Archive for the ‘Don’t Get Fooled Again’ Category
“Richard Wilson’s blog” has been kitemarked
Via "Love and Garbage"
I’m honoured to announce that this is the second ever UK blog to be recognised as an official, government-approved, kitemarked-and-licensed communicative online blognode (GAKALCOB).
The scheme was launched earlier this evening when “Love and Garbage” became the first to achieve this coveted status:
This official kitemark confirms that this blog has passed the stringent tests of self-regulation imposed by the independent regulator (namely a guarantee that when asked I will forget whether or not any of the things I have written on here are questionable, unethical, or immoral – and if they don’t ask if stuff I write is illegal or has been obtained in an illegal way I won’t have to answer that question). Let this assurance guarantee to you, my dear reader, that everything you read on here is of a quality at least as high as that you see in national newspapers.
Be assured that my chairing of the loveandgarbage Code of conduct committee where I assess if the loveandgarbage blog has breached any ethical moral or legal issues is a guarantee that I, and the licensing body, takes self-regulation very seriously indeed.
I’m delighted to be following “Love and Garbage”‘s lead, and to assure my readers that I will be following this code almost as assiduously as he will.
More background on this noble enterprise here.
GAKALCOB Kitemarking complaints procedure:
Should you believe that any aspect of this blog breaches the GAKALCOB Kitemarking Code, you may first complain to me, in writing, via the postal address given at the bottom of the page. Should you not receive a response within 365 working days, or should you wish to appeal my automated-rejection of your complaint, you may complain to the GAKALCOB regulator at the following address:
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The only way is ethics #BellPottinger
“I don’t see any reason why I or my company should follow some arbitrary set of ethical values”
- ‘Lord’ Bell in 2008, after taking on a contract to buff the image of the Belarus dictator Alexander Lukashenka
- ‘Lord’ Bell in 2011, after his company was caught by undercover reporters bragging about its influence over the UK government, and its use of “dark arts” to bury bad coverage.
Bell Pottinger cuts health information on skin cancer, replaces it with details of their client’s “telemedicine solution”
Thanks to the tireless Tim Ireland, the world now knows that the PR/lobbying firm Bell Pottinger have for years been factory-farming Wikipedia – ie. astroturfing on an industrial scale.
One of the more prolific accounts identified in Wikipedia’s subsequent investigation is IP address 109.231.203.194, and its list of edits makes interesting reading. The person or people behind this account were particularly busy with the Wikipedia entry on Melanoma (a type of cancer that most commonly appears on the skin). Their first edit, on September 2nd this year, was to add the following text:
Online screening
A recent telemedicine solution has been developed that allows people to screen moles online in under 24 hours – reducing the burden of needless anxiety on those with benign lesions, and unnecessary consultations with healthcare professionals. The service was launched in September 2010[1] by a company called Moletest and uses a unique ‘computational vision’ to assess photographic images of lesions (melanocytic nevus) against known case results – providing a ‘traffic light’ based evaluation where green is a ‘normal’ lesion, amber a ‘borderline’ lesion with potentially unpredictable biological behaviour, and red a potentially ‘cancerous’ one. The process is overseen by a panel of professional dermatolagists and has the potential to revolutionalise melanoma screening and detection, in the same way that smear testing did for cervical cancer in women.
It turns out that the company Moletest is or was a client of “De Facto Communications”, which describes itself as “Part of Bell Pottinger Health – the healthcare and pharmaceutical arm of the UK’s No.1 PR group” .
Soon afterwards, the Bell Pottinger account added near-identical text to the entry on Melanocytic nevus (skin lesions more commonly referred to as “moles”).
But in this case they went one step further – actually removing a whole tranche of text that gave details of how people concerned about a possible skin cancer might check themselves for symptoms. Here’s what they cut:
A basic reference chart used for consumers to spot suspicious moles is found in the mnemonic A-B-C-D, used by institutions such as the American Academy of Dermatology and the National Cancer Institute. The letters stand for Asymmetry, Border, Color, and Diameter.[5][16] Sometimes, the letter E (for Elevation or Evolving) is added. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, if a mole starts changing in size, color, shape or, especially, if the border of a mole develops ragged edges or becomes larger than a pencil eraser, it would be an appropriate time to consult with a physician. Other warning signs include a mole, even if smaller than a pencil eraser, that is different than the others and begins to crust over, bleed, itch, or becomes inflamed. The changes may indicate developing melanomas. The matter can become clinically complicated because mole removal depends on which types of cancer, if any, come into suspicion.
A recent and novel method of melanoma detection is the “Ugly Duckling Sign”[17][18] It is simple, easy to teach, and highly effective in detecting melanoma. Simply, correlation of common characteristics of a person’s skin lesion is made. Lesions which greatly deviate from the common characteristics are labeled as an “Ugly Duckling”, and further professional exam is required. The “Little Red Riding Hood” sign,[18] suggests that individuals with fair skin and light colored hair might have difficult-to-diagnose melanomas. Extra care and caution should be rendered when examining such individuals as they might have multiple melanomas and severely dysplastic nevi. A dermatoscope must be used to detect “ugly ducklings”, as many melanomas in these individuals resemble non-melanomas or are considered to be “wolves in sheep clothing”.[19] These fair skinned individuals often have lightly pigmented or amelanotic melanomas which will not present easy-to-observe color changes and variation in colors. The borders of these amelanotic melanomas are often indistinct, making visual identification without a dermatoscope very difficult.
People with a personal or family history of skin cancer or of dysplastic nevus syndrome (multiple atypical moles) should see a dermatologist at least once a year to be sure they are not developing melanoma.
The changes to both entries were cancelled just over an hour later by an eagle-eyed Wikipedia editor – the site’s editing rules stipulate that “Wikipedia is not …a vehicle for propaganda, advertising and showcasing”.
But it nonetheless seem striking that anyone would think it was a good idea to delete a fairly detailed account of how people might check for potential skin cancer symptoms and replace it with a puffy advertorial for a company that charges for online screening.
Bell Pottinger really do seem to be in a class of their own…
Pinochet, Bell Pottinger, and “reconciliation”
It turns out that long before they started shilling for the Belarus dictatorship and writing speeches for Sri Lankan war criminals, Bell Pottinger were paid apologists for the brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, lobbying hard to help the General evade justice after he was arrested in the UK on torture charges in 1998.
From The New Internationalist
Business people associated with Chile’s Augusto Pinochet Foundation are bankrolling the campaign in defense of Pinochet. Bell Pottinger, the public-relations firm headed by longtime Conservative PR guru Sir Tim Bell, worked under a $310,000 contract with the Chilean Reconciliation Movement, a pro-Pinochet organization operating in Britain…
Bell Pottinger has sent 14 postcards, in the name of the Chilean Reconciliation Movement, to 5,000 British ‘opinion makers’ (including the heads of the top 2,000 corporations, the members of the Houses of Commons and Lords, and the major news media). The buzzword of ‘reconciliation’ appears frequently, and several of the cards argue that Chileans are entitled to and have in their majority chosen reconciliation over ‘recrimination’ and revenge. But the content of the postcards is hardly conciliatory. Clanging relentlessly through the campaign is the claim that in 1973 the elected Chilean Government was raising paramilitary forces in order to establish a communist dictatorship – this is their justification for the military’s violent seizure of power and dictatorial rule.
