Distant Voices (24 page)

So came about the dawn of what is celebrated by Western commentators as the United Nations' ‘new age'. In fact, it was one of the most shameful chapters in the organisation's history. For the first time, the full UN Security Council capitulated to the War Party and abandoned its commitment to advancing peaceful and diplomatic solutions. Throughout the crisis, the UN Security Council ignored and contravened its own charter; it merely served up the
appearance
of international legality, a truth that became spectacularly clear when the bombing began in January. It was then that the United States withdrew its embrace of the United Nations and actively, and illegally, prevented the Security Council from meeting.

But this degree of control was possible only through a campaign of bribery, blackmail and threats. It is no secret that rewards were provided to certain Arab states for their participation in the ‘coalition'.
US News and World Report
, in an article entitled ‘Counting on New Friends', described how James Baker had ‘cajoled, bullied and horse-traded his way' to get Resolution 678 through the Security Council. Several of the larger deals – for example, the ‘inducements' to Egypt and China – were widely publicised.
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Some commentators even expressed moral qualms about ‘distasteful bargains' with the ‘butchers of Beijing', the ‘loathsome Assad' and other unsavoury clients, although the concern was clearly that such deals might impede the course of US war policy; the tactics themselves were barely questioned. Thus, the full extent of the deals has remained secret. For the record, I offer here a beginner's guide to the greatest bribes in history.

Turkey.
Right from the beginning the Turkish regime knew that it was on to a winner. Based just across the border, American planes could bomb Iraq with impunity. By November 3, 1990, the promised booty was pouring in and President Turgut Ozal celebrated in a public address. ‘In a way,' he said, ‘we have benefited from this crisis and made very significant
progress towards our goal of modernising and strengthening our armed forces.'
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Ozal boasted that Turkey received at least $8 billion worth of military gifts from the United States, including tanks, planes, helicopters and ships. According to Steve Sherman of
Middle East International,
the United States also pledged to speed up the delivery of Phantom bombers delayed by the pro-Greek lobby in Washington; and the US Export Import Bank agreed to underwrite the construction of a Sikorsky helicopter factory in Turkey: itself worth about a billion dollars to the Turkish regime.
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In his November 3 speech President Ozal said: ‘We are on the brink of finding new markets for Turkish goods and Turkish industry.' Five days later Turkey was told that its quota of US textile exports would increase by 50 per cent. At Washington's urging, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) ‘freed-up' some $1.5 billion in low-cost loans to Turkey and dropped the initial condition that the government would have to cut subsidies. George Bush personally promised to back Turkey's application to join the European Community, which still has questions about Turkey's human rights record.
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There were ‘human rights pay-offs' too. Just because Bush and Major suddenly adopted, and almost as quickly dropped, the Iraqi-battered Kurds did not mean they would show concern for the treatment of Turkish Kurds. The routine persecutions carried out by the Turkish regime continued unnoticed; and continue today.

Egypt.
In 1990, Egypt was the most indebted country in Africa and the Middle East. According to the World Bank, the government of President Mubarak owed nearly $50 billion.
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Baker offered a bribe, or ‘forgiveness' of $14 billion. Under pressure from the United States, other governments – Saudi Arabia and Canada among them – ‘forgave' or postponed most of the balance of Egypt's debt.
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Syria.
The main exchange in the deal with President Hafez Assad was Washington's go-ahead for him to wipe out all opposition to Syria's rule in Lebanon. To help him achieve
this, a billion dollars' worth of arms aid was made available through a variety of back doors, mostly Gulf states.
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Although on America's list of ‘sponsors of terrorism', Assad and his Ba'athist fascists – not dissimilar to Saddam Hussein's fascists – were given a quick paint job in time to support America's war. ‘Photo opportunities' were arranged with Baker and Bush; the locked smiles told all, as ‘old friends' were reunited.
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Israel.
The ‘pacification' of Israel was vital if the United States was to preserve its Arab ‘coalition'. The regular $5 billion America gives to Israel clearly was not going to be enough; and Israeli Finance Minister Yitzhak Modai told US Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger that Israel wanted at least another $13 billion. Israel agreed to a down-payment of $650 million in cash, and to wait for the $10 billion loan guarantees until later. This partly explains why the Israelis appear not to give a damn about current American ‘warnings' as they expel still more Palestinians and build still more homes for Russian Jews in the occupied territories.
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Iran.
In return for Iran's support in the blockade of Iraq, America dropped its opposition to World Bank loans. On January 9, Reuter reported that Iran was expected ‘to be rewarded for its support of the US . . . with its first loan from the World Bank since the 1979 Islamic revolution'. The Bank approved $250 million the day before the ground attack was launched against Iraq.

