September 01, 2005
Focus on Uzbekistan
September 1 is independence day in Uzbekistan.
Organized by Richard Hindes of ‘Disillusioned kid’, a group of 22 of us have agreed to write about the country and its problems - in response to a call by Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, for sanctions to be imposed on Uzbek cotton in protest against human rights violations.
I am taking part in this because I am against the use of intelligence derived from torture by the British government and I was horrified by the massacre in Andijan. I am concerned about environmental problems caused by the over-production of cotton (including the disasterous draining of the Aral Sea), and lastly because I’ve been in Uzbekistan myself.
Western countries have always been selective in their interest in bad and unstable regimes. The British and French have focussed on their ex-colonies in Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe etc.), while the Americans have been more sensitive to events in east Asia (Burma, China, Tibet etc.). Unfortunately no-one has shown much interest in central Asia.
Registan.net (named after the great market square in Samarkand that I once visited) is a great source of information about central Asia and the Caucasus, and has a powerful article by David Walther in support of sanctions. I also recommend Otto Pohl’s History of Cotton in Uzbekistan.
jpohl.blogspot.com/2005/09/history-of-cotton-in-uzbekistan.html
english.pravda.ru/world/20/92/373/14783_Uzbekistan.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3947
www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4316769
Posted by Simon Holledge at 09:10 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
June 19, 2005
John Bercow on Burma
John Bercow initiated a parliamentary debate on ‘Human Rights (Burma)’ on 15 June (in connection with the 60th birthday of Aung San Suu Kyi on 19 June). At the close of an excellent speech detailing the background to human rights violations in Burma, he said:
… it is a great indictment of the House that, so far back as records can be traced, not one ministerial oral statement has been made in Parliament about the abuse of human rights in Burma. That situation should change. If we declared our intention as a Parliament to oppose the regime, we could make a difference in time. If we were to adopt, through the European Union and the United Nations, the sanctions that are needed in respect of the oil, gas, timber and gems sectors on the one hand and follow up with a comprehensive UN arms embargo on the other, what a difference that could make. The Government of Burma have a responsibility to stop subjugating their citizens and to start liberating them. If they will not act voluntarily, they must be squeezed, squeezed and squeezed again. Like many other despotic regimes throughout the world, the Government of Burma are contemptuous of weakness. They respect only strength. They will respond only — if at all — to pressure, pressure and more pressure.
www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2005-06-15.107.1&s=Burma#g124.0
Posted by Simon Holledge at 01:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Aung San Suu Kyi is 60 today
Aung San Suu Kyi is 60 today. She is still imprisoned in Rangoon by one of the most unpleasant of all regimes. Imagine a country run by five or six of the worst generals in Indonesia and you have Burma.
Burma has not received the attention it deserves. While its people have been oppressed, its rain forests cut down, its mineral wealth exploited by foreign companies, and even its historic heritage (at Pagan) despoiled, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Japan and Europe have vacillated, and time, 15 years now, has past. Only the Americans have stood relatively firm.
I was in Burma in the 1970s and late 1980s. The situation there is not, in my view, like Iraq or Iran, or Zimbabwe for that matter, but more like fascist Greece or Spain - it could be a pushover for democracy. Even within the civil service and the military, the generals enjoy little popular support. The people know that life is better and safer in other southeast Asian countries. The collapse of the regime could be rapid and complete when it finally comes - but we need to apply pressure, not feeble Jack Straw-style gestures!
Does Burma matter? I think so. It’s extraordinarily beautiful with a sizable population (42 million), forming the geographical link between southeast Asia and the sub-continent. Because of its colonial past, many Burmese speak English and maintain an interest in Britain, even if that, tragically, is not reciprocated.
news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=647706
unspun.mithuro.com/content/view/229/53
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=647664
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AungSanSuu_Kyi
Posted by Simon Holledge at 08:05 AM | TrackBack
June 09, 2005
Trade with Africa
The Scottish Executive are to encourage the sale of fair trade products from Africa such as coffee, tea and sugar. This may be worthwhile although it looks very much like the usual New Labour gesture politics, where talk is substituted for action.
Africa produces many things that are never (or very seldom) seen in this country, especially agricultural products. For example I have occasionally found excellent fruit from Madagascar and the Ivory Coast at our local vegetable and fruit market, apparently transhipped from Marseilles, but the supermarkets only seem to buy from South Africa and to a lesser extent from the countries of east Africa.
If the government is sincere about helping Africa they should identify obstacles to trade and remove them so that supermarkets and shops can then start selling a much wider range of produce.
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=616872005
Posted by Simon Holledge at 07:04 PM | TrackBack
March 21, 2005
Why the China arms ban is important
Britain should maintain its ban on selling arms to China.
Surprising as it may seem, this is one issue that the American administration really do understand better than European governments!
“The European Union should do nothing to contribute to a circumstance in which Chinese military modernisation draws on European Union technology. It is the United States, not Europe, that has defended the Pacific.’ Condoleezza Rice.
The arms ban was established in response to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, which Beijing have never repudiated. Last week Beijing passed a law allowing for the use of force against Taiwan, if the latter declares independence. A war in the Taiwan Straits would be a calamity. It is important that Europe does nothing to make a sensitive situation worse.
www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,7369,1442419,00.html?gusrc=rss
UPDATE 24 March 2005
More than 500 Chinese human rights activists have written to the European Union asking for the arms embargo to remain. They want China to release prisoners of conscience and agree to an independent commission to look at the events of 1989 (i.e. the Tiananmen massacre).
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4378017.stm
UPDATE 25 March 2005
The Foreign Affairs Committee at Westminster is supporting a continuation of the arms ban: “The raising of the EU arms embargo on China would send the wrong signal at this time, in the absence of strong undertakings from the Chinese government to address human rights issues.”
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4381421.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 02:54 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
October 17, 2004
In support of Craig Murray
British ambassadors should never be silenced for speaking up against human rights abuses, but that is apparently what has happened to Craig Murray, formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan.
Murray objected to receiving intelligence obtained by torture, something that Jack Straw evidently finds acceptable.
news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1199822004
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3750370.stm
Posted by Simon Holledge at 11:13 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack