We can’t turn them away UPDATED
Dan Hardie has suggested petitioning members of parliament on the matter of Iraqis who have worked for the British forces in Southern Iraq who now fine themselves in increasing danger. It seems that, now they’ve done their bit, they’re on their own, thanks. We’re turning them away and they have to make for the borders in the hope of reaching safety in neighbouring countries.
Here’s some guidelines and pointers for writing to your MP.
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Since British troops occupied Southern Iraq in the spring of 2003, thousands of Iraqi citizens have worked for the British Army, the Coalition Provisional Authority (South) and for contractors serving UK forces. There is now considerable evidence that their lives, and the lives of their families, are at risk: some former workers for the British have been murdered, and many others have fled to neighbouring countries or gone into hiding in Basra.
The British Government, for whom they were ultimately working, has not offered them the right of asylum in the UK. This is morally unacceptable. It is also unnecessary, since we are well able to accommodate several thousand Iraqi refugees, most of whom already speak English and all of whom have already worked for our country.
The most detailed recent report, by Jonathan Miller of Channel Four News, notes the murder of 17 translators in one single incident in Basra. It cites the cases of hundreds of others who have fled to a refugee existence in nearby Middle Eastern countries or are in hiding in Iraq. The British Government response has come from the Home Office, which has suggested that Iraqis put at risk by their work for British troops ‘register with the UN refugee agency’. Other reports provide supporting detail: Iraqis are being targeted for murder because they have worked for British forces. (See here and here.)
Marie Colvin’s report for the Times of April 8 speaks of desperate former workers for the British Army being turned away from the British embassy in Syria by staff who had orders not to admit any Iraqis. These brave men and women have testimonials written by British officers stating that they are at risk from jihadi violence: and yet we are still refusing to admit them to the United Kingdom.
If you feel that this is unacceptable and that Britain should prevent Iraqis from being murdered for the ‘crime’ of working for British troops, could you please write to your MP and ask him or her to press the Government for action. You can use the excellent website ‘Write to Them‘ or post a letter yourself.
Please be courteous when writing to your MP. It would be a good idea to read the reports above, and cite relevant facts. We would suggest that your letter could contain the following points:
- It is morally unacceptable that Britain should abandon people who are at risk because they worked for British soldiers and diplomats.
- This country will be shamed if any more Iraqis are murdered for the ‘crime’ of having supported UK forces.
- Iraqis who worked for British forces should not be told to leave Iraq and throw themselves on the mercy of United Nations relief agencies in Arab countries: these agencies are already being overwhelmed by the outflow of Iraqi refugees, and Iraqi refugees who have worked for British diplomats or troops may well be targeted by local jihadists.
- There is plentiful evidence that armed groups in Iraq kill the families of those they consider ‘enemies’: for this reason we must extend the right of asylum to the families of those who worked for us.
- It is entirely practical for this country’s troops in Iraq, and its embassies in neighbouring countries, to take in Iraqis who have worked for us and fly them to the UK. Indeed, there is already considerable anger among British servicemen that Iraqis are being abandoned in this way.
- This country is large enough and rich enough to accommodate several thousand Iraqi refugees. Denmark has already given asylum to all 200 Iraqis who worked for its smaller occupying force.
- It does not matter what your MP’s views (or what your views) are on the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. People who risked their lives for this country’s soldiers are now being abandoned by the British Government. Their lives can and must be saved by their being granted the right of asylum in this country.
- This policy should be implemented regardless of whether British soldiers stay in Iraq or are soon withdrawn. But it must be introduced soon: applications for asylum cannot be processed in a lengthy fashion, as the security situation in Basra is deteriorating rapidly, and delay is likely to lead to further killings of Iraqis who worked for British troops.
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It is best that those of us deciding to write a letter do so in a personal fashion – form letters and mass-mailouts are frowned upon by our elected representatives and often end up in the bin.
