by Mark Curtis
A comparison between Diego Garcia and the Falklands is perhaps obvious. As John Madeley commented in a 1982 report for the Minority Rights Group:
Britain’s treatment of the Illois people stands in eloquent and stark contrast with the way the people of the Falkland islands were treated in the Spring of 1982. The invasion of the Falklands was furiously resisted by British forces travelling 8,000 miles at a cost of over a thousand million pounds and many British and Argentinian lives. Diego Garcia was handed over without its inhabitants – far from being defended – even being consulted before being removed.41
The Falklands parallel is also apt since five days before Argentina invaded the islands in 1982 – and well over a decade after the first removals from Diego Garcia began – a ‘final’ deal was ‘agreed’ between Britain and the Chagossians for compensation of £4 million.
The Argentinian invasion provoked outrage in the media and political culture, including declarations on the importance of maintaining high principles, international law and the defence of the human rights of British subjects. The editors of The Financial Times, for example, noted that the invasion of the Falklands was ‘an illegal and immoral means to make good territorial claims’. A solution to this particular action ‘should not pass over the wishes of the Falkland Islanders who wish to preserve their traditions’. ‘If such bare-faced attacks were allowed to achieve their ends’, they said, ‘then the consequences would be grave not just in one or two remaining British outposts, but for peace in many areas’.42
The Daily Telegraph editors noted that ‘we are pledged to consider the wishes of the Falklanders “paramount”, as Mrs Thatcher repeated last night’ (in an emergency debate in the House of Commons). They stated that ‘principle dictates’ that the US should support Britain over the Falklands since it cannot ‘be indifferent to the imposition of foreign rule on people who have no desire for it’. Britain’s decision to send a task force ‘was taken quite simply because it was the only alternative to a humiliating betrayal of the Falkland Islands’. The invasion ‘was clearly as illegal an act as can be imagined and has been so proclaimed by the United Nations Security Council’.
All these violations also apply to the Chagos islanders. Their removal violated articles 9 and 13 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which stated that ‘no one should be subjected to arbitrary exile’ and ‘everybody has the right to return to his country’, among others.
But a different set of principles applies to them than to the Falklanders. High principles are defended only where violations occur against us. They rarely apply (or are even mentioned in the ideological system) in cases where the British government commits them. The Chagos islanders continue to be, tragically, just one group of victims of the irrelevance of human rights to British elites – and of the deceit behind the high-minded rhetoric – as I have tried to show throughout this book.
23
THE CHALLENGES AHEAD
THE HISTORY OF British foreign policy is partly one of complicity in some of the world’s worst horrors. If we were honest, we would see Britain’s role in the world to a large extent as a story of crimes against humanity. Currently, contrary to the extraordinary rhetoric of New Labour leaders and other elites, policies are continuing on this traditional course, systematically making the world more abusive of human rights as well as more unequal and less secure.
This is reason alone for a complete change in direction. But British policies are not only exacerbating the misery of others; they are also dangerous to the British public. There are at least five ‘boomerangs’, or ways in which foreign policies will continue to rebound on us, unless there is a drastic change of course.
The first concerns weapons of mass destruction. The British government’s threats to use nuclear weapons, its view that they are ‘sub-strategic’ and war-fighting, combined with its extraordinary new military interventionism, are sending a clear signal to others: any regime wanting to take on the West – or perhaps even any nation serious about pursuing an independent course of development – should now acquire nuclear weapons. If a country does not have these weapons, it may be threatened with destruction and pulverised, as in Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Iraq. Nuclear weapons could be seen as protection against this new phase of Western threats and interventionism masquerading as the ‘war against terrorism’. It is inconceivable that NATO would have bombed Yugoslavia if Belgrade had possessed functioning weapons of mass destruction. This lesson is surely being drawn by every repressive regime around the world, not to mention terrorist groups, and perhaps some more benign governments too. The de facto encouragement to possess weapons of mass destruction is surely an ominous development for the future.
Only an illusion of ‘security’ is being provided, as Britain, especially with the US, increases military spending, heightens ‘power projection’ capabilities, develops ever more sophisticated weapons and ensures Western conventional military dominance. Rather, these priorities breed increasing insecurity and further encourage others to acquire ever more devastating weapons. All this is good for the arms corporations that New Labour is so eager to appease, but bad for everyone else.
A second obvious boomerang is from Britain’s arms exports. The world’s second largest exporter is helping to heighten tensions and sow the seeds of more destructive conflict on all continents. Britain is basically prepared to arm anyone with anything, with only a few exceptions, which is what the arms export guidelines – very elastic anyway, and routinely broken – are really meant to enable. As chapter 8 has shown, Britain regularly arms both sides in conflicts, the world’s poorest countries, human rights abusers and states engaged in wars against their own populations or occupying territory. The prospects for peace and development – urgent tasks in numerous places – are made much more grim by the most fundamental of Whitehall’s policies.
