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CANA - REVIEW September 2003
cana review is in print & e mail.
(I am not sure how many cana reviews have so far been transmitted owing to filing problems + the fact my PC memory is for now inaccessible. If you want the print edition send a donation. See bank account details later in this e mail).
Contents - Adolfo Olaechea (AO) demonstration report ( + Guardian report on AO case + WJS letter) + prosecution of Judge May + UN bombing press release + letter from Moira Hope + Hutton Enquiry & Bernard Jenkin poem + Michael Meacher Guardian article + Press Complaints Commission & Daily Telegraph + the new CANA UK campaign on NATO
Adolfo Olaechea demonstration 3rd September 2003
Copy of press release -
"Some 30 people including friends and representatives of human rights organisations attended a demonstration outside the Peruvian Embassy in London 3rd September, to protest the illegal extradition of Adolfo Olaechea from Spain to Peru. The demonstration was organised by an ad hoc committee and is the first in a series of events that have been planned to defend the rights of Adolfo Olaechea and to campaign for his release from prison.
"A delegation handed over a letter to the Embassy expressing concern about the malfunctioning of both the Peruvian and Spanish legal systems which has led to the arrest and extradition of Adolfo Olaechea on false charges of terrorism.
"They urged the Government of Peru to distance itself from the crimes and atrocities committed by former governments - to promote democracy, freedom of thought, the rule of law and respect for human rights.
"A spokesman for the Embassy tried to assure the delegation that Peru, under the Toledo Government, is a totally different country from the one it was under the Fujimori Government, that the current Peruvian judiciary is completely independent and that illegal and unfair trials and imprisonment are a thing of the past.
"However, he was unable to explain why Adolfo Olaechea was arrested on a warrant instigated by the discredited Fujimori and Montesinos regime, nor why he is being held in a maximum security prison despite the total lack of evidence to support the charges against him.
"Further, the spokesman’s claim that the current Peruvian judiciary is independent of political pressure doesn't cohere with various prejudicial and defamatory public statements made by Mr. Fernando Olivera, Peruvian Ambassador to Spain, shortly after the arrest of Adolfo Olaechea in Spain.
"The committee welcomes all persons and organisations to join the campaign to defend the rights of Adolfo Olaechea."
Text of letter received by the Embassy pasted below.
To: His Excellency Amando Lecaros-de-Cossio
Embassy of Peru
52 Sloane Street
London SW1X 9SP
YOUR EXCELLENCY
We the undersigned gathered outside the Peruvian Embassy today here in London 3rd September 2003 wish to register our concern over the malfunctioning of the Peruvian and Spanish legal systems resulting in the unlawful abduction of Adolfo Olaechea from Spain to Peru, to face trial on terrorist charges which primarily relate to alleged membership of the Communist Party of Peru.
Mr Olaechea resolutely denies these charges.
These charges were originally brought against Adolfo Olaechea and various other intellectual and democratic minded individuals living in Peru and abroad by the notorious Fujimori-Montesinos regime who are now themselves being pursued legally to stand trial for their crimes.
The charges were intended to scare and silence those like Adolfo Olaechea who publicly articulated the frequent violations of human and civil rights committed by the authorities in Peru.
Your Excellency will note how even the authorities in Peru and the judiciary admit to a lack of evidence to support the case against Mr. Olaechea.
Hence, the Peruvian authorities are now seeking to bring on other charges by asking Spain to expand the terms of his extradition.
We strongly object to the pliability of the Spanish judiciary - its willingness to accommodate itself to political pressure rather than comply with European law in upholding the rule 39 indication of the European Court of Human Rights in respect to this case which constitutes a violation of international law.
It is a travesty of justice that Mr Olaechea is being held in a maximum security prison whilst there is actually not one shred of evidence to prove any charges against him.
Clearly, Mr Olaechea, living in Britain for the past twenty years could not, and has not taken part in any terrorist activity in Peru.
On the contrary, as a Peruvian nationalist living abroad he has used his intellectual energy and resources to promote peace, justice and legality and was anxious to play a positive part in the reconstruction of Peru.
And as an internationalist in a protracted exile here he has contributed enormously to UK social and cultural life, in addition to promoting political discussion on a range of issues, including Peru.
The prosecution of Mr Olaechea is misguided, unsound and amounts to a gross miscarriage of justice in the eyes of world public opinion.
The present Government of Peru must distance itself from the crimes and atrocities committed by former governments and promote democracy, freedom of thought, the rule of law and respect for human rights. This malicious and vexatious prosecution only distracts from the Peruvian Government's own failure to promote a sensible strategy for achieving national reconciliation.
Concerned that Mr Oleachea will not receive a fair trial in Peru, we call for his immediate and unconditional release and return to his family here in the UK.
comment from wm j spring cana uk director -
"One thing which actually worried me, when it was meant to reassure, was when the Embassy representative repeatedly said if AO can demonstrate his innocence he will be released! But shouldn't it be the other way round ? Isn't the onus on the Peruvian authorities to demonstrate guilt?
