14 SEPTEMBER

MINISTER IN PHOTO OP WITH COLOMBIAN DEATH SQUADS GENERAL [ 11 February 2008 ] On 11 February 2008, The Guardian published a photo of a smiling Foreign Office Minister, Kim Howells, posing alongside General Mario Montoya, head of the Colombian Army, along with soldiers from the High Mountains Battalions (HMB). These were infamous elite units…

THE BRITISH STAGE A COUP IN SHARJAH. 24 June 1965 – The British orchestrated a coup in the emirate of Sharjah to remove Sheikh Saqr, who was considered to have too great an interest in independent development and had even allowed the Arab League to have a role in the small kingdom’s decision making, at…

MAN DIES OF HEART ATTACK AFTER BRITISH SOLDIERS SUBJECT HIM TO A MOCK EXECUTION. [ 11 August 1971 ] On this day in 1971, three civilians in West Belfast were killed by soldiers of the first battalion of the British Parachute Regiment, during a round up of men under emergency powers of detainment which were…

  BRITISH COMPANY HELPS EQUIP SADDAM HUSSEIN’S MILITARY. 17th July 1990 – The British government approves exports of machine tools by Matrix Churchill to Iraq, just two weeks prior to Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, and knowing that they would be used to manufacture shells and missiles.

BRITISH ARMY MURDERS “EVERY NATIVE THAT APPEARED IN SIGHT.” [ 11 June 1857 ] On this day in 1857, Colonel James Neill, who had been ordered to crush the slightest sign of support for the Indian mutiny, seized the city of Allahabad. In the two days which followed he implemented a reign of terror, unprecedented…

“EVERY NATIVE IS SHOT DOWN LIKE A DOG” [ 5 September 1857 ] On this day in 1857, an account appeared in the Illustrated Times of London by a British junior officer stationed at Allahabad. It was just one of many accounts of indiscriminate slaughter during the suppression of the Indian mutiny.  He recalled how…