Scotsman – News in brief- 18/07/06
Preparations are underway for what a government minister suggested
was "the biggest
evacuation since Dunkirk" and in the meantime more British citizens were evacuated from Lebanon last night.Tomorrow two British warships are due to arrive off the coast of Lebanon, including the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious, and also, being deployed to Cyprus are a fleet of heavy-lift Chinook helicopters to transport approximately 22,000 evacuees to the ships.
Despite desperate efforts on the diplomatic front to halt the fighting,
yesterday 41 people are known to have died in Lebanon, including nine Lebanese soldiers, and in the Israeli city of Haifa two civilians were injured as Israel and Hezbollah traded air and rocket attacks.
Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, made a call for an international force to be sent to stabilise the situation in Lebanon but initially the suggestion has met with a tepid response. It is unknown which countries would contribute to the proposed force or how this could help end the violence, but the UK made it plain that it did not intend to send in troops. In place for the past 28 years but with no mandate to intervene, has been a 2,000-strong UN force, which has been monitoring the Israel-Lebanon border.
Most EU countries would be willing to participate if the UN Security Council agrees to send such a mission to enforce peace in the region, according to Erkki Tuomioja, the foreign minister of Finland, presently holding the European Union presidency, but Israel is against the intervention plan.
Foreign Office minister, Kim Howells, said he believed the only viable way forward was by negotiation: "We need an urgent end to the current crisis. Real peace can come only through a lasting settlement." Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, indicated that his country had no plans to cease hostilities until two captured soldiers were returned and Lebanese army troops were in control of all of southern Lebanon. "We will struggle for the conditions set by the international community," he told the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. "Return of the hostages ... a full ceasefire, deployment of the Lebanese army in all southern Lebanon and the disarming of Hezbollah."
With a cease-fire remaining elusive, the UK will now concentrate on to evacuating the estimated 12,000 British nationals and over 10,000 dual-nationality individuals believed to be still in Lebanon. Kim Howells said that with the large numbers involved, it could be the biggest evacuation since Dunkirk. Last night two Chinook helicopters touched down at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus bringing 25 passengers in addition to the 40 who had already been brought out.
Finishing touches are still being put to the United States' evacuation plans. France and Italy, have already evacuated large numbers of their citizens. Last night an Italian ship with 400 evacuees on board, half of them Italians, was due to dock in Cyprus and due in this morning, is a French ship carrying 1,300 evacuees, after arriving in Beirut yesterday from the southern port of Limassol, Cyprus has become the hub of the evacuation efforts, with Britain, France, Italy, Canada and the United States all using it as stopping off point, prior to onward transit.
The US state department and the Pentagon are planning how to transport 25,000 US citizens currently in Lebanon, to Cyprus, only 105 miles away, where they could then board commercial aircraft for onward travel.
British ambassador to Lebanon, James Watt, said the advice to those British nationals still remaining in Lebanon was to "stay put and keep safe" until evacuation is possible. With the road network out of Lebanon in ruins and Beirut airport crippled, Britain's plans centre on the warships HMS Illustrious and HMS Bulwark being anchored off Beirut, outside missile range, and conducting a helicopter lift from shore to sea. However this plan requires the co-operation of both the warring factions and neither was showing any sign of relenting yesterday.
The Crown Prosecution Service said it would not be bringing charges against any of the police officers involved in the shooting of the innocent of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes but nevertheless the officers could face a private prosecution.
Yesterday a CPS report recommended that the Metropolitan Police be sued under health and safety regulations but cleared individual officers of wrongdoing over last year's shooting at Stockwell Tube station in London.
Mr de Menezes' family were outraged at the findings and said they would fight to bring the police to justice for "as long as it takes". Equally dismayed by the decision, were Members of the Metropolitan Police Authority who said it would create "uncertainty" in their fight against terrorism. Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said it made "absolutely no sense", and the chairman of Westminster's all-party parliamentary group on policing, Lord Toby Harris, described it as a "ridiculous cop-out".
Yesterday it emerged that the two police officers who fired the fatal shots and who were suspended from operational duties, could be back on duty before the end of the week. The Met's deputy commissioner Paul Stephenson, said their fate could be decided within days.Scotland Yard was "pleased" that individual officers had not been charged and said of the de Menezes family: "We have apologised publicly and in private to them, and we would again like to take this opportunity to say sorry for this tragedy."