Afghan refugees in Calais will be removed on flights jointly funded by the British and French governments.
Sylvie Copyans, from the French charity Salam, said:”Many of the Afghan refugees sleeping rough here fought against the Taliban. They face huge dangers if they go back, especially since the Taliban are becoming more powerful again.”
Daily Express: Afghans will be sent home in handcuffs
Indymedia: Afghans in Calais to be mass deported on Anglo/French charter flights
[Interestingly this “memo” appeared in a serious right-wing newspaper in UK- food for thought -h]
By Madeleine K. Albright
Congratulations on your success. You have won an impressive victory – but with that victory comes the responsibility to guide a troubled America in a world riven by conflict, confusion and hate. Upon taking office, you will face the daunting task of restoring America’s credibility as an effective and exemplary world leader.
This cannot be accomplished merely by distancing yourself and your administration from the mistakes of George W. Bush. You must offer innovative strategies for coping with multiple dangers, including the global economic meltdown, two hot wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan), al-Qaida, nuclear threats and climate change. In every realm, you will need to recruit a first-rate team of advisers, apply the principles of critical thinking and develop a coherent strategy with a clear connection between actions and results.
Your first job as president will be to re-establish the traditional sources of international respect for America: resilience, optimism, support for justice, and the desire for peace. As you recognised during your campaign, America’s good name has been tarnished. Your message to the world should be that the United States, though unafraid to act when necessary, is also eager to listen and learn.
That first step is important, but you will need to do much more.
Starting on Inauguration Day, you must strive to restore confidence in the economic soundness and financial stewardship of the United States. The October crash proved that our current leaders have lost their way. All eyes are now on you. Pick the right people; show discipline; stick to the rules you establish; and push for an economic system that rewards hard work, not greed.
Overseas, you should begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq. If you hesitate, you will be forced _ by an evolving consensus within Iraq _ to do so nonetheless. By initiating the process and controlling the timing, you can steer credit to responsible Iraqi leaders instead of allowing radicals to claim that they have driven us out.
The troops that remain as the redeployment proceeds should focus on further preparing Iraqi forces for command. Despite recent gains, the country is still threatened by sectarian rivalries. These have a long history and can be resolved only by Iraq’s own decision-makers. American troops cannot substitute for Iraqi spine. The time for transition is at hand.
In Afghanistan, an unsustainable stalemate has developed in which the majority of the population fears the Taliban, resents Nato and lacks faith in its government. Given the stakes, you may be tempted to “do more” in Afghanistan, but that alone would be a reaction, not a strategy.
Our own military admits that the current approach is not working. We cannot kill or capture our way to victory. We need more troops, but we also need a policy that corresponds to the aspirations and sensitivities of the local population. Under your leadership, Nato’s primary military mission should be to train Afghan forces to defend Afghan villages, and its dominant political objective should be to improve the quality of governance throughout the country.
Economic development is crucial, and you should encourage global and regional institutions to take the lead in building infrastructure and creating jobs. Diplomatically, you should concentrate on enhancing security co-operation between Islamabad and Kabul. Overall, allied efforts must go beyond killing terrorists to preventing the recruitment of cadre to replace them.
In addition to the Taliban, the reason we are in Afghanistan is al-Qaida, which remains an alien presence wherever it exists. Even its roots in Pakistan are not deep, and the failure of its leaders to articulate a positive agenda has reduced the allure of Bin Laden-style operations even to potential sympathizers. Al-Qaida, still dangerous, is beginning to lose the battle of ideas.
Targeted military actions remain essential, but you should avoid giving the many in the Muslim world who disagree with us fresh reason to join the ranks of those who are trying to kill us. This is, after all, an important distinction. Closing Guantánamo will help.
From the first day, you should also work to identify the elements of a permanent and fair Middle East peace. Cynics are fond of observing that support for peace will not pacify al-Qaida, but that is both obvious and beside the point. Your efforts can still enhance respect for American leadership in the regions where al-Qaida trawls for new blood.
Only effective regional diplomacy can persuade Israelis and Arabs alike that peace is still possible. In the absence of that hope, all sides will prepare for a future without peace, thereby validating the views of extremists and further complicating every aspect of your job.
The dangers radiating from the Middle East and Persian Gulf are sure to occupy you, but they should not consume all your attention. Just as an effective foreign policy cannot be exclusively unilateral, neither can it be unidimensional. You should devote more time and resources to regions, such as Latin America and Africa, that have been neglected.
