Britain trains despotic regimes’ forces

Britain has been providing training courses for police and security forces from oppressive regimes accused of human rights abuses, genocide and war crimes, according to media reports.

Security forces from Democratic Republic of Congo and Bahrain among other have been receiving training at the UK’s elite Royal Military Academy Sandhurst on British taxpayers’ money despite human rights violations, including extra-judicial killings and torture, genocide and crimes against humanity, said the media reports.

The UK government has also been engaged in training Saudi Arabia’s National Guards, a military regiment loyal to the despotic Saudi royal family, who were deployed in Bahrain last year to help Bahraini regime’s troops in their brutal crackdown against pro-democracy protests.

Bahrain, a tiny Persian Gulf island state, has been the scene of anti-regime protests since February last year and scores of people have been killed and hundreds more injured in the Saudi-backed crackdown on the protests.

Britain is providing support including military logistics, advanced command and staff courses and strategic intelligence to these countries, which are the scene of some of the world’s most serious mass atrocities.

According to the reports, various human rights abuses have been documented in Congo, especially against opponents of the president, Joseph Kabila.

During last November’s presidential elections serious human rights violations, including killings, disappearances and arbitrary detentions were reported by the UN in the country.

A letter from the former Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis in 2010 stated: “The UK has a large police support programme in Democratic Republic of the Congo.”

This is while that, based on credible studies, Congolese soldiers are responsible for at least 60 percent of reported rapes in the country.

“The Congolese army remains responsible for a significant number of human rights violations, including sexual violence”, said the UN’s high commissioner for human rights.

As far as the issue of Bahrain is concerned, the British government has already been severely criticized by human rights activists.

Rodney Shakespeare, chairman of the Committee against Torture in Bahrain, described such measures as shameful.

“This is the shame of this country, the country in which we are now the UK, that we actually support this ghoulish, feudal regime,” said Shakespeare in an interview with Press TV.

“We claim to be democratic. We’re nothing of the sort. All the nasty regimes which commit atrocities we support them,” he added.

The widespread abuses committed by the Bahrain security forces in their attempts to suppress the dissent have only prolonged the continuing uprising, hardened the positions of the opposition, and brought Bahrain a steady stream of international criticism.