By Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Britain is training Saudi Arabia's National Guard – the elite security force deployed during the recent protests in Bahrain – in public order enforcement measures and the use of sniper rifles. The revelation has outraged human rights groups, which point out that the Foreign Office recognises that the kingdom's human rights record is “a major concern”.
Is this, however, surprising anyone? It does not surprise me in the least because Britain is making good money – though not ethical money – by training such kind of forces in many places of the world where we'd better not be doing that.
The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that British personnel regularly run courses for the Saudi National Guard in “weapons, fieldcraft and general military skills training, as well as incident handling, bomb disposal, search, public order and sniper training”. The courses are organised through the British Military Mission to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, an obscure unit that consists of 11 British army personnel under the command of a brigadier.
Britain sends up to 20 training teams to the kingdom a year. Saudi Arabia pays for “all BMM personnel, as well as support costs such as accommodation and transpor”".
Bahrain's royal family used 1,200 Saudi troops to help put down demonstrations in March. At the time the British government said it was “deeply concerned” about reports of human rights abuses being perpetrated by the troops, but that seems to make no difference as to British “assistance” to Saudi Arabia. Maybe one should dig deeper to see as to whether the BMM may be giving similar training to the Bahrain.
Britain's important role in training the Saudi Arabian National Guard in internal security over many years has enabled them to develop tactics to help suppress the popular uprising in Bahrain and they have used the skills with great effectiveness.
One can be nigh on certain that the same National Guard is being used to suppress any activities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself as well and this makes Britain culpable in this, whether in Saudi Arabia or in Bahrain.
British Defence minister Nick Harvey confirmed to parliament last week that the UK's armed forces provided training to the Saudi National Guard. “It is possible that some members of the Saudi Arabian National Guard which were deployed in Bahrain may have undertaken some training provided by the British military mission,” he said.
It is possible? I think we can be 99% certain that that is the case and the British government is playing a game here, yet again. To the outside world and to its own subjects – there are no British citizens – they claim the moral high ground while they allow British service personnel via a government-operated training organization to give such training to foreign governments.
The reason, according to the MoD for conducting such training missions to Arab Gulf states is to enable them to fight against Islamist terrorism. Yeah, right, and at the same time to suppress the aspirations of its own people for freedom and democracy. Even though the latter is not as great as it is always being made out to be.
It is intensely hypocritical of our leadership in the UK – Labour or Conservative – to talk of supporting freedoms in the Middle East and elsewhere while at the same time training crack troops of dictatorships. But, as I said, there is money in this game, money for the government, and when money is involved they care little about human tights.
Last year, Britain approved 163 export licences for military equipment to Saudi Arabia, worth £110m. Exports included armoured personnel carriers, sniper rifles, small arms ammunition and weapon sights. In 2009, the UK supplied Saudi Arabia with CS hand grenades, teargas and riot control agents.
We have also now seen what is happening in Pakistan with regards to them being our allies in the fight against al-Qaida, where it turns out that CIA informants have been arrested simply because they have been passing on information on the Taliban and al-Qaida to Langley.
With friends like those we do not need enemies.
© 2011
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