Tim Bell’s public-relations expertise was also employed for a televised meeting between Pinochet and Margaret Thatcher in the house where the ex-dictator is confined. The meeting was arranged by Robin Harris, a senior advisor to Thatcher. Harris has also produced and sent to over 5,000 UK ‘opinion formers’ (the same 5,000 as the postcards, perhaps?) a paper entitled ‘A Tale of Two Chileans: Pinochet and Allende’. Harris’s paper rehearses the same accusation as the postcards – President Allende had planned a ‘self-coup’ with dictatorial aims. Over half of the paper’s footnotes cite a document produced by the dictatorship with CIA assistance shortly after the military coup. Harris also promises shortly an appendix detailing ‘Plan Z,’ the fictitious plot under which Allende and his associates were to eliminate an extensive list of enemies including prominent members of the armed forces.
The apologists of the dictatorship accuse the Left of crimes in fact perpetrated by the Right. On the lurid accusations of ‘Plan Z’, there were two current or former commanders-in-chief of the Chilean Armed Forces assassinated during the 1970s, but they were not assassinated by the Popular Unity. General Rene Schneider was murdered in 1970 during a failed kidnapping by right-wing military conspirators who planned to blame the crime on the Left in hopes of scuttling Allende’s victory at the polls. General Carlos Prats was assassinated in 1974, after his exile to Argentina, by agents of the military dictatorship. Both were despised by the Right for their ‘constitutionalist’ scruples…
The current campaign is not the first project in which the public-relations industry has served Pinochet and company. In fact, the military dictatorship directly employed numerous PR firms to polish its image over its 17 years. Starting in 1974, a US organization called the American-Chilean Council began work with the aim, in its own words, ‘to expose the misinformation, gross exaggerations and downright lies [about the Chilean dictatorship] being fed to the American public through the Left/liberal establishment’. Four years later the American-Chilean Council was revealed, in a lawsuit filed by the Justice Department, to be working in the pay of the dictatorship, basically as a front for the public relations firm of Marvin Liebman Inc…
Naming and shaming the journalists & editors who demonise people with disabilities
There was a sickening article in today’s Observer from Ian Birrell on the real-life effects of the recent media coverage on people living on disability benefit:
“Polls have found substantial increases in the number of disabled people experiencing aggression and abuse, with evidence that the attitudes of the rest of society towards them are worsening. Many disabled people were already scared to go out after dark or travel on public transport such is their justified fear of encountering hostility.
…Unfortunately, much blame rests on the shoulders of the media and certain parts of government. There has been a new dialogue over disability, characterised by the constant drip-drip of stories implying vast numbers of disability claimants are bogus, that benefits are doled out without proper checks and taxpayers fund free cars for thousands of children with minor behavioural disorders.
Many emanate from the Department for Work and Pensions, which has twisted facts, manipulated statistics and distorted data to win support for its drive to cut costs and crack down on benefit fraud. This cascade of spurious claims and scandalously spun stories ends up demonising the disabled. It does no credit to Iain Duncan Smith, the secretary of state, who proclaims himself a compassionate Conservative. Ministers say they cannot be blamed for the actions of the media, but they know how the game is played.
Meanwhile, there has been a significant increase in articles about “cheats”, “scroungers” and “skivers” in the media. Not just tabloids, but broadsheets and broadcasters. A recent Glasgow Media Group study revealed a near-tripling of these words in papers, alongside a reduction in reports on discrimination and sympathetic stories about disabled people. Focus groups found people suggesting seven in 10 claimants were fraudulent; in reality, levels of fraud for disability benefits are 0.5%, much lower than for other benefits – and less than the level of errors made by officials.
…It is grossly irresponsible for journalists and politicians to collude in this manner to create a climate encouraging hatred, hostility and abuse towards people for whom life is already so difficult. This would be true at any time, but especially at a time of such uncertainty, when people are fearful of the future and looking for others to blame for their misfortune. Those with disabilities should not be made scapegoats for other people’s sins.”
The picture Ian Birrell describes seems eerily similar to the way the more toxic elements of the media chose to portray refugees and asylum seekers during the early 1990s. Given the results of that campaign, it’s disturbing to think what life will be like for disabled people in ten years time if the current media campaign of demonisation is successful.
But the difference between then and now is that the internet allows us very easily to track false and misleading media coverage, and draw attention to the activities of repeat offenders.
A quick search of the Mail, Sun, Express and Telegraph websites seems to support Ian Birrell’s argument (by contrast, compare the Independent, Mirror and Guardian).
When the overwhelming majority of stories that contain the phrase “disability benefit” portray the claimants in such a negative light, and focus relentlessly on the tiny minority engaged in wrongdoing, it’s difficult to avoid concluding that the editor of the paper in question has a political agenda.
When the collective audience of the newspapers engaged in this campaign is so large, it’s easy to see how the public are getting such an inaccurate picture.
Whether through out-and-out misrepresentation or through an extreme form of “selection bias“, the reporters and editors who are distorting public perceptions of disability are having a direct impact on innocent people’s lives.
With a few notable exceptions, UK journalists who make false and misleading claims have generally able to evade the consequences of their actions, damaging other people’s lives without ever “becoming the story” themselves.
It struck me that one way of trying to address this issue might be to start documenting the UK media’s “drip drip” campaign of demonisation, highlighting the most egregious examples, and naming and shaming the editors and journalists responsible.
I’m interested in how widespread this problem is, and whether it will turn out to be just a passing phase or a sustained campaign, in the classic mould, with the potential to do serious damage to the status of a minority group. If you come across examples of press coverage that exemplify the problems that Ian Birrell has highlighted, please do leave a comment. I’ll also be keeping an eye out myself, and will update this page with the most extreme examples I find.
Spoof news magazine editor Fraser Nelson gets fooled again
Fraser Nelson, editor of Andrew Neil’s ironic spoof news mag The Spectator, has a track record of being taken in by cranks and pseudoscientists. A little while back he took it upon himself to promote an AIDS denialist film, House of Numbers, apparently in the belief that its makers had intelligent and useful things to say, and ran an op-ed piece dismissing HIV science as “the AIDS religion”. (see here for the original text)
Now The Guardian reports that Nelson has gone one step further, putting the notorious Swedish water-divining enthusiast and “magnetometry” mystic Nils Axel Mörner on The Spectator’s front cover, and leading his readers to believe that the guy is an authority on the effects of climate change on sea levels.
From The Guardian
Nelson’s “find” is a man some of us found years ago and have seen as a source of wild entertainment ever since. He’s called Nils-Axel Mörner, and among his claims to fame are that he possesses paranormal abilities to find water and metal using a dowsing rod, and that he has discovered “the Hong Kong of the [ancient] Greeks” in Sweden.
The celebrated debunker of cobblers James Randi challenged Mörner to demonstrate his expertise with a dowsing rod, but he “consistently refused to be tested”. He did however, allow his paranormal abilities to be examined on Swedish television, using a test that Mörner himself devised: dowsing for a packet of sugar concealed under one of 10 cups. Needless to say, he failed, blaming, as such people so often do, “interference” and “influences”.
In 2007, Mörner and his collaborator, a homeopath and amateur archaeologist called Bob Lind, were reprimanded by the Scania County archaeologist in Sweden for damaging an Iron Age cemetery during their quest to demonstrate the “Bronze Age calendar alignments”, which would somehow help to show that this local graveyard was in fact an ancient Hellenic trading centre.
Reviewing such claims, the archaeologist and chair of the Swedish Skeptics Society, Martin Rundkvist, comments that if Nils-Axel Mörner is associated with a project, it’s “a solid guarantee for high-grade woo.”
