The execution of Saddam Husein marks a milestone as we witness what seems to be the decline and death throes of Western Democracy in our lifetime.
The war in Iraq was fought for oil.
All that blood spilled in the sands of the Middle East to feed the greedy Western appetite for oil.
In Iraq Saddam Hussein did not receive a fair trial.
He was a murderous tyrant, but hanging was no justice.
Our political leaders in our so-called democracy started the murderous and illegal war in Iraq, and yet they prosper and remain unchallenged today.
When Tony Blair and George Bush stand trial for their crimes in Iraq, we hope they will face a fair trial that does not seek vengeance for the sake of vengeance.
In the words of the experienced American journalist Chris Hedges on the Iraq War :
We are losing the war. There has been a steady increase in the assaults carried out by the insurgents against coalition forces, from 20 to 120 a day in the past year. We are an isolated and reviled nation… If we do not confront our hubris and the lies told to justify the killing and the mass destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our form of communication, we will not so much destroy dictators like Saddam Hussein as become them.
We must not let force and violence be our form of communication, but instead look elsewhere for examples of real leadership such as Ghandi or Dr Martin Luther.
A typing error by a journalist at the Bombay Leader newspaper has sparked mass rioting at the Indian city’s travel agents with fights breaking out over air flights to visit Aberdare this weekend.
A news story was printed claiming that “Ann Clwyd MP will be unveiling her bust at Rock Grounds Aberdare“.
The Bombay journalist tried to translate the news story that Ann Clwyd MP will be unveiling a bust of Keir Hardie the very first Labour MP at Rock Grounds Aberdare on Saturday 2nd December 2006.
The trial of Saddam Hussein before the Iraqi High Tribunal for crimes against humanity was marred by so many procedural and substantive flaws that the verdict is unsound, Human Rights Watch said in a 97-page report released today.
“The proceedings in the Dujail trial were fundamentally unfair,” said Nehal Bhuta of Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “The tribunal squandered an important opportunity to deliver credible justice to the people of Iraq. And its imposition of the death penalty after an unfair trial is indefensible.”
Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty as inherently inhumane punishment and says that executing Hussein while other trials are ongoing will also deprive many thousands of victims of their day in court.
Ann Clwyd MP chairs the campaign group INDICT which has collected much evidence of the crimes committed under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Ms Clwyd, who is also Chair of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Human Rights Group, has welcomed the guilty verdict however she is opposed to the death penalty.
Ann Clwyd takes her place in the polling station queue. Photo by Simon Collis of the British Consulate in Iraq.
Almost three hundred people met in a Valleys Chapel recently to discuss the future of their community. The village campaign group Action for Hirwaun organised the meeting at Nebo Chapel in Hirwaun to address the fears of local people concerning over-development in the area.
Action for Hirwaun were formed in response to widespread local concern about issues such as housing over-development and loss of basic public services. They hold regular meetings, consult widely and have deep roots in the community.
Many of these community-spirited people remember or were involved in previous community campaigns such as the campaign to prevent gas tanks being located in the village in the mid 1970s. Women were at the forefront of that campaign and thirty years later Hirwaun women are leading from the front in their battle for their community.
Chris Bond (see photo below) spoke on behalf of Action for Hirwaun and gave a hard-hitting visual presentation. He showed in graphic detail precisely how much of Hirwaun is disappearing under house and road building.
We learned that Hirwaun is being simplified. It is both a sad and frightening ecological tale. The rich tapestry of fields, the wildlife, flora and fauna supported by the remaining natural havens is being simplified into tarmacadam, asphalt, and concrete. Such is the legacy we are leaving our Valleys children in the name of ‘economic development’.
There was an audible sigh from members of the public as the presentation progressed showing the inevitable loss of green fields and open spaces. The audience was shown a horse in a green field and someone quipped “enjoy it while you can”.
Mr Bond spoke of the transformation of Hirwaun from “a quiet village to commuter town”. Hirwaun is one of Wales’ biggest villages and there is a continued growth in population due to a house-building boom. Land is cheap in Hirwaun and it is a magnet for property developers.
The presentation cited the key issues that went to the very heart of the community and local people’s concerns : health, education, recreation, amenities, and policing. These were basic political issues, yet there was no elected politician at that meeting. The absence was in many ways a shameful indictment on local democracy. Elected representatives were invited to attend this meeting in advance, including local County Councillors and Assembly Members.
