Cyprus-Forum.com

[denizaksulu]

Magnus, I agree that arms and ammo were given to the defenders of Nicosia in January 1964. I have seen this myself. The soldiers told us that they gave us the arms to defend ourselves against imminent GC attacks. These incidents had nothing to do with divide and rule. The Brits knew what the GC paramilitaries were capable of. They did not want to witness more senseless killings.
They were happier days when we would play cricket while the caches were unloaded. It was these arms that prevented the TCs being over-run and wiped out in 1963-64. Yes it was in broad daylight too. Btw, I was a witness and not a TMT member - I was too young.

Deniz I don't doubt what you saw but the sources make the British intentions very clear. They were at it before 1964, trying to stir up trouble. I am doing my best to find the documents online so I can post the links. They were actively encouraging the TCs to form squads and even mentioned the possibility of bringing in people from the Turkish mainland to increase their numbers.

I remember reading about another guy called Keith Marley. He was from the RAF (I can't remember his rank) and he and some others were involved in gunrunning operations and were caught with some mortars in their car which they were smuggling to TC extremists. When they were discovered the British got them out of Cyprus and covered it up.

What years are you talking about?

The case of Macey had been discussed last year on this forum. Some GC forumers had some links. It made interesting reading. Anything which happened pre 1963 I took with a pinch of salt. I cant remember if anything was proven.

[Magnus]

Magnus, I agree that arms and ammo were given to the defenders of Nicosia in January 1964. I have seen this myself. The soldiers told us that they gave us the arms to defend ourselves against imminent GC attacks. These incidents had nothing to do with divide and rule. The Brits knew what the GC paramilitaries were capable of. They did not want to witness more senseless killings.
They were happier days when we would play cricket while the caches were unloaded. It was these arms that prevented the TCs being over-run and wiped out in 1963-64. Yes it was in broad daylight too. Btw, I was a witness and not a TMT member - I was too young.

Deniz I don't doubt what you saw but the sources make the British intentions very clear. They were at it before 1964, trying to stir up trouble. I am doing my best to find the documents online so I can post the links. They were actively encouraging the TCs to form squads and even mentioned the possibility of bringing in people from the Turkish mainland to increase their numbers.

I remember reading about another guy called Keith Marley. He was from the RAF (I can't remember his rank) and he and some others were involved in gunrunning operations and were caught with some mortars in their car which they were smuggling to TC extremists. When they were discovered the British got them out of Cyprus and covered it up.

What years are you talking about?

The case of Macey had been discussed last year on this forum. Some GC forumers had some links. It made interesting reading. Anything which happened pre 1963 I took with a pinch of salt. I cant remember if anything was proven.

They were planning it pretty much from 1960. There was a group set up with British and American officers and they were all working towards the same goal. The idea was to stir up inter-communal conflict so they could step in and partition the island for their own aims.

[denizaksulu]

Magnus, I agree that arms and ammo were given to the defenders of Nicosia in January 1964. I have seen this myself. The soldiers told us that they gave us the arms to defend ourselves against imminent GC attacks. These incidents had nothing to do with divide and rule. The Brits knew what the GC paramilitaries were capable of. They did not want to witness more senseless killings.
They were happier days when we would play cricket while the caches were unloaded. It was these arms that prevented the TCs being over-run and wiped out in 1963-64. Yes it was in broad daylight too. Btw, I was a witness and not a TMT member - I was too young.

Deniz I don't doubt what you saw but the sources make the British intentions very clear. They were at it before 1964, trying to stir up trouble. I am doing my best to find the documents online so I can post the links. They were actively encouraging the TCs to form squads and even mentioned the possibility of bringing in people from the Turkish mainland to increase their numbers.

I remember reading about another guy called Keith Marley. He was from the RAF (I can't remember his rank) and he and some others were involved in gunrunning operations and were caught with some mortars in their car which they were smuggling to TC extremists. When they were discovered the British got them out of Cyprus and covered it up.

What years are you talking about?

The case of Macey had been discussed last year on this forum. Some GC forumers had some links. It made interesting reading. Anything which happened pre 1963 I took with a pinch of salt. I cant remember if anything was proven.

They were planning it pretty much from 1960. There was a group set up with British and American officers and they were all working towards the same goal. The idea was to stir up inter-communal conflict so they could step in and partition the island for their own aims.

So this is why Callaghan said no to Ecevit, at his request for a joint operation against the coupists. Well I never!!

[Magnus]

So this is why Callaghan said no to Ecevit, at his request for a joint operation against the coupists. Well I never!!

The Brits didn't like to get their hands dirty, they were happier to play people off against each other. They also had their hands full with the end of the British Empire in the late 50s/early60s. The African colonies were particularly troublesome because of all the issues with the white settlers.

[denizaksulu]

So this is why Callaghan said no to Ecevit, at his request for a joint operation against the coupists. Well I never!!

The Brits didn't like to get their hands dirty, they were happier to play people off against each other. They also had their hands full with the end of the British Empire in the late 50s/early60s. The African colonies were particularly troublesome because of all the issues with the white settlers.