As a leader in the global era, you must view the world through a wide lens. That is why I hope you will establish a new and forward-looking mission for our country: to harness the latest scientific advances to enhance living standards across the globe.
This initiative should extend to growing food, distributing medicine, conserving water, producing energy and preserving the atmosphere. It should include a challenge to the American public to serve as a laboratory for best environmental practices, gradually replacing mass consumption with sustainability as an emblem of the American way. Such a policy can serve the future by reducing our vulnerability to energy blackmail, while conveying a clearer and loftier sense of what the United States is all about.
Mr. President-Elect, the job once held by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and the Roosevelts will soon be yours. In years to come, you will be required to maintain your balance despite being shoved ceaselessly from every direction, and to exercise sound judgment amid the crush of events both predictable and shocking.
To justify our confidence in you, you must show confidence in us. End the politics of fear. Treat us like adults. Help us to understand people from distant lands and cultures. Challenge us to work together. Remind us that America’s finest hours have come not from dominating others but from inspiring people everywhere to seek the best in themselves.
Madeleine K. Albright was U.S. secretary of state from 1997 to 2001. She is the author of “Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership” (HarperCollins, 2008).
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk, 04/11/2008
Nov 14, 2008
London—MI6 has established that secret backroom meetings at the Mediterranean Nations summit in Paris early in July could lead to a dramatic shift of power in the Middle East.
At the meetings attended by Syrian, Spanish, Italian and Israeli intelligence chiefs, it emerged that plans for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will fail to destroy them because no Western intelligence service–including Mossad– knows where every facility is located.
Gaps in the intelligence on the precise location and vulnerability of the Iranian nuclear complexes emerged during the outside-of-conference meetings between the intelligence chiefs.
At the end of one meeting, Alon Liel, a former director of Israel’s foreign ministry, confirmed Israel had been engaged in “low-key second-track discussions for many months” with Syria.
Key to the progress of those talks was whether Syria was ready to break its close ties with Iran in return for the U.S. giving Damascus financial and military backing.
Liel made it clear that any deal with Syria would require its ending support for military groups such as the Palestinian Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah–both backed by Iran.
It was also made clear that any deal with Syria would probably not come until there was a new president in the White House.
An indication of how far the backroom meetings had progressed came from the Turkish foreign minister, Ali Babacan, who said there had been “real progress in formal talks between Tel Aviv and Damascus”.
Both the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, and his foreign minister, Tzipi Livni–herself a former Mossad officer–sat alongside their Syrian counterparts, President Assad and his foreign minister, Walid al-Muallim.
Publicly, Olmert acknowledged that the time was “fast approaching for direct talks”.
What prompted this dramatic change between two old enemies was that at the backroom meetings the intelligence chiefs learned for the first time precise details of the raid in September last year on Syria’s factory processing weapons grade plutonium.
The hitherto untold story of that raid is as dramatic as any of Israel’s previous daring and successful military strikes.
It began on September 3, 2007, when the early morning sun caught the rust-stained hull of a 1,700-ton cargo ship as it slowly steamed into the busy Mediterranean port of Tartous in Syria. From its mast flew the flag of South Korea and the stern plate identified the al-Hamed as being registered in Inchon, one of the country’s major ports.
Watching the ship manoeuvring into its berth from a distance was a man with the swarthy skin of a Kurd or one of the Marsh Arabs of Iraq. He was fluent in both their languages as well as some of the dialects of Afghanistan. He was, in fact, a Turkish-born Jew who had eschewed the life of a carpet seller in the family business in Istanbul to go to Israel, serve in its army as a translator and finally achieve his life’s ambition to work in Mossad.
Fifteen years later, he was recognised as one of its most brilliant operatives. In that time, he had operated in a dozen countries under as many aliases, using his linguistic skills and chameleon-like characteristics to observe and be absorbed into whichever community he had been sent.
Now, for the moment, he was code-named Kamal with a perfectly faked Iranian passport in his pocket. Mossad’s chief, Meir Dagan, had stressed to him the importance of his mission: to confirm the role of al-Hamed in the dangerous relationship which the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad had formed with North Korea.
Kamal had known before he left Tel Aviv that the ship had sailed from Nampo, a North Korean port in the high security area south of the capital, Pyongyang. A NSA satellite image had shown it steaming out into the Yellow Sea on a journey which had taken it across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope, up the Atlantic and through the Straits of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean and finally into Tartous harbour.
