Unpeople: Britain's Secret Human Rights Abuses

by Mark Curtis

Mark Curtis introduces the concept of "Unpeople" ― those whose lives have been deemed expendable, worthless, in the pursuit of foreign policy objectives. The book is based on new revelations from declassified government documents.

Genres: Politics, History, Nonfiction, War, British Literature

377 pages, Paperback

First published November 4, 2004

About the author

Mark Curtis is an independent author and journalist. He is a former Research Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) and Director of the World Development Movement. He is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde and has been Visiting Research Fellow at the Institut Francais des Relations Internationales, Paris and the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Auswartige Politik, Bonn.

Mark has written six books and numerous articles on British and US foreign policies and international development and trade issues.

Alongside his work as an analyst of British foreign policy, Mark has worked in the field of international development for 18 years, including as Head of Global Advocacy and Policy at Christian Aid and Head of Policy at ActionAid. He is a graduate of Goldsmiths’ College, University of London and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Reviews

[Keen Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

Curtis is a significant player in quality journalism and in raising serious, adult questions to western power and propaganda, his work Venn diagrams nicely with the likes of Chomsky, Hersh, Pilger and Palast in terms of his approach and targets. In “Unpeople” he gains access to a treasure trove of secret or forgotten declassified documents which reveals the true nature and real motivation behind Britain’s foreign policy, and how the general public is routinely lied to or deceived by the acts and intentions of successive governments on both sides of that narrow mainstream spectrum.

“In the last half of the cold war, 1965-1990 Britain cast more than twice as many vetoes in the UN Security Council as the Soviet Union 27 to 13 – mainly to protect the racist regimes in Rhodesia and South Africa from full international sanctions (the US applied 69 vetoes over the same period).”

We see how both the UK and US have gone to great lengths to support, finance and protect the Colombian military, the Americans alone gave more than £2 billion in military aid between 2000-04, making it the second biggest beneficiary of US aid behind Israel, the forever favourite. Like Israel it has been guilty of rampant oppression of opposing voices, committing a catalogue of human rights abuses. It also traffics an incredible amount of cocaine around the planet.

We later see that,

“British support for state terror in Colombia is not entirely unconnected with BP’s massive investment in the country. BP’s £2 billion project in the Casanare oilfields is Britain’s largest commercial investment in the whole of Latin America and controls half of Colombia’s oil output…In 2003, British investments in Colombia amounted to around $10 billion.”

In Nigeria, when Biafra declared independence in 1967 we find that “Shell/BP’s investments amounted to around £200 million, with other British investment in Nigeria accounting for further £90 million.”

Curtis reveals that as far back as the early 60s the British were conducting various clandestine operations, covertly supporting the US in Vietnam, and perhaps the only thing more disgusting than the entitled elitism of the British PMs is their grovelling subservience to their Washington masters, especially when they continue to commit wide-scale atrocities on civilian populations.

We see that no less than fifty British firms were operating in Uganda when they were threatened by nationalisation, including three banks as well as Shell/BP. British interests suffered more than any other from nationalisation. So how did Britain respond?...by helping rogue military man and future dictator Idi Amin overthrow Milton Obote in 1971.

So these are just some of the examples of various British governments seriously interfering in other nations, but we also see other places where they got involved to varying degrees of direct and indirect support with overthrowing democratically elected leaders and/or backing pro-western corporate tyrants in countries like Nepal, Malaya, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Greece, Chile, Libya, Kenya, Egypt, Yemen, Oman and British Guiana and more.

So this is an incredibly enlightening book on a dark and relevant subject which gives an understanding and reminder into how most of the Anglophonic world operates and how it got to where it is today. There has been plenty written about America and the CIA’s established culture of overthrowing democratically elected leaders throughout the world, and rightly so, but this is one of those books which casts a similar lens on the behaviour of the UK over the same period and exposes some truly shocking revelations.

[Mark Hebden · Rating 5 out of 5]

My review of this may go off on a tangent at some stage given the important issues this book raises. Firstly it is a very well researched work detailing historic British abuses of power in the foreign policy arena to further our national interests abroad. Much of the information here is derived from official declassified papers and so cannot be termed as biased or misreported.

It was a timely book when it was released in 2004 at the height of popular opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Though the first two chapters concern Iraq and the illegal invasion thereof, this book sets out to prove that, far from being a single aberration, the dark manoeuvrings that culminated in the 2003 invasion of a sovereign nation is in fact the continuation of an age old, very British style of foreign policy; that of military intervention and destabilisation of other states to further the economic and geopolitical goals of the UK Government.

What stands out for me in all of this is the hypocrisy of some of the “anti-Iraq war” commentators, whose sense of that injustice is all too noticeable when analysed alongside their supportive intransigence on other, and in many cases worse atrocities committed in their names as citizens of this country. The list of interventions is seemingly endless, and these are only the ones we know about. Since 1945 our government is responsible, or in some way culpable for around 10,000,000 civilian deaths according to the research in this book. Clearly this is a “ball park” figure and the real number could be slightly lower or much, much higher. My money would be on an overall increase in that estimate when the amount of countries is taken in to account, whose regimes we supported generally didn’t make too good a job of keeping accurate data on civilian casualties; Malaya, Kenya, Iran, British Guiana, Oman, Indonesia twice, Vietnam, Yemen, Iraq numerous times, Afghanistan, Kurdistan, Columbia, Chagos Islands, Nigeria, Biafra, Uganda, Chile, Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone and Palestine. I may have missed some there but it’s already an extensive list.