Well, the damage is done. Its up to the newer generations to pick up the pieces, and let us hope that they will succeed. To succeed they need to work together and consder each others interests too.

[Paphitis]

British terrorists not frustrated religious loners:

MI5 report

London, Aug 21 (ANI): British terrorists are just as likely to be married with children and have little religious background as they are to be fundamentalist loners, a leaked MI5 study has said.

Research from the security service found it was impossible to draw up a typical profile of a “British Terrorist” contradicting the perception that all are traditional religious fanatics or Islamic fundamentalists, The Telegraph reported.

The classified report on radicalisation concluded there is no single pathway to violent extremism and no easy way to identify those who would become involved in terrorism in Britain.

Source: Wordpress

I, for one, had already read this. Pleased to see you don't call them freedom fighters.

I don't euphemise, as you know. But I am still waiting to see how all this fits into Cyprus Problem .....

Don't be shy or are you saying you don't recognise the numerous killings of civilians such as the school teaacher I mentioned?

How about Catherine Cutliffe?

Perhaps you wish to explain the oppression, and enslavement, and of the Cypriot people.

The Cypriot people had every right to fight for their self determination which you brutally opposed. You imprisoned and tortured our people, took away their freedom and dignity.

Perhaps you should get a good dictionary and look up the meaning of the words 'oppression' and 'enslavement' . May I suggest you consider the Oxford English dictionary. It shows you are using words in error.

I am not surprised for one second that you are a supporter of killings of women and children by cowards and doubt whether you realise that this is what started the events that culminated in Turkey's attack in 1974.

GC's brought the problem upon themselves and are in a state of self denial.

Speaking of killing women and children, the following does seem to fit the bill of a genuine War Crime inflicted by The British against unarmed civilians.

Germans call Churchill a war criminal

By Kate Connolly
in Berlin

WINSTON Churchill was effectively a war criminal who sanctioned the extermination of Germany's civilian population through indiscriminate bombing of towns and cities, an article in the country's biggest-circulation newspaper claimed yesterday.

In an unprecedented attack on Allied conduct during the Second World War, the tabloid Bild has called for recognition to be given to the suffering inflicted on the German population during the strategic air campaign of 1940-45.

The newspaper's campaign, provoked by a new German history of the bomber offensive, breaks six decades of virtual silence on the subject, and is being seen as the latest manifestation of a belief among Germans that they too were victims of the war - albeit a war started by their country.

The newspaper is serialising Der Brand (The Fire: Germany Under Bombardment 1940-45) by the historian Jörg Friedrich, which claims to be the most authoritative account of the bombing campaign so far.

Mr Friedrich claims the British government set out at the start of the Second World War to destroy as many German cities and kill as many of their inhabitants as possible. Civilian deaths were not collateral damage, he says, but rather the object of the exercise. He argues that Churchill had favoured a strategy of attacking the civilian population centres from the air some 20 years before Hitler ordered such raids.
Britain's war leader is quoted during the First World War as saying: "Perhaps the next time round the way to do it will be to kill women, children and the civilian population."

Friedrich goes on to quote Churchill defending the morality of bombing: "Now everyone's at it. It's simply a question of fashion - similar to that of whether short or long dresses are in."

Der Brand is far removed from the dry style of most German histories, and is filled with emotive accounts of the horrors of bombing, but carries few references to the man who brought retribution on Germany, Adolf Hitler.

Friedrich argues that the Allied policy of seeking to break German morale through bombing proved mistaken, the attacks merely serving to weld together the German population.

The debate is certain to anger those in Britain who see the strategic air campaign as a necessary evil.

The British, led by Sir Arthur Harris, C-in-C Bomber Command, were the leading proponents of "night area bombing", involving the systematic destruction of German industrial capacity and housing. The policy resulted in the laying to waste of city after city, including Hamburg, Cologne and Dresden (right), and the deaths of some 635,000 Germans.

The policy was to some extent forced on the RAF by the failure of daylight operations against pinpoint targets early in the war. It also reflected the fact that, for much of the conflict, bombing was the only method by which Britain could attack Germany.

German raids on Britain in the Blitz of 1940-41 were seen to have freed the British from the obligation not to attack civilian centres.

The serialisation of the book will furnish the far-Right in Germany with arguments to back its revisionist claims. It is also likely to overshadow recent reconciliation attempts between Britain and Germany over the bombing of Dresden in February 1945 in which tens of thousands died.

In a symbolic sign of friendship, British businesses have paid into a fund to reconstruct the Frauenkirche or Church of Our Lady which was destroyed in the raid and is set to be reopened in 2006.

Yesterday Antony Beevor, the British historian and author of the bestselling Berlin: The Downfall, 1945, criticised the German claim that Britain's war of attrition was unnecessarily brutal. "The trouble is this argument is removed from the context that they were the ones who invented terror bombing," he said, referring to German attacks on Coventry, Rotterdam and Warsaw.

"They literally obliterated whole cities and that certainly preceded what the British did," he said. "What we did was more terrifying and appalling, but it was a natural progression in this war.