At some stage of its voyage, it had re-flagged itself at sea and the crew had painted on the stern plate the port of registration as Inchon. The newness of their work was still apparent against the drab grey of the rest of the hull.
Through a contact in the Tartous harbourmaster’s office, he had managed to check the al Hamed’s manifest and all day had watched trucks being loaded with the cement it listed. Then, as the sun began to set, military trucks arrived at the dockside and from the ship’s hold, cranes lifted crates covered in heavy tarpaulin which soldiers guided into the trucks. Using a high resolution camera no bigger than the palm of his hand, Kamal photographed the transfer. When he had finished, he pressed a button on the camera to transmit the images to a receiving station inside the Israeli border with Lebanon. In an hour, they were in Mossad headquarters.
Kamal knew then his trip had achieved all Meir Dagan had hoped. Though he could not see inside the crates, the spy intuitively knew the steel-cased containers were holding weapons-grade plutonium, the element which had fuelled the American atomic attack that destroyed the Japanese city of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. In his mission briefing, Kamal had been told by Professor Uzi Even, who had helped to create Israel’s own nuclear facility at Dimona, that the plutonium would, in its raw form, be easily transported as nuggets in lead protective drums, and the shaping and casting of the material would be done in Syria.
Now, on that warm September day almost fifty-two years after Nagasaki had been destroyed, sufficient plutonium had been delivered to Syria to devastate an entire country, its neighbour, Israel.
Shortly before noon on September 4, 2007, a number of cars drove past the concert hall of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in Tel Aviv and entered the heavily guarded headquarters of Major General Eliezer Shkedy, the country’s air force commander. As a fighter pilot he had won a deserved reputation for daredevil tactics coupled with a cool analytical mind. His speciality had been flying dangerously close to the ground, manoeuvring past peaks and rocky outcrops, then hurtling skywards to ten thousand feet, nearing the speed of sound, before diving on the target, his weapons system switched on, his eyes flitting between the coordinates projected on his hood screen to the bombsight and the target. Weapons released, he would turn radically, the screech from the strain on the airframe like a banshee wail, and he would once more hurtle skywards. From dive attack to his second climb would take him only seconds.
For the past week Shkedy had prepared for an unprecedented operation which would require those tactics to be carried out by pilots he had hand-picked because their flying skills matched his own. But they would be flying not the F-16 fighter plane he had once commanded, but Israel’s latest jet, the F-151. Flying at almost twice the speed of sound and capable of delivering a 500-pound bunker-busting bomb, it was the most formidable fighter plane in the Israeli air force.
For weeks the pilots had practised the flesh-flattening G-force of right-angle turns, diving and evading, to hit a small circle, the IP, aiming point, carrying out bombing runs at an angled dive of thirty degrees. They had practised all this in the pitch black of night in the Negev Desert. At first many of the dummy bombs had fallen wide of the IP, but soon they were landing inside, a number scoring the required bullseye.
Shkedy called them “my Top Guns”– though they were far removed from the Hollywood version of Top Gun pilots. His fliers were sober-sided, led quiet lives, rarely partied and had trained day and night for when they would finally be given the order to fly tactical strikes against Iran. Those attacks, they had been told, would take place at dawn or dusk. But all they knew so far about the mission they were spending weeks training for, was that it would take place in the dead of night. No one had yet told them when or where and they were content it should remain so. Curiosity was not one of their traits.
While F-151 twin afterburners glowed over the desolate night landscape and the pilots dropped their dummy bombs which exploded white phosphorous smoke on the ground’s IP to determine the accuracy of the drops, in Shkedy’s Tel Aviv complex his staff studied the approach to the target and discussed the precautions each F-151 must take from the moment its pilot pressed the red button on the control stick to release his bomb.
The time they would spend over the actual target, TOT, would have to be between two and four seconds. In that period with its bomb released, an F-151 would sink dangerously towards the ground, giving the pilot a second to fire his afterburner to climb and avoid the “frag pattern”, the deadly metal fragments of spent explosive which would follow the detonation. A bomb’s shrapnel would rise to three thousand feet in seven seconds and unless the aircraft was clear of the target area, it could be blown up and other pilots already at various stages of their bomb runs would fly into a curtain of lethal fragments which could destroy them. To avoid this, each pilot would have to endure body-crushing pressure of eight Gs while negotiating a radical ninety-degree turn away from the IP after bombing and climb to thirty thousand feet from the target zone to avoid ground missiles.
