Thatcher planeou chamar Exército durante a greve dos
mineiros do carvão
MARIA JOÃO GUIMARÃES 03/01/2014 – in Público
Arquivos britânicos de 1984
mostram que primeira-ministra britânica ponderou declarar estado de emergência.
Margaret Thatcher esteve
prestes a chamar o Exército para intervir na greve dos mineiros do carvão no
Verão de 1984, quando era primeira-ministra do Reino Unido, segundo documentos
do Governo agora desclassificados pelo arquivo nacional.
A greve dos mineiros durava há quatro meses quando os
ministros do executivo de Thatcher discutiram em segredo uma possível
declaração de estado de emergência que permitisse uma mobilização do Exército
para a acção dos mineiros, diz o diário britânico The Telegraph com base em
documentos agora desclassificados. A ideia era que protegessem os mineiros que
quisessem trabalhar e que ajudassem a movimentar o carvão.
Em público Thatcher mantinha uma postura irredutível em
relação às exigências dos mineiros, em protesto contra o encerramento de 20
minas – que os sindicatos dos mineiros suspeitavam ser mais, e os documentos
agora divulgados parecem dar-lhes razão, mencionando um plano de fechar 75, diz
a emissora britânica BBC.
A greve, marcada por vários confrontos violentos entre a
polícia e os piquetes de greve, só terminou no ano seguinte. Em privado, a
primeira-ministra estava preocupada com os seus efeitos e não queria ficar
refém das exigências dos líderes sindicais.
A discussão sobre uma participação dos militares ocorreu
quando havia também uma greve dos estivadores, que punha em risco a chegada de
produtos alimentares à ilha britânica. Responsáveis alertaram então o Governo
para a possível falta de produtos como tomate ou maçã, bacon ou citrinos no
prazo de dez dias, e foi ponderado o recurso ao Exército para fazer o trabalho
dos grevistas. No entanto, alguns ministros advertiram para o potencial
problema de chamar o Exército para ambas as greves, dizendo que não só
inflamaria os ânimos, como seria visto como um sinal de fraqueza do Governo. Os
estivadores regressaram ao trabalho após dez dias, e o plano foi abandonado.
Nelson Mandela brevemente referido
Os arquivos revelam ainda que Thatcher falou brevemente
sobre Nelson Mandela na polémica visita do Presidente sul-africano P.W. Botha
em 1984 (em que Thatcher declarou que o apartheid era “inadmissível”) –
deitando por terra, segundo The Guardian, as alegações de que este teria sido o
principal assunto na agenda da então primeira-ministra. Outro diário britânico
de referência, The Times, diz mesmo que Mandela “foi o grande assunto ausente”
da reunião.
Mandela tinha, no entanto, sido assunto durante uma conversa
privada (que durou 40 minutos e não 15 como previsto, segundo a BBC) entre os
dois responsáveis. O Guardian diz que, segundo as notas da reunião, não é
possível confirmar a alegação de que Thatcher tomou vigorosamente a defesa de
Mandela. Pelas notas da secretária privada de Thatcher, o que se vê é que Botha
começou por falar de quatro sul-africanos da empresa Armscor acusados no Reino
Unido por tentarem vender armas à Africa do Sul, desrespeitando o embargo em
vigor, e Thatcher respondeu que essa era uma questão para os tribunais. De
seguida Thatcher falou de Mandela, e Botha respondeu do mesmo modo: essa era
uma questão judicial e não do âmbito do Governo.
As notas da secretária de Thatcher também foram divulgadas e
permitem uma visão do dia-a-dia da primeira- ministra, com pormenores como as
120 idas ao cabeleireiro (em média, uma vez a cada três dias, normalmente entre
as 8h e as 9h da manhã), ou o marcar algum tempo livre na agenda – uma manhã
para "arrumar o apartamento" ou uma noite "calma com
Dennis", o marido.
O arquivo nacional deverá divulgar mais documentos dentro de
seis meses. A desclassificação e divulgação era feita após 30 anos, mas o
arquivo quer reduzir este prazo para 20 anos. Assim, vai ser revelado um ano
por semestre, e os documentos de 1985 estarão disponíveis no Verão.
