Tashkent to Blackburn

Page 39
Q-News, Issue 362
April 2005

When Craig Murray condemned the use of torture in Uzbekistan, he lost his job as UK’s ambassador. Now, he tells Sonia Malik, he’s challenging Jack Straw to come clean on Central Asia’s most brutal regime.

What is the British policy on Uzbekistan and what is wrong with it?

Uzbekistan is still under the same dictatorial leadership that ruled the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic when it was part of the USSR. It is a totalitarian state, with the official political, social, religious, economic and media structures under full state control. There is no freedom of speech, religion, assembly or the media. There are about ten thousand political and religious prisoners. Brutal torture and rape are widely practised by the security services. The people live in desperate poverty, which is growing worse, while the corrupt regime members are staggeringly rich. UK policy is to treat Uzbekistan as a valuable ally in the “War on Terror”. It is a member of the “Coalition of the willing” and the regime is seen to play a valuable role in suppressing Islam in Central Asia. The UK makes token condemnations of human rights abuses in Uzbekistan, but Jack Straw has himself decided that the UK will continue to receive “intelligence material” against Muslims extracted from victims in President Karimov’s torture chambers. The United States has a massive military airbase in Uzbekistan, with several squadrons of the United States Air Force stationed there permanently, guarded by thousands of US troops. This airbase plays a key role in Donald Rumsfeld’s strategy of “lilly pads”. This is the Pentagon term for airbases surrounding the “Wider Middle East”, meaning a belt including the Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia. That whole area has huge hydrocarbon reserves and that is what US policy is about - grabbing control of oil and gas. In Iraq, the US achieved control of oil and gas by attacking a dictator. In Central Asia they achieve control by backing a dictator. In return the US gives Karimov $500 million a year in aid, including $120 million in military aid and $80 million in aid to the security services. Karimov has been a guest in the White House and Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld have all visited Tashkent.


Does Labour care about the rights and interests of Muslims in Britain?

New Labour bears no relation to the old Labour party. Its leaders are obsessed with acquiring personal power. At home they do this through state propaganda - for which the media uses the euphemism “spin”, by increasing centralisation and attacking civil liberties. Abroad, they seek to be powerful by being the sidekick of the one superpower - Bush’s America - rather than working through the UN. Labour has betrayed Muslims, who traditionally supported them. It has set out to demonise and criminalise the community. Intelligence gained through torture in Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia or Egypt can now be used to lock up people without trial in this country, or subject them to house arrest. The government has used the media to whip up fear and hostility towards the Muslims, with selective briefings about alleged terrorists. They continually pull stunts to induce fear in the non-Muslim population, like sending tanks to Heathrow. If a terrorist is trying to board a plane with a knife or a bomb, how do you stop him with a tank? Run him over? It is worth stating that no one, I’ll say that again, no one has ever been killed in the UK by an Islamic terrorist.


What is your opinion of Labour’s foreign policies?

Labour foreign policy is simply to support George Bush. Full stop. The rest is posturing and window dressing. The Government has the blood of millions of innocents in Iraq on its hands. If anybody puts a cross next to Labour on an election ballot, some of the blood will spread to your fingers. Forever. UK foreign policy should not be based on Bush but on the United Nations and international law.


Do you have chance of victory in Blackburn?

My primary intention in standing in Blackburn is to get a platform to campaign on these issues and raise awareness amongst voters. Winning would be a pleasant bonus. I chose Blackburn because I can get maximum publicity for the cause by standing against Jack Straw. I start with little knowledge of the constituency, though I am learning all the time.  Blackburn has real problems - its schools are underachieving, its hospital is being replaced by a private build that puts profits first, parts of the town are under threat from yet more motorway widening. If elected I will work hard and honestly on all these issues, without party ties to stop me doing what I believe is best for the community. But the common man is not as selfish or uneducated as he is sometimes painted. In Blackburn, by getting rid of the Foreign Secretary they have the ability to send out a powerful signal against the Government’s foreign policy. If Jack Straw loses his seat because of foreign policy, many more Labour MPs will refuse to let Blair join Bush in attacking Iran and Syria. The fight to stop the next war is here and now, in Blackburn.


Straw said “Torture is completely unacceptable...but you cannot ignore it if the price of ignoring it is 3,000 dead.”

I was first told in March 2003 that he had personally agreed we should continue to gain torture material from the Uzbek security services. The problem is, you don’t get the truth from torture.  Most tortured people will sign up to whatever you want them to say. The Uzbek government use it to provide so-called evidence that the Muslim opposition in Uzbekistan is linked to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, and wants to attack the West. The intelligence services accept it, but it’s simply not true. However, together with similar rubbish torture material from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, it enables them to say they have “intelligence” that there are two hundred active Islamic terrorists in the UK. It’s just rubbish. It is also interesting that Jack Straw is much more concerned about 3,000 dead in New York than 110,000 dead in Iraq.


What do you know of the Hizb ut-Tahrir?

In Uzbekistan, HT have thousands of very brave followers who are terribly persecuted - many thousands have been imprisoned, tortured and murdered. I don’t think their policy of establishing a Caliphate is very practical, and I worry a society they establish might not be very tolerant.  But they pursue their goals by peaceful education and campaigning, and I defend their right to do that.