Peter Stanford reviews Titanic Express, By Richard Wilson

From The Independent

Forgiveness is not a popular concept these days. Instead, we seek justice, compensation and, often, revenge when others have done us wrong. These were the immediate goals of Richard Wilson when his 27-year-old sister, Charlotte, was murdered by rebel gunmen in Burundi in December 2000. A VSO worker in neighbouring Rwanda, Charlotte had been travelling on a bus – the Titanic Express of the title – with her Burundian fianc’, Richard Ndereyimana, when the attack took place. As well as the couple, 20 other passengers were robbed, stripped and then killed in cold blood.

Titanic Express begins with an account of Wilson’s battle to find out how his sister died, and to bring the perpetrators to justice. Foreign Office officials and the Metropolitan police officers assigned to the case are among the obstacles he has to surmount. More than once, he contemplates commissioning someone with a gun in Burundi to do to Charlotte’s killers what they did to her.

As his investigation unfolds, however, Wilson makes contacts with other aid organisations in Burundi, foreign journalists and exiles from its corrupt political system and ethnic tensions between Tutsis and Hutus – the same animosities that caused the genocide in Rwanda in 1995. In the process, he becomes an expert on Burundian politics – a microcosm of the problems that continue to afflict parts of post-colonial Africa. Movingly, he goes beyond a desire for revenge to develop an understanding of why Charlotte’s killers did what they did. Yes, they were heartless murderers, but something had happened to make them like that. In violent, hopeless societies, everyone and everything is infected and degraded.

It is not an easy personal journey. Wilson continues to struggle with a more primitive reaction even late in the book, when he meets a BBC World Service journalist from Burundi who has close links with the rebel group behind the attack. But his honesty carries the reader with him. Intimate books charting an individual’s quest only work if the author is prepared to show himself, warts and all. This Wilson does unflinchingly.

He also goes beyond the particular to ask broader questions about grief. It is a messy, painful, isolating experience that society today is reluctant to acknowledge or support. In his anguish, Wilson speaks to and for all who cannot easily put loss behind us and get on with life as if nothing has happened.

RBN talk show host and American Free Press reporter Christopher Bollyn was arrested last night in Chicago in his front yard. He claims to have been harressed and abused by the police due to his investigative work on 9/11.

Go here for more

Titanic Express, a book about the search for truth following a brutal murder in Burundi is published today. Written by Richard Wilson, a long time supporter of the Craig Murray campaign and contributor to this web site, it details his personal experinces following the loss of his sister and his quest to track down her killers.

The book has been reviewed in the Times, Telegraph, and (with a hatfull of errors) the Daily Mail.

For a synopsis and information on online ordering go here.

The newly published Titanic Express has been reviewed by a number of papers. We post below a piece from The Telegraph.

By Thomas Harding

The brother of a British voluntary worker killed in an ethnic cleansing campaign in Africa has accused the authorities of appeasing the organisation that he claims was behind the attack.

Charlotte Wilson was among 21 bus passengers who were lined up alongside a road in Burundi in December 2000 and casually raked with gunfire by the Forces for National Liberation, an extremist Christian group.

Agathon Rwasa, the FNL’s leader, is not only at liberty but has been feted in peace talks in neighbouring Tanzania despite leading an organisation whose members have allegedly massacred thousands, including Miss Wilson.

Richard Wilson accused the Foreign Office of “washing its hands” of his sister’s killing and has called for an international arrest warrant to be issued for Rwasa.

(more…)

He’s back and online! The composer of the Craig Murray campaign song ‘Hit the Road Jack (Straw)‘ has a new site and loads of tunes.

Visit and listen here

Following his appearance at the Europena Parliament enquiry (see previous posts), Craig is now on a speaking tour in the US.

On the April 26 he spoke at Harvard University Law School as part of a program endorsed by Harvard Law Students for Peace & HLS NLG Student Chapter and then moved on to to Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the 27th.

On May 3rd he is due to speak at UC Berkeley, followed by Stanford University on the 4th, UCSC on the 5th, Sonoma State University of California on the 6th and University of Chicago/Northwestern University on the 9th.

For further details of the National Campus Speaking Tour and other speakers see Speaking the Unspeakable

More on the event at UCSC is given below.

From UC Santa Cruz Currents

Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, will speak on U.S. and British sanctioned torture in Uzbekistan prisons on Friday, May 5, from noon to 2 p.m. at the Stevenson College Fireside Lounge. Admission is free and open to the public.

Craig Murray served as British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004.

Murray was fired after he released classified documents affirming the existence of torture and U.S. and British complicity in it. Last fall, he was a key witness at the International Commission of Inquiry on Crimes Against Humanity by the Bush Administration held in New York City.

