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Issue #104. May 27th - 9th June, 2005 Questions?
The Stare
Awkward customers
Beacons of Liberty
Record review #1: Decoration (I tried it I liked it I loved it - single)
Record review #2: Lorna (Static patterns and souvenirs - album)
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Questions How many things do we need to share before we can be certain that we'll get on? Five? Ten? One hundred?
I really need to know. I don't want to launch into this just to find you are like all of the others. I know it seems impossible now but I would have said that about everyone else I have ever kissed or touched or made shallow promises to. I do try to remind myself of the failures and the crushed hopes but I can't help myself. When I look at you I melt. When your eyes meet mine and you smile it is too hard to dismiss.
It is hopeless case though. I don't think I'll ever tell you, and I doubt you'll ever tell me. We're doomed to a living our lives in parallel universes, our paths only crossing just as we "get over" one another. Hah! Listen to me talk! I bet you smile like that at everyone. I bet my absence from your life doesn't trouble you one little bit. Do you enjoy my attention or does it bug you? Do you laugh at me when I leave the room? God please don't let that be the case. I'm truly mad if it is. If the nights I lie in my bed crying because you aren't with me means nothing to you I should be certified. How can it mean nothing? Answer me that? How can those looks and brief exchanges meant nothing to you? I've got a nice smile, surely you must have noticed that? And if they didn't mean nothing they must have meant something right? But what?
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The Stare We stared. Time proved itself insignificant, We created, Pale blue eyes, We created, Our dreams would dance as one,
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Awkward Customers "Am I too late to book a ticket for a train to London?"
Annette had worked in telesales in company formerly known as British Rail for many years. If you have ever phoned up to buy a train ticket the chances are that you will have spoken to her. She shared her office which was filled with papers, coffee cups and an ever changing staff who mainly consisted of school or university leavers biding their time until they finally got a "proper job" Annette was not biding her time. She liked what she did. She enjoyed being polite to the customers and would daydream about the type of people they were, and why they were going to the places that their tickets would take them to. On her days off she would take advantage of her staff discount and travel the country. She would sit hunched against a window watching snapshots of life hurry past her: Children climbing over fences, postmen delivering letters and men walking their dogs. She saw the haunting image of an old men bent double over a table, arms stretched out his clothes just slightly oversized. She saw a Beekeeper doing whatever it is that beekeepers do to keep their bees happy. Each week, she saw different towns and places, and formulated complex theories and philosophies before returning to a work to with a new outlook on life. As I have mentioned previously, Annette was always polite to her customers. This was an easy task when the customers were polite to her. If they rang with a smile in their voice and spoke with a little courtesy she would reply with an efficiency and charm that her years of experience had afforded upon her. At the end of the conversation the person at the other end of the phone would hang up with a warm feeling inside that they would carry around all day. But Annette was not a saint, and when an impatient downright rude customer phoned she had to bite her tongue very hard to maintain an air of civility:
"If could just put you on hold for a couple of minutes I will be able to look up your journey details for you" Annette repeated patiently for the 4th time. "I need to know now. I only have a few minutes and I want to get this sorted out. It is bad enough that I will be wasting my life sat on a train which is bound to be delayed." "I'll just put you on hold" Annette didn't wait for a reply and decisively pressed the orange hold button. Annette glared at the phone. She really did not like this man. She really did not like people who felt their time was so much more important than other people's. She really did not like people who could not see that the only reason they were wasting there life when a train got delayed was because they were letting it upset them. "Life is not just when you get to a place or when you get home from work, or when you have got off the phone having bought a train ticket, it is always." She thought. "Sophie can I use your computer for a second? If I don't sort a ticket out for this man soon he is going to explode" "Yeah 'course" Strictly speaking staff were not supposed to share computer terminals as each ticket was issued with a reference number, which could be traced back if there were any problems. Whilst Annette would only ever help one of her hapless colleague by issuing tickets on their behalf for fear that one of their careless mistakes would be pinned on her, Sophie knew that Annette would probably only increase her month's customer satisfaction ratings (which were currently only barely above acceptable). Besides, It was common knowledge around the office that Sophie would be leaving the staff in three days to embark upon a PhD in molecular genetics. She slid back from her desk into a daydream leaving Annette to pick up the conversation with her awkward customer. "Right sir, I'm sorry to keep you waiting, Birmingham to Southend on the 14th June wasn't it? I have the details on the screen now. Do you have any preferences about when you travel?" Annette spoke without pause preventing the man getting a word in edgeways. "I told you earlier I just need to arrive in Southend by 6pm. Can you please just book me a fu..." "No problem at all. I am booking you a super-advance ticket so you will have take the trains listed on your ticket is that ok?" Annette cut in breezily. "Fine." For those of you who are familiar with how train operate in this country you will know that the train that leaves soonest will not always get to a given destination the quickest. Thus when looking up train journeys it is possible to search by arrival time as well as departure time. Annette knew this. She always knew how to override the central computer system when through an inadequate grip of geography it tried to send customers on ridiculous train routes. But Annette was no saint… She tied up the remainder of the transaction in under a minute without losing her temper once. Ten days later and the complaint from MR X came into head office. "Why the hell did a journey from Birmingham to Southend which should take me just over take 3 hours take me 8? And why was I sent via Manchester." "I am very sorry about that sir. Could I take your reference number please sir?" Trevor Mann was unsurprised to learn that the reference number belonged to Sophie who had now left. There was nothing he could do except apologise profusely and offer rail tokens to a gentlemen who claimed he would never travel by train again. In the months that followed Trevor wondered at the sate of the British education system's ability to churn out so many graduates with such a low grasp of geography. And while complaints rolled in from customers who's journeys inexplicable lengthened or had been re-routed via Inverness, Aberystwyth and most impressively Calais all with reference numbers to staff who had recently departed Annette sat at her desk politely and efficiently giving advice to customers across the country. There is an old saying often bandied around "you have to spend money to make money" and while this may be true a saying which is less often banded around but equally true is "you have to spend time to save time" and you may like to remember this next time you are talking to a polite sounding telesales operator. They have more power than you could imagine.
