Tony Blair's Save the
Children Award: An Inadequate Apology
By Felicity Arbuthnot
March 05, 2015 "ICH"
-
"If justice and
truth take
place,
If he is
rewarded
according to his
just desert,
His name will
stink to all
generations." (William
Wesley,
1703-1791.)
On the evening of 19th November
2014, the charity Save the Children, with a
gala event in New York, "recognized" Tony
Blair - whose government enjoined in the
ending of the fledgling lives of children on
an industrial scale in Afghanistan and Iraq
- with their "Global Legacy Award."
In Iraq's decimation of
course, Blair's regime was responsible for
the dodgy dossier alleging Saddam Hussein's
ability to annihilate in "forty five
minutes", thus persuading for war, but had
also enjoined with the US between 1997 and
2003 in ensuring, via the United Nations
Sanction Committee that Iraq's infants and
children were denied all normality from the
womb to their young deaths at an average of
6,000 a month.
Blocked were scanners to
check the developing foetus, incubators for
the frail newly arrived, paediatric oxygen,
paediatric syringes, tracheal suction tubes
to clear airway obstructions and all needed
to combat a challenging start to life in
order to become a healthy toddler and enter
happy childhood.
For those who survived to
childhood, reading and exercise books,
paper, pens, pencils, blackboards, toys,
tricycles, bicycles, scooters, all juvenile
joys and normality were vetoed. When they
suffered what are normally relatively simply
treated ailments, infections, asthma, the
antibiotics, inhalers needed were invariably
also vetoed or fatally delayed. All policies
endorsed by Blair's government.
Then Iraq's deprived,
traumatized children were bombed and invaded
in an action largely publicly justified by
his government's documented lies.
Yet Save the Children
honoured Blair - to immediate condemnation.
In the UK a petition on site "38 Degrees"
quickly garnered nearly 125,000 signatures
in protest (UK only, world wide it would
certainly have been in orders of magnitude
more.)
Judging by the uproar on
blogs, Twitter, social media sites it has
been a spectacular own goal for Save the
Children with countless supporters
cancelling their subscriptions or donations.
At a meeting with Brendan
Cox, the charity's Director of Policy and
Advocacy, a small delegation with Robin
Priestley of 38 Degrees, handed in the
petition and in a meeting: " ... all had to
agree that it was impossible to remove the
Award from Tony Blair now ..." (1) Given the
damage caused by this insane honour, Mr Cox
should surely have committed to moving
heaven and earth to doing exactly that.
However, now he has a chance.
Justin Forsyth, Save the Children's UK Chief
Executive, who personally delivered the
invitation to Tony Blair and was a former
aide to him as Prime Minister, apologized
this morning (sort of) on BBC Radio 4's
flagship "Today" programme.
He was sorry for the offence
caused and that it had become an
"unnecessary distraction" (2) from the
organization's work. Given Blair's record in
endorsing child deaths and resultant uproar
the Award caused and the redesign of their
logo to "Kill the Children" found across
social media, it was not a "distraction" but
an outrage.
Upsetting people, said Mr
Forsyth: " ... is not really what we do at
Save the Children." Really? After this so
close to home, can their judgement in
differing global cultures possibly be
trusted?
There was some verbal
footwork about the Award being for Blair's
work in Africa, however this is defined as a
"Global Legacy Award." The former Prime
Minister's "legacy" is mass graves of dead
children from Kandahar to Falluja.
Moreover, according to
Blair's Faith Foundation website: "Mr. Blair
was recognised for his work ... in 2005 to
pledge to double aid to Africa and provide
100 per cent debt relief to eligible
countries, as well as his work in
partnership with African governments through
the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI)." It
might be worth trawling the potentially
"double aided" and "100 per cent debt
relief" countries to see if and how many of
the beneficiaries he might have one of his
many lucrative advisory roles with. Politics
is hardly known for lack of back scratching.
Today's Daily Mail on line
also quotes Mr Forsyth as stating: "I know
that many of our supporters and volunteers
were very upset and our staff, several of
our staff too, and I'm very sorry for that."
Another verbal sleight of hand and it was
not "several staff." By 28thNovember,
the Guardian reported: "An internal petition
circulated among Save the Children employees
around the word is to be presented to head
office." Describing the award as "morally
reprehensible" and calling for it to be
rescinded, the petition has gathered more
than 500 staff signatures."(3)
The letter accused Save the
Children of "a betrayal to Save the
Children's founding principles and values."
