YESTERDAY the British Foreign Secretary Straw condemned the repressions by the Karimov regime in Uzbekistan. It has already killed 500 Uzbeks and is getting ready to kill a lot more, in order to put down an insurrection against its dictatorship – a dictatorship which is backed by the United States and Britain.
In fact, the US base that Karimov has allowed into Uzbekistan is playing a major role in the US war against the Afghan people, making Karimov a strategic ally of the US and the UK.
In that capacity he has been ‘slaughtering protesters in Uzbekistan like rabbits’, as residents have put it.
Straw’s diplomatic condemnation, that London had been concerned for a long time ‘about the abuse of human rights and the lack of democracy’ in Uzbekistan is complete hypocrisy and crocodile tears.
No amount of protests can wash away the blood of the Uzbek protesters from the hands of the Blair government.
In fact, Straw was so concerned about the lack of human rights and democracy in Uzbekistan, that he sacked the British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, last year.
Murray’s crime was that he demanded Britain should support the human rights movement in the country. He exposed the fact that human rights advocates were being horribly tortured by the Karimov regime, and that the US was routinely sending ‘terrorist suspects’ to Uzbekistan to be tortured.
Yesterday, Murray said that the US and British governments had to take the responsibility for the repressions in Uzbekistan, because of their refusal to aid human rights movements in that country, and for the way that they had propped up the regime.
Straw and Blair stand condemned as the sponsors of a regime that practices torture and is now slaughtering the Uzbek people.
If they had any principle they would resign, but of course they won’t – they will defend the right of the capitalists to plunder the world to the end.
In fact, all the Bush-Blair calls for liberty and freedom around the world are conditional – they only apply to those countries that oppose their ‘new world imperialist order’ – whether it be Belarus, Syria or North Korea.
They definitely do not apply to Uzbekistan, or for that matter to Saudi Arabia, or to Britain or the US where imprisonment and internment without charge or trial by jury is fast becoming the norm, and basic rights a thing of the past.
Yesterday, in Saudi Arabia, three men were sentenced to nine, six and three years in prison for ‘spreading sedition’, that is advocating a constitutional monarchy as against the current absolute feudal monarchy.
This rules the country through a feudal court system, where subjects seek audiences to plead with the Crown Prince, and where there is no parliament.
Saudi Arabia, along with Israel, which oppresses millions of Palestinians whose land it has occupied for 57 years, are the strategic allies of the US in the Middle East. In that capacity they can do no wrong.
Today in the Queen’s Speech the Labour government is due to outline a new ‘terrorist offence’ of knowing an alleged terrorist, that is of guilt by association – so much for freedom!
Bush and Blair are the enemies of freedom and liberty throughout the planet.
The only freedom that Bush and Blair recognise is the freedom of the bosses and bankers to exploit the working class of the world.
Workers must support the uprising of the Uzbek people and the efforts of the Uzbek people to restore the USSR and the conditions of life that they enjoyed under the USSR.
Workers must also strike a blow for liberty and freedom throughout the world by bringing down the Blair government to go forward to a workers’ government in Britain, that will carry out socialist policies at home and abroad.