Last November, Britain restored diplomatic ties with Iran, in spite of the fact that the death sentence on Salman Rushdie, a British citizen, had just been reaffirmed. reaffirmed.

Soviet Union.
With its wrecked economy, the Soviet Union was easy prey for a bribe – even though President Gorbachev strongly preferred sanctions. The Bush administration persuaded the Saudi Foreign Minister, Sa'ud al-Faysalwe, to go to Moscow and offer a billion dollar bribe before the Russian winter set in.
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Once Gorbachev had agreed to Resolution 678, another $3 billion materialised from other Gulf states. The day after the UN vote, Bush announced that the United
States would review its policy on food aid and agricultural credits to the Soviet Union.
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The Soviet Union's impotence in the face of this degree of American pressure was illustrated when an American reporter, Phyllis Bennis, cornered the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Yuli Vorontsov, in a lift the night the American bombing started. She asked him if he was concerned that a war was being fought in his government's name. He replied with a sigh: ‘Who are we to say they should not?'
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China.
In exchange for China's vote on Resolution 678, the United States arranged China's return to diplomatic legitimacy. The first World Bank loan since the Tiananmen Square massacre was approved. On November 30, the day after the UN vote, Foreign Minister Qian Qichen arrived in Washington for a ‘high profile' meeting with Bush and Baker. More photo opportunities; more frozen smiles. Within a week, more than $114 million of World Bank money was deposited in Beijing.
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The impact of the bribes inside China was explained by the scholar Liu Binyan. ‘For quite some time', he said, ‘there has been much talk of formal charges and trials being brought against the dissidents, but the pressure from abroad prevented it. Since August, however, Beijing has skilfully manipulated the Iraqi crisis to its advantage and rescued itself from being the pariah of the world.'
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The vote of the non-permanent members of the Security Council was crucial; and the following bribes and threats were successful. Within a fortnight of the UN vote, Ethiopia and the United States signed their first investment deal for years; and talks began with the World Bank and the IMF. Zaire was offered US military aid and debt ‘forgiveness' and in return acted for the United States in silencing the Security Council after the war began. Occupying the rotating presidency of the council, Zaire refused requests from Cuba, Yemen and India to convene the Security Council, even
though it had no power to refuse them under the UN Charter.
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Only Cuba and Yemen held out. Minutes after Yemen voted against the resolution, a senior American diplomat was instructed to tell the Yemeni ambassador, ‘That was the most expensive “no” vote you ever cast.' Within three days, a US aid programme of $70 million to one of the world's poorest countries was stopped. There were suddenly problems with the World Bank and the IMF; and 800,000 Yemeni workers were expelled from Saudi Arabia. The ‘no' vote probably cost Yemen about a billion dollars, which meant inestimable suffering for its people.
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The ferocity of the American-led attack far exceeded the mandate of Resolution 678, which did not allow for the destruction of Iraq's infrastructure and economy. The lawlessness did not end there. Five days after 678 was passed, the General Assembly voted 141 to 1 reaffirming the ban on attacks on nuclear facilities. On January 17, the United States bombed nuclear facilities in Iraq, including two reactors twelve miles from Baghdad.

