Cameron's government is still arming dictatorships - including Saudi, Egypt and Kuwait, which is not a democracy

British Prime Minister David Cameron has claimed the British government was wrong “in the past” in supporting dictatorships in the Middle East and condemns the “appalling violence” against protesters (1).

Yet his government is still backing these dictatorships and their violence by approving sales of lethal arms and crowd control weapons to Kuwait, Saudi, Egypt and many others besides, as they torture, jail and kill democracy protesters and dissidents. This has been hidden behind the fig leaf of suspending a most export licences to Libya and Bahrain in order to try to give the false impression that all arms sales to dictatorships have been suspended (2) – (6).

Cameron travelled to Egypt with a delegation of British arms company salesman on his coat tails. Egypt’s government is not a democracy. It remains an entirely undemocratic government even after Mubarak’s resignation. It includes the Generals of a military which has been involved in torturing democracy protesters, sitting alongside Mubarak’s appointed henchmen, including his notorious torturer in chief Omar Suleiman, who has said Egypt isn’t ready for democracy (7) – (17). These are the people who helped Mubarak torture and murder Egyptians for decades – they’re not going to have changed overnight. This regime refuses to hand over to a government of national unity that would include the opposition and exclude Mubarak’s cronies (18) – (22). That means that it’s promise of democratic elections could be as empty as Mubarak’s was in 2005 (23).

It's also a bit late to suspend arms export licences if you wait till after the dictatorships start killing people by the dozen or the hundred - as in Bahrain and Libya respectively.

The Guardian reports that "Labour MP Denis MacShane has called for an immediate stop on all arms exports to Bahrain. Amnesty wants a ban extended across the region." (that suggests the UK government is still issuing some export licences for arms to Bahrain). The Guardian continues "Defence contractors said they felt "battered and bruised" by the condemnation that they had received, following the violence throughout the Middle East and north Africa.". The poor souls. They're so much worse off than all the people who have been tortured, beaten and murdered by the dictatorships they're arming for profit.

Cameron responded to criticism of his hypocrisy by saying that it’s “unrealistic” to expect “small democracies” like Kuwait to produce all their own arms (24). Kuwait is not and never has been a democracy. The Emir rules like a medieval king, appoints his own governments without having to respect election results and has anyone who criticises his government or organises political meetings jailed. There are elections to the Kuwaiti parliament, but that parliament is largely powerless in practice and the Emir can disband it at any time (25) – (30).

Cameron's strange definition of democracy seems to be "sells us oil cheaply and buys our weapons".

So is our Prime Minister actually going to support democracy, or does he prefer to just continue mouthing empty platitudes while securing profits for British firms by selling dictatorships weapons with which they are still intimidating, torturing and murdering their own people whenever they demand democracy? It can’t be both at once, no matter how much he might like it to be. His government’s foreign policy is currently as much of a hypocritical joke as Blair’s ‘ethical foreign policy’ was.

 (1) = guardian.co.uk 22 Feb 2011 ‘Cameron says UK prejudiced for believing Muslims cannot manage democracy’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/david-cameron-uk-muslims-democracy

(2) = guardian.co.uk 21 Feb 2011 ‘Abu Dhabi arms fair: Tanks, guns, teargas and trade at Idex 2011’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/abu-dhabi-arms-fair-idex-2011

(3) = guardian.co.uk 21 Feb 2011 ‘UK firm defends Libya military sales’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/21/uk-firm-defends-libya-military-sales

(4) = guardian.co.uk 21 Feb 2011 ‘David Cameron's Cairo visit overshadowed by defence tour’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/21/cameron-cairo-visit-defence-trade

(5) = Independent 19 Feb 2011 ‘Crackdown on arms exports to Bahrain’,http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/crackdown-on-arms-exports-to-bahrain-2219269.html

(6) = Campaign Against the Arms Trade 18 Feb 2011 ‘CAAT condemns empty words from Government as arms sale drive continues’,http://www.caat.org.uk/press/

(7) = ABC News 13 Feb 2011 ‘Egyptian army vows transition to democracy’,http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/13/3137352.htm ; ‘"The current government and governors undertake to manage affairs until the formation of a new government," a senior army officer said in a statement delivered on state television.’

