The Catholic Orangemen of Togo

Latest book from Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan. Self published after threats from libel lawyers Schillings caused his regular publisher to withdraw from the project.

Prequel to his first book 'Murder in Samarkand', it recounts his adventures in Africa from 1997 to 2001. He exposes for the first time the full truth about the "Arms to Africa" affair which was the first major scandal of the Blair Years. He lays bare the sordid facts about British mercenary involvement in Africa and its motives. This is at heart an extraordinary account of Craig Murray's work in negotiating peace with the murderous rebels of Sierra Leone, and in acting as the midwife of Ghanaian democracy. Clearly his efforts were not only difficult but at times very dangerous indeed. Yet the story is told with great humour. Not only do we meet Charles Taylor, Olusegun Obasanjo, Jerry Rawlings and Foday Sankoh, but there are unexpected encounters with others including Roger Moore, Jamie Theakston and Bobby Charlton! Above all this book is about Africa. Craig Murray eschews the banal remedies of the left and right to share with us the deep knowledge and understanding that comes over 30 years working in or with Africa. Gems of wisdom and observation scatter the book, as does a deep sense of moral outrage at the consequences of centuries of European involvement: even though he explains that much of it was well-intentioned but disastrous.

You can download the entire book in .pdf format and FOC from here , here , or here

Alternatively you can purchase one of a very limited print run here

Craig Murray Blacklisted ?

I was not in the least surprised to hear that Craig Murray seems to have become a sort of 'Black spot' character for the BBC and other main stream media.

In similar fashion to John Pilger and a few others, his habit of speaking truth to power is seen by the Establishment as dangerously subversive and threatening, and must therefore be dealt with accordingly. The comment I posted on Craig's blog was in danger of turning into an extended rant (as usual) so I thought I'd better cut it short and do the elaborating here instead:

I see Craig's experience as illustrative of the manner in which power in the UK deals with the sort of dissent that cannot be cowed by fear of its career consequences. There are certain unspoken but well defined boundaries for debate on pretty well all the major political issues. They encompass a globalised 'free'-trade world view with perpetual economic growth and 'progress' as its obligatory creed. The West is its embodiment with an over-arching narrative that tells of an alliance of progressive well-meaning but misunderstood and put-upon Nations (The Goodies) forced to defend themselves against aggressive reactionary forces of darkness that 'hate us for our freedom' and other such inanities (The Baddies). Step outside those boundaries in a manner judged threatening by and to the Establishment, and your card is marked accordingly. Craig's card has clearly been so marked.

The fount of real political power in the West is a Corporatocracy whose very existence is dependant upon such a world view. With honourable exceptions, its politicians, are either bought and paid for (or soon to be paid for "we promise") PR men (and thus eligible for high office and privy council status), or simpler-minded jobsworths, dependant upon their respective Parties for position and place (aka Sir Joseph Porter: 'I always voted at my party's call and I never thought of thinking for myself at all'). Speaking truth to power has become an infallible short cut to ending a career in UK politics. The MSM - especially the Murdoch press and the BBC - are the Corporatocracy's means of filtering and presenting news and current affairs for public consumption in a manner that is not only non-threatening, but that actively promotes this obligatory 'world view'.

Where dissent of the Craig Murray variety cannot be wholly ignored it is usually presented, either as the opinion of a lovable eccentric that can thus be safely indulged a little, or the rantings of a 'conspiracy theorist' (or other similar pejorative) to be ridiculed, hated or feared, depending upon context.

I wonder which of those roles Craig is being earmarked for?

Murder in Samarkand - A review

'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'

Allegations of visas in exchange for sex against a British ambassador to some ex-Soviet republic; subsequently cleared on all counts but forced out nonetheless. Like many in Britain that was all that really remained in my memory of the lurid headlines and media reports of a year or so ago - and life carried on.