"One can certainly debate the whole morality of bombing, but for Germans to say Churchill was a war criminal is pushing it a bit," he said.

Friedrich, 58, said his two years of research prompted him to change his views radically on the Allied bombing.

"Previously it appeared to me to be a just answer to the crimes of the Third Reich, but I've since changed my mind," he said. "Until the Second World War there was a common consensus that the massacre of civilian populations was illegal."

For the past year Germans on both the Left and Right have been locked in a new and intense debate about the war and their role as its victims as well as perpetrators. The debate was sparked by Günther Grass, the Nobel prize winner, in a novel fictionalising the wartime account of a passenger ship torpedoed by the Soviet navy killing thousands of Germans on board.

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/11/DTel191102.html

[Paphitis]

British terrorists not frustrated religious loners:

MI5 report

London, Aug 21 (ANI): British terrorists are just as likely to be married with children and have little religious background as they are to be fundamentalist loners, a leaked MI5 study has said.

Research from the security service found it was impossible to draw up a typical profile of a “British Terrorist” contradicting the perception that all are traditional religious fanatics or Islamic fundamentalists, The Telegraph reported.

The classified report on radicalisation concluded there is no single pathway to violent extremism and no easy way to identify those who would become involved in terrorism in Britain.

Source: Wordpress

I, for one, had already read this. Pleased to see you don't call them freedom fighters.

I don't euphemise, as you know. But I am still waiting to see how all this fits into Cyprus Problem .....

Don't be shy or are you saying you don't recognise the numerous killings of civilians such as the school teaacher I mentioned?

How about Catherine Cutliffe?

Perhaps you wish to explain the oppression, and enslavement, and of the Cypriot people.

The Cypriot people had every right to fight for their self determination which you brutally opposed. You imprisoned and tortured our people, took away their freedom and dignity.

Perhaps you should get a good dictionary and look up the meaning of the words 'oppression' and 'enslavement' . May I suggest you consider the Oxford English dictionary. It shows you are using words in error.

I am not surprised for one second that you are a supporter of killings of women and children by cowards and doubt whether you realise that this is what started the events that culminated in Turkey's attack in 1974.

GC's brought the problem upon themselves and are in a state of self denial.

Cypriots bought the problems upon themselves because they dared to fight for their own self determination. The British were ruthless and oppressive rulers in Cyprus. Our people were subjected to torture and curfews and were never allowed to express themselves. When Cypriots decided to fight for their self determination, Britain cleverly subjected both GCs and TCs to "divide and rule". The TMT was then formed and the British Auxilliary Police Force, comprising mostly TCs, resulted in GCs and TCs to engage each other in hostilities. This led to further Intercommunal violence in the 60s and and then ultimately to the Turkish Invasion after the CIA sponsored Greek coup in 1974.

It is good to see that you agree that GC's brought the problems upon yourselves. Such comprehension of the facts is rare among extremists on this forum which makes me wonder how you can still hold such extreme views.
I have heard of this conspiracy theory before and lived in Cyprus in the 60's when, even after independence, your terrorist bloodthirsty heroes were still not averse to shooting a Brit in the back. I have kept in touch with developments on the island since them and not getting my information from propaganda ridden GC school text books I could have an advantage over you.

You don't know how lucky you were having Britain as a colonial power.

Tell me what colonial power was more benign.

Would you have preferred to Turkey remain in control ?

Portugal an ally of Britain for centuries could have been an alternative. Take their actions in Goa just as one example. The local population were given the right to change their religion to the Catholic faith or as an alternative they could keep their existing religion and take advantage of the opportunity of being executed. Those who made the wrong decision were killed. Such a shame that they didn't control Cyprus as they would surely have been better for you than the British.

Get off your high horse. The British were not welcome in Cyprus as Cypriots revolted against The British occupation for their own self determination on their island. The EOKA campaign was one which could only ever utilize Guerrilla tactics against a much more powerful superpower at the time. The campaign for self determination was a war against British occupation and oppression.

The British are to a large extent responsible for the present situation in Cyprus. During the EOKA campaign, The British authorities effectively inflicted "Divide and Rule" amongst GCs and TCs. They cleverly managed to instigate the first inter communal hostilities by mobilising TC Auxiliary Police against the EOKA uprising. In 1958, the TMT was also formed which escalated further inter communal violence. Upon realising your most embarrassing military defeat to a mere 300 EOKA fighters, Britain decided to grant partial independence to Cyprus and coerced Makarios in accepting The 1959 Zurich Agreements. The new constitution of Cyprus was discriminatory to the majority of Cypriots and this led to further trouble in the 1960s between GCs and TCs. Indeed, the seeds of division were already put in place by the British, and the GCs who considered themselves the victims of British Belligerence, demanded some constitutional changes. The TCs withdrew from government and full scale inter communal violence between GCs and TCs occurred from 1963-1967.

The biggest culprit in The Cyprus tragedy are The British. This is not to deny that both the GCs and TCs are also responsible as both parties inflicted terrible crimes against each other as a result of Britain's very clever "Divide and Rule" policy.