Now Mörner turns up on the front cover of the Spectator, under the headline “The Sea Level Scam: the rise and rise of a global scare story”. His wild assertions are published in the magazine without qualification or challenge. Far from it: they are proclaimed in the headline as “The truth about sea levels”. Yet they are as far from the truth as his claims about dowsing and archaeology.
Melissa Benn on “Free Schools” [sic]
From www.MelissaBenn.com
The model goes something like this: a set of new schools, apparently dedicated to radically improved education of the poor, is set up in competition to existing public provision. Heavily backed by corporate or philanthropic interests, with some working on a “for profit” basis, they are reliant on high-stakes results, strict discipline, a punitive approach to teachers and unions, and tend to have more control over their admissions, higher rates of exclusion, and to take fewer students with special needs or those for whom English is not their first language.
Meanwhile, public (state) schools, many suffering toxic spending cuts, drowning in often unjustified public and political criticism, must continue to educate anyone who comes through their gates, making the alternative new model look shinier still. Yet many still provide an outstanding education, particularly in deprived areas. Sound familiar?
Belligerent Burzynski rep gets on the wrong side of Rhys Morgan
Rhys Morgan is a 17-year-old sceptic from Wales who exposes pseudo-science in his spare time. Marc Stephens* is a representative of the controversial Burzynski clinic who has been sending threatening messages to bloggers who point out the lack of evidence for the clinic’s “miracle cure” claims.
Today, Marc Stephens found out what happens when you get on the wrong side of Rhys Morgan.
In a detailed article, Morgan revealed that Stephens had sent him a series of threatening messages over a blog post he had published way back in August. Alongside the standard-issue libel threats common to those of his ilk, Stephens had threatened to complain to Rhys Morgan’s school, and, even more bizarrely, emailed him Google Maps screenshots of his house, in an apparent attempt to intimidate him.
Morgan initially took the blog post down while he sought legal advice and tried to clarify what, specifically, he had said that Marc Stephens took to be libellous. Morgan then carefully explained to Stephens that the pre-action protocol for defamation requires complainants to specify the precise words to which they are taking exception. Vague, generalised demands, without a clear explanation of the actual basis for the libel claim, are not sufficient.
Eventually, Rhys Morgan gave up trying to get Marc Stephens to provide this information, restored his original blogpost, and published the abusive threats that he had been receiving. News quickly spread through Twitter and other social media – adding to the already-quite-substantial outrage about the Burzynski clinic and its supporters, and ensuring that yet more people heard the criticisms that Marc Stephens had been trying so hard to suppress.
While the UK media has been characteristically slow in picking this up – presumably the Murdoch press are too preoccupied with their own problems and the Guardian Media Group still frozen in the headlights after the Observer got sucked into the controversy – bloggers all over the world have been ensuring that this story continues to grow.
*Not to be confused with Mark Stephens…
Bloggers react as leading quackbuster is threatened with libel over exposé of charlatan cancer claims
Help defend free speech and call time on the libel abusers – sign the petition for libel reform.
I’ve seen some pretty vexatious libel threats over the years, but the abusive message sent to quackbuster Andy Lewis over his measured exposé of the “Burzynski clinic” and its ‘miracle cure’ claims stands out as particularly unpleasant.
I have a lot of respect for Andy’s work and it saddens me that someone would choose to respond to him in this way.
Our dysfunctional libel laws encourage this kind of bullying and urgently need reform. In the meantime, people who make vexatious libel threats in the hope of suppressing legitimate criticism need to learn that this will often have precisely the opposite effect.
Professor David Colquhoun has more background on this story, and comments: “We need a Streisand effect to face down these pathetic bullies. It’s the ‘I am Spartacus’ principle.”
I agree. I am therefore reproducing Andy Lewis’s blog post here in full and would encourage anyone who is concerned about this issue to do the same.
From Quackometer.net
The False Hope of the Burzynski Clinic
November 21, 2011It’s a powerful media myth that special American cancer clinics can provide miracle cures for cancer when the NHS cannot.
Yesterday’s Observer contained a full page, heart breaking story of a 4-year old girl, Billie Bainbridge, who has a inoperable and rare form of brain cancer, Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma. The only option for this aggressive cancer on the NHS is radiotherapy which may reduce symptoms for a few months. Two year survival is less than 10%. It is difficult to think of anything more devastating for a young family.
But the family of Billie do not want to give up – quite understandably. And they are trying to raise £200,000 to send Billie to the Burzynski Clinic in Texas that claims success with many forms of cancer. To help in this aim, comedian Peter Kay announced on Channel Four last night that he was holding fund-raising gigs this week to help Billie get the treatment that may save her life. As he said, “I just couldn’t not do it”. Enlisted to help raise the funds in many ways are a group of performers, including Badly Drawn Boy, Michael Bublé, Cheryl Cole, Gorillaz and Radiohead.
The fund raising web site, The Billie Butterfly Fund, describes the family’s hope in the Burzynski clinic. We are told that Billie has already travelled to America for preliminary treatment and that now she “has been accepted for pioneering Antineoplaston Therapy at the Burzynski Clinic in Texas which has been conducting FDA (US Government) clinical trials”.
Antineoplaston therapy specifically targets cancer cells without harming healthy cells. Each patient has a personalised treatment plan determined by medical history and extensive analysis. Typically treatment lasts for 8-12 months.
In order to be ‘accepted into the trial’, the family need £200,000. But there is hope,
Although there is no cure for Billie’s type of brain tumour, the treatment in America has improved survival rates in similar cases to Billie’s. It is conducted under the control of the responsible US Government agency. Most importantly it offers the real prospect of improving Billie’s chances of beating this dreadful disease.
It’s a compelling media story – a dying young girl, an NHS unable or unwilling to respond, generous celebrities and a hugely expensive and pioneering cancer clinic in the United States. But scrape away at the surface story and there is something much darker – and that story needs to be told and myths dissipated.
The Burzynski Clinic is at best described as ‘controversial’. There are many warning signs given out by the clinic that are typical of cancer quackery, and so great caution is required.
Let me list some of my concerns,
- Burzynski is a ‘lone genius’. Great scientific medical cures rarely stem from single individuals. They are the result of collaboration and teams. Such breakthroughs need to be assessed by peers to ensure that the researcher is not mistaken or overstating their case.
- Burzynski is claiming he has found the ‘cause of cancer’ and his antineoplaston therapy is its cure. Cancer is a name given to many different diseases. There is not a single cause and treatments need to be targeted as specific forms. It is a common quack claim that they have found the ‘single cause’ and they have a ‘unique cure’.
- The ‘cure’ – Antineoplastons – which were extracted from urine (yes – its the piss treatment) – has no good independent peer-reviewed RCT evidence suggesting it is effective.
- Consequently, the treatment is not approved by US regulators. However, it is approved if treatment is part of a trial.
- The Burzynski clinic charges hundreds of thousands of dollars for people to enrol themselves in a trial.
- These trials of this ‘new and pioneering treatment’ have been going on for decades – since 1977. No end appears to be in sight.
- The website Quackwatch has raised concerns about the origin of Burzynski’s claimed PhD.
So, there are many reasons to question this treatment and to wonder if it is anything more than the misguided obsession of lone doctor who might best be describes as a maverick.
