Troops Out of Afghanistan

Wednesday, September 23rd, 7.30 p.m.

Queens Hotel, Dundee

Confirmed Speakers—

Colin Fox,
John McAllion

Scottish Socialists Youths new blog for their magazine Leftfield contains an excellent recruiting poster for the army.

Dundee/Tayside CND‘s annual Walk up The Law, Thursday, August 6th.

Assemble 8.15 p.m. march off 8.30 p.m.

Speakers: John McAllion (confirmed) others yet to confirm.

Bring candles, hand lights, banners, etc.

Also, to commemorate the bombing of Nagasaki, please join Erik Cramb on Sunday, 9th August, at 11.01 a.m. at top of Law.

Letter from Alan Mackinnon, Chair, Scottish CND

Dear Colleague,

I write to advise you of 2 important forthcoming events for peace movement in Scotland. I wonder if you would send this letter and the attachments on to your usual contacts.

1. A joint STUC/Scottish CND Conference entitled ‘Trident, Jobs and Scotland’s Economy’ to be held on Saturday 6th June at the STUC, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow from 10.30am to 1.30pm. The speakers will include Jeremy Corbyn MP, Bill Kidd MSP, Lynn Henderson, Jackson Cullinane(TGWU/Unite), and Dave Moxham STUC. Among other things the Conference will mark the launch of a new STUC/CND research report providing up to date figures on the job losses associated with the Trident programme. Contrary to other claims, Trident renewal is actually costing Scotland vital jobs now and cancelling it could release resources for new productive investment in its economy. Attached is a leaflet in PDF format. I would be grateful if you could circulate your contacts to inform them of this important event.

2. A march and rally in Glasgow entitled ‘Crunch Time for Trident’ on Saturday 20th June – assemble George Square 11am, march to Kelvingrove Park for a rally. There will be keynote speakers and songs specially commissioned for the event. The event is organised by Scotland’s for Peace. Again, I would be grateful if you could circulate your contacts and encourage them to bring banners etc to the event. I attach a copy of a leaflet to advertise the event. If you would like to receive copies of the leaflets for either event or posters for the latter event, please contact the Scottish CND office at 15 Barrland Street, Glasgow G41 1QH – tel 0141 433 2821.

Yours in Peace

Alan Mackinnon
Chair, Scottish CND

Below is a short article written by Colin Fox about the occupation of St Andrews Uni. Come along to our open branch meeting tomorrow night to hear Colin Fox speaking about the Council Tax and Angela Gorrie speak about the Maryfield by election. (see meetings page for details)

Viva La Revolution St Andrews

Students at St Andrews University were in the headlines last week for occupying their College Halls in support of the Gaza Palestinians and in particular against the University’s links with Israeli defence contractors. Last Wednesday as their week long occupation drew to a successful conclusion they asked me to come up and address them. Many of the 200 or so protesters had organised my election campaign to become Rector of the University last October.

These are my remarks to them

I am very proud indeed to be back here at St Andrews tonight. I am especially proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you at the end of this remarkable occupation. I am proud to see so many of the students who led the campaign ‘Fox for Rector’ in October involved in furthering the cause of the Palestinian people.

I am sure Kevin Dunnion [the successful Rector candidate] is delighted to see you take this action and demonstrate the strength of feeling on campus. – Kevin Dunion was, unbeknown to me, sitting in the meeting as I spoke!

I wish to congratulate you all on behalf of the people of Scotland and indeed the vast majority of the peoples of the world who like you share the view that a terrible injustice has befallen the people of Gaza in recent weeks. You have done both them and yourselves immense credit by the principled and dignified way you have conducted your protest.

You are a credit indeed to us all, to the people who have gone before you at this University and the spirit of learning which this place exists to promote. You have learned that it is right to stand up to tyranny and abuse. It is right to resist injustice and to rebel against exploitation. Read Shelley, read Oscar Wilde, read Malcolm X.

In my experience over 30 years now as an active participant in the international class struggle your actions do matter, they do affect change, you will give huge encouragement to the Palestinian people by this action this past week. News of your protest will have given great encouragement to hundreds of millions of people throughout the world who support the Palestinian cause.

Furthermore your action will have severely irked those who wish you hadn’t done it; the UK Government, the US Government and of course the warmongering Israeli propaganda machine.

They would have rather you hadn’t had this occupation. They would rather you had stayed in the bar drinking and mind your own business or stayed in your halls with a joint getting stoned. In fact they would have far rather you were protesting on their side in favour of BAe’s links to the Israeli military.

I see the Palestinians in 2009 as the black South Africans of the 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s – facing down the barrel of a gun and overwhelming military intimidation for their basic democratic and human rights.

The struggle for justice for the Palestinians today is every bit as important as the anti Apartheid campaign. The treatment of Palestinians is no less brutal that that meted out to the black majority in South Africa. The injustice is rife, the military odds stacked against them virtually insurmountable. Yet the international support is as it was for Nelson Mandela and the ANC.

And lets not forget they won and so will the Palestinains.