While our EOKA campaign was not adverse to shooting British soldiers in the back, I feel that you are in absolutely no position to lecture us on this, or for killing any civilians.

British soldier admits war crime as court martial told of Iraqi civilian's brutal death· 'Systematic' abuse meted out at detention centre
· Commanding officer denies neglecting duty
Steven Morris The Guardian, Wednesday September 20 2006 Article history
Daoud Mousa with photographs of his son and grandchildren. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Getty

A corporal in the Duke of Lancaster's regiment became the first British soldier ever to be convicted of a war crime yesterday as a court martial heard that he and his colleagues systematically abused prisoners at a detention centre in southern Iraq.
One civilian was killed and others tormented brutally while officers, including the most senior to be brought before a court martial in modern times, did nothing to stop the abuse, it was claimed.

Corporal Donald Payne, 35, pleaded guilty to the charge at the start of a court martial involving seven British soldiers. But Cpl Payne denied manslaughter and intending to pervert the course of justice. Six others have pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the death of Baha Mousa, 26, a hotel receptionist being held in custody in Basra in 2003.

The historic court martial heard that the prisoners were forced to maintain a "stress position" - backs against a wall, arms stretched out in front - which has been banned by the British army for more than 30 years. If they dropped their arms they were beaten, it was alleged.

One prisoner alleged he was threatened with lighted petrol and another said he was forced to urinate into a bottle which was then tipped over him.

The violence culminated with the killing of Baha Mousa, who died after being so badly beaten that he suffered 93 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose, the hearing was told.

Opening the court martial, Julian Bevan QC, said: "We are not dealing with robust or rough handling, which is bound to happen in the theatre that existed in Iraq, but something far more serious.

"We are dealing with systematic abuse against prisoners involving unacceptable violence against persons who were detained in custody, hooded and handcuffed and wholly unable to protect themselves over a very long period of time."

Mr Bevan said what happened was "only made possible by the negligence of three people" - the commanding officer, Colonel Jorge Mendonca, Major Michael Peebles, the battle group internment review officer, and Warrant Officer Mark Davies, in charge of tactical questioning.

The incident began at 6am on September 14 2003 when members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment raided hotels in Basra which they believed were being used by insurgents. In one they found ammunition, grenades, bayonets, a sniper scope, timers, forged identity documents and a large amount of money.

A number of people, including the receptionist, Baha Mousa, were arrested, handcuffed and driven to the battle group's headquarters.

Mr Bevan claimed that over 36 hours from the Sunday morning to Monday evening they were badly mistreated. "They were repeatedly beaten when handcuffed and hooded with hessian sacks, deprived of sleep, continually shouted at and generally abused."

Baha Mousa died on the Monday. Another suffered such serious kidney injuries that he had renal failure and almost died.

In immediate charge of the Iraqis was Cpl Payne. According to Mr Bevan, he was "largely responsible for meting out the inhuman treatment". But others also took part. "Some of them, it seems, just did it for fun or feelings of hostility."

In temperatures which soared to almost 60C, the detainees were kept in the stress position. "No one can maintain that position for long without suffering pain and stress," said Mr Bevan. If they dropped their arms they were punched and kicked and shouted at. They were kept awake by being shouted at or having an iron bar banged next to them, the court was told. Some were also struck with the iron bar.

Cpl Payne denies manslaughter and intending to pervert the course of justice by telling colleagues to say that Baha Mousa had died accidentally after banging his head. But he admitted inhumanly treating Iraqi civilians - a war crime under the International Criminal Court (ICC) Act 2001. Col Mendonca, Maj Peebles and WO Davies denied negligently performing a duty by not ensuring that the prisoners were not ill-treated.

But Mr Bevan said the detention centre was only 60 metres from the main operational and living quarters. "The close proximity is highly relevant when you come to consider how openly these Iraqis were abused and how the shouting, bawling, screaming from that facility must have been heard by numerous soldiers and officers in that camp and yet no one appears to have raised it as a concern."

Two others, Lance Corporal Wayne Crowcroft, and Kingsman Darren Fallon, denied a joint charge under the ICC Act of inhumanly treating Iraqi civilians. Sergeant Kelvin Stacey, pleaded not guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm.

The court martial, held at the military court centre at Bulford Camp in Wiltshire, is expected to last for up to 16 weeks.

Legal history was also made when the judge, Mr Justice McKinnon, ruled that images of the soldiers' faces could not be shown for fear that they could become terrorist targets. Nor can their addresses be given in even the vaguest terms.