Anyone for whom that rings bells owes it to themselves to read this book, as does anyone wondering about the true nature of the West's so called 'War on Terror'. It is deeply disturbing on two levels:

1. It documents the appalling nature of the 20 year Uzbek Regime of Islam Karimov. A regime which spans the pre and post-to-date Soviet era. Not in some dry academic fashion either but through the exploits of the Ambassador who, at considerable risk to his own safety, intervened in numerous cases of offical brutality. The reader is left in no doubt that the Karimov regime of Uzbekistan is on a par with the very worst of the worlds self-serving and brutal dictatorships. It was during this period that controversy about US/UK willingness to 'make use of evidence obtained under torture' and US so called 'rendition flights' became public. The ambassador reported that any such 'evidence' from Uzbekistan was useless since the regime was simply in the business of forcing 'dissidents to confirm what the regime wanted the West to hear. His reports were unwelcome.

2. To have the true nature of one the then principal strategic allies in the West's 'War on Terror' exposed to scrutiny was judged by the Foreign Office top brass to be (euphemistically) 'counterproductive'. In spite of him having overwhelming support from human rights organisations and the Ex-Pat British business community, not to mention achieving more genuine influence with the Karimov regime than any of his predecessors, he had to be stopped. The methods employed to stop him were the inspiration of those headlines which hid a myriad of other kafkaesque stratagems . They bring shame on both the British government and the upper echelons of a politicised civil service which even now is doing all it can to prevent both the sale of this book and publication of documents which prove its authenticity.

Buy it while you still can here

Tags: Craig Murray, Rendition, F&CO, FOIA

Craig Murray - Latest

Craig Murray has had to concede 'Force Majeure' and remove some of the disputed documents from his site under threat of having to defend ruinously expensive legal action for breach of Crown Copyright. Unless someone DOES come up with funding to defend HMG allegation then the 'Freedom of Information Act' is not worth the paper is is written on. Reason? At the whim of HMG, for whatever purpose they deem expedient, any piece of government sourced material including documents "released" under the FOIA will require specific permission from HMG to be published free of the arbitrary threat of legal action for breach of Crown Copyright.

What a load of total shysters this apology for a government is. And what's the betting that the political opposition and MSM just meekly accept it?

Here's what Craig has to say about it:

New Labour are not as stupid as they seem. I have now had a chance to take legal advice, and that advice is as follows. To defend this case would cost the price of a London house. I don't have a house, in London or anywhere else. I am therefore obliged to give in to force majeure and remove some of the documents from my own site. This reeking government is therefore able to mask its stink on this particular miniscule corner of the internet.

Here is another piece of legal advice I received. Copyright cases cover one instance of publication in one place. Anyone else who has published any government documents that might be Crown Copyright, or not, (and I believe there are hundreds of thousands of documents on the web on which the government could, by the argument in Mr Buttrill's letter, claim copyright), is an individual case and can wait to hear from Mr Buttrill.

Tags: Craig Murray, Rendition, F&CO, FOIA

Craig Murray - an Exchange of views

The following is taken from the comments section of a piece posted by Iain Dale on his Diary site on 11th July. I've posted it here to keep my thoughts straight as the thing develops further. The F&CO legal deadline is tomorrow 13th July although Craig is already in breach of the Treasury solicitors revised requirement by leaving the disputed documents on his site. There are links to further posts on this with further outbound links Here, Here, Here and Here .

Helen said... Craig Murray was a diplomat in a prestigious position. That carries duties as well as privileges. One of those duties is not making political statements, particularly, as in this case, he either cannot or will not produce any evidence.
2:18 PM

Sabretache said... Helen: - A pretty standard defence of establishment response if I may be so bold. He most certainly DOES have the proof for his allegations. They are in the documents that the government seems so determined to suppress. You clearly haven't read them - or know very much about the matter other than establishment-speak about the case.
3:08 PM

Anonymous said... I suppose it is because of this government (and the disastrous domination of academia by the left) that Murray & co fail to see how ridiculous their position is. The appearance of human rights is a consequence of civilisation, not its rerequisite.
3:34 PM

