmed on Sunday that the former British prime minister had visited Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in the months before the Lockerbie bomber was freed from jail, but insisted there was no impropriety in the contacts.
The Sunday Telegraph said it had found letters and e-mails which showed Blair, who left office in 2007, had visited Gaddafi in June 2008 and April 2009, once using the then Libyan leader's jets and bringing along an American billionaire.
The paper said Blair, prime minister for 10 years until 2007, had made no mention of the trips on his websites.
Blair's visits came ahead of the release from Scottish prison of Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, a Libyan who was convicted of the 1988 bombing of a US-bound airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people.
At the time of Blair's visits, Tripoli was threatening to cut business links with Britain if Megrahi, a former Libyan agent, was not released, the Telegraph added.
Blair's spokesman said the trips were not a secret, and there had been nothing untoward about them.
"The subjects of the conversations during Mr Blair's occasional visits was primarily Africa, as Libya was for a time head of the African Union; but also the Middle East and how Libya should reform and open up," his spokesman said. "Of course the Libyans, as they always did, raised Megrahi. Mr Blair explained, as he always did, in office and out of it, that it was not a decision for the UK government but for the Scottish Executive."
Megrahi was freed by Scottish authorities, which operate a criminal justice system independent of London, on compassionate grounds in August 2009 after doctors said he had terminal cancer and had just three months to live.
The move angered the US government and relatives of the 189 Americans killed in the bombing. Megrahi is still alive more than two years later. Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, has always said London was not involved in the Scottish decision.
"These new meetings between Mr Blair and Gaddafi are disturbing, and details of what was discussed should now be made public," Pam Dix, whose brother was one of those killed, told the Telegraph.
"I am astonished Tony Blair continued to have meetings like this out of office."
Some US politicians have accused Britain of allowing trade interests to take precedence over justice in the release of Megrahi. The Scottish authorities have repeatedly denied this.
The correspondence found by Telegraph said Blair had been accompanied on one trip by Tim Collins, a US billionaire financier and friend of the former prime minister. Blair's spokesman confirmed this but said no business deals had ever been discussed.
"Tony Blair has never had any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the Government of Libya and he has no commercial relationship with any Libyan company or entity," he said. - Reuters.
Labels: HYPOCRISY, LIBYA, MUAMMAR AL-GADDAFI, NEOCOLONIALISM, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
Zim polls: No role for UK, EU
Friday, 09 September 2011 02:00
Takunda Maodza Senior Reporter
PRESIDENT Mugabe says Britain and European Union countries will not observe Zimbabwe's elections because they imposed illegal sanctions in clear testimony of their hatred of Zanu-PF. The two are pleading to be part of observer missions to the country's polls.
The President however, said the door remained open for re-engagement with the former coloniser now that the Conservatives were in power.
President Mugabe said this while receiving letters of credence from the new British Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mrs Deborah Bronnert at State House yesterday.
Mr Jeitendar Kumar Tripathi (India), Ms Marcia Maro Da Silvaa (Brazil), Mr Mamman Nuhu (Nigera), Mr Hans-Guenter Hermann Gnodtke (Germany) and Mr Mohamed Sheij Saleh (Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic) also presented their credentials.
A source said in a closed-door meeting with the British Ambassador, President Mugabe said: "We want observers who will not have any choice on who to assist and who not to assist. We abhor meddling in our own electoral affairs. Britain should not be involved in such a campaign whether in our favour as Zanu-PF or against us. If there are to be any culprits, let it be others not the British."
"All I am pleading for is that please help us to have elections which are free from outside interest."
He said dates for elections will be decided fairly without ambushing other political parties.
President Mugabe was responding to an inquiry by Ambassador Bronnert on whether the UK and the EU would be allowed to observe national elections.
"How can we invite people who have imposed sanctions on us to be our observers? By imposing sanctions those people have demonstrated dislike of one side. I hope Madam Ambassador, you are not suggesting that by not being invited to observe our elections, it means the elections will not be free and fair," he said.
President Mugabe went on to implore the British Government to remove the sanctions it imposed on Zimbabwe saying the two countries were not enemies.