The charges

All soldiers from the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment (formerly the Queen's Lancashire Regiment) unless stated otherwise


Corporal Donald Payne, 35 Manslaughter of Baha Musa, inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians, a war crime under the International Criminal Court Act 2001, intending to pervert the course of justice

Colonel Jorge Mendonca MBE, 42 Negligently performing a duty by failing to take such steps ... to ensure Iraqi civilians being held ... under his command were not ill-treated

Lance Corporal Wayne Crowcroft, 22 Inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians under the ICC Act

Kingsman Darren Fallon, 23 Inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians under the ICC Act

Sergeant Kelvin Stacey, 29 Assault causing actual bodily harm, alternatively common assault

Major Michael Peebles, 35 Intelligence Corps Negligently performing a duty by failing to ensure that miliary personnel under his effective control did not ill-treat Iraqi civilians

Warrant Officer Mark Davies, 37, Miliary Intelligence Section

Neglecting to perform a duty by failing to take steps to ensure that Iraqi civilians were not ill-treated.

All men pleaded not guilty to all charges save that Cpl Payne admitted inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/sep/20/iraq.military

[Paphitis]

Generally cowards, afraid of meeting face to face, those they believe are the enemy they lay bombs, shoot, kill and run away.

As a member of the 'A-Team' you are no doubt a master tactician (although I remember Hannibal as being the brains of the outfit). Given your vast military experience, can you please explain how a smaller force of untrained individuals with outdated equipment can effectively combat a professional military force without use of 'guerilla' tactics? We aren't all able to create tanks out of a broken fork lift truck and a bit of drainpipe.

So this is why they murdered the likes of a doctor, a school teacher and a woman out shopping.

Everything pales into insignificance over what is depicted in the below article. The Cypriot people revolted against British occupation and just like in any other war, innocent civilians are killed. I think you call this collateral damage.

The media are minimising US and British war crimes in Iraq

The media are minimising US and British war crimes in IraqThe reporting of the Iraqi death toll - both in its scale and account of who is doing the killing - is profoundly dishonest

George Monbiot The Guardian, Tuesday November 8 2005 Article historyWe were told that the Iraqis don't count. Before the invasion began, the head of US central command, General Thomas Franks, boasted that "we don't do body counts". His claim was repeated by Donald Rumsfeld in November 2003 ("We don't do body counts on other people") and the Pentagon last January ("The only thing we keep track of is casualties for US troops and civilians").
But it's not true. Almost every week the Pentagon claims to have killed 50 or 70 or 100 insurgents in its latest assault on the latest stronghold of the ubiquitous monster Zarqawi. In May the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff said that his soldiers had killed 250 of Zarqawi's "closest lieutenants" (or so 500 of his best friends had told him). But last week, the Pentagon did something new. Buried in its latest security report to Congress is a bar chart labelled "average daily casualties - Iraqi and coalition. 1 Jan 04-16 Sep 05". The claim that it kept no track of Iraqi deaths was false.

The report does not explain what it means by casualty, or if its figures represent all casualties, only insurgents, or, as the foregoing paragraph appears to hint, only civilians killed by insurgents. There is no explanation of how the figures were gathered or compiled. The only accompanying text consists of the words "Source: MNC-I", which means Multi-National Corps - Iraq. We'll just have to trust them.

What the chart shows is that these unexplained casualties have more than doubled since the beginning of the Pentagon's survey. From January to March 2004, 26 units of something or other were happening every day, while in September 2005 the something or other rose to 64. But whatever it is that's been rising, the weird morality of this war dictates that it is reported as good news. Journalists have been multiplying the daily average of mystery units by the number of days, discovering that the figure is lower than previous estimates of Iraqi deaths, and using it to cast doubts on them. As ever, the study in the line of fire is the report published by the Lancet in October last year.

It was a household survey - of 988 homes in 33 randomly selected districts - and it suggested, on the basis of the mortality those households reported before and after the invasion, that the risk of death in Iraq had risen by a factor of 1.5; somewhere between 8,000 and 194,000 extra people had died, with the most probable figure being 98,000. Around half the deaths, if Falluja was included, or 15% if it was not, were caused by violence, and the majority of those by attacks on the part of US forces.

In the US and the UK, the study was either ignored or torn to bits. The media described it as "inflated", "overstated", "politicised" and "out of proportion". Just about every possible misunderstanding and distortion of its statistics was published, of which the most remarkable was the Observer's claim that: "The report's authors admit it drew heavily on the rebel stronghold of Falluja, which has been plagued by fierce fighting. Strip out Falluja, as the study itself acknowledged, and the mortality rate is reduced dramatically." In fact, as they made clear on page one, the authors had stripped out Falluja; their estimate of 98,000 deaths would otherwise have been much higher.

But the attacks in the press succeeded in sinking the study. Now, whenever a newspaper or broadcaster produces an estimate of civilian deaths, the Lancet report is passed over in favour of lesser figures. For the past three months, the editors and subscribers of the website Medialens have been writing to papers and broadcasters to try to find out why. The standard response, exemplified by a letter from the BBC's online news service last week, is that the study's "technique of sampling and extrapolating from samples has been criticised". That's true, and by the same reasoning we could dismiss the fact that 6 million people were killed in the Holocaust, on the grounds that this figure has also been criticised, albeit by skinheads. The issue is not whether the study has been criticised, but whether the criticism is valid.

