Government Continues its Apology for Medieval Treatment of Captives

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Government Continues its Apology for Medieval Treatment of Captives

US Special Forces Deployed in the Philippines

US Military Advisers a "Tripwire to New Vietnam"

European News in Brief
French Health Workers Strike
30,000 Job Losses in the European Aviation Industry
German Economy – Worst Performance since 1992

The government is continuing to act as an apologist for the treatment of the captives at the US Guantanamo Bay camp.

It has dismissed claims that three British prisoners were being mistreated. The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, Ben Bradshaw, told the House of Commons yesterday that a team of British officials visited Guantanamo from January 17-20 and saw the three British detainees. According to the officials’ report, during "lengthy discussions they spoke without inhibitions" and none complained of any ill treatment.

The statement made by Ben Bradshaw emphasised that the International Committee of the Red Cross has a permanent presence at "Camp X-Ray" and has access to any detainee at any time. However, it has been reported that the team of Red Cross inspectors has told the US government that it should improve conditions for the captives regardless of whether they are categorised as prisoners of war. This advice is mainly concerned with the size and exposed nature of detention cells.

Thus, despite the minister’s claim that lurid allegations about torture and sensory deprivation are false and relate to the condition of the captives on arrival where "security needs are paramount", there are certainly continued concerns on humanitarian grounds. This also underlines the gratuitous and racist remark of the minister that both Britain and the US are aware that "we will be judged by a higher standard than the Taleban and Al Qa’ida". Furthermore, even according to the Prime Minister’s official spokesman, the primary assessor of international law, in particular in relation to the standards of the cells, is the Red Cross itself.

It should also be emphasised that the way the captives are being treated at the US Naval Base is not the only issue, whether the government is prepared to gloss over it or not. In fact, it could well be said that this treatment is a manifestation of a wider charge of the implementation of medievalism in international affairs. Both US imperialism and the British government are committing arbitrary exercises of authority and manipulating the notions of international law as it suits them, which are the hallmarks of feudal lords.

Even domestically, the Anti-Terrorism Act and its companion the Terrorism Act 2000, have not been enacted to "fight terrorism", but to provide the government with even more despotic powers. They have given state authorities the freedom to act arbitrarily outside the rule of law, which itself can be described as a form of state terrorism.

The arrangements which have and are being put in place are undermining the conception of rights which has prevailed since the Second World War. Far from rights being provided with a guarantee, the approach is being taken that they can be bestowed by the government, and more to the point withdrawn at will under the pretext of "exceptional circumstances", a "state of emergency", or that detainees are some of the most "dangerous" or "murderous" in the world. This is reminiscent of the medievalism of the Tudor age in which the Star Chamber dispensed judgments as a tool of the monarch.

To impose their will internationally too, as the world crisis is deepening, the big powers, led by US imperialism, are resorting to the most backward and medieval actions. They are trying to demand that force – their might – be the arbiter of what passes for international relations. It is a conception of relations between nations that is based on annexation and intervention. Pursuing the agenda of the "New World Order", an agenda based on the drive of the international financial oligarchy to control markets and sources of raw materials and cheap labour, and follow a strategic and geo-political course that serves this drive, US imperialism, backed by the British government, has been launching and instigating wars and aggression. Thus imperialism is also acting as the medieval kings and lords in which there was no such thing as sovereignty but only the armed might of the feudal aristocracy.

US imperialism has been hunting down its alleged quarry with no regard to national sovereignty, international norms or civilised values in the meaningful sense. The "right to bring suspects to justice" is one more spurious "right" concocted by the British government as the apologist for this medievalism which has brought with it the wholesale destruction and slaughter in Afghanistan, as it has been doing also in Palestine and other parts of the world.

US imperialism has been bombing and assassinating the Afghan people at will, backed once more by the British government, with the only justification that "he who is not with us is with the terrorists". Now they are treating the captives like wild animals, simply because they resisted the dictate of US imperialism.

What is happening is the violation of any semblance of international law based on the rights and sovereignty and nations. It is the ethics and morality of medievalism in the interests of neo-liberal globalisation and the dictate of the most parasitic forces in the world.

That the British government can ignore this barbarism, and go so far as to elaborate on the "international humanitarian norms in conditions where security is paramount" only goes to show how bankrupt it has become. WDIE condemns this apology for medievalism and the abandonment of civilised behaviour and the rights of peoples and nations with the contempt it deserves.

Thousands of people in the Philippines are demonstrating against the deployment of US troops on Philippine soil. The Washington Post reported on January 16, "US Special Forces have begun arriving in the Philippines to assist Philippine troops in their fight against Muslim (Abu Sayyaf) guerrillas linked to Osama bin Laden, part of a significant expansion of the US war on terrorism outside Afghanistan." News sources also report that a shipment of weapons, including automatic weapons and grenade launchers, arrived in the Philippines in recent days. "More of this stuff will be going in," a Pentagon official said.

Regarding the mission of the forces, US Secretary of State Colin Powell was quoted as saying, "United States military trainers will be helping the Philippine government and Philippine armed forces to deal with the terrorist threat they have that affects their interests, as well as ours." Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, was reported to have voiced support for the action saying, "It's limited assistance and it's appropriate."