Sabretache said... anon 3:34. I suggest you read the the latest Treasury solicitor letter then tell us whose position is ridiculous. If you still claim it is 'Murray & Co', perhaps you'd care to tell us what you would do were you required to be complicit in obtaining intelligence information by, for example, boiling people alive. Understandably HMG do not want us knowing about such things, much less seeing government documents that prove it. That is what happens at the behest of our staunch ally, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan. The regime is at least as bad, if not a whole lot worse than the dictator we affect such self-righteousness about removing in Iraq. Murray has the guts to stand up and cry foul - and is vilified for it. In the words of Jack Straw "Craig Murray has been (is and intends to remain??) a serious embarassment to the entire F&CO". HMG are doing their damndest to ensure he pays dearly for that.
5:05 PM

Helen said... Sabretache, Craig Murray is establishment. He can't have it both ways. And neither can people on this blog who keep complaining (not you, as far as I know) about the civil service becoming politicized. As long as it is against the Labour government it's OK? What happens when they do it against a Conservative government? And no, he has not produced the evidence but has climbed down rather fast when he was asked about it by such freedom-loving establishments as the European Parliament and the Council of Europe. Of course, if I had my way, I would simply shut down all the embassies and tell ambassadors to go and earn a decent penny.
6:07 PM

Anonymous said... Sabretache, my point was that it cannot be the primary
business of HMG to care about human rights abuses in other countries. Of course
they are being two faced because of all the "ethical foreign policy nonsense". But the business of diplomacy is to play the world, not to change it. Aside from these considerations, Murray ought to remember that the only reason why anyone was listening to him was because he was paid to be an HMA. And the job is to promote government policy not to undermine it, or to sell his own. If he wants to do that he is welcome to become a politician.
9:45 PM

Sabretache said... Helen: Murray WAS establishment; and while so, he obeyed the rules. He did NOT make political statements, he simply declined to be complicit in torture and worked damned hard to persuade his masters in London to recognise
what was going on. They in turn decided that his refusal to turn a blind eye rendered him unsound and a host of scurrilous accusations were levelled against him. He was cleared on all counts but nonetheless forced out (locked out of his own embassy whilst still the Ambassador no less). You clearly have (a bit of) one side of the story - the official one it seems. I suggest you get a copy of his book from Amazon before HMG succeed in suppressing that too. I have. I've read it and you are way off base.
As for declining to prove his case (ie HMG complicity in the grosses forms of torture for the purposes of fighting the intelligence 'war on terror): he does just that in the book with corroboration from the documents that HMG are so strenuously trying to keep you from seeing.

As I said earlier, the depressing thing is I have little doubt the major outline of the story would have been little different under any other government. But never mind eh? - we're the goodies - with guns in our hands and God on our side. The enemy of our enemy is our friend and never mind that he's the worst kind of dictator imaginable. The whole thing is going to end in tears - big time; and I am NOT being party political.
10:07 PM

Anonymous said... I tend to agree with Helen. craven behaviour towards the United States is appalling, particularly when it involves complicity with the scum they associate with. On the other hand, I don't think the FCO would be doing its job if it didn't realise that the choice for the moment is between a bloody dictatorship, or an Islamic state in Central Asia. That's an invidious choice, but that overall point is far more important than whether a few people are shot or tortured. The FCO is not a state-funded version of Amnesty International. The question ought to be: what's in the UK national interest? Murray may well be right to say that the US strategy in the region is likely to create more trouble rather than less in the long run. But they don't have "the long run" to find out, and they don't have many good options. None of that seems to have been reflected in his correspondence with London, or in his speeches.
11:22 AM

Sabretache said... Anon 11:22: There are two substantive issues here:
1. How UK Foreign policy objectives should be represented in Uzbekistan - or elsewhere
2. How a politicised Civil Service deals with people it regards (rightly or wrongly) as
'unsound'