As Medialens has pointed out, it was the same lead author, using the same techniques, who reported that 1.7 million people had died as a result of conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). That finding has been cited by Tony Blair, Colin Powell and almost every major newspaper on both sides of the Atlantic, and none has challenged either the method or the result. Using the Congo study as justification, the UN security council called for all foreign armies to leave the DRC and doubled the country's UN aid budget.

The other reason the press gives for burying the Lancet study is that it is out of line with competing estimates. Like Jack Straw, wriggling his way around the figures in a written ministerial statement, they compare it to the statistics compiled by the Iraqi health ministry and the website Iraq Body Count.

In December 2003, Associated Press reported that "Iraq's health ministry has ordered a halt to a count of civilians killed during the war". According to the head of the ministry's statistics department, both the puppet government and the Coalition Provisional Authority demanded that it be stopped. As Naomi Klein has shown on these pages, when US soldiers stormed Falluja (a year ago today), their first action was to seize the general hospital and arrest the doctors. The New York Times reported that "the hospital was selected as an early target because the American military believed that it was the source of rumours about heavy casualties". After the coalition had used these novel statistical methods to improve the results, Blair told parliament that "figures from the Iraqi ministry of health, which are a survey from the hospitals there, are in our view the most accurate survey there is".

Iraq Body Count, whose tally has reached 26,000-30,000, measures only civilian deaths which can be unambiguously attributed to the invasion and which have been reported by two independent news agencies. As the compilers point out, "it is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media ... our own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or recording". Of the seven mortality reports surveyed by the Overseas Development Institute, the estimate in the Lancet's paper was only the third highest. It remains the most thorough study published so far. Extraordinary as its numbers seem, they are the most likely to be true.

And what of the idea that most of the violent deaths in Iraq are caused by coalition troops? Well according to the Houston Chronicle, even Blair's favourite data source, the Iraqi health ministry, reports that twice as many Iraqis - and most of them civilians - are being killed by US and UK forces as by insurgents. When the Pentagon claims that it has just killed 50 or 70 or 100 rebel fighters, we have no means of knowing who those people really were. Everyone it blows to pieces becomes a terrorist. In July Jack Keane, the former vice chief of staff of the US army, claimed that coalition troops had killed or captured more than 50,000 "insurgents" since the start of the rebellion. Perhaps they were all Zarqawi's closest lieutenants.

We can expect the US and UK governments to seek to minimise the extent of their war crimes. But it's time the media stopped collaborating.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2005 ... publishing

[Paphitis]

I have heard of this conspiracy theory before and lived in Cyprus in the 60's when, even after independence, your terrorist bloodthirsty heroes were still not averse to shooting a Brit in the back.

The 1960s? Is this when your 'brave lads' were happily arming Turkish extremists and stirring up inter-communal conflict between Cypriots?

I have no idea whether we were selling arms to Turkey in the 60's or Greece for that matter but as far as stirring up inter-communal conflict is concerned I've heard of people making things up and others believing them but this one takes the biscuit.

It sounds to me that you are one bitter and twisted individual, unable to fathom British atrocities and oppression of The Cypriot People. You find it unnacceptable that a small band of Cypriot "Freedom Fighters" revolted against your tyranny and inflicted upon you a most demoralising and embarrising military defeat.

You are also very quick to point out that these Cypriot "Freedom Fighters" killed a small number of civilians and you belittle their struggle for engaging a superpower with the only means that was possible and against all odds. EOKA's adversary was far superior in firepower and manpower, was far better trained and disciplined and yet you found yourselves in very deep water and losing control of the situation.

Whatever EOKA inflicted upon their barbaric rulers is by no means any more underhanded than what you inflicted upon Iraqi civilians as recent as 2006.

Kidnap and torture: new claims of Army war crimes in Iraq

Robert Verkaik reveals evidence of systemic ill-treatment of civilians by British soldiers in the aftermath of the overthrow of Saddam

Friday, 18 May 2007

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The British Army is facing new allegations that it was involved in "forced disappearances", hostage-taking and torture of Iraqi civilians after the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein.


One of the claims is made by the former chairman of the Red Crescent in Basra, who alleges he was beaten unconscious by British soldiers after they accused him of being a senior official in Saddam's Baath party.

The family of another Iraqi civilian claims he was arrested and kidnapped by the British in order to secure the surrender of his brother, who was also accused of being a high-ranking member of the party. He was later found shot dead, still handcuffed and wearing a UK prisoner name tag.

Both cases are being prepared for hearings in the High Court in which the Government will be accused of war crimes while carrying out the arrest and detention of alleged senior members of the Baath party.

Last month, the first British soldier to be convicted of a war crime was jailed for a year and dismissed from the Army after being convicted of mistreating Iraqi civilians, including the hotel worker Baha Mousa, who died of his injuries at the hands of British soldiers. Six other soldiers, including Col Jorge Mendonca, were cleared of all charges.

Lawyers and rights groups say the worrying aspect of these latest allegations is that they show evidence of systemic abuse by British soldiers soon after the fall of Saddam.