"Sanctions, we continue to suffer to this day. Sanctions, we are asking you to take care of. We do not deserve them at all. The Conservatives should remove them," he said.
Added President Mugabe: "If Britain does not want to assist Zimbabwe, they should leave us alone. We will find our way out but you must remove sanctions. I am sure you (Conservatives) are more charitable than Mr (Tony) Blair. You are Conservatives after all, not Labour . . . We have not quarrelled with Conservatives but if the Conservatives continue to implement Labour policies on sanctions then they are doing injustice to us and to themselves."
SHOULD THE UK, EU HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY IN ZIM ELECTIONS?
He reminded Ambassador Bronnert that it was under the Conservatives that Zimbabwe got its independence.
"We are friendly. We do not harm anyone so please help us, I plead. We do not deserve sanctions. We are not enemies with Britain at all in spite of all that has happened. We may dislike what has happened, yes, but we are not enemies.
"Enemies with (Mr) Blair, yes. And we damn him here. Sing against him here," President Mugabe said.
The President said he was now being labelled such names as dictator for embarking on the land reform programme.
"The British and Americans are saying Mugabe must go. Where do you want me to go, to London? You do not want me there either. I am going nowhere. I have a party to run," he said.
The President noted that the coming in of Prime Minister David Cameron into office was good basis for re-engagement.
Ambassador Bronnert told President Mugabe that the British Government was "prepared to work with any Government that emerges after elections" whether it was Zanu-PF or the MDC formations.
She revealed that PM Cameron had indicated to her that Zimbabwe was "a country of great importance to the UK" and "wanted briefings on accurate developments here every week".
The ambassador also relayed to President Mugabe Queen Elizabeth's warm greetings.
Addressing journalists at State House, Ambassador Bronnert said she was "delighted to be coming to Zimbabwe and was looking forward to working with all sides" and to "encourage the full implementation of the GPA and the holding of free and fair elections".
Ambassador Tripathi pledged to improve the already good relations between India and Zimbabwe.
"We already have good relations with Zimbabwe. I hope to strengthen and cement relations between the two rising democracies," he said.
He singled out mining, agriculture and information technology as some of the areas his country was interested in exploring during his tenure.
Ambassador Tripathi said a high-powered Indian business delegation led by Minister of Commerce would visit Zimbabwe to explore investment opportunities this month.
Incoming Brazilian envoy Ms Da Silvaa said companies in her country were interested in investing in the agriculture, energy and mining sectors.
She said Brazil has invested in Mozambique and Angola and "there is no reason not to come here".
Ambassador Nuhu of Nigeria pledged to revive political and economic relations between Lagos and Harare.
Ambassador Gnodtke of Germany echoed the same sentiments.
"I am sure Zimbabwe and Germany relations will go back to where they used to be," he said.
Saharawi's Ambassador Saleh briefed the President on political developments in his country.
Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS (ZIMBABWE), ROBERT MUGABE, TONY BLAIR
Read more...
Blair’s memoirs, irony at play
By Tichaona Zindoga
THE memoirs of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a book titled "A Journey" have received wide reviews, which predominantly hammered home the one truth that Blair is an archetypal bigot.
This ranges from his narcissistic view that he "was a big player, was a world and not just a national leader". He as strongly as ever supports fellow warmonger and liar, former US leader George W Bush whom he declares "cleverer" than his critics imagine.
He goes right down a 1994 night when he made love to his wife and supposedly got support for his political ambitions.
Amidst the interest that has been generated by the pen of this man who left the scene in June 2007, waking a murderous legacy of neoliberal interventionism and the so-called global war on terror, one reader noted a particularly disturbing attribute of Blair.
In Tony Blair, the world has seen the emergence of a "Zombliarism" (or such term), the dead that won’t lie down.
If that ironic role as a Middle East "peace envoy" plus a couple of other moral grandstanding activities do not suffice, Blair’s continued obsession with Zimbabwe makes this apparently immortal (im)moral and political ghost quite alive.