Arms exports are so entrenched in the British elite mind that anyone suggesting a halt is treated as insane – a good example of how ‘normal’ British policies are so destructive, not only to others but also to us. Increasingly, under globalisation, conflicts elsewhere are not simply containable and the idea that we can just wall ourselves off from them no longer holds. Selling arms around the world not only enables aggressors to pursue war but it reinforces the military’s role in politics, often undermining democracy, and diverts scarce resources away from development needs. Arms exports often breed further conflict and add to the inequalities that breed violence and a more unstable world. Britain’s arms exports are political interventions, often propping up elites, aiding their repression and helping one side gain advantage over another – they are part of Britain’s general foreign policy, as well as a profitable business of death. The only insanity is that they continue.
Third, the ‘war against terrorism’ risks rebounding on us in a number of ways. This new phase of Western military intervention may well be creating new enemies, a new generation of anti-Western sentiment, and perhaps even a new generation of terrorists willing to succeed that also part-created by Britain and the US in 1980s Afghanistan. The US/British strategy of massive military retaliation in Afghanistan appears – quite predictably – to have dispersed rather than destroyed Al Qaida. The conscious US strategy of depicting a manichean struggle of good versus evil has surely played right into Al Qaida’s, and other fanatical groups’, hands, in a way that Bin Laden could only have dreamed of. The US, in its reaction to September 11th, is easily seen as the monster that the terrorists wanted to portray it as to justify their attacks in the first place. They have now got their full-scale war, Bush and the US elite having no trouble in rising to the task, since it also works in their interests. People in the West are paying the price in terms of heightened insecurity, reduced civil liberties and a more ‘conservative’ domestic elite agenda, while almost anywhere in the world, it seems, can be the object of Anglo-American wrath.
Do we expect those on the receiving end of US/British strategy – Palestinians in the occupied territ
ories, the parents of Iraqi children killed under sanctions or bombing, Afghan villagers bombed – to pursue peaceful cooperation with Western states? Or to work patiently through international institutions to seek justice, when these same bodies are so obviously manipulated to promote Western policies? As Bush has tried to divide the world into those with us and those against us, the fact is that there are an awful lot of people against ‘us’, perhaps most people on the planet – justifiably so. And of course, we should be against ‘us’, as defined by Bush and Blair, if we are concerned to build a better future.
Fourth, supporting elites, especially repressive ones, has major costs. The new wave of domestic repression unleashed in many countries under the cover of ‘anti-terrorism’ is stifling dissent, including by more democratic voices, and often pushing people and groups to more extreme, intolerant ‘solutions’. This is especially so with the repressive regimes in the Middle East supported by Britain. Rather than changing course post-September 11th, London and Washington have done the opposite, deepening their backing for repressive regimes and continuing to promote short-term ‘stability’. The most remarkable thing about the world post-September 11th is how similar it looks to the one before; little has changed, traditional Western policies have simply been reinforced.
The primary costs are borne by the local populations, of course, who associate – correctly – Western policy with their repressers. By siding with these elites, Britain is helping these brutal regimes maintain power, which in turn fails to address the underlying political and economic issues that underpin poverty and mal-development in those countries. All this is surely providing a breeding ground for future conflict and insecurity.
Britain should be on the side of democratic forces in the Middle East and elsewhere, supporting ordinary peoples’ struggles for justice and rights. This is surely a far better route to a more peaceful world of interdependence than one where Britain chooses to side with repressive rulers. But we should have no illusions that London’s existing strategy has many benefits to British elites, who care little about high principles like justice and rights but mainly about securing profit and power in the world.
Fifth, Britain’s global economic policies are helping to prevent development, increase inequality, and often deepen poverty. The strategy championed by British leaders to reshape the global economy – worldwide economic ‘liberalisation’ – is creating untold miseries for many while empowering the transnational corporations in whose interests the global economy is increasingly set to function. Western ‘advice’ in Africa and Eastern Europe over the past two decades – with London playing a leading role – has produced unprecedented increases in poverty in many countries. The most unequal world in human history is being created as a tiny transnational ‘overclass’ enriches itself further while parts of the world fester in deepening poverty. London’s basic priorities are, again, adding to a more unstable and dangerous world.
All this shows that the real threats to us, the public, are our own leaders more than the official threats designated by them. Our major ally is really our major threat – the US is the world’s leading outlaw state and through its new phase of military interventionism and strategy to reshape the global economy, it is creating even greater boomerangs for us than our own elites. Whitehall is complicit in this, failing to help rein in the US, instead generally supporting and empowering it. One of the greatest issues in world affairs is surely how to contain the US.
Clearly, in this situation, an awful lot of specific policies need to change. Many of the fundamentals of British foreign policy need to be reversed.
Instead of a special relationship with the US, Britain should withdraw its general backing for Washington and instead pursue a policy of strategic non-cooperation. This would involve challenging US policy towards the Middle East, for example, and developing alternatives with those working locally to pursue justice and rights. Instead of supporting elites in the Middle East and elsewhere, Britain should pursue a strategy of support for more liberal and democratic groups who offer development prospects for their populations.
