Mushqete Monument – Berzhite

Posted on 12/12/2014 by Michael

Mushqete Monument – in November 2014

Mushqete Monument – Berzhite

In the last days of the fight for the National Liberation of Albania by the Communist led Partisan army a crucial battle took place along the road from Elbasan to Tirana, south-east of the capital. To commemorate this battle the Mushqete Monument was erected at Berzhite.

The battle for Tirana had begun at the end of October (after much of the southern part of the country had already been regained by the liberation forces) and the Hitlerite forces decided to make a last desperate attempt to put off the inevitable by sending a column of about 3000 soldiers, with tanks, artillery and other armoured vehicles, from Elbasan. In the original plan they also wanted to send a similar force from Durres, on the coast, to create a pincer movement but that second force never materialised.

Four brigades of the National Liberation Army, consisting of about 1,200 men and women partisans, ambushed this column along the road (now the SH3) between the villages of Mushqete and Petrele on the 14th November 1944. The battle continued into the following day but by 18.00 of the 15th the battle was over. The German forces had suffered 1,500 dead and wounded and the remaining forces were captured. There is no information on the number of Albanians killed or wounded.

This was a no holds barred battle and contemporary reports talk about the route between the villages of Mushqete and Petrele being littered with corpses, of both men and horses, with the road and grass verges painted red with blood.

Victory in this battle, just 10 km from the capital, ensured that by 17th November Tirana was under the complete control of the liberation forces and within another two weeks the war was all but over for the German forces when they suffered another defeat in the northern city of Skhoder on the 29th November. That day is now celebrated as the date of the liberation of the country and the beginning of true independence.

On the occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the battle of Mushqete a monument to this important encounter was inaugurated in 1969.

Mushqeta Monument – soon after construction

The sculptor was Hektor Dule who worked with the assistance of the architect K Miho. Dule will appear on this blog again as he was the sculptor of a number of important works of the socialist period in Albania’s history but, unfortunately (so far) I have been unable to find out anything more about Miho.

It’s quite a unique piece of work in the Albanian context as the monument is in two, very distinctive, parts.

The first part is a large, rectangular panel depicting the symbolism of the Communist Partisan forces as well as the specifics of the conflict. This would have been made from a mould into which the concrete was poured and then set upright in its present location.

Many of the Socialist Realist monuments in Albania were made of concrete (beton in Albanian). This was a readily available and relatively cheap material (which accounts for its popularity) but I can’t think of any monuments in the UK which use the same basic material. At the same time lifting such a large panel must have been a complex and difficult task, fraught with difficulties. Concrete can be robust and durable but it does have its weaknesses and this particular piece would have been vulnerable as it was being manoeuvred from the horizontal to the vertical.

The panel is, roughly, 3 by 10 metres (not counting the panel with the text). When I visited in November 2014 it looked as if it had been recently whitewashed. As far as I can tell the original was just the bare concrete and there was no paint at all involved, i.e., no highlighting of the red stars as was the case, for example, on the Dema Memorial close to Saranda.

There are two distinct stories being told in this one image, one of victory and the future, the other of ignominious defeat. These two narratives are separated on the horizontal plane.

Starting from the left we have a group of four Partisans (three men and one woman), about life-size, all with the barrel of a rifle in one hand. The man at the front also holds a flag pole and the national flag then goes back over their heads, extending behind the group. The way it has been designed giving the impression it is fluttering in the wind. On the flag is the double-headed (black) eagle with the star (which on the cloth flag would have been in gold) sitting just above and between the two heads of the mythical raptor.

From here the panel is divided into two. On the top section, the one representing victory, there are six Partisan fighters, 4 men and two women. The first four (three men and one woman) are marching to the front, all armed, the first man looking back and urging them on. They are going towards two fighters (one of each gender) who are already firing at the enemy, the woman standing and firing a rifle, the man kneeling with a light machine gun. The machine gun is resting on a box with the letters WH but I’m not sure what they stand for. Lying on the ground under the machine gun is a male in civilian dress and this has been suggested to me to represent the Quislings (those collaborators and traitors which infected most of the countries invaded by the Fascists). This one will no longer be a problem as he has suffered the same fate as had been meted upon the 1,500 Hitlerites at the end of the 15th .

