The Tribune

HOW interesting, and even inspiring, it was to read the words last week of Britain’s Armed Forces Minister about assistance to Tonga following the massive undersea volcanic eruption and tsunami that had earlier hit this island state in the Pacific. He was referring to the arrival on the scene of a ship of the Royal Navy, HMS Spey, to help with disaster relief work.

The minister was quoted as saying: “Responding to humanitarian crises across the globe is a core part of our Armed Forces’ daily business. The UK is a long-standing partner of the Pacific Islands and having the ship deployed in the Indo-Pacific meant that we could be there for Tonga in their hour of need.” This Offshore Patrol Vessel was able to provide necessary medical and other supplies including water, sanitation and baby products; though its sailors were not allowed to go ashore because of the local coronavirus restrictions. Reportedly, it will remain in the area, working with the navies of Australia and New Zealand in order to offer further assistance as needed.

This seems to be a fine example of a modern, global Royal Navy (RN) ready to respond at short notice to assist a fellow Commonwealth country. So I found it equally interesting that, as part of its preparations for the coming Atlantic hurricane season, a similar RN vessel, HMS Medway, visited The Bahamas last week.

As the RN’s permanent presence in the Caribbean, she has been on deployment in the region since 2020 conducting counter narcotics operations in support of the US Coast Guard. She provides support to Britain’s five Overseas Territories in the region – Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat and the Turks and Caicos Islands – for whose defence, security and diplomatic relations the UK government is responsible. But she also offers disaster relief to other countries according to need. Moreover, in addition to providing humanitarian aid in the event of a hurricane or other natural disaster like a volcano, HMS Medway works side-by-side with law enforcement in the region to stop the flow of illegal drugs from South America to the US and Europe.

While in Nassau, the Commanding Officer of HMS Medway, Commander Chris Hollingworth, paid courtesy calls on the Governor General and the Prime Minister as well as the Commander of the RBDF; and he had discussions with the Minister of National Security, the Minister of State for Disaster Preparedness and the Director of the National Emergency Management Agency. Accompanied by the UK’s Defence Attache, he also joined The Bahamas National Trust in planting two Lignum Vitae trees at the Retreat Garden National Park on Village Road as a contribution to the tree planting initiative known as “The Queen’s Green Canopy” to mark her Platinum Jubilee this year - the 70th anniversary of her reign.

On a personal note, I was delighted to be able to meet Commander Hollingworth and to learn in more detail about the way HMS Medway assists the local community in the event of a hurricane.

As I understand it, the ship will be accompanied by a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel which usually deploys a helicopter and carries stores to be distributed in an emergency. Known simply as RFAs, the primary purpose of these ships is to deliver worldwide logistical and operational support to RN military operations. But they are also capable of providing disaster relief for sustained periods.

For example, people will recall the impressive humanitarian support and aid provided by RFA Mounts Bay at the time of Hurricane Dorian in 2019 which caused such heavy damage and loss of life in Abaco as well as in Grand Bahama. Coordinated so ably by British High Commissioner, Sarah Dickson, this turned out to be a highly effective operation.

As for Medway itself, I gather it has a “crisis response troop” on board including engineers. In response to a disaster - and working in co-operation with local authorities - they carry out a reconnaissance to assess needs and then help in a variety of ways like restoring communications and fresh water pipes, repairing roads and contributing to putting public buildings and people’s homes back in  order.

While countries such as The Bahamas, which - with an organisation like NEMA in place - is accustomed to dealing with hurricanes, assistance from outside sources is presumably always welcomed as a practical form of international co-operation during a crisis. As such, in addition to the UK’s direct responsibilities for British Overseas Territories, it is surely reassuring to know help is on hand from the RN whose ships have the resources and necessary skills to contribute effectively in case of need – especially in Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean.

For the stories never told

Some two decades ago, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This was the day in 1945 of the liberation by the Soviet Red Army of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland, the largest of the Nazi death camps where at least one million are known to have died.

On this day every year, the UN urges every member state to remember and honour the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust – said to have amounted to about two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population – together with millions of others who suffered from the cruelties carried out under the Nazi regime. All are also pressed to develop educational programmes to help prevent future genocides.

This day of remembrance which is also known as Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates as well people killed in genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. Many countries, mainly in Europe, have also designated national dates of remembrance of genocides.