Frankly your post, whilst theoretically reasonable, indicates that you have not read either the book or all those embargoed documents. Your expression "... whether a few people are shot or tortured" is an anodyne travesty worthy of a NuLab spin-doctor. The Uzbeks Security forces used the grossest forms of torture systematically to get 'dissidents' to confirm what the Karimov regime wanted, for their OWN purposes, the US/UK to believe - simple as that - and we lapped it up. Do you even know, or care that Karimovs troops killed over 600 pro-democracy demonstrators at Andijan on 13th May 2005 - just over 1 year ago? With allies like that + all the rest, is it any wonder the Muslim world hates us with a vengeance?

However, all that aside. What about 2?

There are reasonable procedures for removing any senior member of staff that is judged to be inadequate. But that is NOT how NuLab operate. The documents prove beyond reasonable doubt that there was a systematic campaign of dirty tricks and character assassination sanctioned at the highest level (including Jack Straw and Downing St) and directed against Craig Murray. The sort of behaviour that we have come to expect from NuLab against anyone who is effective in exposing their incompetence and duplicity. EXACTLY the same tactics were employed against James Cameron first secretary in Bucharest for exposing the visa scam that forced Beverly Hughes' resignation - ie 'granting visas for sex and having a 'love-nest' flat in town. They couldn't even think up something original.

The politicisation of the Civil Service is near complete. Is it any wonder they don't want us to see the evidence for ourselves?

Tags: Craig Murray, Rendition, F&CO, FOIA

Craig Murray: F&CO's Threat Developments

Hat-tip to Blairwatch & Craig Murray

Another message from Craig Murray together with the text of his latest correspondence with UK government solicitors. You really must read his reply to their latest letter. It reveals the motives of Margaret Beckett and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office for what they are: a crass attempt at supressing, for political purposes, information already released onder FOI and DPA provisions . It is also hilariously funny.

The MSM are also starting to take an interest:

The Register
The Guardian
Oh My News

Anyone with an interest in seeing the UK and US governments seriously embarrased over their continued policy of accepting intelligence known to have been obtained under torture will no doubt see to it that all this is circulated as widely as possible - including the mirroring of those documents.

From Craig Murray to the world at large:

The government's deadline has passed, the documents are still on the website and we await the court injunction... Thank you for all your support.

And the latest from the F&CO solicitor:

7 July 2006 second letter

Dear Mr Murray
You have requested more time to seek legal advice. I have my clients Instructions. We are prepared to extend the deadline for you to give an undertaking until 4pm on Thursday 13 July 2006 on condition that the documents referred to in my first letter are immediately removed from your website and not reproduced by you anywhere else whilst negotiations regarding the undertaking are ongoing. If you do not immediately remove the documents from your website the offer of an extension will be withdrawn and the original deadline of 4pm on Monday 10 July will apply. In the event that you fail to give the required undertaking by 4pm on 13 July, or if the documents reappear on the website during the course of negotiations, my client reserves the right to issue a claim against you without further notice. I should be grateful for your response by return.

Yours sincerely
Gareth Buttrill
For the Treasury Solicitor

====================
And Craig's reply: (The last couple of paras are absolute gems of humour - but with a laser accurate focus on the sheer ridiculous stupidity of it all)

To: Gareth Buttrill
Sent: Monday, July 10, 2006 8:43 AM
Subject: Re: Infringement of Crown Copyright: letter before claim

Mr Buttrill,
Thank you for this second letter. It is rather a peculiar request. You claim to be
willing to extend the deadline for me to be able to take legal advice, providing that I concede the principal point in the meantime. I cannot see the need for this haste. In copyright cases it is not my understanding that it is generally considered necessary to remove a publication from circulation pending a court decision. For example, there was a recent highly publicised copyright case over the Da Vinci code. Was it deemed necessary by the court to withdraw the Da Vinci Code from sale while the case was heard? No, it was not. Your peremptory demands reveal the motive behind your
actions in this case - the suppression of information for political purposes. I don't
believe it is right to use Crown Copyright in this way. Otherwise the government has an arbitrary power to keep secret absolutely anything that it does. Your contention in your letter of 7 July that the government can use Crown Copyright arbitrarily and politically to suppress material released under the Freedom of Information Act, would obviate the whole purpose of that Act in giving the public a "Right to know" what is being done in their name.