Your occupation this week has played its small part in bringing the day the Palestinians achieve the rights the rest of us already take for granted that bit closer. I salute you , you should be proud of yourselves and each other. Thank you.’

The revelations about Labour supporting the torture of people came so long ago that they are as easily forgotten as they were ignored by the press.

Craig Murray has posted an excellent piece detailing how Harriet Harman is lying for claiming the British Government never knew it gained intelligence from torture and explains how Jack Straw and others justified it at the time.

An exert

• In October/November 2002 and January/Februray 2003 I sent two Top Secret telegrams to London specifically on the subject of our receipt of intelligence gained under torture. I argued this was illegal, immoral and impractical. The telegrams were specifically marked for the Secretary of State.
• I was formally summoned back to the FCO for a meeting held on 7 or 8 March 2003 specifically and solely on the subject of intelligence gained under torture. Present were Linda Duffield, Director Wider Europe, FCO, Sir Michael Wood, Chief Legal Adviser, FCO, and Matthew Kydd, Head of Permanent Under-Secretary’s Department, FCO.
• This meeting was minuted. I have seen the record, which is classified Top Secret and was sent to Jack Straw. On the top copy are extensive hand-written marginalia giving Jack Straw’s views.
• I was told at this meeting that it is not illegal for us to obtain intelligence gained by torture, provided that we did not do the torture ourselves. I was told that it had been decided that as a matter of War on Terror policy we should now obtain intelligence from torture, following discussion between Jack Straw and Richard Dearlove. I was told that we could not exclude receipt of specific material from the CIA without driving a coach and horses through the universality principle of the UK/US intelligence sharing agreement, which would be detrimental to UK interests.

Looks like they are trying to win the hearts and minds one dissected and boiled set of genitalia at a time.

Help Craig Murray be heard by the committee by e-mailing them following the details on a later post.

Recently, if you have been watching the news or reading any newspaper you will have noticed the complete failure of whole sections of the private sector. Basing their business plans on profits they were expecting to make, the profits never arrived, but massive debts and write offs came instead. You will also have noticed that Labour threw hundreds of billions of pounds at the failed companies, some of which is being syphoned off by their greedy directors as bonuses, clearly not related to performance.

Now the Labour Party are planning to privatise 30% of Royal Mail. Twice disgraced Business Secretary Peter Mandelson claims that Royal Mail is in danger of running out of money and that the taxpayer could not be expected to fund potential liabilities in the region of £8bn in the companies pension fund. Part of the reason the pension fund is in deficit is that the return on the investment for them is based on Labours glorious Free Market which has just failed, spectacularly, again. The main part though, and this is good, is because Labour allowed the bosses to take a pension holiday for thirteen years!

They encouraged the bosses to not pay money into the pension fund, then use the fact it’s now, obviously, in deficit to attack the service.

Billy Hayes, leader of the Communication Workers’ Union hit the nail on the head:

The government is saying they want a foreign company to run the post office, which is ridiculous. We could be faced with a situation where the Royal Bank of Scotland is nationalised and the Royal Mail is privatised.

This is not an isolated incident, Labour and the Tories freed up the most profitable parts of the Royal Mail to competition, and more recently Labour have been attacking whole swathes of the service. This included disgracefully closing four post offices in Dundee, one of which was in the area they are now trying to convince voters to elect them in. Dundee SSP were out campaigning constantly getting people to sign petitions and write letters objecting to the closures and taking part in the Consultation.

The outcome of privatising the most profitable parts of the service is that Labours demands that the company turn a larger profit is harder than ever, because of Labour gutting the service in the first place.

New Labour for consultation is clearly English for proclamation and farce. The objections of hundreds were ignored. A handful of Post Offices have been saved from closure, only for others to take their place. Showing clearly they were not closing based on popularity or local need but purely because they wanted to close X number. The act of removing one from that list resulted in the adding of another.

There are two petitions on the issue, and the least you can do is sign them. After that write to your MP. There will no doubt be other protests and actions taking place over this issue so pledge to take part in any that do.

CWU petition

Petition on Number 10 site

Please send your messages of support to the students at St Andrews University who have just began their occupation in protest at the University’s complicity in Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people: campaign@scottishpsc.org.uk

The students have now set up a blog

Student are also asking for anyone living or working in the area to visit them – show your support!

Having presented the petition, already signed by over 30 academics and 700 students, to the Principal of the University around 50 people have occupied Lower College Hall in protest at the University’s complicity in the Israeli occupation.

———-

We, the concerned students of the University of St. Andrews demand that the university condemns the illegal bombing and genocide in Gaza and Israel’s indiscriminate targeting of civilians. In particular, as an educational establishment we urge that it shows practical solidarity with the Islamic university of Gaza and other schools and colleges damaged during the bombing.