Many people appear to have had deep concerns about the practices of this clinic. Dr Stanislaw Burzynski has been on trial for cancer fraud. He is not a stranger to the court room. In a trial in 1997, he was acquitted after a hung jury was unable to convict. An anti-health fraud organisation, NCAHF reported that interviews with the juror’s suggested they felt he “was guilty as charged of violating court orders not to distribute his unapproved “Antineoplastons” in interstate commerce”, but that due to the strong emotions of some of his patients, who believed in him, some jury members felt unable to convict, despite the judges warning to ignore such emotions.
Support for Burzynski appears to be very strong amongst some of his patients. But as NCAHF say, “Trial by placard waving emotion is a form of mob rule.” Burzynski, his supporters and the media are able to cherry pick those cases that appear to have done well with his treatments. Living patients can be strong advocates.
But those who die are silent. Earlier this month, an Irish newspaper reported the tragic story of Zoe Lehane-lavarde who also had a media campaign running to raise money for treatment at the Burzynski Clinic. The report says that Zoe ‘responded well to treatment’ at the clinic. She died, aged 18 months, a few weeks ago.
The case reports that are relied upon to show successful treatment are by their very nature one sided. They ignore the voices of the failures. That is why properly controlled trials are so important, independently peer reviewed. They are sadly lacking with this therapy. We cannot know if the ‘successes’ are small or large in number, or if the successes are due to the new treatment or some other factor. Cancer affects people in many ways. Some live for many years despite many others dying quickly.
Dr Stanislaw Burzynski faces more problems. It appears that the Texas State Medical Board are holding a hearing next April to revoke his medical license. The response from his supporters is huge with campaigns to write letters to Governer Rick Perry. There has also been a movie made in order to support him as he goes on trial – Burzynski the Movie – which you can buy or rent – yes buy or rent – on Amazon, Netflix or Lovefilm. I hope none of the money from his patients has been used to make such propaganda.
I fully anticipate getting lots of comments from his supporters here. Do a twitter search for #burzynski to see the passion. It also appears that threatening letters are being sent out (text here) to bloggers who question his treatment. That is not the action of someone who seeks the truth but of someone who wants to silence debate. Such attempts to silence cannot be seen to be in the best interests of patients but look more like the attempts to protect commercial interests.
The Observer should not have published an article that was so uncritical of such a questionable treatment. (You can write to the readers’ editor at reader@observer.co.uk). Such articles will encourage others to go down this misguided path. You may argue that such a treatment gives the family hope, even if it is not effective. It may do. But it looks as if this will be a false hope – and false hopes rob people of real choices. The Bainbridge family are in the grip of utter tragedy as the mother is also suffering from cancer. There are undoubtedly many ways that £200,000 could help them, but putting a little girl through dubious, risky and unpleasant treatment, that is exceedingly unlikely to help, is not one of them.
The treatment is not without its consequences. The article in the Observer describes what is going on,
Billie has already started the clinical trial. She went to Texas for a month, six weeks ago. She was able to come back and bring the treatment with her. She has a backpack with the treatment in it and a Hickman line going into her chest which administers this liquid every four hours. She has not been eating since she has been on the treatment so she also has to be fed through a tube – milkshakes and protein drinks.
False hope takes away opportunities for families to be together and to prepare for the future, no matter how desperately sad that is. It may make the lives of those treated more unpleasant and scary. (Antineoplaston therapy is not without dangerous side-effects). It exploits the goodwill of others and enriches those that are either deluded, misguided or fraudulent. It may leave a tragedy-struck family in financial ruin afterwards. Giving false hope may be more about appeasing the guilt and helplessness of ourselves rather than an act of kindness to the sick.
The Observer article talks about how Billie’s uncle has had his ‘cynicism melted away’ by the generous acts of people like Peter Kay. It appears to me that the success of the Burzynski clinic does not depend so much on published robust evidence (he has had decades to produce this) but on human kindness and goodwill. The blogger Orac describes how the Burzinski clinic has been relying on “harnessing the generosity of strangers” for years.
Orac sums it up,
The bottom line is that Dr. Burzynski is not a miracle worker. He is not a doctor who sees something that mainstream science has not and who therefore has a cure for many cancers that mainstream medicine scoffs at. He is not a bold visionary. Rather, he appears to be a man pursuing pseudoscience.
I understand how Peter Kay must feel when he says “I just couldn’t not do it”. We are compelled to help in such tragic circumstances. But I fear that in this case, such help will do more harm than good as others are drawn down this path. As always, people take claims on face value – a clinic that claims to help when others won’t or can’t. There are places that celebrities can go to to help ensure the science is sound, such as the charity Sense About Science, who welcome enquiries of this sort from people being asked to endorse claims.
Peter Kay is right to raise money for this family. And good luck to him. But it would be a dreadful wrong for this money to end up in the hands of someone whose actions cannot be distinguished from mere exploitation of the desperate. That money could make a big difference to this family. It could allow both mother and daughter to be looked after in comfort, without worrying about mortgages or jobs. It will allow them to be together. It will not perform miracles. And nor will it make the pain go away. But such a simple gift will indeed be an act against cynicism and false hope.
Slaying the super-injunction dragon and dismantling the secret courts
Today I was one of four bloggers giving evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Privacy and injunctions. Also on the panel were David Allen Green (Jack of Kent / New Statesman), Paul Staines (Guido Fawkes) and Jamie East (Holy Moly).
Trafigura
My main focus in the discussion was the notorious Trafigura super-injunction which I helped to unravel back in 2009, by posting a “banned” Parliamentary Question on Twitter.
A super-injunction is a gagging order that both prohibits the publication of a specific piece of information, and forbids any mention of the gagging order’s existence.
Trafigura’s super-injunction banned any reference in the UK media to a leaked company memo known as the “Minton Report”. When, in October 2009, the MP Paul Farrelly raised the issue in Parliament, Trafigura’s controversial lawyers, Carter Ruck, tried to prevent the press from reporting Farrelly’s question.
This had come at the end of a year that also saw a draconian libel ruling against the science writer Simon Singh. The year before, Ben Goldacre and the Guardian had successfully defended a vexatious libel case by the AIDS-denialist quack Matthias Rath – yet the newspaper nonetheless lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in unrecovered costs. I myself had spent time fighting off an unfounded libel claim over Don’t Get Fooled Again, and had seen up close the chilling effect that such threats could have.
To me and many others who took action the same evening, Trafigura’s super-injunction felt like the last straw after a series of attacks on freedom of speech. The bid by Carter Ruck to ban the reporting of Parliament seemed like imperial over-reach by a “reputation management” company far too used to getting its way from pliant High Court judges. It seemed extraordinary that a judge sitting in an English court – on a handsome salary funded by ordinary taxpayers – might allow such an effort.
The situation also seemed absurd. The “banned” Parliamentary Question had been published by Parliament on its own website. The Minton report itself had been available on Wikileaks for over a month. Yet anyone who repeated the same information themselves could face prosecution for Contempt of Court.
Secret courts and freedom of speech
But the fundamental problem was the very idea of a secret court hearing to ban the free exchange of information. When a court case is heard in secret, the public has no way of checking whether the judgements made in their name are decent, honest, and fair. Because we don’t even know that the case is going on, we have no way of holding the court to account if – as is inevitable from time to time, given human nature – a judge makes a decision through corruption, cronyism or incompetence rather than through the fair application of the law. Public scrutiny is an essential safety valve in any democracy, and it seems extraordinary that our political class would seek to dispense with it so lightly. This is not a new idea.
Likewise, any constraint on freedom of expression risks being abused by those seeking to cover up evidence of corruption or incompetence, as we have seen time and again with UK libel law.