To calculate the precise distance from take-off to target and the exact angle for the attack, the planners pored over computer graphs, satellite images and physics tables to check and re-check figures. The targeters calculated that because the bombs would pierce the target roof before exploding inside, the roof would momentarily serve as a shield, reducing the frag pattern by between thirty and forty percent. To help further protect the lead aircraft over the target, it would have its laser-guided bomb fitted with a delay fuse, providing a precious two-seconds lead time before the detonation.
Given the distance to the target, it was clear the F-151s would each have to carry two external fuel tanks, one under each wing. Filled with five hundred gallons of fuel, each tank added three thousand pounds to the aircraft weight. That required further complex calculations to be made: the exact point at which the bombing dive would start and the altitude at which the ordnance would be dropped.
In late August, while the al-Hamed was entering the Straits of Gibraltar, General Shkedy flew to the base of 69th Squadron in the Negev; the squadron was the Air Force’s frontline air assault force trained to attack Iran. Waiting for Shkedy in the airfield briefing room were the five pilots whom he had selected to carry out the raid. With an average age of twenty-six, many came from families who were Holocaust survivors, like Shkedy himself.
For him the pilots had a kind of nobility to their youth; behind their relaxed and open manner was a steelness. Once before he had flown to speak to them at the start of their special training and had begun by saying they had been selected for an air-to-ground mission, military speak for bombing a ground target. He had looked into their faces, glad to see they showed no emotion. No one had looked at the huge wall map of the Middle East. Nevertheless he anticipated each would be creating in his mind the potential mission profile: a low level flight to the target, then a high level return very possibly into headwinds. In the Middle East the winds are always easterly, blowing in from the Mediterranean. It could be Iran. But they had not asked him then and they did not do so on that late August morning when Shkedy once more met them in the briefing room.
Standing before a plasma screen, he used a zapper to illuminate it. For the first time the pilots saw the target; a complex deep inside Syria almost one hundred miles northeast of Damascus. He explained there was “good and sufficient intelligence” to destroy the complex which the Syrians were using to build nuclear bombs. He waited for the flicker of response then continued.
Under the cover of being an agricultural research centre, the complex was already engaged in extracting uranium from phosphates. Soon it would have weapons-enriched plutonium coming from North Korea. He told them the Israeli satellite Ofek-7, which had been launched only two months before, had been geo-positioned to watch the activities at the complex near the small Syrian city of Dayr az-Zawr. He indicated its position on the screen. No bombs must fall on civilians.
Shkedy then turned to the route in and out of the target area. The aircraft would fly up along the Syrian coast and enter its airspace at the last moment north at the port town of Samadogi and then follow the border with Turkey. At the point where the River Euphrates began its long journey south into Iraq, the attack force would swing south to the Syrian desert town of ar-Raqqah beyond which they would begin the bombing run. The way out would be a high-altitude straight run between the Syrian towns of Hims and Hamah to the Mediterranean.
Over the coast of Lebanon they would turn south and return to base. The total mission time would be 80 minutes. In the event of an emergency, navy rescue launches would be positioned off the Syrian coast.
He ended the briefing by saying the attack would be in the early hours of the morning and would take place “soon”. For a moment longer the air force commander looked at the small group of pilots. Perhaps sensing their one concern, he added that every step would be taken to ensure Syria’s vaunted air defences would be jammed. He did not say how and no one asked. It was a mark of the trust and respect they had for General Eliezer Shkedy.
The genesis for the operation was a massive explosion on a North Korean freight train heading for the port of Nampo on April 22, 2004. Mossad agents had learned that in a compartment adjoining a sealed wagon were a dozen Syrian nuclear technicians who had worked in the Iranian nuclear programme at Natanz, near Tehran, and had arrived in North Korea to collect the fissionable material stored in the wagon.
Their bodies were flown home in lead-encased coffins aboard a Syrian military plane. By then a wide area around the crash site had been cordoned off and scores of North Korean soldiers in anti-contamination suits had spent days recovering wreckage and spraying the entire area. Mossad analysts suspected they were recovering some of the estimated fifty-five kilos of weapons-grade plutonium North Korea possessed. Since the crash–its cause never established–the intelligence service had tracked Syrian military officers and scientists on a dozen trips to Pyongyang where they met with high-ranking officials in the regime. The most recent meeting was shortly before the al-Hamed had left Nampo.