Mushqete Monument – Collaborator

They are all heading, or shooting, towards the German Tiger tank which has been disabled and is on fire. This represents the armoured German column that had started out from Elbasan.

Mushqete Monument – Tiger tank in flames

There are a few points to stress about this depiction of the Albanian Communists. They are all moving forward not only in battle but also in the sense of the Socialist future of their country. They show determination and a sense of dignity and purpose. They are marching and looking towards their capital of Tirana with their heads held high. On their caps they proudly display the star of the Communist Party. And, as I’ve mentioned before, not least in the post about the Albania Mosaic on the National History Museum, the women depicted are fighters, armed and prepared to use their arms, in the fight for their own liberation – these are no shrinking violets who wait at home for the men to ‘give’ them freedom.

Mushqete Monument – Female Partisan Fighter

The representation of the Nazi invaders couldn’t be any different. They occupy the lower part of the panel.

Starting from the right there’s a German officer, head bowed, standing in front of the useless, burning tank with his head between the tracks. In front of him is a standard-bearer, bent even lower and in his left hand he holds the regimental banner, with the swastika which is now being dragged in the dirt. Just the opposite of the Albanian flag which flies so proudly at the far left of the panel. This is also reminiscent of the Nazi standards being thrown down on the cobbles of Red Square in Moscow, in front of the Lenin Mausoleum with Stalin on the podium in May 1945.

Mushqete Monument – Swastika in the dirt

Next we have a group of six men, all on their knees and now underneath the marching and fighting Partisans. They are all looking in the direction they had come, i.e., away from Tirana which was their goal when they left Elbasan. Five of them wear either a military helmet or cap but the one-fourth from the right is bare-headed. I can’t see anything defining him as a soldier so this might possibly be another representation of a collaborator.

Some of the faces of the defeated fascists look quite skeletal. In November 2014 I thought this was the deliberate intention of Dule but after seeing the black and white picture (taken no later than 1973) I believe this is just a consequence of time, whether deliberate damage or the ravages of the weather it’s impossible to say.

Mushqete Monument – ‘Skeletal’ Nazi

The extreme right hand side of this large panel is taken up with text. The text is spelt out with metal letters attached to marble panels. This is in a sad state of repair, a number of the letters missing completely and the marble stained, not least from the plants which are starting to encroach upon the monument from the field behind. However, the letters had been attached for so long the weathering of the marble means the shape of the letter is the colour of the stone at the time if the monument’s inauguration in 1969.

A rough translation of the text reads:

“On this road, from Mushqete to Petrele, was decided the fate of the war for the liberation of Tirana. On the 14th and 15th November, 1944 the fighters of the 1st, 4th, 8th and 17th (Partisan) brigades ambushed a German column of 3,000 and exterminated them.”

The second part of this monument is completely different in character to the story telling panel. This is a pillar, which must be close to six metres high, depicting a huge human hand holding the top end of the barrel of a rifle.

Mushqete Monument – Hand on rifle

It stands at right angles to the panel and is facing in the direction of Mushqete creating an L-shaped arrangement. The other panel could possibly have been formed elsewhere and then transported to the site but this column would had to have been made in situ – and presumably this is where the architect Miho comes in.

This hand is so big it begs comparison with the body parts found in Rome, the only remains of the huge statues that once stood in the city when the Roman Empire was at its height. To add the rest of the body to this hand would be to create a colossus indeed. To the best of my knowledge this type of depiction of the Albanian fighter is unique and nothing approaching this sort of scale appears anywhere else in the country.