(8) = BBC News 14 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt crisis: Protests switch to demands on pay’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12448413 ; ‘During the transition the cabinet appointed by Mr Mubarak last month will go on governing, submitting legislation to the army chiefs for approval.’ ;        ‘Military statement - Constitution suspended ; Council to hold power for six months or until elections; Both houses of parliament dissolved; Council to issue laws during interim period; Committee set up to reform constitution and set rules for referendum ;Caretaker PM Ahmed Shafiq's cabinet to continue work until new cabinet formed ; Council to hold presidential and parliamentary elections ; All international treaties to be honoured’’

(9) = Al Jazeera 12 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt's military leadership - Brief profiles of members of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as it assumes power from Hosni Mubarak’,http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/201121185311711502.html ; ‘General Omar Suleiman, vice-president and former intelligence chief, is among the key retired or serving military officers on the council.

(10) = Press TV 13 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt army to decide on Suleiman fate’,http://www.presstv.ir/detail/165105.html ; ‘"The role of Omar Suleiman will be defined by the Higher Military Council," Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said on Sunday.’

(11) = Reuters 10 Feb 2011 'Egypt VP democracy comment misunderstood-state agency', http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE7192CG20110210 ; ‘In the ABC interview in Cairo on Monday, Suleiman was asked if he believed in democracy. Speaking English he answered: "For sure everybody believes in democracy, but when you will do that? When the people here would have the culture of democracy."’

(12) =  Al Jazeera 07 Feb 2011 ‘Suleiman: The CIA's man in Cairo  - Suleiman, a friend to the US and reported torturer, has long been touted as a presidential successor’, by Professor Lisa Hajar of the University of California, http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/201127114827382865.html

(13) = ABC News 01 Feb 2011 ‘New Egyptian VP Ran Mubarak's Security Team, Oversaw Torture’,http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/egypt-crisis-omar-suleiman-cia-rendition/story?id=12812445&page=1

(14) = New Statesman 17 May 2004 ‘America’s Gulag’, http://www.newstatesman.com/200405170016

(15) = Human Rights Watch 09 May 2005 ‘Black Hole – the fate of Islamists rendered to Egypt’,http://www.hrw.org/en/node/11757/section/1

(16) = Bloomberg Businessweek 01 Feb 2011 ‘Mubarak’s Top Spy Rejected by Cairo Streets as Masses March’,http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-02-01/mubarak-s-top-spy-rejected-by-cairo-streets-as-masses-march.html

(17) = guardian.co.uk 09 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt's army 'involved in detentions and torture'’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/09/egypt-army-detentions-torture-accused

(18) = guardian.co.uk 13 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt's military rejects swift transfer of power and suspends constitution’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/13/egypt-military-rejects-swift-power-handover

(19) = guardian.co.uk 12 Feb 2011 ‘Army and protesters disagree over Egypt's path to democracy’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/12/egypt-military-leaders-fall-out-protesters

(20) = Reuters 30 Jan 2011 ‘ElBaradei urges U.S. to abandon Mubarak’,http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/30/us-egypt-usa-elbaradei-idUSTRE70T30920110130?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews ; ‘"I have been authorized -- mandated -- by the people who organized these demonstrations and many other parties to agree on a national unity government," ElBaradei told CNN.’