“So far no consultation”
One of the chief grievances seems to be the fact that local people are not being properly consulted over a range of large-scale developments. Some of the grievances concerning broken promises go back twenty or more years. Action for Hirwaun repeatedly emphasised “so far no consultation”. Given the voluminous evidence they have collected to support their assertion it is not easy to disagree with them.
Are local people to be consulted properly on issues that will affect their lives and the lives of generations to follow ? Or is it only a corporate oligopoly – the rich and powerful – that has a ‘vote’ on what happens to Hirwaun ? These are questions that demand to be answered by working people in Hirwaun.
public services “retreating from the community”
Mr Bond bemoaned the fact that “policing is retreating from the community” and the downgrading and eventual closure of Hirwaun police station. Mr Bond is correct however many people would suggest that he does not go nearly as far enough in his analysis : health, education, and other basic public services are also retreating from the community under the influence of neoliberal economics.
Neoliberal economics is the dogma that now rules our lives. They called it Thatcherism in the eighties, and many other things since, but it is nonetheless now the dominant political and economic system. It is a form of capitalism with the gloves off where very few private interests are allowed to control as much of society as possible. Today Hirwaun is fighting against the greedy robber-baron property developers, but tommorrow it could be the complete privatization of healthcare or education. People should be concerned about what is left of their communities.
Two wags from the WAG
It therefore seemed re-assuring to know that the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) were invited to send representatives to this public meeting to make a contribution towards the democratic process. They parachuted two wags into Hirwaun for the meeting and they came with a mission. It seems these Assembly Missionaries were there to convert the people of Hirwaun to the cause of ‘economic development’ Cardiff Bay-style.
Andy Falleyn came representing the Welsh Assembly Government’s Transport Wales department. He came as ‘travelling salesman’ for the A465 Heads of the Valley Duelling Programme. He flapped on about statistics and referred to a glossy document called Turning Heads 2020 which he waved about. It was an instant turn off.
People coughed and yawned. They were busy – and tired – working mums and dads and grandparents. It is not easy to listen to a bureaucrat jawing about jargon and fancy figures when you’ve just spent a day at the proverbial ‘coalface’. Mr Falleyn convinced few – if any one – at that meeting of the usefulness of the Heads of the Valley project.
If the duelling of the A465 sends thousands of extra cars through Hirwaun, the people will suffer a serious, long-term degradation in the quality of their lives and the lives of their children. That was the case presented by Action for Hirwaun and it was uncontested by members of the public. The severe concerns expressed about traffic congestion at the meeting were not assuaged by the Welsh Assembly Government representative… he wasn’t much of a travelling salesman.
From the back seats of Nebo Chapel the two wags seemed to a bear a physical resemblance to Laurel and Hardy, at least in this writer’s eyes. There was a physical contrariety and comedy about them, especially the wag called Chris Ashman who resembled Oliver Hardy. It seems that Mr Ashman is employed by Rhondda Cynon Taff County Borough Council and is “on-loan” to the Welsh Assembly.
Mr Chris Ashman wowed the audience with this long title : Head of Regeneration, Welsh Assembly Government. Licensed to frill it seems… He then proceeded to talk about frilly phrases like “regeneration” and “development” and “investment” when most people there wanted to know about traffic gridlock. It all seemed so glib to be told that the “strength of the Valleys community spirit is envied across the UK”. And as if that was not enough Mr Ashman cooed that he saw “this meeting as the start of something”. This was perhaps the most inane political ‘chat-up’ line ever spoken in Hirwaun.
That great observer of language use and abuse George Orwell would have wept in Hirwaun at Nebo Chapel that evening. The Welsh Assembly Government people perverted words like “growth”, “development”, “regeneration”, and “investment” to fit their own ideological needs. Language is an instrument of power, and so if a rich and powerful elite want to exploit the people of Hirwaun by running thousands of extra vehicles through their village they will not (and did not) call it what it is – degeneration or degradation – they call it “regeneration” or “development”.
Betrayal by Assembly
There was a palpable sense of betrayal at that meeting. No one held out much hope that the Labourites Clwyd (MP) or Myring (County Councillor) would attend, but there was some hope that Welsh Assembly Members would give their moral support to their own constituents. None came.