Please continue to send letters of protest to the Spanish & Peruvian authorities.
The Guardian published on Saturday 6th 2003 a report relating to Adolfo headed Spain extradites translator to Peru on terrorism charge It can be viewed @ http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1036537,00.html (In the print issue of The Guardian there was also a photograph - of Adolfo arriving in Lima under armed guard - looking relaxed and beaming - in a sort of semi monarchical pose !)
LETTER FROM WILLIAM SPRING TO THE GUARDIAN SENT BY FAX SUNDAY 7TH SEPTEMBER 2003 ( nb the reference to the "former editor " is to CP Scott, Manchester Guardian editor circa 1910 who said facts are sacred but opinion is free). Sir/ Your former editor distinguished between facts and opinion, a delineation necessary in the Olaechea case. (Guardian September 6th.) The terrorist acts alleged by Peru relate primarily to Olaechea's opinions, and it is known, and we readily concede that Adolfo Olaechea does articulate "Maoist" views. As for the possibility of his involvement in actual physical acts of terror, the scenario is rather unlikely. Bombers in Lima do not telephone Tooting for instructions on where to place a bomb. In these abnormal times, with everyone a likely victim of overenthusiastic proponents of the war on terrorism, this distinction between opinions and terrorist acts should be defended in Europe, not betrayed as by the Spanish judiciary in this case. Yrs Wm. Spring Free Olaechea Committee
Prosecution of Judge May Because of the Olaechea protest I was not able to get down this week to Highgate Magistrates Court to lay my Information against Judge May. He is the senior Judge in charge of the war crimes trial of President Milosevic at the Hague. I hope (DV) to go next week to lay an Information demanding Judge May's prosecution for torture of Mr Milosevic under section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. (I am fairly familiar with Highgate Magistrates Court, as this was the Court where I lodged my Information in May 1999 requesting summonses be issued against the NATO leaders on conspiracy to murder charges). I paste below my letter to the Attorney General's office in reply to the one they sent me.
From William Spring 1 Scales Road London N17 9HB 2nd September 03 To the Legal Secretariat to the Law Officers, RE APPLICATION FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CONSENT UNDER SECTION 134 OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 1988 Dear Sir/Madam I refer to the letter of Ms Carmen Dowd dated to 13th January 03 on this question. As you know I have decided to bring proceedings against Mr Justice May who is at the moment in charge of the trial of President Milosevic. Verily I believe he is torturing the prisoner and intends to bring about his death. I received from Ms Carmen Dowd the letter of 13th January in response to my initial communication. I tried to phone her this morning to be told she is no longer with you. Consequently this information should be given to whoever has taken over her responsibilities. The point is since my original communication, things have got much worse for Mr Milosevic, who according to my information is held without access to friends, family or legal advisors. Mr Justice May has forbidden Mr Milosevic to talk to anyone. He must remain in his cell all day long without exercise. He is denied a computer, pens, paper, newspapers, books, and adequate and specialist medical attention. His access to the Internet is denied, he is forbidden to give interviews, his postal communications are interfered with, and he has to listen to officials of the Court briefing journalists against him, while neither he nor his advisers are allowed to rebut the various scurrilous allegations made against him by officials of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Indeed visitors are not allowed by the Court to comment on their discussions with Mr Milosevic, which is an absolute outrage is in itself and makes the ECHR a dead letter, and the Court another legal black hole like Guantanamo Bay, a zone where natural justice does not apply. Quite frankly the Court is a school for legal terrorists, which is creating a system of positive law, ignoring natural justice and based on the principles of the Inquisition. Mr Milosevic is and has been subjected to protracted torture by an official of the UK Government. I do not believe I have to request your permission for a prosecution against Judge May prior to my laying the Information. I am making contact with the Magistrates Court this week and will also provide to them a list of witnesses who will attest to the intensity of the torture and the psychological and physical pressures placed upon a man who is already very unwell. Your Government, in cahoots with the Americans, intend to hound Mr Milosevic to death, in the same way as your Government hounded to death Dr David Kelly. Judge May is evidently a cypher, appointed by your Department and the US administration, to carry out these foul deeds in the name of the "international community." Should your Department seek to block in any way my prosecution of Judge May it will demonstrate that HMG's prohibition on torture is a dead letter - that HMG is free, and its officials ( and Cabinet Ministers and the Prime Minister) to torture whoever they like, including their own civil servants, and, in the name of Victor's Justice, those such as President Milosevic, who uphold the struggle for state sovereignty, democratic rights, and an international rule of legality, all of which things your Government abhors. The only advantage as I see it accruing to Mr Milosevic right now is that he is at least a white man. If he were Arab, his children and grandchildren would have already been murdered by the Americans with the endorsement of your gloriously progressive government and Prime Minister. I will make no further communication with your Department, and instead will talk to the Clerk of the Court . Yours sincerely William Spring
The UN bombing On 26th August 2003 I sent out the following press release which led to a response from Moira Hope. See her letter printed after my press release. Earlier in the year I sent another out press release calling for Christians to join with Muslims and socialists in the armed struggle against the US-UK occupation forces in Iraq. This also led to 'feed back' both with coherent letters + more threatening responses from sources in the US. All these responses have (I hope only temporarily) been lost from my PC in view of the memory crash. WJS
Copy of press release of
August 26th 2003 The Director of a UK ecumenical peace group
places the blame for last week's bombing of UN Headquarters in
Baghdad on Kofi Annan.
