LONDON: Diplomatic battles over the fate of two British terrorism suspects jailed at Guantanamo Bay will pose a key test for the much-flaunted special relationship between Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush this week.
Blair plans to raise the controversial issue of the suspects’ being chosen for military trial when he meets Bush on Thursday.
Analysts say that if he fails to force a change of heart from the US administration, the London-Washington alliance can effectively be declared worthless.
“The hopes of the entire international community are on Blair’s shoulders,” said Stephen Jakobi, director of campaign group Fair Trials Abroad.
“The only real possibility of anybody doing anything about this is Blair talking to Bush,” he said. “There is no one the administration is more likely to listen to.”
US plans for military trials of a first batch of six foreigners — including Britons, Feroz Abbasi, 23, and Moazzam Begg, 35 — at the naval base in Cuba, have sparked worldwide criticism and strained Anglo-American ties.
The prospect of death sentences being handed down has further fuelled the row.
Blair is under severe pressure from members of his own Labour Party and human rights groups to persuade Bush to hand over the two men for trial in Britain, or at least to ensure a non-military court hears their cases.
The Muslim Association of Britain has slammed Blair for his muted response to “one of the most glaring symbols of tyranny and injustice known in modern times.”
“SUBSERVIENCE TO AMERICAN POWER”: If he succeeds, Blair will quieten critics on the left who brand him “Bush’s poodle” and who claim his support for Bush in the war on terror has earned him no special respect in return.
“The advantage for Blair of some concession being made in the case of these two is that it would suggest that the United Kingdom does get some quid pro quo from its relationship with the United States,” said John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University in Scotland.
But Hugo Young, a veteran political commentator writing in the left-leaning Guardian newspaper, doubted Blair would press Bush hard enough to stop the military trials.
“I shall be amazed if Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi escape the Guantanamo machine and are tried in a British court,” he said, describing the detainees as a symbol of British “subservience to American power”.
Blair told parliament last week that “representations” were being made to Washington, but he has declined to condemn the trials or call for the extradition of Britons held at the camp.
Curtice pointed out that if he succeeds in shifting Bush’s opinion, the suspects’ trial then becomes a problem for Britain, not the United States.
“If they are repatriated to Britain, there is a big question over whether there is sufficient evidence to prosecute them under British law,” he said.
But Jakobi said that if Blair cannot hammer out a deal, the result would be strong sense that “there is one law for the Americans...and another for all us lesser breeds.
“And whatever Blair says,” he added, “that would mean that we in Britain are second rate citizens along with everybody else and the Anglo-American alliance is dead.”—Reuters
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