Instead of promoting a one-size-fits-all straitjacket of global economic ‘liberalisation’, Britain should champion diverse economic policies suited to local situations. Instead of exporting arms, Britain should convert its military industry to primarily civilian use. It should immediately stop training the militaries of human rights abusers and abolish its nuclear weapons. Instead of reconfiguring its armed forces to offensive operations, it should spend a minimum on genuine defence and invest the savings, and much more, in well-managed multilateral aid programmes free from the influence of British and Western elites. Britain should also work to bring about democratic governance in international institutions, allowing fair representation for poor countries and enabling ordinary people’s voices to be heard.
Overall, we must also set about disempowering Britain’s role in the world rather than clinging to absurd notions of ‘punching above our weight’ and imperial concepts of maintaining Britain as a ‘great power’.
The list could go on. It might seem like an idealistic wish-list at first sight. But the changes are really not that preposterous and I would venture to say that they are probably already in line with the beliefs of most people outside the elite – which is another reason why the public is viewed as such a threat.
These changes are obviously not going to happen without massive public pressure. The basic reason is that we are not concerned with changing democratic decision-making but with confronting a very well-entrenched, elitist, secretive and totalitarian domestic governance system that is really not responsive at all to any major, let alone popular, change. And the idea of foreign policy genuinely promoting humanitarian values and standards is altogether new to Britain – London has always promoted fundamentally immoral policies.
A popular people’s movement has arisen in recent years, misnamed the ‘anti-globalisation’ movement, conducting demonstrations, rallies and teach-ins all over the world. Although comprising a variety of perspectives, campaigns and concerns, the movement is united first, in opposing the control of the planet by big business and second, in seeking a world where justice and rights are respected for all.
One thing that binds this movement together is people’s sense in both North and South that they are the victims of the same policies under the transnational elite’s project to promote worldwide economic ‘liberalisation’. The exploitative and increasingly dominant role of transnational corporations in developing countries, due partly to the new global rules of the WTO, is mirrored in Britain. Increasing areas of our national life and public services are becoming simply instruments of someone’s profit. Such power in the hands of democratically unaccountable private corporations is a massive attack on democracy and our ability to make economic decisions in our own interests.
In both the rich and poor worlds, privatisation programmes have created private monopolies and handed over key economic infrastructure to profit-seeking corporations with minimal regulation. Increasing international competition is creating a ‘race to the bottom’ in labour rights, resulting in straightforward exploitation for many and increasing stress at work and job insecurity for others. The under-funding of health and education is resulting in declining public services for many in both North and South. Overall, poverty is rising in many countries – notably where ‘liberalisation’ has gone deepest, including in Britain – while inequality is increasing almost everywhere.
People’s common experiences in North and South are creating new forms of international solidarity. The huge antiwar protests all over the world in 2003 are further evidence of this, showing people’s opposition to the lawless use of force by the world’s powerful states, essentially in solidarity with the victims on the receiving end of our government’s policites. I believe a positive agenda for this movement should be first to establish genuine democracy in the local institutions, clubs and societies in which people are already involved, and, cruci
ally, to strive for the same in workplaces. Democratising decision-making in groups organised on less hierarchical, more egalitarian lines is already happening all over the world at local level, in associations and increasingly in larger communities, usually outside media scrutiny. The participatory decision-making processes of the city of Porto Allegre in Brazil, where citizens are able to debate and make local policies, is one example, but there are many more.
But the movement also needs to transform national governments and international institutions into genuine democracies. This is surely not an easy task.
As noted in chapter 13, I believe there needs to be a big new push by concerned people and organisations to democratise policy-making and the governance system in Britain. Bringing about a genuine popular democracy in Britain means discarding an entrenched elitism for a system where there are democratically accountable bodies, an end to secrecy and where people play a real role in decision-making through many more forms of direct democracy, instead of relying solely on an elected elite posing as ‘representing people’. No fundamental improvement in foreign policy will take place unless policy-making is transformed from elitist, secretive and totalitarian to popular, open and democratic. Single-issue campaigns that focus not on transforming the system but on (usually minor) policy changes within it will only ever secure very limited gains while all coming up against the same big block – that the current system will always exclude the likelihood of policies being made in the maximum public interest. Surely the major lesson from the government’s launching of the war against Iraq is that unless the formal decision-making processes are democratised, even massive public pressure can continue to be ignored.
Along with political democratisation needs to go economic democratisation. We need to reverse the deepening of global economic ‘liberalisation’ that empowers transnational corporations, that makes all countries promote a ‘one-size-fits-all’ strategy, and that requires an elitist political system to preside over it. Instead, we need to be promoting forms of local economic democracy in which private actors are subject to democratic control and economic policies are organised around local priorities. This means a re-localisation of decision-making so that policies are made closer to people and communities.
