We can tell that capitalism still marches on – today BAE Systems shares went up after the arms business was fined nearly £300 millions for false accounting and bribery. It was just the latest round in this dreadful saga and the UK and USA governments are desperate to close the door on further investigations.

Of course it is a world-wide and ancient tale of capitalist wrongdoing and Jersey is right up there with the big boys proudly punching above its corruption weight.

Some people will still remember the late Geoffrey Edwards the Yorkshire born ex RAF pilot turned arms dealer/agent who settled in Jersey after receiving an £8 millions commission from the Saudis back in 1967. Then, as now, 11K category arms dealers and mercenaries were/are welcome to settle here and Edwards shared in further BAE/Saudi commissions of £30 millions in 1973 and £60 millions in 1978. At current rates, these amounts would probably be billions but he was a pioneer of the whole Al Yamamah (“The Dove”) multi-billions BAE scandal “the biggest UK sale ever of anything to anyone” and it’s amazing that he is remembered here now only with a horse race at Les Landes whereas he surely deserves a full bronze, missile mounted statue in the Royal Square?

Edwards is not just a Jersey hero because he was fighting for British business in true buccaneering style and the myth of ethical gentlemen salesmen travelling the world securing the manufacturing orders for the boys back home has surely been destroyed by BAE for ever.
The corrupt multi-millions dealings of this company have been tracked from Qatar to Chile, Austria and the Czech Republic, Tanzania, South Africa, Romania and that veritable pot of black gold – Saudi Arabia. Every now and then the trail leads back to the Channel Islands and the extraordinary slush fund that not only oils the wheels of corrupt capitalist business but also fuels the fire of corrupt governments and the interfering activities of the CIA and British intelligence services in struggling democracies everywhere.

From the outset, payment for BAE aircraft and technical support to the Saudis was paid for in oil – 600,000 barrels a day – which was/is outside of the famous OPEC limits and controls. That oil was sold on the spot markets to generate extra billions in cash and this is (or was) invested largely through tax haven based hedge funds registered in the Caymans or BVI and presumably the Channel Islands and IOM too. So enormous has the business been, that Prince Bandar the Cranwell trained pilot and long-time Saudi Ambassador in Washington was apparently paid a regular commission of 30 million dollars a quarter through Lloyds TSB and Riggs Bank. Altogether it is alleged he received 10 billion dollars over the years. Not surprising therefore, that his Cotswold mansion and estate (which includes the whole village of Glympton) is owned through a Jersey registered company in the names of a bank manager and an accountant.
And not surprising either that Andrew Edwards in his 2002 Report for the UK Land Registry called for the widespread abuse of such concealed ownership through CI companies of UK properties, by the rich, to be stopped.

In 1998 BAE set up a BVI company called Red Diamond as a cover for payments totalling more than £100 millions in “commissions” or bribes in connection with the ever growing world-wide business (but especially that in Africa) and the records are kept discreetly in Switzerland.
From Red Diamond the slush fund payments were paid out through a network of haven registered entities such as Poseidon, Osprey Aerospace, and Hudersfield Enterprises etc to the various BAE fixers, agents and bent politicians. The Bahamas, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Panama, Liberia, Caymans, Gibraltar, IOM and the Channel Islands were all used regularly as was the Barclays Lloyds TSB – Riggs Bank connection and there was usually a very close connection too with the Presidential Bush family and American, Dutch/Anglo slush fund operations through BP and Royal Dutch Shell and such organisations as the huge Carlyle arms and investments Group.

Involvement with bent or morally weak politicians has been an essential part of the BAE strategy from the beginning and Geoffrey Edwards set the early standard through friendships with the like of John Stonehouse, the minister in Harold Wilson’s government who went to jail for fraud after faking his disappearance Reggie Perrin style. And Edwards also nurtured his own right wing political ties too and supported groups like GB 75 the mysterious gathering of military and intelligence men who were standing-by ready to overthrow Wilson’s Labour government if it became too left-wing.

But the enormous funds generated by this extraordinary and covert business have been used for all sorts of really dangerous and serious clandestine activities by the Secret and military Services of the UK and US governments over many decades and the names from scandals past – like Oliver North and Adnam Khashoggi, Marcos and Pinochet, the Shah of Iran and many more emerge from the gloom whenever the record is revealed for inspection.