We might nonetheless accept this risk in certain narrow circumstances. We might agree that some categories of information should in principle, in all or most cases, be kept confidential. Some examples might be:
- Children’s medical records
- The name and address of a person under a witness protection programme
- Information likely to be prejudicial to a criminal trial
We might accept that the courts have a role in enforcing this. But even in these cases, court decisions have to be open and public if we are to minimise the risk of abuse. And for a government official to extend such restrictions to information which merely has the potential to embarrass a large and powerful corporation seems, frankly, reckless.
“How does undermining the rule of law aid the public interest?”
Two years after Trafigura it feels as if progress has been made. There seems to be a general acceptance (other than from Carter Ruck and Trafigura, obviously) that Carter Ruck’s attempt to gag the reporting of Parliament was misguided. There is also a recognition that the current system of privacy and “confidence” injunctions is in a mess, and needs reform.
But it looks as if there’s a way to go yet. Prior to today’s meeting, the panelists were sent a list of somewhat loaded questions, including:
“Most of you have blogged about injunctions; some of you appeared to know or think you were breaching injunctions whilst you were blogging. What were your motivations for doing this? What made you think you wouldn’t be prosecuted?”
“Do you think that you are able to judge the appropriateness of an injunction when you haven’t heard the full case (compared with a judge who has)?”
“What is your definition of the public interest? How does undermining the rule of law aid the public interest?”
In one form or another, all of these questions came up during the session. I clarified to the Committee that when I chose to publish the Trafigura question I was by no means sure that I wouldn’t be prosecuted. I took the risk because I felt so strongly about the issue, and believe that many of the others who did the same thing were making a similar calculation.
The second question may seem reasonable at first glance. But the implication seems to be that when a judge passes a free speech restriction that appears completely unjust, or absurd, we simply have to nod deferentially and trust that they must have had lots of good reasons that we just don’t know about. This again, seems like a prescription for corruption and incompetence.
The last question was particularly interesting. While the Committee wanted to challenge us on our understanding of the “public interest”, it seemed to me that their definition of the “rule of law” was just as much open to question.
The United Nations defines the rule of law as:
a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities… are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced… and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It requires, as well, measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law… avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency.“
The International Bar Association, meanwhile, sees the rule of law as establishing “a transparent process accessible and equal to all”. The IBA spells out that “Confidence in the system of governance in any society cannot be maintained unless the process is open and transparent.“
On this basis, it would seem that High Court judges who pass secret edicts restricting freedom of expression – and the Parliamentarians who allow them to continue – are doing far more to undermine the rule of law than the bloggers who circumvent them.
Rich man’s justice
Lord Gold and Gisela Stewart MP seemed concerned – if somewhat bemused – by my suggestion that I would quickly go bankrupt if I was ever dragged into a libel court over something that I’d written. Surely this was incredibly unfair to any potential litigants who might end up losing money by taking me to court? His Lordship noted, disdainfully, that it wasn’t worth anyone’s while suing me, was it?
It was difficult to know what to make of this point, so I thought I’d expand on it here: A typical UK libel case can end up costing upwards of £100,000 to defend. This is a figure far beyond the means of most ordinary people, including most bloggers, and that is why, for most of us, being sued for libel would entail bankruptcy.
The main reason that such cases are so expensive in this country – reportedly around 140 times the European average – is that the “reputation management” firms that bring them are willing and able to charge more for an hour’s work than many of us earn in a week.
This is, in other words, a situation that the legal profession, aided by a Parliament unprepared, so far, to reign in the activities of such firms, has actively created. So it seems odd for Parliamentarians – many of whom, like David Gold, are also lawyers themselves – to wring their hands when confronted with the consequences.
I’ve no idea what the Committee will have made of our testimony. It is, at least, encouraging that these issues are starting to be debated properly. But it is nonetheless disturbing to see such a blithe acceptance among our elected officials of this fundamentally undemocratic system. It’s difficult to see how the current mess will be sorted out, and public confidence restored, until we dismantle these secret courts.
Straw poll – Is the current UK government better or worse than the last in basing its policies on good scientific evidence?
I’m doing an article on science, evidence and evidence-based policy and would be interested to know what people think about these questions:
1. Is the current UK government better or worse than the last in basing its policies on good scientific evidence, or is there no big difference?
2. Is “evidence-based policy” on the march or on the retreat, or is the picture more complicated than that?
3. What are the current challenges facing scientists in seeking to get their voices heard in government?
Please leave a comment or email me at richardcameronwilson AT yahoo dot co dot uk
[Update - I will not be citing this straw poll as any kind of representative sample of public opinion, but I am still interested in general impressions and especially any concrete examples of areas where things may be getting better or worse. ]
Rwandan government’s $50,000-a-month PR strategy revealed
Racepoint Group worked to promote “Rwanda’s visionary leader”
A detailed PR strategy prepared by lobbyists for the Rwandan government has been published by the US authorities. Under US law, lobby firms working on behalf of other governments are required to register their activities publicly.
The memo, which was prepared by “Racepoint Group” in 2009, is addressed to the Rwandan Information Minister from company bigwigs Larry Weber and Peter Prodromou – whose previous experience includes “working with the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Libya to positively impact global public perception and support negotiating positions with key allies”.
The strategy aims: to “build a strong and sustained Image campaign communicating the successes of Rwanda with key stakeholders in the political and financial elite communities” and “Offset the negative and factually incorrect information of those parties with vested interests in mis-portraying Rwanda’s advancements”.
Campaign themes include “Rwanda’s Visionary Leader… highlighting President Kagame and his visionary leadership” and “The Rwandan Miracle: Healing of a Nation”. The company’s fees are listed as $50,000 per month plus $2,500 – £3,500 per month for “out of pocket expenses”. The average Rwandan has an income of $510 per year.
Racepoint suggests that Rwanda has a “significant image problem”, in part because “Certain NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch, continue to advance a story of an unstable Rwanda” . Racepoint seems dismissive of this picture, alleging that Human Rights Watch and others are presenting it merely “as a means of continuing to attract donors and wield influence in the region”.
The PR firm then outlines “a consolidated set of tactics to publicize both Rwanda and President Kagame“. This will initially involve “leveraging top print and broadcast outlets to communicate the Rwanda success story… and, in the process, validate it based on their credibility”, together with “a proactive campaign that leverages the web to seed stories favorable to Rwanda”.
Racepoint singles out the Huffington Post as a particular online media target, together with “careful seeding across the blogosphere” to “initiate an offensive to control the organic search on Rwanda and set the agenda in print and broadcast”.
“At the same time, we will blunt the online impact of our opposition by initiating a wall of defense debunking their accusations… we will identify and selectively respond to the most egregious… we will erect, on free social networks, ‘walls’ of pro-Rwandan data that debunks myths and links to Rwanda’s national web site. This will enable us to establish captive audiences on the web…”
Further elements mooted include a “Celebrity Visitor Program” a “Global College Tour” for President Kagame, and “challenging heads of NGOs that are the country’s largest detractors to public, televised debates on networks like CNN, BBC and al-Jazeera. This will provide Rwandan officials with the opportunity to debunk mythology being propagated by hostile NGOs and other detractors.”
The Guardian last year profiled Racepoint’s PR work for the Rwandan government, and highlighted critical comments by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative:
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, in a report last year, found that Rwanda has “excellent public relations machinery” which has succeeded in “persuading the key members of the international community that it has an exemplary constitution emphasising democracy, power-sharing, and human rights which it fully respects”. It concluded: “The truth is, however, the opposite.”