It was Kamal’s report and photographic evidence of the arrival and unloading of the ship that was the focus of the meeting in General Shkedy’s headquarters on September 4, 2007. The air force commander’s briefing room was dominated by large plasma screens on two walls. One contained a blow-up of the ship and the covered crates being off-loaded and driven away. A second screen showed the town of Dayr az-Zawr. A third screen displayed a satellite image of a large square building surrounded by several smaller ones and a security fence. The area was identified by the word: “Target”.
Sat around the conference table with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were the other key players in the operation, codenamed “Sunburst”. For Olmert it was further proof of his powers of survival. A year ago he had been close to being driven out of office after the debacle of the war in Lebanon when he was vilified as the most incompetent leader Israel had ever had.
He had fought back, appointing Ehud Barak as his new defence minister and Tzipi Livni as foreign minister. Both now flanked him at the table giving Olmert the political support he needed for Sunburst. Beside them sat Benjamin Netanyahu, a former prime minister and now leader of the Likud Party, having taken over from the stricken Aerial Sharon. Like Barak, Netanyahu was experienced in the complexities of “black” operations. Barak had been a leader in Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite commando force who bore the same motto as Britain’s SAS: “Who Dares Wins”. Netanyahu had approved several Mossad missions while in office.
The lynchpin of Sunburst was Meir Dagan. Early in the summer, he had presented Olmert with evidence of what he called “the nuclear connection” between Syria and North Korea that had reached a dangerous level. Syria already possessed sixty Scud-C missiles, which it had bought from North Korea, and on August 14, when the freighter al-Hamed was already bound for Syria, North Korea’s foreign trade minister, Rim Kyong Man, was in Damascus to sign a protocol on “co-operation and trade in science and technology”. Afterwards the minister had flown to Tehran, furthering the triangular relationship between North Korea, Syria and Iran.
Mossad’s analysts had concluded that Syria was not only a conduit for the transport to Iran of an estimated £50 million ($74million) of missiles, but also could serve as “a hideout” for North Korea’s own nuclear weapons, particularly its plutonium, while the regime continued to promise it would give up its nuclear programme in exchange for the massive security guarantees and financial aid the West had promised.
Until recently, Meir Dagan had remained uncertain whether this was the case. Now, the latest intelligence from his agents in the country showed that Syria was determined to create its own nuclear weapons.
The meeting had been called to discuss the matter. Dagan began by saying the crates unloaded from the al-Hamed had been tracked by Israel’s satellite to the complex. Dagan continued the meeting with his usual succinct analysis. The building was now almost certainly to be where the crates had been delivered. Inside its main structure was the machinery to cast the warheads for housing the weaponised plutonium. Scientists at Dimona had concluded that a small quantity of polonium and beryllium would be used to create the chain reaction for the plutonium, after the pellets were machined in “glove boxes”, sealed containers accessed only by special laboratory gloves to protect the technicians at the site. Dagan had concluded with a final warning: the longer Israel waited to destroy the site, the closer the technicians in the building would come to creating their weapons.
Within minutes the decision was taken to eliminate the complex.
In the late evening of September 5, 2007, Israeli commandos from the Sayeret Matkal dressed in Syrian army uniform, crossed into Syria over its northern border with Iraq. They were equipped with a laser guidance system designed to guide aircraft on to the target. With them were specialists from the Israeli Defence Force. In their backpacks was equipment linked to IDF electronic counter-measure jamming technology designed to disrupt Syria’s formidable air defences. When they were forty miles from the target the men hid and waited.
At their airfield in the Negev, the five mission pilots sat down to a large dinner; even though they were not hungry, they knew they would need all the nutrients for the sheer physical energy and mental skills they would expend in the coming hours. Afterwards they went to the briefing room where Shkedy was waiting with other senior officers. The briefing officer once more ran through the mission procedure: radio frequencies, radio silence protocols and individual call signs.
Take-off time would be at 23.59 with twenty seconds separating each plane. There would be a dogleg out to sea at 500 knots, over eight miles a minute, then, with Haifa to their right, they would drop to sea level and head up the coast of Lebanon, past Beirut and continue into Syrian airspace. From there it was on to the IP.
When the officer had ended, Shkedy walked to the front of the room and paused to look at each pilot.
“You all know the importance of your target. It must be destroyed at all costs. This is the most important mission any of you have taken or probably will ever take. Every step has been taken to protect you. But if anything does happen, we will do everything to rescue you. That I promise you. But I am confident that surprise is on our side. You will be in and out before the Syrians realise what has happened”, said General Shkedy.