When Marcos of the Philippines was deposed, thousands of tonnes of “his” gold were supposedly secreted to Switzerland and sold off by Khashoggi for the Americans (and unknown amounts of money found their way into Jersey based accounts).
Pinochet of Chile was also the recipient of substantial payments much later through the Red Diamond network for the rockets and military equipment supplied to his dreadful regime - but he died in 2006 before his prosecution could proceed.
But the Saudi “arms for oil deal” was the source of much of the financial support that underwrote the very existence of such regimes and much of the international mischief- making of both the US and UK governments.

Some will recall too that Pinochet was holed up in Margaret Thatcher’s London gated home while he evaded arrest and extradition and this £3 millions property was leased for 64 years through Jersey company Bakeland Property Ltd fronted by long time Thatcher family friend and financial adviser Dr Hugh Thurston with Leonard Day and that Thatcher’s husband Dennis and son Mark – besides members of her government – were up to their necks in financial sleaze with BAE.
Thus Mark received over £8 millions through one BVI company in 1999 resulting from South African/BAE deals yet famously walked free (for the moment) when his colleague Simon Mann finished up in an Equatorial Guinea jail along with his gang of failed mercenaries. That the financing of this failed coup was arranged through Guernsey was no surprise since mercenaries and other subversive elements had been operating under Channel Islands covers, such as the Guernsey registered Executive Outcomes Ltd – with the blessing of successive British governments – for years.

Dr Hugh Thurston, who originally appeared in Jersey in the 1960’s advising the island government with regard to Common Market negotiations had also evolved into some sort of BAE agent too because he along, with Len Day and Robert Chapman were directors of the Jersey Registered Commercial International Corporation (CIC) in 1999 which received £290,000 in payments from BAE through the BVI link. And, Thurston’s directorship of the BVI registered Arstow Commercial Corporation (another Red Diamond/BAE device) might have been even more lucrative because it was reported to have received £15 millions in commission payments, arising from South African deals.

The funds from the BAE/Saudi deals have been described as the “biggest pool of clandestine cash in history.” Conspiracy theories abound about the corrupting role of the Bush American governments or British intelligence with such as al-Qaeda, Mugabe of Zimbabwe, ANC leaders in South Africa, the Palestinian nuclear programme, and the arming of Chad, or Iran or Afghanistan subversives. Their use in other territories where mineral or other resource (especially oil or gas) might be secured or unfriendly administrations replaced have frequently been raised too.

In 2002, Michael Portillo the oh so nice former Tory Defence secretary was appointed as a director of BAE systems and he had signed an arms deal with the government of Qatar in 1996 that unfortunately, blew up in the Jersey courts in 1998. Then a chance discovery made when Standard Chartered Bank took over Gridley’s had revealed a £100 millions slush fund for Qatar’s minister Sheikh Hamad and much of this derived from previous French arms deals. But, the UK Serious Fraud Office’s Ms Garlick was determined to prosecute and the revelation of a further £7 millions BAE bung was contrary to the recently introduced Proceeds of Crime (J) Law and had to be pursued.

But, in spite of holding the hearings in secret - and the brave protestations of JEP reporter Anthony Lewis for press restrictions to be lifted – the UK SFO and William Bailhache the Jersey Attorney finally caved-in and the prosecution was abandoned with the Qatar government paying £6 millions to cover Jersey’s expenses and loss of face.
The result was typical of all failed BAE prosecutions to date.
The latest out of court £300 millions settlement this week is just the latest in a long line of diplomatic solutions that allow the guilty to escape and for the evil arms trade to carry on without any hindrance. The related London bribery prosecution against Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly by the SFO has apparently been dropped.

The corruption is destructive of any concepts of democratic government in other countries and reveals time and time again how ineffective are the regulatory bodies - such as the JFSC – in supervising the Channel Islands finance business.