Dan suggests tagging five other bloggers to pass the message on but I’d like to instead ask that anybody reading this post on their own blogs and write a letter themselves. Feel free to cut and paste this copy into blogs or into emails to non-blogging friends who might also write to their MP.
Update: And there’s this:
The United States ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Cocker, has called for all Iraqis working for the US government to be granted refugee status in recognition of the dangers they face.
Update: Davide has set up this petition. Please sign if you’d be so kind.
Posted on July 23rd, 2007 at 9:40am under Activism, Iraq, Iraqi interpreters and employees, UK politics
| Related posts... • Iraqi employees: one down • We can’t turn them away – MP’s response • Iraqi employees campaign: not over yet |
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I’ve created a petition on the Downing Street website which has now been approved. You can access it from here.
Please sign it and link to it.
Cheers
It sounds like a completely unopposable idea, doesn’t it? And yet, see the comments at Crooked Timber to find how some people will seemingly just disagree with ANYTHING for the sake of disagreeing with those whom they perceive as lefties.
[...] here, here, here, here, and here. I will be sending a letter to my [...]
And yet, see the comments at Crooked Timber to find how some people will seemingly just disagree with ANYTHING for the sake of disagreeing with those whom they perceive as lefties.
That’s a slightly incoherent claim since the poster to whom you objected on that thread wasn’t disagreeing because they “perceived lefties”.
[...] started by Dan Hardie, and supported by: Crooked Timber, Harry’s Place, Rachel North, Chickyog, Davide, Rosie Bell, Europhobia, Blairwatch and [...]
[...] putting their lives at risk merely for doing their job… oh what the hell, just read what Justin has to say and you’ll get the [...]
[...] Hardie on the plight of the Iraqi translators: We can’t turn them away … Chicken Yoghurt follows up here … and a petition [...]
A silly idea which shows an incredibly shallow conception of how independence wars are fought,how they are won and lost.
In chronological order,I wonder firstly how you imagine British loyalists fared in the aftermath of the American War of Independence?
Or,jumping forward a bit,the Japanese who helped restore French and Dutch colonial rule in Vietnam and Indonesia respectively.In 1946 at the Battle of Subaya on Java the Japanese lost more troops helping the British to restore Dutch colonial rule than they had wresting the island from the Dutch in the first place.
I am not sure Atlee’s government commended the Japs who made such sacrifices on behalf of Western interests,or that their constituents petitioned their MPs on behalf of any Japs who sought asylum in post-war Britain.
Neither was there any magnaminity shown to the pied noir in Algeria after the FLN won independence from the French.Quite the opposite up to a million who had thrown in their lot with the French,and doubtless some who had not but were suspected of so doing died after the colonialists left.
If you think we British never desert our allies then think again.In the post-WW2 Far East not only were Japanese collaborators unrewarded for their laudable efforts on Indonesia, the Malayan Chinese resistance who’d fought on our behalf against the Japs (a communist guerilla unit took part in the London victory parade and their leader Chin Peng was awarded the OBE)became in the post-war Emergency period:Enemy No.1.
For their efforts to build trade unions and fight anti-Chinese discrimination the Atlee government launched a ferocious counter-insurgency war against them.British methods in dealing with this insurgency became a model for later US efforts to suppress the Viet Cong.
So,if the Basra resistance show little mercy to those who collaborated with an illegal and brutal British occupation I for one won’t be shedding any tears on their behalf.
Well done. So apart from demonstrating a lack of compassion you’ll be exempting the British government from moral responsibilities.
Message for ejh-
Moral responsibilities?
Grow up,pal.
When you’ve bombed a state that was no threat to you for 12 years and then,once its infrastructure was all but defunct,attacked that country with the help of the biggest bully on the international stage.
When you’ve then compounded the original felony by proceeding to murder and torture to death up to a million mainly innocent civilians with impunity youv’e got the gall to try and place yourself on the moral high ground.
You missed the point about being on the planet and you must be a simpleton to boot.
