HARROGATE - CAAB's Independence From America Day

[TonyGosling]

CAAB newsletter is just out!
http://www.caab.org.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/CAAB_FEB-2 013_web.pdf
The Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB) evolved in 1992 out of the long campaign of protest at the American base at Menwith Hill, near Harrogate, North Yorkshire; local people having expressed their concerns at the arrival of the US Army at Menwith Hill in 1951. We have continued to build on the work and struggles of many people over the years since the arrival, occupation and control of the US Visiting Forces in the UK.
http://www.caab.org.uk/
There is a demonstration every Tuesday evening (6-8pm) outside the main entrance to Menwith HIl – we are now into the 12th year. Please come and join in – one way to see the base, learn about/what the base does and a chance each week to bear witness and be a voice of opposition – saying to the people who work on the base “Tonight there are people here who oppose what you do”. Come for as long as you like – you don’t have to stay the two hours! Bring yourselves and banners.

We concentrate on the presence, role and functions of the US Visiting Forces and their Agencies in the UK (also world wide). Our long term aim is to send the US Visiting Forces and their Agencies back to within their borders.

[TonyGosling]

West Yorkshire Police apologise to peace campaigner following wrongful arrest
http://www.harrogate-news.co.uk/2013/11/06/west-yorkshire-police-admit -breach-human-rights-famous-yorkshire-peace-campaigner/
Posted November 6, 2013 in Harrogate, News and Andrew Gray, Harrogate, Harrogate Solicitors, Ms Percy, Truth Legal, West Yorkshire Police
Peace campaigner and Harrogate resident, Lindis Percy, was arrested in central Harrogate during the Olympic Torch festivities in 2012.
West Yorkshire Police had been drafted-in to police the Olympic Torch procession through Harrogate on 19 June 2012.
She has now won compensation and received an apology from West Yorkshire Police.
Following a legal claim brought by Ms Percy, West Yorkshire Police have admitted to wrongful arrest, false imprisonment, assault and human rights infringements, specifically: the right to liberty; freedom of expression; and freedom of association and assembly.
Lindis Percy is the joint coordinator of the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases (CAAB).
The legal claim was brought by new Harrogate Solicitors, Truth Legal. Andrew Gray, solicitor at Truth Legal, said:
My client was arrested for alleged breach of the peace by West Yorkshire Police in order to stop her from exercising her freedom of expression. Such heavy-handed and arbitrary use of State force was wholly unnecessary in the circumstances.”
Although the actions of the police officers on the day were unnecessary, praise must go to West Yorkshire Police for apologising to Ms Percy and for compensating her appropriately. We hope that lessons will be learned.
Ms Percy said:
I was surprised and shocked by the actions of West Yorkshire police.
The outcome of this claim restores the precious right to protest peacefully.
A West Yorkshire Police spokesperson said:
This lady was arrested in good faith following a complaint by a member of the public. When the evidence was reviewed it was decided that the grounds for arrest were not sufficient and consequently liability was admitted by West Yorkshire Police and an apology was given.
Internal investigations were carried out into the circumstances of the arrest but no further action was deemed to be necessary.

[TonyGosling]

Scrutiny of US airbases in Britain is stuck in the 1950s
Ministers have been complacent over the risk that US activities on British soil may result in the deaths of innocent civilians
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/05/us-airbases-brita in-1950s
Tom Watson - theguardian.com, Wednesday 5 February 2014 10.45 GMT

Almost all first impressions of RAF Croughton – a small airbase that sits amid green fields, about 20 miles north-east of the prime minister's Witney constituency – are misleading. From the road running out of the nearby Northamptonshire village from which it takes its name, it is visible as a series of anonymous, barn-like buildings. An understated sign on a low brick wall and a couple of cold-war-era jets, no longer in use, would appear to mark it out as a relic; a sleepy airbase whose heyday has passed.

But scratch the surface and the reality is very different. RAF Croughton, which despite its name has in fact been a US base for more than six decades, is a crucial hub for the operations of today's "war on terror".

The US military describes it as the headquarters for the provision of "world-class … communications and global strike operations". BT provides state of the art links between it and a US base in Djibouti, from which highly secretive drone strikes in Yemen are launched. And recent reports have demonstrated the central role played by Croughton in the NSA's mass surveillance programme, even implicating it in the US bugging of Angela Merkel's phone.

The picture that emerges suggests that US bases in the UK – and elsewhere in Europe – are central not only to mass surveillance but also to the secret drone campaign being waged by the CIA and American special forces.

This campaign is one of the worst excesses of the 'war on terror'. Strikes carried out in Yemen – a country with which the US is not at war – by robotic aircraft have killed large numbers of civilians, and are widely opposed by civil society and the country's parliament. Earlier this year, the Obama administration was forced to open an investigation – a depressingly rare event – into a drone strike that hit a wedding party in Yemen, after evidence was unearthed by human rights charity Reprieve.

Yet despite the position of bases such as Croughton at the bleeding edge of the hi-tech war on terror, the way they are regulated is stuck in the stone age.

When I asked the government about the arrangements under which it operates, I was told: "RAF Croughton is made available for use by the United States visiting forces under the terms of the Nato status of forces agreement of 1951."

I subsequently asked whether this would be updated, in the light of the considerable changes in technology since the 1950s, but the minister replied that, in his view, "There is no requirement for an additional agreement regarding the use of RAF Croughton by the United States visiting forces" and, "The Department has no plans to review this arrangement nor review the activities undertaken by the US at the base".

That is why this week's moves in the House of Lords to update and strengthen oversight of these bases are as welcome as they are overdue. Amendments to the defence reform bill, tabled by a cross-party group of peers, are aiming to drag the regulation of these bases into the 21st century. They will require the defence secretary to report to parliament on what is going on at these sites; provide a scrutiny group, headed by a senior judge, to carry out oversight; and bring the bases under the remit of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which oversees the use of surveillance in the UK.

It is shocking that ministers have so far displayed such complacency over the very real risk that activities undertaken by the US on British soil may be resulting in the deaths of innocent civilians and serious violations of international law; and it seems obvious that, in a world where drone strikes and mass surveillance on a previously unimaginable scale have become a daily reality, rules drawn up in the 1950s need to be updated.

My view has been reinforced by the expert advice of Jemima Stratford QC, which I commissioned as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on drones. Stratford advises that the government has a duty to investigate and prevent unlawful activity at US bases. She concludes that the amendments proposed may well help, where the Ministry of Defence does not "hold information" on US activities at the base.

The agreements that govern how these bases are used are almost as old as George Orwell's dystopian portrayal of the UK as "Airstrip One", subservient to a US-led super-state. That this portrayal now seems in some ways more up-to-date than the government's feeble regulation of US bases in this country is surely a compelling reason for ministers to support these eminently reasonable amendments.