In Tanzania – a desperately impoverished country – a deal to supply a totally unnecessary military radar system at immense cost was sealed and a large “commission” was paid into a Jersey bank.
When two ancient British frigates were sold to poor Romania in 2003 they were to be refurbished at absurdly expensive rates and a £7 millions “commission” was paid into the Guernsey Trust Powerscourt through a Liberian company for a Mr George.

Defence Consultancy Ltd, a BVI company registered in 1997 paid £13 millions of BAE “commission” arising from S African deals into a Guernsey bank account at Henry Ansbacher for Mr Hart, an Old Etonian friend of Mrs Thatcher.

The Carlyle Capitol Corporation – a hedge fund - founded in Guernsey in 2006 went bust in 2008 with huge debts. This was described as a “shell company” in a subsequent (ongoing) New York court case and allegations of fraud have been made and it is claimed that the fund was heavily leveraged “up to 32 times.”
The fund had defaulted on 16 billion dollars and it was anticipated that clients would lose 600 million dollars. Yet just a few months before it failed the auditing accountants had declared it to be financially sound.

It is a part of the huge American Carlyle Group – through a labyrinth of Delaware/Cayman/London links - and the failure was declared as insignificant to the whole by the US management.

It seems that no matter how many financial scandals are revealed, that the people of the Channel Islands just do not care about their international responsibilities. Whether it is selling arms or chopping down a rainforest – just so long as nobody makes a fuss in the Channel Islands then there is no voice of protest or concern.

Each year too the annual September Air Show in the Channel Islands is being turned into a mere backdrop for the finance industry and a show place for the products of BAE and associated arms manufacturers. The question needs to be asked whether decent islanders should want any part of such activities in this memorial context?

Tom Gruchy

[Submitted by Tom Gruchy]

Jersey’s Royal Bailiff Michael Birt has officially launched the appeal for funds to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. No problem there - except that some digging in the buildings of St Helier might be rather more productive and helpful.

After all, much of the multi-millions plundered by “Papa” and “Baby Doc” Duvalier (for 28 years till 1985 the dictatorial leaders of Haiti) have still not been found or retrieved.

There may well be more millions of hidden Haitian loot in Jersey banks and lawyers offices than any amount of tin-rattling will ever raise for the victims of the current tragedy.

Is our Bailiff certain that he has done everything possible to discover if the plundered wealth of Haiti is still secreted in this Island or concealed within complicated financial devices that stretch across the world from one dubious jurisdiction to another?
Is he satisfied that his Jersey fellow lawyers and other professionals have not helped to conceal the millions looted by businesses or such leaders as the Duvaliers and that the Jersey Financial Services Commission is policing such matters effectively?

Even “Baby Doc” Duvalier himself has emerged in recent days from his Paris place of exile proposing that some of the millions held under embargo in Swiss banks such as UBS, should be released to the American Red Cross for use in Haiti.

But this is just the latest round in the cruel game being played by the Duvalier family and their professional advisers and illustrates once again the hypocrisy of the world of finance and the often sordid role of regulation havens like Jersey.

The trail of the Haitian millions runs across the globe through Panama and Switzerland and London and Luxembourg and the Caymans and “elsewhere”- that probably includes Jersey - and at least one UBS Lausanne account supposedly holds the embargoed millions of the “Brouilly Foundation”.
This is an example of a device set up under a “Liechtenstein Foundation” – just the sort of financial device that Jersey has recently introduced and embraced and is now marketing around the world with enthusiasm……..

Unfortunately, earthquakes and hurricanes, for all their terrible consequences, have not been the most damaging influences over the centuries in Haiti.
The Caribs and Arawaks, the indigenous populations were of course totally destroyed by our Colonizing ancestors even before the French imported 800,000 African slaves to make “Saint Dominique” the most productive and wealth generating place in the West Indies of the 18th century.

But, after the slaves revolted and established their own government of Haiti – the rest of the world retaliated by isolating them and after 1825 the Islanders were tied to an economic deal with France that ensured their debt and impoverishment for the next hundred years.

Slavery has not left Haiti. The island today is a regulation haven where important natural resources and production (principally bauxite, sugar and sisal) are all controlled by American corporations and many thousands, including children, are employed for absurdly low wages, in appalling conditions making toys and suchlike for foreign companies. Deforestation and environmental pollution are serious problems.

