Brian Whitaker has written a post on his former colleague Seumas Milne. It includes this episode:
The first direct conversation I can recall having with him was in 1990 around the time that Farzad Bazoft, a freelance journalist working for the Observer, was executed on the orders of Saddam Hussein. During a visit to Iraq (at the regime’s invitation) Bazoft had made inquiries about a military site – thought to be a missile factory – where there had been a mysterious explosion. He collected soil samples near the site, hoping to take them back to Britain for chemical analysis, but was arrested at Baghdad airport and hanged a few months later.
Somehow, I got into discussion with Milne about this and was startled when he sought to justify Bazoft’s arrest by the Iraqi authorities (if not his actual execution).
Although it shocked me at the time, with hindsight Milne’s view of the Bazoft affair was thoroughly predictable. You don’t need to read many of his columns to see that he views international politics almost entirely through an anti-imperialist lens.
What a lovely man.