The largest Partisan statue I’ve seen is the one in the Gjirokastra Castle museum, but even that would be a tiddler beside the giant of Berzhite. The statue of Mother Albania in the National Martyrs’ Cemetery is big but a good half of its height is plinth.

The way I interpret this structure is to consider the size of the hand representing the potential power of the organised working class, being able to swat away the insect that is capitalism with ease, all that’s necessary is the will.

The hand and the rifle look in good condition and the whole of this part of the monument looks as if it had recently been whitewashed, but as with the panel this was not part of the original plan. However, time and lack of decent maintenance since the 1990s has meant cracks are starting to appear at the top of the column, towards the back.

On the flat wall at the back of the hand is the symbol of the double-headed eagle with the star (at the top) and on the flat surface facing the road are the letters VFLP. This is an initialism for “Vdekje Fashizmit – Liri Popullit!” (“Death to Fascism – Freedom to the People!”) a slogan and an oath which Partisans used to express their unity of purpose.

Finally, about the monument itself, in the extreme bottom left hand corner of the panel can be made out the letters H DULE, the sculptor has ‘signed’ his work.

GPS:

N41.252781

E19.89280801

DMS:

41° 15′ 10.0116” N

19° 53′ 34.1088” E

Altitude: 192.2m

How to get there.

Berzhite is on the SH3, what used to be the main road between Tirana and Elbasan. A new motorway is presently being constructed along this route and the long distance buses no longer go along this stretch of road. However, there are two local buses which leave from the bottom end of Rruga Elbsanit, close to the junction with Boulavard Bajram Curri in Tirana. One is signed ‘Lapidar’ which terminates at Mushqete and the other goes a little further to the small and isolated village of Krabbe. The Krabbe bus leaves every half hour, at least in the mornings, at 15 and 45 past the hour. The Lapidar bus slots in between these times. The cost is anything from 50 to 100 lek, depending whether the ‘conductor’ wants to charge local or tourist prices (but as there are 170 lek to the pound (at the end of 2014) either price is not going to break any tourist bank.) The monument is set back slightly from the road, on the right hand side going in the direction of Elbasan, less than 30 minutes from Tirana. The bus going back to Tirana stops outside the cafe and shop opposite the monument.

For an Albanian view of the battle and its aftermath go to What does this monument stand for? The Mushqeta Monument, which is reproduced from New Albania, No 4, 1976.

4th August – Centenary of the start of the First World War

Posted on 04/08/2014 by Michael

The Western Front

4th August – Centenary of the start of the First World War

It’s a sign of the redundancy of capitalism when nations consider they need to commemorate the centenary of the BEGINNING of such a war as that which devastated Europe between 1914 and 1918. It’s even more of a condemnation of that social system when that celebration is spread over the whole year. Such is the situation surrounding the 4th August – centenary of the First World War.

At the same time we shouldn’t be surprised that politicians of all hues try to jump on the band wagon of sympathy that the population holds for those who had to face the horrors of the trenches – and for a war that the British ‘won’. However it’s sad that working people aren’t able to see through the cynical manipulation of their emotions by such politicians who are always looking for ways to advance their own agenda.

And to re-write history.

The coverage on the events for the three weeks leading up to the date of the declaration of war have attempted to give the impression that Europe was at peace for years prior to 1914 and it was the random act of a Serbian nationalist in killing a member of the Hapsburg imperial family that moved things on which got out of hand.

In Britain the huge number of programmes on the radio and television, the slew of books that have been published as different authors also seek to feed at the trough have, in the main, ignored the fact that Europe had been moving inexorably towards a major conflict as the only way to resolve the issue of which country was going to hold sway on the continent. In that struggle it would be decided whether the old empires, the Hapsburg, the Russian Tsarist or the Ottoman, or the more aggressive industrial capitalist nations, Britain, Germany or France, would come out on top.

If the contending capitalist/imperialist powers themselves didn’t know that a war was developing in those first years of the 20th century and historians and programme makers a hundred years later aren’t sure, even with the benefit of hindsight, at least organised labour, in the form of the Second International were very clear of where the world was going unless socialists and trade unionists took matters into their own hands to stop it.