UCSC psychology professor Craig Haney, an authority on U.S. prisons, the death penalty, and torture, will comment on Ambassador Murray’s presentation. An open discussion will follow. The event will be moderated by feminist studies professor Bettina Aptheker.

For more information on Murray, go to www.democracynow.org for the text of an interview with Amy Goodman on January 16, 2006. This event is sponsored by Faculty Against War, Cultural Studies, the Institute for Advanced Feminist Research, and the Santa Cruz County Chapter of the ACLU.

And for another view on this forthcoming event go here

The weblog has been off-air for some days due to server problems but things are now hopefully back up to speed. We will be posting some backlog items over the next few days. Sorry for the delay…

Update: Yes, it did take a few days longer than expected but all is (finally) looking good now!

From New York Indymedia

An unprecedented citizens’ tribunal will hear testimony from international expert witnesses and whistle-blowers on war crimes and crimes against humanity alleged against the Bush administration.

Witnesses at the Tribunal include: former commander of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray who exposed the use of information gathered through torture, former arms inspector Scott Ritter, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern, Dahr Jamail (journalist who has reported extensively from Iraq), Guantanamo prisoners’ lawyer Michael Ratner, Katrina survivors, former State Department officer Ann Wright, among many more.

January’s hearings will be the second and final session of the Commission. Indictments from the first session were formally delivered to George W. Bush at the White House on January 10. Bush’s staff would not receive the indictments at the gate, saying that the president “will not accept any materials from the public.” As TV cameras rolled, a hazmat squad was called in by White House personnel to remove the envelope.

The indictments are based on moral, political, and legal grounds, and are undertaken in fulfillment of the Commission’s Charter: “When the possibility of far-reaching war crimes and crimes against humanity exists, people of conscience have a solemn responsibility to inquire into the nature and scope of these acts and to determine if they do in fact rise to the level of war crimes and crimes against humanity….” The Bush White House has been invited to testify at the Tribunal in its defense.

Friday, January 20, 5pm and Saturday, January 21 at 10am, Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive

Sunday, January 22 at 1pm, Columbia University Law School, 116th & Amsterdam Avenue

The Progressive issues a challange to US Ambassadors in the light of actions taken by Craig Murray.

“Where are the U.S. ambassadors who are willing to risk their necks for opposing torture and war?

When I visited Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt in 2002, I found U.S. diplomats, including ambassadors, bending over backward to justify authoritarian practices in their host countries.

Some of this is understandable, since it is part of the job of U.S. diplomats to maintain good relations with friendly governments. But the eagerness of U.S. diplomats to perform this task was disconcerting.”

(more…)

We would like to thank the very large number of people who have directly contacted Craig or the weblog to give their support to the work we are involved in and, in particular, the decision to release the Tashkent letters.

Inevitably, there was going to be range of rather less positive reactions and we thought it might be interesting to share a sample of some of these minority minds with you. A range of views follow, from the reasoned to the raving. Enjoy!

Go hang yourself traitor!!! Stop trying to bilk morons out of money! You should be ashamed of yourself for turning on your country. Remember WW2 and the peril your country was in from the Nazi’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[email protected]

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I really don’t know where to start. The Nazis were also quite fond of torture, and banning books, and stuff like that, which is why we opposed them.

And, if you want to discuss history, for a very considerable period, -over two years in fact – the Nazis killed massive numbers of Poles, and French, and Dutch, and Czechs, and myriad others, while the US just stood by and watched. There were 100 times more British casualties from the Nazi blitz than from 9/11, and America did nothing. Only when the USA was itself attacked did the USA respond – and then, it must be said, did a great job with much sacrifice.

Nine of my uncles served in the second world war. Four of them still live and are horrified by what Blair and Bush have brought us to. So don’t throw your simplistic stupidities at me.

Craig

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Craig, I’m 71 years old and a retired US Army CW4. I would love to meet you anywhere you like so I can pound you into the ground, then rip off your fucking head with my bare hands and bowl it down the street. When the ragheads take over, assholes like you are the first ones they’ll execute.

Fuck you,

L. A. St.Onge, Los Lunas, NM USA

[email protected]

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Er… no comment

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you protect your country by any means necessary. Just as one protects his home using any and all options available so should the government do the same in protecting it’s citizens and it’s shores.

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Dear friend,

Thousands of people are tortured in Uzbekistan every year. 99% of them are completely innocent, as in they have no connection with terrorism whatsoever.

Presumably you wouldn’t object, then, if they did become terrorists, as they must have the right to protect themselves and their families by any means too? Let me put that another way – if someone boiled your brother to death, what would you do?

Try to think wider.

Craig

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“Three Christian schoolgirls were beheaded by masked assailants in Poso district in October.”

“Twenty people were killed in May this year when two bombs exploded in the largely Christian town of Tentena.”

We are involved in a very nasty war. If torture includes taking clothes of people or putting hoods on them then so what.