When the Security Council finally convened a meeting in February, the United States and its allies forced it to be held in secret, one of the few times this has ever happened. And when the United States turned back to the United Nations, seeking another resolution to blockade Iraq, the two new members of the Security Council were duly coerced. Ecuador was warned – by the US ambassador in Quito – about the ‘devastating economic consequences' of a no vote. Zimbabwe, whose foreign minister had earlier described the resolution as ‘a violation of the sovereignty of Iraq', finally voted in favour after he was reminded that in a few weeks' time he was due to meet potential IMF donors in Paris. Neighbouring Zambia has had great difficulty negotiating IMF loans – in spite of democratic reforms. Zambia opposed the resolution.
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The punishment was most severe against those impoverished countries that supported Iraq; Sudan, though in the grip of a famine, was denied a shipment of food aid.
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The other day I interviewed Ramsey Clark, whose war crimes commission has sought to establish the illegality of the Gulf War. ‘Not only were the articles of the United Nations disregarded,' he said,

but every article of the Geneva Convention was broken. Of course it is not easy to persuade people to stand up against power: but when they do, there are successes. During the Vietnam War the issue of legality prevented military personnel going who did want to go, and defended the publication of the
Pentagon Papers
, which gave us much of the truth about the war. What we need urgently is a permanent international tribunal, independent of the UN and similar to the International Court of Justice. Without that, we shall always have victor's justice, the perpetrators of crimes will never be called to account and there will be more and more illegal wars.

None of these issues was widely debated before, during or after the Gulf War. Getting Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait skilfully and without putting to death thousands of people – the same people who were oppressed by him – was only of marginal interest to the Western media. Censorship was, always, less by commission than omission. As Peter Lennon later wrote in the
Guardian
:

War engenders corruption in all directions. As the broad-casters were arranging the terms of the stay in Saudi Arabia, Amnesty published an account of torture, detention and arbitrary arrests by the Saudis. Twenty thousand Yemenis were being deported every day and up to 800 had been tortured or ill-treated. Neither the BBC nor ITV reported this . . . It is common knowledge in television that fear of not being granted visas was the only consideration in withholding coverage of that embarrassing story.
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Other media people who sat red-eyed in studios dropped
the last veil of their ‘impartiality'. Who can forget, on the first day of the bombing, the Sir Michael and David Show on BBC Television? There sat David Dimbleby with Sir Michael Armitage, former head of Defence Intelligence, as if they were in their club. Sir Michael's distinguished career made him an expert on black propaganda in the cause of Queen and Country; and here he was being offered up as source of information to the British people. The British, opined Sir Michael, were super and brave, while the Iraqis were ‘fanatics holding out'.

For his part, Dimbleby could barely contain himself. He lauded the ‘accuracy' of the bombing as ‘quite phenomenal', which was nonsense, as we now know. Only a fraction of the bombs dropped on Iraq hit their target. Where was the broadcaster's professional scepticism?

Growing ever more excited, Dimbleby interviewed the American ambassador to Britain and declared that the ‘success' of the bombing ‘suggests that America's ability to react militarily has really become
quite extraordinary
, despite all the critics beforehand who said it will never work out like that. You are now able to claim that you can act
precisely
and therefore – to use that hideous word about warfare –
surgically
!' Thereupon Dimbleby pronounced himself ‘relieved at the amazing success' of it all.
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Fortunately, there are some journalists who see their craft very differently. Thanks to Richard Norton-Taylor, David Pallister, Paul Foot, David Hellier, Rosie Waterhouse, David Rose and others, we can now comprehend the scale of the duplicity and hypocrisy that underpinned the ‘famous victory'.

We now know that the British Government allowed British firms to break the embargo against Iraq: to continue producing vital parts for the famed ‘supergun' and other weapons supplied to Iraq only months before Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. We now know that shells for the guns that were trained on British troops came from British-made machines. We now know that, in spite of an investigation by a House
of Commons Select Committee, there was and remains a cover-up of ministerial wrong-doing.
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