Their "Vision, Mission and
Values" (4) include:
* "We aspire to live to the
highest standards of personal honesty and
behaviour; we never compromise our
reputation and always act in the best
interests of children." Tell that to Iraq's
five million orphans and their uncounted
counterparts in Afghanistan, to the bombed,
orphaned, traumatized children of Gaza who
the "Middle East Peace Envoy" has ignored.
* "A world in which every
child attains the right to survival,
protection, development and participation."
Think about it, Save the Children. Were
words ever more hollow after the honouring
of a man mired in the destruction of every
aspiration in that sentence.
* "To inspire breakthroughs
in the way the world treats children and to
achieve immediate and lasting change in
their lives." Endorsed is seemingly one to
whom "breakthrough" and "immediate and
lasting change" is deprival of life,
childhood, parents, home, healing, freedom
from fear and all semblance of normality.
"Lasting change" indeed.
On 5th December
2014, a letter (5) was sent to Save the
Children by Inder Comar of the legal firm
Comar Law, San Francisco. outlining starkly
the enormity of the illegality of the attack
on Iraq in which Mr Blair had been so
integral. It pointed out that Save the
Children's hero's name is entered at the
International Criminal Court at the Hague in
its "Register of War Criminals."
The correspondence, in which
I declare an interest, was sent on behalf of
Denis Halliday, former UN Assistant
Secretary General, Professor Michel
Chossudovsky, Director of the Centre for
Research on Globalization and myself
included:
'As you may be aware, in
March 2003, Mr. Blair, while Prime Minister,
likely participated with several
high-ranking United States leaders in
committing the crime of aggression against
Iraq. The crime of aggression is the
"supreme international crime," as declared
by the Nuremberg Tribunal in 1946. In
addition to being prohibited by
international law, the crime of aggression
is a crime also defined by the International
Criminal Court in the Hague, over which it
may have the opportunity to exercise
jurisdiction in the coming years. "Resort to
a war of aggression is not merely illegal,
but is criminal." United States v. Hermann
Goering, et al., 41 AM. J. INT'L L. 172,
186, 218-220 (1946); see also Charter Int'l
Military Tribunal, art. 6(a), Aug. 8, 1945,
59 Stat. 1546, 82 U.N.T.S. 279.
'As you may also be aware, in
2004, Secretary General Kofi Annan declared
the Iraq War illegal and in contravention of
the United Nations Charter.1
'In 2006, a former prosecutor
at the Nuremberg Trials, Benjamin Ferencz,
stated that the Iraq War was a "clear breach
of law."2 "There's no such thing as a war
without atrocities, but war-making is the
biggest atrocity of law."
'In 2010, a Dutch inquiry
concluded that the Iraq War had no basis in
international law.3
'In 2010, Hans Blix, the
former chief weapons inspector for the
United Nations, stated that it was his "firm
view" that the Iraq War was illegal.4
'In 2012, judges empanelled
before the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal,
an independent commission headed by former
judges and involving input from several
international law scholars, concluded that a
prima facie case existed that Mr. Blair
committed the crime of aggression against
Iraq. The tribunal reported its findings to
the International Criminal Court in the
Hague and entered the name of Mr. Blair in
its "Register of War Criminals." '
It concludes: "Was there any
consideration to the optics of giving this
Award to Mr. Blair in light of the fact that
many of Save the Children's current
management - including Jonathan Forsyth,
Jonathan Powell, Sam Sharpe and Fergus Drake
- have intimate ties with Mr. Blair and his
government? Was there any consideration to
the moral paradox of providing this Award to
a person whose destitute victims are
concurrently succored by Save the Children
staff?"
It demands: "Please confirm
that Save the Children will rescind the
Global Legacy Award forthwith."
There has been no reply. That
action however, would a gesture of, albeit
belated, tangible apology and might be a
start at repairing Save the Children's
tattered image.
If State Honours, Knighthoods
etc., can be withdrawn from those
subsequently deemed unworthy of their
bestowal, surely so can Save the Children's
woefully misplaced Global Award.
Notes
1. https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-save-the-children-charity-from-giving-tony-blair-their-annual-global-legacy-award
2. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31707195
3. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/nov/28/save-the-children-tony-blair-award-row
4. https://www.savethechildren.net/about-us/our-vision-mission-and-values
5. http://www.globalresearch.ca/lawyers-letter-to-save-the-children-stc-rescind-the-global-legacy-award-to-war-criminal-tony-blair/5418469