William Spring CANA UK Director
(Christians Against Nato Aggression UK) says it is a requirement
of the Faith, in current world conditions, to be
anti-American. All men and women of good will of whatever
religion or of none should form a Popular Front to reinstate the
principles of international law and oppose the Bush-Blair bid for
world hegemony. Christians should join in alliance with Muslims
and "Baathist elements" to sabotage the UK-US war
effort and drive the aggressors from Iraq. Full text of Statement pasted
below: "
A few months ago an Islamic fanatic killed some Southern Baptist
missionaries in The Yemen. Nominally the guilty party for the
murders of these people was this particular Muslim
believer. In fact the responsibility for what happened must
lie before God with the Southern Baptist Convention and their
Board of Mission. The Southern Baptist Church didn't
actually pull the trigger and shoot their own missionaries.
Instead, knowingly and deliberately, they placed their
personnel in harms way, into a situation where they knew
inevitably they would be shot. "I
justify this statement by pointing out that the Southern Baptist
Church of the USA differs from nearly all other Christian
denominations world wide in that it actively endorsed the
initiation and prosecution of the illegal US-UK war against
Iraq.Two consequences flowed from that decision: a minimal
consequence is that Southern Baptist mission activity in the
Muslim world has been compromised. As the English in Elizabethan
England regarded the Jesuits not by reference to their
theological message but as agents for Philip of Spain, so now,
correctly, Muslims regard Southern Baptist missionaries as agents
of the US imperial power. The Southern Baptists
murdered in The Yemen should not be regarded as
martyrs, but victims of a wrong headed political strategy, cooked
up by Dr Richard Land. It was unfortunate for them that the
Southern Baptist Convention has proven to consist largely of war
mongers who can be criticised in their own terms - for
having shut the door of the kingdom of heaven to Muslims, by
confusing their own version of the gospel with the Heritage
Foundation's political agenda. Southern Baptist strategy, or
the lack of it, is a serious stumbling block to evangelical
progression in the Middle East. "By
analogy the responsibility for the explosions at the UN
headquarters in Baghdad must rest with Kofi Annan.
It is Kofi Annan who has the duty to uphold the
principles of the UN Charter whenever individual member
states seek to abrogate such. But for years he betrayed the
principles of the UN Charter. He has brought the UN into
disrepute - and turned it into an organ for the
aggrandisement of the USA. This is not merely my view.
Bhutros Bhutros Ghali, a former Secretary General of the UN
has expressed more or less the same view this weekend. Kofi Annan
failed entirely to speak out in condemnation of the illegal 1999
NATO attack on Yugoslavia. Kofi Annan stood idly by this year
when the USA and UK chose to tear up the UN Charter.
(Only the French Foreign Minister made any attempt to defend the
principles of the UN Charter, not the Secretary
General.) Kofi Annan was
appointed by the Americans, first
proving his usefulness to them in 1995 when he endorsed the
bombing of Bosnia, (as stated by Richard Holbrooke in his book
'To End a War.' ) He is, as Nelson Mandela has observed, an Uncle
Tom who will do whatever the White House tells him to do.
"It was Kofi Annan who piloted
through the Security Council resolution 1441.
"Who can forget that
disgusting scene, following the passage of the resolution, when,
with another Uncle Tom, the US Secretary of State, he
accepted congratulations on the help he had provided to the
American administration in terms of piloting through the Security
Council that critical resolution which George Bush and Tony
Blair have subsequently used as authority to invade Iraq.
"Both Uncle Toms served their white
masters well. "In
the last UN decision before the explosion the formation of the
Governing Council under US control was welcomed by the Security
Council, thus de facto legitimising the US occupation, and making
the UN party to it. It is of course true that the UN is no more
than the sum of its component parts. Yet the Secretary
General stands in a unique position. His influence can be
great for good or ill. Kofi Annan's influence on
international relations has been almost entirely malevolent.
Under his aegis the apparatus of international law which used to
provide security to small states has been dismantled.
"This last week the western media
agonised over the Baghdad bombing, pre- occupied with the
question "why? " Why should Islamic resistance
fighters kill so many people in Baghdad, there "only to help
the Iraqis?" But isn't it obvious why? Can't
they see why? "Hasn't
it struck these mercenary internationalists that people may
not want to be helped. Why should the citizens of a very
wealthy country be treated like imbeciles, children in a
Victorian orphanage on poor relief? The UN "have been
feeding them." But it was
the UN which imposed the sanctions
in the first place, which left them
in such destitution, and the avoidable death by malnutrition and
various diseases of one and half million Iraqi children under the
age of five, a price Madelaine Albright felt worth paying
in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein. "Isn't it about
time all the NGOs, all experts on reconstruction, all of the
West's humanitarian warriors, brain dead brain diseased
morally decrepit secular missionaries of the Anglo American
pornocracy, got out of Iraq, bag and baggage? "The supreme war
crime according to the 1945 Nuremberg Tribunal
is the launching of aggressive war. From such a decision, in the
view of the Tribunal, all other evils of war flow. If the US had
not attacked Iraq the UN Building would still be standing.
