Week 14 2014

Tendring Topics………on line

Crimea – and after

            Has it occurred to you – as it certainly has to me – that the reaction of ‘Europe’ and of the USA to recent events in the Crimea has been out of all proportion to the events themselves?

            There has, for instance, been a general agreement that Russia’s claim to sovereignty of the Crimean peninsula has no validity whatsoever – and that Russia acted solely out of self-interest and in order to add a few thousand acres and some two million mostly unwilling Ukrainians to its enormous ‘empire’. This simply isn’t true.  Crimea was recognised as an integral territory of Russia, not of the province of Ukraine, during the time of the Romanov Tsars. After the revolution of 1917, the communist government of the Soviet Union continued to recognise the Crimea as being part of the Federal Republic of Russia, not of the Federal Republic of the Ukraine.  It was not until 1954 that Nikita Khruschev, then Soviet president, transferred its sovereignty to the Ukraine without any consultation with local people.  He presumably did this for administrative convenience – though the fact  that Mr Khruschev was himself half Ukrainian may have had something to do with it!

            A few weeks ago the Crimea’s pro-Russian faction, taking advantage (all right, using the pretext, if you prefer) of the ousting of a President who, whatever his faults, had been democratically elected, took control. Russian Forces entered Crimea and besieged the Ukrainian military and naval bases in the peninsula. They then organised a referendum which, although derided in both London and Washington, almost certainly reflected Crimean public opinion in producing a substantial majority in favour of becoming Russian rather than remaining Ukrainian citizens. Russia then ‘annexed’ the Crimea or, as they would probably prefer to put it, restored the situation that had existed prior to Khruschev’s arbitrary action in 1954. Eventually, the Ukrainian government in Kiev accepted the inevitable and ordered their besieged troops and naval personnel to return to Ukraine.  It seems too that the Russian and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers are now prepared to meet each other to discuss the situation.  I hope that they do so and reach a peaceful conclusion.

            All of the above was achieved with minimal bloodshed.   There were, in fact, far fewer casualties in the Crimea than in the demonstrations/riots in Kiev and other Ukrainian cities that had preceded the Russian action.

            Why on earth then did the EU, the UK and in particular, the USA make such a fuss about it; banning Russia from an international gathering in which they certainly had an interest and a contribution to make?  There have been limited ‘sanctions’ and threats of ‘further consequences’.  I notice that that in the field of space exploration and research, co-operation between Russia and the USA remains unchanged – possibly because Russia is now alone in being able to send material and personnel to and from the international space station! I can well understand the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania being concerned, as they have considerable ethnic Russian minorities whose members feel they are treated as second-class citizens.  Will those states face a fate similar to that of Ukraine?  

Our government seeks to quell those anxieties by increasing arms supplies to enable those states to defend themselves against any Russian incursion.  It’s no doubt good for the British arms industry, but it might also have been wise to urge that all residents in those countries, of whatever ethnic origin, are treated equally, and the Russian language accorded equal status with the local Baltic tongue.  Several countries in the world have more than one official language; Canada, Switzerland, Belgium and of course, Wales, come instantly to mind.  The Baltic countries would be wise to join them.

 Why is the USA so concerned about the Crimea?   Geographically the USA and Ukraine could hardly be further apart. I can think of at least one US President in recent years who would have had difficulty in finding either Ukraine or the Crimean peninsula on a map of the world! Could it have been because a compliant west-oriented Ukraine would have joined the NATO alliance?  They might then have welcomed a NATO naval base on the Crimean peninsula. This would have given the US Navy a presence in the Black Sea that Russia would certainly have seen as threatening.

At last week’s public debate about our membership of the EU, between Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrat Party and Nigel Farage of UKIP, Mr Farage made the extraordinary suggestion that the European Union was responsible for the demonstrations in Kiev that led to the overthrow of Ukraine’s President and – indirectly – to Russia’s recovery of the Crimea.  That’s almost as daft an idea as that of the UKIP disciple who wrote to our local newspaper claiming that the EU was responsible for the recent flooding of the Somerset Levels!