(21) = Scoop NZ 14 Feb 2011 ‘Egypt's Protesters Communique Number 1’,http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1102/S00466/egypts-protesters-communique-number-1.htm

(22) = ABC News 13 Feb 2011 ‘Egyptian army vows transition to democracy’,http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/13/3137352.htm ; People's Communique No. 1", issued by the protest organisers, demands the dissolution of the cabinet Mr Mubarak appointed on January 29 and the suspension of the parliament elected in a rigged vote late last year.The reformists want a transitional five-member presidential council made up of four civilians and one military person. The communique calls for the formation of a transitional government to prepare for an election to take place within nine months, and of a body to draft a new democratic constitution. It demands freedom for the media and syndicates, which represent groups such as lawyers, doctors and engineers, and for the formation of political parties. Military and emergency courts must be scrapped, the communique says.’ (From the full text linked to above - (27) – ‘syndicates’ here is almost certainly a mis-translation of ‘trade unions’.)

(23) =  Human Rights Watch 23 Nov 2010 ‘Elections in Egypt’,http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2010/11/23/elections-egypt

(24) = guardian.co.uk 22 Feb 2011 ‘David Cameron hits out at critics of Britain's arms trade’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/feb/22/david-cameron-britain-arms-trade

(25) = US Department of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs  ‘Background Note:Kuwait’,http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35876.htm

(26) = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_Kuwait

(27) = Human Rights Watch 21 Jul 2010 ‘Operation Roll Back Kuwaiti Freedom’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/07/23/operation-roll-back-kuwaiti-freedom

(28) = Human Rights Watch 11 Dec 2010 ‘Kuwait: Permit Peaceful Political Gatherings  - Security Forces Violently Disperse Parliamentarians and Professors’,  http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/12/10/kuwait-permit-peaceful-political-gatherings

(29) = Human Rights watch 31 Jan 2011 ‘Kuwait: Free Speech and Assembly Under Attack’,http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/01/31/kuwait-free-speech-and-assembly-under-attack

(30) = Human Rights Watch World Report 2011: Kuwait , http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011/kuwait ; ‘Freedom of expression markedly deteriorated in 2010. The government continued criminally prosecuting individuals based on nonviolent political speech, denied academics permission to enter the country for conferences and speeches, and cracked down on public gatherings. In April state security forces summarily deported over 30 Egyptian legal residents of Kuwait after some of them gathered to support Egyptian reform advocate Mohammed El Baradei.

In May prominent writer and lawyer Mohammad al-Jassim was detained for over 40 days and charged with "instigating to overthrow the regime, ...slight to the personage of the emir [the ruler of Kuwait],... [and] instigating to dismantle the foundations of Kuwaiti society" over his blog posts criticizing the prime minister. A judge released al-Jassim in June and adjourned the case until October.’

Time for the US and European governments to stop backing dictators and occupations in the Arab world and start supporting democracy

The media coverage of the leaked ‘Palestinian papers’ – messages sent between the Israeli government and the Fatah government in the West Bank under President Abbas – and of the demonstrations across dictatorships across the Arab world from Tunisia to Egypt and Yemen, is missing the context and the key facts. The context is that the US and European governments continue their shameful support for dictatorships and appointed governments and undermine democracy across the Arab world from the West Bank and Gaza to Egypt, Saudi, Tunisia, Jordan and Libya. The fear mongering about Islamists is just a cover story – Islamic political parties are not Al Qa’ida and are often, as in Turkey, more moderate than some extreme secular nationalists. It’s time to tell our governments to back the people of the Arab world, not the dictators.

One of the big myths on Israel and the Palestinians is that Abbas and his Fatah party (the largest in the PLO) are the legitimate, elected Palestinian government, while Hamas seized power by force in Gaza.

The reality is that after EU and other election observers found Hamas won free and fair parliamentary elections in 2006, the US, Israeli and Egyptian governments refused to recognise or negotiate with them and imposing sanctions on the whole of the Palestinian Authority - pushing Hamas and Fatah into civil war - and when Hamas ended this by offering to share power with Fatah despite Fatah having lost the elections, still refusing to lift sanctions on the whole of the PA.

above - Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, elected Palestinian President in 2005

This led to renewed civil war as the US, Egyptian and Israeli governments backed a military coup attempt by Fatah's armed wing, which failed in Gaza, but succeeded in the West Bank.

Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah (elected President in 2005) then went far beyond his constitutional powers to appoint his own (completely unconstitutional and unelected) Prime Minister (Salaam Fayyad) and Cabinet, ignoring the elected PM Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas.

While Gaza is under blockade new elections there would be irrelevant - especially while Israel and the US and EU continue to refuse to recognise the results of past elections, which means if new elections don't go the way they want they'll ignore those too.

Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas - elected Palestinian Prime Minister in 2006

There will be no peace until the results of democratic Palestinian elections are respected and Hamas are included in negotiations.

Israelis have elected a string of war criminals - the worst being Ariel Sharon - but no-one places sanctions on Israel and demands they reverse the results of elections as a result.

The constant claims that Hamas aims to destroy Israel are as untrue as they are ludicrous given the respective military strengths of the former and the latter (Hamas has no nuclear weapons, nor US supplied advanced artillery, tanks, jet fighter bombers or

The claims that Hamas has refused to negotiate with Israel or to consider recognising it’s existence are also lies – they have offered to do so repeatedly – and many Israelis, from former heads of Shin Bet military intelligence and Mossad to former foreign ministers have said for years that negotiations should begin without any preconditions.

Abbas and Fatah know they will lose any elections in any case, due to their corruption and their decision to collaborate with the Israeli government against their own people. Leaked documents show they had asked Israel to make military attacks on Hamas in Gaza, asked the Israeli and Egyptian governments to tighten the blockade on Gaza (punishing not just Hamas but the whole population of Gaza); helped stall a UN report on Israeli war crimes in the Gaza war at the request of the US government;  and asked Israel to assassinate members of Fatah’s own armed wing. This just adds to Fatah’s long history of torturing and jailing it’s own people in alliance with the Israelis.

Children search for food in a rubbish dump in Gaza

No wonder Fatah sent some hirelings to attack Al Jazeera’s offices in the West Bank for publishing the leaked documents.

Far from supporting democracy for Palestinians, President Obama’s administration threatened to end US aid to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank if anyone but Abbas is elected President - leading Abbas to cancel elections in the West Bank despite his term having ended in January 2009. New legislative elections should have been held in 2010, but are just as unlikely as long as the blockade of Gaza continues.

This is nothing unusual. The US and various EU governments are hostile to democratically elected governments across the Arab world, because, from the empires established by the French and British between World War One and World War Two on, dictators have always served the interests of the wealthiest and most powerful in the “developed” world. Palestinian American historian Rashid Khalidi’s book ‘Resurrecting Empire’ is very informative on the continuation of these policies from 19^th century European empires to the present US led ‘war on terror’. ( To read more about the truth about the war on terror from Iraq and Iran to Somalia go here).

 While democracies want annoying things, like a decent standard of living and enough food for all their people, dictatorships will happily sell their people out for a share of the spoils.

That’s why the Obama administration continues to give massive military aid, training for police and militaries and political support for the corrupt, torturing, murdering, dictatorships across the Arab world from Saudi and Egypt to Libya, the same way the Bush administration did before them. As long as that continues Obama’s much hyped Cairo speech is so much hypocritical hot air.

Protests against the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt

It’s why, as Egyptians are currently being shot dead by Egyptian police and soldiers for demonstrating and demanding Mubarak’s dictatorship is ended, the US government has funded the arming and training of the people killing them – and President Obama – who condemned this kind of “brutal repression” when the Iranian government was responsible, has vaguely pontificated about how both Mubarak and his people should avoid “violence” as “violence in not the answer”.

It's why US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, rather than backing the protesters for democracy, has claimed the Mubarak regime is "stable" (stability being the usual codeword for a client dictatorship "doing what the US government tells it to do) and that it shooting several people dead and jailing a thousand counts, for her government, as “looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people”.

