Empire building
by Sean O Donaile
- To The Ends Of The Earth (Channel 4)
- Reputations (BBC2)
John Pilger in his excellent modern history book `Heroes', tells
it as it really is, or was, particularly in Vietnam, where the
American government invaded in the early sixties on the pretext
of protecting the country from communism. In fact they had staged
an ``incident'' in order to invade and bring Vietnam under their
control.
The following twelve years resulted in one of the world's
bloodiest wars with 1.3 million casualties, including 60,000 US
troops and a further 50,000 veterans who committed suicide after
their return home.
``To The Ends Of The Earth'' (Channel 4) highlighted the plight of
neighbouring Laos, which still suffers the scars of that era.
Unfortunately for Laos, it bordered Vietnam's Ho-Chi-Minh trail
and suffered the consequences, with more bombs being dropped on
this small area than all bombs combined during World War II.
John Devine, one of two bomb defusal experts featured in the
programme, states ``it makes one wonder how a so-called
civilisation could cause such suffering to an innocent people''.
B-52s emptied their bellies of everything from 3,000lbers to
grenades every six minutes over a nine year period and they're
still picking them out.
John and Peter, two likeable chaps, devote their energies to
defusing the hugh amount of unexploded bombs dotted throughout
the countryside and villages.
Their mission takes them to the border town of Tai-Loi,
exterminated during the war, where the land is still highly
contaminated and bomb shells are used as everything from bridges
to benches.
The six-acre site surrounding the local secondary school takes a
full year to clear, the most common find is the tiny cluster bomb
- of which 700 were scattered from each capsule, with thousands
of pins exploding from each bomb at thousands of metres a second.
It's a regular occurrence for locals to find unexploded devices
under their house or in their vegetable plot, which our two
heroes attend to with the minimum of fuss. Their biggest find is
a 2,000lb ``tile-unit'', capable of destroying everything within a
five mile radius.
Unfortunately for the locals, the bomb is still in use by the
Americans (over Iraq and the likes) and refuse to hand over
details of how to defuse this gross overkill. The bomb is thus
left on the hillside, waiting for some unfortunate to stick his
spade in it.
The only fault with this documentary is the age old habit of
viewing the problem through western eyes.
The only locals we meet have a fairly miserable existence, eking
out a living, selling scrap metal from the shells at 10p per
kilo.
One elderly woman describes how she lived in ``a hole in the
ground'' for the duration of the bombing - ``it was a miracle we
survived''. On her emergence she had to collect many bombs by
hand, ``to stop my children from playing with them''.
By the time the countryside is cleared the Yanks will probably be
back, in the name of democracy presumably!
other ``hero'' featured on BBC2's Reputations was Kerryman Lord
Kitchener, who would have fitted in well during the Vietman War.
Kitchener will always be the face on the infamous World War One
recruitment poster, which increased the rate of hapless pawns
marching to their deaths in rat filled trenches on the Western
Front.
Born in Kerry in 1850 to a rack-renting landlord family, who had
come to Ireland ``to avail of the increased opportunities
following the famine'', he grew up under a harsh authoritarian
father who terrorised his tenants.
Small wonder that Kitchener followed his father's example,
joining the British army and making his name in Sudan, where he
butchered 30,000 Dervishes with the help of modern machineguns.
He reputedly was hit in the jaw with a bullet, but ``was such a
fine soldier that he swallowed the bullet''.
The wounded were left to die in the open and relatives prevented
from visiting them, and Kitchener joked of how he would ``dispose
of'' 300,000 women.
Sudan was again safe for the Empire and he returned to London a
hero. Much is made of his alleged homosexuality and his tendency
to surround himself with young men in handlebar moustaches (his
regiments resembled the cover of a Frankie Goes to Hollywood
album cover), which is of little importance, except to say that
in Victorian society it was more acceptable to visit brothels
than to ``come out''. This documentary was littered with Tories of
different hues with pokers up their posteriors, all of whom seem
to think that it was ``jolly good'' that cousin Herbert slaughtered
thousands of Africans as ``he had no choice''.
Kitchener further etched his name on history when he invented
Concentration Camps during the Boer War, which of course were
later perfected in Germany, Poland and the North of Ireland.
Boer families were rounded up after Kitchener's scorched earth
policy and sent to inhumane camps where ``the uncivilised locals
died from their unhygienic habits''. 26,000 women and children
died in the ``white'' camps and a further 30,000 blacks perished in
even worse conditions.
The South Africans blamed Kitchener for helping to create racial
conflict as he used blacks to fight against their fellow
countrymen. The worst aspect of this savagery was that he
received further awards for his savagery and still today, the
poker faced Tories claim ``the Boers were to blame'' and ``what
could he have done?''.
He further distinguished himself in India and Egypt before
driving millions of naive Britons to the Western front, and
drowning off the Orkney islands.
Kitchener is today regarded as a hero in Britain and has come ``to
embody the positive side of the Empire''.
Small wonder the Empire collapsed.
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