No one in the room doubted him. They all knew the mission was a pivotal point in the protection of Israel. The silence was broken by Shkedy’s final words: “God be with you!” Then he stepped forward and shook the hand of each pilot.
By eleven-forty-five in the evening, the ordnance technicians had checked the bombs, ensuring each was securely positioned in its release clip beneath the wings of each F-151. After his check, the technician removed the metal safety pin from each bomb.
A minute later, the runway crew had reported the strip was clear of small stones or any other obstruction that could be sucked into the engine and destroy it.
From the twin tailpipes of the first aircraft, followed by the others, came the scalding heat from the afterburners.
In each cockpit the pilots had gone through the same drill: activating the computerised checks of the navigation, mechanical, communications and finally the firing systems.
Each pilot wore two suits: his flight suit and, over it, the G-suit, a torso harness, survival gear and a helmet. Clipped to each harness was a small gadget that would send a homing-signal if he was forced to abandon the mission.
At one minute to midnight the first F-151, with a roar and a plume of exhaust marking its progress, sped down the runway. Shortly after midnight the last of the planes had retracted its wheels. ‘Sunburst’ had begun.
The mission was a total success. Satellite images showed the complete destruction of the complex and, next day, Syrian bulldozers covering the blitzed area with earth to avoid the spread of radiation. It would be ten days before the country’s vice-president, Farouk al-Sharaa, would only say: “Our military and political echelon is looking into the matter”. In Tel Aviv Ehud Olmert, not quite able to conceal his smile, said: “You will understand we naturally cannot always show the public our cards”.
But to play them, in the early hours of the morning of September 6, 2007, those pilots had carried out one of the most daring air strikes ever.
In January 2008, three days after President Bush had left Israel, where he had been privately briefed on the mission, the Israeli Defence Force released a satellite image that showed Syria had commenced rebuilding the destroyed site.
Gordon Thomas is the author of a new edition of Gideon’s Spies: The Inside Story of Israel’s Legendary Secret Service, The Mossad, by JR Books of London and available on Amazon Books.
Source: en.epochtimes.com, 14 November 2008
FTA UK Press Release
London, 10th November 2008The Federation of Turkish Associations UK would like to voice their extreme frustration and disappointment at the actions and comments of the Duchess of York, presenter Chris Rogers and inferences made by Barrister John Cooper in the broadcasting of the distorted portrayal of Turkey in the programme “Duchess and Daughters: Their Secret Mission” aired by ITV on the 6th October 2008.
The rules and broadcasting codes laid out by Ofcom have been infringed according to section 1: “protecting the under eighteens”, section 2: “harm and offence”, section 3: “crime”, section 5: “due impartiality and due accuracy”, section 7: “fairness” and section 8: “privacy” and we are reporting these infringements to Ofcom and expect a full and detailed explanation of why this programme has been allowed to be aired.
Duchess and Daughters: Their Shambolic Secret Mission
The Federation of Turkish Associations UK would like to voice their extreme frustration and disappointment at the actions and comments of the Duchess of York, presenter Chris Rogers and inferences made by Barrister John Cooper in the broadcasting of the distorted portrayal of Turkey in the programme “Duchess and Daughters: Their Secret Mission” aired by ITV on the 6th October 2008.
As an NGO based in the UK, we have to clarify that our criticism regarding this programme is not because it is highlighting an institution which certainly needs improvement or to defend the methods used to treat mentally or disabled children under state protection in those institutions, but the presentation made and the wording used in the program to accuse and insult the Turkish nation as a whole.
We would of course like to see things improve in the social services in Turkey and as we are informed many improvements have been made over recent years. It is a pity that this programme has been made in such a way as to misguide the British public as to the conditions and attitudes towards disabled children in Turkey and has created negativity in the relations between the two countries and more seriously created grave concerns amongst the Turkish community in this country as to the aims and sincerity of ITV.
It is clear that the programme from the beginning had a separate agenda, perhaps to glorify the work of the Duchess of York or as a locomotive to encourage opposition to Turkey’s aspirations about the EU. It seems that the producers of the programme had in mind more of a two-pronged PR stunt aimed firstly at demonising Turkey and secondly at improving the flailing popularity of the Duchess of York at someone else’s expense. Perhaps in her own mind, she imagines she can fill the void left by Princess Diana who was a true campaigner for humanitarian causes. Unfortunately, our members do not believe that she sincerly cares about the issue and suggest she participate in a programme uncovering some of the child abuse cases that are frequently uncovered in Britain or to visit the war zones in Afganistan and Iraq to see the gross humanitarian crisis, particularly in the lives of innocent children.
