by Mark Curtis
After requests from Nepal for help, Blair 'assured every possible support to Nepal's fight against terrorism'. British military aid, amounting to around £3 million, was agreed in 2002 and involves helicopters and communications equipment. In early 2004 Britain gave the Nepalese army two used vertical-take-off aircraft to search out Maoist guerrillas – funding came from the government's Global Conflict Prevention Pool and was disclosed not in parliament but by British officials in Kathmandu to a Nepalese newspaper.42
Britain's 'special representative for Nepal', Jeffrey James, has said that 'Britain is committed to training and other non-lethal assistance to enable the security forces to counter any resumption of hostilities'. Dozens of Nepalese army officers are also being trained at establishments in Britain.43
This aid is to a regime in Kathmandu under a king who dismissed the elected government and appointed his own, postponing elections indefinitely. The regime is conducting a crackdown on all political opponents, essentially under the cover of a 'war against terrorism'. It is the most recent in a succession of Nepalese governments that have never seriously addressed the plight of the majority poor in the country or implemented serious land reforms, which explains the popularity of the Maoists in some rural areas.
The Major and Blair governments also provided substantial support to Turkey as it conducted horrific military operations against Kurds in the south-east of the country in the mid- to late 1990s. Three and a half thousand Kurdish villages were destroyed, making at least 1.5 million homeless and killing untold thousands in a war ostensibly against guerrillas of the Kurdish PKK but essentially an attempt to pacify the whole Kurdish region. Britain continued arms exports throughout this period, the Major government having increased them during the period of the worst atrocities in 1994-1996. Normal trade and diplomatic relations have also continued under New Labour which, as with Russian atrocities against Chechens, publicly backed the line that Ankara was fighting terrorism rather than – as was the reality – practising it.
As well as continuing trade and military relations, London has acted as Turkey's most effective advocate in Brussels for Turkey's bid to join the EU – a process which has hitherto led to some human-rights reforms in Turkey, but with torture and other domestic repression remaining widespread. By 2003-2004 hundreds of thousands of Kurds were still unable to return to their villages; many were actively prevented by Turkish security forces, others feared reprisals. Most Kurds continue to live in poverty in already overcrowded Turkish cities.
There is one more aspect of Turkey's horrific strategy for dealing with the Kurds that should give cause for concern for those engaged in a war against terrorism – the fact that for more than two decades the Turkish government funded and armed Islamic radicals in the south-east of the country to help crush the PKK rebels. Once the region was pacified and the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire, the Turkish security forces tried to clamp down on the group that it had previously funded – the Hezbollah – and members began to look to other radical Islamic groups for support. Those other groups had also been tolerated by the Turks as they grew and sent many militant warriors to Afghanistan and Bosnia to fight in the jihad. It was individuals from these groups who drove the suicide bombs into the British consulate and HSBC bank in Istanbul in November 2003.44
This is yet another example of the cyclical nature of British and US foreign policy. Western priorities contribute to the growth of radical groups; these groups become enemies and commit gruesome acts; the Western response is to commit further gruesome acts, provoking the rise of more radical groups – all of which policies are justified at every step as a means of upholding the noblest virtues.
The list of British support for terrorism could go on. Some instances reveal more direct involvement, including the various past assassination attempts against foreign leaders conducted by Britain; the bomb attack on Libyan leader Colonel Qadafi in 1996 by a group funded, according to former MI5 officer David Shayler, by MI6; and British collusion with paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. Such collusion led to at least 30 murders, according to the Stevens report released in April 2003, and may also have led to the bomb attacks in Dublin in 1974 that killed 26 people.45
The following chapters focus on two countries in particular where Britain has given its backing to campaigns of state terror: Nigeria and Indonesia.
10
NIGERIANS: WAR FOR
OIL
Nigerians have long been victims of their own governments, a succession of which – mainly military – have abused the country since independence. Most leading political figures have apparently seen high office as an opportunity to plunder the country's revenues for their own personal gain; consequently, Nigeria has become one of the most corrupt countries in the world. A major reason for this is Nigeria's oil resources, which have enriched a tiny elite while at best hardly benefiting, and at worst actually impoverishing, the majority of Nigeria's population. After decades of oil production have produced almost $300 billion in revenues, per capita income is less than $300 a year.
Less well known is that Britain has played an important role in this state of affairs. The declassified files concerning the Nigerian civil war in the late 1960s clearly show British complicity in the Nigerian government's aggression against the region of Biafra, where an independence movement was struggling to secede from Nigeria. This brutal civil war resulted in between one and three million deaths; it also significantly helped to shape modern Nigeria, and not least the current division of oil revenues between the central government and the regions and people.