I have little doubt that those demonstrations and riots were what they purported to be – a genuinely popular protest against a President who, though democratically elected, had abused his office. However, those who love a conspiracy theory and are devotees of ‘cold war’ fiction could surely make a much more convincing case for the involvement of the CIA and its British counterparts in a successful effort to replace a Russian-oriented Ukrainian President with one more to NATO’s liking, than Nigel Farage’s attempt to blame it on the EU.

Further News

I have just heard (Saturday 29th March) that Presidents Obama and Putin have had an hour-long chat on the phone and have agreed that their Foreign Ministers' will meet to discuss the current situation and try to find a solution. Here are some ideas they might want to consider.

Russia should immediately cease its military manoeuvres and reduce materially its troop concentrations near the Ukrainian frontier and any other frontiers that seem threatened. In return, 'the west' should withdraw its sanctions, resume normal diplomatic and commercial relations with Russia and accept that Crimea is de facto and possibly temporarily, part of Russia.  In twelve months time hold another referendum among the people of the Crimea, asking  if they wish to remain within Russia or revert to being part of Ukraine.  This referendum to be managed and policed by the United Nations so that there could be no question of its being held 'under the shadow of the kalashnikov'.  All concerned would need to agree in advance to accept the referendum's verdict.

              Ukraine should then join neither NATO nor Russia in military alliance, and its future neutrality should be guaranteed by both.  This would not only be conducive to world peace but would also spare Ukraine maintaining armed forces on a scale that it can ill afford.
  

I wish that I really thought there was a possibility of anything as sensible as that emerging from the Foreign Ministers' talks!   It would be a bit tough on the armaments manufacturers (there’s nothing like a bit of international tension for pushing up the profits) Perhaps they could find out if there’s a demand for ‘plowshares and pruning hooks’ or their 21^st century equivalent!

Even later news

The Russian and USA Foreign Ministers have met - and, surprise, surprise - have not reached agreement.  The USA wants Russia to accept that its recovery/annexation of Crimea was illegal.  Russia wants Ukraine to be neutral (I'd endorse that) and to have a federal structure - presumably with East Ukraine as a federal state within Ukraine.

But what would happen if the Federal parliament of East Ukraine voted overwhelmingly to join Russia!  I've no idea - but I do know quite definitely that no possible outcome would be worth a war - not even a 'cold' one!

The real peril facing all humankind

          While humankind quarrels about who rules this that or the other piece of land, nature – oblivious to national frontiers, alliances, human rights and ultimate deterrents, and unconcerned with ethnicity or creed - inexorably proceeds with its own catastrophic plans for the future of  our planet and its inhabitants.

            Last year, the scientists of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published the first part of their report on the impact that the changing climate will have on the world in the coming years.   It examined the atmospheric science and raised the panel’s level of certainty that climate change was being driven by human activity to an ‘almost certain’ level of 95 percent.  The second part, officially published today but well-leaked beforehand, translates that science into the physical impact likely to follow a further increase in greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide.

            Member states of the United Nations have agreed to take action to ensure that the global temperatures do not exceed two degrees above the pre-Industrial Revolution levels, the level described as causing ‘dangerous climate change’ by scientists.  Writing in the Church Times John Ware says that two degrees doesn’t seem much to ask, but  changes in climate currently being experienced are at a rate of 0.8 degrees.  Unless substantial action is taken in the next few years, that very modest two degrees target will not be met.

            The IPCC report points out that acidification of the world’s oceans is happening at a faster rate than at any time in the past 65 million years, a large number of species face an increased risk of extinction, and  climate change’s impact on food production is already visible in several regions.  Yields are expected to drop by as much as two percent during each decade from 2030.  Child malnutrition will be a key risk as not only food quantity but food quality will be affected. Small island-states will be at increasing risk from the rise in sea levels.

  The report predicts more rainfall in Northern Europe and that much of the infrastructure of North America will be vulnerable to extreme weather.  This is already happening with unprecedented floods in the UK, and unseasonal tornadoes, arctic conditions and snowfall in the USA.   Who can doubt that the heavy and continuous rain that caused the recent tragic mud-slide near Seattle in Washington State, was just one more local effect of climate change? It resulted in the destruction of a township and the loss of over 100 lives.