At two important international congresses, at Stuttgart in August 1907 and at Basle in November 1912, organised labour declared unanimously that it would do all in its power to prevent a war from breaking out and would work for its earliest termination if such a war was to start. Now it’s possible to say that the members of the Second International over-estimated their influence in their respective countries, that they didn’t have the power they thought they had in the major industrial countries and were therefore not strong enough to prevent the four years of carnage.

The matter that definitely does have a bearing on the start of the war was the fact that when it came to actually putting into practice the fine words and sentiments of the two congresses:

‘ … the working class, which provides most of the soldiers and makes most of the material sacrifices, is a natural opponent of war, for war contradicts its aim – the creation of an economic order on a socialist basis for the purpose of bringing about the solidarity of all people.’

‘If war threatens to break out, it is the duty of the working class and of its parliamentary representatives in the countries involved, …. to exert every effort to prevent the outbreak of war by means they consider most effective….

Should war break out nonetheless, it is their duty to intervene in favour of its speedy termination and to do all in their power to utilise the economic and political crisis caused by the war to rouse the peoples and thereby to hasten the abolition of capitalist class rule.’

From the Resolution of the International Socialist Congress at Stuttgart, August 18-24, 1907

‘The Balkan crisis, which has already caused such horrors, would become the most terrible danger to civilisation and the proletariat if it should spread further. At the same time it would be the greatest outrage in all history because of the crying disparity between the magnitude of the catastrophe and the triviality of the interests involved.’

It goes on to say:

‘It is with satisfaction, therefore, the Congress notes that there is complete unanimity among the socialist parties and the trade unions of all countries in the war against war.’

‘The fear of the ruling classes that a world war might be followed by a proletarian revolution has proved to be an essential guarantee of peace.’

‘But the most important task in the International’s activities devolves upon the working class of Germany, France and England.’

‘The proletarians consider it a crime to fire at each other for the benefit of the capitalist profits, the ambitions of dynasties, or the greater glory of secret diplomatic treaties.’

From the Manifesto of the Extraordinary International Socialist Congress, Basel, November 24-25, 1912

The organised labour and socialist movement, dominated by reformists, social democrats and opportunists, proved itself incapable of facing up to the challenge history had placed before them. The overwhelming majority of the reformist ‘leaders’ of the various European socialist parties sided with capitalism and where they had elected representatives in some Parliaments actually voted in favour of finance for the war.

There were a few memorable exceptions to the long list of traitors who find words easy but actions way beyond their abilities.

Of the French Socialists Jean Jaures called for a general strike just two weeks before hostilities broke out. He was rewarded by being assassinated on the 31st July 1914.

Rosa Luxemburg continued her opposition to the war throughout the period of fighting, being imprisoned a number of times for her ‘unpatriotic’ activities. She failed to really understand the meaning of revolution and what it entailed against a ruling class that would stop at no means to prevent their loss of power. For that she paid with her life, being murdered by the nascent German fascists of the Friekorps on the orders of her erstwhile student and ‘comrade’ from the German Social Democratic Party, Frederick Ebert. This close working connection between social democracy and fascism/militarism is something that has continued throughout the last century.

Although not present at either of the International meetings James Connolly, the most significant and clear minded Irish revolutionary to date, was also clear about the true meaning of the war. Commenting on the betrayal of the leaders of the Socialist International, he wrote in Forward (15th August, 1914):

‘What then becomes of all our resolutions; all our protests of fraternisation; all our threats of general strikes; all our carefully built machinery of internationalism; all our hopes for the future?’

In response to pacifism he wrote:

‘A great continental uprising of the working class would stop the war; a universal protest at public meetings would not save a single life from being wantonly slaughtered.’