If the US had not attacked Iraq thousands of Iraqis would still
be alive today, and also some Americans and British.
"Yet it is Blair, even more so
than Bush, who is to blame for the deaths and suffering in
Iraq, As Tam Dalyell MP, Father of
the House of the Commons and a member of Mr Blair's own party,
pointed out in a recent article in The Daily Mail, without
the support of Tony Blair it is questionable whether Mr Bush
would have been able to carry Congress with him over the assault
on Iraq. If Congress had realised that the US was entering
a war without even its closest ally, would even a minimal level
of support have been forthcoming from Congress?
"Fundamentally
Blair and John Howard and Inane Duncan Smith aren't decent men,
but murderers. "In
1999 I sought to prosecute Mr Blair for war crimes and laid
an Information at Highgate Magistrates Court London alleging his
complicity in a conspiracy to murder and cause explosions in the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.The press would not report it and
the Magistrate was "got at " by the Foreign Office and
refused to issue the proceedings. Four years later Mr Blair
finally comes before a judge, not because of the numerous deaths
in Yugoslavia, and Afghanistan, and Iraq he is responsible for,
but because one scientist has supposedly committed suicide. I say
"supposedly" because there has been no inquest and
everybody in UK thinks he was bumped off, (or
alternatively made an offer by Number Ten which he couldn't
refuse).
"Let us pray this may be the beginning of a
comprehensive programme of impeachment by the Courts and
Parliament to run this little runt out of office.
Evidently Blair did cover up the truth about the Iraq war,
but was this unusual, no, his spin machine did the same in
relation to the Yugoslavian and Afghanistan wars,
and despite the appointment of quisling governments by the
West in Belgrade, Kabul, and Baghdad the failure of the
occupying forces in each of these countries to deliver even
minimal levels of security to anyone would be obvious, were the
western media encouraged to report the facts.
"In England it was Inane Duncan Smith who
abandoned his duties as Leader of Her Majesty's loyal opposition,
in order to support New Labour's indefensible policies.
"Maybe
Jews pay the rent on Conservative Central Office in Smith Square.
They certainly pack the Shadow Cabinet and every Conservative
press conference during and leading up to hostilities was filled
up by Jews from Finchley providing assembled hacks with
documents produced by Friends of Israel and the Israeli Embassy. "Conservative
Central Office hosts The Conservative Christian Fellowship,
a group which claims to derive its inspiration from William
Wilberforce. What a mockery! William Wilberforce not only
abolished the slave trade but was one of the first UK politicians
to oppose what was regarded in those days as state possession of
'the right of war.'
"The
British and Americans are the new barbarians of the twenty first
century. No deeper level of human perfidy has ever been
reached, since the excesses of the Third Reich, than the terrible
events of the last two months or so in Baghdad. "A conquering powers
enters an Arab state and feels it can imprison or execute
with impunity anyone who is associated with the
previously legitimate government of Iraq.
Bribery is exalted into an art form by the occupying forces.
Former Ministers are abducted by the Americans without any word
from protest from the IRC or Human Rights Watch. POWs
are tortured, denied IRC visits removed to Guantanamo Bay,
or simply gunned down. A fourteen year old boy, Saddam's
grandchild, and Saddam's own sons are massacred. "Whoever
they were who did that, they themselves deserve to be gunned
down - those who take the sword will perish by the
sword. "The
Anglo-Americans shook hands in their obsequious creepy way
with Saddam during the 1980's, when he was our great ally against
Iran. We provided him with poison gas and munitions etc, so
he could kill the Kurds. "Mr Assad has since
visited London with his beautiful wife. Arabs watch out. Never
take tea with The Queen. The British and the Americans are
waiting to kill you, and your children, their animosity will last
to the fourth and fifth generation. In view of
their complicity in these unspeakable acts of barbarism it is too
easy to conclude Blair, Bush and Howard are beyond redemption.
Such is not the case - but let them call for Bell, Book and
Candle. "The fact civilians
died in the attack on the UN Headquarters is regrettable. But to
render men desperate enough to contemplate such actions is the
more insidious evil. Richard Dawkins of Oxford observed in
a letter this week to The Independent: "The UN Headquarters
in Baghdad was attacked for exactly the same reason as the
Americans chose Iraq in the first place. Both were soft targets,
known to be ill-equipped to defend themselves, or hit back,
ideal for belligerent cowards." Neither the state which
incinerated in an instant thousand of Japanese at the end of
World War 2, nor our country which abolished Dresden, and
whose leader saw no way of getting though World War 2 without
attacks on German cities by heavy bombers, is in a
position to give lectures on morality and ethics to Iraqi
patriots, who are willing to kill, and also to die for
their beliefs. "In my
view the Iraqi resistance needs support. What worries me is that
resistance in Iraq is coming not from secularist elements,
('remnants of the Baath regime') but primarily from Islamic
fedayeen pushing inter alia a religious agenda.