There is also much more to the problems in Uzbekistan than your blog admits.

Regards, MCF

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Michael

I don’t know who you are, but I would be surprised if you are better informed on Uzbekistan than I am.

I think you know that I am not talking about just putting hoods on people or taking off thier clothes. And why you think that appalling terrorist atrocities in Indonesia justify the torture of thousands of people in Uzbekistan – 99% of whom have no connection with terrorism -I don’t understand.

Craig

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Mr. Murray,

I can only hope that one of these Islamic terrorists slowly hacks YOUR head off someday, or maybe blows up one of your children or brutally rapes your mother, sister, wife, daughter. You bleedingheart liberals disgust me in every way, you are the first ones to scream torture and human rights violations yet if a terrorist plot is successful you immediately BLAME your government for NOT protecting YOU!! It is YOU, sir, that is torturing the rest of us who actually have the capacity to think and understand exactly what these people would do to morons like you given the opportunity. Here is my contribution, ROT IN HELL!!

[email protected]

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Pat,

Of the many thousands of people tortured every year in Uzbekistan, the large majority – at least 99% – are not terrorists. You are displaying a lot of hate in your tone. I do hope you find peace.

Craig

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Mr. Murray,

I can appreciate your stance on torture. But there are other points of view. It is a nice moral platitude to espouse; but, when it comes to the lives of your citizens in the UK vs. the life of single al-Queda operative… I will opt to extract information by any means to save the lives of those who are in danger.

We are dealing with an instumentality that has been growing under our feet for decades. We are dealing with a way of thought that is contrary to Western political and moral values. If we fail to take necessary measures to eliminate that threat and thousands of our people die due to our moral and political stance on extracting information from an individual who posseses information that is vital to the welfare of our societies, then I opt to sacrifice that individual for the greater good if necessary.

I am an American Veteran of the Viet-nam conflict who served with US Air Force. It was our moral and political stance that cost us 58,000+ American lives. Our government was full of people who did not allow our military forces to prosecute that war to conclusion. We cannot allow this attitude to prevail again. Your own Chamberlain was promoting Peace while Hitler was preparing to destroy your country. If you think the Nazis were bad, wait until you commit to engage yourselves to protect your way of life. Frankly, I do not want to see Islam become the dominant force anywhere in this world. And that is what we are engaged in fighting. Islam fundamentalism.

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Thank you. I am familiar with your argument. If you had an al-Qaida operaitve in front of you, who had planned a bomb about to go off, would you hit him until he told you it was about to go off. Of course you would – I would, anyway.

But real life isn’t that clear cut. What we are talking about is completely different. In Uzbekistan thousands of people are tortured every year, and at least 99% of them are nothing to do with terrorism, as in completely innocent. And a fair number of those die under torture. Most of them are just religous Muslims.

The US no longer supports the Uzbek regime. But for the period it did, I can assure you that these facts fuelled hatred of the US (and UK) across the Muslim world. It thus creates, rather than combats, terrorism.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments, Craig

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CRAIG

MOST EVERYONE IS AWARE ISLAMIC TERRORISM HAS DECLARED WAR ON THE FREE WORLD WITH A GOAL OF RULING THE WORLD UNDER ISLAM. WE HAVE SEEN ISLAM DEMONSTRATE ITS CONTROL IN AFGHANASTAN WITH THE SHOOTING OF WOMEN IN THE HEAD AS A SHOW FOR THE STADIUM CROWD AS ONE EXAMPLE, ON ARAB TV WE HAVE SEEN BEHEADINGS OF HUMAN BEINGS FOR THE WORLD TO SEE AS ONE MORE EXAMPLE. ON YOUR WEB SITE I HAVE SEEN YOUR BREACH OF NATIONAL SECURITY PROMOTING THE CAUSE OF ISLAMIC TERRORISM FOR THE WORLD TO SEE EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW THEIR INHUMANE UNCIVILIZED RECORD. I FIND MYSELF WONDERING WHAT SORT OF TWISTED PERSONALITY WOULD BETRAY HIS OWN PRECIOUS COUNTRYMEN TO FAVOR A VICIOUS BLOODTHIRSTY ENEMY AS I SEE ON YOUR WEB. ALSO YOUR OVERALL WEB SITE IS NOTHING BUT A NEST OF PRO-TERRORISM MALE BOVINE DEFFICATION. I WISH YOU A GREAT NEW YEAR AS A STAR ON ARAB TV WITH THE SEVERING OF YOUR HEAD BY THOSE WHOM YOU HAVE AIDED IN THEIR WAR AGAINST FREEDOM AND HUMANITY. HOWEVER I SHALL GET A COPY OF YOUR BOOK AT THE LOCAL FLEA MARKET REJECT BASKET, IT WOULD BE MOST USEFUL WERE I TO RUN OUT OF TOILET TISSUE.