Unfortunately he was dragged into the badly organised and adventurous petty-bourgeois putsch of the Easter Rising of 1916, the defeat of which allowed British imperialism to kill him with impunity. Ireland lost their greatest leader at a time when someone of his stature was needed to stand up against the narrow-minded nationalists. When the Irish Republicans ‘celebrate’ the centenary of the rising in 2016 the country will be no closer to unity and independence than it was a hundred years before.

The most significant Marxist to consistently oppose the sending of workers to kill workers was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the leader of the Russian Bolsheviks. His words, written a few days after the shooting started, gave a clear analysis of what was happening in Europe:

‘The European and world war has the clearly defined character of a bourgeois, imperialist and dynastic war. A struggle for markets and for freedom to loot foreign countries, a striving to suppress the revolutionary movement of the proletariat and democracy in the individual countries, a desire to deceive, disunite, and slaughter the proletarians of all countries by setting the wage slaves of one nation against those of another so as to benefit the bourgeoisie – these are the only real content and significance of the war.’

Lenin Collected Works Vol 21, pp15-16

His leadership and the clarity of the Party allowed them to lead the Russian Revolution of November 1917 and to start the struggle to establish the first workers and peasants state in the Soviet Union.

That revolution was one of the few positive outcomes of the conflict of 1914-18 and the threat that event posed to capital can be seen by the speed at which former enemies came together in the desire to crush the world’s first socialist experiment on a countrywide basis. They weren’t successful in the 1920s but if workers and peasants sometimes relax or give up the fight capitalism never tires and has used and will use everything in its armoury to gain anything it has lost, whatever the cost in terms of lives or resources.

During all the statements that will be made today, the day that Britain declared war on Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, only passing, superficial mention will be made of the fact that what we now known as the First World War was also considered by many to be the ‘war to end all wars’.

Not for the bankers and industrialists who were set to make fortunes out of the suffering of millions; not for the politicians who soon realised the ludicrous nature of the statement soon after it became popular (and which was later paraphrased by such Richard Nixon in reference to the war against the Vietnamese); not for the military hierarchy who would never accept the disappearance of their reason for existence; not for the church (of whatever denomination) as there’s nothing better than the futility of war to try to sell ‘the pie in the sky when you die); but for the ordinary soldier.

Conscripted from the farms, mines and factories of Britain they were thrown into the horror of trench warfare of the western front or the slaughter on the beaches of Gallipoli. They wouldn’t be the same after seeing ‘Paree’ on their return home (if they weren’t destined to remain at places like Tyne Cot outside Passchendaele) and would have been a force to reckon with if they had proper leadership.

Lied to by the ruling class and betrayed by the social democrats the majority of the British population supported the war to the end believing that its successful conclusion (that is, a British victory) would see a new and better society for all. With another lie Lloyd George, in November 1918, churned out another famous phrase of the time: ‘To make Britain a fit country for heroes to live in.’

But what did those ‘heroes’ face.

A country where the Treasury, before 1914 bursting with the plunder of centuries from the ‘Empire’, was now looking for more savings. If not even the crumbs of Empire would fall from the table before the war there was no chance of increases in public spending after. Times of austerity had arrived – anything sound familiar here?

Thousands of men traumatised from their experiences at the front wandered the country in a daze and many gave up altogether. Unemployment increased and wages, hours and conditions of workers worsened. The defeat of the 1926 General Strike encouraged the employers to do as they wished. Then came the Crash of 1929 and its consequences, austerity layered on austerity. Unemployed Marches and the Means Test followed.

‘Salvation’ was another war, even more destructive in terms of human lives and resources. The ‘achievements’ of the conflict of 1939-45 in Britain, the Welfare State, introduced to stave off revolution, were under attack from the start and now there’s no Communist country in the world to pose an alternative the capitalist wolves are out to take back anything (and more) that was taken from them.

The present day social democrats, the Labour Party, vie with the other political parties to see who can be the best servant of capital. Before 1914 their words were brave even though their actions were pusillanimous. Now they are the most ardent and strident war-mongers of the lot.