The struggle for an equitable sharing of resources is ongoing and the poverty-stricken people of Nigeria's oil-producing regions are among the most exploited in the world. They face a combination of the power of the Nigerian state and its 'security' forces, the oil companies and their Western backers. Current British policy provides an instructive example of the level of humanitarian concern in international relations.
Obasanjo versus Mugabe
One of Britain's key allies in Africa is Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. The public could be forgiven for thinking that Zimbabwe has the most repressive African government of the day; in reality, Obasanjo's rule has been far more violent and bloody. In contrast to the media's portayal of Mugabe, there has been virtual silence on Nigeria's current regime, and even less said about British backing for it.
The Obasanjo government came to power in 1999 and was widely welcomed since it represented a return to civilian rule in Nigeria. Since then, however, around 10,000 people have been killed in inter-communal violence. The military has often openly fanned the tensions and indulged in atrocities of its own.1
In November 1999, the military massacred up to 2,000 people in Odi, Bayelsa state, after an armed gang killed 12 policemen. In October 2001 the military killed more than 200 unarmed civilians in towns across Benue state after the murder of 19 soldiers. No action has been taken against those soldiers responsible in either case. In 2003, mainly during the elections in April and May, hundreds of people were killed in Delta state in ethnic and political fighting. Nigerian security forces killed dozens of people in indiscriminate attacks against Ijaw villages.2
Meanwhile, throughout Nigeria as a whole, 'extrajudicial executions by the police remain a chronic problem' and 'the approach to law and order still appears to be primarily one of confrontation and violence rather than prevention and respect for the rights of suspects', according to Human Rights Watch.3
The oil-rich Delta state is the scene of routine human-rights violations by the military and ongoing protests by local communities about oil company operations, especially Shell, the leading Western oil company in the country. It is a militarised area; the army, navy and paramilitary mobile police are deployed at oil facilities across the Delta. Reports from fleeing refugees indicate that the Nigerian military is engaged in scorched-earth violence designed, like the Odi massacre, 'to teach the Ijaws a lesson'. Human Rights Watch notes that 'the mili
tary has responded to community protests (which are sometimes peaceful, but other times take on a violent or criminal nature) with indiscriminate reprisal attacks against entire towns and villages'.4
A variety of ethnic groups live in Nigeria's oil-producing areas, with Ijaws comprising the largest of the groups, numbering around 8 million, together with the Ogonis and others. They have failed to benefit from oil production while oil companies have been allowed to confiscate their land, collude with corrupt politicians in the capital and pollute their environment. When they protest, the oil companies call in the military to repress them further. The oil companies have thus remained complicit in many human-rights abuses, even after worldwide attention was focused on them following the execution of Ogoniland human-rights leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and nine others in 1995.
Britain's enduring policy is to back the Nigerian government by remaining silent on human-rights abuses by the military and oil companies, while offering training to dozens of Nigerian army officers at establishments in Britain. Before Tony Blair visited Nigeria in February 2002, Human Rights Watch called on him to raise the subject of human-rights abuses with Nigeria 'given the close ties between your government and that of President Obasanjo'. It noted in particular the massacres in October 2001 which 'President Obasanjo appeared to defend'.5
During this visit, however, Blair did not publicly raise human-rights issues either in the Delta or elsewhere in the country. Instead, he delivered a speech to the Nigerian parliament mentioning Britain's 'special bond with Nigeria' and saying that British companies were 'major investors' and that 'trade is growing'. He also managed to wish Nigeria good luck in the African Nations Cup. The only things he didn't mention in a long-ish speech were human rights and oil. A section in the speech on 'conflict' failed to mention anything about the conflict in the country he happened to be in. A section on 'governance' failed to say anything about governance in Nigeria or about how oil revenues were failing to reach virtually anyone outside the audience he was speaking to. This speech was delivered just four months after Blair had told the Labour party conference of the need to 'heal the scar on the conscience of the world', meaning Africa.6
In April 2003 Human Rights Watch again wrote to the British government. This time it was:
to express our concern at the failure of the United Kingdom government to denounce publicly incidents of violence and intimidation which occurred in several areas of Nigeria during the National Assembly elections.
Referring to the Foreign Office statement which described the 'relative calm in which the elections took place', Human Rights Watch commented that 'in a situation where we have seen serious violence, with deaths and injuries, it is extraordinary for the government to talk of "calm"'. Rather, Britain was choosing instead to put a positive gloss on the elections – in which our man won again, thanks partly to massive election rigging – a contrast to the stream of criticism delivered over Zimbabwe's rigged elections in 2000.7
In February 2004, the British government made a formal intervention in the US justice process in an attempt to stop British companies being sued in the US for human-rights violations committed in other countries. This followed a decision by the US courts in February 2002 not to dismiss two lawsuits brought against Shell for human-rights violations against executed Nigerian human-rights leader Ken Sarow-Wiwa.