It is time
to build an international solidarity movement for the Iraqi
resistance, including all elements, + Christians, both western
and eastern. I commend the idea of "10 Euros for the Iraqi
resistance" as suggested by Antiimperialist Camp
PF 23, A-1040 Vienna, Austria
camp@antiimperialista.org
www.antiimperialista.org/en
who are holding at Conference at Assisi 1-7
September 2003. "I
agree with Muslims that it is a religious war in Iraq.
"Muslims are fighting western anti god
secularism as represented by the United States of America and
Britain. "This war on
secularism is a noble endeavour and in this good Muslims should
have not the opposition but the support of Christians.
"Just because Muslims and Christians are
opponents in some areas does not mean we should be opponents in
all. Anyway Muslims should now recognise how the Americans
exploited religious and confessional antipathies in regard to the
Yugoslavian Wars in order to secure bases for themselves in
The Balkans. "The USA
defends no particular religion, neither Islam or
Christianity. The national interest takes precedence, as
transiently identified with the coterie surrounding each
President. "The United States
of America, (and Rupert Murdoch, who has done more to
produce these tragic so called humanitarian wars of recent
years than any other single individual on this planet, and
who controls and censors the reporting of these wars)
represents godless materialism and pornography, the degradation
of women and the destruction of family life. "I don't think America was
always like this. At one time |( and certainly in my
eyes as a child growing in the England of the 1950's) the
US seemed then a glamorous society, but committed to
fundamental decencies. One envied Americans for their wealth but
also respected them, to a degree. We used to have Time
Magazine at home. I wrote my first articles for The Seattle Post
Intelligencer in 1958. I remember too my brother flying
into Birmingham Airport in company with General Norstadt, at that
time Deputy Supreme Commander of Allied Powers in Europe and
recall the sense of awe I felt then in the presence of a four
star US general. Time went by. Juvenile illusions fade. Vietnam
was the loss of US innocence. I thought the Americans had got
over that phase - but then Noriega, Grenada, and Haiti, and in
1999 Yugoslavia proved me wrong. "I now
conclude Americans are by nature bullies, psychopaths, and
control freaks, sunk in intellectual degradation, a cult of
violence, and a mania for owning things. Such a state cannot be
allowed to restructure the world in its own nihilistic image. "As
for the elected of leader of Yugoslavia, a state so mutilated
by NATO that even its name has disappeared, he
languishes in The Hague, subject to protracted torture by
UK judge-inquisitor Richard May, supported by his Uncle Tom
West Indian colleague. These judge-inquisitors forbid Mr
Milosevic to receive visitors, forbid any statements
to the press, other than their own prejudicial assertions, and
have already predetermined the result of the Court case.
This is victor's justice - expensive, slow, and the wrong
guy in the dock. "Bush
relies on the Jews and The Bible Belt for his support. But
evangelicals in the USA got mixed up with Mid East politics as a
result of a faulty exegesis of scripture. The New Testament
nowhere teaches the Jews are the chosen people of God. Christ in
fact said precisely the opposite. The New Testament teaches the
Church is the Israel of God.
The
political consequence of this heresy is that the USA and Israel
are now endeavouring to exercise hegemony over the entire Mid
East.
When I say Israel I do not mean all Israelis. I mean by
that Mr Sharon. It was Mr Sharon who felt that it would be
in the national interest of Israel to get the Americans involved
in war with Iraq. In that objective he was successful, but
I think he was mistaken in his perception of the Israeli national
interest. "What
Israelis need is peace and personal security in their ancestral
land, as do Arabs. Surely it is not impossible to find a solution
when both sides have this reciprocal requirement. In my view
the solution could involve the creation of a secular
state in the region, the abandonment of a failed
experiment, as the State of Israel has failed in the primary
objective of its creation, to provide security for those of
Jewish ethnicity and religion. Christians should
pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I too have a dream,
perhaps now as impossible as Martin Luther King's dream of
forty years ago - that 'the mountain of the house of the Lord
shall be established in Mount Sion, at the top of the mountains,
and all peoples shall flow unto it.' "
Letter from Moira Hope: "I do
have some serious reservations about this piece. I
fully understand
how invidious the UN and also NGO's will appear in Iraqi
eyes. But regrettably the war has happened, the
infrastructure is smashed. So what is the best course
of action now? Obviously Coalition forces are fair
targets, so in some cases is the UN. But to attack
and re-attack efforts
at rebuilding infrastructure seems to me misguided. With fitful
electricity, polluted water, mounting sewage problems, drugs
looted from hospitals, temperatures of up to 60% and insecurity
rife... In
these circumstances any infection is likely to prove
fatal. So what is the level of mortality among the
children of Iraq likely to be? Infants are
particularly at risk, as also mothers giving birth.