Haiti now has a population of about 8 millions but the annual budget of 300 million dollars is about half the annual budget for Jersey (population 92,000).

Haiti is already in debt to international financial institutions and foreign governments to 1 ½ billion dollars. The IMF has imposed restrictions and conditions that perpetuate poverty and indebtedness to international banks and finance institutions.

The Duvalier legacy includes a huge financial burden in the form of loans that have to be re-paid besides the destruction of Haitian infrastructure and the elimination of trained people. It is estimated that up to 60,000 of the Duvaliers’ political opponents were murdered yet the battle to bring “Baby Doc” back from France to face a Court of justice and to repatriate looted funds was led by just one Haitian taxi-driver and a priest for many years.

“Transparency International” rates Haiti among the 3 most corrupt places that are monitored. The government has been largely controlled and directed by the US Government since the 2nd world war and the CIA has been involved in all sorts of mischief in removing or enabling government leaders.

So put your shillings in the collecting boxes by all means but at the same time try to remember that Jersey’s international role is not so generous and consider whether there might be a better way to help the people of Haiti and other places.

If Jersey does have people with expertise in economic management skills and advice to offer – then there is plenty of need for this - rather than providing a haven for the plunder of despots and crooks. As they say – do you want to be part of the problem or the solution?


[Submitted by Tom Gruchy
]

It’s a great pity that the office of Jersey’s Dean has been removed along with that of the Lt Governor from the ongoing States Inquiry into the role of the other Crown appointed Officers – the Bailiff and Attorney/Solicitor General.

Deputy Bob Hill’s original proposal was of course correct. The whole lot needs to be properly looked at and this medieval branchage is long overdue for a trim.

Of course, the Lt Governor generally stays well clear of any wrangling on the matter but it just shows how entrenched this office is within the Jersey establishment because his purpose is so totally unnecessary in the 21st century by any democratic standards. But nobody in government must be allowed to question or discuss it!

The Dean does at least have some claim to doing a useful job for those who need a superstitious crutch in life and death – but why the Church of England should be treated differently and preferentially over any other religions in Jersey is certainly a matter that warrants critical attention. Is it Human Rights compliant?

But the current Dean is as much like a man of gob as man of god because he just loves the sound of his own voice and takes every opportunity to sound off in the States chamber as though it was an extension of his pulpit. Why should he be allowed to participate here – who chooses him? Who does he speak for? And why does he sit on the Parish Roads Committee?

Now is the high point of the Dean’s year because it affords him the opportunity to bow and scrape before the good and great of the Island who come into the St Helier church from their country mansions to hob [expletive] under the Christmas trimmings. But why the long suffering parishioners of the Town should subsidize the rest of the population or provide an expensive ceremonial stage for the Bailiff and his cronies is an even greater mystery than the one from ancient Bethlehem.

Since his appointment – under Letters Patent – in 2005, the current Dean has behaved like a spend, spend, spend pools winner.

Why the parishioners of St Helier cannot choose their own senior cleric but must have him (or her?) secretly appointed in England is all part of the mystery that needs to be examined but this man has been demanding £millions from St Helier ratepayers to refurbish his little cathedral (whether they are churchgoers or not).

Yet other church denominations such as the Catholics, who have far greater congregations and equally expensive buildings to maintain, receive nothing from the rates or other public funds. Why not? What manner of discrimination is this?

Of course, it’s not just the Town Church expenditure either. Under this Dean’s care the Deanery has been refurbished to an extraordinary high standard ( “because we shall be entertaining the Lt Governor”) with gold tap trimmings more like Saddam’s Iraq palaces and an integral spacious “granny flat” for “visiting clergy” (furnished by the congregation too).

The unpaid Verger “left” his post, soon after this Dean arrived, and vacated his living accommodation at Church House only to be replaced by a salaried Verger aka “Town Centre Missioner”. He was an Australian recruited from the finance industry and the living accommodation was totally refurbished and upgraded with 2 bathrooms too and he and his wife lodged at the Deanery whilst the work was carried out.

