Web Of Deceit: Britain's Real Foreign Policy

by Mark Curtis

  Present British foreign policy has meant a crushing burden of rearmament and dependence on the dollar areas for food and raw materials, which can be paid for, not by the export of industrial goods to the dollar areas, but only by the continued exploitation of dollar earning raw material, food and mineral resources from Malaya, Africa, British Guiana and other parts of the Colonial Empire. All the so-called development plans for the colonial territories have been devised with this aim in view.8

  In August 1953, the PPP ministers called for a strike by the sugar workers who were fighting for the Sugar Producers’ Association to recognise their union. By 10 September, the Governor of British Guiana was noting that the sugar industry was ‘at complete standstill’. Bookers stated that the strike meant ‘a loss of profits’ and that ‘the present situation can only be dealt with effectively by the Colonial Office’. Indeed, ‘unless something drastic is done, Bookers will cease to exist as a large firm in five years’.9

  Although the sugar strike effectively ended, it left its mark and it was clear that the PPP retained the wrong priorities. All in all, the PPP had ‘overstepped the limits of what we regard as decent government’, one British MP later explained.10

  On 9 October, the British Governor announced that the constitution was being suspended and the elected ministers were being removed from office. A few hundred British troops landed and three warships remained stationed off the Guianan coast. The Queen signed the order to suspend the constitution and overthrow the government.

  British pretexts and reality

  British concerns were clear. The Colonial Secretary noted on the day that intervention was decided upon that the PPP had ‘completely destroyed the confidence of the business community and all moderate opinion’. Later, he said that Britain ‘took action before that further deterioration showed itself in the action of the business community’. He also stated that ‘a number of American or overseas firms … were already abandoning their projects in British Guiana’ and that they ‘were very apprehensive about the dangerous political climate’. The danger was that conditions were being created that were ‘inimical to investment either domestic or overseas’. Thus the PPP were ‘threatening the order of the Colony’ and undermining ‘its present economic stability’.11

  In December 1953 the Colonial Secretary again warned of the threat of democracy, noting that if Britain had permitted new elections in British Guiana ‘the same party would have been elected again’.12

  Since overthrowing nationalist leaders who advocate improving the social conditions of the poor is not good public relations, a suitable pretext was necessary. So when the intervention was announced to the Guianan people on 9 October, the Governor stated that Britain was acting ‘to prevent Communist subversion of the government’. The elected ministers and the PPP were:

  completely under the control of a communist clique … Their objective was to turn British Guiana into a totalitarian state subordinate to Moscow and a dangerous platform for extending communist influence in the Western hemisphere.13

  This public stance was repeated by the man who had previously said in secret correspondence that the PPP programme was ‘no more extreme’ than his own party’s. The Colonial Secretary told the House of Commons that it was all ‘part of the deadly design to turn British Guiana into a totalitarian state dominated by communist ideas’. Britain was ‘faced with part of the international communist conspiracy’.14

  The declassified files further give this game away. Britain’s delegation to the United Nations cabled the Colonial Secretary a week before the overthrow and stated:

  If our action can be presented as firm step taken to prevent attempt by communist elements to sabotage new and progressive constitution, it will be welcomed by American public and accepted by most United Nations opinion. If on the other hand it is allowed to appear as just another attempt by Britain to stifle a popular nationalist movement … effect can only be bad … To secure desired result some preparation of public opinion seems to be essential [sic].15

  The US supported the British attack on British Guiana, saying that it was ‘gratified to note that the British government is taking firm action to meet the situation’. The British embassy in Washington declared that the State Department had ‘worked in very well with us over this crisis … if the Jagans wished to come to this country in order to publicise their case they would not be allowed visas. This goes for any of their buddies too.’16

  The opposition Labour Party supported the intervention. James Griffiths, the former Colonial Secretary, agreed in the House of Commons with the Governor’s statement that the PPP leader’s aim ‘was to turn British Guiana into a totalitarian state subordinate to Moscow’. Labour leader Clement Attlee also agreed, only questioning whether the government had exhausted all the options before acting; thus Labour accepted Britain’s right to overthrow democracy, only disputing its timing.

  Griffiths also sympathised with his successor as Colonial Secretary, noting that ‘the office is an interesting, exciting, hard and responsible one for we are dealing with 70 million people who are growing up. They are adolescents who are politically immature.’17

  The subsequent British task was to ensure that business as usual would prevail under conditions of economic stability. The elected government was replaced by one nominated by the Governor, which contained many members who had been defeated candidates in the April elections. Two of the PPP leaders – Cheddi and Janet Jagan – were sentenced to six months’ hard labour for violating restriction orders; other leaders were detained without trial for three-month periods.