Secret cameras used to film as if there were some cloak and dagger activities going on seem to be gimmicks used to imply that the Duchess was in some form of danger in Turkey. Another reference to police stopping the camera crew likened Ankara to some third world war zone, sensationalising the programme. Some of our members have been stopped and searched several times in the centre of London and they don’t need a camera to prove this since ‘stop and search’ is used as a regular practice by Metropolitan Police.
In any case the institutions visited by the Duchess were not orphanages for abandoned children as portrayed, but institutions for the mentally disabled. These institutions so ‘secretly’ filmed by the Duchess are open for inspection on a regular basis to NGO’s from anywhere in the world and not ‘hidden away’ as implied by the documentary. After the filming, no respect was shown to the rights of those filmed to protect their identity and no permission was obtained to show the film from the families of those involved. This is a gross violation of their rights.
Certain actions and generalisations used in the programme have been found very offensive by our members and have led to distress and disillusionment across a wide section of our community. Comments made such as “Many of these children are abandoned by their parents because in Turkey there is a shame associated with having a disabled child” is an unfair and untrue generalisation suggesting that Turkish people do not care about their handicapped.
Turkey has a population estimated at 70 million, of which 3% are registered as either physically or mentally disabled putting the total amount of handicapped people at approximately 2.1 million. The number of mentally disabled children in these 53 homes and institutions total only 3673 given by the State Ministry of Women and Family Affairs. This in itself shows, contrary to the accusations in the programme, that the vast majority of handicapped children are looked after in the home. The new initiatives set up by the government are facilitating even more of those in homes to be looked after back in their family unit. Unlike Britain, in Turkey most of the families look after their handicapped children at home and without any financial assistance from the government. Those children shown in the documentary are there because they come from extremely poverty stricken families or broken homes.
Again, claims by Barrister John Cooper “any country that treats its children like this is not ready to accede to a family of nations that aspire to dignity and humanity” is an insult to the whole nation and has given our members the feeling that the whole programme has been engineered to smear Turks and Turkey in an attempt to sabotage their accession. We would be very pleased if all EU member countries treat their children as he claims but we all know his statement is far from truth.
Comments like “Europe’s forgotten children”, “no hope for kids”, “born with a life sentence”, “grave concerns on Turkey’s human rights record” and many others are all exaggerated and unfair to the children or staff of the institutions shown in the programme.
Many things were also wrongly implied, for example, the impression was given that Britain is only giving support to Turkey because they need their cooperation in the war on terror. This is an outrageous claim, since Turkey has been on the forefront of fighting terrorism for many years and has suffered attacks at the hands of Al Qaida on several occasions.
It is very regrettable that such a programme has been aired, ignoring the damage it will make to the innocent people who live and work in those institutions. It is essential when doing any programme that a complete and balanced view be provided for the viewer and this is the responsibility not only of those involved in the filming but more so by the producers and broadcasters whom in this instance, have shown a blatant disregard for professional ethics.
We believe the rules and broadcasting codes laid out by Ofcom have been infringed by ITV1 according to section 1: “protecting the under eighteens”, section 2: “harm and offence”, section 3: “crime”, section 5: “due impartiality and due accuracy”, section 7: “fairness” and section 8: “privacy”. Therefore, we are reporting these infringements to Ofcom and expect a full and detailed explanation of why this programme has been allowed to be aired.
We believe that the “Every Child Matters” policy of the Government is vital and should be made universal. Whatever a child’s background or circumstances, they should be given the support they need to stay safe and healthy, enjoy, achieve, make a positive contribution and reach economic wellbeing. Therefore, we all have to work towards making the lives of all children better wherever in the world they may live, certainly not using them as a tool for personal or political aspirations just because they are a member of another nation. The positive approach would be offering sincere help by providing training courses in working with the disabled and psychiatrically disturbed and supporting those NGO’s who are making a difference to their inadequate system of caring for the disabled.
We as viewers have every right to expect fair, impartial, accurate and balanced programs from ITV and are therefore demanding that another program be aired to repair the damage done and help those affected. We also expect an apology from the Duchess of York for not acting responsibly and taking part in a program based on politics to smear Turkey by exploiting mentally disabled Turkish children and her daughters should realise that it is us, the British taxpayer that provides them with their luxurious lifestyles not Turkish or Romanian. If the Duchess and her daughters want to get involved in good causes there are many deserving groups in this country who may welcome their involvement and their financial contribution. Charity begins at home.