In his autobiography, Blair says globalisation has made military intervention in "rogue regimes" overseas more necessary than ever, without sensing the irony of his own exported rogue-ness.
The man, who relishes the prospect of attacking Iran one day, chiefly regrets not having been able to topple President Robert Mugabe during his tenure at Number 10 Downing Street.
He would have "loved" to topple the veteran leader who decided to empower hundreds of thousands of families previously condemned to arid areas by British colonial systems.
He wrote: "People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, [Slobodan] Miloševic, the Taliban and Saddam, why can’t you get rid of Mugabe?
"The answer is I would have loved to, but it wasn’t practical (since, in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously)."
Looking back just a year ago, in July, Blair called for that which he had failed to do in his 10 years at Number 10 Downing Street.
"I think whoever has the possibility should topple Mugabe," he said.
Without, even at this time as well, sensing the strong irony he added of President Mugabe, whom he accused of destroying the country, that "many people have died unnecessarily because of him".
In all this one finds basically two levels of the Blair ghost.
On the one hand is the troubled, wandering and inconsequent spirit that could not effect regime change in a small country called Zimbabwe during a whole 10 years and ended up groveling for just anybody’s help through a German newspaper last year.
This led one analyst to slam back not only his ineffectiveness (the analyst is on the regime change side, apparently) but also the very folly of not having opened talks with Zimbabwe, which might have benefited both parties.
Said the analyst: "When the ordinary Zimbabwean hears that Tony Blair is now leaving office without ever setting foot in the country that he talked about so much at international gatherings, they will wonder what he hoped to achieve by shouting from afar."
Yet on the other hand of this nuisance is a symbolic dimension of this evil spirit that is represented in a political philosophy that he started.
It will be noted that since Blair started his anti-Zimbabwe war, beginning by reneging on his government’s commitment to fund land reform in the country when his New Labour won power in 1997, a stand-off between the two countries has gone on.
His successors, Gordon Brown and the current coalition involving Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg, have maintained cool relations with Zimbabwe.
This British-exported standoff has also applied to the US and the EU among other Anglo-Saxon powers.
Those who fed into Blair’s Zimbabwe misadventure, like him, do not seem to comprehend why Zimbabwe and President Mugabe in particular continue to enjoy support not only from Africans but also other progressive forces across the globe which has made UK-US intervention in whatever guise unacceptable.
To them that see things in black and white — absolute contradictions — the inherent justness of Zimbabwe’s cause especially where resources are concerned, as opposed to their historical injustice, just does not matter.
Unfortunately, the evil in the Machiavellian Blair and his philosophy is very much alive.
His appetite for international affairs, we are told, has been sharpened by his role as a mediator in the Middle East!
He says that he feels "indeed a greater urge to leadership".
Thus he tries, as arrogant as ever, to systematise interventionism, saying: "If change will not come by evolution, should it be done by revolution?
"Should those who have the military power contemplate doing so?
"The leader has to decide whether the objective is worth the cost. What’s more, he or she must do so unsure of what the exact cost might be or the exact price of failing to meet the objective . . . In this context, by the way, indecision is also decision . . . Omission and commission both have consequences."
This adventurism not only seems to project his warmongering demon but also rings of war projected as a business, and business executed without feeling.
This makes his vaunted reawakening in the Middle East as unfortunate as it is omi-nous.
It has been observed that Blair has reaped millions of dollars for his involvement in the Mideast, not as a bona fide statesman, but as a supporter of Israeli apartheid against its occupied Palestinian counterpart.
A million-dollar "peace-broker" award that he was proffered by Israel seemed to confirm this depravity, which also was a slap in the face of his Iraqi war founded on lies.
A critic was quoted as saying of the accolade: "This prize looks like a payment for services rendered.
"It will make people feel that he’s not really a peace envoy, he’s an envoy operating in the interests of the Israeli state in the Middle East."
This subplot makes Blair, even supposedly contained within the pages of a book, a sick and morbid character both in deed as in spirit and philosophy.
Labels: NEOCONSERVATISM, TONY BLAIR, WAR CRIMES
Read more...