  In a House of Commons debate two weeks after the overthrow of democracy, the Colonial Secretary observed, presumably again with a straight face, that the British Government ‘must steadily … seek to build up a political system in British Guiana which will give the inhabitants a chance of developing democratic institutions’. Britain would now foster ‘some body representing Guianese opinion upon whose advice the Governor may rely’ but ‘upon whose advice he will not be bound to act in the interim period’.18

  Eighteen months after the intervention the Governor commented that he needed ‘one company of regular troops until representative government has been successfully restored’. The presence of British troops would provide ‘a short term insurance against disorders’ since ‘while political activity is at an enforced standstill it would be rash to dispense with all troops’.19

  It took until 1964 before Britain’s conception of ‘representative government’ was restored. In the 1957 elections Britain attempted to rig a defeat for Jagan, who remained PPP leader, but unfortunately the wrong party won nine of the fourteen elected seats and Jagan became prime minister once more. Still under Jagan’s leadership, the PPP also won the 1961 elections. Beginning the following year, however, the CIA, operating in the country with British permission, helped finance a destabilisation campaign against the Jagan government, which culminated in a general strike beginning in April 1963. CIA agents gave advice to local union leaders on how to organise and sustain the strike, and provided funds and food supplies to keep the strikers going. At least $1 million is thought to have been spent on toppling the democratically elected government.20

  Former CIA agent Philip Agee wrote that the 1964 election victory of Jagan’s opponent, Forbes Burnham, was ‘largely due to CIA operations over the past five years to strengthen the anti-Jagan trade unions’.21 In these elections, however, the PPP remained the largest party and won twenty-four out of fifty-three seats. But the constitution had been amended by Britain to a system of proportional representation, so that a rival coalition grouping under the more acceptable leadership of Forbes Burnham could take power.

  Britain had refused to grant independence to British Guiana if Jagan’s PPP were to gain power. With the PPP removed from office after the 1964 elections, British Guiana was finally granted independence in 1966. The sugar transnational Bookers was assured of ‘a remarkable degree of control over the economy, b
oth through its dominant position in the sugar industry and through its interests in fisheries, cattle, timber, insurance, advertising and retail commerce’.22

  PART IV

  THE MASS PRODUCTION OF IGNORANCE

  Tony Blair famously told the Labour party conference in 2001: ‘I tell you if Rwanda happened again today as it did in 1994, when a million people were slaughtered in cold blood, we would have a moral duty to act.’1

  Several of the media reported this the following day. But what Blair and journalists failed to mention was that Britain contributed to the slaughter in 1994. As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Britain not only eschewed its obligations in this role but deliberately obstructed the deployment of UN troops that could have prevented the genocide.

  This story has been buried, with only a minuscule number of mentions in the mainstream media. It may as well never have happened. The public has little way of knowing about it and British political leaders have not been held to account. What kind of media and political culture is it that deems the government’s contribution to the slaughter of a million people unworthy of mention?

  But Rwanda is just one example. In chapter 20, I tell the story of how Britain helped the Indonesian army slaughter a million people in 1965. London’s aid was direct and multi-faceted; revealed in declassified files now publicly available. But this story – which I broke in 1996 – has been consigned to the memory hole. There are only one or two mentions in the mainstream media. It didn’t happen.

  Horrible British foreign policies are routinely either ignored (virtually) completely in mainstream media and academia, or reported but given ideological treatment that conforms to elite priorities. In my view, there exists an ideological system that prevents the public seeing the reality of Britain’s role in the world – another key aspect of the single-ideology totalitarian state. It is not a conspiracy; rather, it works by journalists and academics internalising values, accepted wisdom and styles of reporting. Neither is the system monolithic. There is some space for dissent and there are several outstanding, independent journalists in the mainstream. But major criticism of government policy and dissent is infrequent and tends to occur only at the margins and within narrow limits. It amounts to a system, because it works across the mainstream media (and academia) in very visible ways.

  People are just not informed about this country’s real role in the world. They are provided with systematically distorted views and information about the past and the present that makes it easier for elites to pursue policies in their interests and often against the public interest.

  18

  ETHICAL FOREIGN POLICIES AND OTHER MYTHS

  Like the Winds of Change speech that told Britain empire was over, this one will stand as a moment British politics became vigorously, unashamedly, social democratic. The day it became missionary and almost Swedish in pursuit of universal justice.

  The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee, on Tony Blair’s speech to the Labour party conference, October 2001

  Contributing to genocide in Rwanda

  IN THE HUNDREDS of media articles on the 1994 Rwanda genocide, there is barely a mention of Britain being a permanent member of the UN security council and in any way responsible for what happened. I recounted something of Britain’s role in my previous book, The Great Deception, so I will not repeat everything here.2 Since then, however, another book, by Linda Melvern, an investigative journalist, confirms the quite terrible British, and US, role.3

  After the killings began in early April 1994, the UN security council, instead of beefing up its peace mission in the country and giving it a stronger mandate to intervene, decided to reduce the troop presence from 2,500 to 270. This decision sent a green light to those who had planned the genocide showing that the UN would not intervene. A small UN military force arrived merely to rescue expats, and then left. Belgium’s senior army officer in the UN peace mission believed that if this force had not been pulled out, the killing could have been stopped. Canadian general Romeo Dallaire, who commanded the UN force in Rwanda, later said that this evacuation showed ‘inexcusable apathy by the sovereign states that made up the UN, that is completely beyond comprehension and moral acceptability’.