Remembering so many are malnourished anyway. My fear
is that at least half the smallest ones
(more in towns) will NOT survive, and many of those that do will
be orphans. But it is these children who are Iraq's
future. Surely any Freedom for Iraq campaign should
be more selective in its targets. And unless it can
be I am not prepared fully to support it. I think any
family man will worry much less about freedom than he does about
the health of his children. It seems that more people died in the
1919 flu epidemic than did on both sides throughout the whole of
the First World War, but this fact has gone largely
unrecorded. At this rate before too long the silent
infant deaths will rival those of political prisoners killed by
Saddam. Is this really the way we want to go? Yours
Sincerely
Hutton Enquiry (Link to crook judges - comment 30th January 2004) - One illuminating fact to emerge this week has been the role of the Tory Front bench in hounding to death poor Dr Kelly. Main culprit was the Tory MP for North Essex the Honourable Bernard Jenkin. Bernard Jenkin was a vociferous supporter of the war on Iraq and a vital part of the blockheaded cement in the alliance between New Labour & Inane Duncan-Smith. It appears the event which finally convinced Dr Kelly he should end it all was an e mail he received from the MOD which including the text of a written parliamentary question from Bernard Jenkin asking the MOD what disciplinary action the MOD planned to take against the source of the leak to Andrew Gilligan. ( I don't think Dr Kelly was mentioned in the Question.) This final proof to me of how Tory & New Labour politicians protect their own & gang up on ordinary decent people left me so shocked that I telephoned Mr Jenkin's office & said that if I had the power to make choice between the death of a Dr Kelly & a Bernard Jenkin, I would favour the death of the latter. I also sent out a poem. The next morning I had a phone call from a Bernard Jenkin secretary, who said she didn't like receiving abusive communications and asked me to listen to her explanation on this affair, which was that there is apparently a convention that written questions to a Department are not disclosed , so the MOD according to her, deliberately disclosed it to Dr Kelly in order to enhance his suicidal disposition. So it was the MOD to blame not Bernard Jenkin. My view I explained was that Jenkin shd never have asked the question in the first place. A civil servant has a right to privacy, under the European Convention of Human Rights, incorporated into law by Tony Blair, and the public have a right to information under the same Convention. Dr Kelly, in pointing out how the dossier was sexed up, was performing a valuable public service, & in this situation there was no need for discipline of Dr Kelly, only discipline by us of those corrupt politicians like Jenkin who are themselves war criminals & who connived & colluded with the Government to expedite a useless war when they knew the cause was suspect. When I said to his secretary her boss was a war criminal she said she preferred me saying that to what I had actually had said on the phone (i.e. when I first learned of Bernard Jenkin's responsibility for the death of Dr Kelly). My poem is printed below. (This was sent to Glenda Jackson MP, to Jeremy Corbyn MP, to Tony Benn, to Tim Collins MP, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, to David Weisbloom, Peter Hitchens, Simon Heffer, Simon Jenkins, Sky News, Trevor Kavanagh, Mark Almond, Michael White, and the Coventry Peace House + to the Rt Hon Douglas Hogg MP, the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP, the Rt Hon Oliver Letwin MP, the Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, the Rt Hon William Hague MP, + to Lynne Featherstone, to Lynne Jones MP, to Claire Bartley & to Gloria Moss, & to The Hon Bernard Jenkin et al. So far no-one has acknowledged the very considerable literary merit of the poem, (although I've had other feed back of an informative nature).
LINES ON THE HUTTON ENQUIRY DEDICATED TO THE HONOURABLE BERNARD JENKIN MP (who demanded Dr Kelly be disciplined) "O wot a prick is Bernard ! O wot a f.....g prick !" - for whenever you think, there's no more they can sink, (politicians I mean) they do - just that A house Wisdom built, seven pillars of stone and who will survive when we are unknown - only They stay - they dribble all day, vacuous tripe, shadows and lies they live in the dark and no one replies (and those who do, they seek to pursue) William Spring
More on The Hutton Enquiry - The Daily Telegraph and the PCC On Tuesday September 2nd The Voice of NATO The Daily Telegraph printed an editorial defaming the now dead Dr Kelly while anticipating and seeking to prejudice the results of the Hutton Enquiry. I have now sent a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. My first dealings with the PCC were over Milosevic and their headlines on the first day of his trial, similarly prejudicial. The PCC did not uphold my complaint, saying Milosevic shd be complaining not me. But I have hopes they will uphold this complaint. Test of my new complaint and press release is below
Immediate release: The Director of CANA UK has referred the 2nd September 03 Daily Telegraph editorial on the Hutton Enquiry to the Press Complaints Commission.
In the letter of complaint, which is also being sent to the Hutton Enquiry, with a request that Lord Hutton tightens up the rules to minimise prejudicial comment, at least while the Enquiry is hearing evidence, William Spring also makes critical comments about Lord Gilbert. "Both Lord Gilbert and The Daily Telegraph fill the same role. The Daily Telegraph represents the Government case in the print media while Lord Gilbert has the brief to wander television and radio studios - also with the object of defaming Dr Kelly."
