100,000 anti-war demonstrators march to Hyde Park, an 82 year old is thrown out of the Labour Party conference for heckling Jack Straw on Iraq, and the family of Jean Charles de Menezes visit the site of the murder of their son and call for the resignation of London police boss lan Blair - and B.liar is silent, haunted by the spectre of the war he dare not mention.
People marched on Saturday September 24 in London for peace and liberty. The march began in Parliament Square and finished in Hyde Park. People took 2 hours to move into Hyde Park; transport came from all over the UK, from Aberdeen to Cornwall.
New Labour recently passed legislation decreeing demonstrations in Parliament Square illegal. Nobody was arrested under the new law on Saturday.
The march was joined by feeder marches from Stockwell, where Jean Charles de Menezes was murdered, and East London. The East London march was led by a vibrant mix of chanting youth - "George Bush, we know you! Ya daddy was a killer too!!" It met with the main march in Whitehall after bringing the anti-war message to tourists and shoppers in central London as well as the Ministry of Defence.
Military Families against the War, including Sue Smith whose son died in July and who delivered a letter and petition to Downing St, led the main march.
Speakers at the rally included John Pilger, Tom Hayden from the US, Tarig Ali, Brian Eno and Bianca Jagger. Some speakers raised the prospect of a campaign of non-violent direct action against the war.
The vocal demands of the demonstration on Saturday were a dramatic contrast to the silence of the Labour Party conference. Blair did not mention the war, nor did Gordon Brown.
The silence on the war was broken when Jack Straw addressed the conference. 82year-old Walter Wolfgang, Labour member for 57 years, heckled the Foreign Secretary and was physically removed. ference was only lifted when it was clear what PR damage the event had done to New Labour.
"We have been lied to about the war. But not only that. The party has been manipulated so that it has not been allowed to discuss the issue properly.
"Indeed, the Labour leaders have got so nervous of criticism that when I shouted the single word "nonsense" - when the Foreign Secretary sought to paper over the issue with smooth words - party officials sent the bouncers in. Even one word of criticism, it seems, was too much" said Wolfgang afterwards
Not even the grief of the family of Jean Charles de Menezes pierced the bubble of Labour Party conference. The family visited the site of his execution as more revelations of then events of that day came out. The incompetence of the police combined with a murderous shoot-to-kill policy led to the cold-blooded execution of a man on his way to work.
It is now known that the police were watching the door of a block of flats - rather than just one flat and that an armed response unit was called but didn't arrive in time to detain Menezes before he entered the underground.
There was no chase -Menezes collected a newspaper and swiped his ticket through the barriers and was pinned in mas seal unable to move by One officer while another officer fired into his skull at least 6 times with 3 second intervals (some reports say 10) and then once in me Casu
lan Blair knew that Menezes was innocent within hours of the murder, yet during the press conference the following morning he continued to claim a suspected suicide bomber had been shot.
As one letter to the Independent newspaper put it, for Blair, like Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray, Iraq is a portrait kept in the attic, becoming more nightmarishly grotesque every day, while he tries to forget. But Dorian Blair, it is there: and it will be your Vietnam.
RES Ray Smith Karen O'Toole IAN BLAIR should resign as head of the Metropolitan Police. That is the only conclusion to draw in the wake of the hand-delivered letter he sent to the Home Office, effectively 'instructing that the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) should not be allowed access to Stockwell tube station after the assassination of Jean Charles de Menezes.
Blair's letter states: I have given instructions that the Sccurred at Stockwell is ust shooting that just to be referred to the IPCC and that they will be given no access to the scene at the present time'
Blair claims that when he wrote the letter on July 22, he still believed that Jean Charles de Menezes was a suicide bomber, and that Stockwell tube was a crime scene.
This has been contradicted by almost anyone vaguely acquainted with the facts, including the rightwing Evening Standard, WAlO LOal the Commissioner knew within hours' that an innocent man had been shot dead.
Witnesses at the station contradicted the claim by police that De Menezes was wearing a heavy overcoat, vaulted the barrier and was acting suspiciously. In fact, De Menezes was wearing a denim jacket, used his oyster card to enter the station, and picked up a free newspaper. There can be no confusion about this.
Police claimed CCTV footage was not available due to problems with the system - but this was also untrue.
Worse still, Blair demanded in the letter that The existence of a shoot to kill policy in London -Operation Kratos -was withheld from the organisation responsible for overseeing the police. PEACE 'a chief officer of the police should be able to suspend section 17 of the Police Reform Act 2002, which requires us to supply all information that the IPCC may require.'
The Act of 2002 abolished the Police Complaints Authority [PCA] and established the IPCC:
"The intention [of the IPCC] is that any conduct of a person serving with the police which has an adverse effect on a member of the public or is sufficiently serious to bring the police into disrepute...should be dealt with...in order that public confidence in the police can be maintained.'
The IPCC was set up as a body independent of the police, unlike the PCA, which was a police body.
Effectively, Blair was demanding that the only independent body with a remit to investigate the police, should be allowed to investigate the police at Stockwell. This is not the intention of someone trying to uphold a democratic mandate, but of a corrupt dictator. Shoot to kill
The existence of a shoot to kill policy in London -Operation Kratos - was withheld from the organisation responsible for overseeing the police. The Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) had no knowledge of Operation Kratos until July 22 2005
Operation Kratos does not just apply in London, but was rolled-out across the country in January 2003. It allows police to shoot 'a suspected suicide bomber without issuing a warning? Jenny Jones, a Green Party member of the MPA who knew nothing of Operation Kratos said: "A shoot to kill policy is highly risky, as shown by the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes"
"Clearly there were massive weaknesses at both intelligence and operational levels. It is imperative that the shoot to kill policy guidelines released immediately the Metropolitan Police Authority and the public.
Such a far reaching and potentially dangerous policy must not be shrouded in official secrecy".
We need a massive campaign on the issue of civil liberties which demands the end of shoot to kill, the resignation of Ian Blair and justice for Jean Charles De Menezes. Anything less is a cover-up and a fraud.