Coinciding with the publication of the IPCC report Christian Aid, always in the front line when catastrophes occur,  has published its own new report;   Taken by Storm: responding to the impacts of climate change.   This points out that this is not just a problem for future generations to solve. Death and destruction caused by climate change are affecting people here and now. World-wide communities are being forced  to change their way of life or to perish.

                       

            

Week 9 2113

Tendring Topics......on line

‘Arms and the Man’

            That is the title of one of George Bernard Shaw’s more light-hearted plays, but ‘the arms’ that I have in mind are the weapons of death that, even as I write, are killing men, women and children in Syria and elsewhere and during the past century have killed millions of men, women and children world-wide.  ‘The man’ is our Prime Minister, David Cameron.

            He has recently been in India, furthering trade with that rapidly growing potential consumer of the products of British industry.  It was his second visit there in the past three years, his earlier one having been in July 2010.  Since then he has paid similar visits to Egypt and Kuwait, Saudi Arabia (on two occasions), Indonesia, Japan, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

            Furthering British trade relations is obviously a very worthy activity though some may wonder if affairs at home in Britain are really running so smoothly that our Prime Minister can afford frequent absences on trade missions.  What is concerning is the fact that much of the commercial activity that he is so eager to promote is that of the arms trade – a trade that many of us regard as being as undesirable as the slave trade and that, like the slave trade, is destined to become  one of the darker aspects of our nation’s history.  This interest of the Prime Minister was noted particularly during the ‘Arab spring’ when he toured the Middle East in the company of arms salesmen who regarded the turmoil in the region as a unique sales opportunity.  How those salesmen must have rejoiced earlier at the bloody break-up of the former Jugoslavia.  Quite apart from the deadly weapons required at the time, its outcome was the creation of five potential customers instead of just one!

            Howard Wheeldon, Director of Policy for ADS, a ‘defence’ trade organisation is reported as saying, ‘The PM has done a fantastic job.   He has picked up the value of defence to the national economy.  Other PMs haven’t necessarily’.  No doubt; but the promotion of arms sales surely can’t have a very high priority on the Prime Minister’s ‘job description’.

            In fact, the British arms trade does very well by global standards.  The USA is the world’s biggest arms exporter with 35 percent of the market share.  The UK comes next with a 15 percent share, narrowly in front of both Russia and France. It is not a statistic in which I take any pride.

            It may be argued that every country has a right to self-defence.  Trouble arises only when weapons fall into the wrong hands.  Much the same argument has been put forward in the USA about gun control.  ‘The only way to foil the activities of  bad guys with guns is to make sure that the good guys are well armed’.

 Internationally, how do we tell the ‘good guys’ from the bad?  And how do we ensure that they remain ‘good? I am sure that when the French sold Exocet Missiles to the Argentineans they hadn’t intended them to be used against the British in the Falklands.  When the USA and the UK covertly armed the Mojihadin in Afghanistan to support them in their guerrilla war against the USSR they hadn’t intended to put weapons into the hands of those who, a few decades later, would be using them to kill British and American troops.  It would surprise me if British made weapons are not being used by both sides in the current bloody conflict in Syria.

            I look forward to the day when the success of the arms trade is a distant memory and we are better known for our tractors, our dams, our bridges and our medical and surgical expertise than for our tanks and guns, our bombers, our jet fighters and our death-dealing missiles.

An elderly ‘Essex boy’!

          It might have been thought that someone who had had to serve only nine weeks of a nine months sentence for serious fraud, and had heard that there was to be no further investigation into his expensive activities as former Leader of Essex County Council, would have thanked his lucky stars for his good fortune and have kept a very low profile, at least for a year or two.