Fouad Awdah Al-Saadoon, 67, chairman of the Iraqi Red Crescent in Basra, alleges he was visited by British soldiers at his offices in the city on 12 April 2003 and was taken to the British base at the former Mukhabarat [intelligence] building. In his witness statement, Mr Saadoon said he was accused of being a member of the Baath party and of using his organisation's ambulances secretly to transport Iraqi militia.

In a detailed account of the abuse that he alleges he suffered, Mr Saadoon recalls: "As soon as I went inside they started beating me. They used electric cables and wooden batons and they harshly punched me with their hands and boots. I had a heart problem, I was a diabetic and had high blood pressure. I was hit repeatedly on my eyes which made me collapse unconscious."

Mr Saadoon was later transferred to the joint American/British-run detention centre called Camp Bucca, in southern Iraq, which the British had set up to process prisoners at the start of the war. He was interrogated for five days. Because of the injuries sustained during the beatings his condition worsened and he claims the British flew him to Kuwait for a heart operation. There he claims he was visited by the International Federation of the Red Crescent whose representatives expressed concern at his alleged treatment by the British.

In the second case, a 26-year-old Iraqi civilian, Tarek Hassan, was arrested in a dawn raid by British troops involved in the rounding up of Baath party officials on 24 April 2003. His family allege he was held hostage by the British in exchange for the surrender of his brother, Kadhim Hassan, a member of the Baath party.

Five months after his arrest, his family received a phone call to say his body had been found dumped in Samarra, north of Baghdad and 550 miles from the detention centre where he had been held. Kadhim Hassan, 37, has spent the past three years trying to establish the circumstances that led to the death of his brother. Now Iraqi human rights workers and British lawyers have uncovered vital witnesses to his arrest and detention. They have also recovered Tarek's UK identity tag, which indicates he was a British prisoner.

In his witness statement, Kadhim recalls the night his bother was arrested. "The British were looking for me as I was a high-ranking member of the Baath party," he said. "I suspect that a financial dispute with one of my neighbours made him inform the British of my rank and he possibly told them some lies which made them look for me." Kadhim had left the family a few hours before the armoured vehicles carrying the soldiers arrived. When his sisters contacted the British to find out where the British had taken Tarek, they were told that he would only be released if Kadhim gave himself up. That was the last they heard of him until five months later.

"He was found," said Kadhim, "by locals in the countryside ... We went to collect him from the morgue in Samarra, where we found him with eight bullet wounds to his chest. They were Kalashnikov bullets. His hands were tied with plastic wire and had many bruises."

Now it emerges that Mr Saadoon, who has left Iraq and is working as a businessman in Dubai, met Tarek shortly after he was flown back to Camp Bucca from Kuwait, where he had been receiving medical care.

"I was brought back to Camp Bucca in a van on 21 April and placed in a tent, which held 400 prisoners. On 24 April Tarek Hassan was brought to our tent. He was very scared and confused. He told me British troops had raided his house and were looking for his brother who left the house before the soldiers had arrived. As I was in bad health, Tarek used to bring me food and care for me. Tarek was never interrogated while I was at Camp Bucca."

On 27 April the International Federation of the Red Crescent requested the British to free Mr Saadoon and that night he and all 200 others were released in the middle of the night on the highway between Basra and Zubai. "We had to walk 25 miles to reach the nearest place where we could hire cars," remembers Mr Saadoon.

The Government denies being involved in the injuries suffered by Mr Saadoon or responsibility for Tarek's death. In letters to the family, the Ministry of Defence makes the point that the bullets that may have killed him were fired from a Kalashnikov weapon and that the area where his body was found was not an area of operations associated with British forces.

But the Hassan family's solicitor, Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, said the evidence showed Tarek disappeared at the hands of UK forces and that the circumstances of his release "significantly increased the risk to his life".

In recent correspondence, the MoD has admitted to the Hassan family that Tarek was held at Camp Bucca but claims that it is a US-run camp and so not the responsibility of the British.

Mr Shiner, who is acting in both cases, said: "The Government deny any responsibility in a case where a man has been kidnapped by UK forces and killed. It is a matter of public record that our agents were torturing Iraqis at Camp Bucca and continued to hand over detainees to the Iraqi criminal system even though there was a serious risk of torture or death in detention. This case is important because if the UK have jurisdiction it cannot allow these incidents to continue and must properly investigate previous incidents".

Mazin Younis, chair of the Iraqi League, a UK-based rights group, said: "The cases we have reported so far may only be the tip of an iceberg of systematic abuse procedures devised high up the command chain in the Army. The scale of such cases greatly necessitates the need for the Government to start a public inquiry."

Camp Bucca, a 'holding facility' with a history of allegations

The secure holding facility in the desert near the city of Umm Qasr, close to the Kuwaiti border, was originally called Camp Freddy and used by British forces to hold Iraqi prisoners of war.

But in April 2003 control of the camp was transferred to the Americans, although there was a "secure and discrete" unit within the camp that remained exclusively British. In 2003 the British had control of two tent compounds, holding roughly 400 prisoners each. The Americans had six similar compounds.

