A sick joke: vilify Saddam while closing Sangatte

We publicise Iraq's mass privations to justify war, but refuse to offer Iraqis a share of our peace

Yesterday's publication of the Government's 23-page document, Saddam Hussein: crimes and human rights abuses, has been roundly condemned by Amnesty International, a group dedicated to the exposure of human rights abuses. Amnesty International has no quibble at all with the information contained within the publication. So why is the global justice organisation being so shirty?

Because, of course, it seems pretty obvious that the dossier (coinciding as it does with such matters as the establishment of a US military command centre in Qatar) exists only to make imminent war with Iraq more palatable to the British public. Amnesty International has been banging on about these and other abuses for years, but until now had found the Government none too keen to publicise them.

And what else could possibly account for the timing of the document, which, if you leave the US agenda out of the equation, is disastrous. The dossier recounts rape, torture and killings under Saddam, declares that "Iraq is a terrifying place to live", and asserts that up to four million Iraqis, about 15 per cent of the population, have fled the country.

If a little gory detail is needed to help to concentrate the mind on what torture might look like, then turn straight to the revelation that amputation of the tongue is now a punishment for "slander or abusive remarks about the president". A few examples have already been made of a few people, and broadcast on the Iraqi network. Say what you will about Saddam, but there's no doubt at all that his reality television is absolutely hardcore.

Sick joke? I don't think it can compete. Not when you consider that the dossier was released on the very day that Britain managed to strike a deal obliging the International Red Cross to shut down an operation that exists to feed and shelter some of those very four million people fleeing from that very regime. Is it not shameful that the Government had the gall to publish this document on the day it agreed to take just 1,000 mainly Iraqi refugees from the Sangatte camp?

Certainly Sangatte did offer aid to people trying to get to Britain, when international law insists that refugees must claim asylum in the first country they reach. But without the shelter, refugees will still make for Calais, still hoping to reach Britain. It is just that more will die in the attempt, and more will arrive more desperate, more ill, and more dehumanised.

People don't head to Britain because Sangatte exists. On the contrary, Sangatte exists because so many people head to Britain. Why should that be so? Clearly it is partly because we are a rich and historically tolerant nation. But it is also because Iraqis may have the idea that their enemy's enemy is their friend.

Which country in Europe, supported the Gulf War more exuberantly than Britain? None. Which country in Europe, since the Gulf War, has been more belligerent in the bombing of Baghdad, or in the implementation of sanctions? None. Which European country has been more steadfast in its support of the US in its desire for regime change? None. No wonder those who wish to escape Saddam dream of a sympathetic hearing in Britain. We're really rooting for them. As long as they stay in the line of fire.

Now, we are asked to celebrate a victory, which is that Sangatte will close down at the end of this month, far sooner than previously hoped. Which is lucky, isn't it, because once the bombs start dropping on Iraq, those refugees will be pouring out. And, as usual, plans to accommodate the most vulnerable casualties of war will be makeshift and short-term.

You'd think the Government would be only too aware of the problems stored up for the future by regime change. After Iraqi Kurds, the largest group of people still in Sangatte are Afghans. The French government has already tried offering them £1,250 to go home, but not many are biting. Why not? Our government, oddly enough, does not feel it necessary to publish dossiers on the human rights abuses that continue in Afghanistan. Instead, it is determined to behave as though it has built the country fit for heroes that it promised in the run-up to the toppling of the Taliban.

Meanwhile, in a sickening irony, government lawyers are attempting to cut the legal aid of an Afghan family sequestered in Germany as they wait to see if their adjourned appeal hearing will find that Britain violated their human rights in deporting them.

Farid and Feriba Ahmadi, who fled Afghanistan before the Taliban were deposed, were evicted from an West Midlands mosque in July, after entry was gained with a battering ram. A private plane was chartered at a cost to the taxpayer of £30,000 to deport them to Germany. At the time lawyers argued that the mental state of the mother and her four- and seven-year-old children would deteriorate if they were deported. Feriba Ahmadi is now in a German mental health facility.

There is much windy rhetoric on the left about immigration, when the fact remains that not everyone seeking to come to Britain is coming with the best of intentions. Beyond the nasty grandstanding, there are some humane and positive aspects to Britain's immigration policy. For example, this country is currently working at increasing legal permits to work in Britain in an attempt to attract those who wish to work hard and honestly.

The logic is that those able to contribute positively to the community should not have to resort to illegal immigration. This is a problem when it results in skills being stripped from the countries that most need them. But if we are to continue with the dangerous experiment we call the global economy, then the movement of labour must be freed up alongside the rest.

Any free labour must be preferable to illegal labour, for there is no disguising the fact that illegal immigration causes problems. While much is made – and rightly, I'm afraid – of the criminal activities of some groups of illegal immigrants, even the majority who work for their living are generally compelled accept wages that drive down the going rate for everyone, and make it harder for many more to scrape a wage. They are exploited themselves and make it easier for others to be exploited. No fair-minded person, surely, can see this as a good thing

Mr Blair and his government are keen always to emphasise the interplay between rights and responsibilities, and they are correct in doing so. But the question today is whether the Government has the right to use the plight of the Iraqi nation as propaganda for its own ends, when it has no intention of taking adequate responsibility for the future of those people.

It would have been more humane to have published this dossier long ago, in order to explain to the country why Iraqis need asylum in Britain, instead of playing up to ignorance and prejudice by accusing the French of conspiring to offload them into Britain. Except, of course, that that would have sent a signal to Iraqis that the Government welcomes them here.

Clearly, it does not. So it would be less hypocritical to leave the document unpublished, and think a little bit harder instead about how far we are really prepared to go to help the Iraqis. Surely this grotesque compromise, whereby we will publicise Iraq's mass privations to justify war, but grimly refuse to offer Iraqi individuals a share of our peace, is realpolitik taken too far.

d.orr@independent.co.uk