           

But that was not Lord Hanningfield’s way.  He sued Essex Police for wrongful arrest and trespass and has been awarded £3,500 in damages. Only a month or two ago we had learned that, as the fraud for which he had been convicted had been much greater than had originally been realized, he would have to pay back a further £37.000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act, or return to gaol for a further term.  We were told at the time that as he was by no means a wealthy man this might compel him  to sell his bungalow and ‘take up the tenancy of a Council House’. (Did he really imagine he'd qualify for one?)   Under the circumstances he might have been expected to add that £3,500 to his meagre savings, but not so.  He is ‘still working to raise that £37,000’ and is donating the £3,500 to a cancer charity!

            Lord Hanningfield (who was plain Paul White, an Essex pig farmer, before Tony Blair arranged for him to be ennobled on Margaret Thatcher’s recommendation) says that one chapter of his life is now over and he wants to get on serving the people of Essex.  ‘I’ll mainly be working in the House of Lords and I’m already taking up some issues’.

            How strange that the government and members of the House of Commons should be so strongly opposed to convicted criminals being permitted to vote in elections for those who make our laws – but are apparently quite happy for a convicted criminal, who has not yet ‘paid his debt to Society’ (he still owes us £37,000 or a further spell in gaol!) and as far as I know has uttered not a single word of apology or contrition, to play a part in the House of Lords in making those laws!

            We used to hear a great deal about ‘Essex girls’ and their characteristics.  Lord Hanningfield is surely an elderly ‘Essex boy’ to match any of them!

           

              The Assassins

          It is said that at the beginning of the Battle of Waterloo it was reported to the Duke of Wellington that the commander of one of the British cannon had Napoleon himself squarely in his sights.   Should he give the order to fire?  ‘Certainly not’, replied Wellington, ‘We are soldiers – not assassins’.  Yet had he given the order to fire it is at least possible that thousands of British and French lives would have been spared.

            That, I suppose, is always the justification advanced for assassination.  A particular individual is the enemy of the State/the Party/Democracy/the Faith/ the Revolution, or whatever else is considered most important at that time and in that place.  The violent erasure of just one life, it may be claimed, would save thousands of others.  In the nineteenth century a Russian nobleman said of his country that its system of government was ‘despotism tempered by assassination’.

            The present Russian government may well have been responsible for the assassination in London in 2006 of Alexander Litvinenko, a former member of the KGB and of its successor, who had defected to MI6, becoming a double agent working for British Intelligence. It wouldn’t be particularly surprising if he were regarded as a threat to his former employers (much as Burgess and Maclean, who defected to Russia, were regarded in Britain) and orders given for his elimination.  It was an assassination that has soured Anglo-Russian relations to this day.

            British-Israeli relations were similarly soured by the assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhooh, a Hamas activist, in Dubai in 2010 by agents of Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service.  The assassins used forged British passports to get near to their victim, again provoking British official condemnation.  Such assassinations, we may think, are the sort of conduct that we expect from Russians and folk from the Middle East – but are far below the standard of the United Kingdom and our allies.

            But are they? Whoever murdered Alexander Litvinenko and those who murdered Mahmoud al Mabhooh at least put their own lives at risk and in danger when they carried out their criminal actions.   We can hardly say the same about those in the USA who control drones (unmanned aircraft) to fly over enemy – or sometimes nominally allied – countries, seeking out individuals considered to be a threat to the USA as targets for the launch of their death-dealing missiles.  ‘Smart’ as these drones and their deadly cargo undoubtedly are, they are not quite smart enough to distinguish between individual friends and foes. From 2006 to 2009 between 750 and 1,000 people were assassinated by drones in Pakistan, of whom it is reckoned that 66 to 68 percent were Taliban activists and between 31 and 33 percent innocent civilians.

            I understand that the UK also uses drones but that, at present, their use is restricted to military targets in Afghanistan.  We do, of course, support the activities of our American allies.   There was a time, not so very long ago, when American courts refused to extradite suspected, and in some cases tried and sentenced, IRA murderers to the UK.  There’s no doubt what the American reaction would have been had we then sent drones to pick out and ‘neutralise’ those enemies of our country and its people - especially if a few innocent American civilian deaths occurred as ‘collateral damage!'    Do not do unto others what you would hate them - or anyone else - to do unto you!