The camp is designed to hold between 2,000 and 2,500 prisoners but figures released in March 2006 estimated that it held 8,500 Iraqi detainees.

There have been a number of inquiries into alleged abusive treatment at the camp, mostly related to the Americans.

In February 2005 American soldiers killed four detainees and injured six others to quell a riot in which prisoners were armed with stones.

But the British have also been accused of abuse, specifically the hooding of prisoners, which led to concerns being raised with the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Six of the men detained with Baha Mousa were later taken to Camp Bucca. Conditions in the camp are known to be primitive, with open trenches used as lavatories.

The prisoners were forced to sleep on the desert floor, at risk from scorpions and snakes, and were only given one blanket at night when temperatures can fall below zero.

Since May 2003, 27 prisoners have escaped from Camp Bucca, 18 of whom have been recaptured. A number of attempts at mass escape have been foiled.

The Ministry of Defence says that apart from two spells in 2003, Camp Bucca has been run by the Americans.

Soldiers in the dock

Camp Breadbasket

On 15 May 2003 the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers captured Iraqis looting an aid camp in Operation Ali-Baba. They were detained for a brief period during which they were beaten, forced to simulate oral and anal sex and suspended from a forklift truck. Later that month, Fusilier Gary Bartlam, 20, of Tamworth, Staffordshire, took a film to be developed containing 22 photographs of abuse taking place. This triggered a lengthy court martial at a British Army barracks in Osnabruck, Germany. Bartlam pleaded guilty to three charges of ill treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Cpl Daniel Kenyon, 33, from Newcastle, denied six charges of abuse. He was convicted of three, cleared of two charges and the remaining charge was dropped. L/Cpl Mark Cooley, 25, from Newcastle, denied two charges of abuse but was found guilty of both. L/Cpl Darren Larkin, 30, from Oldham, Greater Manchester, admitted to one charge of assault but denied another. The second charge was dropped.

Baha Mousa

The hotel worker and son of an Iraqi police colonel died on 16 September 2003 while in custody of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment at a detention centre near Basra. The building had formerly been the secret service headquarters of Ali Majid (Chemical Ali). Cpl Donald Payne, 36, became Britain's first convicted war criminal when he admitted inhumanely treating civilian detainees. Six other soldiers were cleared by a military court in Bulford, Wiltshire, of abusing Mr Mousa and other detainees.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 49342.html

[Paphitis]

British terrorists not frustrated religious loners:

MI5 report

London, Aug 21 (ANI): British terrorists are just as likely to be married with children and have little religious background as they are to be fundamentalist loners, a leaked MI5 study has said.

Research from the security service found it was impossible to draw up a typical profile of a “British Terrorist” contradicting the perception that all are traditional religious fanatics or Islamic fundamentalists, The Telegraph reported.

strategic The classified report on radicalisation concluded there is no single pathway to violent extremism and no easy way to identify those who would become involved in terrorism in Britain.

Source: Wordpress

I, for one, had already read this. Pleased to see you don't call them freedom fighters.

I don't euphemise, as you know. But I am still waiting to see how all this fits into Cyprus Problem .....

Don't be shy or are you saying you don't recognise the numerous killings of civilians such as the school teaacher I mentioned?

How about Catherine Cutliffe?

Perhaps you wish to explain the oppression, and enslavement, and of the Cypriot people.

The Cypriot people had every right to fight for their self determination which you brutally opposed. You imprisoned and tortured our people, took away their freedom and dignity.

Perhaps you should get a good dictionary and look up the meaning of the words 'oppression' and 'enslavement' . May I suggest you consider the Oxford English dictionary. It shows you are using words in error.

I am not surprised for one second that you are a supporter of killings of women and children by cowards and doubt whether you realise that this is what started the events that culminated in Turkey's attack in 1974.

GC's brought the problem upon themselves and are in a state of self denial.

As one who is well known for his revulsion at the indiscriminate killing of innocents by so called freedom fighters in either Afghanistan , Pakistan or Iraq let me say quite clearly that the Liberation struggle by the G/Cs against Britain was not only full justified but it was the duty of every freedom loving Cypriot to challenge the British rule of Cyprus , I will agree that your statement that Britain was a far better " Administrator " than either Turkey or Portugal could have been , but it was nevertheless an administration enforced on the people of Cyprus who rightfully resented it and demanded their freedom.
You can not seriously compare the vulgarity of the suicide "freedom fighters " with the 300 or so G/Cs who took on the might of the empire.
Britain , just like other superpowers of the past , naturally had its own strategic interests at heart and used all dirty tricks in order to defeat the liberation struggle , one of them the auxiliary force made up entirely of T/Cs with the undisputed aim of divide and rule.
I'm a pro west and pro British but the truth of the matter is that Britain contributed greatly to the catastrophe that occurred in 1974 with Turkey invading even by reneging on her guarantor duty to protect the territorial integrity of Cyprus. Do not be surprised that many Cypriots hold Britain responsible for much of what happened.

Halleluya!

Miltiades, this time I got to hand it to you. This is a most intelligent and well balanced post that you have written in quite some time. Well done!