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Beacons of Liberty The Bush administration is in favour of freedom – in some countries.Here's why and what you can do to support democracy and human rights in Uzbekistan - and help stop torture wherever it's happening.“Georgia is today both sovereign and free, and a beacon of liberty for this region and the world. (Applause.) The path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone.” President Bush in Tbilisi, Georgia 10th May 2005 Refugees, many of whom trekked for 30 miles to reach the border, brought with them tales of shooting and bloody repression. In Teshektosh, 13 men were apparently shot dead when 570 refugees fled to the town, chased by Uzbek soldiers. In Andijan, life struggled to return to normal after Friday's massacre, part of the repression that followed the jailbreak."It was a massacre," said a 31-year-old cobbler who witnessed the killing outside School No 15. …."I saw soldiers killing several wounded with single shots to the head after asking 'are there any wounded around'. Guardian 17th May 2005 “We have had concerns about human rights in Uzbekistan, but we are concerned about the outbreak of violence, particularly by some members of a terrorist organization that were freed from prison. And we urge both the government and the demonstrators to exercise restraint at this time.” White-House Spokesman Scott McLellan , Press Briefing 13th May The Bush administration and the British government of Tony Blair are vocal supporters of democracy and human rights in Georgia and Ukraine, which both saw peaceful popular revolutions within the last couple of years. They also claim to want democracy and human rights in the Middle East. It seems though that democracy is only a priority where it puts governments friendly to them into power. Where dictatorships that use torture are allied to our governments – as in Uzbekistan , Saudi Arabia and Egypt - they seem just as happy to support them. In fact British and American troops have been involved in torture too inside and outside Iraq - and the Iraqi troops they've trained continue it today. In Uzbekistan this month there was an attempted revolution against the dictatorship of President Islam Karimov – but the Bush administration this time wasn’t calling for the dictator to stand down and hand over power the way it was in Georgia or Ukraine. Instead they criticised the opponents of the dictatorship – saying some of the protesters were violent and had freed “members of a terrorist organisation” from jail. There was a grain of truth in this – but only a grain. There are some armed Islamic groups in Uzbekistan and one of them had fought its way into jails where 23 Muslim businessmen who had been jailed for ‘terrorism’ by Karimov were being held after they criticised him and called for fair elections. The armed rebels also beat and killed several policemen, soldiers and politicians. This was the result of years of torture, killing , rapes and disappearances by Karimov’s military and police. A favourite tactic of Karimov’s is to have members of his opponents’ families raped and tortured in front of them – often to death. Other torture methods include pulling out finger and toe-nails and pouring boiling water over victims.Any Uzbek who criticises torture risks being accused of being a 'terrorist' and jailed or a 'lunatic' put in an insane asylum. The Uzbek opposition attempted to get the support of foreign governments – Russia, Britain and America – for peaceful opposition to Karimov and elections. Last year the former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, met with leaders of the Uzbek opposition. He passed on a request for funding and support to the British and American governments. They both refused. The result was that some of the Uzbek opposition to Karimov , seeing their relatives and neighbours tortured and killed and the outside world unwilling to support peaceful opposition to Karimov, turned to violence. In 2004 the first suicide bombings took place in Uzbekistan – more followed. Torture , rape and murder by Karimov’s regime have created Islamic fundamentalism in Uzbekistan that didn’t exist on any scale before. The events of Friday the 13th of May 2005 were the culmination of this process. On that day Uzbek rebels in the town of Andijan killed dozens of captured police and soldiers before Karimov’s troops massacred 745 adults, old people and children and arresting over 1,500 more. Far from attempting to prevent torture and killings by Karimov’s forces the British and American governments eagerly believed his assurances that all those who opposed him were linked to Al Qa’ida on the thin grounds that some of them are Muslims. The British government accepted “intelligence” gained through torture. As Sandy Mitchell, a British citizen from Glasgow who was tortured by the Saudis into making a false confession , could have told them people will confess to anything however untrue under torture. Torture does not provide valuable intelligence. It’s as pointless as it is wrong. After being criticised by human rights groups and the UN Bush and Condoleeza Rice issued a half-hearted call for the “political system” in Uzbekistan to be “more open” while Karimov’s troops massacred protesters and took survivors to be tortured. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw went a bit further saying that there had been “human rights abuses” which had to stop but he and his junior minister Douglas Alexander refused to call for Karimov to go or for torture to be ended – or to give any assurance that the British government would not accept “intelligence” gained through torture from the Uzbek dictatorship. Karimov was left free to shoot refugees from his massacres and mass arrests as they fled towards Kyrgyzstan - secure in the knowledge that no foreign government would call for his resignation. Are Bush , Putin , Straw and the Chinese government really naïve enough to believe that all Karimov’s opponents are terrorists ? Or is there another motive ? Uzbekistan has considerable oil and gas reserves – as does Kazakhstan to its North. The US has a military base in Uzbekistan which was used in the war on Afghanistan. As John J Maresca, an executive of UNOCAL oil, stated in congressional testimony in Washington on the 12th of February 1998. “The route through Afghanistan [to Pakistan] is the one that would bring Central Asian oil closest to Asian markets and thus would be the cheapest in terms of transporting the oil.” Meanwhile a different oil and gas pipeline – an East-West one - has opened running from Baku in Azerbaijan to Tbilisi Georgia to Ceyhan in Turkey carrying Caspian oil and gas to the Meditteranean for export to Europe and America. One of the sources of that oil and gas is Uzebkistan. This is what explains the Bush administration’s preference for the overthrow of dictatorship in Georgia – but continued support for it in Uzbekistan. What matters to them isn’t ‘freedom’ but getting friendly governments on the routes of oil and gas pipelines. It also helps explain why British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw shamefully sacked the (now former) British Ambassador to Uzbekistan – Craig Murray – when Murray criticised Karimov’s dictatorship for torture – and US military aid to it. The Foreign Office’s 5 to 10 year strategy document, drawn up under Straw in 2003, does mention promoting democracy and human rights as one of its 10 priorities. Another however is “Security of UK and global energy supplies” and it's fairly clear which of these is the real priority in practice. That’s why the American government still hasn’t ended military aid to Karimov’s regime and why the British government made it easier for British firms to sell arms to Uzbekistan in 2002. The result was that British manufactured armoured landrovers were used by Karimov's (American trained and subsidised) forces in the massacre in Andijan on the 13th of May. The Chinese and Russian governments also support Karimov’s dictatorship for different reasons. They, like Karimov, have significant Muslim minorities in provinces which want autonomy or independence from brutal central governments. They fear co-operation between Muslim opponents of Karimov and Muslim dissidents in Xinjiang in China and Chechnya in the Russian federation – both of which have large independence movements and both of which are on routes for the import of Caspian oil and gas. They aren't worried about Karimov having his people tortured - since the Chinese and Russian governments also systematically torture their own people Uzbekistan is not an exception to the supposed rule that the British and American governments protect and support democracy and human rights either – it’s part of a pattern In Saudi Arabia the monarchy imposes Islamic law , jails or tortures opponents and even tortures British citizens. Do the British or American governments call for the overthrow or removal from power of the Saudi Sheikhs ? Not a chance – they’re too busy buying Saudi oil and letting British and American companies sell them weapons, shackles, handcuffs and even sometimes electro-shock batons for torture. Egypt is one of the countries that the FBI and CIA use as an alternative to Guantanamo Bay when they want to have suspects tortured. The Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has yet to allow free elections either. Yet Egypt, like Saudi Arabia, is a valued ally rather than being condemned for torture or lack of democracy Some Israeli military and intelligence services also systematically use torture – as do some British and American forces in Iraq ”The torture chambers and the secret police are gone forever”. Those were President Bush’s words after the capture of Saddam Hussein. It wasn’t true in Iraq (it still isn’t) and it’s not true in Uzbekistan or Saudi Arabia – or in US military bases around the world. If only his promises were kept the world might be a better place. There are things anyone can do to help provide some 'beacons of liberty'. Things You Can DoOneSupport Amnesty International’s campaign against torture. TwoIf you live in the UK email or write to your MP , the Foreign Office and/or the Prime Minister asking them to call for an end to torture and massacres by the dictatorship in Uzbekistan , the resignation of Islam Karimov and free elections (addresses follow below) If you live in the US contact your congressman , the President and/or the Secretary of State for Defense (addresses follow below) asking them to end all Us military aid to Karimov’s regime , and urging them to call for an end to torture and massacres by the dictatorship in Uzbekistan , the resignation of Islam Karimov and free elections (addresses follow below) Addresses and Email addresses (If emailing incude your postal address if you want a reply) Your MP (UK only) The Foreign Office can be contacted through this website The Prime Minister The President of the United States The US Secretary of State for Defence ThreeIf you want to help campaign for human rights and democracy in Uzbekistan – wherever you are in the world - email shahidatushkan@yahoo.co.uk or afreeuzbekistan@yahoo.co.uk Links and email addresses for more informationwww.blairwatch.co.uk run by Dan Mason whose page on Uzbekistan is updated frequently. If you want to be added to an email list on Uzbekistan and other issues you can also email Iain Orr of www.biodiplomacy.net on biodiplomacy@yahoo.co.uk
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