How can we go on thinking that we are one of the “good guys” of global politics when our history shows us to be anything but. And how can we continue to support our political parties, all of whom have blood on their hands, innocent blood. Every single one of the wars we have engaged in, or regimes we have propped up has been to aid the progression of British business, whether they were mining corporations, oil firms or an intervention to secure a generally ideological sheen that enabled the “free” market to reign in the third world.

There are no selfless invasions or plainly humanitarian military actions, if there were we would long ago have invaded China, Israel, Russia, India and the United States, all of whom are past masters at oppression and human rights abuses. Many of the problems we face now in the middle east are as a result of our armies propping up the regimes of militant Islamist governments when Communism was the larger bogeyman on the horizon. For anyone who was against the war in Iraq, well done. Give yourself a little pat on the back and then open your eyes and look at British influence on the wider world. Everywhere you look, you will see chaos, death and destruction and all of it was carried out with your tacit support either overtly or because of your (and my) laziness in observing what the hell our Government does in the big bad world. We’re not the good guys I’m afraid.

[Evelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been meaning to read Unpeople for a long time and finally got around into diving into this beast of a book the other week. This is not for the faint-hearted; it's a warts and all historical account of Britain's involvement in pretty much all the wars and genocides which have taken place since WW2. No stone is left unturned here and it makes for some very grim reading.

A must-read for those who are politically skeptical and have a deeper interest in human rights and British foreign policy. Incredibly well researched and written.

[James Tidd · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to a former Foreign Editor for a British newspaper, Curtis is a brave recorder of truths which the powerful would rather not have told.

Unpeople: those whose lives are seen as expendable in the pursuit of a country's (in this case Britain's) economic and political goals.

In four parts, Curtis takes a look, in Part One, at our quite illegal war on Iraq, he looks at Propaganda and Reality in Part Two, Curtis looks at Terror and Aggression, directing the reader at the terrorists which Britain is seemingly friendly with, plus our indirect support of wars in Nigeria, Indonesia and most surprising; Vietnam in Part Three, and in Part Four, Coups and Dictators, Curtis looks at our secret support of Idi Amin of Uganda, Pinochet of Chile, Guyana and several in the Arabian states, like Oman and Aden.

So it seems that Britain is responsible, whether directly or indirectly, for around ten million deaths. It is whether to believe the author or not. It does not sound credible, but at the same time, it would not surprise me at all. It is common knowledge that the media can grossly exaggerate what it reports, and the media can only report what it is told to report on. Anything secret cannot be revealed until the time passes when items like government papers, etc can be opened to the general public, when very little can be done about what happened, let's say fifty years before.

I was quite surprised, but then again I wasn't all that surprised when I gradually read through the book. It does not surprise me that Britain had some indirect involvement in Vietnam.

[Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect book for people curious about British military jaunts around the world since WW2. It consolidated my opinions on Iraq (which is studied in detail), but also enlightened me about the specific British role in wars in Iran, British Guiana, Egypt, Indonesia, Yemen, Oman, Libya, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, Chile, Nicaragua, Panama, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria and Uganda, among others.

Spoiler alert: the intentions weren't all that altruistic.

Uses an extensive range of sources, including many many national archive documents that have been released after 30 years of being kept secret, and for the most part presents the facts as they are.

Having entered the genre myself through reading Chomsky, I found this take on British foreign affairs equally enjoyable to read, and actually much denser in factual content.

[Ollie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellently researched book going back to original Foreign Office communications so you're getting information from the "horses mouth" so to speak. What this shows is a conniving British Government working not in the interests of the people but in the interests of businesses and maintaining geopolitical control, wreaking havoc across the world and causing misery for the "Unpeople". The innocent civilians that get caught up in our Governments aims. If you're interested in a sustainable, viable future, free from war and oppression then I recommend you read this book and arm yourself with its knowledge.

[Gilles Achache · Rating 5 out of 5]

So far very greatly enjoying this.....one of my friends from high school days knew stuff about the American CIA, she passed sensitive stuff on to me, so we're both people who read this type of book from time to time.....people (& unpeople like me, hence no pic for goodreads) who feel they know a thing or two.....it's a perverse enjoyment, we shouldn't like it, but......we do......aaaannnd.....have finished it! Very good, must pass it on to that old High School friend.

[Kandachamy Vijayakumaran · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is cruel world where trade interests of the US and UK and other developed nations have played havoc with the life of millions of people in the third world. Curtis has taken the pain to amass the information from sources others would not care to look at. Now we are convinced that there is no escape from the fate unless the whole world mobilize against and isolate these forces. But how many will care to read Curtis?

[Pushon Bhattacharya · Rating 5 out of 5]

An angry dissection of British foreign policy from after WWII that is as well-written as it is well-sourced. The most important finding conveyed in this book is that however dishonest our politicians and military officers are in public, they are remarkably candid about their intentions in private.

[Kristina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a really interesting look into the real motives behind UK foreign policy. Disturbing how much economics, trade, arms deal help decide the UK government's actions and how little the people who may be affected by those policies. I was also disturbed by the lack of investigative journalism in the UK and how much the mainstream media seem to follow the government line. Highly recommended reading for the political skeptic!

[David Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only depressing if you think we can't do anything about it. We can! Real Democracy Now!

[Del · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blows the lid clear off our less than glorious history and shows clearly the causes of political instability across the Middle East and beyond.