The hypocrisy of the annual November 11th Remembrance Day parades and speeches has been surpassed today. If we want to truly pay homage to those who went so keenly off to war a hundred years ago we should be declaring an end to all wars and not preparing for the next one, whether it be the never-ending ‘War Against Terror’ or a return to the Cold War.

Today we are in the ludicrous and pitiful situation of commemorating the start of a war, surely that must be a first. We should make sure that in 25 years and one month, the centenary of the start of the Second World War, we have learnt the lessons of the past and realise that unless society is changed fundamentally we will be facing such anniversaries forever.

The Railway Man (2013) – dir. Jonathan Teplitzky

Posted on 06/02/2014 by Michael

British POWs on Burma Railway

The Railway Man concerns a surviving POW of the Japanese who was forced to work on the Burma Railway (of Bridge Over the River Kwai fame) and his post traumatic stress at his treatment, manifesting itself more than 35 years after the event.

As one of the other survivors says ‘war leaves a mess’. A bit of an understatement but obviously true but our realisation of that fact doesn’t make us any less likely, willing or even enthusiastic to send an ever-increasing numbers of men and women into conflict zones.

If the autobiography upon which the film is based, as well as the film itself, was arguing, if nothing else, that ‘war leaves a mess’ then surely we should be doing all we can to prevent such a mess from being created in the first place. This is especially so in a country that has been playing fast and loose with war since the disgrace and national shame of the Malvinas War of 1982.

Since then another Prime Minister, with an equal eye on history, has indulged his fantasy of long-lasting fame and, faced with gutless, opportunist and pusillanimous politicians and a weak population who oppose initially but support when ‘it’s our boys (and girls)’, has taken us along a road of never-ending conflict. When GW declared (probably the only true thing he ever said) that the ‘war against terror’ doesn’t have an end even he, I’m sure, didn’t expect that conflicts would be sprouting throughout the globe like poppies on the pockmarked, once agricultural, areas of Belgium.

So, I suppose, I’m asking what’s the purpose of this film (or any such like), this story of a personal tragedy?

Is it to ‘remind us’ that the British were the ‘good guys’ in the 1939-45 war? Is it to say, in the long-held Hollywood tradition, that the love of a good woman will bring resolution and redemption? Is it to say that revenge isn’t necessary and would probably have an even worse effect on he who perpetrated that revenge (as was the main point of the most recent film about South African apartheid, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom)?

Because the whole idea of forgiveness is ludicrous if we allow the circumstances where such acts of barbarity can be committed to exist in the first place.

It’s the same about post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In WWI it was described as shell shock and treated as a weakness and very often as an excuse for cowardice. This was the case even in the years following the war when damaged men were seen and written about throughout Western European society (I’ve never read or heard about the effects the war might have made on those soldiers from the British colonies of the time, from India and Africa).

Now it’s a recognised illness and has been (although grudgingly by the state) accepted as a consequence of conflict since the United States invasion of Vietnam in the 1960s. However, in those major wars the majority of the soldiers involved were conscripts, not all, but the majority. For me that paints a different picture. To forcibly take a young man from his home environment, send him to a strange and exotic land where he’s invariably like the proverbial fish out of water, expect him to kill, commit atrocities in the name their particular State, and put his own life on the line it’s not then surprising if some of them go doolally.

However, what I do find difficult to accept is the present tranche of the military that have, are or will be fighting in this never-ending war against terrorism. OK, it might be acceptable for the first to have gone into Afghanistan in 2001 and even some of those who were part of the invasion force in Iraq in 2003 but the ‘War on Terror’ has been going on for near on 13 years now.

As most private soldiers on the front line are in their late teens or early twenties some of those would have been in their first years of primary school when the wars started and when the first casualties of PTSD they would have been in their first years of secondary school. Before they joined up weren’t they aware that ‘war leaves a mess’? Were they so blinded by state propaganda and their bloodless experience of playing video games that wars hurt people? That their friends might not make it back? That innocent men, women and children are often casualties of war? That they might see done, or even do, things they would not have thought themselves capable before leaving home?