Notes to editors
About FTA UK
The Federation of Turkish Associations UK (FTA UK) was formed in 2002 consisting of sixteen independent and diverse Turkish associations to bring together the voice of their members on common issues. The FTA UK represents a large proportion of the Turkish community which is estimated at nearly 500,000 ethnic Turks who live mainly in London and its surrounding areas and includes Turkish Cypriots.
The Federation’s main aims and objectives are; to bring together the Turks living in Britain in solidarity and strengthen their relationship; to help the community to integrate better within the British system whilst maintaining their own culture and identity; to find solutions to their common problems and protect their common interests; to promote and enhance the British – Turkish friendship and to share the Turkish culture and history.
The Federation carries out its duties completely independently without being influenced by any political party, ethnic influence, religion or any form of discrimination and in the interest of the British-Turkish Community. It is a non profit – non governmental organisation and acts as an umbrella organisation and communication vehicle for the whole community.
Contact FTA UK :
E-mail: turkishfederationuk@yahoo.co.uk
Post: FTA UK, 41 Camberwell Church Street, London SE5 8TR
Telephone : + 44 (0)77 7000 003
Polly Curtis, education editor
guardian.co.uk, The Guardian, Monday November 10 2008
Universities are being asked to set up surveillance units to monitor the movements of international students in a government-led crackdown on bogus student immigration scams, academics say. New rules to force universities to report overseas students who miss too many lectures to immigration officers will harm the academic-student relationship because lecturers are being asked to act in a “police-like” manner, according to a group of 200 academics and activists opposing the moves.
A letter to the Guardian, organised by Ian Grigg-Spall, academic chair of the National Critical Lawyers Group and signed by leading academic lawyers, the head of the lecturers’ union and Tony Benn, claims that the rules could breach the European convention on human rights, which guarantees the individual’s right to privacy. “This police-like surveillance is not the function of universities and alters the educational relationship between students and their teachers in a very harmful manner,” it says. “University staff are there to help the students develop intellectually and not to be a means of sanctioning these students.”
The rules will require all universities to obtain a licence to admit students from outside the EU. They will then have to sponsor students, who will be required to have their fingerprints taken and be issued with ID cards. Lecturers will have to report any student who misses 10 or more lectures or seminars. Students will also have to prove they have funds to cover fees plus £800 a month for the duration of their courses. Universities have separately raised concerns that the system of registering overseas students, which is planned to take place at six centres around the country, will struggle to cope.
About 350,000 overseas students attend British universities every year. Universities are heavily dependent on the £2.5bn a year they pay in fees.
Almost 300 bogus colleges have been uncovered in the past three years, many involved in immigration scams.
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “We have grave concerns that new rules on monitoring foreign students have been pulled together without any consultation with the people who would implement them. We do not believe it is appropriate or effective to task colleges and universities with the policing of immigration.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “Those who come to Britain must play by the rules and benefit the country. This new route for students will ensure we know exactly who is coming here to study and stamp out bogus colleges who facilitate the lawbreakers.
“International students contribute £2.5bn to the UK economy in tuition fees alone. The student tier of the points system means Britain can continue to recruit good students from outside Europe.”
Source: www.guardian.co.uk, November 10 2008
A woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after a baby and toddler were reportedly found stabbed to death.
The bodies of a three-month-old baby and a child of three were discovered at a property in the Cheetham Hill area of Manchester.
A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: “A 21-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder and is currently in police custody for questioning.
“An investigation is currently under way into the circumstances surrounding (the children’s) deaths.”
A local newspaper reported that the children received fatal stab wounds to the chest, but a spokesman for the force said he was “unable to confirm or deny the reports”.
Officers were alerted to the grim find at the property in Kilmington Drive after reports of “concern for welfare” were made.
The house has been cordoned off, with several police officers standing outside. Forensic experts are carrying out a detailed examination of the house.
The sexes of the children will not be disclosed until next of kin had been informed, the force said.
Cheetham Hill is around two miles north of Manchester City Centre. It is undergoing regeneration and has a large proportion of council housing.
Greater Manchester Police is appealing for anyone with any information about the discovery to contact CID officers on 0161 856 3540. People can also call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
ITN
