Vewham inquest opens door to fresh

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Callaghan-now canvassing TUC leaders for support Andrew Following the General Election and the EEC election fiasco, Constituency Labour Parties up and down the country have been receiving Agents' Reports examining the campaigns.

For many of these people While soldiers acquitted Chief Northern murder plainly another Adrian recoverii ticking bury.

Amber convicted of giving covering up the fact that Labour's May 3 defeat. was brought about by the treacherous anti-working class policies of the Callaghan-Healey leadership is a fuli-time job and a strenuous one at that.

This task is even less enviable if you are in Newham North East, where the crisis-ridden party saw its substitute for Tory turn-coat Reg Prentice James Dickens, walk out on the eve of the election in the face of mounting opposition.

Of course in an ultra-safe seat the last minute stand in, Ron Leighton easily got his free ride to Westminster (where he has subsequently distinguished himself by making a maiden speech in favour - of import controls and other such capitalist trade war measures favoured by Labour's 'left' fakers).

Unseemly

But a problem remains. Dickens was a Tribunite. The local party is dominated by Tribunites.

How come this much vaunted 'democratic socialist' blotted the copy-book in such a messy and unseemly manner?

The real answer is simple enough.

Dickens was only unusual in so far as his spinelessness, lack of devotion to the labour movement and out-and-out careerism (so ch iracteristic of his ilk), chanced to come into confiict with his 'left' bureaucrats arrogant hostility • to criticism and his desire for an easy life.

In short, Dickens bottled out when he saw that the office of CHIG two SAS were being by the Lord Justice of of a wnich they had Amber was 1g from a off at Shrewshad been at à court martial 'water torture' to trainees by having towels placed over their face and pouring water over them.

This torture is commonly alleged to be used by the army in Northern Ireland.

• Brutalisation He had also ordered other soldiers to urinate over trainees ordered into a pit.

It might be thought that such practices demonstrated the brutalisation of the army and that those wholike Amber-had learned (their trade in Belfast and Prentice MP in Newham carried the unpleasant overhead of a permanent battle with a left wing hostile to wage controls, public spending cuts and cheap freeloaders like himself.

But Mr Phil Bradbury, Tribunite agent, could hardly say these improper things.

So instead the report he presented made three points.

First it warned against spending 'a long time arguing and recriminating' about the incident. (A wise move!)

Criticism Second come a few mild criticisms of Dickens plus the admission that he must accept a great deal (!) of responsibility for what happened!

Third, however; we find the old trick. Bradbury's report seeks to divert the whole issue and in doing so prepares the ground for a future witch hunt Hong Kong, had become incapable of living without an occasional fix of sadism and torture.:

. The Sun was the only paper to lead on the story. A photograph of an arrogant looking officer in uniform filled half the front page under a headline "The Shame of Captain Amber"

Far from drawing the lessons that the incident in Shrewsbury barracks supported allegations of brutality in Northern Ireland and Hong Kong, the Sun proceeded in the opposite direction:

"Dashing young Army captain Adrian Amber, described as an "excellent" soldier, walks shamefaced from a court martial yesterday...

"The hideous act was said to be completely out of character. At 25, he had already led platoons in Ulster and Hong Kong and seemed destined for a fine military career."

Amber was fined £500 and lost seniority-but not try and make Jim Dickens resign before the Election and to use the issue of Incomes Policy to do this.

The fact that they were successful must, as a matter of principle (!) be qf great regret to this Party.

Minority factions within this Party, especially those having allegiance to outside groups such as Militant and the Workers Socialist League, should not fly in the face of majority decisions which are democratically taken by this party"

it is hard to imagine a more wretched passage.

And the witch-hunt is even more contrived when Bradbury is forced later in the same report to admit that the Labour vote in the constituency went up in the election.

In other words the struggle for socialist policies against the line of Callaghan/Prentice and their apologists found a real response in the working class voters of Newham N.E.

But for the Tribunites every shred of principle must be sacrificed if it obstructs relations with the right wing leaders.

In the GC meeting the offending passage was proposed that this section be deleted from the report, but the vote tied 18-18.

The chairman refused to use a casting vote and so the section stayed.

• The report as a whole was then passed 20-17, laying the basis for future attacks.

It is vital that those who are duped by the 'democratic' pretensions of the Tribunites recognise that this is no more than a cover for their refusal to fight for a socialist alternative to Callaghan! his captain's rank.

What throws interesting light on Amber's preference for torturing his own troops is a report in the Observer last Sunday saying that torturers in the military dictatorship of the Colonels in Greece were themselves tortured as part of their training.

"New evidence collected by a Greek academic shows how the military regime brutalised its recruits to turn them into blindly loyal servants !..

"The single most important factor in building up the esprit de corps of the potential torturers was the violence inflicted on them...

"They were forced into instant obedience to any order, however degrading or irrational.

post, eat a burning cigarette or run on their kneees."

Could it be that, sparing the Sun's blushes, Captain Amber's actions had more method in them than appears at first sight?

----- pull-quotes -----

committed, soldier, Captain

"They had to eat grass, make verbal love to a lamp-