Egyptian and former head of the IAEA, Mohammed El Baradei, responded “"I was stunned to hear secretary Clinton saying the Egyptian government is stable. And I ask myself at what price is stability? Is it on the basis of 29 years of martial law? Is it on the basis of 30 years of [an] ossified regime? Is it on the basis of rigged elections? That's not stability, that's living on borrowed time,” said ElBaradei.

"When you see today almost over 100,000 young people getting desperate, going to the streets, asking for their basic freedom, I expected to hear from secretary Clinton stuff like 'democracy, human rights, basic freedom' – all the stuff the US is standing for," he said.

Photo: Mohamed El Baradei

Clinton's claim that Mubarak's regime is “stable” will look very stupid soon - just like Carter's similar claim about the Shah's regime a few months before it was overthrown in the 1979 revolution – “Iran, because of the great leadership of the Shah, is an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.”

It’s also why the initial response of the French government to demonstrations against Ben Ali’s dictatorship in Tunisia was to say it would send Ben Ali’s regime some French police to help keep the demonstrators from getting out of control – before pretending, like Obama and the rest, that it had always been for democracy once Ben Ali was overthrown (while the hypocrites continue their arms sales, financial aid and political support to other dictators across the region).

Many are trying to present the demonstrations in Egypt as a choice between Mubarak or Islamic extremists. That’s very far from the truth, as Amnesty International report

‘This was a protest that crossed class, ideology and religion, and that is what scares the government, so long used to successfully playing divide and conquer among the opposition groups. “The psychological barrier of fear has been broken,”  Shadi Hamid, director of research for the Brookings Doha Center told the Washington Post, a comment repeated by several others. “Eighty million Egyptians saw [Tuesday's protests]. They saw that it’s okay to come out and that there is safety in numbers.”’

An Egyptian woman protester and riot police

The idea that Muslim equals extremist or terrorist is also ludicrous scaremongering. The ruling party in Turkey is Islamic, but considerably more democratic than the extreme nationalist secular military governments that preceded it – and have plotted failed coups against it since. Turkey’s government is no more extreme than Italian or German Christian Democrats have been in government. So assuming any dictatorship is better than allowing Muslim parties to form a government is fear mongering.

Democratically elected governments like Hamas in the Palestinian Authority and the coalition including Hezbollah in Lebanon are out of favour and the US is happy to let Israel (which pretends to be “the only democracy in the Middle East”) bomb and invade the only other two.

Abbas and Fatah are as corrupt and oppressive as most of the unpopular collaborators the US and European governments prop up

This does not make Hamas paragons of virtue – they have murdered Fatah supporting Palestinian civilians and Israeli civilians (just as Fatah have murdered Hamas supporters and Israelis and Israeli forces routinely murder Palestinian civilians) and are trying to enforce ludicrous and oppressive Islamic fundamentalism on Gazans, but the fact remains that until the US and European governments stop funding  and arming the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the blockade on Gaza; and stop funding, arming and supporting dictatorships across the Arab world, their claims to support democracy should be met with vocal contempt by everyone; the fact remains that our allies like Fatah and our own governments have no better record on human rights or democracy in the Arab world than Hamas or the Muslim Brotherhoods in Egypt or Jordan do; and the fact remains that we should recognise the results of free and fair elections.

Supporting dictatorships is supposedly excused by the need to keep Islamic groups out of power. What right does anyone have to tell another country what government they should elect? How likely is supporting dictatorships that murder and torture people in other countries to make their populations less extreme and more friendly towards us? Read, for instance ‘The Far Enemy’, a book by Fawaz Gerges, an expert on Jihadist groups, and you’ll find that the entire existence of Al Qa’ida and it’s decision to target the US and it’s allies are the result of our governments’ support for these dictatorships. The “near enemy” is the Jihadists’ term for the dictatorships in their own countries – the “far enemy” being the governments abroad supporting those dictatorships.

The obvious way to reduce the threat from terrorism is to stop aiding torturers and dictators – and recognise democratically elected governments, including Hamas as part of the Palestinian Authority’s government. This will weaken the armed Jihadist groups as their main recruiting points will be gone.