Although the Dean is supposed to be the Rector of St Helier and must have more than enough souls to save in that Parish, he has felt the need to swan around the country parishes too (“reaching out to the community”) and so he created the extra job of “Dean’s Vicar” to administer to the town-dwellers and a ½ £million house was purchased to accommodate this South African recruit. Who paid for this?

As if this religious empire was not already enough, the Dean then dreamed up the post of “Town Curate” who was sworn-in with some pomp but not a great deal of prior consultation with the long suffering congregation. Does anybody know what he does?

The Dean has also appointed a Chaplain at the prison and a 2nd Chaplain at the Hospital.

Yet, now the Dean has the cheek to sound-off about the low level of C of E staffing in Jersey and how every Parish cannot have a Rector and that the big wigs in England are threatening financial cuts and don’t have great reserves of invested wealth for Jersey to call upon and there may be cutbacks!!!!

Just what is the truth – do we need more or fewer clerics in Jersey? How many people actually attend any Church on a regular basis and more especially, how many Town dwellers worship in the Town Church?

Every year in Jersey the Royal Court carries out an inspection of a Parish to ensure that the books are properly kept and that the roads are correctly maintained etc but who supervises and regulates the business of religion?

Just what is going on with the Church of England in Jersey and just who actually makes the decisions and pays the bills and is it not time that all religion in this Island was brought under the effective and democratic control of local residents?

The current Dean may well claim that he is “called by God” but here on earth, somebody should call this Cleric and his activities in Jersey to account.

Seasonal Greetings!

Tom Gruchy

[Submitted by Tom Gruchy]

I'm sorry for the JEP. I'm sorry to my friends and family who don't live here, most of us here in this beautiful island are good folk trying to do the good thing and beat off the BULLIES who BULLY us into GST, who BULLY us into believing 100+ statements from victims of historical abuse are wrong and it wasn't THAT bad, come on old boy! The BULLIES who are trying BULLY us into more taxes to pay for their mismanagement (drove past the new incinerator today.............).

I'm sorry for the BULLIES telling me that SENATOR STUART SYVRET is a bully. That'll be the SENATOR STUART SYVRET who has the courage and decency to challenge continually and inform us of the real BULLIES are.

Cheers SENATOR STUART SYVRET, keep on being a "BULLY!"

x
[Submitted by Sick]

The first Annual General Meeting of the Jersey Human Rights Group will be held on Monday 23rd November at 5.30. The meeting will take place in the States Members Lunch Room, States Building. You should arrange to be in the Royal Square before 5.30pm outside the Members' entrance in order to be let in to the building by Deputy Bob Hill.

IAWL Jersey bulletin, 9 November

WORKERS SHOULD NOT PAY FOR THE BOSSES' CRISIS

Why are public sector workers preparing for strike action?

In Jersey, like in the UK, the rich are getting richer and workers and the poor are getting poorer as the bosses try to make us pay for their economic crisis. Workers in Jersey are suffering:
* Rising taxes. GST (which the government already plans to put up), rising duties and the freeze on tax allowances are making the situation unbearable for most people. We are being forced to pay for the hole left by their refusal to seriously tax corporations.
* Real-term wage cuts. The States has over-ruled even its own States Employment Board to insist that workers should get no cost of living increase – despite rising taxes and despite inflation.
* Job cuts and privatisation. For instance, twenty jobs at Jersey Water are under threat as public property is semi-privatised through ‘incorporation’ – preparing for it to be sold off. Jersey Telecom has also been incorporated. We can expect more to come.
We’re in an economic crisis. Isn’t this inevitable?

No. When the States argues that because workers in the UK are taking cuts, so should we – or that because workers in the private sector are taking cuts, so should the public sector – that’s an excuse to attack all workers. If one group of workers succeed in stopping cuts and getting a decent pay rise, it will make the situation better for all workers to struggle. We need to take on the bosses, not fall out amongst ourselves.

When workers’ spending power is reduced it will only make the economic crisis worse. But in any case, there is a basic class issue here. When they say “People have to tighten their belts”, what they really mean is that we, the workers, should tighten our belts, while they continue to get fatter and fatter. States members still managed to give themselves a £1,000 pay rise – the bosses always want us to suffer so that they don’t have to.