I’m afraid that sort of rhetoric doesn’t impress me and i suspect the growing-up may need to be done o nyour side of the exchange. It’s clear that you haven’t even tried to understand the argument, which so far from placing the invading countries on the moral high ground is actually insisting that they live up to a moral responsibility that they are trying to evade.
I don’t like internet loudmouths who try to show how hard they are by expressing their lack of compassion and humanity. I don’t like the laptop bombardiers who calling for the bombing and invasion of other countries. And I don’t like you.
Can we ramp back on the ad hominems please? One of the things I like most about my blog is that it isn’t Harry’s Place.
ejh seems to think that it’s ok to produce not even a scintilla of anything resembling a coherent or historically reasoned argument.
Unsurprising really that he thinks compassion has a significnt role to play in an insurgency war.
If only Princess Diana were here today to provide the figurehead we Brits need to prove to the world how compassionate we are.
I mean we could have a Christmas truce with all our boys playing football with all their boys on the Iraqi resistance.
Mind you,given that Iraq just won the Asia Cup against our(compassionate?)allies,Saudi Arabia, they might just show no compassion at all and give us a damn good hiding.
Maybe they shouldn’t be so vainglorious (as we have been in the past)and let our boys win out of……..compassion.
Then we could always have a return match at Ramadan couldn’t we?
Seriously though,most people outside Britain have noticed that our self-image as a compassionate people is quite at odds with observable reality.So that 12 years of indiscriminate and unwarranted bombing and murderous sanctions on a state that was no threat whatever,along with sanctions that killed up to half a million babies and children already make it necessary for us to atone in a more meaningful way than merely giving sactuary to a few Iraqi collaborators with the occupation.
The gestural politics ejh would have us play now after we’ve helped destroy Iraq and traumatised her people really simply reinforces the image we have in the rest of the world as being some of the most abjectly hypocritical people who happen to inhabit it.
Compassion after slavery,the Irish famine and anything else Blair and ejh would have us apologise for is not compassion at all it’s making a complete arse of ourselves.
If anybody can explain how anything the above posting relates to anything I’ve written – not just in this thread but anywhere, ever – I’d be obliged.
No,we can’t recall anything you’ve said.
At least nothing stands out in the way of insightful or meaningful comment.
I believe you did once take up a position on our country’s….”moral responsibilties” and now seem to be disowning that position.
Well,opinions do change quickly in our ephemeral,recyclable postmodern age.Taking a view and then promptly discarding it when it seems no longer fashionable is like taking down something from a supermarket shelf and then putting it back again.It’s all part and parcel of the national amnesia and faddishness that afflict our national culture.
Still,history tells us we were once some of the most compassionate people on the planet…once upon a time in the days of Empire.
Yes,I remember now….in India we made the trains run on time.In Mesopotamia Bomber Harris civilised the natives with gratuitous aerial bombardment.
And it’s quite wrong to think we should now apologise for all this compassion on our part.In fact we’d sound rather like the Archbishop of Canterbury(God bless him) if we did.
I believe you did once take up a position on our country’s “moral responsibilties” and now seem to be disowning that position.
Do I really? Do you have some kind of textual reference for that?
You obviously can’t remember what you wrote in the first place.
This means you’re either a victim(deserving of compassion of course)of the postmodern amnesia I described or you’re pretending you can’t remember because you’re a charlatan lacking the intellectual wherewithal to sustain the case you made originally.
Either way the case for a moral crusade on behalf of Iraqi collaborators is in desperate need of substantiation currently and the time is ripe for you to step into the breach and make it.
I think it’s probably about time you decided whether it’s appropriate to carry on sniping from the sidelines or if it might be better for you as a thoroughly postmodern British subject to do your duty.
You’ve got away with it for far too long methinks.
Postmodern amnesia is
Well, since rational discussion seems to be out of the question here I think I’ll leave this one to the court of public opinion.
What a cop out!
I rest my case.