rupert wieloch

By voting against a motion for the Union to “ensure that remembrance day becomes a well-established and well-marked event across the university”, its student members have isolated themselves from the hundreds of alumni and staff from the 31 colleges who will be attending the centenary services of remembrance in the college chapels and churches of Cambridge.

On Sunday, 11th November, the Remembrance Sunday Service and Armistice Day ceremony will take place as usual in the beautiful Christopher Wren designed chapel of my old college, Pembroke.  The wreath laying ceremony at the War Memorial that commemorates hundreds of Pembroke students who died whilst serving their Country will, as ever, be a moving event.

It is not glorifying war to remember the fallen, the wounded and the families who grieve.

On 1st November, I will be giving the Centenary Armistice lecture at the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall, London.

Titled  Armistice 1918: The End of the War to End All Wars? the talk will discuss the aftermath of the First World War for the people affected and remind the audience that 1919 was full of conflict all over the World.  The event is in aid of Combat Stress, the leading Veteran’s charity for mental health.

Tickets are available at:

https://www.combatstress.org.uk/support-us/armistice-lecture-0

It is gratifying that the two young officers facing court martial in Bulford over the death of three soldiers in Wales have been acquitted.

The tragic accident, that took place in 2013 when I was working as head of Defence Training Capability, shocked everyone in the Army.

We all have the utmost sympathy for the grieving families, but there have been too many recent cases of lawyers chasing soldiers doing their best for Queen and Country.  The Army must be allowed to maintain demanding tests for soldiers hoping to serve in elite units.  In the long term, this will save lives on the future battlefield.

Mitiga Airport has been closed due to the advance of the Tarhuna 7th Infantry Brigade and the spread of fighting from southern Tripoli to the northern part of the city.

Mitiga is the most important air base in Libya.  It was the only safe landing zone when the International Airport was closed for four years and the Foreign Secretary flew there for his Libyan visits last year.

This shows that the current crisis is more than just a “turf war” and could cause the downfall of the US backed Serraj government.  Look out for pre-emptive retaliation!

See Chapter 6 of Belfast to Benghazi for my arrival at Mitiga and our meeting in Tarhuna where Libya’s famous wine used to be made.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/belfast-to-benghazi/rupert-wieloch/9781861515667

As one of the closest British peacekeepers to Srebrenica in July 1995, I always felt the UN in New York could have done more to prevent the genocide.  It is clear that Kofi Anan learned a similar lesson because he sent a much stronger capability into Eastern Slavonia six months later and said: “We went in with such strength that we didn’t have to use force and we successfully fulfilled the mandate”.

Although his time as Head of Peacekeeping coincided with the low point of the UN, his record as Secretary General was bettered only by Dag Hammarskjold.  The adoption of the Eight Millenium Development Goals, the reform of UN Peacekeeping and the endorsement of the Responsibility to Protect by all member states at the 2005 Summit are testament to his diplomatic leadership of the highest order.  We have lost a good man.

See Chapters 3 and 4 of Belfast to Benghazi for UN Peacekeeping in Bosnia and the British work to reform the UN in 2001.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/belfast-to-benghazi/rupert-wieloch/9781861515667

Tunisians living close to Ras Ajdir have been harassing Libyans travelling into their country due to the clamp down on smuggling oil and other subsidized commodities across the border.

The Serraj government, which seems to spend much of its time in Tunis speaking to the international community, needs to secure an agreement for safe passage of travelers.

When I visited this frontier in 2011, the security problems made it one of the seven priorities for the government; it is disappointing that seven years later the border problems have still not been resolved.  See Chapter 6 of Belfast to Benghazi for the other six areas of strategic concern.

I am looking forward to joining the distinguished authors during the War and Peace Revival at The Hop Farm, Paddock Wood next week.  It will be another fantastic celebration of military history and vintage re-enactments.  My first talk about the Allied Intervention in Siberia 1918-1920 is on Tuesday 24th July at 1230 in the Authors’ Pavilion.

https://warandpeacerevival.com/authors-pavilion/

Yet again, we read misleading articles about the Defence budget in the news today.  We are not spending 2% of GDP on our Armed Forces as reported in many newspapers and media outlets.  A huge amount of Defence money has been siphoned into the domestic security silo.

As a result, our soldiers, sailors and air-people are suffering from a lack of modern equipment and realistic training.  This reduces morale, harms retention, alarms our Allies and supports our adversaries.

See Chapter 2 of Belfast to Benghazi for the last time that a Government properly supported the Armed Forces.

https://www.waterstones.com/book/belfast-to-benghazi/rupert-wieloch/9781861515667

On Thursday 21st June, I am facing the daunting prospect of opposing the prize-winning journalist, Peter Hitchens, at the Rab Butler Debate on Anglo-Russian relations in Saffron Walden.

Tickets are free for members, or £5 for guests with a complementary glass of wine. The event starts at 7.30 p.m. in the wonderful Hart’s Bookshop.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/thb-that-british-diplomacy-toward-russia-is-leading-to-a-new-cold-war-tickets-46344578883

 

The Government of National Accord is up in arms about a House of Commons proposal to pass a law enabling the British Government to use frozen Libyan assets in Britain to compensate IRA victims.

This was one of three legacy issues, which London was keen to pursue when I arrived in Libya in 2011.  The other two were the criminal investigations into the 1984 murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher and the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.  The issue of IRA compensation was the brainchild of an ambitious lawyer seeking to take a multi-million pound slice of the Libyan oil and gas money.  His letter to Prime Minister, David Cameron in 2011, was an outlandish piece of opportunism.

See Chapter 6 of Belfast to Benghazi for other mistakes London made in the aftermath of the Libyan revolution.