Thatcher had secret plan to use army at height of
miners' strike
Papers released to the National Archives reveal that
in 1984 the prime minister made preparations to use troops to move coal to
power stations
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
The Guardian, Friday 3 January 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jan/03/margaret-thatcher-secret-plan-army-miners-strike
Margaret Thatcher was secretly preparing to use troops and
declare a state of emergency at the height of the miners' strike – out of fear
Britain was going to run out of food and grind to a halt, government papers
released today reveal.
The 1984 cabinet papers, released to the National Archives,
show that Thatcher asked for contingency plans to be drawn up to use troops to
move coal stocks, despite official government policy ruling out the use of
service personnel. A plan involving the use of 4,500 service drivers and 1,650
tipper lorries was considered capable of moving 100 kilotonnes a day of coal to
the power stations.
A separate contingency plan, codenamed Operation Halberd, to
use troops in the event of a dock strike, had also been drawn up.
The files show that there were two moments during the
government's bitter year-long struggle with the miners when Thatcher and her
ministers "stared into the abyss" and glimpsed the possibility of
defeat.
The first came in July 1984, when Britain's dockers joined
the miners on strike. The Downing Street papers show that Norman Tebbit, then
Thatcher's employment secretary, wrote her a "secret and personal"
letter warning that "I do not see that time is on our side".
In the face of secret estimates that they would run out of
coal stocks by mid-January, Tebbit suggested urgent measures be taken,
including opening a new front against the rail unions, to win the strike by
October.
"In practice, we could not go right up to the
brink," he told her. "I am much concerned that the NUR and Aslef [the
rail unions]which are so reducing the transport of coal and coke to the power
stations are being carried out at very little cost to the unions, and at no
cost to the individuals taking this action," said Tebbit urging legal
injunctions be taken out against them.
The second moment came that October when the combination of
doubts about power station stocks and a strike ballot by Nacods, the pit
deputies' union, threatened a total shutdown in British coal production.
The secret list of "worst case" options outlined
to Thatcher by Whitehall's most senior officials included power cuts and even
putting British industry on a "three-day week" – a phrase that evoked
memories of Edward Heath's humiliating 1974 defeat by the miners that brought
down his government and which must have sent a chill down Thatcher's spine when
she read it.
The Cabinet papers also reflect the violence of the dispute
that saw its bloodiest battle between police and flying pickets at Orgreave
coking plant in South Yorkshire in June 1984. They show that in August 1984,
the Association of Chief Police Officers told the prime minister that the
miners, "frustrated by the failure of mass picketing, are taking to
'guerrilla warfare', based on intimidation of individuals and companies".
They also show that senior Home Office officials shared the
popular picket-line view of the Metropolitan police. The Met units sent to the
picket lines are described as having been "valued in violent
confrontations" but more likely to increase tensions the rest of the time.
The Home Office also told Thatcher that the most notable
development in police tactics during the strike – the policy of "stopping
and turning back" busloads of flying pickets on the motorways – was not
the "unmixed blessing" it had been officially seen as. Officials
pointed out that while the police had to know where the pickets were heading to
intercept them, once they had turned them back, they had no idea which other
picket lines they had gone to join.
The Downing Street papers also provide further confirmation
of the role of David Hart, a shadowy old-Etonian, charged with organising and
funding the working miners' anti-strike movement, and nicknamed the "Blue
Pimpernel" in Tory circles. Thatcher's personal diary lists at least three
face-to-face meetings with him at Downing Street, and in October 1984 a note on the file
shows that he had phoned her in alarm that the press had found out that he had
direct access to her. He told her he was "infinitely deniable".
The papers also show the widely publicised "return to
work campaign" was in reality "no more than a trickle" during
the first six months of the strike, with no more than 500 going back to the
pits in July.
Thatcher's own handwritten notes on "possible
strategies for the coal and docks dispute" paper for the 18 July meeting
of Misc 101, the special cabinet committee on coal that she chaired, outlines
the details of the plans to use the army. It involved using 2,800 troops in 13
specialist teams that could be used to unload 1,000 tonnes a day at the docks,
but would require a declaration of a state of emergency to ensure they had
access to the port equipment, such as cranes, that they needed.