I have this morning contacted solicitors to take legal advice. I could not do so over the weekend as this is not a criminal matter, and copyright lawyers do not run 24 hour call out services. Unfortunately I must spend much of today at St Thomas' Hospital for treatment of serious medical conditions. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office's treatment of me, as detailed in the documents you are trying to suppress, was the direct cause of those medical conditions, a fact I would welcome the chance to discuss in court.

You have been free to advise me what I "Must" do. You must bear in mind what the content of the story is, that I am seeking to tell and the government is seeking to suppress. I accept your renewed deadline as reasonable, but will not be removing the documents in the interim - until I get advice, I shall go by what I know of the law, and all I know in this matter is the Da Vinci Code precedent. In the meantime, I should be grateful if, entirely without prejudice, you could furnish me with some practical advice. If the documents are, as you allege, Crown Copyright, where and how do I go about making a formal application for permission to reproduce them? Also, I am copying your letters to my website. Do you allege that to be also a breach of Crown Copyright? If I remove the documents but not your letters, would you still go for an injunction? If I am served an injunction and remove the documents, but put the injunction on my website to explain why, do you allege I am breaching Crown Copyright by publishing the injunction? Do you allege it to be a breach of Crown Copyright to reproduce on a weblog any document at all produced by government? The definition given in your letter of 7 July would plainly cover speeches given by Ministers and written by civil servants. Is it a breach of Crown Copyright to reproduce such ministerial speeches on a weblog? How long a quote could you make from a ministerial speech before breaching copyright? Does this cover, for example, letters from local authorities and health trusts, or just from central government? Does it cover parking tickets? What about quotes from the King James Bible? If all or any of these are, in your view, matters of discretion where the government can exercise Crown Copyright if it so chooses, then the following is perhaps the most important question of all. Are there any criteria of reasonable action which the government is obliged to consider when deciding whether to enforce claimed copyright or not, or is the Crown claiming a power which is solely arbitrary?

I apologise for my confusion. You can see why I need to take legal advice. I will revert to you.

Craig Murray

Tags: Craig Murray, Rendition, F&CO, FOIA

A transparent abuse of power

Well now. It's 16:45 on Monday 10th July and the documents over which Gareth Buttrill of HM Treasury Solicitors (strapline 'Law at the Heart of Government') claims Crown Copyright and has ordered removed under pain of a High Court action by 16:00 today, are still available on Craig Murray's web site.

So it looks like we are in for a court case seeking damages for publication of the documents without HM government permission. It should be interesting because these are the self-same documents that HMG initially claimed were false/forgeries; then tried to suppress under the Official Secrets Act; then released under the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act; and now, on the face of it, have decided are not to be disclosed after all. Amazing!

As Craig Murray himself put it in a comment on his blog:

"The provision to retain copyright under the Data protection Act and Freedom of Information Act was designed to protect the government's revenue interest. Was it the intention of the Freedom of Information Act that information divulged should be solely for the specific individual who requests it, and not for the public at large? No, plainly it was not the intention. The government is seeking to abuse the copyright provision to obtain a power to arbitrarily suppress information for political purposes. There is no excuse in this case because there is no revenue - the documents are freely available on the web. Nor are they seeking to protect their own revenue stream - they want to suppress the documents, not to publish them. So the question to ask is not does the government have the power to do this, but, in doing this are they abusing that power?"

Tags: Craig Murray, Rendition, F&CO, FOIA

Freedom of Information? - You must be joking!