Since the recession began, workers in the UK have shown that it’s possible to fight back. Atworkplaces including Visteon car parts in north London, Vestas wind turbines on the Isle of Wight, Prisme packaging in Dundee and Thomas Cook in Dublin, workers held sit-ins to stop job losses and win better compensation. There have been major strikes on the railways, on London Underground and in the post – and refuse workers in Leeds have been on all-out strike for two months to stop a wage cut. Teachers at Tower Hamlets College in East London successfully stopped hundreds of job losses through their strike action.

Both common sense and the experience of history, in Britain and in other countries, show that if you get organised and fight back, you can win. That is how we won the rights we have now; that is how we can stop them being taken away and win more in the future.
Prepare to fight

For the first time in the history of Jersey, workers across the island have got organised together. The formation of a Trades Council to prepare for the strike is a very positive developments.
If the strike is going to be successful, it is crucial that it remains under the control of rank-and-file union members and their representatives. The bosses’ law limits the ability of workers to strike – but as far as possible, we need to make sure workers have control over their own struggle, making decisions about when to take action, when to stop, what deal is acceptable and so on.

It’s also vital to have a public campaign. Public sector workers are fighting not just for themselves but for all workers, and for the vast majority of the people of Jersey. That means reaching out to workers in the private sector, including migrant workers, campaigning together with them; to service-users; to parents; and to those who cannot work. It means actions such as rallies and demonstrations to spread the message and make sure the majority of people are behind us. And it means raising broader political demands such as a better health service and public services and stronger equalities laws – which the government claims are too expensive.
What we should demand

What are the obvious, immediate demands for the struggle?
* Decent pay rises. We should demand a system where, in addition to pay rises, wages rise automatically to match inflation. The very minimum we should accept is a pay rise that keeps up with inflation (real inflation, not a cooked-up government figure!) now.
* No job losses, no cuts in services.
* Tax the rich not the poor. Scrap GST. Introduce a proper system of corporation tax, capital gains tax etc – make the bosses pay for the services we need. Even “20 means 20” is ridiculous – income tax should be progressive so that the rich pay heavily, workers pay less and the poor pay no tax at all.
* No victimisation of workers involved in strike action. Defend our unions!
Workers need a political voice

We can and should put the maximum pressure on the Le Sueur/Ozouf government to make them concede to our demands. But this situation begs a broader question. Why is politics in Jersey the private preserve of the rich? Why do workers and the poor, who make up the big majority of people in Jersey, have to troop to the polls to choose between one or other multi-millionaire Ski Club member every time there’s an election? Is it any surprise so many people don’t bother to vote?
We should demand that Ozouf, the chief architect of these attacks on workers, resigns, but that’s not enough either.

We agree with the Jersey Democratic Alliance (JDA) that we need party politics in Jersey. Without clear political parties and programs, politics will continue to be dominated by personalities and by individuals and cliques who can use their wealth to hold influence and power.
But what workers need is not a liberal hodgepodge like the JDA, promising to be a little nicer than the current lot, but a workers’ party – a party based on the workers’ movement, explicitly committed to representing working-class people, electing workers’ representatives to the States and seeking to create a workers’ government that can serve the interests of the majority as the current government loyally serves the rich - delivering, as a minimum, the kinds of demands listed above.

We need to put forward election candidates pledged to take only an average workers’ wage, instead of using their position to get rich and help their capitalist friends do the same.
Obviously we’re not arguing that this party should represent only currently employed workers – its core would be workers organised in the unions, but it would also represent and serve the interests of all the poor and exploited, pensioners, students, the unemployed.

If we’re going to try and win a workers’ government, we also need to fight to change Jersey’s ridiculously opaque and bureaucratic government system. Abolish the Bailiff and Deputy Bailiff which serve as rallying points and organisers for the rich and powerful! Democracy - and workers’ interests - are served by a political system that is as simple and transparent as possible.

