Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs written question – answered at on 22 February 2005.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what plans his Department has made to assist those seeking to liberate themselves from tyranny and to build democracy" as requested by the US Secretary of State on 8 February; and if he will make a statement.
The promotion of democracy, alongside human rights, the rule of law and good governance is a thread which runs through all of the Government's foreign policy. These issues are mainstreamed throughout everything the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) does. At the strategic level, this is highlighted by two of the FCO's eight strategic priorities aiming to support the development of democracy and the rule of law (Strategic Priority 3: An international system based on the rule of law, which is better able to resolve disputes and prevent conflicts; and Strategic Priority 6: Sustainable Development, underpinned by democracy, good governance and human rights).
At an operational level we adapt our approach onthese issues to reflect the situation in the countries inwhich we work. This might range from; what might be considered traditional diplomatic measures (e.g.advocacy; resolutions in international fora; or sanctions); it may mean technical capacity building to support an emerging democratic culture in a country with no history of participatory government; or it may mean working in partnership with more established democracies to reinforce democracy in third countries, or to improve transparency and accountability throughout the international system. We also promote democracy, human rights, the rule of law and good governance in international fora, and press countries to adhere to the commitments they've signed up to in these bodies.
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Michael McCarthy
Posted on 10 Mar 2005 9:37 am (Report this annotation)
The claim that the UK government promotes “democracy, the rule of law and human rights” would be greeted with near-universal derision if the press was not overwhelmingly owned and controlled by corporations which prefer to downplay issues like the close relationship UK governments maintain with undemocratic and repressive regimes. Similarly the BBC leans over backwards to accommodate the tattered fictions of its government paymaster, such as the ludicrous idea that invading and continuing to occupy Iraq, and killing (according to The Lancet) approximately 100,000 people in the process is about promoting democracy and human rights.
If the British government really sought the “promotion of democracy alongside human rights” it would stop exporting military equipment to countries like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Indonesia with records of sustained human rights abuses. Neither would it allow the police to use “anti-terrorist legislation” to harass people who picket weapons fairs where the deals are done that arm repressive and undemocratic regimes. Truly, a country which aids oppressors also compromises its own freedoms.
Moreover, no government that seriously wished to promote human rights could contemplate locking people up, without trial, on undisclosed evidence they cannot hope to rebut. Nor would it collude with the US policy of “extraordinary rendition” - transporting suspects to be tortured by undemocratic regimes in places like Egypt and Uzbekistan so as to produce testimony which is used to “justify” detentions without trial, and unreliably incriminate yet more people.
And if the UK wanted to promote democracy within Europe, it would empower the UK electorate to vote to dismiss EU commissioner Peter Mandelson who supports regressive policies like encouraging British firms to establish a presence in the most socially backward parts of the EU in order legally to import those countries’ benighted employment practices into Britain.
Finally, if “good governance” and “the rule of law” were really UK goals, it would be possible for charges of committing war crimes and crimes against peace to be brought against Tony Blair in a UK court. It is now almost universally admitted that Blair sent British troops to invade Iraq on a false prospectus. The invasion was in flagrant breach of the UN Charter, and undertaken to assure George Bush of Blair's readiness to serve US global and economic interests so long as a few of the contracts for looting occupied Iraq’s oil assets fall the way of UK corporations.
Tony Blair now shares responsibility for killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, and for the deliberate assassination of several journalists whose reports inconveniently contradicted the sanitised accounts which the carefully supervised “embedded” reporters were allowed to file. However, in this supposed home of “good governance” our justice system gives Blair legal impunity by denying citizens the right to insist that Blair faces charges of war crimes in a British court.