A little story involving Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett and Tony Blair's shiny new 'Freedom of Information Act'.

So you thought that the 'Freedom of Information Act' was the genuine article?

That it's title meant just that - FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ?

Well Forget it. It means nothing of the sort. Do you seriously think that this control-freak government of ours will allow itself to be embarrassed by its own files, even on the rare occasions that they are not deemed to be covered by an exemption? Of course they won't - not if they can help it anyway. Here is their latest little wheeze in frustrating the much vaunted purpose of their own legislation:

Craig Murray's Book "Murder in Samarkand" is an account of his experiences as British Amabassador to Uzbekistan from 2002-2004. For most of that time he tried to get his superiors in London to act on irrefutable evidence that the US financed Uzbek government of Islam Karimov routinely used the grossest forms of torture to extract information for supply to both the UK and US security services in their 'war on terror'. Among a litany of shameful and downright vicious attacks on his personal integrity for his embarrasing and inconvenient efforts, Jack Straw and the F&CO attempted to smear him with accusations that he supplied visas to young Uzbek women in exchange for sex. His refusal to be browbeaten or deflected led to him being recalled and effectively forced to resign. Jack Straw is on record with :

"Craig Murray has been a deep embarassment to the entire Foreign Office".

But embarrassed officialdom can never admit it is just plain wrong now can it? - even when it's own files scream the facts and have to be "released" under that shiny new act.

In order to document and properly reference the principal charges in his book, Craig Murray obtained a series of documents under the FOIA. He was nevertheless threatened with an unjunction by the F&CO preventing publication of the book if he included them. So, they were removed to enable its publication on 6th July. All that remains of the documents are references to their url's on his web site.

On Friday 7th July Craig Murray was informed by Solicitors acting for our new Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett that unless the documents were removed from the site by 4:00 pm Monday 10th July proceedings for copyright infringement would automatically commence in the High Court. So, here we have documents made available by HMG for 'Freedom of Information' purposes which cannot be made freely available under threat of ruinously expensive, publicly financed legal proceedings by that same HMG.

You just couldn't make this up could you?

The point of course is - and make no mistake about it - If you have the temerity to seriously embarass the State in the form of either its bureaucracies or its political masters, at the very least you will be hounded until you desist. To the extent that you become really effective, well, accidents can happen can't they?

See previous post for links to Craig Murray's web site and the F&CO legal threat.

Tags: Craig Murray, Rendition, F&CO, FOIA

Murder in Samarkand - or the British governments complicity in torture.

Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002-2004. He was systematically vilified and subjected to various F&CO dirty tricks sanctioned by Jack Straw before being recalled from his post and suspended pending ... this that and the other etc etc. All for insisting on bringing to HMG's attention the systematic use of torture by the Uzbek authorities to obtain information for supply to the UK and US security services in the 'war on terror'. He was effectively forced to resign and went on to write a book - "Murder in Samarkand" - about his experiences. It was finally published yesterday. He was forced to leave out all the referenced supporting documents from the book on threat of an injunction preventing its publication. He therefore published them on his web site to get around the legal techicality requiring him to 'profit from them' for a prosecution to succeed.

So - go and have a look at his site while you still can. They make for VERY sobering and revealing reading. They are in fact now mirrored on two sites, one in the US and one in the UK and the more people who read and disseminate them, the more difficult it will become for the government goons to keep the lid on this.

The book is available from Amazon

Update: As of today, Craig Murray is threatened with further legal action if he does not remove the documents from his site forthwith. Having conceded that the Official Secrets Act does not apply (the documents having been released under the FOIA) they are still allegedly 'Crown Copyright' you see, and we can't have crown copyright documents being distributed freely now can we? - despite having been supplied under the 'Freedom of Information Act'! How's THAT for a bit of non-sequitur nonesense?

This is the latest threat from the F&CO solicitors

Tags: Craig Murray, Rendition, F&CO, FOIA