Rwanda’s constitution, the report said, was “a facade which hides the exclusionary and repressive nature of the regime”, “basic human rights are in an unsatisfactory state”, “censorship is prevalent” and there are “serious concerns about the level of political freedom”.
Blogger arrested for filming council meeting: In Carmarthenshire, this is what democracy looks like
Furious council officials call Police after blogger refuses to stop filming a public meeting
From Carmarthenshire Planning blog
…when the row commenced over the Day Club, I started filming with my phone… I was asked to leave by the Chairman and Mark James, I said that I was not doing anything wrong, it is not against the law nor even in their standing orders (rules for meetings), neither was I disturbing the meeting…
As I didn’t leave, Mr James and the Chair called the police and then adjourned the meeting… it only took ten minutes today for two police cars and four police officers to appear in the Gallery. I tried to argue my point but was then arrested in the Public Gallery for ‘breaching the peace’. I was taken outside the door, handcuffed, searched, my phone taken and marched out to the waiting police cars. I was then taken 30 miles to Llanelli police station where I remained handcuffed for another hour before being ‘processed’, and put in a cell for another two hours.
By this time I was very disorientated, worried about my young daughter who needed picking up from school, I was cold (the police had taken my jacket and shoes and socks) and distressed. Without a solicitor present, I was then threatened by three police officers who said that if I didn’t sign an ‘undertaking’ not to film/record any more meetings I would be kept in overnight
Carmarthenshire blogger Jacqui Thompson is on Twitter as @caebrwyn
The Witch-Hunt Saboteurs
My latest piece in The New Humanist:
Two Decembers ago, an elderly widow called Zuwana Kampalira went on trial for practising witchcraft. The judge heard evidence that Kampalira had taken a young girl on a magic plane to the village where her grandfather lived. There she pressured the girl to kill her grandfather with a magic hammer. When the girl refused, Kampalira allegedly sought to persuade her to murder her father. The defendant initially denied these charges, but later changed her plea on the advice of the police. The court took a dim view, sentencing her to 30 months imprisonment with hard labour.
In a related case, 70-year-old Namalinda Josephy was charged with teaching witchcraft to a group of small children. The court learned that Josephy had the ability to transform herself by night into a black log or a big snake, and that she had done so in the presence of the children. Despite warnings from the police that she should admit the charges to get a more lenient sentence, Josephy denied the allegations. She was also sentenced to 30 months in prison.
In January this year, Tryson Jere, Mabvuto Jere and their wives Nyabanda and Nyachunga were accused of teaching 17 children witchcraft at night, and flying with them in a basket plane to South Africa and “within the local district to play football”. The group were charged with disorderly conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace, and are now awaiting trial.
These are just three of over 80 case-files compiled by the Association for Secular Humanism (ASH) in Malawi, where dozens of people have been jailed on imaginary evidence for the imaginary crime of “witchcraft”. Most are poor, elderly and from rural communities. ASH has campaigned successfully against efforts to recognise “witchcraft” as a crime. But some magistrates have been pursuing cases regardless, prosecuting people for an offence that isn’t even on the statute book. Others have been imprisoned for “pretending witchcraft”, or the catch-all crime of “disorderly conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace”. This despite the fact that Malawian law actually makes it a crime to accuse another person of being a witch.
Christopher Booker gets pummelled in a High Court Ruling
From Re L (A Child: Media Reporting), The High Court of Justice:
187. Mr Booker’s articles contain significant factual errors and omissions. In the first article Mr Booker gives the impression that it was ‘faint bruising’ which prompted the parents to take L to hospital and which gave rise to what he clearly regards as the over-zealous and unjustified actions of social workers working for the same local authority so recently criticised by me in Re X, Y and Z (Children). As he will come to understand when he reads this judgment, it was in fact L’s floppy arm which prompted his parents to take him to hospital. That floppy arm was the result of a spiral fracture of his left humerus. X-rays showed that he also had six metaphyseal fractures. In his first article Mr Booker makes no mention of any of those fractures. It was those fractures which led to the safeguarding measures taken – and in my judgment appropriately taken – by this hospital and by this local authority.
188. In his second article Mr Booker asserts as fact that in this case ‘the council has depended, in its campaign to seize this baby, on the same controversial paediatrician about whom the judge was so excoriatory’. I am aware that there is currently an application pending before the President of the Family Division in which the President is being asked to decide whether the paediatrician in that case should be named. Judgment has been reserved. I shall refer to that doctor, as I did in Re X, Y and Z (Children), as Dr M. At no time has Dr M had any involvement at all in the case I am now concerned with. Indeed, to the best of my recollection his name has never even been suggested as a possible expert to be used in this case.
189. All of this underlines the dangers inherent in journalists relying on partisan and invariably tendentious reporting by family members and their supporters rather than being present in court to hear the evidence which the court itself hears…
193. …As Lord Hobhouse put it in Reynolds v Times Newspapers Ltd [2001] 2 AC 127 at p. 238 ’No public interest is served by publishing or communicating misinformation.’
Human, all too human…
My latest in the New Humanist
If there’s someone on your radio right now telling you there are no big ideas in politics any more, or that our risk-averse society is lowering ambition and infantilising adults, or that the outpouring of anguish over Darfur says-more-about-the-anxieties-of-the-western-liberal-elite-than-the-realities-on the-ground, there’s a good chance they’ve got something to do with an organisation called the Institute of Ideas.
The Institute’s purpose, according to its founder, Claire Fox, is to “interrogate orthodoxies and debate the challenges facing society, and to make these things public activities”. It does this in the face of “politically correct etiquette” and an “illiberal liberalism” which “silences genuine public challenges to received wisdom”. The IoI’s annual debating festival, the Battle of Ideas (sponsored by Shell, The Times, Price Waterhouse Coopers and brewing giant SAB Miller), is a “public square within which we can explore the crisis of values”. The Festival “is very much a PUBLIC conversation”. Its motto is “FREE SPEECH ALLOWED”.
When a coalition of humanist, secular and equality groups rallied against the Pope’s state visit to Britain earlier this year, the IoI issued a press release (PDF) describing itself as a “leading British humanist thinktank”, denouncing the “hysterical” arguments of the Vatican’s critics and accusing “fellow-secularists” of conducting a “New Atheist witch-hunt”.
The Institute of Ideas has a close, if ambiguous, relationship with the online magazine Spiked, an outspoken scourge of environmentalism whose memorable slogans include “Bomb the Bans” and “Humanity is under-rated”. Both are orphan children of the magazine formerly known as Living Marxism (subsequently LM), which went bankrupt at the turn of the decade, following a disastrous libel defeat. Both are dominated by ex-members of the UK’s long-defunct Revolutionary Communist Party. Spiked contributors regularly feature in the Institute’s debates, and the magazine often echoes IoI concerns. Ahead of the Papal visit, Spiked ran articles attacking the reaction from secularists, including New Humanist, as a “fear-driven campaign of demonisation”.
Critics have accused the Institute of Ideas and Spiked of knee-jerk contrarianism, of empty sloganeering, of trading the garb of the far-left for that of hard-right libertarians, of being guided more by the interests of their corporate sponsors than by any coherent underlying philosophy.
But whatever else one thinks, Spiked and the IoI have a talent for getting noticed. Claire Fox gets a weekly slot on BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze discussion programme. Spiked’s “editor at large”, Mick Hume, has a regular column in The Times. The Institute of Ideas is active in UK schools, as is a related organisation, Worldwrite. Whole websites have been devoted to tracking the influence of ex-RCP figures in the UK media.
