AND ANOTHER THING
Does the Pinochet mess mark the end of New Labour?
PAUL JOHNSON
For instance, under the absurd terms of the Extradition Treaty, there was a legal obligation to read out to the Law Lords the text of GarzOn's warrant, full of highly defamatory material which apparently has no basis in fact. It included the allegation that Pinochet engaged in 'the systematic extermination of Jews'. That is a deliberate lie, which has been comprehensively refuted by the Chilean Jewish community. Sergio Melnick, a senior Pinochet minister who is an observant Jew, has pointed out that the government's relations with local Jews, with the international Jewish community and with Israel were excellent. The fictitious material was doubtless stressed to impress the two Jewish Law Lords, and this fact alone should have been enough to have the verdict overthrown. What I do not under- stand is why no opportunity was given for the lies to be exposed from the start. They will presumably be repeated if the govern- ment has the hardihood to allow the case to be heard again by another set of Law Lords this month. The detailed case against Pinochet bears all the dirty thumb-prints of the Soviet agitprop machine which original- ly compiled it. It is largely fraudulent, and it is hard to see any justification for Britain's highest court being used to propagate left- wing perjuries, which can then be published under privilege in the press. There is another aspect of the Pinochet case which has not come to the public's attention. During the Falklands war in 1982, General Pinochet, at considerable political risk to himself, rendered signal services to the British task force. When I was in Argentina recently, some of my friends there claimed that without Pinochet's help we would have had no alternative but to abandon the expedition with heavy loss of life. I received these claims sceptically, but since I have got back I have made enquiries on the British side and now believe that the General's role may have been decisive.
In particular, Pinochet gave permission for British units to land in Chile and set up radar stations linked directly to Fleet HQ on HMS Hermes. Our problem, in protect- ing the fleet and its highly vulnerable troop- ships such as the QE2 and Canberra, carry- ing thousands of soldiers, was that the Argentinian attack-aircraft, Skyhawks, Mysteres and Super-Etandards, equipped with the deadly Exocet missiles, were supersonic, whereas our Harriers were sub- sonic. (We had, of course, no ground-based air-cover.) To give them a chance against the attacking planes, the Harriers needed the earliest possible warning so they could get into position. For this reason, the Argentinian planes flew in at sea-level, under the fleet radar system. However, our land-based radars in Chile were able to detect the take-off of the Argentinian air- craft and work out their axes of attack. This information was instantly communicated to HMS Hermes, enabling the Harriers to be scrambled effectively.
Without the Chilean radars, it is possible — some would even say likely — that the Argentinian air force would have sunk one or other and possibly both of our two carri- ers, providing our main air-cover. That would have meant the certain failure of the expedition before a single man was landed at Goose Bay. Indeed, it might have been necessary for the task-force to scatter, in which case the Super-Etandards could have sunk Canberra, the QE2 and other troop- ships at leisure and the flower of the British army would have drowned in the South `I'd like to change these for stripes, please.' Atlantic. It cannot be proved that General Pinochet prevented this catastrophe, but his intervention certainly made it less likely. It is not surprising he should feel bitter at Britain's perfidy and ingratitude.
Where does the Labour government stand on this? Jack Straw was a venomous opponent of Margaret Thatcher and was quite capable of wanting the Falklands expedition to fail so that her government would collapse. He is not the kind of person who identifies himself with the members of Britain's armed forces. He has 'Reserved Occupation' written all over his gruesome mug. So he was only too ready to ignore Pinochet's services to Britain in deciding to hand him over to the Spanish Inquisition. It was also an excellent opportunity to ingrati- ate himself with Old Labour and the Left. Tony Blair makes a mistake in underesti- mating the political ambitions of an appa- ratchik like Straw. He may look gormless but he takes the view (so friends say) that he would make an excellent prime minister. It is worth recalling that Margaret Thatcher similarly calculated that she had nothing to fear from the 'harmless' Geoffrey Howe, a man Straw resembles in more ways than one. I am not surprised to hear that Straw is now on good terms with Gordon Brown, the man who has never forgiven Blair for beat- ing him to the leadership (with the help of Peter Mandelson, 'the apostate'), and whose office is the chief source of all the nastiest anti-Blair stories, as well as supply- ing the detonator which blew up Mandelson himself just before Christmas.
In retrospect, I predict, the Pinochet affair will be seen as a watershed in the his- tory of the Blair government, the moment when he lost control of events. It proved, to my satisfaction at least, that New Labour is largely a myth. Underneath the PR gloss, Old Labour is still there, with its ancient prejudices, its willingness to be a sucker of far-left sob-stories, its contempt for Britain's overseas interests, its dislike for the armed forces, its ineradicable tendency to flee the real world and take refuge in the fantasy world of fascist villains and socialist heroes. It is not too late for Blair to tell our ridiculous legal establishment that they have made a balls-up, and send the General home on his own authority. That would be the New Labour thing to do. But I am beginning to suspect that even Blair is Old Labour when it comes to a real test.
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