But nearly ten years ago, in the summer of 1997, they came to Hirwaun. They came to campaign on the eve of the September 1997 Referendum on the Assembly. They came with promises. There was a cross-party campaign. In a Public Meeting at the Michael Sobell Sports Centre in Aberdare Ieuan Wyn Jones (Plaid), Eluned Morgan (Labour), and Tyrone O’Sullivan (Tower Colliery) shared a platform with Professor Kevin Morgan (Chairman, Yes for Wales Campaign).
Professor Morgan was born in Rhigos, a neighboring village. He is a good man and a clever man without whom the Referendum would not have been won. At that 1997 meeting in Aberdare he talked about his vision for the Welsh Assembly and how the people needed to give voice – to articulate and to confront the problems of industrial decline in Wales. There should have been a place at that Hirwaun meeting for the good Professor.
The Forgotten People ?
As Chris Bond asked at the end of that meeting, “Are we the forgotten people?”
Today as Tony Blair signals his new-found enthusiasm for more nuclear power stations being built across the UK, one wonders why Cynon Valley’s MP does not speak-up in favour of our local coal industry ?
In the 1990s Ann Clwyd MP was happy to take part in an underground protest and latch-on to the miner’s campaign. I interviewed the late Glyn Roberts in the mid nineties… he was one of the people who joined Ann Clwyd MP in her underground protest. His son and grandson who both bear the same name still work at Tower Colliery.
Although Glyn Roberts was familiar with the deep-rooted corruption in the local Labour Party – he had long left the Party – I am sure he would be very disappointed by Clwyd’s current lack of public support for coal.
Perhaps it is time Ann Clwyd found her old miner’s lamp, visited her constituents and gave them some moral support when it matters.
For those with no understanding of the history surrounding Tower Colliery, here is a fair account of the Miner’s Strike of 1984 and subsequent events, from a book called Cynon Coal – History of a Mining Valley published by Cynon Valley History Society (Published 2001, Gomer Press, ISBN 0 95310 760 4) :
“In March 1984 there began the strike in the nation’s coal industry which was probably the most costly in British industrial history. One estimate of the cost came to £3.25 billion and this did not include the estimated loss to each miner of £9,000 and the loss arising from the 38 working faces out of a total of 490 which did not reopen. The leader of the NUM, Arthur Scargill, called on all members of the union to withhold their labour. In the resulting pit-head ballots only ten of the twenty-eight mines in South Wales voted to comply with the request. Nevertheless the strike went ahead. Many weary and impoverished months later the men marched back to their mine, defeated but not dismayed. But in the eighteen months since the strike ended twelve of the pits of the South Wales coalfield had closed including Maerdy, and, as Dr John Davies has remarked, at the end of the 1980s there were more Welshmen working in banks than in pits. The strike was stated above to have been the most expensive in British industrial history. Certainly it was one of the most important if only because the number of pit closures which occurred after the strike caused a decrease in the number of employed in mines which permanently diminished the status and power of the union.
In 1992 the last round of pit closures began and by April 1994 Tower Colliery was conspicuous for beign the last deep mine in South Wales and, though allegedly profitable, the necessary steps were being taken to close it down.
A public campaign began for the purpose of reversing the decision to close the pit, which succeeded in its purpose. However, British Coal hung on to their intention and the pit finally closed on the 23rd April 1994.
The actions which then followed to prepare and put into being a workers’ buy-out caught the attention and, indeed, the approval of people of all political persuasions up and down the country. Apart from valuable support from the Local Authority and the Wales Co-Operative Centre, enormous public backing was received from all those who had benefitted from Tower’s solidarity in the pasdt. But most significantly, £2 million was raised by the 239 miners who had pledged £8,000 each from their redundancy payments. On the 23rd December 1994 ownership of the colliery passed into the hands of Goitre Tower Anthracite Ltd. On the 2nd of January 1995 the Tower miners marched back into their pit and took possession of it.
The mine is owned by the above-mentioned company the shares of which are owned by the company’s employees equally. There are no other shareholders. The workforce are all highly trained and experienced in their duties, and most of them are doing the jobs they were doing previously under British Coal. The present working coalface is 600 meterse below ground and 3 miles from pit bottom and from this the colliery produces 500,000 tons of Anthracite a year, 75% of which is sold to Aberthaw Power Station. Two new faces are in preparation for mining reserves when the need arises. 290 persons are directly employed and a further 85 are employed by contractors underground and on the surface”.
A ‘Coal not Dole’ badge from the Miner’s Strike in the eighties. The sentiment still rings true today.