So what kind of humanists are they? Do they have a genuine commitment to open debate or is this just a rhetorical conceit? And who’s really defending the legacy of the Enlightenment? I went along to this year’s Battle of Ideas festival to try to find out.
Guest post by “Kabonesho”: TENTH COMMEMORATON OF THE TITANIC EXPRESS MASSACRE : WILL JUSTICE EVER PREVAIL IN BURUNDI?
Sorting ethnic victims as under the Nazis, grouping the Tutsi on one side, the executioners strip victims of their property, rape women, machine-gun all the Tutsi, whoever looks like them (at least according to the stereotypes dating from the colonial racist now and still in force), all Tutsi’s friends and those who take their defense, then go quietly to write up a report for the genocidal hierarchy as this would be shown in documents that were later seized in the den of these bloodthirsty criminals…
This took place in Burundi in 2000, on December 28th to be precise, when the PALIPEHUTU-FNL terrorist organization attacked the Titanic Express bus linking Kigali (Rwanda) to Bujumbura (Burundi). It was one of many terrorist acts by these neo-Nazi genocidal militias, now in power in Burundi and which genocide denials shamefully call ‘democrats,’ ‘peace pillars,’ and ‘peacemakers,’ ….
One of the victims, Miss Charlotte Wilson, was a British citizen and a professor at Nyamirambo, Rwanda. She was making the trip together with her fiancé from Burundi, Ndereyimana Richard, a professor at the same school. She was be introduced to his family in view of their future marriage.
Riahcrd is handsome and tall; for the terrorists under the command of Agathon Rwasa, the commandeer of the carnage, he must be a Tutsi and it doesn’t matter whether the characterization was wrongful. His physique is sufficient ‘reason’ for him to be savagely mutilated and then murdered together with his fiancée, while the executioners rejoice in singing “IBIKUNDANYE BIRAJANA” (those who love must die together).
There was also a Canadian citizen of Burundi origin aboard that Titanic Express bus that was linking Kigali, rwanda to Bujumbura, Burundi. His name was Arthur Kabunda. He was Tutsi, and as for the others, this was sufficient to justify his murder.
There is no doubt that the attack was committed by the PALIPEHUTU militia, now in power with the other racist, terrorist and genocidal organization CNDD-FDD. In his December 2000 monthly report dated January 12, 2001, the then commander of the PALIPEHUTU terrorist militias operating from Tenga, SIBOMANA Albert, wrote that the attack was scheduled for December 27, 2000 but the bus had not shown up. It was therefore postponed to the next day at Mageyo on RN1 highway. In the meantime, the terrorists had reinforced both material and human resources that they needed for the ambush. Therefore, this attack was a carefully planned terrorist act.
What is surprising is the fact that Canada and Britain, two nations who claim to be the avant-garde position in the fight against terrorism, acts of genocide and crimes against humanity, support the impunity of the organizations and individuals who have commandeered and carried out these crimes. The stand is even paradoxical if we consider that the victims were not from Burundi alone, but they included also of citizens of Canada, Great Britain two other countries.
It should be recalled that many other international figures have been deliberately massacred in Burundi by these organizations. The international community’s reaction, if any, was more support for these criminals against humanity now in power in Burundi. Obviously, the consequences could be but more institutionalization of impunity as well as violation of international law and universal morality.
One such example is the murders of Representatives of UNICEF, WHO, and the Apostolic Nuncio in Burundi, to mention but the most senior dignitaries. Yet, neither the UN nor the Vatican does promote in Burundi the badly needed rule of law that would curb impunity and establish for peace a foundation that is stronger than the institutionalization of terrorism and racism that were inherited from the Arusha process.
However, that these acts and their perpetrators are of racist, terrorist and criminal nature, is established beyond any possible doubt:
§37 “Effective impunity generates political violence and is a serious destabilizing element in all contexts of the Burundi socio-political system. Respect for the rule of law is essential to maintain order and stability and to protect human rights in any country. Impunity encourages and perpetuates the mass violations of human rights. There have been periodical mass killings, but extremely few perpetrators have been brought to justice. Furthermore, impunity is an obstacle to democratic development and peace negotiations, and makes reconciliation difficult.”[1]
“An amnesty in Burundi is exactly the wrong direction to take,” said Peter Takirambudde, executive director of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch. “Many of the killings in Burundi, whether perpetrated by Tutsi or by Hutu, were crimes against humanity. A U.N. Commission has described some of them as genocide. How can there be any hope of justice and order in Burundi if crimes of this magnitude are left unpunished?
Human Rights Watch urged the creation of a new division of the existing International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to prosecute crimes committed in Burundi. It also recommended using foreign jurists within Burundian courts to speed judging the thousands of persons accused of ethnic killings and other attacks since 1993.”[2]
§496. “[3]Having concluded that acts of genocide against the Tutsi minority were committed in Burundi in October 1993, the Commission believes that international jurisdiction should be asserted with respect to these acts.”
It should recalled also that the FNL are the result of a merger between the PALIPEHUTU militias and the ex-FAR/Interahamwe. The agreement to implement that fusion was signed in Cibitoke, Burundi on May 28, 1997. The FDD also cooperate closely with the ex-FAR/Interahamwe, following other agreements signed between then CNDD-FDD’ chairman Leonard Nyangoma and ex-FAR’s Commander in Chief, General Augustin Bizimungu. The UN released these agreements, and reports by Human Rights Watch revealed that nearly 60% of the militia that were terrorizing the neighborhood of Bujumbura were half-Burundian, half-Rwandan …
International Crisis Group report dated 18.05.2001 confirms that cooperation or merger: ” The presence of armed elements of the Rwandan Hutu opposition in Burundi and the rebel PALIPEHUTU association with the RAF is old. “
Cooperation between genocidal militias is limitless. The same report from International Crisis Group warns that “contacts between the political branches and the staffs FDD of Jean Bosco Ndayikengurukiye and FNL of Agathon Rwasa are now regular. In addition to a meeting in late March Mayotte between politicians from two movements, Rwasa also visited Lubumbashi at the same time for a congress of the FDD in order to devote the alliance of two rebel movements. The FDD and FNL refuel in uniforms, weapons and ammunition via Kivu, are doing a hand if necessary and exchange information on the positioning and movement of the Burundian army [28].