How heartening it was to learn that in Britain this year Prince Charles commissioned portraits of seven Holocaust survivors in order to commemorate the Day. Portraits of them were put on display in The Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace – and, around the UK, landmark buildings, including the London Eye, Edinburgh Castle, Cardiff Castle and the Titanic Museum in Belfast were illuminated in purple, the colour of Holocaust Memorial Day. Describing the portraits, Prince Charles said they were a living memorial to the millions of people “whose stories will never be told, whose portraits will never be painted”.

In the words of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, this terrible event in history threatened the fabric of civilisation and to this day “prejudice and the language of hatred must be challenged by us all” – and many believe this has never been more relevant in modern times as anti-Semitism remains a threat to the world.

Boris clings on while Putin’s games continue

Although I wrote about Ukraine in last week’s column - and the week before about the so-called “Partygate” scandal surrounding Prime Minister Boris Johnson - I should like to return to both today because of their inherent importance. It is hard to ignore either, not least because there has been so much news about them that, ironically, people find it difficult to work out exactly what is happening.

All eyes around the world are now on a possible global conflict precipitated in eastern Europe by a threatened Russian invasion of Ukraine - and, while this international crisis is unfolding, in Britain politicians are preoccupied by attempts to overthrow Mr Johnson over Partygate.

First, Ukraine. Even though Western countries, including NATO, have reacted fiercely to the Russian build-up of military forces on the Ukrainian border and warned of heavy sanctions in order to deter Putin from invading, the stand-off continues. So the threat of war persists and the situation is fraught with danger even though Putin - despite refusing to withdraw his forces - has denied any suggestion of an invasion.

According to the UK press, what many in the UK now find particularly interesting is the apparent ramping-up of Britain’s direct involvement and diplomatic activity. This is seen by some to be linked to the country’s newly independent status outside the European Union and to efforts to develop Global Britain. But leading EU nations like France and Germany are also apparently acting unilaterally, with Macron’s recent telephone call to Putin and Germany’s well-publicised refusal to join with European partners in supplying weapons and military hardware to Ukraine for defensive use.

While Putin appears to be continuing what has been termed his “cat and mouse game”, some argue he has already achieved his objective of forcing the West to take seriously his claimed concerns about NATO’s threat to Russian security and what he considers to be Russia’s sphere of influence.

The UN Security Council met yesterday to consider the Ukraine crisis while the British PM is said to want to speak directly to Putin and then travel to Ukraine for talks there. Meanwhile, it has been confirmed Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will visit Moscow soon for talks with her counterpart Sergey Lavrov - and, reportedly, one of her purposes is to spell out to him exactly what economic sanctions imposed by the West in response to an invasion would entail; in particular their effect not only on the Russian economy but also on the personal wealth of some of Putin’s closest allies.

Secondly, Partygate. Cynics suggest the UK’s apparent determination to play a high-profile independent role in relation to Ukraine is designed, in part, to help take the spotlight off Boris Johnson’s domestic political troubles so that the Partygate saga will be overshadowed by his actions on the world stage. He has been awaiting results of the investigation by senior civil servant Sue Gray into lockdown parties at Downing Street allegedly in contravention of coronavirus regulations. Yesterday, she delivered an interim report to him – described as an update on the investigation - which has also been published. It is being called her initial findings only because the Metropolitan Police have muddied the waters by launching their own separate investigation. She has condemned “failures of leadership and judgment” in Downing Street in relation to some of the events concerned which were “difficult to justify” and should not have taken place. But, she says, no firm conclusions can be reached in advance of the police investigation.

This is only the second time in the UK’s parliamentary history that the police have started investigating political leaders and the Prime Minister in such a way, and the much-criticised Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is now under fire for getting involved at all and wasting police resources in what is claimed to be a disproportionate and misguided manner. Be that as it may, while the next step of a report by the police is awaited, there is bound to be a shake-up and reform of the structure and staffing of the offices at No. 10 Downing Street. But, according to the UK press, even before yesterday’s “Gray” report the Prime Minister seemed to have steadied the ship for the time being as the angry mood of Tory MPs cooled significantly over the past week. So the threat of a leadership challenge in the immediate future appears to have receded.