Copy of letter to the PCC is pasted below: info telephone 0208 376 1454
To the Press Complaints Commission
From William Spring 1 Scales Road London N17 9HB
Tel 020 - 8376 1454
3 pages by fax. Also by post
Dear Sirs
I wish to complain about The Daily Telegraph 's coverage of the Hutton hearings, particularly that newspaper's editorial of September 2nd 2003.
I am sending a copy of this fax to you by post and enclose with the post copy an original cutting of the editorial from the newspaper for September 2nd.
The editorial is entitled " A private tragedy."
My objections to its content as contravening your Code are:
3. it is insensitive in the extreme to make such comments on the day following his widow's evidence.
To deal with these points in turn -
Re 1. If you read the editorial it is clear that the DT believes it already knows what the Enquiry is going to report :
" it is growing increasingly hard to escape the conclusion that Dr Kelly' suicide was not so much a public scandal as a private tragedy…"
Here the DT is seeking to pre-empt the findings of the Enquiry and create an atmosphere in which the Enquiry would come to the same idiosyncratic conclusion as the DT.
But the facts are the overwhelming majority of people in this country rightly regard this as a public scandal and for many reasons.
To simply state therefore as a fact something which is highly contentious at a time when the Enquiry is still taking evidence indicates the DT hopes to colour the testimony of future witnesses.
This is only one example of the prejudicial nature of the editorial.
Re 2
It is clear the DT is printing lies about Dr Kelly. In fact it tries to suggest that he was a liar. To the FOC he is described as being "less than wholly frank " and thus "to some extent he was in the wrong."
This is presented as Dr Kelly's own self perception, when the newspaper has no way of determining what his own self perception of that encounter was.
But the association of " less than wholly frank" with "wrong" inevitably carries the implication that he was liar.
But it was clear from his testimony before the FOC that if he was less than wholly frank it was not because he was lying but because he was seeking to adhere to what seems to have been an invisible brief, which we now know had been prepared for him by the MOD.
The idea that he could be "in the wrong" is both absurd and an iniquitous lie which the DT ( and Lord Gilbert on the television) wish to propagate on behalf of the Government and the MOD.
Clearly Dr Kelly was not in the wrong to speak to a journalist - his job description permitted him to do so .
It was certainly not wrong for Dr Kelly to inform a journalist about reservations to do with the September dossier, which dossier is now known to be fraudulent and bogus.
Mr Blair has said he would resign if that were shown to be the case, but it has been shown, and he is still there.
Mr Scarlett's evidence made clear how in relation to the 45 minute claim the dossier does not even refer to WMD but to battlefield ordnance!
Consequently it was in the public interest for Dr Kelly to disclose to a journalist his reservations about the dossier, which he saw as beefing up the Iraqi threat when he only regarded it as modest.
The public is entitled to truthful and comprehensive information under Article Ten of the ECHR.
This basic duty of honesty from Government to the public has not been evidenced, which is why the Government wanted to muzzle Dr Kelly.
The alarm in Whitehall was the alarm of having been found out.
Lord Gilbert who has broadcast frequently on the BBC in recent days seeking to defame the memory of Dr Kelly is a manifestly corrupt politician who wants to cover up the corruption at the MOD, a department he was at one time responsible for.
Part of the old boy network, he is an unabashed war monger, together with all those MPs who voted for war with Iraq.
He should not be broadcasting on the BBC vicious smears of a dedicated public servant unable to reply, no more than the DT should be allowed to continue with their malicious and unfounded accusations.
Both the DT and Lord Gilbert believe it wrong for the public to know why their sons are being to asked to kill and to die in Iraq.
They believe it was a moral defect on the part of Dr Kelly to indicate to a journalist that something the British Government was saying was less than the whole truth.
Dr Kelly's obligations though were not to the Government exclusively but to the State and the public and to the unwritten Constitution of Great Britain.
Mr Blair, his Government and Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, and Lord Gilbert who is his apologist, together with Conrad Black proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, are all exponents of pre-emptive war, which according to Robert Jackson at Nuremberg, constitutes the supreme war crime.
How dare the DT suggest Dr Kelly was in the wrong for spilling the beans about the criminal conduct of the UK Government!
HMG have lied, were lying and will continue to the British public about this war.
Lies indeed are the only language professional politicians like Lord Gilbert and Tony Blair understand.
If the British Government is not afraid of the truth why does it not set up a full public enquiry into the causes of the war, as Mrs Thatcher did over the Falklands?
The reason they do not want such an Enquiry is that none of the people on the Government aide are honourable men or women. The same applies to Iain Duncan-Smith and even more so to Bernard Jenkin.
Re 3
I also submit that even if they were true, it was highly insensitive for the DT to make such assertions at such a delicate time, when Janice Kelly is both bereaved and has also gone through the strain of giving evidence, like her husband suddenly exposed to the public eye.