In 1997, the UN published the report S/1997/1010 proving that “there is close link between the Rwandan and Burundian insurgent forces, including increasing coordination, cooperation and joint planning between the former Rwandan government forces/Interahamwe and the Burundian Conseil National pour la Defense de la Démocratie and its military wing, the Front pour la Défense de la Démocratier (CNDD-FDD (§ 108 d) The following year, in 1998 the same UN published another report, S/1998/777 proving once again that ” very close co-operation exists between the ex-FAR and two of the Burundian rebel groups: CNDD/FDD and the Parti pour la libération du peuple hutu (PALIPEHUTU) and its military wing, the Forces Nationales de Libération (FNL).” (paragraph 46)
The same report publishes the ” Cooperation Agreement (in Appendix II) signed May 22, 1995 in Bukavu (Democratic Republic of Congo) by the high command of the FAR and the CNDD, formalizing cooperation between the two parties. It was signed by Leonard Nyangoma, President of the CNDD, and Major General Augustin Bizimungu, Commander and Chief of Staff of the ex-FAR. In the preamble to this document, both sides say they are “convinced of the benefits of pooling resources, both material and financial, and coordination of all actions that are needed to ensure a final victory of the FAR and FDD. “(paragraph 47)
On May 21, 1997, another cooperation agreement was signed in DRC between the FNL’s Kagoma battalion and the FAR. It translates as: “We, the delegations of the Kagoma Battalion and Forces Nationales de Liberation, having met successively on April 25 and April 26,1997; May 5 and tMay 21, 1997; have agreed to unite in order to fight our common enemy, namely the Mututsi and his acolytes; in view to free our beloved nation. To achieve this, after our meeting this May 21, 1997, our cooperation project was successful, and we have decided what follows:
1 ° The merger of the Forces under the name “NATIONAL LIBERATION FORCES”;
2 ° The Forces thus merged are dedicated to the total liberation of the Hutu Nation;
3 ° To achieve the objective assigned to the National Liberation Forces, it was decided to begin our struggle from the front of Burundi, the Rwanda front will come second;
4 Throughout the process of liberation, the two forces’ logistics, material, and human means are common.
In other words, the false rebels, who run the institutions of the puppet government in Bujumbura Burundi are not even Burundian!
Is there a reason why law and morality are so despised, even in Burundi? Is there a reason why criminals against humanity continue to be proclaimed kings in Burundi for the same crimes and same accomplices that put them to trial in the case of neighboring Rwanda?
Now that we have been honoring and incensing shame and dishonor, it is high time to go back and earnestly realize that happy and peaceful future is on the side of the proponents of the rule of law in Burundi.
[1] Economic and Social Council deferred E/CN.4/1996/4/Add.1 24 July 1995 § 37
[2] Human Rights Watch, Neglecting Justice in Making Peace, 2001
[3] International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi Final Report (S/1996/682)
Background and links on the Titanic Express massacre
On December 28th 2000, twenty-one unarmed civilians, including my sister Charlotte Wilson (a British aid worker), and her Burundian fiancé Richard Ndereyimana, were massacred after their bus, bearing the ill-fated name “Titanic Express”, was ambushed in Bujumbura-Rurale, close to the Burundian capital Bujumbura.
According to survivors, the attackers opened fire on the bus at around 3.30pm local time (1.30pm in the UK), shooting out the tyres and forcing it to crash. A large, well-armed group then surrounded the vehicle, ordered the passengers out, robbed them, and separated them according to their ethnicity. Several Hutus and Congolese were released unharmed. The remaining passengers were stripped to their underclothes, made to lie face down on the ground, and shot. Most of the victims were Rwandan and Burundian Tutsis. Charlotte Wilson was the only European on board.
Who carried out the attack?
The Titanic Express massacre took place in an area dominated by a Hutu-extremist rebel group known for its hatred of Tutsis, Palipehutu-FNL (aka “the FNL”). One survivor recounts that the attackers specifically identified themselves, saying “We are the FNL, not your FDD” (FDD was the FNL’s largest rival at the time). Others have simply described them as “rebels”.
In March 2001 Amnesty International listed the Titanic Express attack among several believed to have been carried out by the FNL. In May 2001, the International Crisis Group attributed the Titanic Express attack to FNL “troops under the order of… Agathon Rwasa”. A Human Rights Watch report from April 2000 lists a number of carried out a number of similar attacks in the same area earlier in 2000.
In 2002, a document emerged which appears to be a detailed report by the FNL, signed by Commandant Albert Sibomana, of the Titanic Express attack, listing what was looted from the bus, how many people were killed and how many bullets were expended in killing them. Dozens of smaller attacks were listed in the same report.
Sibomana’s track record is bloodthirsty even by the standards of Burundi’s conflict. In February 2000, he reportedly oversaw the massacre of hundreds of his own comrades, after a split within the FNL.
At the time of the Titanic Express attack, Agathon Rwasa was FNL “Chief of Operations” around Bujumbura. In early 2001, he ousted the FNL’s then leader Kossan Kabura, and assumed overall control of the whole group.
Following years of negotiations, the FNL agreed to end hostilities in April 2009, and began disarming. But amid ongoing instability, the UN recently reported that Rwasa was remobilising his forces for a “new holy war” from bases in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Later I’ll add some links to further reading on Burundi’s recent history, and the long-promised plans for a UN-backed “Special Chamber” and Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
December 28th 2010: Justice for Charlotte – Free Jean-Claude Kavumbagu
Video piece about Charlotte’s murder – “Rights Universal”, Channel 4, 2008
Charlotte Wilson, a British citizen, was killed in a bus massacre in Burundi on December 28th 2000. It was one of many brutal ethnic attacks by the Hutu-extremist “Forces Nationales de Liberation” (FNL). Despite repeated promises, the Burundian government has made no serious effort to investigate the killings, or prosecute those responsible.
On the 10th anniversary of Charlotte’s death, her family are urging the UK government to press Burundi to keep its promises, and bring the perpetrators of this massacre to justice.
If you have thirty seconds – please show your support by joining the Justice For Charlotte Facebook group.
If you have five minutes -please contact your MP via this website, asking them to raise Charlotte Wilson’s case with the UK Foreign Office.
Charlotte’s family are asking the UK government to press the Burundian President, Pierre Nkurunziza, to fulfil his longstanding promise to set up a special UN-backed court to investigate the many abuses committed during the country’s long civil war, and prosecute the worst offenders. Human rights experts argue that this approach offers the best hope of achieving both justice and peace in this troubled country. Charlotte’s family believe that the establishment of this special court will be a major step towards justice for the victims of the December 28th 2000 “Titanic Express” bus massacre.
If you have ten minutes - please Fax a or post a letter to Burundi’s President, Pierre Nkurunziza urging him to release the journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu.
Tragically, while the war criminals remain free, one of the Burundian journalists who has done most to highlight the Titanic Express massacre, Jean-Claude Kavumbagu, has been languishing in prison since July. He is facing a criminal trial for “defamation” and “treason” after making critical comments about Burundi’s army.
Amnesty International have listed Jean-Claude as a Prisoner of Conscience and issued the following appeal:
PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in French, English, Kirundi or your own language:
- expressing grave concern that journalist Jean-Claude Kavumbagu has been detained on charges of treason and defamation for criticizing the Burundian security services;
- urging the authorities to release him immediately and unconditionally, as he is a prisoner of conscience detained solely for exercising his right to freedom of expression;
- reminding the authorities that, as a state party to the African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Burundi is obliged to uphold the right to freedom of expression.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 17 JANUARY 2011 TO:
President
Pierre Nkurunziza, Président de la République, Présidence de la République, Boulevard de l’Uprona, Rohero I, BP 1870, Bujumbura, Burundi
Fax: +257 22 24 89 08
Message of support from Burundi opposition leader Alexis Sinduhije
Alexis Sinduhije is an award-winning former journalist and political prisoner, now the leader of Burundi’s “Movement for Security and Democracy”. I’ve been in touch with him since 2002, when he was director of Burundi’s groundbreaking Radio Publique Africaine. During Burundi’s long civil war, RPA took the lead in investigating and reporting on the abuses on both sides, including the December 2000 “Titanic Express” massacre, in which my sister Charlotte was killed.
Earlier today I emailed Alexis to tell him about my own plans for marking the 10th anniversary of the attack. I was pleased and encouraged to get this reply: “I support your action. I am on the same stand: justice, justice and justice for the victims of Titanic”.
Alexis speaks in more detail here about the wider need for justice in Burundi as a means of breaking the cycle of corruption and abuse.