"Although the deployment is a training exercise, the US troops will accompany frontline Filipino forces on patrols in guerrilla-threatened areas in the southern Philippines," The Post reported. It adds that some 5,000 Philippine government troops have been fighting on the island of Basilan against some 1,000 Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

According to Pentagon officials, approximately 650 US soldiers – including 160 "Special Forces" troops from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines – will take part in the "exercise", expected to last until June. The troops are armed and authorised to fire on Filipinos "in self-defence".

The Washington Post reports, "Even as Pentagon officials say that the focus of the war will remain on Afghanistan, the dispatch of hundreds of US troops to the Philippines underscores the administration's intention to wage the fight on terrorism on a global scale. Having put aside such targets as Iraq, at least for now, the administration is working with friendly governments such as the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore that are seeking help in rooting out terrorist groups. It is also looking to such countries as Indonesia, Yemen and Somalia where al Qaida cells are believed to be located."

The Filipino people are denouncing these "training exercises" as an extension of the war against Afghanistan and as actions contrary to their sovereignty and Constitution, which forbids foreign troops on Philippine soil.

Neither the Filipino nor the world's people have forgotten that on February 4, 1899, the US unleashed its colonial aggression against the Filipino people, massacring millions and stealing the independence of the newly-established Philippine nation of 1898. The Philippine-American war of 1899-1902 marked the start of 103 years of resistance to US imperialist domination. In 1991, the US military troops and bases occupying the Philippines were forced out, marking a historic victory for the Filipino people. Contrary to this decision by the people, the US manoeuvred to get a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the Philippine government, which was eventually signed in May 1999.

US President George W. Bush's despatch of military advisers to the Philippines could lead to a "new Vietnam" and hasten President Gloria Arroyo's downfall, the National Democratic Front (NDF) warned Sunday.

The NDF urged the American public, "just as during the Vietnam War", to "stand up and defy this US imperialist intervention against the Filipino people".

NDF leader Luis Jalandoni warned that the operations would not be limited to the south because the Americans "are also setting up quarters in Laur", a northern town that is host to the Philippine Army's 7th Infantry Division.

"By sending 650 US combat troops, including 160 Green Berets and Navy Seals, with the approval of the puppet (Arroyo) regime, into a battle zone in southern Philippines, US imperialism is deliberately setting up a tripwire to a new Vietnam," Luis Jalandoni said.

"The broadest united front of patriotic and progressive forces in the Philippines and in the international community must be mobilised to vigorously oppose and resist" the US military presence, he added.

Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has said that, with the US military deployments, Gloria Arroyo's "relatively peaceful removal from power is probable within one year".

Workers in the French health service have launched a week of industrial action in defence of their demands for improved pay and conditions.

The industrial action started on Monday, January 21, with a national strike of hospital workers and is set to continue on Tuesday with demonstrations by nurses and a full scale strike by GPs on Wednesday which has been dubbed a "day without doctors". The health workers are demanding increased pay and the creation of 80,000 new jobs to ensure that the shortening of the working week in public hospitals does not lead to deterioration in the quality of the service.

30,000 Job Losses in the European Aviation Industry

An International Labour Organisation (ILO) forum in Geneva has been told that some 30,000 jobs have been lost in the European aviation industry since September 11. This is in the context of some 400,000 job cuts worldwide by airlines since then. In Europe, the largest job cuts have been by Sabena and Swissair, both of which went bankrupt late last year and which cut 12,000 and 9,000 jobs respectively. The next largest job cutter was British Airways which has already cut 7,000 posts and is rumoured to be preparing a further 10,000 layoffs. The huge aviation monopolies have attempted to lay all the blame for these layoffs on September 11, but Professor Peter Turnbull who wrote the report noted, "Airlines seem to be exploiting current difficulties to push through more radical cost cutting programmes than is strictly warranted, often without proper consultation with the workforce."

German Economy – Worst Performance since 1992

Official figures released in Germany on Monday, January 21, showed that the German economy shrank for the third quarter up to the end of 2001. As a result, Germany’s Gross Domestic Product rose by 0.6% compared to a 3% rise in 2000. The German economic situation is further complicated by a huge debt of just over $1 trillion which is equivalent to nearly 60% of the Gross Domestic Product which is set by the EU stability pact as the upper limit of debt to GDP ratio. It has also been noted that the official unemployment figure is edging up towards the 4.3 million mark.

Prospects for this year are also gloomy. Although the government has forecast a growth rate of 1.25% for 2002, analysts believe that this will be revised down to 0.75% in light of the fact that in 2001 investment on machinery and equipment fell by 3.4 % and by 5.7% in the construction industry. In light of the worsening economic situation, the EU commission has let it be known that it may issue a warning that Germany is in danger of failing to meet the budgetary target set out in the Maastricht Treaty on European Monetary Union, which commits states in the monetary union to keep their budget deficit within 3% of GDP. Leading economic forecasters are predicting that this year the German deficit will reach between 2.7% and 3%.

As an early indication of who the German monopolies want to bear the cost of the impending crisis, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder declared that he would be using an upcoming meeting between government, employers and trade unionists to urge "moderation in pending wage negotiations".