  It was Britain’s ambassador to the UN, Sir David Hannay, who proposed that the UN pull out its force; the US agreed. According to Melvern, it was left to the Nigerian ambassador, Ibrahim Gambari, to point out that tens of thousands of civilians were dying at the time. Gambari also pleaded with the security council to reinforce the UN presence. But both the US and Britain objected, suggesting that only a token force should be left behind – this became the 270 personnel.

  By chance the Rwandan government was sitting on the security council at the time, as one of the ten non-permanent members. So British and US indifference and their policy of reducing the UN force, as expressed in the security council, was reported back to those directing the genocide in Rwanda. Melvern notes that ‘confident of no significant international opposition, it was decided to push ahead with further “pacification” in the south of the country’. This led to tens of thousands more murders.

  General Dallaire, who had pleaded for reinforcements, complained that:

  My force was standing knee deep in mutilated bodies, surrounded by the guttural moans of dying people, looking into the eyes of dying children bleeding to death with their wounds burning in the sun and being invaded by maggots and flies. I found myself walking through villages where the only sign of life was a goat, or a chicken, or a songbird, as all the people were dead, their bodies being eaten by voracious packs of wild dogs.

  By May 1994, with certainly tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands already dead, there was another UN proposal – to despatch 5,500 troops to help stop the massacres. This deployment was delayed by pressure, mainly from the US ambassador, but with strong support from Britain. Dallaire believes that if these troops had been speedily deployed, tens of thousands more lives could have been saved. But the US and Britain argued that before these troops went in, there needed to be a ceasefire in Rwanda, a quite insane suggestion given that one side was massacring innocent civilians. The US also ensured that this plan was watered down so that troops would have no mandate for using force to end the massacres.

  Britain and the US also refused to provide the military airlift capability for the African states who were offering troops for this force. The RAF, for example, had plenty of transport aircraft that could have been deployed. Eventually, with delays continuing and thousands being killed by the day, Britain offered a measly fifty trucks. Lynda Chalker, then minister for overseas development, visited Dallaire in Rwanda in July. He gave her his list of requirements at the same time as noting that ‘I was up to my knees in bodies by then.’ The fifty trucks had still not yet materialised. Later, on BBC2’s Newsnight, Chalker blamed Dallaire’s lack of resources on ‘the UN’ which ‘ought to get its procurement right’.

  Britain also went out of its way to ensure that the UN did not use the word ‘genocide’ to describe the slaughter. Accepting that genocide was occurring would have obliged states to ‘prevent and punish’ those guilty under the terms of the Geneva Convention. In late April 1994, Britain, along with the US and China, secured a security council resolution that rejected the use of the term ‘genocide’. This resolution was drafted by the British.

  The Czech republic’s ambassador to the UN, Karel Kovanda, confronted the security council about the fact of genocide at this time. He said that talking about withdrawing peacekeepers and securing a ceasefire was ‘rather like wanting Hitler to reach a ceasefire with the Jews’. There were objections to his comments, Kovanda said, and British and US diplomats quietly told him that on no account was he to use such inflammatory language outside the security council.

  A July 1994 resolution spoke simply of ‘possible acts of genocide’ and other security council documents used similarly restrained language. A year after the slaughter, the British Foreign Office sent a letter to a
n international inquiry saying that it still did not accept the term genocide. It said that it saw a discussion about whether the massacres constituted genocide as ‘sterile’.

  Journalist Linda Melvern was told by UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali that during the genocide he had had individual private meetings with the British and US ambassadors to the UN (the US ambassador was Madeleine Albright, who went on to become Clinton’s Secretary of State). Boutros-Ghali urged both of them to help stop the killing but said their reaction was: ‘Come on, Boutros, relax … Don’t put us in a difficult position … the mood is not for intervention, you will obtain nothing … we will not move.’

  Let me summarise the British government’s contribution to the genocide in Rwanda. Britain used its diplomatic weight to reduce severely a UN force that, according to military officers on the ground, could have prevented the killings. It then helped ensure the delay of other plans for intervention, which sent a direct green light to the murderers in Rwanda to continue. Britain also refused to provide the capability for other states to intervene, while blaming the lack of such capability on the UN. Throughout, Britain helped ensure that the UN did not use the word ‘genocide’ so the UN would not act, using diplomatic pressure on others to ensure this did not happen. British officials went out of their way to promote these policies and rebuffed personal pleas to stop the killings from the UN Secretary General and the commander of the UN force.

  All this information is publicly available. We do not need to look across the Atlantic to think of trials of those who have acquiesced in genocide. There is a long list of British policy-makers who are to some degree responsible – Prime Minister John Major, Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd, Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind and Overseas Development Minister Lynda Chalker foremost among them. But these people are being protected by the silence of the media and academia as well as the extreme lack of accountability in the political system.