Because the Daily Telegraph is such an unreliable propagandist publication, the voice of militarism and the voice of the MOD, my family who have reading the DT ever since it amalgamated with the Morning Post, we have stopped taking it and now have The Daily Mail.
I only bought the paper this morning because I heard these lies being broadcast on a BBC press review.
The Daily Telegraph is the pariah of Fleet Street.
It has no loyalty to its readers, does not want them to express their concerns, censors the correspondence columns, and selectively distorts the news in favour of the US-Israeli lobby.
Last time I wrote to the PCC it was to investigate another case of prejudicial reporting by the DT, the first day of the trial of President Milosevic.
Obviously the DT believes their coverage can influence the course of judicial and quasi -judicial proceedings, which is the intention behind their distorted comments about Dr Kelly.
Dr Kelly was a man of integrity who should not have been hounded to his death by the UK Government nor defamed after it by a neo con/ Zionist publication such as the DT.
Yours sincerely
William Spring
MICHAEL MEACHER ARTICLE - YOUR ATTENTION IS DIRECTED TO THE MICHAEL MEACHER ARTICLE IN THE GUARDIAN 6TH SEPTEMBER ( - THE SAME ISSUE AS FEATURES ADOLFO). FORMER UK NEW LABOUR CABINET MINISTER MICHAEL MEACHER PUTS FORWARD THE "CONSPIRATORIAL CASE" OVER SEPTEMBER 11TH,
Most of the material has already been publicised on the Internet but this is the first major article I know of in UK main stream media from an authoritative source (at the time in a position to know) suggesting all is not as it seems regarding September 11th.
Two items in particular in the article struck me: Meacher refers to the meeting in Berlin (which we had already drawn attention to some months ago, having first received the details probably through Chris Black of the ICDSM). The Berlin meeting was apparently monitored by German intelligence. According to Meacher the BBC reported September 18th 2001 that Niaz Niak, a former Pakistani foreign secretary was told by senior US officials at a meeting in Berlin in mid July 2001 that "military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October ". Another chilling quote from the Meacher article, from the Project for the New American Century blueprint of September 2000: The process of transforming the US into tomorrow' s dominant force is likely to be a long one, in the absence of some catastrophic and catalysing event." No wonder President Bush reportedly told National Security Council members @ their first meeting after September 11th not to be so gloomy. Here, he said, was an opportunity.
Re Cana we hope to keep cana going as a " ginger group" ( see new CANA campaign) and I wd appreciate help to this end in a number of areas, not least cash & voluntary assistance & ideas as to where cana can get money! The cana uk bank account is held by Lloyds TSB 539 High Rd London N17 6 SD account 0094920 02 sort code 30 98 70 This is not my bank account, and only the Hon Treasurers (not me) have authority to sign on it - although of course anybody can deposit funds! We have no membership. We appreciate help from any source. The 'Christian' refers to our moral ideology not to membership composition.
FINALLY A NEW CANA CAMPAIGN Since
Cana was established in 1999 we have frequently discussed whether
or not to change our name, as it is increasingly evident that it
is not NATO as an alliance which is leading the drive for world
hegemony, but the US using NATO or anyone else, whenever it can.
But any thought that our NATO title could become redundant
is counteracted by the drive by the Americans to transform NATO
into an ancillary arm of the US forces. Unable so far to
get the UN on side to legitimise the US occupation of Iraq, a
softer option exists, which is to rope in NATO. There
is however an incongruity between the use of NATO as an
occupation force in Iraq and the basic charter of NATO.
In the case of Afghanistan NATO members invoked the
co-operation clauses of the NATO Charter, but in the case of
Iraq at least some NATO members were opposed to the entire
operation. Our new role as Christians Against Nato
Aggression (CANA) UK will be to pressure the French and
other Governments in NATO to oppose the use both of the UN and of
NATO as an instrument of occupation by the Anglo-Americans. If
this means that France withdraws from NATO and the alliance
breaks up so be it - it would be much the best thing.
Immediate release: intellectual property rights in respect of this e mail version of the cana review are asserted by the editor William Spring who encourages its redistribution, retransmission, copying, reprinting and free communication to any party, either through e mail, on the net, by fax, or post or by any other method. In the case of print or broadcast media the author asks to be informed of any such use of the text by any media outlet. Partial quotation is permitted in any media, but correct attribution, context and essential points should be fairly presented.
About the author: William Spring lives in London and writes from a pro-life perspective. He organised the world's first protest against legalised abortion in 1968. Mary Whitehorse, Malcolm Muggeridge, George Orwell and CS Lewis are the four people he most admires. During the 1980's he lived in Zimbabwe and later wrote a book on the Mugabe dictatorship. He moved to Cyprus and researched the position of indigenous Christians in the Middle East, later doing field research on the position of religious minorities in the KSA for AI. He also reported from Riyadh on the First Gulf War for international media. May 24 2003, with Neil Clark and Adolfo Olaechea, he convened a meeting in London establishing The Regime Change Coalition UK. He has now joined the Lib Dems as the Tories are unwilling to provide serious opposition . For information telephone 0044 208 376 1454 canauk@blueyonder.co.uk