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t have relations of the military killed in these conflicts declaring, proudly, before the press (and in that way justifying the military aspirations of the State) that their son/daughter ‘died doing what they loved’, when what they did was kill people. Psychopaths and serial killers can’t get away with that excuse so why can State sponsored killers? On the other hand some will say that they have been permanently scarred psychologically by their experiences of war. They should have known better BEFORE taking the Queen’s shilling. They should have gone into it with their eyes wide open.

In some respects by their supposed ‘suffering’ they are negating the real horror and suffering of those who were forced, against their will and better judgement or conned into believing in a greater ideal of King and Country and whose mutilated bodies became part of the mud of Flanders fields. The adverts appearing on TV and cinema screens at the moment romanticise the military and have the same effect of deluding the young people who are still lining up to join the army.

One the other things this film sparked off in me was an investigation into the roots of waterboarding. Due to the publicity of its use in the last 13 years or so, primarily against Al-Qaeda suspects but probably against anyone the Americans don’t like, I held the general idea it was a relatively recent innovation in the treatment of people over which you have absolute power. It couldn’t be further from the truth and, if you think about it, the roots had to lie in the past.

Why? Because it’s low tech, cheap and needs only a few items which are always to hand.

It’s use is documented by the Spanish Inquisition, which began in the 15^th century, but there’s no reason to believe it wasn’t used long before that. It was used by the Inquisition to extract confessions of consorting, fornicating and generally being a servant of the Devil and, as is the nature of torture where people will say anything to make it stop, thousands admitted to whatever they were being accused. This fact, however, didn’t stop the United States Army from institutionalising this treatment as a form of ‘enhanced interrogation’.

In the Spanish-American War, which started in 1898 and which spread to war over the control of the Philippines, it was a regular form of treatment of prisoners and a sketch of the procedure was even carried on the front page of Life magazine, dated 22^nd May 1902 – so no real reason for the Americans to be shocked about its use. There was even an army manual about it.

And the Americans took the practice to those places it sent soldiers during the 20^th century. I thought I knew quite a bit about the invasion of Vietnam but I hadn’t come across mention of the practice before. (Notice, in the picture below, the smiles on the faces of the perpetrators.) So waterboarding became torture just for the fun of it more than 40 years ago and continues as such to this day.

Water boarding in Vietnam

One of the ‘niceties’ of waterboarding is it doesn’t actually cause any physical harm. If the body is angled so that the head is lower than the body it’s impossible for a person to drown. The trick is the victim thinks they are. It’s this fine distinction which allows the likes of Donald Rumsfeld to have made typically contradictory statements over the procedure and its effectiveness as a means of gaining information, specifically about the whereabouts and eventual assassination of Osama Bin Ladin.

But it all depends on who is being waterboarded in the first place. The now replaced Republican officials of the Bush-era have been reportedly joking at their parties about all sorts of war crimes. However, in 1947 a Japanese soldier was sentenced to 15 years in gaol for waterboarding a US citizen – I don’t have any more information. The British Army used it against Republicans in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and its inconceivable it wasn’t used against anti-colonial movements in Africa prior to that.

Finally on this matter. Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times for his supposed involvement in the September 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. It is reported the US intelligence forces gained 10 pieces of information from Abu Zubaydah, but nothing that was world shattering showing either he knew nothing or he was really tough.

Tougher, it seems, than US Navy Seals. Someone with a sense of humour in the US Defence Department thought it would be good to introduce waterboarding into the training programme. On average the recruits lasted 14 seconds. After a while it was decided this part of the programme was not particularly good for morale.

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Category Archives: War

Mushqete Monument – Berzhite

Mushqete Monument – Berzhite

The Railway Man (2013) – dir. Jonathan Teplitzky