We believe that now is the time for the university to firmly and unilaterally cut all financial and commercial ties with any companies that in any way supports the apartheid state of Israel. The university has led the way in adopting a policy of ethical investment. Now is the time for students, staff and management to show that we do not lack the courage to condemn crimes against humanity, nor the generosity to help those who are in such desperate need. Specifically we demand that the university:

1. Immediately suspends and pledges not to renew its contract with Eden Springs, the Israeli water company which illegally steals water from the Golan Heights. It is not enough that this contract run out this year, it must be canceled now.
2. Investigates its million pound research contracts with defense companies and the ministry of defense. Centrally, that the university sets up a review seeking to find replacement funding for the research contracts with BAE systems and its extensive links to Accenture. Both have close ties with the apartheid regime of Israel.
3. Sets up a scholarship program for Palestinian Students and commits to a minimum of 10 scholarships. This would send out an important symbolic message that we will not turn a blind eye to the Palestinian students who are unable to study because of the attacks on educational infrastructure and constant state of terror which prevents students from attending university.
4. Organizes a collection on campus, including a broadcasting of the DEC appeal, for aid for Gaza, makes available non-monetary aid such as course books, desks etc. and also establishes links with the Islamic University of Gaza in order to find out how it might aid with reconstruction.
5. Following the letter signed by fifty medical students, that Bute medical school provides medical aid for Palestine in the form of medical equipment and drugs and through supporting organizations such as medical aid for Palestine (supported by Medsin)

In all of these measure the university might link up with other Scottish and English universities who are also adopting similar policies in order to develop a common, humanitarian and equitable approach to Israeli companies and those linked to its war machine and to the Palestinian people and its ravaged educational infrastructure.

Many thanks,
St Andrews Univeresity Student Occupation

A new campaign has been launched to indict Tony Blair in the Hague as a war criminal.

The petition text is below, follow the link to sign it.

To: President of the United Nations General Assembly and the UK Attorney General

BWCF – THE BLAIR WAR CRIMES FOUNDATION

To The President of The United Nations General Assembly, H.E. Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, and The Attorney General of the United Kingdom, and their successors in office.

RE ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLAIR

We, the citizens of the United Kingdom and other countries listed, wish to uphold The United Nations Charter, The 1998 Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court, The Hague and Geneva Conventions and the Rule of International Law, especially in respect of:-

1. 1949 Geneva Convention IV: Article 146
   The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the grave breaches of the present Convention.
2. 1907 Hague Convention IV: Article 3
   A belligerent party which violates the provisions of the said regulations shall, if the case demands, be liable to pay compensation. It shall be responsible for all the acts committed by persons forming part of its armed forces.

We therefore call on you to indict Anthony Charles Lynton Blair in his capacity as recent Prime Minister of the UK, so long as he is able to answer for his actions and however long it takes, in respect of our sample complaints relating to the 2003 Iraq War waged by the UK as ally to the United States of America.

We are concerned that without justice and respect for the rule of law, the future for us and our progeny in a lawless world is bleak, as revealed by recent US declarations about the use of torture and the events of December 2008 in Gaza show.

The following are our sample complaints relating to the Iraq War 2003-2009:

1. Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, 4 million refugees, countless maimings and traumas.
2. Employing radioactive ammunition causing long-term destruction of the planetary habitat.
3. Causing the breakdown of civil administration, with consequent lawlessness, especially looting, kidnapping, and violence, and consequent breakdown of womens’ rights, of religious freedom, and child and adult education.
4. Failing to maintain the medical needs of the populace.
5. Despoliation of the cultural heritage of the country.
6. Supporting an ally that employs ‘waterboarding’ and other tortures.
7. Seizing the assets of Iraq.
8. Using inhumane restraints on prisoners, including dogs, hoods, and cable ties.
9. Using Aggressive Patrolling indiscriminately, traumatising women and children and wrecking homes and property.
10. Marking bodies of prisoners with numbers, writing, faeces and other degrading treatment.
11. The use of cluster bombs and other indiscriminate weapons including white phosphorous on shake and bake missions.
12. Supporting indiscriminate rocket attacks from F16 fighter planes on women and children in Fallujah in Nov 2004
13. Supporting the shooting up of ambulances and medical personnel in Fallujah in Nov 2004
14. Supporting the expulsion of the entire population of Fallujah save for young men of military age, for a reprisal attack on that city in Nov 2004.

Students are currently occupying a building at Strathclyde uni over the war on Gaza. They have issued a list of demands and are holding a rally tomorrow. Their message follows after the address of their blog

Strathclyde University Occupation

50 Students are currently occupying srathclyde uni mccance building. a delegation is meeting the principal andrew hamnett to present the following demands :

1. cancel SU‘s contract with eden springs
2. refuse investment from arms manufactyrer BAe systems and find alternative funding for the engineering dept.
3. fund and facilitate 50 scholarships for Palestinian students
4. solidarity with Gaza’s Islamic university – send a letter of support, twin SU with the Islamic uni and aid the rebuilding
5. condem the BBC‘s refusal to show the DEC appeal, show the appeal in lecture theatre’s and hold a fundraising day on campus
6. stop Israeli academics promoting military research at SU the students of the occupation are appealing for solidarity , come down and support us! we will be here until our uni commits to supporting the Palestinians.