The fight for an independent working-class party, and even more so for a workers' government, will be a long road. But we can begin mapping out the way in the course of the current struggles.
Agree? Disagree? Want to discuss more? Get in touch!
-email-
www.workersliberty.org
**
Workers' Liberty is a socialist organisation. We stand for working-class struggle to win decent jobs, wages, homes and public services for all; an independent working-class

[Submitted by Mary Burgess]

Jersey has

NOT ratified the UN Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

NOT ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

NOT ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Jersey’s Anti-Discrimination law regarding race, gender or disability discrimination is still delayed due to lack of funds and there is no body to deal with disputes or to promote non-discrimination in these areas.

Even basic, accurate knowledge about human rights in Jersey is difficult to obtain and there is no government department or human rights officer to promote information, discussion or learning on human rights matters.

On the other hand, the Republic of China has ratified both CEDAW and CRC and has implemented many other international human rights treaties and is devoting more and more resources to improving social conditions in this vast country with an enormous population.

Yet, with all the advantages of wealth and European location Jersey continues to lag behind on human rights issues and the failure to achieve the most basic standards to protect even the most vulnerable people is deplorable and a scandal.

It is to be hoped that trade with China will encourage the Jersey government to improve human rights awareness in Jersey and that the Chinese people will lobby wherever possible for change and reform in Jersey.

November 20th is UN International Children’s Day and it is hoped that the people of China will spare a thought on that day for the children of Jersey.

It takes courage to protest, especially in a small community like Jersey where victimisation is not simply a paranoid fear but a reality. The bravery of the protesters, on the occasion of the swearing-in of the new Deputy Bailiff on Monday, was not however matched by progressive States Members, whose absence in the Royal Square was lamentably apparent. Nevertheless, protesters reminded the elite of judicial shortcomings.


Protesters, some wearing Grim Reaper fancy dress and concentration camp inmate striped pyjamas, blow whistles at the inauguration of Jersey’s new Deputy Bailliff on Monday 2nd November 2009.

Deficiencies in Jersey’s judicial system were at the heart of the protest in the Royal Square. Many of those protesting had had first hand experience of Jersey’s system of child care. Broader discontents were also in issue. The clear divide in Jersey society between working people and the elite was neatly contrasted in the rituals of power going on in the Royal Court, whilst outside in the square chants and whistles signified defiance.

The core of Jersey’s political class were well represented at the inauguration ceremony and none of those attending will have been unaware of the protest. The discomfort of power was evident in the embarrassment of guests. Whilst some sauntered by, other senior Advocates and bankers walked rapidly in directions that avoided coming too close to the protesters. When the Lt Governor emerged in full dress on the steps of the Royal Court he turned to wave to the protesters in a gesture that was an acknowledgement of their presence and yet slightly comic.

The new Deputy Bailiff William Bailhache, during a deferential interview by BBC Radio Jersey the day before, accepted no criticisms of his conduct as Attorney General in handling the Haut de la Garenne child abuse. In general, Jersey’s political class remains defiant; no responsibility is accepted for deficiencies and no apologies will be made. Every step has been taken to limit the political damage arising. This has taken the form of discrediting the Police investigation undertaken by Harper, effectively sacking the Chief of police Graham Power and running a counter propaganda campaign through the Jersey Evening Post.

Throughout the morning, whilst friends and sympathisers passed through the Royal Square offering support to the protesters, not one States Member came up to express solidarity. Senator Syvret, a leading protagonist at the demonstration at the time of the swearing in of the new Bailiff was absent, having taken himself off to exile in London. Where were all the other States Members who like to see themselves as a nascent opposition?

Was it embarrassment or fear that made them keep their distance? Part of the reason is that States Members are not prepared to defy those assembled in the Royal Court, because they represent political and social power in the island. Another explanation is that the States is simply a “Cosy Club” with exclusive membership. Their allegiance is to that club and not with people prepared to demonstrate on the street.

A further reason for States Members keeping away was that the shadow of Senator Syvret loomed over the event and they simply could not put aside their personal animosities to realise that the event was quite independently organised and that those present were beholden to none.

Many of the progressive States Members should realise that it takes real political and moral courage to speak to power. The protesters were expressing genuine concerns about the administration of Justice which deserve respect.

At least it can be said that Channel TV and BBC Spotlight did cover the demonstation in a fashion that made clear its purpose. What a pity this understanding was missed by States Members.