The "secret" paper for the meeting spelled out the
dangers a week after the dockers had walked out: "The political and
economic stake[s] are much higher for the government in the coal dispute than
in the docks dispute. Priority should therefore be: end the dock strike as
quickly as possible, so that the coal dispute can be played as long as
possible," advised Peter Gregson, head of the Cabinet Office civil
contingencies unit.
The agriculture minister, Peggy Fenner, advised that Britain
would not run short of food supplies within the next 10 days but panic buying
could drastically alter that. There were however looming shortages likely of
certain kinds of fruit and veg, bacon, oil and fats and hard wheat.
Gregson added: "Even if no problem over food and oil … serious
disruption to industry will soon be felt and there will pressure on government
to find a solution." He reminded Thatcher that troops had not been used to
break a dock strike since 1950 and could bring more severe picketing and
law-and-order problems
Margaret Thatcher 'made no
case' for Mandela's release
Scant evidence in official
documents that prime minister pressured PW Botha to release ANC leader, as
supporters claim
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
The Guardian, Friday 3 January 2014 / http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/03/thatcher-mandela-release
Margaret Thatcher barely mentioned the plight of Nelson
Mandela when she controversially invited the hardline South African president
PW Botha to talks at Chequers on 2 June 1984, newly released Downing Street
files show, throwing into doubt claims made after Mandela's death last month.
Two of Thatcher's closest supporters, Norman Tebbit and
Charles Moore, claimed on Mandela's death that as prime minister, she had put
persistent pressure on Botha to release Mandela. Moore claimed that "the
release of Mandela was the strongest and most specific of all her
demands".
But there is little evidence in official papers to back this
up. The Downing Street file on the visit shows Thatcher did not raise Mandela's
case at all during the four-hour official meeting at Chequers.
She did, however, mention Mandela during a private 40-minute
discussion before the official meeting started, but this was only in a context
that made it seem as if the imprisonment of the African National Congress
leader was on a par with the case of four South African officials from Armscor,
the state-owned weapons manufacturer, and four members of a Coventry
engineering firm who had been charged in Britain with breaking the UN arms
embargo.
There were no official notetakers during the private
discussion, but Thatcher gave her private secretary an account of the meeting
that shows Botha raised the case of the four Armscor officials; she responded
that it was a matter for the courts and that there was nothing the government
could do.
Thatcher then raised the case of Nelson Mandela. The minutes
show that the South African president replied with a similar formula: Botha
said he noted the prime minister's remarks, but was not able to interfere in
the judicial process.
He also unsuccessfully pressed for the ANC office in London
to be closed. The prime minister replied: "We could not do this under our
law and there was no evidence that the office personnel had been guilty of
illegal activity."
Thatcher did raise the proposed forced resettlement of
thousands of black people of the KwaNgema community in the eastern Transvaal at
the meeting. She also told him that it was "totally unacceptable" for
political rights to depend on the colour of a person's skin. Botha replied that
he had made clear in the South African parliament that he was against forced
removals, but that it was never possible for South Africa to satisfy
international opinion. The two leaders also discussed the security situation in
Namibia and Angola.
Thatcher's Foreign Office briefing papers for the meeting say:
"We have supported calls for Mandela's release. His standing among blacks
in South Africa is unrivalled."
The Downing Street file also includes the Foreign Office
assessment of Botha as "a hard, dour and belligerent professional
Afrikaner politician" who could be "disagreeably rude". It also
shows that the Foreign Office had evidence that South African intelligence was
involved in a break-in at the London offices of the Anti-Apartheid Movement.
Botha's visit to Britain had been fiercely opposed by a
number of African leaders. Their letters to Thatcher are contained in the file.
The Tanzanian president, Julius Nyerere, wrote to her in May requesting that
"you will be able to prevent Britain's usual courteous reception to
foreign leaders from being misunderstood by indicating, both publicly and
privately, Britain's strong opposition to South Africa's aggressive policies
towards other African states, as well as to apartheid itself".
Around the same time, the prime minister agreed to meet the
president of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, Bishop Trevor Huddleston.
An earlier Downing Street file records the need to remind
the Thatcher family about political sensitivities in South Africa. There is a
note referring to Denis Thatcher's proposed visit to South Africa, which
advised him against attending a cricket match between South Africa and the West
Indies.
Thatcher eventually met Mandela at No 10, after he had been
freed from prison, in July 1990. They shook hands and posed for photographs on
the doorstep.
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