BOB

[email protected]

As you may have noticed, the site went down yesterday in rather suspicious circumstances and it appears that overload was not the issue. Although we are definetely back in business there are a few residual glitches (:-)) in the archives and formatting that we will be working to put right over the next few days. Please bear with us and keep visiting.

These are interesting days indeed.

Happy new year!

The number of people reading this site has increased steadily since the UK general election ealier this year. Thanks to everyone who has visited, linked, commented and trackbacked, or just taken an interest in the issues we post on.

To try and increase the friendliness of the site we are in the process of adding new topic categories and revising the current organisation of the post archives. We hope you will find the modifications useful and that they will make material easier to find, especially for new visitors.

However, in the short term there may be a few inconsistencies so please bear with us! Any comments are of course welcome. Thanks.

Congratulations to Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads for being recognised as one of the most influential bloggers in the UK.

An article in the Guardian profiles a selection of bloggers and discusses how important they are, or not, to political life in Britain.

Have a look at one of Tim’s most recent animation projects or assess your chances of winning the 0ne Million Pound sweepstake!

This site gets ever more readers ‘ I am pretty chuffed about it. But it doesn’t attract dialogue or debate. We have attracted less than a dozen genuine comments in the six months we have been operating.

At first I put this down to the system which required you to sign in before commenting. So we removed this, and found we still didn’t get any comments. What we did get was an incredible amount of spam, adding links to sex sites from the comments slots. The result was a lot of frustrated people who had googled ‘lesbian hot tub’ and ended up here.

Clearing off this spam was a never-ending task, so we are returning to protecting the comments by a registration process. But I do hope people will start to interact on this site. I am getting lonely, and wondering if anyone except me actually cares about this stuff. I lecture all round the country and abroad, and always end up in interesting discussions. The content of this site isn’t uncontroversial. So why do I have to go to Harry’s Place or Registan if I want dialogue? Please, people, talk to me’

Craig

I have today submitted the text of my book to the FCO for clearance, as I am contractually obliged to do. I have already received four letters, an email and a phone call to tell me I must not publish without clearance, so I have little doubt that the FCO intends to prevent publication. I thought it might be interesting to publish the correspondence as it develops.

Apart from the Official Secrets Act, or the ironically named Freedom of Information Act, the government can use civil litigation under contract. A civil servant’s contract nowadays states that they will never publish anything they learnt or saw in the course of their work, whether it is secret or not. This removes any public interest defence, or need for the government to prove questions of national security. It should cause more alarm than it does that civil servants are gagged by such draconian anti-whistleblower legislation.

I have finished 26 chapters of the book, and the final three are part complete. Publishers abroad seem very keen, but not in this country, which I don’t completely understand. There is one firm bid in to option the film rights, and five other expressions of interest in bidding for these. My agents are David Higham.

Craig

From: Craig Murray

Craig

Craig Murray began an invited speaking tour yesterday in Washington, where he gave several addresses on US foreign policy, including one to civil servants and congressional staffers. Predictably, there was quite a reaction, and we are looking forward to posting more on the view from America shortly.

Craig is continuing his tour until the 28th September. The main focus of his talks will be on the conduct of foreign policy and the “war on terror”.

The Ambassador’s Last Stand

Wed 21 Sep, 7:00 pm – 7:50 pm 50 mins

“Craig Murray was our man in Uzbekistan, who says he put his life and career on the line for a principle. He made claims and protests about the apparent British policy of obtaining intelligence via torture. The fallout led to his early resignation, and then Murray stood against his former boss, foreign secretary Jack Straw, in Blackburn in the general election.

John Sweeney tells the story of Britain’s colourful former ambassador to Uzbekistan. He follows Murray, his glamorous young Uzbeki girlfriend Nodira, and a platoon of volunteers as they try to awaken Blackburn to what they believe is New Labour’s complicity in torture.”

The BBC have changed the date and time of the Craig Murray election campaign documentary to Wednesday September 21, at 7.00pm. Please see original post for further details.

The date and time of the broadcast has now been changed by the BBC. Please see the revised information below:

On Wednesday September 21, at 7.00pm, BBC 2 will be showing ‘The Ambassador’s Last Stand’, the story of the Craig Murray election campaign against Jack Straw in Blackburn, and the reasons for it. More than just a nostalgic look back ‘ it raises issues of the alienation of Muslims through New Labour foreign policy. In the wake of the London bomb attacks these issues are of continuing and urgent concern.

There appears to have been a degree of debate within the BBC about whether to broadcast this programme, perhaps reflected by the decision to change the broadcast day to midweek and the time to coincide with Channel 4 news! We are sorry for the change in information but, as you will understand, it was outside of our control.

For press enquiries or for further information please contact

[email protected]