This move, the Independent reported, followed months of lobbying by British businesses, notably Shell. The government argued that the US law:
interferes with the sovereignty of the governments of other sovereign nations by subjecting their nationals and enterprises to risk of conflicting legal commands and proceedings and the costs of defending themselves against private law suits.8
– the same sovereignty and law, that is, which Blair condemns for curbing his plans for 'humanitarian' intervention in Iraq and elsewhere.
The current British priorities in Nigeria – strong backing for the Nigerian government and protection of the oil companies – are long-standing, and have many of their roots in policies of 30 years ago. The conflict then was essentially over the same issue as in the oil-rich regions today – how Nigeria's resources should be divided between the central government and the regions. Then, as now, the central government had a simple solution: it would exploit and control these resources for its own benefit; then, as now, Britain backed it. The price of this civil war, which then affected millions of lives, is still being paid today.
Background to civil war
For those in Britain old enough to remember the war in Nigeria in the late 1960s, the word 'Biafra' probably conjures up images of starving children – the result of the blockade imposed by the Nigerian government in Lagos to defeat the secession of the eastern region. For Biafrans themselves, the period was one of immense suffering. It is still not known how many died as a direct result of the war and the blockade, but it is believed to be between one million and three million.
For those seeking to understand Britain's role in the world, there is an important side of the Biafran story to add – British complicity in the slaughter. The declassified files show that the then Wilson government backed the Nigerian government all the way, arming its aggression and apologising for its actions.
The immediate background to the war was a complex one of tensions and violence between Nigeria's regions and ethnic groups, especially between those from the east and the north. In January 1966 army officers had attempted to seize power. The conspirators, most of whom were Ibos (from the east) assassinated several leading political figures as well as officers of northern origin. Army commander Major General Ironsi, also an Ibo, intervened to restore discipline in the army, suspended the constitution, banned political parties, formed a Federal Military Government and appointed military governors to each of Nigeria's regions.
Ironsi's decree in March 1966, which abolished the Nigerian federation and unified the federal and regional civil services, was perceived by many not as an effort to establish a unitary government but as a plot by the Ibos to dominate Nigeria. Troops of northern origin, who dominated the Nigerian infantry, became increasingly restive and fighting broke out between them and Ibo soldiers in garrisons in the south. In June, mobs in northern cities, aided by local officials, carried out a pogrom against resident Ibos, massacring several hundred people and destroying Ibo-owned property.
In July 1966 northern officers staged a counter-coup, during which Ironsi and other Ibo officers were killed. Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Yakubu 'Jack' Gowon emerged as leader. The aim of the coup was both to take revenge on the Ibos for the coup in January and to promote the secession of the north, although Gowon soon pulled back from calling explicitly for this. Gowon named himself the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces and head of the military government. This was rejected by the military governor in the eastern region, Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu, who claimed, with some justification, that the Gowon regime was illegitimate.
Throughout late 1966 and 1967 the violence escalated. In September 1966 attacks on Ibos in the north were renewed with unprecedented ferocity – stirred up, eastern region officials believed, by northern political leaders. Reports circulated that troops from the northern region had participated in the massacres. The estimated number of deaths ranged from 10,000 to as high as 30,000. More than one million Ibos returned to the eastern region in fear.
In January 1967 the military leaders met in Aburi, Ghana. By this time the eastern region under Ojukwu was threatening secession. Many of Ojukwu's eastern colleagues were now arguing that the massacres the previous September showed that the country could not be reunited amicably. In a last- minute effort at Aburi to hold Nigeria together, an accord was agreed that provided for a loose confederation of regions. Gowon issued a decree implementing the Aburi agreement and even the northern region now favoured the formation of a multistate federation. The federal civil service, however, vigorously opposed the Aburi agreement and sought to scupper it.
Ojukwu and Gowon then disputed
what exactly had been agreed at Aburi, especially after the Federal Military Government (FMG) issued a further decree in March which was seen by Ojukwu as reneging on the FMG's commitment at Aburi to give the eastern region greater autonomy. The new decree gave the federal government the right to declare a state of emergency in any region and to ensure that any regional government could not undermine the executive authority of the federal government. Ojukwu then gave an ultimatum to Gowon that the eastern region would begin implementing its understanding of the Aburi agreement, providing for greater regional autonomy, by 31 March.